#I haven’t finished season 7 yet (I KNOW! I got a ride ahead of me) so sorry if some of this is answered | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lemonmeringuecry · 3 years

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The Cubs at Disneyland

Hi, so I've been trying to do this for awhile (ever since I drew Lo in a Mickey Mouse hoodie) but when the queen herself, miss Hazel, said she needs them to go to Disney... well I wrote this. And drew it. Because I'm me.

So anyway, here's the drawing and below is the fic

Tw for a couple mentions of food but I think that's it

Credit for everything @lumosinlove

Leo bounced a bit on the balls of his feet, goofy smile at full force while he waited to board the plane. He had grown up going to Disney World with his family. Living in Louisiana, Florida wasn’t too far away, and Eloise and Wyatt Knut didn’t let being adults stop them from enjoying the magic of Disney. When Leo was born, his parents were beyond excited about the prospect of going as a family, getting mickey ears, collecting pins, and making memories.

The first time he went, Leo was five, his favorite Disney movie was the lion king, and an expression of pure joy was permanent in his pale, blue eyes. Over the four days they were in the parks he got to go on rides, eat themed sweets, and meet his favorite characters.

After that first trip, Eloise started a scrap book. The book, titled ‘Disney World 2006’, was soon filled with pictures of Leo at the entrance gate, Leo with pineapple dole whip halfway to his mouth, and countless of all three of them taken by the photographers.

A favorite picture of Eloise’s was near the back, this one of her son with Simba. When Leo had spotted the cast member dressed as his favorite character, he all but threw himself at the lion costume clad employee. Leo’s mama had taken many pictures of the two lion cubs together and they were beyond adorable.

There are more scrap books from 2008, 2011, 2014, and 2017. Throughout the years of pictures Leo never looks less than ecstatic. Even though New Orleans will forever remain his favorite place in the world, Disney is a close second to home, which is why this trip with his boys is such a big deal for him.

The Lions are currently on a short break in the season after their game against the Coyotes and the cubs are going to spend a few days at Disneyland in Anaheim.

Finn reaches forward to grab Leo’s hand who is standing in line in front of him.

“Sunshine, are you excited?” He asks. Leo tilts his head around to look at his boyfriend and nods eagerly.

“We’ll take that as a yes,” logan chuckles sleepily from behind Finn where he is standing with his head resting on the red head’s back. Evidently waking up at 6:00 in the morning to drive to the airport wasn’t ideal for him.

Leo lets out a low, impatient groan, still bouncing, “I need to be there like right now. Can’t we get on the plane already?”.

“We haven’t even been waiting that long. I think they’re about to call our section though, Peanut,” Finn answers him, trying not to let his amusement show too much.

A crinkly noise cuts off Leo’s response, “Now boarding rows 1-10,” a voice says from over the loudspeaker. Leo stands up straighter and turns to his boyfriends, “that’s us!”

“I know Nutter-Butter, go on, let’s get you to Disney!” Finn says as he pats Leo’s butt lightly, moving him forward, onto the jet bridge.

The boys get settled into their seats, Finn by the window, Logan in the middle for maximum cuddles, and Leo on the aisle for the leg room. For the first half of the flight Logan sleeps while Finn and Leo share a movie, but all three boys are wide awake by the time the flight attendants come around with drinks for the second time. The rest of the flight is spent chatting about practices coming up after the break, things they need for the apartment, and what they are going to do first upon arriving.

Once getting off the plane in California, they take the shuttle from John Wayne Airport to the Disneyland hotels. They are staying in the Adventure Land tower, closest to the park. By this point all three boys are buzzing with the infectious happiness of Disney. After unpacking and getting settled into their hotel room, the cubs proceed with their plans of shopping and getting dinner in Downtown Disney. First thing on the agenda is to procure mouse ears. Logan, Finn, and Leo make their way to World of Disney in order to find the widest selection of ears. Leo has a collection of his own ears at home, including his favorite pride Minnie ears, but for this trip he wants to get new ones along with Logan and Finn. Leo and Finn decide on classic Mickey ear hats, while Logan picks out Minnie ears with a lavender bow. They all get sweatshirts too, as is custom.

After a pleasant evening of enjoying the atmosphere and getting dinner at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen (Leo’s offense towards their attempt at Cajun cuisine is only partially a joke), they call it night. They head back to the hotel, brush their teeth, put on pajamas, and cuddle up in bed. After a busy day the three boys quickly fall asleep, full of anticipation for the day ahead.

Something you should know about Leo is that when it comes to Disney, he is hard core. Their first morning there is an early entry in Disneyland park.

“Rise and shine, party people!” Leo calls as he entera the main part of the hotel room from the bathroom. Logan and Finn are just now waking up, but they aren’t remotely tired. The pure excitement radiating off their boyfriend is contagious as well as the promise of a day of fun.

“Butter baby, how long have you been up?” Finn’s question is alarmed yet distinctly amused.

“Since 5:30,” Leo responds off-handedly. Logan and Finn share a look, then turn it on Leo. Undeterred, Leo spins slowly in a circle in order to show off his carefully constructed outfit. He is wearing his favorite light wash Levi’s, paired with the crewneck he bought yesterday (light gray with vintage looking Mickey & friends). Underneath his sweatshirt he is wearing his Pizza Planet t-shirt, ready for when it gets hot later. Leo’s outfit is accessorized with his new Mickey ear hat, white air Jordan 1’s, and his Tinker Bell lanyard filled with pins from over the years.

“These things take time! Now y’all go get dressed, we have to be in line by 6:45,” Leo says. With that both Finn and Logan get out of bed and into their clothes in record time. On their way out of the room, they pick up their ears and backpacks from the desk by the TV.

After a brief stop at the Starbucks in Downtown Disney, the boys make it into the que of people lining up at the entrance gate. Once 7:00 hits, the lines start to move into the park. As Logan, Finn, and Leo enter, they gaze around in awe. At the end of Mainstreet sits Sleeping Beauty’s castle, tall and glorious. They walk hand in hand down the lane of colorful, old fashioned buildings, chatting excitedly about what to do first.

“Alright babes, what’s up on the agenda?” Finn asks.

“I don’t even know the options, what do you say Le?” Logan continues.

They end up heading over to Tomorrow Land first. They go on Star Tours and Space Mountain while the lines are short, then bounce around Fantasy land as they make their way across the park. Around 8:30 all three boys start to get hungry so they grab a bag or two of beignets from New Orleans Square. After breakfast, they hit their favorites in Adventure land (Finn fucking loves Indiana Jones), Frontier Land (Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is a fan favorite), and New Orleans Square (Logan might not stop singing ‘Yo Ho a Pirate’s Life for Me’ for weeks).

Around noon the cubs exit Disneyland Park and walk across to California Adventure. After lunch at Wine Country Trattoria the boys bop around Cars Land, Hollywood Land, Pacific Warf and Grizzly Peak. The lines are a lot longer now that it’s afternoon, so they take it in stride and spend their waiting time talking, cuddling, and playing games. They end up going on almost every ride as well as hitting the extra good ones twice like Incredicoaster and Guardians of the Galaxy (still a fan-fucking-tastic ride but Leo misses the Twilight Zone theme).

By the time they finish up in California Adventure for the day, it’s almost time for Fantasmic, and Leo has yet to tell his boys that he got them reserved seats. The cubs meander back to Disneyland but when they start to near Frontier Land Finn picks up the pace.

“Sweetheart, what’s the hurry?” Leo asks with a knowing smile.

“I wanna get good seats for Fantasmic, I haven’t seen it since I was little!” Finn replies.

“Orgasmic? I like the sound of that,” Logan slides in with a smirk.

“Baby, no!” His boyfriends exclaim at the same time. Logan giggles which gets Leo and Finn laughing as well.

“And Finn, I got us seat reservations for the show so no need to rush,” Leo tells him. Finn’s response is to jump on Leo with a fierce hug and a drawn out “Yay,”.

The cubs enjoy the water show immensely, all snuggled up and bundled in sweatshirts once again to fend off the cool evening air. They point out little details to each other with intertwined hands and gasp aloud at the pretty fireworks. Once Fantasmic is over they do a few more rides, then head back to the hotel, sleepy after a full day. The boys fall asleep quickly again, ready to do it all again the next day.

#my art #writing #lumosinlove #o'knutzy #leo knut #finn o'hara #logan tremblay #disneyland #coast to coast #sweater weather #harry potter fanart #lumosinlove fanart #fanart

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therealvalkyrie · 4 years

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Through the Mirror: Part 1

my body, my music

Pairing/setting: Detective!Levi Ackerman x Female!Ghost!Reader, modern!AU within the Walls

Summary: When you’re murdered one Tuesday morning, can Levi piece together the true circumstances of your death with your help from beyond the grave?

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: dead body, descriptions of blood, swearing, mentions of violence

AN: Welcome to my new series because I have no self control and can’t finish projects before starting others! Lemme just start off by saying updates may come pretty irregularly because I do have a lot of other WIPs to work on, but! I’m really excited about this idea and have a whole lot planned:) I seriously hope you enjoy. After all, who doesn’t love a good murder mystery? Drop into my DMs/askbox/comments/reblogs to let me know what you think! Be kind to yourselves and others. ~valkyrie

“Ah, shit! Hello!? I’m standing right here!”

The woman completely ignores you, stepping carefully over the puddle of blood and across your tiny living room. You cross your arms and pout. She ignores that, too.

“‘Scuse me, boys, let the experts take it from here,” she quips, gently pushing past the two detectives and crouching next to your body on the ground.

It’s ugly, but she’s probably seen worse, you muse from where you’re leaning against the door jamb. It’s only been lying there for a couple of hours, so at least you haven’t bloated to something out of an NCIS episode. Must smell horrid, though, judging by the mask the head detective has pulled over his face.

“So, you said the landlady called at about 7 am?” the ME inquires, cocking her head up to look at the detectives, nylon gloved hands held at the ready.

“7:07 exactly. Said a neighbor made a noise complaint, she came up to check it out, found signs of a forced entry, and called us.” It’s the taller blonde who speaks up, reading from an off-brand pocket notepad in his left hand. The kind you’d find on sale at Staples after Back-to-School season.

Interesting. You lean your head against the wall, eyes trained on the trio. You’d pegged the ill-tempered shorter one as in charge. Maybe he’s just the quiet type.

“Hmm, alright. Moblit, get off your ass and come take the pictures before we move her,” the woman calls to someone behind you, and you turn just in time to get a face full of Moblit’s chest as he walks towards you.

You cringe back with a “God, seriously?” to no response.

“Yes, sorry, right away, Hange!” Moblit hurries past- no, through -you, sidestepping the ottoman and the blood. It feels weird, like a strong wind, but not altogether unpleasant to have someone walk through you, you suppose. You look down at your chest to watch your misty body re-settle into itself before looking back at the group in your living room.

Were it not for the gruesome accents of blood flecked up the walls and your body riddled with stab wounds, you’d chuckle at how all four of them struggled to navigate the space. It’s cramped enough when it’s just you, fitting only a couch, a chair, a coffee table, your fern (Boris), and a narrow IKEA bookshelf. With the four of them plus a dead body, it’s like watching a freaking clown car.

“Sorry, excuse me, Captain, oh, was that your toe—?” Moblit’s struggling the most, having to move to capture different angles with his bulky camera. When he steps on the shorter man’s toe, he positively blanches, fumbling over himself to apologize while the ME laughs openly.

“God, alright, just,” the Captain pinches his delicate nose between a thumb and forefinger, then decides it’s better to wait in the kitchen. “C’mon, Gin, let’s chat in there.”

The Captain and the blonde detective both pass through you on the way back to the kitchen, but you only sigh and shake the tingly feeling of being incorporeal out of your fingers before following them.

“So,” the man called Gin takes the initiative, flipping back through his notebook and standing by the fridge. “I got statements from the landlady and two of the neighbors, numbers 303 and 304 down the hall. 301, directly across the hall, didn’t answer, but I got contact info from the landlady.” He pauses to read and scratch at his whiskery beard. “It was 304 who made the noise complaint, said she heard yelling this morning at around 5:45, and that she normally wouldn’t’ve said anything but it was, quote, the fourth goddamn time this week and I work the goddamn night shift, I deserve some fucking rest, unquote.”

You grin. Mrs. Sheffield was never one to mince words, something you appreciated when your ex-boyfriend got too loud and she took it upon herself to give him a piece of her mind. You catch a glimmer of a smile on the ornery Captain’s face above where he’s pulled his mask down before he gestures for Gin to keep going, keeping his thoughtful gaze fixed on the floor and his back against your countertop.

“Then after she called the landlady, she went to bed, only to be woken by us two hours later.”

“You said she called the landlady at 5:45 and that she works the night shift?”

Gin double checks his notes. “That’s right.”

“And she works at the hospital?”

“Yes, as a scrub nurse on the night shift.”

“But the night shift at the hospital ends at 6:30.”

“It was her night off,” you and Gin say at the same time before you catch yourself. They can’t hear you, anyway. This’d be a lot easier if they could.

Gin plows ahead. “But she says she keeps the same sleep schedule so she doesn’t, ah, fuck up her circadian rhythm.”

The Captain practically snorts at this, itching for a second under his silk cravat (can someone say pretentious) before settling back into a listening silence.

“303 says he didn’t hear a thing. College kid, looked exhausted. Said he was asleep the whole night after he got in at,” a page flip, “11 o’clock last night. Wasn’t much help, but looked genuinely upset when we told him about the murder. Wanted to know if there was anything he could do. Oh, but he did, uh, hang on,” more page flips, “He did tell us that he heard her and her boyfriend arguing a lot. Which is consistent with what Mrs. Sheffield told us.”

“Ex-boyfriend,” you correct into thin air.

“A lover’s spat gone wrong, then,” Mr. Pretentious Captain muses. You huff in annoyance. A lover’s spat. If that’s all that this is written off as you’ll have some serious PD haunting to do. Chris may have been an angry, loud, disruptive manipulator, but he wouldn’t murder you. He didn’t murder you. “Any info on the whereabouts of the boyfriend?”

“Ex-boyf—!”

Blondie cuts you off, “Not currently, but we do have a name: Chris Henderson, works in admin down at the University. Lives across town closer to the Bridge.”

“Send some uniforms to bring him in for questioning. No arrests yet, tell ‘em to keep it friendly.”

“Right, I’ll put Dreyse and Bodt on it.”

“Dreyse, really?” Captain Cravat gives Gin an incredulous look.

“Hey, she may look like a ditz but she gets the job done. And she might get him to let down his guard,” Gin argues, grinning.

“Fine. I’ll meet them at the station, you stay here and make sure that mousy-haired dunce doesn’t fuck up my crime scene.”

“Hey, who’re you callin’ mousy-haired, short stack?” Hange actually sticks her whole head through yours this time, to butt into the conversation, and you shriek and jump away to the other side of your tiny kitchen, now sandwiched between Blondie and Shortstack. The latter twitches and swats at the air by his ear, as though to dislodge a fly, narrowly missing yours. You give him a weird look then turn back to listen to the ME. She’s leaning into the kitchen at an alarming angle, one hand on the doorframe and the other on the end of the gurney you assume is carrying your body. You shudder at the thought of being toted around in a dark, musty, humid glorified coat bag. Ugh.

“—takin’ this baby”-she slaps the gurney twice and you flinch-“back so I can get started on the autopsy, Moblit’s staying to take more pictures and collect forensics. If Eld’s stayin’ here with Mob, does that mean you’re catching a ride with me, Levi?” The question is addressed to Captain Grump on your right, who gives a heavy sigh and pushes off the counter.

“I guess so. I get to choose music though.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” she’s wagging a finger, grinning. “My body, my music!”

“How about my body, my music?” you suggest, following Levi. “I deserve it after the day I’ve had.”

Again, Levi twitches and swats aggressively by his ear, nearly hitting you full in the face this time.

“You hear that, Gin? This place got a mosquito problem or something?”

“I do not have a mosquito problem!” and “No, sir, I don’t hear anything.” overlap in the air.

Captain Levi only grunts, then starts spouting instructions, which Gin notes down. “I want footage from any cameras in the building, and from the shops next door and across the street. I want statements from residents both upstairs and downstairs. I want names, addresses, and numbers of next of kin on my desk by noon, and lastly, I want no one, save for myself, you, shitty glasses, and mousy-hair, in or out of this apartment. Are we clear?”

“Crystal clear, sir.”

“Good. I’m leaving you Braus to help and to show her the ropes of this kind of thing. Even though she’s on the case, she will not set foot in this apartment. I don’t trust her not to leave breadcrumbs in the bloodstains.

“Yes, sir.”

“I expect an in-person report before shift-change this evening. See you then.” Then, he’s sweeping out of the kitchen in pursuit of Hange and the gurney, leaving you to scurry after. As you exit your home, he shoots a young auburn-haired woman in a crisp white blouse and wool slacks a look. “Braus. You’re with Gin. Don’t go in the apartment.”

She straightens up from leaning against the wall with a jolt and brushes croissant crumbs off her front. “Yes, Captain Levi, sir!” It’s slightly muffled by the pastry stuffed into her mouth.

“Tch.”

It’s fascinating watching how Levi and Hange manage to navigate the gurney down the narrow, twisting stairs of your walk-up apartment building. They’re both clearly used to this sort of thing, communicating only in short phrases and grunts when they encounter an obstacle. Occasionally, you offer up a pointer and watch as Levi becomes increasingly irritated.

“Watch out for Mr. Laslow’s cat, he likes to sneak up on ya!”

“Hange, do you hear— shit!” Levi hops to the side, narrowly avoiding the tabby tail as Tubbins McGee whisks past.

“It’s only a cat, Levi, dunno what’s got you so worked up today,” Hange teases, grin echoing your own as you chortle from the landing above them.

Eventually, they spill out onto the sidewalk and into the bright mid-day, and Hange groans loudly, stretching with both hands on her back.

“Ugh. Remind me not to die in there, I’d hate to put someone else through that.”

“Boof, tell me about it,” you commiserate.

“Noted,” Levi snarks.

Hange removes jingling keys from her pocket and unlocks the ME’s van parked along the sidewalk with a beep, then opens the back doors and steps in. You follow, leaning against the cool metal siding to watch.

When they both load into the front seats and the engine turns over, you lean forward between them to listen in.

“So,” Hange starts, smoothly pulling out into the road behind a silver minivan. “I’ll be able to give you a more solid answer in a couple hours, but my initial estimated time of death would be around 5:45 this morning.”

Levi nods, staring out the passenger window while he answers. “That lines up with the neighbor’s story.”

“Theories so far?”

“Well, there’s the boyfriend,” he muses, lifting a hand to rub his chin.

“Too obvious,” you say dully, not bothering to amend the lack of “ex” yet again. “Next theory.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then mutter, almost too quietly for you to catch: “Too obvious, hmm? Next theory....”

You’re momentarily flabbergasted, hand falling through the faux-leather seat back in your shock. Can he actually hear you? You shake out your hand while it re-materializes, tuning in to the conversation as Hange’s responding.

“—a little far-fetched, don’t you think? I mean, has there been any of that activity in this area recently?”

“Mm, I’ll have to touch base with Petra. If there has been, I think it’s worth looking into.”

“What is? Wait, go back,” you frantically plead, leaning further into his airspace. But Hange plows on.

“Oh, it’s Petra, now, hmm? Not Raggedy Anne anymore?” Her tone is teasing, and she glances over to Levi for a reaction.

He doesn’t give her one, just stares out the window pensively before reaching for the radio dial. The stereo blares up into an Oldies station, and you make a disgusted face along with Levi.

“You listen to this shit?”

“Hey, my dead body, my music, sweetcheeks. Don’t like it, you can thumb it back to the PD.”

“How about my dead body, my music?” you suggest again, reaching for the dial at the same time as Levi does. Just as his slender fingers touch it, your hand passes through the whole front console and the oldies are replaced with a terrifyingly loud static screeching.

“Christ, Levi, what’d you do?” Hange shrieks, lunging forward to punch the radio off as you remove your hand.

“Nothing! It just went berserk!”

They bicker while you stare at your offending palm. “Huh. Didn’t know I could do that.”

