Now, we all know about the Wittebane brothers statue in Gravesfield

But rewatching the episode a couple days ago, I found out something:

PHILIP IS SHORT

My first OC: An intro to Amelia.

As some of ya’ll know, Wallace and Gromit was what got me writing, literally, soon as i saw the movie all my chubby 10 year old butt wanted to do was make my own episode for the show and while I knew I was too little to work for Aardman Animations, that didn’t stop me writing fanfiction and beginning a fun and disturbing trot into the fandom world.  Amy, was my first character, the one who started it all and yes, her story, is not one of cute mishaps and crime solving like that of her husbands (Well, husband’s dog but you know), it’s not twisted but it’s not light either, she is and always has been hella un-canon to the series, to the world they reside in and sure, as a kid I was told Mr Park wouldn’t touch such a mature plot-line with a barge pole, but it didn’t stop me and here we are today.  Amelia Quartermaine:  Age: 28 Gender: Female.  Height: 5/11. Description: Pale skin, ginger/reddish hair with your stereotype freckles across the nose area of the face with piercing hazel eyes, larger than most cartoon creators like but not technically unhealthy, a physical blend of muscle and squish, huntress thicc, slight hourglass figure but the weight is a little wider than commonly described.  --- Amelia begins as a brief glace during a routine visit to her almost stepmother/aunt figure, Totty, as I mentioned earlier, she’s appeared on the specific day to collect the last of Hutch’s things since he’s now living with her family, it’s not an idea situation and Lady T is less than okay with losing her one real link to Wallace, a missed love interest who declined her marriage/business proposal, but knowing of Amelia fondness for him and dedication to animals (Philip the dog, the family’s various large frightening birds and imported Vampire deer happily scattered around Victor’s less impressive manor house) she accepts the idea he’ll be happier there and leaves the matter at that.  Speaking of love, it’s obviously Cupid firing arrows at a solid wall, nothing gets through for a while until Wallace suffers a minor injury during a tour of the Quartermaine estate, caused by Lady Tottington asking for his company on a visit to her ex boyfriends estate to attend a live auction of Victor’s hunting gear, various expensive/rare guns and weaponry finally being taken away from his weak grasp following the whole being beaten to a pulp by the angry mob and left needing rehab/reconstructive surgery on his legs/right shoulder.  Don’t get confused, this isn’t a choice he’s made, no no, it’s his children, Amelia and her brothers, seeing his altered state and lack of ability to properly hold a rifle and deciding the best option is to save Victor from himself and remove temptation from his home, keeping the good shit for themselves but making sure he can’t get his mitts on any random weapons to use against animals, people, Wallace, you get the idea. He’s a cranky old man at this point and will happily deck the one who put him in crutches/permanent knee brace so what’s safer than remove 99% of all his shooty shoot toys.  After said auction, Amelia walks her aunt and Wallace through the hand planted woodland, ranging 500 years old and full of some of the freakiest birds you ever saw, along with the little vampire deers that aren’t actually scary and really like people and small corn snacks, no sooner have they cleared a path and entered the most beautiful memorial pond area for the girls mother, Wallace trips over something and ends face down in the dirt with a vamp deer climbing on his back to reach a random grub on a nearby tree, the whole fiasco causes Tottys almost step-daughter to burst out laughing and thus begins the inevitable woo of the Quartermaine girl as any man capable of making even the coldest of people laugh must be one worth knowing.  Of course, with all his love interests, this one holds an unspoken truth Gromit wishes to solve fast, especially given her status, and even with Hutch acting as a comforting example Amelia can be kind, he needs to uncover the other side, when things get tough, how many skeletons fall from the closet?  ---- Now: A little background.  Amelia is one of three children, being the youngest while her brothers, twins Marcus (Short for Machello) and Dametre are joint first, all birthed via Victors first wife and only love, Giovanna, who was lost to a long running genetic condition with no known cure or explanation.  Amelia grew up under the wing of her father, favoring hunting/taxidermy/general gruesome hobbies as the twins preferred a variety of tailoring, cooking, knitting, gardening and lighter crafts, similar to Gromit.  They were equally close to each parent although you get the idea that Victor held a certain admiration for his daughter given their shared blood lust, the familiar craving of the hunt and urge to display their kills for the world to see, plus being of similar mind yet him being the obviously weaker of the pair, Amelia dutifully going through with the plan while he either got angry with all the complicated steps or just failed to follow up.  Victor, as a younger man, was very much one of those snobby “I’ll kill it, eat it and show you it’s skin because I’m hella macho”, while his daughter, was...well, a killer, a darker presence his weakness clung to, like a mother unable to let go of her son due to fear his partner will replace her in his heart, lack of power, lack of ones own worth so he taught her to be the best, the hunter capable of a big kill, no fear, all confidence and knowledge of entitlement and worth.  No surprise, though never actually murdering a person, Amelia was a skilled fighter, handy with a sword, steady with a pistol and indestructible, mentally and physically....at least, until the death of her mother.  Although staying strong, it left a rift, a rift concealed by a large vault door and locked tight so nobody could see just how sad it was to lose the only rational/in tact person in her life.  Yes, she loved her father but Victor was a proud man, a proud father, giddy over having a child so devoted to the hunt just as he was, as his own father and grandfather, having someone to carry on not just the bloodline but that legacy, that path, despite loving his daughter, his sons, Victor was not someone you could actually...talk to.  Giovanna was, she was that small hint of sanity in a strange, abnormal world, riddled in blood and destruction, she was that light at the end, the warm water washing away the deeds of the day, the listening ear and giver of advice, the forgiving hug, the confessional Amelia could tell her sins to with all the promise of them never seeing the outside.  Regardless of being a hunter, Amelia also cared about animals, and her relationship with the forest was a complicated sort, it was hypocritical and ironic but she refused to engage that part of herself, she wanted to have her cake and eat it too, no matter of the internal struggles between just and evil.  After the mothers death, the brothers took over, Amelia hunted but the twins were her protectors, the homemakers and general kindness of the estate as Victor got more into his cruel habits and needing of money, he did it all for them, but at the same time, he also did it to ease the heartache, the loss, the pain of having his wife around, without her being with him. He believed that the ones you loved never left, but at the same time, never seeing their faces was enough to put all those feelings to the test, all that faith, all that sense out the window.  --- Back to the present: With her father’s condition now requiring support/aid, Amelia has taken position as one of the estates breadwinners, next to her brother Dam while Marcus stays home and looks after Victor, the arrangement is stable but with the intro of Hutch and her sudden taking to Wallace, things are looking...rocky, soon to become worse as Gromit gets involved to uncover just how much of her childhood has stuck. (Spoiler: SHE DECKS A BEAR AND PUTS THE VICAR THROUGH A PEW!)  Welp Imma end this here, prob gonna do another story post at some point but for now I need a pee and my ass hurts from sitting so long

