#welsh guards 23

[princesscatherinemiddleton]

The Princess of Wales Winter 2024 Photo Challenge!

Day Two: Favourite photo(s) of Catherine on St Patrick’s Day/St David’s Day/St Andrew’s Day

The last St Andrew's day activity that was St Andrew's day related being in 2012 while she has 47 thousand photos available to show her celebrating St Patrick's day... something something

[world-of-wales]

I SPY THE WELSH GUARDS LEEK BROOCH!

[littlemuoi]

Duke of Edinburgh praises mental health charity for work with veterans on visit to Telford by Dominic Robertson (November 9th 2023)

ARCHIVE LINK

Prince Edward attended two engagements in Telford on Wednesday afternoon – first a visit to the Army Reserve Centre, before joining a tea party at Dawley Town Hall.

Both events were military-themed, with the Duke meeting cadets at the reserve centre, before meeting agencies and groups which support veterans, gathered together by Telford & Wrekin Council at the town hall, where they also marked the building's 150th birthday.

Joined by the Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire, Anna Turner, the Duke talked at length with young people, veterans, and representatives of charities which support them.

The relaxed and light-hearted Duke shared his sense of humour during his visit, joking on arrival into a packed but silent town hall that he had "killed the party".

Unveiling a plaque to mark the hall's anniversary The Duke was introduced by the leader of Telford & Wrekin Council, Councillor Shaun Davies, who shared the history of the hall – and how when it was not allowed to serve alcohol, locals set up a pub nearby.

Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh visits the Army Reserve Centre, Telford. Cadet Lance Corporal Dylan Fugatt is presented with his certificate. LAST COPYRIGHT NATIONAL WORLD PLC TIM THURSFIELD 08/11/23.

Addressing the guests the Duke said: "First of all it was really good to meet you all and thank you for your collective service you have done for this country, it is very, very much appreciated. And thank you to Mind and everyone else who organises these get-togethers for you.

"I am told this is not your typical day for getting together so I apologise if I have completely and totally confused your entire week.

"Anyway I have been asked to unveil this particular plaque, I am guessing a few of you can probably remember when the building opened - forgive me, you remember when the pub opened!"

The Duke of Edinburgh on his visit to Telford's Army Resource Centre.

To a background of laughter the Duke promised to try and make the unveiling "as slick as possible," adding: "I want you to know this has taken years of practice."

During his visit he met representatives from Telford Mind, a mental health charity that supports veterans, and the people who use its services.

The Duke of Edinburgh watches Staff Corporal Declan Poole trying a flight simulator.

He also took time to sit and chat with other groups such as Models for Heroes, and the All Sports Coaches Coaching Academy.

The academy trains veterans to coach youngsters at sports, and provide mental health support, as well as a range of other skills.

The Duke meets representatives from the All sports Coaches Coaching Academy.

The organisation's operation's director, Stuart Cook, who served for five years with the Welsh Guards, was joined by coach Johnny Bradley, who is currently serving with the Royal Irish Regiment, the group's founder Jim Prescott, and chairman Clive Barnard.

Mr Cook, 35, from Telford, said the Duke had been interested in what sports they provided.

He said: "He was having a chat, asking about what sports we like, what we do. Me and Johnny do boxing and he said Johnny has longer arms, 'does that mean he should beat me?'"

The Duke of Edinburgh presents a Long Service Good Conduct award to Sergeant Joel Edwards.

Mr Bradley, 33, explained how the group could make a difference, saying: "I know first-hand how sports can help towards better mental health. I have been through what I have been through myself so to be part of what Jim has put together has really helped me, so now hopefully I can help others."

Telford Mind provides a Monday Club where veterans can chat and support each other, and the Duke talked to a number of people who attend the sessions.

Mind trustee, Trevor Hirst, who served with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), said the Duke had been "funny", "very friendly", and "easy to chat to".

He said: "He asked who I served with and he said he should have recognised from my tie because his wife is a patron of the REME charity."

Cadets giving a gun-run demonstration.

Tom Kane, 65, from Telford, attends the Telford sessions. He came along to the tea party with his dog Harley.

Mr Kane, who spent 30 years in the RAF, said the Duke had asked about Harley.

He said: "He asked what he does for me and I said he tells me when someone is at the door, tells me when the phone rings, and tells me when the missus wants me."

The Duke chatted with the group Models for Heroes – an organisation which allows veterans and people in the services to meet up and build models together.

Gary Morris, who runs the Telford group, was joined by two RAF servicemen who run the RAF Cosford group, Chris King and George Hickish, and other members.

They explained that the Duke had talked about the original Lightning aircraft, saying that when he was at school they would take off and everyone would have to stop talking because the planes were so loud.

Louise Heap, CEO of Telford Mind, said the Duke had asked about what services they provide and how they work, with service manager Jen Caldicott adding: "He just thanked us for the great work we do."

The Duke unveils a plaque marking 150 years of Dawley Town Hall.

Speaking at the conclusion of the visit Councillor Davies said: "It was a real privilege to host the Duke of Edinburgh and to show him first-hand the vital work we do to support the armed services and veterans, it is something we take very seriously.

"He was very personable and able to share not only a story but a joke or two as well.

"And I think everyone who met him at both sites really appreciated his time and effort to come and see us."

The Duke talks with members of the Models for Heroes groups.

The Duke had earlier attended the Army Reserve Centre – the base of D-Squadron, The Royal Yeomanry.

Local cadets also train at the base twice a week.

During his tour the Duke was given a gun-run demonstration from the Army cadets before they provided a live first aid demonstration.

The Duke then presented an award to 15-year-old Lance Corporal Dylan Fugatt from Ellesmere.

The youngster, who was joined by his mum Sharon for the presentation, was being recognised for using first aid skills learned with the cadets to come to the aid of an elderly man who had fallen over in Ellesmere.

Speaking after the presentation Lance Corporal Fugatt said: "It was a bit of a shock at first. I don't think it has sunk in properly yet."

The Duke of Edinburgh was given a first aid demonstration.

He added that the Duke had been "great" and "just like any normal person".

His mother added: "I am so proud. I am very, very proud of how Dylan handled the situation back when it happened but to be recognised in this way, I am more proud for him after his efforts in training, I could not be more proud."

The group were joined by the Duke for a photo at the end of his Dawley Town Hall visit.

The Duke was also shown laser shooting, had a go at tying knots with Navy Cadets, and then saw young Air Cadets trying their hand at flight simulators and virtual reality kit, before presenting a Long Service Good Conduct award to Sergeant Joel Edwards.

[jasina85]

Oh hey, a chance to talk about Olivia! >:-)

1. No!

2. Anything that has broccoli. Cliche? Maybe, but she hates it. Or phlegmatic blood. She had it once and she did not enjoy it.

3. Metal and synth!

4. Fairly guarded, or at least tries to be. It'll generally depends whether she perceives them as a threat to her/people she cares about, and since most people she meets these days are kindred, she tends to assume everyone is at least a bit of a threat as baseline.

5. Yes and no. She doesn't have an accent with English normally, but if she's getting agitated or emotional, her German accent tends to bleed through a bit (something her wife finds cute). Her French has a fairly obvious accent though.

6. She hasn't yet, but two she'd like to learn are Latin and Welsh. She knows some Latin thanks to her medical background, but not enough to be able to decipher ancient volumes on her own. Welsh is more or less as a sign of respect to her mawla Ceridwen, a small thing she could do to show her gratitude.

7. Currently 3 - German, English and French.

8. Star Sky by Two Steps From Hell. She can't handle the idea of star-crossed lovers not being able to unite.

9. She tries her best to do it silently, but it often devolves into very ugly sobbing. She's ruined a lot of shirts with her blood tears.

10. Sweaters/dress shirts and jackets and cargo pants. She's a bit rigidly practical in her day-to-day wear, but she has a red bomber jacket for more casual outings. She'll sometimes wear skirts, but not that often.

11. Body language. She was bullied a lot when she was young and she'd try to recognize intent in body language. Unfortunately, she's very bad at reading people, so she'll often miss cues or interpret them incorrectly.

12. Dumb. She loves dumb jokes. To the dismay of her friends and family.

13. Only one and it's from her Embrace. She's got a nasty scar on her back, below the ribcage that her Sire gave her when he bled her dry.

14. She only really has a few noteworthy bits of jewelry - her wedding ring and a pair of black pearl earrings that were a gift from her domitor back when she was a ghoul. That knowledge soured her on them a bit, but she's had them so long she's unwilling to stop wearing them. More recently, she also got herself a Bahari necklace that she wears pretty much whenever she can - it's a source of great pride for her.

15. She's a bit of a miser, as money tended to be scarce for most of her life, but she'll often get a little carefree with spending for personal projects these days.

16. She's prefers practicality, although she's been allowing herself a bit more luxury lately.

17. I'm not actually sure if there's any one person she'd quote readily.

18. The realization that what she's doing could hurt the people she cares about. She tends to be very single-minded once she sets her sights on something, and she tends to forget the world around her. Sometimes she needs a reminder that her actions don't only affect her.

19. Her wife - Harmony. Though depending on special circumference, she might call Ceridwen first, especially if it's to ask for advice (being on good terms with an Elder has its perks).

20. Growing up in an orphanage meant no pets. She's not awful with animals, though she's not great by any means either.

21. Schnitzel. Yes, she's this basic, but she can't help what she finds comforting.

22. She's never told anyone how much the blood bond affects her and how part of her yearns for it. She's been bound twice so far, with a third bond looming on the horizon. Alternatively, she'd be reluctant to admit just how much she's grown to enjoy the sensation of pain. Not that it'd be problematic for her fellow Bahari, but there's times when she feels empty without the pain.

23. Not really. A few friends from her university days, but that's not childhood.

24. Invoking Lilith's name. She got that from Harmony.

25. She loves being in control. Partially stems from how little control over her life she had growing up, partially because of her clan aspect (Tzimisce famously being possessive tyrants), but having absolute control in a situation is practically intoxicating for her.

26. Making decisions for others. She firmly believes everyone should have the right to choose for themselves... which she sometimes contradicts when she has reasons to believe that a person can't make the choice rationally. The hypocrisy is only sometimes lost on her.

27. She tends to be quite formal and make use of honorifics, especially around people she doesn't know/knows very poorly.

28. She can and she has. She was very reluctant to let herself fall in love while she was alive and she's been trying to make up for that now (not that she'd admit it). She's got a wife and a boyfriend. Familial love is something she's still grasping with, now that she's married into a family after a whole life of not having one.