If you can actually interact with objects, at least to some degree, and if it turns out Levi can hear you.... This whole thing might be easier than you thought.

#levi ackerman x reader #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #aot fanfic #snk fanfic #aot x reader #snk x reader #captain levi x reader #female!reader #hange zoe #moblit berner #eld gin #sasha braus #through the mirror #valkyrie writes #tw:murder #tw:violence #tw:dead body #tw:blood

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spideyswifey · 4 years

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Power Couple: FootballStar!Thomas X Cheerleader!Reader Chapter 1: Practice and Parties

Okay so... this is my first x reader fic and I’m nervous on how this turns out 😬 I just had this idea of Thomas as a high school football star and the reader the cheer captain and they’re just a power couple! Also this was suppose to be like a little imagine, but ya girl ended up writing so much that this is now definitely going to be a series. Anyway without further ado I give you; Power Couple Chapter 1!!!

P.S I was inspired by @daveeddiggsit Wideout series for this. Y’all should go check her out if you haven’t already because her writing is AMAZING! And because of her I have become a simp for a football star thom! 🥺

Word Count: 1.4k

Pairing: FootballStarThom! X CheerCaptain!Reader

Warnings: None for now, as far as I know, but if you see some let me know!

Summary: For Y/N, being the freshman cheer captain definitely had its perks, a cute uniform, a badass squad that’s always got your back, and getting the attention of a certain freshman football team captain. And one day, Thomas Jefferson decides to approach her after practice.

“5, 6, 7, and 8! Whoo! Good job everyone!” Y/N exclaimed to her team as they just finished the last steps of their routine. Their coach nodded in approval, “Yes, now go ahead and rest up for the weekend! I’ll see you all on Monday!” A chorus of “Okays” and “See you coach!” could be heard by the rest of the team.

Y/n had knelt down on the track putting her stuff away in her gym bag, along with a few of her teammates/ friends. Her friends were excitedly chatting about the first football game of the season next Friday. She shared a smile, excited for their first time to cheer in front of a crowd at the freshman game.

“I just hope we get a pretty good turnout,” one of her best friends, Peggy piped up beside her, “Not a lot of people really come to the freshman games.” “Well they will this year once they see the amazing freshman cheer team led by the best captain ever!” Her other best friend, Lafayette, had proclaimed while he nudged her, giving her a cheeky grin. Y/n playfully rolled her eyes at her foreign friend, “C’mon Laf, you give me way to much credit!”

“Nah, he’s right Y/n! You’ve worked your ass off for the captains spot and you’ve earned it, you’ve gotta give yourself some credit at least!” Peggy declared, disagreeing with her friends previous statement. “Ok ok I’ll admit,” Y/n sighed contentedly “It is pretty rewarding to be where I am after practicing till my legs felt like they would fall off!” They all laughed together at her comment, finally standing up to leave the track.

“Speaking of rewards,” Peggy spoke up, a smirk suddenly appearing on her face, “It looks like a certain someone has also noticed your hard work.” Y/n followed Peggys stare, leading her to none other than the freshman football team captain, Thomas Jefferson; who had been caught, not so subtly staring at the three.

Thomas quickly looked away, hurriedly putting the rest of his stuff away, as he had just finished practice himself. He couldn’t help but look at her tho, she exuded confidence in a way that made him attracted to her. The way she smiled while performing a cheer, the way her ponytail bounced while she moved in step, everything about her was captivating to him and he knew right away that he had to at least talk to her, and then hopefully date her. Thomas then zipped up his bag, said a brief goodbye to his teammates, and decided to head over to Y/n’s group.

“No way!” Y/n scoffed, “We were probably just laughing too loud and annoyed him.” It was her friends’ turn to scoff, “Y/n,” Peggy started, “You’re hot girl! Why wouldn’t he be looking at you?” “I agree mom amie, you are a ray of sunshine who’s beauty over flows! Any guy would be foolish not to be attracted to you!” Lafayette concurred with Peggy.

Y/n began to blush at her friends praise, trying to hide the smile growing on her face. “Thanks guys.” Just as they were about to reach the exit, a figure jogging toward them caught Peggys eye. “Oh and look! Thomas Jefferson sure ain’t a fool since he’s coming right over here!” She tried to contain her squeal of excitement. Y/n’s head shot in the direction of Peggys excited gaze. Suddenly she could feel her heartbeat speed up and her hands begin to sweat. Thomas Jefferson was approaching her!

“And I think that’s our cue to go Peggy, Good luck mon amie!” Laf shot her a wink as he and Peggy hurry to leave so they can give Y/n some time alone with Thomas. “I want details later!” Peggy harshly whispered, seeing as Thomas was now in earshot, and quickly left giggling with Lafayette about their best friend.

Thomas stopped right in front of her, quickly doing a once over of her practice outfit. “Uh, hi! It’s Y/n right?” Her eyes widened at the way her name left his lips. “Oh, Yeah hi! Thomas?” She mentally facepalmed, you already know his name idiot!

“Yeah” Thomas gave her a small smile, “Uh, I hope I don’t come off as creepy but, I couldn’t help but notice you practicing.” “Oh?” She questioned, a smirk now appearing on her face, now that he had admitted to watching her, a certain confidence started to ease her nerves. “Uh, yeah. Your moves are pretty good!” Thomas sheepishly complimented her while mentally scolding himself. Dude what is wrong with you? You’re never this nervous!

“Oh, thanks!” She grinned happily, “You’ve got some pretty good moves yourself captain!” She winked. “Oh really?” Thomas asked, “You’ve been watching my moves?” It was now his turn to smirk. Y/n looked down timidly, biting her lip quickly before responding. “Well, I’ve gotta keep tabs on who’s gonna possibly lead us to victory on our first game next Friday, you gonna prove me right?” She challenged. “Oh absolutely!” Thomas beamed. “And when I’m doing so, I hope the cheer squad is able to pump us all up!” He winked. “Oh trust me! We’re more than ready!” Y/n exclaimed. They both shared a laugh, the nerves leaving both of them as they bantered and started walking towards the front of the school together.

“So, listen,” Thomas started, “I’m not sure if you heard, but there’s gonna be a party at my house after the game on Friday, regardless if we win or not, and um I’d like it if you could come.” He looked at her with hope in his eyes. She was just so infatuating and he couldn’t get enough. “Oh, um ok!” She replied bashfully, that blush coming back to her cheeks. “Um my squad can come too right?” “No yeah of course, um everyone’s invited, especially the cheer captain.” He smirked.

Y/n was about to respond when a honk caught her off guard. They both looked in the direction of the sound and saw her older brother Zack, waiting for her in the drivers side. “That’s my ride,” she sighed, not wanting their conversation to end. Thomas nodded defeatedly. “I’ll see you around then?” He asked, hoping this wasn’t the last time they’d get to interact. Y/n smiled, “Definitely!” And with one last burst of conifidence, she took her phone out of her gym bag and placed it in Thomas’s hand. He glanced at her, eyebrows furrowed.

“How else am I gonna get directions to the captains party, hm?” She answered his puzzled gaze with a small giggle. Thomas chuckled and put his number in her phone, then gave her his so she could do the same. They exchanged gleeful glances as y/n started to walk towards her brothers car. Just before she opened the door, she turned to give Thomas one last line, “See you around, Captain!” Thomas chuckled shaking his head, his curls bouncing. “You too, Captain!”

With that Y/n entered the vehicle , hardly containing her smile. “So, who was that?” Her brother eyed her as she sat in the front seat with a goofy grin on her face. “No one.” She replied while trying to hide the smile growing on her face. “Mhm, ok” her brother quipped, deciding to ignore it for now and interrogate her later. Y/n paid no mind to her brother, looking out the window as he drove off towards their house. The alert of a text from her phone brought her out of her daze as she checked to see who it was.

From: Football Captain Thomas 🏈🔥😉

Hey, I just wanted to let you know that it was nice talking to you. 😅 Here’s the address for the party! Hope to see you there, cheer captain 😉

Y/n bit her lip while typing a reply.

Thomas watched as the car took off, the smile never leaving his face. He quickly pulled out his phone to text the girl that has him charmed, while walking towards his moms car as she just pulled up. His mom made small conversation as he sat himself in the front seat. He then felt his phone vibrate.

From: Cheer Captain Y/n 📣😍🔥

It was nice talking to you too! Bring us a victory and we’ll see 😜 Don’t let me down football captain 😉

Thomas beamed as he read the message. If there was any more motivation he needed to win this game, he knew this was it. He was gonna do it so the beautiful captain of the freshman cheer squad would go to his party. And Y/n herself knew either way she would go, if it meant more time with the freshman football captain, she would definitely go to this party.

Looks like being the captain of the team definitely has its perks.

I hope you all liked it! I didn’t even think it would be this long and yet, here we are! 😅 Also what do y’all think about male cheerleader Laf?!? I just had the idea and it wouldn’t go away and honestly I love it!!! Also if you want to be tagged in upcoming chapters just let me know and I’d be more than happy to do so! 😘 Anyway let me know what y’all think! 🥺♥️

-With Love,

Spidey’s Wifey 🕷♥️🖤

#daveed diggs #james madison #thomas jefferson x reader #thomas jefferson fic #thomas jefferson imagine #thomas jefferson #daveed x reader #daveed diggs x reader #daveed imagine #aaron burr #peggy schuyler #lafayatte #power couple

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killian-whump · 4 years

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I wonder what story that had in mind for season 2 of The Right Stuff. I hadn't read the book, but as far as I understand it finishes in the same moment as season 1?

Super excited tho for next episodes, what a ride it had been, enjoyed it way more than I expected !

I’ll be honest, Nonny - I haven’t read the book. But my understanding is that it covers all of Project Mercury. The 1983 film also covered the entire program, even though it ended with the launch of the final space flight. So there’s definitely more of the book/story to be told!

As far as I recall, the showrunners said in the beginning that they plan to follow the early days of NASA right up to the moon landing and then beyond that, if they get the chance to. That’s what led me to believe they got a multi-season deal (or at-least-greater-than-8 episode order) off the bat that made them pretty confident they could successfully get to the moon landing with whatever seasons/episodes they were initially promised.

However, the end of Season 1 kind of leaves them with some options - and I would guess that was done on purpose so they could assess the show’s performance and adjust their plans accordingly. From the point they’ve left it at, they could continue on with Project Mercury and show us all of those missions... or they could jump ahead in time to Project Gemini, which was more of the same, really, but with some more astronauts thrown into the hotel pool capsule mix. Heck, they could even take a bigger jump and head straight for the Apollo program.

Regardless, Colin should definitely be in the second season, since Gordo Cooper was a part of all three programs - and I believe Colin knows he’ll be in it, given his pretty confident answer about his end-of-filming posts not meaning that the series and/or his involvement with it was over. So rest easy, my fellow O’Dononauts - There will be plenty more of...

Personally, I’m hoping they’ll stick with Project Mercury, because that’s when Gordo buzzes NASA’s stuffed shirts with a saucy flyby, falls asleep on the launchpad, spends 34 hours straight in space (imagine the adorable “Colin in Space” montage, as he goes through all the things they wanted Gordo to try doing in space - eating, drinking, sleeping, all kinds of other random things - jsdhfaskdhf), gets super duper sweaty when the power goes out in his capsule and he has to manually pilot it through re-entry using his wristwatch and lines he drew on the window, and lands almost perfectly on target. I really really really wanna see Colin get to do these scenes!!! \o/

What we really don’t want is for them to jump to the Apollo program, because Gordo never flew during the Apollo missions, so if they don’t touch on the rest of the Mercury missions and skip Project Gemini, we won’t actually get to see Colin in Space, and that would be terrible and I would never forgive them T_T

But so far, all signs point to them sticking with Project Mercury. I mean, with all the detail they put into the time before Shepard’s flight, it seems weird for them to just “yadda yadda yadda” the rest of the missions. Also, Colin was asked in one of his many, many interviews if there was anything he wished he could ask the real Gordo about, like “Was this really like this?” or “Did we get that right?” and he mentioned that there WAS something he’d want to ask him about, but it wasn’t something they’d filmed yet. If I had to guess what it was, I would think maybe something to do with piloting Faith-7 back to Earth - or, at least, something to do with his space flight. I mean, I highly doubt it would be something mundane like, “Did I properly depict your dazzling inability to catch glasses?” ;)

Also, even though that SDCC panel was mostly pants, they implied that Season 2 would cover some of the women and black people at NASA. Now, that can’t be female/black astronauts, as those literally didn’t exist at NASA until 9 years after Apollo 11 - but it could be the “human computer” ladies (remember Hidden Numbers?), who worked under Bob Gilruth and ran the numbers for Project Mercury before computers started taking over the work in later programs.

SO. It could go anywhere, really... but I’m hoping for (and tentatively saying the evidence points to) them continuing with the Mercury 7 and their space flights :)

...and periodically sticking Gordo Cooper in a shower.

#the right stuff #anonymous #kw ask box

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daveandtrev · 4 years

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The 2020 Andre Johnson Sweepstakes League write-up

Friends of the Andre Johnson Sweepstakes League, welcome. I am pleased (no really, I am excited) to bring you a breakdown of the AJSL as it blessed our lives in the one-of-a-kind year of 2020. Below you will find a mix of analysis and lighthearted fun aimed at taking a first pass at what the heckfire happened this year from start to finish. We’ve got analysis on the draft, injuries and schedule plus some fun awards to give out. I won’t buffalo you any longer, lets get to it.

Draft Day Analysis

Draft day analysis interpretation: I tried to objectively pick the best teams based on my personal draft rankings (subjective draft rankings, objective draft analysis…sort of follows?). Here’s the methodology: I assigned a value to every player for above average play (in 0.25 increments). It’s essentially five tiers (+0.0 = starter, but could be replaced; +0.25 = contributing starter; +0.5 = solid starter; +0.75 = strong starter that will create a positional advantage; +1.0 = elite starter providing a distinct positional advantage). This all makes sense in my head, and it should make more sense when you look at the table. I then added up points for each team’s best possible starting lineup according to my points system and voila; Dave Stark’s handicapping of the AJSL.

A couple of notes:

· Players are listed in the positions as there were drafted, with highest spend creating the starting lineup. For my points system, I subbed in bench players if they had a higher value than the starter.

· I cheated on Christian McCaffrey’s value: he was a +1.25 in my book. Clearly the best player in the game with even higher upside than the traditional studs.

A few things that turned out like I thought

· The running QBs outside of Lamar (Dak, Kyler, Russ, and DeShaun all avg 22.0+ fantasy pts/gm and sit top 7 at QB)

· The QBs at +0.0 (Baker, Carr, Danny Dimes, Kirk Cousins, and Jimmy G basically ride the merry-go-round from one bye week fill-in to the next. Tannehill and Cousins maybe qualify as +0.25 players now, but neither averages over 20+ pts/gm)

· Jonathan Taylor +0.0 (His value has been everywhere this year. Marlon Mack was the only reason I had him ranked this low. When Mack went down I pegged him for +0.75 with the possibility to go +1.0…and then nothing materialized until late into the year)

· Devin Singletary +0.0 (Started hearing whispers of Zack Moss splitting carries + Josh Allen hogs goal line rushes)

A few places where I was dead wrong

· Stefon Diggs +0.0 (Turns out, Josh Allen actually got better - +10% Completion % in 2020)

· Josh Allen +0.5 (Averaging 24.7 pts/gm which would have been the QB2 overall last year by almost 3 pts/gm. Currently QB4)

· Kyler Murray +0.75 (Not nearly high enough on him. Averaging 26.5 pts/gm as the QB1 overall. Playing at a +1.0 level)

· DK Metcalf +0.25 (Seattle hired their lead chef to work full time)

· Lamar Jackson +1.0, Mark Andrews +0.75 (Uhhh, why is this team broken?)

· Kenyan Drake +0.75 (Beware the extravagant 8 game sample size that says someone is a world-beater)

· Zach Ertz +0.75 (Is this the cliff year at 30 years old? How did Tony G catch 83 balls at age 37?)

· Aaron Rod Gers +0.25 (Yeah he’s a +0.75 guy now…should have known that drafting the backup QB would light a fire under Aaron: we’ve only seen this from Alex Smith and Joe Flacco in 2 of the last 3 years…Wait, why hasn’t this applied to Wentz yet?)

· Davante Adams +0.75 (Good golly, A-Aron’s resurgence means Davante is almost on +1.25 level when he is healthy)

· Keenan Allen +0.25 (This was all about Tyrod…then we found out that Justin Herbert was interning specifically for Keenan Allen and the Chargers med staff decided to euthanize Tyrod)

· TJ Hockenson +0.0 (2nd year leap puts him at TE3 overall. $20 player next year?)

· Chris Herndon +0.0 (When you read too many draft articles, you begin to believe that an Adam Gase coached player might actually become an average contributor at his position…ha!)

Injury-ruined seasons

· Saquon, Michael Thomas +1 (Biggest team-killers to date by far)

· CMC at +1.25 (Still overall #1 when he plays)

· Dak at +0.75 (Was playing like a true +1 on par with Mahomes before going down)

· Zeke at +1 (Dak died and then Dallas decided to start “Gucci DiNucci”…yeah that didn’t go well)

· OBJ +0.5 (Traded to Cristian’s team where he put up a combined 3.5 fantasy pts in 2 games started)

· Courtland Sutton +0.25 (After space-cadeting Sutton’s auction bid, we got our “Ball don’t lie” moment a few weeks later. Trevor is shrugging as he reads this.)

Great, let’s move on. Luck, imagined as either dice rolls or Luck Dragons depending on who you talk to, plays a pretty big part in fantasy success every year. Too many injuries? See you next year. Tough schedule? Hope for a good tiebreaker and maybe you can sneak into the playoffs with the #4 spot. These are probably the most talked about facets of the game since they are beyond our control and create the classic “if only I didn’t have that injury back in high school, i’d have crushed you guys” cop-out that we’ve all heard for years. Let’s see who really has a case to be upset, shall we?

Let’s start with one of my favorites – every team’s record if we played in a league where the top 6 scores secured a win each week (in lieu of head to head matchups). This is a much more “fair” look at how your team performed on a weekly basis when you throw out the schedule which is always a subject of scrutiny, consternation, and conspiracy theories each season.

There you have it. Good news is, the top 5 in our league standings would be the exact same top 5 if we played the other way. The schedule hasn’t defrauded anyone of a 2020 playoff spot. Bad news is, the bottom of this list is mildly shocking. Cristian has struggled all year for wins and this shows that his team hasn’t been half bad – but he has essentially lost out on 4 wins due to schedule. Yikes. Phil on the other hand was in playoff contention up until week 12, whereas his team has the fewest expected wins in the league….Of course for those with conspiratorial thoughts, you’ll notice the Stark brothers combine for +7 “lucky” wins due to schedule. Of course the Stark wife had to bite the bullet to make it look fair (-2 “lucky” wins). I’ll let everyone digest that and make their own judgments. (Where is that clause in the constitution involving starting a new league without the commish? This is evidence!)

The next “luck metric” that dominates our chat conversation and generally elicits “I got screwed, feel bad for me” self-pity arguments would be games lost to injury. Everyone knows it sucks and everyone experiences it to some degree every year. And if you play long enough, you will get hit by the double ACL tear/broken collarbone/never-healing ankle injury to all of your star players and be left at a severe disadvantage. It’s gonna be okay Sport, put on a brave face and hit the waiver wire. Come back next year and clap secretly at 3pm on Monday when Schefty tweets the next guy’s RB1 season-ender. (After the large exhale that it didn’t happen to your RB1 of course.) Ending rant, just know that if you experienced the injury season from hell, the rest of the league knows that it’s part of the fantasy business and are very relieved that it didn’t happen to them. Empathy runs high, sympathy runs low. (And I just removed my ability to ever complain publicly about my team’s injuries by writing this now.)

After all the talk has subsided, let’s check facts. First table: mid-game injuries. These are games where players play a much reduced role and typically produce dreadful fantasy finishes. There’s a bit of subjectivity here (if a player plays 3 quarters and gets hurt, I don’t count that as a mid game injury. But if he plays ½ or less of his normal playing time, it would count.) I also add mid-game benching to QBs because they fit the description as fantasy wreckers due to an unforeseen cutback in playing time. Here is the Commissioner’s official list:

Congrats on that title Jason, I know you were hoping for it. Just know, you weren’t THAT far ahead of the rest of us. Mon and Trevor on the other hand can only blame poor performance on their season’s disappointments (or better yet, the schedule!)