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Caricature

What Is Caricature?

Caricature comes from the Italian verb caricare, which means “to load.” As a technique, caricature is defined by an exaggerated description of a person or thing, very often used in drawing and painting, usually with the aim of creating a comic or satiric effect. For example, in the image below, the caricature of Mr. Bean exaggerates his facial features, such as the eyes, nose, eyebrows, lips, and ears.

In literature, caricature can be used to exaggerate a character’s personality traits as well. For example, Charles Dickens is renown for the creation of uniquely eccentric characters by using this literary technique. Miss Havisham, one of the characters in Great Expectations, shocks the readers through her caricatural appearance, bordering on the grotesque: Imagine a fifty-something-old lady who was left at the altar some twenty years back and is still wearing her wedding dress, keeps the wedding cake on the table, with mice crawling in and out of it, and stopped all the clocks in the house at twenty minutes to nine, the time when she had received her fiance’s letter announcing her that he would not show up. Moreover, Dickens goes beyond physical appearance and uses caricature to define Miss Havisham’s purpose in life, that is, to take revenge on all men and make them suffer, regardless of whether these men happen to be represented by a nine- or ten-year-old boy, Pip.

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Caricature Examples

Caricature in a Sentence

“His hair was long and encompassing as a cape that would cling to his ankles when the wind became more than a breeze, making him fall flat on his flat nose.” – We can hardly imagine a person whose hair is so long as to trip him over. This exaggeration, with both comic and satiric effects, is known as caricature.

“His bulgy eyes almost jumped out of their sockets when I told him the news. He began sputtering and turned his back on me, leaving trails of saliva behind.” – This caricatural description makes us imagine a man resembling a snail.

“The girl dragged her feet toward the blackboard, as slow as a condemned person might walk his way to the electric chair, her eyes sheepish and as round as saucers, begging for mercy from the teacher and for help from her classmates: ‘I don’t know how to solve the equation.’ ” – The feelings of a school girl are caricatured in this sentence by exaggerating her fear of going to the blackboard and solving a mathematical problem.

