#i think that season they tried to cut out some of the 'lesser' players but those are my favorite!!!

[allyngibson]

No Joy in the Green Grass League

No Joy in the Green Grass League

The York Revolution were having a Peanuts-themed baseball game. As in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts. As in Charlie Brown and Snoopy and the Vince Guaraldi Trio. And they were wearing custom jerseys and auctioning them off.

Naturally, I had to go.

Naturally, the game was today, and I didn’t know about it until yesterday afternoon.

I receive York’s emails. I even sometimes look at them if the subject line grabs me. I can’t say that the subject line grabbed me here — “Win a Revs Jersey While You Help Kids!!” — but the first line of the email — “Good grief, the players are wearing York Revolution Peanuts jerseys!” certainly did.

I had plans — a ticket for the Harrisburg Senators Sunday afternoon game against the Reading Fightin’ Phils — and under pretty much any other circumstances I would have done that and not the York game, but Peanuts and the Beatles are the two themes that would make me change my plans. So I exchanged my Senators ticket for a ticket in the Erie series at the end of the month, put on my yellow Charlie Brown t-shirt, and went to downtown York.

Ironically, I’d been there yesterday, in the downtown area. I went to Prospect Hill Cemetery again; the day was absolutely gorgeous, not the sort of day you want to waste, and I hiked from the grave of Lefty George to the main entrance on George Street, and explored some parts of the cemetery I’d not seen. I also wanted to see if I could see Mt. Rose Cemetery from Prospect Hill. I believe you can, and the next time I go I’ll take binoculars to be sure.

Today was the first time this season I’d been to People’s Bank Park. I’ve seen York this year, but in Lancaster, not York. (Such as their opening day.)

The jerseys the team wore today were snazzy, with a print of baseball-themed Peanuts comic strips. I bid on two of them and won neither, which is fine. It would have been a nice collectible to have, but at the same time I didn’t need to spend $120-plus on something I’d never wear.

Peanuts and baseball are such a natural combination, and I wish the licensors would do more to work with minor league baseball rather than the 87-millionth iteration of Star Wars night and Marvel Comics night.

Since I hadn’t been to The Bank in about a year — I think I was last there for a game where they wore Olympics-themed jerseys — I walked around the stadium before the game.

Just as yesterday I’d tried to determine if Mt. Rose Cemetery could be seen from Prospect Hill Cemetery, I also tried to ascertain if Mt. Rose Cemetery could be seen from the ballpark, since I have tried to see the stadium from the cemetery and been unable to do so. (Or, I might be seeing it and failing to recognize it.) I think the reason I’ve been unable to see the ballpark from the cemetery hill is that it can’t be seen; I couldn’t see Mt. Rose at all from any vantage point. Too much stuff in the way.

When I returned to my seat, an old man at the top row of my section excitedly told me we had a special visitor in the park today — a bald eagle.

The gentleman, I am sorry to say, was difficult to understand. The eagle, he said, didn’t like something, but I don’t know what that something was. He also told me about his health issues — skin cancer, notably — and the medications he was on and how he had to stay out of the sun. I listened with interest and concern, occasionally asking him questions, but I only understood maybe one work in four. After I took my seat, he continued to tell everyone about the eagle, and the eagle stayed there at least an hour into the game.

Before the game, the Vince Guaraldi Peanuts music, most of the familiar tracks and some of the lesser known pieces, was played in the stadium. I thought it was from a CD, but there was a West Coast-style jazz trio, named, appropriately enough, Good Grief, playing the Guaraldi cuts. I have no photos of Good Grief playing, because I didn’t know where they were until they were tearing down their tent. The best I have is a distant shot; they were set up on the party deck behind home plate.

There were also people dressed as Snoopy and Woodstock at the stadium entrance, and fans were getting their photos taken with the characters.

In the early going, the game was tight. The Wild Health Genomes — that’s their name, they play in Lexington, Kentucky — would score, and York would score. York would issue a walk (or three) and get out of the jam. Wild Health’s pitcher was tighter.

And then the home plate umpire got drilled in the nuts.

At least, that’s where it seemed the umpire was struck by the pitch. You’re in the stands. It’s hard to tell.

Other than the jerseys and the pre-game stuff — the character appearances, the West Coast-style jazz band — there wasn’t much Peanuts flavor to the game. Joe Shlabotnik was not in the line-up, nor were they any Shlabotnik-style flashy plays on routine outs. (There was, however, a base runner who was thrown out at first after he stumbled and fell out of the batter’s box.) The video board used the image of Downtown in Schulz’s style, and there was a series of Peanuts clips strung together on the videoboard between innings (though it was also impossible to hear).

York’s pitching was not great. York pitchers issued a team record number of walks — the radio broadcast said, I think, fifteen — and it’s a wonder the Genomes didn’t score more through the first seven innings.

In the eighth the wheels came off York’s pitching, and the Genomes, who came into the inning leading 3-2, took an eight run lead. York couldn’t buy an out. I’ve seen enough Atlantic League baseball to know that an eight run lead in the eighth inning isn’t safe, but York also couldn’t buy a run. The Genomes tacked on three more runs in the tenth. and that’s how it ended -- Genomes 13, York 2.

No joy in Stumptown and the Green Grass League tonight.

But while the hometown team may have faltered, it was certainly a lovely day. It wasn’t hot, it wasn’t humid. There was a light breeze, and gentle clouds floated across the sky. The attendance wasn’t great — maybe 1,500, maybe less — which is unfortunate, because this is exactly the kind of day you want for a tightly played baseball game (for seven innings, anyway).

Lancaster is visiting York this week. Perhaps one night this week after work I’ll attend a game. Otherwise, my next baseball game will be Wednesday, the 24th, in Harrisburg, as they take on the Erie SeaWolves.

#Atlantic League #Charles Schulz #Charlie Brown #Peanuts #York Revolution

[random-imagines-blog]

Post Red {Viktor Krum x Reader Oneshot}

Requested by: Anonymous Wordcount: 3072 Summary: At a time when he should be focused on the game, Viktor Krum is distracted by you, his childhood best friend, and a blonde-haired boy who won’t stop flirting.

The Quidditch World Cup. You came just about every year, getting pretty okay seats with your best friend Viktor and his family. His parents and yours were good friends, which instantly meant that you were best friends. And with his father holding season passes to every Quidditch world cup, no matter where it was, this had become a yearly tradition. “I’m going to be on the Bulgarian team one day,” Viktor would always state as you watched the players fly. Bulgaria was always his favorite. Home country pride. It was yours too, but sometimes you liked to cheer for other times to mix things up. You would always grin and nudge him to point out something a player was doing, but not this year. This year, you were at the top of the stadium, standing next to the Minister of Magic in a special area, watching Viktor Krum play in Bulgaria versus Ireland. He was achieving his dream.

Every time that he flew past you, you jumped up and down, waving the flag of his team. He had become the star seeker of the team so quickly, it made your head spin. But you were nothing if not supportive. You used up your allowance to buy his merchandise, even though he could get it to you for free. It almost became a joke between the two of you, how you would always show up to his house wearing a sweater with his face on it, bright and smiling. You always made the joke that he was smiling on the sweater because it was the closest that he would ever get to your chest. He would make the joke in return that he was just smiling because he finally was looking at someone good looking - himself. He was actually very funny for a serious looking man.

You weren’t the only one high up in the stadium. Sharing a box with you was the Minister of Magic himself, and a man with his son. The boy was two or three years younger than you, you would assume by his size, and his hair was as silver as snow, just like his fathers. You had no interest in them. You weren’t here to make friends. You were here to support the best one that you had. But you did give a friendly hello and smile to the Minister, as it was better to have a friend in him than an enemy.

The other boy though, he wanted to have more than a friendly hello with you. He kept moving closer to the part of the box that you were occupying. He spoke to you with a very snobby voice, and though it would be considered rude and your parents would be disappointed in you, your direct reaction was to pretend that you didn’t know English.

“I’m Draco Malfoy,” He said, sticking his hand out to shake yours. “We’re here with the Minister of Magic. Are you here by yourself?”

Rather than shake his hand, because you honestly didn’t want to touch him for too long, you tapped yours against his in a high-five. “Ja, go fast!” You said, pointing at one of the Bulgarian Chasers who just flew past you.

The look on Draco’s face was worth it. But there was still a long game ahead of you. It could go on for hours. For days. Hopefully for the former though, because Viktor was a really good seeker. You had full confidence that he would get the snitch before it turned midnight.

Draco went and stood by his father for a little bit, and the two had quiet conversations. You didn’t pay him much attention. You were too busy watching the game. Even during lulls when it was just Chasers fighting over the ball in the middle of the pitch, you were intrigued. You didn’t pay attention to anything else - except for maybe making faces at Viktor when he passed by you on his way to catch what he thought was the snitch. He was darting back and forth so quickly though, it was hard to tell if he had seen you.

Since the World Cup was officially sponsored by Butterbeer, it kept being brought up to your box by people who worked for the Quidditch federation. It was enough to keep you warm as the game went into the nighttime. The skies seemed to threaten rain, but you didn’t care whether it fell or not. You were having fun, regardless of the weather.

The Irish scored the first goal. You booed, even though the others in your box seemed to be very supportive of the green team. You smiled apologetically at Fudge as he gave you an odd look, but didn’t pass a glance at the other two. However, the young boy came and stood beside you again, leaning over the box to look down at the people below in the lesser seats. He was sneering at them, like they had done something wrong by just existing there. That was worth a look to you at least. He caught your eye, and that sneer turned into a smile.

“Is this your first time at the Quidditch World Cup?” He asked. You shook your head, still feigning not knowing any English. “We come every year. But this is the first time that we’re in the Minister’s Box. So how did you get up here anyway? Who are you?”

He wasn’t letting up. You tried to look up at the players again, but the war for the Quaffle was going on in the middle of the pitch which meant there wasn’t much to look at right now. He nudged your side, so you finally answered, giving him your first and last name.

“Sounds exotic,” He said, which made you have to turn away and roll your eyes. Leave it to someone from England to think that your name was exotic, when it was commonplace where you were from. And not like he had the right to judge - what sort of name was Draco?

There was finally some action on the pitch, which took his attention from you for a little while. Unfortunately it was Ireland again, scoring the second goal of the game. Your eyes scanned the pitch to look for the familiar frame of your best friend and you saw him across the stadium. He was balanced on his broom, sitting on it in a way that made it look easy. Comfortable. You always admired how effortless he made it look to fly, while you were always hunched down, holding on with both hands until your knuckles had started to hurt. You waved at him when you thought you caught his eye and he smiled back at you. You chuckled as you heard a few girls in rows below you start to squeal because they thought that it had been at him.

“He’s overrated,” Draco muttered beside you.

“Krum?” You asked - before realizing this was very close to exposing yourself as a fraud.

“Yeah. He’s not even that good. In fact, I’m better than him. I’m the Seeker on the Slytherin Quidditch team. I got in second year, which is really rare, actually.”

You let his voice go in one ear and then out the other. This boy seemed to like to talk about himself an awful lot.

Ireland scored a third goal, and you groaned loudly, cutting off Draco in the middle of a sentence. “Oh, are you cold?” He asked.

Either he didn’t notice that you were shaking your head, or he didn’t care. He moved in closer to you and tried to put his arm around your shoulders. In your discomfort, you took a few hasty steps away, and ended up bumping into the Minister himself, stepping on his robes which almost pulled him down.

“I’m so sorry,” You said in horror as you realized what you had just done. You helped him to upright himself, and he gave you a wary look, like he should have expected this.

“It’s quite alright,” He said, but he did wander to the other side of the box, far away from you. You watched, feeling a bit bashful about what just had happened. At least, until there was a cheer from the fans. Ireland scored yet another goal. You sighed, and put your gaze back on the game. Viktor had moved since you had last seen him, and you began to scan for him once more, only for him to pop up not too far from you.

“I knew you spoke English,” Draco said from next to you. You almost forgot about the little twerp, but here he was, making himself known again. You never met anyone so infuriating before. He just couldn’t pick up a hint. “Come on, talk to me. Do you go to Hogwarts? I felt like I would have seen you there.”

“I don’t go to Hogwarts,” You stated. “You have not seen me before. And after this, we shall not meet again. Please, leave me alone.”

“I’ll be telling my father about your rudeness,” He said, finally turning away from you. You let out a sigh of relief. Maybe you could finally get into the game.

There had been a few close calls of Ireland getting the snitch. They were winning by quite a lot, and you could feel Viktor’s frustration from where you were standing. He kept looking at you, and you didn’t have much to offer him except for crossing your fingers.

“I think you should come to have dinner with us after the game,” Draco said, strolling back over to you after a while.

“The game could go on for hours, or even days,” You said, clenching the fence in front of you. You had never felt the urge to punch someone before but it was growing slowly and steadily. Something about his ferret like face.

“Well, we’re taking a break soon. We brought our new house elf. It’s an alright cook, it’ll do for the occasion. And you’re going to join us, aren’t you?”

“I’m fine here, thank you,” You said, scoffing at the idea of a break. You had no intention of leaving the game until it was over, even if that meant starving or peeing yourself. You were dedicated to stick it out for Viktor, at the very least.

He was flying not too far, eyes peeled for the stitch. But he looked at you. He was able to smile once more, but a hand grabbed yours and pulled you away from the fence. In your astonishment, you had let go. “Come on, we’re going to have something to eat.”

There was a sound of awe from the crowd at the exact same time that something went soaring by your head. You just barely managed to duck before it turned around and came back. A bludger. But how in the hell did it-

It went returning the way that it had come from, flying across the pitch. That was when you saw Viktor again, a little closer to you this time, holding a beater’s bat. He tossed it back to the beater, who went soaring after the bludger, while Viktor looked over at you. You put your hands over your heart as a thank you. He had always been a little overprotective of you, but right now, you were grateful for it. You were able to snap your hand away from Draco’s grasp, who was still ducking from the bludger attack. “I said I’m fine here. And if you, or your father, have a problem with that, you can shove it up your rear!” You shouted. The Minister overheard this part of the conversation and let out a little ‘oh my’ in surprise.

You didn’t even care. Enough was enough. If he grabbed you again, you would be telling everyone that you were being assaulted, and put him on full blast. Though he looked rather shaky after the encounter with the bludger, so you had the feeling he wouldn’t actually be bothering you again. You returned back to the fence so you could overlook the pitch again, and wrapped your hands around it so no one would be able to drag you back again.

-

The game finished with Bulgaria’s loss. You were disappointed, but it wasn’t Viktor’s fault. He still managed to catch the snitch, so he had done his job. It was the Keeper that you were disappointed with, and you would be bringing that up to him later.

You descended the endless flights of stairs, blending in with the crowd after the game - many were celebrating but there were quite a few who looked the same as you felt. Damn Ireland, you were thinking to yourself. And damn the Bulgarian Keeper! He hadn’t been able to do his job properly. Even Viktor would have done a better job, and it was his least favorite position!

You managed to veer away from the crowd to go to your own little campsite. Much like the others around yours, the tent was much bigger and roomier on the inside than it appeared on the outside, thanks to a little magic. You marched on through the flaps to go inside, and change out of your clothes. It had been a long game, and you had definitely sweated at least a little bit. You wanted to be much more presentable when Viktor would come along and join you.

The flap came open once more, and Viktor strolled in, just as you were fastening the button on your bottoms. He had perfect timing - now at least, maybe not so during the game. His jaw was clenched, you noticed, and he looked very angry. He’d lost games before, but still reveled in the fact that he had been playing. This was not a mood that just came from the game.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, watching as he walked past you to the armchair that was in front of the budding fire. Thank heavens for magic - a fire and a tent would never have worked otherwise.

“That boy who was touching you-” He said, sinking into the chair, and spit directly into the fire with disgust. “What’s his name?”

“Oh, we don’t need to worry about him, Vik. I think you scared him enough with the bludger. He wouldn’t even come close to me after that. Turned white as a sheet,” You chuckled at the memory, but his anger seemed to rage on.

“No, tell me his name.” Viktor demanded. You sighed, and walked to where he was sitting. The chair wasn’t big enough for the both of you, but it had rather wide arms and you planted yourself right there. You leaned your head against the top of his, the bristly growth of his hair tickling your forehead. “Y/N...”

“He was a stupid, petulant child who I am never going to lay eyes on again, Viktor Krum. Why did it make you so mad?”

“No one should be touching you. No one should be dragging you...” He said, moodily. He was staring into the fire, not at you at all.

“Tell you what. I’ll let you know his name after you calm down, how about that?” You suggested. It would take some time - he had a temper like a bonfire that would just keep on burning until the morning.

“Fine,” He grumbled. He said nothing more, and the two of you sat in silence, staring at the fire as it crackled, and listening to some of the cheers from outside. People were still celebrating the Irish win out there, and it gave everything a joyous atmosphere. “I’m not angry anymore.” He said after a few more minutes.

You pulled away from him, and took a look at his eyes to see if he really was in a post-red mood. He still looked grumpy but the worst of it seemed to be over. “His name was Draco Malfoy. His father is friends with the Minister, which is why I didn’t do much about it myself. You took good care of me, Vik. Just be happy that it ended the way that it did and we could move on with our lives.”

“If I see him again, I’m punching him,” Viktor grumbled. You shrugged, alright with that since the likelihood of it seemed so low.

“That is a price that he will have to pay then,” You smiled, moving back towards him and fell into his lap. Before you could try to get up, his arms went around your waist and started to tickle you in the way that he knew you hated. Fingers digging into your skin, it was a horrible feeling but the closeness that it brought wasn’t entirely terrible. “Vik - come on, stop...”

“I like it when you call me that,” He said, finally letting a smile come across his usual gruff features. You smiled in return, and lightly ran your fingers across his sculpted jawline, feeling the bone beneath his skin. His breathing hitched, and he held you closer, tighter.

You grew closer, until you could feel the heat of his breath on your lips. Viktor was so close - and you hadn’t realized until this moment that this was something that you wanted. You had always been friends, and your parents had teased since the beginning that they were planning your wedding to each other. But this was the first time that you had seen what they had been seeing.

Screams came from outside, and they were far from being the joyous kind. There was serious fear in the female voice that you had heard. And then came others. More and more screaming. The tent seemed to move as people were rushing past it. You could just see it through the crack between the flaps which acted as doors.

“Stay with me,” Viktor said, getting up immediately. You agreed to this without question, and when he offered you his hand, you took it. Whatever danger was out there, you were certain that you could face it together.

#Viktor Krum #Viktor Krum x reader #Viktor Krum oneshot #Harry Potter #Harry Potter oneshot #request #oneshot #viktork #x reader

[maybankiara]

YOU’RE IN MY HEAD

pairing: Footballer!Rafe Cameron x Reader

summary: When he keeps putting you off your position during matches, you decide to take it up with him -- unbeknownst to you, there’s more to Rafe than just wanting to prevent you from being a good football player (and it’s called unresolved sexual tension.)

w/c: 4k

a/n: happy valentine’s day!! @drewstarkey and i have a whole football!obx au (soccer, for you americans) planned that i keep putting off, so here’s a little something loosely inspired by the idea, until that finally arrives. also, in this universe, football is a unisex sport. i’m not a football expert so there may be some inaccuracies. i hope you enjoy both the day and the fic! (and do let me know if this football!fic is what people are interested in.)

masterlist

It’s the half-time of one of the better matches the team has played this season and, of course, Rafe Cameron ruins it by uttering a single sentence: ‘Y/N, you’re swapping positions with Kiara.’

 The captain’s orders don’t end here, and he decides to implement some more strategies the team has practiced before, adapting the approach to the heavy-defence strategy that North Carolina is playing tonight. Sarah gives you a sympathetic look and a tap on your hand, but all you can do is shake your head.

 This is the third time in a row Rafe has put you on the sidelines, basically. Always swapping with Kiara, whom everybody knows to be a lot fiercer right back than you, or anyone else on the team. Just like you’re better at being in the front, charging for the goal.

 When the changes are in place and there’s about five minutes left, Rafe asks if anyone has got questions. Peterkin stays quiet and lets Captain Cameron take over, just like she always does.

 You raise your hand, and Rafe calls on you. ‘What the fuck, Rafe? Why are you putting me in the back again?’

 His jaw clenches. ‘We need someone firmer on the front.’

 ‘But you also need a firm defence,’ you argue. ‘You’re not making any sense.’

 He stares at you and you hold his gaze, unwavering, feeling his sister stir next to you. On the other end of the locker room, Kiara pulls her jersey down, biting her lip. ‘Y/N’s right—’

 ‘I know what I’m doing,’ Rafe cuts her off. ‘Now let’s get back on the field.’

 You listen to what he says, but not without letting your disagreement with his choice be written all over your face. When you’re headed out, he’s waiting to be the last, and you bump into him as you’re walking out, shoulder to shoulder, torso to torso.

