#I got published by springer finally

[dramaturgical]

2024 has been pretty wild for me

Tw: death

[roxyandelsewhere]

YALL MY PAPER FINALLY GOT PUBLISHED (IN OPEN ACCESS)

[asharkapologist]

Criminal Case’s Subversive Portrayal of Cheerleaders Part 1/3: Introduction + Madison Springer, Part 1

A/N: This was written a bit later than expected, but life got in the way. Either way, enjoy! And thank you to everyone who voted in my poll! 

Cheerleaders do not always have the most positive representation in media. 

I feel like that’s hardly a controversial statement. Books, movies, shows, games, etc., especially those in the 2000s and 2010s, often portrayed cheerleaders in a very stereotypical, unflattering light. Cheerleaders are the mean, popular girls. They’re not very smart. They’re very clique-y. They’re bullies, and cheerleading is definitely not considered a sport. Portrayals of cheerleaders like this often cross over and are related to how femininity/girls interested in stereotypically feminine things like clothes, makeup, male attention, the color pink, etc., are often demonized, too, portrayed as mean, vapid, and shallow. (That’s a topic for a whole different analysis.) But my point being, if a female character is a cheerleader, even in media from the 2020s, chances are fairly high that this character is going to be mean, stupid, vapid, or a combination of all three.

I used to be a cheerleader in junior high and my first year of high school, and this always frustrated me. I was an avid reader of YA novels in junior high/high school, and it always frustrated me when the cheerleader characters were always written the same. I still pick up the occasional YA novel, and portrayals of cheerleaders continue to annoy me. (I recently read a novella published in late 2019 that fell into the trap). I may no longer be a cheerleader, but I will continue to defend cheerleaders with my life, take issue with how they’re portrayed in fiction, literally make OCs who are cheerleaders (one of my OCs is literally a college cheerleader majoring in Information Systems who works in IT), and insist that cheer is a sport (if anyone disagrees with this, I dare you to look up cheer routines on YouTube and say that what those people do isn’t a testament to incredible athletic skills). Point being, by the time I really got into Criminal Case near the end of my high school career, I was very tired of unflattering cheerleading representation.

Then a miracle happened. While playing University in Grimsborough (I played these games out of order), I met a character who defied multiple stereotypes associated with cheerleaders and made me fall in love with her: Madison Springer. And upon returning to Grimsborough in The Conspiracy (which I started only sometime earlier this year and which, along with Save the World, are the final two games I haven’t played; like I said, I played these games out of order), I met two more characters who defied stereotypes associated with cheerleaders: Vicky Lopez and Chelsea Bloom. And even in her own weird way, Polly O’Brien also defies some stereotypes associated with cheerleaders. 

SPOILERS FOR GRIMSBOROUGH AND THE CONSPIRACY BEYOND THIS POINT.

Something common amongst all four young women, including Madison, is that all four characters start out seeming to conform to stereotypes, before being revealed as far more complex and much kinder than initially let on, in Madison, Vicky, and Chelsea’s case, or crueler, in Polly’s case. Both Grimsborough and The Conspiracy subvert expectations and stereotypes that their cheerleader characters appear to fall into. Madison is initially introduced as a sorority president before it’s revealed she’s a cheerleader in Murder on Campus, where a freshman who had just been invited into Madison’s sorority, Rani, is murdered. The first impression Madison gives off is not terribly flattering. There is a “massive portrait of her in the sorority common room,” as Jones says, and she makes some unfortunately racially/culturally insensitive comments about Rani and Misha Goshwalla that there’s no defending. She also slut-shames girls of other “skanky sororities.” Jones hardly likes her upon this first introduction, saying that “she’s lying through her teeth” and saying “I’m convinced there’s evil lurking behind those big puppy eyes.” And Madison conducts some sort of hazing on the sorority rushees (although this isn’t what killed Rani), and lies when she insists no one under 21 drank champagne. Additionally, when Rani passed the hazing “with flying colors,” as her sister Misha says Madison said, Madison called up Misha and said that Rani was much cooler than Misha, all of which added/contributed to Misha’s long-standing envy of her sister, which made her susceptible to Tess’ hypnotism, and led to her killing Rani, upon Tess’ prompting that “it was the right thing to do.” After Misha is arrested, Madison surprisingly nicely (probably trying to use emotional manipulation) asks the player and Nathan to help her find her missing sorority president pin, and makes it clear that she is not happy with her sorority sister who presumably stole her pin, and despite Nathan’s prompting not to do so, plans on punishing said “traitorous” sister.

Whew.

Bit of a yikes. When I was rereading the transcript for Murder on Campus while writing this, it really brought back how unlikable Madison was in her first appearance. Jones doesn't like her, and I doubt people playing the game are supposed to, either.

However, technically it’s not mentioned that Madison is a cheerleader in this case, just a sorority president, so technically, there’s no cheerleader bashing going on. And the next time she’s a suspect in a murder, in Dead Man Running, where it is revealed she’s a cheerleader, she gets more nuance and sympathy--although it doesn’t start out this way. 

During that case, it’s revealed Madison was dating the victim, quarterback Troy Takiguchi, which Jones correctly declares as cliche. When Jones and Player talk to Madison, she says she’s more concerned with being dateless to the upcoming prom ball, once again showing her as rather shallow, not seeming to care for very valid/sympathetic reasons that her boyfriend of six months is dead, still more concerned about herself. Still not a very flattering portrayal of a cheerleader--but we’re about to make progress. 

Because, later, Jones and Player discover Madison’s beaten-up phone in Troy’s room, and with Alex’s help, find out that Madison knows, thanks to her friends telling her, that Troy was cheating on her, which leads to this exchange:

I honestly really like this, and is perhaps the first example in the game of Madison being likable, because this is a very positive example of her showing that she knows her worth. She’s rightfully angry, and allows herself to be, without being condemned by Jones/the narrative or accused of murder. When her cheating boyfriend tried to blame her for his infidelity, she snaps back that it was not her fault, and breaks up with him, not giving him another chance. An example of toxic masculinity/patriarchy is when men blame their partners for said men’s infidelity, and Madison is having none of that. In reality, compared to what she said in her first interrogation, she would rather preserve her dignity and self-worth rather than attend the university dance with her unfaithful boyfriend. She cares about her reputation, yes, but she also cares about her self-worth and knows she deserves better. And this is the fork in the road and the turn for the better in terms of how Madison and cheerleaders are portrayed. 

Madison still keeps some of her rude personality, though. In the additional investigation of that same case when Jones and Player go to check up on Madison before the Quails’ football team plays, and see her saying:

Honestly, I’m not sure why, but this line made me smile--and the rest of the interactions Player and Jones have with her come off as less of her being nasty and more as rude, but…good natured in a way? More light-hearted? Less serious than a sorority girl hazing new recruits. Just a cheer captain being impatient with her team, still not incredibly flattering, and she obviously isn’t kind, but better. And then she then says, “I know it’s a bit impolite to ask you, but I really need your help. As I said, I lost my new cheerleader's pom-poms, the blue and gold pair I'm supposed to use during the match!...Please, can you look for them while I try to create something at least resembling a cheerleader's performance with my team?” Still a bit rude, perhaps manipulating Jones and Player, but much more light-hearted than the last time she asked you to find something of hers that was lost. And when you find her pom-poms, Jones says the following:

The last line is said with a smile on his face. I do think there is maybe a touch of sarcasm with the “charming girl” part, even if she is more likable in this case, but either way, I find the message on her pom-poms rather amusing (I wonder who this eponymous Beth is), and I like how Madison being like a drill sergeant, as Jones puts it, isn’t used to insult her or call her out for being bossy and loud. She’s being stern as she’s yelling at her team, but it’s not really portrayed as her being mean or nasty. And when you return her pom-poms she’s complimenting her team and allowing them a break. And with one last little dig at Jones’ lack of popularity during his schooling days, she tells Jones and Player to go get a hamburger/hot dog at the vendor stands, saying they’ll get the food for free if they say Madison sent her--and that wraps up the interaction you have with her in that case, and interactions with her end on a much more positive note here in comparison to Murder on Campus. She’s cast in a bit more likable light in the case she’s introduced as a cheerleader. 

…And that actually wraps up part one of this analysis, because this is getting a bit long.

But stay tuned for the next part, where I talk about how Madison is written in The Devil’s Playground, Spring Break Massacre, and The Rorschach Reaper, where things get even more interesting.

[roguebentree]

“There’s No Way I’d Die First” By Lisa Springer (Penguin Random House Publishing) -A Review

I originally rated this 4 stars but given some time to settle in it’s a 3.25 for me out of 5 stars.  It’s a good book, could be better.  

The audiobook narrator is Nekia Renee Martin, she has a great voice and it’s easy to picture the different characters with her tone and the voices she does for each of the different characters.  There were some points where it got mixed up in the voices but this is a big cast book, so many characters, a few voices were bound to be similar or slipped. 

I could listen to another book read by her, 100%

Lisa Springer has a quick writing style.  Which is definitely a must, for me, when reading or watching a slasher.  I like it to be quick, moving from the next beat to the next.  Not too fast though, it has to breath, but not overly drawn out.  Like a balance.  You have to catch your breath but you’re also fighting for your life here, so take a second to center yourself.

Which the main character is great at.  Noel is definitely someone to look up to when getting into the “Final Girl” Mentality as she centers herself throughout the book.  Which while is a plus for it, is also one of my nags.  She mentions the final girl mindset at least once or twice a chapter or “big” scene and can get repetitive and at one point I was like “okay i get it” but by the end it warmed up and I was like “you did it! You are it!”  But it was still very frustrating.

Some positives: The twist! It was cliche but I still loved it, maybe it was because I was dreading it being my favorite character (it wasn’t) so it caught me off guard and made me really happy.  Demitrio.  He as a character is just a positive.  He wasn’t an influencer, someone looking for fame or rich.  He was just there.  Love him.  How technology can fail so majorly when it’s supposed to help.  Cliche again but I really enjoyed it here.  

It’s a very cliche book, it’s repetitive and regurgitates a lot of classic horror tropes but it knows it.  Like that’s the point of the book.  It knows it, it takes from them.  It’s about a horror movie watch club.  Like it’s supposed to be but dang!  Did I wish there was some more originality in it.  

I thought it was pretty funny and unrealistic about a bunch of teens being “influencers” but hearing some of their numbers as well as them being rich, like you know who they are and understand it.  The character arcs with it are basic but good and some of them I wish we got more screen time but at the same time, it was more than enough screen time for others.  

Personally, I didn’t like Taylor.  I thought we could’ve done without them or have someone else take on their role.  They weren’t a compelling character and felt, while in a diverse cast, a “diverse” character as they were the only enby character, as well as the “edgy” one.  They liked the bad boys, and got involved with the bad people because they had such a good heart.  It just didn’t work for me and I couldn’t like them.

We also barely got more than a sentence or two about Taylor and felt no connection to them

So, the whole ending and villain tie with them didn’t feel right and I just couldn’t bring myself to care about it.

Overall, a cute book.

And I think a book from Demitro's POV would've been better.   

[shezzaspeare]

Pilot/Episode 1: Patching Things Up With Pastiche & Fanfiction

Hi, hello, and the wait is finally over! My name is Blessie, and welcome to the first episode webisode log installation I've decided to call these things an episode for now because why not also let me know what do you actually call these things episode of The Science of Fanfiction, where we take a closer look into our beloved works of fanon because we've all got plenty of time to spare till Season 5. Before I continue, I would like to thank everyone who's liked and reblogged the last few posts before this one. It means a lot for a small and growing Tumblr user like me, and your support is something I cherish more than my modules. You guys rock!

Anyways, like with most things, we have to talk about the boring and bland stuff before we proceed with the fun stuff. For today, we are going to settle the difference between a couple of things: first being the confusion between pastiche and fanfiction; then the distinctions between tropes, clichés, and stereotypes, which we'll tackle the next time. It's important for us to establish their true meanings in order for us to really understand what fanfiction truly is, even if it's merely just a work done for the fandom. I know – it's boring, it's something that shouldn't be expounded that much, but I believe that all forms of writing (unless it's plagiarised) is a work of art — and fanfiction is not something we always talk about. I hope that by the end of this, you'll learn about what they really are as much as I did. Let's begin to talk about the—

[Image ID: A flashback of John (left) and Sherlock (right) finding an elephant (not in the screen) in a room in The Sign of Three. End ID]

. . . I did say that this GIF will always have to make an appearance here, didn't I?

So, just as with Sherlock Holmes, all other works of fiction have their own pastiches and fanfiction, and many more original works out there have taken inspiration from them to create their own books. Although they've gained popular attention, this will not be possible if they did not have taken inspiration from the materials their writers had at the time.

[Image ID: Various actors as Dracula. Jeremy Brett in 'Dracula' (1978) (upper left), Adam Sandler in a voice role for 'Hotel Transylvania' (2012) (upper right), Gary Oldman in 'Dracula' (1992) (lower left), and Bela Lugosi in 'Dracula' (1933) (lower right). End ID]

For instance, Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' (the second most adapted literary character, next to the consulting detective himself) has been portrayed on the screen over 200 times — from Gary Oldman to Adam Sandler — and has spawned off numerous books and pastiches of its own such as Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot'. Its cultural impact served as a basis of how we see vampires today, since some characteristics of the Count were made by Stoker himself. Stoker's creation is the brainchild of his predecessors and inspirations.