29. Go back to her Sabbat days. She's desperate to never become the monster her Sire wanted to raise her as.

30. Trying to diablerise her Sire, which resulted in her almost killing someone she cared about deeply (said person intervened and stopped Olivia from draining him, though she still killed him), which prompted her to run away into self-imposed exile for a few months.

things to think about for characters

do they have allergies?

what foods will they not touch?

what kinds of music do they like?

how are they around new people?

do they speak in an accent?

have they tried learning a new language?

how many languages do they know?

what is a song that will always make them cry?

how do they cry? heaving? silently? sobbing?

how do they dress? for practicality or fashion?

what is the first thing they notice about a stranger?

what is their humour like?

do they have scars? what caused them?

do they wear jewelry?

are they a frivolous spender or a miser?

do they prefer luxury or practicality?

who would they quote?

what could make them change their mind?

who is the first person they'd call?

how are they around animals? do they have pets?

what is their favourite childhood food?

what is something they've never told anyone?

childhood friends?

what are habits they've picked up from other people?

what are their guilty pleasures?

what is something they're staunchly against?

do they speak a certain way? do they use contractions? popular turns of phrase?

can they fall in love? what does it look like? does it differ between people -- friends vs family?

what would they rather die than do?

what is their biggest mistake? one that they look out to never do again.

[stellarhistoria]

TO RIVAL THE SUNS | ALEXIOS AU

basics .

name: alexios ambrosi known by friends as: lex known by enemies as: the bladesong age: dependent on where we want to discuss, anywhere from 22-29. (usually around 22-23)

background .

source of income: bodyguard who he's protecting: a wealthy but very kind noble family named the pendracos, specifically protecting the sole heir named arthur, his best friend since practically birth. secondary source of income: errand runner jobs he takes: he has no sense of self preservation. (nearly all)

outlook on vash (general): "That's quite a large bounty, isn't it? ...What, turn him in? Why? He's smiling on his wanted poster. I'd like to meet him though." outlook on knives (general, if he knew the name + connection): "... huh. He reminds me of a friend of mine. Willing to go to extreme lengths to protect those he cares about."

weapon & armor of choice: sword, specifically a cleddyf (a welsh sword). this is his main weapon and often comes with a matching gauntlet of strange make. he claims to not know where the material is from, and most who know him well enough know he hasn't the talent to lie... so they believe. markmanship talent: average. not as good as either vash or wolfwood, but better than a good number of those with guns among general populace.

notes .

skills: very fast, light on his feet. to a point that he barely disturbs the sand he walks on unless he ACTIVELY makes himself weigh in the sand. some people say he has invisible wings that let him float. he laughs at this idea; he's just a human! probably.

relationships:

arthur pendraco is the son of the pendraco water company, an open and established water distributing household, but a family and company that refuses to let people build near their land aside from people who can 100% for sure handle their own. they know well what their trade dabbles in alongside it.

alexios is a man of very many words but often doesn't say nearly as much as you think he does. it's a knack he has for getting people to lower their guard, because of his bubbly nature and his genuine sincerity in wanting to get to know a person.

were it not for his blue shifted color palette and shorter stature, he might be mistaken for vash himself.

he's fully aware of the reporter named meryl, having been heard to be constantly following vash the stampede close behind some places. however, he seems to have no idea about the eye of michael, seeming to be confused at the mention of them.

notably, he's exceptionally hard to kill, and gets faster for however much he's hurt.

[grandmaster-anne]

Posted 23 December 2022 In 2023, the first King’s Birthday Parade will take place on Saturday 17 June. It will be an impressive display of horsemanship, precise military drill and pageantry, by the seven Regiments of the Household Division, on Horse Guards Parade, with His Majesty the King attending and taking the salute. The Parade, which is also known as Trooping the Colour, will see over 1,400 soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians celebrate the King’s official birthday. The Regiment chosen to Troop its Colour in 2023 is the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards which has enjoyed a particularly close relationship to His Majesty The King. He took over as Royal Colonel Welsh Guards from his father, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh in 1975. The King is now Colonel in Chief of all the Regiments of the Household Division and yesterday appointed his heir, Prince William, The Prince of Wales, as the new Royal Colonel Welsh Guards. In other changes, The Queen Consort has been appointed as Colonel Grenadier Guards and The Princess of Wales is the new Colonel Irish Guards. The Colonelcies of the other Regiments within the Household Division remain as: Colonel, Blue and Royals: The Princess Royal Colonel, Scots Guards: The Duke of Kent Colonel, Life Guards: Lieutenant General Sir Ed Smyth-Osbourne Colonel, Coldstream Guards: Lieutenant General Sir James Bucknall — The Army in London - HQ London District

[jawsofhakkontranscript]

Developer notes - Character descriptions

Each character with a speaking role (no matter how small) has a "bio" - a summary intended mainly for the voice acting crew. These notes include some details that a director should have in mind when choosing an actor for the role. The "age range" does not reflect the actual age of a character, but rather how young or old their voice should sound. It’s also originally given in hexadecimal system, so I added the conversion to decimal. 

Without further ado, here are all the character profiles from the Jaws of Hakkon DLC, sorted by factions they belong to.

Stone-Bear Hold

Avvar Augur

Gender: Male

Character description: The Augur is an important figure in a village of people called the Avvar “barbarians” in the wilderness. He’s a magic-worker, a councilor, and an intermediary between the real world and the spirits. He can be a bit “otherworldly” as a result. He’s a smart man, unexpectedly jolly for his solemn position.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)28 = (dec)40

~

Thane Svarah Sun-Hair

Gender: Female

Character description: Thane (leader) of a hold of “barbarians” called the Avvar, a proud, independent people who live by hunting and trading in the wild. Tall and wiry, she is still strong despite her age. She’s a fair and observant woman who can judge the moods of her hold and the other hold they trade with in the blink of an eye. Smart, pragmatic, and not afraid to hit things or make hard decisions.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)2D = (dec)45

~

Storvacker

Gender: Female

Character description: This is a bear. Like literally a bear. I’m adding this because I need lines in the conversations where people talk to the bear, and the bear grunts or growls, but unless there is an actor who does like an AWESOME impression of a bear, I’m assuming we are using existing bear-audio.

Accent: Grizzly or Northern Brown

Race: Bear

Age range: (hex)14 = (dec)20

~

Arena Master = Arrken Feldsen

Gender: Male

Character description: An Avvar man in charge of an arena where his people train and fight in rituals. Brisk, Loves fighting - loves the theory, the practice, the philosophical arguments about honor and when to fight - loves it all. Gets a bit bloodthirsty when cheering on the fights.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age Range: (hex)23 = (dec)35

~

Skald = Fullna Hethsdotten

Gender: Female

Character description: A skald (a bard and a keeper of oral histories) among the Avvar, a tribe of “barbarians” in the mountains. Proud of her people’s history, protective of her clan’s reputation. Aware she’s a bit young for a bard, so takes the role seriously and a bit self-conciously.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)19 = (dec)25

~

Parve

Gender: Male

Character description: An Avvar villager. Finds himself in a climbing race to settle a dispute with another villager.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Hask

Gender: Male

Character description: An Avvar villager. Finds himself in a climbing race to settle a dispute with another villager.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Mountain climber = Runa Lyrsdotten

Gender: Female

Character description: A young Avvar with a passion for climbing the highest slopes around your mountain home. Cheery, energetic, and absolutely fearless.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)14 = (dec)20

~

Linna

Gender: Female

Character description: A fisherwoman wondering about her cousin.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Conspiracy Guy = Helsdim Rolfsen

Gender: Male

Character description: Helsdim Rolfsen is an Avvar trader. His work takes him outside his small mountainside village and he has an appreciation for the greater world as a result. He takes pride in the fact that he’s literate, a rarity among the Avvar, and is very into “alternate history”. (He’s a bit of a conspiracy nut, in other words, but a harmless one.) Helsdim longs to see more of the world, but he’s stuck in his little hometown village.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

The Exile = Sigrid Gulsdotten

Gender: Female

Character description: An Avvar = a clan of tough mountain-dwelling people who the rest of the countries consider barbarians. She exiled herself to the woods outside her village because she thinks she’s made a mistake who brought shame on her clan. A bit dour but fiercely loyal to her people.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)19 = (dec)25

~

Master of the Hunt

Gender: Male

Character description: Avvar Master of the Hunt, Old, seasoned, and blunt. Slow to give out praise, but sincere when he does.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)3C = (dec)60

~

Gyda Myrdotten

Gender: Female

Character description: Woman in charge of burying the dead. Sly, clever. Can seem unsympathetic, but is truly dedicated to her work and following traditions properly.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Finn = Finn Caldansen

Gender: Male

Character description: A kind young man who was injured while helping a friend. Sad over the death of his father.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)12 = (dec)18

~

Arvid Rolfsen

Gender: Male

Character description: An Avvar fisherman, old enough to be past most posturing and bragging, proud to be part of Stone-Bear Hold and unimpressed with the evil Hakkon worshippers.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Friendly Avvar Male = Einar, fisherman working with Arvid

Gender: Male

Character description: Friendly Avvar talking to his friends.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)14 = (dec)20

~

Friendly Avvar Female = unnamed fisherwoman working with Arvid

Gender: Female

Character description: Friendly Avvar talking to her friends.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Avvar Guardsman 01

Gender: Male

Character description: A guard for a small village. Strong, watchful.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)28 = (dec)40

~

Avvar Guardsman 02

Gender: Male

Character description: A guard for a small village. Easygoing.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)28 = (dec)40

~

Avvar Crafter 01

Gender: Male

Character description: An Avvar villager. You craft goods and mend things.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Avvar Hunter 01

Gender: Female

Character description: A hunter who provides for her small village. Sharp-eyed, capable.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)28 = (dec)40

~

Avvar Hunter 02

Gender: Female

Character description: A hunter who provides for her small village. Experienced, capable.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)28 = (dec)40

~

Scout 01

Gender: Male

Character description: An Avvar scout. Good at his job. Cares for his clan of close-knit people.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Scout 02

Gender: Female

Character description: An Avvar scout. Good at her job. Cares for his clan of close-knit people.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Avvar Villager 01

Gender: Female

Character description: A hard-working Avvar villager.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)19 = (dec)25

~

Avvar Villager 02

Gender: Male

Character description: A hard-working Avvar villager.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)19 = (dec)25

~

Jaws of Hakkon

Gurd Harofsen

Gender: Male

Character description: Powerful, proud, menacing Avvar warrior. Heads a group calling themselves the Jaws of Hakkon. He serves a powerful warrior-god, and plans to voluntarily give up his own life in order to be a vessel for this god. A thug and a bully.

