#founder round 5

[marmiteprinter]

When Catherine and Nerissa (the newly-dubbed Ginsburkes - get it?) returned from their limo tour, they realised it was Kieran's birthday so, even though it was very late and they were still in their wedding dresses, they picked him up and took him over to the birthday cake.

"Blow out the candles, nooboo!" said Nerissa. Her happiness was tinged with melancholy, as she knew that Quentin would want to share custody now that Kieran was old enough not to require full-time care any longer.

Kieran aged up into yet another adorable child. I've been very lucky with the genetics so far, all things considered. I used Pooklet's method to create the original settlers (and Faye and Griffin) and I have the Maxis face templates - I'm genuinely so pleased with how cute all the kids are, while still all looking different from each other.

As Spring came to a close, Nerissa and Catherine sat chatting in bed (something of a night-time tradition of theirs).

"It was a great party, wasn't it?" enthused Nerissa.

"It was," agreed Catherine. "I'm so happy to be your wife at last. I was wondering though - what would you say to having a child of our own? I was asking around in SimCity and they've made great strides in technology in recent years. They can extract DNA from both of us, mix it into one egg and then implant it into one of us! What do you think?"

Nerissa hesitated. "Darling, you know how unhappy I was the last time I was pregnant. I just can't carry and raise another child. I'm sorry; I can't."

"But you don't have to carry it! I will! I'm just so excited to start a life with you Nerissa and I love Liv so much, and of course I love your boys too, but I'd love to have a child that is both of ours. I'll carry it and give birth to it and I'll be the one to take time off from work and everything. I did it all with Liv so I can do it again. What do you say?"

Nerissa considered. "I hadn't really thought that I wouldn't have to be the one to be pregnant. I think I might actually like that! And you promise you'll do most of the heavy lifting? I could go to work and everything?"

Catherine nodded and Nerissa squealed. "Okay! I'd actually love it! Let's do it!"

The women hugged and - plans made - they tucked under, exhausted from their long day and forgoing the traditional 'wedding night'.

And that's the end of the round for the Founder Family, now dubbed the Ginsburkes! Catherine is now 45, Nerissa is 42, Liv is 7 and Kieran is 4. They've unlocked the Law career for everyone and Nerissa will be starting a job as a Legal Biller come the Summer. Let's head back to the Frumes and see how they're getting on...

[lqfiles]

PAY THE PRICE — smau

after getting evicted out of your old place, you're left with no other choice but to look for a cheaper alternative. which is how you end up becoming neighbours with lee haechan, who has a passion for music and disturbing whatever peace and quiet there is.

or in which you found yourself a very nice apartment, the only issue? your neighbour is your friend's somewhat ex-situationship who won't stop playing his guitar at 2 am in the night.

neighbour!haechan x fem!reader

genre ; enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, probably slow burn, humour, neighbours au.

extras ; haechan is kinda an asshole | boy next door + likes everyone but you trope-ish | profanity and death jokes because they’re silly! | probably romantic tension | some mark x reader here and there | renjun and jaemin having their own e2bffs moment | probably inaccurate depiction of how someone would get evicted pls don’t shoot me 😅

notes ; i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan <333 idk i got nothing better to do now so i’ll just start this because i know i won’t be posting any of the other long fic wips any time soon 😭

PLAYLIST ; She , Tyler The Creator — For The Night , Chloe Bailey — IDK WHAT TO TELL YOU , Bktherula — Surprise , Chloe Bailey — I Wanna Be down , Brandy — Suite Life , FLO — Is It A Crime? , No Guidnce — Round&Round , NCT U .

STATUS ; ongoing and hopefully regular updates.

profiles (1) profiles (2)

intro

1 ) jaehyun’s trophy wife

2 ) free cookies (not really)

3 ) midnight disturbance

4 ) attempted murder?

5 ) THIS IS FAMILY

6 ) haechan’s second identity

7 ) kiss buddies and useless complaints

8 ) critically acclaimed idgaf veteran

9 ) founders keepers..?

10 ) yangyang’s new interest (y/n)

11 ) a late welcome party

12 ) invest in a cage jaemin

13 ) cat fight (REAL)

14 ) the cure to a lack of sleep = cup pong

15 ) who said quiet guys can’t be freaky?

16 ) you got a girlfriend?

17 ) i DO have a girlfriend

18 ) this is life, i love life..

19 ) nah. they fucking.

20 ) let’s play apex?

21 ) whole house mad

22 ) drunken regrets

23 ) he’s got to be fucking with me..

24 ) a sincere apology letter (kinda)

25 ) are we cool or not?

26 ) we’re good (for real)

27 ) a personal guitar lesson

28 ) LIVE TWEETING YNHAE MOMENTS

29 ) a moment of vulnerability

30 ) friendly q&a between friends

31 ) that’s strange.. that’s weird..

32 ) solution to job loss = family guy (???)

33 ) what has jaehyun done for society?

34 ) ynhae bonding activity hours

35 ) an unwanted double date with yangyang

36 ) an overwhelming realisation

37 ) the universe can kill itself

38 ) a “what are we” conversation

39 ) i got that hair too, kinda

40 ) reviewing haechan’s tweet and new issues

41 ) diagnosed with the crush disease

42 ) putting your satisfaction first

43 ) some girl talk with mark.. this diva..

44 ) girls day gone WRONG

45 ) homies before hoemies

46 ) #BringBackGenderNorms2024

TBA . . .

BONUS:

TBA . . .

TAGLIST is closed

[mortalityplays]

Forgive me if I'm mistaking you for another person, but I remember you speaking at multiple points on the unsustainability of free social media services (I think especially in response to the cohost collapse?), and I'm curious on what your thoughts on bluesky are so far. I'm not an expert on the subject, but from what I've read previously it seemed like they were on track to be financially sustainable, but I don't know if the recent floods of users has thrown those projections off. Sorry if I'm mixing you up with someone else on my timeline, in that case just ignore me.

bluesky will almost certainly follow the same trajectory of monetisation => bloat => enshittification => decline as every other major platform built on venture capital and user hoarding. it's a terrible model that only works in the short term as a mirage for attracting funding and making founders look good for a year or two before they sell.

you can see the same effect in the decline of all the subscription box services that came into vogue just before covid: they feel great to use for as long as the initial injection of venture funding lasts, because the purpose of that funding at that stage is to attract users and impress the next round of funders with how pleasant/intuitive/efficient/ethical/good value the service is. that's the stage where they're handing out freebies and bowling over influencers, and every ingredient in the box is fresh and high quality and locally sourced. wow what a good deal, what a great system!!! why hasn't anyone done this before? the answer is because it's unsustainable by design. they rack up good reviews, sign on a billion new users, attract new funding from a bunch of much more credulous investors, and then gut all of the expensive parts. portions get smaller, ingredients get worse, packaging gets flimsier, prices go up, freebies turn into "5% off your first 9 boxes when you invite 3 friends", and customer service vanishes.

with social media (and platforms like discord) the logic is the same, it's just a little less glaringly obvious to the end user because they're not coming home to leaking packages of rancid chicken on the doorstep. bluesky has an advantage over tiny operations like cohost because it was founded by a billionaire making a point for the sake of his own image. it got a really significant chunk of startup funding, and the owner had existing connections and rep in the space to attract more. That's why it has survived the goldrush period, why it still feels good to use, and why users who have been burned so many times before are finally accepting it as a stable, reliable option. It's still in its venture capital honeymoon phase where the only thing worth spending money on is making the service attractive to users.

