#And ended with with a Game Theory tier nonsense theory

[illmoraineakoi]

So, I know I'm a little (very) late to the AvA stuff, but I was rewatching AvM Season 3 for the seven hundredth time and, well, I noticed something and I'm curious to know if it's been discussed before.

AvM Episode 29, Purple's story, specifically, Pink's death.

Her color changes as she dies, or is represented to have died.

It fades to grey.

Now, the question is, can we, or rather should we, use this to infer anything lore-related? Was this just an artistic choice to depict the act of becoming unhealthy/dying, or could this be what actually happens to stick figures that die over a period of time? Are their colors linked to their health?

Let's have a bit of fun with it, and presume that the fading of one's color can happen to a stick figure for health-related reasons, as the scene could imply.

This fading seems to involve loosing the saturation of one's color into grey. Saturation is how vibrant a color is, and the complete lack of saturation is greyscale.

The World-of-Alan reason for Pink's death is that she 'got sick', which is where the health connection of this theory comes from. If she did loose her color as she was dying as the notes depict, that loss of color was likely a result of her failing health rather than any other factors, like age or outside variables. A whole bunch of human body stuff are indicators for good vs poor health, including skin color (jaundice and cyanasis are good examples) so why not a stick's color for them?

What if, when they fully die, they lose all of their original color?

Now, let me propose this…

Who else do we know of who has had their color loose vibrancy?

What if Victim's color has lightened because he's ill?

[ideahat-universe]

I don't know how I feel about the circus.

It's been a few weeks and I don't know. Aside from the fact that it's a very well done project by very talented people, I think it's not great.

I think the problem. MY PROBLEM is that for a pilot, I don't feel like we can go anywhere with the premise.

Take for instance the plot of Courage, the Cowardly dog.

Pilots for shows back then were just a basic indication of what an episode could be like. Riding off the heels of Animaniacs (which were inspired by Loony Toons who themselves were just animated vaudeville) a show could be about basically anything. Middle of Nowhere has roughly the same flexibility as Springfield, as a location that constantly moves and is never exactly in one place.

Maybe the episode can be about a monster of the week, like the pilot suggested. Maybe the monster is just a bad guy and is more nefarious than intimidating.

Maybe the bad guy is a negative emotion or behavior, like jealously, anger, or prejudice. You wouldn't expect a glorious episode like The Mask or the Last of the Starmakers even though the latter shares its spot with a sequel to the pilot episode.

The strength comes from the pilot not restricting what the show can be about and explicitly just telling the viewer that "Something" will happen in the middle of nowhere and Courage will rescue at least Muriel.

Here's a fairer comparison. Monkey Wrench! It's on its way to its third episode. What was its pilot like? Well, the pilot showed the day in the life of the Bounty hunters doing their daily job while also establishing the world and hinting at an overarching plot that the audience can find an additional interest in.

What is the ultimate objective of the mysterious group that hired an S tier assassin to kill all those diplomats and fat cats? What's in the cargo (and is it a girl again, like it was in Firefly and Outlaw Star?) ? Stuff like that gets you interested in what's going on and how our space cowboys will get roped into it.

The pilot has a plot.

Let's go back to The Amazing Digital Circus.

Pomni ends up trapped with other characters in a digital world where they are basically tortured by Caine, who is a corrupted AI!

So the plot is escaping?

NO. You can't escape. In fact, if you try to escape you'll go crazy and become abstract which is essentially death (I think therefore I am, if abstracting strips you of your ability to think, and without the ability to think, you can't confirm if you exist or if you are alive or dead, it would effectively make you non-existent or dead to be abstracted).

Pomni isn't a very strong lead, as she spent the whole first episode just being scared and mental. Every other character has been there so long that her anguish is a novelty. Their indifference about escaping stunts character growth, with the only thing that could change them being the hope of escaping, but the hope of escaping abstracts you because there is no logical escape. Caine can't even program a way for them to Alt f4 out of the game, merely thinking that the exit should lead to some area that is outside his ability to comprehend.

So the show is just about them surviving the eternal torment that is Gregory House, The Amazing Digital Circus! What can happen at the circus? Well, circus stuff. Maybe something random and nonsensical.

Well, if you like Bobobo maybe random nonsense happening and people yelling and playing along with it in goofy ways is enough, but I like my torture to have some structure in it. I mentioned it jokingly, but Gregory Horror Show also traps a lead character and, typically, subjects them to torture specific to that person.

The first time you watch it, you don't get it until the end, but after watching the end, you realize how doomed that person was from the beginning.

I've seen the digital circus theories. Don't you worry. Some people think there is an escape, some people think escape is why people abstract, some people think that this is supposed to be some kind of Kafkaesque escape from some horrible reality. Some people compare it to Sword Art Online, perhaps it is more like Code Lyoko's Virtualization or even Digimon's Digital Dive.

The reality is that very little is told from the pilot except that there can be no escape.

I guess that leaves us with one or two results.

The Amazing Digital Circus, having a really strong plot with character development that is entirely contingent on breaking the one rule it hammered into us (that we can't escape the game and trying to escape will abstract you) and that Pomni is more than just a shaking leaf and will actually rise to the occasion and will shift the paradigm and change the fate of everyone in the circus.

OR is the Amazing Digital Circus going to have a "scenario of the week" setup where nothing with long term ramifications happens and no one changes throughout the show, including Pomni whose job is to just do this

Over and over until the show ends.

I mean, there is a glimmer of hope as Goose has toyed with the idea of having a layer of intrigue to a story.

Of course, the fate of the show could be in your hands. After all Goose threatened to make the show bad on purpose if you fail to control yourselves and well.

Most show writers don't have to tell the audience the age of the characters, so the audience can feel good about looking up and creating pornography of the characters.

I mean every fandom has its bad apples but dude, let's be frank. This made sense when Hazbin Hotel all but demanded you be aroused and most other indie shows don't have this problem (including other works by Goose and Glitch) so unless you want the show ruined I'd tone that down.

It's not my show at risk in the end. Monkey Wrench is my jam and that show's fandom did not get completely fucked up after the first episode and has a clear plot, so I'm feeling pretty good about it.

[everythingfromdust]

What Homestuck is About

I don’t remember writing this, I never finished writing this, and I just found it in my drafts. If you asked me today to come up with what homestuck is about I would not be able to go into this level of detail at all. here you go.

the post;

As told by someone who hasn’t read Homestuck.

Before I begin, lets go over my Homestuck experience. At some point in like 2010 probably people got obsessed with zodiac symbols for some reason, and also candy corn horns. I saw them around and they did not affect me in any way. A few years ago I was commissioned to draw Homestuck fanart, I was linked a video of nonsense about some dude who controlled planets with his veins maybe. This was for inspiration for the drawing. I drew fanart, they liked it. After that happened I found out that I had been drawing other Homestuck fanart by commission, about a green planet or something, this was a surprise to me. I found this strange, told my friend who liked Homestuck and he told me to read it. I read the first few pages and got bored, I am sorry to your fandom, it just wasn’t my thing. What was my thing, was reading random-ass theories about Homestuck and looking at fanart as it came on my dashboard.

Now, with that in mind, here is what Homestuck is about...

Homestuck is a webcomic about 4 teenagers, Dave, Rose, Karkat (Online handle?) and Egbert. Egbert and Rose are the same age, they are friends by convenience but don’t have a lot in common. Dave is Egbert’s cool older brother who is also an asshole sometimes but only to hide his fragile ego. Karkat is a loner type who is sarcastic. Rose has a crush on Karkat but they have never met in person. Rose is also very sarcastic, but hers is more mean spirited while Karkat is just defensive with a kind heart. 

Karkat is way more into videogames than the rest of them, and ends up being the ‘leader’ of the group, ironically as most of her motivation is to be alone. However, Rose likes her, so she follows Karkat’s lead with regards to what games they play online, Egbert follows Rose because he doesn’t have other friends, Dave has to keep an eye on his little brother so follows them on their adventures reluctantly (but slowly learns to be part of the group). The first story arc establishes the characters and the world. The viewer interacts with these characters through the occasional videogame interface but mostly a webcomic format. The characters are very meta and self aware which is funny without getting into too much action before...

Suprise plot twist Karkat realizes they have been playing a game copy of their own lives within a webcomic/web-game thing. We find out later that she suspected this all along and only wanted to be alone because she thought everyone else was a simulation. 

Almost immediately Dave thinks that this plot twist is stupid, and the meta commentary on Homestuck itself reaches new sarcastic heights. The fandom takes this idea and runs with it, causing many fans to insist that Homestuck sucks. 

When they break into ‘reality’ Karkat is shocked to find that the other three have come as well. Thus begins her overarching subplot of learning to trust others and believing she can fall in love with Rose. Karkat and Rose question still if this reality is really the real one. Spoiler: It isn’t. While they try to discover the why and how of their situation Egbert is busy altering the code of the game to give himself insane powers and become ‘god tier.’ Dave is doing stuff to, but I think it’s mostly just fucking off and making jokes. 

There are monsters called trolls with candy-corn-horns at some point, but I’m lead to believe that they aren’t actually a big part of the story even though they are widely loved by fans. They probably happen early on in the story which is why they are fairly iconic for the series. The trolls are sentient too, each represents a sign of the zodiac, and each main character has a troll that is ‘them’ in an alternate game reality. So there are 4 trolls that represent the main characters, and this is symbolic somehow especially when you think about the 8 trolls who have no ‘main character’ components. 

Insane Clown Posse is involved somehow but I don’t understand if they are plot relevant or just a joke that the comic creator likes to fall back on. 

So anyway, eventually all the characters go god tier, they have to figure out their own personal way to get there and I bet it is really plot heavy and long. They can control the base code of the game, and they all start fighting with one another. 

The plot gets really huge in scope, as they find that their simulated reality 

[klappertart]

genshin ships

hello people in this random text post that no one gonna read i’ll say my stupid opinion about genships. once again please note this is my opinion.

this fandom is unique, although honestly it’s something i usually encounter in game fandoms, so many possible ships. i found that shipping in a game than novel/movie/anime etc is more possible and fun because they kind of have more ‘headcanon moments’ especially when it’s a character collecting game.

i’ll start with-uh, some sort or tier.. list??

1. pretty normal ship

ships based on:

in-game (quests) occurrences: like jeanxdiluc, chilumi, jeanlisa, etc

hints somewhere in the game: ningguangxbeidou, chonghyun’s harem, dainslumi, aetherxkeqing, zhongven, kaeluc;; etc

2. ships that emerged from that one voice line or banner

tartali, xiaoven, ganqing etc

3. ships because they look cute together (appearance based)

zhongguang, ganxiao, etc

4. ships of why

barbaraxventi LOL.. and some more

5. ships from a sudden encounter of two people for just like 5 seconds

scaramona

6. ships from a frEakING unconfirmed theorY of unRELEASED cHaRactER

KAZUSCARA WHAT THE HELL IS THIS

(maybe there are more)

in the end, i don’t hate any ships it just funny on how many freaking ships are there (and some of them is borderline nonsense) let’s go crazy kids.

i might be wrong so feel free to play around lol.

[homestuckexamination]

What is Time in Homestuck? What is its function, its purpose, what are timelines, what defines the Alpha and doomed timelines. How do timeloops work?

Time in Homestuck takes from a couple of theories about the workings of Time and Parallel Timelines. So, Time itself doesn’t have any Function, much like in real life, instead, Space and Time are treated as the two main building frames of a physical reality, to the point where the Universe Frog requires a Space and Time players to actually even be possible to be created.

Going in detail though, according to Homestuck’s Interpretation, there’s an Alpha Timeline that marks a path that must be followed, but there are alternate realities, sometimes required by the demands of the Alpha Timeline itself, where divergent Choices and Actions from the various characters have led to a deviation from this path that needs to be followed. A Time Loop is nothing more than ensuring no Paradoxes are created while following this Alpha. For example, according to the Alpha Timeline, Lil Cal ends up in Jack Noir’s possession, and eventually is shot through a meteor portal into Alternia. This is a stipulation that must be followed, so in the Timeline where John dies because Terezi sent him to see Typheus early? We learn with John’s ghost, that Typheus didn’t actually just insta-murder him, he gave him a Choice, to Die for the benefit of the Timeline. The thing that doomed the Timeline wasn’t John dying- It was Dave prototyping Lil Cal. Davesprite needed to exist, because without Dave preventing Lil Cal from being prototyped, Lil Cal would become a sprite, and thus never get to Alternia. This is the kind of Paradoxes Stable Timeloops want to avoid, and the reason this Timeline leaves behind a Doomed Rose. We see in a couple of occasions, Daves dying when a Time Loop is broken- When Dave screws up Time-Travelling, he creates an offshot Dave that doesn’t become ‘future Dave’, instead it’s its own iteration of Dave unrelated to the Alpha Timeline, and as such, Doomed to die. Davesprite manages to become un-Doomed by Prototyping himself into Davesprite, and thus becoming an integral part of the Alpha Timeline, rather than a Doomed Version.

Of course this still leaves the question of what the Alpha Timeline itself is. After all, we see dead God Tier Trolls, implying that actually becoming god-like is somehow not Alpha, and thus rendering the explanation of the Alpha Timeline being the ‘best’ or ‘most beneficial’ path impossible. No, in fact, the entirety of the Alpha Timeline is filled with Death and Suffering and awful things and characters being erased off the story.

This is because the Alpha Timeline is, in reality, a Time Loop that favors the Lord of Time, Caliborn. All the Alpha Timeline does is ensure Lord English is created and does what he does in the story, after all, he IS the Lord of Time, and he Commands Time itself. Paradox Space bends to his will.

[S] MSPA Reader: Mental Breakdown is a quick example of one of the Alpha Timeline’s most important devices- Lil Cal. A Juju which contains the Essence of Lord English, and needs to follow an EXTREMELY specific path to reach where it needs to reach, dividing in two at one point to become an Entry in Caliborn’s Land, through which he spreads his influence, and in which he eventually becomes trapped, and an Exit in the Lil Cal Dave has, which eventually ends in Gamzee’s Possession, and is ultimately used to convert Jack Noir into a Proxy for Lord English.

Everything in Alpha Timeline is delicately crafted to eventually lead to Caliborn’s Rise. Lil Cal is not just the Entry and the Exit, the Vessel for His Soul, it’s also the only reason why Caliborn manages to achieve full, unconditional Immortality. When he reaches Yaldabaoth’s Boon, he uses the Juju Breaker Crowbar to obtain Inconditional Immortality. Crowbar which he’s had since before he actually met ‘Crowbar’ from the Felt. Crowbar which was gifted to him by Gamzee of all people, the Troll who raised Calliope and Caliborn. Gamzee needed to be there to raise the twins, and he offered the tool that would eventually grant him Immortality. And how did both Gamzee and the Crowbar get to Caliborn? Through the Black Hole created after killing the Jack Noir possessed by Lord English through Lil Cal. Black hole which ALSO absorbed a majority of LOTAK, including its core, where the Denizen Yaldabaoth himself was, making it seem like everything relevant to Caliborn’s Session arrived there in the first place only thanks to Lil Cal.

Similarly, even the God Damn Retcon favors Lord English, even though it seems like a Canon-Breaking tool, even though it seems like something meant to bypass the Alpha Timeline in the first place, it’s actually a necessary tool for Lord English’ creation- Without the Retcon Powers, John would’ve never reached Caliborn’s Masterpiece, becoming stuck in the House Juju with the other three Betas. He wouldn’t have led the Kids that would, in turn, defeat Caliborn and suck his Soul, ARquius’ Soul and half of Gamzee’s into Lil Cal to create the amalgam known as Lord English. And without the Beta Kids stuck in the House, it would’ve never been filled in, and thus become the double-edged sword that would eventually cast Lord English into the Breach.

But of course even the Retcon favors Lord English- After all, he kills the Author. Caliborn interacts with Hussie through the Command Prompt, and physically smacks the website around on several occasions, as well as glitches the cartridge containing the data to continue the story. Doc Scratch and Vriska seem to be the only other characters in the comic to even be aware of the existence of Hussie as the Narrator- With Scratch being part Lord English, and Vriska literally getting angry at Hussie for switching the narrative just as she was about to reveal the House Juju, and tearing it back from him to show everyone what was in the Juju Chest. A Villain that messes with the Narrative itself would definitely still benefit from a tool meant to break the narrative. And in the same way, when the Villain of the Story has control over not just Reality, but the direction of the Narrative, the only two that can oppose it are a Character who Knows they are in a Story and Wants to be the Protagonist, and a Protagonist who Can Alter the Narrative and just wants to be Happy.

As such, Homestuck takes the idea of ‘parallel timelines’, and throws us a scenario in which an evil entity has basically overwritten Free Will through imposing himself in a very specific path, so if I had to give a short answer to the question of what “Time” and “The Alpha Timeline” is? I’d have to answer, The Alpha Timeline is Homestuck in itself, both the story and the struggle of the characters as they navigate through it.

( From this point downwards, these are my THOUGHTS and opinions, and may not reflect what’s strictly Canon or what may happen in the future )

This ties in to my thoughts on why I think Act 7 is good, contrary to what many in the Fandom seem to believe. We’re shown Caliborn’s rise to immortality, the beginning of his journey towards becoming Lord English, and eventually becoming the big villain of the story, contrasted with Vriska inserting herself in the role of the Heroine, even though everything was already set in the story for this exact same culmination and all she did was take the spotlight by opening the Juju Chest, and the Release of the Kids from the Alpha Timeline to live in Earth-C, free of the influence of Lord English, of the grasp he’s had on their choices and their existence.

Already at the very beginning, John himself states it clearly. 

It is your thirteenth birthday, and as with all twelve preceding it, something feels missing from your life. The game presently eluding you is only the latest sleight of hand in the repertoire of an unseen riddler, one to engender a sense not of mirth, but of lack. His coarse schemes are those less of a prankster than a common pickpocket. His riddle is Absence itself. It is a mystery dispersing altogether, like the moon’s faint reflection, with even one pebble of inquiry dropped in its black well. It is the most diabolical riddle of all.

When the Kids cross the threshold of the Door to the new Universe, the story ends canonically, because they’ve escaped the Time Loop known as the Alpha Timeline, they’re beyond English’ Realm. They are no longer Stuck, and they’re free to make their choices without fearing the creation of an offshot Timeline or worrying about what may happen in the future.

