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richkidcityfriends · 9 months

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your opinion on 2022 winter Olympics

okay so im assuming this is only about figure skating and i mean oml there was so much going on. below the cut bc i think this is gonna be long.

okay so FIRST OF ALL the kamila valieva situation. where to begin. (as a note: none of this is a statement on her except in relation to the 2022 olys)

the positive test being from rusnats and only being found out in february is weird. idk if we ever found out exactly why that happened? but i can only assume it was meddling from the russian end.

i think the media response was cruel, and i think part of that was a lot of people were trying to talk about it without knowing the full situation, but the amount of vicious hate and blame kamila received was unjustified. she was fifteen years old and in an abusive situation, to what extent she knew about the doping is irrelevant in my mind, the blame falls on the adults in power (mainly her coaches). eteri tutberidze is notoriously controlling and abusive, and there is no way any of that was happening without her being responsible. she controls the amount of WATER her skaters can drink. skating at that level, especially in russia, your coach is practically your primary guardian; if eteri told her to dope then there was pretty much nothing she could do. only eteri girls were ever going to go to the olympics, if she switched coaches that would have ended her life's goal (and the way they train is so all-consuming that to not get to the olympics at all would have felt life shattering).

should she have been been allowed to skate? i dont think so. at least partially bc it essentially proves to coaches that you can "get away with" doping as long as the people you are drugging are children. obviously having an athlete who has taken performance enhancing drugs is unfair to everyone else, but that goes without saying. HOWEVER i do understand the worry that the test could have been wrong or she might not have known, either way it would have been unfair to her. (the "irreparable harm" quote is always taken out of context - they meant that if she skated and was found guilty they could strip her of the medal, but if she was banned and found innocent there was no fixing it). ultimately though i think letting her skate was the wrong decision (especially since the case STILL hasnt been settled).

i dont think eteri told her to throw the free to make sure the others got their medals, because she looked so traumatised afterwards and eteri reacted so badly (ive never understood this theory tbh)

that was the first scandal from the olys but oml it was definitely not the last. there was so much going on. olympics from hell. lets talk about the womens podium.

(but first a note on ultra c elements: do i think the sport is suffering because of the increased value placed on jumps? yes. do i think artistry is important? absolutely. do i think there is a conversation to be had about the morals of training young children (especially girls) to do dangerous jumps that cause permanent damage to their bodies? one hundred fucking percent. things need to change in this sport. however. i will make repeated references to whether or not someone is jumping ultra c when discussing the podium, because that is how its scored atm, and i do think that they aren’t irrelevant (it is a sport, athletic feats are also important) just please please know that i am also taking artistry into account its just harder to objectively phrase in a short paragraph and this is already long enough). okay caveat over. please no one attack me. lets go.

look i KNOW the most pressing question is do i think anna deserved gold HOWEVER. have you considered. did anna deserve to be sent to the olympics at all. and this makes me insane because like?? skating like she did at the olys?? yeah she probably deserved to be there!! so it kinda seems mean to talk about this but ALSO i feel like we definitely have to not forget it so. the russian olympic team was pretty much based off of the podium for rusnats, which that year was kamila, sasha, anna. but anna in third place was veryyy controversial bc like. she had no ultra c elements at all (and her tech is DODGY so without them it gets even harder to justify her high scores) but elizaveta had a triple axel (and better tech) so a LOT of people thought that she should have come third, but rusfed just wanted to send anna to the olys instead (which i pretty much agree with).

but okay whether you like it or not she DID make the olympic team so. womens olympic podium. a grenade of a question. everyone is allowed their own opinions on it im not saying anyone is wrong if they think differently!!!!! also im only going to talk about the top five bc this is already wayyy too long.

i know on tiktok a while back the popular opinion was that wakaba should’ve been gold, which i don’t really agree with, however she absolutely should not have been fifth. no doubt in my mind she should have been at LEAST fourth, if not third. kamila should have been behind her i don’t care how many quads she was attempting, she fell like five times. she got through on reputation and the eteri bonus alone. kaori did skate cleanly, but with no triple c, and her tech isn’t great on some of her jumps, so wakaba (who fell on a jump, but had a triple axel, and generally better tech and artistry imo) could have come third and i would have been happy. anna i go back and forth on, because her artistry is alright, and technically she does jump quads, but her tech skills are SO questionable (her quad lutz is neither a quad nor a lutz). the tech bar for quads is lower than for triples, and i do kinda think that makes sense, but her quad tech is worse than most of the other quad jumping girls so it’s a fair comparison. i don’t think she deserved gold, but im never fully sure about silver either. honestly her, wakaba, and kaori can fight it out for second/third/fourth. in terms of actual skaters i like wakaba best, in terms of who performed best on the day i think you could make a compelling argument for any order.

that of course leaves sasha in first place. i know she fell on her triple axel in the short, but the only people who didn’t fall at all were anna (i’ll talk about her last) and kaori, and while triple c elements aren’t the only important thing, the skater who fell on one and landed five kind of has to be above the skater who attempted none at all, imo, so that puts kaori out of the running. wakaba fell once as well, and she definitely has the edge on artistry, but i don’t think sashas artistry was as bad as a lot of people say, especially in her short, so i don’t think thats quite enough to put wakaba ahead of sasha overall. sasha’s tech skills were so much higher than the rest of the skaters that i think it would be almost impossible to bridge that gap with artistry alone. lastly theres anna, who ofc actually won the ogm. two clean skates, slightly better artistry, much worse tech (i know sasha’s tech isn’t perfect either, but she’s definitely better – id say thanks to plushenko). annas tech should have been called, if not her edges then at least for prerotation. sasha fell on a triple axel and anna landed a double in the short, sasha landed five quads and anna landed two in the free. taking into account how poor her quad tech is, i don’t think that her artisty is enough to pass sasha.

however!!!! again i want to reiterate!!!!! everyone is allowed their own opinions on this!!! i do not give a damn if you think that anastasiia shabotova should have come first!!!! go you!!! to each their own <3

now for something that i do think you can wrong about. the reaction to sashas reaction to the scores was appalling. she was seventeen years old (a CHILD) in an extremely high stress situation and had been told by her (abusive, manipulative) coaches that if she landed all five quads she would win, and when this turned out to be untrue she got upset and had what was clearly a panic attack, asked not to be filmed and was ignored by every cameraman in the area, had to immediately go in front of millions of people while still being a mess, and was then attacked from all angles for being “ungrateful” and “showing bad sportsmanship.” show some empathy. (especially ppl who are still giving out about it now “on behalf of anna” when they seemed to be at least friendly again as soon as the very next day)

OKAY WE’RE ALMOST DONE i mostly only follow women’s so the rest of this is going to be brief

sui/han deserved ogm, my sister and i were rooting for miura/kihara to do well but we knew there was no chance for a medal. loving seeing them do so well rn.

nathan chen’s costume was ridiculous. last time i said my nathan chen take i got eaten alive on tiktok so im not gonna say much about him. he did deserve gold tho.

scoring felt harsh on yuzuru. wish he’d gotten another ogm but it wasn’t meant to be. im glad he got to attempt the quadruple axel at the olympics at least.

papadakis/cizeron ogm deserved.

oh MY god i forgot about the team event. pls someone save me. im so sorry i know no one wants this much. this isn’t even the worst i can do. i have talked at my friends for hours straight before about figure skating. i cant help it i have no control. we are going to ignore the team event okay. Just give them their medals. pls. i beg. they still don’t have their medals. i know it sucks for the rest of the russian team if they lose the gold bc kamila was stripped but you have to give the rest of them their medals.

anyway if you made it until the end here is a gold star ⭐ i don’t know how you did it.

#i am SO sorry #this is way too long #but anyway yes here is a brief (yes ik but i promise this is brief) overview of my most pressing olys 2022 opinions #yes this is almost 2000 words long and yes i wrote it instead of my english hw #oh also when i say you in the post that is the impersonal you. one. no part of it is directed in particular at anyone!!!!#im not giving out to anyone!!!#altho if anyone has any questions or anything pls ask and i will elaborate #asks #figure skating #roboobin #also idk if this is even legible its the middle of the night and im sick

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sueske · 1 year

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Please talk about what other issues you have with Kakashi! the Naruto fandom loves him so much but personally I think he was a terrible leader of team 7. also he was a walking hypocrite when it came to lecturing Sasuke (plus he pretty much ignored Naruto and Sakura as they went off like Sasuke to be trained by the Sannin instead to get stronger and was pretty AWOL in their training days) Plus there was that whole guilt trip of him thinking Sasuke was obligated to return Sakura’s selfish confession to him…..ick

well idk if I wanna do a whole proper analysis on kakashi, those take time to write, and I'd rather devote that time elsewhere.

