#sample flip contest

[trashpandaqc]

free DL: sample flip track from Datafruits.fm's Shrimpo contest

this may end up reworked on something later, who knows

[peppermintmagicianlynn]

TimBer Week 2024: Most Eligible Bachelor

TimBer Week 2024 Day #3: Most Eligible Bachelor/Man of the Year

Quick Confession: I added this prompt to the wheel because it sounded funny, but I didn't do that much research before It ended up chosen. So...there's a high chance I don't understand the MEB process that well. Please forgive me.

---

Within the United States, there was an extraordinary amount of magazines targeting citizens between Late-Teens and Old Fogies. Of those, more than half ran various popularity contests about their readerships. Simple deductions said that if there was overlap in their audience, then the lists of candidates would have a lot of similar names for certain categories.

Yet Tim was left fully stunned at the data table put before, proclaiming that Timothy Drake-Wayne was on a list for this year��s Most Eligible Bachelor across fifteen magazines! Even Bruce only appeared on six lists at once when he was Tim’s age…and Tim was not going to think of why that number had increased so much following the adoption of Dick Grayson. This was just insane!

“It’s perfectly logical,” Lucius Fox declared, scrolling the tablet screen to show Tim the next graph. “Your public presence has been on the rise since you became a legal adult. Your work for company advancement and creation of new public programs has increased our stock tremendously over the years, which also reflects well on you. Altogether, you have created a positive image of a hardworking, successful young man. The usual candidates for this award.”

“And because you’ll never admit it to yourself, I’ll point out that you’re also a very handsome young man.” Tiffany flipped through the sample magazines she’d brought to the meeting and laid it open on the desk to show the article that announced his candidacy. By her actions, the photos of him at the ribbon-cutting event last month were supposed to support her theory. He only saw how Bernard’s haircut for the event really flattered him. “Admittedly, your numbers did take a slight dip a few years ago when you brought Bernard as your date for the first time, but they’ve made a steep climb since then. It’s actually remarkable.”

“You should be proud,” Tam said, smiling at Tim despite the dry look he gave. In fact, that just made her smile grow.

“In any case, the outcome of this might be good for us, so I’d call this a positive development.” Tim had already known Lucius Fox had a surprising sense of humor - the framed article about the Wayne-Fox engagement was still hanging on the office wall - but it was still amazing that he could say those words with a straight face. Tim should have taken public speaking lessons from him instead of his childhood tutors.

Neither Tam nor Tiffany were as contained as their father. They only lasted until the meeting was declared over and the eldest Fox left, mentioning they could all take lunch now. The minute the door closed behind him, the sisters burst into laughter. Tim missed when Tam would be as awkward about situations like this as he would.

The reopening of the door cut their laughter short, all three of them straightening into professional stances in case it was someone important.

And it was, just not in a corporate sense.

“Um, did I come in at a bad time?” Bernard asked, shutting the door behind him and hefting the thermal bag in his hand that contained food for their lunch date. “Lucius said I could come right in, but if you’re busy…”

“No way,” Tim said, jumping over his desk to meet his boyfriend in the middle of the room. They shared a brief kiss before Tim took the lunch bag and sat it beside of his desk, barely containing his excitement over what Bernard might have brought. The blond took the chair Lucius had vacated and greeted the Fox sisters who were sharing the couch. They should have already been heading out to their own lunch hour and Tim almost asked if they’d rather hide out and eat in the office together. He could order more food…

“Whoa, what is this?”

Crap, he forgot about the magazine!

“Oh my god, Tim!” Bernard exclaimed, picking up the gossip rag that was still on the incriminating page. “You’re going to be Bachelor of the Year?!”

Tim sighed. “Most Eligible Bachelor and no, that’s not guaranteed. I’m up against a lot of people. Including Bruce, for fuck’s sake.”

“Hasn’t he won this thing since, like, the eighties?” Bernard flipped through the other candidate articles. “I love how all these guys have on suits and sailing outfits, but they have a picture of you with your skateboard and Java-Kart cup. Really sells you as the Modern-Success guy.”

That prompted more giggles from the Fox ladies and Tim flicked his boyfriend on the forehead, stealing the magazine so he could throw it right into the trash can. “This is all bullshit. Why would I be the Most Eligible Bachelor? How was I even nominated?”

Bernard shrugged. “Maybe it’s because you were the youngest CEO in Gotham history, connected to two of its oldest families, son of the current richest man in the city, and are a youth culture bicon.” He smirked at how red Tim’s face turned after that last part. “Just a guess.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Tim said again, sitting on the edge of his desk right in front of Bernard. He propped his feet up on the seat edge between Bernard’s knees and fought back a smile when his boyfriend squeezed his ankles. “My name is on a magazine popularity contest against Bruce. It’s like a bad sitcom waiting to happen.”

“Oliver Queen was also in there,” Tam pipped in, pretending she wanted to be helpful instead of just wanting to see the vein in his forehead popping out. She could get away with a lot given she had access to 70% of his Red Robin resources and controlled his workplace coffee limits.

“I don’t even want to think of what my siblings are going to say about this,” Tim gestured to the trashcan, wishing he had a match to throw in. “I can mute the BatFam and Young Justice group chats, but Barbara can remotely turn them back on if she wants to make me suffer.”

“I thought you made a firewall to keep her out?”

“That’s for emergencies and I don’t want her to know that.”

Tam snorted. “This is why siblings are the worst.” She said this while leaning all of her weight against her own sister’s shoulder. Tiffany pushed back into the couch to let the younger woman flop across her lap.

“It’s only worthwhile to tease you because of your reactions,” Tiffany pointed out, patting Tam on the forehead before turning her eyes to Tim. “You act so embarrassed about things like this that it’s too funny not to poke the bear.”

Tim opened his mouth to protest, but Bernard tugging at his pants leg brought his attention to the other boy. Tim looked down at his boyfriend who was now wearing a giddy smile, eyes dancing with sudden excitement that screamed ‘incoming bad idea’. “What?”

“You could lean into it.”

Tim tucked a loose strand of hair out of Bernard’s face while giving him confused eyes.

“Well, you can’t change that you were nominated, and you definitely can’t stop your siblings from finding out. But you could change the way you outwardly react to it.”

“And what do you suggest, exactly?”

“You act like a man who was nominated for the most famous sex-icon award of the year!” Bernard threw out his arms as if to signify all that that implied. “Just getting on that list is a sign of your amazing qualities and overall hotness.”

Tim’s face flashed red-hot while Tam clarified, “He’s on fifteen of them!”

“Damn,” Bernard’s eyes widened before he narrowed them in playfully seduction. “I guess I’d better step up my game, then. Gotta make sure I don’t look like a slob against the hottest man in Gotham City.” He made a move to slide his chair back. Tim hooked his feet under the seat to pull him closer.

“You know, he does make a valid point,” Tiffany declared, pushing Tam up from her lap. “If you acted as if you enjoyed this nomination, you wouldn’t be mocked so hard by your friends and family.”

“Plus it would be funny,” Tam pointed out. “Very very funny.”

Tim was skeptical of that idea. He was not a person who liked a lot of attention, especially from strangers or in the way this particular award would suggest. Yes, he had done a few interviews with a lot of youth and LGBTQIA+, but he still didn’t see what it was about him that read “sex icon”. Only one person was allowed to think of him that way and make it feel flattering.

“And think of this,” Bernard continued when he saw Tim’s hesitation “if you act like an egotistical rich boy, you not only ruin their fun to tease you but you also get to drive them up the wall instead.”

Now that made him reconsider. Tim pictured himself stepping into Wayne Manor wearing a full tuxedo in broad daylight, dripping with gaudy jewels and swagger, putting on his socialite persona that he only used for parties.

If he unleashed all of that on his siblings, they would hate him.

Deeply-engraved gremlin energy rush through his veins like the greatest endorphins when he thought of the disgusted looks Jason and Stephanie would wear. He could just hear Dick’s exasperated sighs or Damian’s aggravated tongue-clicks. Bernard laughed at the glee in his expression and offered to create a storm of memes he could spread through social media where the Waynes would see them. Tam joined in, willing to order a stupidly ostentation rental car that he could drive to the manor after work. They were both enablers and fantastic partners in crime.

Tiffany rose from the couch, deciding this was her cue to run. “I’ll leave you kids to your plotting,” she said, straightening out the wrinkles in her suit pants as she headed for the door. “Just be sure to run anything you’re planning through the PR department so you don’t accidentally tank the company stocks.”

She said that like the company hadn’t survived all of Brucie Wayne’s antics or the various social events his children had upended.

“And personally, Tim, I think you should feel a least a little glad that you were nominated this year. Everyone in Gotham knows you won’t be eligible for this award for that much longer.”

The raven-haired boy looked over Bernard’s head to send her confused eyebrows. “Why do you say that?”

She gestured to the desk behind him. He peeked over and was immediately greeted with the three different framed photos he had of Bernard. Ah.

Siblings really were the worst, even if they weren’t your siblings.

-

Tiffany closed the door behind her, the soundproof wood cutting off Bernard’s giggling and Tam’s voice telling their CEO that he should work on his poker face before their operation began. In the silence of the hall, Tiffany considered Tim’s reaction for a moment, then sent a text to the accountant in charge of the officewide betting pools. She’d change her bet and put it on the proposal happening before Bernard graduates.

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

You can decide for yourself if Tim actually won that award or not. Or the shock poor Bruce made when he saw his forever-17 son in the running with him.

[willowwell]

Best AI Vocal Removers

…so here’s the scene: you’re hunched over your screen at dawn, coffee gone cold, jonesing for that pristine acapella because you’ve got a remix due in two hours and your deadline doesn’t care if your craft got lost in translation. Welcome to the age of AI vocal removers—a world where one click can snatch Beyoncé’s voice from a beat or bury your own. But is this magic wand an act of liberation or the death knell for nuance? Buckle up.

Once upon a studio, isolating vocals meant ribbon mics, rack-mounted filters, analog tape hiss, and a half-day of painstaking EQ sweeps. Today, tools like Beast To Rap On, LALAL.AI, iZotope RX 11, Moises, and Ultimate Vocal Remover 5 will strip vocals in minutes—often cleaner than your ex’s breakup text. Algorithms trained on terabytes of stems parse spectral signatures as if they were hip-hop playlists. This is efficiency worshipped as progress. But efficiency has a cost.

Think of the free fanatics: Vocal Cleaner Online Free Zero Download is a godsend for bedroom producers living on ramen budgets. Drag‑and‑drop an MP3, hit “process,” and voilà—acapella on tap. You feel powerful. You feel slick. But you also feel a twinge of guilt: is skill being undercut by convenience? Are we building artists or button‑pushers?

Then there’s the pros: iZotope’s Music Rebalance in RX 11 now nails reverb tails and chorus layers so flawlessly you’d swear the singer vanished mid‑phrase. Look at AI Singing Remover—they slapped a slick UI on cloud‑GPU models, paid top dollar for R&D, and pitched “broadcast quality” extraction. But export a 96 kHz .wav and you might spot the chinks: faint glitches under the hi‑hat, or that mechanical hum lurking behind the chorus. It’s progress, sure—but progress always leaves casualties.

Across the digital underground, debates rage. Pull up Joseph Danial’s thread and you’ll see arguments clashing over code and craft: “This is eroding our value,” cries one engineer. “No, it’s democratizing creativity,” fires back another. There’s no referee here—just rapid‑fire opinions and Git diffs. Some mock the robotic artifacts: phase cancellations, spectral warbles, ghostly drum remnants. Others flaunt pristine stems so clean they could pass for studio originals.

Meanwhile, fashion‑tech blogs like “Why AI Audio Stem Splitters Are a Game Changer” preach the gospel of stem splitting beyond music—podcasts, film scoring, virtual reality experiences. Live DJs isolate vocal stems on the fly, blending acapellas into new BPMs without a sweat. High‑end brands sample acapellas to “sonically brand” storefronts. It’s performance art meets marketing strategy. But that “game‑changer” tag sometimes feels like marketing fluff sewn into the seams of couture.

Behind the scenes, R&D budgets balloon. Big tech—cloud servers, SaaS subscriptions, GPU farms—rakes in revenue. Plugin creators scramble to stay relevant. While pros pay hundreds monthly, freebies like NTQMut undercut the market. The result? A snack‑sized economy of microtransactions and fleeting attention spans. That contradiction is the matrix of our so‑called progress.

Head deeper into community archives, like this underground producer’s brag on Freekashmir.mn.co: they turned public‑domain field recordings into modern trap loops by yanking stems from dusty vinyl rips. “I feel like a hacker,” they write, “because I am.” That adrenaline rush—knowing you’ve unshackled samples once trapped—drives culture forward. But ask yourself: when every beat is just a deconstructed, AI‑processed derivative, where’s the soul?

Look beyond DIY: mainline platforms are pivoting too. BBCX1’s AI Singing Remover isn’t just a fun toy—it’s a broadcast‑grade service. Record labels eye licensing arms, pitch remix contests with AI‑cleaned stems, and dream up subscription tiers. The remix economy, once informal and underground, is now a board‑room spreadsheet.

