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nightqueendany · 5 years

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Leak Connections:

So I was just reading @adecila’s recent POST on her re-watch of the Friki leaks regarding Tyrion’s trial. I had just finished reading that post when I was made aware of the UPDATE to the FreeFolk 8x05 leaks page about Cleganebowl photos being “confirmation” of Mad!Dany.

And there are some things with both that I want to talk about that I noticed. These are in no particular order, under the cut.

1) Bran’s flashback. According to the old Friki leaks, Bran has a flashback (or maybe he just says the line) of Tyrion telling Catelyn back in his first ever trial from Season 1 (AGOT), “I never bet against my family.” Implying that Tyrion has been playing the long game and has been Team Cersei this entire time. Perhaps that’s not entirely what’s happened, but Friki claims this line will be used against Tyrion. Apparently GRRM’s book editor and the person who writes the comics also somehow support this information and that this line specifically was added to the comics of Book1 because it foreshadowed Tyrion’s end. So regardless of the “how”, Tyrion does betray everyone for his family.

2) Friki also claims that for sure we will get a scene (likely during the battle of King’s Landing) of people in front of a gate saying, “Open the gates.” Now, the “open the gates” lines and Tyrion’s betryal are not directly connected, as far as I can tell. It’s just speculation on Friki’s part. However, Friki says there is a scene with Jon, Davos, and Tyrion walking through the wreckage of King’s Landing at some point where Tyrion says the line, “What have I done?” So it could be possible Tyrion keeps gates closed in King’s Landing, or not. Still not sure what the connection here is but Tyrion apparently feels responsible for some of the destruction of the capital.

3) It appears two endings for Tyrion are possible however. Some leaks saying ‘Jon will kill Dany’ say Tyrion is still on trial and that Sansa has promised Tyrion they will rule together, only to betray him in the end to seize power for herself. Others just mention Tyrion’s trial with no details. Some have Tyrion freeing Jaime from Dany, Dany arresting him, and Tyrion somehow still being on trial with the Starks/Davos at the end. One has Tyrion listening for the surrender bells (that apparently set Dany off) but it’s not mentioned where Tyrion is, if he is with Jon and co or Dany or elsewhere. Also not said why bells signal surrender of Cersei’s armies). And others claim it’s not a trial at all, but a “Great Council” and Tyrion becomes one of Bran’s advisors because Bran becomes King.

All of these above “leakers” have some amount of credibility to the FreeFolk community but clearly, they can’t all be right. Someone has to be wrong or have partially incorrect information because much of that is contradictory.

So the Tyrion-Trial plot point in and of itself proves that there is false information floating around somewhere.

4) Arya during 8x05: Friki said that Arya is in King’s Landing when it goes up in flames and it’s possible the audience will think she’s dead by the end of 8x05 with all the destruction and what not. But, Friki also says that Arya is at Tyrion’s trial so in 8x06 we would see Arya escape. In the “Cleganebowl photo” “leaks”, something similar is mentioned. Arya is caught up in the destruction of the city and it looks like she’s dead. But then she gets up and leaves the city on a horse and this is possibly the end of 8x05, not somewhere in 8x06. So this seems likely. I’m guessing the leaks that say Arya is “useless” are referring to this because she doesn’t get to kill Cersei.

5) Highgarden. As we saw in last episode, Tyrion promises Bronn Highgarden. Friki says we see aerial shots of Highgarden. So this is perhaps why, because it now belongs to Bronn.

6) The 4Plebs leaks. I’ve noticed these circulating around the Jonerys fandom and investigated them myself. You can find the threads HERE. So the OP in this link gave us these spoilers:

“Tyrion fucking dies, because he betrays Jon and Dany. That is the "bitter" part of the ending. The Sweet part is Dany and Jon survive and rule together, riding off into the sunset on a dragon. No joke. That fucking Spanish bitch got it all right. I Hate myself for reading the spoilers even though I thought they were fanfics. Also, White Walkers are killed by episode 4 and main focus is Cersei.”

This was posted on 4/14, the day of the season premiere. Now, anon here says these leaks come from Friki but I don’t believe Friki has ever said Jon and Dany fly off on a dragon together. I feel like I have seen this leak elsewhere about Jon and Dany flying off on a dragon but I can’t remember where. Further down in this thread we see these posts:

They essentially make the same points about the latter half of the season: White Walkers are finished by 8x04 which is more or less correct, rest of the season is dedicated to defeating Cersei, Tyrion betrays Jon/Dany, with a few additional details in each - Jaime kills Cersei, Jon/Dany ride off into the sunset.

As far as I know, the first pic is the only one that outlines the ENTIRE season. All other leaks I have seen have only given details on one or two episodes at a time, aside from these two 1, 2, which both say Jon kills Dany. But even then, they include no details about the early episodes, just from 3/4 on. The pic above has every single episode, aside from Ep 1 which had just aired so that’s why it’s not included, and even then, the second link gets Dany and Cersei mixed up at first, initially saying Jon kills Cersei, not Dany.

7) Unsullied vs Lannisters. According to the Friki leaks mentioned on the Reddit master post, Friki said 7 months ago that there was, “Fake action scene between Unsullied and Lannister soldiers in the dragon pit as misdirection. Meant to deceive us and the action scene was never filmed.”

Many of the “Jon kills Dany” leaks mention the Unsullied fighting Lannister forces - the Lannisters start to surrender at the sound of “bells” but Grey Worm, either of his own volition or because he sees Dany continuing to burn the city, spears a Lannister who had surrendered and the fighting continues.

Now, I’ve pointed out before that this scenario already seemed odd for the simple reason that all these leaks keep saying “Lannister” and not “Golden Company” when the majority of Cersei’s forces should be the Golden Company. They’re the most featured in all the previews (and a Golden Company vs Unsullied fight has been pretty hyped).

There are shots in the 8x05 preview of men not in Golden Company uniform...but they’re not in Lannister uniform either:

These are the typical Lannister uniforms:

Everything about these guys outfits from 8x05 are different to the point where I don’t know who or what they are. They’re not Euron’s men. They’re not Golden Company men. And they’re not Lannisters, based on their outfits. But as they’re operating the scorpions in different locations of King’s Landing that have the Lannister lion on them (Euron’s scorpions look like a kraken), I guess they’re Lannisters? But regardless, they’re not ground troops. The Golden Company are the ground troops. The “Lannisters” seem to be either a) operating the scorpions or b) are archers on the castle walls as we saw in 8x04.

However, if Friki says the Unsullied vs Lannister stuff from the Dragonpit is fake, then perhaps this gives explanation to why many leaks mention it? If Friki is claiming HBO put out information to “misdirect” the audience - scenes that were never filmed - the Unsullied-attack-surrendering-Lannisters leaks could definitely be part of that.

8) One more thing I would like to point out is, aside from Friki’s leaks about 8x01, NO ONE has leaked details in their entirety. We keep getting small details: “Arya kills Night King”, “Jon kills Dany in throne room” “Tyrion betrays everyone”, etc. None of the information from the leaks seems to be connected in any way. We just have snippets of things.

And again, as I’ve pointed out twice above, it definitely appears that there are differing versions of things and HBO has put out false information at least potentially once. But if they’ve done it once, then what’s to say they haven’t done it more than that?

One source might have “Cleganebowl” pics, but if they haven’t seen the actual scene of Dany “going mad” or “Jon killing Dany” then it’s still in question as to whether those things actually happen. *Edit: FreeFolk also claims these leaks do not fit their particular standards for reliable leaks so take the Cleganebowl leaks with a grain of salt!:

Also, why would extras be present in a scene where Jon kills Dany? Why would anyone superfluous be present for shooting such a scene? Only key people would likely be there for this because it would be SUCH a huge spoiler.