I said that and I wrote quite a bit anw but it's very rambly and disorganised so you've been warned:

he did some things all right and other things not so good. personally I just don't get what the hype with him is beyond the surface level stuff. kakashi failed all of his previous teams from becoming genin so he didn't have much experience when it came to teaching 12 year olds. anyways, kakashi taught team 7 how to walk up trees/chakra stuff and taught sasuke the chidori because his battle was coming up. from my pov it's fine he prioritised sasuke, especially to also keep an eye on him at all times considering what with orochimaru and all. he did find ebisu to train naruto and the whole jiraiya thing happened etc. did sakura express any interest in training like naruto did? no lol. once they all went off to their respective sanin though I don't see why he would've butted in. all in all he kept his team alive and taught them some stuff. he later on came up with the shadow clone jutsu training method for naruto which was successful. so he did some things all right. he was flakey as a teacher overall but not everyone can be gai sensei 😔

but more about the emotional aspect of kakashi's 'teaching'. kakashi is a hypocrite about the 'comrades/trash' thing like I talked about in that previous ask. when tobi told them the truth about the massacre kakashi ordered naruto to keep it secret. his rationale was trying to figure out if what he said was the truth or not. and when confronted with sasuke, who said he'd killed danzo and his plans for killing the rest, kakashi just said that he'd stooped so low and that sasuke's just a product of the times they live in. but. comrades. trash. kettle. black? forget trying to talk to sasuke and finding a way around it (like naruto did LOL), his first actions were to kill him. kakashi himself acknowledged it was the times they live in that created sasuke, but why try and fix that when it's easier to just kill Sasuke? If Kakashi's ninja way is to never leave his comrades behind then what does that make him? Non-recyclable trash? As I said before, Kakashi should've clarified:

'leaving ppl behind means u r worse than trash (so you shouldn't) but only if it ultimately still suits konoha's (or my) agenda.'

well, kakashi doesn't really try to understand his students (like with sasuke). sakura is another prime example of that. kakashi also told sakura in part 1 that things between sasuke and naruto were fine to comfort her, and later lamented the fact he told her those words because they actually weren't. because he couldn't see sasuke's intentions. guess playing orphan olympics didn't work out for him too well. and then at the end of vote2, kakashi says things are finally back to how it was. I'm not sure about the Japanese translation, if he means 'they' or 'things', but WHAT? no. things can't go back to the way they were. ever. if by going back he means the trio not actively killing each other than sure lol, but so much has changed, namely naruto and sasuke have changed. there's no going back to the way it was. and of course the way kakashi tries to butter sakura up to sasuke. no one is falling for that but nice try. he did more defending sakura's feelings towards sasuke than validating any of sasuke's own feelings lol.

I also don't particularly like the way he parted with sasuke at the end either. 'NoRmAlLy U ShOuLD bE iN pRiSoN' like BOY. SHUT UP. SHUT UP SHUT UP U PROBS SELF-INSERT INTO JIRAIYA'S INCEL PROTAG PORN BOOKS. BYE.

#anon #ask #anti kakashi #my stuff #rant/ramblings #sorry if it doesn't make sense #but I am a sasuke defender first and foremost yeah

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theomnicode · 2 years

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I'm once again reading some reddit comments and...

Saitama is "imagining his inner universe" when he can't even imagine a two-hit combo against King ---- Exactly... Saitama is untalented. Him learning a martial arts technique is straight up stupid.

Excuse me, since when has Saitama become untalented? Instead of just unmotivated because he became so strong he felt his talents and whatever he learned no longer mattered?

Is this why people are mad and unhappy with the manga? That Saitama the chad is not the self-insert they thought he was? That he's not actually a complete loser or something (like they pictured themselves in him and are now dissapointed and mad when he displays actual talent and are projecting)?

This talentless loser who does this with chopsticks alone?

And the chopsticks somehow don't even break apart, despite him flinging all this body weight around. Not the only time he uses chopsticks either and they don't break while somehow lifting full body weight of average male adult.

The same guy who pictures himself doing insane acrobatics and gymnastics inside his dreams because that's how he pictures himself ideally fighting if he got actually challenged? How he desires to fight? How he probably fought before he could just start tanking and oneshotting everything?

Same guy who jumped 8 fucking feet and snagged crablante's eye with a frikken tie when he had ZERO ACTUAL TRAINING? Olympic level jump btw.

Same guy who has worked multiple odd jobs like construction and theme park/festival, is great with budgeting, cooks, cleans, can do other household chores, is a handyman, improvises food sources, can prolly mend his clothes and willed himself to break the limitations of his own body?

Then obviously improvises in battles with high battle IQ and good judgement calls (Like when he immediately took out Evil Ocean Water but allowed CE to defeat Phoenixman on his own but was ready to step in if needed), has learned boxing from scratch like how he did a perfect right hook/cross against Garou.

He also performed a karate chop to the Vagus nerve to knock Garou unconscious when he thought Garou tried to mug him. Such an attack has a high risk of damaging the body instead of just knocking the person unconscious even for seasoned veterans and Saitama does it in one strike, flawlessly, without harming Garou otherwise.

Even if he copied what Garou tried to do to him then just before that, it still foreshadows his true abilities that he was able to immediately apply said knowledge properly. It's either that or pure raw acquired talent.

And this is just scratching the surface and not even mentioning his immense talents with his powers, like the sheer control that he trained 3 years to achieve.

"Untalented", btw.

Strongest man in the universe people thought had limitless potential or was infinite but he's just untalented. Physically untalented too.

Does this even make any logical sense?

Feels like we're not even reading the same manga at times.

Idk I guess if you can't be a pro gamer who wins tournaments and beat them in games, you're just a loser huh? Is that how it is?

Feels like there's a lot of cognitive dissonance going on at times.

Saitama is not Garou. It's true that Saitama is not a genious level at Martial Arts, but it hardly means he's untalented in what he sets his mind to. He also genuinely believes that humans are strong because they can change. He's an ordinary person with no special genes like espers, but what he has plenty is acquired talent when he is motivated to work to get it.

We were supposed to agree that Saitama is limitless. That's what we've been explictly told. Breaking limiter doesn't only mean that you get 999999 AP and nothing else.

Guess people forgot that premise of One Punch Man.

(pst he also folds clothes faster than most people, faster than Cyborgs at least)

All I can say to some reddit folks is:

Stop malding and self-inserting and start actually reading with your eyes open. Or stop reading, thats an option too, if OPM makes people so mad and disappointed.

#opm #one punch man #saitama #talent #fandom discourse #opm manga panels #garou #saitama is neither dumb nor talentless

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actualbird · 2 years

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hypothetical fights i want to see between the tot cast cuz it’d be fun to see how they’d fair in a fight to the death (just kidding. i mean a friendly fight as an appreciation of combat skills)

inspired by a convo i had with @samsspambox . i’d like to make it clear that when i say 'fight' here i mean a physical fight, a scuffle, some good ol fashioned "nothing personal just wanna see who would win" FISTICUFFS!!!!

with no weapons allowed, heres who i'd pay good money to see go at each other with only their unarmed martial expertise

The Battling Butler VS Agent Raven (aka ogier vs luke)

ogier is so badass. i love a fighty dude and hes dressed to the nines and he hilariously drags vyn every once in a while, whats not to love?

but yeah, clear in my memory is his combat prowess in vyn’s personal story 4. i dont know anything about ogier past that, but given that he was sent as a guard from svart by vyn’s father, i can only assume his training is of the royal guard quality type of level. thats intense!

though we also know luke is ALSO INSANELY INTENSE....

i think a spar between them would be really fucking close, irt who bests who. luke is NSB’s top agent, but i assume ogier is incredibly well trained also, youve gotta be Damn Good to be a guard of anyone remotely of royal importance

so like, what luke has got going in his favor is his NSB training obviously but also

luke has youth on his side

HSKJHFDKVJHGVSD HEAR ME OUT! aside from his illness, hes at the top of his game in terms of prime age range for physical peak, did u kno that the average age for olympic competitors is early 20s? well now u know. body can be in good shape at this point, thats a plus for him and a not-plus for ogier. idk how old ogier is (and i cant find out cuz he doesnt even have a Big Data Lab entry omfg the man the mystery the LEGEND) but he looks Older, a little past his prime. even skill cant negate the woes of aging.

buuuuuut ogier has a trump card: his training was probably completely different to anything luke is used to.

now we dont know very much about luke’s days in the NSB, but i get the impression that his work was Generally Within The Country Of Stellis OR Generally Handling People Who Are Stellans.

ogier is not a stellan. hes svartan. or svartish. or however the hell we decide to conjugate the nationality of svart. additionally, i can see it being a huge advantage for svartan guards to be keeping their training/fighting style under wraps. if opponents dont know how you’ll fight, u can catch em unaware

ogier’s fight style and tactics could be completely novel to luke, which would knock luke down a peg (both figuratively and metaphorically).

still, luke is adaptable and hes got a quick and intuitive mind. while he cant fight exactly like ogier, he’d be able to recover and figure out his own way of countering ogier’s attacks

with all that said, my personal verdict of who would win is.....//drumroll!!

nobody!

it’s a tie!

and luke enthusiastically brings ogier out for drinks later, he hasnt been tied in a match for years and hes kinda giddy about it!