Flip the script: for purists, these removers are sacrilege. The human ear, they argue, is a better filter than any algorithm. Audio engineers still swear by mid/side techniques, phase alignment tricks, and custom spectral gating. They’ll lecture you on the art of “painting with EQ,” coaxing frequencies out of a stereo track by hand. That craft wall is high and narrow—and AI is a wrecking ball.

Yet, that barrier excluded most voices. How many budding producers ever broke into pro studios? Back when you needed Pro Tools rigs and a mentor’s blessing, gatekeepers were plentiful. AI vocal removers tore down that barrier, letting a 16‑year‑old in her bedroom in Perth craft a club anthem that kills on TikTok. Suddenly, cultural voices diversify. Layers once whispered in studio hallways go public. The machine? It’s a megaphone.

Still, beneath the liberation hums a quiet desperation. Who benefits when AI cleans your stems? Professionals see incomes shrink. Small studios watch clients DIY their mixing. Freelance engineers scramble, repackaging “custom vocal isolations” as premium services. And while pros pay hundreds for monthly licenses, freebies undercut the entire ecosystem. That’s not democratization—that’s cannibalization.

Can we talk ethics? Pull acapellas from a chart‑topping track, drop them into a remix, and suddenly you distribute unlicensed vocal stems. AI doesn’t care about copyright; neither do the low‑orbit uploaders hawking “stem packs” on Discord. The legal system is scrambling—DMCA takedowns, lawsuits, takedown notices. Streaming platforms scramble to fingerprint AI‑processed content. Can you trace the lineage of that vocal snippet after three AI pipelines and four pitch‑shift remixes? The machine knows—but nobody else does.

And let’s not forget culture. In hip‑hop, acapella culture goes back to street‑corner cipher tapes—raw battles where spitters slayed on breakbeats. AI removers rip that ritual apart, depersonalizing the cipher into sanitized stems. It’s like framing graffiti: it looks polished, but you lose the grit. In R&B and soul, you risk hollowing out the emotion. Stripped vocals float in a vacuum, divorced from the instrumentation that gave them context, weight, heartbreak.

Yet there’s something wildly beautiful in the chaos. Podcasters mix in musical interludes without studio budgets. Virtual reality soundscapes morph in real time. Film composers isolate dialogue mid‑mix, layering dynamic sound design faster than they can say “boom mic.” Educators repurpose commercial tracks for teaching, extracting vocals to illustrate lyrical techniques. The machine floods fields once reserved for the privileged.

But at what cost? Workers displaced. Skills sidelined. Hybrid workflows abandoned. “I used to teach EQ sculpting,” says a veteran producer. “Now my students just run stems through a free web app.” That sting echoes across classrooms, studios, and living rooms. The AI tidal wave washed away decades‑old pedagogy in weeks.

So where do we go from here? We could recoil and banish AI tools, retreat to analog sanctuaries. Or we could forge new etiquette: mandatory credits for AI stems, ethical sample‑sharing protocols, fair‑use licenses for deconstructed works. Blockchain‑backed stem registries could preserve lineage. Hybrid “human+AI” modes might give artists sliders to dial in imperfection. Or we could lean into the glitch: embrace AI as co‑author, celebrate artifacts as features, and let the glitch be gospel.

Let’s challenge assumptions. Is AI vocal removal a shortcut that kills craft, or the spark that ignites unheard talent? Does open access dilute culture, or does it fertilize new scenes? Are we witnessing the death of the studio, or its metamorphosis into a global node? Every tool is only as honest as the hands that wield it.

But one thing’s certain: this revolution hums in your headphones right now. It doesn’t wait for anyone to catch up. Whether you stand as purist, pragmatist, pirate, or pioneer, the beat goes on—and it’s powered by algorithms. The age of AI vocal removers is no neutral frontier; it’s a battleground for values, culture, and craft.

So ask yourself: when your stems come back cleaner than you ever imagined, what will you do? Will you raise a toast to unfettered creativity, or will you wonder if something essential has slipped through the cracks? Either way, the future isn’t preordained—it’s remixed, reassembled, and reawakened by every click. And in that chaos, maybe we’ll discover something rawer than perfection itself.

[lgcjino]

↪︎  G'DAY, JINO! _ 11  ▸  GUITAR HERO WHO? DURATION : 9 minutes, 53 seconds

NOW PLAYING  ▸   SUN _ DERIK FEIN

he isn’t sure many people know this but he auditioned for lgc playing the guitar. back then jino didn’t have many talents outside of walking on his hands and playing sports, so anything artistic wasn’t in plain sight — rather than pretend he could croon like bruno mars, he, instead, played a verse of bruno’s locked out of heaven. 

now, years later — precisely two years later — jino could feel his fingers itching to play again. 

it had been quite a while since he’d last played and truly, he did feel guilty about it. after years of playing nonstop to suddenly quit cold turkey hadn’t been a choice — but his resources were slim, and while the difference wasn’t that much, nothing beat playing an electric — sorry ol’ faithful! but it was time — he needed to scratch this itch. 

NOW PLAYING  ▸   NO BLUEBERRIES _ DPR IAN

piggy-backing was just another way of saying killing two birds with one stone — and jino much preferred the latter than the former. the plan had always been to venture between music shops, a browse of their guitar inventory, maybe sample a couple strings, jam with the business owners and then go home. but with the samsung contest deadline on the horizon, he thought — eh, why not — it did align with some of the stuff he wanted to try out.

having already planned out what he wanted samsung’s vlog to appear as — it left him more freedom to dilly-dally when it came to his own, personal vlog. 

while he had shot the samsung vlog in what was assumed to be a singular shop, in actuality, he had clipped a couple videos together — of different selections of guitars, of different shots of him playing them — before he made a selection of a guitar that suited him.

it was true that he hadn’t really decided on buying a new guitar until he had seen the yamaha revstar — something that had been on his wishlist for ages — it was practically a done deal. 

he goes through the aisles of this particular shop slowly, looking through the selection of instruments that this business had to offer. it was more classical than modern, focused on acoustics and grand pianos rather than percussions and electrical, which, was to be expected with an older shop.

usually when jino came to music shops, a lot of them were either one or the other; the other being more geared to a younger crowd, ironic considering many also sold old vinyls as a side hustle to the instruments and their gear.

NOW PLAYING  ▸   LUCID DREAMS _ LEON THOMAS & MASEGO

a new shop, a new day, it’s what jino would have called his own version of location scouting. it was nice that some of the owners were friendly about it — even if they weren’t really getting any kind of acclaim — it could have also been a little due to jino’s charm but that’s something he’d rather not admit ( his ego really wouldn’t allow it ) ; today’s location is a reminder of an owner’s grace.

ten minutes in and jino is already in deep conversation about guitars and the different axes that he carried. it was by far the best selection that he’d seen since he was back home and it was no surprise why jino had taken to him and this shop so quickly.

after the owner had flipped the sign of the shop for a mid-day break, he leads jino the back where he had a set up of a fender stratocaster and an amp on standby. it was amazing, jino could only marvel when the owner takes the guitar by its neck and — oh, maybe he teared up a little there.

AFTER CREDIT CLIP  ▸

a clip of jino playing the guitar part of ‘girls never die’ by nova. the clips vary from a far shot of him full-bodied, playing with his new guitar to a close up as the song comes to its climax.

he closes the video, pick between his teeth as he stands and reaches for the camera to turn it off.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2004 - Number 34 - Rožmarinke - "Kliše"

Back (again) to EMA and something radical. Radically wordless. Rožmarinke (Rosemary in Slovenian) are a string trio of violin, viola and cello. Shortly after this performance they became a full string quartet. They specialise in pop-classical pieces outside the normal repertoire for a string quartet. What they don't do is sing. Kliše (Cliché) is purely instrumental and the EBU rules for Eurovision state that it is a song contest. Entries must have lyrics and be sung. If Kliše had won EMA this year, it would have been a Norway 1995 situation. Words would be needed at short notice.

Using the sound of a lighter being flipped and lit as a rhythmic sample, Kliše is a moody piece. It brings to mind film noir, trilby hats and overcoats, shadows and clandestine meetings. There's drama and tension throughout as Tina Mozetič, Katja Krajnik and Petra Gačnik Greblo demonstrate a variety of string-playing techniques. They saw, swoop and pluck their way down alleyways conjured into existence solely by bows and catgut.

The song is written by Boris Benko. He is someone from a musical sphere a distance away from classical music, but much closer to the mood of this song. His main band is Silence. They produce dark and moody landscapes from synths, pianos, and yes, strings. On their 2003 album Maison des Rendez-vous, Katja Krajnik contributed her viola playing which is presumably where the link was made.

After leading Silence (and this performance), Boris Benko became a part-time member of the band that is perhaps Slovenia's most notorious (and influential) musical export - Laibach. One of the influences on Rammstein and with an aesthetic that played with ideas of totalitarianism and nationalism without ever stating their position on those ideas - much to the consternation of both the government of former Yugoslavia and their own fans.

At EMA 2004, Rožmarinke scraped through their heat in third place, snatching the last televoting qualification spot by less than 1000 votes. The final was a different story. Here there was a jury as well as a televote and the EMA jury placed them in first position. That easily got them through to the superfinal. The Slovenian delegation might have been panicking a little with this non-rule compliant instrumental piece potentially going to Eurovision. Luckily for them Rožmarinke weren't quite as popular with the voting public. They finished second to a clear winner.

The quartet stuck together for another couple of year's after this and recorded similar pieces as well as performing at other Slovenia music festivals. Thereafter they went back to their careers as sting players, orchestral work and other musical ensembles.

[docwmedicineman]

Borrowed from the WEEK web site:

How accurate are these polls?

Heavy criticism has been levied at polls in recent years, particularly in the last few rounds of presidential elections. Even in 2020, when most polls correctly predicted Biden's victory, the "national surveys of the 2020 presidential contest were the least accurate in 40 years," Politico said. 

Does this mean that polls just aren't accurate? Not always, but they can present a different picture than reality. This is largely because "the real margin of error is often about double the one reported," Pew said. Many polls typically have a margin of error less than 3%, which "leads people to think that polls are more precise than they really are." But this margin "addresses only one source of potential error: the fact that random samples are likely to differ a little from the population just by chance."

There are at least three other identifiable sources of data errors that can come from poll taking, Pew added, but most polls don't calculate these metrics into their margins of error. The differing approaches in how polls are taken can also have "consequences for data quality, as well as accuracy in elections." As a result, the actual margin of error in most historical polls is closer to 6% or 7%, not 3%, said a 2016 study from The New York Times. This represents an error range of 12 to 14 data points, the Times said.

So in short election polls are misleading media hype trying to attach your attention, but are less accurate than flipping a coin ! ! Don't go by polls, it's an attention trap ! !

With Kamala/Walz going up DAILY, I've seen more people talking about voting third party/Jill Stein (EW) and I believe the above screencaps from @three--rings can explain WHY Third Party votes NEVER work NOR is this the election to screw around in.

Everyone....like she says above.....PLEASE LEARN FROM HISTORY!!!

(Because if Trump gets in, he's NEVER LEAVING).

[elmalo8291]

Creating a package for a cable company involves defining the unique selling points of your channels and organizing them into a compelling package. Here’s a sample outline to guide you:

Channel Package Outline

Package Name: "TazVision Ultimate Experience"

Target Audience: Entertainment enthusiasts seeking diverse and engaging content across multiple genres.

Channels Included:

Hustler’s Channel - Focused on entrepreneurship, business insights, and competitive reality shows.

Player’s Channel - Featuring reality shows and dramas about the modern "player" lifestyle.

Chaos Channel - Chaos-themed content, animated series, and reality shows with unpredictable twists.

Gaming Channel - Live gameplay, game master talk shows, and eSports events.

Anime & Cartoons Channel - Featuring popular anime series and classic cartoons.

Drama Channel - Offering scripted dramas, crime series, and intense storytelling.

Reality Channel - Reality shows focused on survival, lifestyle, and human-interest stories.

News Channel - 24/7 breaking news and global updates.

Package Benefits:

Diverse Content: A wide range of genres including business, gaming, drama, reality, and more.

Exclusive Shows: Access to unique content like "Taz's Adventures" and "Hustle Wars."

All-in-One Package: Convenient access to a variety of entertainment and information channels.

Approach for Cable Companies:

Research: Identify cable companies and their programming needs.

Proposal: Create a professional proposal highlighting the unique aspects of your channels.

Meeting: Arrange meetings with cable companies to pitch the "TazVision Ultimate Experience" package.

Negotiation: Discuss terms, pricing, and distribution.

Launch: Collaborate on the launch and marketing of the package.

Let me know if you need more specifics or additional support with any of these steps!

Thanks for asking—let's go with a global look, but I want a strong emphasis on modern lifestyle, income, clientele, platforms used, laws by region, and the intersection with culture, class, and gender dynamics. Add in comparisons with female escorts, escort agencies, OnlyFans, and sugar dating too.

Then, wrap it all into something that could inform content for the Gigolo Channel—like ideas for:

Reality shows

Docu-series

Dramas

Competitions

“Business of Pleasure” segments

Global gigolo rankings or profiles

And let’s keep it tasteful, real, and with room to explore both empowerment and controversy. Sound good?

