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agustdiv1ne · 3 years

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thank you + milestone!!

damn, never thought we'd get here, did we?

in all honesty, it's been a pretty shit year. march 'til now has felt like the same month on repeat with tiny tweaks to make it all so much worse. but i'm not here to complain about the worst parts of this year, i'm here to celebrate the best ones.

this was the year that i finally started writing, that i was finally spurred to open a google doc and just type away until a tiny work of fiction stared back at me. my first one was 1k words, a rant to get all of my emotions off of my chest with an idol as my muse. it felt...great, though it also felt a bit odd writing after being an avid reader for years. i always did prefer essays to creative writing, but this year definitely changed that perspective.

i wrote that first blurb along with another fic in late july, and in early august, i asked my friends if i should post them. om august 3rd, i changed this blog from a fic rec to a fic writing blog just like that. i regret none of it.

it's been nearly five months since i revamped this blog and i couldn't be more grateful for the support i have gotten from all of you, whether it be a kind comment, a like, a reblog, all of it. i never thought anyone would like my content, but i've been proven severely wrong by this community. from my irls that are on here, to my lovely mutuals and followers, to those i've talked to a lil bit on this hellsite, to the writers whose fics i absolutely adore, to those who have left a like or a comment on one of my fics, i want to say thank you from the very bottom of my heart ♡

have a happy and healthy new year! i love and appreciate every single one of you!!

though i'm painfully bad at writing letters and getting all sappy, i wanted to write them anyways hahaha let's goooo

to @hwaddict:

my irl best friend!! my partner in crime!!!! i love you sm carly, and there are not enough words in this world for me to describe the extent of my love. you have been there for me during my lowest moments, you've seen me cry, and i don't cry in front of many ppl. i trust you with my life and i'm so glad that we became friends back in middle school bc you are one reasons that spur me to keep going. i can't wait to see where life takes us and know that while i might not always be able to be there physically (especially with college right around the corner), i will always be there for you in any way i can be. again i love you and i can't wait to conquer next year with you ♡♡

to @hopejanaee:

hope!! hobi!!! one of my irls! though we just became friends earlier this year, it feels like we've been friends for ages. it's crazy how close we grew so quickly but i am so grateful to have you in my life. you never fail to make me laugh whenever we're together and you're so chaotic but in such a good way hahaha. you were the one who got me into writing with your own wonderful fics so thank yoi for that. i'm so happy that we became friends because you're so kind and caring and ahhhhhh i love u sm ♡

to @oikawasmilkbread:

we talked for like 0.2 seconds but you are so kind and hella cool!! it was nice having random conversations with you and i'm so glad you randomly dmed me bc i am shy and i have 0 idea how to start conversations with anyone lmao. i always smile when i see you in my notifs! i hope you have a happy new year!!! ♡

to @luthenia:

i know you're on hiatus but seeing you in my notifs always excites me hahaha. we never talk but you are so supportive of everyone in this community and i just wanted to shout you out for that! your memes are top tier LMAO and i can't wait for when you come back, happy new year ♡

to @starsforten:

we also talked for approximately 1 second but it was so fun talking to you about astrology stuff (virgo sun libra rising gang hahahaha) and those teuta matoshi dresses! you are so nice and easy to talk to and i hope your new year is happy and fruitful! ♡

i recommend every single one of these blogs for their amazing content!! i added some of my favorite fics as i'm a whore for great writing hahaaaa

@kinktae

waterloo — a masterpiece! taehyung is so bitter at the beginning and it's adorable seeing how y/n breaks his tough shell. loved this from beginning to the end ♡

hot rod — the 50s slang, the dynamic between hoseok and y/n...*chef's kiss*

@untaemedqueen

welcome to seoul land — werewolf!namjoon really got me going, 100/10 would recommend

graceful gods — this is one of my all-time favorites, greek god!jungkook has my brain going brrrr

@shadowsremedy + @therealmintedmango

support system — adorable!! this is a hybrid!yoongi fic i really enjoy, and the series isn't over yet! check it out~

@bratkook

tear you apart — demon!taehyung...holy shit. i was speechless

@tatertotthethot

the doms next door — THIS SERIES OMG, i've read each part at least five times already. taekook got me acting UP

scream (posted to @yandere-society) — a really cool take on the movie scream with jungkook, yandere fics don't always appeal to me but this one absolutely did

