#Also just to balance it - I do know some really awesome History Bros who make for lovely conversation bc they're not hyperfocused on WWII

[breelandwalker]

I think that hits the nail on the head - when Your Average Dudebro talks about Being Interested In History, the general subtext is Literally Just Early 20th Century Warfare And Nothing Else.

Meanwhile we're over here with a stack of brick-sized books on European church shenanigans and court intrigue circa 1400-1700, having Spirited Discussions about the Affair of the Poisons and whether King James I/VI was gay.

Bro, we do not give two airborne shits whether you can cite six different types of artillery stats from the 1930s. Come talk to us when you can extemporize on the War of the Roses.

Why don’t girls like history? No no, I mean like, watching YouTube videos about the Wehrmacht, not actually studying history, that’s stupid and is for girls.

[obeymeluv]

Isnt devildom liquor weaker than human world liquor? Mc had beat Asmo in a drinking contest. How do you think it they'd act, completely hammered in the human world. I think harder liquor means stupider drunks.

Spoiler alert to the in-game MC’s “heritage” reveal. You know, the descendent/reincarnation thing. If you know, you know.

Below: Thoughts on Devildom liquor + the specific incident Nonnie is talking about with Asmo in game + THE ACTUAL ANSWER TO THE ASK. My bad, haha.

My thoughts on Devildom liquor at that point in the game:

The MC is not as affected because they are human/angel. Maybe the angel part fortifies MC and makes it harder for them to get drunk?

Maybe the HUMAN side of MC is what makes it harder for them to get drunk on Devildom liquor? Like...everything in the Devildom is made primarily for demons so maybe there are ingredients in there that specifically affect those with demon blood. Maybe humans don’t have the biology to be inebriated by those ingredients?

I am a little fuzzy on that point in the game but did Asmo pre-game? Like, a lot? Did we ever find out? I could see him being so emotionally distraught that his lovely MC is leaving that he just wants to be sloshed. Maybe he assumed MC beat him in a drinking contest because he forgot how much he already drank?

Maybe Solomon gave MC a heads up that Asmo was down for drinking and gave them a pre-game potion of their own to ward off the affects.

End hypothesis: Maybe Devildom liquor IS strong (for demons) but that potency just can’t translate in human bodies so the bros (Lucifer especially) don’t want MC drinking it because they’re not sure what it will do. They just ASSUME it will do to MC what it does to them.

Other thoughts: Because demons sprinkled little secrets to the humans over the course of history, gave them trinkets and magic and things, I’d like to think they gave humans the idea or process of alcohol-making but are TOTALLY not prepared for the end result. All the flavors, types, etc. 

As far as I understand it (at the point I’m at in the game), travel between the Devildom and human world was widely discouraged until Diavolo could make a program that united the three realms and improved the overall image. So basically everyone has been separated for thousands of years.

What if demons are equally bad at holding human world liquor? I could just see a drunk Asmo being like, “What is this? Sangria? This isn’t what I told them to call it.” as he’s trying to drink and (speed) walk away from Beel, who wants the fruit out of the pitcher.

I could just see them all getting TOTALLY wasted on human world stuff just because they thought “Ahh, we taught them this 5,000 years ago! Of COURSE we can handle it! We invented it!” (spoiler alert: they cannot). Like, I’d like to think their biology works against them here. They heal quicker and probably get over stomach aches and things quicker, so they probably metabolize alcohol quicker to restore bodily equilibrium so they probably get flash-drunk off of just about anything with a decent alcohol content. 

HOW THEY WOULD ACT (AKA: the real question)

The facts: 

They’re all going to be like drunk kittens, big bassy purrs and wanting to cuddle you or scent you. 

They’ll basically curl up in a pile together; you occasionally have to move body parts (so no one suffocates). 

Do a head count every now and then, give them some crackers/carbs when needed, and put water all around them like a summoning circle because when one of them wakes up, all of them will and they’ll act like big babies

Put a bucket near Lucifer and Asmo, they’re sympathy pukers.

Levi and Belphie need total sensory deprivation when they wake up. You may only breach the darkness to bring them things to settle their stomach and anything to kill the headache

Just give Beel bread and anything like Gatorade/Pedialite. He’ll help you with the others after three loaves or so.

Asmo will be especially pitiful and demand you take care of the others first. Once they’re decently able to take care of themselves he’s near teary-eyed, demanding tummy rubs and tell him he’s still pretty even though he feels awful. Please get him a sheet mask.

Mammon’s not functional enough to help with anything major but he’s standing the next day so he rubs that in everyone’s face. He’s the one shuffling around with a half-eaten sandwich, looking for any comfort item (heating pack, cold wrap for his head). He will demon screech at you if you touch any of the lights in the house.

As Mammon comes to, he demands dim lights and acts like a grumpy mom. He’s making porridge and they better shut up and eat it. Says it’s for him but there’s a suspicious amount of bowls nearby.

Satan just swears he’ll never drink again (like always). Dutifully waits for porridge. Spends most of his time letting cold water run over his head. Can’t spend too much time hunched over because he gets nauseous. Baby him a little. Find a way to let his head float in a bit of water where he can lay down and he’s as quiet as a mouse. 

Who can drink the most? (Best to worst - my opinions only)

1) Beel (body mass helps), 2) Mammon (party king), 3) Asmodeus (huuuge history with mixed drinks. Boy is READY), 4) Lucifer, 5) Satan (neck and neck with Lucifer - casual drinker only. Even wine is rare for him), 6) Leviathan, 7) Belphie (usually sleeping instead of drinking). 

Lucifer:

We’ve seen little gags about how ‘Lucifer got drunk and unplugged the router’ so this guy’s either going to be super cuddly, a hot mess, or both

You know the people who fluff their hair, comb it back, undo a tie or some buttons and just get comfy as they drink? That’s Lucifer.

He’ll smile a bit more, laugh a bit more, and there will be some color to his cheeks

He’s not sloppy, just cozy. 

Drunk Lucifer is not overly loud but he is honest. He won’t throw himself into groups or pester all the brothers, but he’s up for some accidentally-heartwarming one-on-one

When he’s drunk he’ll lay his head on your shoulder and let you play with his hair

Will not win any drinking games. Is actually a lightweight compared to his brothers (see best > worst drinker, above).

Mammon:

GO BIG OR GO HOME! MAMMON’S HERE TO PLAY FOR BIG MONEY! (AKA: bragging rights that he can handle more than his brothers)

He and Asmo are quick to get the drinks flowing because they want to try shots of everything. 

He and Asmo are pretty good at matching brothers to drinks and tasting subtle notes, things like that

Show Mammon beer pong once and it’s done. He’s betting the brothers he can whoop them and is somehow able to pull off ping pong ball math to get Lucifer shit-faced real quick (might do it even faster if Belphie or Satan slip him some money)

The type to be like “Bet you I can hit that cup right there--third row, second from the left.” and can do it flawlessly. You have to give him head pats or $5, that’s the rules.

He’ll be one of the bros you have to chase around and make put his clothes back on. Boy will try to strip and strut

Will definitely hoard his favorite bottle (picked it on smell) and spend a majority of the time trying to drink it and avoid the bros. (”YOU CAN’T MAKE ME SHARE IF YOU CAN’T CATCH ME!”)

Leviathan

Not the best drinker. Not a frequent drinker at all.

His envy makes him drink because as he starts to go on a tangent about how ‘it’s not fair! Everyone’s having a good time!’ when he realizes it’s as easy as picking up a drink. Like...he can join in too.

Levi won’t grab himself an alcoholic drink because he’s a nervous over-thinker. Asmo or Mammon will just hand him a cup like the resident Liquor Fairy and he trusts their judgement

The first one to let his demon form out just because the liquor is a little warm in his belly and he feels like he’s flying? Also comfortable?

The excited drunk who goes on animated, slurred rants

The loud laugher

He’s honestly so adorably animated that anyone who knew him would be surprised? He seems far from a shut in

Trade off: he can’t hold his liquor well

Boy probably trips on his own tail or thinks something snagged his ankle to bring him down when, in fact, he just fell down

Sways when he sits

When he’s done, he just wants a nice comfy lap to lay in and maybe play with his hair. 

Like Lucifer, liquor will make him confess all his feelings. 

Watch out for the tail. It will be all over you when he starts to lose the ability to wrap it around himself.

Satan:

It’s a toss-up as to whether he gets drunk before Lucifer or vice versa. I’d like to think his tolerance is slightly higher since he might run in the same circles as Asmo, but he is a part of Lucifer so I’m sure it balances out

He’s a drink snob and this is what hurts him the most. He goes to fancy tastings and random things he’s invited to, but this is a drop in the bucket

He’s never gone hardcore before because he’s afraid he’ll be prone to anger

He’s not. He’s actually a lot like Levi. He just wants to smile and laugh and have fun.

The one who knows a lot of random/interesting stuff and has unexpectedly awesome party tricks

He and Asmo act as instigators and somehow con everyone else into getting drunk. It’s mostly because he wants blackmail material, but he enjoys the mind games

He’s the one you’re going to have to carry BUT he’s super chill when he’s having a good time. You want him to wear a lampshade? Okay, but only if you call him Enlightened One (get it?)

Makes bad jokes. Lucifer definitely laughs

The one that randomly dances with someone at the party. But it’s a fancy dance or slow dance, not something crazy

Will try to prove he’s not as drunk as he is by reading or reciting something and just breaks down into snorts and giggles

Cat Mode: Activated. He wants to be all over you. Hug him and play with his hair, please.

Asmo:

Asmo isn’t really different from his usual self.

He’s a little social butterfly, making his rounds and checking on people

He’s the silent, sneaky drunk. No one notices he’s drunk until his face starts getting red and his eyes get glassy

The quiet cuddler. Just progressively gets closer to you until he’s resting his head on your shoulder, hugging you from the side and asking you to give him his drink.

Would be the happiest person on the planet if you literally just held his drink up to his lips and let him drink it when he wanted to. You just love him so much?! You’re so thoughtful?! He wants to cry

Guilty party #2 for ‘chase him around and make him put his clothes back on’

Next in line for ‘Liquor makes me tell the truth and my darkest secrets’.

Will try any activity at the party and will dance at least once with everybody

If he gets in a fight, that’s because someone doesn’t respect what he put on the party playlist. He knows good music, okay?!

Has a personal goal to steal one drink from everyone, drink it before they realize, and hand them back the empty cup as he slips away. Something about it just amuses him.

Wants to leave lipstick/lip gloss kisses on people. Thinks they’re the cutest accessory!

The one who loses something at the party and makes everyone look for it the next day

The one who’s passed out in a random spot and no one has the heart to move them but everyone checks on them to make sure they’re safe. When everyone’s turned in for the night, he is safely moved like the precious baby he is.

Beel:

The one who takes the longest to get drunk. You don’t know if it’s because of his build or how much he ate to offset the alcohol

Unofficial baby sitter of the group. Pays special attention to everyone but Belphie, Asmo, and Levi in particular.

Not super loud. Just vibes and enjoys time with his family.

He’ll participate in the party activities because he does have that competitive streak but he’s not as invested in it as Mammon. If he wins at least once he’s proved his point and is on to something else

Surprsingly, #3 to ‘you might have to chase him and make him put his clothes on’. Drunk Beel is convinced he’ll get over the alcohol faster with less clothes because of temperature regulation and something that doesn’t really make sense because he’s slurring

Will drink more if Belphie is nearby or if he can hold onto Belphie. Taking care of Belphie and knowing he’s okay (in a tactile way) makes him a little more carefree. 

Doesn’t really confess like the other bros but he’s the one no one can really hear talking because his purr takes over everything. His purrs are so loud and deep! Big boy is truly happy

Drunk Beel is affectionate as ever and this is where you learn that demons can express affection by licking people. Most of the bros end up with a Simba-style mohawk. It’s just one lick but Beel’s got a long tongue and it fucks with hair real good.

Will jump in for a song or two if karaoke is a thing at the party. A really good singer but wouldn’t do it unless he had a decent amount of alcohol in him.

He’s the type to trip over stuff trying to help clean up. If he falls down he says he’s just ‘taking a break’ and will ‘help in a minute’. Might not get up again.

Once Beel lays down, Belphie, Satan, and Levi drunk crawl/stumble/slither over to him for warmth. This is how the cuddle pile starts.

When he lays down, if you get anywhere near him, he’s begging you to lay down with him. Wants to whisper little compliments and lovely things. A big sap. Handsy but will definitely know when to lay off and will listen if you get uncomfortable. 

Belphie:

Honestly, doesn’t really drink. He’s more interested in the nap.

His biggest motivation is to get the others drunk so everyone’s quiet and he can sleep. Definitely wants Lucifer blackmail.

He’ll have a few things but he prefers a lot of something mild versus a mix or a few shots of something super potent

Will try the funnel drink challenge.

The third enticer. He wants to work everyone up (Lucifer especially) and get the booze going.

Borrows off of Beel’s body mass and ability to handle alcohol here and there, but it all catches up with him eventually

The type to have really diluted drinks because he’s already sleepy by nature and doesn’t want to faceplant with a shot glass.

Will slow dance with Asmo. When Asmo starts to struggle with his weight as Belphie gets cozy and sleepy, Beel steps in and you just see the twins purring and warbling to each other as Beel just scoops him up and lets him sit on his hip like a toddler.

Another one who wants to slither into your lap and take all your attention.

The type to do random shit like boop your nose and giggle about it.

The one who doesn’t want anyone else to touch you. If he’s laying on you then the others need to leave you alone. It’s not hard to understand!

[cuddlesslut]

Part Eight: Hope

Atsumu x fem reader , Suna x fem Reader, Hinata x Fem reader

A/N: I’m so sorry it took so long to put out this chapter I’m gunna try to do better on posting faster. I’ve had a lot of stuff happening irl. I love see so many of your write in for the poll 😂 I did not expect Sakusa to pop off! I hope y’all like this chapter. Again it’s still kind of short but I wanted to get it posted. Also you can’t convince me Hinata doesn’t use an all in one cleanser!

Warning: crude language, not much angst, some fluff.

Part Seven: Regrets

Hinata stared at his phone questioning whether he should message you again. It had been four days since you ran out of his apartment. You had yet to respond to any of his texts. As concerned as he is he knows no good will come from spamming you. Although he wants nothing more than for you too talk to him. He was so confused where you both stood. But he was sure of one thing, and that was that things couldn’t go back to the way they were before. He can’t go back to pushing down his feelings and pretending he doesn’t want to be more. That he didn’t want to call you his and show you off to the world. To take you out on dates try new experiences and make memories with you. He can’t keep acting like he doesn’t dream of waking up to you in his arms every morning. He wants to be there with you every step in life and support you no matter what. He wants to show you that you are the most amazing woman he’s ever known. As much as the sex is amazing it’s not worth holding back anymore. He knows you may still not be ready for a relationship and he wouldn’t think about pressuring you into one after how horribly your last ended, he’d gladly wait for you to be ready but he has to be honest with his feelings instead of torturing himself.

The sound of his alarm snapped him out of his daze. Time to get ready for practice, he groaned pulling himself from the comfort of his bed before heading to the shower to start his day. He shuffled in the bathroom hooking up his phone to his Bluetooth speaker starting up with morning playlist beginning his morning routine. He loved jamming in the shower. He turned the water on letting the heat build as he brushed his teeth before climbing into the steaming shower bopping his head to the beat of silhouette by Kana-boon having to refrain himself from attempting to naruto running in the slippery bath. He stood there for a moment enjoying the heat hitting his back and loosening his muscles. Losing himself in the music as he grabbed his three in one, body wash, shampoo and conditioner. He scrubbed his hair and body screaming the lyrics to the next song. “Sawaras nai kimi wa shojo wa na no Boku wa yarichinbitchi no osu da yo !!,” he was jamming out when the song was interrupted by the sound of a notification. He thought nothing of it figuring it was just Bokuto-San. When the chimes continue his curiosity won out as he peeked out passed the curtain still covered in bubbles to see who was spamming his phone. His eyes grew wide as he saw your name lighting up his notifications. He rushed for his phone loosing his balance and slamming the shower wall to keep himself from falling on his ass as he scrambled out still dripping and soapy as he stood in bathroom unlocking his phone.

YN-Chan 🧡: Hey Shoyo

YN-Chan🧡: you’re usually up by now so I thought I’d message you to say I’m soo soo sorry for how I ran out the other day.

YN-Chan🧡: honestly I should have messaged you days ago but I’ve just been dealing with a lot . It’s no excuse but still I’m sorry.

YN-Chan 🧡: look I totally understand if you don’t want talk to me after how I acted but if you do I was hoping we could get together and talk?