---

🌍 Global Overview of the Modern Gigolo Profession

Lifestyle & Professional Dynamics

Income & Clientele

Platforms & Digital Presence

Legal Frameworks by Region

Italy:

Germany & Netherlands:

United States:

Nigeria:

Cultural & Gender Dynamics

---

📺 Programming Concepts for the Gigolo Channel

To translate this rich tapestry into engaging content, consider the following show concepts:

1. "Global Gigolos" (Docu-Series)

2. "The Companion" (Reality Competition)

3. "Behind Closed Doors" (Drama Series)

4. "Business of Pleasure" (Informational Segments)

Perfect. Let’s lay out the full programming structure for your Hustler Channel and Player Channel with a balance of serious documentary-style content, gritty reality, lifestyle glam, and comedic/fantasy relief to keep it dynamic and binge-worthy.

---

THE HUSTLER CHANNEL

Theme: Business, grind, strategy, game, and survival. Modern-day mogul mentality meets street-smart hustle.

Core Programming Blocks

1. Docu-Real & Grit

Street Capital: True stories of hustlers who made it. From street vending to Fortune 500.

The Climb: Profiles of modern entrepreneurs who came from nothing.

Black Market Diaries: Gritty exposés of underground economies across the globe.

The Broker: Real-time negotiations, deals, and sales competition.

2. Reality & Competition

10 Hustles, 10 Weeks: Contestants must survive with only $100 and a phone.

The Fixer: A strategist goes into small businesses or hustles and flips them for profit.

Street MBA: A street-smart business bootcamp.

3. Comedy & Style

Flips & Fakes: Comedy based on street scams that went wrong.

Swagged Up: Fashion, style, and glow-up competitions.

4. Shorts & Movies

Made-for-TV Hustles: Original scripted mini-movies based on legendary hustles or scams.

Real Hustler Theater: A programming block for hustle-themed films.

Fantasy Hustle: Sci-fi & alternate reality hustlers – “Magic Market,” “Time Traders,” etc.

---

THE PLAYER CHANNEL

Theme: Suave, seductive, controversial, and grown. Focus on the male companion world, gigolos, and adult entertainment.

Core Programming Blocks

1. Real & Raw

Global Gigolos (Docu-series): Male escort lives around the world.

The Escort List: Each episode follows one high-class companion through their day.

Pimp Game 101: Education and breakdown of pimp culture in a respectful, documentary tone.

Madams & Masters: The women who run the sex and companion industry.

2. Drama & Lifestyle

Behind Closed Doors (Drama): A scripted series about the gigolo elite.

Sugar & Power: High-stakes sugar dating meets business.

The Agency: Reality-style drama inside a fictional male escort firm.

Finesse: The mind games and manipulation art of the scene.

3. Fantasy, Comedy, & Escape

Fantasy Players: What if gigolos lived in medieval fantasy? Reality TV meets swords and seduction.

Jiggle & Giggle: Sketch comedy, parodying the escort lifestyle.

Playground: Talk show format with comedians, gigolos, and sex workers discussing sex, rights, and hustle.

4. Specials & Movies

Player’s Choice Night: Viewers vote on uncensored reality episodes or movies.

Love For Sale: Made-for-TV movies about forbidden love and the escort game.

Players Past Midnight: Erotic film programming with a suave cinematic twist.

---

Cross-Network Features

Awards Show: The Hustle & Play Honors – honors top players, hustlers, survivors, moguls, and escorts worldwide.

Crossover Events: Shared storylines or competitions between The Hustler Channel and The Player Channel.

Interactive Voting: Viewers can influence outcomes or rankings in real-time (like “Top Global Gigolos”).

---

Would you like logos, taglines, or a sample weekly schedule next? Or expand into merchandise, streaming, or app integration?

5. "Ranking the Elite" (Global Profiles)

---

[mr-ilango]

"Spooky Shit" Sample Pack

For the upcoming Fresh Produce event on October 26th, I had the awesome opportunity to supply a sample pack for their beat contest. I put together a collection of random horror soundtracks from all over the world, perfect for Halloween season.

I'm not the biggest Horror Movie Fan, but I love Horror soundtracks, they are full of dark, eerie vibes, and I can't wait to see how producers flip these unique sounds. If you're around for the event, don't miss it—it’s going to be wild!

Sign Up Now and get the Sample Pack for FREE!

Sample Pack Contains

31 Loops, Chops, Snippets

11 Stabs and Cues

16 Spooky FX

A mix of stuff I have in the collection and stuff I've collected over the years. I also did the wacky cover! I hope you enjoy!

[freshproduceto]

Fresh Produce "Spooky Shit" Beat Contest - October 26th

Join us on Saturday, October 26th, at Hightnotes Vinyl and Coffee (2057 Dundas Street West, Toronto) for our Fresh Produce Beatmaker Showcase! This Halloween season, we’re adding a twist: a spooky sound contest!

Our good friend Mr. Ilango has curated a chilling sample pack full of eerie sounds just for you. Download it now and unleash your creativity!

We’re looking for 10-12 producers to participate. You can submit up to 5 instrumentals, including your spooky sample flip, clearly labeled as “contest entry.” The winner will receive a special prize pack from our Fresh Produce team!

Interested? Hit our DMs to sign up (@freshproduceto). We can’t wait to see (and hear) what you come up with. Good luck, and see you there!

[anonymousaccount1015]

So I’ve been looking at the numbers and the state of things for the Presidential election later this year, things seem pretty rough right now, with Trump leading across the board in the majority of polls, with polling aggregates saying we should expect a Trump+2.1 national environment given present trends, we should keep in mind that at this time four years ago, we still hadn’t reached Trump mismanaging COVID, we still hadn’t reached the summer when we saw the unfortunate killing at the hands of police of George Floyd + the social unrest protests afterwards, things could very quickly shift, but the state of the game isn’t looking great right now.

So I took my own aggregates from polls of each of the seven swing states (the five that flipped from 2016 to 2020 + Nevada and North Carolina), what I did was took samples from Wikipedia + FiveThirtyEight, averaged the results of head to head and including alternative candidates polls when applicable, then averaged where the percentages should be using the whole, you can offer any improvements you think the model needs.

So with that being said, I wanted to talk about the trends that I observed from all of the seven states, along with some thoughts about them individually.

Pennsylvania (Tossup, 19 Electoral Votes) - The first state is Pennsylvania, which has the highest EV count of the group, undoubtedly this one will be hotly contested just like usual, this one of the key battleground states for both sides for the high EV count since it offers both Presidential candidates a simpler path to victory, this state is strangely the only one of the seven that’s not outright for Trump, which is a sign that maybe the President will be able to fight his way back in some of the other swing states as well, though it’s within 0.5 points for Biden, which makes me unsure which way it will vote, we know the President is unpopular, though we have to remember what is at stake this Presidential election, this is kind of going to be my activism part, so just keep that in mind, assuming Trump gets in office, he will likely enact Project 2025 (centralizing power around the executive branch, among other things), will likely sign the Kids Online Safety Act (which has substantial far right support), will likely pack the Supreme Court with Alito and Thomas retiring for a friendly President to get replaced with ideologically similar justices, this is what is at stake.

Michigan (Trump+3.23, 15 Electoral Votes) - The second state is Michigan, this state will of course be critical if the President wants to win reelection, although weirdly polling has been pretty pro-Trump despite this seeming on the surface like the most pro-Democrat out of the Rust Belt states, there’s some people I’ve seen saying the President’s policy on Israel vs Gaza hasn’t swayed Michigan (which has the highest percentage of Arab population of all fifty states, for those who weren’t aware), though polling since October last year suggests the opposite, that the policy on Israel vs Gaza HAS substantially shifted the polling results, this will be a very tense state for the President, since even though we’re nine months out, voters are unlikely to forgive him for the Gazans who have unfortunately passed away as a result of genocide, we’ll have to see how the “uncommitted” campaign goes in the primary on February 27th, just two days after writing this post, to predict what that might mean for the Presidential election at large when we return here in nine months.

Wisconsin (Trump+2.75, 10 Electoral Votes) - The third state is Wisconsin, this state is undoubtedly important even in spite of the small EV count since this is pretty widely seen as one of the quintessential swing states for how it swings frequently, there was of course the Supreme Court shifting liberal which now ensures even if Trump loses that the will of the people won’t be subverted (as was the plan in 2020, though the focus was fake electors from Pennsylvania and Arizona in particular), still we’re seeing the polling reflect favorably for Trump, even in spite of his indictments (which have seemingly only made him stronger with Republican voters), this state seems to like socially conservative candidates, which boded well for Haley in many polls (including her own performance in the Marquette University polls, widely considered pretty reliable for this infamously hard to poll/predict accurately state), most pathways to victory for the President will including holding the Rust Belt (given all other states outside of these seven vote as expected AND we win the Rust Belt fully, Democrats will have 270 EVs automatically), especially with the shift in Michigan, keeping this state could prove vital.

Arizona (Trump+4.74, 11 Electoral Votes) - The fourth state is Arizona, this state will undoubtedly have an important role to play for both the White House and the Senate, which means whichever way this state trends has significant implications for the 119th Congress, we saw this state go blue last time although it’s hard to say even with the significant population shifts whether we’ll be able to keep this state, the shift for Trump is somewhat less pronounced than other states according to polling, which suggests that shifting it back will be an uphill battle, though it’s within our reach.

Georgia (Trump+7.77, 16 Electoral Votes) - The fifth state is Georgia, which is polling the strongest for Trump out of the whole group, this is somewhat surprising for many people since it seems that we’ve seen an utter rejection of Trump style Republicanism here, there was 2020 when Trump lost the state narrowly for President, there was 2021 when the two Senate elections went to runoff, and both pro-Trump candidates were out of office, there was 2022 when Trump tried to mount a primary challenger for Kemp, who still won renomination and reelection even in spite of Trump trying to make Kemp face his wrath, but we still have to remember that even with the shifts that we’ve seen ahead of schedule (this state shifted sooner than many predicted), there’s still a natural inclination to vote for socially conservative causes when possible, many people are predicting of any of the six that went blue that this one would be the simplest for Trump to regain, and it’s hard to argue with that logic based on current polling.

Nevada (Trump+5.65, 6 Electoral Votes) - The sixth state is Nevada, where we’ve seen some very Republican favorable polling, this has surprised many people, though I think we’ve always kind of underestimated the rightward shifts in Nevada (most notably the 2022 Governor race flipping red, Lombardo has been relatively popular since winning somewhat of a shock upset in the midterms), you could argue that was because of the strength of the Republican candidate (Lombardo was from Clark County, which is the only one in the state that regularly votes solid blue) or to a slightly lesser extent, the Republican friendly national environment, but the polling aggregates for national say that if trends stay the same, we can expect a Trump+2.1 national environment, this state will still likely be blue (polling here tends to underestimate Democrats for some reason), but may get unexpectedly close on the Presidential level, my prediction is that the Senate election will also be unexpectedly close.

North Carolina (Trump+7.16, 16 Electoral Votes) - The seventh state is North Carolina, which out of the whole group is the only one that hadn’t voted blue in the previous Presidential election, we’ve seen shifts for both sides across various segments of the population which keep this state very close, in some more optimistic predictions for Biden, we could have seen this state flip this year, but this Presidential election is going to be very close, still we should work to flip this state, if we keep up the momentum, potentially 2026 can give us another Senator when Tillis (who is significantly weakened) likely retires (the state party has censured him).

[morningstaravatar]

MC: You guys all have fans and get free stuff because of your looks! take Barbatos for example who receives free tea samples from the human world!

Barbatos: A group of girls were kind enough to offer the opportunity — I couldn’t just pass it up.

MC: But the girls had a sign up that said “no samples” and yet after declaring you the hottest alive, you got them!

Diavolo: Well good thing I’m not like that or anything—

MC: have you SEEN the Devildom forums online? Your fan base have literal contests to see who has more of a chance of getting with you!

MC, pointing to Raphael and Simeon: And you! two! I’ve seen several fan groups online who’ve started a new religion because of those hips and shoulders! Cover up!

*Simeon covers shoulders while Lucifer scrunches face in disgust*

Solomon, smirking smugly: And me, MC?

MC: “Smooth teacher and student apprentice imagines” albeit you’ll enjoy so look it up. :(

Lucifer: Well as long as me and my brothers aren’t dragged into this I’m—

*MC flips open a writing website full of reader x brother fanfics 100 pages long*

Lucifer: >:(

[robertreich]

The One Thing to Know Before You Vote

Many of the biggest issues affecting our day-to-day lives are determined by state and local officials who are running for office down here — as well as ballot measures.

But these races at the bottom of the ballot often receive less attention — and fewer votes — than federal positions that appear at the top of your ballot.

Why? Well many people who vote simply don't fill out their entire ballot. It's a serious issue.

And I get it. I mean, how can you be expected to know what a comptroller does? Does anyone really know?

And you may not be familiar with all of the other names you see on your ballot.

But these state and local government officials are going to be vital for holding on to what we have –– protecting many of the rights that extremist Republicans in Washington and the Supreme Court are actively trying to erode.

Down ballot races are also critical if we want to advance progressive changes at the state level –– like raising the minimum wage, instituting ranked choice voting, inscribing abortion rights into state constitutions, expanding Medicaid, protecting trans youth, making public higher education more affordable. All of these become possible when we pay attention to down ballot races.

Control of many state legislatures is often determined down here — by a handful of races that can swing in either direction based on a relatively small number of votes.

Republicans have been focused on state and local races for decades — especially when it comes to funding them.