[Image ID: Vlad the Impaler (left) and a book cover of 'Carmilla' by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (right). End ID]

Other than the ongoing hysteria over dead back then and the existing vampire folklore, Stoker also took his inspirations from the published books on vampires he had at hand. He is said to have taken inspiration from Vlad the Impaler, a Romanian national hero known allegedly for having impalement as his favourite method of torture. He is also said to have been inspired by the J. Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla', a Gothic lesbian vampire novella that predates Dracula by 26 years. I could go on, but hey, we're going back to Sherlock Holmes now before I deviate any further. However, if you want to know about Dracula's literary origins, I suggest you watch Ted-ED's videos about the subject matter such as this one or this one.

Very much like Stoker, ACD didn't just conceive Holmes on his own. He took his own inspirations from what he had available at the time.

[Image ID: Dr Joseph Bell (left) and Edgar Allan Poe (right). End ID]

As we all know, ACD's biggest inspiration for Sherlock Holmes was one of his teachers at the Edinburgh University, Joseph Bell. He was famous for his powers of deduction, and he was also interested in forensic science — both characteristics which Holmes is greatly known for. He also drew inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe's sleuth, C. Auguste Dupin ('The Purloined Letter' & 'Murders in Rue Morgue'). As ACD himself has said at the 1909 Poe Centennial Dinner: "Where was the detective story until Poe breathed life into it?" Some other writers he took after are Wilkie Collins, Émile Gaboriau, and Oscar Wilde.

Now, what does this say about us Sherlockians/Holmesians (depending if you're the coloniser or the one that was colonised)? Basically, ACD laid the groundwork for us with Sherlock Holmes: his humble abode 221B that he shares with his flatmate Dr. John Watson, his adventures, memoirs, return, casebook, last vow, and all that. Now that we have this material at hand, we can now make our own versions, takes, or even original stories featuring the characters of the Canon. Our inspiration comes from ACD's Sherlock Holmes, and we now get the chance to make our very own stories/conspiracy theories about them.

As I have mentioned earlier, Sherlock Holmes is the most adapted literary character in history. He has been adapted in over 200 films, more than 750 radio adaptations, a ballet, 2 musicals; and he's become a mouse, a woman, a dog, even a bloody cucumber. On top of all that are numerous pastiches and fanfics, and finally, we have arrived at the main topic of our post!

Fanfiction and pastiche are often confused together since they have three common elements: they take after the original work, they usually use the characters in that original work, and more often than not do are they set in that same time frame/period or not long after that. The common misconception is that pastiche are printed fanfiction, which is only partly true. While pastiche is definitely fanfiction in some ways and vice versa, there are fanfictions out there that aren't necessarily classified as pastiche that have been published.

Let's get on with our definition of terms to clear up the confusion a little more. Pastiche, according to Literary Terms, is:

. . . a creative work that imitates another author or genre. It’s a way of paying respect, or honor, to great works of the past. Pastiche differs from parody in that pastiche isn’t making fun of the works it imitates – however, the tone of pastiche is often humorous.

A good example of a pastiche is Sophie Hannah's 'The Monogram Murders', which is her take from Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot.

[Image ID: A book cover of 'The Monogram Murders' by Sophie Hannah. End ID.]

Although this was a commission from Christie's estate, it's still considered as a pastiche as:

It's takes after Christie's writing style;

It is set in the early years of Poirot's career (1929), which is still within the time frame that the author wrote him in;

It features Poirot and;

It pays respect to Christie in a sense that it stays true to her (Christie) characters and way of storytelling.

Meanwhile, our good and slightly unreliable friend Wikipedia defines fanfiction as:

. . . is fictional writing written by fans, commonly of an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual property from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing. [It] ranges from a couple of sentences to an entire novel, and fans can both keep the creator's characters and settings and/or add their own. [ . . . ] [It] can be based on any fictional (and sometimes non-fictional) subject. Common bases for fanfiction include novels, movies, bands, and video games.

To avoid any copyright infringement issues if I ever use a popular fanfic in the fandom, we'll use my (unfinished and unpopular) Sherlock Wattpad fic, 'Play Pretend'. You can read it here.

[Image ID: The second self-made book cover of Blessie/shezzaspeare's 'Play Pretend'. End ID]

Why is it considered a fanfiction and not a pastiche?

It takes after an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes (BBC Sherlock) which is a TV show, not the ACD canon itself;

The author (in this case myself) uses her own writing style and does not take after the original story's style;

Although it is set well in modern-day London and after Season 4, it also features scenes decades before the actual fanfic is set and outside of London;

I added a considerable number of characters, i.e. siblings to canon characters;

I had my own take some of the canon characters' personality especially after the events of Sherrinford;

It is written by a fan – myself. It is a work of fan labour and;

It is only a work of fanon, and isn't likely going to be considered by the show as its writing style is different from the actual show.

To put it simply, you can have more freedom in a fanfiction as it does not necessarily restrict you to follow or take after the original stories. Alternate universes (AUs) such as Unilock and Teenlock are perfect examples of this thing.

So can a pastiche be classified as fanfiction? Yes.

Can a fanfiction be classified as pastiche? Not all the time.

What's the difference? While yes, they share the basics, pastiche is technically leans more onto the original work's fundamental elements whereas fanfiction is a broader range of works inspired by the original work but doesn't necessarily follow all or any of its fundamental elements.

In order for us to understand it more, I'll give another example.

[Image ID: The 'Enola Holmes' title card (upper left) and Henry Cavill as its Sherlock holmes (upper right). Underneath it is a a scene from the opening titles of BBC Sherlock (lower left) and Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in A Scandal In Belgravia. (lower right) End ID]

Most of you are familiar with these 21st-century adaptations of Holmes: the 2020 adaptation of Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes books and BBC Sherlock, which needs no further explanation – but for those who don't know, it's basically Holmes and the gang if they were alive today. I specifically chose these two as they are the ones that I believe would get my points across best. Though both are considered as wonderful pastiches with a well-rounded cast and awesome visuals, if we break them down bit by bit, we'll see which one is more of a pastiche and which one is more of a fanfic. (Yes, I know they're both screen adaptations. However, as Enola Holmes was based on the books and BBC Sherlock's fanfiction has the show's scenes written out in most fanfics, hear me out.)

They share these characteristics of a pastiche:

They feature characters from the Canon (Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, and Lestrade);

They have additional characters added by the writers (Including but not limited to Molly Hooper, Eurus Holmes, and Philip Anderson for BBC Sherlock while Enola Holmes has Lord Tewkesbury, Eudoria Holmes, and Enola herself) and;

They pay respect to the original Canon as their stories are based on the cases (BBC Sherlock) or simply what was going on around them (Enola Holmes).

They also share these characteristics of a fanfic:

They are made by enthusiasts of Sherlock Holmes (Moffat has called himself and Mark Gatiss 'Sherlock Holmes geeks', while Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes books are not just one or two but six);

They follow a common trope (we'll discuss these tropes in the following episodes) that goes on in the fandom (Sherlock's Sister & Modern AU)

They are based on a fictional subject (Sherlock Holmes);

They used characters and story elements that are copyrighted by the author/author's estate (fun fact: prior to the production of Enola Holmes, the Conan Doyle Estate filed a lawsuit against Springer & Netflix over Sherlock's emotions since he was more 'sympathetic' than he was portrayed in the Canon – this was later dismissed by both parties) and;

Their writing styles don't necessarily follow ACD's.

Despite these similarities, there are very obvious differences between the two that separates them from being a pastiche and a fanfiction.

Enola Holmes embodies pastiche more as it doesn't stray far away from the original elements of the Canon. It's still set in Victorian England. While Springer added characters of her own and definitely twisted the Canon to suit her series, she didn't necessarily place them out of the social construct that was going on around the characters. It follows ACD's writing style more as Enola Holmes' setting still remains within the Canon's original setting.

Meanwhile, we can safely say that BBC Sherlock is a work of fanfiction. While it did give us The Abominable Bride, the main series focused on Holmes and Watson in 21st-century England, which is drastically different from Victorian England. There are phones, black cabs, and cellphones — things which ACD Sherlock Holmes doesn't have. It also diverted from the Canon in the characters themselves, which is mostly seen in the names: Henry Baskerville became Henry Knight, Charles Augustus Milverton became Charles Augustus Magnussen, the H in Dr Watson's name stood for Hamish and Sherlock's full name is actually William Sherlock Scott Holmes. They also changed the personalities of some Canon characters: Mary was actually an ex-assassin, Mrs Hudson was an exotic dancer who drove a kick-ass sports car, Irene Adler is a dominatrix, to name a few. Moffat and Gatiss created a world of their own featuring the characters of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which is really what most of us fanfic writers do with Mofftiss' rendition of Holmes.

In conclusion: while pastiche and fanfiction could have been the same thing, they're actually not. There's more to them that just printed fanfiction or pastiche e-books, and we all should take some time to see and observe them in a closer perspective.

And that's it for our first episode! I hope you enjoyed it. It was a lot fun for me to write this, especially now that I'm only starting. I would also like to note that while intensive research has been done on this series, some parts of this comes from my own observation and opinion, which may vary from yours. I am very much open to criticism, as long as it is said in a polite and civil manner. I'm still young, and to be educated as I go is something that could really help me with this series.

Like and reblog this you like it. It helps out a lot. Be sure to follow me as well and the tags underneath if you want to see more of TSoF.

See you soon!

Blessie presents – The Science of Fanfiction: A Study In Sherlock (2021) • Next

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SOURCES • Pinterest, Google Images, Wikipedia, Literary Terms, Conan Doyle Estate, Definitions, The Sherlock Holmes Book, and Google

[thanksjro]

All Hail Megatron #15: Dang Bro, That Sure is a Redeemable Dude Right There

So, before we get into Season 2 of MTMTE, I thought it would be prudent to take a gander at all the stuff Megatron’s gotten done in the IDW publications. Y’know, for plot reasons. And also because of this little nugget of info I found forever ago:

Of course, just jumping straight into the 15th issue of a run isn’t going to give me a proper understanding of what happens narratively, so here is a very brief rundown of the events of AHM #1-14.

First thing I see- cover with Megatron holding the American flag in one hand and Optimus Prime’s head on a fucking pike in the other.

Shane McCarthy wrote several issues of this run. So expect some Empire of Stone vibes.

2009 Josh Burcham appears to not know how to color black people’s skin. I have no idea if he’s improved on this deficiency in his skills, but a person can hope.

Megatron kills a literal skyscraper’s worth of people. (was that allowed in 2009? I thought we were still being weird about that sort of thing back then, with 9/11 and all.)

A fighter pilot looks at a photograph of his significant other. This is how you know he’s going to die.

Megatron slaps a plane so hard it explodes, and then laughs about it. While all this is happening, Optimus is fucking dying on Cybertron. This makes Jazz very upset.

What seems like the entire goddamn US military is called in to deal with this intergalactic terrorist attack.

The Decepticons destroy all the bridges and tunnels connected to NYC.

Los Angeles and San Diego are also under attack.

Estimated 200K people dead. This is issue #3.

Megatron holds all of NYC hostage.

The Decepticons annihilate a destroyer-class warship.

San Francisco and Washington D.C. are overtaken.

Air Force One has been destroyed.

Megatron acts like an asshole to Starscream.

The Decepticons attack all of the United States.

The President of the United States is dead.

Megatron ripped the Matrix out of Optimus’ chest.

The shit that’s happening to America is also happening at all the other Autobot outposts.

This is also about the time that Overlord starts his terrorizing of Garrus 9.

Megatron says that the destruction of those weaker than himself is a “reward”.

Megatron doesn’t believe in the sanctity of life.

Beijing and Israel are destroyed by the Decepticons.

Megatron commissioned the Insecticons as beings of pure torment, for reasons.

Megatron commissions Bombshell to do some really fucked up shit to Hunter O’Nion.

Megatron waits around for Starscream to Starscream it up, then beats the everloving shit out of his employees.

Megatron doesn’t believe in an academic approach to warfare, for some reason.

Megatron’s totally cool with NYC getting nuked.

Megatron was planning on reprogramming his troops into being nice fellas once he beat the Autobots.

Megatron believes in ownership in those beneath him. He’s completely convinced that anyone in the Decepticon forces is essentially his property.

Megatron knees Optimus below the belt. That’s just poor sportsmanship.

The only reason Megatron survives a gunshot to the face is that he messed with Starscream’s head earlier in the day.

Thundercracker caught a nuclear bomb, tossed it into the stratosphere, and shot it. I don’t think he realizes that the fallout is still going to spread across the globe.

The Matrix is still in Decepticon hands.

Starscream’s head is in a friggin’ dark-ass place.

Then there’s some stuff setting up Galvatron and Cyclonus’ whole deal, but who cares about that? On to issue #15!

Motherfucker, that’s a Radiohead song-

The proper story of AHM ended with issue #12, and the issues after were split into two separate stories, written by two separate teams, which detailed events taking place after the main story was resolved. A series of epilogue scenes, if you will. We’ll only be looking at the first story, because it’s the only one that’s relevant to what I’m doing here.

Our official writer for “Everything in it’s Right Place” is Nick Roche, who we’ve run into several times over our journey through IDW. A majority of the story beats will be attributed to him, of course, seeing as Roberts was, at the time, only mentioned as assisting, and also not employed by the publishing company.