What I expect we will see next, with another mass influx of users from twitter and new funding from a rogue's gallery of tech venture sickos led by Blockchain Capital is a strong ramp up into monetising that userbase. They've already been pretty forthright about how they plan to do this, and I think it's a solid roadmap of how Bluesky will bloat and decay over the next few years:

this is a huge lol. don't worry, we're not going to hyperfinancialize the social experience through NFTs. the thing even crypto freaks started feigning amnesia about a year ago. real "our health conscious sodas are 100% arsenic free" messaging here. They know perfectly well that rubes users are suspicious of their typical 5 dimensional tech finance chess games and are patting our hands about last week's bogeymen so nobody worries too hard about whatever 'decentralised developer ecosystem' just happens to be helmed by a bunch of crypto guys. this definitely means something good and based and not a google-like single sign on user data harvesting operation.

This is the same shit that's currently rotting the floorboards of discord. Bluntly, there is no way to run a platform on this scale without gating functionality behind paid services. Discord has been squeezing free-tier file uploads and call quality etc. down steadily and cranking up subscription costs over the last year or two, throwing in chaff like animated avatar frames to try and justify the user cost. They're also doing the same misdirection thing again here, pointing to Thing We All Hate to deflect from thing we might not like very much when they do it. Booo elon booo we all hate elon!!! wait how do we feel about subscription models again,

watch out for this to kill porn on bsky like it has killed porn on every other social platform 👍 boooo we hate elon boooo stupid idiot and his 'everything app' booooo wait why do you need my tax information, what's that about mastercard,

Look, we are all aware social media is a money pit. Let's not forget dorsey was looking to sell twitter in the first place, long before elon's very public plunge into total online derangement. Subscription services are not going to plug the hole, so we are gradually going to see more and more spaghetti thrown at the wall while early funders shuffle cards and do their pyramid scheme bit bringing in stupider and stupider investments. this is the window in which bluesky will be temporarily worth using for us, for the idiot public, the poorly rendered crowd jpegs in the background of their venture capital MOBA. it's in their interests to slow and pad the decline as much as possible, because that is how they get maximally paid.

Given the scale of the money involved, and dorsey's weird ego investment, I think bluesky will probably manage a controlled drift for a good few years before it gets really bloated and painful. and by then we will all be so used to the *checks notes* decentralised developer ecosystem that we'll just be posting through it, watching another generation of columnists call another collapsing platform 'their beloved hellsite' and passing around that meme about not getting out of our chairs no sir until idk we all get on a fediverse neurolink alternative to stick it to the elongated muskrat and our brains pop peacefully in our sleep. which I guess is the closest thing to viability any social media platform can achieve.

anyway diogenes the cynic is also on bluesky

[uh-oh-its-bird]

Fuck ok, gather 'round it's time for another fic idea spinning off of a crumb from my last post ab time traveling team Ro into founders era:

Summary:

Fact 1; Kakashi is now 3 weeks the last living Hatake.

Fact 2; Tobirama Senju, according to dusty old scrolls Kakashi finds in his father's study, was apparently half Hatake himself.

Lonley and hurting, Kakashi grabs on to this fact with both hands and squeezes it so tight to his aching heart that his hands bleed.

Or, still processing his father's suicide, Konoha's favorite baby genius finds out he's distantly related to history's favorite baby genius and immediatly starts projecting to cope.

Digging through old journals, history books, Kakashi begins to try his own hand at the man's favorite past time; creating jutsu's. It's the both the hardest thing he's ever done and the most satisfying to date.

Ft.

1) Weirdly chill scene with Danzo (fuck that guy but hear me out) where he kinda looks at Kakashi and sees the hint of the shadow of the man who taught him. Not quite there yet, not fully, but crumbs of it. Enough to make him nostalgic, and enough to hand over an old journal that used to belong to Tobirama.

A calculated risk, he tells himself.

An unspoken challenge, both Danzo and Kakashi understand.

He wants to see how far Kakashi can go, finds himself almost eager to see how close he can come to the shadow of the man he seems so determined to chase.

(and if this side project temporarily distracts him for long enough that Orochimaru slips through his fingers, well, it's not like he knows it was this event specifically that caused that plan to fall through)

2) The fact that, both due to time and the Hatake clan's less than stellar reputation during the warring states era, Tobirama's Hatake ancestry got buried. Kakashi finding him on a dusty old family tree has ✨️political implications✨️ for Kakashi specifically. Ones he isn't all too interested in — unless it means he might be able to access things he otherwise wouldn't've.

Also just general fun surprised Pikachu faces from some people as an added bonus.

3) Kakashi becoming even more terrifying than he rightfully should be at that age !! Danzo pretty much handed him a missile and went "lmao good luck" with that journal! He should not have that! He's learning things! He is experimenting! Someone take the missile away from the baby before he learns how to make his own— oh fuck it's too late hes somehow made a nuke instead

4) Orochimaru poking Kakashi with a stick and vice versa. They are making baby genius <--> baby genius eye contact it's mildly concerning, Minato is concerned. Obito is jealous, he wishes the Snake Sannin would poke HIM with a stick

5) Kakashi bites someone. That's it that's the bullet point I just think he should get to bite someone is all.

And more !!! Im ngl I think I like Tobirama just existing in the fic as as an ever present shadow, super influential in just every single chapter but never actually present. But I won't lie if I'm giggling over the thought of Kakashi finding Edo Tensei and going ".... ok but what better way to figure out this new jutsu / seal than to ask the source directly."

Orochimaru would so help he's having too much fun with this to bother experimenting on children for Danzo. Don't talk to him rn he's having fun with corpses!! No not the corpses you asked him to have fun with, the other ones!

[thempregsimmer]

As the male pregnancy "epidemic" spreads across the world, more and more gay couples decide to embrace their fertility and start families of their own.

In Poland specifically, we have seen a great success of the Warsaw's paternity clinic, attracting men from across the country, as well as neighbouring countries, to enjoy the prenatal care brought by gay men for gay men.

The three couples in the pictures decided to embark on a new, exciting journey together.

Katowice, capital of the second biggest metropolitan area in Poland, became the second one to have its own prenatal care facility created specifically for pregnant men and their needs.

The founders of this exciting project were happy to have their pictures taken (not once, but twice! - at the opening day of the project, and two months from the opening date)

Photo #1

First, let us meet the head of operations - prof. Karol Łukaszewski (43) and his husband Wiktor (24). The idea to open the Institute of Paternity came to his head soon after the news of Wiktor's pregnancy. When they went to their first doctor's appointment to confirm the pregnancy, they noticed the need for care focused on the needs of the growing population of pregnant men. The overcrowded waiting rooms in both public hospitals and private clinics, crowded with pregnant men and women fighting for a spot for an appointment, the reluctance of mostly female employees of this branch of medicine to assist pregnant men, stigma and shame towards them due to implications of homosexual activity (it's important to mention the mediane of those workers' age is around 45), as well as lack of knowledge of male-specific implications of pregnancy, and unique challenges were some of the most important factors.

Prof. Łukaszewski first started treating patients from an office in their flat, and soon after gathered resources and crew needed to start a real-life private hospital. Soon after, a contract with the Polish Social Security Fund (NFZ) followed, and the hospital became the spitting image of its Warsovian predecessor.

In the picture, prof. Łukaszewski is getting ready for his first day as the head of the newly opened, fully operational, most technologically advanced hospital focused on paternity and prenatal care for pregnant men. His husband Wiktor, 5 months along with their son at that time, is helping him with the tie he has chosen for his husband for the first day on the job. Wiktor used to be a student of the yung professor at the Silesian School of Medicine. A year after they met, they tied the knot, and soon after, Wiktor noticed some unusual changes within his body - he conceived their first son.