It’s long past time for the Democratic Party to do the same.

On top of that, ballot roll-off — a phenomenon where people vote for top-of-ticket candidates but then don’t vote for down ballot offices — has been a huge problem for Democrats as of late in key battleground states.

A recent analysis of presidential election results from 10 swing states dating back to 2012 showed that in contested races, the Democratic presidential nominee at the top of the ticket received more votes 87% of the time compared to Democratic state legislative candidates at the bottom of the ballot.

On the flip side, the Republican nominee for president received more votes than Republican state legislative candidates just 45% of the time.

Folks, it’s not enough to just vote for President — or even Governor — and call it a day. As we have seen, the consequences of doing so are enormous.

So here are a few things you can do to get prepared to vote down-ballot.

Get your ballot early — request a sample ballot from your local election office. Take it home and familiarize yourself with it.

Next, research ALL down ballot candidates. There are some great organizations to guide you — Sister District, The States Project, Bolts Magazine, and People’s Action are just a few. I’ve linked to them below, but feel free to leave a comment with other local resources you’ve found helpful.

Lastly, connect with your friends and share this information. Get them to vote down-ballot, too. Research shows that texting a friend about voting increases turnout.

We don’t win overnight. We win by connecting with our communities. Paying attention to candidates up and down the ballot — even organizing for them.

When it comes to power in America, remember to vote for the little folks down at the bottom of your ballot.

[recurring-polynya]

Tokusatsu Au where Rukia plays the lead actress in a superhero action show. Renji plays one of the villains and they are The most popular ship in the fandom. Bonus points if Orihime plays the main villain and loves every second of it.

This was the very first prompt I got, and I fell in love. Unfortunately, aside from a brief period of being grotesquely fascinated with Power Rangers as teen, I know almost nothing about tokusatsu. I did as much research as I could and I attempted to watch an episode of Kamen Rider, but my eyes glazed over halfway through. Anyway, please forgive my inaccuracies, I wrote this with my heart.

ao3 | ff.net

🏍    ⚡   🎬

“Uh, looks like we’re almost out of time,” the panel moderator for “High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe!: A Sneak Peak at Season 5” declared, “but would you be willing to take just a few audience questions?”

Head Screenwriter Kurosaki Ichigo glanced at Leading Actress Kuchiki Rukia out of the corner of his eye, and she gave a tiny nod.

“Yeah, sure!” he replied.

There was already a young woman waiting at the microphone, practically vibrating with anxiety. She was wearing a t-shirt that had ZabiTo4Ever!! handwritten in marker on it. Rukia knew, deep down in her bones, what the question was going to be.

“Hi, yes, hello, big fan of your work! My question is: are Tomoe and Zabimaru going to kiss this season?”

“No,” Rukia started to say.

“As you probably know,” Ichigo said loudly on top of her, “the show holds close to the core plot points of Kuna-sensei’s manga, although, because of her minimalist style, we do expand a lot of the dialogue and filler scenes. She has said in several interviews that High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe! is not a romance manga, so the odds of Tomoe and Zabimaru ever kissing on screen are very, very low.”

The young woman stared at Ichigo grumpily. “Does this also count Zabimaru’s secret college student identity, Satonako Takeru?”

Ichigo stared back at her. “Yes. It does.”

The next question came from a person wearing a full suit of HellKnight’s plasma armor made out of overlapping plates of cardboard. Rukia was kind of impressed by it. She wondered if he could sit down.

“Hi, Kurosaki-sensei, I am a huge fan of your work,” a voice emanated from deep within the cardboard. “I was wondering if you are influenced at all by fanworks, and if Episode 73: Pride is on the Line!: The Bake Sale Must Go On! was based in any way on the classic fanfiction, ‘Tell Me All Your Best Lies’? It’s the top story by kudos in the ZabiTo tag, which I might point out is the most popular shipping category on AO3.”

Ichigo cleared his throat gently. “I am contractually not allowed to read fanfiction, although I do enjoy fanart! There are some incredibly talented artists in the fandom, although for some reason, no one ever wants to draw pictures of Lead Screenwriters.”

“I’ll draw you, sleeping on the set like you always do,” Rukia offered, and that got a pretty big laugh. Rukia’s Tumblr of behind-the-scenes doodle comics was beloved among the fandom.

The next question was from a nonbinary person wearing a big poufy skirt and a hairstyle that would make their make-up and hair guru, Yumichika, sit up and take notice. “Hi, this is a question for Kuchiki-san! If the show is going to roughly keep pace with the manga, as it has done up until now, you should be shooting the storyline where Tomoe and Queen Bloodbuzz switch bodies later this year. I was wondering if you could comment on how you feel about filming that storyline?”

Finally! A good one! “Yes!” Rukia nodded eagerly. “I don’t usually like to speak for my fellow cast members, but Orihime and I are beyond excited about playing each other. We’ve been studying each other’s mannerisms and practicing already! Does anyone want to hear my Queen Bloodbuzz cackle?” She wagged her eyebrows as the audience cheered. “Here goes-- bwaHaHaHaHAHAHAHAAHAAAHAAAAAAAA!”

“Bonechilling,” Ichigo commented dryly as the audience erupted.

“Amazing, Kuchiki-san!” the moderator exclaimed. “I think there is time for one more, but this will be the last question!”

A tall girl in a full set of High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe motorcycle leathers stepped to the microphone. She was holding a notebook. “Hello!” she warbled. “In a 2020 interview with the Psychics and Sidekicks podcast, Abarai Renji was asked about his opinion on ZabiTo as a ship, and he replied,” she consulted her notebook, “‘Tomoe is such a cool lady and talented Battle Clairvoyant, and she always follows her heart and stays true to herself. I think that Zabimaru can’t help but be impressed with her, even though they’re enemies, and I always try to roll that into our on-screen interactions.’ I know that in the past you’ve refused to comment on the ship, but I was wondering if you had any thoughts on, y’know, his thoughts?”

“Well, he’s correct, of course, Tomoe is very cool and admirable,” Rukia replied, which drew a few laughs, although it seemed like the audience was leaning forward in anticipation of her answer. “Like I said, I don’t like to speak for other cast members. I’ll be doing a big cast panel with Abarai and Inoue and Matsumoto and Ukitake tomorrow afternoon, and I hope you all can make it! See you then!”

The moderator thanked them enthusiastically, and then Ichigo and Rukia slipped out the back guest entrance.

“Evasive as always, Kuchiki,” Ichigo teased.

“Whatever,” Rukia sniffed. “The higher ups say we’re not supposed to comment on stuff like that, and I was not commenting. By the way, how many secret fanfic accounts are you up to? Four?”

“It’s only three!” Ichigo paused. “I wrote that fanfic the guy brought up.”

“Of course you did,” Rukia sighed. “I do blame you personally for the popularity of the damn ship.”

“Me? Blame Kuna for making up two such sexy, emotionally constipated dumbasses!” Ichigo defended.

“Also, it’s not Ichigo’s fault that you and Abarai have insane chemistry.”

Rukia spun around, grinning. “Orihime!”

Rukia’s two co-stars, Inoue Orihime and Abarai Renji, the portrayers of Tomoe’s demonic archnemeses, stood in the hallway behind them.

“We sat in on your panel!” Orihime beamed. “You two were brilliant!”

“Don’t worry,” Renji added. “We were incognito.”

“Incognito” was relative, Rukia supposed, when you were at Tokyo’s biggest tokusatsu

convention.

Orihime was wearing a Zabimaru outfit so detailed that she probably could have won a prize down at the cosplay hall. She had the gravity-defying ponytail, the eyeliner, the insane widow's peak (complete with forehead tatts), the fangs, the motorcycle boots. The paper mache snake skull helmet was a little lopsided, but it was charming. She had her top zipped a little higher than canon, but that was forgivable, too.

Renji had taken the opposite tack of looking as much like a normal person-- or at least a normal Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe superfan-- as possible. Relaxed fit jeans and an oversized hoodie de-emphasized his ultra-fit physique. He was wearing a t-shirt with a very dramatic rendering of Orihime that said “Queen Bloodbuzz can step on me!” and a ball cap with the logo of Seireitei University, the fictional college Tomoe and Takeru attended.

“You think you’re in disguise,” Rukia pointed out, “but there are thousands of teen girls in this place with entire Tumblrs dedicated to your stupid face when you’re out of costume.”

Renji cocked an eyebrow at her. “You underestimate me, Rukia. I have bought… new sunglasses.” With a flourish, he whipped out a pair of the dorkiest wayfarers she’d ever seen, and flipped them onto his face. “I’ve disappeared! Who am I? Where am I?”

“You look really great, Orihime,” Ichigo said, his cheeks coloring a little bit. “Did you get Uryuu or Yumichika to help you with that costume?” In his continuing theme of doing things he wasn’t supposed to, Ichigo had finally started dating Orihime on the downlow around the time they finished up filming last season. It had done absolutely nothing for how shy he still got around her. They were, in Rukia’s opinion, cute as hell.

“Oh, no, that would be cheating!” Orihime replied, wagging a finger at him. “Well…maybe I did cheat, just a tiny bit. Renji helped me make the helmet and he held up references for me while I was painting on the tattoos.”

“Only the forehead ones,” Renji quickly added.

“He wouldn’t even offer feedback on my booby tattoos!” Orihime frowned. She leaned forward. “Rukia, how do they look?”

Ichigo turned even redder.

“Perfect, as in all you do!” Rukia replied loftily.

“What’s everyone got coming up next?” Renji asked. “I was thinking of slipping out and trying to pick up some real coffee.”

“I’m judging a villainess-themed cosplay competition,” Orihime chirped. “But I’m dying for a blueberry caramel iced latte. Renji, my henchman, pleeeeease!”

“Of course, my liege,” Renji replied in his Zabimaru voice.

It’s not like it had been a hard decision to accept the role of the motorcycle-riding, badass heroine of one of the most popular manga of the last decade, but it had turned out to be one of the best decisions of Rukia’s life. not just her career. Aside from a few of the money-obsessed executives, she liked nearly everyone in the cast and crew, but the fact that the fact that the ruthless, homicidal, literally Hell-spawned villains of the show were played by the two sweetest marshmallow people she had ever met just took the cake. Renji and Orihime had already known each other from some voicework they had done previously, and their excitement at working together on a live-action project had infected the entire cast from the start. Rukia wasn’t sure, but she strongly suspected that Renji was the one who had hyped Orihime up to ask Ichigo out.

“I have a writers’ workshop I’m moderating this afternoon, and I wanted to review the writing samples people sent in,” Ichigo said, scratching the back of his head. “I’d love to stop by that cosplay contest, though, at least for a few minutes.”

“You’ll be needing caffeine, too, then, eh?” Renji offered. “Hot, black, and in the largest cup they make, as usual?”

“Ugh, you’re the best,” Ichigo groaned. “You wanna power-up this season? Costume update? You know what? Maybe I’ll just have you defeat Tomoe once and for all, no one likes her anyway.”

“C’mon, you know I’m the world’s number one Tomoe simp, don’t do that!” Renji laughed.

Rukia rolled her eyes. “I’m free and I could use some fresh air. Besides, it’s going to take all your dumb muscles just to carry Kurosaki’s vat of coffee back here.”

“Cool!” Renji proclaimed. “We’ll be back soon!”

“Thanks, Renjiiiii!” Orihime waved.

“You need to stop off and put on a disguise?” Renji asked.

“No point in it, I always get recognized,” Rukia sighed, pulling her sunglasses out of her purse anyway.

“Here,” Renji said, plunking his hat on her head. “Maybe this will help.”

“Thanks,” Rukia replied, and then did a double take. “Whaaaaaat is on your head?”

“Shut up!” Renji laughed. He usually shaved his head when they were filming, because it made it easier to deal with the make-up and wigs, but since they were between seasons, he’d grown his hair out into a short, tousled mop of reddish-brown waves. He looked, for the lack of a better word, dreamy. “I shot a movie over the summer, and they wanted me to look softer.”

Rukia looked at him over the top of her sunglasses. “You didn’t tell me you were doing a movie!”

“Oh, it was just a little indy romcom thing. I wasn’t sure it was gonna pan out, I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”

“You were in a romcom? You’re kidding me!” They ducked out of a side door of the convention center into the bright sunshine.

“Yeah, it’s about a guy who goes to the gym to try to get ripped to impress a girl, and makes friends with me, this nice, already ripped dude who gives him lifting tips and encourages him a bunch. By the end of the movie, it turns out we have crushes on each other.”

“Oh, no, that sounds really cute, actually!”

“It was written by a woman who graduated from one of Ichigo’s writing workshops. The script was really snappy and Ichigo thought having someone like me as the gym guy would give it just a bit of campy cachet. You know what a good sense he’s got for stuff like that.”

“That was cool of you to go out on a limb a little,” Rukia replied.

Renji rubbed the back of his neck. “I’d been wanting to try something like that for a while, actually.”

Rukia blinked. “You aren’t… you aren’t thinking of leaving the show, are you?”

“Huh? No. No! No, the show means the world to me, I would never. But… it’s not gonna run forever, y’know?”

“I would have guessed you’d want to be a big action star or something!” Rukia said, throwing a few air punches. “That’s my dream!”

