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celtfather · 1 year

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Irish Diaspora, Men of New Basin Canal

The departure of the Irish from Ireland in the 1800s had some tragic consequences. Jamie Haeuser’s songs “Men of New Basin Canal” and “Bridget’s Prayer” dig into that. So we’re gonna dig into the songs and the album How America Saved Irish Music. Great news about my next album, Come Adventure With Me. Bandcamp now playlists. And learning to say no.

This is Sci Fi Pub Songs & Stories #266.

0:30 - Marc Gunn “Old Dun Cow” from St Patrick’s Day

4:35 - WELCOME TO SCI FI PUB SONGS & STORIES

This is the audio edition of my newsletter as well as the liner notes for the songs I record so that you can enjoy my music even more! And who am I?

I am Marc Gunn. I’m a rhythm and folk Celtic musician living in Atlanta, Georgia. I play traditional Irish and Scottish drinking songs. But I’m also a songwriter. I write songs inspired by Celtic culture as well as songs inspired by pop culture, things like Lord of the Rings, Firefly, Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who and more. That’s the reason one brewery I play called my music Sci F’Irish music. It’s also why this is Sci Fi Pub Songs & Stories.

WHAT’S NEW

St Patrick’s Day music on Irish & Celtic Music Podcast

6:08 - UPCOMING SHOWS

MAR 10: Tucker Brewing Company, Tucker, Ga @ 6:30-9:30 PM

MAR 11: Pontoon Brewing, Tucker, Ga @ 3-6 PM

MAR 15: St Patrick’s Day Concert on Bandcamp @ 7 PM EST

MAR 18: Pontoon Brewing, Sandy Springs, GA @ 12-3 PM

MAR 18: Ironshield Brewing, Lawrenceville, GA @ 7-10 PM

JUN 3-10: Celtic Invasion Vacations, County Mayo, Ireland

9:34 - Lauren Oxford “What Rings True” from Lauren Oxford

14:40 - IF YOU’RE WAITING TO COME ADVENTURE WITH ME…

Then you don’t have too much longer to wait. Well, assuming you were part of the Kickstarter.

My engineer, Mitchell, sent me three songs last week. I listened to each of them while I was getting my car emissions tested. We spent the rest of the morning emailing and forth with mixes and edits. I love the result, and those are the final tracks for the album.

I should have a track listing soon. I want to make sure we nail down the last of those songs. But I greenlighted Mitchell to start creating a song order so I could start listening.

The other thing I finally did was come up with a couple Album Pin designs thanks to Miranda. I ran a poll on Patreon between two different designs: one a dragon and one a compass. It was a tight poll. They both are pretty fantastic.

But as they say in Highlander: there can be only one!

That’s actually not at all true. I can do more. But for the Kickstarter, I went with the Compass design that reads: “Never Stop Adventuring”.

I’ll send that to the printers as soon as I have a track listing.

Finally, I’m still on target for sending out the digital album to everyone on Kickstarter on March 17. Here’s hoping!

21:10 - Marc Gunn “Whiskey in the Jar feat. Andrew McKee, The Irish Bard” from St Patrick’s Day

24:26 - DOWNLOAD MY FREE EP

You can download all of my songs in this show. Just send me an email. pubsong@celtfather

You will get an auto responder with a link to download this month’s album. You can also subscribe to the podcast if you’re not already subscribed. It’s quick and easy.

While you’re emailing me to get your free EP, let me know what you’re doing while listening to this episode.

25:00 - STORY OF MEN OF NEW BASIN CANAL

I was living in New Orleans in 2009 when I got a phone call from Jamie Haeuser. She was driving back from an Irish session in NOLA to her home in Robert, Louisiana across the causeway. She told me she had written lyrics for two songs. She asked if I’d set them to music.

Of course, without hesitation, I said, “Yes! What are they about?”

She then told me how the Causeway she was driving across had once been the New Basin Canal. It was a shipping canal from Lake Pontchartrain through swamp to booming uptown part of New Orleans.

Work on the canal began in 1832. Almost immediately, they ran to problems. Yellow fever ravaged the workers. It was deemed too costly to use slaves to build the canal. So instead, the Irish immigrants were hired to build it.

Many people don’t realize that New Orleans was one of the top immigration points for the Irish behind New York and Boston.

As a result, it’s estimated that between 500-30,000 Irishmen died digging the New Basin Canal. No one knows for sure the exact number. Wikipedia suggests 8000 might be a more accurate number. But holy crap! But even a popular number of 8000 people dying to dig this canal is insane?

So Jamie decided to write a song called “Men of New Basin Canal” to share their story.

26:43 - Marc Gunn & Jamie Haeuser “Men of New Basin Canal” from How America Saved Irish Music

Here, we came to find a bit of land Land our fathers never had No land we found but only death From fever, the yellow jack

The yellow jack, one day you’re up The next you’re in the grave A grave they call New Basin Canal For us six miles of pain

* Heave ho, boyo, it’s dig and death Heave ho, God help us all

O‘Hanlan was the first to fall Then down went Mike O’Shea The boss called up and down the line For men to bear away

The men who fell, hundreds a day Shook like a Mayo gale Too few there were to dig the trench Too few to bear away.

Why is it Erin’s sons are called When slaves they cannot spare When earth and water must be moved To make the rich man’s share

From lake to river to move the goods That make the rich men more Down we fall time and again And none to hear our prayer

But we will rise, somehow, sometime To rule those who rule us We’ll fight to o’ercome the loss Of thousands of Ireland’s best

We will be known as men who died Will live to make our mark The men of New Basin Canal Known as New Orleans own

It’s a powerful story. It had me mesmerized imagining the almost shanty style of work to dig the canal. So when I came up with the melody and chorus, that’s the rhythm that I picked. Especially with her “Heave ho, boy”. It just screamed sea shanty.

Later, Jamie and I recorded the song for our CD, How America Saved Irish Music. The one little thing I had to add to it was a crash symbol.

You see, I have long thought this was a great sing and interact along. In particular, I always imagined clapping like this.

Heave ho, boyo, it’s dig and death [clap, clap] Heave ho, God help us all

It gives it a great energy. But for the recording, I didn’t want clapping. I wanted that crash symbol much like the one used in the song “Zombie” by The Cranberries.

Jamie didn’t stop at one song though. She also wrote “Bridget’s Prayer.” It’s basically the same story but it’s from the perspective of women who watched their men die digging the canal. The ones buried them.

It’s another great song.

Oh, Michael, please don’t go today You’re shakin’ like a leaf We will make do, o stor, maron We will make do somehow

I’ve washing in, I can do more Just don’t go back, I pray It’s death my darlin’ one, I know It’s death in that new canal

I pray, in holy Bridget’s name I pray, God help us all

My babies need their father here My babies need you so Please don’t go back, I know that you Will fall if go you do

I can find work, I’ll sew and wash ‘Till bloody my fingers are Just don’t go back, oh, stor maron It’s death in that new canal

Oh, Michael love, I cannot live Without you, dearest heart Find other work, I care not what Find anything but that

I cannot stand to see you fall Like our friends before have done Too many widows made too young It’s death in that new canal

A big thanks to TJ Barrens, our sound engineer, Doctor Sick, who provided fiddle and mandolin, and Katie Haeuser who shared some amazing background vocals for the album.

29:52 - INTERVIEW WITH JAMIE HAEUSER

49:27 - Marc Gunn & Jamie Haeuser “Bridget’s Prayer” from How America Saved Irish Music

51:31 - JOIN THE CLUB

The show is brought to you by my Gunn Runners on Patreon. If you enjoy this podcast or my music, please join the Club. Every week, you get bonus podcasts, downloadable songs, printed sheet music, blogs, or stories from the road. Plus, you get weekly access to my Coffee with The Celtfather video concerts. Sign up for as little as $5 per month and save 15% with an annual membership. Thanks to my newest Gunn Runners on Patreon: Alice M, Karla Ad, Triskele, Ayden B

52:25 - SAYING NO, EVEN IF IT’S INCLUDED

Inara asked me to fill her juice bottle up to a certain line. No higher!

I asked her why. She said it was because if she drinks more than that, then she’ll get filled up and not be hungry for breakfast.

I was blown away that at age 8, she already knows her limits. I might’ve learned that by 48…

She also knew that it was too tempting if I gave her more than her limit. She might end up drinking it.

Seth Godin wrote a blog recently about saying no, even if it’s included. He concludes that “No might be better than free.”

I’ve come to appreciate saying, “No,” a little bit more recently. I do it on those rare times I go eat fast food. “Do you want the meal?”. No. Not really. Thanks.

But I’m also thinking of it in terms of environmentalism. The Album Pin printer I use, GS-JJ, automatically put each album pin in plastic when it is shipped. I really don’t want those little pieces of plastic that encase each pin. It just occurred to me today, I can say, no. I can ask them to not put them in there.

I bring canvas tote bags to the grocery store so I can bag the groceries myself and not take another plastic bag home with me.

When I choose fruit and vegetables, I pick the ones that aren’t in plastic bags. I get a little grossed out by putting them on the scanner. But then I wash them when I get home.

I don’t need more stuff in my life. If I buy it, it needs a reason to stick around. Sometimes that can be for pure enjoyment. Sometimes it’s like you want to archive something you love, like many of you do with CDs or USBs. But most of the time it’s gotta be something practical.

So I do my best to say no. Obviously, I'm. not perfect. I don't do all of these things every time. But as long as I'm learning to say no to excess more than I say yes, I'll call that a win!

What about you? What do you say “no” to?

1:00:57 - Brobdingnagian Bards “The Orange and The Green” from Brobdingnagian Fairy Tales

We talk about AI on the next Brobdingnagian Bards Podcast.

1:03:22 - BANDCAMP APP NOW HAS PLAYLISTS

One of the big reasons I started selling my music through Bandcamp was because of their app. Yes. You can download music as MP3s or whatever lossless format you prefer, but you can also stream the music through their app.

But up until now, I could only listen to one album at a time from one artist at a time. No longer! You can now create your own playlists with music that you own.

So if you’ve been buying my music on Bandcamp these past few years, head on over. Make your own playlist.

Buy some merch while you’re there. The full store opens up on Wednesday. And this Friday, March 3 is Bandcamp Friday, Bandcamp waives all of their fees. So I earn a little bit more from each purchase.

It’s prolly a good time to pick up some USBs to archive your music! Or get a ticket to my St Patrick’s Day concert.

If you love this episode, then take a screenshot on your phone. Post it on social media. And tag @celtfather. Tell me what you like about this episode and what you’d like to hear in the future.

1:06:02 - Marc Gunn “Tae the Begging” from St Patrick’s Day

1:10:20 - CREDITS

Thanks for listening to Sci Fi Pub Songs & Stories. The show is brought to you by my Gunn Runners on Patreon. Every week, you’ll get a new podcast or song or video or video concert. You’ll also save 25% off all my merch in my store. The show was edited by Mitchell Petersen with graphics by Miranda Nelson Designs.

You can subscribe and listen to the show wherever you find podcasts. Sign up to my mailing list to read the show notes for this episode and find out where I’m performing.

And of course, please tell one friend about this podcast. Word of mouth is the absolute best way to support any creative endeavor.

Have fun and sing along at www.pubsong.com!

#pubstories #stpatricksday #irishdisaspora

Check out this episode!

#pub songs #stories #Celtic Music #Irish music #best #best of #behind the music #song stories

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lundingvoss · 2 years

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Old School RuneScape On Steam

Greetings, adventurer! Originated in the earliest days of MMOs, Old School RuneScape is the only ever-lasting, ever-evolving adventure that is shaped by your.

Released way back in 2013 Old School RuneScape is RuneScape as you *used* to know it! Based on the 2007 build of the globally popular open world fantasy MMORPG Old School is continuously updated with improvements and new content that is voted on by you, the players! The close relationship between the developers and players is at the heart of what makes Old School so magical.

Do you want to become a master chef? Or a powerful mage. If you're here for the rich story and lore, the challenging combat, to fight alongside other players or against them, to journey on your own or simply to discover the enchanting world of Gielinor, Old School can be the adventure you've always wanted.

Learn 23 different skills that can be used in a variety of gameplay styles. runescape wiki Take on more than 140 quests across the world of games. Confront dozens to hundreds of bosses. Take on everything in a variety of PvP fights. Profit from a dynamic and lively in-game economy

Some people just want to be friends. You'll find plenty of people to hang out with in Gielinor. For those looking for a different type of adventure, there are plenty of possibilities.

Whatever your area of expertise The quest to find the best items is a race to mastery and perfection. The strongest wand, the most powerful bow, the most beautiful the hat There's always something to try to achieve.

If you're one of the most avid adventurers, you should show the world that you are by wearing one of the many Capes of Accomplishment. Perhaps the famous Max Cape will one day be yours.

A rich and rich well of lore await those who are more logical and logical. Stories of world-shattering urgency, casual procrastination, and the savage actions of corrupt rulers are abound.

Over two dozen major quest-lines let players explore Gielinor's past and present and the story is still being written, waiting for you to watch their unfolding. With major game updates every week the experience is always growing and improving.

This world is mobile- and PC-compatible, meaning that it's ready to move wherever you are!

The success of Old School can be attributable to you, a unique and unique person. We knew it was crucial to develop the game's foundations and preserve its essence from the time Old School was created. The players have the final say in any improvements to the game.

In-game polling isn't the only interaction. Join developers on their regularly scheduled live-streams behind-the-scenes, or talk with them directly on our various social channels. Old School is owned just as much by its players as it is its makers.

Old School is a game that is free to play that anyone can play, and many of our players have been with for over two decades without ever paying for membership. Membership unlocks more exciting content. Members can access:

8 additional skills are available, including Farming, Thieving and Slayer. Access to the complete game world map Over 120 additional quests Access to powerful exclusive items Dozens of exclusive mini games Additional options for navigation

Additionally players can also purchase Membership with Bonds that are either earned or purchased in-game! Membership is shared between Old School RuneScape and RuneScape.

#RUNESCAPE WIKI

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nautiscarader · 3 years

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2020 in animation - recap

So, 2020.

Yeah, I have to say I’m not entirely satisfied. Would not recommend, 1 star.

But I would be willing to bump it to 1.5, if only because of one factor: the animation.

Because I have to say, this was the best animated end of the world so far! And if there was something that kept our spirits up, it was the cartoon industry!

Just like last year, I should preface this by saying that this is highly subjective selection. Even when one is confined to their Hobbit holes for better part of the year because of *waves hands* everything around,

day still only has 24 hours, so I have missed a few shows. (I should also apologise for omitting a few major ones last year, like Milo Murphy’s Law S2, Ducktales, or She-Ra. This is why I started keeping a track this year). I’m sure I will catch up with those I missed this year some time in the future, but for now, let’s see what this year has gifted us with.

