#put me on fox news for ts

[newagevictorianorphan]

rip robespierre u would’ve been an amazing lesbian

[hagatha-christie]

September books, though at this point these posts are purely just for me

The bad:

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by TS Eliot - shocking amount of racial slurs for a children's book

Sovietistan by Erika Fatland - technically didn't finish this one. It's a shame because it was SO interesting and I enjoyed reading about Central Asia bc I know nothing, but Fatland is so rude about every single local she comes into contact with. Constant descriptions of bad teeth, people's weight, how nasty the food was, and how backwards the attitudes were. I get it's kind of a strange/unique region but it was gross to me that her narration, apart from when she discussed history of the region, was very much "wow look how weird and exotic these people are! I'm so glad I live in Norway where it's CLEAN and people aren't WEIRD." Only made it through the Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan chapters which is a shame bc this could've been great if she was just not an asshole!!!!

The okay:

Uncharted by Alli Temple - was truly expecting nothing from this Kindle Unlimited pirate adventure-romance series with a stock image cover but it was actually not bad? Fun, pulp-y plot and I finished it in about 5 hours

Cleat Cute by Meryl Wilsner - a serviceable romcom about two soccer players who fall in love. I read Wilsner's other books (one was fine and one I hated) so I feel like saying this is my favorite isn't saying much, but it was cute.

The Lost Spells by Robert MacFarlane - the draw here isn't so much the poems (but they're fine!), it's the beautiful watercolors

The good/great:

spellbook for the sabbath queen by Elisheva Fox - a really beautiful but sparse poetry collection that has stuff about identity and environment and difficult familial relationships and sexuality and Judaism. This is her first collection and it definitely feels like one, but not in a bad way. I'll def keep an eye out for more of her stuff

Ararat by Christopher Golden - a recommendation from a friend and it had some GNARLY kills but was another book that was very much My Shit. Also had a great ending

American Journal: Fifty Poems For Our Time, edited by Tracy K. Smith - a really great poetry collection especially if you're just getting into poetry and are looking for new poets. There's enough variety that there's something for everyone in there!

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen - these poems were so fucking weird that i was immediately in love. Idk what else to say other than "strange and lovely"

Rouge by Mona Awad - speaking of strange! If you're into skincare this is especially fun, I'm glad I got a facial BEFORE reading this because otherwise I would have been mildly unsettled. I love that thing Awad does when the character starts to lose it and the narration goes off the rails

Bestiary by Donika Kelly - I mean this in the best possible way, what the FUCK. "You grow. You are large./You are a 19th century poem." but also "I have never known a field as wild/as your heart." Hey Donika what if I throw up everywhere

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan - some great characters and also a couple of plot points that were so upsetting i started laughing and then had to put the book down for the night because it was the most tragic possible thing to happen. (almost) every single character in this book is a total asshole and I love them all!!!!!!!! Maybe not technically "great" but one of those books that felt like it was written just for me.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros - an all time favorite I reread because I was sad. Sandra Cisneros is one of those writers that makes me feel incredibly seen and I was having a bad day so I read this in one sitting and it helped a little

[soullikethesea]

So, a new book came out and I'm really hoping that it will help my T and I to make progress. (It's: Informed Internal Family System: How to Successfully Treat Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders by Joanne H. Twombly).

I've been thinking a lot about the last few sessions and it feels a little bit like it's echoing the experience with my last T, where we both feel hopeless and like the tools we have are not enough. I think it might mean that I need to take more distance (because with my previous T I took it as a hint to put in MORE, rather than stopping to think/regulate). I notice that it's really helpful to me to re-read about somatic tools for regulation. That's been really good.

I'm sad about the experience of trying to connect with Fox. It just drags me so far away from feeling present. I wish Fox could be grounded in the here and now, less burdened by heaps of old feelings and trauma. I wish they could experience a sense of peace, less fear about the strange world they don't understand; responsibilities and expectations they cannot meet.

I wonder if I could find a way of titrating with him. Short moments in which we're together and Fox could more slowly acclimate. Maybe while drawing? It might be something to consider, but it scares me a lot because of how difficult it would be to pull it off.

I also know that T gets super frustrated when she asks who she is talking to and we cannot say it. It's an old rule and she tells us that it's an old rule, but I still can't do it differently. But I do think that I could write it down, so maybe that's an option.

I wish I felt less scared and lost. I feel like I need a stronger and bigger person to lead this process and yet my Ts keep getting scared and lost, too. So then it's hard not to feel extremely ashamed... It brings up thoughts about how I'm just so difficult. And I feel envious of how other people are able to make progress.

It does help to remind myself that it is one step at a time. Every little step counts, and it is okay to take breaks.

[lcndonboysstuff]

it’s not really genuine and solely for marketing.

That’s literally all this is. Marketing to sell TS the brand and make money. It’s what 95% of this past year is! Surprise song choices, every shake of the head, the Time article, even Jack’s “this was recorded in 2021” BS post was marketing to sell the story that is coming in two weeks. And if it took hits at her ex at the same time to make sure he knew she is so so so happy and never cared about him? Bonus! Of course it’s based on real feelings mixed in there too - but she’s absolutely playing them all.

Speaking of someone who gets played by Taylor every second of the day, I saw on a blog that the parasocial cages-foxes blog is making a big deal out of these playlists, as usual, saying that Taylor and everybody in her life obviously hate Joe. Well, guessing she’s not exactly well-liked in Joe’s world either. And seriously, who cares. They are exes for a reason and they both have moved on. He was her forever until he wasn’t and here we are.

And honestly, it’s been a year. I know Swifties are all over every social media platform reading into these playlists like they actually mean something and that putting Lover in denial and her saying it was delusional means the relationship was toxic and shitty for 6+ years, but we know that’s not true. Unfortunately, comprehension skills are not something Swifties have and they had already come to this conclusion anyway because they hate Joe. It’s nice she gave them fresh red meat to talk about in their echo chambers to get ready for the new album!

It’s just very very very unfortunate that she has the fanbase she does. I need it to be May and Cannes time because while I’m sure at every tour stop this summer Joe will trend and get death threats because she’ll pull some shit and have a lot to say and I’m sure Swifties (and Taylor tbh) will be very mature when she’s back in London /s, I doubt it will match the intensity of what will happen in two weeks.

i think she’s stopped alluding to him on stage ever sing her and travis got serious. and if he’s going to be with her in London like an anon previously told me hopefully that will mean no shenanigans onstage.

[spn-season-16-chronicles]

SPNews

17th January 2021

No new official info.

Shoshannah Stern acknowladges spontanic campaign on twitter. Says she's gonna still fight for better representation.

Fandom still in flames. Reinvestigating older articles about Walker after the most recent one for Variety. Reinterprets unsettling bit about how children put in cages were an inspiration for Walker's personality. Condemns ambiguity of standpoint so far and confronta general idea against BLM protests that shook the nation not so long ago.

Writers' standpoint: The idea of someone conflicted because he was indoctrinated by more and more violent and unethical system, struggling to acknowladges it's rotten core is interesting on paper. But it is not so innovative. And judging by the fact that the series has been promoted on Fox this is not something that they'll gonna do.

Fandom reevaluates Jared's past pranks on Misha, coming to conclusion that quite a few of those were cruel, or harassment or bullying or even just downright dangerous.

People in anger and disbelief starting to wonder if pushing destiel to trending during walker premiere is a good idea - in writers' eyes nope. Let it be. It's gonna be a success or it won't.

Just in: a twitter campaign to spread awareness about BIPOC mistretement being only a mean to profit. Please not that it is not an spn tag, but the issue at hand IS important

Misha publishes video promoting his charity action taking place on 18th (more info in the link) and showing his haircut. People ofc freaking out about the hair under said post. Not cool. Those are just hair guys, it'll grow back. And also you made so many face manips that you should be accustomed to sight of bald Misha by now. Be better and actually help if you can. If you can't you can always spread awareness.

Lastly, we are going to just say that believing victims of abuse is always good thing to do. DMing them to get the truth - no matter on which side you are - is colossaly disrespectful and might be triggering. Don't do that. Not now not ever.

What will happen tomorrow

And now weather

Tweet to said charity event

[eggdue]

Its my birthday! (RoC CHP7 PRGS)

today was the day i popped out of my late moms stomach! (C-section )

so, today. as a bit of a gift to my followers and lurkers, heres what i’ve been working on lately, Remains of Creation, Chapter 7! this is going to be the longest one yet! i’m not even Done with it! hopfully, i’ll finish it soon.

so, thank you all! have a wonderful day!

(- Monty's body slammed into the ground. he laid on his back. Jeremy, pulled his fist back, waving it around like he had hurt his hand. "F-fuc-c-ck yo-u.." the rabbit muttered. he turned to the rest of his friends. Freddy was currently comforting a crying Roxanne. 'she can cry..?' he thought. he looked to fritz, who hade a conred look in his old eye. " arg, we outta' check on 'em, right Jer'?" the fox looked back at him. he nodded. "we-e sho-oul-ld." Fritz went to the bear and wolf, while Jeremy went over to Gregory, who was still crying."h-hey-y-y, you-u doi-ing oka-ay?" he put his mechanical hand on the boy's shoulder. Gregory sniffed and flinched at the contact, before leaning into it. "i-, i-" the rabbit pulled the boy into his endoskeletal chest. shh-hh, i-its fi-n-ne, you're-e oka-ay now. the b-badd-d Gators g0n-ne..." the damn had broken, and he sobbed into his chest. he held the boy closer while glaring at the lifeless body of that gator. he looked at his arm. the rabbit smiled on the inside. he could use that. Fritz walked over to the other two animatronics. hearing whispers of comfort from the newer Freddy. he was just like Gabriel was, oh Gabriel. he missed his first mate. that landlubber was always the dad of the group. he sighed. now wasn't the time to dwell on the past that happened so many decades ago. he mentally prepared himself for what may come from this. he kneeled near the two. the bear turned to him. his eyes were full of confusion, and a bit of fear. "who.. are you..?" Freddy asked, clutching Roxanne closer. the fox sighed. "arg, i' be foxy the pirate, but, ye may call me fritz, or captain, whichever ye, perfer'n" Freddy rose a brow" fritz, hm. are you wone of Jeremy's friends?" The fox nodded. "right on thee bulls eye, matey, did he tell ye bout' me?" the bear nodded. "yes, he told us the story, of how..." he trailed off. Fritz sighed mentally. "ah, yes. which reminds me, how do we still roam, me and my friends were set free decades ago, how are we back,? we had our vengeance on him, so... how..?" before he could delve further, a new voice spoke up." 'He' is back." fritz snapped to the new voice, swiping his hook out on instinct. narrowly missing the women standing there. she backed off. "Woah! calm down, I'm on your side!" she spoke. Fritz scanned her eyes for this to be a trick, he knew better than to trust people who he had no clue who they were. "sh-hes wi-ith-hh- us-s, Fritt-tz-z." they turned to see Jeremy with Gregory hanging on his back, he was also dragging montys arm, the left one to be precise. "arg, Jeremy! why do ye' have that croc's left arm?" the rabbit seemed like he was smiling. "i-it-ts min-ne now-w, I'm pu-t-ting it-tt on" The fox stood, and shook his head "of course ye would, you tried the same with Toy bonnie." the rabbit glared at him. "do-on'tt remin-nd me-e-e.." Vanessa spoke up. "it's worth a shot, and we need to fix on Roxy anyway..." the three turned to see Freddy carrying Roxy. "it hurts.. " she wined. Freddy was whispering sweet things into her ear, it looked sweet, ya know, if Roxy wasn't torn up.  "well? let's get going." the fox spoke. Freddy nodded. "I don't like seeing her like this..." he spoke with hurt in his voice. the two older bots nodded, and soon they set off to the elavator.the trip was devoid of speech, the background noise was cheerfully, but jermy hated sounds, they were sensitive to his rabbit ears.  he was still dragging Montys left arm. and Gregory was walking beside him, his hand gripping one of his endo ribs. on his other side, ritzs seemed lost in thought, gregoryten spoke up. "what time is it?" he then yawned. Fritz huffed. "what, ye tired, lad?" Gregory only nodded. Vanessa raised her arm to check her watch. "its four fifty eight... almost Six." Gregorys eyes widend. "Five Fifty eight, that means,  that moon guys gonna get us!" Fritz gave the boy a look "moon thing? Freddy fazbears pizza has never had a moon thing, I should know, I've been here since the beginning"Gregory was about to speak. "we'll this fr-red-d-ddys has ne-ew charate-e-ercs-s-s. lik-ke rox-xy, and mont-t-y." Jeremy chimed in. Fritz hued. "huh, the ore you know, eh mate?" Suddenly, the lights cut, and a new voice made itself knows. "Nighty night~ hehe~" moon dropped from the ceiling. Freddy ran to find the nearest recharge station, the others remains. "arg, I be guessing that this be moon.." the human like robot laughed. "you're right, now, its bed tim-" TWACK!"GAH!" on fell to the ground.Jeremy had months arm held like a club. "Get-t-t awa-a-ay from us-s-ss" he growled out. Fritz branded his hook. "watchout for the hook! unless ye be wantin' to gouge your eye." the two missing children stared at the robot, who ad been still. the two looked at each other. "I, think he's knocked out?" Gregory chimed it. "yar, ye may be right lad." Fritz causuosly took a step towards the fallen animatroic, by now the lights were back on, he taped him on the shoulder--and mon, now sun, sprung up. "OH Y GOODNESS! WHAT HAPPENED?!" the now bright and energetic animatronic spoke. Fritz hopped away from him, confused. "what the...?" Sun looked at them. "OH! new friends? say, where am I? what time is it?" he looked around trying to make sense of everything that was happening. Vanessa tapped on his shoulder. "you're outside of the daycare. its Five AM." Sun grasped her hand and shook it violently. "THANKS A BUNCH! who are you again?" he tilted his head. vanessa gave him a look. Fritz gave a hearty laugh, before looking at Sun. "how ye have so much energy? its almost contagious!" he asked him "a-alm-m-osst.." Jermy Chimed in.-)

[septembersghost]

okay but what ARE dw's top 13 ts traxx?

oh NO anon you can’t put me on the spot like this, I...

okay, I refuse to set this in stone because my choices might change in two days, she has so many good options, there are NO wrong choices, and also I feel like some of these are a ~vibe~ for him more than anything concrete, but (in chronological order with her discography):

1. Tell Me Why (I took a chance; I took a shot; and you might think I’m bulletproof, but I’m not... I'm sick and tired of your attitude, I'm feeling like I don't know you, you tell me that you love me then you cut me down. And I need you like a heartbeat, but you know you got a mean streak, makes me run for cover when you're around... Why, do you have to make me feel small, so you can feel whole inside? Why, do you have to put down my dreams, so you're the only thing on my mind?)

2. Dear John (probably self-explanatory, the “girl in the dress” doesn’t alter its significance for him. Well, maybe it's me and my blind optimism to blame. Maybe it's you and your sick need to give love then take it away. And you'll add my name to your long list of traitors who don't understand, and I'll look back and regret how I ignored when they said, "run as fast as you can." Dear John, I see it all now that you're gone, don't you think I was too young to be messed with?)

3. Haunted (sure, okay, it’s a little on the nose, he thinks, ‘haunted,’ but damn it, those lyrics. You and I walk a fragile line, I have known it all this time, but I never thought I'd live to see it break. It's getting dark and it’s all too quiet, and I can't trust anything now, and it’s comin' over you like it’s all a big mistake...Come on, come on don't leave me like this, I thought I had you figured out ).

4. Treacherous (I can't decide if it's a choice getting swept away, I hear the sound of my own voice, asking you to stay, and all we are is skin and bone trained to get along. Forever going with the flow, but you're friction...Two headlights shine through the sleepless night, and I will get you, get you alone. Your name has echoed through my mind, and I just think you should, think you should know, that nothing safe is worth the drive, and I will follow you, follow you home.)

