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jules-has-notes · 10 months ago

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New Bern, NC — VoicePlay live performances

Even as they were swiftly approaching the completion of nearly 100 shows at Disney World for the season, VoicePlay popped up to North Carolina for a full holiday concert on the weekend before Christmas.

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With the amount of travel Americans tend to do between Thanksgiving and Christmas, this comedic medley is extra relatable during the holiday season. If only all of our family sing-a-longs sounded this good.

Details:

title: Road Trip

original songs / performers: [1:27] "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" by Tiny Tim; [1:45] "Orinoco Flow" by Enya; [2:03] "Cum On Feel the Noize" by Quiet Riot; [3:12] "Big Shot" by Billy Joel; [3:25] "I Wanna Rock" by Twisted Sister; [3:34] "Voices Carry" by ’Til Tuesday; [3:52] "Shout" by Tears For Fears; [4:07] "Why Can't We Be Friends?" by War; [4:17] "That Smell" by Lynyrd Skynyrd; [5:00] "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" by Chicago; [6:25] "We Just Disagree" by Dave Mason; [6:45] "Hello" by Adelle

written by: "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" by Al Dubin & Joe Burke; "Orinoco Flow" by Eithne "Enya" Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin & Roma Ryan; "Cum On Feel the Noize" by Noddy Holder & Jim Lea; "Big Shot" by Billy Joel; "I Wanna Rock" by Dee Snider; "Voices Carry" by Robert Holmes, Aimee Mann, Michael Hausman, & Joey Pesce; "Shout" by Roland Orzabal & Ian Stanley; "Why Can't We Be Friends?" by Papa Dee Allen, Harold Ray Brown, B.B. Dickerson, Lonnie Jordan, Charles Miller, Lee Oskar, Howard E. Scott, & Jerry Goldstein; "That Smell" by Allen Collins & Ronnie Van Zant; "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" by Peter Cetera & David Foster; "Hello" by Adele Adkins & Greg Kurstin

arranged by: Geoff Castellucci

performance date: 20 December 2015

My favorite bits:

Eli starting to doze off and tip over until he's startled awake by Earl's yelp

Tony using his flowy jacket as a blanket

sleepy Geoff rubbing his eyes as he's rudely awakened by the bickering

Earl's little bunny nose sniffing

the exchange of annoyed watch tapping

Layne almost getting Eli to break with the different interruption

Trivia:

VoicePlay made a professionally filmed version of this medley / skit during the 2014 Sing-Off tour.

Layne usually interrupts with "Royals" by Lorde, but sometimes changes it up, as he does here, to try to make the other guys laugh.

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These guys love The Nightmare Before Christmas, and have recorded several songs from its fantastic soundtrack. But this was the first one to join their live show repertoire.

Details:

title: What's This?

original performers: Danny Elfman as Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

written by: Danny Elfman

arranged by: Layne Stein

performance date: 20 December 2015

My favorite bits:

those lovely opening harmonies

Tony excitedly getting in everybody's personal space

the alternating pliés and relevés to emulate the carolers' vehicle in the movie

♫ "I might possibly go daffy…" ♫ followed by Layne putting a quack in his percussion line

slo-mo snowball fight!

♫ "cozy in their dre-eam ⇓ laaand ⇓" ♫ "That was weird." "Sorry."

their monster walks as they regroup

that sharp, clean final chord

Trivia:

This song was a staple of their holiday shows for many years, particularly during their Disney World residencies for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.

They finally recorded it with J.None for their 2017 holiday EP "Warm Up", and filmed a video to go with it that they released at Halloween of that year.

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This bouncy tune is a great way to get an audience dancing in their seats, and VoicePlay alway performs it with gusto. Meet the guys, and hear a little of what they can do.

Details:

title: For Once In My Life

original performer: Stevie Wonder

written by: Ron Miller & Orlando Murden

arranged by: VoicePlay

performance date: 20 December 2015

My favorite bits:

Earl and Tony starting to step-touch together, then just giving in to the groove

everyone else cutting out for Eli's ♫ "won't desert me-e-e" ♫ riff then coming back in behind ♫ "I'm not alone anymore" ♫

everyone getting a moment in the spotlight for an introduction

those jazzy scatting lines leading into the key change

and a lovely ending chord

Trivia:

This song had been part of their live shows since their 4:2:Five days. The earliest clip I've found is from a performance in 2011 when their friend Jarrett Johnson subbed for Ryan.

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Listening to this song is certainly a treat, but watching them perform it is at least half the fun. Sometimes friends being a little competitive makes them all better.

Details:

title: Elvira

original performers: The Oak Ridge Boys

written by: Dallas Frazier

arranged by: Geoff Castellucci

performance date: 20 December 2015

My favorite bits:

Tony startling Earl by skittering his fingertips down the back of his head

troublemaker Eli encouraging Earl to take center stage

that glorious pop timbre in Tony's solo

Geoff reclaiming the spotlight with that extra deep ♫ "mow mow" ♫

the "Earl can go low, too" gag is never not funny

the other guys' expectant expressions in the back during the tense final confrontation

and that big ending is always fantastic

Trivia:

This number was a longtime fan favorite staple in their live shows, including the 2015 Sing-Off tour.

Because the visual component of this performance is such an interaction with the audience, they have never filmed a video for it, but there is an audio recording available through their Patreon.

Geoff also helped arrange the version that their pals in Home Free recorded with The Oak Ridge Boys earlier in the year.

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Anyone who grew up watching the Rankin-Bass stop-motion animated holiday specials knows these songs. But most people have never heard them quite like this.

Details:

title: Frosty the Snowman & Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

original songs / performers: "Frosty the Snowman" by Gene Autry; "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" by Eddie Cantor

written by: "Frosty the Snowman" by Walter "Jack" Rollins & Steve Nelson; "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" by J. Fred Coots & Haven Gillespie

arranged by: VoicePlay

performance date: 20 December 2015

My favorite bits:

Layne letting his inner kid out during the intro banter

Eli's smooth delivery on the opening lines

the harmonic stacking in ♫ "when they placed it on his head" ♫

those syncopated backing vocals during Earl's "Santa Claus" verse

Eli flailing in the back when the other guys start rapping

that crunchy ending section

Trivia:

The boys started performing this mashup during their 4:2:Five days. The earliest recording I've found is from their stint as castmembers in the Polar Express Conductors holiday show at SeaWorld in 2011. (Go hear Layne sing bass!)

It was a staple of VoicePlay's holiday shows for many years, particularly during their Disney World residencies for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.

They recorded a swingier version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" with their friend Michael Andrew for their 2012 holiday album "Peppermint Winter".

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It can be easy to overlook even the most talented vocal percussionist in an audio mix. Your ears forget that all those beats are coming out of a human body. But those skills are undeniable when he's the only one on stage.

Details:

title: Layne's drum solo

written & arranged by: Layne Stein

performance date: 20 December 2015

My favorite bits:

that initial deep kick

the random squawk

dropping into a half-time groove before transitioning into a more electronic section

♫ "Ding!" ♫

and the big finish

Trivia:

Percussion solos are a time honored tradition among modern a cappella groups. It can also be fun to hear beatboxers' differing styles when they team up as they did during the 2014 and 2015 Sing-Off tours.

When Layne started up again at the end, he was transitioning them into the start of "A Crimpella".

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VoicePlay don't just have one crowd-pleasing medley of phonations. They've also got a holiday version. There really are a lot of unusual lyrics in Christmas carols, and these guys make them incredibly fun.

(I think I caught everything, but if I missed a song, please let me know so I can track it down and add it to the list.)

Details:

title: "Most of the Songs" holiday medley

original songs / performers: "Mele Kalikimaka" by Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters; [0:06] "Pat-a-pan", French / English carol; [0:08] "Deck the Halls", English carol; [0:14] "Frosty the Snowman" by Gene Autry; [0:18] "Carol of the Bells", English carol; [0:27] "Coventry Carol", English carol; [0:41] "Welcome Christmas" from How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966); [0:55] "Hava Nagila", Jewish folk song; [1:03] "I Have a Little Dreidel", children's Hannukah song; [1:08] "Angels We Have Heard on High", French / English carol; [1:31] "Up on the Housetop" by Gene Autry; [1:38] "Dominick the Donkey" by Lou Monte; [2:00] "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Gene Autry; [2:03] "Jingle Bells", American carol; [2:06] "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from The Nutcracker; [2:38] "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", English carol

written by: "Mele Kalikimaka" by R. Alex Anderson; "Pat-a-pan" by Bernard de La Monnoye; "Deck the Halls" English lyrics by Thomas Oliphant, set to 16th century melody from Welsh carol "Nos Galan"; "Frosty the Snowman" by Walter "Jack" Rollins & Steve Nelson; "Carol of the Bells" English lyrics by Peter Wilhousky, melody from Ukranian New Year's song "Shchedryk" by Mykola Leontovych; "Coventry Carol" 16th century English Christmas carol; "Welcome Christmas" by Albert Hague; "Hava Nagila" by Moshe Nathanson & Abraham Zevi Idelsohn; "I Have a Little Dreidel" English lyrics by Samuel S. Grossman, melody by Samuel E. Goldfarb; "Angels We Have Heard on High" English lyrics by James Chadwick, to the traditional French tune "Gloria" as arranged by Edward Shippen Barnes; "Up on the Housetop" by Benjamin Hanby; "Dominick the Donkey" by Ray Allen, Sam Saltzberg, & Wandra Merrell; "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Johnny Marks; "Jingle Bells" by James Lord Pierpont; "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky; "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" modern arrangement by Arthur Warrell

arranged by: VoicePlay

performance date: 20 December 2015

My favorite bits:

Tony's little salsa groove as the beat kicks in

the adorable swaying choreography during "Welcome Christmas"

some Hannukah representation for the two Jewish band members

Geoff's robust "ho ho ho" 🎅

Earl's wonderful braying for "Dominick the Donkey"

Eli's exaggerated air bass at the start of "Sugar Plum"

that final descending drum fill from Layne

Trivia:

This medley also dates back to their 4:2:Five era and the SeaWorld Polar Express Conductors show. (Go hear Geoff beatbox!)

It was a staple of VoicePlay's holiday shows for many years, particularly during their Disney World residencies for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.

#VoicePlay #live performance #a cappella #Christmas music #music #video #long post #link-o-rama

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bracketsoffear · 2 years ago

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My Hunt submissions that didn't make it (1/2):

Greg (“Go-Getter Greg” by Ludo): His entire song is about him stalking and harassing the woman he's interested in. Also likes cop dramas, which ties him to The Hunt through its police.

Mr. X (Resident Evil 2): The archetypal Implacable Man in the Resident Evil series. Follows Chris/Jill all over Raccoon City, shrugging off attacks to relentlessly and effectively pursue and kill them.

Tick Tock Crocodile (Peter Pan): after eating Hook's hand, liked the taste so much that it has constantly pursued Hook through land and sea ever since, hoping to eat the rest of him; swallowed a clock that basically constantly acts as a reminder of its pursuit.

Maximus (Tangled): Horse that goes to ridiculous lengths to track down and apprehend Flynn Rider, including getting in a fucking swordfight with him. Member of the Royal Guard, and therefore a cop.

Xenomorph (Alien: Isolation): It's an enemy that can't be injured, killed, stunned, or slowed down; the most you can hope for is to distract it or drive it off with fire and flee. Any contact with it kills you. It runs faster than you. There are places all over the game it can go that you cannot; the opposite is NOT true. It knows you're hiding, and the slightest movement or mistake will give away your position. It learns your patterns so you're constantly forced to change up your tactics to avoid it. It can be anywhere, and you are NEVER safe; it can get you during hacking minigames, while you're navigating menus, even while you're saving. Has better senses than humans and Working Joes. You can’t run from or fight it—you have to hide or die. Clever enough to pick up on your habits: if you excessively use noise makers, it will not only start ignoring them, it will pick up on the ruse and search where the maker was thrown from. If it senses you're hiding in a room but can't find you, it will go into the air duct and jump back down after you've exited your hiding space. It also is intelligent enough to have genuine malice: when it has Amanda cornered, with no visible way of running away, it doesn't seem to feel any need to hurry for the kill. It takes its time with a slow, lovely Ominous Walk to indulge in it. The Alien constantly scaring Amanda is largely due to the fact it is implied that it sees her surviving as an insult. This particular Xenomorph apparently has developed a sense of pride, and it is going after the player because it was slighted.

SA-X (Metroid Fusion): A mimic of Samus Aran (herself probably Hunt-aligned) who constantly chases Samus throughout the station to kill her until being destroyed. It relentlessly pursues you once it spots you and nothing short of eluding it or concealing yourself will cause it to break off the pursuit. Even then, there are other encounters, and it is more than likely you will have no choice but to alert it to your presence. You can't harm it in any of these situations. All you can do at that point is run or hide. The SA-X is basically if Samus chose to jump off the slippery slope by killing the baby Metroid rather than spare it, and by doing so ensuring the complete extinction of all Metroids and allowing the X Parasites to cultivate.