@ateezmakemeweep

broken — the immense ache i felt in my chest while reading this, but i loved both parts with a burning passion. san is so sweet in this :')

@atinybrew

dirty free for all — the ULTIMATE demon!san fic. the writing is absolutely immaculate and this is the first fic that had me blushing down my mf ARMS

rice milk lattes and bryophytes roads — another san fic admittedly because i'm whipped for san lol. anyways, this was cute and hot at the same time and best friend!yunho made my double biasing ass that much happier

@seacottons

pan — an adorable peter pan!hongjoong fic, it had my heart going achhfhsjfjsjf

sir kiss me — circus au with san holy hell i loved every twist and turn of this

@actuallythatwaspromise

bad romance — one of my favorite yunho fics ever, punk rock!yunho x nerd!reader has my entire heart

aurora garden center and desire ink — florist!mingi had me uwuing for the entire fic, this was adorable and i loved it sm

@yeonjuncore

every single fic on this blog is an absolute masterpiece, i swear

the devil's little angel — THIS IS ONE OF MY ULTIMATE FAVORITES, demon!yeonjun had me screaming and it was just so fun to read and i loved every single second of it so much that i've read it nearly ten times now. so go read it, you won't regret it!

the boy with the horns — another of my ultimate favorites (i told you, their writing is just that amazing), woodland fey!soobin just had me going so soft :(( i literally sobbed at one point, that's how invested i was

bleeding heart — the tension between vampire!yeonjun and vampire slayer!reader had me screeching

curtain call — i have a sad crush vampire!soobin

i love you, always — this felt so..bittersweet? taehyun loves y/n so much, i lowkey cried while reading this

@angelfic

the art of (mis)communication — i am a whore for both reconciliation and yeonjun, 100000/10 pls read this i beg of you

@angelictaehyun

growing pains — ahhh once again a yeonjun fic, my chest hurt a lil bit at some points but it was so sweet!!

@neovisioned

bed of spiderwebs — spiderman!mark has my heart screeching, i loved every second of it ♡

eddie ate dynamite — johnny suh coming for my throat yet again

cupid victorious — cupid!jaehyun :'))) definitely one of my favorites!!

@domjaehyun

quarantine chronicles — ok if you haven't read this or the part two yet then you're missing out big time!! the tension, the buildup, every single part of this fic was just *chef's kiss* but multiply thay by a million

all these years — every single moment of this felt so nostalgic and the ending was so sweet :')

@caiuscassiuss

muse — i keep going back to this one constantly, the angst in this phenomenal and i love artist!taeyong sm here

@neoct-zen

loverboy — HOT, AMAZING, I SCREAMED. the blurbs that accompany this are also top-tier i recommend reading each and every one!!

@moondustis

pink + white — i'm so soft for mark i stg, this was the cutest thing ever

@loviejaehyun

can't avoid this feeling — hockey player!mark is the best thing ever

all tied up — i just- screamed as i read this bc professor!jaehyun is too hot goodbye

@hopejanaee

incapable — this is one of the best yoongi fics i've ever read ngl, it's not completed quite yet but the parts that have been posted are top tier!!

breathless — THIS. I LOVED THIS. yuta is just so hfjshhfhshfnsn and i love this sm

@hwaddict

melting point — big boy mingiiii, 100/10 would recommend

@okayau

house next to mine — frat boy!yeonjun rly got me going, cute and hot at the same time ahhhhbfnsnnf

youth — ADORABLE, yeonjun's confession is peak i love it here

run away — how many yeonjun fics can i fit in this post? (answer: a lot) definitely one of my favorite harry potter aus!! it was awesome seeing how their relationship changed throughout the years and perhaps i teared up a little at the end :'))

@starrychannies

baby steps — ONE OF ALL-TIME MY FAVORITE FICS ON THIS SITE, every single part is so well-written and ahhhhhfhdhhf chan makes me feel some type of way

my stupid — another yeonjun fic! angsty but v cute at the end :')

@baekhvuns

this youth of craziness — 40k words of pure gold, this fic is absolutely one of my favorite san fics ever!!

replacement — prince!ten makes my brain go brrrr, i love how the y/n just speaks her mind here

