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saint-patrice · 5 years

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“Tbh I would like to have the 34 *other* Bergy pics on your shortlist, complete with commentary lolol. And then (if you’re still waiting that is) any other Marchy pics with commentary? xD xD”

here are some more of my favourite marchy pics, complete with my bizarre personal commentary, for anon! the 34 bergy pics can be found here also!

Note: a few people have said they like these posts, so i’m up for taking people’s requests if there’s a particular player they’d like to see! inbox is always open (and anon is on) so just drop me your request and i’ll get working on it :)

okay so this is some absolutely premium cute marchy!! the smile that manages to be completely self-confident yet in no way cocky? the polite little wave as he surveys his audience who, if i recall correctly, were booing him heavily?? oh i do love you mr rat. marchy is fantastic and i have so much respect for the way he deals with his reputation across the league and the excessive amount of shit he gets.he knows what people think of him yet doesn’t seem to let it get to him. i have so much love for him.

KATRINA IS LEGENDARY. before moving on to the part of the image that gave me whiplash when i first saw it, we’re back to talking about brad’s smile. i think i said it in my last post but he really is one of those people who smiles with their whole face - even if you just saw his eyes in this photo you can immediately tell that he’s got that little grin on his face and that’s adorable tbh. now onto the d*lf mug (censored bc i fear the dodgy underground porn blogs these days)… i don’t even know where to start. i feel like he very proudly bought it for himself. and it’s like the only mug he ever wants to drink out of. just my take. i also think the longer hair really suits marchy ngl

ahhh the boys and their dirtbag christmas suits 💛 highlights of this image are the suit jacket that is definitely just one size too small for this absolute man rocket, and the pants with “FRAGILE” plastered all over them - very relatable if not at all festive.

gay rights are stored in the rat!!! i’m glad marchy has been pretty open about his support of LGBT stuff, particularly within hockey. also i feel like some of the stuff he’s said in interviews or social media (esp re: lickgate) manages, even if not intentionally, to be quite diminutive towards implicit homophobia or ‘toxic masculinity’ within hockey. okay maybe that that was poorly expressed but basically he just doesn’t give a shit and appears very open and accepting and i think that’s super nice. this picture also makes for a good reaction image when someone says something dumb

short kings love.jpeg !! a wonderful example of the love that brad shows his teammates on a regular basis, despite his constant chirping. i have no real opinions on torey krug (no h8, i just don’t think i’ve seen that much of him off ice so idk) but him and marchy are quite the duo tbh, i live for their back and forths on twitter - more on that later - and they seem to love each other an awful lot, it’s v cute :^)

that’s my pest™. honestly i think lickgate is one of the best scandals in recent hockey history. when looking for a good image of this is saw an article where some dipshit reporter was outraged about it and was like “how would you feel if someone just came up and liked you?” i mean what if someone just came up and started punching you or hip-checked you into the wall????? hockey is a nasty game a lot of the time, and instead of giving people concussions or broken bones (not that he hasn’t in the past ik…) marchy managed to make opposing teams just as angry, if not moreso, just by licking players. i think it’s fucking hilarious. and most of them took it well in hindsight anyway - i think it was komarov who said he kinda liked it lmaoooooo. peak bradley kevin antics if you ask me

every pic from the china trip has such a special place in my heart. this is just an all-round adorable photo and brad is looking gorgeous in the sunlight and his backwards cap

brad waving the towel in surrender is just about the funniest thing i’ve ever seen someone do in the penalty box… i can’t believe they gave him a 10 minute misconduct for it, something i think they’d wouldn’t have done if it had have been someone else. at least someone in this league has a goddamn sense of humour. the penalty minutes stat in the corner just makes this even better

brad, once again, showing us how we should deal with people talking shit about us - just get on board with it. i love how much he’s just embraced his massive nose and his height and his general reputation. idk if it’s really deliberate but i think it’s such a good message to send, and it makes for some pretty funny stuff too.

brad single-handedly keeps nhl refs in a job. in my bruins drinking game™ you have to take a shot every time the ref has to physically restrain marchy (2 if it’s because he was going to get revenge or fend for bergy) and you could get fucked off that alone during some games. it was nice to see him not actually get suspended this year, but i will always love that he’s such a physical player and quite the pest on the ice :))

me: *slaps helmet of brad marchand* this bad boy can fit so much personality.

really though, can you believe he’s managed to squeeze more charisma into only 5 feet and 9 inches than 85% of the league combined… very cute picture, and always lovely to see him by bergy’s side on the ice where he belongs

oh my goddddddd how fucking cute is this though!!!! the hat! the dad energy those jeans and the boots give off!!! his face!! his little daughter!!!!! i can’t take it, my heart is going to burst.

(gif via @kureally) this is also just so cute, i need a minute. brad has some very powerful eyebrows and this gif displays them wonderfully. this section of behind the b was also pretty sweet all round, and i agree with pasta that the hair is looking pretty first class

(gif via @murlin09) i am not like into marchy (no tea no shade if u are though), but this gif… whew. i’ll let you come to your own conclusions on this one, gang

i was not lying when i said more on the brad-torey social media antics earlier. there are some truly iconic chirps (the zamboni one is lethal), but this self-roast just kills me every time. i never once thought i’d read a tweet from the official brad marchand twitter account that opened with “hey shorty” but here we are. “my nose wouldn’t fit” i astral projected the first time i read that. and if you’re wondering what torey said to prompt this, it was simply “hey marchy”. it doesn’t take much for brad to light on you, huh? we better watch our backs

definitely a favourite marcheron pic right here - the pucks and paddles (i still think that’s a questionable name but maybe that’s a me issue) content is always top notch. if you can find the video, it’s even better, but this picture captures the general energy of the video perfectly. the only thing missing is that brad’s feet aren’t actually on the floor because the height difference is so pronounced that bergy has to lift him. beautiful

return of the cute brad smile!! a cute yet mischievous little grin, i can only assume he’s restraining himself from laughing at m*tthews fivehead (although who is he to talk with that schnozz. at least he rocks it tbf 👃🏻). not sure blue is really his colour but he’s going for it anyway. that’s my all star!

it’s been days since this photo first surfaced and i haven’t stopped palpitating. the cutest photo ever, they all look so happy and i love that!!! also how are their wives so beautiful….!? oh my every pixel of this image is just stunning

i know i included this in my last bergy list but if they can name new york twice i think i can put this on 2 lists, because lord knows it’s even more iconic. i feel like this is a good metaphor for brad marchand: getting up to no good, although still relatively harmless, all the while supported by the considerably more sensible, yet still entertaining, patrice bergeron. additionally, another excellent display of the oft-overlooked fact that this man is built like a motherfucking tank. holy shit

i wish i could see these boys in suits without my brain immediately trying to think of some sort of au. anyway, i really like this look on brad (unpopular opinion - i love his loud checkered suits as a concept but i don’t think they look good). although he has dark hair, strong eyebrows, and dark facial hai, the all black actually looks really good on him. coffee in hand really adding to the look too - well done, brad “fashionista” marchand.

ahhhhh i love nothing more than family man marchy 💛 his daughter is adorable - those tiny jerseys kill me - and i love that his son is wearing the all-star jersey omg how cute (he is definitely going to end up taller than brad lmao)

sometimes i forget that brad is short and then i see photos like this (brandon is 6′5 for reference)…amazing. i relate to the lady on the left on a spiritual level. brad’s face is a mood and a half. his feet are half a foot of the ice at least. i adore this photo.

(gif via @brandoncarlo) absolutely one of my fav things about watching bruins games is how brad and patrice will always find each other during a celly - nothing beats the 100 hug. this is also just a very satisfying skating gif that i love.

last but very very very far from least is this. there is literally no need for me to make any comment on this so i’m just going to leave it and go. bradley kevin marchand you are iconic and ily

ayyy this was super fun to do, thank you for requesting it anon, i hope you like!! again, i’m absolutely up for taking requests for more of these lists so hmu if you have ideas :)

#my bergy post was pure thirst for the most part #this is just me appreciating the true iconicness that is marchy #the effort i went to to not use 'iconic' every third word...bc he just is #answered #Anonymous #bruins photos compilations #bruins #marchand

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miximax-hell · 6 years

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There have been people, some truly wonderful souls, who have followed my blog during my long period of absence. For that, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don’t deserve that kindness. With that out of the way, hello! Once again, it’s been so long... And that’s exactly we won’t delve in the past now. Let’s get right to it!

Today’s miximax is one that can barely be recognised at all unless you’re specifically told who the vessel and aura are. So, just in case my handwriting is THAT awful, we’ll be talking about Sakuma’s miximax today! For him, I’ve chosen a wonderful character that is, quite literally, part of the history of videogames as a whole. After the news about a new Smash coming soon, the promise of Metroid Prime 4 for Switch, and the very successful (AND SPANISH) remake of Metroid II, it feels like a great time to bring Samus Aran into the battle! The coolest intergalactic bounty hunter there ever was makes for a very simple-looking miximax, but it was still quite tough to draw because of RUST. Ah well. No one to blame but myself.

Anyway, I think this deserves a proper explanation, so let’s see why these two make for a fantastic combo! For more on that, please check under the cut. As usual.

Well, you’ve made it this far, so let’s delve a little in the past now. ww Just yesterday, I finally finished writing my graduation thesis!! That means I’m finally free... for a little while. Just enough to enjoy half a month of debauchery AND SPEND TIME WITH MY GIRLFRIEND, WHOM I MISS VERY MUCH. Oh, and my internship ended about two and a half weeks ago, too. While I am free in that sense as well, I can’t say I’m a scriptwriter and game designer right now, which kinda sucks. But they might still hire me...! And I’m ruminating some exciting ideas of my own. I highly doubt the company I worked for will be interested in them, but, well, it’s worth a shot. And good practice, in any case. So, yeah! I hope you’ve all been well!

Anyway, let’s get right to it. A single paragraph of my life struggles was enough. ww

This is still a fairly small blog with less than 100 followers. And it will always be because of how niche it is. ww Not only that, but most of said (active) followers aren’t even friends of mine, but the aforementioned kind souls who, somehow, grace me with their presence here. That means that, for example, if I were to go on Twitter to talk about my projects for this blog (as I’ve done a couple of times in the past), only one or two of my friends would give a crap about it. And that’s assuming they see those specific tweets at all! Otherwise, the reactions I get are non-existent unless I’m specifically mentioning someone. And even that is far from being failproof. So, whenever I want to share my ideas with someone, develop them through conversation or brainstorm, there’s only one person I can rely on: my lovely girlfriend. She’s patient and super supportive of my work. Bless her soul. I’m so in love with her.

Anyway, thanks to how much I’ve ranted to her about SakuSamus, I’ve already typed down most of what needs to be said about why I think these two work so well together. I can also get away with mostly copying and pasting what I already told her over Skype and simply adjusting it a bit to make it more readable as a blog post and adding some extra details. ww So, let’s get to it!

Coming up with proper combinations for this blog can sometimes be a chore and require a lot of overthinking. However, as the wonderful @miyukiko would say, great ideas suddenly come to you sometimes. This had a bit of both. I'll try to skip the uninteresting bits of the creative process, but this is the important part.

Now that we've seen Sakuma in Ares and he's obviously won a lot of... prominence, if you may put it that way, it felt like a good time to take a closer look at him. Sakuma is a forward, and a pretty talented one, at that. When he becomes captain in the Ares timeline, though, his team comes to rely on him on a much deeper level too. Or so it seems, at least. To top it off, his descriptions in the original games say that he helps Kidou and acts as a strategist that coordinates the team. That’s pretty much the base we can build upon.

As a forward, he seems pretty thorough and tries to stay cool and calm, since that's the kind of soccer they play at Teikoku. And, from what we've seen in Ares, as a captain, he worries so much about his team's well-being and about being a good leader for them. You know, the usual "Am I fit to be captain?" thing that IE loves so much. ww

But there's a lot of bad stuff about Sakuma, too.

For one, despite his cool act, when he loses it, he loses it good. We all know how he reacted when he was part of Shin Teikoku and how extremely mad he would get with Kageyama, for example. Also, when he does lose it (and, arguably, even when he’s still somewhat sane), he's very self-destructive.

I think that's somehow linked to his fears: he simply doesn't want to be left alone. He panics when Kidou leaves Teikoku and, again, loses it completely. When his insanity reaches that kind of point, nothing else seems to matter, so he goes all out even if it can cost him his life. Or his legs, at least.

Related to that, and this is much more relevant in terms of sheer gameplay, he is extremely dependent of others.