(luke: you have to teach me some of your moves sometime, yeah?

ogier: of course. and perhaps you could encourage vyn to join this class as well? haha.

luke: haha.

ogier: haha.

luke: hahaha.....no. im pretty sure vyn is capable of destroying me psychologically, im not making him do anything he doesnt wanna do, thanks.

ogier: fair enough)

The Battling Butler VS The Perplexingly Over-Capable Assistant (aka ogier vs vincent)

remember when luke in main story 7.2 said this in the case files?

yeah. YEAH IVE GOT MY EYE ON YOU, VINCENT KIM!!!

vincent’s investigative prowess aside, i just think it makes sense for vincent to have some kind of combat knowledge for the following reasons:

1) currently, marius has nearly gotten stabbed a total of three (3) times. while marius has his own self defense knowledge, i wouldnt put it past vincent to get some training in as well juuuuusssstt in case knife-magnet von hagen gets into hot water again.

2) it’s unexpected. vincent does not look the type to punch anybody in the face, and thus i want him to be capable of a mean right hook

3) if nobody expects u to throw a punch, that punch can land way easier.

that being said, i dont think he’ll beat ogier at all. my view is that vincent took some classes and that his self defense training is a little bit above marius’ skill level, but it’s nothing that can go against a trained royal bodyguard

still, ogier can be caught unaware. vincent maybe gets like a few hits in before ogier takes him down

so my verdict is: ogier would win but would be very impressed by vincent for managing to fool him

(vincent: oh, i wasnt...aiming to fool you?

ogier: hm. i think that adds points for you, actually)

Baldr Civil War (aka howard syter vs william lewis)

ive got no rationale for this

i just think theyre hilariously pathetic and i wanna see them fight in a hilariously pathetic way, like the one scene in Bridget Jones’ Diary

absolute cringefail combat, this is what i WANT

maybe whoever loses has to be the one to face mc in court next, and neither of them wanna be the poor shmuck to have to get annihilated by her again

my verdict: ingrid has to break the fight up (which is happening in the baldr legal office lobby) and everybody involved loses. everybody loses their dignity

#tears of themis #tears of themis headcanons #luke pearce #idk if the others have common tags so i'll just tag luke some more LMAO #tot luke

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tutuandscoot · 1 year

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“and learning later on she was very close to broken emotionally following the 12/13 season” 🥺😰😭 could you explain it? I don’t know nothing about it!! 😭😭😭

In their book there is a moment after 2013 worlds where she seriously considers not wanting to continue competing. But she says after they attended Olympics camp in Vancouver before the start of the 2013/14 (Olympic) season, she felt motivated to go for it. I’ve never heard or read of Scott saying the same thing/feeling the same. They also say in the book Tessa had lost faith in Marina well before Scott had, it took him longer to really see that she wasn’t on their side/didn’t have their backs (i’d be really interested to know their feelings on this and how that caused that bit of a rift - likely the second of their only two major fights in their career, what affect T feeling that way had on scott and.. did it cause him guilt, had he felt he had kept them in a situation where T didn’t feel safe and happy ? i’d be interested to know how they worked through that) and they have both since said/alluded to really not being at their best (motivation, athletic peak, as well as supported by their team) and Marie France is on record saying they weren’t happy from really from the start of 2013 through to Sochi, another time saying TS were speaking to them in the season leading up to Sochi, during Sochi, and them always guiding them through their tough parts of their career.. (obviously lots of athletes have mentors/advisers not on their direct support team, that’s very normal but kinda interesting it seems in a way Marina wasn’t that mentor for them considering how long they’d been with her/other coaches at Canton). Then of course there is the time Scott actually said “we asked her if she thought we could win the Olympics and she never answered us”. I’m not certain but I assume this was at the start of the oly season- so they were competing that whole pre-season with a coach they knew didn’t believe in them. They have also alluded to Skate Canada not having their back (I have read stuff about TS not getting the politicking- push from their federation through publicity, influence etc and they were instead using the influence they had to push Patrick Chan for gold.. which he ended up getting silver.. that’s all for another discussion though and tbh I don’t really understand how it works). Here in the BBC commentary of their TE SD in 2018, Robbin Cousins (ex British skater) talks about how in 2013 they wanted to move to Marie and Patch ‘they wanted to leave Detroit to train in Canada and the federation wouldn’t let them’.. that’s the only time I’ve heard it put that bluntly.. TS have of course alluded to it and always talked about M+P being their mentors... TS are not ones to publicly complain- especially not during their competitive career and they maintained Marina was fair and cared about them- of course she did but it was clear to TS she didn’t fully have their backs.

It almost kinda feels in a way.. like.. they had done their job for her. They had won in 2010, won some world titles, and she had another team that was on a better trajectory to be the next ones to win and retain her crown for her. I’m not saying it is on anywhere near the same level.. but a bit like how you see happening with the Russian ladies. This happens all the time.. it happened to me in my ballet training, just thrown to the sidewalk when someone better (younger, skinnier) came along or i didnt see my career going in the direction that was convenient for the school.. idk.. I don’t want to believe this about Marina, but it happens a lot, it’s almost natural in a way, but she was wrong to think VM were past their prime, not capable of winning *fairly* that DW were the better bet, I mean they turned out to be but I take most sochi results with a grain of salt. Its as if DW were her bread winners (even though TS had had the far longer successful career (beating/placing higher than DW in essentially every competition 2006-2010) but for whatever reason.. she didn’t believe in TS anymore.. maybe she just didnt think they were good, maybe she knew DW would win it easily.. maybe there were deals bring made as allegedly.. i don’t know.. but i hate what it did to TS, i hate it just up to the point where it was the best thing that ever happened to them because it brought them so close together to the point where nothing could affect them in the moments where it counted, and it gave them the belief in themselves, the drive to come back and achieve even more and do it the right way with people who really took care of them.

Whatever the reasoning was, for TS that is devastating when your closest mentor/coach.. the person guiding you to be your best for so long has lost all faith in you.

T did not have an easy career. Just two years into seniors and two years before a home Olympics they were being prepped to win since 2005, she was taken out with injuries bad enough to require surgery. She wasn’t her best for really 4 years, then as we recently learned, she continued to struggle with it even considering a surgery in the off season before the 2018 olys!

So I admit I may have taken artist licence with T being ‘almost emotionally broken’.. because.. I don’t think she can be broken. I actually think she has the will power of the spinning iron core of the earth. I love how they say they learned how to be the best even if they weren’t at their best.. you never would’ve known what they were dealing with- the depths of it. Either people just never knew, or they got some headline-grabby, controversial narrative take on the basic facts (in the case of Sochi) and you either felt sorry for them or thought they are ungrateful/ sore losers. But the truth TS tell and as is backed up by their whole career, they fought so hard for every success they had, were so hard on themselves, learned not just to set goals, but why they were setting goals, what it meant to win a gold medal and that the real value and satisfaction was in the process. How they grew light years in their love and care for each other by building each other up- not blaming or ditching each other when they weren’t perfect or didn’t win. Creating this incredible journey together and no matter what forces were against them, realising their strength in each other. The confidence they instilled in each other to know they could accomplish anything both together and apart.

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talistrongbackcommless · 1 year

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How Many States

The how many states poll I answered and reblogged reminded me of my 2022 summer trip and other car ride stories.

My introduction to long car/van/passenger vehicle rides was the three-and-a-half to four hour trips we used to make from my home to my cousins' home in NY State. We'd go three to four times a year, sometimes for as short a stay as Friday through Sunday. In the summer we'd stay longer, but rarely a full week. In retrospect I see this was likely due to the adults limited tolerance for one another.

When I was 12 my family drove from MA to Orlando, FL. We stayed overnight in Atlantic City, NJ, after spending the day at the Bronx Zoo. The next day I think we spent the night somewhere in Georgia after crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (idk why my mom chose to do that, she hated every moment of that stretch of road, but it is very cool). In Orlando we went to Disney and Epcot and the now-closed River Country (which I until-today thought was named after the Fort Wilderness campground which apparently used to contain the water park before it closed). On the way home we stopped in DC to see the cherry blossoms - and not much else. We were all very tired of not having our normal routines by then and I think my parents rushed the trip home out of exasperation.

We never took a longer car trip as a family after that :P

This past summer my partner R___ and I took the Amtrak from MA to WA. We had a sleeper cabin which was an awesome way to travel. I wouldn't have wanted to travel that far by seat alone, but having the option to stretch out, and lay down was delightful. I enjoyed the older model, single-level train of the first leg (lakeshore limited) better than the more modern, two-level train we took from Chicago onward - the LL cabin had a row of windows for each sleeping bunk, and a toilet tucked right into the cabin for middle-of-the-night peeing. The Empire Builder (train line from Chicago to Seattle) was clearly a newer train but from the upper bunk your only view was the inside of the cabin.

Because there was a layover of a few hours between the arrival in Chicago of the LL and the departure of the EB, and since my oldest friend C______ lives in Chicago, we decided to stay overnight one night and resume the journey the next day, which was an excellent decision in so many ways. From the logistics perspective, it meant that we never spent more than two nights in a row on the train, which was a bonus. Additionally it meant we had time to enjoy the Field Museum, a lovely dinner at the Duck Inn, and C and I stayed up late, late into the night talking about life, growing up, being grown up, and playing crokinole (my first time).

