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pleasereadmeok · 3 years

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A Goode Year? Review of 2020

Can’t believe it’s that time again. What a weird year. Despite Covid and Lockdowns we have actually seen quite a lot of Matthew Goode this year - so this is a long post to save for when you are bored of eating over the holidays! I’m not adding links to vids, etc. like previous years because tumblr doesn’t like them anymore [Grr] but all of them are still available and I’ll signpost them.

In January Matthew was finishing filming A Discovery of Witches Season 2 in Turin and we had some glimpses of his leather clad bod in some Teresa Palmer instastories -

...and in Sky’s ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ Excellent sneak peek.

... and Joshua’s uncle Lee gave us a few gorgeous pics ...

In February we saw Matthew and Sophie having fun at the Pre - BAFTA party

[Pics - Dave Benett]

The rest of that month was all about Leap Year’s 10 year anniversary and we drooled over Declan all over again ....

In March Matthew was finishing filming Silent Night with Keira Knightley when the world changed. We were introduced to ‘social distancing’. We had to keep a full Matthew Goode length away from other people - a handy reference is below to remind you -

[Pic - Ellen Von Unwerth] On the upside the news broke that Matthew would be playing Keira’s husband in Silent Night (as we suspected) and that they had finished filming before lockdown in the UK.

In April Matthew had his 42nd birthday. Check out all of the fabulous birthday tributes posted on here around 3rd April. As a special birthday present Sky released ‘Four Kids and It’ on their cinema channel on the same day with Matthew playing the role of slightly harassed parent David. It was a goode family movie and just what we needed in lockdown.

[Pics - Sky Cinema]

In May we got our first glimpse of Matthew in lockdown when he made a poignant contribution to Bletchley Park’s VE Day celebrations -

[Vid available on Bletchley Park You Tube]

It was perfectly judged - just Matthew filming himself on his phone, in his garden, complete with birdsong.

“This is your finest hour.”

According to James Purefoy and Joe Fattorini Matthew shaved off his hair with the dog clippers in lockdown so he looked a bit different the next time we saw him in June!

Matthew appeared via zoom on ‘Dan Nicholls Really Likes Wine’ show - ‘Drinking the Goode Stuff’. It was great seeing these old friends bantering away and drinking wine. Of course Goode fans immediately campaigned to get Matthew on The Wine Show @ Home and we got our wish a few weeks later when Joe and Matthew had a virtual wine tasting on zoom -

The whole session was hilarious. Matthew was completely adorable and funny as usual. Amongst other things Matthew told us that Sophie had gone off pork (not a euphemism) and we got another peek at his beautiful home with Sophie’s interior design skills on show. This is also still available on The Wine Show @Home You Tube.

June also gave us the new trailer for ‘The King’s Man’. We heard Matthew’s unmistakable voice as the Scots bad guy and there were some tantalising peeks of his character’s mysterious alter ego ‘Shepherd’ -

In July we finally got to see one of Matthew’s Q & A sessions for actors in training at Bow Street Academy in Dublin that he had recorded in May -

Matthew gave frank, funny and very practical advice on auditions, preparation for roles and demonstrated how to be scary with a knife!

August was a bit quiet - we got news that A Discovery of Witches Season 2 would now be aired in January 2021 but a new promo image helped soften the blow of that delay. -

[Pic - Sky]

Kingsman was delayed yet again.... but at least we got some new promo images of Matthew’s character - Captain Maximillian Morton. (Morton? Hmm - someone on here (not me!) spotted the relation to Roxy!]

[Pics - Total Film/Empire]

In September Matthew’s new movie ‘The Duke�� received glowing reviews at the Venice Film Festival and we got confirmation of my speculation that he would play barrister Jeremy Hutchinson.

Tantalisingly goode info about Matthew’s up coming movie Silent Night came from Baz Bamigboye from the Daily Mail as he called it ‘the most astonishing Christmas movie ever made’ - hopefully he meant it in a goode way! We had fun spotting Matthew’s body parts in the pictures accompanying the article ...

[Pic Daily Mail]

Production on A Discovery of Witches season 3 started under strict Covid rules and Matthew was seen filming for ADOW Season 3 in Bristol -

[Anthony Ward]

October was a very goode month!

It kicked off with The Wine Show Season 3 teaser -

Matthew ‘sub-section’ Goode joined in with the ADOW cast Q & A. He was a funny and engaging as ever including an unforgettable impression of a ‘wafter’ and a hasty exit at the end!

We had the official ‘first look’ trailer for season 2 of A Discovery of Witches -

[pic - my edit]

The Wine Show season 3 landed on Amazon Prime in the UK and it is SO goode even tho’ there is less Matthew than usual due to filming clashes with ADOW. Matthew was still his adorably goofy self and gave us the usual interesting fashion choices and jokes.

[My Edit]

October also brought us a new tie in cover for Shadow of Night -

[Pic - Deborah Harkness Twitter]

And as if that wasn’t enough excitement for October we got the official news that there will be another Downton Abbey movie - starting to film in March 2021. Hopefully we will see more of him in this one!

[Pic - Carnival]

Matthew usually keeps his charity projects private but in November we saw him donating his ADOW ‘wedding day’ boots to be auctioned for the Small Steps Project ....

...complete with on mud from the set. Some lucky person is probably stroking that suede as I write this!

[Pics - Small Steps project]

Matthew also recorded some charming contributions to the #SaveJenny campaign. He evicted the dog from her favourite chair by the radiator in the kitchen and sat there to read the opening chapter of Wind in the Willows -

and later ‘The Night before Christmas’ poem complete with music!

You can still see these contributions and most importantly DONATE - links are listed below -

December has been all about A Discovery of Witches season 2 - with a stunning second trailer and plenty of teasers and pictures from Sky and Bad Wolf - there are too many to include but here’s a few -

[Pics my edit / sky/badwolf]

So what of next year? So many goode things to look forward to. I’ll do ‘Goode Things coming in 2021′ a bit earlier next year because January is gonna be BUSY for Goode fans!

Thank you SO MUCH for making time to read this blog. And a big thank you to Goode fans who create content to share with others on here and on matthew-goode.net. We really appreciate the effort that everyone puts in to sharing the Goode Stuff.

Lastly I have to thank Matthew Goode who patiently tolerates the fan nonsense while he tries to pretend that he doesn’t actually have any fans anyway!

Cheers Matthew!

#matthew goode #matthewgoode #a discovery of witches #adow #the wine show #downton abbey #the duke #silent night #Kingsman

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thewritewolf · 3 years

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Adventure to the Heart Chapter 3: Game Night

The first session of the new campaign!

First | Previous | Next | Last

@adrinetteapril

Read on Ao3

Marinette sat in the school library after her last class, staring at the doorway and waiting for whoever was going to show up. Her fingers were drumming a nervous beat against the core rulebook sitting in front of her. It was still shiny and smelled new - she had barely gotten a chance to look through it while she was throwing everything together.

Barely a week had passed since Alya had spotted the miracle box and each day she felt the pressure building for her to finally announce that she was ready to call the first session. No one had said anything exactly, but she had felt the eyes on her and the quiet expectations mounting. It had gotten unbearable, letting their imaginations run wild while she wasn’t even sure if the campaign setting would hold up under the weight of so many players.

At least if she started now, their expectations wouldn’t be too high.

Right?

The clock ticked into the empty silence of the abandoned library, providing no distraction from Marinette's imagination as it began to veer wildly out of control.

...What if no one actually showed? What if she’d waited too long or people had come to their senses and didn’t want to actually be a part of some newbie’s campaign? The small, sensible part of her brain argued that it would be a good thing since she hadn’t wanted to do this in the first place but…

Somewhere along the road, she’d gotten attached to her made up world, its characters and its plots. It would break her heart if she couldn’t end up sharing it with anyone, just like if she’d spent hours sewing a jacket only to immediately spill paint on it.

A glance at the clock told her she’d be sitting in here for ten minutes already. With a disappointed sigh, she began to stand up.

At that moment, the door burst open, a cacophony of noise compared to the silence she’d been stewing in.

“Sorry!” Adrien gave her an apologetic smile as he walked in, slinging a bag over his shoulder. “I got tied up in fencing practice.”

For a few long moments it was just the two of them staring at each other. In addition to the ticking clock, Marinette’s suddenly pounding heart helped fill the silence. Was… Adrien going to join her campaign? Was he actually into this stuff too?

He finally seemed to notice that she was halfway out of her chair and his shoulders sagged. “...I missed the session, didn’t I?”

“Wha- No!” She held her hands up. “No no no. None the here soon.” She screwed her eyes shut and screamed mentally. Taking a deep breath, she straightened out and said slowly, “No one is here yet, but they should be soon.”

“Oh. Cool!” Adrien brightened up, like the clouds parting before the sun. A smile slowly spread across her face as she watched him. His face was a little red and there was the barest amount of sweat on his forehead. The little imperfections just made him all the more beautiful.

“Is… something wrong?”

Marinette suddenly realized she’d been staring at him and quickly sat down, eyes fixed squarely on the core rulebook in front of her. She heard him finish crossing the room and, despite all the other chairs around the table, he pulled out the one to her left.

She could practically feel his body heat when he asked, “Have you ever done this before?”

“Huh?! What?!” Marinette’s eyes flew open as they locked on him.

“Dungeons and Dragons,” he replied patiently. “Have you ever played it before?”

“Oh, um. No. This’ll… this’ll be my first time.”

“First time playing and you immediately jumped for the toughest role? You definitely don’t do things halfway.” Adrien chuckled. “But yeah, me too. I’ve been wanting to for ages, though!”

She was about to reply when the door opened again, and this time it definitely wasn’t just one person. The room was suddenly filled with noise as four- no five, no wait six of her classmates funneled in. They each offered up some apology as they took up seats around the table.

“Sorry, girl,” Alya said as she sat on Marinette’s right. She gave a short but meaningful look at Adrien, who had turned around to talk with Nino as he took up a spot beside him. “We got held up by someone having to take Kim up on another stupid bet.”

Alix snorted. “Oh come on! Like it wasn’t awesome watching that idiot eat his words for like the millionth time.”

“Incorrect,” Max said, pushing up his glasses. “It was merely the sixty fourth time since I began keeping tally.”

“Still… millionth time or not… pretty cool.” Juleka wore a small smile as she idly toyed with her black velvet dice bag. Beside her, Rose had opened her bright pink, sparkling plastic bag and started pulling out her equally glittery dice.

“Point is, we’re here now and that’s what counts.” Alya clapped her hands together and settled them in front of her. “So… what’ve you got for us, girl?”

With everyone’s attention now on her, she pulled out her notes on the campaign. Ignoring the feeling that what she was saying was silly, she started to describe her world.

“You all are part of the Emperor’s bodyguards, made up of foreign mercenaries and doing all the tasks that he can trust to no one else…”

#Miraculous Ladybug #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Adrien Agreste #Alya Cesaire #Nino Lahiffe #rose lavillant #juleka couffaine #max kante #alix kubdel #ml fanfiction #my writing #Dungeons and Dragons #Adventure to the Heart #AdrinetteApril2021

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dinua · 3 years

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TAG2 really happened, huh?

it has been about less than a day since I beat it, and I'm still reeling from it. but now that I've got a good night's sleep and stuff like that, I'll have to say,

everything was fantastic except for the writing.

this is all my opinion of course.

spoilers under the cut, you have been warned.

where the fuck do I even begin? it felt like all of the plot points were thrown at you at breakneck speeds. I know we're in a pandemic and all and that id's on a deadline (the Year One Pass), but they really should've saved the Davoth fight for a full game. on the topic of the Dark Lord,

- Davoth, Ruler of Everything

so apparently id thought it would be a good idea to shamelessly retcon The Father being God, by instead having Davoth being God with The Father being his creation. it just seems like a twist put in there just to seem surprising.

nevermind the fact that this contradicts everything back in the main campaign and TAG1. the fact that TAG2 handwaves the Book of the Seraphs as "lies" only puts salt in the wound.

and also, it mentions that absolutely everything was just a part of Davoth's plan to get revenge on the Maykrs, from Doomguy’s existence, to the deal with Khan Maykr, and Samur rebelling.

not only does this mean that none of the characters really have any agency of their own in the story (which sucks because I liked Doomguy being the human-turned-demigod wildcard that messes up everyone's plans), but this once again contradicts previous lore, for after you kill the Khan Maykr back in Urdak, the Dark Lord can be clearly seen shouting "No!" at her demise.

oh yeah, speaking of the maykrs,

- where the fuck is Sam? (and other loose ends)

seriously, after The Father teleported him away after the fight with him in TAG1, he's never to be seen again. no closure, just nothing. despite the fact that, y'know, he has played a massive role in the story since 2016 and that he's still alive.

also, what even happened to the Fortress of Doom and the Demonic Crucible? are they just floating in Earth's orbit for eternity? and will no one even question it? (well considering no one's questioning the literal portal to Hell's capital, they probably won't.)

- Valen and the Intern should've gotten more screen time

exactly what it says on the tin. I say that the Intern should've gotten more screentime because I'm heavily biased towards him (he's adorable, what can I say) but Valen should've also gotten screen time considering that he, along with the rest of the Loyalist Night Sentinels, are participating in the siege of Immora. even a cutscene of Valen hatching up a plan with the Sentinels to assist the Slayer would've been nice, considering that he's a commander for crying out loud!

and finally, we reach the ending.

- Doomguy fucking dies

yes, before anyone asks, I am aware that Doomguy may not be dead and is instead sleeping like he was before 2016, but still.

what. why?

Doomguy deserves better, and being forced into a sarcophagus after finally killing off the dude who's been responsible for all of his suffering up to that point is just... unfair. and if the powers that be decide only to let him out when he is needed, that's basically them viewing him as a weapon, which greatly insults his character and what he's been through. my man deserves a happy ending.

I have more grievances with Doom's new lore and stuff, expanding beyond TAG2, like how with each and every game + DLC starting from 2016, things keep on getting more wackier and insane, Samuel Hayden being Samur Maykr all along (even though it clashes with his 2016 characterization), and the unsolved mystery of the family photo, but that's for another time. that doesn't mean I hated it as a whole though.

+ Environments

dear god, the world looks absolutely amazing in the DLC. the high tech city of Immora, the Argenta countryside + the World Spear, and the abandoned yet stunning in Reclaimed Earth.. credits to the artists for crafting such landscapes.

