#none of you except for taylor mason are taylor mason....

[unproduciblesmackdown]

 hardly a newsflash but after holding out the rest of the season it’s like yeah rian is like a character to me but that’s all lmfao just the neutral fact that she’s out there i guess. like that character is fine minus any personal enjoyment since apparently any plot movement or conflicts you want can come up, which is just like, useful as the device that is [a character], but it’s like. okay if we look at “rian talks to wags for some reason” as This Is The Character Overall it’s like, it’s just not particularly enjoyable to me lol like oh she’s weird & lively except only so much as a serious character is allowed to be, so it’s just kind of [she is just out there] like okay. i don’t know what to expect from any plot threads going forward and none of them are super interesting as left off like, taylor mentoring Someone is of interest as it pertains to Taylor. nice job taylor getting a rare hug but rian is so [just someone] in that moment like, i don’t know what their dynamic is supposed to be and it seems like at most amicable they’re both just standing there, weird ambiguous “well of course we could date b/c we’re cool & serious” is like [nothing] to me. and given that all season there’s no signs she and winston have any genuine relationship that’s also like, well it gives him chances to show up & say things and that’s it in the end it seems,the fun of amicability is like boy they could be friends huh? then season 6 says “no not really” so like oh okay, nvm then. she’s kind of like some guy who’s out here & sometimes says some spontaneous things but not in any way people don’t just shrug off, which i guess includes wanting to be entertained by giving a coworker shit anytime, since that doesn’t seem to be relevant to anyone but winston either. like well alright, she’s around then. to kind of do anything at any time. basically season 7 is like season 4 to me

#taking the litmus test of just regarding the character overall or w/any specific point like Okay. isnt any particular fun in it at this pt #she's here b/c she hasn't walked out yet; idk what she wants; idk what her dynamics w/anyone are #and again that Serious Average Mode Rian is just like oh this just isn't that interesting lol #and that the trend more towards that seems to have lasted...flair has dropped away. ok #god knows i don't give a shit abt ''wow aren't you surprised how much prince sucks'' like not really? hated this #and that seems to have been worth like well her character's material is about this now like. why. is her character: doing w/e? #if rian is more a device around to create unexpected chaos at any point w/no explanation that's not that characterful #and naturally when ep ten and beyond goes ''no they'll never be friends'' wrt winston like well then that was a whole main angle of interest #like you're not taylor mason.... #somehow after a season and a half rian shakes out to some rando to me lmao #unbelievable but speaking of this being season four: this is kind of like my arc of trying to be interested in wendy rhoades lmfao #that's [serious / more central billions characters] for you i guess. even secondary like this is like. well this isn't much to me at all #none of you except for taylor mason are taylor mason.... #and if i don't know what tf your dynamic w/them is or think it's that fun then that doesn't confer a ton of adjacent interest.... #winston billions #like it's not really about More Dislike it's just the loss of potential and idk As Is it's just like. well that's some character out there. #i'm sure there can still be fun / at all interesting moments but that's true re wendy too lmao

[vino---delectable]

Get to Know Me!

This is just a fun little thing I’ve been wanting to do since the dawn of time but could never find a post to reblog that satisfied what I wanted. So I made this, feel free to reblog and use it yourself!

❤️ how tall are you? 5'5?

🧡 what is your sexuality? ------- there's your answer

💛 what is your favorite feature on yourself? Eyes?

💚 where are you from? Earth. Of that I'm certain

🩵 do you have any pets? A dog, and chickens

💙 do you have any siblings? 3 sissies

💜 describe yourself in five words or less! Quiet, loving, energetic, fantasizer, peaceful

🩷 dream job? Writer

🖤 favorite hobbies outside of your blog? Writing, reading, drawing, watching tv, walking

🎂 when is your birthday? Do you want the black market to find me?

🌙 your zodiac (Sun, Moon, Rising) I know it, I just don't want to share (kidnapper thing)

💉do you have tattoos and/or piercings? Ear piercing

🚗 can you drive? A bicycle

✈️ favorite place you’ve traveled. Its a place in Michigan called zender's I think

🎤 have you been to a concert? I want to... But no

🎵 favorite artists. The Beatles, one direction, Queen, Taylor Swift, the killers, bob Dylan, the Monkees, green day, Fleetwood Mac, led zeppelin. Niall horan.

🎧 last song you listened too... In my head by Jason Derulo.

📺 last show you watched.. One called northern exposure

📝 last thing you wrote. A song I started to write

🔐 something no one would guess about you. I secretly have a dirty mind

🧟‍♀️ scariest thing that’s happened to you. I went to get my dog out of a truck in the dark and I seen all these eyes staring at me.

🔥 craziest thing that’s ever happened to you. I've never actually told anyone about this, except my sister... But when the Crosby part of Crosby still and nash, (can't think of his name right now, lol) died, before I found out about his death I had A dream where me and my mom were cruising down the road , across A beautiful field of sunflowers, and the song playing on the radio was Southern cross... And I tell you what, when his death was announced I was like: "hang on a sec"!! biggest coincidence ever..

🍓 favorite food? Chocolate

🍅 least favorite food. Lima beans

🍊 favorite season? Hard to say, but I guess autumn

🍋 favorite genre to read / watch / write. Its a toss between comedy drama, period drama or dystopian

🍐 if you could make one character real, who would it be. Hard question, but probably Vincent Nigel Murray

🫐 some place you’d love to visit? London baby

🍇 a word your friends would use to describe you. Goofy

🍒 what is your earliest memory. Eating my first bologna sandwich

🍌 what is one talent you wish you had. Writing, lol

💌 why did you start this blog? There was great Beatles content

✏️ when did you start writing fanfic. I barely do, but when I was 14

🖇️ what are your favorite asks to answer.. I've never had any of these, not popular enough, lol

📚 how do you come up with the fics you write. Music, darling, music

📌 what is the fic you’re know for... None

🔍 what character do you enjoy writing for the most... Sherlock holmes Vincent Nigel-Murray

🖊️ what character do you not enjoy writing for. Idk

💔 is there a fic you wish you didn’t write.. Yes

❤️‍🔥 what character do you simp for most often.. Again, Vincent Nigel Murray

🧚‍♀️ favorite characters of all time. This will take a minute... Vincent Nigel Murray, Zack Addy, Phantom of the opera, finnick odair, Peeta mellark, temperance Brennan, katniss everdeen, haymitch Abernathy, Johanna mason, lance sweets, Sherlock Holmes, john watson, Louisa Clark, will trainor, Peter Parker, doctor strange, ant man, Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth Bennett, Henry Tilney, Emma Woodhouse, Mr. Knightley, joey tribbiani, Chandler bing, Phoebe buffay.

🪐 favorite shows / series of all time. Bones, monk, psych, Downton Abbey, the mentalist, Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes 1984, f.r.i.e.n.d.s, Golden girls, Emma 2009, north & south, the x files, twin peaks.. Book/movie series: hunger games!

🌝 a show you would recommend to anyone. all of the ones mentioned above

🌚 a show you’d tell people to stay away from. Idk yet

🌹 favorite kinks to write for. Idk

🥀 kinks you would never write for. Idk

🌊 a kink you would like to write but you think you’d be judged. Again, idk

❄️ full fics, imagines or head canons, can't tell you

☂️ your favorite fanfic from another writer, I have one but it's on another website

A couple of in depth questions!

🍄 what is something that’s happened in your life that you wish you could go back and change? My mean grandfather living with me

⭐️ what is one of your biggest accomplishments? Why is it so important to you? Being a nice person, speaks for itself.

🪻what is the toughest thing you had to go through, but can say you’ve successfully overcome? Death of my step grandfather

🌺 what is the best gift someone has ever given you and why is it so important. My mom gave me life?

🍀 what is your comfort show/series and why is it your comfort show? How has it helped you? The Monkees helped when my one grandfather died.

#Me #About me #get to know me #the beatles #one direction #queen #taylor swift #the killers #bob dylan #the monkees #green day #fleetwood mac #led zeppelin #niall horan #crosby stills nash and young #vincent nigel murray #zack addy #poto #finnick odair #peeta mellark #temperance brennan #katniss everdeen #haymitch abernathy #johanna mason #lance sweets #Sherlock Holmes #peter parker #jane austen #bones (2005) #joey tribbiani

[prosopopeya]

New Year’s Meme

this survey has been a tradition among my friend group for YEARS, but i haven’t filled it out since 2015 apparently. i’m not entirely sure why except 2016 was the year a lot of stuff changed for me, namely in that i finally got out of school in some form and started a new job, but i also had a few health problems that kept plaguing me (thyroid medicine being off, vitamin d) and my anxiety was all over the place. so here we go i’m doing it again and feel free to do it too if you want!!

1. What did you do in 2020 that you’d never done before? tried on wedding dresses. taught virtually. dealt (poorly) with drunk teenagers. performed in a pep rally. wore face masks all the time. i’m going to lump in living with someone. jon moved in october 2019, but i don’t think i did this quiz last year so. taught ap.

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions and will you make more for next year? i don’t really like resolutions. they put too much pressure on me and i am a fragile person when it comes to setting expectations and living up to them. i did want to try to read more this year, and i maintained that until the pandemic, and then just kind of gave up requiring myself to do anything but live.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? i don’t think so. a coworker did.

4. Did anyone close to you die? jon’s cousin committed suicide in march or april. the circumstances were pretty upsetting. um. andy died in february, very suddenly. andy was my high school boyfriend for four years with whom i had a very... he scarred me in a lot of ways when it comes to sex and consent. it’s taken me a long time to unpack all of that. and i struggle with how much any of that was his fault or just bc he was a stupid kid too. our mutual friends had nothing but nice things to say about him on fb. anyway. he would guilt me into saying he’d kill himself if we broke up, and jon’s cousin killed himself over his girlfriend. so that was a complex part of the year.

5. What countries did you visit? none. literally the week before the quarantine, we went to asheville to visit jon’s cousin.

6. What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020? maybe a different job? or at least some peace at doing mine.

7. What date from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? march 13 we cancelled classes and had a technology training day; the 15th we had another one, and then we were virtual the rest of the term. it was such a sudden shift and while i so loved working from home tbh, it was such a relief after a supremely shitty january/february work-wise, i still had a lot of keyed-up, stressful days centered around transitioning to being the senior upper school spanish teacher. i hate it!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? writing 50k in the month of november. i have literally never done that before and actively reject nano as being typically unhealthy for how my mind works, so it was nice to do it entirely by accident.

9. What was your biggest failure? mishandling the drunken teenagers on that field trip in january.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? i sit crosslegged in my virtual teaching chair and i did it so much that my ankle hurt for the entire summer.

11. What was the best thing you bought? we put a deposit on our elopement in ireland. jon’s wedding ring. (i didn’t buy my wedding dress.)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? my best friend at work who keeps me sane and is represented by benny in my au, which other than the fact that he is not my sidepiece, is perfect he is crucial to my survival at work and i love him so much. (also he is gay and the french teacher so the benny parallels just keep coming). everyone who tore down a statue in virginia (and other places, but especially monument avenue). everyone putting their lives on the line during this pandemic.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? guess! but aside from all the obvious, i found out a friend of mine at work voted for trump. my work bff and i had been trying for years to sway his politics, but that had us both deciding to give up on him.

14. Where did most of your money go?  food, ALCOHOL. god., our savings account. i did a pretty excellent job saving this year, though a good deal of that is because jon moved in and makes more money than me, and also we split all the bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? my wedding dress but strangely only when i went to try it on after it came in bc after the purchase i was so sure i’d made every mistake possible. my wedding band. wellbutrin changing my whole life. and, last but certainly not least, the gay angel and the bi(lingual) hunter. i wouldn’t have survived nov-dec in school without that distraction. the election.

16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2020? the entirety of taylor swift’s oeuvre this year, maybe specifically “this is me trying”

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:  i. Happier or sadder? happier, i suppose, perhaps contrary to what should be the case, but wellbutrin is a hell of a drug. ii. Older or wiser? wiser. ii. Richer or poorer? richer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? reading. cleaning. exercising.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? stressing. chaperoning.

20. How will you be spending Christmas? so, an update; last year was the first year i didn’t go to my mom’s for christmas. i was supposed to see her for thanksgiving last year, but she basically told us not to come bc she wasn’t feeling up to it (cool!), and we went to jon’s for christmas and my mom’s for new year’s. 

this year, obviously we couldn’t go to my mom’s. instead, we rented a little cabin by the lake. it was perfect; it was really really nice inside, the beds were SO SOFT, the pillows were the best things i have ever laid my head on, like i took off the pillowcases to try to find the brand. we had a little tiny christmas tree with tiny ornaments from walmart that we decorated. the 23rd, we went and picked up our wedding bands. we slept two nights in the (cold) back bedroom so i could wake up and look out at the lake. it snowed for christmas. :)

we opened presents on christmas eve, per jon’s family’s tradition. on christmas eve, we also went to his family farm and sat outside and hung out a little. every year his family does like a secret santa sort of thing and i got my first present in that exchange, which is notable bc jon and i are not yet officially married. i got a remote control car -- jon’s idea bc i couldn’t think of anything, and he was so delighted to hear that i loved playing with rc cars when we went to the beach as a kid.

christmas morning we facetimed my parents and opened some presents together. then jon and i marathoned mandalorian (after spending the previous few days watching several die hard movies), and then we watched wonder woman 1984 which was a bad movie.

21. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve? ok LAST year for new year’s, we were in a hotel room, so that was nice, bc it meant minimal stress with my parents. i had always wanted to go to this restaurant near us that has a special new year’s menu, so we did that. the night before or after i think we went to cheesecake factory, which was also amazing.

this year currently i’m tumbling and he’s playing pokemon, and in a bit we’ll try to time it so we finish schitt’s creek in time for the new year.

22. Did you fall in love in 2020? i re-fell in love with supernatural so that was nice.

23. How many one-night stands? 0. i submit we should randomly change question 23 each year to something more relevant to any of our life experiences.