 He glares, and you clench your teeth, trailing behind Pope.

 Back on the field, time flies. You warm up quickly and it’s back in the game again, only on a different position than where you started. Kiara offers you a sympathetic glance, much like the one Sarah gave you, because everyone is starting to notice that Rafe is treating you differently.

 As you run, a little out of the grounds he told you you’d be covering, saving the ball more than a handful of times, you feel his watchful eyes on you. You’re not meant to be playing the right back but you’d rather do your best, even if it means overexerting yourself, just to make sure you don’t lose.

 You foul an opposing player and drop to the ground, feeling your ankle get sore; Rafe’s the first to get to your side, helping you up. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

 It’s a free kick, but not a yellow, so you say, ‘Whatever it takes.’

 ‘Don’t go breaking your legs, Y/N.’

 You pull your arm out of his hold, sending a glare his way as you go back to your position. You should keep paying attention to the ball, because it’s about to be kicked, but you can’t help but shout, ‘If you let me play what I’m supposed to play, maybe I’ll listen!’

 The game picks up. You dive a few more times, Kiara gets a nasty foul that has her off the pitch for about half a minute, Topper gets a cramp, JJ fouls in the front and gets a yellow, John B and Rafe nearly start a scrap when someone gets Sarah to the ground – but you win.

 That should be what’s important, you think as the entire team is hugging and celebrating, but your heart isn’t in the right place.

 Playing football is far from fun when you keep being treated like a lesser player than someone else.

 Time wears on, the team gets changed, and it’s time for a proper celebration, down at the Wreck. Sarah tries getting your spirits up, even Kiara tries telling you that at least you evaded getting fouled like that, Kelce tells you that you saved his ass, but none of it matters – not when Rafe celebrates as if what he’s doing is right.

 Seriously. Three matches. It’s fucking ridiculous at this point.

 You approach Rafe without hesitation, but still keep your voice hushed, because you’re not exactly trying to ruin everybody’s happiness with your tension. ‘Can we talk?’

 He glances at you as he pulls his jersey over his head – your eyes drop to his lean torso, despite the fact you see it on an almost weekly basis.

 ‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ he says, and takes his shorts off. ‘You were good today, as a right back.’

 ‘That’s not my— Jesus, do you need to be half naked right now?’

 ‘What?’ he asks, almost innocently, but the grin betrays him. ‘I’m getting changed. Why are you getting so worked up?’

 ‘I’m not—’ You pinch the bridge of your nose, letting out an exasperated huff as he takes off his socks, too, and is now wearing literally just boxers. ‘You’re ridiculous.’

 He chuckles, dropping down on the bench. You half-wonder what Topper, sitting next to him, must be thinking – and realise that most of the team is taking selfies and chatting in the other end of the locker room. It’s just you and Rafe.

 Good.

 He looks up at you from the bench, manspreading with his back leaning on the wall. ‘What do you want?’

 ‘I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m kind of trying to have a serious conversation with you right now.’

 ‘Yeah, I got that.’

 He’s hot. Okay, he’s hot and the reason why you’re so bothered about him being almost naked is because it’s taking your mind off of what you’re wanting to talk about, and giving a different meaning to you being “worked up”.

 So you gather all your courage and bring your eyes up to meet his, trying to exude as much fierceness as you can muster. ‘I need you to let me play on my position. I’ve had enough, you can’t keep doing that if you’re not training me to play Kiara’s.’

 ‘Easy,’ he says, shrugging. ‘Then we’ll train you.’

 Your jaw drops. ‘Are you being fucking serious right now?’

 Before he gets to answer, JJ calls from the other end that they need to hurry up, if the team wants to make it to the Wreck at a normal time. It breaks whatever moment you and Rafe were sharing and, telling him the conversation isn’t over, you retreat back to your locker. It takes all you’ve got to not let this affect the celebratory mood, because winning 2 - 0 is pretty damn good, and you should take some credit for that. Even if it wasn’t on your position, for half of the match.

 It ends up not being so difficult, actually, to not think about what happened. Once you’re back in Kildare and at the Wreck, food and drinks are flowing, and as long as Rafe is out of your earshot and sight, it’s good. He tends to stay away from you most times, anyway.

 (Which, okay, you can admit now sometimes bothers you, you’ve had a few drinks.)

 It’s not so difficult, until JJ lounges in the chair next to you, beer can in one hand and a donut in another, asks, ‘What’s up with you and Cap’n?’

 ‘Don’t even get me started,’ you sigh. ‘I don’t know what crawled up his ass.’

 ‘Language, Y/N.’

 ‘Fuck off, Maybank.’

 The blond just grins, probably happy to see you slightly irritated – but not at him.

 He pushes the chair back from swinging into its normal position, resting his elbows on the table. He leans towards you as if he’s about to tell you a secret – even his eyebrows furrow, the ever-present smile shaping into a frown. ‘Seriously, he keeps pushing you in the back. He’s gotta have a reason for that.’

 ‘Not that I’d know of,’ you admit. You shrug, lightly, despite the actual weight of the subject. ‘I thought we made a good team in the front. He assisted me, I assisted him… It’s been working well.’

 JJ nods, pondering. ‘It was the game against New Jersey, right?’

 ‘The last time I played without the change?’ You play until JJ nods, then sigh, playing with a broken piece hanging off the wooden table. ‘I didn’t even get to play, since that bitch nearly sprained my ankle.’

 ‘It’s always your ankle,’ JJ says, chuckling.

 His thoughts take him to stories of all the injuries you and the rest of team have gotten so far, drawing a couple of your teammates into the conversation. Rafe slips off your mind for the most part, as you laugh along to the ridiculous number of times Kelce has faceplanted while tackled, or to Pope is retelling how he defended the goal by getting the ball in his nuts, which made him fear for his offspring (it was all fun, and makes for a hilarious story).

 It’s only when you glance around the table and catch him in conversation with Topper, or James, or Sarah, and his eyes are trained on you for just a moment before they’re gone – as if he wants you to see him, but wants you to question whether it was an accident. You feel yourself growing stiff; when it happens too many times, your mind flashes back to the locker room – you, trying to talk to him; Rafe, half naked, grinning at you like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

 He’s conceited. He’s selfish. He’s attractive, with that prep-boy look around him that falls apart when he’s leading the charge on the pitch – when the wisps of blond frame the sharp lines of his face, and he embodies the look of the leader he’s become.

 It just sucks that you don’t quite agree with his leadership, and he doesn’t quite agree with you speaking up about it.

 Night wears on, and your teammates flock to their beds, one by one. You’re only staying at the Wreck, the local hotel, for a night – tomorrow’s a new day, a new tournament. It would be smart to go to sleep early. Get the energy you need for tomorrow, because tomorrow’s filled with press conferences, which you don’t tend to enjoy.

 It would also be smarter to deal with the captain tomorrow morning, when you’re both sober, instead of the buzz running through your veins right now.

 By the time it hits midnight, it’s only you, JJ, Pope, Kiara, Rafe, and Topper. Instead of taking the big table at the wreck, the few of you retreated to a secluded one in the corner of the hotel’s dining room. Topper’s beating everyone at cards, but Kiara’s at his neck, and everyone has downed enough drinks for the night to be called quits soon enough; you are starting to sober up, and can already feel the headache looming.

 Inadvertently, you glance at Rafe. He’s holding his cards in one hand, spread evenly, long fingers adorned with rings keeping them in place. Across from you, his eyes don’t meet yours, as they look around the table, through everybody’s poker faces – you notice the angle of his cheekbones, the sharpness of his jawline, the unstyled hair having the slightest bit of a messy wave to it. You hate how much attention you pay to the parting of his lips, and the line of his nose, the curve of his eyes; his Adam’s apple bobbing as he taunts Pope across the table, trying to get him to break the cards.

 When he turns as if scalded and his eyes meet yours, you don’t avert your gaze.

 It might be the alcohol, but the room is starting to feel a little stuffy, a little warm; you’ve never realised how intense his gaze can be. It’s almost as if it’s unguarded, spiked with the few drinks everyone’s had.

 You clear your throat, looking at your cards – you’re definitely not going to be the one winning anytime soon. ‘I think I’ll head to bed, soon.’

 If anybody notices the fluttering of your voice, they don’t comment on it. Kiara nods, JJ boos you, and Rafe says: ‘We should all probably head to bed if we want to be ready for tomorrow.’

 ‘Okay, Cap’n,’ says Topper, resting an arm around the blond’s shoulders. ‘You go get your beauty sleep, me and the boys are going to let you know how it went when you wake up in the morning, princess.’

 Kiara clears her throat, drawing the attention to herself before quirking an eyebrow at Topper. ‘What’s making you think you’re getting rid of me?’

 There’s a collective of ooh’s, and you think about staying, but it wouldn’t be smart. Rafe’s right, you all would be better getting some sleep, but there’s also the fact that you’re pissed at him and you’re drunk enough for that to be making you seem in a bit of a different light.

 (You’re still struggling to breathe, a little bit. Hopefully no one has noticed.)

 In the end, you bid everyone goodnight, pay your bill, and head for your room. You’re still not feeling well and there’s a water dispenser in the ground hallway, opposite end of where the stairs to the upper floor are. You think about making a cup of tea, but settle for water – water is good.

 Cold water should unhaze your mind.

 You stay in the hallway, for a little pit – it’s peaceful here. Hallways have meant something to you ever since your team’s career started to take off two years ago. Wherever you go, rooms and places are different, but hallways are nearly always the same. They’re always just transit spaces, connecting point A with point B; it’s not quite a liminal space, but it’s where you feel like nothing can hurt you.

 That is, until you’re about to set your foot on the stairs, and you see Rafe walking out of the toilets.

 His eyes settle on you at the same moment and both of you freeze; the hallway is quiet, save for the music reaching it from the dining hall. You can almost hear your heart beating.

 ‘Thought you were going to bed.’

 You raise your glass, which you refilled just before embarking for your room. ‘Had to stop for a bit.’

 He nods, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Outside of the locker room, outside of the dining hall, he doesn’t seem like the overconfident Rafe you’ve got so much against. He still is the same – it just doesn’t show that much.

 ‘I meant what I said earlier,’ he says, slowly, as if the words are hard to push out. ‘I think your should train to be right back.’

 If you had half a shot more, you would’ve thrown the water into his face. Now, all you do, is say – ‘You’re an asshole, Cameron.’ – and go up the stairs. For a moment there’s nothing, but then there’s rushed footsteps coming up the stairs, and you feel a hand on your wrist, and his voice calling your name.

 You don’t turn around instantly. You’re too angry for that – you close your eyes instead, and breathe, before collecting yourself enough to not explode.

 He’s still holding your wrist when you turn around, and he’s close enough that you can almost feel the heat radiating off his body; the cologne mixed with the scent of fresh clothes.

 ‘Please don’t be angry with me.’

 You scoff, pulling your hand out of his grip. ‘You’re ruining my life. You know how important this is to me, and you keep— you keep putting me where I don’t belong!’

 ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and he sounds earnest; he sounds the way his face looks – a small frown on his face, lips quivering breathlessly, the wrinkles around his eyes almost pleading with her. ‘I’m just doing what’s best for everybody, Y/N.’

 ‘I don’t play defence. That’s Kiara’s job, but apparently that’s not good enough for you. You know where I’m good at.’

 ‘You’re good playing any position.’ He says it quick, as if the words escape from him. He swallows loudly enough that she hears him and takes a step back, shaking his head. ‘Look, you’re one of the best players on the team. That’s why—’

 ‘Then why don’t you put me where I can be the best?’

 ‘Y/N, just trust me, okay?’

 ‘No,’ you say, crossing the distance he created between the two of you until his back’s pressed against the wall, and you’re right in front of him, a finger jabbed into his chest. ‘I want to know why you’re doing this.’

 He hesitates; you feel his heart beating faster than you thought possible. ‘We were playing against rough teams. I couldn’t let you get hurt.’

 You scoff again, half-laughing as you rub your forehead with the back of your hand. ‘That’s bullshit. Jesus, Rafe, you’re spewing shit.’

 ‘Look, it’s the truth. I couldn’t take that risk.’

 ‘But you could take that risk with Kiara.’

 ‘Yes.’

 No hesitation; no wavering. It’s something he must’ve thought through, over and over again, for the answer to be so certain. You’re a little taken aback, and your finger falls from his chest, but the distance is still almost nonexistent.

 It’s because I’m good, you tell yourself, that’s why he’s keeping you safe, but it doesn’t ring true. Not when you can smell his cologne and not when his eyes drop to your lips, cheeks flushed.

 So you decide to ask why.

 He hesitates again, and you feel his shoulder slump as thoughts run through his head. Whatever he settles on, he’s certain, and you can see it. His voice is almost sad when he admits, ‘After the game against New Jersey, I couldn’t stand the thought of you getting hurt. I couldn’t lose you on the pitch, because when you weren’t around, it was like I couldn’t get my head straight.’ He pauses, and then: ‘I’m sorry.’

 Rafe breathes slowly, carefully, but your heart is racing around your ribcage, threatening to break through. His words echo around your head as you try to make sense of them – make sense of the way he felt like it was more than just a admission of being a good team – make sense of the way he’s looking at you like he’s expecting more than a reaction to the recognition of your worth as a teammate.

 There’s a feeling in your chest that you can’t describe. It’s in your throat, in the back of your head, burning through your ears – a thought almost too scary to form, but then it does, and it refuses to leave.

 So you swallow the gulp in your throat and ask, ‘Is my being good on the pitch the only reason?’

 A beat. ‘No.’

 You nod, slowly, as if in a trance. His eyes are gazing into yours with intensity you’ve never felt before – it’s as if he’s asking you to say something, to do something, to show that you understand what he’s saying without saying it.

 And you do.

 You do.

 You nod, and your lips are on his before you get the chance to think this through. His hands are quick to grab your waist as your fingers get tangled in the soft waves of his hair, bodies pressing against one another in a heated rush.

 ‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ he mutters, a moment before his lips find your neck, fingers slipping underneath your top, dipping into the skin on your back. You moan, a little too loud, and he laughs against your neck. ‘We really shouldn’t.’

 ‘Yeah, we shouldn’t,’ you agree, watching him as he pulls his head back to look at you, a dazed smile on his face. ‘My room or yours?’

 Rafe’s grin is enough to set your body on fire. ‘Yours is closer.’

 He kisses you again, a firm kiss planted on your lips, before taking your hand and letting you lead to your room. The moment the door is locked, your lips are on his neck, clothes are clumsily coming off on your way to the bed, and you only have a second to wonder how long this has been inevitable until his lips hit the right spot, and every thought is as good as gone.

 When you wake in the morning, you’re half-surprised to find him curled into your side, head resting on your shoulder and an arm draped over your stomach. He’s still asleep, and you take a moment to think about how calming—how right—it feels to be here, with him. The hotel room is nice, a quiet rose gold, and the light coming through the windows is making it almost ethereal.

 It doesn’t feel like a mistake. You’re still a bit angry about being pushed back, but things seem a little different now that you know he wasn’t trying to hinder you, but protect you.

 (You still need to tell him that you don’t need protecting; you know what you got yourself into when you decided to play the sport.)

 With a smile on your face, you start playing with your head. He wakes within five seconds, with the same dazed look on his face from last night. His eyes find yours and he pauses for a moment, as if he were taking it all in, before his lips find home in yours. Neither of you think about morning breath, or about the fact that you should both probably go for a shower before leaving the hotel, because Rafe snuggles into your shoulder, pressing butterfly kisses to your collarbone, as his hand traces circles around your stomach.

 You take it upon yourself to ask, ‘No regrets?’

 ‘None.’

 ‘You should have one,’ you tease, and only let him be frightened for a moment. ‘Pushing me into the back.’

 He sighs, burying his face in the crook of your neck. ‘Are we still arguing about that?’

 ‘We will be, until you let me play offense again.’

 ‘If it was you instead of Kiara yesterday, it could’ve messed with your leg,’ he says. Before you get to respond, he pushes himself off the bed so he can look at you. ‘I know your ankle is still hurting from New Jersey even if you’re not saying anything.’

 You can’t deny the truth.

 Rafe kisses your forehead. ‘Just promise me you’ll be careful.’

 ‘I always am.’

 ‘More,’ he says, breaking into a smile. ‘I need my partner back.’

 ‘If you promise to never make decisions for me without consulting me first.’

 He squints, as if thinking about it, but you can tell he isn’t. ‘I promise.’

 ‘Okay, then.’ You wrap your arms around him and pull him down, kissing him softly. ‘I promise to be more careful.’

 In the end, it’s like he promised – you go back to playing offense, in the front of every attack, and you and Rafe are back to being the dynamic scoring duo you’ve always been. Except this time this dynamic extends to beyond the field, and you support each other when the football isn’t around. Nobody is surprised by the turn of the events – you’re not entirely sure, but JJ passes Kiara a few bills when you and Rafe break the news to the team, and you think there was bets going around.

 Things get back to fine. Things get better. You end up winning the tournament, and Rafe kisses you with the cup in his hand, and the next morning, the headlines are full of your and Rafe’s names more so than your team’s, but that’s fine. You’ve made it.

 You’ve got everything you need – you just never thought it’d be no one other than Rafe Cameron, the Captain himself.

#outer banks #obx #rafe cameron #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron x reader #obx imagine #outer banks imagine #obx fic #my fic #i even made a wee graphic for it bc i was born but also bc it's not a usual fic #it's a gift <3 #anyway i might be willing to explore football!rafe a bit more in the future if there's interest #no clue if the obx fandom is even alive rn #anyway the left pic is bc that's the rafe i imagine being here #the smoker posh boy kinda type #you know the kind that fleur likes (not that i'm exposing her or anything)

[doorsclosingslowly]

No-one will ever call this bluff

When Obi-Wan and Ventress fight Maul and his apprentice on Raydonia, a crate breaks open. Inside: an airborne poison. 6.6k | TCW Episode 4.22 Revenge AU | warning for serious illness

“Down!” Ventress shouts. “Down, Kenobi!”

Blindly, Obi-Wan throws himself to the floor and only then he rolls and risks a glance over his shoulder. The miss was far too near. Obi-Wan’s unexpected ally intervened just in time: the lumbering Sith almost managed to drive his lightsaber into his back. In the crate a foot’s width behind Obi-Wan there is a smoking hole at chest-height that could have spelled his doom, but now, with wide swings of her ‘saber, Ventress forces Savage Opress away and towards another one of the myriad crates stacked here in this nondescript cargo hold that Obi-Wan woke up, in after Maul and his new accessory Opress beat him up.

Her next swing connects, though unfortunately the small flesh wound in the Sith’s dominant left arm won’t disable him. It just spews out strange green miasma, even though the cut should have been cauterized. The following strike cleaves a massive hole into a durasteel crate, because Opress apparently learned how to duck just in time. Whoever packed this freighter was not beholden to Republic safety standards, it seems, because the whole crate, besides being completely unsecured to the wall, is just stuffed full of some fine white powder that now plumes out, dusting the crouching Sith all over with its fine particles.

A warning in the force, just in time again, and Obi-Wan jumps up and parries Darth Maul’s attack with Ventress’ second lightsaber.

Maul does not press his advantage. He throws a curt glance in the direction of his apprentice, disapproving and disappointed. Obi-Wan almost hopes for Ventress’ cry of victory, but then the flurry of movement at the edge of Obi-Wan’s field of vision reveals that the massive zabrak must have regained his footing and is locked in his battle with Asajj Ventress once more.

It’s their distinct advantage, Obi-Wan realizes: he and Asajj have fought side-by-side in their weird alliance before, but for all that Opress appears to be beholden to his fellow zabrak, they do not seem to fight together. Opress kicked Obi-Wan around at Darth Maul’s direction—strange, too, that he would eschew the force for fists—but they’re not fighting as one. Just next to each other. Unless Maul gives the other zabrak direct orders, and even then, they are less than a seasoned team. A few weeks ago, Opress was still Dooku’s lackey, and back then he was just as lousy of a team player. He does not seem to have improved just because his new Master shares his species. We’re outmatched, Obi-Wan just told Ventress, but perhaps…

Perhaps…

Obi-Wan does not want to flee. He came here to Raydonia—at least presumably that’s where they still are, he hasn’t heard any tattletale vibration of engines—he came to this obvious trap at the behest of a long-buried monster, but also: for a mountain of corpses. He saw them in the holo, and before Savage beat him up and dragged him in here, he smelt them. He’s had a regrettably thorough acquaintance with the stench of burning flesh since becoming a frontline General of the GAR, but still, he fancies the Raydonia massacre even more horrendous, more pungent, for what it represents. Civilians, children, monstrously slaughtered, and for what reason? Simply as the holo message to the temple said: to draw him out?