+ Gameplay

it's almost as if TAG2 had struck a balance between the decently hard main campaign and the tough-as-platinum-nails difficulty of TAG1. combat flows well, and the game gives you a challenge while not reaching the levels of pain TAG1 gave you. though I've heard that they nerfed a lot of difficult things in Eternal as a whole, much to the chargin of speedrunners.

that hammer tho;;

it's like pure adrenaline condensed into a weapon. It lends itself well to the combat of the game, considering that late-DLC and the Davoth fight was built around it. I reckon that it would be overpowered to hell and back if you were able to use it outside TAG2 though.

so yeah, that was my rant/review of The Ancient Gods Part 2. some may have liked the writing better than I did, who knows. but, lemme just say one more thing:

intern’s best boy, fight me

#doom #doom eternal #doom eternal the ancient gods #doom dlc spoilers #doomguy #davoth #vega #the father #valen #the intern #long post #oh yeah #what ever happened to the wretch who gave doomguy his armor?#that's for another day #i guess

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soysaucednd · 4 years

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So, you want to start a D&D Podcast

Awesome! Share your art! This is going to be my little guide of recommendations as someone who used to work in radio and has been involved with a couple of radio plays and online play readings.

Step one: You are good enough.

The first step is to not get discouraged. You may not be the next Critical Role or The Adventure Zone, but you will have a podcast project. The first priority should be a philosophy of sharing rather than ambition of success. Even if you don’t amass a following, you will be sharing a piece of yourself, and that is always something to be admired.

Step two: Set clear expectations with your players.

Making a podcast of a d&d campaign is harder than running a home game. There are a lot of things that you have to take into account during a recording session that aren’t that important in your everyday game.

This is a performance. Players need to be focused on you and the game.

Eating makes sounds that can be picked up by the microphones.

Your levels may be overwhelmed by the dice, consider using dice pads.

You and your players have to be understood, and it has to be clear when they are in character and out of character.

No matter how much you think you won’t, you will have to edit some sections.

If players are talking over each other or having outside of game conversations, it will be picked up by the microphone and it will disturb the flow of the game.

Step three: The equipment and software.

As I said in the previous section, you and your players have to be heard and understood. To that end, you will need to have the right equipment to make that happen. Here is what you will need:

A microphone. Do some research on what microphone to get. It will have to be better than one that is connected on a set of headphones, but you don’t necessarily have to break the bank for a good one.

Audacity open source audio editing software.

This is the program I used to edit all of my pre-recorded radio segments and I still use it when I have to edit any kind of audio. It has a bit of a learning curve, but once you get used to it it has almost unlimited potential.

(it is also super useful for untraceably pirating music)

A room with minimal background noise.

Ideally, you will want a soundproofed room with no windows, but that is not possible for most people. Record some sample audio in different rooms in your house and see what works best. You’ll be able to tell the difference.

A padded dice box or a dice mat.

You do not want to be rolling your dice straight on a table next to a microphone, it will be loud and will be jarring to people listening to the recording.

Step four: Get used to your voice on recording.

We all hate our voices on recording. I had a recurring segment on a local radio station for four years and I deeply hated the way I sounded. It is just something you need to get used to. If you are going to use a character voice, rehearse it. Troubleshoot it in the recording software. See if you can get it to sound the way you want it to. If you are dming, you have your work cut out for you. I would recommend pre-writing introductions and very important pieces of description because once you are on recording, you will forget everything you wanted to say WAY more often.

Step five: Editing

You’ve gotten your first session out of the way! Yay! You might be tempted to just upload it and be done, but that is not going to be the best decision. Here are a few things to do to make the quality just a little bit better.

Get a background noise profile.

Open the audio file in audacity and open the effects tab.

It will ask you to get a noise profile, select a section of the audio where no one is speaking. (Ideally a period of around 10 seconds where everyone is quiet.)

The program will isolate the sounds present in that 10 seconds and do its best to remove those sounds from the whole sound profile.

Normalize.

If a few of your players are slightly quieter than your louder players, there is a tool in the effects window called “Normalize.”

This will take all of the audio in the file and standardize it at a volume you choose (measured in decibels). It will boost quieter voices and bring down the volume of louder voices while keeping things like shouting distinct. Be careful, but it is fairly easy to understand.

Compress.

This effect will reduce clipping (I will explain later). It brings any very loud sounds into a safer range for the ear and brings very quiet sounds up to be audible.

Beware of clipping.

If the spikes on the audio file’s waveform go above a certain point, we call this clipping. It will distort the audio in the final product and be uncomfortable to listen to. You can sometimes fix it by using the amplify tool or the normalization and compression tools, but it is better to set a lower input level on your microphone to avoid it and amplify your volume in the editing process. It is easier to add more volume than to take away too much.

Background music.

If you are using background music, make sure it is licensed for you to use. Royalty free or self-produced music is usually best. If you drag new audio files into audacity, you can create new layers and adjust positioning by adding in silence or by manipulating the start time and end time of your background music. There is also a fade in/fade out function that you can access by selecting a piece of audio in one layer and then going into the effects tab.

Step six: Recaps and Rules

For a produced show, you should start every session with a recap both for anyone tuning in to your podcast and to remind the players of their given circumstances. Take notes during the session if you can, or listen back to the previous episode to study before your next one. This is a good way to get used to your voice, remind yourself of the voices you have given NPCs, and remember where in your story you are.

When you are running a game on stream, you will not have time to stop the game and look up a rule, so get used to problem solving as a dm. Make reminder cards, spell cards, have statblocks ready, and if you do not have a rule in front of you, make a ruling. If you are uploading a prerecorded game, you have a bit more leeway, but it depends on how much time you want to spend editing. My advice would be to get used to making rulings on the fly and confirming them later.

Step seven: General Performance tips

Players:

Stay engaged.

Not paying attention and missing the fact that it is your turn, or not understanding how your sheet works is similar to an actor forgetting their lines and stopping on stage.

Don’t fudge your dice rolls.

I know. It is tempting. No one can see them and if you got a nat 20 here it would be SO POETIC. But seriously, don’t.

Listen to your DM and try to limit off topic conversations.

Make your voice for your character distinct from your own.

DMs:

Be prepared.

Have your statblocks ready, bring any visual aids you need, have your notes opened, have a compendium of spells available, have an initiative tracker, have enough dice, know what the shape of the session will be.

Don’t bring your sourcebooks.

This seems weird, but it is a recommendation I can’t stress enough. If you have it with you, I guarantee you will flip through it to check rules and such. Don’t.

Practice your timing on certain levels of narration.

Try to figure out some fun ways to add tension through how you narrate.

Watch a LOT of liveplay d&d and study what you like about the dms.

I would recommend Dimension 20, Naddpod, Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, or any other piece of media you can find.

Now go out there and get started! Message me and I will try to tune in to whatever you produce!

#d&d #d&d podcast #dm tips #podcaster tips #dungeon master #d&d player #player character #dimension20 #critical role #the adventure zone #naddpod #cr #d20 #taz #soysaucednd #dm advice #player advice #podcasting

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babyklovesmovies · 4 years

Audio

I’ve been curating this for a while but I figured I’d finally share it, here’s my Widojest musical theater playlist that gives me all the feels and I play on repeat until Critical Role comes back into my life.

1. “You Were Always a Better Dancer Than Me, Astrid” -Autumn Orange

Just a good one to start things off featuring a moment where we first got that glimpse into our smelly wizard boys feelings for a blue tiefling.

2. “The Color of Your Eyes” -Daddy Long Legs

If you haven’t heard of the musical Daddy Long Legs, DEFINITELY check it out. I have a lot of songs from the musical on here because I get SUCH Caleb and Jester vibes from the two main characters. In this song I imagine Jester is writing in her journal to the Traveler and telling him all about the “blue eyed” wizard she just met.

3. “The Man I’ll Never Be” -Daddy Long Legs

“If I tell you the truth at least, would I lose your esteemed affection. Would you hate me and curse my name? I'd only have myself to blame” Caleb has always been terrified of Jester finding out about the full extent of his past and the murder of his parents/man he used to be mostly because he would risk never having her see him the same way again.

4. “Charity” -Daddy Long Legs

With this song I constantly am reminded of the “I’m the transmutation wizard but you’re the one who changes people...” moment. I mean you can just hear it in the lyrics “How easier it is to give than to let yourself receive. For what you have given me came out of the blue. What you have done for me I never could do. Charity. Just who is helping who?”

5. “I’m A Beast (Reprise)” -Daddy Long Legs

If Jester ever does find out, I imagine our self deprecating wizard boy would say something along these lines.

6. “The Secret of Happiness” -Daddy Long Legs

Just imagine this song paired with the Widogast’s Unicorn Hamster Amber moment and it will give you all the feels. “I've discovered, The secret of happiness is, All the stars that shine....That her happiness is more precious than mine...”

7. “Popular” -Wicked

Added for obvious Laura Bailey C2E2 2018 reasons ; ) Jester is giving our stinky wizard boy a makeover.

8. “Waving Through A Window” -Dear Evan Hanson

Caleb closes himself off from the world and from other people because he’s so afraid of hurting them like he did his parent’s but ultimately he’s hurting himself. “Step out, step out of the sun. If you keep getting burned. Step out, step out of the sun. Because you've learned, because you've learned...”

9. “If I Could Tell Her” -Dear Evan Hanson

Caleb was one of the first members of the group to really see through Jester’s happy go lucky front and notice the feelings Jester keeps hidden deep down. Think especially the “I think it is an act. She is an amazing woman but talent is different then happiness” moment when Jester is dancing by herself. “And he wondered how you learned to dance. Like all the rest of the world isn't there But he kept it all inside his head. What he saw he left unsaid If I could tell her.”

10. “Suddenly Seymour” -Little Shop of Horrors

Caleb has always been there for her waiting in the wings and I just also think of Jester with the “daddy left early, mama was poor” line. (Though on the contrary, The Ruby of the Sea is doing VERY well ;)

11. “I Know It’s Today” -Shrek the Musical

This is mostly a Jester song, Jester spent years shut up in her room like a blue Rapunzel. That can do a lot to a person.

12. “In My Own Little Corner” -Cinderella the Musical

Also another Jester song, while being shut up in her room, Jester’s imagination can still roam free. Who knew that her imagination would create a god? ;)

13. “Pulled” -Addams Family

Imagine Caleb singing this one, at the start of the campaign he was much more closed off but Jester’s perkiness can really rub off on a person and bring out the jokester underneath. Caleb is making more jokes and smiling more when Jester’s around. Though losing those defenses can be scary, especially when you have so much to protect with a past like Caleb’s.

14. “Who I’d Be” -Shrek the Musical

When I hear this song I immediately think of the moment when the others ask Caleb what he would have done after the Academy if he hadn’t met Trent and he wistfully mentioned how maybe he would have been a teacher with a lot of books and things to teach. But he doesn’t think he deserves such happiness.

15. “I Think I Got You Beat” -Shrek the Musical

Think of early Jester and Caleb when they would argue about dirtiness or the differences in how they view money. Also keep in mind the hard pasts they both have had to overcome to get to where they are now and how they aren’t as different as they would think.

16. “Heaven’s Light” -Hunchback of Notre Dame

My poor boy Caleb is “uselessly in love” with Jester but he never believes that he deserves Jester’s light. “I knew I'd never know, That warm and loving glow Though I might wish with all my might, No face as hideous as my face, Was ever meant for Heaven's light..”

17. “Unworthy of Your Love” -Assassins

Kind of in the same vein of the previous song, Caleb doesn’t believe he deserves someone as perfect and wonderful as Jester. Also, Jester as Squeaky Fromme pining after a cult leader like the Traveler seems pretty fitting ; )

18. “Evermore” -Beauty and the Beast

“I'll never shake away the pain, I close my eyes but she's still there, I let her steal into my melancholy heart, It's more than I can bear”. Jester just has that effect on people. You can’t hide your heart forever Caleb.

19. “Being Alive” -Company

As Caleb starts opening up to the group more, he grows more confident and starts thinking maybe he does want people in his life. Maybe he does deserve love. Also, think of Yasha as the rest of the company urging him along like the classic “Do you love her?” scene.

20. “That’s How You Know” -Enchanted

Yasha and Nott being the unlikely matchmakers nudging Caleb along to open up more about his feelings always makes me smile, against Caleb’s classic pessimism.

21. “Lost in the Woods” -Frozen 2

Think Caleb and the group searching for Jester all that time after she was kidnapped. Maybe insert Frumpkin instead of Sven. ; )

22. “What Do You Know About Love?” -Frozen the Musical

Jester was cooped up for so long she has no idea what love is supposed to be besides what she reads about in her smut books. With this song, just think about the moment when Caleb and Jester were discussing Jester’s feelings for Fjord and what being in love is about.

23. “Inside Out” -Gentleman’s Guide to Love And Murder

Think the “Frumpkin is stored in my heart...then you must have a really big heart!” moment. Jester sees the good person within Caleb and his enormous heart. “An oyster shell itself is unassuming, But look inside, you'll find a pearl The man who otherwise is unpresuming, May share the same blood as an Earl.��

24. “Shall We Dance?” -King And I

The waltz scene. That’s all I gotta say.

25. “I Could Have Danced All Night” -My Fair Lady

Caleb could have danced forever with Jester. I was hoping they would have a reprise at the party but no such luck.

26. “I See The Light” -Tangled

Again, the Widogast Amber Lights moment gave me MAJOR floating lights in Tangled vibes and I was HERE FOR IT.

Anyhoo, thank y’all for going on this musical journey with me. Word on the street is Critical Role might be coming back soon (but I hope they take the time they need to be as safe as possible). Until then I will continue to eat these small Widojest crumbs and play this song on repeat.

All credit for the cover art I referenced in the playlist goes completely to https://hla-rosa.tumblr.com/, please check them out!

#widojest #caleb widogast #jester lavorre #jester #caleb #critical role #musical theater #mighty nein #broadway #liam o'brien #laura bailey

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probablyottrpgideas · 3 years

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Tabletop Asks

In reference to the previous post: 1.) Game Master, Player or both? Why?

I am currently lucky enough to be player in one game and DM in another (both 5e D&D), however ordinarily I am overwhelmingly the DM/GM.

2.) When did you start role playing? How old were you?

My first start with published tabletop adventures was actually quite late, in my second year of university when I was about 19, so 11 years ago now, with D&D 4e. However, I think my first freeform roleplaying experiences were with a mate of mine all the way back in primary school, where we had this quite extensive worldbuilding and characters. It was my first introduction to the idea that I wanted to be a writer.