Hinata could see the text bubble at the bottom showing she was typing but he wasted no time pulling up the call button needing to here your voice. It rang two times before connecting. His heart clinched hearing your soft hello.

“Hey Sho,” you answered.

“Hey there YN-Chan,” he greeted back.

He could here a sense of nervousness in your tone. “Hey sorry if interrupted anything.” He realized how hard he was breathing from excitement and from nearly dying trying to escape his shower.

“Oh no no, its fine I wasn’t busy,” he feigned nonchalance. There was a beat of silence as you both searched for words.

“Umm you had said you wanted to talk?” He questioned. He was really concerned for why you ran off that day.

“Oh yeah but I’d much rather talk in person, is there anyway we could get together soon I understand if you’re busy,”

“I’m free tonight,” he cursed himself for how desperate he sounded, “uhh do you want to come over tonight?”

You chuckled at his eagerness. “If it’s okay with you maybe we could go out... to like dinner maybe,” his heart froze his mind reeling with excitement you had never gone out before. Always just opting to have food delivered and eating in. He couldn’t help but let his hopes rise.

“I know it’s not what we usually do so I get if you’re uncomfor-”

“I’d love to!” He cuts you off. Not wanting to miss this chance.

“A-awesome um is 7:30 good for you?” You questioned.

“Yep!” He could feeling his heart soaring as the plans started to solidify.

“Great well I’ll message you all of the details later, bye Sho umm I’ll see you tonight.”

“Goodbye YN-Chan, can’t wait!” He heard a small laugh leave your lips before the line disconnected. There is a wide smile spread across his face as leaning against the wall next to him not even upset that his shower water was now starting to run cold.

Hinata’s day was instantly better with thought of seeing you tonight the Idea of having a date with you filled him with joy. Everyone could see the difference in the outside hitter today compared to the last few practices. It’s was like he was in the zone. He was all over the court making the cleanest receives and his spikes were just so on point. It was time for there first water break and stretch. He sat on the bench taking a gulp of water a big smile present on his face when he checks his phone to see a message with a restaurant address. His teammates shared a look at the way the ginger stared at his phone.

“What’s got you so happy Hinata?” Sakusa questioned.

“Yeah Sho you’ve been on fire today plus you won’t stop smiling at your phone!” Bokuto boasted wrapping an arm around his newest teammate.

“That obvious huh?” Hinata grinned. “Well uhh the girl I’ve been talking to wants to go on a date tonight!”

“Oh yeah?” Atsumu smirked “the same girl that’s been marking up yer back recently?” Bokuto and the Setter busted into laughter when Hinata’s faced turned red. Sakusa rolled his eye at the childish behavior.

“Uh haha yeah that’s the one,” he chuckled rubbing the back of his head.

“Well if you’re already fuckin her why are you getting all giddy over a date?” The setter asked

“We’ve actually never been on date before,” Hinata admitted.

“Damn Sho, first date! Why’d you wait so long dude?” Bo wondered.

“Really Hinata-Kun I didn’t take you for the casual sex type,” Sakusa stated

“She’s a friend but I’ve like her pretty much since we met but she’s just not ready for a relationship,” he explains “ she has some bad history but we kept fooling around as friends. I’m so excited cause she asked if I wanted to get dinner so I’m hoping maybe she’s starting to open up to the idea.”

“Ha well good luck then bro,” Bokuto smacked him on the back laughing. The rest of them agreed in the well wishes before the whistle blew signaling the end of their break.

They resumed their intense training. Right now focusing on their serves and some indurance training. The coaches were wearing them out today going over and over drills. Soon enough they were in the locker room showering up a bit and changing as they got ready for their lunch break before they’d have to return to practice. The locker room filled with chatter as they discussed different plays they wanted to work on or where they wanted to grab lunch. There conversation was interrupted when one of the coaching assistants poked their head in.

“Miya-San your fiancé is here to see you, she waiting by the gym entrance.” He stated before turning to leave. All eyes were on the setter when he dropped his phone a look of shock present on his face. His mind was going a mile a minute he was so sure he miss heard the man . There was no way you were here. He stood up rushing to finish getting dressed. There was a pressure in the room he was ignoring some of his teammates sharing a confused look.

“I didn’t know you had a Fiancé Tsumu?” Hinata asked excitedly as the team started following behind the setter.

“That’s because he doesn’t,” Sakusa stated bitterly. Atsumu shot a dirty look back at the wing spiker.

“She left him months ago before you joined the team Shoyo-Kun, she’s are really nice girl though always brought us the best snacks when she’d visit,” Bokuto explained his hungry mind straying as he thought back to her delicious cooking.

“Oh I’m sorry Atsumu,” Hinata apologized.

“Don’t he deserved it,” Sakusa scoffed.

The setter paid no mind to comment there was no point in getting angry with the neat freak he was completely right. It didn’t matter at the moment what mattered was seeing you. He stopped in his tracks when he saw you standing there. You were even more beautiful than he remembered. You were looking at your hands picking at your nails. He could see you were nervous. So was he. What was he supposed to say he knew he owed you an apology and much more but it felt like he couldn’t breath looking at you. You looked up at him your eyes locking. There was a look he couldn’t quite pin point. It wasn’t exactly a look of hated which it was what he expected but it also nothing like the looks of love he used to receive. He didn’t even realize the boys had stopped behind him watching the scene. His eyes only focused on you and nothing else.

That is until he hears a sharp breath from behind him as Hinata called out your name. Bokuto and Sakusa’s eyes snapped to the ginger some confusion present. Atsumu however didn’t look away from you not even when you gaze shifted from the setter to his teammate. This look in your eyes he could distinguish. It was one you used to look at him with. It shattered Atsumu as he realized right then you were the woman Hinata had been talking about. It obvious when he saw a similar look of happiness on Shoyo’s face. It felt like a kick to the gut. An array of emotions swirling through his mind. He was hurt to think you moved on. Disgusted as he thought back to his earlier convo with the man and how they had discussed the scratches on his friends back and now realizing how they were from you. He felt like he was going to puke thinking of his teammate with you in that intimate way. But he knew he had no right to feel this way not after all he put you through so he pushed those emotions deep inside. Returning to the moment.

“Hi Sho,” you gave a small smile as you shuffled nervously in your spot.

“I thought we were getting dinner? We can switched to lunch if you need to tho.” He stated.

Sakusa and Bokutos eyes grew wide finally coming to the same conclusion the setter previously had. Sakusa had to stifle a laugh as Bo muttered “oh shit” under his breath at the awkward situation.

“Um actually Shoyo, I’d still like to get dinner with you. I know this must seem really confusing, and I promise to explain everything tonight, but uhh.. I actually here to see Miya-San.” You explain sheepishly.

Atsumu tried not to flinch at the use of his last name.

You turned to the blonde with a stoic face. “Can we get lunch, we really need to talk.” He nodded not knowing how to use his voice.

You turned back to Hinata with a pleasing look. “I’ll call you later before our date, Sho.” Before turning to leave with Tsumu.

Hinata may be beyond confused right now not yet connecting the dots. But that didn’t matter he couldn’t stop his heart from skipping. Date. It’s a date. He wasn’t overthinking or wishing hopefully. It was an actual date with you! The woman he can’t get out of his mind. And that one little comfort was enough for him to trust the situation as he watched you walk away.

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[linskywords]

Stromecat Primer

This is for the anon who asked for one, which YES I will do this thing. I now have copious notes on these two which have to go somewhere. But also I’m relatively new to the pairing, so if people have corrections or things to add, have at it!

Also it’s super long (haha I might as well just have had you guys read my story draft) so I’m putting it after a cut.

OKAY SO.

Here are our boys:

(Dylan. This is his Wikipedia picture but just look at that face. Could not resist.)

(Alex. What a precious Tolkienian Dwarf.)

Okay. So those are our boys. Let’s have us some TIMELINE.

They start playing together in the fall of 2014, after Dylan goes second overall in the 2013 OHL draft to the Erie Otters and Alex signs with them undrafted the following spring. He did not get drafted because he is short and therefore underestimated. They tear it up that year, along with Connor McDavid, who’s playing on a line with them: Alex gets 104 points in 68 games--pretty great for going undrafted--and Dylan gets a whopping 129 points and wins the OHL scoring title.

So our boys are good! Everyone’s very impressed with Dylan. He’s drafted third overall in 2015, after Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel, and everyone’s very excited about the Stromes as the next big hockey family (older bro Ryan was drafted fifth overall to the Isles in 2011). The future is bright.

Dylan goes to Coyotes 2015 development camp. He goes to training camp. He plays in a couple of preseason games. But they don’t think he’s ready, so they send him back down to Erie. Pretty normal. Nothing to worry about.

2015-2016, Dylan’s the captain. Alex and Dylan play on a line together (without Connor this time) and have another great year where they are playing and also living together. Alex gets 101 points in 60 games and Dylan gets 111 in 56. They have a kind of rough World Juniors in there--Dylan plays for Team Canada and ends up in 6th place, and Alex plays for the U.S. and gets bronze but gets injured early on and only ends up scoring a single goal in the whole tournament. But, you know, good year with Erie. Future still bright.

(Look at this adorable pair. Ignore the facial hair on one of them who shall remain unspecified. Also this is presumably 2017 based on the letters on their jerseys but shhhh.)

However, Alex continues to be underestimated because he is short! He also had a bad World Juniors, so people are worried he might only be situationally good with the Otters. He’s passed over in the first round of the 2016 NHL draft and ends up being drafted 39th, by the Chicago Blackhawks, who have a history of drafted very competent undertall players. Also they didn’t have a first-round pick that year so I like to think they might have taken him either way.

Dylan and Alex both go to their respective 2016 development camps. And training camps. Alex plays in a preseason game with the Hawks but gets sent down--again, normal. Dylan plays the whole preseason with the Yotes and stays up, but they don’t really commit to him. They scratch him a bunch and only put him in for 7 games--this is either the limit of what they can play someone and still send them down to Juniors or close to it--over the course of a month and a half. Finally, on November 20, they send him back down to Erie, after 7 games played and...one point scored.

So at this point Dylan’s probably feeling pretty bad about himself. His former linemate Connor went straight to the NHL and is about to start his Hart-winning season. Dylan’s getting sent down for the second year straight.

But! 2016-2017 is an awesome year for the Otters. Alex is an A. Dylan gets made captain again at some point.* Dylan and Alex are living together again, and they’re playing together, and they freaking tear it up. They lead the Otters to a first-place finish in the O and win the J. Ross Robertson Cup (the highest award in the OHL). The guys on the team like to talk about that as the best night of their lives. They make it to the final game of the Memorial Cup, the championship for the whole CHL (which includes the OHL, the WHL, and the QMJHL), and lose narrowly to the Windsor Spitfires. However, Dylan gets a tournament record for 7 points in a single game, and they both have great seasons overall. Dylan gets 75 points in 35 games, and Alex gets 127 points in 63 games--more than two points per game for each of them--and Alex wins the Red Tilson Trophy for most outstanding player in the OHL. Also Dylan got to captain Canada’s World Juniors team, and many people (including me) were excited that he got that opportunity as a way to balance his failures thus far in the NHL, though Canada lost in a devastating final game against the U.S.

*If anyone knows when Dylan became captain again, let me know -- all I could figure out was sometime before the playoffs.

Here is Dylan with the Robertson Cup:

(Note the blond hair, which is an abomination they all inflicted upon themselves as a means to achieving playoff victory. You know, apparently it worked.)

Summer of 2017, Dylan and Alex go to their NHL development camps and training camps yet again. Everyone’s excited about Alex after the year he just had in the O. Everyone’s a little antsy about Dylan because good Lord it’s been two years since he was drafted third overall and is he ever going to be good enough for the NHL? (This was definitely me.)

Anyway the Hawks keep Alex up and start playing him. 2017-2018 is a rough year for the Hawks but a good one for Alex, and he surpasses all draft expectations and leads the team in goals (28). He also gets a commitment from the Hawks early in the year, in the form of his housing letter, and he gets a dog that spring named Ralph DeBrindog who is a shiba inu with his own Instagram account. Here are Alex and Ralph:

But things are not so happy in Arizona. Dylan gets to stay up past the 2017-2018 preseason but the Coyotes once again do not commit to him (no housing letter for him!). Dylan barely plays with the team before he gets sent down to the Roadrunners, the Coyotes’ AHL affiliate.

He does really well with the Roadrunners, so they bring him back to the NHL in late November (and he gets to play against Alex and the Hawks!). But he doesn’t do great there, so they send him back down for most of the spring, only bringing him up for the last few weeks of the season before sending him back to the AHL for the playoffs.

At this point, the future is looking pretty bleak for Dylan. Too old for Juniors, can’t hack it in the NHL despite his high draft number.  9 points in 21 games with the Coyotes in 2017-2018. People saying he was only good because of his good linemates, which, yeah, Connor and Alex are doing great other places. And sure, lots of people have good linemates and don’t put up numbers like Dylan did, but how else do you explain his failures in Arizona?

So the next season, 2018-2019, Alex is of course still playing with the Hawks. He’s doing even better than he did his rookie year, scoring more consistently. Dylan actually gets to play with the Coyotes, which, woohoo, but he’s putting up terrible numbers: 6 points in 20 games. Theories abound, but the upshot is clear--whatever made Dylan good in Juniors doesn’t translate to the NHL. The Coyotes wasted a draft pick.

BUT.

The Blackhawks evidently don’t think so, because on November 25, 2018, they trade Nick Schmaltz to the Coyotes in exchange for both Brendan Perlini and Dylan Strome. And they put the two of them on a line with Alex. And Dylan starts LIGHTING IT UP. As I write this, he’s at 46 points in 48 games with the Hawks. That’s some elite play there.

And did I mention he and Alex are living together again?

That’s right: apparently Alex was Dylan’s second call when he was traded, right after his parents (you can read more about his experience of the trade here, though you need a subscription). And then Dylan moved into his place.

...I can’t figure out how to embed video, but here is the two of them being adorable in the Road to the Winter Classic. Including Ralph, and also the memorable line, “I want to bodycheck you so bad right now.”

And here they are on the ice:

If that pose is not part of their engagement photos, it should be.

So basically, there are two possible explanations for why Dylan was playing so badly for so long in Arizona:

1) Arizona really sucks. (This should not be ruled out regardless of your opinion on #2.)

2) Dylan and Alex are soulmates and Dylan couldn’t play without him.

To be fair, #2 doesn’t explain why Alex was playing fine in Chicago before Dylan got there. But, you know, maybe he’s just less soulmate dependent than Dylan. Either way, everyone, including the two of them, is talking about the chemistry they have on the ice, and it’s clearly made a big different to Chicago’s season. And they get to play with their best friend again.

(Yes, they’ve both called each other that. It’s adorable.)

Some bonus info:

There is an Otter alum group text! It also includes Taylor & Darren Raddysh, Anthony Cirelli, and Warren Foegele. Dylan says they talk about the OHL championship all the time because it was the best night of their lives.

Dylan became the Otters’ all-time points leader by the end of his OHL career (seriously, makes no sense that he couldn’t play in Arizona, barring soulmate-based explanations)

After Dylan played Alex as a Coyote, he changed his Instagram photo to the two of them facing off.

Alex’s nicknames include Brinksy and the Cat. He’s fine with either but is less fond of Kitty. XD

They are legit eight inches apart. More, if 5′7″ is just Alex’s stats sheet height and not reality.

They are adorable best friends and roommates and linemates and need to be together forever.

And now, some pictures to close it out (starting with the Instagram icon one):

[fanfic-inator795]

RotTMNT Drabble: Match-Up

((From my recently updated drabble series “Moments Under Manhole Covers” whiiiiich I can’t directly link to THANKS TUMBLR, but it’s on AO3 if you want to check it out. Enjoy!))

“Okay, Lou Jitsu VS Jupiter Jim - ah ah, WITH assistance from Atomic Lass!”

“A Two v. One fight, huh?” Leo hummed, leaning back as he crossed his legs. He could understand why someone as bouncy and springing as Mikey would prefer a hammock to sleep in over a bed, but it was still hard to get comfy in it. For a split second, the slider nearly fell right out of it, though was able to place a hand on the wall nearest to him and regain his balance just in time. “Eh, it’s not like Lou Jitsu hasn’t been outnumbered before.”

“I know,” Mikey nodded, eyes still glued to the space on his bedroom wall, “But those were just against grunts. Of course he was gonna take ‘em out! But Jupiter Jim actually knows how to fight, plus he’s got all those sweet gadgets on ‘im! Plus, Atomic Lass can help with long range attacks and try to knock Lou off his game!” With that, he started sorting through his spraypaint cans, looking for the perfect color.