So I buried the lead a bit on Mr. Montgomery here, because the next table should give him his share of justice on 2020 injuries.

So the above list is missed games + mid-game injuries for drafted starters and traded players updated through week 13 (except for those with season long injuries – I went ahead and added week 14 there). Jason, there’s your proof. Nobody deserves to bellyache more than you, friend. 19 of those games were from QBs (Dak/Jimmy G) which added to a smattering of missed games from the rest of the roster (Godwin 4, Ridley 3, Aaron Jones 2). I haven’t tracked this before, but I imagine that this year was significantly worse than others (more soft tissue injuries and COVID positives were the biggest culprits.) The hope is that 2021 gives us a bit of a reprieve here.

Before we conclude, I recognize that there is a portion of the audience who prefers the entertainment value of this yearly endeavor, so I’m going to do my best to hand out a few fun awards. Without further ado, the 2020 AJSL Dundees (this award style hasn’t possibly been overdone, right?)

Dundee to The Scorned Lover: Mr. Jordan Swavely on behalf of Henry Ruggs.

While I wrote this tribute in his farewell on the group chat, it bears repeating: 7 pts or less scored by Ruggs in 6 straight games, starts him again for a 7th week and only a 50 yard bomb on the last play of the game saves Ruggs from another 3 point performance. Totaling the points for those 7 starts, Ruggs scored 36 points for a 5.1 average. Ruggs averaged 3.4 targets/gm in these contests. You do you, Swave. Go and get your man.

Dundee for the Best Team Name: Mr. Greg Poelman, ShlongBarry Sanders

Any reference including a dong and our beloved college town is going to score high on both the Dude and Nostalgia scales. Plus a Barry Sanders nod, we like that.

Dundee for the Best Team Picture: Mrs. Monica Stark on behalf of Presidential Security

Any time you can get combine Greg Poelman and The Donald in Photoshop and it doesn’t even look that fake, you have my attention and affection. And now you have a Dundee to go along with it. Well done.

Honorable mention: Monica’s Team, Bring Out Your Dead

Golden Tickets to the Winning Waiver Warriors: Mr. Scooter Nelson, James Robinson; Mr. Blake Grundy, Justin Herbert; Mr. Jack Holmer, Justin Jefferson

Since everyone is bidding for the “winning lottery tickets” of the waiver pool, we’re going to give out Golden Tickets to those that struck waiver wire gold this season. Scooter milked 11 starts out of Robinson who averaged 17.6 pts/gm during that span. Robinson has been the RB4 overall since the week 2 pickup. Grundy picked up Herbert for week 3 and never looked back, banking 10 starts at 22.5 pts/gm (He’s the QB7 in that time frame). Holmer nabbed Jefferson before Week 4 and was rewarded with the WR4 from that point on. Impressively he only benched him once, refusing to play him against his beloved Bears. This is the dream of every late Tuesday night and you guys reaped the spoils. Well done, gents.

Dundee to the Wounded Wavier Warriors: Mr. Phil Stark, Devonta Freeman; Mr. Jack Holmer, Darrell Henderson; Mr. Trevor Allison, Nyheim Hines

Big money, No whammy. That’s the goal. Of course more times than not, the reality is…more like this. Phil emptied out the pocketbook early on in the season after the Saquon injury to grab his replacement with a winning bid of $78 on Devonta (next highest bid: $15). Devonta responded with five games played, two of which resulted in 1 point showings. Then he followed Saquon to IR and Soape picked up the true workhorse of the Giants backfield in Wayne Gallman, who hasn’t pickup up less than 10 points in six straight games. Ouch. It took $54 to secure the rights to Darrell Henderson after week 2, seemingly the new Rams lead RB. Unfortunately Jack’s faith manifested at the wrong times: 5 starts of Henderson yielded 6.3 pts/gm, while Henderson’s two strong games (18.5 and 20.3 pts) were enjoyed on Holmer’s bench. Not fun. $46 was the bid that beat out 7 other bidders after week 1 for Nyheim Hines’s services, after which Trevor was rewarded with 5 straight games of 8 points or less. After cutting him loose over the bye week, Hines busted out for four double digit games in six tries, music no doubt to Trevor’s ears. A Dundee for your troubles, boys.

The “Fantasy Football Was A Lot More Fun Last Year” Dundee: Mr. Cristian Driver

For every obvious reason. Where did that championship belt get to?

Dundee for a Fun and Easy Season: Mr. David Stark

Injuries, COVID surprises, bad schedules, underperformance? Didn’t seem that big of a deal to me.

Dundee for Most Attempts to Defeat a Hornet’s Nest: Mr. Jason Montgomery

Similar to our favorite Office handyman Nate, Jason was tasked with eliminating the danger of his crumbling fantasy season created by the aforementioned injury bug. Both hailing from the historically-rich metropolis of “La Philadelphia”, what ensued after Jason’s 4-0 start pairs Nate and Jason together even further. Jason utilized a league-high 20 unique waiver pickups that entered the starting lineup this season. Results were bleak; the fast start was followed by a 2-7 record that signaled victory to the opposition. Maybe try the bow and arrow next time?

Receiver Corps Dundee of Excellence: Mr. Joel Soape

It only took 3 name changes to figure out which WR was needed (Red Solo Kupp -> Mike’d Up -> The Adams Bomb) , but Soape finally landed on the right guy for the job by calling on Davante Adams and his 22.1 pts/gm this year (easily the WR1 in this metric). Somehow Corey Davis (left for dead after last year) has had a career resuscitation on this team as well, dropping a 30 burger in week 12. The Receiver Corps salutes your dedication to their fraternity, Mr. Soape.

That’s all for now guys. Full disclosure, I have another 1k-2k words written that takes a deep dive into each of our performances at 1) waiver pickups, 2) positional scoring, and 3) sit/start decisions. Maybe this would be most helpful for a post-season article as it encompasses your overall strategy and ability to aid your team’s output. Look for that at some point in the future. For now, I hope you enjoyed this meaty entrée. Thanks for another great season and allowing me to bring you another fun recap, everyone!

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criminalnourished · 7 years

Text

Midnight Shenanigans

~ A Shayne Topp Imagine/Fluff ~

A/N: Look, I don’t write, I was going to make a short parody, but it kept getting longer and longer and I actually kinda liked how it turned out, so I thought I’d share it. It’s super long, so if you get through it, I applaud you!

Warnings: Fluff. Like, a lot of it. (also, alcohol? like, having a drink)

Words: way too many, I like my epithets.

Enjoy!

Winter Games.

The event of the season.

And it was going to be extra special this year. Why? Because you get to go!

As one of the newly established head writers and producer, you would be reffing this year’s Games, along with Sunny, Joe and Matt and you were hardly able to contain your excitement.

The venue was the same as the previous years’ one – Big Bear.

The evening before, you were starting the slow process of packing when it hit you.

You were a part of the Smosh family and have even been in the background of a few videos, though you were more of a ‘behind the scenes’ kind of person, so this was going to be a big step. This would’ve been your first on-screen appearance that included talking. Oh geez. Your stomach churned. Oh holy geez. Mostly unscripted. Unscripted. I literally work with scripts, how in God’s name am I going to pull this off?, you thought to yourself.

Thankfully, you were taken out of your trance with a noise. That familiar iPhone ringtone we all know and never change. Standing up, crossing a mountain of bags, you reached for your phone and looked at the caller ID. Shayne. You smiled briefly before picking up. That guy always knew how to make you smile.

‘Hello?’ you said, going back to the suitcase. However, being the clumsy potato that you were, you caught your leg on a plastic bag, managing to lose your balance and fall directly on your bum, with a noisy *thud*. A loud laugh escaped the phone.

‘I get that it’s part of your “brand” to just barely be capable of walking, but please try not to die, we prefer our writers alive’ Shayne joked.

‘Ha-ha’ you said sarcastically, picking yourself up from the floor. ‘Thanks, I appreciate it. Now that you’ve told me, I am sure to stop tripping and falling over’ you joked back.

‘Perfect! Don’t say that I never did anything for you!’

‘I shall remember this piece of advice till the day I die, which will inevitably be by slipping on a banana peel or tripping over my own two feet while carrying coffee.’ He laughed.

You started organizing your clothes into neat piles on your bed.

‘And your tombstone will say “Here lies our beloved (Y/N), who forgot to follow the Great Shayne’s advice.”’ You giggled, folding a shirt into your suitcase.

‘So anyways, what are you up to?’ he asked.

‘I just started packing’ you replied.

‘Oooh, right on time! It’s only…’ he stopped, presumably looking for the exact time. ’11:43pm!’

‘Hey, I only need about an hour, I have plenty of time. Have you already packed?’

‘Yup! All done, ready to go!’

You scoffed. ‘You must’ve forgotten something.’

‘I pretty sure I haven’t. Triple-checked.’

Another scoff from you.

‘And hey, if you “only need an hour”’ he mocked, ‘that’s great, you have enough time to get food with me!’

‘Oh, Shayne, it’s almost midnight, I don’t know, and-‘ you trailed off.

‘And?’

‘And… I don’t know, we need to be up in 5 to 6 hours?’

‘That’s a terrible excuse. You’re living on your own, you make your own rules and then break them, because rules are meant to be broken, dammit!’ he said, overly enthusiastic.

You kept folding clothes into your suitcase, silently. You wanted to go, really, it seemed so fun and like the epitome of ‘living’, from what you’ve seen in those typical young adult movies. Fun, you thought, not a good enough argument. All of a sudden, your stomach grumbled. Now that’s a good argument.

‘And also, I’m kinda maybe possibly in front of your building…’ Shayne added.

You dropped the dress you were neatly trying to fold.

‘You’re what?’

‘An evolved monkey’, he said, a hint of pride in his voice.

‘No, gah! Why are you-? How did you-?’ You tried to formulate a question but failed miserably. ‘Wait, let me buzz you in.’

‘No, no, I’ve got a better idea – you come with me. I’m already here and you already said that an hour is plenty of time for packing. Plus, I can help you with that later. So…. whaddaya say?’

You approached the window looking towards the building entrance, in disbelief, but sure enough, there he was, one hand in his pocket, pacing.

‘Alright’, you sighed, ‘give me three minutes to get down there.’

‘If you don’t make it, food’s on you. And your time… starts… now! Three minutes, go!’

You threw on the first shirt you saw – a baggy gray tee with the NASA logo on it, which was way too big, pairing it with boyfriend jeans.

Forty-five seconds to go.

You grabbed your little leather backpack, along with your phone, keys and wallet, stuffing them inside violently.

Twenty-seven seconds left.

You slammed the door, locking it quickly and sprinted down the stairs, skipping over multiple steps and almost dying thrice.

As you opened the big entrance gate to the building, you heard a beep. Shayne’s phone went off, signaling your three minutes had been over.

When you looked ahead, Shayne was peering back, a Cheshire cat-sized smile was plastered across his face.

‘No!’ you yelled, while bending over, resting your hands on your knees, trying to catch a breath. ‘Nonononono, I made it, I- I… I got out of the building!’

‘Nope! Doesn’t count! Looks like I’ll be enjoying some… whatever our food of choice turns out to be.’ Shayne said smugly, putting his hands behind his head.

When you finally got your air back, you stepped towards him, holding your side. You were really out of shape.

‘But I did it, the deal was to get down here in 3 minutes!’

You approached him, slouching. He threw an arm around you, as a way of greeting you and, well, because you looked like you were barely standing. This will have proven true merely moments later, when you shifted all of your weight off of your feet, forehead pressed against his clavicle.

‘Ah, yes, but you did not stop the alarm! That’s the unspoken rule of race-bets, always stop the clock!’ he said in a matter-of-fact tone, while patting the back of your head.

‘Fiiiine’, you let out a slow sigh, still in the same place. Maybe you were exhausted after a long day at work, maybe this three-minute workout from hell got to you or maybe this scenario felt pleasant, but you didn’t move. And neither did he. You just stood there, for a good while, taking it all in. You didn’t remember how long, but at some point he stopped patting your head and just rested his chin on the top, his arms around you. It was… nice. Man, male colognes are the best, you thought to yourself.

However, this suddenly made you feel extremely aware of the close proximity in which you were, making your cheeks a few dozen shades more red. You shifted a bit and Shayne, understanding the signal, let you go, scratching his head. You couldn’t help but think you’d seen a bit of red tint in his cheeks, only for a mere second, however, as it faded away quite quickly.

‘Um… so, since midnight snackage’s on you, it’s only fair that you get to pick the place.’

‘Hmmm… the closest ‘eat-now-regret-later’ place is McDonald’s. Does that work?’

‘Ughhh, fine’, he fake-complained, ‘No, yeah, sure! That’s a few streets down, though, might be a bit of a walk’ said Shayne.

‘Or we could take my car?’

‘Nooo, come on, look at this weather’ he said whinny, pointed to the sky. It was rather beautiful. The sky was completely clear, there were a few stars visible. The air was way too warm, considering it was technically winter, a light breeze was blowing. ‘It’d be a shame if we didn’t take advantage of this, doncha think? And if you get tired… I don’t know, I’ll just carry you or something, we’ll figure it out!’

‘Why don’t we go to the drive-through, get our food, drive up to the hills and eat there? We can go for a walk and have a vehicle at our disposal, if we happen to need it! Boom, compromise!’

‘Deal!’ said Shayne, giggling slightly. You stepped towards your Mini Cooper.

‘I mean, hey, I know you’re in shape, but I feel like I could collapse any moment now’ you informed him. He chuckled, already seated in the passenger seat, seat belt on.

‘Ho, boy! Food – here we come!’

About 7 minutes later, you entered a McDonald’s drive-through, ordered way too much food, and soon enough, you were on your way for the hills.

‘Yo, drive-throughs’, said Shayne, with a mouthful of fries, ‘might be the best thing we ever came up with. No human interaction, you don’t even need to leave your car!’

‘Definitely. I’d say it’s up there with fire and the computer’ you replied.

You talked the whole ride, finding yourselves in sporadic fits of laughter. After 10ish minutes of traffic-free driving, you were there. Shayne insisted he should carry all the food, you knew that any attempt at arguing would be in vain. A short walk later, a small bench graced you with its presence and you decided to occupy it, the food bags taking most of the space.

‘Woah’, you exclaimed, trying to squeeze the BigMac™ into your mouth, ‘in the two years that I’ve lived in LA, I’ve never been here at night. It’s so peaceful and beautiful.’

‘Right? And the best part?’ he said inquisitively, looking at you, ‘The view!’ He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, with a rather constipated facial expression, barely holding in the giggles. You laughed and shook your head.

You sat there for moments? Minutes? Hours? Who knows how long, talking about… nothing yet everything, really, while eating you food as slowly as possible, and almost choking a couple of times due to excessive laughter. When you finished your meal, you felt 500lbs heavier and completely incapable of moving. Shayne removed the scrunched up wrappers and scooted a bit closer. You held your stomach and let out a long grunt, reminiscent of vocal fry.

‘I think… I think I’m just gonna stay here… live my life on this bench, y’know, become an urban myth’ you said, curling up into fetal position.

‘”The girl on bench” ’ he said, in an overly dramatic tone, patting your back, ‘some say you can still hear a faint rumble of her stomach trying to digest the ton of food she consumed on that faithful night.’ You giggled.

‘Why, oh why, cruel world must it taste so good but hurt so badly?!’ he yelled to the sky, his voice shaky.

‘Shayne! It’s midnight, keep it down’ you tried to stop laughing and act serious, but failed.

‘Whyyyy?!’ he cried, falling onto his knees in front of the bench. Your stomach started aching, this time from laughter. You stood up and approached him, with the intention of helping him get up, extending your arm, however, when he grabbed it, you wobbled in the air and ended up landing on top of him.

Good job, wow, you’ve really outdone yourself this time! you thought, while hoping for the ground to swallow you.

‘Oh my gosh’, you said, completely flustered, not looking at him. You turned your head to glance at him, noticing that his face was way closer than you initially calculated. ‘I- I- I am so sorry, that was so… Oh gosh, I’m sorry, are you okay?’ you rushed to get up. Shayne just looked at you, laughing, with an amused look on his face. He was going to make a joke, but upon seeing how utterly distressed you looked, he decided against it.

‘Of course I am, I’m great, couldn’t be better’ he stood up, holding his side, ‘minus the fractured rib you might’ve caused me, but hey, I’ll live!’

‘Hey, no, don’t’ worry, really, it’s all good!’ said Shayne, putting a hand on your scapula. A short period of silence followed. ‘Hey, wanna go pack?’

‘Oh, sure, but I can do it, really, I’d hate to keep you up, but thanks for-‘

‘Nooo, you’re not keeping me up’ he exclaimed, ‘I dragged you out, so I need to redeem myself!’

You sighed.

‘Okay, fine. But my apartment ‘s a mess, don’t say I didn’t warn you!’

Your face was still a bright shade of red, the embarrassment unbearable. You hugged yourself, as if you were cold, and kept murmuring many I’m sorry-s along the way to the car.

During the ride, the constantly opened window helped you calm down and your skin tone to go back to normal.

Much to your surprise, the mess you had left at your place before was still there. :(

‘Woah, was there a nuclear explosion here?’ Shayne asked, evidently trying to push your buttons.

‘Actually, yes, that’s very insensitive of you. How dare you bring that up?’ you played along, while taking two clean glasses from the cupboard. ‘Want some gin?’

‘Woah, hey, heyhey, I don’t know if… I..’ Shayne stuttered, evidently taken aback by this suggestion. ‘I had no idea you drank.’

‘Well… I’m full of surprises’ you said, with an over exaggerated wink. The corner of Shayne’s mouth twitched. ‘And besides, I just do it occasionally.’ He nodded. ‘So, do you want some?’

‘I… uh… sure!’ he replied, still a bit confounded.

You poured the liquid into the glasses and added two ice cubes. Taking both glasses, you approached Shayne, who was looking at the clothes you already packed and handed him the glass.

‘Y’know, I’m pretty sure you don’t really need a cocktail dress… and I’d say that’s more than enough T-Shirts for a week and a half’ he stated, taking the glass from your hand.

‘Yes I do! T-Shirts are comfortable and great for layering and that’s how you combat the cold, you layer and-‘

‘But you don’t layer T-Shirts on top of T-Shits!’

‘But- yeah, you’re right, I mostly sleep in T-Shirts’, Shayne turned his head towards you, ‘What? They’re comfy so I bring extra, in case some get dirty or sweaty, y’know.’ You took a swig of your drink, almost downing it all at once, stumbling a bit.

‘Woah, easy there, you don’t want to be hung-over for the trip’, said Shayne, steadying you.

‘Nah, don’t worry about it, it’s just gin…’

‘Okay, well, you need to pack!’

‘You said you’d help!’

‘I will! You need a supervisor, to maximize efficiency.’

‘So you’ll just sit and tell me what to do?’

‘No, don’t be silly… I might stand up eventually’, replied Shayne, evidently proud of his comeback, which earned him a disapproving headshake.

‘Oh really?’ you said, grabbing your bras and underwear from a drawer.

It was Shayne’s turn to change into a tomato, clearing his throat, trying to look anywhere else, scratching the back of his neck and basically doing every other tick in the book signaling he was uncomfortable.

You grinned mischievously, realizing what you’d done and quickly put it all away into the suitcase.

‘You can look now’, you said.

‘Oh, hah, psh, no, I- I wasn’t, I-‘ he tried to come across as calm, cool and collected, but ended up looking even more awkward. You awed and kept packing, moving on to sweaters.

You kept packing and at some point, the gin started kicking in, making you extremely sleepy. Surely enough, the process took more than an hour, even with Shayne’s eventual help. You collapsed onto your bed, headfirst, and he lied next to you, on his back.

‘This was exhausting’, you exclaimed.

‘Nah, I’d say it was fun!’ he replied. You rolled over so that you were also lying on your back.