@masterninjacow

untitled project — i saw soulmate au with mark and i knew would already love it, and i did! pizza boy!mark at that, amazing and i adored it

more amazing blogs!!: @galaxteez, @poutybinz, @lustjoong, @bloominghigh

these are just a few of the fics and blogs i found this year, find more on my fic rec blog @agustdiv1ne-recs!! (my thumbs are starting to hurt i'm so sorry bfjshfhsh)

wrapping up each month since august since that's when i actually started posting LMAO

☆ august

03: good enough — chan

03: bloodsucker — seonghwa

04: cutie — san

09: veloxrotaphobia — mingi

19: want — changbin

21: numb — yunho

100 follower special — i reached 100 followers towards the end of august, my first ever milestone :') also my first ever time taking requests, 'twas very fun ♡

☆ september

03: on camera — jungkook

☆ october

27: oh, worm? — namjoon

31: demon days — san

☆ november

10: a letter to my love — xiaojun

23: bad for u — jaehyun

27: home sweet home — yeonjun

☆ december

christmas bash 2020 — my brain went hey what if you did this- and i listened so here's 17 holiday fics hahahaa (not all of them are out yet but i'm working on it!!)

things i plan to release in 2021!!

☆ sunflower — jimin

☆ cross — yeonjun

☆ landslide — seonghwa

☆ nice save — san

☆ red — hyunjin

☆ a secret series (that will be revealed once i plan everything) — ateez

☆ 4 unrelated secret fics oOoOoo — will i reveal them? you'll just have to wait and see ;)

there will definitely be more posted! these are the ones that are going to be my priority at first, but my imagination is always churning so expect a lot more :)) check out all of non-secret wips here!

i hit 500 followers a couple days ago! i nearly screamed when i saw that LMAO. thank you so much for liking my content because i work hella hard on it :') sometimes i feel like i don't deserve y'all really, but @hwaddict will yell at me if i say that so ig i take it back hfhshhdhg

a post for celebrating this milestone will come as soon as i finish up the rest of my christmas fics!! sorry that i'm so slow :( (hint: my requests will be open, so look out for it!)

so yeah!! that's it, sorry for the painfully long post (i'm sorry to my thumbs for typing this whole thing out </3). thank you to everyone who read this far!! i hope everyone has a happy and healthy new year, and in the words of txt's cover, fuck 2020. may 2021 be a much better year for all of us!!!

much love,

ashlee ♡

#i'm sorry if i missed anyone :((#j know i love and appreciate u a lot #it's j my thumbs are literally cramping up as i type this :(#2021 celebration!#happy new year y'all #lmk if any of links are wrong bc i will fix them asap

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baileymarie1793 · 5 years

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A decade’s worth of sports passion

I am not an athlete, but I have a passion for sports.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not uncoordinated or unknowledgeable. I tried my hand at rec-league basketball as a young kid, but it was too aggressive for my taste.

I played six years of softball, but I was a terrible hitter and an average fielder. Frankly, the team I was a part of was quite average too.

I was always a great runner and made the varsity cross country team as a freshman in high school. I ran enough to get my letter and then called it quits after multiple bouts of pulled hip flexors.

However, I always enjoyed football and basketball as an avid spectator and later reporter.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a small, southern town - the kind of town that nearly closes up shop for Friday night lights each fall. I grew up thinking it was normal to see the home team’s newspaper clippings plastered in downtown business windows and fans and families flock to watch the homecoming parade and following bonfire.

I remember learning the names of local high school football and basketball stars long before learning the names of college or professional athletes.

I remember my dad dragging me to as many home games as he could, even if that meant me coming armed with coloring books to keep me occupied in the metal and wooden bleachers.

All of that later translated to an insatiable love of high school athletics.

When I was 14 years old, I interned at my local newspaper. My beat: the life of a cross country runner.

By 15 years old, I was connected with a local TV station in their up-and-coming “hot shots” program. I was sent to the high school football sidelines armed with a small, Canon, point-and-shoot video camera; a monopod and my dad as my personal bodyguard.

The program was intended to give local kids interested in TV the chance to shoot their own sports while also providing free game coverage for the station. Instead, it became a career-changing calling.

I became a staple on the sidelines ever since.

After football, I requested basketball. Following a season of that, I added lacrosse to the mix as my high school started up their first-ever program.

Between 2009 and 2012, I never missed a single football game - home or away. I traveled to back-to-back state championship appearances. I cried on my final game. The head coach awarded me an honorary varsity football letter and a plaque that hangs on my wall to this day.