Honestly it was a wonder he had any blank space left in his room at all, but he did. About two feet wide and four feet tall, right between a tag he made a couple of years ago and a mural that, while not as impressive given that he painted it when he was seven, was still too sentimental to just paint over. Still, if anyone could turn a small section of wall into a masterpiece, it was Michelangelo.

Though, if he had been looking back at his brother, he would’ve seen the proud smile on the slider’s face. Mikey had always been a natural when it came to acrobatics and fighting, having a very ‘go with the flow’ style that meshed incredibly well with with the Lou Jitsu style of using your surroundings and turning whatever you could get your hands on into a weapon if just your hands weren’t enough. Unfortunately, being great at fighting in the moment often meant that he was a bit weaker at actually planning attacks and accounting for variables, often looking to his brothers for a new plan when things went wrong and sometimes needing to be told what to do in order to make his next move. So, to hear his younger brother actually thinking about advantages and strategies somewhat definitely brought a smile to Leo’s face.

“So,” Mikey spoke up again, pulling his blue brother out of his thoughts, “Do you think they could beat him?”

“Nah,” Leo shook his head, “Lou knows his way around a fist fight, even with people as skilled as he - or Jim - is. As long as there was no outside interference, he could easily outlast Jim, and probably figure out how to wreck most of his gadgets too.”

Mikey hummed, considering this. “And Atomic Lass?”

“Once he figured out what all her powers were, he could find a way to work around them. Find a way to take away or fight against her hammer, and that solves half your problems right there. He’s also fast enough to dodge her nuclear blasts, and once he knows how to counteract her powers, he could easily own her in a physical fight.”

“Huh, yeah, that makes sense.” Settling on a golden-orange, Mikey began spraying. “Okay, Lou Jitsu VS the Moon-Cyborgs from the 8th Last Trip to the Moon!”

The slider rolled his eyes. “Seriously, dude? No matter what weapons they’ve got, cyborgs are just like high tech mummies or zombies or any other group of grunts. Lou could wipe the floor with them, no problem - and he wouldn’t even need Jupiter Jim’s laser blaster!”

“Alright, smart guy,” Mikey retorted, giving his brother a playful scowl, “Lou Jitsu VS… Big Mama!”

“Oh, so we’re getting into real life match-ups, huh?” Leo had to think a bit on that one, since they’d only met once, so she probably had some abilities that they didn’t know about. But, judging on what they knew- “I think he could take her. Yeah she’s really big and strong and she’s got those suuuuper gross webs, but he’s fast enough to dodge those. I could see her him jumping on top of her and trying to block a few of her eyes, slowing her down and giving him a chance to throw her into her desk or something.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Mikey nodded, “I could totally see him doing that. And with someone like Meatsweats, he could just grab his tenderizing hammer and use it against him!”

“Or trick him into taking the powers of a weak mutant,” Leo smirked.

“Or pretend to be a mutant to get Meatsweats to grab him, so he can get in close, and then POW!”

“Order up! Anyone ask for beaten porkchops with a side of hot soup?” Leo shouted, causing the two of them to fall into a fit of laughter.

Settling down a bit, Mikey turned back to his project, spraying a few lines of color. He looked at it for a moment before adding a few more spots. He then picked up a darker color for some shading. “Yeah, Meatsweats wouldn’t stand a chance. ...Though, Hypno would be a bit harder to beat. Lou doesn’t really have anything to block out his hypnotizing yells.”

“Right… Which means he’d have to knock him out before he could get the chance to hypnotize him, and would have to figure out how to get around his magic tricks,” Leo nodded, “Which itself would be sort of… tricky.”

“Booooo.”

“I regret nothing. Anyway, the doves and rabbits probably wouldn’t be too big of a problem, it’s those rings that he’d really have to look out for…” He cringed slightly, lightly touching his neck and remembering the razor sharp ring that he had just barely managed to dodge a couple weeks ago. “Those things are killer… But if anyone could get around them, it’s Lou Jitsu. After that it’d just take a good hit to the face, and boom! Game, set and match!” After a moment , Leo added, “Do you think we’re too biased in this?”

“Nahhh,” Mikey shook his head as he continued painting, “Okay, Lou Jitsu VS those crab guys! They were crazy strong, plus they had a long distance attack!”

“Yeah, buuuut if he could turn their attacks against each other, he’d have them knocked out in a second!”

“Lou Jitsu VS that minotaur lady from that maze you made us go through!”

Leo gave him a flat look. “You could’ve just said ‘that one maze’ but fine, that would be a pretty hard fight. Fighting against killer vines AND a fire breathing minotaur, plus being in an environment that’s always changing? It’d be tough, but I think Lou could pull off a win. Use the vines as weapons and tools, and find a way to either knock out or tie up the minotaur, which would be easy once the playing field was even a bit, since I don’t think very many pizza chef/restaurant assistant managers are also skilled fist fighters.”

“Alright, uhh, umm-!”

“Face it, bro!” Leo insisted, “Lou Jitsu’s just too awesome! No matter what the fight, he always finds a way out!” Whether it was just in the movies or not, it was just too hard to believe that a guy that strong and skilled and just plain legendary could ever actually lose, no matter who he was up against.

And Mikey must’ve agreed, because all he could say to that was, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” His voice was quiet now, and for a moment, Leo wondered if he had made him upset, making most of their theoretical battles so one-sided. He opened his mouth to ask, and-

“What about… Lou Jitsu VS us?”

Leo didn’t say anything. Instead, he sat up, and offered Mikey a small smile. “...Yeah, no. Mikey, we’re an awesome team but, we’re still just noobs compared to a master like him. We wouldn’t stand a chance at beating Lou Jitsu.”

“Heh, yeah, I know,” Mikey agreed. He smiled back at his brother, though it didn’t quite meet his eyes. “...I still wish we could fight him though, even if it was just a quick, dumb spar or something…”

“...Yeah, I get what you mean,” Leo said, holding back a sigh. Ever since the very first scene they saw from one of his movies - the very thing that had inspired them to want to become ninjas in the first place - all of them had wanted to meet the great and legendary Lou Jitsu. And now, thanks to certain revelations, well… Now that desire was stronger than ever.

It was pretty awesome, having one of your dads be a celebrity. But it was also bittersweet, especially when Wikipedia could only offer an incomplete history and various conspiracy theories around the web did very little to help.

“...Do you think that was his final fight? Him VS Draxum?” Mikey asked, still facing the wall despite not making a move to continue his art, “And that… that it was the one fight he lost?”

Leo could only give a shrug. “Maybe…” If he was being honest, his late father losing a fight still was a better ending than the alternative. That he simply gave them up and went into hiding, leaving them to be found by their rat dad. “But, hey… No matter what happened in it, you can bet he fought his hardest - and awesomest - during it. Just like he always does.” Just like they always did.

“...Yeah. I think you’re right,” Mikey nodded, another small smile making his way onto his face.

“...That’s really pretty, by the way,” Leo commented, looking back up at the wall.

“Heh, I know, right? Can’t believe someone would just throw this color out. But just wait until it’s done, then it’s really gonna look like something great!”

So, Leo laid back down on the hammock, and watched his younger brother paint his latest masterpiece.

Fights were a thrill. They were energizing and satisfying, but there was plenty of satisfaction to be found in moments of peace too.

[peterpparkrr]

(Stephen Strange x Stark!Reader): It had to be you

Summary: You and Stephen Strange have been dating in secret for a while now, behind your dad(Tony Stark)’s back. But then one day he accidentally finds out.

A/N: Thanks so much to @soulpunker58 for the request! This was fun to write, it got a little more angsty than I anticipated, but I hope you like it!

At first, you had liked the idea of keeping your relationship with Stephen secret. It made it easier on both of you, considering the fact that your father would kill the both of you if he found out, plus it made the whole thing exciting. You’d always been a rebel and keeping a secret like this was second nature to you.

And honestly, it was your dad’s fault you even met Stephen in the first place. You’d been working on a project in your dad’s lab with some AC/DC blasting through the speakers when the music cut out.

“What the hell, dad!” You scream before looking up to see your dad and a beautiful man you have never seen before standing in the doorway.

“Why, hello to you too, my sweet, loving daughter,” Your dad replies sarcastically as you sheepishly walk over and hug your dad awkwardly.

“(Y/N), this is Stephen Strange, he’s my new best friend, Stephen, this is my daughter (Y/N),” He says, introducing you two to each other.

“Nice to meet you,” You say politely as you shake his hand and smile at him, whipping out your cocktail party manners, “Dad’s already told me a lot about you, is it true you’re a wizard?” You ask with a smirk as you take him in.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Stephen replies, shooting a judgmental glance at your dad.

He opens his mouth to defend himself but before he can say anything his phone starts ringing and he quickly pulls it out of his pocket, “This is Stark,” He says into the phone as he walks away, clearly grateful of the interruption of this conversation.

As your father walks away you chuckle slightly before turning back to Stephen, “He always manages to get out of these types of situations,” You say, shaking your head.

“And what type of situation is that,” Stephen asks, quirking an eyebrow at you.

“The embarrassing ones,” you reply, blushing slightly as you stare down at your feet, “So,” You say, trying to change the subject, “If you’re not a wizard, what exactly are you?”

“Well, I’m a doctor, and a sorcerer,” He replies.

“And how is a sorcerer different from a magician?” You ask with a mischievous grin.

“Uh…” Stephen stalled, clearly stumped.

“Well,” You said, crossing your arms over your chest as you saw your dad walking back over, “If you ever figure it out you should give me a call, or explain it over dinner.” You tell him with a wink.

“But I don’t know your number,” He said as your dad motioned for him to leave the lab.

“Use your magic,” You reply, “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

And that the rest was history, you went out for dinner and once you actually got to know each other it was like you were meant for each other. You balanced each other out in a way that you had never really had in any previous relationship.

Which was part of the reason it was hard for you to keep it a secret from your dad. You wanted to tell him that you found someone you genuinely loved, you wanted to tell him that you cared for and who cared for you.

You just didn’t know how.

So you kept sneaking around. It was never a real problem, with Stephen’s powers he could go just about anywhere he wanted to go which made for some pretty awesome dates, but it also meant that if you were staying at the tower he could just show up in your room and avoid the risk of running into someone like your dad.

Which you thought was a pretty flawless plan, which was why you were currently making out with Stephen on your bed. And also why you didn’t think to lock your door.

“Why are you making out with my daughter?!?” Your dad screeched, causing the two of you to break apart and nearly fly across the room in opposite directions, “And why are you making out with my awesome facial hair bro?!?”

“Dad! Do you not know how to knock?! I could have been-”

“Naked?” He asks, cutting you off, “Yeah! If that was the case I would also need to have barged in here because there is no way in hell I am okay with you dating Strange!” He yells.

“Jesus Christ, Dad, and you wonder why I didn’t want to tell you!” You hiss at him, “I am a grown woman and I am completely capable of making my own decisions, especially when it comes to who I date.”

“So I’m supposed to believe this isn’t just another one of your rebellious stints to make me feel like a horrible father?”

“Do you really think I’m immature enough to date someone just because they’re your friend? Seriously?”

“He’s practically my age! He’s almost old enough to be your father!”

“And Pepper’s almost young enough to be my sister but you don’t see me trying to question your relationship.”

“Don’t you dare bring Pepper into this-”

“Then don’t bring Stephen into it either, especially when he’s right here!” You scream at him, “Dad, I love him and I’m going to be with him, you don’t get a say in it. End of discussion.”

Your dad pauses for a second and glances between you and the oddly silent Stephen Strange.

“You guys really love each other?” He asks.

“Yes,” You reply, exacerbated.

“More than anything,” Stephen adds.

“Fine,” Tony says, holding his arms up in surrender, “Then I’ll stay out of it,” He finishes.

“Just don’t ever let me walk in on the two of you ever again.” He adds as he walks out of your room.

[forgottenrealmsrp]

Hello, I am very new to DnD and I would really like some tips on how to play and roll for certain things (Im not too good with examples) etc. etc.

Howdy! Mod Nate here coming at you with some Tips for Beginners. There’s a hell of a lot to cover that I cannot fit into one post (because, let’s be honest, that would be a nightmare), but I will try my best. So, without further ado, hold onto your butts.

The Three R’s

I find there are three main aspects to remember (and master!) when starting off in DnD or other such TTRPG’s. You can sort them into three categories: 

Rules,

Rol(l/e)s, and

Roleplaying

Of course there are heaps of other things to consider in game, but for a beginner, it can get overwhelming very quickly, so we’ll just stick to the Three R’s for now.

Rules

What better thing for a game than rules! The first thing you hopefully would have done if you were gearing up for your first game is to get your hands on a Player’s Handbook (For DnD 5e), or your RPG’s respective rulebook. Hobby stores, book stores, libraries, even video game shops might stock a physical copy of our favourite WotC volumes, but you can also secure them online wherever you may find them. 

Once you have your grubby little goblin hands on a handbook, give it to a friend, and have them read it to you. If that gets too boring, have them explain the rules in detail - you’ll need a pen and a notebook! If that is too time-consuming or - more likely - you don’t actually have any friends, you’ll have to settle for a hurried and often last-minute explanation of the core mechanics of the game, the finer details of which will be left unaddressed until you get your creative spirit crushed by your mean Dungeon Master, or local rules lawyer. 

(Remember kids, if you aren’t sure of where to locate one of these “rules lawyers”, simply talk out loud about your homebrew weapon or Pathfinder game, and they will be sure to find you!)

In this fabled Player’s Handbook you will find a fun breakdown and walkthrough of the game’s races, classes, and backgrounds, all of which you will need to read through several times and then immediately forget. Only after you have asked yourself “Which Bard School is going to make Sildaar Hallwinter not a steaming pile of crap?” for the fifth time in 10 minutes, can you move on to “equipment” and “rules”. Make sure to read these thoroughly, because you’ll learn them pretty quickly after your party’s Paladin once again forgets how many d10s to roll. It’s two, Derek. You asked the exact same question last round. 

Idiot. 

Rol(l/e)s

Once you manage to wrap your head around the rules, you get to the meat of the sandwich - rol(l/e)s. Whoever came up with this idiotic word hybrid (me) needs to report to their editor (also me) and get his ass whooped (still me). 

Now, I know you’ve gotten this far and thought “Wait, Nate, that may have rhymed but you haven’t actually given any tips yet?!??!?!?!!/1!?!?!?!?1?!???????????”. To that, I say yes (or no?), I have(n’t?) given you tips for how to play and roll for certain things, because the biggest tip I have for you is coming right up.

Wait for it.

You cannot build a dragon’s tower without strong foundations. 

Meaning: Only once you have “mastered” the rules and basics of roleplaying (and rolling!) will you be able to spread your beautiful dragon wings and soar as a damn good DnD player. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you will have to learn and remember every single mechanic or rule in the book! Because that would be a nightmare and if you can do it, you will be God. No questions asked. But hey! People make mistakes, or remember things wrong, or guess incorrectly, or even make it up as they go along. Having the handbook or Dungeon Master’s Guide on hand for these occasions will save everyone’s sanity at least once, but knowing when to draw the line between fairness and fun will make everyone’s play a whole lot better. 

So! Now that you’ve become God, rolling and role-ing (not a word) are your new best friends. And you know who makes the best friends? DICE! Just google it and have fun, kids, but remember that you have to eat and sleep somewhere warm and cozy tonight, so try not to build your hoard of shiny forbidden snacks too quickly, now. All you will need for starters is your standard 7-dice set: d4, d6, d8, d10*, d12, and d20.

*The d10 often comes in pairs to act as a percentile dice. The die with the ten’s (00, 10, 20, 30, etc.) will act as the ten’s place, and the other die will act as the one’s place. So, if you roll a 60 and a 9, you get a really funny number. If you roll a 00 and a 0, that’s 100! If you roll a 00 and a 1, however, that’s a 1. You die in game and you die in real life. Goodbye.

The handbook will tell you all the dice you will need to roll in order to both run the game, and make your character! That’s right! Maths begins even before the game does. Even Death themself cannot escape the point-buy system. Just submit. 

Stats are fun. 

What do they mean? What do they do? Who even knows what Constitution does?! I certainly don’t! But that’s where you’re in luck, bucko.

This post is already long enough without getting to the good stuff, so I’ll keep it simple. 

Strength - a measure of how well you can do stuff with your muscles. Skills like Athletics (aaaaaaand nope just athletics, huh, really? No fish-lifting skill? Huh? Cowards) will benefit from having some damn good muscles. Also you can stab stuff real good.