It’s my belief that the fact we see Caliborn with the Ring of Life Calliope has, that two Nannasprites exist without one dying, and a few other details such as Caliborn stating seeing himself surprised at the Kids appearing to face him using John’s Retcon Powers, means that this is not following the Alpha Timeline at all by the ending. John’s ‘I’ll do it’ has sparked many theories about this being the conflict that sparks John to want to go back to fight Caliborn, but it has always seemed nonsensical to me. John is depressed, Terezi is looking for Vriska, but for most of the part, they’re happy. They’re content with having gone through the hardships of the Game, and now being able to just live their lives. I could maybe see John using a fight with Caliborn to mask his emotions, but I can’t see him convincing Rose, happily married to Kanaya, that they should go back to beat up the stupid asshole that keeps Trolling him through Snapchat, using his highly dangerous Retcon Powers.

To me, it always felt that this was the result of a Timeline we didn’t see, but may see in the Epilogue, and even though there are ways to make it work, it ties perfectly well to this theme of breaking out of the Alpha Timeline, that by the end of the comic, we wouldn’t even be following the Timeline that spawns Lord English, and rather, the one the John we’re following, seeing master these Retcon Powers, creates following Terezi’s Instructions.

Ironically enough, this Timeline ends as an empty victory for both John and Terezi. John, with his adventure over, and having never seen inclined to even think what he may want to do after it’s over, is now left alone with his thoughts, the trauma he’s went through, and missing his father, while Terezi, who in the Game Over Timeline thought all she needed to be happy was Vriska, realizes that even that is more of a patch for some deeper self-steem issues, and yet continues to try to chase after her around the crumbling Paradox Space for no avail for years.

It’s my belief, when the Epilogue comes out, that we will see a distinction between the Timeline in which John reaches Earth-C, and the one in which they all go to Caliborn’s Masterpiece, as well as have Terezi return to Earth, not with Vriska, but with Davepeta, Sollux and Aradia, who are still potentially alive and out there. But that’s mostly because I don’t think Vriska should survive the encounter with Lord English.

Vriska herself, in this case, climatically becomes what she’s always wanted to be, the protagonist, only by her desire to be as such. She treats the Game of SBURB like a Game, and similarly, she treats Homestuck like a Story, a Story in which she wants to be seen as the Heroine. Not for Noble or Heroic reasons, but merely for the hell of it. She becomes the perfect Counterpoint to Lord English- The man who set the Alpha Timeline, whose existence jeopardizes the entirety of Paradox Space, the unseen, mysterious hand behind every event. Lord English becomes the Villain of the story, and Vriska takes advantage of it. A story needs a Villain and a Protagonist, and with John more focused in his Friends than the Big Bad, she steals the role for herself, which would make seeing her never actually return, all the more fitting. Act 7 is the Finale. It’s the End of the Alpha Timeline, the End of the Story that is Homestuck. So of course, once the curtains are drawn, both Villain and Protagonist are out of the picture entirely.

[usashirtstoday]

Best Dad Bod Ever Since 1965 Vintage Father T Shirt

Syndication service later onand Mr Jack Douglas who produced Johnand Yoko Ono’s current album double fantasy who was with Johnand Yoko shortly before his tragic death here in New York last night I would be right back to run the 1975 interview with John Lennon after these announcementsand I hope that you will stay with us we back in about two minutesand seconds John Lennon in a Best Dad Bod Ever Since 1965 Vintage Father T Shirt little bit later on in the program will talk about the possibility of us having to leave the United Statesand at that time his attorney Mr Leon Wilds will join us to make certain that John or I make no mistakes in the legalities but I welcome you hereand I’m glad that you’re here as I said at the outset the back in 1964 by after the cataclysmic arrival of the Beatles here in the United Statesand the great popularity had on the Ed Sullivan programand others there were many people who did not really understand what you were doingand and they thought then that your hair was longand that you looked might. They can escalated to a vaccine invention so is very important that we resist this mashup not only is truth on our side the Constitution and the law on our side but logic and common sense is on our side and a lot more people out there that are frustrated with this mask shipping you think they just don’t know the lawn he don’t have the intimate knowledge about what’s really being done to us like we do there pushing the coalition shut the schools down and the church is why because schools and churches aware boating happens if they can shut down a bolt of the polling places guess what happens mail in voting Horowitz study of our thousand hundred UK schools show very little evidence that the virus is transmitted in school you know why because everybody has tested positive is asymptomatic the CDC and the World Health Organization already said asymptomatic people do not get the do not. Like John Snow Amy’s motivation is drivenand the nonsense in the service of keeping him sympathetic relative to Dragon Lady bad we know what kind of a guy Jamie is based on his actions so for him to say even really giving us a why only serves as a cheap twist surprising but not unexpected isn’t it after all he’s explaining his motivation with wordsand motivations are explained with words that means a defect to make telling the audience the thing makes sense with your dialogue while not supporting the thing with the characters actions is kind of the trends in the last season game of thrones Thursday one of the greatest villains not just in TV history but arguably all of literature she she didn’t have much to do battyand there did she all of tearyand stupid mistakesand wildly out of characterand unmotivated sudden trust in his evil sister serve the purpose of keeping Circe in the game optional remember I chose to help promises or assurances which feels even more insulting given that Circe closed lowing up that faces no consequences nor has a secret evil plan beyond staring on a balconyand glowering over my domain with a glass of wine which I get it that’s my usual Friday night but all she in season eight is a scene of the thing was not to be the most in the show makes Circe sympathetic but it’s like in the most condescending way possible be characters somehow just go she just got he says come when the plot says so Circe’s armies instantly crumbleand she dies a weirdly sympathetic death in Jamie’s arms who is here for some reason in a rocks fall everyone dies situation that feels more on par would like a your Disney movie is in line with someone who once said how or how this is important to look at Circe for who she is presented as a monarchand what the show built her up to be before dinner is torched King’s Landing elements multivitamin will take off the big thing hereand I mean big scene as a defining actionand Circe’s rule is are effectively blowing up the in universe equivalent of the Vatican as a means to wipe out her enemiesand flex on how many foxy gives which is zero is the scene was awesomeand yes it feels like something someone as recklessand vengeful as Circe would do when pushed to the editor Brink but prior to season for most of the plot of game of thrones is centered around the direct consequences of one guy Ned start getting his head lopped offand what pretty much everyone who wasn’t a child who ordered it even Circe felt was a massive dick move meanwhile postseason six Circe not only blew up one of the largest buildings in West Rosen wiped out a decent chunk of the faithand its leader but also decimated one of the most powerful wealthyand well liked familiesand mistress with a lot of loyal Bannermanand apart from a few stray remarks from other characters you sister this major act of mass violence just kind we just move on it nobody cares there are no consequences for this she is crownedand life goes on the only person opposing her is Dragon lady who would have invaded no matter who is on the throne so let’s break this down why in God’s name when they set up Circe finally exacting revenge on the faceless masses that through literal feces on her during the walk of shameand weeding out religious extremism with impunity only to conveniently forget the internal logic of much smaller scale political issues like that starts execution causing massive upheaval dimension again wasting someone likely entities talent’s well here is why because of how season eightand this one act necessitates that yes Circe would be considered an unparalleled top tier Megatron grade tyrant she couldn’t have wiped out all of the faith militant or even most of them let alone the countless followers of the seven in West Rose who would feel understandably very pissedand personally attacked by this maneuver is also to say nothing of all people who saw her as 100 illegitimate or believe that her children were inbred pastors or who would want revenge on her for what she did the house Tyrell to the dumb dumb throated juicy situation which in theory could have led to some of the best acting from one of the most talented players but the problem here is that it would have revealed her as a tyrant leading to a situation where literally anyone with a claim to the throne would be looked upon by the people attend landing as a liberator which leads us to the person who at least far as everyone knows has the best claim to the throneand wouldn’t you know it has already defined herself as a liberator so Dragon lady shows up writing some dragons like okay hi I’m here to liberate y’all on the breaker of chains love me please it’s fair to say that DD created a situation where I actually does a pretty great for the small book of Kings Landingand the vast vast majority of the nobles who already support herand pretty much everyone who is in the iron Bank of bravos to whom the Lancers a lot of money can count on the back support our students to go should they wrote a situation where there’s no way Circe would be able to maintain power after her move with the septic without being a complete totalitarian who stomps out dissent before it even manifests she created a situation where she had no choiceand she is a personality to relish that sort of thing like oh God yes revenge please I live for thisand I remember the face of every peasant who flung shit at meand I will pull each of their fingernails out myselfand on a related note you really expect me to think alike Circe’s good I like be upset that the nurses murdering that the innocence of Kings Landing after what they did to her she should be like go girl so the only way to deal with the fallout of Circe’s actions while still barreling full steam ahead to this predetermined ending is to ignore them altogether the show must maintain that the people of Kings Landingand help greater West Rose are never affected by their monarchand that they don’t care that social trends do not apply to the rabble or the common folk even though that was a huge chunk of the Kings Landing plot for seasons six that yes the machinations of the powerful do have effectand politically savvy nobles like Marjorie Tyrell have sound methodsand this development in later seasons especially with Circe kill me because what set game of thrones apart for the first few seasons was how it was so conscious of the house that intrigues a magical or otherwise have realistic consequences that affect not only the lives of the major characters but also the culture of the world itself like in season seven during the latrine attack dinners recklessly burns all that food from the reach that surely should have some consequences right may be set up a touch of the old starvation but like the destruction of the set they wrote a situation that should have had consequences but didn’t that the existence of a gun create a situation where it makes perfect sense not only for the people of West rest to reject an heiress for her own sense of entitlement to make her descent into power up session makes sense only based on the situation but also based on the character that we know unfortunately that is not the situation at the Chapel Road facility with the nearest nurse came to power effectively from nothing not only because of an important nameand some dragons but because people believed in her once so it was like the service provider leaving with whom I know a lot of people problematic writing or no sacrifice a lot because they believed what she believed this isand then she went some more crimesand you didn’t even see it coming because she pretty don’t you feel stupid

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[innuendostudios]

Smash Favorite Polls

Over the summer I did a series of Twitter polls asking people who their favorite players of different characters were. Not the best, their favorites. This is a thing I did out of pure curiosity, because I sometimes think of what my answers would be and wonder how abnormal my preferences are. (Turns out they are, but not always where I expected.)

Some people have asked if I could do a post discussing the results, so here’s that.

Caveat: This is not hard science. These polls did not have significant sample sizes, and the self-selected population “Ian’s Twitter Followers” isn’t likely to represent the whole Smash community. (I have a statistically high number of SJW HBox fans, because that’s part of my brand.)

Criteria: I ran polls on half the tier list starting with Marth (#3) and ending with with Mario (#15). I didn’t bother with anyone below that because there aren’t many truly low-tier mains to choose between, and, well, I can’t say I’m that curious who the three favorite Roy players are. I skipped Fox and Falco because fuck space animals. I also threw in a few extra questions I was curious about, which we’ll get to.

Anyhoo, here are the results.

Marth

Winner: Mew2King Total Votes: 82 Correct Answer: PPMD Write-Ins: Ken Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/870316744925208577

I was very surprised by the lack of love for PewPewU in this one. PPMD had been inactive for almost two years at the time of the poll and still wildly outperformed PewPewU. I can’t really blame folks, as I like PewPewU a lot but would still pick both PPMD and M2K before him. I wonder if PewPewU, being the perennial 9th place finisher, is also the perennial second-favorite Marth; he might do better in a runoff vote where he would get points for being a second favorite. As it stands, you only get points for being first, and he’s not many peoples’ fave.

Sheik

Winner: Plup Total Votes: 50 Correct Answer: Kirbykaze Write-Ins: Amsah Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/870756094435622913

Plup took first, but another strong showing for M2K. I figured if we were asking for favorite players, not best players, that we’d see greater preference for flashiness, but M2K’s defensive, optimized play keeps performing well. Then again, it’s my theory that M2K is the beating heart of the Melee scene, so maybe personality trumps play style. (The write in for Amsah was from me; he’ll always be #1 in my heart but there wasn’t room for him in the poll.)

Jigglypuff

Winner: Hungrybox Total Votes: 95 Correct Answer: Hungrybox Write-Ins: Zasa, Tekk, s0ft Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/871189445038546945

HBox took first place, and “I’m a jerk who hates Puff” took second, with Prince Abu and 4% tying for third with only 9% each. If you like Puff at all, there’s no reason you wouldn’t like HBox the most, and I’m frankly surprised “Hates Puff” didn’t win by a landslide. My followers are good like that. Notably, one of the highest voter turnouts of the whole endeavor, which will become a theme.

Peach

Winner: Armada Total Votes: 59 Correct Answer: Armada Write-Ins: Freeze Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/872079889326886914

In my heart of hearts, the correct answer is Milktea, but far more for admiring the person than for her play style. (There aren’t many surviving videos of Milktea in her prime, so I’m not even familiar with her style.) Of the people who actually made the poll, there wasn’t really a contest. (I think the write-in “Freeze” is a “freeze peach” joke. Right? I’m right, aren’t I?)

Ice Climbers

Winner: Wobbles Total Votes: 105 Correct Answer: Wobbles Write-Ins: Drunksloth Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/872870056581111809

Between this and the Jigglypuff poll, I notice that the characters who are “ruining Smash“ tend to get the highest voter turnout, and the players most associated with that character won both polls. Fly Amanita’s rep for being the “only cool IC” didn’t rescue him from fourth place, getting outranked by noted pariah Nintendude, who nearly tied with fan favorite ChuDat. Not sure if my followers are just weirdos or if the idea that Chu is beloved and ICs are otherwise despised is somewhat distorted.

Captain Falcon

Winner: S2J Total Votes: 61 Correct Answer: Jeapie Write-Ins: Isai, Hax, Scar Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/872870056581111809

One of the tighter races, S2J only barely edging out Wizzrobe. (So, again, a solid performance from a player who’s supposedly making the game not fun.) Jeapie getting only 6% is a goddamn travesty. Thought n0ne would do better here, he’s supposed to be the fan favorite. Anyway, West Coast wins out over 20GX, but not by much.

Mid-Tier Mains (Pikachu vs. Yoshi)

Winner: aMSa Total Votes: 69 (nice) Correct Answer: Axe Write-Ins: Leffen’s MewTwo Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/873306882550763521

There aren’t enough noteworthy Pikachu or Yoshi mains to make either poll worth doing, so I just pitted aMSa and Axe against each other. I’m punching my chad for Axe, but I feel like death about it. This is a poll where the only correct move is not to play. For write-ins, people tried to vote Abate and A Rookie, but I’m disqualifying them because they appear in the Luigi and Mario polls later on. Should technically disqualify Leffen as well, but there wasn’t room for him in the Pocket Low-Tier poll downthread so I'm letting him hang out here.

Samus

Winner: Plup Total Votes: 55 Correct Answer: ESAM Write-Ins: none (not n0ne, just... no write-ins) Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/873674261701033984

Plup wins again! First person to win two polls. Duck and Hugs dead-even at 2nd with 27% each. ESAM comes in last because people have no souls. Some debate in the comments about whether or not Samus is fun to watch. (Someone says she isn’t, but they are wrong.)

Luigi

Winner: Abate Total Votes: 39 Correct Answer: Eddy Mexico Write-Ins: Ka-master, Luigikid Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/874040581311352833

Only put two players on this poll, since I knew one or the other would win. Maybe I’m just being contrarian by stumping for Eddy Mexico over Abate, as both are excellent players and I root for either one easily. Abate only one by a small margin, anyway, so seems people are about as split as I am. Starting to see a drop-off in voter turnout as we get lower in the tier list.

Ganon

Winner: Bizarro Flame Total Votes: 38 Correct Answer: Bizarro Flame Write-Ins: n0ne, Lythero Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/874672698194046978

This, at least, makes sense to me. Bizz won in a landslide. I mean, that’s how I would vote as well, though I wish Kage had made a stronger showing in second. Eikelmann manages the only 0% of all the polls. Someone in the comments argued that n0ne’s Ganon secondary is arguably the best Ganon, period, calling him “a more toned down version of everything bizz wants to do.��� I don’t really disagree, though it seemed like cheating throw secondaries in against mains. That said, Kage still consistently beats n0ne in Ganon dittos, so n0ne having the best play style is still theoretical.

Mario

Winner: Scorpion Master Total Votes: 60 Correct Answer: A Rookie Write-Ins: none (again, not n0ne, even though his Mario is very good) Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/875146202827849728

The only appearance of Mango in this entire endeavor and he beats out A Rookie. I expected better of you people.

Pocket Low-Tiers

Winner: Plup Total Votes: 57 Correct Answer: Axe Write-Ins: Westballz, Leffen Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/875834490404392960

OK, I’m sorry, but this is nonsense. Plup decided to main Luigi at CEO Dreamland in April (probably as a joke) and took 5th place, above PewPewU, Axe, Duck, The Moon, n0ne, and MacD. The highest ranking actual Luigi main was in 25th. And that’s impressive, I’m not denying that. But did anyone even know he had a Luigi before that? And already you like his Luigi more than Axe’s Young Link, Hungrybox’s Ness, and n0ne’s Ganon? Are you serious with this shit? I wanna re-run this poll when Plup’s Luigi isn’t The New Hotness and see how he stacks up, because this is silly. I mean, have you seen Axe’s Young Link??? Have you seen HBox’s Ness??? People wrote in Westballz’ Donkey Kong and even that makes more sense. Anyway, hooray, Plup wins three polls and is clearly the hands-down fan favorite who isn’t Mango. You’re all on notice.

Main You Miss The Most

Winner: Hax Total Votes: 63 Correct Answer: Hax Write-Ins: Plup’s Samus (disqualified) Link to Poll: https://twitter.com/InnuendoStudios/status/876440529021566976

Hax’s Captain Falcon is the right answer here, though the few random times he’s brought out the Falcon in tournament have not gone well for him. I think, at this point, people just wanna see Hax play anyone. Mango’s Jigglypuff outperformed Shroomed’s Dr. Mario, which... again... what is wrong with people?

[journalofsportsmedicine]

Fluid Post-Modern Neo-Tribes: A Case Study of the West Perth Cheer Squad (Australian Rules Football), 1984-1986- Juniper Publishers

Juniper Publishers- Journal of Physical Fitness, Medicine & Treatment in Sports

General Introduction

In this article I apply Gary Armstrong’s [1] anthropological approach to soccer (i.e. association football) hooliganism studies to our 20-person West Perth cheer squad (hard-core supporter group) of 1984-86 (Australian Rules football’s WAFL competition). I find that the anthropological approach is able to explain many aspects of our cheer squad’s culture and members’ behaviours including the quick disintegration of the cheer squad early in the 1986 season without anyone officially ending it. However, our group members did not adjust their commitment downwards during the cheer squad’s years of action; most members attended all home-and-away matches during May 1984 - March 1986.

