#National Hero Day

[wandazworldz]

Happy National Hero Day 🤍

[spiderliliez]

JANE GOODALL : AN INSIDE LOOK An intimate portrait of Dr. Goodall and her pioneering work The documentary draws from an extensive collection of unseen footage, totaling more than 100 hours, capturing Jane Goodall’s work in Gombe during the 1960s, meticulously filmed by Hugo van Lawick. Thought to have been lost, this invaluable footage resurfaced in 2014, providing a glimpse into Dr. Goodall’s groundbreaking research and the natural world she dedicated her life to studying.

[+] JANE (2017) 🌿

[nationaldaycalendar]

October 8, 2022 - NATIONAL FLUFFERNUTTER DAY – NATIONAL HERO DAY – NATIONAL PIEROGI DAY – INTERNATIONAL OFF-ROAD DAY – NATIONAL CHESS DAY – NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE RIDE DAY - AMERICAN TOUCH TAG DAY – NATIONAL COSTUME SWAP DAY – I LOVE YARN DAY

October 8, 2022 – NATIONAL FLUFFERNUTTER DAY – NATIONAL HERO DAY – NATIONAL PIEROGI DAY – INTERNATIONAL OFF-ROAD DAY – NATIONAL CHESS DAY – NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE RIDE DAY – AMERICAN TOUCH TAG DAY – NATIONAL COSTUME SWAP DAY – I LOVE YARN DAY

OCTOBER 8, 2022 | NATIONAL FLUFFERNUTTER DAY | NATIONAL HERO DAY | NATIONAL PIEROGI DAY | INTERNATIONAL OFF-ROAD DAY | NATIONAL CHESS DAY | NATIONAL MOTORCYCLE RIDE DAY | AMERICAN TOUCH TAG DAY | NATIONAL COSTUME SWAP DAY | I LOVE YARN DAY NATIONAL FLUFFERNUTTER DAY | OCTOBER 8 National Fluffernutter Day on October 8th brings about a yummy and extraordinary combination. Some food holidays are…

[hotpotatopotat]

Yeah Midoriya get with the program

[cat-cosplay]

Wait-a-minute...

[thecalvinistkat]

Team Rose fanart for National Girlfriends day! Platonically, of course. (Big is an honorary girlfriend.)

Speedpaint: https://youtube.com/shorts/mFNMi-SfuWg?si=V78YijqfcN6lWqWF

[thepastisalreadywritten]

Commemorations Marking The 80th Anniversary Of D-Day Take Place In Portsmouth

Prince William, King Charles III, Queen Camilla, Rishi Sunak, his wife Akshata Murtyn, and Foreign Secretary David Cameron attend the UK's National Commemorative Event for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, hosted by the Ministry of Defence on Southsea Common on 5 June 2024 in Portsmouth, England.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla lead the commemorative events in Portsmouth ahead of the actual 80th Anniversary of D-Day on June 6th.

Veterans, VIP Guests and school children are attending an event on Southsea Common.

Portsmouth was where tens of thousands of troops set off to Normandy to participate in Operation Overlord.

They established a foothold on the French coast and advanced to liberate northwest Europe.

📸: Andrew Matthews - Pool / Kin Cheung - Pool / Leon Neal / Getty Images

[whenweallvote]

Our democracy needs YOU! 🫵🏽

Across the country, poll workers help their communities vote, keep polling places open, and make sure every voter has access to the ballot box. Serving as a poll worker is a fun and nonpartisan way you can help protect our democracy — and you can even get paid!

In honor of #PollWorkerRecruitmentDay, sign up to be a poll worker now at weall.vote/recruit. 🗳️

[tmcphotoblog]

In the bottom of this photo, you can see FDNY Ladder 118 crossing over the Brooklyn Bridge on their way to the World Trade Center. This is their last known photo. Every single firefighter on that truck perished just a few minutes later. We vowed to never forget. Unfortunately, so many have.