At this point, Wiktor's belly is growing low and outwards - his womb has not yet taken up all the space from the pubic bone to the bottom of his ribs, but the weight of the baby has already pushed his stomach outwards.

Photo #2

Two months later, Wiktor's belly was not the only thing growing rapidly. The number of patients nearly doubled in a month's time. It is estimated that in 2024, in this metropolitan area alone, 10 thousand men will either give birth or get pregnant. There is a lot of work to do, but professor has one pregnancy on his mind constantly - his beloved husband Wiktor is now 7 months along. His belly has grown into a full, round one, from now on he will only be growing outwards, as the growing womb has already filled out all the space left in the whole abdominal cavity, and is reaching high up to the ribs of the pregnant man.

Wiktor and his unborn son are receiving the best possible care, with bi-weekly ultrasounds ensuring the baby is developing correctly. Every inch his belly grows needs to be thoroughly documented for scientific purposes - his pregnancy will be studied during his next semester of medical school!

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Jenny Jugo (Victoria in Dover, A hopeless Case, Our Miss Doctor)—I just love her! She was an Austrian actress during the 20s & 30s & 40s who was among the big UFA stars. She was beautiful but still appeared to be natural and likeable. Often she played witty, smart, independent and confident (for the time) modern women both in silent and in talking movies. For example in one movie she's a maths teacher who has to prove herself to her male colleagues who doubt she is actually good at mathematics. And she ends up not only being successful at teaching the high-school graduates but even getting to lecture mathematics at university afterwards. (Our Miss Doctor) Or in A Hopeless Case she plays a young woman who is very superficial and spoilt at first but then decides against marrying the good situated man her father wants her to marry and instead is dedicated to successfully study medicine although everyone advises her to stop. She's really a great actress who I always enjoyed seeing in movies ever since I was a child. (Also she always appeared to have thick curly hair which was a great representation for little curly haired me because in movies you rarely see women with that hair type being considered beautiful as well.)

Mary Pickford (Coquette, Tess of the Storm Country)—"America’s Sweetheart”, “Queen of Hollywood”, her and Douglas Fairbanks were the og it couple, owned her own movie studio, had both a drink and a hairstyle named after her

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Jenny Jugo:

Gifset

Gif

Mary Pickford:

She was a pioneer in early cinema! She acted, wrote, and produced numerous films and was one of the founders of the United Artists film studio, along with Charlie Chaplin and her husband, Doug Fairbanks. At the height of her career in the 1920s there was nobody more famous. She was widely known as "America's Sweetheart." She won an Oscar in 1929 for her performance in Coquette (1929) and then a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1979.

She was an absolute pioneer in the very early days of feature films. She co-founded United artists and managed her career brilliantly.

Mary Pickford wasn't just a silent star, she was a huge historical figure for film. I really cannot emphasize how involved she was in creating and shaping the film world. She was completely passionate about the theater world (from a young age!) and still revered even after she lost relevance. Her tenacity, her beauty, and her intelligence is what made her the first actress labeled as "America's Sweetheart." She just has this glow, a wonderful sweet disposition, and warm heart. She often introduced other women to motion picture and helped them showcase their talent. She was an astute business woman, although when asked about this she said "Well you know this business angle is much exaggerated, because most people don't expect much sense of a woman 5 feet tall. If I were 5 feet 8 they would say I was a very poor business woman!" She was friends with Amelia Earheart and had terrible luck in love. Please just learn about or give thought to my sad small sweet girl.

[casualheizouenjoyers]

“wait, you’re not bitchless?”

genshin youtuber au - 5wirl reactions to each other having an s/o

5wirl: aether, venti, xiao, kazuha & heizou

Oce5n: reader (in cc version), barbara, mona, yelan & kokomi

(oce5n aren’t mentioned in every characters’ scenarios cause uhhhh i do what i want 😎)

i have been writing this since december, not worth the wait /j

aether

if you’re not a content creator/don’t previously know 5wirl

out of everyone, the rest of 5wirl aren’t surprised that aether has an s/o

honestly the first time you meet them all aether’s already been talking about you for weeks ahead but just didn’t want the guys to scare you off and he didn’t want to introduce you until he was sure you’re the one

and after months of long distance and a bit of traveling with him to film stuff for his channel he’s very confident you’re the one

i think he waits like a solid 5 months before introducing you officially

he introduces you to them by preparing a big meal at the 5wirl house and sitting down for an informal dinner, 100% introduces you to them before introducing you onto his channel as his s/o

it’s a bit intimidating since the rest of 5wirl is protective of aether but as soon as heizou gives his approval everyone fully relaxes

it’s like, they’re obviously polite and friendly because they don’t want to make aether upset or anything but xiao doesn’t make an effort to strike up conversation and heizou is asking just a bit too many questions

venti is just vibing though cause he’s got more confidence in aether’s ability to read people and make the right call, while kazuha is just striking up conversation about your travels with aether

they’re all texting under the table in a gc before heizou makes his verdict and after that xiao starts to make a little bit of an effort to appear nicer and be more friendly

you are definitely given hugs by venti when you leave while xiao gives you a handshake, heizou gives you a pat on the arm and kazuha lets you know you’re welcome anytime, and he also adds you to a gc

venti jokingly shouts at aether to give you a kiss goodbye, and aether just shyly gives you a peck on the cheek before you’re on your way home

and as you’re leaving the house you can definitely hear venti shout out loud “THEY’RE A KEEPER”

if you’re a content creator/previously know 5wirl

for the sake of this let’s say you’re a member of Oce5n and you’re the founder/leader

5wirl and Oce5n are pretty close considering you and aether met before forming said groups and have collaborated a lot

surprises no one that y’all are dating heizou saw that shit coming a mile away

so when you get invited over to the 5wirl house for dinner aether also invites the rest of Oce5n so it becomes a duo interrogation but more lighthearted

really they’re just all teaming up to grill y’all on the details of how y’all got together as and (jokingly) asking you and aether about your ‘intentions’ with one another

at the end of the night venti, xiao, kazuha & heizou gift you a cute little locket with a picture of you & aether as a congratulations for your relationship, it will make you tear up

venti calls dibs on being your flower boy

venti

if you’re not a content creator/don’t previously know 5wirl

the rest of 5wirl are (lovingly) surprised that venti is in a relationship he considers serious enough to formally introduce you to them instead of them just walking in on venti with some random person in his room

cause venti definitely does loads of casual relationships cause he’s just chilling, and honestly he thought you were going to be a casual few weeks thing before just staying friends but he does really love you

introduces you a bit after 3 months when you’re no longer in the honeymoon phase and he finds that he still adores you

he’d introduce you to everyone by just casually playing a group game via discord and would first introduce you as a friend and then after a few games/rounds (i imagine y’all are playing the online version of clue or some jackbox games) be like “oh yeah lol that’s my s/o we’ve been dating for like 3 months”

xiao just deadass is like “are you sure venti didn’t just hire you as an actor?”