Caricature in Poetry

Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

 “The MILLERE was a stout carl for the nones;

The MILLER was a stout fellow indeed;

Ful byg he was of brawn, and eek of bones.

He was very strong of muscle, and also of bones….

Ther was no dore that he nolde heve of harre,

There was no door that he would not heave off its hinges,

Or breke it at a rennyng with his heed.

Or break it by running at it with his head.

His berd as any sowe or fox was reed,

His beard was red as any sow or fox…

Upon the cop right of his nose he hade

Upon the exact top of his nose he had

A werte, and theron stood a toft of herys,

A wart, and thereon stood a tuft of hairs,

Reed as the brustles of a sowes erys;

Red as the bristles of a sow’s ears;…

His mouth as greet was as a greet forneys.

His mouth was as large as a large furnace.”

The characters in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are all typologies, as illustrated by the names under which they appear: the Knight, the Wife of Bath, the Miller, the Monk, the Friar, the Host, and so on. The most exaggerated features are those of the peasants. The Miller represents the stereotypical peasant physiognomy the most clearly, being round and ruddy and with a wart on his nose. The Miller appears rough and, thus, suited for hard, simple work. Caricature is evident in Chaucer’s description of the Miller as a man who could take any door out of its hinges or break it with his head and in the comparison of the Miller’s beard with the bristles on a pig.

“Tower” by William Butler Yeats

“An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress…”

In the poem “Tower,” William Butler Yeats uses caricature to describe old age. By referring to old people as worthless “things” and shabby coats on sticks, the poet also makes use of self-caricature since he was in his late years when he wrote the poem.

Caricature in Literature

Caricature was a preferred technique in the comedy of manners, a witty form of dramatic comedy that depicts and satirizes the manners of the society and is, thus, more concerned with whether or not the characters meet certain social standards than with the plot. This type of comedy reached its peak in the English-speaking world during the Restoration period, with playwrights such as Ben Jonson, William Congreve, William Wycherley, Sir George Etherege, Oliver Goldsmith, and later, with Oscar Wilde, Noël Coward, Somerset Maugham, Philip Barry, and S.N. Behrman.

The Alchemist by Ben Jonson

Jonson’s The Alchemist, for example, features characters whose names contribute to their caricature: the sensualist, Sir Epicure Mammon; the hypocritical Puritan, Tribulation Wholesome; the con men, Subtle and Face; and Abel Drugger, a small-time tobacco dealer ambitious for commercial success. The characters are flat, that is, they are uncomplicated and do not evolve throughout the play. Drugger’s main characteristics, for instance, are stupidity and greed. Thus, he is easily made to believe that he will achieve success if, by following astrology-based advice, he sets the shelves in his shop in a certain way. In act III, Face says about Drugger that “he has no head/ To bear any wine,” which exemplifies that caricature can be realized through other characters’ words as well.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s use of caricature in The Importance of Being Earnest allows readers to view the true essence of the characters. The main character of the play, Lady Bracknell, is representative. Her interview with Jack, who was in love with her daughter Gwendolen, focuses on Jack’s status and material possessions, mainly containing questions such as: “What is your income?” “In land, or in investments?” “A country house! How many bedrooms? … You have a town house, I hope?”

It’s also Lady Bracknell who exclaims, “A hundred and thirty thousand pounds! And in the Funds! Miss Cardew seems to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her.”

Wilde’s use of caricature leaves the readers think that Lady Bracknell, a representative of Victorian society, is overly shallow and materialistic.

“Rain” by Somerset Maugham

Somerset Maugham reduced his characters to caricatured types and stereotypes in circumstances in which they act in accordance with or against their natural inclinations, treating individuals as typological characters governed by fate functioning within the narrow boundaries of necessity. In the short story “Rain,” Davidson, a zealous missionary, recounts his success in civilizing the tribes of the barbaric South Sea Islands during one of his missions:

“ ‘When we went there they had no sense of sin at all’, he said. ‘They broke the commandments one after the other and never knew they were doing wrong. And I think that was the most difficult part of my work, to instill into the natives the sense of sin.…You see, they were so naturally depraved that they couldn’t be brought to see their wickedness. We had to make sins out of what they thought were natural actions.…I made it a sin for a girl to show her bosom and a sin for a man not to wear trousers.’

‘How?’ asked Dr Macphail, not without surprise.

‘I instituted fines.’ ”

The missionary’s moral authority is backed up by his legal authority, imposing fines and banning the islanders from participating in the coconut oil trade, which “meant something very like starvation,” as Davidson notes with satisfaction. In his self-blinding self-righteousness, the missionary is entirely proud at his economic and legal blackmail of the islanders into accepting customs and morals that are not their own. In this story, by caricaturing the Davidsons, Maugham illustrates his own indignation at the misguided and stubborn authorities who tend to turn people’s natural instincts into crimes and sins.

The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare

Caricature, however, was not aimed only at societal typologies, in general, but sometimes targeted specific individuals. Robert Shallow is a fictional character who appears in Shakespeare’s plays Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor. He is a wealthy landowner and justice of the peace, a thin, vain, and often self-deluding individual, whom Falstaff and his comrades victimize by killing his deer, beating his men, and breaking into his lodge. Shallow may have been a caricature of Sir Thomas Lucy, a justice of the peace and member of Parliament from Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare’s birthplace). According to an undocumented account, Sir Lucy prosecuted Shakespeare for stealing a deer from his land.

The picture below illustrates Shallow inviting Falstaff to stay for the night.

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At 30, I’ve Never Been in a Serious Relationship — and That’s Okay

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At 30, I’ve Never Been in a Serious Relationship — and That’s Okay

I’ve never had a serious relationship. By my count, I’ve never dated anybody for longer than two or three months. I’ve never called anybody my boyfriend, never introduced a partner to my family or friends and never said “I love you.” At 30 years old, I am the only person in my social circle who isn’t married or in a long-term relationship. And for the first time in my life, I am completely happy with that.

In my twenties, I developed a bit of a complex about my relationship status. The conversation would follow the same rough script each time. First, people would marvel at the fact that I was single, asking something along the lines of: “How are you not taken?” Which translates loosely to: “What’s secretly wrong with you that is undetectable to the naked eye?” I would shrug and say I didn’t know, because really, there is no satisfactory answer to that question. But that didn’t stop people from asking it, sometimes adding one word which would make it sting all the more: “How are you still single?”

It used to bother me. A lot. I’d think to myself: Well, what is wrong with me? I was attractive, clever, funny. It was just a case of waiting for the right person, I kept saying, both to myself and to those who kept asking. Of course, once you’ve said that, every person starts to look like the right person. Each time I met someone new, I would put pressure on myself to fall in love, to outlast the two-month mark this time, to finally make it into “serious relationship” territory.

In some instances, this sheer determination (which you can feel free to read as “desperation”) put guys off. In others, even my will to succeed wasn’t enough to overcome basic incompatibilities. This frustration was compounded by the fact that the world often feels as if it is designed for couples. Seriously, when was the last time you saw a special offer or competition for a meal for one?

But was I actually lonely, or was I just self-conscious? Did I really want to share my life with somebody, or did I simply not want to be an object of pity? When you’re single, the way you see your own love life is often colored by how you imagine other people perceive it. And it doesn’t help that movies and TV shows condition us to think about single people in specific terms, usually stereotypes: the lovelorn sad sack, the asshole bachelor, the crazy girl, the pathetic spinster.

With each passing year, my lack of baggage began to feel like baggage in and of itself. I used to lie and say that I’d once dated somebody for a year, believing a fabricated romantic history would be less of a red flag than the blank reality. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was far from alone in being alone.

This experience isn’t an uncommon one among LGBTQ people, who until very recently were unable to openly enact the same romantic norms as their peers, often missing the formative dating milestones of teenage life entirely and coming to them much later in life when they finally found their community. Growing up in isolation can result in a kind of prolonged adolescence, with queer people sometimes entering adulthood ill-equipped to articulate their desires and unpracticed in conducting what we might deem “serious” relationships.

Of course, chronic singlehood transcends sexuality or gender. The social, cultural and economic shifts that have all played a role in defining the millennial generation have also reshaped the dating landscape. Women’s autonomy and fertility might still be considered public domain by many, but in many cultures the societal pressure to marry young and have children is lessening. And thank god, because late capitalism makes the old path to matrimonial bliss a rocky one. Our grandparents might have gotten hitched, bought a home and started a family by their early twenties, but a great many of us 20- and 30-somethings are hustling our asses off just to make rent — and that can sometimes get in the way of romance.

Charlie, 30, finds the pace and cost of life in London prohibitive to dating. “Dating apps have made people feel so disposable, and this isn’t helped by how busy our lives our now, how much we work,” she says. “It’s hard enough to carve out time to see your closest friends, let alone date. Sometimes I feel like I can’t afford to date; the idea of going out, spending money I don’t really have on drinks with a guy is so stressful. I have to budget for that, and honestly, I’m probably going to get more joy from a new skirt on ASOS.”

Meanwhile Chris, 33, says that a “lack of permanence” in his career left him without the mental or emotional energy to put himself out there romantically: “My jobs have never felt stable, and in my last job, I survived seven rounds of layoffs before finally getting hit myself. I was more comfortable having the ability to pack up and move if needed; any dating I’ve done since school has just been coincidental, not from actively seeking it.”

With all of this attention on our careers, maybe it’s not so shocking that we’re still more likely to meet a new romantic partner in the workplace than we are on a dating app, according to research by ReportLinker. “If I look at my friends who are coupled up in long-term relationships, at least half of them met through work,” says Charlie. “It feels like if you don’t meet through your job or through mutual friends, it just isn’t happening.”

As a freelancer who works from home, my chances of an office romance are slim. But spending so much time alone has been infinitely useful, helping me become more comfortable in my own skin. Working to build a livelihood out of nothing has been a core, at times all-consuming, objective, and creating something that is entirely for my own fulfillment has given me the kind of self-worth that I had been unknowingly seeking from external sources. Now that my professional life is at a stage where I can allow myself the temporary indulgence of sitting back and taking stock, I see that it’s altered both the way I think about love and how I look at my history of short encounters.

A two-month dalliance can have its own emotional value. It shouldn’t be deemed a failure because it doesn’t lead to something more long-term — just like a short story shouldn’t be judged as a novel. I’ve learned to take the pressure off myself and enjoy the company of another person. Even if it’s just a brief fling, I still often end up learning something new about myself. Like a holiday romance, but at home. (Laycation?) And in between dating, I’ve traveled alone, pursued my own goals and invested time and energy in the meaningful relationships I am already fortunate to have with my friends and family.

“Good idea,” a friend recently said, after I told them about my new worldview. “You’ll meet somebody when you least expect it.” This twisting of my intentions didn’t surprise me — I’ve heard it before — but I had to clarify that my shift in perspective has nothing to do with rebranding my loneliness for the sake of finding love. In fact, I’m not doing much to find love at all right now, and that shouldn’t be considered transgressive. So much of the modern language surrounding romance frames the pursuit of marriage as a foregone conclusion — a given. It leaves no room for alternatives and tacitly paints single people as victims even when that’s not how we see ourselves. I’ve worked so hard to become happy with myself that now I want to just sit and enjoy that achievement. Alone.

I’ve found this extended single life to be incredibly freeing. It’s given me a chance to explore different possibilities and consider less “conventional” criteria for fulfillment. Marriage, monogamy and parenthood are fulfilling to a lot of people, but there are all kinds of ways to be happy.

I’ve never been in love, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have love in my life. I might not have made space in my life for a boyfriend, but I have been there for any friend or family member who needed me, and they have done the same in return. A romantic relationship may well be on the cards for me at some point in the future, but I’ve stopped searching for it on the horizon. I am enough.

Philip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the U.K. You can follow him on Twitter @Philip_Ellis

Collage by Madeline Montoya.

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How a soccer team embraced Atlanta's culture and captured the city

Atlanta United FC shattered records in its inaugural season.

ATLANTA — It’s a clear, calm Thursday night downtown. Nearly 70,000 Atlantans are descending upon Mercedes-Benz Stadium to support Atlanta United FC in its first playoff game ever, against Columbus Crew SC. If you had written those words even just a year ago, you would have been laughed at.

“I ain’t gonna lie to you, if these fans were the same fans for the Falcons game — we’d be undefeated,” security guard Brian Cooper tells me.

Cooper is in charge of Section 101 of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, one of the rowdiest in the building. Section 101 is one of the team’s supporters sections, where there are flags, signs, and chants so loud they’ll rattle your spine. It’s appropriate for one of our own to watch over our most faithful. Like most fans here tonight for United’s knockout match against Columbus Crew FC, Cooper is wearing a United scarf, but it’s over his security uniform. He’s also wearing two strands of gold beads that I compliment him on.

“Like 2 Chainz, know what I’m sayin’?” he says.

A self-described “Greater Baby” — a native of Decatur, where it’s greater — Atlanta United FC has shifted his entire sports fandom.

“Soccer is my favorite sport,” he says. “I don’t care about no football, I don’t care baseball, hockey, I don’t care about none of that. This is my favorite sport now.”