The highlight of the train journey was the happy accident that R and I took dinner in the dining car for exactly the right seating, completely unbeknownst to us. As we were enjoying our complementary freshly prepared meal and complimentary cocktail, the train arrived at the station for Glacier National Park, then proceeded to climb into the Rocky Mountains as the sun began to set. We were treated to the golden glow of the last hour of daylight illuminating fresh dustings of snow on pine-clad ridges and valleys climbing up the slopes as we ascended into the mountains (my first time approaching the mountains by land)

On the way home, we were driving a Penske moving truck. Our goals were to 100% Rt. 90, visit Bear Lodge (colonizer name: Devil's Tower), visit Deadwood, and (suggested by a friend) visit Wall Drug store. We left on a Friday evening, planning to drive about 4 hours before stopping. We had until the following Friday to return the truck at our end destination - plenty of time, we thought. We had previously driven a rental car from the end of Rt 90 in Seattle towards Mt Tahoma (colonizer name: Rainier), which saved us some headache in the moving truck, avoiding downtown traffic and a detour since our initial departure point was on the Olympic Peninsula. We picked up Rt 90 just before the exit we'd previously used to visit the mountain, and we were making good time, but then we had to stop.

R's guts had decided to rebel (I think this is about when they coined the phrase "the bowelrog has awoken") and we spent the next three nights in the hospital in Nowhere Lake, WA. I may rant another time about the emotional journey which was being in this area, but for now I'll just say that we escaped that place with mostly pleasant memories on Independence day. We were now almost three days behind schedule, but determined to make up the time on the road.

We decided immediately that we had to skip Bear Lodge and Deadwood to meet our timeline. We also agreed that skipping those reinforced our dedication to earning the Rt. 90 100% complete badge. Unfortunately, this meant Wall Drug was still on the table - we stayed just long enough for me to eliminate a bowelrog of my own and for R to get low-key stressed out about the WAY TOO MANY FUCKING PEOPLE milling around before we jumped back on the road.

After leaving WA we stopped in Sheridan Wyoming. On Tuesday we only drove about 500 miles, stopping somewhat early in preparation for The Push. We had decided to push for 1000 miles on Wednesday, starting early and staying up late, but pushing on all the way to our home time zone, close enough to get the rest of the way home in one shorter drive on Thursday. We drove from Mitchell South Dakota to [incomprehensible] Ohio.

Did you know that in OH Routes 80 and 90 merge, as 90 dives south to get around the Great Lakes? Did you know that OH traffic signs on 80 have been allowed to deteriorate to such a degree that the characters on them don't really reflect light in a useful way? Did you know that since Rt. 80 is the 'primary' route at that point, that to stay on 90 you need to take an exit ramp?

I didn't know any of that until I was approximately 50 miles past the turn off. We spent another tenish miles deciding whether we should just follow GPS to the hotel we were aiming for, or whether we were going to turn around, drive 50 miles the wrong direction, and take 90 through Cleveland as we had originally planned. Ultimately, "I never want to come back to Ohio, and especially not just to complete a hundred miles of 90 I'll never have another reason to return to" won out. We turned around, head 50-60 miles back down 80, passed the exit for 90 and turned around again, then switched drivers and drove on through Cleveland and another stretch of highway until we reached Madison. (Incomprehensible earlier because I literally had no idea where we were by then. I had to look up my hotel reservation history to confirm that detail. I'm impressed that we made it that far - I had a memory that maybe we'd stopped slightly before we intended to because of the gods damned tireds.

From Madison to Buffalo to Syracuse to Albany and on to home we managed another 500 miles, which was still exhausting because we had not enough rest or sleep or relaxation this week, but we did it. Two amazing friends drove approximately 2 hours each way just to meet us at the storage unit where we unloaded the truck, which we managed to do that same night. Then we slept, and then we returned the truck on time and full of gas! (except for one minor hiccup where I had to go fill the tank after the guy had started my paperwork and technically got back after noon but he didn't ding us for it!)

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degreeofdisorder · 2 years

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today i am thinking about how michael holden being an olympian (x2) means he’s gotta be in like...... olympic athlete shape.............

#hs livenats #figure skating is more my area of expertise rather than speed skating #but knowing how Hard they go at training pre-olympics just #they genuinely have no life outside of training #by the olympics they are at peak human levels #and like..... all that..... but /it's michael fuckin holden/#idk #much to think about

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nexus-nebulae · 2 years

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bro i think the Olympics are cool and all but like. seeing literal 14-15 year olds competing just. really rubs me the wrong way

#echos #like these kids aren't even out of school and they're sitting there in international sports competitions #plus it's no secret that like. along with these high-level sports pushing you to your fucking limit #a lot of coaches will encourage harmful behaviour solely to get ahead #idk i just. it's cool seeing world records being broken. but does it have to be done by literal teenagers?#also the ages i listed aren't even an exaggeration. those are actual competitor ages I've seen in headlines #and it's also just weird when it's like. this 14 year old girl who's dressed and made up to look like she's in her mid-20s #idk it just. i really don't like it. i hate seeing kids in hollywood or on youtube (like those awful family channels n stuff)#and i can't imagine the Olympics are any better for them #unpopular opinion but. i really don't think teenagers really need to be in international spotlights. like for any reason ever.#it's not good for mental health and especially not good for someone who is very much still developing mentally #You don't fully get out of puberty until your early 20s. like. they're only halfway through that shit. some have only just started #not to mention! if they're only 14 at the age of the competition itself #that means they would have been 10 *or younger* when they started training #idk #i just. i think the Olympics should have a minimum age for competing #like they should have to be 18 or older to compete #or something like that

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kittyprincessofcats · 2 years

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Doping Stuff™, Pt.2 (follow-up to this post)

Now that it’s official that Kamila was tested positive for trimetazidine, and now that I’ve had more time to think this whole situation over, see opinions and read up on things, I have a few more things to say.

- Eteri (and her team, and that doctor, and everyone else responsible) making Kamila take this medication is not just cheating in sports at the highest level, it’s also straight-up bodily harm of a minor. I’m not a medical expert, but from what I’ve read trimetazidine is only used for serious heart diseases and only for adults. It basically, from what I understand, makes your heart need less oxygen and helps against vertigo (definitely relevant to figure skating). It’s straight-up doping. And I wonder what long-term effects taking it could have on Kamila’s health because I doubt it’s a harmless thing to just take. What I’m saying is: Just banning her from coaching for life is not enough. Eteri basically poisoned a child. She should go to jail.

- ROC absolutely should lose their Team Event medal and Kamila should lose the European title (and also the National title, though idk if Russia cares enough to enforce that). Oh yeah, and her personal bests/world records won at those events, the “first woman to land a quad at the Olympics” thing... that all needs to go. Again, it’s absolutely not her fault and I feel terrible for her, but those medals and achievements are now proven to have been won while under the effects of a banned substance. If figure skating wants to retain even the slightest bit of the impression of being a fair sport, it should be absolutely no question that medals, titles and scores won with doping don’t get to be kept.

- And pretty much the same is true for Kamila’s participation in the individual event. I was a bit hesitant to say it my last post, but really, it should be a no-brainer: No, you can’t compete in the Olympics if you straight-up doped. You can’t call a sport fair and then let someone who broke the doping rules compete. Trimetazidine is banned in and out of competition. It doesn’t matter if the sample was from december. Letting Kamila compete would be unfair to every clean athlete here, it would completely destroy the idea that figure skating is a fair sport and that the Olympics are a fair event. And I hope they know that. (It would also send Russia the message that they can keep doping and get away with it.)

- I’ve said this before as well: If Kamila was doped, I highly doubt the other Eteri girls weren’t. Maybe not necessarily now (though that also wouldn’t surprise me), but if she’s not above drugging one of them, she’s not above drugging any of them. This brings back memories like that time they made Anna Shcherbakova compete with pneumonia and gave her smelling salts and how she somehow magically managed to get better over night and skate a great free skate. And that camp’s entire “unreachable” dominance in this discipline in general now seems incredibly suspicious. I thought it was just corrupt judging but now that we know there was doping involved as well... holy shit. This part is of course just speculation, but it definitely makes me at least question literally all of the Eteri girls’ results. And that makes me even angrier at everyone who ignored Eteri’s abusive methods for years and praised her to the heavens.

- It also makes me angry on behalf of all the athletes who were made to compete with the ET girls and told they’d never be as good over and over. I’m thinking in particular of my favourite women’s skater - Rika Kihira from Japan - who was constantly under so much pressure to compete with these Russian girls, who tried so hard to live up to that pressure and trained quads of her own, who then got injured because of all that overtraining and is now not at the Olympics because of that injury... and my heart breaks for her, too. To go through all of that and be told you have to be as good as these girls, to overwork yourself and lose your chance at the Olympics over it, only to then find out those girls were doped all along... I feel awful for her. She should be right here at these Olympics, and she should be a top medal contender.

- I hate how everyone who’s propped up Eteri and showered her with praise for years is now suddenly acting like they care about the well-being of these kids. Like, did you see Ted Barton’s tweets? As if he wasn’t the one who promoted Eteri for years? As if he didn’t block and belittle fans for expressing concern for Anna’s health during that whole smelling salts situation? As if he wasn’t literally a part of the problem?

