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felassan · 3 years

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Mass Effect development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

This is the Mass Effect version of this post.

[In case you can’t read it the subtitle in the bottom left logo above is “Guardians of the Citadel”]

Note: Drug use is mentioned.

Cut for length.

Mass Effect 1

ME began its life in a vision document in fall 2003

Codenamed “SFX”

Conceived of by Casey Hudson and a core team from KotOR. Its genesis was the intention to create an epic sci-fi RPG in an original setting that BioWare owned (so they could have full creative control), and in a setting that was conceived of first and foremost as a video game

Initially players could control any squadmate, but they wanted it to be about Shep and for players to be focused on Shep being a battlefield commander, rather than on switching bodies

By the start of 2004 its story was shaping up. Initially humans landed on Mars in 2250 and discovered evidence of an ancient alien race and a powerful substance, Black Sand, which rapidly advanced tech to the point that FTL travel was possible. (My note: obviously now the Prothean artifacts on Mars & associated mass effect force tech enabled this in the final canon, but I wonder if aspects of the ‘Black Sand’ naming-type & powerful substance stuff was rolled into red sand from final canon) Humans were suddenly capable of travel to multiple star systems and made contact with a multitude of other species. At the start of the first game, these species together with humans had a fragile peace, with focus placed on the political center of the galaxy, a hub known as Star City, later renamed the Citadel

Multiplayer was a vision for the series as far back as 2003. The plan was for ME1, an Xbox exclusive at launch, to take advantage of the platform’s online components. Early designs saw players meeting in one of the central hubs to interact and trade items in their otherwise SP adventures

By 2006 it had the name ME and the story was more specific, with the theme of conflict between organic and synthetic lifeforms. The story’s scope now stretched across 3 games and included scope for full co-op MP

They tried to do MP in every game, discussing it from the get-go, but it always just fell by the wayside. “When you’re trying to build something that is a new IP, on a new platform, with a new engine, you’ve got to really focus on the core elements of the game.”

The conversation system prototype was made in Jade Empire, and some of ME’s earliest writing was done in an old JE build. At first there was no conversation wheel. Paragon was “Friendly” and Renegade “Hostile”. In the prototype Shep was a silent unnamed Spectre. Many conversations in the prototype about the player’s choice in smuggling a weapon through Noveria made it into the game

In said prototype a merchant referred to themselves as “this one”, though the word hanar never appeared. The PC in it also had the option to end a conversation with “I should go”. In the prototype also, Harkin was voiced by Mark Meer

An early version of the Mako got used as the krogan truck in ME2

Early concepts of the Citadel were drawn in pencil by CH. A piece of concept art of its final design was painted based on a photo of a sculpture near Aswan, Egypt

As with any new IP naming it was a struggle. They put out a call to all staff for ideas, did polls, made a name generator that combined words that they liked in random ways and made pretend logos of ones they liked in Photoshop to see if they could make themselves love the name or find visual potential in it. (Some of these names are in the pic at the top of this post.) CH liked “Unearthed” as it was a reference to Prothean ruins dug up on Mars and humanity’s ascendance going away from Earth. They knew the game would have a central space station featuring prominently so some of the ideas were based on that - “The Citadel”, “The Optigon”, “The Oculon”. “Element” was another one they had in mind due to the rare substance in the game

CH: “I was a big fan of John Harris’ book Mass, which had epic-scaled sci-fi ideas, so that was a word that came up often. Many of the names came from the idea that the IP featured a fifth fundamental physical force (in addition to the known four of gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear) so the word ‘effect’ came up pretty often.” Ultimately none of the ideas really felt right. One Monday morning they were going over the names and Greg Zeschuk said he had an idea on the weekend: “Mass Effect!” CH: “I said, ‘I don’t hate it’, which in the naming process is a high compliment. And it stuck!”

CH on Shep’s Prothean vision from the beacon: “It was hard to imagine how we would do this. CG was - and is - really expensive. Instead I wanted to try doing it through photography and video editing. So I went to a local grocery store and bought a few packages of the weirdest looking meat that I could find. Then I set up a little photoshoot in my basement, complete with some electronics parts and some red wine for juicyness.” He used these props to create a video sequence where the photos were rapidly cycled and blurred, along with production paintings, to create the scary vision an organic/machine experiment on the Protheans. These mashups were also used as inspiration for concept artists and level designers who were working on these themes

Tali used to be called Talsi

On the licensing side they often joke that they’re licensing N7 not “Mass Effect” due to N7′s popularity

There was a confidential internal guide to the IP in 2007 to help devs along and summarize/synthesize the vision etc. Some excerpts from it are shown in the book and this is the first time the public have ever seen them

Early versions of Asari had hair

Asari were designed as a nod to classic TV sci-fi (with human actors wearing obvious makeup and prosthetics to play aliens)

The turian design guideline was “we want them to be birds of prey”. They also wanted a range of alien types, some close to human like Asari, while others were to be a lot further away, like turians

BioWare patented the conversation wheel, which was a first for them. CH had been frustrated with reviews of Jade Empire that said that the actioncentric game was too wordy [with its list dialogue]. “I’m like, story is words. [...] What is it about our games that is making people feel like they’re wordy?” Then he thought “In a game you kind of need to feel like you’re continuing to play it. Maybe you should continue feeling like you’re playing it actively into the dialogue.” “[The wheel] kind of gave a new experience with dialogue when you did start to react based on emotion, and that’s ultimately what we’re trying to bring out in our games”

The original krogan concept was based on a bat “with a really wide squidgy face. We just used its face on top of this weird body and it kinda worked”

Geth musculature was based on fiber-optic cables, with flexible plates of armor attached

The vision for the IP was 80s sci-fi inspired space opera

The concept art of Saren lifting Shep by the throat inspired a similar scene in-game. The staging wasn’t planned til designers saw that art

A squadmate with Shepard on the way to meet Ash in an old storyboard was called Carter. Early name of Kaidan or Jenkins?

Bono from U2 was kinda instrumental in bringing us ME lol

Finding the right cover art for ME1 was notably tricky

Matt Rhodes got his start drawing helmets for ME1, including one which would become Shep’s “second face”. He estimates he drew between 250-270 different ones

Some of the sounds in-game were people smashing watermelons with sledgehammers and sticking fists into various goos

The audio team had fun trying to slip the iconic main theme into unexpected places throughout the MET. “We were very aware of how powerful that track was for the fans and it was tempting to overuse it for any moment we wanted to make really emotional”.

The theme was creatively repurposed in ME3: slowed down and reworked as the ambient sound for the SR-2. “If you listen to it for a really long time, just stand in the Normandy and listen, you’ll actually hear the notes change slowly. It doesn’t sound like music, it sounds like a background ambiance, but it’s there.” (My note: Well no wonder the Normandy feels so much like home?? 😭 sneaky..)

Bug report: “Mako Tornado”. There wasn’t enough friction between the tires and the ground, causing testers to lose control of the vehicle and send it spinning into the air like a tornado. “As it turns, the front end comes up, and then it starts spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning faster and faster and faster until it just flies up in the sky” (My note: Sounds like a regular day in the Mako to me)

Cerberus originally had a bigger role in this game. It was cut but they had a whole explorable outpost. “I called it Misery,” says Mac Walters, “It was this planet with a little outpost that said ‘Welcome to Misery’”. Everything on the outpost was shit - dirty worn stuff, no windows, no kitchen, the vehicle bay was open to the elements etc

The Reaper sound is literal garbage. Some audio designers went on a recording trip to a national park. One of them got fixated on a garbage can, “a metal bear-proof receptacle with a heavy lid that creaked horribly when opened”. “It was like, ominous, spooky, tonal and almost musical. I decided to throw a mic into the garbage and record it moving. I didn’t know what it was going to be until later”

They were making lots of noises to record like throwing logs and rocks around. An old couple peered at them through the window of their camper van in the woods and must have called the cops because then the cops showed up, pulled them over and told them to stop. The cops towed their car (the driver’s plates were Cali plates and expired), drove them to Edmonton outskirts and then the audio producer Shauna got a call and had to go pick them up “like three little boys”. “We got a stern talking to”. Once back they were playing around with the garbage sound, editing it etc. Casey heard it and proclaimed “That’s the sound of the Reapers”

Preston Watamaniuk: “There are things I could have done to Mass 1 to make it an infinitely better game with better UIs” and some simple cuts and changes. “But when you’re living with it, it’s very hard to see those things”

BioWare Labs

As social media and smartphone games exploded, BioWare dedicated a small team dedicated to exploring opportunities here - BioWare Labs

Mass Effect: Galaxy used a unique graphic art style and static visual presentation common in visual novels. It has the distinction of being the only iOS game BW have made during their first 25 years

Scrapped ideas were a 3rd person space shooter called Mass Effect: Corsair and 2 DA titles - a strategy game and a top-down dungeon crawler starring young Wynne. (My note: Maybe the corsairs stuff was rolled into Jacob’s backstory in 2, the Alliance Corsairs)

Corsair was a very short-lived project that never got its feet under it. It was a spin-off on Nintendo DS featuring a behind-the-ship perspective and branching dialogue. At one point it had MP. The idea behind it was basically “ME: Freelancer” - fly your ship around, do missions, get credits. It had a limited branching story but was a gameplay-centered experience intended to fill the gap between ME1 and 2. That gap ended up being filled by Galaxy

Galaxy and Corsair’s smaller screen allowed concept artists to use bold colors and a simplistic character design style to help those games stand out from Shep’s story

Nick Thornborrow did some art for Corsair but was worried his art style didn’t fit ME. He moved to DA where he feels his art style fits better

Lots of BioWare VAs and even a lead writer and the VO director are drawn from Edmonton’s local community theater scene, which is vibrant. Think this is how Mark Meer got involved

Mass Effect 2

Player choices carrying over was a first for BW

Dirty Dozen-inspired plot

Its plot is a web of conditionals (see Suicide Mission)

Was more of a shooter than anything BW had made since Shattered Steel

There was 2 camps on the team, those who wanted to push combat and systems forward and redefine the ME experience and those who wanted to make a true sequel, with the same gameplay and systems but a new story. Karin Weekes: “I think it ended up being a good push-pull. It felt like a pretty healthy creative conflict”

“ME2 was a game you could hold up to someone who argues that games aren’t a serious medium and go ‘Oh yeah, then why is Martin Sheen in this?’” Sheen was their first pick for TIM

The idea for TIM came from a mash-up of concepts CH had collected over the years. The name “Illusive” originally came from his pitch for naming DAO’s Eclipse engine, a word inspired by Obi-Wan’s line “It’s not about the mission, Master. It’s something... elsewhere. Elusive”. “I thought, what if we called our next engine 'Elusive', but used an ‘I’, and then it’s like ‘Illusion’. [...] I still really like the word with an ‘I’ and what it conjures”

When ME1 DLC was in production, CH had been watching a lot of CNN, specifically Anderson Cooper. “How is one guy travelling to all these places and never looking tired and always being able to speak with clarity?” CH says it seemed almost superhuman. “What if there was someone who is the absolute maximum of the things you would aspire to be, but also the worst of humanity?” Cooper, though not evil, became an inspiration for TIM down to the gray hair and piercing blue eyes

Inspiration for TIM’s behind-the-scenes role pulling political strings came from Jack Bauer’s brother Graem in 24. Graem “can call up the president and tell him what to do and hang up, because he’s so connected and so influential”. Sheen had played a president and his performance brought gravitas and wisdom to the role. He had quit smoking, but the character smokes. He didn’t want to fake it, but he also didn’t want to smoke, “so he actually asked for a cigarette” to hold so he could stop his words to take drags with natural cadence

Writing was still pushing to write and revise lines hours before VO started. A series of problems like injury and some writers leaving for other opportunities left it so that Karin, Lukas Kristjanson and editor Cookie Everman hand to land the story safely, with PW helping where they could. Lukas: “We took over the writing bug and task list, and I can’t stress enough how much [Karin and Cookie] did to get ME2 out the door. There’s no part of that thing we didn’t touch”. Karin: “That was the most dramatic 2 weeks of my life”

Initial fan reaction when they started promo-ing ME2 was very negative because people didn’t want to know about new chars like Jack and Mordin. “[fans were like] ‘Get them out of here. We want our characters from the first game’. But then when they played them, those became some of the most popular chars [of the series]”

Concept art of Thane has an idea annotation saying “Face can shapeshift?”

At one point when designing Thane concept artists sent multiple variations of him to the team asking them to vote on which was the most attractive

Most of the Normandy crew was written by lead level designer Dusty Everman. Lukas gave him advice in the evenings between bugs

BioWare Montreal made ME2 and 3 cinematics

CC for Shep was based on tools used by char designers to create in-game chars. Under the hood similar tools existed to create aliens

Aliens were much easier to animate than humans. When something is human it’s very difficult to make it look realistic and you can see all the mistakes and everything

Over the holiday period in 2007 CH worked out a diagram on a single piece of paper that would define the entire scope and structure of the game. The diagram is included in the book

Bug report: “I shot a krogan so hard that his textures fell off”. At one point shotgun blast damage was applied to each of the pellets fired, and shot enemies ended up with just the default checkerboard Unreal texture on them after their textures got blown off

Blasto was meant to be 1 step above an Easter egg but his fan popularity prompted them to bring him back in ME3

They rewrote chunks of Jack 2 days before she went to VO. She was the only one they could change because all the other NPCs were recorded. They redesigned her mission by juggling locked NPC lines and changing Shep’s reactions by rewriting text paraphrases to change the context of the already-recorded VO

Lukas snuck obscure nods ito ME2′s distress calls. In the general distress call for the Hugo Gernsback, there’s BW’s initial’s and Edmonton’s phone number backwards. In a fault in a beacon protocol there’s the initials and backward phone number from Tommy Tutone’s “Jenny”. In 2 other general distress calls there’s initials and numbers from Glenn Miller Orchestra’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000″ and initials and numbers from Geddy Lee and Rush’s “2112″ respectively

Mass Effect 3

“The end of an era marks the beginning of another”

ME3 “marked the end of Shep’s story”

Saying bye to Shep was as difficult for devs as it was for players

JHale’s final VO session included Anderson’s death and romanced Garrus’ goodbye. “We were in the session and we both just started crying”, Caroline says. “I couldn’t come on the line to give her notes because I was crying, and she was crying. And so there was just this minute-long pause of like, nothing, nothing, nothing - just silence through the airwaves. And then I came on and just told her that I was crying and she said ‘I’m crying!’” They talked about these anecdotes also here on the N7 Day reunion panel

The Microsoft Kinect voice support required devs to teach Kinect hundreds of commands in a variety of accents across multiple languages. The result was useful but made for some awkward moments. Numerous players accidentally said “geth” or “quarian” while making a particular decision and accidentally killed Tali

MP chars were voiced by cops and military people

The helmet on one of the MP chars was originally designed for cancelled project Revolver

The payload device at the end needed to attach to the Citadel while essentially serving as a giant trigger. “It ended up becoming quite the engineering feet just to visualize how this thing would move and connect to the Citadel”

Concept artists explored creating an anti-team, where Kai Leng was almost an anti-Shepard essentially, with an elite squad to counteract your team. This idea never went beyond concept phase

ME3 Special Edition was released on Nintendo Wii U exclusively. This exclusive version of the game includes Genesis 2 (a sequel to the original Genesis comic) and unique gameplay features that took advantage of the touchscreen GamePad. For years Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood had had the honor of being BW’s only game made for a Nintendo console

FemShep regrettably didn’t feature in major ME marketing til ME3. Later releases like DAI, MEA and Anthem have taken increasing care not to gender their protagonists in cover art

To capture combat sounds they took a trip to CFB Wainwright, a military base southeast of Edmonton. They got a big tour of it and were allowed to record anything they could find. The tour ended with them getting to drive and shoot tanks (real shells). The force of doing that sent waves through Joel Green, he felt his whole chest compress when it went off; the perfect sound for the Black Widow! After the trip the soldiers let him keep the shell he fired and it’s been passed on like a torch to various devs since

Kakliosaurs began life as a joke in the writers’ room after John Dombrow placed a Grunt figure on a t-rex toy he had on his desk. Lore was brainstormed to justify the mash-up before someone asked, “Why don’t we put this in the game?” They loved it so much Karin had custom coffee mugs made

Bug report: For a while Tali’s final romance scene would fire when she was supposed to be dead

“Balancing combat: how designers in ME3 entered an ‘arms race’” - the solution to players feeling OP vs players feeling frustrated by really strong enemies is to find a good middle ground, but for designers Corey Gaspur and Brenon Holmes, it was war. Brenon designed enemies, Corey designed guns. Corey “was obsessed with bigger, heavier guns. We had this sort of informal competition where he’d make this crazy overturned gun that would just murder all the enemies, and then I tuned some stuff up to compensate”

Brenon had to invent new ways to “stop Corey” and this led to the Phantoms. Corey had in turn designed consumable rockets that could wipe out entire waves of enemies. He must’ve figured this would make short work of Brenon’s space ninjas, but Brenon had other plans: “I had just added the ability for her to cut rockets [when Corey was playing MP and he was watching]. She cut the rocket in half... Corey just turns and looks at me and is like: ‘Really dude? I just shot a rocket at this Phantom and she’s fine? Not even damaged? Zero damage?’”

This friendly rivalry helped elevate ME3′s gameplay. Corey had a knack for making a gun feel so good to fire it had his fellow designers scrambling to keep up. It was his version of balancing. Before Corey sadly passed away he mentored Boldwin Li in all things weapon design and the arms race continued

Corey designed the Arc Pistol. It was causing problems for enemies because it was too powerful. It seemed hell bent on staying that way, Boldwin would tune down all its stats and it was still doing 3x the damage it should have been doing. “I was like ‘What the hell?’, and then I looked closer. It secretly fired 3 bullets for every pull of the trigger! Corey, you sneaky jerk”

The day it launched there were midnight launch parties across North America including one near the BW building. Numerous devs sat at long tables greeting fans and signing autographs as the fans picked up preorders. When midnight struck the line was long enough that it took several hours for some fans to get their game. One particular fan is remembered: “It was 3am. Some guy drove up from Calgary with his friends. He was like one of the last people in line. I think he was sort of tired-drunk. He threw himself across the tables, pulled up his shirt and shouted ‘Guys, sign my abs!’ And like I did, because he waited so long. It felt impolite not to. So I hope he enjoyed his copy of ME3″

For designing Protheans concept artists had free reign to design something that read as ancient

Before the concept art team had the story of the game to work toward, they explored wild ideas of their own including an image of the crew stealing back the Normandy to go after the Reapers

Jen Cheverie was testing scenes and was initially excited to be testing Mordin scenes, til she saw she was testing the Renegade version of his death. “This is even before like all of the audio and everything was in, so you didn’t even have the sad music. I remember sitting at my desk and my hands just went to my face when I saw that the gun Shep pulls on Mordin is the gun he gives Shep in ME2. I burst into tears and was crying for the rest of the day. People are waving to me as they walk by and I’m like, ‘It’s ok, I’m just killing my best friend’”

There’s a segment called “Shepard’s story ends”. Casey on the ending: “There’s a whole bunch of things that come together to make it incredibly tense and emotional for players. I think the biggest one was the sense of finality, that whatever it was that happened in that very last moment... was it.”

