#Just had 2 minors follow me below the ages of 16. I had to block them.

[cosmic-ships]

Gentle reminder that on my pinned it states I don't wish for minors to interact with me, that includes following.

[eruden-writes]

NSFW Content and Minors

Some backstory on me: I was in a toxic-friendship-turned-domestically-abusive-relationship with someone 2 years older than me. I met him online at 15/16 through a mutual friend, we started dating when I was 18. In 2010, when I was 20, he went to prison for possession of child sex abuse images, aka child porn.

I had no clue he was doing this until the FBI raided our apartment.

He got out in 2015 and sought - and is still seeking - visitation with the child I was pregnant with when he went into prison. (Meaning he’s never had unfettered access nor has raised this child of mine.)

That said, this is a sensitive topic for me that I have put a lot of thought into over the years.

The tl;dr

The onus of access to NSFW content is on adult creators. If you want to make absolutely sure minors cannot easily access your content, put it behind a paywall.

Different NSFW content has different laws in the US and different moral aspects to consider.

Adults creating NSFW content for a fandom, whose core demographic is minors, are the ones encroaching on a minor space.

There’s a difference between NSFW content depicting consenting adults in healthy relationships vs NSFW content depicting toxic relationships, pedophilia, and/or violent scenes.

My own target demographic IS NOT minors. I don’t want interaction - follows, reblogs, asks, etc - from minors, but I don’t care if they passively read my work. If I get concerned that minors are interacting with me on this blog, I will block blogs.

This post is not to dictate other creators’ boundaries, but shine a light on how nuanced and complex this topic can be. You do what you feel comfortable with.

Minors, please respect creators’ boundaries.

If you have a problem with any of this, I suggest you read below the cut before engaging with me.

First and foremost:

The onus of access to NSFW content is on adult creators.

You willingly put your content on a platform minors have easy access to. Plus, you’re the adult. Responsibility is on you.

It’s a hard pill to swallow, especially since a lot of the older generation of adults didn’t take responsibility like this in the early days of the Internet. But, we should.

If you’re worried what you’re creating is going to harm minors or get you in trouble, put it behind a paywall.

(I personally have problems with adults creating NSFW art or writing involving canonically minor-aged characters from fandoms. I don’t think adult creators should be doing it, but that’s seen as a draconian mindset. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Not all NSFW content is created equal.

NSFW content is highly variable. Pornography, NSFW art, NSFW written content, adult roleplays, and NSFW fandom content each have different things to consider.

Providing pornography - video or photos of NSFW content of adults - to minors is illegal in the US. Furthermore, there’s a litany of problems in pornography alone, from derogatory slurs being used for categories to revenge porn to professional productions mistreating their workers to how not-realistic porn can actually be. It can screw with someone’s perception of what sex is if they interact with it too often and from a young age.

Laws against child sex abuse imagery (child porn) are generally limited to actual photographs or video of said content. I believe this includes manipulated images of minors, as well. Not 100% sure, though. It might vary from case-to-case and court-to-court.

Drawn NSFW content involving minor-aged characters (original or fandom) is a legal grey zone in the US, last I read.

I’ve heard of someone getting in trouble for having hentai that involved underage characters, but they were also in trouble for actual photos/videos of child sex abuse. However, there is so much of NSFW content involving minor-aged characters out there, I doubt artists are often legally challenged on this and, if they are, they can easily say “I aged them up.”

I’m not condoning this, I just know the excuses since I’ve argued against this before.

I, personally, do not think adults should be creating NSFW art or writing involving minor-aged characters, particularly in fandoms where the source is specifically created for minors.

(Which, BTW, if you’re creating NSFW fandom content for source material that is specifically minors - like My Hero Academia, My Little Pony, etc - you are encroaching on a minor-filled space with your NSFW content. Minors are not encroaching on your NSFW space. The fandom was specifically created with minors in mind, adults brought the NSFW in.)

If adult creators are going to create content like that, put it behind a paywall. That’s the best way to limit minor-aged access to it.

If you’re doing NSFW roleplay, just make sure your partner isn’t a minor or the characters aren’t underage. If your partner is a minor, you’d be tailoring NSFW content to them, which is gross and illegal in the US.

Written NSFW content varies so much. From abstract sex scenes to explicit, pretty much most of it is accessible to minors in a bookstore or thrift stores that sell books. When I was a minor, I even read vague sex scenes the YA section of my local library. (Which also meant a publishing company published the YA sex scene.)

Also, the point of the story matters; is it only for sexual gratification or is the sex a simple part of a larger story?

Seriously, not all NSFW content is created equal.

Context and content is super important!

It’s natural for minors - specifically teenagers - to be curious about sexual content. Especially in the US where our sexual education is painfully lacking. If teens feel like something is being hidden from them, they often seek it out.

Furthermore, what a parent constitutes as inappropriate for their own child(ren) varies from parent to parent.

I’m a sex-positive parent. If my kids ask, I explain sex or sex acts to them in a straightforward and age-appropriate way. I’d rather be the one to explain it to them than have them pop a term into Google.

Some parents are strictly against anything sex-related, including gender and orientation discussions.

Which means parental blocks can be super strict and include things that my partner and I think are fine for our kids to see. Such as LGBTQ+ content.

(Also, there are book bans happening in schools right now, specifically targeting authors of color, stories involving racism, and stories involving queerness. Often under the guise of “save the children” by conservative parents/organizations.)

That said, if my teenage kid seeks out NSFW content, I feel that’s to be expected. I have no problem with them finding or seeking out healthy depictions between two or more consenting adults.

HOWEVER, it’s when the NSFW content involves minors with adults, depicts unhealthy relationships, or violent scenes that it becomes a problem. And there is a lot of this sort of NSFW content out there.

I don’t want pedophilic, toxic relationships, or violence in sex being normalized or romanticized to my kids. That’s why it’s my job to discuss those topics and steer my kids away from that content, if they stumble into it.

This is why I, as a parent, am open about sex talk so my kids can come to me with questions or concerns. I even discuss shipping to help my kids understand. (EX: Why Aizawa from My Hero Academia being paired with any current students is pedophilic and not OK. This is a legit convo we’ve had. Though my kids thought the pairing was gross to begin with. lol)

That said, I’d like adult creators to take care of where they post their work, what it normalizes/romanticizes, and who can - wittingly or unwittingly - gain access to it.

As for my content...

I don’t really care if minors read my writing or look at my art. (Not that I have much NSFW of the latter, I think.)

Minors are not my target demographic and I don’t want them directly interacting (following, reblogging, commenting, etc) with my NSFW work or me.

If I begin suspecting minors are interacting with me or this particular blog - not just passively reading my content - I will block blogs.

Likewise, if I create something with sensitive content I don’t think minors should have easy access to, I’ll put it behind a paywall.

ALSO, each creator is free to set their own boundaries. These are mine, if others have more stringent boundaries, then please abide by them.

This post is not justification for minors to ignore stated boundaries. Just a further explanation of how complicated this situation can be.

Additionally, Minors creating NSFW content.

Again, NSFW content is super varied.

If minors are posting NSFW photographs or videos, that can be construed as producing child sex abuse imagery (or imagery for child exploitation.) I have heard of minors getting in legal trouble for this, specifically for sharing nudes with adults they were “in relationships” with. (Often pedophilic relationships where the adult had power over the minor.)

If you’re a minor, just don’t, OK? It’s for your safety, since your nudes/videos could be leaked against your consent to sites and they’ll be out there forever for pedophiles to exploit.

If minors are drawing or writing NSFW content, that is more complicated. Teenagers have always drawn or written NSFW content in decades past. (We even have jokes about this, like Tina Belcher’s “erotic friend fiction.”)

They just never had access to share it with a huge audience before the Internet.

The problem isn’t them creating it. It’s the potentiality of a minor being used by an adult, via sharing this content. We should keep teenagers safe so they can explore this aspect of life through relatively safe means via art or writing.

I personally do not think teenagers should be creating content with minor-aged characters, but most creators want to make stories that mirror their lives in some way, so... ugh. It’s really hard to tell a 16-year-old to not write about 16-year-olds.

HOWEVER, if you’re an adult and you know the creator of the NSFW content is a minor, stop interacting with them. Do not commission, do not comment. Leave them alone.

And absolutely do not do NSFW roleplay with minors, if you are an adult.

[miaclemeverett]

Wilbur, Fundy, and Purpled were interviewed for this great article on the Dream SMP and the Minecraft community! Full article below the cut. 

"Minecraft" launched over a decade ago and the video game is as popular as ever. With over 126 million players worldwide, the voxel-based survival game drops adventurers into a world where they can craft, build, explore, destroy, and create to their heart's content. Aided by tools, blocks, and creativity, the simple sandbox world allows anyone on PC, console, or smartphone the chance to project their own feelings and creations directly into their virtual space.

"As long as you have the mind for it, you can really just do anything," 17-year-old "Minecraft" YouTuber Purpled, who has 700,000 subscribers, told Insider. "Because of how simple Minecraft is and how easy it is to build with it, you can create whatever you want."

In recent years, Microsoft's never-ending game has evolved into a tool for content creators to express themselves, leading to high-profile collaborations with some of YouTube's biggest personalities. By creating their own private "Minecraft" servers, creators have been able to craft ornate worlds and stories that they can explore in streams and videos, immersing fans in a cinematic-style universe.