If you’re a fan of Atlanta United FC, you’ve come to know who he is.

“People love me out here,” he told me. “No, for real though.”

Cooper fell so hard for the game that he switched jobs to follow it. He started working games at Bobby Dodd Stadium, where the team played its opening games while construction was being completed at the new Mercedes Benz Stadium. When he learned the team was moving, he switched security companies to move with it — he loved Atlanta United FC that much.

Two weeks ago, before one of Atlanta’s final regular-season home games, I spoke with Cooper in front of his section. When the fans saw me in my outfit — which is not the team’s colors, and I was holding an iPhone and a recorder — they knew I wasn’t there to kick it with them as a fan.

“Are you here for an interview for Brian?” one asked. “See! He’s a celebrity! I’ve been telling Brian he’s a celebrity!” Another fan excitedly jumps in and yells, “Aye, Brian is my best friend right now, bro!”

Cooper became a legend in the section when he started celebrating goals with the fans during games — something he didn’t intend on doing.

“I wasn’t gonna celebrate,” he told me. He showed how he was standing still, as one security guard might do. “They grab my shirt, and just started jumping me up, so I couldn’t do nothing. I couldn’t say ‘Hey man, get off me,’ so I started jumping up.”

There’s video of the moment. It shows the ecstasy you’d expect from diehard soccer fans — that explosive moment when the goal is scored — with Cooper right there in the middle of it. Ever since then, the security company said that’s going to be his section. You wouldn’t expect that from a security guard at a large venue in today’s climate, but his bosses have been cool with it.

As I was talking to Cooper, another fan came up to speak to him, and Brian introduced us. “This is my man, Bruno, this my man, Bruno, man.” Bruno, not interested in talking to anybody but Cooper, then said to Cooper, “What’s up dude!? You got your jersey?”

The supporters’ section crowdfunded a jersey for Cooper since he didn’t have one. Cooper didn’t have it because he had left it at home. He did have his scarf, though.

As a wave of fans began making their way down the aisle, a chant of “VA-MOS, VA-MOS, VA-MOS A-T-L” started. Then Skate walked up and cut our interview short. She reminded Brian that he had a job to do.

Sarah Kate Noftsinger, better known as “Skate,” is clearly one of the more popular people in Mercedes-Benz Stadium who’s not wearing the five stripes on the pitch. Everybody's reaching out to say hello to her — other staff members, even fans. She’s sporting a black blazer, gray jeans, black leather shoes, and a black bracelet that’s accented with a metal zig-zag charm.

Somebody walks by and compliments her outfit. “I gotta dress nice, they’re winning!” she says back before the Minnesota United game.

She’s been responsible for selling the city of Atlanta on soccer as Atlanta United’s director of marketing and fan engagement. She told me about a phone call she had with somebody on joining Atlanta United back in 2015, to which the person on the other line told her, “Skate, you’re crazy. It’s never going to work in Atlanta.”

(The person on the line wasn’t the only one doubting. Plenty of soccer pundits were concerned about the team trying to make it in the Atlanta market, especially while playing in a football stadium ... something MLS had been shying away from in recent years as more teams moved to smaller, soccer-specific stadiums.)

She used OutKast winning best new rap group at the 1995 Source Awards as an example of a similar disrespect to Atlanta. After being announced as the winners, Andre 3000 and Big Boi were infamously booed as they made their way up to the stage.

“They were here, and everybody pushed them aside because it’s East and West Coast, and we’re Atlanta,” Skate said.

It’s like 3000 emphatically said on stage that night in 1995: “The south got something to say!”

Ever since then, Atlanta has collectively become the home of the best hip-hop in the world.

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My town has never been viewed as a premier sports town. In their 51-year history, the closest the Falcons have come to a championship was being up 28-3 in Super Bowl LI. (Yeah, yeah. Insert joke here.) Months later, we’re impervious to the pain the Super Bowl brought.

The Atlanta Hawks’ only claim to an NBA title comes from St. Louis in 1958. For years growing up, the most exciting part for the Hawks for me was the draft because they just weren’t going to win a damn thing.

The Braves somehow managed to be the team of the ‘90s in Major League Baseball but still lost four World Series, only winning one. That’s about as Atlanta as it gets, but it’s impossible to be upset over that. Those were some damn good teams — and anytime you hear the beginning of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” to this day, you’re looking for Chipper Jones to step in the batter’s box.

