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#now that i think ab it they are getting more and more boring every gen ;(
emmet-appreciation · 3 years
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welp.
brain is empty only gear station remains
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omgficrecsplease · 6 years
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omgcp fanfic starter pack!
hi y’all! we here at omgficrecsplease have put together a quick, little check please! fanfic starter pack! all fics are sorted by pairings and we hope you enjoy! and be sure to check out all the recs we have posted here! have a wonderful day y’all! :D
Jack/Bitty
A Little Bit Closer by marswithghosts
E | 107,963 | Summary: Eric Bittle's To-Do List:
1.) Frame Masters in Library and Information Science diploma and send to Mama, because she never understood the lack of sleep and abuse of caffeine, but she sent cookbooks and money for good chocolate, bless her. 2.) Throw away every last highlighted article, graded paper, and syllabus, because they are no longer needed, thank the sweet Lord. 3.) Promote the library's new periodic reading series, because it wasn't the capstone project for nothing. 4.) Harass Boston Bruins star Jack Zimmermann into taking a picture for @BPLWestEnd to promote the reading of his new children's book, Jacky's Bad Days. 5.) Do not ogle Boston Bruins star Jack Zimmermann's ass. 6.) Fail step five. Repeatedly.
Ice Crew Please! by rosepetals42  
T | 61,433 | Summary: Jack Zimmermann was drafted first by the Providence Falconers when he was eighteen years old. He is good at hockey. Very good. His team won the Cup his second year and now, in his third year, they are looking good. Jack should be on top of the world. And some days, he manages to convince himself he is.He’s not, of course.
Enter the Ice Crew.
AKA: The Ice Crew AU
maybe i'm waking up by idrilka
M | 157,904 | Summary: It’s almost funny. All he ever wanted was to play hockey, to play in the NHL, to win the Cup. This—Samwell, the team, the Haus—was supposed to be just a detour, but now it feels more like a destination he failed to realize he’s already reached.
(Or: Jack signs with the Falconers, graduates, and leaves. It's the hardest thing he's ever done. What comes after is even harder.)
self reflection by sinspiration
T | 29,218 | Summary: Bitty is in Annie’s, bent over his textbooks and wondering, not for the first time, why he decided to take French as a language (oh yes, it’s because so many old recipes are written in French, he’s going abroad there to study food history, can’t wait for the summer; half of fall and then winter semester until he goes, but that doesn’t help him now does it), when he hears someone clear their throat. “Excuse me, is this seat taken?” Oh boy. Eric doesn’t even bother lifting up his head. “Sorry, not a girl and not interested.”
Something Like This by emmagrant01
E | 285,748 | Summary: Jack thought his first year in the NHL would be 100% about hockey, but the reality is so much more complicated. (AU where the Goodbye for the Summer comics didn’t happen, because I had already written 80K words of this. But just because it’s canon doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy long, angsty, get-together stories, amirite?)
Alternate summary, courtesy of Dracavia: What if Bad Bob didn't say anything at graduation?
Nursey/Dex
a service i can render by miastree
T | 73,484 | Summary: (11:48) Hey Bits are you free on Saturday? I want to go and see a movie or something (12:09) damn right im free (12:09) this is america
Dex wonders if the person that keeps ceaselessly texting him at all hours is at all interested in legitimate conversation or if his life is, genuinely, that boring. He keeps replying anyway, because for some reason, the appeal of a clumsy, nosy, ex-hockey-playing ballet dancer that types in all lower case happens to be greater than he first thought.
Standing right outside my door by eleanor_lavish 
M | 5,594 | Summary: “I’ve been doing holidays alone for years, bro. I mean, I spent more holidays at Andover than in New York.”
Dex’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel. He kind of really hates Nursey’s parents right now, even though he’s never met them. He wants to yell at Nursey about this ridiculous chill he has going on, about how it’s fucked up, ask how he’s not just pissed off all the fucking time, but he looks over and Nursey’s eyes are still closed, and he’s curled in on himself in the seat. “Yeah, well. Not this year,” he says firmly.
I Know I Am, But What Are You? by sysrae
E | 19,322 | Summary:  “I need you,” says Dex, “to be my fake date at my family Christmas. Please.”
“Cool,” says Nursey, mouth operating on Chill Autopilot while his higher brain functions come to a screeching halt. “I can do that.”
Bitty/Jack/Kent
touchy subject by applecrumbledore 
E | 49,578 | Summary: Bitty finds a photo booth strip and almost doesn't recognize Jack because he's not sure he's ever seen him grin off-ice before, and his hair is so long it curls around his ears, and he's so, so young. It takes Bitty a few long seconds to realize the boy he's kissing is Kent Parson, with the same backwards cap and everything.
I Watched It Begin Again by jacksbits (fragilehuge)
E | 19,979 | Summary: Kent hits on a stranger at a party. Except the party is at Jack’s house and the stranger is Bitty. It’s not Kent’s smoothest move.
Infinity, Plus One by SummerFrost
E | 75,577 | Summary:  Eric Bittle hoped to find a lot of things at Samwell University, but being caught in the cross-fire between his surly captain, Jack Zimmermann, and his friendly-but-moody alternate captain, Kent Parson, was certainly not one of them.
Ransom/Holster
Five Things Adam Birkholtz Learns in HDFS 332: Healthy Couple Relationships by EllyAvon
T | 6,079 | Summary: HDFS 332: Healthy Couple Relationships is just the night class Holster is taking with Lardo to fulfill one of his core requirements. He doesn't expect it to drastically change his life.
OR: The Weirdest Healthy Relationships PSA Ever.
OR: Wholesome Holsom
In a Different Frame by sunfair
E | 4,853 | Summary: Holster is determined to become somebody's boyfriend. Too bad he's kind of an idiot. He figures it out, though.
someone as good for me as you by astrolesbian
T | 7,056 | Summary: “So tell me,” Justin’s mother says, all business, “is your boy going to propose?”
“What, Jack?” Justin says, and doesn’t really think much of it, because his mother eats up the details of Jack and Bitty and JackandBitty like Holster eats up rom-coms.
His mother sighs, and he can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “No, baby, I meant Adam.”
Shitty/Lardo
Exeunt, Pursued By Heteronormativity by psocoptera
M | 35,786 | Summary: Shitty Knight takes a post-graduation road trip. Four friends, six thousand miles, two tents, several embarrassing photos, a giant rabbit, three cops, and a bear.
Jack/Kent
It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken by garden of succulents (staranise)
E |  33,373 | Summary: Making it through the draft is just the beginning.
Kent and Jack are on different teams at opposite ends of the continent. They're living up to huge expectations. They're not supposed to show pain. And not everything they do to get by is precisely healthy.
Fortunately, they're not totally alone.
right on time by leetlebird
T | 49,428 | Summary: Eric Bittle doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to dating, but even he’s embarrassed for himself when he starts flirting on Tinder with a guy who has a weird cat obsession, abs so perfect they border on trashy, and DL in his profile.
Eric Bittle also hates the office finance guy, Kent Parson, more than is probably healthy to hate one of your coworkers.
These two things are in no way related.
Or, the You’ve Got Mail AU that had to be written.
didn't ask for you by Mizzy
M | 24,702 | Summary: Kent Parson has well over ninety-nine problems. He has a chronic potty mouth, a sneaking suspicion he may be an actual idiot, a narcissistically-named cat with gas issues, too many sisters... the list goes on.