- And lastly, this might sound like a strange thing to say, but despite how terrible it is this situation is, it’s making me feel cautiously optimistic - optimistic about Eteri finally going down, that is. Yes, it’s frustrating that we’ve all been calling out her abusive methods for years and no one listened... but they’re listening now. I can’t help feeling incredibly vindicated that this is all finally out there and getting talked about. The Olympics are the biggest stage ever and this is all over the news in every country. And most news outlets I’ve seen acknowledged that this is not 15-year-old Kamila’s fault, but the fault of “her coach”. Again, it’s too early to say what will happen, but a part of me feels optimistic that this might be the end for Eteri and her entire camp and the start of a serious conversation of how kids are treated in this sport. Maybe this is optimistic, but I hope she’s finally met her match. And that between this and the talks about raising the age limit, women’s figure skating might finally become fairer again.

#Figure skating #Olympics 2022 #Russian Doping Scandal #Eteri Tutberidze #Kamila Valieva #Anna Shcherbakova #Ted Barton #Rika Kihira

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youssefguedira · 2 years

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some more fencing au thoughts bc i was fencing last night and therefore had more thoughts:

joe and nicky, because they fence sabre and foil respectively, do (jokingly) argue about the merits of foil vs sabre. every time a new fencer decides to try sabre nicky sighs dramatically and complains about losing all the foil fencers to the dark side (sabre). and vice versa for joe. they have a whole thing going on. it actually gets worse once they've gotten together. they unite to bully booker, however, who is an épéeist and a french grip user

thought about backstory stuff for some people. joe was a very energetic child so when he was 10 his parents signed him up to a local fencing group just to give him something to do with all the energy and he loved it. when he was 11 his coach let him try sabre and he has never looked back once. he fenced competitively in college/university (a little bit in high school) but didn't take it any further than that and now just does it for fun. he's a translator for his day job (subject to change if i decide to) and an artist when he has time

he's a very experimental fencer he just likes to Mess Around and see what happens. he's difficult to beat partially because it's difficult to tell what he'll do next. he uses balestras and flunges a lot bc he thinks they're neat (esp. balestras bc they ARE neat. but kinda hard). because he's a sabreur he's Fast

nicky was the opposite, very understated, started fencing when he was 8-9. his parents took it incredibly seriously and he started to do the same. he trained with a whole lot of different coaches (one of them being andy, who tried to encourage him to Chill Out) and was training for the olympics with the italian national team when he either got a fairly bad knee injury or developed some kind of chronic joint issue. idk yet. but either way that coincided with a bunch of other stuff w/ his family and he left italy and stopped fencing for a while while he recovered. andy bullied him into joining her group the second she found out he'd moved to the uk (and was an instrumental part in helping him work through his injury + complicated feelings about fencing after it. eventually he realised he is just allowed to have fun with it)

nicky is a less experimental fencer but because he's been trained by so many coaches he knows a lot of different styles and he uses almost all of them. he's the sort of person who will pull out a weird move you knew was possible in theory but have never seen a person actually do before. he's very strategic + precise. he also uses an italian grip (nile teases him about it (for being an old man and using a grip that is technically legal but definitely not common) and joe is just surprised because he's never seen one before)

andy is a foilist and was an olympic / world championship fencer, #1 in the world for a little while. she met quynh at said olympics/world championships and they had a whole enemies to lovers thing despite fencing entirely different weapons (foil vs sabre). she retired from international competition after she and quynh got married, largely because she got tired of it. she and quynh formed the old guard because despite retiring from competition she still gets antsy when she doesn't fence. she's a terrifying coach but also a very good one

i haven't worked out a lot of quynh's backstory yet but she's a sabreur and she's very good.

nile picked up fencing in college (/ the military but idk if that's a thing in the american military) and competed at that level in foil. she and jay and dizzy were on the foil team together. andy may have also helped coach her for a while before moving to the uk, and when nile moved for work andy immediately got her to join the old guard

nile's style is. very american. she's also picked up a lot of tricks from andy (weird stuff that nobody does anymore) and nicky (overly complicated forms) who are the two other foilists in the group. she also fences joe in sabre for fun and practice sometimes. they are, in this au as in all of my others, best friends.

merrick is my least favourite kind of fencer who learned it at private school and thinks everyone else is beneath him. he is, unfortunately, a foilist, which makes me (a foilist) annoyed on principle but this is just so the final showdown can be andy or nile vs merrick. his style is very old fashioned british. and he uses a french grip unfortunately

#neon has thoughts #the old guard #fencing au #anyway yeah uh. i offer you this #merrick is vaguely inspired by a few fencers i have unfortunately met before #andy is also vaguely inspired by a (very intimidating) coach i met once #the foil vs sabre argument is something i joke about with the sabreurs i know #the french grip épéeist thing is just me being me #long post #more thoughts bc i wasn't done actually: i think it takes a long time for nicky to relax when it comes to fencing #he loves it but his parents were also very strict about it so he took it incredibly seriously #when andy met him he was in his late teens-early 20s and very tense + very stoic. she coached him for a year or two #as part of a small group with some one on one bits. he was very good but wasn't very good at taking losses well #(his parents really wanted him to be the best and weren't very good at hiding their disappointment when he wasnt. so he internalised that)#she did give him some advice (largely telling him to just calm down a bit)#after he got injured/diagnosed with whatever he couldn't fence for a while and that was a pretty big thing for him. he struggled with it #for a long time. + especially after leaving italy he had some difficulty with thinking about fencing at all (lot of complicated feelings #about how much pressure his parents put on him and whether he really wants to keep fencing)#andy helped him get back to where he was especially with his injury. it was largely one on one. for a while he was doing just seated #to practice bladework and eventually got back into footwork. she also helped him realise that actually he can #separate his feelings about his parents from his feelings about fencing on its own and by the time andy finally persuades him to fence with #other people i.e join the old guard he's almost 30 and doing a lot better than he was #he ends up doing the same thing for joe that andy did for him when joe gets injured during the au

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possibilistfanfiction · 3 years

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same english football fan here! ty for your answer - v rare that i get to talk with someone who both enjoys football and cares to engage with the context of wider issues in & around the game… i relish the opportunity lol

100% agree about the impact of ‘99 team. i’d say it bled out beyond creating this stagnant image of what the uswnt ‘should’ look like into football more generally. i grew up playing & ‘lesbian’ was one of the worst insults on the pitch - you could see people actively leaning into this hyper-feminine presentation to avoid it (like with tobin…). definitely fucked with my little gay brain, a sport i love subconsciously teaching me i was an insult…

i don’t enjoy alex as a player. at all. some set ups definitely need the player to draw fouls, slow it down etc but i don’t think she’s good enough outside of that? (espec not if you’re going to sideline christen lol) idk comparing her to someone like grealish in eng men - can play a false 9, drawing fouls is a major part of his game but he’s almost stupidly creative on & off the ball. lbr alex’s face fit for the old guard scared of changing dynamics & it’s perhaps kept her more centralised than her talents deserve? (i’m also a bit bitter at her 6 month training holiday at spurs as a former spurs player lol)

could spend pages on christen. watching her play for man utd was a delight - the shift she puts in off the ball, can tell she is someone who gets the game on a fundamental level and reads patterns, not just good w the ball at her feet. agh, so much of your response i haven’t even mentioned - i may return for more football chat lol

first of all i would be remiss to not be like holy shit congrats on playing w spurs?? badass !!

also yah i think that their impact changed women's football in general for sure, but also women's sport more broadly & even just body image for DFAB ppl in general. that sounds like a rly wild claim but i think if we look at diet culture & how the "ideal body type" for women rly started to become a little more "athletic" in the early 90s (e.g., britney spears!) it's impossible to look past brandi chastain's iconic image. & its odd bc that actually has nothing to do with the uswnt itself but it was at the time of this rampant like low-fat, low-carb diet culture rise (i'm sure we all remember the horrifying 100 calorie packs). i think about this, like, every day lol like it’s ok to perform some kind of masculinity (eg sport, muscles, streetwear etc) as long as ur thin, white, wealthy, family-oriented, patriotic, christian, able-bodied, neurotypical, straight, etc etc. it’s just so anti-Black at its core in clear service of the state. i think of it in light of a radical fat politic now & especially during the olympics when its like becoming more & more clear that the surveillance of Black & brown queer femme bodies is more apparent in sport than ever ... the uswnt has this standard that is tied to class & performance & race & sexuality etc. anyway that's a lot but... i rly do think it's true

it's odd too, i think football afforded me the opportunity to perform or present androgyny in a way that my conservative christian family & community deemed okay bc i was just a "tomboy" or, the even more respectable, "an athlete." for me i found an incredible amount of quiet freedom on the field bc of that, even tho i couldn't name it at the time. as i got older i too leaned into trying to be feminine (like tobin) in a way that was just so horrifically dysphoric for me. tobin being a huge homo now is like... soothing lmao like yah babey me too!!

anyway abt football i too don't think alex is great. sure she's scored a lot of goals but like ........ she isn't a wonderful player? i don't love comparing women to men players just bc the game is different in (the best) ways for women but even comparing alex to sinc or viv like... she's boring at best? that's what i could say about her as a player lol. as a person i think she's a democrat so like white women approve of her but she's also so diluted in any opinion that conservatives think she's fine. which is also gross lol

(don’t get me started on how “equal pay” as a crusade without any discussion of a radical, intersectional politic misses the mark so terribly its not even on the same planet but ... )

cp puts on defensive shifts off the ball that are... absolutely nuts. watching her play is truly beautiful bc i don't think anyone in the world plays like her. she's so smart & sees like 20 plays ahead, her finishing is beyond. it's fun to watch her play with tobin honestly bc i think their vision & workrates are so similar but their styles of play are so different (in a fun way tbc lol). i wish we could know what 1v1 days look like at their house lol

anyway pls message me abt football et al anytime!! (if u wanna connect off anon lmk)

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normal-thoughts-official · 3 years

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Thots on a figure skating au??? 🅱️lease

hmmmmmmm ok so disclaimer that i know nothing about figure skating so i'm just making up whatever

you got me in a difficult position here cuz on the one hand, i'd love for magnus to be a trainer/coreographer. i think it suits him wonderfully and that while obviously he is great at dancing and loves it, i think that he's more on the creative side of things, you know? so i could imagine something like figure skater alec and trainer magnus. and like alec is a shadowhunter so of course that demands a high level of control over your body that is similar to a figure skater's

but at the same time its funny to me to try to imagine alec figure skating when hes a fucking giant like that because like hes so big?? and when ur big like that ur kind of like... mandatorily graceless and clumsy to a degree methinks (not in a like oh hes always tripping and blushing way, more like the "you're on my leg, you asshole" blooper), because things aren't made for you. like really its an actual matter of accessibility sometimes, especially if you actually have the proportions of a real person like alec does (well, except for the yaoi mcfuckhands. they look big even compared to the rest of his ridiculous body he just b standing there and im like christ edward fingerhands we get it) cuz then Everything Is Bigger Than It Should ya feel

so yeah i can't really imagine alec in like, spandex being all graceful and shit, but at the same time rationally i could imagine that for his character, but also no. so i can't really go with that idea without laughing

but also i can't imagine him as a trainer/coreographer and i don't know who the fuck else is involved with figure skating anyway so is alec like, the janitor or some shit???? some fucking basketball player who sees him at the olympics??? lord help me i have no idea

OK SO IT'S BEEN LIKE 5 MONTHS SINCE I FIRST PUT THE FIRST PART OF THIS ANSWER IN MY DRAFTS (rip anon im so sorry) and i THINK i got it!!! alec could be like, the uhh personal trainer? physical trainer? YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN like the one dedicated to making sure the figure skater's body is. capable of. dancing. idk how to explain it but you do get it don't you??? ok

i'm mostly going off my dancing experience here (i had dance classes for like, 10 years of my life, and ugh i miss it) and like besides dancing you always have to train like lifting and doing localized training and stuff because you can't really dance if you don't have strength and flexibility and stamina and all that stuff. the only time i would willingly work out was for dancing lmao especially when i was in my hiphop crew. anyway

and while for me the one responsible for that part of training was the same person as my teacher/coreographer (or when i was doing hiphop it was just. on me to do that lmao but i'm not complaining) i figure when you're a professional and not just a dumb kid that's probably two different people, right? if not it is now. idc

i could go with figure skater magnus and trainer alec but also im really feeling the dynamics of coreographer magnus and trainer alec? like it'd be cute/funny to see them trying to work together for that ya know. so sorry that this feels less like a figure skating au especially since it took me so long to answer it but aaa

but also i mean as a coreographer magnus would have to know how to do it obviously so you would most definitely get a figure skating magnus. alec going to close up the gym and seeing magnus practicing by himself just for fun, anyone? and magnus looks gorgeous as ever way more gorgeous than whoever they're coaching but that's just alec's opinion and magnus kind of stops like "oh, i didn't know you were here" and alec's like "oh oops. anyway keep going you're great at this" and magnus feels a little self conscious but soon he gets lost in it again because really he loves doing this and alec is just appreciating the artwork :)

ANYWAY the dynamics of trainer and coreographer are fun. magnus showing up to alec like "hey alec so i need some heavy lifting on them arms cuz meliorn [idk i don't have any better ideas for who they could be coaching] is gonna carry an elephant onstage" and alec is like "uhh" and meliorn is like "a fake elephant" and alec is like "i mean good but i still have questions"

and magnus is like "obviously we would never use trained elephants, the way they are treated is inhumane" and alec is like "you're completely right but also that's your only worry when it comes to meliorn carrying a real elephant?" and magnus is like "i'm sure you could pull it off ;) you're the best after all" and alec gives him that amused smile

advantages of meliorn: they don't care about the flirting anyway since they are literally Like That too

also magnus and alec working out together off the clock, some ogling on both sides and just generally funny competitive shenanigans. especially cuz like magnus is hella fit but alec works in that stupid gym so he knows what he's about. and alec's all smug about it like "i can lift more than you :)" and magnus is like "oh yeah? let's see how you do in the ring" "no" "yes" "no" "why, can you not do it?" "yes. i know my limits" "well that's too bad... because you're going in anyway"

cue alec falling on his face probably but also like goddamn it he's competitive and he's not gonna let magnus have too much of a win so he tries his best rip. anyway then we probably get some hip touching bullshit when magnus tries to explain it to him and magnus is flirting the whole time and alec's laughing and it's sweet

i have half a mind to make up some angsty backstory about how magnus used to be a figure skater too and his partner was (you'll never guess it) camille and then she pulled the rug from under him and he kinda left the competitions altogether for a while. and then he came back as a coreographer (listen, he loves to dance, but creating is one of his favorite parts and he was always involved in coreographing anyway. his old coreographer and him were always having a blast and camille did not like it) and this is kinda his debut as a coreographer at some big shot competition idk and he just feels like he has so much to prove?

lol bonus camille's new coreographer is lorenzo so the hating magnus squad is in thick against him and it's a whole thing you know

OH MEGA ANGSTY camille got him out of the competition because she outed him as trans and he was declassified because something something transphobic bullcrap so he wasn't allowed anymore. i assume this was like right after they won because of course she wouldn't compromise herself, or maybe it was at the beginning/pre-stages of the championship so she had time to find a new partner. yeah that last one and then she won with the coreography that he had helped them create. im saying she did that because he broke up with her finally after years of abuse both in work and out of it so she did that as revenge or to make sure he couldn't have his passion anymore. and it took magnus years to build himself back up as a coreographer this time because transphobia (and racism) in the market but guess what? he is extremely smart and talented and creative so now he is back at the championship and he wants to show the world what they have been missing on

hmmmmm also i implied this is in pairs since magnus and camille used to be one so i think meliorn's pair would probably be izzy and maybe that's why alec's involved? like he was already a personal trainer or whatever which his parents were fine with even though it's not of course as grand as they would've liked (meaning they were total asses about it) but when izzy decided to go into sports/art they lost their shit and didn't want to support her so, you know, alec did and became her trainer. which is just as well because he is the best so like, deal with it. not saying they like kicked her out or anything (esp cuz i imagine part of alec's reasoning is that izzy stood by him when he came out and if they didn't kick him out over being gay they wouldn't kick her out over being a skater but y'know) but they definitely wouldn't support her so they both also feel like they have a lot to prove

lol me: i have half a mind to make this angsty. also me: paragraphs and paragraphs of angsty backstory

anyway they win obviously idk what to tell you they just do cuz we stan talent. camille is second for maximum drama and vengeance, the lightwoods try to get the spotlight once izzy wins and she and alec tell them to fuck off, they advocate for specific rules prohibiting ppl to declassify trans ppl over being trans and that's all i have tbh

sorry it took so long to answer daiudsauihda but i hope that outline is at least interesting for you!

#sh #shadowhunters #malec #magnus bane #alec lightwood #izzy lightwood #meliorn #lightwood siblings #ask #anonymous #long post #figure skating au #camille belcourt is an abuser

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hootenanie · 3 years

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Tagged by @longwander

Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you want to know better.

1. Name/Nicknames: jackaro, but folks also call me Jack or Jackalope

2. Gender: I don't find the idea of innate gender useful but I present as more or less a (fruity) guy

3. Star Sign: sagittarius! Not what I was assigned at birth but it's the one that fits me

4. Height: I'm like 5'9.5? Around that

5. Time: it's 3:42

6. Birthday: November 20th, 1998

7. Favorite band: that's really hard! I've been listening to Giles, Giles & Fripp a lot lately so let's say them

8. Favorite solo artist: who do you think 😔. my wife david bowie

9. Song stuck in my head: I'm listening to Long Haired Lady rn and that's all I've got in my head

10. Last movie: I honestly don't remember, I don't really watch movies anymone

11. Last show: Seinfeld! I got into it because I co-wrote a ttrpg based on it

12. When I created this blog: late last year, but I've been on tumblr since 2012

13. What I post: music, comics, and jokes :-) I like to goof around on here

14. Last thing I googled: "Dando Shaft", that band julian recommend me

15. Other blogs: none at the moment

16. Do you get asks: infrequently, unless I ask for them. I like getting them tho

17. Why I chose my url: I used to be very into american folk music and it's a kind of folk jam session

18. Following: 166

19. Followers: 282

20. Average hours of sleep: most nights I get about 7, but I often wake up in the night and I don't know how long it takes me to fall back asleep

21. Lucky number: 666 (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

22. Introments: I have a vintage harmonina somewhere that I was going to teach myself how to play before I lost interest (I don't actually like harmonica music that much and it's rusty)

23. What am I wearing: Cotten scarf with a colorful pattern (butterflies) and jacket over a vest over a long sleeve shirt over a tshirt, with blue jeans and missmatched socks. Basically the jackaro uniform lol

24. Dream job: I have no idea what I'd like to do, recently I was daydreaming about being an olympic level figure skater (not something I actually want but I picked up rollerblading again recently so it's fun to think about)

25. Dream trip: peyote seems fun!

26. favorite food: idk, milkshakes?

27. Nationality: american and I hate it here

28. Favorite song: I've been listening to Kiev by Renaissance a bunch lately, it's fantastic. Definitely the band's best song, at least that I've heard recently

29. Last book I read: I've still got frankenstein around here somewhere...

30. Top three fictional universes I'd like to live in: hm well I'm gonna say the metal gear universe for a start, not because it's utopian (it's pretty dogshit, geopolitically) but because I think I could integrate well. Then I'll go with DC's Earth-Twelve, the alternative universe DC put their goofiest stuff in. Lastly I'm going with the fantasy world portrayed in prog rock album covers, partially Yes albums.

Tagging @psygull @steampunkforever @nikcage @glam-master-glammer @boffin-in-training @birdlizard @shiny-good-rock @lrvu @sybilius @girlfriendsofthegalaxy ok I'm not gonna think of 20 people who I haven't already seen tagged I'm sorry. Do this if you'd like to

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pagingevilspawn · 3 years

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stick it

What even is this fic? Idk, but i was missing gymnastics, so this is what y’all get. Its super bad, super weird, and not a whole lotta jolex, but whatever.

Also, nobody cares, but the way I'm giving the scores is (most likely) different than what is averaged for Washington. I’ve never competed in Washington so i don’t know how hard their scoring is, but I did compete in one of the hardest regions in the US for gymnasts, so scoring was always a LOT more harsh than it was in other states and areas of states. Even though nobody is gonna pay attention to that I just thought I'd say something lol.

And fun fact- our girl is a (much) better gymnast than i ever was, so… tea 🍵🍵

~*~

Jo watched her husband do their daughter’s hair from the doorway, some kind of a braided bun she didn’t know the name of. She smiled at the sight. It never failed to bring a smile to her face, even though it had become pretty common these past few years. She cradled the bottom of her six month baby bump in the palm of her left hand, her right holding her piping hot tea in a thermos. Once Alex was done putting in all of the excess pins, she watches as he puts a hand over their daughter’s eyes, pulling out the can of hairspray and spraying it into her hair.

The almost nine year old girl lets out a giggle, commenting on how the hairspray smelt funny. Alex pulls out an Amped Up brush, combing back any flyaway hairs that might have escaped the spray. She snaps out of her trance when she hears her phone alarm go off, alerting the other two in the room of her presence.

“Mommy!” her daughter exclaims, running over to her to give her a quick hug, much to the dismay of Alex. He was just thankful that he was already done with her hair. Even after three years of doing hair it still took a long ass time to do buns, especially when his daughter was the perfectionist she was.

“Hey Dyl,” Jo reaches down, returning her daughter’s hug, giving her a tight squeeze before she watches Dylan retreat back to her dad, sitting in front of the mirror once again.

Jo looks at Alex, who’s attention was focused on adding the shiny black scrunchie into the little girl’s hair. “I’m gonna get Aub up.” she whispers to him, watching him nod before she turns and makes her way down the hall, where their three year old daughter was sleeping. It was only five-thirty, so she knew what a hassle it would be. Aubryella was exactly like her parents in that way, a complete night owl. It was always a hassle to get the girl down at night, but even tougher to wake her up in the morning. She flicks on the small night on the girl’s bedside table, the lamp shade casting a soft pink glow around the all pink room.

Much like her name, Aubryella was the definition of a girly-girl. She was all about pink, barbies, fashion, makeup… anything that would be described as girly, the three year old liked. Alex always gave props to Jo for that, since while she was pregnant with their youngest daughter she claimed that the tiny life growing inside of her was going to be an ‘all that and a bag of chips little diva’, so she thought it was only appropriate to give her a name to suit that title. (Good thing her mommy instincts were correct. She knew that if she gave Dylan that name and not Aubryella she would hate it more than life itself.)

She shakes the girl lightly, hoping that it was enough to wake her up, which it ultimately wasn’t. She begins to run a hand through her hair, which ends up failing too. Jo lets out a sigh.

“Aub. Aubrey. Elle. Ella. Ree. Aubryella. Get up sweetie.” she shakes the girl harder, finally stopping when the tiny blonde lets out a loud groan of protest. Yep, definitely a Karev.

“No mommy,” the girl says, her word muffled since her face was buried in her soft pink pillow case, using one hand to sleepily push her moms face away. It was too close to her ear, and she just wanted to sleep.

Jo chuckles, rolling her eyes at her daughter's antics. “It’s state’s day.” she whispers, knowing that that would get Aub’s attention.

As expected, the little girl gets up immediately, rubbing her tired as, not looking as asleep as she probably should, the talk of the upcoming meet more than enough to get her blood rushing. Though Aubryella wasn't a gymnast herself (she had started dance class a year ago and had found her calling then), watching gymnastics was something she loved to do, especially when it was her own sister competing. Not to mention, it was the topic of nearly every dinner for the past month and a half.

The mom watches as the girl hassles out of the bed quickly, picking up her blanket and rushing to the bathroom to brush her teeth. Jo stays behind, making the bed. Normally, Aub would need to do it herself, but since they were on a time limit, she decided it would be best if she did it instead. When the girl gets back in the room Jo picks out her clothes, a dusty rose sweater and black jeans, both wasting no time in putting them on. She runs a comb through her daughter’s long dirty blonde hair, a trait she inherited from her Aunt Amber and Grandma. Aub actually looked more like the two than her own parents to most people, with her dirty blonde hair and blue-green eyes. But anyone who actually looked at the girl could see that she had Jo's nose and Alex’s chin. Not to mention, that crooked grin was all Alex Karev.

Jo picks up her daughter from her spot on the bed, grabbing a jacket that was hung on a hook before heading out of the door and down the hall, stopping when she went down the stairs and entered the living room. She sets the girl down by a chair in the kitchen, going to the cabinets and pulling out the doughnuts and cereal. “Which one?” she asks, holding up each dessert in a different hand.

The girl grins mischievously, making the mom let out a small chuckle before pulling a powdered sugar doughnut out of the box. She didn’t know why she expected anything else.

Aubryella accepts the doughnut gratefully, giving out an absent minded thank you before shoveling the treat in her mouth, getting the white sugar all over her face. Jo doesn’t need to wait long before she hears two sets of footsteps come down the stairs, Dylan dressed with her white and light blue leotard on, black warm ups on over it, Alex in a simple pair of jeans, back t-shirt, and the damn black jacket that he never got rid of, no matter how many protests he got from his wife.

“Ready?” Jo asks, all three of them nodding in response. “Okay, you got your bag, shoes, extra hair ties, water bottle, lucky bear, extra bobby pins, thera band, notebook, phone, mascara, lip gloss, hair brush, wallet, tiger paws, ankle brace, knee brace, and wrist brace?” she questions again, going over the list she had memorized from years of training.

Dylan rolls her eyes impatiently. She didn’t want to be late. She couldn’t be late. It was States for god’s sake! Everyone in the state of Washington (who qualified) would be there. The judges would be scoring harder, and some of the competition was going to be new. She was going to go up against girl’s she hadn’t before. Her goal was to win everything. Maybe it was extreme, but it was true. This season she had done well, really well actually. Her first season as a level seven had started off in the best way. She swept the first competition clean, getting first on vault, floor, and all around, second on bars, and third on beam. As the season went on she just got better, scores getting higher and snatching more golds with each meet. She knew she wasn’t going to be in the Olympics one day, but getting a college scholarship was looking more promising with every first place medal she had stacked around her neck.

“Yeah, now let’s gooooo,” Dylan drags out, grabbing her dad’s hand and pulling him to the door, not even waiting for her mom and sister to follow. The four Karev’s shuffle into the car and drive an hour and fifteen minutes to the convention center where the meet was being held. They pile out of the car and check in, Alex taking a few minutes to add an extra layer of hairspray to Dylan’s hair while Jo puts a light coat of mascara on the girl’s eyelashes and dabs the lip rosy gloss on her lips.

Before the eight year old can run off her coach, her parents kneel down in front of her, her eyes letting them know how scared she was behind her calm facade. “Hey,” Jo grabs a hold of her little girl’s shoulders, making her hazel eyes that were identical to her own stare deeply into hers. “You got this. Go out there and have fun, alright? You know your routines, you won’t mess up. Okay?” she reassures her. Jo pulls her daughter into a hug, “I love you baby.” she whispers into her ear, passing her off to Alex.

Instead of staying on the ground, he picks her up and puts her on his side, much like you would do a small child. Dylan had always been on the smaller side, since neither one of her parents were very tall, but gymnastics had definitely stunted her growth a fair amount. For most people it would be a curse, but as all gymnasts know, it was a blessing.

“We’re right here if you need us. Go kick some ass Dyl, and win that state title. You want that banner right?” he teases. Dylan did want a banner though. At her gym, whoever won a state, regionals, sectionals, or nationals title got a banner hung up from the ceiling. She had one from last year, when she won floor, vault, and the all around as a level six, and even more from the years before that in levels three, four, and five.

But a banner as a level seven? Now that would be a dream come true. Why break the streak now? And not to mention, her group would be the last level seven group to go for the weekend, so if she got a high enough all around score, it could be factored in for the team’s total, which could mean another banner (this one provided by the competition) and trophy, if their total score was in the top three. And believe me, she was determined to win that banner, not for her, but for her team.

Another thing she inherited from her parent’s, their competitiveness.

Dylan gives her parents and sister one last hug and ‘I love you’ before ducking under the chain and meeting her coach and teammates on the floor.

...

“Camera, camera, camera.” Alex mumbles, fishing through Jo’s bag until he pulls out the phone. Dylan was about to go up on bars, and he was designated photographer, since his wife couldn’t film for the life of her. The one time she tried, she ended up shooting the ceiling instead of Dylan’s floor routine. Their daughter was not very happy about that.

He presses the start button just as the girl salutes, flashing the judges a smile before she begins. She rolls her neck and then adjusts her grips, stepping onto the mounting block and taking a deep breath before swinging her arms and launching into a kip, drowning out all of the excess noise in the background.

“Legs, legs, legs.” Jo mumbles to herself. It was Dylan’s biggest deduction, having her legs separated.

Straight legs, pointed feet. Kip cast handstand, hit the 180 degree mark, hold it, clear hip, hit 180 again, hollow body, her feet don't hit the ground, cast up to a squat on, she catches sight of the high bar before jumping to it, keeping her legs together as she goes into another kip, casting up into handstand, holding it at 180 for a second without an arch before hollowing back and beginning her giants, hollow body, tap, feet up, over, and again, see the toes in front, release, layout flyaway. Stick.

Dylan beams as she salutes the judge again, going over to her coach and giving her a large hug, finally hearing the cheering coming from her family. A series of whoops and whistles come from her mom and dad, while her little sister claps her hands and gives her a wide smile.

She waits a minute and a half for her score to flash up on the screen, a 9.725. The cheering from her section gets louder, and her teammates engulf her in hugs. It was a hell of a way to start off the meet.

…

Alex pulls out the camera again when Dylan salutes the beam judge, trying to mask her nervousness behind a smile. Alex and Jo both knew how she felt about the beam. She hated it with every fiber of her being, no matter how good she was at it. She glances over at her family, who all give her encouraging smiles. It was just enough to give her the confidence she needed.

He watches as she places her hands on the beam, going from a support to a press handstand for her mount. She stands, doing a few different moves and poses before swinging her arms up by her ears.

“C’mon Dyl.” he whispers to himself. His daughter didn't mind cheering on any other events, but beam was a different story. She was always worried whenever she was on the apparatus, so whenever a sudden noise came through, she struggled. It was something she was working on, but it was going to take time.

She lifts up her left leg, beginning her connection, a back walkover to a back handspring step-out. The girl circles her arms behind her immediately to prevent any balance checks. Jo and Alex both let out audible sighs of relief, knowing that if there was one thing that could go wrong in the routine, it would be that. From the looks of it, Dylan seemed relieved too. Her movements were less tense, she completed her jumps with perfect form, a split jump to a sissone. Her leap hit 180, and her full turn was controlled. All that was left now was her dismount. All three Karev’s sat on the edge of their seats, the baby in Jo’s belly kicking non stop, letting her know that it was in on the action as well.

Dylan kicks her leg into the air, toes pointed, knees locked. Cartwheel step-in, back tuck. Stick. She lets out a breath, turning to the judges and saluting, flashing them a smile, giving her coaches a hug before darting to her family, who had moved closer for the event.

“You did so good.” Jo says, pulling her into a hug over the plastics chains that separated them, Alex doing the same after.

“What score do you think I got Bree?” Dylan asks her little sister, who lets out an adorable giggle before holding out her hands.

“Ten!” she says, making her family laugh. One could dream.

The score flashed up on the screen then, 9.775.

Well, this was going to be a damn good meet.

…

The camera was locked on Dylan as she made her way to her spot on the floor, striking her beginning pose before her music blared through the speakers. She dances around the floor, gliding with an ease neither of her parents had ever experienced themselves. It was a wonder really, how both of their daughter’s were good dancers while they couldn't move for shit.

Her first pass was her hardest, a roundoff back handspring back layout. The family holds their breath as the girl sets high, finishing the rotation with ease, dancing around more before her leap pass, a switch leap to a straddle jump. She dances more, making eye contact with the judges as she moves. Floor was where she had the most confidence, being able to express herself through her music and choreography, that’s why it was always her favorite.

“C’mon Dyl!”

“You got this Dylan,”

“Yay Tissy!”

The family cheered before her second pass, a front handspring front pike, which she had a small step on, but nothing that would make a large difference in her score. She did some floor work, showing off her flexibility in her back with a series of rolls, standing up and doing a full turn. She makes her way to the corner, Jo and Alex watching the scene intently, Alex having Aubryella perched on his knee. This last pass sealed the deal. She runs, hurdles into a front pike, and connects to a front tuck. Stick.

A smile breaks out on the little girl’s face. She moves her limbs in unison to her ending pose, hitting it just as the beat dropped. A series of cheers come from everyone around her. Her family, teammates, coaches. She doesn’t need to wait long for her score to flash up on the screen. A 9.675.

…

Dylan’s last event was vault, her personal best. She had already done her warmups, and now she was just waiting for the judge to hold up the green flag. She adjusts her tiger paws after she salutes, just as Alex starts the recording. She sprints down the runway, hurdling into a roundoff, and pushing back into a back handspring. Her vault was a yurchenko drill. She keeps her form, legs together, knees locked, toes pointed. She finishes, salutes, then goes again. The three in the stands cheer. It was the last event. Her all around score depended on these vaults.

When she does her finishing salute a second time, she knows that it was even better than the last. She looks over to her family and gives them a smile, wanting nothing more than to run over to them, but she knows she can’t, they were too far away.

Her score takes a while to come up on the screen, which could either be a bad or good thing. The Karev’s hold their breath in anticipation, Jo stroking her baby bump with one hand, while holding Alex’s with the other. Even Aubryella was on the edge of her seat, well, more like the edge of her dad’s lap. Her hair was no longer down, but in a braided bun similar to her sisters, since she insisted that she wanted to look just like her. Alex was thankful Jo had packed extra hair ties in not just Dylan’s bag, but also her purse.

A series of loud cheers come from this section as they see their daughter’s score. A 9.800, a personal best.

…

“And now, your vault state champion in the eight to nine year old category with a score of 9.800 is… Dylan Karev!” The announcer cheers as the little brunette makes her way up to the first place podium, an abundance of applause coming from the crowd. A gold medal is placed around her neck by an assistant, who she thanks with a megawatt smile.

“These are your 2029 vault state champions, gymnasts salute.” the announcer says, causing all the girls to raise their arms to the position, all the families in the crowd taking photos of their daughters. Jo, Alex, and Aubryella cheer the loudest, more than proud of Dylan.

As awards went on, more categories were called.

“Your bar's state champion in the eight to nine year old category with a score of 9.725 is... Dylan Karev!”

“Your beam state champion in the eight to nine year old category with a score of 9.775 is… Dylan Karev!”

“On the floor, in second place with a score of 9.675 is… Dylan Karev!”

“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Your 2029, eight to nine year old all around state champion, with a combined score of 38.975 is… Dylan Karev!” The audience erupted into applause, her parents, her teammates, coaches, and even her teammates parent’s cheering for her. She accepts her fifth medal with a wide smile, hopping down from the podium and back into the crowd. She had just won her ultimate goal, an all around title.

After a few of the older groups were called, it was time for the team awards.

“In first place, with a combined total of 115.575 is… Seattle Gymnastics Academy!” Another first place team award. The team accepts the banner and trophy and poses for photos alongside the second and third place team, proudly showing off their trophy by raising it above their heads.

When she gets down and the awards finish, she runs to her parents, crashing into Alex with a gigantic hug. When she finally lets go, she hugs her mom and sister.

“I’m so proud of you Dyl.” her mom says, touching her cheek affectionately. Gymnastics was her daughter's passion, something she lived and breathed for. Seeing that light in her eyes and that grin was something she would never get tired of.

Aubryella hugs her big sister’s legs, “good job Tissy.” The name came from when the tiny blonde was younger and couldn’t say ‘Sissy’, and had stuck to it ever since.

The family of four makes their way out of the convention center, the drive back to their house was peaceful, the limited hours of sleep they got the night before catching up to them. They all crash onto their respective beds, the girls in their rooms and Jo and Alex in their’s.

Alex runs a hand through his wife’s hair, his other tracing circles on her baby bump, feeling the little life inside of her kick like a crazy person.

They stay like that for a while, savoring the quiet. With two kids in the house, it was a major rarity these days. Jo hums, nuzzling into his embrace. “I love you.” she murmurs into his shirt, on the verge of sleep. He reaches down and places a small kiss on the top of her head.

“I love you too.”

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