Dexterity - a measure of how deft, nimble, and stealthy one can be. Contributes to skills like Acrobatics and Stealth, unsurprisingly. If you can move good, you can groove good. I’d add a skill for dancing if I were you, WotC. 

Constitution - I lied before when I said I had no idea what constitution does, but it was only partly a joke. Constitution contributes to skills like not dying, staying alive, and stopping being dead. Sometimes it determines how much health you have. Sometimes it means you can drink an entire frog. Don’t ask.

Intelligence - Are you a smart cookie? Can you learn languages fluently in a short span of time? Can you destroy scores of defenceless troops with a single pillar of flame? Can you read? Are you kept awake at night by their screams? Intelligence makes you good (or not) at skills like History, Religion, Arcana, and being a nerd. Oh wait. No one is good at being a nerd. Sorry nerdlord. Also, if your intelligence is under 10, you can’t read! Just like me.

Wisdom - Not the smartest cookie in the shed? Like to eat leaves? You and me both, kid! Wisdom is a measure of your STREET SMARTS! so you can throw those nasty pervert kobolds off their rhythm. Unfortunately, starting equipment does not include a money clip. It makes you good at eating dirt and walking through forests and stuff. Also I think you can pet dogs really well?

Charisma - If you’ve ever played a bard, you would know what this is. If you haven’t played a bard, it’s not too late! Quick! Choose a Warlock or a Cleric if you want a Charisma based build! Choose the entertainer background if you must! -sigh- but if you insist, charisma is a measure of how easily you can quite literally charm the pants off a dragon. Also, sometimes you can roast people really well?

Having high skills is all fine and dandy, but the next tier of DnD player character power is owning your low skills. Have low constitution? Your tiefling is sickly or has a weak stomach! Low intelligence? Your character can’t read or write! Low charisma? You cause every single npc interaction to end with you being punched in the face. There is colour and interest in every aspect of your character, so make sure to let your character sheet represent your character as well as you can!

But how do you determine these stats?

Looking in your class description, you will see under the ‘Quick Build’ section the recommended stat scores, backgrounds and/or spells for that character. These are NOT mandatory, but I find them to be a helpful guideline for how to keep your character functional and, well, alive. Stat scores themselves can be determined a few different ways: Point-buy (I have no idea how this works but it looks like a lot of maths and that’s homophobic, so); Cascading, and rolling. 

Cascading (or at least that’s my name for it, I have no other way to describe it) is where you take the values 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8 and assign each to one of your stats. For example, before adding racial stat modifiers, I could assign my barbarian’s stats as follows:

STR: 15, DEX: 13, CON: 14, INT: 8, WIS: 10, CHA: 12.

I may have a character-based reason for assigning my barbarian a relatively adequate Charisma score. Maybe he was a particularly intimidating character, or perhaps his iron-will makes his Constitution a 14. Maybe he likes to dance. You could have a particularly burly mage with a strength score of 15, just because you feel like it. Maybe your cleric is part of team sweet-flips? Or your monk could study tomes night and day to get her Intelligence to a lofty 17 points post-modifiers. Balancing stat scores so that you don’t die is awesome, but having a change to shout “YOU DO NOT SEE GROG!” and win 9 times out of 10? Priceless.

Rolling your stats is perhaps the most widely-used way to determine stats, but to be safe, ask your DM (or get crafty if you’re the DM!) about their preferred method. It’s pretty simple: roll 4d6 (the six-sided dice four times), noting down each individual roll. After four rolls, you cross out the lowest roll, and add the remaining three. Repeat five more times and you have some good good stats, bro! Don’t forget to add your racial stat modifiers before you assign your stat scores! 

Modifiers seem pretty confusing as a newbie, but there is a handy table in the PHB to help you keep track. Alternatively, you could subtract 10 from your score, and then half what you have left, making sure to round down! A score of 19 would have a modifier of +4 (19 - 10 = 9/2 = 4.5 ≈ 4, rounding down). A score of 8 would have a modifier of -1 (8 - 10 = -2/2 = -1). Pretty simple, right?

So now I think I can finally address whatever the F*$# I mean by ‘Roles’. What the heck is a role? Do you mean roleplaying? No, dear reader, I do not. A ‘role’ is what I like to call your position in the party. Because yes, on the unlikely occasion that you do manage to wrangle a group of people willing (or able) to play DnD with you, you still have to play with other kids, Derek. That means that the typical balancing applies. You cannot just have a 7-person party filled entirely by bards. Or bees. Though I would prefer the bees. Who would want 7 bards? That sounds like the start of a bad joke. 

A good rule of thumb is to make sure you have enough bases covered in the traditional party makeup that you won’t die immediately, but you also don’t have to deal with 7 goddamn bards, Derek, I swear to God-

You’ll want someone to hit stuff, someone to get hit, someone to help those who get hit, and someone to hit things when you don’t want to get hit. This could be solved any number of ways. Get creative, go hog wild. But not buck wild, Derek. I will not have the “Seven Buskateers” at my table again, do you hear me?!

This brings us to the finale. I’ve been writing this post for half an hour, and we’re finally getting to the good stuff. Thanks for stick with me so far. How about dropping your favourite stardew valley bachelor/ette down in the replies if you’ve read this far? Mine’s Elliot, because he’s beautiful and I love him, just like I love you. :3

Roleplaying!

It’s in the title! The very mechanics of the game! So, the question you’re asking me is: “Nate, how the Flippity Doo Daa do you roleplay?????????” 

And I reply, “How are you making those noises with your mouth? Where am I?! Who are you? Why can I hear each individual question mark even though they shouldn’t have a place in the mortal coil? What are you?!”

And then I tell you about my favourite thing to tell my own players. 

The easiest character to play is one that exists. So? What does that mean???

It means that YOU, my dead, dear nerd, can’t just pull a self-insert every single dang game, Damn it Derek! No one LIKES YOU! GO HOME! You have this opportunity to think of a fun, unique concept, and roll with it. So, how can you create the next Taako, or Nott, or Yashee’rak or Caduceus? 

If you have a concept to work from, that’s great! If not, start from the ground up. Who is your character? What are their likes, dislikes, loves, hates, loyalties, vendettas? I often like to establish both a backstory and a goal for them to accomplish, the simpler the better, to get you on the right track. Perhaps a Neverwinter begger wishes to open their own tea shop in Ba Sing Se? A cursed child of an angel and a demon takes it upon themself to avenge their brother’s death? A simple farm girl falls in love and follows her princess Buttercup across Faerûn? You name it!

Some good questions to ask yourself about your characters personality could also include:

What would they kill for?

What would they die for?

What would they watch someone else die for?

What are some rumours your party members would have heard about your character?

What would they think of your favourite meme?

How do they treat their mum? How would they treat your mum?

Do they have any recurring nightmares? Why?

Etc. Etc. Think of them as a real being, with thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams and fears! The more detailed you can get in theory might help in the long run. If you find yourself deviating from these details, however, don’t sweat! That’s a character’s natural development and progression as a character! In fact, if things don’t change as you play, you might have to have a look at your play style. Loosen up. No one is one emotion their entire lives. Characters lie! They hide things and change details and cheat and steal! But they also act kindly, even randomly, and change and grow. Encourage that. Let them grow. They (and your party members!) will thank you for it!

I think that’s all I have in me for now, and oh man there are so many more things I could mention. DMing in itself will have to wait for another day, of course, but I hope this helped! I’m going to die now. 

[theclacks]

Buffy (Season 4) & Angel (Season 1) Thoughts

Whoo, so watching two seasons at once makes a giant dent in my viewing speed, but it’s kind of awesome. The “new series” rush I had in season two is mostly gone I think, replaced with a steady comfortability, which is good, because whenever a series is short enough that I reach its end/catch up before the rush fades, then I feel incredibly listless.

Anyway. Thoughts below the cut.

Buffy - Season 4

On how it compares to other seasons...

So season 2 is still my all time favorite. I think season 4 is tied with season 3 for me on like-ability. I think season 3 was strongest toward its end and season 4 was strongest towards its middle (hello, Spike pseudo-redemption arc). I think killing Professor Walsh as early as they did was a mistake; she and Buffy had a great antagonistic relationship. The greatness of season 2 was the relationship between the heroes and the villains, especially once Angel turned darkside. My biggest problem with the mayor was that he and Buffy never met until the very end of the season and that’s kind of my same issue here. They traded out an AWESOME antagonist (works for “good” like Buffy, but sees her as a uncontrollable threat! there’s some age/generation issues going on, defined career woman vs unranked youngster! science vs magic and prophecy! they used to hold each other in high esteem but now don’t!)... for, well, Adam. Who was very season one-ish in terms of flat personality and “I SHALL RULE THE WORLD MWAHAHA.”

On Oz leaving + Tara entering...

I read an interview/comment part way through that said Joss’s original plan was to string the Oz/girl!werewolf/Willow drama over the whole season, but then Seth Green nope’d it out of there and thank fucking god. I hated girl!werewolf. I don’t even remember her name and I’m fine with that.

I loved the introduction of Tara. I loved the episode where Oz came back (although I spent the whole episode fearing for his life) and Willow came out to her friends and Tara expecting Willow to leave her and asking if they could still be friends and I WAS CRYING DURING THAT SCENE. I HAVE NO SHAME. I think it was first scene in Buffy I cried at. Willow and Tara’s actresses just knocked it out of the park.

Also, it was weird for me since all I’ve ever heard from people about Willow is that they retcon’ed her sexuality into being a lesbian, and... unless something changes in the future, that’s totally not the case because she’s obviously bisexual. Like mentions loving Oz AND loving Tara in the same episode? And if talking about retconning her into being bisexual, umm... that shit doesn’t need foreshadowing... unless people are talking about something that happens in a later season with Willow saying straight out she doesn’t like men... and you know what? I’ll just see it when I get there.

On Riley...

He’s okay. Like, just, okay. I liked the episode where he told Buffy not to hold back during sparing, she kicked him across the room, and he’s like “it’s okay, i told you not to hold back”, and later she confesses (to Willow?) “.......I held back.”

IDK. I didn’t like the episode where the frat house sucks them into being a kind of sex battery thing... well, I liked the Xander, Willow, Anya, and Spike parts, but yeah.

On Spike...

I think the weirdest character development thing was him hooking up with Harmony. I mean, really? BUT it was awesome seeing Harmony eventually kick him to the curb, so there’s that. I got spoiled for the headchip thing, but I didn’t know it was coming this season, and his conversation with Willow immediately discovering his “impotence” was one of the best things ever. Oh, and “Something Blue” I didn’t know that episode was going to be a thing and it was AWESOME. I also liked how he didn’t immediately turn good and was mostly an annoying hinderance to the main characters; that fit him much better than a straight heel-face turn.

On college vs high school...

It’s weird. I have more nostalgia for college than high school, so I really enjoyed the first few college eps. Like, the way I’ve seen people talk about their love for the high school era of Buffy... I think that was me during this season. (People who used to hang outside the student union delivering flyers for whatever, I MISS YOU.) I did like the episode where they revisited the high school’s ruins. That was a nice touch. And I like Faith a lot better this season, especially when she realizes it’s been months and months since graduation. (Oh, and speaking of the Faith/Buffy bodyswitch episode, their actress did such a good job.)

On Giles...

Nothing too much to report. I do think more than any of the other characters, he’s lost his groove. Hopefully he’ll re-find it in season five.

But enough about Buffy, it’s time to discuss...

Angel - Season 1

General thoughts

OH MY GOD. I think I actually ended up enjoying Angel more than Buffy for these two seasons. I thought it was going to be something I’d slowly have to sit through episode after episode until I grew to like and then LO AND BEHOLD Charisma Carpenter’s name popped up in the credits. And suddenly Angel went from “Angel interacts with random LA strangers I don’t know��� in my head to “OH MY GOD CORDELIA IS IN LA BEING BROS WITH ANGEL AND FIGHTING DEMONS AND SHIT.” And it’s been awesome since.

On Doyle and Wesley (and Cordelia)...

I was not expecting them to switch season mains halfway through, and although I’m still sad that Doyle left the show so early, I’m kind of cool with it because it meant Cordelia getting his visions. And honestly, if you’d told me after the first episode of Buffy that Cordelia Chase was eventually going to become bros with Angel in LA and with god-given vision superpowers and a ghost as a roommates, I’d... well, I don’t know what I would’ve thought, but it definitely would’ve spoiled the wild, amazing journey. Of course, Cordelia was already my favorite character about four episodes into watching Buffy, so... yeah.

One of my lesser favorite parts of season three was having Cordelia vanish for a whole bunch of episodes after her breakup with Xander, so seeing her rise like this and be a central character and have AMAZING heart-to-heart conversations with Angel... like, Buffy and Angel have their super love but at this point I feel like Cordelia and Angel are stronger friends? Like they treat each other as brother and sister and it is the best damn thing ever.

Also along that line, the reintroduction of Wesley was great. Probably the best replacement they could’ve gotten for Doyle. It really strengthened the team, especially for the Faith episodes since she was someone they ALL had history with. And since the Cordelia/Wesley UST got resolved in the final season 3 buffy episodes, his friendship with cordelia was awesome too. JUST ALL THE FRIENDSHIPS FOR CORDELIA KTHXBAI.

On LA vs Sunnydale...

If college era of buffy is nostalgic, angel’s LA setting is straight up “THIS IS MY LIFE RIGHT NOW”. I’m past Buffy’s concerns about class schedules and straight in the thick of Cordelia’s concerns about finding a decent apartment for a decent rent, balancing work that pays the bills with the true passions you live for, having to pay bills, be an adult.

And I think Cordelia really is angel’s greatest strength right now because of how much different her life is from all of her classmates’ back in Sunnydale. She’s had to grow up the fastest. Even Xander who’s ostensibly in similar shoes (straight to work/no college) has a kind of flat dotted-ness to him. He picks up random weekly jobs, he stays in his parents’ basement, he feels the world moving on without him because it is. Contrast that with Cordelia, moves to LA, gets a rad (albeit possessed apt), gets a job with Angel’s firm (basically starts Angel’s firm), gains Doyle’s visions, making her an even more integral part of the team... Their respective paths over the course of the same year couldn’t have been more different.

On “I Will Remember You”...

Holy damn that was an awesome episode. I knew it wasn’t going to last because Angel being a vampire is, like, his whole thing. I was like Buffy going “let’s wait before diving into all this” but then they crumbled and then they were in bed eating ice cream together and it was THE CUTEST THING EVER. And then even after Angel decided to turn back, I was like “that’s okay because at least they’ll have their memories and then it was suddenly all NO. NO. NOOOOO. THIS IS NOT OKAY, ANGEL NO. BUFFY MY BB, NOOOOOOOO.” The juxtaposition between Buffy in tears, clinging to him, and then 180 degrees, being back in his office completely tense and cold was traumatically beautiful and well-done.

And a part of me really eventually wants her to remember down the line, but I have no idea whether or not that would ever happen.

On Faith...

So. I’ve decided that my favorite part of Faith is when she completely breaks down into self-loathing. It happened when she was in Buffy’s body and then again when she was squaring off against Angel in the rain. She sold it so well, that I’m cool with her again.

On evil!Angel...

Evil!Angel is my favorite, the humor that just drips out of him while he’s killing everything. And I love that there are hints of it even when Angel’s “sober” so to speak. And while I never want him to turn fully evil again (season 2 played that the best way it ever could), I do like the way the writers are able to tease it back. First with the buffy season three episode where he faked it, and then again in this season of angel where it was kind of drugged out of him. And once again, I’m super happy that Cordelia and Wesley are his buddies because they can recognize that history of his in an instant (granted, Cordelia more than Wesley).

On Gunn and Lesley and Wolfram and Hart...

So Buffy/Angel crossovers excluded, my favorite episode of the season by far was when Angel and Lesley joined forces to infiltrate Wolfram and Hart and they also pulled in Gunn for good measure. Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for heist episodes, but I think (I hope) that episode marked a turning point. Like “this is the world of angel. these are angel’s allies and these are his foes and this is way it comes together.” I’m looking forward to more with all them.

On Kate...

I have conflicted thoughts about Kate. I like her as a character. She’s been used somewhat inconsistently re: episode and screentime-wise, and still very distant from the main characters. I hope she’s used more in season two.

On LA’s demon sub-culture...

The thing I’ll end with is that I love how angel introduces us to a whole bunch of other demon, both good and evil and somewhere in between. With the exception of Willie’s bar, buffy doesn’t have that? Like I feel half the demons from LA could wander into Sunnydale and Buffy would start beating them up before they could talk. Or like if they put one toe out of line, she’d try to kill them.