Samus Aran (Metroid): She's regarded as the finest killer alive in a society spanning at least one inhabited galaxy under a still as yet unseen umbrella nation; which comprises trillions of individuals, some of whom know of other populated galaxies, for which Aran has waged a perpetual war with nomadic inter-stellar brigands and all manner of criminal scum in its defense for the near entirety of her career, a career that stretches through the ages and has become myth. As such, she is held in such high regard to the degree that he, she, or it is often mistaken for an urban legend or patron saint of bounty hunters. The Space Pirates fear her as a force that they cannot turn away, no matter their numbers: reading Space Pirate logs in Metroid Prime make it clear they view her as a threat that needs to be captured and/or terminated (preferably the latter) as soon as possible to the point their Elite Pirates run through simulations based around combat with Samus and research on her various weapons and armors is considered in near the same priority as with Metroids and Phazon. Later essentially becomes a Metroid, who were engineered to hunt down the X Parasites, turning her into a spiky humanoid creature who drains energy with a touch.

SCP-096 (SCP Foundation): It will kill anyone who looks at its face. However, it doesn't matter how you look at its face, be it in person, via a security camera, or even a photo. It will somehow sense anyone who has seen its face and will hunt them down no matter where they are, with nothing able to deter it until it's accomplished its goal. It's also borderline Nigh-Invulnerable, with many attempts made to exterminate it that have ended in failure. SCP-096 was shot in the leg and head by a modified XM500 anti-materiel rifle and was described as having a hole blown through its torso, but it still failed to stop its rampage. Even if shot with thousands of rounds of ammo or hit with an anti-tank launcher, it will keep on attacking. The Foundation put someone in a bathysphere eleven kilometers underwater in a deep-sea trench hundreds of kilometers away from SCP-096's containment site with a photograph and a sketch pad to get an artist's impression. It bought them an hour.

#asks #not!character propaganda #hunt poll

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gregolwman · 1 year ago

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"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." - Nelson Mandela

Hey, hey, people, Greg Owlman here. What? Did you expect someone else? Now, I know that it has been nearly a year since last we saw one another, but I have a valid excuse this time. Stuff happened. That's right, this is my excuse, and I am sticking to it. Sufficient to say is that on the Internet, it's best not to give away too much about yourself. However, posting your opinions, whether they are relevant or not, is another matter entirely. Where was I again? Right, I was just about to tell you about our newest offer. A THREE-IN-ONE COMBO PACKAGE, ALL FOR THE PRICE OF ONE. You heard it right folks, its three ideas for one post. A real doozy and a downright steal considering the economy. Not convinced, let me give you a taste of things that might have been.

"I need more photos of Spider-Man!" ; a classic meme about our favorite Web Crawler, but you want to know what's not a classic or favoured by anyone with taste? The answer is the current run of the Amazing Spider-Man title, which it's best described as the Paul Rabin SI/OC story. Dear lord, I can't even call this a narrative let alone a story. Are we sure it isn't Dan Slott writing under a pseudonym? He is doing another Superior WHO run afterwards? Jeez, not only is there another lame fanfiction in official printing, but we also have to deal with the Superior Spider-Man 3: The Revengeance instead of the Amazing Spider-Man 3 for crying out loud. Anyways, let's clean up this mess shall we? First off, no more Paul. Forget he exists and let's assume everything done following the Spider-Man Beyond didn't happen. Peter Parker has finally beaten those allegations and gotten his doctorate, hallelujah. Let's be honest, Peter is nearly in his late twenties and he doesn't need to deal with academics anymore than the rest of us. He is back working at the Daily Bugle again under Robbie as his go-to guy regarding science since it neatly combines two aspects about Spidey, his past working for the press and his love for science. But, Peter wants something more suited towards research and development. Here comes old Norman Osborn, stalking Peter once more since he wants the two of them to work together and is trying to break the ice regarding the fate of baby May Parker. You know Peter and MJ's newborn who supposedly died, but was actually kidnapped by Norman? Yeah, that May. Anyways, besides these things, Peter is facing his biggest challenge yet, which is being content with his life and beginning to find his happiness. Who is he dating, you might ask? Well, the way I see it, Peter might just deal with a burgeoning polyamorous relationship between him, MJ and Felicia, after all if it worked for the X-Men, it will work for these guys. Also, the way I see it, Peter is doing a lot more team-ups this time around rather than being forced to solo it. I want a proper New Avengers reunion, dang it!

Todd Howard at it again with his newest classic, Skyrim IN SPACE! I am not the first to say that Starfield is average at best, but that has to do mostly with the fact that Bethesda kept under wraps and didn't interact with their audience to receive feedback while they could still change the game. But I am not here to rant about the game, there are plenty of people doing that. Instead, I will present my own vision about what it could have been. First of all, I would restrict the number of systems to only a handful, after all quality trumps quantity every time. Second of all, I would move most of the major settlements to one world. That planet being Proxima Centauri b since apparently Alpha Centauri is a bust and we can't blame the Stranger from Outer Wilds regarding cloaking those worlds. If you are curious about how the maps would look like here are some Reddit threads that had the closest things in mind to my idea, the images belong to their respective creators. Here are the links: https://reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/s/ASsmDhI3du and https://reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/s/bVFWQGzk33 . Personally, I would have liked for all recruitable crew members to have a loyalty mission or even some recurring mini quests other than the stuff we needed to do in order to get them. With that in mind, maybe they could have added more dialogue options for the members of Constellation that don't get to interact with the main character as much. Looking at you, Mateo. Or maybe have the same aforementioned treatment, but sadly, old Toady boy decided that it isn't too cash money to implement. Also, am I the only one not really interested with whatever the Freestar Rangers plotline is doing? Sure, exposing the corruption hidden in plain sight within the Collective is all fine and dandy, but maybe we could have gotten something more exciting like uncovering a conspiracy to create psychic super soldiers and agents of a vague, yet menacing, government agency à la Firefly. Would have been way more fun than playing Space Texas Ranger. Speaking of factions, maybe they could have added some benefits to joining them other than getting a nice apartment at the end, like a monthly salary, the ability to skip contraband searches every once in a while or even discounts at affiliated shops for crying out loud. Honestly, at this point maybe it would be better to play Star Sector rather than give you guys idea about modding an economic simulation in a Bethesda game, thereby letting you play the role of a space merchant à la Salvor Hardin from Asimov's Foundation series. The books, not the TV series.

Star Wars is a long way from home. Honestly, a lot of the stuff that Disney has done is a hit or miss, therefore the expanded material such as books and especially comic books have been carrying the franchise moreso than the movies or the shows. If it were up to me, I would just send the Sequels down the way of the dinosaurs, but sadly they are here to stay in all their uncreative glory. Therefore, I will not waste my time or yours with talking about anything after the Original Trilogy in terms of chronology. Oh, dear readers, what I have mind will take us all over the timeline. Honestly, I like the High Republic era, but they could have just said that the Republic lost contact with the Outer Rim territories after the Great Hyperspace Disaster than saying they haven't even been explored yet. Another thing that I liked is Star Wars Visions, which explores various themes and ideas while using the GFFA as background material without necessarily incorporating the stories into the timeline. Where am I going with this? Well, I have been wondering what if there were stories set throughout the Star Wars galaxy that we just haven't heard about and they are canon? I mean, we have a blank slate spanning thousands of years past and future, where we can incorporate our own stories regarding this galaxy far, far away without worrying about existing material contradicting us and these small chapters in the very large book that we call history could have consequences on the movie era stories or even happen long after these events passed. This is an opportunity, that too few authors online that I have seen have taken since most of them prefer to stick to what we already seen. As such, I duly elected myself to notify you about taking this chance by the jugular and see how far you can stretch the material. Have fun!

Now that I have presented my offer, all I can say that it's good to make a comeback even if no one will take notice of it. Also, I will take this opportunity to mention that my last post regarding Star Trek Discovery and how it could have been improved has done better than expected, therefore it would be great if you would spread the love to those other lonely posts of mine. Enough shilling and let's properly end this new chapter in my little corner of the platform.

This has been Greg for Owlman's Previously Owned Ideas. We do not advise you to trust Todd Howard's little lies ever again. We also do no refunds.

#starfield #ramblings #star wars #spiderman #what have i done #talkin #fandom

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ramrodd · 1 year ago

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What is the Russian equivalent of the Renaissance and the Reformation?

Commentary:

Peter the Great tried to recreate the spontaneity of the Renaissance with St. Petersburg and came pretty close, but it took Marx to bring the Reformation to Russia and then 70 years and the lesser of two evils to realize it was a mistake.

Gorbachev gave Russia the opportunity to start over but he and Reagan were betrayed by Donald T. Regan that stalled the transformation from Soviet Marxism to something like the Free Enterprise Marxism of Vietnam until Yeltsin took some bad advice from American Supply Side executives to privatize the Soviet economies of scale as the fastest way to Democracy with his Shares for Loans blunder that he handed to Putin after making the sign of the dollar over the economic cluster fuck he had created. Putin has been trying to pick up the pieces ever since and everything America had done within the context of Hillary Clinton’s Russian narrative has done nothing but to fuck with Russian political coherence. She bought a pig in a poke with Bill Browder and Putin has been scrambling to catch up ever since.

Like America, Russia is a cunt hair away from achieving the critical mass, socially, to complete the transition from Soviet Marxism to a Russian version of American-British constitutional capitalism, but America has to lead the way. As long as the January 6 Republicans are in a position to obstruct Biden’s capital budget, America will be forced to operate with the inferior economic dynamics of the Fresh Water Economics of the Ivy League Socialism of William F. Buckley and the John Birch Society.

Historically, it is useful to remember that the john Birch Society in the US State Department prevented European Jewry from escaping Hitler. Historically, that is who is behind Greg Abbot, Ron DeSantis, Tommy Tuberville, the House Freedom Caucus and the January 6 Republicans backing Trump’s defense in his Georgia indictments.

Putin’s campaign against the Nazification caused by Yeltsin’s blunder is complete and he’s just waiting for Zelensky to declare victory and petition the United Nations to arrange and enforce a cease fire. And, as Biden’s Build Back Better capital budget begins to give the paradigm shift into the Green New Deal traction, Russian society will be able to complete the shift to the Salt Water Economics described by Paul Krugman in Peddling Prosperity.

Trump’s creation of the US Space Force made the Green New Deal inevitable and the Green New Deal will be absorbed by the Pussy Riot generation in Moscow like blue jeans and the Beatles when there was still a Berlin Wall via Sovereign Democracy of the Atlantic Charter like a latter-day Marshall Plan.

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xtruss · 1 year ago

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Brooklyn's First Supertall Skyscraper Reaches Completion

— Ben Dreith | 8 August 2023 | De Zeen

New York studio SHoP Architects has completed the black and bronze facade of the supertall skyscraper Brooklyn Tower, the tallest building in the borough.

At 93 storeys and 1,066 feet (325 metres) tall, the supertall skyscraper topped out in March 2023, but the intricate cladding of its exterior was only recently completed.

The skyscraper features blackened stainless panels running from the top of the tower towards the bottom, where it meets the preserved, historic Dimes Savings Bank, which has been integrated into the tower's podium.

SHoP Architects has completed the facade of the Brooklyn Tower

Running the length of the tower are bronze and copper pilasters that give definition to the black facade, which at certain points comes to edges, creating a staggered appearance. The building has quickly become one of, if not the most, visible structures on the Brooklyn skyline.

Last year, SHoP principal Greg Pasquarelli told Dezeen in an exclusive interview that the structure, because of its special zoning, "would be kind of like the Empire State Building of Brooklyn."

It is clad in blackened steel with bronze and copper pilasters running its length

"We wanted to make sure that no matter what grid you were on, looking at it from wherever you were in Brooklyn, you felt like you were looking at the front," he continued.

The residential skyscraper, which has more than 500 residences as well as retail at its base, has a wider base than many other supertalls because of the winds in Brooklyn.

It has a historic bank at its base

The larger base means that the tower tapers, drawing attention to the smaller peaks of the tower as it narrows towards the tops. The base is clad in white marble, reflecting the art deco bank, and darkens as it rises.

The tower also has a number of "wind floors" throughout its length that allow heavy gusts to pass throughout without rocking the massive structure. According to New York magazine Curbed, one of the taller wind floors has been outfitted with a basketball court, the highest in the world.

The tower's distinct form and colour have led some in the city to compare the building to the architecture of Sauron's Dark Fortress, a tower in Peter Jackson's filmatisation of the Lord of the Rings novels.

It is the tallest structure in the borough of Brooklyn

Inside, the art deco design of the Dimes Saving Bank has been carried through many of the public spaces, including the lobby design by Krista Ninivaggi.

The tower features multiple entrances, one directly from the street and another through the renovated bank, which has become a retail and pedestrian space.

Local interior firm Gachot Studios carried out the design of most of the residences.

Above: Barclays Center demonstrated the potential for digital fabrication in design. Photo is by Iwan Baan. Top: The Brooklyn Tower became the tallest building in Brooklyn last year. Image is courtesy of SHoP Architects

SHoP Architects is also responsible for the nearby Barclays Center, a stadium clad with thousands of steel panels.

It has designed a number of other buildings throughout the city, including 111 W 57th Street on Billionaires Row in Manhattan, the world's skinniest supertall skyscraper.

— The Photography is by Max Touhey.

111 W 57th Street in Manhattan is the skinniest supertall skyscraper in the world. Photo is by David Sundberg/ESTO

People take selfies with the Brooklyn Tower (centre), SHoP said. Photo is courtesy of SHoP Architects

Project Credits:

Developer: JDS Development Group

Builder: JDS Construction Group

Architect: SHoP Architects

Residential Interior Design: Gachot Studios

Amenities Interior Design: Krista Ninivaggi of Woods Bagot

Landscape Design: HMWhite

Structural Engineer: WSP

Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing Engineer: JB&B

Curtain Wall Consultant: MW Skins

Civil Engineer: AKRF

Geotechnical Engineer: Mueser Rutledge

Wind Engineer: RWDI

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batboyblog · 3 years ago

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If you're looking for some great must read mlm books, this is the list for you!