Our story opens with Prowl getting socked in the face by Springer, because he’s upset that his grandpa has gone AWOL. Perceptor’s also missing, but this isn’t about him. Prowl, whose shins are looking especially shiny today, lets Springer know that they’ve “got Kup back.”

See, once upon a time, Kup was stuck on a little planet called Tsiehshi, where Shockwave was growing one of his ores. Kup became addicted to the… thrall, I guess, of the crystals, and it drove him mad, making him hallucinate that he was being attacked by ghosts. What was actually happening was he was violently murdering his rescuers with his bare hands. When the Autobots finally managed to get him off the planet, he got shipped to Kimia, where the smartest boy in all the galaxy, Brainstorm, could work his science on him.

Guess they don’t call him Brainstorm for noth-

I’m so sorry.

Springer very much dislikes the fact that some dweebs in a lab are poking around in his Pap-pap thinking meat. He’s even less thrilled when he finds out how exactly they fixed said thinking meat.

Kup’s now a Pretender. The Stormbringer miniseries covered this process, and let’s just say, Springer’s got every right to be concerned, considering that the last time someone tried something like this, Cybertron was made completely uninhabitable. They’ve made breakthroughs, however, as Prowl keeps saying. He says it a lot, actually.

This is because Prowl is a bastard, and is also using the Pretender tech to make Kup into something for his own agenda. Which, I hopefully shouldn’t have to tell you, is kind of a shitty thing to do.

Springer is shown footage of Kup kicking some ass, and notices that he’s got something in his mouth. This is his vape rig, full of medicinal marijuana.

Dammit, Prowl, let me make a weed joke! This is because you’re a cop, isn’t it?

Prowl continues to be a complete and utter fucker in his internal monologue until Springer asks to see Grandpa. They head to the lab to find Kup in pieces, though it’s completely medically sound in this case. Kup has a minor absolutely-horrific hallucination, but he’s okay once he gets his cy-gar back.

We get a flashback to Prowl making sure Perceptor put the nasty, nasty bad-time programming into Kup’s head, because he’s sick of losing the war, and a single old man will surely turn the tides. Or, at least, it will when he’s damn charismatic and folks listen to him way more than they do Prowl.

Back in the present, Springer asks that Kup not be told what happened on Tsiehshi, because it’s kind of a major bummer. Prowl reflects on how only the cool kids get paid attention to, and assumes that the Decepticons are a much more organized machine. Clearly he hasn’t heard about how Overlord lives his life.

Anyway, so Kup is now a mouthpiece for Prowl, and he doesn’t even know it. That’s pretty fucked.

So, what have we learned from this experience? Well, even though Roberts didn’t personally assist on the actual Megatron-related portions of AHM, we can see where the character was, and I think that’s far more important than deconstructing Prowl’s whole deal at the moment.

God, I don’t know that redeeming this bastard’s going to be possible, James, but somehow I think you already knew that, given how you’ve written the guy in the past.

Yeah, you fuckin’ thought I forgot about Literally Hitler Megatron, didn’t you?

Well I didn’t.

[lizebotha97]

Macropost #3

Competency R1 - Differentiate the impacts of social determinants of health that contribute to health disparities in rural communities as compared to urban communities.

This semester my practicum group and I had the opportunity to assess the social determinants of health that contribute to health disparities in the Southeastern region of North Carolina with the help of Feast Down East. More specifically, rural counties like Pender County. During our free community outreach event we experienced some of the health disparities that we were taught in class. We planned our event with multiple organizations and partners of Feast Down East but unfortunately, our event location was double-booked. Therefore, we had to delay handing out our flyers. We finally got word of a new location only five days before the event! Nevertheless, Feast Down East and other partnering organizations distributed our flyers for the Free Food Drive Event on social media and on paper copies. My group and I were scared that nobody would show up since we got the word out so late… In the weeks leading up to the event we reached out to community partners to find donations and several organizations agreed to donate supplies. Among these organizations were dentists, the Pender County Health Department, a non-profit thrift store, an organization that works with schools to address child needs, and of course, our precepting organization Feast Down East who provided free local produce. We distributed diapers, feminine hygiene products, blankets, children’s books, and of course the food bags thanks to these organizations. After working tirelessly all morning to prepare the food bags, food samples, and hygiene bags we finally went over to our event location to set up. To our surprise, there was already a string of cars wrapping around the neighborhood. Our event was only supposed to start at 4:00pm, but we started distributing food and other healthcare items to the residents of Pender County early due to the large influx of people waiting. We served about 183 people in roughly an hour. Unfortunately, we ran out of food bags due to the large number of people who showed up. It was great to see how involved (and patient) the community was while everyone waited for their turn to grab a bag of fresh produce that was picked that morning from one of the local farms along with other goodies.  

There are several social determinants of health that are unique to rural areas, such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of transportation (Warren, Smalley, 2014). Rural residents face challenges with access to nutritious, healthy foods due to geographical isolation, lack of employment opportunities, lack of public and private transportation. One of our partners even asked if people could walk through the event due to a lack of transportation. These social determinants of health contribute to the high volumes of food insecure people in rural areas compared to their urban counterparts. Ironically, food insecurity is higher in rural areas where most food is grown for the rest of the nation (Warren, Smalley, 2014). Rural grocery stores also tend to sell inexpensive foods with lower nutritional value compared to urban grocery stores (Warren, Smalley, 2014). One of our partners, Liz Peterson from NC Cooperative Extension, kept track of the demographics of everyone who showed up to the event. These social determinants of health contribute to the health disparities of rural areas. For example, we got to experience the racial/ethnic disparities in rural counties first hand during our event. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, majority of the residents in Pender County are White (76%), 14%  are African American, and 7% are Hispanic or Latinx (U.S. Census, 2020). When we analyzed the demographical data from the event, we saw some of the racial/ethnic disparities that we have been talking about in class play out in a real world situation. That is, even though 74% of Pender County is considered White, only 45% showed up, and to no surprise, 27% of participants were African American, and 28% were Hispanic or Latinx. 

I am beyond thankful that I got to spend the day out in the community alongside my group members. I experienced so many emotions throughout the day. I was happy that we could help the people of Pender County and I even caught myself tearing up once or twice during the event due to an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for organizations and people who want to help others! So, as I think of the future, I can only hope that more people try to make the shift to helping rural, food insecure communities. This can be by donating food to local food pantries or even by driving that extra mile to support a local farm. As someone who comes from a third world country, it breaks my heart to see how so many people in the United States, one of the richest countries in the world, can be food insecure and hungry!  Food insecurity is a big concern for Public Health and organizations like Feast Down East do a tremendous job of improving food insecurity rates in rural North Carolina. I hope we can all work together to improve food insecurity rates for all, especially vulnerable rural populations.

U.S. census bureau QuickFacts: North Carolina.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/NC/IPE120219

Warren, C. J., Smalley, K.. B. (2014). Rural public health: Best practices and preventive models. 

New York: Springer Publishing Company.

@drtillman

[eddycurrents]

Hellboy in Mexico: “Hellboy Gets Married”

Words: Mike Mignola | Art: Mick McMahon | Colours: Dave Stewart | Letters: Clem Robins

Originally published by Dark Horse in Dark Horse Presents #31-32 | December 2013 - January 2014

Collected in Hellboy in Mexico | Hellboy: Complete Short Stories - Volume 1

Plot Summary:

Hellboy gets married.

Reading Notes:

(Note: Pagination is solely in reference to the story itself and is not indicative of anything found within the issue or collections.)

pg. 1 - Hellboy arguing about Lobster Johnson being real with a masked luchador actor in Lobster Johnson gear is very meta.

pg. 2 - The Lobster seems incredibly irritable. I love the grid on the bottom tier. Great reactions and facial expressions. The very subtle flirt.

pg. 3 - Both the Lobster and the dog seem to see something that Hellboy doesn’t. Nice foreshadowing that something’s wrong.

pg. 5 - The bit of utilizing songs to give the theme is very nice. Also, I love just how much is being portrayed through the art. Very dense storytelling in a small space.

pg. 6 - Sweet wedding.

pg. 8 - Not so sweet wedding. I love the repeated scene with what actually happened. The shift from an ordinary wedding to a hellscape, with the “priest” speaking in that Hyperborean language is nice. The dead conquistadors are just the icing on the cake.

pg. 10 - “So I married a demon and then I shot her” is that Jerry Springer episode you always expected to see, but never got. I mean, maybe she’s a nice demon. Hellboy never gave it a chance.

pg. 12 - Great standoff. This layout almost mirrors the earlier bit of the demon flirting with Hellboy. Only here with a different kind of “come hither” than the earlier one. Death instead of love.

pg. 13 - Hellboy doing his own sound effects is always the best. Just wonderful action here.

pg. 16 - He may think this is over, but we just know that it’s going to come bite him in the ass again in the future.

Final Thoughts:

Mick McMahon deserves more credit and acclaim. He’s the kind of artist that for whatever reason seems to have flown under the radar for many North American comics readers. Possibly because the bulk of his work has been in the UK for 2000 AD, but that really shouldn’t be an excuse. Since he’s basically an artist’s artist. He has a rightful huge respect and following among comics creators and it’s easy to see why.

d. emerson eddy has never gotten married in Mexico while drunk.

[thewadapan]

I rewrote an obscure Transformers comic from the 1980s.

Creator’s Commentary

It’s 1984. Marvel’s four-issue Transformers miniseries has been a smash hit, and they’re already expanding it into a full monthly ongoing. Marvel’s UK branch is looking to import the book, but they have a problem - the newsagents want weekly issues, and there simply isn’t enough comic to fill those pages.

To meet demand, they bring on Simon Furman to write extra comics weaving into the US material. Because he’s the only one with any idea what's going on, he continues to churn out Transformers stories for almost ten years - with only occasional contributions from other authors.

“Peace” is one such interloper.

Written by letterer/editor Richard Starkings under his “Richard Alan” pseudonym for the 1989 Transformers Annual (which was actually published in 1988), it presents one of Cybertron’s alternate futures. Its exact placement in continuity was contentious - even within the comics’ own letters pages, where the editors (writing in-character as Transformers) gave several contradictory answers to questions regarding its canonicity.

The comic opens when the final Decepticon is killed by the Wreckers - an elite group of Autobot shock-troopers. With the war over, the very-very-tired Autobot leader Rodimus Prime announces that he’s going to step down - letting the Wreckers’ leader, Springer, take his place.

Unbeknownst to the Autobots, not all of the Decepticons are dead after all - the double agent Triton still hides amongst their ranks. In an attempt to incite conflict, Triton suggests that Ultra Magnus would make a better leader. The Technobot combiner team agrees, and an argument breaks out between them and the Wreckers. Whirl argues with Triton, Triton punches Whirl, Roadbuster pulls a gun on Triton, Scattorshot shoots Roadbuster, Sandstorm shoots Triton, and the war begins again.

It’s a grimly interesting story, one forever doomed to remain a footnote in Transformers history. Fittingly for a bot of subterfuge, Triton’s alternate mode was a submarine - at least according to Dreadwind in the letters pages. Marvel UK fanboy-turned-creator Nick Roche much later reinvented him as a member of Squadron X - sworn enemies of the Wreckers in IDW Publishing’s Transformers continuity.

In its most recent reprint as part of the twenty-second volume of The Definitive G1 Collection, “Peace” was left stranded as an afterthought alongside Regeneration One - with the rest of the UK strips being collected across the first twenty volumes alongside their contemporary US material. That partwork was curated by Simon Furman, who still writes Transformers stories to this day - despite pleas from some corners of the fandom for him to just call it quits already.

Richard Starkings, meanwhile, went on to found Comicraft - bringing lettering into the 21st century by pioneering the use of digital fonts in comic books.

I wasn’t alive when most of that happened. My first brush with Transformers - at least, as far as I remember - came when I saw Transformers: Armada’s Land Military Mini-Con Team on the shelves of my local Woolworths (a much-loved now-defunct chain of British department stores). I didn’t get it at the time, but when our birthdays rolled around (or maybe Christmas? I was young; I barely remember any of this and neither do my parents) my brother and I got a bunch of Mini-Cons. Our first brush with Generation 1 would come much later, when we found a knackered Strafe at a car boot sale.

For a long time, my only experience with Transformers fiction came in the form of the cartoons - they didn’t show Armada on Freeview so I missed most of that, but Energon and Cybertron both aired in their entirety on CITV. I had the pack-in comics, and the Armada and Energon annuals - which basically just collected random Dreamwave comics without context. All of which is to say that, at the time, I felt pretty starved for good Transformers stories.

Finding the 1989 Annual in a secondhand bookshop, then, was like finding the holy grail.

I won’t lie. I had basically no idea who any of these characters were, or what was going on. But damn if I didn’t pore over every inch of those pages trying to work it out. And I sure as hell was gonna sign the thing, lest those abominable Firecons paid me a visit to finally incinerate what was presumably the only Annual they’d missed back in 1988.

Years passed. Some movies came out. I drifted away from Transformers for a while after my parents said “aren’t you a little too old for these” one time too many. Well, it was either that or the hordes of overpriced Bumblebees clogging the shelves at the time.

Eventually, though, I was drawn back to the franchise. A Humble Bundle of IDW’s comics and Thrilling 30 Sandstorm was all it took.