Speech pattern: He is chanting with a specific rhythm in his main conversation. See conversation-file notes.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Hakkon Beastmaster

Gender: Male

Character description: An evil member of a warrior cult who has kidnapped a bear for nefarious purposes. Your basic loud yelling bad guy.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Hakkonite Bully

Gender: Female

Character description: An angry thug who fights for the Jaws of Hakkon. She is trying to bully some non-warriors from a different hold, and reacts angrily as soon as she sees the Inquisitor.

Accent: North British

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)19 = (dec)25

~

Hakkon Warrior 01

Gender: Male

Character description: A barbarian warrior.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)19 = (dec)25

~

Hakkon Warrior 02

Gender: Female

Character description: A barbarian warrior.

Accent: Light North Country

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)19 = (dec)25

~

First Inquisition

Inquisitor Ameridan

Gender: Male

Character description: A man in early middle age, an intelligent and seasoned warrior. He is somber and serious, driven by a duty he never asked for.

Accent: Welsh

Race: Elf

Age range: (hex)28 = (dec)40

~

Telana

Gender: Female

Character description: This is a spirit that touched Inquisitor Ameridan’s wife, Telana, and speaks with her memories. She is a spirit of compassion, just like Cole, and has much of the same empathy and “talking as though in someone else’s head” that Cole does. Unlike Cole, she is clearly and obviously a spirit, tired and worn away from centuries of waiting for someone to tell her story to.

In life, Telana was a Dalish elf (hence request for Welsh accent).

Accent: Welsh

Race: Elf (Spirit)

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Second Inquisition and associates

Professor Bram Kenric

Gender: Male

Character description: A professor from Starkhaven who is bright, enthusiastic, and a little absent-minded. He’s the one whose theories pulled the Inquisition out here on the hunt for the Last Inquisitor, Ameridan (who vanished 800 years ago), and while he’s a little out of his element here in the wild, he is determined to see this through.

He’s innocent and naive, generally speaking, and may have a slight crush on Scout Harding (who he calls “Lady Harding”).

Accent: Scottish

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)19 = (dec)25

~

Colette

Gender: Female

Character description: An eager research assistant for Professor Kenric. She has a driven, A-type personality. As an elf, she’s faced some prejudice at the University.

Accent: French

Race: Elf

Age range: (hex)14 = (dec)20

~

Lieutenant Farrow

Gender: Male

Character description: Professional Inquisition soldier. Very good at his job.

Accent: British

Race: Elf

Age range: (hex)19 = (dec)25

~

Camp Researcher Male

Gender: Male

Character description: Man at research camp.

Accent: British

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Camp Researcher Female

Gender: Female

Character description: Woman at research camp.

Accent: British

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)19 = (dec)25

~

Havard-Pierre d’Amortisan

Gender: Male

Character description: A baron who researches dangerous animals. Intrigued by a mysterious animal that no one has ever seen. Speaks in a Lovecraft/Edwaridan-Horror-Story type manner.

Accent: French

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)2D = (dec)45

~

Dunwich

Gender: Male

Character description: Long-suffering assistant to Havard-Pierre d’Amortisan (a baron who studies dangerous creatures.) Dry, butler-like. Think Alfred from Batman.

Accent: British

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Grandin

Gender: Male

Character description: Young soldier whose friend has been murdered. Now possessed by a spirit//demon

Accent: British

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)19 = (dec)25

~

Forward Camp Soldier 2

Gender: Male

Character description: An Inquisition soldier.

Accent: British

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

~

Forward Camp Soldier 3

Gender: Male

Character description: An Inquisition soldier.

Accent: British

Race: Human

Age range: (hex)1E = (dec)30

[orthodoxydaily]

Saints&Reading: Tue.,Nov.16, 2021

November 16_November 3

MARTYRS ACEPSIMAS THE BISHOP, JOSEPH THE PRESBYTER, AND AEITHALAS THE DEACON, OF PERSIA (376)

Martyrs Akepsimas the Bishop, Joseph the Presbyter and Aeithalás the Deacon of Persia were leaders of the Christian Church in the Persian city of Naesson. His flock devotedly loved their hierarch for his ascetic life and tireless pastoral work.

The emperor Sapor ordered his men to seek out and kill Christian clergy. Saint Akepsimas also was arrested, even though he was already an eighty-year-old man. They took him to the city of Arbela, where he came before the judge Ardarkh, a pagan priest of the sun god. The holy Elder refused to offer sacrifice to the Persian gods. For this he was fiercely beaten and thrown into prison, where on the following day the seventy-year-old priest Joseph and the deacon Aeithalás were severely beaten and thrown into jail with him. For three years the saints were held in confinement, and suffered from hunger and thirst.

Emperor Sapor came to the temple of the god of fire, located not far from Arbela, and wanted to take a look at the three holy martyrs. Exhausted and covered with festering wounds, the saints were brought before the emperor. When he asked them to worship the pagan gods they firmly refused, confessing their faith in Christ instead.

The holy bishop was beheaded, but the presbyter and deacon were taken into the city to be stoned.

The execution of the presbyter Joseph was prolonged for several hours. A guard was placed near the place of execution, so that Christians would not take the body of the holy martyr. On the fourth night a strong windstorm raged near the city, lightning killed the guard, the wind tossed stones about, and the body of Saint Joseph disappeared.

Deacon Aeithalás was taken to the village of Patrias, where he was stoned. Christians secretly buried his body. A tree grew on the saint’s grave, and its fruit brought healings.

ST. WINIFRED OF TREFFYNON (HOLYWELL), N. WALES, (630)

"Saint Winefride (in Welsh, Gwenfrewi) was a maiden of noble birth who lived in North wales in the seventh century. The niece and spiritual daughter of Saint Beuno (21 April), she entered the Monastery of Gwytherin after his death, where she lived under the spiritual direction of Saint Eleril. The son of a neighbouring chieftan, Caradoc by name, seized by an unchaste passion, pursued her and struck off her head with a sword. The spot where her head fell became known as Treffynnon or Holywell, because of the appearing of a healing spring for those who would take its waters with faith. Holywell remains a great place of pilgrimage in Britain to this day." (Synaxarion)

LUKE 11:34-41

34 The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light. 37 And as He spoke, a certain Pharisee asked Him to dine with him. So He went in and sat down to eat. 38 When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that He had not first washed before dinner. 39 Then the Lord said to him, "Now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness. 40 Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But rather give alms of such things as you have; then indeed all things are clean to you.

COLOSSIANS 2:20-3:3

20 Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations- 21 Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, 22 which all concern things which perish with the using-according to the commandments and doctrines of  men?  23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

[princessanneftw]

How Princess Anne became the shining light of the beleaguered monarchy

Once seen as haughty and aloof, today her old-school approach has never been more in demand

By Camilla Tominey, Associate Editor of the Telegraph.

Visitors to the Princess Royal’s house, Gatcombe Park, are often surprised to be greeted with antique-display cases groaning with ornaments, bookshelves overflowing with hardbacks and piles of magazines dating back to the 1970s. According to one friend, the 18th-century Grade II-listed Gloucestershire stately has a ‘homely’ feel, thanks to the frugal Princess’s reluctance to throw anything out.

‘It’s quite a nice thing really,’ they said. ‘There’s barely a place you can sit down in her house. Every time the staff go in there they try to take something away.’ A surprising revelation, perhaps, about the Royal family’s resident stickler, whose decadesold ‘updo’ and penchant for wearing white gloves on royal engagements suggest a somewhat starchier outlook. But as the Queen’s only daughter prepares to celebrate her 70th birthday this month, it seems that appearances can be rather deceiving.

Now more valuable than ever to an institution not only trying to reposition itself in the wake of a global pandemic, but still smarting from the fallout of Megxit and the Duke of York’s association with Jeffrey Epstein, Anne’s old-school approach has never been more in demand. Despite describing herself as ‘the boring old fuddy-duddy at the back’, who keeps reminding the younger royals not to forgo ‘the basics’, the Princess Royal, who has always put duty first, is finally getting the recognition she deserves.

Her appearance in June alongside the 94-year-old monarch for Her Majesty’s first ever video call shows how much the Queen is coming to rely on the Princess. And the public response to her appearing to snub Donald Trump during a Nato leaders’ reception at Buckingham Palace last December suggests the nation is finally warming to her modus operandi.

Where once Anne was regarded as haughty and standoffish, she is now hailed as one of the great English eccentrics whose unparalleled royal work ethic, carrying out more than 500 engagements a year, has rightly earned her national treasure status.

And having allowed a film crew to shadow her for the past year, the Princess, who is usually reluctant to blow her own trumpet, has never appeared more at ease with herself. She was persuaded to take part in last week’s ITV documentary Princess Royal: Anne at 70 because its makers, Oxford Films, had successfully produced Our Queen and Our Queen at 90 about her mother. Shadowing Anne on her dusk-to-dawn engagements – and featuring interviews with her children Peter, 42, and Zara, 39 – the documentary revealed just how much the Princess is cut from the Queen’s ‘keep calm and carry on’ cloth.

Having been regarded as a bit of a royal renegade as a teenager – and chosen to forgo titles for her own children, despite her own HRH pedigree as a ‘spare to the heir’ – Anne’s life story is a contradiction of both protocol taskmaster and occasional rule-breaker. As one insider who knows the Princess well put it: ‘She can turn from laughing and joking one minute to being an absolute stickler for the rules the next. She’s extremely dutiful and would hate to be regarded as being on the wrong side of protocol. You’d never dream of asking her a political question and she’s not at all gossipy.’

Erin Doherty’s portrayal of Anne in The Crown, as the deadpan princess with the permanently raised eyebrow, certainly sums up her teenage years when the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were apparently so concerned about their daughter’s lack of direction, they asked the late Dame Vera Lynn for advice. Prince Philip, who famously joked of his daughter, ‘If it doesn’t fart or eat hay then she isn’t interested,’ allegedly confided in the Forces’ sweetheart: ‘We are concerned about Anne at the moment, trying to get her to make up her mind about what she wants to do.’

According to her school friend, Sandra de Laszlo, who boarded with Anne at Benenden: ‘She was a very normal teenager – sensible and fun.’ Leaving school with six O levels and two A levels in 1968, Anne had already resolved to follow in her parents’ duteous footsteps. Less than a year later, she made her official debut on 1 March – St David’s Day – when she handed out leeks to the Welsh Guards at Pirbright Camp in Surrey. It was to be the start of one of the most industrious royal careers in modern memory – with more than 20,000 engagements clocked up since.

Soon after she started work, she began dating – and in 1970, Anne’s first boyfriend was Andrew Parker Bowles, the dashing young adjutant of the Blues and Royals, who went on to marry Camilla Shand – later to become her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Cornwall. The Princess and the brigadier – described as her ‘horsey husband’ – remain close and accompany each other to Royal Ascot and other race meetings every year.

