#i never did one of these for carlos last year (sorry bb :'<) so this is my redemption arc! i can't make a bday colour palette though tsk | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bagels-and-seagulls · 5 years

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does badboy Matteo paint his nails? (for some reason I’ve been imagining him with black nails every time I read your hcs)

i’ve been thinking about this for a while, just like his appearance in general beyond the nails thing, and i have some ideas but i feel like it’s split between bb!matteo with bb!david and bb! with hj!david. so here are both!

bad boy matteo and bad boy david

-matteo once had an occasional client that was a piercing apprentice at a tattoo shop that couldn’t always front the bill for adderall pills that matteo sold her for half the price of her doctor’s office, so sometimes she would front the bill by offering a piercing and a drink to matteo with a smile that said she knew she was pushing her luck. matteo ends up getting an orbital piercing when he’s just a little bit drunk, two helixes in his other ear when he’s cross-faded, and the left side of his nose pierced when he’s black out. he wakes up the next morning each time with a piece of paper neatly folded into his pocket of the jacket he’s still wearing about how to take care of each one of them, and he keeps up with it fairly well, all things considered. he puts a silver hoop in his nose, and hans is the only that says anything about it, calls it cute and pinches his cheek like he was a baby.

-the boys, after their first year at university, feeling a little bit nostalgic and a little bit melancholic for something that they couldn’t quite put their fingers on, all decide to get matching tattoos with a sudden burst of confidence and boldness. then they figure out how much good tattoos actually cost and end up looking up how to do stick and poke tattoos while in the bathroom of hanna’s new apartment after smoking a bowl like they were still all seventeen and knew what they were doing. they end up as garbled messes that no one can really make sense of, and no one agrees on what they’re supposed to be. jonas says it was a blunt, because that’s how they all became friends, and carlos always buts in to say that it was a beer bottle. abdi is confident that what he drew was a lion’s head, and that just confuses everyone, because why would they decide to get a lion’s head together? and matteo, well, he was really along for the ride anyways. now he just has a black mess on the the soft spot of his ankle that has a semi-funny story to go along with it.

-hans would cut matteo’s hair for him for the low price of one dinner hand-made by matteo himself, and it’s nice because keeping up with an undercut takes a diligence that matteo did not realize the first time he let some girl shave the back of his head at some party ages ago. after a while, hans gets crafty with it and can cut little designs into it made with geometric lines.

-one day, matteo and david are in bed, and david is running his fingers through david’s hair. it’s getting long back here, david says, not meaning anything by it really, just wanting to say something because the way matteo was looking at him like he was something to be admired and hung up in a museum was making him a little overwhelmed. and matteo purses his lips up, like he has something to say but thinks better of it at the last second. what? david asks, with his interest peaked. you wanna do it? matteo asks, and david agrees easily enough because it can’t be that hard.

-having matteo sit on the floor in the bathroom in front of him while he cards his fingers over his scalp to brush off tuffs of hair feels like a religious experience every time.

-david learns that hans can do designs with the razor and makes it a personal mission to be better at it for some reason. matteo doesn’t really care, doesn’t see the point of the effort when it’s just going to grow out in a couple weeks anyways, but he likes the way that david’s fingers feel gentle around his ears and on his neck. so he sits quietly for as long as david wants him to.

-matteo colors his nails in with markers and pens and sometimes pencils when he’s in class because the teacher drones on sometimes, and drawing tiny little trees on his thumbnail seems far more exciting at the moment. one day when he’s at david’s apartment, poking around the living room while david is on the phone with laura, talking about what they had in the fridge for groceries, matteo finds a bottle of black nail polish that matteo picks up to spin around in his hands, and the urge to open it and use it on his thumbnail is so strong, that he ends up doing it without even realizing. are you going to do the rest of them? david asks from the doorway, and matteo looks up like he just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. sorry, he says and goes to put it down because he always had a problem with touching things that weren’t his. no, no, it’s okay, david says quickly. you can do the rest if you want. laura won’t mind. i probably use the black more than she does. and matteo stares down at the bottle and then looks up to david and sees that he’s serious, that he doesn’t care if matteo wants to do this or not. i don’t think i would be very good at it, matteo says, and david smiles and walks in the room and says, i can help.