Minecraft has a long history on YouTube

"Minecraft's" versatility has made it an incredibly popular game for content creators and influencers. In 2012, a change in YouTube's algorithm promoting watch time over video clicks led to a renaissance of "Let's Players" who recorded themselves reacting and playing their favorite games. "Minecraft" was one of the most successful, spawning some of the largest channels of the time like SkyDoesMinecraft (11.3 million subscribers) and Tobuscus (6.25 million subs).

Though the popularity of "Minecraft" remained fairly steady, content about the title waned a bit over the next decade either due to content fatigue or newer titles like "Fortnite" taking the spotlight. 2020 flipped the title back into the forefront, with both streamers and YouTubers capitalizing on the title's popularity.  

The biggest breakout star for "Minecraft" in the past few years is Dream, an expert, faceless player with a neon-green avatar with over 17 million YouTube subscribers. YouTube labeled him the second overall content creator of the year and his streams consistently pull in a quarter of a million people.

In May of 2020, Dream decided to create a small, private server for his friends to play around in. This SMP server, or "survival multiplayer," started off with only a handful of content creators being invited. Soon, the server would expand to over 30 members, bringing in millions of views from fans who chronicle every moment of the lore the creators eventually created.

Viewership on Twitch of "Minecraft" content went from 17 million hours watched in January 2020 to 74 million in January of 2021, according to data from analytics company Rainmaker.gg.  

How the Dream SMP grew from a private server with friends to a cultural milestone

Purpled has been playing "Minecraft" for the past eight years and is a high-ranking player in a multiplayer game mode called "Bed Wars." He had started talking to Dream in the summer of 2019, when the pair were both small, mutual fans.

"When the SMP was in its infancy, I just asked him if there was any room because he said how it's just for friends and if a friend wants to join, they can," Purpled said. "So I asked him, he said, 'Sure.' He sent me the IP and I was in."

The server was originally just a place to create and hangout, with no intention of creating an overarching story or plot.

Fundy, a 19-year-old Dutch YouTuber with 2.7 million subscribers joined when only a handful of other creators were on."I had talked to Dream on a few occasions, out-of-the-blue Dream sent me a message about a survival world that they had going on. It was very small at first," Fundy said. "I thought it could be a fun little side-project I could stream every now and then on Twitch, so I decided to join."

Fundy joined in the early days alongside Wilbur Soot, a 23-year-old YouTuber with 3.8 million subscribers. Soot, after attempting to create an "illegal potion shop" on the server, decided to establish a nation of non-Americans players called L'Manberg. Soot said he wrote a "treatment" for how the formation of his country would go, creating an official canon that fans could follow along with.

"I was invited into the Dream SMP near its inception but I only joined fully when I had an idea for building a country in 'Minecraft'," Soot said. "I write up a series of plot hooks and points that should tie together, however we improv dialogue and comedy throughout to take us from point to point."

These streams and pieces of content all had a canon that could be followed and consumed like a television show. L'Manberg eventually started a war against Dream for its independence, staging a rebellion chronicled in YouTube videos with millions of views.

These streams and videos aren't just randoms in "Minecraft" trying to defeat the end-game Ender Dragon — these are performers putting on a show that their fans can't miss. As the lore expanded, so did the rules needed to keep a sense of continuity and order. For example, each player only has three lives before they are removed and deleted from the server.

"It went from a casual survival game to a whole story-line filled with plots and twists," Fundy said. "Role-playing at this point is a key-feature of the Dream SMP, some parts are scripted, some parts are improv, and some parts are 'non-canon,' where it is just counted as a standard 'Minecraft' server."

The fan communities have risen up and made their voices heard

Over the next few months, the lore and world would continue to grow and so would the fan base. Hundreds of thousands of viewers would tune in for these streams, trying to keep up with the lore and content. To help catalog the story, a network of fans established themselves as lore keepers, documenting each moment for those that had to miss a stream.  

The "DREAMSMP UPDATES!" account on Twitter has established itself as one of the most popular locations to find all this content and lore on social media. Starting in December 2020, the account has grown to over 147,000 users with just a team of seven administrators, ages 14-17, in different locations around the world, posting updates and stream notifications for fans. "Minecraft" is a game that appeals to all ages, but the audience for this content tends to skew younger, with 41 percent of Twitch's user base being 16 to 24, according to GlobalWebIndex.

"You can tell they're all friends and it's a lot more lighthearted in general and it shows," mod on the "DREAMSMP UPDATES!" Twitter account eclaire said over chat app Discord. "When it's not lore you see them actually having good chemistry and it really pulls you in because it almost feels like being pulled into a friend group."

User SamHQ first started the fan account with a couple of friends from high school but the group quickly expanded after the account tweeted that they needed more fans of certain streamers to join. She is online and runs the account "24/7" but "it's just like answering a text."

"When I started the account I knew lots of people who couldn't catch up because of work or school," SamHQ said. "So I gathered friends to help and now people rely on us when someone's streaming or to catch up with the lore when they can't watch."

For the fans that run the update account, keeping up with the Dream SMP isn't dissimilar to following the Marvel Cinematic Universe or a long-running television show. Characters come and go, but the improv and roleplay stay.

"The Dream SMP did something really special — taking an original idea, creating new things that have never been seen on 'Minecraft' and incorporating them with humor and characters that you can become easily attached with," mod NotAlex said.

Though other SMP roleplay servers, like EarthSMP and SMPLive, have been created over the years, none have been as successful or popular as the Dream SMP.

Finding a fan base on the Dream SMP can lead to major growth.

For the performers on the server, addressing fans and their responses comes with the territory.

"The Dream SMP viewers are very important to the Dream SMP, and the fact that they openly speak their mind about how a certain stream went only helps the streamers improve," Fundy said. "It's basically an instant review of what was liked and what wasn't."

Like most major fandoms with a young audience, fanfiction of these streamers has popped up online. Dozens of Dream fics and drawings exist online, some going a bit far and putting underage characters together. Dream responded on Twitter to those "ships," writing that they shouldn't "ship creators that are uncomfortable with it, and especially not minors."

The Dream stans, or the super fans, also tend to be very vocal online about the SMP. Hashtags on Twitter like #dreamnotfound and #dreamfanart consistently break-through to the trending page, confusing those who have no idea this world exists. The most ferocious of stans sometimes overstep the boundary between polite disagreement and outright harassment. This vocal minority has sent death threats and waves of harassment at those who criticize or disagree with their favorite content creators.  

The growth and future of these channels is in large part due to the Dream SMP server

The popularity of Dream SMP has helped grow the content creators that take part in it. Since joining the server, Purpled is gaining three times as many subscribers a month on YouTube and has been introduced to an entirely new fan base. His streams used to pull in 3,000 viewers but now his average is closer to 35,000 to 40,000 viewers.

"Some people think of them as obsessive or stalker fans, but those are people that really like to talk about certain creators and really get invested in things," Purpled said. "And it's really nice because they care a lot more and connect more with the creator than the content."

These creators understand the power of the fan base and know that they come for the content.

"I think the Dream SMP is popular thanks to the brilliant creators and funny improv moments," Soot said. "I think we'll be seeing the emergence of a huge wave of roleplay-centric gaming communities."

[calmlftv]

run away with me. - a.i.

description: after a sad and slightly messy rejection in September 2011, you and ashton meet again, the universe apparently deciding your story wasn’t over yet. 

word count: 5.4k

warnings: angst, but with a happy ending

w/n: this is.....so much longer than i thought it would be lmao, but pls enjoy! also a big thank you for getting lil ol’ me to 300 followers, i’m still in shock but so so grateful 🥺

taglist: @spicycal​ @castaway-cashton​ @irwinkitten​ @n-ctarinenga​

***

September 27th, 2011

The evening was cooler than you had anticipated, the sweat that connected your work shirt to your skin bringing a chill to your body as you walked home from work, your school bag against your shoulders and back. Your legs and feet ached from running around the retail store you worked at, tourists asking you loads of questions about sizing, pricing, and sometimes making a fuss about something out of your control entirely before storming out of the store. After the fifth customer you helped made you cry, your boss sent you to the registers, sentenced to ringing everybody out and arguing about coupons for the rest of your shift.

The few blocks between you and your bed went by quickly, your feet bringing you to the doorstep of your home just in time for curfew. You pushed your way inside and closed the door behind you, locking it like you always did before carrying yourself up the stairs. 

“Hey there, petal,” your dad greeted from the couch. “Mum’s made dinner, should be a plate set for you in the fridge.” 

“Thanks dad,” you said, forcing yourself to sound cheerful as you walked into the kitchen. “Mum in her office?” You spoke while moving about the kitchen, your backpack moving against your back as you heated up your food for yourself. You didn’t dare put it down on the ground in case your mother came in, not wanting to hear her berate you again after the day you’ve had.

Your dad stayed in his seat on the couch, whatever news channel he was engrossed in playing on the T.V. screen in front of him. “Yep. Best not to disturb her.” 

Silently you nodded, internally cheering with joy while you grabbed cutlery and left the kitchen. “Mind if I take this to my room so I can study?” 

Dad grunted an approval and off you go, quietly moving up the stairs to your bedroom, a plate of hot food in hand as you closed and locked your bedroom door. Once you had set down the food on your desk you let out a sigh, letting the bag fall off your back and land on the floor with a dull thud. You took a second to crawl into bed and bury yourself against your pillows, taking a deep breath and exhaling it as you closed your eyes. 