Kent Parson has more than ninety-nine problems and Jack Zimmermann — freshly, resentfully and recently traded to the Las Vegas Aces — is definitely one of them.
Gen
Chime Hours by MarquisdeHockey (SpacePunkStevie) (note: it’s tagged for ships but it’s firmly gen)
M | 54,811 | Summary: Back in Montreal, not long before the draft, Jack had died. But only for a bit.
The witch he'd met there had very kindly saved his life, so he was inclined to forgive him any small oversight. For instance, the lack of instruction manual or, perhaps, the fact that he'd neglected to mention Jack's new psychic powers.
So he kept his head down. Played hockey. Tried to navigate old friends and new teammates. And, occasionally, he'd have to go and stop a death he'd seen coming like he was some sort of conscientious banshee. What he absolutely didn't want to do was to solve any mysteries or delve any deeper into the whole magic... thing.
Series
Best Laid Plans by Euphorion
E | 18,596 | Summary: "Dude," said Holster, his eyes huge, "that's so sad. We gotta get them together."
"This isn't a romcom, Holtzy," Ransom said, patting his arm. "I'm sure that's not what Shitty had in mind."
"Actually," said Shitty, "that's exactly what I had in mind. And I've got a plan."
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wordsinwinters · 6 years
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Then Again, P7  Peter Parker x Reader
Author’s Note: To everyone reading and favoriting this story, thank you! I can’t express how happy I am to see each note and message.
Though I’d love to fumble through my gratitude further, this is a big chapter, so I’ll end my rambles here for now.
Let me know what you think!
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11
Then Again, Part 7:
(Words: 3,059)
I often expect too much, set my sights a little too high. I know this, so I always prepare myself in case nothing goes according to plan.
For example: I had hoped this second annual break-into-the-hotel-pool activity would be easy, that everyone would come willingly, and we would have fun before the tournament tomorrow. Still, I prepared myself for a few bumps. For example, if Peter refused, if the entire thing flopped because everyone was worried about getting enough sleep, or if someone in the hotel caught us and reported it to Mr. Harrington, I was prepared.
Strangely enough, everyone crept out on time and Peter barely hesitated at all. Well, Michelle did force him from the start and headed off his first protest too quickly for him to find another: “Dude, just say you’ve been working out. Nobody’s going to get suspicious because you’re jacked. Even Flash can’t turn that,” she motioned to Peter’s entire body, “into a joke.”
Yet I’m more uneasy now than if everything had gone wrong. I’m not even concerned about getting caught. Mr. Harrington is watching Jurassic Park in his room and checking the hallway at ten-minute intervals and I’m almost certain the hotel staff knows we’re here, but doesn’t care.
Nevertheless, I’m just… anxious.
It might have to do with how the boys are stacked upon one another in the shallow end for Chicken and, given the small area of the pool, injuries are on the table. It might have to do with Flash’s new habit of winking at me and being, in general, maddeningly obnoxious. It might also have to do with the fact that my friends are being abnormally secretive. (I hate to use Flash’s words, but he’s sort of right. It’s the best description. Even once I got back in my room, MJ and Ned kept sending texts - I have no idea who to, though I would guess between them and Peter.)
Admittedly, my nerves might also be connected to Liz, whose face I can see across the water. As our Captain, Michelle thought it would be nice to Facetime her, ask about college, and show her that her pool idea has become a tradition.
Liz’s dorm room is beautiful, from what I can make out. She has calendars and planners neatly pinned up with Christmas lights to outline them. Photos hang from mini clothespins on a string and she even has a little library set up on her windowsill with a porcelain cat-shaped bookend. It’s like a freaking Pinterest photo. I’ve always been somewhat jealous of her, but I know that outside of some old disagreement and my envy for her style and Peter’s (old? current?) crush on her, I am glad she seems happy. Everyone knows how much she’s been going through.
As Abe and Peter pretend to duke it out on Flash and Ned’s shoulders, the light of Liz from Michelle’s phone skips through the ripples, illuminating them just so. I keep zoning out and staring at the pattern. I feel weird staying on the other side of the pool with her there, but I don’t know Liz that well outside of the team and truth be told, she always intimidated me. She just… has things together. Even now. She’s wonderful and precise and good in every way a person can be. I feel minuscule by comparison.
Then again, it might be the overwhelming smell of chlorine that’s getting into my head and putting me off. Plus, all the glints of light swimming across the glass walls - making them reflect further like a hall of mirrors - are beginning to strain my eyes. Part of me just wants to sleep. To climb out from the water, change into some pajamas, and go to bed and forget this.
But I can’t. So I tread water alone in the corner, watching and listening and feeling like an idiot for isolating myself.
Does anyone want you here in the first place?
Stop thinking like that.
I try to listen to Liz’s voice as a distraction. It’s muffled with echo, but it’s audible.
“With my AP scores, a bunch of my gen ed credits are already taken care of. But I want to take my other gen eds seriously. I have Global Ethics, Statistics, and World Journalism on Mondays and Wednesdays, then Into to Biological Chemistry and Public Relations on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
The words bounce from wall to wall, shadowing splashes and voices and little bright doses of laughter from the boys. I close my eyes for three seconds as if to catalog the moment. I have to admit, it’s pretty much perfect.
Then why do I feel so nervous?
In the same way that some days just feel so good, some nights just really, really don’t.
Flash catches my eye. God, here we go. He’s smirking.
“Hey!” he calls. “Y/N, you should join in! Hold on, let me clear you a spot.”
He jerks his body back to make Abe fall from his shoulders, hitting the water with a hard splash.
“There, now you have a place to sit,” Flash says, patting his own shoulders.
Abe stands up, shaking water from his ears before shoving Flash underwater. Ned laughs as Flash comes back up sputtering. Peter, on Ned’s shoulders, has little reaction. Michelle rolls her eyes and turns back to the girls’ conversation.
“It’s more fun watching, trust me.” Watching Peter shirtless, my brain adds.
Stop thinking about him. Despite his smile this morning (it was idiotic of me to think it meant anything significant), Peter has remained pretty cold to me today. Just like everyone else.
Michelle looks back our way again.
“Y/N and I will play,” she decides.
If I had more energy, if I weren’t feeling so despondent, and if it wasn’t her this-is-happening-don’t-argue voice, I might put up a better fight. Instead, I give a quiet defeated groan and make my way over to the shallow end. Most times it’s easier to do as she says.
“Michelle in a chicken fight?” Liz laughs, her voice reverberating on all sides of my head. “I can’t wait to see this.”
“Oh, no,” Michelle answers as she shakes her head. “Y/N is up top. I’m not getting involved in that business.”
I sigh.
“Abe, mind if I fight Flash this round?” I ask.
If I have to do this, I want to be against the one person I wouldn’t mind actually fighting.
“I think I’ll sit this one out,” Abe says. “I’m sick of him. Plus, if he has the chance, I know he’ll piss on me.”
Despite my exhaustion, I can’t help laughing a little. It’s definitely true. But if Abe sits out, there’s no chance that Ned or Peter will team up with Flash.
Flash knows this too. Shrugging, he follows Abe away from the center, saying hello to Liz.
Shit.
I climb onto Michelle’s shoulders, the air making me shiver, my ankles hanging just low enough to stay in the warm water. I stare blankly at the situation. It’s me and Michelle, Peter and Ned. And I’ve barely spoken to them since they all locked me out earlier. I wouldn’t want to disrupt their texting.