Wrapping up the story was a massive feat. In a way all of ME3 is an ending. Its final moments were the players’ last with a char they’d been with all the way from Eden Prime

“And while the critical reception of the game was extremely positive, many fans were unsatisfied with the ending, which became one of the most controversial in the history of games.” CH: “We were, on one hand, at the end of a marathon trying to finish the game and the series. But as devs we also knew that there would be more. We knew that we would continue to tell the story. In retrospect, we didn’t fully appreciate the tremendous sense of finality that it would have for people”. He envisioned an ending that posed new questions, something in the tradition of high sci-fi that left players dreaming about what that particular galaxy’s future could hold. “Frankly, there’s a lot more that we could have and should have done to honor the work players put in, to give them a stronger sense of reward and closure”

AAA games are massive undertakings with a million moving parts. Somehow they come together but even the best-planned projects don’t turn out quite like devs hope. From start to end video game production is a series of compromises. It’s rare if not impossible for devs to ship a game they’re entirely happy with. “I think that people imagine that when you finish a game, it’s exactly the way you wanted it to be. But whether people end up loving or hating the final result, we work hard to finish it the best we can, knowing that there’s a lot we would have wanted to do better. I think that’s true of any creative work”

As the dust settled after the initial reaction to the ending and later its epilogue, meant to show the wide-reaching ripple effects of Shep’s final choice, “players emerged mostly asking for one thing”. CH: “Now, most of what we hear, after both ME3 and MEA, is ‘Hey, just go make more Mass Effect’. And that to me is the most important thing. Knowing that players want to return to the ME universe is what inspires us to press on and imagine what comes next”

Mass Effect: Andromeda

By creating a new ME in a new galaxy the team was challenged to put their own visual stamp on the game while keeping it true to the franchise

Being the first ME game on a new gen of consoles meant for more detail

“Massive transport ships called arks populated with salarians, turians, humans, asari and quarians” made the risky jump to the Cluster

MEA was the first time BW had truly codeveloped across 3 studios: Edmonton, Montreal and Austin. The bulk of the work especially early on was done in Montreal, which was composed of a handful of Edmonton expats and heaps of experienced devs who joined from elsewhere specifically to bring a new ME experience to life. Series vets in Edmonton then came on to contribute writing, cinematics, design and QA, along with leadership from creative director Mac Walters and the core Production team. Austin writers and level designers also joined the fray

“It took a new team to take ME beyond the Milky Way”

Mac: “A lot of people in Montreal joined BW as fans of the franchise, so they just had this passion, and it felt like it was more like the days of Jade Empire, where a smaller younger team gets to do something for the first time. Even though it wasn’t necessarily a new IP for me, it felt fresh and new because of that. The team was just super excited to be working on it”

Early plans had the player exploring hundreds of worlds, procedurally generated, allowing for a nearly infinite variety of experiences. But as development wore on, it became clear that the game narrative required more specific, hand-touched level design on each world to keep the story focused and the experience engaging. “The plan was to give players numerous uncharted worlds to explore. Designers worked hard to come up with procedural elements that would make such planets special. Eventually the team made the difficult decision to abandon procedural planets in favor of more memorable hand-touched alien worlds, each with a specific story to tell”

One challenge was defining what ME meant without Shep. Care was given to include many of the MET’s key species. “Ryder recruited turian, asari, krogan and salarian followers”. Like Shep Ryder represents humanity’s hope for a peaceful coexistence among aliens who had long operated without human contact

Beginning with MEA the team decided that with few exceptions vehicles in ME have 6 wheels. Early Nomad concepts were bulkier. Later ones focused on its ability to move over its ability to protect itself from hostile fire, underlining the themes of exploration

German concept designer and auto-motive futurist Daniel Simon was contracted to create the Nomad and Tempest. The Tempest’s final design took inspo from the Concorde

Concepts for angaran fighter ships have the following notes: “Two doors swing open, wings rotate down to function as landing struts, the landing struts split open. It has a spinning turbine engine

Despite being set a galaxy away and some 600 years after Mordin’s death, there was a time when he had a cameo. It wasn’t cut due to running out of time however, it was cut due to drug references. John Dombrow explains: “One day I had to write a small quest for Kadara. I thought it’d be amusing if these 2 guys living way out on the fringes in a shack were growing plants for uh, medicinal purposes, and needed Ryder’s help with it. It occurred to me, wouldn’t it be amusing if Ryder had the option of actually trying ‘the medicine’ to see what would happen? And I thought, what if it turned into some hallucination that somehow involved SAM - like maybe SAM would sing? But why? How could I motivate that? Then it hit me. Who else in the ME game sings unexpectedly? MORDIN. As a nod to him I wrote SAM singing Modern Major-General. It got even better when our cine designer John Ebenger wanted to take it even further. Bless him, he came in on a Saturday to do a special hallucination showing Mordin himself. It was great. Til the fateful day we were told MEA had already been submitted to the ratings board. That’s when you declare things like drug references in your game. Mordin fell under that category which meant it was a no-go. We were too late”

Ryder’s white AI armor contrasts Shep’s iconic dark armor (intentional design)

Concept art for Ryder involved experiments with cloth (cloaks, ponchos, capes - “Pull here to release cloak”) and asymmetrical design elements

For alien design, there’s a few exceptions but humanoid figures are the ME standard and this persisted into MEA

Kett and angara concepts explored striking lines and textures

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

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blueroan-equestrian · 3 years

Text

Natural

Eskel and oc

Warning talk of miscarriage and pregnancy slight smut

I have always been stronger than most if not all people I have ever met. I have been trained to fight by various people along my way through life. I have never met my father he died according to my mother protecting her and their unborn child aka me from some kind of monster she could not identify. She said that, and I severely doubt that he’s a Witcher from the cat school like my mother said he was. I think she’s just trying to cover up the curse she no doubtedly somehow got put on me so that I have many similarities to the Witchers.

My mother is a sorceress and raised me to be trained in it too so my aging is nonexistent and unsurprisingly so. I don’t serve any kingdom, I don’t belong to anyone but myself. I was walking around the woods collecting herbs for pain medicine, when I heard something... someone coming through the woods towards me, I climbed a tree. Not because I was afraid but rather I prefer to avoid people if I can. A man with muddy brown hair on a horse that matched the mud in his hair. ‘What was such an unkept man doing in such fine quality armor?’ I thought to myself. I followed the man with my eyes curiously, his eyes were much like my own, cat like, only his eyes were yellow and mine a deep ocean blue like my mother’s father. He kept his eyes on the path ahead of him, unconcerned with any dangers that could be around him. I watched him until he was out of sight. I climbed down from my place and finished my gathering and headed back for my current home. It was in the perfect spot on the edge of town, right next to the woods were I can find the best herbs. I had been home crushing herbs and mixing potions for a few hours when a knock could be heard at the door. I answered the door to a local who runs the local inn stammered out “He’s your kind he should stay with you!” He gestured to the handsome but dirty man or rather the Witcher from the woods.

I raised my brows, “Doubt that... what’s wrong with your inn? Full?”

“He’s not welcome.” The local man grumbled before turning and stomping off.

I roll my eyes but step aside, “Come on, it’s going to rain.” He steps in and I close the door.

“I don’t want to be a burden, I thought he was just taking me to another building apart of the inn .”

“It’s fine, he’s a rude ass bitch and I’m not going to leave you out in the rain. I just ask that you clean yourself up. I’ll show you to the wash room and then find you some clean clothes, I don’t need dirt being dragged all through out the house.”

He nods and followed me to the wash room and waited patiently for me to bring him a towel some spare clothes I had from a previous lover and soaps. I showed him where he could leave his dirty clothes and armor before I left him to bathe.

I returned to my kitchen where I continued to work on my potions and spells. I had gotten so preoccupied with my work I hadn’t noticed the Witcher had finished his bath and had stepped into the kitchen until he cleared his throat giving me a bit of a start. I look him over and with his dark wet brown hair and cleaned up appearance, he was even more ruggedly handsome man. “Oh uh Mr.....”

“Eskel, you can call me Eskel.” He smiled.

“Eskel... I’m (y/n) and let me show you the spare room and then you can roam freely about the house.”

I led him up the stairs and down the hall to the spare bed room. He nods and turns to me and says “Thank you Miss. (Y/N). Your hospitality is greatly appreciated. If there is anything I can offer or do for you, I will gladly repay your kindness.”

“There is no need for that, if you require anything I will either be in my room which is right across the hall or the kitchen where you last found me. If you are hungry, feel free to help yourself to anything in the pantry. If you’ll excuse me I need to finish my work.”

I walk back and start to finish up potions and spell work. He soon appeared in the door way, standing awkwardly “Um pantry?”

I point him to the door that is currently to my left. I mill about and he sat down with an apple in hand. “So... you’re a sorceress huh? Is that where you got your eyes?”

I turned swiftly on my heels with a snarl, “I was born with these eye! They are not an accessory to be flaunted! I don’t judge others for their decision with what they do with their own bodies but I was born perfect as is!”

He raised his eyebrows, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you... but you are a sorceress aren’t you?”

I nod cautiously still guarded, “I am...”

“So I could possibly run into you in a decade or so as if time had sat still.”

Was he... was he flirting? No he has to be talking to me like he thinks I’m some kind of loon... right? Keep calm, put on your your poker face girl, “I suppose...”

“Well l don’t want to get in your way... but uh thank you. I guess I will be going to bed...”

He went back to his room but I could still hear him due to my sharp hearing. “Way to make the girl think that you’re a creep Eskel... god I would fuck her so hard. The only thing that could better is if she had some horns to grab onto... damn way to go she wouldn’t want to touch ya with a ten foot poll now Eskel... we could have had some good times.”

He was flirting... my cheeks turn bright red at the thought of him having his way with me. I clean up and retire to bed for the night. When I woke up I went into the kitchen to make breakfast for both myself and the Witcher but I found that he had already done it. He smiled widely when he spots me, “Good morning, I hope you don’t mind but I took the liberty of making us breakfast.”

“You cook?” I asked surprised, I wouldn’t have expected him to be able to do much more than out door survivalist type cooking.

He smiles again, “I do, just a bit.” He hands me a plate and sat down with me. We ate together, side by side.

“So are you just passing through or are you going to stay a bit?”

“Would it be wrong to say I would like to stay?”

“Not at all.”

He chuckles, “Well I was just passing through looking for work, had heard there was a bruxa problem hear but from what the man from the inn has said I have been miss informed.”

I glance at him nervous he’d find out it was me who took care of it and then get weird about it just like everyone else, “Oh? Well I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time.”

He clears the counter saying, “I wouldn’t call meeting you a waste of time.”

I smiled and we continue to flirt throughout the day till I was called out for a family with a sick son. When I came back however, I found him holding my silver sword, the one my mother had said belonged to my father... the very sword I learned to slay monsters with when needed like the Bruxa. He turned to me with fire in his eyes, “Where did you get this? This belonged to (your dad’s name)! I knew him and he was last seen with... what did you do to him?!”

He was beginning to stalk towards me and rather than backing up and explaining, I found myself ticked with him accusing me of harming a man who died before I was even born. I stomped towards him with matching animosity “He died before I was even born!” I snarled taking advantage of his ignorance and floor him before disarming him and pinning him, I throw a solid punch to jaw throwing my weight behind it causing him to groan. “You know nothing about me!” He dislodges me and it’s an all out brawl till my mother like she had been watching appeared.

“Enough! (Y/N) stop messing around and either finish him or let him go enough playing!” Mother growled.

I threw one last hard punch before shoving him away. Eskel is now watching my mother in some kind of way, “(your mother’s name) you know this woman?”

“I ought to she’s my daughter. Now why have you made a mess of my daughters house?”

“He saw the sword.” I mumbled pointing at it,

“You’re father’s sword? What happened to it?”

“He thinks I killed him for it.” I scoffed.

“Eskel,” mother says as if he hadn’t accused me of murder. “I assure you that (y/n) had nothing to do with my late husband’s death. I was pregnant with her when he died insuring that his daughter could come into this world safe and sound.”

He gives her the same look I give her when she retells the story to me, “But how?”

“Carefully planned alchemy, and a bit of luck.”

I roll my eyes but Eskel seems intrigued, “So if I ever wanted to have a child with someone I could?”

She smiles, “If that day comes you just let me know... or (y/n) I taught it to her not that she believes me. Now clean this up.”

I roll my eyes yet again and snap my fingers so that it fixes itself. We sit down and mother babbles on to Eskel until it’s late and turns to me, “Well it looks like you are doing just fine I’ll see you next time alright?”

“Okay mother see you next time...” and she’s gone.

Eskel stood up and cleared his throat, “Well I’m sorry for what I accused you of I just need to grab my things and I’ll be out of your hair.”

I get up and stretch, “don’t be stupid it’s late there is no reason to be going out. You need to sleep just like the rest of us.”

He smirks, “Damn girl you are something else.”

I smile and shake my head and without saying another word I go to bed.

I don’t see him again until a decade passed and I had moved towns.

I was gathering herbs from my personal garden when I heard him call out, “Well look who it is!”

I look up at him before returning my eyes back to my garden. Eskel leans over the fence, “What’s with the silent treatment?”

I pick up my basket and rise up with a straight face and then simply walk out of the gate and over to my house’s door pausing to look at him deadpanned and then stepped inside leaving the door open for him to follow behind me. He does and he follows me into my kitchen much like an awkward duckling, sitting at my kitchen table while I busied my hands as I tried to work out my thoughts. “...so... Why are you here? What do you want?”

He smirks and leans back, “I was just passing through... headed to Kaer Morhen for the winter but I saw you and figured maybe we could have a little fun now that we already got the awkward things that could go wrong out of the way.”

I roll my eyes, “Your here for a booty call? Such a typical male.”

“Oh come on! How can you an imortal being, be such a prude?”

“What? Okay(sarcastically) I am a prude because I won’t spread my legs for some guy I met once and spent most of the time accusing me of shit like with my eyes and with my dad’s death! Yeah total prude! Fuck you.” I chide.

He raises his brows, “Alright Alight, then why did you let me in?”

“Because! Because ... before you all I knew about my dad was that he was a Witcher from the school of the cat. That’s literally it. You put a name to it! I don’t know I was kind of hoping you could tell me about him.” I say bashfully.

He smirked “Well first and foremost, he was sterile.”

“And yet here I am.” I know I said I didn’t believe my mother but that doesn’t mean he can! Besides he didn’t question my mother so why is he now?

He paused, “Okay moving on... (y/d/n) he was... I don’t know but I know he was a good guy to get a drink with and a good guy to team up with when dealing with certain jobs.”

I look at him and I can see he’s feeling uncomfortable so I decided that would be enough for now. “Thank you... um so if you are just passing through then where’s your horse?”

He smirks, “Okay you got me there.” He shifts, “I know you’ll be mad but when I heard about where you were I couldn’t help but... well you know.”

I step closer to him, “I’ll admit I have thought about it...”

He too stepped closer so that we were only a breath away, “playing hard to get, I like that.” But then abruptly he turned and began to walk about the house like were friends or something. “Nice place, do you always settle down?”

“I only have three places and they are quite far apart.” I grumbled as I followed him about.

“Oh? Tell me about them.”

“Well... this one was where I was raised so I guess that doesn’t really count but still it’s home, then there’s the one in the Far East and that’s the one you met me and I got it because the other was the house I had with Lance and when he passed away I needed some space....”

He stops and looks at me, “Were you married?”

“Yes...I was.”

“I’m sorry for your loss...”

“Don’t be, I loved him and I knew from the start I would lose him but what can I say, he was the first to teach me to wield a sword... and I had asked a lot of people and all said no. Lance was the son of one of the men I asked, I was almost out of town when he chased me down and offered to teach me in exchange to travel with me...he was something else. Mother never liked him she didn’t want me in my father’s world but I always was.”

“I could teach you to use that silver sword you got.” He bounced his eyebrows up and down with a cheeky smile. I playfully swat at him.

After that he would stop by before he would go back to Kaer Morhen. Slowly but surely we became friends and some times with benefits.

“So did you ever have any children?” He asked.

I look at my feet, “No... I honestly don’t know if I can... I kept miscarrying.”

“I’m sorry... If it helps I can’t ever have any of my own.”

“Unless.... mother was telling the truth about my conception.”

“I knew it! You don’t believe it either. Want to try and see what happens?” I give him a look, “Oh come on, it’s not like you will get pregnant. Just a bit of fun and a bit of experimenting.”

I smirk, “Alright but if it turns out to be true you’ll be on the hook, I’m not some farm girl who can’t track your ass down.”

“You can track me down when ever you want, little one.” He practically purred (It’s the closest word to what I am trying to say but I can’t think of a better one).

I kissed him firmly and with unrestrained passion that I have never been able to do before him. “Tonight it’ll be just for practice, it takes a few hours to cure, so let’s get it going before we go to bed.” I hummed.

He stood behind me, hands on my hips as I created the supposed fertility potion.

Eskel was a dominant lover. He was the kind who liked to take you from behind. He had me with my ass in the air and face planted in the sheets, but every once in awhile he’d reach down to tug me up by my hair so he could nip at my neck only to push me back down again. He doesn’t ever finish until I have had three of the best orgasims in my life and he was a snuggler after he too came down from his high which surprised me the first time he did it.