For some reason, at some point I decided to start a meme page. I don’t know why. Please don’t look at it. I don’t want to talk about it. Most of the edits I made were atrocious, although I’ll admit there’s a few I still find pretty funny. I actually referenced Transformers a bunch of times. There was this whole thing where I tried to work in a plot, so really the whole thing was much closer to a terrible webcomic than an actual meme page.

Perhaps the most involved reference to the franchise came in the form of a relettering of “The Night the Transformers Saved Christmas”, a 4-page comic originally published in a 1985 issue of Women’s Day. Why did I make that thing? I don’t know. Maybe a little more context would help.

Y’see, waaay back when the first Armada toys hit shelves, fans weren’t too impressed - to say the least. They’d seen pictures of highly-articulated prototypes, only to find that articulation completely absent in the finalised figures. To make matters worse, the first pack-in comic was pretty lacklustre - thanks to the trilingual dialogue squeezed into its speech bubbles.

One enterprising fan (Yartek, now better known as Blueshift) expressed their dissatisfaction by completely rewriting that pack-in comic’s dialogue - reimagining Hot Shot as a deranged, jam-obsessed cannibal. It was an idle joke, but one that tapped into the collective consciousness of the fandom at the time. Its popularity grew to the point where it was even referenced on the license plate of a later Hot Shot figure.

By Blueshift’s own admission, the comic isn’t all that great. Nowadays, the atmosphere surrounding Armada’s launch is but a hazy memory for most of the fandom - leaving the comic’s depiction of Hot Shot looking more like an uncomfortably ableist caricature than anything approximating a real parody.

But I digress. I was barely aware of Transformers when all of this happened. My point is that JaAm was like an abridged series, only presented as a comic, and I thought that was a neat idea. I was looking to make a post that was a little bit different for Christmas Day, and remembered the existence of that old Women’s Day comic. Thus was born “its christmas... so what??”

My process for that one was pretty straightforward. After reading the comic once to get a broad sense of its plot, I went through it again panel-by-panel - blocking out each narration box with an autoshape and adding my own text. Mustard features pretty heavily in it... I guess as a reference to jam? Honestly, I was writing this thing entirely by the seat of my pants and - with the exception of the choice panels I’m including here - it’s pretty unfunny as a result. I’m not proud of it. Even at the time, I felt like I could’ve done better. So, half a year later, I did.

When the mood eventually took me, there was only one option in my head - Richard Starkings’ “Peace”. This time, I took a moment to plan the whole thing out in my head before diving in.

I think my idea for the plot came about simply as a result of Rodimus’ body language and expressions on the second page. I reckon I looked at them and thought, “man, he looks like he’s just caught a whiff of something pretty nasty.” From there, my mind jumped to Triton... the culprit, naturally.

When you go back and read some of the early Marvel stuff, there’s a bit of dissonance between the Furman-esque galaxy-spanning conflicts and the more offbeat “the Transformers crash a wrestling match / concert / car wash” stories written by US author Bob Budiansky. At times, the Transformers could be figures of real gravitas - and at others, they were almost like children.

For both “its christmas” and “PASS” I tried to lean into the latter interpretation as much as possible. As a reflection of that, the dialogue and narration - both written in Times New Roman - are completely devoid of punctuation, capital letters, or special formatting. Well, mostly...

There’s a few instances in “its christmas” where capital letters are used for emphasis.

Roadbuster’s dialogue gets to keep its punctuation, and is written in (I think) Arial, because he’s supposed to be more mature than the rest.

Each comic had one panel which retained some of its original dialogue - the fourth on the first page of “its christmas”, and the fourth on the fourth page of “PASS”.

There’s a couple of instances in the comic where characters use swear words, only the wrong letter’s censored - “sh*t” became “*hit”, “f*ck” became “*uck”. That’s simply an artefact of the comic’s origins in my old meme page, where that was a running joke.

In addition to changing the text, I also made a few visual edits...

I changed the comic’s title from “PEACE” to “PASS” (as in, to pass gas) by chopping up and rotating bits of it.

I changed the credits for “RICHARD ALAN” (writer) and “GLIB” (letterer) to “ME” and “ME AGAIN”.

On the fifth page, I rotated Springer’s, Ultra Magnus’ and Sandstorm’s mouths by 180 degrees - changing them from horrified grimaces to jaunty smirks. That’s why they’re kind of lopsided relative to the rest of their expressions! Honestly, the original version looks pretty strange to me now.

I likewise modified Sandstorm’s and Ultra Magnus’ expressions in the first panel of the final page, and Nosecone’s in the second panel.

I scribbled out the question mark in the little “THE END?” box on the final page. This is the definitely the end; no need to beat around the bush.

The idea to make Roadbuster a butt monkey stemmed from the fact that he was the only non-triple-changer to appear on the first page. I saw that panel with the four of them together and thought ��one of these guys is not like the others.” And of course, I knew that he’d be dead in a few more pages.

Once I’d established Springer as a bully, I started to get a sense for what life was like amongst the Autobots - but there were still things I wanted to leave open to interpretation...

Why does Roadbuster hang around with the other Autobots so persistently, when all he receives is abuse?

Is Triton’s fixation on “cred” overblown, or is it the only reason he’s survived as long as he has?

Is Rodimus really past his Prime?

Who’s really the coolest Autobot?

Are the Autobots inherently bad people, or simply products of their environment?

If they’re the latter, does that excuse their actions?

If these are the Autobots... then what were the Decepticons like?

Here’s some other miscellaneous notes...

There’s a single speech bubble on the fourth page where the speaker’s off-panel. In the original comic it belonged to Triton, shouting “HEY!” Here, I like to think it’s Whirl speaking.

In the narration of the second panel, I refer to the Transformers as “car robots” - a nod to the Japanese name of the Transformers: Robots in Disguise series.

Rodimus’ “light their darkest hour” line is, of course, a quote from the 1986 animated Transformers movie. Yes, I’m as tired of those references as you are, but no, I couldn’t resist.

I can’t remember if it was deliberate, but I’m pretty sure “if you catch my drift” was a nod to The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye - where original character Drift stars as Rodimus’ third-in-command.

Speaking of More than Meets the Eye - when it was relaunched as Lost Light, Rodimus got a brand new purple colour scheme. In “Pass”, Rodimus agonises over whether or not to get that same paint job.

“Mucho cred” is kind of a memetic phrase amongst readers of the superhero web serial Worm. I feel like “cred” is one of those inherently funny words (along with “cahoots”), so that was enough to justify its inclusion here. If you’ve somehow made it this far into this post, trust me when I say that Worm is a rabbit hole well worth tumbling down.

“Peace” has a very strong atmosphere. It’s about a group of individuals - who’ve known nothing but conflict for thousands of years - suddenly finding themselves with nobody to point their guns at. That exact same scenario played out decades later in IDW Publishing’s Transformers continuity, where it was explored in much greater depth - but in just six standalone pages, “Peace” presents its broad themes with impressive clarity.

I think we’re very much invited to root for Triton - he’s a real worm, but he’s also an underdog. When characters are created whole cloth in Transformers stories, they’re marked for death.

“Pass”, on the other hand, is about a group of kids who’ve lost all sense of perspective. The most important thing to each of the group’s members is how they are perceived by the rest. They’ve been living under ever-increasing social pressure, and things are finally reaching a boiling point - and people die as a result.

And I say “kids”, but the truth is that I still see these dynamics amongst grown adults today - admittedly without the death. For any given subculture, you’re going to find ingroups, outgroups, and the awkward middle ground between them. If I thought there was a clear-cut solution, I would’ve put it in the comic. But oftentimes - like I said in the closing panels - there isn’t really anyone at fault.

If you fart in public, don’t stress about it too much. Nobody really minds. Just own up. And whatever you do, don’t try to pass the blame - or else...

As one final nod to Marvel UK’s Transformers comics... here are some short AtoZ profiles for the entire cast!

You can follow me on twitter if you want to see more of my Transformers ramblings. The rest of my writing can be found right here on this blog - I recommend starting with Everything Is Red Now, a dumb comic about Spider-Man.

[your-dietician]

South Jersey Times boys tennis postseason honors, 2021

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/tennis/south-jersey-times-boys-tennis-postseason-honors-2021/

South Jersey Times boys tennis postseason honors, 2021

During his remarkable tennis career at Clearview, Martin Lacsamana often found ways to stand apart from the crowd with his play on the court.

But his most treasured memories came from just being one of the guys.

Cheering on teammates, joking with coaches, trekking back and forth to Williamstown or some other rival with the rest of the Pioneers — those are the times he savored the most, even more than his 69 career wins and three Gloucester County Tournament titles.

“I play competitively so I don’t really play with a team, which is why I always looked forward to high school tennis,” said Lacsamana, the South Jersey Times Player of the Year for 2021. “I loved the team camaraderie. If you ask me my favorite moments, it would have to be every single time I was with my teammates. I was blessed to have really funny teammates and ones that matched my energy. Practices were always fun, bus rides to games and back were awesome. Those are probably the best moments, just hanging out with people I care about and playing tennis.”

Kevin Hanrahan, a longtime teacher at Clearview and an assistant for the girls tennis team, became the head coach for the boys team this season. He had always heard about Lacsamana’s talent but never had him in class, so he had never seen him play or even met him before this year.

He quickly came to realize that Lacsamana is the total package: honors student, class president, outstanding player and devoted teammate.

“He’s a great student in the classroom, obviously — he’s going to Cal-Berkeley — he’s a great athlete and nobody outworks him,” Hanrahan said. “But what I didn’t learn until the end of the year is that this season was all about the team aspect of things. Even at the end of the year when he was going to states, he didn’t necessarily care about it. He had done the individual thing with all his USTA stuff, but he was telling me that he really enjoyed going to sectionals and playing with the team. He was always cheering on his teammates, even in the middle of his match. He’s a real, real special athlete.”

That’s not to say he didn’t still shine as an individual. In April, playing at a tournament that he always enjoyed, Lacsamana became just the fourth person to win three Gloucester County crowns when he defeated teammate Kyle Deacon in the final. Had the pandemic not wiped out his junior season, he almost certainly would have become only the second player with four titles.

Later in the season at the South Jersey Interscholastic Championships, Lacsamana reached the quarterfinals for the first time before losing to Lenape sophomore Milan Karajovic, who he graciously called a terrific young player.

Finally, Lacsamana capped his career by notching his first win in the state singles tournament, a 3-6, 7-6 (7-6), 10-6 marathon over Jacob Rha of Whippany Park.

“That was important to me,” he said. “It is more satisfying to win like that although my body didn’t feel like it in the moment.”

Lacsamana, who went undefeated in team matches and finished his senior season with a 25-2 overall record, is not exactly sure about the next step in his tennis career. He has thought about trying to walk on at the University of California-Berkeley, but since he’ll be majoring in electrical engineering and computer science, his workload might not leave time for athletics.

“I definitely want to have a good balance at Berkeley,” he said. “I asked all the alumni and they said balance is the No. 1 thing you want to have. Academics comes first, so if it doesn’t intervene with academics then I’ll try to play, but if it does then I have to pick academics any day of the week.”

But tennis has always been an important part of his life, a passion passed on from his father, Nathaniel, and he doesn’t plan on retiring even if he can’t play at Cal.

“My dad is still playing and he’s killing it on the court, so I don’t see why I won’t keep playing,” he said. “I’m competitive so I won’t let my kid beat me at tennis. I have beaten my dad though. We go back and forth but I’ll never admit to him that he’s better.”

As for Lacsamana’s place in Clearview tennis history, there is no question he left his mark.

“In the 20 years that I’ve been at Clearview, he’s the best to come through,” Hanrahan said.

The humble Lacsamana would surely appreciate those words from his coach. But he hasn’t given much thought at all to whether he’s the best player in school history.

“Legacy is a tough thing to live up to,” he said. “Legacy or not, I just know that I gave everything I had to the program. It wasn’t just tennis season for me, it was the whole year. I loved Clearview, I loved being a Pioneer and I loved being part of the program. I gave everything I had and put my best foot forward. … It was definitely a memorable time.”

TEAM OF THE YEAR

First singles Mike Parker helped lead Kingsway to its third straight Gloucester County Tournament team title.Al Amrhein | For NJ Advance Media

When it comes to the Tri-County Conference Royal Division and the Gloucester County Tournament, one school has established itself as the team to beat in recent seasons.

But all signs were pointing to the end of Kingsway’s reign this spring.

With a completely new starting lineup from two years ago and only one player with any varsity experience, the Dragons’ streak of three straight division titles and two consecutive county crowns appeared to be in major jeopardy.

The roster may have looked a lot different, however, but the end results turned out to be the same old, same old.

Kingsway extended its streaks in the Royal Division and Gloucester County, and now the Dragons are the South Jersey Times Team of the Year for the second season in a row as well.

“I know every year our team is going to be competitive and we’re always going to push the envelope and push our guys to get better,” Kingsway coach Drew Laverty said. “But when you only have one guy with varsity experience coming back, you just don’t know how those new guys are going to compete against other competition and how they’re going to react to match play situations and crucial moments, all those things that you can only gain with match experience. Luckily we had some seniors playing varsity, which I think made a difference. They did a great job and I’m super proud of the team this year.”

Kingsway showed right from the opening match of the season that it should not be overlooked. The Dragons earned a 3-2 win over Royal Division rival Clearview — featuring standouts Martin Lacsamana and Kyle Deacon at first and second singles, respectively — to set the tone early.