And right from the start, January opens the race with very interesting propositions. We were still riding on an incredibly high wave from last year, with Infinity Train season 2.

This one focused on Tulip’s mirror, and pushed the season towards a much darker and complex story, diving deep into one’s personal journey and identity. There were tears, math, deer, and cops being murdered. Brutally.

t was followed by two newcomers: The Owl House and first season of Kipo and The Age of the Wonderbeast. Both of them would dominate first half of the year, with The Owl House’s traditional, week-to-week airings, and Kipo's seasons appearing in June and October.

The Owl House, a strong contender in "What will be the Next Gravity Falls?" contest, invited us to a world full of magic, mystery, elongated owl demons and some dark secrets. It has also created a milestone for Disney, introducing an LGBT couple with characters of bisexual Luz Noceda and lesbian Amity Blight. Their Grom dance has risen to the top of my animates scenes, polling very closely to the unforgettable Kataango.

On the other hand, Kipo has taken us to the post-apocalyptic world filled with mutant animals, revealing that despite the end of the world, our old vices and animosities have survived in underground burrows, and we have infected the overworld of giant doggos and suit-wearing frogs with them.

Kipo did not pull any punches regarding commentary about our society, at the same time giving us hope in the form of the main protagonist, who was able to spread friendship and understanding amongst the mutes, as well as the humans that had to survive. And in the world that we have found ourselves in, it was a pretty darn good lesson.

February would bring end to two seasons of airing cartoons, Big Hero Six season 2 and Miraculous season 3, as well as another newcomer that won the hearts of fans: Glitch Techs, with its "second" season arriving in August. And while in my opinion he show wasn't as good as the other two new titles, I am clearly in minority, as the show about Ghostbuters-like team of game console technicians gained huge popularity... though not enough to keep the show afloat. As of writing this, it is currently in limbo, which is a shame, as the second set of 10 episodes finally added some much needed ongoing story.

in March, another show from last year ended - Steven Universe Future. As we have expected, it tackled slightly more mature themes, showing how much Steven needed that therapy we have wished him, telling an important tale of finding one's worth and one's self. its ending might not have been as explosive as those of the original show, or the movie, but it left Steven’s story as open as an open road, and deep in our hearts, we all knew it would look like this.

March was also the time when majority of western world caught the coronavirus, and that caused quite a turmoil with the movie and animation industry. One of the first victim of changed schedule was Disney's Onward, which was released on-line on Disney+ quickly after its theatrical release.

I have mixed feelings towards “Onward”. For such interesting promise, I think it made a few questionable and down right boring turns, though the unorthodox message at the end of it was its strongest point, and it was one I haven’t seen in a while, so it was worth watching just for that.

April was relatively quiet (aside from more end of the world stuff); brought us third season of Ducktales that spread throughout the year, while May gave us final, fifth season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.

To my eternal shame, I missed on this show when it premiered, and due to the lockdown, I binge-watched the previous four right in time for powerful and explosive season 5. And even though Catra and Adora finally gave us exactly what we needed, some fans felt slightly unsatisfied, calling for a movie, like the Steven Universe one to be made. And I’d be all for it, the rest of universe needs saving from the Horde! Also, cats in space - hilarious.

May also revealed a new player on the streaming field: HBO Max, who surprised us with new Looney Tunes Cartoons, much more in the spirit of the legendary originals than the often-criticised Looney Tunes Show from 2011-2014. And in my opinion, it did; one could feel the same fluidity in animation, dedication to slapstick, and synchronisation with music than in the very first cartoons with Bugs and Daffy.

HBO Max would, however, return in June with first of series of Adventure Time original movies called "Distant Lands". The first centred around BMO, with second one - Obsidian giving us a glimpse into Bonnibel and Marceline's lives.

Distant Lands allowed people to revisit the odd, odd world of Ooo and learn about its colourful inhabitants, taking turns to seeing their past and the future, an, as usual, showing us that post-apocalyptic world can teach us valuable and meaningful lessons.

Just in time for full lockdown in our burrows, aforementioned Kipo season 2 premiered in June, together with another cartoon movie, this time featuring We Bare Bears. While their movie wasn't anything to write songs about, it was exactly like the show, providing some wholesome content right when we needed it.

And just in case you needed more wholesome adventures, Craig of the Creek's second season ended, and its third season began, reminding us of HOW COOL LIFE WAS WHEN OUTERNET WASN’T SCARY AND WE COULD STILL WALK OUTSIDE FOR FUN AND NOT TO HUNT TOILET PAPER.

Just like last year, July was not dogs' days, but frogs'. Amphibia season 2 started raining on our heads, but unlike last year, its schedule wasn't a daily one, spreading the episodes throughout the Summer and early Autumn, with its second part arriving in February of 2021. There were more roadtrips, more mysteries and MORE MARCY.

August was equally strong: aforementioned Glitch Techs "season 2" premiered, offering better and more plot-heavy episodes than the first ten episodes. Unfortunately, the show's future is unclear; the uneven divide of plot between the seasons probably contributed to the show not being renewed. 10 new episodes apparently are written, but await in sleep mode, until Nickelodeon remembers about it.

HBO MAX picked up Infinity Train for its third season, after being derailed by Cartoon Network. And if you thought that killing a mirror cop was shocking... then this season has pushed the limit of what can be shown in modern children's cartoon to a frightening degree. The schedule was once again, weirder, with first five episodes airing on the day of the premiere, ending with a cliffhanger (literally) that only contributed to the shock factor and made us wait anxiously for its conclusion. It was bold, it was dark, it was memorable.

And just like Glitch Techs, Infinity Train waits on a side track, unsure if it will be picked up, or will it be abandoned and left as a canvas for graffiti artists.

However, to end the Summer, a truly amazing TV movie has arrived on Disney Plus, where we came back to good, old Danville and could witness Candace against the universe. The new Phineas and Ferb movie brought back the glorious memories of this fantastic show, with the same humour, writing, abundance of catchy songs and a surprisingly deep moral.

In September we have seen the start of Big Hero 6 season 3 and a odd change of format. Instead of standalone 22-minute episodes, the show now consists of two 11-minute segments. In opinion of many, this weakened the stories, forcing them to be more comedy-oriented, and shortening the potential emotional drama. Still, it gave us funny, short stories, but they did clash with the two previous season, not to mention the movie.

However, if that wasn't up to your taste, Ducktales season 3 also started airing, and continued its first part up until December with more action- and plot-driven episodes, including the Darkwing Duck crossover, serving as a pilot of the spin-off.

Later in December fans have learned that Season 3 will be its last, which broke the hearts of many duck fans; however, it seems that the season has been written as the last one in mind, and the news of the ending was known to the creators, which gives us hope for a kick-ass finale somewhere in 2021.

Miraculous New York, telling arguably one of the most mature storylines, opened the "Heroez" world to some new characters and new opportunities, with two more specials, taking place in Shanghai and Brazil, meant to air somewhere next year. AND I DO HOPE WE WILL SEE MORE LOCAL FOOD VENDOR SUPERHEROES LIKE HOT DOG DAN.

October was the month of two season 3's: Carmen Sandiego and Kipo. In case of Carmen, as it is usual with Netflix, the "season" was only a half-one, with just a handful standalone episodes, and just a dash of more ongoing plot.

For Kipo, however, season 3 was the end, and what a glorious one it was. Fans were saddened to learn of it, but Kipo was always imagined as a 3-part story, and it showed. The finale proved more than satisfying ending to the plot, elevating Kipo to one of the smartest cartoon characters we should all try to aspire to.

In November, Distant Lands: Obsidian aired, focusing on everyone’s favourite candy/vampire couple, and the long and complicated love between Bonnibel and Marceline. And as usual, it showed us that relationships are not always as straightforward as we would like them to be, but with enough music and teamwork, no enemy is big enough.

For the next new show, I’ve waited with the most amount of excitement and anxiety. Because while I was completely fine with other reboots and re-imaginings to take creative takes, new Animaniacs, (airing on Hulu) had to be perfect and had to be the lightning that struck twice.

And sadly... it wasn’t. It was still good, but some people criticised (incorrectly imho) the amount of political topics, while I mourned almost total cast-ration of additional characters, aside from Pinky and the Brain. This truly weakened the possibilities it could have had. It was still very good, but you can feel that some of the original charm was lost, due to these odd, odd limitations.

December brought us a new original Apple TV movie, Wolfwalkers. A beautifully animated folk tale of friendship and social divides, and how short-sight can cause the collapse of both arguing sides, reminding me very much of the intelligence and heart of original “How to Train Your Dragon”.

We’ve had to wait two years for the return of arguably one of the most wholesome shows out there: Hilda. Second season dived into deeper mysteries that permeate the rich and colourful troll-ridden land, we saw the return of some familiar characters, and introduced a whole new storyline, that ended with a surprising cliffhanger. Still as wholesome, but now with a tiny bit of Police incompetence. Also Twig, lots of Twig.

Just like Onward, Pixar’s highly anticipated Soul aired on Disney+, telling a very mature story about finding one’s purpose in life, what that purpose actually means, and whether it exists at all. Beautifully animated, with fantastic soundtrack, it was a stunning tribute to creativity, and it never dumbed down its profound, open message about following your dream.

And just if you thought that Soul was going to be 2020′s last note (pun very much intended), right before the year ended, DC Super Hero Girls concluded its first season on a rather anti-climactic two-parter. That being said, the season, running from March of last year, was packed with short, bite-sized, funny stories, taking interesting spins on existing comic book characters. For a comic book noob like me, it was perfectly fine, and I can’t wait for the second season next year.

And so, we have reached the series finale of humanity.

2020 ends in just under a day. What will 2021 bring us? I do not know, and if the animated shows of this year have taught me anything, is that the future is an always open book, full of worries and challenges, but also opportunities and possibilities.

...

And in reality I was too lazy to check any news sites about upcoming projects.

#infinity train #glitch techs #amphibia #kipo and the age of wonderbeasts #animaniacs #carmen sandiego #hilda #DuckTales #big hero 6 #distant lands #dc super hero girls #Miraculous Ladybug #spop #The Owl House

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inoshikachozine · 3 years

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✨Pirate AU✨

We had another poll on Twitter. This time we asked for a prompt for a ficlet written by our Mod Spooky @thespookymoth

☠️A Darned Good Idea☠️

It had been a dumb idea, if not the dumbest idea Shikaku ever had.

Inoichi was used to his best friend’s crazy ideas and flashes of genius, which took regular turns. To his displeasure today they had followed their captain’s orders into an adventure that turned out to be one of the plans Inoichi needed to drown in a lot of rum later that day.

If he had the chance to ever drink rum again.

All had voiced their concerns beforehand - even the silent Kakashi, who mostly read his books while sitting in the crow’s nest - but Shikaku had brushed them away, convinced that he needed to break into the governor's house to steal his gold.

Now as they were in a prison cell, hanging in cuffs from the wall, he reconsidered the whole pirate thing. He could stop hunting for treasures and settle down, find a woman, marry and have kids. Inoichi would’ve preferred anything that didn’t involve a potential threat to his life.

He threw a look at Shikaku. He had his eyes closed, frowning and mumbling. His captain had always got them out of dangerous situations. There was a reason his men followed him everywhere.

Shikaku was a good leader - at least most times - but not today.

“I am thinking about a way to get us out of here. Please don’t stare at me like that,” Shikaku snapped at him. “How could you tell I am staring? You’ve got your eyes closed,” he answered, moving his legs a bit, hoping to reach the ground. All blood had left his hands; they felt numb. Standing on his tiptoes also wasn’t a pleasant experience.

“Just the proof I needed,” his friend said and smirked, opening his eyes. He turned his head to the side. “I'll get us out of here, Inoichi.”

“For that you need the keys,” Ibiki shouted from the prison cell across from them. “Or since when do you carry hair pins with you, captain?”

Shikaku cussed under his breath, while Choza chuckled. He was in a jovial mood, probably the only person Inoichi knew who never lost his optimism. Skeptically, he looked at their chef.

It was slowly getting darker in the prison since it was long past afternoon. The scents of piss, mold and sweat were penetrating his nose. They needed to get out of here or else a death sentence awaited them. Shikaku kept silent, his own grumbling stomach the only sound that was heard. Nobody had visited them yet, bringing neither water or food.

Inoichi really became moody. Sitting in a tavern, drinking rum, surrounded by beautiful women was much nicer than sharing this tiny room with his mates, who didn't care if their farts pestered the air. He heard Kakashi complain to Gai about his lack of manners.

“Say you have a plan, Shikaku. If not, I will kill you myself before they hang us.”

“They are not hanging us. Just wait.” Suddenly a smile flashed over Shikaku’s face. “Listen.”

Inoichi noticed steps coming nearer. He was prepared to see one of the prison guards, but it was a woman. She had brown hair and brown eyes. She seemed familiar.

“Shikaku?” she asked, her voice a tad louder than a whisper.

“Here, Yoshino.”

Something in his brain clicked. He knew this woman. She was the daughter of the governor.

His jaw dropped as Inoichi realised why Yoshino was in this prison, the keys to their cell in one hand, the other on her hip.

“I should scold you for being so dumb, Nara, but I think I will get rid of the cuffs first and then kick you, idiot.”

He heard Asuma whistle, while the other men made some rude remarks.

“Do you need all of your men?” Silence followed those words.

Inoichi laughed while Shikaku got freed and was still laughing and snorting as Yoshino guided them outside. He would tease him till the end of time that a woman had outsmarted him, making him behave so dumb he had risked all their lives.

Shikaku looked so lovingly at the woman who was using strong words to reprimand him. Only a fool wouldn’t see what the captain was feeling for her. He had fallen in love with that woman.

“Did you know about this?” he asked Choza.

“I guessed. Breaking into the house of the governor? Do you really think that Shikaku was after his gold?” Choza commented, shaking his head. “There are things worth more than gold.”

They were watching Shikaku grabbing the woman by her waist, kissing her hard. Even in the moonlight he could see Yoshino blush. Inoichi snickered.

“If you do this again, Shikaku, I won’t come to rescue you.”

“Just agree to come with me and I won’t have to do such things, Yoshino,” Shikaku said.

Yoshino kissed his cheek, her hand resting there for a moment, tracing the scars of his face. “Not today.”

Shikaku kissed her palm before he let her go, throwing a last look at the woman who owned his heart. Then he called his men to seek a new adventure.

A pirate never rests.

