Hello friends! I’d like to direct all of you to the following link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1367347179/dead-in-the-west-a-tabletop-rpg-set-in-the-mythic?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=dead%20in%20the%20west The past year and a half or so, I’ve been working hard on creating my very own pen-and-paper tabletop RPG (think Dungeons and Dragons if you’ve never played one before). The game is set in what I like to call a “Mythic Old West” setting - think old cowboy movies and pulpy novels - the kind of place made up of tall-tales and larger-than-life characters. Setting out on an adventure in Dead in the West should feel like your party is a group of modern-day scribes, stitching out the tapestry that is the first Great American Folklore! The Kickstarter is not asking for very much, and will go towards creating both a digital and physical edition of a beautiful rulebook, filled with gorgeous artwork by tumblr users like yourselves, all paid a fair commission.
Please do consider contributing to the Kickstarter! Dead in the West is an incredibly fun game, and I’d love to share it with as many people as I possible can.
Also you get the bonus of seeing my ugly mug in the dieo up there.
Thanks everybody <3
I am new to your account, and I would like to ask, what are you? I mean, a writer, a YouTuber, it seems like.
Two small skeletons in a robe pretending to be a big skeleton
In response to the “Star Wars: The De-Feminised Cut” (which was an edit of The Last Jedi made by some weirdo that removed all female characters), I created “Star Wars: The De-Sci-Fi-ed Cut”. This version of A New Hope removes anything in the film remotely Sci-Fi or Fantasy related.
It’s five minutes long. Please enjoy A New Hope the way it was always meant to be seen.
Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone. The podcast is created and owned by Will Donelson.
After a lifetime of work, a scientist and his team finally succeed in creating a working time machine. However, he quickly finds the device taken away fro him and turned into a commercial product, and people soon begin taking "tours" of the past. The scientist ponders the nature of recorded history, and the worth of documentation holds in a world where the past can so easily change.
Subscribe on iTunes: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castl…air/id1191981068
Stream on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/will-donelson-1/the-gate
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RSS: castlesintheair.libsyn.com/rss
Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson
This episode features voicework by Hameed Mourani
Closing theme is “Blood on the Snow I" by Black Tape for a Blue Girl
Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton. This episode also features music by Wren.
Episode art by Skye Liberace (http://dieskye.space/)
Castles in the Air is owned by Will Donelson.
If you like what you heard, please subscribe to us on iTunes! I would also appreciate any ratings/reviews on iTunes as it helps boost the shows visibility.
Thank you for the patience with this one.
What is a Script Consultant - and do you need one!
This is part of a new series in which I reveal my ugly mug and give writing advice, talking about my experience as a Script Consultant and work on reading and editing screenplays.
If anyone has any thoughts, questions or suggestions please do let me know! Would love to have some feedback on this series, and know what people might be interested in me covering in the future.
Tried my hand at a Gaster battle. I haven’t seen much art embracing his whole shtick of being a lost/deleted/corrupted file. I think something like this is more in line with what Toby would give us in terms of an actual encounter with him.
I see a lot of people talking about the Mad Men finale in a cynical sense. They see it as the punch-line culminating from seven years of build-up; one of the longest, cruelest shaggy dog jokes ever told. Without sounding too stand-offish, I think this is absolutely the wrong way to view the finale and that is does a great disservice not so much to the writers or the show itself, but to Don.
The ending is one that is immediately a little polarising, but once given time to digest most people agree that it really does just click. The reading I’m so opposed to is the idea that “after all that Don just made an ad! Haha! People never change” in regards to the series ending with the iconic Hilltop Coke ad, after Don has a huge emotional breakthrough.
The thing is, to take this view (like many people have, from random tumblr users to Wired), you have to completely ignore the kind of man Don is. The question of Don’s character has been at the centre of the show since it’s very first season, and has been examined in so many ways that it makes the conversation hard to ever really finish, and harder still to begin. However, there is one thing about Don that I will always believe, that has been supported by the show since the very beginning;
Don is a man who believes in a pure ideology. He wants to connect with people and he wants the best for them.
Now, does this mean Don is morally sound? No, he’s actually anything but. He cheats on his spouses, he’s not really a great Dad and he is prone to being unreliable. Despite all that, Don beliefs have always been idealistic, lofty and sincere. That is what makes the character so wonderful to talk about, and at the same time makes him so incredibly tragic: he is a man whose weaknesses constantly betray his own morality.
Don may be cynical, but he really, really doesn’t want to be. Rachel calls him on this way, way back in season one, when he gives his “born alone, die alone” speech. She see’s through it immediately, and it catches him off guard. One of the things I’ve always adored about the show is its incredible level of humanity, and even seemingly casual interactions can be incredibly powerful character moments when this is properly utilised.
This lack of cynicism goes doubly for advertising. Think about it; how many times has he brow-beaten Peggy (and everyone else who works under him) for being phony in her work? For not being sincere?