West Perth FC has been a foundation member of the Perth-based Western Australian Football League (WAFL) competition since 1885. However, the WAFL was reduced to second-tier status when the newly-formed Perth-based West Coast Eagles club entered the expanded Victorian Football League (VFL) (now Australian Football League (AFL)) in time for the 1987 season [2]. The VFL/AFL now operates as a de facto national premier league (first division). As in American professional sport, there is no promotion to or relegation from the VFL/AFL to the various second-tier leagues based in each of the major cities. During the twentieth century, up to 1982, the VFL/AFL was based solely in the state of Victoria (and 11 of its then 12 clubs were based in the city of Melbourne).

A cheer squad (an Australian Rules football term) is a semi-organized group of hard-core supporters (comprising typically but not always a male teenager majority) which sits in the same strategic place at home matches and which supports the team through chants, songs, flags, and banners1. However, traditionally, cheer squads did not sing or chant continuously but only at significant moments in the match such as when the team runs out on to the field and after goals (which are far more numerous in Australian Rules than in soccer). Unlike soccer ultras, the groups generally did not stand in circles singing and chanting at off-stadium locations such as pubs or railway stations. This ultras-style behaviour may be infiltrating cheer squad culture so we must be careful to restrict ourselves in this article to discussing the cheer squads of the eighties. (Since 1989 the national soccer league has been played in summer so it is possible and not uncommon for supporters to support an Australian Rules club and a soccer club and the supporters of both sports are likely to be the ones who have been bringing ultras’ culture into Australian Rules. For example, leading members of the South Fremantle Cheer Squad (WAFL), formed 2002, also attend Perth Glory soccer matches in the summer.) A cheer squad typically attends some or all away matches, and usually sits in a humble location at away venues (near the entrance which is closest to the train station for example) and rarely tries to take over the home cheer squad’s territory2. Australian Rules football cheer squads should not be confused with the cheer squads of American Football which are, obviously, completely different.

Foot Note

1Some of these cheer squads (such as the cheer squad at WAFL club East Perth from 1982-88, according to David Lockhart) were club-sponsored and financed (source for information on East Perth Cheer Squad: comment by David Lockhart on Lost WAFL Facebook page, 4 December 2013). Others, such as our West Perth Cheer Squad, were unofficial only and had no official connection to the football club.

The dominant culture at Melbourne- and Adelaide-based cheer squads, since the formation of the first cheer squad at VFL/AFL club Richmond in 1959 [3], has included an important fraternal ethos among rival cheer squad members especially away from the grounds. The cheer squads took on some of the “illusion of violence” [4] or tough-guy posturing from British and European soccer hooligans and ultras. However, this was more in terms of style and posturing; cheer squads rarely sought out or engaged in actual violent actions. Another influence on the cheer squads arguably was the ultras groups formed by Australian soccer supporters from European ethnic immigrant backgrounds including those connected to clubs such as Melbourne Croatia, South Melbourne Hellas, Sydney Croatia, and Sydney Olympic [5].

Aim

The aim of this article is to apply Armstrong’s theory of fluid “post-modern” “neo-tribes” [1] to our West Perth cheer squad 1984-86 and draw appropriate theoretically-informed conclusions from this application. We also use Peter Marsh’s concept of “aggro�� as the “illusion of violence” [4] which suggests that, in order to gain and demonstrate control over territory and resources, rival groups engage in symbolic behaviours (advances and retreats) which more often than not involve only mild violence or no violence at all. If group self-respect, integrity, and territorial control can be achieved without actual violence then, as the theory goes, so much the better.

Motivations

It is important to study the behaviours and cultures of Australian Rules football hard-core supporters and cheer squads as this has been an under-researched area. Much of what we do know to date comes largely from personal memories and anecdotes and from occasional comments and digressions in Australian Rules football history books of various kinds [6].

Background

General Background

The three largest population centres where Australian Rules football is the most popular winter sport are Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth. Traditionally the Melbourne-based VFL/ AFL competition had and has the best football, the largest crowds, and the most passionate supporters compared to the local competitions based in the other two cities (the SANFL in Adelaide and the WAFL in Perth). Football supporter culture has typically diffused from Melbourne to Adelaide (654kilometres to the west) and, only to a much lesser extent and at a slower rate, from these two centres to Perth. Slow diffusion to Perth is largely due to distance: Perth is located far away on the country’s west coast 2,131kilometres from Adelaide and 2,721kilometres from Melbourne. Until recently working-class and lower middle-class people rarely travelled from Perth to Melbourne but travel from Adelaide to Melbourne was much more common due to the fact that it was within easy over-night driving distance. As a result seventies’ and eighties’ football supporter culture diffused faster and to a greater extent from Melbourne to Adelaide than from these two cities to Perth.

In the peak cheer squad years of the VFL/AFL in the seventies and eighties, when it was a Melbourne suburban competition plus Geelong FC, cheer squad members from various clubs would catch up with each other after games at Flinders Street Station and shout across station platforms the scores from their respective grounds. There was also a place called Classic Cafe in Melbourne city-centre where cheer squad members congregated and interacted on Saturday nights after the regular Saturday afternoon home-and-away games [6]. If anything, cheer squad members have been less violent than ordinary supporters of Australian Rules’ clubs. A distinction has been made between the inner and outer cheer squads at the popular Collingwood club where the inner cheer squad was the approved membership that adhered to fraternal cheer squad ethics whereas the outer cheer squad was the hooligan element not under the restraining influence of cheer squad leaders. However, I argue that, despite this, the “illusion of violence” has always been important, to some extent, for Melbourne- and Adelaide-based cheer squads.

The fraternal Melbourne- and Adelaide-based cheer squad culture merged with the outwardly more aggressive English soccer hooligan culture, which regularly appeared on Australian TV news reports, to create the ethos of groups such as our West Perth Cheer Squad. Growing up as teenagers in Australia in the eighties we all saw the TV news reports of soccer hooligan violence coming out of the UK and, being eager to prove our credentials, we adopted some of their tough-guy posturing or “illusion of violence” [4]; the influence was there definitely at the subconscious level if not at the conscious level. So to say that Australian Rules football crowds and soccer crowds are unrelated topics is simply nonsense. However, we never initiated violence and we were only once seriously threatened by it (at Bassendean Oval). The events of that particular day will be presented and analysed in the Results sections of this article.

Foot Note

The leading cheer squads in WAFL (Perth-based) football in 1984-86 were Perth Demons, Claremont, Subiaco, West Perth, and East Perth, probably in that order or with West Perth as third. None of the remaining three WAFL clubs had semi-organized cheer squads of any type as far as key people were aware. Perth and Claremont might have had 20-30 people on a good day, and our West Perth group had a stable core of 15-20. By the second half of our existence we had around 15 large red-and-blue flags or one flag per core member.

West Perth in fact had three cheer squads during the 1984- 86 periods:

a) Fat Pam (Pam Hynsen)’s cheer squad, which disbanded at the end of the 1983 season but continued to still make the banners the players ran through before the games;

b) Our unofficial group situated behind the northern-end goals, which replaced Fat Pam’s group which had formerly used that location; and

c) The Grandstand Falcons, a group of older guys then in their twenties who sat at the top of the Leederville Oval grandstand and sang songs (but had no flags or floggers).

The existence of three supporter groups shows the passion and commitment of grassroots supporters for many of the WAFL clubs during the eighties when average match attendances for home-and-away fixtures were around seven to eight thousand.

At one Subiaco Oval (neutral-venue) game, our cheer squad sat in front of the Grandstand Falcons with a third section of seats in front of our cheer squad reserved for our flags and banners. (Our group never took floggers to away games but instead we stored them in the West Perth FC club facilities at Leederville Oval.) Altogether there would have been over 50 people there that day across both groups combined. The noise the combined group made under the grandstand roof, on the second- (middle-) tier of the three-tier stand behind the Fremantle-end goals, was magnificent when magnified by the echoes. We sang the Grandstand Falcons’ powerful song “This Time, We’ll Get It Right3 about England’s 1982 World Cup hopes (with England changed to West Perth and the “white” dropped from “red, white, and blue”). This song summed up perfectly people’s emotions at the time because it had been a decade since West Perth had last won a premiership [7] and the supporters’ hopes had been dashed on many an occasion. In hindsight, this was our cheer squad’s greatest day.

The largest and best organized cheer squad was Perth Football Club’s under the leadership of a very warm, cheerful, and sophisticated “metro-sexual” guy with blond-rinse hair called Nick. Nick brought the disciplined and fraternal Melbourne-based (VFL/AFL) cheer squad culture and ethics over to the Perth Football Club. This cheer squad had existed since at least 1981. To this day the wooden bench seats behind the northern- or city-end goals at Lathlain Park, Perth’s home ground, are painted red-and-black, a permanent reminder of the days (and years) when Nick’s passionate cheer squad occupied those benches.

The Claremont cheer squad was probably similarly influenced by the Melbourne-based cheer squads since one of its core members wore a Melbourne-style duffel coat with club name and favourite player name and number (Peter 15 Jamieson) emblazoned on the back in big iron-on lettering. The duffelcoat culture never caught on in Perth as, unlike in Adelaide, few school-aged Perth-based supporters then made trips to Melbourne or Adelaide to watch VFL/AFL or SANFL games, and the only places to see the duffel-coat culture were Melbourne and Adelaide. Furthermore, the Perth winter is milder and too hot for duffel coats.

These duffel coats were excellent for standing on the terraces in the rain on Saturday afternoons in Melbourne because the rain-soaked coats could simply be left out to dry and would be wearable one week later. It was common in 1982 to see these duffel-coats with team and player names ironed on and pinon player badges being worn on the streets by teenagers on weekdays in the city-centre. However, by 1986, the coats were mostly only being worn at games while by the nineties they had disappeared from the stadiums as well. All-seater stadiums with covered roof sections had made them redundant.

Fat Pam’s West Perth Cheer Squad (Disbanded 1983)

I had become aware, early in the 1984 season that the earlier famed West Perth Cheer Squad, which had congregated behind the northern-end goals at Leederville for many years, had quit completely at the end of 1983. This cheer squad was interesting as unlike most cheer squads in Australian Rules’ history in Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth it was dominated by middleaged females and young children. The legendary leader of this group was a woman known by the woefully politically incorrect moniker of “Fat Pam” (real name: Pam Hynsen)4. The leading women used to stand upright on the last row of wooden benches behind the northern-end goals5. Their cheer squad was large, committed, and dedicated; it had a huge collection of flags and floggers6. This group had operated for a number of years and was well known and respected. I sat near the group at the northernend of East Fremantle Oval for an East Fremantle versus West Perth match in Round 17 (8 August) 19817.

Foot Note

3See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w3_PZh0IR4 [accessed 14 September 2017]. 4Pam’s family name was supplied many years later in a comment post by long-term cheer squad member David Barr on the Facebook page Lost WAFL on 21 September 2017. This comment post appears to have been deleted.

However, with Fat Pam’s cheer squad disbanded, I sensed a gap and an opportunity. As far as I was aware, in May 1984, Fat Pam’s group continued to make the banners that the players ran through at the start of each game (they may still make these banners today), and our group never attempted to get involved in this activity, mostly out of respect for Fat Pam’s group which had been there long before it. The northern-end at Leederville Oval in 1984 was strangely quiet, empty, and barren, now devoid of West Perth flags and floggers on home match days. I felt that the team would be inspired by a vocal group of home supporters, with a colourful red-and-blue visual presence, at the northernend of Leederville. A Melbourne Knights’ soccer supporter puts forward her view (below) that her team has been inspired and encouraged on occasion by the vociferous, noisy, and colourful support of the club’s hooligan firm Melbourne Croatia Fans or MCF:

“From what I can gather, the MCF is largely made up of young men who are passionate about their club, its heritage and its importance to the Croatian community. They are loyally devoted to their team and will often travel great distances in order to show their support. The songs, chants and banners have (according to the players) been known to lift our team in crucial moments during the match”8.

I was inspired to set up a new unofficial cheer squad to replace Fat Pam’s group behind the northern-end goals at home matches and to travel to select away games. I expected that the demographics of my new group would be totally different to Fat Pam’s group but I hoped that our members would show the same loyalty, dedication, commitment, and spirit. The new cheer squad would have a lot to live up to.

West Perth versus South Fremantle, Leederville Oval, Round 6 (5 May), 1984

My high-school friend Mike B (also a West Perth supporter) was willing and interested in the cheer squad idea so, on Saturday 5 May 1984, we took the Number 105 bus from Booragoon into Perth city-centre, walked two blocks from St George’s Terrace to Barrack Street (just north of Murray Street), and then caught the 1.15pm Number 15 bus to Glendalough. Mike B and I then alighted near the ground along the Oxford Street cappuccino strip, not far from the corner with Vincent Street. I am fairly sure that Mike B and I already had two large red-and-blue homemade flags on this day. On this day Mike B and I both wore long-sleeved West Perth replica playing jerseys. Although these were not the height of fashion even in the mid-eighties Mike B and I were both proud to show off our club loyalties.

Contemporaneous newspaper reports confirm that this match was the thrilling home draw against South Fremantle on 5 May 1984 described by Atkinson [7] in his West Perth FC official history book. Atkinson recounts that the slender Aboriginal forward flanker Ron Davis9 kicked two goals out of three for West Perth in the last five minutes to draw the game with only 15 seconds remaining. The final score was: West Perth 15.15 (105) drew South Fremantle 16.9 (105) (source: match scores are taken from ibid., p. 334; The West Australian, Monday, 7 May, 1984, p. 81) and the official attendance was 7,790 (source: WAFL Online website). I certainly do remember a joyous mood that day commensurate with an exciting come-from-behind draw. It was the perfect on-field start to begin the cheer squad era. It was the first drawn match in the WAFL since 20 April 1974.

Mike B and I must have exerted an aura of charm and authenticity on this day as a number of people came up to us, introduced themselves, and stayed for the rest of the afternoon including Courtney; Rohan H; and Mark T aka “Thommo”. Some of these people, including the three names mentioned, would go on to become core members of the cheer squad.

Courtney, 14-years-old, from Carine, friend of Rohan and Thommo

Blond 14-year-old Courtney was a designer dresser in the manner of the English “soccer casuals” of the eighties. He was very interested in fashion. I think that he also had a longsleeved West Perth replica jersey but, other than that somewhat unfashionable item of clothing, he always wore colourful veeneck woollen jumpers (pullovers); bulky cargo shorts (even on the coldest days); and navy deck shoes without socks. Courtney came from a middle-class or upper middle-class family suburb in WPFC’s geographic district10. It was most likely Carine which is today part of Subiaco FC’s recruiting zone11.

FootNote

5 The word “goals” is used in plural form in Australian Rules football culture because the goals are made up of four separate vertical posts.

6 Fat Pam’s cheer squad can be seen on the video-clip of the 7 May 1983 West Perth versus Subiaco game recently posted to YouTube.com. The cheer squad is at far left of screen (behind the Leederville Oval northern-end goals). To find this video search YouTube for “West Perth v Subiaco 1983” or simply copy-paste the following link into your browser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gmZMzTr7CA&feature=related [accessed 7 August 2011].

7 Two pictures of Fat Pam’s WPFC cheer squad at East Fremantle Oval on 8 August 1981 can be viewed at the following link: http://waflgoldenera. blogspot.com/2013/12/picture-gallery-fat-pams-west-perth.html [accessed 5 December 2013].

8 Melbourne Knights’ supporter, personal e-mail communication to the author dated 23 August 2010.

9 Ron (Ronald Brian) Davis (DOB 11/8/1963) played 13 senior games for West Perth in 1984-85 and kicked 22 goals (Atkinson, 2008, p. 354).

10 The creation of allocated zones within the metropolitan area for each WAFL club was introduced c. 1970.

11 For the location of the suburb Carine within Subiaco FC’s recruiting zone as at 2009 see the metropolitan area maps at the following link: https://www. bigfooty.com/forum/threads/wafl-zoning-and-expansion.1085307/ [accessed 16 February 2018].

Rohan H, 14-years, from Carine, Courtney’s Friend: Brown-haired, 14-year-old Rohan H was a slender, quiet lad who stuck close to Courtney. They were school-friends in the northern suburbs and both were committed to the group from the first match. I can’t say that I ever got to know Rohan well. His manner was aloof and unapproachable, but this was not due to arrogance; more likely it was because of shyness and caution. Rohan was very much an introvert but he showed his commitment to the group by his regular attendance for two years. Courtney and Rohan were together the “middle-class” and the relatively more self-controlled sub-gang within the core but they also enjoyed the more boisterous chants and songs.

Mark T aka “Thommo”, 14-Years-Old, “Floater” / Non- Aligned, Courtney’s Junior Football Friend: The next character I will introduce to readers is the redhead “Thommo”, always known to the group members by the nickname of “Thommo” which he brought into the group from his home-suburb and high-school. Group members did coin some nicknames within the group. “Half” for the eight-year-old Michael was the best and most famous of these. However, most of the nicknames people naturally brought into the group from outside and it were more authentic and simpler to use these pre-existing names than to invent new ones.

The senior Thommo’s character was complex. He was, like many of the others, a working-class rebel and a very loyal and tough person. He could chat calmly and intelligently with people, but, if he felt that he was being disrespected, then he would change in an instant, and give that person a swift rebuke and stinging defence of himself and of his arguments. In that way people learned to respect him and be slightly wary of his reactions although you could also praise and respect him for his mild-mannered nature, self-control, and good humour. He was great for joking and laughter and he also enjoyed getting analytical at times about West Perth’s players and performances.

Another point to note is that Thommo knew Courtney through junior football although they were not from the same high-school. Thommo then became an important natural link between the various sub-gangs in the group. His background, dressing, and style were more proletarian than those of the “Carine group”, Courtney and Rohan. However, the link between Thommo and “the Carine group” was important and a part of the glue that reinforced trust and goodwill especially in those early weeks in 1984 when group members did not know each other well.

Cheer squad members all used to stay behind after games until well after darkness on the playing surface of Leederville Oval and away venues to kick footballs amongst themselves. Thommo, in these encounters, was a fast, courageous, and skilful footballer. He would contest marks against the immobile rock that was Peter “PA” Brennan (family name changed) who was sixfeet- two and a veritable 18-year-old man mountain. PA would stand in one place to mark and kick whilst Thommo and the others would use their speed and skill to steal the marks from PA, either in front or to the side of him, or else they would pick up the loose balls that P.A. spilled. I can remember Thommo’s habitual long-sleeved checked flannel shirts, later made famous in the grunge music era of the early-nineties, and how he would always have a cigarette packet in his chest pocket which would often fall to the ground whilst he was running at or with the football. He would then quickly run back to recover his cigarette packet from the ground in order to beat any potential “thieves”. Group members stuck with their own group in these football games, and would never formally join in with strangers. This is perhaps further evidence for the proposition that the cheer squad was a “group-for-itself” (see Results section).