#inoshikachozine #naruto zines #beyond a bond #mod spooky #ficlet #pirate au #inoshikacho #team 10 #team asuma #team moegi #naruto #boruto next generations #inoichi yamanaka #shikaku nara #choza akimichi

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royallyprincesslilly · 4 years

Text

Title: Kismet {1}

Henry Cavill x Famous OFC Aliya Taylor

Warning: Plot, Slow Burn, Mild Cursing

Words: 3.9

Summary: Aliya is a singer turned model turned actress. Since she was fifteen, she’s been creating her empire in the entertainment world. As the daughter of a famous fashion model/designer and Hollywood director, you’d think life is easy for her, but her past has been anything but easy. Due to past trauma, she’s forever changed and no longer trusts any man that is not in her family and a select few in her team. She’s sworn off love and serious relationships and has planned never to fall again, but love isn’t something that can be planned. It just happens when it’s meant to. Can Aliya outrun a love that seems hellbent on holding tight to her, a love that is Kismet?

Note: Okay, y’all, this has been in my Word file for about a year and a half now, and I have no idea why I never posted it, but I’ve been inspired. It is mostly finished, but I will be tweaking it a little with each post. I hope you enjoy this. As always, thank you so much for reading. ❤️❤️

If you enjoyed this please LIKE, COMMENT, REBLOG!! 😘 As always, thank you so much for reading. ❤️❤️

***Loosely Edited/Proofread***

**Very Interactive**

“Everyone, welcome, Aliya Taylor!”

The clapping and cheers were deafening as you walked down the long corridor to walk through the set doors. Once in full view of the studio audience, they stood and cheered even louder. You took a few moments to wave at them before walking down the path that led to the talk show host. Once there, you hugged Wendy and prepared for the antics.

“They love you.”

“It appears that way. Thank you so much for having me.”

“Girl, everyone wants a piece of you. why is that?”

You shrugged and scoffed. “Hell if I know.” The audience erupted with laughter. They thought you were kidding. You weren’t.

“Are you being serious?”

“Absolutely. I have no idea why. I am just this normal girl. At home, I’m Liya, the baby, the one who wears sweats and high buns. I don’t get it.”

“Oh, so this that we see now is not how you are when the cameras turn off?”

Again you scoffed. “Absolutely not. Most days, unless I’m working, I don’t wear makeup and heels I try to stay away from,” you explained.

“Wow. I mean, I’ve seen plenty of paparazzi pictures of you, and you always look so put together,” Wendy complimented.

“They must photoshop,” you joked to the audience's amusement.

For the next several minutes, she asked you questions about your latest projects and what you had planned for the next few months. After pointing out you were seen as a fashion icon, she began inquiring about your fashion inspirations. That conversation almost went on for the rest of the segment, but like the pro she was Wendy roped it back in to the hard-hitting stuff.

“So, I have to bring this up,” she began giving the audience a look that had you giggling. “For the last few months, we’ve been hearing from a particular Hemsworth who has been preaching from every ledge how you are the love of his life. Anything to say about that?”

You were prepared for this, it was expected. It was Wendy Williams, after all. Shrugging, you have a clueless look. “Nothing to say. This is actually the first I’m hearing about that,” you lied.

Wendy didn’t buy it, and the look on her face said it. Holding your ground and tapping into that acting skill, you kept a straight face and let the stare down run its course.

“Wow, you have an unwavering poker face.” The audience laughed around you, but you still kept a straight face.

“I don’t know what to tell ya’, Wendy,” you responded with a shrug for emphasis.

“All right. So, are you single?”

“I’m single, not looking and very happy,” you announced. The cheers around you were unexpected, but you liked that they were on board with it.

“Any particular reason why?”

Sighing, you sat back in your seat. “Relationships are hard. They take a lot of work, and I require too much to be in a relationship.”

Wendy cackled, which sent you into a tiff of giggles. When the two of you settled down, she continued.

“What does that mean?”

“Not much really just relationships are distractions, huge, huge distractions, and I would just rather enjoy my time, my life and work which includes helping people, changing lives, making lives better and focus on me. Relationships are just not for me, so I don’t want em,” you declared.

Wendy looked shocked and speechless, but she began nodding. “I understand. After my highly publicized divorce, I am also in the mind frame of nothing serious. I’ll have my fun, but a serious relationship is a turn off for me.”

You raised your hands in the air to praise her statement. “So you’ve been traveling a lot, right? We see pictures of you with your two best friends Amaya and Alicia.”

Your smile was wide then. “Yes, yes. We’ve been traveling and enjoying life. I’ve worked so hard for so long, and rarely do I take a vacation, so I took a little time,” you explained.

“That’s good. What do you think about the polls fans have created about who they want to see you with?”

That was news to you. “What?”

“Yeah. There are so many polls that are fan-made asking who people want to see you date,” Wendy explained.

“Who are the contenders?”

“Zac Efron, Robert Pattison, Theo James, Michael B Jordan, the names are endless,” Wendy listed off. You could have laughed, but you kept it in and just decided to nod.

“Any preference?”

“Who am I to have a say?” The laugher erupted around you again.

Thankfully the conversation steered back to your work, and that was where it remained for the next five or so minutes until the end of the interview. After signing a few autographs and taking a few fan pictures, you made your exit and toward your next engagement. It was going to be another long day. This was the eighth straight day that began at four in the morning only to have your head hitting your pillow well after two in the morning.

After three more interviews and two meetings, you made it home at the time you expected. Sleep was not in the cards for you, especially since it had been years since you’d had a good night’s sleep without sleeping pills. Insomnia is what the doctors diagnosed you with. While everyone in LA slept or got six to eight hours of sleep, you rarely got four. It was a condition you’d managed to find a way to live with after all these years and resigned yourself to never being normal in that department. You didn’t dwell on it because that meant opening back up the box you’d neatly put away out of sight that was wrapped in pretty bows as tight as possible. You’d worked hard to keep your Pandora’s box bound tight, and it was an endless daily struggle to keep it that way.

-Two Weeks Later-

“I’m not used to be early,” you whispered to your assistant, who nodded. She knew it was true.

“What time is this supposed to be?”

“Two,” Pamela responded. Your golden Cartier watch said it was four till. Just as you were going to speak, the doors opened up and in walked three men, one of which was your manager Rob.

“Aliya, so glad you could make it.”

You shook their hands and exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes before getting down to the nitty-gritty. They spoke about a movie project that was planned for filming in the fall that they believed you were perfect for the lead role. As they described the plot and the intentions of the filming, you nodded along and took a few mental notes. As they spoke, several boxes on your list were checked off. You hated roles where black women were typecast, hated roles that degraded black women, and hated those cliché movies that were so predictable one usually regretted seeing them. These days you liked more adventurous roles, even roles that had you getting into the action genre. Why should men have all the fun of being action stars?

After a chat about the film, they gave you a rough draft of the script which you read through on the spot. It read like a classic action romance that had the lead female tackling female stereotypes of being the damsel in distress then turning around to being able to hold her own. You were intrigued and told them such. After asking your questions, the conversation turned to salary. You were prepared for them to lowball you because you were a woman and a black one at that. When they came in with five million, you didn’t bother speaking. Rob knew that you wouldn’t take it. You knew for a fact that other actresses would have been offered more. Their second offer of ten million sounded a lot more reasonable, and that was the contract you signed on for.

Three hours from the start of your meeting, it ended. As Rob finished up the details with the director and producer of the film, you made your way to the elevators with Pamela beside you. As you walked, your face was buried in your phone checking email after email and sending off message after message.

“The creative team is wondering if you’re still okay for the photos for the next publication,” Pamela inquired.

“Uh---was that the set that was done at the Botanical Gardens?”

“Yes.”

You stopped for a moment and thought about what she was asking while never taking your nose out of your phone. After a few moments, you nodded. “Yeah, tell them to send me the complete issue, and then I’ll get back to them in a few days,” you instructed.

You heard the “ding” of the elevator and waited the amount of time you expected it would take for the doors to open, then you stepped forward. Slamming into a hard wall, you began to fall backward with a yelp. “Oh my god!”

You prepared yourself to make impact with the floor, but that impact never came. Instead, you felt strong, muscular arms wrap around you. Those arms held you close, and you felt like nothing in the world would dare hurt you while there. When you looked, you were held captivated by the most intense pair of blue eyes you’d ever seen. They were eyes you’d seen in passing before, but eyes you must have overlooked until now. Henry Cavill.

The man was gorgeous. You’d always thought he was attractive the few times you’d see him in magazines or even watched his movies. It was a fact that you didn’t dare dispute. Why would you? With him, this close you couldn’t believe just how gorgeous he was. One man definitely had no business being this beautiful, you thought to yourself. You couldn’t believe his attractiveness. You should have been immune to it being an actress who’d dealt with some of the industry’s finest but here and now you felt like a fish out of water. You’d never had this strong of a reaction to a man before.

“Are you all right?”

You saw his mouth moving, but you couldn’t hear a word he said. His arms around your waist tightened. You now had a perfect view of his completely symmetrical face that had the most chiseled jaw you’d ever seen. His skin was flawless, and the stray curl on his forehead was calling your name, begging you to reach out and just touch it.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” His voice finally broke through the hormone-induced haze in your head.

“Oh my god. Yes. I’m okay.”

Henry’s eyebrows were etched together, giving you an inquisitive look.

“Are you sure?”

“No.” You sounded as if you were faint, and honestly, you kind of felt like it too.

“Let’s stand you up. Here we go.”

Slowly Henry set you up onto your feet before he let you go. Once he did, you wobbled, which had him reaching his arms out to you again to steady you. “I’ve got you.” His British accent was heaven. It was enough to have you staring at his mouth every time he spoke.

“Are you okay?”

Realizing how you were behaving, you remembered just who the hell you were and cleared your throat while straightening your back.

“Yes, I’m okay. I’m—I’m sorry,” you began.

“No, it was probably my fault. I was so wrapped up in my phone.”

“Me too,” you blurted out. The two of you smiled together, and it was right there you felt your heart skip a beat. Again, you cleared your throat and looked away from his hypnotizing eyes. “Uh, I’m sorry again. However, I am—uh—late for another meeting,” you finished.

“Absolutely.” Henry stepped to the side, giving you access to the elevator. After bending to retrieve your phone that had made its way into the elevator, you leaned onto the wall of the car, waiting for Pamela to file in. As she did, your eyes met Henry’s again, and that was where they stayed. It wasn’t until the doors closed, and you were somewhat alone, did your body begin to relax. Slouching back, you pressed your palm to your belly, hoping to calm the butterflies you felt fluttering away.

“Holy shit,” you whispered out loud while fanning yourself.

The remainder of the day, you were not your usual self. Normally you were a force to be reckoned with and able to charm any exec or paparazzi. That was not the case after you left the building. You were dazed and flustered. You even had a hard time following the meetings that followed. Your head just simply was not in the game, and that was a first for you. Your father had taught you long ago that keeping your head in the game was the best way to achieve all your goals. He taught you everything he knew, and your mother taught you then some.

You knew just who he was. Henry Cavill. You’d seen all the movies he’d been in regarding Superman because he was your favorite superhero. You’d seen his Mission Impossible movie and even his Man from U.N.C.L.E movie. He was all the buzz now because of his massive casting as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher. Everyone had his name in their mouth.

At the most inopportune time, you found yourself thinking back to his face, his eyes, or his mouth and reminiscing about the feel of his arms around your waist. It was embarrassing. You felt like an amateur. You didn’t get starstruck. It wasn’t a thing for you because you’d been around celebrities since very early in your career. This was a first, and it was quickly getting old. Thanks to how long the day ran, you only had time to run home to quickly change your clothes in order to make your flight out of LA that night.

Once the plane took off, you were reclined back in one of the luxurious seats with a glass of fruit-infused Perrier water and a bowl of kettle corn. It was then you were finally able to catch your breath and relax for the first time for the day. Moments of quiet and slow were far and in between for you. For the most part, it was done purposely so you didn’t have too much time to think. You’d quickly learned that an idle mind invited painful memories.

Grabbing your phone, you snuggled in the seat and opened it up, ready to either scroll through Instagram or work a little bit. It didn’t take you long from unlocking it to realize this was not your phone. Once you unlocked it, the wallpaper was of an adorable dog on one side and a picture of a large family on the other.

“What the hell?”

Sitting up, you tucked your feet under you and continued to scroll through the phone. Immediately you went to pictures. The first few were interesting shots of pieces of tech and then several pictures of the same adorable dog. The more you scrolled, the pictures got more and more interesting. When you came across a picture of Henry audibly gasped.

“Oh shit! Shit, shit!”

Slowly you put the phone on the table before you and looked around the cabin to see if anyone was watching you. You felt as if you were doing something wrong. Realizing no one was paying any attention to you, you drank down the water and raised your hand for the stewardess.

“Yes, Ms. Taylor.”

“Have we taken off?”

“Yes, we’ll be landing in London in six hours,” the stewardess informed. Clenching your jaw, you nodded.

“Okay, can I have a bottle of champagne, please.”

“Absolutely. Any particular brand?”

“Surprise me.” She nodded and walked away. In her absence, your eyes stared at the phone on the table and contemplated your options.

A few moments later, the stewardess returned with the bottle and a filled glass.

“Thank you.” you dumped the fruit from the bottom of one glass into the champagne flute and gulped down half of the glass. Your eyes again landed on the phone.

“Don’t do it Aliya, don’t do it.”

Flexing your fingers, you tried to suppress the urge to go against your better judgment.

“It would be a major invasion of privacy, Aliya. Don’t,” you reiterated.

Before you even finished the sentence, your hand was reaching for the device.

“Oh, screw it.” Grabbing the phone, you unlocked it again, and while thanking the tech gods, there was no passcode on it. “Technically, I don’t know whose phone it is. I do have to get some information. Right?”

You nodded your head, accepting you were having a full-on conversation with yourself. You continued to scroll through his pictures. The majority of them are of him smiling, showcasing those perfect teeth and his perfect face. Some were him in makeup chairs, others in a house with perfect lighting, others were him at random times. After a few swipes of your finger, you’d entered pictures that looked to be of family. You could see the resemblance between him and the men and a little bit around the eyes of an older blonde woman.

Noting that they all looked happy and loving, you continued looking through more. Your finger stopped moving when you came upon a brunette with dark eyes and blonde with blue eyes. Both women looked relatively young but somewhat attractive in a simple way. You began to wonder who they were. After scrolling a little more, you got your answer seeing a few pictures of him kissing both women. That had you stumped and wondering who the women were and if Henry Cavill was a good-looking playboy.

You didn’t know how long you scrolled, but when you ventured into the shirtless ones, you scrolled a lot slower. The man was built like Greek God by Hollywood standards. He had like zero percent body fat and one hundred percent muscle definition. You didn’t even realize you were practically drooling until you got to a picture of him suggestively nude. He laid in a bed with a blanket aimlessly thrown across his groin, which left little to the imagination.

“Lord have mercy up in haven for all things that are holy.”