Anyway, you guys can take all this with a grain of salt. I unfortunately don’t work for HBO so I have no sources and have yet to see the episodes. But these are just dots I’ve connected. Let me know what you think.

#got spoilers #got speculation #got leaks #friki leaks #game of thrones #Tyrion Lannister #jon snow #daenerys targaryen #grey worm

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beinglibertarian · 5 years

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Shortcuts & Delusions Special Edition: The Absurdity of Gary Johnson

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutly free that your very existance is an act of rebellion.” – Albert Camus

Obituary:

Libertarian satirist and vengeful deity Dillon Eliassen (spelled with an E for comedic purposes), whose work I sincerely admire, has died. Spiritually. Only spiritually. He is to be succeeded in spiritual death by a micronation of homeless people, his fellow members of the Fictitious Cement Workers’ Union, and Being Libertarian’s very own Editor-in-Chief Martin van Staden.

Dillon “The Jesuit” Eliassen (née Ottovordemgentschenfelde) was probably born on Christmas morning 1949, somewhere in Canada. Known for his youthful shenanigans, Dillon brought a smile to the faces of all who encountered him at San Quentin. While fighting for our freedom on the blood-soaked soil of Vietnam, Dillon gave birth to a mostly healthy yet premature appendix, and he named it me.

Let us begin.

Introduction:

Dillon left off with an in-depth analysis of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome,’ a very real ‘condition’ that ‘I’ have personally heard firsthand accounts of on multiple occasions. This was a fitting place to conclude. The torch was not passed to me, but I am hereby picking it up off the ground, wiping the dirt and canine feces from its gleaming bronze exterior, and running with it in the exact opposite direction of any achievable goal.

I am Nathaniel Owen. If you don’t recognize my name, it’s because I am legitimately the least important person you’ve never heard of. I’m unknown for my efforts to bear the heaviness of the Imperial Antarctic Crown, and my occasional bouts of productive cyber-vigilantism. In 2014 I made a mistake, and today that mistake is Being Libertarian. They locked me in the CEO’s office until I pay for this crime.

Like my obvious relatives, Nathaniel Bacon, Nathaniel Branden, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, I am a revolutionary. I haven’t got a Che t-shirt, and I never attend the meetings. But like many communist tovarisch, I do have an iPhone. In the postmodern age, that’s a clever weapon to have! Climate scientists, for instance, have indicated that it’s really all the humble revolutionary needs these days. I am constantly confused as to the value of my executive role at Being Libertarian but remain the least confused as to why I maintain this position.

Today is my favorite day of the year, second only to New Year’s Eve. For me, today acts as a reminder of the closest thing I have ever encountered to universal truth; a realization that haunts, comforts, astounds and enchants me. Yesterday, we were but individuals rolling boulders up a hill. Today, we will try again to roll the boulders up that hill. Tomorrow, yet again, we will return to this habit. You have been doing this with me since the day you were born.

I like to count the number of seconds it takes the boulder to reach the bottom of the hill each sunset. In the morning, we will start over.

We Are All Sisyphus:

It’s quite pointless, analytically speaking. You probably don’t remember being born, nor were you an integral part in making that happen to you. No number of artifacts can preserve the complexity of an individual human being, and even if one could live immortally in the memory of others, time turns existential into the mythological.

The universe is dying. It will live scarcely longer than we will. You appear to have come into existence at random, in a time and place inherently foreign. As a child, you wander into a adulthood without happening on the answer key to any questions relating to how or why you exist in the first place. Much less, how or why the universe itself exists. A consequence of this is that We, The People tend to convince ourselves conveniently that the answers to such questions not only exist, but can be found in such subtle hiding places as your local political party, whatever holy book you were raised to read, your arbitrary interpretations of the signs and seasons presented to us by the light of the cosmos, or even in our own imaginations.

And we know because we can’t avoid knowing, that whatever facade we’ve sold ourselves is, in fact, still a facade even if we fall for it.

Every day spent living is a performative affirmation that something about you, even if you can’t figure out exactly what it is, still wants to find those answers. If this weren’t the case, the players of this game would be dropping like flies when they discover that there is no point in playing and no conceivable way to win and that eventually there will be no evidence that you ever played at all. In short, that life itself is highly unlikely to be worth the trouble.

Albert Camus, French philosopher, and journalist, was plagued with thoughts like those stated above. Camus became a constitutive inspiration of the Existentialist Movement (a tradition of philosophy asserting the importance of human experience in the appraisal and interpretation of ideas), partially during the Second World War, while serving in fierce defiance as the Editor-in-Chief of the French Resistance newspaper ‘Combat’ amidst the Nazi occupation of his homeland, and continuing this roll into the post-war world.

Though such matters in the realm of fundamentals and absolutes can be difficult to define, you may have wondered similar things about yourself, and perhaps continue to. Camus was particularly perturbed by the sheer fact that the universe itself and all that exists within it have no objective meaning or purpose. The rational insights we are both blessed and cursed with poke holes in all our mortally limited attempts to invent meaning of our own, and in the Modern Age, the old ideas of Abrahamic deities, universal truth, and inherent ethical rules, each of which having been rudimentary to the shaping and formation of modern society in some way, have been penetrated into philosophical Swiss cheese.

The Non-Aggression Principle is a rather useful little limerick when one doesn’t overthink it. But like all things implying morality, thinking it all the way through will lead you to fundamentals that cannot possibly be confirmed or denied. What, exactly, makes murder wrong? What about robbery? Or socialism? Or the unfairness of free markets? When all is said and done, is it really going to matter whether every little thing we chose to do was right, or wrong, or equitable, or unfair? At the top level, with capital crimes especially, it is not hard to find that the supermajority of humanity agrees on some basic ethical positions. But when applying these basics, they become more complicated. By the point that we are discussing the specific rights and wrongs of typical human behavior, no two people will find themselves in agreement on the application of what they may believe are universal, self-evident principles.

Camus asserted, rather poignantly, that suicide has always been an option. And the scariness, confusion, and uncertainty of existing in such an uncertain world have apparently not driven you to it. And why shouldn’t we die now? It all adds up to the same summary. Nothing is permanent. It’s very possible that nothing matters. Yet we, practically all of us, seem to be making the conscious choice each day to live on. It’s as though if we pull away some of that upstanding rationalism gifted to us during The Enlightenment, there is some other part of us playing such an integral role in our existence that it stabilizes and confirms our will to exist at all.

Camus was a hero in several ways, and today is his day. There are very few people who want to legalize murder, yet droves of people who wish to legalize marijuana, and to many hearty fundamentalists, these may be comparable issues. Sin is sin, oppression is oppression, and aggression is aggression. To many libertarians, and to what should be our collective shame, such things as unionizing the local labor force, stealing a sandwich from a street vendor, violently raping a helpless victim, and aborting the fetus conceived in such tragic circumstances are all comparably “aggressive,” and may not even be considered in terms outside of “aggression” regardless of how useful a new approach or perspective may be when considering such cases.

At the risk of losing all of my libertarian acquaintances, I will admit that once upon a time, I charged my iPhone (yes, my revolutionary weapon of choice) using a stranger’s charging cable without asking when he wasn’t around. I aggressed. I haven’t repented and I’m not sure my soul will be where yours will be on judgment day.

The point is, it makes so little difference whether we are right or wrong about what is “aggression” and what is not “aggression,” that it’s a wonder anybody even cares to discuss it for more than a few than a few minutes.