Michael aka “Half”, 8-Years-Old, from Bayswater

I now move on to mention the group’s most important and famous younger member, Michael, or “Half” as the group members christened him because he was one-half the height of the other people in the group. Half was a sandy-haired eightyear- old whose parents were financial members of the West Perth Football Club. They sat in the grandstand at home games and attended all away games. They allowed Half to set his own agenda, go his own way, and make his own friends during the games as long as he did not leave the enclosed confines of the grounds. That was an era where people generally let their children roam free and people were less conscious of the threat of paedophiles. His parents were never seen by the group members but I suppose that group members viewed them as spectral support from the more respectable section of the West Perth supporter base. They attended all games home and away. Certainly they gave the group a certain amount of trust and group members did feel some obligation and responsibility regarding Half’s welfare. Half was a very passionate West Perth supporter although I believe he lived in the East Perth FC geographic district in either Bayswater or Maylands.

Half joined the cheer squad for every home and away game for two years and he always joined group members on the playing surface after games for the informal kick-to-kick sessions among the group members. He was always regarded as an important part of the cheer squad and his nickname was a sign of affection. He was a carefree extrovert who liked chatting and laughing and would get very excited during significant moments of play when West Perth was doing well. At such times he would run around and climb up on to empty seats, waving his flag furiously. He would enjoy the insulting cheer squad chants and enjoy negative discussions about other teams and verbally jousting with rival fans of his own age if any of them came too close. Like every group member, he genuinely loved and admired the playing group, the team, and the club but in the innocent way you would expect of an eight-year-old. When he urinated on the oval during kick-to-kick sessions he would receive a rebuke from other members who would quickly look away!

Once I recall telephoning half’s house to discuss with him tickets relating to either the Sandover Medal Night, at the now

demolished Perth Entertainment Centre in 1984, or to the first semi-final of 1985. I recall Half’s father answering the phone and being very wary initially. However, when he heard that I was from “West Perth cheer squad”, he totally relaxed, and he handed the phone over to Half. I arranged with Half for the buying of his ticket in conjunction with his father. Half could be quite mature in discussing things such as buying tickets to events. He certainly did not want to miss out on anything. Overall Half was an extremely interesting character and almost the cute and cheeky mascot of the cheer squad.

“P.A.” and Dave S, 18-Years-Old and 16-Years-Old, the Balga Sub-Gang

My personal 1984 WAFL season notes, compiled during the 1984 season, state that Peter “PA” Brennan (family name changed) (hereafter “PA”) and Dave S (name changed) first joined the group for the Round 12 (23 June) 1984 match when West Perth defeated Claremont 21.10 (136) to 9.14 (68) at Subiaco Oval (source: match scores taken from Atkinson [7]). Although at that time PA and DS were regarded by group members as being the “Balga group”12 DS was actually from Tuart Hill as he confirmed via a since self-deleted comment he posted on the WAFL Golden Era website (waflgoldenera.blogspot.com) on 14 June 2013. PA and DS together made an interesting spectacle, and I do remember that it was with great interest and some anxiety that group members watched the pair walk towards us on the first day. PA was six-feet-two, stocky, and built like a country league football ruckman (or like ruckman Ron Boucher of the Swan Districts Football Club) whereas DS was much shorter and quite slim.

DS, the cheer squad’s only Asian member, was an ethnic Chinese who also, from day one, wore the “uniform” of longsleeved West Perth replica playing jersey and plain blue or black jeans (the most popular dressing style in the cheer squad). He was first seen with PA before they joined the group, and he also was associated with the “Balga group” although he came from Tuart Hill. He was also an interesting character and he had a love-hate relationship with PA that involved frequent insults directed at PA’s alleged gullibility.

An interesting coincidence was that West Perth’s then league-team captain and one of the club’s greatest ever players was Les Fong, a Chinese-Australian who was nicknamed “Chopsticks”, “Choppy” or “Chopper”, and then the cheer squad had its own Chinese member in DS Perhaps Les Fong’s presence at West Perth made it easier for the cheer squad members to accept DS. Their actual real names in fact rhymed and had only two different letters out of seven. Group members regarded it as interesting, symmetrical, and appropriate that the cheer squad had its own Chinese member. It meant that the West Perth senior team had its mirror image, in terms of ethnic mix, on the other side of the playing fence.

I cannot remember DS facing any racism that was hostile from any of the cheer squad’s core members but of course he may have experienced some teasing and put-downs. As with Thommo, DS had a very well-developed self-defence mechanism so people knew where they could stray verbally and where they could not. DS must have enjoyed cheer squad membership or he would not have stayed with us for two years. He was also a very faithful member even though he could never have been described as warm or even as friendly much of the time. He could also vary significantly in temperament and mood from week to week so on some weeks he might greet you warmly while on other weeks he might ignore a greeting. People had to work hard to earn his respect although he probably respected all or most of the cheer squad members, to some certain basic extent, if his continued attendance at games with the cheer squad was any indication. Of course people learned to expect DS’s mood changes and to live with them.

One of DS’s strong points, other than his loyalty to the cheer squad, was that he would often laugh at the humour being shared around, and his face would sometimes light up in a wide and magnificent smile. If DS wanted to discuss something serious, he would come up very close to you, remove his black sunglasses, and quietly and carefully make his points. The removal of the “sunnies” was the sign of his respect and the seriousness of his point. DS loved the actual sport of Australian Rules more than most fans; watched each game pan out with eagle eyes; and he would rebuke people who made what he considered to be unnecessary noise. Sometimes the joking would set off among five or six group members. PA would double up, bend down lower, and emit loud laughs. DS would rarely laugh but he would have this wide smile while his eyes remained intently focused on the game. These were some of the better moments of the cheer squad. DS clearly had a strong bond with PA that appeared to pre-date the day on which PA and DS first joined the cheer squad. The way the cheer squad worked was to honour and respect, and to some extent even to trust, these pre-existing bonds that people brought into the group from their home-suburbs and high-schools.

Mike C and Pete C, 16-Years-Old and 14-Years-Old, No Fixed Abode

The brothers Mike C and Pete C were an integral part of the cheer squad from very early on. Cheer squad members knew that both had a background of reform and foster homes, but no-one ever thought that either would steal anything from the group members or anything similar. Mike C could find it hard to control his emotions, whether anger or excitement, so group members assumed his troubles with the police had related in some way to this. No-one ever asked him what his troubles had been. Pete C once said that Mike “hated pigs” and no-one found this hard to believe. Cheer squad members adopted the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

FootNote

12 For the location of the suburb Balga (traditionally regarded as West Perth territory) within Subiaco FC’s recruiting zone as at 2009 see the metropolitan area maps at the following link: https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/wafl-zoning-and-expansion.1085307/ [accessed 16 February 2018].

Mike C (16-years-old) was a scary sight to people that didn’t know him and even to some of those who did. When he got excited by the football he would walk straight up to someone in the group, stand right in front of him, and totally invade his personal space, without seemingly being aware of it. He would also do this when greeting someone for the first time each match-day. His big green eyes got fiery when excited and, in his muscle tee-shirts of the eighties and his long, thick, black, wavy hair, he cut a scary figure, and he was a vital part of the group’s tough-guy image. Under his replica West Perth playing jersey, Mike C would wear short-sleeved muscle tee-shirts, in bright colours, made famous by Australian rock stars of the era such as Cold Chisel’s Jimmy Barnes and AC/DC’s Bon Scott and Malcolm Young (6 January 1953 - 18 November 2017). Mike C. was at his most boisterous on West Perth’s good days when he would loudly and gleefully start and continue chants and songs. Mike C. was completely unafraid of opposing supporters, enjoyed loudly and conspicuously “invading” opposing team’s grounds, especially at Bassendean Oval, and he could become oblivious to place and context. Only the eight-year-old Michael aka “Half” was as openly boisterous as Mike C. When excited, both individuals would cover large amounts of space in and near the cheer squad’s chosen area, standing on and leaping over seats and waving flags and chanting.

Pete C (14-years-old) was a complete contrast to Mike C: short, quiet, softly spoken, polite, thoughtful, gentle, analytical yet equally loyal - to his brother, to the cheer squad, and to the WPFC. He was one of the people whom I most enjoyed talking to. As with his brother, his standard match-day “bogan”13 attire was long-sleeved West Perth replica jersey, tight blue or black jeans, and sneakers. Both the brothers were fiercely loyal to each other and, of course, this fact and the underlying attitude behind it were very helpful to the cheer squad. Group members all valued the brothers’ loyalty, warmth, and dedication to each other, to the group, and to West Perth. The C brothers, along with Thommo and Robbie, gave the group much of its “illusion of violence” and the hooligan look and attitude. Group members knew that the C brothers had no fixed abode and lived hand-tomouth, and the group members thrived on this knowledge; it gave the cheer squad a working-class tough-guy persona that it might otherwise have lacked.

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Literature Review

General Introduction

Dunning et al. [8] outline the main academic approaches to soccer hooliganism studies used by academic researchers. The academic theories can be divided into: The early-dominant “figurational” or “process-sociological” approach of Dunning et al. [9,10]; the “anthropological” approach of Armstrong and Harris [1,11]; the post-modern approach of Giulianotti; the Marxist approach of Taylor, Clarke, and Hargreaves; the “ethogenic” approach of Marsh [4]; the “psychological reversal theory” approach of Kerr; and the historically sensitive / historical approaches of King and Robson [8]. We rely predominantly on Armstrong’s anthropological approach while hoping to gain insight from all of the relevant theories (including Marsh’s theory of “aggro” as being “the illusion of violence”).

Fluid “Post-Modern” “Neo-Tribes” (Armstrong and Hughson)

Next I move on to review the ethnographic academic research on hooliganism that began in the nineties with two landmark PhD theses, one in the UK by Gary Armstrong on Sheffield United’s Blades hooligan firm (later published as Football Hooligans – Knowing the Score) and one in Australia by John Hughson on Sydney United’s Bad Blue Boys National Soccer league (NSL) firm from the early-nineties. Subsequent articles by Hughson [12-16] synthesize key findings of these two studies and relate some of Armstrong’s key findings to the unique context of south-west Sydney’s Bad Blue Boys (BBB), a group of Croatian-Australian teenagers who are, or perhaps were, hardcore supporters of the former NSL’s Sydney Croatia club (which was renamed Sydney United in the nineties). It should be pointed out that these “anthropological” authors have been criticized on a number of grounds by other academic researchers. Armstrong [1] has also criticized the early-dominant Leicester University School approach of Dunning and Williams.

Using the anthropological approach, Armstrong [1] focuses on the disorganized nature of Sheffield United’s Blades’ firm and the fluidity of group membership. People come to and go from the Blades according to the needs of their lives at particular stages and no-one is ever “bound” to the Blades in any sense. People connected with the Blades acknowledge that hooliganism is an acquired taste and a profession at the edge of even hardcore fan support [17]. Armstrong [1] talks in terms of fluid “postmodern” “neo-tribes” and this terminology and its associated logic is taken up by Hughson in his ethnographic study of Sydney United’s BBB.

Foot Note

13 Bogan was a youth sub-cultural term used only in Australia. It referred to long-haired football and heavy-metal music fans who would dress in tight jeans; tight tee-shirts (usually black); long-sleeved checked flannel shirts with sleeves rolled up; and black desert boots (referred to as DBs in Perth). They usually were associated with those lower socio-economic suburbs of the major cities which were located some distance away from the ocean. (In seaside suburbs surfer culture was influential.) In the popular imagination they were often counterpoised to both surfers and British-immigrant skinheads. Their favourite bands tended to be AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, and Iron Maiden.

Armstrong [1] points out that firm allegiance is bounded and held in tight check. It is generally subordinated to ordinary relationships so that a Blades member would put to one side (or suppress) his / her hostility towards Sheffield Wednesday’s “Owls” hooligans when relating in the normal way to friends, family members, and work colleagues. When Blades and Owls meet outside of match days the context is often ambiguous and people have to determine whether this is a “soccer context”14 where fighting is justified or not. When groups of Blades or Owls invade each other’s pubs on London Road or West Street on a Friday night this is a soccer context whereas if Blades or Owls are socializing with women or with non-hooligan mates this is not a soccer context and so soccer-related violence is unacceptable.

Significantly, neither Blades nor Owls members meet frequently outside of soccer seasons because such meetings are ambiguous and hard to interpret as being soccer-related. Armstrong [1] writes as follows: [T]he raison d’être of the Blades was a football [soccer] match, and a collective identity more or less died outside the football season, to be resurrected at the early August pre-season friendly games”. On the other hand, it was possible for the Blades’ collective identity to assert itself as dominant at gatherings outside of the soccer season such as a marriage celebration and a 30th-birthday celebration. Armstrong [1] states as follows: “Blade identity could therefore be automatically sustained away from the club and the match in other contexts that did not need a game of football [nor even the football season]”.

Likewise, our West Perth Cheer Squad 1984-86 met only once outside of football seasons - when Mike C, his younger brother Pete C, and I arranged to attend a one-day domestic cricket match at the WACA Ground. However, this was early in the cricket season (October or November) and the planning to meet took place at the last West Perth football game. In effect, this cricket match can be seen as a special one-day extension of the football season.

Armstrong [1] ends his book by describing how Blades would sometimes in 1997 watch games at pubs close to the Bramall Lane ground partly as a protest against rising ticket prices. This is the beginning of, in Armstrong’s words, “post-fan” behaviour. Armstrong’s data ends in 1997 and so we do not how the Blades are functioning in the new millennium. Generally rising season ticket prices and the rising cost of train travel have meant that the demographic of soccer support in the UK has changed while improved policing methods are a further factor in creating disinterest in hooliganism.

Armstrong [1] produces very interesting data in the form of a list compiled in April 1987 of 190 Blades with ages, occupations, and criminal record (if any) listed. He classifies these into subgangs and, as with our West Perth Cheer Squad (Appendix A for a list of West Perth Cheer Squad sub-gangs), some sub-gangs might have had as few as two or three members. Larger sub-gangs which were part of the Blades included Old Lads; Drug Squad; Suicide Squad; Max’s Coach Blades; Villagers; and Rotherham Blades. These last two groups were the most obviously separate since their outside-of-Sheffield locations influenced how they viewed themselves, other Blades, and other firms, and also influenced their willingness to fight. They felt that certain City Blades were too close to certain City Owls and hence sometimes not willing to confront them. Clearly, the out-of-Sheffield Blades were more idealistic and less pragmatic than the City Blades. The present article follows Armstrong’s [1] example. Appendix A lists our West Perth Cheer Squad’s sub-gangs and the members belonging to each.

Armstrong [1] emphasizes the casual nature of group ties and the recognition that a person was not morally bound to the firm in any way if he / she decided to give up soccer fandom or give up hooliganism as part of a natural evolution within his / her own personal life. Some people might “come out of retirement” for big matches against the Owls or if a confrontation came to them. They would often continue to go to games and London Road Friday night pub sessions but sit with non-hooligan mates or sit with Blades but not leave the pub (bar) to meet a challenge from outside.

Generally, Hughson’s research of BBB supports this. He tells the humorous example of one Croatian-Australian hooligan with his girlfriend being ridiculed by the group for his love interest to the extent that over time he, and others in similar positions, disappeared to the fringes of the group or left it entirely. This hooligan was taunted by the Croatian word for “slippers” which signifies domestic bliss and a certain married lifestyle.

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Research Method

This is an ethnographic study of the West Perth Cheer Squad 1984-86 told from my viewpoint as co-founder and co-leader of this group alongside my then school-friend Mike B. It is both strength and a weakness of the research data that I was an active participant in events rather than a researcher performing typical ethnographic research ex-ante as a non-participant. I rely upon

a) Personal memories backed up by;

b) Newspaper reports from the era;

c) Official club history books for West Perth and Swan Districts;

d) My personal 1984 season notes which were handwritten by me during 1984;

e) A personal interview with Mike B conducted in person in Kalgoorlie, Australia on 14 July 2011 and since then by personal online communications;

Foot Note

14 Armstrong uses the word “football” but we prefer to use “soccer” because of the Australian setting of our data.

f) Several long online conversations during the course of calendar year 2017 with ex-cheer squad member Ben McAuliffe; and

g) Posts from older supporters on the Facebook page Lost WAFL and in the Facebook group Say NO to any AFL Clubs in the WAFL. During the cheer squad era, Ben McAuliffe was aged 13-15 and attended John XXIII (Roman Catholic) College in Perth (Appendix A).

Both Mike and Ben read through first-draft copies of my book (which is the extended version of this article) and Ben corrected three errors:

a) I had forgotten and left out his friend Rob who had attended Perth Modern SHS in the cheer squad era;

b) the Italian brothers Tony and Mario (whom Ben remembered) had attended Perth Modern SHS with Rob and not Churchlands SHS as I had earlier believed; and

c) Ben himself had attended John XXIII College rather than either Perth Modern or Churchlands (although he was a friend of Rob’s at the time).

Apart from DS, who would not take up my offer to correspond with him online after I saw his post on the WAFL Golden Era website in 2013, most of the other cheer squad members were and are impossible to contact since I never knew their full names back in the eighties15. In the case of some of the others, their full names were and are simply too common to track them down in a city of two million people (i.e. modern-day Perth).

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Results

The Cheer Squad as Fluid “Post-Modern” “Neo-Tribe”

Generally speaking the West Perth Cheer Squad conforms to the idea of fluid “post-modern” “neo-tribes” where affiliations are very loose and people can easily adjust their degrees of commitment to a group and / or leave the group when their personal priorities and interests change [1,12-16]. Hughson indicates that few people remained integral parts of soccer hooligan firms in the UK beyond their early-twenties although Cass Pennant and Rob Silvester suggest that Millwall’s Bushwackers firm was probably an exception in this regard [18- 20]. Armstrong [1] writes that by the 1980s the “vast majority of Blades were aged between seventeen and twenty-eight”.

As with Sheffield United’s Blades hooligans, people recognized that joining the West Perth Cheer Squad was totally voluntary, without any of the legal and economic ties that define workplace, marketplace, and institutional relationships. As such, the group was always careful not to “invade” another member’s outside life, i.e. his life at home, school or work. Group members rarely contacted each other by telephone or met during the week outside of Saturday match-days. Group members only met five times outside of match days during the whole 1984-86 period and only once outside of the football season (when Mike C, Pete C, and I attended a season-opening one-day domestic cricket match at the WACA Ground).