I do my best not to tug Michelle’s hair as I steady myself.
Now what?
Everybody else is talking again, Liz included. I’m glad their attention is elsewhere.
Staring at Peter, who’s staring at me, it’s clear neither of us knows what to do. Things have definitely gotten stale and weird between us over the last day, and weirder still over the last few hours. I feel like an idiot. But I’d be a moron to think it’s all because of that stupid hug. Something in our friendship is stuttering, I can feel it faltering and falling away.
Abruptly unstable ground - that’s what it is, I realize, looking at him. And everybody has been able to see it coming but me. How else could Flash see it?
Thinking of all the shitty ways Peter has ignored me today, yesterday, and this past week, I shove him with as much force as I can muster, knowing it’ll be nothing to him anyway.
Peter’s legs are over his head a moment later. If it were a real fall, it would have been instant. The rippling disturbance of the water churns up more chlorine fumes. I can feel a headache germinating at the base of my skull.
“Come on, Peter,” I say while he stands and pushes wet hair out of his eyes. “Don’t pretend to let me win.”
“You caught me off guard,” he says. All of the prior playful attitude he had with Abe is gone. He’s trying - I can actually see him trying - to seem blank.
What is his problem with me?
“No, I didn’t. Don’t lie. Get back up.”
He does. Ned’s expression is unreadable for once. Michelle pats my leg.
Ned and Michelle actually move around this time, both stepping to one side or the other with half steps back and forward. Peter keeps his hands on his knees, looking bored and glancing from MJ to her phone behind us. He won’t even look at me.
It pisses me off.
Michelle rolls one shoulder before lunging forward - a little hint. I shove Peter again, now resenting how stiff his muscles are beneath his stupid skin. And again he falls sideways, though faster this time.
Flash is whooping and making some stupid comment. Liz gives a surprised, “Oh, wow.” Sally and Cindy are talking, but I can’t tell whether it’s to me or someone else. Peter’s splash is echoing too much to hear a lot at the moment.
He stands up. His hands go to his hair. He looks at me and shrugs like Got me again, I guess.
The chlorine scent is hanging heavily over the room now like a pillow being slowly forced into my face. My headache pulses and creeps up behind my ear, beating my bone like a thick drum.
“Peter,” I say, teeth grinding, “this is going to get boring pretty quickly if you keep this up. Push back. Don’t you dare ‘let me win.’ I’m serious.”
My jaw is clenching as I try to pack my anger down into a little box between my ribs. A pressurized numbness climbs up my throat.
Shove it down.
Peter says nothing in reply but mounts Ned’s shoulders again. Ned is looking at Michelle, and though I can’t see her face, I know they’re having a silent conversation.
I nudge Michelle with my heel and she lunges forward again. I shove Peter’s left shoulder as hard as I can. Both shoulders hit the water at the same time. I know that no matter how hard I could ever hit him, it wouldn’t bother him a bit, yet the fact he’s clearly not even trying to play this one game that he was just playing with Flash and Abe is burning and biting at my tongue.
Peter stands lazily as if silently offering a forfeit.
Maybe he wants to get this game over with so he can talk to Liz.
“Get up, Peter,” I say as frustration spreads like fire through the ligaments of my arms. My irritation has reached my hairline.
Last week, I would never have doubted my friendship with Peter. Suddenly, I’m almost certain he wants nothing to do with me anymore. It scares me. A familiar dense pain pools in my lungs, a physical weight knocking my ribs into one another.
How did everything go so wrong so quickly?
Peter doesn’t move. I could kill him.
“Peter! Get up! Fight back, do something! This isn’t funny anymore. Why won’t you just do something?”
At last, he looks me straight in the eye.
“What?” he shoots back. “What do you want me to do?”
He’s angry now too, blatantly. It’s worse than last night. I can see it, a red patch of irritation growing from his chest up to his neck. Neither of us has ever gotten like this. We’re not the kind of people who do. Not with one another, and certainly not in front of other people.
It’s a violently refreshing change: honesty.
“Anything! Stop messing around,” I say. “Just play the fucking game.”
“Maybe I’m sick of it,” he says, his hands open. “This whole stupid idea! I’m not playing anymore.”
What is he talking about? It’s been barely a minute of this game.
“MJ,” I say, “let me down.”
“Alright.”
She jerks back like Flash did to Abe. The water stings through my nostrils and the lining of my lungs. Is this just MJ being MJ or is she angry at me, too? And what about Ned, could he be mad at me?
What have they all been calling and texting each other about?
I wipe water from my face and open my eyes, stinging.
“Come on, Peter, play a game,” I mock, moving closer to him. He just stands there. “Play a game.”
I’ve been playing some sort of game for at least 24 hours now, maybe over a week, maybe even longer. He can too.
Peter doesn’t move a millimeter. I shove him. Nothing. His expression remains blank. He doesn’t fall, he doesn’t budge.
“Peter!”
I shove him again.
Nothing.
Michelle and Ned are creeping out of the water. Their waves are the only sound besides my echoing shout in the whole room. God, this is bad. I know starting some kind of fight isn’t going to increase my chances of leaving D.C. with any friends, but I almost can’t stop myself. I have to do something.
I move closer, face burning with an itch of fury.
“What?” he says.
Michelle and Ned, blurry reflections I can see from the glass wall behind Peter, have grabbed their towels and are walking through the door.
Damn it. Where are they going?
Something is crushing inside my chest. I can feel my eyes brimming with tears.
Shove. Them. Down. I will not angry cry in front of my classmates right now. Absolutely not. Especially not with Flash and Liz here.
My hands start shaking instead as I grapple for a reply.
“Just- just do something, Peter!”
The muscles in his jaw are working and pulsing. I wonder what words he’s chewing - of course, I’ll likely never know because it seems Peter is refusing to tell me anything.
“That’s just it!” he shouts back. “What do you want me to do?!”
That something in my chest is spasming, collapsing.
Peter’s chest is heaving and the red has reached his face. His words are fogging up my already pounding head.
That’s just it. What do you want me to do?
There are too many people here and as I notice their reflections standing over Peter’s shoulders with eyes glued to his face and my back, I realize I’ve just lost them too. In only the span of a couple minutes. The understanding hits me over the head and slices through my gut. I’ve ruined everything with everyone here, not just Peter and Ned and Michelle. They’ve never seen me like this and it’s too late to pretend to reverse it. There’s no way I’ll leave this trip with any friends.
It takes every particle of concentration to not let my emotions get the better of me and cry; especially when I’m still staring at Peter. The brown of his eyes seems darker than I’ve ever seen before and his brow is knotted up, hard.
The moment is so still and static.
Without warning, Peter smacks the water in front of me with one hand. It’s like a lukewarm tidal wave washing over my head, tangling my hair across my face.
My nose and lungs burn again. I gasped at the wrong second. In less than a moment though, it’s doused my nerves. I suddenly feel smaller than a child, humiliated.
“Are you kidding?”
I don’t know if he or anyone hears me. The question was quiet and overcome by countless echoing splashes. It’s for the best: nobody can see my chin shaking at this distance so maybe if they didn’t hear the crack in my voice, I can pull myself together.
Guilt and regret seep into my skin as Peter climbs out of the pool. I want to apologize, but apologize for what? And fear, fear is mixing with those other emotions. A mountain of blurred emotions coated in black dread and red fear.
I take a breath and turn around.
Fuck.
