#Lead Generation Toronto

[eyes-above--the-waves]

The announcer described the Tampa game as an "dramatic comeback", but I misheard it as a "traumatic comeback", and honestly...am I wrong?

[sresultsmedia]

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[cuteandhughesy]

Us. | William Nylander

summary: you work as one of the assistant chefs for the toronto maple leafs organization, often taking charge and helping with team buffets and meetings. your job is hectic and crazy and you wouldn’t give it up for the world. william nylander can relate, and his role on the toronto maple leafs is his top priority. when the two of you end up falling for one another - and being pushed away from each other, the job becomes more complicated.

5.5k

warnings: SFW! pre-established relationship | angst | brief mean!william | kissing | suggestive themes | read at your own discretion

a/n: based off this request! I went a little off topic with the plot, but the general idea is very much inspired by the anon request! this fic moves between past and present timelines, so if the paragraphs are in italics, it is my way of writing in the past! I hope you all enjoy :)

link to masterlist

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when you applied to culinary school, you never thought your journey would lead you to your current position. of course when studying to be a professional cook you are aiming to work in the field, no matter the level of hierarchy you end up at - but you never thought you'd get this lucky.

at just 23 years old and 5 months fresh out of culinary school, you were hired to work as one of the assistant chefs for the toronto maple leafs culinary team. getting hired at such a prestigious job at your age was very uncommon, and when you'd gotten the classic you're hired phone call, you initially thought it was your younger brother trying to play a prank on you.

news flash it wasn't your brother and now you're 3 months past your first day on the job.

throughout the first few weeks of your job, you were understandably nervous. your head chef had 30 years of experience, you were cooking for athletes with very strict and varying diets, and you were new. thankfully that very first week, the leafs were on the road, so you had time to train and meal prep in a somewhat relaxed environment.

you spent more time with the players than you were expecting to, which although was surreal was also very nerve wracking, and you were scared one of them wouldn't like the way you scrambled eggs and throw them back in your face. when damien - your head chef - assigned you to work the buffets for team meals, that egg fear became even more intense.

but you were pleasantly suprised with how nice everyone was. you had heard rumors about professional athletes and how they were rude and ignorant, angry if they didn't get their way, but the toronto maple leafs players were just the opposite. sure, some of them were quiet and particular about food, but they are just professional athletes who want to preform their best at any means necessary - you didn’t take offence to that.

in the 3 months you had been organizing and running team meals, you've learned a lot about the players. you've noticed that jake mccabe never fails to tell you a dad joke when he sees you, and how mitch marner always complains about being full but never fails to come up for seconds. you notice how joseph woll is always the last player to serve himself, and how david kampf, no matter how he feels, always smiles and uses manners with him.

but who's habits you've really noticed over the course of your time as an assistant chef is william nylander's. in fact, it's not just his habits that you see, but it's everything else too. the way at breakfast he always struggles between choosing sausage or bacon, and how he's never shy about asking for food he doesn't see on the table - which at first had you taken back, but now it's something you look forward to.

you stand behind the buffet table with ridged shoulders. your eyes are moving over everything at a rather frantic pace. it's your first time on the buffet table and to say you were nervous was an understatement. not only was this the first time you would be seeing the mouths you were cooking for, but it was one of your first shifts out of training.

as players slowly filtered through the doors of the dining room and gathered their serving of breakfast food, you've been consistently on edge. you were constantly checking that everything look presentable and that it was all stocked.

"do I feel like sausages or bacon?"

the question has you snapping out of the frantic organizational process going on in your head. you look up to see a tall, blonde and presumably hockey player. even though you've lived in the city you whole life, you’ve never followed sports. sure you know famous athletes names from the press, but you'd never be able to put a name to one's face.

you blink, "sorry?"

finally the man in question looks away from the meat options and you're immediately taken back. he's very handsome - a mature handsome that has you feeling petite and giddy.

the corner of his lip quirks up. "I don't know if I want bacon or sausage, so I was thinking out loud."

you blush, "oh, i'm sorry. I thought you were talking to me."

"I think i'm feeling bacon." he shrugs, but he makes no move to plate the food, his eyes still on you. "unless you think I should go with sausage."

you lick your lip, moistening the rather dry skin. "well I always think if you're second guessing your first choice, maybe the second choice is the one you're truly needing."

the blond hums thoughtfully, "that's smart." with that he grabs three round breakfast sausages and loads them onto his plate. the remaining sausages slide down from the loss of the ones he took, and your itching to reach for the tongues and adjust them again.

"you must be new."

you exhale shakily, "is it that obvious?"

he shrugs again, a smile still on his round face. he moves onto the eggs, using the tongues to grab some of the over easy style and adds them to his plate. "i'm william."

"y/n." you nod professionally and politely. "i'm the new assistant chef and the new director of  the dining hall and menus."

"so, y/n, you're saying this isn't the only team ill see you?" william is now moved onto the display of fresh cut fruits, and he's taking a dent sized amount of orange slices. you'd think his question was one stemmed from disappointment if it wasn't for william's playful smile and the twinkle in his eyes.

you find yourself smiling as well. "no it's not."

"good."

since that very first meeting between you both, you and william found yourself in this dance of sorts, where the two of you would move around one another in ways to complete the other. you and william just worked.

once you were aware of william's lighthearted, carefree personality, you embraced his teasing remarks and sultry smirks. you'd look forward to taking his orders and serving his food, and he look forward to you as well.

william was instantly attracted and impressed by your work ethic and skills, especially at your age. he had seen chefs in this organization who took years before reaching your levels, and he couldn't help but grow enamoured for you.

what started as friendly banter and conversation slowly evolved into something more flirtatious- intimate.

william would make a point to wait around after meals to walk you out to your car, just so he could chat to you and watch you flush under his teasing words and gaze. he would always spend too much time chatting with you at the buffet table and then have to scarf his food down because time was limited afterwards. william would text you all day; compliments on your food and looks, funny tweets he'd think you'd enjoy, invitations for movie nights, simple small talk and questions.

it didn't take long for that to progress and 2 and a half months into your job, you and william were practically dating.

you never properly discussed labels, but neither you and william harped over it. you were both happy with the right now of it all.

you both decided to keep your relationship separate from your work life. nobody needed to know what was happening between you both, and you were very adamant about that. you didn't want anyone, player or staff member, to treat you differently because you were with william, and he wanted the same.

but it was hard to try and ignore william - it was and always has been. you'd find yourselves locked in knowing stares with one another, and you couldn’t help yourselves from standing suspiciously close while trying to keep your voices hushed and inconspicuous. the accidental not-so-accidental brushing of limbs, sneaky smiles and even occasionally sneaking off to unoccupied rooms to be alone. you and william weren't doing the best at showing restraint and being secretive.

so although neither of flat out told anybody apart of the leafs organization about your blooming relationship, it didn't take much to figure out something was happening between you.

you walk through the training hallways with a determined step. you've finally gotten the menu submission you'd been hounding william for (at work and after) and when he dropped it off to you this morning, you thought you could finally rest and get to work - but no.

he was trying to be funny. instead of properly filling out the required form for the kitchen, he'd chosen to write either ridiculous answers like he preferred ketchup flavoured fruits or overly sexual things like he preferred you for dessert.

with the original forms in hand as well as a brand new set for him to fill out (correctly this time) you continue to weave through training staff as you walk through the athletic department of the arena. you knew that william was in the gym right now, just like he told you when he sneakily kissed you goodbye after giving you his forms this morning.

you should've known something was up when last night william asked if anybody would be seeing the menu submissions besides you, and when you said that it was only for you, his smirk grew.

you enter the open doors of the physical therapy room when you caught sight of his familiar thick head of blonde hair.

you approach william with determination.

a couple of the guys around notice you and they make snickering noises like little school boys do when a classmate gets called down to the office. the sound has william looking up just as you reach him, his conversation with liligren and jarnkrok coming to a stop.