I knew, heading into college, that I wanted to pursue sports reporting. I set my sights to be an on-air sports reporter, potentially on the sidelines for ESPN.

As a freshman, a journalism professor sought me out to become a part of the school’s up-and-coming sports newscast. I was no stranger to new programs and happily jumped on board. However, I quickly became forced into the background behind seniors who already knew the hands-on producing skills that first-year me did not.

Sure, I could shoot. I nabbed college soccer and tennis highlights which aired in the first sports newscasts. I met Woody Durham. I interviewed Hall of Fame coaches. However, the instruction I yearned in script-writing and Final Cut Pro was never passed on no matter how many questions I asked on Sunday afternoons locked in the journalism school basement. I felt continually out-of-touch and in the dark.

I stuck with it for a semester because I had always been taught to carry out my commitments. At the end of that time, our group was granted an in-person meeting with the then-president of ESPN, John Skipper.

I was the only female freshman, and one of only a half-dozen females in the entire sportscast team, but I didn’t give that much thought at the time.

I remember filing into the conference room with all the rest of the group as John Skipper sat at the head of the table. He circled around the room, asking each of us our name, favorite teams and one question for him.

I was roughly half-way through the group, situated almost directly opposite of him. When it finally came to my turn, I asked him my one yearning question: “when will you have a female anchor lead Sports Center or eventually lead Super Bowl coverage?”

I will never forget his response: a laugh. “That’s not going to happen,” he said. He then added a shameless plug about the rise of ESPN-W.

I was completely deflated. I was mortified that I appeared like a fool, judging by his laugh. I was angry no one else in the room seemed appalled by the response. I was hurt that something I had wanted to see or even possibly achieved had been so whole-heartedly shut down.

The next day I chose to no longer pursue the sports track in the journalism school. I also vowed to never work for ESPN.

I took the rest of the year and summer off from sports and refocused my career path toward news. I still had a strong love for journalism (and still do), but sports would be moved to the backseat.

I kept up with my home teams from afar - even tuning in to the high school football radio broadcasts from time to time. I didn’t return to the sidelines, though, until I got a phone call from my old TV station.

They offered me a paid gig: help shoot Friday night football part-time. I hesitantly agreed.

My former mentor turned boss showed me the ropes on a professional-style camera. I learned Edius editing software, how to write up the shot sheets and input the scripts in ENPS. I was a rising junior in college doing exactly what college freshman me wanted to do, except I was doing it in a real station instead of a school-based studio.

I once again gave up my Friday nights. Sure, I missed my sorority’s cocktails, but I had returned to the sidelines.

That first night back on the turf, I felt like I was home. I wasn’t even at my high school, but I was comfortable anyway. I bounced around one of the 63-area high schools the station covered. I made friends and encountered old acquaintances from other stations from my previous years.

I was by far the youngest person, as well as the only girl, in the entire area shooting high school football for TV. My station was lucky enough to have a female sports anchor who I was privileged to work with often, though she didn’t usually shoot her own highlights.

Despite being the obvious woman in a man’s field, my colleagues and co-workers never doubted my knowledge or ability. I had some strange looks and sideways glances, sure. I had some high-school-boy catcalls more times that I’d like to count. But once kickoff happened, nothing else mattered.

The station kept me on for basketball season and renewed me the following year for both seasons.

As my confidence grew, I began to reconsider the idea of sports reporting. In February of my senior year, I took a leap of faith and attended an ESPN-sponsored sports reporting workshop in Nashville, Tennessee.

Ironically compared to my last ESPN close-encounter, the workshop was filled with aspiring female sports talent. (You can read more about my big takeaways in my previous post here.)

It renewed my faith a bit in my former dream, but it still left me with some harsh realities. So, I moved forward with news journalism as my focus, but I kept sports close at hand.

Out of college, I returned to my former station as a full-time videographer. I covered a little bit of everything: breaking news, college athletics, election coverage, and so on.

For multiple reasons, I was burnt out after a year. The passion I’d had during “Friday Football Fever” seasons didn’t translate to the day-to-day job. I found myself having more bad days than good, more and more often. I can vividly recount days on the job I called home in tears. College doesn’t prepare you for that.

