#juri reads: treasure island

[cappurrccino]

starting treasure island and immediately feeling validated by my own use of commas and dashes bc the first paragraph is all one sentence

[roseaesynstylae]

I want to put down all the references in the Worst Generation (excluding the Straw Hats and Blackbeard) and the named members of their crews. I'm getting my information from the wiki and adding my own theories/comments where necessary. Ever since I read JoJo, I love finding references in manga.

Fire Tank Pirates

Capone Bege: His surname is obviously taken from Al Capone (whom he also shares his birthday with) and his given name is based on the English privateer William le Sauvage. Him being stated to cut animals' heads off is a nod to the horse head scene from The Godfather.

Vito: His name seems to be taken from Vito "Don Vito" Genovese, a mobster/crime boss from Al Capone's era, and the first name of Don Corleone from The Godfather.

Gotti: He seems to be named after John Gotti, a mobster who ran the Gambino crime family in the 80s (He was nicknamed 'the Telfon Don' due to him facing three trials and being acquitted every time -- the results were caused by jury tampering and witness intimidation-- before being finally sent to prison in 1992).

Chiffon: She's named after chiffon cake, which she also specializes in making.

Pez: His name is the Spanish word for fish, as well as a nod to the candy brand, keeping with the Charlotte Family naming theme.

Bonney Pirates

Jewelry Bonney: Her name is taken from the 18th-century Anne Bonney, who, like Bonney herself, was a noble turned pirate.

Hawkins Pirates

Basil Hawkins: His surname is taken from 17th-century English pirate Basil Ringosel and his given name from 16th-century pirate/privateer John Hawkins. Hawkins is also the name of the protagonist of the 1883 adventure novel Treasure Island (which had a massive impact on the depiction of pirates in popular culture) by Robert Louis Stevenson, who also wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Visually, his design is based off of Joey Jordison of Slipknot.

Faust: He's named after the legendary character Faust, who sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for knowledge and worldly pleasures. The story was most famously told by 15th-century playwright Christopher Marlowe in The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus and by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Faust.

On Air Pirates

Scratchman Apoo: His surname seems to be based on the practice of "scratching" records when DJing, tying into his association with music. His first name is taken from the Qing dynasty pirate Chui A-poo.

Kid Pirates

Eustass Kid: He's named after the 13th-century pirate and mercenary Eustace the Monk and the 17th-century Scottish (which Kid would be if he existed in the real world) pirate William Kidd, who was also called "Captain."

Kid's Attacks: I decided this needed its own entry. Punk Gibson (Kid's giant arm) -- Named after the US guitar manufacturer Gibson. Punk Rotten (the giant scrap metal head and arms) -- Named after Johnny Rotten, the name John Lyndon used when he was the frontman of the influential punk band Sex Pistols. Punk Vise (Crushing a target with Punk Rotten's hands) -- As "vice" and "vise" are spelled the same way in katakana, this attack might be named after the British punk rock band Vice Squad. Punk Pistols (a harpoon gun made out of metal pieces that acts like a Gatling gun) -- Named after Sex Pistols. Punk Corna Dio (the giant bull he used to attack Big Mom) -- Corna is Italian for horns, alluding to the sign of the horns in heavy metal, while Dio references Ronnie James Dio, who was very big in that genre; no, I'm not making the obvious joke. Damned Punk (the giant railgun he used to blast Big Mom off Onigashima) -- Probably named after the British punk rock band The Damned. Punk Clash (after magnetizing someone with his Awakened Devil Fruit, they attract very large and pointy metal pieces) -- Named after the British punk band The Clash.

Killer: His laugh alludes to the song 'Psycho Killer' by the New Wave band the Talking Heads, as the chorus is the same ("fa fa fa fa fa"). The song might be the source of his name. His helmet strongly resembles that of Daft Punk member Guy-Manual de Homem-Christo.

Heat: He's likely named after the experimental rock band This Heat.

Wire: He might be named after the English rock band Wire.

Gig: In keeping with the Kid Pirates' music-related theme naming, a gig is slang for a live show.

Dive: She's likely named after stage-diving, a common practice among musicians and their fans.

UK: His name may come from the UK, where many classic punk bands originated from (ie, the Clash, Sex Pistols). Alternately, he might be named after the Sex Pistols' song 'Anarchy in the UK.'

Pomp: He's likely named after pomp rock, more commonly known as arena rock (examples of bands known for arena rock: Styx, Toto, Journey, REO Speedwagon, Boston).

Bubblegum: His name seems to be a reference to bubblegum music (rock and pop in a catchy and upbeat style marketed toward children), which influenced punk rock, new wave, and melodic metal.

Reck: He's named after the bassist of the Japanese punk rock band Friction.

House: She's named after the electronic music subgenre house music.

Boogie: He's probably named after the electronic club music subgenre called boogie.

Mosh: He's likely named after moshing, a rather violent form of dancing. Appropriate for a member of a crew known for their violence.

Hip: She's named after hip-hop.

Papas: He's named after the folk rock group The Mamas & the Papas, the indie rock band Papas Fritas, or both.

Jaguar: He's likely named after the Fender Jaguar electric guitar. Alternately, his name could come from Mick Jagger's last name, as "Jagger" and "Jaguar" are spelled the same way in katakana.

Quincy: Her name likely comes from the producer and musician Quincy Jones, who produced Michael Jackson's albums Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad, and has 80 Grammy Award nominations and 28 Grammys.

Hop: She's named after hip-hop.

Compo: He might be named after an abbreviation of 'musical composition.'

Disc J: His name pretty clearly comes from disc jockey, more commonly known as DJ.

Fallen Monk Pirates

Urouge: He's named after the 16th-century Ottoman Pirate Oruc Reis. He seems to be based off of Grigori Rasputin, who needs no introduction, and/or Ji Gong, a Chinese monk known for having supernatural abilities, behaving bizarrely, and not following Buddhist monastic rules. Interestingly, both these figures have movies (Rasputin the Mad Monk, a 1966 Hammer horror film starring Christopher Lee as the titular character, and the 1993 Hong Kong film The Mad Monk) that might have inspired his epithet.

Drake Pirates

X Drake: Drake is sometimes synonymous with dragon, especially in Middle English; appropriate, given that dinosaur bones likely inspired legends of dragons. His name is also taken from 16th-century pirate and adventurer Francis Drake. Random (but likely not a deliberate reference) fact: He shares his birthday with the singer/rapper Drake.

Heart Pirates

Trafalgar D. Water Law: His surname is taken from Cape Trafalgar in the south of Spain, which was the site of a battle between the British and French/Spanish fleets which famously killed Lord Nelson. His name is taken from 18th-century pirate Edward Low, who was notorious for violently torturing his victims before killing them, which may have inspired Law's own reputation for cruelty.

Bepo: He might be named after Lord Byron's poem 'Beppo.' He's also likely named after bear, polar.

Shachi: His name is the Japanese word for killer whale, which makes his friendship with Penguin (who's named after killer whales' preferred food) kind of funny.

Jean Bart: His name comes from the 16th-century French privateer Jean Bart.

Ikkaku: Her name means 'narwhal' in Japanese.

Uni: His name comes from the Japanese word for sea urchin.

Clione: 'Clione' is the Latin name for sea angels.

Hakugan: His name means 'snow goose' in Japanese.

[killyjapes]

Pinned Post: Introductions, Clarifications & Plans:

Hi everyone, and Merry Christmas from 2024 if you're reading from the future. After the joy of writing my long post earlier today, I thought it best to make a little (read: extremely long) pinned post to introduce myself and what I shall be pulling from in regards to any future lengthy TTTE/RWS posts.

The Long-Winded Preface.

Before getting into the swing of things, I would like to thank some users. Some are friends, and some for now are strangers.

I would like to thank my dear friends Andrew and Ryan for their support and enthusiasm when sharing my thoughts in smaller spaces and for helping give me the confidence to unleash my thoughts into the wild.

I would also like to shout out another dear friend in Mike as well as many other skilled fellow fandome members such as @demonofnowhere , DDandT6, @joezworld @mean-scarlet-deceiver along with many more fic/headcanon writers here and on AO3 for sparking my desire to explore my own interpretation of the 'verse in the first place.

Below the cut, I will be introducing myself personally as well as my diving into my (admittedly early and subject to change) interpretation of the TTTE/RWS Universe.

Which, from now on will be tagged seperate from general Thomas-posting under the working title of: Our Magnificent Machines or TRWS: OMM

The Boring Personal History Lesson.

I'm Killy, common username: PapaJape, I'm a member of "The Fandome" (I will never call it anything else, thanks for the brainrot Mayoorhan), who's been active since 2014. In my time I have gone under a few names on places like BlueSky, DA, SiF and the old TTTE Wiki Chat. You may already know me from time spent as PapaKilly, KillyJapes, KnapfordTerminus, SpecialCoalMaster99 and NorthwesternE2. My primary forté is Trainz, where I enjoy taking pretty screenshots and producing the very occasional video.

I am a former moderator on the late Sodor Workshops Discord Server (may it never return) and a member of the "marketing team" for the site, that while not disbanded, it has been about as active as the site itself in the last couple years, which is to say, not at all.

After a long time, a recent diagnosis of adult AuHD and the ongoing exploration of treatment thereupon, I have found my love for this universe reignited, the enthusiasm led me to discovering (and reading alot of) works by the users mentioned above and many others besides, which led to this post and (hopefully) beyond.

Since 2020, my interest in work inspired by the RWS waned heavily, my main interaction being the support of my friends such as: CarsonsVideoWorkshops (Watch The Jury it's very good), AuldLangSyne, TardisRescue and Rydyronen. Aside from these, there was only the occasional wade-in when other friends made content for trainz or when moots shared interesting train related projects.

It's my Sandbox, and I Pick The Toys.

So, vehicle things at last. In most instances, I will be using the lore provided by The Island of Sodor: It's People, History and Railways and Wilbert's letters, layouts and lectures as my main base of operations, from there I will be frankenstien-ing on bits and pieces that I find interesting and some that bring me joy and/or amusement. All versions of the TV series, spinoffs, and even fanworks (with proper credit, respect and right to request removal to the authors) shall be subject to the plucking of bits I like.

I am a Doctor Who fan, the sorting, accepting and vetoing of mountains full of contradictory lore is a way of life. It will not be much different here.

In future posts things shall be refined into a more discernable (yet even more complicated) shape but in short:

Almost every official story and character exists in some form in OMM with some tributes to my most treasured unofficial stories, concepts and characters likely to sneak their way in as time goes by.

To Mercifully Conclude.

I hope I didnt scare anyone off with this merciless text-wall but I thought it best to consolidate my main information before diving into minutiae. If any TTTE-blr users have made it to this point thank you for reading, I look forward to interacting with any and all of you in the days and weeks to come.