5. The Last Time (This is the last time I'm asking you this, put my name at the top of your list. This is the last time I'm asking you why, you break my heart in the blink of an eye.)

6. I Know Places ('Cause they got the cages, they got the boxes and guns. They are the hunters, we are the foxes and we run. Baby, I know places we won't be found, and they'll be chasing their tails trying to track us down. ‘Cause I, I know places we can hide... Lights flash and we'll run for the fences. Let them say what they want, we won't hear it. Loose lips sink ships all the damn time, not this time. Just grab my hand and don't ever drop it, my love. They are the hunters, we are the foxes, and we run...They take their shots, but we're bulletproof. “in the dead of night, your eyes so green” is admittedly self-indulgent. he does not care.)

7. New Romantics (as I said! the song! 'Cause baby, I could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me, and every day is like a battle, but every night with us is like a dream... It's poker, you can't see it in my face, but I'm about to play my ace. We need love, but all we want is danger. We team up, then switch sides like a record changer. The rumors are terrible and cruel, but honey, most of them are true.)

8. Don’t Blame Me (it’s the MOOD, the atmosphere, the total surrender of it. For you, I would cross the line, I would waste my time, I would lose my mind...For you, I would fall from grace, just to touch your face, if you walk away, I'd beg you on my knees to stay. Don't blame me, love made me crazy, if it doesn't, you ain't doin' it right. Lord, save me, my drug is my baby, I'll be usin' for the rest of my life.)

9. Dancing With Our Hands Tied (idk how to explain this one, just...go with me here. You said there was nothing in the world that could stop it, I had a bad feeling...I'm a mess, but I'm the mess that you wanted, oh, 'cause it's gravity, keeping you with me).

10. The Archer (Combat, I'm ready for combat, I say I don't want that, but what if I do? ‘Cause cruelty wins in the movies. I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you...I've been the archer, I've been the prey. Who could ever leave me, darling, but who could stay? Dark side, I search for your dark side, but what if I'm alright, right, right, right here? And I cut off my nose just to spite my face, then I hate my reflection for years and years. I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost. The room is on fire, invisible smoke, and all of my heroes die all alone. Help me hold on to you...All the king's horses, all the king's men, couldn't put me together again. 'Cause all of my enemies started out friends. Help me hold on to you. literally the entirety of this perfect song, copy/paste, cry.)

11. Afterglow (is this not every apology that has ever circled in his head? my baby. :(  Hey, it's all me, in my head, I'm the one who burned us down, but it's not what I meant. I'm sorry that I hurt you. I don't wanna do, I don't wanna do this to you. I don't wanna lose, I don't wanna lose this with you. I need to say, hey, it's all me, just don't go.)

12. this is me trying (this needs to no explanation, my HEART. I've been having a hard time adjusting, I had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting, I didn't know if you'd care if I came back, I have a lot of regrets about that. Pulled the car off the road to the lookout, could've followed my fears all the way down, and maybe I don't quite know what to say, but I'm here in your doorway...They told me all of my cages were mental, so I got wasted like all my potential, and my words shoot to kill when I'm mad, I have a lot of regrets about that...And I just wanted you to know that this is me trying. And maybe I don't quite know what to say. I just wanted you to know that this is me trying. At least I'm trying.)

13. hoax (which now makes me want to die myself, thanks. excuse me while I go break down for an hour again. My only one, my smoking gun. My eclipsed sun, this has broken me down. My twisted knife, my sleepless night. My winless fight, this has frozen my ground. Stood on the cliffside screaming, "Give me a reason." Your faithless love's the only hoax I believe in. You knew the hero died so what's the movie for? You knew it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart. You knew the password so I let you in the door. You knew you won so what's the point of keeping score? You knew it still hurts underneath my scars from when they pulled me apart, but what you did was just as dark. Darling, this was just as hard as when they pulled me apart.)

(shout out to betty because “tell me to go f*ck myself” is delightful and even “straight to hell” in the clean version, to mirrorball because it just HITS CLOSE, and honestly the whole of folklore has moments that resonate a bit too much to admit aloud. to Cold as You and You’re Not Sorry and DBATC on bad days, to Safe and Sound because if only they were, to Clean if only they could be, to Bad Blood and I Did Something Bad on full blast, to IFTYE and YNTCD as annoyed bops but LWYMMD and TIWWCHNT for the same reason, to State of Grace for the drum intro, to Red and Getaway Car because they are SUCH good driving songs, to False God and ...So It Goes because they’re sexy as hell, to I Wish You Would for the bridge, to OOTW for “the monsters turned out to be just trees, when the sun came up you were lookin’ at me.” His favorites rotate, romantic ones included, depending on the day and the events in his mind and whatever is lingering with him in the night, but I feel like those 13 would have very specific, constant places).

edit: I cannot believe I forgot seven, my brain is so scattered, but it is ESSENTIAL and “just like a folk song, our love will be passed on” is how I feel about him personally. - I’ve been meaning to tell you, I think your house is haunted, your dad is always mad, and that must be why...please picture me in the weeds, before I learned civility, I used to scream ferociously, any time I wanted...passed down like folk songs, our love lasts so long.

[artielu]

"September 9, 2020 (Wednesday)

Back in April, when America had reached the unthinkable level of 50,000 dead from Covid-19, news broke that Trump had been briefed way back in January on how deadly the coronavirus was but had not acted on that information. Trump defended his lack of action by saying he had been misled by the CIA briefer, who had, he tweeted, “only spoke of the Virus in a very non-threatening, or matter of fact, manner….”

Trump lied. He knew.

On January 28, at a top secret intelligence briefing, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien told Trump that the coronavirus would be the “biggest national security threat” of his presidency. It registered. Trump’s head popped up as O’Brien’s deputy, Matt Pottinger, told Trump it could be as bad as the 1918 pandemic, and that it was spread fast by people who showed no symptoms.

On February 7, just two days after his acquittal in the Senate on the charges of impeachment, Trump picked up the phone and called journalist Bob Woodward, who was surprised to hear the president talk not about the acquittal, but about the new virus. Trump told Woodward: “This is deadly stuff.” He explained that the virus is transmitted by air, and that it was five times more dangerous than “even your strenuous flus.”

And yet, on February 2, Trump had said in a Fox News Channel interview before the Super Bowl that “we pretty much shut it down coming in from China.” Trump continued to hold large indoor rallies where he insisted the coronavirus was similar to the flu and that it would soon disappear. Twenty days after his call to Woodward, he was still telling Americans not to worry and he refused to prepare for the coming crisis. Trump told Woodward that he was not telling Americans the truth because he didn’t want “to create a panic.”

By March 19, Trump told Woodward that Covid-19 was killing young people as well as older folks, although throughout the summer he continued to insist that children should go back to school because they were “almost immune” from the virus. On April 3, Trump said at a briefing: “I said it was going away and it is going away.” On April 5, he told Woodward “It’s a horrible thing. It’s unbelievable.” On April 13, as he dismissed the need for masks, the president told Woodward “It’s so easily transmissible, you wouldn’t even believe it.”

Over the course of 18 interviews, Trump spoke for nine hours to journalist Bob Woodward. He had apparently been angry at his aides for shielding him from Woodward before the journalist published his book Fury in 2018, thinking he could charm Woodward into presenting him in a better light, as he had shaped coverage of himself in the tabloids in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s. Trump also urged senior staff and officials to talk to Woodward, who ended up getting interviews with senior adviser Jared Kushner, national security adviser Robert O’Brien, deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger, and former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, among others.

Apparently, White House aides warned Trump against talking to Woodward, but not only did he do so, he permitted Woodward to record the conversations. So when White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany today tried to say that Trump had never tried to downplay the virus, a reporter retorted: “It’s on tape, Kayleigh.”

When this story broke, Trump immediately tried to reassure his base by releasing yet more names of people he would consider for any new Supreme Court seats (the list is now more than 40 people long), and told reporters that perhaps he had misled Americans because he is “a cheerleader for this country.” Trump defenders were left trying to find someone to blame for the recorded interviews. Apparently, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham helped to persuade Trump to talk to the famous journalist and tonight, Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson blamed Graham for the debacle, implying he had deliberately undercut the president.

In his final interview with Woodward on July 21, Trump told him, “The virus has nothing to do with me…. It's not my fault. It's — China let the damn virus out."

The book has other stunning information as well. Among other things:

Trump’s former top national security officials do not support him. Former Defense Secretary James Mattis told Woodward that Trump is “dangerous” and “unfit” to be commander in chief. Trump’s former Director of National Intelligence, former Indiana Senator Dan Coates, who is a conservative Republican, told Woodward that he suspected Putin had something on Trump. According to Woodward, Coats “continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump.” Woodward wrote: “How else to explain the president’s behavior? Coats could see no other explanation.”

Trump allegedly said “my f***ing generals are a bunch of p*****s” because they prioritized alliances over trade deals.

Trump dropped the information that his administration has developed a “nuclear… weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There’s nobody—what we have is incredible.” Other sources confirmed to Woodward that the American military has developed a new weapons system. They would not talk about it, and were surprised that Trump had told Woodward about it.

On CNN, Carl Bernstein said that Woodward’s Trump tapes were worse than the Nixon tapes. The last line of Woodward's book reads: “Trump is the wrong man for the job.”

Stunningly, there was a second story today at least as big as the information in the Woodward book. Trump told Woodward that he was not telling Americans the truth because he didn’t want “to create a panic.” But he has, of course, spent the last several months explicitly trying to do just that: create a panic by claiming that dangerous anarchists are attacking our cities. It turns out he and his staff are trying to manipulate our national intelligence assessments to justify his argument.

Representative Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, today released a whistleblower complaint alleging that senior Trump officials politicized, manipulated, and censored intelligence to benefit Trump. Brian Murphy was the Acting Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis in the Department of Homeland Security. He claims that between March 2018 and August 2020, he repeatedly complained that security leaders were undercutting intelligence that showed Russia was working to undermine the United States.

That attempt to hide Russian attacks on America escalated this May. At the time, Chad Wolf was serving as the acting Secretary of Homeland Security, although the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog, says he was appointed to that office illegally. The complaint says that Wolf “instructed Mr. Murphy to cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States, and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran. Mr. Wolf stated that these instructions specifically originated from White House National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien. Mr. Murphy informed Mr. Wolf he would not comply with these instructions, as doing so would put the country in substantial and specific danger.”

The complaint also concerns the DHS Threat Assessment leaked yesterday to Politico. Wolf and his deputy Ken Cuccinelli—also appointed illegally, according to the GAO—prohibited the release of the threat assessment because it discussed both the threat of white supremacists and of Russian influence in the United States. This, they said, would reflect badly on the president. “Mr. Cuccinelli stated that Mr. Murphy needed to specifically modify the section on White Supremacy in a manner that made the threat appear less severe, as well as include information on the prominence of violent ‘left-wing’ groups.” Wolf wanted to add information about the ongoing unrest in Portland, Oregon.

Murphy refused to sign off on their alteration of the intelligence report, warning that it was “an abuse of authority and improper administration of an intelligence program. Wolf ordered it revised anyway. Murphy warned that the final version of the threat assessment would “more closely resemble a policy document with references to ANTIFA and ‘anarchist’ groups than an intelligence document.” This is the document leaked in draft form to Politico yesterday.

That document was representative of a systemic effort to change intelligence reports, swinging them away from information on white supremacists and toward the language of the president. Murphy claims that Wolf and Cuccinelli repeatedly told him “to modify intelligence assessments to ensure they matched up with the public comments by President Trump on the subject of ANTIFA and ‘anarchist’ groups.”

Murphy also charges that administration officials, including then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, lied to Congress, when she knowingly provided “inaccurate and highly inflated claims of known or suspected terrorists entering the United States through the southwest border.”

Schiff has asked Murphy to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Monday, September 21, at 10:00 am.

Former Director of National Security Daniel Coats, who continues to insist that Russia is attacking the 2020 election process, also spoke up today to demand that the intelligence community resume its in-person briefings to Congress about election security. “[Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin ought to be very happy with the way this is turning out,” Coats said. “He can only view his efforts as successful.”

There is a third major story today. Wildfires driven by winds are burning across California, Oregon, and Washington. California alone has lost more than 2.5 million acres this year, and Washington has lost almost a half a million this week alone. Oregon has lost 300,000. At least 7 people have died. The region is blanketed with smoke and an eerie orange haze, and in places, ash falls like rain."

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

We’ll Carry On - Chapter One

A/N: Well, it’s here, everyone! The moment you’ve all been (unwittingly) waiting for! Our entry for the @ts-storytime Big Bang! This took a lot of work, but we hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it! Each new chapter will be coming out every 20 minutes, provided the schedule works properly, to save your dashes! ^-^;; We have sixty four chapters plus an epilogue to upload save us!

We’ll Carry On Tag

General Content Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Substance Abuse, Abandonment, Minor Character Death, Transphobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Dissociation, Bullying, Homophobia

November 1st, 2017

“This will be your new home, Roman,” the man from Child Services said with a too-bright smile. Roman looked around. The walls weren’t rotting away, and the ceiling wasn’t falling apart, but something felt off about the place, like he wasn’t welcome. “Any last questions before you get settled in?”

Roman mutely shook his head. He was eleven years old, he knew when he needed to shut up, and he definitely needed to right now.

The man clapped him on the back and left, and Roman turned to the man and woman who he only knew as Mister and Misses Wright. Misses Wright’s smile dropped the second the man left. She directed him to the kitchen and shoved a mop in his hand. “You start cleaning,” she directed. “You can get unpacked when you’re done with your chores.”

December 20th, 2018

Roman shivered in the cold rain that had settled in to stay for a while. For hours, he had been searching for someone who could give him directions to the home he was looking for, someone who wouldn’t call the cops on an unattended child. The last thing he wanted was for his biological father to be in trouble for not supervising a kid he didn’t even know he had.

The sky was gloomy as Roman looked up, staring at the numbers hanging above the awning in front of the house. He looked back at the paper in his hand. Yes, this was the place. But what was he supposed to say? “Excuse me, Mister, you don’t know me but I’m your son and I could use a place to stay”? He didn’t want to impose.

And yet, here he was. Desperate enough to ask a stranger for help. At the very least, it had to beat the storm drain he had been sleeping in last night. He was fairly certain if he had to do that again he’d get rabies from a raccoon, or maybe a fox. And who knew how many rats lived in those things?

He had been staring at the house for too long. He turned away quickly, fully intending to leave. It was unlikely someone was home, anyway. It was the middle of the day, and though Roman couldn’t remember what day of the week it was, he knew it was more likely to be a weekday than a weekend. As he was walking away, though, he heard a door open and a man call out, “Excuse me?”

Heart soaring with hope, Roman turned around to find a man wearing thick-rimmed black glasses and a sweater vest run out of the house and to the fence. “Young man, are you lost? I couldn’t help but notice you were wandering around earlier. I might be able to help you.”

Roman cleared his throat and walked back over to the man, standing at the edge of his small yard. The townhouse behind the man was small, but looked inviting enough. This wasn’t a bad place for his father to live, provided this man even was his father. “Are you Mister Picani?” he asked, his voice trembling, betraying his worry.

The man blinked and adjusted his glasses. “Uh...yes. Who are you?”

Now or never, Roman supposed. “Uh...my name is Roman Jackson. I don’t know how to say this, but...uh...I think you’re my father.”

Mister Picani stood there in shock for a second, before pushing his glasses up his nose and frowning. “Where is your mother, then?”

Roman looked down at the ground and scuffed his shoe, trying to form the words that refused to leave his throat. His eyes stung, and he couldn’t get the proper explanation to come forward, so he forced out the next best thing. “She, uh...she abandoned me, sir. Couldn’t take care of me any more.”

“Oh, dear,” the man muttered. “Well, no use standing out here in the wind and rain. Why don’t you come inside? We can talk more over a cup of hot chocolate.”

Roman felt his hammering heart settle just a fraction. “Thank you, sir.”

“No need to call me sir, Roman. You’re free to call me Mister Picani, or Emile,” Mister Picani said, walking back towards the house.