When I woke up his arm was still wrapped firmly around me and his nose buried in my hair. He hummed happily when he realized I was awake, “Good morning little one, how are you feeling?”

“Mmmm satisfied.” I giggle as I stretched.

He smiled and turned me so that I was facing him, “Good I’m glad.” He kisses my shoulders before hopping up and walked to the door, “How about a bit of breakfast before we do some experimenting?” His eyes were dancing and his smirk seemed to have a softer meaning to it.

I smile and followed him completely bare. “What are you in the mood for I can make anything.” I hummed as we stepped into the kitchen.

“Hmmm.... surprise me.” He hummed happily.

I made us breakfast and we ate while we chatted. “So do you want kids? I mean if you truly believed this could work would you want them?” I asked.

He looks at me very serious, “Yes... I wouldn’t play at this if I didn’t. Because stranger things have happened and I am not going to nock a girl up and abandon my child. Plus we could make some beautiful babies.”

I smile, “Then let’s get started. I first find the potion I need to start my ovulation again and then handed him the potion we made the night before.

He picked me up and took me to bed, laying me down on my back, “I’m going to make love to you like never before.” He smashes lips into mine before moving down my body, kissing my skin as he moved his way down my body until he reached my most intimate place sucking and licking until he deemed me wet enough for him to enter me with ease. This was different than any other time we’ve had sex. We have only fucked before but today he was making love to me. Kissing me gently and ghosting his fingers over my stomach, “You would look so beautiful swelled up with my seed. You feel so good.”

I clawed at his back as my walls squeezed around his cock. And with one last squeal of ecstasy I reached my peak pulling him with me over the edge filling me with his seed. “Oh Eskel, is wrong that I want it take?”

Before he pulled out he rubs my belly, “I don’t want you to get your hopes up... but I would like that too.”

Eskel left a week later and I was left not knowing if I was pregnant or not. It wasn’t until my stomach started to protrude was I sure. “Lord what have I done... do I go find him now or do I just wait for him to return the following winter?”

I ended up deciding I could use portals and educated guesses to find him; and after a few failed attempts, I found him.

I stepped into the local bar where he was already pretty buzzed when he spotted me. He smiles, “Look who it is! There’s my girl!” He cheered.

I smiled at him claiming me as his even though his tongue was loose from the drink. I stepped up to him and whispered “Can we talk in private?”

He smiled widely, “I am getting lucky tonight!” The bar filled with hoots and hollers.

I roll my eyes and dragged him out, “Where are you staying at?” He stumbled to the inn and into his room and almost instantly tried to jump me. “Eskel! Eskel! Stop it.” I say as I swat at his hands.

“What’s wrong little one?” He kissed drunkenly at my head.

“I’m pregnant!” I blurt. Now that seemed to sober him up real quick.

“Your what?”

“Pregnant... it worked...” I gasp as I stepped forward reaching for his hands but he pulled away and sat down on his bed.

“I can’t believe it actually worked... now what?”

“Well I would appreciate it if you came to stay with me until the end of the pregnancy... I can’t be alone when I miscarry this one too.”

His eyes snapped up as he looked up at me, he gets up and takes me into his arms and whispered, “You don’t know that, maybe this will be the one. Let’s go grab my horse and goat then we can go.”

“You got a goat?”

“Yeah...” he says as he gathers his minimal belongings and leads me to the stables to pick up his animals and then through a portal back to my childhood home.

The larger my stomach grew the more protective Eskel became and the more I held my breath waiting for it all to fall apart. But I made it well into the third trimester.

“I want to call Geralt and have him bring Yennefer over. I want her to check you out again.” Eskel fussed as he “helped” me from the couch to the bathroom for the umpteenth time.

“Eskel, she checked me last week. And I can walk around myself.” I mumbled as I waddled into the bathroom.

“But she said you looked like you were ready to pop!”

“Eskel she didn’t mean it like that I have two more months. We’re having twins so my stomach has stretched out farther than it would have for one. It’s okay. I know you are scared, I am too... but we made it into the third trimester. I have never made it past the first trimester before so I think it’s safe to say that it is going to work out.” I say as I emptied the blatter the twins had been dancing on.

Eskel never stepped hovering even though we all agreed that the pregnancy was going well. And when it became time he was most definitely not ready. “Oh it’s happening what do we do?!” He asked in a panicked voice as he grasped at my shoulders.

I stood square and firm and an unwavering face, “Now you can call Yennefer. Tell her that the babies are coming and I’m going to go lay down in bed while we wait.” Yennefer came gave me something for the pain and helped me deliver the twins. I was blessed with an easy and quick labor for a beautiful baby girl and boy.

“Wow look at them they have your eyes.” He whispered.

“You said you had blue eyes as a boy maybe they are yours and look at them, they are going to look so much like you.” I coo, “come and hold them.”

He stepped back, “I can’t... what if I hurt them? They look so fragile.”

“Come take her they are like sponges they’ll be fine. Come take her, I’ll bet she will be a daddy’s girl.”

He cautiously lifted our daughter out of my arms and cradled her in his arms, “What’s their names?”

“Well I would like to name him Theo, because it means gift of god... and well he’s a gift alright.”

“And her name?”

“Why don’t you name her?”

Eskel smiles down at the baby girl in his arms, “I don’t know... I think Aiyana... eternal flower and I think it was my mother’s name.”

“It’s perfect.” I cooed.

#witcher #witcher fanfiction #witcher smut #eskel #eskel x reader #eskel fic #eskel x oc #eskel smut #eskel imagine #eskel fanfic

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sheliesshattered · 4 years

Text

This Isn’t A Ghost Story extras for Chapter 5: The Present

It’s Friday, so the next chapter of This Isn’t A Ghost Story has been posted! Chapter 5 is here on Tumblr, and here on AO3. There are spoilers below the cut, but I walk through the chapter in order, so it’s fairly safe to keep this one open for visual references as you read, if you want.

Those of you who have been following along with my writing process for This Isn’t A Ghost Story may have noticed how the story grew and morphed on me as I wrote. Despite knowing early-on the sort of story I wanted to tell and all the facets of the mystery that would need to be revealed, the story still managed to grow organically and surprise me at various points.

When I finished chapter 4 and started working on chapter 5, I had every intention that chapter 5 would be the final chapter, with a short epilogue that followed -- six chapters total, rather than the eight we ended up with. I knew what plot points and mystery reveals ch5 needed to cover, and I figured I could fit it all into one reasonably sized chapter. Even as late as the last week of July I was still thinking along those lines, and I quite nearly started posting chapters then, thinking I was nearly finished writing.

But something held me back from posting, and when I woke up the next morning I realized that chapter 5 really needed to be split. What ended up being chapter 5 and chapter 6 are together about 12,300 words, which wouldn’t have been the longest chapter I’ve ever posted, but certainly longer than I meant for chapters in this story to be, and thankfully I was able to find a good spot to split it.

As with the rest of this story, my husband Jack has been acting as my beta reader and in-house cheerleader, and particularly after reading chapter 4 he was really adamant that I keep focusing on writing and get through the story as quickly as possible -- maybe partially so I could start posting, but mostly so he could read it and find out the answers to the rest of the mystery, lol. Starting with chapter 5, he began reading chunks of the chapter as I finished them, and then eventually went back and re-read all of chapter 5. And every time he’s read it, he’s commented that this is his favorite line in the entire chapter:

“No,” she told him firmly. “Not unless you take away my say in it.” She didn’t add again, but she knew they were both thinking it.

Jack and I have been together nearly two decades, and I think it’s that shared unspoken language of spouses that he finds so amusing here.

For most parts of this story, I can’t really pinpoint exactly when I wrote a particular line or scene, as I tend to write non-consecutively as bits come to mind, tackle conversations or plot points I know will need to happen and then fill in the gaps in between, and go over any given section dozens of times making little edits or adding whole paragraphs until it reads the way I want it to, with the sort of pacing and emotional weight I think it needs. But this bit in particular, I know exactly when I wrote it:

“Our story, Doctor... It isn’t the tragedy you think it is. This isn’t a ghost story. It never was. It’s a love story. And if I know one thing about love stories? They always have a happy ending, one way or another.”

July 15th. I’d been having a rough writing day, hated everything I’d written the day before (more or less everything from the start of ch5 to that line, in its first draft form), and was feeling really unmotivated. Then I saw some excellent meta about the episode Hide on my dash that @clara-oswin-oswald had just posted. The title for this story comes from something the Eleventh Doctor says in that episode, and here was Sophie talking about that scene again, just when I was ready to stuff This Isn’t A Ghost Story into a drawer and never look at it again.

My intention with the title for this story had always been to evoke that line from Hide, and hope that most people would be able to fill in the second half of the sentence, “it’s a love story”, on their own. But it hadn’t occurred to me until I was reading Sophie’s meta that I could actually have Clara articulate exactly that thought within the story. The 42 words of that line of dialogue was all I managed to write on July 15th, but I woke up the next morning feeling significantly better about the story and ready to dive back in, make the edits that would fix the first part of the chapter, and keep hacking away at the next scenes to come.

Of course, the next bit I was trying to connect up with was actually something I’d written parts of earlier, that corresponded with the teeny tiny detail I’d posted a little poll about way back at the end of June. I knew I wanted to introduce Clara’s wedding ring around this point in the story, but I got hung up on what it should look like. Theoretically that should be a little inconsequential detail, just a single line of prose to help the reader visualize it better, but the results from that poll -- blue, unusual, and in support of world-building -- ended up leading me down a complete rabbit hole of research, that eventually spawned what turned into chapter 8. I’ll wait to share the details on that for when we reach ch8 at the end of this month, but the relevant bits from chapter 5 are of course Clara’s ring and what inspired the Doctor to pick that one for her in the first place.

Clara’s ring is based on these two antique rings:

The center stone is what’s known as a star sapphire, which are known to be particularly stunning in direct sunlight.

The Doctor tells Clara that when he first saw it -- presumably while ring shopping before their wedding in 1923 -- he was reminded of when he took her to see the archaeological work going on at the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut in 1921. The Temple does in fact have multiple areas where the ceilings are painted blue with rayed stars. It’s a popular motif from that era of ancient Egypt and shows up in a several other places as well.

I picture the jewelry box that Clara digs up as looking something along these lines:

The other piece of jewelry that is mentioned in detail is the necklace the Doctor bought for Clara in 1925. It’s based on the winged sun disk found on many ancient Egyptian temples:

It’s also meant to be a nod to the necklace Clara wears in The Bells of Saint John and The Rings of Akhaten, similar in both design and size:

From there, we get into one of the final remaining mysteries of the story, which the Doctor is clearly reluctant to talk about. There have been hints about this as far back as the first chapter, and from comments on previous chapters, I think a few of you may have guessed that this is where things were headed. Did this reveal turn out the way you thought it would? Or did it surprise you?

Lots of heartbreak at the end of this chapter, but we’re only a few chapters away from our happy ending now. It has been so much fun for me to hear your thoughts and theories as the mystery has unfolded! Thank you to everyone who has left a comment on This Isn’t A Ghost Story, both here and over on AO3. ❤️

Extras for Chapter 6: The Future

#This Isn't A Ghost Story #This Isn't A Ghost Story extras #process thoughts #my writing #Doctor Who #Doctor Who fanfic #Clara and the Doctor

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shadowthrone-ammanas · 4 years

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that’s it : prompt request, someone adopts mu, maybe cooking cat, good food for mu, mu’s hunting skills being used to help cc get ingredients and share with towns people, that’s my request because let mu have some happiness please

Thank you for the request!!!! Mama Cooking Cat is so good! Also this isn’t exactly Mu being happy, just events that lead to her eventually being happy because I really needed to write the moment Cooking Cat decided to take Mu in.

Food

Ever since Mu’s Time Piece power trip had been put to a very abrupt halt, food had become even harder to get than before. Almost everyone, Mafia or not, recognized her and chased her away the moment they saw her. Rare was the day she could even get close to the food stalls anymore. Stealing something from them was nigh on impossible because with a personal grudge now, the owners of the stalls no longer gave up as easily.

Compounding on that the crows didn’t even try to fight her anymore, they just ran, making killing them for food nigh on impossible. Thankfully the rats were easy prey though but growing ever scarcer due to the Mafia’s eradication efforts as well as Mu’s hunting of them. Fishing was nearly impossible without a boat or at least the right equipment but even with a poll and bait it would’ve left her too out in the open, easily caught and killed. Which left garbage to be her main source of food now.

It sucked and was no fair! And people still chased her away if they caught her going through their garbage or someone else’s or even a public waste bin. Why couldn’t people just give her a pecking break already? She couldn’t even find time to sabotage the Mafia as much anymore because she was constantly on the run or looking through garbage praying to find something at least semi-edible. … She was getting desperate.

Which is what drove her to Cooking Cat’s Studio. Normally she wouldn’t dare break into such a place solely for food; it was way too easy to get cornered indoors and before the whole thing with the Time Pieces, the risk hadn’t been worth it because stealing and hunting had been much easier. Now though, just eating garbage and the occasional gaunt rat, she could feel herself growing weaker, putting her in more danger of getting caught and murdered. She refused to die to the Mafia, her hatred for them was the only thing that kept her going.

She was minimizing the risk though; according to word on the street Cooking Cat was supposedly out of town right now. It could be wrong but hopefully not.

The door to the studio was locked of course. But thankfully, it wasn’t the kind of lock that required a large key, meaning Mu could pick it.

Inside, it was even darker than it was outside. There were windows but they were dirty and not very big, not letting in much moonlight at all. There was nothing she could do about it though as she stepped in and pulled the door closed behind her.

She found the left wall and keeping her hand on it, walked along it until she found a door. She opened it and poked her head inside. It was pitch black. Which meant there weren’t any windows, or if there were, they were thoroughly covered and thus turning on a light wouldn’t be seen from outside.

Keeping one had on the door, she stepped in to grope at the wall for the light switch. Hopefully it was on this side, if not… Ah! There it was! She flipped it, flooding the room with light and blinding herself.

Unable to see, she stood frozen, listening for any indication for anyone else reacting to the light. All was silent though. And when at long last she could open her eyes she had to hold back the need to vocalize her excitement and triumph. She’d found the kitchen set! Now hopefully they kept all the food for the show stored here. They had to, right? There was no way they stocked and unstocked the cupboards and fridge every time they filmed, right?

Mu sprinted over to the nearest cupboard. Inside was bowls various shapes and sizes, some clearly meant for mixing, others for serving. With a growl, she slammed it shut. The next housed cups. She kicked it closed this time and skipped straight to the fridge, food that needed to be refrigerated was better anyway. And… it was stocked! Yes! Jackpot!

She grabbed the first thing that caught her eye; a bag of shredded cheese. How long had it been since she’d had cheese that wasn’t expired? … Didn’t matter. She tore it open and started stuffing her face with it.

***

Having just come back from visiting the Metro for a special string of episodes for the show, Cooking Cat’s internal clock was still set to Metro time. Meaning she was wide awake at 3am. There was nothing she could do about it though and staying in bed was about as appealing trying to make a meal out of roadkill so… she might as well head to the Kitchen Studio. She would probably regret it later and she wasn’t even set to film today but she was bored and needed to check and make sure the kitchen set was fully stocked before it was time to start filming anyway so why not do it now?

When she arrived, she went around to the back door; it was closer to the kitchen set. … It was unlocked. Which should not have been the case, it was literally part of someone’s job to make sure all the doors were locked when everyone left. Someone had picked it.

With a growl, she pulled out her rolling pin. If anyone thought they could get away with sneaking into her studio to steal something, they had something else coming.

Fur bristling, she pushed the door open, letting it bang against the wall and announce her presence. She stepped inside, rolling pin raised should anyone jump out and attack her. No one did though. Turning on the light revealed that no one was there either. But… the door leading to the kitchen set was ajar and the light was on in there too. She marched over and kicked that door open too.

No one was there but they had been. The fridge hung open and was noticeably less full now. Food packaging littered the floor around it. It was possible the culprit was gone by now, unlikely though. Most robbers would’ve covered up the evidence of their crime, leaving discovery of it until the last possible moment. Whoever it was had most likely heard the backdoor slam open and hid somewhere in the room because there were no other exits.

“I know you’re still here,” Cooking Cat said as she closed the fridge. “Come out and maybe I won’t whack you with my rolling pin.”

No response.

Well, that left her no choice, didn’t it? She’d find the intruder’s hiding spot and whoop them for breaking in and stealing from her. She’d start with the cupboards, an unlikely hiding spot due to how small they were but it was always a good idea to cover all of one’s bases.

The bowl cupboard was undisturbed so was the cup cupboard. The cupboard by the fridge, that usually held the mixing stand that now temporarily resided in her own kitchen was not empty as it should’ve been. It now housed a mustached girl. The same mustached girl who’d used the stolen Time Pieces to temporarily take over the world before Hat Kid had defeated her.

Cooking Cat opened her mouth to say something mean but… Mustache Girl – as Hat Kid had called her when Cooking Cat had later asked – was a child. A small child, cowering in a cupboard, fear etched on her face.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she begged, pressed as far back into the cupboard and away from Cooking Cat as was physically. “I’m sorry, I-I’ll just go and never come back, I promise. Just don’t hurt me please or… or turn me into the Mafia or… anything like that. Please.”

Cooking Cat let out a sigh, slipping her rolling pin back into chef’s cook. She almost asked what Mu was doing here but… it was obvious from the mess she’d made on the floor and of her front. She was here for the food and had clearly gone at it rather ravenously. She was skinny, her clothes ragged and baggier than they should be on her. She’d probably been starving.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Cooking Cat said in what she hoped was a soothing voice. She didn’t want to move back away from the cupboard though lest Mu run away.

“Y-you’re not?” Mu didn’t sound like she believed that.

“No, I’m not. I’d never hurt a child. Now uh… you can come out now.” She reached a paw in, offering to help Mu out. “Please don’t run though, I want to talk.”

Mu flinched at he offered contact so Cooking Cat withdrew her paw. She stepped back though, allowing Mu to exit. Thankfully she didn’t run even if she did cast a furtive glance towards the exit.

“What do you want?” she asked, glaring in an obvious attempt to appear unafraid.

“I… want to help. Where are you parents?”

Mu let out a single sarcastic laugh. “Where do you think?”

“Uh… I don’t know.”

“They’re dead, you idiot. The Mafia killed them.”