Anne is also on good terms with her first husband, Captain Mark Phillips. A Sandhurst graduate with an equestrian streak, like Parker Bowles, Phillips met the Princess at a party for horse lovers in 1968 and reconnected at the Munich Olympics four years later, when he won team Olympic gold in the three-day eventing. They married in 1973. He was at the then 23-year-old Anne’s side a year later when she was threatened at gunpoint in an attempted kidnapping. The couple were returning to Buckingham Palace following a charity event when their limousine was forced to stop on the Mall by another car. When the driver, Ian Ball, jumped out and began shooting, Anne’s bodyguard, Inspector James Beaton, was injured, along with her chauffeur Alex Callender, and journalist Brian McConnell and Michael Hills, a police constable, who happened upon the scene.

But the attempt to hold Anne to ransom for at least £2 million is even more memorable thanks to the impervious Princess’s refusal to obey Ball’s order to get out of the car, replying with a trademark: ‘Not bloody likely!’ Eventually, she exited the other side of the limousine, as had her lady-in-waiting, Rowena Brassey (who is still with her to this day). A passing pedestrian, a former boxer named Ron Russell, punched Ball in the back of the head and led Anne away from the scene. Anne later told officers: ‘It was all so infuriating; I kept saying I didn’t want to get out of the car, and I was not going to get out of the car,’ according to files later released by the National Archives. ‘I nearly lost my temper with him, but I knew that if I did, I should hit him and he would shoot me.’

She was similarly sanguine about becoming the first member of the Royal family to have a criminal conviction after one of her dogs, a three-year-old English bull terrier called Dotty, attacked two children in Windsor Great Park in 2002. Pleading guilty to being in charge of a dog that was out of control in a public area, she insisted on no special treatment and took the £500 fine and £500 compensation on the chin.

The incident followed a number of brushes with the law for motoring offences, with Anne having twice been caught speeding on the M1 in the 1970s. She was also fined £100 and banned for one month in 1990 for two speeding offences and fined another £400 in 2000. On both occasions she pleaded guilty immediately, insisting she was late for an engagement.

As she said in the documentary, mistakes do happen when there is no ‘training’ for the job of being royal. ‘It’s just learning by experience. But hardly ever does anything go quite according to plan. You have to learn that.’ It wasn’t as if she didn’t feel the pressure of being the sovereign’s second-born, either – once describing the fly-on-the-wall Royal Family film, which followed the Windsors for a year in the late 1960s, as ‘a rotten idea’.

‘The attention that had been brought on one ever since one was a child, you just didn’t want any more. The last thing you needed was greater access.’

Famed for telling reporters to ‘naff orf ’, much of Anne’s mistrust of the media appears to stem from its rather uncomfortable coverage of Phillips fathering a love child, Felicity, with New Zealand art teacher Heather Tonkin in 1985. The Princess didn’t emerge unblemished either, having been revealed by The Sun to have received love letters from Tim Laurence, then the Queen’s equerry, in 1989, when she was separated – although still married to Phillips.

Anne and Mark finally divorced in 1992 and the Princess remarried eight months later, choosing Crathie Kirk in Scotland, as the Church of England did not at that time allow divorced persons whose former spouses were still living to remarry in its churches. The Prince of Wales had nicknamed Phillips ‘Fog’ on the grounds that he was ‘thick and wet’; but with his Royal Navy pedigree and impeccable manners, ‘quiet man’ Laurence fitted into the Royal family perfectly. One friend described the vice admiral as ‘a thoroughly decent man who never forgets a face’, before adding that ‘some may regard him as a little bit boring, but he’s a much safer bet than Mark ever was.’

Ever the pragmatist, Anne allowed Phillips to remain living on the Gatcombe estate, even after he married Sandy Pflueger, an American Olympic dressage rider, with whom he has a daughter, Stephanie, 22. As one equestrian insider put it: ‘The horsey set has always been very incestuous. Yes, Mark was serially unfaithful but there’s a lot of that going on – Anne just turned a blind eye.’

Now divorced from Pflueger, Phillips, 71, has vacated Aston Farm on the 730-acre estate, to make way for Zara, her rugbyplayer husband Mike Tindall, 41, and their daughters Mia, six, and Lena, two.

Peter also lives on the estate with his estranged wife Autumn, 42, and their daughters Savannah, nine, and Isla, eight. The couple are still living together despite announcing their divorce in January – an unexpected development that has left the Princess ‘sad and disappointed’, according to insiders.

One source said: ‘One thing about the Royal family is they are incredibly close. They are the most dysfunctional family there is, but the Princess and her children and grandchildren are as tight as anything.’

As ever, horse riding remains the tie that binds, with Anne – a former European eventing champion, BBC Sports Personality of the Year and competitor at the 1976 Montreal Olympics – passing on her enthusiasm for the sport to Zara. In recent years, Peter has taken over the running of the Festival of British Eventing at Gatcombe.

By her own admission, breaking with royal tradition by insisting that her children were called Mr and Miss ‘probably’ made life ‘easier for them’. ‘I think most people would argue that there are downsides to having titles,’ Anne said recently. Having initially been brought up, Downton Abbey-style, on the ‘nursery floor’, with her parents often away for months on end on royal tours, it was Anne who insisted she go to a ‘proper’ school – the first daughter of a monarch to do so – rather than be home-taught.

Both Peter and Zara were sent to Port Regis, a co-educational prep school in Dorset, before following in their uncle Charles’s footsteps to board at Gordonstoun in Scotland. Unlike the heir to the throne, who described it as ‘Colditz in kilts’, they thrived in the outdoorsiness of it all, excelled at sport and both ended up at Exeter University – Peter to study sports science and Zara, physiotherapy – despite university having eluded both their parents.

Zara also surpassed her mother’s equestrian achievements by winning the Eventing World Championships in 2006 and a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics – all while Anne was watching proudly from the sidelines.

One friend recalls how the Princess would think nothing of queuing up for the Portaloos at competitions like any other parent, much to the horror of Zara, who would tell her: ‘Mum, you can’t do that!’

Inconspicuous in her trademark Barbour jacket, tweed hat and sunglasses, Anne would regularly be stopped at events on her own estate by police not realising who she was. ‘I remember it happening a couple of times,’ said one source. ‘She was very good about it – she said: “Don’t worry, you weren’t to know.”’

After Zara collected individual and team gold medals at the 2005 European Eventing Championship in Blenheim, Anne invited the entire team, grooms and all, back to Gatcombe to celebrate, serving up ‘sandwiches and scampi in a basket’, in the courtyard. Very much a hands-on mother and grandmother, the Princess has a number of long-serving aides – but no large entourage. Along with Rowena Brassey (now Feilden), Lady Carew Pole has also been the Princess’s lady-in-waiting since 1970.

Unfussy Anne still insists on doing her own make-up and hair – which hasn’t been let down publicly in decades. Although according to one source who once witnessed the rare sight of her unclipping her bun and redoing it during an equestrian event: ‘It really is quite something. It’s still as long as it was when she was in her 20s.’

Part of Anne’s agelessness is down to genes. ‘She always says she doesn’t have very good role models for slowing down,’ Peter told the documentary. As Countryfile presenter John Craven found out when he dared to ask if Anne still rode, only to be rebuked: ‘Her Majesty is still riding, so come on!’ But as well as inheriting her mother’s DNA she shares HM’s strict adherence to style codes – and her aversion to profligacy.

Guests at the 2008 wedding of Lady Rose Windsor, the daughter of the Duke of Gloucester, were astonished when Anne arrived in the outfit she had worn to her brother’s wedding to Lady Diana Spencer, 27 years earlier. The size-10 Maureen Baker floral-print frock still fitted perfectly.

Quite what Anne must have made of Diana and Fergie’s wardrobe expenditure in the 1980s has never been disclosed – although it has long been reported that the Princess never thought too highly of either sister-in-law, regarding Diana particularly as ‘hogging the limelight’.

There were even reports that she viewed the pair as ‘lessening the stature’ of the Royal family, describing them behind the scenes as ‘those girls’. As royal biographer Penny Junor put it: ‘There was Diana on the one hand, who was incredibly touchy-feely, who hugged children, who put children on her lap, who even kissed people in public. And there was Anne, not touching anyone, not playing up to the cameras at all.’

As far removed from the suburban housewife as you can get, when Anne was once spotted mending fences at Gatcombe, she apparently retorted: ‘Somebody’s got to do it!’ ‘She’s never shirked anything in her life,’ said a friend. ‘She’s a real grafter.’

Weekends will invariably be spent with her four grandchildren. Revealing a surprising knowledge of popular culture – despite her dislike of indoor pursuits – the Princess revealed her familiarity with Catherine Tate’s stroppy schoolgirl character Lauren when she commented that Mia’s attitude to equestrianism was, ‘Am I bovvered?’

‘She’s superb with the kids,’ said a friend. ‘She’ll often be in the stables with the grandchildren. She’s got a tremendous sense of humour and is very likeable and kind. She loves Mike [Tindall, Zara’s husband]. He makes them all laugh.

The friend also pointed to Anne’s ‘surprisingly fruity’ sense of humour, adding: ‘And the Princess can swear all right. I’ve heard her use some quite colourful language.’

If the Queen instilled in Anne a love of horses then it was her father who encouraged her other great passion in life: sailing. Anne would regularly accompany the former Royal Navy commander to Cowes Week, and it is a testament to Philip’s infectious love of seafaring that Anne and Tim have kept their yacht Ballochbuie on Loch Craignish in Argyll, since 2012. The couple enjoy nothing more than cruising around the Inner Hebrides, where Anne indulges her passion of visiting lighthouses. She is patron of the Northern Lighthouse Board and is understood to have ‘bagged’ more than half of the UK’s 206.

But it hasn’t always been so easy combining work and pleasure. Anne was put to the diplomatic test when she became the first member of the Royal family to visit the USSR, at the invitation of the then-leader Gorbachev in 1990. In typical style, the Princess didn’t shirk the responsibility – and stayed for two whole weeks. Visits to war zones including Sierra Leone, Mozambique and Bosnia have been similarly taxing – with Anne once insisting after a particularly gruelling tour of Africa: ‘I don’t come here looking for trouble. I come to see if I can help.’

Her association with Save the Children, which dates back to 1970, has seen her slum it on camp beds and visit disease-ravaged Mozambique refugee camps. Once urged by photographers to hug an emaciated child, she refused, saying, ‘I don’t do stunts.’ And in response to a comment on her supposed lack of the maternal instinct, she said: ‘You don’t have to like children particularly to want to give them a decent chance in life.’