everyone by that time is definitely more open cause your first interaction isn’t like bogged down by the seriousness of being venti’s really first serious s/o

heizou just making a separate gc and being like “i fucking knew it” he’s the least shocked what a king

aether actually has a normal reaction—

he’s just like “oh congratulations! you should come over sometime so we can meet in person” he’s the sweetest and later on asks for your number over discord to put you in a gc and asks what food you want him to cook

kazuha would be lowkey spacing out love him but venti is a gremlin and made this happen ad like 2 am and kazuha is multi-tasking and editing some stuff in the background so he’s like “wait what just happened” i love this man

but when he’s brought up to speed he’s pretty chill and says you should join them the next time they do a group stream if you’re comfortable with that

the rest of the night is pretty chill y’all play a few more games and you end up calling with venti until you fall asleep

if you’re a content creator/previously know 5wirl

there’s literally no surprise because venti forced the rest of 5wirl to be his wingmen, xiao is just happy y’all are FINALLY together

venti just texts the 5wirl gc like “guess who’s finally on a date” and sends a picture of you & him at a cozy cafe and then just turns off his phone what a lad—

doesn’t even check his texts on his way home so when he opens the door the rest of 5wirl is just there like 🧍🏻 WHAT THE FUCK

xiao just texts you like “how much money did he pay you” but he’s secretly really happy for venti because he knows you and knows you wouldn’t break venti’s heart

kazuha already knew that y’all were going on a date since he helped kokomi plan out a cute date and made sure venti was dressed well when he was going to “hang out with just a friend”

aether is super happy for you both and reaches out to barbara about organizing a little surprise congratulations event like a cute picnic of something we stan aether in this household <3

heizou already knows everything that happened on your date he managed to find out via the picture venti sent where y’all were at and teamed up with yelan to spy

Xiao

if you’re not a content creator/don’t previously know 5wirl

the MOST unexpected

xiao managed to not only talk to someone his friends didn’t know but also managed to date them how???

i’m sorry but this man won’t introduce you to 5wirl at all he’s an expert at keeping this a secret they only find out 7 months in when xiao invites you over when he thought everyone was out and heizou overhears someone calling xiao an affectionate nickname and xiao not giving any sign of protest like he does when venti purposefully annoys xiao by calling him his “beloved”

venti never lets xiao live this down, aether helps you hold xiao back from murdering venti and is just like “oh hey i’m aether by the way, how are you?”

kazuha just herds y’all into the living room and is just patiently waiting for xiao to say something

xiao just there like :| so you gotta say something or y’all will be in awkward silence for a long time

the minute you say anything like even just being like “oh hey my name’s [name] i’m xiao’s s/o” venti will just grab you by the shoulders and be like “DID HE KIDNAP YOU” lovingly of course, it’s his job to shit on xiao

eventually everyone will introduce themselves and xiao just grabs your hand and tries to drag you back to your room before aether suggests y’all watch some movies together

xiao volunteers you two to make the popcorn and brings you into the kitchen and lets you know if you just want to go back to his room and chill y’all can totally do that there’s no harm in not wanting to be part of a group interaction at the moment

if you decide to go back to xiao’s room the rest of 5wirl would bring up some snacks and knock on the door before just leaving them outside cause they do feel lowkey bad for overwhelming you

if you decide to make popcorn and join the movie night it’ll be chill, while 5wirl obviously care about xiao they know he’s the least likely to be ‘tricked’ into being in a relationship with someone who isn’t a good person especially considering how long you’ve been together

you’d be sitting in between xiao & aether while venti, heizou and kazuha sit on the floor in front of y’all

it’d be pretty casual, they’d let you choose the first movie and no matter what you choose venti will be like “you’ve got bad taste but you’re with xiao so i guess that checks out” and xiao would just kick him—

if you choose a mystery or horror movie with a mystery aspect like scream heizou will be spoiling all the twists im sorry this man is insufferable (we love him though)

by the time y’all are done watching movies it’s super late and kazuha suggests you stay over since it’s dangerous to go out when it’s super dark & late so aether pulls out some board games and y’all end up staying up all night and playing games with xiao holding your hand under the table and occasionally squeezing it

venti never lets xiao live down “going soft” rip venti he was a real one

if you’re a content creator/previously know 5wirl

yeah they’re still shocked 💀

no shade to our boy xiao but he’s never letting anyone know he’s got a crush on someone we stan a secretive king

heizou obviously knew cause…duh

but it’s okay cause he’s pretty

i feel like it’d come out during a stream with all of 5wirl plus you

and like xiao gets a dono being like “when are you and y/n finally going to date?” and xiao is super into the game (y’all are playing like fucking valorant idk) and isn’t paying attention to his response so he just says “y/n and i already are dating”

😨 = everybody’s face

there’s just like a beat of silence before venti just screams into his mic “WHAT?????”

rip headphone users

hope you’re ready to be trending on twitter.com bestie

heizou smirking at the camera like “i knew it”

anyways y’all obviously lose the round

venti jokingly challenges you to a 1v1 match for xiao’s hand and xiao just instantly being like “no 😐”

y’all just continue the stream without bringing it up because y’all stay on that gamer grind (i hate myself for typing that too don’t worry)

but after stream y’all stay on discord and chat for a while and they obviously give their congratulations to you guys <3333 (can you tell i’m running out of ideas 💀)

Kazuha

if you’re not a content creator/don’t previously know 5wirl

kazuha has W rizz no one is surprised honestly

i think kazuha is pretty good at keeping your relationship a secret but he only waits until you’re both ready to reveal your relationship

tbh i think he’d introduce you to each 5wirl member separately cause he knows his friends are clinically insane and doesn’t want to scare you away /j

but fr i think one of kazuha’s core values is living in harmony and he wants you to have an individual connection with each of his friends

i’m not writing it out but kazuha would definitely appreciate getting to meet your closest friends individually as well

he’d start with introducing you to bestie heizou for sure because in the youtube! au they’re super close to eachother considering they have their duo channel before joining 5wirl

it’d be super casual, he’d tell you both what’s going down before y’all meet so it’s not a shock to either of you

y’all become an iconic trio fr, i think kazuha would make y’all first meet each other doing an escape room and at the end kazuha soft launches you on his socials by posting a picture from the escape room with heizou doing a silly pose while your back is facing the camera cause you’re looking at a puzzle

then i think he’d introduce you to aether by inviting you both over to his to cook and eat lunch together cause aether is the best cook ever tbh (other than icon xiangling)

by this point venti definitely knows what’s up and pesters kazuha into meeting you next while xiao is just chilling

kazuha would invite you and venti to a karaoke room! venti is a more hyper person so a karaoke room would be the perfect place to get to know him. venti will force you to scream/sing “girlfriend” by avril lavigne with him prove me wrong

and of course you and kazuha would sing “love story” by taylor swift and kazuha would post a really shit quality video of you two that venti took on his story <3

last person you’d meet would be xiao and i think y’all would go to an interactive museum so there isn’t a lot of pressure to talk but rather just to vibe together. like when i was younger i went to this museum called “The Hall of Science” and it had so many interactive exhibits it was just so fun

headcannon that xiao is secretly an amazing photographer so he takes pictures of you and kazuha in a little garden area by the museum and kazuha uses those to officially launch you as his partner on social media <333

and to round it up he’d post a picnic vlog with you and 5wirl :D

if you’re a content creator/previously know 5wirl

i think y’all would host an aesthetic picnic with 5wirl & oce5n and tell both your friend groups at said aesthetic picnic you guys are dating <3

yelan, heizou and mona exchanging money cause they were betting on when y’all would finally announce it to everyone 💀

barbara, aether, xiao and kokomi having normal reactions we stan

venti just tackling the both of y’all to the ground and fake sobbing how happy he is (but ofc he’s genuinely happy for his besties <3)

it’d be a super casual thing because everyone kinda suspected it honestly because kazuha’s recent drunk poetry seems to describe someone suspiciously like you