Cooking Cat tried not to grimace at her own stupidity. Of course Mu’s parents were dead, she wouldn’t be here if they weren’t. And of course, they’d been killed by the Mafia, more than half the island’s population had been. Which left Mu an orphan, probably living on the streets and starving so when an opportunity to raid a cooking show’s set had arisen, she’d taken it. So…

“Well… in that case, can you can stay with me for a while,” Cooking Cat said.

“What?”

“I mean, you clearly don’t have anywhere else to go. My apartment’s not the best but it does have a guest room. I’ll have to clean it up some but it should do.”

Mu gave her a look that was half disbelief and half desperate hope. “Are you… offering me a place to stay? Really?! Or… or is this a trick? You’re going to lure me to your house and then call the Mafia over and get your reward for turning me in, aren’t you?” Now she looked mad.

“Hon, do I look like the kind of person who’s friends with the Mafia? I’ve been trying to get them shut down too.”

“Really? How?”

“Exposing their wretched cooking habits to the world with my show. I’ve already caused two of their kitchens to go out of business. It’s not much but… it’s only thing I can do. So no, I’m not going to turn you into them. I’m offering to help you.”

“Why?” … The fact that she felt the need to ask, especially with so much disbelief in her tone, was heartbreaking. How long had it been since anyone had offered her kindness? How long had she been living on the street, hunted by the Mafia for causing trouble? No wonder she’d gone mad with power when she’d obtained it, she was mad at her circumstances and rightfully so. How had Cooking Cat and everyone else missed that?

“Because you’re a child and you’re hurting and probably slowly starving to death on the streets, am I right? I have food, a warm bed, and a safe place to stay if you want it. So… what do you say?” Cooking Cat wasn’t going to force her to do anything. All she could do was hope her offer of help would be accepted.

“You’re… being serious, really?” Mu asked, her tone suggesting she was possibly holding back tears now.

Cooking Cat nodded.

“I uh… okay, I’ll go. … But if it’s a trick I’m going to escape and… and… start sabotaging you too.”

“Of course sweetie. Let’s uh… go now. It’s late and I’m sure you need some sleep.” Cooking Cat was feeling like she might need a nap now too actually.

Mu grunted as she started following Cooking Cat out. She still didn’t look like she trusted her but that was okay and understandable. After a while she’d see that Cooking Cat meant her no harm and only wanted to help. She probably wasn’t fit to be in charge of a child, especially one so clearly traumatized but she didn’t have much choice. She’d just have to find a way to make it work.

For this drabble request. Even if this one isn’t actually a drabble.

#My Writing #ahit #A hat in time #mustache girl #cooking cat #mama cooking cat #angst #poor mu

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cynicalwonders · 4 years

Text

Semblance

Today is my birthday! And since it’s my b-day, I’ve decided to post the first chapter of a thriller-fic I’ve been working for the month of spooks and chills. For those of you who may remember, a few years back I did a poll of which fics I should work on in order. One of those prompts was given the working title of ‘Blackwoods’, this is it but with a new name and some changes done to it. I know I’m supposed to work on my other fics (GWE, Glass Slipper, etc) but this one got my creative juices flowing and will probably help me get back into writing. So without further ado, please enjoy:

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Summary: The classes of Dupont takes a winter field trip to a cozy ski-resort in the French Alps. Many use the cold climate to have free-range for fun in the snow or get closer together with their crushes in time for the holidays. However, a snowstorm has trapped the resort guest in their hotel and panic starts settling in. Is this a case of cabin fever or is there something sinister lurking in the mountains.

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“I cannot wait for this trip!” Marinette skipped around her room, pulling out several articles of clothing from her various drawers and trunks. “Two weeks at a ski-resort! Right before the winter holidays!”

Tikki giggled as her holder zipped back and forth around her room. Thanks to the ‘generosity' of Chloe Bourgeois – correction: begging and whining to her father – she had gotten the school to agree to host a pre-winter break field trip to one the best ski resorts in the country. How was that possible? Well, it may be because the owner of the resort, one Rodolphe Boivin, was Chloe’s uncle and would ‘adore having his favorite niece and her class over at his resort.’

Chloe’s words, not her.

Whatever the reason, the entire school was treated to an all-expense-paid stay to the Chateau Boivin. Of course, the catch would be that the students provide good reviews for the resort and promise not to break anything, signed contracts and all. Everyone was abuzz with excitement, many thanking the blonde who soaked up the praise with unconcealed glee. Students started making plans on what they wanted to do at the resort when they arrived. From skiing to snowboarding, 24-hours spas, 5-star dining, horse-drawn sleighs, and even a wine festival, Chateau Boivin goes all out every winter.

"When we arrive, I'm going to unpack all my stuff then grab an early lunch," Marinette recited out loud. "Then I'm going to talk to the activities director to book a ski lesson for the next day. Explore the place and figure out everything is located, maybe take a dip in the Jacuzzi and end the day with a nice dinner.”

“Promise to bring me back something sweet,” Tikki chirped.

“Of course,” smiled Marinette. “From what I read, this place hires some excellent pâtissiers for their dessert menu and café.”

“Better than your parents?” joked Tikki.

“Hmmm, maybe a close second.” Marinette joked, still rummaging through her things.

“You sure you’re not packing too many things?” asked the kwami.

“Just the essentials. Plus dad will take this down in the morning. Hopefully, he won't start crying again."

“My poor baby is leaving us!” Tikki mimicked her dad’s earlier reaction to the trip. “I knew this day would come but it’s too soon!”

“Dad, it’s just two weeks,” Marinette narrated her part. “Please don’t cry. I promise to call every day.”

Both giggled as she continued packing up her stuff. Clothing, shoes, toiletries, first aid kit, and some emergency cash just in case. She even packed up her sketchbook if she got inspired, as well as some tiny jackets she knitted for Tikki. Even if Tikki wasn't that affected by the cold, the little kwami looked adorable in a wool sweater.

“Alright! I think that’s everything!” exclaimed Marinette, finally closing the suitcase.

“Can you lift it?”

Marinette hoisted the bag over her shoulder with ease. “Over a year of swinging atop rooftops and fighting super-powered villains builds up muscle strength.”

“The fact that you can throw Chat Noir at an akuma should have let you know.”

“I thought that was another superpower while as Ladybug,” replied Marinette.

“Nope, that all Marinette-power,” cheered Tikki.

Marinette shook her head and smiled. Her little kwami watched as her holder cheerfully babbles about her plans for the resort. Seeing her smile so widely made the kwami really how long it has been since her wielder felt so content. For a while, a fog of sadness seemed to have washed over the poor girl. Everything she did or said felt halfhearted. Schoolwork, homework, designing, all done with half the effort and half the enthusiasm. And Tikki knew what – or rather, who – was the cause of all these…

On cue, the designer’s phone chimed with a text message. Glancing down, Marinette smiled faded. Sighing, she responded to the text before tossing it on her chaise. Tikki read over the message and her smile, too, faded.

Alya: Hey girl! All packed up for the trip? Can’t wait until we get there! Lila promised to give us some snowboarding lessons while we're there. Her cousin won gold in the Olympics for snowboarding! I'm so excited!

Marinette: okay.

“Marinette…” Tikki gave her a sad look.

“It’s fine,” she cut her off. “I’ll just politely refuse, say I already booked a lesson. If Alya lectures me again, then so be it. I’m used to it by now.”

Tensions between Marinette and her classmate were still present after the whole expulsion-debacle. Even with her classmates ‘apologizing' to her, though she doubts they were truly apologetic, they still felt that she was being unfair to Lila because of her illness. And suddenly her love and care for her classmates started to dissipate.

Even Adrien – sweet, perfect Adrien – didn’t seem all that sweet or perfect. While he assured her that he was on her side, his action seemed to express another thing. While he didn’t want to out the liar, he didn’t try to protect their classmates either. Marinette could see the hope and excitement in her classmates’ eyes. So hopeful to believe in Lila. Believing she had the power to deliver their dreams to them on a silver platter. Sacrificing their energy, time and money to pamper her so she, in turn, would reward them for their generosity.

Never did Marinette feel a stronger urge to vomit when she realized that.

What did Adrien expect to happen when the truth about Lila's lies came out? Did he think that everything would go back to normal? That Lila would learn her lesson and become a good person? Maybe that was the naïve optimism that Adrien possessed. And while Marinette would love for that to happen, it didn't fix everything. Not the months she spent isolated from the others. The cruel words they spat at her. The glares and stares. Disappointed sighs. Like she was the cruel one. The unreasonable one.

Suddenly she was busy with online commissions or her parents needed an extra set of hands at the bakery or she had to babysit Manon. Any excuse just to avoid them all. Marinette, the girl filled with love and compassion and sweetness, felt bitterness, anger, and disgust festering inside her. She didn’t want to feel this way, especially towards her classmates, people whom she has known and loved for years. But…

‘You’d think they would at least consider what I said,’ Marinette thought. ‘With how long I’ve known them and what I did to help them…you would think…’

Marinette shook her head and took several deep breaths. Master Fu's breathing exercises would calm her down and wash out any negative thoughts. And give the following few weeks since Lila's return, Marinette has made it a routine to do them before, during and after school. The last thing she needs is another near akumazation and lose Tikki thanks to that little liar.

“Don’t worry Marinette,” her kwami consoled. “You can use this trip to reconnect with your friends.”

“Unless they invite Lila…” Marinette could not remember a single outing she had Alya had without the blogger trying to add Lila. Not that she had trouble doing so, Lila just loved to force herself between Mari and her friends.

“Maybe you and Alya can do a girl’s night,” suggested Tikki. “Just the two of you.”

“Maybe…” Marinette said, but her voice held some hesitation in the idea.

“Marinette!” Sabine’s echoed from below. “Did you finish packing?”

“Yes, maman,” answered Marinette, opening the hatched door. “All packed up and ready to go.”

“Well don’t tell your father that,” her mother gave a small chuckle. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

“Okay, I’ll get change and come down,” Marinette replied.

Marinette quickly changed into her pajamas so she could jump into bed after dinner. These pajamas were thicker, made from wool as the snow started covering the glittering city. The Dupain-Cheng shared a dinner of Boeuf Bourguignon, potato gratin and hot chocolate for dessert. Pleasantries were passed around along with reminders from parents to take care of herself and to bundle up when leaving the resort.

After dinner wrapped up, Marinette dashed back into her room, doing last-minute checks on her stuff. Just as she finished, her phone rang. Apprehensive, she picked up her phone and sighed in relief. Tapping on the video chat button, her screen opened up to reveal a familiar elder fiddling with his own cell.

“Ah! Marinette good to see you...hold on...” she giggled as Fu’s screen kept moving around the room before finally settling on his face. “There, better! Thank you Wayzz.”

“Yes, thank you, Wayzz,” giggled Marinette.

“Are all packed up and ready to go?” asked Master Fu.

“Yes…” whined Marinette. “You’re like my parents.”

“They mean you well,” the Chinese man smiled. “This trip will be good for you.”

“Will you be alright by yourself?” she asked.

“Marinette, I am over a hundred years old. I can handle a little frozen weather. You should have seen the blizzards and snowstorms they had near the temple when I was your age!"

“But what about Hawkmoth? What if he…”

“Do not worry about him,” Master Fu waved off her concern. “Around this season, he’s more subdued due to Nooro’s sensitivity to the cold.”

“Speaking of ‘sensitivity to the cold,’” Marinette turned to Tikki, who was snuggled up in one of her pigtails.

“Insect like ladybugs and butterfly usual hibernate during the colder months,” explained Master Fu. “Even if Tikki and Nooro aren't actual insects, they do share similarities in their nature and habits."

“Good thing I made some tiny jackets and mittens for Tikki here,” Marinette teased, patting her kwami on the head.

“She should be fine. We did a regular healing session, so she won’t fall ill while on the trip,” replied Master Fu. “So I suggest you take full advantage of your time to have fun while up in the mountains. Just be warned that snowstorms are sudden, so stick close to shelter.”

"Are you sure it is alright for me to leave for this trip?” asked Marinette. “I can cancel…”

“No, no, no,” Master Fu wagged his finger at her. “This trip is for you to enjoy yourself. No Miraculous usage. No akuma attacks. Take this time to relax and replenish your energy.”

Despite Fu’s insistence, Marinette still felt a bit nervous about leaving Paris unprotective for such a length of time. With both her and Chat Noir – he was also going out of town! What are the odds?! – out of the city, Hawkmoth might take this as an opportunity to wreak havoc upon Parisian citizens.

Fu smiled and assure her that Hawkmoth would be too busy to do any sort of attack. How could he be so confident that Hawkmoth wouldn’t attack while she was gone? Marinette didn’t get a direct response, just a wink from the elder man and a giggle from his kwami. His secrecy to certain things was still in effect. The pigtailed girl just sighed and took the guardian’s word for it.

Truthfully, she felt grateful to have time for herself. Even if she didn't hang out with her friends, her time was still stretched between akuma attacks, classes, commissions, and homework. Top it off with Lila's manipulation and isolation, her stress levels were through the roof. Two weeks away at a luxurious resort seemed like a perfect opportunity for her. Even with Lila there.

“Marinette! Light’s out!” her mother’s voice called out from below. “You don’t want to be tired for tomorrow.”

“You best go to bed,” replied Master Fu. “We shall talk another day.”

“Goodnight, Master Fu,” replied Marinette before ending the call.

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Adrien sighed as he finished his disappointing dinner – a small piece of salmon with a dry salad, water and a piece of bread – before heading back to his room. His house echoed with the bitter December winds, creating a cacophony of loud, wailing noises. Such noises would normally cause people to assume the home was haunted, but Adrien just took it as a sign that he was alone.

Both Gabriel and Nathalie had been busy throughout the entire week, getting ready for next year’s Spring fashion line and fulfilling the last of the orders for his winter collection. All staffers were excused for the holidays. Even Gorilla had been scarcely seen in the past few days, sticking to his driving duties as Adrien's modeling schedule was wrapping up. Had it not been for Plagg and Nino’s skype calls, the blonde believed he would go mad.

Speaking of Plagg, the tiny cat was busy stuffing his face with his signature camembert cheese. “How was dinner?” he asked, voice muffled by cheese.

Adrien shrugged his shoulder as he sat on his bed. “By the way,” continued Plagg. “Your friend texted you a few minutes ago.”

Smiling, Adrien snatched his phone and read all his messages. Most of them were from Chloe, some from his classmate, but his most recent was from Nino.

Nino: Hey! You ready?

Adrien: Yep! Everything is all packed up.

Nino: I’m so stoked for this trip! It’s going to be awesome! I looked up online and this place has an underground dance room. Think we can sneak in and use it?

Adrien: I’m sure if we ask, they’ll let us use it. Or Chloe could ask.

Nino: Aww, but that takes out the fun of it :(

Adrien: I just don’t want to get in trouble

Nino: Ah yes, the sunshine child. Mr. Goody-two shoes.

Adrien: Hey! I can be bad! I can be a rebel!

Nino: Dude, I can’t believe you typed that XD Sorry to tell you this, but you’re probably the last person that I can see breaking the rules.

Adrien chuckled at reading that. He could only imagine what Nino would think if he told him that most of his night was spent hopping off rooftops in black leather. Probably laugh, thinking he was joking.

Adrien: You never know, I may surprise you!

Nino: Sure~ anyway, we're are rooming together right?

Adrien: Yeah, Chloe made sure to put us together. We're on the fifth floor, #512

Nino: Sweet! Do you know where everyone else is?

Adrien: Not everyone. Chloe showed me the room placements and our class is on the fifth floor.

Nino: So the entire fifth floor is ours? Nice! Party all night!

Adrien: I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Mme. Mendeleiev and her class are on the floor below us. Do you want to disturb her with your music?

Nino: Uh…did I say party all night? I mean going to bed on time and making no noise after curfew.

Adrien: Smart. I’ll just ask Chloe if we can use the dance room.

Nino: Fine, we’ll go the easy way. Gotta go, mom’s telling me to go to bed. Talk to you tomorrow. Night.

Adrien: Night.

After sending his text, Adrien quickly changed into his pajamas and went over his luggage again. Even though Nathalie told him to leave things as is, no changes or add ons, Adrien thought it best to sneak in some games and emergency cheese for Plagg. And his father’s birthday scarf.

“I cannot wait for the trip,” Adrien smiled, giddy with excitement. His formerly sober mood gone and replaced with that of unbridled joy.

Class had been, for lack of a better term, tense in the past few months. Ever since Marinette was nearly expelled. And while the class did apologize and Marinette accepted, he could see the hurt and pain in her eyes. Like she didn’t believe them and was accepting their apology to be polite. And even after the incident, Lila kept lying and trying to attack Marinette, though indirectly this time.

Marinette's solution to all this: avoiding everyone in class like the plague.

He could see it: the excuses, the non-verbal answer, the fact that she physically kept her distance from them when in a group. Not to mention the fact that she had mentioned multiple times that she was helping with her parents' deliveries, only for Chat Noir to spot her on the opposite side of the city sketching or shopping. Not like he could confront her with that. Most likely it will cause her to distance herself further from the group. He hated that she was pulling away and he hated that he couldn't do anything about it.

But maybe this trip could change all that! A small resort filled with activities and games, getting in the early holiday spirit, hanging out with the class as a group. Maybe, just maybe, they can rekindle that friendship with Marinette. Maybe Lila will finally back off and leave her alone. Maybe things will finally go back to normal.

“Ugh, why couldn’t you have gotten a tropical vacation,” moaned Plagg. “I hate the cold. Frostbite, cold snaps, blizzards, and worse of all: frozen cheese!”

“They have heating in the resort,” responded Adrien, rolling his eyes. “Your cheese will be fine.”

“Frozen cheese is no laughing matter!” whined Plagg. “I still remember that awful blizzard of ’93. All my stock supply of cheese was frozen over! Cracked! Broken! Even when they thawed out, the flavor and texture turned to mush! Like eating moldy oatmeal!”

“Plagg! Gross!” Adrien gave a disgusted look. “I don’t need to hear that.”

“And I don’t need to suffer the consequences of frozen cheese!” Plagg wept.

“Well keep that whining to a minimum when we’re at the resort since the rooms are shared,” the blonde remarked.

Plagg groaned. “Great. So not only do I have to suffer through cheese freezing, I’ll be spending my days being stuffed inside a bag.”