[jenringwrites]

WEEKEND ARTINGS: You get two weekends to see the sand sculptures on Treasure Island this year

There’s a lot of great opportunities to enjoy the arts in Pinellas County this weekend. So get out there and experience the arts coast.

Sanding Ovations returns — Treasure Island

Head to the sand sculpture capital of Florida for the first weekend of Sanding Ovations, a sand sculpting competition that attracts professional sand sculptors from around the world. This year’s theme is “It’s About Time.”

Fringe comedy comes to the German-American Society — Pinellas Park

Paco Erhard found the perfect venue for an encore performance of his Fringe comedy, “I can make you German.”

It’s third Saturday at Pinewood Cultural Park — Largo

It’s third Saturday this weekend – the most exciting time of the month to visit Pinewood Cultural Park, home to Heritage Village, Creative Pinellas, and Florida Botanical Gardens. All three locations host activities this weekend. There are holiday wreaths to make in the gardens, art to see at Creative Pinellas, and live music at Heritage Village.

Walk on the Wild Side at SHAMc — Safety Harbor

The Safety Harbor Art and Music Center celebrates their seventh anniversary this Sunday with live music and the traditional decorated umbrella parade.

The 26th Annual Florida CraftArt Festival — St. Pete

This weekend’s big juried outdoor arts & crafts festival is in St. Pete.

Tampa Bay Afrofuturism Festival Weekend Three — Clearwater, Largo, St. Pete

The Tampa Bay Afrofuturism Festival concludes this weekend with four big events — a Paint 'n Party at Artz 4 Life in Clearwater on Friday, 6:30 pm - 10 pm.; a staged play reading of Jake-ann Jones’ “Aq&Ree: Brother Fire, Sister Fly” at Creative Pinellas in Largo Saturday afternoon; a jazz and hip-hop showcase at The Catalyst on the Deuces Saturday night; and a Sun Ra/Zora Film festival at The Factory on Sunday.

It’s the final weekend for “White Rabbit Red Rabbit” — St. Pete

Four adventurous actors accept the challenge of acting out Nassim Soleimanpour’s script, sight-unseen, this weekend.

[noodyl-blasstal]

@blupjeansweek day 2: Clowns

Read on A03 or below:

Barry wasn’t entirely sure why he’d gotten himself into this situation, and he wasn’t entirely sure how to get himself out either. He usually loved problem solving, absolutely loved it, but not today, not when it involved eldritch horror masquerading as children’s entertainment. Why the fuck had he come to the fucking circus?

Okay, so maybe he knew why he’d come to the circus.

Maybe it had something to do with his absolute inability to stop thinking about Lup

Maybe it was because she asked if he was going, and he said yes before he could even process the question

And maybe he didn’t back out because she’d grinned at him with such pure joy, and then suggested they may as well go together then.

There was literally no way he could say no. No jury could possibly convict.

All of that seemed like it might have been slightly daft now, though. He didn’t consider exactly how much clowns creeped him out, and that there’d be so many of them… or the fact they’d be patrolling outside. Who forgets that clowns are linked with the circus? Apparently Barry as soon as the most perfect woman ever to exist his lab partner mentions it.

Barry shuddered as he saw one out of the corner of his eye. It wasn’t logical, it wasn’t evidence based, but the discomfort working through his body was very very real. He briefly debated running, surely Lup wouldn’t actually mind? She invited him out of kindness, nothing more. Lup was unfailingly kind, she would have invited anyone, that was it.

But could he pass up a chance to spend extra time with her? Could he fuck. He’d treasured every lunchtime coffee, the post-work drinks to talk through problems. The times drinks became dinners were his favourite. They started with take away, grabbed over desks; progressed to restaurants, new ones which needed testing and established favourites; and finally to him being invited to the Tacco's cosy flat to watch her do incomprehensible magic in the kitchen while he (after the first disastrous attempt at helping) was relegated to watching from the other side of the kitchen island and definitely not staring adoringly at her. In those moments, he could almost pretend he'd been brave enough to ask her on a date, even though he knew it was just business and felt bloody awful for how much it meant to him. But, he couldn’t avoid thinking back over those meetings fondly. She was just so clever, so witty, confident in her abilities with the skill to back it up. Lup was beautiful too, he’d be hard pushed to miss it, no one should look that good in a lab coat.

He checked his watch and hoped she’d be here soon, it was already 15 minutes after they were supposed to meet, but he knew there was no chance of her being on time when Taako was joining them. He squeezed his eyes shut as another clown passed by his field of vision, there was definitely at least three of them and he wished they’d all just sod off.

“Barry?” Came a familiar voice “I know we’re late, but you didn’t need to nap about it” Lup chuckled “you know ‘Ko can’t go anywhere without looking beautiful, and boy does that take a while” she looks away from Barry to stick her tongue out at her brother, who wrinkles his nose in return.

“Of course, it was all me and definitely didn’t have anything to do with someone hoping to finally get that special someone to notice her outside of wo…” Taako’s sentence was cut off by Lup slamming her hand over his mouth with what looked like a fair bit of force. Taako’s eyes widened innocently and he fluttered his eyelashes at Lup. He must have followed the puppy dog eyes up with a lick as she ripped her hand away in disgust and wiped it on his hair as he attempted to duck out of the way. Barry was absolutely baffled, these two were like a tornado when they were together and he had long ago given up on trying to keep up. He doubted he’d ever be able to figure out what Taako meant, had Lup invited someone else from the department? She hadn't mentioned it...

Finding their seats wasn’t too difficult, although Taako had pretty much immediately vacated his, claiming to have seen ‘the most beautiful man in the world’ and aggressively sashayed towards him yelling “Don’t touch my umbrella, Barold!” over his shoulder, stopping Barry in his tracks mid way through his move to the outer seat to give Lup some space.

Lup cackled, slinging her arm over Barry’s to tug him back down, “Come back, Bear." Then shaking her head she added:

"That poor bloke doesn’t stand a chance. I’m looking forward to getting to know my new brother in law.”

Barry was a big fan of rational thought, and rationally, he thought it was quite likely he was going to drop dead. Between the clowns prowling the audience for victims and Lup mashed into his side he genuinely thought the end could be nigh, his heart shouldn’t be going this fast. She hadn’t moved her arm from his and he could smell her shampoo, it was sweet and slightly spiced and perfectly her. Her arm - pressed against his - was so soft and warm and oh god, was his arm sweating? Can arms sweat? Could she tell that his arm was sweating even though it wasn't supposed to? Okay, so he was panicking slightly, but it wasn't a bad place to be. He wished he could reciprocate her casual touches. Barry wanted to put her hand in his, their fingers were so close to each other on the arm rest. He could just move his pinkie very slightly, press it against hers. Link it to hers, make a promise to love her forever. Okay… maybe not the second one, but the first one? That wasn't weird was it? It was. It was weird. Coworkers didn't touch fingers... did they? Fuck.

Barry forgot that racing thoughts usually translated a wide eyed stare into the ether, remembering only as Lup leaned in to talk over the noise of the crowds around them “penny for ‘em?”

Barry stared back, eyes still not quite focused as he yelled at himself internally to just be normal.

"Bear, what's going on in there?" Lup knocked gently on his head.

Fuck. She could read him like a book and she knew his brain was racing and now she was right there, and looking straight into his eyes. Oh gods, he wanted to kiss her, and he felt awful for it. Why couldn’t he just appreciate that the most wonderful person he knew was part of his life instead of thinking about lunging at her when she was just showing a perfectly friendly level of care? Was he a complete creep? He was a complete creep, oh gods. He was going to have to quit his job and go to some kind of rehabilitation centre and learn how to interact with women properly.

Barry realised two things at once. He was starting to hyperventilate, and Lup was still waiting for an answer. It had definitely been longer than a reasonable amount of time to answer that question, and he absolutely didn’t know what to say. Lup was starting to look far more concerned than she had before.

“Bear, are you okay? You look like you’re going to have a panic attack, what do you need me to do?” Lup was still talking close to his ear, and still being wonderful, and smelling wonderful, and it felt so right and he needed to say something before he accidentally blurted any of this out.

“I’m-scared-of-clowns” he breathed in a rush. Yes, excellent work, it’s the truth, it’s not a lie, it’s not exactly what the problem was, but it’s a real thing that could plausibly cause him to be panicking and it wasn't about her and definitely not being in love with her, it was just a perfectly reasonable… balls. He, a 40 year old man, had just told the woman he was definitely absolutely not in love with that he was scared of clowns, like he was a child. It probably would have been less weird to just tell her he was worried that he liked the smell of her hair too much and run for it. Barry groaned.

Lup didn’t laugh. He appreciated her even more for it, she just looked worried again

“Barry, I have to ask. Why did you come to the circus? Is this like some immersion therapy thing? You really should have let me know, I could have helped, or at least done some research in advance. Are you okay?” Lup grabbed his hand and squeezed because she was wonderful and perfect and supportive and Barry thought this might be how he died. If he simply just expired now he wouldn’t have to deal with any of the consequences of the decisions that brought him here tonight.

He was opening his mouth to reply as Taako’s voice drifted past him “Finally! You two sorted it out! Now you can stop mooning and meet Kravitz. He’s handsome and perfect and chaboy is keeping him”

Lup’s mouth fell open in amazement, eyes fixed on a point behind Barry’s shoulder. He threw up a quick thanks for Taako’s ability to claim the spotlight (not even registering the mention of mooning or sorting), and turned his head to see what had caught Lup's attention. Taako was held in a bridal style carry by a ridiculously handsome black guy who was inexplicably wearing a three piece suit. Taako kicked his heels and giggled, fluttering his eyelashes up at Kravitz, whose cheeks darkened slightly under Lup and Barry’s stares. Kravitz folded himself into the seat next to Barry, Taako rescued his umbrella at the last second, but refused to unwind himself from Kravitz’s neck.

Barry saw his chance, there was never going to be a better way to get out of his head than this. He glanced at Lup, eyes wide in confusion, and then turned to hold his hand out to Kravitz.

“Hi Kravitz, I’m Barry, it’s nice to meet you” he smiled, hopefully it didn’t look as desperate as it felt. If there was ever a distraction, this was it and it was going so so well, until Lup slung herself over Barry's back to get a better line of sight.

“Goofus, what the fuck? No offence Krav, you seem delightful, it’s nice to meet you, but Taako, why on earth is this poor bloke carrying you?”

“He said his feet hurt” said Kravitz fondly to the floor.

“...And that if he picked me up and took me back to you I’d let him carry me to bed too” finished Taako, cackling as Kravitz’s head dropped.

Kravitz groaned.