Heizou

if you’re not a content creator/dont previously know 5wirl

you think you’re just going on a chill escape room date with heizou, 5wirl thinks they’re just going to film a chaotic escape room vlog per usual

you are all wrong and your beautiful amazing boyfriend locks you in a room with his friends and forces y’all to do an escape room together (only because he knows aether, kazuha & venti are super friendly and will obviously make sure you’re included and xiao at the very least can kinda read the vibes and guess you’re heizou’s s/o he was talking about on the way to the escape room)

heizou made the escape room and a lot of the hints are about him so y’all collaborate (and so heizou can prove that you do know him super well and he’s lowkey serious about you)

plus this gives all of you guys a bonding experience to look back on and laugh about

venti can and will try to make you flirt with heizou for clues 💀

just his cute little laugh when he responds <33

once xiao relaxes he just gives you a pat on the back and a nod to show he likes you

venti in the background like “xiao be a normal person challenge 🧍🏻”

so you get to experience the wonder that is xiao trying to murder venti, you’re officially in the squad now /lh

getting lunch afterwards with the rest of 5wirl and plotting revenge on heizou for putting y’all in the hardest fucking escape room ever

rip heizou he made a grave miscalculation (it’s okay because he’s pretty and i love him <3)

if you’re a content creator/previously know 5wirl

i think heizou would make a game out of it (again) but different

he’d create a whole ass scavenger hunt for his friends to locate him and his secret partner

bro is counting on kazuha and aether to hard carry the group /hj

he sees it as a win win, he gets to reveal you as his partner and enjoy a relaxing date while waiting for his friends to arrive

what do they win? uhhhh, who cares the win win is for you and heizou not them smh

but since he loves his friends he made the hunt end at your apartment where a movie night is waiting for them :D (cuddling heizou on the couch <3333)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Tim Ganser at The UnPopulist:

Since the end of World War II, Germans had by and large steadfastly resisted voting for far-right populists. That norm was shattered in the last decade by the success of the political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which seemed to gain more traction as it radicalized into a full-blown, hard right populist party. A year into its existence, spurred by widespread discontent with German fiscal policy, the AfD won seven seats in European Parliament. In 2017, after undergoing a hard-right turn, it won 94 seats in the German federal elections, good for third place overall. For the past year, the AfD has consistently ranked second in Politico’s poll aggregator tracking the public’s voting intentions.

In this Sunday’s European Parliament elections, roughly 1 in 6 German voters is expected to cast a ballot for the AfD, whose members have trivialized the Holocaust, encouraged their followers to chant Nazi slogans, and participated in a secret conference where they fantasized about forced deportations of naturalized citizens they derisively call “Passport Germans.” Worse still, the AfD is predicted to be the strongest party, with up to a third of the vote share, in the three elections for state parliament in Saxony and Thuringia on Sept. 1 and in Brandenburg on Sept. 22. And in generic polls for a hypothetical federal election, the AfD fares even better than it did in any previous election. How did Germany get to this point?

The AfD’s Origin Story

The AfD was founded in early 2013 by a group of conservatives, led by the economics professor, Bernd Lucke, greatly disillusioned with then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fiscal policy. In their view, the European debt crisis had revealed deep instability within the eurozone project as smaller nations found themselves unable to cope with the economic demands of membership, and they believed Merkel’s focus on saving the euro was coming at the expense of German economic interests. This was, however, the opposite of a populist complaint—in fact, the AfD was initially referred to as a “Professorenpartei” (a professor’s party) because of the party’s early support from various economics professors who were more interested in fiscal policy than catering to popular will. In its earliest days, the AfD could best be characterized as a cranky but respectable party of fiscal hardliners. Its anti-establishment posture stemmed entirely from its belief in the necessity of austerity. Even its name could be construed less as nationalistic and more an answer to the dictum coined by Merkel—“alternativlose Politik” (policy for which there is no alternative)—to defend her bailouts during the eurozone crisis.

Although the AfD had launched an abstract economic critique of Merkel’s policies that could be hard to parse for non-experts, its contrarian stance resonated with a significant portion of Germans. Right out of the gate, the AfD obtained the highest vote share of any new party since 1953, nearly clearing the 5% threshold for inclusion in the Bundestag, Germany’s Parliament, in its first electoral go round. Its success was also measurable in terms of membership, passing the 10,000 mark almost immediately after its formation. The rapid increase in membership, however, helped lay the groundwork for its turn toward right-wing populism. Perhaps due to pure negligence—or a combination of calculation and ambition—the party’s founders did little to stop right-wing populists from swelling its rolls. And as the German economy emerged through the European debt crisis in good financial shape, fiscal conservatism naturally faded from the public’s consciousness. However, a new European crisis having to do with migrants came to dominate the popular imagination. The AfD hardliners seized on the growing anti-migrant opinion, positioning the AfD as its champion, thereby cementing the party’s turn towards culture war issues like immigration and national identity.

Starting in late 2014, organized right-wing protesters took to the streets to loudly rail against Germany’s decision to admit Muslim migrants, many fleeing the Syrian civil war. The AfD right wing’s desire to become the political home of nativism led to a rift within the party that culminated in founder Bernd Lucke’s being ousted as leader in 2015, and his replacement with hardliner Frauke Petry. Lucke left the party entirely, citing its right-wing shift, following in the footsteps of what other party leaders had already done and more would do in the coming year. Up until this point, the AfD unwittingly helped the cause of right-wing populism. If the reactionary far-right had tried to start a party from scratch, it would have likely failed. The AfD, after all, was created within a respectable mold, trading on the credentials of its earliest founders and leaders. But with saner voices now pushed out, right-wing populists had the party with public respectability and an established name all to themselves. And they deliberately turned it into a Trojan horse for reactionary leaders who wanted to “fight the system from within.

[...]

A New Normal in Germany

As right-wing populist positions have become part of the political discourse, Germany is now in the exact same position as some of its European neighbors with established hardline populist parties. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni ascended to the premiership in October 2022 as the head of her neo-fascist Fratelli d’Italia party, which is poised to perform well in the upcoming European Parliament elections. In France, the Marine Le Pen-led far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is set to bag a third of votes in those elections, roughly double what President Macron’s governing coalition is expected to obtain.

What makes the situation in Germany especially worrisome is that, unlike in France and Italy, far-right parties had failed to garner any meaningful vote share in nationwide elections until just seven years ago; indeed, until the 2017 federal election, there had never been a right-wing populist party that had received more than six percent of the national vote in Germany. The nation’s special vigilance toward far right ethnonationalism in light of its history of Nazi atrocities was expected to spare Germany the resurgence of far-right populism. But it actually led to complacency among mainstream parties. By 2017, the AfD—already in its right-wing populist phase—received nearly 13% of the vote in the federal election to become the third-strongest parliamentary entity. And by then it had also made inroads in all state parliaments as well as the European Parliament. The norm against it was officially gone.

To be sure, the AfD is not on track to take over German politics. It currently has the fifth most seats among all German parties in the Bundestag, fourth most seats among German parties in the European Parliament, and is a distant eighth in party membership. Nor is it currently a threat to dominate European politics—late last month, the AfD was ousted from the Marine Le Pen-led Identity and Democracy (ID) party coalition, the most right-wing group in the European Parliament. Le Pen, herself a far-right radical, explained the AfD’s expulsion by describing the party as “clearly controlled by radical groups.” But none of the above offer good grounds for thinking the AfD will be relegated to the fringes of German or European politics.