He does not want to flee—he came here alone despite all the signs that that’s what his enemy expected—because this is Darth Maul. The unfinished business he thought done and dusted years ago. The death that merited his promotion to Master. The murderer of the halcyon Jedi Master, his beloved teacher Qui-Gon; the harbinger of the end of eons of Jedi supremacy over the Sith; the enemy that Obi-Wan cut apart. Quickly he was distracted away from his nightmares back then because he needed to keep up with his new whirlwind padawan, but there was one moment he could not forget. Sai tok. Bisection. That confused painful grimace. The sheer brutality that Obi-Wan used to dispatch his assailant on Naboo seared itself into his mind, never mind that it was rightly deserved then and a few hours ago proved to be far better than Maul deserves… Never mind that the monster somehow survived his mutilation…

He does not want to flee. Darth Maul murdered these people to draw out Obi-Wan. If he escapes, there’s every reason to believe he’ll do it again.

Besides, Obi-Wan was but a padawan when he bested Maul. In the intervening decade he has taught, studied, followed the force. He has led the GAR into battle. He can turn this fight to his advantage, especially with Ventress by his side; regardless of Maul’s acquisition of Dooku’s castoff acolyte he can now do it right and aim for the neck. They just need to be smarter about it. One against one is fine, but if they take out the weak link together and then focus their combined might on Maul… It’s worth a try.

So Obi-Wan strikes at Opress whenever he gets in range, and he tries to get in range as often as possible.

Savage Opress, rudely, seems exclusively preoccupied by Ventress; even when Obi-Wan manages to wound his other shoulder he quickly focuses all his attention, his growls, his attacks back onto her. The two have a history, though: and not just under Dooku, it seems from Opress’ growl in the beginning. A Dathomir witch—she betrayed me, he said. Whatever that means. He apparently can’t let go enough of his past to realize that in this fight, Obi-Wan is at least as deadly a foe. Despite this fact or maybe because of it, it doesn’t take long before the gargantuan Sith starts faltering. His attacks miss by wider margins; his feet barely find stable ground. Once, when Obi-Wan comes close, he can see the sweat beading on the zabrak’s brow, the feverish tinge to his yellow skin. He’s fighting for breath. Maul, meanwhile, doesn’t seem at all aware of the predicament his apprentice is in. Maybe Obi-Wan’s attacks, designed to make him dodge as far back as possible, have managed to distract him, or maybe he just doesn’t care.

Ventress, however, throws him an amused smirk. She’s moving in a perfect complement, pincer-like, subtly helping cage in the lesser Sith towards the cockpit of the ship.

Slash, stab, slash, and then—

Opress trips. He trips, or it’s the coughing fit that suddenly wracks his massive frame—whatever the cause, he tumbles to the floor, barely keeping hold of his ignited double ‘saber. Barely keeping hold and barely not cutting himself up with the still-burning energy blades, missing his own arm by a hair’s breadth when he tries to shield his chest with his hands out of some strange useless instinct and then he hits the ground, back-first and uncushioned. The access pad of the cockpit blinks red just meters to the right of him, and his face answers, flushed unhealthily pink and sweat-slick.

“Gotcha.” Ventress raises her ‘saber—

A sudden whirlwind of naked tattoos and metal chicken legs, Maul parries her.

The sound is so quiet behind the whirr of the lightsabers that Obi-Wan almost thinks he hallucinated it, but why would he? No, that sounded like Opress, and it sounded like… “Didn’t let him free. Not allowed to take two mates. Not him too.” Gibberish, and he has no time to decipher it, curious as he may be as to the fatuous Sith’s motivations.

Darth Maul sets his hand down on Opress’ head to steady himself—Ventress’ strike must have been strong enough to unbalance him, or he chose the wrong footing in his rush—and then he wipes it against his own head: leaving a stripe of white powdered residue. He raises his lightsaber. He grins. “Two against one. That brings back some memories, does it not, Kenobi?”

“This time when I dismember you, I’ll remember you’re a cockroach,” Obi-Wan replies.

A dismissive shrug is all he receives in answer. “Feel free to join me when you’ve finished your midday nap, apprentice,” Maul throws over his shoulder, and then he starts feinting and stabbing tirelessly until both Ventress and Obi-Wan have retreated several tens of meters back across the cargo hold. He’s as acrobatic and cocksure as he was on Naboo back then, guarding the whole width of the cargo hold against both of them. Guarding. Yes, that is the word, Obi-Wan suddenly realizes. Flashy as they may be, his strikes are defensive in nature: designed to keep them occupied and retreating, but barring a gross mistake none would be the kind to wound. And yet, Darth Maul lured Obi-Wan here, presumably to murder him. You will suffer as I have suffered was the threat if he recalls correctly. This is not suffering. He’s abandoned his original aims, then. Opress’ sudden dizzy spell seems to have unsettled Maul.

Maul is far more hardy than his apprentice was, but even he has his limits—after what feels like an hour of Maul jabbing and both of them dodging, and Opress’ pleas to various family members (mother, brother, sister, brother again), his face is shining with sweat just as Savage Opress is, though with his red coloring there’s no way to see the red tinge that is probably present as well. Barely, he dances out of the way of Ventress’ strike before trying to drive her back again. It shouldn’t give Obi-Wan any pleasure to realize this—and it doesn’t—but the defeat on Naboo seems to have robbed Maul of much of his grace, his skill, even though it has only made him more bloodthirsty.

He won’t be able to wage this battle forever. Obi-Wan rejoices in his instincts, and in the force, that told him not to flee: even if Maul decides to give up on this battle now and manages to escape, his brutish companion hasn’t moved from his spot except to jab listlessly at the imaginary girlfriend he’s been whimpering to. He’ll be easy prey. Maul is the diseased brain, and taking him out would benefit the galaxy far more—but in a pinch Obi-Wan will settle for his new stooge.

He’ll—

The thin hairs on Obi-Wan’s arms raise with electric static, and then thunder shakes the cargo hold. The walls bob and drop like those of a capsule on a water planet in storm; more crates drop, releasing their miscellaneous contents, spreading mealpacks and hydrosacks and another burst of white powder and holopads and sundry more items all over the floor; and Ventress grabs Obi-Wan’s shoulder to steady both herself and him. Maul has no such luck, no such compatriot, and he keels over sideways.

There’s no breach on the hull of the cargo hold, at least, as far as Obi-Wan can make out. It sounded like a small laser cannon, the blast, but though it definitely hit—and who knew the impact in a landed ship would feel like this—it wasn’t strong enough to penetrate, or the ship’s defenses haven’t yet given out. That will probably change with a few more blasts, if whoever attacked them keeps up their assault. They’ve got another problem.

Ventress strides over to the window next to the loading bay, obviously preferring survival over a continuation of the fight, and Obi-Wan follows her. He keeps his eyes locked on Maul, though, who winces when he pushes himself up with his hands—should have taken a second to decapitate him, missed chance—and looks just as disquieted as Obi-Wan feels. Not one of his plans, then.

There are people outside the window. A few of them are pulling charred bodies off Maul’s victim pile, some are inspecting Obi-Wan’s ship—still there, luckily, though far enough he’ll have to run for a few minutes to reach it—and most of them are hauling around a small fighter ship using massive ropes. They’re shouting something that’s inaudible through the thick transparisteel pane of the window, but looks incredibly angry, and then Obi-Wan’s hairs raise again. He and Ventress grab for the cross bar behind them, and—shake.

“Villagers,” Ventress hisses.

“Quite.” Obi-Wan raises his voice. Wherever Darth Maul and his delirious lackey are right now, they’ll be able to hear him. “They have come to avenge their families murdered by a broken, unbalanced monster.”

“And kill us, too.”

“Now, I’m sure that once I tell them I’m a Jedi sent in to bring their murderer to justice they’ll—”

“Duck.”

Obi-Wan glances out of the window again, and outside, the people must have noticed them: they gesticulate wildly towards the window, and their towed ship’s laser cannon is pointed right at—

His knees ache. They’ve hit the floor hard, because Ventress has pulled him down with impressive force, and another boom shakes the freighter.

“What about the word ‘duck’ do you not understand?” Ventress gets up again and inspects the window, which hasn’t—yet—shattered. “I’m disappointed, Kenobi. I thought I’d taught you how to obey my commands.”

“My ship is out there, but we won’t make it that far.”

Ventress sighs. “Well aware. Our only way out is the freighter, and…”

Obi-Wan follows the direction of her eyes. Maul has made his way back to his apprentice. Back where the cockpit is. He must have reached the same conclusion. He’s whispering something inaudible and trying to pull the other zabrak onto his feet. Even with his chicken legs compensating for their height difference, though, he’s not strong enough, not when Opress isn’t cooperating at all. They’re only tens of meters away from the salvation of the cockpit door, a distance the sickened Sith apparently cannot crawl anymore and is too heavy to be dragged.

“Help me, brother, help me,” the big Sith moans weakly. He’s attempting to push Maul’s hands away, completely ineffectively, lightsaber forgotten. “I don’t want—please don’t—Sister don’t—”

Ventress looks over at him, an unreadable expression on her face, before she says, “If they get into the cockpit before us, we have a problem. But they’re both exhausted. As long as they don’t manage to close the door, we can make it.”

As soon as Obi-Wan and Ventress approach, though, Darth Maul drops his feverish apprentice with little care—Savage’s head hits the wall with a clang, though he has little brain to even lose from traumatic brain injury—and strides a few meters forward, lightsaber ignited. He looks more focused now after the break in battle, even if still sweat-drenched and trembling, and the barrage of laser strikes that hits the freighter doesn’t keel him over the way the first attack did.

“You have decided to return and die, then,” Maul says.

Ventress sneers. “You barely managed to hold the two of us back.”

Another volley of shots. The villagers are firing more and more often, and however well-armored this freighter may be, it won’t hold out forever. Every attack could be their end. With dawning dread, Obi-Wan realizes they might not even have timeto fight a newly revitalized Maul for the cockpit. And that means…

“In their drive for righteous vengeance against you, the Raydonians will kill us all if we stay here. And soon. You cannot get into the cockpit without giving us an opportunity to attack; we cannot defeat you fast enough. I therefore propose a temporary truce for our mutual survival.” The words are bile on his tongue, proposing a deal with a mass murderer to help him escape his victims, but needs must. Obi-Wan is a General of the GAR, and more battlefields than this one require his guidance. Maul is but a single washed-up revenant of a Sith, and he’ll find death sooner or later.

He takes a step towards the cockpit. Savage Opress shudders.

Ventress catches up to him, and Opress winces and curls into a ball.

“No,” Darth Maul says.

“If we do not take off soon, you’ll die!”

Opress, on the floor, uncurls and coughs. Flecks of something come out and hit the floor, red—blood. Instinctively, Obi-Wan moves closer.

The feverish Sith, mid-coughing fit, pushes himself up with trembling arms. Glowering, he forces out, “You won’t—” cough— “hurt him, now, I’ll—” cough, cough, cough, and more blood spraying towards Obi-Wan. There’s a visible sore on the zabrak’s shoulder from this vantage point, right where Ventress managed to injure him, massive and red and swollen with a necrotic black center. A clue towards his mysterious illness, if Maul’s irrational desire to let them all die before cooperating wasn’t far more pressing.

“My apprentice is right,” Maul says. He’s sweating profusely, probably feverish, and subtly bracing himself on an upended crate, but he’s probably no less lethal when cornered. “We do not trust you.”

“I give you my word as a Jedi Master.”

Maul’s eyes go crazed suddenly, wide and burning, as he howls, “Your word? Your word? I fought with honor. I could have booby-trapped that palace, and yet I did not. I fought honorably, two against one, and yet you would not even give me death, you—”

“I thought you’d died—”

“You gave me pain, pain, pain! For a decade I crawled in refuse and I fed on nothing but hatred for the Jedi who would not even grant his honorable enemy an honorable death!”

“I really thought you’d died,” Obi-Wan repeats weakly. “How was I to know you could survive a sai tok?”

“Here is what I think of your honor, Jedi.” Maul spits on the ground. Is it Obi-Wan’s imagination or is there blood speckled in…

Another blast hits the freighter. They’re running out of time.

“Ventress, then,” Obi-Wan offers. “She is of the dark side, just like you. I trust that’s more agreeable?”

She’s flushed red and sweating slightly, too—just what kind of contagious illness is this?—but she nods in Obi-Wan’s direction and stalks forward.

Again, Savage Opress starts whimpering as soon as he sees her face, and that’s Maul’s cue to block the path with his ignited lightsaber.

“What is it now?” Obi-Wan is the Negotiator, but even he can be forgiven for his lapse in tone now, as he tries to convince an obviously insane murderer to choose his own survival—and that of his apprentice, too. His apprentice… Perhaps… But no, Maul has never shown care for a living being beside himself, so appealing for the preservation of his fellow zabrak would be pointless. There must be a better argument. If only he knew… “What do you have against Ventress? She may have chosen to help me this time, but I promise you, we are at best friendly enemies.”

“My apprentice is afraid of her. I am more inclined to trust his judgment than yours,” Maul says, as if the shudders of a delusional feverish oaf of a Sith was enough reason to condemn them all to death by village mob. Without more information, this is a knot impossible to untangle.

“Ventress, do you—”

“Leave it.”

“—do you know why Savage Opress is scared?”

There is no answer. Asajj Ventress strides back towards the cargo bay.

Maul has retreated to his apprentice, perhaps having decided that Obi-Wan currently won’t instigate a fight. He’s squatting in front of him on his ludicrous chicken legs, a critical eye turned back over his shoulder on the other zabrak. “You’re burning up,” he says quietly. Obi-Wan is barely close enough still to hear him. “And as for the violent coughs… the armor is not helping.”

Savage swallows and shudders and presses his hands to his covered belly.

“You are of no use to me dead.”

No answer. The other Sith coughs out blood and then curls up again, the very picture of misery.

“I shall keep them away from you.”

“From you,” Savage rasps. “Keep them from… I am—” cough— “already lost. They must not hurt you.”

“If you die, you are of no use to me,” Maul repeats. His lip curls, though it’s impossible to tell whether from impatience or cruelty or worry. “You promised to protect me. How will you do that, apprentice, if you are dead?”

It seems to have worked. The word ‘protect’—a revelation Obi-Wan should perhaps have seen coming, but who would expect anyone to look at Darth Maul and see a creature worth protecting, a person in needof protection?—it rouses Opress into a weak kneeling position. He paws at the right shoulder pad of his armor, again and again, but…

“No-one told you how to take it off.” Maul’s voice is entirely flat, and Obi-Wan’s almost offended by his lack of shock. Who—how—why would someone wear an armor they could not remove? “Be still, then, apprentice.”

He raises his lightsaber and cuts, carefully—pausing twice just before a coughing fit wracks Savage’s frame—first through one shoulder pad and then the next, and the pauldron too. The undershirt beneath is dotted with burnt holes, and Darth Maul pulls it away from his apprentice’s body and cuts it as well. Opress is heavily scarred, shiny burn scars all over his shoulders and torso beneath the armor, and a massive overlay of lichtenberg figures down his back—but beside the lesion of the infected wound on his shoulder from Ventress’ attack which has engulfed his whole arm now, they’re all healed enough to be at least a few weeks old. Maul directs him to pull off his boots, too, but allows him to keep his skirt.

“This armor was useless against anything but blasters, anyway,” Maul says. “And it’s obvious that you are not used to moving with its weight. Whoever gave it to you did not act in the interest of—”

“Don’t let me interrupt, boys.” Ventress smirks as Maul’s head whips up. The Sith looks panicked and strangely guilty. “But the mob outside has found another ship with a bigger cannon. We should probably get going.”

Savage’s head clanks against the floor again, Maul’s uncharacteristic tenderness forgotten as soon as he remembers his audience. Lightsaber raised in a defensive position, Maul repeats, “No.”

“Ventress can take the ship, and I’ll stay here as collateral—she won’t decouple the cockpit.”

“No.”

“You really want to die here?”

Maul turns his face away. His arm is trembling.

You cannot imagine the depths I would go to to stay alive, he said when he attacked Obi-Wan. And the depths he’ll go to to kill Obi-Wan, apparently, including mulishly waiting for his own death, and the miserable demise of his own apprentice as well.

“Savage is sick,” Obi-Wan tries. The guarding, the careful removal of his armor—the relationship has to count for something. Even Darth Maul would not sink as low. “He needs medical care. By your stubborn refusal, you condemn him to death. Your apprentice will die here.”

Maul’s eyes are pools of fire and darkness. Vicious and dead. His voice is flat, empty, when he says, “There is no mercy for the weak. No mercy. There never was.”

Laser blasts shake the freighter again, and all Obi-Wan’s negotiation attempts have come to nothing. Trapped with a madman. He’ll just let all of them die, and for what? Stubborn Sith suspicion? If he will not yield, then… Desperately, he suggests, “Take the cockpit yourself, then. You do not trust either of us, but I am prepared to stake mine and her lives on your—on your honor. You insist you fight with honor. Prove it. We need to take off, or we all die.”

Down on the floor, Opress mumbles something that almost sounds like assent. He’s always looked vacuous and inexpressive to Obi-Wan, barely reacting to what should have been pain or mortal danger, but whether it’s the infection or the situation—he’s grabbed onto the ruined pauldron and tries to shield his bare torso. He’s swallowing, painfully, but he cannot force down his expression of sheer unadulterated dread.

There’s something more going on, something far beyond anything Obi-Wan could have suspected when he chose to come to Raydonia. This fear… Opress appears convinced that despite the laser cannons barraging their shelter, despite the mysterious onset of his brutal illness, it’s Obi-Wan and Ventress who pose a danger beyond his wildest nightmares. And Darth Maul…

“No,” Maul says. “I will not leave him for you to swallow his mind and carve up his body.”

It’s madness.

Mystifying. Hopeless. Madness.

Obi-Wan kicks one of the scattered meal packs on his way back to the cargo bay for another, probably fruitless, check on his own cruiser. Ventress stays behind, coughing softly. It’s no use escaping, though, just as Obi-Wan predicted—the sky is dark and the mob of villagers have probably mostly gone to sleep, but they’ve posted guards at the doors of the freighter and there’s no question they’ll spot Obi-Wan on his run, and if Ventress starts succumbing more deeply to the mysterious illness too… she won’t make it, and duty to the galaxy and the Republic would demand he leave anyway to rejoin his place at the GAR’s helm, but she came here to rescue him. He might have died at Maul’s hands—the sickness might not have broken out at all—if she hadn’t come. Whatever Maul thinks happened on Naboo, Obi-Wan knows honor. He won’t leave her behind.

He meanders back slowly, wracking his mind for any possible course of action, and suddenly his boot kicks up white dust. The crate! That innocuous crate that broke open, and unleashed its mysterious ills. He probably shouldn’t touch anything or even breathe here—but then he’s weathered this infection much better thus far than either of the zabraks or Ventress, he’s feeling as fine physically as he ever did after a drag-out ‘saberfight, and perhaps a clue as to the cause of the malady or a possible cure would give him leverage over Darth Maul. If it doesn’t, well… if he can’t find a way to the cockpit, he’ll get blown apart or dragged out by the angry mob he came here to avenge. He’ll die anyway.

There’s nothing at all helpful about the crate, though. It doesn’t even have a Caution! Do Not Break! marking or a biohazard or toxic warning. No, only an impressed and dirt-crusted set of numbers that may well have been there since the crate’s manufacture, and a mysterious stencil proclaiming the vendor one S.I. Rosenfeld. A custom-exemption stamp for Iridonia. The powder itself smells of nothing. It tastes of—well, whatever it tastes of, even in this desperation Obi-Wan refuses to put it in his mouth.

Hunt for clues abandoned, he instead carries back four hydrosacks.

A token of goodwill, at least. Obi-Wan himself is parched after the battle, and with how feverish Ventress and Darth Maul look, not to mention delirious Savage Opress… it’s worth an attempt, at the very least. But whereas Ventress takes her water gratefully, Maul only stares at the sacks that Obi-Wan kicks his way, even after Obi-Wan demonstratively drinks from his own. When Opress blindly reaches for one of the hydrosacks, one of Darth Maul’s chicken claws forces his hand back down.

Back to the standoff, then. Ventress periodically dis- and reappears with new sacks of water. Obi-Wan meditates. Darth Maul, meanwhile, paces in front of his sick partner, waiting for…

Whatever he is waiting for, it doesn’t come.

“You’re growing weaker, apprentice.” There’s no inflection in Maul’s voice now, nothing like the unhinged raving he directed at Obi-Wan earlier, and yet… “The dark side will give you the strength to survive. It is the only path.”

He reaches towards the other zabrak’s face, not the top of his head the way he braced himself up before but cupping one of his cheeks: a tenderness that hours before, Obi-Wan would not have thought possible.