“Taako! I… your sister and her boyfriend are here! You can’t say things like that! Oh gods, Lup, I’m so sorry, I wanted you to like me… he said you had to like me.” Kravitz looked up, absolute panic in his eyes.

Barry short circuited, he couldn't even feel bad for poor Kravitz in this moment, because he, a random stranger thought Barry and Lup were dating? That’s a thing people could think? He supposed she was currently draped over his back, resting her chin on his shoulder with her other arm slung round him. Gods, she was currently draped over his back resting her chin on his shoulder! She hadn’t corrected Kravitz either… Hadn’t been offended or laughed.

Was this worth the clowns?

This was worth the clowns.

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E111 (Redux! Oct. 13, 2020)

Gooooood evening good evening good evening, all! I started the VOD late for this recap and somehow the first four or so minutes of the show have a Twitch audio copyright claim, so I am reduced to only reading Brian's lips when he asks if we're on the internet. Hilariously, Marisha's background room is a comfy-looking blue/gold fabric wall with a ceramic colorful abstract lamp and a yellow silk scarf over the lampshade, and Taliesin's is an industrial looking games room in grey and black with multiple monitors, overhead speakers, and mysterious metal fixtures behind him. What a treasure this group is, honestly.

Tonight's guests: Marisha Ray & Taliesin Jaffe, discussing episodes 110 and 111 again. I wildly speculate once more about what might have caused their absence: jury duty? Sam appearing on The Masked Singer? Something to do with the animated show? One day, we’ll know, one day... (One day this “copyrighted audio” section will come back from the wars, too. Ugh!) Finally! The audio comes back to reveal Brian discussing the endless reality of digital meetings and Marisha talking about (I think) her glare-reducing glasses she’s wearing. Welcome to the New Age (welcome to the New Age, to the New Age).

Announcements: Marisha suggests checking out Dimension20, another live tabletop gaming group, which premieres live on Wednesdays at 4pm (CollegeHumor). 

Brian immediately wants to know how they feel about the revelation that Molly is alive. Taliesin’s personal reaction: he “knows some things” he can’t talk about and is aware of several possibilities that might be going on, but had a sneaking suspicion that there would not be a body for them to find. He says it’s almost all there for anyone to see in past material. Marisha’s personal reaction: she just wants to know how she’s doing with her theories, & was trying to block Tal’s face out deliberately as she was going off on her theories in the last episode. Taliesin says he thought her ideas were pretty good!

Cad has no clue what to think - it’s like listening to your friends talk about Buffy. Marisha thought it was a 50/50 Molly would still be there, but Beau had no idea. Not that it mattered, because as soon as Matt went through with it the reveal still blew their minds. Tal laid out his plans for the character with Matt during Campaign One (towards the end) after they all got their VM tattoos.

It is a “horrifying and gross” thing to dig up a body, and Beau was pretty reluctant to do it. Tal, as Cad: “Sometimes dead’s better.” The moral quandary of trying to speak with a dead friend was very different here than the frequent occasions they used the spell in C1.

Taliesin says his poker face is very bad, so it’s easier for him to over-react and let it all play out. The only other player he can see very easily from his place in their current setup is Travis, and because he knows Travis doesn’t watch TM, tweet, or participate in social media, he admits he thoroughly enjoyed watching Travis freak out at his freaking out. He says he only knew about 20% of what Matt described at the end of that episode. He was picking things to mug to increase Travis’s surprise. I love this so much.

Taliesin provided the table left leg shake; Travis provided table right. Ha!

Beau is really accepting her role in the Cobalt Soul. It’s good when “as a person, you feel like you can settle into your calling. Sometimes you can do more from the inside than fighting from the outside.” It’s a mirrored but opposite path of Keyleth from C1; Beau felt like she was too good for her duty, while Keyleth thought she wasn’t good enough.

Caduceus is not a big believer in jumping to conclusions. He does have an idea/notion of the “city of the undead” and thinks all this necrotic energy must come from somewhere, and wonders if this is the “capital of anti-death.” He’s willing to believe whatever he sees. This is one of the few things that trigger a bit of loathing and disgust in him. It was terrifying that the Wildmother didn’t know anything.

Beau is pretty confident in her Charlie Day impression laying-out-the-research last episode. She enjoyed taking the things that were known & extrapolating around them; this is a huge facet of Marisha’s own personality and she really enjoys it, so she built a character this time that would allow that kind of puzzle-solving. It’s also why she repeatedly notes when Beau journals, so she can avoid metagaming. Trent’s mention of Vess Durogna’s tomb raiding was completely circumstantial, and the only reason she’d made the connection to the Tombtakers was because she’d recently reviewed those notes for a separate unannounced project. Sometimes she tries to make connections and Matt is like, “It was...just descriptive. Just flavor. The curtains were red...” and she has to discard a paragraph of notes. She feels like it’s still something they have to do because of “look at what he does! Look! It’s totally valid!”

Cosplay of the Week: @kitsunstudios with a gorgeous Caduceus with a very intricate silk vest.

Caduceus’s takedown of Trent! One of my favorite moments in the entirety of C2. Taliesin felt Trent was an asshole; Caduceus felt sorry for him because of how dumb he thought he was. Caduceus’s response was "this is the dumbest man I’ve ever met in my life. He’s so dumb! Is nobody going to tell this guy how dumb he is? Oh, they’re all freaked out. Somebody needs to tell this guy he’s an idiot before somebody gets hurt.” (Marisha: “Before?”) Tal says it was the product of several years of therapy and many drunk conversations with Whitney Moore. It was from a genuine place of concern from Caduceus. “How are you allowed to have this much power and be that dumb?”

Brian loved how funny it was to watch everyone tiptoe around Trent and then Caduceus bulldoze through the end of the meal.

Taliesin: “Damage doesn’t make you interesting or better. It’s not what makes you good. Character isn’t found in damage. Just recovery.”

Brian & Marisha commiserate going through the stage where believing surviving something automatically made you a stronger person, better for the pain; instead it just meant you had to pick up the pieces after. Marisha talks about how strength through survival may be true for some people, but it shouldn’t be considered a necessity. Taliesin talks about how he used to think he had to be miserable to write. Brian talks about how believing he liked reading and writing miserable things only limited him for years.

Marisha feels it’s a C2 theme that almost all the PCs have someone trying to handwave or take credit for their accomplishments or explain their pain as being for their own good (Trent, Beau’s dad, Obann). She thinks it’s interesting to see all the various ways people try to take credit for your work/delegitimize you as a person. She loves that RPGs allow you to explore these odd moralities in interesting ways. The only way to fight it is to have a sense of your own self-worth, which is a problem a lot of the M9 started with.

Caduceus likes everyone, and really likes people who appear to need role models (Eodwulf). “With the right friends and the right bar and the right attitude, I think he’d be okay. Come over here where it’s so much better. That seems like an exhausting friendship that you have there.”

Marisha loves the mix of personalities in the M9; Veth, Cad, & Jester were all “we kind of like them!” after the dinner, and she immediately made eye contact with Travis and they both shook their heads. She knows Beau has to go along with it for Caleb’s sake for now, but she & Fjord are pretty sus of Trent’s proteges.

Beau is less concerned about Artagan’s relationship to Jester because “he showed his ass--she’s less worried about Jester now because a little of the magic is gone.” It’s a little like becoming an adult and realizing your parents are also just adults & human. Caduceus wasn’t suspicious of the Traveler for a long time until they got to the island. Aside: Taliesin loves the pantheon in D&D. “The notion of attempting to apply common Western conceptions of religion to a world where you have a pantheon of interventionist gods as baseline makes no sense to me. Everyone admits that every other god is there and doing shit; it has more in common with ancient Rome than anything else.” Now that he knows it was a con, he feels the wind had been taken out of it. He does have a sense that Jester’s gotten back together with an ex: “I hope that I’m really happy for you.” They’re both interested to see how Jester navigates the new relationship.

My internet goes out, of course. I panic for a second, thinking I’ve lost everything above, but all is well! Thanks, Form History Control addon!

Marisha loved punching Artagan, but regretting rolling so poorly. “I miss violence.” Dani lets us know it’s been about four episodes since the last battle.

There’s no way the Cobalt Reserve doesn’t have a single document on the Eyes of Nine. Beau believes “there are no real secrets” because people are just bad at not writing things down. For there to be no information at all seems really suspicious for her.

Fanart of the Week: @oddalchemist on twitter with some awesome Beau conspiracy red-thread boards overlaid a distant shadowy Molly walking away.

Caduceus feels a little guilty for really enjoying his time right now with the M9 and not wanting to go home. He’s starting to suspect that he’s going to go home very different than when he left. “He has the softest problems. I don’t know if I want to move back in with Mom & Dad.”

Beau is trying to get comfortable with the idea of being happy. Jester is probably Beau’s first real best friend & one of the first healthy female friendships she’s ever had. As long as she still has Jester in her life, she doesn’t care. For Yasha... “At the end of the day, Beau is a lonely person and has always been a lonely person. And I think you kinda reach this point where once you’re not lonely anymore, you can kind of come out of the fog and realize that was horrible! And terrifying! And is even more terrifying now that I know what I could have, and I don’t want to go back to that. At the end of the day Beau doesn’t want to be lonely anymore. There’s always been that flirtation with Yasha, but everyone had to figure their own shit out. And now it feels like it’s coming out a little bit of that haze, maybe this actually could be...” There are a lot of ways they complement each other & are good-different from each other. Marisha believes people can be attracted to more than person at once.

Caduceus doesn’t think nature turned against him on Rumblecusp, it was just a reality of nature being dangerous and violent. “He has a complex relationship with nature.” He doesn’t expect special treatment.

Thoughts on the mansion: “Man, it’s nice to be seen.” Marisha: “I don’t know how I ended up becoming the Scanlan of this campaign, but I’m living for it.” It felt like an echo of “I’m better for having known you.” They compare Marisha taking specific notes on the campaign to Liam taking specific notes on people’s favorite tapestries, comics, etc.

They talk about missing theme parks and daydream a park version of the mansion in CritRoleLand. It’s lovely.

Taliesin never expected Divine Intervention to work; he just wanted to roll some dice. He’s still processing what he saw/heard. They all agree it was very useful in the Vokodo fight.

Vilya! Marisha: “Ah! Ah! Ah!” As a player, Marisha was so deep in Beau’s eyes she didn’t pick up it was Vilya at first (especially since Matt really emphasized they should not be looking for C1 NPCs). Marisha’s brain melted. She bawled her eyes out on the ride home after that episode. Right after it ended, Laura told Marisha “Keyleth finally gets her happy ending,” and it makes Marisha emotional again since Keyleth’s story ended so bittersweetly. She talks about the very real feelings of “just wanting them to be happy, though!” She went back and listened to all her old Keyleth playlists. Everyone was teary after the episode. “Everyone has these 100% real memories of being these characters and having these good times.”