I do not care who builds the roads, or who decides what color to paint the bathrooms at Beacon Hill, or which Union and/or Confederate heroes/villains are memorialized in stone. I do not care to pay taxes of a meager nature. Of course, I will consistently support lower taxes; it’s my own self-interest at stake. I will not, however, declare that anyone who doesn’t concern themselves with it as deeply as myself to be a “sheep.” Sheep are blind followers. To the best of my knowledge, I have never met anyone who doesn’t fit that description, and yes, this includes myself. I’m no determinist, but I know that I know essentially nothing about the mechanics of what REALLY makes something moral or immoral. I also know that you don’t know either.

The universe you live in doesn’t care what you think. It doesn’t “care” in any way about anything, as far as we can tell. Clinging so staunchly to principles may as well be escapism from the dread and uncertainty of having existed in the first place. Cults operate by exploiting this inherent dread, and unlike the average man on the street who will immediately deny any experiences of being uncertain about his own existence, cults can see through this bullshit. The Liberty Movement should be no cult.

“The Absurd” is a boulder. Every second you live is an exercise in pointlessness. Searching for meaning, embracing the experience of uncertainty, and cracking a smile as your shoulders yet again shove that boulder up the hill… these are exercises in defiance. It is no coincidence that Albert Camus, espousing the conviction (or lack thereof) that no objective truth or purpose may ever be identified, was willing to put his life on the line to dignify and endorse the French Resistance Movement, and despite his eventual death in a car crash, his words live on.

We libertarians are the quintessentially anti-establishment political identity. When our fists are clenched around the chains of dogma and theoretical universal principles we may as well be chained to the same despotic foundation we’re trying to help others liberate themselves from. To think for one’s self, one must realize the degree to which the nuances and practicalities of the world we live in influence us. Peddling promises of applying some universal ethic that we, as representatives of the Liberty Movement, can’t even agree on the parameters of is no different than selling a religious experience; a method by which to keep the conscience clean, and supply some convenient, flimsy certainty that will never stand up to the scrutiny of the skeptical. If our universal truths were as permanent as they are constructed to be, we would never change our minds or opinions.

This rant will resume in 365.25 days when National Absurdity Day returns in all its glory, memento mori, and calendarial obscurity.

And speaking of scrutiny, I’m going to have to toss in a trigger warning. This isn’t even my first trigger warning. I’m a professional.

**TRIGGER WARNING** What you are about to read may cause severe bouts of Trump Derangement Syndrome. If you are a leftist, please do not read the following paragraphs while in close proximity to sharp objects. Symptoms may include blood shooting from the eyes, indecipherable screaming, close encounters of the fourth kind, and varying degrees of irritable face syndrome. Please notify a physician if you encounter itchiness of the spleen, cirrhosis of the autobiographical memory, or diarrhea of the oral cavity.

Why We MUST Defeat Gary Johnson You’re probably wondering about the guy in the title of this article who, thus far, has been absent from said article. In fact, he’s absent from things quite often, I’m told.

Gary Johnson is not a real libertarian. Why libertarians get starry-eyed in his presence is beyond me, with his espousal of blatant communism and acceptance of homonormative deconstructionist Islamomarxism. Johnson as a representative of libertarianism is a clear sign that the left is invading the liberty movement, further eroding private property norms and propping up support for the deep state agenda of the globalists.

Johnson has pretended to support unfettered free market capitalism, and even went as far as to insist that tearing down barriers of entry could give the average person better, fairer access to goods and services. “The model of the future is the sharing economy. It’s Uber. It’s Airbnb. I think it’s gonna be Uber everything.”

“Uber everything” sounds like a great idea until you take your morning Red Pill and see that this is just code for white genocide. Without a heterogenous government of the people, who will stop immigrants from driving Uber taco trucks and parking them on every street corner, forestalling traditional values and private property norms. Americans would lose their jobs, possibly to immigrants. Even libertarian heroine Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sees through Gary Johnson’s thin veneer of egalitarian lies!

He ran for president. Twice. On the second try, he broke every Libertarian Party presidential vote count record in the party’s history, surpassing even the likes of Our Lord and Savior Dr. Ron Earnet Paul. Mark my words, we will never forgive Gary Johnson for not being Ron Paul. His tax cuts were clearly a Democrat ruse to give spending power to the politically correct internationalist cabal of globalist elites like George Soros, Walt Disney, and Oliver Cromwell.

After making the Libertarian Party lose twice, Gary Johnson snuck in one more attack on libertarian legitimacy by losing in New Mexico in a Senate race where he only claimed 15.4% of the vote, singlehandedly handing victory over to communist Democrat Vladimir Len- I mean… Martin Heinrich (if that’s his real name).

Gary Johnson must be stopped. He cannot be allowed to run for office again, regardless of what degenerate socialist feminazis say about “free speech” and “democracy.” Democracy is a secret codeword known to the Fourth International for white genocide and subversion of private property norms. To Make America Great Again

, we must Physically Remove

this man that even the Democrats recognize as a tyrant. Socialists say that Gary Johnson is no threat to the system. This means Gary Johnson is probably a socialist (and a threat to the system the Founding Fathers put in place to protect our freedoms) because everything socialists say are lies.

What further evidence do you need? So far, I have used some of the most Red Pill buzzwords on the market, and even considered using “optics,” “LOLbertarian,” “SJW,” “libertine,” “postmodernism” and “open borders.” Libertarianism is an obvious right-wing ideology. We have standards, you know.

I won’t keep you here. Now that I’ve owned you with facts and logic, you are free to go.

Outro: Left intentionally long and with minimal editing, everything written above makes a single point that, in context, doesn’t mean anything. Most things, and probably all things, don’t mean anything. But that observation is no taskmaster; true freedom is the freedom to waste your time, and the time of others, in a way that is archetypically you. There are no strict parameters here. Drifting a little off the straight and narrow shouldn’t be cause for panic. If there was a takeaway in this article, I don’t know what it is. Perhaps there is a Gary Johnson in all of us, rolling a boulder up Mount Everest just to watch it roll back into the ravine, much like the Libertarian vote count will in 2020.

Do as thou wilt, and don’t overthink it.

Happy National Absurdity Day, comrades.

سُبْحَانَ اللہِ

The post Shortcuts & Delusions Special Edition: The Absurdity of Gary Johnson appeared first on Being Libertarian.

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beefybuffybucky · 7 years

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The Light Behind Your Eyes (Pt.4)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x female!Reader - HYDRA x Reader - Avengers x Reader

Summary: Bucky and the other members of the Avengers have been searching for you for nearly two months, but to no avail. It’s not until the news breaks of an attack on Boston leads them to you, but what they find is something none of them will ever forget.

Warnings: angst - violence - a teensy bit of language

Word Count: 3.5K

A/N: Oh boy ya’ll, it’s a bit of a long one. After this, there will be at least one or two more parts. I apologize for the length, but once I started, I just couldn’t stop, and I couldn’t decide on a good cut-off point, so...here we are, part four! Hope ya’ll like it!

Y/N - your name

Y/H/C - your hair color

Y/E/C - your eye color

Part One // Part Two // Part Three

Bucky’s P.O.V.

It’s been two months.

Two months without Y/N.

Sixty-three days have passed since I’ve seen her smile, heard her gorgeous, contagious laugh, or even pranked Sam. We would drink coffee and watch an episode of a show every morning - we were on the last episode of the newest House of Cards season before we left for the mission. Now I can barely force myself out of bed to even make coffee, let alone bring myself to finish the season without her. My biggest regret besides not being able to keep her safe from the very thing that haunts me is not telling her how much I care about her...how much I need her...how much I love her. An empty ache grows in my chest with each passing day, consuming my thoughts - nothing has been the same without her. Every night, a new nightmare of what could be happening to her tortures my mind. Even when I’m completely exhausted, I can’t trust myself falling asleep. These nightmares are just as bad as the ones that haunted me when I first came to the team and still dreamt about HYDRA. This time around, it’s the same situations, but it’s not me that they’re controlling and manipulating into their own personal weapon of destruction, it’s Y/N.