3.) What was the first role playing book you ever owned?

The 4e PHB, DMG and MM all at the same time. I had a job then, missed playing, decided “fuck it, I’ll start my own” and dived in.

4.) Describe the first game you ever ran or played in.

A 4e Starters Box run on Keep on the Borderlands. I played a Dwarf Fighter out of the box, which I named Xzienne (which some of you know is my regular online handle). He was fun; in my oh-so-extra way, I kept my game notes as In-Character journal entries.

5.) Which system did you grow up with?

D&D, all the way. Fourth edition and then Fifth, with a look at Third in between. But I’ve played about a dozen or two different systems all up.

6.) Which system do you play now?

Predominantly 5e

7.) Longest campaign you’ve run or played in?

My D&D “Empires Intelligence Services” campaign ran from 2016-2020.

8.) Where did you meet your current gaming group?

I tend to throw my groups together from among various people I know from all over. My favourite group ever was the one formed entirely of cast members from our local theatre company production of Wicked.

9.) Strategic combat or dramatic plotlines?

Does it need to be either/or? I feel like good drama gets you invested in the character’s outcomes, good combat (or puzzles or traps or whatever) gets you invested in the character’s actions. You want people to achieve their goals with emotional satisfaction but without just narrating to them; they need to feel involved in the process of making those goals come about. Challenges are not just there for the Power Gamers and the Slayers, they make the plotlines feel satisfying for everyone.

10.) Favorite RPG genre?

I love Science Fiction and I love Fantasy, and my own work so often smashes the two together. I write a lot of Contemporary/Urban Fantasy, and my D&D world is a magepunk magitech setting with spacefaring aircraft and so forth.

PLAYER CHARACTERS - Describe:

11.) Your first character.

Xzienne the Dwarven Fighter, mentioned above. My first character I made though, on the other hand, not including NPCs, was much later. I think it was probably Tetsuo, my Shin-jin from a Dragonball RPG

12.) Your favorite character.

Definitely Ortlinde. An Aasimar Witch who was the granddaughter of a Valkyrie, and was mad that the gods would be so callous as to bar her mother from Valhalla just because she wasn’t a warrior, and so tried to stage a coup against Asgard. Fuck she was cool.

13.) Your most ridiculous character.

If not Ortlinde, then possibly Parian, my 13th Age Bard whose “One Unique Thing” (a 13th Age mechanic that I love) was that he could modify his spells on the fly by casting the verbal components as full poems, which I would write and perform in-session. I once got to add a Fear effect to a Thunderwave because I made it sound like the trumpets of judgement day, and I managed to cast Charm Person but with an allied player as the focus of the target’s charm by making the poem about their character.

14.) The best in-character line you’ve ever had.

Not a lot of what other players have said have stuck with me, really. Possibly my favourite was Alice’s ranger in Castles and Crusades who said a whole lot of buckwild shit until my halfling begged her not to talk.

Whereupon she shortly thereafter discovered a secret Dryad home inside a tree, and didn’t mention it to the party. When asked why?

“You told me not to talk.”

15.) Your most epic death.

I haven’t died that often, to be honest. Probably the most memorable death was Parian, who got crushed in a moving wall trap and had to be scooped up in a bag and carried around as “bard soup” until a True Resurrection could be cast.

16.) Your most disappointing death.

See above.

17.) Something that shouldn’t have worked, but did.

Meliorn Metcalfe, Tiefling Spellbinder, orchestrating an ambush in a town square against the people who had been sending thugs to attack the party in their beds and stealing shit from the townsfolk. I set up traps (clay pots filled with caltrops and poison), used sunrods to blind the attackers while we had our backs to the light, and we greased the buildings around the area so that they couldn’t climb to safety. It went perfectly, even after they rocked up with a gargoyle.

18.) Something that went hilariously awry.

Just recently I was playing in a Wildemount game which saw the party running Benny Hill style around an ancient lab from a Wight. In the process I got nearly killed by both flying knives and a very angry carpet.

19.) Your most memorable in-character moment.

Ortlinde’s speech to Frigg, lambasting the Gods for their mistreatment of mortals.

20.) The coolest item you ever got and how you came to possess it.

The Masque of Clavicus Vile, from the Elder Scrolls games, pulled from Niddhogr’s treasure hoard and buffing my Spell Save DC to 27 (including other stuff like class features for the Witch and another item which synergised with those).

GAME MASTERS - Describe:

21.) Your favorite NPC and how the party reacted to him/her

By far Celia Sapienza, Eladrin Kensai, who became the party Mum even though she was younger than a few of them. She’s now the head of the Empires Intelligence Services Northern Branch.

22.) A game you wish you could run or want to run someday.

I’ve been eyeing off Dread, Skullduggery and Leverage for years, but I also recently got the Dishonoured game which looks sick as, and Blades in the Dark, and...

23.) Something you made up on the spot.

So so much, but most recently I had a Marid sailor NPC who I had to improvise and entire story of his previous voyages. I did it in a Brian Blessed voice and the players, no shit, fucking applauded.

24.) Your most successful game.

The Wild Huntresses, finally figuring out who had killed the town alchemist and facing off against her and her pet Water Elemental in the caves beneath the hills. Such an epic game. God I miss that group.

25.) Your least successful game.

Paranoia, but that’s just built into the premise.

26.) The craziest thing your players have ever done, and how it affected your plans.

I had a player walk straight out the front doors of a castle under siege. I hit him with 2 dozen crossbow bolts. That guy was an asshole.

27.) Your favorite setting or game location.

I massively love the idea of Eberron, and I love the MTG crossover settings like Ravnica and Theros.

28.) Your creative process when you plan a game.

Typically write about a page of notes for every 2-10 hours of gameplay, depending on the amount of combat expected. Things like important NPCs and what they want, where the party are expected to go in general terms and some ideas for things to throw at them when they inevitably wander off the path, that sort of thing. If it’s really plot important, though, I’ve been known to write pages and pages of lore and character info to hopefully seed into conversations. I also once wrote a full script that we did as a table read for a big conversation between a bunch of NPCs that the party were there to listen to but not be involved in.

29.) The best / worst character concept you’ve ever heard.

No character concept that fits within the rules is ever really bad, although sometimes the execution isn’t great. Some are very, very dumb, like say every character ever built or played by the asshole player I mentioned a few entries back.

30.) What makes GMing fun for you.

Players getting invested in the world and in each other’s stories. Nothing makes me feel better as a GM than being able to sit back while the players have a full in-character conversation with each other.

#tabletop #asks

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leftsidebonfire · 3 years

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One of my last OCs so far!! 😭 I played her for one day in a dnd campaign that got ended very quickly. I was bummed. But I still love her so I fleshed out her character 🥺💕 Of course, she is also open for any interactions 😁

Name: Amaryllis

Nicknames: Ama

Age: 25

Birthday: 12/31

Date of Death: Nothin yet!

Gender: Female

Height: 5'5

Weight: 120

Hair Colour: Copper

Eye Colour: Gray

Physical Description: Amaryllis, much like ladies of the times, is small and slim. She has a bit of a build, just enough muscle tone to be obvious that she is strong, but by no means is she ripped and bulky. She keeps her hair either pulled back in a low ponytail, or braided over one shoulder. Her hair is about mid-back when it is down, and usually a few stray pieces of hair end up falling onto her face. She has a scar that runs from across her nose to just below her right eye, given to her in a fight in her early years, which prompted her to take up self defense.

Clothing Description: Amaryllis is fond of earth tones and anything light and easy to move in. She likes loose fabrics, almost more like robes. I picture it to look a lot like Earth Nation robes from Avatar, if that makes sense. She usually wears browns or darker greens. She also wraps her hands a lot before fighting and changes her bandages often. In cooler times, she takes to trench coats, though she finds her energy and Hamon keep her feeling warm, even in the winter.

Personality: Amaryllis is used to feeling a bit like a fish out of water. Being a woman trying to learn how to fight was extremely out of the ordinary for someone in Victorian times. But after getting jumped, resulting in her scar, she knew learning how to take action was her best move. She began to learn from a close friend, who's style of Hamon was similar to martial arts.

However, one day as Amaryllis was out, he disappeared. Not sure if he was dead or kidnapped, Amaryllis took up his role in his honor, and continued to pursue Hamon. She is generally more quiet and subdued. She thinks logically, and with a big heart. She does not want to fight, even though she knows how. She usually wants fighting to be a last resort. She is respectful as a person and opponent, and tries to stay humble even in victory, because she knows there is always something to be learned.

Flaw(s): While not entirely a pacifist, Amaryllis still tries to talk her way out of conflict before anything else, which often leads to her putting too much trust in the enemy to be reasonable. She is also very laid back in a more peaceful lifestyle, which can lead to her handling very dangerous things quite casually. And she is not one to make her voice heard, but more to keep her head below radar and prefers to observe and analyze.

Talent(s): While a beginner, Amaryllis still considers herself to be very observant, as she is good at blending in and making herself unknown, so she is very stealthy and rational, and takes good pride in that.

Shipped With: Robert E. O. Speedwagon (and to a lesser extent, Jonathan Joestar)

Quote(s):

1). "I have no problem losing. I have a problem when I lose to my own fear."

2). "Theres 3 rules to fights. Never turn your back on your enemy. Your stance is important, stand firm, and don't let your enemy make you unsteady, and most importantly, assume your enemy is more powerful than you."

3). "Where there is life, there is hope."

4). "Dont worry about what went wrong. Worry about how to make it right again."

Hamon User: Yes. She uses basic martial arts as shown to her by her previous teacher. Think along the lines of Mr. Miyagi's style from Karate Kid. Taking down your enemy in a respectful and disengaging way. It was Baron Zeppeli who helped her branch out beyond that and try new skills. She also is very interested in more tactical skills, and likes any input from Speedwagon.

Stand User: No

Swordsmanship: 3/10 (Very unfamiliar with swords)

Hand-to-Hand Combat: 8/10

Ranged Attack: 6/10 (When using a staff)

Defense: 8.5/10

Offense: 7/10

#Amaryllis #Dnd oc #Monk #Monk oc #Jjba oc #Dnd rp #I've come to realize her backstory sounds a lot like Karate Kid.#I'm okay with that.#Dnd #Rp #Open rp #Feel free to interact #Jjba rp #Oc

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ofsvnlightt · 3 years

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Was that [INBAR LAVI]? Oh no no, that was just [VEX’AHLIA DE ROLO], a [CANON CHARACTER] from [CRITICAL ROLE]. They are [TWENTY EIGHT] years old and [ARE] aware that they are not actually from Washington DC. Too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

spoilers for campaign 1 below

this is going to be a looong one (sorry) so if you’re just looking for the hw stuff, it’s at the bottom

vex is a character from critical role’s first campaign

she’s played by the lovely laura bailey! (like jester!)

she has a british accent

she is a half-elf, and does have slightly pointed ears despite whatever magic brought her here -

born of an elven father and human mother, vex’ahlia and her twin bother vax’ildan never really fit in no matter where they went. they weren’t accepted in their father’s home city of syngorn because they were half-bloods (not full-elf). they’d get stares every now and then elsewhere because of their pointy ears. the two of them spent their early years being raised by their mother but were taken to syngorn at the age of 10. their father was distant and after having enough disdainful looks given their way, the two of them went off on their own. the two of them split for some time and while vax stuck to alleys and shadows, vex thrived in the woods. she learned to hunt and track, and in time, found trust and companionship in a bear. her beloved trinket.

much later, the twins became a part of an adventuring group and they called themselves vox machina

this group consists of 7 members: her, a ranger her brother, a rogue keyleth, a half-elven druid percy, a human gunslinger scanlan, a gnome bard pike, a gnome cleric and grog, a goliath barbarian

SPOILERS START HERE. i think c1 went from 2015-17, so it’s been 3 years but you know, just in case :))

grog and pike both died prestream, but as far as vox machina is concerned, vex was the first to die.

while trying to acquire their first vestige, the armor of the previous champion of the raven queen, percy opened a sarcophagus and a blast of necrotic energy came out of it, killing her. along with the revivify ritual, vax made a bargain with the raven queen, his life for vex’s. she accepted, and vex came back to life.

after acquiring a few more vestiges, the group went to the fey wild to retrieve fenthras, a bow that resided in a cancerous tree, which caused the surrounding shademurk bog to wither (in a way). finding the tree, they had to fight the “cancer,” an entity called sondor. he was able to read vex very well, but his proposal was for her to stay with him in exchange for the bow. vex said no, and that her heart already “belongs to someone else.” they ended up fighting him and getting the bow.

after hunting down ripley, there was a shootout, resulting in the death of percy. during his ritual, vex, tears in her eyes, said “i should have told you sooner. it’s yours. it’s always been yours.” (if i remember correctly, only 3 people have to participate in a resurrection ritual..i don’t remember when vex went though. taliesin left the table and was texting matt wether or not what people did would bring percy back and it was on the edge i think. i want to say that vex went last, but i’m not sure) either way, it was tense but percy did come back.

much much later, after defeating thordak and the chroma conclave, vox machina took a much deserved year break. during this time, vex and percy got married in secret.

i don’t remember the circumstances, but percy was freaking out for whatever reason and let it slip that vex was his betrothed. scanlan heard this and while the group was beyond the divine gate to speak with ioun, he teasingly played the wedding march on his flute, tipping off vax and/or(?) keyleth. the couple knowing that they would never get that due to his destiny of joining the raven queen when vecna is defeated.

her and vax have a small argument about it but make up quickly

shortly after vecna is defeated, the raven queen comes to take vax, effecting (obviously) not just vox machina as a whole, but keyleth and mostly vex.

once the campaign officially came to a close, the group got to share what their lives 1, 2, 5, 10+ years afterwards looked like. vex and percy got married...again, this time with all their friends and family attending.

after the resurfacing of sylas briarwood and taking care of him, scanlan used his last wish (a very powerful spell) to bring vax back for a couple minutes so he could see vex and everyone one last time. 😭 -

also aside from being married to percy (royal) she is titled: Lady Vex'ahlia de Rolo, Baroness of the First House of Whitestone and Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt, the Sixth Star, and Champion of the Dawnfather Pelor * (it’s really just the italicized bit but the last parts are also true) you go girl

hidden washington info! (finally lol)

How long has your character been in washington: only a few days

Job: unemployed at the moment

Where has your character been pulled from in their fandom: sometime between the last episode of the campaign and the wedding. she’s settled down with percy and they’re done adventuring, but she hasn’t had vesper yet.