Cindy, Sally, Abe, and Flash are just… staring. Worse, Liz is too. Of course, Michelle forgets her phone this one time.
The door closes with a bang behind Peter.
His towel is slung over one shoulder and water droplets spatter across the hallway floor as he storms through it. If I could get over him, if I could stop thinking about him for one day, stop thinking about him for one minute, my heart rate wouldn’t be leaping off the charts as I watch him. Actually, my heart rate might just be a result of me realizing how serious this is. The fact that four faces are still staring, now waiting for me to explode, likely doesn’t help slow it down either.
“Guys,” Liz’s voice calls. “Come on. Don’t make this weird.”
Flash laughs. Hard.
“It’s super weird completely on its own! Man, what was that?”
Tension loosening its hold on the room, Flash is back to himself, looking astonished and amused beyond belief.
“Flash, seriously. Let it be,” Liz snaps at him. When she looks at me, her expression softens. “Don’t let Peter Parker get in your head. He can… be like that sometimes. He might just be going through something.”
I know what he’s like, I think. I’ve been friends with him for longer than one Homecoming date. Liz is trying, at least, and I do appreciate the thought.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding.
She mirrors the motion.
“I should go before my roommate gets back to study. And Y/N, if you ever want to talk, I’d like to hear from you again. From any of you guys. Anyway, good luck everyone! I’m sure tomorrow will be great.”
The room dissolves into Goodbye!’s. I use the distraction to get my towel and phone and slip out.
What have I done?
Part 8
Next Update: Friday, October 20
I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I’d love to hear from you!
Also - if you want to be added to the tag list, reply to this post or send me a message.
And I apologize for the typos I’m sure were in this part. I didn’t have much time to proofread. 
@allyouhadstodowasstay @profmmcgonagall @peterparkerismybeing @look-how-far-i-come @i-love-superhero
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alluringoneirataxia · 3 years
Text
About Me
Astoria Cathryn Andromeda
I am 19 years old. I had blonde hair for my whole life until last month when I dyed it dark brown with blue underneath. I am an electrical engineering student. I had an internship at NASA Ames Research Center last summer. I work on my university's small satellite research lab, mainly on electrical hardware. I think calculus is fun as long as I'm not confused. I hate coding, no matter how useful it is, I hate programming. I like skateboarding with my friends in random parks, making a fool of myself, reading books, being a whore for attention, being a whore for the trope enemies to lovers in literally any form. I like swimming in the ocean until a fish touches me. I love my fraternity, it's a co-ed professional engineering fraternity. Dogs are pretty fantastic, I think cats are too but I am much more allergic to cats than I am dogs even though I have lived with at least two dogs since I am home from the hospital. I like cats, but my body doesn't. Technically my body doesn't like anything furry, or anything outside, or gluten. I always say natural selection should have taken me if modern technology wasn't a thing. I hate overhead lights, especially white ones. I am always in low lighting. I love the sun, I love summer and swimming, and I wish I could get tan, but I just burn. For Christmas, my mom is buying me a piece of land in the Highlands in Scottland, so I can protect it from being commercialized and I get the title Lady. My mom's maiden name is Scottish, so there's that, but also I feel very strongly about the environment. I hate it when they start to build new stuff. I think the human race should end with Gen Z, jokes. I really love the smell of books, but I prefer reading stuff on my phone or kindle which is super backward I think. I really only eat salad, chicken, cliff bars, and gluten pasta with nothing on it. My car's name is Djibouti, named after the capital city, not the country to be specific. I love her, she has front pinchers very badass for a Toyota. I really hate the Christmas season like in general. I especially hate Christmas music, or the number of covers, and how long they play it on the radio. I mean I like getting gifts, but everyone is very joyful and lovey and it's sickening to me. Idk be a good person all year, and stop being sickly fake sweet right now. Yes I know I'm a grinch. I like Halloween and Thanksgiving. I just think Christmas is overhyped, and I've been over it since I was 12 so sorry. I mean I still think Micheal Bubble is a fine guy, I just don't like the season in general. I prefer big dogs over little dogs. I really have always wanted a little black cat and name it Harley, but I am quite allergic. The protein in the cat's salvia is what most people are allergic to, and there are certain breeds that produce less of it, and female cats produce less, and lighter colored lights produce less, but that pretty much destroys my dream of having a little black cat. I don't know where that came from, but I've always that it was dope. I am from suburbia of America, and I went to crazy shit competitive high school, so I thought I was average intelligence until college and I found out I am slightly below average. Like 70 people went to ivy leagues, my class. I hate the two-party system in America, I think it literally reserves any progress this country could have made. I think like every white guy in your history textbook gloried. Like Trump said he's done more for African-Americans than Abe Lincoln did, and let me tell you that asshole literally only freed the slaves in the states that were rebelling. There were still slaves in like the in the middle area, and he also was responsible for the largest mass hanging in American history, and guess who it was. Some Sioux tribe Native Americans and they did it to them on their own fucking land. If you think Thomas Edison is cool, well I am about to ruin it, he was a fraud and a snake. All he did was be big charm big business man and steal patents and pay people to make stuff. My dude, Nikola Tesla though, you can trust him, he's real. He didn't get any money for all the scientific discoveries, because they were stolen, or he literally just didn't care. He was just in it for the science, man and that's respectable. I really like music. I really like a lot of different kinds of music. My spotify be popping, but for only me specifically and my very specific music taste. There are two people in this world that share 70% music taste with me. If you know who Usui is, um that's my dream man email me so we can simp. legally I do not drink alcohol or smoke oui'd or do psychedelics. legally in this written statement. I do not. Um I can't think of anything else, but I'm sure I'll come back and add more. I hope this was not your stereotypical bio. Making bios are boring as shit. Oh I love Rick & Morty. Love Get Switfy, Existence is Pain, definitely Pickle Rick, and that fucked up dragon one. Hilarious literally peak humor. I like Futurama too, and New Girl. I used to be fucking ripped as shit when I as gymnast, and then I switched to swimming and weight lifted and I was still ripped as shit but like in a more long way, and then I stopped swimming when I went to college and I lost 23 pounds of muscle. So yeah that interesting, I was like wow didn't know I could weigh this little, and then my legs will hurts when I walk up the stairs and I'm like woooooow you are weaaaaaaak, you used to swim for like 5 miles straight and do flips the fuck. But I don't care enough to work out again. I don't like to do it by myself. I was on my university club swim team for like a hot second, but the practice was at 9pm and I got cold waiting o the bus after so I stopped lol. Things I recommend:
niche youtube documentaries
pdfdrive.com
bookbub
excel is fun like if you just do it for fun like for you lmao
Things I don't recommend:
skipping your programming class before a pop quiz on Friday
sitting in this hunched position I'm in my back hurts
thinking too much or too little: they both hurt
taking things for granted: I do this a lot😕
"Tu ne me manques pas"
Bis später,
Astoria.
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omgallthecoolgirls · 5 years
Text
If you’re like most teens, you get tired of seeing a lot of the same boring stuff. No matter where you go, it seems like all of the mall stores are just carrying the same thing. So where will teens go for fresh style inspiration in 2019? Here are the top stores trending right now.
Where to Shop for the Best Teen Clothing
We all know that clothing trends change rapidly, and so do buying trends such as what to spend your money on and which stores to shop in. A lot of teens still like to shop at brick and mortar stores but less so in malls. When it comes to online shopping, a lot of teens still prefer budget stores like Forever21, Brandy Melville, H&M, ASOS and overseas fast fashion websites like PRETTY LITTLE THING, Romwe, and Shein.