"I need you to fill out a new form." you hand him the blank papers quickly.

williams smirk grows ridiculously large. "why? what's wrong with my other one?"

you sigh, "can you just do it babe-" you cut yourself off as a horrified look takes over your face. williams eyes widen, but he looks rather enamoured with your slip up and that has you feeling even more horrified. "william. I mean william."

jarnkrok and liligren both snicker knowingly, and calle even pats william's back in a congratulatory manner as the two swedes walk away from you.

william takes the empty menu submission form from your hand. "I'll fill this out."

you exhale shakily, "much appreciated."

he eyes you, "even though I think the real reason is because you want to frame the original one in your apartment." william's iconic laugh follows suit, and you find yourself hiding your face behind the inappropriate forms.

calling william babe wasn't even the most damaging slip up that williams teammates had caught you to in, and there were many close calls of almost being caught doing undeniable acts.

"willy," you sigh heavily, basking in the feeling of his calloused, large hands running over ass. "we should stop"

he hums against your neck, not once detaching his lips from there attack on your neck. clearly william has no interest in stopping the exchange between you and to further his point he rolls his clothed crotch against yours once again.

once william found out you were still at the rink after the team finished up with practice, he had practically dragged you away from food prepping and into the first available spare room.

it ended being the staff room, which was definitely a risky spot, but that didn't stop william from sitting you on the lunch table and immediately begin kissing you with need.

after a good 3 minutes of hot and heavy making out, you managed to reluctantly detach your mouths. but that didn't stop william from moving further down your body with his lips - the sucking against your neck a reminder of just that.

"somebody could walk in." you remind him.

"I know." he pants, pulling away and finally ending the assault on your neck in favour of meeting your eyes. you're both flushed and breathless, but the knowing smirks don't disappear off either of your faces.

"I need to get back to work." you slip off the table, brushing his erection through his pants as you do so. william groans out - a combination of uncomfortable and pleasure, his dick twitching in his pants.

you giggle, adjusting your crumpled apron.

just as you do, the door swings open and a confused looking auston matthews enters. once he spots willaim his shoulders relax, "dude i've texted you three times - you're my ride today remember?"

then the scene infront of him clicks, and auston is immediately smirking. the sight of your messy hair and plump lips combined with william's red cheeks and akward hand placement, he knows everything.

"yeah, right. sorry man I was just helping y/n/n with something."

"yeah, for sure."

when auston turns away to leave the room, william following behind him slowly, you make sure to whack william on the arm as he walks by.

all he can do is laugh.

for those weeks of constantly spending time with one another and basking in the honeymoon phase you two so desperately loved, was something that you cherished.

but a week ago, something changed.

it started when one of your closests friends, jenna, had come down from out east to visit. you had obviously told her about the situation with william, and how you two were thriving together in your secret relationship.

"wait," jenna's eyebrows pull together in confusion and her hands shoots out in your direction as if to halt your story. "why are you keeping it a secret."

you shrug, "because of work. we don't want it to complicate anything."

"what would it complicate?"

you open your mouth to speak, but no noise comes out. when you try and think of a reason why your and williams situation has been hush hush, you can't find one that actually makes sense.

jenna continues, her tone gentle. "I love you and i'm so glad you're happy, but I think you should have a conversation with william. it doesn't make sense to me why you guys wouldn't tell anybody about this thing going on, as well as why you haven't put labels on it yet."

your shoulders deflate. you can't help but feel insecure and unsure now about your relationship with william. was he embarrassed of the age gap between you and didn't want his teammates to get on him about your immaturity? did william not want to sacrifice his job with the leafs by putting a label on you? was he worried he'd get in trouble or traded if he was caught with somebody so young who worked for the leaf organization? was he worried about the fans dissecting a relationship between you both and calling him out for dating you?

was your relationship doomed from the start and eventually meant to crumble.

when you started to really think about it, you get plunged into a deep, dark hole of guilt and regret and fear all sourced from your and william's relationship and the secrecy that came with it.

because what if william didn't want a girlfriend out of you because of your age and inexperience with life and he was only looking for a physical partner temporarily.

so your next day at work when william tried to flirt with you while you plated the various salads at the grab table, you didn't give him any eye contact and mumbled some excuse about being really busy.

willy was confused of course, but he brushed off your dismissal. he believed when you said you were busy, and he knows how important your job is to you and he didn't want to disturb you while you're working - but the next day it was the same thing. you were practically ignoring him and when william did come up and try and start your usual fun conversations, you were short with him.

after a few days of the same unbothered demeanour from you, william gave up on trying to crack you. he was clueless on what shifted between you, especially when you won't tell him, so he has no choice but to believe you are no longer interested in him.

and that hurt, so instead of acting like a grown adult and trying to find a solution to this mystery problem, william pretended that he was unaffected by your sudden absence.

——

morgan rielly must be able to sense your shift of energy, and instead of bringing up his favourite taylor swift song of the week (which is obviously a weekly discussion between you two), he only sends you a closed mouth smile as he plates up his meal.

it makes you frown, because you think william must've mentioned something to someone on the team, that now has the once interactive, bubbly roster acting tame and quiet around you.

you almost say something to morgan about his change and plead for him to talk about your favourite blonde musician, but you let him go.

this is what you didn't want to happen. the awkwardness and always having to step around eggshells because of your relationship with william (or currently, lack there of) was something you never wanted for you, william or anybody in the organization.

you never wanted to end up feeling so lost and out of place at work and when it came to william. you can understand your way of dealing with your insecurities wasn't ideal, but you can't help but to shut down when something doesn't feel right - you've always been that way.

but william wasn't helping in any way. not that it was his fault, you can understand that. but you can't understand why he now seems to be showing absolutely no interest in you or why he’s stopped trying.

and you know you should've had a conversation like jenna suggested and figured out the labels and deeper meanings of the relationship you and william have - or had. but you weren’t thinking of having a talk when you were spiralling.

you needed and wanted william to pull you out of that state and reassure, not act like he doesn’t know who you are anymore.

your thoughts are halted as out of the corner of your eye the movement of matthew knies catches your attention. the rookie sends you his usual smile, seemingly unaware of the thick tension weaving throughout the dining area. like usual, matthew loads his plate with mini hash browns, and the normalcy of it all has you laughing.

he looks up at you, a smile widening across his attractive face. amused and seemingly pleased, matthew moves to plate himself up some scrambled eggs, although he doesn't take much because he claims that eggs taste like shit. thankfully, you convinced him to at least take a spoonful at every breakfast.