He's supposed to be some super cool ace striker, but absolutely all of his shots are combo hissatsus no matter what timeline or age you’re looking at. Koutei Penguin 2gou and 3gou, Twin Boost, Death Zone, Deep Jungle... They all need 2-3 people, and, usually, Kidou's involved.

So, tough as it is to say, if Sakuma isn't by Kidou's side, he's subpar. And if he's all alone, he's basically worthless. And to add insult to injury:

He usually depends on people who aren't even forwards to score goals.

He is turned into a defender as an adult because, as I said, he's subpar as a forward if he's alone.

That makes Sakuma a very interesting case: in a universe that is all about the power you get from of your teammates, what he lacks is individuality. ...Especially when you consider that his only motivation to play soccer seems to be to play with Kidou. www

As he is, he's the absolute definition of support character. Pretty sad, if you ask me. (Oh. And many of his in-game hissatsus are very dirty and the referee complains more often than not about them. That counts too. ww)

So, here comes the difficult question: who can give Sakuma the strength, the individuality and, partially, the safety that he needs to be relevant without killing himself? After thinking about it for quite a long time, I felt like he could really use the power of Samus Aran.

(Not to go all BuzzFeed on you guys, but the answer would’ve surprised you if I hadn’t said it from the very beginning. ww)

On a technical level, Samus is strong af. Not only has she survived to and successfully finished every mission she's embarked on (as far as I’m aware), but she's pretty much exterminated full races, DESTROYED PLANETS and killed the same evil pterodactyl alien... thing that wants her dead like 11 times by now.

And what's more: she's done all of this completely alone. (Except maybe for Other M. I haven’t played that game yet, but it looked like there were more people, idk) All in all, she's a beast. But that's not all, of course. There are many heroes who go and do their thing alone. It could've easily been Lara Croft too, for example--at least in the original games.

Sakuma, as I said, seems to be driven by a will to be with Kidou and is very much dependent of other people. And when things go wrong and he loses it, he is... spiteful, to say the least. And I don’t know if you guys were aware of this, but Samus is 120% salt. I read a post about the hatred between Ridley and Samus that when Ridley was announced for Smash and all, but I sadly can’t find it right now. If any of you guys know that post, please let me know and I’ll add the link here because it was SO GOOD.

According to my limited knowledge on the Metroid Series, Samus fights three main things: metroids (you never saw that one coming, I'm sure), space pirates, and Ridley (who is the leader of the space pirates, but is not a space pirate because I, too, would listen to my Evil Pterodactyl Lord if he were to give me orders).

Long story short, the space pirates and Ridley killed Samus’s parents. She was adopted by people from a civilization called the Chozo, but the space pirates killed the Chozo too. And when Samus found a baby metroid that saw her as its mother, the space pirates and Ridley kidnapped the metroid and it eventually died because of them.

Samus doesn't fight for the greater good. Samus fights because she's fucking pissed.

But, unlike Sakuma, she uses that rage against the right people and in the right way: she is still salty as hell, but she stays cool, kicks ass, makes everyone go boom, and she's out. She does what Sakuma does, but better. Even when she's pissed. Oh, and she does things the way they should be done: with legal permission, without turning evil and stuff. And she's super respected and feared because of it, which is precisely what a captain and a forward should be like, respectively.

And the icing on the cake?

In IE3, when Sakuma has levelled up enough, he learns how to use Space Penguin. also, Samus has a visor thing that can replace Sakuma's patch and that sounded cool to me

Anyway, that would be the gist of it! As I said earlier, I’m not the biggest Metroid connoisseur in the world: I’ve only beaten Fusion and Zero Mission, and I’m currently playing Prime and Return of Samus. As such, excuse me if some other game I haven’t played debunks all I’ve said, but I haven’t found any traces of such a thing. ww

However, despite my few experiences with Metroid games, Samus is a character I love and have very fond memories of. This series represent what I love the most about the video game genre: that sense of continuous and hard-earned improvement that only comes from experiences that are constantly giving you new abilities (and even new looks) to reflect your progress. It’s similar to RPGs, a genre I love as well, but RPGs reward you more for personal progress and dedication, such as grinding for levels, and not (usually) so much for just pushing forward and defeating bosses.

Last (and least), for those who have made it this far, here’s a little something you might be interested in knowing: I’ve been inactive here, but I’m still constantly trying hard to come up with interesting ideas for miximaxes! And I think I have found some cool stuff for both Kidou and Shishido, so feel free to tell me on which of those you’d like me to work on next. They’re both very challenging to draw and fiddle with, but I’m always happy to shift my priorities in any way you guys want me to. ww

#Inazuma ELeven #Sakuma Jirou #Inazuma Japan #settei #info #miximax #mixi max #reasons behind the miximax #Inazuma Eleven Go #Inazuma Eleven Ares #Inazuma Eleven Ares no Tenbin

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unwoundbobbin · 6 years

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Nine Worlds 2018 - Sunday & Homeward

This write up is bought to you by a pack of Nerds, so who the hell knows how coherent it will be by the end.

(Actual footage of me)

From Saturday!

Sunday:

Our Last Best Hope for Science Fiction: 25 Years of Babylon 5

A look at a ground breaking sci-fi series, celebrating a show we love and how it grew from a something set on a space station to something truly special.

(Two Centauri, a starfleet officer, and a Morden(?) walk in to a panel...)

This is the panel I missed the talk on Golems for, and much as I wanted to see the Golems, this was 100% worth the trade, because I’ve never met that many people who are in to B5 before, and it was a really funny and thought provoking panel with some beautiful moments in it, including the moments of silence when we remembered those from the Babylon 5 family who have gone beyond the rim.

There was also discussion of favourite moments from Babylon 5. Mine has to be this, from the Centauri’s final assault on the Narn Homeworld. Peter Jurasik’s acting is superb here, but I love that the writers and director made a place in that episode to show the flipping of Mollari when he realises what he’s done - how out of control and repelled he feels by what should be a moment of triumph. And the moment he starts to work his way back towards some sort of redemption.

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I think my favourite quote of the whole thing was by the person cosplaying as Londo Mollari:

"Behold minbari Jesus - his name is Jeff"

(This psycop lurked for the entire panel. It’s as perfectly creepy and wonderful as it sounds. When I mentioned that on twitter, it devolved in to a Babylon 5 pun war...)

When I came out of the B5 panel, the one person I’d seen with a brain slug had become a collective. And they continued to grow in number throughout Sunday. Props to the person who spent an entire year making brain slugs to give away to strangers at Nine Worlds.

(The frightening brain slug collective. They continued to multiply throughout the day. Possibly the creepiest cosplay of the weekend, just because they continued to multiply.)

History’s Hidden Heroes III

Following two years of back-to-back success, the ‘History's Hidden Heroes’ session returns to its original format of ten to fifteen minute mini-talks by individual presenters discussing their favourite figures lost - or pushed aside - from mainstream history. Introduction by EK McAlpine, with talks from Tara, Avery, and Reiley.

This session was run by EK, and the speakers were Avery Delany, Tara Brown, and Reiley Daniels who all spoke about people in history who were part of the LGBTQ community, including some who were trans (though not remembered that way), some who were gender non-conforming, some who were openly queer at a time when that was (more) dangerous than now.

Avery spoke about trans masculine people in history, including a pioneering doctor, James Barry (note - while that Wiki article generally avoids using any pronouns at all, there is a source from the time quoted that misgenders Barry, so be careful if that would cause you any distress).

My favourite quote from Avery was “Do some queer history“, but I also really appreciated something I didn’t get the exact words of, but amounted to the idea that someone wouldn’t live as a gender different to the one they were assigned at birth for over 50 years if they did not actually identify as that gender. I really wish I’d got the actual words, because that quote stuck with me as much as anything.

Tara Brown spoke about three women of colour who were pioneers in blues and jazz - and sexuality, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Gladys Bentley.

One of the most interesting, and awful, takeaways from this talk was the brief discussion about how there is some difference in the historical record as to the sexuality women presented, and that this is due to McCarthyism which basically forced at least Gladys Bentley to present herself as no longer a lesbian. It made me so cross to think of a person as comfortable in their sexuality as Bentley having to forcibly change themselves because of the massive risks that being out and proud served in the backwards looking 1950s America.

Reiley spoke about a quack physician called Charles Hamilton (misgendered practically everywhere on the internet), and the importance of checking multiple sources and subjecting them to due scrutiny.

If anyone enjoyed this panel is interested in other hidden heroes from sources that aim at diversity in who and what they talk about (and use content notices), I highly recommend @missedinhistory, Sawbones, and @rejectedprincesses.

The Future of Nine Worlds

It's time for a chat about Nine Worlds and where it's going. If you have strong thoughts about what you'd like to see the event become, and would like to get involved in making things happen, this is your in-person opportunity to talk about the options and understand how we got where we are.

Went to this, and I honestly don’t have a lot to say about it - not a lot a could say about it because I’m very much not the right person to speak about what happened in the majority of the session.

I will say that the announcement that Nine Worlds was re-constituting after this year’s con felt like a blow to the gut.

(This was an incredibly powerful moment, and to know that even though the current director is stepping back a future nineworlds is possible meant so very much.)

(Main point by what may turn out to be the future team was that Nine Worlds is too precious to lose)

CN for discussion of police at con, and a failure act appropriately to the stated concerns of a con-goer (and more concerned people who did not speak about it at the Future of Nine Worlds panel). When this section is over there will be a delightful gif of Wonder Woman deflecting bullets so scroll below her if you will find this section challenging.

What happened next is best summed up by Alecto101 in this post which I urge you all to read (also please read this followup thread by the same person). Her recollection of what happened at that panel is extremely accurate. I was there, and that is what happened. It was not dealt with adequately by anyone there in an official capacity. Most people who wanted to say something in follow up raised the fact that Alecto101 had not had her question and concerns adequately addressed, and when the people on the stage did so, it was in an inappropriate way that put the emotional and intellectual workload back on the person who had rightly raised legitimate concerns.

I have absolutely no patience with the people who immediately strawmanned (Oh, you don’t want police there at all - you can’t exclude attendees based on job) - I was there and at no point did Alecto101 suggest that.

What I’m trying to say is something EK said much more eloquently: “Concerns about how police participate in 9W and the separation of their jobs and their everyday lives as fans are ABSOLUTELY valid and not the same as “ban cops”.“

The developments since have been a little more positive, and I’m hoping that the reconstitution can be used as a way to build in representation of PoC from the beginning rather than trying to add on later. The way 9W works for members of the LGBTQ or disabled communities needs to be the way it works for the BaME community too, or it is not diverse (I’ve paraphrased here. I’m pretty sure I’ve just mangled the original quote. I can’t remember who said it but it wasn’t originally me).

For followup, I recommend reading Avery Delany’s thread here and this thread on the official Nine Worlds twitter account. This web page from Nine Worlds is also very important reading. If you have the physical, emotional, and mental spoons to do so, please consider signing up to be part of the future.

Finally, if you’re thinking about writing to Alecto, please first consider this tweet from the official Nine Worlds Team: “We do not want people to interact with the blogger on our behalf. We do not need defending. We do not want them pursued again for conversations they don’t want to continue. Their opinions are valid and we are glad to have heard them. “ and just DON’T.

After that I had more con crash, and tried to manage it myself in the quiet room, before worrying that my nose blowing was going to upset those who had sensory overload and needed genuine quiet, and ran away to my room where E wrapped me in a blanket and fed me biscuits until I was human again. She is awesome and I’m totally in her debt. (Thread here of what I struggled with wrt the quiet room - I am not saying it should go away BTW - I don’t know what the right answer is, just that I found it challenging for my own particular issues)

The end of the con was then barrelling towards me at a terrifying speed. I went off site for food with some friends, and then we all formed half of a team for the unofficial “The Not The End of the Con Quiz” as team Last Best Hope for Victory, and we only went and bloody won! Massive props to @knittedace and @laalratty who basically carried our team through two rounds pretty much on their own (even though one of our team who shall remain nameless nearly submitted “Aragorn” as the name of the giant spider in Harry Potter, which was caught before we submitted for marking, but they shall not live it down... for a while anyway :))

(Team Last Best Hope for Victory. Actual quiz victors!)

Went to bed at midnight after several rounds of Slash, which was really the perfect end to a great con (even if I did keep crashing).

(Me on my way home. I look pretty knackered there, but it doesn’t even touch how completely mentally (and to some extent physically) exhausted I was, and still am. Completely worth it though.)