24. What was your favorite TV program? what did i even watch this year. schitt’s creek. mandalorian. i mean obviously we know supernatural. the circle. are you the one (the queer season). pose. unsolved mysteries. we’re here! perry mason. watchmen. oh maybe that mcdonald’s monopoly fraud documentary. avenue 5. i’ll be gone in the dark. of those i think my favorite maybe is... pose or we’re here.

OKAY UM. on my 2014 version of this there were a bunch of questions about tv shows that i’m putting back in if only for the memories:

25. Which TV shows did you start watching in 2020? the haunting of bly manor, which we still need to finish. derry girls.

26. Which TV shows did you let go of in 2020? HERE’S WHY I WANTED TO RESURRECT THESE. here was my answer in 2015: “supernatural. goodbye, my sweet prince.” CAN YOU EVEN FUCKING BELIEVE

27. Which TV shows did you mean to get into but didn’t in 2020? Why? so far, queen’s gambit and that one on hulu with catherine the great. EVENTUALLY. 28. Which TV shows do you intend on checking out in 2020? fleabag. queen’s gambit. 29. Which TV show do you think you might let go of in 2020 unless things significantly improve? idk i drop things pretty regularly if they don’t entertain me 30. Which TV show impressed you least in 2020? GUYS HERE’S MY ORIGINAL 2015 ANSWER: “supernatural. :(”

anyway back to the rest of the quiz:

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? every person who refuses to listen to facts and information.

26. What was the best book you read? killers of the flower moon: the osage murders and the birth of the fbi, or the his dark materials series.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? well i knew about tswift so i’m not going to count her albums. i will count this song that jon played for me once in the car that got stuck in my head for two weeks straight and led me down into a great related-songs spotify playlist: through the roof ‘n underground.

28. What did you want and get? a wedding dress and a very specific kind of wedding band. a gay angel. a christmas getaway. animal crossing.

29. What was your favorite film of this year? idk i don’t know how many films i saw this year. maybe mucho mucho amor: the legend of walter mercado

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? i was 32. we went to an escape room with a BUNCH of people -- work bff, my old work bff and his wife (old bc he quit and we’ve fallen out of touch :(), the cool new physics teacher and his fiancee, and the aforementioned trump voter and his wife, before we knew... we went out for brunch/lunch after. it was pretty great!

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? not having to chaperone that school trip in january. dean being bi in english as well as spanish. cas just ilke, appearing in 15x20. not having to physically go back to work this fall.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020? no! real! pants!

34. What kept you sane? jon. supernatural (in a way?). animal crossing for a while. wellbutrin! i haven’t really been able to detail this yet, but finally i did something about tumblr and my therapist making me think about adhd. my doctor gave me wellbutrin (bc i lack any official diagnosis and was on anxiety meds anyway, and he was like let’s try this!) and it’s fucking. it’s a fucking godsend. surprisingly enough, my students. trying to provide them a safe space has been a calming thing for me.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? jensen ackles’ silence. misha collins again, i guess.

36. What political issue stirred you the most? the summer was so fucking intense. i guess though it was me trying to exert my influence in a responsible way with my students without trying to try to make them feel uncomfortable but then one kid was a vocally upset trump supporter after the election and i had to try to defuse that situation.

37. Who did you miss? my old work bff. several old friends that i’ve fallen out of touch with bc i have no object permanence.

38. Who was the best new person you met? people i met through the spn resurgence!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020: if you manifest it in an au, it will come. no really though. maybe that expectations are only as important as i make them out to be.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: usually i have a hard time coming up with anything for this and i default to looking at my most played songs of the year. my most played song of the year received each and every one of its plays within the month of november and you can guess why. anyway see if this works

I had all and then most of you Some and now none of you Take me back to the night we met I don't know what I'm supposed to do Haunted by the ghost of you Take me back to the night we met - the night we met, lord huron

#happy new year #annual meme

[paralleljulieverse]

An Angel from Heaven Come to See Us: Darling Lili Turns 50

This week fifty years ago, Darling Lili -- the last of the big Julie Andrews screen musicals of the 1960s -- had its long-delayed World Premiere at Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome on 23 June 1970. 

The event marked the symbolic endpoint of a three-plus-year marathon in which the ill-fated production was beset by an endless stream of problems and delays from inclement weather and union pickets on location to studio takeovers and shady refinancing deals (Bart, 63-72; Dick, 146-48; Wasson, 146-48). This litany of setbacks saw the film’s already sizeable budget blowout to era-record levels estimated anywhere, depending on who you spoke to, between $14-25mill. (Warga, C-20; Wedman, 7-A; Kennedy, 175-77). Egos clashed, tempers frayed and recriminations flew with writer-director, Blake Edwards, blaming Paramount Pictures for imposing impossible demands, and studio executives firing back counter-accusations of reckless indulgence and profligacy (Oldham, 24-25; 44-45). 

That this highly publicised drama played out against the backdrop of the greatest economic downturn to hit Hollywood in half a century garnered Darling Lili an unenviable advance reputation as “the archetypal flop among big budget Hollywood productions” (Oldham, 44). “Rarely has so much bad word of mouth preceded a picture,” wrote the Saturday Review, “As the shooting schedule increased, as the costs mounted, everyone was certain that Darling Lili would prove to be a landmark disaster” (Knight 22). Another widely syndicated newspaper article dubbed it, “The Most Maligned Movie Ever,” prompting Blake Edwards to fume: “I’ve never known of an important picture in production so talked about, whispered about, and, yes, lied about as Darling Lili” (Manners, B5).

Adding fuel to widespread perceptions of the film as a legendary bomb in the making, the release of Darling Lili was held up for over a year by nervous studio execs. By 1969, Paramount had more big budget roadshow product in the pipelines than any other Hollywood studio (“Par’s Big”, 3). Panicked by the repeated failure of roadshow releases, in general, and the growing cultural backlash against big budgeted musicals, in particular, the studio feared they were “on the verge of an unprecedented financial disaster” and vacillated over how to proceed (Farber, 3). They ordered competing rounds of edits to the film, taking material out to secure a G-rating, then reinserting other material in an effort to broaden appeal (Manners, B5; “Par’s Lili Rated G”,5). There were even rumours the film might not get a release at all. It is “hiding somewhere” and seems to have “just evaporated” noted one newspaper report in late-1969 (Gussow, 62; Benchley, 9).

In December, Paramount finally held two sneak test screenings of Darling Lili in Oklahoma City and Kansas City which proved sufficiently positive for the studio to green-light release (“Kansas”, C2). After the test screenings, Robert Evans, production chief at Paramount and longtime vocal critic of Blake Edwards’s direction of the film, sounded an uncharacteristically upbeat note. “At the end of the film, there was a standing ovation,” he enthused, “and almost all the patrons stopped in the lobby to fill in comments cards...term[ing] Darling Lili as excellent, with special acclaim for both Julie Andrews and Rock Hudson” (Muir, 2-S). 

In January 1970, it was announced that Darling Lili would premiere that summer as a hardticket attraction at New York’s Radio City Music Hall (”Par Gets”, 3). The following month, a series of exhibitor previews was held in five major US cities but, in a telling sign the studio still harboured reservations about the film, the trade press was pointedly excluded from all advance screenings ("Not Ready”, 6). This same lingering disquiet resulted in a radically scaled back approach to the film’s release and marketing. 

Originally planned as a reserved-seat roadshow attraction, Darling Lili was ultimately repositioned by Paramount as part of what they called their “Big Summer Playoff,” a package of eight films given saturation releases during the summer off-season starting in June (“Paramount’s Summer Playoff”, 5). Only New York and Los Angeles would screen the film as a 70mm reserved-seat attraction; elsewhere, the plan was for the “pic to quickly saturate every major and minor market with single-house firstruns and key city multiples” (ibid.). In an era when studios typically gave their top films staggered releases and only ever issued B-product or second-runs widely during the quiet summer months, this new-style release strategy had a decided air of dump-it-and-run desperation. 

The apparent lack of care and finesse in the release of Lili did not go unnoticed. “Darling Lili undoubtedly rank[s] among the unusual summer attractions,” commented one newspaper article, “since one would expect to see th[is] multi-million dollar production around holiday time” (Sar, 4-B). Another bluntly opined that Paramount “seems to have dumped the expensive movie rather than spend any more on it” (Taylor, 21-E). Even Julie, normally the soul of diplomatic discretion in such matters, expressed public dismay at the studio’s handling of the film’s release:

“Three weeks before the opening, there was no advertising campaign. None whatsoever. Paramount didn’t seem to know how it was going to sell the picture--or if. I simply can’t understand an attitude like that” (Thomas, 13).

The sudden shift to a summer saturation release also meant the film’s premiere had to be rescheduled as New York’s Radio City Music Hall wasn’t available till July. In late-May, a matter of mere weeks before the film was set to bow, Paramount announced Darling Lili would now make its world premiere at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood on June 23 before rolling out nationwide the following day (“‘Darling Lili’ to Premiere,” W-2). The New York premiere, meanwhile, would remain at the Music Hall but delayed a full month after the rest of the country.

Putting on a brave face, Julie and Blake did their best to launch their film. On June 18, they attended a special press preview and celebrity reception hosted by Robert Evans and his then partner, Ali McGraw, at the Director’s Guild Theatre (Sar, 24-A). Dressed in a modish psychedelic Pucci pantsuit -- which fans of Julie-trivia will note was a recycled outfit from her recent NBC TV special with Harry Belafonte -- Julie looked relaxed and radiant or, as one columnist put it, “peachy dandy in her wild patterned party pants” (Browning, 2-13). At the after-show reception, she and Blake mingled warmly with a host of Tinseltown notables including Edward G. Robinson, James Garner, Walter Matthau, George Peppard, Raquel Welch, Sally Field, Dyan Cannon, and Peter Graves (ibid).

The following week, Julie and Blake were back for the premiere proper at the Cinerama Dome on 23 June. Dressed to kill in a sleek beaded cocktail gown, Julie posed for press shots on the red carpet with Blake, Robert Evans and Ali McGraw, and co-star Rock Hudson who attended with longtime friend and agent, Flo Allen. Sponsored by the Southern Californian chapter of VIMS, Volunteers in Multiple Sclerosis, the premiere attracted a capacity crowd with an invitation-only champagne supper held at the theatre after the screening (“Premiere”, IV-8) .

For all the old-school Hollywood trappings of the premiere, the American roll-out of Darling Lili was afforded little sense of showmanship or distinction. The Cinerama Dome would be the film’s only fully reserved-seat roadshow presentation (“’Darling Lili’s’ One Reserve,” 7). The film’s run at New York’s Radio City Music Hall -- which will likely be the subject of another post next month, time permitting -- was another exception but it had a hybrid mix of partial reserved and general admission. Elsewhere, the film was released in what could only be described as a woefully slipshod manner. 

The day after the World Premiere, Lili was issued simultaneously to an idiosyncratic assortment of theatres and even drive-ins across the United States including such out-of-the-way places as Lubbock, Texas; Hattiesburg, Mississippi; and Mason City, Iowa. Conversely, several major metropolitan markets didn’t get the film till much later, and some didn’t show it at all. When the film ran it was often booked for a flying season of a week or two -- in some instances, just a few days -- and given little promotion or build-up.

On a PR trip to San Francisco, Blake Edwards was reportedly incensed to discover that Lili was being shown at a local theatre on a double-bill with The Lawyer, an R-rated crime drama (Caen, 6-B). But this was far from an isolated instance. A survey of newspaper advertising from the era shows that, throughout this initial release period, Darling Lili was widely double-billed in US theatres with a range of questionable screen-mates including Downhill Racer, True Grit, Norwood, The Sterile Cuckoo, and Lady in Cement to name a few.

Much like the film’s chequered release pattern, reviews of Darling Lili were sharply mixed. Contrary to the apocalyptic predictions, though, there were surprisingly few outright pans and quite a number of good, even glowing, notices--certainly enough to furnish choice grabs for newspaper ads. Moreover, a common refrain among even lukewarm crits was that the film was far from the disaster everyone anticipated:

“Darling Lili [is] the musical comedy a lot of people have been expecting to be a bomb, but which turns out to be a quite likeable movie” (Crittenden, D-10).

“When a movie becomes notorious like this, everyone expects it to be an unredeeming dud...I’m relieved to say Darling Lili is certainly nobody’s bomb” (Stewart, 28) 

“[E]veryone was certain that Darling Lili would prove to be a landmark disaster. Happily, the opposite seems to be the case...it is definitely, joyously, what the industry likes to call an ‘audience picture’ (Knight, 22).

While many reviewers found aspects of the film wanting, they were mostly full of praise for Julie:

“Miss Andrews has, I think, never looked better, warmer or more emotionally mature, nor has she sounded better. The irony is that she projects a richness which is wasted here. It’s like getting Horowitz to play Chopsticks” (Champlin, IV-1).

“Andrews...is one of the last of the great English music-hallmarks. She can sing effortlessly, make a mug or a moue with equal facility, throw away a line and reel it back in with the best—when she is given half a chance. Her latest, Darling Lili, is only a quarter of a chance (Kanfer, 78). 

“In Darling Lili...Julie Andrews is the most pleasant actress any audience ever had and that’s what counts...The picture’s weaknesses are Hudson and the war...But I think Julie Andrews is enough” (Geurink, 6-T).

“The best way to enjoy Darling Lili is to look upon it as escape fare [with] Miss Andrews’ golden voice for listening pleasure...While she deserves something much better than her role in Darling Lili, Julie Andrews...is still an out and out professional” (Blakley, 6-1).

“Miss Andrews...is absolutely perfectly suited to the title role. Her voice, her mannerisms, her beauty and her obvious delight with the entire project pay off in one of the finest performances of her career” (Fanning, 17).

“The film’s bright moments belong to Miss Andrews. She is a complete entertainer, and tho [sic] she is center stage for nearly the entire film, one never tires of her pure voice and intelligent acting” (Siskel, 12).