After the election, the AfD could rejoin ID, or it could form a new, even more radical right-wing presence within the European Parliament. Some fear that the AfD could potentially join forces with Bulgaria’s ultranationalist Vazrazhdane. Its leader, Kostadin Kostadinov, said that AfD’s expulsion from ID could create an opening to form “a real conservative and sovereigntist group in the European Parliament.” Also, ID’s removal of the AfD wasn’t due to its stated policy platform being out of step with Europe’s right-wing populist project. Rather, it was because the AfD’s leading candidate, Maximillian Krah, was implicated in a corruption and spying scandal involving China and Russia, and because he said he would not automatically construe a member of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) to be a criminal. Absent these entirely preventable missteps, the AfD would be in good standing with right-wing populist partners in Europe.

Seeing far-right Nazi-esque Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) rise in prominence in Germany is a sad sight.

[toseehowthestoryends]

Hal Gates = Henry Avery

So, I've seen the theory that Hal Gates = Henry Avery, and I laughed at it until I did the research.

And holy shit, it fits.

What made me start scratching my head was when I stumbled upon a second draft script for the pilot that is a little different from what aired. It straight up says that Hal Gates is in his 60s in Episode I/1715. For some reason, I figured him a bit younger, but since Mark Ryan was only 58 when the show started airing...it starts to make sense.

Henry Avery was (probably) born in 1659. He'd be 56 in 1715.

Short history: Henry (Hal?) Avery was a British-born sailor who spent some time in the Royal Navy as a master's mate, became a privateer, and then a pirate captain when the crew of his ship mutinied and elected him. Then he became the most successful pirate of his age, the "Arch Pirate," and the subject of the first-ever worldwide manhunt after only two years as a pirate captain.

Then he escaped with his loot around 1695, twenty years before Black Sails begins, never to be seen again.

But there are theories that he disappeared to New Providence Island.

(More on that below the cut). Isn't that fascinating? We don't know where Hal Gates comes from, but we know he's been around for quite awhile. He's the right age (practically spot on). Hornigold implies that Gates has been at sea for around 50 years, which would mean he first went to sea around 1665, give or take a little. The first mention of Every at sea is around 1671, but what's 5-6 years when you're rounding?

The Black Sails universe credits Avery/Every as one of the founders of the Nation of Thieves, saying "this is a place for free men," on New Providence Island. He's also the man who found Skeleton Island.

We know Hal Gates sailed on his crew and had his journals (his "prized possession," which he gave to Flint for safekeeping. Why give those to someone who was supposedly a minor member of his crew (someone who was "terrified Avery knew his name")? That doesn't add up very well. Why would Gates even have those journals?

"They say it started with a man named Henry Avery. Sailed into the port of Nassau, bribed the colonial governor to look past his sins, encamped his crew upon the beach, and thus began the pirate issue on New Providence Island." (Thomas Hamilton to James McGraw)

Avery vanishes into thin air, after supposedly giving Hal Gates his journals and leaving some of his crew on New Providence Island, including - presumably - Gates. Unless, of course, he is Hal "Gates." Then we've definitely seen him, the man who didn't really want to be a pirate captain until it was thrust upon him. That's a weird attitude, unless, of course, he's retired and is just going to see as a quartermaster because he missed the action?

More Avery/Every history beneath the cut.

Black Sails spells his name as Avery, though the common spelling is actually Every. So, what's his story?

Henry Every, also known as Henry Avery, Jack Avery, John Avery, Benjamin Bridgeman, or Long Ben, was the "Arch Pirate" or "King of Pirates" in his day.

He was probably born in Newton Ferrers, England (near Plymouth), in August 1659. His last name may have been spelled "Evarie" at this time.) Sometime between 1671 and 1689, he joined the Royal Navy under the name Henry Every and made it to the rank of master's mate before being discharged in 1690.

He also married to Dorothy Arther in 1690. Even in the navy, he was known as a family man, sending his money home instead of wasting it.

Then Every joined up with a new shipping company, and became first mate on a privateer warship, Charles II. The Spanish Expedition Shipping company was basically a bunch of English privateers who headed out to help Spain (then an English ally) hurt the French (never an English ally) in the West Indies. But Spain didn't deliver the promised letter of marque, failed to pay them, and left them sitting around as virtual prisoners. The crew of Charles II mutinied. Next you know, Every was unanimously elected captain and they changed the name of the ship to Fancy.

Over the next two years, Every and his crew embarked on a legendary series of raids that culminated in him commanding a squadron of pirate ships and taking a prize worth about £600,000 (about $135 million today). This was a 25 ship convoy owned by the Grand Mughal (Emperor), and it was the biggest prize ever taken by a pirate at the time.

The result? The first ever worldwide manhunt for one Henry Every. Britain's privy council and the East India Company offered a bounty of £1,000 (about $224,000 today) for his capture, plus a free pardon to informers.

It was due to his actions that Parliament declared pirates hostis humani generis ,or enemies of all mankind.

What happened to Every after this? What we know for sure is that he disappeared, forever to be the one pirate who got away scott free with his treasure. Sightings were reported for years, but none were reliable. Some say he died in poverty after squandering his treasure or being unable to sell it. But there's a strong theory that he disappeared in a place we all know very well: New Providence Island.

According to this theory, in Every and Fancy headed to St. Thomas and sold some of their treasure. Anchoring about 50 miles off New Providence Island, some of his men went to talk to the governor and ask leave for the crew to come to the island in exchange for hefty bribe. Their captain, "Henry Bridgeman" promised the governor a gift.

Every's crew spent months in the Bahamas and Fancy was stripped of everything valuable, ending up running aground and sinking, perhaps at the governor's orders. Eventually, the governor learned about the price on Every's head and put a warrant out for his arrest, but he seems to have tipped off the crew. Of 113 men, only 24 were captured (and 5 executed). Every was never seen again, having told his men multiple stories about where he intended to go.

And then he vanished, never to be seen again.

Unless he didn't.

[marmiteprinter]

At the reception, everyone mingled and chatted. Liv made friends with Julia Martinez (who looked absolutely adorable in her suit!) and they ended up playing red hands in a corner all evening. I guess that happens when you're the only two kids at a wedding!

When the time came to cut the cake, Nerissa cut a neat slice and fed a cute bite to her new wife. Everyone helped themselves to the cake and agreed it had been a fantastic day.

After the wedding, SimCity sent the limo that Nerissa had wanted and the couple ran outside to be whisked off on their whistle stop tour. Quentin happened to be walking past at that exact moment and he grimaced at the sight of his ex-wife and her new love climbing happily into the limousine.

[dirtybg3confessions]

Blog Moderation FAQs

Hi everyone!

Every time we answer an ask about the queue/inbox situation we get several of the same suggestions in our inbox. While we truly appreciate those of you trying to be helpful, I wanted to take some time to address some of the suggestions and the reasons behind our position on said suggestions.

Have you considered closing the ask box for a while until you work through what you have?

No. With as many asks as there are in the box, it would result in the ask box being closed for quite some time, which we don't think is really what anyone wants!

Closing the box would allow for us to "catch up", but it also would mean potential dry periods of content.

Keeping the ask box open means we need to scroll forever to reach the old asks, but it also means that we are set to deliver consistent content for a while, and are never at risk for an empty queue when the inevitable drop in fandom interest hits.

Why don't you post more frequently?

Actually, we do! We've exploded recently, so many of you may not remember ye olden days of our blog's founder doing their best as a one person show and we got one post a day... ish. Then, when the ask box exploded to 100 asks (haha) they brought in the first round of new mods (including me!). During this time, we were able to build a solid queue. We were then able to post 5-6 times a day.

With a healthy queue and a healthy ask box, we were able to bump the post frequency to 12 times a day. Most of the first wave of mods worked through some asks and then largely went inactive. This is fine, it happens. After struggling to keep up a frequency of 12/day as a one person show once again, we recruited new mods with some activity guidelines.