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I may have listened to this on the journey home and sobbed. Like I said on my Friday post, it’s somehow become the song of the con for me.

#my stuff #babylon 5 #brain slug collective #brain slugs #nine worlds #nineworlds #Future of Nine Worlds #representation #diversity

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sparda3g · 6 years

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Gintama Chapter 689 Review

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Before going into this chapter, I thought it was safe to assume that it’s going to be another hilarious chapter with a few nice scenes here and there. To my surprise, the comedy and serious tone ratio has been altered. Therefore, we got ourselves a really captivating chapter with funny and drastic scenes. The time to throw down and get serious is coming, and yet, I’m not ready.

After what happened last time, there’s no way you can skipped the comedy. By that, I mean the false or “wrong” fan service moment with Granny Kagura. Usually, Gintama recaps the last moment of a segment; reminding fans where they left off. In this case, it’s necessary for a comedy skit that had me rolling.

The theme is how Shinpachi has become a player; at least according to Gintoki’s observation. What’s hysterical is how he believes Shinpachi has risen to the level surpassing Gin-san. I heard of a student surpassing the master, but this is downright ridiculous. But that opinion is shattered when naked Granny Kagura appeared. As expected, she doesn’t know Gintoki is there. The funny part is he doesn’t know that’s Kagura. So it begins a train of hilarity.

What stunned him really is not just because he saw a naked granny, though my eyes would dried out, but because Shinpachi has gone way above Gin-san, aiming for Ginsan and Kinsan tier. This joke is hilariously clever if you know those twins’ background, who were over 100 years old, and how the name with suffix became a full name. I was laughing so much to see Shinpachi skiing through space; a hilarious callback to one of my favorite reactions. The puns about elders are also funny.

Things got very awkward when Little Kagura comes out of the shower, wondering if Shinpachi is home. I died from laughing when he thought this is the final chapter with Shinpachi, for whatever reason, skiing through space with law enforcements arresting him. That’s the most tragic ending ever. I can’t stop laughing at how self-aware Gintoki is about the final arc going on for a while and wondering when is it going to end. I know it has to end one day, but good God, don’t end controversial. That’s one way to kill your manga.

I can credit Gintoki for looking after Shinpachi’s safety, even if everything is misunderstanding. It becomes tensed when Kagura can’t find her underwear, but he’s blocking doors to avoid contact. What could possibly go wrong? How about breaking through doors with her bare arms. How terrifying that must have been for him. Rejoice, fans. You got your actual demanded fan service more or less. I’ll say this much; she’s another victim of longer hair equal prettier. I need to take a break from manga…

So yeah, Kagura is about to bash his head, but still doesn’t know that it’s Gintoki. However, he now knows that it’s Kagura, so at least he cleared out his mistake. Unless he thinks Shinpachi went “there.” This sounds like some Batman and Batgirl twisted fantasy. Anyway, he luckily escapes, though a bit bummed that another reunion is stalled for another time. That is until Kagura notices the hair belongs to her precious father-figure, Gin-chan. The run and hide charade is nearly over.

After one wacky reunion, we finally got to see what’s up with Katsura and Takasugi. Takasugi took the opportunity of another enemy warfare occurring outside and snuck inside to meet with Katsura. That was nice to learn how he did it, especially when you consider that he has no army anymore. That said I’m a bit surprised that he went all the way there to kill him. I know Katsura is Zurump, which is understandable for him to be targeted, but think of the friendship.

I can’t help but laugh at the scene where Elizabeth is standing atop of the chandelier. It looks so funny to me. But of course, Gintama has its own way to present a cool moment out of a funny sight. I honestly thought there will be a battle between him and Takasugi; that would be a money-making match. But instead, Elizabeth takes a snapshot and then, we ensue the true way to shape the future: Twitter! The reference to Trump is genius.

Never would I thought to see a comedy skit with Katsura and Takasugi, but after what happened earlier with Gintoki, anything is possible now. It’s so funny that he has tweeted many times with random nonsense or casually downplay the assassination attempts. This is too close to home. What makes it funnier is Takasugi was practically forced to play the straight man, but he lacks energy to be one. Everything that is stupid, he replies in a normal calm manner. Even Katsura calls him out at failing. Either Takasugi legitimately don’t know what is a straight man or pretends to not know, Katsura notes that next time, they will play in their reversal role. This is comedy. Sadly, it ends here and the atmosphere drastically becomes serious.

The tone gets heavy when they begin discussing about their beloved master, Shouyo. Takasugi let him know that he has been searching for his master to save him; similar to what he has said to Gintoki. Katsura’s decision is different yet arguably more righteous of the two. There’s no mistake, he too wants to save their master. It almost sounds like he was agreeing with Takasugi. However, his definition of saving differs.

It’s awe-inspiring yet kind of hurtful with Katsura’s decision to save Shouyo by eliminating him. I was touched on how much he has learned as a Prime Minister and meant what he felt about his people. He wants to protect everyone, like what a Shogun used to do. It’s just Shouyo is also Utsuro and instead of gambling their chance, he wants to end the religion and him. That, to him, is what he considered “saving him.”

I mentioned hurtful because some fans would like Shouyo to return and earn freedom to live, but the reality is he’s the most hated criminal. Letting him live is an awful decision; making all “coolest guy ever” characters look like no crime record people. This moment leaves Gintoki as the middle man since he is torn between ending and sparing Shouyo’s life. I know he wanted to kill him before, but that flashback with him raising the child gave us a clearer view of his character. This subplot is seriously exciting. Please, Sorachi. Don’t ruin the payoff.

Katsura has some serious sincere dialogues that really got me picking his side over the debate. You can argue that he is more mature than Takasugi in this predicament. He hits right in the feels by closing the argument with everyone cannot go back in time after what they have become. It’s so true yet sad at same time. This discussion helped Takasugi to make his final decision: kill Katsura. Not like this…

This chapter is just fill with surprises. Not only would I never thought to see a comedy skit with Katsura and Takasugi, but now, a battle between them. The way how the setup plays out definitely feels like this is going to be a serious one-on-one combat. Katsura versus Takasugi is really happening. So many battles that I thought it wouldn’t happen, but since Sougo versus Kagura, anything is possible. I don’t know if the cliffhanger interrupts it, but if not, oh man, I can’t contain my excitement.

I was so happy that Kagura is chasing after Gintoki; however, I was so sad to learn more depth of her inner conflict. There’s no laughing matter here. In the flashback, Umibozu gives her a deep meaningful advice about letting go. Kagura was conflicted to return to Yorozuya, but he told her that if she doesn’t reach her hand out, there will be no one to grab back anymore. It sounds like a guilt trip, but it’s true in many ways. I sadly can relate to that. One must make a move to bring back together.

What really did it for me is another flashback about Shinpachi’s past two years action. Kagura thought Shinpachi was protecting their home and waited for Gintoki to return, but the truth is he wasn’t. He only protected it because he couldn’t move on; he too was stuck in the past. After all, Yorozuya is designed for those who have nothing to do. That…is a deep reference. Honestly, that made me whisper, “…aw…”

This left Kagura to carry a heavy burden. She has the chance to bring the family back together again. I love how the chase scene slowly becomes emotional. This could have been a funny gag, but the more you understand her feelings, the more you are feeling her pain. You want her to stop Gintoki from leaving. Her expression changes overtime from determination to sadness. Her reaching out her arms moment is so moving. The metaphor could not be any more painful.

The ending twist is not what I expected. The terminal is about to blow up, which I don’t get. I thought Tendoshu need them, unless there’s something else I missed. But that means the series is about to get dark again. The best part is how Gintoki drops his charade that reads, “To hell with hiding! I must protect Kagura!” I love that moment so much. This is why these characters are amazing. What comes next is anyone’s guess.

This chapter was a lot of things and outstanding is one of them. It’s filled with great laughs, especially in the beginning. I can’t stop laughing at the thought of ending the series controversial. It’s filled with serious developments such as Katsura versus Takasugi, which I, if uninterrupted, can’t wait for it. Lastly, it’s filled with emotional connections, including a teary scene with Kagura crying for Gin-chan. It looks like it’s time to begin another war. I thought I was ready… I guess not.

#gintama #chapter 689 #review

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fy-kpopfanfiction · 6 years

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I’ll Protect You - Vkook/Taekook

If you have any requests, send me a message or an ask! Anons welcome! Only M/M pairings, but I’ll write just about anyone! :) Feel free to include a prompt or any details you’d like in your fic!

Pairing: Kim Taehyung - V / Jeon Jungkook

Summary: Jungkook finds some awful tweets and Taehyung comforts him.

Warning: This fic was written because I needed catharsis, really. I needed to sort my feelings about a lot of things concerning the fandom and how the members are being treated as of late. The tweets regarding Jungkook and Burn the Stage and the tweet about Jonghyun dying to make room for BTS are vaguely referenced because they were the ones I was most angry about. They aren’t mentioned in detail, so I thought I would explain that here. I didn’t want to dwell on it in the fic. This is all fiction. I have no idea what the members see or what they think about any of it. I actually cried writing this fic and I’ve cried a lot for this group, so don’t come at me about this if you don’t like it. Just move along.

Word Count: 2790

Rating: G - It’s angsty but that’s all.

AO3 Link (Please head over and leave kudos and comments!)

You can also read under the cut, but leave me some kudos anyway! :)

Taehyung nuzzled his face against Jungkook’s hair, breathing in the scent of his vanilla bean shampoo. Taehyung could write an entire novel of all the things he loved about Jungkook, but the fact that he always smelled like a manly sugar cookie would be close to the top of the list.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, kissing his head gently.

Taehyung was seated behind Jungkook in his gaming chair while the younger boy played Overwatch.

Jungkook stared straight ahead, fingers moving rapidly to control his character on the screen.

“I know you can hear me, Kook, and I know there’s something wrong.” Taehyung nuzzled forcefully against the back of his head.

“Tae, I can’t focus,” Jungkook grumbled.

Taehyung leaned back, pouting. Jungkook had been off for the last week. Every time he tried to bring it up, Jungkook dodged the subject.

After a few moments of watching him play, Taehyung climbed out of the chair and stalked off to the kitchen to find one of the hyungs for advice.

Thankfully, Jin stood at the counter when he walked into the kitchen. “Hyung, can I talk to you?”

“If you come help me wash these vegetables for dinner.”

Taehyung sighed, but shuffled to the sink to help Jin. “What are you making for dinner?”

“Soup. I found a recipe online. Here…” He handed Taehyung a vegetable brush. “Wash those potatoes.”

Taehyung started to scrub at the potatoes that Jin had soaking in a bowl of water.

“What did you need to talk about?”

“Oh, right. I almost forgot that I’d come here for something other than helping with dinner. Um… I think there’s something wrong with Jungkookie.”

“I know.”

“What do you mean you know?”

“You think I don’t see every move you all make around here? I have eyes in the back of my head. You missed a spot. Potatoes grow in dirt, Taehyung. Scrub.”

Taehyung glanced down at the potato in his hands and scrubbed at it with Jin’s small pink brush. “So, you know there’s something wrong with him but you’re not doing anything about it.”

“What would you like me to do?”

“Something. You’re the mat hyung.”

“That’s true, but that doesn’t mean I can force him to open up and talk about it.”

“It does to! You force everyone to talk about their problems!”

He laughed. “Yes, well, Namjoon told me that might not be the best approach, so I’m laying off.”

“Well, hyung was wrong! It’s the best approach. Can you tell him that he has to talk to me? He keeps avoiding the subject any time I bring it up. All he ever does is work, sleep, or play Overwatch. He doesn’t do anything else and he never talks anymore.”

“I can’t tell him to talk to you, Taehyung-ah. Have you ever considered that he’ll talk to you about it when he’s ready to talk about it?”

Taehyung pouted and moved onto a second potato when he was sure that he hadn’t missed a single speck of dirt. “What do you think it is?”

“I have my suspicions, but I’d rather not speculate.”

“Do you think he doesn’t like me anymore?”

“I am 100% sure that it is not that.”

“It might be. Maybe he doesn’t want to be my boyfriend anymore.” Taehyung stuck his bottom lip out.

“That would be about as likely as Yoongi not wanting his bed anymore.”

Taehyung scoffed. “Hyung would never give up his bed.”

“That was exactly my point.”

Taehyung swapped his potato out for another and sighed heavily. “I don’t know, hyung. I’m really worried. I mean, I don’t even care if he doesn’t love me anymore. I mean, I do. I would care so much. I would be heartbroken forever, but I would rather it be that than something wrong with him, you know?”