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Social Skills by Sara Alva

Silent by Sara Alva

One Man Guy by Michael Barakiva

Hold My Hand by Michael Barakiva

Wonders of the Invisible World by Christopher Barzak

Alan Cole Is Not a Coward by Eric Bell

Alan Cole Doesn’t Dance by Eric Bell

Queeroes by Steven Bereznai

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Ziggy, Stardust and Me by James Brandon

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

Felix Yz by Lisa Bunker

Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks by Nathan Burgoine

Last Bus to Everland by Sophie Cameron

The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara

Peter Darling by Austin Chant

Gives Light by Rose Christo

Stranger Than Fanfiction by Chris Colfer

Carry the Ocean by Heidi Cullinan

The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich

There Goes Sunday School by Alexander C. Eberhart

Lock & West by Alexander C. Eberhart

The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second by Drew Ferguson

Love & Other Curses by Michael Thomas Ford

Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales

Tales from Foster High by John Goode

How Not to Ask a Boy to Prom by S.J. Goslee

Whatever.: or how junior year became totally f$@ked by S.J. Goslee

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan

Half Bad by Sally Green

Half Wild by Sally Green

Half Lost by Sally Green

Heartbreak Boys by Simon James Green

Geography Club by Brent Hartinger

We Contain Multitudes by Sarah Henstra

Middle School’s a Drag, You Better Werk by Greg Howard

Social Intercourse by Greg Howard

Totally Joe by James Howe

After School Activities by Dirk Hunter

At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson

The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun David Hutchinson

A Complicated Love Story Set in Space by Shaun David Hutchinson

The Boy Who Couldn’t Fly Straight by Jeff Jacobson

Haffling by Caleb James

The Red Sheet by Mia Kerick

The Lightning-Struck Heart by T.J. Klune

A Destiny of Dragons by T.J. Klune

The Consumption of Magic by T.J. Klune

A Wish Upon the Stars by T.J. Klune

The Extraordinaries by T.J. Klune

Flash Fire by T.J. Klune

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg

The Bridge by Bill Konigsberg

Autoboyography by Christina Lauren

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee

Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

Every Day by David Levithan

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

How to Repair a Mechanical Heart by J.C. Lillis

When Ryan Came Back by Devon McCormack

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Vivaldi in the Dark by Matthew J. Metzger

Life as a Teenage Vampire by Amanda Meuwissen

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller

Hero by Perry Moore

Marco Impossible by Hannah Moskowitz

Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

More Than This by Patrick Ness

Earth to Charlie by Justin Olson

Play Me, I’m Yours by Madison Parker

Here’s to You, Zeb Pike by Johanna Parkhurst

Junior Hero Blues by J.K. Pendragon

When Everything Feels Like the Movies by Raziel Reid

Jack of Hearts by Lev A.C. Rosen

Camp by Lev A.C. Rosen

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

My Awesome/Awful Popularity Plan by Seth Rudetsky

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Rainbow Boys by Alex Sanchez

Rainbow High by Alex Sanchez

Rainbow Road by Alex Sanchez

So Hard to Say by Alex Sanchez

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

All Kinds of Other by James Sie

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

Freak Show by James St. James

Ray of Sunlight by Brynn Stein

Imaginary by Jamie Sullivan

(In)visible by Anyta Sunday

The Dangerous Art of Blending In by Angelo Surmelis

366 Days by Kiyoshi Tanaka

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Wild and Crooked by Leah Thomas

Because You’ll Never Meet Me by Leah Thomas

Fan Art by Sarah Tregay

Suicide Watch by Kelley York

Thanks to my friend @lostintrace for the art, each are characters from books on this list. If you want help picking out a book, hit my inbox!

Header: Red, White & Royal Blue (L) and Carry On (R)

Red: Jack of Hearts (and other parts)

Orange: Alan Cole Is Not a Coward

Yellow: Heartbreak Boys

Green: The Lightning-Struck Heart

Blue: Boy Meets Boy

Purple: Cemetery Boys

#Gay #Gay books #reading list #book recs #Snowbaz #song of achilles #red white and royal blue #ari and dante #TJ Klune #love simon #Holly Black #The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue #Shaun David Hutchinson

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spideyofwinter · 3 years ago

Text

More WinterSpider headcanons to make myself happy

Peter makes Bucky laugh. Just like that. Their banter is easy and comfortable and Peter's so witty, so Bucky laughs

Bucky is a bit of a jerk sometimes just because. It can be funny as much as can be aggravating, Peter's never really sure where he stands on it

Generally, if you really talk to him, Bucky'll stop to listen. Like what you're saying matters, even if it's about something he doesn't really understand

Not if your name is John, though

Peter is a size queen

And named his 9 inch dildo's Greg, because he feels like it makes things more personal

Bucky likes sucking cock. He even craved it sometimes.

And likes to swallow too

Bucky likes to act like he has more difficulty with technology than he really has, just to mess with Peter

But don't ask him about Facebook. He has no idea what the fuck's going on there

Another thing Bucky doesn't get is modern dancing clubs. There's no dancing steps, there's not even space to properly dance. It looks more an open can of worms than a dance floor if you ask him

He wants to take Peter dancing properly on an old timey dance club, teach him how to swing.

Peter emphatically said to him to never ask for Swingers Clubs though. He's still to find out why

Peter can lift Bucky with ease. He's crazy strong and it makes Bucky so proud of his sweetheart

Bucky forgets proper modern terms. He'll call the LGBTQIA+ community the Queer community, cause that's a word used in his time and it gives him satisfaction using it now it's meaning is not shameful anymore. But he does because he gets confused with the names. He'll call PTSD combat stress reaction left and right too

Peter's protective of Bucky. He thinks the world should treat him kinder

Bucky thinks Peter's too good for the likes of him

He thinks Peter's like sunshine incarnate, all bright and warm and hopeful

Peter has no idea how he scored a supersoldier boyfriend but he thanks to God all the same

Specially because he's enhanced too, so he suffers with horniness double time and Bucky can take it

Or give it to him, which... yeah

Bucky's a cat person. He likes dogs, don't get him wrong, but it was easier keeping the stray cats around with a bit of milk when they had it when he was young so he feels a connection with them now

Peter's an animal person, meaning any animal's good in his book

Netflix and chill makes no sense to Bucky. Why would someone put something to watch and not see it?

#bucky barnes x peter parker #winterspider #bucky x peter #peter parker x bucky barnes #more headcanons

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atiredfangirl · 3 years ago

Text

PhoenixAD’s Brettsey Fics: A masterlist

This is a list of all my fics, which will be updated each time I post anything, seperated into groups with brief descriptions of the fics.

Pre-canon & fix it fics:

This Isn’t Just a Friendship - a post 8x19 fic, taking place right after Cruz’s wedding.

Blame it on the tequila - Set after season 8, a girl’s night out leads to Drunk Brett and Casey taking care of her.

I Choose You - Set after 9x02, fixing the mess created by the end of that episode.

If the only other option's letting go (I'll stay vulnerable) - Matt actually deals with his past. Set after 9x02, the second part jumps forward a few months.

Smash Therapy - Matt and Kelly have a guys’ night out.

Friends Forever - Peter Mills returns.

Trapped - Casey, Severide and Kidd get trapped.

If anything ever happened to you - An accident happens on Casey’s construction site.

Everything I could’ve wanted - Angsty with a happy ending. Based on the prompt “You’re everything I could’ve wanted and more.”

talk. - Sylvie and Matt have a real conversation. *I wrote this before we really got to see Greg. I love him, but yeah… didn’t make him the nicest here*

Move - Based on the angst prompt, “Move out of my way before I make you.” *same warning as above*

Just a friend - Grainger works at 51 for a shift. Written as a 9x07 theory fic of sorts.

Meddling Friends (and idiots in love) - Sylvie and Matt’s friends have had enough of their ridiculousness.

The Watch - Written as a theory fic about the watch, set in late s9.

Nothing I wouldn't do (for you) - Veroni-Cat accidentally got sold at the 51 yard sale and Matt fixes it *Veroni-Cat getting sold was the only part of this theory that proved true*

Cigar Chat - Matt and Kelly have a cigar chat. Set after 9x13.

Veroni-Cat happened - Missing scene from 9x14: Matt reacts to his office being wrecked.

Holidays 2020: (not connected at all, just themed):

Thankful - Sylvie takes Matt home to Fowlerton for Thanksgiving.

Secret Santa - 51 hosts a Secret Santa, and Matt has the perfect gift for Sylvie.

Happy New Year - A New Years’ Eve fix it fic.

Established relationship:

Shut up and hold me - Set immediately after 9x16.

You can leave a toothbrush at my place - Set after 9x16, the morning after Sylvie first stays over at the loft.

change. - Changes are happening at 51 (featuring supportive girlfriend Sylvie and worried girlfriend Sylvie). Inspired by the promo for 10x01.

built this right. - Post 10x03. Sort of a theory fic for 10x04/10x05. Sylvie and Matt talk about the Darden boys and the future.

family. - Theory fic for 10x05.

With A Little Help From My Friends - Sylvie and Kelly bond over missing Matt.

Tell the World - Sylvie and Matt try to keep their relationship a secret at 51.

Why are you looking at me like that? - Based on a prompt. Herrmann and Sylvie make a bet. Fluff and humor.

Sheets on Fire - Matt finds a copy of Sheets on Fire.

I don’t know if you know this... - Drunk Matt

May I have this dance? - Matt and Sylvie at Stella and Kelly’s wedding.

Can’t imagine my life without you - Sylvie in danger, featuring Badass! Brett and Worried! Boyfriend Matt.

Is somebody jealous? - Matt, Sylvie, Stella and Kelly at the cabin.

You saved me - Matt and Sylvie find themselves in a dangerous situation.

Don't give me space - Matt and Sylvie deal with their first argument.

First thing in the morning - Based on the prompt "I want to hear your voice first thing in the morning.” A very short fluffy story.

Anywhere you are is home. - Set in season 10, Matt and Sylvie decide to move in together.

holding on tight to you - a series of stories focused on Matt, Sylvie, and kids.

Take care of you - Sylvie’s sick and Matt takes care of her.

#brettsey #masterlist #fanfiction

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casxmorgan · 4 years ago

Text

Books Books Books

100 Years of Solitude

11.22.63

120 Days of Sodom

1491

1984

A Brief History of Time

A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Child Called It

A Clockwork Orange

A Confederacy of Dunces

A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters

A Land Fit for Heroes Trilogy

A Little Life

A Naked Singularity

A People's History of the United States

A Scanner Darkly

A Series of Unfortunate Events

A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Song of Ice and Fire

A Storm of Swords

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Walk in the Woods

A World Lit Only by Fire

Accursed Kings

Alice in Wonderland

All Quiet on the Western Front

All the Light We Cannot See

All the Pretty Horses

America, the Book

American Gods

American Psycho

And then There Were None

Angela’s Ashes

Animal Farm

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Anna Karenina

Anything Terry Pratchett, But, Mort is My Favorite

Anything Written by Robin Hobb

Apt Pupil

Artemis Fowl

Asimov's Guide to the Bible

Asoiaf

Atlas Shrugged

Bartimeaus

Batman: the Long Halloween

Battle Royale

Beat the Turtle Drum

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Belgariad Series

Beloved

Berserk

Bestiario

Black Company

Blankets/habibi

Blind Faith

Blindness

Blood Meridian

Blood and Guts: a History of Surgery

Bluest Eye

Brandon Sanderson

Brave New World

Breakfast of Champions

Bridge to Terabithia

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West

Calvin and Hobbs

Candide

Carrie

Cat's Cradle

Catch 22

Cats Cradle

Chaos

Child of God

Choke

Chuck Palahniuk

City of Ember

City of Thieves

Cloud

Collapse

Come Closer

Complaint

Confessions of a Mask

Contact

Conversation in the Cathedral

Cosmos

Crime and Punishment

Dan Brown

David

Dead Birds Singing

Dead Mountain: the Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

Delta Venus

Die Räuber (the Robbers)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

Don Quixote

Dragonlance

Dune

Dying of the Light

East of Eden

Educated

Empire of Sin: a Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

Enders Game

Enders Shadow

Escape from Camp 14

Ever Since Darwin

Every Man Dies Alone

Everybody Poops

Everything is Illuminated

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Fahrenheit 451

Far from the Madding Crowd

Faust

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

Feet of Clay

Fight Club

First Law

Flowers for Algernon

Flowers in the Attic

Foundation

Foundation Series

Foundation Trilogy

Frankenstein

Freakonomics

Fun Home

Galapagos

Geek Love

Gerald’s Game

Ghost Story

Go Ask Alice

Go Dog Go

Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Goldfinch

Gone Girl

Gone with the Wind

Good Omens

Grapes of Wrath

Great Expectations

Greg Egan

Guards! Guards!