Roman followed after him, walking in and looking around. The house was small, but filled with warm light. The walls were littered with cartoon posters and photographs. One of them which was hanging in the doorway, was of two men, both in tuxes, standing in front of who Roman assumed was a Justice of the Peace. “You’re married?” he asked, pointing to the photo.

“Yes, that’s my husband Remy,” Mister Picani said with a fond smile. “He’s the entrepreneur of his own coffee shop in the middle of town. Have you heard of Sleep Easy?”

Roman shook his head. “No, sir.”

“It’s a play on the term speakeasy. The joke is that his coffee is so good, it should be illegal. Not to mention he’s big on irony.” Mister Picani shook his head. “I love that man, and I’m so proud that he followed his dream and started his own coffee shop.”

Roman nodded as Mister Picani looked over to him. Inside, though, he felt guilt eat at him. This man had a whole entire life without him interfering. He didn’t want to cause trouble, but it seemed like that was exactly what he was doing.

The two walked into the modest but inviting kitchen and Mister Picani gestured for Roman to sit at the island in the middle. He brought out milk for the hot chocolate and asked, “Do you mind if I microwave it? I want to warm you up faster, though if you want me to bring the milk to the right temperature in a saucepan I can do that too.”

Roman shrugged. “You can do whatever you want, Mister Picani, I’m not picky.”

Mister Picani smiled softly and said, “I know you may not want to inconvenience me, but I really don’t mind putting in the extra effort if you would prefer it that way.”

Roman fiddled with his hands, feeling his heart ache at the reminder of what his mother used to do for him, back when she was around to care for him. She would take extra steps to ensure that he got what he wanted, too. “The microwave works, Mister Picani.”

He nodded and put the milk in a mug, and then proceeded to microwave it. “We’ll see if Remy ever forgives me for this,” he laughed. “He’s very particular about making many different drinks, and hot chocolate is one of them.”

Roman shifted on his chair, saying nothing. He didn’t know what to say. His heart kept thudding, and he kept waiting to hear that Mister Picani was going to call the police, or Child Services, or otherwise cart him off to someone else, who would inevitably send him back...back there. The place he swore he would never go back to.

“So, tell me a little about yourself, Roman,” Mister Picani said, pouring in hot chocolate mix to the milk and stirring it with a spoon.

Roman took the hot chocolate gratefully and let his fingers warm up from the mug. “Well...I’m twelve years old,” he said hesitantly. “I...I went to school for a while, until the sixth grade. Then...then everything kinda fell apart.”

Mister Picani winced. “You’re about the age to be in seventh grade. Did your mother not enroll you?”

Roman swallowed. “No. She...she wasn’t around to. I had to spend all my time...I don’t like to think about it.”

“You had to spend it getting by?” Mister Picani asked. “Making sure you got food, water, shelter?”

Roman nodded. That was close enough to the truth. No one ever bothered to put him in school. After all, someone had to take care of the younger kids. Considering that the people who were specifically assigned to do that were either too drunk or too angry to do anything useful. “But...but I remember a lot of what I did learn before, and I’m hoping to get back into school again sometime soon. Uh...my favorite color is red, if that’s important at all, and I really love fairy tales. Princes and princesses and castles and dragons. I know I might be a little old for that, but...”

“No such thing as too old,” Mister Picani said with a smile. “All those cartoon posters and paraphernalia you saw are mine. I wasn’t even aware I have a child or children until today.”

Roman relaxed a little bit at that. Before he was always mocked for liking fairy tales, but at least Mister Picani didn’t judge. “Cool.”

“Indeed,” Mister Picani said, grabbing another mug. “I hope we have another hot chocolate packet around here...”

The front door opened and a booming voice called, “Emile! Honey, you are not going to believe what Miss Fleming said today...” he trailed off as he caught sight of Roman.

Mister Picani looked like a deer in headlights for a quick second before recovering. “Remy, this is Roman. He’s...uh...well, he’s my son.”

Remy stood there for a moment, and Roman felt like he was being sized up. Then, he broke out in a wide grin. “I told you so, Emile! I told you that you’d be a catch for any lady at the sperm bank! Small wonder someone used it!” He held out his hand for Roman to shake. “Remy Picani. Husband of the dork over there. You can call me Remy.”

“Roman Jackson,” Roman said, shaking Remy’s hand.

Remy turned to Mister Picani-or, they were both Mister Picani, so...Emile?-and laughed. “Emile, please tell me you were not microwaving milk for hot chocolate again!”

“Well...the kid looked cold, and I wanted to warm him up fast, so...” Emile shrugged.

“All right, all right. I’ll give you a pass just this once,” Remy said with a grin. “So, uh...where’s the kid’s mom? Bathroom, or something?”

Roman felt a sharp pang in his chest and his breath caught. “His mom’s no longer in the picture, Remy,” Emile said. “I’m honestly not quite sure what to do.”

Remy hummed. “Well, that is a predicament. How about you two get situated in the living room and talk for a bit, watch cartoons, whatever. Emile, I’ll make sure that you get your hot chocolate, and I’ll make some calls. I’m pretty sure Sarah McGee’s a social worker who could lend us a hand figuring out what to do.”

Roman felt an icicle of fear stab him right in the chest. He didn’t get away from there just to be sent back! “You’re...what are you going to do?” he asked, his voice once again taking on that soft, trembling tone.

“Kid, if you’re okay with it, and Emile’s okay with it, we’ll be taking you in, at least for a little while. Until we can figure out what exactly is going on,” Remy said. “Because I don’t care why your mother is no longer around. Everyone deserves a home.”

Roman’s eyes grew hot and he smiled. “You really mean that?”

“Remy doesn’t say anything he doesn’t mean,” Emile said simply. “Come on, let’s go to the living room. We can see if there’s anything on TV you might want to watch.”

Roman nodded and followed Emile into the living room, getting settled on the couch with his hot chocolate. He curled up on it and took a long sip of the liquid, letting it warm him to the core.

“You know, you’re very lucky the weather is somewhat warmer outside than usual,” Emile said. “So close to Christmas, usually it’s dipping somewhere into the twenties, not in the low forties.”

“Cold is cold is cold,” Roman said, taking another sip. “I appreciate the hot chocolate.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Emile said with a smile, turning on the TV. “I have a couple cartoons saved on the DVR. Do you mind cartoons?”

“No, cartoons are great,” Roman said, taking another long sip of his hot chocolate.

Emile nodded with a smile, and pulled up Avatar: The Last Airbender to play, from the first episode. Roman was soon caught up in the show, finishing his hot chocolate quickly. He barely noticed when Emile patted his knee and got up. When the first episode ended, he put on another, figuring that Emile wouldn’t mind. By the end of the third episode, however, his fatigue was catching up to him, and he began drifting to sleep to the sound of the ending credits.

He fell into a dreamless sleep, hoping against hope that when he woke up again, that this wasn’t just some crazy dream he had thought up somewhere along the way that he had escaped.

Tag List (Only putting this on the first chapter to spare you guys the spam!): @loganpatton​ @lilbeanblr​ @kittyboof8 @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch @sanders-trash-4ever​ @hamilspntrash @swords-and-kittens @phantomfander @narniasfinestavengingsociopath​  @rjmeta​ @ambersky0319​ @anni-cat-flower​ @idosanderssidespromptssometimes @rose-gold-roman

[this-is-a-love-story-fleabag]

Dial-a-priest (2/2)

A man slips his phone number into our favourite Fleabag’s back pocket, but it turns out to be a wrong number, connecting her directly to a priest. Chapter 2 of 2. Click here to read Chapter 1. Also on ao3.

"Is this the part where you ask me what I'm wearing?"

"What are you wearing?"

He looked down at himself. "Pyjamas."

"It's 7PM."

"They're comfy."

One night when he was just settling down with a cup of tea and another book, his phone rang.

"Hi," he said when he picked up.

"Hello, Father," said her voice at the other end of the line. English accent, a bit posh, wryly amused.

"You make voice calls? I thought you were a millennial."

"I'm old school. You're Irish."

"I know."

"I should have known. I was curious."

"Is this the part where you ask me what I'm wearing?"

"What are you wearing?"

He looked down at himself. "Pyjamas."

"It's 7PM."

"They're comfy."

"Aren't you going to ask me what I'm wearing?"

"OK, but we're not having phone sex."

"I'm wearing the world's least comfortable cocktail dress and about three rolls of tit tape."

"Do I want to know what tit tape is?"

"Probably not. I went to a bar again."

Interesting. "Why?"

"I don't know. The last time I talked to someone in a bar he clearly thought I was in dire need of the phone number of an Irish Catholic priest."

"What did you say to him?"

"I think I was probably charming. I usually am."

He chuckled. "You're not wrong. Did you have a good time?"

"No. Someone grabbed my arse and I left. Didn't even have a drink."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Usually I would have ended up going home with him. I didn't want that. I think I just wanted to... make a friend?"

"Do you have other friends? Family?"

"Not really. My sister lives in Finland half the time. I haven't talked to her in a long time. Do you have a sister?"

"No. Why haven't you talked to her?"

"She thinks I tried to shag her husband, which is patently ridiculous because her husband is loathsome."

The urge to give priestly advice was too difficult to overcome. "Why don't you try calling her? If it's been a while, she might be glad to hear from you."

"I guess. Do you have a brother?"

"Yes. Why does she think you tried to fuck her husband?"

"Are you close with your brother?"

He laughed. "No. You didn't answer my question."

"Why aren't you close with your brother?"

"Come on."

"I fucked my best friend's boyfriend and then she walked into traffic and that's why she's dead," she said in a rush. He could hear the wince in her voice.

"Fuck."

"So when I told my sister that her husband tried to kiss me on her birthday and he told her that it was the other way around, she chose to believe that slimy bastard instead of me."

He took a long moment to digest this new information before responding. "You're walking around with a lot of pain inside you, aren't you?" he said gently, his heart aching in sympathy.

"Yeah, but..."

"What?"

"I just..."

"What?"

"It's my fault," she said simply. "All of it, I caused it. That's why I'm trying... to be better. I don't want to do that any more."

"Everyone makes mistakes."

She huffed a laugh. "That's why they put rubbers on the end of pencils."

"I like that."

"You can have it for free. My next witticism will be priced on a sliding scale."

"You're funny."

"For the right price."

Unknown number: I texted my sister

Unknown number: we're going to have coffee

"I think I might be going crazy," he said without preamble when she picked up the phone.

"Well, you do have bats in the belfry."

"They're in the attic, and that's a bit of a sore spot at the moment, so fuck off."

"Why do you think you're going crazy?"

"OK so I was on a train."

"Yes?"

"We were delayed at East Croydon and I looked out the window."

"Sane so far, continue."

"There was a fucking fox! In the window! It was looking right at me! Nobody else seemed to notice it but I know I saw it."

"That's not outside the realms of possibility. There are a lot of foxes about."

He shuddered. "Don't remind me. But it was looking right at me. Right in my eyes."

"You're cute, why wouldn't it look at you?"

"We were there for half an hour and it didn't stop staring at me!"

"Why were you at East Croydon for half an hour?"

"Southern Rail."

"Ah, I take it back. Southern Rail? You are completely insane."

"Fuck you." He paused, backtracking a few sentences in the conversation. "Wait, I'm cute?"

"Goodnight, Father."

"Uh, goodnight then, I guess."

"Don't let the foxes bite."

"You don't need to tell me twice."

After a few weeks of this, he was ready to admit that theirs was the closest friendship he had.

She knew that he was really grateful for Pam's help but that he also found her annoying nearly all the time. She knew about his parents, and his brother, and his weird cousin who kept sending him conspiracy theories on Facebook. She knew about the puns he made in the parish newsletter, and she knew where he hid the G&Ts.

He knew about her dead best friend, and her family, and the way her guinea pig was kind of a jerk sometimes. He knew that she tended to call late at night or just after the lunch rush was over. He even looked up her café online (there weren't that many guinea pig-themed cafés in the world, it turned out) and it was only a few streets away.

Which was a total fucking disaster.

He was a priest, for fuck's sake. He'd made a vow to love only God and to love God's people as a father, and most certainly not to pin beautiful, witty, acerbic women to the nearest flat surface and kiss them until he can't breathe.

It was imperative that they never meet in person. He was careful not to tell her which church was his, never to mention local shops and restaurants. He very conscientiously avoided going within a mile of the café.

There was no way they were ever going to meet, and he'd nearly convinced himself that it was a good thing.

The priest was leafing through the hymnals to see which ones needed to be replaced and trying very hard not to think about his problems, when he noticed one of the Youthie Band loitering in the doorway.

"Hi Jake," he called. "Are you alright?"

"I forgot my bassoon," he said in a mournful tone. "My aunt is bringing it."

Strange kid, but probably harmless. "Oh, fun. How are your bassoon lessons going?"

Jake trained his attention on someone over the priest's shoulder, ignoring the question entirely.

"Where's Claire?" he asked plaintively.

"Hi, Jake," said a woman's voice, strangely familiar. "She didn't want to come with me because she thinks you're creepy."

"What?"

"I'm joking, she's at work."

The priest turned around to greet the new arrival (and possibly to stand up for Jake, although his creepiness was undeniable and probably deserved to be addressed), and his heart just about stopped. Standing before him was the physical manifestation of his ungodly desires made flesh, walking around as though his world wasn't about to explode.

"Here's your clarinet," she said, handing Jake the case.

"It's a bassoon," he protested.

"It's a birth control device."

"You must be Jake's aunt," said the priest, regaining the ability to speak.

"Step-aunt," she corrected, turning to him. She gave a little start when she made eye contact but other than that managed to maintain her composure. "Hello, Father," she said with a smirk, holding out her hand.

He shook it, noticing distantly that her slender hand had a firm grip. "So Claire's your sister?" he managed, drinking in the sight of her, even more lovely in reality, a walking temptation.

A complicated series of emotions flashed across her face, all of which he could actually decipher given all of their long conversations about her family situation - and isn't that weird? Being able to completely read someone when you're meeting them in person for the first time?

"Yeah, Claire's my sister."

Jake made a little squeaking sound on hearing the word "Claire", making the priest remember that he was still standing there.

"Do you have a rehearsal to get to, Jake?" he prompted gently.

Jake nodded and walked away without a word.

"OK, good talk," said the priest to Jake's retreating back. He turned back to her, suddenly nervous. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Uh, welcome to my church. Do you like tea?"

In answer, she gave him an incredulous look and made a bee-line for the third pew from the back of the church, bending over to retrieve the cache of G&Ts that he'd mentioned in passing the other day.

"I'd think we need something stronger than tea given the situation, don't you?" she said, throwing one to him.

He fumbled to catch the can and dropped it on the floor inelegantly with a few murmured curses.

"Now I think of it, I remember you mentioning that you were bad at sports," she said with an apologetic grimace.

He picked up the can and opened it gingerly, took a large and restorative swig, then ushered her into a side room for some privacy. They perched on rickety folding chairs opposite each other, and she stared into his eyes, studying him in a way that made him feel uncomfortably exposed.

"So you live ten minutes from my café," she stated flatly. He nodded. "Did you know this the whole time?"

He winced. "I figured it out a few weeks ago. I can't, I'm sorry, I didn't want to intrude," he lied. He had wanted to intrude, in so many ways.

She shrugged, amenably accepting his explanation. "I just assumed you lived in Ireland. I didn't know we still had Catholics here."

"We send a few over every year as a punishment for when you enslaved our whole country."

They laughed together, such an easy connection, and his fingers itched with the urge to grab her and kiss her.

"The photos didn't do you justice," she said, giving him a thorough and obvious once-over. The blood thrummed in his veins as his eyes drifted down her body in return.

He sucked in a breath and tried very hard to keep his cool.

"You're the single most beautiful human being I've ever seen, and the fact that you're in my church right now is ruining my fucking life," he blurted out.

Fuck.