"I didn't think I'd get to see you smile today. you've been a little off for a few days....are you okay?" matthew's eyes flicker between you and the fruit platter, eyeing your exhausted features.

you're momentarily taken back, blinking quickly to try and see if you're hallucinating what's happening right in front of you. but matthew is very much there and asking you that question. you clear your throat, "i'll be fine, thank you, matthew."

"good," matthew smiles before taking a gigantic bite of some plain toast, crumbs falling over his team branded hoodie. he doesn't seem to mind the mess and he wipes away any lingering toast from his face with the back of his free hand. his warm smile has yet to fade, and you find yourself joining him. matthew continues, "you look so pretty when you smile - I've been missing it these pass few days."

he walks away then, leaving you a flustered and shocked messed at the expense of his flirtatious compliments. you're taken back momentarily, and you're left staring at the spot matthew was just standing in, going over the mini exchange in your head.

you briefly wonder if matthew has always been flirtatious with you, but you'd been too previously distracted with william to notice.

matthew is your age and attractive and still new to the whole sports lifestyle just like you are. maybe matthew was better match for you and trying to build a strong relationship with him was more realistic than it ever was with william.

the warmth of william nose running along your cheek is comforting. the tickling, soothing movement is almost lulling you into a sleep and your eyelids feel heavy as you blink lazily.

against you, william shifts. he shuffles upwards on your mattress, and the soft rustling sound of your crisp sheets follow suit.

your head lolls towards him against your fully pillow and you're met with william's blue eyes twinkling back at you. he's leaning on his palm as his elbow supports his body weight. his hair is still tousled from your hands running through his locks during your previous activities and william also looks a little sleepy.

his flushed cheeks are surely a reflection of yours, and his chest hair is still dampened with sweat - sticking flat against his hard pecks.

"what?" you questions gently, eyeing his sleepy smirk. you turn onto your side and tuck yourself against him. the angle is a little awkward, but you still manage to connect and you wrap your arms around him, letting your chin press in between his pecks.

he looks down at you softly, that same fond expression still there. "I just really like you, y/n/n." william's words are barely audible, and if you had emptied your dehumidifier like you had planned too earlier, the noise would've drowned out his confession.

but you didn't empty it and you can hear every soft word perfectly.

you smile. "I really like you too, willy." to further your point, you press a quick kiss to the skin of his chest. that slaty sweat flavour on his skin is another reminder of what you and william had just finished doing only a few minutes, and that has you flushing all over again.

with his free hand, william gently takes ahold of your face, tilting your head back so you were once again looking at him. you can see the thoughts running through his mind, and when william gently knaws the skin of his bottom lip around his never ending smirk, you wonder if he's also thinking what you are.

suddenly william drops down, and his hands wrap around your waist so he can fully roll you onto your back once again.

you giggle, your legs falling open automatically to make room for william. he leans down and begins to attack your flushed face with quick, loud kisses.

but that's not true - you know that now. it was never hard with william. the rather insignificant age gap between you was never an obstacle and neither was your job position. the only obstacle seemed to be how you were too nervous to put a label on the relationship in fear of ruining what you had.

you think what you and william had was too special to just ignore and give up on - you don't want to give up on him.

a hand reaches for one of the silver serving tongues in front of you, and you look up to find william standing there.

he looks away from you as soon as you make eye contact, and he busies himself by serving himself some of the pork sausages.

you clear your throat nervously.  "hey."

at the sound of your voice, william looks back at you. his eyebrows are pulled together tightly and he analyzes you confusingly. his uncertain gaze has you nerves deepening, but you don't back down - determined to begin the process of moving forward with william.

"hi." finally, he responds. he shuffles further down the table, searching for the fried eggs to add to his new spread. you follow him from the other side of the long buffet table, eyeing him carefully.

"can we talk later?" you words are hushed as you try to not attract any unwanted attention to you both. you're still not sure if william told anyone and if he did, you don't know exactly what he said. so you were still feeling a bit weary of that situation, but you were ready to talk about it and clear your rollercoaster of thoughts.

william almost scoffs, the once usual happy and relaxed laughter you were so used to hearing from him has quickly turned into something more unsettling and your heart just about bursts. "now you want to talk?"

you blink. "I-"

he stops you from continuing, his plate of food long forgotten as he directs his attention to you completely. "because last week when you started acting all entitled and uninterested you didn't even have the decency to give me fucking eye contact. but now you want to talk? why, so you can come up with some excuse and tell me that you like me and want to move forward? well too bad because i'm over it."

you can feel the emotion building thickly in your throat and your eyes start to blur as you desperately try and hold in the waterfall of tears wanting to slip out. "so you don't want to at least talk about this? about us?"

he shakes his head in disbelief, that same scoffy laughter making another appearance. william meets your water filled eyes, and his face shifts. his mouth falls into a straight line and his eyes change to a more somber state. "what us?"

you look away to try and hide the way your mouth trembles with emotion - pain, hurt, sadness, embarrassment. you didn't actually think everything you'd be insecure and worried about would become the truth.

you don't give william the satisfaction of seeing you upset. you turn away and signal to another kitchen personal to take over. thankfully, they make their way over and as soon as their feet move, so do yours and you're leaving the dining area as fast as you can. 

you barley make it through the busy hallway and back through into the kitchen staff room. thankfully because of the working hour, nobody else was in the room because as soon as the door swung shut behind you, the building of emotions all come out and you could no longer stop the flurry of tears.

you cover your mouth to try and mask the sound of the sobbing sounds of heartbreak, desperate to hold on to any dignity you have left.

your embarrassment quickly turns into anger.

william saying such hurtful words to you in a room full of both your colleagues, even if they weren't listening, is just aggravating. even if william never believed that you and him had anything meaningful and he believed your relationship wasn't leading to anything serious, he should of at least had respect for you.

the door opens behind you, and you know it's william immediately. your body reacts to his presence in the way it always has. your skin prickles with pleasure as if it was anticipating his touch and your face heats up further regardless of your current pain.

"please, william if you've come to further embarrass me and make me feel like shit i'd rather you just leave."

you've never called him anything other than willy. when the two of you first staring seeing one another, you told him the name william was too formal for him and willy better displayed his fun and lighthearted personality.

and even though everyone called him by his nickname, something about it coming from your lips was much more intimate.

he shakes his head even though you can't see him. your back is still turned to him because you don't want him too see you so distraught from his words - you can't give him the satisfaction of your raw emotion.