Opress cringes away. He’s more lucid now, at least, but his breath is shallow and wheezing. “Brother,” he begs. “I would not… survive the lightning now. I can’t. I never could.”

A flinch answers him, tiny, almost invisible if Obi-Wan had not been watching the revenant nightmare for hours now, and then Maul whispers, “There is no lightning.”

“Master Dooku said—"

“Dooku was a liar and a fraud. He is a Jedi pretender, not a true Sith as we are, apprentice. In his refusal to credit you with interiority he overlooked the suffering he could have utilized, and so he had to cheat. The genuine test of the dark is that which already lies within, I have learnt.” Maul’s bright yellow eyes gleam over at Obi-Wan. He pauses. Considering, perhaps, what he should reveal before his audience.

Obi-Wan crosses his arms, extinguished lightsaber still at the ready. He won’t turn away. For now, though, he won’t interrupt either—something tells him to pause, though when he reaches to the force for guidance, all he feels is the cold and the unfathomable deep.

Opess moans in pain again.

Whatever misgivings Maul might have had, the sound wipes them away. “You’re in agony now, aren’t you?” he murmurs, an alien gleam in his rich genteel voice. “You feel the infection take hold of you more with every passing beat of your hearts. The fever, the ache. You can hardly breathe. It has colonized all of your vital systems. You are your body, and your body is pain. One careless moment, and he caught you, and now nothing exists but agony and dread and terrible thirst. Feel it. Sink into it. Luxuriate in your misery.”

Savage Opress, blood dribbling from his mouth onto his brother’s thumb, closes his fever-bright eyes.

“I have felt this, and yet I survived. You’re terrified, and in mourning for the life they stole from you. That he… that she—” and he looks up at Ventress—“that she stole. You hate her for the brother she took, for the mind she enslaved, for the involuntary shudder of your body whenever you recall her touch. That is enough, apprentice. That is enough for the dark. You know it is worse than any lightning that amateur could throw at you. Terror, pain, betrayal and loss and burning rage… Peace is a lie. There is only passion. Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power. Through power I gain victory. Through victory my chains are broken. The force shall free me. Repeat these words, as I did in the putrid chasm. They are a mantra gliding through your fingers while you feel.”

More hacking coughs, and in-between, the movement of lips. Obi-Wan should interrupt this—this venal induction into the dark side of the force, and yet… Opress fell already, and he is almost dead now.

The force pushes in through every orifice, every pore, pushes and pushes, a static pressure unlike anything he’s ever felt from the light. There is no sound but Maul’s voice and the bloody gasps for air, and even if a cannon hit the freighter right now, it would not penetrate air that is suddenly as thick as ocean floor water.

“You feel,” Maul encourages. “You feel. You will not die here in front of this woman who enslaved you, who forced you to murder your own brother. You will not. You hate her, don’t you? You are not allowed to hate her because she owns you, but you do. You hate her every look. Every unwanted touch. Every breath she takes, and every second she could try to kill the only brother you have left…”

In shock, Obi-Wan tries to meet Ventress’ eyes—he knew she was of the dark, but this cannot be truth—but she’s hardly better off than the yellow zabrak, fever-flushed and coughing on her own in the shadow of an unopened crate.

Maul is almost in a trance now, purring, as if there was no-one present but him and his apprentice and the sudden icy waves in the enclosed cargo hold, “She might impel you to kill me with your bare hands. You hate her.”

You cannot imagine the depths I would go to to stay alive, Maul ranted. Fueled by my singular hatred for you.

Are these the depths?

Is this how he managed to survive Naboo?

“You hate her, and you hate yourself—because you were weak enough to let it happen. You will not be weak now. You are Sith, apprentice. You are not weak. You will not submit to another nightsister. You will not kneel before another Dooku. Whatever it takes to gain power, you will do. However vile you need to become, you will. You do not belong to her. You do not belong to your sickness. You belong to the force, and it will devour your agony and your dread and your fever. It will devour you,” and Darth Maul bites the solid air with his rotten teeth.

“But you are strong. And you will wrest that which eats you into yourself and sink your teeth into its frozen innards. Feast on the force, apprentice. Feast on the force, and feed it pain and terror, and it will keep you alive until it grows fat on the misery of the entire galaxy.”

Opress lies still. Quiet. His bare torso is exposed to air so cold Obi-Wan expects to see hoarfrost cover every surface, but he does not cough, does not bleed. He does not fight against Maul’s hand, one bracing the back of his head and the other against his cheek still—

Against his cheek, and then digging in with pungent anger that bleeds into the force like the blood welling under Maul’s fingernails.

The sudden pressure spike threatens to implode Obi-Wan’s eyeballs. With his fingers massaging his closed lids and through eardrums thickly waterlogged, he hears Maul hiss, “Surely you did not expect to leave your path this quickly, apprentice? Mother Talzin sent you after me, but you followed me off Dathomir, and in that moment, you were mine. You left your brother behind and dead on the ground but you will not abandon me.”

A soft keen is all that answers his tirade at first, and then follows a river of anguished moans and scuffling on the ground and the pitter of—of blood, scratching, mangling. Obi-Wan startles and only when he trips over a clattering something in the pitch dark does he realize he just tried to protect Opress—protect Savage Opress!—from Darth Maul. The Sith is beyond mindless now, howling as he did when he blamed Obi-Wan for all his ills, all traces of the strange tenderness forgotten, and yet—Obi-Wan pauses. This is desperation. This is grief.

As cruel and insane as his words are; as blasphemous as the dark powers he is beseeching—this is not a monster.

This is the pure madness of attachment.

“You swore you would never betray me,” Maul wails in the deep and frozen dark of a trashed freight ship. “Did you trick me, brother? Was this your play? To pretend at kindness when I was weak so I would unlearn the most elementary of lessons? And I did.”

An answering gurgle that sounds like brother, no.

“You are leaving—”

Another barrage of wheezes—

“—but if you are still even capable of loyalty after you murdered your brother… I trusted you.” Maul’s eyes gleam in the pitch dark, not plain Sith yellow but—wet. They beckon, call, howl; they are the last thing that seems to exist. “I trusted you. You called yourself my brother. I trusted you. I learned to despise the world, and yet, somehow, I trusted…”

The wails lose all coherence after that. In the primordial calm of the freezing cargo hold, Obi-Wan holds his breath, for any sign of Savage’s life, for another gambit, another invocation of the dark force, for anything at all.

The pressure plummets as quickly as it appeared. A far too quick resurfacing, and it dizzies Obi-Wan, but Maul… Maul sinks down onto the floor softly, his chicken legs collapsing in a way even chicken legs shouldn’t, still holding onto Savage and clutching his brother’s head like a doll against his chest. The handle of the ‘saber clatters from the fist he presses against Savage’s back. The red Sith is not sweating anymore, but the ordeal seems to have exhausted him: he blinks his lighthouse eyes open, and open, and open, and then he doesn’t.

Obi-Wan drops to the floor. He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for now. For the true horror of the Sith power that he just witnessed to reveal itself? The pressure and the gloom are all but gone now, and even the unnatural icy wind is beginning to dissipate. And yet, this cannot be the end. If this was the dark side of the force, it is far beyond anything he felt in his deepest meditations, and it shouldn’t just… go back to sleep.

Or maybe, he’s waiting for Maul to rise up and attack him? But the Sith looks more peaceful than he ever did, wrapped tight around his—brother, his brother, whom he somehow cares for and mourns.

Or—he’s waiting for Obi-Wan himself, who came to finally kill the Sith?

That is his task, and his duty to the galaxy and the Jedi and to Raydonia, to Qui-Gon, but after this moment… it feels profane, impossible, to kill Maul who is vulnerable now because he chose to beg for his brother’s life. The monster displayed a tenderness, a humanity that Obi-Wan would never have thought him capable of, and though it is deeply irrational, Obi-Wan walks past the spot where unmoving Sith cling to each other and into the cockpit.

He pilots the freighter to the nearest planet with an advanced toxicology medcenter.

He carries Asajj Ventress inside, paler than she has ever been and gone passive with bloodloss. Regardless of what he might have learned—and he is still not sure what to make of the fragments whispered by a lying Sith—she came to his rescue, and silently he prays that the force does not will her death. He is quarantined as well, despite his pleas—there are Sith, night-dead but Sith, up on the rooftop landing bay, and if they won’t call the Jedi Order to dispatch them they should know (and he pauses, but he just can’t) they should know the Sith are also grievously ill—and he gives the healers all the clues he picked up, the symptoms and the white powder and the name on the unprepossessing crate, and they give him nothing in return. No information on Ventress’ status (she will cross his path in a few months, and she will not answer his questions) and no audience with the Iridonian in ambassadorial robes frowning through the durasteel window of his isolation room, and no heads up on the squad of anti-bioterrorism police droids they sent to the freighter.

No warning that the ship has disappeared.

That, he finds out from Master Windu who retrieves him from his quarantine cell after two days of manic pacing.

Maul, at the very least, must have survived, and Obi-Wan could have killed him when he passed out cradling his brother. Maul has survived, and taken the ship and its murderous infective powder away with him. Maul has survived, and Obi-Wan will bear the weight of every person he kills hereafter. Will bear the pressure and the dread and the pleading in his ears.

.

Savage Opress is still by Darth Maul’s side when they attack Florrum and murders Master Adi Gallia, and Obi-Wan can’t catalogue the emotion he feels.

#darth maul #savage opress #savage oppress #obi-wan kenobi #asajj ventress #dimtraces makes things

[bestsportmedia]

This is so embarrassing, I can’t believe it. Fcb the most followed club can’t pay messi a contract. Their player for the past 12 years who is the face of fcb. I feel like there’s more to the story. Why didn’t they pay him first and verified. This is just surreal. Messi wants to stay but is leaving the club only because of finances. They could cut so many players. We’ve have deadweight players since 2016. That’s why I respect Xavi he knew when his time was up. He’s not selfish like pique, and co

we will hear Leo's side of story tomorrow. I agree there is should more to the story. I hope he will give detailed explanation tomorrow like the interview last year

Anonymous asked:

I don’t believe this. I think the are trying to pressure la liga. The problem is that the ffp rules are not controversial and are very logical if a club is spending more than income then it’s only matter of time before bankruptcy. Do you really think they would make that message to pressure la liga? This feels so sad

Anonymous asked:

If barca released that statement out of anger I think that’s not a good move. ffp is not necessarily bad. The club knows the rules. I’m just mad they had plenty of time this summer to offload players. I don’t la liga would change rules cause if the made an exception for barca then they need to for athletico RM etc. And it must take some time

They way how quickly they announced his departure felt like they were doing it to pressure La Liga but that's not the case :(

Anonymous asked:

Oh shit! It is really happening elena would not of made that post she knows it’s official. She didn’t do that last year. I agree it was a shock. Imagine the tears for the family right now

I know he going to leave Barca one day but I never imagined his departure would be this way.

Anonymous asked:

So barca can’t afford messis wage? Really is this a joke. He’s the most valuable player. Like they had time to prepare. How can they let him leave, his jouney to end just because they can’t afford him.

Anonymous asked:

Who is running the club. The club has debt over a billion dollars!. Continues signing towards when defenders are needed. Has retired players still playing. Players that stay against the better of club only selfish reasons. When messi begs to leave they force him against his will to stay. Now when he wants to stay they force him to go.

Anonymous asked:

I really blame the club they know they have 1 billion dollar debt. They should of prepared the other players to leave and give la masia players a chance. Who’s running the club 110 percent of revenue goes to wages. It’s just sad that Leo tried twice on Monday to make it happen and it still fell thru. Antonela is devastated even more than last year cause this time it is a shock to whole family. Leo and his dad thought they would make it happen

Blame Bartomeu. He is responsible for this mess. I believe Laporta thought that Barca will use CVC money to sign Leo but Tebas and co didn't disclose full info about the deal till last minute. When Laporta learned whats in the deal, he backed out. I think Tebas and La Liga were trying to use Messi's situation to force Barce to accept CVC deal but Barca said NOPE.

I know :( it must be hard for Anto and the kids. Everything is happening so fast. Currently Aguero, Alba, Sergio Busquets, pique, Shakira, and Elena are at Leo's house for his farewell dinner.

Anonymous asked:

Sorry for the rant. The true problem here are old players. They are getting paid big and have contracts. Since they have contact, why go to a lesser club, leave your custom designed mansion, good weather, beaches, on top accept a lower wage? I’m losing so much respect. I don’t even want to watch pique. Busquets, Alba, even roberto anymore. I wanted them gone for years. 4-0 and 8-2. I dont want to disrespect them but at this point they are selfish and have damaged the club. No one will buy them.

Anonymous asked:

Parts of Piques message has me like ? Is it just me or some of the old players seem happy that he’s gone. That they outstayed him at the club longer, smh. Honestly what are your thoughts? I Might keep up with the club but I’m not gonna watch consistently anymore. I’m just disgusted pay wages for 30+ agureo pique (who’s slow af) busquets and Alba who are beyond done. But not lionel messi? They man that gave everything.

No, I dont think they are happy about him leaving. I think Pique mental checked out Barca for a while now. He just doesn't have the passion for the sport anymore. I bet the old players are scared -afterall, the man who carried the team on his back for seasons is leaving. No Suarez (20+ goals) and no Messi (30+ goals ).

That said, Forca Barca always.

Anonymous asked:

This is so sad. After 10 plus years messi and aguero about to be at the same club. Then messi leaves barca. On top imagine Sergio Ramos and messi on same team ugh how is this happening.

Can't believe he is going to PSG. I mean how......nvm no words :(

#messi leaves fcb

[nosybookworm]

Ninja Academy vs Hero School Rant

Naruto was my jam back in the day. I stayed up late to watch the new episodes, bought the dvd box sets and manga volumes, collected toys and cards just to stare at adoringly, even pretended to be sick so that I could stay home and watch a Naruto marathon. Point is, I LOVED Naruto.

I was invested in the characters. My heart ached for every single character that gave me a backstory. I ugly cried on more than ten occasions.

The action and moral dilemmas sucked me in and spit me out, made me the person I am today thinking critically about the stuff I love because wow that universe is in no way safe or sane for the people living in it lol.

The villains absolutely TERRIFIED me DESPITE STILL WANTING TO SEE MORE OF THEM, Orochimaru alone had me sleeping with the lights on and ripping the arms off his action figure just to be safe.

When I started watching My Hero Academia those old happy feelings started slapping me in the face drawing me in. MHA hits a lot of the same points that Naruto had and I didn’t really notice until the end of season 3 because those points weren’t as in-your-face or emotionally impactful as it was in Naruto I guess. Not to say it didn’t have an impact! Just that it rolled off me a lot easier which might just be a me problem.

I Mean:

The main character getting bullied/excluded because of something he can’t control. 

Underdog character then meeting or making an emotional connection with a mentor figure truly feeling “acceptance” for maybe the first time and taking that all important first step toward their life long dream. 

A teacher willing to sacrifice himself to protect the students. 

A school training teens to protect/serve. 

Rivalry that may or may not be actual friendship.

Students fighting against each other to “rank up” by showing how capable they are to their superiors.

Enemies invading to terrorize the kids and escaping to terrorize another day.

Traumatic family backstories that child will now attempt to seek justice through own power.

Previous underdog character actually having a secret power that no one knows about but a select few and that he has to train to learn how to use, but it makes him a powerhouse that is always surprising the enemy and inspiring his fellows.

Sure all that can be tied to any story when generalized like this, but the way MHA presents them is pretty similar to Naruto.

(Okay, ALL OF THIS is going to be my personal opinion. Things I want to say to get out of my system so that I can move on. It’s long too. So, now that you’ve been warned continue on.)

The more I got into it the stranger it felt because despite hitting those same points I loved they hit in a different way that....well... made me a little uncomfortable to sit through.

Like Aizawa

Very clearly the Kakashi in MHA. He’s sly hardly ever telling his students the truth but has incredibly high expectations of them, has been known to expel students left and right until his most recent batch of kids, is ready and willing to throw himself in harms way for them, and surprisingly competent despite his exhausted persona/personality. However the way these two teachers act get two very different results from me. Naruto got a chance to introduce Kakashi in a way that endeared him to me, the bell test was more than just showcasing the kids current abilities it was introducing Kakashi (the Jounin that is a kind of jack of all trades, the known perv that will publicly read porn, the guy that will happily mess with a bunch of kids to “teach them a lesson” and because its funny, the guy that requires the students under his care to care about each other because caring for his team matters to him more than any mission, that guy). MHA gave the quirk test. Aizawa mostly in the background taking notes and jotting down scores after his speech about expelling whoever comes last. We didn’t get to hear Aizawa’s thoughts until the very end when Izuku surprised him. 

I didn’t really feel any connection toward Aizawa until I stumbled across fanfics that wrote him more involved with the students and I think that’s the problem. Aizawa is dedicated to his student’s education, he believes they will all be amazing heroes one day, but he hardly ever interacts with them. He can be seen watching their training from afar, sleeping in a corner as another teacher takes over for a bit, protecting them from danger or fighting along side them, and proudly declaring that Bakugo would never turn villain but all of that means very little emotionally when I can’t see him making connections with these students to make this standoffish confidence understandable. He comes off as one of those super smart teachers that have undecipherable lessons because he has no idea how to connect with his students enough to explain in way they understand. Similarly, he like jots down that he’s taking note of Bakugo and might need to step in before he goes down the wrong path but then does nothing and confidently tells the press Bakugo would never be a villain.

Kakashi was pretty standoffish too, no denying that, and the little episodes when the kids conspire to try to see him without his mask are the kind of outside interactions that would be weird for a modern teacher-student relationship like in MHA, so I get why Aizawa doesn’t really have that with any of the kids. However, Kakashi saw the path Sasuke was going down and spent time with him and confronted him about it (it did nothing to stop him but he tried). He took time to find a teacher for Naruto. He was present and awake for just about every milestone in there education with him. He told them when he was proud of them not other people. He involved himself in some of their high jinks to measure their growth and as such was able to have confidence in them when they went off on their own.

The Villains

And My Hero Academia villains, namely All For One. 

I felt nothing when he showed up. I was all caught up in All Might and his passing of the torch. The guy without eyes didn’t feel threatening, didn’t feel like the big bad he was suppose to be. The League of Villains really didn’t feel like “serious enemies” either cause I actually really enjoyed them when they were on screen for their dynamics with each other. Similar to how I liked the Akatsuki in their more light-hearted scenes when they where super strong idiots banded together by sheer force of will and explosive personalities that refuse to leave a job half finished. With the League I would be just as entertained (probably more so) if they were in a slice of life anime just being terrible people together.

I get the feeling All For One was supposed to be MHA’s Orochimaru. (And I say this despite knowing Orochimaru’s introduction is probably a lot closer to Stain what with the confrontation and all, but his whole “the world is corrupt, I will cut out the wrong and remake it into the pure world it should have always been” aligned more with Pain especially with his quick turnabout saving Izuku.) 

Orochimaru always felt in control even when he was in hiding or on the run, he felt like he had more up his sleeve which is the only thing I got from All For One when he was imprisoned. Both Orochimaru and All For One showed up out of nowhere, very obviously in a class of their own that the teenage main characters had no hope of beating, and a mysterious backstory that clearly put all the adults in the know on edge. But I just don’t see All For One as a villain. Nothing about him screamed “Run for your lives this man will smile as he tears you apart!” like Orochimaru. Nothing about All For One’s secret Mad Scientist lab gave me creepy vibes that left me on the edge of my seat clutching at the nearest pillow the way the Sound Village that practically worshiped Orochimaru and the many base of operations he had did.

Terrible Parents

The Todoroki family. 

...

Look. The world of Naruto has terrible parenting, but they also live in a dictator/military run nation where kids can be a front-line defense or key players in a war zone so it’s hard to measure how to view these people. Cause a father that beats his kid and yells at him to get stronger has genuine reasons to rightfully freak out when children as young as 8 get sent to ninja academy. Families that have a rare genetic trait like the Hyuga or Uchiha have every right to be tough and stern if they feel that will protect their kids when they know putting them out into the world makes them an easier target for enemies that would rip out their eyes. 

I can judge their actions based on their consequences. Like the Uchiha clan planning a revolt forcing their eldest to massacre them to keep the peace and their youngest to live with a crazy amount of trauma. Like the Hyuga clan branding their branch members to protect family eyes, but forcing them into being lesser than the main branch and all the trauma that forced on Neji’s poor head. The stupid level of expectation set on Hinata’s young shoulders that she couldn’t meet in the way her clan wanted that made her self-confidence practically non existent. The Hokage leaving Naruto mostly alone for his entire childhood in a village that openly hated him. The Kazekage trying to have his lonely three-year-old assassinated multiple times once by his beloved uncle - the only person that was kind and loved him - that scarred him so entirely that he carved “love” into his forehead and rampaged around the village and did casual murder intentionally for years before meeting Naruto. 