She softened visibly and stood up, draining the rest of her drink. "I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do. We can just talk on the phone." She was watching him with immense gentleness, seeing right through into his very soul. "I like talking to you. It's OK."

"Fuck, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that, I don't want to send you away, I just-" He stood up, rubbing his temples with one hand. "I like talking to you, too," he said softly, looking utterly lost.

She crossed the room and took his face in her hands, bringing their foreheads to rest together. "I'm glad I met you," she whispered, slipping her fingers to card through his hair. He leaned into the touch like a needy cat and let out a shuddering breath.

She pulled away to press a chaste kiss to his forehead, getting ready to leave, and something inside him snapped. He backed her up against the crumbling brick wall, and finally let himself taste the ruby-red lips that had been whispering in his ear for weeks. She made a pleased noise and kissed him back, her arms wrapping around his neck to pull him closer.

"Are you sure?" she asked as they broke for air.

"I'm sure," he panted, hiking up her legs to wrap around his waist, and let the life he'd built crash down around them.

[reysccp]

The Archer - First Random Thoughts.

There's so much in my head right now, just gonna put it all over without thinking very much, later I'll try to make more sense.

The Archer/prey is very Foxes and Hunters from I know places

Movies reference got me to The Lucky One

"I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you" This reminded me of the "My boyfriend Adam speech" that was a crazy name swap thing. Is it a about a public speech? Or a private speech to a person?

"Easy they come, easy they go I jump from the train, I ride off alone"

This got to be about beards. Reference to new romantics trains that just aren't coming?

Who could stay? An old TS theme: stay stay stay/all you have to do is stay

"And I cut off my nose just to spite my face"

I don't know this English saying. I don't get the meaning, All all know it's very 1975 Girls.

"Then I hate my reflection for years and years" CRYING 😢 come here baby gaylor, I love you.

"I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost

The room is on fire, invisible smoke"

Ok very DWOHT reminiscent? Swaying as the room burned down?

"And all of my heroes die all alone" no idea who her heroes are but I'm dying to know.

"Help me hold on to you" New Year's Day Hold on and I will hold on to you.

"Cause they see right through me They see right through me They see right through Can you see right through me? They see right through They see right through me I see right through me I see right through me"

These are very claustrophobic gay closet thoughts, we all have been there. CRYING AGAIN 😭 love you Taylor.

"All the king's horses, all the king's men Couldn't put me together again 'Cause all of my enemies started out friends"

This is about Beards.

I LOVED LOVED LOVED THIS SONG. GOING TO ANALYZE IT OVER AND OVER AND OVER.

[auberghyn]

Elysian Fields

Rating: M (T for now, but there will be eventual smut) Pair: KakaSaku

Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Action/Adventure, Adventure, Worldbuilding, Romance, Eventual Romance, Eventual Dram, Travelling, Humor, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Sexual Tension, Wizard!Kakashi, Biker!Sakura, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Inspired by MMORPG Ragnarok Online

Quick SpeedPaint/Photo Manip by me

Chapter 1: Sawbones

A healer's duty goes beyond improving abrasions and maladies. Besides your everyday affliction ranging in severity, a healer is also responsible for the safety and well-being of their comrades. So when Sakura was asked to take over for her grandmother as field surgeon, it was an honour she hoped to fulfill.

Sakura expected long travels to the neighbouring city of Taki, where the surgical headquarters was located. She figured if transportation was too vexing, she would have to move to make work within easy reach. The Haruno Matriarch owned an old mint-green Konoha Roadmaster motorcycle that she had refurbished and given to Sakura as a parting gift. Although the automotive vehicle came with a few tiny scrapes that resembled claw marks on the rear fender, Sakura didn’t mind them. Rather, she appreciated the stories the remnants held. The scuffs piqued her interest. She would have loved nothing more than to hear each one's story, but her grandmother always answered the same way: a chuckle and "It's best to find out for yourself, my child"

Huffing in slight disappointment, Sakura deduced that they were probably from wild cats lurking in the deep forests of Taki. Whether she was right or wrong with her assumption, it temporarily sated her growing curiosity. With the inherited motorbike in her possession, at least transportation was doable now. As Sakura sped through the almost empty highway’s bike lane, with the moving truck a safe distance ahead of her, she recalled her overprotective mother, Mebuki, nagging the moving crew’s ears off to give her daughter enough space to travel and avoid any accidents. Before they set off northbound, she gave the men a hundred bucks as an apology. She had all the crucial necessities packed, including the wolf plushie from her childhood she had snugly tucked inside her bike’s compartment. All she had to do now was get there. Adrenaline coursed through Sakura’s veins at the thought of starting her career. However, if she were completely honest with herself, she was scared. Delighted to the core, yes…but she had doubts lurking in the back of her mind: the question “Will I ever be good enough?” plagued her constantly, especially after the wrongs that she worked so hard to right. There came a point where she had gotten involved with the wrong crowd during her adolescence. As she and her family constantly moved from town to town, it was difficult for her to find her place. Sakura was sure she never would have gotten out of that rut without her grandmother’s intervention. Sakura knew very well what the older woman was capable of, her fury infamous and threatening. But at Sakura’s most vulnerable, she’d sat her down and spoken to her in a manner that Sakura would never forget. The older woman, in her utmost sincerity, had instilled the Will of Fire in Sakura: To follow than to control. To listen to others who have been shunned. To keep her head high despite of adversity. And to keep standing tall despite losing ground. Sakura didn’t quite understand them back then. Like majority of the teenage populace, she only cared about technology, love interests, mind-numbing television, and junk food. It took her years to make her realize its significance and for her efforts to finally come to fruition. At the day of Sakura’s academy convocation, her grandmother, a typically stern woman, had been brought to tears. She’d pulled Sakura into a bone crushing hug, sobbing against her granddaughter’s dark green gown, telling her how proud she was that Sakura had come so far. Sakura remembered her saying, “The will of fire is strong, it runs deep. It’s a reminder that, despite our mistakes, we can draw our inner power, and that’s when we bloom. To serve a purpose and evolve into who we truly are, and that’s what matters”

A smile slowly tugged at her lips as warmth began to unfurl within. The travelling winds might have been chilly, but the memories gave her comfort on her long journey.

 —♦—

Once they arrived, the movers immediately set to work, helping her unload some furniture, boxes and bins of clothing, kitchenware—basically everything she needed as a starter, according to her doting mother. She poured them tea and helped with the other objects. It wasn’t long before the last box into the house.

Once she’d paid them, Sakura retreated to her new apartment to get ready for bed. Though the clock only struck seven time and the sun was still high in the sky, it had been a long day. She decided it was best to take a step back and relax before starting her new job tomorrow. That night, she slept blissfully like she hadn’t slept in years. Tomorrow for sure, there would be a tonne of adventure awaiting her, and she was ready to face it head on.

 —♦—

“Just keep going straight. It’s gonna take a while, but you’ll get there” Sakura had awoken that morning filled with purpose. She’d pre-packed her bag before she’d even moved in so the only thing she had to do was take a shower, put her uniform on, and ride to the headquarters. But there was one problem: Although she admitted she may have overslept a tad more than expected—which was a little disgraceful on her first day—the receptionist had informed her to head to the nearby headquarters where the group was currently settled, which would take no longer than a ten minute commute. The woodlands she was encroaching on eased her mind from her tardiness. As she raced along, she took in Mother Nature’s beauty. She thought Konoha, with all ts vast forested land, was beautiful, yet it was almost outmatched by the otherworldly backdrop of Taki, with its lush greens and azure waters. Completely lost in thought, it only took her a split second to realize a whirling blue light appear in front of her. She felt the air shift as she passed through the portal, to which she noted, felt like melting meringue, warm and glutinous. But there was nothing sweet about the way her bike bounced against the uneven terrain, catching her off guard and rattling her whole being. When she regained focus, Sakura was utterly speechless, blinking quite a few times in disbelief. Before her was a canyon so vast it dwarfed Iwa’s Great Gorge of the West. Sakura thought that she was dreaming, there was simply no way that she had been coursing through the woodlands a moment ago. Now she found herself speeding on what seemed like a suspended narrow bridge that stretched for miles. Up ahead was a slight curve to the path, and with Sakura too dumbstruck in the moment, she accidentally skidded off to hurtle down the canyon. She figured she’d wake up any second now, still in utter disbelief that all of this was real. She was probably having one of those dreams where she thought she was late for a very important event that day and would wake up an hour or two than originally planned, but as seconds passed and she starts noticing her descent coming to an end she began to panic. Sakura had a moment to herself, where she criticized her life choices down to the smallest of details. She’d also started to wonder when everything went downhill. Was the deliverance she received a figment of her imagination as she lay wasting away in a former friend’s bedroom? Had she hallucinated all the events that had happened in her life: leaving her childhood friend behind to move to a different city, her grandmother’s intervention, her turning her life around and graduating with the highest honours in the academy? Sakura felt despair mixed with delirium like a rancid cocktail. If she was going to phase out from this kaleidoscopic nightmare, would she be back in Samui’s place wasted, filled with no purpose and re-live her stupidity. If she was indeed hurtling downwards harsh jagged rocks raised like swords of judgment, then so be it. “At least I have lived a good life… I think” she whispered to herself, the air whistling through her garments. Within seconds she would be just a pretty stain on the ground, her Indian Roadmaster bike would be somewhere a few feet away from her body in the same mangled state. She accepted death, yet as darkness loomed over, the wind shift as if something had snatched her in mid-air. When she came to, she was sitting on a padded basket-woven armchair, a plush throw pillow sitting on her lap, and what seemed like a fox-owl hybrid curled under her feet. “Kami, what was she thinking sending her granddaughter off without an escort? Does she want her to die?” “Nah, that’s unlike Tsunade. We found a mine under the bridge near the exit. Neji and I had to disarm it before it causes any unwanted damage. Everything was fine but you had to be a GIANT bag of dicks and pushed her off” “I didn’t push her on purpose! I noticed a trap the second before she ran over it so I had to do something!” “You could’ve just grabbed her, Kiba!” a crack of a whip and a man yelping in pain finally jostled Sakura out of her daze and looked around to see three people in various states of undress. “Are you okay? You’re Sakura, right?” she turned to look at the woman crouched beside her, “I’m Tenten” she said, placing a hand to her chest. She then shifted in her place to point and introduce the other two in the room. Neji, who Sakura presumed hadn’t spoken a single word, stood in an imposing manner, his long brown hair gently framed his steely gaze, his pale pupil-less eyes unnerved her. Sakura took notice of the peculiar flesh-coloured mark on his forehead, wondering if that was a birthmark but it was highly unlikely due to the symmetrical pattern splayed across his skin. Green eyes then focused on Kiba who decided that he wasn’t interested in the commotion anymore. His messy dark brown hair swayed as he plopped on the couch. Sakura could have sworn she saw sharp fangs peek through his slightly parted lips as he grumbled, nursing the red gash across his chest, probably from Tenten giving him a good lashing for pushing her off the ledge. I mean, he deserved it. I could have died, you know? As she was about to speak, her eyes flickered towards a sudden movement in her peripheral vision and caught site of a tall man wearing nothing but navy-coloured breeches. The plains of his stomach where a wondrous map of lean muscle despite the numerous scars and bumps probably from the battles he had partaken in his lifetime. Her eyes traveled upwards to see amusement in mismatched eyes. Her cheeks began to pink as she realized she was gawking. Sakura heard shuffling from behind her and three voices greeting the man in unison. “Captain” Sakura’s gaze darted between the three and the stranger. The man sauntered towards them from the hallway, the sway of his hips precise and nimble. There was something about his gait that caught her attention, it reminded her too much of the wolf documentaries she loved to watch as a kid, how those predatory animals would prowl, the air around them absolute.

Sakura sensed the change of ambience and tried to displace the blame for rapid heart rate to the previous incident. Try as she might, her cheeks pinked before his presence, and she knew it would be unwise to wear her emotions so freely, especially when she was face to face with authority.

Regaining her composure, she finally stood and bowed as she greeted in respect, it was the only way to remind her of their differing status.

But the man chuckled, however, and she would have snarled had it not for the fact that her voice trembled mid-speech.

“At ease, Miss Sakura. I see you finally decided to join us” he teased, drawing his hands behind his back as he watched her lips curl slightly upwards with a grimace. She admitted her fault in hopes of being forgiven, but his steely gaze chilled her, “Just to let you know, we don’t tolerate that kind of behaviour here” there was a snort immediately followed by a weak yelp emitted by one of the three people behind her, Sakura was tempted to take a look but the captain had thrown her off guard by his question. “Do you even know what Tsunade’s role was before she left?” he asked, brow arching. She would have scoffed, however there was a certain truth to his words. What was Tsunade’s role? Pursing her lips and loathing the way he assumed she didn’t have a single damn clue, to which to some extent he had a point, but she stood her ground nonetheless. She huffed with her chest out and answered. “Yes, she was a highly skilled field surgeon—“ “Field surgeon,” he cut her off, eyes squinting and lips forming a thin line at the word as if it tasted odd just by saying it, “Here in Elysium, we call them Sawbones” “Sawbones?” Sakura asked, feeling a hint of regret for the short pause she took. She would have asked about Elysium as well but it would only confirm his belief of her naivety. He eyed her with deep intent before taking a stride towards the high ceiling window that she was sure wasn’t there a moment ago. He folded his hands behind his back and looked on, the glass slowly clearing, and Sakura’s breathe caught in her throat. “As you can obviously see, this isn’t the human world” he deadpanned without so much as a glance her way. It took her moments before the air grew dry around them, followed by pinpricking sensation against her skin. She looked down on her arms and could almost see tiny hairs standing on end. Confused and unnerved, she glanced at the three people behind her who seemed unaffected by the current in the air. When she looked back did she knew what, or rather who was causing it. When Sakura thought she was dreaming awhile ago only to be deduced by the rapid descent and the alarming knowledge that she was going to die, watching the silver-haired captain emit purple lightning coursing through his body is what convinced her that she was indeed back at her new apartment, still curled up in a ball and nuzzling against her wolf plush. There was just no way all of this was real. Soon, Sakura felt the need to sit down and alleviate the overwhelming urge to pass out. Authority be damned, she needed to rest. But her body betrayed her, and she crumpled to the ground in an unconscious heap. The four figures stood in silence, the current slowly faded away. “I think you overdid the introduction there, Kakashi” Tenten scolded, the utter disappointment evident in her tone. Kiba doubled over, roaring in the background. Neji rolled his eyes, obviously fed up with playing along, but he would be lying if he denied the fact that it was anything but funny, “I can’t believe she didn’t know what Tsunade does” Kakashi, knelt in front of Sakura to scoop her in his arms, chuckling as he want to set her on the warm daybed by the window. “I can’t believe Tsunade didn’t brief her on the situation at hand” Kakashi said, a huffing in amusement. “You know Tsunade, she can be pretty secretive. Still, you didn’t have to go overboard with being a complete douchecanoe. If Tsunade finds out about this, she's going to ram your wand through your skull” Kakashi let out a hearty laugh at Tenten’s flowery quips. “Maa, maa, Tenten you don’t have to be like that, I’m your captain” “True, you are the captain, but I’d also like to think its because of you being captain that Tsunade retired early” Suddenly the atmosphere grew a little grim, Kiba immediately stood to excuse himself, with Neji following close behind. It was too late for Tenten to retract her statement, what meant as a lighthearted quip somehow struck a nerve in Kakashi but he kept calm despite the steely glint in his gaze. “I’m sorry, I went too far—“ Kakashi lifted a hand to stop her, “That’s alright. Anyway, we have he rest of the day to ourselves, see to it that you enjoy your afternoon. I’ll wait till she wakes up” “Certainly, captain” Tenten left the room in haste, leaving Kakashi with Sakura. He lifted his hand slightly above his hips and languidly pushed downwards an inch to grasp the backrest of the chair that he just conjured up with the gesture. He settled down then pulled a book and reading glasses out of thin air. It wouldn’t do all of them good if he was on edge for the meeting once Sakura wakes up from her fatigue. Flipping to the page he last read, he began to read the passages.