-matteo starts painting his nails off and on, without any conviction either way. he does it when he thinks about it and the option is there, and let’s it peel off and flake away completely before he does it again. david buys him his own bottle of jet black and puts it on his desk without him even noticing.

bad boy matteo + hot jock david

-matteo has unruly and floppy hair that mia cuts for him once a month when he remembers to ask her. she doesn’t do anything too special, and he doesn’t ask for anything more complicated than off his neck and shorter around his ears. she always smiles at him when she’s done and ruffles his hair to get the last couple of strands out, and he smiles back and tells her that he’ll buy her a round the next time they’re out together.

-it’s getting kind of long, isn’t it? david asks one night when matteo is over, and he’s tried to push his hair out of his face at least six times since he started doing his homework. david tugs on one of the strands that fell in between matteo’s eyes, and matteo bats him away. mia’s been busy. i didn’t want to bother her, he says and goes back to his book, pushing the hair back like it’s muscle memory. i could ask laura if you want. she cuts some of her friends’ hair sometimes, david hums, and cards his fingers through the the hair at the back of matteo’s neck. i don’t want to bother, matteo says again, and david says that it’s nonsense and rolls out of bed right then to go and see what laura is doing. matteo trails after him and says that it isn’t a big deal, but his whispers are stopped short when they’re standing in front of laura on the couch, scrolling through her phone. would you mind cutting teo’s hair? david asks, and tugs on matteo’s arm until he’s standing in front of him, his hands on his matteo’s hips to keep him standing right there. laura doesn’t even stop looking at her phone when she answers, sure, right now? and matteo ends up sitting on a stool in the middle of their bathroom with laura cutting his hair with a pair of scissors that look like it was actually made to do that. and she’s chatting with david casually where he’s sitting on the counter, and matteo is just sitting between them, caught up with nerves about something he can’t quite place, feeling a little like he was going to throw up and gripping onto david’s ankle, trying not to move at all.

-laura ends up cutting matteo’s hair once a month in a way that makes him look like he actually takes care of his it, and matteo doesn’t know how to repay her, offers to buy her dinner or something each time. and she always laughs a little bit at him and says that his company is payment enough, that she enjoys the little moment they get together. but matteo still always brings over her favorite type of cookies the next time he’s over anyways.

-matteo has the right side of his nose pierced and a frontal helix on his left ear. david asks when he got them at one point, and matteo says that he doesn’t remember, that he went out one night, trying to sell some joints, and came back home later with a text from a number he didn’t recognize and two piercings that he only noticed because they hurt the next day still. he texts the number asking if they knew anything about the piercings, and never gets a response. he looks up how to take care of piercings online and ends up putting a silver stud in his nose.

-matteo has two tattoos. one is a stick and poke on the inside of the his right ring finger that’s supposed to be the two dipper constellations together, but it’s so light, that it kind of just looks like a series of freckles. it takes david about a month of them hanging out for him to even notice it. he was playing with matteo’s fingers when they were sitting out on a balcony somewhere together and ran his finger over the dots, just to have matteo laugh and tell him it tickled. the other tattoo is a crescent moon on his left thumb. he gets that one done legit, from the same girl who does the stick and poke. she does it for a couple of euros for letting him practice on him unofficially when she was trying to get the gig she has now, and he tells her to call him when she gets a little bit better because he might have some ideas in the works.

-matteo ends up walking in on david hanging out with sara and leonie at his apartment. he apologizes in the doorway and says that he must have gotten the time wrong, that he can come back later if they want. and they all tell him that it’s fine, and he should join them. david pulls him onto the living room floor to sit up close to him before he goes back to painting sara’s fingesr a bright blue while leonie is doing hers a deep red. did you want to join? leonie asks when she sees the way that matteo is eyeing her drying fingers. no, it’s alright, matteo says and shakes his head. you sure? leonie asks. it’ll be cute. you could do a blue or a red, and i think it would look really good with your skin tone. oh, maybe a green, she says and starts holding up some bottles near matteo’s hand, and he eventually agrees to let her try because she just seems so enthusiastic about it all of a sudden. and matteo hasn’t been able to get a read on if david’s friends liked him or not, even though he so desperately wants them to like him. david curls in close once he’s done with sara’s hands and wraps his arms around matteo’s stomach, who’s trying not to knock leonie’s work. he kisses matteo’s shoulder and murmurs, that’s a good color, into the fabric of his sweater.