Steve’s probably the most worried about me. At least twice a week, he pops his head in my doorway with that weird “worried mom” look plastered on his face. And every time, I tell him that I’m fine, even though but we both know that I’m not. Everyone’s treating me like some lost puppy, and it’s kind of starting to piss me off. It feels like the rest of the team is spending more time worrying about me than they are trying to find Y/N.

When I couldn’t save her, my whole world came crashing down around me. I don’t remember much after the phone call with Steve, but Clint told me I was a fucking mess when they found me. Nat wouldn’t admit it to my face, but I could see it in her eyes. They tried to track the tires in the snow, but they lost it after a mile when the winds had picked up and snow started to move in, covering the tracks and forcing us to return back to the compound. The tracks were the only hope I had to bring her back home.

Tony has been helping Steve and I search for possible locations of where they might be holding her. The rest of the team has been on other missions, but chip in their efforts whenever they can. At this point, we think HYDRA targeted her as a way to bait me. We have poured countless hours into scouring maps, GPS coordinates, possible HYDRA hideouts and movements...anything we could possibly get our hands on, just to get a possible lead on where she could be. We’ve gone to six different locations, trying to follow possible leads, but each search has turned up nothing.

So far, we’ve come up completely empty handed...I’ve never felt this helpless in my entire life. I can’t believe she slipped through my hands so easily…

A quiet knock on the door alerts me of Steve’s presence.

“Hey, Buck,” he whispers caringly, leaning against the door frame. His “mom” face is back.

“Hey,” my voice is hoarse from crying during the night. Steve pushes off the frame and saunters over to where I was sitting on the bed.

“You okay?” Does it fucking look like I’m okay?

“Could be better,” I mumble. He sits next to me, the mattress sinking under his weight. A few moments pass in a heavy silence. I can sense that he’s keeping something from me.

“We have a new lead,” Steve breaks the silence. A flick of hope ignites in my head, but a rain cloud of doubt threatens to put out the weak flame.

“What is it?” I look at Steve. He wears an expression of something I can’t really place. It’s like concern mixed with a look of slight disbelief. Maybe even heartbreak. My stomach churns at the thought of what he might say. “Is Y/N…i-is she…,” a lump in my throat cuts off my sentence.

“She’s alive, Buck. But I’m not sure if you’re ready for this...I don’t think any of us are,” a muscle in Steve’s jaw twitches. He’s nervous.

“What do you mean?” The fact that she’s alive sends a wave of excitement crashing through my body, but the way Steve held his body and the melancholy laced in his expression quickly floods out the excitement.

The sound of chatter and voices from the T.V. carries into the hall. I follow Steve into the main common room. Most of the team are either sitting on the couches or standing, talking amongst themselves. Tony and Banner were missing from the group. Natasha turns her head in our direction, breaking off from her conversation with Sam and Clint, and gravely saunters over to us, the usual pep in her walk nonexistent, her arms hugging her chest. A light shade of red runs along the bottoms of her eyes, and I knew she had been crying. She gently places her hand on my arm and her lip quivers.

“I’m so sorry, Barnes...We’re going to do everything we can to get her back,” her voice shakes. What is she talking about?

I look over her at the large plasma T.V. that’s partially blocked by the members of the team that are standing. “BREAKING NEWS” flashes on the screen and reveals glimpses of destruction flashing across the screen. A rolling strip of text runs across the bottom of the screen, and her name - Y/N’s name - is in it. My heart stops, and the chattering in the air turns into a persistent buzzing. My feet move against my will as I shove my way past the standing bodies, stopping in front of the T.V.

Y/N’s picture is in the top right corner of the screen. The reporter’s lips are moving, but I can’t hear a single word he’s saying. Her picture switches into a video. I-It’s her…

She’s dressed head to toe in a black, form-fitting suit, carrying a large machine gun in her gloved hands. Dirt cakes one of her cheeks and thin lines of black paint stream down her face from her eyes, but instead of her brilliant Y/E/C that I can lose myself in for hours, there’s only black. Her hair has been shaved to a buzz cut, her Y/H/C hair speckled with dirt. It’s almost like they sucked every last bit of light from her, and all that remains is pure, unforgiving nothingness. They somehow managed to steal the light from behind her eyes that I never thought would leave. My stomach churns as I breathlessly watch a wave of dark, swirling energy burst from her palms, effortlessly hurling a car out of her way, landing somewhere out of the frame. The power that shot out of her looks exactly like Wanda’s. Something tugs on my sleeve and I warily turn my head in the direction of the tugging.

Wanda stands next to me, silent tears creeping down her pale cheeks. She brings a delicate hand to my face, wiping away tears I didn’t even know had been shed. My gaze returns to the screen, becoming completely and utterly captivated by the events unfolding before me.

More footage shows a small group of HYDRA agents and operatives following her lead, some shooting at targets far out of frame, others holding their guns, ready to attack at any given moment. The video switches to a higher aerial view of their procession and I stare in horror as an agent hands Y/N a new weapon. She loads it, and drops it into her other hand, taking aim at a building. It launches a black, compact object and demolishes an entire building, the explosion sending debris flying into the air and shooting in every direction. If I had actually eaten anything this morning, I’m sure it would’ve come up by now. My nightmares were coming true, and I was so entranced by the raw, grave reality of all of it that I couldn’t even move a muscle.

Another hand touches my shoulder. Through my blurry vision I can see Steve, his face scared and ashen. He’s wearing his combat suit.

“We’re flying out in ten minutes,” he tells me, his voice muffled by something I can’t see.

“What?” I blink away warm tears. “W-who’s flying out?” The heavy blanket blocking out the rest of the world begins to lift off of my shoulders. I drag my leg and face him. Moving my head, I see Natasha, Wanda, and Tony standing near the elevator, Natasha and Wanda both wearing their gear while Tony was still in a t-shirt and jeans.

“I need you to stay here, Buck,” Steve whispers and I snap my head towards him. “I promise we’re going to bring her back.”

“No,” I choke. “I’m coming with.”

Steve rolls his head and breathes out a deep sigh from his nose, dropping his gaze to the ground.

“I know how much she means to you, Bucky,” he mutters, voice low. “But you’re not fit to do this right now,” he gestures to the screen flashing clips of unearthly destruction. “You haven’t slept in days, let alone eaten, and this mission would require you to be-”

“I can do this, Stevie,” I whisper, desperation tainting my voice. “Please, I-I need to do this. I’m the one who lost her, I need to be the one to bring her back.” I do my best to stop my eyes from spilling any more tears. I need to fucking do this.

Steve searches my eyes for a few seconds, then looks back at Tony. Tony slightly nods his head a few times and drops his gaze to his feet.

“Suit up, Barnes,” he says, bringing his head up. “We leave in five.”

The news reports all say that Y/N is in Boston. We take the fastest jet Tony has on the compound, and reach the city within an hour. Flying above it, Y/N’s path of destruction is clear as day.

Whole blocks of buildings lie in ruins, their materials and contents scattered everywhere. The only people patrolling the areas of destruction are members of the National Guard and some police forces, digging through the rubble, searching for people in need of help.

“Over there,” Wanda points out the window towards a large dome of black, flickering energy. A chill slowly trickles down my spine at the sight of it. Tony steers the jet in the direction of the energy, managing to land the jet in a large area of dirt where a parking structure and multiple buildings once stood a couple of blocks away from the dome of static energy. I would know - the area was in the news coverage earlier.