How do teens stay on top of the trends? Many get inspiration from their favorite influencers and celebrities on Instagram. In the upcoming year, we are going to see a lot more sophisticated fashion options as well as a lot of vintage favorites Gen X-ers loved in the 90s. This season, for example, Doc Martin boots are all the rage. According to Google Trends for teen fashion, the top 20 stores and styles that are dominating right now are Romwe, Supreme, Tommy Hilfiger, Hot Topic, Asos, Express, Champion, vintage clothing, TopShop, Garage, Abercrombie, Pacsun and Urban Outfitters.
  Trendy teen store, ‘Teen Hearts’
Trendy Teen Shopping in 2019
In 2019, more obscure and less mainstream stores online like Teen Hearts and Missguided will be key players in trendy teen fashion. And if you thought malls were dead now, malls will definitely be less popular in the upcoming year (what are we going to do with all of these giant, empty buildings??). Teens will shop online more with more of the cheap teen clothing sites and virtual mall apps such as Dote.
Teen and even tweens are following styles that are all their own. From boho girl to edgy glam and 90s grunge. Dresses are still wardrobe essentials, and no teen closet is complete without a high waisted short or “mom jeans.” Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister, Levis, American Eagle and Urban Outfitters are doing really nice styles for the high waist jean. We will be seeing more low rise jeans in the upcoming year, however.
  Read: What Stylish Teens and Tween are Actually Wearing
Teen Fashion Trends for 2019
To keep it classic, and true to their own personality, a lot of teens like to mix it up and wear what’s comfortable. In 2016-18 we saw a lot of basics in the vein of Brandy Melville and American Eagle, but that isn’t going to be the case in 2019. I see a lot more bright colors, edgy styles, bold prints, and cargo pants emerging.  Think: Britney Spears meets Gwen Stefani in the aughts.
  In 2004, Gwen Stefani and Britney Spears were the fashion icons to follow. There was rarely a moment when these two weren’t showing off their chiseled abs in low slung pants and ultra crop tops. (I’m really digging Gwen’s rhinestone-studded polo top)
Many teens are already opting for everyday basics mixed with street styles. In 2019, we will see even more of the early to mid-2000’s fashion influencers. Neutral tones and sportswear, mixed with a pop of color jacket or footwear.  A lot of tops are still cropped, but we will see a decline in the trend of high waist styles, replaced by lower slung pant styles.
Trendy Cutouts
The sexiest, most wearable trend to come out of Fashion Week for Spring 2019 was what I like to refer to as the 70s hip cutout. It showed up on everything from dresses, tops to jumpers, jackets, and bodysuits. Some designers went for the symmetrical look, but there were plenty of styles shown that will indicate this could be a pretty hot trend for teens in 2019 for Prom.
  Denim Trends
Denim will do a lot of things in 2019, to include acid washes and light stone washes in the early part of Spring-Summer. There’s no denying that denim is a wardrobe essential that is seasonless. At the recent runway show, designers went back to what felt like 1998. Looks included matching denim separates, acid-wash jumpsuits, funky skirts and pale blue stone washes. Keep a lookout on the oversized denim vest for spring.
Tye Died Tees
Yes, the ever-loved in (and then out again) tie-dyed tee will definitely be a thing in 2019. The hip trend from the 1960s just wants to live. It came back in the 80s, the 90s, pretty much skipped the last 15 years or so of the 2000’s and now, it’s back again.
  Teen Hearts
  Many fashion-forward brands like ASOS and TopShop are already following the Spring 2019 trends and starting early with exclusives.
    More Reading: Top Teen Plus Size Clothing Brands GenZ’s Favorite Clothing Stores
  searchalot.com
shop here for trendy teen clothing:
1. https://www.prettylittlething.us/shop-by/teen.html
2. https://shop.nordstrom.com/sr/teen-clothing
3. https://www.macys.com/shop/b/teen-clothing?id=72474
4. https://www.dillards.com/c/teen-clothing
5. https://www.amazon.com/Juniors-Clothing
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6. https://www.zumiez.com/catalogsearch/result/index/?d=2446&q=teen+clothing
7. https://www.zumiez.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=teen+clothing
8. https://www.zumiez.com/catalogsearch/result/?d=4043&q=teen+clothing
9. https://www.aeropostale.com/women-teen-girls/clothing/
Stay ahead of the style curve with must-have teen clothing of the  season. We’ve got you covered with the freshest designs for every  style—from boho girl to edgy glam—from all your favorite brands.
Dresses  are wardrobe essentials. Look for everyday styles in fun and flattering  silhouettes in bright colors and bold prints from Jessica Simpson and  XOXO. More of a jeans & tees kind of girl? Snag stylish tops from sweaters and knits to blouses and shirts Bar III and GUESS. Pair with your fave bottoms: skirts, shorts or leggings . And don’t forget to fill your closet with the latest washes and fits in jeans from Levi’s and Celebrity Pink Jeans.
Round  out your wardrobe with the warmest toppers. Check out jackets and coats  in lightweight designs for cool temps and heavier styles for winter.  Take the guesswork out of getting dressed with your favorite one-piece: jumpsuits and rompers from Material Girl and American Rag. And before you hit the short, stock up on
Best Stores for Trendy Teen Clothing 2019 If you're like most teens, you get tired of seeing a lot of the same boring stuff.
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digital-strategy · 5 years
Link
https://ift.tt/2q1lq3i
How BuzzFeed is using automation processes to ensure that every piece of content has a fair chance of reaching its target audiences.
How are AI and automation used at BuzzFeed to inform publishing decisions across their many, many pages? At a meeting with the GEN Study Tour group in New York City, Gilad Lotan, VP head of data science at BuzzFeed, let us take a peek at some of their internal dashboards, learn about their AB testing process, and find out how to stop a chili dog recipe from getting automatically posted on BuzzFeed Animals.
Data to drive decisions
BuzzFeed has invested a lot in what they call distributed platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Youtube, and Pinterest. The publisher has 300m subscribers on YouTube, over 100 Facebook pages, and BuzzFeed.com enjoys 200m+ monthly unique visitors.
These different platforms are not only used to drive content views, but seen as places to experiment and from which to apply learnings to other platforms.
‘This only works if you really collect data about audiences right? So what we’ve built is this this state of the art collection pipeline and tech. We’ve really invested in the tech internally which helps us basically understand every piece of content that we publish anywhere on an off site: what is happening with it, how people are engaging with it, and how [consumption] is changing over time in different slices of whatever data is available’, said Lotan.
This data is then used internally to make decisions and ensure that every piece of content is given a fair opportunity to reach the right audience.
Humans learn from dashboards
BuzzFeed has a number of internal dashboards that consume the data collected from their pipeline.
One of the simpler ones is called El Dashboard. It lets anyone at BuzzFeed see performance measures for content posted on all platforms, including items that have been adapted and republished. For example, El Dashboard can track a video that has been created for BuzzFeed’s food vertical Tasty, as well as its modified version which features on a YouTube compilation video. The viewer can then have access to and compare the performance measures for both. This helps the team understand the core components of the content: where it was promoted, where it was published, and what the audience reaction was.