“It’s funny, I try to tell my AD not to schedule Clearview first because in recent years it’s been us and them for the division,” Laverty said. “It’s tough to have the division on the line in the first match of the year when you don’t know how your team is going to play and react. They had two outstanding singles players but luckily we were able to work out the other three spots and get those done.”

Clearview did win the rematch later in the season, but that was Kingsway’s only division loss and its first to a Royal opponent in five years. The Dragons went 13-3 overall and 7-1 in the division, ending their season with a 3-2 loss to Lenape in the South Jersey, Group 4 quarterfinals.

Despite a hip injury early in the season to third singles Chris Spicer, Kingsway never skipped a beat. Junior Nick Tanzola moved up from second doubles to take Spicer’s spot, and following senior Mike Parker at No. 1 and junior Kyle Kirwin at No. 2, he gave the Dragons a strong singles lineup.

Senior David Glanfield and junior Gavin Springer played first doubles and went undefeated during team matches while claiming the county title. Sophomores Jack Arena and Andrew Altmann, junior Nikit Chhita and senior Rohan Nambiar all contributed at second doubles.

“For a lot of teams it would have destroyed them to lose that (third singles) spot and really change up the lineup,” Laverty said. “It changed us but it didn’t hurt us in too many ways. We’ve always predicated our team on being balanced all the way through in singles and doubles and we’re going to continue to create teams like that going forward.”

COACH OF THE YEAR

Millville coach Tom DeCou, talking with Andrew Crain during a match this season, led the Thunderbolts to a 20-4 record.Al Amrhein | For NJ Advance Media

In some seasons, the Coach of the Year is an easy choice, with one person standing out and demanding to be recognized. Other seasons, like this one, there are plenty of worthy candidates and picking just one almost seems unfair.

From George Rhea guiding Penns Grove its first winning season in decades and a share of the Tri-County Diamond title to Bill Kennedy helping Cumberland improve by eight wins and go undefeated in the Tri-County Liberty, area coaches stepped up in a huge way this spring. Our nod goes to Millville’s Tom DeCou, who was expecting a .500 record at best from his inexperienced group but ended up leading the Thunderbolts to their best season of his 17-year tenure.

Despite bringing back only two starters — juniors Jacob Lewis and Andrew Crain, who went from second doubles as freshmen to first and second singles, respectively — Millville finished with an impressive 20-4 overall record and won the the Cape-Atlantic League American Conference with a 15-1 mark.

“The most wins I’ve had as the Millville coach was 15, and we’ve done that a couple of times,” DeCou said. “I told the kids when we got to 14 they had a chance to tie the record for me as a coach. We still had six matches left and they ended up smashing it. That was one of the goals when we got to 14 and it was fun to see them do it. Then we won the conference and everything ended up coming together for a great year.”

The conference championship was Millville’s first in more than two decades. A key 3-2 victory over old nemesis St. Augustine late in the season helped clinch the outright title.

“The first time we played them we were at their place and I’ll tell you, it was one of the toughest losses of my career,” DeCou said. “We lost 3-2 and there were like three 3-setters. They had lost to (Egg Harbor Township) so we knew we had a chance to beat them and we lost. Then they came to Millville and we had to beat them to have a chance of winning it outright, and we did 3-2. The kids came up big.”

The victory over The Prep was satisfying considering DeCou’s last win over the Hermits came under different circumstances back in 2018.

“Long story short, they came to Millville, I think it was on a prom weekend and they didn’t have a couple of their top players,” he said. “They had a couple of JV kids and I think they took us lightly and we kind of surprised them. But this year we beat them with their full lineup so it felt good. That’s always a big deal.”

While even DeCou was surprised by Millville’s success this season with so many new faces in the lineup, all seven starters will be back so the bar has been raised for 2022. In addition to Lewis and Crain, junior No. 3 Nicolas Meehan had a solid season at singles. Sophomore Russell Corson and freshman Matthew Sooy had a terrific run at first doubles and sophomores Shawn McCarthy and Parker Swift played well at second doubles.

The key will be all of those players hitting the court in the offseason to continue their progress.

“I’m going to make sure of that,” DeCou said. “I have a tennis camp and we’re going to work out this summer. … Hopefully we’ll get as many of them out there as possible.”

ALL-AREA TEAM

Singles

Kyle Deacon, Clearview, Sr.

Martin Lacsamana, Clearview, Sr.

Justin McCullen, West Deptford, Sr.

Doubles

Liam Quick, Sr. and Perry Stanger, So., Cumberland

David Glanfield, Sr. and Gavin Springer, Jr., Kingsway

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[thanksjro]

Telefunken, A Prequel to Eugenesis: The Future Is Obsessed With Making Babies

OR

All These Materials, And I Still Had To Keep The Wiki Open The Whole Time

This short story was included with the secondary publication of Eugenesis, which happened in 2007, six years after the first run. Yep. He had multiple publication runs. Back when you had to actually go and talk to people about what you wanted published instead of doing everything online. For a novel-length fan fiction about murdering space robots and then having them give birth to tentacle monsters.

I wish I had the friggin’ brass balls Roberts does.

Telefunken as a term doesn’t mean anything in any language, but that doesn’t mean we can’t gain any sort of understanding using context clues.

Tele- as a part of Greek, means “from a distance.” So whatever’s happening is far off. In the future, perhaps? The pre-story quotes certainly seem to imply such a thing.

A couple hundred years into the future, actually. With a list like that, one has to wonder just who the hell can get into Maccadam’s these days.

Funken itself actually is a word- it’s German for spark. So “from a distance” + “spark”. Alright, let’s see where this goes.

Is… is this someone trying to convince someone else to read Eugenesis? Is Roberts making the space robots read this batshit story? Is he threatening them? Because making someone read an entire book’s worth of slaughter of their race sort of feels like a threat.

Okay, moving on to actual story, our narrator starts the day by blinding himself. He turns the input on his optics all the way up and stares at the sun.

I don’t know why.

Once he’s done that, he reflects on the nature of change, and how some things just can’t be fixed.

I see we’ve hit our fascist phase. Because they’re only allowed to enjoy the rejuvenation of the planet if they’re wearing Prowl’s face on their chest, right?

Our narrator seems to have an alternate take on the walls, though- seems more like they’re trying to keep the citizens in as opposed to the ruffians out.

Scene jump, and we’re in the middle of a conversation between two folks about some guy who killed an Autobot and fled. Yeah, no one with dialogue has been properly identified as of yet. All I know currently is that one of the conversationalists is a commander. Something tells me Nightbeat’s involved with the scene.

But that’s just a hunch.

So, looks like the Transformers had a little more room for the war buffet after all, because they’ve had at least two named squabbles in the last couple centuries. Hence, our narrator is off to try and corroborate a rumor that Galvatron is still kicking around.

He heads through the religious sector to get downtown, lamenting that Iacon’s been reduced to a military city-state in order to keep some façade of peace going on. He didn’t go through the hell that was the Eugenesis Wars for this.

Ooh, a dash of fantastic racism to really bring out the acidic taste of Orson Welles 1984. Maybe this is Prowl, actually, which would explain why he hasn’t been explicitly named. Would kind of ruin the whole end of the novel, wouldn’t it?

I’m not saying it’s Prowl because of the racism. More the clean dividing of folks into categories and statistical data.

Our narrator walks through the throng, ignores a homeless veteran, and passes by a crowd of Creationists on pilgrimage, and with that he’s off to Autobot City 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Meanwhile, back with the guys reading this account- yes, turns out they’re outside of this particular story- more details are being revealed.

The Turning, you say.

Vampire robots it is, then.

Back with the narrator, he’s just found what he’d been looking for- an Autobot badge, close enough to the real thing to work for his purposes. He heads inside something called an “ingestion tank”- I’m imagining the fucking eating chairs from IDW2- and oh-so-sneakily adds a few screw-looking bombs to the badge.

Hmm. I’m thinking my guesses are just a bit off-base.

Back at the narrative, our narrator has just arrived at the Ministry, where Sideswipe and his boys are truly living up to the ACAB lifestyle- Sideswipe is literally unloading clips into a crowd of protestors. Apparently this isn’t anything new.

Oh-kay. So. Back in the epilogue for Eugenesis, Wheeljack made an offhand comment about Rodimus wanting to look into streamlining the biomorphic reproductive process, using the power of science. This was something Ratchet really wasn’t thrilled about- he’s the Transformer-equivalent to being child-free, I guess- and let me tell you something: if Ratchet thinks something is a bad idea, it almost absolutely is. But it looks like Rodimus got his way, if our narrator’s cryptic statements are to be believed.

Let’s get fucking weird for a second.

Millions of years ago the biomorphic process was decided to be too slow for the colonial ways of the Cybertronian Empire, so morphing centers were created, where protoforms were basically injected with false memories to kickstart their lives. Think MTO programming from IDW, but more mechpreggy. This practice died out when the shortage of energon caught up with everyone, and was left behind for the most part.

EXCEPT FOR THIS. Turns out that Kup actually wasn’t all that old, he just thought he was. Why did they do this? Assumedly for the preservation of their research. Does it factor into anything ever for Kup? Nah, not really. Also:

🄹🄰🄼🄴🅂 🅆🄷🄰🅃 🅃🄷🄴 🄵🅄🄲🄺

Telefunken really is what makes the director’s cut of Eugenesis. This is where all the really weird shit is. If you ever fucking read this nightmare of a book, you better make sure Telefunken is included, because you will be reeling.

Anyway, the planet can’t handle more than a few hundred thousand robots, energon-wise, so the Treaty of Antimorphism was signed- a sort of “no more mechpreg” agreement between the Autobots and Decepticons. Not sure how they’re going to stop someone’s torso from vomiting up a goo baby, seeing as the process appears to be completely random, but they probably know more about the process than I do.

Yeah, that treaty is broken almost immediately. I mean, come on, we know who’s writing this story, it’s amazing that the idea was even remotely considered.

The Autobots decided that they were going to start underground biomorph rings, where Lifers- y’know, the guys who can actually do this sort of thing- spit out protoforms on command to supplement the Autobot forces, in case more war broke out.

They can give birth on command.

I-

I just-

How-

Okay. Sure.

BUT HOW-

Of course, a lot of people had a problem with this, seeing as they already had a solution to the problem of a limited population, in the copies of everyone’s brains Rodimus had commissioned after the events of Eugenesis. Yeah, that’s the root of the problem right there: it was unnecessary. Certainly not the violations of the free will and rights of the poor bastards who got chained to a table and told to start pumping out new robots at what was probably gunpoint in the basement of some bombed out building. Nope! Just that the whole thing was superfluous.

That was about the time that the Anticopyist protests started- how convenient- and the mind crystals were buried, never to see the light of day. Of course, Star Saber might have had a hand in quietly recovering the crystals, but that’s just hearsay.

It’s all going down the tubes, really- High Commands gearing up for the inevitable civil war that’s about to break out amid all this bullshit. Prowl and Nightbeat are trying to put a stop to things, but what are two guys with crippling depression going to do against all this crap? Not much. Especially now that there are Neogens discovering that they aren’t who they think they are.

The slogan is “maximum speed, maximum efficiency.” I’ll let you take a wild guess as to what these weirdos call themselves.

Sideswipe and his goons get done with killing civilians, and our narrator can finally get on with their mission- an interview with Rodimus Prime, who is dying. Again. We just can’t keep our Primes alive, can we? Can’t keep ‘em dead either, but that’s not the point.

But I thought Cyclonus was key.

…I’m sorry, that was dumb.

Anyway, our narrator gets through security, bombs undetected, and prepares to finish his thesis.

These outside conversationalists are kind of morbid, aren’t they? Still, we wouldn’t have the narrative if they weren’t, so thanks? I guess? For being weird voyeurs of terrorist activities?

The narrator makes his way to the basement, where they’ve got Rodimus stashed.

But how are his tiddies? Are they ridiculously huge? Does he breast boobily down the hall towards you? Too bad First Aid’s dead, he’d be all over this behemoth.

You know, last time we saw Springer, his sole purpose in life was getting high. Wonder how he got to this point in just a couple hundred years. That’s nothing to these guys. Guess he traded in the space-heroin for juicing.

Springer, because I guess he’s kind of an asshole in this story, threatens our narrator, saying that he’s got a joor- pretty much an hour- to talk to Rodimus, and one second beyond that he’s throwing his ass out the door. He makes this point very emphatically, and repeatedly. Springer needs to take a chill pill.

With that, our narrator double-checks that his rigged badge is still there- how many times are we going to blow up Rodimus Prime?- and enters the medvault.

Rodimus isn’t doing so hot.

Despite the obvious lag in his brain, Rodimus is happy to be of service to a young student, and invites the narrator to sit and stay awhile.

Now that’s just cruel, Roberts. You gotta give Rodimus something, you already killed his best friend and most of his comrades. No wonder he’s depressed in every continuity, all the writers are mean as hell to our boy Rodders.

Our narrator starts off by asking about Scorponok, and Rodimus takes so long to answer he wonders if the guy just went ahead and died. But Rodimus, ever a good sport, does eventually answer. He talks about all the major Decepticon players, and our narrator smiles and listens, waiting for the point where Unicron is mentioned. He really wants to hear about Unicron, and can practically taste his presence in the room, seeing as Rodimus is still possessed.