To maintain a posting frequency of 12 times a day, each mod needs to add 3 posts to the queue a day, or 21 posts to the queue a week. We ask that every mod contributes 30 times a week, that way we have a healthy buffer of content for holidays, emergencies, and just general time away from the internet.

While the confessions are sent in by y'all and editing them in photoshop is a generally simple process, it still does take time. Time in the game to find and take the screenshots, time in the editing software to create the image, then posting and tagging appropriately. Those cursed edits y'all love so much take even more time.

We're all adults here. And your mods are too. They have lives off of tumblr, often complete with bills and day jobs. Honestly, less fun than the little horny blog, but *vague gestures towards capitalist hellscape*

For these reasons, posting 12 times a day is going to be a hard cap for the foreseeable future. In the most loving way possible: If you are submitting an ask now and expecting to see it a week or even a month from now, you are going to be sorely disappointed. Submit your ask and know that it will be appreciated by the community when its time comes.

"A confession is never late, nor is it early. A confession arrives precisely when it means to." - Elminster (probably)

Why don't you just get more mods?

Have you heard the phrase "too many cooks in the kitchen"? Every person added to a process adds another variable, and the more variables, the harder it is to deliver a consistent experience. Additionally, the goal is to find people who can stay pretty consistently active, which can be a hard ask for a lot of people. We're very grateful for the team that we have now, and we aren't seeking new mods at this time.

Why don't you post more confessions about (character/female/etc)?

We are a submissions blog. We work with the content we are given. You need to be the horny you wish to see in the world. I know in general there's a lack of confessions for female characters, and there's an analysis to be made about how different gender/sexual identities interact with fandom and how that affects the content available in communities for consumption, but I'm not the person to make it.

Thank you all for continuing to be amazing, it is truly an honor to serve 🫡

[foundersweek]

Prompts and rules 2023

Hello, dear fellow fans of our beloved Founders <3 The event goes into the next round! Here are now the prompts and rules for the event in 2023. If any questions occure, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

The event happens here on Tumblr and on our Twitter @FoundersWeek. On both platforms the Hashtag is #FoundersWeek2023. Please use only this hashtag as other versions of it won't be checked. If we still miss your work after 48h of posting feel free to hit us with a pole ^^

The event runs from 20 November to 26 November. You can submit your work on ao3 to the FoundersWeek2023 collection, if you like.

The main prompt list

[image desc.: Kid Hashirama and Madara sit on the prompt list. The title reads "The Founders Week2023". The prompt list follows: Day 1: lingerie / reincarnation / unlikely friendships/relationships Day 2: cultural differences / fire & forest / a sign of loyalty Day 3: any AU / any swap (generation, body, role ect.) / Crossovers Day 4: forgiveness / time travel / ultimate betrayal Day 5: prank/experiment gone wrong / girl boss / beast within Day 6: “How dangerous, to finally have something to lose” / ghost wedding / held for ransom Day 7: founders trying to fight off the emus / genderfuckery / lost cat

Suggested AUs: Gods AU, Historical AU, Myth AU, Modern AU, Supernatural AU, SciFi AU, Timeswap AU [/id]

The graphic was done by @annekalabaza ❤

Alternative prompts and rules under the cut.

Alternative prompts

Without a sound They disappeared Without a sound God interfered We all witnessed the rapture And we mourn for those Who got lost In the great divide

Blind Guardian - Let It Be No More

Summer's in the air and, baby, heaven's in your eyes I'm your national anthem

Lana Del Ray - National Anthem

Enjoy memories, yes, but don't be a slave to who you wish you once had been.

Brandon Sanderson - Tress Of The Emerald Sea

Rules

Mods are @elenyafinwe​ (tumblr) and AlismaeGullran (Twitter)

The event takes place from 20 November to 26 November.

You can participate in any form you like. Write Fanfics, draw something awesome, post headcanons, make edits. Whatever you like. Your work doesn’t have to be in English, I trust you to follow the rules ^^

Only new works please. If you have a yet unpublished WIP, that’s fine tho!  

Post your work wherever you want, but if you want it to be featured here, please make a Tumblr post with the work and/or the link to your work, tag this blog and use the hashtag for the event #FoundersWeek2023.

You can, of course, use the hashtag on other social media, too.

In the post put in all the necessary tags that apply to your work and add warnings accordingly. Please also add the prompt you choose.

NSFW is allowed (just don’t post it fully on Tumblr), as well as any Dead Dove. Just tag it properly. Generally speaking: Any content is allowed that’s also allowed on ao3. It simply has to be tagged. However, any form of harrasment of other content creators over their content for the event is not allowed and will be banned from the event.

AI works of any kind are forbidden!

The main focus of your work has to be on any of the Founders. Any pairing is allowed as well as other characters that appear.

You can do all prompts, some prompts or no prompts at all … or even more than one prompt per day, if you can manage that. If you don’t like the main prompt list, you can use the alternative prompts and/or mix both lists together. Whatever you like.

You can interpret the prompts as freely as you wish.

The main event takes place in the above mentioned week. But let’s be honest: If you find this blog after this and want to add something to the party feel free to do so! Late submissions will be accepted any time after the official end. However, I will not check the Hashtag forever, so better tag this blog.

No pressure, just have fun.

@faneventshub @fandomweeks @narutoandborutoevents @narutoevents

[the-uncharted-cookbook]

Avery's Grand Punch

Barbadan rum, red wine, lime juice, and Earl Grey syrup

I had thought Nathan Drake was out of the game for good, but I should have known better.

I had just been getting back into the swing of things after my recovery when Nate stopped by the bar for the first time in years with yet another impossible story. I had a death-defying tale of my own for him, but it didn't exactly involve finding another legendary city lost to history. This time, Nathan Drake had uncovered Libertalia, a pirate utopia nestled off the coast of Madagascar, a place that people have been searching for since Captain Charles Johnson published A General History of the Pyrates in 1724. He pulled a gold coin from his pocket and told me a tale of pirates and puzzles, the return of lost family and old rivals, and of the fine line between passion and obsession.

Libertalia was founded by Henry Avery, Thomas Tew, and ten other pirate captains as a way to achieve true freedom for themselves and their crews, far away from the governments that would have them hanged for piracy. Their resources and spoils were pooled together and an idyllic colony was built. But greed led the founders to betray their community and hoard all of the wealth for themselves. Libertalia was broken. As the founders began to turn on each other, Avery and Tew hatched a plan to end the conflict permanently. They brought all of the founders of Libertalia together under the guise of peace talks, knowing that only they would walk out alive. With one final toast, ten of history's greatest pirates unknowingly drank their demise and perished in an instant, all at the same table.

Avery's Grand Punch is a red wine rum punch inspired by the romanticism of piracy and the promises of Libertalia. Pirates would typically drink whatever they could get their hands on but wine and rum were some of the most prevalent drinks in the Caribbean, where most of Libertalia's pirate captains roamed before turning their sails to Madagascar. Historically, much like today, rum was often cut with lime juice, sugar, and spices to improve the taste. Red wine was chosen to round out this punch as a representation of the opulence of Libertalia's founders. Avery's Grand Punch is a potent drink fit for a pirate captain, just be sure to drink it in good company.

AVERY'S GRAND PUNCH

Ingredients: 1.5 oz moderately aged Barbadan rum (Plantation Barbados 5) 0.5 oz light-bodied red wine 0.5 oz lime juice 0.25 oz Earl Grey syrup Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with pebble ice or crushed ice. Shake and strain into a wine glass. Garnish with an orange peel to help prevent scurvy.