All that... I can get behind as abuse. I want those sad kids to be happy. They deserved better and I will happily lose myself in a fix-it fic where they get that.

MHA gives me similar scenarios but without the clear-cut consequences that shows when parenting for that world is abuse. 

Endeavor is not a good husband. He is emotionally abusive to his wife to the point she has a mental break and attacks a child. 

However, in a world of heroes, in a world where high school students are trained to protect and serve and that self sacrifice is a noble heroic trait. How do I compare such a society to my own? They put children in harms way with hero internships yet don’t allow them to defend themselves if they don’t have a hero license, that would be like getting a learners permit but not being allowed to practice driving.

All this to say I have a hard time telling when bad parenting falls into abuse when it comes to MHA. Endeavor is not a good parent, he is an abusive husband, but is he an abusive parent? As a hero training up the next generation of heroes can it be argued that he is pretty okay even if his methods are a little harsh? None of his children fear him from what I’ve seen. Shouto happily tells him his plans to never use his fire and all the reasons why without fearing he might be punished for it. The other kids seem to be pretty okay going on with their lives. Toya being the exception but again I don’t know what happened to him and he’s a follower of Stain so did he have a falling out with heroes or did his father push too hard?

Nighteye & Tsunade

Okay so this is where I get super rant-y. I have feelings on Nighteye and none of them good.

Nighteye being the estranged comrade of All Might the underdog’s teacher, Tsunade being the estranged comrade of Jiraiya Naruto’s teacher.

Tsunade has been hurt deeply. She ran because she felt that was the only way to save herself from more pain. Here comes Jiraiya with his new little tag along demanding she come back home, she gets appropriately angry and tries everything she can to get them to leave her alone. Naruto being the special little underdog that he is immediately gets under her skin reminding her of all the loved ones she lost bringing back all of that old pain back, so she gets even. She beats him down and challenges him to an impossible challenge to show him how small he really is and get out of her own responsibilities. But he wins. He wins, and shows Tsunade how closed off she’s become forcing her to face reality head on and face her fears at last. He changes her whole world view through action.

Nighteye has been hurt deeply. He sees the future for every person he touches and as such sees futures in which people he loves get hurt and sometimes die. He believes there is nothing he or anyone can do to change these visions. All Might is his hero, His friend and mentor, his comrade. His friend gets hurt in a way he can never fully recover from and he sees a vision where his friend dies on the battle field. He then tells All Might who refuses to retire and leaves without a backward glance. They don’t speak until years later when Nighteye picks out a successor for One For All, but Toshi chooses Izuku and never meets Nighteye’s pick.

Izuku, needing an internship not Gran Torino, goes to Sir Nighteye All Might’s old side kick. He gets tested, told he’s not worthy of One For All, and has to work under this man as he tries to get Izuku to see how Mirio is more worthy of All Might’s quirk. Facing off against Overhaul when they are at their most desperate Nighteye uses his quirk to see what will happen and sees the worst possible scenario. They lose. Then Izuku flies in sweeps Eri into his arms and fights Overhaul saving the day. Izuku proved, unknowingly, that the future Nighteye sees is not set in stone with his actions and on his death bed Nighteye acknowledges that without acknowledging it.

Nighteye’s treatment toward Izuku makes me uncomfortable. This is a man in a position of power over this student telling him that he is not enough, will never be enough, and that he is a disappointment.

His glorifying of All Might makes me uncomfortable. He was All Might’s partner and yet he practically had a shrine of the man in his office. He made him more than just a man, built him up as The Symbol of Peace and kept him there (as many of Toshi’s friends seem to do except for Nedzu and Naomasa) despite getting close enough trusted enough to learn about One For All. And despite all that “love” and “devotion” he left Toshinori alone to deal with his new normal of a permanently damaged system alone for years then takes out all that frustration and grief out on his friends chosen successor.

Then when all is said and done and he’s dying and he’s confronted by Toshinori and Izuku what happens? Does he apologize? Explain his actions? Get closure in his final moments?

No. Well, Toshinori got some measure of closure. Izuku got a few words that essentially boiled down to “Good job, your better than I thought.” without talking about the newfound hope Izuku’s action gave him that his visions are only possibilities not absolute. All of his attention then goes to his choice for One For All, Mirio. 

Understandably. 

He’s dying and Mirio was always his main priority as a mentor, and you know who Mirio looks like? All Might. He’s blonde, buff, blue-eyed, cheerfully friendly, and with a happy-go-lucky persona about him. Sir Nighteye taught him to smile. Chose him to be the new wielder of One For All and without telling him anything planned to introduce him to Toshinori to make his choice reality. Doesn’t that sound... I don’t know... uncomfortably close to manipulation? Grooming? To taking this child under his wing and molding him to be pretty close to a new version of All Might?

I don’t know. Maybe if Sir Nighteye had lived this uncomfortable impression I have of him would be lessened as he began to internalize the full extent of possibilities for the future that he never thought possible before and acted more hopeful, more willing to take gambles because his visions were no longer a guarantee of what will happen. 

#sorry for the rant #Naruto #mha #spoilers?

[robiness]

Raven Branwen could teach us to trust love (theory, V7CH12 spoilers)

Yeah, that’s what I said.

In my theory about Qrow’s arc, I mentioned that the worst possibility is that Raven gets to Qrow, because obviously they’re hostile to each other and have different worldviews. He’s fragile and can be easily manipulated to returning to the Branwen ways. 

It was a Qrow theory, so I focused on him. All I said about Raven was that she’s clever and brutal, and she wants her family to concede that she’s right in her philosophy. 

I’ve seen a few ideas about Raven saving everything, but I dismissed them because of my own perception of her character. But after seeing them a couple more times today, I considered a new possibility. 

(this is a theory for a RWBY7 hopeful ending, if you don’t want to get your hopes up, i’ll understand)

Yes, Raven is clever, brutal, ruthless. I still firmly believe that she’ll do anything for what she considers worth fighting for. In my perspective, these are (1) protecting her tribe, and (2) making her family realize that she was right all along.

(2) is something she constantly keeps doing even in hostile situations. She tries and tries, and is extremely frustrated at the stupidity she sees. She feels betrayed by Qrow, too, since he used to subscribe to their ways, but she still tries.

She HAS expressed outright care before. Most obvious is the Yang vs Neo fight yes, but there’s another one I forgot and now made me consider her influence as a positive thing.

This conversation between her and Yang in Volume 5.

Most of V5, Raven is rigid in her beliefs. She’s very firm with trying to convince Yang she was right when they met in the tribe, and even in Haven Academy, she left without caring if Qrow or anyone died, but she still tried to get through to her brother.

Later, when Yang confronts her after the Maiden fight, her reaction is angry. She thinks, again, that Yang is getting it all wrong like everything else. Ozpin’s war is hopeless, and Raven is the only one not brainwashed into his ideals. This was probably exacerbated by the fact she just defeated Cinder, again proving that she’s on top. 

“It's not that simple. You don't know me, you don't know what I've been through, the choices I've had to make!”  

“I've stared death in the face over and over again! And every time I've spat in that face and survived because I'm strong enough to do what others won't!” 

“Who do you think you are lecturing me?! Standing there, shaking like a scared little girl?!” 

She feels superior, and righteous in her rage. 

But then Yang calls her bluff. Raven might think she was making the right decisions, but Yang saw very clearly that she was too weak to do anything else but kill and run.

Yang proved to her that she did know Raven, because she was right in thinking that Raven would bail yet again if Yang offered to take the Relic that was a magnet for danger. 

Then, Raven makes this expression for the first time:

She is guilty, ashamed, upset, and at the time, I thought that this was only because she was putting her daughter in danger.  

But if you think about it, she’s never completely cared about her family’s lives before, not if they interfere with her highest priorities. I’ll repeat: (1) protecting her tribe, and (2) making her family realize that she was right all along.

However, Yang just proved to her that... she wasn’t right. At least, not in the image she was trying to project - a righteous, fearless woman who was making difficult decisions. 

I... I'm sorry...

I can bet that she’s never said these words before. Not to Tai, not to Qrow, not to Summer. But now she says this to her daughter who just proved to be much braver than she is. Who wrecked her worldview. 

So what? She left anyway. Why would she come now? Why would she change?

I think the fact that she left is the answer. She made a quick, automatic decision to run away, despite her claims of righteousness and bravery. But she was crying and emotional as she did.

Once she was gone, she was gone. There was no mention of her in the next two volumes, other than a teased visit to Tai, and who knows what that was about? 

Also, a LOT of people had asked why tf did Yang never tell anybody about her mom being the Spring Maiden.

I don’t really know why Yang as a character made that decision. But maybe the narrative kept her out on purpose, to make viewers forget about her.

Because, you know, I never understood why Raven Branwen was the Spring Maiden, when all other potential Maidens had some sort of connection to the seasons they were assigned (Pyrrha, then Cinder to Fall, Winter/Penny to Winter). 

Raven was, if anything, the entire opposite of the concept of spring - rebirth, life, change for the better. 

I think she’s about to prove me wrong.

Volume 7: Qrow and Clover

Clover and Qrow had a healthy developing relationship that was cut off prematurely. This broke Qrow and stopped his recovery for seemingly no reason other than to hurt him, and us. 

Clover and Qrow had quick but utterly significant scenes that seemed to be wasted just like that. Why? 

I think it still stands that this was meant to really, really hurt. 

But. 

As said in my Qrow theory, and those of many others, only Raven can get to Qrow now in his fragile state, with their connection through her Semblance.

Clover and Qrow are in the tundra, out in the snow. If Raven gets there, how could she save them? By opening another portal to Yang, who is in Atlas, a city with the greatest technology and Pietro Polendina, either or both of which should be enough to save Clover. 

Ironwood survived half of his body getting so mangled that they had to replace it with metal. If Clover was left in the tundra, then yeah he has no chance. But if Raven gets them to Atlas, where all the resources are... 

Let’s talk about this color scheme. 

I, like many others, immediately recognized this as the bi flag colours. It was insulting, demeaning, and cruel for a volume that puts heavy emphasis on “trust love”.

But what if it was put there to indicate that we still should trust despite what just happened? It would still be a traumatizing creative decision, but it would make sense to a predominantly cishet main crew. And any other staff who may have considered that it may hurt would be distracted by the (potential) utter brilliance of it.

The setting was a dark, isolated tundra when Clover died. But the sun rose.

When is a sunrise significant in that kind of setting? That’s right, spring. Hope, love. 

Qrow and Clover’s connection was wonderful, but underdeveloped. We assumed the theme Trust Love applied to them, but it was twisted cruelly, making the audience feel like it was just for shock value.

But what if it’s not their love that should be trusted right now? It is in its early stages, which is why we were so angry at the loss of potential. So maybe it’s not the focus.

What if it’s the unexpected love of Raven (spring, hope, sunrise) coming to aid her brother?

Qrow’s recovery: Raven

I’ve extensively talked about the twins’ relationship from Qrow’s perspective. It’s fractured and opposing. That’s a given.

But imagine. Imagine if at this darkest hour, Qrow’s big sister, who he’s given up on, saves him and makes things better. 

Clover was good for Qrow, but he doesn’t have to be the only one that is. Raven being open to compromise AND saving Clover? That would be such relief for my poor bird.

A real partner, and estranged sister back in his life? That will skyrocket his recovery so much that I’m literally crying right now at the thought.

Supporting Literary Parallels: 

1.  The first part of this post brings up the Aesop’s Fable that Clover is based on. To summarize, the Fisherman is down on his luck, but something unexpected happens, he gets his fish that makes his days better.

2. Qrow is the scarecrow of the Wizard of Oz. This is why many of us are terrified of what’s going to happen next, because the other two companions of Dorothy, Leo (Lion) and Ironwood (Tin Man) have lost the gifts they seek. 

However, we have forgotten that the scarecrow is Qrow’s basis on a lesser degree. Even his position is lower - he’s not a Headmaster, he’s a simple Huntsman. He “serves” Oz, yes, but that part is nulled when his loyalty was betrayed by Ozpin’s secrets.

Even when he was helping Ozpin, he wasn’t a major player, he didn’t guard any relics, he was primarily a spy, which connects more to his forefront literary basis:

3. Hugin and Munin (sources: 1, 2)

Hugin (thought) is Raven. Munin (memory, mind) is Qrow. In Norse mythology, these are Odin’s two ravens that he sends out to spy for information around the worlds. 

Hugin and Munin Fly every day Over all the world; I worry for Hugin That he might not return, But I worry more for Munin.

Raven (thinks herself objective and sensible) definitely matches “might not return”, and Qrow (mental health poster boy held down by memories) is definitely someone who’s always on the brink of tragedy. 

But the thing about the original ravens is that they’re always together. Qrow and Raven have never worked together in-show. That’s the difference between the originals and our characters.

My theory is that they’ll come together, because Raven and Qrow have already shown signs of change from what their originals represent.

But it’s two ravens, no crows! At first, this bummed me out, I thought that this fact would be more supportive of my first tragic Qrow theory. But then...

Crows travel in groups, they’re more sociable (Qrow and his kids). Ravens often travel in pairs (her apparent closeness with Vernal). (bird facts source)

While Qrow would enjoy being with a lot of people, Raven would probably be more picky with her companions, and Vernal, her second, is now dead. 

Therefore, even if Qrow needs Raven at this very moment, Raven needs her brother, too. It’s not only Qrow who will benefit from the reunion.

The Branwen twins will both be better if they work together. In human minds, plans (Raven) and passion (Qrow) need to coincide for survival.

And if this theory comes through, there will be two ravens to satisfy Raven, and Qrow will always be himself, surrounded by family, at the same time. (hint hint side note crows mate for life the two would still have a lot of development to do)

Last thoughts:

This could be wrong. The Qrow tragedy might still happen. Something completely different could. Raven could be a total bitch the whole series.

IDK OKAY. bUT YEAH IM HOPING fuuuuck

Yeah, maybe we shouldn’t trust anything anymore. After all, so many people were truly hurt by last episode, it was still damaging. Turning this around won’t erase that fact. 

But... I really want my Qrow happy. He’s been the most relatable character for me, with the things he goes through, and I’d love it so much if he will come out stronger, with a large support system and some goddamn happiness. And I think... my version makes sense, too?

So maybe everything has a reason. Maybe this is setting up for something really great. We’re very hurt now, but... the sun is rising.

To prepare us for spring?

#rwby #rwby7 #rwby theory #rwby analysis #qrow branwen #raven branwen #clover ebi #yang xiao long #rwby meta #fair game #let qrow branwen be happy #clover ebi defense squad #lucky charms #FUCK #sigh #meta

[lonelypond]

Jingle Bell Jazz, Ch. 15

Love Live, NicoMaki, 3.5K, 15/?

Summary: A small army invades the Nishikino mansion and an unexpected gauntlet is thrown down.

Chapter 15

Maki had said Nico was planning to conquer Europe. As Mrs. Nishikino opened the front door of her home, she wondered if this was a preview of the diminutive singer’s army. Nico, tiny, a tall blonde behind her, arm in arm with a smiling dark haired woman, and then two others, one with fawn hair and an exquisite coat, probably couture, light with a tiny pattern of green picked out along its curves, as if Spring were sweeping in. Behind them all, was a solid, dark haired woman, with features classic enough to be seen in an Imperial samurai portrait and golden eyes that were busy sweeping everything in view to assess the situation.

“Good morning, Mrs. Nishikino. Is Maki up yet?” Nico chirped brightly.

“Yes, she’s just getting dressed. She’ll be right down.”

“Where’s her room? Kotori will need to go up anyway.”

Mrs. Nishikino met Nico’s glance, debated an interrogation, but if Maki couldn’t manage to get dressed in time to greet her guests, she probably deserved a room invasion. So Mrs. Nishikino shrugged and pointed to the staircase, “Second floor, turn right to the family wing, third door.”

“Thank you.” Nico grunted over her shoulder, “Come on, Kotori.”

The fawn haired girl bowed as she swept by, followed by the warrior of the court who stopped and spoke in a smooth, cultured tone that matched her elegance, “Thank you, Mrs Nishikino, for welcoming us into your home. My name is Umi Sonoda. I am a classmate of your daughter's. I apologize for Nico not introducing us properly.”

“Welcome to our home, Miss Sonoda.”

Umi nodded and pointed to the other two women left in the entry, “This is Eli Ayase, who is also a member of Bibi along with Maki, and Nozomi Tojo.”

“Miss Ayase, Miss Tojo. If you want to head into the kitchen, there’s coffee and pastries. Or I can show you where the music room is.”

Nozomi bumped past Umi with a wink, pulling Eli along, “We’ll take you up on your coffee. It’s cold out here and who knows how long Nico and Kotori will be in Maki’s closet.”

Mrs. Nishikino figured she might as well ask, as her own daughter was the least communicative person on the premises, as far as she could tell. “Are they packing for something?”

The blonde spoke, amused. “Sorry. Nico should have explained, I suppose. Kotori’s our stylist. She’s deciding on outfits for the New Year’s Eve gig. Nico’s not sure what Maki has.”

So the invasion would be properly uniformed. Mrs. Nishikino shook her head and led the remnants of the battalion toward the kitchen.

###

“Maki?” Nico’s voice and then a quick rap on the door. Maki panicked, pulling her pajama shirt back on and missing a button or two. Nico, hair in a ponytail, walked in, sharp as ever, in an outfit close to the first one she’d been wearing when Maki met her, pink cardigan over gray oxford shirt, tucked into black capri pants. Kotori was behind her, in a floral dress with a skirt that floated like froth where it fell from the belt at her waist. Maki had managed to get into a skirt, but her misbuttoned black with white polka dot pajama shirt made the look ludicrous.

“Nico? What are you doing here.”

Nico spared a cursory glance around Maki’s bedroom, the bed unmade, shelves full of books fairly neat, Nico took a minute to take in the framed black and white photos on the wall opposite Maki’s bed...Maki was proud of them, she’d taken them in Chicago, New Orleans, London, Buenos Aries, Tokyo...getting a chance to capture the mood of each city on film was one of her favorite things about the trips her parents would take her on. She loved wandering parks and lesser known architecture with her camera.

“Nozomi would love these.” Nico pointed to one of Maki’s favorites, a shot of a tuba player taken on the St. Charles streetcar.

Maki shrugged, not planning to invite Nozomi into her bedroom, not that she’d planned to invite Nico.

Nico continued, “Kotori needs to see what you have in your closet. We need a tighter look for New Year’s Eve. If we can find things for you, me, and Eli, Kotori only needs to alter that’ll make everything easier.” Nico took a good look at Maki finally, “Pajamas might give the sleepover vibe, but Nico bets we can do better.”

Kotori...tittered, it was the only word for the silly, high pitched reaction, Maki thought. Then she realized Nico was waiting for a response. “You said an hour. I was almost ready.”

Nico decided to just guess the door closest to her was the closet. Nope, large bathroom, huge tub, fluffier bathrobe than she’d seen on Maki yet...Nico sighed, couldn’t anything just be simple and professional, should have rehearsed at Otonokizaka, but Nico didn’t feel like dealing with staff or random wandering students. And now she had a quick flash of Maki, bathrobe, bathtub...Nico shook herself. That sort of distraction would get all of them nowhere and Nico had very specific destinations in mind today.

“That’s not the closet.” Maki was in the doorway.

“Nico figured that out.” Nico grumbled, pushing past Maki.

“Nico, if you want to go rehearse, I can just go through what Maki has and bring pieces that might work downstairs.” Kotori’s voice drifted out of Maki’s closet, “Send Umi up to help me carry things.”

“Will do. I just have to get Maki into something that doesn’t scream tuck me into bed.” Once again, Nico stopped as words hung in the air. But Maki was just staring grumpily at her opened closet door and oblivious to any unintended nuance.

“Maki.” Nico snapped, grateful for the redhead’s naivete.

“What?”

“Put on a shirt and come downstairs.”

Maki crossed her arms, “I was doing that when…”

Nico was already halfway to the hallway. “I’ll send Umi up, Kotori.”

“Thanks, Nico.”

Maki took her blouse into the bathroom, locked the door, changed into it, and fled downstairs without saying anything to Kotori.

###

Maki walked into the music room, to be faced with Nico and Umi sorting through sheets of music scattered over HER piano, while Eli tried a few bars of something Maki couldn’t recognize. Nozomi, in the corner wingback chair Maki never used, had the morning paper open but her attention was on Eli.

“What are you doing?” The door slipped out of Maki’s hand and slammed.

Nico smiled. “Umi has a few ideas about how we can make ‘Sugar Rum Cherry’ work with you and Eli.”

Maki grabbed the sheets Nico was holding, “Step away from my piano. I can do this myself.” She frowned, “And isn’t Umi supposed to be upstairs helping Kotori?”