“You’ll stay in the room while I’m out with my friends. Just be careful if any maids or cleaning staff come in.”

“Whatever.”

“And try not to stink up the room when you eat,” he stated. “I don’t want to get weird looks from my friends.”

Plagg continued to groan even louder, annoying Adrien. “I promise if you stay as quiet as a mouse and not cause trouble for the entire trip, I’ll buy you a whole crate of fancy imported cheese.”

“…what kind of cheese?” questioned Plagg.

“Every kind,” Adrien smirked. “Hard and soft. From abertam cheese to xynotyro. Just promise to be on your best behavior and it will all be yours.”

“…very well,” Plagg straighten himself out. "I'll be a good kitty. Heck, I'll act like one of those snooty, pageant cats that are on TV." The kwami gave a fake lick to his paw and meowed in a condescending tone.

“How about you just stay hidden and we’ll be good.”

“Fine, ruining my fun,” Plagg smirked before landing on the pillow next to Adrien and immediately fell asleep.

Adrien, however, kept going through his phone. Giddiness vibrated through his body as he pictured his next two weeks by himself. It took weeks and weeks of begging and bargaining with his father to even tolerate the idea let alone consider it. But Adrien persevered, getting top grades in his class, nailed all his photoshoots and stuck with his daily schedule – save a few times he had to fight an akuma – before his father looked at the permission sheet.

In the end, it all paid off! His father read over the contract, signed it and had Nathalie go over the details with Mme. Bustier to make sure everything was on the up and up. Mayor Bourgeois and M. Boivin even spoke to him to ensure that no harm would come to the young Adreste while at the Chateau Boivin. Over the top? Yes, but it was normal for Gabriel Adreste. Though it could be forgiven as this would be Adrien's first time away from his father for an extended period.

‘Two weeks on my own,’ Adrien smiled. ‘No hectic schedules. No extra lessons. Just two weeks of having fun and hanging out with my friends!’

“This will be the best vacation ever!” the blonde yawned before falling asleep.

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(I can’t do line break for some reason so apologies for the rows of dots in advance)

Not any spooks in this chapter but its a slow-burn towards the actual actions so please be patience. Next chapter is coming soon <3

#cynical fics #ml #miraculous ladybug #semblance #ml fic #fanfic #fic #thriller

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cindylouwho-2 · 4 years

Text

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, May 24 2020

Welcome to my latest summary of recent ecommerce news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & Etsy! This covers articles I came across since the early May report, although some may be older than that. Due to a need to get my taxes filed, and a continued busy jewellery business, I don’t expect to be able to do another update for a few weeks. You can follow me on Twitter for important breaking news, though!

Have any topics you would like to see me cover in more detail? Drop me a line here on Tumblr, or email me through my website.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

Small businesses can survive the pandemic and beyond, if they learn to provide what customers are now looking for. From desks to 3-D printed face shields, to including toilet paper on your takeout menu, to moving online, acting quickly has given these businesses hope. ABC also did a piece on this topic. [text & video; mentions Etsy & masks] Here’s another article discussing adapting to pandemic ecommerce “new normal”, with interviews with staff from Etsy, TechStyle and Zulily.

Ecommerce is about to get way more competitive (it probably is already), & arguably the retailers who will succeed are the ones who already put plans in action, including advertising plans. (mentions Shopify, Google Shopping & Etsy.)

Facebook and Instagram will now have “Facebook Shops”, which are free to set up. Sounds like it will be a slow rollout, though. Many take this as direct competition for marketplace sites such as Etsy, but it will probably also have a large impact on small website builder sites such as Indiemade.

ETSY NEWS

Etsy’s first quarter for 2020 was good, but April was astonishing by any standards; I covered it all here.

Etsy Payments will soon be available to sellers in Turkey, Malaysia, & Mexico. This will likely be welcome news to sellers in Turkey in particular, who haven’t had an easy way to accept payment for Etsy orders since PayPal left Turkey a few years back. It looks like this move will be optional at the moment for those 3 countries, unlike those of us who are forced to use EP if it is available in our countries.

Etsy gave some listing credits and ad credits to shops who had substantially lower than normal sales in late March through April; the credits don’t kick in until July, though.

Etsy is beta-testing a new listing video tool. You can join here; if you want more info first, here are some details. Note that the videos must be quite short, and will not include sound.

Etsy is still getting some good traction from the face mask initiative: “I would argue they were just in the right place at the right time," says Kodali. "When you think of who is able to consolidate the power of a million sewers in the country, the only answer is Etsy." However, they are also getting some criticism for masks taking forever to arrive, if at all. The slow customer support is also annoying many of these new customers that the CEO was so happy to attract, with little to no response from Etsy.

The Wall Street Journal did a well-received article on people buying food (mostly baked goods) on Etsy [paywall]. Other sources have picked it up, although some are a bit skeptical about safety.

More trend info directly from Etsy: first, summer at-home ideas with Dayna Isom Johnson [podcast links with transcript]. It also covers what to do for socially-distanced celebrations. “[P]eople are taking what they would typically do for a birthday, but then doing it virtually. So many people love paint night parties and I've actually seen quite a few paint kits that Etsy sellers are creating. It’s a wonderful way to celebrate your birthday and still have that experience of expressing your creativity and having fun with your friends, but just through a screen.” Also, “tie-dye is blazing hot right now.”

Second, craft supply sellers get their own trend article for a change. Supply searches close to doubled in April, with “346% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for “diy”. Many buyers are making their own masks with supplies from Etsy; “2,089% YoY increase in searches on Etsy for “elastic”. Do read the whole article if you want to spin your shop in this direction, as there is a lot of good info included.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

Google pushed out a core algorithm update starting May 4, which finished rolling out on May 18. It seems fairly large, maybe the biggest in some time, and may have hit more areas than other recent core updates. They did take some criticism for releasing it during a pandemic. Possible targets aren’t agreed on yet by the people tracking it, but could include cryptocurrency, travel, real estate, health, tech, finance & dating. Or maybe we shouldn’t rush to pick winners & losers so quickly? News media changes may be affected by the regular algorithm reaction to people reading a lot more news these days, and some ecommerce companies had a boom that could affect their rankings. This article discusses Etsy among other companies, who might have benefitted from the update. [I’m not sure on the Etsy complaints, as I have been seeing multiple links for some searches for well over a year now.]

Link building is generally the hardest part of Google SEO, in part because you aren’t allowed to do any of the obvious things that might get you easy links. Anyone confused about the rules & the benefits should check out this guide for 2020.

While you can learn a lot from general SEO guides, if you have a Shopify site, this guide provides some specific SEO tips.

LinkedIn managed to de-index itself from Google on May 6, at least for the United States. Here’s one theory. Well-paid webmasters for major internet companies can still screw up, it turns out.

(CONTENT) MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails)

If you are one of those organized marketers who plans their campaigns ahead of time, here are 5 content marketing ideas for June.

With so many people not working as much as usual, this might be a good time to start a podcast. Gizmodo has compiled instructions on doing it cheaply.

The best time to send an email depends on the purpose of the email. For example, “General site traffic emails have always been most effective mid-week — mid-morning or mid-afternoon. Mondays and Fridays tend not to perform as well” while “A general awareness campaign can be sent almost any time to be effective.”

Refreshing your evergreen content can be more productive than producing new content. That has some really good ideas for many types of businesses produce

Facebook bought Giphy, and while it will still be available to people without Facebook-owned accounts, it will be integrated directly with Instagram.

Instagram is testing new fonts in its Stories feature.

Twitter is enabling users to see how many people quoted a tweet, but so far only on IOS. They also have a new test where you control who can reply to your tweets.

LinkedIn is rolling out both video events and polls, but maybe it is too late to get a big bump from either change?

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS)

Online advertising can be expensive; here are some stats on the cost of various search engine ad clicks as well as a bit on social media.

Google Merchant accounts now let you compare your prices to other sites and also look at trends in clicks.

Here is a good brief overview of the new free Google Shopping listings, including the 3 main reasons the author believes Google made this change. Here is another much longer overview, with screenshots for those not in the US, and info on how to set this up for your website. The PayPal integration is now available.

Online advertising clicks seem to be bouncing back from the worst of the pandemic, according to several sources, including this one. It is still far too early to tell if this will last, however.

YouTube has re-conceived its premium ad program, now called YouTube Select.

If you have ads that slow down people’s computers or drain batteries by being too “resource-heavy”, note that Chrome is going to begin blocking those in August. “Chrome will filter ads based on the following thresholds: 4MB of network data or 15 seconds of CPU usage in any 30 second period, or 60 seconds of total CPU usage.”

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING

Seeing all hits to one page in Google Analytics is a lot easier if you exclude the URL query parameters (but note that sometimes they are useful, such as for various pages on Etsy.) If you like the idea of filtering your GA results in general, here is another tutorial on that.

If you want to do A/B testing on your website, here is a fairly straightforward introduction to Google Optimize, which is free to use.

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS

Many online companies had a good first quarter despite the pandemic, including Shopify, which beat income estimates and saw its stock rise 5% after its first quarter report. “New stores created on the company’s online platform jumped 62% between March 13 and April 24 as many brick-and-mortar businesses migrated online.”

Shopify rolled out software that allows its users to more easily do curbside pickup orders. “...Shopify was already in the process of redesigning its POS before the coronavirus, but decided to accelerate the development of a few new features, namely fulfilling curbside pick-up orders and home delivery. Shopify said that by the end of April, 26% of its merchants with a brick-and-mortar presence were offering local delivery or buy online, pickup in-store, compared to 2% in February.”

Rolling out for the US first, Shopify is also getting into financial products, offering a new debit card which you can use to receive your sales income on the same day you earn it. Shopify Balance can be described as “a merchant account with no fees and no minimum balances.” It’s also setting up an instalment plan feature for customers.

Also new with Shopify: a Pinterest app for turning all your products into shoppable pins.

An Amazon VP quit - very publicly - over the company firing several whistleblowers and labour organizers. “Amazon declined to comment.” The company is taking heat for those issues as well as poor management of and information about how many employees have tested positive at various warehouses. Several employees are known to have died of COVID-19 so far.

Amazon has extended its order performance suspension exceptions for the pandemic to May 31. Which is a good thing, because it seems that buyers are leaving more bad feedback than ever before [soft paywall] “More than 11 percent of reviews left for sellers in the past 30 days are negative. That’s nearly twice the level of frustration vented by shoppers regarding Amazon’s third-party sellers during the holidays, when customer anxieties spike over not getting presents on time”. eBay extended some seller protection changes until July 19. [note: if you sell on these platforms outside of the US, lease check for your own country’s rules, as some of them are different.]

Amazon Handmade sellers from the US got a boost from a new local makers page and the accompanying blog post. [I was unable to find any similar promotions for other countries; seems like a missed opportunity]

Buyers in Canada and the US are trying to get class-action lawsuits certified against Amazon for their policy preventing/discouraging its vendors from offering lower prices elsewhere. This article includes the US class action complaint paperwork.

If you are wondering about Prime Day, Amazon is apparently going to try for September, but there is no official announcement yet.

eBay will be changing the fee structure for sellers using managed payments, including charging one fee on the entire transaction instead of separate commission & processing fees.

USPS, complaining of deficits and being pressured by Trump, is reportedly reviewing its package delivery contracts with large companies such as Amazon. “According to the Washington Post, over the last few weeks the USPS has been seeking bids from consulting firms to reexamine what the agency charges companies like Amazon, UPS, and FedEx. Contracts are generally reviewed on a yearly basis, and analysts have repeated warned that suddenly raising package prices that drastically would cause more bad than good, not just for the USPS or Amazon, but for small businesses and individuals too.”

Square has created an easy online checkout option that works without being connected to a website/shop. (US only)

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE

Google has introduced a new Trends-like tool that covers recent top product searches by the amount of growth. Yes, it is free!

Gen Z wants to see “fun and exciting advertising” during the pandemic, because they are bored. They are apparently not really fond of “things are different now” ads. Also: “A survey taken seven weeks ago indicated that younger consumers were more likely than older adults to say they wanted to see purpose-driven advertising that showed how companies were helping others.” Actually, Gen Z isn’t alone in wanting something different from commercials right now

Consumers want to see companies taking positive action and supporting their employees during the pandemic - and claim they will remember who did a good job, so they know who to support with purchases.

Not surprisingly, mobile usage is up during the day time since the pandemic was declared, and people are also staying online later during the week. Web browser usage is up, and more serious news and information is getting attention.

There will likely be many more bankruptcies as the effects of COVID-19 ripple through the economy, but some businesses don’t have enough cash flow to go bankrupt. [text & video]

Canadian retail sales were down 10% in March compared to 2019, but many things went up, including general merchandise stores (6.4%) and online retailers (40%). Note that the online numbers didn’t include sales made from Amazon.com or Amazon.ca and delivered in Canada, so ecommerce was actually higher than that. In the US, March retail sales were down 8.7%, but April looks like it turned around for many ecommerce sites.

MISCELLANEOUS

So-called “cookie walls” are not enough to comply with the EU’s privacy laws. “[I]n order for consent to be legally valid under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) there are specific standards to meet: It must be clear and informed, specific and freely given. Hence cookie walls that demand ‘consent’ as the price for getting inside the club are not only an oxymoron but run into a legal brick wall.”

Website layouts (and even other elements) are starting to look like each other more & more.

#search engine optimization #EtsyNews #content marketing #smallbiz #ecommercetips

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aparticularbandit · 4 years

Text

State of Bandit Fic

it’s been a couple of months since i posted one of these and i’d like to have one done by the end of the year SO here we go. under a read more for length. my apologies, mobile users.

plans for the rest of the year:

roisa secret santa goes up next monday. i still don’t know what i’ll post on the monday after that. i have another chapter ish of falling written, but idk if that’s a direction i really want to go with that novel. maybe, maybe not. idk.

word count maintained 2k during november with only a few hiccups. this month the first couple of weeks i had multiple days where word count was less than 1k. i’ve gotten it back up to 1k and think that the sudden jump from main focus on roisa hp au to main focus on rss was part of the issue there (when i go and make sure i get 1k in the hp au, i tend to hit 2k again, so there’s that). i plan to try and maintain the 1k to the end of the year with the hope that i reach a total of 400k written this year (at the end of november, i was at approximately 381.5k - give or take a few - which means i only needed to write 18.5k this month. i have at least 11.5k in various other non-roisa hp au projects from this month, not including any word count from second writes, and i know i’ve done at least another 1k (probably 2k or more) in the roisa hp au - so i should be hitting that if i keep up the 1k minimum).

that Christmas project i said i started last year and wanted to finish this year won’t be finished in time for Christmas most likely so my apologies. :/ it just takes more mental thought for less word count and my focus right now is on rss. sorry.

plans for next year:

i’m very tentative on these, but this is what i’ve been thinking about (and may or may not actually do):

focus on five days a week at 1-2k with saturdays and sundays off - still plan on keeping word count on one of those days but giving the other one for second write for the monday update because i’ve found that trying to do the second write and final edits and get 1k written is really hard for me to do, especially with longer updates. so i’m not going to push myself for that.

this also potentially allows me an additional day to spend editing or drafting other projects - like the roisa hp au or mexican stud or stuff like that which i want to be finished and go through another edit and possible betaing before posting - and while that might not be immediately, i like that space being open and available.

focus on finishing the rough draft of the first book of the roisa hp au and hopefullly get it through a second draft and betaing and polishing so that maybe it starts getting posted in july or august.

i was thinking july but we’ll see. i don’t want to lock myself into something like i did with ACAL this year, and while i like having it set up for the beginning of the school year, i’m not sure that’s enough time. i haven’t done this kind of editing/drafting/betaing before on a project - with the exception of noir fic, which...hasn’t been posted and got stalled in the fourth draft.

i also think that this would be in place of the monday updates instead of a separate update as i originally planned. because this first book is currently 16 chapters long, that would give me multiple months to focus on other projects while they’re updating - and that time off was something i really wanted in july and ended up getting mostly in october and november. so we’ll see.

possibly hosting roisa fic week probably around july 4th and then possibly hosting rss next year, as well, but with a longer application time (probably all of october, but unsure).

possibly pick-up lines month for january into february in time for valentine’s day. still not sure.

more focus on personal projects.

i want to write my original fic and i’ve been focusing on fanfic and that’s not a problem but i should do some writing on my original fic, too.

not sure what this means yet because i plan to maintain monday updates because that’s been a good schedule for the past however many months and i like having that schedule.

i did set up a blog for that fantasy thing i mentioned a while back, but it’s...more complicated and something i want to ease into before bringing it up real big. so. in the wings.

time off from social media in january.

not sure how i’ll be doing this either, but i just want to take some time off from facebook/tumblr/twitter/etc. i don’t think full blackout because i plan to still be posting links to chapter updates and such here, but i’ve found...i get really worn-out and waste so much time and i just. want to see what happens. idk.

so that’s that.

and then general fic updates:

posted but incomplete fics:

if you lived here, you’d be home now

no change from last update

started a reread, maybe that’ll help

jane: the real story

no change from last update

might be dead fic; i’m not super interested in continuing this

blame soulmate timer au

heart in motion

no change from last update

luisa and the child

aka the sequel to luisa and the fox

no change since last update with the exception of some brainstorming

sin rostro

holding off because other projects are louder right now. still excited for this idea, though

emilia antonia

started the next chapter.

probably going to be focusing on this as one of my primary focuses in the new year. actually i should poll about this.

falling

have another chapter written but not posted but not sure if want to keep that direction or not

started the chapter past that one as well

aftershocks

all of the current chapters are posted

back to back-burner

debating a flashback chapter

the time of your life

finished posting bitches get glitches

rafael’s fic - and the rest of this series - is one of my potential primary focuses in the new year. i’m still really excited about this series and where it’s going.

have working titles for both rafael’s and petra’s fics.

apparently michael, who i hadn’t planned to have involved, is maybe going to actually show up. i’m thinking his first appearance might be in petra’s fic, but i’m not sure on that point.

unposted fics:

where the lightning splits the sea:

aka roisa hp au

the first book rough draft is probably going to be my primary focus in the new year, as i stated above.

currently in chapter eleven of what i expect will be sixteen. chapter lengths vary, so it’s possible that when i go through the second write i may change chapter divisions so that they aren’t too long for ao3 postings.

i’m still super excited to be writing this one and super excited to jump into this fic so - i haven’t hit burnout, which is amazing.

mexican stud

aka rosalint fic

no change from last update

probably a primary focus in the new year as stated above

everything’s coming up roses

no change from last update

various other soulmate aus

no change from last update

epic superhero crossover

aka jtv/tick/timeless/supergirl/x-files/agent carter/person of interest crossover

possibly also to include proven innocent and deputy in a tie-in with the x-files aspect - re: how to get mulder and scully directly involved and not just have the syndicate and world-building aspects

still getting bigger

obviously i have added in person of interest as part of the crossover - primarily because i pulled in wendy mcnally - bridget’s character - from one of the episodes not because i’m pulling in main characters or themes (although there’s a possibility of that)

i have started bits and pieces of this

mexican stud, obviously

mostly dottie/lint stuff

and then a few thousand words in collateral damage, which is basically the wendylu fic that explains what happens with luisa in the three years after rose’s death

the primary fic taking place three years after rose dies but there are a lot of other interconnecting fics that cover that period and earlier, etc.

i want this to be a primary focus, but it’s...complicated

timeless/noir fusion fic

HEY I STARTED IT

IT SHOULD BE REALLY COOL

LOOK IT’S EXCITING AND I WANT TO WRITE MORE OF IT

basic premise: lucy teams up with amnesiac!assassin!emma as they delve into secret societies and etc.

emma is an assassin and has amnesia.

rittenhouse doesn’t suck.

carol doesn’t suck.

lucy is still a history professor, but at amy’s behest (YEAH AMY’S ALIVE), she went to a smaller university somewhere else instead of going into carol’s department

idk who else will show up in the fic yet - emma probably has one of the machines but i’m not sure which one yet either, so that means probably should look at rufus/jiya/mason and maybe flynn BUT not sure

noir is very female-focused with no male main characters so trying to mesh that with timeless is complicated

the focus would need to be on emma and lucy and their relationship

as a result, this will likely end up being prestmore.

sorry not sorry.

there are other projects i’ve considered - like one with nymphs kind of related to something else, and pick-up lines month like i mentioned above, AND ALSO @only-freakin-sunflowers AND I MIGHT BE BRAINSTORMING A COLLAB PROJECT - but i think that’s a good place to stop for now. ^^

#musings #bandit does an update #might poll about primary focus #HM

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theliberaltony · 5 years

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Last week, we introduced a method for evaluating Democratic presidential contenders, which focused on their ability to build a coalition among key constituencies within the party. In particular, our method claims there are five essential groups of Democratic voters, which we describe as:

Party Loyalists, who are mostly older, lifelong Democrats who care about experience and electability.