‘Thanks for helping, I would’ve probably fallen asleep had you not been here’, you said, turning your head to look at him.

‘See?’ he beamed, ‘I told you!’ he chuckled.

This was the first time you got to look at him so closely – the laugh lines and those baby blues, the slight beard he was trying to cultivate, his radiant smile… You caught yourself staring and only then did you realize how close you actually were, which in turn made you blush profusely. He kept smiling, but his gaze trailed down your face and focusing on your lips, for a split second only. You batted your eyelashes, not knowing what to do. Sh-Should I do anything? you thought. This will just make things awkward, probably. Oh goodness I messed up again, what am I supposed to do, I-

At this point you could feel his breath on your nose. He moved his hand to brush off some of your hair. The tension was so thick, you could cut it with a knife, which made you panic even more. I gotta move, you thought, this will be way too weird in the long run, I should probably just cough or something or-

And then it happened. He moved just slightly towards you, closing the tiny gap that remained between the two of you. Your mind, while racing up until that point, was completely blank – no worry, no panic, just bliss. The kiss was shorter than you would’ve hoped for, yet still sweet, making you smile like a mad man, which in turn made his lips curve into a grin, as well.

Shayne was gently caressing your cheek. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by you initiating another kiss, this one deeper and more passionate than expected. He put one hand on the back of your neck and wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you closer, while you held onto his shirt and neck. A few minutes later, you broke apart, neither of you able to stop smiling. You laid there for a few minutes, intertwined, without saying a word.

After some time, you tried to move, but Shayne’s embrace wouldn’t let you.

‘Shayne’, you called out. No response.

You looked up and saw him pretending to be asleep.

‘Shayne’, you repeated. No response. You tried wiggling out of his grip, but couldn’t. He started laughing, eyes still firmly shut.

You placed a kiss on his clavicle, which instantly made him open his eyes and look at you.

‘Wanna watch a movie?’ you asked.

‘Depends on what you got’, Shayne said, seemingly loosening his grip.

‘I’ve got whatever you want’, you beamed. ‘Well, I don’t, but the torrents do!’

‘”Space Jam” it is, woo!’ he exclaimed, throwing his arm in the air. You laughed and mimicked his ‘woo’.

‘Okay, I’ll go set it up, you refill our glasses and get the popcorn ready, there’s some in the cabinet.’

A few minutes later, everything was in order and you were huddled up on the sofa. The movie started playing and you immediately started commentating out loud, laughing. Neither of you said anything about what had happened, which was bound to backfire, but at the moment it seemed fine.

The file you had illegally downloaded was buffering quite a bit and you were really tired… I’ll close my eyes just for a few seconds, you thought.

And lo and behold, you fell asleep. As soon as he noticed, Shayne spent a few moments looking at you, wondering whether he should carry you to your bed or leave you be. He ended up choosing the latter, as your bed still contained the residue of a nuclear explosion that took place earlier. He tried to move, in search of a blanket, however, you fell asleep on him and he just didn’t have the heat to move you. Instead, he threw an arm around you and you got even comfier. Shayne lost track of time – for a certain period, he was just observing your serene expression, but he ended up falling asleep next to you.

Feedback is highly appreciated, hit up my inbox or leave a comment or sth, thanks. :3

#oh gosh what have i done #im sorry #smosh #shayne topp #shayne topp imagine #shayne topp x reader #smosh shayne #fluff #feedback #smosh squad

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ecoorganic · 4 years

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Mailbag: Future Changes to NFL's TV Packages, Impact of Canceled College Games

Plus, the impact a canceled college season has on the NFL, what to expect from Gardner Minshew in Year 2, whether this season will be seen as legitimate and more.

It’s a sad day in the football world. Blue-blood programs that are 41 (Michigan), 33 (Penn State), 32 (USC) and 30 (Ohio State and Nebraska) years older than the NFL itself won’t be playing this fall. And no matter who you blame, it’s a shame that

we’re here.

The slow death march college football seems to be on will absolute reverberate in the NFL world. We’re going to get to that, and a whole lot more, in this week’s mailbag. …

From Brock Ascher (@BrockAscher): What happens to NFL TV rights in the near future? Will I ever be able to get rid of DirecTV? Will I ever be able to buy a one-team out of market package?

Brock, my guess is the over-the-air packages will probably remain the same. I think Thursday night is the one variable in all this, with the potential Disney snaps it up so it can put either MNF or TNF on ABC, with the other staying on ESPN, ideal for them for cable-fee reasons. (My guess is Fox is finished with TNF.) The biggest difference you’d notice could come in structure. I was told by two execs that the NFL has discussed jettisoning the divvying up of Sunday afternoons by conference (the cross-flex would be a precursor to that).

It’d give the NFL more flexibility and, in this scenario, you could have Fox and CBS simply split up the games, via some sort of “draft.”

After that, we can dive into how streaming (where the younger audience lives) plays into all of this, and how the Sunday Ticket package you’re referencing factors into that. AT&T now owns DirecTV, which has the Ticket through 2022. The Ticket is vital to DirecTV's survival. How much does AT&T care about that? We’ll see, because the NFL has discussed the idea of moving the Ticket to a streaming service, where a younger audience lives.

You can imagine what the Ticket would be worth to ESPN-Plus, Peacock, HBO Max, DAZN or Amazon Prime. How many people would jump on those services if the Ticket was there? Based on DirecTV’s numbers, the answer is a lot. And part of the NFL’s concern about production quality in doing something like this may have been alleviated with how smoothly Amazon Prime’s venture into creating such a product for the Premier League over in the UK went.

As for the a la carte end of this, we’ll see. I think that’s coming, but it might be further down the line, and whoever were to win the Ticket rights would be involved in all of that. The bottom line here: Media’s changing fast, and the NFL is preparing for that.

From Jonathan Barakat (@jonathanbarakat): How do you think Gardner Minshew will play this year? Will he exceed expectations? Also what do you think of D.J. Chark coming into his third year?

Jonathan, I’ll give you what I like and what I don’t like about Gardner Minshew’s situation.

What I like: Minshew gets to play for Jay Gruden, who’s immediately made a big difference for young quarterbacks in both his previous NFL homes (Kirk Cousins in D.C. and Andy Dalton in Cincinnati), and in one of those cases actually did it with a rookie coming off the lockout, which is somewhat analogous to this situation. Also, D.J. Chark gives Minshew a strong No. 1 target, and Doug Marrone will use the run game to support him.

What I don’t like: It’s pretty clear where Jacksonville stands on Cam Robinson, and having an issue at left tackle isn’t great—particularly in a year when it’s going to be tough to work out offensive line issues on the fly. Also, the viability of the run game rides largely on Leonard Fournette, who hasn’t been the most reliable guy over his first three NFL seasons. And beyond Chark, there are question marks at receiver and tight end.

So all in all, it’s not a complete mess, but not really setup for Minshew to have a breakthrough sophomore campaign.

From Roberta Wears A Mask You Should Too (@AceandJasper): How will the teams take care of season ticket holders who won't get to sit in their front row seats even for a game or two?

Most teams are rolling payments over or refunding—and I can’t imagine any haven’t already given their season-ticket holders the choice to opt out and hold on to the rights to their seats in 2021. I think, at this point, we know that the season isn’t going to start with full stadiums anywhere. How will it end? That’s four months from now. And I think the last four months should be enough to keep anyone from making predictions that far ahead.

From Erik Ghirarduzzi (@eghirarduzzi): Given the circumstance around this season, currently known and ones yet to come, how legit would a SB winner be? There are teams at a competitive disadvantage, through no fault of their own, already and the season hasn't started.

Erik, this is a great question—I do believe this year will be remembered, if it’s completed, like the strike years of 1982 and ’87. In ’82, teams played nine games, the divisions were temporarily abolished, and a 16-team playoff was staged. In ’87, just six quarterbacks broke 3,000 yards passing, and just two backs reached 1,000 yards rushing. In both years, interestingly enough, Joe Gibbs led Washington to a championship.

Now, I don’t think the season necessarily will be cut to nine games (as ’82 was), nor will you have the oddity of replacement players en masse (like ’87 had). But I do think there’ll be aspects of the season that will go sideways, and the NFL, to its credit, knows it and is preparing for that.

So how are ’82 and ’87 remembered? I think most people who didn’t live it (I was way too young, 2, to remember the former, and have faint memories of the latter) probably wouldn’t look at championships or accolades from that year (John Elway was MVP and Reggie White DPOY in ’87) much differently. But it doesn’t take much Google acumen to discover how weird all the numbers from those seasons look.

To me, that feels like the likely result of this year.

From Dan Heiserman (@HeisermanDan): Has any player in history ever been on more teams than Josh McCown?

Speaking of Google, Dan, I didn’t know the answer to this and was legitimately interested, so I looked and found that legend-of-the-aughts J.T. O’Sullivan was on 11 (!) different NFL teams (Saints, Packers, Bears, Vikings, Patriots, Panthers, Lions, Niners, Bengals, Chargers, Raiders), which unbelievably matches McCown’s number (Cardinals, Lions, Raiders, Dolphins, Panthers, Niners, Bears, Bucs, Browns, Jets, Eagles).

A little more bumping around the internet showed that kicker Bill Cundiff was, at one point or another, with 13 different NFL teams (Cowboys, Bucs, Packers, Saints, Falcons, Chiefs, Lions, Browns, Ravens, Washington, Niners, Jets, Bills). And I’m sure there are other backup quarterbacks and kickers—playing positions where careers are longer, which facilitates this sort of movement—out there like these guys.

All of them must have pretty cool jersey displays in their basements.

From SUPER BOWL SUPER BROWNS HELL YEAH!!! (@WAH3rd): Should I still go back to the party barn and start drinking at 7 a.m. and yell at people on Saturdays this fall like I used to?

This is a very specific message just for me and a lot of other people who were in legit mourning on Tuesday night—and this will be absolutely be one of the Lane Avenue casualties (right there with the Varsity Club) of the depressing news we all got. It’s hard to describe the Party Barn if you don’t know what it is already, so I won’t try.

And the answer is yes.

From Skeeter6265 (@skeeter6265): Do you think Ohio will beat Michigan?

I was very excited for Michigan to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its last win in Columbus—that was in the fall of my junior year—this November. Maybe that team can have a Zoom reunion to commemorate it now.

From FootballFan64 (@FFan64): With college coaches out of the running for NFL openings since their season is moving to the spring, which NFL coordinators do you expect to be coveted for any newly vacated HC positions? Who is this year’s Matt Rhule?

Well, Football Fan, I’m not sure that colleges playing in the spring (if that even happens) would prevent NFL teams from making runs at coaches at that level. If, and again it’s a big if, college football goes in the spring semester, my guess would be the season would start in February (you can’t just start the season the minute kids get back to campus). The NFL coaching carousel is spinning at the beginning of January. So there’d be time.

The NFL coordinator names you’ll hear most are some of the usual suspects from the last couple cycles—Patriots OC Josh McDaniels, Chiefs OC Eric Bieniemy, Ravens coordinators Greg Roman and Wink Martindale, 49ers DC Robert Saleh and Saints DC Dennis Allen would be on that list. I’d also just keep an eye on Falcons DC Raheem Morris, Chiefs pass-game coordinator Mike Kafka and Titans OC Arthur Smith as names that could pop up.

As for the next Matt Rhule, the NFL will continue to have interest in Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley, and Ohio State’s Ryan Day is beginning to be held in that sort of regard among those in the pros. But both those guys have jobs that are very well-paying and, in reality, better than the majority of jobs they’d find in the NFL. Stanford’s David Shaw and Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald have long been on the radar of the league, but haven’t shown much appetite for leaving their alma maters. And Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck is a fun name to keep an eye on.

From Shawn Tangen (@SMTangen): How is Kevin Warren viewed within NFL circles?

Shawn, I’d say it’s pretty mixed. And I got some pretty strong reaction from certain corners of the NFL about the Big Ten commissioner (and former Vikings executive) after the conference canceled its season on Tuesday.

Warren was a polarizing figure inside the Minnesota locker room during the Adrian Peterson scandal of 2014—Peterson felt like Warren betrayed him to the point where Warren’s promotion to COO was a sticking point in the star’s contract negotiation. That was a situation that coach Mike Zimmer had to manage, and ultimately defuse, on the ground with the players, and it’s just one example in his NFL past where he’s rankled co-workers.

On top of that, many NFL people felt like Warren’s move to the Big 10 was with designs on eventually making a run at becoming NFL commissioner down the line. In that regard, the final result of his management of the last week (a result we won’t have for a while) will probably go a long way in determining whether those aspirations are realistic or not. I’d just hope his decisions here weren’t made with that in mind.

From Brycen Papp (@BrycenPapp): Do you think this season will be a massive shift in the way the draft process works? Will the NFL lower the requirements for college players to be draft eligible to two years instead of three?

Brycen, I think there will be a shift to the draft process to a degree, and we’re going to get into that in the GamePlan on Thursday. But I do want to get into your question on the NFL’s age requirement, because it’s a fascinating one—and something we covered extensively on the podcast this week.

I believe many of the best players in the Big 10 and Pac-12, from places like Ohio State, Oregon, USC, Penn State and Michigan, will sign with agents now, and go into draft prep. Because of that, and how the Big 10/Pac-12 shutdown devalues this college season, I think we’ll also see some attrition from the other conferences. That could lead to some players who only played two years of college football and skipped the required third year out of high school, going high in next April’s draft.

That, in turn, could open the door in the future for players with two good years on their resume skipping their junior year to protect themselves and prepare for the draft—in the same way Christian McCaffrey skipping his bowl game in 2016 gave others cover to do the same. At that point, the idea that players need three years of development to be NFL-ready gets broken down, and now you have guys taking a “gap year” instead.

Which isn’t good for the players, for college football or for the NFL.

It’s important to remember here too that it’s not college football keeping guys in school for three years. It’s pro football. The three-year rule is an NFL rule. And when Maurice Clarett and Mike Williams sued to become eligible for the draft in 2004, it wasn’t a school, a conference or the NCAA they sued. It was the NFL. So the ball would be in the NFL’s court on this one, if the situation comes to a head.

From Sam Perrone (@samjp33): Do you think the NFL would be willing to move the draft if the college football season bleeds into the spring?

I think, Sam, the NFL will do whatever it needs to in order to support the golden goose that is college football. Why? College football is very good for the NFL. And primarily for three reasons.

1) It’s a free minor league. The NFL, unlike the other sports, doesn’t have to fund a complex minor-league system to develop college-aged players. The expense of doing so in a sport like football would be astronomical and the opportunity to monetize it, as we’ve seen with other start-up leagues in the past, would be pretty limited.

2) It’s a marketing monster for star players coming in. Say what you will about Tim Tebow and Johnny Manziel—they were legit sports-world celebrities before they lifted a single dumbbell in preparation for the draft. Everyone knows who Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovialoa and Chase Young are. Ezekiel Elliott and Saquon Barkley were household names as collegians. And all of that is great for the NFL on so many different levels.

3) College football is the foundation for the NFL’s tentpole offseason event. The draft is The Draft because of college football. We’ve been watching most of the top players for years. It marries two wildly popular entertainment entities. The draft itself wouldn’t be nearly the event it is without college football.

So, in order to protect the sanctity of a spring college football season (as much of a sham as it might be) would the NFL be willing to move the draft back a few weeks? Well, of course it would be.

• Question or comment? Email us.

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yoooidontgetnosleepcauseofyall · 6 years

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Why season 8 of vld broke my heart aka why it is so freaking amazing

Ok so I’m writing this at 3am, I also have school tomorrow, but I’ll prob be drinking like 2 liters of coffee in the morning, so why the heck shouldn’t I make a post about Voltron amirite? So hold on tight and prepare yourself for my sleep deprived and full of grief state of mind that I’m in narrating why tf you should totally watch this heartbreaking season and why it was totally worth the wait.

(spoilers lmao)

On number one we have the moms. Literally warmed my heart whenever I saw Krolia or Colleen Holt on screen. And that reminds me, moTHER F’ING COLLEEN HOLT. SHE IS THE SOLE REASON PIDGE’S BODY CAN CONTAIN THAT MUCH SASS. Also I’ m glad they also included Krolia cause they had a butt ton of characters to integrate in this season and she had quite some screentime AND saved the situation once.(also Krolivan) So to wrap this up I just gotta say the dinamic on the moms was pretty interesting.

On number two we have the main antagonist of the season, Haggar, or should I call her Honerva. I mean what made her go forward was the wish to have a family(shout out to the mom argument above) which is totally understandable and it kinda broke my heart, but she did KILL a lot of peeps in the process so not real sure that was the best way she could have done it. I loved her design this season, actually I’m glad I could at least see her face(yes, she dumped the witch bathrobe or whatever she was wearing). ALSO when Allura gives her the Altean marks back I freaking lost it, like why would anyone hurt you in the first place Honerva :/. Also it was nice to find out where she got the Haggar nickname.

On number three we have moments that kept me at the edge of my seat, like when Honerva was travelling between different dimensions and destroying them in the process(remember, out of motherly love) she knocked Voltron out cold as everything was collapsing around them, and they went on with the ‘togheter we can do anything’ speech and Voltron powered back up and right as they were to enter the portal the screen goes black. Not gonna lie, I paused the episode, laid back, and continously told myself ‘They’re protags, they gonna make it through’(this actually happened on exactly 17 different occasions throught the season so...). Like I know they’re not gonna kill them(or are they? *VSauce theme blares into distance*) but I can’t ignore the fact that the last time I saw them they were about to be lost in an desintegrating alternate reality. Another moment like this was when Allura was dreaming(or nightmaring idk) about Lotor telling her to free an entity that was used to control the Alteans so she would gain more power. Of course, she went ahead and did just that cause when your ex, that you found out was exploiting your people for immesurable quintessence, tells you this unknown object, that was used to control people, bear in mind, gives you more power you absolutely go ahead and set it loose.

On number three we have the Atlas cast cause it was amazing I’m telling you. Kinkade won my heart because his face expressions and video blog were more than enough almost give me a heart attack every time I saw him. Also, Veronica befriending Acxa was honestly all I could have asked in my life. Also, also, Slav, Sam Holt, Romelle and Coran got a lot of screentime and were badasses the whole season and I wanna thank the studio for not forgetting those ‘sideish’ characters. Also, also, also SHIRO. The white-haired man came in pretty strong this season, so all bow to the commander of the Atlas. Thank you.

On number four, we have death, cause the fanfic writers didn’t have enough angst to work with yet. So basically, Allura died. Sure she died like a hero, sacrificing herself to save all the realities, but I forking cried. Also I ranted hard because: she didn’t get to say goodbye to Coran; why did she have the only one to go down(this season was amazing for her and I enjoyed the kinda darker side of her, but all she did was to protect this ‘family’ that she found, so why didn’t she get to enjoy it to the end????), she could’ve taken, idk, maybe Lance with her.

On number five we have the LGBTQ rep. When Shiro was revealed to be gay there was honestly a lot of excitement in the fandom, but when everybody found out that Adam died later in the season, boy, did Dreamworks had a lot to deal with. While I was surfing Reddit and Tumblr to find out what the people are thinking about season 7, I stumbled across multiple people who sustained the fact that Shiro was the LGBTQ rep and they wouldn’t leave the fans without something in the next season, and they were right. And yet, I can’t help but feel that it was poorly executed, the whole thing being presented in the epilogue, where we find out that Shiro married a character that I don’t think was even introduced by name and said like 3 lines the whole season and we sometimes see him on the bridge. Also, the epilogue? If you were going to do something like this you should first cultivate it, not force it on screen in the last minutes of the SHOW.

On number five(I didn’t wanna finish on such a bad note cause I actually enjoyed the season) we have little moments that made the season rememberable : Episode 8 of the season ‘Clear Day’ is the equivalent of ‘Space Mall’ an all time fan favourite episode. It displays Shiro arm wrestling(we also get to see the Warden and his dog like creature), Lance trying to get a Blue Lion plush for Allura(he ends up being scammed but he still gets the toy afterwards) Hunk and Keith being stuck in a ride with an annoying song(Keith eventually snaps and breaks through a wall to get out), and a little more Holt family action(Matt has a gf??). Acxa and the MFI fighters having VERY awkward convos at lunch. Pidge connecting with the forest on an destroyed Olkarion to find out what happened there. Bae Bae being the best girl out there. Pidge(again) reenacting her role on the 80′s Voltron show to get free stuff.