Nico chuckled, “Kotori won’t be done with your closet for at least another forty minutes.”

Umi nodded, amber eyes fond, “She’s very thorough.”

Nozomi snorted and crackled the paper, Eli played a chord that slid into a warning, Umi continued to sort through music.

“Nico picked up the album too so we can listen to it.” Nico slid the record out, putting it on the turntable. “Nico remembered you seem to figure things out by ear pretty well…”

“Stop.” Maki shouted, throwing her hands out, and repeated her initial question, staring at Nico, wild eyed, “What are you doing?’

Nico spoke slowly, “Nico stopped on the way here and picked up some sheet music and a few records so we can decide on a set list.”

“Okay. That’s fine. But what is Umi doing?” On my piano, Maki’s inner voice snarled.

Nico’s voice was bracingly practical, as if this were an obvious solution to thing nobody but Maki considered a problem. “Working on an arrangement of Ellington’s 'Sugar Rum Cherry'.”

Maki crossed her arms, lip in a sneer, “I can do that myself.”

Nico sounded like she was trying not to sound uneasy, “Maki, you have zero jazz experience and have to learn at more than a dozen songs in two and a half days if you don’t want to sight read.”

Umi went for apologetic. “I was just planning to do a quick skeleton that you can embellish as you get more familiar with the music.”

Nico put the album cover down, but didn’t lift the tone arm, instead returning to the conversation, her expression earnest. “After hearing you play yesterday, Nico wants everyone else to know how good you are. And Ellington’s a great choice for your skills. Nico picked up a book.” Nico pointed to the music stand where The Songs Of Duke Ellington now rested. “We’ll do some seasonal things, but we can mix it up. Nico was thinking maybe ‘In A Sentimental Mood’ and ‘I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good’.”

Maki sat at the piano and started flipping through the pages. “This doesn’t have the...sugar rum sherry?”

“Cherry.” Umi corrected, “No, that’s a recent release. Brilliant mix of jazz and the classical. I believe you’ll love it, Maki, if you give it a listen. And the piano and sax combo will retain some of the intended flavor.” Umi went back to the music with her pencil, “I’m going to suggest it to Honoka as well.”

Nico dropped the tone arm, “This is the track we’re talking about.”

Forcing back exasperation, Maki closed her eyes to listen.

###

After what seemed like hours but before Maki could really get into any kind of a flow, Kotori and Umi were back with an armful of clothing. Nico slashed the air with a ‘cut’ gesture and Eli put her sax down next to her on the padded bench, Nozomi stopped working on the crossword puzzle, and Maki let her fingers rest on the keys for a moment.

“The textures and fabric are AMAZING. And the designers....” Kotori sounded even more breathless than usual as she gushed at Nico, “but the styles aren’t a great fit for your silver dress and the frost blue one Eli picked out.”

“Nico was afraid of that…”

“You could switch to that dress you wore in the Life photoshoot.” Kotori winked at Maki, “That’s memorable.”

Maki ducked her head, turning pages in the Ellington, refusing to acknowledge anyone else in the room.

Nico pulled her cardigan around her, “That’s not a winter style, freezing is not a sexy look for Nico.”

“I might be able to make this dress work with some alterations, maybe add a silver feature...I can match the fabric pretty well.” Kotori held up a dress Maki had buried in the back of her closet as it seemed more nightgown than ballgown, black with a large white bow, two fabric ribbons flapping down the front.

“The drape on that over Maki’s…” Nico whistled instead of finishing that sentence, but she flipped the ends of the ribbons that fell two thirds down the dress, “this’ll be more distracting than not.”

“And no one will see it behind the piano.” Nozomi chewed on her eraser.

“Exactly.” Nico tapped her nose and flashed her index finger at Nozomi.

Kotori hummed. “I was thinking of replacing it with a silver band around the top.”

“Ooohh, nice touch." A cheerful note from Nico.

“What about my…” Kotori and Nico spun instantly and Maki had a coughing fit at the scrutiny, “Cold...I’ll be cold too.”

Nozomi started laughing, Nico slammed her forehead into her hand as she leaned against the piano, and Kotori tilted her head, “We could add a shawl.”

“Maki might prefer the touch of discretion of a good shawl provides, as well as the additional warmth.” Umi began collecting the discarded options.

“I’m not sure I’ll be comfortable…” Maki muttered.

“You had bare shoulders yesterday…” Nico had her eyes closed and her other hand stretched out across the piano, fingers tapping.

“There was more to that dress.”

“Do you want to wear that one?” Nico raised her head.

Maki shrugged, playing scales to soothe her nervousness.

“Let me work on this one, Maki. And if you don’t like it, we’ll find something else.” Kotori’s voice was gently persuasive.

Nico was watching Maki intently, and Maki had no idea what thoughts were roiling behind those eyes. “Nico?”

Nico stood, her shrug an echo of Maki, “You’d look good in a sheet. Sounding good is what matters.”

Did Nico picture her in a sheet? When they were in her bedroom, had Nico imagined Maki there...Maki could feel the flames on her cheek...focus on the book in front of her, what song was it, “Day Dream…Funny the way I feel now/Can't keep my feet on the ground/Ev'rything seems unreal now...” Unreal, exactly that, Maki thought as her fingers drifted through the gentle beginning.

“What’s that?” Nico was suddenly behind her, hand soft on Maki’s shoulder and once again, the air around Maki was full of sweet musk, but she kept playing this time, no stumble.

“That’s amazing, but a little sleepy for a New Year’s Eve party.” Nico reached out, flipping through pages, her sweater arm rubbing Maki’s ear as the pianist tried not to shiver, “This’d be better. You can start off with a solo and then...”

Nico started to sing, “"It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing (doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah) It don't mean a thing all you got to do is sing (doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah) It makes no difference If it's sweet or hot Just give that rhythm Everything you've got”

Now both of Nico’s hands were on Maki’s shoulders and Eli had swung in, “Take it, genius.” Nico whispered in Maki’s ear and Maki’s fingers started to fly over the keys at a speed to match her heart rate.

“YES!” Nico wrapped her arms around the pianist’s shoulders as Maki and Eli finished their improvised duet. “The audience’ll love it, Ellington would love it, Nico loves it…”

Eli gleamed, taking a handkerchief from Nozomi to wipe the sweat from her face, “You’re a really fast study, Maki. I’m impressed.” She hugged her sax, “We’re going to sound so hot, Nico.”

Kotori was clapping around the dresses in her arms. “The audience’ll be kicked sideways.”

Nico had let go of Maki, but sat down next to her. Maki could feel the singer’s warmth and resisted the urge to scoot either closer or away. Why were those both choices, Maki wondered as Nico answered Eli. “Yeah, we’re going to be legends.”

“Too bad the next thing that happens is you break up the band.” Nozomi had put her pencil and the puzzle aside to search for something in her purse, making her comment seem more offhand than Nico might have suspected. The sense of camaraderie was shattered before it even had a chance to root. Maki shifted down the bench, Nico bent over, shaking her head, feeling the sweat dripping down her face. Umi sighed.

Eli, with a solemn expression, put her sax down. “Jeez, Nozomi, can’t you even let Nico have a minute.”

“Decisions have consequences.” Nozomi intoned. Kotori and Umi exchanged a look, uncomfortable on the edge of the room.

Nico sat up, Maki could see how tightly clenched the singer’s jaw was as she rubbed her hands over her cheeks, “What Nico decides is actually none of your business, Nozomi.”

“If it affects Eli, it affects me, Nico-chi.”

“Nico is not having this conversation now.” Maki was surprised to feel Nico squeeze her hand quickly but then the singer was on her feet, black ponytail bobbing as she threw herself in front of Nozomi, “Don’t cause trouble for Nico just because you get off on some fantasy you have of how things should happ...”

Nozomi leaned back, eyebrow arched, “Since you mentioned fantasies, ask Maki about them...Kotori says before she met you she couldn’t call you anything but ‘the pinup girl'.”

Kotori squeaked. Maki shoved the bench back, on her feet, open mouthed, not sure of what to say.

“Just leave it alone, Maki.” Nico hissed, “Nozomi’s just looking for ways to rile us. It amuses her.”

"This isn't for my amusement." Nozomi snapped her purse shut, chin up as Nico confronted her. “Eli just stopped crying herself to sleep; I don’t want her to get attached to the idea of the being a band with you again.”

‘Nozomi…” Eli murmured, cheeks flushed.

There was silence. Nico’s shoulders kept flexing as her hands clenched and unclenched. Eli was pulling through her hair. Maki had no idea how to divert the conversation, and then Umi spoke, “Kotori and I should start on the alterations. We’ll see you tomorrow, Nico.”

Nozomi stood before Nico could respond to Umi, “I’ll be having coffee in the kitchen until you’re done playing with their hearts, Nico~chi. Eli, find me when you’re ready to leave.”

Alone, the three members of Bibi stared at each other. Then Nico glanced down at her watch.

“Damn. It’s later than I thought.” Nico pushed up the cuff of her cardigan, giving off a nervous air Maki couldn’t quite match with the picture of Nico she was building. “Nico knows we have to talk about this, but I really have to get to work. You two should keep rehearsing.”

A suddenly shy Eli also wasn’t part of the mental picture Maki had been building of her bandmates. “You really can’t just walk out now, Nico. I know Nozomi went too far, but she’s not wrong. We need to talk about things, deal with this.” Eli’s voice caught and Maki would have bet on tears, “Don’t be Coco.”

Nico's fingertips stroked Eli’s cheek briefly, and the blonde’s head drooped as Maki stared, her own hands getting sweaty. “Eli, I know this has been rough, but have some faith in Nico. It’s going to be fine.”

“How?” Definitely tears. Maki couldn’t move.

“Nico can’t explain right now...but we just have to get through this concert without letting things throw us and then I swear, it’ll be okay.”

Eli shook her head, “I don’t know if I…”

“You can Eli. You and me and Maki, we work together and nothing’s going to stop that.” Nico was bouncing, “But I really have to run. I’ll see you tonight, at home.”

Eli moved away, to the window, and Nico was in front of Maki, speaking softly, “Nico is sorry about that. Nozomi likes emotional shrapnel. She believes it breaks up problems so they can be fixed.” Nico’s hands flung off that idea, and then she had Maki’s in hers again, “You’re doing amazing. Nico could listen to you all night.”

Maki decided emotional neutrality was a good shield against the confusing clash of emotions that had invaded her music room so she waited for Nico’s next statement.

“But not tonight. Can Nico have a raincheck?” The mildness, the hope in Nico’s ask floored Maki.

“Okay.” Christmas lights twinkled with cheer in Nico’s eyes and Maki listened to herself agree before she’d fully heard the question. Nico grinned, “All right, ladies. Don’t have too much fun without Nico.” And she was out the door.

Eli groaned and collapsed in the wingback chair, rubbing her eyes.

“Sorry, I don’t have a handkerchief.” Maki crossed to the other side of the window, wondering if Nico was going to grab a bus or call a cab. Surely her mother would offer Nico the car. Maybe she should go check...Eli took a rackety breath and Maki realized she couldn’t leave the saxophonist alone. “Do you need me to go get Nozomi?”

Eli shook her head, surprising Maki again by seeming more exasperated than upset. “No. I need a few minutes of not being caught between those two. They don’t war often but when they do…” Eli had her legs pulled up in front of her.

“Nozomi seems to be acting out of concern, though.” Maki wondered what spending so much time together did to people. And that apartment was so small for the three of them. She shuddered.

Eli’s eyes were shrewd. She’d caught Maki’s reaction, “It’s a lot sometimes, but I wouldn’t trade either of them...Nico’s…” Eli rubbed the back of her neck, “Nico’s never dull...and Nozomi’s...well, Nozomi’s…everything.”

Certain she had no response to that, Maki returned to the piano, sat and searched through pages again. “Do you know Satin Doll?”

Eli leaned forward, intrigued, “Oh, Nico will like that one.”

A/N: Howdy.

#nicomaki #Love Live #Jingle Bell Jazz #Nishikino Maki #Yazawa Nico #nozoeli #Ayase Eli #Tojo Nozomi #Bibi #jazz #music #Christmas #fanfic #holiday #Duke Ellington #piano #fun

[kellyvela]

THE STARKS ARE THE HEART

Everything started with THE STARKS:

RS: You've talked before about the original glimpse of the story you had for what became A Song of Ice and Fire: a spontaneous vision in your mind of a boy witnessing a beheading, then finding direwolves in the snow. That's an interesting genesis.

GRRM: It was the summer of 1991. I was still involved in Hollywood. My agent was trying to get me meetings to pitch my ideas, but I didn't have anything to do in May and June. It had been years since I wrote a novel. I had an idea for a science-fiction novel called Avalon. I started work on it and it was going pretty good, when suddenly it just came to me, this scene, from what would ultimately be the first chapter of A Game of Thrones. It's from Bran's viewpoint; they see a man beheaded and they find some direwolf pups in the snow. It just came to me so strongly and vividly that I knew I had to write it. I sat down to write, and in, like, three days it just came right out of me, almost in the form you've read.

—Rolling Stone 2014

But what about the dragons?

Meduza: The world of “Game of Thrones” is very convincing and very realistic, so why did you decide to bring magic into this world? Did it need walking corpses and dragons? What prompted you, as the writer, to introduce magical elements?

GRRM: I did consider in the very early stages not having the dragons in there. I wanted the Targaryen’s symbol to be the dragons, but I did play with the notion that maybe it was like a psionic power, that it was pyrokinesis — that they could conjure up flames with their minds. I went back and forth. My friend and fellow fantasy writer Phyllis Eisenstein actually was the one who convinced me to put the dragons in, and I dedicated the third book to her. And I think it was the right call. Phyllis, by the way, is distantly related to your Eisenstein, the maker of the great Russian films, “Battleship Potemkin” and “Alexander Nevsky.”

—Meduza 2017

THE STARKS are the center of the story:

Collider: In creating this world, did you start out with one family and then branch off into the rest of the world?

GRRM: Well, the Starks are certainly the center of the story, when it begins. It all begins at Winterfell, with occasional cuts to Daenerys across the ocean, because there was no way I could get her into Winterfell. But, we bring all the characters together at Winterfell, and they’re all there for a while before they start to go their separate ways. By the time you’re done with the first book, pretty much all of them have gone their separate ways. There are no two characters together anymore. From that point forward, the story spreads and grows progressively larger. I also introduce more characters, players and factions, in later books, to thicken the plot a little more. But, the Starks are the center of the book and, to a lesser extent, the Lannisters. They are still the major players. I write from this tight third-person viewpoint, where each chapter is seen through the eyes of one individual character. When I’m writing that character, I become that character and identify with that character. So, when I’m writing a Tyrion chapter, I’m in love with Tyrion. And then, when I switch to Jon Snow, I’m in love with him. Same with Daenerys. Even the characters who are perhaps not the nicest people in the world, and who are deeply flawed and might even be considered villains, if I am writing from their viewpoint, I have to identify with them. Nobody is a villain in their own story. We’re all the heroes of our own stories. So, when I am inside the head of a character who would otherwise be considered a villain, I have a great deal of affection for that character and I’m trying to see the world and the events through their eyes.

—Collider 2011

THE STARKS were always at the heart of this, always very central:

Collider: When you went into this, did you intentionally take the children, put them in an adult setting and force them to be in very adult and complex situations?

GRRM: Yeah, the children were always at the heart of this. The Stark children, in particular, were always very central. Bran is the first viewpoint character that we meet, and then we meet Jon and Sansa and Arya and the rest of them. It was always my intention to do that. As for the harshness, the whole series is harsh. My inspiration have grown, not only from Tolkien, but also from history and historical fiction. I tried to blend some of the tropes and traditions of fantasy with those of historical fiction, while doing this. If you read about the real Middle Ages, as I do all the time, it was a brutal time for everybody – for men, women and children. Children weren’t sentimentalized, the way they are today. They were frequently made to work, from a very early age. They were taken into battle. Boys become pages and then squires. You’re riding into battle with your knight, as a 12-year-old squire, but you’re there, and people are hacking at you with swords and shooting at you with arrows. You’re not at home, being protected. It was a different age with a different mind-set. I did want to reflect that.

—Collider 2011

But what about Jon and Dany?

RS: Given the complexity of A Song of Ice and Fire, did you have concerns over how faithfully it could work onscreen? 

GRRM: (...) Some people I met thought we have to find the story’s through line. Who’s the important character? Somebody thought that Dany’s the important character – cut away everybody else, tell the story of Dany. Or Jon Snow. Those were the two most popular characters to build everything around, except you’re losing 90 percent of the story.

—Rollingstone 2014

Time: It must have been a leap to allow this adaptation to happen, knowing it could never be as internal as a novel could.

GRRM: (...) I had a number of meetings long before David and Dan, with people who said this is the next Lord of the Rings franchise. But they couldn’t get a handle on the size of the material, the very thing that I set out to do. I had all these meetings saying, “There’s too many characters, it’s too big — Jon Snow is the central character. We’ll eliminate all the other characters and we’ll make it about Jon Snow.” Or “Daenerys is the central character. We’ll eliminate everyone else and make the movie about Daenerys.” And I turned down all those deals.

—Time Magazine 2017

THE STARKS are the heroes:

SI: What about the families: Are the Starks, say, the Green Bay Packers? 

GRRM: Whenever I propose analogies like that, fans jump in with their own ideas, but it depends on what team you root for. To me, the Starks are heroes, so they would be the Giants.

—Sports Illustrated - 2014

But what about the Targaryens? Isn't Dany the hero?

Question: Why do you think the political institutions in the Seven Kingdoms are so weak? 

GRRM: The Kingdom was unified with dragons, so the Targaryen's flaw was to create an absolute monarchy highly dependent on them, with the small council not designed to be a real check and balance. So, without dragons it took a sneeze, a wildly incompetent and megalomaniac king, a love struck prince, a brutal civil war, a dissolute king that didn't really know what to do with the throne and then chaos. 

—Fan Chat in Guadalajara, México 2016

Vulture: When civilizations clash in your books, instead of Guns, Germs, and Steel, maybe it’s more like Dragons, Magic, and Steel (and also Germs).

GRRM: There is magic in my universe, but it’s pretty low magic compared to other fantasies.

Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only Dany has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world. But is that sufficient? These are the kind of issues I’m trying to explore. The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn’t mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals.

Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build.

—Vulture 2014

THE STARKS are a huge part of the story, the central part:

The kids [Sansa, Arya, and Bran] are a huge part of the story, in many ways the central part of the story. And I always intended to separate them and set them on their own paths.

—GRRM, Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones: Seasons 1 & 2 - [x] 

(...) And no, before someone asks, I had no idea when this all started where it would lead... or how long the road would be. That picture of me up above was taken in 1995 in Scotland, after I'd signed the contracts for the first three books but before I'd delivered any of them. Back then, I'd thought the whole story could be told in three books, and that it would take me three years to write them, a year per book. That picture was taken just a few weeks after I blew my first (bot not my last, oh no) deadline on the series. Ah, how innocent I was... little did that guy in the picture imagine that he would be spending most of the next two decades in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros with Tyrion, Daenerys, Arya, Sansa, Jon Snow, Bran, and all the rest.

—Not A Blog 2016

But Sansa is not part of the “five central characters” in the original outline

(...) George said he was "pissed" that the outline was posted in the office building and that someone took photos and shared them. He said it was a letter for him and the publisher only. He was very firm when telling this and it showed on his face.

He then said that he is not good with writing outlines, making book deadlines, and that often in outlines he was "making shit up", and "characters changed along the way".

—Balticon Report 2016

—Not A Blog 2011

#GRRM #ASOIAF #GAME OF THRONES #Sansa Stark #Jon Snow #Arya Stark #Bran Stark

[pigsonthewingpdx]

We could become slaves to our equipment...volume 2

WARNING: GUITAR GEEK LANGUAGE FOLLOWS 

David Lindenbaum is the second half of the Pigs on the Wing guitar team and an accomplished solo artist in his own right ( check out his solo album Ether Day if you have done so yet).   While Dave is an old hand at performing Pink Floyd’s music, he actually came into the band a bit later - as Pigs on the Wing began life as a single-guitar band in the spirit of the original Pink Floyd.  A seasoned and infinitely adaptable musician, Dave played his first gig with Pigs on the Wing as sub bassist - before convincing the band ( rightly so) that they really needed a 2nd guitarist. Today we’re going to take a look at Dave’s guitar setup for Pigs on the Wing - and the equipment he uses to achieve the classic Pink Floyd guitar tones.

Dave onstage with Pigs on the Wing in 2015

POTW: What is your approach in general terms to getting the David Gilmour sound ?  Do you ever improvise or do you tend to play the parts note for note?