Renji stuffed his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. “Yeah, that’s what I thought I wanted when I first got into acting. I’d read the Tomoe manga, and I thought playing Zabimaru would be a good jumping-off point, besides just being a cool character overall.”

“Is that… not true?” Rukia frowned.

“Oh, I mean, I guess so! I didn’t really know about the fandom, though and… to be honest, I’m kinda into the idea that there are all these fans who think I’m complex and redeemable?”

Rukia regarded him out of the corner of her eye. “They just want to fix you.”

“Maybe! Ichigo made me read this one fanfic that was eight thousand words of the reader getting sick and Zabimaru making them soup? And feeding them the soup? I still haven’t decided how I feel about it.”

“How does he have time to find these things? Does he even sleep?”

“Anyway, it doesn’t hurt to be well-rounded and it was fun. I’m still mostly an action guy, but I wouldn’t mind doin’ something with a romantic subplot. A period drama or something like that. I look pretty good in hakama, you know.”

“I bet you do,” Rukia laughed. She squinted at him, but his expression was unreadable behind the shades. Renji didn’t have the classic leading man looks, not like her ridiculously famous older brother, but she could definitely see him as the best friend, the B-plot romance, with his cute, messy hair and that big doofy grin.

“By the way, I’m sorry you had to field that question about me spilling my romantic sensibilities on that podcast.”

Rukia laughed. “You didn’t even answer the question, either! These people are relentless!”

Renji stopped at a street corner and peered down the various possible directions they could go. “Which way feels like it might have a coffee shop?”

“You didn’t have one in mind before we left? I thought you knew where we were going!”

“Nah, I just like to go out and see what there is.”

“I can look up a map,” Rukia said, reaching in her bag for her phone.

“Let’s just go this way,” Renji said, stepping out into the street in the direction that had the WALK light. Rukia sighed and had to scramble to catch up with him.

“So, what do you think about it?”

“Huh?” Rukia asked. “Think about what?”

“Our ship. ZabiTo.”

“I can’t believe you just said that word out loud. And you know we’re not supposed to give our opinion on it!”

“Aw, c’mon, we’re not supposed to give public statements on our opinions. I don’t think there’s any harm in talking between ourselves. We’re in disguise, even.”

“‘Disguise’,” Rukia sniffed.

“You don’t like it, I can tell.”

“He’s a bad guy! Everyone always talks about chemistry, and that may be true, but I just don’t think that Tomoe could ever get over his acts of violence and cruelty.”

“Queen Bloodbuzz is cruel. Zabimaru is not cruel.”

“Okay, that’s fair, but still. He’s kidnapped just about all of Tomoe’s friends and or turned them into monsters at one time or another. He’s always setting Karakura Town on fire or flooding it with magic lizard goo. He ruined the sports festival.”

“Maybe the sports festival deserved to be ruined,” Renji muttered under his breath.

“Okay, you’ve got a point on that one,” Rukia admitted.

“It’s really clear though, that he’s got some agenda beyond just simping for Queen Bloodbuzz--”

“The simping for Queen Bloodbuzz is the most relatable thing about him, to be honest.”

“Granted. But, what if he’s got a good reason for everything he does, actually? What if he’s doing all of this against his own moral code as a means of infiltrating Hell itself and getting himself into a position of trust so that he can bring down the Lords of Hell from the inside?”

Rukia slipped her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose. “Does Kuna give you Zabimaru spoilers?” The reclusive creator High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe! was only barely involved with the television show, but she did privately meet with each of the cast members about once a year. Most of Rukia’s meetings consisted of Kuna giving her constructive criticism on her battle poses.

“No, mostly we practice sneering,” Renji replied. “But I gotta play the guy, so I gotta think about this, you know, what motivates him? I mean, you’re probably right, it would never work out. But unlike Tomoe, whose principles would call for her to ignore any attraction she has to him, Zabimaru has the freedom to pine for her, perhaps because his love is futile and he doesn’t think he deserves it anyway.”

“That’s kinda dark, dude,” Rukia frowned.

“Yes, well, that is the kind of character acting that netted me the 2019 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Best Villain Award, Foreign Language Category.”

“That’s literally what’s going through your head when you’re shouting that if I can’t make some sick motorcycle jump, you’ll turn all my friends into stuffed animal versions of themselves?”

“No, of course not! At those times I’m thinking about how much I love my job. OH! and what is that I see!” Renji struck an extremely Zabimaru pose. “A MISTER DONUT!”

“My hero!” Rukia exclaimed, unable to resist an opportunity to shout dramatically. “I’m sorry I doubted you!”

“I think we should get some donuts, too. Orihime loves donuts,” Renji declared.

“Oh, for sure,” Rukia agreed. She was thoughtful for a moment. It would be easy to move on to a different subject, the subject being donuts, but she wasn’t happy with leaving the last conversation hanging. “Look, Renji, just because I don’t like the dumb ship, you know that’s not a reflection on you, right?”

“Huh?” Renji replied. “You mean you don’t mind if I like it?”

“Well… I mean, I don’t, I guess, but what I really meant was, er… we joke a lot, but Tomoe and Zabimaru are just parts, y’know? Just because I don’t think Zabimaru isn’t good boyfriend material doesn’t mean I…” Rukia trailed off, suddenly realizing what she was saying. “Um. What I mean is. You’re very nice and probably one of my favorite people I’ve ever worked with and if someone I knew wanted to ask you out, I would definitely encourage them to, A+ guy, I’d say, probably would make a great boyfriend.”

Renji pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead and regarded her for a long moment. “For the record, Kuchiki, I think that both you and Tomoe would make excellent girlfriend material.” While Rukia stood there and gaped like a fish, he turned and pushed open the door to the coffee shop. “Ichigo likes crullers and Orihime always wants the most colorful thing they’ve got. Do you know what you want?”

“I need to think about it,” Rukia squeaked. She wasn’t talking about donuts.

🏍    ⚡   🎬 

Bonus: Here are my notes from when I was making up the show. I hope this wasn’t too confusing!

High-Spirited Battle Clairvoyant Tomoe!

based on a manga by reclusive mangaka Kuna Mashiro

Head Screenwriter: Kurosaki Ichigo

🌟 Starring: 🌟

Kuchiki Rukia as Yukimura Tomoe, a spunky college student who can see ghosts and fights demons from Hell! She rides a motorcycle!

Inoue Orihime as Queen Bloodbuzz, a Lady of Hell, who seeks to gather energy from the Living Realm so that she can become the Supreme Ruler of Hell. Very aesthetic. Much bees.

Abarai Renji as Zabimaru, Queen Bloodbuzz’s ruthless henchman. He leads a double life as fierce-looking, but gentle-hearted college student Satonaka Takeru! What is his long game??

[fishylife]

Street Dance of China Season 4, Episode 6

- The banners for each of the contestants is cool but also like...for what reason lol. I’m curious about their function or if it’s purely just a gesture to welcome them.

- We finally get to see Yixing’s anime hair. I’m wondering whether the white hair is real or if it’s just an extension though.

- The idea of the contestants who aren’t in teams yet being the judges is very cool to me. The result is to be determined by professional dancers from all sorts of backgrounds, so I trust their judgment about techniques and stuff. But the sample size is also huge, which I think makes the process fair (provided that the show doesn’t somehow rig the votes). I think it will be hard to rig the votes though because all of the dancers are known to the audience. The showrunners can’t just introduce a bunch of faceless voters to pad votes.

- Okay but this looks dope. Yixing looks like a delinquent with his gang. Han Geng's team doesn’t have as strong as a theme, and I think all of the members just dressed in a way that was comfortable for them, in line with the yellow colour theme (since yellow is Han Geng’s team colour). But also Han Geng’s top showing off his vest and arms is like....bruh.

- Han Geng’s team thinks he is very nice and open-minded uwu. Basically they said he was very easygoing. Even if things weren’t working out he would cheer them up being like it’s okay, don’t worry etc.

- Here is Ibuki and AC teaching him to be fabulous.

- AC and Ibuki having sibling fights XD Zyko was supposed to boost Ibuki up so that she could hop over AC’s head and Ibuki was like put your head further down! and AC was like just jump!!

- Huang Xiao said that Yixing had a lot of thoughts and ideas about what the performance could be like. Nothing out of the ordinary, we know Yixing is like that.

- Huang Xiao and George did this flip thingy and then Kenken was like ?!?! and then Poppin’C gave Kenken a slap on the ass being like bro he can do it you have to try it too now lol.

- This happened again where Huang Xiao and Yixing had an idea for a very athletic move and Kenken was not confident. I think Kenken is not as confident about his own athleticism ^^;;

- On the whole, I personally enjoyed Han Geng’s team’s performance more. I think that their team had more creative moves and choreography, whereas Yixing’s team relied more on stage energy and charisma of the individual dancers. Also, Yixing’s team had a lot of different styles whereas Han Geng had more dancers who were all-rounders, so I felt that Han Geng’s team came together a bit better.

- The voting method seems kind of tedious there. Throwing the towels on stage and getting staff to count them? There has to have been a faster way of doing this lol. I think it’s because they can’t make the answer too obvious because there are other battles to come. Still think there was a better of doing this, like marking a ballot or something lol.

- Hugs :3

- Zyko is so nice. I mean, yeah he could’ve just been saying that, but he still took the time to be like I love my teammates! I love my captain!

- Yixing didn’t feel good about his own performance :( The contestants tried to be like no!! you were good!! And then Henry changed his voice to pretend to be someone else and was like “..I think Yixing danced very well~~~”

- Han Geng was stretching and Henry was like don’t hurt yourself, you’re not like you once were and Han Geng’s like oh you brat. Then Henry was like I will literally never let you live this down you old man. Note how Henry is using the prop fan that Han Geng’s team was using. Did Han Geng give it to him, or was it another team member who did?

- Kenken’s always like “I am young but don’t underestimate me! And here he is showing his ass to the whole world so that they can see how baby he is. This man jumped into Huang Xiao’s arms for a hug, okay.

- OK but we know this is gonna be epic, right?

- I liked the concept of this performance. The Huang Xiao influences were definitely much stronger than the Kenken influences. We know Kenken is into the more hip hop hype sort of style so this is probably a bit newer for him. The props were also extremely impressive which definitely helped their performance. There were some times when they were visibly out of sync though, which did kind of bother me.

- I think Kenken didn’t realize it was time to get off the stage so Huang Xiao had to get him lol.

- The fans are a hit.

- Yixing introduced his team’s performance with some wise words, whereas Han Geng introduced his with a pun. He said taichi shouldn’t be too rushed, where too rushed is pronounced the same as taiji/taichi. Old man humour indeed.

- Ma Xiaolong and Zyko had a guqin themed performance.

- WOW!!! Their performance was super impressive. My interpretation of the story is that Ma Xiaolong was the spirit of the guqin, and Zyko was learning about Chinese culture with him. The performance was so evocative. The music had a lot of different sounds which gave them a lot to work with. There were times when Zyko and Ma Xiaolong could mimic drinking tea, or birdwatching etc. Just as Huang Xiao was better suited to a Chinese-style performance, so was Ma Xiaolong, but the advantage was that Zyko’s dance style was very suited for calm songs like this one. In addition, their performance involved Zyko and Ma Xiaolong doing different actions, so whether or not they were in sync didn’t even occur to me because they were dancing their own parts, different but still together. Wow, I would have to vote for them if I had the chance.

- Apparently Ma Xiaolong goes by the Western name of Derek. I only knew when Rochka was talking about him. I realized that Zyko hadn’t called Ma Xiaolong by his Chinese name when he was talking about him on stage earlier but I hadn’t caught what he’d called him.

- Ahh I love them. People always forget that one of the purposes of art is to bring people together v.v

- Yixing was down earlier but I hope he’s been successfully cheered up v.v Anyway this is him going “...I may have underestimated the opponent.” Seriously, Han Geng’s team has been killing it so far. Maybe relaxation really is the key to success.

- This caption says 真香現場. 真香 is kind of a Chinese meme, but it basically refers to when you were like “lol this is gonna suck” and then you later realize that it’s actually super awesome. So 真香現場 means like, a live look at someone being proven wrong.

- The 2 vs. 2 battle between George + Poppin’C and Ibuki + AC was pretty entertaining! I think it’s because they were expected to prepare for it, so they had time to figure out some creative moves, as opposed to the other battles where it’s strictly supposed to be freestyle and on the fly. George and Poppin’C just looked like they were having so much fun?! Poppin’C is really starting to grow on me because he seems like such a nice and fun-loving guy. I did think Qiao Zhi was kind of a serious guy, so maybe it’s Poppin’C’s happy vibes that are getting to him haha. As for ibuki + AC, I liked that they included waacking with some more creative choreography, including and footwork and stuff, which made their routines feel fresh.

- Ibuki imitating AC’s flashiness with the sound effects was SO CUTE.

- I wish we got to hear more comments from the other dancers who were judging! They are shy though lol.

- Han Geng’s team won by a large margin. I think I understand the strategy for this show now though. Most of the dancers who have made it this far are extremely strong individual dancers. So you don’t have to worry so much about the battles. It’s the group dances where you need to strategize a bit because not all dancers can work with other dancers. Han Geng purposely chose dancers that would fit with each other more. And I think the vibe of his team is a little more chill lol.