Our West Perth Cheer Squad’s experiences in 1984-86 definitely lend credence to Armstrong’s [1] theory about the casual nature of group ties and the fluidity of group membership with telephone calls between our members being rare; members knowing most other members only by first name and / or by nickname; members usually not knowing where other members lived or if they did know they knew only the suburb name; members meeting only five times outside of football match days and only once outside of the football season (the cricket match referred to above); and the group withering and dying of its own accord, without any fanfare, over the first few weeks of the 1986 WAFL season. However, unlike some of the Blades members in Armstrong [1], our group members did not adjust their commitment downwards during the cheer squad’s years of action; most members attended all home-and-away matches during May 1984 - March 1986.

When I stopped going to games during 1986, no-one ever contacted me (and I had been co-founder and co-leader) and when I met ex-member Pete C at Fremantle Oval at a game against South Fremantle late in the 1986 home-and-away season we conversed only as friends and neither of us made any mention (if my memory serves me correctly) of the end of the cheer squad. There was only the two of us; we met by chance rather than by arrangement; and the flags and banners were long gone. We probably avoided discussing the cheer squad’s end as it may have been a sad topic. Possibly people could sense my and key others’ new-found lack of enthusiasm for the cheer squad in 1986 and the infectious zeal that had held the group together for two years simply saw its opposite occur: people drifted away because the igniting zeal had left. Only the zeal for West Perth and for the cheer squad had kept the cheer squad together for two full years and through two complete summer off-seasons (which are six months long in Perth). I admit that my new preoccupation during 1986 was my university studies. In hindsight I wish that I had been slightly more pro-active in extending the life of the cheer squad.

“Group-for-Itself” versus “Group-in-Itself”

Regardless of his background, everyone in the cheer squad was treated and valued equally, and I believe that each group member experienced and enjoyed the camaraderie of the group. Without these positive factors each individual in the core would not have stuck with the cheer squad for two years when there were no legal, economic or moral ties to bind anyone to the group (ibid.). People had to enjoy sitting with the group or the group Regardless of his background, everyone in the cheer squad was treated and valued equally, and I believe that each group member experienced and enjoyed the camaraderie of the group. Without these positive factors each individual in the core would not have stuck with the cheer squad for two years when there were no legal, economic or moral ties to bind anyone to the group (ibid.). People had to enjoy sitting with the group or the group

Foot Note

15 The leaders of the Perth and Claremont cheer squads were and are impossible to contact for the same reason.

Pave Jusup (aged 22 at date of interview), a leader and founding member of the MCF firm at ex-NSL soccer club Melbourne Knights, states consistent with the “loose ties” theory that the only things MCF members have in common are:

a) Attending the games;

b) Drugs and alcohol; and

c) Croatian heritage (source: group interview with the author, Sunshine North, Melbourne, 11 January 2011).

However, he also suggests that the MCF is more organized than the firm at fellow Melbourne-based Croatian club, St Albans Saints (at date of interview it was a Victorian Premier League (VPL) club which is one tier below the national league). The reasoning is that the MCF is organized sufficiently to arrange bus trips interstate whereas St Albans’ supporters are not. In Pave’s words: “[t]he supporters of St Albans are not like us but they [also] do silly stuff. They are not organized like us. We are a proper group. They are just people that turn up at games and sing and drink a lot. We organize time at the pub and away trips”. Our West Perth Cheer Squad lacked the shared ethnic heritage that the MCF has and drugs and alcohol were never part of our cheer squad’s routine. However, at least after the first four or five weeks, the cheer squad was definitely, in Pave’s words, a “proper group” just like the MCF is today. As mentioned, in after-match kick-to-kick sessions and on train journeys back to the citycentre from away venues, we consistently stuck with our core members and almost never joined in with strangers or outside friends. Our group was a “group-for-itself” not just a “groupin- itself” to use these philosophical categories sometimes attributed to Karl Marx.

The Sub-Gangs (Refer to Appendix A for a Full Listing)

If my memory serves me correctly, Courtney and his friend Rohan H both joined the group on the first day. Both were to form part of the core for the next two years with Courtney arguably filling a role as deputy leader, along a second rank, with Rohan H and his suburban junior football friend Thommo (both of whom most probably joined the group on that first day as well). In our group there were tiny sub-gangs following the same pattern, but with smaller numbers, as Sheffield United’s Blades; Portsmouth’s 6.57 Crew; or the Peruvian barras bravas of Lima, South America [21]. The sub-gangs operated along the lines of friendships formed prior to joining the group and suburbs of residence. The sub-groups had two to five people in each, and each sub-group had a particular relationship with the joint-founders, Mike B. and me, and with the group as a whole.

Appendix A lists our sub-gangs and the members belonging to each. Courtney and Rohan (the “Carine group”) was a subgang, as was the “Balga group” of PA and DS. Thommo and Robbie, who joined the cheer squad only in 1985, was viewed as “floaters” or non-aligned. Because Thommo and Robbie knew each other and Thommo knew Courtney prior to anyone joining the group these two floaters were key links between the subgangs. People from the same district were viewed as sub-gangs since they would habitually take the same buses to and from the home games together. (After home games the Balga gang, usually joined by Robbie and perhaps Thommo Senior and his eight-year-old brother Thommo Junior, would head east on foot towards Loftus Street where they would catch their homeward bound bus northwards.)

The Nature of Fan Support within the Cheer Squad

As with the Sheffield United Blades members, the core cheer squad members were all dedicated West Perth supporters and the core members regarded the group as important in their lives and in their match-day experiences of fandom. The core group members were all “traditional” and “hot” supporters based on Richard Giulianotti’s theory of the four types of soccer spectators in the global game, namely “supporters” (traditional, hot); “followers” (traditional, cool); “fans” (consumerist, hot); and “flậneurs” (consumerist, cool) [22,23]. Although Mike B, Courtney, and Rohan engaged in conspicuous consumption in the area of fashionable dressing this consumption did not extend to their football support which remained “traditional” and “hot”. Group members who only occasionally attended games, such as 15-year-old Robert C (brother of Mike C and Pete C and not to be confused with either Ben’s friend Rob or the floater Robbie), might be classified as followers with “traditional” yet “cool” forms of club identification.

Swan Districts versus West Perth, Bassendean Oval, 1985

A trip to Bassendean Oval to play Swan Districts requires a long train journey from the Perth city-centre on the ancient Midland train line. Swan Districts is the most remote from the city-centre of the six traditional WAFL clubs which are not Fremantle-based. (Fremantle is often regarded as a separate city in its own right.) By WAFL standards Bassendean is a fairly compact ground with the outer grassy banks being less wide and less high than those at East Fremantle Oval, Leederville Oval (prior to its recent renovations) or Lathlain Park. Like a soccer ground, all spectators are relatively close to the play. The famous old stands hug the playing arena closely and cast much of it in shadow in the late afternoons.

Since the formation of West Coast Eagles in 1987, “Swans” has had a reputation, fiercely and jealously guarded, of being the epitome of a traditional WAFL club. Bill Walker of Swan Districts was one of only two WAFL club presidents to vote against the entry of West Coast Eagles into the expanded VFL (now AFL). Even the once vibrant Midland and Guildford districts, at the centre of Swan Districts’ geographic heartland, retain a large proportion of historic buildings and they seemed to have remained somewhat shielded from the economic, social, and demographic changes that the rest of Perth has experienced. Bassendean Oval used to be a fearsome place for visiting supporters; every corner of it was “claimed” on match-days by some gang or other of Swans’ supporters16. Even today, Swans attract larger home crowds than other WAFL clubs and the compact nature of the ground makes a crowd of two to three thousand mostly Swans’ supporters still a fearsome proposition for opposition players and fans.

Although there was and is a members’ stand, the R.A. McDonald Stand, in the ground’s south-western corner, has always contained vocal and hard-core Swan Districts’ supporters of all ages. The stand still contains such dedicated supporters today, although nowadays there are empty seats during the main game. In the WAFL’s Golden Era (ending at the end of the 1986 season) patrons had to arrive long before the start of the main game to be assured a seat in the McDonald Stand (pronounced as if it had an extra “s” as in “McDonald’s Stand”). My late maternal grandfather HAA (1906-1999)17 and his mate Ernie Henderson supported Swans and they always sat there, towards the top, in the seventies and into the first half of the eighties. I also sat with them there, on three or four occasions, although never when West Perth was the opponent.

On this most memorable day, most probably in 1985, the West Perth cheer squad headed out to Bassendean Oval, from Perth city-centre on the Midland train line. I cannot recall how many people met in the city-centre beforehand. There was probably a sub-group which got on at the city-centre and the long journey then magnified our good spirits, self-confidence, and camaraderie. West Perth had been performing well on the field in 1985 and a win would certainly not have been an unlikely outcome. The cheer squad was in celebration and party mood, travelling to a distant and remote ground at the far end of the metropolitan area. Many cheer squad members would not have gone to the ground before.

No part of Bassendean Oval is seemingly “reserved” for the away supporters (except perhaps the Bill Walker Stand which is located to the immediate right of the McDonald Stand when viewed from inside the playing arena). The McDonald Stand is only 20- or 30-metres from the southern-end goals. The northern-end goals are furthest from the train station so, logically, that was not the place for the away fans. The logic of the era was that visiting cheer squads (out of humility and respect) would stay nearest the entrance that was closest to the train station or major bus route so that meant, for example, the southern-end at Claremont Oval; the southern-end at Perth Oval; and the northern-end at East Fremantle Oval.

I can recall our West Perth group this day entering what were then the most popular gates of the oval, in the south-west corner closest to Success Hill train station, with our giant flags. In the environment of Bassendean Oval, these flags stood out like a sore thumb. Swans’ fans then had a dour and austere culture where you would not wear club colours. Anything slightly showy was frowned upon as not befitting this working-class district some distance away from the city-centre. Furthermore, Swans’ colours are black-and-white; the cheer squad’s red-and-blue replica playing jerseys and flags stood out like the first year of colour television. People probably thought that we were showoffs and smart-arses. We took the path of least resistance and set ourselves up behind the southern-end goals. The group’s flags and banners were right there in front of the line of sight of the McDonald Stand’s inhabitants some 25-metres away18. The heritage-protected ground is largely unchanged today.

The cheer squad was chanting its usual chants that day but with perhaps unusual venom. There had been animosity between West Perth supporters and Swan Districts’ manager John Todd since Todd left West Perth’s Brian Adamson out of a Western Australian combined state team in 1975 [24]. This animosity had then followed Todd across from East Fremantle to Swan Districts. Dawson writes as follows about the relationship between Swans and West Perth during the 1980s: “The feud was always publicly denied, but continued into the 1980s and all Swans-West Perth games were well-attended with many fiery incidents, off and on the field”. Swans’ record home ground attendance remains today the 22,350 people who watched Swans play West Perth on 10 May 1980 (Round 6) [25].

It may have been our “Ronnie Boucher walks on water / everybody knows that bullshit floats” chant that made the Swan Districts’ fans increasingly upset on this particular day in 1985. Swan Districts had no recognized or organized cheer squad then but generally cheer squads accept each other’s chants as justpart of the job description and not to be taken seriously. The McDonald Stand was an intimidating place in that era and our cheer squad was insulting Swans’ favourite players and showing off its vibrant red-and-blue colours directly in front of their noses. The cheer squad also had its famous song, sung to the tune of the classic children’s song “Old McDonald had a Farm”: “Old McDonald had a stand / eyie eyie oh / and in that stand was full of pigs / eyie eyie oh”. The distant origins of the real Mr. R.A. McDonald19 meant that by 1985 our group clearly intended to insult a revered ancient folklore deity instead of an actual known person. The song was in effect an attack against local gods.

Foot Note

16 Remember that mandatory fan segregation has never existed in the WAFL.

17 H.A.A. had three brothers. Out of the extended family only H.A.A.’s nephew Fred and I supported a team other than Swans with Fred also being a West Perth supporter.

18 The view of the McDonald Stand from the southern-end goals and the opposite view can be viewed at the following link: http://waflgoldenera. blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/opinion-presidents-response-to-todays.html [accessed 14 September 2017].

Around three-quarter time during the main game, we saw that a group of around eight to ten bare-chested Aboriginal youths, around the group members’ ages or slightly older, had very quietly surrounded us and taken up strategic seating positions just outside the group on all three sides. This Aboriginal group began to make intimidating comments including that they would beat us up after the game. The Aboriginal group members wore no club colours but they were clearly Swans’ supporters. They must have been offended by the West Perth flags and chanting. Our West Perth cheer squad watched the game much more diligently and stopped playing up to and taunting the inhabitants of the McDonald Stand. I could tell that our group members were apprehensive. Aboriginal gang culture and the culture of the suburbs around Bassendean Oval were not well known to any of the group. None of us had any reputation in the area that we could call on. It was the classic away fans scenario.

We all began to watch the game much more diligently and talk among ourselves; we adopted a much lower profile. People became grossly absorbed in the match, looked straight ahead, and quietly conversed in their twos and threes. This was partly a strategic act and partly a sub-conscious switch to the selfpreservation mode. The chanting mostly stopped although I am sure that we still waved the flags after West Perth goals.

If we want some theorization of the West Perth cheer squad members’ behavioural self-modifications after being threatened by the Aboriginal group of Swan Districts fans, we might cite Marsh [4] as follows:

“[w]e can instantly recognize dominant or submissive stances in other people and we frequently employ them ourselves ... Adopting a submissive posture is the clearest way in which ... a person ... can signal that he has had enough and thus avoid serious injury”.

When the game ended, or possibly five or ten minutes prior to that, the West Perth cheer squad looked around and we saw that the Aboriginal group had disappeared. I do not think that anyone even saw or heard them leave as they disappeared so quietly. Our West Perth group had passed some kind of test. Possibly the Swan Districts’ group had decided that we were “good guys at heart” or possibly they had just lost interest in confrontation or had somewhere to go straight after the match. Swans’ on-field victory that day might possibly have been seen by the Aboriginal group as having been vindication enough for them (as Mike B today claims (source: personal interview with the author, Kalgoorlie, 14 July 2011)).

Like the London Teddy Boys who menacingly surrounded Desmond Morris and his wife in a Camden Town cafe in 1957 but then paid the couple’s bill and left with a friendly greeting (Morris [26] in the foreword to Marsh’s Aggro), the Swan Districts group had reinforced territorial dominance by Swans’ fans over all of Bassendean Oval, including the seats behind the southern-end goals, without resorting to actual violence. Marsh [4] explains further as follows: “When men enter into aggressive confrontations with each other, the object of the exercise is not killing but preservation of dominance relations, the defence of particular space or access to basic resources”. Some might think that we outnumbered the Aboriginal group and we had the flags with long wooden stick handles which could have could be used as weapons. Therefore, why were we so nervous? However, we must remember that firstly we had a number of 8-12-year-olds present among our number; and secondly that there was also the risk that nearby Swans’ supporters would join in or the Aboriginal group would signal or summon their mates from other parts of the ground to assist them. We took a middle course in that we did not walk away but we did keep quiet and refrained from normal cheer squad behaviour other than waving the flags after goals which was our last symbolic act of resistance and solidarity.

This event at Bassendean Oval’s southern-end goals was a near-miss for the West Perth cheer squad and our group members probably learned a lesson to be somewhat quieter, more respectful, and more circumspect in hostile away territory. It must be pointed out that the cheer squad members never viewed this encounter as any sort of “racial war” - our group was multicultural and we had a multicultural ethos. For example, DS from Tuart Hill was an ethnic Chinese and the brothers Tony and Mario were of Italian ethnicity. In fact West Perth supporters have long been referred to by the racist tag of “Garlic Munchers” (especially by East Perth fans). This tag emerged because of the large southern-European immigrant supporter base which was attracted to the club in the post-World War II period; and especially from the seventies onwards when the Italian- Australian ruck-rover Peter Menaglio was a star player in the senior team20

19 The R.A. McDonald Stand was opened on 23 July 1938, four years after the club was admitted to the WAFL (East, 2009, pp. 21, 87). R.A. (Dick) McDonald was President in the early years of the Swans club and played an important role in the then second-division club gaining WAFL admission in 1934 when he was acting in his capacity as member of the Bassendean Road Board (ibid., pp. 12-6, 20, 191).

20 Peter Ross Menaglio (DOB 4 September 1958) played 236 senior games for West Perth and kicked 185 goals between 1977 and 1989 (Atkinson, 2008, p. 367). He presently works as a Real Estate Agent for Edison Property Residential in North Perth. His office is only 2.4 kilometres away (via Bourke Street) from West Perth’s original home ground Leederville Oval where Menaglio played many of his best games.

About the near-miss at Bassendean Oval, on reflection, I can say that our group had probably become a little over-confident and cheeky (or “cocky” in the Australian vernacular). Our cheer squad went to Bassendean Oval thinking that, because there was no organized Swan Districts’ cheer squad, we could pretty much express ourselves as we liked as far as flag-waving and noise-making were concerned. Being far from home created a carnival or a day-at-the-seaside atmosphere for our group members. The hostility between the two clubs was a factor in the background which was probably driving us on to chant a little louder. I probably did not “rate” the Aboriginal group when I first saw it as it was not a Melbourne-style cheer squad and its guys were shirtless and not wearing club colours. Why was this day memorable aside from just the physical threat? Perhaps because different concepts of fandom, match-day behaviours, and dress codes were operating and these concepts clashed. I respected and tried to keep cordial relationships with the Perth and Claremont cheer squads but I did not perceive any necessity to have a similar fraternal and respectful attitude with respect to any or all Swan Districts’ fans (even though my grandfather supported the club).

This Swan Districts versus West Perth match was probably either the 19.14(128) to 15.12(102) Swans’ victory on 8 April 1985 (attendance 10,500) or the 22.12(144) to 21.16(142) Swans’ victory on 20 July 1985 (attendance 9,462) (source: match scores are taken from Atkinson, 2008, pp. 334, 335 and attendances are from WAFL Online). It was probably the first of these as I do recall that interest had drained out of the match in the last 15 minutes as West Perth’s chances had dropped to zero by that point.

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Conclusion

In this article I have applied the anthropological approach to our 20 member West Perth cheer squad of 1984-86. I find that Armstrong’s anthropological approach is able to explain many aspects of our cheer squad’s culture and members’ behaviours including the quick disintegration of the cheer squad early in the 1986 season without anyone officially putting an end to it. However, our group members did not adjust their commitment downwards during the cheer squad’s years of action; most members attended all home-and-away matches from May 1984 -March 1986.