In conclusion, this season sure was one heck of a ride and I definitely recommend you to see it(if you haven’t), and while the ending was...questionable, it was still enjoyable. Peace!

#voltron #vld #vld season 8 #vld spoilers #vld season 8 spoilers #voltron endgame #takashi shirogane #keith kogane #lance mcclain #pidge holt #hunk #allura #coran

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auburnfamilynews · 6 years

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Auburn will look to officially sign the majority of their class tomorrow and hope to add a few more key pieces.

Tomorrow some big time recruitments will come to an end. The early signing day, debuting just last year, starts tomorrow so prospects in the 2019 class will have three days where they can sign a National Letter of Intent with their University of choice if they so choose.

Auburn is expecting the majority of their class to officially join the program tomorrow. Here’s a list of who is expected to sign early for the Tigers:

5* LB Owen Pappoe

4* QB Bo Nix

4* DB Zion Puckett

4* OG Keiondre Jones

4* DB Cam’Ron Kelly

4* DB Jaylin Simpson

4* DE Colby Wooden

3* TE Tyler Fromm

3* WR Ja’Varrius Johnson

3* TE Luke Deal

3* OT Justin Osborne

3* DB Nehemiah Pritchett

4* WR George Pickens, 4* DL Jaren Handy and 3* DL Jamond Gordon are all expected to wait until February to sign. The most interesting name to track will be 4* DB Jashawn Sheffield who appears to have not given a firm confirmation that he will sign this week. South Carolina is reportedly making a strong push to have the talented athlete postpone and take his official visit in January. I suspect he ends up joining his HS teammate Simpson and signs early but it’s definitely something to watch over the next few days.

As for the the three firm not early signers, I think you obviously have to have some concerns that they aren’t shutting down their recruitments. All three are being pushed hard by some stiff competition and it would sure make Auburn’s life much easier if they just went ahead and ended things. But it doesn’t also mean that these three are going to flip. Last cycle, Coynis Miller, Matthew Hill, Richard Jibunor and Kolbi Fuqua all did not sign early yet still ended up in the class. We will see if the Tigers can do it again. For my money, Gordon is the name to keep the closest eye on. Ole Miss will get his final official visit and they are making things very interesting in his recruitment.

But Auburn is also hoping for a few “booms” tomorrow as well. A few of their top targets are expected to announce their commitments and I expect the Tigers to land a few. According to AuburnUndercover, these are the top Auburn targets expected to make their final decisions this week. I took a shot at guessing each of their decisions.

4* OG William Putnam | 6’4” | 280 lbs | Tampa, FL | TBD

Since sending out this tweet, it’s been basically radio silence from Putnam’s camp when it comes to his recruitment.

All my visits over... commitment soon

— Will Putnam (@BigWillPut) December 10, 2018

He had told reporters that he expected to make his decision by the end of this past weekend but that obviously was not the case. What does it mean? No one seems to know. That’s probably because Putnam doesn’t truly know thus the lack of public commitment just yet. This is a true 3 team race between Auburn, Clemson and Florida State. All three have reasons to feel good but also reasons to doubt. Heading into the weekend there was a ton of Clemson buzz, that turned into FSU buzz by Sunday night. Might it become Auburn buzz when it matters most Wednesday? Man I wish but I don’t think that will be the case. Instead, I think relationships win out and Putnam has said over and over that he’s closest to FSU’s OL coach. I’m guessing that proves the difference tomorrow (or maybe today) and Auburn misses on ANOTHER top 100 OL target.

Prediction: Florida State

4* Buck Derick Hall | 6’4” | 216 lbs | Gulfport, MS | 8:00 AM CT

Auburn is hoping to start the day off with a bang tomorrow. Back in July, it was thought that Auburn was closing in on Hall’s commitment but it never came. Since then, Mississippi State, Florida, Ole Miss and Florida State have all made serious pushes. However, every single time Hall left a visit from any of those campuses he continued to state that the Tigers were the team to beat. Mississippi State insiders seem to think it’s down to Auburn/Mississippi State. Ole Miss people seem to think it’s Auburn/Ole Miss. Florida State people seem to think they might have the best shot against Auburn. Typically, when one program is the consistent finalist among #sources, that’s the team that ends up being the pick. I think Hall’s close relationship with Gus Malzahn seals the deal for the Tigers and Wednesday starts off right.

Prediction: Auburn

4* RB Noah Cain | 5’10” | 212 lbs | Bradenton, FL | 10:30 AM CT

Cain has long been at the top of Auburn’s RB wishlist and the Tigers have pursued the talented back all the way up until the final days of his recruitment. But barring a sudden change in the winds, it appears highly unlikely Cain ends up in orange and blue next season. It was a wild ride for this young man. Once the #1 ranked RB in the class, he’s fallen to #7 and his teammate 5* Trey Sanders has emerged as #1. It seemed he was on the verge of committing to LSU until they were able to flip 5* RB John Emery away from UGA. It appears Penn State is the team that has made the most of this opportunity and they will be getting a good one in Cain.

Prediction: Penn State

5* LB Nakobe Dean | 6’0” | 220 lbs | Horn Lake, MS | 1:20 PM CT ESPNU

Auburn will be nothing more than a hat on the table tomorrow for Dean, if they even make the cut. The Tigers just never could seem to get much of a toe hold in the talented backer’s recruitment. He visited early in the spring then never made it to campus again until his official visit in early November. Alabama and Georgia appear to be the top contenders though Ole Miss is a scary darkhorse to watch. There are some big time BAMA/UGA showdowns tomorrow that will decide who gets the top class. I personally think the Dawgs get the better of the Tide in this one.

Prediction: Georgia

3* RB DJ Williams | 5’11” | 210 lbs | Sebring, FL | 2:30 PM CT

This has been a wild recruitment. The one time Appalachian State commit landed an Auburn offer on November 8th after the staff got their hands on his senior tape. That changed everything for the former 2* prospect. Offers came pouring in with Tennessee, Miami, Texas, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Michigan, Georgia and Clemson all jumping into the mix. All of a sudden, Williams had become a hot commodity. He smartly took all his official visits and has trimmed his list down to three: Auburn, Alabama and Georgia. Not bad for a former 2* eh? The Tigers sit in the best position having jumped into his recruitment the earliest. The Tide haven’t actually offered Williams but that could change if they were to miss on 5* RB Trey Sanders. The nation’s top ranked RB will decide between Alabama and Georgia roughly an hour before Williams. The loser of that battle will then turn the heat on to extraordinary levels for Williams. But I think the fact that Williams is Auburn’s Plan A makes the difference.

Prediction: Auburn

4* LB Kalen Deloach | 6’0” | 206 lbs | Savannah, GA | TBD

The Tigers finished #2 for Deloach back in late July when he committed to the Noles. But early this fall it appears there were some cracks opening in his recruitment. The Tigers hosted Deloach on an official visit for the LSU game and there was some buzz on his departure that Auburn had a real shot at pulling off the flip. Then he took an official to Michigan and all of a sudden the Wolverines became the hot team. However, FSU wisely had the last OV and appears to have locked the defensive stud back down. He will announce his final decision tomorrow and the odds appear to be very high it will the Seminoles.

Prediction: Florida State

OT Tommy Kennedy | 6’4” | 285 lbs | Lake Bluff, IL | TBD

Maybe the most intriguing announcement of the day will come from Butler graduate transfer Tommy Kennedy. Kennedy has spent the past four years playing in the Pioneer League but now the rising redshirt senior is looking to make the jump to Power 5 in hopes of proving himself NFL worthy. He’s got an impressive offer list including Auburn, Miami, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and plenty of others. The Tigers were the last to offer doing so Sunday night when Kennedy took a surprise trip after his Miami official visit to the Plains.

Thank you @CoachGusMalzahn for the hospitality last night. It was great to see what @AuburnFootball has to offer. pic.twitter.com/PNIWnJ3aBD

— Tommy Kennedy (@TommyKennedy74) December 17, 2018

Why the delay? Well Kennedy has only one year of eligibility and Auburn should have two returning seniors at offensive tackle. However, there’s smoke that Prince Tega Wanogho might be seriously contemplating making the jump to the NFL and reports are Calvin Ashley is still not back with the team. That makes a very scary OT depth chart heading into 2019 especially given the struggles on the trail when it comes to signing quality underclassmen. So Auburn is hoping to make a strong late push and land another talented grad transfer to hopefully step in and save this offensive line next season. However, I think the Canes are gonna be tough to beat in this one. They were the first to offer Kennedy and received his last official visit. Just hard for me to see Auburn pulling this one off.

Prediction: Miami

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2018/12/18/18145887/auburn-football-recruiting-early-signing-day-preview-derick-hall-william-putnam-dj-williams

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3one3 · 7 years

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The Sequel - 884

The End Is Near

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“Run faster!” Christina and Tom shouted in unison.

“I’m trying!” Stefanie shouted back, struggling to drag a large Hanoverian behind her.

“What does that look like to you? I can’t even tell.”

“In the shoulder maybe.”

“You think? I was going to say something high up behind, like maybe even in the spine.”

“Whichever end of the horse is the problem, it looks very bad, and there isn’t any heat or swelling anywhere at all.”

“Put him away and call Dr. Todd, I guess. Don’t give him anything in case he can come today still.”

Nick was lame again. There was no obvious reason, for a change. The fetlock with the bone chip wasn’t the problem. The other fetlock that occasionally swelled after work was tight. His knees looked fine, and he didn’t react to the hoof testers. His gait was badly wrong, but in a confusing and ambiguous way. The two most experienced people on the property couldn’t decide if they thought it was a problem with the front half of him or the rear. He pinned his ears and resisted as much as possible as Stefanie tried to jog him down the concrete patio at the back of the barn, past his stablemates’ open Dutch doors. Trotting on a hard surface helps exacerbate the pain from an injury, because it’s harsher on just about everything that could be injured than the nice soft footing in the ring, or even grass. It’s supposed to make it easier to see the source of the pain. Christina and Tom were flummoxed. And Christina’s worry about the situation wasn’t just because Nick was getting old and his ouchies were happening more often, or that he looked ready to kick someone in the face. He was supposed to be in a photoshoot with her in an hour.

The president of the Global Champions Tour personally asked her to be the cover star of the new luxury style magazine that would accompany the show series around the globe and feature articles and interviews and tons of advertising by the Tour’s sponsors, brand partners, and boutique sellers. There was going to be a big launch party at the Final, and then it would come out quarterly the following year. The defending champion wanted to use Nick since she was going to be posing by his head and modeling a diamond necklace. He had the handsomest head in her stable, and was very patient about photoshooting.

“He can still pose for a camera,” Tom countered, as if to read her mind. “It doesn’t hurt to stand still.” His point was well made. They only spotted the problem in the first place because he put him on the lunge line to give him a chance to get out any hijinks before the crew showed up. It wasn’t as if the stallion had been lying down in his stall, moaning in agony. He walked fine.

“Can I stop now?” Stefanie called from the end of the covered walk.

“Yeah,” the other two called back simultaneously. Rider was still getting used to groom being as “in charge” as he was. Isandro was more subordinate in that role, most of the time.

“Okay. Spiff him up, I guess,” she shrugged reluctantly. “But call the vet first.”

“Duuuuuh.” He mocked the way she always retorted to people who stated or asked the obvious. And she appreciated his candor and nonchalance, because it told her he wasn’t overly concerned about Nick.

“Let’s go sneak another coffee before the stylists get here and put whitening strips on my teeth,” Christina told her two very obedient Toy Fox Terriers, who were waiting by her feet. They followed her into the barn and up the central aisle toward the indoor, and she texted André to tell him about the horse. He was at training, as he should have been. His being back on the normal schedule, doing full training with his teammates and spending the bulk of each day at Brackel, required an adjustment for her that she really didn’t want to make. His girl had gotten used to him having more flexibility during his injury and rehab. He had a lot of time off, and his individual sessions took less time, and could move around. He had plenty of time to spend with her.

I want a hug, she grumbled inside while trudging up the stairs to her lounge for that coffee. The dogs raced ahead and flew through the flap in the door at the top. Her facility had a lot of cold weather considerations. It wouldn’t have occurred to her to put so many doors between the barn aisle, the bathroom, the bleachers, and the pass-through into the indoor. The architects knew better. It would stay nice and toasty warm in the lounge in the dead of winter, and also in the bathroom, while the J-shaped hallway and the stairs would be flooded with cold air every time someone opened the door to sit on the bleachers. Spencer and Lucky had beds upstairs by the couch so that they could be somewhere cozy whenever they wanted. There was a doggy-door into the tack room as well, but the door it was installed in would be opened and closed constantly throughout the day and it wouldn’t stay that warm since Christina was wary of pumping extreme amounts of artificial heat in there, on the basis that it was drying for the leather goods. She liked her tack room to be comfortable for humans in one less layer than they wore outside, and without hats or gloves. Her dogs liked sauna temperatures everywhere, all the time. They also liked the fun of hopping through three doggy doors to get to the lounge when unaccompanied by a human. They both sat like good boys by the espresso machine while she made her drink, knowing that they might get a biscuit from the metal tin next to the sink.

“I hope this shoot doesn’t take forever,” their mom told them. “I need to ride Sexy Socks and Dirk and Rio and the Iceman still, and Schü and I are going out for dinner tonight. Do you think it’s foolish of me to take Socks to Doha? He thinks it’s a bad idea, since Socks was such an assface in Barcelona. I kind of have to now anyway. I’m already bringing Rio, I clearly can’t take Nick now, Kimi isn’t ready for that, and Calvin doesn’t do long distance flights that well. Dirk isn’t ready. I could do Cartagena, maybe, but why do that when I have Socks? He did so many rounds of this championship anyway. What do you- Oh. You’re waiting for treats.” Christina cocked her head at the black and white and black and white and brown little creatures looking up at her inquisitively. At first she thought they were listening intently to her dilemma. They always made that face when someone asked them a question. But their focus and stare were too intense for that. They were silently begging her for crunchy peanut butter bones. She poured the two little espresso cups into her big, colorful Anthropologie mug and then selected two treats from the tin. The pups hopped up, excited, but hurried back to their haunches to receive them. Spencer immediately started eating his, and Lucky trotted off toward the couch with his. They were both finished devouring their biscuits by the time their human added her steamed milk and was ready to go back into the barn.

“When are you gonna get a job?” she asked Stefanie, who was sitting on the bench across from the grooming stall where Nick was getting polished and combed. There was no real reason for her to be there yet. Her horses were on the board for the afternoon.

“Hopefully never,” the younger rider shrugged. She was eating instant oatmeal in the plastic container it came in. The plumbing offered water hot enough for oatmeal making. That was one of Christina’s favorite things about the property. They could get properly hot water from any spigot, hose, or tap. The hotter the soaking water, the softer the beet pulp the horses ate in bulk with their grain.

“Dr. Todd will come this evening,” Tom mentioned from the crossties.

“Like when this evening?”

“6, 7.”

“Ugh. Okay.”

“Plans?” Stefanie asked knowingly.

“Reservations.”

“You don’t need to be here,” the groom and stable manager reminded.

“Yeah I do. It’s fine. It just means I can’t give Luke his dinner.” Actually, Christina realized, if he comes at 6, it gets in the way of my getting ready time. If he comes at 7, it gets in the way of Munchkin dinner. We have to leave at 8. Ugh, whatever. She plopped heavily on the bench and gulped her cortado. “I wish the photoshoot was later. Then my hair and makeup would be all done and everything. As it is, they’e gonna make me all pretty and stuff in a little while, then I have to wipe it all off, ride and get sweaty, and then shower and start over. Bleh.”

“Where are you having dinner?” the blonde girl inquired.

“Some American-style steakhouse I haven’t been to yet. It’s faaaancy, or so I’m told.”

“Are you wearing something sexy?”

“Of course.”

“Such as?”

“This is when I question my decision to work here,” Tom commented, speaking exclusively to Nick. “Kyle likes to talk sexy dinner outfits as much as these women. I’m surrounded by this nonsense here. In my old position, we spoke about how long our morning shits take, and seasonal beers. In this stable, there is a silver box of tampons under the granite counter in the bathroom. I don’t know how Isandro deals with these women for so long, Nick. How do you do it?”

“Okay, macho man,” Christina snorted with an eye roll. “Nicky loves us. Isa loves us. And I’m wearing this high-neck black cocktail dress with gold studded cap sleeves. I’ve had it forever- like since before I got married- and it’s one of my favorite things but I never wear it because- Well, I dunno.” Because Jill helped me pick it out. “Anyway, I have something sexier for after dinner.”

“Oooooh.” Stefanie’s eyebrows wiggled and Tom’s eyes rolled. Nick didn’t seem to have any strong feelings either way.

“Where is Isa?”

“Setting up the jump course you wrote down for the grass field.”

“Aww, I would have helped. I was going to do it tomorrow.”

“It’s not that much work. Kyle is with him.”

“Does this mean we’re doing lessons on the big course?” Stefanie’s voice and face were brimming with hope and expectation. The girls had been talking about building a grand prix style course on the grass for about a week. They wanted one with a lot of options for different tracks, in whole or in pieces. Both of them took the same special joy from the sensation of riding and jumping on grass. The sound of hooves on the ground does something to a rider. It’s almost like a primal thing, and one doesn’t get it from riding in sand or synthetic footing. A horse has to be more aware of the going, because it’s more slippery. They need their instincts to help. It makes it all more exciting. The girls hacked on the grass fairly often, and sometimes had a handful of fences out there. They wanted the competition-type jumps from the shed- the Red Bull can standards, the Chelsea planks, the faux castle, and the tall gates- all the bells and whistles. Christina sat down at her desk and drew a very exact diagram of what type of jump she wanted and where, down to the color of the poles. It took about an hour to map it out and plan challenges and questions. Contrary to Tom’s dismissive shrug, lugging those fences out of the storage shed or moving them from the dirt ring to the grass and then setting everything up was a lot of work, and it would only be worth it if they got a lot of use out of them and in different ways, so that they wouldn’t overuse the grass on one track, or kill the takeoff and landing zones at every fence. They could spread it out and keep it interesting. And they were all feeling in need of “interesting”. Stefanie was doing a lot of top-level classes, and Kyle was moving up as scheduled with both Calvin and Cartagena. Christina had been fighting boredom for a long time. They all needed to spice up their training, and that was true for some of the horses too.

“Yeah,” coach told student. “I hope we have lots of Magic Cushion.”

“Always,” Tom affirmed from behind the big dark bay horse. He was combing his tail, and talking about the hoof-packing product that helped prevent soreness from working on the hard ground.

“Are you currying Nicky’s butt or is he begging for coffee? He’s got that “aww yeah baby” face, and his lips are out of control,” Christina laughed.

“I’m scratching his dock while I brush out the tail. This tail is a triumph. It better be in the photographs.”

“My horses all have nicer, healthier tails than I have hair,” she pouted, end of her ponytail in hand. Nick, Dirk, and Calvin in particular had really thick, long, lusciously shiny black tails. Rio’s was a bit thin by comparison, Socks’ was recovering from an evidently long history of breakage, and Kimi’s was naturally almost bushy, like his mane and forelock, so it appeared less soft. Navarra constantly tried to rub the top of hers on fences and walls, and that took a toll. She was still catching up on the beauty standards in the barn. At Holger’s she was allowed to be dirty and unkempt. Isandro really liked her personality and made cleaning her up his pet project. Getting the kind of shine customary in Christina’s stable was not the work of just a few groomings.

“That’s because they don’t get shampooed every day,” Stefanie remarked.

“Neither does mine! I try to only wash it every other day. When I can. Usually.”

“Did you wash it this morning?”

“Yes, but I had to! Photoshoot!”

“And you’re going to wash it again tonight before your pre-sex steak, right?”

“Shut up.”

“I have Michael so well trained,” she bragged, almost facetiously. “He uses his fingers to comb the dry shampoo through my hair each night while we watch television. He doesn’t have to hang out with a girl with smelly, oily hair, and I get a massage and a really good brushing. I shampoo once per 5 days.”