Take for example the episode with Doyle’s ex-wife. Her fiance tried to eat Doyle’s brains, but the ending to that wasn’t “kill the fiance” it was just “that’s not okay, demon, and you broke my trust by trying to do it and if that’s a requirement for us to get married, then the engagement’s off.” And lo and behold, they broke off the engagement and thus ended the episode. No killings. And I don’t know, there’s just something ridiculously refreshing about that.

[bellakitse]

I hate your face, it makes my heart skip a beat [3/?]

Chapter 1, 2

“Do you know you are mumbling under your breath right now?”

Isak looks up from his notes to look at his biology partner, Sana who is giving him her usual amused, knowing look. He’d dislike her for it if it weren't for the fact that he enjoyed her sass and general everything a lot. While their partnership had started off rocky when he came back to school, in the last month, he could honestly say that he couldn’t ask for a better partner even if they didn’t always agree on biology results. But then they both had a tendency of being stubborn.

“I am not.”

“You are,” she argues, raising an eyebrow. “You said ‘cocky idiot thinks because he’s hot he can do what he wants.’”

Isak startles hard at that, blushing red hot. “Please tell me I didn’t say that.”

Sana’s mouth twitches, the corners quirking upwards. “Why would I make that up? What did he do this time?”

Isak blinks at her trying to adopt a clueless expression. “Who?”

Sana gives him an utterly unimpressed look in return, and Isak wonders when he got so bad at lying, there use to be a time when he was good at it, after all, everyone he knew had actually believed he was straight once. “That’s cute, but you know the ‘dumb blonde’ act is just a stereotype, it’s not a real thing.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Isak insist, but like he said if there was one thing Sana and he had in common it was stubbornness.

“Fine,” she says easily, way too quickly.

Isak narrows his eyes. “That’s it, you’re dropping it?”

“Yeah,” Sana says with an indifferent shrug. “If you don’t want to talk about Even and the weird mating ritual you two have that will more than likely end up in hate sex, we don’t have to talk about it. You’re my friend, and I respect you, shall we get back to the wonderful world of bacteria?”

Isak stares at her, his face hotter than he thinks it’s ever been, Sana in return just smirks down at her notebook. Her words echoing in his head. “I hate you.”

Sana’s grin grows as she stops pretending she’s studying. “Why, because you’re now picturing the hate sex?”

“Remember the days when you would say evolution wise homosexuality was a genetic dead end?” Isak asks dryly, knowing very well that Sana remembers and the point she had been making at the time. “Missing those days right now.”

“No, you don’t,” Sana says calmly. “You're just dramatic as usual because Even did something to rile you up, but you also want to do dirty, unspeakable things with him.”

“Why are we friends,” Isak whines, wondering if he can combust from embarrassment.

“I ask myself that all the time,” Sana says with wide eyes mocking him. “I’m much too cool for you.”

Isak glares at her. “I’m cool.”

“Oh, Isak,” Sana says in a condescending tone. “You’re really not, also trying to distract me isn’t actually going to work, talk.”

Isak sighs already knowing he’s going to cave. “He’s an asshole.”

Sana raises an eyebrow when he doesn’t continue. “He seems pretty nice. Actually, Vilde was talking the other day about creating a Kose group, and you know she can get. She’s worried people will laugh at it, he overheard and told her there was nothing wrong with wanting to spread some love and good cheer, that it was sweet of her. It made her really happy.”

Isak cringes. “A kose group sounds awful.”

“That’s because you are an emotionally constipated male,” Sana reasons, ignoring the annoyed look he gives her. “And don’t knock it too much, if she decides to do it, you’re joining.”

Isak snorts at that. “Yeah right.”

“We’ll see,” Sana says with a sweet smile that sends a chill down Isak’s spine. “Anyway, my point is he was nice.”

“Great another groupie,” Isak mumbles. “Why doesn’t he just steal all my friends.”

Sana stares at him for a moment before letting out a laugh that has more than one student in the library shooting them a nasty look. “Is that why you don’t like him? Because he’s ‘stealing’ your friends, didn’t you ever learn to share Isak, or did you miss that class in grade school?”

Isak rolls his eyes. “Can you not make me sound like I’m five please.”

“Stop acting like it then,” Sana mocks him, and he wants to be mad, but the face she makes has him smiling in spite of himself, and she grins triumphantly in return. “What the real reason you don’t like him?”

He sighs, pulling off his cap he runs his hand through his hair trying to figure a way to explain what exactly his issue with Even really is, why he goes defensive when around the boy. “He’s cocky and so sure of himself, whenever he’s around I feel, I don’t know, shaky? Like I’m on uneven ground.”

Sana gives him a small smile and that all knowing look is back. “Isak.”

“To be fair it’s not like he doesn’t go out of his way to provoke me,” Isak continues in a rush. “It’s like he gets a kick out of seeing me off balance, like earlier, he got all close and-“

“And you went all mushy on the inside?” she teases gently.

“Shut up,” he pouts. “It’s not like that, I don’t really know what it’s like, but he gets a reaction out of me every time, and he enjoys it so much, but I can’t help but react anyway.”

“So turn the tables on him,” Sana reasons with a twinkle in her eye. “Make him react to you first.”

“Yeah right,” Isak dismisses. “How?”

“Something tells me you are already doing it without realizing,” Sana chuckles. “I’ve seen him around you, you affect him too.”

“Whatever,” Isak mumbles despite being secretly pleased. “How about you give me some real advice on how to deal with him, he's supposed to meet me here in a little while to study.”

Sana frowns at him confused. “What do you mean? If being around him puts you in such a tizzy why are you having study dates with him?”

“It’s not a date.”

Sana levels him with a look that speaks volumes. “Interesting how that’s the word you focused on.”

“I don’t like you.”

“Lie,” Sana says bored. “So why are you guys studying together?”

“I’m failing History,” Isak explains, still hating the words with a passion. “And Magnus suggested Even tutor me cause ‘Even the best ever bro.', the guys agreed, Even overheard and now he’s my tutor.”

Sana looks at him, and Isak gives her an irritated look as he watches the way her dimples play hide and seek as she tries not to grin and fails. “It isn’t funny.”

“It is from my point of view,” Sana answers now grinning outright. “Can I stay and watch?”

Isak rolls his eyes at that, letting out a deep breath. “I’m not here for your amusement, you know.”

“Why do you think I’m friends with you in the first place?”

“Sana,” he whines earning him yet another chuckle. “Help.”

“Help with what, Isak?” she asks. “He’s going to come, you guys are going to study, throw flirty insults at each other because that’s how you two communicate, you’re going to keep denying that’s what is actually happening, and this weird cycle you guys are on will continue or-“

“Or?” he prompts.

“Or,” Sana repeats. “You can try being nice and get to know the guy since neither of you has actually bothered to do so.”

Isak stays quiet for a moment before shaking his head. “That doesn’t sound realistic, any other advice?”

“Nope, that’s it,” she says as she starts gathering her books, nodding with her chin towards the library doors. “I’ll let you decide since your date is here.”

Isak turns around in his chair just as Even spots them, flashing him a wide smile as he starts to make his way to them.

“Damn,” Sana murmurs. “You know he’s not even my type, but damn.”

Isak whips around to glare at her. “I really don’t need another person telling me how cool he is, Sana.”

“I didn’t say cool, I said damn,” Sana smirks as she stands. “Because the boy is hot, which you already know, which is why you’re all hot and bothered.”

“Sana,” he hisses.

She continues unbothered. “The problem is that while you’ve been sticking your head in the sand trying to deny it, you haven’t bothered to look up to see if he has the same problem, start looking Isak.”

Isak opens his mouth, not even sure what he wants to say, deny what she’s saying maybe, only Even’s reached their table and is still smiling at him. Them.

“Sana,” Even greets her, getting a smile back from her before turning to him. “Study Buddy.”

Isak sighs loudly which causes Sana to let out a quick laugh she tries to cover with a cough, it doesn’t fool anyone, Even grins obviously pleased with himself.

“Well, I better be going,” Sana says grabbing her bag while giving him a meaningful look. “Remember to look Isak.”

Isak’s shifts his gaze from her back up to Even who is still smiling down at him but not teasingly, just smiling. “Yeah.”

He and Even watch her walk away before Even takes her seat across from him. “What was that about?”

“Sana and her version of being loving and supportive,” Isak answers with a slight smile. “Tough and in your face.”

Even chuckles though he looks like he wants to ask more. “She is awesome and terrifying in equal measure.”

Isak grins at that, nodding. “I think this is the first time I’ve agreed with you on something.”

Even smirks a bit, shrugging. “It was bound to happen sometime.”

“I guess so,” he answers.

Even looks at him quietly and Isak stares back, look Sana said so he does.

[renwritesstuff]

ren beat me:a

TIME TO HEAR REN’S HOT SPORTS OPINIONS ON IT. Of which there are many. Also gifs.

I generally like to explain my history with a game series first (if applicable), because obviously that can shape my perspective of a game. 

I started the Mass Effect series way back with ME1. I’d heard of it and the second I saw my friend play it, I knew I had to have it. I saved my first-job moneys and plunked down my entire tax refund for 2008 on a shiny new Xbox 360 and ME1 (plus Orange Box and Assassin’s Creed). I was entranced by the graphics and the story, and grew quickly obsessed by the time ME2 rolled out. ME2 blew my mind even more, and I must have beat that game 7-8 times with a bunch of different Shepards. ME3 I didn’t obsess about to the same extent, but I did beat it at least twice on my two favorite Shepards/LIs. ME3 was such a strong mood piece and evoked such a different, somber emotion from me, that it was mentally draining to play. I still loved it, and the Citadel DLC cherry on top is one of my all-time favorite set pieces.

So. Mass Effect: Andromeda.

Did I like it? Yes.

Do I recommend it? Yes.

Does it have its flaws? Absolutely.

Let’s get flaws out of the way. This game was buggy. Not oppressively buggy, but inconveniently so. I played on Xbox One (like an idiot. REKINDLE THE XBOX 360 WONDER ...and not be able to play MP with anyone because everyone was on PS4 or PC. Genius).

Here is a list of bugs I got:

Architect on Elaaden: unable to complete. Refused to trigger

More than once: a companion character died (like they do), but I would be unable to rez them. No prompt, no waking up when the encounter ended. I would go back to the Tempest, still a red arrow. They would be dead on the Tempest. I would go back down to the planet: still dead and unable to leave my party. In addition, on the Tempest, my OTHER companion would still be following me. So I had 2 Peebees or 2 Dracks at one point, while poor Vetra was Dead Forever.

Said Dead Forever Glitch occurred when I had almost beaten a particularly difficult boss which required many waves of things to overcome.

The game liked to freeze randomly. Full system lockup. Autosave was generous so I rarely missed more than a few minutes, but several bugs required a mission or two rollback.

I didn’t play MP, but I did throw my drones at the APEX missions for free credits and shit. About 1/3 of the time, the servers were offline and I couldn’t access it, and I would forget and not touch it for 2 days.

The Elaaden vault almost made me quit, it was just that frustrating. 

I’m a smart cookie, and I dunno what the rest of the world’s problem is, but I fucking LOVE environmental puzzles. And it is saying something, that someone who loves environmental FIGURE IT OUT puzzles as much as I do, that I was so frustrated with Elaaden Vault’s setup and lack of context clues.

There was a point where you fight two Nullifiers and a Destroyer in one go. This fight is what almost broke me. I died at least 10 times. This fight had uneven terrain, so there was an upper and lower level, as well as an area behind it that was carved rock. If you venture to the upper or lower portion: the fight resets. If one of your teammates (say CORA OVER AND OVER AGAIN) is knocked off the edge and you need to revive them: the fight resets. If one of your teammates stays dead and forces you to restart the vault: my brain resets.

The fact that I remember these instances, when my memory is generally pretty shitty, is an issue.

Now, I went back and rewatched some videos from the ME Trilogy. Those games? I love the shit out of them, but there is some BAD dialogue over 3 games (as a Shepley fan at least 1/3 Ashley’s dialogue, especially in ME3, irritates me to no end). But even so, I forgive it because I enjoyed the characters so much. MEA had much more noticeable bad dialogue right out of the gate, which is unfortunate. It gets a lot stronger as the game progresses, but cringing right at the beginning is hard to overcome.

My husband’s complaint from watching me (he started his own game on Insanity and hasn’t recruited Peebee or Drack yet), is that there’s no obvious category for each. No Tali the tech specialist or Ashley the soldier or Liara the biotic. He didn’t like that everyone was a hybrid class. I didn’t mind so much, as I assume the expectation was to grab the characters you LIKED instead of the ones who PERFECTLY BALANCED your class, which is expected to be a hybrid anyway. However: VETRA. WHY DON’T YOU STAY ALIVE, VETRA? I had to kick Vetra out of my ground team because she was bafflingly squishy. Peebee doesn’t even wear armor and she’s hardier than the turian with the assault rifle.  

And the fault I’ll touch on that everyone has already brought up a million times is there is a definite sense that nothing I did really mattered. There was rarely an instance of express consequences to anything. Even things that seemed major, that seemed like “Hey, this would damage the relationship I have with this character” ...it didn’t. A character would be pissy for two lines of dialogue, and be back to normal. With no lingering indication that I could expect future issues because of this choice. Where’s my Mass Effect 3 genophage cure sabotage or geth versus quarian conundrum? I also have no idea what I gained for having earned everyone’s loyalty in my crew (or if that was possible to fail by not doing what they expressed they wanted? I DON’T KNOW). 

Relating to that is my personal quibble with the game in it felt extremely muddled. I love games with a straightforward premise. I could not spoil the end of MEA for you because I honestly barely understood what happened. I don’t understand why things were happening, and several characters (Liam, Suvi and Drack) had very strange, unclear motivations to me. 

So now the good parts of MEA!

I enjoyed playing this game. It reminded me of Mass Effect 1, when you were a young, naive idiot trying to figure shit out. Like drive up mountains or break into hideouts. It was just Fun. 

I never felt burdened by the combat. You remember playing Dragon Age 2 when you knew there were 3 waves of Shit coming, right? Enemies in MEA hit just hard enough and are just mobile enough to keep me on my toes, but not burden me with tedium. I’m a sniper, and the punch of my Black Widow rifle is incredibly satisfying. I even ratcheted up the difficulty from Normal to Hardcore because I wanted a bigger challenge, and I NEVER EVER do that. I was having just that much fun that I wanted to earn it a little more.

I liked that my Ryder could be a dork, or a cooler-headed professional. I loved my laid-back, easygoing Ryder, and I liked seeing his little Tempest family learn to trust him. I liked that he had to earn his respect through action. It made those heroic moments feel a little more magical, and I actually really liked that he was just as impressed with everything as I was. Sometimes I’d make some smartass remark, and a second later my Ryder would echo that sentiment. It made me laugh more than once.

I liked the Tempest family. I think they did a good job overall with your crew. 

Cora: My ground team #1. She kept the heat off my sniper like a BOSS. Plus she was hardy as all get-out. I really liked her character development over the game, too. I very much identified with her fish-out-of-water search for answers in things she knows, and being hurt that she was pushed aside as Pathfinder for a Ryder child. I think that could have been emphasized more, but overall her character arc was satisfying to me. Big fan.

Liam: Decent squadmate, decent bro. His characterization was extremely muddled to me. He could be easygoing one minute and bafflingly dickish the next. His one-on-one chats with Ryder were solid, but in the Mako with everyone else (except Jaal), he was weirdly scathing. When he dug into Vetra and Peebee I wanted to punch him in the face. I liked the movie night, and that he was a movie nerd. He wasn’t as good in combat as Cora, so I stopped taking him along for the serious missions.

Drack: Oh space grampa. You lovable grouch. I love that he was a surly curmudgeon and yet got along with everyone. I was disappointed in what should have been a relationship breaker of a story choice, he was angry for one exchange then back to normal. I was also confused by his motives for joining my crew. His was the weakest recruitment, as he talked a LOT of shit and then jumped aboard two encounters later. What? Why?

Vetra: Awesome character, terrible combat partner. I don’t know what it is, but I cannot keep Vetra Nyx alive. I suspect she is a better fit for a more aggressive build to lay down cover fire, but as MY cover fire: she was too squishy. I really like her character arc, though hers took way too long to get going. She was basically the Tali of MEA: shows up promising, disappears, then 2/3 of the way through the game she reappears in a blaze of glory. I headcanon my Ethan Ryder’s sister falls for her hard :) (My best friend’s Sara romanced her, too. She loves them turians)

Peebee: She was my Ethan Ryder’s love interest. It was a tough choice between her or Cora, but I felt like Peebee matched my Ryder’s laid-back, tech specialist personality better. That said, I loved that Peebee was a cagey, commitment-phobic asari who thinks asari do some stupid shit. I liked her silly quips and meandering thoughts. I liked that we got to see her learn to care about people other than herself, and we did that by earning her trust (and she ours). I liked that she befriends Vetra to be the terrible influence that Vetra never got. I’m still confused about where Peebee’s Remnant expertise comes from, or what her actual goal is. Though it’s weird: being muddled actually works in favor of Peebee’s character.