Silence filled your room as you relaxed from your day, the constant emotions flowing out of you as you finally had a chance to process them all. Even at the age of 16 you were good at doing that, naming emotions and processing through them before you let them go, exhaling them through your nose when you had the chance to do so by yourself. It was days like these where you silently cursed your family for moving from Hornsby to Sydney, your cell phone silent as it sat in your back pocket; your childhood friends have long since stopped talking to you, especially with how strict your parents were, and while you were making friends in Sydney, it was slow going when you had such an early curfew and so many rules to follow. 

As you were finally forcing yourself to get up, a tap against your window startled you, your head snapping over your shoulder to search for the source of the offending sound. A gasp escaped you as you watched a small pebble knock against your window, rushing over to open it and lean out the window. 

Standing below you was your boyfriend Ashton, his brown hair falling over his face as he grinned widely up at you. Quickly you waved him up, the 17 year old quickly finding hand and foot holds as he climbed his way up the side of your house. You kept an eye out for your parents until he made it to your window, his limbs fumbling through the window as he climbed inside, his foot knocking a photo off your nightstand on his way in, thankfully not breaking the frame as it landed on the carpet with him. 

You grinned, smothering a giggle as Ashton scrambled to his feet in front of you, his arms automatically sliding around your waist and pulling you close as he pressed his lips to yours. Your fingers tangled in his hair as you smiled against his lips, pulling him as close as physically possible before you broke apart. 

With a finger to your lips you moved away from him, pressing your ear against the door while Ashton carefully moved to your bed. When you didn’t hear anybody on the other side you grabbed your old iPod and speaker off your desk and set them by your door, putting on some music at a soft volume so your parents would think you were studying before moving to join Ashton on your bed, grabbing the plate of lukewarm food from your desk to share. 

Ashton took the food and set it aside, hands moving to your waist again as he pulled you into his lap, a quiet laugh coming from your lips as he kissed your cheek. 

“Hey,” you said softly, keeping your voice quiet to listen for your parents. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but what are you doing here? Does Anne know you’re here?” 

The boy chuckled, his lips moving to press kisses wherever he could reach. “Anne knows I’m here,” he mumbled, his lips finding yours again as his arms moved around your waist and gave you a squeeze. “I got tired of your parents cockblocking us, and it’s a Tuesday and I have nothing to do.” 

“What about your school work?”

Ashton pulled back and gave you a look that made you giggle. “Nevermind then.” 

He chuckled, kissing your nose as you settled against his chest. You took a deep breath, the smell of him filling your lungs as you cuddled in. Ashton was your rock, probably the only person from Hornsby that still talked to you, and was probably the love of your life. Your parents think he’s a menace and refuse to let you see him, even though they know nothing about your relationship; to them you were best friends who were polar opposites, and Ashton was the reason you didn’t fit in their ideas of perfection. A lot of the rules they imposed on you came from various times you have snuck out to see him and been caught, but the two of you always found a way to be together, even if it was as dangerous as, say, climbing into a window. 

A gentle hand cupped your cheek, tilting your head up to his as his beautiful hazel eyes smiled at you. It was like he was reading your thoughts when he looked at you like this, downloading everything about your day just by looking at you for a few seconds. 

“Bad day?” 

You nodded silently, the music pausing briefly as the song changed. Ashton paused with it, only speaking when the chorus picked up. 

“C’mon, let’s just cuddle.” 

Another nod and the two of you shifted, Ashton pulling back your blankets while you got up, putting the plate of food in your garbage and quickly disappearing into the bathroom to change before you turned the music off and climbed into bed with your boyfriend. 

Once you were settled on your side Ash crawled in after you, wrapping an arm around you as you reached over, turning off the light in your room and settling in. You turned over to face him, his arm still around you as you moved yours to rest against his chest, his lips connecting with your forehead as you buried your face against him. 

You don’t remember falling asleep but wasn’t surprised when you woke up hours later, the sounds of someone moving around your room pulling you from your sleep. You cracked your eyes open and shifted, looking at the clock on your bedside: 2:16 a.m. 

Groaning quietly you sat up, rubbing at your eyes as you felt the end of your bed dip, someone sitting down and a hand resting on your leg. You looked up and met Ashton’s eyes, a small half smile on his lips as he looked at you, the moonlight pouring in from your window lighting up the room enough for you to see him. 

“Run away with me.” 

His words rang in the air as you looked at him, still confused from your sleep. 

“What?”

“Run away with me,” he repeated, moving to be closer to you. You looked around and noticed he had packed up your duffle for you, the bag sitting under the window he had climbed in earlier, a bit of a mess around the room from him putting things in there for you. Confusion came to your face again as you met his eyes. 

“Right now?” He nodded. “Ash-”

“Hear me out,” he said sweetly, voice soft as he caught your attention. “You’re always talking about how your parents are strict and overbearing. You hate Sydney and your job.” He paused, taking your hand in his and bringing it to his lips. “We always talk about starting a life together. So, why should we wait? Why not start it right now?” 

The gesture wasn’t lost on you; as a hopeless romantic and dreamer at heart, you couldn’t help but feel appreciated and loved, this boy of your dreams sitting with you and pleading for you to be his forever absolutely tugging at your heart strings. You wanted to get up and throw your shoes and jacket on and leave forever with him, it didn’t matter where the destination was, it just mattered that you would have him with you forever. 

But your logical part kept you rooted in the bed, all the repercussions of your actions and anxiety immediately springing to the front of your mind. You were deeply and wildly in love with Ashton, but running away together? Dropping out of school and ending up somewhere with no connections? How would you live and pay for things, how would you find a good paying job to get a home? Not to mention the fact that you’re both minors, and no doubt both of your families would be looking for you the second they found out you were gone. 

You chewed on your bottom lip, Ashton’s bright smile faltering as you looked at him. Your hand squeezed his. 

“Baby,” you whispered, tears filling your eyes. You felt them start to spill down your cheeks as you licked your lips. “I can’t.” 

Ash’s brow furrowed, confusion reigning over his face as he sat back. “What do you mean?” 

“I can’t run away with you.” 

He stopped, a wave of different emotions pouring over his face as he stared at you. His eyes scanned your face as you sobbed, your gaze held by his as he tried so hard to read your mind but failed. 

“Why?” 

You let out a sob as he spoke, his broken heart escaping with the word as he said it. He wasn’t angry with you, his face unreadable as he just looked at you, waiting for an answer. 

“I-” you choked, unable to continue as you squeezed his hand. You took a moment to collect yourself as best you could, reaching up to wipe at your face. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” 

The love of your life looked at you, his face crumbling before he forced himself to hide it. The new face he had on was worse than you could have anticipated, watching him shut down in front of you as his hand slipped out of yours. 

“Ashton-”

He held up a hand silently, shifting to stare into the empty room. His elbows rested on his knees, his face burying into his hands as you started wringing your hands in your lap, sobs heaving in your chest as you pleaded with him.

“Ashton, please-” 

He stood abruptly, moving towards the window and starting to climb out again. You caught a glimpse of his face in the moonlight, tears streaking down his face as he left the way he came. 

You quickly jumped up and chased after him, grabbing his sleeve just before he got out of reach. “Ashton,” you begged, tugging him back to you. He didn’t look at you but your eyes moved to his shoulders, noticing how they shook as he silently sobbed. 

“I love you. Please, don’t leave.”

He stopped for just a moment, and in your mind you thought you were okay; you imagined him coming back into the window and the two of you crying together until you fell asleep again together, waking up at the crack of dawn to say goodbye for now and seeing each other again over the weekend. The image of you peacefully sleeping against him, cuddling up right under his chin in the way he loved gave you hope, your fingers loosening around his sleeve as he seemed to lean back towards you. 

Instead he gently pulled away from you, carefully finding the foot and hand holds again as he climbed down the side of your house, jumping the last couple of feet and shoving his hands in his pockets as he walked away from the house. You stood at your window, tears burning hot against your skin until you slammed the window shut and locked it, throwing yourself back into bed and burying your face in your pillow just in time to muffle a heaving sob, the sound echoing off the walls around you despite your best efforts to cover it. 

The rest of the night passed with you crying, drool and salty tears mixing on your pillow case until it was soaked. As the sun rose again you started to feel numb, the dawn of a new day bringing you to your bathroom to get ready for school. 

That was the last time you saw Ashton. Until now. 

**

Present Day - July 15th, 2020

“No, that’s not how that works-“ you argued, immediately being interrupted by someone on the end of the phone call, annoyance making your eye twitch. This simple phone call had meant to last a few minutes and was now reaching the half hour mark, your feet slowly pacing back and forth as the phone pinched against your ear. 

“Alright, this is what we’re going to do,” you interrupted finally, passerby giving you a strange look as they moved by you. You ignored them, focusing instead on the person on the phone. “You’re going to hold off on doing anything until I get there in a few days, and if I find out you didn’t do that, I’m going to find someone else who will. Understood?

The person on the other side was silent. “Good. Glad we had this talk.” Your thumb angrily ended the call, your feet bringing you to the corner of the closest building so you could lean up against it, head falling back against the brick as you closed your eyes and sighed. 