Alas, the better-than-expected reviews were not enough to save Darling Lili commercially. By the end of its domestic run, the film had earned a meagre $3.2mill in rentals, placing it 37th in Variety’s list of annual box-office rankings for 1970 (“US Films,” 184). Instructively, the film posted its best returns at the two theatres where it was exhibited with some modicum of prestige showmanship: the Cinerama Dome and Radio City Music Hall. In the case of the latter, Lili actually broke house records for a non-holiday release (“Radio City,” 12). Combined, these two venues accounted for over a third of the film’s entire North American boxoffice grosses. It’s a curious footnote to the whole sorry saga of Darling Lili which does suggest that, while the film would likely never have been a hit, it could certainly have done much better had its distribution and exhibition been more carefully managed. But that is a discussion for another time and another post...

Sources:

Bart, Peter. Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob (and Sex). New York: Hachette, 2011.

Benchley, Peter. “1969 A Watershed Year for Motion Picture Industry.” Journal Gazette. 6 January 1970: 9.

Blakley, Thomas. “Julie Andrews Eyes a New Start.” Pittsburgh Press. 28 June 1970: 6-1.

Browning, Norma Lee. “Hollywood Today: Julie’s Reception.” Chicago Tribune. 22 June 1970: B-13.

Caen, Herb. “It’s News to Me.” Hartford Sentinel. 5 August 1970: 6-B.

Canby, Vincent. “Is Hollywood in Hot Water?” New York Times. 9 November 1969: D1, D37.

Champlin, Charles. “Movie Review: ‘Darling Lili’ Has World War I Setting.” Los Angeles Times. 24 June 1970: IV-1, 13.

Crittenden, John. “’Darling Lili’ Surprises by Being Very Pleasant.” The Record. 24 July 1970: D-10.

“’Darling Lili’ to Premiere in Hollywood June 24.” Boxoffice. 25 May 1970: W2.

“’Darling Lili’s’ One Reserve Seat Date.” Variety. 3 June 1970: 7.

Dick, Bernard F. Engulfed: The Death of Paramount Pictures and the Birth of Corporate Hollywood. Louisville, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2015.

Fanning, Win. “The New Film: Andrews, Hudson in ‘Darling Lili’ at Squirrel Hill.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 25 June 1970: 17. 

Farber, Stephen. “End of the Road?” Film Quarterly. 23: 2. Winter 1969-70: 3-16.

Geurink, Bob. “Julie’s Pretty Darling in ‘Lili’.” Atlanta Constitution. 11 July 1970: 6-T.

Gussow, Mel. “Excitement Fills Premier of ‘Dolly’: But Air of Festivity Belies Future of Movie Musicals.” New York Times. 18 December 1969: 62.

Higham, Charles. “Turmoil in Film City.” Sydney Morning Herald - Weekend Magazine. 25 May 1969: 19.

Holston, Kim R. Movie Roadshows: A History and Filmography of Reserved-Seat Limited Showings, 1911-1973. Jefferson, NC: McFarlane and Co, 2013.

Kanfer, Stefan. “Cinema: Quarter Chance.” Time. 96: 4. 27 July 1970: 78.

“Kansas City.” Boxoffice. 22 December 1969: C2.

Knight, Arthur. “How Darling was My Lili.” Saturday Review. 18 July, 1970: 22.

Krämer, Peter. The New Hollywood: From Bonnie and Clyde to Star Wars. London: Wallflower, 2005.

Manners, Dorothy. “The Most Maligned Movie Ever.” San Francisco Examiner. 15 March 1970: B5.

Mills, James. “Why Should He Have it?” Life. 7 Match 1969: 63-76.

Muir, Florabel. “Hollywood: It Snowed Customers.” Daily News. 21 December 1969: 2S.

“Not Ready for Trades But Exhibs See ‘Lili’.” Variety. 28 January 1970: 6.

Oldham, Gabriella, ed. Blake Edwards: Interviews. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2018.

“Par Gets Hall’s Summer Spot for its ‘Darling Lili’.” Variety. 21 January 1970: 3.

“Para. Sets Preview Series in Five Cities for ‘Lili’.” Boxoffice. 26 January 1970: 10.

“Paramount’s Summer Playoff Strategy: 5,000 Bookings for Eight Major Films.” Variety. 3 June 1970: 5.

“Par’s Big Roadshow Splash.” Variety. 25 June 1969: 3.

“Par’s Lili Rated G.” Variety. 24 September 1969: 5.

“Premiere.” Los Angeles Times. 25 June 1970: IV-8.

“Radio City Music Hall’s All-Time Boxoffice Darling.” Variety. 5 August 1970: 12.

Sar, Ali. “Paramount Unveils Two Top Pictures.” Van Nuys News. 21 June 1970: 24-A.

Sar, Ali. “Curiosity Films: Plagued Studios Hope.” Van Nuys News. 28 June 1970: 4-B.

Siskel, Gene. “The Movies: ‘Darling Lili’.” Chicago Tribune. 22 August 1970: 12.

Sloane, Leonard. “At Paramount, Real Financial Drama.” New York Times. 28 November 1969: 48.

Stewart, Perry. “Warm Kiss from ‘Lili’.” Fort-Worth Star-Telegram. 1 Juy 1970: 28.

Stuart, Byron. "Pictures: Big Budget’s Big Bust-Up." Variety. 23 July 1969: 3, 20.

Taylor, Robert. “‘Lili’ Can Be Charming.” Oakland Tribune. 27 June 1970: 21-E.

Thomas, Bob. “Julie Andrews Praises ‘Lili’.” Courier-News. 15 September 1970: 13.

“U.S. Films’ Share-of-Market Profile.” Variety. 12 May 1971: 36-38, 122, 171-174, 178-179, 182-183, 186-187, 190-191, 205-206.

Warga, Wayne. “Stanley Jaffe: Paramount Risk Jockey.” Los Angeles Times. 24 January 1971: C1, C20-21.

Wasson, Sam. A Splurch in the Kisser: The Movies of Blake Edwards. Middletown: Weslayan University Press, 2009.

Wedman, Les. “The End of the Roadshow.” Vancouver Sun. 9 January 1970: 7A.

Copyright © Brett Farmer 2020

#julie andrews #Darling Lili #fiftieth anniversary #1970 #cinerama dome #film premiere #paramount #film history #hollywood #classic film #blake edwards

[agentnolastname]

Thanks @withbeautyandrage for tagging me!

Rules : Answer 30 questions (Any questions of your choice) and tag 20 at most blogs you want to get to know better

Tagging @freckles-spangledvampire @anotherbeingsworld @bisexualdumbass-blog @lolimugly @ohnobbwhatisyoudoing @oxjenayxo + others who wants to do it as well!

name/nickname: i usually go by belle, and sometimes ria! i think im fine with any nickname tbh ;-;

gender: female (bi)

zodiac sign: aries!

height: THIS IS EMBARRASSING but im 5 flat 😭

birthday: 15th april

lucky number: actually none...?

when did you create this blog: october 2020

what do i post: everything that i like, welcome to my home ☺

last thing i googled: microscopic image of a sea urchin's test*s ( for uni ;;)

do i get asks: not much, except from my friends, so thank you to them. i get excuse to avoid uni work 🤩

why did i choose my url: i change my url according to what my current focus is. i used to be rookitcarrera when i was posting much abt choices but i am now more focused on twc and mason doesnt have a last name so :") sorry my url is literally the product of my one braincell

my current project and my wips: ooooh i actually have so much that i want to continue writing 😭 as of now im focused with this untitled collection featuring UB though and i really hope i can finish them soon.

favorite artists: OMG i have so much?? but these days i'm listening much from taylor swift, kodaline, day6, and paramore. im trapped in a mood ;-;

song stuck in my head: iris by goo goo dolls because ive been associating it with mason and now it wont leave my head because;; my head is in a 24/7 mason spree rn

favorite song of all time: OOOH again, i have so many but i would say taylor swift's fearless (it has a special place in my heart), the one by kodaline, endlessly by the cab, and lifetime by ben&ben!

last movie: the avengers! i just watched it earlier

last show: merlin! i only started watching it bc i saw gwaine but like now i am genuinely enjoying it so i started from the beginning ;-;

favorite food: a lot ,, im a foodie??? foods i can eat everyday though: pizza, burger, aglio olio, ice cream, and cookies.

food i hate: hate is absolutely a strong word, but i cant eat matcha that much;-; and oh, okra.

favorite color: blue. pastel and dark green. pastel orange. wine red. lilac and lavender purple. i just... love colors HSHDHSHF

favorite animal: dogs, water bears, and oh no how can you make me choose? animals are the best things in the planet ever 🥺

what i'm currently wearing: a bralette top and pajama shorts, i'm still in bed soooo

dream job: i always wanted to be a pediatrician, or a cardio-thoracic surgeon, so any of the twooo

dream trip: Santorini, Greece (aka the place which convinced me that travelling the world would be so nice )

currently reading: do school stuff count?? i cant read books these days because i have so many readings in uni UDJAJSJJD

currently thinking about: mason. him and the answers for these questions 😌

fun fact: when i am not okay or hella serious i literally dont use emojis, dont do keyboard smash, and i type with proper punctuations ( I TYPE LIKE CRAZY WHEN IN NORMAL MODE SO ://) anyway IDK if that was a fun fact, so here's another: i'm literally a very weak and clumsy person so i literally tripped and fell more than i can count my whole life. are these okay for fun facts?

top three fictional universes: dps, twc, and any universe with royals ;;

#isobell.exe

[blapisblogs]

Corey Taylor (yes, he’s still here) has so little to do in this “review”- er, is so bored of this “review”- uh, I mean, is so bored with watching The Wall that he starts drifting off. Doug somehow knows this, stares at him through the TV, and says “Is there anybody who cares”, leading into the next song parody. Part-way into the song Tamara Chambers comes back in as the maid, Malcolm Ray as a body guard (still dressed as one of the “kids” only now he’s wearing glasses), and... Brad Jones (aka The Cinema Snob) as the manager (I guess), all of whom try to wake up Corey Taylor by overacting like hell.

For those who don’t know, most people ended up leaving Channel Awesome with three exceptions: Doug Walker (of course), Larry Bundy Junior (who only stayed for laughs), and Brad Jones, so I’m not that surprised the latter has turned up here. I’m ashamed to say that I used to watch some of Brad’s content, but since the whole Not So Awesome document incident happened, he’s said some pretty terrible things about the whole situation (he’s the one who infamously said “Logan Paul filmed a dead body and he still has a career” during an interview talking about the Change the Channel movement), so I’ve since stopped watching him as well. That said, at least he’s slightly better than Doug is at imitating the film counterpart he’s standing in for (in this case Pink’s manager, played by the late Bob Hoskins), but that’s hardly saying much when Doug’s not even trying.

While the first line spoofs “Is There Anybody Out There?”, the actual song that gets parodied next is “Comfortably Numb”, a song where Pink is being medicated by a doctor in order to perform for his next show. I don’t have much else to say about what happens during this parody, it’s really uninteresting, which is exactly what Doug is saying about these parts of the film. The thing is, those “slow, mopey” songs serve a purpose to the plot: they’re about how Pink feels as he’s gradually isolating himself from everyone else. This parody? It’s a whole song calling the other ones slow and boring, and takes yet another jab at Roger Waters. This is, what, the third or fourth parody song in a row where he’s insulted him now? We got it the first time, Doug. There are so many other things in this album and film that could be discussed here: how the gradual abuse affects Pink’s psyche and causes him to further spiral into depression, the dangers of what Pink is doing to himself (and unintentionally others), the directions they took for this film that differ from the album, anything. Yes, Waters’s ego might be hard to ignore while knowing the backstory, but you could at least try to talk about literally anything else regarding the film. Or, if you wanna talk about Roger Waters’s ego behind this project so badly, Doug, then actually talk about it. Talk about the spitting incident that led to this, talk about how Waters had the most creative control on this project while the other three members had almost no say in it, talk about the disagreements he had with director Alan Parker while making this film, talk about how this led to Waters leaving the band and later tried to sue them for still calling themselves Pink Floyd afterwards (which he of course lost). Doug does literally none of this, which makes it feel like he either assumes everyone knows this already or he himself doesn’t know all of it due to not doing any research into it (and let’s just say that I wouldn’t be surprised if the latter turned out to be true). I’m sorry I keep bringing up this one thing, but that’s because that’s what Doug keeps doing in this “review”; he’s a broken record.

The song eventually ends when Brad Jones tells Corey Taylor to “sober up or have an existential conflict”. I didn’t even know he was supposed to be drunk in this “review”, but I guess that would explain a lot. Also, I guess this means that Doug Walker doesn’t find Pink’s internal conflict (which is, you know, the whole point of the album and film) to be interesting, which at this point is unsurprising but still frustratingly disappointing. It’s also sad considering that Doug is a critic who can’t be bothered to consider internal conflict as valid as existential conflict or think that Pink’s internal conflict is causing some of his existential conflict. For someone who goes on about character depth and development in other things, Doug sure avoids talking about any of that for this in favor of continually shitting on it for the sake of poorly-thought-out jokes.

Anyway, it then goes to the in-video commercial break. I’m not even half-way through yet.

Fuck.

[Lyrics (and snark) below the cut]

Is there anybody who cares?

Wake up (wake up, wake up) Are you still awake in that chair? Just keep listening to me I know you’re kinda bored

[Five lines and every single one leaves good openings for jokes at its expense. At least the parodies before this weren’t this easy to make jokes about, this is just... It’s too much to not use it as an excuse to make fun of it, yet also too easy. Fuck you?]

Yeah sure (yeah sure, yeah sure) It’s a lot of slow songs now It’s hard to keep on track With mellow songs back-to-back

[Again, this means that you somehow consider “What Shall We Do Now” (warning: this one has NSFW and unsettling imagery depicting sex, violence, blood, drugs, Nazis, death, and other things, and also gets really loud), “Young Lust”, “One of my Turns”, and “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 3)” to be “mellow��, which they aren’t really, at least not compared to the others. I can’t even think of how you could say that about “Young Lust”, unless... Doug, please don’t tell me that you think “Empty Spaces” and “Young Lust” are the same song, because I cannot comprehend how you could know that “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” and “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” are separate songs but not know that those two are not one and the same.]