[peanut0w0]

Happy Mabinaldo Day-- Este National Heroes Day!!

"Say cheese, Mahal." ASKDAJKSGDASD

[daisdu]

Everyone say “Thank you Mr. Tims”

[allaboutjmo]

[oumaheroes]

Got any spooky local folklore and stories?

Not local to me (though there are a good few I could tell), but have this strange tale instead

-----------------

The Teacher

There is a ghost past the schoolyard.

Over there, past the field to where the trees touch the iron railing on the other side. Do you see? By the forked one with the crack. In and out between the trees he walks, to sit or stand a while alone. He’s always been there, for years and years and years. Everybody knows. Pale skin, pale hair, and blood red eyes- all life sucked out of him. It’s true! You must know him, Sir, you must. You’ve been here before, haven’t you? You were a student here too, Miss says, back when you were young.

He was. And the teacher can remember the story of the ghost behind the playing fields, one who walked there a few days every year to sit in silence amongst the trees. There is a little bench on the other side of the school’s railings, old and rusty as if left behind to guard a forgotten track, and the ghost would come and haunt the grounds a few times in October, every year since the beginning of time.

Maybe he was there more often, in the summer when the leaves hide the shape of him amongst the green, but he was always gone by the time the last of them fell, leaving only the old bench and the muddy floor of the forest. Or, perhaps he only appeared when the spirits grew in strength as the summer died, old year peeling away to reveal the world of the beyond.

This is only a story. One passed from year group to year group, new students taken by the shoulders and made to stand at cool railings, five years old and dreading to spot the dead man emerge from the trees. Children said he died there, waiting for a lost love. That she betrayed him to her secret lover, who shot him from behind as he waited to meet her. He’d kill you, if you looked him in the eye. Drop dead from fright.

If you listen, Sir! If you listen you can hear the shot. I swear it, and Ada says that she saw blood last year on the leaves. Gone in a blink but she swears-

The teacher enjoys these stories. He is pleased that after twenty years that it prevails, almost entirely unchanged. He remembers some encounters that now come back to him, stood as he is in his new-old classroom on the first weekend of October. His brother swore blind that he saw the man once, a flash of white before vanishing when he looked. Several of his classmates had a similar experience, a noise of twigs snapping when no one was near, the smell of gun smoke and unseen cookfires that left as suddenly as they came.

The teacher has no stories of his own. He had been too scared to get close to see when he was a student, staying well in the safety of the school field as his classmates screamed and ran from the edges, daring each other to get close, closer.

He wonders how old these stories are. Every school has something of the like, he knows- girl dead in the toilets, boy thrown from the roof. Sad and lost children, furious at their lot and stuck forever to watch the life they left behind. But this one, the teacher thinks, is unusual. The details still so solid and exactly the same as what he remembers.

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ The librarian, the same as was here when the teacher was a boy, takes a sip of her coffee and blinks at him behind thick glasses, ‘The whole time I’ve worked here, I think. Unsettled me, at first. Thought it morbid.’

‘And now?’

She chuckles, ‘Now, I’m fond of it. It’s nice that it hasn’t changed. Traditions passed by children are special, I think. Don’t you?’

Stop.

Wait.

What is that, by that tree? A movement, quick between tree trunks. Hold still, listen a moment. Is that not the snap of a twig, the rustle of something move?

Perhaps, after all, there is something past the schoolyard.

The teacher spots it, one day, taking a walk around the edges of the field. Too many papers, too much marking… and it’s nice to be outside. The sun is out today, the autumn leaves orange and red fires in their branches or in drips and splotches along the ground but there… what was that. A glimpse of white amongst brown. Could it be?

Don’t be foolish. Go and look.

How many years has it been, the teacher thinks to himself, as his heart beats faster close by the railings. A too fast trip ta-tum ta-tum, a marching drum as he nears. Caution grips his stomach, a flutter of a warning. Silly children’s stories, silly exaggerations and games, he is too grown up for this. But stories long held and passed down hold truth, don’t they? Isn’t there something true, in every tale that is told? Something that makes it important to be kept, something that demands it be remembered?

