We're back at that moment. Galeem is about to wipe everyone out. We got to see so many beloved characters do what they could in response to what seemed like an inescapable threat.
But now in this alternate reality, the character you've wanted the most to be in Smash is there too.
What would they do to survive the light?
Ok, I’m over it.
I don’t give a fuck about them being part of the original 12 that started it all.
Get this stupid-ass sentient beach ball with eyes the size of my grandma’s fancy Moroccan dinner plates out of Smash.
There are literally hundreds of better options ready to go from the world of Pokemon. We don’t need the joke character anymore. There is only one floaty pink puffball anyone actually cares about, not two. Jigglynuts is dogshit in their own franchise and just as much of a wasted slot here too. If you play this one-trick pony of a character, hop off Hungrybox’s Melee legacy for three seconds. You’re not him, and you never will be. We’re tired of it.
In every iteration of this game their entire strategy is just being a bitch.
This dumbass wad of bubblegum constantly floats above like a gnat the entire match. Down air in & out of everything for a shit-ton of free damage. Pound just turns shields into a pebble, stays around way too long, and launches into a confirmed chain of forward airs. Rest is supposed to be the one hype move to their name, being a high-risk, high reward special, but with how many moves that can lead into a rest true combo, it’s the same song & dance every time.
Coming from someone who mains big guys that thrive off of deleting stocks in record time, it’s the most annoying shit to see this ugly mutant balloon animal do all this damage with none of the heavy drawbacks that come with it. We have to earn our kills in comparison, ‘cuz every mf we fight is a slippery bastard by default or has bullshit we can’t do much to get away from. Nobody kills earlier than us, but we have to actually get our hands on you first before a stock is said & done. Do you see us flying over your head fishing for bitch-ass aerials 99% of the time during the match, or do you see a bus coming at you full-speed that's ready to wrap this match up quickly?
It's not always great, but people feel a far greater deal of relief when fighting a heavy vs fighting Jigglypuff. No one gets excited to fight a Jigglypuff. They know it won't be a matchup where they have to implement strategy. It's just playing Fly Swatter Simulator, but if you miss, you're the one that gets swatted.
Jigglynuts will unironically fish for the same 3-4 things the entire time and call it "skill". Nothing cool, nothing interesting, and nothing worthy of honor.
If I wanted to relive the experience of trying to swat a wasp flying around my living room with a towel, I’ll ask for it. Not this corny monotony somehow called a fight.
Thank you Kirby for being the only squishy pink menace that matters.
I know many of you have probably heard the phrase “God Loves You” or “Jesus Loves You” a bunch of times. Maybe some of you don't really care, maybe some feel like it's a worn out saying, or maybe some hate hearing it.
I wanna take this time to help you understand why that phrase is said & the actual magnitude of what it means to be loved by the Maker of All.
Starting all the way back in the first days of Creation, God brought to life all of the things that exist. He made the universe, the earth, the sky, the land, the oceans, all the plants, the seasons of the year, the sun, the moon, all the fish & creatures of the water, all the birds of the sky, and all the animals & insects of the land.
God made every single thing in the first days of Creation, but there’s one more thing that He made: you. While God created everything from the stars to the sea in a perfect design only He is capable of, He made humans in His own image. While everything else had its blueprints, God literally used His own form as the blueprint. We are His favorite part of Creation.
Think back to a custom character you've created in a game. The one that you're the most proud of. Think of how long it took to make it, and why it remains special above the rest.
Now what if I told you that just like that, we are all God’s custom characters?
Think about it. Your design, your favorite things, the things you dislike, the story you’re currently in. They're all different; all unique. Such things could only have been decided & made by none other than the Maker of All, who not only made you with His own design blueprints, but also with love. There was absolutely no mistake God made when He brought each of you into this world.
In fact, in Psalm 139 verses 13 - 16 it says “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully & wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depth of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”
While all of us at one point or another were being formed in the womb, God had already made our stories from start to finish before Creation even began. He knew exactly the way you were going to look, the way you were going to sound, the way you move, the way you think, the way you laugh, the way you cry, the way you beat your siblings in Smash Bros. Everything.