And that’s that for that! Thanks for your patience, all, and is it Thursday yet?

[scotianostra]

On January 8th 1697 Thomas Aikenhead was executed in Edinburgh.

So who was oor Thomas, a villain?, a murderer?, a smuggler?, or some enemy of the state? No Thomas's crime was blasphemy who took the lord's name in vain.......this would be comic if it wasn't for the tragic fact that he was executed, unlike the man in Life of Brian, who uttered the words Jehova, Thomas complained that he wished he was warming himself in hell rather than that chilly night walking past the recently built Tron Kirk on Edinburgh's Royal Mile. Well that's the simple story that the tour guides that take you round the Old Town will tell you, there is a bit more to it so I will bore you with a bit more of the detail.

Thomas Aikenhead came from a well-to-do family in Edinburgh, his father being listed as a surgeon but more probably an apothecary, a dispenser of herbs and potions. Both his parents were dead by the time he became a student at Edinburgh University at the age of 16 or 17.

His mother had been a daughter of the manse, and you would think that would have made Aikenhead wary of challenging the established religion of the time, namely the all-powerful Church of Scotland, especially while still a student and under the constant gaze of professors, lecturers and, as it turned out, his fellow students.

These were the dying days of a curious period in Scottish history. Aikenhead would have been four when the ‘Wizard of the West Bow’ Major Thomas Weir was executed in 1670. Weir was by day an extreme Calvinist but by night an incestuous Satanist and it takes no great leap of reason to see that an impressionable young boy might well have been affected by the trial and execution of a local celebrity that lived not far from him.

The 1680s was also the ‘killing time’ for the Covenanters when many died because of they worshipped their same god in differing ways!

Thomas was a keen student and an avid reader, he may or may not have known and Edinburgh bookseller,  John Frazer, who had been prosecuted after admitting either reading, or being in possession of Charles Blount’s Oracles of Reason a book I know nothing about but gather it relates to Deism, which questioned the existence or more importanyly, non-existence of God or Satan, Frazer had repented ad as it was a first offence was sackclothed and jailed in the old Tolbooth for a number of months.

Anyway, Thomas had a friend, well he thought he had a friend, Murdo Craig, but Murdo, on the sly had been keeping notes on Aitkenhead, and his dalliances with blasphemous ideals, we know that because they formed a large part of the indictment against Aikenhead.

“Nevertheless it is of verity, that you Thomas Aikenhead, shakeing off all fear of God and regaird to his majesties lawes, have now for more than a twelvemoneth by past, and upon severall of the dayes within the said space, and ane or other of the same, made it as it were your endeavour and work in severall compainies to vent your wicked blasphemies against God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, and against the holy Scriptures, and all revealled religione, in soe far as upon ane or other of the dayes forsaid, you said and affirmed, that divinity or the doctrine of theologie was a rapsidie of faigned and ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the morall doctrine of philosophers, and pairtly of poeticall fictions and extravagant chimeras, or words to this effect or purpose, with severall other such reproachfull expressions.”

That was just for starters. Sir James Stewart of Goodtrees, the Lord Advocate of the day, had taken a personal interest in the case and he decided to throw the whole lot of Craig’s testimony at Aikenhead who was arrested in November, 1696, and charged under the Blasphemy Act of 1661 which carried the death penalty.

He also charged Aikenhead under a more recent act, which made it a criminal offence to ‘deny, impugn or quarrel’ about the existence of God.

The prosecution papers go on to record

“You have lykwayes in discourse preferred Mahomet to the blessed Jesus, and you have said that you hoped to see Christianity greatly weakened, and that you are confident that in a short tyme it will be utterly extirpate.”

For Mahomet, read Muhammad, could young Thomas be an Islam convert in 17th century Edinburgh, I very much doubt it, they just needed to make an example of the young student, and he knew by now that he was in very great trouble and protested in effect that he was guilty only of the sin of being youthful and had been led astray by the books he had read. He also pleaded and repented of his anti-Christian beliefs and was once again a good Presbyterian.

In this way he seems to have thrown himself upon the mercy of the court. There was none. On Christmas Eve, 1696, a jury found him guilty. Sir James Stewart asked for the death penalty and it was granted and “pronounced for doom,” as Scottish judges were still saying well into the 20th century in capital punishment cases.

Aikenhead pleaded for his life to the Privy Council emphasising his youth, his dire circumstances, and the fact that he was reconciled to the Protestant religion. There was some support for the death sentence to be commuted from at least two councillors and two Church of Scotland ministers, but the General Assembly of the Kirk intervened, demanding that Aikenhead suffer “vigorous execution to curb the abounding of impiety and profanity in this land”.

In his last letter to friends, written in the Tolbooth prison in Edinburgh as he awaited execution, Aikenhead at last gave a plausible explanation for his conduct – that he had been a disappointed seeker after truth.

He wrote: “It is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth and to seek for it as for hid treasure. So I proceeded until the more I thought thereon, the further I was from finding the verity I desired.”

In truth, in a repressed society the student had just gone too far in rejecting the doctrines of Christianity calling it “feigned and ill-invented nonsense”

Aikenhead went to this day 1697, hanged on the scaffold at Shrubhill between Edinburgh and Leith. It is said that before he died he proclaimed that moral laws were the work of governments and men.

In his hand as the noose was placed around his neck was the Holy Bible.

The execution angered some people for many years afterwards. The great English historian Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote an account of the hanging and called the execution “a crime such has never since polluted the island.”

He continued: “The preachers who were the boy’s murderers crowded round him at the gallows, and, while he was struggling in the last agony, insulted Heaven with prayers more blasphemous than any thing that he had ever uttered.”

There was other evidence of church authorities being present as Aikenhead died. He was the last man in Britain to be hanged for blasphemy.

According to Arthur Herman in his book How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It the execution of Aikenhead was “the last hurrah of Scotland’s Calvinist ayatollahs” before the dawning of the age of reason in the Enlightenment.

Now we can all rejoice in The Enlightenment but a full 30 years later in the small town of Dornoch in Sutherland, Janet Horne was put on trial for the “crime” of having a daughter whose feet and hands were misshapen and who had herself given birth to a son with disabilities. She was the last woman in Britain to be burned at the stake for being a witch, her death bringing to an end the “burning time” when perhaps 4000 Scottish women were executed for the crime of witchcraft.

[natashalie-lumley]

What’s new Scooby Doo? Oh just more zombies

You know when you get bored so you scroll through the “to rent” section on your streaming service of choice looking at the new movies, trying to find something to scratch that itch, and then you happen upon the most random things ever? Yep, that’s exactly how I found this brand new answer to “what will they think of next that they really shouldn’t do”: SCOOBY DOO: RETURN TO ZOMBIE ISLAND!

From Amazon:  Join Scooby-Doo, Shaggy and the Mystery Inc. gang as they win a vacation of a lifetime and attempt to put their mystery solving days behind them. As soon as they arrive to the tropical island, Velma, Daphne and Fred can’t help but notice how strangely familiar this island is, to a terrifying trip they once took decades ago. They soon find out paradise comes with a price when they encounter an army of zombies! Hop on board and travel with Scooby-Doo and the gang, as they unearth the mystery of Zombie Island in an original movie adventure!

So my first thought, upon seeing this exists, is “holy carp wth”. My second, upon reading the above description, is “decades???” And my third, upon watching the first half hour and listening to the cliche out-of-touch Sheriff describe what kids used to do in, idk, the sixties, was “wait, weren’t they out of school in the original ZI? And they had professions and everything? so if this is decades... how OLD are they?” (Of course, they don’t look any different, at all, because cartoons.)

Anyway I’m enjoying this ride and I decided to bring ya’ll along with me, all dozen of you who might see this lmao. Spoilers ahead!

This is a dream right? It has to be a dream because 1) when did Fred set up that trap, 2) their traps never work that well, and 3) Daphne just used a makeup brush to touch-up the Mystery Machine. Or maybe that’s just normal for her.

Oh it was a dream! Just to lead into the cliche “the thing you had a nightmare about didn’t happen that way but it did happen”

Shaggy and Scooby and their all-to-convenient Judge outfits

Again... very cliche out-of-touch adult.

OMFG ELVIRA! Didn’t she do a movie with them?

It’s at this point that I’m looking at imdb trying to figure out who voices Velma cause I don’t think it’s the original.

Lol one of the rumors about ghosts involves “an ancient ghost that asks you to program the VCR” and the obviously-teens going “what’s a VCR”. Cue me laughing my ass of remembering the days of SD movies on VCR.

Elvira’s convenient vacation offer is so ridiculously convenient I haven’t decided whether or not she’s in on it.

OH it’s Kate Micucci! that explains the voice.

“We’re noticing this strange things but absolutely none of us are going to consider it mysterious at all” is as useful in conversation as telling the jury to strike something from the record in a court show.

How is the original zombie movie “unsolved”. They solved it. 

If the captain of the boat is that worried about the zombies why is waiting to come back right before sundown? Why not come at noon? ...... he’s in on it isn’t he. Wasn’t the original?

Um... don’t they have some sort of cell phone or GPS that could tell them what they have obviously picked up on “we’re clearly not in the Caribbean”.

“Wait until the last person is alone to actually say more than 2 words warning them to get away” cliche

Hasn’t the gang had a close friendship for this entire time? Have they literally never talked about anything but solving mysteries? I mean canonically I swear they’ve spent time in conversation about other things. There’s even whole episodes of shows where they have relationship and stuff... Are you telling me they’re only friends in circumstance?

(It’s at this point where I decide the other good thing about this live posting is I won’t be tempted to fast-forward through the parts that irritate me like all the hijinks of “we’re totally keeping our promise really”)

Did the driver’s phone literally just ring so we had the conveniently “dum dum DUUUMMMM” effect? ‘Cause he doesn’t seem in a rush to answer it.

So... they changed the name... to Moonstar. Instead of Moonscar. Wow. That one letter. Does so much.

CATS!!!!!!!!!! KITTIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yes please

Ok so she’s recapping the first movie and saying “it was for a school project”.... but still...

“The only thing we have to do on this island is relax” and, idk, not look at a GPS or anything with location information...

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for the guest book pages being torn out, right Alan?” “Moths.”

Why -are- there so many cameras.

Holy carp look at that it’s the same forking people just modernised a little.

Why is he flirting with Daphne.

I forget, is Fred canonically with Daphne rn? I can never keep that straight.

If this blonde lady says “yes and” again I’m going to be very irked. It’s not an improv class honey.

Why is she so horrified by their manners/lack-thereof?