DAVE: As for as his sound, I shoot for something in the right ballpark. I’ve never tried to replicate his exact gear or anything, but have rather tried to stick to the spirit of it. For the parts I go mostly note-for-note, leaving windows here and there to be spontaneous. Here again, when I improvise  I tend to stick with my perception of the spirit of the music. Once in a while I just cut loose and play off the top of my head, usually during sections where we’ve added jams that aren’t in the original arrangements. 

For iconic stuff like the Brick Pt. 2 or Time solos, I play those note-for-note, figuring that fans expect to hear them that way, and also that I can’t improve on perfection. On lesser known stuff I’m more open to interpreting or improvising. 

Pigs on the Wing in 2012

POTW: You came into this project after it was established, originally as a 1 guitar band - what was the process like for finding a place for both guitarists ?

DAVE: For me it was mostly a process of playing as little as possible at first and waiting to be invited to add more. I’ve always been a collaborative player, and think of my self as primarily a colorist, so that process happened naturally for me. Over time we had conversations about me taking on some of those iconic note-for-note parts since I knew many of them already. Jason likes to be a little looser and keep things a little more spontaneous, so we evolved organically into roles that suit our strengths as players. We sometimes have guitar practices where we go through each song and fine-tune our parts and how they work together. Generally we try to err on the side of leaving more space and playing less. 

I’ve also become the de facto utility player, handling acoustic, lap steel, and other miscellaneous parts. Again this plays to our respective strengths because Jason mostly likes to play electric, whereas I grew up playing 12-string, nylon-string, and things like that. I learned to play songs like Fearless, Is There Anybody Out There?, and Wish You Were Here as part of learning guitar when I was a teenager, so it was natural for me take on that role in the band, to fill that need, if you like.

POTW guitars - onstage - 2018 Finding the Dark Side of the Moon tour

POTW: Let's talk about your guitars.  Tell us about your main instrument(s) and why they work for this project.

DAVE: I’m pretty much a maple-neck Strat guy generally, probably because my first decent guitar as a kid was a Japanese Squier Bullet, a 3/4-size Strat body with a maple Tele neck. I played that guitar for 11 years before finally getting a Strat, so by then nothing else felt right in my hands but a Fender with a maple neck! Plus I think they’re more versatile than most other guitars. With the right pickups you can play any style of music with a Strat. I also like that Strats are a bit harder to play than other electrics. They make you work a little harder, so when I dig in things don’t get chaotic, unless I want them to. Over the years I’ve had four different Gibsons - a Les Paul, SG, Firebird, and ES330TD, in that order - and ended up selling all of them eventually. 

Dave’s Stratocasters

I just got a new Strat that is quickly becoming my main electric - an Ed O’Brien (from Radiohead) signature Strat. It comes stock with pretty much all of the stuff I would want to mod a Strat with, like a Sustainer pickup and a mini-humbucker in the bridge, a Little JB. I had locking tuners put in and had it set up for 10s. I also ended up swapping necks with my now-former main Strat because the stock 21-fret V neck felt weird after 33 years playing C necks, most of which had 22 frets. 

I love my Ebow, so the idea of the Sustainer was very appealing to me. I use it on Echoes and plan to use it extensively on Shine On when we bring that back into the set later this year. My now-backup guitar is a heavily modified 2011 sunburst American Standard Strat. I put a Duncan STK6 in the bridge, wired in a coil-tap switch, and put in a switch to add the neck pickup to the bridge out-of-phase. It also has a bone nut and locking tuners. As noted above, it now has the 21-fret V neck from the Ed O’Brien. 

I use a Guild 12-string for all steel-string acoustic parts, except for Dogs, for which I play an old Yamaha 6-string tuned to D standard. I play a Yamaha nylon-string acoustic-electric for three songs on The Wall. I also play a Supro 6-string lap steel guitar in drop-D tuning for slide parts. 

Dave’s pedalboard setup as of Sept 2018

POTW: How do you generate the distortion and overdrive effects ?  Do you use a Big Muff ?  How about the Leslie effects?  What is the most irreplaceable pedal on your pedalboard ?

DAVE: I mostly use a Fulltone GT500 for distortion. I really prefer amp gain, but somehow ended up going this route a few years ago. 

I recently incorporated a backwards-plugged wah to my setup for the creepy whale sounds on Echoes and Is There Anybody Out There? It works great unless you happen to use wireless, so I ended up adding an A/B switch so I can use a cable with the wah and wireless for everything else. I recently got a 5 channel looper pedal with an A/B so the current A/B will go away. It’s like Medusa’s head of snakes - every time I get rid of something, 2 more things take its place! 

I have a Boss RT20 rotary speaker pedal that I like a lot. It’s versatile and indestructible. I also have three Analogman-modded pedals that I love - a Small Stone phase shifter, a VPJr volume pedal and a Boss TR2 tremolo. The most indispensable pedal on my board is definitely the Boss DD20 delay. Many Floyd songs are dependent on delay for tempo, so a good-sounding, reliable and programmable delay is crucial, and the Boss is all of those things; and like the RT20, really all Boss stuff, it’s indestructible. Our stuff takes a fair amount of abuse so roadworthiness counts for a lot.

POTW: Gilmour was known for playing through 100 watt Hiwatts at very high volume - what's your amp setup these days, and how is it similar or different from Gilmour's?

DAVE: I’m using a 1967 Fender BandMaster Head with two identical Avatar 2x12 8-ohm cabs. They are of the now-discontinued Vintage Diagonal series, which means the speaker board is mounted on a slight upwards tilt to facilitate being easier to hear on stage. They each have one Vintage 30 and one G12H30 speaker. I have to give a big shout-out to Avatar for making me a second cab to my specs despite discontinuing both the model in particular and custom orders in general. 

My setup is different from Gilmour’s in that it is significantly lower wattage - 50 compared to a couple hundred or more, depending on how many heads he uses nowadays - and I play at a comparatively low volume. Similar to Gilmour, my rig is set up for clean headroom as opposed to high gain. 

Dave’s amp rig - Sept 2018

POTW: On that note - how is your rig similar or different from Jason's rig ? Is it ever chaos having 2 guitars on stage at the same time ?  How do you guys create space for both instruments ?

DAVE: My rig is very different from Jason’s in a couple of ways. He uses an Orange head into a Marshall 4x12, and uses the effects loop for his pedals. His amp has a high gain channel that he uses for most of his leads. My rig doesn’t have an effects loop so my pedalboard runs straight into the amp. Jason uses cables, whereas I am wireless. 

On the other hand, we  both have pretty similar pedal layouts, including 2 or 3 of the same pedals, and we both use tube amps. I started using Gilmour-style short trem arms after seeing how much Jason liked his, and Jason turned me on to Analogman pedal mods.

It can be a little chaotic with the two of us, especially on really loud and jammy songs like Interstellar Overdrive or the middle part of Echoes. As mentioned earlier, we put a lot of time into arrangements so we don’t step all over each other. It helps that neither of us are showboats or egotists. We’re pretty mellow and considerate. And sometimes a little chaos is a good thing! Mostly we try to avoid having our combined stage volumes blow out the eardrums of our band mates, our audiences, or ourselves, and/or irritate Shira, our FOH sound engineer. 

Pigs on the Wing live 2018

POTW: Last question: Boss or EHX pedals ?

DAVE: Yes, please. I am an equal-opportunity pedal nerd. 

#pigs on the wing #pink floyd #analogman #fender #stratocaster #david gilmour #guitargeek #pink floyd tribute

[class-wom]

Our hero committed sexual assault.

There’s no getting around this fact. It happened. We watched it happen. Sydney explicitly says it in the final minutes of the episode: “You drugged me and had sex with me.” It feels important to say it up front, before anything else. I must have started and re-started this review a half-dozen times, and there’s no other way to address David’s act without seeming to minimize the impact of what took place.  There are ways the show can deal with this next season, and there are stories that can be told, but as it turns out, it wasn’t just a comic-book conceit to have the characters imply David might be the villain of this story. David is the villain. And to quote Syd, maybe he always was.

This is upsetting, disturbing stuff, and for the first time since I began watching this weird and often wonderful show, I’m not convinced Legion is capable of telling the story it just waded into. To understand why is to pull at the messy threads of narrative convention. I spoke at length in last week’s review about what has made this such a polarizing season of television. Legion has been shedding viewers, and I think it has a lot to do with the willfully alienating nature of the story. It became positively Brechtian in its refusal to allow the audience a point of identification, or a way to trust the show. Not just in the sense that we couldn’t necessarily trust our own eyes—we’ve known from the start that reality is malleable when it comes to the powers of David Haller and the Shadow King—but in not providing us with protagonists in whom we can believe. We can’t trust David, we can’t really trust anyone, not with delusion creatures roaming free.

Legion stripped away our ability to look to its characters for reassurance, which is a foundational building block of humanism and empathy. One of the reasons the Loudermilks have become so appealing this season is because their guilelessness makes them some of the only people that convey a sense of reliability. I can believe in them—or at least, the show hasn’t given me much reason to actively not believe in them, which is something I can no longer say with much confidence about any other character, really.

A second issue is about the implicit contract between audience and show. When we’re given a protagonist, we plan to follow them on their journey, and we have certain expectations that accompany such a journey, for good or ill. A key expectation is that we will be given entry into a character’s point of view. We need to know who a person is, and if we’re given that, we can follow them anywhere. Good guys like Leslie Knope, antiheroes like Tony Soprano, grouchy bastards like Gregory House, even good-to-bad characters like Walter White—they can lie, cheat, steal, hell, even poison a child in Walter’s case, and as long as we know their motivations, their point of view, and the perspective of those around them, we can go on that journey. We don’t need our characters to be heroes.

But this is Legion, a Marvel superhero show. What has made it consistently fascinating is the way that Noah Hawley and his creative team have repeatedly pushed back against those expectations, not caring that it would alienate people looking for a certain familiar structure in their TV series. Yet when it comes to character, there might be certain rules that work better unbroken. Removing our ability to relate to characters, and stripping away the humanism that undergirds our identification with the people whose lives we’re watching unfold, is a fundamentally avant-garde move, because it severs the basic premise of narrative drama: Namely, that we can understand who this person is and why they do what they do.

If you’re halfway through watching Out Of Africa, you know you’re not going to have a sudden smash cut to a pornographic, throbbing sex scene between Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, and another person, because that would violate a basic understanding of the world that’s been established, what a mainstream movie provides, and also how these characters would behave. Similarly, Legion has established that there are many facets to David, but despite the depictions of a malevolent David, or a homeless crazy David, or even the fears of our primary David about the violence he’s capable of inflicting (something that wasn’t even introduced until the last couple of episodes), we had been given a fundamentally good person. Naive, even, in his sincere belief in true love, admirable in his loyalty to his friends, and—above all—steadfast in his refusal to accept evil or unhappiness as the outcome. When Syd brooded over their likely unhappy ending, David was the one to say he believed in a better one. Even when he was torturing Oliver last week, we may not have liked it, but we understood doing something bad to achieve something good. He was trying to save Syd.

Transforming David from a fundamentally decent person with a troubled mind into someone capable of committing sexual assault in the course of a single episode is the needle scratch on the record player. It’s the porn scene in the middle of Out Of Africa. It’s edgy and unpredictable, but that doesn’t make it good. It changes the show on a fundamental level—and more than that, it pulls the rug out from under its viewers, scorning them for thinking they were watching one kind of show when in fact they were watching a very different one. It’s one thing to have a show’s characters lie to us. It’s quite another when a show lies to its audience. 

There’s an argument to be made that these kinds of stories should be told. From the perspective of a show looking to tell difficult tales about difficult people, the decision to have David do this to Syd probably felt like an all-too-accurate and believable version of how these events play out in everyday life, albeit aided by psychic powers instead of roofies. But I’m not sure a show where guys with baskets on their heads and kung-fu fight scenes set to Jane’s Addiction has earned that story beat. When someone on a Marvel superhero show—even one as odd as Legion—tells us a character might become a villain, we allow for powers, and betrayal, and even violence. But abruptly pivoting to a painful and common reality feels like a betrayal of the narrative contract the series spent two seasons establishing. Farouk is a rapist—he is the villain and has been clearly established as such, so we accept it. I don’t know if I can accept David’s actions, not when they haven’t been properly set up narratively and justified psychologically, both on our end and his. 

David defeats the Shadow King (thanks to Lenny’s bullet and the Choke) and starts pounding him senseless, but before he can land a fatal blow, Syd shows up and tries to shoot him, having been convinced by Farouk-Melanie that her beau was indeed becoming a monster who must be stopped. It’s understandable David would feel betrayed; he had just done a bunch of ugly stuff, all in the name of protecting his love. (“It’s what we have to save,” he again echoed in his words to Oliver.) And he’s not that person—not yet, anyway. It’s actually very easy to feel for David in that moment, as he’s so hurt: “Don’t you trust me?”

So when he wakes up in his own basement, and proceeds to have the three-way argument with himself, you can see why these new versions of David have erupted. He’s wounded, and the one person he truly loved has somehow rejected him in the most clear-cut manner imaginable, so a part of him tries to make sense of it in any way he can. Hence the disagreement—she’s his parasite, her love is the delusion, they all owe David everything and he should just take charge as a superior being. The episode continually returns to the God metaphor, from his quick aside to Lenny (“God has plans for you”) to Clark’s season-ending words: “Now we pray.”

Even Farouk is sounding like the voice of reason in that regard. David’s late night debate with his tormentor hinged on the Shadow King making David see how his actions weren’t all that different from Farouk’s. The moment that Farouk makes David realize how his efforts will backfire—and we learn just what David did to Syd—is a brutal one. The decision to suppress her memories is indeed a form of drugging her—he’s altering her perception to get what he wants, and once Farouk is safely contained, and Syd’s in her room, he projects himself in there, tells her everything’s fine, and proceeds to sleep with her. It’s vile stuff—there’s a reason that when Buffy The Vampire Slayer pulled a lesser but quite similar move, it made sure to have the victim discover she’d been magically drugged before any intimacy happened. Because that’s a line that can’t really be walked back, character-wise.

And part of the problem is that the show itself doesn’t seem to understand the severity of that breach. “The Trial Of The Shadow King,” with its text-based reflections on the nature of truth, muses that perhaps the competing realities of the situation should give us pause. That perhaps everyone has been swayed by the Shadow King’s machinations, which is why poor David has been found crazy and in need of either medicated imprisonment or death. And hey, that would’ve been a great place to end the season—with a knotty ambiguous debate over reality itself. But Syd’s statement of what David has done isn’t something you can muck about with, hemming and hawing over whether reality is being distorted. And it’s a disservice to the intensity of that choice—and the legitimacy of Syd’s assault—to fold it into the show’s usual “who can say what truth is?” philosophizing.

And maybe that’s the big problem with the second-season finale of Legion: Certain acts don’t get to be up for debate, and it’s a cheat on the show’s part to think sexual assault can just be part of the furniture. When nothing can be spared from getting walked back, when we are potentially being lied to about everything, then our sense of investment, our stakes in this world, go out the window. Acts need to have meaning, not be idly ruminated on with quotes from Plato. Does Legion really think there are competing truths about what David did, regardless of whether the Shadow King has everyone in his thrall? If so, then the closing words of the Tori Amos cover that ends the season are apt in more ways than one: “This is not real / This is not really happening, hey.” It’s not until the credits roll that the next line arrives—“You bet your life it is.”

Stray observations

Legion significant music cues of the week: They all pretty much pale compared to that opening version of The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” that David and Farouk are singing, with its spot-on lyrics. (“No one knows what it’s like to be the bad man, to be the sad man...my love is vengeance.”) But the others are the aforementioned show-closing cover of “Cornflake Girl” (if you want a great rock cover of that one, here it is), and when David’s in his own room, about to go back on the plan the other Davids apparently concocted, a similarly dark cover of The Kinks’ “Nothing In This World” is playing.

“I’m a good person. I deserve love.” This would’ve landed so much harder if David hadn’t just done what he did.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Loudermilks have been our most reliable source of identification and Cary is the one who discovers what David did to Syd.

When the mouse first showed up in Farouk’s cell, was anyone else thinking it was going to start singing Bryan Ferry?

Oliver and Melanie’s flash-forward, with them living in the ice cube three years after the events of this episode, was a rare and much-valued moment of levity.

“You really believe that? God loves sinners best?” Methinks we’re going to find out. Dan Stevens’ performance this year has been stellar.

Thanks, everyone, for watching and reading. I’ve enjoyed hearing all the theories and discussions of this very unusual season of television. Sorry it had to end on a down note—I can certainly say I’ll be curious to see where Legion tries to go from here.

#(um...yeah I'm kinda dealing with this too tbh; kept saying He should ask her if she wants it he should ask her...) #Legion Season 2 Review #Spoilers #AV Club

[sportsrumorsblog]

Wow Classic Beginner Guide

No doubt, just on the off chance that Blizzard experiencing the agonies of re-delivering old programming on present day workers to satisfy fan clamor that is arrived at breaking point has missed you, 

World of Warcraft Classic is a particularly old-school insight. A lot of that has to do with the low-res illustrations and splotchy surfaces, however Classic likewise reviews a time when World of Warcraft put the 'RPG' in MMORPG. In layman's terms: to a lesser extent a versatile game, more a get-ganked multiple times before the-Blackrock-Depths gateway experience.

So on the off chance that you began playing after Cataclysm and showing up at vanilla Warcraft unexpectedly, don't stress, I have your back. I began playing in 2005, and have stayed aware of each development since, giving me a smart thought of a portion of the things more youthful explorers ought to be careful about when they sign into Azeroth and find their Dungeon Finder missing. Here are eight things you have to know for World of Warcraft Classic.

Your class adaptability is extremely restricted

At the point when I previously got my duplicate of World of Warcraft I rolled a Dwarf Paladin. The fantasy was to turn into a heavenly juggernaut, cutting down armies of undead debris with divine reprisal. Paladins can wear plate covering, for the wellbeing of god. Just a single different class can wear that. I was stirred.

Quick forward a couple of seasons later. I'm at long last at level 60, in my first assaulting society, prepared to get middle age on the murderous savages in Zul'Gurub. One moment, says the senior Paladin who's encouraged me. I'm advised to respec Holy. You know, the mending tree. Not just that, the Paladin advised me to trade out my entire being gear for Intellect and Spirit-polishing stuff. I was unable to locate a decent mending breastplate along these lines, rather, I was advised to trade what I had with calfskin protection.

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Calfskin reinforcement.

This was the appalling truth for Paladins in vanilla. The class was just suitable in PvE as a healbot. That is fine, I really figured out how to adore playing support, yet my unique desires were crushed. Today, classes in World of Warcraft are multifaceted; Druids can tank, recuperate, and bargain gigantic spell harm in equivalent measure. In any case, in 2005, in the event that you were a Druid in an attacking organization, you weren't doing considerably more than spamming Innervate and Restoration. Fighters were basically solely failing. Mages were speccing Frost. Trackers regularly wouldn't gather their pets. You get the thought.

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What I'm stating is, do your exploration. The class you pick will be much more prohibitive than what you experience on live workers today.

Today, you can kill essentially everything in World of Warcraft without so much as a second thought. Be that as it may, vanilla had this odd framework where on the off chance that you executed restricting group NPCs set apart as "regular folks"— think merchants, landlords, and so on.— it would consider a shameful slaughter. Despicable executes were truly merciless. They'd quickly tank your complete honor, which means you'd no longer approach the upper levels of the PvP sellers' lootbox.

Simply be cautious when you're raging The Crossroads, alright?

Emergency treatment is basic

The First Aid calling was taken out from World of Warcraft in Battle for Azeroth. It appeared well and good: it was essentially futile in a period where players' wellbeing recovers in nanoseconds. Yet, in vanilla, First Aid was one of the most significant resources in anybody's armory. Your characters were feeble. Like, truly powerless. What's more, wellbeing pools set aside a long effort to top off. In this way, by effectively step up your wrapping capacity, you had the option to hold yourself over substantially more productively subsequent to having a frightful disagreement with a Defias crook in Westfall.

It wasn't even select for DPS classes either. Druids, Paladins, Priests, and Shamans additionally kept their First Aid ability solid, notwithstanding the way that they could close up wounds with mana. Truth be told, I particularly recall a few very good quality societies straight up requiring individuals in their overlap to have a covered First Aid ability.

So don't auction that Linen Cloth! It's more significant than you can envision.

Stock up on food and water

Given how gradually your assets renewed in vanilla, any fruitful player tries to stop by their food and drink merchant to keep their wellbeing and mana pools solid. You know the natural product merchant that strolls around Ironforge? The one that appears to be totally self-assertive? Trust us, they had a truly significant reason quite a long time ago.