Guns Germs and Steel

Guts (short Story)

Half a World

Ham on Rye

Hannibal Rising

Hard Boiled Wonderland

Hatchet

Haunted

Hawaii

Heart Shaped Box

Heart of Darkness

Hellbound Heart

Hellraiser

Hell’s Angels

Helter Skelter

His Dark Materials

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Hogg

Holocaust by Bullets

House of Leaves

How to Cook for Fourty Humans

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Huckleberry Finn

Hyperion

I Am America, and So Can You

I Am the Messenger

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

I Was Dr. Mengele’s Assistant

In Cold Blood

In Search of Our Mother's Gardens

Independent People

Infinite Jest

Into Thin Air

Into the Wild

Introduction to Linear Algebra

Invisible Monsters

Ishmael

Jacques Le Fataliste

Jane Eyre

Jaunt

Job: a Comedy of Justice

John Dies at the End

John Grisham

Johnathan Livingston Seagull

Johnny Got His Gun

Jon Ronson

Journal of a Novel

Jurassic Park

Justine

L'histoire D'o

Lamb

Last Exit to Brooklyn

Les Miserables

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Life of Pi

Limits and Renewals

Little House in the Big Woods

Lockwood & Co.

Lolita

Looking for Trouble

Lord Foul’s Bane

Lord of the Flies

Lyddie

Malazan Book of the Fallen

Maldoror

Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media

Man’s Search for Meaning

Mark Twain’s Autobiography

Maus

Meditations

Megamorphs (series)

Mein Kampf

Memnooch the Devil

Metro 2033

Michael Crichton

Middlesex

Mindhunter

Misery

Mistborn

Moby Dick

Mrs. Dalloway

My Side of the Mountain

My Sweet Audrina

Nacht über Der Prärie (night over the Prairie)

Naked Lunch

Name of the Wind

Neuromancer

Never Let Me Go

Neverwhere

New York

Night

Night Shift

Norwegian Wood

Notes from Underground

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea

Of Mice and Men

Of Nightingales That Weep

Ohio

Old Mans War

Old Mother West Wind

On Heroes and Tombs

On Laughter and Forgetting

On the Road

One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One of Us

Painted Bird

Patrick Rothfuss

Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

Persepolis

Pet Sematary

Peter Pan

Pillars of the Earth

Poisonwood Bible

Pride and Predjudice

Ready Player One

Rebecca

Red Mars

Red Night (series)

Red Shirts

Red Storm Rising

Redwall

Replay

Requiem for a Dream

Revenge

Riftwar Saga

Ringworld

Roald Dahl

Rolls of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Round Ireland with a Fridge

Running with Scissors

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Sapiens, a Brief History of Humankind

Scary Stories to Read in the Dark

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Schindler’s List

Sein Und Zeit

Shades of Grey

Sharp Objects

Shattered Dreams

Sherlock Holmes

Sho-gun

Siddhartha

Sisypho

Skin and Other Stories

Slaughterhouse Five

Smoke & Mirrors

Snow Crash

Soldier Son

Sometimes a Great Notion

Sphere

Starship Troopers

Stiff, the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Storied Life of A.j. Fikry

Stormlight Archives

Story of the Eye

Stranger in a Strange Land

Surely, You're Joking

Survivor Type (short Story)

Suttree

Swan Song

Tale of Two Cities

Tales of the South Pacific

The Alchemist

The Altered Carbon Trilogy

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Art of Deception

The Art of Fielding

The Art of War

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation

The Autobiography of Henry Viii

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The Beach

The Bell Jar

The Bible

The Bloody Chamber

The Book Thief

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brothers Karamazov

The Call of Cthulu and Other Weird Stories

The Cask of Amontillado (short Story)

The Catcher in the Rye

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Clown

The Color out of Space

The Communist Manifesto

The Complete Fiction of H.p. Lovecraft

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

The Dagger and the Coin

The Damage Done

The Dark Tower

The Declaration of Independence, the Us Constitution, and the Bill of Rights

The Devil in the White City

The Dharma Bums

The Diamond Age

The Dice Man

The Discworld Series

The Dresden Files

The Elegant Universe

The First Law Trilogy

The Forever War

The Foundation Trilogy

The Gentleman Bastard Sequence

The Geography of Nowhere

The Girl Next Door

The Girl on the Milk Carton

The Giver

The Giving Tree

The God of Small Things

The Grapes of Wrath

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gilly Hopkins

The Hagakure

The Half a World Trilogy

The Handmaid’s Tale

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The Hiding Place

The History of Love

The Hobbit

The Hot Zone

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hyperion Cantos

The Jaunt

The Jungle

The Key to Midnight

The Killing Star

The Kingkiller Chronicles

The Kite Runner

The Last Question (short Story)

The Lies of Lock Lamora

The Little Prince

The Long Walk

The Lord of the Rings

The Lottery (short Story)

The Lovely Bones

The Magicians

The Magus

The Martian

The Master and Margarita

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

The Monster at the End of This Book

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

The Music of Eric Zahn (short Story)

The Name of the Wind & the Wise Man's Fear

The Necronomicon

The New Age of Adventure: Ten Years of Great Writing

The Night Circus

The Nightmare Box

The Odyssey

The Omnivore's Dilemma

The Orphan Master’s Son

The Outsiders

The Painted Bird

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Phantom Tollbooth

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Pit and the Pendulum

The Plague

The Prince

The Prince of Tides

The Princess Bride

The Prophet

The Queen’s Gambit

The Rape of Nanking

The Red Dwarf

The Republic

The Rifter Saga

The Road

The Satanic Verses

The Screwtape Letters

The Secret History

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

The Selfish Gene

The Shining

The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer

The Silmarillion

The Sirens of Titan

The Six Wives of Henry the 8th

The Solitude of Prime Numbers

The Speaker of the Dead

The Stars My Destination

The Stormlight Archive

The Story of My Tits

The Stranger

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

The Suspicions of Mr. Witcher

The Tao of Pooh

The Things They Carried

The Time Machine

The Time Traveller’s Wife

The Tin Drum

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green

The Wasp Factory

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

The World According to Garp

The Yellow Wallpaper

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Things Fall Apart

Thirsty

This Blinding Absence of Light

Tiger!

Time Enough for Love

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Say Nothing of the Dog

Toni Morrison

Too Many Magicians

Traumnovelle

Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuf Voyaging

Undeniable

Under Plum Lake

Universe in a Nutshell

Unwind

Uzumaki

Various

Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia

Walden

War & Peace

War and Peace

Warriors: Bluestar’s Prophecy

Watchers

Water for Elephants

Watership Down

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Wheel of Time

When Rabbit Howls

Where the Red Fern Grows

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Why I Am Not a Christian

Why People Believe Weird Things

Wizards First Rule

Wool

World War Z

Worm

Wuthering Heights

You Can Choose to Be Happy

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

#some of these are fucked up #but #all the better

157 notes · View notes

fictionz · 2 years ago

Text

New Fiction 2022 - June

The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - "3 Kings" ed. Richard Challoner (1752)

Okay so now Solomon's in charge and there's no war so things are good? Except he's going around murdering enemies Godfather-style. And now a parade of kings as we run down the list and deeds of the rest of David's successors.

The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - "4 Kings" ed. Richard Challoner (1752)

I think Eliseus is the star here? But the details of the chapters are more scattered. Perhaps due to winding down the chronicle of the kings. Hazael, Jezrahel, Jezabel, oh my. Oh shit Jehu will not stand for Baal worship. Dang, and Jerusalem has fallen!

Tales of the Dominion War - "What Dreams May Come" by Michael Jan Friedman (2004)

The complacency of fools something something.

Tales of the Dominion War - "Night of the Vulture" by Greg Cox (2004)

As close to Cannibal Holocaust as Star Trek gets.

Tales of the Dominion War - "The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned" by Keith R.A. DeCandido (2004)

Put up your walls and a gun for every good citizen.

Tales of the Dominion War - "Blood Sacrifice" by Josepha Sherman & Susan Schwartz (2004)

Impatience is a sign of having lived too long.

Tales of the Dominion War - "Mirror Eyes" by Heather Jarman & Jeffrey Lang (2004)

If your place is compromised, that’s your new place.

Tales of the Dominion War - "Twilight's Wrath" by David Mack (2004)

Slash the throat of your master to serve you and yours.

Tales of the Dominion War - "Eleven Hours Out" by Dave Galanter (2004)

The only place to go is the way ahead.

Tales of the Dominion War - "Safe Harbors" by Howard Weinstein (2004)

Call them all in, we’re alone.

Tales of the Dominion War - "Field Expediency" by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore (2004)

Desperation will keep you from seeing it all.

Tales of the Dominion War - "A Song Well Sung" by Robert Greenberger (2004)

When your enemy leaves you bare.

Tales of the Dominion War - "Stone Cold Truths" by Peter David (2004)

The children only know what they see and hear.

Tales of the Dominion War - "Requital" by Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels (2004)

What will you do, when you find it?

Dracula Daily - "June" by Bram Stoker & ed. Matt Kirkland (1897)

A slow and obvious realization that your friend is not your friend.

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (1990)

The lecture-style of story-telling wears just a bit too thin for my tastes.

"Aquarium" by NoneToon (2022)

It’s hard to make friends, wouldn’t you agree?

"Making art in America. 👁👄👁" dir. Angie Wang (2022)

Please find a way.

Montana Story dir. Scott McGehee (2022)

Leave when you have to leave. Your place is where you choose to be.

Crimes of the Future dir. David Cronenberg (2022)

The subtle ways in which we fall apart.

Watcher dir. Chloe Okuno (2022)

👍👍👍

Jurassic World Dominion dir. Colin Trevorrow (2022)

Give DeWanda Wise her own adventure movie/series.

Top Gun: Maverick dir. Joseph Kosinski (2022)

Get your planes, get your guns, step right up.

G.I. Joe: The Movie dir. Don Jurwich (1987)

Better with no context whatsoever.

Elvis dir. Baz Luhrmann (2022)

That new Elvis biopic is more entertainment than history, but it still helped me get why Elvis was a big deal after growing up on 90s media made by 70s kids who treated him as a joke. And Austin Butler's portrayal of Elvis is :chefskiss:.

The Black Phone dir. Scott Derrickson (2022)

It sets up all the pieces perfectly.

Lightyear dir. Angus MacLane (2022)

I like space and I like adventures but when you’re Pixar there’s a burden to deliver on a certain level of charm that is missing here.

The Cat Returns dir. Hiroyuki Morita (2004)

A neat little fantasy, and you know, I didn’t realize how much I missed whimsical fantasy adventures with some small measure of risk.

Marcel The Shell With Shoes On dir. Dean Fleischer-Camp (2022)

Marcel’s got the improv quips and a lovely story about what it means to stick to family or to let them go.

Goosebumps - "My Hairiest Adventure" (1996)

Body hair and its many wonders.

Goosebumps - "It Came from Beneath the Sink" (1996)

Stick to the book, although it’s neat seeing the beginnings of an actor who went on to success in the horror genre.

Goosebumps - "The Barking Ghost" (1997)

Woof.

Goosebumps - "Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes" (1996)

Sometimes I see that a given book has been adapted for television and try to imagine how they would’ve pulled it off on a low TV budget of the 90s. And with this one, I fretted over the fact that unless they chose to use expensive stop-motion animation, they’d probably find a way to have little people dressed up as lawn gnomes. Sure enough...

Goosebumps - "Shocker on Shock Street" (1997)

Love the book, not the TV episode. Gonna fret any time a fucked up book ending gets swapped for a more tame TV-friendly version.

Goosebumps - "Haunted Mask II" (1996)

You didn’t have to redo everything from the first one. The book knew that.

Goosebumps - "The Headless Ghost" (1996)

Oh. You know, you had something there at the end. A comeuppance would’ve been good.

Goosebumps - "How I Got My Shrunken Head" (1998)

The book was vague in its exact location and cultural references but the TV episode makes it much more specific about which backward people the white westerners have decided to enslave.

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thejollyroger-writer · 4 years ago

Text

Where Your Heart Will Fly on Wings - 1/2

Part One: A Ship, A Map, and A Secret

A Neverland arc (season 3A) rewrite where the gang doesn't meet Captain Hook until they get to Neverland to rescue Henry. Most of the end of s2 ("Second Star to the Right..." "... and Straight on' Till Morning," the last two episodes of the season) are the same: Greg and Tamara kidnap Henry. With Killian not present, I imagine that David succeeds in wrestling a bean away from Greg. They go to Rumple for help, and though he refused before, Blue's potion worked in giving Belle her memories back and he changes his mind. Somewhere in his shop, there is a ship in a bottle, and he removes this ship, docks it in the harbor, and leads Emma, Regina, Mary Margaret, and David through a portal that takes them to the waters surrounding Pan's island.

Also on AO3

Special thanks to @shireness-says my forever beta who only makes my life (and my stories) better, and all the ladies on discord who answered all the little questions I struggled with while writing this. Thanks, ladies. ( @kmomof4 @hollyethecurious @donteattheappleshook @elizabeethan @stahlop ) Written for @neverlandnewyear. Some other interested pals: @thisonesatellite @darkcolinodonorgasm @scientificapricot @carpedzem @superchocovian @itsfabianadocarmo @regi-writes-stuff @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 @winterbaby89

The ship touches down on the waters, the portal disappearing from around them — but what they find is no better. Fat, cold rain drops pelt them from above, and below them, the waves begin to toss the dilapidated ship in every direction.

“Great job, Gold!” Regina yells, wrapping one of the ropes around her wrist. “You landed us right in the middle of a storm!”

“Believe it or not, dearie, my powers do not include the ability to control the weather, and certainly not in this realm!”

"We don't have time for this!" David chimes in, helping Mary Margaret keep her footing on the quickly-dampening deck. "If we're even going to make it onto the island, we have to get through this storm together!"

"And how do you expect we do that?" Regina chides. "This ship is barely more than a pile of old boards, it's not going to survive this storm."