You see, our dear narrator is a space-satanist.

Unfortunately, when Rodimus finally utters the name of the robot-devil, nothing happens.

No, see, if the Transformers had Plan B, none of this mechpreg stuff would be fucking happening.

This is where our outside conversationalists come more into play, revealing themselves to be Star Saber- finally entering the story proper- and Great Shot, who I can’t seem to find anything on. We get treated to the security footage from this point on, getting a lovely scene of our narrator yelling at a dying old man, as the two discuss the Turning. It’s a major point of concern for a lot of the troops, and we’re shown why, as Rodimus starts having a Reagan-from-the-Exorcist-level fit about the same time as our narrator drops his bomb. The room explodes, and our narrator escapes out into the world.

From here on, all of the narrative comes from out narrator’s internal recording. He keeps running, beyond the walls of the city and into the Rad Zone, until he hits Eocra. Eocra is where that chunk of space rock from Liars A-to-D was housed. I guess we’ll find out if it’s still there.

He requests an audience with Servion from a member of the Brotherhood of Chaos whom he doesn’t recognize, and is ushered inside.

Into an underground room with a window showing the stars and just packed with Decepticons. Even Blitzwing’s there- I’d figured he’d been one of the POWs who kicked the bucket, but apparently not. Turns out that door he went through was a teleport. They want our narrator’s thesis. He hands it over immediately.

Go for it, guys, his resume from today alone is beyond impressive. He’s done more in the last six hours than most of your top guys have done in their entire careers.

The Decepticons say that they’ll be in touch, and with that they shove him out of the room. Well, that’s that. Guess it’s time to go and see if the rumors about the losers in Kalis are a bunch of bunk after all.

And that’s the end of his datalog.

Back with the ‘Cons, the boys are gossiping about their new hire. Turns out he’s one of theirs anyway- a Neogen, and his name is Tarantulus.

I checked, it’s a valid alternate spelling of his name.

Over with Galvatron- did you honestly think he was dead?- the edgy bastard’s preparing for the Final Purge. Turns out he’s still under Unicron’s thumb, even after all this time. He’s pleased to hear that Rodimus is dying, and recalls being able to corrupt the Lifecode when he needled the Prime during other desperate moments. He decides he’s going to do that again.

Back with Start Saber and Great Shot, the boys are cooking up some tasty treats in their politically-powered lie kitchen. As far as the public knows, Tarantulus was shot to death by the guards when he approached the wall. Prime’s Turned, which sucks for him, but might work out in Star Saber’s favor. Just too bad that that one guard got in between Rodimus and the bomb blast.

So I guess Star Saber being less than piously heroic is just a Roberts thing. Alrighty then.

That’s the end of Telefunken. This answers as many questions as it presents, leaving us at a net-neutral for understanding just what the fuck is going on. Awesome.

[lostcoastoutfitters]

Coast Report

Fishing the North Coast reports on 3.1.18

Storms breathe new life into steelhead rivers

fishingthenorthcoast

Following a dry and unseasonably warm first half of February, there is finally some good news to report – widespread rain and heavy mountain snowfall are imminent across nearly all of California. For the North Coast, weather models are indicating above normal precipitation in the coming weeks, which could turn March into a heck of a month for steelhead fishing. Up until these last storms that hit on Sunday and Monday, the majority of the coastal rivers were running on fumes. Other than the main stem Eel, everything was low and clear, and steelhead were few and far between. The few fish that were being caught were low in the river systems, which could indicate there’s plenty of fish just waiting for the rivers to rise. Could we be in for another “Miracle March” ? I sure hope so.

The weather ahead “We should see some decent rainfall totals over the next week, and we’ll continue to see low elevation snow”, said Ryan Aylward of Eureka’s National Weather Service. “We’ll see mostly rain on Wednesday, with two-thirds to an inch falling at the coast and one to one and a half in the mountains. Beginning Thursday, snow levels will drop to around 1,500 to 2,500 feet. We could see another two-thirds of an inch of rain, with snow falling above 2,500 feet. Friday’s forecast is calling for roughly the same. Rain will taper off on Saturday with only three-tenths falling in the mountains and maybe a half in Del Norte. Between Wednesday and Saturday, we’ll see about two inches of rain in Humboldt and up to three inches in Crescent City. Southern Humboldt could see three to four inches. Six to seven inches is forecasted for the hills, but most of that will fall as snow. Sunday and Monday are looking mostly dry, but there is another storm sitting off the coast that will hit sometime on Tuesday. The timing of this one is uncertain right now. It is looking like we’ll be in a wet pattern all next week, but the rainfall amounts are uncertain. It does look like we’ll see above average precipitation for the next few weeks.”

Klamath/Trinity springers could be added to protected list Following a 90-day review, the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) on Tuesday published a notice in the Federal Register stating that the petition filed by the Karuk Tribe and the Salmon River Restoration Council to add Klamath Spring Chinook to the Endangered Species List provides “substantial information” and that “listing may be warranted” according to a press release. The federal fisheries’ move comes after a UC Davis study showed the spring Chinook are more of an evolutionary rarity than realized when compared to Fall Chinook salmon that return later in the year. Before the age of dams, industrial mining, and clear-cut logging, spring Chinook salmon were the most abundant run of salmon in the Klamath and many other Pacific Northwest Rivers. Today these fish are nearly extinct throughout much of their historic range. The report led the Karuk Tribe and the Salmon River Restoration Council to petition NMFS to add Klamath-Trinity spring Chinook the Endangered Species List.

Spring Chinook enter rivers in the spring when snow melt swells rivers allowing the fish to travel into the upper reaches of a watershed. Then they must reside in cold water areas all summer until they spawn and die in the fall. Fall Chinook migrate into rivers in the fall where they spawn and die relatively soon after entering fresh water.

Tuesday’s notice initiates a 60-day public comment period to solicit information on Chinook salmon in the Upper Klamath/Trinity Basin. To read the notice or comment, visit https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/02/27/2018-03906/endangered-and-threatened

Marc Scarr, pictured left along with brother Mike, landed the biggest fish during last weekend’s Rowdy Creek Fish Hatchery Steelhead Derby. The steelhead, which measured 38-inches, was caught on the Chetco River with guide Chris Griffeth. Photo courtesy of Chris Griffeth/Get Sum Guide Service

The Rivers: Chetco/Elk/Sixes “The Chetco was back in shape on Tuesday, and just about everybody was catching fish,” said Andy Martin of Wild Rivers Fishing. “Drift boats caught a mix of fresh hatchery and wild steelhead, and some downers, from the South Fork clear down to the water tower. The heavy rain in the forecast could blow the river out for the weekend, especially if the snow along the upper river melts. Should be good fishing again next week. The Elk fished well Monday, but was slower Tuesday. A few boats went to the Sixes on Tuesday but reported limited success. The Elk fishes best in high water, and should be in decent shape this weekend.”

Smith River The Smith was low and clear over the weekend and fishing was tough. A total of 17 fish were caught during the two-day derby by a total of 80 anglers. The rains finally came on Sunday, and the river went up a couple feet by Monday. Unfortunately, the fishing didn’t improve much. Boats drifting from the top to the bottom reported very few fish caught. Another good rise is forecasted for Wednesday into Thursday, with flows hitting 12,000 cfs on the Jed Smith gauge by Thursday night. Hopefully we’ll see a new batch of fish enter the river, and we should see some more spawned out fish making their way down.

Eel River (main stem) The rain over the weekend added some color, but the main stem never blew out reports Fred Grundman of Rio Dell’s Grundmans Sporting Goods. “The river didn’t rise all that much, mostly because of the freezing in the mountains held the water back. We’ve had a real good stretch of fishable water this month, and the fishing has been pretty productive. There’s quite a few boats around, and they’re here for a reason. With the storms coming later this week, it looks like the main stem will blow out early Thursday morning,” Grundman added. The Eel is predicted to jump from 1,300 cfs to nearly 20,000 by Friday night.

Eel River (South Fork) Not much to report for the last couple weeks, but the storms on the way should get the ball rolling again. Flows were right around 350 cfs on Wednesday afternoon and forecasted to hit 7,400 cfs by Friday morning. It will be blown out for the weekend, but could come back into play sometime next week, depending on the next round of storms. When the water turns green, there should be plenty of fish around – both fresh and downers.

Van Duzen According to Grundman, the Van Duzen was muddy on Tuesday. If the forecast holds, flows are predicted to jump from 315 to 2,750 cfs by Thursday morning.

Mad River The Mad has been pretty quiet this week reports Justin Kelly of RMI Outdoors in Eureka. “There’s not a lot of hatchery fish in the river right now, which is likely why the pressures been light. The fish, which have been mostly wild, are still scattered. You can catch them from top to bottom. We’ve got a pretty good rise coming on Thursday, that will hopefully trigger some more fish to come in,” Kelly added.

According to Philip Bairrington, Anadromous Fisheries Resource Assessment and Monitoring Program for CDFW, 52 pairs of Mad River steelhead have been spawned as of Tuesday. He said, “On a normal year we would have spawned 104 by now. It is turning out to be a lower run amplitude year. I predict we’ll spawn another 10 to 20 pairs by the end of the hatchery’s spawning season. We’ll be okay, thanks to the Mad River Steelhead Stewards Volunteer Program.”

[xeford2020]

Lady and the Tramp Celebrates 65 Years

June 1955 magazine advertisement for the release of Lady and the Tramp. THF145583

Although this animated feature film received mixed reviews when it was first released on June 22, 1955, Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp has since become a classic.  It is beloved for its songs, its story, its gorgeously rendered and meticulously detailed settings, and its universal themes of love and acceptance—not to mention that scene with the spaghetti!  Numerous story artists and animators contributed their talents to creating this film, but it would take years before Walt Disney would finally give it his nod of approval. 

Unlike other Disney animated films of the time, Lady and the Tramp is not based upon a venerable old fairy tale or a previously published book.  Its origins can be traced back to 1937, when Disney story artist Joe Grant showed Walt Disney some sketches and told him of his idea for a story based upon the antics of his own English Springer Spaniel named Lady, who was “shoved aside” when the family’s new baby arrived.  Walt encouraged Grant to develop the story but was unhappy with the outcome—feeling that Lady seemed too sweet and that the story didn’t have enough action.  For the next several years, Grant and other artists worked on a variety of conceptual sketches and many different approaches. 

In 1945, the storyline took a drastic turn, which ultimately led to its final film version.  That year, Walt Disney read a magazine short story called, “Happy Dan, the Cynical Dog.”  Here, in the story of a cynical, devil-may-care dog, Walt found the perfect foil for the prim and proper Lady.  By 1953, the film had evolved to the point that Walt asked Ward Greene, the short story’s author, to write a novelization of it.  It is Greene—not Joe Grant—who received credit in the final film.  Walt couldn’t resist adding a personal tidbit to the story.  According to his telling of the story, the opening scene came from his own experience of giving his wife a puppy as a gift in a hat box to make up for having forgotten a dinner date with her. 

Interestingly, the spaghetti-eating scene was almost cut, as Walt Disney initially thought it was silly and unromantic.  But animator Frank Thomas had such a strong vision for the scene that he completed all the animation for it before showing it to Walt, who was so impressed he agreed to keep in the now-iconic scene.

1955 charm bracelet of the dogs in Lady and the Tramp, likely a souvenir obtained at Disneyland. THF8604

Since the dogs were the main characters of the film, it seemed only natural to both show and tell the story from the dogs’ point of view.  The animators studied many real dogs to capture their movements, behaviors, and personalities, while the scenes themselves were shot from a low “dog’s-eye-view” perspective.

A depiction of Main Street, U.S.A. at Disneyland from the 1955 Picture Souvenir Book to the park. THF205154

The film’s setting—early 20th century small-town America—referenced Walt Disney’s own return to his roots, particularly his growing up in the small town of Marceline, Missouri.  As the setting was coming to life on film, a real live 3D version of it was being constructed at Disneyland, Walt Disney’s new park in Anaheim, California.  Disneyland opened a mere three weeks after the film was released.

Although the setting hearkened back to the past, the filmmaking technique that Walt chose was typically state-of-the-art.  As Walt marked the growing interest in widescreen film technology, he decided this would be the first of his animated films to use CinemaScope.  To fill in the extra-wide space of this format, the animators extended the backgrounds—resulting in settings that are unusually breathtaking, detailed, mood-setting and, when the story called for it, filled with dramatic tension.  Unfortunately, many theatres were not equipped with CinemaScope, so Walt decided that two versions of the film had to be created, forcing layout artists to scramble to restructure key scenes for a standard format as well.  CinemaScope ultimately proved too expensive and did not last past the early 1960s.  But its influence on Lady and the Tramp lives on—a testament to Walt’s commitment to filmmaking innovation.

Although souvenirs related to Lady and the Tramp are hard to come by these days, I was thrilled to find these salt-and-pepper shakers and collectible pins over several visits to Walt Disney World.

I saw Lady and the Tramp when it was re-released in theatres in 1962.  I was nine years old at the time and I was completely enraptured.  The details and setting—from the frilly ladies’ dresses, dapper men’s suits, and overstuffed furniture inside Lady’s house to the horses’ clip-clopping down the cobblestone streets—seemed like old photographs come to life.  Taking in these details on the big screen as a girl, I was transfixed.  Is this where my interest in history began?