(Sorry, I can’t tell what these next couple of lines are saying because this is the part where Brad, Tamara and Malcolm come in and the former starts talking over the song. Given how crappy these lyrics are, maybe that’s for the best.)

You need to watch this movie first Just a half-hour more Come on, you’ve gotten through worse

[I’ve been telling myself that since roughly the ten minute mark of this video, and yet every time I come back here to type more about it I keep feeling the urge to close the tab for it.]

You can’t be bored while we are singing

[Wait, “we”? Are you making fun of all of the members of Pink Floyd now instead of just Roger Waters? What did David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright do to you, asshole? I thought you were taking these potshots at Waters because of the effect this album ended up having on the other band members even after he left, now it sounds like you’ve got some personal beef with Pink Floyd in general, which gets really screwy given something you end up saying later.]

Unless you don’t wanna be seen as deep

[Doug, you can’t be bothered to even analyze or even properly talk about the surface-level symbolism that’s right there in front of you in this film; you don’t get to lecture me on what’s deep or not.]

Your attention constantly may fade Your eyes move, but do you care what we’re saying?

[You might as well have called this “Tempting Fate: The Song” with all these lyrics ripe to make fun of.]

When I was a child I remember being invested Like hearing “The Dark Side of the Moon”

[You can barely comprehend the things that are going on in “The Wall”, don’t drag “Dark Side of the Moon” into this.]

Now I’ve grown, this section starts to drag Like a long neck, I just don’t understand Is this now how I am? I have become comfortably dumb

[As many others have already pointed out, that is literally the easiest joke you could’ve gone with for that line. It’s like turning “Kingdom Hearts” into “Kingdom Farts”; a literal child could’ve come up with that joke.]

Okay (okay, okay) Just get through the damn flick You want to seem cool But this ain’t getting your kicks Can you listen? (Listen, listen) Later there will be a quiz

[You are the last person who should be giving quizzes about this film or album, Doug.]

Somebody has to feel the same When I become so lame

[“Lame”? I could be wrong, but last I checked Waters is doing just fine. Or are you talking about the other members of Pink Floyd? Because from what I’ve heard Gilmour isn’t currently doing so well mentally, and if you’re making fun of that, then... wow, fuck you.]

There is only so long I can go With hearing a millionaire say that things blow It’s like I’ve been asleep for days The film plays, but I can’t take the complaining

[You know, you keep saying that, but at least people can relate to some of the things that were brought up in the songs here. Losing a loved one in a tragic and violent way at a young age? Having an overbearing, emotionally abusive parent? An oppressive and unfair school system? An unfaithful partner? As unfortunate as it is, those are all things some people out there can relate to. At least they’re all not petty, shallow insults about things Waters doesn’t personally like, Doug.]

Like telling a child “It’s just how everything is” Just fighting to open my eyes The epic feels I had are gone I don’t know what is going on

[Neither do the people who watched this and know nothing about the film or album, from what I could tell: you’ve done nothing to help them understand what’s actually happening given how much context you’ve left out. All you’ve done is go “Roger Waters has a big ego, Roger Waters has a big ego, people who complain about school are special snowflakes, something something World War 2, animation, slow mopey songs, did I mention Roger Waters has a big ego?”]

Now the child is gone And I’ve moved on I wish those days weren’t just a phase

[Since you said there was a quiz later, Doug, I’m gonna have to retaliate and ask you to submit an essay to me explaining why you thought it was necessary to put this song into your already lengthy “review”. No, you are not allowed to use the phrase “Fuck Roger Waters and his ego” or words to that effect; that alone is not a decent argument.]

#Blapis tears down NC's The Wall #abuse mention // #drug mention // #long post #bold text warning

[nothingunrealistic]

👀 okay I'm starting to get into billions (bc of will). Can you recommend some essential episodes or something to get an understanding for what's happening? (And also I really like Asia Kate Dillon so like important episodes with them too)

the tricky thing about billions is that those of us who are into it aren’t, for the most part, actually watching the episodes in full or trying to understand all the plotlines. so if you want to know what’s happening with Everyone on the show (which is a dizzying number of characters), i can’t really pare it down to what’s important because i refuse to care about like half of them. but if, as it seems, you’re primarily here for winston and taylor (will’s and asia’s characters respectively), then good news - that’s almost all we care about too

the essential episodes for understanding winston are easy enough because he’s only shown up in five so far (3x03, 3x09, 3x11, 4x03, 4x08, and 4x11) for a couple minutes each, and all footage of him has been lovingly collated and posted on here. his first several appearances, and the context for them, are collected here; his moments from the most recent episode, which we were yelling about all day on sunday, are here. (he’ll be in this coming sunday’s episode too, which is also the season finale, so expect even more yelling about that.)

narrowing down the Essential Taylor is a little trickier because they’ve been in nearly every episode of seasons 2 3 and 4, of which i have watched exactly one episode. if billions had a decent fan wiki or anything similar, i would direct you to that, but they don’t, because they suck. the main way i keep up with the episodes/figure out what happened in previous seasons is via fan-run sites (which are superior to the recaps on Professional Media Websites usually), as follows:

fanfunwithdamianlewis has multiple recaps of every episode (including some from people who actually understand and can explain the financial stuff going on), as well as lists of all the locations shown, transcripts of cast interviews, and other fun stuff, all thoroughly tagged with actor and character names

gingesbecray has a recap of every episode as well (including gifs), always very detailed and entertainingly opinionated in ways we generally agree with

the billions companion collects and explains all the references that characters make (which is half the dialogue), sorted by episode, character, and keyword, as well as listing a wide array of other helpful sites

from these sites, the decent number of clips floating around youtube, and a collection of all taylor’s dialogue in seasons 2 & 3, we’ve pieced together the basic arc taylor’s had in the show so far. here’s my best approach at a season-by-season highlights reel (with links to relevant clips in bold) under the cut  because it’s ridiculously long

season 2: taylor arrives at axe capital as an intern. axe recognizes their talent and convinces them to stay, and they gain experience, status, and respect at axe cap over the course of the season, becoming the chief investment officer by season’s end.

2x01: taylor is an intern working for mafee (an executing trader at axe cap), and mafee wants them to stay once their internship is over.

2x02: taylor meets axe and impresses him with their insight. though taylor knows they don’t fit in at axe cap and plans to leave for grad school, axe later convinces them to stay, with a salary of a million dollars for a year.

2x03: taylor gets invited to play at a charity poker tournament (a real thing!), to the chagrin of others at axe cap. taylor has reservations but ultimately agrees to play; they win the tournament by outthinking their opponent, but are reminded of how out of place they are in hedge fund culture.

2x07: taylor is involved in figuring out what to do about a struggling small town that axe cap is heavily invested in.

2x08: taylor notices that mafee has been struggling at his job ever since he introduced them to axe, and asks wendy (who’s married to chuck [one of the main Legal Side characters], the performance coach at axe cap, and one of axe’s closest friends) if they should do anything about it. (ultimately taylor decides to assuage the guilt by giving mafee a signed wrestling poster. that’s the world of finance for you!)

2x09: axe’s birthday party, which everyone is expected to attend, is in conflict with taylor’s personal life, so they talk to him about what they should do and why they’re conflicted.

2x10: taylor is questioned by connerty (another of the characters on the legal side of things, who we don’t care about otherwise) about what happens at axe cap.

2x11: taylor is warned by connerty that this line of work might endanger their soul. they’re also given the responsibility of assessing all the analysts at axe cap and firing one - and told that it can’t be based solely on the numbers - and decide not to fire rudy, who is the worst performing analyst but is dedicated to succeeding.

2x12: axe is arrested/indicted/somehow penalized for insider trading and other hedge fund shenanigans, and he puts taylor in charge of axe cap’s investments.

season 3: taylor keeps axe capital running and thriving in axe’s absence, but once he returns, he overrules their decisions and undercuts their trust, leading them to start their own hedge fund (taylor mason capital, or tmc) by season’s end.

3x01: taylor calls a meeting at axe cap and tasks everyone with preparing for an Idea Dinner where they’ll impress other hedge funds with a new and exciting plan for making money. ultimately taylor comes up with a plan that involves reverse engineering microchips, and it goes over well.

3x02: taylor struggles with making the right choices of investments after a tsunami hits brazil, confronts axe when he shows up at the office despite being banned from trading, and talks with him later about how the day has gone and how to move forward.

3x03: taylor interviews quantitative analysts (”quants”) for axe cap, much to the chagrin of analysts who are worried about losing their jobs and traders who don’t trust computers. ultimately none are hired because wags (the COO of axe cap and the epitome of everything absolutely wild about billions), who conducted the interview with taylor, doesn’t trust quants either and sabotaged the process. (this is also where winston first appears! hi winston!)

3x04: taylor expects a space mission led by weird off brand elon musk to fail and invests accordingly. they’re rooting for him anyway and are horrified when he dies in an explosion after launch. they also deal with attempts to get them to invest in a charitable organization brought to axe’s attention by oscar langstraat, a venture philanthropist, and wind up with significant distaste for oscar.

3x05: taylor encounters oscar again in silicon valley where they’re hearing pitches, and though they’re hostile to him at first, a conversation about star wars makes taylor regret that they made other plans for dinner, and playing an obscure board game is enough for them to sleep with him. (like i said: enemies to lovers speedrun!)

3x06: taylor is “rattled” (their word) by something related to axe’s legal troubles in this episode. oscar flies in from silicon valley unannounced to keep taylor company while they’re working on their quant project because he’s That invested. no clips of any of this online though

3x07: axe and wendy are planning to convince mafee to take the blame for some shady investing they did at the end of last season, and taylor inadvertently enables them to do it by giving them information about how mafee thinks and what he believes in.

3x08: axe returns to axe cap free to trade again, and immediately undoes all of taylor’s work (including the quant project), though he also invites them to join the team that will raise money for axe cap. taylor wants a fund of their own to manage (still affiliated with axe cap but separate), but axe won’t give them as much money for it as he’s promising.

3x09: axe needs money and tries to take some from grigor andolov, a russian oil oligarch, which taylor thinks is a terrible idea. they also restart the quant project again, in secret, which means winston’s back! winston & taylor’s meeting in a room with a chalkboard and taylor’s introduction of the quants to the quant headquarters are both from this episode.

3x10: taylor and oscar are celebrating a deal that oscar’s about to make, but when taylor mentions it to axe in asking for his help with getting a dinner reservation, axe, who’s searching for more sources of money, makes the deal before oscar can, which crushes taylor and ends their relationship. 

3x11: taylor discovers that winston has driven off the other quants, but asks him to work on The Algorithm instead of firing him. it’s also comp time - axe won’t give taylor as much of a bonus as they want and also removes them from the capital raise team; this decision is later reversed when taylor talks to wendy and wendy talks to axe. winston completes The Algorithm, and taylor emerges from the quant basement into the offices of taylor mason capital to talk to grigor.

3x12: taylor meets with grigor and convinces him to invest in tmc, arrives (late) to the capital raise event and impresses the investors there, swipes a good portion of that capital for tmc, and leaves axe cap for good, having successfully convinced mafee (and failing to convince ben kim) to join them. axe and taylor argue about taylor’s betrayal and what comes next. taylor also tries and fails to bring wendy to tmc.

season 4: taylor strives to keep tmc successful while fending off axe’s repeated attacks and dealing with their own interpersonal relationships interfering with business. how will it end? we don’t yet know [UPDATE: it ends with taylor making deals with both axe and chuck, but truly being on no one’s side except their own.]

4x01: taylor, mafee, and sara (taylor’s COO) struggle to hire employees due to axe paying off tmc’s headhunter (though they don’t initially know that’s the case). taylor disguises themself as a cis woman to get money from a sovereign wealth fund that axe cap is also seeking money from. (the full episode is available on youtube.)

4x02: taylor can’t get funding because axe has persuaded all the banks to cut them off. grigor brings in a pair of shady brothers to invest in tmc; taylor would really rather not depend on the brothers’ money, so they trick the banker the brothers are using into cutting off their credit lines and ask grigor to use his influence to get independent funding for tmc.

4x03: axe cap has managed to get a hold of tmc’s trading patterns, and they start front running tmc (making trades based on what they expect tmc to do) to throw taylor off. (this is where winston comes in again! and declares himself cassandra!) taylor’s dad, douglas, shows up and spends nearly all of his screentime either persistently misgendering taylor or helping them create a mathematical equation, which includes a mistake added by taylor as a message to axe (who of course is watching) for a meeting. when they meet, taylor asks axe for a truce, and he declines.

4x04: grigor brings down axe cap’s whole computer system, allowing tmc to profit off a natural gas crisis that axe cap was hoping to benefit from. taylor also agrees to support douglas’s aerospace project, a “lattice grid fin,” now that he’s actually respecting them as a person. but the climax of this episode is chuck talking about his and wendy’s sex life in front of the press, and taylor calls wendy afterward to offer sympathy. (and chuck, who subsequently wins his election, gets grigor deported and his money frozen.)

4x05: taylor is #Stressed about the loss of grigor’s money, which endangers tmc overall and douglas’s project especially. sara brings in lauren, an investor relations expert, to help out; lauren gets taylor a meeting with the new york firefighters’ fund, who used to invest only with axe but are looking elsewhere, and taylor gains their support.

4x06: taylor is working with douglas and a couple other companies on getting his lattice fin project off the ground, while trying to avoid axe cap’s spying (not that successfully), and douglas is mad that he isn’t being treated like the smartest person in the room. taylor and wendy also meet up repeatedly, in a seemingly friendly way, but wendy mines their conversations and her patient files on taylor to figure out how to force taylor to destroy douglas’s project. 