Jin washed his hands and dried them on a tea towel before reaching out to ruffle his hair. “I know, Taehyung. I’m sure he’ll be okay. I’m sure he’ll come to you first when he’s ready to talk.”

Another week passed and Jungkook’s behavior grew worse. They had a fan event and he barely spoke to anyone. When they returned home, he locked himself in the bathroom and then went straight to bed. Taehyung had grown more worried with each day. Despite Jin’s prediction that Jungkook would come to him when he was ready, he worried himself sick.

He walked into Jungkook’s room late one night after they’d worked hard filming and meeting with fans. Jungkook lay curled up on his bed, the only light in the room coming from Jungkook’s tablet. Since they’d moved dorms, he and Jungkook were sharing a room while Namjoon and Jin paired up, Yoongi and Jimin, and Hoseok was given a room of his own. He usually loved sharing a room with his boyfriend, but it had been difficult the past two weeks. He could hardly stand to look at Jungkook, knowing something was wrong but not knowing what it was or how to fix it.

He climbed into the bed beside him, noting that Jungkook was watching a movie on his tablet. Taehyung recognized it as one of the younger’s favorites. Jungkook barely seemed to notice when Taehyung pressed himself to Jungkook’s back and draped his arm over his side, gently caressing Jungkook’s stomach, covering with a button-down pajama top.

He responded a little more when Taehyung nuzzled his nose against his faintly damp hair. He pushed back against Taehyung and laid his hand over the hand on his stomach. “Hey Tae Tae,” he whispered, lacing their fingers together.

“Hey baby,” he said, kissing the back of his head. “You okay?” He nudged the back of his head with his nose and kissed him again.

“Just watching a movie,” Jungkook murmured. His thumb absently stroked over Taehyung’s hand.

Taehyung trailed his lips down to Jungkook’s neck, kissing the back of it gently. Jungkook’s body seemed to sag, relaxing his tense muscles. Taehyung hadn’t noticed how tense he was, and his heart squeezed. He untangled his hand from Jungkook’s and brought it up to massage his shoulder. “You’re tense, Kook.”

“I’m okay.”

“Your muscles are so hard.”

“You usually like that, hyung.”

Taehyung felt his cheeks heat up. “Jungkookie… I mean that there are knots back here. You need to relax.” He kissed his shoulder and trailed his hand back down his side and took hold of his hand again. “I wish you’d talk to me,” he whispered, kissing his neck.

Jungkook paused the movie on his tablet and rolled over to face Taehyung. “It’s hard to talk,” he whispered after his iPad went to sleep mode, bathing them in darkness.

Taehyung sought out his lips in the darkness and kissed him softly. “You can talk to me about anything, you know that. I’m always here for you. I love you, Kook.”

“I know you do. It’s just not something that I really want to talk about. It’s not something I even want to think about. I shouldn’t have to.”

Taehyung’s heart felt like it was being squeezed when he heard Jungkook sniffle in the darkness. He had never felt so worried for Jungkook. He pulled him close and held him as his body trembled slightly with quiet sobs. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he said softly, over and over again, as if his repetition would make it so.

After a few minutes, Jungkook pulled away, wiping his eyes and face with his sleep shirt, and sniffling loudly. Taehyung let his hand rest on his side, gently caressing it in what he hoped would be a comforting manner.

“It’s just... I’ve been spending too much time online.”

“Online? On Overwatch, you mean?”

Jungkook shook his head, realized a moment later that Taehyung probably couldn’t see him in the darkness of their room, and said, “No, not that. SNS, I mean. Twitter.”

“You made your own Twitter or you mean our Twitter?” They all took turns using the @bts_twt account to post things for their fans – silly messages or heartfelt ones, selcas, videos. He liked to share things there that the fans would love and cherish, as they did, it seems, everything he and the members did.

“Our Twitter. I was going through the messages we’d gotten or the mentions – whatever you call it.”

“Yeah… Is that what’s bothering you? All the mentions we get? I know we can’t see them all and we almost never reply, but the fans understand, Kook. We’re just busy. You don’t need to be sad about that.” He started to lean in to kiss him, but stopped when Jungkook spoke again.

“It’s not that. I’m not upset about not replying to them. I’m upset about the things they say.”

“What do you mean?”

In Taehyung’s innocent mind, he believed that there was good in everyone, especially his beloved ARMY. Even when there were hard times, even when people said things that weren’t exactly kind to him, he chose to believe that there were good people who truly loved him and the other members. It was a naïve way of thinking, he’d been told several times, but it made him feel better to think that way.

“Never mind, Tae. Just forget about it.” Jungkook knew that Taehyung had a different way of looking at the world, especially when it concerned the ARMYs and their happiness, his happiness, and that of the members. He chose to see only the good.

Jungkook tried to be that way, but he’d seen too many things that made him cry, made him angry and frustrated. He’d seen too much.

“Please tell me, Jungkook-ah.”

“I don’ think that you’ll want to know.”

“I do. I want to know what’s bothering you because it hurts me to see you this way all these days. It hurts me to know that you’re hurting. I want you to feel better, to be happy.”

Jungkook rolled over again. He unlocked his tablet and navigated to Twitter where the bts_twt account was still logged in. He accessed the mentions and handed it to Taehyung. “Here, you can read them for yourself. I don’t want to recount them.”

“These are all nice things, Taehyung. Everyone is saying how much they love us and care about us.”

Jungkook took the tablet back. They got so many mentions that it took him almost five whole minutes to find one of the ones that had made him want to throw his tablet. He took a screenshot, scrolled further to one that made him cry, and then on to another that had him locked in the bathroom so no one would hear him sob.

He pulled up the screenshots and handed the tablet back to Taehyung and rolled away from him. He didn’t want to see his face while he read the comments. He regretted even showing them to Taehyung.

When he heard a soft whimper, he knew Taehyung had read the one that had him locked in the bathroom. He rolled over quickly, took the tablet from him, and tossed it aside, pulling Taehyung into his arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, holding him tightly as the older boy sobbed. “I’m so sorry, hyung. I never should have shown those to you.”

Taehyung shoved his arm under Jungkook to wrap both arms tightly around him, squeezing him. “How could they say that?” he sobbed, his face smashed against Jungkook’s strong chest. He felt safest in Jungkook’s arms, always.

“I’m sorry for showing you.”

“No. You shouldn’t be sorry. They should be sorry.” He hiccupped, choking on a sob. “They… should… be…”

Tears filled Jungkook’s eyes, but he kept quiet and still, just holding Taehyung tighter and tighter the more he sobbed.

They fell asleep that way, exhausted from the day and from the sobbing.

When Jungkook awoke the following morning, his eyes burned and he could barely open them. He groaned. Taehyung was still wound around him, his long limbs entwined with his. He wondered what his arm must feel like, having been trapped under Jungkook the whole night. He carefully scooted away from Taehyung, landed on his tablet, groaned and attempted to sit up, still trying to blink his burning eyes open.

Taehyung stirred and then yelped.

“Hyung!” Jungkook forced his eyes open despite their harsh protests.

“My arm…” Taehyung looked at his arm splayed out on the bed. “I can’t move it.”

“It’s probably just numb and stiff from being under my body all night. I’m sorry, hyung.” Jungkook recalled when he was in grade school and sprained his ankle. It hurt to move it, so he just let it lie there and it went stiff and slightly numb. It felt like he couldn’t move it and when he did, it ached like nothing before. He was sure this was the same.

Taehyung whined and wiggled his arm. “Jungkookie!”

“I’m sorry, hyung.”

“For what?”

Jungkook stared at Taehyung’s wide, innocent eyes for a moment and then jerked his numb arm upward.

Taehyung wailed and grabbed his arm, rolling around on the bed. “That hurt!”

“I’m sorry. You have to move it or it won’t feel better. It’s just stiff.” He leaned over and kissed his forehead. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Taehyung bent his arm and extended it a few times. He groaned and collapsed back onto the bed when it started to feel better. “My eyes hurt.”

“Mine too.” Jungkook laid down beside him, careful not to touch his arm should it still hurt. “I’m sorry about last night, hyung. Really.”

“Don’t. I told you not to be sorry.”

“Well, I am, though. I’m still sorry. I shouldn’t have showed you those things. It was bad enough that I saw them. It’s bad enough that they’re out there.”

Taehyung bit his lip. “You didn’t show anyone else? The hyungs?”

“I didn’t show anyone. I didn’t even tell anyone. I didn’t really want to tell you.”

“You shouldn’t keep things like that to yourself, Jungkook. You need to get that out.”

“I shouldn’t have to keep it anyway or let it out! It shouldn’t happen. How can people say things like that and then still claim that they’re our fans?! They can’t love us in one breath and say that kind of stuff in the next.” Jungkook hung his head. “You didn’t even see it all. There was so much more. There were so many photos of me on there. So many screenshots of me and those awful comments. I felt so…” He shuddered. “I can’t even describe how I felt. I don’t have the words to describe how I felt, how I still feel. And the other thing… The…” His words caught in his throat and he whimpered. “How could any human being say that…?” Tears streamed down his cheek when he recalled the comment that was the worst one of all. Not directed at him or about any member directly, it actually seemed like the “fan” thought they were complimenting the group with what they said. Their words were soulless. That’s the only way that Jungkook could describe it.

“Kook, listen… this is horrible. I know, but those people are not our real fans. They’re not the people that truly love us. We shouldn’t even be concerned with a single thing they say. You know that there are people out there that really love us, right? There are people that care. If they saw these things, they probably hated the comments too.”

“What if they’re all like that now? What if none of them are real anymore?”

“They are! Don’t say that, Jungkook. I know it was so bad, but…” Taehyung reached over quickly to grab Jungkook’s tablet. He unlocked it and Twitter was still up on the screen. He reported the terrible tweet, only to find that the account had already been removed by Twitter. “They removed that person’s account, Jungkook. That means our real fans told them to do that.” He showed him the screen just before he navigated back to look through the comments. “Look at all these other tweets…” He shimmied over to sit beside Jungkook and scrolled through countless supportive, beautiful comments from their true fans. Some of them even begged Jungkook and the other members to ignore the harmful tweets. “See…”

Jungkook sniffed. “I know, I know.”

“Our ARMY is real, Jungkook. Anyone who acts like that isn’t part of our ARMY. No matter what they call themselves. We don’t need to even think about them. Our ARMY is protecting us from them.” He wrapped his arms around his shoulders and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “Our ARMY will always be there to protect us, Jungkook-ah, just like I’ll always be right here to protect you.”

#bts #bangtan #bangtan boys #bangtan sonyeondan #vkook #taekook #taehyung #jungkook #bts fanfiction #fanfiction #kpop #kpop fanfiction #angst

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lifeofkj · 7 years

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Semi-regular political linkspam: Covfefe edition

RealPressSecBot is a Twitter Bot that puts the president's tweets into traditional presidential statement form. A nice way to highlight how ridiculous and awful and not-normal this all is.

Paste Magazine has an in-depth look at how Trump's communications team uses SEO (search engine optimization) to game Google results and ensure that fake and misleading news take over the top results. If you're already familiar with SEO and how it works, there won't be much new here, but if not it's an eye-opener. I'm not 100% convinced by the author's conclusion that the Democrats need to fight fire with fire, but we need to at least be aware of the tactic. When read with my librarian hat on, what this article really does is make the case for stepping up our information literacy education. Teaching people to think critically about the stories they see on the internet, how to tell reliable from unreliable sources, and look for cues toward author biases (and to be wary of information that upholds your own biases!) is so important in today's world, but it's not enough of a priority for too many educators. It contributes a lot to our increasing polarization, too.

The Weather Channel is not playing around with the Paris Accord. Although the site has since moved on to breaking news, on the day that Trump announced the pending withdrawal of the US from this important international agreement, every story on the front page of the site was about the havoc wreaked by global climate change.

One of the better news stories in recent weeks is Hillary Clinton's re-entry into public life. Naturally, there's been a lot of moaning and handwringing about she should just shut up and go away -- but not until after she takes total and personal responsibility for her loss and perhaps puts on a hairshirt or two. Gee, people are demanding that a woman apologize, shut up, and sit down? That's never happened before. Anyway, I've seen a number of good stories about the problems with this phenomenon. First, Ezra Klein talks about the rush to blame Clinton and Clinton alone for her loss, and why this is both simplistic and dangerous. Second, The Week goes into the history of past presidential losers and what they did in the immediate aftermath of the election (hint: it wasn't sit down, shut up, and go away, and it certainly wasn't take sole and total blame for not winning).