Ever since that night in September, your life has consistently been a smooth trek up-hill, everything coming up just fine as you kept your head down. You finished school and you were accepted to Harvard Business School, but the summer before you were set to leave brought all sorts of problems; financially, you couldn’t afford to go to Harvard, even with the considerate amount of financial aid and scholarships you won, so you had to give your spot away, heart broken about turning down your top choice. 

You somehow ended up at UCLA instead, one of the safety schools you had been accepted to with a full ride, and studied your heart out with a Linguistics and Education major instead. Moving to a whole different country was the biggest culture shock you have ever had, getting in more than your fair share of arguments over proper terms for certain things, but your studies and friends kept you occupied for most of the time, every single one of your friends cheering you on while you worked your tail off for your undergrad. 

May came and went and June crept up on you, finals and deadlines passing as you worked harder than you ever had in your life, but nothing beat the feeling of finally walking across the stage at your graduation, shaking the hands of various administrators while your family proudly beamed from the plastic chairs set up on the lawn. Photos were taken, your friends gave you tearful hugs, and you were off, moving into your own apartment the very same day, your new landlord handing you the keys with a stern ‘congratulations’ before you opened the door and carried all your things in. 

Your family stayed an extra couple days to make sure you had everything you need, another tearful goodbye at the airport following them to their gate before you finally had a chance to relax in your new home. You had a good job, you were making rent, and everything was going smoothly - until just now, the anger of the phone call still melting off of you in the hot sun as you stood up straight again, your fingers smoothing out your work shirt as you moved back into the building. 

The air conditioning hit you like a ton of bricks as you moved to your desk, thanking the person manning the phones for you during that brief period as you sat down with a sigh. You still had half a day left in your shift before you were free, and deep down all you wanted to go home and lay in bed, the silence of your apartment suddenly so inviting after the events of the day. 

An hour passed without incident, then another, until the door in front of you dinged open, your head lifting with your warm customer service smile on as a gaggle of men walked in the door. They were all laughing at something, one of them particularly tickled by whatever was said on the way in as he breathlessly laughed, short bleached hair covered slightly by a hoodie as he looked at another blonde, this one having earrings dangling down from both earlobes and a hat on his head. One with broad shoulders walked up to the desk, a smile on his lips as he ran a hand through his hair, him blocking your view of the other three as they waited.

“Hi, how can I help you?” You asked kindly as he got within earshot, your accent still quite thick when you spoke. The man seemed surprised but smiled nonetheless. 

“Uh,” he stuttered a bit as he walked up. “5 Seconds of Summer, here for an interview today?” 

You nodded, turning to the computer and confirming before looking back at the man. Something about the band name made your ears ring, a faint familiarity to it that tickled the back of your mind, something trying to nudge itself loose. 

“Yup, got you right here,” you confirmed, reaching under your desk for the cold waters you kept there in a small fridge. The man turned to his friends and lifted his hand, probably gesturing them over as you set the waters on the counter in front of you. 

“These are complimentary, hopefully helpful is battling the heat outside,” you said, not entirely looking at the men as they walked up to you. You turned and gestured where they were to go, giving them floor numbers before looking back with your winning smile. “Any questions?” 

The first man smiled and shook his head, thanking you kindly as three of them started moving. You fully turned back, shuffling your papers around on your desk as you assumed they all left, hearing their chatter fade behind you as you returned to work. 

“Y/n?”

Your heart jumped into your throat. That voice-

“Is that you?” 

Without thinking your eyes traveled upwards, meeting with a pair of hazel ones that you hadn’t seen in so, so long. It took everything within you to resist the need to touch him, to pull him close and run your fingers through his hair again as your heart absolutely ached. Ashton was standing across the desk from you, shirt open slightly and sunglasses pushed to the top of his head as you just stared. 

“Hi,” you said breathlessly, something desperate within you as you looked at him. He looked good, healthy, his hair a bit darker than you remember it being but loving it nonetheless. Looking at him filled a void in your heart you didn’t know existed, just the sight of him bringing you joy again, something that you hadn’t genuinely felt in years. The man in front of you was your one that got away, the only person you had dated in your life that truly left an impression. 

“Ashton! Let’s go!” 

The call jolted you from your thoughts, Ashton glancing towards the voice and back to you as his eyes searched your face for understanding, for anything that would give him an idea as to how and why the universe had brought you back together. He didn’t seem satisfied, his brow furrowing in confusion again as he turned to walk away. 

“Wait.” 

He paused, a blush on your cheeks as he met your eyes again. Embarrassed by your boldness you quickly took a piece of paper and jotted down your phone number and apartment address, folding it twice before handing it to him. You weren’t sure if he took the paper because he genuinely wanted to, or if it was a reflex from him being handed something, but you took it as a good sign anyway. 

“Let’s talk. Tonight. Please.” 

Silently, Ashton nodded, tucking the paper into his pocket before jogging to catch up to the other boys. You watched him go and then sat back in your chair, fighting back all the overwhelming emotions that were trying to take their place in the front of your mind. Flashes of that night came flooding back with them, your mind becoming a storm cloud of confusing thoughts and twisting tornadoes as you desperately tried to gather yourself together. 

After seeing Ashton you barely made it to the end of your shift, one single text from a new number appearing on your phone within an hour after he arrived. He said he would meet you at your place after the interview, you confirming in response with radio silence after that, your anxiety skyrocketing as you drove back home, probably breaking a few traffic laws on the way. 

When you got inside you set your things down and immediately started cleaning, tucking away anything that you didn’t want him to see and changing into more casual clothing. No new texts appeared on your phone screen, you desperately keeping an eye on the time as you tugged on an old UCLA shirt. Just as you were smoothing it out against yourself there was a knock, the sound startling you considerably as you hurried over to it. 

A quick glance out of the peephole showed Ashton standing there, looking as lovely as ever in your limited view as you unlocked and pulled open your door. 

“Hey,” you greeted softly, stepping aside so he could come in. He paused, taking you in before he slowly stepped inside, stopping just inside the doorway to take in your apartment as you closed the door. 

Silence enveloped the two of you as you once again resisted the urge to touch him, wanting nothing more than to slide your arms around him and pull him close so you could rest against him again. 

You cleared your throat as you moved in front of him, hugging yourself. “Um, would you like something to drink?” You asked, already moving towards the kitchen as he lifted a hand, scratching the back of his neck. 

“Just some water would be nice,” he said softly, a nod being his answer as you grabbed a bottle of water from your fridge. You set it on the small table made for just you and sat down, gesturing for him to join you as your knees anxiously knocked together. 

More silence fell as you looked at each other, Ashton taking the water as he just looked at you. There was tension in the air, but you couldn’t tell what kind, your fingers locking together in your lap as your thumbs pressed together. 

At the same moment you both opened your mouths to speak, chuckles falling from both of your lips as his fingers tapped against the water on the table. You could see the calluses on his fingers and palm as it moved, the man shifting slightly as he faced you. 

“You look good,” he said softly, smiling a bit. Your heart melted at the sight. “I, um, I didn’t know you worked and lived here. In LA, I mean.” 

You smiled, running a hand through your hair. “Yeah, um,” you said just as softly, your hands moving to rest on the table. “I went to UCLA. I actually just graduated from my undergraduate program last month.” 

Ashton couldn’t help but beam as you spoke, the light in his eyes igniting something with you. “Wow, that’s amazing, love,” he said sweetly, eyes focused on you. “Congratulations, that’s a huge accomplishment.” 

You smiled in thanks, your eyes falling to your hands as you nervously picked at your thumb. “Listen,” you said, clearing your throat a bit. “I wanted to apologize. I, um...I kind of broke your heart a few years ago, and that was really shitty of me.” 

Ashton looked at you with sadness in his eyes, one hand reaching to take yours and give it a squeeze. “Sweetheart-” 

“Wait,” you pleaded, eyes begging him to let you finish. He looked at you and nodded, keeping your hand in his as he ran a thumb across your knuckles. You took a deep breath before you continued, measuring your words carefully. “I know you’re going to say I have nothing to apologize for, because that’s just who you are. But I’m still wildly in love with you, Ashton.” You licked your lips, your mouth going dry as you pressed on. “I forced myself to finish school and go to uni so I could prove to myself that not running away with you at 16 was the best choice. I constantly tried to run from it, but every empty moment always had me thinking about you, and what our lives would have been like if I had agreed and had that life together like we had wanted.” 

You stopped for a second, taking a breath as you felt tears prick your eyes. You swallowed them down, refusing to get emotional. 

“I’m not expecting this to magically fix everything,” you said softly, your free hand resting on top of his. “I know I broke your heart and your trust, and I know I may never win either of those back, but I want a fresh start. I at least want to be friends, cause I can’t seem to escape you.” 

Your final words made Ashton chuckle, the man tugging on your hand as he stood up. Confused, you met his eyes, his head tilting slightly as he indicated for you to stand with him. You did so, his arms guiding yours around his neck as his own slid around your waist, the man pulling you in for a tight hug. 

The gesture brought more tears to your eyes, you fighting to hold them back until you lost, the scent of him filling your lungs just like it used to as teenagers and sending you over the edge. Your shoulders shook as you silently cried against his shoulder, his arms tightening around you as his lips moved to your ear. 

“Let it out, love, it’s okay.” 

His encouragement over your emotions brought you to gripping his shirt, arms locked around his neck as he carefully squatted and picked you up, wrapping your legs around him as he moved to sit on the couch, you crying in his lap as he settled back against the cushions. 