4x07: rebecca, axe’s girlfriend (though tmc doesn’t know that) and a business mogul herself, offers to buy douglas’s project (as a way for axe to access and destroy it), which taylor turns down. taylor has also enlisted wendy’s help to furnish a new apartment for their parents. then taylor gets the news that douglas’s project has been found to be a threat to national security (thanks to axe) - and though they initially choose to hold onto his project despite the ensuing loss of funds, wendy comes over to commiserate and inadvertently gives away that she’s been playing taylor this whole time. taylor sells the project to the government to save tmc, at the cost of their relationship with douglas.

4x08: taylor wants financial revenge for being manipulated, and first taunts, then argues with axe on live television. at mafee and dollar bill’s charity boxing match, taylor first is confronted by wendy about reporting her for malpractice (which sara did without taylor’s knowledge), then reveals that they tricked axe into getting fracking legalized so they could profit from buying water rights where fracking happens.

4x09: taylor is going to great lengths to destroy rebecca’s new position as ceo of a department store (saler’s), including buying out three of the largest shareholders and planning to meet up with a fourth who already hates axe. the plan doesn’t work in the end, but taylor finds out that axe will make huge sacrifices for rebecca - and starts a relationship with lauren, who helped them get a meeting with the fourth shareholder’s son.

4x10: taylor is preparing for wendy’s malpractice hearing, buying an appliance manufacturer closely tied to saler’s in order to have power over rebecca, and doing a terrible job of hiding their relationship with lauren. wendy comes to see them at tmc, and taylor claims they won’t go to the hearing, for wendy’s benefit.

4x11: taylor indeed doesn’t go to the hearing, and wendy fesses up to her wrongdoing. it’s comp time at tmc (winston’s most recent appearance! we’ve only just recently stopped shouting about it!), and everyone defers their bonus except lauren, who says she’d be too heartbroken to stick around if she and taylor broke up. rebecca, who’s tired of taylor making her life difficult, offers taylor a business deal related to saler’s, and taylor, who’s tired of being at war, accepts.

4x12: here is imdb’s summary of this episode: “Axe makes a big decision. Connerty gets closer to the truth. Tensions rise, and dynamics shift.” real specific. [UPDATE: taylor apologizes to their employees and promises to focus on running tmc The Right Way. and then axe sinks tmc by effectively killing saler’s, and sends a former axe cap employee who tried to get a job at tmc to try and bait taylor into engaging in insider trading; he hopes that chuck will then arrest them and blackmail them to work for axe again. taylor doesn’t take the bait, but chuck arrests them anyway, and makes a deal with them to work together to take axe down. secretly taylor plans to set up chuck and axe to destroy each other, and then get out of the way. the episode ends with taylor and their tmc team walking into axe cap and being “welcomed home.”]

#inbox #cockbiteproductions #billions #taylor mason #winston billions #if you have more questions feel free to ask! i unexpectedly love talking about this lmao

[randomfandomimagine]

5K Contest 1st Prize

For @c-taylor-wanna-be-a-glader (sorry for the wait, but thanks for being so patient! :D):

Fandoms: Teen Wolf & Star Wars

Gender to be shipped with: Male

Name: Taylor

Description: Tan skin, hazel eyes. Very long, dark brown, curly hair. I dress pretty casually, t-shirts, flannel shirts, sweaters, jeans. I'm a total geek, and proud of it! I'm fiercely protective of those I love. I'm a very deep person with a good sense of humor. Generally quiet and soft-spoken, but I also have this Chris Evans kind of laugh, and I do it all the time! I'm told I'm extremely happy and optimistic, but in reality I'm a worrier. And I'm a people-pleaser, which constantly gets me in over my head. I love being outdoors, sports, cooking, music and singing, photography, animals, fandoms, drawing, and graphic design.

TEEN WOLF

Lover: Stiles (you’re also a lot like Catori, Taylor!). You and Stiles are so alike that you agree in almost everything. You personalities click together perfectly, you have similar senses of humor (even if yours is a bit more pure and his is straight up sarcastic) and he’s so in love with you. He’s always there for you when you overthink and he’s up to do anything with you, he doesn’t care as long as you’re together. 

Best friend: Scott. While Stiles is closer to you, it’s Scott who has the same view of the world, the one that believes in kindness and in people and the one who prefers to see the silver linings and the good things in life, the small things. That’s why you’re best friends, there’s a different connection than the one you have with Stiles. 

Enemy: Derek. Not that you really hate each other, but he’s the one you clash with the most. Maybe because of your bubbly personality and his kind of pesimistic view of the world. But you can still tell he cares about you anyway.

Other characters: You and Lydia have your moments, most times you get along but you tend to disagree in many things. Liam gets along with you really well, and so does Mason and Kira, even if you’re not extremely close with any of them. Allison is your second best friend after Scott, and you do girly things together but also talking about serious things and help each other out. 

Drabbles

Stiles

Waiting in the hall was the worst, you wished you didn’t have a free period to fill. Honestly, it made you want to go home and forget about the rest of the day’s classes.

A guy was looking you from time to time, standing in front of you and leaning his back against the lockers just like you were. You stared back, wondering where his interest came from.

“Cool shirt” He mumbled, a friendly compliment.

“Thanks!” You looked down to it in an instinct. “I love my Batman t-shirt” 

The boy grinned to himself and walked a few steps closer to you, crossing his arms over his chest just to uncross them again and fidget around.

“He probably likes bananas, right?” He showed you a goofy face. “Na na na na Batman?” 

You let out a genuine guffaw of laughter, definitely not expecting such a silly and absurd joke. Growing self-conscious of your loud laughter, however, you covered your mouth with your hands to suffocate the noise. But he was just smiling. 

“Sorry, bad joke” He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “I just like your shirt, that’s all, forget about the rest”

“No, it was funny!” You encouraged him, smiling widely. A smile of its own appeared on his lips.

“I don’t think we’ve met” The grin never left his lips even as he spoke. “I’m Stiles” 

“I’m Taylor” You realized he was offering you a hand, so you shook it. 

“You have a terrible sense of humor, Taylor” He winked at you. “As bad as mine”

Scott

You took too long drawing to pass the time, and now you had to rush for class. In your hurry, you completely missed the boy standing in the middle of the hallway. He was facing his back to you and even if he turned around when he heard you, it was too late. None of you were fast enough to avoid the collision.

Both of you fell to the ground, papers flying by in the air as you stopped clutching the folder in your arms.

“Sorry!” You picked yourself up and gathered your notes back. “I’m so sorry!” 

“Don’t worry” He smiled at you and helped you pick up your papers. “You okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah” You heaved a sigh. “I’m just late, can you tell me the time?” 

The boy took a quick glance at his wristwatch and grimaced in anticipation to your response.

“It’s... twenty past” 

“Damn it... It’s so late, I might as well skip it...” 

“At least it’s the last class, right?” He showed you a friendly smile that made you feel a little better. 

You nodded, clumsily fixing your hair, giving up on arriving to class. When you heard the boy chuckle, though, you looked up at him.

“We can hang out for a while, at least until you catch your breath” 

“Sure” You grinned too, realizing you were almost gasping for air. “I’m Taylor” 

“I’m Scott” His kind smile lingered on his lips. “I think we’ve seen each other around in class”

Derek

The situation was tense, and didn’t look too bright. Looking at your friends, you could see the concern and anguish in their faces. Except for Derek’s, you should have known by how people spoke of him. It was the first time you were around each other, but you could tell he was keeping calm.

“We’re screwed” Stiles muttered in annoyance. 

“There must be a way to defend ourselves from the other pack...” Scott said, apparently thinking aloud.

“L-Let’s think positive” You bashfully noted, feeling a bit out of place since you weren’t used to any of that yet. “There’s got to be a good side to this” 

“No offence, kid” Derek glanced at you for the first time. “But you’re not helping, there’s no good side about this” 

“But...” You pouted, looking at your boyfriend Stiles, who in turn stared at Derek.

“Another pack of werewolves declared war on us, how is that good?” 

Immediately, you could tell he didn’t like you. Maybe you were too energetic and optimistic for his like and you were far too different to get along, at least for now.

STAR WARS

Lover: Luke. There’s something special about you two, maybe because you grew up together and you knew each other so well that it was inevitable. But you understand each other like no one else does, you relate to one another and can almost see in each other’s souls and minds. There’s just a unique bond between you and him and you care deeply about one another.

Best friend: Rey. At first you didn’t quite get along because she was a bit distant, but in time you grew closer. You realized you were a bit similar and she saw how kind and cheerful you are and you were suddenly making jokes here and there and you both saw that you trusted each other.

Enemy: Han. It’s not that you’re actually enemies? But you just don’t get along, that’s all. Maybe it’s because your personalities are incompatible and even if you get along a bit better you’re just not friends yet. You notice Han makes an effort for you to like him and makes jokes and all, but you can’t quite bring yourself to be friends with him even if you grew to like him and even if you actually trust him.

Other characters: Poe likes you a lot! You’re kind, funny, smart and bubbly and he loves your energy, so he’s pretty nice and playful to you. Finn is a close friend to you, and you’re always chatting and also trust each other a lot, going to the other for advice when you need it. You and Leia aren’t extremely close, but you have lots of fun whenever you’re together and understand the other really really well. Chewie is your friend also, because even though you don’t speak Wookie you feel like you almost do, like you can understand him even when he isn’t speaking. 

Drabbles

Luke

You smiled as you saw Luke making his way to you, holding something in his hand. Maybe it was the part you had been wanting for weeks, the one missing to finish your droid! He found it! 

“I can’t believe it!” You jumped up and down as he approached you. “Really?” 

Luke reciprocated your smile and handed something to you. The missing part.

“Here you go, Tay”  

“You’re the best, Luke!” You took it from him and observed it, feeling him staring fondly. 

Both living in Tatooine, you two grew up together. To the point that it was so long ago that you barely even remembered how you became friends. And when certain... feelings arised. Truth was, you thought differently about him now. 

You often wondered if he did too, seeing as he bothered to look for something you really wanted and spent so long until he finally found it. Just to make you happy. 

“Thank you so much!” You threw yourself to hug him, making him chuckle happily as he hugged you too. 

Too excited to contain yourself, you kissed him in the cheek as you broke away. You worried that you went too far, but Luke was smiling. Even if he was blushing too.

Rey

You thought it was just another monotonous and hopeless day at Jakku, but you saw something that lightened you up in your apathetic mood. Being stuck there wasn’t fun, and you only ever saw how selfish and cruel people could be. So when you saw that girl refusing to sell that droid even for the food she obviously needed, it made your heart sing with hope. 

You stood up from your shade, brushing the sand off yourself, and approached her. The girl seemed a bit moody as her orange and white droid friend followed her, yet not regretful.

“Hey, I would have done the same thing” You told her, admiring her kindness and selflessness.

“What?” She was surelly surprised that a complete stranger was talking to her, and confused as to what you were talking about.

“You can maybe get food another way” You said, letting her know you saw everything. “But people, and especially friends, are irreplaceble” 

The girl looked down to her droid friend, which beeped in response, and then back to you as her brown eyes locked with yours. 

“Funny, I think everyone else would call me crazy for doing that” She frowned, seizing you as she stared.

“Not me, that’s for sure” You extended a hand to her, dedicating her a bright smile. “I’m Taylor” 

“Rey” She shook your hand and nodded her head to the droid. “That’s BB8″ 

That smile lingering in your lips, you nodded at your new friends.

“Pleased to meet you both” 

Han

You were finally going to meet the famous Han Solo. After hearing so many stories from Luke and once you convinced him to take him with you in his adventures, you met Leia. And now you were about to be introduced to Han, someone you were extremely curious about.

Honestly, you didn’t know what to think of him. Judging by what your friends told you about him, he was cheeky and arrogant and cunning. The only reason you were okayish with him was because your friends trusted him and apparently he had their backs. Not that you were convinced about him still.

As soon as you walked into the ship, a confident looking man wearing a vest approached you, bearing a self-satisfied smirk.

“Hi there” He offered you a hand. “I’m Han, you must be Taylor” 

“Yeah” Warily, you shook his hand, not wanting to be rude. 

“Luke never mentioned how beautiful you are” The smirk never left his face as he nonchalantly shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. “Guess he wants to keep you all for himself” 

“Excuse me?” You frowned, wondering what he was on about and why he was flirting with you even though he had just met you. He was giving you a terrible first impression. 

“It’s a joke” He said, holding his hands up. “To break the ice?” 

“Aha...” You awkwardly said, navigating the ship to reunite with your boyfriend Luke. 

“Well, that happened” You heard Han saying behind you, realizing he made you slightly uncomfortable.