"I didn't mean that, y/n/n." william's words are gentle and full of guilt. "I shouldn't have said that."

you turn, eyes pointed with anger. "no you shouldn't of."

williams face furthers into a regretful expression. "I'm sorry." he walks further into the room, now standing close enough to touch you. but he doesn't try and touch you, and he keeps to himself regardless of how badly he wants to hold you and touch you after days of not.

"I thought you liked me." your words a breathless whine, and you wrap your arms around yourself in search of comfort.

"yeah and I thought the same." he admits sadly. "but then something changed and I don't know what the fuck happened. I felt completely left in the dark because you just completely stopped spending time with me, and talking to me and looking at me. it felt like you didn't like me at all, y/n/n."

you use your shoulder to wipe away the drying tears left sitting on your cheek. the little blush still on your face smudges into your white chefs top, making you look even more of a mess. "I was in my own head," you admit your defeat, "all these insecurities kept getting in the way of what was right infront of me. I thought that you wanted to keep us a secret because you were embarrassed of me - my age and my inexperience were something that you wanted to keep hidden."

you continue, "I thought you didn't want to further our relationship into one that held more serious value- had a title - because you didn't want to build something with somebody so young and lacking of life knowledge and experience. so I pushed you away because I didn't want to end up hurt when you inevitably admitted you could never love me that way - that I was just a fucking booty call."

he shakes his head, lips tugging downwards into a painful frown. "I don't care that you're younger than me and your age has never been an issue when it comes to my feelings about you and our relationship. just because you're younger doesn't not mean that you're inexperienced, y/n/n. in fact you're one of the smartest and experienced people I know."

"so what was it that stopped you from bringing up what this relationship between us was? what were you working towards, willy? when it came to me?"

william almost turns into a puddle at the use of his nickname. he has missed you and your presence so much these past few days of no contact, it's been killing him.

as soon as you walked away from him and his hurtful insinuation back in the dining room, william immediately knew he messed up. not just with the burst of anger only a few minutes ago, but with how he handled the relationship between you two after you seemingly were shutting down and turning away from him.

"when I noticed that something was going on with you and in your head, I should've been more supportive and I should've reached out to try and have a conversation to help squash these fears, and insecurities you were dealing with. i'm so sorry, y/n/n." he breathes out, pausing to collect his racing mind. "I want to be your boyfriend and the entire time we've been together I was so desperately hoping that you would want the same. I don't care if anybody thinks of me differently and I don't care if people think that we aren't good - I think we're great."

"willy," you huff, arms falling back to sit against your sides. "i'm sorry that I shut down instead of just talking to you - I feel so stupid." you pause shakily, trying to blink back the new wave of tears. william reaches out to you then, rubbing his hand comfortably around your hip. it's the comfort you've been missing - craving. you continue, "I really like you, willy. I wish that this never happened between us."

he nods understandably, squeezing the dip of your hip as if to tell you that you're not stupid, it is okay, I really like you too. "where do you want to go from here?"

"I want to...." you pause. "I want to start over. I want to date you for real with the labels and the pictures and everything else in between." you bite your lip nervously, trying to gauge william's face to try and understand what he's thinking. "where do you want to go from here, honestly?"

"I want to pick up right where we left off. I don't want this miscommunication to change our relationship anymore than it already has. the only thing I want to change is that I can call you my girlfriend and refer to you as such all the time."

"I want that too."

"good," william smiles, pressing his body against yours. with the new position, you have no other choice but to bring your arms up around around his neck - not that you minded of course. “I really like us, y/n.”

“I really like us, too.” your confession is a tickling whisper against his lips as william can’t help but let his mouth brush over yours, so close to connecting them together is a much needed kiss.

[music-orthemisery]

Pre-Folie Release Madness of (p)2- A Timeline

After spending a few days in cuckoo bananas world thanks to the video re: Patrick's best man speech, @grandtreeangel and I have some things to slide across the table.

Between October 19, 2008 and November 7th, 2008, FOB played a series of shows leading up to the release of Folie a Deux. Each show featured a Pete/Patrick banter moment that, when put together, creates a very...interesting narrative.

October 19th - Birmingham, England show

Pete making a Top Gun reference to the $20 bar bet scene while Patrick plays the Top Gun theme song.

The scene in question: "Total carnal knowledge...of a woman this time, on the premises"

October 22nd - London, England show

First live performance of Patrick's "Love Lockdown" cover

Please see @grandtreeangel’s post HERE for more context on this totally normal thing Patrick did.

October 25th - Lille, France show

OG "my little cabbage" moment Pete, in French, says to Patrick, "You are beautiful, my little cabbage."

October 27th OR 28th - Blog post

Pete posts this on his Tumblr . It says 10/27, but there's some disagreement on time zones so it may be 10/28. EITHER WAY...

Originally, this linked to a clip from the movie Love, Actually. In this scene, a man confesses his love to a woman who is married to his best friend.

There's plenty of debate about this movie, scene, and storyline in general, but we aren't here for that right now!!!

Let's just focus on the facts:

Woman. Married. To BEST FRIEND.

The man was the best man AND the videographer at the wedding.

This whole moment is done secretly. He confesses, they kiss, she goes back inside and tells her husband it was just some carolers.

In general, this whole story arc is ripe with longing and unattainable love due to a marriage keeping the man from being with the woman.

I...wonder what this sounds like...

October 28th - Toronto, Canada show

Love Lockdown cover where Patrick says, "That's for you, Pete."

Again, Patrick being very normal!!!

October 29th - Blog Post

Pete contributes an entry to Bill's "Mondayeyes" poetry club on friendsorenemies.com:

Credit to @alphadog's post for this HERE

The entire poem is quite impactful, but a few lines of interest:

"Where do you get off?" or more like "how"

and...

"You chose this"

When Pete uses quotes, it's noted that this indicates things that have been said to him.

There are scents and spells that keep us coming together, there are sparks that keep us forever

The art of keeping up disappearances

Also, big hello to some Rat-A-Tat lyrics

Whenever I could make the sweat roll backwards and your pulse stream in reverse

(Big thank you to @dykeandyhurley for sending this to me)

November 6th - Boston, MA show

Pete shares the story about Patrick's best man speech.

Huge props to @predoom for finding this moment!

If you haven't seen Top Gun (?!), the context here is very important:

The line "Ice, fire, or clear," is said in the scene where Goose dies.

Scene: "Ice, Fire or Clear!"

Also, it should be noted that, to Pete, he is Goose and Patrick is Maverick.

The fact that Patrick picks this quote to say to Pete...in his best man speech...at PETE'S WEDDING. A quote said when Maverick LOSES Goose.

AND...apparently no one else in the reception quite...get's it. Pete is the only one who does. That line was just for Pete. From Patrick.

Of all the lines in that movie, he picks that one, from that moment.

Then, of course...

We have "The Kids Aren't Alright."

Featuring the lyrics:

Stuck in the jet wash Bad trip I couldn't get off And maybe I bit off more than I could chew And overhead of the aqua blue

Along with Pete's annotation:

November 7th - Philadelphia, PA show

Patrick sings Lullabye.

Take a peek at this post for all of that mess.