Leveling is the game

These days, when a World of Warcraft extension comes out, Blizzard is putting forth a valiant effort to usher you towards the level cap as fast and as effectively as could reasonably be expected. Indeed they make some lovely zones, yes they recount a pleasant story, yet the game aspect of this game occurs after your last ding. That wasn't the situation in 2004. Snowstorm had 60 levels to play with, and they guaranteed the cycle was agonizingly slow. It took me almost a year to hit my initial 60. (I was likewise a pre-teenager and didn't have the foggiest idea what I was doing, yet whatever.)

So don't stress over the cap. Try not to stress over hurrying through the experience. Try not to carry 2019 rationale to a 2004 item. That is not the sort of interactivity vanilla Warcraft needed to empower.

Set aside your cash: mounts are costly

They part with mounts like candy in World of Warcraft nowadays. You can essentially play a round of Hearthstone and have a pristine flying mount added to your Battle.net account. Be that as it may, in vanilla, making it to level 40 with enough gold in your bank to cull a starter mount off the parcel was a troublesome undertaking. In all out they cost 100 gold, which could almost burn up all available resources back then, well before the economy was expanded past the stratosphere. No one needs to be the level 45 person without a mount. Be prudent with your wallet.

Keys open entryways

In the Dungeon Finder time you line for an example and are transported straightforwardly to a prison's entryways. At that point you mass-AOE each experience without saying a word to the individuals in your arbitrarily various gathering. This wasn't the situation in old-school World of Warcraft for an assortment of reasons, yet above all, newcomers to Classic need to acclimate themselves with the idea of attunement.

A huge amount of the very good quality substance in World of Warcraft regularly required at any rate one part in the gathering to finish a journey chain giving them the way to enter the prison itself. In Molten Core, for example, each major part in the 40-man assault would need to finish a brisk mission bind that permitted them to penetrate the internal sanctum of Ragnaros' den. Wanna do Upper Blackrock Spire? Amazing! However long you know somebody who completed a tangled multi-part visit that included psyche controlling a monster in Dustwallow Marsh.

This is one of the extras from World of Warcraft's more customary, tabletop RPG roots. Like, clearly the miscreants have the entryways bolted, y'know? Be that as it may, in case you're simply showing up now, it may take some becoming acclimated to. It additionally fills in as a wonderful chance: you'll make yourself way more significant to a gathering or a society in the event that you have the Blackrock Depths key.

Your notoriety goes before you

Today, you can move away without addressing a solitary soul in World of Warcraft. The game has been explicitly advanced to be a performance experience. At the point when you have to bunch up, Blizzard will cheerfully reach across domain lines to discover accomplices. That wasn't the situation in vanilla. Not exclusively did questing content on the world guide frequently require a gathering, however on the off chance that you were going into a prison, you expected to define an arrangement from the current spirits on your worker. That implies on the off chance that you acquire a notoriety for being languid, insatiable, or uncouth, you won't get welcomed back.

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Old hands completely recall what it resembled when some dolt ninja-plundered Onyxia and had his name posted on the domain gatherings with a distinct notice. Who knows whether the equivalent profoundly isolated network feeling will persist into Classic. Fail on the mindful side, and stay out of trouble clean.

[3sportsguns]

Fantasy Football Headset 2019; Future Assets

As we head in to Fantasy Football playoffs there are plenty of teams that are now looking to next season and that's the time to start grabbing some lottery picks and possible assets for next season. That's where my team finds itself after a mostly successful tanking season, a last game win left with the #2 pick instead of the top pick for the next draft.

A couple of players I've already stashed for next season are Justin Jackson, Dawson Knox and Tim Patrick. If Melvin Gordon leaves the Chargers in free agency Jackson would be behind Ekeler but could find himself viable in the split backfield like he was at the beginning of the season. Knox is a young TE that has had upside for awhile and could be primed for a much bigger role next season.

With Drew Lock under center the Broncos offense has come to life. There's still the running backs, Sutton and Fant but there's an open spot for WR2 after Hamilton has really struggled. Justin Gage from the Falcons is another one to consider, I missed out on him, as now the slot receiver.

Boston Scott was my lone pickup in my Dynasty League this week after his monster game. He took advantage of Jordan Howard being hurt who will be a free agent. The Eagles love a RB committee and with Scott's big showing against the Giants he seemed like a reasonable grab to see what happens in the offseason and could be a solid pairing with Miles Sanders.

I got a little luck with some drops in my Dynasty League that I was able to stash on my IR. Lamar Miller and Trey Burton were dropped and now sitting on my IR. Burton never seemed to get healthy and didn't do much in the Bear's offense even in the few games he played but the Chicago offense has come around the last few weeks and it was worth hanging on to Burton to see what happens once he gets healthy.

I think Miller's time is likely done in Houston with the committe of Hyde and Johnson, and I've always been a bit partial to him, but he got cut way early in the season and running backs are so solid it was totally worth it to carry him until I get to roster cut time. Chris Herndon has been on my roster all season and didn't do anything but I'm still holding out there's some upside there with Sam Darnold.

Being able to find value in lesser known situations is key to building a successful team in Dynasty Leagues. The last few offseasons I've been able to grab Marshawn Lynch and Adrian Peterson who have been key trade pieces for me as I've tried to reform my team to make the playoffs for the first time.

As we come to the end of the fourth season in my Dynasty League I've finished 11th of 12 twice, tanked this year to get there, and 7th the last two seasons which was the first team out. This season the league came back to Earth and I could have probably gotten in to the playoffs if I went for it but I didn't feel like I had the running backs to get it done so I went for the impact pick. However, with the veterans I've been able to trade I have five picks in the top three rounds this draft and six in the first three rounds for next season to load my team up.

With Lamar Jackson and Carson Wentz at QB; Kareem Hunt, Joe Mixon, Sony Michel, Patrick Laird, Rashaad Penny and Darrell Henderson at RB (some young ones but you can see why I tanked); Kenny Golladay, DeAndre Hopkins, Tyreek Hill, Deebo Samuel, Curtis Samuel, Miles Boykin, Hakeem Butler at WR and Irv Smith, Jace Sternberger, Herndon and Burton at TE the pieces are there to be a playoff team with the picks to take some impact players or make some trades.

#FantasyFootball #NFL #FFHeadsetBlog #Offseason

[celticnoise]

Sevco finally released their annualised accounts tonight – on a Friday, on a cup semi-final weekend – and they are, as disastrous as many of us anticipated that they would be.

They made a loss of epic proportions; £11 million of a loss, in a season with seven European home fixtures played in front of full houses, and television earnings from UEFA.

There is little doubt that this season’s figures will be equally appalling.

Sevco is being run in a fashion that is unsustainable.

There is no question that they are heading for the same fate as befell Rangers in 2012; administration at the very least.

This cannot go on.

Had they been knocked out of Europe prior to the Group stages this year that club would be sitting atop an erupting volcano.

Only European income gives them the slightest chance of breaking even, and that they’ve run up such enormous debts in a year where they had it paints a grim picture of any year where they do not.

UEFA’s proposed changes, and the creation of a third tier competition with limited financial opportunities and a lesser standard of teams than even the low-rent opposition they’ve played over the last few campaigns, is a death sentence for them at the current rate of spending.

Not only will it not help them, but it will make their situation worse.

Not even the Scottish hacks are trying to sugar-coat this, although incredibly The Daily Record has tried to by suggesting that the sale of Dembele and the cash for Rodgers is the only reason we weren’t looking at a £15 million loss.

They use the word “if” a lot over there, and now it’s “if Celtic hadn’t sold Dembele” in the same way as “if Odsonne Edouard gets injured” and “if Celtic had not won at Ibrox”.

And here’s the simple fact of it; we could have easily survived a loss in this financial year because of the overall stability of the club.

We have a cash surplus. We have overdraft facilities.

It is a wonder that our club has elected to run on a zero debt model, when we could easily choose not to.

If Celtic sells a key player every so often, that’s simply the reality of our position as a Scottish club with limited earning potential.

Our turnover is still over £80 million.

If we had to make cuts we could do that easily too; a smaller squad size would cut our wage budget substantially, and indeed many think that it should be smaller anyway.

I keep on saying this, but one more time’s the charm; we can afford a couple of bad years.

We have built the club to the level where we could cope with one, maybe two in a row.

Then we’d have to start making some choices, but as long as we have saleable assets those are not choices between living and dying, and that’s the difference. No matter how much the media wants to try and paint the comparative positions of the clubs as similar in this regard, that is absolutely untrue.

We do not have to worry about our club’s future.

The real stat that jumps out at you is the claim that the directors over there have written off £35 million in the space of just a few years; that’s all cash they “loaned” to the club, just to keep the lights on. Without it, there would be no club at Ibrox.

This is the reality of their position; if they were a business they’d be trading whilst insolvent.

The media is, at least, now saying that Sevco’s policy for January is to sell. They have accepted what this blog twigged to when Ross Wilson was appointed and Gerrard admitted that his remit was to cut the numbers. He has been put on notice that he is to secure a mammoth transfer fee for at least one player at their club, and as soon as possible … which means that rather than being enhanced in the next window, Sevco’s title challenge might be ended instead.

But Wilson is going to face the same problems as Allan did, namely that for all the speculation there is no real interest in Mad Dog or in Tavernier and certainly not the kind that is going to net them the kind of transfer profits they dream about.

In order to get those kind of fees your players have to be at the right level, of the right standard, and theirs are not.

We get those monies for three reasons; first is that we now have a reputation for it.

We can produce and nurture quality, players capable of reaching the next level. Secondly, we have invested in training and scouting and we’ve got the sort of coaching that turns good players into great players and thirdly, we can find these guys and afford to buy them.

A lot of these players were not cheap, and not even those who were – like Wanyama, like Ajer – were well scouted first, at great expense. And as I said in a previous piece where I compared our policies to mining for gold, you have to sift through a lot of dirt to find even an ounce of the stuff.

That’s expensive as well, as they are discovering.

Gerrard has bought over 20 players, most of them from football’s bargain bins.

If they think there are £20 million players in there they are only kidding themselves on. If they are pinning a major financial turnaround on finding and developing quality to sell to England for big bucks they might as well close their doors right now because they’re already finished off.

Even if they did make it, you know what? Sevco spends every penny it earns and then a lot more on top. The more they have, the more they waste. It is one of the worst things they got with the DNA of Rangers. That club is addicted to over-spending … it is all they know.

These numbers are every bit as awful and destructive as many of us said they would be. No organisation making those kind of losses every year – and Sevco has never made anything but losses in its short and unstable history – is like a dead man walking.

It is fitting that this is Halloween.

That club, like the one before it, is a shambling, ruined mess.

It’s not for nothing that we call them zombies.

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[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Sacred Beasts 2 | Astra 2 - 3 | Given 1 - 2 | DanMachi II 1 | Demon Slayer 15 - 16 | Dr Stone 2 | Fruits Basket 14 | Cop Craft 2 - 3

Rolling out the tags soon.

Sacred Beasts 2

“Sissy” always pissed me off as a nickname for your sister. It’s clearly meant as a term of endearment in some cases, but it also is the equivalent of “wuss”, y’know???

I’ve seen mushroom soup out of a tin…that don’t look like mushroom soup in that case.

Uh, random question…she has th same surname as Will, but is Schaal herself adopted???

Y’should’ve followed Hank, Nancy…(is her name Nancy or Schaal? Schaal is her middle name, yet she seems more commonly referred to as Schaal…hmm.)

*sees synopsis* - No one mentioned Nancy’s hometown was called Livletwood Village…

I pause my shows a lot to get down these notes…then Crunchyroll or my internet (or both!) cursed me with regular buffering (that can sometimes play video and subs through it, but generally sets down a few seconds after unpausing and lasts for a minute) and made it a pain in the butt to make these notes. But you do realise I basically have notes for almost every show I’ve ever watched under this system? These notes are special to me, which is why I put up with the buffering. It also means impactful scenes lose their impact, meaning well-paced shows get favoured in my picking process on CR these days.

Astra 2

Yup, the 2nd time we talk about how to scavenge for food this season – gotta remember this…in case I ever get into a situation like that. You never know! (creates “The More You Know” star with hands)

I-awwwwwww…I never thought I’d see the day where the Luca Javelin would get animated, much less Astra as a series. Dang, is this a dream???

Eyyyyy. Nothing like endangering your little sister to really understand why you love her…much less understand that you love her in the first place. (partially sarcastic)

Given 1

This is my second rodeo with BL anime (I’ve only read one BL manga and it was pretty darn mediocre, but the one BL game I tried was okay)…hopefully it’s good.

Was there the ticking of a clock in the background???

…and cut to OP. Yay! I can predict when the OP happens now…(It only took me years of training…okay, I’m kidding.)

I think this OP is like a music video…and I think that’s the point.

Kaji??? Is this Eva (LOL)?

I’m no band person – I was merely a solo pianist in my time with music, although notably I did have to sing for one of the musical pieces – but “Thom Yorke” and “Keith Richards” sound familiar. Why???...Okay, so it seems Thom Yorke is part of Radiohead and Keith Richards is part of the Rolling Stones. I’m familiar with those bands by name, at least.

Lemme guess…this guy (Ritsuka) sucks at improv.

I had to go back and find out what Yayoi said a few lines ago…and  love her already because she’s like “You suck”…she’s just like me, to be honest.

Early husbando predictions say Haruki is my dude of the season.

Seeing manly dudes act like blushing schoolgirls is great…!

Yushiro-who???...Okay, Yushiro Ishihara is apparently that’s a singer that’s already passed away, but has a bit of a rep behind him.

Is it just me, or is Ritsuka basically a lesser Bakugo…?

Come to think of it, it would be hard for me to teach someone piano now that I haven’t properly played since the end of 2014…almost 5 years. Geesh, that’s a long time.

Welp, that was…actually pretty good. The only thing that sucks is that this ED isn’t rock, to go with the rest of the show.

DanMachi II 1

Another counterintuitive name for a sequel anime season…this is my last premiere before I wrap them up, or at least until Machikado Mazoku (or whatever) land on CR.

…and of course, it’s back to Big Boobies (aka Hestia). She’s probably the worst part of the show for me.

Why does Bell need an advisor anyway…? I never thought about it when watching s1.

Who’s this Naza-sama, anyway…?...Okay, it seems she’s a doctor from the Miach Familia. I don’t remember her from s1, really.

I’ve forgotten who Asfi is as well…Oh yeah, that blue-haired woman from the Hermes Famlia. Hermes seems like a bit of a loose cannon – the sort who wouldn’t have a Familia if given the chance – though.

I think we saw Freya in s1…just scheming behind the scenes…

Hermes looks like a sleazebag half the time he’s on screen…

I forgot how much I loved Miach’s character design in s1...and to a lesser extent, Takemikazuchi.

Demon Slayer 15

…Zenitsu is annoying again.

I didn’t think Tanjiro was scared of anything…excpt maybe losing Nezuko again.

Oh! I just realised Natagumo has a hint in its name…The “gumo” can be read “kumo”…as in cloud or spider, but it’s given with the kanji for spider so it can only be a spider-related problem on Mt Natagumo.

I’d hate to have Smellovision on this show…(What’s Smellovision, you ask??? Here, read up on it…at least, I was thinking of the Google variant, so read up on the Google version.)

Ukogi appears to be a type of plant known as eleutherococcus and ukogi rice is rice with ukogi leaves.

Dr Stone 2

Episode 3’s title is like “Weapons…of SCIENCE! *cue Bill Nye the Science Guy theme song*”

Ooh, nice angle! (on Senku and petrified!Yuzuriha being protected by Taiju…and not just because Yuzuriha’s butt is showing…)

“You can eat lion?” – No duh, Taiju!

“I want to give thanks to the circle of life…” – Sorry, but can I interrupt with a meme here? *cue ululations that ae meant to imitate the iconic song from The Lion King, y’know, the one that goes “Ahhhhhhh zee bun yah… (etc.)”*

Tsukasa’s frickin’ tall, man! Look at him tower over Taiju and Senku…

Having read the manga before, I just realised Tsukasa is mighty suspicious when he says Senku could be able to rebuild civilisation from scratch. That was harder to recognise in manga format though, I think.

I also didn’t realise, but the shell tale is talking about Tsukasa! Hmm…interesting.

Dr Stone’s ED…never in my life did I think it was going to be a rap song. Unless, of course, it’s a science rap…(There’s hydrogen and helium and lithium, berrylium…uh, I don’t remember the words after that…)

Oh, that next-ep font takes me back…it reminds me of the 90s, where terrible WordArt font like that was everywhere and I had to get by on Lucida Calligraphy.

Fruits Basket 14

Oh, crab meat…these CGI cars look absolutely terrible…

Pay attention to the relationship between Kyo and Kyoko…you people who don’t know about manga!Furuba are in for a real revelation on that front.

Wow, the effects on the flowers are really pretty for the ED…

Cop Craft 2

That OP is just so good…*swoon*

Well…they spelt “Unknown” wrong…on Kei’s phone.

Hmm…I think the insert song was in English.

Astra 3

Oh…something didn’t make sense. It turns out the word the subber is using is “attitude” when it should actually be altitude…

Given 2

Ooh, Haruki does coffee in the OP! I didn’t notice that, since I had to skip it…there’s some kinda suckish buffering on CR, which is why I have to skip as much as I can.

Welp, I’m a pianist. I’m as clueless as any other non-guitar player when it comes to guitars, so I don’t mind the lesson but also don’t need it.

Given this is a BL/yaoi (no pun intended), I think Akihiko and Haruki should pair up…but maybe I’m just going nuts with the shipper glasses here.

“You’re going to have to do something about that soon.”

Aye…I relate, Mafuyu. When you’re younger, you can beg your parents for money, but equipment, books etc. really costs some hard cash. I remember having to go to Hong Kong to find a pearl pink metronome on the cheap…the poor thing isn’t getting much use now. (But still, I think the more I watch and see Haruki in action, the more I like him. Not necessarily as a husbando, but more in the sense of that one cool dude you gravitate towards.)

It randomly cut to Salon Harusame…don’t tell me this is how Haruki gets his money???

I think the comment that said “lolol” actually had 超 in front of it, so that would be “super lololol” or, in my personal way of saying it, “major lololol”.

Oh, so that’s what was in the OP!

I swear Uesama (LOL) should just get a job as a guitar tutor to little kids…well, that would work if he were in college/uni, maybe.

Hey, a girl! Didn’t expect one in a BL work…(LOL, my standards are so low for BL/yaoi, eh?)

Hmm…I get the feeling amateurs get their hands on acoustic models instead. I know a guitar player, y’know (although again, that doesn’t mean I know the first thing about playing a guitar).

I love how the show turned green all of a sudden. The colours match the mood, basically.

Demon Slayer 16  

This episode’s titlecard only has a wave pattern…I probably know what the pattern is called, but I’ve…probably forgotten that name.

Hey, a Demon Slayer girl! (My standards seem to have been lowered in regards to seeing gals in leading or even supporting roles…It’s more acceptable for Demon Slayer, given its historical setting, but still, how sad it is to not see many girls…)

(TW: abuse) Why…for some reason, this feels like an abusive household, specifically where the father does evil things to the mother…but this time, the son’s part of the problem.

I find it funny Zenitsu just calls Inosuke “Wild Boar”. To be fair though, I don’t think Inosuke introduced himself to Zenitsu, way back when they were meant to.

This scene where Zenitsu is crying and has his back turned to the “camera”…they clearly used a CGI model for him.

It’s a BODY! Holy s(BLEEP)!

“Chu-Chu chuuuuun!” Oh my glob, Ukogi is so adorable~!

Hey…where was Ukogi hiding before he chose to come out again?

Another CGI model when Zenitsu walks away from the camera. It’s so dark, nobody can see Ukogi…I don’t think he has a CGI model and that’s good.

I had a weird thought, but…I think Tanjiro would be a good breakdancer, if he were living in 2019.

Inosuke, you did it! But I wonder if those stats are correct and Inosuke’s going to call his name properly at climactic moments…?

Cop Craft 3

Brother Kenny…you’re just lewd.

“…O or V or A.” – Aside from OVAs, hmm…O would be (CENSORED), V I don’t know about and A…I don’t know either, but I guess it’s (CENSORED).

Kei Manoba (sic).

Doreany seems to be humanity…Did they already introduce that? I forget.

This show looks pretty bad, but the story makes the stay worth it.

#simulcast commentary #Cop Craft #Demon Slayer #Kimetsu no Yaiba #DanMachi #dungeon ni deai wo motomeru no wa machigatteiru darou ka ii #is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon? #Fruits Basket #Given #to the abandoned sacred beasts #katsute kami datta kemono-tachi e #Astra: Lost in Space #Kanata no Astra #Dr Stone #Doctor Stone #Chesarka watches KnY #Chesarka watches Furuba #Chesarka watches Dr Stone #Chesarka watches Kanata no Astra #Chesarka watches Cop Craft #Chesarka watches Given