[yennefer-of-rivia]

The Raven and the Fox

This is the first chapter of the fanfiction that I am writing. It’s the first fanfiction I ever wrote and the first time I ever upload anything, so quite nervous here! Enjoy lovely witcher fans! 

And if you like it, please feel welcome to share 😊😊

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1. An unexpected alliance for revenge

 Yennefer was sitting at her desk at the Rosemary and Thyme. She was aware of the fact that Dandelion insisted on calling the tavern with its new name, The Chameleon. Just as he insisted on calling it a cabaret and not a tavern.  

“I worked so hard on turning this brothel into a place of art, where everyone who can appreciate the sound of a nicely played lute, or a song sung by a maiden’s warm voice, is welcome. Where it doesn’t matter where you come from, whether you’re a lord or a peasant. The love of the art can warm everyone’s heart at the Chameleon. That is why you must use its new name, my dear friends. Because of the hard work and dedication I put into this place.”

That is how Dandelion had ended his speech that evening. While the raven haired sorceress smiled on the inside, Zoltan and Priscilla burst out in laughter.  Priscilla cleared her throat and took a step forward. “Dandelion, you are the one who worked so hard for this tavern?” Her voice was still a bit hoarse after the attempt on her life, which she luckily survived. It was still not sure if she would sing again, but the most important thing was that she was alive and well.

Having a hoarse voice was a little price to pay considering she could speak again, which was something the doctor wasn’t sure of at first. “Aye, Dandelion, mate, are you going to claim you did all the work on this tavern?” It was Zoltan who was talking now. “As far as I remember, you were nowhere to be seen when I returned to the Rosemary. All empty, except for those little shi ts that thought they could claim this place as their own. No, friends. It was Geralt who had to sniff you out like a bloodhound and then had to save your arse once again!” Zoltan’s face was bearing a wide grin while he was staring at Dandelion.

“Ah, well, yes… That might be true indeed… But when I was back here, it was me who redecorated everything!” Priscilla raised one of her eyebrows. “Really? If I recall it correctly, it was once again Geralt who did that.”

At this point Yennefer had left the company of her friends to go back to the room she was using as her own. After all, she was trying to find the location of Margarita. Saying that they would bring the Lodge of Sorceresses back was one thing, but actually finding her colleagues turned out to be much harder. Normally, she would have liked a challenge like this, but the clock was ticking. And if she wanted to protect Ciri in the upcoming battle against the Wild Hunt, her power alone was simply not enough.

She hated admitting that, even to herself. She had the feeling that she had let everybody down at the battle of Kaer Morhen.  Her power turned out to be not enough against an army of the Red Riders. And even though she tried not to think of that, she hadn’t been the only sorceress at Kaer Morhen. Triss Merigold was also there and had fought with all of her power as well. It had not been enough. So the Lodge was their only option, for Ciri’s sake.

She looked at the list of names that was laying in front of her. Keira Metz, dead. Philippa Eilhart, location unknown. Sheala de Tancarville, location unknown. Fringilla Vigo, refused to help. Rita Margarita, location unknown. She had reason to believe that Margarita was being held at the Oxenfurt Prison, but she wasn’t completely sure yet. And she had to be sure before she could risk entering that fort.  A frustrated sigh escaped the lips of the raven haired sorceress. She was stuck.

Yennefer got out of the chair and walked towards the window. Leaning against the windowsill she looked  at the streets of Novigrad. It was dark outside and the streets were starting to fill with nightlife. She let her thoughts wonder. Ciri wasn’t something she was particularly worried about, she had complete faith  in her and Geralt. She knew that the witcher would not let anything hurt Ciri. But still…

Since Avallac’h marched into the tavern with the message that Ciri and Geralt had left Kaer Morhen for a destination that was unknown to him, an unsettling feeling had settled down in her stomach. She knew she would only be able to relax again if her daughter was with her once more. And the witcher too, of course.

Oh Geralt… Thinking about those golden cat eyes send a shiver through her spine, though she would never admit that. Not to anybody, oh no. Her thought wandered off to a couple of weeks ago, when the two of them were on a ship on a mountain. When the two of them, together, made the djinn that was still bound to Amos var Ypsis undo Geralt his last wish. The last wish, that Geralt had made all those years ago, so he could save Yennefer’s life. And with that wish, their life’s got entwined forever. It had been the start of their immense complex, intense and complicated relationship.

And now that wish was undone. They were free from the djinn’s power, but most importantly, their love was free. For her, nothing had changed. Nothing at all. She still loved Geralt with all of her being. Did she expect that? No. She expected to look at him and that he would be a stranger to her. But he wasn’t. He was still her witcher. And then there was fear, what if things had changed for him? “Djinn mighta cheated us after all…” he spoke. She didn’t understand what he was saying. “Why?” “Cause I don’t feel that anything’s changed, either. I love you Yen.” It was like her heart jumped into overdrive when she heard those words.

She was happy, so happy, and so in love. But of course she didn’t show that. She gave him one of her real smiles. The kind she kept hidden for everyone, except for her witcher. A knock on the door snapped her out of her loving memories. A warm feeling was still around her heart when she answered “Come in”. She turned around so she was facing the door. It was after midnight already so she wondered who would disturb her this late.

The door opened, and as soon as she saw that fire red hair, she knew who it was. Triss. Triss Merigold. The warm feeling that surrounded her heart a moment ago instantly turned into ice. The bitch who betrayed their friendship. Triss was standing in the doorway, clearly unsure about what to do next.

“Hi Yenna…” Yennefer her face hardened when she heard that name. “Uhm, Yennefer I mean…” She stared at Triss with a cold and blank face. “I saw light coming from under the door so I assumed you would still be awake.” She was still staring at Triss and didn’t say a word. “Is it okay for you if I come in for a minute?” No response. Triss sighed, walked into Yennefer’s room and closed the door behind her. She started pacing back and forth while Yen was still leaning against the window, her cold lilac eyes following the other sorceress’s movements. She was like a black and white statue covered in moonlight. A furious and raging Goddess.

Triss stopped pacing and turned towards the raven haired woman. “Listen Yennefer. I know you probably don’t want to see me..” “You got that right!” Yennefer snapped. “… and you probably don’t want to hear what I got to say…” “Right again. You’re on a roll Merigold.” “… but I need to talk to you Yennefer. Please.” For a moment, an uncomfortable silence was filling the room. Then the black haired sorceress started talking, her voice filled with hatred.

“Listen Triss. I really don’t care what it is you feel like telling me. You only came here to make yourself feel better about what happened, not because you feel sorry. Your apologies won’t be sincere. If you cared about me, if you ever cared about me, you wouldn’t have done what you did. And now that I’m back in Geralt’s life, now the last wish is gone and we know our feelings for each other are true, here you are like a defeated puppy.” She took a breath.

“You had your shot with him Triss. You thought that I was dead, or at least, that’s what you claim. Is that what you want to ‘apology’ for? For just assuming that I was dead, without trying to figure out whether it was true or not? Or are you ‘sorry’ for forgetting about my existence for two long years? Two years, Triss. While I was sitting in a Nilfgardian cell, you were fucking the love of my life. And not once did you mention my existence to him. Me, the person you used to call your best friend.” Yennefer’s lilac eyes were burning with a raging fire.

“But you know what, Triss? It doesn’t matter anymore. You gave it your best shot, you tried to forget my presence, and you still failed. Geralt and I are together once again, he choose me over you anyway.” Yennefer stopped talking abruptly. Triss had grown more pale with every word that Yen had spat towards her. She said nothing in return and sat down on the wooden bed in the room.

After a couple of silent minutes, Triss cleared her throat. “Yennefer, did you just say that Geralt has chosen you? What does that mean? That you are in a relationship again, but this time without the djinn’s power binding you?” Her blue eyes stared into Yennefer her lilac eyes. “Yes.” Was her reply. She was a bit surprised by Triss her question, she expected a rant about how she was so sorry about what had happened. But of course she didn’t show that. “Your ugly game was in vain because you lost anyway.”

Before Yennefer could say anything else, Triss stood up and looked Yen straight in the eyes. “Yennefer, stop talking.” Instantly she closed her mouth, never had Triss talked to her like that. It surprised her. It was a pretty funny sight actually, if the circumstances would be different.

“Yen, the witcher said the same thing to me.” For a second a confused look appeared on Yennefer her face, but it was gone just as fast. “Geralt said what, Triss?” The red haired sorceress took a deep breath.

“It was just after we managed to get all of the mages of Novigrad on the ship. We were just about to leave for Kovir. I was going to say my final goodbye to Geralt. Doing that hurt me like hell, but I made the conclusion that since he had found you, the two of you would probably be together again. There was no place for me in that picture. I know you will never believe me, but I really am sorry about what happened and what I did. It was never my intention to hurt you, and if I could change the past, I would do everything differently. Yes I have had feelings for him for a very long time, but hurting you, Yen, was the last thing I wanted to do.” Yennefer her face was tense.

“You’re drifting from the topic, Merigold.” “Yes, you are right, I am, sorry. When I wanted to say goodbye, Geralt begged me to stay with him and not join the other mages. He said he loved me. And I did. I stayed with him and we spend the night at a lighthouse. In the morning he told me to go to Kaer Morhen. He said it was the only place where a witcher and a sorceress could be together.” It was quiet in the room. In the background you could hear a drunken man sing a dirty song.

“Did the two of you talked after he went to Skellige?” Yennefer was the once asking the question. Triss nodded. “Yes, at Kaer Morhen. He thanked me for being there. Then he said that I didn’t have to worry, that it turned out that he had always been in love with me and that he always will be.” Once again there was a uncomfortable silence in the room. Finally she moved away from the window and sat down on the bed. “So he has been playing the both of us, at the same time.” She mumbled.

Triss hesitated for a moment but then she also sat down on the bed, next to Yen. “Apparently, yes. But I don’t understand. He looked so sincere when he said those things. How could he be lying about them?” Yen replied. “I’m not sure if he was lying actually. Maybe he has feelings for the both of us and he didn’t know how to choose. So he thought he could have us at the same time. That way he didn’t have to make a decision.” Triss was looking lost hearing those words.

"I don’t care what he was thinking, Yen. He told me that I was his only one, and he lied.” She clenched her fists. “I want to make him pay, Yennefer. He broke my heart, I gave everything I was to him. I want to get revenge.” Yennefer turned around so she could look Triss in the eyes. “It’s so unlike you to say those things, Merigold. Normally you are always the one who wants to go for the kind and soft solution. I never took you for someone who would want to take revenge.” “I know. I always believed that going for the friendliest solution was the best solution. I didn’t want to turn out like Philippa is, cold and venomous. Now it seems to me that my beliefs have made me soft. I open my heart too easily and get hurt even easier. Look at what happened with Geralt.”

Yennefer sighed. “Listen Triss, this doesn’t change the fact that I hate you. I hate you for what you did to me. I am not sure if I will ever be able to call you my friend again, and frankly I’m not even sure if I want to. But I do want to get back at Geralt. I don’t care whether or not he did it on purpose, he did it. And by doing it he embarrassed me and made me look like a fool. I won’t have that, so I propose we put him through those same feelings.” Triss looked interested. “What do you have in mind?”

The black haired sorceress stood up from the bed and started pacing, which was something she usually didn’t do. After a couple of minutes of pacing back and forth the room, she walked to her desk, leaned against it and crossed her arm. “A trio.” She announced.

Triss stared at her with a expression that wouldn’t have been much different had she announced that she was actually a flying pig. Worry, confusion and disbelief were only a couple of emotions that you could read on the red haired sorceress’s face. “Sorry Yennefer… but what?”

“Don’t worry Merigold, I’m not proposing this because I actually want to bed you. Not at all. But we want to get back at the witcher for betraying our trust and trying to romance the both of us at the same time. And having a trio is the perfect way to achieve our mutual goal.” Yennefer snapped back. “Listen, we won’t be having an actual trio. Wouldn’t dream of doing that with you. Enough pretty girls out there. No, this is simply about getting back at him. He broke our hearts, so we will break something of value to him.”

Triss raised her eyebrow. “And what might that be?” “His pride.” “And how?” “When he returns here with Ciri we will talk to him. We will tell him that we talked and decided that we don’t want to fight over him anymore. That we all love each other after all. And since we have this huge battle ahead of us, we should make the most of the time we have together.” Triss stood up and moved towards Yennefer. “You know, that might actually work…” “of course it will.” “… but then what? Are you actually planning on having a trio with him? Can’t imagine that his pride will be hurt by that, only that it will grow even bigger.”

Hearing those words, Yennefer almost smiled. Almost. “No of course not. I have not sunken so low yet that I would consider having sex with you. No. We will tell him to go to the Kingfisher. He is to bring some good wine with him. We will be awaiting him wearing some sexy underwear and after teasing him for a bit we’ll use some shackles to lock him to the bed. And then we open the bottle, enjoy a glass of wine, and leave him there for the night.”

A wide mischievous grin appeared on Triss’s face. “You know what, Yen, that will be a lesson he deserves. It will work. But if I may, I would like to add something to your plan. We should send Dandelion to free him in the morning. That will make the embarrassment even bigger.” Yennefer smiled. For the first time in years, she smiled towards the red haired sorceress.

“You are absolutely right Merigold. I guess that makes it no longer my plan, but our plan.” A moment of silence fell between the two sorceresses. And for the first time in years, the silence wasn’t filled with a quiet thunderstorm. For the first time since everything between Triss and Geralt had happened, she wondered if she could rekindle the friendship she once had with Triss. At this point she thought that maybe they could. Maybe. Time would tell.

“Now if you don’t mind leaving, I still have some work to do.” Triss nodded in understanding. “Of course Yennefer, I am sorry for bothering you this long.” Yen waved her hands, as if she was dismissing her. When Triss opened the door and was about to walk out of the room, she paused for a moment.

She took a deep breath and then said “Goodnight Yenna.” Yennefer didn’t respond and turned her attention back to the papers lying on the desk. A split second before the door fell in the lock, Yennefer whispered “Goodnight Triss”.

[lookbackmachine]

Disney Afternoon Part 2

The Disney Afternoon Pt 2

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0:00:00 Speaker 1: The Disney Afternoon hit an unexpected hiccup a few years earlier that was finally starting to rear its ugly head. Eisner and Katzenberg would try to strong-arm their former boss Barry Diller, which would lead to unexpected new competition. In 1988, Eisner bought a television station in Los Angeles that eventually became KCAL. With his new station, he obviously wanted to air Disney product. There was a problem. They were already airing the Disney Afternoon on Fox affiliates, Barry Diller's network.

0:00:32 S1: According to DisneyWar, Eisner had Katzenberg call Diller. In Diller's recounting of the discussion, Katzenberg said, "We want to renegotiate the Disney Afternoon, and we're taking away the LA market." Diller was shocked. They had a contract. "That's not fair," he protested. "I know you bought an LA station, but give us two or three years to replace this. Let's be reasonable." Diller called Eisner, who refused. "We were there for you when you needed us," Diller reminded him, pointing out that he'd bought the original programming for Disney Afternoon. Eisner still refused. "Okay then, we're out of business," Diller said. Fox promptly dropped the Disney Afternoon from all of its wholly owned stations and encouraged its affiliates to do the same. Still, that wasn't what put Diller over the edge. Even though he felt Eisner had betrayed him, it was when Disney sued Fox on antitrust grounds claiming Fox was trying to monopolize children's programming and then complained to the FCC that Fox was a morally unfit broadcaster with programming like the Simpsons.