Pressing his phone to your chest, you closed your eyes and took a few deep breaths then continued. You quickly transitioned to his messages. Most were work-related. Six names down, you saw a woman’s name—Francesca. Not too far below hers was another—Abby. Though your curiosity was at an all-time high, you ignored it and exited his messages. For the next fifteen minutes, you scrolled through the remainder of his pictures until you dropped it back into your purse to alleviate any more temptation to ogle his body. That was when you used the champagne to distract yourself, but it was no use. All you could think about was Henry’s literal ten pack.

~~~~~~~~~~

-Henry-

“Bollocks!”

The flowery wallpaper that stared back at him was the only thing he needed to see to know this was not his phone. It was then he realized his phone must have gotten mixed up with yours due to the mishap in front of the elevator. Leaning back in his chair, he groaned and stared at the ceiling. The thought entered his mind to look at it, especially since there was no passcode on it.

“You can’t. That’s a massive invasion of privacy. She’s a lady,” he drilled to himself.

Raising to his feet, he paced the floor of his hotel room. Most days, he felt like he lived in hotel rooms rather than his flat in London. He groaned, feeling the ache to his muscles, he needed a vacation. Working every day, nonstop was staring to wear its toll on his body. He got lost in thoughts on a possible vacation for a few minutes before the light of your phone on the table brought his attention back. His struggle was something real. On the one hand, he wanted to look so badly, but on the other, he wanted to respect your privacy.

The battle waged on for an hour until he gave in to curiosity and delved into your phone. The first place he went was to your pictures. As soon as he scrolled, he was blown away. You were gorgeous. The first few rows of pictures had you all dolled up in makeup, lashes, lipstick, and all. He spent a lot longer examining those pictures than he should have. When he got to the ones of you fresh-faced, he found himself drooling. While you were gorgeous with makeup, you were breathtaking without. He marveled in the way your skin looked to be glowing, and the way your lips looked so supple—kissable. It took everything in him to move on.

There were pictures of you with who he assumed were your friends, in these pictures you looked happy and it wasn’t long before he found a favorite one of you.

“Christ, she’s too beautiful.”

As he scrolled, he stopped in his tracks at one of you in a bikini, and his jaw dropped. Every inch of you was perfect. You had not one flaw. When you bumped into to him earlier, he realized you were beautiful and that there was a draw between you that triggered a reaction for him, one that he hadn’t fully noticed until the elevator doors closed. Sitting here now, he was fully aware of his reaction to you. Quickly he scrolled on then dropped the phone when he came across a shot of you in heels with your back turned to the camera in your underwear alone. He found himself biting his bottom lip as his imagination took over. That was when he got out of your pictures.

When he got into your messages, he began admonishing himself for what he was doing, but he couldn’t stop. He wanted to know more about you—everything really. He scrolled through those messages that looked like work until he came upon two names, Liam, and Jesse. Though he was curious, he still decided against reading them. Instead, he slide the phone to the farthest corner from him and contemplated all he’d seen and the best approach to this situation. He had to get his phone back and give you yours, but he also was filled with an overwhelming desire to know you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lee’s Note: What do you guys thing? Continue?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ***If you want to be tagged please SEND AN ASK SO IT WILL BE EASIER FOR ME TO KEEP TRACK OF. Thank you for reading!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TagList:

@dangerouslovefanfic @jamesbarnesappreciationclub @momobaby227 @naturalthrone22 @emjayewrites @chaneajoyyy @caramara3 @sonjashuterbugjohnson @minton131 @aar-journey @theonewithherheadintheclouds @shar74nett @mrsbarnes-rogers @livinglifeformemyselfandi @night-of-the-living-shred @munteanhorewrites @kittykatlow @give-me-a-million-dollars-pls @simply-heaven @maximumninjavoid @offrostandstarlight @angrybirdcr @tenaciousperfectionunknown @bellaamor88 @alyxkbrl @kikimiyazaki

#kismet fic #henry cavill #henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill x you #henry cavill x black reader #black fanfiction #angst fanfic #slow burn fanfic #henry cavill x ofc

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dappervolk · 4 years

Text

April Progress Update!

As Dappervolk's closed development period enters its final phase, we are excited to be back with a major new update on some much-anticipated information for everyone!

After much planning and discussion with our team over these last few months, we are finally ready to announce an exact launch date and time for Dappervolk!

This is it, the final countdown begins - mark your calendars!

We're incredibly excited to finally have a launch date set and confirmed, even though we had initially expected to be able to launch in May instead of June. Despite our best efforts to continue to organize around our anticipated May launch date, the current unfortunate world-wide circumstances have affected the work situations of various members of our small development team and has forced us to rework our prior development ETAs and deadlines for important launch features. In order to prioritize our team's health and safety, as well as to reduce crunch-time stress and guarantee that Dappervolk will be in launch-ready condition, the above June release date and time has become an unavoidable necessity. Even though we are undeniably disappointed to have to announce that there will be a launch delay, we are still as excited as ever to bring Dappervolk back for everyone to enjoy in June!

With the upcoming release of our new 5th town, players can expect to discover over 400 new clothing items, 50 new items of varying types and functions, 12 new pets, a new mini game, 6 new NPCs, and more! Many of these new additions will remain as surprises to be discovered by players during launch, but here are a few teasers to give everyone a preview of what's coming in June.

A few of our many new items, what will their purpose be?

These 2 new fantasticals await those with a strong sense of conviction.

In addition to this, our Adventuring feature has received an overhaul both in terms of its underlying framework and its gameplay features. It should now use less CPU and run more smoothly than its beta predecessor, and will sport new active/idle modes, sprite customization unlockables, town unlocks, new item prizes that vary depending on the town you're adventuring in, and the ability to earn daily bonus pet affection and town hops.

Featured here are a handful of the new unlockable sprite appearances you'll be able to obtain!

Located at the Peddler's Port, you will also now find a variety of new NPCs waiting for you to interact with - one of which is an NPC that we've shown art for previously but never officially introduced: the Guild Officiator! This NPC will be responsible for handling guild registration for all of the aspiring guild leaders in Dappervolk. You'll want to stop by and talk to him if you're interested in forming a guild, as you'll need to satisfy a few requirements before he will be able to grant you a guild license in any given location.

As you establish your guild or join an existing one, you and your fellow guild members will be able to contribute to raising your guild's level and unlocking new upgrades by being active around the site. Some of these upgrades will be aesthetic additions to your guild, such as new guild emblems and flags to choose from—others will be fun functional upgrades to work toward, such as guild forum polls, extra sub-forums, forum post dice rolling, and eventually even guild dueling!

What are guild duels? It is a versus/team feature that will allow two guilds to create a customizable competition to see which guild can complete various group activity tasks the fastest. Both guilds will earn extra exp toward their guild level from participating in a duel, but the winner will also earn a sizable exp bonus! On top of that, an optional currency wager can be offered up by each guild as an additional winner-take-all prize for the competition.

As our launch date approaches, players can expect to see updates across our social media accounts regarding the following:

Early-game information

Our new referral system

Moderator applications

Advertisement posts

We will also be bringing back our countdown clock that will be calibrated for the exact time and date of the site's launch, to help mitigate any timezone confusion.

As a reminder to everyone, our very last support bundle will be available until July 5, 2020—after this period, the bundles will be permanently retired and all future real life currency related items will be hosted on site in the form of turnip purchases!

LIGHT BUNDLE • DARK BUNDLE • BOTH BUNDLES

All proceeds go directly toward paying our coders, writers, and server costs!

And lastly, be sure to follow our social media accounts so you don't miss any of our latest posts, if you haven't already.

TUMBLR • TWITTER • FACEBOOK • INSTAGRAM • DISCORD

That's all for this update! We hope that everyone is staying safe in these difficult times, and that Dappervolk can be a small piece of comfort for those at home.

Take care, we'll see you all soon!

- Dappervolk Team

#dappervolk #updates #gamedev #game launch #virtual pet

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georgemackayhey · 4 years

Text

Home Again

a/n: So once, an anon vaguely asked for something with Schofield. And I recently sent out a poll for what my first multi-chapter fic should be about. The Schofield coming home option came in third place, so I figured I'd kill two birds with this blurb!

warning: General sad times but the ending is happy like he deserves

w/c: 2k

───※ ·❆· ※───

It was just like Will to be so quiet, but his silence lingered differently than any other time before.

He had only been home for a day, not even that long if you subtracted the long journey from the train station back to your neighborhood.

When you spotted Will at the platform, he bent at the knee to better scoop up your daughter and spin her around with a flourish. Will greeted you with sweet kisses and sighs of relief. And then he fell asleep for most of the ride back home. It was probably the most rest he'd had the pleasure of slipping into in far too long, you figured.

By the time you made it home for dinner, your daughter spent a majority of the evening sitting in her father's lap, reading from storybooks she'd created herself, a hobby she picked up sometime after he'd gone away. Her pages were sparse of many words. She mostly drew pictures and made up a new story every time she flipped through the sketches.

Will sat listening with a tired grin and a fond focus on his child. You caught precious glimpses as you made dinner.

After, you put your girl to bed and found Will fast asleep in your favorite claw-footed chair. For a moment, you admired his strong arms and soft hair under the warm light cast from the kitchen behind him. Will was finally home, peacefully draped on the patterned chair he used to call too ugly to be comfortable. The passing thought made you smile. It was your turn to curl into his lap and press a soft kiss to his temple.

Will's eyes fluttered open and peered into yours, silence lingered but it was shared once again.

"Let's go to bed, my love." You decided, gently tugging your husband from the chair and holding his hand down the dark hallway, like little kids on an adventure.

You drew a bath and pulled Will in to join you, worried over nothing but taking care of your man.

While you washed his hair and warmed his skin, you told the story of The Nightingale And The Rose, changing the ending into something grand and romantic. It was your favorite story to tell each other, while you waited for desserts to bake, or watched the rain. Each of you always started telling the story the way it had been written but made a tradition of rewriting the ending, to score a giggle or a smile.

It only seemed natural, now, as Will watched you take care of him, with big blue eyes you'd missed more than words. His eyes were full of all the things you'd missed, and his glance was a language all its own. You'd moved on from winks and nods, a look was all it took.

You followed Will to bed in the quiet cool night. He fell asleep with both strong arms around you and you lied awake to soak it all in.

When you awoke the next you weren't surprised to find the silence that seeped into the nighttime had remained.

It wasn't long before your new day was narrated by your daughter as she lunged into a hug from you and laughed as she danced at your feet through the halls.

When Will finally awoke, he drifted into the kitchen wearing a cautious glance like he'd forgotten his way around the home he helped fix up a few odd summers ago.

"Goodmorning my love." You cooed, stepping away from cooking breakfast to place a gentle hand on the side of his face. His eyes searched yours, full of more than you knew or ever would. You realized there was a world of things he wanted to tell you, but couldn't, or shouldn't, or something. And even though your chest filled with too much emotion to understand, you were just glad he was finally home.

"Breakfast is almost ready." You grinned, hoping he'd have some. You decided then and there that your new mission in life was to do whatever it might have taken to get his flickering smile to stay plastered on.

Will gave the smallest nod but made no move to drift away from you, keeping those big somber eyes locked on yours.

So you pulled him toward the kitchen table where your daughter had already placed dishes in front of chairs. Will sat, watching as you kept a hand on his jaw so you could turn his face for a soft, quick kiss.

You ate breakfast all together listening to your daughter name birds that flew past your window.

After, you cleaned up and packed all the necessities for a picnic, a Sunday tradition. Will helped, handing you items to pack away and offering to carry the basket, all while somehow staying quiet as a mouse.

When you left the house his hand found yours and held on tightly. His face became nearly unreadable as you strolled down the path to the closest park, but he still chuckled when your daughter danced ahead of you, leading the way.

"Remember when we brought her home and were afraid she was too quiet?" You spoke low to Will, who cracked a smile as he watched your girl sing and skip along the path.

"I've missed her made-up songs." Will cooed as you both kept your eye on her. But as your husband spoke of your daughter, he also made the first mention of being away, being anywhere but here with you.

It made your heart flutter but you knew better than to make mention of anything.

"How'd someone with so much to say come from you, Will?" You chuckled. He was always quiet. Will almost couldn't get the words out to ask you on your first date. And the guy was reduced to tears before he could even ask you to marry him. Luckily you knew what the ring between his fingers meant and blabbered enough for the both of you, then.

But now you were wise enough to realize that words weren't always necessary, and that the ones that were would come in time. For now, holding his hand in the warm sun was more than enough.

The park was mostly empty, save for a few rusty swings, a family of birds and a pair of young brothers too preoccupied with fishing to notice anything else. Your daughter spun toward the play area, begging for a push on the swing. You were closest to her, leaving Will to sit among the blanket you'd brought along, staring into a line of blooming trees.

You pushed your daughter until her heels scraped against the dirt. She then hung her head as the swing came to a swaying halt.

"What is it, darling?" You crouched at her feet, struggling to see her face past her windblown hair. When she lifted her head, her bottom lip stuck out into a pout.

"Why doesn't papa like the park anymore?" Her little voice whined.

Your daughter had a very rough understanding of where her father had been for so long. When Will left he explained to the small girl that he had to go away and help some people. But as time passed and the papers and the town gossip kept shouting and weeping over the war, she learned that the big scary word had quite a lot to do with her father. But for all the questions she asked, and all the answers you could think to give, this one stumped you a little.

"You know, I think he's just still very tired. But I know he's most glad to be here." You assured, taking your daughter's hands in your own and giving them a squeeze. You couldn't even fathom what Will was feeling right now, and you weren't sure if you'd given your daughter the answer she was looking for.

You'd heard other mothers and wives explain that their husband's homecoming seemed to happen a day at a time. But right now, each passing minute felt like a lifetime all it's own.

"Will he be here for my birthday?" Your daughter asked, cocking her head and worrying her dad might disappear for years on end again. It almost broke your heart, but you were sure of the answer this time and it was a very good one indeed.

"He's here to stay." You nodded with a smile. You lifted your daughter from the swingset and on to the ground with a giggle. She seemed pleased enough with that answer to skip away from you on a mission to pick wildflowers a few feet away.

You made your way back to Will who sat propped up on one elbow, eyes still lazily focused on the trees on the horizon.

As you started to sit, you also started to worry over what to say. You wanted to ask what was on Will's mind but didn't want to push him, certain he'd say something if he found it important enough. But before you were even halfway to the ground, he took you by surprise, casting his eyes up to your way along with a smile.