Jaal: Oh, that sweet cat-man. Awesome voice, big heart. His combat prowess was hit or miss, but he complemented Cora’s attack style well, so he and Peebee were my interchangeable #2 squadmates. I think they did a great job throwing Jaal in for a new species learning curve, as both student and teacher for the Tempest crew. While I find the Angara storyline awfully parallel to the Collectors (or Asari) from ME2/3, I did really enjoy the first contact aspect that Jaal added to the game. His loyalty mission was among my favorite.

Gil: I should be predisposed to like Gil as he reminds me a great deal of Alistair from DAO. But his bickering with Kallo really grated on me. I definitely got the frenetic genius vibe, though I am skeptical that one person can do every possible repair on the Tempest without any assistance. Gil and Vetra were one of the few people who came to Andromeda with someone, so I did really like that he and Jill were pioneers together. It made me feel like a world did exist outside of my little spaceship.

Kallo: I really liked the salarian pilot, though Joker’s boots are almost as hard to fill as Shepard’s. His character development was incredibly uneven, and he rarely had anything to say. Dammit man, I wanted you to gossip after every story mission! I loved his gossip. But outside of Gil and one little mission, Kallo got no other screentime. 

Suvi: Now, considering my devotion to Samantha Traynor, Suvi should have been a slam dunk for a favorite. Plus I really like Cait from Fallout 4, the Voice Actor’s other character. But Suvi annoyed me for a weird reason: I did not understand what the fuck she did all day. “Science Officer.” “Making discoveries.” Other than her telling me about probes or stuff on the galaxy map, it felt like her presence on board the Tempest was little more than Not SAM. 

Lexi: I don’t know why, but I kind of found it oddly charming that not everyone on the ship liked Lexi (including Lexi herself). I liked her learning to be the Mother Hen that Chakwas was, plus the delicious irony of a 275-year-old asari being inexperienced about something. It felt like she talked the most of the non-combat crew, both over the comms and to other characters (compared to Suvi, Gil or Kallo). 

Reyes: I think I’m one of the few on tumblr not entranced by Reyes Vidal. Not throwing hate at his fans, his is just not a personality I care for. Personal preference. I’ve never liked smarmy, arrogant confidence. I was reluctant to take his side. 

I enjoyed the game. It evoked a sense of wonder and adventure. I think MEA2 has the potential to build on the missteps like ME2 did, and make something really wonderful. Especially with characters we’re starting to know and enjoy. 

[graphicpolicy]

Sometimes… you embrace your destiny. And sometimes… you and your trouble-making adopted brother find yourselves trapped in a scientific lab explosion that grants you $@&%ing awesome super-powers. As a result of their accident, Eric and Woody Henderson – aka Quantum and Woody – must “klang” their wristbands together every 24 hours or both dissipate into nothingness. Which makes superhero-ing pretty awkward when you’re not on speaking terms at the moment. See, Eric has been keeping a pretty big secret: He knows who Woody’s birth father really is… and where he’s been hiding all these years.

Consider yourself warned…

This December the world’s worst superhero team return in the all new Quantum & Woody #1 written by Daniel Kibblesmith with art by Kano.

We got a chance to talk to Daniel about the new series as well as his writing for The Late Show and the difference between digital and print.

GP: How’d you become a writer, especially one focused on comedy?

Daniel Kibblesmith: Well, I always wrote and drew and generally made stuff. I wanted to be a filmmaker from an early age, and taught myself how to make claymation shorts on our family’s VHS camcorder. It wasn’t until I got to film school that I realized how the duties are divided up and that the writing was the part I cared about the most – plus, being on sets stressed me the hell out. When I was making short films, it was at the beginning of YouTube, and I figured out that no one really wanted to watch a three-minute drama, but they would totally check out a comedy sketch. I was naturally inclined toward comedy, so I committed. From there I took Second City classes, tried stand-up, and made friends in the comedy community, which eventually blossomed into this whole career-like object.

GP: You’ve previously written for Valiant, how’d you wind up on Quantum & Woody? How well did you know the characters coming on to the project?

DK: I knew them pretty well. Quantum and Woody was my entry point into Valiant, because I knew James Asmus a little bit from the comedy world, and I was told that you didn’t need to know anything about Valiant to get into Q&W. I loved them right away, especially in The Delinquents team-up series, so I’ve had my eye on Quantum and Woody for a while. They seemed like a good fit for another comedy/comics writer like me.

GP: Was it a bit of an adjustment to go from writing for things like the Late Show to writing for Valiant and comics in general?

DK: Not really, because I still do both every day. I compare it to playing different video games sometimes – both video games could require a lot of overlapping skills, like timing or coordination, but the headspace and rhythm you slide into could be really different between, say Mario Kart and Smash Bros. (Nintendo, I mentioned your intellectual properties, please send me a free Switch).

GP: For those who haven’t been introduced to the characters before, how would you describe Quantum and Woody?

DK: Quantum and Woody are “the world’s worst superheroes” -– two dysfunctional adopted brothers, one straight-laced black guy (Eric) and one reckless white guy (Woody), who become estranged in childhood and reunite to solve their scientist father’s murder. But while investigating his lab, they accidentally blow things up and get superpowers (Quantum makes force fields, Woody shoots explosive blasts), and also get two golden bracelets fused to their wrists that have to be KLANG’D together every 24 hours to re-stabilize their molecules and stop them from turning into energy. So no matter how angry they get at each other, they’re basically stuck with each other.

GP: What’s your process like when you sit down to write?

  DK: I don’t really have a set process outside of the Late Show office, where everything is driven by the schedule of producing that day’s show. It leaves me nights and weekends to carve out time to get actual pages written, but a lot of the breakthroughs are incidental, which won’t surprise anyone else who writes. I think most of my ideas for Quantum and Woody came to me in the shower at the gym or walking to and from work, when my wind can wander. It’s great for dialogue, because I just kind of let my mind go blank and imagine them bantering on an empty stage back and forth until I’ve got way, way more bickering than I can actually fit in word balloons.

GP: Quantum & Woody has a nice history with Valiant and the last few volumes have built off the madness of the previous. You reference some previous adventures but as a writer how do you balance the history with making the comic easy to pick up for new readers?

DK: Well, for one thing, the hook. You don’t really need to know who Quantum and Woody are to appreciate a buddy-action-comedy-superhero-family-drama. Also, “Quantum and Woody” is one of the most bizarre names you give a comic, which I think it one of the reasons it’s stuck around all these years. It leaps off the shelves at you like, “What the hell kind of name is Quantum and Woody and how are these black and white guys brothers?” And if you’ve heard anything about it, you probably know that it’s funny. So we worked really hard to make this a brand-new jumping on point for readers –  if they’ve heard of Quantum and Woody before but were just waiting for a new #1, or if they know my work from Twitter, or the Late Show, or the dumpster I scream my rejected jokes into at night.

GP: You’ve done all sorts of writing, print, television, comics. How does the fact you have visuals change how you might approach a joke?

DK: Comics and comedy both have something really important in common, which is timing. The most fun for me is using the visuals to tell the story in a way that it feels like it’s playing out before your eyes, and take advantage of those storytelling devices to land different kinds of jokes – like the interminable silence that’s implied by a grid of identical panels with no dialogue, or being able to use flashbacks or little insets to reveal people’s secret motivations and reactions. Now that I think about it, something like Arrested Development, with the narrator and all the jumping around in time and points of view, would’ve made a really funny comic book.

GP: You wrote the Valiant High comiXology Original comic. What’s the impact the digital aspect has on the story? Is the fact that is what you’re writing for impact how you approached the story? How does an ongoing print series differ from a digital one?

DK: It really makes me wish I’d learned where the ads are going to be. Some writers I really admire have a very conscious awareness of “left page, right page, reveal page, opposite facing pages, double-page spread,” and I didn’t teach myself any of that for Valiant High, because I was picturing it as one-page-at-a-time on an iPad with no screen-rotating. That doesn’t mean Quantum and Woody won’t have double page spreads in it, though. In fact, Issue #2 is all double page spreads. Unless Valiant says no.

GP: What’s the biggest difference between writing for comics versus television versus prose?

DK: For me, it’s the voice you’re writing for. At The Late Show, you’re writing for the rhythm and delivery of a late-night talk show host telling the story of today’s events, and what our country is going through, in a kind of shared POV that gets filtered through his own sensibility. In the comics, you’re telling a story through characters who have their own personalities and dialogue ticks, and are at odds with each other by design. It’s sort of like essay versus novel, but way more lowbrow and with more energy drink ads.

GP: Thanks so much for chatting and looking forward to the comic!

Check out a preview for the first issue below.

Daniel Kibblesmith Talks the Return of Quantum & Woody #comics @valiantcomics @kibblesmith Sometimes… you embrace your destiny. And sometimes… you and your trouble-making adopted brother find yourselves trapped in a scientific lab explosion that grants you $@&%ing awesome super-powers.

[sarahzlukeuk]

How to Perform The Bench Press And Standing Press (And Why You Should)

We’re all blithely aware of the joke that Monday is international bench press day in gyms around the world. You commonly see a couple guys training together – one using less than stellar form trying to bench press more than he can properly handle while his workout partner “spots” him while chanting, “It’s all you, bro! It’s all you! I’m barely touching the bar!” (Important service announcement: if you’re bench pressing and someone touches the bar – no matter how “lightly” – before you lock it out, it most certainly was not “all you.”)

Regardless of the jokes and debates (e.g., is it really “functional”) about the bench press, it’s a great exercise. The standing barbell press is too, but we’ll get to that later.

Before we get to the how-to videos, let’s discuss the pros and cons of the barbell bench press.

The Bench Press

The bench press primarily engages the chest, anterior shoulders, and triceps. Put another way: it uses a lot of muscle mass in the upper body, and that’s why it’s such an effective, efficient exercise. One of the main benefits of the bench press is its loading potential. The barbell allows you to control the amount of weight put on the bar. This is especially true if you use fractional plates; you can add a mere half-pound to the bar. The ability to load the bar with small increases allows for longer progress to be made for the exercise.

For example: if I told you to add 5 pounds to the bar every time you bench pressed (the typical smallest weight increase from putting a 2.5-pound plate on each side of the bar) you’d likely stall out quickly. But if you added 2 pounds, or even 1 pound as the weight got heavier, you could make progress much longer.

If you want to get strong and want to do so efficiently, the bench press is a great exercise for training a horizontal pushing movement.

Potential Issues With the Bench Press

The main shortcoming is apparent for some women, particularly very petite women: a standard 45-pound barbell (the only option at many gyms) can be too heavy when starting out. If you’re lucky enough to train at a facility that has 35-pound bars, then you shouldn’t have a problem getting started.

If your gym only has 45-pound bars, and it’s too heavy at first, you’ll have to build up some strength before performing the bench press. I’ll provide my favorite exercise for this in a moment.

Another shortcoming of the bench press: it can cause shoulder discomfort or pain for some trainees depending on injury history, anthropometry, etc. Now, some people experience shoulder pain when bench pressing because they’re using incorrect form, which is addressed in the video below. But for some trainees, even if they use correct form, they can’t perform the movement without discomfort.

The exercise I prefer to use for someone who experiences shoulder discomfort from barbell bench pressing and for the trainee who can’t (yet!) use a 45-pound bar is the good ole fashioned push-up. In many ways, I think the push-up is a better exercise than the bench press, mostly because it’s more efficient. With a push-up you’re not only training your chest, shoulders, and triceps like you do with the bench press, but you also use your stomach, low back, and glutes to stabilize your body.

If traditional push-ups are too challenging, I suggest performing elevated push-ups as explained and demonstrated in the women’s beginner strength training guide.

The big disadvantage to the push-up, however, is its loading potential. Once you’re busting out 10+ flawless push-ups, making them more challenging can be awkward. Resistance bands are a great option, and you can put a weight plate on your back or wear a weight vest. But as you get stronger, it’s awkward and uncomfortable to load. That’s when the barbell bench press is a better alternative for building upper body pressing strength; it’s much easier to load than a push-up. (Parallel bar dips are an option too if you don’t want to bench press and need something more challenging than push-ups.)

Watch the video below to learn how to bench press safely. It’s a bit more complex than just pressing the bar up and down. You need to set your feet, grip, shoulder blades, arch, and position your wrists correctly. It’s all explained in the video, and heed the safety warnings so you can train hard, and smart.

Bench Press Alternatives

If you can’t perform the bench press due to lack of equipment, discomfort, or you’re just not confident having a bar hover over your face, I recommend the push-up as an alternative. The dumbbell bench press is great too and is usually better for someone who experiences shoulder pain with a barbell bench press. You can adjust your hand position with dumbbells and the free movement that occurs in the wrist and elbows when using dumbbells – something you can’t do with a barbell – makes the movement better for some trainees. The parallel bar dip is an option too.

The Standing Barbell Press

While the standing barbell press (or simply as it’s been known for decades: the press) is well known and is as old as the invention of the barbell itself, I think it’s greatly underappreciated for how awesome it truly is. Most people think of it as just another shoulder exercise, and that’s not doing this tremendous lift justice.

Other than the barbell squat and deadlift, few exercises do such a tremendous job of training the entire body while building strength (from pressing the weight overhead), balance (from pressing a weight overhead and not falling over), coordination, and stability (you need to brace your entire body and keep it stable to get the greatest benefit from this movement). And, frankly, it’s as functional as exercise can get. You pick things up and put them on a shelf, for example.

The one glaring, potential drawback to the barbell press is that some women (again, petite women in particular) may have a hard time pressing a standard 45-pound barbell from day one. If the bar is too heavy at first and your gym doesn’t have lighter barbells, I suggest starting with a standing dumbbell press. Keep the reps in the 5-8 range and add weight when possible. Once you can perform several sets (about 3-4) of 5-8 reps with 20 or 25-pound dumbbells, you’ll be able to confidently handle a 45-pound barbell.

Once you can press a 45-pound barbell, its advantages compared to the dumbbell variation shine. For one, it’s much easier to control the loading, as long as you use fractional plates. Most standard dumbbells increase in 5-pound increments (unless you have adjustable dumbbells in your home gym, like I do – then you can increase the weight 2.5 pounds) and that can be a huge jump. Think about it: going from 20 to 25-pound dumbbells is a 25% weight increase. And that’s not distributed over both limbs like it would be with a barbell, which is easier because there’s less stability required when using a barbell (since both hands are holding on to the same object).

With the barbell press you have the luxury of taking the bar out of a rack, as demonstrated in the video below. But with a dumbbell press, you have to swing it into pressing position.

Standing Barbell Press Alternatives

Some people can’t press a barbell overhead, be it from a previous injury, doctor’s orders, or because of their anthropometry. Many times (read, not always) being sure to implement that extra “push” at the very top of the movement – shrugging your shoulders up to the ceiling – alleviates discomfort previously felt when not using that technique. (In the past, the barbell press would aggravate my left shoulder a bit, but once I started doing that extra shrug at the top of the movement, it went away. You may not have the same experience, but it’s worth trying. That’s a tip I learned from Mark Rippetoe in Starting Strength.)

If that still doesn’t make it possible to press a barbell overhead pain free, stick with the dumbbell press variation. Specifically, use a neutral grip – palms face each other – when you press overhead. Be sure to include that extra “shrug” at the top too.

If you’re one of the individuals who can’t press overhead, or has been instructed not to from a therapist or doctor, don’t get discouraged. Just stick to horizontal pressing (e.g., push-ups, bench press variations, etc.) and supplement your shoulder work with some dumbbell or resistance band lateral raises.

You may be wondering: If I think the push-up is in ways better than a bench press, why don’t I recommend handstand push-ups instead of a barbell press? I like handstand push-up variations, and they are an option. However, the barbell press delivers greater training economy because it’s performed standing up, so there’s a greater balance and stabilization component from having to use your stomach, glutes, and legs to stabilize. Plus, you can train it through a longer range of motion; with a handstand push-up you stop once your head touches the ground (unless you elevate your hands, but this is very difficult). The handstand push-up is also more difficult to progress than a standing barbell press.

Refer to 7 of the Best Bodyweight Exercises You Should be Doing for more information about bodyweight exercises.

How to Include the Press and Bench Press in Your Workouts

The bench press and standing press are excellent exercises for building upper body pressing strength efficiently. That’s why they’re awesome, and why women should include them in their strength training program. Never underestimate the power of getting strong with big basic exercises.