"Well, Bronx was about to be born!"

Sure, sure. I'm not DENYING the relevance there. Just. Go look at the post, damn it. Trust me.

And then...?

Nothing. They take a break, Bronx is born, and then they play a show in Columbus, OH on December 1, 2008. This whole little back and forth ends. Folie a Deux is released on December 10th and...well...we all know what happens after that.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The moral injury of having your work enshittified

This Monday (November 27), I'm appearing at the Toronto Metro Reference Library with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

On November 29, I'm at NYC's Strand Books with my novel The Lost Cause, a solarpunk tale of hope and danger that Rebecca Solnit called "completely delightful."

This week, I wrote about how the Great Enshittening – in which all the digital services we rely on become unusable, extractive piles of shit – did not result from the decay of the morals of tech company leadership, but rather, from the collapse of the forces that discipline corporate wrongdoing:

https://locusmag.com/2023/11/commentary-by-cory-doctorow-dont-be-evil/

The failure to enforce competition law allowed a few companies to buy out their rivals, or sell goods below cost until their rivals collapsed, or bribe key parts of their supply chain not to allow rivals to participate:

https://www.engadget.com/google-reportedly-pays-apple-36-percent-of-ad-search-revenues-from-safari-191730783.html

The resulting concentration of the tech sector meant that the surviving firms were stupendously wealthy, and cozy enough that they could agree on a common legislative agenda. That regulatory capture has allowed tech companies to violate labor, privacy and consumer protection laws by arguing that the law doesn't apply when you use an app to violate it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But the regulatory capture isn't just about preventing regulation: it's also about creating regulation – laws that make it illegal to reverse-engineer, scrape, and otherwise mod, hack or reconfigure existing services to claw back value that has been taken away from users and business customers. This gives rise to Jay Freeman's perfectly named doctrine of "felony contempt of business-model," in which it is illegal to use your own property in ways that anger the shareholders of the company that sold it to you:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Undisciplined by the threat of competition, regulation, or unilateral modification by users, companies are free to enshittify their products. But what does that actually look like? I say that enshittification is always precipitated by a lost argument.

It starts when someone around a board-room table proposes doing something that's bad for users but good for the company. If the company faces the discipline of competition, regulation or self-help measures, then the workers who are disgusted by this course of action can say, "I think doing this would be gross, and what's more, it's going to make the company poorer," and so they win the argument.

But when you take away that discipline, the argument gets reduced to, "Don't do this because it would make me ashamed to work here, even though it will make the company richer." Money talks, bullshit walks. Let the enshittification begin!

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/22/who-wins-the-argument/#corporations-are-people-my-friend

But why do workers care at all? That's where phrases like "don't be evil" come into the picture. Until very recently, tech workers participated in one of history's tightest labor markets, in which multiple companies with gigantic war-chests bid on their labor. Even low-level employees routinely fielded calls from recruiters who dangled offers of higher salaries and larger stock grants if they would jump ship for a company's rival.

Employers built "campuses" filled with lavish perks: massages, sports facilities, daycare, gourmet cafeterias. They offered workers generous benefit packages, including exotic health benefits like having your eggs frozen so you could delay fertility while offsetting the risks normally associated with conceiving at a later age.

But all of this was a transparent ruse: the business-case for free meals, gyms, dry-cleaning, catering and massages was to keep workers at their laptops for 10, 12, or even 16 hours per day. That egg-freezing perk wasn't about helping workers plan their families: it was about thumbing the scales in favor of working through your entire twenties and thirties without taking any parental leave.

In other words, tech employers valued their employees as a means to an end: they wanted to get the best geeks on the payroll and then work them like government mules. The perks and pay weren't the result of comradeship between management and labor: they were the result of the discipline of competition for labor.

This wasn't really a secret, of course. Big Tech workers are split into two camps: blue badges (salaried employees) and green badges (contractors). Whenever there is a slack labor market for a specific job or skill, it is converted from a blue badge job to a green badge job. Green badges don't get the food or the massages or the kombucha. They don't get stock or daycare. They don't get to freeze their eggs. They also work long hours, but they are incentivized by the fear of poverty.

Tech giants went to great lengths to shield blue badges from green badges – at some Google campuses, these workforces actually used different entrances and worked in different facilities or on different floors. Sometimes, green badge working hours would be staggered so that the armies of ragged clickworkers would not be lined up to badge in when their social betters swanned off the luxury bus and into their airy adult kindergartens.

But Big Tech worked hard to convince those blue badges that they were truly valued. Companies hosted regular town halls where employees could ask impertinent questions of their CEOs. They maintained freewheeling internal social media sites where techies could rail against corporate foolishness and make Dilbert references.

And they came up with mottoes.

Apple told its employees it was a sound environmental steward that cared about privacy. Apple also deliberately turned old devices into e-waste by shredding them to ensure that they wouldn't be repaired and compete with new devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

And even as they were blocking Facebook's surveillance tools, they quietly built their own nonconsensual mass surveillance program and lied to customers about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Facebook told employees they were on a "mission to connect every person in the world," but instead deliberately sowed discontent among its users and trapped them in silos that meant that anyone who left Facebook lost all their friends:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

And Google promised its employees that they would not "be evil" if they worked at Google. For many googlers, that mattered. They wanted to do something good with their lives, and they had a choice about who they would work for. What's more, they did make things that were good. At their high points, Google Maps, Google Mail, and of course, Google Search were incredible.

My own life was totally transformed by Maps: I have very poor spatial sense, need to actually stop and think to tell my right from my left, and I spent more of my life at least a little lost and often very lost. Google Maps is the cognitive prosthesis I needed to become someone who can go anywhere. I'm profoundly grateful to the people who built that service.

There's a name for phenomenon in which you care so much about your job that you endure poor conditions and abuse: it's called "vocational awe," as coined by Fobazi Ettarh:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Ettarh uses the term to apply to traditionally low-waged workers like librarians, teachers and nurses. In our book Chokepoint Capitalism, Rebecca Giblin and I talked about how it applies to artists and other creative workers, too:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

But vocational awe is also omnipresent in tech. The grandiose claims to be on a mission to make the world a better place are not just puffery – they're a vital means of motivating workers who can easily quit their jobs and find a new one to put in 16-hour days. The massages and kombucha and egg-freezing are not framed as perks, but as logistical supports, provided so that techies on an important mission can pursue a shared social goal without being distracted by their balky, inconvenient meatsuits.

Steve Jobs was a master of instilling vocational awe. He was full of aphorisms like "we're here to make a dent in the universe, otherwise why even be here?" Or his infamous line to John Sculley, whom he lured away from Pepsi: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?"

Vocational awe cuts both ways. If your workforce actually believes in all that high-minded stuff, if they actually sacrifice their health, family lives and self-care to further the mission, they will defend it. That brings me back to enshittification, and the argument: "If we do this bad thing to the product I work on, it will make me hate myself."