“Eww.”

“My hair isn’t as oily as yours! And I still shower!”

“I shampoo and condition every day,” Tom shrugged on his way back to the front of the horse to give his mane and forelock one last onceover. “My hair is pretty okay, I think.”

“Boy hair is different,” Christina tutted. Then she turned back to the rider beside her. “Are you getting finger-combed at your place or are you hanging at Michael’s all the time?”

“Both. Kyle goes out a lot lately with some people who live one floor down. He’s trying to figure out how to date with limited German.”

“Girls or boys?”

“I think he’s beginning with girls.”

“He should go out drinking with Isa. Isa will get him a girl,” she sniggered. “Where is this photographer? She’s supposed to be here by now.”

“I thought photographers always want the first or last light?” Stefanie posited before scooping out the last spoonful of oatmeal. The cinnamon smell was making her trainer hungry.

“We’re shooting inside.” Said trainer slid back all the way against the bench and lifted the front of her layered waffle shirts up to scratch at her tummy. Knowing the cover shoot would involve a stylist bringing her outfits, she couldn’t be bothered changing out of the clothes she donned after her workout to play with Lukas. Her comfy sweatpants hung very low on her hips to begin with, so her shirts didn’t have far to go to make her stomach feel very cold. There was a mostly-healed scratch right under her belly button- an accident, from her son- that itched like crazy as the tiny scabs prepared to fall off on their own. “Should I call her and see if they’re lost or something?”

“Wouldn’t they call if they were lost?” Tom pointed out.

“Maybe they don’t know they’re lost.”

“Well how would you know if you called them?”

“I dunno.”

“It’s amazing that you two travel the world together, honestly.” Stefanie shook her head ruefully and got up to put the plastic container in the trashcan in the other grooming stall. She stopped to rub Nick’s forehead on the way back, and he nudged at her stomach just to let her know that he was interested in anything she might have for him, like whatever that sweet smell on her breath was. “Can’t feed the models,” she told him. “I guess you’re not mad at me for making you jog on your...whatever hurts.”

“He clearly isn’t in any discomfort right now at least,” Christina chuckled while she watched her stallion thoroughly investigate the other girl for food. Her horses all acted like nobody fed them, and she liked that, because it meant they had personalities. A lot of their kind don’t. Her band of characters brought so much life and entertainment to the day in, day out tedium of the stable routine. Keeping their training interesting and varied was one thing. The chores and care at the barn were the opposite. Everyone who worked there agreed that consistency was key for keeping the horses healthy and ensuring the place functioned safely, professionally, and efficiently. It made for a lot of monotony for the guys. An affectionate, curious, or even mischievous equine could give them moments of entertainment or enjoyment to break it up. The canine workers did too. One of them sprang into Christina’s lap to see if he was missing anything. “Hi Spence.” She stroked his mostly black little head, and he licked her fingers.

“You look like you’re at home on the sofa,” Tom commented. He wore a small, lopsided grin and was using Nick’s neck to support his left arm. “This is a horse stable.”

“I don’t wear sneakers in the house. Are you going to put him away and let him get dirty again or make him wait on the crossties?”

“Call the photographer and find out how far they are.”

Christina switched hands with her giant mug to reach into the deep pocket of her sweats for her phone. André hadn’t replied yet, which was expected. He was training. She hoped for a message from Juan though, even thought he was also training, presumably. He wrote to her in the middle of the night to ask when she was returning home. “Home” was a charged word. He could have meant London, or he could have meant himself, because she told him he was home for her, many times. Her text back to him asked if he was okay or if he was just being sweet, or if he couldn’t sleep and just wanted to see if she was magically up at that hour. She knew the Spaniard would have seen the message by then. He would have had plenty of time to read it before even getting to Cobham given how early she woke up.

“They’re about 10 minutes out,” she reported to everyone after speaking with the photographer. “You might as well put him back in his stall. It’s going to take them some time to get me dressed and blown out and made up and stuff. He doesn’t need to be spotless if they want to use him to do test shots or something. You’ll have a chance to wipe him off again before I’m ready. You could even tie him in the stall if you want.”

“Yeah, I think I will do, as long as Stef is going to be around?”

“I’ll keep an eye on him. Or ear.” Stefanie nodded and got back up from the bench to stretch and yawn. Her vigilance was necessary because Christina didn’t really like tying the horses in their stalls. There was always the risk that they could freak out about being tethered in a place they usually had freedom, they could somehow get a leg caught over the lead even though it was deliberately tied quite short, or they could manage to get it caught on a bucket or something and dump it out and make a mess. The only reason to do it was to keep them from rolling in their bedding and getting dirty, or if they needed to wait while tacked up and not get into trouble with all the equipment on. Her rule was that horses couldn’t be tied anywhere or left on the crossties unattended, and Tom was going to go do other work until he was needed to assist on the shoot. Nick’s rider gave him a nose smooch and promised him the vet would come later to make whatever was hurting him go away, and his groom took him back to his stall.

“I hope I got paid for this up front,” she yawned before moving to get a broom to sweep up the hair and dirt left behind on the rubber mat where the horse had been and then realizing she couldn’t sweep without putting her coffee down, and that it wasn’t worth it. Tom would undoubtedly be right back to do the tidying up before moving on to other chores. “I would so much rather be shopping for pumpkins with Lukas right now, or helping him with his bike. He’s really good with the training wheels. Did I tell you?”

“Yes. Like 9 times. Can I go pumpkin shopping whenever you do get to do it? I want to make one for Michael, for his desk.”

“Yeuck you’re so in love. It’s gross.”

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squadaloo · 7 years

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My year in games - 2017 (First half)

For the past few years, my interest in games had been dwindling. Despite the long list of games I played in 2016, only a few lasted me very long and only a couple I found gripping enough to play more than an hour at a time. 2017 so far has had no less than 5 such games in which hours melted away while playing them. Here are the games I’ve played so far this year:

Batman: A Telltale Game Series (PS4, Beat game once) - I received this for Christmas. It’s my first Telltale game since I generally don’t enjoy interactive stories, and I found it pretty decent but not great. First off, the game on the PS4 is marred by absolutely horrible glitches. The game full on crashed no less than 5 times throughout my playthrough, and one option on the main menu (the one that lets you review your choices) causes the game to softlock without fail every time. With that being said, the story the game tells is pretty decent and different for a Batman game with there being more Bruce Wayne than usual. While I liked that aspect of the story, the Bruce Wayne presented here felt almost too...nice. Like, I found it hard to believe he could be Batman even in his darker moments. Also, I can’t confirm this without replaying the game, but I left feeling like my choices basically didn’t matter and the game was essentially funneling towards the same conclusions every time.

Planet Coaster (PC, Spent 70 hours on one park) - Planet Coaster is the closest anybody has come to making a truly great, powerful, but relatively simple to use theme park builder. The management aspects of the game when I last played back in January left much to be desired and there were numerous annoyances I had with placing objects and with limited ride choices, but overall I was able to make what I felt was a beautiful park over the course of 70 hours.

Overwatch (PC, Spent 5 hours in Private Matches) - Yes, I finally got the game everybody and their mom has been talking about. I’m generally not a FPS fan, but I did like Team Fortress 2 for its variety of classes, and Overwatch very much feels like an expansion of TF2′s idea. With a wide variety of fun characters, you’re bound to pick a few you like. Overall, the game is great fun with friends. However, I haven’t played it as much as I’d like given I don’t want to play with randoms online because I suck.

Rocket League (PC, Spent 2 hours in Private Matches) - Bought this for a LAN party. It’s fun for a few insane hours with friends and the variety of game modes keeps things interesting. Ultimately though, I did get tired of it. It seems like a game best taken in small doses.

Gravity Rush 2 (PS4, Spent 30 hours beating the game and side missions, spent another 30 hours goofing around) - Much like its predecessor, Gravity Rush 2 is a game I love so much more than the sum of its parts. It improves the combat from the original game by weakening your main gravity kick forcing you to rely on multiple other moves, adds more enemies, and new styles for attacking. Flying around and controlling gravity is a blast. However, not everything is perfect: there’s a few missions where you’re in tight quarters and the camera becomes a nightmare. It also has terrible stealth missions, and they are numerous. The game is fun overall, but certainly doesn’t use its gravity flipping mechanics to their full potential. Other than that, though, the environments are very pretty, large, and well realized: I’d dare say the cities of Jirga Para Lhao and Hekseville are two of my favorite locations in all of gaming and I enjoyed just wandering around taking in the sites.

The story is very fragmented and feels more like a bunch of different seasons of a show condensed and often has plot holes that don’t make a whole lot of sense, but it does a great job of building characters you care about. By the end of the game and the series, Kat and Raven pretty much became my favorite characters in any game because they were well realized, had arcs, and were overall just fun to be around. Raven especially gets a shoutout because the game’s great partner AI actually does some of the character building for her. Too often in games, you get a simple partner that helps you attack enemies around you and not much else. Raven actively helps you achieve your goals: need to pick up 7 people and take them to a location but can only pick up 2 at a time? No worries, Raven will split up and take a few herself. Need to sneak into a base, but there’s two guards in the way? You attack one and she’ll automatically attack the other. Start a super attack on a boss? She’ll notice and if she’s not tied up fighting another enemy, she’ll join you. It seems so simple, but it’s amazing how often things like this don’t really happen in other games. It actually made me miss her the few times she’d step aside in the story.

The side missions also do a great job of giving you great nuggets of story, sort of like breather filler episodes in a TV show. However, ultimately my love of the game really boils down to the final two hours of the game being absolutely phenomenal. What it lacks in fully satisfying answers to questions it more than makes up with great gameplay and unbelievably satisfying character development. I’ve never been more satisfied with the ending of a game in my life, and it is to date the only game to ever make me cry. Oh, and the soundtrack is among the best ever.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch, Spent 100 hours beating the game and every shrine along with other sidequests) - You know, ask anybody what they think about this game and they’ll pretty much all start listing the things they don’t like. For me, it’s the rain. It’s irritating and flat out denies you progressing at points. The weapon durability, while not a bad idea, can also be irritating. The dungeons, while a neat idea, could really stand to be longer and more fleshed out. The final boss is too easy.

After they’ve finished listing their qualms, though, everybody pretty much says the same thing: “but other than that, it’s perfect.” Breath of the Wild is a game in which you almost never actively think about how great it is while playing it, but come to appreciate it more and more when you go to play other games. I never once thought “Oh my God, this game is amazing” and yet I also rarely had a play session last shorter than 4 hours. For somebody who rarely can pay attention to a single game for more than an hour at a time, I cannot stress how engaging a game has to be for me to sit down and play it for 4 hours at a time, and yet this happened constantly for about 2 weeks straight with Zelda. Combat is simple, but always satisfying as you’re constantly reading attacks and waiting to get that perfect dodge to activate flurry rush. One of my favorite things to do in open world games is explore, but one of my least favorite things to do is constantly backtrack. The huge number of shrines (which are great in their own right) means I can explore to my heart’s content, but almost always just fast travel wherever I want whenever I want. I cannot stress how much the fast travel system and climbing has ruined other games for me: it feels so liberating to be able to go anywhere quickly. The world is full of interesting characters and things to see despite how vast it is. It’s an achievement.

In the past, I’ve found the story in Zelda games to be pretty weak. They seem like the good basis for a plot, but outside of a few exceptions (Midna, Hilda, Spirit Tracks Zelda) failed to have truly good characters with solid arcs. I’ve seen many people complain about the story in Breath of the Wild probably because its mostly told through short optional memories and hidden diaries, but honestly, I think it’s heads and shoulders better than any story the series has told so far. It’s a story that’s truly about the Legend of Zelda: it’s about how the characters respond to the burden of having to live up to the legend and I find that to be an absolutely brilliant idea. I don’t want to get too deep into spoilers, but Nintendo said in one of their behind the scenes videos that their goal was to make Zelda “a character worth saving” and I feel they definitely succeeded. BotW’s Zelda is easily the best character in the entire series with a full satisfying arc.

Simply put, the game is amazing. Buy it.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo Switch, Spent 95 hours playing an enhanced version of a game I played 250 hours of) - Mario Kart 8 is my favorite Mario Kart. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is for the most part, a better version of my favorite Mario Kart. I was at first irritated about having to rebuy this game because I was afraid I wouldn’t want to play it very much. However, the portability of the Switch quickly took that thought out of my mind as I’ve been able to play with people at work on my breaks and bring it over for LAN parties. The game’s full of great tracks, great music, and great racing. The changed item balance makes racing near the front of the pack much more fun and less frustrating since you can’t get screwed over by coins as much. However, the middle of the pack is now Hell due to the double item system so it’s a bit of a trade off. Overall though, I find myself having to think more while racing in MK8DX: thinking about whether there’s double item boxes up ahead, whether I should save my item or risk it to try to get a new item, whether I want to hold this coin for a boo to take or not, and so on which I think makes it more engaging than vanilla 8.

Also, the new Battle Mode doesn’t suck.

Star Trek Bridge Crew (PSVR, Spent 3 hours total between online and single player) - I wanted to like this game more than I do because I like VR and I like Star Trek. The core idea of the game is interesting: you and 3 other people team up to take different positions on the bridge of a Starfleet vessel and go on a mission. Indeed, in the one match I played online with random people, this idea was fun...except there’s the fundamental flaw that other people are awful and will ruin everything. In my case, I got to listen to a guy hit on the female NPCs on the bridge for 30 minutes and divide them up on who on our crew would get who. It completely ruined the game experience for me and I felt embarrassed to be playing.

There is a single player mode in which you’re just the captain, but it feels kind of boring. It wasn’t long before the siren song of Mario Kart pulled me away from this. I’ll probably return to it some day, though, since I still have plenty of missions left to try.

Nier Automata (PC, Spent 35 hours getting endings A-X and Z, as well as side quests) - This is a game I hadn’t heard of until Kotaku staff members mentioned in a post in late 2016 how it was a game they were really looking forward to for 2017. The demo for it went up on the Playstation store at the same time as the Gravity Rush 2 demo so I figured “why not?” Turns out the demo was fucking amazing, but I decided to wait until it was cheaper to buy since I had other games to play.

For those unaware, Nier Automata is an action RPG that is also a platformer, a topdown shooter, hack and slash, shooter, and whatever else it Goddamn pleases to be at any given moment. Somehow, despite these shifts in gameplay, it manages to be mostly competent in all of them. However, after an excellent prologue (as seen in the demo) in which it constantly shifts perspectives to keep things fresh, it becomes open world and spots shifting as much which I found to be disappointing as it was the thing that sold me on the game. It’s also the first open world game I played after playing Breath of the Wild, and so going back to feeling restricted to having to walk to fast travel points, not having fast travel unlocked until partway through the story, and having to backtrack quite a bit was a shock. It’s not bad at these things, but the lack of freedom was something I wouldn’t have noticed had it not been for Zelda. Combat is fun, but can feel repetitive. It’s fast and frantic which I enjoy, but the perfect dodge system feels a bit too easy to spam meaning I don’t have to think about each individual encounter the way I do in Zelda.

The story is difficult to talk about without going into spoilers, but I felt it was mostly great with a few moments of utter brilliance mixed in with some moments of frustration. I do care about the characters and the voice acting is surprisingly well done, but the game I felt alternated between great twists and plot developments I could see coming from 20 miles away. It’s hard to get into without spoilers, but to me, it also had a habit of undermining its most emotional moments with weird bits of execution. Near the end (well, third and fourth ending. It’s complicated), I felt the story started to rely on tropes I don’t particularly care for which started hurting my enjoyment of it, although its ultimate conclusion (the 5th ending. Again, complicated) was very satisfying. It’s a very dark story, but somehow manages to balance it very well with a surprisingly great sense of humor.

Overall, solid game.

And that does it. Thank God I split this year in half, or else I’d still have to talk about Splatoon 2, Sonic Mania, Metroid Samus Returns, Sonic Forces, and Super Mario Odyssey. Plus there’s the games I may wait to get until things have died down like Horizon Zero Dawn and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. Did I mention this year was a great year for video games? Because it’s a great year for video games.

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kaitlinmcandrews · 7 years

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Hello again!

So, to continue where I left off, the next season I want to showcase is winter. Winter is a lot shorter here than in Canada and it starts a lot later as well. As you may have noticed, my last blog was talking about Fall and it went into December. Maybe my memory is terrible, but I’m fairly sure that there are no Autumn leaves in December, back in Canada.

Okay, side note: Let’s talk about Canada’s winter (well, like northern BC and Alberta since I haven’t lived in the rest of the gigantic country I’m from. It’s freaking huge! The weather in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal are probably 20394848x better than it is where I’m from, but let me vent for a sec).

I swear that winter goes from October to May. By winter, I mean that there is a presence of snow. When I was a kid, it often snowed on my birthday. My birthday is at the end of September. Usually, it would melt right away, then it would warm up again and it would snowy again by the time Halloween rolled around. Also, I remember mid-November being the time of year when the ski hills open. So, that basically means that you can expect the snow to be there to stay from that point forward.

However, In the last couple of years, the snow comes and goes basically starting in November and we don’t get consistent snowy weather until Christmas or early January. The ski hills now seem to open in mid-December. So, uh, to all those that don’t think global warming is a thing, you are wrong. My Northern Canadian life is proof enough, in my opinion.

That being said, I don’t think the Autumn leaves stick around until December. That just seems absurd. Well… I also feel like the weather where I’m from is incredibly volatile and sporadic. I mean, it literally will go from 20C and sunny, to 10C and rainy, to -10C and snowy, and back to 20C within a 2 day span. I’m not kidding. So, if I was a leaf on a tree, I’d jump ship early on in the year, too.

Okay, okay, you aren’t here for crazy Canadian weather…

Back to Japan!

So, Japan is pretty diverse, just like Canada, surprisingly. I think I had a misconception about the size of Japan before coming here. So, because of that, remember that everything I say about weather is not really about the entire country. I can only speak about our experience in Kyoto, Kanagawa aaaaaand, Nagano!

Winter in Kyoto, Tokyo, and Kanagawa is pretty tame. I’d say it snows once or twice throughout the year and doesn’t stick. In the Kyoto area, it seemed to stay a little bit longer, especially in Northern Shiga (where me and Pat used to work).

Okay, the moment I’ve wanted to talk about since we went there.

Nagano Prefecture (長野県)

In mid-February, we headed Northwest to Nagano prefecture. It is not that far from Tokyo, yet it has quite a different climate. It is a pretty mountainous prefecture with many ski hills.

Okay, let’s get out the good old Google Maps screen shot!

As you can see, it is a pretty big prefecture. As you can probably also see, I have starred the area that we went to.

Since this area is pretty rural, for the most part, the options for getting out there are a bit limited. I think going to Nagano city first is the best option, depending on your destination I suppose. Basically, from Tokyo, you have 2 options (unless you can drive of course). You can take a shinkansen, which is the high speed bullet train, or a highway bus.

The Hokuriku-Shinkansen takes about 2 hours and costs about 8,000 yen. My coworker told me that this shinkansen line is fairly new, so not too long ago this wasn’t even an option. Interesting.

As for bus, this is where there is a lot of discrepancy with times and price. We went through a company called Willer Express. I used this website: http://japanbuslines.com/en/ to find all the buses that went from Tokyo to Nagano and picked the best option for us. It was significantly cheaper. I think it was like 3,000 yen or something. The downside was that it took twice as long. I believe it was about 4 hours.

For us, we took the Shinkansen to Nagano on our way there and took the bus from Nagano on our way back.

So, we decided to have a pretty late night when we left. We decided to make the most of a regular 2-day weekend. I sorta based the timing of going on the activities I wanted to do, rather than wait for a long weekend. I wanted to go skiing and I wanted to go to a monkey park. I had to figure out the best timing for both the ski season and if the monkeys would be out. If the weather was too warm, the monkeys wouldn’t be out in the onsen (I’ll get into this more, later) and if it was too cold, the skiing experience wouldn’t be as fun.