It felt like hours had gone by before you calmed down, your tears staining his shirt as you finally pulled back. Ashton smiled at you sweetly, lips pulled back in his classic look as his thumbs gently brushed away your tears. 

“Everything you said,” he said softly, eyes meeting yours. Now that your walls were down he finally could read you again, soaking in every ounce of you as he spoke. “I’ve felt the same. I’ve tried to find you in other people, other relationships, and it never worked out, each person just taking something from me that didn’t belong to them. I tried drowning my emotions and it only made things that much worse.” His own eyes filled with tears as he fought them back, still smiling as he pressed a kiss over your tear stained cheek. “But being here, just seeing you behind that desk...I never lost my love for you, y/n. Never.” 

Sniffling, you took in his words, awestruck that the man holding your face in his hands still loved you after years of no communication. Your mind tried to make sense of it as his lips kissed your other cheek, your hands burying themselves in his shirt as his hands moved to your waist. 

“Can we start over then?” You asked, your voice thick still from the tears. “I know we can’t pretend that life hasn’t happened, and we can’t go back in time and erase the past, but I want to start over with you. I want to start over with us.” 

He silently nodded, squeezing your sides gently. “Of course we can. I would love that.” 

Sighing in relief you sank against his chest, his hands moving to rub circles in your back as you buried yourself against him. 

“This isn’t as good as running away together,” he said softly, the words pulling a laugh from you. “But this is the next best thing.” 

“Oh shut up,” you teased, lightly swatting at his chest as you sat up again. He grinned, the expression making you laugh a bit again as you wiped at your face, sniffling as you set your hands in the space between the two of you. 

The two of you sat in silence for a while, the world outside of your small apartment waiting for you both to move on, move forward, while you both sat in place, breathing each other in and enjoying it. You only moved when Ashton’s phone dinged, a text from one of his friends pulling his attention away. 

He sighed, typing a response before he gently lifted your hand, pressing a kiss to your palm as he gingerly held your wrist between two fingers. “I have to go,” he said quietly, kissing your fingers. “Can I take you on a date this week? Maybe on Saturday night?”

You nodded silently, a smile tugging on your lips as he closed the gap between you, his hands moving to your hips as his lips connected with yours. 

The familiar feeling was sweet and gentle, lined with desperation and need as you kissed him. Your fingers tangled in his hair again, the curls resting between your fingers as you pulled yourself closer to him, his lips parting slightly as he pulled away. Both of you were breathless and smiling, Ashton gently patting your hip as you climbed off of him reluctantly. 

You walked him to the door, his hands sliding around you as he kissed you over and over again, peppering them all over your face before landing on your lips one more time. You said your goodbyes between kisses, Ashton promising over and over to take you on the best date ever until you had to force him out the door, not wanting him to be late to whatever it was he had to do as he smiled at you. 

As you were closing the door he said your name again, your head poking out as he smiled at you. 

“I love you,” he said simply, putting his hands in his pockets as he spoke. 

You blushed, the pink tint bright against your skin as you leaned out the door, a small smile tugging at your lips as you internally melted over him. 

“I love you too.” 

[a-forxst-of-musxs]

hiya!! im cherry, 26, they/them pronouns. just some rules and regulations before we get ball - rolling - so to speak.

* IMPORTANT NOTE: this blog is f i c t i o n. just because i write the following topics below, doesn’t mean i condone / partake in them.

t/boo

violence ( not too graphic )

nanny / babysitter

substances such as drugs && alcohol

manipulation type threads

teacher / student ( legal )

employer / employee

bad corrupting good

threads with age gaps (no older than 40-45 )

( * MINORS / PERSONAL BLOGS DNI !! * )

this isn’t my first blog, and it most likely won’t be my last 🤣🤣

* i have the right to block anyone within reason.

ground rules

1. first and foremost, no drama. i want no part of it. this is a safe space for anyone and everyone

2. no god modding any of my muses whatsoever. it’s a no brainer, but there’s a couple out there who still try.

3. as mentioned above, some threads include t/boo. if that’s not your thing, totally understandable. just keep scrolling along

4. all muses are 21+, so no minors allowed. i’m a grown adult, and expect all of my partners to be as well. i don’t care if you’re “mature” for your age. if you’re not 18 and over, i’m not associating with you. if you lie about your age, YOU WILL BE BLOCKED.

5. no personal blogs. if your rp blog is a side blog, please let me know l asap so i don’t accidentally block you.

6. hate will not be tolerated whatsoever. racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, etc. both in roleplay and around my blog.

7. you don’t have to follow me / be mutuals to interact. i won’t always follow back though.

8. on top of adhd and anxiety, i’m also on the spectrum, so if i ask you something more than once, please be patient with me. this also means that i tend to be selective with my replies. nothing personal, i tend to hypefocus on one thread more than the others.

9. reply lengths don’t need to match mine, though i do prefer if they’re more than one sentence.

10. i have no triggers in particular, but if you do, please let me know ahead of time before we interact. with that note, i’ll do my best to tag everything.

11. i’m primarily a mobile user, so i don’t cut posts very often. if that’s a problem for you, keep it moving.

12. please reblog from the source. the only acception is if the blog is deleted. at least send some of the memes that are reblogged.

13. there is no need to copy my format - or to use one at all! that’s just my prorogative.

14. writing smut isn’t a must. fading to black is completely valid. just please let me know beforehand.

15. no spamming my inbox (more than 5 messages per hour) or rushing me for replies. it’ll spark my anxiety, and i most likely won’t want to interact with you anymore. if it’s been a few days feel free to remind me.

16. in regards to plotting, please have something in mind already. no “whatever you want” or “up to you” .. i’ve had bad experiences where i’ve always been the one plotting and no effort has been given by the other person whatsoever.

17. no liking or reblogging threads. not only is it confusing to myself and my partners, but it’s also very disrespectful. that equals an automatic block.

aaanndd that’s it! you made it 🥳🥳🥳. happy roleplaying!! im excited to meet all of you

(( ESTABLISHED JUNE 2021. UPDATED MAY 2023 ))

RULES ARE SUBJECTED TO BE ADDED OR CHANGED AT ANY TIME

[big-girl-toaster]

Emily Sonnett - player analysis

A compilation of Sonnett‘s strengths, weaknesses (cause everyone has them) and general observations from Portland and USWNT games (mostly from 2018 and 2019) ft. my irrelevant opinion.

Enjoy!

Before I’ll start a few notes:

I’m obviously not a professional soccer analyst person or whatever, so please don’t come for my ass. These are just patterns or reoccurring things in Sonnett’s game I observed while rewatching tons of PTFC and USWNT games. 

I will focus on a few key points, that doesn’t mean that she has deficiencies in other aspects, sometimes it’s just hard to show them and I tried to avoid stating arguments without giving visual evidence. (All the links and credits are below the gifs)

I would love it if you gave additions, feedback or criticism to this post but all in all I just hope that you enjoy reading a bit about Sonnett’s more professional side and soccer tactics in general.

Please let me know if the format is weird, I’m still figuring out how to make big posts.

I sincerely apologize for the low quality of gifs, as I said, I’m figuring things out and I wasn’t able to upload proper clips.

And lastly, Sonnett is a precious little bean and I enjoyed making this more than I should have. Also, did I use this as an excuse to spend days on end rewatching old games? Yes I did.

I will start with three main strengths I think she brings to the pitch:

Communication / Leading the back line                                               (this is in regards to her position with the Thorns, I will talk about the differences between PTFC/USWNT later on)

As a center back you naturally have a more responsible role in terms of shifting players that are in front of you and communicating things to them they can’t necessarily see. Sonnett embraces that role completely and at 25 years old she is at the level of world class CBs in that regard. A lot of players take on that role much later in their career. Her college coach Steve Swanson for the University of Virginia said about her:

"There is a standard of focus and intensity that Emily demands of the players that play around her. She’s not afraid to hold her teammates accountable in that regard. That was one of the unique aspects of our team dynamic this year, is that Emily's style of leadership is different than the team was used to. I think the team has recognized that the qualities Emily has, we need.“

http://www.espn.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/14100802/virginia-emily-sonnett

This clip I wanted to show you is from a situation that is very common for a defensive line but overlooked bc we as viewers naturally tend to look at the movement of the ball. It’s the intentional shifting of the back line in the exact right moment to let an opposing attacker run into offside. In the original video you can hear Sonnett shout “DROP THE LINE“ and Menges and Kling follow her movement which results in Alex being successfully caught offside at the side line. 

((Tumblr won’t let me upload video clips, so here’s a crappy gif (look at Sonny and Menges), click the link to get to youtube, it’s at 21:30))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JGM6Nju0b4

A simple moment but a very crucial part of back line coordination.

      2.    Box positioning

A.k.a. one of the most important parts of good defending. Sonnett covers runs from attackers almost always with textbook precision. She anticipates passes and is able intercept balls which makes her a proactive rather than a reactive player. When she does have to go for a tackle she brings a feistiness that she probably learnt from a certain Kelley O’Hara I can imagine. She usually opts for slide tackles and that decision could be debatable if you’re the coach but it’s just so good to look at tbh

(credit to @geekmythologys for the last gif)

But anyway, her box positioning. Having watched a lot of games with my eyes glued to number 16, I can of course safely say that Sonnett knows what she’s doing. But I’ve been thinking more and more that she often has a sort of intuitive approach when it comes to box positioning in particular. For this next clip I’m gonna need your opinion. Normally I wouldn’t tell Sonnett to abandon her player in that moment, especially bc it creates a 3v2 situation on the attackers left side and also considering the angle in which Dunn is facing the goal. However, she steps in and is able to block the ball.

to see it properly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ev3SFCmbqQ  at 15:40

What do you think?