The decline in market discipline for large tech companies has been accompanied by a decline in labor discipline, as the market for technical work grew less and less competitive. Since the dotcom collapse, the ability of tech giants to starve new entrants of market oxygen has shrunk techies' dreams.

Tech workers once dreamed of working for a big, unwieldy firm for a few years before setting out on their own to topple it with a startup. Then, the dream shrank: work for that big, clumsy firm for a few years, then do a fake startup that makes a fake product that is acquihired by your old employer, as an incredibly inefficient and roundabout way to get a raise and a bonus.

Then the dream shrank again: work for a big, ugly firm for life, but get those perks, the massages and the kombucha and the stock options and the gourmet cafeteria and the egg-freezing. Then it shrank again: work for Google for a while, but then get laid off along with 12,000 co-workers, just months after the company does a stock buyback that would cover all those salaries for the next 27 years:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

Tech workers' power was fundamentally individual. In a tight labor market, tech workers could personally stand up to their bosses. They got "workplace democracy" by mouthing off at town hall meetings. They didn't have a union, and they thought they didn't need one. Of course, they did need one, because there were limits to individual power, even for the most in-demand workers, especially when it came to ghastly, long-running sexual abuse from high-ranking executives:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html

Today, atomized tech workers who are ordered to enshittify the products they take pride in are losing the argument. Workers who put in long hours, missed funerals and school plays and little league games and anniversaries and family vacations are being ordered to flush that sacrifice down the toilet to grind out a few basis points towards a KPI.

It's a form of moral injury, and it's palpable in the first-person accounts of former workers who've exited these large firms or the entire field. The viral "Reflecting on 18 years at Google," written by Ian Hixie, vibrates with it:

https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627373

Hixie describes the sense of mission he brought to his job, the workplace democracy he experienced as employees' views were both solicited and heeded. He describes the positive contributions he was able to make to a commons of technical standards that rippled out beyond Google – and then, he says, "Google's culture eroded":

Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision.

In other words, techies started losing the argument. Layoffs weakened worker power – not just to defend their own interest, but to defend the users interests. Worker power is always about more than workers – think of how the 2019 LA teachers' strike won greenspace for every school, a ban on immigration sweeps of students' parents at the school gates and other community benefits:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Hixie attributes the changes to a change in leadership, but I respectfully disagree. Hixie points to the original shareholder letter from the Google founders, in which they informed investors contemplating their IPO that they were retaining a controlling interest in the company's governance so that they could ignore their shareholders' priorities in favor of a vision of Google as a positive force in the world:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

Hixie says that the leadership that succeeded the founders lost sight of this vision – but the whole point of that letter is that the founders never fully ceded control to subsequent executive teams. Yes, those executive teams were accountable to the shareholders, but the largest block of voting shares were retained by the founders.

I don't think the enshittification of Google was due to a change in leadership – I think it was due to a change in discipline, the discipline imposed by competition, regulation and the threat of self-help measures. Take ads: when Google had to contend with one-click adblocker installation, it had to constantly balance the risk of making users so fed up that they googled "how do I block ads?" and then never saw another ad ever again.

But once Google seized the majority of the mobile market, it was able to funnel users into apps, and reverse-engineering an app is a felony (felony contempt of business-model) under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a crime to install an ad-blocker.

And as Google acquired control over the browser market, it was likewise able to reduce the self-help measures available to browser users who found ads sufficiently obnoxious to trigger googling "how do I block ads?" The apotheosis of this is the yearslong campaign to block adblockers in Chrome, which the company has sworn it will finally do this coming June:

https://www.tumblr.com/tevruden/734352367416410112/you-have-until-june-to-dump-chrome

My contention here is not that Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in personnel via the promotion of managers who have shitty ideas. Google's enshittification was precipitated by a change in discipline, as the negative consequences of heeding those shitty ideas were abolished thanks to monopoly.

This is bad news for people like me, who rely on services like Google Maps as cognitive prostheses. Elizabeth Laraki, one of the original Google Maps designers, has published a scorching critique of the latest GMaps design:

https://twitter.com/elizlaraki/status/1727351922254852182

Laraki calls out numerous enshittificatory design-choices that have left Maps screens covered in "crud" – multiple revenue-maximizing elements that come at the expense of usability, shifting value from users to Google.

What Laraki doesn't say is that these UI elements are auctioned off to merchants, which means that the business that gives Google the most money gets the greatest prominence in Maps, even if it's not the best merchant. That's a recurring motif in enshittified tech platforms, most notoriously Amazon, which makes $31b/year auctioning off top search placement to companies whose products aren't relevant enough to your query to command that position on their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Enshittification begets enshittification. To succeed on Amazon, you must divert funds from product quality to auction placement, which means that the top results are the worst products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

The exception is searches for Apple products: Apple and Amazon have a cozy arrangement that means that searches for Apple products are a timewarp back to the pre-enshittification Amazon, when the company worried enough about losing your business to heed the employees who objected to sacrificing search quality as part of a merchant extortion racket:

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11

Not every tech worker is a tech bro, in other words. Many workers care deeply about making your life better. But the microeconomics of the boardroom in a monopolized tech sector rewards the worst people and continuously promotes them. Forget the Peter Principle: tech is ruled by the Sam Principle.

As OpenAI went through four CEOs in a single week, lots of commentators remarked on Sam Altman's rise and fall and rise, but I only found one commentator who really had Altman's number. Writing in Today in Tabs, Rusty Foster nailed Altman to the wall:

https://www.todayintabs.com/p/defective-accelerationism

Altman's history goes like this: first, he founded a useless startup that raised $30m, only to be acquired and shuttered. Then Altman got a job running Y Combinator, where he somehow failed at taking huge tranches of equity from "every Stanford dropout with an idea for software to replace something Mommy used to do." After that, he founded OpenAI, a company that he claims to believe presents an existential risk to the entire human risk – which he structured so incompetently that he was then forced out of it.

His reward for this string of farcical, mounting failures? He was put back in charge of the company he mis-structured despite his claimed belief that it will destroy the human race if not properly managed.

Altman's been around for a long time. He founded his startup in 2005. There've always been Sams – of both the Bankman-Fried varietal and the Altman genus – in tech. But they didn't get to run amok. They were disciplined by their competitors, regulators, users and workers. The collapse of competition led to an across-the-board collapse in all of those forms of discipline, revealing the executives for the mediocre sociopaths they always were, and exposing tech workers' vocational awe for the shabby trick it was from the start.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

[boombox-fuckboy]

Hey!!! You commented on my post about limetown haha which is why I’m here. You offered to give podcast recs! What are your favorites?? I’m looking for some new ones

I completely forgot I had this ask, excuse the delay. Here's a selection of 30 podcasts I enjoyed from a broad range of genres: hopefully at least one appeals.

Let me know if you're after something more specific.

Arden: (Investigative, Comedy) On the 25th of December, 2007, heiress and young actress Julie Capsom crashed her car into a tree and fled into a nearby forest clearing, leaving a trail that seemingly vanished into thin air, and a dismembered torso in the trunk. A decade later, Bea, the first reporter on the scene, and Brenda, a detective on the case, are hosting a true crime podcast about it, and neither is remotely impressed with what the other has to say. Arden is also a retelling of various Shakespeare plays.