The Left.

Millennials and Friends, who are young, cosmopolitan and social-media-savvy.

Black voters.

And Hispanic voters, who for some purposes can be grouped together with Asian voters.

The goal is for candidates to form a coalition consisting of at least three of the five groups.

I certainly wouldn’t claim that this is the only way to evaluate the field; rather, it’s part of what we hope will be a fairly broad toolkit of approaches that we’ll be applying as we cover the Democratic candidates at FiveThirtyEight over the course of the next 18(!!) months.1 Furthermore, in reality, the various ideological and demographic constituencies within the Democratic Party are more fluid than this analysis implies. Nonetheless, it has influenced my thinking — the coalition-building model has made me more skeptical about the chances for Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar, for instance, but more bullish about Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker. In this article, I’ll go through a set of 10 leading contenders and map out their potential winning coalitions; we’ll tackle some of the long-shot candidates later on this week.

Let’s start with the man who has led most polls of the Democratic field so far, former Vice President Joe Biden. One lesson from the 2016 Republican primary might be to approach the polls with more humility. If a candidate is ahead in the polls for a sustained period of time — as Trump was for much of late 2015 and early 2016 — maybe we journalists ought to give a certain amount of credit to that, rather than just chalking it up to high name recognition or becoming overly wedded to some theory about how voters are “supposed” to behave.

With that said, there are some trouble signs for Biden. He performs worse among those voters who are paying the most attention to the primary, suggesting that his high name recognition compared to most other candidates is a significant factor in his lead.

And I’m not sure it’s going to be very easy for Biden to expand his coalition beyond the 25 percent or so that he’s getting in polls now. Presumably many of those voters are Party Loyalists, a group for whom he’s a good fit. Biden also has strong ratings among black voters, perhaps in part as a result of his being Barack Obama’s vice president — although his handling of the Anita Hill hearings and hawkish stance on criminal justice issues could give him problems among black voters if his record is subjected to greater scrutiny.

But where does Biden go after that? Could he gain support from The Left? Maybe a bit, but his dalliances with economic populism are more rhetorical than substantive; Biden’s voting record, and it’s a long one, is fairly centrist on economic policy. Could he win over Hispanic voters? Perhaps, as Hispanics sometimes back establishment-friendly nominees (like John Kerry in 2004), but Biden’s home state, Delaware, doesn’t have very many Hispanic voters (it has quite a few African-Americans, by contrast) and I’m less willing to give credit to a politician who hasn’t historically had to develop a relationship with a minority constituency. Still, a (Hillary) Clintonian constituency of Party Loyalists, black and Hispanic voters is probably Biden’s best bet.

When I originally conceived this article, I’d planned on splitting the Democratic electorate into three rather than five groups, which I’d roughly thought of as “white Hillary Democrats,” “white Bernie Democrats” and “nonwhite Democrats.” You can probably see why I abandoned that framework. One of the problems with it is that it groups blacks, Hispanics and other racial minorities together when (as in 2008) they sometimes gravitate toward different candidates.

But another problem is that what I had thought of as “white Bernie voters” is also really two different groups: Voters who belong to The Left and those who belong with the Millennials and Friends group. In 2016, Sanders got slightly more than 40 percent of the Democratic vote nationally, which corresponds to winning clear majorities of those two groups, plus making some inroads with younger black and Hispanic voters later on in the campaign. This year, he’s polling at a little less than 20 percent. The most obvious interpretation is that, while Sanders has held on to much of his support on The Left, millennials were mostly just looking for an alternative to Clinton, and they are now considering abandoning Sanders for younger, flashier alternatives such as Beto O’Rourke and Kamala Harris.

So how does Sanders form a winning coalition? He probably does need the millennials to return to his camp, which might happen if the field narrows and his major competition is, say, Joe Biden — but it would be trickier against a Beto or a Harris or a Cory Booker. (Hence the Beto-Bernie wars.) And finding a third coalition partner is even trickier. Party Loyalists are liable to be bitter over his treatment of Clinton in 2016 and over the fact that Sanders is not actually a Democrat. Even groups such as unions — important bridges between The Left and the establishment — have been hesitant to support Sanders’s candidacy.

As for black and Hispanic voters, maybe Sanders can hope that his weak performance among those groups in 2016 was more a matter of Clinton’s strengths than his own liabilities. Sanders’s favorability ratings are reasonably good among black and Hispanic voters, in fact. But a recent survey of influential women of color found very little support for Sanders — and in contrast to four years ago, he’s now running in a field that will likely contain a number of black and Hispanic candidates. Overall, Sanders looks like a candidate with a high floor but a low ceiling, and one who would probably benefit from the field remaining divided for as long as possible.

Warren has somewhat similar problems to Sanders, including having to build a relationship with black and Hispanic voters after being elected from an extremely white state — and having already made a misstep on issues of racial identity when she took a DNA test to “prove” she had Native American ancestry.

But she potentially has a higher ceiling because she’s more likely to win support from Party Loyalists, given that she’s a Democrat rather than an independent, and that she doesn’t have baggage from 2016. She’s also ever-so-slightly to Sanders’s right in a way that places her closer to the median Democratic voter.

The most likely winning coalition for Warren, in fact, probably involves the three predominately white groups: The Left, Party Loyalists and Millennials and Friends. (One of the things that helps her with millennials is that Warren has a bigger and better social media presence than you might assume.) Her path is tricky; she probably needs Sanders to founder. And that’s before getting into the gender dynamics surrounding her campaign and whether misogyny might hurt her chances. But she has a head start, having been the first of the big names to take official steps toward running and having hired key staffers in Iowa and elsewhere, which could give her more time to figure out a winning approach.

O’Rourke has one of the more obvious three-pronged coalitions: He’d hope to win on the basis of support from Millenials and Friends, Party Loyalists and Hispanics. The groups might support him for somewhat different reasons, and O’Rourke won’t win any of them without a fight, but he has a clearer path than the other Democrats we’ve mentioned so far.

O’Rourke really did help to motivate a surge in young voter turnout in his Texas Senate race last year; voters aged 18-29 were 16 percent of the electorate in 2018 as compared to 13 percent in the previous midterm in 2014. And overall turnout was up 80 percent as compared with 2014. O’Rourke won young voters overwhelmingly, whereas in 2014, Democratic nominee David Alameel had actually lost that group to Republican incumbent John Cornyn. O’Rourke also has one of the better social media presences among the Democratic contenders.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party establishment has been encouraging O’Rourke to run, presumably because they see him as electable and potentially able to raise gargantuan sums of money for the party. Electability is a fuzzy concept, and one should be careful not to let “electable” become a synonym for “good-looking white guy” and vice versa. With that said, O’Rourke’s performance in Texas was quite strong relative to the partisanship of the state — even though he lost to Ted Cruz (by just under 3 percentage points), it was the best performance for a Democrat in a high-profile statewide Texas race in years. His policy views are a bit squishy, but that could also be an advantage of a sort — the same could be said of Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016.

There’s liable to be a Big Discussion at some point about Beto’s authenticity among Hispanic voters. O’Rourke has a Hispanic nickname, Beto, but his given first name is Robert and he doesn’t actually have any Hispanic ancestry. With that said, he represented a district in El Paso that is almost 80 percent Hispanic, and he beat an incumbent Hispanic Democrat to first win the seat in 2012. He also won 64 percent of the Hispanic vote against Cruz (who is Cuban-American2), which is pretty good in a state where the Hispanic vote can be more conservative than in other parts of the country. (Alameel won just 47 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2014, by contrast.)

The candidate who looks best according to the coalition-building model is probably not O’Rourke, however. Instead, it’s California Sen. Kamala Harris, who potentially has strength with all five groups.

Harris, who is of mixed Jamaican (black) and Indian descent, was easily the top choice in the survey of influential women of color that I mentioned earlier. So while I don’t automatically want to assume that nonwhite candidates will necessarily win over voters who share their racial background — it took Obama some time to persuade African-Americans to vote for him in 2008 — Harris seems to be off to a pretty good head start. And her coalition not only includes black voters, but also potentially Asian and Hispanic voters. Harris did narrowly lose Hispanic voters to Sanchez, a Hispanic Democrat, in 2016 (while winning handily among Asian voters). But her approval ratings among Hispanic voters are high in California, a state where the group makes up around a third of the electorate.

If black voters and the Hispanic/Asian group constitute Harris’s first two building blocks, she’d then be able to decide which of the three remaining (predominately white) Democratic groups to target to complete her trifecta. And you could make the case for any of the three. Harris polls better among well-informed voters, which could suggest strength among Party Loyalists. She’s young-ish (54 years old) and has over 1 million Instagram followers, which implies potential strength among millennials. (And remember, Democratic millennials highly value racial diversity.) Harris’s worst group — despite a highly liberal, anti-Trump voting record — might actually be The Left, the whitest and most male group, from which she’s drawn occasional criticism for her decisions as a prosecutor and a district attorney.

Overall, however, this is a strong position for Harris. As Slate’s Jamelle Bouie points out, it may actually be a strategic advantage to be a black candidate in this Democratic primary in 2020.

If Harris rates strongly by this system, then it might follow that New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who is also black, would look strong as well. Indeed, Booker may be somewhat overlooked by the pundit class. He’s been pretty explicit about the fact that he’s eventually going to run for the nomination. And he scored strong favorability ratings in a recent survey of Iowa voters, although he isn’t yet many voters’ first choice.

With that said, there are a couple of areas in which Booker could fall a bit short of Harris. New Jersey doesn’t have as many Hispanic or Asian voters as California does (and Booker isn’t part Asian, as Harris is). And if The Left has some problems with Harris, it’s liable to have a lot of problems with Booker, who many leftists see as being too close to Wall Street and to big business. Winning on the basis of a coalition of black voters, Party Loyalists and Millennials and Friends is certainly plausible for Booker, but he doesn’t have quite as many options as Harris does.

As I said earlier, I don’t think this five-corners metric is the only way to judge the candidates. And there are other heuristics by which Klobuchar, the Minnesota senator, might better positioned. For instance, if Democrats are looking for a candidate who forms the best contrast to Trump, she has a pretty good case, as a woman from the Midwest who comes across as temperamentally moderate and without a lot of Trumpian bombast.

But I’m not quite sure how she builds a winning coalition. Klobuchar is potentially a near-perfect choice for Party Loyalists, who are liable to see her Midwestern moderation as being highly electable, especially after she won her Senate race by 24 percentage points last year in a state where Trump nearly defeated Clinton. Beyond that, though? Minnesota is a pretty white state, so Klobuchar doesn’t have a lot of practice at appealing to black, Hispanic or Asian voters. Her voting record is fairly moderate — she’s voted with Trump about twice as often as Booker has, for example — so she’s not an obvious fit for The Left. Millennials, perhaps? Her social media metrics so far are paltry — she has just 140,000 Twitter followers, for example — although (not totally unlike Warren) she has a goofy relatability that could translate well to Instagram and so on.

Klobuchar’s chances probably depend more on “The Party Decides” view of the primary than the more voter-centric vision I’ve presented here. In that view, party elites and Party Loyalists are leading indicators for how the rest of the party will eventually vote. One can imagine Klobuchar gaining traction if she performs well in Iowa, for instance. That’s a lot of “ifs,” however, whereas other candidates would seem to have more straightforward paths.

Another Midwestern senator, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, in some ways has a more obvious route toward building a coalition. Like Klobuchar, he can make some good arguments about electability, having been elected three times in an increasingly red state, potentially making him an appealing choice to Party Loyalists. But he’s also a tried-and-true economic populist, who would be able to build alliances with The Left, and he’s reportedly a top choice among labor unions.

Where Brown might pick up the third group for his coalition is harder to say. Ohio has a reasonably large black vote, so he may be able to appeal to African-American voters. His limited social media presence and rumpled demeanor wouldn’t seem to make him a natural fit for millenials, although rumpledness didn’t stop Sanders from gaining traction with millennials four years ago. Domestic violence allegations against Brown, stemming from his divorce in 1986, have historically not moved the needle against him in his Ohio campaigns but could be a concern to younger voters, especially younger women, if they’re litigated on the national stage.

Gillibrand, who looks increasingly likely to run, sometimes gives the impression of having conducted an analysis like the one you’re reading in this article and taking a color-by-number approach to the Democratic primary. But it can come out a bit awkwardly. On the one hand, Gillibrand has the lowest Trump Score of any senator, meaning that she has opposed Trump more often than any other Democrat in the upper chamber. On the other hand, she once took relatively conservative stances on gun control, immigration and other issues when serving in Congress as a representative from upstate New York. On the one hand, she uses leftist and feminist terms such as “intersectional” to describe how she sees the future. On the other hand, she has ties to Wall Street (as many New York Democrats do).

Gillibrand’s most natural path might be to start with Party Loyalists and build out a coalition from there. But her calls for Sen. Al Franken to resign — issued after several women accused him of groping them — reportedly triggered a backlash among some donor-class Democrats, who [warning, editorial comment ahead] apparently don’t care how stupid they look for blaming a woman for a man’s #MeToo problems.

With all that said, Gillibrand potentially has a reasonably high ceiling. In New York state, she has high favorability ratings among nonwhite voters and an especially large gender gap in how voters view her. So if she isn’t getting a lot of buzz among white male Democratic pundits, you should be a little bit wary about concluding that the lack of buzz is representative of the broader Democratic coalition.

We’re getting toward the end of what you might consider the top couple of tiers of Democratic candidates. And I’m not quite sure whether to consider Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, as one of the frontrunners or as more of a long-shot candidate. In the recent Selzer/Des Moines Register poll of Iowa, almost two-thirds of likely Democratic caucusgoers didn’t have an opinion about Castro either way. And neither his tenure as mayor nor his job as HUD Secretary necessarily required him to weigh in on the major issues of the day. So for better or worse, he’s starting out with a relatively blank slate and a malleable policy platform.

Castro does have the advantage of being potentially the only Hispanic candidate in the race. He’s a good speaker, having given the keynote address at the 2012 Democratic convention. And he’s been relatively explicit about his desire to run — he may even officially declare his intentions in the next few days. A coalition of Hispanics, Party Loyalists (if he can persuade party elites about the importance of the Hispanic vote) and Millenials and Friends might be Castro’s best option. As it happens, that’s also O’Rourke’s coalition, so the two Texans could represent a problem for one another.

There’s about an 80 percent chance that the Democratic nominee will be one of the 10 candidates I just mentioned, according to betting markets. Still, that does leave some room for a long shot, and there are literally dozens of other Democrats who are contemplating a presidential bid. There are also some candidates, such as Georgia’s Stacey Abrams, who don’t seem especially likely to run, but who could be formidable if they did. We’ll cover some of those other Democrats in “lightning round” fashion in a third and final installment of this series later this week.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Nate Silver

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atopfourthwall · 6 years

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State of the Wall: 12-2-17

New State of the Wall post! Lotsa stuff happening, so click under the cut to see what's happening!

Schedule of Upcoming Episodes 12/4 – Clive Barker’s Hellraiser Dark Holiday Special 12/11 – Sensation Comics #14: The Story of Fir Balsam 12/18 – Steam Wars Christmas Special 12/25 – Christmas with the Superheroes #2 1/1 – My Top 15 Favorite Episodes of AT4W 1/8 – PATREON: Legion of Superheroes: The Great Darkness Saga 1/15 – Patreon Viewers’ Choice (NFL SuperPro #2, Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos #3, or James Bond, Jr. #1) 1/22 – PATREON: JLA/Avengers 1/29 – PATREON: Homestuck, Act 2

As always, the schedule is subject to change for any number of reasons, I’m pretty locked down with these choices… aside from MAYBE my Top 15 Favorite Episodes. I keep waffling on it, but for now it’s what we’re going with.