#contest prize #5k contest #teen wolf #tw #star wars #sw

[mitchbeck]

CANTLON: SOUND TIGERS TAKE WHOOPING IN HARTFORD

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - Igor Shesterkin made 30 saves and Matt Beleskey had two goals to help the Hartford Wolf Pack snap their four-game losing streak as they beat the Bridgeport Sound Tigers 4-1 on Friday in an Atlantic Division meeting at the XL Center before a season-best crowd of 5,707. The Wolf Pack record improves to 24-10-4-5 (57 points). They will play host to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms Saturday night before their brief three-day AHL All-Star break. The Wolf Pack retains first place by percentage points (.30) as the Hershey Bears won Friday as well, 5-2 over the Springfield Thunderbirds. Shesterkin will start again in net against the Phantoms. Bridgeport record drops to 15-24-4-1 (35 points). They occupy the eighth and final place in the Atlantic Division. The Sound Tigers head to Springfield Saturday. “The best recipe to break a losing streak is to come back and play at home,” said Wolf Pack head coach, Kris Knoblauch. The Wolf Pack home record stands at 17-1-0-2 and 7-9-4-3 on the road. Having Shesterkin back in net makes a big difference. Would the coach ever lobby GM Chris Drury to have the Russian rookie stay a little longer? “That would be nice,” Knoblauch said with a laugh. “We realize this is temporary, and we'll use him for as long as we can and enjoy him while we can until he returns to New York.” In the second period, Hartford pulled away and took control of the game. The Wolf Pack pocketed their second goal shorthanded. Captain Steven Fogarty, always a threat with a man down, capitalized for his third shorthanded tally of the season. Fogarty pried the puck away from Sebastian Aho then outmuscled him as he drove to the net on the left-wing and slipped a backhander into the net for his 11th of the season by netminder Christopher Gibson at 5:22. “That was the difference in the game tonight. Fogarty was very persistent in getting that puck. He was able to break away (from his check) and did the right thing with it,” said Knoblauch. Beleskey was highly complimentary. “(It was a) great move, great hands, great goal. It changed everything and definitely got us going.” Bridgeport head coach and ex-Wolf Pack, Brent Thompson, was none too pleased. He called a timeout and read his team the riot act. “Anytime the other team takes a timeout middle of the game (early in the second period) you know you're doing something good,” said Beleskey, The Wolf Pack got stronger and picked up the third goal in spectacular fashion. Four of the five players on the ice, except Yegor Rykov, got touches of the puck. The sixth guy got the scoring play started. It all started with Shesterkin behind the goal cage. He zipped a perfect lead pass to Phil Di Giuseppe at the Sound Tigers blue line. Di Giuseppe turned and curled and fired a pass to Darren Raddysh who was coming with speed coming through the middle and just entering the offensive zone. Raddysh dished it off beautifully to Boo Nieves in the right circle. He was standing in the right-wing circle and one touched the pass to Beleskey coming off the left-wing. He redirected his 12th into the net at 15:20. “That was a great passing play all around. All I had to was just tap it in,” remarked Beleskey of the second powerplay goal of the evening. Knoblauch is in awe of Shesterkin’s skills. “That’s the second time he has set up a powerplay goal for us this year with his passing. Its so nice to have that extra defenseman back there. We moved the puck and our powerplay ahs to get better and it was important we got of them tonight (two on three not shabby) we got those contributions.” Raddysh felt fortunate on the play. “Igor got it going and Phil made a nice move and pass and everything was in front of me, everything just worked perfect for that goal.” Shesterkin factored in the fourth goal doing his regularly appointed duty of stopping pucks. Coming out on Bridgeport’s Colin MacDonald (Wethersfield) on a breakaway with 2:54 left in the period and he came out and challenged him and cutting the angle down and made the stop. “Your not going to replace a goalie like that,but we also how how important he is to this team. but we have to tighten up defensively we got outshot again tonight. We can’t always rely on that (having Shesterkin) it’s certainly nice have him,” said Beleskey with a smile of acknowledgement of what he means to this team. Later in that sequence with the Sound Tigers pushing back. The puck was pitchforked out of the zone seemingly by Mason Geersten who was credited with the assist. However, head coach Knoblauch after viewing the video several times said in the post game that it was actually Ryan Gropp who got the puck in front of Shesterkin and sent it off the center ice boards to give the Beleskey the breakaway. Then Beleskey hopped off the bench screamed across the ice right to left retrieved the loose puck off the left wing boards in the Sound Tigers zone. Beleskey caught Gibson cheating too far on his right post fired his second of the night 13th of the season over his glove hand far side at 17:25 for a 4-0 lead. “To be honest, I was asleep at the bench I forgot to go out for my shift !! So I jumped on at the right time they usually don’t end up happening that way ! Again it was another nice pass,” said Beleskey sheepishly laughing at himself turning a potential bad moment into a goal. Likely Gropp will get the official assist when a scoring change request is filed with the league. In the third period, the Wolf Pack continued their season long third period shutdown routine and are now 18-0-1-2 when leading after two periods. Of the 10 shots in the third period just one got by Shesterkin on the evening as Travis St. Denis was able to corral a bouncing puck off a Steve Bernier shot attempt. Igor got a piece  of, but couldn’t contain the wobbly puck and former QU Bobcat spoiled the shutout bid with his seventh goal at 15:07, Shesterkin almost had the capper for the evening with the goalie pulled he wanted the puck to try to put the puck in the net. “I didn’t hear him call for the puck I wish I had heard him, I would have gladly given him the puck,” smiled Raddysh. The Wolf Pack were able to cash in on their second powerplay to take a 1-0 lead. The power play defense combo of Raddysh and Yegor Rykov were able to generate offense quickly as Rykov at the right point sent a pass from the right point to Raddysh at the top of the left wing circle. Raddysh’s shot went off the back of Sound Tigers defenseman Sebastien Aho as he turned to block the shot and protect himself, but the puck richochet right over to an open Phil Di Giuseppe. Di Giuseppe one timed the puck past a diving Christopher Gibson at 16:42 for his 12th of the season in his first game back from Rangers recall. Head coach Kris Knoblauch was true to his word and change his defense combos going for the lefty-righty combo set. He split his top pair of Vincent LoVerde and Darren Raddysh pairing them Libor Hajek and Yegor Rykov respectively and reunited Mason Geersten and AHL All Star selection Joey Keane. “Were happy with things we just aiming to find the right balance we haven’t had (lefty and righty shooters) and it was a good night,” said Knoblauch. While they tossed nine shots pm goal the Wolf Pack to have missed the net as on that many as well. In one sequence they had four good quality open shots on net sent it either high or wide. “There is fine line between waiting to make the play and holding it too long. I think if we can get into a better groove on that will do better,” said Beleskey. The Wolf Pack got much better in the second period. LINES: Nieves-Di Giuseppe-Lettieri O’Regan-Fogarty-Kravtsov Jones-Newell-Gettinger Beleskey-McBride-Groppn Hajek-Raddysh Keane-Geersten Rykov-LoVerde SCRATCHES: Jeff Taylor (healthy) Ryan Dmowski (healthy) Lias Andersson (suspended) Gabriel Fontaine (shoulder surgery-season ending). NOTES: -Knoblauch is looking forward to his time in California as the head coach of the Atlantic squad. “I very much am looking forward to this. Look, I’m just the guy representing us. There are more players who have contributed to the success of this team than I have. I just hope Vinni and Joey score some goals and we get the win !!” remarked Knoblauch. Keane is quite excited. “I’m really looking foward to it get a chance to meet some new guys and enjoy the sun and the game. I worked really hard last summer to prepare for my first season and this is the reward.” -Boo Nieves has 11 points in his last eight games. -Beleskey has three goals in his last two games -Shesterkin lowered his AHL best GAA to 1.89 GAA  and has a 16-4-3 record. If he played a full year he might challenge all the Wolf Pack goalie records held by Jason LaBarbera. -In Portland, Maine tonight goalie Adam Huska  stopped 44 of 45 shots in his ECHL debut and Ty Ronning scored a hat trick as the Maine on just 22 shots scored an 8-1 tout over the Worcester Railers in the battle of the affiliates of the Wolf Pack and Sound Tigers. Lewis Zerter-Gossage tallied his first ECHL goal of the year in his first game since being sent back. While former QU Bobcat Jordan Samuels-Thomas (West Hartford) had a tough night going a team worst minus four. The Mariners are in fourth place in the ECHL North Division with a record of 21-18-1-1 with 44 points in the six points behind Brampton. Maine has a rematch in Worcester Saturday night at the DCU Center with the David Cuniff coached Railers who started the year as the Wolf Pack assistant coach. -Former QU Bobcat Sam Anas of Iowa with 45 points in 45 games and is the third leading scorer in the AHL was added to AHL All Star Classic roster. -Ex-Pack Justin Fontaine (no relation to current Wolf Pack Gabriel Fontaine) signs a contract for the rest of the season with the Cologne Sharks (Germany-DEL). Read the full article

#AdamHuska #BooNieves #BrentThompson #BridgeportSoundTigers #ChrisDrury #ChristopherGibson #DCUCenter #ECHL #GabrielFontaine #GerryCantlon #HartfordWolfPack #HersheyBears #JasonLaBarbera #LehighValleyPhantoms #LiasAndersson #MattBeleskey #RyanDmowski #RyanGropp #SebastianAho #SpringfieldThunderbirds #SteveBernier #StevenFogarty #TravisSt.Denis #TyRonning #Wethersfield #WHA #WorcesterRailers #XLCenter #YegorRykov

[hunterbach]

2018 AFC North Team Analysis and Projections

AFC North Division on tap for review today. Let’s get to it.

 Pittsburgh Steelers

2018-19 Projected Finish: 1st

2017-18 Finish: 1st

 Key Additions

Offense

Mason Rudolph (QB)(draft, round 3rd pick 76) –  The Rudolph pick isn’t necessarily about this year or even about next, but it's about the next five to ten years if Rudolph pans out. Rudolph is an extremely talented signal caller who has really nice deep ball touch and showed improvement every year at Oklahoma State. With Ben Roethlisberger entering the final few years of his career its important for the Steelers to have a succession plan at quarterback and I believe Rudolph can be that for the franchise.

James Washington (WR)(draft, round 2nd pick 60) -  Washington, from Oklahoma State, was maybe the best deep ball receiver in the class. For the Steelers, Washington slides into the number 3 receiver role vacant due to the trade of Martavis Bryant and the injury to Eli Rodgers. I believe Washington, much like Juju Smith-Schuester, should see immediate success his rookie year with the amount of single coverage he’ll see thanks to the attention being paid to Antonio Brown and Smith-Schuester.

Defense

Morgan Burnett (S)(free agent - Packers) –  Burnett was a versatile safety for the Packers last season. It was surprising the team let him sign away on such an affordable deal, but the Packers loss is the Steelers gain. Burnett will look to complement entrenched starter Sean Davis and rookie Terrell Edmunds. Burnett also looks poised to get some looks at linebacker in dime packages. Overall Burnett is a versatile playmaker who should help a defense seeking to minimize the impact lost by Ryan Shazier’s injury.

 Key Losses

Offense

Chris Hubbard (OT)(signed with Cleveland) –  Hubbard was a swing tackle who was a nice fill in for Marcus Gilbert due to injuries and suspension last season. His loss is not substantial, but it will be important for the team to figure out who will take over his role in the offense now that he is with Cleveland.

Defense

Ryan Shazier (LB)(Injury) – Shazier was the heart and soul of the Steelers defense. He was an exceptional football player who unfortunately experienced a severe injury. Because of the type of guy Shazier is, everyone is cheering for him to kick ass in rehab. For Shazier, being able to live a normal life is far more important than ever playing football again. If he is able to play football again, that would be amazing. All of us are cheering for him. On the football side, the Steelers are not going to be able to replace Shazier and his ability. The best they could do is try to mask his loss. The defense should still be good, but Shazier’s loss is significant for the unit.  

 Team Analysis

The Steelers have won the division the last two seasons and therefore should be the favorite to win it again. The only question is how large of an impact will Ryan Shazier

  Baltimore Ravens

2018-19 Projected Finish: 2nd  

2017-18 Finish: 2nd

 Key Additions

Offense

Lamar Jackson (QB)(draft, round 1st pick 32) – Jackson is the Ravens quarterback of the future. The team is unlikely to rush Jackson into the starting lineup this season as it will be more important for him to learn this season. Jackson is an electric playmaker with inconsistent mechanics. If utilized properly, Jackson will be really fun to watch – maybe this season but likely next.

Michael Crabtree (WR)(free agent – Raiders) – Crabtree will become Baltimore’s number one receiver after being cut by the Raiders. Crabtree will lead a newly revamped wide receiver corps including new additions Willie Snead and John Brown. I would expect Crabtree will eclipse the 1,000-yard mark with Baltimore this season.

Hayden Hurst (TE)(draft, 1st round 25th pick) – Hurst has an interesting story. Before he played football at South Carolina, he played two seasons of Minor League Baseball for the Pirates organization. Hurst is old for a rookie turning 25 in August, but his game is well rounded and should easily translate to the pros. Hurst should fill a serious void in an offense that lacked a playmaker at the tight end position last season.

 Key Losses

Offense

Mike Wallace (WR)(signed with Eagles) – Wallace was a consistent player for the Ravens the last two seasons and his vertical ability will need to be replaced by John Brown. Wallace is not the player he once was, but he was consistent for the offense and will likely be missed this coming season.

Ryan Jensen (C)(signed with Buccaneers) – Jensen was a revelation for the Ravens last year as he was the anchor for a solid offensive line. Jensen will be missed as none of his possible replacements seem like they will play as well as Jensen did this past season.

 Team Analysis

The Ravens came one game away from the playoffs last season. The roster looks even better this year with what seems to be a solid draft class and a revamped receiving core. The division should be a battle between the Ravens and the Steelers.

  Cincinnati Bengals

2018-19 Projected Finish: 3rd  

2017-18 Finish: 3rd  

 Key Additions

Offense

Cordy Glenn (OT)(trade with Bills) – The Bills acquired Glenn for a swap of firsts, a fifth, and sixth-round draft pick. Glenn filled an obvious hole for the Bengals who have needed a left tackle after Andrew Whitworth departed for Los Angeles last season. Glenn is a quality tackle who will be an upgrade for the team. The biggest question mark surrounding Glenn will be his health after only playing 17 games the last two seasons.

Billy Price (C)(draft, round 1st pick 21) -   Price was arguably the top center in the draft but his stock was uncertain after suffering a partially torn pec at the combine. The Bengals highest priority need along the offensive line was center. Price is a day one starter for the Bengals who I expect to perform and at a high level. With both Price and Glenn, the offensive line for the team should be much improved.

Defense

Preston Brown (LB)(free agent – Bills ) – Brown is another 1-year flier for the Bengals at the linebacker position. Brown is a solid if unspectacular player who should be leaned on with Vontaze Burfict again suspended for the start of the season.

 Key Losses

Offense

Russell Bodine (C)(signed with Bills) – Bengals fans have been annoyed by the Bengals’ reluctance to go away from Bodine for the last four years. Well, it finally happened. Bodine struggled consistently at the pivot the last four years. Billy Price should step in and be at least as effective if not better as Bodine was for the team.

