#Devon's seen the anime versions as I have

[devon-usher]

Favorite material from which to construct definitely-not-independently-mobile mannequins?

A few examples as food for thought: Wooden (although it’s almost certainly never been part of a tree)? Typical shopping-mall plastic (almost)? Not-quite-skin? Actual skin?

For the sake of Uncanny, the good ol' skin-covered plastic is a classic. The feel of something hard and cold sliding under something soft and- yknow.

Otherwise I'm a fan of metal-plastic mix! Silicone is a good way to hide the cracks between the plastic shells which cover metallic pistons and gears and the like. Classic animatronic style! Kind of like that new FNAF game... Sister Location, I think? But the tube innards aren't as efficient as normal pneumatics and motors/servos, in my opinion.

[shady-gold]

Random Dark Rise questions, thoughts and theories

My brain is filled Dark Rise, there's nothing else I can think about anymore, so I typed up some stuff that's on my mind.

Slight spoilers for the Tarot Trading Cards if you haven't seen them yet or are trying to avoid them.

How did Jannick (and/or the other stewards) find out that James is a reborn? Is it because he got hurt, but healed immediately? Did he use magic not knowing it was a bad thing? Jannick mentioned his wife died, did James accidently kill her(with his magic)?

Do James and Will look exactly like their past selves, basically ignoring genetics? Is that why Devon recognised Will? Or was it just Will´s aura. On Sarcean's trading card we can see that he has Will's hairstyle. Black hair with bangs swept to the left and shaved(?) sides. Only the back is long. Obviously this could very well be explained by the artist taking artistic liberties, but I don't know. Personally I hope they look the same.

Speaking of Devon and Tarot Cards. Someone else on here (I will try to find them) pointed out that Devon told Violet that she has more in common with him than the stewards and wondered what it could mean. We know that Devon was an actual horse that somehow turned human. Maybe lions were actual lions that could also become human? Or vice versa? When the stewards attack the ship, one of them told Tom that he's nothing like the lions in the past. Why? Is he weaker? Was it simply an insult that doesn't have any deeper meaning? Or is there indeed some magic stuff going on? One of the new trading cards features a woman named 'mrs. Duval' with a lion next to her. Could she be a lion too and the animal next to her is her but transformed? Or maybe it's only a pet...who knows. There's also the whole plotline with "Tom has to kill people like him to become stronger" which kind of got dropped and never picked up again.

This next one is just me being confused, so let's recap some things we know already before I start rambling. I also didn't read the English version, maybe the wording was better in the original.

The dark king ordered his servants to be executed so they can be reborn with him.

This is why Anharion got executed on the step of the palace.

The Dark King himself was killed by the Lady somewhere close to the Mediterranean Sea.

Anharion was supposed to be buried in the Dark King's grave (according to Gauthier)

Sooo.....

-> why exactly did he need everyone to be executed? Was he losing the war? And how did he know they would be reborn? Random guess? Magic?? Will and James are already here, will there be other reborns beside them? Do you think the reborn servants will recognise Will and cause conflict?

This next bit is absolutely batshit crazy and I have no proof other than I guess it would be cool

-> The eldest steward said The Dark Kings was killed somewhere in the south: what was he doing there? Was Anharion already dead by then? Did he willingly seek out the Lady to settle things? Maybe the translation was garbage and the original tells a different story, but I actually believe Sarcean was the one who died first based on Gauthier saying that Anharion was buried in his (Sarcean) grave. Maybe before the Dark King died he gave an order that if he dies on his mission then Anharion is supposed to get executed and since he was wearing the collar he had no choice to obey. Basically even though Sarcean was dead, Anharion was still under the collar's influence. Gauthier also never explicity stated that Sarcean was present when the execution happened only that he ordered it. Can someone who has an English copy maybe send me a picture of the page? óuò It's in chapter 28 I would like to see what Gauthier says in the original

-> Last thing: were James and Will reborn at the same time? Technically the one who died first should also be born first, right? ^^" Was James reborn and then eventually Will? Or was Will reborn first after Mary's murder and only after the Dark King was back everyone else also came back. Someone in the hall did say that James being there was a bad omen, implying everyone else comes back first with the Dark King being last.

I feel like I was definitely overthinking some parts, but yeah... ^^" I also read some people got an early copy for Dark Heir and unfortunately there's one person on Twitter who already spoiled a bit. So, uhm, if you have read Dark Heir before it came out, don't interact with this. I'm not interested in 'vague hints' which really aren't that vague...

[sage-nebula]

Longer thoughts on Sonic Prime, now that I've had a few days to sit on it. Under a cut because of length / those who don't care / spoilers / whatever else.

Like I said before, I thought it was fine. It's definitely not a bad show by any stretch and I think that younger kids who are perhaps new to Sonic / only know Sonic from the movies / don't know Sonic at all but want to watch a new cartoon will enjoy it. I can't fully explain why it didn't pull me in. It could be the fact that I binged all of it partly out of obligation because I felt like I had to watch it as soon as possible to avoid spoilers, so I didn't give myself time to just pace through the show normally. But I mean, I've binged other things and loved them (see: season four of The Dragon Prince), so I don't think that's exactly it. I think it's more to do with the writing, but before I talk about that I want to talk about some things I did like about it, first.

The vocal performances were, for the most part, excellent. Knuckles' VA was kind of . . . eh . . . at times, and it's very hard to separate Tails / Nine / etc from Rainbow Dash, but Devon Mack absolutely KILLED IT as Sonic, which is a big deal since Sonic is the main character of the show. I wouldn't mind Devon taking the lead on voicing Sonic in other projects, because he did a very good job. So happy for him, especially since he was a fan of Sonic before landing the gig.

The animation was very good too. I like the little animal quirks the characters were given, such as ear twitches and whatnot, and it was fun to see Sonic so expressive when he's supposed to be an expressive / emotive guy. The action sequences were easy to follow and nicely done too; it's a very fun show to look at, you can tell the animators had a good time with what they were doing.

I noticed some musical callbacks to the games at times that made me, a nerd, pretty happy. There weren't too many of them, but there were enough that it was a "oh hi there" moment when I caught them.

I like how Rouge has been handled for the most part, from her having outfits that are more legitimate outfits to her having little quirks like sleeping like the bat she is. I will say I think she should've been the captain in the pirate saga, but like, whatever, I like that even though she's clearly there so they could have more than one girl in the cast, she's still being treated with respect overall.

Miles "Nine" Prower and Rusty Rose are my beloveds. The rest of the cast I could take or leave, but those two are my morally grey, ruthless babies and I love them so much.

Now for the writing . . . I think my main issue is that, outside of Nine and Rusty, I feel like I haven't been given much reason to care. Like, yeah, Sonic is having a hard time—but Sonic is always having a hard time and he always pulls through so it's like, whatever, he'll be fine. He's been infected with a metal virus, he's been cyber corrupted, he's going to get vivisected in Scrapnik 3 next week, he's always having some kind of issue, and he always ends up fine, so I'm not too invested in that. Insert a variant of the time knife meme like "yeah yeah Sonic having a bad time we've all seen it." Like that just doesn't capture my interest much anymore. Sonic emotionally going through it, mayhaps, but physically? Nah.

But like, where Nine and Rusty have interesting stories and characterization and circumstances to me (Nine being ruthless and morally grey, Rusty potentially gaining her own agency and personhood and hopefully still killing people along the way because she deserves it and I'm here for women's wrongs), I just can't say the same about the others. The Eggman council is just—if I can be unabashedly negative here, I hate the entire concept. It's so cartoonish and stupid. Which, I know this is a cartoon, but for a dystopian universe it feels over the top ridiculous to have a fucking baby and moody teenager and whatever else, not to mention OoC for any version of Eggman to want to share power with anyone, even other versions of himself. And "Mr" and "Dr" are both prefixes (with "Dr" denoting more respect than "Mr") so to have them layered as "Mr Dr Eggman" is just so stupid and irritating—

But I digress.

So I don't care about the Eggman council, and despite spending more time with them I don't see enough depth or potential for rebel Rouge and rebel Knuckles to really care too much about them either. Putting aside my irritation at jungle Tails being called "mangey" even though he doesn't have mange (mange is an actual skin disorder in animals and he clearly doesn't have it, just call him FERAL, that's what he ACTUALLY IS), I felt the jungle episodes were just kind of a slog to get through even though watching Amy yeet the others out of the forest with her hammer was pretty funny. (although, missed opportunity calling her Thorn instead of Briar, you know, like Briar Rose.) It's not helped by the fact that we only spent two episodes there, so there's not time to give more depth to the characters—but with two episodes already feeling like a slog, more might've been worse? It's hard to say. And with the pirate episodes, again, they didn't really get my attention until Rusty showed up. That's when things got more interesting, for me. Otherwise, I just didn't feel much of a reason to care about these variants. It seems to be much less "here's how these characters naturally would have developed in these circumstances" and more "hehe hoho fun costumes yay :)" with Nine and Rusty being the exceptions to that rule.

A lot of this has to do with the fact that, I'm not the target audience for this show. Yes, I'm a Sonic fan—but this is a show that's clearly intended for a younger audience, one that's perhaps not that interested in Sonic lore, and that's fine! Not everything is going to be for me. I am not a fan of the Archie comics, for example, from what little I know of them. I'm not interested in Sonic X. I think SatAM is overrated, so on and so forth. I do enjoy the movies for what they are, but mostly because a.) I'm glad they weren't a trash fire, and b.) I am ALWAYS going to be drawn in by found family of any type for reasons relating to being raised on AoStH and also my own messed up childhood / adolescence. But I don't have to love every single piece of Sonic media just because I'm a Sonic fan. As I've said, the great thing about Sonic is that there's something for everyone. Prime isn't really for me (outside of Nine and Rusty), and that's OK. I'm cool with that.

But that said, I do think that there are places where the writing could be improved. There are places where the dialogue feels clunky (as in, "people don't talk like this"). There are names of variants I take issue with. And I think that if a bit more thought was put into WHY the characters are the way they are other than "jungle people" or "pirates" it would be better. But little kids aren't going to care about that, and little kids are the ones this show is for, so again. It's not a big deal. And at the end of the day it's not something I'm going to lose sleep over.

I will probably still watch season two, just so I can see how Nine and Rusty develop. If they weren't in the show, I probably wouldn't bother lol. But since they are, I will Do It For Them. Nine and Rusty, my beloveds.

But yeah, those are my thoughts. It's OK. Not really my thing, but I don't hate it either. Would take a whole spinoff about Nine and Rusty, though. Let Nine say fuck. Let Rusty murder. It's what they deserve.

[bonbonzzz]

My Top 5 Episodes From Every Season of Knight Rider, Just Because

Season One:

Slammin’ Sammy’s Stunt Show Spectacular. It’s just iconic isn’t it.  Trust Doesn’t Rust. Because it’s KARRs debut episode. Angry car go brrrr.  Chariot of Gold. You can guess why I like this one.  White Bird. I like some character development, even if it’s not perfect. Also Stevie is OK I don’t mind her, even though she doesn’t have that much of a personality. Short Notice. I like the bit where they go to the little town and the girl asks for two ice creams and Michael is like ‘two???!!!??’. That’s all I really remember of Short Notice. And that Tiny guy, I quite liked him.

Season two:

Blind Spot. I can’t remember much of it but it has a dog in it. I liked the dog. Soul Survivor. This one really stuck with me. I’m quite fond of any episodes that centre around the FLAG crew, rather than just being some random crime somewhere, like Big Iron or something. Knightmares. I just watched this one again. It’s great. KITT and Michael have a great friendship and I love that funny little sound effect that plays whenever Michael gets a flashback.  Race For Life. I think everyone likes Race For Life. It’s just good. I like the bit where Michael eats liquorice. It is a core memory, despite me not having watched the episode in a while. A Good Knight’s Work. Has a talking teddy bear in it. I enjoy for comedic value.  This may come as a shock, but I don’t hate season two. Despite it being the season that had the two worst episodes ever (in my opinion, although I’m sure many would agree): Let It Be Me and Mouth of the Snake. I actually had to close my eyes for some scenes in Let It Be Me because it was so cringe. The fact that it exists is funny, though. 

Season three (my favourite season):

Halloween Knight. Have you SEEN this? It’s the best thing ever. I have watched this episode many times and share it with my loved ones. One time I watched it while I felt ill so I could be immersed. I even bought a soft pink dressing gown. There’s a guy in a gorilla suit who tries to run Michael over. Funniest thing. Dead of Knight. I really like the bit where Devon grabs that guy’s collar and shouts about poisoned orange juice. I just think it’s fun. Also KITT tries to tell jokes and it is nice. Lost Knight. This was the first full episode I ever watched so it has a special place in my heart. In the script version Devon threatens to deactivate KITT if they can’t find him so that’s absolutely wild. Junk Yard Dog. Iconic. Bonnie does cool mechanic things. Michael has an emotional flashback to good times spent with KITT and the funniest music I’ve ever heard plays over it. It’s amazing. I just like me some angst. Circus Knights. Michael is just generally a clown so it just feels right for him to be in a circus. I cringe internally every time I see his outfit for that one performance. But mostly I am distracted by the strange stuffed animal (?) that Bonnie has on her lap in that scene. I have studied it in great detail and I cannot decipher what it’s supposed to be. My best guess is a weird dog or perhaps a bald horse. Have a look and please help me. I want to discuss this with someone. It bothers me. S3 has a lot of fun episodes so it’s hard to narrow down my favourites. I also quite like Knight of the Drones, Knight and Knerd, and Ten Wheel Trouble (just for the ‘FLAG is a family’ line. I don’t like the bit at the end. You know the bit). And as much as I like KITT VS KARR, I cannot include it because that John’s awful outfit really ruins it.