The Road to 500… and the 10th Anniversary 2018 will mark the 10th Anniversary of Atop the Fourth Wall! Needless to say, it’s going to be a big year for the show. If everything goes according to plan, there will be two storylines within it – the Contest of Champions arc that began in October as well as a shorter 10th Anniversary storyline whose name I shall reveal once we get to it, likely ending October 29th (if not the 22nd to coincide with the 10th Anniversary episode).

To celebrate this momentous time, every review that is not a Patreon-sponsored episode will be a follow-up to something from the past ten years! This would include sequel episodes to previous material, like another issue of something covered previously, a thematic follow-up like, say, from the same creators as a popular episode or could be thought of as following the same ideas as that episode. However, thankfully some of the Patreon-sponsored episodes themselves will be follow-ups, as indicated by the January 29th episode being the second act of Homestuck (which should hopefully make the many Homestuck fans asking for me to cover the next act happy).

Along those same lines, we’ll be doing the second Patreon Viewers’ Choice episode! The official announcement for the poll on that one will likely come at the end of the Top 15 Favorite Episodes of AT4W, but I’m letting you see the choices now to start thinking about it. The choice will be between three goofy tie-in comics I’ve covered previously – another issue of NFL SuperPro, another issue of Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos, or going all the way back to James Bond, Jr.’s first issue. I did return to James Bond, Jr. for a live show that hasn’t been put up yet, but we haven’t seen it on the show proper since the end of 2009. A comment on that issue is the source of the infamous “You’ll never be as popular as the BeeGees!” comment that is now immortalized on the back of the second DVD.

But of course there’s even another big even happening in 2018 as part of the 10th Anniversary – we’re going to hit the 500th episode! I definitely want to do some special stuff this year for the 500th, most especially being another livestream like we had for the 300th. It’ll take some time to plan, but here’s a list of ideas I have currently for it: -More testimonials, trivia, and anecdotes like in the 300th -Showing some otherwise-DVD exclusive content from all my DVDs, including the Movie -Showing the previous “100th episodes” – Sonic Live #1, Spider-Man: One More day, Holy Terror, and Marvel Super Special #7: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band -A live showing of the conclusion to Pokémon Omicron, where we’ll take on the Elite 4 -Various Longbox of the Damned episodes -Special guests -Live-riffing some shorts

These are all just ideas for the time being, so if you have any of your own, feel free to let me know! We’ve got 5-6 months until the 500th and I’d love to know what people think!

Platform Change 4: The Revengeance of the Whils VidMe has announced that they are shutting down their services as of December 15th. As such, there are going to be some changes in how things are handled around here. This is the FOURTH time that a platform has failed and I have had enough. We hadn’t even really finished replacing the vidme embeds on the LAST embed player change, so screw it: we’re going all in on youtube. There might be an option for Vimeo down the road, but for now, here’s in the broad sense what’s going to happen: -All Atop the Fourth Wall videos, from here on, will be thumbnail images of the title card that you click through to go straight to youtube. -All Longbox of the Damned embeds will be made into youtube embeds. Next year’s Longbox videos are currently up in the air, but hey – we’ve got ten months to figure that out and maybe have a tried and tested system in place. For now, it makes more sense to make them youtube embeds because of people’s nature in marathon-viewing videos and Longbox videos are short enough as-is. -New videos like vlogs, side content, and Let’s Plays will follow the title card thumbnail process being used for Atop the Fourth Wall. Old videos are up in the air, but they will likely be embedded videos just to make life easier on us as we once again replace everything. -History of Power Rangers… well, that’s a bit of a beast all on its own. Refer to the History of Power Rangers section below for more details.

As always, I ask for patience during yet another period of transition. Plenty of videos will be unavailable during this time (including crossovers in particular), but we’ll try our damndest to get things back to working order as soon as possible.

History of Power Rangers I’m happy to report that FINALLY, all of History of Power Rangers is back up after so many months of being down due to ContentID striking many of them from VidMe. Minor edits have been made due to the lengths of certain clips used…

…And you can only enjoy them for another 13 days because VidMe is shutting down. Or rather you can DOWNLOAD them for another 13 days using a third-party downloader.

Simply put: I’ve had it. These videos were made for a different time, when Blip was the main video host and longer usage of video clips wasn’t an issue. The platforms have dwindled and it’s down to youtube and I’ve already tried to upload these videos to youtube once before and it didn’t end well. The audio quality of these videos isn’t that great compared to my current standards and many of them utilized low-quality pirated versions of episodes recorded off of TV. I own all of Power Rangers on DVD now and new Power Rangers content that I put out has to come from legitimate sources like DVDs anyway. I simply cannot make these older versions work anymore. Don’t bother trying to suggest another video host like Vimeo or DailyMotion. Aside from both having their own ContentID systems, I am tired of trying to accommodate an inferior product.

Work will begin anew on the revised History of Power Rangers videos. While I had wanted to work on them in order, it took forever just to get the SLIGHTLY-edited versions back on VidMe due to my busy schedule. As such, I’m going to release them on youtube out of order, starting with Overdrive through RPM (Samurai, Megaforce, and Dino Charge already exist on youtube) because of their already-decent audio quality. If you want the old versions (and sadly that will now include the SLIGHTLY-edited versions that I have put up more recently), feel free to download them however way you can, because I am no longer going to try to support it. Let it not be said that I didn’t TRY to keep them up after so many years of fighting with various platforms over them.

I had planned to announce that it was likely the In Space History of Power Rangers would be delayed as it is simply due to the busy schedules of others needed to work on the “Under Pressure” section, but, well, here we are. Hopefully we can see HOPR restored to something better than it was once the dust completely settles.

Let’s Play Pokémon Omicron As stated in the last State of the Wall, the Pokémon Omicron streams are on hiatus due to finally reaching the Elite 4. Due to the various things I’ve had do to these last few months (not the least of which being concluding a storyline, Longbox, AND getting married) I’ve had little to no time to work on Omicron videos. As I’ve said before, I’d like to do a major stream for the Elite 4. If you look above, I’ve suggested fighting the Elite 4 as part of the 500th AT4W Episode Celebration Live Show and would like to hear some feedback on that.

Storyline Compilations In case you haven’t been following the youtube channel (which you probably should be at this point given what’s going on with VidMe – link HERE), the Game Show Reviewer (who does a lot of the special effects for the show) has put together compilation videos of the AT4W storyline! They feature JUST the storyline segments and occasionally a clip or two from a review for context (or because he felt a joke was funny enough to include). At this time, everything through the “His Blue Soul” arc has been released. The other compilation videos are done and uploaded, but I’m currently waiting for some ContentID claims on the Royalty-Free music to pass before I release the rest. Otherwise, you can enjoy the compilations currently available thanks to this hand-dandy playlist.

DVDs and T-Shirts Sale In honor of the holiday season, IT’S SALE TIME! All INDIVIDUAL volumes of Atop the Fourth Wall DVDs have been reduced to ten dollars (until December 26th), including the most recent – Volume 3: Character Reboot. In addition, Shark Robot is still running their Black Friday sale through December 6th – just use the promo code “BLACKFRIDAY17” on the two Atop the Fourth Wall t-shirts – “I am a Man” and “Because Poor Literacy is KEWL!” You can find those shirts HERE!

I’m working on getting some other sales ready for both the Screenwave store and the T-shirts, so feel free to keep checking back here for any updates on additional sales!

Event Comics Month II The first Event Comics Month was such a big success we’re doing it again next year! As before, it’s a vote by patrons at any level picking two DC and two Marvel event comics! You can check it out HERE, become a Patron, and make your vote known about what you’d like to see reviewed next year!

Patreon As a reminder, the Patreon-sponsored review tier for Patreon is still closed for the moment, with details you can read HERE. While I still don’t have a date yet as to when I plan to reopen them, I’ve been taking your feedback about it into consideration. A common train of thought is that any non-comic review should at least be in some way linked to comics, be it about superheroes or, at the very least, linked to something I actually regularly do/am in some way interested in (for instance, the occasional sentai reviews are fine given History of Power Rangers, or video games could be Star Trek or Pokémon or the like). I don’t think that’s too unfair a compromise given what people are thinking, but I wouldn’t mind getting more feedback about it during this time, so feel free to make your feelings about it known if you haven’t already!

That’s all I’ve got for now! Feel free to let me know your thoughts/concerns/questions for everything going on!

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canaya96 · 6 years

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On my first day in Iceland, I rode the bus from the Keflavík airport to Reykjavík. Along the way, the bus driver mentioned several interesting places I should visit, as he pointed beyond the vast volcanic landscape that enveloped the main highway on either side. He said this was the site of a big construction controversy. He explained a road had been proposed to ease the commute from the Álftanes peninsula to Gardabaer, a suburb of Reykjavík. But the project was interrupted because a rock that was proposed to be move, was a home for elves. Now, I was doing quite well with this gentleman’s Polish accent, but I had to ask for confirmation, “Did you say elves?” “Yes, elves,” he replied. And that was my first exposure to the rich and colorful folklore of Iceland.

A month later, I was on a Reykjavík city tour and our tour guide kept mentioning areas of the city that were linked with the elves (again, with the elves). I have come to learn that elves, in fact, are a part of the Icelandic culture and are known to wreak havoc when disturbed. As a result, elf mitigation has now become a business in Iceland. For example, the builders of the Kárahnjukastífla dam in eastern Iceland hired an elf consultant. The clairvoyant consultant is used to act as a mediator between the Hundufólk (hidden people, as elves are known) and humans to prevent any problems when elfin homes or churches must be moved. This use of a clairvoyant stems from problems that have occurred in the past when elves were not considered.

Careful, any large rock could be a home for elves!

Enchanting, moss-covered landscape

In 2015, workers were called to clear mud on a highway caused by heavy rainfall. From the beginning, a series of unfortunate events plagued the project including work injuries, broken machinery, and further flooding as workers continued to remove mud from the road. It turns out, they were dumping mud onto a large rock in the vicinity known as the Elfin Lady Stone, or Álfkonusteinn. To some, these unfortunate events might be the result of dangers associated with construction projects, but for others, the incidents are a result of what happens when the human world collides with the elf world.

It seemed that during my first few months in Iceland, elves continued to pop up. So, I started searching the internet and learned about “Elf School”. What does one learn at Elf School? I had to find out! According to their website, elf school is where attendees can learn “everything that is known about elves and hidden people, as well as gnomes, dwarfs, fairies, trolls…and mythical beings in Iceland and in other countries.” The website also claims we will learn “about hundreds of Icelanders that have had personal contact with elves.” You are also enticed with the promise of a diploma and traditional Icelandic food for the low price of $64. Because I love acquiring certificates and I was exited to share elves on my blog, I would be happy to pay my tuition.

The school is in a business district a few kilometers east of downtown Reykjavík. As I walked to the main entrance, located at the top of a dark corridor, there was quite a bit of clutter spewing from the purple outline of the doorway. As I walked in, I took a quick scan of the room which appeared to look like the inside of someone’s house. In fact, the décor took me back, back to my grandmother’s house circa 1970’s. There were gnomes everywhere. As I proceeded through the dimly lit room, I noticed a large bearded gentleman sitting behind a counter. All I could think was “clutter”. Could this be the school? Was I in the right place? “You’re here for Elf School?” the man behind the counter asked. I quietly nodded still unconvinced I was in a school. As he collected my payment, the room was eerily quiet except for the humming of the credit card machine. I was handed my free book and told to take a seat while we wait for others to arrive. I entered a smaller room that contained two rows of chairs on either side of the room with a small table in the center. I squeezed through the rows of chairs taking a seat in back where I could quietly observe and take notes. Over the next 10 minutes people quietly trickled in. This did not look like a school. “Should I leave?” I thought. I could not make out the quiet murmurs, but I am pretty sure we were all noticing the cluttered walls donned with shelves containing various statues, pictures, and hints of elves. Maybe they wanted to leave, too. Altogether, the people quietly seated, the indifferent facial expressions, and the shifting eyes that contemplated why we are all here was reminiscent of waiting at a doctor’s office, dreading to hear the results of a test no one wants to take. I just did not get the sense that people were excited. Maybe it was shock and awe of being at a “school” that looked like we entered a time capsule; it even smelled like 1970, if that was possible. So, there we all sat quietly, waiting for the headmaster.

In all there were 12 attendees, a husband and wife team from public news radio in Germany, a U.S. couple from Arkansas, a student from the local university, four American tourists who were very happy to share their knowledge and interest in the supernatural, a couple of honeymooners, and myself. At last our headmaster arrived, wearing a large corduroy blazer draped over sweat pants. He claimed the classroom was upstairs, but we would all be more comfortable and intimate in this room; he probably spent too much time talking about the closeness of it all. It did not make me feel comfortable, quite the opposite, in fact. He started with pleasantries and welcomed everyone. Perhaps appealing to the majority of us who were American, he opened with his connection to Barrack Obama. The headmaster’s brother, a former member of the Icelandic Parliament, was asked by Obama if Icelanders believe in elves and does his brother really teach at elf school. This was the lead-in to Icelanders and their belief in elves-54%, in fact, believe in elves. But according to online reports, the 1998 poll showed 54.4% of respondents checked the box that they “do not deny the existence of elves”. In comparison, 8% said they believe in elves while 3% actually had an encounter; still quite a bit for a country of ~334,000 inhabitants (not including the elves). I think it’s time for another poll. The headmaster’s introduction went on for about 30 minutes and continued with Republican bashing, the trouble with American politics, etc. and it was apparent he was having a good time. The tone of the stories was slow and choppy. Maybe he was trying to create a dramatic tone using short sentences, followed by long dramatic pauses. During the pauses, it seemed the headmaster was elsewhere. I wanted to scream. I wanted to run. But I wanted to know what was coming next because I quickly realized there was a story to be had, not about elves, but about elf school. At some point I looked over to my Arkansas neighbors-he was asleep, she was playing games on her phone. I must admit, I was struggling to keep my eyes open. Throughout the next three hours, we repeatedly heard the statistics that 54.4% of Icelanders believe in elves and then he would tell a story to validate that statistic. In fact, he claimed, the reason he knows the stories are true is because each time he interviews people who have had run-ins with elves, they repeat the same story without changing details from year to year. He claimed, if people are lying, they will consistently change their stories. Sometimes, in between quiet pauses came completely off topic statements. “I should tell you I’m married, to a man”. “Do you know, schizophrenic people are clairvoyant? They are in two dimensions at the same time”. “By the way, did you notice the weather changes in Iceland”. More pauses, more short, choppy stories. Buddy, I think you are in another dimension, I thought. Things livened up a bit when a prop, I mean evidence, was passed around the group. It was a metal tea kettle, supposedly very, very old. It looked like the metal coffee pots used for camping. As it was passed to me, I looked for “Made in China” stamped into the bottom, but nothing and I mean nothing–no signs of use or wear, either. Other stories followed, mostly about lost children being saved by the elves during a snowstorm, an elf structure appearing and then disappearing. I wanted to know how others were feeling so during the 30-minute break, I asked a few people what they thought. I already knew how the four-supernatural fans felt because they were already making plans to meet with an elf clairvoyant. I could sense the Arkansas couple were quite angry- or maybe it was because they had to wake up for the break. I asked, “Is the school what you expected?” The response was quick, “NO! We thought it would be different because some of the reviews were good”. I meekly agreed but I was not disappointed with the experience because now I knew I had a story. The single woman (besides myself) was a student, she made it clear she was here to write an assignment for school, thwarting any ideas that she was here voluntarily. After break, the long, slow stories with intermittent pauses continued. “Hold on, you can make it”, I kept telling myself. As I mentally dozed away, I began to make a revelation. Now, from my point of view, the headmaster was sitting sideways so that I could see a complete, body profile. He looked so familiar; a white beard, wire-rimmed glasses, a big belly that shook like a bowl full of jelly when he laughed at his own jokes. “Santa?!” I thought, shifting in my seat, trying to hold back laughter. Hadn’t I heard Santa was king of the elves-or just an elf. He looks like Santa and he’s talking about elves! Does anyone else in the room notice this irony?

Sometimes, the landscape looks dark and macabre, perfect habitat for trolls and other legends.

Before coming to elf school, there were several people who warned me to save my money. My reply was that I needed to learn about elves so that I can share elves on my blog and besides, I will get a free book out of it. What I did learn during that very slow, backward-step-in-time experience, was that the story was the school itself and its headmaster, not the elves. Unfortunately, the elves were overshadowed, both in the school and in this story I am writing. But I will eventually talk more about elves and their connection to the land and Icelandic people.

Today, as I read the experience of others at elf school in blogs or reviews online, their experiences and the tales they heard during their class, appear to be the same. I would expect the headmaster to tell new stories, as more people have run-ins with elves, but the stories seem to have not changed over the years. In the end I did not learn anything during the 3.5-hours I lost. I have learned more reading on the internet or reading the tales presented in Icelandic folklore books. At the end of class, the experience got even weirder when the headmaster proposed we all get naked and take a group picture. In all, the word naked was used three times. If you read online reviews and blogs, you will find this is a common theme, some inappropriate request followed by uncomfortable silence. In the end, we did not learn “everything about elves” or stories from “hundreds of people” as the website claimed. What I did get was a good laugh and an experience.

The volcanic landscape around Lake Myvatn makes a great backdrop for Icelandic folktales.

Dimmuborgir, featured in Game of Thrones, is said to be the home of the 13 Yule Lads who are another group deeply rooted in Icelandic folklore.

Just another picture to demonstrate the enchantment of Iceland.

Graduation

Secret Santa and Why We Don’t Mess with Elves On my first day in Iceland, I rode the bus from the Keflavík airport to Reykjavík. Along the way, the bus driver mentioned several interesting places I should visit, as he pointed beyond the vast volcanic landscape that enveloped the main highway on either side.

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ppdoddy · 3 years

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Michael Moore

AN OPEN LETTER TO JOE BIDEN Dear President-Elect Biden:

First of all, congratulations! YOU did it. WE did it! You stopped the madness. A grateful nation - and myself - are in a state of joy, hope and relief. Thank you for that! We are all eager to join with you to repair the damage done to our country — and to eliminate that about our society and our politics which gave us Donald Trump in the first place.