Defense

Chris Smith (DE)(signed with Browns) – Smith isn’t a significant loss for the Bengals defense though he was effective in the limited snaps he played last season for the team. His production should be replaced by the improvements from second-year pros Jordan Willis and Carl Lawson along with rookie defensive end Sam Hubbard.

 Team Analysis

The Bengals are a team that could just as easily win the division as finish in third. They are a true wildcard. If the defense takes strides and Andy Dalton plays at the MVP level we have seen before, and the offensive line takes the necessary strides, The Bengals could win the division. However, if roster talent holds true, the Ravens and Steelers are likely to finish ahead of them.

 Cleveland Browns

2018-19 Projected Finish: 4th

2017-18 Finish: 4th

 Key Additions

Offense

Jarvis Landry (WR)(trade with Dolphins ) – The Browns acquired Landry and proceeded to sign him to a massive 5-year $75.5 million contract. Landry has been a machine in the slot over the last 4 years recording 114 receptions last season. For Landry, the question is whether he can be more than a slot receiver who racks up receptions and whether he can turn into a true WR 1.

Tyrod Taylor (QB)(trade with Bills) -  Tyrod Taylor may be the best quarterback the Browns have had in a while and is the perfect bridge quarterback for the Browns until Baker Mayfield is ready. Taylor is an underrated signal-caller who might not be a person who goes out and wins the game but he certainly won't lose it for the Browns.

Defense

T.J Carrie (CB)(free agent - Raiders) –  Carrie is coming off a really solid season last year for the Raiders. He was highly regarded by PFF coming in with an 84.3. Carrie proceeded to sign a 4-year deal with the Browns. The team hopes that Carrie continues to further build upon his successful campaign last year partnering with Denzel Ward to give the Browns a solid cornerback tandem.

 Key Losses

Offense

Joe Thomas(OT)(retirement) – The Browns lost their stalwart left tackle this offseason. He will surely be a hall of famer. There is no way to replace Thomas. He was a 10-time pro bowler and a 9-time all pro. He had not missed a snap until tearing his triceps last seasons. The Browns will seek to fill the void left by Thomas with second-round pick Austin Corbett. Corbett is a good player, but it's unlikely he’ll completely fill the void.

Defense

Danny Shelton (DT)(trade to Browns) –  Shelton was not a scheme fit for Browns defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. He was a limited 2-down defender for the Browns leading to the team trading him. Overall, Shelton is not a significant loss for the Browns defense and will have minimal impact on whether the unit will be successful in 2018.

 Team Analysis

This Browns team has the talent to win 5-7 games this season, but when you finish 0-16, I'm sorry to say I have to pick you as the fourth best team in the division. I expect turnaround but I Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Stay tuned for more NFL analysis. In the meantime check out 

2018 AFC South Team Analysis and Projections

2018 AFC North Team Analysis and Projections

2018 AFC West Team Analysis and Projections

2018 AFC East Team Analysis and Projections

#nfl #NFL DivisionWinners #pittsburg steelers #baltimore ravens #cincinatti bengals #cleveland browns

[jodyedgarus]

Want To Win A Heisman? Follow These 8 Simple Steps

It’s Heisman Trophy time! In advance of the upcoming announcement, we wanted to scientifically determine how the voters choose the winner. Using our combined expertise in analytics — one of us has a Ph.D. in political science (with a focus on complex systems) and the other was a stats consultant for a professional team — we discovered an amazingly simple formula for becoming a Heisman Trophy winner. We couldn’t keep this newfound knowledge to ourselves, so we thought we’d share our findings with all the college football players out there so they can plan accordingly.

Using the top 10 in the voting each year since 1998,1 we analyzed 191 Heisman nominees to figure out what tends to separate the winner from the rest. Then, we applied it to this year’s likely hopefuls to see how they’d fare.2

Here’s our foolproof plan for Heisman glory:

(Note: We intentionally jury-rigged some of these rules and thresholds to perfectly explain the past winners in our sample. We know, we know: It’s not exactly statistically kosher for making future “out of sample” predictions — and may or may not violate rules of “basic scientific inference.” But it’s fun! And regardless of our playful cherry-picking, we still might learn something about the selection process along the way, in spite of ourselves.)

Step 1: Be a QB or an RB.

Players eliminated: 35

Players remaining: 156

Who it knocks out this year: Ed Oliver, Houston

We found that only eight positions have ever been among the top 10 nominees for a Heisman, and only two — quarterback and running back — have won since 1998. (The others to make a top 10 all-time are DB, DL, LB, TE and WR,3 plus exactly one OL.) Voters’ hard-and-fast dedication to QBs and RBs hasn’t always been as rigid; several receivers and tight ends won the award in previous eras, and Charles Woodson won as a defensive player in 1997.4 But for the most part, you aren’t winning the Heisman unless you’re a QB or an RB, particularly in recent seasons. (Sorry if rushing or passing just isn’t your thing.)

Step 2: Be part of a Power Five conference (or Notre Dame).

Players eliminated: 27

Players remaining: 129

Who it knocks out this year: McKenzie Milton, UCF; Rashaad Penny, San Diego State

Of the 11 conferences represented among our 191 players, only five — not coincidentally, the current Power Five conferences of 2017 (so, the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC) — plus Notre Dame5 were actually home to a Heisman winner. In order to find a Heisman recipient from a non-power conference, you’d have to go back to 1990, when Ty Detmer of Brigham Young (which played in the WAC) took home the award. Although some minor-conference stars have come vaguely close over the past decade — in our sample, Northern Illinois’s Jordan Lynch and Hawaii’s Colt Brennan each finished third — it’s extremely unlikely that one would have a season spectacular enough to offset the voters’ preference for big-program stars.

Step 3: Be on a team that has three or fewer losses.

Players eliminated: 21

Players remaining: 108

Who it knocks out this year: Bryce Love, Stanford; Lamar Jackson, Louisville; Khalil Tate, Arizona

Unfortunately, winning the Heisman isn’t just about individual excellence. The award disproportionately goes to players on the top teams in the country. Since 1998, 32 percent of Heisman winners have been on a team that was undefeated going into its bowl game, and 26 percent were from a team with just one loss. Meanwhile, no player on a team with more than three losses has won the award. That’s bad news for two of this season’s finalists — Stanford’s Bryce Love and Louisville’s Lamar Jackson, each of whom plays for a four-loss squad. The good news, Bryce and Lamar, is you can tell your grandkids it wasn’t your fault.

Step 4: Run for 15 or more touchdowns (if you’re a QB).

Players clinched: 6

Players eliminated: 24

Players remaining: 78

Who it knocks out this year: Nobody.

The Heisman loves quarterbacks — they’ve won 14 of the 19 trophies handed out since 1998 — but not always for their passing skills. When a running QB has an especially great season, the voters are quick to show him some love: Of the seven historical QBs with 15 or more rushing TDs (among those we haven’t already eliminated), six — Marcus Mariota, Eric Crouch, Cam Newton, Lamar Jackson, Johnny Manziel and Tim Tebow — ended up winning the Heisman. And the seventh — Kansas State’s Collin Klein — had the bad fortune to produce his season the same year Manziel pulled off the feat with better overall numbers.6 We’ve avoided the guideline this year, though; no remaining QB on our list came close to 15 scores on the ground, since Lamar Jackson was eliminated in Step 2.7 But the broader life lesson remains: It isn’t about personal accomplishment, it’s about how good you are compared with everyone else.

(Note: The statistics we used for historical candidates were through the end of the bowls, which isn’t ideal — but hey, you work with what you’ve got.8 But because we believe in fairness, we prorated this year’s candidates’ stats for an extra game going forward. You’re welcome!)

Step 5: Meet some basic statistical thresholds (if you’re a QB).

Players eliminated: 28

Players remaining: 50

Who it knocks out this year: Nobody.

Although a player’s statistics aren’t perfectly correlated with his chances of winning the Heisman, there is a bare minimum level of output you have to meet in order to seriously contend for the award. For quarterbacks, those numbers are mostly associated with passing (surprise!), but they can be augmented slightly with rushing. No QB left in our sample won the award with worse stats than:

30 passing TDs

1 rushing TD

11 interceptions

These qualifications cull the list of historical hopefuls considerably, narrowing it down to quarterbacks who were highly productive rather than marginal candidates who survived the previous cuts by being on a good team from a big conference. All of 2017’s remaining QB contenders passed those benchmarks with flying colors, though, so, sadly, this step doesn’t help us zero in on a winner for this year.

Step 6: If you’re a QB, have fewer team losses than the other QBs.

Players clinched: 1

Players eliminated: 12

Players remaining: 37

Who it knocks out this year: Mason Rudolph, Oklahoma State; J.T. Barrett, Ohio State

As we mentioned earlier, Heisman voters are all about QBs who just win, baby. So at this stage, we reshuffle every signal-caller who hasn’t yet been eliminated and keep only the passer whose team lost the fewest games heading into its bowl (using total touchdowns as the tiebreaker). There is one exception to this rule: If a QB with more losses registered 5,000 or more yards of total offense in a season when no other passer cracked 4,000, that quarterback leapfrogs everyone to win the Heisman.9 But it’s a rare exception, invoked only once in our sample: When Robert Griffin III (whose Baylor Bears lost three games) got the hardware over Andrew Luck (one loss). Talk about tough Luck.10

Step 7: Meet some not-so-basic statistical thresholds (if you’re an RB).

Players eliminated: 15

Players remaining: 22

Who it knocks out this year: Jonathan Taylor, Wisconsin; Saquon Barkley, Penn State; Kerryon Johnson, Auburn

Even though they do win sometimes, Heisman life is hard for running backs. Because voters want so desperately to give the award to a QB, the statistical bar a ball carrier needs to clear in order to qualify for the award is pretty high. In our sample of seasons since 1998, no RB won the Heisman with fewer than:

1,980 yards from scrimmage

16 rushing TDs

Those are extremely lofty standards that few running backs can match. None of our remaining running backs met those requirements this season,11 which leaves us with only one clear Heisman favorite for 2017.

Step 8: If no QBs are left, the RB wins. If a QB remains, he wins.

Players eliminated: 10

Players clinched: 12

Players remaining: 0

Who it knocks out this year: Nobody.

Who it clinches the Heisman for this year: Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma

The final step is a little chaotic. First, you check if any quarterbacks are left after pruning down the list based on statistics and team losses. If there’s a QB who survived all of the checkpoints above, that player wins the Heisman. (Congrats to Baker Mayfield of Oklahoma, tonight’s likely winner!) If there is no QB left over, the trophy goes to the running back who cleared all of the statistical benchmarks from Step 7. The one exception: If the remaining QB had fewer than 4,000 passing yards and 40 touchdown passes, and a surviving RB eclipsed 2,200 yards from scrimmage on a team with zero or one losses, the Heisman goes to the running back. (This gets us Reggie Bush over Brady Quinn in 2005 and Derrick Henry over Mayfield in 2015 but preserves Carson Palmer’s win over Larry Johnson in 2002.)12 For running backs, you gotta be in peak form to knock off a qualified QB.

And that’s all there is to it! It’s just that simple. Follow the eight steps above, and you’re guaranteed to be holding the Heisman on a December night in New York City. (Until something unexpected happens — in which case we’ll tweak the rules to make it fit. Science!)

from News About Sports https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/want-to-win-a-heisman-follow-these-8-simple-steps/

[jenmedsbookreviews]

Yes … believe it or not, it is getting to that point in the year that we both welcome and dread. Christmas. You may have missed it, but I’ve started posting a few festive reads on the blog over the past few days, just something Mandie and I thought (back in July/August) was a really good idea. Possibly not as we’re about as enthusiastic about Christmas as the Grinch, but hey ho (ho ho), it’s not all bad. I think. Do stop by for a few festive reading tips won’t you? Hopefully there’s a little something for everyone from the cosy and the kiddie, right through to the dark and the deadly. Always room for a little festive crime right?

Well, I had a busy old week last week achieving not a lot whilst seemingly doing loads. The week started perfectly – I was only at work for half a day before I was heading off down to London for November’s First Monday Crime panel. This month saw Barry Forshaw interview Stuart MacBride, Elodie Harper, Vaseem Khan and Simon Booker. An interesting debate was had by all regarding the idea of crime fiction v ‘literary fiction’, biggest mistakes made by newbie writers and whether there should be limits on how far you take your crime fiction.

A fantastic panel and I can heartily recommend both their books and First Monday Crime and if you want to find out more about next months panel, you can do so at their website here. December’s panel promises to be a doozy with Chris Whitaker, Louise Jensen, Mel McGrath and Susi Holliday alongside chair Claire McGowan. On top of that you’ll get to witness ‘Pitch the Audience’ where MC Howard Linskey will try to corral Rod Reynolds, Abir Mukherjee, Cass Green, Leye Adenle, Susi Holliday, Derek Farrell, Lisa Cutts, Chris Whitaker, Mason Cross, and James Carol as they bid to become ‘Pitch the Audience’ Champions for 2017. And books and pub visits. What more could you want? I’m booked. Maybe see you there?

And speaking of books, couldn’t resist the opportunity of getting a couple of signed books while I was there. Well … I went all that way. 😉

Book post wise, it’s been quite a quiet week for me. Nowt new there then lol. Just the one, a copy of Sai-Ko from author Gabriela Harding. Can’t wait to take a trip to the dark side with these short stories.

Other purchase wise, I’ve been good. At least if you own Amazon lol. I purchased the Killer Women Crime Club Book 2, Give Me The Child by Mel McGrath (also on audio); Little Liar by Clare Boyd and The Death Knock by Elodie Harper. From Netgalley, just the one, Know Me Now by CJ Carver. Also on audible was WhiteOut by Ragnar Jonasson. Well a girl needs to have the whole set.

Reading wise it’s been a bit of a mixed bag as my head is all over the place with work. I have managed 3.4 books though – one of them being a collection of short stories.

Books I have read

A Christmas Wish by Erin Green

Flora Phillips has an excuse for every disaster in her life; she was abandoned as a new-born on a doorstep one cold autumn night, wrapped in nothing but a towel. Her philosophy is simple: if your mother doesn’t want you – who will?