FiveThirtyEight reports on the decreased African-American voter turnout in 2016 as compared to 2008 and 2012. As the tweet where I saw this study first mentioned pointed out, some of this is down to voter suppression, but they also wondered: where are all the thinkpieces about improving turnout in this demographic? (As opposed to the cottage industry that's sprung up around "winning back" the white working class.) Where, indeed.

And also according to FiveThirtyEight, Democrats can take back the House in 2018 without enticing a single Trump voter to switch sides -- the margin among independents and third-party voters is more than enough to flip the seats the party needs. So it doesn't even matter, and it's time to start turning our focus back to the real base.

So we all had a little fun with the Twitter typo that took the world by storm. Sure, we all knew that Trump meant to type "coverage", then presumably got distracted before he could correct and delete it. It wasn't exactly earth-shattering in comparison to many of the other things he's done. But it was fun to engage creatively with a meme that was ultimately harmless, as an antidote to the high stakes that we have to engage with every day. Laughter can be cathartic. And it's not like we forget about the serious things that are still going on. A few links:

BoredPanda collects some of the best memes and Twitter responses here.

Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch explains why covfefe looks so strange to English speakers and why we have no consensus on how to pronounce it.

Merriam-Webster gives up.

And then Sean Spicer tried to pretend that it was something intentional, because of course he did. I don't really feel sorry for Spicey because I'm sure he took that job willingly, but I have to imagine this isn't quite how he pictured his life.

Although Rob Quist didn't win the special House election in Montana, he came within single digits, and this article explains why that's a good sign for Democrats going forward. Sure, it would be great to pull off an upset, and yes, it's a bit frustrating that the Democrats are putting all their eggs in the Georgia 6th basket, rather than fighting harder in races like this one and in Kansas that have turned out to be surprisingly close. But a good trend is a good trend, and winning a seat here and there is much less important than building momentum for the midterms next year. So take heart, friends. The lines are still all moving in the right direction.

Also, it's not all moral victories and closing margins: on May 23rd, statehouse seats in New Hampshire and New York flipped Democratic, and in New York it was a district that Trump won by twenty-three points.

I don't want to talk about the Kathy Griffin business in any detail (she probably went too far, her first apology was appropriate, but she should've left it at that; there are many ways to feel about the photo itself and I'm not going to say any of them are wrong), but I did want to share this article about the hypocrisy of conservatives getting up in arms about this when they winked, nodded, and laughed at equally-if-not-more horrific images of Barack Obama for eight years. It's the circular firing squad of the Left in action again, and I grow weary of it.

Here's a good piece from Slate on the problem with "I don't see color" etc. as a way to deal with race, gender, or other marginalized groups in hiring.

Finally, in something that is almost certainly just a coincidence and not a sign from God or whatever, a giant sinkhole recently opened up in front of Mar-a-Lago. It couldn't happen to a nicer bit of pavement.

x-posted from My Dreamwidth Journal | Feel free to reply here or comment there

#dw crosspost #linkspam #politics #elections #current events

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hiraethed · 7 years

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This is the only social media where I can vent about my dad.

I don’t even want to get into it now but I already committed so. I’ve been on friendly terms with him for a while and was starting to think that he was sane enough to have some semblance of a relationship with. I don’t even want to have a relationship with him at all because he was and continues to be an abuser and I dont trust him and never will, but I feel continuously compelled to try by the mixed bag of guilt that I experience from him and from society as a whole asserting that you should always unconditionally love you parents. And fear. But I don’t love him and I never have, ever. I feel guilt about him because he has had a horrible life and himself been abused and traumatized by many awful experiences in his life. But that doesnt give him the right or any permission or justification in emotionally abusing, threatening, stalking or harrassing other people. I’ve always been the apple of his abuse. The kicking can, the golden child and the scapegoat.

I know he reads my tweets and I have known this for a long time. I dont care, I’m not changing my twitter and I’m not changing what i tweet about or how because it is my twitter and his opinion of me is completely worthless to me. I WANT to offend him, I just want him to LEAVE ME ALONE.

ANyway, I often tweet about queerness, my girlfriend, and other LGBT things because.... it’s relevant to me, it’s funny, its what I think about a lot as I continue to self-actualize as a gay person. It helps me process who and what i am as a person and also. Its *my*** twitter.

He texted me last night to offer his completely unwanted opinion of my life and my choice to be gay. I don’t argue about whether or not it is a choice because whether or not you believe it’s voluntary isn’t relevant to what consenting adults are allowed to do together. My homosexuality could be my choice and its STILL nobody’s business but mine and nobody is justified in taking away my right to get married or beating me up or any other fucked up thing they want to do based on their opinion of my life.

He called me a cunt and told me to try and act human when I told him he doesn’t have to read my tweets. He’s such a manipulator. He doesn’t know anything about the story behind a couple funny tweets but he tries to take it and twist the information into something inflammatory and offensive. A 100 character joke and a harmless, funny thing that happened is his ammunition for going on a rampage trying to tear me down emotionally for his own sick satisfaction and fulfillment. And after that he texted me plenty of other horrible things you should never text your daughter, and some vague threats of mine and other’s lives, like he has done in the past.

I cannot and will never have a relationship with him EVER because HE IS NOT TRUSTWORTHY. HE WILL ALWAYS BE AN ABUSER. THERE IS NO HOPE, THERE IS NO GOING BACK. I’m so frustrated with myself for ever talking to him. I am so frustrated I fell for it. So frustrated he made me think that maybe he could interact with me without abuse. I FEEL SO CONNED AGAIN.

The only reason I have kept trying is I am afraid this motherfucker will kill me or someone I love. I’m afraid he will hurt someone. I’m afraid he will do something crazy to try and ruin my life. I don’t know how to deal with this or what to do except to surrender and try to deal with him so he doesn’t do something horrible.

I am so frustrated. I just want to be free from this harassment. I want to find a way to live my life so that I don’t feel compelled to talk to him just based on avoiding harm and threats to my safety or those that I love.

But anyway, fuck that guy, I’m the shit. My mom’s so good and so strong that her goodness in me can overcome everything he has put me through. I’ve become a bigger, better, stronger and more vibrant and beautiful person than he will ever deserve to know DESPITE all the times he has threatened, harassed, and abused me. His words have never and will never mean anything to me. I’m blessed by all the women before me that made me into who I am.

#get ready for a novel #tw abuse #abuse tw//#harassment #stalking #I feel like a snake that just shed its skin #murmur

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battleofthebits · 7 years

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Won’t You Get Me Bodied

Check, Please! and Yuri!!! on Ice crossover fic. 4.2 K, minor Jack/Bitty and Victor/Yuuri. I promise there’s YoI characters despite the opening scene being 100% Check Please. Read it on Ao3 here.

“Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh, my god.”

Jack stopped in the doorway and went through his mental tally of Reasons Bittle Is Having A Minor Breakdown. Bitty was hunched over his laptop, staring at it with awed disbelief, but — as Jack checked every month — there were no upcoming concerts or awards shows of the kind that usually merited this sort of a response. Bitty used his phone for email, so he couldn’t have gotten an offer to collab with anyone, and nobody had molested any of his pies recently.

That left only one tactic: direct questioning. “Is something wrong, Bits?” Jack asked, fully aware that if something important was going on, he would trigger another meltdown like the fiasco back in 2013.

“Wrong? Are you crazy?” Bittle said, catapulting up from the bed and shoving his laptop in Jack’s face.

The laptop, as far as Jack could tell, was showing nothing more important than some bird-boned ice dancers. “Uh?” Jack managed.

“Jack, Four Continents is in Boston this year!” Bitty said, in the exact same tone that he used when Beyonce did… well, anything… and the Great Phelps-Bittle Jam Feud was settled in Suzanne’s favor. Jack might have no idea what Four Continents was, or why it was so important to Bittle, but by God, he was going to learn.

“Sounds like it’s pretty important to you,” Jack said. Active listening; Lardo would be proud.

“It is, yeah. Do you know anybody who could get us tickets? I don’t wanna ask for much, but it used to be my dream to compete there, and it’s so close…”

“Yeah, definitely,” Jack said. “One of Dad’s friends’ wives is pretty pally with the ISU, and she should be able to hook us up.”

“And this friend’s wife wouldn’t happen to be an international figure skating champ you’ve never told me you know, would she?”

“A figure skating champion who can get you the tickets you want, Bits,” Jack said. “Maybe even rinkside.”

@omgcheckplease

OH MY GOD

8:23 PM · Jan 14, 2016

@omgcheckplease

SWEET MOTHER MARY FOUR CONTINENTS IS RIGHT NEXT DOOR

8:24 PM · Jan 14, 2016

@omgcheckplease

AND GUESS WHOSE AMAZING BOYFRIEND HAS TIX

8:47 PM · Jan 14, 2016

@omgcheckplease

I know, I have a French exam that Monday but WHATEVER I can do my homework in the Uber

8:47 PM · Jan 14, 2016

@omgcheckplease

And congrats to @leodelhielo on making it in! Us Southern boys gotta stick together!

8:49 PM · Jan 14, 2016

Leo made a habit of keeping up with his old competitors. Some people just faded out of the sport and didn’t do anything of note, but others went to college or pursued interesting careers. He figured it was a good way to get a look at his options post-figure skating, and besides, some of those guys had been cool. It was nice to keep in touch, or at least stalk their social media. He hadn’t been expecting a nostalgia follow to @ him, though.

He remembered following this account. He’d been Googling a list of boys who’d made it to regionals, and found not only a college and major but a Twitter, attached to one Eric Bittle. Leo dimly remembered him: won Southern Junior Regionals 2010, peppy as anything. The guy had brought tiny pies to the party afterwards, pissed off at least three skaters’ nutritionists, and then vanished from the sport despite what every announcer had said was astounding potential. And had apparently ended up in Boston, attached to a hockey team.

It couldn’t hurt to acknowledge an old acquaintance, and Leo didn’t have anybody managing his social media anyway. He dashed off a quick tweet.

@leodelhielo

@omgcheckplease thanks! we should totally catch up sometime.

9:17 PM · Jan 14, 2016

@omgcheckplease

Sweet! @leodelhielo I was actually planning a party that weekend, so…

9:21 PM · Jan 14, 2016

Jack heard a piercing screech from the kitchen and ran in to check that Bitty hadn’t gotten hurt and another surprise album hadn’t dropped. “What’s going on, bud?”

“Leo de la Iglesia just @-ed me. Leo de la Iglesia is in my DMs. Leo de la Iglesia thinks it would be totally swawesome to come to the Haus after Four Continents and bring his skater friends.” Bitty looked up from his phone with reverence in his eyes. “Jack. He used the word ‘swawesome.’”

“Sounds cool,” Jack offered.

“It is so not cool, Mister Zimmermann. I have to make plans! I have to figure out who all is coming, email their nutritionists so I can set up an appropriate menu, do a deep-clean of the Haus — what if one of them gets a virus from the couch? — and let the boys know to give them their privacy. There’s so much work to do, oh my god.”

“And you’ll love every minute of it.”

Agreeing to bring Leo’s friends to a college town forty minutes from the rink right after Four Continents was far more difficult than firing off a promise to do so. Seung-Gil hated loud noises, alcohol, and fun, so he was right out. Guang-hong might be down, but would be just about impossible to sneak into a frat party when he looked twelve on a good day. Otabek… was Otabek. Leo was planning on asking JJ, because Leo was a nice person, dammit, but that invite might make the night sound more boring than JJ would ever stand for. Phichit would be much easier to lure in with the promise of a genuine American frat party. And if Leo played his cards right, and was very, very lucky, through persuading Phichit he might get to Yuuri.

Leo had seen rather too much of Yuuri with drunks, but he’d never actually seen Yuuri get hammered, and there were all kinds of rumors. Yuuri had reportedly barely touched the champagne at the GPF banquet this year, claiming he wanted to actually remember this night, thanks, which as far as Leo was concerned might as well be an invitation to get him blackout drunk. All he had to do was handle the situation with care.

hey, you doing anything after Four Continents?

Phichit

not yet

you got any ideas?

yeah, this guy I know from juniors lives in a frat house and makes amazing pie

he invited us all to dinner and a frat party

You in?

Phichit

you bet ur ass I am

sweet, can you bring yuuri with you?