"Com'er." Will held out a hand, softly pulling you closer before you even got the chance to agree. It made you laugh, the soft conviction in his voice. You fell to Will's side, happily gazing up at him while he looked out in your daughter's direction.

"Her birthday is next week. She's been asking for a big party." You huffed, looking to the thin golden clouds overhead.

"Whatever she wants, we should do. Right?" Will seemed to remind you of a sentiment you'd coined when she was too small to even make her own decisions.

"But what do you want," You asked through a small laugh. He was back to help make these sort of plans now, and her birthday was only a few short days away. What if Will wasn't ready for all sorts of people packed into you home, with more questions for him than presents for you very spoiled offspring, no doubt.

"I want her to be happy. Let's throw a party!" Will rose a brow like trading a secret, somehow scoring another laugh out of you. That's when your daughter came over, presenting a bouquet of wildflowers to her father. He took them with a quiet thanks and pulled her in to join your pile on the blanket. And somehow, then, it didn't feel like a single day had passed since the last picnic like this one.

Time was skewed, speeding up and slowing down when you least expected it. Some rainy days, breakfasts were filled with song, and rides to town were grand adventures. Other days when the weather was perfect and his favorite record played, Will sat with those big sad eyes focused on the wall.

Still, every night ended with him all wrapped around you while your breathing matched up and you fell asleep until it was time for another day.

And when your daughters big day rolled around, and all your desserts were baked, and a few paper streamers hung from bookcases, you couldn't tell how Will was feeling. So you went about your routine as normal as possible and said a quick prayer as family members came flooding through your front door and into the back garden.

You'd kept a steady eye on Will, unable to read his big baby blues. He kept his eye on you, too, while aunts and uncles pulled him into uncomfortable hugs.

You heard bits of their silly questions, like what was it like and aren't you glad it's all over?

When your daughter challenged her cousins to a game of hide and seek, Will was the first to disappear. After making sure your guests had fresh tea and were lost enough in their own conversations, you went to find your husband.

He'd found quiet in the upstairs library. Which was just the attic decorated with a rug and a bookshelf, and his silhouette sat on the bench in the window frame. His big blue eyes rested below a furrowed brow and you knew as you shut the door behind you, that it was time to ask what you'd been wanting too.

"Will, are you alrigh-"

Before you could even finish your whisper, Will sucked in a sharp breath and turned to face you in tears.

"I don't know," Will spoke with the smallest shake of his head. You took cautious steps toward him as he went on, "I don't... know what I'm feeling. I don't even know how I should be feeling or what to do. I don't have answers for anyone, even after all that. After everything, I don't have any answers and I'm so sorry."

You were sitting in front of him by the end of what was on his mind, reaching out to pull him closer to you. Will latched onto you, burying his face in your neck and letting himself cry. You petted back his hair as he struggled to catch his breath.

"You don't need answers, Will, my love. " You cooed, holding him as he wept. "You don't have to say anything to anyone for any reason. But I do hope you know you can tell me anything, whether you think you should be sayin' it or not."

A few stray tears of your own fell as Will started to settle down. But you sat there on the bench in the dusty window, holding each other for what felt like forever. Even if it wasn't that long, you were glad time seemed to be on your side again.

"Better go throw a party, huh?" Will gave a watery chuckle as you reached out to wipe his tears and fix his shirt collar. You gave him a silent smile as he seemed to have something more to say.

"I do know one thing," Will nodded, taking one of your hands away from fiddling with his shirt buttons. "And it's that I'm glad to be back here with so much to celebrate."

Will kissed your knuckles and melted your heart. After a moment longer of pulling yourselves together, you walked back downstairs hand in hand. You proceeded to throw a party, passing out cake to grandmas and grandpas. Your daughter made sure to keep everyone entertained with dance routines to old records and stories she'd make up on her own (a trait you were glad to know she'd inherited.)

You watched Will help your daughter unwrap parcels, and giggled when she smeared a bit of frosting on his cheek in the middle of singing happy birthday. Spirits were high, and the weather was nice, and everyone was glad to be together.

But the night came and the guests trickled out the way they came, and quiet settled once again, unlike any time before it.

Will opted to put your daughter to bed that evening, as you crawled under your own covers. Your bedroom was full of dark blue moonlight, and the door had been left open enough to hear your husband tucking your daughter in. Their voices were distant but close enough for you to hear your girl ask for a story.

You sat up a little, totally enchanted by normal everyday life, and how it now seemed all too much like a fairytale dream you'd been wishing for.

"What's your favorite story, papa?" Your daughter's tiny voice asked. After a pause, you were able to hear her father answer.

"It's a sad story."

"Why would your favorite be sad?"

"Because your mum and I always tell it and try and find ways to make it much happier. You do the same thing, don't you, with those storybooks of yours."

Your daughter's giggle was faint, but you swore you could hear Will smile. There was another beat of quiet before you heard your husband's hushed low tone...

"Sometimes sad things happen. And we can't stop them or change them. But we can always decide what happens next, can't we? We can always make things happy again."

"Like how you went away but you're back now? That's very happy."

"Just like that."

You held back from sniveling, not wanting them to know you'd been listening in. Will wished his daughter goodnight and it wasn't long before you heard her bedroom door creak to a close.

Your husband appeared in the doorway, his big blue eyes bright and inviting in the moonlight, but it wasn't long before they were closed at your side.

Will had been home for a week now, but it felt more like a lifetime.

───※ ·❆· ※───

#george mackay #george mackay x reader #george mackay fanfic #george mackay imagine #william schofield #1917

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arwenofrph · 3 years

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hihi !! i know i’m really knew to the rph / rpt scene but i was really hoping to maybe get some input on which plot to do ?? they’re described under the cut and you can find the poll RIGHT HERE !! tw: the following plots briefly discuss the subject of murder and death as well as the mention of blood

plot a : loosely based on the red queen series and the everless series

ever since the beginning, children have gone missing. It didn't matter if you locked your doors at night, or kept watch as your daughters slept; some way, somehow, they'd disappear. In time, it became a way of life. When your child was stolen, you blamed it on one of those creatures from your grandmother's old stories. You cried, you mourned, and you moved on. There was no time for anything more. And they, the noble Blue Bloods in their towering castles and pretty clothes, turned a blind eye to the misery that plagued their people simply because it was never their children missing. After all, what's a simple peasant girl's life worth? They ignored whispers that it was the Enchantress stealing away the children to drain the girls of their time and beauty to keep herself young and immortal. But that was only a nightmare, a scary story to keep your little ones in bed. The Enchantress didn't exist, never did. The deaths were simply the result of bleeders, preying on the vulnerable, easy targets. That was, until now. Five months ago, Elara Ululo disappeared from her room in Espea. Two months later, Maren Sansano from Doissa vanished during a ride with her guards. And if that wasn't worrying enough━ three weeks ago, Allynna Demito of Celygus went missing while her own brother was keeping watch in her chambers. Fear had finally managed to settle within the Nobles; tormenting them with the very idea that whatever this thing was that had been tormenting the poor, unsightly villages might even consider taking one of them. Will you survive in Dolos, and discover the secret behind the kidnappings? Will you be one of the lucky ones; and keep your time and blood long enough to grow old? Or will you fall victim to the darkness that plagues the lands and watch your time run out? There's only one way to find out.

plot b : an element - inspired plot drawing from original canon

The country of Silvera is separated into five kingdoms. To the East, lay the airbenders and the Kingdom of Wista; ruled over by the noble Joralei. To the West, is the kingdom of Meririwen where the waterbenders live. The North is the home of the earthbenders in the kingdom of Brerith, while the South is home to Calere where the firebenders live. And at the very center of Silvera, lay the home of the spiritbenders: Setta. Since the beginning of Silvera's creation, the five kingdoms have been at peace. Working together to ensure that all of their country flourished. They even arranged marriages between their ruling families. But all that changed when the heir to Calere, Prince Tarron Magdithas, was found slaughtered in his bedroom a mere month before he was meant to wed Neia Helenen of Meririwen. The window was found open. Broken glass was found around his lifeless body, and dirt at the foot of his bed. King Aubron Magdithas, who's mental state was already fractured, completely shattered and he blamed all the other kingdoms for the death of his favorite child. He's declared war on the rest of Silvera and will not rest until those he blames responsible are but a pile of ash and Silvera is nothing more.

plot c : loosely inspired by ever after high , the children of the storybook heroes and villains must attend school together but murder and secrets threaten the peace attempted to be made

In the beginning, there were two warring countries: Atria and Tamion. They were separated by a treacherous mountain range over two thousand miles long, save a single pass no bigger than ten feet wide. It was a road very few dared to travel, and those that did; disappeared.

Tamion lay to the left of the mountain. A dark and dreary place where the wicked and proclaimed-villains were forced to live. The sun rarely shone, the lands were barren, and what little did grow was bitter and never enough. Smiles and happiness were foreign there, and as their magic could not work; they were forced to live in squalor. It was a well-known fact that anyone in Tamion was a monster of the most devious kind. You were never supposed to trust anyone from there, and if you were unfortunate enough to meet one, it might be the last thing you do.

To the right of the mountains lay the beautiful Atria. A bright, wonderful place by the sea where all the fairytale heroes lived out their happily-ever-after. Things were storybook perfect there, with bountiful harvests, balls nearly every weekend and not a care in the world. Thoughts rarely strayed to their neighbors to the east, and if they did, it was met with a chill and terror. Unlike their neighbors, no one ever got sick, went hungry, or longed for anything. If anyone from Atria showed up on your doorstep, you could breathe a sigh of relief for no one from there could be anything but kind and lovely.

The two countries went on with great unease for many years; each deciding to leave the other alone and do their best to forget.

Then the sickness came. In less than a day, the fields in Atrion withered to dust. Within a month, their people had gone through the stores and were starving. Their closest trading partner would takes weeks to send assistance, and even what they could send wouldn’t be enough. The greatest minds came together, wizards and godmothers and fairies from all over Atrion tried their best, attempted to come up with any cure to the sickness that plagued their land to no avail.

They were lost. Until the Snow Queen spoke up with a dreadful suggestion. A Queen from Tamion known as Grimhilde, had a known proclivity for potions, curses, and poisons. She could provide an answer, and maybe even a curse, from the terrible infection that was one the verge of obliterating their kingdom.

Very few supported her proposed plan, saying that if anyone from Tamion knew just how weak Atria was, they could attack and win. But still the Snow Queen insisted, reminding their council that they could either keep their pride and cost their citizens their lives, or they could be the rulers their people thought they were, and ask for help. Even if it was from Tamion.

Lengthy discussions were had, plans drawn and ignored, before finally they all relented and their five most powerful, skilled rulers embarked on the journey to Tamion.

It took almost two weeks of meetings with Grimhilde to even consider helping Atria, for her hatred for the little princess who banished her and stole away the kingdom that was rightfully hers, had grown with every passing year. Yet eventually, with the promise of making things right by all those in Tamion, she consented to lend her skills.

But only for a price. Grimhilde wanted a chance at a fair life for her unborn babe; that none of Grimhilde’s sins would counted against the child. Or any of the children born in Tamion, for they were innocent of their parent’s misdeeds.

That night several deals were struck. Atrion would allow for Tamion to be one of their trading partners, and allow for a section of the mountain range to be removed so that they could reach the sea and sun themselves. Tamion would pledge to never engage in war with Atria, and come to their aid should they ever be in need. In addition, a place would built for both the children of Tamion and Atria, where they would all receive and equal education and then decide where they wished to live.

But perhaps the most important part, was the one Grimhilde arranged to ensure that Atria kept their end of their bargain. Eight children, each a child from the rulers of Atria, no matter if they were already born, was to marry a child from a ruler in Tamion. An attempt at peace, hoping that one day the two countries may become one and return them to true power.

They accepted, but only on the condition that the children were not to learn of their betrothals until they left T’Atria. Satisfied, Grimhilde provided a solution the next day, and within a week, Atria returned to its flourishing state.

As promised, they began construction on the promised school with help from both sides. It was built on top of the mountain range, ensuring that it was truly neutral and fell under neither’s reign. Named T’Atria, it was the most beautiful creation either country had ever seen and the children couldn’t wait to attend.

It was all anyone could talk about, and finally, it opened and it was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Barriers broken, no one seemed to care about who came from where or who’s parents did what. They went off exploring and meeting each other, claiming others as friends and taking them with them as they took in everything T’Atria had in store.

For an entire season, it was nothing but excitement. A new adventure awaiting them every day.

But as anyone from Tamion could have told you, nothing good lasts forever.

Princess Rose of Escarla was the first to discover the gruesome sight the morning after the winter solstice, her screams so loud they woke everyone in the school. At the base of the main staircase lay Princess Aoife of Llyr; her body so badly beaten it was near impossible to identify her at first. And if that wasn’t horrifying enough, a message was written on the wall behind her in her blood; warning that this was only the beginning.

It’s been a week since her body was found, and the students are trying their best to move on. There’s too much as stake for them to just return home, too much risk.

But the threat of this murderer still being out there looms of the them, dark as the sky of Tamion. Will this mystery killer claim another victim? Will war break out when their parents learn of this treachery? What could have brought this on?

Join us, and find out exactly what happens after, happily ever after.

#rph #rpt #medieval rp #period rp #rpc #i want to do all of these eventually #but i want to know which one sounds more exciting tbh #and hopefully get some help running them to #because these do not seem like easy ones to run #artemis speaks #tw blood #tw death #tw murder

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aboutcaseyaffleck · 3 years

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Actor Casey Affleck Reflects On The Past And 'The World To Come'

The last time I saw Casey Affleck was after an 8:30 a.m. Sundance Film Festival screening of “Manchester by the Sea,” which left my colleagues and I so emotionally drained we were pretty much useless for the rest of the day. Affleck finds this very funny. “Oh man, that’s awesome,” he laughs. “That was a tough screening. At Sundance I’m usually just going to sleep at 8 a.m.” We’re talking on the phone a few days after the festival’s virtual premiere of his latest movie, “The World to Come,” which made its Sundance debut last month under very different circumstances. “It’s so strange doing these things sitting in front of your computer,” he sighs.