Now that you know how to perform the bench press and standing barbell press (or their alternatives, if necessary), you may wonder how to include them in your workouts. Use these guides and templates to get started:

Two Day Per Week Strength Training Program

Triple-Exercise Total Body Workouts

The Ultimate Lift Like a Girl Workout Template

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The post How to Perform The Bench Press And Standing Press (And Why You Should) appeared first on Nia Shanks.

from Sarah Luke Fitness Updates http://www.niashanks.com/how-to-perform-bench-press-standing-press/

[joelandryus]

How to Perform The Bench Press And Standing Press (And Why You Should)

We’re all blithely aware of the joke that Monday is international bench press day in gyms around the world. You commonly see a couple guys training together – one using less than stellar form trying to bench press more than he can properly handle while his workout partner “spots” him while chanting, “It’s all you, bro! It’s all you! I’m barely touching the bar!” (Important service announcement: if you’re bench pressing and someone touches the bar – no matter how “lightly” – before you lock it out, it most certainly was not “all you.”)

Regardless of the jokes and debates (e.g., is it really “functional”) about the bench press, it’s a great exercise. The standing barbell press is too, but we’ll get to that later.

Before we get to the how-to videos, let’s discuss the pros and cons of the barbell bench press.

The Bench Press

The bench press primarily engages the chest, anterior shoulders, and triceps. Put another way: it uses a lot of muscle mass in the upper body, and that’s why it’s such an effective, efficient exercise. One of the main benefits of the bench press is its loading potential. The barbell allows you to control the amount of weight put on the bar. This is especially true if you use fractional plates; you can add a mere half-pound to the bar. The ability to load the bar with small increases allows for longer progress to be made for the exercise.

For example: if I told you to add 5 pounds to the bar every time you bench pressed (the typical smallest weight increase from putting a 2.5-pound plate on each side of the bar) you’d likely stall out quickly. But if you added 2 pounds, or even 1 pound as the weight got heavier, you could make progress much longer.

If you want to get strong and want to do so efficiently, the bench press is a great exercise for training a horizontal pushing movement.

Potential Issues With the Bench Press

The main shortcoming is apparent for some women, particularly very petite women: a standard 45-pound barbell (the only option at many gyms) can be too heavy when starting out. If you’re lucky enough to train at a facility that has 35-pound bars, then you shouldn’t have a problem getting started.

If your gym only has 45-pound bars, and it’s too heavy at first, you’ll have to build up some strength before performing the bench press. I’ll provide my favorite exercise for this in a moment.

Another shortcoming of the bench press: it can cause shoulder discomfort or pain for some trainees depending on injury history, anthropometry, etc. Now, some people experience shoulder pain when bench pressing because they’re using incorrect form, which is addressed in the video below. But for some trainees, even if they use correct form, they can’t perform the movement without discomfort.

The exercise I prefer to use for someone who experiences shoulder discomfort from barbell bench pressing and for the trainee who can’t (yet!) use a 45-pound bar is the good ole fashioned push-up. In many ways, I think the push-up is a better exercise than the bench press, mostly because it’s more efficient. With a push-up you’re not only training your chest, shoulders, and triceps like you do with the bench press, but you also use your stomach, low back, and glutes to stabilize your body.

If traditional push-ups are too challenging, I suggest performing elevated push-ups as explained and demonstrated in the women’s beginner strength training guide.

The big disadvantage to the push-up, however, is its loading potential. Once you’re busting out 10+ flawless push-ups, making them more challenging can be awkward. Resistance bands are a great option, and you can put a weight plate on your back or wear a weight vest. But as you get stronger, it’s awkward and uncomfortable to load. That’s when the barbell bench press is a better alternative for building upper body pressing strength; it’s much easier to load than a push-up. (Parallel bar dips are an option too if you don’t want to bench press and need something more challenging than push-ups.)

Watch the video below to learn how to bench press safely. It’s a bit more complex than just pressing the bar up and down. You need to set your feet, grip, shoulder blades, arch, and position your wrists correctly. It’s all explained in the video, and heed the safety warnings so you can train hard, and smart.

Bench Press Alternatives

If you can’t perform the bench press due to lack of equipment, discomfort, or you’re just not confident having a bar hover over your face, I recommend the push-up as an alternative. The dumbbell bench press is great too and is usually better for someone who experiences shoulder pain with a barbell bench press. You can adjust your hand position with dumbbells and the free movement that occurs in the wrist and elbows when using dumbbells – something you can’t do with a barbell – makes the movement better for some trainees. The parallel bar dip is an option too.

The Standing Barbell Press

While the standing barbell press (or simply as it’s been known for decades: the press) is well known and is as old as the invention of the barbell itself, I think it’s greatly underappreciated for how awesome it truly is. Most people think of it as just another shoulder exercise, and that’s not doing this tremendous lift justice.

Other than the barbell squat and deadlift, few exercises do such a tremendous job of training the entire body while building strength (from pressing the weight overhead), balance (from pressing a weight overhead and not falling over), coordination, and stability (you need to brace your entire body and keep it stable to get the greatest benefit from this movement). And, frankly, it’s as functional as exercise can get. You pick things up and put them on a shelf, for example.

The one glaring, potential drawback to the barbell press is that some women (again, petite women in particular) may have a hard time pressing a standard 45-pound barbell from day one. If the bar is too heavy at first and your gym doesn’t have lighter barbells, I suggest starting with a standing dumbbell press. Keep the reps in the 5-8 range and add weight when possible. Once you can perform several sets (about 3-4) of 5-8 reps with 20 or 25-pound dumbbells, you’ll be able to confidently handle a 45-pound barbell.

Once you can press a 45-pound barbell, its advantages compared to the dumbbell variation shine. For one, it’s much easier to control the loading, as long as you use fractional plates. Most standard dumbbells increase in 5-pound increments (unless you have adjustable dumbbells in your home gym, like I do – then you can increase the weight 2.5 pounds) and that can be a huge jump. Think about it: going from 20 to 25-pound dumbbells is a 25% weight increase. And that’s not distributed over both limbs like it would be with a barbell, which is easier because there’s less stability required when using a barbell (since both hands are holding on to the same object).

With the barbell press you have the luxury of taking the bar out of a rack, as demonstrated in the video below. But with a dumbbell press, you have to swing it into pressing position.

Standing Barbell Press Alternatives

Some people can’t press a barbell overhead, be it from a previous injury, doctor’s orders, or because of their anthropometry. Many times (read, not always) being sure to implement that extra “push” at the very top of the movement – shrugging your shoulders up to the ceiling – alleviates discomfort previously felt when not using that technique. (In the past, the barbell press would aggravate my left shoulder a bit, but once I started doing that extra shrug at the top of the movement, it went away. You may not have the same experience, but it’s worth trying. That’s a tip I learned from Mark Rippetoe in Starting Strength.)

If that still doesn’t make it possible to press a barbell overhead pain free, stick with the dumbbell press variation. Specifically, use a neutral grip – palms face each other – when you press overhead. Be sure to include that extra “shrug” at the top too.

If you’re one of the individuals who can’t press overhead, or has been instructed not to from a therapist or doctor, don’t get discouraged. Just stick to horizontal pressing (e.g., push-ups, bench press variations, etc.) and supplement your shoulder work with some dumbbell or resistance band lateral raises.

You may be wondering: If I think the push-up is in ways better than a bench press, why don’t I recommend handstand push-ups instead of a barbell press? I like handstand push-up variations, and they are an option. However, the barbell press delivers greater training economy because it’s performed standing up, so there’s a greater balance and stabilization component from having to use your stomach, glutes, and legs to stabilize. Plus, you can train it through a longer range of motion; with a handstand push-up you stop once your head touches the ground (unless you elevate your hands, but this is very difficult). The handstand push-up is also more difficult to progress than a standing barbell press.

Refer to 7 of the Best Bodyweight Exercises You Should be Doing for more information about bodyweight exercises.

How to Include the Press and Bench Press in Your Workouts

The bench press and standing press are excellent exercises for building upper body pressing strength efficiently. That’s why they’re awesome, and why women should include them in their strength training program. Never underestimate the power of getting strong with big basic exercises.

Now that you know how to perform the bench press and standing barbell press (or their alternatives, if necessary), you may wonder how to include them in your workouts. Use these guides and templates to get started:

Two Day Per Week Strength Training Program

Triple-Exercise Total Body Workouts

The Ultimate Lift Like a Girl Workout Template

Like what you read? Never miss a thing. Sign up below to receive the newsletter. You’ll also get the Beautiful Badass Mini Course as a free gift.

The post How to Perform The Bench Press And Standing Press (And Why You Should) appeared first on Nia Shanks.

from Sarah Luke Fitness Updates http://www.niashanks.com/how-to-perform-bench-press-standing-press/

[evajrobinsontx]

How to Perform The Bench Press And Standing Press (And Why You Should)

We’re all blithely aware of the joke that Monday is international bench press day in gyms around the world. You commonly see a couple guys training together – one using less than stellar form trying to bench press more than he can properly handle while his workout partner “spots” him while chanting, “It’s all you, bro! It’s all you! I’m barely touching the bar!” (Important service announcement: if you’re bench pressing and someone touches the bar – no matter how “lightly” – before you lock it out, it most certainly was not “all you.”)

Regardless of the jokes and debates (e.g., is it really “functional”) about the bench press, it’s a great exercise. The standing barbell press is too, but we’ll get to that later.

Before we get to the how-to videos, let’s discuss the pros and cons of the barbell bench press.

The Bench Press

The bench press primarily engages the chest, anterior shoulders, and triceps. Put another way: it uses a lot of muscle mass in the upper body, and that’s why it’s such an effective, efficient exercise. One of the main benefits of the bench press is its loading potential. The barbell allows you to control the amount of weight put on the bar. This is especially true if you use fractional plates; you can add a mere half-pound to the bar. The ability to load the bar with small increases allows for longer progress to be made for the exercise.

For example: if I told you to add 5 pounds to the bar every time you bench pressed (the typical smallest weight increase from putting a 2.5-pound plate on each side of the bar) you’d likely stall out quickly. But if you added 2 pounds, or even 1 pound as the weight got heavier, you could make progress much longer.

If you want to get strong and want to do so efficiently, the bench press is a great exercise for training a horizontal pushing movement.

Potential Issues With the Bench Press

The main shortcoming is apparent for some women, particularly very petite women: a standard 45-pound barbell (the only option at many gyms) can be too heavy when starting out. If you’re lucky enough to train at a facility that has 35-pound bars, then you shouldn’t have a problem getting started.

If your gym only has 45-pound bars, and it’s too heavy at first, you’ll have to build up some strength before performing the bench press. I’ll provide my favorite exercise for this in a moment.

Another shortcoming of the bench press: it can cause shoulder discomfort or pain for some trainees depending on injury history, anthropometry, etc. Now, some people experience shoulder pain when bench pressing because they’re using incorrect form, which is addressed in the video below. But for some trainees, even if they use correct form, they can’t perform the movement without discomfort.

The exercise I prefer to use for someone who experiences shoulder discomfort from barbell bench pressing and for the trainee who can’t (yet!) use a 45-pound bar is the good ole fashioned push-up. In many ways, I think the push-up is a better exercise than the bench press, mostly because it’s more efficient. With a push-up you’re not only training your chest, shoulders, and triceps like you do with the bench press, but you also use your stomach, low back, and glutes to stabilize your body.

If traditional push-ups are too challenging, I suggest performing elevated push-ups as explained and demonstrated in the women’s beginner strength training guide.

The big disadvantage to the push-up, however, is its loading potential. Once you’re busting out 10+ flawless push-ups, making them more challenging can be awkward. Resistance bands are a great option, and you can put a weight plate on your back or wear a weight vest. But as you get stronger, it’s awkward and uncomfortable to load. That’s when the barbell bench press is a better alternative for building upper body pressing strength; it’s much easier to load than a push-up. (Parallel bar dips are an option too if you don’t want to bench press and need something more challenging than push-ups.)

Watch the video below to learn how to bench press safely. It’s a bit more complex than just pressing the bar up and down. You need to set your feet, grip, shoulder blades, arch, and position your wrists correctly. It’s all explained in the video, and heed the safety warnings so you can train hard, and smart.

Bench Press Alternatives

If you can’t perform the bench press due to lack of equipment, discomfort, or you’re just not confident having a bar hover over your face, I recommend the push-up as an alternative. The dumbbell bench press is great too and is usually better for someone who experiences shoulder pain with a barbell bench press. You can adjust your hand position with dumbbells and the free movement that occurs in the wrist and elbows when using dumbbells – something you can’t do with a barbell – makes the movement better for some trainees. The parallel bar dip is an option too.

The Standing Barbell Press

While the standing barbell press (or simply as it’s been known for decades: the press) is well known and is as old as the invention of the barbell itself, I think it’s greatly underappreciated for how awesome it truly is. Most people think of it as just another shoulder exercise, and that’s not doing this tremendous lift justice.

Other than the barbell squat and deadlift, few exercises do such a tremendous job of training the entire body while building strength (from pressing the weight overhead), balance (from pressing a weight overhead and not falling over), coordination, and stability (you need to brace your entire body and keep it stable to get the greatest benefit from this movement). And, frankly, it’s as functional as exercise can get. You pick things up and put them on a shelf, for example.

The one glaring, potential drawback to the barbell press is that some women (again, petite women in particular) may have a hard time pressing a standard 45-pound barbell from day one. If the bar is too heavy at first and your gym doesn’t have lighter barbells, I suggest starting with a standing dumbbell press. Keep the reps in the 5-8 range and add weight when possible. Once you can perform several sets (about 3-4) of 5-8 reps with 20 or 25-pound dumbbells, you’ll be able to confidently handle a 45-pound barbell.

Once you can press a 45-pound barbell, its advantages compared to the dumbbell variation shine. For one, it’s much easier to control the loading, as long as you use fractional plates. Most standard dumbbells increase in 5-pound increments (unless you have adjustable dumbbells in your home gym, like I do – then you can increase the weight 2.5 pounds) and that can be a huge jump. Think about it: going from 20 to 25-pound dumbbells is a 25% weight increase. And that’s not distributed over both limbs like it would be with a barbell, which is easier because there’s less stability required when using a barbell (since both hands are holding on to the same object).

With the barbell press you have the luxury of taking the bar out of a rack, as demonstrated in the video below. But with a dumbbell press, you have to swing it into pressing position.

Standing Barbell Press Alternatives

Some people can’t press a barbell overhead, be it from a previous injury, doctor’s orders, or because of their anthropometry. Many times (read, not always) being sure to implement that extra “push” at the very top of the movement – shrugging your shoulders up to the ceiling – alleviates discomfort previously felt when not using that technique. (In the past, the barbell press would aggravate my left shoulder a bit, but once I started doing that extra shrug at the top of the movement, it went away. You may not have the same experience, but it’s worth trying. That’s a tip I learned from Mark Rippetoe in Starting Strength.)

If that still doesn’t make it possible to press a barbell overhead pain free, stick with the dumbbell press variation. Specifically, use a neutral grip – palms face each other – when you press overhead. Be sure to include that extra “shrug” at the top too.

If you’re one of the individuals who can’t press overhead, or has been instructed not to from a therapist or doctor, don’t get discouraged. Just stick to horizontal pressing (e.g., push-ups, bench press variations, etc.) and supplement your shoulder work with some dumbbell or resistance band lateral raises.

You may be wondering: If I think the push-up is in ways better than a bench press, why don’t I recommend handstand push-ups instead of a barbell press? I like handstand push-up variations, and they are an option. However, the barbell press delivers greater training economy because it’s performed standing up, so there’s a greater balance and stabilization component from having to use your stomach, glutes, and legs to stabilize. Plus, you can train it through a longer range of motion; with a handstand push-up you stop once your head touches the ground (unless you elevate your hands, but this is very difficult). The handstand push-up is also more difficult to progress than a standing barbell press.

Refer to 7 of the Best Bodyweight Exercises You Should be Doing for more information about bodyweight exercises.

How to Include the Press and Bench Press in Your Workouts

The bench press and standing press are excellent exercises for building upper body pressing strength efficiently. That’s why they’re awesome, and why women should include them in their strength training program. Never underestimate the power of getting strong with big basic exercises.

Now that you know how to perform the bench press and standing barbell press (or their alternatives, if necessary), you may wonder how to include them in your workouts. Use these guides and templates to get started:

Two Day Per Week Strength Training Program

Triple-Exercise Total Body Workouts

The Ultimate Lift Like a Girl Workout Template

Like what you read? Never miss a thing. Sign up below to receive the newsletter. You’ll also get the Beautiful Badass Mini Course as a free gift.