Mr. President-Elect, I first met you at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004. It was clear to me from our talk that day that you were not the politician I remembered from the 1990s. On that day in Boston, we were by then over a year into the Iraq War, a war you voted for. My “Fahrenheit 9/11“ had just come out and you wanted to let me know that you were aware of the folly you had been sucked into. It seemed to me that you were doing a lot of soul searching and you wanted to hear my thoughts. To be honest, I was distracted by how perfect your teeth were, and I wondered, could you really be from the working class? By the end of our talk I was convinced there was something that was quite real and very good about you, though perhaps somewhat buried inside. Would it ever come out so the public could see it? As I reflect today on it - and you - I am sincerely hoping that you will indeed govern as a president who’s from the working class. You - one of us - in the White House. That’s how it should feel. Your actions, if bold, and brave, will make that true.

You are also our second Catholic president. I believe you are a person of faith. You and I were taught the same lessons in Catholic school: to love our neighbor, even our enemy; to create a world where everyone regardless of status or station has a seat at the table, and everyone gets a slice of the pie; a world where “the rich man will have a harder time getting into heaven than a camel will have getting through the eye of the needle.” We were taught that we will be judged by how we treat the least amongst us. Do I have that right? Are these not the moral, foundational principles of the coming Biden presidency?

I was so moved by your victory speech Saturday night when you told the immigrants and the children of immigrants that the Dreamers no longer had to live in fear. That Muslims were once again welcomed into our country. That the world could breathe a sigh of relief because we were going to let the planet Earth itself breathe and have some relief. And you told the teachers of America that starting January 20th, “one of your own will be living in the White House.” That just felt instantly good.

So if I may, I’d like to suggest a few things that might make your presidency one of the best this country has ever had. You and I may have our political differences (you like Amtrak trains, I’d like to ride a bullet train from New York to LA in 10 hours!😎), but I know that you and I - and tens of millions of others - all want and believe in the same basic things: • Health Care is a human right and every American must be covered; • Everyone must be paid a living wage and all of us must work to eliminate poverty and rebuild our broken middle class; • The massive and growing gulf between the ultra rich and everyone else must be narrowed — and the wealthy must go back to paying the taxes they should pay; • Women must be paid the same as men, and no man or government has the right to tell them what they can do or not do with their bodies.

So here’s my two cents:

1. You are right to make containing Covid-19 Job #1. Had Trump won, I’m guessing up to a million people in the next year or so would have died from him ignoring this virus. Yesterday you named your Covid task force of doctors and scientists and you are putting them to work. We don’t have a second to lose. Thank you for this.

2. As soon as you can, please provide much more unemployment relief for the jobless, stimulus checks for all, help for small businesses, and the creation of jobs we desperately need.

3. Millions have lost their health insurance because our system ties one’s health coverage to their employer. What happens when the employer, like now, is suddenly gone, or the boss wakes up one morning and decides these employees’ health benefits are too costly and must be cut? BOOM! Millions of families suddenly have no health insurance. This is nuts.

You MUST create a health system like every other industrial democracy — one backed by the government, not by the whims of the boss where you work or the pandemic that has shut him or her down. This is just plain common sense.

4. I see various people trying to take credit for your victory — and using their personal agendas to push you away from the progressive Left and toward the cowardly center which believes that the best way to beat Republicans is to just be a more easily-digestible version of Republicans. They think because Trump got 70 million votes the Democrats should reject Black Lives Matter, AOC, and anything that vaguely sounds like socialism — at a time when the majority of our citizens under the age of 35, according to most polls, prefer the idea of democratic socialism over the greed of modern-day capitalism. Why risk losing them? We need to listen to and understand why they feel this way. They’ve been saddled with crushing student debt and we’ve handed them a planet In the middle of its 6th extinction event as their future. You and Barack introduced them to the benefits of democratic socialism by letting them stay on their parents health insurance until they’re 26! The result: They just set a record by coming out and voting for you in the largest youth numbers ever.

But you know all this. And you also know how you won these razor-thin victories in the final five states as we nervously watched the final ballots come in from Black Philly, Black Detroit, Black Atlanta, Black Flint. Out west, it was Latinx and Navajo voters who delivered Nevada and Arizona to you. In your speech on Saturday you acknowledged it. And never in our history have I heard a President-elect single out the Black community and thank them “for having my back. And I promise you, I will have your back!” Black and brown and indigenous peoples, plus a landslide of women and young adult voters made this happen. Wow. I absolutely know you’ll keep that promise.

5. Please do not make the same mistake an otherwise well-meaning President Obama made in his first two years. He wanted everyone to get along. He was willing to compromise on anything. Kumbaya. The Republicans had already decided they were going to block EVERYTHING Obama proposed and that’s exactly what they did for eight long years with a discipline and a ruthlessness we should probably envy.

Don’t let this happen to you. Charge in on January 20th like FDR on steroids. You have no choice. People are dying! You need to sign executive orders and cajole, demand and shame Congress into action. And GO BIG! Eliminate the Electoral College through the National Popular Vote Act! DONE! Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment for women! Just one more state needed! DONE! Send in the Army Corps of Engineers to Flint to replace the poisoned water pipes! DONE!!

And none of the above needs a single vote of the United States Senate! In fact, this past summer, your “Biden-Bernie” unity joint task force identified a whopping 277 policies and decisions of Trump’s that you have the legal authority to immediately reverse by executive order or presidential policy decision https://prospect.org/…/277-policies-biden-need-not-ask-per…/. Find that big fat black marker of his and do it!

But, yes, we also desperately need those two Georgia Senate seats to get the Biden/Harris years off to a blazing start. So let’s make that happen! All hands on deck between now and January 5th!! We will all do whatever is needed.

Friends of mine on the Left who are more cynical than I am are probably wondering why I’m sending you this letter. Haha! Well, because I saw you kiss the head of that young grieving man at the Parkland, Florida memorial for the shooting victims of Stoneman Douglas High School. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyMa96yOel0

And because I saw you in New Hampshire this year while we were there working for Bernie, and you were doing a campaign stop and there was a restless five-year boy in the front row. His parents were trying to get him to settle down. You stopped and spoke to the boy. “Hey buddy,” you said in a kind but parental way, “if you can hang on and be a good boy for just a little bit, I’ll buy ya an ice cream!” The boy quieted down, you wrapped up and afterward you went over to the boy and his parents and you gave the kid five bucks so his mom and dad could go get him an ice cream cone. And I thought to myself, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen — and then I started to cry because I wanted so much for that piece of America to come back — goofy, kind, and focusing on what’s truly important: a goddamned ice cream cone!

I think that’s why you won. People saw what I saw with you there in New Hampshire and back in Boston on that day 16 years ago — they knew that maybe, just maybe, their lives might just get a bit better - hopefully a LOT better - with you in the White House. Maybe less of them will die from the virus, this preventable horror. Trump, of whom we knew many despicable things and thought we’d already seen how low the bar could possibly go for one human being — but we never considered him under the moniker of mass killer, terrorist or superspreader. Then you, Joe, came along and offered us a respite, a break from the insanity — “Mr. Biden, we’ll be happy if you just give us four years of ‘Not Trump!’”

But I think you can give us much more than that. What could our lives be like in four years or eight years (with a Democratic Senate to boot)? How ‘bout no one ever goes bankrupt again because they got sick? How ‘bout no one is sitting in a prison cell for possessing marijuana or actual drugs? How ‘bout every child gets to go to a great school and every neighborhood has an expanded free library open seven days a week? How ‘bout paid family medical leave so you can take care of your elderly parents and not lose your job? How ‘bout my bullet train! You and we can make all this happen. It’s not rocket science. 30+ other countries already do it. (https://www.amazon.com/Where-Invade-Next-Micha…/…/B01EGW9EOU) They’re happier. Why not us? Our founders promised it to us in their second sentence: “the pursuit of Happiness.“ They said that’s what America would be — and it’s been a rare day when we’ve actually had a glimpse of it.

Joe, you’re the guy to fulfill the promise. I’ll help. So will my neighbors on the floor where I live. As will the woman who delivers my mail, the workers who stock the shelves of my neighborhood market, the nurse who just wrote me in tears because yesterday she watched her 22nd patient die, alone, no family allowed, from Covid. Not to mention the millions upon millions of Americans who are ready to be foot soldiers in your army of justice, equality and love. We’re all in! We don’t want to go back to the old “normal.” We want a new normal!

We want ice cream.

All my best, Michael Moore

P.S. You know why I think you can and will do this? You picked Kamala Harris to run with you! Ranked as the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate. A woman. A Black woman! I saw the first debate, the one where she challenged you and threw shade on your younger self. Most people (including me), if that had happened to us, we probably wouldn’t have gotten over it. You did. I’m guessing your conscience whispered to you, “well, dang, maybe she has a point.” You hold no grudges. You are a forgiving soul. But then you didn’t just forgive her — you put her on the Big Ticket! Who would do that? You did! That’s why my cautious, hopeful bet is on the good hands we’re now in — both your hands, Kamala’s hands, and the hands of the mass millions who voted for you and will continue to rise up and fight for this new, better, post-Trump, post-pandemic America.

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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The Walking Dead vs. Real-Life Survivalists: How to Prep for The Zombie Apocalypse

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According to a 2019 YouGov poll, 14% of Americans have a zombie apocalypse plan of some sort. Even the CDC provides zombie apocalypse advice, including having one gallon of water per person per day, stocking up on food, and choosing a rallying point for family members should everyone get separated in the mad rush for safety. That concept of preparedness has infiltrated popular culture like a walker in an unguarded camp thanks to The Walking Dead and other pieces of zombie media. Being ready for whatever life throws your way is no longer just for paranoid, reclusive mountain men.

The survivors on The Walking Dead are from all walks of life, across a wide spectrum of ages, races, nationalities, and ability levels. As such, all could have benefitted from a bit of advice from experienced experts in the field of survival. So, Den of Geek reached out to a pair of preppers and asked them some questions about just how the various groups on The Walking Dead have fared in their quest to navigate the end of the world.

A man based near Martensville, Saskatchewan who chooses to be known only as “Canadian Prepper” of the Canadian Prepper YouTube channel and Canadian Preparedness, sums it up succinctly. “I don’t think there’s one prepper who doesn’t know about The Walking Dead.”

That’s an advantage preppers in our world have over their fictional counterparts. We know what zombies are, and we have ample opportunity to prepare for them. In the world of The Walking Dead, no one knew what a zombie was until they showed up, which took pretty much everyone in that world by surprise.

However, to Scott Hunt of Practical Preppers, those of us in the non-zombie world have good reason to be prepared for the worst-case scenario, whether it’s earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, civil unrest, or one of the many more mundane emergencies encountered in the modern world.

Getting Prepared

“As Benjamin Franklin once said, ‘by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail,’” Hunt says.

Hunt holds a Masters of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and takes surviving more seriously than your average person with a stocked cellar. Hunt and his family were featured on Season 1 of National Geographic’s Doomsday Preppers. He later became a consultant for the show. Now he is a sustainable living design engineer specializing in off-grid water and energy systems. His popular YouTube channel, Engineer775, allows him to, in his words, “help others prepare for the worst type of events and make them as sustainable as possible.”

Hunt’s focus is on solar power and water access solutions, but given his experience with prepping and homestead farming, he has a lot to say about just what mistakes the survivors on The Walking Dead have been making throughout the show’s run.

The mistakes start, logically, at the very beginning of the show.

“I think there were a lot of mistakes initially made during the outbreak. For one, hardly anyone living in the city had any sort of ‘preps’, and those living in rural areas only seemed to have basic things like a few canned goods, maybe a well, and a few arms to protect themselves with,” Hunt says. “I think having a simple bug-out bag would have saved a lot of people. If you are like many of those living in Atlanta in season 1, I would advise you to have a ‘bug-out plan’ and ‘bug-out bags’ for you and your family. It does seem like a scary thing to imagine, but we advise people to think ahead, always.”

The Walker Threat

For Canadian Prepper, part of thinking ahead is being ready for problems before they happen. Detecting threats before they can detect you is the best form of operational security in the zombie apocalypse.

“Having a 24/7 lookout is the most important thing, being very vigilant with that and not wavering at all. If there is somebody who’s spying on you, they’re going to wait for one opportunity where you’re not paying attention.”

Even if the threat is more walker-based, having a lookout is still of crucial importance.

“You’re talking about a bunch of reanimated corpses who could come at any time. There’s no time that they’re going to prefer to attack. It’s just going to be whenever,” Canadian Prepper says.

Canadian Prepper emphasizes the concept of preemptive security, in addition to the active lookout.

“Almost every single time it seems like the zombies surprise people. It’s like, do you guys realize you can just get some string and some tin cans? As the survivors evolve, you’d think that they would develop better perimeter alarm systems whereby they would be notified if there was a potential threat on the horizon.”

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As important as the lack of forethought, for Hunt, is a lack of bodies on the line. If you want to move into a fortified town, you have to have the security needed to keep the town safe. This isn’t an individual camp problem, but like the lack of tripwires and lookouts, a series-long issue.

“The communities the main groups choose to settle in have all had issues with visibility, security, and manpower. It seems like every compound they encountered, there were never enough people to keep it safe from marauders or walkers,” Hunt says. “If you are taking over an abandoned compound, you must make sure you can secure it.”

The People Problem

Those big walled compounds, like Alexandria and Hilltop, have a lot of natural advantages, but they have one huge problem: they’re big targets. However, Canadian Prepper feels that having a big target, if properly defended, isn’t necessarily a negative in terms of a group’s survival chances.

“You could take the Oceanside approach where you hide out in the woods, but your development is going to be arrested to a certain level. People are still going to be able to find you. A couple years into that universe, people are going to get a good nose for things. It’s not going to be a bunch of city slickers walking around. It’s going to be a bunch of seasoned survivors who are going to be able to smell out a community. You’re not going to be able to hide that.”

Hunt adds: “You do not have a lot of choices when you are looking at the complete fall of humanity. A gated community has an advantage over the walkers and human threats. It is the more realistic and safer choice when your options are limited.”

However, certain characters held onto their hope a little too firmly for Hunt’s taste.

“I would tell Hershel to not lock up the walkers in his barn! I know he did this out of a hope that a cure would be found, but in his hopefulness, he ended up endangering the whole compound and forcing everyone to leave the safety and security of the farm. We believe if they were able to stay at the farm, a lot of loss would have been avoided. It is best in an apocalyptic scenario to lay low and stay where it is safe as long as possible.”

The loss of the farm meant a lot of disadvantages for Rick and company. The group lost a secure, isolated place with arable farmland, a supply of water, fences and wires, and good concealment from those that might prey on their weakness. That loss of food production, and the food storage when the farm went up in flames, brings Hunt back to the most important resource in the post-apocalypse, food. Specifically, the lack of it.

“One of the least realistic things was the lack of starvation mentioned throughout the show,” Hunt says. “This might be an extremely unpopular opinion, but the fact that Rick held Negan as a prisoner, instead of using him as food, is unrealistic when you are looking at a worst-case scenario. Obviously, it is unethical to starve the actors, but I feel like it was very unrealistic to not show the struggle of just feeding the characters every day and the lack of supplies they would have encountered since they had no food storage or a sustainable way to grow food for very long. Not to mention, the walkers had completely depleted the wildlife in the area, so that was another issue for our characters. Short answer: we don’t totally blame the compound of cannibals.”

The true threat to any community in this world isn’t really the walkers, but people like the cannibals of Terminus. Humankind, according to Hunt, would quickly be the most dangerous opponent for Rick and his team to square off against once they learn the ways of handling walkers. “The show did a great job of transitioning into the man versus man struggle; the show steers away from walkers being the main threat to other humans being more of a concern. This is very realistic in any apocalyptic scenario.”

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

For Canadian Prepper, the best defense for preserving the future of humanity from lawlessness and brutality is to look backwards. “I would go for an approach which is tried and true throughout history: making a castle. All castles have lines of sight. They’re not pressed up against forests for a reason. They’re surrounded by plains so that you can see threats coming from a great distance. The threats are going to come, but at least in that position you’re going to be able to fortify and defend. You don’t want to give a threat cover, and that’s exactly what you would do if you were smack-dab in the middle of a forest. Yes, you are concealed, but at the same time, a forest fire could take out your whole community.”

However, the human threat, according to the Practical Preppers team, wouldn’t be nearly as charismatic in reality.

“It is easy to throw metaphorical stones at the characters from the comfort of our living room couches, but we still think this is something worth noting. We were surprised that no one had challenged characters like The Governor before he gained too much power and became extremely dangerous.”

That shift from strongman leadership to democracy is a positive one for the survival of humanity, according to Canadian Prepper.

“I noticed that in the earlier phases of collapse, it’s a very dictatorial society. It’s the Ricktatorship, where one guy is kind of the main leader. Like The Governor or the gangs, there was always this centralized leadership, but as time goes on, groups become more democratic, and you see that happen across various communities. Negan was kind of the last authoritarian ruler: democracy prevails, that whole liberty wins subtext. You could say there were some political undertones there, because I do think that democratic societies are more evolved.”

Hope For Tomorrow

Perhaps one of the reasons why The Governor was never challenged was because, quite frankly, he was one of the better politicians left after the fall of humanity. Like Rick at the prison, or Deanna Monroe in Alexandria, or King Ezekiel at the Kingdom, The Governor was someone people could rally around because he offered the the most important thing after the apocalypse second only to food: hope. A strong, charismatic, forceful leader is always going to be easier to follow than a government by committee, particularly when hope is in short supply.

“The most realistic thing The Walking Dead characters did worth praising was that all the survivors mentally were able to see hope in a hopeless situation,” says Hunt. “I feel like some of us would have thrown in the towel the second the CDC blew up. It seems like throughout the show, our stronger main characters always had something to cling to. Rick still had faith in humanity, Gabriel had faith in God, and Carol had faith in Rick and Daryl.”

Throughout The Walking Dead, the show’s survivors have continued to evolve, from a rag-tag group of argumentative people camping around a recreational vehicle to a full community with agriculture, democracy, and education. People are not only surviving in this universe, but thriving. The days of picking over the ruins of the old world for survival are over; a new world is dawning, and the hard work of the survivors has created it.

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“The fate of the species is in your hands,” Canadian Prepper concludes. “You’re not just surviving for yourself. The human race is depending on your success.”

The post The Walking Dead vs. Real-Life Survivalists: How to Prep for The Zombie Apocalypse appeared first on Den of Geek.

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