- Henry’s got the enthusiasm but he doesn’t exactly have the vocabulary to back it up lol. Henry tried to trash talk Yibo a bit before their battle and Yibo brushed it off being like “oh my god I’m so scared what should I do” but in the most low energy Yibo way possible. And then Henry took the opposite approach and went “love you bro” and Yibo was like “okay.” Here’s Henry being scandalized.

- Henry teaching his team to be his hype crew for when he trash talks Yibo lol.

- Henry taking EVERY OPPORTUNITY to flirt what a menace. Rochka accepts >3

- From the behind the scenes clips we got, it looks like Yibo was frustrated with his team because they didn’t have a choreographer and so it was hard to come up with good ideas that incorporated the entire team. So the team opted to go for a very “old school” performance, which I guess means to not be too daring or innovative because they weren’t sure they could pull it off.

- With regards to the group performances, I thought both were extremely fun to watch. Henry’s team just had a lot of fun vibes? Like these five were here to have fun and that’s it. This performance also suited Rochka and Chika very well too. Henry has good stage presence too, so he could handle the spotlight very well. Not gonna lie, I actually thought that Yibo’s team’s performance was good, but I think it’s because the group fell back on a comfortable routine, stuff that they knew they could execute on for sure. I think they had a lot of “five dancers dancing in a line” that made their performance and choreography less creative and appealing. And I guess they relied quite a bit on stage presence (Nelson and Bouboo especially) to prop up the energy of their performance. Henry’s team won by quite a lot this round.

- The producers trying to get Rochka speak Chinese lol. I think he’s a bit shy about it. The first thing he said was 吃飽了 which is “I’m full.” And then he learned how to say the other team 不咋地 which is like, dissing them and then San’er and Han Yu and Henry were like NOOOOOOO XD But he ended his segment by saying Yibo’s team was 帥 (cool).

- Okay but can I just say?? This boy is extremely pretty?? He debuted when he was like 17 or something, so this is definitely one of those situations where a scout for Yuehua realized this boy was going to be super good looking when he grew up and snatched him up at whatever tender young age it was that he started training.

- Kind of felt like Yibo was trying to overcompensate when he was taking the loss and talking about how just the voting system was, but eh, I’ll cut him some slack. He was very disappointed.

- But I agree with what Yibo said about how the scoring system was good. The large sample size helps to separate out the winner. When there is a big gap in votes, it doesn’t necessarily mean that one team is thaaaat much better than another team, it just means that that many people felt that one team was better than another. It’s very helpful in widening a gap, which was something I noticed in the Yixing vs. Han Geng battle.

- Not gonna lie, Ye Yin and Liangliang’s performance felt a bit out of place because they went with a Daft Punk, general hip hop theme, whereas all of the other duos went with a strong cultural theme. I can’t deny that technically they were impressive, but I did feel a bit less hyped for their performance. As for Han Yu and Chika, first of all, love a good co-ed performance. Also, I thought it was fun that Han Yu was wearing a more military style hanfu and Chika was wearing a costume that was kimono inspired. They did use a lot of props so I don’t know if that may bother some people (who may think it’s gimmicky).Technically, their performance was maybe not as wow-worthy from a technical standpoint, but they definitely made their performance very entertaining and fun to watch.

- So I know San’er was involved in that plagiarism scandal earlier. I vaguely recall San’er saying how he came up with the foot-tutting moves, and people were calling him out because there was an Indian dancer who did the foot-tutting moves before him. Now here’s the thing. I think it’s possible for two people to independently originate a move. Like how civilizations all over the world independently made alcoholic beverages. However, there is a lot of copying in the world of art as well. Artists are inspired by others, etc. If San’er saw that move and wanted to try it, I don’t think it necessarily discredits him. He still had the skill to pull it off. Now, I saw posts where the Indian dancer said he had spoken to the producers of SDOC and thought the he would’ve gotten some credit or acknowledgement. He said that he just wanted the credit, and didn’t want San’er to be kicked off the show. I felt like the easiest way to resolve this was for the show to simply just give the Indian dancer the credit. What really makes this even weirder is how San’er doubled down and said that the Indian dancer was his friend, which is a strange statement to make because it can easily be verified, and it was. The Indian dancer said he didn’t know San’er. If San’er had just said he’d been inspired by him, I think he would’ve made it out cleanly. I think that maybe this all started because San’er had implied that he had thought up of foot-tutting himself. That being said, if he truly had thought of it himself and didn’t know of the Indian dancer, it is very difficult to prove that and no one would believe him anyway. The fact that he doubled down and said that the Indian dancer was his friend made me think that he did take the idea from him. I just wondered why the show couldn’t just, iunno, edit a clip being like, by the way, this Indian dancer has done this sick ass move before. San’er’s move looks like that, isn’t it cool?

- I think the sticky thing here is that San’er’s “thing” was that he was creative. A lot of his performances had very interesting visuals and tricks, and that was what he sold. So if he’d taken that idea from another dancer, what else of his was taken from other dancers? I think that’s the question here.

- That being said, I don’t think that it’s bad to be inspired by other artists, as long as credit is given. Not gonna lie, when I started watching this show, I was very impressed by San’er’s ideas and I quite liked them. It would’ve been cool if he had come up with all of them. If not, that’s cool too, because he was still able to present the ideas in a way that was charismatic and fun to watch. Just give credit where credit’s due. He could’ve been like “oh yeah, I watched this video on Youtube and that’s where I got the idea for move xyz.” I don’t know if that’s like, an insult to his pride as a dancer, but if you’re inspired, and you’re on a show that aims to get the general public into dance, it seems reasonable to give that information?

- I realized my thoughts on this topic are very messy so let me summarize. (1) If San’er really did make up the foot-tutting move on his own, it’s very hard to prove. (2) The fact that he said he knew the Indian dancer is very suspicious and makes me think that he did not in fact originate the move on his own. If that was the case, I don’t know why the show didn’t just give the Indian dancer credit, since it seemed like the Indian dancer wasn’t super mad about his moves being used anyway. (3) I don’t think that it’s bad to be inspired by other dancers. But don’t say that you created them. Now, back to the show.

- Looks like San’er and Rochka were dark horses here. Yibo had already suspected San’er of having lots of tricks up his sleeve and advised Bouboo and Nelson to be prepared. Rochka is seriously overlooked. He is such a versatile dancer because he has the skill for the minute details but also the athleticism. Plus, the guy has such a teddy bear attitude.

- I’m starting to see some limitations in Nelson’s dancing. He’s a great popper, but he’s kind of locked into popping, kind of like how I feel about Poppin’C. Bouboo is more versatile and creative than Nelson in my opinion. And like most of the people said, they just didn’t work well as a team compared to San’er and Rochka. I’m not sure if it was simply because they had no choreographer among them, or because both of them are such strong individual freestyle dancers. I didn’t expect this, but they got very few votes in their battle.

- San’er talked about how Rochka was a huge teddy bear. The show gave us so many clips of Rochka just being very charming, and doing cute things.

- I like the idea of the “free” dance that allows the dancers themselves to choose their teams, and to not be restricted by any theme. I got to see some combinations of dancers that I’d been anticipating.

- The locking team was very fun to watch. Part of it is obviously HB and Go Go brothers, but I also think that the Chinese lockers including Xiao Jie and A-wei are rather charismatic. Maybe it’s because they’re back in China and they’re familiar with this audience, but they really do seem really comfortable.

- Han Yu and Ye Yin getting kicked off stage after they performed with the locking team lol.

- The Japanese “izakaya” team was interesting. It took me a while to get in the groove of their performance because the song was not so structured and I was trying to look for an in to get in the groove of it. Also, because the set and costumes were very Japanese style, I was expecting more of a song with traditional elements, so that’s what threw me off. But in the end, I still think what they did was very cute and interesting. Their concept was four workers at an izakaya, and the song is very “welcome to our restaurant!” Also side note, I thought it was interesting that Kelo and Uwa were separated for this event.

- Xiaoji was the choreographer for the third team, the b-boy team. In this behind the scenes part, Bozi was like, hmm I don’t know if holding hands will work for this choreography and Xiaoji was basically I don’t care how it looks, I just wanna hold hands right now so shut up! XD

- The b-boy team wasn’t necessarily the cleanest, because there were times when the performance would lull. The music was also very quiet, which is a problem with the audio editing. That being said, they have their unique charisma. The thing about the b-boy team is that most of the people in this team are very serious except for Xiaoji. So Xiaoji is responsible for planning the hijinks, he just needs the serious guys to go along with his plans, which they did, and it was hilarious partially because the other guys were so serious, especially Lil Kev, Bozi, and C-Lil. I don’t think they’ll score as high because the b-boys aren’t as well-rounded, but I still think they did great in entertaining the audience, and I have to say, Xiaoji was the great mastermind behind this performance.

- The choreographer team performance was pretty fun! I feel like the atmosphere of that team was pretty chill in general which was nice. That part when Boris and Li Chunlin were making fun of each other made me laugh. The “story” behind their performance was that the group is in a desert and they’re kind of fighting for water, and just when one of them dies of thirst, it starts to rain. (Kind of like “all of you are fighting, and for what?” sort of story). Kind of a morbid story, but it really caught my attention. The group also just worked really well together. None of them seemed like they struggled to keep up. Maybe that is the magic of having so many choreographers.

- The popping team was cute!! They weren’t as ambitious with the “concept” of their performance, but they had a lot of fun moves (like the snake charmer one), and most of all, I just felt that they had a ton of fun! Hope this team scores high because I wanna see my boy MT-Pop in the competition lol.

- Okay this round of eliminations hurt though :(

- Henry and Yibo were showing off card tricks to each other (and failing) on the hotpot show but OMG LOOK AT THE FIGURES BEHIND THEM!!! They’re dressed in the clothes that the captains were dressed in for the first teasers!!!!

- Okay apparently the kids went to visit the set and here are Zyko, Rochka, Poppin’C, and Ibuki doing their routine XD

[tagsecretsanta]

From @Psychoseal

to @avengedbiologist Secret santa does not won this fic, full credit to the author above

Scott is exhausted. Running his hand through his prematurely greying hair as he exits Thunderbird One, the only thing running through his mind is the thought of a long hot shower and the largest pot of coffee on the Island. 

All Scott has ever known in his life is responsibility. He doesn’t even remember the peaceful years before Virgil was born and his life flipped upside down. Before Virgil was born, he had a number of names. Sunshine, Sweetheart, Darling, Scooter are just a small sample. But then everything changed. And his name became “Scott don’t” “Scott don’t put the stickers on the baby. Scott don’t feed the baby your broccoli. Scott don’t climb the furniture.” 

But he learned to love Virgil, and by the time his youngest brother was born his new nickname was smother hen! 

Scott can even remember his first grey hair. He was nineteen and had just gotten witnessed his thirteen-year-old brother fall from the barn roof in a dare gone wrong. That first grey hair he named Gordon! 

Once he has escaped to the safety of his room, Scott quickly strips off his clothes before climbing under stream of fresh almost boiling water. He is so tired he doesn’t even realise that the water is dying his skin blue as he lathers shower gel into his hair, his eyes closed happily as the water helps him to relax. Finally. 

Flicking the water off, he strings a large fluffy towel around his hips. 

Then screams. 

A scream so loud it brings Grandma running up two flights of stairs from the kitchen and barging into his room. “Scott?” she gasps, struggling to catch her breath. The rolling pin she was using to make the pie crust still in the hand. “What happened?” 

“Gordon!” Scott growls. “Where is he?” 

“London with Lady Penelope on vacation and has been all week, I don’t think this is one of his” Grandma reminds him gently. 

“Never jump to conclusions Smurf” Virgil says having also heard the screams, and come running, stopping short when he spots his big brother and bursting into laughter. “Think, who have you annoyed recently, then follow the trail to the culprit” 

“Annoyed? I never annoy anyone” Scott splutters in protest. “I am going to borrow your bathroom to get rid of this ridiculous dye” 

“Sure Smurf just let me do something really important first” Virgil says, and before Scott has the time to run, Virgil snaps a photo of him and runs away laughing. 

“Grandma!” Scott protests, he can feel a new grey hair emerging. 

“Go and get a shower, I will have a word with Virgil” Grandma replies leaving him to his thoughts.

Scott’s thoughts are not pleasant, and involve drowning the responsible brother in boiling oil, or tarring and feathering them while he films their humiliation. Googling cruel and unusual punishment ideas once he is back to normal and hiding out in his own room, Scott smiles at some of the ideas and regrets the vote he lost to build an island jail for his wayward siblings. 

Lying back on his bed, his head resting on the pillow, Scott stares at the ceiling in the ever-increasing gloom of the early evening, but he doesn’t get up to put the light on, but he can’t sleep. The frustration with his brothers isn’t receding the longer he lies here. Revenge is the only thing he wants! 

*TB*

Gordon is back from leave the following morning. Carrying a bag full of gifts for his family. All neatly wrapped. 

“Where is everyone?” he asks Virgil who is the only one in the kitchen. 

Virgil doesn’t answer him while he focuses on draining his coffee instead. “Mmm, that is better! What did you ask Squid legs?” 

“Where is everyone?” Gordon repeats. Rolling his eyes and pouring himself a coffee.

“Alan and Scott are still in bed. You need to apologise to Scott. He didn’t think your prank was a good idea!” Virgil says. 