Now a thirty-year-old, without a boyfriend, a career or home she figures she might as well tackle the biggest question of them all – who is she? So, whilst everyone else enjoys their Christmas Eve traditions, Flora escapes the masses and drives to the village of Pooley to seek a specific doorstep. Her doorstep.

But in Pooley she finds more than her life story. She finds friends, laughter, and perhaps even a love to last a lifetime. Because once you know where you come from, it’s so much easier to know where you’re going.

A story of redemption and love, romance and Christmas dreams-come-true, the perfect novel to snuggle up with this festive season.

A wonderfully uplifting and heart warming tale of Flora, a woman who is in search of her birth mother having been left on a doorstep as a baby. Great for Christmas, my review of this book will be on the blog this week. In the meantime you can buy a copy of the book here.

…

The Advent Killer by Alastair Gunn

Christmas is coming. One body at a time. 

Three weeks before Christmas: Sunday, one a.m. A woman is drowned in her bathtub.

One week later: Sunday, one a.m. A woman is beaten savagely to death, every bone in her body broken.

Another week brings another victim.

As panic spreads across London, DCI Antonia Hawkins, leading her first murder investigation, must stop a cold, careful killer whose twisted motives can only be guessed at, before the next body is found. On Sunday.

When the clock strikes one . . .

A terrifying British debut thriller, The Advent Killer introduces DCI Antonia Hawkins, with the second in the series coming from Penguin in 2014. Fans of Chris Carter and Richard Montanari should be paying attention.

Now Christmas and murder … finally something I can identify with. Not literally of course and not in quite so gruesome a fashion as is presented in Alastair Gunn’s debut novel  I’ll be sharing my thoughts on this one very soon as one of my ‘festive reads’. You can buy a copy of the book here.

…

Twelve Slays of Christmas by Jacqueline Frost

When Holly White’s fiancé cancels their Christmas Eve wedding with less than two weeks to go, Holly heads home with a broken heart. Lucky for her, home in historic Mistletoe, Maine is magical during Christmastime—exactly what the doctor prescribed. Except her plan to drown her troubles in peppermints and snickerdoodles is upended when local grouch and president of the Mistletoe Historical Society Margaret Fenwick is bludgeoned and left in the sleigh display at Reindeer Games, Holly’s family tree farm.

When the murder weapon is revealed as one of the wooden stakes used to identify trees on the farm, Sheriff Evan Grey turns to Holly’s father, Bud, and the Reindeer Games staff. And it doesn’t help that Bud and the reindeer keeper were each seen arguing with Margaret just before her death. But Holly knows her father, and is determined to exonerate him.The jingle bells are ringing, the clock is ticking, and if Holly doesn’t watch out, she’ll end up on Santa’s naughty list in Twelve Slays of Christmas, Jacqueline Frost’s jolly series debut.

After a bit of a gruesome murder, it was time to go all cosy. This is a beautiful book, full of all the festive spirit a lover of the season could want. Give or take the odd murder … I’ll be reviewing this very soon but you can buy yourself a copy right here.

…

CWA Anthology of Short Stories: Mystery Tour

Crime spreads across the globe in this new collection of short stories from the Crime Writer’s Association, as a conspiracy of prominent crime authors take you on a world mystery tour. Highlights of the trip include a treacherous cruise to French Polynesia, a horrifying trek in South Africa, a murderous train-ride across Ukraine and a vengeful killing in Mumbai. But back home in the UK, life isn’t so easy either. Dead bodies turn up on the backstreets of Glasgow, crime writers turn words into deeds at literary events, and Lady Luck seems to guide the fate of a Twickenham hood. Showcasing the range, breadth and vitality of the contemporary crime-fiction genre, these twenty-eight chilling and unputdownable stories will take you on a trip you’ll never forget.

Contributions from: Ann Cleeves, C.L. Taylor, Susi Holliday, Martin Edwards, Anna Mazzola, Carol Anne Davis, Cath Staincliffe, Chris Simms, Christine Poulson, Ed James, Gordon Brown, J.M. Hewitt, Judith Cutler, Julia Crouch, Kate Ellis, Kate Rhodes, Martine Bailey, Michael Stanley, Maxim Jakubowski, Paul Charles, Paul Gitsham, Peter Lovesey, Ragnar Jónasson, Sarah Rayne, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Vaseem Khan, William Ryan and William Burton McCormick

A brilliant collection of short stories and perfect for dipping in and out of, which is exactly what I’m doing ahead of my stop on the blog tour next week. Featuring some of the best crime writers around, you’d be mad to miss it. I’ve already powered through 34% of the book without even realising it. You can preorder a copy here.

…

Blogging wise, not quite as traumatic as last week, i.e. you haven’t had to suffer any more videos of me, but still busy none-the-less.

#BlogTour: Whiteout by Ragnar Jonasson

#Review: Zenka by Alison Brodie

Festive Reads: Mr Men & Little Miss at Christmas

Festive Reads: This Way To Christmas by Anita Bijsterbosh and Christmas Stories for Kids by Uncle Amon

Festive Reads: Enid Blyton’s Christmas Tales

Festive Reads: Santa, Please Bring Me A Gnome by An Swerts

#BlogTour: #IntoTheValley by Chris Clement-Green

#BookLove: Tracy Fenton

Review: Mr Men & Little Miss for Grown UpsFestive Reads: A Christmas Flower by Bryan Mooneyffiths163

#BlogTour: Bad Sister by Sam Carrington

Review: Elephant and Sheep and other stories by Patricia Furstenberg

The week ahead is another full one – are there any other kind. Personally, I am off to the UK launch of The Man Who Died by Antti Tuomainen on Wednesday and I can’t wait. It’s in the running to be my book of the year! Then the weekend sees the long awaited arrival of Hull Noir. Looking forward to lots of brilliant panels and getting to catch up with some amazing blogger friends.

In the meantime, I’ve a mixture of the usual reviews and blog tours to keep you all amused, starting today when I’ll be reviewing The Puppet Master by Abigail Osborne. Wednesday is the tour for The Future Can’t Wait by Angelena Boden and Saturday it’s Dying Day by Stephen Edger. And there will be some sharing of the #booklove with blogger Victoria Goldman.

And in other news – with the notable and excusable exception of Christmas Day and Boxing Day, today marks a whole year of posting every day, at least once, sometimes more. I set myself the challenge to see how long I could keep it up and I have to admit I am fluffing knackered now, but hey. Quite an achievement for a moderately busy gal like me I think. Go me. May have to celebrate.

Have a brilliant week all. See you on the other side

Jen

Rewind, recap: Weekly update w/e 12/11/17 Yes ... believe it or not, it is getting to that point in the year that we both welcome and dread.

#Rewind Recap #Weekly Round UP

[flauntpage]

The Heisman Race Is Saquon Barkley vs. One Other Guy

I’ve seen at least 10,000 promos for tomorrow night’s Penn State/Michigan game featuring that terrible “Walk on Water” song by 30 Seconds to Mars. It’s almost as bad as the Hyundai “Sweet Caroline” commercial.

But don’t be deterred by ESPN’s horrendous song choice, because this game is gonna be a banger featuring college football’s most exciting player. It’s not John O’Korn, it’s future 49er Saquon Barkley, who can put a Ted Nugent-style stranglehold on the Heisman Trophy race with a winning performance in Happy Valley.

College Gameday comes to Penn State as the Lions try to avenge last season’s 49-10 road loss. Barkley only ran for 59 yards in Ann Arbor last year and will match up this time against a Wolverine defense that ranks top-10 in almost every single meaningful category. They’re allowing just 85.8 ground yards and 14.7 points per game. Penn State has pretty much clobbered five of six opponents this season, so something has to give on Saturday night.

Barkley’s main competition for the Heisman is a west coast running back, but let’s start by eliminating four other contenders:

Baker Mayfield (Oklahoma QB)

Heisman trophy winners don’t lose at home to Iowa State. Mayfield did go 24-33 for 306 yards and two touchdowns in that game, but he was disappointing in the second half. Still, he’s got a 17 to 1 touchdown/interception ratio and will keep himself in the conversation unless Oklahoma loses at Oklahoma State or at home the following week against TCU.

Mason Rudolph (Oklahoma State QB)

He’ll be overshadowed by Mayfield the rest of the way. The early loss to TCU also took the Cowboys out of the national spotlight. They probably won’t win Bedlam, which might be a Heisman elimination game for Rudolph and Mayfield.

Plus, Big 12 defenses blow and I’m highly cautious in overvaluing quarterback play in that conference. That’s why I really can’t get behind Mayfield or Rudolph.

Jonathan Taylor (Wisconsin RB)

A phenomenal freshman runner (and South Jersey native) who doesn’t catch the ball. He’ll be an early favorite for next year’s Heisman.

Lamar Jackson (Louisville QB)

An elite talent who has had to do it all himself this season. Someone give him some help.

Anyway, Barkley’s competition for the Heisman is this guy:

Bryce Love (Stanford RB)

Let’s start with his season stats. The Cardinal running back is averaging 10.3 (!) yards per carry and is on pace for a 2,000 yard and 18 touchdown season:

Love is just nasty on the ground. He’s a burner with next-level speed and the ability to blaze through holes. He ran for 263 and 301 yards in back-to-back games. Those are video game numbers.

Most of Love’s game film is him showing patience, following great blocks, and then bursting for big gains. At 5’10”, 196, he’s not going to break a ton of tackles, but you’ll see him easily shrug off arm tackles with his downhill speed. He won’t jump cut like an elite NFL runner, but he’s quick enough laterally to take the ball outside for big gains.

Love’s offensive line is one of the best in the country. There’s a reason Stanford has sent 10 O-linemen and tight ends to the NFL in the past five drafts.

Stanford is always a disciplined and focused pro-style team in a conference that features a smattering of spread offenses. I’m not surprised when I see clips like this:

Love’s main weakness is that he’s basically nonexistent in the passing game. He has four catches for 19 yards this season. He also doesn’t feature in the return game, which is Cameron Scarlett’s territory. His skill-set is narrow in that regard, but he absolutely excels at the one thing he’s asked to do.

I don’t know what his NFL draft stock looks like, but Love would be a 100% perfect fit as a scat back in the New England Patriots’ system.

Saquon Barkley

His pure numbers are not as flashy as Love’s:

Barkley doesn’t have nearly as many carries as his Stanford counterpart for two reasons:

PSU has only played six games (no duh)

The Lions have killed every opponent except for one. Barkley ran it 28 times in the comeback win against Iowa.

I don’t know how many times he carries it tomorrow night. Michigan’s run defense is excellent, which means he might have to do more damage in the passing game, like he did in last year’s game (5 grabs for 77 yards).

Let’s start there.

Barkley has incredible hands and has put up some receiver-like numbers as a running back. His route-running is excellent. He went for 94 yards in the Iowa win and ripped off gains of 46 and 36 against Pitt and Indiana. He also returns kicks and took one 98 yards to the house against Indiana. Compared with Love, he’s obviously the more versatile player when it comes to all-purpose yardage, which I think carries more value overall, especially when viewing him as an NFL prospect. For that reason alone, his overall touches eclipse Love’s, even with one fewer game played.

Specifically, Barkley is so good at cutting, stopping, and restarting. His side-to-side movement and balance are second to none and he compiles more highlight-reel clips than anyone else. Those things go a long way in the optics department for casual fans who don’t watch a ton of college football (i.e. most NFL fans on the eastern seaboard). He’s got 30 pounds on Love, so you’d think Barkley might not be as shifty, but I don’t think that’s the case at all.

Barkley’s offensive line is not as good as Love’s. He’s not going to get gaping holes to run through. While that limits his yardage and his overall statistical numbers, you do get to see more of those Barry Sanders-esque evasive movements.

I also don’t know if Barkley has “elite” speed, but it’s not like he’s lacking in that department.

  Two more things to consider

It’s probably going to come down to these two guys for the Heisman race if they continue to play at their current levels.

These intangibles might come into play:

Strength of schedule: I think they’re almost identical. Penn State played cupcakes early but won at Iowa. They host Michigan before going to Ohio State and Michigan State in consecutive weeks. If the Lions run that gauntlet unscathed, Barkley wins the trophy. He’d just be padding his stats at home against Rutgers and Nebraska before the season finale at Maryland. I don’t think it even matters what happens in the Big 10 title game if they get there. For what it’s worth, Barkley had 100 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns against Wisconsin last year.

Stanford doesn’t have it easy though. They had a nice win at #20 Utah but lost at USC and San Diego State (they’re good this year). Love still has to run it against three top-15 teams in Washington, Washington State, and Notre Dame. Stanford might be 7-5 or 8-4 at the end of the year, which might make it tough to keep Love in the conversation. Penn State probably goes 11-1 or 10-2 because I just don’t see how they can get it done at OSU and MSU in back-to-back weeks. I still think Barkley can win the trophy even if the Lions hit a bump or two in the road. Love has less wiggle room in this area.

East coast bias: Fewer people see Pac-12 games because they’re in bed or out doing something else on Saturday night. Stanford’s upcoming national TV game against Washington doesn’t even start until 10:30 eastern. Barkley has more eyeballs on him because he gets those east coast noon and primetime games. It’s a really underrated topic. Think about Chip Kelly drafting all of those Oregon players for the Eagles. How many of those guys were you really familiar with?

I think Barkley is the better player overall, but don’t sleep on Love, who puts up ridiculous numbers behind a greatoffensive line. If the Lions slip up in these next two weeks, knee-jerk America might start to sour on Saquon as we get closer to the December 10th Heisman ceremony.

Both players are incredible talents, but it should be clear to anyone who watches the film that Barkley is the superior player.

Saquon Barkley will go really high in the draft #PennState http://pic.twitter.com/In9QAWjSE3

— John Middlekauff (@JohnMiddlekauff) October 18, 2017

The Heisman Race Is Saquon Barkley vs. One Other Guy published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv