[Later that day Willis walks across the pavement as he takes a deep breath. He passes Usha who is sitting in the grass focused on his phone. Willis reaches the door to Franky's office and hesitantly enters. He's met with loud yelling. Ahead is a large metal desk with an opossum named Franky standing with her arms folded and a judging frown of sharp teeth. On the nearest side of the desk is a smaller, off white raccoon dog by the name of Wes who wears a Christmas sweater. Wes holds a blue cardboard with yellow stars that is duct taped shut. Madelyn is standing in the corner quietly while wearing a kitsune style mask and a green jacket with a yellowed fur hood lining. Near the door is a tall doberman pinscher with a smoke scented and paper thin flannel shirt. Her eyelids are layered with lavender eyeshadow.]
[She instantly yells at Willis as he walks in the office] And where have you been all day?!?
Who are you? [Willis looks her up and down.]
[Franky interrupts before the conversation could continue] Not important. I needed to talk to you about your job and Wes's behavior
[Wes pipes in] The tv made it look easier.
[Willis grumbles at Wes] You're an idiot, you know that right?
[Franky looks at Willis in disbelief] Mr.Morrissey.
What? Look at him. It's not even Halloween yet and he's already wearing a Christmas sweater! [Willis gestures to Wes]
[Wes laughs some] "Yeah? I wear it year round"
[Franky glares at Willis] I will not tolerate you speaking to a child like this in my office!"
[Willis scoffs] He's like three years younger than me. Heck, he's probably an inch taller than your old dusty ass.
[Wes snickers some. Franky's jaw drops as she stares in bewilderment. Franky shakes her head] Willis Avrid Morrissey, get out of my office. You are fired.
Whatever, I'll get a job somewhere else. How hard can it be [Willis rolls his eye as he turns and heads out of the office. Franky grumbles to herself as she sits down at her desk. The doberman grabs Wes by the arm and drags him with her to follow Willis out. Usha gets up from the grass nearby and follows calmly with his eyes still on his phone.]
Excuse but where do you think you're going? [The doberman asks as Willis pauses and looks over at her]
Home? [Willis shrugs]
Not without your kids you're not [Camellia drags Wes to Willis's side and puts her hands to her hips. Usha walks over beside Wes as he glances up at everyone]
Are you crazy? I'm almost their age. These aren't my kids. Especially not that one [Willis points to Wes who mumbles under his breath]
Oh yeah? Are you not the holder of Willis Avrid Morrissey's ID card? [She raises an eyebrow at him]
[Willis] Yeah? So?
Well I'm Camellia Hexa Morrissey, wife of Willis Morrissey. The same Willis Morrissey who has legal custody of the kids [She gives a smirk]
[Willis] Well I'm not taking them no matter what you think
[Camellia] So you would be ok with me telling the court that you've abandoned your kids in a parking lot and then discovering that you've been using a stolen ID?
[Willis stares at Camellia as he's processing what he just heard. Willis mumbles under his breath] Franky set me up…
If you're going to be Willis, then act like it [Camellia goes to walk past Willis towards her car as she pauses] Oh and maybe do some research. You're supposed to be partially blind.
[Camellia gets in her car and drives off as Willis watches quietly]
[The gears in his head keep turning as Wes looks over at Willis] Hey uhhh, dad? What are we gonna do with this? [Wes holds out the starry cardboard box]
[Willis huffs as he grits his teeth some] Putting it Franky's coffee.
[End]
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I Don't Like To Watch | The Aging White Male in Hollywood
by Dana Jerman
Hey there. Thanks for stopping by my rant. I’m finally ready to sound off about something truly creepy and nuts. Let’s just start here:
STOP making Harrison Ford run.
If there is one thing I would like to see never again it’s this.
(Insert barf emoji next to a clip from the last Indiana Jones movie).
I’m not sure I can reasonably say “Stop Harrison Ford” altogether, because maybe, in the right role, he’s got some polish left on those golden years. However I’m reasonably certain I’m not alone when I say I really don’t support the choice to make another Indiana Jones movie regardless of HF’s participation.
On this same note, STOP making Nicholas Cage run.
(Mostly this one because, even thru his raw enthusiasm and well-tailored suit coat, the flailing arms and jerking knees on this crusty kook cause me to be forced too intensely into withdrawing my suspension disbelief while “bullets” fly his way from multiple automatic weapons. All of which he manages to avoid. Can’t you just see it?)
And even tho’ the likes of Jeremy Renner and Tom Cruise hardly still get a pass, I am truly over the youth-worshipping virility-nostalgia fever dream committed to digital that Boomer Hollywood continually churn out.
Sure, there’s an audience for it, which predictably lends it some box office scratch, but for the love of all things holy, PLEASE.
STOP. Stop altogether with Clint Eastwood. I’m begging you. That skeleton needed to cease talking before Covid.
Thank the Ageist/Abelist Gods that frowny-faced Bruce Willis and the derpy-human-donut that is Jack Nicholson have retired relatively virtuous and illustrious film careers of their own volition.
I’m gonna be a bit mean here, but on a quick search of a few more active geriatrics whose million-dollar faces are some I might choose to never see again: Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Sean Penn and Any Conceivable Sheen or Baldwin.
Why don’t we just round up this solid list with a little George Clooney for good measure?
Now, I’m aware this is all sexist as hell. Someone somewhere is clamoring for no more Angelina Jolie or Milla Jovovich or even Halle Barry.
Yet the real reason I’m so bent out of shape here probably has to do with my own appreciative awakenings as regards the newer crop of male talent emerging in the myriad forms of the wild gorgon called Robert Pattinson:
Andrew Garfield. Timothee Chalamet. Harry Styles. Tom Holland.
Anyone in their mid twenties with all their hair who could hold enough screen charisma to play Batman.
Every time a young man in Hollywood dies, I curse a rudely unjust idiot God for not comprehending how my personal idea of death is supposed to work. I speak of the same false fate machine that took away David Bowie and left us with Morrissey. Wth?
On that note, even tho’ I’m not a huge fan or anything, two individuals in my evolving personal whiteboy Hollyweird spank bank hold up the mid-range of all this business. And I don’t desire generally to see them run either. (Not even something I think at this juncture in their careers they would ever deign to do…)
But Dear God in whom I have long lost faith, I am coming to cancel you hard if you take either Ryan Gosling or Benedict Cumberbatch too soon.
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Part homage, all farce, the AWFULLY CHEERFUL ENGINE! is an irreverent, affectionate parody of pop-culture tropes and a love-letter to 80s roleplaying games in a new, modern comic-book sized format! It’s a wacky roleplaying game of action comedy!
Hardcover collector's omnibus, softcover rules and adventures, blank ID cards, monster cards, hero role cards, VTT tokens
Are you a fan of the Ghostbusters RPG from the 1980s? Danger Mouse or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Bill & Ted or Rick & Morty? Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, Dracula, or sci-fi adventures on the final frontier? Do you enjoy chortling at TV tropes or chuckling at pop-culture parodies? Then the Awfully Cheerful Engine! is here for you!
ACE! is brought to you by Russ 'Morrus' Morrissey (EN World, WOIN, Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD), Dave Chapman (Doctor Who, Star Trek Adventures), and Marc Langworthy (Hellboy, Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD). With a foreword by Sandy Petersen, co-author of the Ghostbusters RPG!
ACE! is designed for everybody! From talking animals to pulp heroes to eldritch horrors, kids and adults alike will find adventures to love with the Awfully Cheerful Engine!
This tabletop roleplaying game, which we’re calling ACE! with an exclamation point, is one of fast, cinematic, action comedy. To play you need a handful of six-sided dice, a pen, and some paper. Each player plays one Hero, except for one player who takes the role of the Director.
Think of ACE! as an irreverent, fun-packed movie. You might play as ghost hunters in New York City, a band of plucky galactic guardians, vampire slayers, or soldiers of fortune in the Los Angeles underground. Heck, you might even be cartoon animals. Good grief!
This is a multi-dimensional, time-hopping, genre-mashing, pan-galactic portal into any type of adventure you can imagine! Want to play in a fantasy world full of elves and orcs? Crew a starship as it explores the galaxy? Hunt vampires in Victorian London? Play as animal detectives, robot cowboys, wizards, ninjas, or time traveling bounty hunters?