**Also, sorry for the lack of photos, I didn’t take as many as usual. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.**

We requested to leave work a bit early and we were able to take the shinkansen out to Nagano around 6pm or so. We had a bit of a hectic time at the shinkansen gates (which I have ranted about enough times on this blog…) and barely got onto the train we paid for. Since we didn’t book ahead, there wasn’t too many options for sitting together.

It was actually a bit frustrating because it seemed like many business men were taking this train (seems to be the norm from 5:00 -7:00), and they all book the window seat. So, basically, every pair of seats was taking by one business man. Like, c’mon man, by you single travellers wanting to sit alone, you make it incredibly irritating for anyone that is travelling with someone. It just seems selfish. If you are a single f’ing person, you shouldn’t have reserved seats. You should just be put with all the other business men. Ugh.

So, it wasn’t terrible, but a bit frustrating. The ride was only about 2 hours so it wasn’t too bad. When we left Tokyo, it was actually one of the warmer days that it had been in awhile. It was pretty crazy how different the weather was when we arrived in Nagano city. I found the temperature on the accuweather website. For reference, we left Tokyo on Friday, February 17th.

Tokyo:

Nagano:

So, not only was the temperature much colder, but it was also one of the nicest days in a long period of time in Tokyo.

Darn.

We arrived pretty late so it was even colder. Also, it was raining (well, like wet snowing) when we arrived so it was pretty chilly.

So, unfortunately for us, our final destination was not Nagano city. As soon as you get off the beaten path, transit becomes sooo difficult and confusing. I did a lot of research on ski resort websites to get as much information as I could. I found that there was a bus that went basically to our hotel. For some reason, the times for this bus were really bizarre. Luckily, I was able to get the following bus schedule, to confirm what I read online.

For whatever reason, the bus times out to where we needed to go ran every hour until 5pm and then nothing until 9pm, which is the last one of the night. It was a little bit stressful. Knowing that we had to get the one and only bus out there was not comforting. We had an hour and a bit to spare when we arrived in Nagano, but my first priority was to find out where on Earth the bus stop was. I was so stressed about missing this bus. I swear that the internet just said “go to East exit. finished”…. ugh, not helpful. I don’t think I can make it any more helpful, though, to be honest.

So, when you get out of the East exit, we went down a small escalator, and down the stairs. There was 2 bus stop areas. One looked like it was for city buses, and the other looked like it was for highway buses. I assumed we would need the highway bus, but I really had no idea. I gave up and asked the gift shop lady. The bus stop was basically right by the gift shop. So, I guess it was a city bus?

Don’t trust me… I think this is the stop, but my memory is not great and I didn’t take any photographs… That’s what I use to trigger my memory.

I think it was even more stressful since it was so dark and cold outside. Like, not only could we be stranded, but nobody is outside, things are starting to close and I still wasn’t 100% sure where to catch the bus. Thank goodness for the bus stop lady. Having this bus schedule helped as well because I could just show it to her and she knew what I wanted.

Once we knew the bus stop, we went to eat and get some starbucks. We took the bus without any problems. We had to tell the driver what stop we were going to and pay for our ticket before going on. Since it was so late, there were maybe 10 or less people on the bus. It was a pretty quiet busride. We were on the bus for a little over an hour.

When we got off, we then had to walk to our hotel. This particular hotel had a pickup service but I really didn’t want to bother them so late at night. (Actually, at this point I was emailing them back and forth letting them know our arrival time and such since it was such a late check in.

The bus stop seemed to be in the middle of a ski lodge town. The place we chose was pretty far away actually. We started walking. It really isn’t a long walk, but remember, it was like 10:30pm. It was so rural that there were no street lights. It was also in the mountains so the roads were just like they are back home: icy and snowed over. And, we were dragging our suitcases behind us.

Well, after about 5 minutes or so, a vehicle passed us, which was weird since it was so dead. Well, that vehicle turned around and it was the owner of the hotel! I don’t know if he was driving up and down this road, or if we had lucky timing since I was emailing him our ETA. So, he picked us up and drove us to the hotel. He was so sweet.

We checked in and got ready for our big ski day the next morning.

Shiga Kogen mount yakebitai Ski (志賀高原焼額山スキー場)

We woke up pretty early to make sure we would get to the mountain and have enough time to get our ski rentals. Since our ryokan provided breakfast we decided to grab some before we left. We had the choice of a Japanese style breakfast or an American/Western style one. We opted for the Japanese option just to take in the culture.

Well, to be fair, I don’t really like any western breakfast items. I hate bread, muffins,cereal, oatmeal and yoghurt with fruit in it. The only breakfeast food I like is bacon and eggs. We didn’t know what the western breakfast would include so not worth the risk for me, the picky eater. That being said, for most people, that is definitely the safest option haha. Who knows what will be in the Japanese breakfast!

It was quite nice to have a Japanese style breakfast. When we had a home-cooked breakfast in Korea, it was an experience that I think will always be with me (if you can’t remember, we had freaking bulgogi for breakfast and it was the best bulgogi I have ever had, ever).

So, to our relief, the one breakfast item that I definitely did NOT want (natto, ie, fermented soy beans) were not part of it. Lucky! We had a fish, miso soup, some tofu, some fruit, salad and rice. To drink, we had tea! Not exactly what we would eat for breakfast in North America. It was pretty good. It was really filling and really well-rounded.

After breakfast, we saw that many other guests were getting ready to head out. Since this ryokan is just ran by a couple, they would only be driving one vehicle out to the bus stop. Me and Pat were impatient, and a bit anti-social, so we just walked. It wasn’t a long walk. It was slightly uphill, but it wasn’t bad. We were wearing our jackets, and brought our toques and gloves. We were going to rent the rest of our gear so we didn’t need to carry much at all.

Since we arrived in the dark the night before, we really had no idea how much snow there was. It felt like we were back in Canada! It wasn’t too cold out and was actually a pretty nice walk to the bus.

The bus stop was pretty easy to find. The busses out to the ski hill was actually free since it was a shuttle bus. I was pretty surprised. You cooouuuld take a fancy highway bus, but it wasn’t free. It didn’t run too often, so we ended up leaving a lot later than we had expected. Using that bus timetable from before, everything under the pink was free.

We missed the first bus, but made the second one. As you can see, they don’t really run too often so we had to wait for a bit. Luckily, there was a little bus stop shack that was heated and had benches and a vending machine. So, it was not terrible.

Once the bus came, the lady that worked at the bus station let us know and we got on. Since we were only the third stop, the bus wasn’t full yet. It filled up really quickly. We were so lucky that we got to sit down the whole time (although, I felt kinda bad since we didn’t have any gear and we got to sit, yet some people had their skis, helmets, boots, etc. and had to stand…).

The first thing we did when we got to the ski hill was go to the rental shop. Since this ski hill has a fair amount of foreign guests, they carried a pretty good range in sizes. We were able to rent ski pants, board/ski and boots and jackets. We didn’t rent jackets since we had our own. I was hoping that they would have goggles, but they didn’t. I could have bought a pair, but they were soooo expensive. This was the first time in my life that I went skiing without goggles.

Now, back in Canada, I have my own gear. I haven’t had to rent anything in a loooong time. But! Every time that I have been to a rental shop has been a terrible and long process. This guy was super quick. There wasn’t a line at all, which is surprising since I can’t imagine many Japanese people have their own stuff. I mean, unless you live in Nagano, where are they going to go skiing?? Maybe we went early/late enough? Who knows. I don’t remember how much the rentals cost… I wonder if I can find that out.

http://www.princehotels.com/en/ski/shigakogen/rentals.html

Found it! Looks like its about $30 for the board/ski and boot set. Since the only snow gear we rented was the snow pants, I don’t think he charged us $40… I really don’t think we paid that much. At that point in time, we were thinking of doing a night ski. This made it a bit complicated about returning out rentals. They shop closed basically at the time of the last chairlift, which was hours before the night ski started.

The rental guy was pretty understanding, and perhaps too nice/trusting. He said we could return them in the morning OR just leave the stuff outside the shop. What the heck? Just leave it there? That is way too trusting, Japan! We weren’t sure what we wanted to do, so told him we would return it in the morning (Even though this is the most inconvenient option for us, especially since our hotel is so far from the ski hill and now we would have to lug all of our stuff back to the hotel and back).

After we got all the stuff we needed, we bought some tickets.The full day pass costs $50. I wish we had arrived a bit earlier to make that cost worth it, but it wasn’t a terrible price. We also got our night ski tickets for about $20 at the same time. Our passes were really interesting. They were like hard plastic cards (they reminded me of our train cards) that were used to beep into the chairlifts/gondolas. Isn’t that cool?

I tried to take a photo, but the line was moving pretty quickly. So, I have a fancy ski pass holder in my jacket’s arm so it was really easy for me to beep in. Pat took the card out every time.

Y’know, sometimes Japan really is high tech. Usually it isn’t, but sometimes unnecessary technology pops up where you’d least expect it. We were given two cards that look the exact same so we had to put our night ski cards separately from our day lift cards. Finally, we were off to the slopes!

I didn’t take my fancy camera with me skiing, obviously, so I don’t have many photos. I took a few photos on my phone, so let’s go with what I got….

As you can see, they mountain isn’t really that big, but it has decent amount of runs with an okay variety. Me and Pat tried (and I thiiiiink we succeeded) to go down every single run.

The snow was nice and powdery at the top, but a bit icy near the bottom. There was a good mix of groomed runs and natural. The runs that weren’t groomed had some pretty fun naturally formed moguls. As a boarder, moguls are pretty difficult, but I personally think they are a lot of fun. The trees were different that I’m used to back home so that was kind of an interesting difference that I never even thought of.

We were pretty lucky with the weather. It wasn’t too cold, there wasn’t much wind chill and the sun came out quite a bit. I had a hard time without goggles, though. I could barely keep my eyes open because of the sun reflecting off the snow and having the wind go into my eyes. I decided to wear my glasses and that seemed to help a little bit. Sunglasses would have been much better. Oh well!

It wouldn’t be a Pat and Kaitlin adventure without a mishap…

So, it you are going to this mountain (yakebitai) be aware that it connects to another ski hill (OkuShiga).

Now, I was under the impression that the ShigaKogen ski hills were all covered by the day pass, so I actually wasn’t too concerned when we ended up over there. Well, I must have read something wrong or misunderstood something…

When we arrived at the chairlift at the other ski hill, our cards wouldn’t beep in.

sigh….

Luckily, right by the chairlift was a small rest stop where you could by the ski pass for this hill. When I talked to the front desk lady, we were hit with dissapointing news. She said to get back to the other hill we had two options: take that bus that we took on the way up (but, remember, it runs like once an hour…) or buy a pass to go back up the chairlift. Before talking to her, I thought the only option was the full day pass, which would have been another $50, or a half-day pass, which was around $30…

That’s an expensive mistake!

I��m pretty glad that the lady at the front counter spoke English and understood our situation. We were able to get a one lift pass. She told up how to properly beep in and what to do with the card when we were done. Phew!

I can’t remember how much they cost, but they were significantly cheaper. It was kind of an interesting idea, especially if you were staying near the hill. I dunno, I kind of liked the idea of just paying for a few runs. Probably not worth the cost, but interesting…

It was one of those situations that really sucked at the time, but was easily rectified and didn’t really cause too many issues. It was a small blip in an otherwise nice ski day.

When we were at the chalet for lunch, I started looking at information on how to get back to the hotel. It wasn’t until then that I noticed that it might actually be in a bit of trouble. Let’s look at the bus timetable again:

Do you see the problem?

Well, just to remind you, we were planning on going night skiing. Night skiing started at 6:30.

…..

Lame.

So, the LAST bus back to our hotel leaves at 5:10. The last run is over at 4:30, so it actually doesn’t give you much time. It was kind of disappointing because we don’t really like taking the last bus because it is so risky, but the bus before left so early!So, I guess night skiing is only available to the people that are either staying at the Prince Hotel or driving. Oh well.

Luckily, we were able to return the passes and get our money back. I’m sure that we weren’t the only ones to make this mistake so it was a fairly easy process.

I feel like we did take the last bus since we wanted to stay as long as possible. We were able to return our rentals, so that saved us some trouble. We waited at the bus stop near the hotel and got back safely. We were pretty hungry at this point. For whatever reason, the restaurants at the ski hill ALL closed before the last run. Isn’t that strange? The ski hill and all the amenities turned into a ghost town as soon as 4pm hit.

Once we got back to the bus stop, we realized that were no places to eat. Seriously, there was nothing! It seems that every person out there ate at their hotel? There wasn’t even a convenient store (they are literally everywhere in Japan, so it was pretty strange).

We headed back to the hotel and hoped that we would be able to get something to eat there. As I mentioned before, these hotel owners were just a sweet old couple. We could have arranged for them to pick us up at the bus stop, but we just walked back. It wasn’t really a long walk.

They were really accommodating and it wasn’t a big deal.

I got a pasta and Pat got an udon (a Japanese noodle soup). Of course we had beer!~

After dinner, I really wanted to go into the onsen. I’m usually not allowed in one because I have tattoos. I thought that I booked a room with a private hot spring bath, but the website was a bit misleading. The Ryokan itself had a “private” onsen, but it was for the entire hotel… This wasn’t a very big hotel and didn’t seem to be full of people or anything.

I decided to risk it. Pat was not interested and stayed in the room. They were separated by gender so we couldn’t be in the bath together anyways. I was pretty lucky and nobody was in there and no one came the entire time. So, I guess I did have a private bath after all! If you didn’t know, you go into an onsen naked. If anyone came in, not only would I be embarrassed about my tattoo, but also that they would see me naked!

In this onsen, you put your clothes in the pink basket, shower yourself off (not shown) and finally you can relax in the natural hot spring. It felt really great after a ski day.

We had a pretty early night and didn’t really do too much. We didn’t have to wake up so early the next day, but we did so we could get the breakfast.

The breakfast was similar in some ways, but obviously had different types of food. The one kind shocking/strange things were the fish that you can see at the bottom. I initially took a bite from the stomach area and it was FILLED with fish eggs. I googled it to figure out what the heck I was eating. I found out we were to eat the whole thing, except the head and tail. I ripped of those parts and ate it. It was… ok… It definitely wasn’t my favourite dish. I would never order it.

We went back to our room and packed up all of our stuff. We only went skiing for the one day so we were off to a new adventure!

Jigokudani Monkey Park (地獄谷野猿公)

The next day, we headed to a monkey park in Nagano. It was actually only 3 bus stops away from the hotel. I don’t want to show that freaking bus timetable again, so just trust me. The monkey park isn’t part of the free bus section so we had to pay at the bus stop before we left.

As soon as I found out about this place, I have wanted to go. When we lived in Kyoto, I was willing to travel all the way there. To put that in perspective, here’s another Google Map image!

Here’s a tip if you ever want to go somewhere sort of rural in Japan: Look at directions to the nearest train station and go from there. When I tried to find out how to get to this Monkey Park, I couldn’t find anything! To be fair, I couldn’t find directions to the park from Nagano using Google Maps either. There was a lot of extra Googling from there on and finding local bus stop timesheets that needs to be done

Japan: The Future….

Anyways, as you can see, the average trip from Kyoto would have been almost 4 hours just to get to Nagano. If our jobs weren’t so crappy and we actually had time of like real people, I may have made Pat make this trek with me.

Luckily for us, I suppose, we moved to Kanagawa and were able to make it there in a much shorter trip. Since we were already in the area to go skiing, it was a pretty quick trip to the monkey park.

We had already checked out of our hotel and had to bring our luggage to the monkey park. The bus stop had “Monkey Park” in the name so it was hard to miss. When we arrived, it seemed that everyone was going the same way. Not only that, but there were signs along the way. I think it took about 15 min or so to get to the entrance.

I looked up details beforehand so I knew that we were able to store our luggage at the office/gift shop area. It wasn’t too expensive to store our stuff so we were happy to do that instead of finding a locker or anything.

I really didn’t know what to expect going into this park. I was reading online that in order to see the monkeys, the temperature should be pretty cold. Before we left Kawasaki, the forecast was supposed to be super cold. I was sad that skiing would be terrible, I was excited that the monkeys would be awesome.

Regardless of the forecast, we actually experienced the opposite. The weather was quite nice and skiing was definitely more pleasurable (especially since I didn’t have any goggles), but I was worried about not being able to see the monkeys. From the entrance, we had to do a bit of a hike until we hit the park. I did not know that. I thought that the ‘entrance’ was the monkey park ‘entrance’….

hmm…

Seems like it was falsely advertised OR falsely assumed by me.

There were quite a few foreigners on the trail, which is always so surprising. I mean, we are in rural Japan. Foreigners are about 1% of the population, so to see another foreign person is always shocking. To be fair, the amount of foreign tourists that are in Japan is sooooo mush higher than the foreigners that actually live here. Sorry, that was a tangent. What I wanted to mention was a small, blonde haired girl that was with her family, was talking about how disappointing she was. I remember saying to Patrick that I didn’t think we would see any monkeys…

It was a pretty nice hike so I wasn’t too disappointed at this point. The weather was nice and the scenery was actually really nice. I don’t think you can tell, but the sun was shining through the trees and gave such an amazing view. At this point, I was wishing I would have seen the monkeys, but I was enjoying the hike regardless.

Until….

… A freaking monkey walked by us!!!

I was so excited, but I was actually a bit scared. I didn’t think I would be, but, like, I have no idea what these guys are capable of! He didn’t seem to care. He walked on by like nothing.

I really didn’t know what to expect so I thought that THIS was the monkey park. I thought that we were already in the area to see the monkeys. I’m glad that I was wrong. There was a little office at the end of the hike where you could buy tickets into the monkey park and get souvenirs. The tickets weren’t too expensive. I believe they were under $10.

We actually hesitated about buying the tickets. That little girl that I eavesdropped on really faltered my confidence. Also, when I read about this place online, I heard that if the weather is warm, the monkeys won’t be in the hot spring. Since the weather was actually really nice, I really thought that buying those tickets could be a waste of time.

Man, I must have misunderstood what I read. I also think that poor little girl’s family didn’t pay to go in. Because, there were definitely monkeys! At first, we just saw some playing on the mountain. They were soooo cute!

Yaaaay~

I was pretty excited. They were actually playing around together like human children. It was really adorable. We ventured our way down to the hot spring (the main attraction) and continued to see monkeys scattered around.

There were a lot of ups and downs and quite icy. At one point, Pat almost wiped out really bad. He slipped down this huge hill and it was like a cartoon. Luckily he was able to gain his balance and a man at the bottom was ready to catch him if he was to wipe out. Point is: if you go here, wear boots.

Once we got to the hot spring area safely, we got to see so many monkeys!! Photo time ^^!

And finally, the main attraction~ The hot spring!

Like I said earlier, the weather was fairly warm so the monkeys weren’t really interested in hanging out in the hot springs. It was just the mama and her baby, but I was so happy to see ANY monkeys in there!

It was pretty amazing how close you could get to them. They weren’t scared or curious. They just walked around and didn’t mind the people at all. It was a pretty cool experience.

We headed back home after we finished at the monkey park. We had a really great weekend and were pretty happy to be able to experience a “true” Japanese winter. It was nice to see snow again, believe it or not.

The 4 seasons of Japan – Winter Hello again! So, to continue where I left off, the next season I want to showcase is winter.

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g-castel · 7 years

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My Top 10 Albums of 2016

I've been wanting to post this since January 1st lol, but I never got around to it haha. I need to be better about blogging. Well, I figured that since we are halfway through 2017 it would be good to share, once again, my top 10 albums of the year (last year). I've been doing this annually for a while now and it's been fun for me. Take a read if you'd like!