Phichit

uhhhhh

maybe

think about it

this is a chance to get him totally wasted

see if the rumors are true

*and* get photographic evidence

all for the cost of an Uber to Samwell

Phichit

well when you put it like that

I’ll see what I can do

Yuuri had no idea why he was here. Getting his first real gold of the year had felt pretty nice, but after the win all he’d wanted to do was cuddle with his fiancé. Instead, Hurricane Phichit had burst into his room, said only, “Yuuri! We’re headed out in ten minutes! Grab your best party outfit!” and dragged him into an Uber while Victor was distracted by a crowd of fans. Apparently there was some kind of party, somewhere, and Phichit’s radar for a good, Yuuri-embarrassing time was just as strong as it had been in Detroit.

“Don’t you have a leg injury?” Yuuri asked.

“A of all, this sprain has been healing for a week; second of B, I just won bronze with it; and thirdly, you don’t need your legs when you’re doing a kegstand,” Phichit grinned.

Yuuri was doomed.

The house was… well. Yuuri would have liked to say it was nice enough, but that would have been a lie against God and architecture. It looked, frankly, like a crack den. With very spiffy curtains. “You’re sure this is the place?”

“Yeah, number 151.” Phichit carefully did not hobble up to the door.

A tall guy with a bemused look on his face was sitting on a chair on the roof above the porch. “Bitty!” he yelled into the house. “There’s more short guys showing up! Did you invite a gymnastics team over?”

A blond a little taller than Phichit opened the door in oven mitts. “Hi there,” he said, “ignore Tango, he’s, uh, special. Everyone else is ready to eat, unless JJ shows up out of the blue, and I’ve been instructed not to tweet about this party until Uber rush pricing starts, so that’s not very likely.”

“Uh, thanks?” Yuuri said.

“No problem! We’ve had some problems in the past with big personalities ruining the ambience, and I wouldn’t want that to happen tonight. Now, I’ve stuck to healthier food than I normally would, so you don’t have to worry too much about portion control. After dinner, we’re going to be pre-gaming and setting up for about an hour, and then the full-on kegster starts. No judgement if either of you want to leave before then. Any questions?”

“You’re Eric, right?” Phichit asked. “The guy Leo knew from Juniors?”

“Oh, where are my manners?” said Eric. “Yeah, that’s my name, but you can call me Bitty; everyone does around here. Pleased to meet you two!”

Bitty led them inside to a veritable buffet line and half of the men’s singles competitors, along with a decent number of jocks and, inexplicably, a tiny Southeast Asian girl. He introduced Phichit and Yuuri to his teammates, but the names were indistinguishable: everyone was called something random like Birker or Dexy.

“I know,” said a tall Black guy with killer cheekbones, “we’ve all got weird nicknames. It’s all a long and storied hockey tradition, like weird pre-game superstitions or everyone hating the Flyers.” And then he and a loud, blond, giant white guy launched a full-on Powerpoint presentation about the history of hockey names and how to make your own.

“So my hockey name would be what, Chiter?” Phichit asked, when he thought he had the hang of it.

Some dude with a mustache stared into his soul for a second and said,“Bruh, no. Cheetah.”

“Yeah, figure skaters are speedy little fuckers, right?” Loud Guy said around a mouthful of chicken breast. “Bitty beats everyone in suicides. Now, the rest of you guys gotta make your own nicknames, Shitty’s genius won’t stick around. Do your names sound like anything cool in your own language? Animals or weapons or something?”

“Oh my god,” Phichit said. “Yuuri. Katsudon. Plisetsky was right about you all along!” Yuuri was flailing and making the usual panicky noises that indicated Phichit was onto something.

“That’s not really—” Yuuri started to say, but Phichit interrupted him.

“Katsudon and Cheetah,” he mused. “Cheetah and Katsudon.” It was only natural at that point to force Yuuri into a selfie, captioned, “Me and katsukiyuuri at an #Epikegster pregame! #cheetah #katsudon #nameamoreepicduo #illwait #hockeynicknames #makeyourown!”

After the last bite of souffle had been eaten — “don’t worry,” Eric had said, “they’re actually pretty low in sugar and you get a ton of protein!” ― and the dishes had been heaped in the sink to ignore, the older jocks and the tiny girl went out to grab beer and… well, nobody was sure what Tiny Girl was up to, but it had something to do with pregaming.

“Okay,” Loud Guy said, after Tiny Girl returned with a projector from somewhere and the skaters had been assembled on a revoltingly filthy green couch. “In honor of Cheetah, here, who says he’s seen every figure skating movie ever made but never fucking got to Blades of Glory—”

“Like you’ve ever seen Shall We Skate?” Phichit fired back.

“Dude,” said Cheekbones, “that movie’s in Thai and Holtzy can barely manage English.”

“What, and subtitles aren’t a thing in America?”

“We are doing a very special pregame today,” Mustache said, barrelling over the incipient movie argument. “The Blades of Glory drinking game: drink every time Chazz and Jimmy get in a fight, every time Chazz mentions his sex addiction, and every time figure skating just doesn’t work like that. Two drinks for every outdated cringey gay joke, and finish your drink every time the parents’ death gets mentioned. If we notice any slow-sipping, you’ll have to finish your drink on the spot. Ready?”

“How many lines am I gonna be able to quote out of context and embarrass Yuuri?” Phichit asked.

“He’s skating with another dude in exhibitions, right? Started in Detroit?” Loud Guy said.

“Yup.”

“Oh, around half the movie.”

And Loud Guy was right. Phichit ended up elbowing Yuuri when the announcers talked about Chazz’ upbringing in Detroit’s sewer skating scene, groaning at the hideous excuses for choreography, and whispering, “Look, it’s you and Yurio! He’s even got the haircut!” every time Jimmy and Chazz laid into each other. By the time the Iron Lotus subplot came up, he was buzzed enough to genuinely consider the physics of a bullshit movie-magic pairs skating move.

“I don’t think they would actually have been able to cut her head off,” Phichit said to nobody in particular. “Cut her throat, yeah, but there’s not enough momentum to cut through the spine. What do you think, Yuuri?” he asked, and turned to his friend, who was looking a little green.

“I think I’m gonna help the jocks set up,” Yuuri said, and fled the room.

Different strokes for different folks, Phichit figured, and took another drink— Chazz and Jimmy were fighting again.

It didn’t take long after that for the kegster to start in earnest. Students filed into the house, Loud Guy and Cheekbones brought in a keg, and before Phichit knew it, D.R.A.M. was blaring at full volume. But as Phichit got his ass kicked at flip cup, he couldn’t help but wonder where Yuuri had gone off to.

It wasn’t that Yuuri was having a bad night. Everyone was incredibly friendly and it barely mattered that he couldn’t socialize when the entire point of the night was getting hammered in creative ways. He didn’t so much greet people as slide between different drinking games. But an hour or so later and five drinks in, he was beginning to question the contents of whatever “tub juice” was.

He shambled towards the kitchen — which was blocked off with CAUTION tape and a sign reading “absolutely NO puking on appliances- ERB” — and found that somebody else had had the same idea. Somebody else looked a little like a much taller and ripped JJ, and was sitting at the table contemplating a can of root beer. Yuuri took a sip of the tub juice and tried to look as if he were neither drunk off his ass nor interested in conversation.

A few moments passed in mutually-appreciated silence.

“It’s a lot sometimes, isn’t it?” Root Beer Guy said, finally. “All the people and the socializing, and the compulsory drinking.”

“It’s not like I mind all that much,” Yuuri said. “The drinking helps with the people.”

“You’re one of the figure skaters Bittle invited, right? Katsuki?”

“The captains told me I’m supposed to call myself Katsudon now, but yeah.”

“They would. Well, I heard from Bittle that one of the reasons your friends wanted you to come tonight is to get you black-out wasted. Apparently they want to take pictures, maybe put a video on Youtube. You weren’t in on this, I’m guessing?”

“Oh God no.”

Root Beer Guy sighed. “That’s what I thought. Well, Shits is always going on about how the Haus is supposed to be a safer space, and we have to be part of consent culture and everything. I guess part of that is not forcing booze down people’s throats. Anyone tries to get you to drink when you aren’t feeling it, I’ll be here with my root beer.”

“Thanks, I guess? But I’m pretty awful at interacting without getting drunk.”

“Fair. One thing, though. You might wanna lay off the tub juice, that stuff’s basically Hi-C and Everclear.”

Yuuri squinted at his cup’s contents. “Really? I’m on my third cup and it doesn’t seem like it’s doing anything.”

“If tub juice doesn’t get you drunk, nothing will,” said Root Beer Guy. “Just keep it in mind, eh? I’d be a shitty ex-captain if I let guests get forced into situations they weren’t comfortable with.”

“I guess I will,” Yuuri said, and made his way out of the room. If tub juice wasn’t working for him, maybe beer would.

Phichit was having the time of his life. The music was pounding, his friends were dancing, and two gorgeous hockey players were helping him out of a kegstand. “Alright,” said Cheekbones, “pong table’s open! You got a partner?”

“Sure,” Phichit said. “Anybody know where Yuuri is?”

“Cute Japanese kid? Just came out of the kitchen with Jack,” Tiny Girl said from the table. “You sure you want to go with him? He looks pretty sloshed.”

“Dude, Yuuri is the best pong partner. He’s, like, a Hoover for booze and he never loses his coordination. He’s a freak of nature or something.”

“Your funeral,” said Tiny Girl. “Now, Haus rules are as follows. No smacking the ball away if it bounces, blowing and fingering are forbidden, and shots before the last cup are mandatory. Got it?”

“Yeah, but are we playing singles or doubles?” Phichit asked.

“Two of you, one of me,” Tiny Girl grinned. “If I can handle Kent Parson and half the Falconers, I can take a couple figure skaters.”

Yuuri wandered over, finished his cup of tub juice, and the game began. In short order, Tiny Girl had changed her tune.

“Aight, that’s a bounce off the ceiling, you drink four cups,” she said, and then, “The fuck, Katsuki? You’re allowed to alternate those, you’ve already been drinking half of Cheetah’s.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Yuuri said, and chugged all of them. “Phichit’s got the alcohol tolerance of one of his hamsters, we’ve been playing pong like this for years. We end up equally wasted, so it’s not like I’m cheating.”

The game went on like that for a while, Yuuri and Tiny Girl landing all their shots, to the point where Phichit ducked out in favor of filming the legend unfolding in front of him. Finally, Tiny Girl and Yuuri had one cup left each. It was Yuuri’s turn. Somehow he managed to down the shot and bounce the ball into Tiny Girl's cup at the very edge of the table, and the room exploded.

“Holy shit!” Loud Guy said, “somebody just fucking beat Lardo at pong.”

“Barely,” Yuuri said, somehow managing to be self-defeating and plastered at the same time.

"Are you kidding me?" Mustache chipped in. "I never thought I'd see the goddamn day."

“His aim gets better when he gets drunker,” Phichit said. “I tried to warn you.”

“I’m still the undisputed Haus flip-cup champ,” said Tiny Girl.

“Really? Let’s see about that,” Yuuri said. Drunk Yuuri was finally coming out of his modest megane shell, and Phichit was going to be around to film every second.

“Hey,” Guang-hong asked Phichit around 1 AM, “has anybody seen Leo around?”

“I lost track of him after they started playing “Vivir Mi Vida” and he freaked out,” Phichit said. “How come?”

“Eric’s totally wasted and we need a translator.”

Phichit thought for a second. “From English? We’re using English right now.”

“No,” Guang-hong said, “from Southerner. He’s slurring all his words and allergic to consonants and the last phrase I heard from him was ‘Y’all boutta git sum.’ Leo’s from Houston, he knows that accent.”

“She like music, she from Houuu-ston, like Auntie Yonce,” a familiar voice warbled from Phichit’s seven. He reached out and grabbed Leo from the mass of partiers around them.

“Leo,” Guang-hong said with a valiant attempt at sobriety, “we need you to translate what Bitty’s saying. He’s getting up in Yuuri’s face and I just heard him saying everyone was gonna get something.”

“We don’t need to worry about a fight, Yuuri’s not a fighty drunk,” Phichit added, “but he might cry all over the host and that would just be embarrassing for everyone.”

Leo squinted at Phichit as if his eyes weren’t quite focusing right. “Wouldn’t you want that?” he asked. “You could film it and add it to your Yuuri Blackmail Stash.”

“It’s not a blackmail stash, it’s just a thing friends— look, we don’t have time for this!”

“Aight,” Leo said, “lemme at ‘im and I’ll do my best.”

They elbowed their way over to the circle of onlookers surrounding a slurring Bittle and confused Yuuri, both drunk off their asses. “Aintcha never done no dance-offs b’fore?” Eric said.

“Have you ever been in a dance-off?” Leo translated, enunciating carefully and swaying slightly.