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El Dashboard
Dashbird is a more visual and opinionated dashboard, which calculates a metric called social lift. This is a ratio between viral views (views outside of BuzzFeed’s promotion and control) and seed views (views from BuzzFeed’s own promotion on their site and on social networks). Dashbird allows the viewer to see when content was published and on what pages, helping them analyse what works and if benchmarks are being met.
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Dashbird
‘Everyone can access this in the company. Everyone has access to all the performers measures, which I think is really powerful. I know some media companies don’t want their writers to know, but I think it’s important to understand what the audiences are reacting to. And this is so ingrained in the culture here’, said Gilad.
Automation, automation, automation
BuzzFeed has a set of machine learning based models to help guide the publishing process across their many, many pages.
1. Reuse, translate, recycle
‘We think a lot about adapting content internationally: how do we identify content that is likely to perform well if we were to translate it?’, said Lotan.
BuzzFeed has collected a lot of historical data over the years. Using heuristics and logistic regression, the model they have built can predict the type of article that might do well in other languages. For example, if the team were trying to identify what kind of content to adapt from the English-speaking to the Portuguese market, the model would go through data, including performance split by country, all historical articles, and all articles that have been translated from English to Portuguese in the past, and a ‘hotness score’ would be generated based on the output of the logistic regression. The higher the hotness score, the more likely it is that the article will be a success.
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Hotness scores
A slack pager bot then notifies editors of any recommendations. And then it’s up to the editors to choose whether to go ahead or not.
2. Automating survival of the fittest
AB testing is another practice that requires a bit of automation at BuzzFeed. An AB testing tool is built into their CMS (content management system) and in any article, writers can choose if they want to test any combination of titles and images. The results of the test are then sent to Slack where writers can see which headlines and images work well and which don’t.
3. Machines learning from human behaviour
Feed ranker is an internal service which leverages machine learning to rank and feature BuzzFeed’s most engaging content on their homefeed.
A multi arm bandit algorithm takes all the new content that’s being published and then tries it out on prominent places for a certain period of time. It learns about performance and how people engage with the content, including clicks, time spent on an article, completion rate, and shares. Based on what the algorithm learns, it adapts the placement of the content on the homefeed.
‘It’s very dynamic and reinforced by the actual audience’, said Lotan.
4. Automated cooking inspiration
Word2vec leverages neural networks to understand word associations. BuzzFeed has created a variant called recipe2vec, which is used for BuzzFeed’s food vertical Tasty to add ‘related recipes’ to a recipe page.
Recipe2vec is an internal system that surfaces similar recipes by learning vectorized representations for words in a corpus of recipes. It doesn’t just put recipes together that use the same ingredients, but ones that have similar preparation methods or flavour profiles.
For example, rather than grouping all pork based meals together, the related recipes links on the Garlic Herb-stuffed Pork Chops recipe page might also include Fajita stuffed chicken!
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5. Neural networks for publishing decisions
BuzzFeed’s internal tool Social Mission Control automatically determines on to which Facebook page specific content should be posted in order to promote it.
‘Some of these pages are really massive with millions and millions of followers, so we use a variety of historical data to inform these decisions’, said Lotan.
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How does this automated curation work?
BuzzFeed uses a bag of words classifier, which groups together similar words. (Classifiers in a neural network group things together by shared characteristics).
Once classifiers are trained with words on all topics covered by BuzzFeed, they can start identifying places on the different pages where there’s an opportunity to promote certain content. It is then up to the human editor to accept or reject the recommendation. If BuzzFeed doesn’t have anyone in charge of curating a certain page or the page is less important, this process is fully automated.
Relevance and republishing
BuzzFeed is continuing to add more ‘state of the art technology’ to these publishing systems, to make them as effective as possible. One example is optimising relevancy. On BuzzFeed Animals, for example, you’re likely to come across the words ‘dog’ and ’adorable’ far more than once, so articles containing these words can be automatically matched to this page. But how can they make sure that an edible chili dog doesn’t find itself among all the adorable, fluffy dogs? Neural networks are trained to understand not only the words but their relationship to each other. The words in the chili dog recipe wouldn’t be associated with the words in the piece about the animal, meaning the relevancy score would be low, and the chilli dog would stay well away.
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Recommendations for evergreen content are also automated so if editors need to publish fully baked content right now, they have quick access to relevant stories.
‘Reusing and adding multipliers to our content gives BuzzFeed a big advantage in participating in this multi-platform ecosystem. We’ve seen some promising results. For some first pages where the process was fully automated, we’ve seen as good results, if not slightly better’, said Lotan.
‘We’ve seen growth in the number of items that are published across these pages. And so we’re more effectively distributing our content to the right audiences this way. Many times, this content is just forgotten, because we have so many items published per day. When you have many places where you can publish these items, these tools become really impactful in action’.
At the end of the day, human creators still have full control and can overwrite the decisions made by the machine, said Lotan. According to him, the humans working at BuzzFeed don’t feel like the machines are taking over their jobs, but the tools are taking away the most boring bits, giving them more time to strategise.
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Gilad Lotan is the VP head of data at BuzzFeed. He’s also adjunct professor at NYU. Prior to this, he worked at betwaworks, Microsoft among others.
via Medium
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smoothshift · 6 years
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2000 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am - My Ownership Experience via /r/cars
2000 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am - My Ownership Experience
Hello all, I’m bored and home sick right now so I decided to write a review of my ownership of my 2000 Trans Am. A little background on the 4th gen F body real quick. The 4th generation Firebird and camaro began in 1993. You could have the 160 HP 3.4L V6 or the 275 HP LT1 V8. V8 manuals featured the new T56 6 speed transmission. The F bodies were face lifted in 1998, along with new power train options. The 3800 V6, or the legendary LS1 V8. This facelifted V8 era F body are highly sought after and have been going up in value. The official HP rating of the LS1 F bodies is 305-325 with 340-350 lb-ft of torque, but dyno tests on stock vehicles show them making as little as 290 HP to the wheels, indicating that the factory rating is under-rated, most likely to prevent drawing sales away from the Corvette (rated 340-350 HP). From 1998 to 1999, the LS1 had EGR and the original style LS1 intake manifold. In 2000, the exhaust manifolds were redesigned to flow better, increasing the power slightly, then in 2001, EGR was eliminated and the LS6 intake manifold was used, maxing out the factory HP ratings. The cars were killed in 2002 due to difficulty in passing safety regulations (from what I’ve heard).
Now into the actual review. My car is a 2000 Trans Am with the T56 manual transmission. I purchased it in June 2016 at 99k miles for $5800 and it currently sits at a hair under 112k. The car is in bright red and has a black interior. Great combination in my opinion.
As soon as I purchased it, I drove it home for the first time with the window down. Not by choice however, but because I lowered the window briefly and the motor decided to crap out then and there. Welcome to late model GM ownership! I was able to get the window back up the next morning by slamming the door several times while holding the switch, then I ordered new Dorman window motors for both sides for just over $30 each. Replacement took about 3 hours the first time, then 45 minutes for the other side once I knew what to do. The OEM motors are riveted in, and you have to drill them out and use nuts and bolts to replace the rivets. After that, I had 2 working window motors again! I then ordered a set of NGK TR55 spark plugs and MSD super conductor wires. I read up on spark plug change beforehand and read of all the horror stories of replacing plug number 8 (back of the passenger side) due to it being underneath the windshield and crammed between the chassis. I personally had no trouble getting to it. Removal of the air injection pipe and the coil packs on top of the valve cover, and a 1 inch extension on my spark plug socket, while crouching on top of the radiator support, made it easy work.