Theoretically Marsh’s concept of “aggro” as “the illusion of violence” seems almost perfectly to describe and explain the tough posturing but generally peaceable behaviour of our West Perth cheer squad. It also well explains our group members’ partly sub-consciously adopted submissive attitude towards the Aboriginal Swan Districts’ fans at Bassendean Oval and their response to that submission (and their team’s convincing win) which was to quietly walk away, their job done. They had enforced the total authority of Swan Districts’ fans over every square-centimetre of Bassendean Oval without a punch being thrown in anger.

This research also shows the diffusion of Australian Rules football supporter culture from Melbourne to Adelaide and from these two cities to Perth, to a certain lesser extent, and the impact of TV news reports of British soccer hooliganism on our group’s style and macho posturing.

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Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Brian Atkinson, David Barr, Michael Blewett, John Devaney, Chris Egan, Sean Gorman, David Lockhart, Ben McAuliffe, Patrick Mirosevich, Steve Redhead, and Neil Whyte for encouragement and information provided during the course of the research process. This research had zero funding from external sources.

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Dedication

The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily the same as those of Brian Atkinson; Australian Football League (AFL); Swan Districts Football Club (SDFC); West Perth Football Club (WPFC); West Perth Football Club cheer squad 1984-86 or any of its members; Western Australian Football Commission (WAFC); Western Australian Football League (WAFL); and / or any of the study’s interviewees. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers should be aware that this article includes the names of persons who are deceased.

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Appendix A

Sub-gangs, West Perth Cheer Squad, 1984-86 (ages as at 1984)

The Booragoon sub-gang

1 *The author, 15 years, Applecross Senior High School student (1984-85) then university student (1986)

2 *Mike B., 16 years, Applecross Senior High School (1984-85) then occupation unknown (1986), school friend of the author

The Carine sub-gang

3 Courtney, 14 years, high-school student, junior football friend of Thommo

4 Rohan H., 14 years, high-school student, school friend of Courtney

Floaters / non-aligned

5 *Mark T. aka “Thommo”, 14 years, high-school student (1984-85), plasterer (1986); junior football friend of Courtney

6 *Robbie, 14 years, joined cheer squad 1985, lived in Balga, took buses home with Balga sub-gang, knew Thommo before joining cheer squad, also in Balga sub-gang

The Balga sub-gang

7 *”P.A.”, 18 years, lived in Balga, employment situation unknown

8 *Dave S. (name changed), 16 years, lived in nearby Tuart Hill but took buses to games with P.A. and Robbie, school / employment situation unknown

The C. brothers sub-gang

9 *Mike C., 16 years, in and out of reform homes

10 *Robert C., 15 years, only went to games occasionally, had criminal record

11 *Pete C., 14 years, in and out of reform homes

12 *Female niece or cousin of the C. brothers, 4 years, attended 50% of games

The Perth Modern SHS sub-gang

13 Ben McAuliffe, 13-14 years, John XIII college student

14 Rob, 13-14 years, Perth Modern SHS student, friend of Ben and Tony

15 Tony, 12-13 years, Perth Modern SHS student, school friend of Rob

16 Mario, 8-9 years, younger brother of Tony (also in younger members sub-gang)

The younger members sub-gang

17 Michael aka “Half”, 8 years, parents were financial members of West Perth, no relationship to other cheer squad members, lived in Bayswater or Maylands

18 *“Thommo Junior”, 8 years, younger brother of Thommo

*denotes took public transport to and from games.

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[sportsgeekonomics]

The silliest economic claim ever: most colleges wouldn’t be able to afford to pay a market price for college athletes

There is no sillier argument against paying college athletes than saying “if college athletes can be paid, the price will rise so high that hardly everyone will be able to afford the price.  It is economic nonsense of the highest order, and it stems from a fundamental misconception of how markets for talent work.  

 The short version is that the prices only rise for a few reasons

General inflation. This isn’t relevant here – the concern about paying college athletes is totally unrelated to the general rise in prices across the US economy

It costs more to even produce the product than it used to.  So, for example, if you are mining for bauxite and over time the world’s bauxite reserves are harder to access because they are deeper underground, then the price of bauxite will rise.  For labor markets, this is not really an issue in the short-run because the “cost” of a human doesn’t really change over time.  You might have trouble convincing people to invest in expensive skills (like to become a doctor) unless they expect the pay to be higher but it won’t be the case that a doctor suddenly becomes more expensive from Monday to Tuesday.

An outside use of the product (here, athletic talent) creates new demand.  For example, if people discover that math professors make great hedge fund managers, schools might find the price of a good math professor starts to rise b/c now they have an outside source of demand for their skills. (For those who like jargon -- this is an exogenous force) This is not really relevant to college sports too unless, say, some new league were to form and offer to start paying athletes more.  Golly, where have I heard that before?  

There is someone within the industry willing to pay more than you.  This is competition – you used to pay $5 but someone else offers $6 and so if you want to buy you have to offer more than $6 or lose out.

If you leave out the possibility of a plucky new start up league forming (cough), then the only one of these four drivers of price that is even relevant is the last one.  

(ok, I also left out a fifth reason, collusion among firms but let’s assume no price fixing since this hypothetical is about what happens when price fixing stops and in this case the price fixing would be among college athletes and not even the most concerned of the concern trolls is arguing that we’ll see an illegal athlete cartel form)

This is key – if suddenly the cap on athlete pay in college went away and no new league formed, then the only source of demand for the athletes are the existing schools and this means that if the price for the best athletes rises, it rises because someone wants to pay them more.  The price will not rise if zero schools want the athlete enough to bid more than the current level.

And yet, of course, we know that if schools could bid more for stars, they would.  So won’t prices go through the roof?  Well, maybe, but again to go through the roof someone has to make that super-roofal offer.  There’s really no way that someone’s price rises from the current scholarship level without some school wanting to pay that higher price.

The rest of this article is an effort to walk you through why this is the case, if by chance you don’t find the short version above compelling.  If you do, then by all means save yourself some time and skip the rest, though of course you are welcome to stay.  On the other hand, you could use that time to go read Patrick Hruby’s recent piece over at Deadspin, where he laid out the basic “the best plan is no plan at all” theory of how a market economy for college athletics is the simple, efficient and just outcome, far better than any centrally planned economy like the NCAA has now or that many reformers have proposed.  But if you come away from what Patrick wrote thinking “yeah but won’t the price of athletes rise so high that low-end schools will be priced out of the market” then come on back here and work through the model with me.

So here’s the model.  Let’s have 10 college and 20 athletes participate in a little mock recruiting men’s basketball process to see how it might work. To make this a useful exercise, I am going to lay down a few ground rules:

 We know that every athlete in the pool is willing to accept a full scholarship to attend any of the schools if it is offered if they get no better offer.  That is, compared with doing nothing (or taking a minimum wage job at 7-11, going to college and getting a scholarship, but nothing more, is each athlete’s choice.

We know that each athlete is good enough to get offered a full scholarship under the current system.  That is, if we don’t change that cap, each school find each athlete to be good enough to merit a full scholarship.

There is no requirement that a school offer any scholarships, but let’s pretend there are Division II schools out there willing to offer something close to a full scholarship to any athlete who doesn’t get a full scholarship from a school.  

Every school only needs 2 athletes for the upcoming season.

Note that we can relax any of these constraints to see how sensitive this model is to my assumptions, but these rules are set up to mimic the real market for men’s basketball  - no requirement that a school give some minimum number of scholarships, there’s always some lesser school out there willing to offer a comparable scholarship if you try to force the athlete to walk on instead or come as a partial, but if there isn’t one, then you’re allowed to offer less than a full scholarship and pocket the money.

And before anyone goes there, no there is NO RULE AGAINST schools providing partial scholarships in football or basketball.  Yes there is something in the NCAA known as the “counter” rule but that rule does not require that counter sports (like FB, MBB, and WBB) to give 100% scholarships.  Rather, all it says is that if you offer any amount of scholarships, whether 25%, 50%, or any other figure less than 100%, you can’t use the leftover portion to give to another athlete.  But you can KEEP the leftover amount and use it to pay a coach or a secretary or just to save money.  

I have had sports reporters, blow hard radio guys, little old ladies, etc., all tell me they know this rule requires full scholarships for counter sports, but I am here to tell you it just ain’t true. And here is some simple evidence to prove it.  Consider the 2011-12 Bowling Green financial statement I got way back when through FOIA request

As you can see, Bowling Green gave men’s basketball scholarships to 13 basketball athletes, but only gave out 12.86 equivalencies, meaning someone got 0.86 or two people got 0.92, etc.  And for football, they gave scholarships to 84 guys but didn’t even give out 80 total scholarships.  That’s impossible unless it’s ok to give football athletes a partial scholarship. And it is.  And they did.  And it’s normal.  Stop saying it’s not allowed.  It is.

Okay, so we have 10 schools and 20 athletes and in this little example, let’s assume that the bottom ten athletes in the pool are all good but not NBA level athletes and could be great three or four year starters for a college team but not superstars that can pull a Carmelo Anthony or a Danny Manning in terms of being The Guy on a national championship team.  The top 4 guys are THE GUY or something close.  And the other 6 guys are awesome and likely NBA roleplayers who would thus be amazing college stars but a notch below the top 4 guys.

 School K is the highest revenue school and it usually gets a slew of one-and-dones.  Schools NC and D are close behind and can be expected to land one or two depending on the year.  Then there are a bunch of schools (we don’t need to give them initials) that compete for the 2nd tier of athletes and settle on some of the third tier.  And there are a bunch of schools that work their hardest to land a few of the third tier b/c otherwise they get even lesser talent not even in our model.

 Ok, So here comes athlete A. He’s a sure-fire lottery pick.  In the current system K and NC and D all compete for him but in the end he more than likely chooses K because the coach has the best track record of helping his athletes reach the NBA.  

 So in the new system, everyone can bid whatever they want for him.  Pretty quickly everyone but K, NC, and D drop out of the running because none of those schools can afford to outbid the big three.

 Ok, so stop – what does that mean when the school says it can’t “afford” to outbid Kentucky.  Is it really the case that, say, Vanderbilt University can’t match an offer Kentucky makes to an athlete?  Of course not – if this is just a matter of having sufficient cash on hand to make a large offer, recognize that Vanderbilt earned over $1.2 billion in revenue in 2017.  When we talk about rational cost/benefit analysis in hiring or recruiting, what “afford” really means is that the additional benefit the recruit will generate (in revenue, in wins, in goodwill, whatever) is not worth the going price for that recruit.  It’s not “Vanderbilt has no money” but it’s “Vanderbilt gets less benefit from that athlete than does Kentucky, so once Kentucky offers the athlete more than he is worth to Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt drops out of the bidding.”

 This is the central point to understanding how any sort of elite talent market works.  It’s not the same as deciding whether to buy a Porsche or a Volkswagen.  Basketball talent is an input into a revenue-generation machine.  Schools sell tickets and TV rights, but they also use sports to generate more interest among non-athletes in attending (which can grow attendance and thus grow revenue or make it easier to charge higher tuition even if you don’t have room for more students and thus grow revenue).  And so a rational Vanderbilt looks at Athlete A and says – “golly, he’s awesome.  If we add him to our team, we’ll win more games, we’ll get more fans, we’ll drive more school spirit, and so yeah, let’s pay him $1 more than the limit sure.” But once competition kicks in, there is appoint where Vandy drops out – “yeah, for sure he’ll grow our revenue, but at a cost of $100, you know, maybe we don’t actually come out ahead.”  It’s not Vandy saying “gee man, we’re out of money this year, sorry.  It’s Vandy assessing the benefits of adding the star against the costs.

 Ok, so we need a little side bar on what “Afford” means in a revenue generating situation.  Under the current system, every school can “afford” a star athlete under the “Is he going to generate more value than his cost” standard, and yet Vanderbilt does not beat out Kentucky for One-and-Done superstars?  Leave aside for a second that Vanderbilt might not want a specific athlete because of low grades, and focus on the set of athletes at Kentucky that are good enough students to attend Vanderbilt.  Why, despite the capped payment, does Vandy not outbid Kentucky just as often as Kentucky outbids Vandy?  The answer is that while the scholarship cost of signing he athlete is the same, the total cost is not.  And just as above, there is a point when Kentucky can buy enough coaching talent and facilities talent and premier exposure the UK team can provide that requires a level of investment Vandy can’t recoup.  And that is the reason why capping just one piece of the total competitive offer doesn’t do anything to competitive balance, because as long as Kentucky gets more value from Athlete A than Vanderbilt does, Kentucky will always be able to “afford” to pay more, in cash or in kind, directly or indirectly, and though there may be a fluke now and again, the cap isn’t helping Vandy outbid Kentucky, it’s just changing how those bids are packaged.  “Afford” here should be read as “get more value than cost” and Vandy will never be able to “afford” an athlete if Kentucky bids high enough as long as, and until, Vandy can make more money from basketball than Kentucky can.  And that’s basically never, at least unless Vandy is willing to invest a heck of lot of money in changing the size of their fanbase, etc.

 Ok, so with that little diversion past us, we know that K, NC, and D will bid up the price of Athlete A until schools like Vandy and Purdue and Ball State no longer see a net benefit to having Athlete A, because they will earn less than what Athlete A costs, but K, NC, and D will still find that price profitable because they WILL earn more.

 This is basically like an auction but don’t think of the athlete as a fancy painting that only has intangible value.  Imagine a cargo ship being up for bid and different firms that run different shipping routes get different value out of the ship.  If the ship provides the most revenue to Shipper X, Shipper X will be able to keep bidding up the price until Shippers Y and Z no longer see the next dollar up as worth it, and X will win and get the remaining profit from using the cargo ship.

 Ok, so we don’t really have to resolve who values Athlete A the most among K, NC, and D.  Let’s assume that they all have approximately the same valuation of all four of the best athletes and that idiosyncratic factors decide who goes where.  School K gets A, School NC gets Athlete B, and School D gets Athlete C.  And just to mimic reality, let’s say that K outbids NC and D for Athlete D, and now K’s roster is full.

 Now the schools start bidding for the second tier of athletes.  Schools NC and D still get the most revenue generation out of any level of talent, so they swoop in and outbid everyone else for E and F, and they drop out. Now the middle tier of schools fight hardest for the remaining four middle tier athletes, and once they are gone, then there is a competition for the ten good-but-not-great guys as the bottom. But the four remaining great guys will go for a higher price than any of the ten lower guys because if, say, the bidding gets so high for the bottom tier that the price temporarily exceeds the bidding price for a middle tier guy, every school would prefer to throw more money to land the middle guy than to keep bidding up the price of the bottom guy.

 Of course there are little wrinkles in real life but basically, when we’re done the best talent will be at the best revenue-generating schools, the middle talent at the middle-generators, and the lowest talent at the lowest revenue generators, just like they are today.  Unless a school makes a serious effort to change how consumers view their basketball (e.g., like what the HBL project is trying to do for HBCUs), the same talent pecking order that we see today will emerge, even with fully competitive bidding.

 But what will be different is how the athletes are paid.

 Under the current world: In the bidding for the top 4 athletes, today if the athlete is worth, say, $1,000 at K and all the way down to $200 at the bottom of the pack, then he gets offered a (say) $50 scholarship by all 10 schools, and there is between $150 and $950 of profit available.  K throws money at the coaching staff to make K a more desirable destination, builds nicer facilities, offers exquisite housing, etc. until the cost of all of those amenities exceeds $150 and the bottom school drops out.  If the next highest value is, say, $750, then once K gives $50 in value and $700 in indirect benefits, no one else bids and K wins.

 Under a market system: Now K offers $750 in some mix of scholarship, cash, and benefits and almost surely the cash component is larger than under the current scholarship.  K still only has to outbid the $750, but now the athlete gets, say, $400 plus a $50 scholarship and only $300 in side perks, rather than $700.

 This process works its way down the system.  And so when we get down to the bottom of the auction, when there are only bottom tier athletes and competition between mid-tier and bottom-tier schools, the mid-tier school does not pay $750 to Athlete Q.  Instead, the winning bid just needs to be more than the other schools value Q, so maybe it’s $200 total, and so the athlete might get $50 in scholarship, $50 in cash, and $100 in perks.

 The very last guy in our model might just get a scholarship and no money.  As constructed, once 19 athletes are off the board, the last guy has literally one bidder (the last school) and his next best alternative is the stylized Division II school that will pay him a little less than a full scholarship.  All the last school has to do is to offer a smidge more than D-II, so it offers just the basic scholarship, same as today, and because that’s the best offer (and we’re assumed it’s better than his alternative of a minimum wage job) he takes it.

 But we can enrich the way we think about the end of the auction.  What if instead of a few schools and a few athletes, the bottom tier is comprised of hundreds of schools and thousands of athletes and almost none of those schools sees much value above the cost of a scholarship they are already proven to be able to “afford” (again, remember this just means they’ve decided the benefits they get from offering a scholarship are equal or more than the cost of that scholarship).  So of the 351 Division I schools, what if 251 really don’t see any more value to athletes than the cost of a scholarship today?  Then, using my definition of the word, none of them can “afford” to pay more than a scholarship.

 So do they leave college sports?  Not a chance.

 Because remember, there are also thousands of athletes out there beyond the demand of the top 100 schools. You’ve got thousands of athletes even after the Top 100 fill their rosters and (a) we know that each one of these athletes thinks a full $50 scholarship is enough to induce them to attend college and play basketball in exchange for that scholarship and (b) there are 251 schools who we know think these athletes are worth a $50 scholarship (but not much more).  And so regardless of whether the top athlete is getting $400 in cash or $200 or $99 or whatever, the bottom athletes are worth $0 on top of their $50 scholarship, just like today.

 Of course, it could be the case that those 251 schools can afford more.  In which case the price of the bottom tier of athletes will rise. But it will rise b/c the schools can afford it, and thus cannot go so high that they can’t afford it.  The “afford it” level is what sets the pay, not vice versa.  Unless there is some outside bidder like the Australian league or the HBL driving up the price, the price of the bottom of the talent pool will be set by what the lowest revenue schools can afford.

 And before you ask, no, that price won’t be lower than it is today.  There is no minimum offer required.  No school has to offer anyone a scholarship – they can play with all walk-ons if they want.  And no school has to offer full scholarships – they can play with a team of 50% scholarship guys if they want.  Almost everyone in men’s and women’s basketball gets a full scholarship because there is almost always another team out there willing to bid more, until the schools all hit the cap.  If you lift the cap, some schools will bid more, but we still know that competition will push up the price of every athletes with a full scholarship today to the full scholarship level tomorrow.