“‘S rumors. Like, tons of ‘em, ‘n’ all of ‘em gotcha winnin’ ‘gainst some miiiiiiighty tough competition,” Eric continued.

“Many rumors claim that you’ve won previous dance-offs against very tough opponents,” said Leo, deadpan.

“An’ I’m thinkin’, how ‘bout it, huh? You an’ me, here ‘n’ now, mano a mano,” Eric concluded.

“And I think we should have a dance-off here and now,” Leo said.

Yuuri blinked. “Thass wha’ he’s sayin’?” he asked. Drunk Yuuri was its own dialect, heavy with slurs and sobbing and the Saga-Ben he never quite scrubbed from his accent. Luckily, Phichit was fluent.

“Yep,” he confirmed. “You down?”

It was a foregone conclusion; between the tub juice and the pong and the kegstands, Yuuri was a good eight drinks in, and eight-drinks Yuuri was a walking bad decision. “Am I down?” Yuuri said, looking like he was about to laugh, or maybe fall over. “Phichit, ‘m a gold medalist, gonna kick ass at Worlds. I think I can take an American who doesn’ even know how t’ breakdance.”

“Famous last words, buddy,” Phichit said, but he stepped back. If this disaster happened, somebody had better preserve it for posterity, and that somebody was going to be him.

“Hey, Cheetah!” Eric hollered, and hurled his phone at Phichit. “Use my phone, I gotta Youtube channel that’s gonna wanna see this.”

The phone was already set to record, so Phichit had nothing to do but stand in a clear spot, press a button, and hold on for the ride.

“Get Me Bodied” blasted through the speakers and Phichit had no adequate words to describe what came next. There was quite a bit of breakdancing on Yuuri’s part— Phichit thought he could recognize that K-kick from the banquet photos— and Eric was shaking his ass like the world was ending and twirling around like a bizarre headbanging ballerina. Between the two of them, Phichit thought they’d used a bit of every kind of dance Phichit knew, and a few he didn’t. As the music ended, Eric came out of a giant spin and… fell? On purpose? He didn’t look hurt, and it had been timed to the music, so probably it was deliberate.

“That’s a death drop, what Bittle ended with. Although I don’t know what you call the spin he did going into it,” said Otabek from behind Phichit’s shoulder, and since when had Otabek even been at this party?

“I’ve been here all night, you just haven’t noticed because I’m not a rowdy drunk like some people,” Otabek said. “I DJ on the side, and there’s always somebody asking for the latest American hits. I figured it would be field research.”

“Okay,” said Yuuri from where he was draped against the banister, “so who won?”

Phichit pressed STOP and the recording cut out. “Everybody who just witnessed that. Maaaybe Eric, by a tiny margin? But most of all, Eric’s twitter followers,” he said, and uploaded the video.

“I’m so gonna regret that tomorrow,” Eric said, accepting a bottle of water from his boyfriend.

“I’m regretting it already,” Yuuri said. As Yuuri was tragically boyfriend-less until Victor tracked them down, Phichit grabbed some water for him.

“But oh my god, Eric, that move you did at the end? You have to teach us!” Guang-hong piped up.

“Yeah,” Phichit chirped, “Yuuri can fall on purpose for once.”

“I really hate you sometimes, Phichit, “ said Yuuri.

“Hate me later, it’s time for a podium selfie!” Phichit said, throwing Eric’s phone back to him.

Eric carefully took a photo with Yuuri, and Phichit wrote the caption for him: “4CC gold medalist katsukiyuuri and the reigning Haus Dance-Off Champion! #Epikegster #danceoffroyalty #yourfavescouldnever” The party wound down after that, and around 2 AM everybody headed back to their hotels after extracting a deal: Eric would teach them how to do a death drop someday if Yuuri helped him land a quad loop.

Bitty woke up in the middle of the night with an enormous headache, aching joints, and several thousand new followers. His phone had apparently alerted him to all of them at once, and didn’t stop buzzing for the five minutes it took Bitty to scroll to the source of the problem. Sure, the dance-off video accounted for his new Twitter followers, but why on earth was his Instagram blowing up?

And then he saw the selfie, and more importantly, the top comment.

“Jack. Jack, if you love me at all, you have to see this.”

“Bits, it’s four in the morning.”

“Look at this. Look at it. Viktor. Nikiforov. Just. Liked. My. Photo. He complimented my selfie prowess, Jack!”

“...Who?”

“I’m divorcing you.”

“We’re not even engaged!”

#omgcheckplease #yuri on ice #eric bittle #phichit chulanot #katsuki yuuri #seriously how do you tag all these characters #I won't even fucking bother #look if you're here for the Yuri On Ice I swear it gets there eventually #Four Continents would never be in Boston but wutever I do what I want

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birlcholtz · 7 years

Text

for the better

read it on Ao3 (part of the Zimbits Airport AU-verse) (I would recommend reading this on Ao3, actually, because of the formatting, but it’s here too for convenience) (also let me know if the link doesn’t work? bc i’m not 100% sure about it)

Jack’s been planning this day for a long time now. He even made a Twitter account for it, two months ago, and tweeted occasionally to build up a following (it was easier once he got that little check mark thing next to his handle). He has a few thousand followers, which is enough to get the message out, and he even has his tweet drafted.

The first draft of it was ‘hello everyone, I just wanted you to know that I am bisexual.’ Tater had taken one look at that and vetoed it. With every extra revision Jack suggested (adding an exclamation point, saying ‘you all’ instead of ‘you,’ et cetera, et cetera, et cetera), Tater had still shaken his head. So Jack took it to Georgia.

“I mean... it’s okay,” George had said, furrowing her brow at the screen. “It’s a little terse, though.”

“But I don’t need to say anything else to get the point across, do I?”

“Well, no. But it’s still very detached.”

Still, after a lot of reworking (and, okay, George does scrap that entire thing and make him start from scratch), they come up with something acceptable. Something that Jack might even say is good.

And then it all gets ruined at the last moment.

Monday morning at around ten o’clock (he’s been given the day off from practice to sort everything out), Jack opens up his Twitter account, intending to post the string of tweets that he and George have planned out, but the first thing he sees is a tweet from Kent.

Kent V. Parson @kparse

tired of all the marriage proposals from women, so i’m just gonna say it: i am both gay af and not taking offers of marriage at this time

Kent V. Parson @kparse

#sorrynotsorry for stealing ur thunder @jlzimmermann

Jack sighs and texts Georgia before composing a tweet as well.

Jack Zimmermann @jlzimmermann

disappointed in @kparse for ruining my announcement

Jack Zimmermann @jlzimmermann

he *did* already know i was going to come out as bi today, so this is quite rude

And then he leaves it like that and texts Georgia that he’s already gone ahead with the plan. She still hasn’t replied to the first one, so she’s probably either working out or so exasperated with him that she’s just decided not to reply. He also silences his phone, then texts Bitty, who’s back at Samwell.

Jack: I did it.

Bitty: congratulations!! <3 on twitter?

Jack: Yeah.

Bitty: you seem kind of put out?

Jack: Kent Parson came out before I did.

Bitty: hold on i’m going on twitter rn

Jack waits for a little while, long enough for Bitty to plausibly have read both Kent’s and his tweets, and then sends a text back.

Jack: Very rude of him. Now I can’t even be the first out player in the NHL.

Jack: That’s probably why he did it, to be honest. He likes being first.

Bitty: it might also work well for u, though

Bitty: take away some of the backlash maybe?

Jack: That’s true, but it doesn’t mean I can’t still be annoyed at him.

Bitty: yeah ofc, i would be too

Bitty: anyway i gtg to class so i’ll ttyl, take care of urself today ok?

Jack: Yeah.

Bitty: text me if u need anything, have a good day <3

Jack: You too <3

Bitty: :)

Georgia calls him about half an hour later and outlines the steps that the Falconers’ management are going to take, then promises to text him when they’ve released their statement and makes him promise to take care of himself today, just like Bitty. She also requests that he leave the apartment as little as possible, preferably not at all, so reporters don’t try to corner him in public. No sooner has she said goodbye and hung up than Jack hears knocking on his door. A glance through the peephole reveals it to be Snowy, Tater, and a case of beer, and he opens the door.

“Good job today, Zimmboni,” Tater says as soon as the door opens, shoving the beer into Snowy’s hands so that he can hug Jack. “Poots said to tell you he is proud. He is with trainer, pinched nerve. He will be here soon.”

“Everyone else is scrimmaging, or at least they were when we left,” Snowy adds as Tater releases Jack and steps past him into the apartment. “I don’t know if they saw us leaving and decided to let it go or genuinely didn’t notice.”

“They’re welcome to come over too once practice is over,” Jack says, stepping back to let Snowy in and then shutting the door. “But not before they’ve showered. Also, they should bring their own beer. I don’t have enough.”

Snowy nods. “I’ll text them.” He pulls out his phone and texts the rest of the Falconers, but then checks on something else and bursts out laughing.

“What?”

“Parson started a hashtag.”

“A hashtag?”

“Yup. A fucking hashtag.” Snowy shows Jack his phone screen.

Kent V. Parson @kparse

@jlzimmermann It had to be done. #StealJacksThunder

“Great,” Jack sighs.

“But that’s not all.”

“There’s more?”

Tater pokes his head out of the kitchen. “You are talking about hashtag, yes? Many people are using it.”

“Like who?” Jack asks. “And what are they doing with it?”

“Rob Jeffries from the Schooners did,” Snowy says before Tater can answer. “Jack, just check Twitter for yourself. There’s way too many of these for me to tell you all of them.”

Jack does.

“Holy shit,” he mumbles.

Rob Jeffries @rjeffriesnhl

@jlzimmermann Sorry, man. I’m bi too #StealJacksThunder

Las Vegas Aces @lasvegasaces

Proud of @kparse for starting his own hashtag. The Aces organization supports players no matter their orientation #StealJacksThunder

Aleks Olsen @aleksolsen

maybe not first out LGBTQ+ NHL player in league, but am first on Oilers & officially first out aro/ace NHL player #StealJacksThunder

Providence Falconers @pvdfalconers

The Falconers organization stands with & supports our LGBTQ+ players. Congrats @jlzimmermann for starting this whole thing

Las Vegas Aces @lasvegasaces

@pvdfalconers Excuse you, @kparse came out first

Providence Falconers @pvdfalconers

@lasvegasaces Excuse *you*, it was @jlzimmermann ‘s idea. Don’t try to #StealJacksThunder on our watch!

Besides the team Twitter accounts bickering with each other, it just goes on and on and on— NHL players deciding, on the spur of the moment, to come out on Twitter, and all of them using that same hashtag. The one that makes Jack almost drop his phone, though, is a string of tweets from someone he knows very well.

Bob Zimmermann @mrbadbob

Extremely proud of my son @jlzimmermann for having the courage to show the world who he is. Cannot fully express how happy I am for him

Bob Zimmermann @mrbadbob

There were LGBTQ+ players when I was in the NHL, there always have & always will be & now we are free to be ourselves

Bob Zimmermann @mrbadbob

& say what you like @kparse but @jlzimmermann started this, u just made a hashtag :P

Bob Zimmermann @mrbadbob

I’m almost done I just have one more thing to say, and that is: sorry, son, I’m pansexual #StealJacksThunder

Jack looks up slowly, aware that both Snowy and Tater are staring at him. “My dad just came out as pan on Twitter. And he used the goddamn hashtag.”

“I love your dad,” Snowy says as Tater howls with laughter. “Oh, that reminds me.” He taps at his phone, and when he turns it off and puts it back in his pocket Jack checks his own— sure enough, Snowy has mentioned him in a tweet.

Aiden Snow @asnowynhl

@jlzimmermann im gay #StealJacksThunder #sorryjack

“God damn it, Snowy.” Jack doesn’t mention that as far as he knew, Snowy wasn’t out to anyone— him included— before just now. Maybe saying it through a screen is easier for him.

“At least I apologized in the tweet,” Snowy says. “Let’s open that beer, I suddenly have a need for one.”

They do pretty much nothing for the rest of the late morning and afternoon. Poots arrives about an hour after Snowy and Tater did, and the rest of the team barrels in through the door at around four, which is before practice was supposed to end. Jack doesn’t ask. They have, in fact, showered and brought their own alcohol. Jack turns on the TV and somehow finds his way to a TV show about hunting sasquatches, which works well as background noise, and every so often someone pulls out their phone and announces the latest NHL or ex-NHL player to have come out via Twitter. It’s an impressive list.