Desperado: (Supernatural, Adventure, Horror Elements) In a modern world of gods and magic, three young people, all under the patronage of death dieties, embark on the same adventure for different reasons: for safety, for revenge, and to kill The Old Man in the Sky. Fantastic banter and killer action sequences.

The Far Meridian: (Magical Realism) An agoraphobic young woman wakes one day to discover her lighthouse home has travelled to somewhere entirely unfamilar. As this continues to happen day after day, she uses the opportunity to search for her missing brother. A really unique and charming piece of fiction.

Gastronaut: (Sci-Fi) Interstellar travel audio blog of a former food critic as he travels to an active warzone to get firsthand experience with unfamilar cuisine. ft. Disgruntled martian nobility, sinister businessmen, explosive mushrooms, forbidden snacks, rogue revolutionary artists, and the consequences of your actions.

Girl in Space: (Sci-Fi) The Girl In Space lives alone on a space station, doing science, making cheese, rewatching Jurassic Park, and tending to the plants, animals, and artificial sun entrusted to her. It's a little lonely, but not a bad life. Would be a shame if someone came along to ruin it.

The Goblet Wire: (Microfiction, Weird Fiction) A surreal microfiction with horror elements, taking the form of phone calls to an audio-based game in which the voice of the mysterious Dictator leads each player through fantastic and horrific world and story.

Hello From The Hallowoods: (Horror, Supernatural) A dramatic entity beyond your comprehension visits your nightmares to tell stories of the people (in varying degrees of human and alive) that inhabit the strange, deadly, and beautiful Hallowoods, as they find meaning and sometimes eachother.

Hi Nay: (Supernatural Horror) A year after moving to Toronto, sound designer Mari finds herself drawn into helping people around the city with various horrific supernatural encounters due to her babaylan (shaman) family background. It quickly becomes apparent that there's something much more sinister and complicated happening in the background.

Inco: (Microfiction, Sci-Fi) A perpetually exausted interstellar information trader and her peppy AI find a mysterious (read: bratty) boy floating in space and are inadventently pulled into a world political intrigue.

Inn Between: (Fantasy) Ever curious about what the D&D characters get up to at the tavern between sessions? A generally lighter-hearted (with some exceptions) with richly-written and always-growing characters. A really interesting format, too: a lot of the adventure appears in the "next time" and "last time" segments which makes it all flow really nicely. Not a tabletop podcast.

Janus Descending: (Sci-Fi, Horror, Tragedy) A xenoarcheologist and a xenopaleontologist are sent to a study a dead city on a distant world. Nobody likes what they find there. A unique format, with one set of logs presented first to last, and the other last to first. I'd recommend listening to the supercut for this one.

The Kingmaker Histories: (Steampunk, Weird Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy Elements) In the Valorian Socialist Republic 1911, on her 25th birthday, tailor's apprentice Colette experienced the worst headache of her life. As a result, she fleed from town with a human artificer and a fae chef - both now smugglers - pursued by an utterly furious flesh-crafter. I'm not sure I'm selling how good this podcast is but it's very good.

Life With Althaar: (Sci-Fi, Comedy) A human repairman moves to a space station on the edge of human territory that is perpetually on the edge of self-destruction, and ends up with a less-than-ideal last-minute roomate. Althaar is polite, friendly, deeply interested in human culture, and eager to be friends. Unfortunately he belongs to a species that sends humans into a visceral panic at a glance.

Lost Terminal: (Sci-Fi, Hopepunk) Seth is a very lonely AI living on a satellite. His crew were left stranded aboard with no hope of return, and it's been longer than he can count since then. The Earth below him has changed dramatically, and with only a few other AI down there to talk to, he's very lonely. But! He has a plan to make some new friends.

Love and Luck: (Romance, Slice-of-Life and Urban Fantasy Elements) Voice messages cataloguing two young men falling in love and opening a queer dry bar together.

Midnight Radio: (Light Supernatural, Romance) Sybil McIntyre, host of the ever-popular 1950's nightly radio hour, begins exchanging letters with an old fan who has reluctantly returned to visit Sybil's beloved town.

Midst: (Weird Fiction, Western, Sci-Fi and Fantasy Elements) The old-western planetoid islet of Midst floats, rotating steadily, in a sea of reality-warping darkness. Down in the town of Stationary Hill, things are in movement, and vistors from the light above are about to bring unanticipated change. ft a monocycle-riding monster-hunter, radio-famous airship paladins, deadly mica, the universe's peppiest cultist, good dogs, and a really strange businessman.

The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality: (Weird Fiction, Supernatural, Urban Fantasy and Horror Elements) A friendly AI tour guide leads you on a tour of the Mistholme Museum, explaining the strange and often alternatural story behind each item.

Monstrous Agonies: (Supernatural, Relationship Advice) An interpersonal advice show for supernatural entities and other people living liminally in the modern world.

Night Shift: (Urban Fantasy, Investigative) Set in a modern world with the addition of magic, which manifests in small inherited skills/traits, can warp people in horrific ways, or can be manipulated with the right science (and intense work) to induce superpowers. Sebastian Fenn is a barista at Night Shift Coffee, but since things are slow he's decided to start a podcast to talk about various mysteries, crimes and conspiracies around the city, and of course finds himself deeper in them than he'd intended.

The Pasithea Powder: (Sci-Fi, Thriller Elements? I think?) The last major interplanetary war was full of atrocities, but none more infamous then the creation of Pasithea Powder, a memory altering drug which was used to horrible effect and landed it's entire team of creators in prison. So when decorated war hero Captain Sophie Green sees one of them wandering free, worlds away from his prison, she gets in touch with a very old, estranged friend: one Dr. Jane Gonzalez, who's behind bars for the very same reason.

SCP: Find Us Alive: (Weird Fiction, Supernatural, Horror and Slice-of-Life elements) You don't need to know anything about SCP to enjoy this. A research team gets trapped in an underground research facility when the complex collapses and the building is dragged into a pocket dimension. The tear it was designed to study begins creating tiny copies of itself, generating strange entities the team needs to deal with. And as if that wasn't enough, the entire situation physically resets itself every 30 days. And yet, this is genuinely also an office comedy.

Second Star to the Left: (Sci-Fi) Audio logs of a scout sent to explore and establish early infastructure new world, and the communications with the minder in charge of keeping her alive.

Seen and Not Heard: (Slice-of-Life, Drama) Seen and Not Heard follows Bet, who's still adjusting to life a year after a bout of severe illness, and the resulting hearing loss it caused. It's about the ways we make connection, and food, and art, and different kinds of grief.

The Silt Verses: (Horror) In a modern world where gods are abundant, frequently both commercialised and restricted, two devotees of an outlawed river god go on a pilgrimage.

SINKHOLE: (Sci-Fi, Weird Fiction) Forum posts from a data restoration community in a near future where the human brain is its own computer and one city hosts a massive void.