Now I can’t speak for everybody, but sometimes I really do sit down and wonder why God made me the way he did. The way I look, the way I think, the way I act. It’s one thing to not feel the best about my weird design that only God would come up with, but it’s a whole other thing when factoring in what I’ve done with it. While sin has corrupted the blueprints of my original design, God has helped me to get better & better at following Him. He knew how my story was going to begin, he knows every page down to the period, and he knows how it’s going to end.
It’s the same way for each of you, and God simply wants you to trust him. To understand that we have sinned, and it is only through putting your faith in Jesus that we can be saved from evil & be restored to who we truly are: His.
Now on the topic of design: who is Jesus?
He is known as the Son of God. If God is the ultimate & all-powerful Creator of Everything, what if I were to tell you that Jesus is who God would be if he was one of us? Jesus is God in human form.
Jesus is perfect. No sin, no mistakes, no blame, no nothing. He has never done anything wrong, said anything wrong, or even thought anything wrong. He is like God in every way, ‘cuz quite simply put He is God, part of the Trinity: Father (God), Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit. 3 forms, 1 person.
Now how many of you have gotten punished for something that you didn’t do? It was totally unfair, right? Maybe you took the fall for someone else & got detention. Maybe you were blamed for something that couldn't possibly have anything to do with you.
Maybe you thought everyone would have your back in Team Battle Tussle only for them to run away and leave you alone to deal with the other team.
Look at humans as a whole. I think it’s pretty fair to say that we’re not the best, are we? God didn’t make us into these perfect robots that make no mistake, but gave us something special: free will. He gave us a choice all the way back at the beginning in the Garden of Eden: Either listen to Him, or ignore him and do what we want.
Satan, the enemy of all, tricked us into ignoring God, and because of that first sin, every human who has ever lived was cursed with an evil in their hearts. For however much good we can do, we also have the capacity to do a whole lot of bad.
Think about it: wars around the world, famines where people starve to death, sickness, greed that takes away from those who need it most, the corruption of truth itself and so much more. All these things one way or another were caused by those who only cared about what they wanted, and would do anything to get it, ignoring God who only ever wanted what was best for us.
It is for those billions & billions of people before, now, and in the future that Jesus had to die for.
Just like how God has written out our own story, so too did The Father write Jesus’ story, and it was going to end with Him who never sinned dying in our place. Jesus wasn’t thrown in jail or only beaten within an inch of His life. He literally carried what he was going to die on up a hill, surrounded by a crowd of people who wanted him dead. A crowd of people who should’ve been where he was.
And ya wanna know the craziest thing about those moments before Jesus’ crucifixion?
Jesus followed through with the plan and died for those people there, the people before them, and the people after them. He died for us.
He didn’t do it just ‘cuz he was supposed to. Through every moment in his life he was thinking about us as humanity. He was thinking of each of you when he shared his wisdom & did miracles, when he cast out demons and when he was praised, when he was betrayed and left alone.
He thought of you when he hung on the cross, your name in his heart. He didn’t just think you were worth dying for, he knew you were worth dying for. Every single sinful thing we’ve done, are doing, and will do was paid for by the blood Jesus willingly gave for free. You mean everything to The Lord.
He wants you to not only listen to him, but follow in his footsteps to show the world what his love looks like.
I don’t know about you, but that definitely is love on a whole new level.
From the beginning to now and far into the future, all humans have sinned. We’ve all done bad things, yet Jesus was the only one who didn’t. Before Creation, Jesus once lived in Heaven alongside God himself and the Holy Spirit in a paradise of perfection. Yet it was This Perfect Son, the spitting image of the Maker King who was going to be put to death instead of us who deserved it.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit love us so much that they were willing to come down to Earth and help us.
God helped the first of this Earth through His power, leading up to Jesus who lived a sinless life, and then when Jesus left he gave us the Holy Spirit to help our hearts & minds.
Now, when stuff like this is talked about, there tends to be some very interesting questions that I’ve heard many times:
Why doesn’t God just get rid of sin?