Yet her reputation as one of the most diligent royals ever has also been honed by her dedication to little-known domestic causes, like the Wetwheels Foundation, which provides ‘barrier-free boating’ for the disabled. One of more than 300 charities the Princess is involved with, its founder Geoff Holt, a paraplegic who was the first disabled person to sail solo around Britain in 2007, and then across the Atlantic in 2010, has known Anne for over 30 years. ‘I’ve got photos of us going back decades. I’ve got older and older and she’s stayed the same,’ he joked.

‘She’s got to be one of the most hard-working people I know. I’ve never known anything like it – the amount of engagements she packs in. She doesn’t do sycophancy, though.

Michele Jennings, chief executive of Hearing Dogs for the Deaf, of which the Princess has been patron since 1992, also tells staff ‘not to fawn’ when the Princess visits. ‘She hates that,’ she said. ‘We’re a pretty down-to-earth charity and when she comes she’ll have dogs jumping at her shins and crawling all over her, but she doesn’t mind one bit. There’s no awkwardness.’

Another source revealed how during one royal visit, Anne had joked about missing out on all the posh canapés – royals are discouraged from eating in public. ‘I’ll just have to put up with Great Western’s finest,’ she quipped, referring to her train journey home.

Although a ‘daddy’s girl’ growing up, since the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret died in 2002, Anne has become ever more devoted to her mother. Having helped to counsel the Queen through many royal crises over the years, the Princess has been HM’s first port of call when discussing recent tumultuous royal events. Although one can only guess what stalwart Anne makes of Harry and Meghan’s behaviour, she has made no secret of her opposition to royals trying to modernise the institution, seemingly referring to the Sussexes when she remarked recently: ‘I don’t think this younger generation probably understands what I was doing in the past and it’s often true, isn’t it? You don’t necessarily look at the previous generation and say, “Oh, you did that?” Or, “You went there?” Nowadays, they’re much more looking for, “Oh, let’s do it a new way.” I’m already at the stage [of ], please do not reinvent that particular wheel. We’ve been there, done that. Some of these things don’t work. You may need to go back to basics.’

When she turned 60, the Queen elevated Anne to the Order of the Thistle and there was a joint birthday party with Andrew, who was 50 that year. But Covid-19 – not to mention Andrew’s fall from grace – mean this year’s celebrations will be more muted. Indeed, she is not thought to have had much contact with her brother, with whom she shares a love of country pursuits, but little else.

With the Queen having been self-isolating at Windsor Castle since March, it is thought Anne will be reunited with her parents at Balmoral this summer, where she and Tim will once again take in Scotland’s sights by sea.

At a time when the monarchy finds itself somewhat cast adrift, it is the indefatigable Princess Royal who is proving to be its trustiest anchor. As she prepares to turn 70, showing no sign of slowing down after half a century of engagements, lighthouse-lover Anne has become the Royal family’s beacon of good, old-fashioned public service.

[akindofmagictoo]

HURRICANE: character introduction: the crew of the Hurricane 

in total, the Hurricane is crewed by twenty women; in the story, you’ll meet ten of them. 

Aria (52; white British; 5′2″; grey hair and green/hazel eyes) 

kind but takes no crap, ship’s medic. generally stays out of fights. Tempest’s oldest and best friend. 

fun fact: she’s missing a leg and has a prosthetic 

Marisa (35; Spanish; 5′9″; dark hair and brown eyes) 

cheeky and friendly. skilled pickpocket. doesn’t like to admit to caring about others... but does. good at spotting romance and WILL tease the parties involved.

fun fact: good at picking locks and taught her skills to Aella

Cai (49; Chinese; 4′9′: black hair and dark brown eyes) 

relatively quiet and generally keeps to herself. somewhat stubborn. not concerned with material possessions, values people instead. 

fun fact: knits in her spare time

(extra note: Aria, Marisa, Cai, Tempest, and Aella formed the original crew of the Hurricane, 18 years pre-story) 

Victoire (33; French; 5′4″; honey-blonde hair and blue-grey eyes) 

friendly and caring. worked as a servant in a rich household and stowed away aboard the Hurricane (17 years pre-story). the others allowed her to stay, and she looked after Aella when she was a baby. 

fun fact: she has a heart tattoo on the inside of one ankle

Elizabeth (25; white British; 6′0″; dark brown hair and hazel eyes) 

ship’s cook. formerly a serving-girl in a tavern, but lost her job (circumstances will be revealed in the story; 8 years prior). Tempest offered her a job aboard the Hurricane. 

fun fact: she can and will fight with a ladle, though she can also use knives and a pistol. 

Emmy (23; German; 5′5″; light brown hair and blue eyes) 

guarded emotionally. skilled with a sword. joined the Hurricane four years prior to the story. falls into the group of “should not be left alone without adult supervision” (Emmy, Sequoia, Aella and later Addie) 

fun fact: inclined to wear oddly colourful outfits with little regard for coordination

Sequoia (20; Sri Lankan; 5′4″; black hair and dark brown eyes) 

inclined towards teasing but very friendly. like Aella, one of the Hurricane’s lookouts, and Aella’s closest friend (including in age). joined the crew four years prior after her old ship was wrecked. 

fun fact: wears a silver locket with a photo in it 

Addie (21; Scottish/Welsh; 5′8″; light brown hair and green eyes) 

massive people person, very friendly. capable fighter but prefers to be peaceful when possible. klutzy. doesn’t care what people think. joins during the story after leaving her old crew. 

fun fact: she has a scar on her ear from an earring that was pulled out 

Charly and Nina — the crew’s two parrots. Charly is blue and yellow and arrived the same year Victoire did; Nina is red, and arrived two years later. both didn’t seem to want to leave, so they were adopted. 

TAGLIST (one day I will remember to add this the first time I post)

@writingbyjillian @oddsandinks @innocentreticent @ahowlinwolf @aziz-writes

[fictionfromafar]

Unmissable International Crime Fiction Novels from April 2021 onwards

1 April

The Untamable by Guillermo Arriaga

MacLehose Press

A gripping coming of age thriller of vengeance and destiny set between Mexico City's murderous 1960s underworld and the bleak tundras of Canada's most remote province. By the BAFTA-winning screenwriter of Amores Perros.

Yukon, Canada's far north. A young man tracks a wolf through the wilderness. In Mexico City, Juan Guillermo has pledged vengeance.

1 April

Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka, translated by Sam Marissa

Harvill Secker

Five killers find themselves on a bullet train from Tokyo competing for a suitcase full of money. Who will make it to the last station? A bestseller in Japan, Bullet Train is an original and propulsive thriller which fizzes with an incredible energy as its complex net of double-crosses and twists unwinds to the last station.

15 April

Silenced by Sólveig Pálsdóttir, translated by Quentin Bates

Corylus Books

After a turbulent few years, Guðgeir Fransson is back with the Reykjavík police force and is called on to look into the suspicious suicide of a young woman in a cell at the Hólmsheiði prison. On the surface, it looks like a straightforward investigation. As he digs into the dead woman’s past, he unearths links to a man’s disappearance more than twenty years ago.

My review of The Fox:

15 April

We Trade Our Night for Someone Else’s Day by Ivana Bodrožić, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac

Penguin Random House

Nora is a journalist assigned to do a puff piece on the perpetrator of a crime of passion–a Croatian high school teacher who fell in love with one of her students, a Serb, and is now in prison for having murdered her husband. But Nora herself is the daughter of a man who was murdered years earlier under mysterious circumstances. And she wants, if not to avenge her father, at least to bring to justice whoever committed the crime.

15 April

How To Betray Your Country by James Wolff

Bitter Lemon Press

Following on from the acclaimed debut novel Beside the Syrian Sea, this is the second title in a planned trilogy about loyalty and betrayal in the modern world. An authentic thriller about the thin line between following your conscience and following orders. James Wolff is the pseudonym of a young English novelist who “has been working for the British government for the last ten years”.

22 April

Trap for Cinderella by Sebastien Japrisot

Gallic Books

A beach house at a French resort is gutted by fire. Trapped inside are two women - one rich and the other poor. Only one of them survives, burnt beyond recognition and in a state of total amnesia. Who is she, the heiress or her penniless friend? A killer, or an intended victim?

29 April

Geiger by Gustaf Skordeman

Zaffre

The landline rings as Agneta is waving off her grandchildren. Just one word comes out of the receiver: 'Geiger'. For decades, Agneta has always known that this moment would come, but she is shaken. She knows what it means. Retrieving her weapon from its hiding place, she attaches the silencer and creeps up behind her husband before pressing the barrel to his temple.

29 April

Facets of Death by Michael Stanley

Orenda Books

Detective Kubu, renowned international detective, has faced off with death more times than he can count... But what was the case that established him as a force to be reckoned with? In Facets of Death, a prequel to the acclaimed Detective Kubu series, the fresh-faced cop gets ensnared in an international web of danger—can he get out before disaster strikes?

29 April

The Girl Who Died by Ragnar Jonasson

Michael Joseph

Una knows she is struggling to deal with her father's sudden, tragic suicide. She spends her nights drinking alone in Reykjavik, stricken with thoughts that she might one day follow in his footsteps.

So when she sees an advert seeking a teacher for two girls in the tiny village of Skálar - population of ten - on the storm-battered north coast of the island, she sees it as a chance to escape.

13 May

Seat 7a by Sebastian Fitzek, translated by Jamie Bulloch

Head of Zeus

Psychiatrist Mats Krüger knows that his irrational fear of flying is just that – irrational. He knows that flying is nineteen times safer than driving. He also knows that if something does happen on a plane, the worst place to be is seat 7A. That's why on his first plane journey in 20 years – to be with his only daughter as she gives birth – he's booked seat 7A, so no one else can sit there. If no one is sat there, surely nothing will go wrong.

My review of Passenger 23 :

https://fictionfromafar.tumblr.com/post/643950323513311232/passenger-23-by-sebastian-fitzek-passenger-23-by

13 May

The Assistant by Kjell Ola Dahl, translated by Don Bartlett

Orenda Books

Oslo, 1938. When a woman turns up at the office of police-turned-private investigator Ludvig Paaske, has accepted a routine case to find evidence of a cheating husband but soon enough his assistant Jack Rivers has been accused of murder. Rivers is no angel, and Paaske must dig deep to find out what’s going on. The secrets he uncovers go all the way back to 1920s Norway when smugglers, pimps and racketeers ruled the Oslo underworld.

20 May

Summertime, All the Cats Are Bored by Philippe Georget, Translated by Steven Rendall

Europa Editions

It’s the middle of a long hot summer on the French Mediterranean shore and the town is full of tourists. Sebag and Molina, two tired cops who are being slowly devoured by dull routine and family worries, deal with the day’s misdemeanors and petty complaints at the Perpignan police headquarters without a trace of enthusiasm. Out of the blue a young Dutch woman is brutally murdered on a beach at Argelès, and another disappears without a trace in the alleys of the city. A serial killer obsessed with Dutch women?