The back of the jet opens and the team starts to file out. I grab a machine gun from the shelves of weaponry and load it, grabbing a few extra knives and another smaller handgun. As I turn to leave, I see Steve waiting for me by the exit.

“You ready?” He hands me an earpiece.

“Let’s bring her home.” We walk out of the jet and join the rest of the group.

Steve breaks off and stands in front of the team, Tony by his side.

“Alright let’s keep this brief, people,” Tony calls out over the sirens and a loud, far away rumbling sound. “Our goal is to secure Y/N and shut down whatever’s happening under that dome. Banner will be in the skies, surveying the area deploying whatever methods necessary in order to contain her in one area. If it comes down to it, the jet is equipped with five long-range darts of strong tranquilizers, ready to fire at any moment,” he pauses. “We’re going to get her, no matter what.” A few people nod. “Alright, let’s get moving.”

Up close, the swirling energy creates a strong breeze. The rumbling we heard when the jet landed was roaring like an angry ocean in my ears now. The inky haze camouflages the building the Y/N had shot at during the news coverage. The dome covered an area of about a block. We had split off into smaller groups of people. I was with Steve and Wanda. Tony, Rhodes, Clint, and Nat started to walk to the other side. Vision and Sam had taken to the skies while Banner went up in the jet.

I walk up to the dome, the intense breeze blowing strands of hair into my face. Slowly, I move my palm closer to the dome, a light tingle pricking at my fingertips. I push my palm against it, the energy making the hairs on the back of my neck stand. The energy is hard like a wall, making it impossible to pass through.

“There’s no way to pass through that thing,” I shout over the noises of popping electricity and the rumbling.

“Alright, Vision. Light it up,” Tony’s voice rings through the comms.

A blinding line of buzzing energy cuts through the dome, slicing it from the bottom up, sending black particles slashing into the air.

“Let’s go!” Steve calls out over the deafening commotion. We run through the opening, jumping over piles of rubble and debris. I watch as the wall of energy slowly falls away, disappearing into the warm air. Glass from the blown out windows of the crumbling building ahead of us crunches under my boots. A figure stands near the entrance of the building, gun in hand, arms raised. We continue to run, pounding on towards the figure, and my chest tightens in fear at the list of endless outcomes cramming into my thoughts. At this point, nothing was certain, but anything could happen.

Agents begin to rush towards us and the firing of bullets fills my ears. From above, Tony, Rhodes, Vision, and Clint work to strike down as many agents as possible.

As we close-in on the building, the number of agents drastically dwindles, the details of the figure become clear.

It’s Y/N. Her arms are pointed straight out, a handgun at the ready, her face drained of all emotion.

A shot rings through the air, zipping past my ear. With her background, if she wanted to kill me, she could’ve easily made that shot. I turn around and see Nat cradling her arm.

Natasha makes eye contact with me. “Behind you!” She hollers.

Y/N drops the handgun. It clatters to the ground, and she thrusts her palms outwards, sending a billowing cloud of thick, dark energy rushing in our direction.

“Wanda!” I call out above the roaring.

“On it!” A wall of red energy forms out of thin air right in front of us, stopping as in our tracks. The inky energy slams into the red and Wanda grunts as she pushes more power into it. The black races up the wall, dispersing into the air above us, the wind circling around the barricade. As the air clears, Y/N marches through the twirling black, a machine gun with an attached grenade launcher resting in her hands. She stops, raises the gun, aims, and pulls back on the trigger. Fire explodes over Wanda’s energy as the ground beneath our feet vibrates, and she falls to her knees, crying out in anguish over the amount of energy she’s supplying into the barricade. Y/N walks closer, this time stopping about five yards away from us. She’s so close now, it feels like I could just reach out and pull her into my arms. My heart begins to ache.

She swings the weapon up to her face, taking aim once again.

“Banner!” Steve calls out. “We could really use only of those tranquilizers right now!”

Wanda’s still on the ground, her face twisted in pain and frustration. The wall separating us from Y/N gradually begins to degrade as Wanda loses more of her strength. The thinning barricade threatens to disappear as Y/N shifts her feet, steadying her body, preparing to brace herself against the recoil of the gun.

Time slows around me. Y/N’s finger reaches for the trigger, ready to kill. Then out of the corner of my eye, something fast strikes her shoulder, throwing off her aim, sending another grenade flying to the far left. A large dart juts out from her left shoulder and she stumbles a bit to the side, dropping her weapon as she absorbs the velocity of the impact. She bends over, her hands on her knees as she gently sways. Shaking her head, she snaps her body upwards, grabbing the needle and yanking it out of her arm. She tosses it to the side, thrusting out her left palm, but nothing happens. A look of confusion quickly flashes across her face, her black eyes widening. Her jaw clenches. With a grunt, she thrusts out her palm again, only a few wisps of energy sputtering out. Her chest rises and falls heavily, and she quickly goes to grab her gun when Tony shoots a beam of light in between her and the weapon.

“Not so fast,” he speaks through the suit. He lands a few feet in front of me, blowing up some dust from the boosters in his suit. “This ends now.” Rhodes and Vision land behind me, and Steve is crouching beside Wanda. Clint was back by Natasha, tentatively tending to her wound. Sam was standing in front of Steve, creating a barrier between the fighting and Wanda.

Y/N stands in front of us, her glare darting from one face to another. I can feel her stare linger on me, even through the never-ending darkness of her eyes.

“Bucky,” a gentle voice whispers in my mind. It sounds like...Y/N. But...how?

“Y/N?” I mutter. Her face contorts in frustration and she shakes her head again.

“No!” She screams, more to herself than us. I look up at the jet circling above us.

“Banner, hit her with another dart,” I breathe into the comms.

“But she hasn’t done anyth -”

“Do it!” I yell at him, staring at Y/N.

“Barnes, what are you -,” Tony begins to question me, then stops as he seems to understand what I’m trying to do. “Banner, the tranquilizer brings her back. Hit her again!”

Y/N snarls and sprints in our direction, yelping out in pain as another dart strikes her in the back. She tumbles to the ground, landing face down. A low groan rumbles from her as she shakily pushes herself up, kneeling on all fours. She drags her head up, breathing heavily. The pitch black that had invaded her eyes was gone, and her beautiful Y/E/C eyes squinted at me.

“B...Bucky?” Her voice was fragile and quiet.

“Y/N,” I rush towards her, brushing passed Tony, ignoring his protests, and almost reach her when out of nowhere, black crawls up the thin veins in her face, and the color of her eyes is hungrily consumed by darkness. All of a sudden, it feels like a pair of hands are strangling my neck and the air catches in my throat. I choke as the pressure strengthens and feel my body being lifted into the air. The energy swirls around me, and dark dots dart across my vision. My lungs are screaming for air, but the tension only grows. I can see Y/N a few feet ahead, standing below my dangling body.

“My name is Ангел,” her voice rings clear in my mind as a cruel, wild smirk spreads across her face. “And you’re my mission.”

The lack of oxygen makes my head pound and it feels like it’s going to explode at any second. One second I’m on the verge of passing out, and the next, my body drops to the ground like a ragdoll while Y/N cries out. Lying on my back, I hoarsely gasp for air as my throat opens up again. Turning my head, I see Y/N passed out on her back, her hand a few inches from mine. I manage to pull myself into a sitting position through the heavy dizziness invading my stability. Steve jogs over to me and extends his arm. I reach up and he clamps his hand in mine, pulling me up from the ground.

“You okay, Buck?” He questions breathlessly. I rub at my neck, kneading out the ghostly pain.