Why is blonde lady crying? Other than the fact that she’s a horrible actress.

Also why has nobody noticed that Hotel Manager Alan is clearly wearing the same cat-head necklace from the first movie but painted.

“Shiatsu?” “No, Great Dane!”

Ah yes, cartoon details - Scooby slurps on a straw but the liquid level never changes.

Are... the zombies.... giving them....... massages? Or just really failing claw their flesh apart?

That arm was hollow.

If the Mystery Machine is in the frickin’ garage I’m either going to die laughing or bang my head on the table.

The cat necklace now has eyes.

Scooby just poked Shaggy in the nipple during their demonstration.

At this point the gang have seen zombies, witches/actual witch’s ghost, aliens, and idk what else. So why are they scoffing at zombies?

Three of the four people were facing Scooby and Shaggy entirely and somehow still missed them running away.

Ah yes, a trapped kitchen cabinet. These people truly do know how to deal with them.

Zombies don’t haunt.

The “I’m clearly acting, let me try to say that again”

It’s at this point that I start to think the cameras and the bad actor and the convenient look-alikes all mean that this is a setup for somebody’s idea of a TV show

Weren’t the original zombies faster?

I WAS RIGHT! IT’S A MOVIE! But also directors don’t normally act in their movies.

This is obviously just the setup-within-a-setup. Haven’t decided what the second one is... cause that’s definitely a were-cat-person.

Is Mr Bad-actor-director in on the second plot? Because he’s definitely over-acting this “oh no I’ve been found out” and is not crying.

If they try to make Mystery Monster Truck Machine sentient I’ll be really annoyed.

“I thought I was hallucinating!” “Why didn’t you tell us?” Um. because he thought he was insane?

Cartoon details - everybody is mysteriously dry minutes after being doused with water.

So they ask “what’s the next scene” and he walks away going “you’ll see” and then... nothing happens. For ages.

Why is the gang so bad at acting scared? They’ve all been scared before.

Was Alan supposed to be saved? Still not sure if he’s in on this or not...

So it is very definitely the second day now, close to sundown, and even though they know about the “making a movie” plot absolutely nobody has questioned if that changes the plan on how they’re getting home.

Ah yes the cats

“I know I should be freaking out” but I’m too focused on my job cliche

So what happened to the fake islanders that greeted them in the beginning?

Fred is waaaaaaay to in to his car. Like... is there going to be shipping in fanfiction now? (Please don’t tell me I really reAlLY REALLY don’t wanna know)

So who even ARE these three random mofos? And what is with that hairstyle?

Still not convinced Alan isn’t part of this second plot... gone back and forth several times.

Why do people on tv use 2 feet on the brake when they need to brake really dramatically hard?

Please tell me the ramp only sort of works and they end up landing in the middle of the hotel

Aaaaah darn, they made it.

What was the point of the bridge being taken out if the cat people make it to the hotel without getting wet?

Ah yes, the “hiding in the hotel and running from the bad guys” montage

This is such an odd music choice...

Cat person clearly saw Shaggy and Scooby run from their hiding spots, so why’d he smash it anyway?

Daphne has so far done a better job of hiding than anyone

Cartoon detail - blue vase that got smashed a few seconds ago is back in its spot next to the stairs

Ah yes, the “take them off guard and pretend to be a server in a restaurant complete with disguises from who knows where”

Cat people that don’t like fish.... ok.

That rug would’ve unrolled very quickly, or at the very least at the bottom of the stairs.

So the cat people sundial device thing magically points to the treasure... but didn’t the cat people not know where it was? It’s not like the original movie was the first harvest moon since Moonscar’s death. They would’ve been able to do that a long time ago if that was the point of the dial. I know I worded that poorly.

AH the islanders were in on the second plot! That makes sense.

Am I the first person to remember there’s a fourth catperson?

Cat whistle.... cat... whistle... ok

How did the police get there?

So was the cat moondial laser thing part of Fred’s trap?

Are you saying this is the first time the cats have decided to dig in that basement? And it just conveniently happens while they’re all there?

He just walks off with all the gold. Doesn’t even offer to share it.

Why -did- Fred sell the Mystery Machine? I mean it should’ve just been repainted and ta-da- it’s a normal van.

Why -is- the Sheriff there. Ostensibly they’re in a completely different state. Why... is Daphne crying now... this is... ridiculous.

If it weren’t for you (all 3 people who might read this) I’d skip this.

Why are they now friends with the cats?

So... the mystery of the fourth cat person is just... unsolved? that’s ridiculous. Especially because Velma would’ve counted that as a lose end that needs tied up.

So! That was a trip! lmao. Hope everybody gets a laugh out of it.

[classicpirates]

"Lostmans Island" by PirateTales

Whilst sailing the Caribbean Sea looking for treasure, Captain Redbeard was captured by Imperial soldiers. He was promptly banished to the dreaded prison located on the remote Lostmans Island, where he now awaits the trial of the century, and the media spectacle which will surely follow. Can he prove his innocence to the prejudiced jury? Will he even try? Can he break free of the shackles with an outrageous bribe? Or will he choose to keep the gold and abscond into the wide yonder? Join us with PirateTales debut on the Pirate MOC scene and find out...https://www.classic-pirates.com/mocs/subtheme/soldiers/lostmans-island-piratetales Read the full article

[mxladymorgan]

❤ Under the cut there’s a drop of headcanons for Morgan across different settings. Some I had already addressed - here’s an updated list where some have been scratched out as I developed her further and some ideas are written down, yet to be thought about. Consider this post a cheatsheet for myself - I will have to insert these in proper information pages - and for you too - you might want to use something as an excuse for interaction.

ONE PIECE VERSE // DEFAULT IF NO OTHER SETTING IS SPECIFIED

It is not surprising at all but Morgan loves flowers and gardens. Her favourite flower is the camellia & the Carnahan house features a luxuriant conservatory where Morgan likes to read and have tea, and where her monkey Calico and Blue Bill, Silver’s blue macaw, like to play.

The night sky always reminds Morgan of home because of the way the minerals imbedded in the rock crown around the town of Shipwreck resemble diamonds. This glistening happens under a full moon and it’s for this reason the night sky feature Morgan admires the most.

Marriage to Morgan means being entitled to the rule of Shipwreck too, even if partially, for power is not automatically transferred to the man. However, were she to meet a tragic fate and leave no heir(ess) at least of age, her husband would be the sole ruler of Shipwreck. This is something Morgan’s first boyfriend, Melville James, was well-aware of, so much to the point it was his main reason to woo her in the first place.

Were she given the chance, Morgan would not eat a devil fruit.

Morgan is used to receiving love letters for Valentine’s Day, mostly from noblemen in the hopes of catching her attention and Shipwreck children who are motivated to write to “milady Morgan”. These last ones she always answers with handwritten notes and chocolates.

Morgan detests bugs. She finds them gross and is scared of them, mostly because her boy friends growing up once had the habit of dropping bugs on her. She likes ladybugs, though, only she prefers to call them ladybirds.

Morgan absolutely dislikes being called “princess”.

Favourites and associations.

MODERN VERSE

In the default modern verse, the Carnahans are a wealthy family - I have yet to think of whether Morgan’s mother, Elizabeth, is alive in this verse (or her date of death) and develop their careers, assets and dynamics.

Morgan is either Spanish, born to a Spanish mother and a Scottish father. For this reason, Morgan’s full name is Morgan Elizabeth Carnahan de León as per Spanish naming conventions, de León being Elizabeth’s surname. 

As a little girl, Morgan went to an all-girls school (possibly Catholic, as a link with the Carnahan’s faith, but this point is up to be revised for what that would mean/how that would impact on Morgan).

She then took ballet lessons which she kept on having until hitting puberty. Naturally, she was a part of the “age’s” staples of Tchaikovsky, the highlight of this short-lived career being her participation in the Danse des petits cygnes. 

She grew fond of the role of Odette and would have loved to play her had she not interrupted ballet. Because of this love, the swan is Morgan’s favourite animal.

(In unpublished writings I considered Morgan to do cheerleading as a teen but I want to decide between this activity and general dancing in a studio.)

A fashionista and fond of social networking, Morgan keeps a blog and Youtube channel where she shares her “OOTD”, shopping hauls, makeup tests and so on. (Will deffo find her a name/branding!)

After graduating, Morgan pursues a career as a museum tour guide (formerly flight assistant as per older headcanons), eventually getting a job at the local natural history museum.

If you marry Morgan, you can expect a bit of housewife magic and, opposing the OP verse, a good cook. However, you can also expect being scolded in Spanish and be told to sleep on the sofa if you do a big oopsie. You might also feel emasculated if working on the house is not your thing, as Morgan enjoys gardening and a little DIY and has got the handyman’s number on speed dial. Expect to catch her multitasking in the kitchen while holding a phone call with a Spanish friend or relative and/or listening to pop music. Britney Spears is the idol from her teenage years. If her new dish is delicious and you find a conspicuous bag of dog chow in the kitchen in spite of you guys not owning a dog, don’t fret - she bought it to feed the strays and hedgehogs should your house be in a hedgehog crossing area.

COFFEE SHOP AU 

In this AU with a modern setting, the Carnahans are a middle-class family and Elizabeth is alive. For reasons of coherence, Elizabeth retains her original OP illness, here named lupus, of which the treatment takes a toll in the family’s finances, along with Morgan’s want to pursue a higher education and go to university.

The capuchin monkey replaces the swan as Morgan’s favourite animal in this AU and it’s this love for primates that dictates her wish to study primatology.

Morgan retains her love for fashion, though, naturally, not in the same moulds as her finances are different. The ensembles she blogs about are cheaper alternatives to looks from big fashion magazines and brands for everyone to copy, her makeup is drugstore bought and she loves thrifting. The one luxury item she owns is her signature red lipstick.

TITANIC VERSE

To be added.

ABOUT SHIPWRECK

Naturally, the island (and town!) owes its name to its origins - the first settlers having been shipwrecked on it. They started working in the town, making use of the resources available, as they saw the potential in the island’s geography acting like a natural fortress and eventually established sailing as a means to compensate the island’s flaws/lacking resources. The original shipwrecked galleon can still be visited and it has become a prominent landmark in Shipwreck. (In due time, a comprehensive history of the island/town will be written.)

Though hidden from unwanted eyes, Shipwreck is a relatively close neighbour to Baterilla, with which it makes commerce.

There is an old legend explaining why there are shiny minerals in the rocks encircling the town - presumably, there are the shards of a big diamond once offered from one deity to another. (This and other Shipwreckian folklore are yet to be developed.)