Oh and this is just excellent clearance work. AD was certainly hyped about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvcOuadyFu4

    3.   Offensive effort

Sonnett is one of the highest scoring CBs of the league but her offensive efforts aren’t measurable in just goals. For corner kicks she likes to do the near-post run Julie Ertz style and has been successful in the past, most notably the 2-0 in the semifinal 2017 against Orlando (which resulted in this gem of a gif):

She likes to stay up top for a bit when her position is covered by someone else and tbh I’m living for these moments.

Here she encourages quick playing and would have gotten through with it if the nwsl had good refs. She didn’t even touch her. (get it? haha) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOIDLJ4ZL1A

Here she drives the ball after winning it, even if her teammates are pushing up late and then she stays up front to participate in the counter attack. Unfortunately nothing evolves out of this situation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ev3SFCmbqQ

Right. Those were the strengths, in terms of weaknesses, I don’t wanna pick apart the smallest things but this is what I found:

Misjudged midfield positioning

We’ve talked about her excellent positioning in the box, however, a huge part of modern soccer is having the Center Backs pushed up to the half-line (as well as inverted outside backs but that’s another point). And what I’ve noticed is that sometimes during turnovers Sonnett goes in to put pressure on the player and with that an even wider space opens up behind her that the opposing team could exploit. Like in this picture.

Blue is the ball movement, red (Sonnett) goes in when in my opinion green (Lindsey) should have been the one putting pressure on the ball bc now Daly can run into that open space. 

Luckily Sonnett’s speed prevents Houston from getting anything out of it but Daly tried it several times during the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOIDLJ4ZL1A

My second example is that iconic tactical foul against ARod that we all remember.

Her positioning isn’t optimal, Klings pass isn’t the best, ARod gets her off of the wrong foot, she can’t turn around fast enough and has to stop her with a professional foul which is (I’ll say it again) demanded by coaches in situations like that. But anyway, tumblr has talked enough about this game rip

      2. Determining the biggest threat

This is a minor one, because Sonnett is usually really good at reading the game and making the right decisions. However in this game against Australia, she tries to cover the space behind Dahl which is technically reasonable but considering how wide open the Australian is, she should have closed her in earlier. That little hop inside the center of the field made the difference and the opposing player was able to score. 

I think it’s safe to say that stuff like this comes with age and experience. And again, Sonnett is only 25!

(The whole game against Australia is awesome for spotting strengths and weaknesses, plus we get tons of Sonny close-ups thus I can recommend rewatching it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBNvE3owllY

Two more things I wanted to include are two risks that could be relevant in the future.

From time to time she doesn’t control her arm movement in the box.

This is obviously the natural thing you do when you make a move like that but with the new rules by Fifa, defenders are more and more limited and this would have been a penalty if it had hit her arm. Idk it could bite her in the ass at some point.

      2. Intuitive positioning 

We’ve talked about this and people might have different opinions on it. I personally think though that this might make the difference between a great and a world class defender. So I say go for it Sonny.

Phew, I’m almost done guys, congrats for getting this far, I hope it’s interesting at all.

The last thing I wanna mention is this: The difference between Portland Sonnett and National Team Sonnett, a.k.a. CB Sonnett and RB Sonnett.

Even though as a right back your role is more offensive, I feel like Sonnett has to be pushed to go for it. She rarely does those runs in behind the winger and towards the end line. When she does it it’s great but compared to Kelley she simply isn’t there yet. It also seems to me like for Portland she takes more liberties in pushing forward which maybe is a confidence thing as well. She is a given for the Thorns but had to fight to regain that roster spot for the NT in 2017 after not being called up for several months. Maybe the fear of making mistakes bc of being out of position hinders her a bit? (I’m saying this while being aware that I of course don’t know what the coaches want her to do and what the different game plans require of her.) Anyway, I love her 1v1 defending as RB. I think she is underrated and absolutely deserves a spot on the Olympic roster next year. 

One last low quality gif because we gotta stay on brand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBNvE3owllY

Well that’s it, I hope you enjoyed it. Again, I’d be grateful for additions, opinions, feedback, whatever. 

Thanks for reading :)

[adrianodiprato]

+ “Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.” Dame Jane Goodall DBE | English Primatologist and Anthropologist

Educational Spring | Wellness by Design®

Yesterday a friend sent me a message about an encounter they had with one of my ex-students at a recent dinner party. This ex-student mentioned the impact that I had on a number of his friends, his words were “you have no idea how many he stopped from suiciding just for being there and being him”. I’m not sharing this message to brag, I am sharing this insight into the true value of teachers and learning communities that operate from a human-centred learning ecosystem design. People need people. Every individual matters.

This got me thinking about what really matters. It amplified for me that the real pandemic of our industrial model of schooling is the growth in mental illness amongst young people. Additionally, COVID-19 sharply illustrated the truth of inequity in our system, especially with reference to the digital divide. According to Pasi Sahlberg from the Gonski Institute for Education, the pandemic has unearthed this unpleasant truth, "The education system has unequal structures that have become visible now through this remote online learning period."

So, what if we placed wellness at the centre of our society? What if we made it central to the objectives of learning? What is the interconnected relationship between character, competency and wellness within a whole education? What might be the global context for this?

The World Economic Forum has explored whether gross domestic product is still a relevant measure of a population’s wellbeing for many years. Looking at what alternatives could offer as mega trends such as climate change, demographic shifts, rapid urbanisation, moves in economic power, resource scarcity and swift advancements in technology innovations reshape our world.

In an interview with the BBC Radio 4 in May 2019, Lord Richard Layard, a Program Director at the London School of Economics and the Vice Chair of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics, advocated that wellbeing should replace growth as main aim of UK spending. His group drafted a wellbeing report for the UK government, setting out proposals including a bigger budget for mental health, a strategy to improve the wellbeing of children in schools, and more spending on further education for people who don’t go to university.

Australia also performs very well in many measures of wellbeing relative to most other countries in the OECD Better Life Index. Australia ranks at the top in civic engagement and above the average in income and wealth, environmental quality, health status, housing, jobs and earnings, education and skills, subjective well-being, social connections and personal security. Having said that, mental illness remains a serious issue. One in five (20%) Australians aged 16-85 experience a mental illness in any year. Data from the 2014 Mission Australia’s Youth Survey showed that around one in five (21.2%) of young people (15-19 years old) met the criteria for a probable serious mental illness.

Learning Creates Australia recently highlighted the current measures of success and achievement in schooling are causing barriers to excellence rather than leading to excellence in learning outcomes as highlighted below:

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wants to transform its politics to focus on empathy, kindness and wellbeing. After talking about “doing things differently” with a “well-being budget” at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January 2019, Jacinda Ardern’s New Zealand government in May of the same year unveiled its plans to make that strategy a reality.

This move toward a greater commitment toward the health and wellness of communities is not limited to New Zealand. The United Arab Emirates has a Minister of State for Happiness and a National Programme for Happiness and Positivity. It has an agenda that is based on three pillars: inclusion of happiness in the policies, programmes and services of all government bodies and at work, promotion of positivity and happiness as a lifestyle, and development of benchmarks and tools to measure happiness.

Gross National Happiness (GNH) is a philosophy that guides the government of Bhutan. It includes an index which is used to measure the collective happiness and wellbeing of a population. Bhutan measures this collective happiness and wellbeing via a Gross National Happiness index over nine domains as illustrated in Figure 1. 

Figure 1: Bhutan Gross National Happiness Index

Dream a Dream is a not-for-profit organisation in Delhi, India positively impacting on the lives of young people from vulnerable backgrounds to overcome adversity and flourish in a fast-changing world. One key aspect of their work is the development and implementation of a Happiness Curriculum. The curriculum aims to equip students with skills so that they can better deal with anxiety and stress while thinking critically.

The 45-minute class starts with a meditation session, after which students read and listen to one another’s stories. In addition to textbooks, street plays and yoga serve as teaching tools. The curriculum has been implemented in at least 1,024 Delhi government-run schools, affecting more than 1 million students to date. “In a year and a half, we have already started observing minor but beautiful, positive changes in the relationship of the child and the teacher,” Vishal Talreja Co-founder says. “We have children coming forward and saying, ‘I look forward to coming to school.’”

The Dream a Dream Happiness Curriculum is becoming a model that other governments are promising to replicate in their countries’ classrooms. Countries such as Colombia, UAE, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

It is increasingly becoming clear that the main goal of governments is the overall wellbeing of its citizens. Their resources need to be more wisely spent based on what really matters most for the entire human experience. This also presents a real challenge for the entire education sector and makes a strong case for the moral imperative to curate a human-centred Wellness by Design® learning ecosystem.

Will Richardson, Co-Founder of The Big Questions Institute believes “in school, we seem to think learning happens only when it’s age-grouped and graded, or when it’s chunked into time blocks and subjects and meets some predetermined outcomes. Students have “learned” it seems only when they have consumed a mandated bucket of information or content and been tested to make sure they consumed it adequately.”