Welcoming another sports franchise, increasing our odds at getting a championship? We’ll take it — especially those of us here who have been lifelong soccer fans, which is a larger group of people than perhaps anyone expected.

“It kinda just brings every type of race and ethnicity together to watch a soccer game.” — Daniel Vazquez

This was a group of people previously famished with a lack of their sport at a professional level, and a group of people who Atlanta sports teams had never really spoken to before. When soccer came, they showed up ... en masse.

Edgar Dominguez, who was born in Mexico and moved to LaGrange 20 years ago, was elated when he learned Atlanta was getting a professional soccer team.

“We always say, ‘Why Atlanta didn’t get no team?’ in the soccer. So when it happened, that was amazing,” Dominguez says before Atlanta’s playoff game against Columbus Crew SC.

“I missed work today, so — I had to lie,” Dominguez says. “I said my chest been hurting for the last two days so I — they don’t let me come to the games cause I have to work. So I had to lie. I had to call out.”

(If you’re Dominguez’s boss and read this...please be cool.)

Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Daniel Vazquez and his father were waiting outside near the large falcon statue that is outside Mercedes Benz Stadium — the statue was complete with AUFC scarf for the game — for the players to make their entrance to the stadium, along with hundreds of other fans. The Vazquez family is from Colombia and moved here when Daniel was young.

“I was always a Hawks and Falcons fan,” Vazquez tells me. “But there was nothing I could really bond with my dad [over] because he likes soccer. But Atlanta United really brought us together and built a bond with the sport.”

It was the passion in soccer that helped that bond grow. But Vazquez also noticed growing up in Atlanta that this was the most complete representation of the city.

“I think that’s a good thing Atlanta United does,” he said. “It kinda just brings every type of race and ethnicity together to watch a soccer game.”

Many people laughed at the “United” name for Atlanta’s soccer team; it just didn’t seem very original. But seeing the different groups of people who have been brought together by this team, it’s hard not to warm up to it.

People of all ages, races, colors, and creeds walked up through the Congress Center and Philips Arena, making their way to the new Sports Mecca of Atlanta. This happens every game; the supporters walk — where fans of the team make their way from Philips Arena to Mercedes-Benz Stadium — and it is an incredible sight to see.

“I played soccer. I’d love to hear Jeezy and Outkast before I play.” — Joe Thomas

Nowhere else in the city are you going to see such a diverse group of people rallied together for one cause or event. Just about everyone is wearing team colors, which doesn’t happen at Braves, Falcons, or Hawks games. (Of course, there is a guy in a Tim Tebow Florida jersey and another with an Ohio State 2014 National Championship hat, because great soccer team or not, this is the college football capital of the United States. It wouldn’t be a complete crowd without them.)

As I wait for the players to get off the bus and make their way into the stadium, I run into Joe Thomas, a native of Atlanta’s Ormewood Park. He, like half of the other folks outside, has on an Atlanta United scarf.

When Atlanta United came about, he appreciated that the team didn’t attempt to make it anything else.

“They didn’t try to force a culture upon the city or anything like that,” Thomas told me. “They said Atlanta is a place that we should already want to be. There’s a passionate fan base, people that just love their city — let’s take that energy and focus it on a sports team. Play Jeezy and OutKast and all that.

“I played soccer,” he continued. “I’d love to hear Jeezy and OutKast before I play.”

Thomas compared the Atlanta United experience to Georgia Bulldogs football games when it came to passion. Down here, that’s the highest compliment you could give, but he also doesn’t think that the success of Atlanta United isn’t entirely about sports.

“Atlanta loves Atlanta, right? So if you create something new in Atlanta, people are going to get behind you,” he said.

“Atlanta supports its own.”

“The stadium, look at it,” Dominguez says to me. “That’s one of the best, I mean, in the whole world right now.”

This was my second time in the stadium, which replaced the Georgia Dome after 26 years. The Dome held Falcons games, college football games, SEC and ACC basketball tournaments and Final Fours, Monster Jams, WrestleMania, Georgia State University graduations, and countless other events.

If you are from the metro Atlanta area, you’ve got at least one memory in that building. You’re also going to miss it and will be sad when it’s torn down next month.

But damn if Mercedes-Benz ain’t a beautiful piece of architecture:

Adam Hagy-USA TODAY Sports

One of the best things done to Mercedes-Benz Stadium and for Atlanta United was building it with soccer in mind. On game days, you can’t tell that there’s an NFL team that plays here.

All of the paint from when the Falcons occupy the stadium once a week is also completely gone. When Georgia State played in the Georgia Dome, you could still see remnants of Falcons paint on the field, and it never quite felt like home for the Panthers.

But this feels like home — Atlanta United’s home.

“It makes it your own,” Skate told me prior to AUFC’s regular-season game against Minnesota United. “On our game day it’s our house. On their game day it’s their house. And then when it’s a concert — when it’s Garth Brooks in a couple weeks — it’s his house. It’s the beauty of this building, and that’s how it was designed.”

Skate then started looking around at the empty seats before the start of the match.

“I get nervous,” she said, looking at the time, eyes scanning the crowd. “I still get nervous that nobody’s going to show up — but they do.”

On the night of the playoff game, I make my way up to the top level of the stadium, where there’s a ridiculously large pillar of an LED screen that features the Atlanta United and Columbus Crew SC logos. A United fan is walking by texting on his phone when he comes upon it. It’s grabbed his attention, and he has a hilarious surprised look on his face.

He gently caresses it with one hand as he walks by in amazement. It’s that kind of pretty.

As I make my way back down to the 100 level prior to kickoff, I hear a familiar sound of a combination of trumpets, trombones, and saxophones.

Shawty Lo’s “Dey Know” is playing over the Mercedes-Benz Stadium speakers as the Atlanta United starting lineup is announced on the halo board — which is a trillion times more impressive in person.

The stadium isn’t nearly full at kickoff, but it’s not supposed to be, even though we are in the postseason here. With a 7 p.m. kickoff, rush hour is just now starting to kind of die down in the metro area. Sitting in traffic in Atlanta feels like a centuries-old tradition that you really can’t even get mad about. It’s just a part of our lives and if you don’t plan around it, well, be a better Atlantan.

Ten minutes into the match, there are tons of people running down the aisles to get to their seats.

There have hardly been moments I’ve been at an Atlanta sporting event and gotten chills. The two moments that come to mind are Jason Heyward’s first career home run, and Bobby Cox’s last game managing the Braves.

However, just the atmosphere of Atlanta United games and the fans did that. The players walking onto the pitch feels like something straight out of a sports movie. There are lights that illuminate the players as they come out of the tunnel, and flames to meet them when they emerge.

During the match, fans were doing their “A-T-L” chant, where they hold their hands over their heads like doing the “y” in “YMCA.” A shiver went down my spine as the chant picked up the pace.

Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Late in the match, everyone in the stadium pulled out their phones and flashed their camera lights in the air to show unity for the team, with hopes of rallying them to victory.

The collective participation during chants throughout the match made this feel like a unique experience in Atlanta professional sports. It’s something that — whether or not you’re a fan of soccer — you should experience as a resident of this city.

You’ll feel right at home, whether or not you have any idea of what’s going on between the lines.

The Atlanta United experience was a little bit of everything. It feels like part of a new era in Atlanta sports where everything isn’t just terrible. The city has a new team — in the world’s most popular sport — that’s competing and brings a different element to the city, feeding a group of people who were otherwise starving for high-quality soccer.

It also had that Atlanta heartbreak. In the knockout game against Columbus Crew SC that went the distance to penalty kicks, Atlanta lost. Much like traffic, we’re used to this.

In talking with Skate three weeks ago, I brought up how we were nearly eight months removed from the Super Bowl. She cut me off and said, “We try not to talk about that in this building,” she said with a nervous laugh. “It’s like lightning will come down and ka-choom.”

But I continued and mentioned that between the new stadium, the Falcons having an immensely talented team, the Braves being midway through a rebuild and Atlanta United FC being a success, it felt like this could be a new era starting for Atlanta — one where outsiders will stop saying that this is a bad sports town with citizens who don’t support their teams.

One that, as a lifelong Atlanta sports fan, I was excited for and proud to call mine.

But it’s also representative of what the city itself is, beyond sports.

“There’s something about the energy,” Sonia Sequeira, an Atlanta transplant from Denver who regularly attends games, told me. “Other sports teams in Atlanta have some diversity, but not like this.”

Deion Young, a native of Fayetteville, felt that the city’s adoption and welcoming of the team has been easy. “People just come from different states, and they come to Atlanta and they can adopt this game of soccer like it’s nothing. It’s pretty cool.”

Another fan, Ken Suffern added, “This is something you can get behind. A lot of people here are transplants. They may come here with their teams from other cities, whereas this is something that was built with us.

“So regardless of whether a transplant or not — this is yours.”