Working on this car is actually very easy. People like to give this car shit for being cramped, but I did not mind it at all. Then again, I grew up learning how to wrench on a Z32 300ZX! Parts are also fairly cheap, I picked up new OEM ACDelco water pump and alternator for about $100 each, and it also ended up needing a power steering pump for less than that. It also needed tires, so I upgraded to some OEWheelsLLC C7 style 17” wheels and put BFGoodrich Gforce comp2 all season 275/40ZR17 tires on. It made a huge difference over the no name 245 tires it had previously. Stock tire size is adequate for the V6, but the LS1 is a little overwhelming for them, and a 275 upgrade is necessary for the V8s. The WS6 did come with 275 in the rear only, but not the Trans Am or Formula. My car has the upgraded “Monsoon” sound system. It sucks. 3/6 speakers are blown and I have to keep the bass on zero just to make it usable. I don’t care though, I have a Borla sound system!
That takes me to the exhaust. The LS1 is entirely different from the original small block chevy and shares maybe 1 bolt with it. It doesn’t have the old school deep grumble glugluglugluglugluglug you expect from a 5.7L American V8. Instead, the even firing order gives it a much more steady, and modern growl that turns into almost a roar as you go through the RPM. I’ve never heard stock exhaust on this car, so I can’t comment on that, but I’m talking about how it sounds with my rather aggressive Borla. It is only a catback, it has stock headers and cats and Y pipe. And honestly, the sound it has now is almost perfect. It’s not too loud but it’s loud enough that it makes you giggle. Any louder and it would be too annoying.
The interior of the car feels like sitting in a fisher-price toy. It’s all hard cheap plastic. The seats are leather but they ripped on mine, hence the seat covers. I find the seats particularly uncomfortable, and usually can’t stand driving the car for more than 30 minutes at a time without needing to get out and stretch. The back of the seat curves towards the back and puts you at a slouching angle. Side bolsters are ok, but they don’t really hold you in too great, I find myself bracing my leg against the sides to keep me in place around fast turns. I think the black interior looks cool, but in any other color it looks ugly and has an inescapable “old car” look.
As far as issues with the car, well I’ve already addressed the window motors, by far the most common issue. Another issue that everyone is always asking about: the headlight motors. Well I hate to disappoint you, but my headlight motors have worked 100% since I got the car and I’ve never even had a single hiccup with them. The T tops leak, as you can imagine. My car has new T top seals but that doesn’t matter, it’s inevitable. They did it when the cars were brand new. If I’m stopped in the rain it will drip on the door a little bit, but it stops once you start moving and the rain doesn’t hit on top of the car. I dealt with a power steering leak that appeared to be coming from the pump, so I replaced the pump and then experienced more leakage a few months later. It began as a single drip every few days, to topping off the fluid every other week, and I finally realized that something may be wrong when I was leaving trails (yes, trails) of power steering fluid everywhere I went. I was topping it off before every drive, and it would be bone dry every time I filled it. It turned out to be a $15 high pressure hose. I replaced that this fall and haven’t had a leak since then.
Now onto the performance. Yes it’s fast. LS1s in a 3400 pound car tend to do that. Now I’m sure we’ve all heard the old “American cars can’t handle!” Well, you’re dead wrong. The only suspension modifications I’ve done apart from the tires were polyurethane sway bar end links, and UMI performance rear control arms to eliminate wheel hop (not really even a handling mod). It can take highway ramps at 55+ mph without breaking a sweat. Now there is some truth to that old saying. I’ve driven my friend’s 2002 Mustang GT and it handles like a sack of potatoes. But the F bodies sit a little lower than the mustangs and have a better suspension setup with SLA strut up front as opposed to the mustang’s modified MacPherson struts, and a 50/50 weight distribution. And with a square stance 275 tires on all 4 corners, it stops on a dime. Now, the brake pedal does take some encouragement, it’s got good bite but there’s a dead zone in the travel where it doesn’t do much. I chalk it up to the rubber hoses flexing, and I think steel braided hose would solve that, as it did on my 1990 Chevy K2500. But if you slam that brake, you’re gonna have seatbelt marks on your chest. I have never been able to engage the ABS on dry pavement.
My overall score for the car is 4.5/5. The only things I don’t like about the car are in the interior. Cheap hard plastic, and slouchy uncomfortable seats. Other than that, it’s a fantastic car and I love it. It’s fast, it’s loud, and it’s definitely a head-turner in that bright red color! I’ve had plenty of men in their 50s-60s give me the thumbs up or ask me if it’s got “the 350” in it. It gets surprisingly very good gas mileage. I get close to, if not, 30 mpg on the PA turnpike. With these aerodynamics, and a 6th gear ratio of .5:1 (~1500 RPM at 70 mph) it makes sense. There’s an unlimited aftermarket to allow you to turn this thing into a street cruiser, dragster, or autocrosser. These cars have so much performance potential for the money.
The car is for sale in NJ if anyone is interested feel free to message me.
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itsworn · 6 years
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A ’69 Charger You’ll Either Love…or Love to Hate
The story of the 1969 Charger that (almost) every Mopar fan loves to hate.
Sacred ground. The automotive world is covered in it. And if you go by naked passion alone, there’s probably no real estate more precious than in Mopar land. There’s a two-by-three-foot patch on the ’68-to-’70 Charger that’s especially cherished, and Troy Gudgel at BBT Fabrications hates it. “I never understood why those lines crisscrossed,” he admits.
If you’re a Mopar freak you know what he’s talking about, and you’re probably tying a noose as we speak. If not, here’s why the lynching.
Each maker had a way to affect the Coke-bottle profile. Dodge’s designers extended the quarter-panel flare forward into a pair of false vents in each door, then it let the arc of the front fenders end just before crossing that flare. Ask people about it—more accurately, simply tell them that it even exists—and you’re likely to find more tolerance in a health-care reform bill, and that’s just a start.
Actually the start of the project is Vic Buraglio. “I had a ’69 Charger when it was new,” Vic begins. White, with green interior. Just like this one. “But it was just a 318 auto,” he’s quick to point out. And the car was special for other reasons. Among them, he and his wife got engaged and married when he had that car. “She gave me her ’64 Tempest and said, ‘I’m driving the Charger!’” he says, laughing.
“I said we could do it but there were some things that I wanted to change that are pretty iconic,” Troy continues. “So I told him, ‘Before I agree to do it 100 percent, I want to make sure you’re good with my ideas.’” Vic remembers hearing them. “I wasn’t too sold on it at first but then we got talking about body lines and everything.” Troy calculated his pitch. “We were working with [designer] Victor Fulton so I was able to show him what I was talking about,” he says. So Vic went for it.
Vic’s plans from the outset called for a perimeter frame, which Troy happily obliged. The Roadster Shop delivered a Fast Track chassis three inches longer in the wheelbase. The length solved another pet peeve. “I wanted to get rid of that big overhang up front,” Troy says. “And moving the front wheels forward did that.”
And that was really just the start. “I also didn’t like how high the ends of the car were,” he continues. “They just hang up there all high with all this space beneath them. So up front he brought the valance forward and down, making it more of a feature of the nose of the car. Pete Fortney did the same in the rear by dropping the quarters behind the wells by a couple inches. “That brings the ends of the car down and it also covers up the spare-tire well and gas tank,” Troy points out.