We have got to stop the testing hamster wheel that burns out children. We cannot and will not continue to be terrorised by the dreaded ATAR, an overbearing student ranking system that ends the careers of school leaders and teachers and drives up anxiety levels in young people. Figure 2 highlights that 64% of those living in inner regional areas and only 40% for those living in very remote regions complete Year 12. Of course, there are other factors impacting on these statics of those in disadvantaged areas, nonetheless the numbers are damming of our current infatuation with an out-dated, one-size fits all industrial model of schooling.

Figure 2: Geographical impact on education attainment rates1

Daniel Koretz, one of the America’s foremost experts on educational testing, argues in The Testing Charade that the whole idea of test-based accountability has failed—it has increasingly become an end in itself, harming students and corrupting the very ideals of teaching. Pressure to raise NAPLAN and ATAR scores dominates much of Australia’s education today. More often than not standardised tests shape what is taught and influence what we value as assessment. In many schools, we seem to think learning happens when it doesn’t look like real life. During the pandemic with the transition online, we’ve been reminded of those things that we value most: relationships, community, the curiosity of young people, and the power of real, authentic self-determined learning.

Please do not interpret my shift in emphasis as denouncing the value of literacy or numeracy data. Not at all. Of course, they have a place in supporting student growth, not just definitions of achievement. Nonetheless quantification measures like NAPLAN and the ATAR have assumed an importance beyond their ability to truly judge and paint the whole picture of each individual.

By its very nature, a crisis turns everything on its head. So now that everything has changed, why not take the opportunity to guide the development of a new culture? Director and Founder of Leading Thinking International, Kathleen Donohoe in a recent post titled Is educational policy constraining a renaissance in education? stated, “Age old traditions such as school times, compulsory hours, the definition of attendance, recognition, reporting and feedback on learning and the definition of student engagement are following the fate of blackboards and chalk, requiring the reimagination of policy, process and procurement.”

We’ve been paralysed in schooling for far too long, educating by living in the world without truly feeling. Now, acutely, we feel that need for an evolution and move toward the next normal. As we grow out of the pandemic, we need to recognise that this is our Educational Spring. It could happen, but it might not. There will be enormous pressure to forget this educational spring moment and go back to the old ways of experiencing schooling life. History is happening right now.

A clear feature of all the models we shared in our Continuous Learning Toolkit | Volume II – Leading Through Crisis has been an explicit focus on wellness. While some have viewed the use of technology as a distraction, the application of technology during COVID-19 has been an opportunity to prioritise wellness into all aspects of planning and scheduling. This new normal of schooling is based on a shared understanding of the significance of the interdependence of learning and wellness as we support each young person to flourish in this new world environment. It requires us to map the connectedness of a whole education for character, competency and wellness. It brings into sharp focus self-direction, self-determination and self-regulation as critical dimensions in fostering the development of resilient, resourceful and independent learners equipped with the adaptive expertise and self-efficacy to thrive in their world. Let us all build back better, with Wellness by Design®.

To prepare today’s learners to thrive in this new world environment, a whole new Wellness by Design® framework is needed. At the centre of this framework must be an explicit purpose-driven social contract based on the reality that all young people are home to a life, and that individual and collective wellness encompass all dimensions of life within any community.

For learning communities, a positive sense of individual wellness supports a base for rich learning growth and achievement, that enables all learners to thrive throughout their time at school and beyond. Wellness and the full flourishing of the individual cannot be separated from learning. Post COVID-19 we have the powerful potential to positively disrupt education forever, and the key is a genuinely human-centred reimagining. Therefore, it is imperative that any continuous learning competency framework for all school communities, needs to develop a learning ecosystem model that Equips the Learner, Empowers the Learner and Enables the Learner, positioning wellness at the heart of school life.

A focus on wellness is imperative now more than ever before - and I’m not talking about a visit to a day spa or a regular massage (although self-pampering is always welcomed). Wellness by Design® refers to a sense of wholeness and connection that entails personal growth, character and competency, healing from the residual of one’s past, and integration of self-worth and agency.

Maintaining personal wellness often requires commitment and significant effort. Through acknowledging our whole selves, not just the parts we think are amazing, but our blind spots, we become better equipped to connect with the other, which further opens up ways of our social, cultural and spiritual awareness.

So, in the context of schooling, how do we truly meet this moment? It is time to shift the emphasis, the investment from the seduction of just academic prowess and league tables achievement. It is time for learning communities to amplify the central position of Wellness by Design® as we support each young person to move from resilience to the power of resourcefulness of self-efficacy, personal aspiration, adaptive expertise, agency and advocacy.

We need to consider the role of personal goals, challenging assumptions, cognitive flexibility, courage over fear, emotional regulation and self-determination in supporting young people to flourish for their future. All fostered in a school ecosystem that values high (wellness) support as much as high (academic) expectations. A school that explicitly cultivates relationships that give each young person a profound sense of psychological safety, where they are known, valued and loved, through an authentic feeling that someone has their back and always in their corner. After all, we all need a champion.

It may seem counter-intuitive to put wellness at the centre and allow it to permeate throughout the whole of learning instead of confining it to a box of its own, and attending to it as an afterthought, but if we are not well, then how are we to thrive? How are we to make progress? How are we to succeed?

It’s time for us to create Wellness by Design®

References

Koretz, D. (2017). The Testing Charade. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Seligman, M. (2011). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being. New York: Free Press.

Southwick, S. M., & Charney, D. S. (2018). Resilience: The science of mastering life’s greatest challenges. 2nd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.

1   Commonwealth of Australia. Commonwealth Government (2019). National regional rural and remote tertiary education strategy: final report. Page 13. Year 12 rates are for people aged 19. Tertiary qualifications are for people aged 25-34 years. Remote includes Remote and Very Remote Categories. Any tertiary education qualification includes VET in Schools. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2016) Census of Population and Housing.

15   Financial Review, May 29, 2018.

16   Mission Australia (2017). Youth Mental Health Report: Youth Survey 2012-2016. Page 12.

[scarletmansion]

callout for thekdo. tw for pedophilia

I normally dont like callouts but recently me and the other people endangered by thekdo have been talking about his actions alot, and realizing we need to write one to keep minors on this site safe. he displays pedophilic behavior and has sexually harassed multiple minors in the 13-16 age range multiple times. full callout below the cut, with proof.

We first met thekdo via a discord server started by a tumblr user we all followed (who does now not run the server anymore, and is modded by me and some other people.) . He became closer friends with some of us in discord DMS, and said some creepy stuff to us. To protect the identities of the other people involved, there are 5 people i will mention under the following names/colors:

Me, Barb (13 at the time)

Red (15)

Blue (13 at the time)

Green (minor)

Yellow (minor)

Thekdo (21 at the time, most likely 22 now)

let’s start off with the creepy stuff he said to me, here:

https://imgur.com/a/XzQOc

he would also send me nsfw images of fictional characters.

but that wasnt the worst of it, he also said alot of things to Red:

https://imgur.com/a/bnI6P

https://imgur.com/a/IktaA

and some stuff he said to Yellow:

https://imgur.com/a/Dc924

and some stuff he said to Green:

https://imgur.com/a/13F7T

and some stuff he said to Blue:

https://imgur.com/a/TpUgL

so eventually Red spoke up in the admin channel about this and we banned him from the server and all of us cut contact with him. This was back in August of 2017.

Now we’re going to skip ahead to ~2 weeks ago, AKA March of 2018.

I suddenly got this ask in my inbox:

I never answered this ask, I thought it may have been my ex. Then the following day, I get this ask: http://nanashi.cyberlove.us/post/171549262354/i-miss-you

So he sends me a message (apparently I had him unblocked for some reason) and we have this conv:

https://imgur.com/a/VzfD3

and a while after this, in April of 2018, so yesterday when this post was written, all of us who he interacted with form a group chat and we talk about all the shit he did, and decided on writing this. For your own safety, please:

block him. he is a dangerous person towards minors, a general creep, and just nasty. He is 21. He should know better.

reblog too, if you could, and thank you for your time.

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: 80s Night in Brooklyn; Jets Flying; Get A. Dell – December 2

Columbus beat Anaheim 4-2 on Friday night in big thanks to the line of Pierre-Luc Dubois, Artemi Panarin, and Josh Anderson. The three of them were involved in the team’s first three goals, with Panarin and Anderson managing one each. They dominated possession – each forward was above 65 percent – continuing their solid play. In a small sample this year going into Friday’s matchup, the trio was bordering at percent possession (72 minutes played), and nearly 70 adjusted shot attempts per 60 minutes. Those are monster numbers. I’m very interested to see how they perform over the long-term. This is only about six games’ worth of ice time, so no determinations should be made yet, but this is a great start for the trio.

Of course, we can’t forget about the inept Columbus power play. They did score tonight, but went 1-7 overall, and the one goal was a breakdown off the rush created by Dubois. It’s not like they were moving the puck with efficiency. Here’s a stat for you: in the 11 seasons of data we have since the start of 2007-2008, going into Friday’s action, this year’s Columbus team was last in goals per 60 minutes while on the power play. The gap between them (3.02) and fourth (the 2016-17 Avalanche at 4.35) was larger than the gap between 4th and 47th (the 2013-14 Jets at 5.67).

*

It might look like the Rangers blew out the Hurricanes at MSG on Friday, but it was a one-goal game with 135 seconds left in the third period. Michael Grabner scored two (yes, two) empty-net goals for the hat trick. Paul Carey added a late power-play goal to give us the 5-1 final.