-leonie ends up painting matteo’s nails every time he ends up interrupting their little hang out, and matteo gets a little bit sad every time they end up chipping off within a week, not that he tells anyone that, not that david didn’t notice anyways.

-i can get you some, if you want, david says to him one day with his hands on his face and his lips on his forehead. i’ll get you every color in the rainbow. you can paint them a different color every day if you wanted to. a different color for each finger, even. and matteo just shoves his face into david’s chest, feeling found out for some reason, and just goes, yeah, okay.

#the other one is under the cut #this got a little obnoxiously long #who knew that this sitting in my box for like a month would result in this #bad boy matteo #bad boy matteo and hot jock david #davenzi #my writing

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junker-town · 7 years

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Lessons from Opening Day of the 2017 MLB season

It’s just one game out of 162, but it can still mean something important, dang it.

Did you enjoy Opening Day*? I’ll bet you did. There’s nothing better than breaking the icy clutches of winter with the magic of Opening Day**, when the sunshine*** streams down on a living ballfield and reminds you that, yes, winter always gives way to spring, which gives way to summer, and summer is the cure for everything that ails you****.

* This was not Opening Day. Give me Cincinnati or give me death.

** Baseball doesn’t start on a Sunday, what is this fake Opening Day nonsense?

*** The first game of the year was in a DOME, with absolutely no sunshine, which is some reverse-groundhog witchery, and I’m very mad.

**** There is no cure, I’m so sorry, have some baseball.

And while it’s not like we can make any grand proclamations after one game — only five of the six division winners won their first game last year, after all — that doesn’t mean we can’t learn anything on Opening Day.

Here are some lessons about the first day of 2017 baseball, then. Some of the lessons are more important than other lessons, but the most important lesson is that just because one game out of 162 games doesn’t have to mean everything, that doesn’t mean it’s completely devoid of meaning.

The new turf at Tropicana Field looks great

Yes, the first pitch of the 2017 season was thrown in a dome, with catwalks and man-made abstractions blocking out our communal source of life, and that was an abomination.

Take a moment to remember what could have been, and what still could be:

Wikipedia

I’m not in favor of oligarchs and obscenely rich people funneling public money into a structure that benefits them disproportionately, but, well, I’m not not in favor of that stadium. As always, the true answer is “Erratic rich person who cares about sports way more than he or she should,” but those are hard to find.

Regardless, that ballpark isn’t coming, so the Rays have to make do. And they did fine. The new turf looks outstanding.

Well the field at the Trop looks better #rays http://pic.twitter.com/0LlcRsaxbM

— Roger Mooney (@RogerMooney50) March 31, 2017

It seemed like it had some life on it, so if you’re in a fantasy league that counts doubles and triples, consider this a hot stock tip. Aesthetically, though, it’s a huge improvement.

Carlos Martinez is not going to be baseball’s most underrated pitcher for long

Over the last two years, among starters with at least 350 innings pitched, here are the leaders in adjusted ERA:

Clayton Kershaw

Jake Arrieta

Zack Greinke

Max Scherzer

Madison Bumgarner

Corey Kluber

Jon Lester

Carlos Martinez

David Price

Johnny Cueto

That’s a collection of Cy Young winners and $25 million pitchers, and right there toward the bottom is Carlos Martinez, who is remarkable and doesn’t get nearly as much attention as he should.

I would show you a video, but this will do just fine.

What you’re looking at is a) the location, b) the chyron in the bottom-right that confirms it was 100 mph, c) the sudden shift of Addison Russell’s hands into bunt mode, which is the fetal position of baseball, and d) the I-just-threw-100-mph strut of Martinez as he walks around the mound. Not pictured: the nasty changeups that set this all up.

I don’t know if Las Vegas gives odds on All-Star Game starters, but I’ll bet you could get 12-to-1 on Martinez right now. After Sunday, that would look like a sweet bet.