“I will be,” I groan. Looking down, Y/N still remains motionless on the ground, her limbs completely limp. Staggering over to her, I check for a pulse in her neck. It’s weak, but there. I scoop up her legs, then slide my arm under her back, easily lifting her up from the debris. I turn around and find everyone’s eyes glued to me.

“Let’s go home,” I breathe. I start walking in the direction of where the jet will land, ignoring the glares from the rest of the team.

“Banner, I need to do a scan of the building to clear -” I carefully lift my arm cradling Y/N’s leg to my ear, pulling out the piece from my ear, cutting out Tony’s voice from my conscience. I leave it behind in the dust. A wave of calmness washes over me as I carry Y/N towards the jet as it lands a few blocks away, the words she had spoken in my mind still ringing in my ears.

Ангел - angel

Part Five

Tags: @randyortontattoos @buckyisloved @awinterloveuniverse @dcandmarvelimagines @isaxhorror @hollycornish @superwholockian5ever @frostbyte-horan @theraputicwritings @queendarkmuffin

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes imagines #avengers x reader #avengers x you #avengers imagine #avengers imagines #marvel x reader #marvel x you #marvel imagine #marvel imagines #james buchanan barnes #bucky barnes #the winter soldier

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squirenonny · 7 years

Text

Voltron Season 3

Spoilers and Speculation Below

Okay, first? Ahhhhhh! So many feels this season. Like. Everything with Keith. Everything. And Lance. And Allura. And Shiro. Fuck. And Coran? Watching Voltron disappear into the rift? I cry.

HUNK WAS SO GOOD???????? Hunk and Pidge nerding out together over tech??? Hunk being a diplomat through cooking??? Hunk not even trying to bond with Black because he wants to stay with Yellow??? My son! God, I love him so much. *screams*

Meanwhile Keith is so very much NOT a diplomat, which, fair. Is about 70% that he’s in so much pain over losing Shiro and feeling pressured to replace him. Him being genuinely distraught over Black choosing him just broke my heart. Urgh.

LANCE. Lance was so vital to like?? Everything??? That happened? It was subtle, but it was so well done. He was always, always the one to step up and be what his team needed him to be. Comforting Keith. Supporting him as leader right from the start. Addressing the elephant in the room re: six paladins/five lions (and no no no baby, you are not the one who should be stepping down, but I love that he’d do that because he knows that letting it become an issue could tear this team apart.) It’s even implied that he took time off screen to try to help Allura bond with Blue, even though I’m sure it must have stung.

Speaking of--

Owwwww It hurts so bad that Blue shut Lance out and he took it as him doing something wrong, and I really really hope that gets addressed in season 4 (which really does feel like season 3 part 2--I’m not upset over the split at all, but this drop feels SO much like it’s setting up a massive pile of shit to hit the fan in October. I’m scared in the best possible way.) Also I’m 100% convinced that Lance and Blue are soulmates, and they think and feel the same way. Blue didn’t reject Lance, she just knew that the team needed him in Red--Keith needed him in Red. It was reiterated several times this season that the red paladin is literally the black paladin’s right hand, and Keith needed someone like Lance to both support him and reign him in. Keith grew so much this season, both as a person and as a leader, and a lot of that comes down to Lance. So I feel like in shutting Lance out, Blue was doing what Lance tried to do when Shiro returned: stepping aside, even though it hurt, for the good of the team. I just really hope Lance and Blue can talk it out (as much as you can talk with a lion).

Pidge didn’t really have any episodes where she was the focus this season, but I still loved all of her bits. How desperately she’s searching for Matt, how eager she was to try bonding with Black, how she totally geeked out with Hunk (Hunk-Pidge science bros! Fuck yeah!) I’m hoping her search for Matt is a big focus in season 4, but you can’t deny there were bigger problems to tackle first.

(Side note: I’m also hoping for more of the Blade in season 4. My heart hurts for them in ep 1, with how no one trust them and all. I just. Let them win people over. Let people start to tell stories of the Blade of Marmora, who risk their lives to save people in need. I want them to be heroes!!!)

Moving on to Allura. (GOD, Allura.) I already loved her, but she had SUCH a good arc this season. Her desperation to be a paladin--to live up to Alfor’s legacy, to help her friends, to make sure no one else had to risk their lives--AHHH! I love her so much. And her reaction to Keith in season 2 is so much more painful now. It wasn’t explicitly addressed here, but everything about this season just very subtly redefined what we saw last season. In particular, that line from episode 7--how Alfor was so blinded by compassion for Zarkon that he didn’t realize Zarkon’s true intent. You can just feel those memories coloring Allura’s reaction to Keith. She’s so damn afraid to trust her emotions, because that’s exactly what tore the previous paladins apart.

Also, the whole history of the paladins thing just breaks my heart. Even if I have to laugh at the fandom being right--Zarkon/Haggar WAS the first canon ship! XD

(But, god, seeing them both so young. I can’t.)

I am a little curious to see if they go deeper into what exactly happened to Zarkon and Haggar in the rift. It seems like Haggar, at least, forgot basically everything until she delved into Zarkon’s memories at the very end of this season. She didn’t even seem to realize Zarkon was her husband?? Which is...a major chunk of her life. The cat was 28 decaphebes old when Alfor returned, and Zarkon’s marriage to Haggar was implied to happen fairly quickly--so even assuming a decaphebe is a year (which still seems too short for me, because Alfor seemed to have aged a lot in those 28 "years” for a species who canonically lives somewhere in the 600 year range.) Anyway, that’s a tangent. If Haggar forgot so much of her own life, how much did Zarkon forget? How much of anything they’ve done has been because of what happened in the rift? I’m just. It seems almost like Haggar and Emperor Zarkon are shells being controlled by those creatures that invaded the Galra homeworld through the rift. (And I can’t be the only one getting a Wolf 359 vibe, right?) So now I’m conflicted--did Zarkon ever REALLY betray the paladins? I don’t want a Zarkon/Haggar redemption arc, but if they’re being controlled, I can’t really make myself hate them...

*unexpected and unwanted feels for the villains* Damnit, Dreamworks, you’re preying on my weakness.

(Oh, also? It was the rift/the creature that turned Haggar’s and Zarkon’s eyes all glowy. Regular Galra have pupils and often irises. Which for me reinforces the fan theory that “Galra” is almost more of an infection than a species. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that what we recognize as Galra--specifically the glowing eyes--are not a species trait, but an effect of whatever Zarkon and Haggar found in the rift. What if it’s spreading? It hasn’t just corrupted the head of the army, but virtually every soldier, at least partially. This season has raised a lot of questions about agency--both with these rift-spores and with the alternate reality Altean non-cogs. Which. Creepy. I’m halfway expecting this series to be building to a fight against the rift creatures for the fate of all sentient life in the universe--Galra included.)