The Lord’s (or Lady’s) big duty is to make sure the townies abide by the law - the original codex written by the settlers of the island and which has been revised every time a change was needed, in order to accommodate the new realities and work for them. For this reason, Shipwreck counts on a jury, a body of enforcement that acts mostly on small bursts of violence or criminal activity, the Lord presiding over the court. Should the Lord/Lady be asked council directly by the townies over lesser things, it’s their duty to be of assistance. Each Lord/Lady enjoys the freedom to do as they see fit, provided they act in Shipwreck’s best interests - acting upon selfish intentions will sooner mean a destitution than tyranny. Lord Silver, being more of an active man, a seafarer, takes his crew on pirating ventures that generate revenue/bring treasure to Shipwreck, a part of which is invested in public works/put to public service. (The politics of Shipwreck will be developed in due time.)

Shipwreck architecture is mostly inspired by that of Spain. Here’s a visual reference.

LINKS TO RELATED POSTS

What flower are you?

Flaws.

What is your muse’s pokémon team? (Will use if a Pokémon verse is ever established.)

What is your muse’s personality type?

Writer aesthetics.

Elements statements.

Muse body language.

Your love type.

What kind of heart do you have?

Muse’s three archetypes.

Morgan’s most important possessions.

Morgan’s idols.

Morgan’s laughter 1, 2.

Morgan as a parent.

The story of Morgan’s crew’s demise as told in the first person.

[cappurrccino]

"we're hiding from these very mutinous pirates in our very hidden house... I'll just go rig up a very visible british flag on top of it real quick, brb"

SIR?? NO??

[scoobydoozombieisland1998]

1-42

hey buddy…… thats like a lot so U Asked For It

Have you ever:

1. Skipped class?

ONCE in freshmen year to finish homework and no one will ever let me forget it

2. Done drugs?

just weed

3. Self harmed?

yeet

4. Drank?

nein

5. Shoplifted?

ive been an unwitting accomplice

6. Gotten a tattoo?

not as of yet

7. Broken up with someone?

nope

What’s your favorite:

8. Show?

HHMMMMMMM probably buffy or brooklyn nine nine,,……. honorable mentions to bobs burgers xfiles and whose line

9. Movie?

ahhhhhhhh im gonna go with muppet treasure island bc im a serious aspiring film student

10. Song?

these days its a tie between drive it like you stole it by sing street bebe by wjsn the resurrectionist by frank iero and the patience and too dumb to die by green day

11. Tumblr?

i frequent my siblings blogs a lot, and my friends and mutuals, but probably notbecauseofvictories bc ive been reading her writing nonstop lately

12. Singer/Band?

fall out boy and wjsn for Top Two

13. Memory?

the night of homecoming jillian and i didnt go but we ate pizza in her basement and watched brooklyn nine nine and then met everyone at an ihop and had a weird run in with teenage boys and went back and slept over it was p tame but it was fun

14. Book?

right now the raven boys

This or that:

15. Invisibility or Ability to fly?

fly

16. Cookies or Cake?

cookies

17. Twitter or Facebook?

twitter

18. Movies or Books?

ugaguahhhhhhhhhhhh…… movies

19. Coke or Sprite?

coke

20. Blind or Deaf?

blind i gotta be able to hear music

21. Tea or Coffee?

tea but like only peach tea lmao

What’s your:

22. Age?

17

23. Sign?

virgo

24. Height?

5′4″

25. Sexual orientation?

bi

26. Shoe size?

8

27. Religion?

relunctant catholic (agnostic)

28. Longest relationship?

me and my baby blanket (ive never had one)

Opinion on:

29. Gay rights?

love those gays

30. Second chances?

i can hold a grudge like a bitch

31. Long distance relationships?

would love one

32. Abortion?

pro choice

33. The death penalty?

i have no coherent or informed thoughts on it

34. Marijuana ?

decriminalize it and legalize it

35. Love?

out there

Do you:

36. Believe in ghost?

ya

37. Shower facing the shower head or turned away from it?

facing…

38. Sleep with the door opened or closed?

closed

39. Love someone?

love my friends and siblings (dahyun eunseo chan wonwoo rosie....)

40. Still watch cartoons?

yeah i dont hate fun

41. Have a boyfriend/girlfriend?

nope

42. Like yourself?

jurys still out

[ramblingsofthegoldenwitch]

Was there a reason ever given as to why Kumasawa and Genji never told anyone about Kinzo raping his daughter?

Well,

they techinically told someone, that someone being Sayo, but I guess you mean the police or someone who could stop Kinzo, right?

No, they never gave the reason.

My guess, based on Umineko and other Japanese media is that the servants in families like the Ushiromiya aren’t just people who work there, but property that has to be subservient and loyal.

In another story I read the young master raped multiple times a servant. An older servant was sorry for the younger servant but, when confronted on the topic she excused herself claiming she was just a servant and therefore couldn’t do nothing and that the master had also raped her, in a manner that basically implied ‘yeah, it’s horrible this happened to us but they’re the masters and they can do this to us and we can solely obey’.

We see a bit of this mentality in Umineko, where for Genji the perfect servant is like furniture, an object at his master’s service, where Natsuhi can hire as a maid a child of supposedly six and can tell Sayo she won’t be allowed to eat or rest until she had finished cleaning the WHOLE HALL on her own.

(Natsuhi) "Then perhaps you should aim to do a truly thorough cleaning. Shannon, I order you to clean the reception hall right now. It is an important hall, where several pictures treasured by the Head are displayed, and where honored guests of the Ushiromiya family are welcomed. Clean it thoroughly, so that not a speck of dust remains, and so that even you are satisfied. Of course, you will finish before the day is out. Until you finish that and report it to me, you will not be permitted any food or rest. Understood?"(Shannon) " ...Y-Yes, Oku-sama."(Natsuhi) "That is good. Servants should endeavor to only use those words. The next time you talk back, your punishment will be even more severe, so with that in mind, engrave these words in your heart."(Shannon) "Yes, ...Oku-sama. ...Thank you for your guidance."(Natsuhi) "You are welcome." [EP 2]

We can assume that Japanese readers wouldn’t need explanations because they would know how a servant would act/react.

Yes, it’s depressing. But now, let’s look at something that’s even more depressing.

What would have happened if someone had tried reporting what was going on between Kinzo and Beatrice?

First of all they couldn’t prove she was his daughter as Beatrice’s birth isn’t registred anywhere.

Umineko takes place in 1986. Beatrice died 19 years before so around 1967.

Highly accurate genetic paternity testing became a possibility in the 1960s, but I’m not sure this happened in Japan as well and anyway as they were basically something new probably no one would think at using it and I’m not even sure Beatrice could go and ask for one to prove that Kinzo was her father.

The most they could do was to claim Kinzo is keeping a woman with no documents proving her identity and who might or might not be his daughter, in his island in a pretty house... to which Kinzo can reply he’s doing it out of the kindness of his heart as she’s a poor orphan.

The docoments? Oh, ops, he was so sure there were some... maybe they got lost?

Now... the rape. In present time it’s hard enough to persuade a jury that if a woman is kicking and screaming ‘no’ she’s not playing hard to get, she’s being raped. In 1967 it was very likely much harder, especially considering that, although Beatrice likely didn’t agree, I doubt Kinzo ‘forced her’ as in ‘he took her while she was kicking and screaming’. More likely he told her ‘do this and that’ or ‘just stay put and take part to my magic rite’ and although she didn’t like it she complied out of obedience. As ignorant as she was she probably didn’t even knew what she was forced into was sex, or that she was being raped. We know that what Kinzo did was still rape because, although she likely obeyed, she had no idea what she was consenting at, what he was doing to her. In this she was mostly like a child.

However... how hard it would be to persuade a 1967 jury? Or a police officer for the matter?

Last but not least, Kinzo is a filthy rich, filthy powerful guy. Not only the police would think twice before trying to blame him, but he can likely buy everyone in Japan so as to get away without troubles and, at the same time, completely ruin the life of whoever had accused him.

After all the Ushiromiya had no problems to hide how Natsuhi murdered a maid.

So, I find horrible that no one had reported what was going on with Beatrice, but I think the servants didn’t do it due to the mind setting of the time, and that even if they had tried, more likely they would have accomplished nothing.

Which is terrible, really.

[juditmiltz]

A wild ride: South Florida’s top real estate news of 2018

From left: The Jills, Jeff Bezos, Kevin Tomlinson, and David Beckham. (Credit: Getty Images)

It was a tumultuous year for South Florida real estate, which began on an upbeat note when Miami was shortlisted in January in the competition for Amazon’s second headquarters.

While Amazon went another direction — north to New York and Virginia — local voters did approve the David Beckham-led bid to build an Major League Soccer stadium and complex at Melreese Country Club.

The collapse of the Florida International University bridge in March, which killed six people, was a low-point, and prompted a federal investigation that is ongoing.

Meanwhile, former broker Kevin Tomlinson went on trial, accused of extorting Coldwell Banker star brokers “The Jills.” The case, which gained national attention, exposed an industry-wide secret: rampant manipulation of the Multiple Listing Service.

In perhaps the biggest scandal of the year, federal prosecutors in July filed charges against eight defendants tied to a $1 billion Venezuelan money laundering scheme allegedly using South Florida residential real estate. More charges and guilty pleas have followed.

All the while, demand for luxury homes skyrocketed from tax refugees — ultra-wealthy residents of states with income taxes.

And in national news that touched South Florida, the federal Opportunity Zones program that provides tax incentives to developers who pour money into underserved neighborhoods sent investors scrambling to take advantage.

Read on for a look at some of the biggest stories to drop in 2018.

Amazon’s HQ2:

Miami and South Florida made it to the shortlist of 20 sites Amazon announced in January for its second headquarters, dangling the possibility of constructing 500,000 square feet of office space by 2019, and about 8 million square feet of space by its planned completion in 2027, while creating 50,000 new jobs.

South Florida’s bid offered eight sites: five in Miami-Dade, two in Broward County and one in Palm Beach County. The list included three locations in and around Overtown, including the Miami Worldcenter site, as well as Downtown Doral in Doral.

As the months dragged on, South Florida eventually lost the race, as Amazon announced in November that it would split its two new headquarters between Long Island City and Crystal City. And in a last-minute surprise, the company also revealed it will be opening a “regional hub” in downtown Nashville.

FIU bridge collapse:

March 15 was a tragic day in Miami, when the Florida International University pedestrian bridge under construction on Southwest Eighth Street collapsed, crushing cars and leading to the deaths of six people.

Munilla Construction Management, a prominent, Cuban-American, family owned construction business built the 289-foot-long bridge, and FIGG Bridge Engineers designed the pedestrian bridge.

In November, federal highway investigators said that designers miscalculated the load-bearing strength of the north end of the pedestrian bridge. The design errors were consistent with cracks in the FIU bridge before it collapsed, investigators said. However, the National Transportation Safety Board has not cited those design errors as the cause of the bridge collapse, and its investigation of the catastrophe is expected to continue into next year.