Has magic affected your character: nope! she has all her memories (minus the wedding of course, since that hasn’t technically happened yet.) so she’s just unaware of the second and third to last bullets above

Anything else? oof, i hope not 😂

#hw: intro #LONG POST TW #c1 was 115 episodes #each episode was anywhere from 3.5 to 5 hours #*on average*#i tried to be as concise as i could #🧙🏻‍♀️ let's chat :: vex'ahlia #🧙🏻‍♀️ hunter’s mark :: vex'ahlia

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talesofafangirlwithadvr · 4 years

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February Picks

And just like that another month is coming to a close. I can’t believe how fast it has gone by. I’ve continued watching some favorites from last month and am sad some have come to an end. Meanwhile a bunch of shows came back from their winter hiatus, so it was a lot of fun getting back into their story-lines again.

Be prepared for spoilers once again...

SANDITON

Masterpiece’s Sanditon ended this past Sunday, here in the states, and I am jumping on the campaign that we need a season 2! It can’t end like that with so many open ended story-lines (okay maybe just one or two, but still we deserve more).

Who would have guessed that Esther would become one of my favorite characters in this series and that’s mainly thanks to her well written character development. From the “villain” in episode 1 she grew into so much more and was such a complex character. I really enjoyed watching her story unfold. I am SO HAPPY she married Babington and his speech to her about living side by side, knowing he loves her more and just wants to see her happy. Wow....Goals. I want to see this relationship progress even more (if that’s possible) with a season 2. Speaking of things I want to see: Will Sanditon be rebuilt and how long will it take? Will there be an alternative allowing Sidney to be with Charlotte? Major twist there as their relationship doesn’t end with a happily ever after (very un-Austen like for the main protagonists). When he returned at the end stopping Charlotte’s carriage, I seriously thought he would have said he broke up his engagement, but alas. The previous episode I really wanted them together (thanks to Sidney’s speech to Charlotte when he told her his ex-fiance left and how Charlotte makes him a better person *melts* and of course their dancing scene the episode prior was amazing). In the early parts of the season, while I knew Charlotte and Sidney would be a thing-eventually, I couldn’t help but have a soft spot for Young Stringer’s character and my appreciation never truly left. I felt he was paired well with Charlotte. Such a tragic ending for him. He wanted to better himself (much like the Parker brothers) but after his father’s death he no longer will. Throughout the series, I enjoyed Miss Lambe’s character, but I agree with many reviews that I was reading that her character was kind of dropped at the end. I’m curious what her reaction will be when she finds out about SIdney’s engagement...

Thank you again, Andrew Davies. I was not expecting to like this adaptation so much.

ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST

The best way to describe one of NBC’s latest shows is that I feel happy and in a good mood whenever I finish an episode. (And then I’m immediately upset that I have to wait a week for the next one. I watch them too fast.) I’ve heard many people compare it to Glee and while I could definitely understand that I keep getting drawn back to Abc’s short lived Eli Stone. There Eli (played by Jonny Lee Miller) could hear people around him sing and dance, which helped him solve upcoming law cases. In this show he was experiencing a brain tumor, but so far Zoey seems all clear. Instead, a freak accident while she is getting an MRI scan and listening to music, allows for her to hear people sing (and perform) their innermost feelings. There’s still some logistics to discover like what Zoey looks like when she watches these performances (does she move around or look like she’s just staring into the air. I might be thinking into this too much...I know). We just recently found out that sometimes she can speak to others as they are happening. Each time she hears someone sing she is meant to help them with something in their life. It could be a family member, co worker, friend, or like this past week her boss. While there’s one major problem (that she has to fix), there are often multiple songs in one episode which I really enjoy. The cast is also very strong, both musically and as actors. I can’t wait to see where the rest of the season is headed!

TO ALL THE BOYS P.S. I STILL LOVE YOU

When the first film was released on Netflix about 2 years ago, I was instantly a fan. I was unfamiliar with the book, but quickly added to my TBR list. (My to read list is extremely long, so I still haven’t gotten to it. Story of my life.) I really enjoyed watching Lara Jean experience the results of having her secretive love letters distributed to her past crushes. I was definitely Team Peter and Lara by the end of the film. They were adorable. The sequel was released earlier this month and I kind of forgot about it. It felt like we had been preparing for the sequel for a bit and then I must have been watching too much Disney Plus to miss the trailer. Watching P.S. I still love you, I just missed the original film. There were parts I liked and I was a big fan of John Ambrose (and of course Jordan Fisher because he’s great), but overall I felt like much didn’t happen. Also, Lara and Peter’s relationship kind of bothered me in parts. I understand that for both of them this was the first time they were in this kind of relationship and could feel awkward about certain things (like the Valentine’s singing-gram or writing an original poem). The main part I did like about them was towards the end when he arrived at the retirement home. I don’t say this often, but I have no want to re-watch it any time soon.

VIOLETTA SEASON 1

Speaking of Disney Plus....

In a quick month and a half I have successfully watched ALL 80 episodes of season 1 of Violetta. I feel so accomplished and know the withdrawal will happen very soon. (I just finished last night and I’ve been listening to the music a lot recently). I’m so upset that season 2 has not be released on Disney Plus yet. I thought it would be by now because the streaming service has been up for a good amount of months and this show was so popular around the world. Unfortunately, I have not been lucky with my Google searches for when they’ll release it and no luck with YouTube either (no English caption options). I’ve been hearing that season 2 is really great because season 1 did a nice job of establishing these characters and now we get to see more story-lines. I will miss the students and teachers at the Studio as well the home-life at the Castillo’s house. Throughout 80 episodes it’s understandable to love and hate several characters as you’re with them for a good amount of time. For some people it was a roller coaster, but there were a good amount that I liked pretty consistently. I am a fan of Violetta and Leon and they had some super cute moments. I think it was about episode 35 where I truly felt like connection. When Tomas left the love triangle for a bit I actually grew to like him and would often joke how he never smiled and had a Tomas face. I really liked You Mix and the introduction of Frederico. Some great songs came out of that section like Ven y Canta and Tienes el Talento, but my favorite is definitely Ser Mejor. And of course, I will always have love for Pablo. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to miss reading subtitles (I really do feel like I know more Spanish now). Definitely check out this show if you want something drama filled and funny at the same time.

LEGACIES

I know I dedicated a whole post to Chris Wood’s return as Kai Parker on Legacies. (See the article here:https://talesofafangirlwithadvr.tumblr.com/post/190761328673/omg-legacies-2x12) But I still had to include it in this wrap up because once again Legacies is doing a great job this season. I was so excited to see it when it came back from the mid-season hiatus. Since the return of Wood it has gotten more of a TVD vibe than usual, which is great. I haven’t watched the last episode, but have seen a clip of Kai masquerading at the school. I am going to be very interested to see for how long he hangs around and how long it takes for them to discover him AND how Josie handles the evil inside of her.

BROOKLYN NINE NINE

Thank goodness this show got renewed (and picked up from NBC). When it started a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded how much I missed it. I can’t get over that this is already the second season on NBC. As usual the hi-jinks of the Nine Nine have been entertaining to watch. The Jimmy Jab games were great. I loved how Hitchcock was so desperate to win that he was taking Scully’s array of pills. What an ending with Debbie! Did not think she could be capable of that. I can’t wait to see the outcome next episode. I’m so excited for a Santiago-Peralta baby. It was a great episode when they were hiding it from Charles and Adrian returned. I’ve seen the movie Memento and it is great! It was hilarious each time he was like, ‘I don’t know what that is’ and then saying ‘Finding Dory’ solved everything. I am so happy that this show was suggested for me to watch and fill my Office and Parks and Rec void. Whenever a new episode’s on the DVR I can’t wait to watch it.

LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

And last, but certainly not least, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow has once again not disappointed me this season (I know it’s still early, but I’m optimistic). It started at the end of January following the events of Crisis and I liked how this season transitioned with all the changes (the major one being the introduction of Zari’s brother). I am really happy to see her again though and how she is having these flashes of her old life on board the Wave-rider. I can’t wait to see that reveal happen (especially because as of right now only Nate knows the ‘truth’). I love seeing Ava as a permanent part of the Legends crew and as stepping in as Captain when Sara was away. She is a great addition and I like how quirky she is since we first met her. Her and Sara are perfect. I also love Ray and Nora. Nora as a fairy godmother is fantastic. One of my favorite episodes was the one with the 80s dance. Her role in all of that was great and her realization with what she can provide for these kids. I feel like this is going to be the reason Ray leaves the Legends. I remember seeing Brandon Routh’s Instagram Post about leaving the show and this feels like the reason he will. I hope that isn’t for a while though because I am going to miss him a lot.

Until March!

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creativerogues · 5 years

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A Chronomancer’s Guide: Chronomancy Spells & Ideas

Playing an “Official” Chronomancer...

While there’s no Chronomancer Subclass for 5th Edition from Wizards of the Coast, there are still ways to create a Chronomancer-Like Character with the Official Rules.

One way is to just take the Divination Wizard, get some divination spells that let you determine fate, see the future, change the attack rolls and ability checks of yourself and others, and throw in some Spells like Slow, Haste and Time Stop and boom! An Unofficial Chronomancer...

In terms of Feats, I think the best Feat to fit the idea of a Chronomancer, a Master of Time and Space, is Keen Mind.

Keen Mind You have a mind that can track time, direction, and detail with uncanny precision. You gain the following benefits: • Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20. • You always know which way is north. • You always know the number of hours left before the next sunrise or sunset. • You can accurately recall anything you have seen or heard within the past month.

First off, a bonus to Intelligence, great for a Wizard Chronomancer, second, you always know the number of hours left before the next sunrise or sunset and can accurately recall anything you have seen or heard within the past month because Time Magic and Stuff...

I think it’s a good feat, but let’s get on to the more important things, Spells!

I’ve already made a shortlist just from scanning through the Books on what I think a Chronomancer has:

1st Level

Longstrider: Cause Yourself or Another Creature to move faster.

Expeditious Retreat: Cause Yourself to move faster.

Feather Fall: Slow the descent of Yourself and Other Creatures.

2nd Level

Misty Step: Bamf across the battlefield!

Continual Flame: Manipulate a Flame to burn forever.

Blur: Thinking of this like moving from one space to another so fast the enemy can’t figure out your true location...

Hold Person: Freeze a Creature in place.

3rd Level

Slow: Cause time to slow for Creatures in an area.

Haste: Cause time to flow faster for Yourself or Another Creature.

Blink: Bamf around the battlefield again and again!

4th Level

Fabricate: Think of it like putting everything on fast-forward until the material is crafted...

Dimension Door: Think of it like manipulating space to bamf back to a place you remember...

5th Level

Teleportation Circle: Another bamf spell to get you around.

Modify Memory: Cause a person to remember events that never happened (at least not in this timeline...)

Legend Lore: Recall all the information and history of an person, place or object.

Far Step: Yet another bamf spell! (Because Time & Space are linked bro!)

6th Level

Contingency: What sounds more Chronomancer-Like than casting a Spells days or weeks in advance with a specific circumstance. (Think you’re about to drown and don’t have much left? Well luckily you cast Water Breathing a week ago for this specific scenario...)

7th Level

Reverse Gravity: Manipulating time and space, and in my mind, that includes gravity...

Teleport: Again, bamfing to a place you know (or don’t!)

Delayed Blast Fireball: It’s like Fireball, but delayed, because Time Magic!

9th Level

Wish: Wish let’s you do anything, including undoing a single recent event by forcing a re-roll of any roll made within the last round (including your last turn) and reality reshapes itself to accommodate for the new result...

Time Stop: You stop time, I think that’s obvious...

Foresight: You see the future. (Maybe flavor this to be you sending your mind into each of the possible timelines for the future and seeing every single solution before making a decision...)

Using 3rd Party Content to make your Chronomancer...

Now, if you can convince your DM to let you play a Timey-Wimey Spacebender, then ask if you can use some 3rd Party Content, because there’s some great stuff out there that I think is really neat, and some of the 3rd Party Spells that have been created are pretty much “Time Magic” Spells anyways.

I’ve put a few of my personal favorites here:

Matt Mercer’s Dunamancy

For those that don’t know, Dunamancy is a homebrew School of Magic created by none other than the DM of Critical Role himself, Matt Mercer.

Dunamis appears to heavily rely on quantum mechanics, including the Many Worlds Interpretation that results in multiple versions of us existing based on the possibilities explored or left to explore to another version of ourselves in another timeline.

However, having much more experience with this magic, dunamancers seem able to call upon their alternate selves to aid them in battle, in the forms of shadowy echoes.

And while there’s no published Subclass of Dunamancy, Matt has showcased a few Dunamancy Spells and Abilities on the show already:

Gift of Alacrity

1st-level

Target gains +1d8 to initiative rolls for 8 hours.

Fortune's Favor

2nd-level

Target gains 1 Fragment of Possibility for 1 hour.

Compress Gravity

Compress Gravity causes targets to make a Constitution saving throw. The targets take force damage and their speed is reduced to half for one round.

Vacuum Blast

Creatures in a 20 foot radius around a point of the caster's choosing make a Constitution saving throw and take force damage.

Gravity Well (Ability). After affecting another creature with any spell effect, a Mage could use this ability to push the target 10 feet in any direction of their choice.

Manifest Echo (Bonus Action). A Mage can summon an echo of themselves on their turn that is able to cast a spell on its own, in addition to allowing the Mage themselves to cast another spell at the same time...

Chronomancy Spells - Middle Finger of Vecna

The Middle Finger of Vecna, while not an Actual Magic Item, is a great blog that creates some amazing and sometimes hilarious spells, subclasses, homebrew rules, monsters and magic items...

Their content is incredibly well-worded and well-done, and I’ve used it in several of the previous campaigns I’ve been in and DM’d for...

Delay

2nd-level transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Components: V, S, M (a small crystal)

Duration: Instantaneous

You briefly slow time for a creature of your choice that you can see within range. The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be moved to last place in the initiative order from the beginning of the next round onward.

Temporal Reversion

5th-level transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Touch

Components: V, S

Duration: Instantaneous

The wounds of a creature you touch travel back in time to before they were inflicted. The creature regains hit points equal to 7d4 + your spellcasting ability modifier. This healing works as normal on undead and constructs.