0:01:35 S1: When Disney lawyers approached Diller about a possible settlement, Diller said the only settlement he'd consider was an apology. Disney ended up dropping the suit in 1992, but Diller told David Geffen, "I'm never going to speak to him, Eisner, again." Fox would launch its own kids programming in 1990, which would eventually cut into Disney's ratings with the cultural phenomenon Power Rangers, not to mention Batman, the animated series, and Animaniacs. Power Rangers was a show that no one wanted. It was turned down by everyone, and then became the show everyone wanted and wanted to replicate. Premiering in August of 1993, by December it was the biggest kid show by far. According to the Baltimore Sun, it was averaging a 12.5 on weekends with kids two to 11. Fox's X-Men was doing a 10.0. And it was first on weekdays. It was doing a 7.5 rating. Second was Fox's Animaniacs with a 5.6, and the highest rated non-Fox show on weekdays was Bonkers with a 4.5. Also in 1994, Power Ranger toy sales would reach nearly a billion dollars. At their highest height, Ninja Turtles had done only $450 million in sales.

0:02:50 S1: The butterfly effect was now spreading its wings, and the Disney Afternoon would take a hit, as did the future of syndication as networks realized they should be promoting their own IPs instead of other companies. It would even happen to Fox when Warner Brothers would take its popular hits, Batman and Animaniacs, and put it on their own WB network. And it wasn't just network competitors anymore, cable had entered the market as well. Nickelodeon had popped into the world of animation and their first three cartoons, Ren and Stimpy, Doug, and Rugrats had all been big successes. The syndication window was closing in the not too distant future, but for now Disney Television Animation was about to change with the times.

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0:03:43 S1: Greg Weisman, creator Gargoyles.

0:03:46 Greg Weisman: The pitch for Aladdin, that I pitched to Eisner, it was just one poster shot of Aladdin and the Genie and three words, "Aladdin the series". He's like, "Sold." That was it. And I knew that. In other words, going in, it was like I could have given this whole pitch on Aladdin, but I thought anything I say would only give him a reason to say no. Aladdin's this huge movie. Let him imagine what the show is.

0:04:11 S1: Tad Stones, creator of Darkwing Duck.

0:04:14 Tad Stones: At the end of Darkwing, I said, "Okay, now Darkwing worked much closer." I think I can get even closer with my next show, which was going to be a science fiction show. Again, a comedy. The staff loved it, but the boss did not. I never got to pitch it to Michael and Jeffrey. You know, had a meeting, I said, "Oh, I'm gonna get a chance to do it." And it was like, "No." They wanted me to do Aladdin. Now, Aladdin was done by Ron Clements, John Musker. I said, "I used to room with... In the same office as Ron Clements." I mean I was literally four feet away from him. "Let me talk to those guys." With Aladdin there was the other thing that I did the first direct to home video, Return of Jafar. And all I was trying to do was keep our budgets up. And I thought, if there's one more source of revenue that comes in from our shows, this would be the excuse to not cut budgets or give us the money we need to pull off some of this stuff. I called up Home Video and said, "Technically, when I do this four part episode pilot to set up the show, technically it's the sequel to Aladdin. Are you interested?" And the guy took it to the higher ups and they were not.

0:05:25 TS: Then they put out Aladdin on video. Again, it broke records. They made a huge amount of money, and I called the guy back and again restated what I was doing. And this time he took it to the top and they were very interested. And we had a story meeting with my boss where he gave all sorts of notes. And I said, "Well, we got... That's a lot to pull off. We have to do that by March 14th or whatever the date was." He said, "Why?" I said, "Well, Home Video was willing to put this out on literally video at that time." And he said, "That's gravy. Do these notes and if you get them done in time, that's fine." And I had to be told this later by people who were in the room 'cause I had forgotten that I had said, "Okay we have to take those notes, but it also has to be done by this date so I can get it to Home Video."

0:06:11 TS: We did. And Return of Jafar was made for $3.5 million and it made something between $180 and $200 million domestic out on video. This may be apocryphal, but I was told that it was the first quarter where the company wouldn't have grown. Well, I don't know what, ten percent or whatever the number was, and I guess a bunch of executives had bonuses tied into profit growth. Evidently that was the first quarter that there wouldn't be bonuses, and then suddenly everybody got a bonus, and it was because of Return of Jafar, that out of nowhere this thing came in and making all this money. And that started the whole direct to video thing.

0:06:53 TS: All I was trying to do was to keep our budgets up. The stories involving the bonuses, they tried to do things like Lucas had with Star Wars had given everybody involved points or some sort of bonus, so they had X amount of money and they divided it up so everybody got something. And what that led to is whoever was last in line, some of the lower level people, got a bonus, a check of $50 or $100, whatever. People who basically were in the department who didn't work on the show, and all that did was piss them off 'cause they knew how much the movie had made. I got $14,000 and I told that to Ron and John. Now I was not an idiot. I knew that the only reason why the movie made that much money is because they had done an incredible Aladdin, and I remember telling that to them and their reaction was, "You got ripped off." And I realized, yeah, in live action terms, if you do a crappy spinoff of something that made a lot of money and your crappy spinoff makes a ton of money, you get a five picture deal and a new car in your driveway as a present from the studio. In animation, I was happy to get the bonus. But get a pat on the back and then you move on, do something else for us.

0:08:09 S1: Jymn Magon, writer.

0:08:11 Jymn Magon: Disney's had a definite style there for a while, of... I think we cornered the market in the comedy adventure genre. When Disney execs felt like they needed to branch out, I felt like the formula fell by the wayside. And it's like, "Hey, look what John Kricfalusi is doing on Ren and Stimpy. Let's do something like that. Hey, look what Warner Brothers is doing with superheroes. Let's do something like that." And I felt like, "Oh, this is interesting." Obviously, we're branching out, trying new things. But it felt weird to me that where we had before had been sort of chopping our way through the jungle, creating our own path. Now we were sort of following other people's paths, copying them. And that always seemed odd to me. But anyway, department does what the department does over the years, and the changes, and the new policy, and it gets worse or it gets better. And is it Disney? Yes, because it's Disney TV Animation. They're Disney and this is the show they're doing. It becomes part of the canon, you know.

0:09:15 S1: In 1994, Variety reported that Disney was spending $50 million to boost its afternoon, which resulted in two new series, Shnookums and Meat, and Gargoyles. Gargoyles, Aladdin, and Shnookums helped cut into the lead of Fox, but there was a larger problem that television animation was about to encounter. Disney's syndication contract with networks ran only through 1997, meaning that other networks could produce their own shows and make more money. This would leave Disney Animation without a home because Disney didn't own a network. In fact, earlier in the year, they had tried to buy NBC but failed. Total viewership was also in decline during this period, which had to do with VCRs, computers, and video games offering alternatives to television. And to add to the uncertainty of 1994, Jeffrey Katzenberg left the company and he left because he was fired by Michael Eisner.

0:10:12 S1: In a walk in Aspen together, according to Katzenberg, Eisner promised him that if anything happened to Frank Wells, Katzenberg would take over Wells's role as president. Eisner would later say that Katzenberg misunderstood this conversation. Unfortunately, something did happen to Wells. He was killed in a tragic helicopter crash on April 3, 1994. But business stops for no man, and Eisner went back on his word and did not put Katzenberg in Wells's position as president, nor did he name him as his successor. To make matters worse, in a white glove slap to the face to Katzenberg, Eisner took on the role of president himself. This led to a further deterioration of their relationship and Eisner gave Katzenberg his walking papers. Eventually Eisner also refused Katzenberg part of his contract, which stated Katzenberg would get two percent of all profits from any of the projects he had worked on at Disney.

0:11:08 S1: So, like all great Hollywood love stories, they went to court. At one point it came out that Eisner had said he hated that midget, referring to Katzenberg. The case could have been settled for $90 million at one point, but instead it was eventually settled for $280 million in Katzenberg's favor. And then to further complicate matters, Katzenberg went on to form DreamWorks with Spielberg and David Geffen. In the midst of all that, Shnookums and Meat, a funny cartoon show, was being made. Bill Kopp, animator.

0:11:40 Bill Kopp: And then I got a call from Disney Television, which I had never heard of. I didn't even know they had it. And Gary Krisel and Bruce Cranston made me an offer. They said, "Hey, we need some new funny stuff and we really think your eat show is funny, and can you come and do a funny show?" And I was like, "Well, like what?" And they were like, "Whatever you want." Seriously. I didn't have to pitch anything. They were just like, "Just come over and we'll do whatever comes out of your head." It was incredible. So I had a sketchbook full of stuff, and I just came in. And they said, "Well, how about a cat and a dog?" I said, "Okay." We started with that, and that must have been 1992 or 1993, something like that. I forget. Pitching at Disney now. I'm not saying [0:12:22] ____. I mean, it's legendarily hard. It's like running a gauntlet. There's all these people in these giant buildings and you just got to carve your way through. And then once you do get into development, you're gonna be there for a year or two just trying to get it through. My experience was, we had lunch and the next week I was there with a contract.

0:12:40 BK: There was no feeling of pressure or ever like, "Oh my God, the wheels are coming off." It never was like that. And we had a saying that Disney [0:12:49] ____. It's like, "Well, if something's... If something crashes, well, I'll just throw money at it." You know. Nobody bothered us. When they said, "You can do whatever you want," they never brought it up. I remember sitting in the editor room with Gary Krisel, who was a great guy, and he'd look at some of the rough animation coming back. He'd look at me and he'd go, "Is that funny?" And we're like, "Yeah, that's funny." He just trusted us, and it was awesome. Now, Jeffie came over one day, as he frequently did, while we were kicking it around. And I said, "The cat's kind of abrasive. So let's give him the opposite kind of name," you know, Shnookum, 'cause he was kind of a dick. And then we were just like, "What the fuck are we gonna call this dog?" We had no clue. Just nothing. And Jeffie came up with the name, and I think we were actually barbecuing something, which we also frequently did. And I think he just said, "Meat." And we had the design already. And I said, "Fuck, that's it."

0:13:40 BK: Shnookums and Meat. A little confusion came when they made the SpaghettiOs though. I had a can of them around here, they finally just deteriorated. I had to get rid of it, it was gonna explode. And it said, "Shnookums and Meat." It was like SpaghettiOs. The lawyers were like, "No, no, no, man. You gotta say that it's not meat. It's not a meat product."

0:13:58 Shnookums: Hey, what happened to your head?

0:14:00 Meat: Hey, what happened to your head?

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0:14:07 Shnookums: Oh my gosh, my brain's gone.

0:14:10 Meat: Oh no, mine is to. What we gonna do Shnookums, what we gonna do? We don't have any brains.

0:14:21 Shnookums: Now, let's stay calm. I don't think you have too much to worry about, but I know I do. They couldn't have gone far.

0:14:27 BK: Right after the first two shorts went on to [0:14:29] ____ said, "Okay, let's make it a whole half hour. What else do you got?" And I just pulled out the Pith Possum, and the Tex Tinstar bit was gonna be a space serial called Guy Guy and the Space Vigilantes. We were all set to go, and then I got a call from John Kricfalusi, and I had Fontanelli there, you know, all of Kricfalusi's guys, [0:14:47] ____ was there. A couple... Eddie Fitzgerald. And John called me. He goes, "Hey man, I heard you're expanding your show, but can you maybe not do a space thing?" Actually, it was like getting a call from the Godfather. He was like, "Yeah, don't do a space thing." And I was like, I go, "Why?" And he goes, "Well, 'cause I'm working on one. I've been working on it for a while." Actually, Fontanelli brought that up to me too. So I just turned it into a western, which was easy because I was happy to accommodate. But I guess he never sold his space thing.

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0:15:14 Speaker 8: Pith Possum. At one time an ordinary laboratory possum. He was changed forever by an experiment gone wrong, an experiment that endowed him with ultra possum-like abilities, turning him into Pith Possum, super dynamic possum of tomorrow. Maintaining his secret identity by cleverly disguising himself as Peter Possum, copy boy for a great metropolitan tabloid. He defends truth, justice, and the forest critter way for the good citizens of Possum City.

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0:15:56 Speaker 9: Let me just grab what I have in store for you. The rope that holds you up Tinstar, will soon be burned through by that candle. When you fall, you'll land head first on this trampoline, which will send you flying into the pen full of rabid badgers. As you go down the ramp inside the pen, this torch will be knocked over, igniting the trail of gunpowder burning toward that cannon. Your barrel will roll toward that cannon and your head will become stuck. The gunpowder will burn the cannon's fuse and the cannon will fire. The blast will ignite the waterproof fuses on the dynamite surrounding your head. The cannon will shoot you through the roof of the barn, and then down into this giant tank full of man-eating sharks. The sharks will eat you. Then the dynamite will explode. The whole mess will be blown skyward and your remains will fall into this envelope, which I will place on a boat bound for Tunisia. So long, Tinstar.

0:16:48 BK: Anyway, and that was Shnookums and Meat, but again, that was so busy and I was the only writer. I wrote all 39 of those because I didn't know any better. After the show was on the air and we were done, Jeffie and I sat around. I went to Hawaii for six weeks to recuperate. I came back and they were just like, "Well, we don't know about the second season." And I mean, Shnookums and Meat was not... It was amazing that they let us do it 'cause it's not Disney, really. Well, it's not out of line, but it's weird. So we were just sitting there waiting to get the word, and I mean the writing was on the wall. I was like, "Yeah okay, there goes that. What are we gonna do next?" And I was there still getting paid. I developed other stuff. Jeffie and I were like, "This is gonna crack, man. What are we gonna fucking do now?"

0:17:34 BK: We didn't have a plan. And then, what happened was they said, "Oh, sorry boys. You're through." And we were like, "Ah fuck, okay well, at least we got that out." I mean that was three in one, dude. You got Pith and Tex, and Shnookum and Meat was actually our weakest link in the thing. And that was the only part that was foisted on us. But right after they canceled it, that was when Gary Krisel and Bruce Cranston left to go to Dreamworks, and we were like, "Ah." And it was like a sad goodbye and stuff.

0:18:06 BK: A new executive moved in, and we just weren't part of their plan. Because... And rightfully... They didn't know what to do with us. We were like a weird thing that, they were like, "Huh? Now what with these guys?" But we had a good time. I think we sort of knew in the back of our heads, it was like, "Wow, this will never last here." It isn't Disney material. The real story of that time was they were trying to keep up with Margaret and Fox Kids, and they were right to try crazy things. To their credit, they really, they stuck right by it. And then they... And Gary and Bruce did the same for us at DreamWorks when we went to do Toonsylvania.

0:18:42 S1: Greg Weisman, creator Gargoyles.

0:18:44 GW: We had the Disney Afternoon, which we viewed as sort of like the dragon that you had to feed a virgin to every six months. So every six months, we'd go up in front of Michael Eisner. In those days, Michael personally chose the shows. And we would pitch him six or seven shows. And he knew he always had to pick one to put into production. He could pick more than one, but he had to always pick at least one.

0:19:10 S1: Jymn Magon.

0:19:11 JM: Yeah, what we would do is every week, we would have this writer's meeting that I think it was Wednesday mornings, and it was like any new writers out there, any new talent, any new ideas, it was always looking for what are we gonna pitch? What's the next big thing? And of course, like everything in Hollywood, it was basically, what was the most recent hit film? With Star Wars, Indiana Jones, whatever. But people would come in and they'd pitch all kinds of things. And the things that were noteworthy would get... I'm not sure we did artwork on all of it, but at least we had a list of shows that we would take to the meetings with Eisner and Katzenberg and say, "Okay, this is called Wonder Weenie. It's about a guy in a hot dog suit that gets kidnapped and taken to another planet, where they think he's a hero 'cause of his television commercials." And it was like, Gong. [chuckle] "No, next." And we would just do that. We would come up with these sort of one, two sentence pitches and they would go, "Nah, or yeah."

0:20:13 S1: Greg Weisman.

0:20:14 GW: We were all sort of keeping an eye on Batman, and sort of seeing was this going to be a success or not? It was a serious drama on cartoon, and would that work? Because the conventional wisdom is it always has to be comedy, and often it's a pendulum and that conventional wisdom swings back into the forefront all the time. But Batman was working, it was working so well they tried it in prime time, and then it didn't work in prime time. And so the desire for us to do something along those lines sort of waxed and waned, often with Batman's ratings. And we didn't have superheroes in our camp so to speak, so we didn't wanna do Batman, we didn't wanna copy that, but we wanted to try and do something different. But that's not how Gargoyles came about at all. Those are almost two separate discussions that dovetailed later.