After seeing Lady and the Tramp at the movies, I also became obsessed with wanting a dog.  Not just any dog.  I wanted Lady, or a cocker spaniel as close to Lady as I could get.  I dreamed of her, drew pictures of her, transferred her personality onto the stuffed dogs I inevitably got as presents.  When I was in eighth grade, my parents finally relented.  One day my Mom surprised us and took us kids down to the animal shelter to get a dog.  It wasn’t a cocker spaniel.  But we did find a little golden-haired puppy that was a fine substitute. 

I don’t know that I thought much of Tramp when I was a girl.  He was wayward, a nuisance, too different.  But from my older perspective, I see that Lady meeting, and ultimately falling for, Tramp was really a symbol of what happens in your life.  Forced out of your comfort zone, broadening your horizons, seeing things from new perspectives, taking life’s curves with grace until, rather than resisting it, you accept it—even embrace it. 

Who knew, when I was a girl, that this movie was not just about dogs but about life? 

Note: The complete story of the making of Lady and the Tramp, including Joe Grant’s contributions, can be found in the bonus feature, “Lady’s Pedigree: The Making of Lady and the Tramp,” in the 50th Anniversary DVD of Lady and the Tramp.

Donna R. Braden is Curator of Public Life at The Henry Ford. 

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[businessguide12-blog]

Gordon Ramsay: The Unhealthy Son Chef From Hell%u2019s Cooking area Teaches Very good Company

New Post has been published on https://businessguideto.com/online-business-news/gordon-ramsay-the-unhealthy-son-chef-from-hellu2019s-cooking-area-teaches-very-good-company/

Gordon Ramsay: The Unhealthy Son Chef From Hell%u2019s Cooking area Teaches Very good Company

It got quite some time for Cook Gordon Ramsay to come to my consideration. With minimal t . v . viewing time offered caused by a hectic function plan, I usually view a choose band of cord funnel applications which have with consideration been waiting around in my electronic digital recorder. When summertime arrives and my first run faves are inaccessible, I have bold and from time to time go slumming amongst the broadcast channels. In the middle of that rubbish heap, I found the Cook from Hell.

There seemed to be something in regards to a gentleman using a overseas emphasize yelling at a lot of odd seeking folks cook outfits that appealed if you ask me, despite the fact that i don%u2019t determine what made me view. It reminded me of exploring the carnivals while in my younger times. I experienced a similar attraction to Hell%u2019s Kitchen area that I managed for the Clyde and Bonnie Passing away Auto demonstrate or perhaps the Reefer Madness motion picture movie theater inside the shows area of the carnival.

Seeing Hell%u2019s Kitchen the first time concerned me. I dislike actuality tv shows. My wife and i also discuss an office inside our residence by using a t . v . set up that may be on quite often. Inside the attention of relationship happiness, I from time to time observed Determine Judy or Jerry Springer. After expanding fed up in the antics on individuals programs, my partner discovered Big Brother. Though easier on my small ears, that demonstrate do absolutely nothing in my opinion. I would have felt exactly the same about Hell%u2019s Home.

With my finger strongly planted about the route-changing switch of my far off, I had been willing to retreat back for the sanity from the increased double and triple digit route phone numbers on my small cord container. In spite of my best efforts, I was able to not change the funnel. I needed to observe every single BLEEPING minute of Ramsey%u2019s Tirades. I believed out why, at the end from the episode.

In spite of my aversion to reality shows, I watch The Apprentice. Anybody considering company possibly does. As soon as you work through all of the personalities, contestant chitchat and also other crap chucked into satisfy the regular fact television set method, it%u2019s a show about organization done efficiently. When industry is completed improper, the bad participant is fired. That%u2019s about as true because it receives. That is certainly even the appeal of the items one among my teenage kids cell phone calls %u201Cthe Imply Chef display.%u201D Imply? I beg to be different. It%u2019s about kitchen and preparing food administration done efficiently.

Those who have ever been offered a one or two hundred or so $ food that tasted like day outdated junk food can connect with Ramsay%u2019s Specifications along with his adoration for providing the best meals in the most imaginative way possible. Although I am just a delayed comer to Hell%u2019s Kitchen area, I have become an ardent supporter. So much in fact that we in fact journeyed towards the BBC America cord funnel to get out much more of Ramsay. A Few Things I found was great.

Even though I haven%u2019t actually viewed Great britain television set inside a critical way considering that Benny Hillside, I got a possibility with Ramsay%u2019s Cooking area Nightmares and earned major. I came across the series to become engaging and also helpful. In one day as soon as the overall educational procedure is dumbed-lower to the point of becoming nearly pointless and fairly illegitimate in real life, it can be relaxing to find out how Ramsay is able to attain out and status the obvious for the unaware. This is something that men and women planning to attempt their hand on the bistro organization can study from.

It has been my uncomfortable encounter to have to explain to folks why their ideas suck, being an the occasional company venture director and specialist. That%u2019s the reason I rarely do this operate any longer. When going through a broad-eyed customer who is able to house loan a residence, borrow from relatives or max out bank cards to open up a goal company, I often must be the main one to spell out why they need to not. It%u2019s hard to tell men and women what most economic, mortgage, visa or mastercard and professional property businesses will not. All those organizations stand to profit from a small venture malfunction up to successful.

Individuals who fail at organization usually wind up back again at the office for one more 2 decades spending money on a goal that transformed into a problem. Lenders know they%u2019ll do anything whatsoever in order to save their property, so that they get money. Companies looking to dispose of above-valued retail shows and over-stocked general items would like to produce a sale. The strip mall landlord with unfilled stores plus a bad place is delighted to have as little as a couple of months rent of the Sam Walton wannabe so he or she will pay a few of their own personal bills.

Ramsay%u2019s Kitchen Nightmares shows things i phone Logic%u2019s Poor Course: Business Owners can do nearly anything they need, if they practice it correctly. Doesn%u2019t suggest you ought to available a skating extras store, because you cherish skating. Think again before you decide to option the farm on that formula, though your Grandmother may cook up a imply set of oat meal cookies. Ramsay knows what works and what doesn%u2019t, although he could have a potty jaws. Possibly that%u2019s because he experienced their own tough classes as you go along.

Brought into this world in 1966, the near future Scottish Celeb Chief cook seen his daddy consider numerous professions and businesses. The family unit continuously moved, because of several breakdowns. Ramsay most likely thought he handed down his father%u2019s knack for awful fortune as well as his initially title. Soon after vibrant successes in football (football), the longer term chef would be authorized from the Rangers. A number of injuries averted that. As opposed to signal with a decrease league crew, Gordon enrolled at the nearby university to examine accommodation administration and food catering. He was only nineteen years old.

After doing work in relatively modest the kitchen and managing resort cusine bedrooms, he relocated to London. Ramsay%u2019s gig at Harvey%u2019s positioned him less than Cook Marco Pierre White colored. Carries a well known temper and tyrannical home administration fashion, though white-colored is regarded as the godfather of recent English food preparation and food. During his heyday, Chef White colored regularly ejected people that reported about his cuisine and allegedly misused his staff in one method or another. Ramsay kept Harvey%u2019s right after virtually three years and later stated he was fed up with the %u201Cthe rages and the bullying and assault.%u201D

Cook Ramsay made a decision to further more his excellence of your French Cuisine by using benefit Albert Roux at Le Gavroche in Mayfair. It had been there that he fulfilled Jean-Claude Breton, his Hell%u2019s Cooking area Maître D’ and actual life Expert of your Hallway at Ramsay%u2019s Royal Hospital Streets bistro. After subsequent Albert Roux towards the French Alps to be effective as his second, Ramsay moved to Paris to do business with Guy Savoy and Joël Robuchon. Savoy%u2019s style of kitchen area management was oppressive. Three years of your both mental and physical anxiety found in French Cooking areas was sufficient for Ramsay. He put in each year employed as a Chef on the Idlewild, a private yacht that cruised from Bermuda.

Chief cook Ramsay returned to England in 1993 and worked well as Go Cook at Los angeles Tante Claire. Despite their philosophical dissimilarities, Cook Marco Pierre White colored presented Ramsay a job as Mind Chief cook and 25Per cent of your diner in the future called Aubergine. Ramsay continued to be there until finally 1997 when a question more than operation of the diner triggered him to go out of. Chief cook Ramsay established his own restaurant, Gordon Ramsay at Noble Medical facility Road, in 1998. Noble Hospital Streets was awarded a third Michelin legend in Ramsay and 2001 took over as the initially Scot to accomplish this recognize.

The Chef from Hell was on his way, yet not every little thing will be clean sailing. In 2001, Ramsay launched Amaryllis in Glasgow, Scotland, the metropolis of his birth. The cafe was first productive, but substantial rent, light week day company, snippy workers plus an inability to keep the food list reasonably priced were important elements in their breakdown. Ramsay misplaced a lot more than the cafe. His protégé, David Dempsey, passed away in 2003.

Amaryllis ended up being to have been a vehicle for Dempsey to ascertain themselves as a well known Chef. As he was there, the restaurant attained the respect from the only diner in Glasgow to acquire a Michelin Celebrity. When it shut, Ramsay brought Dempsey to London to operate as Head Cook at his Medical facility Street diner.

After only a few weeks back United kingdom, Dempsey was found looking to burglary into a property based in Elm Playground Backyards, just off of the Kings Streets in Chelsea. The owner in the flat struggled with him and Dempsey fell to his death from your 2nd narrative windowpane. Dempsey allegedly enjoyed a medicine issue. Ramsay%u2019s brother is surely an addict as well as the Chief cook is fiercely contra–medicine.

All Chefs are subject to company chaos, bottom collections, food items charges, personnel difficulties along with the always-altering tastes from the public. Chief cook Ramsay has dealt with all those difficulties much better than most. His love for a culinary task effectively completed, ability to make alterations as needed and admit breakdowns after they arise will be the characteristics that will make him a fantastic someone and mentor worthy of seeing. By 2006, Chief cook Ramsay has grown to be fairly of the conglomerate with restaurants, food and bars specialist obligations all over the world.

It%u2019s tough to say how much of Ramsay%u2019s bistro achievement is a result of his television reputation. When it comes to culinary arts stardom, the preparing food and dishes most-often have the Chef. Nevertheless, if it%u2019s also about title acknowledgement and being a bigger than existence press body, Cook Ramsay very easily fits into individuals tasks at the same time.

British t . v . audiences found Ramsay%u2019s crazy ways in 1998 with Boiling Stage. Ramsay%u2019s rants continuing in 2000 with Past Cooking Position and got with a change in 2004 when Ramsay%u2019s Cooking area Nightmares success the airwaves. The method of Chef Ramsay spending a week attempting to rehabilitate an ailing eatery during every single episode worked effectively. Your Kitchen Nightmares show remains proceeding solid following 3 periods on Great britain tv. An American variation is due within the fall of 2007.

The top of Hell%u2019s Kitchen in 2004 adopted Ramsay%u2019s Kitchen area Nightmares and launched British viewers to the very best of the most severe of Gordon Ramsay. As he will need to have learned some of those temperamental tirades from cooks White colored and Savoy, Ramsay has perfected them. So, much so, that Fox Tv helped bring the potty-mouthed specialist of pugnacious platitudes to American citizen people in 2005. Hell%u2019s Cooking area captured on swiftly in the us and may have established the door for just one of Ramsay%u2019s mouthy mentors to get his picture at U.S. t . v . audiences.

Whilst Ramsay is hectic looking to save American dining places requiring rehab with Ramsay%u2019s Kitchen area Nightmares, a new version of Hell%u2019s Kitchen area presenting Chief cook White colored is rumored to be growth for your Fox Network. People like seeing chefs explode and act a bit ridiculous as verified by the latest modifications on the different preparing food and food items cable television stations. cooks, Hosts and chefs are becoming a lot more impolite and intense.

If imitation is the sincerest kind of flattery, visualize a mouthy Martha Stewart spitting out expletives, kicking her dearest pets because they sampled the The apple company Pan Doughty or organizing food items about when guests point out her stop at Group Given. As they may be able to imitate his style, couple of self-designed foods specialists, cooks, chefs or restaurateurs have reached Chief cook Ramsay%u2019s height of fame and influence.

Don%u2019t wait for rerun time of year to have the Chef from Heck. If it%u2019s anything such as the UK edition airing on BBC The united states, Ramsay%u2019s Kitchen Nightmares on Fox will certainly be a have to-see for business people, buyers and anybody wanting some leisure that educates and also it entertains.

Continue reading at http: //daily life.BillKnell.com

[viraljournalist]

Key quotes and takeaways from AJ Hinch's first interview since sign-stealing scandal

New Post has been published on https://viraljournalist.com/key-quotes-and-takeaways-from-aj-hinchs-first-interview-since-sign-stealing-scandal/

Key quotes and takeaways from AJ Hinch's first interview since sign-stealing scandal

Deposed Houston Astros manager AJ Hinch is currently out of baseball, but he is finally back on the record.

Since a completely unenlightening performance at the winter meetings, Hinch made his first public comments during a televised interview with veteran scribe Tom Verducci that aired Friday evening on MLB Network. In the previous interview, Hinch sweated in front of a gathered throng of reporters, unable to make substantive comments about Houston’s sign-stealing scandal because MLB had yet to complete its investigation.