Restore Youth

3rd-level transmutation (ritual)

Casting Time: 8 hours

Range: Touch

Components: V, S, M (gold dust worth at least 500gp, which the spell consumes)

Duration: Instantaneous

You perform a long, complex ritual on another creature, reducing its apparent age by 3d10 years, to a minimum of 13 years. This effect does not extend the creature’s lifespan.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the healing increases by 1d4 for each slot level above 5th.

Mass Haste

7th-level transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Components: V, S, M (a shaving of liquorice root)

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

Choose up to three willing creatures that you can see within range. Until the spell ends, the targets' speeds are doubled, they gain a +2 bonus to AC, have advantage on Dexterity saving throws, and it gain an additional action on each of their turns. That action can be used only to take the Attack (one weapon attack only), Dash, Disengage, Hide, or Use an Object action.

When the spell ends, the targets can’t move or take actions until after their next turn, as a wave of lethargy sweeps over them.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 8th level or higher, you can target one additional creature for each slot level above 7th.

Lesser Time Stop

7th-level transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Self

Components: V

Duration: Instantaneous

You briefly stop the flow of time for everyone but yourself. No time passes for other creatures, while you take 2 turns in a row, during which you can use actions and move as normal.

This spell ends if one of the actions you use during this period, or any effects that you create during this period, affects a creature other than you or an object being worn or carried by someone other than you.

In addition, the spell ends if you move to a place more than 300 feet from the location where you cast it.

Evasiveness

5th-level transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Touch

Components: V, M (a scrap of silk)

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour

You touch a willing creature. Until the spell ends, the target gains a superhuman ability to dodge attacks. The target’s AC becomes 22, if it were lower, regardless of what kind of armor it is wearing.

This spell puts enormous strain on the target’s body. After the spell ends, the target gains one level of exhaustion.

Kobold Press: Deep Magic - Time Magic

Deep Magic: Time Magic by Kobold Press brings the secrets of temporal magic into your 5e campaign, featuring a bunch of new time-related spells that allow you speed up and slow down time and even force enemies into a constant time loop!

Again, I’ve used a lot of their Deep Magic content and I strongly suggest that you take a good look at their other stuff.

And while I obviously can’t just spit everything out in a Post here, I’m gonna share some of the Spells that I think are perfect for a Chronomancer...

Quicken

Transmutation Cantrip

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Touch

Components: V, S

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

You touch one willing creature. Once before the spell ends, the target can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to its next initiative roll or Dexterity saving throw. The target can roll the die before or after the d20 roll. The spell then ends.

Withered Sight

1st-level necromancy

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Components: V, S, M (a dried lizard's eye)

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

You cause the eyes of a creature you can see within range to age rapidly. The target must make a Constitution saving throw. If it fails, the creature has disadvantage on Perception rolls and attack rolls. An affected creature repeats the saving throw at the end of its turn, ending the effect with a success. This spell has no effect on a creature that is blind or that doesn’t use its eyes to see.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you can target one additional creature for each slot level above 1st.

Decelerate

2nd-level transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 60 feet

Components: V, S, M (a toy top)

Duration: 1 minute

You slow the flow of time around a creature. The creature must make a successful Wisdom saving throw or its speed is halved (rounded up to the nearest 5-foot increment). Until the effect ends, the creature’s speed is halved again at the start of each of your turns.

For example, a character with a speed of 30 feet fails its saving throw, dropping its speed to 15 feet. At the start of your next turn, the creature’s speed drops to 10 feet, then to 5 feet on the following round.

Decelerate can’t reduce a creature’s speed to less than 5 feet. The spell ends after 1 minute or when the target uses its action to make a successful Wisdom saving throw.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, you can affect an additional creature for each slot level above 3rd.

Time Step

2nd-level conjuration

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Self

Components: V

Duration: Instantaneous

You briefly step forward in time. You disappear from your location and reappear at the beginning of your next turn in a location within 30 feet of the space you disappeared from. You can’t be affected by anything that happens during the interval you’re missing, and you aren’t aware of anything that happens during that time.

Accelerate

3rd-level transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: Touch

Components: V, S, M (a toy top)

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

Choose up to three willing creatures within range, which may include you. Until the end of the spell, the target's movement speed doubles. The target can also take a bonus action on each of its turns. This bonus action can only be used to take the Dash action.

In addition, the creature has advantage on Dexterity saving throws while under the effect of this spell.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 4th level or higher, you can affect an additional creature for each slot level above 3rd.

Time Loop

6th-level transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Range: 30 feet

Components: V, S, M (a metal loop)

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

You capture the target in a loop of time. The creature is teleported to the space where it began its previous turn. The target then makes a Wisdom saving throw.

If it succeeds, the spell’s effect ends.

If it fails, the creature must repeat the actions it took on its previous turn, following the same sequence of moves and actions to the best of its ability.

It doesn’t need to move along the same path or attack the same target, but if it moved, then attacked, on its previous turn, its only option is to move, then attack, this turn.

If the space where the target began its previous turn is occupied or it’s impossible for the target to take the same action (if it cast a spell but it’s now unable to do so, for example), the target is incapacitated.

An affected target repeats the saving throw at the end of its turn, ending the effect on itself on a success.

For as long as the duration lasts, the target teleports back to its starting point at the start of each of its turns and it must repeat the same sequence of moves and actions.

Strongholds & Followers: The Chronos Codex

Strongholds and Followers is an absolutely amazing book by MCDM Productions and another book I highly recommend you take a look at.

But in particular, the Magic Items Section of the Book, which provides a series of very powerful, artifact level books called Codices.

And one book in particular, the Chronos Codex, focuses on time manipulation.

Here’s just a taste of the few things it can do:

Summon Temporal Duplicate: Once per month as an action, you can summon a version of yourself from the future.

It is one possible version of your future character. It has your stats but is four levels higher and may have different items or even spells, at your GM’s discretion.

You have no control over your temporal duplicate, but it is a version of you and will probably help you out. Because it is from one possible future, it is experiencing one possible past and may not remember the situation it finds itself in, because it never experienced this past.

The duplicate remains in this manifold of the timescape for 4 + 1d4 rounds, after which it returns to its own time.

If it drops to 0 hit points, it automatically returns — unconscious — to its original manifold.

While you are attuned to the book, the GM may ask you to make a percentile roll at random moments. If you roll a 100, you disappear for 4 + 1d4 rounds, as you are relentlessly pulled backward into an alternate past to serve a version of yourself four levels lower.

Nomad of the Timescape: You cease aging.

As an action once per year, you may sacrifice any number of Hit Dice to move forward or backward in time by a hundred years per Hit Die sacrificed.

You can observe and interact with, but cannot change, the past or future.

Because of the manifold nature of the timescape, the past or future you find yourself in may not be your past or future.

While in another temporal manifold, you sacrifice 1 Hit Dice at the end of each week.

Blink of an Eye: As an action, you can sacrifice any number of Hit Dice to take an equal number of turns in a row.

Other features allow you to travel literally thousands of years into the past or future, and others let you mess with the order of Initiative thanks to some handy time magic, which I think is such an interesting mechanic that you never see a lot of in 5th Edition...

But, if you have a high level ‘Chronomancer’ Wizard, and they don’t have a lot of Magic Items, then I think this little Magic Book could definitely hold some success for them in the future...

Homebrewing Your Chronomancer...

So now that we've gotten past how to make an 'Official' Chronomancer, and how to make one using the 3rd Party Content that's already out there, let's talk about making a Homebrew Chronomancer...

Old School Chronomancy Spells (For Fifth Edition...)

Now, back in ye olden days, there were genuine Chronomancers in the Forgotten Realms and in D&D, but it wasn’t long until people realized how messing with time can mess with the canon of a setting, and just as quickly as it arrived, the Chronomancy School of Magic left...

But it did have some great spells, which I think can be easily adapted to 5th Edition D&D without being too game-breaking...

Zwei’s Extension

4th Level

Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: Self

Components: V

Duration: Instantaneous

Classes: Wizard

Choose a spell of 3rd Level or Lower that you can cast and has a Casting Time of 1 Action.

You cast that spell, called the Extended Spell, as part of casting Zwei’s Extension, expending Spell Slots for both, but the Extended Spell has double its duration, to a maximum duration of 1 Day.

Permanency

9th Level

Casting Time: 1 Minute

Range: Self

Components: V, S

Duration: Until Dispelled

Classes: Wizard

Choose a spell of 4th Level or Lower that you can cast, that has a Casting Time of 1 Minute or less, and that can target only a single creature.

You cast that spell, called the Permanent Spell, as part of casting Permanency, expending Spell Slots for both, but the Permanent Spell comes into effect with an infinite duration, and no longer requires Concentration from the Caster.

For example, a Permanency Spell cast See Invisibility allows you to see Invisible creatures and Objects as if they were visible until you choose to dispel this effect.

While standing within a Field of Anti-Magic or a Similar Effect, the effects brought on by a Permanency Spell are suppressed, these effects cease to be suppressed as soon as you exit.

Temporal Stasis

8th Level

Casting Time: 1 Minute

Range: Touch

Components: V, S, M (A powder composed of diamond, emerald, ruby, and sapphire dust with a total value of at least 5,000 gp.)

Duration: Until Dispelled

Classes: Wizard

You place the Creature into a state of suspended animation.

For the creature, time ceases to flow and its condition becomes fixed. The creature does not grow older. Its body functions virtually cease, and no force or effect can harm it.

This state persists until the magic is removed (such as by a successful Dispel Magic spell or a Wish spell), or until you choose to end it.

Wesley's Delayed Damage

5th Level

Casting Time: 1 Action

Range: Self

Components: V, S

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 Minute

Classes: Wizard

You create a field of temporal flux around you, intercepting physical attacks and shifting all or part of the effects into the future, allowing you time to prepare...

When a creature successfully hits you with a melee or ranged weapon attack, half the damage is applied immediately, and the other half is put off for the duration of the spell, or until you lose concentration.

This delays the need for healing, but be cautious not to lose track of the time since casting.

After the first turn, the spell could expire at any moment, and all deffered damage is then applied at once, which could easily kill the caster...

Effects from the Fifth Edition Monster Manual, changed into ‘Chronomancer Abilities’

A lot of Abilities from the Monsters in the 5th Edition Monster Manual can easily be changed to suit a Chronomancer Wizard, just take a look!

Great Haste (Ghost - Horrifying Visage)

Each creature within 60 feet of you that you can see must succeed on a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the target ages 1d4 X 10 years.

If a target’s saving throw is successful, the target is immune to the spell’s effects for the next 24 hours. The aging effect can be reversed with a Greater Restoration spell, but only within 24 hours of it occurring.

This spell has no effect on Undead or constructs.

Taken from the Stats of a Ghost in the Monster Manual, ‘Horrifying Visage’, renamed here to ‘Great Haste’, could easily be a high level spell for a Chronomancer, possibly inflicting some Force Damage or negative effect to the creatures that fail, such as disadvantage on Strength, Dexterity or Constitution checks and saving throws...

Temporal Strike

Melee Weapon Attack: One Creature. Hit: Normal Weapon’s Damage plus 8d12 Psychic Damage.

The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or move 1 round forward in time. A target moved forward in time vanishes for the duration. When the effect ends, the target reappears in the space it left or in an unoccupied space nearest to that space if it’s occupied.

Taken from the Stats of a Githzerai Enlightened, this ability literally lets you punch, kick and whack your foes through time...

And with some editing, it could easily be a high level spell, or some kind of Chronomancer Subclass Ability...

Change Gravity

You cast the Reverse Gravity spell. The spell has the normal effect, except that you can orient the area in any direction and creatures and objects fall toward the end of the area.

Taken from the Stats of a Githzerai Anarch, this feature could oh-so-easily just be an ability for a Chronomancer, changing time and space...

But could also just become a higher level version of Reverse Gravity, so I’d say Change Gravity could be an 8th Level Spell, since Reverse Gravity is 7th Level and we don’t want that Chronomancer getting this thing for free...

Other Effects & Ideas

And as we come to a close on this VERY long Post, here’s just a few of my unfinished thoughts and ideas that you might want to throw into your game, maybe as a Magic Item for a Chronomancer, maybe it’s an Ability a Monster has, or maybe you’re gonna take these ideas and build a Chronomancy subclass over it, I don’t know...

Ability: Grant an Ally advantage on Attack Rolls for the next 3 Rounds of Combat.

Collapse Time (Flavored Version of ‘Power Word Kill’): If the Target has 100 Hit Points or Fewer, it explodes and dies.

At ___th level, you cease aging.

At ___th level, when you cast a Spell with a casting time of 1 Action, you can spend a Spell Slot of the Spell's Level or Higher to reduce the casting time for this Spell to 1 Bonus Action.

At ___th level, you can cast the Haste Spell without expending a Spell Slot, but the Spell affects only you. Once you cast Haste in this way, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest. You can still cast it normally using an available spell slot.

At ___th level, you add the Haste Spell to your Spellbook, if it is not there already. You never suffer the negative after effects of the Haste Spell and can act normally when the Spell ends.

When you are surprised at the beginning of an encounter, you can choose to expend a Spell Slot of 1st Level or Higher to not be surprised.

When you need to make a Dexterity saving throw, you can choose to expend a Spell Slot of 1st Level or Higher to make the saving throw with advantage.

You become proficient in the History and Arcana skills if you are not already proficient..

#wizard #chronomancer #chronomancy #dunamancy #middlefingerofvecna #kobold press #deep magic #time magic #strongholds & followers #mcdm #homebrew #homebrew rules #homebrew spells #dnd 5e homebrew #creativerogues

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letterboxd · 4 years

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Screen Time.

Can the data about actors’ time on screen help bust open Oscars category fraud? Jack Moulton talks to stopwatch-wielding Academy Awards fan Matthew Stewart about his hours (and hours, and hours) of timing Academy-nominated performances down to the second. Pictured above are the longest on-screen appearances for winning lead and supporting performances: Charlton Heston, Vivien Leigh, Tatum O’Neal and Mahershala Ali.

“It’s a shameful practice and in order to argue against it, there has to be evidence.” —Matthew Stewart

The Oscar categories for Supporting Actress and Supporting Actor were introduced at the 9th Academy Awards in 1937 to recognize those who excelled in roles that were less-than-leading, but no less important to the story. It’s a category in which emerging actors, fantastic character performers and non-famous industry veterans have found their way to Oscar glory.

Except that in recent decades, there’s so much more to an Oscar-winning performance than what we see on screen. It’s often a deliberate campaign, using every publicity trick in the book: red carpet walks, ‘surprise’ Q&A appearances, press coverage about the sacrifices involved in playing the part, narratives about previous ‘awards snubs’.