0:21:08 GW: Gargoyles was initially developed as a comedy adventure, very much inspired by and along the lines of Gummi Bears, Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, which was a show we were really proud of, created by a guy named Jymn Magon. We thought was great. It had this very rich backstory and we thought it didn't get enough respect, and we thought that the main reason for that was because there was brand confusion with Care Bears. Care Bears was a sort of sacchariney sweet, kinda awful show, from my point of anyway. But the brand confusion was understandable because both shows featured cute, cuddly, multi-colored bears. Gummi Bears wasn't that. It was an adventure show. It was funny. It was exciting. It had a great comedic villain in Duke Igthorn and great sidekick in [0:21:54] ____, and great characters, and just a lot of fun. So we set out very consciously to create a show in that vein with the same sort of rich backstory, but that would get more respect. So everything in the 90s, the sort of buzz word was everything had to be edgy. Instead of doing cute, cuddly, multi-colored bears, we did cute, cuddly, multi-colored gargoyles. Gargoyles having been something that fascinated me since I was in high school.

0:22:23 GW: And we thought that's edgier. And instead of setting it in medieval times, we'd have this rich medieval backstory, but we'd set it in the present. We'd have gargoyles have a spell cast on them and they'd wake up in the 20th century, and that seemed edgier too. And so we thought, we can do this kind of show and have this fun comedy adventure with Gargoyles. So we put together a pitch, and we pitched it to Michael Eisner, and he passed. But we really liked the show and my bosses, Bruce and Gary, both really liked it. And they were like, "Well, take another pass at it." So I showed it to a number of people, just the original comedy pitch, to try and get some feedback and see what else I might do with it. One of the people I showed it to was Tad Stones.

0:23:06 TS: Gargoyles had a long history of things that are in a direct line that ended up with Gargoyles. And some of them didn't involve Gargoyles at all. They were gremlins, or whatever. The last thing I'd been playing with I think was a Three Musketeers version of these gargoyles. I had just seen the rough cut of Beauty and the Beast. So again, I'm instrumental. I'm not a genius, at least not in that meeting. Greg had asked me in just to talk about things and be in the discussion with his assistants basically. Again, he was an executive. And I said, "What if he was the last of the gargoyles? This could be your Beauty and the Beast 'cause you've already got the female there." He is one of the fastest thinkers I've ever seen. While he's watching a movie, he is analyzing, dissecting it. And walking out of a movie he'll have all sorts of comments, where I'm going, "Well, I thought the colors were nice." Anyway, he was on to something, he kind of said to his assistant, "Okay, you follow up on the Three Musketeers angle. I wanna work on this."

0:24:07 GW: And that really clicked for me. And so I created the character of Goliath with the artist Greg Guler, and we took the whole show, the whole comedy development and put it through the prism of Goliath and came out the other side fundamentally with the show that made it on the air. And we were so enthusiastic about it, we came up with all these concepts for villains and adventures and stories and put together this huge long pitch and pitched it to Eisner six months after we'd pitched it the first time. And he passed, killed it. And so I thought it was done. We tried. It wasn't the first time I'd pitched a show and it had gotten killed. And the next day we had what we called a postmortem meeting. In those days, Jeffrey Katzenberg was... And Michael ran the whole company, but Jeffrey Katzenberg was head of the studio. And so Jeffrey had been in the meeting with Gary and Bruce and I, and we were having this postmortem meeting where we were discussing actually the shows that Michael had said yes to and what the next steps would be. And so after having this discussion about the yes shows, we all got up to go. And as I'm about to go, Jeffrey said to me, "Oh, and you're gonna work on Gargoyles some more, right?"

0:25:20 GW: And Bruce and I sort of looked at each other, and I was like, "Well no, Michael killed it. He killed it as a comedy. He killed it as a drama. I don't know what else we'd do with it." And Jeffrey said, "Oh, Michael didn't kill it, he just thought it needed more work." Now I had been there the day before, and I knew that he had killed it. But what this was telling me was that Michael may not have liked it, but Jeffrey liked it. And in those days Jeffrey wasn't gonna contradict what Michael had said, but he still felt it was worth pursuing. I also found out later that Gary had talked to Jeffrey about the need to diversify the Disney Afternoon from the standpoint of all we had in those days were very similar, funny animal comedy adventure cartoons, and that if we just kept doing that over and over again, eventually the audience would get bored with those kind of cartoons. No matter how good they were, they'd just get bored with them. And we had to bring other types of things in, which led to shows like Goof Troop, which was really more sitcom than comedy adventure. Shows like Shnookums and Meat, which was more sort of Tex Avery short cartoons, and Gargoyles.

0:26:36 GW: And so we went back to the drawing board for a third time to try and figure out how we were gonna pitch Gargoyles for a third time. And we looked at the show that we had, and we thought, "Nope, this is the show. We don't wanna change the show at all." So the problem isn't the show, the problem is the pitch. And what you realize is that we had just put way too much into the pitch. It had diffused it all and gotten confusing and we hadn't been crisp and clear. So we just pulled things out, things that we eventually did use in the show, but we pulled all these elements out and really narrowed it down to the key idea, which frankly, was the Beauty and the Beast idea.

0:27:16 GW: It was this relationship between Goliath, the lead gargoyle, and Elisa, the cop, who befriends him in the 20th century after he wakes up. And we very much played it like Beauty and the Beast, which actually was a movie that had done very well for Disney recently. So six months later, we pitched it to Michael a third time, and this time they bought it. We had added nothing to this pitch, we just subtracted. I'd reordered a few things. We may have redrawn a card or two just to clarify an idea, but there was nothing new, it was just shorter. Jeffrey turned to me and said, "You added a lot to that pitch didn't you?" And I said, "Yes, I did." And that was history. We went on and made the show.

0:28:03 Speaker 10: One thousand years ago superstition in the sword ruled. It was a time of darkness, it was a world of fear, it was the age of Gargoyles. Stone by day, warriors by night. We were betrayed by the humans we had sworn to protect, frozen in stone by a magic spell for a thousand years. Now, here in Manhattan, the spell is broken and we live again. We are defenders of the night. We are Gargoyles!

0:29:01 GW: And so, yes, relative to Goof Troop it's dark, but I don't think of it as dark. There's tons of humor in that show. The color palette is rich, full of blues and purples and magentas and neon. It's not a dark show either visually or thematically. It's fundamentally a show about a guy, Goliath, who's an optimist, who believes that the world can be a better place, that bad things happen but they can be fixed, that the next generation can do better or that we can make it better. And so it's got a fundamentally optimistic tone to it. In terms of supervision, the advantage there was that I'd been the executive at Disney for five years when we went into production. I often compare it to a lunatic asylum, TV animation, in that there are inmates and then there are trustees, and the trustees are actually also inmates, but they're considered by management to be less crazy.

0:30:07 GW: So they give the trustee a stick, a baton to keep the other lunatics in line. And so that's how I sort of see my role on Gargoyles. I was the lunatic most trusted. So because of what was going on, both in the larger company and at TV Animation, there were a lot of shows in crisis for various reasons. And because of that and because I was in charge of Gargoyles, which I produced with Frank Paur, we were both producers, but from an executive standpoint it was still me. I was the lunatic most trusted at Disney TV Animation, so they kinda left us alone. And I remember at one point, Frank and I had lunch with Gary during season two and Gary said, "I wanna apologize to you guys. I have not been paying attention to Gargoyles at all. We've had other things going on. How is it going? What's going on? How's it going on the show?"

0:30:54 GW: And we said, "Well, it's going pretty good. Schedule's tough, but we're managing and we're happy with how things are turning out." He's like, "Great. What kind of stories are you doing?" So we started telling him about that and at one point we told him about Xanatos and Fox getting married and having a baby. And he goes, "Whoa, whoa. I wouldn't do that. You can't have the bad guy have a baby. You can't have the bad guy raising a kid. You gonna take the kid away from him? That'll be bad. And if you don't take the kid away from him then you got a villain raising a kid. Don't do that one."

0:31:23 GW: And we were like looking at each other and then I say to him, "Well, we already did it." So there was this long pause. And Frank and I are both sort of like what's gonna happen here? Is he gonna still reject it and force us to sort of tear the whole show apart and start over? And you could sort of tell he's thinking the same thing, like he doesn't like this idea at all. But on the other hand, this was the one show that was going smoothly, and if he rips it all apart, then he's gotta get another show in crisis. So after this long pause, he says to us, "Well, don't dwell on it." I said, "Okay, we won't dwell on it." Whatever the hell that meant, but so we didn't. I mean we didn't do it, we didn't change anything, but that was the kind of thing, we had very little supervision because of where I had come from. We pretty much made the show that Frank and I wanted to make and had almost no interference whatsoever.

0:32:25 GW: Gargoyles was sort of superheroes done without flagging that they're superheroes. No tights, no capes. For all intents and purposes that was the genre we were doing. A year or so later, I was in a meeting with Eisner where he announced his desire to buy Marvel, and I watched his corporate strategic guys talk him out of it and say, "Marvel's a disaster. They've got their rights sold all over the place. So you'd buy the company and then find out you can't make a movie about Spiderman because they've tripled sold the rights to three different companies. And Fantastic Four is being held by this company. And blah, blah, blah, blah."

0:33:05 GW: Now of course, years later Bob Iger just bought it anyway, and yeah, couldn't do X-Men, couldn't do Fantastic Four, couldn't do Spiderman, at least not at first, bought it anyway. Of course, it's been a huge success for Disney. But Eisner was talked out of it that day. So he turned to us, to Gary and Bruce and myself and says, "Can we use Gargoyles to start a Disney superhero universe?" And I said, "Yeah." And we began developing spinoffs, which we would do backdoor pilots for during season two of the show. But by the time those things got on the air, Jeffrey had left the company. Rich Frank had left the company. Frank Wells had died. Bruce had left the company. All the main supporters of Gargoyles had gone, and so that notion of using Gargoyles to launch Disney's own superhero universe sort of fell away.

0:34:01 GW: But for, I don't know, three or four months, it was like this is what we've got to do 'cause we can't buy Marvel, and Warner Brothers has DC. And on one level, and I don't think we even appreciated it at the time, but the great thing about Michael himself picking the shows was that everyone in every division got on board or got out of the way. In the years that followed, when Michael stopped picking the shows personally, those decisions began being made by committee. You found you had to get literally unanimous vote in order to sell a show. You needed not just one important person to say yes, or two or three, but literally you needed something like eight or nine people to say yes. And if even one said no, the others would jump off the show. And it became much harder to sell. So Michael was sort of the last of the moguls from my point of view, and we didn't appreciate it at the time 'cause there were so many shows he passed on that we thought were great, but what we didn't get was yeah, that may have been so but the shows he picked we got to just make. And that hasn't been the same in most places since then.

0:35:12 GW: I think what happened was, is that over time, there was this sort of sense within the corporation that Michael was micromanaging, not from us per se. I don't think it had anything to do with TV Animation, but just in general. And there was this sense that he had to start giving some things up. One of the things he gave up was choosing the animated series, but he didn't invest that power in another individual. Again, sort of became a decision by committee, a committee where any one person could derail something.

0:35:40 Speaker 11: Five-eights today to close at 42 and five-eights, one day after the company announced the resignation of Disney studio's chief Jeffrey Katzenberg. While rumors run rampant about where Katzenberg will end up, Disney chairman Michael Eisner said today, the company will likely produce fewer films.

0:35:57 GW: Jeffrey left. Rich Frank left. A lot of this was in the wake of Frank Wells's death, which was a tragedy in it's own right, but also destabilized the company. Roy Disney was not happy with Jeffrey. Ultimately, not happy with Michael either. So ultimately, both departed and Gary had at least a couple job offers that I know about, maybe more. I think Jeffrey wanted him at DreamWorks and had an offer out to him, and then when Bruce Cranston left to go to Dreamworks, Gary decided that DreamWorks would be a good place to sort of work with Bruce again and reform that team. So Gary also picked DreamWorks. So you had Jeffrey, Gary, and Bruce all at DreamWorks. Those were the three guys who I'd worked with. So at Disney, everyone sort of assumed that I'd be going to DreamWorks.

0:36:50 GW: When my deal was up at the end of the second season of Gargoyles, that I'd leave and go to DreamWorks. And I didn't actually want to. I wanted to stay and do a third season of Gargoyles. But it became this self-fulfilling prophesy. They were so sure I was gonna go to DreamWorks that they stopped inviting me to meetings, 'cause they thought of me as I was already spying for DreamWorks or something. It was kind of ridiculous. But they didn't make a job offer to me until a week before I was leaving, at which point, I did end up going to DreamWorks because I didn't have any other job offers. A week out they finally made an offer to me too late. So I went. And they really kind of made it clear that I wasn't welcome there anymore.

0:37:36 GW: In November of 1995, I wanna say, they came to me, and said they wanted me to do the third season of Gargoyles but they were offering me a demotion from producer to story editor. They said the show was going to be animated at Deak, but Deak had a very bad track record in those days in terms of the look of the thing, and that it would be pre-produced there as well. And they gave me a schedule in November of 1995, where the first script was due in October of 1995. And I looked at the schedule. I said, "Well, do you have a time machine? Because I don't know how I'm supposed to go back and deliver a script in October when it's already November and we haven't started." And they're like, "Well, we know that schedule's gotta be adjusted, but we wanted you to see where it had to end so you'd have to catch up. Not instantaneously, but by the end of the season you'd have to catch up." And so it felt to me like they were asking me to preside over the demise of the show. That they were reducing the budget, reducing the quality of the animation, reducing the quality of all the preproduction, giving us an impossible schedule, and then asking me on top of all that, to take it to motion.

0:38:57 GW: And we didn't even talk about money. That... We didn't even get to that. I just said, "Look, I need the weekend to think about this." And they said, "Great. Take the weekend." And then I came in Monday and they had hired my replacement already. And I said, "What the hell?" And they said, "Oh well, you can still say yes. You're a... We just figured we needed someone in case you said no." Which basically said they were trying to get me to say no. They were trying to make the deal so horrible that I'd say no. So I just said, "Fine, I'll walk away." And so I winded up going to DreamWorks, and they all sort of patted themselves on the back and said, "See, we knew he was gonna go to DreamWorks." But of course they're the reason I went to DreamWorks 'cause they basically kicked me out. Not literally, but basically.

0:39:44 GW: I ended up writing the first episode for them, which they gave to other people to add it into whatever. So the version that got on TV was, I thought, a mess, but still better than the other 12, which were done by good people, but good people who didn't know the show and didn't have time to familiarize themselves with the show. And so those last, that last season of Gargoyles, the fans and I just don't even count it as canon to the series. And we look at the comic book series that I did years later as the sort of true third season. I watched the third season. I watched every episode exactly once. That's not quite true, I watched the one that I wrote more than once, not a lot, but the other 12 I watched exactly once each and made myself do it. I don't know why, but I did. It was very painful for me on a lot of levels, not just again, not just because I didn't think they were very good, which I didn't, even though I know a lot of good people worked on them, but characters were just behaving out of character. And the stories just weren't up to our standards. And it was just a different show.

0:40:57 S1: The original Mighty Ducks movie was made because Eisner's kids liked hockey. So it got a green light. And based on the success of the movie, which the company termed market research, Eisner bought an expansion NHL team and promptly named them the Mighty Ducks. And with that purchase came an addition to the television line up. The Mighty Ducks, the Animated Series, premiered in September 1996, and Joe Barruso, and animation veteran, served as a director and supervising producer.

0:41:27 Joe Barruso: The reason I was able get a job at Disney, and went from Deak to Disney I think had more to do with the fact that the show that I had directed and produced, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego, had won an Emmy in '95 as the best children's animated program. And it was one of the first shows that they called edutainment because it had this emphasis on providing real information, whether it was historical or science, in combination with an entertaining story. It was a detective-type story where a couple of younger kids were pursuing Carmen Sandiego. It was based on a computer game that was very popular at that time. They were looking for someone specifically for Mighty Ducks at the time. They needed a producer and director. And so yeah, I went and interviewed specifically for that project.