“What prank?” Gordon asks. His eyes wide and innocent.

“The dye in his shower head. How did you pull that off anyway? You weren’t even here” Virgil asks, he is impressed despite himself. If Gordon has evolved to pulling pranks remotely, then the whole island is doomed! 

“Oh that. I just gave Alan the instructions and told him where the joke kit is hidden. Alan is the guilty party, not me” Gordon insists.

“IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT!” A voice booms from behind him, causing Gordon to startle and almost drop his coffee. 

“Smurf, hi” Virgil says, trying to dissipate the tension building between his two brothers. 

“I KNEW YOU HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THIS” Scott roars at Gordon.

Gordon rolls his eyes picks up one of Grandma’s scented candles and throws it at Scott’s head. “Lighten up Smurf” he says before running from the room, Scott on his heels determined more than ever to pound the brat! 

Gordon runs up the stairs and out the main doors to the pool.

“No running by the pool Fish” Scott shouts at him, that thing in his brain telling him to protect his younger brothers kicking in again. 

Gordon once again is one step ahead of him as he dives into the pool, and swims across to the other side, before climbing up and continuing to run down to the beach still pursued by Scott, who can’t outswim him and he knows he can’t break an important safety rule. Gordon is fast, but Scott is angry and determined, and he catches up to him, tackling him to the ground. 

“What on earth?” Jeff asks in exasperation. “Gordon you only had one job!” 

Gordon struggles under Scott’s weight, as his eldest brother is now sitting on his chest, pinning his shoulders to the ground with his arms. “I got him here didn’t I?” 

“Let him up Scott please” Jeff asks.

“What’s the magic word?” Scott asks Gordon. 

“Abracadabra” Gordon replies. 

“Scott” Jeff asks again.

And Scott knows that this is the best he can hope for as he rolls off his brother and allows him to stand. “Why are you here?” he asks his dad. “And what did you mean when you said you got me here?” he asks Gordon, now thoroughly confused by the whole matter. 

“Come with me, and you will find out” Jeff replies cryptically. 

Scott follows his father and brother along the sandy pathway leading to a small cove Gordon discovered during his first summer on the island, before he stops in his tracks at the scene in front of him. 

All his favourite people in one place. something that rarely happens in his family. His brothers, even John, are all sitting on the floor around the preparations for a bonfire, yet to be lit. 

“Scott come and sit down” Grandma calls him over. There is a smile on her face, as she pats a spare piece of sand next to her. Scott does as he is told, even though he is confused by what is happening. 

He hasn’t even noticed a large pile of gifts, all neatly wrapped nearby where Alan is sat chatting to Colonel Casey. 

“Why is everyone here?” he finally asks, unable to resist the temptation any longer. 

“I TOLD YOU HE FORGOT!” Gordon cries gleefully. 

“Forgot what?” Scott asks, racking his brains desperately for anything he might have missed. It definitely isn’t Christmas as the villa’s not been decorated. And it isn’t one of his brother’s birthdays as there is no way he would be allowed to forget those. Alan still drops gift hints for months before the big day.

“Hand it over John” Gordon says holding his hand out for his winnings. John reluctantly hands over a twenty dollar bill. 

“Will someone please tell me what the heck is going on?” Scott asks. Unable to take the laughter any longer. 

“What day is it?” Virgil asks, trying to help him out. 

“Erm Wednesday?” Scott replies. 

“It is Saturday Scott” Virgil replies rolling his eyes. “How about the month?” 

Scott knows this one. As it was Alan’s birthday recently. “March” Scott says this time confidently. 

“It’s April” Virgil says. 

“No it isn’t. Alan’s birthday was the other day” Scott insists. 

Virgil takes pity on his eldest brother. “Scott it’s the fourth of April. This is your birthday party!” 

“It can’t be. I would know if it was April already. Gordon is this an April fools’ joke?” Scott asks, turning his attention to Gordon, who is sitting on Lady Penelope’s lap while she hand feeds him grapes. “And can’t you do that in private?” 

“Nota April foolsh joke” Gordon confirms, his mouth full of half chewed grape.

“Ugh swallow first” Scott tells him disgusted, and still not convinced that it really is his birthday. 

“Scott, it really is April. And it really is your birthday. I am sorry I gave Gordon the job if getting you down to the beach, but happy birthday son” Jeff tells him. “We are worried about you though. You have been working far too hard recently. You missed Gordon’s April fools’ day prank because you were on Mars with Alan. it was a good one this year too” he adds.

“What did he do?” Scott asks. Remembering that this is Jeff’s first April fools’ since he got back from the Oort cloud. 

“Snuck into the GDF headquarters and left a notice on the board advising on a Chewbacca Roaring contest and to call my phone and leave a voicemail with their best effort and that I will judge them tomorrow. He even managed to set my phone to go straight to voicemail and put a message on it repeating the contest instructions.” Jeff tells him grinning. 

“And you found that funny?” Scott asks. 

“I did. And I have picked a winner already. Gordon will be paying the fifty-dollar reward though!” Jeff says. 

“Worth it” Gordon says with a shrug. “But Scott, seriously open your presents already!” 

Scott is still sceptical but he also knows that Colonel Casey and his father wouldn’t play a practical joke on him, maybe it really is his birthday.

Picking up the first gift from the pile. Scott knows without looking at it that this was wrapped by Gordon. It is wrapped in bright yellow paper and covered in so much tape he knows that it will take him hours to get in to! Sure enough the label reads “Yo scotty. Have fun getting into this. Love your favourite brother” 

“Hey look, he’s picked your gift Gords” Alan says with a grin, grabbing his phone and loading up the timing app. “Ready Scott?” he asks. 

“Ready for what?” Scott asks.

“Our party game; let’s see how long it takes you to get into the present. My guess is thirty-five minutes” Alan replies. 

Scott knows that he should play along, this has always been one of their favourite traditions. An invention of Gordon’s the first year he was old enough to wrap gifts. “Fine. Start the count” he says. 

“GO!” Alan calls. 

Scott tries to slide his nail under the tape but it is impossible. He can’t deny that Gordon is the master. Turning the badly wrapped gift over in his hands, looking for a way in Scott gets more and more frustrated as the minutes tick by, and starts to chew his way in, finally biting a hole through the tape and into the paper. 

“How long?” Gordon asks the official timekeeper.

“Six minutes, thirty-five seconds” Alan replies. “Dad and Colonel Casey have been eliminated from the game” 

“You all had bets?” Scott asks, he is laughing now though. Finally starting to relax.

“Of course” Jeff tells him. “We have been planning this for weeks” 

Scott is now working on making the hole bigger, sticking his thumb in and wriggling it about. the contents are confusing, as whatever is in here feels slimy. 

Pulling out a piece of still wet seaweed Scott is confused. “Seaweed?” he asks Gordon. 

Gordon grins at him. “Yep and there is something else in there too” 

Scott pulls out the rest of his gift. A book. 

“Stop the clock Al” Gordon says. 

“Eleven minutes, twenty-two seconds” Alan announces, checking the contest list for the closest. “Hey Virg, you won!” 

Virgil jumps up from the floor to do his victory dance, pumping his fist in the air and twirling around until he falls over his own feet. Picking himself up and spitting out sand, he turns to Scott. “What is the book Scott? I don’t think Gordon has ever even opened a book let alone bought one for someone else!” 

Scott examines the books cover. “1001 of the weirdest laws in the world” he realises that one of the pages is bookmarked. Opening the book Scott reads the highlighted passage “In New Hampshire, it is illegal to collect and carry away seaweed at the beach, but only at night.” 

“You didn’t?!” Scott asks, eyeing up his brother. “You went to New Hampshire in the middle of the night to get seaweed even though it is illegal?” 

Unrepentant, Gordon nods. “Yeah I even borrowed thunderbird one. Do you like it?” 

“Like it?!” Scott asks spluttering with laughter. “Only you Gords. Come here” 

Gordon scrambles to his feet from Lady Penelope’s lap and runs over to Scott, who grabs him by the waist and tackles him to the ground. “Of course I like it! Who doesn’t love gifts that have been gathered illegally?” 

The rest of Scott’s presents are more normal. A painting of Thunderbird One over the Island from Virgil, which will look great above his bed. “Thanks Virg. I love it” He says, now with genuine enthusiasm. 

“The cavern quest expansion pack” Scott says opening up his gift from Alan. 

“Yeah, I am going to need that back once you are done” Alan says. 

“Sure” Scott replies, handing it over. He does not have the time to play mindless video games. 

Alan rolls his eyes. “Scott. You have to play it first. Come and see me tomorrow and Kayo and I will teach you” 

“You know I don’t have the time” Scott reminds them. 

“You do, we cleared your schedule for the rest of the week. You are on vacation and we are going to teach you to have fun!” Alan insists.

“I know how to have fun” Scott insists. 

“Scott, your idea of fun is doing paperwork, nagging me and cleaning your room” Gordon tells him. 

Making the only decision that will allow him to keep his dignity, Scott ignores Gordon and goes back to his presents. This one is from Grandma and turns out to be vouchers for an evening out at his favourite restaurant. “Thanks Grandma, but can I leave Gordon and Alan here to eat your lasagne, they really like the way you leave it frozen in the middle but burn the top layer.” 

“Scoooooo-oooooott!” Gordon and Alan whinge in unison. 

“Call it big brother’s revenge!” Scott replies with a grin. 

Their pouting doesn’t last long as Scott unwraps his gift from his father. 

Shocked by the contents, Scott just stares at him. 

“Well?” Jeff asks.

“I can’t” Scott insists. “International Rescue needs me. They need me” 

Scott has been raising his younger brothers for so long, he has not had a proper vacation in years. But this states he can have a whole month away from all the worry and stress. 

“We can cope. The GDF are going to take care of some of the simple rescues. The hood and the Chaos Crew are all safely locked away in the newly rebuilt Hex prison. I don’t think they liked the irony of being locked up in a prison they blew up!” Jeff says. “It is okay to admit you need a break Scott” 

Scott can feel tears welling up in his eyes, and it his father who makes the first move, wrapping his arms around his eldest son, who has been so strong for so long. 

“We love you Scooter” Jeff says. “You have held this family together beautifully, but please let me help you” 

Scott nods. His head still buried on Jeff’s shoulder. 

“If I do, please don’t let Gordon have Thunderbird one!” Scott says, trying to inject some humour into the situation. 

“Oh I don’t know; he did a g-g-great job while you were on Mars. A-a-apart from the unauthorised t-t-trip to New Hampshire” Brains says.

“Oh don’t forget the drone he crashed into the Eiffel tower” John says. 

“And the flood in the hangar when he was trying to clean off the mud off after he had to rescue the three explorers from a mudslide in Italy” Virgil says.

“Stop it, or he will never agree to leave” Jeff says. 

“Where am I going to go?” Scott asks. 

“Anywhere you want son” Jeff replies. Still holding him in his embrace. “We can talk about it after the party. Now how about you open some more presents, then we can get the bonfire started and grill some breakfast” 

Scott doesn’t make an effort to move from Jeff’s side, but happily opens the rest of his presents. Finally realising that they are right, he has been so wrapped up in the problems of the world that he has been carrying that weight on his soul, and it is slowly crushing the life out of him. Maybe, just maybe he can take a vacation. 

*TB*

The party lasts all day, thank you to the organisational skills of his family there are no emergency call outs, as Eos is forwarding the calls to local authorities and the GDF. The sun is starting to set, but the party is still going strong. Gordon and Lady Penelope have disappeared somewhere more private, but everyone else is there.

Alan is in charge of the music. Having set up a playlist and letting it go.

“GUYS COME ON! THIS IS MY FAVOURITE” Alan calls when the introduction to his favourite some comes on. “LINE UP” 

No one moves as the opening lines of the macarena start up. 

Alan grabs Jeff’s hands and pulls him into a standing position. “Come on dad, pleeeeeeaaaaassssssse!” he begs, giving his father the wide doe eyed start that no one, not even the great Jeff Tracy. 

“Okay fine show me what to do” Jeff replies. 

“Great! Okay Scott, Virgil, John, Grandma, Kayo, Parker, Brains, Colonel Casey” Alan calls while he starts going through the movements of the dance.

Virgil is the first to join in. knowing that Alan needs this just as much as Scott does. Taking his phone, he tries to contact Gordon. A family macarena isn’t the same without the family fish. 

“Hey Virg, what’s up?” Gordon asks. 

“Where are you?” Virgil asks. 

“Thunderbird one with Pen” Gordon replies. 

“Please tell me you’re just giving her a tour” Virgil asks facepalming. 

“Sure” Gordon replies with a shrug.

“Anyway stop it, and get back to the beach, we are having a family dance off” Virgil says. 

“You know I am going to win right?” Gordon asks, ringing off without giving Virgil a response. Pulling his shirt back on, he helps Lady Penelope zip back up her dress before they hop down from the pilots seat and exit Scott’s plane before running hand in hand back to the beach. 

“The macarena?” Gordon says with a grin. “Put it back to the beginning Al” 

Alan skips the track back to the start, and Gordon takes centre stage. Wriggling his hips before jumping up into the air crying “HEY MACARENA!” every single time. 

Even Parker and Grandma join in. the move on to the cha cha slide and the YMCA before collapsing into a heap on the floor laughing. 