Since then, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred dropped the hammer on Hinch and the Astros, suspending the manager and his boss, ex-Houston general manager Jeff Luhnow, for the entire 2020 season, as well as fining the franchise $5 million and stripping it of four draft picks. Hinch and Luhnow were singled out in Manfred’s report for failing to stop the scheme. Immediately after the commissioner announced the penalties, Astros owner Jim Crane followed with the dismissals of Hinch and Luhnow.

Hinch released an apologetic statement after being fired, saying, “While the evidence consistently showed I didn’t endorse or participate in the sign stealing practices, I failed to stop them and I am deeply sorry.” However, the MLB Network interview marked the first time Hinch faced a questioner in a public forum since the suspensions were handed out.

The scandal doesn’t show many signs of fading from the public eye even as teams across the league make their way to Florida and Arizona for spring training. Just prior to the airing of Verducci’s interview with Hinch, the Wall Street Journal published a report detailing the possible front-office origins of Houston’s system, known internally as “Codebreaker,” per the report. The findings detailed by Manfred were that the scheme was driven and executed at the player level.

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Not surprisingly, during the interview, Hinch was diplomatic in a classically Hinch sort of way, with even his non-answers sounding like actual answers until you started to think about them. Hinch has been a media favorite for years because of his affability, accessibility and his willingness to give in-depth answers to pretty much any query thrown his way, all while also showing a willingness to be pointed when the occasion calls for it. As time has passed, Hinch has grown so confident in his dealings with the media that he has developed the often annoying habit of beginning to answer questions before they are finished being asked.

Hinch’s demeanor with Verducci was measured, as you’d expect. Prior to the airing of the interview, which took place at Hinch’s home outside Houston, Verducci described the atmosphere of the conversation as “anxious.” It’s easy to understand why. Still just 45 years old, Hinch ranks 17th all time in winning percentage (.558) among those who have managed at least 1,000 games in the majors. If he wants to build on that résumé — once his suspension expires at the end of the 2020 season — many wounds will have to be cauterized. Friday’s telecast was Hinch’s first tentative steps toward that healing process.

Here are some responses and takeaways from Hinch’s interview:

Question: Is the Astros’ 2017 title tainted?

Hinch: “It’s a fair question. I think everyone is going to have to draw their own conclusions. I hope over time, and the demonstration of the talent of this team and the players and the careers that are being had — we have some of the best players in the entire sport all together on the same team — I hope over time, it’s proven that it wasn’t. But I understand the question.”

Here Hinch is taking an objective approach to an issue that is almost entirely in the realm of the subjective. He’s certainly right in that in All-Star performers such as Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve, George Springer and Carlos Correa, the Astros have fielded one of the majors’ most talented teams in recent years. While Houston’s collective offensive performance spiked in many ways between the 2016 and 2017 seasons, most of those gains have been maintained in the seasons to follow. Because of that, Hinch is probably correct in suggesting that if Houston’s stars continue to perform at a high level, the context of their 2017 and early 2018 numbers will be largely drowned out.

However, this has never been a question about whether the Astros have had championship-caliber players. If public consensus about the Astros’ championship is that it is tainted, then it is tainted. That is not something that is within the control of Hinch, Luhnow or any of the players. They could win the next three World Series and the reality would not change. The only way we could really bring this question back into the objective is to replay the 2017 season all the way through the World Series without the sign stealing. Obviously, that is a physical impossibility. Thus, the taint cannot be removed. In many ways, that is the biggest penalty those associated with the 2017 Astros will have to endure.

Question: How much of an advantage did the Astros’ hitters gain from the scheme?

Hinch: “I can’t pinpoint what advantages or what happened or exactly what happened otherwise. But we did it to ourselves.”

The chorus of anti-Astros sentiment that has emerged over the past few months has blended into one overarching, one-word mantra: Cheaters. The anecdotally based condemnations of the Astros are generally logically solid. If you know what pitch is coming, then it’s a huge advantage. Opposing pitchers, such as Cleveland’s Mike Clevinger, have compared the Astros’ scheme to stealing food off their table. (A terrible analogy for any millionaire ballplayer to use, by the way, but that’s a side issue.) If the scheme didn’t work, the Astros wouldn’t have kept doing it for as long as they did. And so on.

Putting analytical meat on those anecdotal bones has proved to be largely elusive. Baseball Prospectus has tried more than once. So did our friends at FiveThirtyEight. Fangraphs has taken multiple stabs at it, including a piece that came out Friday. Ben Lindbergh of the Ringer also dug in. The cottage industry that has emerged around the Astros’ scandal got a second wind recently when a tech-savvy Houston fan published a database of every documented instance of trashcan banging. The data is compelling but also inconclusive.

Did the Astros get what they deserved? How aware were opposing players? Here’s what those around the game told us. MLB players, execs on sign-stealing scandal

No satisfactory consensus has emerged from these studies. Did it help? Probably, at least some of the time. Some players were helped more than others, and at the same time some opponents were hurt more than others. At times, the system probably hurt the Astros. The net effect might have largely been negligible to nonexistent. At the very least, it might be impossible to ever truly suss out the effects of the scheme from other factors. Indeed, Manfred’s report included the passage, “At some point during the 2018 season, the Astros stopped using the replay review room to decode signs because the players no longer believed it was effective.”

What seems more clear is that regardless of whether the scheme helped Houston, the talent of the hitters in question was at a level where the ham-handed system was probably not necessary in the first place. That might be the biggest misfortune of all of this — how unnecessary it all was. So Hinch is right on both counts — it’s hard to pinpoint the advantages, or lack thereof. But that we’re asking these questions at all is entirely on the Astros.

Question: How do you feel about a former player of yours, Mike Fiers, exposing the sign-stealing scheme publicly, which ostensibly led to your suspension and dismissal?

Hinch: “I haven’t spent a lot of time focusing on the emotional side of the reaction to Mike telling the story and getting this message out. I wish I would have had an environment and a culture that was better for him to have come to me in real time. I wish I could have done better, to maybe get that nudge to make better leadership decisions. I focus on that. I understand that there are going to be people on both sides of the argument about what should have happened. But I haven’t talked to Mike since 2018, 2019, every time you play somebody.”

Hinch’s response to Verducci’s question about Fiers is really the encapsulation of the entire conversation. One of the post-penalty debates on social media has been about the role of Fiers in breaking baseball’s time-honored code of silence and informing on his former teammates. It would have been easy for Hinch to have at least qualified his answer with a “the clubhouse is a sacred place” comment. He did not, instead turning the focus back on himself.

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The cynical among us might say Hinch is playing up the accountability angle because he wants to get back into the game when his suspension is over. No one can know for sure what role that would have played. However, Hinch’s contrition came across as sincere, even if it remains somewhat hard to understand why he felt strongly enough about his team’s escapades to twice destroy the monitor they were using to execute their scheme yet never called a team meeting to draw some firm lines about how his team went about its business.

Of course, Hinch subtlety explained his inaction in 2017 multiple times by saying that his confidence as a leader then was not what it had become by 2019. Whether or not those who do the hiring in baseball see that as true will go a long way in determining his career prospects after the end of the coming season.

Question: Do you want to manage a big league team again? Will you get the chance?

Hinch: “I do [want to manage again]. It’s up to other people to determine whether I’m the right fit, but I love managing. I love players. I love the competition. What I’ve learned about myself over the last few years of doing it is that player-manager relationship, that coach-manager relationship, the front office; I love being in that center hubcap of that wheel that makes it all go around. That comes with a lot of responsibility. I’ve been proud of how I’ve handled it. I’m not proud of talking about the issues in 2017 with the sign stealing, but I’m not going to let that deter me from my hope and desire to have a long career in Major League Baseball doing what I love.”

Hinch’s credentials as a big league skipper were impeccable. He has won at a high level that included two pennants and a World Series. He often has been used as the prototypical example of the 21st century manager because of his skills with the media, ability to connect with younger players and understanding of analytics. During the 2019 season, the Astros became the first team never to order an intentional walk, which speaks to Hinch’s statistical bent. None of this is in question. Until the scandal broke, Hinch’s reputation in the game was strong, even as the face of a franchise that hasn’t been the most popular within the industry. During the winter meetings, Hinch said, “My relationships in baseball are still strong.”

How the internet helped crack the Astros’ sign-stealing case. Joon Lee »

• Passan: Buzzers, burner accounts and conspiracies: Inside a day of epic chaos

Of course, that was before he was suspended and fired. The formula for Hinch going forward is simple: Does the value he brings as a top-level dugout and clubhouse manager outweigh the public relations baggage that will invariably come from hiring him? He does have many friends in the game, such as Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, whose team fell to Houston in the 2017 World Series. Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen is a close friend and former roommate while the two were at Stanford.

That Hinch didn’t plan, execute or condone his players’ behavior are all points in his favor. However, for all his emphasis on leadership, Hinch didn’t provide it when it was most needed. He stated a few times during the interview that he’s a better leader now than he was in 2017, so he’s cognizant of that disconnect. The guess here is that Hinch will get another shot at running a club. It might not be his next gig, though. He might have to serve as a bench coach or even spend a year working with a front office. But it doesn’t feel as if the stain on Hinch’s reputation is going to be a permanent deal breaker.

Question: I know the commissioner’s office looked into this and they determined that there was nothing to it. Can you assure us that there were no buzzers or anything like that being used [in 2019]?

Hinch: “We got investigated for three months. The commissioner’s office did as thorough of an investigation as anyone could imagine was possible. I knew you mentioned about the emails and the texts and the messages [examined during the investigation] and I believe it.”

That was Hinch’s answer and some took to social media afterward to paint it as a non-denial. That’s what happens on social media. The bottom line is that the issue was investigated and the commissioner’s report didn’t find anything to it. At some point, don’t we have to believe what those in charge are telling us?

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[picascribit]

Pica’s fic stats for July through September 2017

Writing Progress:

Discards (Remus/Sirius, rated M, 76k words) - I finally finished Discards at the end of July. It ended up being much longer than I originally intended, and the reader response has been very gratifying. I even got an offer to publish it as original fiction, but I’m still not sure whether that’s something I want to do. 

The Woodsman’s Child (Rowan Hood, T, 1800) - A short fic based on Nancy Springer’s “Tales of Rowan Hood”, featuring Rowan (using heo/heore/heom pronouns), Etty, and the origins of Smudge (OC), their adopted child.

A Ghost Among Ghosts (Voldemort, T, 3500) - Originally a 600 word short called The Tall Man, from the POV of Voldemort’s ghost, I expanded it to three short chapters, encompassing the events of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child -- or at least as much of those events as a ghost haunting Hogwarts would have seen. 

Merlin’s Whiskers (Albus/Scorpius, G, 2100) - A short, fluffy (in more ways than one) addition to my Scorbus Arc, wherein Scorpius gets himself something for his 17th birthday.

Editing & Podficing Progress:

A Ghost Among Ghosts was edited, and podfic was recorded and posted.

My Scorbus Arc (apart from Merlin’s Whiskers, which is still too fresh) was edited, and I am in the process of podficing all of it. Best Mates, Hogsmeade Outing, and Protego Club have all been recorded and posted. I’ve recorded raw audio for Albus Day, and audio editing it is next on my “to do” list.

The Outlaw and the Monk, my Rowan Hood romance, has been edited, and I have recorded and edited audio for the first three chapters.

The Square Peg, my nonbinary Hagrid fic, was re-recorded with ey/em/eir pronouns for Hagrid.

Affection Falling Just Short of Love, my WTNV fic featuring teenage Earl Harlan pining over his bff, Cecil, was edited to remove Steve Carlsberg, and to fix a few other details to make it more canon-compliant, and was then re-recorded.

The Dursleys’ Worst Nightmare, my fluffy, humorous fic about Dudley meeting Cho at Harry and Ginny’s wedding, was edited and slightly expanded (+400 words), then re-recorded.

The Woodsman’s Child was edited, and podfic was recorded and posted.

My Dearest Moony, Sirius’s farewell letter to Remus, to be delivered in the event of his death, was re-recorded, due to too fast a reading speed in the original podfic.

Wow! This makes it seem like I have been pretty productive the last few months. And I have no intention of stopping now.

Plans for the near future:

Scorbus Arc: edit audio for Albus Day, and record podfic for No Distractions, The Talk, and Missing Pieces, then edit and record Merlin’s Whiskers.

The Outlaw and the Monk: record and edit audio for the final five chapters.

Consolation Prize: re-record audio, due to too fast a reading speed on original podfic.

A Night Off From the War: 3300 words is nowhere near long enough for a fic like this. It should be about twice as long, if I want to do it justice. I will do a rewrite/expansion in the not-too-distant future.

The Great Unknown: I’m planning to re-write this old fic, to change the setting, among other things (the current version is set in a beyond-the-veil non-place). After going through the Veil, Sirius finds himself trapped in Night Vale, and unsure what to do about it. Finished product will probably be 2500-3000 words.

That Awful Boy, a.k.a. Night Magic: @pommedeplume and I are planning to collaborate on a long Severus/Lily fic called Night Magic (partly based on the musical by Leonard Cohen of the same name). That Awful Boy needs to be edited/re-written before it can be used as a jumping-off point for a longer fic.

[Untitled Discards Sequel]: This will just be a short one-shot, taking place during Remus’s college graduation.

Discards: I plan to edit and podfic early next year.

I guess we shall see how much of this I manage to get done before the end of the year....

[obligatory ao3 archive link]