0:42:20 JB: In the initial meetings they showed me what they had done to that point and it wasn't a lot. It's funny, thinking back on it, it had started because Friends was very popular at that time, hugely successful at that time, so they wanted something like Friends. I remember them pitching it to me that way, and I thought, "Oh well, that's interesting." In the development that I'd seen to that point, when it was the Friend's concept, it was like we had in the show ultimately, it was human characters with duck heads, so it was sort of breaking with Disney tradition in terms of DuckTales and things that were clearly Donald Duck type characters. This was a new twist on the ducks for them. And that wasn't tremendously interesting to me, but then I can't recall at what point it shifted and became more sci-fi based, you know heroes in the image of sort of Ninja Turtles. And that's when David Wise, the editor, came on board.

0:43:22 JB: It was clear it was gonna go that direction. He had had a great deal of experience with Ninja Turtles, editing those shows, so he brought all that thinking and that expertise in terms of that particular genre, in going in that direction. He bought all that. That's when I was excited about... Sci-fi had always been a big interest for me and then anime was just getting really a lot of attention at that time. It really caught my interest, so that when we started talking that way, I was like, "Oh well, this will be great. We can use anime influences on this." But yeah, I think the old school that was there, because it was ducks, was a little uncomfortable. But our character designer, Greg Guler, he had had a longstanding relationship with Disney TV, and so he had done it all. He really knew it inside out. At the same time he had a great interest in superheroes. His background, he had originally come from comic books, so his first love was superheroes. So here he had a chance to combine Disney ducks with superheroes, so it was really a perfect opportunity for him. He was just a fantastic artist. So it all sort of came together.

0:44:32 JB: I was relieved that it was moving away from sort of a Friends sitcom to something more sci-fi and hero based. All our influences in terms of doing the art were harder edged. We never really got to go as far in that sci-fi direction as we would have liked to, but the way it's done is in terms of the development and art direction, it's sort of a consensus. So you have to put it in front of a whole bunch of people. And that included at the time, that included Michael Eisner and Michael Ovitz. We had meetings where they reviewed the artwork, and so they would have their input. I was kind of reaching for one end of the spectrum, and them pulling us back to something that was a little more comfortable. I was pleased that we were able to go as far as we did, given what they had done with ducks to that point.

0:45:24 Speaker 13: Six hockey playing ducks appear out of nowhere and suddenly six vigilantes in comic book get-up start showing up whenever there's trouble. Spill it. Where are they from? Another planet?

0:45:36 Speaker 14: Not another planet babe. A whole 'nother universe.

0:45:40 S1: And in this universe, there's a planet inhabited entirely by ducks.

0:45:45 Speaker 15: They called it Puckworld in honor of their greatest hero, the legendary hockey player, Drake DuCaine. He was the ultimate team captain. He saved Puckworld from a horde of conquering aliens, called the Saurian Overlords, hundreds of years ago.

0:46:00 JB: Michael Eisner, he was excited about it because he was excited about the hockey team. So here was just an opportunity to promote it.

0:46:07 Speaker 16: Well, this is sad news indeed for Duck fans. It looks like the Mighty Ducks season long winning streak may be coming to an end. They're tied with the Maine Quahogs with forty seconds remaining at Quahog Center. John Luke [0:46:20] ____ is aiming to score again. Oh, a spectacular save by the Mighty Ducks goalie, Wildwing. You know, not only are these ducks mighty, they're really ducks.

0:46:36 JB: Interesting thing that we did, which was sort of unconventional, was after the shows would come back animated, we would of course assemble them. It was decided that they were not funny enough. I would spend large amounts of time each day sitting with two comedy writers who would rewrite the shows. And rewrite jokes into the shows. And we would sit and we would have to make sure, because the shows were already animated, we would have to make sure that the new lines would work with the mouths that we already had. So, it was a grueling exercise of... They're trying to be funny, trying to... Coming up with jokes, but we had to make sure that they could work in the animation, as it was already completed. That was different, yeah, maybe one in ten were actually worth all the time and energy.

0:47:29 S1: So these hockey playing ducks were attacked by a dinosaur named Dragaunus. Am I hearing you right?

0:47:36 S1: You're bright, you got it babe.

0:47:38 S1: Beautiful. I could have stayed home watching sci-fi chiller theater, but this is much funnier. All right, what happened next?

0:47:48 JB: It was kind of disappointing that it went away just after 26 episodes 'cause there really was a big push behind it. The Disney marketing machine and merchandising machine was behind it entirely. And Mattel was on board entirely for the toy line. And I guess it was the second largest toy line in Canada, second only to Star Wars at that time, which makes sense 'cause it was hockey. And I know for a fact that Mattel was disappointed that it went away 'cause they had planned years of it. It never did horribly, but some weeks it would be just average, but other weeks it would be doing really well, so it was a surprise when we didn't get more episodes. I had worked my whole life towards the point of having the opportunity to do the traditional look, and a big thrill for me was to finally be at Disney, which was a personal goal. And so I was happy that I was able to do Mighty Ducks and sort of kick it up a notch in terms of duck properties.

0:48:47 S1: Jymn Magon. The last show the Disney Afternoon would produce was Quack Pack, a descendant of DuckTales, but with the nephews as teenagers and Donald as the parental figure instead of Uncle Scrooge. It should have been a perfect ending to Disney's run, but some things are not meant to be.

0:49:04 JM: I did move after the Goofy Movie into development on Duck Days, which eventually became Quack Pack. By that time, the whole mindset of the studio was changing. People that were valuable before were being sort of pushed aside and people that weren't valuable were being elevated and there was a lot more what I call baby suits showing up, middle management who were making decisions, creative decisions about things, people who had never made a single frame of film were making decisions. And it just got very strained, and it got so strained that I eventually said I need more money or I'm gonna go somewhere else, which was very, very difficult for me because I loved Disney. I thought I would retire from Disney, and it just didn't happen.

0:49:58 JM: From then on it was just like, I can't even follow what they're doing anymore. Well, it was part of the deal breaker. We were trying something new. We said, "How are we gonna do a series with Donald Duck when nobody can really understand Donald?" He's fine in a short where he goes, "Oh brother," or, "What's the big idea?" That kind of stuff. But to do dialogue is crazy. To try and hang a show on someone that you can't understand was gonna be very difficult. And we had some radical ideas and management looked down their noses at us. And I remember at one point our producer on the show, Larry Latham, was listening to management spouting about something or another. He looked over at me and he just, he did the throat cut, like cut, I'm out here.

0:50:51 JM: And shortly after that Carl Gears and I, who were the executive producers on the show, we just said, "We're happy to continue working on this, but we can't be running the show because management doesn't believe in it." And management said, "Okay fine." They never even called us and said, "What's wrong?" Accepted our statement and, which was basically a big, you know, forget you. And it was like, "Well, they don't care about us anymore." Like I said, that was sort of a turning point, for me anyway. I think it was a turning point for the department as well. But anyway, and I left shortly after that. We had a terrific run, and then just things felt... Started to get weird, that's all.

0:51:36 JM: And again, I can't put my finger on it, but to me, it had a lot to do with we stopped doing what we were good at and started following other people's leads. Every show we did was like number one in its slot, and so it wasn't like, "Oh ratings are slipping, let's do something different." To me, that genre, that style of Disney comedy adventure could still be going as far as I know. But it was like, "No, let's do Shnookums and Meat, and let's do Gargoyles. Let's do things that look like other studios." It just felt wrong to me. But again, I'm not in charge, I don't make those calls, I just, I'm a stupid ass show developer and story editor. I don't get to make the big decisions.

0:52:18 S1: Dean Stefan, writer.

0:52:20 Dean Stefan: And then of course Quack Pack was originally called Duck Days. The way I hear it, and I don't know, 'cause you know. It could be not exactly true, but I think it's true. Jymn Magon and, I think, Carl Gears were set to develop it, and much like Tad Stones was locked in his office for about six months or so when I first started, coming up with Darkwing Duck and all the artwork or whatever. Jymn and Carl were figuring out the show for Duck Days or Quack Pack. And at the time, Home Improvement was a big hit for Disney ABC, and they got the idea that Donald would be like the Tim Allen character. And he would have Huey, Louie, and Dewey, much like Tim Allen was the harried dad of the three kids. And the conceit was gonna be 'cause Donald couldn't really, he didn't have that many phrases he could say that... Disney actually had a list from the 30s they would hand to us, say, "These are the phrases that are recognizable, that Donald said." Because there just weren't that many words that you could make out, the way he talked.

0:53:26 DS: So their conceit was that he would have been a tailgunner in some kind of war and nobody could understand his instructions, so the military sent him to allocution school. And he would learn to speak clearer so that now he could do the sit-comy stuff with the kids and they can interact and stuff like that. So they had this whole thing worked out based upon the harried dad interacting with... And the way I hear it, they went to pitch to Katzenberg and the whole table of Disney suits. And they said, "Okay so, in this Donald, he went to allocution school because nobody could understand him in the military. Now he can speak a lot clearer." And that's about as far as they got.

0:54:07 DS: And Katzenberg says, "Wait, you wanna change the duck? You're gonna change the way Donald Duck talks?" And that was pretty much the end of the pitch, so that was it. So six months of work down the drain, 'cause without that they didn't really have a show. So then it became just really harried and it became Daisy Duck would be a roving reporter, and the kids would be tagalongs and Donald would almost be comic relief. You'd cut to him in the hammock doing gags and stuff like that. And it was a weird time at Disney 'cause we were between shows. And I think I wrote the Bible for Quack Pack, but I guess the show was okay. I'm not sure how it did in relation to the other ones. I don't think of it as one of the great ones.

0:54:49 S1: Jim Peterson, writer.

0:54:51 Jim Peterson: The origin of it is kind of muddled a little bit 'cause it kinda went through a whole bunch of different creative hands. So there was, I think it was originally Jymn Magon's project, and then he ended up leaving Disney. And Carl Gears took over. And then Carl got taken off the project and it was turned over to Kevin Hopps, who was our original story editor on Darkwing. And on the artistic side, Toby Shelton was running it, and they had kind of very different views of just between the two of them, how they wanted the series to run. And Toby really loved classic Donald Duck cartoons, and he kinda wanted to take it that way. And Kevin was more, it seemed, more on the sit-comy kind of stuff. We came in. There had already been a couple scripts written, but we ended up rewriting on what would become essentially the first episode, which was where Donald Duck gets drafted back into the Navy, of course, for some bizarre reason.

[music]

0:56:14 JP: The one that came out, kind of was still watchable was an episode called "The really Mighty Ducks". In it Huey, Dewey, and Louie become superheroes and Donald becomes a super villain called the Duck of Doom. And the whole battle is just about Donald trying to get the boys to clean their room, and they're doing everything humanly possible to, or duckly possible I suppose, to avoid cleaning their room.

0:56:41 Donald Duck: Clean this room or else.

0:56:47 Speaker 20: Clean our room? The nerve of some people.

0:56:50 Speaker 21: We're much too busy.

0:56:52 Speaker 22: We got a million things to do.

0:56:55 S?: We got nothing to do.

0:56:57 JP: And when Duck Days was winding up, it was an era where Disney was letting go of all of their staff writers. During the Bonkers run, they were also doing a couple other series at the time. So there were like 51 staff writers at that point, at Disney TV Animation. And when we finally left at the end of Duck Days, there were less than ten. So part of the reason was that Disney lost their market when Fox acquired the rights to the NFL. And a lot of stations that were independent and carrying the Disney Afternoon, signed up with Fox and had to drop the Disney Afternoon for the Fox cartoons. But at the time, that was our perception on the executive explanations for why the affiliates were dropping the Disney Afternoon. So that and also, at the same time, Turner acquiring Hanna-Barbara. Then he let go of all of the staff writers and decided to go freelance, and Disney kind of followed suit on that 'cause there were a bunch of writers available on the freelance market that didn't used to be available.

0:58:01 S1: In 1997 Disney purchased ABC, which was the final nail in the coffin for what had been known as the Disney Afternoon. Not only was that over, syndication was basically over as well. With their new network, Disney went full Nickelodeon, even bringing in Geraldine Laybourne who headed the Nickelodeon network. And Disney Television Animation changed quickly in response.

0:58:24 S1: In an attempt that the press called The Nickelodeonization of Disney, they bought Doug out from under Viacom and brought in Joe Ansolabehere who helped develop Hey Arnold! And Paul Germain who co-created Rugrats, to launch Recess, which became the flagship show of Disney's One Saturday Morning. With One Saturday Morning, Disney would retake the title of the number one kids block. The shows were far different than what had been done in the past, and the familiar faces that had transformed television animation like Gary Krisel, Greg Weisman, Mark Zaslove, and Jymn Magon, no longer wandered the halls. But a few were still there. Tad Stones.

0:59:02 TS: They had a luncheon at the rotunda restaurant where they invited the key people in the department, key creative people in the department were all there for the executives to introduce themselves. And Jerry Laborne, [0:59:17] ____ that she's talking about her direction. And she says, and obviously they had worked this out before. Says, "Dean, I hate ducks." And then that was Dean Valentine, and he replied. "I hate ducks too." Which was basically crapping on 80 percent of the people in the room, to say nothing of you would not have been offered a job because there would be no job to be had if it wasn't for those shows that you're currently crapping on. I was luckily on vacation during that luncheon. I don't know how I would have reacted. I wouldn't have said anything, but I might have walked out, which would've had the same effect. But it was totally disrespectful.

1:00:00 TS: You can certainly say, "You guys have done a fantastic job. And now the market's changing, we want to do something entirely different and we're looking for new ideas, and here's the ideas we're starting with." It's like, "Why do you have to piss on something to move forward?" So that was, again, this... They had a pitch, they had a strategy. Upper upper managment had signed off on it. So it's just basically, here's our show runners and some of you are gonna be working on these shows and some of you are not. So it's just a management thing. It's not like a slow evolution. It is just, "Hey, this is what we're doing now." And it's like, "Okay, are we doing any more of that?" "No, we're not gonna do any more of that, but we're still gonna do those feature spin-offs 'cause they're still doing well."

1:00:45 TS: That's that, you know.

[music]

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-look-back-machine/id1257301677?mt=2

[the-firebird69]

What to expect when Congress meets to count Electoral College results | Fox News

Claudia Hayes

Ia Hayes

This means Macs fully intend on selecting electoral college votes of thier choosing.

Which they choose will be a shocker for most mactard pigs.

Zues Hera

Yes they want the idiot, Ponchus Pilot...dave s cringed I attack you Zues he says see your things and such. So what Dave gone in hours just little ole abusive you and abusive spouse left no excuses now training wheels off.

I see it out imbecile no but nah too many poke at me. Your right too what a pain in the ass. No no return to be over me sorry these fight for real over the job.

Zues Hera

He dwindles dies soon the paintings gone cartoons show it we publish the real paintings. Put it there too. In the art museum. Bond staring at one.

Teared up we are incompetent you let us. No you forced it I pleaded.

.ac daddy will die soon. At the hands of his insane repressive brother and yes on titan. He will miss the warning. Soon too.

Thor

[webionaire]

was asked to do the spin, and God help me I did it,” Kelly said, recalling how “demeaning” it was.

“I remember feeling like, I put myself through school, I was offered partnership at Jones Day. I argued before federal courts of appeal all over the nation, I came here, I’m covering the United States Supreme Court, I graduated with honors from all of my programs. And now he wants me to twirl. And I did it,” she said. “If you don’t get how demeaning that is, I can’t help you.”

Kelly, who has said she was not involved in the film or actor Charlize Theron’s uncanny portrayal of her, had previously said she was reluctant to view it. But on Thursday, she tweeted that she “wanted the women who lived it to have the last word.”