The only limit is your imagination, and the requirement that you have fun.
This Kickstarter is for the full five-book set.
What? Five books, you say? Fear not -- they're pretty small books! They include the core rules, and four hilarious genre-hopping adventures. Each book is about 30 pages long. Except for one which is longer, but we wrote 'BUMPER SIZE ISSUE' on the front of that, so it's OK. If you’ve ever held a comic-book in your hand, the Awfully Cheerful Engine! will feel very familiar!
The core rulebook is just 30 pages in a bright, colorful comic-book sized format. We even gave it an issue number, like a comic-book! After that, each 'issue' is a standalone adventure, designed for one-shots or short campaigns with new characters each time. One week you might be fighting ghosts on the streets of Manhattan, and the next you might be exploring the frontiers of space in your trusty starship!
You don't have to play them all, or in order. The standalone format means you can fit them in whenever and however you feel like it. GM can't make your regular game? Go bust some ghosts instead! Pickup game at a convention? Investigate the strange goings-on in a small American town in the 1980s. Running a livestream? Board a starship and fight the Kulkan Empire! Play one of them, some of them, or all of them! It's up to you!
Are they comics? Or are they RPGs? (They're RPGs)
ACE #1: Introducing the Awfully Cheerful Engine! With a foreword by Ghostbusters RPG author Sandy Petersen, this book tells you the rules, how to create your Heroes, and gives you a bunch of Extras (NPCs & monsters) to use. By Russ Morrissey.
ACE #2: Spirits of Manhattan. Strap on your Anti-Plasm Particle Thrower, grab your Electromagnetic Field Detector, and jump into your Ghostmobile. New York City needs your help! By Dave Chapman and Russ Morrissey.
ACE #3: Montana Drones & The Raiders of the Cutty Sark. At the request of Army Intelligence, Montana Drones and her team travel the globe in search of lost or hidden artefacts, often exploring dangerous sites and racing against hostile enemy agents to keep the objects of their quests from falling into the wrong hands. Striking locations, exciting chases, dangerous enemies and monotonous classroom lectures await! By Marc Langworthy.
ACE #4: Strange Science. Welcome to Wilden Falls, your average American town in the heart of the country. Surrounded by trees, nature, and there’s a wonderful waterfall that brings the tourists. It’s a quaint little town. Until weird things start happening at the local research facility, people go missing, and there’s a sudden influx of fitness nuts in the town. That’s before we get to the time travel, bodysnatching, and portals to other dimensions. Maybe ‘strange’ isn’t strong enough a word for it! By Dave Chapman.
ACE #5: Beam Me Up! These are the voyages of the starship FSS Brazen. Its continuing mission: to recklessly go where plenty of people have probably been before… and hope a major interstellar incident isn’t sparked in the process. In this highly illogical adventure for the ACE! roleplaying game, you’ll explore frontiers you never thought you had. By Marc Langworthy.
We give you four adventures to start with, and we have plans for more, but there's also a free compatibility license so anybody can write and publish material powered by the Awfully Cheerful Engine!
Hardy Hobbit. Teenage Samurai. Cheerful Stuntman. Clumsy Vampire. Squeamish Ghost. Who knew you could say so much in just two words? The possibilities are endless.
It’s not just Awfully Cheerful! It’s fast and fun, too!
You won’t get bogged down in endless rules and character sheets that look like tax forms. Your ACE! ID Card contains everything you need to know, and it’s only about the size of a credit card! But don’t try to spend it. It’s not a real credit card. Honestly, we tried, and it didn't end well.
You can download blank ID cards from our website. Don’t worry, there’s a printer-friendly black-and-white version too!
Making your Hero takes about five minutes. And that includes a coffee break.
You can choose from an array of talking animals, alien and fantasy species, and occupations from a bunch of genres. Play a cat, a crow, or a turtle. An alien, an elf, a robot, or a vampire. A knight, a pirate, or a wizard. An astronaut, a burglar, a reporter, or a spy. The core book has dozens of Roles to get you started with, and each adventure book introduces more!