And then there’s category fraud—a strategy where studios split two stars across two categories, in order to nudge both towards the Academy’s podium. Example: for their equally leading roles in Carol, Cate Blanchett won the leading actress nomination, while Rooney Mara was nominated for supporting actress.

The problem, as Anne Thompson writes in her recent Thompson on Hollywood column assessing this year’s likely category-shifts, is “when lead actors (or actresses) decide they have a better chance in supporting, they take a slot away from another deserving performer”.

As history moves on and the politics fade away, measuring screen time is perhaps one of the few objective, quantifiable and finite pieces of information the director passes along to the audience and Oscar voters about an actor’s contribution to a film.

Enter Matthew Stewart: a 28-year-old Oscar buff and Letterboxd member from North Carolina who’s been following the Academy Awards for fourteen years. Curious as to why Frances McDormand and William H. Macy were nominated for Lead Actress and Supporting Actor respectively for Fargo, he set out to investigate how egregious their category placements were, by comparing their time on screen. Turns out Macy is on screen for 38 seconds longer than McDormand.

Matthew is our type of completist. Over the past twelve years, he has made it his mission to time all of the Academy Award nominated performances; tracking actors’ seconds on screen (whether seen or heard), keeping track of the time in his notepad, and then summing it all up. He certainly knows more than the Academy, who broadcasted incorrect trivia on last year’s Oscar game that Matthew was quick to put right.

His motivation is largely to debunk myths, such as the commonly repeated ‘fun fact’ of Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs having the shortest Best Actor Oscar-winning performance. The shortest, in fact, is David Niven’s appearance in Separate Tables, which is exactly one minute and thirteen seconds shorter than Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter.

Of course, screen time does not reflect quality by any means. Having a character on screen for longer does not mean the role is better acted or more well-written. In many ways, it can be more impressive when an iconic or powerful character is technically on screen for half an hour or less.

We spoke to Matthew about his hobby, his opinions on category fraud, and the data he has on this year’s nominees. He shares his results on Twitter, his Letterboxd profile and his website, Screentime Central.

Vivien Leigh in ‘Gone with the Wind’ (1939).

Let’s get to those stats. In Academy Award history, what is the longest performance to be nominated for an Oscar? Matthew Stewart: By length, 1940 Best Actress winner Vivien Leigh is seen on screen in Gone with the Wind for two hours, 23 minutes and 32 seconds. By percentage, 1976 Best Actor nominee James Whitmore is on screen in Give ’em Hell, Harry! for 96.52 percent of the film’s runtime.

And the shortest? Both by length and percentage, 1960 Best Supporting Actress nominee Hermione Baddeley is on screen in Room at the Top for only two minutes and 19 seconds, which is just 1.98 percent of the film’s runtime.

You’ve done the math: what was the most egregious category fraud of all-time? And also—the worst failed attempt at category fraud? The most egregious case of category fraud is Richard Burton’s supporting nomination for My Cousin Rachel. Others come close, but that is the worst. He’s the main focus of the film and is in 85 percent of it, making it one of the 25 longest performances nominated in any category. And his co-star, Olivia de Havilland, is only in 44 percent of the film, so there’s no explaining it.

One of the most serious cases of fraud I can think of that didn’t result in a nomination is Jacob Tremblay being campaigned as supporting for Room. It’s a shame that that kind of bias against child actors still exists. And then there are cases where a definitive decision on placement wasn’t made, resulting in no nomination at all, like Lesley Manville in Another Year.

How does your husband feel about your time-consuming hobby? I actually didn’t tell anyone about my hobby for the first four years or so. I wanted to avoid the judgment of people thinking it was odd.

My husband was interested as soon as I told him and showed him my work up to that point. He’s always been willing to listen to my Oscar-related ramblings, so I shouldn’t have been worried!

Why do you think it’s important to keep such scientific track of category fraud? I think it’s important to because it’s a shameful practice and in order to argue against it, there has to be evidence. And the evidence is stacking up just about every year. I want to provide as much screen-time data as possible as a way to support correct category placements, and of course I hope that someday the Academy will catch on.

Now we have the data, has category fraud gotten worse over the years? Can you tell if the recent absence of Weinstein has helped ease fraud? Category fraud seems to have gotten worse in recent years, with cases like Rooney Mara [in Carol] and Alicia Vikander [winner of Best Supporting Actress for The Danish Girl] in 2016 and the cast of The Favourite last year. But really, it’s not any worse now than it’s been since the introduction of the supporting categories.

The worst thing about it now is how blatantly greedy some studios are in terms of winning as many Oscars as possible. It’s sad that we’ll never again see two leading actors or actresses nominated for the same film out of fear of them cancelling each other out and neither winning. Campaigning one of them as supporting makes for two potential wins.

I think Weinstein intensified the trend so long ago that his absence doesn’t change much. Some studios have campaigned that way for so long that I don’t think it will get better any time soon.

Which is the most significant difference between a nominated lead and supporting performance in the same film? [See Matthew’s list: Who’s Supporting Who?] The worst case is Timothy Hutton [supporting] over Mary Tyler Moore [leading] in Ordinary People. Hutton is onscreen for 32 minutes and eighteen seconds more than Moore! I would personally classify both of those performances as leading, as well as Donald Sutherland’s performance in the same film.

Meryl Streep in ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’, the first—and longest—of her three Oscar-winning roles, from a record 21 nominations.

Have you timed which actor or actress has the most Oscar nominated minutes ever? Or, let me rephrase: how many minutes do Meryl Streep’s 21 Oscar nominated performances add up to? Meryl Streep’s Oscar-nominated performances add up to 21 hours, 19 minutes, and 39 seconds, which gives her an average of about 61 minutes per performance.

And the runners up? After Streep, it’s Katharine Hepburn (12:45:10), Jack Nicholson (12:32:27), Bette Davis (12:09:13), and Laurence Olivier (10:54:22).

Which were the hardest and easiest films to time? Naturally, the harder it is to see the actor on screen, the harder it is to time them. So I really despise drawn-out battle scenes or scenes with huge crowds. Timing Charlton Heston’s performance in Ben-Hur during the chariot racing scene wasn’t that hard, because you know where he is, but timing Hugh Griffith’s performance in the same scene was much harder because he’s part of that enormous crowd.

The easiest one I’ve ever done is James Whitmore in Give ’em Hell, Harry!, since it’s a filmed one-man stage show. Sleuth and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? were easy too, because there are so few actors in the cast.

What results surprised you the most? I remember being shocked to find out that Robert Strauss’s supporting performance in Stalag 17 is nineteen minutes longer than William Holden’s leading one. But still, in that case, I don’t have a problem with the category placement. More recently, I was surprised by the shortness of Sam Elliott’s performance in A Star Is Born [eight minutes, 45 seconds!], and the fact that Scarlett Johansson’s performance in Marriage Story is 20 minutes shorter than Adam Driver’s.

Of those you’ve timed so far, what are the screen times for this year’s nominees? [Actors are ranked below by screen time as a percentage of each film’s total runtime.]

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) – 1:43:44 / 85.3% Adam Driver (Marriage Story) – 1:25:03 / 62.1% Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes) – 1:12:42 / 57.7% Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory) – 59:31 / 52.5% Leonardo DiCaprio (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) – 1:01:12 / 37.9%

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Renee Zellweger (Judy) – 1:27:29 / 74.0% Cynthia Erivo (Harriet) – 1:25:12 / 68.2% Saoirse Ronan (Little Women) – 1:15:01 / 47.7% Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story) – 1:05:19 / 47.7% Charlize Theron (Bombshell) – 37:16 / 34.3%

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Anthony Hopkins (The Two Popes) – 55:14 / 43.9% Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) – 55:12 / 34.2% Al Pacino (The Irishman) – 53:58 / 25.8% Tom Hanks (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) – 44:56 / 41.4% Joe Pesci (The Irishman) – 43:22 / 20.7%

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Florence Pugh (Little Women) – 42:06 / 31.2% Margot Robbie (Bombshell) – 26:16 / 24.2% Kathy Bates (Richard Jewell) – 25:06 / 19.2% Laura Dern (Marriage Story) – 18:36 / 13.6% Scarlett Johansson (Jojo Rabbit) – 15:36 / 14.4%

It looks like the more time on screen, the better the chances of a win, judging by some of the frontrunners this year. Is that an identifiable trend in your data? Looking at the data from the last ten years, Oscar wins do tend to favor longer performances across all categories. The shortest Best Actor or Actress nominee of the year has only won once since 2010—Olivia Colman last year for The Favourite.

The average winning leading performance since 2010 is 75 minutes long (63 percent of screen time), with none under 50 minutes (when the previous decade had eight under 50, and five under 40 percent). The average winning supporting performance since 2010 is 36 minutes long (28 percent of screen time), with only one under 20 minutes (which was Allison Janney in I, Tonya).

Have you noticed any fun stats for this year’s nominees? The only screen-time-related stat I’ve noticed is that this year’s Supporting Actor nominees have either the highest or second-highest average length of all time in the category. I can’t say for sure until after I time Tom Hanks, nominated for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

With an average age of 71.6, this year’s Supporting Actor Oscar nominees are the oldest group ever nominated in any acting category. This is the fourth time this decade that the Supporting Actors have broken the long-standing record of 61.3 held by the 1965 Supporting Actress group.

Also, all of this year’s acting nominees make up the second-oldest group ever nominated, with an average age of 51.8. The record is still 53.1 for 2017—the third time the record was broken this decade after previously being held by (again) the 1965 group (49.3).

So far, this year’s nominees haven’t broken any records. Phoenix’s performance could be the overall longest Oscar-winning performance of the decade, but that’s about it.

Mahershala Ali as Don Shirley in ‘Green Book’ (2018).

What nominees in the past decade broke records? I think one thing worth mentioning is that Mahershala Ali just broke the record for longest Supporting Actor winning performance last year [for Green Book], previously held by Christoph Waltz in 2013 [for Django Unchained], who took the record from Timothy Hutton.

And the female percentage record was broken twice this decade after being held since 1991 by Meryl Streep [for Postcards from the Edge]; by Marion Cotillard in 2015 [for Two Days, One Night] and then by Charlotte Rampling in 2016 [for 45 Years].

Three of the ten longest Best Supporting Actress-nominated performances of all time (by minutes) are from 2016 (Mara, Vikander, Leigh). Mara and Vikander also make the percentage top ten, along with Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit), Emma Stone (The Favourite) and Julia Roberts (August: Osage County)—so exactly half of that top ten are from this decade alone.

2019 was the first time ever that two performances under ten minutes were nominated for Best Supporting Actor in the same year—Sam Elliott, and Sam Rockwell in Vice.

And what about performances you timed from 2019 that were snubbed? (More from other years are here.)

Awkwafina (The Farewell) – 1:00:19 / 60.4% Zhao Shuzhen (The Farewell) – 37:33 / 37.6% Constance Wu (Hustlers) – 1:02:31/ 56.8% Jennifer Lopez (Hustlers) – 53:09 / 48.3% Robert De Niro (The Irishman) – 2:14:19 / 64.1% Lupita Nyong’o (Us) – 57:21 / 49.3% Robert Pattinson (The Lighthouse) – 1:23:18 / 76.4% Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse) – 56:02 / 51.4% Margot Robbie (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) – 17:00 / 10.5%

You’ve watched more nominees than most people (let’s face it, maybe all people). Forgetting screen time, what are the most underrated nominated performances you think people should check out? Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in The Guardsman (I can’t separate them, sorry!), Mickey Rooney in The Bold and the Brave, and Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette.

How about greatest snubs. Who are you dying to see get nominated for an Oscar? When I think of who the Academy has snubbed the most, I immediately think of John Goodman. He’s everyone’s go-to answer, but it’s true. After him, I’d say Emily Blunt, Steve Buscemi and Alfred Molina.

What Oscar win are you rooting for the most on Sunday? My favorite Oscar-nominated performance of the year is Joaquin Phoenix in Joker. I know the film is polarizing, but he’s undeniable, and I hope he wins. As for upsets in below-the-line categories, I’d love it if The Lighthouse won Best Cinematography, and it’d be so cool if Parasite won Best Film Editing.

The 92nd Academy Awards take place on Sunday, February 9, at 5:00pm PST. See also: The Best Best Picture Lineups and All the 2020 Oscar Nominees.

#academy awards #oscars #oscar #oscars 2020 #awards #acting #actors #time on screen #matthew stewart #leading actor #leading actress #supporting actor #supporting actress #letterboxd

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blackfreethinkers · 4 years

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Two kindergartners in Utah told a Latino boy that President Trump would send him back to Mexico, and teenagers in Maine sneered "Ban Muslims" at a classmate wearing a hijab. In Tennessee, a group of middle-schoolers linked arms, imitating the president's proposed border wall as they refused to let nonwhite students pass. In Ohio, another group of middle-schoolers surrounded a mixed-race sixth-grader and, as she confided to her mother, told the girl: "This is Trump country."

Since Trump's rise to the nation’s highest office, his inflammatory language — often condemned as racist and xenophobic — has seeped into schools across America. Many bullies now target other children differently than they used to, with kids as young as 6 mimicking the president’s insults and the cruel way he delivers them.

Trump’s words, those chanted by his followers at campaign rallies and even his last name have been wielded by students and school staff members to harass children more than 300 times since the start of 2016, a Washington Post review of 28,000 news stories found. At least three-quarters of the attacks were directed at kids who are Hispanic, black or Muslim, according to the analysis. Students have also been victimized because they support the president — more than 45 times during the same period.

Although many hateful episodes garnered coverage just after the election, The Post found that Trump-connected persecution of children has never stopped. Even without the huge total from November 2016, an average of nearly two incidents per school week have been publicly reported over the past four years. Still, because so much of the bullying never appears in the news, The Post’s figure represents a small fraction of the actual total. It also doesn’t include the thousands of slurs, swastikas and racial epithets that aren’t directly linked to Trump but that the president’s detractors argue his behavior has exacerbated.

“It’s gotten way worse since Trump got elected,” said Ashanty Bonilla, 17, a Mexican American high school junior in Idaho who faced so much ridicule from classmates last year that she transferred. “They hear it. They think it’s okay. The president says it. . . . Why can’t they?”

Asked about Trump’s effect on student behavior, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham noted that first lady Melania Trump — whose “Be Best” campaign denounces online harassment — had encouraged kids worldwide to treat one another with respect.