Directed by Mona Fastvold, “The World to Come” is a powerful period piece about a forbidden love affair between pioneer women played by Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby, set in upstate New York during the early months of 1856. Affleck produced the picture, in which he plays a supporting role as Waterston’s uncomprehending husband, and he did his best to soldier through a crowded Zoom Q&A after the Sundance screening, with results pleasant enough, but nonetheless missing that in-person festival magic. “I used to love going to film festivals and talking to journalists and seeing all the movies and talking to other filmmakers,” he laments. “Sitting here alone in a little office in my house is such a drag. But it was nice to know that the movie was getting seen, at least.”

While big brother Ben plays Batman in studio pictures, Casey has exhibited a restless independent streak ever since he was a student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. (Our ninth-grade classes competed against each other in the Mass. High School Drama Guild Competition. His won, perhaps unsurprisingly.) A longtime friend of the Brattle Theatre and former creative advisor for the Independent Film Festival Boston, the younger Affleck has always seemed more at home in indies. Not a lot of actors would follow an Oscar-winning role in “Manchester by the Sea” with a microbudget art film like “A Ghost Story.” But then his internalized, minimalist acting style is often at odds with the concerns of contemporary blockbusters. There’s a weird dissonance watching something like Disney’s hokey Chatham sea adventure “The Finest Hours,” with Affleck going full Montgomery Clift while surrounded by CGI silliness.

“The World to Come” is the most ambitious project yet from Affleck’s Sea Change Media, which partnered with Pamela Koffler and Christine Vachon’s legendary NYC indie institution Killer Films for the arduous production that began with a conversation between Affleck and novelist Ron Hansen nearly a decade ago. “When I did ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’ I got to know Ron Hansen, just because I loved the book so much. Ron has a very unique talent for writing 19th century language. He’s just from another era. I asked him if he had something he wanted to work on together, and I thought he would send me one of his things. Instead, he sent me this story by Jim Shepard. It was beautiful. I said, why don’t you and Jim write the script? And they took about six years, but it came together beautifully. Good things come to those who wait, I guess.”

The film eventually shot in Romania with a break built into the schedule to accommodate the changing seasons that are so crucial to the movie’s rugged, outdoor textures. “We were way out in Transylvania, out in the mountains,” Affleck explains. “We were just in some valley and they built a couple of farmhouses. I like being far away in a new place. It makes you feel outside of your life. And I love working in weather. There are so many aspects of moviemaking that are artificial, but when there’s extreme weather, it’s real. I did this Disney movie about a boat rescue, and it was, like, December in friggin’ Quincy and they were just soaking us with water every single take. There’s not a lot that you have to quote-unquote act. You’re just standing there, teeth-chattering, shivering, just being.” This reminds me of the scene in “Manchester” when he and Lucas Hedges have an argument walking in the blistering cold and can’t remember where they parked. “I forgot about that one,” he laughs.

I’d never say so on the phone, but I consider Affleck’s performance as Lee Chandler in “Manchester by the Sea” among the finest I’ve seen in my 22 years of reviewing films, worthy of discussion alongside Brando’s Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront” in its aching, inchoate longing. Lee holds his grief somewhere very private and dear, as if to begin to forgive himself would be an act of betrayal. The movie nails a gruff, emotional constipation popular among men of a certain stripe, especially in New England. (My mother offered my favorite review of the film: “Why don’t they just talk to each other? Jesus, this is like watching you and your father.”) Words don’t come easily to most of Affleck’s movie characters, but he chafes at the description of them as inarticulate. “It’s funny, I find the characters in ‘Manchester’ to be sometimes very articulate,” he argues. “There’s misunderstandings, but they end up communicating what’s inside.”

“The World to Come” is rife with such mixed signals and miscommunications, about which co-star Katherine Waterston raved during the Zoom Q&A after the Sundance screening. “It was so much fun to play the scenes with Casey,” she said. “A lot of these scenes are written as dances, where somebody tries to reach out and engage and they’re misunderstood. Inarticulacy is a very interesting thing to see in film. The failed attempts. Failed communications. It’s actually fun to play those things. You don’t know what the other person’s going to throw at you. It keeps it really alive on set. Mona and I felt if we had the money we could have kept shooting this thing for months, because the scenes were so much fun to explore.”

Affleck agrees. “When Katherine’s character writes in her journal or she starts talking to Vanessa, they have this beautiful, expressive way of speaking to each other,” he enthuses, whereas his character “says what he’s gotta say in as few words as possible. He’s very brusque and curt, which I enjoyed. The way that he talks is the communication equivalent when he gives her a birthday gift of sardines and a tin of raisins.”

Indeed, her increasingly florid diary entries — originally intended as a ledger to keep track of the farm’s monthly expenses — become the heartbeat of the film, providing an emotional release otherwise suppressed by the rigid formality of the era and the ugly drudgery of day-to-day farm life. “The World to Come” is ultimately a movie about the need to share our stories, and how through telling them we make sense of ourselves. As producer Koffler explains in the press notes, “Part of the film’s vision is to dramatize a very basic human impulse: to create, to connect, to say ‘I was here, and I mattered.’”

This has become a recurring theme in Affleck’s recent work. In 2019, he wrote, directed and starred in “Light of My Life,” a little-seen but strikingly tense post-apocalyptic road movie about a father and daughter hiding out in the wilderness after a pandemic has wiped out most of the women in the world. The film begins with Affleck telling the little girl a bedtime story that runs almost 13 minutes and sneakily sets up the movie’s major themes. Then in last month’s well-acted but regrettably soggy “Our Friend,” he starred as real-life journalist Matthew Teague, whose soul-baring Esquire story about his wife’s struggle with cancer became a national phenomenon.

“Matt Teague wrote that article and then wanted it made into a movie as his way of processing everything that had happened,” the actor elaborates. “You transform pain into other things as you go through life. That was all him working through it. I like stories about storytellers and I like stories within stories. Obviously, I wrote and directed a movie that starts with a 12-minute bedtime story. I love that. I know that other people don’t love it as much as I do, so I have to be careful about it.”

That kind of love led to last summer’s “Stories From Tomorrow,” a project initiated during lockdown by Affleck and his schoolteacher mom Christine, encouraging children to send in poems and short stories to be read on social media by celebrities like Matt Damon and Jon Hamm, as well as his “The World to Come” co-stars Waterston and Kirby. “That was something I started out at the very beginning of the quarantine as a small project to encourage kids to write creatively, because I know it can be a great way of processing anxiety and working through feelings that you aren’t really talking about or aren’t aware that you’re having. It wasn’t something I thought would go on forever; once the kids are back in school that ought to be where they should be doing all that kind of work. But while they were sitting at home, I thought it would be a good way to get their attention off the awful news and into something more imaginative. And I also got a chance to read all these super-cool stories! Really creative stuff that kids sent from all around the world.”

Finally, as a Boston publication it would be dereliction of duty not to mention the hysterical Dunkin Donuts commercial parody from when Affleck hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 2016, so dead-on in its depiction of a local 'regulah customah' that on one of my critics’ poll ballots that year I tried to nominate the sketch for Best Documentary. Alas, the performer shoots down a pet theory I’ve been hanging onto ever since, that the dirtbag Boston guy in the Bruins hat is secretly a grown-up version of Affleck’s scene stealing, bug-swallowing Morgan from “Good Will Hunting.”

“I hadn’t thought about that, dude. That’s really funny. It never crossed my mind." He pauses before confiding, "I wasn’t that great on SNL… I just wasn’t all that funny on the skits, because it’s live and you’re reading the cue cards and it was my first time. But when we went to make that little pre-recorded short film of the Dunkin’ Donuts ad, I really felt like that was my wheelhouse there. I could’ve played that character in a movie. I could have gone to work and played him every single day, and I would have had a blast. That was really fun to do. I would love to do another one of those. That would be funny to see that character again.”

I bet that guy’s got some stories.

“The World To Come” is now in theaters and will be available via video on demand Tuesday, March 2.

[source]

#casey affleck #the world to come #quote #photo #movies

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ohshcscenerios · 4 years

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Find Me

Chapter Sixteen - Choose Your Own Adventure

Previous Poll Result: Answer the phone

Kyoya listened to his cell phone ring once more before deciding to answer. He usually didn’t pay mind to unknown callers, considering telemarketers ran rampant in Japan, but at this point he couldn’t risk turning away from anything that could potentially help him find Haruhi.

He flipped it open while holding up a finger for Tachibana to see, silently asking him to wait a few more minutes. His bodyguard nodded and went to wait in the car.

“Kyoya speaking.” He greeted coolly.

“Kyoya! Help me please! Help me-”

He nearly dropped his cellphone as he froze in shock. There was no mistaking the frantic feminine voice calling out his name. She sounded far away, as if the phone was held at a distance, but he could clearly hear her.

She’s alive.

He cupped his phone’s receiver and walked toward a far wall away from the front entrance, “Haruhi, I’m here. It’s okay I hear you.”

“I’m so scared.” Haruhi whimpered. Her quivering voice was drenched in tears and heaving breaths. He could practically imagine her breaking down in front of him. He could hear every sob, every thick swallow, every breath. She was terrified - no, beyond terrified. Her shaky voice and inconsistent whimpers gave him a hint as to how she’s been treated.

What had they done to her?

“Listen, I’m going to find you. Stay calm and do as they say. I will find you Haruhi.” He kept his voice low and stern, hoping it would help calm her down. He needed to sound sure of himself so he could offer her hope. He needed to sound in control and confident.

He didn’t have much time. Whoever called him wasn’t Haruhi, that was made apparent in how distant she sounded. Whoever held the phone most likely sat across the room from her, probably enjoying themselves as they watched her desperately cry for help.

The very thought of those sick bastards watching his Haruhi cry in fear forced a nauseating wave of anger to wrack through his body.

He squeezed his eyes shut as he prepared to ask a difficult question, but one he needed to know, “Did they hurt you? Are you hurt Haruhi?” He dreaded hearing her sweet trembling voice speak of the evils inflicted on her. He couldn’t bear to know someone laid a finger on his love but at the same time he had to know.

“Don’t worry, we’re taking good care of her.” An unfamiliar deep masculine voice answered in her stead. He sounded to be the one holding the phone.

In the background he could faintly hear Haruhi kicking against gritty concrete with her sneakers as another man grunted while he gagged her. Her pitched voice echoed in what sounded like a large concrete room, possibly a basement or an underground garage, as her voice was silenced.

“Why did you take Haruhi?” Kyoya asked, his voice rising with anger, “What do you want from her?”

No one answered him. They wanted him to hear his fiance struggle against her kidnappers as they dragged her away. They wanted her frantic fear to be the last thing he heard of her.

“Answer me damnit! What do you want?” Kyoya yelled into his cellphone, not caring about the unwanted attention he attracted from the few people standing by the front desk.

A deep sinister chuckle filled his ear, “What do we want? Why, for things to return as they were.”

“If you mean that then return Haruhi to me.” Kyoya growled, not fully understanding what the man was saying. He didn’t want to be toyed with. He didn’t have the time or the mental control to dissect a riddle. Right now he seethed in anger, silently begging to wring the bastards’ necks, and couldn’t be bothered with their nonsense.

He didn’t want to sound desperate but he was desperate, “If it’s money you want, I’ll write you a blank check today.”

Another rumbling chuckle, “We don’t care about money. We want things to return as they were, before they were stained and morphed by the insects of society. Japan used to be so wonderful, so powerful, but now its infested with undesirables, tainted by their impurities.”

“Listen, I don’t understand what the fuck you’re talking about but if you release Haruhi today I’ll promise you a life sentence instead of lethal injection.” Kyoya quietly took a few deep breaths to compose himself again.

“We won’t stop until we’ve returned order.” The voice said darkly and ended the call.

“No!” Kyoya yelled into the phone, gripping it tight in his clutch, “Damnit! Damnit!”

He felt so conflicted, so confused. He heard Haruhi’s voice, heard her alive and somewhat well, which provided him a breath of relief. Hearing her voice, although she was terrified, was the most reassuring thing he’s heard so far. He hated hearing her so scared but he would soon rescue her.

And yet, he wasn’t closer to understanding her kidnapper’s motives or how he could appease them. They didn’t want money. They didn’t want political favors. He already reduced they weren’t normal criminals, they were more experienced and more organized, but their desire to restore order didn’t make sense.

Japan was a fine thriving country, there was nothing needing restoration.

He needed to get out of here. He needed to leave. He had already made a spectacle of himself. He needed to take whatever pride and strength he could muster and leave with his head high.

Although he had lost his appetite he was still keen on meeting the twins for lunch. He needed to speak to someone about the phone call and deliver the wonderful news that their Haruhi was still alive.

For now.

Kyoya arrived at the Ootori private gardens where they agreed to meet. Here they would have the privacy they needed and security detail, just in case. He had Tachibana call the kitchen staff ahead of time, asking for them to prepare something light. Kyoya had a feeling they wouldn’t be able to stomach anything heartier than a bowl of soup.

He found Hikaru waiting for him beneath a white gazebo near the front entrance and beside the walking trail. Strangely, he was alone.

“Hey Kyoya,” Hikaru greeted with a small wave while Kyoya walked up the asphalt trail. Confusion fell over Hikaru as he tried to look behind Kyoya and through the car windows, “Where’s Kaoru? He said he was with you.”

Kyoya stopped and briefly scanned behind him, “No, I assumed he was arriving with you.”

Hikaru’s face fell. He pulled out his cellphone and quickly pulled up a text message chat between him and his brother. “He texted me a few minutes ago. He said you picked him up.”

Kyoya’s eyes widened, regretfully realizing why he received that phone call earlier. Yes they wanted to taunt him but that wasn’t the only reason. They toyed with him because they were trying to distract him. They wanted to delay him.

“Where’s Kaoru...” Hikaru repeated quietly. The fear in his voice suggested he might already know...

What should the hosts do? (Click to Vote)

Woops, it might have been better to leave Kaoru in jail...

#ouran high school host club #ohshc #find me #choose your own adventure #Kyoya Ootori #haruhi fujioka #hikaru hitachiin #kaoru hitachiin #takashi morinozuka #mitsukuni haninozuka #tamaki suoh #vote #poll

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beneaththetangles · 4 years

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10 Year Retrospective, Month #5: Throwback to May 2014

As we celebrate our tenth anniversary on Beneath the Tangles, we want to take some time each month to look into the past, not only to commemorate our ten years, but also to see where we were and how far we’ve come as a site and collectively as anime fans. For most months this year, we’ll do that by looking back at a particular year and at the month corresponding to that year. For instance, we started this off by looking at January 2010. Today we throw back to May 2014.

TOP OF THE CHARTS: MAY 21, 2014

We’ll dive into anime a bit, but I want to us to look at what else was happening at this time in 2014. Here are the most popular songs, movies, and series on this day or during this week six years ago.

Top Selling Album: Frozen, Soundtrack Number One Song: “All of Me,” John Legend Top Movie: Godzilla ($93.2 mil) Most Watched TV Show: The Big Bang Theory

CURRENT EVENTS: MAY 2014

youtube

Here’s what was happening in the world eight years ago this month…

Demonstrations are held across the world for the recovery of 280 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.

More than 2,000 are killed in a mudslide in Afghanistan.

Fighting escalates and a presidential election is held in Ukraine.

Narendra Modi becomes the 15th prime minister of India.

“Gangnam Style” reaches 2 billion views on YouTube.

POPULAR ANIME in 2014

Six years. It seems that this might be the line of demarcation, the divide between “old anime” and “anime the younger generation still watches and appreciates.” At least that’s the sense I get from endless hours posting and looking through social media. Series that should have slid further into oblivion remain in vogue, like Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun, Ao Haru Ride, Noragami, Love, Chuunibyou, and Other Delusions, No Game No Life, and Parasyte. As I get older, it’s hard to really keep track of the differences between years, but I feel like it’s practically twice as likely that someone in their teens to early twenties will have seen one of these series than a random one from a year or two before.

The year also provided some of biggest hits of recent years, like Free (the last series that was an Internet sensation before it aired?), Seven Deadly Sins, Your Lie in April (recently covered by the TangleCast), Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Haikyuu!! (which by the way narrowly defeated Violet Evergarden in our Caitin Glass Review and Watch poll). Some of the most well-reviewed (or at least well-covered) shows of the year also included Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works, Yona of the Dawn, Terror in Resonance, and Shirobako (the next series our podcast is covering—a little info drop for those who are reading!). These series stand out so well to me because I was knee deep in Tumblr at the time, the so many fans were clamoring about them. It really made these series stand out, whether or not they truly deserved the attention.

WHAT WE WERE BLOGGING

At the end of our last article in this series, I hinted at how I would leave the blog. But although burnout was coming, I wasn’t there yet, and most probably because 2014 was a really good year for Beneath the Tangles, especially the first half. During that time, leading into the summer, Beneath the Tangles was exactly how I hoped it would be. I slowed down my output because our writers were doing so much. It really felt like a partnership, a group of about eight of us who were writing regularly, including Lynna who started to do some episodic posting; Kaze, whose pieces were always far different from anyone else’s; Goldy, who was so skilled with her words and knee deep in convention and Christian otaku life; Hansha, who covered a variety of series but espoused the grace that could be found especially in shoujo shows; Zeroe4, who became a Swiss army knife of sorts for the blog until he departed for greener pastures; Emma, who came on as our webmaster but also helped out with social media and writing, too; and Japes, whose Anime Today column was as a strong any we’ve ever had on the blog. Speaking of Japes, it was in 2015 that he started The Tangles podcast, which he would later retool as the TangleCast—unfortunately, those early recordings have become lost.

It’s strange for me to see what I wrote during that year. I’ve written so many posts now that I’ve forgotten, maybe, what a majority of them were about. It’s weird to see my spending so much time writing about series that I was meh about, like Golden Time or Nisekoi or Blue Spring Ride, the last of which I mused for almost every episode during season one. Looking back, doing episodic looks was a bad idea, one that helped speed along my burn out. In fact, browsing through those posts is like taking a mile high view at my blogging life. Ah…I see what was happening there! It’s too bad that I couldn’t or refused to take that kind of look at the time. Writing about each episode of Terror in Resonance was fun, but it was also challenging and, again, not the best idea.

Taking this viewpoint also helps me see how I was trying to spread my wings. An article I sold to Christianity Today was posted on our site that year. I haven’t revealed that name before, but I worked closely with one of their editors at the time who encouraged me greatly with an article that would be almost an introduction to anime for that site’s audiences. It was accepted, I was paid, and then I waited. When it wasn’t published, I checked back and found that my editor had left; the new one wasn’t as interested in anime and rejected the article. I proposed another one about Miyazaki, also rejected, and also later posted on this site. The weird timing on the first one was especially painful to me, as I thought that would help launch Beneath the Tangles to a higher plane among Christian readers. It was hard to absorb having gotten my work where I wanted it, and then seeing it fall away.

A lot of times, life can be see as these series of “what might have beens.” In retrospect, I wouldn’t have been ready for the attention that posting on Christianity Today might have brought, nor was I strong enough of a writer to continue to put out work equivalent to that I prepared for the magazine. God, after all, does seem to know best.

I hope enjoyed this look into the recent past, both on a bigger, societal level and at Beneath the Tangles. We’ll keep up this throughout 2020. Read the other posts in this yearlong series.

#Anime #20 20 in 2020 #10 Year Retrospective #2014 #Beneath the Tangles #Flashback Friday #Articles #Author: TWWK

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lorewytch · 5 years

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The Magic of Tears

This will get slapped with a big huge SPOILER ALERT! To all who haven’t watched Nightmare on Killmotor Hill in the DT fandom. I think this is my new favorite of the new episodes that have come out so far. Now this may change later and I’ll explain why in just a bit. Can I first just say how much I love these kids? XD Lena especially was so awesome. She is trying so hard to fit in with Webby and the gang here. The first part with the cake and song was just adorable. It totally reminds me of something I’d do too. The fact that Webby was brought to tears and clapped to made me go “AWWWWWW” Now I had been wanting to see a ep where all the kids went on a adventure together and was so happy we got one! I was really invested in seeing the dynamics between the group as they play off each others strengths and weaknesses. I defiantly got to see that! Most of my favorite lines came from Huey and Dewey this time around from Huey commenting in Dewey’s dream. “I have some theories.” (This made me and my mom both burst out laughing for a few minutes) to Dewey’s whole thing with the high school and over exaggerating Huey’s choice to have two telephone polls as legs. “HUEY WHY!” Pfffttttt. I’ve seen dream sequences done before in the past in animation and frankly most of them seem to focus on the same stuff. But Ducktales really got into it. I liked a lot what they did with the dream world. Some of my favorite parts were when Lena ventured into her nightmares and Magica was waiting in a sort of ominous and deadly monster kind of way. I’m pretty sure I got slight chills at the Dewey mascot as it fizzled in and out, getting closer to Lena in the hallway. My other favorite part was when Lena touched the bookshelf and it literally changed from History to HORROR. The way it switched was so cool and I could easily see that happening in dreams like that. The Ducktales crew has always been amazing when it comes to showing a real look into dreams. Prime example was the dream Glomgold had earlier in season 2. There were parts of it that were funny, parts that were unsettling....and I got the same vibe here.

The kids were having a blast, but Lena was always side stepping Magica, in a sense running from this problem that had been affecting her so strongly. She feels her link to Magica deeply and that fear of turning against her friends, turning against Webby was serious. When she and Magica were talking, she vehemently denied being like her. Magica though had a hook in her though. That doubt was something Magica could use to get what she wanted. It was a true test for poor Lena, who had already been through so much. Lena is strong because she has to be. She didn’t have the luxury to do normal things kids did. Which is a big reason why she and Webby connect so well! Both Webby and Lena had unique upbringings different than how the triplets were brought up. Webby was kept locked away in a mansion with no contact with the outside world. Lena was forced to be Magica’s stooge and traveled around the world to find ways to get the dime from Scrooge. Sure Lena had more time in the outside world. But she never had friends before. Much like Webby didn’t have friends before meeting the triplets. Webby gets that Lena is struggling and tries to assure her it will be okay. I also especially loved the scene right before they fall asleep. Webby tells Lena she used to be afraid of the dark until she put up the stars on her ceiling. It shows that Webby has normal fears. A lot of times everyone really thinks Webby is some of superhero of sorts. Girls got skills, brains, kindness and charm. But she’s really just a kid who is growing up like the others. She has insecurities like the others. She just hides them better. It was interesting to see both Huey and Dewey’s insecurities so open in their dream worlds too. Deweys thing with him crying on that crescent moon was both heartbreaking and kind of amusing in just the nonchalant way they handled that whole scene. Poor boy though. He really should talk to someone about that ;_; Huey and his whole thing with being taller was part amusing and part terrifying. If I had more brain cells tonight I could delve deeper into his insecurities but right now all I can handle is Webby and Lena. There were a lot of things I loved about this episode. But the ending where they were trying to save Lena from Magica was so cool! Not only did we have a moment with Lena and Webby....Webby letting Lena know that Lena was “good enough” and she only had to be herself and that she wasn’t Magica no matter what that stupid shadow lady said. Then Magica trying to drag Lena into the mirror. The music on that scene was so on point too! I was completely enthralled by the music in that moment. It got so tense at a time and watching Lena’s hand slipping from Webby’s made my breath hitch. But those tears. Webby saw her grasp on Lena slipping, she was getting desperate and seeing Webby cry openly like that. Afraid she was going to lose her friend. It really does show how close they are. The magic that saved the day came from Webby’s friendship bracelet, which seemed to be a common theme. That bracelet has protected Webby against Magica, brought Lena back and now saved Lena again. I just wonder how long the magic will last? I’m thinking Webby’s bracelet is a totem of sorts or a object that holds a certain amount of magical power she got from Lena during the money shark incident. Also the fact the boys and Violet also glowed meant that the power also flowed through them too. They were channeling all their power to pull Lena out. But it wasn’t enough. Magica was too strong. Until Webby’s tears caused a domino affect of sorts. Because Lena is linked to Magica, when she began to glow from the magic....it made sense that it hit Magica like a slap in the face. LOL. It was enough to wake them all up anyways. Either way I think I totally over-analyzed the heck out of this pfftttt.. I love the over all messages with the Ducktales episodes. That’s what really my favorite part is. It isn’t afraid to touch some subjects that most cartoons would shy away from. I love cartoons like these, I wish I had more of them honestly when I was a kid. I struggled with a lot of these problems. As I’m sure we all have. The reason I associate strongly with Webby is because.. like her I was very awkward making friends. That whole scene with her and Lena meeting? Yeah I’m Webby. I’m so Webby... But more than often my insecurity caused me to clam up and I stayed silent through High school and a part of College. I was lonely like her and couldn’t figure out how to talk to people normally. These things I feel like are important for kids to learn because they won’t feel so alone and lost. And Ducktales always delivers on handling these life lessons in the best way possible. Lena confronting Magica at the end, saying that she didn’t need Magica anymore. That’s overcoming trauma. Now Rome wasn’t built in a day and I’m sure Lena has some more issues to work out, but now that she has Webby and the others I believe she will become everything Magica isn’t. Now.... I’m gonna watch the next episode and learn Webby’s secret!!!!

#Spoiler ALERT #Ducktales #Nightmare on Killmotor Hill

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ocean-in-my-rebel-soul · 5 years

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Mutual Pining [4/?]

March’s monthly story, as voted on in my Patreon poll. Posted late due to health complications last month.

Check out my Patreon and consider joining my private Discord server to hang out!

Title: Mutual Pining Relationships: Templar!Carver Hawke/Merrill Rating: E for eventual smut (will be marked) Summary: A week of shore-leave turned into an impromptu camping trip with Merrill, and Carver made the mistake of not checking when Isabela and his sibling helped pack the bags. It had all the essentials, Bela swore, except for one thing:

It only had one tent.

Notes: set somewhere in Act 2, and Carver’s been a Templar now a year and a half or so. Turns out, it might did end up longer than seven parts, these two keep surprising me.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

====

“—and this is halla beard, but you might know it as goat’s beard,” Merrill chirped from her seat on the tree branch. Carver watched while she gathered up the stringy stuff. “It’s good for blood clotting and fevers and other things.”

“Is it good for keeping elves from falling out of trees?” he muttered, eyeing her critically.

She turned, a confused frown on her face, and wobbled, almost pitching herself off the branch entirely. Carver tensed and readied to catch her but she found her balance almost as quickly as she had lost it.

“What was that, Little Hawke?” she asked breathlessly.

Carver shook his head. “Nothing, Merr.”

“Oh, look, the spruce tips are ready, too! Here, catch these.” She dropped her current haul and stretched to pluck at the bright green branch tips around her. “These are good for food, you know,” she said absentedly, concentrating as she climbed up the tree in search for the best of the bundled needle-like leaves. “Makes an excellent tea, or added to salads. We sometimes pickle them in vinegar with honey and water. Delicious!”

He caught the tips as she tossed them down. “Wouldn’t it be better to collect more from each tree? Less climbing around and stuff.”

She shook her head and dropped down from the branches. “You don’t want to over-harvest,” she said. “We all have to live on what the forest gives us. Taking too much from one tree or bush could hurt it.”

He hummed noncommittally. Much different than farming; he remembered working for their neighboring homestead after his own household chores and the way the old widow would yell, reminding him and Eli to harvest and weed until the bare earth showed its scars. Ah, Ferelden.

Carver rolled his shoulders as Merrill peeked into the basket, rearranging her planty treasures. Satisfied, she retrieved their lunch from her travel bag, neatly slicing into the hard chunks of sausage and cheese before sharing.

“I can’t wait to get to the grove,” she said around a mouthful of sausage. “Varric says he got the original map from one of the Sabrae hunters a while back. I want to see what’s there!”

“You’ve never been to the place?” Carver couldn’t help the nervous falling of his stomach. She’d used string to find her way around Kirkwall for years, after all, and that was in a pretty straightforwardly-built city. There were only so many ways to get lost among all those stairs. A forest was a much easier place to get turned around and lost for days.

“It’s just the woods, Little Hawke. I know how to find my wa— Oh, listen, do you hear that? Sounds like a thrush!”

He shook his head as she rose to her feet and crept toward the birdsong, lunch forgotten. Ah, Merrill, he thought, smiling. Never change.

Carver watched her. She smiled, and laughed, and was animated in ways he rarely saw in Kirkwall. Rarely saw period, now, but especially in Kirkwall. She always seemed to breathe easier on the road in his memories.

“It looks like it’s going to rain tonight,” Merrill called over her shoulder. She pointed up through the tree canopy. “See those clouds coming in? They remind me of pregnant halla, all fat and heavy.”

He squinted up at the sky and the dark cloud layer rolling in before stowing her baskets. “We should get going, then. You said we’re only a couple hours away, right? Hopefully we’ll get there before the worst of it hits.”

Merrill bounded over to him, a handful of pale blue blossoms in hand. She slipped them into the top basket and Carver helped her shrug back into her pack, shuffling it against her back. “What are those good for?” he asked, picking up his own bag.

“Oh! Um.” She met his eyes, her own wide in surprise, and looked away, a blush stealing over her face. “They, um. They’re my favorite shade of blue.” Merrill took a deep breath and walked further into the forest. “It reminds me of you,” she said in a rush, not looking back.

He stood there, dumbly, hands still working on the clasps of his coat. “It what?”

—

They weren’t a mere two hours away from their destination, as luck (and a likely/definitely skewed map) would have it. The sky dumped buckets down on their heads well into the evening and soaked them to the bone, even despite the thick canopy overhead.

They came into a small clearing--no more wide than Carver’s bedroom at the estate, really, but big enough for maybe their tents and a fire, if they were careful. He scrubbed his hands down his face. “This better be it,” he grumbled.

They ducked into the less-drenched shelter of a tree before Merrill carefully retrieved her map, reading by the light of a ball of magelight hovering at her shoulder. “Looks like it! We should set up camp, I don’t know that we’ll get anything useful done tonight. Maybe the rain will stop soon.”

Carver peered up at the sky with a scowl and threw down his pack. ”I’ll set up the tents, you check for a source of fresh water. We can use the camp pot for rainwater, if it comes down to it, I guess.” Merrill created another ball of magelight and then scarpered off, shedding her pack far more gracefully than he did on her way.

“And don’t fall or slip or anything!” he called after her as she disappeared into the night, only to see a blithe hand-wave in response. “Right, tents. Get a move on, Carver.” He quickly untied the oilcloth coverings of their packs to retrieve the folded canvas tents—

And paused, brow furrowed.

No. No, no, no.

Carver pawed through his pack. It was big, and heavy, and that weight had been reassuring up until a minute ago. He set aside a neatly-corralled expanse of canvas, wrapped alongside the ropes and short sticks that would help make up most of the frame. A bundle of cloth laid beneath it, and when he messily unwrapped it he found Bela’s hip flask, a parcel of cookies, other sundry provisions, and a note.

“Dear Carver, get bent. Enjoy the tent! Heh, that rhymed, who’d’ve thought? Anyway. Love, Eli,” it said in blocky handwriting.

The ink dragged across the page and a new script, light and practiced, sprawled over the page.

“Ignore Eli, get Merrill bent, and maybe you’ll both feel better. Have fun! And don’t do anything I wouldn’t! Rum, Bela. (Rum’s better than love, don’t you think? More fun, anyway.)”

Carver crumpled the note--and its unsurprisingly juvenile sketch--in his fist and stared at the half-strewn traveling bags with growing horror-tinged embarrassment. He should have known better to assume any sort of goodness from those two, they were worse than magpies when they put their devious minds to something.

“I found the stream, just like the map said! We’ll be set!”

He gurgled something in response, fist pressed to his mouth for a moment. “Good, fine, good,” he called back. “Everything’s good. Yep. Good, good, good.” Carver mentally prepared a to-do list for the minute he got back to Kirkwall, with one highlighted, bullet-pointed item:

Absolutely murdering his sibling.

“Little Hawke?”

He would deny until his dying day acknowledgement of the squeak that burst from him at her silent arrival. “Everything’s good!” he said in a rush. “Good, good, good.”

Merrill tilted her head and looked at him, nonplussed. “Of course it is. Here, I’ll help!”

Together they set up their shelter, with the only hangup being finding fallen branches long enough to use as tent poles. Carver finished up tying the last of the knots to secure the canvas as she stowed their supplies.

“I don’t think Eli packed us the right tent,” Merrill said from within. She poked head out through the door flaps. “It’s a bit small. We’ll have to snuggle.”

What.

“Come on,” she said, when he hesitated too long. “It’s cold and wet out there, and soon to be warm and a bit drier in here. I can set a rune under us and keep the tent warm through the night, don’t worry! You won’t freeze, I promise!”

Her earnestness brought him back to the present. Carver shook his water-drenched bangs from his eyes. “Sure, sure. Wait, you can do that?”

Merrill laughed. “Of course! Why do you think Bela always wanted to share with me when we would be on the road together? I know how to do a lot of things,” she said, and her smile was a bit too sharp for her words, but he didn’t have the time to puzzle it out. Merrill pulled him inside, muddy boots and all, and tied the flaps closed against the rain. Her light hovered at the peak of the tent and bathed her in soft, silvery-blue hues.

“Watch,” she said, before crouching down and pulling back the ground cover. Merrill sketched some design into the loamy earth, something he couldn’t quite follow, and slapped her hands against it with a delighted smile. Soon enough steam rose from the ground, drifting lazily through the air as the tent began to warm.

“....huh,” was all he could say. That would have made years of adventuring with their band of misfits easier. “I figured Bela liked to share with you for, uh, other reasons,” he muttered thoughtlessly, shaking his head, and he clapped his hand to his mouth when he heard the words out loud.

Merrill laughed, bright and bubbly, though, so he didn’t make her mad. “Oh, she did,” she agreed sagely, “but I think it was mostly because we both hate being cold. Much easier to sleep when you’re warm, right? I always thought so, at least!”

….Right. Thinking about anything but that. Nope, very studiously ignoring… that.

“And the tent isn’t going to catch fire or anything in the middle of the night?” he asked instead, bringing the conversation back to something safe. Like a tent fire. Like a tent fire inadvertently caused by his mage companion, who so graciously cast some sort of spell to keep them warm, for his comfort.

Great going, Carver. Way to stick your foot waaaay in there.

“Nope,” she replied, thankfully oblivious to his inner monologue and unintended insult. Merrill patted the groundsheet back into place and layered their bedding together into a thick pallet. “Won’t get hot enough to do that. It really just takes the edge off; it’s not like making a fire, more like… oh, like warming the blankets before you crawl into bed. The rune heats the earth below us to help insulate against the cold, which heats the tent a little, and our bedrolls will help trap that warmth to us. Most of the work will still be body heat, though.”

“Smart.” Carver turned away and began to peel off his layers. He was halfway through unbuttoning his vest when he caught her watching, unabashed. Carver blushed. “Do you mind?” he huffed.

“Hm? Oh!” She shook her head and turned her attention elsewhere. “Sorry. Modesty. What a strange idea!”

“Is it… not a thing with the Dalish?” he asked over his shoulder, hands stilled on his buttons.

“Not really.” He could hear her shuffling, then the sound of wet leathers. Carver trained his eyes, both physical and mental, to the canvas wall ahead of him. “Everyone has a body. They’re made for all sorts of things; work, play, pleasure—” Merrill’s voice stumbled for a second before righting itself again “--all very natural things. Nothing I, or anyone else, hasn’t seen before, so why spend the energy being shy and secret about it?”

“...huh,” he said, the word strangled in his throat. “Right. Well. Okay. I’m going to… get ready for bed now. So don’t look.”

She sighed behind him, and he could swear he heard a soft “you silly thing” in her gentle lilt but a quick peek over his shoulder showed her turned toward her own wall, busy with her bedtime preparations. Carver quickly traded his soaked clothing for a light tunic and a suspiciously soft pair of pants--Bela’s influence, no doubt.

Merrill’s penchant for fondling soft, touchable fabrics was well known, and Bela had been trying to “help” Carver “woo” Merrill for ages.

He added “murder the pirate” to his to-do list.

“Oooh, soft,” Merrill cooed quietly, as if on cue. Carver swallowed down a sudden rush of nerves and turned to find her, fully dressed, even, clad in a light shift. Her fingers crushed the fabric and she looked like the happiest damn person he’d ever seen in that moment. “Feel this,” she insisted, and closed the distance between them to thrust the material into his hands. “Isn’t it so pretty?”

He tentatively rubbed at the fabric and found that, yes, it was delightfully soft, something like a mix of silk and the lightest cotton he had ever felt. He also found that its hemline crept up her thighs when she wound his fingers into the cloth. Carver dropped his hands as if scalded.

“It’s really nice.” Like you, he almost said, and it was like another voice was in his mouth, trying to come out. It suits you. Now please take it off.

Fucking Maker, the earth could swallow him whole anytime now.

She smiled, and for a horrified moment he worried he had spoken it all out loud. “It's new! It's a gift,” she said, “from—”

“--From Bela,” he supplied with a groan, to which she nodded. Of course it was. Of course! “I’m going to die,” Carver muttered under his breath when she stepped away.

“What was that?”

“I said I’m going to bed, goodnight.” Carver all but dove into the combined bedroll. He rolled to his side and situated himself to give as wide a berth as possible for her. They’d shared a tent before but never like this.

Don’t make it fucking weird, he told himself.

Despite his good efforts, the bed was still somehow small enough that she plastered herself along his back after extinguishing her light. “We’ll have to snuggle,” Merrill reminded him, words muffled against his shoulder. “Body heat.”

“Right.” His heart pounded like a war drum in his chest. “Should I roll over?”

“If you want.”

“Okay…” They shuffled until he was on his back and Merrill curled up into his side like she belonged there.

Blood mage, blood mage, his heartbeat reminded him. The warning had been loud in his mind before but now it was new once more, a vision of Knight-Commander Stannard’s rage-mottled face blistering into his mind’s eye.

“Remember to uphold the duties and values of the Order, even on your days off,” Rutherford’s phantom voice urged him.

Carver Hawke, who had shielded mages from Templars all his life, wrapped his arm around Merrill’s thin shoulders with a mental fuck you to the Gallows and let the sound of her pleased sigh send him to sleep.

====

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

#Carver Hawke #Merrill #Carvill #DA2 #Dragon Age 2 #fic: mutual pining #eventual s/mut #soulrebel writes #soulrebel writes: patreon #reblogs and likes are appreciated and welcome!#thank you!#this chapter ended up being longer than the last two combined #whoops #but I couldn't find a natural place to break it up!#whoops pt 2

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segadores-y-soldados · 5 years

Text

“Supersoldier” redirects here. For other uses, see [Supersoldier (disambiguation)].

“Enhancement program” redirects here. For general human augmentation, see [Human enhancement].

The Soldier Enhancement Program, also known as the initials SEP, was an advanced medical and military training program conducted by the United States Army Special Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency from January 2047 to July 2047. The exact details of the program are still heavily classified, but the original purpose was to “genetically and phenotypically enhance selected recruits and soldiers of the Special Forces and develop a new programmatic military and tactical training to resist and counter Omnic forces and Omniums in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.” Selected Special Forces candidates, officially called “candidates” or “soldiers” within the program, or colloquially called “supersoldiers” by the general public, developed increased physical and mechanical strength, faster and more flexible agility, longer periods of sustained endurance, rapid innate biological healing processes, and higher stores of biochemical energy levels.

---------------

This is one of the most intelligently written stories I’ve read in a long time (and I mean including published fiction), not just because of your psychotically impressive attention to detail in military exercises, but in the way you write people too. Your characterization is complex and layered and so believable, and manages to expand upon what we know from OW while remaining true to the source material— little things like Reaper uses twin shotguns, so making Gabriel left-handed and thus ambidextrous is fucking perfect. There are a lot of very good falling-in-lust fanfics out there but very few pull off believable, true-to-character bonding the way you have. And I love how you’ve explored Jack and Gabriel’s different strengths/levels of experience, giving them opportunities to learn from each other while keeping them both fairly confident.

TL;DR - Your work is fucking awesome, and you better write a full novel (or at least get a Patreon account) so I can pay you for it with more than just my time.

---------------

[In military science, Force Multiplication is an attribute or a combination of attributes that multiplies the effectiveness of a soldier or weapon, giving a small number of troops or individuals the ability to accomplish greater tasks than without it.]

Jack Morrison is 26, just completed the first half of his Special Forces "Q-Course," and just got airdropped to a secret base in the snowy mountains of Idaho along with the other "supersoldier candidates."

[Common force multipliers are: terrain, geographical features, weather]

He doesn't really know how to feel about his new "number" (76) or the fact that he's joined a program that will "genetically and phenotypically modify him, as well as train him extensively, to survive better against the bots."

[Training and experience]

He never thought he was particularly "special" (though he'll be the first to admit he's always hoped for an adventure worthy of legend).

[Tactics and intelligence]

And he thought SEP would just be more training

[Morale]

Until he met "Soldier: 24"

[Friends]

Gabriel Reyes

[Inspiration]

And Jack experienced a revelation

And they changed the course of history.

---------------

I'm devastated I can only kudos this once. Your writing is wonderfully fluid and descriptive and a joy to consume. Thank you for this story

---

I swear I count down the days until a new chapter comes out. I love the writing and feel so happy after reading despite anything else that may have been going on. Thank you for that and for the great content. Both are so wonderful!

---------------

Only a few individuals have claimed or acknowledged their parts in the program publically, including: [Jack Morrison], the Strike-Commander of Overwatch; [Gabriel Reyes], the Crisis-era Strike-Commander of Overwatch and the eventual commander of Overwatch’s “Special Operations Division”; [Monique Carter-Tsang], former Secretary of Defense; [Riya Naidu], former director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention; and [Felix Ochoa-Morris], former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The commander of the USSOCOM when the program was active was General [Sofía Flores]. A number of individuals have denied being part of the program, despite claims from known and other likely members listing them as being present when the program was active.

---------------

Gabriel watches him closely, before asking quietly, “The end justifies the means?”

“Hmm, not even,” Jack hums contemplatively, “The means justify themselves in this case. You can try doing something simply for the sake of trying.”

Gabriel’s expression is difficult to read - almost a scowl, but not in anger or frustration, just in intense concentration, as he says, “That argument doesn’t hold up in peacetime, and it only barely works in war.”

“Hmm, I don’t know what specific examples you’re thinking of, Gabe,” Jack says slyly, “But we’re not in a war, and we’re definitely not in peacetime.”

Gabriel’s scowl twists into bewilderment as he asks, “What do you think this Crisis is?”

Jack looks him dead in those beautiful, dark obsidian eyes, like smoke backlit by raw molten sunlight and fire -

And Jack states brightly:

“It’s the apocalypse, sir -”

And with an easy flick of his right arm -

Jack hurls the knife straight into the bark of the tree

As he hums lightly:

“And it’s time to try everything.”

---------------

“Truth is, none of you are ready for the roles you’re going to get, plain and simple. 180A’s and 18Z’s have seven to ten years on you as you are now,” Guerra states to them unapologetically, “So go on, show me your leadership. Show me your prowess. Literally nothing is preventing you from joining the others in a cell for a week. Feel free to take some goddamn initiative and show us that you’re willing to put yourselves on the line for them. Show them - and us - that you can walk your goddamn talk.”

Guerra locks those abyssally dark eyes with Gabriel, staring him down

And a part of Gabriel’s anger boils over.

He won’t put himself on the line for them, nor the directors, nor this godawful program -

Nor his own miserable wreck of a country.

...But he will put himself - has put himself - on the line for what precious few people he has in his life: his parents, his sisters, his uncle

His old team

Carlos

Luisa

Carolina

...Silvio

And now

For the small hours - too much and not enough, never enough - he has

Where Jack smiles under golden firelight and sweet lanternlight and snowy starlight.

...And it takes all of his willpower not to stand up and march out of the room.

(“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process.”)

---------------

The program is widely considered one of the most controversial projects undertaken by the United States military and CIA, but even in 2076, 72% of American citizens polled still regarded the program as “crucially necessary” to America surviving the Crisis, with 61% of all individuals polled calling the candidates “heroes during the Crisis.”

---------------

You know what they say about the best time to plant trees, right?

Well, guess what?

It’s the same thing people say about “24X76: Force Multiplication.”

You probably should’ve started reading 20 years ago four days ago.

But don’t worry!

The next best time is to start reading now!

(Mainly because the “slow burn” part just ended, lol.)

24X76: Force Multiplication

Current Chapters: 24

Current Word Count: 352886

Updated once a week.

Because let’s be honest:

You really, really want an Overwatch story that feels like a badass action-adventure military movie that also has a deep, slow burn romance, uses full references and legit sources, uses actual canon/in-game quotes by the characters, is super dedicated to the main canon while still being grounded in the real world, and updates consistently.

...And you’re also really, really, really tired of waiting for the SEP Soldier: 76 skin.

(Last self-promotion post for a long while, I promise! I’m just super excited to see the feedback on Force Multiplication and I never know how to promote myself or my stuff, so I figured I’d give it whirl and see how it goes.)

#long post #reaper76 #r76 #24x76 #gabriel reyes #reaper #jack morrison #soldier: 76 #my fics #my writing #self-promotion #segadores-y-soldados

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