The Giants’ bullpen is a, uh, work in progress

On the season finale of Giants Bullpen from last year:

“oh no,f

oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no”

“aieeeeeeeeeeeee”

“oh no no no no no no”

“they brought my childhood pet back to life just to set it on fire, why would they do that”

Then the next season starts, and they’re using the same storyline. Lazy, lazy writers! Let me walk you through this:

Derek Law struck out 50 batters last year and walked 9 in 55 innings. He finished the season with a 2.13 ERA and a 2.53 FIP. If the Giants’ bullpen was going to be better this season, Law was going to be a huge part of that.

Mark Melancon has been unimpeachably awesome for four seasons now, one of baseball’s absolute best closers. In his last 290 innings, he’s been good for a 1.80 ERA, 2.25 FIP, and 212 ERA+, with a superb 6-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

These are the two pitchers who blew saves for the Giants on Sunday.

Neither of them should blow a lot of saves.

They’re probably pretty good, just like they were last year. .

The only problem is that it HAPPENED IN THE FIRST GAME OF THE 2017 SEASON, WHEN GIANTS FANS ARE MORE SENSITIVE THAN USUAL. But it’s more than that. Last year, Russell Carleton wrote a brilliant piece about how it’s possible that toxic bullpens are something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once things start going bad, everyone else starts gripping the ball a little tighter, and those borderline pitches start going the other way. It’s a total mess, and it continues to be a total mess.

A new season should be a new start, then. Same pitchers, same arms, just without the stink of unfortunate expectations.

Instead, the Giants have the stink of unfortunate expectations again. Every team will blow a save this year. They’ll all have tough bullpen-induced losses. None of them will do it with the same kind of anti-grace that the Giants showed on Opening Day, though. This was the one team that couldn’t afford the pressure of a blown save on Day 1, and they got one. Bonus points for getting two in the same game. Extra bonus points for one coming from the new $62 million closer, the guy who represents the entire offseason.

Extra, extra bonus points for blowing the save because you couldn’t retire Jeff Mathis and Daniel Descalso with two outs.

They’re probably not the worst bullpen in baseball. Based on one game, though, they might be the same bullpen. That’s a problem.

Madison Bumgarner is a man-obelisk who should never be thrown a fastball again

Madison Bumgarner was the first pitcher to hit two home runs on Opening Day. Baseball keeps chugging away, but there are still unexpected milestones to make us feel like kids again.

youtube

Those were absolutely demolished. Bumgarner sent his respects to the baseballs’ families, but he offers no financial support in their troubling times.

However, at the risk of spoiling one of baseball’s best stories and Bunyanesque myths, allow me to show you Madison Bumgarner against a good breaking ball:

This is not an anomaly. Good pitches will make Bumgarner look like a pitcher, especially the breaking pitches. He’s looking for fastballs down the middle or hanging breaking balls down the middle, and he’s going to swing as hard as he possibly can, just in case someone throws one.

Diamondbacks pitchers threw him two fastballs in the Diamondbacks-uniform of locations. They should not have done that.

It is absolutely sensible to pitch Bumgarner up, in, or outside with fastballs he can’t hit, just like pitchers do with every other slugger in the game. He hit two homers because the Diamondbacks screwed that up, and because he’s better than most pitchers with a bat. Mostly, though, it’s because pitching is hard. Throwing a fastball where a hitter can’t get to it is ... sort of the point.

If it were easy to do, this would be one dull sport.

Pitcher wins are still the very worst statistic

Your winning pitchers on Sunday:

Chris Archer (7 IP, 2 ER, 7 H, 1 BB, 5 SO)

Fernando Rodney (1 IP, 1 ER, 2 H, 2 BB, 0 SO)

Seung-hwan Oh (1⅔ IP, 3 ER, 2 H, 0 BB, 2 SO)

I don’t want to be a zealot about it, but, c’mon. It’s an absolutely awful statistic that doesn’t tell us anything.

I can almost see it for starters. For relievers, though, it is the very worst. Sunday was a great argument why.

Sunday was a great argument for why baseball is good, though. Pitcher dingers. Aces look like aces. Walk-offs, walk-offs, walk-offs.

It wasn’t the real Opening Day, but it’ll do until the real Opening Day gets here. Don’t forget to learn something or ascribe too much meaning to anything you’ve seen. It’s your right as a baseball fan.

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