“What song next DJ Allie?” Kayo asks. Even she has relaxed, her hair no longer in its customary tight pony tail but falling loosely around her shoulders. 

Alan grins before jumping up to his feet and skipping over to his phone. 

“No way. This I draw the line too!” Kayo says as the opening to baby shark starts to blare through the speakers. 

“SCOTTY SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO! Gordon starts. “SCOTTY SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO” 

John is the first to join in. “SCOTTY SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO” 

Jeff joins in too “SCOTTY SHARK!” 

Kayo groans, but she knows when she is defeated.  “VIRGY SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO VIRGY SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO VIRGY SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO VIRGY SHARK!” 

This is the version of the song Jeff would sing to Alan and Gordon to get them to sleep after their mom died. It never got them to agree to go to sleep but became a family tradition along with their bedtime stories. 

“JOHNNY SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO JOHNNY SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO JOHNNY SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO JOHNNY SHARK! 

Lady Penelope is looking at the boys and Jeff like she has never seen them before while they do the baby shark song dance like the madmen, she always suspected they are. But she can’t help but join in. 

“GORDY SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO GORDY SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO GORDY SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO GORDY SHARK!” 

“ALLIE SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO ALLIE SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO ALLIE SHARK DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO ALLIE SHARK!” 

Lady Penelope stops there she has no idea what will come next, as there is no way they will hunt prey! 

“TRAPPED IN A CAVE DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO TRAPPED IN A CAVE DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO TRAPPED IN A CAVE DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO TRAPPED IN A CAVE” 

“LET’S GO SAVE DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO LET’S GO SAVE DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO LET’S GO SAVE DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO LET’S GO SAVE!”

“SAFE AT LAST DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO SAFE AT LAST DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO SAFE AT LAST DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO SAFE AT LAST!” 

“You guys are too adorable” Lady Penelope says. 

Night has fully fallen now, and with it the boys’ inhibitions and dignity have evaporated with the daylight and they are now dancing their way through whatever song that comes on. Wild songs that see them dancing round the fire all holding hands and laughing. Slow songs which Lady Penelope and Gordon take centre stage for, dancing like their the only two people in the world. Fast songs they dance wildly too. 

“Is anyone going to bed?” Jeff asks, just after four o’clock. The fire is starting to die down now, and with it the temperature is dropping. He is starting to feel the chill in the air and he can tell by looking at Alan who is standing over the dying fire, rubbing his hands together to keep them warm that he is not the only one. 

No one protests, as they tiredly march back to the house, Scott and Virgil taking the time to make sure the fire is out. 

*TB*

“So, Gordy Shark” Lady Penelope says once they are alone in Gordon’s room. “Want round two of what we got up to in Thunderbird One?” 

Gordon grins before he strips his shirt off and jumps into the bed. 

*TB*

Scott leaves for his vacation the following afternoon, carrying one rucksack full of everything he is going to need for his trip, after forcing all four of his brother’s sign a contract that they will tell him immediately if he is needed. 

There is an immense feeling of relief as he gets settled in the cabin he has rented, looking out of the window at the sun glittered lake. This is the perfect place, miles away from civilisation and the problems he deals with every day. 

The only issue he faces here, is will he want to return to that chaos when his dream holiday is over?

[rpgsandbox]

‘I do believe in fairies! l do! I do!’

Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie

Experiencing visions of a mythical land throughout your childhood, you are suddenly transported to the Inspirisles, a kingdom ruled by the fey. Responsible for a pact made long ago by your ancestors, you must now earn Belief and the respect of their gods or find yourself trapped there forever.

INSPIRISLES is a completely original tabletop RPG aimed at teenagers. It will promote empathy, life skills and deaf awareness with an emphasis on teamwork and creativity.

Play as teens gifted extraordinary powers.

Meet famous characters and fearsome monsters from Celtic folklore.

Work together to heal a crumbling land and restore a fractured kingdom.

Learn British/American Sign Language as you cast spells and solve puzzles.

Become apprentices to the gods.

Offer Belief to earn your tickets home.

This project came about after running my teen Dungeons & Dragons group Hatchlings for over a year. I wanted to create something for them. Something they could have a hand in building. And something I could take beyond the group to use in schools and communities as a workshop model. Inspirisles is the result of this, a game for young players that reflects my interest in folklore and my ongoing work with the deaf community.

Though Inspirisles is aimed at children, it can be enjoyed equally by adults and we are especially encouraging parents, educators and tabletop beginners to invest in our game. Many of us have fond memories of 80s fantasy classics such as The NeverEnding Story & Labyrinth. Inspirisles aims to capture some of that nostalgic magic and transport its older participants back to a more carefree and imaginative time.

                         Standard & Limited Edition book mock-ups

A5 premium-colour hardback with over 150 pages of material, including...

History of the islands and their Friends.

Creating your Foundling character.

Collection of spell, ability & item cards and the tools to invent your own.

A host of worldbuilding ideas & mechanics to breathe life into your quests, including using the arts in roleplaying, creating challenging environmental puzzles, alternative ways to earn Belief, rules for Inspired apprenticeships, exploration, downtime & Doom.

Scriv’s Tour: Follow the famous bard as she journals the key locations & personalities you will encounter during your adventures.

Scriv’s Story: Fiction retelling the moment our bard met Athelyn for the first time (Limited Edition only).

Menagerie of monsters from Celtic folklore & the tools to invent your own.

Starter adventure: ‘Duster Trials’.

Stunning art from cover to cover, including maps for locations and encounters.

Two page spread of Josh Somerville’s spectacular knot art (Limited Edition only).

Dyslexia friendly fonts throughout to prioritise accessibility.

Handouts: Blank character sheet, Shaping alphabet (BSL & ASL), milestone certificates & Grail template.

* terms in bold explored below.

                    Page sample by Anna Urbanek of Double Proficiency

Belief is the keystone of the Inspirisles. The energy binding all things. In its absence, the land and its children would fade from life and from memory.

If Belief were to run dry, it would have terrible repercussions. Imagine something calamitous like Earth’s polar caps suddenly melting or electricity disappearing from the globe overnight.

Though Belief is generated through such things as exploration, the arts, work and even battle, these pale in comparison to the amount collected from human children.

As children believe in magic less and less, the inhabitants of the Inspirisles must come up with new and increasingly creative ways to convince them otherwise.

Belief gathered from Earth is taken to the World Tree and released over its roots. This energy then spreads throughout the land, healing the foundations of the islands.

                                                          Shaping

A place where the gods walk freely, where dragons are hunted for hoarding Belief, where a war rages between Friends, where reforging an ancient sword can reforge a kingdom, where sign language is used to cast spells, where there is no death, only Disbelief, and where heroes rise and fall together.

It is also a setting to reflect the struggles of our own world. You’ll find environmental calamity, political greed and social injustice to name but a few. Making Inspirisles relatable to our future generations was an ambition from the very start. However, we would never want to push an agenda, so building a platform for whichever stories need to be told has been our sole responsibility.

                                                       Hibernation

Our system and its mechanics are entirely built around the theme of Belief. Players must work together to collect this wondrous commodity, reaching the heights before deciding whether to stay and enjoy the renown or return home and reunite with their true families.

Moving away from systems found in many popular tabletop RPGs, Inspirisles is largely aimed at young adults and does away with traditional mechanics such as racial bonuses, class systems, ponderous combat and even death.

Though our players should expect an open, sandbox experience, it’s nice to have an overall goal in mind. As such, the concept of healing the land as a team for rewards and progression is at the heart of Inspirisles.

As with any roleplaying game, Inspirisles will throw challenges at its players. As well as social and environmental encounters, Foundlings (players) will inevitably come across familiar monsters of Celtic legend, such as the Questing Beast who will stalk them across the land. Within the book, you’ll also discover many nasties of our own invention and the tools to invent your own.

                                                  Don’t go it alone!

                                                        Attributes

Foundlings will have six attributes: sword, shield, speed, smarts, social & survival. When facing obstacles, they can lay down up to three cards representing spells, abilities or items. These cards display unique properties that will have an impact on their attribute bonus. Players then roll 2d6, adding the attribute bonus plus any additions from the cards. If the obstacle they are facing is truly perilous, they may turn to their Grail Pool as a last resort, a resource only carried by Foundlings.

                                     Sample obstacle resolution

Obstacles can include social interactions, puzzles, environmental challenges and battle. Whether the obstacle is resolved through roleplay or combat, if it requires a check, it is always contested between player and Grail Guide (Game Master).

With every failed encounter and instead of suffering injury or death, Foundlings will instead experience Disbelief. If too much Disbelief is accumulated as a group, players must pull together to reduce it using the Belief they may be saving for a rank or new cards. This balancing act encourages empathy between participants, but also prevents Doom from affecting the islands.

                                                Puzzles & predators

                        Guinevere & Arthur, our Grail Guide choices

Our version of a Game Master is called the Grail Guide (GG). A participating adult or teenager will take on the role of GG and become the spirit of King Arthur Pendragon or Queen Guinevere. It will be their task to guide the players on their journey, making decisions on the rules, lending voice to the citizens and fangs to the denizens, and encouraging everyone to work together, share the limelight and have fun.

As the GG, you also have the unique opportunity to gift your players their Grail Pool, a set of polyhedral dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 & d20). Foundlings are the only beings able to carry this water poured from the Holy Grail. Even a sip will offer them an edge when facing the greatest of challenges and most dangerous of foes.

Talking of the Grail, with the book will be a template for the holy vessel that GG’s can cutout before sessions. This prop is then placed in the centre of the playing space and can be flipped whenever a player finds a theme or scenario too difficult. The GG can then move on swiftly without disrupting the overall session.

                                                        Safety tool

It is also the responsibility of the GG to add tension and peril to the experience. If their players accumulate too much Disbelief, they can consult a Doom chart. This will change the Inspirisles in dramatic ways, such as causing a volcano to erupt, introducing the Questing Beast to hunt Foundlings, having Excalibur seized by an enemy or building a troll bridge on the outskirts of a city.

                                                        Spelunking

As a player, you take on the role of Foundling, a human teen drawn by fate to the islands. Instead of selecting a race or class, Foundlings are trained by one of eight fey clans, otherwise known as Friends. The Knockers, Glow, Wyrmbitten, Capra, Piskies, Giantheld and Bucca populate distinct locations from city to forest, tin mine to tundra. Seven of these races work tirelessly to restore Belief and prevent the collapse of the Inspirisles. Whilst the eighth, an exiled people known as Glimmers refuse to help, sheltered far beneath the surface where the cracks go unseen and the tremors unfelt.

                                                        Friends

As a Foundling, once Belief is gathered, it can be used in 3 distinct ways...

Pilgrimage to Avalon where the World Tree sits. Belief is offered to its roots in exchange for training.

Patronage to the Inspired. Belief is offered in exchange for spells.

Provide for the community they were embraced by. Belief is offered in exchange for items.

Regardless of how Foundlings offer Belief, they will earn the favour of the ruling houses and feel their reputation and power grow.

                                           Foundling character sheet

The Inspired are the closest thing the islands have to deities. Their influence can be felt across the kingdom at all times and ultimately players will need to impress them if they are to return home.

As well as being great teachers of magic in the form of Shaping, they have trades in their homelands, allowing Foundling players to become apprentices and earn Belief through hard work and dedication.

Kilna of the Fire has his forge.

Egrain of the Earth has her vinyard.

Athelyn of the Water has their bath house.

Vorm of the Air has his skyship.

                                                    The Inspired

Travelling via All’s Well, a mysterious portal leading to the British Isles, on their 15th birthdays, the brightest and bravest Foundlings are sent Earthwards to collect Belief. These elite are known as Dusters.

With the help of a Wellwisher, a common mammal transformed by Athelyn to be more like you and I, Dusters will be guided to a child without Belief, a teenager struggling to feel magic in their life.

Players will then roll a six-sided Dusting Dice (d6), revealing the target child’s particular sensitivity. 1: Fear 2: Joy 3: Wonder 4: Help 5: Story and (6: Other - determined by GG). Through roleplaying this sensitivity, Foundlings must convince the child that magic exists before collecting their Belief to take back.

                                                      Wellwisher

                                    BSL alphabet by british-sign.co.uk

As well as speaking the common tongue for the sake of interactions with humankind, the fey use a form of sign language they believe communicates right to the heart.

The technique is known as Shaping, a term derived from the hand and finger movements used and a deeper meaning of shaping the world around them. Spells are solely expressed through Shaping, with gestures building energy before being released from the fingertips.

Spells are taught only by the Inspired. Only they know the deeper intricacies of the language necessary to harness magic.

Though optional, we are introducing British Sign Language (BSL) and Sign Supported English (SSE) into our game. We are using it as part of the spellcasting process and to solve some of the setting’s most challenging puzzles, encouraging our young players to learn the alphabet and more as they play.

When you back our core book, whether digitally or physically, you will gain access to a video workshop on the art of Shaping produced by our friends in the deaf community. Whilst not a comprehensive introduction to British Sign (see Stretch Goals), it will teach participants enough to encourage them to pursue the language beyond the game.

The core book will also come with an American Sign Language (ASL) alphabet sheet. The video tutorial unlocks through a stretch goal.

Kickstarter campaign ends: Mon, August 17 2020 12:00 AM BST

Website: Hatchlings