Troy and Pete also built aluminum bumpers for their respective ends and worked their way towards the center of the car. Now this is the point that may make some of you squeamish: They replaced the door skins with ones fabricated without the lines crossing. “They also don’t have those fake vents anymore,” Troy notes. He notes it somewhat gleefully, to be honest.
“We had to shape the top of the skins to go with the shape of the quarter panels and fenders,” he continues, explaining that they didn’t want to eliminate the car’s waisted, bottle-like profile (now that actually would be tragic). Turns out, reshaping those lines didn’t have profound effect elsewhere in the car. The lower crease in the rear quarter panel remains stock, but they did have to tweak the lower line behind the front well, and that was partly to patch the gap left by moving the wheel opening forward.
But this is more than a pretty face. “One of the other things we agreed upon is a Hemi,” Troy recalls. But the version in the car wasn’t his idea. “We put a Coyote in my last car,” Vic reveals, describing how modern power spoiled him. “It just goes. It doesn’t hesitate. Nobody’s gonna hit you in the ass at the stoplight. It just goes.”
Indy Cylinder Heads gave them a third-gen Hemi mill with a little more go than normal. It started with a 6.1 bottom end which Indy bored and stroked to 426 with a Compstar rotating assembly and Diamond pistons (it’s a 4.09-inch bore and 4.05-inch stroke in case you’re wondering). With otherwise stock 5.7 heads, the compression works out to a very pump-friendly 10.3:1. Dodge did a hell of a job with the SRT8 profile, so Indy kept it.
The result? The hybridized 426 made 499 lb-ft of torque and 451 hp. Now before you write off those numbers, it did peak torque at 4,200 rpm and made more than 400 until 5,700 rpm. And it made at least 400 hp from 4,200 rpm to almost 7,000 rpm (it was near 450 at 6,100 rpm). That’s a ton of power under the curve, which is really the measure of usefulness.
The real reason for Vic’s push for modern was the electronic engine management. Indy dispensed with the factory parts for an induction system made from Hilborn throttle bodies and an ECU from FAST. Paul Schaunmbacher modified a pair of Stainless Works headers made for a Ram pickup. He also made the 2 ½-inch exhaust out of stainless bends. It sports a set of Borla mufflers.
And it was that induction that developed the next part: the hood. Troy built it entirely from scratch and entirely from aluminum. And as you’d imagine, he dispensed with the false vents in it, too.
The reason actually ties in with the scoop. Yes, the Max Wedge thing predates the car, but it has a reason: it accommodates the injector stacks. So at the very least it’s functional, which is more than you can say about the vents that it replaced. Troy made it from scratch, too. Of course in aluminum—he just did it at a slightly smaller scale.
The hood mounts to a custom-fabricated hinge assembly which partly mounts to steel inner fender panels that Troy made. He also did the aluminum control-arm covers, the core-support cover, and the coolant and power-steering-fluid reservoirs embedded in it. Derek Bear painted the engine a dark bronze and everything around it the light gold. BBT shipped the project up to Dutch Boys Hot Rods in Kalamazoo, where it got a PPG DBU finish. “It’s some Audi color,” Troy says.
Clay Mitchem built the floor pans, wheel tubs, and driveshaft tunnel. The crew fabricated the remainder of interior panels from aluminum before delivering everything to Phil Cato at Cato’s Custom Upholstery. Though not obvious, the modifications are quite extensive. They replaced the blown-out stuffed-vinyl sections with heat-formed ABS. They made a panel specifically to fit a set of Dakota Digital VHX gauges.
Phil then dispensed with the seat springs and built up the profile from foam. “[Troy] picked out a few interior colors,” Vic remembered. “He was a little surprised when I told him it had to be green. ‘Green?’ he says. ‘I dunno about green.’” But some persuasion of his own convinced Troy. He laments the inability to find the stock color in leather but the straight green actually makes sense: America’s designers were paying attention to sports-car makers who were using greens like that at the time, just as they were doing the Coke-bottle profile more than a decade earlier.
“When we started talking wheels, I wanted to do something that was kind of period correct for a sixties muscle car,” Troy observes. “But I didn’t feel that there was anything out there that I wanted.”
Except one: “The wheel that kept popping into my head was the Sunburst wheel from the early AC Cobras,” Troy says. The only problem: Sunburst wheels only came in a 15 inch size, and nobody reproduces them. “So I talked [Jesse Greening] into making a set of one-offs,” Troy says.
Jesse made them in three pieces in 19×10 and 19×12. They mount to a set of pin-drive knock-off snouts bolted to the hubs. Diamondback Classics modified a set of 275/35ZR19 and 345/45ZR19 Bridgestone Potenzas to take a gold line.
Advanced Plating applied the nickel to those wheels’ rims, to the roll hoop, to the aluminum bumpers, and to the aluminum splitter bolted to the tail. “The car just needed something back there to balance the car,” Vic observes. Steve Hood created the profile from some inch-thick 3003-series stock, the same material as the bumpers, only thicker.
We’d like to think that some of this car’s biggest critics think a little better of it now, but that’s just fine if you don’t. Nothing good ever came from trying to please everyone. Make a statement and you’re bound to step on some toes.
But the response this car gets says something. People claim that BBT eliminated the thing that defines a ’68-to-’70 Charger: the door detail. Yet you’ll never hear anyone ask what kind of car it is—people still recognize it as a Charger.
So if a car is still recognizable after having its most definitive feature eliminated, is any of the ground around us so sacred after all? We sure hope not—you’d be out of a hobby and we’d be out of a job!
Builder Troy Gudgel found inspiration in Shelby Sunburst wheels. He had Victor Fulton scale them, then Greening Auto Company machine them. They’re pin-driven knock-offs and wear Bridgestone Pontenzas with yellow-wall inserts by Diamondback Classics.
Builder Troy Gudgel found inspiration in Shelby Sunburst wheels. He had Victor Fulton scale them, then Greening Auto Company machine them. They’re pin-driven knock-offs and wear Bridgestone Pontenzas with yellow-wall inserts by Diamondback Classics.
Historically speaking, a Max Wedge scoop is a little out of place. But on a design mash-up, they’re great. And as a means to give the Hilborn stacks clearance, they’re perfect. Troy built the hood without the false vents, another element he dislikes.
Indy Cylinder Heads stepped up with a 6.1L bottom-end that it bored and stroked to 426 cubes, then topped with 5.7 heads. Its 499 lb-ft and 450 hp output seems a touch shy, until you see its Kansas-flat power curve.
Here’s what all the fuss is about: door skins. Oddly enough, Troy and Pete didn’t need to touch the quarters, and the only reason they modified the fenders was to fill the gap opened up by moving the wheels forward.
BBT made the dash almost entirely from ABS and aluminum to mount Dakota Digital VHX gauges. Troy also built the steering-wheel center entirely before sending it to Phil Cato for trimming.
The seats merely look vintage; Phil Cato replaced the springs with several densities of foam chosen and shaped for each part of the seat. Relicate supplied the leather.
Though originally a unit-construction car, the Charger now has its own tubular chassis. Roadster Shop made it three inches longer to move the front wheels forward, which reduced the front overhang—something that many cars can benefit from.
Steve Hood machined the splitter from inch-thick aluminum bar stock. Troy and Pete made the bumpers for their respective ends from the same material, only 1/8-inch thick. They also made the roll pans, albeit from steel and a couple inches deeper than stock.
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