Season four:

Knight of the Juggernaut. I usually like the ones where KITT gets rebuilt. We also get to meet RC, and I really like RC. Like, I really like him, he’s great. I like how they didn’t test SPM before letting Michael take KITT. Just send him out there, let him push the big button, he’ll be fine. Sky Knight. This is no shock. I don’t like flying so already I can relate. I enjoy how Bonnie cares less about a terrorist hijacking than she cares about being on a plane to begin with. She gets shot at on those stairs and doesn’t even care. She has a unique energy. Knight Sting. I don’t really know why I like this one but I do. I like the montage of them all getting in their disguises. It’s just fun. It’s silly. I enjoy! Knight Behind Bars. I watched this one yesterday. The beginning is a bit slow but nearer the end everything just goes wild. Spoilers if you haven’t watched it, but the way Michael flies into the prison yard is just amazing. Bonnie beats someone up. I am scared of her. RC is just In The Wall at one point. They open a secret door and He Is In There. Amazing! Killer KITT. This spot was between Killer KITT and Deadly Knightshade (I like magicians). But this one takes the cake just for being wild. A bit crazy. Bonkers. Unhinged, if you will. Does what it says on the tin. I like Michael’s red shirt.

Reblog with your own list if you so wish! It doesn’t have to be top five, it can be one or three or ten or whatever. Let us celebrate the silly car show. Together. Also tell me your favourite seasons in order. Mine is three, four, two and then one. As much as the first was iconic, two has more interesting storylines I think. I’m not even marking it as last because of April. Are you proud of me?

[lorata]

What's Adessa, Nero and Enobaria's talents? If you know them.

*squints* The only one I think I know is Nero:

Nero's unofficial one is woodworking, and his official one is rock collecting / polishing (excerpt from Take My Hand)

“I like carving, making furniture, that kind of thing. It’s my Talent,” Nero says. Lyme hadn’t ever thought to ask him about that. “Not my official one, that’s collecting rocks.”

Lyme stops. “Collecting rocks. You’re serious.”

“Oh yeah,” Nero says, and he’s smiling but it’s a tight, practiced kind of smile and Lyme can’t help but feel a small thrill of satisfaction that she’s made him think about something unpleasant for once. “Every so often I go out, pick up a bunch, throw ‘em in a tumbler. Get ‘em all polished up and ship ‘em out to the Capitol for people to put on their mantels as Victor souvenirs.”

It’s such an absurd thought, Nero diligently choosing rocks from along the path, bending over a rock tumbler and fiddling with the abrasive sand, that Lyme can’t help the snicker that escapes her. “Why rocks?”

Nero swallows, and ha, she’s scored another point, though it would mean more if she knew what she’d done. Finally he lifts one hand, sends it down and sideways in a swift stroke, as though miming —

Oh.

Lyme has seen tapes from Nero’s Games before, one of the nasty Arenas where the Cornucopia had food and supplies but no weapons. The tributes had nothing but the rocks on the ground and a scattering of bricks and broken-off pipes from the half-destroyed buildings. Nero killed the smallest tributes by hand — choked them, snapped their necks, made it quick — and the others by bashing skulls in. His finale, he’d pounded in a boy’s head with a fist-sized chunk of brick.

As a trainee Lyme had watched a cut of the final kill, sitting forward on the floor with her eyes narrowed, taking in every detail. She’d looked down at her hands, broad and strong, at the muscles in her arms that kept building the more she trained, and she’d thought to herself, I could do that.

And now Nero collects rocks so people in the Capitol can have a pretty conversation piece. Maybe they even paint them with red splatters too, for an extra special something.

I'm not sure about Adessa, at first I thought maybe she collects bones (like my wife's aunt who looks for roadkill and boils/cleans/reassembles and displays the skeletons! it's a neat hobby!) but after a while you'd think the house would get awfully ..... full? and I can't imagine there's much of a market for animal skeletons in Two, though who knows maybe she arranges to sell them back in Three through Beetee, lol. officially it would be something intentionally disarming/meant to make her less scary. probably some kind of strategy game, like whatever the Capitol's version of shogi is.

Enobaria is............... I feel like I said flower arranging at one point for her official talent but then I gave that to Petra (poor thing). but for her real one I bet she would enjoy felting? STAB STAB STAB MAKE THING APPEAR, plus bonus, hide ugly-cute things in people's houses. fill Devon's room with mice. A+++

[u-iona]

After seeing the last episode on the YouTube channel GrandLineReview, I wanted to comment about a thing I hate about One Piece, but it was too long (as all my writtings tend to be), so I’m posting it here.

I apologise for all gramatical mistakes that will inevitabely appear.

I hate how female characters either don’t appear as much as males or are left as background characters while the males duke it out.

Marines: I can remember about three female characters from the top of my head (Tashigi, Tsuru and Hina) and even though there are more (Tsuru’s crew) there is nowhere near enough to counter the males. Additionally, we know of two former Fleet Admirals (Sengoku and Kong), one current (Sakazuki), and five Admirals (Akainu [former], Aokiji [former], Kizaru, Fujitora and Ryokugyu). Notice a trend? All males.

Cipher Pol: While writting about the Marines, I thought that maybe the reason for the lack of females was that the society at large expected women to not fight and simply take care of the house. With that being the case, it would make sense for Marines to promote the idea, since it would fit with the world at large. It would also make sense for the lack of female characters in CP1-8, since those are known to public (maybe even CP0, since they work mainly for the World Nobles and need to keep up the appearances). But it would not explain CP9, which is an allegedly assassination organisation unknown to the world. In that case a female would be more inconspicuous and thus better at assassination. So, either my idea is wrong and the Marines and CP0-8 have no real explanation for their lack of females or CP9 has no good explanation for only having Kalifa out of at least 8 known characters.

Pirates: Even if theory of misogyny mentioned above is true, pirates, who rebel against the World Government should have a better track record.

Shichibukai (including former, but not Blackbeard, since he’ll be a bit down with the Yonko): Admitedly, Shichibukai work for the World Government, but they’re more of independant contractors than actual employees. So, from all the know Shichibukai Mihawk, Kuma and Weevil get a pass, since they don’t have a crew. Boa Hancock gets one as well, since she does have an all female crew, but her whole crew (present, past and future, since Kija Pirates just seem to pass from generation to generation) is made of Kuja women only and doesn’t seem inclined to recruit out of her island. Which kind of makes sense, but is also discriminatory of every non-Kuja woman. Now to the rest. Crocodile had a bounty hunter organisation that employed both males and females, most notably current Straw Hat Nico Robin, who, once they got up high enough on the ladder worked in male-female duos. That sounds good, but (while I am not going to go back to manga/anime) I remember that, when explaining the structure of Baroque Works to Straw Hats, Vivi said that the number agents are the strongest men in the organisation, who then get a female partner with complementary skill set. Enough said. Next, Moria. But, there’s not much to say, since he basically had 3 living crew members and with that number it’s either man-man-woman or man-woman-woman, so it’s good enough that he didn’t have three men. Jinbei and honestly Fisher Tiger (who I still love and cry when I see him die) did a terrible job at gender equality, since there are no fishwomen or mermaids on the crew of Sun Pirates (there’s Praline, but she’s Aladins wife and joins during time-skip as a part of alliance with Big Mom, so I’m not really counting her). And we have no evidence that fishwomen or mermaids would be any worse at fighting than mermen or fishmen. Trafalgar Law does a bit better, but with one woman out of 20 crew members it’s still not much. Buggy (a guy I totally forgot was a part of this group, sorry Buggy fans) has a huge crew, but out of the well known ones, I’m pretty sure that only Alvida is female, but I cannot be certain that he doesn’t have more. And lastly, Doflamingo. Here I only count the Donquixote Family, since counting every minion would take too long. Out of his Elite Officers (the guys that stood for heart, club, diamond and spade) there were five (Roscinante and Vergo both standing for heart) and all male. Each of them could have subordinates which were: Giolla, Sugar, Violet, Lao G, Senor Pink, Dellinger, Machvise, Gladius, Buffalo, Baby 5. Then there was Monet, who was part of the family, but neither as an elite officer or an official subordinate of one. In total, out of 16 there are 5 females. Like with Moria, it is roughly one third, but better than some other and Doflamingo could have had more females. My main concern nere were the Elite Officers, but they were in general much harder to defeat than the other. Those that jump out would be Sugar (as being hard to defeat, but we need to take into consideration that she was being actively protected by Trebol), Vergo (being easier to defeat than other Elite Officers [in my oppinion], but that took Laws genuinly OP Devil Fruit] and Roscinante (since he didn’t seem to do much and his Devil Fruit was kind of useless, so he either had hidden skill we didn’t see or nepotism).

Yonko: Since this is much lower on the list, I actually thought through the order of writting (from most women inclusive to least) and am not winging it like the rest. Firstly, Big Mom (Charlotte Linlin). She is a female and her crew is greatly inclusive to both genders and all races (species?), though the higher ups (Sweet Commanders, Ministers) seem to be ONLY her children. That means that unless a blood relative of hers a character has little to no chance of mattering. But that could be due to both her and her children, in general, being stronger than at least humans, as well as most of her crew being made up of Homies (if I remember correctly). Out of her three (formerly four) Sweet Commanders one, Smoothie, is female and, while she is weaker than Katakuri (like most of her family), her bounty is higher than Crackers, so she presents a bigger threat according to the World Government. Taking her and Crackers Devil Fruits into consideration, it is likely that Smoothie is more powerful than Cracker (without Devil Fruit), since Cracker can use his whenever he feels like but Smoothie seems to need to get close up, making her fruit harder to use against many enemies at once and thus needing to rely on other abilities. Like Big Mom, Kaido does employ many females, but not as much where it counts. For me, the characters from the Beast Pirates that I remember are Kaido, the All Stars and the Tobiroppo and from those 9, 2 are female (only Ulti and Black Maria). Not to say that those two aren’t awsome, I love both, especially Ulti, but I don’t think that it’s enough. On top of that, the All Stars (which are basically the Beast Pirates version of the Sweet Comanders) are all male, so not even the one third. Then we get onto Blackbeard, from who’s crew we know only the 10 Titanic Captains, where only one (Catarina Devon) is female. That could certainly be better and I will not comment much further, since the 10 Captains themselves show that Blackbeard has a gigant crew, most of who we don’t know, but having a few more females there would be better, since any Blackbeard female shown from now on will most likely be weaker than any of the captains. Next is Whitebeard, whose crew I genuinely hate. I honestly think that Whitebeard is cool and I support the idea of blood not making a family, but any and all females on his crew are nurses. No fighters, let alone a female being one of the 16 Divison Commanders (I checked and Haruta is male. I also heard some people mention Whity Bay, but she’s an ally and a captain of her own crew, not a Whitebeard pirate). So, while there are females, it showes them as damsels in distres rather than foghters. Nothing more to say. Lastly, the worst offender, Shanks. No females. That’s it. There is not a single female character that would be a known member of the Red Haired pirates, not even as a nurse. Grantes, we still don’t know much about Shanks or the Red Haired pirates, but we’ve seen them at Marinefort and I think that if at least one female from the crew was an important fighter, she would be there. So, there could be some, but either not strong or not a fighter at all.

Straw Hats: Let’s be honest, we all love Straw Hats, but they’ve got problems. There are females, but it’s still only two out of then, neither of the two is part of the three strongest (until the time skip Nami was actually seen as one of the weaker members and before Alabasta she didn’t even fight) and even their fighting styles show a problem. This is something I wanted to also point out (before this rant became longer than some of my essays [and I didn’t even research here, just checked to make sure some of the things I wrote were actually true and to check the names]), but another thing I don’t like is how even when female characters are shown, they are not fighters, not GOOD fighters (or in general tend to be weaker than men) or are long distance fighters. Nami and Robin are a great mple of the last. Both of them attack from a distance, which makes sense with their weapon/Devil Fruit, but all the other Straw Hats (excluding Usopp) fight at close or mid distance. That makes the Straw Hats balances, but it doesn’t make sense that neither of them are close combat (at least statistically), especially since Nami DIDN’T FIGHT until Alabasta (and even there her combat with Miss Doublefinger was pretty close range) so her fighting style could have been thought of for a long time. And Robin DOES have some close ranged attacks (shown in Alabasta and Skypiea arcs) but just doesn’t use them (especially post time-skip). And that’s not even talking about Haki. Logicaly speaking, it would make all sense in the world for Robin to have at least Arnament, since it would give her already OP (if used correctly) Devil Fruit a way to more effectively attack other Devil Fruit users and even normal enemies (since Arnament also seems to make attacks stronger, not only allow Devil Fruit users to be hurt) and, unlike basicaly all the other Straw Hats, who didn’t learn Haki during the time-skip, Robin was surrounded by people who knew Haki and could have taught her.

Thank you, for reading my rant. I hope you enjoyed. Additionally, I suck at tagging, so please let me know, if you can think of any.

[lailoken]

“The Conjuring Parsons & Cunning Clergy:

Just as the perceived boundaries between witches’ and 'cunning-folk' are decidedly blurred in West Country tradition, so too, surprisingly perhaps for some, were t distinctions between folk-magicians and Christian clergy.

Churches themselves, as homes to rituals of divine communion, union, blessing, exorcism and the passage of the dead, are places of useful power and magic. Its water, made holy by its blessing within church rites, was highly sought after for use within acts of popular magic; most often for the purposes of protection and curative magic. Church holy water was so routinely taken for such unauthorised magical uses, that fonts were fitted with lockable covers from the Middle Ages. The Eucharist and the chrism, also being blessed and holy substances, were similarly of use to magical practitioners, and so these, like the holy water, were also ordered to be kept under lock and key.

The Christian saints had in many ways taken on roles akin to elder gods; being often heavily associated with the land and magical loci such as holy wells. The lives of the saints abound with tales of miraculous acts bonded to certain loci, and they were widely petitioned for aid in various acts of magic and divinatory practices. Saintly relics became most sought after as potent magical objects, and even their statues might be scraped to produce powders for use in magical curatives.

It makes sense then that the men who mediated the power of God and the saints, and who administered the rites of the Church would be seen by some to be magicians themselves. Indeed, there were many clergymen who actively practiced in ways that made them virtually indistinguishable from 'cunning men', and in Devon these were known as the conjuring parsons.

Some practiced as astrologers; a service which, despite the disapproval the Church held for such things, they saw as an extension of their normal duty towards their parishioners. One Devonian example of an 'astrologising parson' was the north Devon clergyman known as Parson Joc. His personal notebook, preserved after his death, revealed details of the horary calculations he would draw up for the people of his parish. Those clergymen who possessed a more overt reputation for magic often held extensive libraries of books which were rumoured to contain numerous occult volumes and grimoires. These books of power, and the trouble that could arise if they were pried into by the 'uninitiated', feature in a number of popular stories surrounding the conjuring parsons.

One such story is associated with the Reverend William Cunningham, a 19th century incumbent of Bratton. The story tells that while he was absent from his home, his maid, out of curiosity, summoned the bravery to peruse one of the reverend's occult tomes. Inadvertently it seems she had managed to summon two spirits; for a pair of strange creatures like chickens’ materialised in the kitchen, and she was forced to confess to the reverend what she had done in order that he would then banish them.

The Reverend Franke Parker, known as 'Old Parson Parker' served the parish of Luffincott in the far west of Devon in the 1830s. Like the Reverend William Cunningham, he too possessed a library of magical books, but also possessed, by some mysterious means, the ability to know when someone was prying into his collection. It is said that whilst delivering a sermon, he suddenly stopped and ran from the church back to the rectory much to the surprise of his flock, for he had sensed that his maid was reading one of his occult books. He rushed into his library just in time to stop her before any magical mishap might have occurred.

Some of the magical powers and inclinations attributed to old Parson Parker would appear to paint him more in the hue of a traditional witch rather than that of your average 'cunning man', for he was said to posses the ability to 'shape shift' into animal form. Indeed, the local policeman is said to have discovered the parson sitting on his chair and barking like a dog. Perhaps incriminating, and certainly difficult to explain, is more the situation another visitor to the rectory found him in: laying in his bed surrounded by the bodies of dead toads.

Shortly before his death, Parker is said to have declared that he would return from the world of spirit in the form of an animal, such as that of a dog, a rat or a white rabbit. When he died aged eighty in 1883, so serious was the concern that he would make his promised bestial reappearances, that his body was interred in a grave dug to a depth of seventeen feet as a preventative measure.

Perhaps one of Devon's most famous conjuring parsons is the Reverend Harris, or Parson Harris of Hennock; a small village on the south-eastern flank of Dartmoor with beautiful views over the Teign Valley. Parson Harris was regarded as a 'wizard, and was consulted by the people of his parish for his skills in conjuring, particularly it seems in order to identify thieves and retrieve stolen property.

In one case at least however, it was psychology rather than conjuring that he employed to identify a thief, yet it was his reputation as a conjuror that secured the efficacy of the exercise. A farmer named Tuckett went to see the parson one day; seeking his aid regarding three geese which had been stolen from his farm. The parson reassured the farmer, telling him that the man who had taken his geese shall soon be 'put to open shame’.

On the following Sunday morning, the parson climbed into his pulpit and proclaimed loudly before the seated congregation; ‘I give you all to know that Farmer Tuckett has had three geese stolen. I have consulted my books and drawn my figures, and I have so conjured it that three feathers of thickey geese shall now, my this very instant, stick to the nose of the thief! Of course, the guilty party instinctively raised their hand to their nose and the parson, watching for this very reaction, immediately pointed his finger and boomed out across the church 'there is the man who stole the geese!’

On another occasion, Farmer Loveys called on Parson Harris for help as his fine gander had been stolen from his farm the previous night. The parson set about consulting his occult tomes before drawing a magic circle in which he uttered a strange incantation. He then walked over to his library window and opened it just as the missing gander was flung through to land at his feet, all plucked, trussed, and on the spit ready for roasting.

Another tale, perhaps a different version of the previous one, tells of the parson being consulted about a missing cockerel, which its owner was sure must have been stolen. Parson Harris told the man not to worry, for not only would he conjure the bird to be returned to him, he would cause the thief to reveal himself as well. When the man returned to his home, he was followed by his neighbour who came running through the door carrying the half roasted bird.

A particularly interesting story concerning the Parson hints at a dichotomy between his magical artes and his position as a cleric.

He couldn't help but notice one Saturday that his maid, Polly, was caught in a deep melancholy; sobbing to herself now and then. When Harris asked the girl what was the matter, she explained that she was missing her boyfriend terribly; as he had left for Exeter to enter into service.

Feeling sorry for the girl, and of course not wanting an interminably miserable maid about the house, he promised to conjure the young man back home to her. However, the Sunday rolled by and there was no sign of the return of her lover; leaving the maid completely inconsolable, and much shaken in her faith in her master's powers. She went to bed and sobbed herself to sleep.

As Dawn approached however, she was awoken by someone desperately banging on the door outside; it was her lover John, exhausted and drenched with perspiration. The parson's conjuration had not worked upon him until at nightfall when he removed his coat; for in one of its pockets was his Bible. As soon as he took off his coat, he had been compelled to run all the way from Exeter to the parson's home. The young man's Bible had acted as a protective charm against the parson's 'unholy' spell.”

—

Silent as the Trees:

Devonshire Witchcract, Folklore & Magic

by Gemma Gary

[thefightingbull]

Well... That Was Unexpected (Teaser)

Thanksgiving. It didn’t seem like much, but since Jason had made amends with the family, it had become the single most important holiday of the year. Spending time at the manor and eating a home cooked meal that Steph and Alfred would likely spend hours working on the day before and the day after was a requirement. Or maybe they’d just cater it this year… He thought he’d heard something about that.

The only problem Jason foresaw with the upcoming event was that he was without a date. The year prior only Tim had a date in Steph. Bruce, Dick, Alfred, and Barbara were all single. Unfortunately for him, Barbara and Roy were dating, Bruce insisted that Selina show up, Alfred and Dr. Thompkins were an item and Dick was officially official with Kori again. Hell, even Damian was “dating” some girl from school and of course all of them would be at the dinner.

He scrolled through his contact list and sighed. He did not want to be the only solo act in the manor. It was hard enough being the undead Robin. Harder being the only one who’d been an enemy to his family at one point. The one who’d nearly killed some of them… He shook off the thought.

He was over the past. So was his family. He just didn’t want to be reminded of yet another way he didn’t fit in. He had to find someone, anyone to date. But who?

With a sigh he pocketed his phone and walked into the diner. He needed to get his head in the game. Some asshat was running around casting spells and causing all sorts of havoc. He’d gotten an alert from Deathstroke earlier that morning asking that they meet up. Apparently, the magician was one of the assassin’s contracts.

He really, really didn’t want to be bait. Magicians, wizards, witches? They all sucked. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d been royally screwed playing bait for a magician. He’d been turned into animals, de-aged, shrunk, aged, and once he’d even been turned into a freaking action figure. Yeah, magic wasn’t anything he liked messing with.

Still, if Deathstroke asked, he would do it. Mostly because he owed the cyclops a massive favor. Nextly, because he actually liked working with him. If Dick had half the brain he claimed to have, he would have watched, listened and learned. He would have come out of the engagements stronger, smarter, and more capable.

Jason was seated in the back of the restaurant in a corner booth, his back to the wall so that he could see the men and women coming inside. He ordered himself a coffee, black. Ever since he’d watched Dick dump diabetes type 2 inducing amounts of sugar in his, Jason had avoided the sweet substance. He didn’t even let people put fake sweeteners in his caffeine.

His eyes glanced upward as a few people came into the restaurant. A few guys and a girl. He looked back down at his coffee and took a sip as a very attractive man approached him. He was taller than most with blonde hair and the brightest blue eyes he’d seen in a long time. His shaggy blond hair and grimace did look a touch familiar but it was the way the man moved that really caught Jason’s attention. He approached with purpose and took a seat at his booth.

“Uh, beach is that way, dude,” he snarked as he pointed toward the coast.

“Shut up, Jason,” the man hissed.

He blinked in surprise as he scowled at the blond before him. “Who…?” He shook his head as he looked over the stranger. Blond hair, like platinum blond hair. The guy had stood at least six foot four and he was built like a fucking terminator, or rather, built like The Terminator. “Holy shit!”

“Took care of a witch a few days ago,” he snapped. “Seems he had a few allies that took offense.”

Jason couldn’t do anything but stare at the man. Did Slade realize how gorgeous he was? Truth be told he’d always had a crush on the older man, but he’d seemed untouchable before. Now, all Jason wanted to do was touch. He tried to refocus on the conversation, but it was difficult.

“What’s your problem?” Slade snapped at him.

“Nothing,” he answered immediately. “Just a little taken back, that’s all.”

Slade sneered. “Yeah, that’s why I need your help.”

“Gotta kiss a real boy to turn back into an old frog?” He couldn’t help but tease the old man.

Those sky-blue eyes rolled as Jason was grabbed roughly by the collar. The speed and the skill warned that despite being a good two or three decades younger than he should be and forced to see out of two eyes, Slade was still very much a dangerous man who didn’t always appreciate the lip.

“Your fairy tales are crossed,” Slade growled low. “I don’t know what the fuck I need, but I do believe the spell will resolve itself eventually.”

As soon as Jason was released, he nodded. “How soon?”

“Couple weeks at least, couple months at the most.” Slade frowned.

“So… What did you need me for?”

“I need to lie low,” he answered quietly. “You’re one of the few capes that owes me a favor and one that won’t drag me to Arkham or Blackgate.”

Jason nodded, but then paused. Wait, did that mean? “Slade,” he whispered as he leaned forward to make sure no one else could hear. “Are your enhancements… you know?”

“Gone?” Slade huffed. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so terrifying. “It’s not something I’m willing to explain.”

“But it leaves you vulnerable,” he reasoned and when he saw the glare added quickly; “Or well, as vulnerable as someone like you can be.”

Slade nodded. “You gonna help me or not?”

He leaned back and nodded. “I’ve got a few places you can hide out, not all of them are dumps,” he explained softly. He noticed a few women were staring at Slade as they passed by, especially the waitress who looked like she was trying to hype herself up. “Do you see the effect you are having on people?”

To Jason’s further surprise, Slade blushed! Like actually blushed. His cheeks turned red and he didn’t even scowl or growl at Jason. Yeah, he was a master of self-control with his enhancements, but it seemed he didn’t have the molecular level of control over his body at the moment.  He wondered if Slade was even aware of the way his cheeks turned red.

He was about to ask when the waitress finally sidled over. “Anything I can get you, handsome?” She grinned.

Slade jaw ticked as his fists clenched on the table. “He’ll have coffee, black and a Denver omelet. I’ll have the biscuits and gravy.”

The woman pouted a little, but made off to get their order put in. “Thanks,” Slade grumbled.

“This is really throwing you off your game, isn’t it?” Jason didn’t smile. He absolutely bit back the temptation to continue pestering the man about his predicament and be an adult about it.

Slade didn’t answer, obviously working on trying to control himself. Whatever he tried; it didn’t work. If looks could kill, Jason would be a dead man. The narrowed eyes, the unholy sneer on his lips? It was intense and not something Slade had been prone to in the past unless he wanted to strike fear into the hearts of any surrounding him.

“Jason,” Slade started, but was interrupted by the shout of another.

“Jay!”

Slade turned and Jason looked toward the front where Dick and his partner Devon Peterson had just entered. His brother was all smiles as he and the other cop approached them. He looked down at Slade and Jason almost wondered if Slade’s non-existent cover had already been blown. To be fair, Dick had the most familiarity with the assassin. They’d been enemies, reluctant allies, and had briefly shared a partnership in which Slade had tried to be something of a mentor.

If anyone had known what Slade looked like as a young man, Dick would make the most sense.

“Who is this?” Dick smiled as he looked down at the younger version of his former antagonist.

Slade looked like he was going to tease Dick as he was so used to doing, so Jason kicked him beneath the table. “Hey Dick, this is,” he glanced at Slade to be sure there would be no retaliation and to try and think. “This is uh… Well, he’s…” Shit. Maybe he should have allowed Slade to speak.

The only problem was that Jason had never trusted Devon. He’d been Dick’s partner for a year and seemed shifty as fuck. He frowned and looked to Slade, trying to impress upon him the knowledge or paranoia he had about the other cop. Not that Slade was a fan of cops anyhow. They usually made his life a touch more difficult than necessary.

“Fuck, you know what,” he stalled as he formed a really half-assed plan. “This is my boyfriend.”

Devon’s eyes widened in surprise. “You’re gay?”

“Wow, Jay, really?” Dick smiled. “How long?”

“C-couple of months. I just… you know how I am with relationships… I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. You know what vultures the media can be.”

Dick nodded; the poor guy knew better than most, he really did. Jason almost felt bad for the oldest of Bruce’s kids. He’d been under a microscope the moment he turned eighteen. Tabloids ran a story on anyone they thought he might be dating and definitely anytime he’d broken up with them. Hell, there’d even been an article devoted to all of Dick’s one-nightstands a few months back.

“You gonna introduce me to your boyfriend?” Dick smiled, he and his partner still standing beside their table. Devon looked bored and a little irritated, but Dick was practically glowing.

“This is… Lance,” He almost cringed but frowned when he saw the furious expression on Slade’s face.

He couldn’t help it though. Slade looked like some kind of New Kid on the Backstreet or something. He was absolutely gorgeous and the first name that popped into his head was Lance. He was so fucking dead. Slade Wilson, who already had a porn star’s name, was now Lance.

“Hi, Lance, I’m Jason’s brother, Dick,” he offered his hand to Slade.  

Lance hid the rage from his eyes as he looked up at and took the offered hand. “That’s not my name. Your asshole brother just insists on calling me that because he thinks I look like a boyband loser,” Slade sneered. “My name is Liam, Liam Kelly.”

Dick laughed and nodded. “Yeah, Jason’s always been a bit of an ass,” he nudged Jason’s shoulder as he spoke. “Well, we’re just grabbing our breakfast to go, but it was a pleasure meeting you, Liam. I hope we see you at dinner this Sunday.”

“I doubt I’ll be in town,” Slade started.

“He’ll be there,” Jason insisted. “Now get outta here before your partner strangles you or something.”

Devon rolled his eyes before turning from them and walked back to the front of the diner without Dick. Jason really, really hated the guy. He wondered how corrupt the officer was. If he was just an asshole or if he was dirty, or maybe even a mole for someone.

“Sounds great!” Dick grinned to Liam. “Catch you later, Jay!”

As soon as he was out of range, Slade had him by the collar again. “What the Hell do you think you’re doing, Jason?”  

“Protecting you and doing myself a favor at the same time,” Jason explained. “Look, the family is always on me about not taking anything seriously. If they think I have a real boyfriend instead of some throwaway lover, they’ll stay off my ass for a bit. You dump me in front of them, like at Thanksgiving dinner at the end of the month? Dude, they’ll leave me alone for the rest of the season at the very least!”

“So, this will be your payment for allowing me to lie low? Putting my new persona in danger just so that you can have a date to some holiday functions coming up over the next four weeks?” Slade definitely looked against it. Still, Jason could only nod. “Fine, but you embarrass me or fuck me over in any way, and I swear I’ll gut you.”

[do-your-socks-have-holes-in-them]

On the Other Side / Ch15: Movie Night

Last / Masterpost / Next

Summary: For the past thirteen years, a secretive organization has been raising two groups of superpowered children. Half of them, since their very first memories, have been told they’ll grow up to be brave and strong superheroes; the rest were taught a much harsher view of the world, and groomed to become villains. Neither group knows of the other’s existence. But when a certain trio of heroes-to-be meets two future villains who really just want to be left alone, they all realize how much they haven’t been told.

Warnings: non-graphic violence, bullying, child abuse, sympathetic/good Deceit (Devon) is a main character

A/N: And I said, "I'll start updating regularly again." You know, like a liar. (but actually tho im doing a big bang so it's unlikely i'll be able to even try to update anything else regularly until the end of summer :/)

Read on AO3

Late Saturday morning, Thomas regarded the trunk of his car skeptically. “I really don’t think we needed to buy so many tiny flashlights and screwdrivers.”

“Uhm, I really think we did. Who’s the more experienced thief here, Thomas?” Remy’s unsubtle hand gestures made it clear what the answer was supposed to be.

“Just because you stole gum from a convenience store when you were thirteen—”

“I’m now a master criminal, yes, exactly. I’m glad you understand. The tiny flashlights are super important, trust me.”

Thomas sighed, amused. “If you say so. You gonna help me carry these bags?”

“Nope.”

“Remy—”

“I don’t have time, hon, I gotta go talk to Emile about all this, remember?” He neatly dodged Thomas’s attempt to foist a grocery bag on him. “I know you’re gonna miss me, but I’ll see you later, babe, don’t worry.”

Thomas scoffed and swatted his arm, which backfired a bit in that it nearly made him drop one of his bags. “I’ll live.” His words may have been dismissive, but he was smiling. That smile was still on his face as he made his way into the building and through the hallways to his own room. Most of the snacks were left there to be distributed later. He took the rest, along with the less innocuous items hidden at the bottom of the bags, and went down the hall to Logan, Roman, and Patton’s room.

“Good morning,” he called, after knocking in a pattern they’d agreed on the previous night so they would know it was him. He set the bags down and pressed a hand over his mouth in an effort not to “aww” out loud when he saw the kids.

They were all piled together in the blanket fort, and it looked like they’d been there the whole night. Patton was still asleep, tangled in a blanket, while Logan used him to prop up the book he was explaining to Devon- who, of course, tried to act like he already knew it, but his eyes were wide with interest. Meanwhile, Virgil was still curled up under Patton’s arm, where he’d become trapped at some point in the night, and Roman was telling him some grand story, complete with illustrations and various bits acted out. The smaller boy looked enthralled, if a little wary of all the wild gesturing. Roman paused mid-emphasis when Thomas walked in, just short of smacking Logan in the face, and Devon reached out and slowly pushed his arm back down.

Thomas smiled. “Hey guys, I brought you some stuff.”

“Ooh! What is it? Did you get good snacks?” Roman scrambled out of the fort and almost tripped on Patton, who had started to wake up. He turned over, holding Virgil to his chest like a teddy bear. The latter made a face and squirmed away, causing Patton to finally open his eyes.

“Oh. Sorry,” he laughed. Virgil waved him off with a shrug.

The kids gathered around, and Thomas started to show them what he and Remy had bought. “Of course I got good snacks, who do you think I am? Most of them are staying in my room for now, though, because I know you guys.”

There was a chorus of “aww.”

“Other than that, I got some clean clothes for you two, so you won’t need to keep wearing the same outfits all the time or borrow from the other kids. But I had to guess at your sizes, so if something doesn’t fit, tell me, okay?”

Devon and Virgil nodded shyly and took the clothes, hiding them under blankets in the fort for now. They would try them on once Thomas was gone; changing with him right there would be embarrassing, even if he couldn’t see them behind the blankets that hung down.

“Now… everybody come close, this part is secret. Remember the plan we talked about?” They all nodded. “I know not all of you were sure if you wanted to help, and I’m not trying to push you into it or anything, but I got you all some stuff for it- if anyone decides they don’t want to come, that just means there’s extras for those who do participate.”

“I’m coming!” Roman reminded him, in his version of a whisper.

Thomas laughed. “You made that clear, don’t worry. So, uh, we’ve just got a few little things that might be useful- most of it Remy insisted on, so don’t ask me what the putty is for.”

“Ooh, you were with Remy?” Patton grinned, clearly believing he was being subtle.

“We were just doing boring work things, so shush- and quit doing that thing with your eyebrows at me, Logan.” Thomas blushed, wishing he knew how to stop letting children embarrass him. The shopping trip may have been a boring work thing, but it was very hard to convince himself Remy hadn’t been lowkey flirting with him the entire time nonetheless. “Take the stuff already and leave me alone.”

“How about this,” Roman offered, “we’ll stop if and only if you let us have a movie night! I mean, we really need to- did you know they haven’t seen any Disney movies?!”

Thomas hummed, pretending to think hard about it. “That sounds like a deal I can agree to. I’ll bring my laptop in here for you later, how about that? I know you’d rather use the big TV screen," he said over disappointed protests, "but I really don’t want to risk having Devon and Virgil leave the room when it’s not necessary, alright?”

“I guess,” Roman huffed. “But that means you have to give us more snacks for it!”

“Whatever you say.”

Movie night, naturally, had to wait until it was at least evening- you couldn’t very well have one in the morning. Roman and Patton spent nearly all the preceding time planning it and gushing about how amazing it was going to be, to the point where the other three almost wished they weren’t having it, if only to get some peace and quiet. By the time Thomas came back after dinner to let them borrow his computer, the blankets in the fort had been rearranged countless times, and the kids had a list of everything else they wanted in order to make it absolutely perfect. Thomas went along with some of their requests, if not the ones like ‘a bunch of plastic balls so we can turn the room into a ball pit,’ and they managed to get everything arranged without anyone yelling at each other.

The movie they’d all decided on for tonight was Sleeping Beauty- they should start with a classic, right? Logan was in charge of holding the popcorn, because he was the only one who could be trusted not to spill it or eat it all himself. During the opening credits, Roman bounced in place impatiently, while Patton carefully arranged his stuffed animals so he could hold them all and none would feel left out, ignoring Logan’s reminder that they were inanimate objects and had no feelings to hurt. When he was finally satisfied and looked up, he caught Virgil staring at him, looking conflicted. As soon as their eyes met the smaller boy  looked away, blushing and wrapping the too-long sleeves of his jacket around himself. He and Devon had changed into their new clothes by now, but he’d refused to give up that hoodie any longer than was needed to wash it, and even that had been a struggle.

“Hey, Virgil?”

He looked up again, defensive.

“Do you wanna hold one of my toys?”

Virgil shook his head roughly, retreating into his hood. He didn’t need toys, he wasn’t a baby.

“Are you sure? This one’s all the way on the outside, I’m afraid it’s gonna get lonely… would you mind just holding onto it for me?” He held out a black stuffed cat, clearly well-loved by the fact it was missing an eye. Virgil hesitated, but finally took it, setting it down on his lap just so Patton wouldn’t be disappointed. Maybe it wasn’t too bad to hold it for him, as long as he wasn’t actually hugging it or anything.

“Oh- look, look, it’s starting!”

They both turned back to the screen at Roman’s exclamation. The credits had ended, and the fairy-tale book was opening.

“In a far-away land, long ago…”

Roman watched Devon and Virgil, waiting for them to see how great the movie was. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem too impressed. “Don’t you like it?”

Virgil shrugged.

“It’s kinda boring,” Devon admitted. “Like, oh, there’s a king and a queen and a princess and they’re rich and perfect and everyone loves them- who cares?”

“That’s because this is the exposition,” Logan pointed out. “We need to know who they are before we can get to the real beginning of the story, in which a—”

Roman swatted his arm. “Don’t spoil it!”

The movie continued up to the celebration of the baby Aurora’s birth.

“Those gifts suck,” Devon decided. “Why couldn’t they give the princess something cool? They could’ve given her magic powers and instead they just made her really pretty and good at singing.” Virgil nodded in agreement, making a face. They were both startled out of their snark when Maleficent appeared.

“She’s an evil fairy,” Roman stage-whispered.

Logan added on, “It was a great insult for the king and queen to invite everyone in the kingdom and not her, especially when she’s so powerful.”

It was hard to tell if the intended audience for these explanations was actually listening. They were staring at the screen, wide-eyed, as Maleficent turned around and cursed the princess. Roman took this as a good sign that they weren’t bored anymore.

“It’s just so impractical,” complained Logan, watching the pile of spinning wheels burn. “I mean, has the king even considered what this will do to the price of cloth in his kingdom? Everything will have to be imported!"

“Shut up, it’s a fairy tale,” Roman whined.

Devon looked almost impressed. “You know, he has a point.”

“Oh, just watch the movie.”

The three fairies, at least, were not a point of contention. It was generally accepted that, being fairies, they shouldn’t be expected to make sense- although, really, hiding Aurora away from civilization to keep her safe wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Maleficent doesn’t know anything about love, or kindness…”

When said Maleficent came back, it was hard not to notice the younger boys’ nerves. Logan saw Devon go very still and quiet next to him, no longer making fun even though Maleficent’s weird little minions were objectively ridiculous, and Patton could feel Virgil jump with every angry lightning strike, holding the stuffed cat tightly to his chest.

“It’s okay,” Patton told them in a whisper, “she doesn’t win.”

Roman was beginning to despair. “Don’t spoil it, Pat.”

Logan rolled his eyes. “It’s hardly a massive plot twist, Roman. In movies like this, the good guys always win.”

Thankfully, the tension was dispersed by a transition to a much lighter scene. Even Virgil relaxed and giggled at the fairies’ attempt to create a birthday party. Some of the humor was lost on them, however- they didn’t have the faintest idea how to sew or bake, either. What was a “tsp?” The other kids seemed to know. Maybe it should have been obvious what exactly Flora and Fauna were doing wrong.

The scene with Aurora-slash-Briar Rose and Prince Philip… didn’t go over quite so well.

“Oh, oh, he’s back, look! With a horse! Bet you think he’s cool now, right?”

The prince promptly fell off said horse into a stream, and Virgil snickered, raising an eyebrow at Roman. That was about as clear a wordless answer as he could ask for.

And now, the princess was dancing around singing about love?

“Gross,” muttered Devon and Logan in unison.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Logan continued as the two finally danced together. “I suppose I can understand her falling in love so quickly, given that he’s not only a handsome prince, but also the first person she’s ever met besides her guardians.”

“So you admit he’s handsome!”

“But what reason does Philip have for suddenly loving her so much, he’d rather marry her than become king? He’s only known her for a few minutes, and most of that was just listening to her sing without even seeing her.”

“The fairies did give her a magically good voice,” Devon mused. “Maybe she enchanted him to fall in love with her without realizing it.”

Roman reached over and gave them both a light shove. “It’s romantic, quit ruining it!”

“I think it’s cute…”

”Thank you, Patton!”

If Devon was oddly quiet after that, it was because he was grossed out by the sappy love stuff, and then worried about Maleficent’s bird finding the fairies- definitely not anything to do with the song about dreaming of having a friend hitting just slightly close to home. At least the kings were funny.

“Okay, maybe he’s a little cool,” Devon finally mumbled, watching Philip tell his father he was going to marry the random girl he’d just met. That was still a dumb decision, but anyone who could argue with a king and not be at all scared was at least slightly impressive.

Nobody really liked the part where Aurora was all distraught about not being able to meet Philip, so after a bit of sad silence, Roman took the opportunity to check in. “Do you guys like it so far?” he asked, clearly needing the answer to be yes.

Virgil nodded hesitantly, and Devon shrugged: “It’s… not bad. But I still think there should be less stuff about love, and—”

He gasped and cut himself off when Maleficent appeared in the fireplace. Virgil pressed up against him, eyes almost as wide as the hypnotized princess.

“Should’ve known she could just make another spinning wheel…” He tried to sound cool and unimpressed, and not scared. “Stupid king. She’s magic.”

Virgil whispered something in his ear.

“Oh, yeah- it doesn’t even matter, anyway, right? They can just get the prince to come back and kiss her, ‘cause they’re already in love.” His face scrunched up at the thought of kissing, but it was a solution.

However, as everyone else already knew, it wasn’t that easy.

Virgil sat up so quickly when Philip was attacked and captured by Maleficent’s minions that he would have fallen over, had Patton not been there to catch him.

“But did you see how many of ‘em he fought off before they got him?!” Roman punched the blankets around him to demonstrate, making sound effects.

If Roman was still happy, that probably meant Philip would be fine, right? Not that Virgil cared what happened to some stupid prince in a movie. Maleficent could kill him, for all Virgil cared. …But she wouldn’t, right? No, that wouldn’t happen, Patton and Logan had said she didn’t win in the end.

That reasoning didn’t stop both him and Devon from remaining tense for… pretty much the entire rest of the movie. Even if Philip was okay, they really didn’t like seeing him in Maleficent’s dungeon. At least in the Room they didn’t get chained up- Virgil shuddered at the thought.

“See!” Roman exclaimed triumphantly, when the fairies finally arrived to help him get out. “I told you he was cool!”

“I guess,” said Devon, sounding a whole lot more impressed than he wanted to let on. “Fairies are still doing most of the work, though.”

Then came the most exciting part of all: the final battle between Philip and Maleficent. From the moment she landed in front of the castle and turned herself into a dragon until the end of the movie, there were no snarky comments to be heard, and hardly even any disgusted faces made when Aurora was awakened by true love’s kiss.

“See? You didn’t need to be so worried, good prevailed in the end!” It wasn’t until Roman turned to face the two younger boys, and saw them still pale and anxious despite the movie being over, that he realized worrying about the ending may not have been the full issue. “Um�� Guys? Is something wrong?”

Virgil and Devon had a brief, tense whispered conversation before Devon spoke up- very quietly, almost like he didn’t want to be heard.

“Are we evil?”

In the moment of stunned silence that followed, Virgil climbed over him, conspicuously placing himself between his friend and Roman. He didn’t seem to realize he was still clutching Patton’s stuffed cat.

“Wh- no! Of course not!” Roman jumped to his feet to emphasize how serious he was, and they both flinched a little. “Why would you think that?!”

Devon waited for Virgil’s cautious nod before saying anything else. “It’s just- Maleficent… she was evil, and she looked like us, kind of, and- and she could shapeshift like me.” He touched the scales on his face and remembered the dragon. “So- it seemed like… the movie was saying those things are evil. I dunno, it’s dumb,” he trailed off, shrinking behind Virgil. “I- I mean, we already knew we’re villains…”

“No, you’re not,” Roman said firmly. He pushed the laptop aside and sat down in front of them, so they couldn’t avoid looking at him. “You’re not anything like her! You’re not evil, you’re nice and you care about people and- and if anything, you’re more like Aurora.”

They both looked up, if only so he could see their skeptical faces. How did that make any sense? She was a princess.

“No, really,” he insisted. “Because you didn’t even do anything wrong, but the teachers and everyone are trying to hurt you because they’re the evil ones, but now you’re gonna get a happy ending! Because I’m the Prince, and I’ll fight them for you.” He stood again and struck a pose to demonstrate.

Devon gave him a soft, genuine smile, then smirked as a thought occurred to him. “Just don’t try to kiss us.”

“Ew, no!”

Everyone laughed. As Roman sat back down, he almost didn’t feel the tug on his shirt. He looked over to see Virgil looking not-quite-at him, chewing on his lip nervously. Once he saw he had Roman’s attention, he took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut and went for it.

“T-thanks. For saying that.”

In an ironic turn of events, Roman was speechless. Virgil’s voice, now that he heard it, was lower than he would have expected from such a tiny kid, and somewhat rough- maybe because he hardly ever talked. And now he was peeking up through his bangs, waiting for Roman’s reaction, looking like he kinda wanted to run away. Oh, shoot, Roman needed to say something back and not make it awkward, didn’t he?

He pushed through his shock to answer, “Of course. It was all true, after all.” Then he nudged Virgil’s hood back slightly in order to mess up his hair, because he couldn’t let things get too mushy. Virgil hissed and smacked his hand away, and the natural order of things was restored.

“But really though, what did you think of the movie?”

Virgil curled up in the blankets. His heart was still beating too fast just from saying four words- if he talked any more, he was afraid he might die from it. But he gave Roman a shy thumbs-up, and from the grin he got in response, that seemed to be good enough.

[sleepyymp3]

okja (2017)

it may be two years too late but i recently (a few minutes ago) watched the film Okja.  for those who are unsure of the plot, okja follows the path of a young girl who raised okja, a pig bred for a competition.  when the pig is taken away for the competition, Mija, the girl, goes after her.  she meets a rebel group of animal lovers and they attempt to take the pig back.

im about to spoil the film so if you haven’t seen it and wanna, bye!

okay.  spoilers below.  it’s been two years though so unless you’re me, you should be aware of the plot.  they’re not major spoilers though.

firstly, my initial thoughts.  i loved it.  the cinematography was fantastic, striking visuals and contrast of light and dark when approaching different parts of the film were perfect and beautiful, the emotions they evoked from me when watching it was unforgettable.  when the shot of all the manufactured pigs panned out to show thousands of them, i had chills everywhere.

the fact that it was a korean-american film in terms of actors, language and setting--and done so WELL, director Bong Joon-ho impressed me to no ends, is important in so many ways.  the representation it brings, as well as the importance of steven yeun (the walking dead, voltron: legendary defender, mayhem) in the role of the korean-american character ‘k’.  i am not a korean speaker, so i did limited research on his portrayal of k in the film, and according to an interview, he played k as a character that was dancing in between the roles of korean and american, and spoke slightly broken korean on purpose.  read this article for a well articulated version of what im trying to say: https://slate.com/culture/2017/06/there-s-a-translation-joke-for-korean-americans-in-the-subtitles-of-okja.html

the acting was fantastic.  Seo-Hyeon Ahn, mija, was phenomenal.  i was truly and completely invested because of her.  incredible.  the entire cast floored me.  everyone was so perfect in their roles i couldn’t believe what a dream cast it was.  tilda swinton and jake gyllenhaal astounded me, they were absolutely unforgettable as the ‘antagonists’, and i even felt disgustingly sympathetic for them, especially jake when dr. johnny has the breakdown in the factory.

carrying on, the characters were amazingly written.  the movie okja was portrayed so that there was no black and white, right and wrong--every character was in the grey area, it portrayed everyone in a harsh light.  the ‘good’ characters did bad things and it was a refreshing take on protag vs antag.  the main characters were so likeable and i loved their chemistry and interactions.  paul dano (jay) and steven yeun (k) thrived in their scenes together (k is a primary example of the “good character does bad thing” style i just mentioned when he mistranslates.  jay is also a bit iffy in terms of his morals in some scenes.  in fact, the whole alf is).  i lowkey shipped them together throughout the film, especially in the post credit scene.  other main characters included red, played by lily collins, blond, played by daniel henshall, and silver, played by devon bostick (aka jasper from the 100).

blond and silver, i would like to point out, are portrayed as boyfriends in the film.  lgbt characters.  they did not kiss on screen, nor did they in any way verbally state that they were in a homosexual relationship.  they were dating though.  through body language (holding each other, burying faces in necks/shoulders, sacrificing themselves for the other, etc) it was explicitly shown.  the fact that lgbt characters were shown in Okja without anybody mentioning or playing a large amount of attention to was amazing.  it showed that lgbt characters don’t have to be a ‘big deal’ or that they are in a film just to be an lgbt character.  they were animal lovers part of the alf who played crucial roles in the film, who just happened to be dating.  it was fine.  wonderful.

finally, okja the film was NOT an anti-meat statement.  i can see how it could be interpreted as such but it was NOT AN ANTI-MEAT FILM.  mija is shown explicitly eating meat, she collects fish in the stream for dinner and her grandfather makes her chicken stew.  this film was promoting ETHICAL PRODUCTION.  the conditions of which the bred bigs were put through were an attempt to show the horrors of manufactured creatures such as okja.  though they are not real creatures and this is a fictional setting, it is a representation of real meat manufacturing and production.  okja is chosen as the Biggest, Best, most Beautiful pig, and she has been raised by just roaming the country, fed and raised naturally.  this is a representation of natural, ethical means of meat production.  it showed corporate greed, activism and ETHICAL PRODUCTION.

tldr; OKJA IS AN INCREDIBLE FILM WITH PHENOMENAL ACTING AND AN AMAZING MESSAGE THAT STAYS WITH YOU LONG AFTER WATCHING.  PLEASE GO WATCH IT.  IT IS WORTH THE TIME I PROMISE YOU.

also: i have absolutely no experience nor professional critiquing in terms of film studies or the history of meat production.  or ethnicity representation or anything that i have spoken about.  take my opinions with a grain of salt.  i am literally fifteen years old.

if you made it this far, thanks for reading!  i hope this film changes/changed you as much as it did me. 

[dragonprincefan]

Hey Dragon Fans! Let’s do a round up of all the information we’ve gotten so far about The Dragon Prince! This is quite a lot of info, so I’ll be throwing the bulk of it under a cut. (There will be spoilers for episode 1 of the show below the cut.)

The Dragon Prince, developed by Wonderstorm Inc., animated by Bardel Entertainment, and distributed by Netflix will be releasing all the episodes of the first season on September 14, 2018.

The official summary is, “Two human princes forge an unlikely bond with the elven assassin sent to kill them, embarking on an epic quest to bring peace to their warring lands.”

You can watch the promotional trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Bf7JLnlOU

Promotional taglines used by the official accounts have been “Destiny is a book you write yourself!” and “dragon big”.

Netflix currently has the show rated as TV-Y7 for Fantasy Violence. The animation is cell-shaded CG, much like what you see in Fire Emblem, Guilty Gear, or Avatar: The Lost Episodes.

The show will have an accompanying video game developed by Wonderstorm* with the story tellers for both show and game working closely together to ensure the stories being told are well integrated and complementary.

Our lead characters for the Netflix series are Callum, the elder human prince, Ezran, the human crown prince, and Rayla, a Moonshadow Elven Assassin.

The universe The Dragon Prince takes place in is divided into two primary areas, Xadia, the magical lands in the East, and the five great human kingdoms in the West. Centuries ago, Thunder the King of Dragons guarded the border between Xadia and the Human Kingdoms.

In the TDP universe, there were originally six types of magic: moon, sun, stars, earth, ocean, and sky. Humans developed a seventh type of magic, Dark Magic. With Dark Magic you find a creature that has that magic as part of their essence, you consume it quickly, and it unleashes a great amount of magic quickly. Dark Magic became a shortcut to great, fast power, but led to corruption and was wielded at the expense of the varied, intelligent, and powerful magical creatures of Xadia. The dragons and the elves allied to try to put a stop to the humans’ use of Dark Magic, but the Dragon King Thunder was killed by humans using dark magic and Thunder’s only egg and heir, The Dragon Prince, was destroyed. Now the world stands on the edge of all out war...

The first episode is titled “Book 1: Moon, Episode 1: Echoes of Thunder” and was premiered at the SDCC 2018 panel. You can read IGN’s review of the episode here.

SPOILERS FOR EPISODE ONE BEGIN HERE

Ezran is scared of thunderstorms and likes to steal treats from the baker with his pet glow toad, Bait. Glow toads are described as “the Grumpy Cat of magical illusionary amphibians.”

Even though Callum is older he is not the crown prince because he is the stepson of the king. This means Callum and Ezran are half brothers. The condition and whereabouts of Callum and Ezran’s mother is reported to be a spoiler. The King is a black man, and it appears that Ezran may be biracial.

One of the royal guards Sorin/Soren/Zoren (spelling unknown) is tasked with training Callum in sword fighting. Callum is disinterested and prefers to draw, unless Soren’s sister, Claudia, is around. Callum appears to have a crush on Claudia, and Soren helps by going easy on him in sparring sessions in front of her. Claudia appears to be very studious and nearly runs into a tree while reading because she is too focused on her book. Claudia and Soren’s father is a highly placed lord and leader of the royal army/guard.

It looks like Callum will be learning to use magic over the course of the show. What type of magic he uses is currently unknown. Based on the trailer I think that may be Claudia also shown using magic. Regardless of her identity, I suspect what the dark haired female magic user in the trailer is using is the Dark Magic we’ve seen discussed.

The elves that Rayla is a member of are called Moonshadow Elves (white haired elves with dark horns) and they literally draw power from the moon. They are at thier strongest during the full moon. The bracelet Rayla wears was acquired during a ceremony swearing loyalty to the Dragon King’s cause/memory(?). Moonshadow Elves demonstrate at minimum some form of cloaking magic, but can still be detected by certain types of animals. Rayla has a Scottish accent.

Rayla is going to be something of a mysterious figure and strongly conflicted about her role in current events, “testing her sense of right and wrong.” She tries to tell herself that “an assassin does not decide right or wrong, only life and death.”*

When the Moonshadow Elves stage an attack on the castle, the King decides to send Callum and Ezran away for thier own safety. Meanwhile, Soren and Claudia are ordered by thier father to stop the assassins. Callum wants to help but is told he cannot because he is only 14 (and 3/4!) years old and he must be 15 to fight.

There was a black-haired guard in the first episode (the one attacked by Rayla) that had not been formally named, but when asked by the panel audience they named him Marcos.

END OF  SPOILERS FOR EPISODE ONE

During the Q&A session (I’ve discussed this with several people who were in the room now trying to get clarity) it sounds like the question of if there would be LGBT+ representation in the show was very narrowly sidestepped. They told the panel audience that any sort of answer would be a spoiler. It seems likely that there will be LGBT+ representation, but it has not been explicitly promised, and I urge folk to temper expectations with the knowledge that while it’s wrong to use the TV-Y7 rating as a reason to not show canonically LGBT+ characters, it may end up being outside the Wonderstorm team’s hands to try to get it on screen. I’m cautiously optimistic. We’ll have to wait and see.

The staff did say they are strongly dedicated to creating an inclusive and diverse fantasy universe, with an especial focus on visible ethnic diversity. We can already see the beginning of that with the King and Ezran.

Being on Netflix permits the staff to do a darker take on the story than they might have been permitted on network television, and they’re excited to get to tell a complex and nuanced story that explores moral grays and the idea that there are both good and bad actors in every group and culture. That said, they want this series to be fun, light-hearted, and quirky too.

The SDCC panel gave away two goodies to anyone lucky enough to get into the panel, a large physical poster version of the concept art we first saw with the initial announcement and an enamel pin of Ezran’s pet glow toad, Bait. The backing for the enamel pin announced that Hot Topic will be carrying exclusive merchandise for The Dragon Prince beginning in September 2018.

(A big thank you to elventhespian, owldee, and kohisu for thier live blogs of the SDCC 2018 panel.) 

Official TDP social media accounts:

Tumblr - @dragonprinceofficial

Twitter - @thedragonprince

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dragonprinceofficial/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/dragonprinceofficial

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPn8cnHhLHMQrGCmS0K5aBQ

TDP CAST AND CREW

The show is being helmed by Aaron Ehasz (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Futurama) and Justin Richmond (Uncharted 2, 3, & 4). Other staff members include: 

Executive Producer -- Giancarlo Volpe (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Green Lantern: The Animated Series, Star vs the Forces of Evil)

Composer -- Frederik Wiedmann (Green Lantern: The Animated Series, The Damned, Dying of the Light, various DC animated films)

Executive at Netflix -- Jenna Boyd (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Animation Directors --  Meruan Salim, Carlyle Wilson

Animation Coordinator -- Tony Power (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

Lead Animator -- Brian Ahlf (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) , Eric Childs (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Brian Kavanagh (DinoTrux), Kevin Kyle (The Adventures of Puss in Boots), Jody Prouse (DinoTrux, The Adventures of Puss in Boots)

Other Wonderstorm Staff -- Robert Cogburn, Devon Giehl, Danika Harrod, Iain Hendry, Dan Liebgold, Lauren Topal, Neil Mukhopadhyay, Justin Santistevan, Lulu Younes

Various Animators, Storyboard & Graphic Artists, Directors, etc -- Sabrina Ali, Laura Ambrosiano, Nicki Bianchini, CT Chrysler, Frankie Franco III, Zakiah Grant, Chelsea Gratzlaff, Tim Kaminski, Erica Kim, Nasus Lee, Jessica Mahon, Katie Olson, Daniel Pira, Candice Prince‏, Devin Rosychuk, Alicia Schaeffer, Siggy Sigmond, Eman Thabet

Voice Actor [Callum] -- Jack DeSena (Sokka on Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Voice Actor [Ezran] -- Sasha Rojen (The Flash, iZombie)

Voice Actor [Rayla] -- Paula M. Burrows [@paulamburrows]

Voice Actor [Claudia] -- Racquel Belmonte [@raqattack5 | x] (Sira on Lego Elves)

Voice Actor [Soren] -- Jesse Inocalla [@jinocalla] (The Little Prince, Dead Rising 4) 

Voice Actor [King Harrow] --  Luc Roderique [@lucroderique]

Voice Actor [Runaan] -- Jonathan Holmes

Voice Actor -- Rena Anakwe [@DJLadyLane | x] (Sapphire Shores on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Voice Actor -- Erik Todd Dellums [@ErikToddDellums | x | x] (Koh on Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Voice Actor -- Adrian Petriw [@adrianpetriw | x] (Adam in The Hollow)

Voice Actor -- Jason Simpson [@aboySimpson] (Cyclops on The Hollow)

I’m looking forward to having a fun fan experience with everyone in the months to come! 

Fan accounts to watch on twitter: DragonPrinceFan, The Dragon Prince Podcast, and Mundo Avatar (news in Portuguese)

Dedicated fan accounts to watch on tumblr: @dragonprincefan and @tdp-news

[daddyzherewebsiteupdates]

Updates 12-01-2018

Updates 12-01-2018

My Dear Followers,

I don’t know why and I’ve received no explanation from Google, my original Update Google Group has suddenly disappeared. I’ve had to re-start a new group.

I found out on October 4th, Google had removed my Group once again.

I’ve decided to post my updates once a month on Tumblr! I hope this will work out well for all who wish to keep up with the new additions to my website!

Here are the latest uploads to my website!

Hopefully, the next newsletter will be displayed January 1st, 2019.

 To All Members:

A Reminder – If something isn’t working, please, don’t be shy; let me know so I can fix it! 

Daddy’s webpage links

For those wishing to explore, here are the all the links to Daddyshere Website Pages!

http://www.daddyshere.com/daddyshere-webpages.html

Currently there are now 228 artists, as well as 115 3D, render artists, whose works are on display at my website!

There are also two pages of “Assorted Artists”, whose works I have in limited numbers as well as “Assorted 3D Artists”, along with the “Gay Poser Artists” group and Unknown Poser Artists.

If you haven’t gone to the “Assorted Artists” pages, you should check them out! There are many good art pieces I’m sure you’ll like! See the links below!

However, for those who are unfamiliar with my pages, you’ll find several erotic, gay, art works by many other artists at these pages, including my own work.

http://www.daddyshere.com/assorted-artists.html (8 or less samples of other artists’ works. Names are in alphabetical order)

http://www.daddyshere.com/assorted-artists-2.html (8 or less samples of other artists’ works. Names are in alphabetical order.)

http://www.daddyshere.com/gayart.html

http://www.daddyshere.com/gay-artists-list.html

http://www.daddyshere.com/gay-artist-samples.html (A sample of each artist’s work.)

http://www.daddyshere.com/gay-artist-samples_02.html (A sample of each artist’s work.)

 http://www.daddyshere.com/gay-poser-artists-list.html 

http://www.daddyshere.com/a-p-a.html (8 or less samples of other render artists’ works. Names are in alphabetical order)

http://www.daddyshere.com/a-p-a_02.html (8 or less samples of other render artists’ works. Names are in alphabetical order)

http://www.daddyshere.com/poser3d.html (A sample of each artist’s work.)

http://www.daddyshere.com/u-p-a.htm (Unknown Render Artists list.)

http://www.daddyshere.com/myart.html (Artwork by Mickey “Daddy” Ray)

As you’ve probably noticed, Daddy has been very busy with a new project in creating transparencies of all the artists listed at my website.

I have added two pages of transparent gifs of 207 artists currently at my website and will continue to create more as new artists are added.

You can find the transparency links on all the pages listed above, and here are the direct links as well! I hope you enjoy!!

http://www.daddyshere.com/gay-artist-samples.html

http://www.daddyshere.com/gay-artist-samples_02.html

*BTW: Just to clarify, “New Art or New Renders” does not, necessarily, mean the art is new from the artist, but that the images have been newly added or updated to the artists’ pages at my site.

Daddy’s Other Webpage Links

If you haven’t checked out all of Daddy’s Special Pix, there are many sensuous photos to be seen in all the other series available to browse through.

http://www.daddyshere.com/daddy's-men-and-boyz.html

http://www.daddyshere.com/daddys-and-sons.html

http://www.daddyshere.com/daddys-pix.html

http://www.daddyshere.com/chrisw.html (Daddy’s #1 ‘Son’. This goes back several years. Chris is bisexual and is now married to a terrific gal whom I got to meet two years ago.)

Do You Enjoy Erotic, Gay fiction? Check out these pages!

http://www.daddyshere.com/daddys-and-sons-erotic-fiction.html

http://www.daddyshere.com/stories.html

http://www.daddyshere.com/sox-stories.html

Are you a creative writer of erotic, gay stories? Want to submit a story? Click on the link below!

http://www.daddyshere.com/submitstories.html

 Artwork

(The links below lead to artworks which are primarily gay friendly. Some are erotic in nature, others are paintings and portraits of men in various media and positions. While many of the artists are openly gay, some are not but they have created artwork well worth seeing!)

UNKNOWN ARTISTS – I could really use your help in identifying the artists on this page. Some look very familiar to me, but with over 170 artists on my list, it’s hard to remember them all and their individual styles. Perhaps, in looking over the page, you’ll see images you recognize and maybe even have a signed copy and/or a larger version.

http://www.daddyshere.com/unknown-artists.html

If you do see an image you recognize and know who the artist is, please write to me (daddyzhere@gmail.com) and let me know. I would love to give these works their identity and the give the artists the credit for their work. To view the page, just click on the bold, underlined link above. – Thank you!

NEW ART!

*Asterisks denote artwork for which I have created transparencies. Enjoy!

New art by Aenaluck, *“Halloween 2018”, *“Servaney’s Erotic Dream Again”, *“Audec Working Hard in the Rain”

http://www.daddyshere.com/aenaluck-2018.html

New art by DAD, *“The Snake 1 - 3”

http://www.daddyshere.com/dad.html

New art by DatingDick, “Black Friday”, *“Veteran’s Day”, **“Adam’s Ugly Sweater 1 & 2”, *“Bernard’s Ugly Sweater”, *“Dick’s Ugly Sweater”, *“Santa’s Lap”

http://www.daddyshere.com/datingdick-2018.html

New art by Greg Fox II, “Bed and Breakfast “500 - 502”

http://www.daddyshere.com/greg-fox-02.html

New art by Gregoire, *“Halloween Trick”

http://www.daddyshere.com/assorted-artists.html

New art by Mitchell, *“Brick Arrives at the Clinic”, “Brick Undresses”, “Brick Waits for the Doctor”

www.daddyshere.com/mitchell's-brick-and-the-mad-scientists.html 

New art by Otokonobo (Bo), *“Big Dick Daddy”

http://www.daddyshere.com/otokonobo.html

New art by Silverjow, *“Hunk of the Week #82”, “Black Panther”, *“Hunk of the Week #83”, *“Smokie Dokie”, “Nathan Callum”, *“Sakura Strolls 1 - 3”, *“Hunk of the Week #84”, *“Summer Breeze”, *“Hunk of the Week #85”, “Trevor Signorino”, *“Capricorn”

http://www.daddyshere.com/silverjow-2018.html

New art by Zane Nox, *“Happy Halloween”, “Angel Ganev” *“Taking Photo #9”, “Alex Cohen”, “Neon Hunk”

http://www.daddyshere.com/zane-nox.html

NEW 3D RENDER ART

Asterisks denote renders for which I have created transparencies. Enjoy!

New renders by Alexavier19, “Intergalactic Porn”, *“Sunbathing” “Special Training”, *“Titans”, *“Jock Pussy”

http://www.daddyshere.com/alexavier.html

New renders by 5200north, “Tyler at the Motel Balcony”, *“Bobby”, “Bobby in a Bathtub”

http://www.daddyshere.com/a-p-a.html

New renders by Botguy, “Don’t Stop ‘Till You Drop”

http://www.daddyshere.com/botguy-2018.html

New renders by Brake (Jon), “Half Time”, *“Release”, “Play Ball”

http://www.daddyshere.com/jon-brake-2018.html

New renders by Butchsl, *“Catching the Breath”, *“The Car Park”, *“The Peacekeeper”

http://www.daddyshere.com/butchsl-2018-2.html

New renders by Alan Davis, “Frat Dorm Fuck”, *“Young Rugby Players”

http://www.daddyshere.com/alan-davis-2018-2.html

New renders by Homoeros, *****“Lockerroom 1 - 6”, *“Jay, the Bodyguard 1 & 2”, **“Chad – Young Bodybuilder 1 & 2”, ********“The Bodyguard 021 – 038”, “Blacksmith *001, 006, 009, *010, *012, *016”, ****“Last Chance Gas Station 1 – 7”

http://www.daddyshere.com/homoeros-2018-6.html

Javier, Michael, *"Fallout: Let’s Explore", “Fallout: Get ‘Em”

http://www.daddyshere.com/javiermicheal-2018.html

New renders by Jepe, *“Bedding #4”, *“Bedding #5”, *“Bedding #6”, *“Bedding #7”, *“Bedding #8”, *“Bedding #9”, *“Bedding #10”, *“Forest Drive 1, 2 & 3”, **“Fata Morgana 1 – 3”, *“Rain Will Fall 1 -3”, *“City College”, *“College Ways”, *“College Shower”, *“Legacy Tye 1 – 3”, *“The End of the Track 1 & 2”

http://www.daddyshere.com/jepe-2018-2.html

New renders by Kamion, ***“I Am Den 22 - 27”

http://www.daddyshere.com/kamion-2016-2018.html

 New renders by Kevizz, *“Happy Halloween”, “Robin”, *“Naughty Santa”, *“Strip Poker Club”, *“Spartan”

http://www.daddyshere.com/kevizz-2018-3.html

 New renders by Lundquist, *“Field Runner”, “Boxing Promotion”

http://www.daddyshere.com/lundquist-2018.html

 New Renders by Mack22, “Hey! This is a Non-Smoking Room!”, *“Anytime! Anywhere!”

http://www.daddyshere.com/mack22-2018.html

 New Renders by Marco (Aztec), *“Jason”, *“Autumn”, “Naked Marine”, *“Atlas”, “Atlas animated gif”, “Well Used”, *“In the Thrall of Mr. Mind”

http://www.daddyshere.com/marco-aztec-2017-2018.html

 New Renders by Sean Martin, “Where Are We Again?”, *“Anything Needs Plowing?”, *“Wanna See What’s in the Mancave?”, *“Falling into a Depressive State”, *“Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Nyah!”, *“Appearances”, *“A Bit of Warmth”, *“The Way We Were”, *“The Boxer”

http://www.daddyshere.com/sean-martin-2018.html

 New Renders by McPhee, (Rusty), *“Champion of the Northern Realm”, “Sweet Dreams, Sweet Prince”, *“Lunch Break”, “Hans Loves Big, Black Dicks”, *“Greedy”

http://www.daddyshere.com/mcphee-2018.html

 New renders by Nemper, *****“The Next Day – pages 119 - 139 ”

http://www.daddyshere.com/the-next-day-I.html

 New renders by Nemper, *“New Socks”, *“Doom”

http://www.daddyshere.com/nemper-2018.html

 New renders by Oztangles, *“Chillin’”

http://www.daddyshere.com/oztangles-2018.html

 New Renders by Radar Rad Dude, *“Assumed He Was Alone in His Room”, *“My Grandma Is My Pimp”

http://www.daddyshere.com/radar_rad-dude-2018.html

 New renders by Roco, “Can't A Guy Get Any Privacy These Days!”, “Devon Portrait”, “Selfie”, “Rusty”, “Centaur at Waterfall”

http://www.daddyshere.com/roco-2018.html

 New renders by Sagitarian71, *“Twins of the 70’s”, *“Jodete”

http://www.daddyshere.com/sagitarian71-2018.html

 New renders by Thorvan, “Kevin's Beautiful Butt”, “Juan's Statue”, “I Am Proud of Who I Am”, “Nathan Stands Proudly”, “Bhodan Dances”, “Eriodan Poses in Blue Light”, “Happy Fucking Halloween”, “The Look of Curiosity

Aio - The King's Guard”, “Cjhallym'aur Tempts His Onlookers”, “Feeling the Green of Envy”, “The Best of Friends”, “You Caused This Erection”, “Yaldur - the Elvin Prince”, “Nightsky Guardian”, *“Phourusj the Persian and Yaldur the Elven Flirt”, *“Phourusj the Persian 1 - 4”, *“Phourusj and Yaldur Kiss”, *“Phourusj and Yaldur Relaxing Together”, *“A Little Evening Music”, *“How to Stir Into Action”, *“Need Tats?”, *“Presto! Ta-dahh!”, *“Cheers”, *“Phourusj is Delightfully Erect”, *“Tantric Hug”, *“Phourusj and Nathan - In the Sunshine”, *“Phourusj and Nathan - Stretching Dorsal Muscles”, *“Bhojdan Enjoying the Full Moon Light”, *“Phourusj and Nathan - Being Suspended”, *“Aggadi”, “Before Yul”, ***“Eriodan 1 – 4”, “Phourusj’s Reflection”, *“Phourusj Poses”, “Leif Erik contemplates His Swelling Cock”, *“Mubamba Invites You to Enjoy It!”, “Dark Handsome and Sexy”, *“It Must Have Been THIS Big!”

http://www.daddyshere.com/thorvan-2018-7.html

 New renders by Uncollared, “Hope Everyone Had a Fun Halloween”, *“Ice Cream Party”, *****“Home for Thanksgiving 1 - 6”, “Quiet! Why Do I Bring You?”

http://www.daddyshere.com/uncollared-2018.html

 New renders by Vadim, *“Denton”

http://www.daddyshere.com/vadim-2018.html

 SOX FETISH

Here are the links to all of Daddy’s sox pages! (If they don't open automatically, just copy and paste into your browser!)

 “”

http://www.daddyshere.com/hotmeninsox.html   

http://www.daddyshere.com/hotmeninsox-2.html 

http://www.daddyshere.com/hotmeninsox-3html 

http://www.daddyshere.com/hotmeninsox-4.html 

http://www.daddyshere.com/hotmeninsox-5.html 

http://www.daddyshere.com/hotmeninsox-6.html 

http://www.daddyshere.com/hotmeninsox-7.html 

http://www.daddyshere.com/hotmeninsox-8.html 

http://www.daddyshere.com/hotmeninsox-9.html 

http://www.daddyshere.com/hotmeninsox-10.html 

http://www.daddyshere.com/hotmeninsox-11.html 

 http://www.daddyshere.com/daddys-sox.html 

http://www.daddyshere.com/housesox.html 

http://www.daddyshere.com/sox-art.html 

 http://www.daddyshere.com/sox-stories.html 

www.daddyshere.com/bachelor.html

www.daddyshere.com/backwoods_01.html

www.daddyshere.com/backwoods_02.html

www.daddyshere.com/familyties.html

www.daddyshere.com/garage.html

www.daddyshere.com/saltnpepper.html

www.daddyshere.com/shoesalesman.html

www.daddyshere.com/soxmaster.html

www.daddyshere.com/whitesox.html

 How about you? Got a fantasy that this photo brings about! Feel free to submit it to me by sending it to daddyzhere@gmail.com!

 Here are the links to almost ALL the pages at Daddyshere website.

http://www.daddyshere.com/daddyshere-webpages.html 

 If you find a posting or message from Daddy offensive, inappropriate, or disruptive, it’s not intentional, please ignore it...

If you don’t know how to ignore a posting or a message, complain to me and I will be only too happy to demonstrate...

 I’m always looking for new, male to male erotic artists and writers! Is that YOU?

 Submit works to me via email: daddyzhere@gmail.com. If I like your work and they’re suitable for my website, I’ll add them to the pages accordingly!

I will not display your work without giving you notice and getting your permission to do so.

To have your own artwork page, you must submit at least 15 original, male erotic, works...they must be signed with your logo or signature, and include a statement that they are YOUR work and not images from another artist and that you give Mickey “Daddy” Ray the right to display them at his website, www.Daddyshere.com.

I wish to thank the following individuals and the various online groups that help to keep Daddyshere website always active and interesting to check out! Travis the Steed, Tag, Ronald Greenfield, Cleofus Di Bombadine, Eddie Scheck, Daddy G, Small Raven, Odanny Dannyo, Raw Recruit 2000, Zach, C. Smith, Bob Hickey, Philly Btm, Neil Ryder, Daniel Hernandez, Mario Lopez, Wesley Crusher, Harry Mulford, Doug Bill, Gary Gillingwater, and PAX for many of the photos, animated images and erotic fiction displayed at my site. These are the groups via many of the above names have sent their contributions of art. Gay Magazine Fiction, Gay Poser Art, Gay Toons, Gay Toons 2, Harry Bush Shrine, Male Art Toons (MAT), Mitchmen, Playgirl Group, DeviantArt, Renderotica, MalePoserotica 3D and Ulf’s Blog! This list may grow as time goes on!

Best wishes to you all!

Daddy

[thesimplyluxuriouslife]

329: 20 Life Lessons Learned on My Recent Trip to England

To feel intrinsically connected with a culture other than the one you were raised involves the feeling of a coming home. A 'coming home' in a way that seems impossible until you feel it first-hand, deep in the marrow of your bones. As I share in detail in the introduction of the month of May in my new book The Road to Le Papillon: Daily Meditations on True Contentment, my first trip and time spent in the English countryside spoke to my inner most true self in a way I didn't expect, but completely understood.

Spending only, but entirely, four days in north Devon in a country home aloft the hills overlooking the Bristol Channel without another house in sight, I went about my everydays as I would if I were at home in Bend. And it was pure bliss. All in my own company, and not for a moment did I feel lonely. Quite the opposite in fact. I felt enriched, I felt soothed, I felt, finally, in so many ways I had not felt entirely before, at home.

Brené Brown writes in Braving The Wilderness: The Quest for Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone that a feeling of loneliness stems from spending time in places and with people "that don't feel alive with connection". She continues to share neuroscience researcher John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago's definition of loneliness which is 'perceived social isolation' . . . "when we feel disconnected" the latter Brown's paraphrasing. While reading these words recently, it made all the more sense to me why I feel so wonderfully alive even, and perhaps especially, when I am in my own company while traveling both to France and Britain, and then as well when I return and am spending time, my everydays, at Le Papillon, a sanctuary that was customized to welcome both cultures into my everyday life, a home I share with no other human, but of course my pups, and the birds and animals and plants that hold my attention, fascinate and delight me and visit or bloom when consistent, thoughtful care is given.

Equally so, to further acknowledge the truth in Brown's discoveries, I can feel lonely when I am spending time with people who or am in an environment that lacks a curiosity or appreciation, or at the very least a respect, for a culture I am so fond of and grateful to have found. Unconsciously I have known my own company is quite sweet as I give myself permission to follow my curiosities without judgment, to explore, wander and learn; conversely, my loneliest days have been spent with other people - whether in relationships of all different natures and/or spending time (and in this case I do use the term spending) that indirectly or directly deny or dissuade me from celebrating the life I love living, the life that truly nurtures me to be fully Shannon.

Returning to England this past April was life lifting. Noting not having visited since 2017, which I didn't realize consciously is nearly 5 years, ended a drought of British culture seen with my own eyes that I needed more than I realized. It was a figurative deep breath of fresh air that upon taking in, immediately brought a smile to my face and a calm to my being. While I didn't spend my time as I most enjoy for most of my days when I am in England, which is to rent a vacation rental out in the countryside and go about many days just savoring the everyday routines and visiting an occasional destination of interest, I was in Britain, and that was all that mattered. I saw places and spent time partaking in activities that further introduced a culture to me I had not done before, and for that I am grateful.

In today's episode/post, I'd like to share with you 20 Life Lessons learned during these 3 1/2 days in Britain - both in London and in Kent as we took a train ride out to the southeast countryside of England and spent the night as we were intent to visit Sissinghurst Castle Garden, and oh what a treat that was.

Let's take a look at the list:

~Note, if you tune in to the audio version, I share much more detail about each item on the list. Be sure to check out the podcast wherever you enjoy your favorite shows.

1.Afternoon tea is always a good idea - whether a formal occasion at a special location or at home in your own company

2. Taking a long, hot bath in between day outings and evening plans, accompanied by classical music is restorative and energizing

3. Take the Tube (the Underground) to swiftly and inexpensively move about London

~Purchase your Oyster card to have with you when you arrive in London.

4. Don't wear exposed fine linens on the Tube (under a trench or other coat) to protect from any loose soot that may fall when there

5. Business class is more than worth the price if flying to London from the West Coast of the states or further away.

Please do reach out to me if you are seriously considering a Business Class ticket as I have a travel agent and company who can help find you a quality route and airlines for a fair price.

6. Stepping away from the virtual world regularly strengthens the quality of presence and engagement in the life you have created.

7. The countryside is my jam.

From birdsong, to rolling hills of green fields, peace is found simply standing still or watching it drift by while on the train.

8. Trust what captures your ahh . . .

From tangible items that will a gap in your life, routine, etc., to art, traditions, natural beauty, anything that draws your eye and holds your attention, even if at first you do not know why, hold loosely in your mind and explore what is speaking to you. Do not dismiss it.

9. Have a classic trench that fits your stature and complements your skin tone.

You will wear it in nearly every season - cinched up with a scarf in the winter, left open and layered over the top of your spring or fall outfit, ideal for traveling during the summer for sprucing up your comfy outfit to sit/sleep with ease for a long flight.

10. Whilst in the country, leave windows open at night so as to be gentle awoken by birdsong

Take a Tour of The Pig at Bridge Place: My Recent stay in Canterbury

11. A Chelsea boot is a must for three seasons of outfits

12. Garden, keep gardening, keep learning, keep nourishing your mind and being

13. Make time to visit the theatre when in the city

14. Visit, spend time and enjoy the beauty of the gardens throughout Britain not only for ideas, but for rejuvenation of the mind, eyes and being.

15. An umbrella, find and invest in a quality umbrella (foldable or traditional)

16. Spend time in the countryside

17. Savor the train ride out to the countryside

Grab your favorite daily newspaper, open a book or take a nap, and just appreciate not having to commute as the driver nor having to be alert whilst traveling with fellow train-goers. Saves time, reduces stress and stretches your ability to see more of Britain, because there is so much more than London.

18. Less driving, more walking and connecting

- seeing and being around humanity and nature, consciously choosing a place to live and work that does not require so much time in your vehicle

19. When a moment of calm and comfort is needed, visit a museum and wander, stop and let the art guide you

20. My company, so long as I embrace my true self, is wonderful company whether on my own or with a chosen companion

~Explore all of the posts shared during TSLL's 4th Annual British Week here.

Petit Plaisir

—The Duke, the film based on a true story

~The Simple Sophisticate, episode #329

~Subscribe to The Simple Sophisticate:  iTunes | Stitcher | iHeartRadio | YouTube | Spotify | Amazon Music

Tune in to the latest episode of The Simple Sophisticate podcast

[artwritebeast]

Devon Govan Lovat (aka Other Wybie)

- Asexual

- He/him

- Found him on the icy road during winter break he was unconscious, 3 days later he woke up and another 2 weeks for him to fully healed during that time he explain how he survived and got here in the first place. He was saved by the 3 ghost children and an unknown figure and brought him to life.

- Devon is laidback and energetic, He enjoys being mischievous. He primarily acts this way towards those he is in good terms with. His antics range from an assortment of illogical, juvenile, and slightly inconvenient pranks. Though Devon is usually agreeable, he can become eerily serious to emphasize a subject. Regardless of the people or creature partially or wholly merciful. He is optimistic, brave, and considerate, he works hard and, despite his brash personality.

- He gets along with Wybie since they both genius and love science.

- A year older then Wybie and few inches taller then him, Devon is the exact opposite then Wybie, he doesn't slouch and his hair is softish thing you have ever touch. Somehow he became a ladies man because of his grilling skill and dance moves.

- Likes to watch wrestling, Magic Mike XXL, Counting cars, Forged In Fire, The Curse Of Oak Island, Vikings in history channel and watch Nailed it!, Carlos Bakery, Running man(Korean show), anime, watching tiktok, work out and grilling.

- His mute but, he can still make sound like a grunt or scoff and has myostatin-disorder (Muscle hypertrophy). So his basically already jack even if he sit on the couch eating chips for a month he won't get fat.

- He learn to do sign language to communicate others sometimes he used a voice box to talk.

- Wybie and Coraline explain what's asexuality and pronounced for each gender, Devon supported his brother and Coraline asexuality and go along with their pride parade.

- He builds anything like MacGyver, owns a dj Booth and a pro beatboxer.

- His a daredevil

- Wybie and Coraline would lose their shit if they lost Devon in the crowd. (He sometimes get distracted by something new)

Coraline:How the f#ck did we lose the taller version of you in the crowd?!

Wybie: Less talking more searching!?

- Devon is everyone personal trainer and snuggle teddy bear.

- DO NOT GIVE/FALL FOR HIM COFFEE/CHARMS/PUPPY EYES! (Will make a rave party until his tired and flirt with anyone regardless of it's gender)

The Mystery Kids

- Whenever some a##holes/mean girls/straight up dicks make fun of Devon’s disability to talk, the mystery kids will land a punch on them.

Wybie: Somebody is going to die today

Coraline: No one messed our baby!

Everyone: LET'S BURN THEM!!!

- Likes cuddling with the mystery kids to show his affection and sleep with his tongue out in a cute way and trying new things.

- Gives nice massage it felt like heaven.

- The daredevil of the group, don't be fool by his adorableness and lay back personality he WILL legitimately unleashed hell upon you if you ever hurt his new family/friends.

- The Mystery kids nickname for Devon

° Lil helper (Wybie)

° Softie (Coraline).

° Cinnamon (Norman)

° Munchkin (Lili).

° Hugger (Neil)

° Big guy (Raz).

° Snooze (Dipper)

° Cutie (Mabel)

- Likes sleeping in a box

Wybie: This is the MOST precious scene I ever seen TwT

Devon:*sleeping soundly while his tongue tip stick out of his mouth* Zzzz....

- By the end of the summer all the mystery kids (except Wybie, Coraline and me) hugs Devon in a tight hugs.

Coraline: Guys just let him go already!?

Wybie:Let them have their goodbyes Jonsie.

Me: There's no harm for them to say goodbye.

Coraline:yeah the others just kidnapped your son and taking him back to the shack while locking the door .

The others: YOU WILL NOT TAKE HIM FROM US!!!!

Me:*runs after them*HEY GIVE MY BABY BACK!!!

Clothes that he usually wears:

Gym clothes

Casual clothes:

[plungermusic]

“Kinda bent, but we ain’t breakin’… in the long run”

Maverick Saturday stretched out before us like a challenge - thirteen hours is a long time on your feet for a couple of oldsters, but we’d give it our best shot…

We didn’t catch all of Dan Walsh’s opening Barn set, but his closing number, a lyrical, backwoods folk-flavoured instrumental that peaked in an increasingly frenetic celtic reel to the whoops and stomps of the crowd, was enough to impress us with its fleet-fingered dexterity.

Kelly Bayfield made her second barn appearance with another stylish set drawn from the new album: Kelly taking to the piano to give us a new short number Sing which was twinned (“well, they’re a similar flavour, and in the same key!”) with her last single Hitchhiker, both oozing classy 70s chanteuse vibes and the latter closing in some great Telecaster work from Andy Trill in a majestic closing solo.

There’s not much that’d drag us away from a Kelly performance early, but having spotted his programme picture (“Long hair, Les Paul? That’ll do!”) we pottered down to the open air Green Stage for David Banks and his band. He did exactly what we thought it said on the tin: lots of Springsteen/Petty influenced muscular Americana with a dash of Molly Hatchett topped with excellent southern-fried guitar and classic ‘big endings’… marvellous.

He was followed by Simon Stanley Ward (another ‘old fave’) who brought his Jonathan Richmanish irreverence and wit to Old Time Country in Excuse Me While I Feel Sorry For Myself; the Graceland-African-style I’m A Worrier (”…that’s worrier, not warrior”) a swinging rock’n’roller Bigfoot, Baby (Eddie Cochran meets cryptobiology) and Rocket In The Desert (the salad leaf not the projectile) with its Lawrence Of Arabia theme tease. While lampooning his own assumed-Nashville twang in American Voice the accompaniment was as echt as you could want, and the deadpan humour of Beluga Whale was sung to a properly stirring Journeyesque anthem.

As it wasn’t raining The Green seemed the place to stay, where Forty Elephant Gang came next. Reviewing their album we were a little sniffy about their ‘crowd-pleasing festival songs’ but aside from the field holler-meets-O Brother Where Art Thou-style Songs Of Praise, this set was mostly the ones we’d liked: the relaxed Tex-Mex of Strange Things Happening with three-part harmonies and intertwining mando’n’guitar lines; the melancholic waltz of Young Man’s Game and the Squeeze-y domestic wit of Drunken Promise Song. A final ‘crowd-pleaser’ came in the chugging bluesy Hands Out Your Pockets, an instruction the assembled masses eagerly followed to add the required clap-along.

Sam Chase Trio made another appearance at The Green, wooing the larger crowd with both edgy humour (including praising UK portaloos in comparison to US versions, and introducing Everyone Is Crazy But Me as “a children’s song... now, what they mean is that it’s simple, since kids are generally at the dumber end of the spectrum”), and songs as varied as the fiery protest of What Is All The Rage and the haunting, wistful Lost Girl, (from the “Faustian Spaghetti Western Of Epic Proportions Known As The Last Rites Of Dallas Pistol”) sung by cellist Devon.

Now Plunger do like a bit of bluegrass, whether it’s grainy b/w Flatt & Scruggs clips from the 50s, through Sam Bush and New Grass to Béla Fleck and Greensky Bluegrass so The Folly Brothers should have been our kind of thing… however what we heard of them was more My Old Man’s A Dustman than anything Appalachian so we wandered off…

Back at The Barn Dean Owens and the Southerners drew a large and attentive crowd, but the popular Scot also left us a bit underwhelmed. Mellow, melodious troubadoury country that wouldn’t have been out of place on a mid-afternoon 70s Radio 2 show, the kind of thing that takes a deep listen in your bedroom to appreciate the stories told: very easy on the ear for sure but without any particular thing to grab us at a festival.

After an abortive attempt to catch Ella Spencer and her accompanist at The Moonshine (an extremely long soundcheck with problems with feedback from pretty much everything they touched meant we gave up) we caught a snatch of Los Pistoleros as we rounded The Green: probably the most C.O.U.N.T.R.Y. thing of the weekend, complete with draggy fiddle, pedal steel and old time vocal harmonies… if I’d not left my cowboy boots at home I’d have been out line-dancing with the best of them.

Plunger had only just seen Alyssa Bonagura (with Tim De Graaw’s band) less than a week since. Here at The Barn she was nominally solo but Tim joined her to add sweet harmonies and mellow guitar to Alyssa’s polished Cali-country: her strong yet ethereal vocal equally at home in slow emotional confessionals or giggly upbeat Big Yellow Taxi-style big strummers.

Listed only as ‘Dogs Play Dead’ it was only a lucky guess that took us down to The Green for what turned out to be Friday’s headliners Black Eyed Dogs playing a set of Grateful Dead classics. Mainly those with a countryish twist to them already, like Casey Jones, I Know You Rider and Friend Of The Devil; and bringing that flavour with fiddle and pedal steel to others like Truckin’, China Cat Sunflower, Playing In The Band and the epic closing Franklin’s Tower. All done with the right degree of loose, shambling rhythms and discursive noodling on guitar (and fiddle!) Fabulous stuff for grooving on the grass under what by now were glorious sunshine-filled blue skies.

Brooks Williams’ jangly sonorous acoustic and warm, smooth higher register vox was ideal early evening fare at the barn, in covers like Dave Alvin’s King Of California, traditional numbers like Deep River Blues and originals like the Gordon Lightfootish melancholy of Frank Delandry, and the damp-eyed nostalgia of Palomino Gold, aided toward the end of his set by some more excellent banjo from Dan Walsh.

The USP of Eddy Smith & the 507 is Eddy’s gravelly soulful voice, ideal for their bluesy-edged material, like the harp-led strut of It Don’t Feel Much Like Living and the new single Ticket Out Of Here, a bustling two-step with impressive three-part harmony vocals. They definitely have moved up a level since we last saw them a couple of years back.

Somehow we managed to miss Sarah Petite with her band completely on Friday, and almost all of her stripped-back Moonshine set on Saturday. Which was definitely our loss gauging by the brief snatch of crackling husky vocal over restrained bass and reverb laden guitar that we heard while hunting for a still-open toilet (a water supply problem having rendered all loos unusable for a considerable portion of the late evening... pretty much the only fly in the ointment all weekend!)

As the sun set the two-month date differential was beginning to tell: clear night skies in September aren’t quite the same as July and the growing chill was testing our stamina a bit. We headed for The Peacock and the tribute show to John Prine, hosted by Rich Hall. Pretty much every act who was on site came to do a turn in honour of the recently-deceased songwriting legend, with their own favourite from his oeuvre. Kelly Bayfield band gave us Hello In There, Tim De Graaw with Alyssa did That’s The Way The World Goes Round, Alyssa gave us the obligatory Angel From Montgomery, and Simon Stanley Ward (plus Kelly) gave a fantastic rollicking Lake Marie. Entirely in character, Sam Chase Trio broke the mould and gave us their own tribute song John Prine.

Rich Hall had to skip out on MC duties to attend his own set at The Barn: sacrilege to say, but the appeal of stand up (even to music, even from such a big name) palled a little. It was getting bitterly cold (you could see your breath hanging in the air) and given that what we could hear of his set was the same as we’d heard last time he was here we spent much the time attempting to warm up with piping hot beverages. However it was by far the rammedest set of the weekend, with the tightly-packed crowd spilling out of The Barn for some distance.

Jon Langford was unsurprisingly somewhat hindered by the draw of Rich Hall (which left The Peacock a bit underpopulated!) His spiky, punky approach wasn’t entirely our bowl of chilli, although the rendition of Eddie Waring (originally by Help Yourself with Deke Leonard and BJ Cole, who was sitting in with Jon tonight) was very good.

The programme description of headliner Jerry Joseph did its best to weaken our staying power too: with our deep suspicion of any write-ups that include the ‘p-word’, and somewhat incredulous of the mention of ‘jam bands’, Jerry looked like he wouldn’t be our kind of thing at all. However he didn’t live down to expectations (wholly). A very animated stage-prowling audience-provoking figure in shorts and no shoes, there was no shortage of energy even if it was largely unchannelled and could get a little wearing… (maybe it was that, maybe it was the chill, but The Barn steadily thinned out during his set, ending less than half full). War At The End Of The World was the pick of the bunch, although like most of his material it would probably have sounded better with a band (like, erm, Stockholm Syndrome, which he co-founded; or, erm, Widespread Panic who he has written for… so much for our ‘jamband incredulity’!)

While it might have ended as a bit of a test of endurance, there were more than enough high points to make Saturday another enjoyable Maverick experience.

“Did we do it for love? Did we do it for money? More like stubborn dumb persistence and hot chocolate, honey…”

[calm-anxiety]

I was tagged by @salamandergirl (someome who I want to be friends with but I'm too scared to start a conversation😅😅😅😅)

Rules: Answer 20 questions and tag 20 people you want to get to know better

Name: Tsvety (yeah I know it's strange and you probably don't know how to pronounce it)

Zodiac Sign: Cancer(and I plan to get a tattoo of the constelation on my left arm :3)

Height: pffff idk I guess around 160cm??? 😂😂😂 I know I'm short 😝

Languages: Bulgarian, English, German(still learning) and Spanish(still learning but not as good as German bc I just started it and I've been learning German for 2(ish) years)

Nationality: Bulgarian🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬

Favourite Fruit: idk I think apple or maybe banana nO!!!!! CHERRIES!!!!! YES!!!! 😂😂

Favourite Scent: oof I guess vanilla?? anything other than mint and lavander is okay bc I hate those two

Favourite Color: I can't choose between teal and dark purple

Favourite Animal: FOXES!!!!!! and cats bUT FOXES!!!!! THEY ARE SO CUTE!!!!!!!!! 😍😍😍

Coffee,Tea or Hot Chocolate: idk depends on the situation if I feel like I'm about to die bc I've slept only 4 hours the past week it's definitely coffee, tea is for rainy days when I just want to stay in bed and hoy chocolate is for the winter when I want something sweet but...well...hot 😂😂

Favourite Candy: I like everything but I think if I had to choose I'd say cake with chocolate and banana bc it's gUUUUUUD!!! 😂

Dream Trip: uuuuuhhhh everywhere?? I just want to travel around the world and see everything

Favourite Fictional Character: JAMES CARSTAIRS!!!!!!!!!!!!! and Loki, Remul Lupin, Natasha Romanoff, James "Bucky" Barnes, Peter Parker & Peter Quill, the Maximoff twins, baisically everyone from the MCU 😂😂 and everyone from Cassandra Clare's books and everyone from DC and Harry Potter 😂😂😂 I don't have a favourite I just love everyone

When was this blog created: pffff idk

Last Move I've Seen: I think(but I'm not sure) it was Infinity War and you can hate me if you want but I don't think it was that good idk I just expected more from Marvel but that doesn't mean I didn't want to jump from a window bc it would hurt less than remembering how....well...everyone died😭😭

Songs I've Had on Repeat: Bermuda-Sickick(Nightcore); Or Nah-Nightcore[Deeper Version]; Infected-Sickick(Nightcore) and a few more and as you can tell I mostly listen to Nightcore 😂😂

Favourite Holiday: uuuuhh Christmas?? idk all holidays are great in my opinion

Favourite Thing To Do: nothing and everything I'm just very impulsive so I'd pick sonething, try it out, like it, do it for a few hours or less and leave it and forget about it till a few days later when I just look at it and move it out of my way so I can do something else

Dream Job: anything to do with art (maybe photography or drawing) and travelling

Dream City to Live in: idk it doesn't really matyer where I live

Tagging:@elentori-art (btw your art is aMAZING!!!!! *0*!!!!!!!!) @mysticmesimagines @wehaveabucky @paladone-imagines @an-all-write-life @voltronbutheadcanons @invisibleanonymousmonsters @palalovin @voltron-inserts @voltronreaderinserts @avengemebuckyy @avengerdragoness @hermioneshandbag @maio-sandwich @fellowintrovert @devon-writes-dc @dccomicsimagines @cait-writes-stuff .....and I just realised that I follow mostly people who write fanfiction😂😂😂 well yeah that's what I use Tumblr for 😂😂