20 May

Oxygen by Sacha Naspini, Translated by Clarissa Botsford

Europa Editions

Laura disappeared into thin air in 1999, at eight years old. She was found in a metal container, fourteen years later.

Luca is having dinner with his father dinner when they are interrupted by a visit from the carabinieri, who take his father away. Luca can only watch the scene unfold, helpless. The charges brought against esteemed anthropologist Carlo Maria Balestri are extremely grave: multiple counts of abduction, torture, murder, and concealing his victims’ bodies.

27 May

The Waiter by Ajay Chowdhury

Harvill Secker

Disgraced detective Kamil Rahman moves from Kolkata to London to start afresh as a waiter in an Indian restaurant. But the day he caters a birthday party for his boss's friend on Millionaire's Row, his simple new life becomes rather complicated. The event is a success, the food is delicious, but later that evening the host, Rakesh, is found dead in his swimming pool.

27 May

The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed

Viking

Mahmood Mattan is a fixture in Cardiff's Tiger Bay, 1952, which bustles with Somali and West Indian sailors, Maltese businessmen and Jewish families. He is a father, chancer, some-time petty thief. He is many things, in fact, but he is not a murderer.

So when a shopkeeper is brutally killed and all eyes fall on him, Mahmood isn't too worried. It is true that he has been getting into trouble more often since his Welsh wife Laura left him. But Mahmood is secure in his innocence in a country where, he thinks, justice is served.

10 June

In the Shadow of the Fire by Herve Le Corre, translated by Tina Kover

Europa Editions

The Paris Commune’s “bloody week” sees the climax of the savagery of the clashes between the Communards and the French Armed Forces loyal to Versailles. Amid the shrapnel and the chaos, while the entire west side of Paris is a field of ruins, a photographer fascinated by the suffering of young women takes “suggestive” photos to sell to a particular clientele. Young women begin disappearing, and when Caroline, a seamstress who volunteers at a first aid station, is counted among the missing, her fiancé Nicolas, a member of the Commune’s National Guard, and Communal security officer Antoine, sets off independently in search of her.

10 June

The All Human Wisdom by Pierre Lemaitre

MacLehose Press

In 1927, the great and the good of Paris gather at the funeral of the wealthy banker, Marcel Péricourt. His daughter, Madeleine, is poised to take over his financial empire (although, unfortunately, she knows next to nothing about banking). More unfortunately still, when Madeleine's seven-year-old son, Paul, tumbles from a second floor window of the Péricourt mansion on the day of his grandfather's funeral, and suffers life-changing injuries, his fall sets off a chain of events that will reduce Madeleine to destitution and ruin in a matter of months.

15 June

The Transparency Of Time, Leonardo Padura, translated by Anna Kushner,

Bitter Lemon Press

Mario Conde is facing down his sixtieth birthday. What does he have to show for his decades on the planet? A failing body, a slower mind, and a decrepit country, in which both the ideals and failures of the Cuban Revolution are being swept away in favor of a new and newly cosmopolitan worship of money. Rescue comes in the form of a new case: an old Marxist turned flamboyant practitioner of Santería appears on the scene to engage Conde to track down a stolen statue of the Virgen de Regla—a black Madonna. This sets Conde on a quest that spans twenty-first century Havana as well as the distant past to uncover the true provenance of the statue.

My review of Havana Fever:

https://fictionfromafar.tumblr.com/post/631759758177746944/havana-fever-written-by-leonardo-padura

24 June

The Wrong Goodbye by Toshihiko Yahagi, translated by Alfred Birnbaum

MacLehose Press

In a nod to Raymond Chandler, The Wrong Goodbye pits homicide detective Eiji Futamura against a shady Chinese business empire and U.S. military intelligence in the docklands of recession hit Japan. After the frozen corpse of immigrant barman Tran Binh Long washes up in midsummer near Yokosuka U.S. Navy Base, Futamura meets a strange customer from Tran’s bar. Vietnam vet pilot Billy Lou Bonney talks Futamura into hauling three suitcases of “goods” to Yokota US Air Base late at night and flies off leaving a dead woman behind. My review:

https://fictionfromafar.tumblr.com/post/641412317374988288/the-wrong-goodbye

24 June

Sleepless by Romy Haussmann, translated by Jamie Bulloch

Quercus

It's been years since Nadja Kulka was convicted of a cruel crime. After being released from prison, she's wanted nothing more than to live a normal life: nice flat, steady job, even a few friends. But when one of those friends, Laura von Hoven - free-spirited beauty and wife of Nadja's boss - kills her lover and begs Nadja for her help, Nadja can't seem to be able to refuse.

29 June

Black Ice by Carin Gerhardsen

Scarlet

January in Gotland. The days are short, the air is cold, and all the roads are covered in snow. On a deserted, icy backroad, these wintery conditions will soon bring together a group of strangers with a force devastating enough to change their lives forever when, in the midst of a brief period, a deadly accident and two separate crimes leave victims in their wake.

1st July

The Darkness Knows by Arnaldur Indridason

Harvill Secker

A woman approaches Konrad with new information and progress can finally be made. But as Konrad starts to look back at the case and secrets of the past, he is forced to come face to face with his own dark side. In What the Darkness Knows, the master of Icelandic crime writing reunites readers with Konrad, the unforgettable retired detective from The Shadow District.

1 July

Resilience by Bogdan Hrib, translated by Marina Sofia

Corylus Books

Stelian Munteanu has had enough of being an international man of mystery: all he wants to do is make the long-distance relationship with his wife Sofia work. But when the notorious Romanian businessman Pavel Coman asks him to investigate the death of his daughter in the north of England, he reluctantly gets involved once more in what proves to be a tangled web of shady business dealings and political conspiracies. Moving rapidly between London, Newcastle, Bucharest and Iasi, this novel shows just how easy it is to fall prey to fake news and social media manipulation.

8 July

The Therapist by Helene Flood, translated by Alison McCulloch

MacLehose Press

A voicemail from her husband tells Sara he's arrived at the holiday cabin. Then a call from his friend confirms he never did. She tries to carry on as normal, teasing out her clients' deepest fears, but as the hours stretch out, her own begin to surface. And when the police finally take an interest, they want to know why Sara deleted that voicemail.

13 July

Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro translated by Frances Riddle

Charco Press

After Rita is found dead in a church she used to attend, the official investigation into the incident is quickly closed. Her sickly mother is the only person still determined to find the culprit. Chronicling a difficult journey across the suburbs of the city, an old debt and a revealing conversation, Elena Knows unravels the secrets of its characters and the hidden facets of authoritarianism and hypocrisy in our society.

My review of Betty Boo:

https://fictionfromafar.tumblr.com/post/633225446612484096/

15 July

The Basel Killings

Hansjörg Schneider

Bitter Lemon Press

It the end of October, the city of Basel is grey and wet. It could be December. It is just after midnight when Police Inspector Peter Hunkeler, on his way home and slightly worse for wear, spots old man Hardy sitting on a bench under a street light. He wants to smoke a cigarette with him, but the usually very loquacious Hardy is silent—his throat a gaping wound. Turns out he was first strangled, then his left earlobe slit, his diamond stud stolen. The media and the police come quickly to the same conclusion: Hardy’s murder was the work of a gang of Albanian drug smugglers. But for Hunkeler that seems too obvious.

20 July

The Double Mother by Michel Bussi, translated by Sam Taylor

W&N

Already shown as a serial on Channel4’s Walter Presents (as The Other Mother), four-year-old Malone Moulin is haunted by nightmares of being handed over to a complete stranger and begins claiming his mother is not his real mother. His teachers at school say that it is all in his imagination as his mother has a birth certificate, photos of him as a child and even the pediatrician confirms Malone is her son. The school psychologist, Vasily, believes otherwise as the child vividly describes an exchange between two women.

22 July

Girls Who Lie Eva Bjorg AEgisdottir

Orenda

When single mother Maríanna disappears from her home, leaving an apologetic note on the kitchen table, everyone assumes that she’s taken her own life … until her body is found on the Grábrók lava fields seven months later, clearly the victim of murder. Her neglected fifteen-year-old daughter Hekla has been placed in foster care, but is her perfect new life hiding something sinister?

My Review of A Creak On The Stairs:

https://fictionfromafar.tumblr.com/post/631717704661942273/

22nd July

The Doll Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Hodder & Stoughton

It was meant to be a quiet family fishing trip, a chance for mother and daughter to talk. But it changes the course of their lives forever. They catch nothing except a broken doll that gets tangled in the net. After years in the ocean, the doll a terrifying sight and the mother's first instinct is to throw it back, but she relents when her daughter pleads to keep it. This simple act of kindness proves fatal. That evening, the mother posts a picture of the doll on social media. By the morning, she is dead and the doll has disappeared.

5 August

The Soul Breaker by Sebastian Fitzek, translated by Jamie Bulloch

Head Of Zeus

He doesn't kill them, or mutilate them. But he leaves them completely dead inside, paralysed and catatonic. His only trace a note left in their hands. There are three known victims when suddenly the abductions stop. The Soul Breaker has tired of his game, it seems. Meanwhile, a man has been found in the snow outside an exclusive psychiatric clinic. He has no recollection of who he is, or why he is there. Unable to match him to any of the police's missing people, the nurses call him Casper.

12 August

Cold Sun by Anita Sivakumaran

Dialogue Books

Bangalore. Three high-profile women murdered, their bodies draped in identical red saris. When the killer targets the British Foreign Minister's ex-wife, Scotland Yard sends the troubled, brilliant DI Vijay Patel to lend his expertise to the Indian police investigation. Stranger in a strange land, ex-professional cricketer Patel must battle local resentment and his own ignorance of his ancestral country, while trying to save his failing relationship back home.

August date TBC

Skin Deep by Antonia Lassa, translated by Jacky Collins

Corylus Books

The corpse of an elderly millionaire is discovered brutally scarred with acid burns. Her young lover is the chief suspect but the authorities admit they are baffled. It will take the intervention of private detective Albert Larten to explore all the complexities of desire, and ultimately reveal the truth.

19 August

Come Hell Or High Water by Christian Unge

MacLehose Press

The first in a new Swedish crime series featuring Tekla Berg – a fearless doctor with a remarkable photographic memory

With 85% per cent burns to his body and a 115% risk of dying, it’s a miracle the patient is still alive. That he made it this far is thanks to Tekla Berg, an emergency physician whose unorthodox methods and photographic memory are often the difference between life and death.