(Hey -- if you’ve gotten this far and you’re like, BUT WHAT ABOUT TITLE IX MR. BIGSHOT?  Eh?  I’ve got you covered.  Go read this: https://deadspin.com/don-t-let-anyone-tell-you-the-o-bannon-ruling-conflicts-1620712195) 

 So, class, what have we learned?

The real moral of the story is that the price of the middling college basketball player playing for the large swathe of schools outside the Top 100 is ONLY going to rise if that athlete is perceived to generate more value than the cost of a scholarship alone.  His price cannot get bid up higher than someone can “afford” because if no one can afford $60, then his price will be less than $60.  We know someone is willing to pay $50 (in scholarship) so perhaps his final price is $55, or $58, but he won’t sit on the market with a price tag of $60 and go unpurchased because $60 doesn’t happen without a willing bidder, and a willing bidder, by definition, can “afford” him.

 And thus, I beg you dear reader, please do not argue that an open market for athlete talent will mean that no one can afford talent.  Prices in markets do not come from a holy mountain and land, unchangeable and eternal, into the marketplace.  They are set by bids and acceptances and unless your argument is that kids will prefer to go work at McDonald’s rather than accept a full scholarship, then no one who is worth a full scholarship today is going to lose a slot on the team because he’s suddenly “too expensive”

 You only get ‘expensive” in a market if someone wants to pay you more than the old price.  Which means someone CAN afford it.  And if no one can afford more, then the price stays the same as before.  Got it?

 So please, please, please, when someone says “if athletes can get paid then only a few schools will be able to afford athletes” please ask them what the price will be of all the athletes who don’t go to those few schools and why all the poor schools can’t just offer all of the remaining athletes a scholarship, just like today?” See how they answer.

[apsbicepstraining]

Super Bowl LI prediction: Patriots’ stout protection to tip scales against Falcons

Paolo Bandini: New Englands stout defense will build the difference in a mouth-watering matchup between the two best quarterbacks in the tournament this season

Success is supposed to be fleeting in the NFL. The Atlanta Falcons are a case study in how its meant to be in a league whose formation is designed to promote parity. After starting 14 -2 and contacting their first Super Bowl in 1998, they failed to even get back into the postseason for another four years. The exact same thought happened after they travelled 13 -3 and reached the NFC title recreation in 2012.

And now, all of a sudden, they are back in the large-hearted dance.

The New England Patriots, of course, do circumstances differently. This will be their seventh Super Bowl appearing since hiring Bill Belichick as leader tutor in 2000. No other squad has played in more than three over the same span.

Does that mean they will win on Sunday? Not inevitably: we have find Belichick lose on the current stage before. Admittedly, merely against the New York Giants, but six recreations maybe isnt a large enough sample size to deduce that no other adversary could disturb them.

So, lets try and violate this one down through the matchups instead. But first, a speedy update on our Pick The Playoffs contest, where three readers have called all 10 competitions accurately so far.

Can mmmbop8 6 , nbcnfl or ShadowWarrior make it a clean sweep? Or will they fall at the final impediment? Ill post the full bears in specific comments slouse shortly, but if youre within a moment of the result, do include a score prophecy for Sundays game – this will be used as a tie-breaker, if required, to decide our winner.

For now, I can announce that castigers is our overall champ for the combined regular season and postseason tournaments, having built a two-point contribute over the rest of the field with only the one competition left to play. Do assemble me in commending them on an impressive 72 remedy selects out of a possible 112 thus far( and gives not forget that two of those activities ended in ties ).

Falcons offense v Patriots defense

Atlanta extended the NFL in scoring during the course of its regular season, with Ryan averaging a nonsensical 9.3 grounds per overtaking attempt and generally performing at a tier above anything he had produced in his( already solid) career. Meanwhile , no team gave up fewer moments than the Patriots.

Its worth noting that the Falcons have not just been running up the scores against bad teams. According to Football Outsiderss advanced DVOA metrics, they faced the second-most efficient group of protections of any crew in the NFL this season. Atlanta put 38 extents on Arizona, 29 on Kansas City, 23 on Denver and then 36 on Seattle last month in the playoffs.

The Patriots have just faced a unit all season with anything close to this offensive potential. They did curtail the Steelers to a combined 33 places in two fits, but Pittsburgh were missing Ben Roethlisberger in week seven, and lost LeVeon Bell early in the AFC championship game.

What does the Falcons so dangerous is the reach of weapons at Ryans disposal. Julio Jones is an extraordinary flair quite possibly best available wide-ranging receiver in the league but if it was just a question of obstructing him in check then I would have no reluctance backing the Patriots to do so, especially after viewing how they contained Antonio Brown utilizing constant double-teams.

Repeating that strategy against Atlanta, nonetheless, would appear riskier. The Falcons do not have a standout No2 option in the receiving activity, but what the hell is do have is a whole casting of reliable pass catchers and playmakers, from Mohamed Sanu and Taylor Gabriel at receiver to Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman coming out of the backfield. Assign two advocates to Jones, and will you still have enough left over?

Julio Jones, perhaps the NFLs better wide-cut receiver, will give New Englands defense a potent objection. Image: USA Today Sports/ Reuters/ USA Today Sports

The obvious alternative would be to let Malcolm Butler track Jones everywhere. He is one of few actors in the NFL who might be capable of deeming his own in such a duel. But we have not often investigated Belichick making this rigid employment of his No1 corner.

More likely, I suppose, is that the Patriots will spate the field with defensive backs, leaving as few as six souls in the box and challenging Atlanta to stay patient and extend the dance. The Falcons are quite capable of doing so, but would they stay patient enough in that scenario?

And there is at least a possibility that such an approach could play right into Atlantas handwritings. They have applied the play-action more often,( on 27.6% of Ryans passing plays, according to ProFootballFocus) and more efficiently, than any other squad in the conference. Build the lope early on with a couple of tallying drives, and suddenly it gets that little bit harder for champions to fight the bogu.

Otherwise, the one big concern I have for Atlanta on this back of the pellet revolves around the fitness of core Alex Mack, who disabled his ankle during the NFC championship game. The single most important participate on an offensive front that has helped tremendously from being able to start the same five players in every tournament, he has practiced the coming week and expected to begin on Sunday, but will he be at 100%?

That ankle is sure to be tested by an encounter with New Englands 350 lb defensive undertake, Alan Branch. If it fails, Atlanta might be in big trouble.

Patriots offense v Falcons defense

As brilliant as Ryan has been this season and I have already obliged my example for why I think he should prevail the MVP there is at least an arguing to be made that Brady, after returning from his exclusion, was even better. How do you combat a guy who completes more than 67% of his legislates, and who has a moronic 132.8 quarterback rating on third down?

The obvious rebuttal is to hit him before he gets the chance to move. Obvious, but incredibly difficult to achieve. Brady took a merely 19 sackings in 14 starts( playoffs included) this season and has excelled against the blitz for years.

Almost every unit that has toppled New England in a playoff game in the last decade has been able to generate consistent pres without sending extra humankinds after him. In possibility, Atlanta have the personnel to do the same. Vic Beasley contributed the league with 15.5 sackings in the regular season, whilst Dwight Freeney remains a highly effective situational periphery rusher as well.

In practice, though, I have some uncertainties. Beasley is yet to record a sacking in the playoffs, and you could make a event that his regular season figures in that district overstate his effectiveness. His 56 total quarterback pressures simply graded 18 th in the NFL, and he is likely to spend a significant part of Sundays game lining up opposite New Englands right attack, Marcus Cannon a man who has not allowed a sack since week one.

Whether Atlantas onslaught can fluster Tom Brady will prove crucial to the Falcons risks. Photograph: Charlie Riedel/ AP

Brady should be content to get the ball out speedily, more. The Falcons missed 136 tackles this season, according to ProFootballFocus, and allowed opposing ball-carriers to gain an average of 2.89 gardens after initial contact. Those were, respectively, the second-worst and worst such numbers of any squad in the tournament.

A reasonable conclusion for Belichick and his coaching faculty would be that it makes more sense were concentrated in plays that get the ball into receivers sides close to the line of scrimmage rather than taking kills downfield. None executing the simple-minded slant-flats elapsing theories better than Brady, who, like Ryan, has a abundance of various types of targets to is targeted at.

Chris Hogan has been the idol of New Englands playoff display so far, and his sizing cam be an asset against a protection that prizes speed over dominance. Belichick might be allured to soften Atlanta up early, use heavy organisations with a heavy quantity of LeGarrette Blount and Martellus Bennett. But if not then, hey, Julian Edelman, Dion Lewis and James White all know how to do detriment, extremely.

Special teams

The Falcons might have a slight edge up the third phase, though I dont think its a huge one. Kicker Matt Bryant has put together best available season of his profession at 41 years old, the coverage forces have been solid and Eric Weems ranked sixth in the conference with an 11.4 yard punt income average. The Falcons own punter, Matt Bosher, should be feeling fresh-legged, afforded hes exclusively had to boot the pellet 44 times all season.

New Englands Ryan Allen is solid, as are the coverage gangs. There have been a few proceed mishaps during the course of the season, but Dion Lewis led a commencement return back 98 yards for a rating against the Houston Texans in the divisional round. The only swoon crimson observe be connected to kicker Stephen Gostkowski whose often high standards have passed rather, with three extra stages and four field goals missed over the course of the season.

Pick

What prepares this such a fascinating matchup is the fact that, on the surface, you can find so much better about these teams that look similar. Brady and Ryan have been the two good quarterbacks in the tournament in 2016 -1 7, both have benefited from strong pass protection and each has a enormous arsenal of varied weapons at their disposal. I expect this to be a high-scoring play.

In the end, though, I do fantasize the Patriots will have an edge on defense. I dont repute either unit is going to have a great deal of rejoice rushing the passer unless Mack truly does fights for Atlanta but I do expect Belichick to do a better occupation of scheming to slow Ryan down, take away the deep ball and test the Falcons willingness to play patiently and chip away.

Perhaps they will rise to that challenge. But Im more inclined to trust the team Ive looked do it before.

Prediction: Patriots 34 -2 8 Falcons

The post Super Bowl LI prediction: Patriots’ stout protection to tip scales against Falcons appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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[homestuckexamination]

Homestuck: Time

Since I realized how outrageously long that post I made about Time was, I decided to make a Read More version:

anonymous  asked:

What is Time in Homestuck? What is its function, its purpose, what are timelines, what defines the Alpha and doomed timelines. How do timeloops work?

Time in Homestuck takes from a couple of theories about the workings of Time and Parallel Timelines. So, Time itself doesn’t have any Function, much like in real life, instead, Space and Time are treated as the two main building frames of a physical reality, to the point where the Universe Frog requires a Space and Time players to actually even be possible to be created.

Going in detail though, according to Homestuck’s Interpretation, there’s an Alpha Timeline that marks a path that must be followed, but there are alternate realities, sometimes required by the demands of the Alpha Timeline itself, where divergent Choices and Actions from the various characters have led to a deviation from this path that needs to be followed. A Time Loop is nothing more than ensuring no Paradoxes are created while following this Alpha. For example, according to the Alpha Timeline, Lil Cal ends up in Jack Noir’s possession, and eventually is shot through a meteor portal into Alternia. This is a stipulation that must be followed, so in the Timeline where John dies because Terezi sent him to see Typheus early? We learn with John’s ghost, that Typheus didn’t actually just insta-murder him, he gave him a Choice, to Die for the benefit of the Timeline. The thing that doomed the Timeline wasn’t John dying- It was Dave prototyping Lil Cal. Davesprite needed to exist, because without Dave preventing Lil Cal from being prototyped, Lil Cal would become a sprite, and thus never get to Alternia. This is the kind of Paradoxes Stable Timeloops want to avoid, and the reason this Timeline leaves behind a Doomed Rose. We see in a couple of occasions, Daves dying when a Time Loop is broken- When Dave screws up Time-Travelling, he creates an offshot Dave that doesn’t become ‘future Dave’, instead it’s its own iteration of Dave unrelated to the Alpha Timeline, and as such, Doomed to die. Davesprite manages to become un-Doomed by Prototyping himself into Davesprite, and thus becoming an integral part of the Alpha Timeline, rather than a Doomed Version.

Of course this still leaves the question of what the Alpha Timeline itself is. After all, we see dead God Tier Trolls, implying that actually becoming god-like is somehow not Alpha, and thus rendering the explanation of the Alpha Timeline being the ‘best’ or ‘most beneficial’ path impossible. No, in fact, the entirety of the Alpha Timeline is filled with Death and Suffering and awful things and characters being erased off the story.

This is because the Alpha Timeline is, in reality, a Time Loop that favors the Lord of Time, Caliborn. All the Alpha Timeline does is ensure Lord English is created and does what he does in the story, after all, he IS the Lord of Time, and he Commands Time itself. Paradox Space bends to his will.

[S] MSPA Reader: Mental Breakdown is a quick example of one of the Alpha Timeline’s most important devices- Lil Cal. A Juju which contains the Essence of Lord English, and needs to follow an EXTREMELY specific path to reach where it needs to reach, dividing in two at one point to become an Entry in Caliborn’s Land, through which he spreads his influence, and in which he eventually becomes trapped, and an Exit in the Lil Cal Dave has, which eventually ends in Gamzee’s Possession, and is ultimately used to convert Jack Noir into a Proxy for Lord English.

Everything in Alpha Timeline is delicately crafted to eventually lead to Caliborn’s Rise. Lil Cal is not just the Entry and the Exit, the Vessel for His Soul, it’s also the only reason why Caliborn manages to achieve full, unconditional Immortality. When he reaches Yaldabaoth’s Boon, he uses the Juju Breaker Crowbar to obtain Inconditional Immortality. Crowbar which he’s had since before he actually met ‘Crowbar’ from the Felt. Crowbar which was gifted to him by Gamzee of all people, the Troll who raised Calliope and Caliborn. Gamzee needed to be there to raise the twins, and he offered the tool that would eventually grant him Immortality. And how did both Gamzee and the Crowbar get to Caliborn? Through the Black Hole created after killing the Jack Noir possessed by Lord English through Lil Cal. Black hole which ALSO absorbed a majority of LOTAK, including its core, where the Denizen Yaldabaoth himself was, making it seem like everything relevant to Caliborn’s Session arrived there in the first place only thanks to Lil Cal.

Similarly, even the God Damn Retcon favors Lord English, even though it seems like a Canon-Breaking tool, even though it seems like something meant to bypass the Alpha Timeline in the first place, it’s actually a necessary tool for Lord English’ creation- Without the Retcon Powers, John would’ve never reached Caliborn’s Masterpiece, becoming stuck in the House Juju with the other three Betas. He wouldn’t have led the Kids that would, in turn, defeat Caliborn and suck his Soul, ARquius’ Soul and half of Gamzee’s into Lil Cal to create the amalgam known as Lord English. And without the Beta Kids stuck in the House, it would’ve never been filled in, and thus become the double-edged sword that would eventually cast Lord English into the Breach.

But of course even the Retcon favors Lord English- After all, he kills the Author. Caliborn interacts with Hussie through the Command Prompt, and physically smacks the website around on several occasions, as well as glitches the cartridge containing the data to continue the story. Doc Scratch and Vriska seem to be the only other characters in the comic to even be aware of the existence of Hussie as the Narrator- With Scratch being part Lord English, and Vriska literally getting angry at Hussie for switching the narrative just as she was about to reveal the House Juju, and tearing it back from him to show everyone what was in the Juju Chest. A Villain that messes with the Narrative itself would definitely still benefit from a tool meant to break the narrative. And in the same way, when the Villain of the Story has control over not just Reality, but the direction of the Narrative, the only two that can oppose it are a Character who Knows they are in a Story and Wants to be the Protagonist, and a Protagonist who Can Alter the Narrative and just wants to be Happy.

As such, Homestuck takes the idea of ‘parallel timelines’, and throws us a scenario in which an evil entity has basically overwritten Free Will through imposing himself in a very specific path, so if I had to give a short answer to the question of what “Time” and “The Alpha Timeline” is? I’d have to answer, The Alpha Timeline is Homestuck in itself, both the story and the struggle of the characters as they navigate through it.

( From this point downwards, these are my THOUGHTS and opinions, and may not reflect what’s strictly Canon or what may happen in the future )

This ties in to my thoughts on why I think Act 7 is good, contrary to what many in the Fandom seem to believe. We’re shown Caliborn’s rise to immortality, the beginning of his journey towards becoming Lord English, and eventually becoming the big villain of the story, contrasted with Vriska inserting herself in the role of the Heroine, even though everything was already set in the story for this exact same culmination and all she did was take the spotlight by opening the Juju Chest, and the Release of the Kids from the Alpha Timeline to live in Earth-C, free of the influence of Lord English, of the grasp he’s had on their choices and their existence.

Already at the very beginning, John himself states it clearly.

It is your thirteenth birthday, and as with all twelve preceding it, something feels missing from your life. The game presently eluding you is only the latest sleight of hand in the repertoire of an unseen riddler, one to engender a sense not of mirth, but of lack. His coarse schemes are those less of a prankster than a common pickpocket. His riddle is Absence itself. It is a mystery dispersing altogether, like the moon’s faint reflection, with even one pebble of inquiry dropped in its black well. It is the most diabolical riddle of all.

When the Kids cross the threshold of the Door to the new Universe, the story ends canonically, because they’ve escaped the Time Loop known as the Alpha Timeline, they’re beyond English’ Realm. They are no longer Stuck, and they’re free to make their choices without fearing the creation of an offshot Timeline or worrying about what may happen in the future.

It’s my belief that the fact we see Caliborn with the Ring of Life Calliope has, that two Nannasprites exist without one dying, and a few other details such as Caliborn stating seeing himself surprised at the Kids appearing to face him using John’s Retcon Powers, means that this is not following the Alpha Timeline at all by the ending. John’s ‘I’ll do it’ has sparked many theories about this being the conflict that sparks John to want to go back to fight Caliborn, but it has always seemed nonsensical to me. John is depressed, Terezi is looking for Vriska, but for most of the part, they’re happy. They’re content with having gone through the hardships of the Game, and now being able to just live their lives. I could maybe see John using a fight with Caliborn to mask his emotions, but I can’t see him convincing Rose, happily married to Kanaya, that they should go back to beat up the stupid asshole that keeps Trolling him through Snapchat, using his highly dangerous Retcon Powers.

To me, it always felt that this was the result of a Timeline we didn’t see, but may see in the Epilogue, and even though there are ways to make it work, it ties perfectly well to this theme of breaking out of the Alpha Timeline, that by the end of the comic, we wouldn’t even be following the Timeline that spawns Lord English, and rather, the one the John we’re following, seeing master these Retcon Powers, creates following Terezi’s Instructions.