"Then maybe we should work together to try to make it through this!" Mary Margaret yells.

"What do you expect us to do?”

"Well, we can start by trusting each other!"

Regina scoffs. "You think trust is going to get us through this storm? Is your trust going to keep us from taking on water?"

"No," Emma mumbles, looking down to her feet, and the water that she finds there makes her realize just how much trouble they're in.

And that's when something rams into the side of the ship. And again. And again.

"What the hell was that?"

"Sharks?"

"Afraid not," Rumple mumbles, trying to plant his feet on the slippery deck to keep control of the helm.

Regina looks over the railing, conjuring a fireball in her hand. "Mermaids."

"Mermaids?" Emma repeats. "They're real, too?"

"Does that really surprise you anymore?" Regina asks.

"We have to do something!" Mary Margaret yells over the wind.

"I am not being capsized by a fish!" David sloshes across the deck to a small cannon, which he loads a length of chain into before firing it into the water.

Mary Margaret picks a large net up off the helm, tossing half of it to Emma. “Help me get this into the water!”

“What are you going to do, catch one of them?” Regina tosses a fireball towards the surface of the water — which, surprisingly, works, and a mermaids around them back off the ship.

“Yes!" Mary Margaret stops for a moment to glance at Regina before tossing the net into the waves. "And ask her to help us.”

“Mermaids aren’t going to help you, dearies!”

“Obviously you’re also not going to help us, either!” Regina crosses the deck and throws out another fireball, clearing the starboard side just as she did the port. “There.” She wipes her hands on her soaked slacks and smiles at the fact that the storm also seems to have left with the mermaids. “They’re gone.”

“Not all of them!” Mary Margaret says, grunting as she and Emma struggle to pull their fishing net back onto the deck. “What about this one?”

With a flick of Regina's hand, the creature is out of their net and sprawled on the boards of the deck, her hands bound in front of her and her shining tail flopping into the inches of water that have settled onto the boards of the deck.

But her presence on the deck only causes an argument to break out between them, each offering their own way to deal with her — to ask for help, to kill her, to let her go. With every question they ask her, she offers them a vague but threatening answer, and the storm that Regina thought was over slowly begins to reform around them. Even after Regina turns her to wood with a whoosh of her magic, they continue to argue amongst themselves, the storm surging around them — all except Emma, who realizes the mermaid’s plan was to set them against each other to be destroyed by the storm. With no other option, she tries to get their attention, screaming across the small ship towards them, but nothing works — and she dives into the sea.

Quickly followed by a piece of metal rigging, pulled off by the winds into the water behind her and making hard contact with her head, immediately knocking her unconscious.

Without a second thought, David moves to dive in behind her, but Mary Margaret’s hand tight around his arm stops him. “No! You could get pulled under, too!”

“Not to worry!” A voice cuts through the rushing wind and water, another ship appearing out of the darkness of the storm. Within moments, it is close enough for the man to follow Emma into the water, a rope tied around his waist.

For a few long, terrifying moments, nothing happens. The storm still surging around them makes it impossible for them to see into the water, and they can only hope that the mysterious man can save her before it's too late.

After what feels like forever, a head breaks the surface of the water, Emma's bright hair a strong contrast to the dark waves, and the other man follows.

"Pull me up, Scarlett!" he calls, facing away from their small ship, and the man just visible on the deck of the nearby ship does as asked, pulling the man with Emma in tow. David wants to oppose, beg the man to bring Emma back to their ship, but just the feeling of Mary Margaret's hand on his arm keeps his mouth closed.

"Can you get us over there?" Mary Margaret asks, turning towards Rumplestiltskin. He rolls his eyes, but twirls his hand in front of him anyway, taking them all onto the other ship's deck in a wisp of smoke.

"Is she okay?" David asks as soon as he finds his footing, kneeling beside where Emma is laying on the deck — just as she spits out a mouthful of seawater and rolls onto her side. Mary Margaret drops to her knees on the deck beside her daughter, wrapping her arms around Emma's shoulders.

"Perhaps we should give the lass a moment? A bit of space?" the man who rescued her says, leaning against the bannister behind him, his arms crossed behind his back.

"Oh, come on !" Regina cuts him off, raising her hand towards the wave, moving ever-closer to their ship. "We don't have time for all this."

"Alas, she's right. I'm afraid we'll have to save the pleasantries until after the dashing rescue," he says, striding to what can only be his rightful place behind the helm and leading them quickly away from the waves, away from the storm. David helps Emma to her feet and they all watch as their old ship crumbles beneath the waves, after which the storm around them seems to disappear at an alarming rate; within mere minutes, the sun shines down from a cloudless sky and the soft wind blows lightly on the sails.

The man locks the helm into place and holds his hand out in a welcoming gesture. "This seems a much more appropriate time for introductions. Welcome aboard the Jolly Roger. "

"Okay,” David says, crossing his arms across his chest. "Who are you?"

"Captain Jones," he says, mimicking David's position -- which only draws attention to his left arm, which is blunted just shy of the elbow, replaced with a shining, metal hook. "But most people have taken to calling me by my more colorful moniker—"

Rumple laughs, cutting him off mid-sentence. "You've really owned up to your ailment, haven't you, Captain Hook ?" he says, spitting the last two words between his teeth.

The man turns around, noticing Rumple standing behind him for the first time. "Oh, now that's just my bloody luck, innit?" He pushes his dark, wet bangs off his forehead with his wrist and lets out a small laugh. "All I was expecting was a few damsels in distress," he says, turning towards Emma for a moment and waggling his eyebrows at her before returning his attention to Gold. "Yet it appears I've caught myself a crocodile."

"Like, Captain Hook Captain Hook? Waxed mustache and perm and Peter Pan?"

"Well, love, I must admit I'm uncertain about the first two, but I'm glad to hear that you know who we're going up against."

"Up against? I just want to save my son."

"Why do you think they brought him here, dearies?" Rumple asks, flourishing his hands to conjure a whisp of purple smoke, revealing a new outfit of dark pants and a black, reptilian-scaled vest. "Pan is the one behind it all, I have no doubts about that. And he is a far more powerful foe than any of you are able to go up against."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Regina bites back, but Rumple is gone in another wisp of smoke before the question even leaves her lips.

"It appears that even after all these years, he is still as helpful as he's always been," Hook says, his jaw obviously tight with tension.

Emma's head is spinning. She's spent months trying to wrap her head around everything about Storybrooke and her life, around the idea of true love and fairy tales and everyone's stories intertwining — but this, running into handsome, one-handed pirates in Neverland that have a history with Gold, goes beyond all else.

"Wait, you know Mr. Gold?" Mary Margaret asks, voicing the question they all seem to be thinking.

"Aye, " he says, wrapping his hook around one of the spokes of the helm, where his attention is also focused. "though he was not known by that name. Before he became the Dark One as well, if the rumors are to be true."

For once, Regina seems interested in what he has to say." But he's been the Dark one for —"

"Lifetimes, aye," he says, cutting her off, but turning his eyes down to where she is standing on the lower deck.

No one knows how to respond to him, so the deck stays silent. For the first time, Emma looks around, taking in the small crew that stands around them. There are five that she can see, not including the captain: another tall, dark-haired man standing against the railing, arms crossed over his chest; a stout man with a red beard and an even redder hat; a fierce-looking woman with a mess of dark hair piled high on the top of her head, her dark orange tunic and black pants having seen better days; and two dark, brooding young men, no more than twenty, on the far end of the deck.

"What brings you all to Neverland?" the woman asks. Emma is not surprised that she is the one who tries to make conversation, though she vaguely remembers something about women being bad luck on ships.

"They took my son," Emma and Regina say simultaneously, and none of the ship's crew are able to keep their immediate reactions off their face.

The dark haired man leaning against the railing behind David barks out a laugh, but when Regina turns her glare in his direction, he snaps his mouth shut.

"What could Pan want with your son?" Hook asks.

"Does it matter?" Emma spits back. "We need to get him back."

Hook holds up his hands in a gesture of reluctant surrender. "Of course, of course, you're right." He turns to the man still leaning against the railing, who pushes off to his feet when he sees the look on the captain's face. "Prepare for a return to open waters, I would like to dock at Pirate's Cove before dinner time, Mister Scarlett."

Emma expects a salute, given the rest of the captain's countenance, but the man — Scarlett — just nods and walks away.

"Dinner?" Regina asks, her voice dripping with anger. "What part of ' we don't have time for this' don't you understand, pirate?" she spits.

"Can I ask you how many times you've visited this island, your Majesty?" he asks, the same fire in his voice.

She's taken aback for a moment, but answers nonetheless: "Never."

"That's what I thought. I, however, have been here for longer than any of you can even imagine, which gives me the kind of knowledge you could use on this type of quest. Are you really going to turn that down?"

To this, Regina has no response.

"Now, the beaches at Pirate's Cove will prove much more useful to your mission here, and by sailing around the island, it will rid you of the necessity of walking either through or around the Dark Jungle, which I can assure you is something you do not want to do. So, yes, we are going to chance the few hours it will take to sail around the island to hopefully cut days off of what it would have taken you on foot, and then we will be closer to Pan's camp and it will hopefully prove easier to find your boy."

This time, it's David who is angered by his response: " We ? What do you mean 'we'?"

Captain Hook practically rolls his eyes at this, which almost pulls a laugh out of Emma. “Do you expect to navigate the island yourselves?"

Emma intervenes, trying to calm the tension while also ensuring they stay focused on rescuing Henry: "He's right, David, we could use his assistance."

He winks at Emma. "I had a feeling I was going to like you."

Though she knows she should be resting, bunking with Regina, David, and Mary Margaret belowdecks, Emma instead finds herself drawn to the crew of the Jolly Roger , and spends the next few hours chatting quietly with them as the ship makes its way across the surprisingly quiet waters surrounding Neverland.

Especially the woman — Tiger Lily, Emma learns. Something about her keeps Emma interested in their whispered conversation, and it does not take her long to learn that, like her own, the woman's background is full of sadness and sacrifice. She tells Emma how she sacrificed herself to try to stop someone from turning evil and spending the rest of her magic to get to this island after exiling herself; tells her about being found by Pan and working for him in return, only to learn how evil and twisted his ways are, stealing boys from their families and never allowing them to leave. (" And there's something deeper and darker behind it all, something that he only mutters about with his second in command, a Dark Magic that keeps the island alive — I believe with the sacrifice of the boys who decide they want to leave." ) And Captain Hook, saving her as she tried to escape Pan, though she knew it was impossible — or, well, improbable.

"And I've been in his service ever since. He was working with Pan for a while, too, and able to leave this realm. He asked every time we docked somewhere if I wanted to leave, to live a better life, but I've enjoyed the time I've spent with him as my captain. I've never known a better man."

"Oh, is that so, Lily?" the very man appears behind them, a smile covering his dark features — except his eyes, Emma realizes. His eyes are the brightest blue she has ever seen, the same color as the soft waves moving in the sunlight.

"Now, come on, Captain," she laughs, and the way she sets her hand on the captain's arm sends an unwanted shiver down Emma's back. "You and I both know you're nothing if not a man of honor."

"Yes, but you're not supposed to divulge that knowledge to our new guests just yet."

"And why not?" Emma asks, knowing that her crossing her arms over her chest is a defense mechanism, but that only makes her pull them closer to her.

He wags his eyebrows across his forehead, then winks at her once more. "Can't go around telling everyone that Captain Hook is a big softie. I have a reputation to uphold."

Emma rolls her eyes and walks away, if only to save herself from any more unwanted shivers or repressed feelings.

Their mission is to save Henry. Henry comes first and everything else has to wait.

"Well, what are we going to do once we're ashore?" David asks, hunched over the Neverland map spread across the desk in the Captain's cabin.

"Pan's camp is only a short distance from the Cove, remember?" Mary Margaret adds, the focused planner and adventurer that Emma has only seen glimpses of. "We can sneak up on him and—"

"Nope," Hook says from where he has planted himself in the corner, one boot crossed over the other and his arms crossed over his chest. "There's no way to sneak up on Pan."

Regina's eye roll is practically audible. "You keep saying that but offering no helpful advice."

"And you keep saying that but not actually listening to what I have to say."

"Hook is the one with the knowledge of the island, Regina," Emma reminds her.

"And I'm the one with the knowledge of magic, maybe we should just give that a try!"

"What are you suggesting?" Mary Margaret scoffs. " Poof ing yourself into the middle of a camp on a magic island you've never visited before?"

"What do you suggest, Hook?" David asks, if only to keep Mary Margaret and Regina from fighting. It's obvious that the last thing he wants to do is take advice from a pirate, but even David realizes that they are left with very few other options.

"There is no way to plan what is going to happen once we reach those shores. Everything we do, everywhere we go, Pan will know about it and will always be steps ahead of us."

"How have you spent all this time in this realm and not learned even a few tricks that could help us?"

"Most of my years here have been spent on this ship, provided with rations by the very demon himself. Before that, he and I had an agreement that made us more comrades than foes, and all the time I spent on the island was for his own doing."

"Oh, that's helpful," Regina mutters, leaving the cabin without another word.

"So, let me see if I understand this," Emma asks, knowing that neither David nor Mary Margaret will be able to be civil about this. "Your plan… is to not have a plan at all?"

Hook nods. "There is no other option in Neverland. It's Pan's game there, and he makes all the rules. Best we can do is be ready for whatever he throws at us."

"I don't like this," Mary Margaret mumbles, and David wraps his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to press a kiss against the top of her head.

"It's what we have to do to get Henry back, and that's all that matters," he says, a princely tone of finality in his voice, and the room falls silent.

"Can I ask you something, love?" Hook asks, his eyes leaving the horizon for just a moment to look at her (again, though she has only noticed a few of them) where she is sitting against the railing on the starboard side of the ship.

"I'm not your love," she bites, looking up from one of Hook's maps that she's borrowed from his quarters.

"I've had my share of run-ins with the Crocodile, and I've even crossed paths with the Evil Queen once or twice. The other two, that's Snow White, the princess, right? And her husband?"

"And how do you know that?"

He pauses, trying to chose his words carefully. He knows that if he says the wrong thing, he'll lose the small amount of ground he's made with them trusting him. "I've been… through an agreement with Pan, I can leave these waters every once in a while, as long as I fulfill some of the things he asks of me."

"You work with him," she says, but her face fails to give away any of what is going through her head.

"In a way, aye. But I've been to the Enchanted Forest, and I know what happened to it. How is it that you got here?"

"Well, there was a curse."

"Aye."

"And I — I broke the curse."

" You broke the curse?"

"Yeah, I — I'm the Savior , apparently, because I — I'm their daughter."

"Snow White's?" He's not nearly taken aback enough. "And the Prince."

She nods. So does he. Somehow he is wrapping his head around all of this much easier than she did. Maybe once you're alive for a few lifetimes, things like this are a lot less surprising than they were for Emma.

"How is it that you and the Evil Queen share the same son?"

Emma can't help but laugh. Where does she even start? "No offense, Hook, but it's a very long story that we don't really have time for."

"Aye, that I can understand." He lifts his hand off the helm to scratch his beard before moving his hand behind his ear and to the base of his neck. "But do you — you know — live together?"

"No, no, it's more like… joint custody."

"Come again?"

Right. "Joint custody," she says again, even though the centuries-old pirate knows nothing about the ins and outs of child custody. "We, uh… share him, I guess. Take turns."

"And what about the boy's father? Is he a part of this taking turns ?"

His question turns her blood to ice. Neal. Where does she even begin? For a moment, she's angry — at Neal, at herself. "No." How dare he. How dare Hook to even ask about Neal, he has no right —

He has no idea. It was an innocent enough question, there's no way he knew the still-gaping wound that a question about Neal would inflame.

"He's — dead."

"Apologies, love, I didn't mean to stir up any unwanted emotions."

"Stop calling me that."

"I'm afraid it's more of a habit than anything."

She has no response to this and turns her attention back towards the map.

"Bloody hell," Hook mumbles, though Emma and Smee, his first mate, are the only ones close enough to hear him. At first, they don't see whatever the problem may be, but as the ship continues to approach the shore, Emma sees him leaning against one of the trees just on the other side of the shore.

Pan. Emma can sense it somehow — her motherly instincts, maybe, or something like that, but she can feel that the man on the shore is Peter Pan.

No. No, not man. Boy , with a pudgy teenaged face and dark hair that falls down to his eyebrows.

"That's him," Emma says. She means for it to be a question, but it does not come out that way.

"Aye." She turns to him just in time to watch the edge of his jaw tick as he grinds his back teeth together. "That's the demon Pan."

For a moment, Emma is unsure how she feels about all this. Hook's plan to take them around the island has already taken hours of their precious time, and all under the guise to keep them from Pan — only to have him waiting for them right where Hook brought them to shore. What if Hook had been playing with them the whole time? Giving Pan time to plan ahead while he wasted time sailing them all around the island?

But then she looks at him again, sees the rage obvious on his face, and she almost feels bad for questioning his motive even though she has every right to.

"Bested us again," he mutters, but then straightens his back and looks out over the ship. "Prepare for docking!"

Pan watches, unmoving, from the shore as Hook and his crew lead the Jolly Roger to the dock — and, still unmoving, as they come ashore. Finally, he speaks. "Thank you for bringing our special guests ashore, Captain," the boy leers. "Good to see you're still good for something."

"You know I can't pass up the opportunity to give assistance to a damsel in distress, nonetheless three. And Dave." There's a joking tone in his voice, but it's not present anywhere else in his body.

"Ah, yes," Pan says, pushing himself away from the tree. "Welcome, your highnesses. I hope you find Neverland as welcoming as you have spent all those years hoping your Enchanted Forest would be. And you, Regina, you and I have more in common than you may want to believe."

Regina rolls her eyes, conjuring a fireball in her left hand. "Oh, please," she spits. "Let's do this the easy way: give me my son back and I won't burn your whole island down."

Pan just laughs. "No, I’m afraid that's not going to happen. You're on my island now, and you're going to play by my rules."

"Do you think this is a game?"

"Oh, your majesty , that's exactly what this is. So, Emma, I'm going to give you a map." He pulls a folded piece of parchment out from under his tunic. "A map that will lead you straight to your son."

"If this is some kind of trap," she starts, taking a step towards him with her hand on the sword on her hip.

But Pan's soft laugh stops her. "I may not be the most well-behaved boy on the island, but I always keep my promises. The path to finding Henry is on this parchment."

"Why are you giving it to me?"

He chuckles again. "See, it's not about finding Henry. It's about how you find him. And, Emma," he says, placing his hand on her wrist as she reaches out to take the parchment. "You're the only one who can."

She takes it from him, then unfolds it — only to find it blank, save a pattern around the outside. "It's blank."

"You sound surprised," Regina bites, but no one pays attention to her. All eyes are on Pan.

"You'll only be able to read that map when you stop denying who you really are."

Emma looks down at the map once more. Everyone around her looks at it.

And when they look up, Pan is gone.

As they follow Hook's lead through the jungle, Emma's focus is on the map. She thinks of all she can: her background, everything she's learned since coming to Storybrooke. She even attempts to admit that she's the savior during a short break, but nothing works.

Regina, angry and impatient and nothing if not motivated, takes it from her, insisting on magic, despite the arguments from the rest of the group. It works — to a point, leading them not to Pan's camp, but to an ambush by a group of Lost Boys. It does not last long, the heroes quickly overpowering the boys, but David gets nicked with a Dreamshade-tipped arrow — a secret he tries to keep from the rest of the camp.

Hook sees it, though, the one in the group that really knows how deadly the poison can be, but he, too, keeps it to himself.

He leads them away from the ambush, towards a cliff that looks out over most of the island. From there, he insists, they can plan a route through the jungle and maybe even scout out Pan's camp. But by the time they get there, the sun has set, and all they can see is shadow. "Now that you've seen what Pan can do in just a few short hours, we need our strength. I suggest we make camp."

Regina, unsurprisingly, is against his idea. "You want to sleep while my son is out there suffering?"

"If you want to live long enough to save the boy, yes," he argues, and no one has a comeback for this. Regina is first to walk away, huffing knowing that Hook is right. Hook is second, closely followed by David, who barks an order about finding firewood, leaving Emma and Mary Margaret looking out over the jungle.

They are silent for a moment, Emma obviously worrying about something, but Mary Margaret has learned not to push. And after a few moments, Emma does say what's on her mind:

"Regina's right, Henry's out there somewhere."

But Mary Margaret is ready with her positive comeback. "And Hook is right. We have to survive if we're going to get him."

"I know. I just hope we're not too late."

Mary Margaret leaves her there, knowing that sometimes, her daughter just needs her space to think. She stands there as the others build their camp, her attention turned once more towards the blank parchment — the map , removed from her pocket.

Though he does not mean to, Hook startles her with his approach. "I opted for first watch so you and the others could get your rest."

Emma just shakes her head, starting towards the campfire, needing the monotony of the crackling fire to slow her mind down. "There's no way I can sleep here without solving this map."

"Then it appears you and I will be not sleeping together, love," he jokes, waggling his eyebrows at her with a smirk on his face.

Emma just rolls her eyes. "Listen, Hook. I am here to save my son. The very last thing I'm going to do is get distracted."

His smirk is gone, not even a trace of a smile left on his features. "Of course, Swan. I meant no insult."

They sit in relative silence, the rest of them falling asleep quickly — or, at least, staying quiet. The sounds of the Jungle seem to grow louder in the darkness, almost deafening. But Emma's attention is still on the map.

"Nothing I can think of is working," she groans, dropping the map to the ground beneath her feet.

"None of those are what Pan is looking for. What have you been avoiding? What have you been hiding from, love?"

She is already on edge, and his endearment only makes her angrier. "I am not your love, Hook. Why are you helping me, anyway?"

He's been wondering the same, so he's quick to answer. "I've been searching for a glimmer of hope when it comes to defeating this demon for as long as I can remember. If finding your lad and ruining his plans takes his power from him, then helping you is the very least I can do."

"But why? What did Pan ever do to you?"

He's silent for a moment, trying to decide how much he wants to divulge to her, and he maks a quick decision. "It wasn't me personally," he lies. "But it's the principle of the thing. He preys on boys who think he's taking them to a better life, but all he's doing is taking them from their families. Growing up alone is the worst thing that could happen to a boy, and Pan thrives on separating families."

"Sounds like something you know a lot about." She doesn't mean to be so forward, but once it's out, there's No taking it back.

"Pardon?"

"Only someone who grew up alone would talk like that."

Now it's his turn to get defensive. "And how would you know that? You're the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. What can a princess know about growing up alone?"

She knows that there is no way for him to know otherwise, to know the truth about her childhood, but his assumptions about her still make her a little angry. "You have no idea what you're talking about," she grits, trying not to let her anger get the best of her. "My parents sent me through a portal when I was only a few hours old. I grew up alone , spent my whole life alone . I was an orphan, too, Hook. Or, at least, I grew up believing I was."

"I'm — I'm sorry, Swan, I shouldn't have assumed—"

"No, you shouldn't have."

"You're right though, love. I, too, spent much of my life alone. My mum was sick and passed when I was a boy, and my father took my brother and I on a ship to a far-off land. Until one day, we woke up and he was gone. He left us there to settle a debt and we never saw him again."

Silence settles between them for a moment, and then he smiles. "It seems you and I have quite a lot in common, then, love," he chides, but Emma barely hears him. She's too distracted by the parchment in her hand, which has revealed a map at some point in their conversation.

"Hook—" she tries, but he cuts her off.

"Apologies, I know, you're not my love ."

"No, Hook, that's not it."

Finally he looks at her, trying to find what she is talking about on her face, following her eyes down to the parchment in her hands. But there is something else that has changed, too, something about her . He can't quite put his finger on it, but he thinks he maybe sees a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

#csnlny #captain swan #neverland new year #my writing #cs fics #ouat #neverland rewrite #really just a bunch of headcanons in one little story

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adiwriting · 4 years ago

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Sunday Morning 11.5/?

So the Sunday Morning fic today practically demanded a follow up so that the boys could resolve something both with each other and with Maria. So while I don’t think I’ll be making this a regular occurrence, have a bonus fic today!

If you haven’t read this morning’s fic, see here.

Thanks to @cosmicclownboy for the gif

Sunday Morning Evening Week 11

There is a lot to love about Alex’s house: the bed with plenty of room for two; the fenced-in backyard where Michael has been considering putting in a garden for weeks now; the kitchen that provides enough space to actually cook full meals, not just half-assed omelettes and killer quesadillas; the big sofa deep enough for two people to lay together…

But by and large, the best part about Alex’s house is that it has Alex. Michael would happily live under a rock so long as Alex is there with him.

The sun is starting to set and the two of them are in the backyard together while the dogs all play. Michael is relaxing on the chaise with Alex between his legs, laying back against him. They’ve been lazy ever since they got back from Isobel’s, both exhausted and in need of a nap that never came. Instead, they have just been lounging around in silence for the last two hours, occasionally laughing at something one of the dogs is doing.

It’s good. It’s comfortable. But they are both avoiding a talk they really need to be having. Alex sure as hell isn’t going to break first given that the topic they need to discuss is him, so it’s up to Michael.

“So, we’re alone now,” he starts awkwardly.

Alex snorts, which doesn’t make him feel any more at ease. “Smooth, Guerin.”

“Can we talk about what Liz told me?” he asks, shifting around. Alex sighs and sits up. There is maybe three feet between them, but it feels like an entire football field with the way Alex is avoiding meeting his eyes.

“I’m not sure it’s really any of your business or hers,” Alex bristles.

Michael doesn’t respond right away. He doesn’t want to start a fight with Alex, which he will most certainly do if he keeps pushing. They’ve been doing so good since getting back together. They’ve been together eleven weeks and not once have they fought. They hardly even bicker. He’s not eager to see what a fight between them will do to the relationship they’ve been building together.

Still, he doesn’t think Alex will fix this thing with Maria without some nudging and he knows their distance has been making him miserable. Wouldn’t it be selfish of him to let this go in order to save his own relationship with Alex at the expense of one of Alex’s most important friendships?

“Just say whatever it is you want to say,” Alex says with a roll of his eyes.

Peter comes over to them and attempts to climb up into Alex’s lap, but he’s not tall enough yet to make that jump on his own. Alex leans down to pick him up. Perhaps he’ll be less likely to yell at Michael with one of the puppies in his arms. Michael can only hope...

“You know that Maria and I broke up for more than her refusal to wear the bracelet, right?” he asks.

Alex doesn’t look at him, his eyes are trained on Peter, but he shrugs and says, “yeah.” So Michael knows he’s at least listening. That’s something.

“She broke up with me because she knew I was always going to love you,” he explains. “And she was right.”

“If she hadn’t broken up with you, you’d still be with her,” Alex says. He says it more to Peter than he does to him, but he still says it and that’s a start.

Michael doesn’t respond right away. Alex deserves more than a quick, defensive answer. He deserves the truth. That’s the only way this thing between them is going to work. So Michael swallows down the knot in his throat and tries to quell the growing anxiety that the world is about to crumble around him. He tries to trust in this thing between them that has somehow managed to survive the last twelve years, despite abusive fathers, murder, war, alien serial killers, bomb plots, and literal lost limbs. They can get past the fact that Michael dated Alex’s best friend.

“I’m not sure I ever honestly thought that you and I could get to this place… But this? What we have here? This has been my dream since we were 17. I would choose this life with you a thousand times before any other option,” he admits, hoping Alex believes him.

Alex’s eyes finally look up and he’s able to see his face. Michael can read the fear in him and he hates that he’s ever given Alex a reason to doubt this.

“If I could take it back—”

“No, please,” Alex cuts him off before the lie can roll off his tongue. “You had every right to date Maria. I mean, I would have, had that even been an option for me. She’s a good person and I wanted you to have something good.”

“You’re my something good,” he rushes to make clear.

It earns him a smile, which feels like victory enough. Perhaps this doesn’t have to end in yelling and tears.

“We weren’t good together,” Alex says. “You were right, when you told me that, as hard as it was to hear at the time. We both had a lot of growing to do and I’m not sure we could have done that together.”

Michael nods, because he’s right. As hard as it had been to push Alex away after he’d started coming around last year, it had been the right decision. They both had a lot of things to work through separately before they were ready to meet each other in the middle and start something new.

“We’re good together now,” he says, relieved when Alex reaches out his hand for Michael’s.

“I know,” Alex says, squeezing his hand in reassurance. “Sometimes it’s just hard to trust that it will stay that way.”

“Because you think that I’m going to leave?” he asks, trying to understand so he can do better.

“I just feel like, whenever things are good in my life, there’s always something ready to jump in and strip it away,” Alex says. “And we don’t have a good track record with this dating thing. I worry that you’ll get bored or that I’ll get scared, or that we’ll get in a fight and both say something we can’t take back…”

“We’re going to get in a fight,” he says, sitting up further in his chair and scooting closer to Alex so that he can take both of his hands in his own. “We’re going to get mad and say things we don’t mean. Love isn’t this perfect fix. But we don’t have to let this thing break. We can choose to push through, together, everyday. That’s what I want.”

“That’s what I want too,” Alex agrees. Michael lets out a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding.

“Good,” he says as Alex leans in to give him a sweet kiss, all the while Peter attempts to nudge Michael away, never willing to share his daddy’s affections. Alex picks Peter up and places him on the ground before standing up.

“We should probably start dinner,” Alex says.

“We still need to talk about Maria,” he says, standing up as well. Alex groans, but doesn’t protest any further. They gather up the dogs and bring them all inside as they head to the kitchen to figure out something to cook.

“My fight with Maria honestly doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Alex says, sitting up on the counter as Michael pulls the ingredients out to make a stir fry.

“Then it shouldn’t stress you out this much to talk about it,” Michael counters.

Alex narrows his eyes at him but the slight upturn of his lips lets Michael know that he’s at least as amused as he is annoyed at his attempts to get him talking.

“I don’t understand why you care about this,” Alex says. “It doesn’t impact you.”

“It impacts you,” he says, meaningfully at first, until the words sink in and he scoffs. “And it does impact me.”

Alex gives him a disbelieving look.

“If you aren’t talking to Maria then I’m not talking to Maria,” he explains, though he’s pretty sure that should be obvious. It’s like the first rule of dating. Or that’s what he’s learned from watching Isobel over the years.

“I didn’t tell you to stop talking to Maria,” Alex says with a roll of his eyes. He hops off the counter and uses his hip to move Michael out of the way to start preparing dinner when it’s clear that Michael is too distracted to focus on the task. “You can talk to her.”

“I know that I can,” Michael says, annoyed. “And I do. But not about anything that matters.”

“Well then pick up the phone and call her, Guerin.”

Clearly this is going well. Michael looks at his feet where John is nuzzling into his leg and gives him a look while he gestures at Alex’s back, as if to say, ‘do you see what I have to deal with?’ John is of course as useless at getting Alex to talk as he is adorable. Michael rolls his eyes and looks back up.

“You’re mad that she won’t wear the bracelet,” he says.

Alex slams the knife he’s using to cut up the vegetables on the counter. “Of course I’m mad.”

Michael doesn’t say anything right away and Alex takes a few steadying breaths before he replies again, this time more calm, “I don’t get how she can be this careless with her own life. She’s seen what’s happened to Mimi.”

“I know,” Michael agrees. “I tried to talk to her about it, but she’s going to make her own decisions.”

“Well you didn’t try hard enough,” he says. “You just let her break up with you.”

Michael feels like he’s suffering from whiplash. “I’m sorry, now you’re mad that we broke up?”

“No, of course not,” Alex says with a sigh as he deflates. “I’m just so frustrated.”

“I know.”

Alex allows Michael to step into his space and wrap his arms around him from behind. Alex relaxes into his touch.

“I can’t watch her deteriorate, I won’t,” Alex whispers.

“We won’t let that happen,” he says, placing a comforting kiss to the side of his neck.

“When I was growing up, I didn’t have many people that cared for me. I didn’t become good friends with Liz until high school. And Kyle and I were friends as kids, but he was never able to handle anything serious. Even my brothers were assholes. I know that Greg is great now, but back then, he had no idea how to comfort me,” Alex explains.

It’s the most Michael has ever heard Alex talk about his childhood and he doesn’t move, doesn’t hardly breathe for fear that Alex will stop talking.

“I had Maria. And I had Mimi. I would spend every night I could get away at their house. Watching Mimi deteriorate has been miserable. She’s the closest thing I’ve had to a mom. A real mom at least…”

He trails off and Michael doesn’t say anything when Alex wipes his tears with the back of his hand.

“I can’t lose Maria.”

Michael nods in understanding before realizing that Alex can’t see him, so he kisses his neck again to remind him that he’s here. Alex squeezes at the arms around his waist before he goes back to cutting the vegetables. Michael relaxes his hold on him but doesn’t let go. He watches as Alex cuts the bell peppers, then the carrots, and finally the broccoli. It isn’t until he’s having to let go so Alex can grab the chicken and a pan that he figures out how to word what he wants to say.

“I get that you’re scared, and when you’re scared you push people away because it’s easier,” he says carefully. “But all you’re doing by distancing yourself from Maria is making sure that you lose her sooner.”

Alex pauses from where he’s digging around in the cabinet for a pan and trying to hold back Wendy who’s trying to crawl inside. He looks at Michael like he actually hears him for a change.

“Just something to think about,” he says, feeling a bit smug that he actually got Alex to both talk and come around. “I’m gonna go take them for a walk,” he adds, picking up a protesting Wendy before she can lick all of the pans. He figures Alex could use the time and space to process. He usually does.

Michael is at the door getting all the dogs in their harnesses when Alex steps out of the kitchen to give him a playful glare. “You know you’re an insufferable ass, right?”

He lets out a loud laugh. He probably is, but if it means that Alex won’t pine after his best friend anymore, then he can live with it.

“Call Maria,” he says, grabbing the tandem leash for the puppies. “We can put the babies to bed early tonight and reward each other for doing hard things today.”

Alex scoffs. “Going to brunch at your sister’s is not a hard thing.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Alex sighs deeply, but gives him that fond look that always has his heart growing three times the normal size. He steps into the hallway and gets Bell onto her own leash while Michael finishes with the puppies. Once they are all done, Alex hands him Bell’s leash, his eyes serious as he says, “Thank you.”

Michael shrugs it off like it’s nothing, even though he’s pretty sure it’s everything. “Sometimes we just need to help each other out of our own way, right?”

It’s what Alex had told Michael the night they’d decided to get back together. Back when Michael was still coming up with a thousand excuses as to why he wasn’t good enough for Alex.

“Right,” Alex says, sounding more like he’s trying to convince himself than agree with Michael’s statement.

Michael can see that he’s mentally trying to talk himself up to calling Maria and thinks perhaps the whole thing will go easier if he stays out of the house for a bit with the dogs.

“I’ll walk them to the dog park down the street. Why don’t you just call me when you’re ready for us to come home,” he says.

And that’s exactly what he does. He takes the dogs to the dog park where they play and he reluctantly socializes with their annoying neighbors for a solid forty-five minutes. But when Alex does finally call, he sounds so much lighter than he has in weeks and Michael knows that the entire exhausting day has been well worth it. From the annoying brunch at his sisters to the difficult conversation with Alex. If it’s what Alex needed, then Michael is happy to have been able to give that to him.

Not that he’ll ever tell Isobel that, she’ll start making Sunday morning brunches a regular event, and Michael isn’t about to give up his lazy Sundays in bed with Alex. Not for the world.

Tagged: @callieramics @redstalkingdeath Want to be tagged? let me know.

#roswell new mexico #Malex fic #fic: sunday mornings #michael guerin #alex manes #maria deluca #alex avoids and michael pushes #but it is all good in the end #domestic bliss

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batmannotes · 4 years ago

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DC SHOWCASE

BATMAN: DEATH IN THE FAMILY

WARNER BROS. HOME ENTERTAINMENT AND DC PRESENT COMPILATION OF 2019-2020 ANIMATED SHORTS

COMING OCTOBER 13, 2020 TO BLU-RAY™ & DIGITAL

NEW COLLECTION INCLUDES ACCLAIMED TITLES SGT. ROCK, ADAM STRANGE, DEATH AND THE PHANTOM STRANGER

BURBANK, CA (July 30, 2020) – Five fascinating tales from the iconic DC canon, including the first interactive film presentation in Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) history, come to animated life in DC Showcase – Batman: Death in the Family. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC, the anthology of 2019-2020 animated shorts arrives from WBHE on Blu-ray and Digital starting October 13, 2020.

Anchoring the compilation of shorts is Batman: Death in the Family, WBHE’s first-ever venture into interactive storytelling that allows fans to choose where the story goes through an innovative navigation guided by the viewer’s remote control. Central to the extended-length short is an adaptation of “Batman: A Death in the Family,” the 1988 landmark DC event where fans voted by telephone to determine the story’s ending.

Inspired by characters and stories from DC’s robust portfolio, the 2019-2020 series of shorts – which have been individually included on DC Universe Movies releases since Summer 2019 – include; Sgt. Rock, Adam Strange, Death and The Phantom Stranger.

DC Showcase – Batman: Death in the Family will be available on Blu-ray (USA $24.98 SRP) and Digital (19.99 SRP). The Blu-ray features a Blu-ray disc with all of the shorts in hi-definition, including the fully-interactive, extended-length Batman: Death in the Family, plus a digital version of the four other 2019-2020 DC Showcase shorts. The Digital distribution features the Batman: Death in the Family extended-length short in a non-interactive format (pre-assembled version of the story, entitled Under the Red Hood: Reloaded), along with the other four 2019-2020 DC Showcase shorts, and three other non-interactive versions of the Batman: Death in the Family (entitled Jason Todd’s Rebellion, Robin’s Revenge and Red Hood’s Reckoning) as bonus features (Note: not all Digital retailers offer bonus features with purchase). The Blu-ray also offers approximately five minutes of additional content within the Batman: Death in the Family story that is not included in the Digital version.

Produced, directed and written by Brandon Vietti, Batman: Death in the Family offers an inventive take on the long-demanded story. In the new animated presentation, the infamous murder of Batman protégé Jason Todd will be undone, and the destinies of Batman, Robin and The Joker will play out in shocking new ways as viewers make multiple choices to control the story. And while Batman: Under the Red Hood provides a baseline, the story also branches in new directions and features several characters previously unseen in the original film. Bruce Greenwood (The Resident, Star Trek, iRobot), Vincent Martella (Phineas and Ferb) and John DiMaggio (Futurama, Adventure Time) reprise their Batman: Under The Red Hood roles of Batman, young Jason Todd and The Joker, respectively. Other featured voices are Zehra Fazal (Young Justice) as Talia al Ghul and Gary Cole (Veep) as Two-Face and James Gordon.

“Batman: Death in the Family is essentially a comic book come to life,” says Vietti, whose DC Universe Movies directing credits include Batman: Under the Red Hood and Superman: Doomsday, and he is co-creator and co-executive producer of the popular Young Justice animated television series. “We’ve paid homage to the 1988 interactive experience of DC’s ‘A Death in the Family’ comics release by giving fans a unique opportunity to craft their own story through a branching tool that can lead in multiple directions. The viewer gets to choose these characters’ paths, and each choice paves an alternate future for all of the characters and, ultimately, the story.”

The interactive Blu-ray presentation offers many different ways for viewers to tell the Batman: Death in the Family story, with numerous twists and turns in the middle, and several possible endings. The choices along the way put greater weight on the viewers’ decisions and result in even stronger stories. Viewers can also choose to allow the story to tell itself, as there is an option to let the Blu-ray decide its own path.

Packed with Easter Eggs, the centerpiece short’s story – with its foundation grounded in the original “Batman: A Death in the Family” comic run, and the acclaimed Batman: Under the Red Hood animated film – balances a number of integral themes within its entertainment, including fatherhood, mental health, death, rebirth, revenge and redemption. Along the route, viewers encounter new, surprising looks at some classic DC characters.