30 September

Night Hunters by Oliver Bottini

MacLehose Press

The fourth in the Black Forest Investigations - by the four-time winner of the German Crime Fiction Award. Over the course of several days one hot summer, a female student from Freiburg disappears, a father is murdered in a brutal attack, a teenage boy drowns in the Rhine in suspicious circumstances. It soon becomes evident to Chief Inspector Louise Boni and her colleagues at Freiburg's criminal police that the three cases are connected - and that others are now in terrible danger. Including Boni herself.

07 October

Lemon by Kwon Yeo-Sun

House Of Zeus

Focusing on the unsolved murder of teenage girl, this literary crime novel offers insights into gender, class and privilege in Seoul, and marks the English-language debut for award-winning Korean author, Kwon Yeo-sun.

In the summer of 2002, my big sister Hae-on was murdered. She was beautiful, intelligent, and only nineteen years old. Two boys were questioned, but the case was never solved. Her killer still walks free.

12 October

Bread: The Bastards of Pizzofalcone

by Maurizio de Giovanni

Europa Editions

Sometimes it takes facing a formidable adversary to truly know one’s worth. The Bastards of Pizzofalcone may have found just that: when the brutal murder of a baker rattles the city, they are ready to investigate. There’s nothing they wouldn’t do to prove themselves to their community. But this time the police are divided: for the special anti-mob branch, the local mafia is doubtlessly responsible for the crime, but the Bastards are not so sure and think there may be another reason for the murder of the renowned artisan, whose traditionally baked bread attracted customers from far and wide. A rivalry between the policeman and the magistrate is formed, one that, in the end, will extend to more than just their work lives.

12 October

The Corpse Flower by Anne Mette Hancock

Crooked Lane Books

It's early September in Copenhagen, the rain has been coming down for weeks, and 36-year-old journalist Heloise Kaldan is in the middle of a nightmare. One of her sources has been caught lying, and she could lose her job over it. And then she receives the first in a series of cryptic and ominous letters from an alleged killer.

28 October

Inertia by Camilla Grebe

Zaffre

Inertia is an eerie psychological thriller from the award-winning Swedish bestselling author Camilla Grebe. When 18-year old Samuel finds himself at the centre of a drug deal gone wrong, he is forced to go underground to escape the police and an infamous drug lord.

October date TBC

The Commandments by Oskar Gudmundsson

Corylus Books

On a cold winter morning in 1995, Anton, a 19-year-old boy, met a priest outside Glerárkirkja in Akureyri. After that, he was never seen again. Two decades later a priest is found murdered in the church in Grenivík. When the police investigate the case, they finds that a deacon has also been executed inside Akureyri.

28 October

Cold as Hell by Lilja Sigurdardottir

Orenda Books

Icelandic sisters Áróra and Ísafold live in different countries and aren‘t on speaking terms, but when their mother loses contact with Ísafold, Áróra reluctantly returns to Iceland to find her sister. But she soon realizes that her sister isn’t avoiding her … she has disappeared, without trace.

As she confonts Ísafold’s abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend Björn, and begins to probe her sister’s reclusive neighbours – who have their own reasons for staying out of sight – leads Áróra into an ever darker web of intrigue and manipulation.

28 October

The Rabbit Factor by Antti Toumainen

Orenda Books

What makes life perfect? Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen knows the answer because he calculates everything down to the very last decimal.

And then, for the first time, Henri is faced with the incalculable. After suddenly losing his job, Henri inherits an adventure park from his brother – its peculiar employees and troubling financial problems included. The worst of the financial issues appear to originate from big loans taken from criminal quarters … and some dangerous men are very keen to get their money back.

2 November

Bricklayers

Selva Almada

Charco Press

Oscar Tamai and Elvio Miranda, the patriarchs of two families of brickmakers, have for years nursed a mutual hatred, but their teenage sons, Pájaro and Ángelito, somehow fell in love. Brickmakers begins as Pájaro and Marciano, Ángelito’s older brother, lie dying in the mud at the base of a Ferris wheel. Inhabiting a dreamlike state between life and death, they recall the events that forced them to pay the price of their fathers’ petty feud.

My review of Dead Girls:

https://fictionfromafar.tumblr.com/post/642554449326489600/dead-girls-charco-press

4 November

The Night Will Be Long

Santiago Gamboa

Europa Editions

When a horribly violent confrontation occurs outside of Cauca, Colombia, only a young boy is around to witness it. But no sooner does the violence happen than it disappears, vanished without a trace. Nobody claims to have seen anything. Nobody claims to have heard anything. That is, until an anonymous accusation catalyzes a dangerous investigation into the deep underbelly of the Christian churches present today in Latin America. The Night Will Be Long is a dark, twisting thriller filled with moments of humor and pain--a story that will stick with readers long after they turn the last page.

11 November

The Shadows of Men by Abir Mukherjee

Harvill Secker

When a Hindu theologian is found murdered in his home, the city is on the brink of all-out religious war. Can officers of the Imperial Police Force, Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee track down those responsible in time to stop a bloodbath? Set at a time of heightened political tension, beginning in atmospheric Calcutta and taking the detectives all the way to bustling Bombay, the latest instalment in this 'unmissable' (The Times) series presents Wyndham and Banerjee with an unprecedented challenge.

[princesscatherinemiddleton]

The Princess of Wales’ Year in Review: March

March 1st - The Prince and Princess of Wales presented Leeks to the Welsh Guards at Combermere Barracks for St David’s Day March 2nd - The Prince and Princess of Wales welcomed Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette Marit of Norway to Windsor Castle. The four royals then held a meeting with Norwegian Business Delegates March 7th - The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron of the Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, held an Early Years Meeting March 8th - The Princess of Wales, Colonel of the Irish Guards, visited 1st Battalion Irish Guards at Salisbury Plain Training Area March 9th - The Prince and Princess of Wales visited Hayes Muslim Centre March 13th - The Prince and Princess of Wales joined the King and Queen, the Princess Royal and Vice Adm Sir Tim, and the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh at the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey March 14th - The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron of the Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, received Professor Eamon McCrory (Board Member of the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood Advisory Group) at Windsor Castle March 15th - The Princess of Wales, Joint Patron of the Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, held an Early Years Meeting March 17th - The Prince and Princess of Wales, Colonel of the Irish Guards, presented shamrocks to the Irish Guards at Mons Barracks for St. Patrick's Day March 19th - Kensington Palace released two photographs of Catherine with her children for Mother's Day March 21st - The Princess of Wales, Patron of the Royal Foundation, held a meeting to launch a Business Taskforce for Early Childhood March 24th - The Princess of Wales wrote an opinion piece in the Financial Times, entitled "Investing in early childhood is a down payment on all our futures," about how business leaders need to invest now in the importance of early childhood, as a down payment for our collective future March 25th - A video of the Princess of Wales and Iceland (the shop) speaking about the crucial impact early years was released

[world-of-wales]

─ •✧ CATHERINE'S YEAR IN REVIEW : FEBRUARY ✧• ─

1 FEBRUARY - Catherine appeared in a video for Shaping Us Campaign.

2 FEBRUARY - Catherine appeared in a video with Roman Kemp as part of the Shaping Us Campaign.

4 FEBRUARY - Kensington Palace released a childhood photo of Catherine with Michael Middleton for the Shaping Us Campaign.

5 FEBRUARY - She visited St. John's Primary School to mark the start of Children's Mental Health Week 2023.

8 FEBRUARY - Catherine was received by His Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of Derbyshire (Mrs. Elizabeth Fothergill) as she visited Landau Forte College along with Captain Harpreet Chandi.

9 FEBRUARY - Catherine and William were received by His Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of Cornwall (Colonel Edward Bolitho) at the National Maritime Museum Falmouth in Discovery Quay. Afterwards, they visited the Dracaena Centre.

19 FEBRUARY - Catherine and William attended the British Academy Film Awards at the Royal Festival Hall where and were received by His Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London (Sir Kenneth Olisa).

21 FEBRUARY - She was received by His Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of the Royal County of Berkshire (Mr. James Puxley) at the Oxford House Nursing Home in Slough.

22 FEBRUARY - Catherine held an Early Years Meeting.

23 FEBRUARY - Catherine received Mr. Ian Hewitt (Chairman, AELTCC ) at Windsor Castle. Subsequently, she received Major General Christopher Ghika and Lieutenant Colonel James Aldridge (Regimental Lieutenant Colonel & Commanding Officer) of the Irish Guards.

25 FEBRUARY - Catherine and William met the volunteers and staff of the Welsh Rugby Charitable Trust and attended the Six Nations Rugby Match between Wales and England at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff. They were received by His Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of South Glamorgan (Mrs. Morfudd Meredith).

28 FEBRUARY - Catherine and William were received by His Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of West Glamorgan (Mrs. Louise Fleet) at Brynawel House Alcohol and Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Pontyclun. Afterwards, they visited Aberavon Celtic Leisure Centre, where His Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of Mid Glamorgan (Mr. Peter Vaughan) received them. Subsequently, they were received by His Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of Dyfed (Miss Sara Edwards) as they opened the new patient room at Wales Air Ambulance in Dafen.

[somersetlevels]

Diamond Jubilee: 28 men and women, representatives of  regiments from across Britain's armed forces taking part in HM’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, appeared at the Wellington Barracks, London, 

BACK ROW: 1. Royal Marines Captain, 2. Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment soldier, 3. Welsh Guards soldier, 4. Coldstream Guards soldier, 5. Welsh Guards Corporal, 6. RAF Regiment Aircraftman, 7. RAF Regiment Officer

MIDDLE ROW: 8. Royal Marines Bandmaster, 9. Royal navy Warrant Officer, 10. Royal Navy Lt Commander, 11. Royal Navy rating from HMS Dauntless, 12. Grenadier Guards guardsman, 13. Scots Guards guardsman, 14. Welsh Guards guardsman, 15. Irish Guards guardsman, 16. Coldstream Guards guardsman, 17. TA soldier of Honourable Artillery Company

FRONT ROW: 18.& 19. Royal Marines band drummers, 20. Grenadier Guards drum major, 21. Scots Guards officer, 22. Coldstream Guards bandsman with tuba, 23. Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment pipes and drums, 24. King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery Sergeant, 25. & 26. RAF band musicians, 27. RAF regiment aircraftman

Source: Daily Mail

[atinyrabbit]

Since 8tracks is messed up and playmoss is gonna disappear, I’m posting some of my mixes here. This is a list of songs about feeling disconnected that I made a few years ago.

If you have Depersonalization Disorder, listening to these songs might make it worse. Dwelling on it can make it worse.