Closer, closer. One step, two.

The teacher has never been this close before.

On the edges of the schoolyard, almost beyond the shouts of playing children where the trees touch the railings, there is a bench. It is warped, rusted by wind and rain and time. It sits alongst the branches and the roots, a forgotten rest stop in the thickness of the forest. And by the bench, stands a man.

He is a normal man. Average height, average build. Maybe a little too slim, coat too loose about the chest, but there is a body to fill it. He swings his head around as the teacher approaches, a polite nod in greeting that the teacher does not- forgets to- return. The man’s eyes are red, his hair is white, and hundreds of old stories murmur in the teacher’s head at once like whispers.

‘Can I help you?’ The man speaks, awkward silence between them gone on for too long, and the teacher finds his senses return. This ghost has a voice, and a body. He is a man, after all.

But… but.

‘Hello.’ The teacher steps closer to the stranger. ‘Are you lost?’

‘Lost?’ The man scoffs, as if offended. ‘Nah. Just on a walk.’

‘This is a school.’ The teacher says, patting the railings that separate them, ‘You are scaring the children.’

The man raises his eyebrow, disbelief and scorn all over his face, ‘The children?’

Swallow, breathe. A shout of young voices on the wind. ‘Yes.’

‘Huh.’ The man turns away and looks out through the forest. ‘I’ve been coming here for years and not had trouble before.’

The teacher goes to respond but the stranger scuffs the mud underfoot with the toe of one boot and the teacher finds himself silenced.

‘There used to be a road here. A single horse track through the woods.’ The stranger lays a hand upon the bench, wide hand light on the metal back, ‘The Prussian army camped here once and left this behind. Wouldn’t know that now, would you?’

Muddy ground, thick trees. Where had this man come from? The teacher shakes his head, ‘No, I wouldn’t.’

‘Not on any maps anymore. Used to be. Then they built the manor-‘ a head jerk towards where the school now sits, directed to something missing, ‘and everything shifted east. Then, this became the edge; the last bit.’

The edge? Of town, yes, but that felt like there was more there, underneath and between the man’s words. The teacher opens his mouth, closes it. Then, ‘My family lived there.’

The man turns back to him, bright eyes and a knowing smile, ‘Yeah?’

Why had he said that? The teacher didn’t mean to say that, he had meant to sa- ‘Yes. My great great grandfather was born in the gatehouse. They worked for the family.’

The man snorts. He knew that already, the teacher thinks, he knew that. He knows me too, somehow, something in his face gives it away. The normalcy of family, shared blood and kin amongst strangers.

‘Well, all gone now.’ Red eyes, white hair. Broad shoulders pulled back and straight naturally- a soldier’s stance. There could almost be a sword at his side, and if the coat were not there the teacher could believe that there was. The man nods at him, sober- ‘Nice to meet you’- and the teacher knows that he is dismissed.

Where is he going? Why is he walking away? But he is, the teacher finds that he is walking. Back across the field, back to the school- sat atop the ruined foundations of a manor house that hardly anyone remembers was once there. A general built it, some documents say, a young man who was rewarded for his efforts in helping Prussia to greatness and it fell when the Russians came.

How strange, the teacher thinks to himself as the hours tick by, how odd. His shoes are muddy and he knows he walked during lunch, but the route… where did he go? Who did he speak to? Did he speak at all; he thinks that he did. He has memory of words there, in his mind, but he can’t quite hold onto them. It is like his mind shies away, refusing to acknowledge something he isn’t supposed to know. There is the taste of something in his mouth, something metallic and sharp, and it lingers there until the night like soot.

Sir, sir! Look, did you see-?

No. No, he did not.