Even better, you can already use our online character builder and make a character in about 30 seconds! It's so quick! Give it a try! And if you felt like sharing your Hero on Twitter with the hashtag #awfullycheerful and a link to this page, well, we'd be most awfully grateful!
Build your Hero online!
Alternatively, each adventure comes with its own selection of pre-generated characters. If you don't want to make your own characters, you can simply use those - perfect for one-shots or new players!
Download the pre-gens for all four adventures from the official website!
In A.C.E! each Hero (that's you!) has a Role. Your Role gives you a special ability only you can use. Here's a quick look at some of the Roles you can play!
Talking animals like Ape, Cat, Crow, Dog, Kangaroo, and Turtle.
Species like Alien, Dwarf, Elf, Ghost, Goblin, Golem, Hobbit, Monster, Ogre, Robot, Vampire, and Werewolf.
Fantasy roles like Alchemist, Assassin, Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Knight, Ninja, Outlaw, Pirate, Ranger, Samurai, Slayer, and Wizard.
Occupations like Actor, Archeologist, Astronaut, Athlete, Bounty Hunter, Boxer, Burglar, Chef, Con Artist, Cowboy, Detective, Doctor, Engineer, Gambler, Gangster, Hacker, Hermit, Inventor, Musician, Pilot, Priest, Professor, Reporter, Scientist, Smuggler, Soldier, Spy, Student, and Stuntman.
Even a couple of superheroes like Speedster and Vigilante!
Yep, you can play a Ghost. You don’t take damage unless its from a holy source or some special sci-fi ecto-gadget. But you also can’t pick things up. So there’s that.
Each of the adventures adds some more Roles (or recommends some old ones)!
Spirits of Manhattan adds Ghost, Demonologist, Doctor, Engineer, Exorcist, Inventor, Priest, Professor, Scientist, and Student.
Raiders of the Cutty Sark adds Botanist, Double-Agent, Socialite, and Witch.
Strange Science adds Brain, Cheerleader, Outsider, Protector, Radio Presenter, and Tycoon.
Beam Me Up adds Captain, Chief Engineer, Comms, Hologram, Gunner, Counsellor, and Pilot.
ACE! is a pretty fast, light game. If you played 1986's Ghostbusters RPG, you'll see the influence immediately.
Stats! The AWFULLY CHEERFUL ENGINE! is a d6 dice pool system*. You have four Stats -- Smarts, Moves, Style, and Brawn. If you have a Moves score of 3, you roll three six-sided dice when you try to jump a motorcycle over a ravine. If you roll high enough, you succeed. It's pretty simple!
Focuses! For each Stat you also have a Focus. For Smarts it might be a science, or chess, or history. For Style it might be bluffing, singing, or fashion, and for Brawn it might be brawling or swimming. You can choose from plenty of focuses. Foci. Focuses. Whatever. Anyway, if the thing you're trying to do relates to a Focus, you get to roll an extra two dice.
Trait! You choose a trait, like Angry or Cheerful or Rebellious or Despondent. This, combined with your Role, makes you a Gullible Vampire, a Brave Turtle, or a Squeamish Scientist.
Karma! Finally, you have a bunch of Karma points. These can be spent for extra dice or to absorb damage from attacks, and they're recovered by using your trait.
*Fun fact -- did you know that 1986's Ghostbusters RPG, by Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis and Greg Stafford, was the first ever dice pool RPG? Also Sandy Petersen has written an awesome foreword for the AWFULLY CHEERFUL ENGINE!
What, I hear you ask, is a CALAMITY DIE?
The Calamity Die is how you find out that your friends really aren't your friends. You see, when you make a roll, one of those dice is a different color, and is called the Calamity Die. And if your roll fails, and also the Calamity Die rolls a 1, your so-called 'friends' decide what happens to you. It won't kill you or anything, but...
Well, we'll leave that thought with you.
Nooooo! And it was all going so well!
Kickstarter campaign ends: Fri, June 18 2021 10:00 PM BST
Website: [Awfully Cheerful Engine] [EN Publishing] [facebook] [twitter]
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