First lady Melania Trump speaks at the White House in May 2018 about her “Be Best” campaign, which denounces online harassment. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

“She knows that bullying is a universal problem for children that will be difficult to stop in its entirety,” Grisham wrote in an email, “but Mrs. Trump will continue her work on behalf of the next generation despite the media’s appetite to blame her for actions and situations outside of her control.”

Most schools don’t track the Trump bullying phenomenon, and researchers didn’t ask about it in a federal survey of 6,100 students in 2017, the most recent year with available data. One in five of those children, ages 12 to 18, reported being bullied at school, a rate unchanged since the previous count in 2015.

However, a 2016 online survey of over 10,000 kindergarten through 12th-grade educators by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that more than 2,500 “described specific incidents of bigotry and harassment that can be directly traced to election rhetoric,” although the overwhelming majority never made the news. In 476 cases, offenders used the phrase “build the wall.” In 672, they mentioned deportation.

Withrow University High School

Someone sprayed hateful graffiti across campus, declaring "F- - - N-words and Faggots" and "Trump." The graffiti also threatened gay and black students and featured multiple swastikas -- the latter often painted alongside the president's last name.

Lewiston High School

After Ashanty Bonilla, 17, tweeted criticism of Trump supporters who visit Mexico, a classmate posted her message on Snapchat alongside a racist response and a Confederate flag. The next day, classmates heckled the teen with racist jeers, tied a rope to the back of her car and wrote "Republican Trump 2020" on the back window.

Amon Carter-Riverside High School

Georgia Clark, an English teacher in Fort Worth, tweeted at President Trump asking him to remove undocumented immigrants from her high school. She mistakenly believed her messages were private.

For Cielo Castor, who is Mexican American, the experience at Kamiakin High in Kennewick, Wash., was searing. The day after the election, a friend told Cielo, then a sophomore, that he was glad Trump won because Mexicans were stealing American jobs. A year later, when the president was mentioned during her American literature course, she said she didn't support him and a classmate who did refused to sit next to her. “‘I don’t want to be around her,’ ” Cielo recalled him announcing as he opted for the floor instead. Then, on “America night” at a football game in October 2018 during Cielo’s senior year, schoolmates in the student section unfurled a “Make America Great Again” flag. Led by the boy who wouldn’t sit beside Cielo, the teenagers began to chant: “Build — the — wall!” Horrified, she confronted the instigator. “You can’t be doing that,” Cielo told him. He ignored her, she recalled, and the teenagers around him booed her. A cheerleading coach was the lone adult who tried to make them stop. “I felt like I was personally attacked. And it wasn’t like they were attacking my character. They were attacking my ethnicity, and it’s not like I can do anything about that.”

— Cielo Castor

After a photo of the teenagers with the flag appeared on social media, news about what had happened infuriated many of the school’s Latinos, who made up about a quarter of the 1,700-member student body. Cielo, then 17, hoped school officials would address the tension. When they didn’t, she attended that Wednesday’s school board meeting. “I don’t feel cared for,” she told the members, crying. A day later, the superintendent consoled her and the principal asked how he could help, recalled Cielo, now a college freshman. Afterward, school staff members addressed every class, but Hispanic students were still so angry that they organized a walkout. Some students heckled the protesters, waving MAGA caps at them. At the end of the day, Cielo left the school with a white friend who’d attended the protest; they passed an underclassman she didn’t know. “Look,” the boy said, “it’s one of those f---ing Mexicans.” She heard that school administrators — who declined to be interviewed for this article — suspended the teenager who had led the chant, but she doubts he has changed. Reached on Instagram, the teenager refused to talk about what happened, writing in a message that he didn’t want to discuss the incident “because it is in the past and everyone has moved on from it.” At the end, he added a sign-off: “Trump 2020.”

President Trump’s rhetoric has been condemned as racist and xenophobic since his candidacy began in 2015. Here is what he’s said. (The Washington Post)

Just as the president has repeatedly targeted Latinos, so, too, have school bullies. Of the incidents The Post tallied, half targeted Hispanics.

In one of the most extreme cases of abuse, a 13-year-old in New Jersey told a Mexican American schoolmate, who was 12, that “all Mexicans should go back behind the wall.” A day later, on June 19, 2019, the 13-year-old assaulted the boy and his mother, Beronica Ruiz, punching him and beating her unconscious, said the family’s attorney, Daniel Santiago. He wonders to what extent Trump’s repeated vilification of certain minorities played a role.

More than 300 Trump-inspired harassment incidents reported by news outlets from 2016-2019

Anti-Hispanic: 45%

Anti-black: 23%

Anti-Semitic: 7%

Anti-Muslim: 8%

Anti-LGBT: 4%

Anti-Trump: 14%

Note: Some incidents targeted multiple groups and, in other cases, the ethnicity/gender/religion of the intended target was unclear. Figures may not precisely add up because of rounding.

“When the president goes on TV and is saying things like Mexicans are rapists, Mexicans are criminals — these children don’t have the cognitive ability to say, ‘He’s just playing the role of a politician,’ ” Santiago argued. “The language that he’s using matters.” Ruiz’s son, who is now seeing a therapist, continues to endure nightmares from an experience that may take years to overcome. But experts say that discriminatory language can, on its own, harm children, especially those of color who may already feel marginalized. “It causes grave damage, as much physical as psychological,” said Elsa Barajas, who has counseled more than 1,000 children in her job at the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health. As a result, she has seen Hispanic students suffer from sleeplessness, lose interest in school, and experience inexplicable stomach pain and headaches.

For Ashanty Bonilla, the damage began with the response to a single tweet she shared 10 months ago. “Unpopular opinion,” Ashanty, then 16 and a sophomore at Lewiston High School in rural Idaho, wrote on April 9. “People who support Trump and go to Mexico for vacation really piss me off. Sorry not sorry.” Some of Ashanty Bonilla’s classmates at Lewiston High in rural Idaho harassed her last April after she tweeted a comment critical of Trump supporters. (Rajah Bose/For The Washington Post) A schoolmate, who is white, took a screen shot of her tweet and posted it to Snapchat, along with a Confederate flag. “Unpopular opinion but: people that are from Mexico and come in to America illegally or at all really piss me off,” he added in a message that spread rapidly among students. The next morning, as Ashanty arrived at school, half a dozen boys, including the one who had written the message, stood nearby. “You’re illegal. Go back to Mexico,” she heard one of them say. “F--- Mexicans.” Ashanty, shaken but silent, walked past as a friend yelled at the boys to shut up. In a 33,000-person town that is 94 percent white, Ashanty, whose father is half-black and whose mother is Mexican American, had always worked to fit in. She attended every football game and won a school spirit award as a freshman. She straightened her hair and dyed it blond, hoping to look more like her friends. “It’s gotten way worse since Trump got elected. They hear it. They think it’s okay. The president says it. . . . Why can’t they?”

— Ashanty Bonilla

She had known those boys who’d heckled her since they were little. For her 15th birthday the year before, some had danced at her quinceañera. A friend drove her off campus for lunch, but when they pulled back into the parking lot, Ashanty spotted people standing around her car. A rope had been tied from the back of the Honda Pilot to a pickup truck. “Republican Trump 2020,” someone had written in the dust on her back window. Hands trembling, Ashanty tried to untie the rope but couldn’t. She heard the laughing, sensed the cellphone cameras pointed at her. She began to weep. Lewiston’s principal, Kevin Driskill, said he and his staff met with the boys they knew were involved, making clear that “we have zero tolerance for any kind of actions like that.” The incidents, he suspected, stemmed mostly from ignorance. “Our lack of diversity probably comes with a lack of understanding,” Driskill said, but he added that he’s encouraged by the school district’s recent creation of a community group — following racist incidents on other campuses — meant to address those issues. That effort came too late for Ashanty. Some friends supported her, but others told her the boys were just joking. Don’t ruin their lives. She seldom attended classes the last month of school. That summer, she started having migraines and panic attacks. In August, amid her spiraling despair, Ashanty swallowed 27 pills from a bottle of antidepressants. A helicopter rushed her to a hospital in Spokane, Wash., 100 miles away. After that, she began seeing a therapist and, along with the friend who defended her, transferred to another school. Sometimes, she imagines how different life might be had she never written that tweet, but Ashanty tries not to blame herself and has learned to take more pride in her heritage. She just wishes the president understood the harm his words inflict. Even Trump’s last name has become something of a slur to many children of color, whether they’ve heard it shouted at them in hallways or, in her case, seen it written on the back window of a car. “It means,” she said, “you don’t belong.”

Georgia Clark taught English at Amon Carter-Riverside High School in Fort Worth, where a student accused her of racism. (Allison V. Smith/For The Washington Post) Three weeks into the 2018-19 school year, Miracle Slover's English teacher, she alleges, ordered black and Hispanic students to sit in the back of the classroom at their Fort Worth high school. At the time, Miracle was a junior. Georgia Clark, her teacher at Amon Carter-Riverside, often brought up Trump, Miracle said. He was a good person, she told the class, because he wanted to build a wall. “Every day was something new with immigration,” said Miracle, now 18, who has a black mother and a mixed-race father. “That Trump needs to take [immigrants] away. They do drugs, they bring drugs over here. They cause violence.” Some students tried to film Clark, and others complained to administrators, but none of it made a difference, Miracle said. Clark, an employee of the Fort Worth system since 1998, kept talking. Clark, who denies the teenager’s allegations, is one of more than 30 educators across the country accused of using the president’s name or rhetoric to harass students since he announced his candidacy, the Post analysis found. In Clark’s class, Miracle stayed quiet until late spring 2019. That day, she walked in wearing her hair “puffy,” split into two high buns. Clark, she said, told her it looked “nappy, like Marge off ‘The Simpsons.’ ” Unable to smother an angry reply, Miracle landed in the principal’s office. An administrator asked her to write a witness statement, and in it, she finally let go, scrawling her frustration across seven pages. “I just got tired of it,” she said. “I wrote a ton.” Still, Miracle said, school officials took no action until six weeks later, when Clark, 69, tweeted at Trump — in what she thought were private messages — requesting help deporting undocumented immigrants in Fort Worth schools. The posts went viral, drawing national condemnation. Clark was fired. “Every day was something new with immigration. That Trump needs to take [immigrants] away. They do drugs, they bring drugs over here. They cause violence.”

— Miracle Slover, referring to Georgia Clark, her former English teacher

Not always, though, are offenders removed from the classroom. The day after the 2016 election, Donnie Jones Jr.’s daughter was walking down a hallway at her Florida high school when, she says, a teacher warned her and two friends — all sophomores, all black — that Trump would “send you back to Africa.” The district suspended the teacher for three days and transferred him to another school. Just a few days later in California, a physical education teacher told a student that he would be deported under Trump. Two years ago in Maine, a substitute teacher referenced the president’s wall and promised a Lebanese American student, “You’re getting kicked out of my country.” More than a year later in Texas, a school employee flashed a coin bearing the word “ICE” at a Hispanic student. “Trump,” he said, “is working on a law where he can deport you.” Sometimes, Jones said, he doesn’t recognize America. “People now will say stuff that a couple of years ago they would not dare say,” Jones argued. He fears what his two youngest children, ages 11 and 9, might hear in their school hallways, especially if Trump is reelected. Now a senior, Miracle doesn’t regret what she wrote about Clark. Although the furor that followed forced Miracle to switch schools and quit her beloved dance team, she would do it again, she said. Clark’s punishment, her public disgrace, was worth it. About a week before Miracle’s 18th birthday, her mother checked Facebook to find a flurry of notifications. Friends were messaging to say that Clark had appealed her firing, and that the Texas education commissioner had intervened. Reluctant to spoil the birthday, Jowona Powell waited several days to tell her daughter, who doesn’t use social media. Citing a minor misstep in the school board’s firing process, the commissioner had ordered Carter-Riverside to pay Clark one year’s salary — or give the former teacher her job back.

A snapshot of the harassment in 2019

In the three months after the president tweeted on July 14, 2019, that four minority congresswomen should "go back” to the countries they came from, more than a dozen incidents of Trump-related school bullying — including several that used his exact language — were reported in the press.

Mahtomedi High School & Como Park Senior High School

During a soccer game, students taunted a majority Asian-American team (which also included at least one Hispanic player) by telling them to go back to their countries and calling them "Asian food names."

Baldwin High School & Piper High School

During a volleyball game, students told black players on the court to go back to where they came from and made monkey noises at them.

Barack and Michelle Obama Ninth Grade Center

After a 14-year-old failed to address a staffer with "Yes, sir," the man showed the student a coin with "ICE" written on it and said, "Even though you are a citizen, Trump is working on a law where he can deport you, too, because of your mom’s status." The man later lost his job.

Everett Alvarez High School

Frontier High School

Students waving "Make America Great Again" flags disrupted a meeting of the school's Gay Straight Alliance, breaking up the gathering by shouting slurs before following the group's members to the parking lot.

Edward Little High School

Students yelled "Build the wall!" and "Ban Muslims!" as a 16-year-old Muslim girl walked through the hallways.

A 16-year-old student was arrested after posting on social media -- shortly after the deadly mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso — a photo of a pickup displaying a Trump flag, a Confederate flag and several guns. He captioned the post, "west harrison ain't ready for round 2."

Fans told one Hispanic player on the opposing team to “go back to your country” and called others “f---ing beaner” and "wetback" during a soccer game.

During a game in which a student was accused of using a racial slur againt a black player, fans also waved a Trump sign and chanted "America" when their team scored.

Cheerleaders from a largely white school held up a sign that read "Make America Great Again" and "Trump the Leopards" before a football game against a much more diverse school.

Before a football game, players ran through a banner reading "Make America Great Again Trump Those Patriots," triggering a backlash.

At least two minority students were bullied — in separate incidents — because the district allowed students to display a Trump banner at a high school football game, according to parents and school board members.

After students painted the school rock with rainbows to celebrate National Coming Out Day, someone painted over it with "Trump 2020," "MAGA 2020," "NRA" and an expletive. Later, two students — one black, one white — got into a fight about the issue.

During a volleyball game, students told black players on the court to go back to where they came from and made monkey noises at them.