Speaking of villains! Lotor and his generals! Holy shit. I love them. I don’t trust them half as far as I can throw them, but I love them! I was swearing up a storm the instant I realized they were going after Altean tech, specifically things related to the teludav. And while I agree that they seem to be trying to reopen the rift, I can’t help thinking there’s a lot more to it than that. Lotor has given no indication so far of what, exactly, his ultimate goals are--I kinda get the impression that he says what he needs to say to sway his audience. “I’ll make my father’s empire even stronger!” “You and your people can join us, and you never have to be afraid again!” He’s been toying with the paladins all season, even though he had chances to obliterate them. I just don’t buy the theory that he wants to open the rift to get Quintessence purely for the sake of having ultimate power. And, I mean. If he WAS doing that, he could have just requisitioned the teludav piece from the Galra base. He’s NOT working with the rest of the Empire. In fact, he’s doing everything in his power to keep his activities secret from Haggar and the rest of his father’s commanders. Why?? Lotor, give me answers! I need to know what you’re after. Rewriting this universe so mixed-race Galra aren’t regarded as sub-human (sub-Galran?) maybe? Hell, everything so far points to him being Haggar and Zarkon’s child (they were married, he’s gathering Altean tech, presumably because he has enough Altean blood to use it, he looks vaguely Altean and he was half Altean in GoLion.) So what if Lotor has realized his parents are being controlled by the rift-spore things? What if he’s trying to open the rift to find and destroy the... for lack of a better term... hive-mind? He seems to be trying to create his own version of Voltron, because he knows Voltron is the only thing that can stand up to the spores. That’s why he doesn’t care about destroying the paladins--in fact, he tells his generals not to inflict permanent damage. He’s keeping Voltron as a backup plan. He might have to resort to a truce. Can you imagine Lotor’s team and the paladins joining forces to attack the rift, knowing all the while that if they both make it out, they’ll probably turn on each other?? Fuck! There are so many possibilities here I can’t stop thinking about them.

And finally

Shiro

asdfj;lav’

You know what? Nope

Nope, I have too much to say about Shiro. My heart hurts for him and I’m terrified about what season 4 is going to bring, but that speculation is going in its own post.

I’ll add the link here when I get it up.

Edit: Here it is! My theory on Operation Kuron.

#voltron #voltron season 3 #voltron spoilers #fuck #i'm so alive #*incoherent screaming*#speculation #meta

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meadeqkburnscn73insurance-blog · 5 years

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flauntpage · 6 years

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There's More to Mikal Bridges Than Meets the Eye

LAS VEGAS — Mikal Bridges is the most crystallized lottery pick in his draft class, which is one reason why his entrance into the NBA was more unsettling than expected. “My agent said anything can happen,” Bridges tells me. “That was true.”

Nothing is certain in professional sports, but whichever team picked Bridges just about knew what it would get: a wing who’ll be 22 years old on opening night, who won two national championships at Villanova with a skill-set that’s immediately suitable for the NBA's modern backdrop.

Bridges didn’t know the Philadelphia 76ers—a team in search of swift production at his own position and owned by a company that also employs his mother, Tyneeha Rivers, as Vice President of Human Resources—planned to take him with the tenth pick until they were on the clock. The moment Commissioner Adam Silver read his name from the Barclays Center podium, Rivers, who was seated to her son's left, jumped from her seat, screamed, and shook a pair of jubilant fists over her head. Minutes later, she was interviewed on live television. This was a literal dream come true on multiple levels for everyone involved; from on-court fit to off-court familiarity, it was perfect.

“It’s amazing. It’s an experience I’ll never forget, and I’m so excited he’s coming home to be a part of our Sixers family. It’s amazing,” she sang through jittery exhilaration. “Go Sixers!” Not even 20 minutes later, the overwhelming joy was partially replaced by confusion. Bridges—who didn’t have his cell phone with him—fielded questions at a press conference after the trade that sent him to the Phoenix Suns popped up on Twitter.

“I didn’t understand,” Bridges says. “I heard ‘trade’ when I was walking and they were mumbling and I asked what they were talking about and they told me later. But I was just more wanting to see how my mom was because she was so excited for me to be back home. [I’m a] big mama’s boy.”

It took a few minutes to process the news. Unlike Philadelphia, Charlotte, New York, or Cleveland, Phoenix was never on Bridges’s radar. He didn’t interview with their front office or workout for their coaches. But according to Bridges, the Suns spoke to Villanova head coach Jay Wright hours before the trade, and were confident enough with the information they gathered from him and other sources to surrender their own 16th pick and an unprotected first-round pick owned by the Miami Heat in 2021.

The initial daydream that was filled with no-look passes from Ben Simmons and a chance to defend in front of a brick wall like Joel Embiid quickly shifted to all the possibilities provided by Phoenix’s unmarked canvas and lesser expectations. “A lot of people think I was gonna be upset because I’m not home. But they don’t get the point that I was drafted that night. So it’s what people think, but I was really excited. As soon as I got traded I thought about the pieces they have and how bad they wanted me.”

Bridges had already formed a close relationship with Phoenix’s first overall pick Deandre Ayton after the two spent time together in Los Angeles at the College Basketball Awards back in April, and he remembers competing against Devin Booker at various camps during high school. Right now, the Suns depth chart is filled with positional overlap, between Bridges, Josh Jackson, T.J. Warren, and incoming $15 million man Trevor Ariza. But compared to the Sixers, where action is almost always initiated by Simmons or Embiid, the opportunity for Bridges to cultivate more areas of his expanding game may prove useful in Phoenix.

For now, he’s most appealing when there’s nothing to think about. Whenever a pass glides towards his chest and smacks into his hands, he stares at the rim, bends his knees, and uncoils a picturesque jump shot that begins just southwest of his belly button and ends a couple feet above his forehead. Topped off by a brisk release that’s unbothered by just about every defender who’s asked to stop it, his form was molded by thousands of attempts at Villanova, where the coaching staff encouraged him to center a shot pocket that originally began way out on the left side of his body.

Today’s culmination is graceful, effortless, consistent, and the primary reason he’s a lanky, cherished jewel in the minds of executives throughout the NBA. Whether he’s sprinting off a down screen or standing still on the perimeter, Bridges has already mastered a skill that will raise his floor and insure his place on an NBA roster for at least a decade.

“I feel like I’ve got a lot of confidence in myself, and I feel like every time I catch and shoot, it’s going in,” he tells me. “No matter if there’s a person in front of me.” Bridges finished college as a 40 percent shooter from deep, but got better every season. Last year, on his way to winning the Julius Erving Award, he launched six threes per game and made 43.5 percent of them. I ask if he thinks he can be one of the ten best shooters in the world. “There’s a lot of great shooters in the NBA. You can say top ten, but I just know I have confidence in myself where every time I catch it, I’m gonna make it.”

Here’s a designed play from his Summer League debut, a set that takes advantage of everything Bridges can already do at the NBA level. He slips a ball screen and then comes off Ayton’s pick for an open three. Everything is tight and the timing is perfect. It’s the type of sequence that we’ll see throughout his career, twitchy misdirection that burns a defense already worried about his teammates.

Bridges, whose pre-draft allure rested on his ability to seamlessly slide in as a 3-and-D contributor, knows what he is and why he was drafted, even though untapped potential may bubble just below the surface. “If I work on live ball screen stuff but they just want me to catch and shoot and be a defender I’m gonna do that,” he says. “I’m gonna still be working on my game, but whatever they want me to do I’ll do.”

There lies the challenge for a rebuilding team that needs to figure out if he’s more useful maxed out in a specific role, or operating with some slack, able to develop different segments of his game that would otherwise lay dormant. There’s plenty of time to find an answer, but figuring out how he can have the most impact will be worth debating right away.

“I don’t think it’d be intelligent to talk about being anything more than who you are at the highest level you can be. And I think that’ll be his mindset,” says La Salle head coach Ashley Howard, who recruited Bridges to Villanova and then coached him for four seasons. “He’ll continue to add things to his game, but I don’t think that’s smart until he’s proven that he can be that reliable guy day in and day out."

Howard was an assistant coach at Xavier when he first saw Bridges play. Then a slender standout at Great Valley High School in Malvern, Pennsylvania, Bridges’s cousin sent Howard a highlight tape. “He was the tallest guy on his high school team so he was forced to do everything. He was the best player,” Howard says. “He would handle the ball, he rebounded, blocked shots. He was really good at moving without the ball, cutting to the basket, and had a really good knack for making a lot of—just like the way he is now—easy, simple, fundamental basketball plays.”