[webshootersandwingdings]

We're celebrating #NationalPuppyDay with this adorable Concept Art of Cosmo by Bruno Gauthier Leblanc, Art Director

X

[georgia-anlor]

For National heroes day.

Too many characters so I just tag a few of them.

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Daughter of the House of Dreams: A Fragment

Author's Note: This is the opening to a long-abandoned "Sleeping Beauty" retelling that I no longer plan to write, but I still like it as a piece of prose, and it sparked my enduring interest in second-person narration, so it feels relevant, and why should long-dead authors be the only ones who get to have their unfinished fragments published?

If you ever travel to Monetta City, be sure to visit Faraway Lane. Walk past the glittering new shops, and the shoppers in their bright silk dresses and top hats, and you'll find a cozy stone shop at the end of the street. This shop isn't grand and mighty like the other shops. It won't sniff and turn you away if your clothes aren't the latest fashion. It's a grandmotherly old shop that shakes its head at the prancing and preening of the younger shops, and invites you in instead. It holds no wares in its windows; it hardly has windows at all. But it has a warm and wide wooden door, with a shingle hanging above—Alessia Day, maker of dreams.

Don't ponder the sign's message too long—it means exactly what it says. Just slip inside, shut the door behind you, and look. Don't breathe too deeply, unless you want a week of crazy dreams, but allow yourself one gasp of astonishment. You won't be able to stop yourself. No living person has failed to feel awe toward the rows and rows of shelves, longer than streets and taller than palaces, filled to bursting with glass bottles in such bright colors that the dresses in the other shops' windows would weep in envy. Some bottles are the size of thumbnails. Most fit comfortably in the palm. Some are as large as breadboxes or steamer trunks or carriage horses, but the shelves manage to fit them all. And each bottle is filled to the brim with dreams.

If you don't understand, ask Alessia Day. You'll find her at a counter half a mile from the door, polishing bottles and humming a song you've heard but can't remember. She's an old woman now, and proud of it, but squint your eyes and start to daydream, and you'll see her as I remember her—a willow-wand girl with shining brown hair and eyes that sparkle with half-formed jokes.

Tell this girl how pretty she is (she'll laugh and call you crazy) and ask about her dreams. She'll tell you of her stock and sell you any dream you ask for—daydreams and pipe dreams, dreams of love, dreams of adventure, dreams of loved ones lost and loved ones found and people you've never met but wish you had. She'll show you dreams of lush and perfect islands, dreams where fishes fly through the air, and dreams where people swim the seas with fishes' tails. She'll pull down dreams that last a second but linger a lifetime, dreams that fill a month of stormy nights, dreams that fade on waking and dreams that drown out memories. If you let her, she'll talk of dreams until you drift off, and she'll bottle up your dream while you doze.

But if you're smart (I know you are) you'll step to the counter with a clear glass bottle, empty of everything but air, and ask for her story instead. She'd distill it in a dream for you, and be glad to do it—I once saw her whip it up in half a minute, and I'll bet she's even faster now. Buy the dream, but don't drink it right away. You won't be ready for it. Linger in the shop a while. Hear the story first from Alessia Day's lips, in that voice of hers that's sweeter than singing.

You won't believe half of it, but when you stagger from the shop and wander the empty, starlit streets, you'll ponder over passages until you stumble into bed at sunrise. And when you wake, the world will be different—you'll see tiny footprints on the windowsills, know things about the shadows on the walls, tip your hat to creatures in the corner of your eye, and realize there is another color no one else can see. You'll laugh and call it your imagination, but every second Tuesday, you'll start to wonder if the old woman was right, if the things she told you were true.

If you drink the dream she made, you'll know. I'll understand if you don't—some things are easier not to know. But if you do, and dream through her story, come to my house and ring the bell. My man will let you in—he'll know you by the wonder on your face. He'll bring you to my study, set you in my oldest, softest chair, and get us both settled with a steaming pot of tea. Then, once you've finished babbling, I'll close my eyes and tell you my part in the tale.