Kevin Tomlinson’s trial:

Former real estate agent Kevin Tomlinson was sentenced at the end of August to an extended period of probation and was banned from the industry for extorting Coldwell Banker’s the Jills and threatening to expose them for manipulation of home sales data.

Tomlinson, who faced up to 30 years in prison, was convicted by a jury in June on two counts of extortion for his demand that Jill Eber and Jill Hertzberg pay $800,000 in exchange for his silence.

It all began in 2015, when, after four months of digging through the Jills team’s listings, Tomlinson filed a complaint with the Miami Association of Realtors. He detailed 51 listings the Jills manipulated a total of 552 times between 2011 and 2015. Tomlinson said the combined value of those properties totaled more than $372 million, and that the Jills erased nearly 23,740 days on market from those listings in an effort to make the real estate more attractive to potential buyers.

When Tomlinson confronted the Jills, they went to the police and eventually recorded conversations in which he demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep quiet.

In March 2016, the Miami Association of Realtors implemented a new fine structure for agents manipulating the MLS. For every violation, members are now required to pay $5,000.

Venezuelan money laundering:

Alejandro Andrade, a former national treasurer of Venezuela, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in November for his role in a $1 billion money laundering scheme in which much of the money allegedly went into South Florida real estate.

Andrade had admitted in a guilty plea that he received over $1 billion worth of bribes from his co-conspirator, Venezuelan TV mogul Raul Gorrín, and other co-conspirators. In exchange, he allowed them to tap into Venezuela’s special fixed currency exchange rate, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The fixed rate is much more favorable than the market rate.

Federal prosecutors said Andrade received cash as well as private jets, yachts, cars, homes, champion horses, and high-end watches from his co-conspirators. As part of his guilty plea, he agreed to forfeit his assets, which included five real estate properties in Wellington, Delray Beach and Palm Beach.

Authorities are also seeking to seize about two-dozen properties allegedly tied to Gorrín. Those residences include luxury homes in Miami’s Cocoplum neighborhood and six in Manhattan.

In a separate billion-dollar money laundering scheme, federal prosecutors in July charged eight people in an alleged scheme in which top Venezuelan officials siphoned funds out of the state oil company, and into assets throughout the world.

In both cases, some of the money is alleged to have been poured into two units at Dezer Development’s luxury Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach.

South Florida as a tax haven:

All year, ultra-wealthy out-of-state buyers have been flocking to South Florida, scooping up multimillion-dollar homes and condos with plans to establish residency in order to avoid shelling out money to the government as a result of last year’s tax reform.

The out-of-staters are largely top-earning hedge funders, real estate bigwigs, big-time entrepreneurs and CEOs from states such as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California and Illinois — places with state income taxes as high as 13.3 percent, and even city taxes in the case of New York City. Florida, on the other hand, has no state income tax.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed in December 2017, limited the ability of taxpayers to deduct state and local taxes (SALT) from their federal taxable income in 2018, leading to the surge of interest in Florida.

David Beckham’s group’s MLS soccer stadium complex:

In November, city of Miami voters gave David Beckham and his partners the green light to move forward with their plans to bring a Major League Soccer stadium and an ambitious mixed-use project to Miami.

Called Freedom Park, the complex could include a 25,000-square-foot soccer stadium as well as more than 1 million square feet of retail and office space and about 750 hotel rooms on a site that is now home to Melreese County Club, a public golf course. In total, the development is valued at $1 billion and will be built on 73 acres out of the 131-acre country club.

The city still has to negotiate a 99-year lease with the group, led by the soccer superstar, along with Jorge and Jose Mas, Sprint’s Marcelo Claure and Softbank’s Masayoshi Son. Once negotiations are complete, four out of five Miami commissioners will have to give final approval to the lease.

Still to be determined is exactly what the owners will pay for the development site. The Beckham group previously said it would pay an annual rent of at least $3.6 million — or fair market value as determined by two independent appraisals — plus $20 million to fund the park’s construction, paid in annual installments of $666,667 for 30 years. The city ordered appraisals for the 131-acre site by CBRE and Joseph J. Blake.

Also key are the costs associated with the environmental remediation of the site, which includes dealing with coal ash buried underneath the golf course. The Beckham group has previously said it would be responsible for paying up to $35 million for these costs.

Opportunity Zones:

In October, the federal government issued expanded guidelines for the Opportunity Zones program, which was part of the Trump administration’s December 2017 tax overhaul. It provides tax deferments and breaks for developers who invest in projects in designated low-income neighborhoods across the country.

There are 8,700 communities that have been designated as Opportunity Zones nationwide, including 67 in Miami-Dade County. Many large investors have already started setting up funds to invest in Opportunity Zones.

from The Real Deal Miami https://therealdeal.com/miami/2018/12/31/a-wild-ride-south-floridas-top-real-estate-news-of-2018/ via IFTTT

[nicolesrollins]

A wild ride: South Florida’s top real estate news of 2018

From left: The Jills, Jeff Bezos, Kevin Tomlinson, and David Beckham. (Credit: Getty Images)

It was a tumultuous year for South Florida real estate, which began on an upbeat note when Miami was shortlisted in January in the competition for Amazon’s second headquarters.

While Amazon went another direction — north to New York and Virginia — local voters did approve the David Beckham-led bid to build an Major League Soccer stadium and complex at Melreese Country Club.

The collapse of the Florida International University bridge in March, which killed six people, was a low-point, and prompted a federal investigation that is ongoing.

Meanwhile, former broker Kevin Tomlinson went on trial, accused of extorting Coldwell Banker star brokers “The Jills.” The case, which gained national attention, exposed an industry-wide secret: rampant manipulation of the Multiple Listing Service.

In perhaps the biggest scandal of the year, federal prosecutors in July filed charges against eight defendants tied to a $1 billion Venezuelan money laundering scheme allegedly using South Florida residential real estate. More charges and guilty pleas have followed.

All the while, demand for luxury homes skyrocketed from tax refugees — ultra-wealthy residents of states with income taxes.

And in national news that touched South Florida, the federal Opportunity Zones program that provides tax incentives to developers who pour money into underserved neighborhoods sent investors scrambling to take advantage.

Read on for a look at some of the biggest stories to drop in 2018.

Amazon’s HQ2:

Miami and South Florida made it to the shortlist of 20 sites Amazon announced in January for its second headquarters, dangling the possibility of constructing 500,000 square feet of office space by 2019, and about 8 million square feet of space by its planned completion in 2027, while creating 50,000 new jobs.

South Florida’s bid offered eight sites: five in Miami-Dade, two in Broward County and one in Palm Beach County. The list included three locations in and around Overtown, including the Miami Worldcenter site, as well as Downtown Doral in Doral.

As the months dragged on, South Florida eventually lost the race, as Amazon announced in November that it would split its two new headquarters between Long Island City and Crystal City. And in a last-minute surprise, the company also revealed it will be opening a “regional hub” in downtown Nashville.

FIU bridge collapse:

March 15 was a tragic day in Miami, when the Florida International University pedestrian bridge under construction on Southwest Eighth Street collapsed, crushing cars and leading to the deaths of six people.

Munilla Construction Management, a prominent, Cuban-American, family owned construction business built the 289-foot-long bridge, and FIGG Bridge Engineers designed the pedestrian bridge.

In November, federal highway investigators said that designers miscalculated the load-bearing strength of the north end of the pedestrian bridge. The design errors were consistent with cracks in the FIU bridge before it collapsed, investigators said. However, the National Transportation Safety Board has not cited those design errors as the cause of the bridge collapse, and its investigation of the catastrophe is expected to continue into next year.

Kevin Tomlinson’s trial:

Former real estate agent Kevin Tomlinson was sentenced at the end of August to an extended period of probation and was banned from the industry for extorting Coldwell Banker’s the Jills and threatening to expose them for manipulation of home sales data.

Tomlinson, who faced up to 30 years in prison, was convicted by a jury in June on two counts of extortion for his demand that Jill Eber and Jill Hertzberg pay $800,000 in exchange for his silence.

It all began in 2015, when, after four months of digging through the Jills team’s listings, Tomlinson filed a complaint with the Miami Association of Realtors. He detailed 51 listings the Jills manipulated a total of 552 times between 2011 and 2015. Tomlinson said the combined value of those properties totaled more than $372 million, and that the Jills erased nearly 23,740 days on market from those listings in an effort to make the real estate more attractive to potential buyers.

When Tomlinson confronted the Jills, they went to the police and eventually recorded conversations in which he demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep quiet.

In March 2016, the Miami Association of Realtors implemented a new fine structure for agents manipulating the MLS. For every violation, members are now required to pay $5,000.

Venezuelan money laundering:

Alejandro Andrade, a former national treasurer of Venezuela, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in November for his role in a $1 billion money laundering scheme in which much of the money allegedly went into South Florida real estate.

Andrade had admitted in a guilty plea that he received over $1 billion worth of bribes from his co-conspirator, Venezuelan TV mogul Raul Gorrín, and other co-conspirators. In exchange, he allowed them to tap into Venezuela’s special fixed currency exchange rate, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The fixed rate is much more favorable than the market rate.

Federal prosecutors said Andrade received cash as well as private jets, yachts, cars, homes, champion horses, and high-end watches from his co-conspirators. As part of his guilty plea, he agreed to forfeit his assets, which included five real estate properties in Wellington, Delray Beach and Palm Beach.

Authorities are also seeking to seize about two-dozen properties allegedly tied to Gorrín. Those residences include luxury homes in Miami’s Cocoplum neighborhood and six in Manhattan.

In a separate billion-dollar money laundering scheme, federal prosecutors in July charged eight people in an alleged scheme in which top Venezuelan officials siphoned funds out of the state oil company, and into assets throughout the world.

In both cases, some of the money is alleged to have been poured into two units at Dezer Development’s luxury Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach.

South Florida as a tax haven:

All year, ultra-wealthy out-of-state buyers have been flocking to South Florida, scooping up multimillion-dollar homes and condos with plans to establish residency in order to avoid shelling out money to the government as a result of last year’s tax reform.

The out-of-staters are largely top-earning hedge funders, real estate bigwigs, big-time entrepreneurs and CEOs from states such as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California and Illinois — places with state income taxes as high as 13.3 percent, and even city taxes in the case of New York City. Florida, on the other hand, has no state income tax.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed in December 2017, limited the ability of taxpayers to deduct state and local taxes (SALT) from their federal taxable income in 2018, leading to the surge of interest in Florida.