Stay In Your Coma - Alias Conrad Coldwood Far Away - Washed Out Seemingly Sleepy - Late Night Alumni Salt - Bad Suns After hours - The Velvet Underground Head Cold - Lights Will I Ever Care - VELVETEARS I'm Always Tired - Joyce Manor Break Apart - Glow Drifting Away (feat. Ofelia K) - Felix Cartal Make Me Real - she Exodus Honey - Honeycut Silhouettes - AURORA I'm Feeling Nothing - Dada Catacomb - Emptyself Disconnected - Lindsay Lohan Disappear Always - Wild Nothing I Don't Feel So Well - Vienna Teng Painbirds - Sparklehorse Don't Wake Me Up - Nico Collins Imaginary - Evanescence Hole - Kelly Clarkson Nowhere - Hypnogaja Guts - Gazelle Twin empty crown - Yas I Think I'll Be A Good Ghost - Say Hi Turning Into Stone - Phantogram I'm Only Sleeping - The Beatles Static - Colette Carr

Is - POP ETC Conscious - Broods Sugarbread - Soap&Skin Help Me Close My Eyes - Those Dancing Days Insane - Flume & Moon Holiday Sierra Lift - Blue Hawaii Alien Observer - Grouper Living Dead - Marina and the Diamonds Solitaire - Marina and The Diamonds Telescope - Cage the Elephant I'm So Tired - Fugazi Hologram - Katie Herzig How To Disappear Completely - Radiohead I Don’t Feel [Explicit] - Tapping The Vein All Is Lost - Katie Garfield Seven Twenty Seven - Natalie Claro Medicine (Sound Remedy Remix) - Daughter The Spectator (Album Version) - The Bravery Soft Control - Laura Welsh The Noise Inside My Head - Assemblage 23 Eyes Shut - Years & Years What's In The Middle - The Bird And The Bee Weighty Ghost - Wintersleep Within - Daft Punk   Sleep - Poets Of The Fall Miasma Sky - Baths Help me warm this frozen heart - Piano Magic Deception - Journal Pinch Me - Barenaked Ladies Easy - Son Lux The Nothing - Baths Harsh Realm - Widowspeak Big Black Nothing - Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band Don't Care About Anything - Alex Winston On and On - The Etiquette Leave Me Alone - FIDLAR Echo - JubyPhonic I Am An Illusion - Rob Thomas Goner - twenty one pilots Out At Sea - Heartless Bastards Sleep Paralysis - Gabriel Bruce If I Ever Feel Better - Phoenix The Chase - Hungry Lucy Raise the Dead - Rachel Rabin Somewhere Between Waking and Sleeping (feat. N. Hannon) - Air Alone And Sublime - Mother Mother Purgatorying - Alanis Morissette Ghost Story - Coldplay Downpour - Backstreet Boys Habits (Stay High) - Tove Lo Invisible - 5 Seconds of Summer Touch - Daughter the same things happening to me all the time - teen suicide So Far (feat. Arnor Dan) - Ólafur Arnalds Nothing's Real - Shura Where Is My Mind? - Pixies Man suit - Bears and Dolls Ghost - Conjure One feat. Kristy Thirsk Dragonfly - M. Craft Street Spirit (feat. Tallulah Rendall) - The Eden House Rainy Days - Late Night Alumni Inhale - Stone Sour Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd Black Out Days - Phantogram In The Sea - Ingrid Michaelson Isolation - Alter Bridge Wasted Daylight - Stars In The Pretend World - Scarling So Far Away - Red Isle unto Thyself - ミラクルミュージカル Ghost Song - Patrick Wolf Daydream In Blue - I Monster Slow Wave - Esben and the Witch 1st Person - Stone Sour To Be Alone - Ben Howard Bodysnatchers - Radiohead By This River (2004 Digital Remaster) - Brian Eno Anymore of This - Mindy Smith & Matthew Perryman Jones The Fog - Ghost Culture Carve Out The Face Of My God - Infinite Body Cardiff - Stone Sour Tha - Aphex Twin Dreamer - Sub Pop Unreal - Helalyn Flowers She Called - Peggy Sue Dead - Phoebe Ryan The Way I Feel - Asa 13 Angels Standing Guard Round The Side Of Your Bed - A Silver Mt. Zion Conversion - Queer Sounds Static - Hypnogaja

[tenderpromises]

sam claflin. male. he/him. ❝ can you hear halfway by parachute coming from apartment #406 ? that must mean caelean maddox is home. the thirty-four year old is currently a florist and they live alone. they’ve been living in the village for two months and residents have gathered the sagittarius’s empathetic yet unkept demeanor. ❞ thana. 21. she/her. pst.

Name: Caelean Maddox

Birthday: December 2 (34)

Ethnicity: Welsh

Gender: Cismale

Height: 5'11"

Tattoos + Piercings: Has a lion tattoo on the back of his right leg

Sexual orientation: Pansexual

Occupation: Temp florist

B A C K G R O U N D

✏ Born and raised in Brooklyn, Caelean had a pretty good childhood. His parents were always busy but every year, they visited Wales to see his extended family. He didn’t have much family. An aunt that taught him how to cook and his dad’s mother but she had died not long after them meeting. His mother was a florist which inspired his love for flowers while his father worked as a bookkeeper. 

✏ When Emlyn was born, he fell in love with her. He never really considered being an older brother, didn’t care much to think about it but when his little sister was put in his arms for the first time; the boy just melted and vowed to protect her at all costs. The two were thick as thieves, not attached to the hips but they didn’t go their separate ways whenever coming across each other outside their home. He was there to help take care of her and help her grow as a person. In a way, he grew too because of her. Because of her, he learned to be respectful to women (not to say he wasn’t before then) and people and their decisions.

✏ The stereotypical gentleman. He focused on school and graduated with honors all while dating sparingly. He grew up to be a romantic after watching movies courtesy of spending time with his mother and sister (who ironically enough didn’t care much for the impracticality behind romance). The first thing he buys a girl are flowers, texts them to make sure they get home okay and that he had a good time even when he didn’t.

✏ He moved to Los Angeles for college and decided to stay put. He got a steady job as a bookkeeper and enjoyed the continuity. Eventually, Emlyn had moved out there and that gave him less of a reason to leave. 

✏ He was 27 when he met Linnette Antonelli at a bar. Somehow the two had hit it off and became the best of friends, contacting each other often and grabbing a bite to eat. Suddenly, Linnette had became the one girl that he cared for besides his mother and Emlyn. Eventually he had found out that she was a daughter of an infamous mafia family in Italy but at that point, the two were already close and she had been out of the business for a while.

✏ When he quit his job in order for his co-worker to get a promotion that he didn’t even want, Linnette swooped in and asked him to become her business partner. He didn’t have an interest in planning weddings but he did like the idea in helping in some aspect. So he agreed. She would plan the weddings while he would handle the finances and promoting the business. They ended up actually working pretty well with one another and eventually it became successful beyond belief.

✏When Emlyn became an escort, he didn’t see the appeal but it was his sister’s choice so he never convinced her not to. Instead, Caelean demanded that they move in together so that he would know that she got home safe every night. He knew something was wrong when Emlyn came home with bruises though she insisted it was just some guy’s kink. He immediately dropped the subject, not needing to talk about his sister’s sex life. When she kept coming home with more and more bruises, he found out that the same guy kept coming back to her. The day she didn’t come home ruined him. He’s always been a worrier but after the concerning facts about this man, he gave zero fucks at this point. He hacked into the club’s security cameras to find the guy and tracked him down. Inside the man’s apartment lied the bruised and bloody body of his little sister. And she wasn’t breathing. 

✏ He flew into a rage and stabbed the man repeatedly until he was left begging for the mercy that he neither deserved or was granted. After an hour of crying over Emlyn’s body, he realized what he had done and had called Linnette asking for her help. She immediately came and helped him cover his tracks. Emlyn’s funeral was hard enough on the fact that she had died young but now his parents wouldn’t look at him after learning about what he had done. Once the funeral ended, his parents packed up their things and left. Though he could easily find out where they are, he hasn’t bothered.

✏ You think that would deter him but ever since then, he goes around clubs and observes his surroundings. If he ever thinks that someone is getting too handsy with someone, he steps in and puts a stop to it. However he needs to. 

✏ After losing Emlyn, he moved back to Brooklyn unable to cope. He took over his mother’s shop and has been keeping it in hopes that she’ll come back one day.

P E R S O N A L I T Y

✏ Kind ✏ Caring ✏ Supportive ✏ Friendly ✏ Empathetic ✏ Romantic ✏ Devoted ✏ Guarded ✏ Unkept ✏ Worrisome ✏ Practical ✏ Frivolous ✏ Obsessive ✏ Protective F A M I L Y

Mother: Brynna Maddox (52, status unknown)

Father: Owen Maddox (52, status unknown)

Sibling(s): Emlyn (23, deceased)

Extended family: Linnette Antonelli (honorary sister)

Pet(s): Allura (Bengal cat)

H E A D C A N O N S

✏ Caelean is a wine and dine type of guy. He doesn’t date anyone at all unless he sees the potential of them being together forever. 

✏ That being said, while he doesn’t like fucking without feelings behind it, he has done so when he’s messed up things for an escort that he’s tried to protect so they don’t lose their job because of him.

✏ Speaks Welsh

✏ Has an amazing voice but you’ll only catch him humming and singing on karaoke nights

✏ Is not a big drinker. He drinks socially but after a while gets tired of the taste that he’ll just pretend to drink it and discard it.

✏ Smokes when stressed

✏ Considers himself a cleanfreak but really it’s just an organized mess. The neatest thing about him is his closet.

✏ He knows how to cook but doesn’t do it often.

✏ Speaking of which, he hasn’t cooked for many people. Only the people he knows is going to be in his life forever.

✏ Despite barely having any friends, has a huge online presence. You can catch him on social media often.

✏ Doesn’t have a favorite color. It changes to the color of his current love’s eyes each time.

✏ He’s a morning person and a night owl. You can catch him being awake at 4am with a smile on his face and staying up until 11 just because he got caught up doing something.

✏ Hates PDA. The most he’s ever done in public is squeeze someone’s shoulder in greeting.

✏ Knows enough to hack into systems but doesn’t care to do it

✏ Moves super slowly. He’s a sweet guy but the reason he’s single is because he he takes a long time to put out.

✏ Likes to jog and box but he has no reflexes at all

✏ Writes letters to Emlyn detailing important events about his life

✏ When he’s upset, has the tendency to say things that can’t be taken back.

✏ His first sexual experience was with an escort and really she taught him that everything he knows. It was the one time that he had ever been with an escort more than once.

W A N T E D  C O N N E C T I O N S

✏ Escorts that he saved?

✏ Childhood friends

✏ Friends

✏ Anyone really