Don doesn’t want to sell you a product; he wants to sell you a feeling that he associates with a product. Why is Don so passionate about this? Why is this what Don wants to sell? Simply put, it’s because it’s a way to connect. Connection has always been what Don has ached for.
Why did Don leave his new place of employment? Well, because he didn’t belong there. That was a place where Ivy League ad gurus sat around a table and talked about the demographic they were after while taking notes like they were studying for an exam. It was a place where the product they were selling was their ability to sell a product.
This not the place for Don. Don, who used his own life and pain to demonstrate the value of the carousel. This is the man whose first experience with love was being given a Hershey bar, which he would eat alone in his room and pretend to be normal. Maybe this is sad to you, but to Don it’s real.
With this in mind; think about what the Coke ad Don apparently creates is about; a collection of people, of all genders, races and ages, united together by a common product. This is the image Don envisions for a product that, hand to God, used to have vending machines that said “White Customers Only” (that’s right, Coke had honour-based racist vending machines). A product that isn’t even mentioned until 20 seconds into the commercial. What Don wants to sell you is the feeling that when you sit down and drink a Coke, you’re drinking it with a million other people all over the world. There’s a reason it’s the most successful commercial of all time. It may look schmaltzy, cheap or silly today, but at the time it was something people genuinely wanted to hear. Don doesn’t want you to know how great this sugar water tastes, he doesn’t want you to know that it’s better than a competing brand, or even cheaper; he wants you to feel what he feels.
And what did he feel? Well, his epiphany in that episode came when Leonard, seemingly the opposite of Don, gave a speech that rocked Don to his core. He told a story of loneliness, or worthlessness and of the desire to be loved. And Don understood. So much so that he hugged this man, who he had never met, and wept. He knew the answer to the question he repeatedly asked Peggy only a few episodes ago. Don wants to sit down with the world and buy it a Coke. It’s really what he’s always wanted.
Mad Men was always a show about introspection. To think that the show’s final moments wouldn’t reflect this is an incredible oversight, and to think that Don changes for the worse in the very last moments of the show is doing him a huge disservice.
The Hilltop ad is about empathy. It is Don, realising that not only is he not special, but neither are his worries. The way Jon Hamm played the scene supports this; he realises who he is. He is an ad man, he is a human being, who wants to connect to other human beings, and that want is ubiquitous. Don does not just “come up with a great ad”, because ads were never that cheap to him. He finds a way to communicate the feeling of profound empathy he felt the previous day, when he and Leonard were both people, together, in the only way he knows how; an ad.
Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing is Okay. You are Okay.
Goodbye to one of the greatest shows of all time, and thank you for the beautiful send-off. You are not alone. You will be okay.
Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone.
An astronaut awakens, frozen in place. He quickly realizes that he has regained consciousness and exited cryosleep ahead of schedule, making him unable to move. He desperately fights to keep control of his withering mind, and figure out if there is a way out of this nightmare.
Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castles-in-the-air/id1191981068
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As this is the first episode of the podcast, all ratings, subscriptions on iTunes and shares are greatly appreciated.
Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson. This episode features voicework by Zack Furniss.
Music used:
"Bedroom Window" by @sloth-hooks
"He is Like this Wall (Coda)" by Jeff Morton
Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton
Episode art by Sage Parker
There are times in my life I have wondered where the pain goes when it is absent. In my age I've realised that the answer to that question is simply; 'deeper'.
Owen from “Lilytooth”, a work in progress
I made a video about how stupid movie practices and product placement lead to nightmare sonic. Give me a like and sub you old so and so.
Castles in the Air is a bi-weekly horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone. The podcast is created and owned by Will Donelson.
A strange man visits an isolated Trucker's Diner along the open road. He hasn't slept in days, and can't bring himself to eat. After some coercion, the patrons get him to reveal what troubles him; nihilistic and disturbing visions, brought on by the appearance of an ethereal crow that flies beside him as he drives.
Written, directed and edited by Will Donelson
Listen and Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/castles-in-the-air/id1191981068
Stream on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/castles-in-the-air/e/49018534?autoplay=true
Stream on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/will-donelson-1/bird-of-passage
RSS: http://castlesintheair.libsyn.com/rss
This episode features voicework by Deejay Montez, Paul Brion, Austin Nebbia, Sam Leigh and Vianka Ayala.
Opening theme is "Consumed by Love" by Giles Appleton. This episode also features music by Wren.
Closing theme is “Dark Bargain with the Antlered King” by Elves and Dwarves
Episode art by A. Rehman.
Castles in the Air is owned by Will Donelson
If you like what you heard, please subscribe to us on iTunes! I would also appreciate any ratings/reviews on iTunes as it helps boost the shows visibility.
Once again, thank you to everyone for being so supportive and sending so many nice messages and the like. Next episode in two weeks!