David Beckham’s group’s MLS soccer stadium complex:

In November, city of Miami voters gave David Beckham and his partners the green light to move forward with their plans to bring a Major League Soccer stadium and an ambitious mixed-use project to Miami.

Called Freedom Park, the complex could include a 25,000-square-foot soccer stadium as well as more than 1 million square feet of retail and office space and about 750 hotel rooms on a site that is now home to Melreese County Club, a public golf course. In total, the development is valued at $1 billion and will be built on 73 acres out of the 131-acre country club.

The city still has to negotiate a 99-year lease with the group, led by the soccer superstar, along with Jorge and Jose Mas, Sprint’s Marcelo Claure and Softbank’s Masayoshi Son. Once negotiations are complete, four out of five Miami commissioners will have to give final approval to the lease.

Still to be determined is exactly what the owners will pay for the development site. The Beckham group previously said it would pay an annual rent of at least $3.6 million — or fair market value as determined by two independent appraisals — plus $20 million to fund the park’s construction, paid in annual installments of $666,667 for 30 years. The city ordered appraisals for the 131-acre site by CBRE and Joseph J. Blake.

Also key are the costs associated with the environmental remediation of the site, which includes dealing with coal ash buried underneath the golf course. The Beckham group has previously said it would be responsible for paying up to $35 million for these costs.

Opportunity Zones:

In October, the federal government issued expanded guidelines for the Opportunity Zones program, which was part of the Trump administration’s December 2017 tax overhaul. It provides tax deferments and breaks for developers who invest in projects in designated low-income neighborhoods across the country.

There are 8,700 communities that have been designated as Opportunity Zones nationwide, including 67 in Miami-Dade County. Many large investors have already started setting up funds to invest in Opportunity Zones.

from The Real Deal Miami & Real Estate News News | & Curbed Miami - All https://therealdeal.com/miami/2018/12/31/a-wild-ride-south-floridas-top-real-estate-news-of-2018/ via IFTTT

[scotianostra]

On January 8th 1697 Thomas Aikenhead was executed in Edinburgh.

This is a crackin, if sad tale, and shows you how religious beliefs can be a blight on our history.

So who was oor Thomas, a villain?, a murderer?, a smuggler?, or some enemy of the state? No Thomas's crime was blasphemy who took the lord's name in vain.......this would be comic if it wasn't for the tragic fact that he was executed, unlike the man in Life of Brian, who uttered the words Jehova, Thomas complained that he wished he was warming himself in hell rather than that chilly night walking past the recently built Tron Kirk on Edinburgh's Royal Mile. Well that's the simple story that the tour guides that take you round the Old Town will tell you, there is a bit more to it so I will bore you with a bit more of the detail. Thomas Aikenhead came from a well-to-do family in Edinburgh, his father being listed as a surgeon but more probably an apothecary, a dispenser of herbs and potions. Both his parents were dead by the time he became a student at Edinburgh University at the age of 16 or 17.

His mother had been a daughter of the manse, and you would think that would have made Aikenhead wary of challenging the established religion of the time, namely the all-powerful Church of Scotland, especially while still a student and under the constant gaze of professors, lecturers and, as it turned out, his fellow students.

These were the dying days of a curious period in Scottish history. Aikenhead would have been four when the ‘Wizard of the West Bow’ Major Thomas Weir was executed in 1670. Weir was by day an extreme Calvinist but by night an incestuous Satanist and it takes no great leap of reason to see that an impressionable young boy might well have been affected by the trial and execution of a local celebrity that lived not far from him.

The 1680s was also the ‘killing time’ for the Covenanters when many died because of they worshipped their same god in differing ways!

Thomas was a keen student and an avid reader, he may or may not have known and Edinburgh bookseller, John Frazer, who had been prosecuted after admitting either reading, or being in possession of Charles Blount’s Oracles of Reason a book I know nothing about but gather it relates to Deism, which questioned the existence or more importanyly, non-existence of God or Satan, Frazer had repented ad as it was a first offence was sackclothed and jailed in the old Tolbooth for a number of months.

Anyway, Thomas had a friend, well he thought he had a friend, Murdo Craig, but Murdo, on the sly had been keeping notes on Aitkenhead, and his dalliances with blasphemous ideals, we know that because they formed a large part of the indictment against Aikenhead.

“Nevertheless it is of verity, that you Thomas Aikenhead, shakeing off all fear of God and regaird to his majesties lawes, have now for more than a twelvemoneth by past, and upon severall of the dayes within the said space, and ane or other of the same, made it as it were your endeavour and work in severall compainies to vent your wicked blasphemies against God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, and against the holy Scriptures, and all revealled religione, in soe far as upon ane or other of the dayes forsaid, you said and affirmed, that divinity or the doctrine of theologie was a rapsidie of faigned and ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the morall doctrine of philosophers, and pairtly of poeticall fictions and extravagant chimeras, or words to this effect or purpose, with severall other such reproachfull expressions.”

That was just for starters. Sir James Stewart of Goodtrees, the Lord Advocate of the day, had taken a personal interest in the case and he decided to throw the whole lot of Craig’s testimony at Aikenhead who was arrested in November, 1696, and charged under the Blasphemy Act of 1661 which carried the death penalty. He also charged Aikenhead under a more recent act, which made it a criminal offence to ‘deny, impugn or quarrel’ about the existence of God.The prosecution papers go on to record

“You have lykwayes in discourse preferred Mahomet to the blessed Jesus, and you have said that you hoped to see Christianity greatly weakened, and that you are confident that in a short tyme it will be utterly extirpate.”

For Mahomet, read Muhammad, could young Thomas be an Islam convert in 17th century Edinburgh, I very much doubt it, they just needed to make an example of the young student, and he knew by now knew that he was in very great trouble and protested in effect that he was guilty only of the sin of being youthful and had been led astray by the books he had read. He claimed to have repented of his anti-Christian beliefs and was once again a good Presbyterian. In this way he seems to have thrown himself upon the mercy of the court, but there was no mercy.  On Christmas Eve, 1696, a jury found him guilty. Sir James Stewart asked for the death penalty and it was granted and “pronounced for doom,” as Scottish judges were still saying well into the 20th century in capital punishment cases. Aikenhead pleaded for his life to the Privy Council emphasising his youth, his dire circumstances, and the fact that he was reconciled to the Protestant religion. There was some support for the death sentence to be commuted from at least two councillors and two Church of Scotland ministers, but the General Assembly of the Kirk intervened, demanding that Aikenhead suffer 

“vigorous execution to curb the abounding of impiety and profanity in this land”.

In his last letter to friends, written in the Tolbooth prison in Edinburgh as he awaited execution, Aikenhead at last gave a plausible explanation for his conduct – that he had been a disappointed seeker after truth. He wrote: 

“It is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth and to seek for it as for hid treasure. So I proceeded until the more I thought thereon, the further I was from finding the verity I desired.” In truth, in a repressed society the student had just gone too far in rejecting the doctrines of Christianity calling it “feigned and ill-invented nonsense”

Aikenhead went to his death on January 8, 1697, hanged on the scaffold at Shrubhill between Edinburgh and Leith. It is said that before he died he proclaimed that moral laws were the work of governments and men. In his hand as the noose was plced around his neck was the Holy Bible. The execution angered many people for many years afterwards. The great English historian Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote an account of the hanging and called the execution “a crime such has never since polluted the island.”He continued: “The preachers who were the boy’s murderers crowded round him at the gallows, and, while he was struggling in the last agony, insulted Heaven with prayers more blasphemous than any thing that he had ever uttered.”

There was other evidence of church authorities being present as Aikenhead died. He was the last man in Britain to be hanged for blasphemy.

According to Arthur Herman in his book "How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It", the execution of Aikenhead was “the last hurrah of Scotland’s Calvinist ayatollahs” before the dawning of the age of reason in the Enlightenment.

Now we can all rejoice in The Enlightenment but a full 30 years later in the small town of Dornoch in Sutherland, Janet Horne was put on trial for the “crime” of having a daughter whose feet and hands were misshapen and who had herself given birth to a son with disabilities. She was the last woman in Britain to be burned at the stake for being a witch, her death bringing to an end the “burning time” when perhaps 4000 Scottish women were executed for the crime of witchcraft.

I thought I would add a wee bit more about Shrubhill in Leith, as most of us usually only regard Edinburgh's Old Town, The Tolbooth, and Grassmarket as sites where executions took place. I can't find out why Aikenhead was taken to, at what at the time, was a different town for his executions I did however find records  of several taking place at the site, now student accommodation, but the site of Edinburghs tram workshops and powerstation, but beforehand not many know that it was the site of he gibbet known as the Gallow Lee, literally the "field with the gallows",

Bodies were buried at the base of the gallows or their ashes scattered if burnt. The most famous of those that met their end here was perhaps Major Weir, the Wizard of the West Bow.

1570- Two criminals strangled and burned to death.

1570 (4 October)- Rev. John Kelloe minister of Spott, East Lothian (near Dunbar) strangled and burnt for the murder of his wife

1664- Nine witches strangled and burnt

1670- Major Thomas Weir, the self-confessed warlock, strangled and burnt for witchcraft (almost the only self-confessed witch executed).

1678- Five witches strangled and burnt

1680- Part of the body of Covenanter David Hackston was hung in chains after his execution at the mercat cross in Edinburgh for the murder of Archbishop Sharp in 1679.

1681 (10 October)- Covenanters Garnock, Foreman, Russel, Ferrie and Stewart hanged and beheaded. Their headless bodies were buried at the site and their heads placed on the Cowgate Port at the foot of the Pleasance. Friends reburied the bodies in the graveyard of the West Kirk (St. Cuthberts). The heads were retrieved, placed in a box and then buried in garden ground at Lauriston. They lay there until 7 October 1726 when the then owner, Mr Shaw, had them exhumed and reburied near the Martyrs' Monument in Greyfriars Kirkyard.

1697 (8 January)- Thomas Aikenhead, a 19-year-old theology student at Edinburgh University became the last person to be executed under Scotland's blasphemy laws (and the last in Britain to be executed for that crime).

1752 (10 January)- Norman Ross, a footman, hanged for the murder of Lady Baillie, sister of Home, Laird of Wedderburn. The body was left to hang in a gibbet cage "for many a year" and became a local ghoulish tourist attraction.

Post mid 18th Century the Nor’ Loch was drained and the city expanded to the north by the building of the New Town with stone quarried from nearby Craigleith quarry. In such building sand was needed to add to the lime mortar and Gallow Lee proved to be just what was needed. The owner of Gallow Lee charged the builders to cart away the sand, containing the ashes and other remains of thousands of victims. The sandy mound of the Gallow Lee has gone I wonder how many New Town residents are aware that the very fabric of their building is bound together with the remains of  these poor women convicted of being witches, covenanters and criminals?