The post How to Perform The Bench Press And Standing Press (And Why You Should) appeared first on Nia Shanks.

from Sarah Luke Fitness Updates http://www.niashanks.com/how-to-perform-bench-press-standing-press/

[crystalgibsus]

How to Perform The Bench Press And Standing Press (And Why You Should)

We’re all blithely aware of the joke that Monday is international bench press day in gyms around the world. You commonly see a couple guys training together – one using less than stellar form trying to bench press more than he can properly handle while his workout partner “spots” him while chanting, “It’s all you, bro! It’s all you! I’m barely touching the bar!” (Important service announcement: if you’re bench pressing and someone touches the bar – no matter how “lightly” – before you lock it out, it most certainly was not “all you.”)

Regardless of the jokes and debates (e.g., is it really “functional”) about the bench press, it’s a great exercise. The standing barbell press is too, but we’ll get to that later.

Before we get to the how-to videos, let’s discuss the pros and cons of the barbell bench press.

The Bench Press

The bench press primarily engages the chest, anterior shoulders, and triceps. Put another way: it uses a lot of muscle mass in the upper body, and that’s why it’s such an effective, efficient exercise. One of the main benefits of the bench press is its loading potential. The barbell allows you to control the amount of weight put on the bar. This is especially true if you use fractional plates; you can add a mere half-pound to the bar. The ability to load the bar with small increases allows for longer progress to be made for the exercise.

For example: if I told you to add 5 pounds to the bar every time you bench pressed (the typical smallest weight increase from putting a 2.5-pound plate on each side of the bar) you’d likely stall out quickly. But if you added 2 pounds, or even 1 pound as the weight got heavier, you could make progress much longer.

If you want to get strong and want to do so efficiently, the bench press is a great exercise for training a horizontal pushing movement.

Potential Issues With the Bench Press

The main shortcoming is apparent for some women, particularly very petite women: a standard 45-pound barbell (the only option at many gyms) can be too heavy when starting out. If you’re lucky enough to train at a facility that has 35-pound bars, then you shouldn’t have a problem getting started.

If your gym only has 45-pound bars, and it’s too heavy at first, you’ll have to build up some strength before performing the bench press. I’ll provide my favorite exercise for this in a moment.

Another shortcoming of the bench press: it can cause shoulder discomfort or pain for some trainees depending on injury history, anthropometry, etc. Now, some people experience shoulder pain when bench pressing because they’re using incorrect form, which is addressed in the video below. But for some trainees, even if they use correct form, they can’t perform the movement without discomfort.

The exercise I prefer to use for someone who experiences shoulder discomfort from barbell bench pressing and for the trainee who can’t (yet!) use a 45-pound bar is the good ole fashioned push-up. In many ways, I think the push-up is a better exercise than the bench press, mostly because it’s more efficient. With a push-up you’re not only training your chest, shoulders, and triceps like you do with the bench press, but you also use your stomach, low back, and glutes to stabilize your body.

If traditional push-ups are too challenging, I suggest performing elevated push-ups as explained and demonstrated in the women’s beginner strength training guide.

The big disadvantage to the push-up, however, is its loading potential. Once you’re busting out 10+ flawless push-ups, making them more challenging can be awkward. Resistance bands are a great option, and you can put a weight plate on your back or wear a weight vest. But as you get stronger, it’s awkward and uncomfortable to load. That’s when the barbell bench press is a better alternative for building upper body pressing strength; it’s much easier to load than a push-up. (Parallel bar dips are an option too if you don’t want to bench press and need something more challenging than push-ups.)

Watch the video below to learn how to bench press safely. It’s a bit more complex than just pressing the bar up and down. You need to set your feet, grip, shoulder blades, arch, and position your wrists correctly. It’s all explained in the video, and heed the safety warnings so you can train hard, and smart.

Bench Press Alternatives

If you can’t perform the bench press due to lack of equipment, discomfort, or you’re just not confident having a bar hover over your face, I recommend the push-up as an alternative. The dumbbell bench press is great too and is usually better for someone who experiences shoulder pain with a barbell bench press. You can adjust your hand position with dumbbells and the free movement that occurs in the wrist and elbows when using dumbbells – something you can’t do with a barbell – makes the movement better for some trainees. The parallel bar dip is an option too.

The Standing Barbell Press

While the standing barbell press (or simply as it’s been known for decades: the press) is well known and is as old as the invention of the barbell itself, I think it’s greatly underappreciated for how awesome it truly is. Most people think of it as just another shoulder exercise, and that’s not doing this tremendous lift justice.

Other than the barbell squat and deadlift, few exercises do such a tremendous job of training the entire body while building strength (from pressing the weight overhead), balance (from pressing a weight overhead and not falling over), coordination, and stability (you need to brace your entire body and keep it stable to get the greatest benefit from this movement). And, frankly, it’s as functional as exercise can get. You pick things up and put them on a shelf, for example.

The one glaring, potential drawback to the barbell press is that some women (again, petite women in particular) may have a hard time pressing a standard 45-pound barbell from day one. If the bar is too heavy at first and your gym doesn’t have lighter barbells, I suggest starting with a standing dumbbell press. Keep the reps in the 5-8 range and add weight when possible. Once you can perform several sets (about 3-4) of 5-8 reps with 20 or 25-pound dumbbells, you’ll be able to confidently handle a 45-pound barbell.

Once you can press a 45-pound barbell, its advantages compared to the dumbbell variation shine. For one, it’s much easier to control the loading, as long as you use fractional plates. Most standard dumbbells increase in 5-pound increments (unless you have adjustable dumbbells in your home gym, like I do – then you can increase the weight 2.5 pounds) and that can be a huge jump. Think about it: going from 20 to 25-pound dumbbells is a 25% weight increase. And that’s not distributed over both limbs like it would be with a barbell, which is easier because there’s less stability required when using a barbell (since both hands are holding on to the same object).

With the barbell press you have the luxury of taking the bar out of a rack, as demonstrated in the video below. But with a dumbbell press, you have to swing it into pressing position.

Standing Barbell Press Alternatives

Some people can’t press a barbell overhead, be it from a previous injury, doctor’s orders, or because of their anthropometry. Many times (read, not always) being sure to implement that extra “push” at the very top of the movement – shrugging your shoulders up to the ceiling – alleviates discomfort previously felt when not using that technique. (In the past, the barbell press would aggravate my left shoulder a bit, but once I started doing that extra shrug at the top of the movement, it went away. You may not have the same experience, but it’s worth trying. That’s a tip I learned from Mark Rippetoe in Starting Strength.)

If that still doesn’t make it possible to press a barbell overhead pain free, stick with the dumbbell press variation. Specifically, use a neutral grip – palms face each other – when you press overhead. Be sure to include that extra “shrug” at the top too.

If you’re one of the individuals who can’t press overhead, or has been instructed not to from a therapist or doctor, don’t get discouraged. Just stick to horizontal pressing (e.g., push-ups, bench press variations, etc.) and supplement your shoulder work with some dumbbell or resistance band lateral raises.

You may be wondering: If I think the push-up is in ways better than a bench press, why don’t I recommend handstand push-ups instead of a barbell press? I like handstand push-up variations, and they are an option. However, the barbell press delivers greater training economy because it’s performed standing up, so there’s a greater balance and stabilization component from having to use your stomach, glutes, and legs to stabilize. Plus, you can train it through a longer range of motion; with a handstand push-up you stop once your head touches the ground (unless you elevate your hands, but this is very difficult). The handstand push-up is also more difficult to progress than a standing barbell press.

Refer to 7 of the Best Bodyweight Exercises You Should be Doing for more information about bodyweight exercises.

How to Include the Press and Bench Press in Your Workouts

The bench press and standing press are excellent exercises for building upper body pressing strength efficiently. That’s why they’re awesome, and why women should include them in their strength training program. Never underestimate the power of getting strong with big basic exercises.

Now that you know how to perform the bench press and standing barbell press (or their alternatives, if necessary), you may wonder how to include them in your workouts. Use these guides and templates to get started:

Two Day Per Week Strength Training Program

Triple-Exercise Total Body Workouts

The Ultimate Lift Like a Girl Workout Template

Like what you read? Never miss a thing. Sign up below to receive the newsletter. You’ll also get the Beautiful Badass Mini Course as a free gift.

The post How to Perform The Bench Press And Standing Press (And Why You Should) appeared first on Nia Shanks.

from Tips By Crystal http://www.niashanks.com/how-to-perform-bench-press-standing-press/

[juliehbutler]

How to Perform The Bench Press And Standing Press (And Why You Should)

We’re all blithely aware of the joke that Monday is international bench press day in gyms around the world. You commonly see a couple guys training together – one using less than stellar form trying to bench press more than he can properly handle while his workout partner “spots” him while chanting, “It’s all you, bro! It’s all you! I’m barely touching the bar!” (Important service announcement: if you’re bench pressing and someone touches the bar – no matter how “lightly” – before you lock it out, it most certainly was not “all you.”)

Regardless of the jokes and debates (e.g., is it really “functional”) about the bench press, it’s a great exercise. The standing barbell press is too, but we’ll get to that later.

Before we get to the how-to videos, let’s discuss the pros and cons of the barbell bench press.

The Bench Press

The bench press primarily engages the chest, anterior shoulders, and triceps. Put another way: it uses a lot of muscle mass in the upper body, and that’s why it’s such an effective, efficient exercise. One of the main benefits of the bench press is its loading potential. The barbell allows you to control the amount of weight put on the bar. This is especially true if you use fractional plates; you can add a mere half-pound to the bar. The ability to load the bar with small increases allows for longer progress to be made for the exercise.

For example: if I told you to add 5 pounds to the bar every time you bench pressed (the typical smallest weight increase from putting a 2.5-pound plate on each side of the bar) you’d likely stall out quickly. But if you added 2 pounds, or even 1 pound as the weight got heavier, you could make progress much longer.

If you want to get strong and want to do so efficiently, the bench press is a great exercise for training a horizontal pushing movement.

Potential Issues With the Bench Press

The main shortcoming is apparent for some women, particularly very petite women: a standard 45-pound barbell (the only option at many gyms) can be too heavy when starting out. If you’re lucky enough to train at a facility that has 35-pound bars, then you shouldn’t have a problem getting started.

If your gym only has 45-pound bars, and it’s too heavy at first, you’ll have to build up some strength before performing the bench press. I’ll provide my favorite exercise for this in a moment.

Another shortcoming of the bench press: it can cause shoulder discomfort or pain for some trainees depending on injury history, anthropometry, etc. Now, some people experience shoulder pain when bench pressing because they’re using incorrect form, which is addressed in the video below. But for some trainees, even if they use correct form, they can’t perform the movement without discomfort.

The exercise I prefer to use for someone who experiences shoulder discomfort from barbell bench pressing and for the trainee who can’t (yet!) use a 45-pound bar is the good ole fashioned push-up. In many ways, I think the push-up is a better exercise than the bench press, mostly because it’s more efficient. With a push-up you’re not only training your chest, shoulders, and triceps like you do with the bench press, but you also use your stomach, low back, and glutes to stabilize your body.

If traditional push-ups are too challenging, I suggest performing elevated push-ups as explained and demonstrated in the women’s beginner strength training guide.

The big disadvantage to the push-up, however, is its loading potential. Once you’re busting out 10+ flawless push-ups, making them more challenging can be awkward. Resistance bands are a great option, and you can put a weight plate on your back or wear a weight vest. But as you get stronger, it’s awkward and uncomfortable to load. That’s when the barbell bench press is a better alternative for building upper body pressing strength; it’s much easier to load than a push-up. (Parallel bar dips are an option too if you don’t want to bench press and need something more challenging than push-ups.)

Watch the video below to learn how to bench press safely. It’s a bit more complex than just pressing the bar up and down. You need to set your feet, grip, shoulder blades, arch, and position your wrists correctly. It’s all explained in the video, and heed the safety warnings so you can train hard, and smart.

Bench Press Alternatives

If you can’t perform the bench press due to lack of equipment, discomfort, or you’re just not confident having a bar hover over your face, I recommend the push-up as an alternative. The dumbbell bench press is great too and is usually better for someone who experiences shoulder pain with a barbell bench press. You can adjust your hand position with dumbbells and the free movement that occurs in the wrist and elbows when using dumbbells – something you can’t do with a barbell – makes the movement better for some trainees. The parallel bar dip is an option too.

The Standing Barbell Press

While the standing barbell press (or simply as it’s been known for decades: the press) is well known and is as old as the invention of the barbell itself, I think it’s greatly underappreciated for how awesome it truly is. Most people think of it as just another shoulder exercise, and that’s not doing this tremendous lift justice.

Other than the barbell squat and deadlift, few exercises do such a tremendous job of training the entire body while building strength (from pressing the weight overhead), balance (from pressing a weight overhead and not falling over), coordination, and stability (you need to brace your entire body and keep it stable to get the greatest benefit from this movement). And, frankly, it’s as functional as exercise can get. You pick things up and put them on a shelf, for example.

The one glaring, potential drawback to the barbell press is that some women (again, petite women in particular) may have a hard time pressing a standard 45-pound barbell from day one. If the bar is too heavy at first and your gym doesn’t have lighter barbells, I suggest starting with a standing dumbbell press. Keep the reps in the 5-8 range and add weight when possible. Once you can perform several sets (about 3-4) of 5-8 reps with 20 or 25-pound dumbbells, you’ll be able to confidently handle a 45-pound barbell.

Once you can press a 45-pound barbell, its advantages compared to the dumbbell variation shine. For one, it’s much easier to control the loading, as long as you use fractional plates. Most standard dumbbells increase in 5-pound increments (unless you have adjustable dumbbells in your home gym, like I do – then you can increase the weight 2.5 pounds) and that can be a huge jump. Think about it: going from 20 to 25-pound dumbbells is a 25% weight increase. And that’s not distributed over both limbs like it would be with a barbell, which is easier because there’s less stability required when using a barbell (since both hands are holding on to the same object).

With the barbell press you have the luxury of taking the bar out of a rack, as demonstrated in the video below. But with a dumbbell press, you have to swing it into pressing position.

Standing Barbell Press Alternatives

Some people can’t press a barbell overhead, be it from a previous injury, doctor’s orders, or because of their anthropometry. Many times (read, not always) being sure to implement that extra “push” at the very top of the movement – shrugging your shoulders up to the ceiling – alleviates discomfort previously felt when not using that technique. (In the past, the barbell press would aggravate my left shoulder a bit, but once I started doing that extra shrug at the top of the movement, it went away. You may not have the same experience, but it’s worth trying. That’s a tip I learned from Mark Rippetoe in Starting Strength.)

If that still doesn’t make it possible to press a barbell overhead pain free, stick with the dumbbell press variation. Specifically, use a neutral grip – palms face each other – when you press overhead. Be sure to include that extra “shrug” at the top too.

If you’re one of the individuals who can’t press overhead, or has been instructed not to from a therapist or doctor, don’t get discouraged. Just stick to horizontal pressing (e.g., push-ups, bench press variations, etc.) and supplement your shoulder work with some dumbbell or resistance band lateral raises.

You may be wondering: If I think the push-up is in ways better than a bench press, why don’t I recommend handstand push-ups instead of a barbell press? I like handstand push-up variations, and they are an option. However, the barbell press delivers greater training economy because it’s performed standing up, so there’s a greater balance and stabilization component from having to use your stomach, glutes, and legs to stabilize. Plus, you can train it through a longer range of motion; with a handstand push-up you stop once your head touches the ground (unless you elevate your hands, but this is very difficult). The handstand push-up is also more difficult to progress than a standing barbell press.

Refer to 7 of the Best Bodyweight Exercises You Should be Doing for more information about bodyweight exercises.

How to Include the Press and Bench Press in Your Workouts

The bench press and standing press are excellent exercises for building upper body pressing strength efficiently. That’s why they’re awesome, and why women should include them in their strength training program. Never underestimate the power of getting strong with big basic exercises.

Now that you know how to perform the bench press and standing barbell press (or their alternatives, if necessary), you may wonder how to include them in your workouts. Use these guides and templates to get started:

Two Day Per Week Strength Training Program

Triple-Exercise Total Body Workouts

The Ultimate Lift Like a Girl Workout Template

Like what you read? Never miss a thing. Sign up below to receive the newsletter. You’ll also get the Beautiful Badass Mini Course as a free gift.

The post How to Perform The Bench Press And Standing Press (And Why You Should) appeared first on Nia Shanks.

from Healthy Living http://www.niashanks.com/how-to-perform-bench-press-standing-press/