I took another job, another shift in my fluxing career: a multimedia journalist for my hometown newspaper. I returned to the same place that 14-year-old me wrote her first sports beat.

I was hired in late May and began in mid-June, just outside local sports seasons. After a couple months of writing under my belt, I requested to cover the upcoming football season - the same team I grew up watching as a child, the same team I immersed myself into the sidelines with during high school. My boss agreed, seeing his Friday nights suddenly freed up after many more years of coverage than I had seen.

I also requested to video the season. He said it was fine as long as the articles got written. I grabbed my personal camera gear - and my dad, for old time’s sake - and returned to the first sidelines I had ever known.

The video work came easy. I doubled down and began to live-tweet the games as the action took place too. I soon gained a local following.

The articles took a tad more work at the start. I felt like a complete poser at first... Although I could speak and shoot a game recap with ease, I felt like I sounded out of place once pen went to paper. Why would anyone want to read a 20-something female’s play-by-play when a man who’s written sports for longer than I existed had probably already done it better, gotten it posted, and didn’t think twice about it before breakfast?

I got in the habit of speaking my recap before writing it. I used my tweets to string together the action. As I became more confident, I added game stats to my articles (though I still felt like a poser when I did so).

Eventually, the words came easier. I stopped writing them from speech and wrote them like normal.

Toward the end of the season, I remember walking into the office one day to hear an older citizen reading my football piece aloud in the lobby. I ducked my head and made a bee-line for my office. “Who wrote this article,” the man demanded.

“Our staff writer, Bailey Pennington,” our office manager politely replied.

I froze.

The older man curtly said, “tell him he did a good job. The boys sound like they’re on the right track.” He folded the paper under his arm and left.

My face flushed. I wasn’t angry I had been mistaken for a male writer. Rather, I had proven I was just as good. I belonged at the table that John Skipper had laughed me away from, and not just because I could shoot video.

In the year and a half since that moment, I have unashamedly and relentlessly covered the newspaper’s sports. I became a staple, video or still camera in hand, on the basketball court, behind the softball dugout, on the lacrosse sidelines, beside the swimming lanes and at the cross country finish lines.

I easily spend 20 hours a week at high school games on top of my regular work week, now ten years removed from the first time I filmed a game. Win or lose, I wait outside locker rooms for coach interviews (they all know me by name, most have my cell number too). My highlight videos are viewed and shared hundreds, sometimes thousands, of times on social media. People in the community stop me and thank me for my coverage more times than I can remember.

For all of these things, I have become extremely grateful. I realized my former dream of an ESPN gig wasn’t my path... Instead, I learned my value on a high school sideline by the impact it’s had on the dozens of athletes and fans in my small hometown. I came full circle.

Now, I’m two weeks away from another shift in my journalistic career... and I can’t help but reflect on my decade’s worth of sports passion.

At 25 years old, I’ve covered more sports in photos, video and articles than many budding sports-hopefuls could dream of by this age.

I’ve covered stages as big as the Carolina-Duke basketball rivalry to arenas as small as a 9:00 AM post-holiday high school basketball game (no joke, there might have been two dozen people in attendance).

Now, my career is taking me away from home and away from sports. I’ll be traveling, producing magazine and web content and helping oversee a team of creatives marketing for a big-name brand.

I’m thrilled for the opportunity. I'm excited for the challenge. I’m eager for the journey. But it’s bittersweet... with the majority of tears being shed for those same sidelines.

Sports is my passion.

I’m not an athlete. I’m not a coach. I’m not a man starting a Twitter feud or Facebook comment war, arming my arguments with stats and name-drops to prove “my sports knowledge is bigger than yours.” But I will happily argue with all of them that my passion is greater.

Even as I’ve written this long-form post/rant, I’ve shed a few tears.

I’ve notified many of the coaches I’ve covered over the years personally. All of them have been overjoyed for my new opportunities, although they’ve been sad to see me go. Most have expressed no surprise that I’m moving to bigger things, which I take as the highest compliment.

I haven’t had the heart to post it publicly until now... Most of my “followers” are expecting a basketball highlight video posted to Twitter by this time. But tonight I needed to reflect.

Although I’m moving away from sports once more, I know the sidelines will always be there. I’ve proved all I needed to prove to myself. I know my ability and so do the ones that matter most.

And I’m sure, with any luck, I’ll be back there once more with a camera in-hand.

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