Top 10 + Honorable Mentions

Honorable Mentions

-Signs of Light (Head and the Heart)

-24K Magic (Bruno Mars)

-A Seat at the Table (Solange Knowles)

-WALLS (Kings of Leon)

-The Hamilton Mixtape (Various Artists)

-The Life of Pablo (Kanye West)

-Coming Home (Leon Bridges)

-Views (Drake)

-This is Acting (Sia)

-There’s A Lot Going On (Vic Mensa)

-22, A Million (Bon Iver)

-Telluric (Matt Corby)

-Wild World (Bastille)

-Bobby Tarantino (Logic)

-Oh My My (OneRepublic)

-Stranger Things, Vol. 1 (Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein)

Passion, Pain, and Demon Slayin’ (Kid Cudi)

A Moonshaped Pool (Radiohead)

Farewell, Starlite (Francis and the Lights)

Starboy (The Weeknd)

Sunlit Youth (The Local Natives)

indicates nearly making my list haha

Top 10

10. Home of the Strange

Young the Giant

The third studio album for Young the Giant, Home of the Strange, to me has pushed the band to become one that I will continue to listen to for the rest of my life. They are able to create a good range of styles. I think HOTS is able to listened to in so many different settings.

This California band has focused on the phenomenon of the diversity in ethnicity that the band possesses. The lead singer being, Indian-American, and other members being from across the globe plays a part in the album’s theme and dynamic.

I was super happy with songs like “Something to Believe In” (which sounds so perfect for a live performance) and “Titus Was Born”. If you are about to take a listen to Young the Giant for your first times, start from their first pieces of art and move towards their latest piece of art and you will see a fitting a beautiful revolution.

Also, go ahead and head to their Youtube channel where they post the “In the Open” videos that are stripped versions of their music and it’s record so raw and simple. Those videos have inspired me to do video work for music as well!

9. The Colour in Anything

James Blake

The music in James Blake’s album, just like before, is the some of the most unique current music. I have not found other songs out there that sound anything like his other than Bon Iver and Radiohead’s music this year.

So, so, so weird. if you’re gonna go listen this, because I said I like it, please be warned, it doesn’t mean you will, like you might hate it actually, and that’s okay. We tend to adhere to sounds that’s familiar and that coincides with our minds. This album, if you haven’t been a listener of James Blake’s previous works, will not do that for you. There are some odd sounds, weird time signatures changes, and he sings once again with beast vocoder vocals! Sometimes there are some horror silences behind nasally high frequency vocals.

It sounds like I am somewhat shoving you away from listening to this. However, do not get me wrong, I love The Colour in Anything!

Favorite Songs:

Meet You In the Maze

Points.

The random interruptions of repeated lyrics into silence are interesting and I think they reflect perhaps the character of Blake or the anybody out there who shares the stories and feelings written in his lyrics. They’re brash and the noises are loud. & I DIG it.

8. Georgica Pond

Johnnyswim

Johnnyswim. The (Latin) American folk soul pop-duo have returned this year with a banger of an album. I think personally that this is the best work that they have done. This couple are two incredibly talented musicians and they’re chemistry in and out of the booth is something like the dynamic of a Shaq and Kobe.

“The longer you’re out on the road, it gets nicer to have [Abner Ramirez] there. Because he’s the closest thing to home I have,” Johnnyswim’s Amanda Sudano says. “Home is where he is.”

I watched the videos that they shared on Youtube giving commentary on a couple of the songs that were a part of the album. They talked about the process in the studio and the inspirations behind songs like “Drunks” and “Touching Heaven”. One thing I picked up from what they attempt to maintain is the loyalty to the authenticity of the craft.

This was an album that I listened continuously for maybe three straight weeks. I went through phases were song after song became my new favorite. That happens a lot of times when the record is good from start to finish.

I want to be friends with them, simple as that.

#goals

7. THREE

Phantogram

I was introduced to them years ago by my brother, who I could honestly give credit to for a lot of the music I listen to now. This album, THREE, yes, in all caps, was music that I had no clue they had in them.

I definitely used a few tracks on this album for workouts. This is the album that this year I felt comfortable bumpin with both my more conserved buddies and also with some of my hood friends. After Phantogram released some music with as Big Grams in the past, you can surely feel the influence of Big Boi, a former member of the hip hop legendary group, OutKast. The 808s on songs like “You’re Mine” and “Cruel World” are so fulfilling.

One song from this album you’ve probably heard if you haven’t heard of any of the songs on the list is the song “You Don’t Get Me High Anymore” They collaborated with other people to produce such a fire beat. The lyrics are weird and polarizing but that’s what’s great about it

On release day, I went through the entire record as I usually do with music and immediately sent Phantogram a fan girl tweet. I just had to tell them that they nailed this one and it is probably their best work yet.

6. Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight

Travis Scott

S’il vous plais. Those in favor of auto-tune, or at least okay with listening to it and not being baffled by the off-the-(traditional hip-hop)-wall that it is, take your time to listen to a few tracks of this album by the G.O.O.D. Music prodigy, Travis Scott.

I just know in 2017, this man Travis is going to blow UP! I do not know in what way, whether it’s with his music, or with his involvement with big name fashion clothing lines, he will find his way into having you know his name. It’s just the loud and abrasive nature that he possesses.

Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight to me was like a real intro to the world, though it isn’t his first album. When Ye signed him, he was doing a bunch of writing and waiting his turn to get on the map. Kanye finally did what he does best and gave him more pushes and connections. I’ve never seen someone with so much energy. Hip hop gone be alright.

Usually, I listen to albums from front to back, but I know that’s not how everyone does it. So, if you do not have much time and want to take a peek of the record, check out these three, “goosebumps, through the late night, and way back”.

5. The Human Condition

Jon Bellion

Mr. Jon Bellion, out of New York, is the next Chad Hugo, No I.D., and Timberland, all put together, who also sings and raps on the music he produces. Riding that “come up wave”, he will be a name that pretty soon will have a bigger font size on next summer’s festival lineups, guaranteed.

This early 20s MC, is just a pure talent to say the least, and outside his talent, is seemingly a phenomenal character. He has worked so hard to make it to where he is in his music career, but has managed to stay as humble as he was when he was making beats in his college dorm room. The Human Condition was crafted and along with Bellion is the band, A Beautiful Mind, who were all buddies who have all committed to sticking together if one of them made it big in the industry which is such a noble thing to see. They have a natural chemistry.

Bellion says a lot of the people who inspired his sounds were the Neptunes, Kanye, and derivation.

So I can’t write this without giving one person credit for introducing me to him. My roommate Jeff did everything he could that season to make sure the whole world new about Jon Bellion. He played songs from previous EPs to prepare for the album release over and over. While he showered, I could here the songs including the pre-release singles. We ended up seeing Bellion live…twice actually.

I’m excited for his future, collaborations, and ideas he execute to change the way people see music. He’s got that much potential in my opinion. The dude is straight out of New York. If you haven’t heard the album yet, let me just tell you it is very evident. Jon Bellion is a multitalented artist. He’s got his hands on everything, being well-versed with the keys, vocals, and he’s got some bars too. He’ll break it down with the MPC pad too like his idol Kanye. Even on stage during his tour, homie would bring the pad to center stage and loop up the layers of his songs and the sing over the top of it brilliantly.

Bellion’s, like many of us, is also a closet nerd and loves cartoons and animation. One of his big dreams, which he might as well soon see come into fruition is to work with Pixar on scoring a film. I hope this happens! He’s a dreamer, he’s got a newfound faith, and has got a colossal muse. This artist is someone who is just peeking his head out of his egg and we have no idea what he will do once he starts flying.

4. 4 Your Eyez Only

J. Cole

This album is the cure.

Mr. Jermaine Cole. He is such an people’s person. I liked the fact that after he finished touring for 2014 Forest Hills Drive, he said “I’m out.” He had a withdrawal from the public eye. Just wanting to have a normal human experience here in America, he laid low, didn’t really share much on social media and rode his bike around the city. It gave him a fresh mind to intake life and be creative, especially in a tough all-around year like 2016. Seeing artists do that is a breath of fresh air to me. Fame is just something he doesn’t care about.

In the album, there’s a few times Cole rhymes from different perspectives apart from himself. What we have here is a real lyricist, and wordsmith. He chops up words perfectly to make them fit meter after meter. I honestly think he’s getting better and apart from Kendrick, no one out there is stopping him from being the most influential lyricist in urban culture. His mass appeal comes naturally, though he does not care about it or give into it.

Ed Sheeran said in an interview recently on the Breakfast Club that in the likes of the hip hop genre, right now he is really liking this J.Cole album. Reason why I say this is cause, Ed, too took a page from this book and, took a year off from music and celebrity living and just vacationed and traveled.

You can feel it in these songs. The calmness in the beats. There is something retro about the drums, the flows are mellow, and the vibes make me want to go for a soothing walk with headphones, or take a subway into a city like NY. I don’t know if any of that makes sense, but once you listen to a song like “Ville Mentality”, you’ll know.

3. We Got it From Here…Thank You 4 your service

A Tribe Called Quest

They’re Back! Mr. Abstract, Phife the Five Footer, Ali! The return of the historic and legendary hip hop group, the pioneers for all current rappers today, the one, the only, TRIBE CALLED QUEST.

Here is Phife Dawg. The Five Foot Assassin is what he used to go by. He founded this group back with Q-Tip I believe when they were in high school. Hip Hop was already on the rise and established, but it had no real characters that were unique and funky. Them comes along these gentlemen along with other members of the Native Tongues who brought a energy to the hip hop scene that was crazy and untouched. They weren’t talking about money and drinking. It was all conscious writing and fun creativity. This band is why I am a hip hop fan today.

Tribe to me is like the mantle of the earth if Hip Hop was looked at as the planet. And the core would be jazz. We hear it in all of their records, and after the band split in 1998 and after 18 years…it took the death of co-Founder Phife, for the men to get into a studio and make some powerful music for the people, for themselves, and for their lost brother, Phife.

I think it takes bravery to return. They’re a bunch of old men. They know there’s a new audience of hip hop lovers out there who don’t even know them. They know that a lot of people aren’t really gonna feel their music and rhythm. So, I commend their boldness in return and with their humility in asking a great conglomerate of artists from Jack White to Talib Kweli to help join them create their final album to send strong messages on things as simple as how it is to be a black man in America.

This band has left an impeccable legacy and imprint on hip hop music forever.

2. i like it when you sleep for you are so beautiful, yet so unaware

The 1975

You’re probably like.

Wait, what…huh?!?

And I’m sorry to put them so high, but I am not at the same time. I keep finding myself DRAWN to each and every track on this record. For a sophomore album, they definitely found the best way to expand but at the same time stay inside the realm that they created for the fans that is kind of the this imaginary “1975” world.

Kickstarting with a perfect “first single” in Love Me, to being the iliwysfyasbysu era was a pretty cool statement made because we just knew that they were bursting forth with a different brand. You’ll know what I mean if you go ahead and watch the music video. Musically, they’re was some experiments and that is always fun for me to hear. I wish I could know the terminology for what is being used to make that sort of grungy, wavy, synthy guitar sound to start and end the song, but it’s sexy and reminds me for some reason of Halloween?

Matty said that their London shows this year in the O2 were the biggest shows they did and since Vevo put on a sweet video production for it up on Youtube, I had to lay down and watch the hour-long concert. shows.

I found myself listening to the record over and over. Music doesn’t just make it into my top three just that. I really have got to like it. And I enjoy the music, simple as that. All visuals for the album certain vibe. They made a change to their brand and new look to their socials, beginning with a complete 180 of all their black and white monochrome look. It was hit with a hard flavor of flamboyant, loud, pink. That’s right, pink.

(Which, quick input, 2016 was the year of pink. Big year for pink)

Previously, on their first studio album, though they’ve been doing music for over a decade, the artwork of the album, singles, and live show light show were all bright whites and black contrasts.

Then at the end of May, we were introduced to the regeneration of the young (not-so-young) band, the 1975.

The lyrics, on almost every song, so vulnerable and loud, are what mostly impresses me about the record. Matty writes about a lot of things he deals and is trying to make sense of in morality, psychology, drugs, religion and love. Though the song titles are not as obviously direct with the messages like the first album, this album hit at so many questions that we as humans ask, or should ask.

Matty Healy’s intellect kills me. I would definitely put him in my top ten with musicians I would desire to have one or two tea time conversations with. I feel like there would be things we could teach each other. Just listening to what he has to say in interviews became quite a hobby of mine, especially the interviews where he was sober. He has interesting things to input about, love, politics, Jesus, and whatever makes the world go round. I found every lyric and every emotion put into the musically was very intentional.

They have definitely built an experience surrounding what is deemed, the 1975. It’s their own world. Everything about it. The social mediums. The twisted yet attractive persona of the lead. The sounds of the guitar that you hear in “She’s American”. It’s not much different than what you hear in “Settle Down” or even “Chocolate”. My point is, you know you’re entering the 1975, when you enter the 1975; it’s distinct.

There’s something special about that.

These are my lads.

my pics from the show*

Processed with VSCO with a6 preset

Processed with VSCO

1. Coloring Book

Chance the Rapper

Mixtape? Album? Whatever you call it, this body of work takes the crown for me of this year’s best musical work. Gospel and hip hop are the largest influences in my musical upbringing so, for others, this was just a good album. For me, however, this hit me in my heart strings, where my hair rises, and the bumps on my skin appear. The horns and the choir vocals are what told me that I was home.

The evolution of this young Chicago artist is major as I’ve been following Chancellor since 2013 to who he’s become today as a Grammy-nominated star. When he jump started his musical career with his 10 Day mixtape, he was just a shorty making beats in his city, snatching stages at the open mics. He released his first song on Soundcloud in 2011. The 2013 XXL freshmen article is where I realized this man was gonna blow up one day. He and his overalls, nose piercing, and whippersnapper attitude is what drew me. He was put on by Gambino, when he asked Chance to go on tour with him when Gambino had nothing but Royalty and was working on Because of the Internet.

Back then, lil Chano was a little more immature, a high school dreamer who opted out on college and grew on his experimentation of drugs. So many things has changed in a matter of three years lemme tell you.

He and his girl now have a DAUGHTER. Which he just recently is letting the world get to know through his social media platforms. “My daughter look just like Sia, yah can’t see her.” He and his friends who have been working on music producing and writing for other artist called “The Social Experiment” compiled an album for free called SURF, which ended up being a top three album for me last year if you read blog post last year. Finally, he’s cut down on the trippy drugs; he used to think that they would be his thing and something to be known for, but realized it was not something of value to him anymore. The growth mostly is shown in the music by far.

After the mixtape dropped and while Chano and his gang went of tour, they announced the Magnificent Coloring Day Festival, a festival in Chicago to end the tour. It was a day where he invited many of his musical friends, including Francis and the Lights, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Skrillex, Chicago’s own Common, Lil Uzi Vert, and his mentor Kanye West. He had the city of Chicago ‘doing front-flips’!

Undoubtedly, it can be said at least in hip hop, that the is his year. It’s definitely Chance the Rapper’s season in hip hop as much as it can be denied. Last year was Drake season, this year is Chance’s season, maybe next year is someone else’s. Chano had one of the HOTTEST VERSES ON arguably biggest song in hip hop in 2016, Ultralight Beam. He helped heavily on Hamilton mixtape. He has sold out stadiums, became the first independent artist to do Saturday Night Live, performed at ESPYS for the late Muhammad Ali, and got the Grammys to open up categories for non-selling, stream only artists. 2016, as you can see below, was his year.

I’ll get to the main reason why Chance is my guy later, for right now let’s quickly talk about the music. Diversity in his features is what I thought was cool with him at first. In ’13, he spit a verse on James Blake’s, “Life ‘Round Here” and I was like, shoot this new cat messes with people like James Blake AND Action Bronson?!? I need hop on this train before it’s too crowded. Chancellor, along with his brother and other Chicago rappers, has a way with the way he says his words. Poetically he makes them fit into patterns of time rhythms that sets a unique flow almost every time. But there’s also a slight Chicago twang to his voice, especially when he was younger.

One thing I respect is that, this man was blowing up while still being flat out broke in relation to how big of a name he was becoming. He was only making his cash off of merchandise and touring, and doing features I guess. I mean maybe not anymore, I’m sure he’s well off, but it was just cool to see that someone could continue independence and be like, nah it’s really not about the money, Imma give this here music for free.

The Social Experiment.

These guys right here are the Social Experiment. #SoX

They stuck it out with along with Chance, not as a surrounding band, but as a group with equal say into decisions. Head by Nico Segal on the left aka Donnie Trumpet, they made music for the people and were a collection of songwriters for man artists out there and did it for fun. They are now the band of friends that Chance plays, and probably will always play with on tour.

Aint that something! :’)

He’s Happier. It’s evident. If you listened the drug-influenced, young whippersnapper Chance the Rapper was during 10 Day, and his Acid Rap era, and dug deep into the reasonings for his anxiety and hurt in his young life, you’d see a difference in who we’re being blessed with today. He, growing up in Chicago, has seen lots of violence including the murder of one of his friends. Chance has rededicated his life to the Lord and has changed abundantly. It’s so obvious in his tone and poise nowadays. He’s still fun and buck, but man Chano is a transformed person.

So one of the real reasons I love this dude is his social involvement. Time and time again you’ll read that he has had a upbringing with educators and strong women in his life. His father worked in politics and was part of being running the campaign for Barak Obama to get into the presidential office. So, Chance learned a thing or too about how to meet peoples’ needs. He has donated and promoted giving warm, thick coats to the homeless during the winter through an organization in Detroit. These coats turn into a sleeping bag so it is designed especially for those who have no homes. He speaks up against violence like we all do, however, I love seeing someone with a platform like his, give a nonviolent voice of reason. In his community, the city of Chicago, Chance also hosts an open mic night every month called, Open Mike, which is near and dear to him because that’s how he began and how he realized he wanted to pursue music. He wants to give other young kids to opportunity to dream as well.

Anyways, that’s all.

I realized I’ve talked about him for a while now…I’ve tried to be very unpretentious over the year with Coloring Book…but personal blog so.

Anticipating Albums

Colony House

John Mayer

Lorde

Drake

Ed Sheeran

Lupe Fiasco

Paramore

Snubs (the eh’s)

Joanne (Gaga)

Lemonade (Beyonce)

ANTI (Riri)

Awaken, My Love (Bino)

JEFFREY (Thug)

matty and chancellor.

bye.

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ecoorganic · 4 years

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Mailbag: Future Changes to NFL's TV Packages, Impact of Canceled College Games

Plus, the impact a canceled college season has on the NFL, what to expect from Gardner Minshew in Year 2, whether this season will be seen as legitimate and more.

we’re here.

The slow death march college football seems to be on will absolute reverberate in the NFL world. We’re going to get to that, and a whole lot more, in this week’s mailbag. …

From Brock Ascher (@BrockAscher): What happens to NFL TV rights in the near future? Will I ever be able to get rid of DirecTV? Will I ever be able to buy a one-team out of market package?

It’d give the NFL more flexibility and, in this scenario, you could have Fox and CBS simply split up the games, via some sort of “draft.”

From Jonathan Barakat (@jonathanbarakat): How do you think Gardner Minshew will play this year? Will he exceed expectations? Also what do you think of D.J. Chark coming into his third year?

Jonathan, I’ll give you what I like and what I don’t like about Gardner Minshew’s situation.

So all in all, it’s not a complete mess, but not really setup for Minshew to have a breakthrough sophomore campaign.

From Roberta Wears A Mask You Should Too (@AceandJasper): How will the teams take care of season ticket holders who won't get to sit in their front row seats even for a game or two?

To me, that feels like the likely result of this year.

From Dan Heiserman (@HeisermanDan): Has any player in history ever been on more teams than Josh McCown?

All of them must have pretty cool jersey displays in their basements.

From SUPER BOWL SUPER BROWNS HELL YEAH!!! (@WAH3rd): Should I still go back to the party barn and start drinking at 7 a.m. and yell at people on Saturdays this fall like I used to?

And the answer is yes.

From Skeeter6265 (@skeeter6265): Do you think Ohio will beat Michigan?

From Shawn Tangen (@SMTangen): How is Kevin Warren viewed within NFL circles?

Which isn’t good for the players, for college football or for the NFL.

From Sam Perrone (@samjp33): Do you think the NFL would be willing to move the draft if the college football season bleeds into the spring?

I think, Sam, the NFL will do whatever it needs to in order to support the golden goose that is college football. Why? College football is very good for the NFL. And primarily for three reasons.

So, in order to protect the sanctity of a spring college football season (as much of a sham as it might be) would the NFL be willing to move the draft back a few weeks? Well, of course it would be.

• Question or comment? Email us.

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