Why does Jesus have to die if God can do anything?
Why are we punished for a life we didn’t ask to have?
Look at it this way: God loved us so much that he didn’t want to just make everything better. He came down through Jesus to show us how to live a perfect life, asking that we do the best we can to follow him. The Creator of All in human flesh went to us, while we were still sinners, and wanted to be with us. Jesus broke bread with us, wept with us, laughed with us, talked with us, and so much more.
Satan thought that he won when Jesus died and suffered the same fate all of us will one day meet.
No one can escape the dust we were all made from, as sin binds us to the grave. Love can break down even the biggest of walls, and it’s the wall of sin between us & God that Jesus used his blood & body to break down. And in doing so, Jesus also broke down the wall of death, that when our bodies no longer move there would still be life everlasting afterwards.
In Romans 8 verses 31 - 35 it says “. . .if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died–more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?”
Ever since the beginning, God has wanted nothing to separate us from Him, but he couldn’t force us to choose between listening to him or ignoring him & doing whatever we want. Satan wants to take us away from God, using the corruption of sin as a wall between us & our maker.
God gave us the life & death of Jesus to break down that wall, to show how far he was willing to go for us. If we put our faith, our hope, and our daily walk of life into Jesus’ hands, nothing can stand in the way of the Lord’s love forever changing your life.
In Romans 8 verses 38 - 39, it reads “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God, the maker of all, loves you.
Jesus, the king of all, loves you.
The Holy Spirit that dwells within God himself, loves you.
You were made in God’s image, and he wants the best for you.
My advice would be to listen to His word, put on that armor of God, and make Satan regret ever thinking he could stop you with the Lord on your side. We all will fight through this life in different ways, but we will do so with the same sword, and the same love.
Now what do we do with this? How do we take this love & make the most of it.
Look at Kirbo, who does his best to follow in the steps of the One who died for him.
Kirbo takes his faith wherever he goes, just like Jesus who traveled around to many places and taught people the good news of the gospel. Was Jesus liked by everyone? Nope, not everyone.
Jesus came to earth knowing that not everyone would accept Him. But Jesus loves sinners. He came to live the perfect life we could not, die the death we each should’ve died, and rose from the grave that we could never get out of alone. Jesus accepts anyone who repents and turns to Him. As long as you are alive, Jesus’ arms are always open. But you gotta make the choice to walk up to Him & hug him. We must choose to walk away from the evil of sin & embrace the truth of the gospel; to hold on to it more than anything else life may try to throw at us.
The way we free ourselves & others from the lies of sin that try to control us is through Jesus. The way we become part of God’s family & enter God’s kingdom in the end is by trusting Jesus’ perfect life.
Faith in Jesus is the only way to be forgiven and saved from our sins.
Faith is like taking a flight on an airplane. It doesn’t matter how much you say you believe the plane can get up into the air, or if you believe that the pilot can get you to where you wanna go, or if the flight attendant will bring you the little package of peanuts instead of those weird tiny pretzels that taste like cardboard.
You still have to get on to the plane so it can take you up into the sky.
We have a choice to trust Jesus as our pilot, the captain of our lives, our Lord & Savior, to fly us away from the evil of sin & off to the paradise of His everlasting love. Or, we can turn around & walk out of the airport. We can reject Him, and say we don’t trust His words.
But know this: Jesus loves you and will never reject you when you come to Him by faith. He is the way, the truth, and the life. You might give up on Jesus, but Jesus will never give up on you.
To Him, you are worth dying for, if it means that you’ll put your faith in Him so He can spend forever with you. It doesn’t matter how many people hate you. It doesn’t matter how much sin wants to destroy you on the inside. It doesn’t matter how much the Devil, our ultimate enemy, wants nothing more than to leave you on the ground, alone in the darkness with no hope.
The Light of Jesus’ eternal love shines down on you.
He loves you, and you mean everything to Him.
Jesus’ greatest wish is that He would mean everything to you too.
He doesn’t want you to reject Him, but love Him like He loves you.
You are his most FAVORITE creation.