At his first recruitment meeting after Villanova hired him, Howard told the coaching staff his thoughts on Bridges’s upside, and how he was someone the program needed to have on its radar. They watched him flash even more potential in AAU that spring and offered him a scholarship soon after.

"I’ve got a lot of confidence in myself, and I feel like every time I catch and shoot, it’s going in.”

Instead of thriving as a one-and-done prospect, Bridges red-shirted his freshman year and spent countless hours in practice and before games working out with Howard. The NBA, let alone being a top-ten pick, was still a pipe dream, but Howard did everything he could to build Bridges up into what he is today. “I would talk trash to him,” he says. “I would create drills that I knew were next to impossible and just challenge him. He would never quit, but it would just drive him to the point where he knew what I was doing and it was a grind for him. He kept battling to the point where he’d win the drills, and then I’d have to try and create new drills to force him to have greater challenges.”

The journey from those workouts—that often ended with Bridges still angry at Howard until the next one began—to Phoenix is compelling and delightful. But where he goes from here is a bit of a paradox. Bridges’s age makes his evolution feel closer to completion than it probably is—he’s two months older than Booker, who’s already spent three seasons in the NBA and just signed a five-year, $158 million contract—which makes him less shiny than the nine teenagers selected before him. But the way he improved throughout college, going from a skinny redshirt freshman to the Big East’s leader in PER and True Shooting percentage, hints at a career that could surprise a lot of people.

Three years ago, he didn't start once and averaged 6.4 points per game. Only 29.9 percent of his threes went in and his 14.5 usage rate was fourth-lowest on Villanova. Last year, he started every game, upped his scoring to 17.7 points per game and only trailed (Wooden Award winner) Jalen Brunson in usage rate.

In a day and age when having a fluid wing who can protect the rim, deflect a ton of passes, and credibly space the floor is at a premium, every NBA team wants Bridges's attributes. Sitting in the stands at Las Vegas Summer League, one writer likened him to J.J. Redick...if J.J. Redick could guard three positions. Another wondered if he could be Corey Brewer with an outside shot. At worst, he may be a more consistent Robert Covington. “Uncompromising Otto Porter/Khris Middleton” is not impossible. Neither is him getting buried in Wesley Johnson Cemetery.

Most likely, though, a shot so accurate even when under duress—"He’s a really good shooter," Howard says—mixed with the physical dimensions of a vicious help and individual defender (he's 6’7” with Draymond Green’s wingspan) epitomizes what’s most valuable in a league that requires versatility from virtually anyone who wants to play more than 32 minutes a night. Less than a quarter of all players who saw the floor that often stood 6’10” or taller last season. (Two years ago, nobody in the country defended Josh Hart—arguably college basketball’s best player at the time—better than Bridges could during practice. That’s when some of his coaches realized they might have a first-round pick on their hands.)

If he's a complementary piece then he'll have to excel with duties that are both expected and nothing to be ashamed of, in a job that blends nicely with his subdued disposition. “I think Mikal’s development was shocking because he doesn’t have the personality of a guy that’s outwardly the most confident or swagged out, right? He just shows up and goes to work everyday. Works, puts his time in. Works, puts his time in,” Howard says. “Once Josh Hart left, Mikal just kind of said ‘OK, my turn’ and then took his game up another level.”

But the blueprint for something more is there. “I don’t know what ball player doesn’t want to have more responsibilities,” Bridges tells me. “As I get older and just keep working on my game, I’m just trying to be like Kawhi and Paul George. You know, they started off more catch-and-shoot, and then when they got bigger roles they’d start playmaking.”

That’s an exciting thought. Bridges snugly fits into the NBA’s present and future. He also may top out as a role player, which makes Phoenix's decision to give up all they did for that type of service a bit divisive. But what's done is done, and if they just added a decade of Wesley Matthews-esque service to their organization then that's indisputably a very good thing. If they somehow landed a budding All-Star, all the better.

Either way, Bridges should check off multiple boxes. Whether he ends up being more than what's currently advertised or exactly what most expect, the Suns may suddenly have the NBA’s premier young core because Bridges is the type of player who elevates teammates on both sides of the ball.

"You’ve just got to keep getting better and be that player they want you to be. Embrace that role," Bridges says. "I’m just trying to be the best basketball player I can be."

There's More to Mikal Bridges Than Meets the Eye published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 6 years

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There’s More to Mikal Bridges Than Meets the Eye

Bridges didn’t know the Philadelphia 76ers—a team in search of swift production at his own position and owned by a company that also employs his mother, Tyneeha Rivers, as Vice President of Human Resources—planned to take him with the tenth pick until they were on the clock. The moment Commissioner Adam Silver read his name from the Barclays Center podium, Rivers, who was seated to her son’s left, jumped from her seat, screamed, and shook a pair of jubilant fists over her head. Minutes later, she was interviewed on live television. This was a literal dream come true on multiple levels for everyone involved; from on-court fit to off-court familiarity, it was perfect.

“I’ve got a lot of confidence in myself, and I feel like every time I catch and shoot, it’s going in.”

Three years ago, he didn’t start once and averaged 6.4 points per game. Only 29.9 percent of his threes went in and his 14.5 usage rate was fourth-lowest on Villanova. Last year, he started every game, upped his scoring to 17.7 points per game and only trailed (Wooden Award winner) Jalen Brunson in usage rate.

In a day and age when having a fluid wing who can protect the rim, deflect a ton of passes, and credibly space the floor is at a premium, every NBA team wants Bridges’s attributes. Sitting in the stands at Las Vegas Summer League, one writer likened him to J.J. Redick…if J.J. Redick could guard three positions. Another wondered if he could be Corey Brewer with an outside shot. At worst, he may be a more consistent Robert Covington. “Uncompromising Otto Porter/Khris Middleton” is not impossible. Neither is him getting buried in Wesley Johnson Cemetery.

Most likely, though, a shot so accurate even when under duress—”He’s a really good shooter,” Howard says—mixed with the physical dimensions of a vicious help and individual defender (he’s 6’7” with Draymond Green’s wingspan) epitomizes what’s most valuable in a league that requires versatility from virtually anyone who wants to play more than 32 minutes a night. Less than a quarter of all players who saw the floor that often stood 6’10” or taller last season. (Two years ago, nobody in the country defended Josh Hart—arguably college basketball’s best player at the time—better than Bridges could during practice. That’s when some of his coaches realized they might have a first-round pick on their hands.)

If he’s a complementary piece then he’ll have to excel with duties that are both expected and nothing to be ashamed of, in a job that blends nicely with his subdued disposition. “I think Mikal’s development was shocking because he doesn’t have the personality of a guy that’s outwardly the most confident or swagged out, right? He just shows up and goes to work everyday. Works, puts his time in. Works, puts his time in,” Howard says. “Once Josh Hart left, Mikal just kind of said ‘OK, my turn’ and then took his game up another level.”

That’s an exciting thought. Bridges snugly fits into the NBA’s present and future. He also may top out as a role player, which makes Phoenix’s decision to give up all they did for that type of service a bit divisive. But what’s done is done, and if they just added a decade of Wesley Matthews-esque service to their organization then that’s indisputably a very good thing. If they somehow landed a budding All-Star, all the better.

Either way, Bridges should check off multiple boxes. Whether he ends up being more than what’s currently advertised or exactly what most expect, the Suns may suddenly have the NBA’s premier young core because Bridges is the type of player who elevates teammates on both sides of the ball.

“You’ve just got to keep getting better and be that player they want you to be. Embrace that role,” Bridges says. “I’m just trying to be the best basketball player I can be.”

There’s More to Mikal Bridges Than Meets the Eye syndicated from https://australiahoverboards.wordpress.com

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