We probably should have known early on we were in for weird things in this game: Scott Darling allowed an early second-period goal to David Desharnais while the diminutive centre was forechecking on the penalty kill. Well, “allowed” a goal might be generous:

darlingggg pic.twitter.com/T10rCmR9DT

— Michael Clifford (@SlimCliffy) December 2, 2017

Remember, it was just a little over a week ago the Carolina starter whiffed on the puck that was dumped in on him by Mika Zibanejad. Darling is probably just happy to get away from the Rangers.

Grabner is on pace for some history:

Six empty net goals his season for Grabner. Just three off Pavel Bure’s record of 9.

— Adam Herman (@AdamZHerman) December 2, 2017

Ryan McDonagh returned from his strain in this game and played just under 23 minutes, adding an assist and five blocked shots. He was back on the second PP unit, so it seems he’s going to be used as he ever has right out of the gate.

*

Aaron Dell faced 40 shots in San Jose’s game against Florida and stopped 39 of them for the win on Friday night. That’s his second win this week thanks to Martin Jones cropping up with a minor injury. Dell’s save percentage is now a stout .933 on the season, and .931 for his career in 30 games (24 starts). Should anything happen to Jones at any point, the Sharks seem to be in good hands. Small sample size alert, as always.

Jones may be ready to go Saturday night. If he’s healthy, he’ll get the bulk of the starts. However, if you picked up Dell for the week, the Sharks have another back-to-back next weekend. It’s prudent to hang on to him for now until we get more news on Jones, or if you need a likely home start next weekend in a winnable game (Minnesota and Ottawa are coming to town next Saturday and Sunday).

*

It was old-fashioned 1980’s night in Brooklyn as Ottawa skated away with a 6-5 win.

Sure, we could talk about Anders Lee’s two-goal game (now 15 on the year), or Ryan Dzingel’s two-goal game, but Thomas Chabot had a goal and two assists.

Don’t get too excited about Chabot just yet. Yes, great fantasy production in this one, but he played the least of any Ottawa blue liner (15:23). He could play his way up the lineup, but with Erik Karlsson, Dion Phaneuf, and Cody Ceci all being clearly ahead of him on the coach’s depth chart, ice time will be sparse. The future is bright, just don’t get too hopeful for this year.

Mike Hoffman had a goal, his ninth of the year, and the fourth on the power play. He’s now fallen off a 300-shot pace (297 to be exact), but it appears he should get his usual 25-30 goals and 60-ish points.

*

Pittsburgh went into Buffalo and embarrassed the Sabres. Honestly, I’m just tired of talking about Buffalo. Their offence is horrific and there’s not much hope it’ll improve this year unless they go on a shooting binge. If this team is going to win some games, it’ll be grinding out 2-1 and 3-1 scores. Good luck with that.

Evgeni Malkin returned from injury and assisted on Jake Guentzel’s goal, his 12th of the year. Guentzel is back to shooting 18.5 percent, which is actually below his mark last year. Hopefully the trio of those two with Phil Kessel stick together; going back to last year, that specific three-man group has the highest expected goals of any Pittsburgh forward trio that doesn’t feature Crosby, meaning they do better than with Patric Hornqvist or Bryan Rust or whomever.

Tristan Jarry managed the 31-save shutout here. Does Pittsburgh ever not churn out a franchise goalie?  

*

Winnipeg went idGod mode on Vegas in the third period of their game scoring five goals in the final frame to manage a 7-4 win over the Golden Knights.

At the morning skate, Patrik Laine talked about not having much confidence right now, which naturally translated to a one-goal, two-assist, five-shot night for the teenage Finn. I have more on him down below.

Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele, and Kyle Connor had three goals and eight points. The broadcast intimated that Wheeler is closing in on Ilya Kovalchuk for the franchise lead in assists. I suppose it matters what iteration of the Jets franchise you mean.

Colin Miller continued his solid play for the Golden Knights, picking up a goal and an assist. Out of the four Vegas d-men who have been regulars most of the year, Miller leads them in adjusted on-ice possession, shot attempts against per minute, and expected goals against at five-on-five. I’ll give you one guess who led the Bruins blue line in all these categories from 2015-17.

*

Tyler Toffoli scored twice in Los Angeles’ 4-1 win over St. Louis. He now has 13 goals on the year. Not only is he rebounding, he might set a career-high. Hopefully you smart fantasy owners weren’t scared off by one bad year.  

Here’s the concern: this is five straight games with less than 16 minutes in ice time. I would feel a lot better about Toffoli getting to 30 goals if he were playing 17 minutes a night rather than 15. They’re really trying to spread the scoring and ice time out. Good for the team but bad for fantasy.

*

There really wasn’t much to talk about in the New Jersey-Colorado game. As I finish this write-up, there’s 13 minutes left in the third and there are 38 combined shots. Nail Yakupov started the game on the top line with Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen but JT Compher was eventually moved into his spot. I suspect that’ll just be a rotating opening until Gabriel Landeskog returns from his suspension.

The game finished with 44 combined shots. 

****

By the time Monday rolls around, a lot of teams will be around the 26-28-game mark which puts us one-third of the way through the season. It seems like only yesterday we were cursing Vadim Shipachyov being sent down to the AHL for the first time.

There are some stories that have come to the forefront over the course of the season that are very pertinent to fantasy owners. Aside from “Edmonton: Bad?” and “Vegas: Good?”, here are some I’m monitoring from a fantasy aspect in both the short-term and over the rest of the year.

  Going into Friday night’s game, Patrik Laine was on pace for 36 goals this year. He scored 36 last year. If he can get to 36 goals this season, he’ll be one of five NHLers ever to score at least 35 goals in each of their age-18 and age-19 seasons, and only he and Sidney Crosby will have done so outside of the 1980s.

Doesn’t feel like he’s having that kind of season, or start to his career, does it?

Two problems are cropping up here, and they’re related. First: he’s only seen 15:04 per game in ice time over the team’s previous 10 games. That’s not good for production. Second, since Mathieu Perreault’s return, the team is really spreading around power-play time:

file under: concerning left pic, PP TOI/game with Perreault out, right pic PP TOI/game with Perreault back pic.twitter.com/dWsDiN6CgA

— Michael Clifford (@SlimCliffy) November 29, 2017

That affects everyone, but Laine in particular needs power-play time if he’s going to live up to fantasy expectations. He has six PP goals, and that’s good! But if the team really spreads out the PP TOI, him keeping up that goal-scoring pace will be hard, given he won’t be picking up five-on-five minutes, apparently. His future is extremely bright, but the concerns for full fantasy value this year are valid.

*

For a few years, the only thing that was really missing from the Hurricanes roster was a goalie who wouldn’t consistently lose them games; from 2014-17, the team was last in the NHL in five-on-five save percentage, but were 12th in adjusted corsifor percentage. Carolina was playing well, but the goaltending was bad, and the playoff drought continued.

Then, in the 2017 offseason, they signed Scott Darling. Hurrah! Everything’s fine! Unless, that is, Darling doesn’t perform to expectations, which he hasn’t.

He’s improved slightly over his previous 10 games, posting a .911 save percentage in November (it was .897 through October). However, the team is now nearly mid-pack in goals per game. They’re finally scoring enough to win games. If Darling can at least be average, with how good this team is defensively, those with suffering plus/minus ratings will (hopefully) right that stat for those in fantasy leagues using them. We’ll see. 

*

Finally, I wonder if people are noticing Chicago’s resurgence. For those that follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed me talk about this. For anyone who hasn’t, this team is in the midst of a turnaround.

Remember, remember… November 5th was the first time this year Brent Seabrook played under 20 minutes in a game. He’s played under 20 minutes in 10 of 11 games since and including that day, averaging under 18 minutes. In the team’s first 14 games, when Seabrook was playing his typical workload, they were 28th in adjusted shot attempts allowed, with only Anaheim and New Jersey worse, and 16th in adjusted corsifor percentage. In the 11 games since his workload was reduced, and guys like Gustav Forsling and Jan Rutta were given a bigger role, the team is 20th in adjusted shot attempts allowed, and 1st in corsifor-percentage. That’s big.

Seabrook has been declining for a few years now, and his reduced role (obviously) is far from the only factor here. If the team can keep improving defensively, however it should only help Corey Crawford’s goals against average. 

  ****

To the above point. Crawford’s numbers could only improve if he’s healthy, which…

Goaltender Jean-Francois Berube has been recalled from the IceHogs and the #Blackhawks have placed goaltender Corey Crawford on injured reserve. #Blackhawks

— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) December 1, 2017

That’s not good. Hopefully it’s nothing too long-term. Anton Forsberg would be the guy to grab for now. There was no solid update on what, exactly, is wrong with Crawford. 

‘Hawks fans and fantasy owners will remember a few years ago when Crawford “missed a step” at a Rise Against concert, and ended up missing a few weeks with foot injury. About that…

Oh my god pic.twitter.com/uhpd2x2LDU

— ABL Insider Dinger (@atf13atf) December 1, 2017

Now, Chicago was playing on Thursday night so he probably wasn’t at the concert. Still, the coincidence is phenomenal. 

from All About Sports http://www.dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-80s-night-in-brooklyn-jets-flying-get-a-dell-december-2/