When there’s another knock on the door a little after six-thirty, Jack looks around, confused. Practically the entire roster is here, except Socks, who’s got a mild concussion and is staying home. Regardless, he gets up to answer it.

“Jack!” Bitty cries once the door opens, practically glomming onto him like a koala and wrapping his arms around Jack’s neck. “I saw the hashtag, and all the players, and your dad— how are you doing?”

“Okay, considering,” Jack says, holding Bitty up with one hand while he closes the door with the other. “I’ve only been looking at the hashtag, haven’t checked any of my mentions.”

“That’s probably smart,” Bitty says. “You can put me down.”

“Do you want me to put you down?”

Bitty considers. “Not really, but my arms are going to start hurting if I keep dangling off of you like this.”

Jack swings Bitty’s legs up so he’s in bridal style. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Fine, Zimmboni,” Tater shouts from the living room.

“How do you know I’m committing a fineable offense?” Jack yells back.

“Is obvious. Bitty is here.”

“Fair enough.”

Just then, a sasquatch-y howl emits from the other room— probably the TV. Bitty raises one eyebrow. “What on earth was that?”

“We’re watching a TV show on locating Bigfoot,” Jack says by way of explanation. “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and the reenactments are awful but it’s a pretty good distraction.”

“We? How many people do you— don’t tell me, the entire Falconers roster.”

“Yeah. Except Socks— Sokolov. He’s staying home because of a concussion.”

“I must say I never took you for a partier, Mr. Zimmermann,” Bitty says, smiling up at him. “We’re just learning more and more about each other every day, aren’t we?”

“Oh, yeah. Friday evening I learned your deepest, darkest secrets, Saturday I learned how good of a baker you are, Sunday I learned your favorite color, and here we are now. Seems to me we’re doing things in reverse order.”

“Who said there had to be an order?”

“That’s true.”

Bitty nods towards the living room. “Let’s go that way. I want to see this sasquatch-hunting TV show.”

“As you wish.”

#jack zimmermann #zimbits #airport au #omgcp #my stuff

113 notes · View notes

mrsteveecook · 5 years

Text

my parents are shocked that interviewers can see my social media, can I help my nice but incompetent boss, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My parents are shocked that interviewers can see my Twitter persona

I’m in my mid-20s and work in an industry that’s dominated by people about my age. At every job I’ve had, I’ve been encouraged by upper management to tweet about my work, and to maintain a robust and authentic presence on Twitter (and to a lesser extent other social media). As a result, my Twitter persona is heavily tied to my professional life — I follow most of the people I’m aware of who work in my industry and many follow me back, even if we’ve never actually met each other. I usually tweet a pretty even mix of “on-message” work-related stuff (think a picture of me at a work event complete with approved language and hashtags), funny or sarcastic tweets that relate to my job but aren’t critical of it (think tweeting about a funny conversation with my coworkers), and tweets about media I like, news, or just anecdotes from day-to-day life that aren’t related to my job. I never tweet about drug or alcohol use or sexual content and I usually get pretty clear guidelines about what is and is not okay to tweet from my bosses, which I follow. At every job I’ve held, my direct supervisors have had alerts turned on for my tweets so they can immediately see if anything I’ve said could possibly be problematic and immediately ask me to delete it. I’ve only had such a request once and complied immediately.

Anyway, I guess over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at social media, because my work-related tweets tend to get a decent amount of engagement from others in my niche industry. I’ve never gone “viral” or anything, but several of my tweets have gotten a few hundred likes or retweets. I’m currently unemployed and looking for jobs, and I’ve now had two interviews where the interviewer has commented on my online presence, and one even said she feels like she already knows me from my tweets. I took this as a compliment, but my parents were absolutely shocked when I told them. They think social media should be extremely private and that potential supervisors seeing my opinions and thoughts on such a public platform could only hurt me.

Obviously, I disagree — and my *general* sense of professional norms in my industry seems to support this. But I’m really curious; if someone applied for a job with you who you followed on Twitter and whose tweets you had enjoyed in the past, would it help or hurt them? If you felt like you got a sense of their personality from their online presence, would that help to humanize them outside of the interview process or would you feel too familiar with them to judge them professionally?

Your parents are way off-base on this. This has become incredibly normal in a lot of fields. There’s nothing wrong with it, and in some cases it can help you (as long as your content isn’t problematic, obviously).

On the hiring side of things, if I had a candidate who I “knew” a bit through Twitter, and who had a warm/smart/engaging presence there, that would be a positive. I mean, that’s not getting anyone the job unless the job is social media, but it’s similar to knowing someone a bit from industry events and have a generally positive impression of them. In fact, that’s how you might frame it for your parents, if it ever comes up with them again — this is just another form of networking and having contacts who you know slightly from industry events, things they’ve written in industry publications, etc. And I bet they think that scenario is a good one, because it is; they’re just having trouble with understanding Twitter isn’t that different. (Or they don’t realize that having a professional persona on Twitter isn’t the same thing as having your social posts on Facebook be public to the world.)

2. My boss is nice but people think he’s incompetent — can I help him?

I’ve been in a new job that I adore for a couple months. I’m an admin who supports two different departments. One of my directors is incredibly supportive, encourages workplace development, and is a highly respected individual in her field.

My other director started around the same time I did (a few months ago) and is nice, goofy, and fun, but feels more like my coworker than my manager. Our 1:1s are spent with no agenda, and mostly consist of me reminding him of things he needs to be doing.

I can’t help but compare him with my other manager. I’ve been chalking it up to it just being his personality and the fact that he’s new, but he’s done some things that just make me cringe. One time when there were very few people in the office, he got pizza for one team and didn’t invite the two members of a different team that were sitting right there to partake. I recently heard that another of his colleagues (who is at the same seniority level) said point-blank to other people that he does not know what he’s doing.

I feel bad for him, and also would love for him to improve as a manager for my own personal benefit. I don’t think he has any idea people feel that he’s kind of incompetent. Do I somehow broach the subject with him? I’m only the admin, but we have a very collaborative office environment and I have a lot of opportunities to have 1:1s with him.

You don’t really have the standing to tell him that people think he’s incompetent and he needs to improve, but you have soem room to nudge him toward some specific improvements. For example, with your 1:1s, you could say something like, “For my 1:1s with Jane, we’ve been setting aside each week to debrief recent work, talk about progress toward our goals, and troubleshoot things like X and Y. I’ve found it really makes the time valuable — would you be up for structuring ours that way too? I could start us off by creating agendas for the next few and see how that goes.”

With the pizza situation, if you have pretty good rapport with him, in theory you could say something in private like, “Can I mention something I noticed earlier this week? I think Cecil and Cordelia might have felt a little excluded when you ordered pizza for us but didn’t offer them any, since hardly anyone else was around and they were right there. I wonder if in the future with stuff like that, we could offer them some.”

But you’ll need to pick your battles on this stuff. Making suggestions about things that directly involve your work (like your meeting agendas) is a pretty normal thing to do in the course of your work. But feedback on stuff like the pizza situation is more of a very occasional thing; you can’t do it every week without overstepping. So I’m offering that language as an illustration of the way you can tackle situations of that type — but not necessarily suggesting the pizza battle be the one you pick. In general, start out assuming you have room for maybe five pizza-type suggestions a year … which means you’ve got to be pretty choosy about what will warrant addressing.

Also, don’t get sucked into feeling like it’s your job to fix this situation. It’s not, and you can’t. He may need to figure this stuff out on his own … or he won’t, but it’s still not your job to address that.

3. My friend says you shouldn’t interview with more than one company, ever

I am a young woman and I have a question concerning something that a friend, “Cathy,” has said about job searching and interviews.

Cathy has claimed that you should never interview with more than one company at a time. She added that companies “know” when you do so (as if they have mystical powers of detection), that they think interviewing with other companies “looks bad” for you (because apparently, it’s bad to have options?), and makes them not want to hire you (with an implied “end of story, now don’t question me”). I think that what Cathy says just isn’t true at all. It just doesn’t make any sense to me to restrict your job options and sit around waiting for an offer (which might take a while) that might not ever materialize. Companies don’t feel bad for interviewing more than one candidate, why should a job-seeker feel bad for having more than one interview? Frankly, from reading your blog, I think that Cathy’s been given some sort of gimmicky advice by a career center at school, but I don’t know for sure.

Is this one-interview idea even close to true? (I’ll add here that I find it difficult to believe that any sane human being will sit around twiddling their thumbs waiting for a job offer for the sake of a company’s feelings.)

Nooooo, it’s 100% not true. If you ever do find an employer who has a problem with you interviewing with other companies, run — because that would be so wildly out of sync with how this works that they’re guaranteed to be an employer with other ridiculous/abusive expectations.

Employers assume you’re applying to multiple places. It would be pretty awful judgment, in fact, not to be doing that if you’re trying to actively job search, since (a) there’s no guarantee you’ll get an interview anywhere you apply, let alone get a job offer, (b) there’s no guarantee you’ll even want the job once you learn more about it, (c) it’s smart to have multiple options to compare and choose from, and (d) applying to only one job at a time would make most job searches take years.

School career centers give some awful advice, but this is so bizarre that I’m skeptical that’s where this came from! I suspect Cathy misunderstood something somewhere along the line.

4. My two jobs have very different cultures

I am currently working two entry-level part-time jobs with wildly different cultures. I’m both a fresh foods associate at a big-box store and a service desk attendant at a library. I’ve worked at the store for almost four years (and similar jobs with similar cultures for eight) and the library for one.

At the store, unfortunately it is commonplace and expected that we work through our breaks and off-the-clock. (I realize that this is illegal and a bad situation, but I also can’t quit the job for various reasons at the moment.) At the library, this is regarded by my coworkers and boss (correctly!) with horror.

I try to put myself in a different head space when I’m at the library and the store. There have been times, though, that I’ve slipped and done something that is silently required at the store and absolutely not good at the library, like forgetting to take a legally mandated break. I’ve apologized to my boss and immediately corrected the error once I caught myself each time, but it’s extremely embarrassing! It doesn’t happen more than once every two months or so, and usually only on days when I have both jobs (one is a day job and the other is in the evenings) but I don’t know what else I can do to keep it from happening. Part of the problem is my autopilot, I think; I’m not naturally a clock watcher and my job history so far would have trained it out of me pretty efficiently if I was.

My main strategy is to dress and do my hair differently for the two jobs, but on the days I work both this isn’t feasible. Do you have any suggestions? I love my library job and I want to be the absolute best employee I can be, and I’m really worried about this.

It’s good that you’re taking this seriously and trying to correct it, but it’s not something that you need to be this worried about or embarrassed by! Even people without your two-jobs situation sometimes mess this up. You’re spotting it and correcting it, and I don’t think you need to flog yourself over it.

But because you’re so bothered by it, why not just be very straightforward with your boss at the library job at the situation, especially since she already knows and is rightly horrified by how your other job handles breaks and hours worked? You could say something like, “I’ve noticed that every couple of months, I catch myself forgetting to take a required break here, I think it’s because that part of my brain is still in the ’no real breaks’ mode of my other job. I always correct the mistake once I realize it, but I wanted to give you context for why it has happened. I wouldn’t want you to think I was unclear on the break rules here or cavalier about following them! It’s just my brain mixing up the two very different approaches.”

That’s a reasonable thing to say, and you’ll look responsible for addressing it proactively.

5. I’m embarrassed about the year I got my degree

I was hired at my current company nine years ago. At the time, I was very close to completing my degree, so I was hired on the understanding that I had finished classes and was just waiting for grades, but would be a new graduate in a couple of weeks.

I failed a class, so I didn’t graduate. I continued working full-time and built myself up in the company. I procrastinated on finishing school, but four years ago, I retook the class in question, passed, and got my degree.

I’ve had a lot of success in my current company, but I’m looking to try something new. I’m having trouble figuring out what to put on my resume. I feel embarrassed about placing my actual year of graduation on my resume and having to explain nine years of work experience — I feel like I’d be rejected on that timeline alone. I also would feel awkward if anyone at my current job ever found out, since I never told anyone at work about this, and no one ever followed up to make sure I graduated after I was hired.

What should I do? Would it be acceptable to place the grad year and explain to new employers I was a part-time student (technically true)? Should I leave it off entirely and hope no one notices?

It’s very, very normal to leave off your graduation year altogether, especially for people who have been out of school for a while. Just leave the date off — it won’t look odd.

Also, if this ever does come up for some reason, it’s unlikely to be a big deal! You’re feeling embarrassed about it, but most employers who care about checking the box on a college degree just care that you have one and aren’t terribly interested in when you obtained it.