In an apparent prank against a schoolmate, students created a fake Twitter account — which praised Adolf Hitler and Trump in its bio — and tweeted out racist remarks against a black high school coach. Jordyn Covington stood when she heard the jeers. “Monkeys!” “You don’t belong here.” “Go back to where you came from!” From atop the bleachers that day in October, Jordyn, 15, could see her Piper High School volleyball teammates on the court in tears. The sobbing varsity players were all black, all from Kansas City, Kan., like her. Who was yelling? Jordyn wondered. She peered at the students in the opposing section. Most of them were white. “It was just sad,” said Jordyn, who plays for Piper’s junior varsity team. “And why? Why did it have to happen to us? We weren’t doing anything. We were simply playing volleyball.” Go back? To where? Jordyn, her friends and Piper’s nine black players were all born in the United States. “Just like everyone else,” Jordyn said. “Just like white people.” “It was just sad. And why? Why did it have to happen to us? We weren’t doing anything. We were simply playing volleyball.” The game, played at an overwhelmingly white rural high school, came three months after Trump tweeted that four minority congresswomen should “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” It was Jordyn’s first experience with racism, she said. But it was not the first time that fans at a school sports game had used the president to target students of color.

The Post found that players, parents or fans have used his name or words in at least 48 publicly reported cases, hurling hateful slogans at students competing in elementary, middle and high school games in 26 states. The venom has been shouted on football gridirons and soccer fields, on basketball and volleyball courts. Nearly 90 percent of incidents identified by The Post targeted players and fans of color, or teams fielded by schools with large minority populations. More than half focused on Hispanics.

In one of the earliest examples, students at a Wisconsin high school soccer game in April 2016 chanted “Trump, build a wall!” at black and Hispanic players. A few months later, students at a high school basketball game in Missouri turned their backs and hoisted a Trump/Pence campaign sign as the majority-black opposing team walked onto the court. In 2017, two high school girls in Alabama showed up at a football game pep rally with a sign reading “Put the Panic back in Hispanic” and a “Trump Make America Great Again” banner. In late 2017, two radio hosts announcing a high school basketball game in Iowa were caught on a hot mic describing Hispanic players as “español people.” “As Trump would say,” one broadcaster suggested, “go back where they came from.” Both announcers were fired. After the volleyball incident in Kansas, though, the fallout was more muted. The opposing school district, Baldwin City, commissioned an investigation and subsequently asserted that there was “no evidence” of racist jeers. Administrators from Piper’s school system dismissed that claim and countered with a statement supporting their students. An hour after the game, Jordyn fought to keep her eyes dry as she boarded the team bus home. When white players insisted that everything would be okay, she slipped in ear buds and selected “my mood playlist,” a collection of somber nighttime songs. She wiped her cheeks. Jordyn had long ago concluded that Trump didn’t want her — or “anyone who is just not white” — in the United States. But hearing other students shout it was different. Days later, her English teacher assigned an essay asking about “what’s right and what’s wrong.” At first, Jordyn thought she might write about the challenges transgender people face. Then she had another idea. “The students were making fun of us because we were different, like our hair and skin tone,” Jordyn wrote. “How are you gonna be mad at me and my friends for being black. . . . I love myself and so should all of you.” She read it aloud to the class. She finished, then looked up. Everyone began to applaud.

It's not just young Trump supporters who torment classmates because of who they are or what they believe. As one boy in North Carolina has come to understand, kids who oppose the president — kids like him — can be just as vicious. By Gavin Trump’s estimation, nearly everyone at his middle school in Chapel Hill comes from a Democratic family. So when the kids insist on calling him by his last name — even after he demands that they stop — the 13-year-old knows they want to provoke him, by trying to link the boy to the president they despise. In fifth grade, classmates would ask if he was related to the president, knowing he wasn’t. They would insinuate that Gavin agreed with the president on immigration and other polarizing issues. “They saw my last name as Trump, and we all hate Trump, so it was like, ‘We all hate you,’ ” he said. “I was like, ‘Why are you teasing me? I have no relationship to Trump at all. We just ended up with the same last name.’ ” Beyond kids like Gavin, the Post analysis also identified dozens of children across the country who were bullied, or even assaulted, because of their allegiance to the president. School staff members in at least 18 states, from Washington to West Virginia, have picked on students for wearing Trump gear or voicing support for him. Among teenagers, the confrontations have at times turned physical. A high school student in Northern California said that after she celebrated the 2016 election results on social media, a classmate accused her of hating Mexicans and attacked her, leaving the girl with a bloodied nose. Last February, a teenager at an Oklahoma high school was caught on video ripping a Trump sign out of a student’s hands and knocking a red MAGA cap off his head. And in the nation’s capital — where only 4 percent of voters cast ballots for Trump in 2016 — an outspoken conservative teenager said she had to leave her prestigious public school because she felt threatened. In a YouTube video, Jayne Zirkle, a high school senior, said that the trouble started when classmates at the School Without Walls discovered an online photo of her campaigning for Trump. She said students circulated the photo, harassed her online and called her a white supremacist. A D.C. school system official said they investigated the allegations and allowed Jayne to study from home to ensure she felt safe. “A lot of people who I thought were my best friends just all of a sudden totally turned their backs on me,” Jayne said. “People wouldn’t even look at me or talk to me.” For Gavin, the teasing began in fourth grade, soon after Trump announced his candidacy. After more than a year of schoolyard taunts, Gavin decided to go by his mother’s last name, Mather, when he started middle school. The teenager has been proactive, requesting that teachers call him by the new name, but it gets trickier, and more stressful, when substitutes fill in. He didn’t legally change his last name, so “Trump” still appears on the roster. The teasing has subsided, but the switch wasn’t easy. Gavin likes his real last name and feared that changing it would hurt his father’s feelings. His dad understood, but for Gavin, the guilt remains. “This is my name,” he said. “And I am abandoning my name.”

Maritza Avalos knows what's coming. It's 2020. The next presidential election is nine months away. She remembers what happened during the last one, when she was just 11. “Pack your bags,” kids told her. “You get a free trip to Mexico.” She’s now a freshman at Kamiakin High, the same Washington state school where her older sister, Cielo, confronted the teenagers who chanted “Build the wall” at a football game in late 2018. Maritza, 14, assumes the taunts that accompanied Trump’s last campaign will intensify with this one, too. “I try not to think about it,” she said, but for educators nationwide, the ongoing threat of politically charged harassment has been impossible to ignore. In response, schools have canceled mock elections, banned political gear, trained teachers, increased security, formed student-led mediation groups and created committees to develop anti-discrimination policies.

In California, the staff at Riverside Polytechnic High School has been preparing for this year’s presidential election since the day after the last one. On Nov. 9, 2016, counselors held a workshop in the library for students to share their feelings. Trump supporters feared they would be singled out for their beliefs, while girls who had heard the president brag about sexually assaulting women worried that boys would be emboldened to do the same to them. “We treated it almost like a crisis,” said Yuri Nava, a counselor who has since helped expand a student club devoted to improving the school’s culture and climate. Riverside, which is 60 percent Hispanic, also offers three courses — African American, Chicano and ethnic studies — meant to help students better understand one another, Nava said. And instead of punishing students when they use race or politics to bully, counselors first try to bring them together with their victims to talk through what happened. Often, they leave as friends.

In Gambrills, Md., Arundel High School has taken a similar approach. Even before a student was caught scribbling the n-word in his notebook in early 2017, Gina Davenport, the principal, worried about the effect of the election’s rhetoric. At the school, where about half of the 2,200 students are minorities, she heard their concerns every day. But the racist slur, discovered the same month as Trump’s inauguration, led to a concrete response. A “Global Community Citizenship” class, now mandatory for all freshmen in the district, pushes students to explore their differences. A recent lesson delved into Trump’s use of Twitter. “The focus wasn’t Donald Trump, the focus was listening: How do we convey our ideas in order for someone to listen?” Davenport said. “We teach that we can disagree with each other without walking away being enemies — which we don’t see play out in the press, or in today’s political debates.”

Since the class debuted in fall 2017, disciplinary referrals for disruption and disrespect have decreased by 25 percent each school year, Davenport said. Membership in the school’s speech and debate team has doubled. The course has eased Davenport’s anxiety heading into the next election. She doesn’t expect an uptick in racist bullying. “Civil conversation,” she said. “The kids know what that means now.” Many schools haven’t made such progress, and on those campuses, students are bracing for more abuse. Maritza’s sister, Cielo, told her to stand up for herself if classmates use Trump’s words to harass her, but Maritza is quieter than her sibling. The freshman doesn’t like confrontation. She knows, though, that eventually someone will say something — about the wall, maybe, or about how kids who look like her don’t belong in this country — and when that day comes, the girl hopes that she’ll be strong.

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cutiepasta-thewriter · 5 years

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DnD: Why we don't play with Peter

Tony knows how much Peter loves his nerdy tabletop RPGs. Every other week he'd sits down with his group to play a campaign but not recently.

His group was disbanded and while Peter was a little bummed he decided to find a new group.

Seeing this as an opportunity for some father son bonding he gets the other avengers to play a few games with him.

It was actually effective team building since the game requires the players to have patience and work together.

To everyone's surprise the GM was Dr.Strange who actually had experience with DnD when he was young and nerdy.

They decided on playing a Star Wars game with everyone split into Jedi and Sith teams.

Jedi: Steve, Clint, Peter, Thor, Bruce, Wanda and Bucky

Sith: Tony, Natasha, Loki, and Carol

The Jedis' job was to track down and defeat the Sith players.

The Siths' job was to gain political power, military power, influence, information and moral power.

The works was split up among the dark side agents which caused the Jedi to plan for each take down of the lords. Fortunately, they were all endgame battles.

Most of the Jedi were in training with Steve getting one of the master roles with Wanda.

During a training exercise Clint hit Peter in the back causing a random effect of dark energy lashing out and blasting the other character clear across the room.

Steve immediately took Peter aside to talk about power and using the right kind of power. Afterwards the other Jedi kept a close eye on Peter and rarely left him alone and never let him off the ship if they could help it.

Peter didn't object in the beginning but it was a headache in late game.

All the while the Sith players started spending their time gaining power. Carol had her own private army, Loki was rubbing shoulders with dignitaries that owe him a lot of favors, Tony gained control of his own citadel with control of his own trading port, Natasha kept her role quiet. To be honest the Jedi players were worried when they heard this because their most strategic allies were the enemy. Even Peter said he couldn't face his father.

As the game went on a few of the Jedi became that guy. You know the one, once he gets to high renown and is high leveled they begin changing alignment and becoming a dick. Those players can often ruin the game for others. Clint even told the Stephen to shut up, a cardinal sin in this game.

For Steve, his character began to believe his word should be law and micromanaged everyone. Peter who s task was to manage cargo and maintenance often got annoyed with him. Clint on the other had had the spirit of a murder hobo with the standard dubious morality. His reckless behavior got the team into many unwanted battles. This is how Thor ended up dead when Bruce wasn't there to heal him.

Bruce's character never forgave Clint since they were in a relationship with Thor's.

Later it was Wanda who died in a stupid battle and Steve got worse without the other master to stop him.

Each time the Jedi faced down the Sith the battle ended in a stalemate and the Sith getting away.

However during the invasion of the Citadel they managed to capture Tony. When Steve tried to kill Tony it was Peter who stepped in, in story Tony was the father of Peter's character and if Steve killed him it would end Peter's storyline since he wanted to turn his father back to the light.

Steve still did it since this was their only chance. He stabbed Tony through the chest as Peter screamed. The rest of the group OOC began yelling at Steve because that wasn't cool. Stephen said it was fine since the death was fair.

Peter immediately demanded he be given the body to deal with and later had it delivered to his homeworld. He wasn't the same after for a while but later said he accepted that this was because of his father's life choices and that he made made his own.

During the final showdown the two groups faced down. Steve delivered his self righteous monologue and in the middle of it he felt a saber at his back.

It was Peter holding it and smiling.

"Finally, do you know how old those speeches get after awhile. Dear god, you never shut up about the Jedi way! Do you know what it's like listening to you people with your self righteous bull. You think your so noble but your just as bad, you guys are constantly killing innocents and claim it to be the price of helping the greater good" Peter's character screamed as if he was in agony.

Steve turned his back to see not just Peter but Bruce and Bucky had also turned on him.

"I told you already. I can't go against my father." He said softly.

"Bucky? You too?" Steve asked.

"Sorry, but he has a point. We've done some fucked up stuff in the name of the light and I'd rather just not participate in any of this at all. I'm leaving." Bucky turned his back and left being spared from the onslaught by not choosing a side in what he sees as a pointless battle.

This was a pretty big deal since a player not participating in the last battle is unheard of.

Sure enough Bucky IRL was sitting back to enjoy the show.

That be said from behind the other Sith players came Tony who was very much alive. Where Steve had stabbed him in the heart was this universes equivalent of the the arch reactor.

Hearing Stephen describe this made the entire table break out in laughter and shock.

Apparently Peter had Bruce help revive Tony and had the sith shipped of to a private hospital he owned.

After Peter stabbed Steve in the back and Bruce made short work of Clint who was furiously trying to fight his way out, the game was announced over.

Stephen cleared up the confusion and stated at there were actually five Sith in the game one of which had the role of information (natasha) gathering the other moral influence. Natasha didn't say hers so the Jedi wouldn't be tipped off. Peter was there to gather what he could on the light and send it to Nat secretly and to turn their allies against them. They had failed to notice him the entire time. Every battle against one of the lords were sabotaged since Peter had already told them the plan.

In fact after Tony's "death" Peter made a shadow government to take over the citadel to make it look like the jedi had won.

All went according to plan and the Sith remained victorious.

You see when Steve and Clint got too out of hand Peter pulled Stephen aside. Since they were new to the game and hadn't yet curbed their impulses yet they had to be taught a lesson. The other party members agreed and allowed Peter his due.

One thing no one told the entire group was the reason Peter lost his previous group was because of his role. You see some groups may get out of hand with terrible party members who ruin the fun for everyone so instead of just kicking them put the DM will call in Peter who is well known for what he does by the DM community. Peter was known as a hobo killer. He won't just kill them though he would destroy them in an ironic twist he'd pull right before the end. He'd rob them of a satisfactory story line just so they couldn't reroll a character.

He had done this with the permission of his DM and caused all the toxic players to leave the group in anger. The DM was thankful knowing the players wouldn't be back after Peter released a terask apon the mortal realm and revealed that his character was a god and the end times were here.

That being said no one played DnD with Peter without being on his side and not being a dickish player.

#tony stark #ironstrange #irondad #peter parker #spiderman #strangefamily #marvel infinity war #iron man #sepremefamily #spiderson #stephen strange

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