“From the very first navigation card, we wanted to give the audience an impression of what they’re getting into, but then also give them something unexpected – maybe even something they’ll regret, so they have to think twice about every future choice they make,” Vietti explains. “Branched storytelling has to be stronger than just the gimmick of the choices – it has to be rewarding and offer new and worthwhile insights into the characters. It needs to involve you, and keep you searching for the next twist. So we sought to subvert expectations and do something very different.”

Beyond Batman: Death in the Family, the additional four shorts on Blu-ray & Digital are:

Originally attached to Batman: Hush, Sgt. Rock is executive produced and directed by Bruce Timm (Batman: The Animated Series) from a script by award-winning comics writers Louise Simonson & Walter Simonson and Tim Sheridan (Superman: Man of Tomorrow, Reign of the Supermen). The original tale finds battle-weary Sgt. Rock thinking he has seen everything that World War II can dish out. But he is in for the surprise of his life when he is assigned to lead a company consisting of legendary monsters into battle against an unstoppable platoon of Nazi zombies. Karl Urban (Star Trek & Lord of the Rings film franchises) provides the voice of Sgt. Rock. Also voicing characters in Sgt. Rock are Keith Ferguson, William Salyers and Audrey Wasilewski.

Inspired by Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman,” Death is produced & directed by Sam Liu (Superman: Red Son, The Death of Superman) and written by J.M. DeMatteis (Batman: Bad Blood). In the story, Vincent, an artist with unresolved inner demons, meets a mysterious girl who helps him come to terms with his creative legacy … and eventual death. Leonard Nam (Westworld) provides the voice of Vincent, and Jamie Chung (The Gifted, Big Hero 6) is the voice of Death. The cast includes Darin De Paul, Keith Szarabajka and Kari Wahlgren. Death was originally included with Wonder Woman: Bloodlines.

Attached as a bonus feature on the release of Superman: Red Son, The Phantom Stranger has Bruce Timm (Batman: The Killing Joke) at the helm as executive producer & director, and the short is written by Ernie Altbacker (Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, Batman: Hush). Set in the 1970s, the short find the enigmatic DC mystery man simultaneously playing both omniscient narrator and active character in a story of supernatural comeuppance for evil doers. Peter Serafinowicz (The Tick) gives voice to The Phantom Stranger, and Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville, Impastor) provides the voice of Seth. The Phantom Stranger also features the voices of Natalie Lander, Grey Griffin and Roger Craig Smith.

Adam Strange is produced and directed by Butch Lukic (Superman: Man of Tomorrow), who also conceived the original story – which is written by J.M. DeMatteis (Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons, Constantine: City of Demons). The short was initially attached to Justice League Dark: Apokolips War. On a rugged asteroid mining colony, few of the toiling workers are aware that their town drunk was ever anything but an interplanetary derelict. But when the miners open a fissure into the home of a horde of deadly alien insects, his true identity is exposed. He is space adventurer Adam Strange, whose heroic backstory is played out in flashbacks as he struggles to save the very people who have scorned him for so long. Charlie Weber (How To Get Away with Murder) provides the voice of Adam Strange, alongside with Roger R. Cross, Kimberly Brooks, Ray Chase and Fred Tatasciore.

All five new DC Showcase shorts credits include Jim Krieg (Batman: Gotham by Gaslight) as co-producer and Amy McKenna (Wonder Woman: Bloodlines) as producer. Sam Register is executive producer.

Initially launched in 2010, DC Showcase was originally comprised of four animated shorts produced by Bruce Timm and directed by Joaquim Dos Santos: The Spectre (released on 2/23/2010), Jonah Hex (7/27/2010), Green Arrow (9/28/2010) and Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam (11/9/2010). An additional short, Catwoman (10/18/2011), was attached the following year to the release of Batman: Year One, and was directed by Lauren Montgomery (Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths) and executive produced by Bruce Timm. Screenwriters on the initial quintet were Steve Niles (The Spectre), Joe Lansdale (Jonah Hex), Greg Weisman (Green Arrow), Michael Jelenic (Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam) and Paul Dini (Catwoman).

“Interactive storytelling offers an entirely new dimension of entertainment for DC animated movie fans, and an exciting look into potential titles for the future,” said Mary Ellen Thomas, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Senior Vice President, Originals, Animation and Family Marketing. “Brandon Vietti has crafted a uniquely involving, multi-tiered approach to captivating the audience with both popular story devices and some very unexpected plot twists.”

DC Showcase – Batman: Death in the Family Special Features – Blu-ray

Audio Commentaries – Commentary tracks on Sgt. Rock, Adam Strange, Death and The Phantom Stranger, plus one of the linear “Death in the Family” shorts (Under the Red Hood: Reloaded), by DC Daily hosts Amy Dallen and Hector Navarro.

DC Showcase – Batman: Death in the Family Special Features – Digital

Three non-interactive versions of the Batman: Death in the Family – entitled Jason Todd’s Rebellion, Robin’s Revenge and Red Hood’s Reckoning. (Note: not all Digital retailers offer bonus features with purchase).

youtube

Running Time: 96 minutes (151 minutes for interactive storylines)

Preorder now at Amazon.

#batman #news #notes

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gra-sonas · 4 years ago

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Interesting interview with CW President Mark Pedowitz. Roswel, New Mexico is not mentioned, but he talks about programming decisions, straight to series orders, the next fall schedule etc. Another thing he mentions is, that he's happy that The CW will air a few more "family oriented" shows (like the Kung Fu and Walker reboots, and Superman & Lois). If you squint, RNM's very much a "(found) family oriented" show - with aliens. ;)

Pedowitz also mentions, that they have several slots to fill for the upcoming fall, and the 2022 spring schedule, but they haven't made all the decisions yet. While we might not hear about a S4 renewal very soon, this gives me a fairly good feeling tbh. RNM's an established show, it's comparatively "cheap" to make, they have great tax incentives in New Mexico, and the show is doing overall well enough in ratings and international sales.

—————————————————————————————

Mark Pedowitz, broadcast's longest-tenured chief, has no regrets about delaying the start of The CW's fall season.

His network (like Fox), made the decision last summer to wait until the new year to bring back scripted originals like Riverdale and All American. The late start afforded productions more time to get used to filming during a pandemic, where episodes take longer (and cost more) to complete. It also.

While the January fall launch gives the network a backlog of originals to air without interruption (provided the pandemic doesn't have other plans), it also delayed decisions like the network's traditional mid-January slate of early renewals.

Now, as The CW prepares to formally launch its fall season on Sunday with the returns of Batwoman and All American, Pedowitz talks with The Hollywood Reporter about how the network is plotting a return to business as usual, including more straight to series orders, developing shows with heart and, yes, the future of all things DC.

Let's pretend we're at TCA: When will you bring Supernatural back?

If they boys want to come back, we're ready to have them. (Laughing.)

The CW traditionally hands out early renewals during this time of year. Where are you in those conversations, especially since your season doesn't formally start until Sunday with Batwoman.

I'm just getting into those discussions. I came from a studio background and understand the importance of early pickups — it allows for better preparation. We're a few weeks away but I need to finish up some internal discussions.

ABC, NBC and CBS all returned originals late last year. In hindsight, any regrets holding the season start to January

No. Once we said it, we felt it was the right thing to do. It would have been too patchworky. At this point, it gets longer and longer and you're waiting to get back into some form of what's your finished product going to look like? I have no regrets. I just wish it didn't take this long to happen.

How much has The CW's late start to the season — originals return next starting Sunday night — impacted the way you conduct business, both in terms of renewals and the negotiations for pilot orders, etc.?

We did this strategically and made choice in the summer because we were concerned with misleading affiliates, the consumer and the ad sales community that we were going to have a fall schedule in the fall and felt that wasn't the right thing. We found some successes with some of the acquisitions, like Stargirl, Coroner and World's Funniest Animals. Some of those are good linear, a lot of them were great on digital. Our digital presence was kept alive because of that. That said, our fall had Supernatural. And once that came back, we were doing [ratings] numbers we were doing pre-pandemic.

We are interested in seeing how people react. It's not just a covid issue right now; it's also the uncertainty in the country with news being as much of a viewing choice as anything else. We're going to have to see how it all plays. We're getting a little colder of a start than we would have if we rolled out of summer. On a digital basis, we're fine. On a linear basis, it's gotten harder. On the development basis, nothing has really changed. I think straight to series [orders] will be done again this year — just for financial purposes so people can get going as quickly as possible — by the end of January. That could change because the surge could change. But there is a bit more flexibility to it. We're still on the same schedule: we have to talk to advertisers in some form in May about what things look like for the following fall. We're hoping that the following fall is closer to a normalized fall — like 2019 was. Do I think it will be completely that way? No. Do I think it will be much more that than not that? Yes.

So, you'll be focused largely on straight to series orders instead of pilot pickups this season?

We haven't seen a lot of development yet. Lost Boys and Maverick [ordered to pilot last year], because of what occurred, are back in contention as development, not because they got picked up to pilot last year. They're in the mix with many other things, including dramas from Ava DuVernay, Black Lightning spinoff Painkiller, Wonder Girl, PowerPuff Girls, The 4400. The scripts are coming in slowly. Right now, I've seen just a handful of scripts and I'm waiting for others to come in so I can make some decisions. They're in contention for how we pick up pilots or direct to series.

Last year, you went straight to series on Superman & Lois and Walker largely out of concerns that there could be a WGA strike. Why is this an attractive model for some development this year?

A lot of is dependent upon what we're dealing with in terms of production needs with ongoing series in a sense. The other is what's the economic impact. Bypassing pilots is short-term less money than going straight to series. We look at the economic impact and if we believe enough in these shows and that will determine the decision.

With two veteran shows — Supergirl and Black Lightning — ending, how much more room on the schedule do you anticipate you'll have? You're making straight to series decisions based on a slate that will have just gotten under way.

We'll have space for three or four shows for next season, 2021-22. We're sorry to see Supergirl and Black Lightning go, but we're happy to have Naomi, Wonder Girl and Painkiller in the hopper right now. From The CW-DC/Arrow-verse — whatever we're calling it these days! — I think we'll be OK for the next generation. The Flash is new leader with Arrow gone and we're hoping Superman & Lois and Batwoman step up there for a new grouping of shows.

How much more life is left in veterans like Flash and Legends as you develop the next wave of the Arrow-verse? Especially when you have Greg Berlanti doing a big-budget Green Lantern and DC world at HBO Max and J.J. Abrams doing Justice League Dark for the streamer?

And they have Matt Reeves' Gotham PD there, too. It always makes me feel good when we're copied. (Laughing.) There's a lot of life left. Greg and I speak quite frequently. I'm not that concerned. You recently passed on Green Arrow and the Canaries. Why? Timing. We couldn't quite figure out a model similar to Stargirl and couldn't quite get there. We were hoping to have it start at HBO Max and take a second run on The CW, but we couldn't figure out how to do it and couldn't make it all work. Last year's pilots Lost Boys and Maverick are back in the development stage. What's the status of The 100 prequel?The 100 prequel is still in discussions at the studio level. I'd like to see it happen. I'm comfortable with where the prequel spinoff episode we did this past season. It's not a pilot; the earliest that would happen would be probably summer 2022, if that happens. We may end up deciding that we can't put the pieces together and it won't happen.

Speaking of the studio level, Warner Bros. is in the midst of a massive change as Channing Dungey is replacing Peter Roth. How does the changeover at Warners — which co-owns The CW alongside CBS Studios — impact the network? What kind of conversations have you had with Channing about their content pipeline since Warners is your main supplier?

Peter and I had remarkable partnership and relationship, and that will be missed. Channing worked with me when I ran ABC Studios and we've known each other for a long time. She's very supportive of The CW and the shows that go on The CW. There are shows she'd like to keep there and get on the air there. Obviously, her priorities may be a little different than Peter's. We are all working toward the same goal.

How has the pandemic and our current state of the world changed the types of programs you're looking to make? Can you do a show like Maverick, set on a college campus, during a pandemic? Do you still make dystopian stuff, especially if it's expensive?

Maverick is still in contention. I just had this conversation with our development team. I've come to the point right now about hope. About safe havens and a place where you can just ease your tension a little bit. One of the nice things about Superman & Lois, Walker and Kung Fu is at the end of the day — despite all the superhero/genre and Texas Ranger stuff — all three shows are about family, which is an important aspect going forward. You'll see Superman in a way you've never seen him before. And you'll see Jared Padalecki in a way you've never seen before. After watching all eight of Wentworth, I switched to Bridgerton because I wanted something light and fluffy. And I found Ted Lasso a worthy successor to Schitt's Creek — it gave me a hug and made me feel good. It made me remember that the human condition is not always bleak. That's where my head's at these days and I'm hoping development is more hopeful than it is dark and dismal.

Have you considered keeping production on your scripted shows going through the summer given the current covid surge that's happening this winter and the uncertainty in terms of vaccinations and new, more contagious strains?

We work with the studios on episodic orders and when the shows would end, when they can revert back to a normalized schedule — some can do more easily than others — so we could be there for next October with a more normal schedule. We've sat with the studios and our production partners and have figured this out. Barring catastrophe, we think we're in good shape.

The CW is a joint venture between Warner Bros. and CBS Studios. Since both studios have prioritized their own studios, how much longer does it make sense for them to operate a linear network?

That's a question for them. for the moment, both parent companies are happy with how this is set up. They recognize the value of The CW brand for selling their shows in digital aftermarket.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

#mark pedowitz #the cw #roswell new mexico #(well not really but close enough)

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