Avery's Grand Punch calls for a moderately aged Barbadan rum. These rums are typically aged between 4-10 years and often have a golden hue. I used Plantation Barbados 5 for this recipe, but Real McCoy 5 Year, Mount Gay Eclipse, or other moderately aged Barbadan rums are all effective substitutes. I chose a light-bodied red wine because because their higher acidity plays well with the lime juice and their lower tannins and alcohol content help compliment the rum rather than overpower it.

Depending on your personal taste, you may wish to increase or decrease the amount of lime juice and Earl Grey syrup to adjust the sour and sweet flavors.

The recipe for Earl Grey syrup can be found here.

[leveloneandup]

Extra Time: Two World Cup Champs Aren’t Scared of the Dutch

Holland day

So, two-time World Cup champion Christen Press, what scares you about the Netherlands, America’s second-round opponent at this 2023 World Cup? The U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) will face the Orange Lionesses tonight at 9 p.m. E.T. in New Zealand's capital city of Wellington.

Press, who won titles in 2015 and 2019 as a forward for the U.S. but recently underwent a fourth surgery to repair the knee preventing her from playing in this World Cup, is mildly offended by this question. “As soon as you say, ‘What scares you,’ I took that as a player,” Press says. “And I’m like, ‘Nothing scares me.” Press, 34, laughs. “OK, go ahead, Tobin …"

As in Tobin Heath, who’s also on this call—and was also on the 2015 and 2019 USWNT World Cup teams (in addition to the 2011 one)—and has also won a pair of World Cup titles, in 2015 and 2019 with the USWNT. Like Press, Heath, 35, has been sidelined due to injury. So I called on the duo—who are among the founders of the lifestyle brand RE-INC, often finish each other’s sentences, and are co-hosting an excellent podcast and YouTube program during the World Cup called The RE-CAP Show—to break down the U.S.-Netherlands matchup.

Heath agrees with Press. She doesn’t find the Dutch all that frightening. “The Dutch are a good team,” says Heath. “They're not a great team in this tournament.” Heath concedes that the Dutch are the best team in the USWNT’s group, which also includes Vietnam—whom the U.S. defeated 3-0 on Friday in the World Cup opener—and Portugal. “Outside of us,” Press chimes in.

“Outside of us, yes,” says Heath.

Yes, U.S.-Netherlands is a rematch of the 2019 World Cup final. But Heath cautions against reading too much into that. “There were a ton of better teams we played in 2019,” says Heath. She and Press point to games against Spain in the Round of 16, France—in France—in the quarters, and England in the semis as much tougher tests. The U.S. won those games 2-1, but shut out the Netherlands, 2-0, in the title game. “We always say our final was one of the easier games for us,” says Heath.

What’s more, the Dutch—who beat Portugal 1-0 in their World Cup opener—are down a superstar. Vivianne Miedema, the country’s all-time leading goal scorer, is missing this World Cup due to an ACL tear. “We don’t have to significantly adjust what we’re doing in order to take care of an individual player,” says Heath. “I don’t think they can do much damage to us.”

The one Netherlands player Heath mentioned in our conversation as a threat to watch—striker Lineth Beerensteyn—is now unlikely to play, because of an ankle injury she suffered against Portugal. Heath notes that the Dutch have a solid aerial presence off set pieces. And the Orange Lionesses could exploit the tendency of U.S. outside defenders Crystal Dunn and Emily Fox to play “inverted” positions—meaning they sometimes serve more as midfielders, moving into more centralized spaces on the pitch, getting involved in short passes on the attack. That strategy can leave the U.S. defense susceptible to Dutch counterattacks out wide. “You are leaving a big area to exploit,” says Heath.

Still, the former USWNT players aren’t all that worried. If anything, this is a huge opportunity for the Americans to make a statement. Germany made its mark, with a 6-0 crushing of Morocco. Brazil cast itself a real threat, with its 4-0 opening game victory over Panama. Spain beat Zambia 5-0 on Tuesday. “There’s a few teams that are like, we’re here,” says Heath. “We didn’t have that game against Vietnam. We can have that game against the Netherlands, if we want. I don’t see there being any reason why we can’t.”

~~~

Parting thought

Since they’ve played in past tournaments, I asked Heath and Press what it’s like for players at the World Cup between games. The U.S. did travel from Auckland to Wellington in the five days between its matchups against Vietnam and the Netherlands. Still, that’s plenty of downtime.

Enough to make you go stir-crazy?

“It’s almost like surrealism,” says Press. “The days are a little gray and foggy. You almost can’t remember. You’re very careful with when you look at your phone and who you even connect with. Or how much you walk. Your whole life is bubble-wrapped. Every second of the day. And then you have to go out and do this incredibly physical and risky and hard and emotionally draining thing. And then you just are bubble-wrapped again.”

“We sit around and talk and try to get a little bit of relief. It's this incredibly difficult experience to explain. You're with the only people in the world that get it. And that creates a bond with every single player I've played with in a world championship that's unlike any other. Because there's this respect. There's this knowingness. You don't even have to say anything and you know what's going on with your teammates.”

“We eat too many meals. We’re really just trying to fuel, fuel, fuel. And we talk and we laugh and we make it to the next game.”

[brokehorrorfan]

Previously available as a Walmart exclusive, Scream Factory's Creepshow Steelbook 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray will receive a wide release on September 3.

The 1982 horror anthology is written by Stephen King and directed by master of horror George A. Romero. The cast includes Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver, Leslie Nielsen, Carrie Nye, E. G. Marshall, Viveca Lindfors, Ed Harris, Stephen King, Tom Atkins, and Joe Hill.

Creepshow has been restored in 4K from the original camera negative with Dolby Vision. Special features are listed below, where you can also see the full Steelbook layout.

Disc 1 - 4K UHD:

Audio commentary by director George A. Romero and special make-up effects creator Tom Savini

Audio commentary by director of photography Michael Gornick

Audio commentary by composer/first assistant director John Harrison and construction coordinator Ed Fountain

Audio Interviews with director of photography Michael Gornick, actor John Amplas, property master Bruce Alan Miller, and make-up effects assistant Darryl Ferrucci

Interview with director of photography Michael Gornick

Interview with sound re-recordist Chris Jenkins

Mondo Macabre – A look at Mondo’s Creepshow posters with co-founder Rob Jones and gallery events planner Josh Curry

Collecting Creepshow – Original props and collectibles with collector Dave Burian

5 galleries - posters & lobby cards, movie posters, stills, special effects makeup, and behind the scenes

Disc 2 - Blu-ray:

Audio commentary by director George A. Romero and special make-up effects creator Tom Savini

Audio commentary by director of photography Michael Gornick

Audio commentary by composer/first assistant director John Harrison and construction coordinator Ed Fountain

Audio Interviews with director of photography Michael Gornick, actor John Amplas, property master Bruce Alan Miller, and make-up effects assistant Darryl Ferrucci

Terror and the Three Rivers – Round table discussion with John Amplas, Tom Atkins, Tom Savini, and Marty Schiff

Interview with costume designer Barbara Anderson

Interview with animator Rick Catizone

Horror’s Hallowed Grounds – A look at the filming locations

Tom Savini’s behind-the-scenes footage

Deleted scenes

Theatrical trailers - English & Spanish

TV spot

Radio spots

A murdered man emerges from the grave for Father’s Day cake. A meteor’s ooze makes everything… grow. A professor selects his wife as a snack for a crated creature. A scheming husband plants two lovers up to their necks in terror. A malevolent millionaire with an insect phobia becomes the prey of a cockroach army.

Pre-order Creepshow.