Ironically enough, this Timeline ends as an empty victory for both John and Terezi. John, with his adventure over, and having never seen inclined to even think what he may want to do after it’s over, is now left alone with his thoughts, the trauma he’s went through, and missing his father, while Terezi, who in the Game Over Timeline thought all she needed to be happy was Vriska, realizes that even that is more of a patch for some deeper self-steem issues, and yet continues to try to chase after her around the crumbling Paradox Space for no avail for years.

It’s my belief, when the Epilogue comes out, that we will see a distinction between the Timeline in which John reaches Earth-C, and the one in which they all go to Caliborn’s Masterpiece, as well as have Terezi return to Earth, not with Vriska, but with Davepeta, Sollux and Aradia, who are still potentially alive and out there. But that’s mostly because I don’t think Vriska should survive the encounter with Lord English.

Vriska herself, in this case, climatically becomes what she’s always wanted to be, the protagonist, only by her desire to be as such. She treats the Game of SBURB like a Game, and similarly, she treats Homestuck like a Story, a Story in which she wants to be seen as the Heroine. Not for Noble or Heroic reasons, but merely for the hell of it. She becomes the perfect Counterpoint to Lord English- The man who set the Alpha Timeline, whose existence jeopardizes the entirety of Paradox Space, the unseen, mysterious hand behind every event. Lord English becomes the Villain of the story, and Vriska takes advantage of it. A story needs a Villain and a Protagonist, and with John more focused in his Friends than the Big Bad, she steals the role for herself, which would make seeing her never actually return, all the more fitting. Act 7 is the Finale. It’s the End of the Alpha Timeline, the End of the Story that is Homestuck. So of course, once the curtains are drawn, both Villain and Protagonist are out of the picture entirely.

[apsbicepstraining]

Super Bowl LI prediction: Patriots’ stout protection to tip scales against Falcons

Paolo Bandini: New Englands stout defense will build the difference in a mouth-watering matchup between the two best quarterbacks in the tournament this season

Success is supposed to be fleeting in the NFL. The Atlanta Falcons are a case study in how its meant to be in a league whose formation is designed to promote parity. After starting 14 -2 and contacting their first Super Bowl in 1998, they failed to even get back into the postseason for another four years. The exact same thought happened after they travelled 13 -3 and reached the NFC title recreation in 2012.

And now, all of a sudden, they are back in the large-hearted dance.

The New England Patriots, of course, do circumstances differently. This will be their seventh Super Bowl appearing since hiring Bill Belichick as leader tutor in 2000. No other squad has played in more than three over the same span.

Does that mean they will win on Sunday? Not inevitably: we have find Belichick lose on the current stage before. Admittedly, merely against the New York Giants, but six recreations maybe isnt a large enough sample size to deduce that no other adversary could disturb them.

So, lets try and violate this one down through the matchups instead. But first, a speedy update on our Pick The Playoffs contest, where three readers have called all 10 competitions accurately so far.

Can mmmbop8 6 , nbcnfl or ShadowWarrior make it a clean sweep? Or will they fall at the final impediment? Ill post the full bears in specific comments slouse shortly, but if youre within a moment of the result, do include a score prophecy for Sundays game – this will be used as a tie-breaker, if required, to decide our winner.

For now, I can announce that castigers is our overall champ for the combined regular season and postseason tournaments, having built a two-point contribute over the rest of the field with only the one competition left to play. Do assemble me in commending them on an impressive 72 remedy selects out of a possible 112 thus far( and gives not forget that two of those activities ended in ties ).

Falcons offense v Patriots defense

Atlanta extended the NFL in scoring during the course of its regular season, with Ryan averaging a nonsensical 9.3 grounds per overtaking attempt and generally performing at a tier above anything he had produced in his( already solid) career. Meanwhile , no team gave up fewer moments than the Patriots.

Its worth noting that the Falcons have not just been running up the scores against bad teams. According to Football Outsiderss advanced DVOA metrics, they faced the second-most efficient group of protections of any crew in the NFL this season. Atlanta put 38 extents on Arizona, 29 on Kansas City, 23 on Denver and then 36 on Seattle last month in the playoffs.

The Patriots have just faced a unit all season with anything close to this offensive potential. They did curtail the Steelers to a combined 33 places in two fits, but Pittsburgh were missing Ben Roethlisberger in week seven, and lost LeVeon Bell early in the AFC championship game.

What does the Falcons so dangerous is the reach of weapons at Ryans disposal. Julio Jones is an extraordinary flair quite possibly best available wide-ranging receiver in the league but if it was just a question of obstructing him in check then I would have no reluctance backing the Patriots to do so, especially after viewing how they contained Antonio Brown utilizing constant double-teams.

Repeating that strategy against Atlanta, nonetheless, would appear riskier. The Falcons do not have a standout No2 option in the receiving activity, but what the hell is do have is a whole casting of reliable pass catchers and playmakers, from Mohamed Sanu and Taylor Gabriel at receiver to Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman coming out of the backfield. Assign two advocates to Jones, and will you still have enough left over?

Julio Jones, perhaps the NFLs better wide-cut receiver, will give New Englands defense a potent objection. Image: USA Today Sports/ Reuters/ USA Today Sports

The obvious alternative would be to let Malcolm Butler track Jones everywhere. He is one of few actors in the NFL who might be capable of deeming his own in such a duel. But we have not often investigated Belichick making this rigid employment of his No1 corner.

More likely, I suppose, is that the Patriots will spate the field with defensive backs, leaving as few as six souls in the box and challenging Atlanta to stay patient and extend the dance. The Falcons are quite capable of doing so, but would they stay patient enough in that scenario?

And there is at least a possibility that such an approach could play right into Atlantas handwritings. They have applied the play-action more often,( on 27.6% of Ryans passing plays, according to ProFootballFocus) and more efficiently, than any other squad in the conference. Build the lope early on with a couple of tallying drives, and suddenly it gets that little bit harder for champions to fight the bogu.

Otherwise, the one big concern I have for Atlanta on this back of the pellet revolves around the fitness of core Alex Mack, who disabled his ankle during the NFC championship game. The single most important participate on an offensive front that has helped tremendously from being able to start the same five players in every tournament, he has practiced the coming week and expected to begin on Sunday, but will he be at 100%?

That ankle is sure to be tested by an encounter with New Englands 350 lb defensive undertake, Alan Branch. If it fails, Atlanta might be in big trouble.

Patriots offense v Falcons defense

As brilliant as Ryan has been this season and I have already obliged my example for why I think he should prevail the MVP there is at least an arguing to be made that Brady, after returning from his exclusion, was even better. How do you combat a guy who completes more than 67% of his legislates, and who has a moronic 132.8 quarterback rating on third down?

The obvious rebuttal is to hit him before he gets the chance to move. Obvious, but incredibly difficult to achieve. Brady took a merely 19 sackings in 14 starts( playoffs included) this season and has excelled against the blitz for years.

Almost every unit that has toppled New England in a playoff game in the last decade has been able to generate consistent pres without sending extra humankinds after him. In possibility, Atlanta have the personnel to do the same. Vic Beasley contributed the league with 15.5 sackings in the regular season, whilst Dwight Freeney remains a highly effective situational periphery rusher as well.

In practice, though, I have some uncertainties. Beasley is yet to record a sacking in the playoffs, and you could make a event that his regular season figures in that district overstate his effectiveness. His 56 total quarterback pressures simply graded 18 th in the NFL, and he is likely to spend a significant part of Sundays game lining up opposite New Englands right attack, Marcus Cannon a man who has not allowed a sack since week one.

Whether Atlantas onslaught can fluster Tom Brady will prove crucial to the Falcons risks. Photograph: Charlie Riedel/ AP

Brady should be content to get the ball out speedily, more. The Falcons missed 136 tackles this season, according to ProFootballFocus, and allowed opposing ball-carriers to gain an average of 2.89 gardens after initial contact. Those were, respectively, the second-worst and worst such numbers of any squad in the tournament.

A reasonable conclusion for Belichick and his coaching faculty would be that it makes more sense were concentrated in plays that get the ball into receivers sides close to the line of scrimmage rather than taking kills downfield. None executing the simple-minded slant-flats elapsing theories better than Brady, who, like Ryan, has a abundance of various types of targets to is targeted at.

Chris Hogan has been the idol of New Englands playoff display so far, and his sizing cam be an asset against a protection that prizes speed over dominance. Belichick might be allured to soften Atlanta up early, use heavy organisations with a heavy quantity of LeGarrette Blount and Martellus Bennett. But if not then, hey, Julian Edelman, Dion Lewis and James White all know how to do detriment, extremely.

Special teams

The Falcons might have a slight edge up the third phase, though I dont think its a huge one. Kicker Matt Bryant has put together best available season of his profession at 41 years old, the coverage forces have been solid and Eric Weems ranked sixth in the conference with an 11.4 yard punt income average. The Falcons own punter, Matt Bosher, should be feeling fresh-legged, afforded hes exclusively had to boot the pellet 44 times all season.

New Englands Ryan Allen is solid, as are the coverage gangs. There have been a few proceed mishaps during the course of the season, but Dion Lewis led a commencement return back 98 yards for a rating against the Houston Texans in the divisional round. The only swoon crimson observe be connected to kicker Stephen Gostkowski whose often high standards have passed rather, with three extra stages and four field goals missed over the course of the season.

Pick

What prepares this such a fascinating matchup is the fact that, on the surface, you can find so much better about these teams that look similar. Brady and Ryan have been the two good quarterbacks in the tournament in 2016 -1 7, both have benefited from strong pass protection and each has a enormous arsenal of varied weapons at their disposal. I expect this to be a high-scoring play.

In the end, though, I do fantasize the Patriots will have an edge on defense. I dont repute either unit is going to have a great deal of rejoice rushing the passer unless Mack truly does fights for Atlanta but I do expect Belichick to do a better occupation of scheming to slow Ryan down, take away the deep ball and test the Falcons willingness to play patiently and chip away.

Perhaps they will rise to that challenge. But Im more inclined to trust the team Ive looked do it before.

Prediction: Patriots 34 -2 8 Falcons

The post Super Bowl LI prediction: Patriots’ stout protection to tip scales against Falcons appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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Super Bowl LI prediction: Patriots’ stout protection to tip scales against Falcons

Paolo Bandini: New Englands stout defense will build the difference in a mouth-watering matchup between the two best quarterbacks in the tournament this season

Success is supposed to be fleeting in the NFL. The Atlanta Falcons are a case study in how its meant to be in a league whose formation is designed to promote parity. After starting 14 -2 and contacting their first Super Bowl in 1998, they failed to even get back into the postseason for another four years. The exact same thought happened after they travelled 13 -3 and reached the NFC title recreation in 2012.

And now, all of a sudden, they are back in the large-hearted dance.

The New England Patriots, of course, do circumstances differently. This will be their seventh Super Bowl appearing since hiring Bill Belichick as leader tutor in 2000. No other squad has played in more than three over the same span.

Does that mean they will win on Sunday? Not inevitably: we have find Belichick lose on the current stage before. Admittedly, merely against the New York Giants, but six recreations maybe isnt a large enough sample size to deduce that no other adversary could disturb them.

So, lets try and violate this one down through the matchups instead. But first, a speedy update on our Pick The Playoffs contest, where three readers have called all 10 competitions accurately so far.

Can mmmbop8 6 , nbcnfl or ShadowWarrior make it a clean sweep? Or will they fall at the final impediment? Ill post the full bears in specific comments slouse shortly, but if youre within a moment of the result, do include a score prophecy for Sundays game – this will be used as a tie-breaker, if required, to decide our winner.

For now, I can announce that castigers is our overall champ for the combined regular season and postseason tournaments, having built a two-point contribute over the rest of the field with only the one competition left to play. Do assemble me in commending them on an impressive 72 remedy selects out of a possible 112 thus far( and gives not forget that two of those activities ended in ties ).

Falcons offense v Patriots defense

Atlanta extended the NFL in scoring during the course of its regular season, with Ryan averaging a nonsensical 9.3 grounds per overtaking attempt and generally performing at a tier above anything he had produced in his( already solid) career. Meanwhile , no team gave up fewer moments than the Patriots.

Its worth noting that the Falcons have not just been running up the scores against bad teams. According to Football Outsiderss advanced DVOA metrics, they faced the second-most efficient group of protections of any crew in the NFL this season. Atlanta put 38 extents on Arizona, 29 on Kansas City, 23 on Denver and then 36 on Seattle last month in the playoffs.

The Patriots have just faced a unit all season with anything close to this offensive potential. They did curtail the Steelers to a combined 33 places in two fits, but Pittsburgh were missing Ben Roethlisberger in week seven, and lost LeVeon Bell early in the AFC championship game.

What does the Falcons so dangerous is the reach of weapons at Ryans disposal. Julio Jones is an extraordinary flair quite possibly best available wide-ranging receiver in the league but if it was just a question of obstructing him in check then I would have no reluctance backing the Patriots to do so, especially after viewing how they contained Antonio Brown utilizing constant double-teams.

Repeating that strategy against Atlanta, nonetheless, would appear riskier. The Falcons do not have a standout No2 option in the receiving activity, but what the hell is do have is a whole casting of reliable pass catchers and playmakers, from Mohamed Sanu and Taylor Gabriel at receiver to Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman coming out of the backfield. Assign two advocates to Jones, and will you still have enough left over?

Julio Jones, perhaps the NFLs better wide-cut receiver, will give New Englands defense a potent objection. Image: USA Today Sports/ Reuters/ USA Today Sports

The obvious alternative would be to let Malcolm Butler track Jones everywhere. He is one of few actors in the NFL who might be capable of deeming his own in such a duel. But we have not often investigated Belichick making this rigid employment of his No1 corner.

More likely, I suppose, is that the Patriots will spate the field with defensive backs, leaving as few as six souls in the box and challenging Atlanta to stay patient and extend the dance. The Falcons are quite capable of doing so, but would they stay patient enough in that scenario?

And there is at least a possibility that such an approach could play right into Atlantas handwritings. They have applied the play-action more often,( on 27.6% of Ryans passing plays, according to ProFootballFocus) and more efficiently, than any other squad in the conference. Build the lope early on with a couple of tallying drives, and suddenly it gets that little bit harder for champions to fight the bogu.

Otherwise, the one big concern I have for Atlanta on this back of the pellet revolves around the fitness of core Alex Mack, who disabled his ankle during the NFC championship game. The single most important participate on an offensive front that has helped tremendously from being able to start the same five players in every tournament, he has practiced the coming week and expected to begin on Sunday, but will he be at 100%?

That ankle is sure to be tested by an encounter with New Englands 350 lb defensive undertake, Alan Branch. If it fails, Atlanta might be in big trouble.

Patriots offense v Falcons defense

As brilliant as Ryan has been this season and I have already obliged my example for why I think he should prevail the MVP there is at least an arguing to be made that Brady, after returning from his exclusion, was even better. How do you combat a guy who completes more than 67% of his legislates, and who has a moronic 132.8 quarterback rating on third down?

The obvious rebuttal is to hit him before he gets the chance to move. Obvious, but incredibly difficult to achieve. Brady took a merely 19 sackings in 14 starts( playoffs included) this season and has excelled against the blitz for years.

Almost every unit that has toppled New England in a playoff game in the last decade has been able to generate consistent pres without sending extra humankinds after him. In possibility, Atlanta have the personnel to do the same. Vic Beasley contributed the league with 15.5 sackings in the regular season, whilst Dwight Freeney remains a highly effective situational periphery rusher as well.

In practice, though, I have some uncertainties. Beasley is yet to record a sacking in the playoffs, and you could make a event that his regular season figures in that district overstate his effectiveness. His 56 total quarterback pressures simply graded 18 th in the NFL, and he is likely to spend a significant part of Sundays game lining up opposite New Englands right attack, Marcus Cannon a man who has not allowed a sack since week one.

Whether Atlantas onslaught can fluster Tom Brady will prove crucial to the Falcons risks. Photograph: Charlie Riedel/ AP

Brady should be content to get the ball out speedily, more. The Falcons missed 136 tackles this season, according to ProFootballFocus, and allowed opposing ball-carriers to gain an average of 2.89 gardens after initial contact. Those were, respectively, the second-worst and worst such numbers of any squad in the tournament.

A reasonable conclusion for Belichick and his coaching faculty would be that it makes more sense were concentrated in plays that get the ball into receivers sides close to the line of scrimmage rather than taking kills downfield. None executing the simple-minded slant-flats elapsing theories better than Brady, who, like Ryan, has a abundance of various types of targets to is targeted at.

Chris Hogan has been the idol of New Englands playoff display so far, and his sizing cam be an asset against a protection that prizes speed over dominance. Belichick might be allured to soften Atlanta up early, use heavy organisations with a heavy quantity of LeGarrette Blount and Martellus Bennett. But if not then, hey, Julian Edelman, Dion Lewis and James White all know how to do detriment, extremely.

Special teams

The Falcons might have a slight edge up the third phase, though I dont think its a huge one. Kicker Matt Bryant has put together best available season of his profession at 41 years old, the coverage forces have been solid and Eric Weems ranked sixth in the conference with an 11.4 yard punt income average. The Falcons own punter, Matt Bosher, should be feeling fresh-legged, afforded hes exclusively had to boot the pellet 44 times all season.

New Englands Ryan Allen is solid, as are the coverage gangs. There have been a few proceed mishaps during the course of the season, but Dion Lewis led a commencement return back 98 yards for a rating against the Houston Texans in the divisional round. The only swoon crimson observe be connected to kicker Stephen Gostkowski whose often high standards have passed rather, with three extra stages and four field goals missed over the course of the season.

Pick

What prepares this such a fascinating matchup is the fact that, on the surface, you can find so much better about these teams that look similar. Brady and Ryan have been the two good quarterbacks in the tournament in 2016 -1 7, both have benefited from strong pass protection and each has a enormous arsenal of varied weapons at their disposal. I expect this to be a high-scoring play.

In the end, though, I do fantasize the Patriots will have an edge on defense. I dont repute either unit is going to have a great deal of rejoice rushing the passer unless Mack truly does fights for Atlanta but I do expect Belichick to do a better occupation of scheming to slow Ryan down, take away the deep ball and test the Falcons willingness to play patiently and chip away.

Perhaps they will rise to that challenge. But Im more inclined to trust the team Ive looked do it before.

Prediction: Patriots 34 -2 8 Falcons

The post Super Bowl LI prediction: Patriots’ stout protection to tip scales against Falcons appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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