Starfall: (Fantasy) Seeking to escape her mysterious past and find some purpose, a young swordswoman joins a travelling actor's troupe. This new life is unfamilar and sometimes stressful, but she's taken under the wing of stagehand Fel, who's determined to help her feel welcome as she experiences the figurative and literal magic of the theatre for the first time.

The Tower: (Weird Fiction) A low-key, meditative podcasy about a young woman who decides to climb a seemingly endless tower. Gorgeous sound design.

The Vesta Clinic: (Sci-Fi) New GP Dr. Fae Underwood, with the expert transcription skills of resident AI Sec, writes up patient reports on human and alien patients of The Vesta Clinic, a medical clinic on the edge of human space. Really comfy and creative.

Victoriocity: (Steampunk, Mystery) Set in the steam-powered Victorian city of Even Greater London, an aspiring journalist and a tired detective find themselves working together to solve a strange murder. I say Victorian but as queen Victoria is now an extensive grandiocity of cyborg components following seven only-kind-of-successful assassinations, you may need to adjust expectations a little.

[ateez-himari]

LXST; RECORD ONE

[NEW UPLOAD FROM ATEEZ]

LISTEN TO 'ADDICT' NOW ON YOUTUBE

Liked by dovecameron and 2,038,019 others

ateez_official_ LXST; solo project

#ATEEZ #애이티즈 #HIMARI #히마리

View all 1,339,371 comments

donatella_versace Never in my lifetime have I seen someone this hypnotizing 💛You are truly one of a kind, the diamond of this generation

no1likehim hear me out, she could very well be a real life siren because personally if I was out at sea and seeing her out in the water like THIS...idc I'm jumping in 💅🏾

mitosglass.es Wait omg she was saying she'd perform a new song later in the tour and that the outfit was dangerous 😰If she comes out in this in Toronto I'm actually gonna lose it, I'll be in shock, you'll never see me again

mochimochimari stop because LUST is the title of this project?! (don't try to hide it, we know) she has insane musical duality bc wdym she's written the most heart wrenching songs but then is gonna sing about wanting to get freaky-

sansatori is this the ATEEZ naked era 🫣first the sleeves magically disappear from their shirts, then the shirts start disappearing on stage, now we have MIN HIMARI coming out of the water like this?? pls i would do anything for this woman to even look at me

himarry.me Mingi pls give me a chance with your girlfriend...he literally stole the most beautiful woman from us how are we supposed to cope now 😭also we won guys, we had to beg her to release her solo project and it was so worth it, we blessed humanity💪

31 July 2024 • See Original

Industry Reactions

When asked about the industry's current aces in a live broadcast, second generation artist Taeyang responded with this statement; 'The first one that comes to mind is Himari from ATEEZ, people call her the second Hand of Midas for a reason. 'Addict' was created using her voice in various ways instead of relying on instrumentals and it came out like an angel call. It's almost entrancing whenever she sings, almost like a siren song.'

Taemin obviously had to boast about his protegee and posted this on his story; 'From creative direction of this music video to having only her name in the credits, there really is nothing she can't do!❤️I'm so honored to have such a talented artist by my side, go stream this song everyone, quickly!'

Former B.A.P leader Bang Yongguk posted the music video link with this comment underneath; 'i've been listening to this on repeat ever since she sent it to me and it feels like I'm being transported to heaven (even though the lyrics are far from holy ㅋㅋ) her voice really is on a whole other level, it could lead sailors into the water'

Twice leader Jihyo could not seem to stop praising their former trainee; 'I can't believe ATEEZ took this angelic artist from us 🥺The dancing is as mesmerizing as watching a ribbon flow in the wind, the vocals sink deep into the soul, the visuals make you fall in love...I could go on. I'm so proud of you Himie, we all are!'

Netizens Reactions

@/himaswife on X 'If i was a six foot tall rapper with a deep voice hearing this song that was definitely made about me...imagine such a stunning woman singing about how infatuated she is with you 😳 I would kiss and marry her on the spot (i'm not jealous at all why would you think that-)'

@/yeosangiecookie on X 'she definitely chose to do it in English for a reason and she was right, it's so sensual but innocent at the same time that you just can't stop listening to it. i thought it would be provocative from the project title but the lyrics were just suggestive enough to make you think about the possibilities but not picture anything, truly a masterpiece from our maknae as always 🙌'

@/ateenypresent on X 'the way you can tell these lyrics are genuine because it's things we point out every time, especially the "These things I'm thinking when you're looking in my eyes". if you don't notice the way her and Mingi make eye contact you must be blind...look i'm delusional and reaching but yk how in Work he says "ride [with] me"?? and how she said "fuck it i'm still riding"?? 😳'

@/yunhosbuckethat on X 'i NEED to see her performing this live, I don't even care if I have to watch it through tiktoks or a low resolution youtube video. the choreography was so beautiful, i love when she incorporates classic and contemporary stiles into her dance, it just suits her so well. plus imagine how good it would sound echoing in a stadium 🫠'

Min Siblings Updates

Hanzo on Instagram 'My wife woke me up this morning telling me that my sister's new song was so good that she'd been playing on loop for ten minutes now...first of all I'm mad that I didn't get to hear it first. More than anything though I'm so proud of her, 7.3 MILLION views in not even 24 hours for a SOLO project that was announced the day of release is genuinely insane🥹I LOVE YOU MY LITTLE TIGER 💕(I'm so playing this to the whole team before practice, the rest of you GO STREAM IT WHAT ARE YOU DOING'

Yoongi on Weverse 'There are no words to accurately describe how divine my sister's song sounds, it's so delicate yet powerful, I wouldn't be surprised if every speaker in the country starts playing it. Without a doubt I can say that she's one of if not the most talented producer of this generation, who else can manipulate vocals and instrumentals so perfectly as to transport you to another world? Our Hima, you did well, I love you ❤️'

Translated from Korean by Google

[grantmentis]

Women's Hockey Roundup: October

Woof, I fell off of these for a while. Blame baseball and college! Anyway, I'm going to just do what happened in women's hockey in October (and maybe the last few days of September) for all leagues. This is only confirmed news and games, so rumors are not included

If you're new, i recap the top stories from around club play women's hockey (so not collegiate) and try to give more detail on european women's hockey, since that's less reported on in north america :-) Feel free to add if i miss anything!

PWHL (USA/Canada)

The PWHL schedule has been released! We have a few TBD's in venues, most likely for playing select games in bigger venues or neutral sites. we do not currently have streaming/television info, so stay tuned for that. There will be a preseason, but not open to the public.

Training Camp Begins November 12, with preseason/mini camps The 19-22. New York's training camp roster is here. Boston's is here. Minnesota's is here. Montreal is here. Ottawa's is here. Toronto's is here.

Nov. 27: Deadline to finalize rosters of 23 players and 3 reserves

Abigail Boreen signed a three year deal with the Montréal Victoire. She played with the Minnesota Frost last year, including in the playoffs, as a reserve player.

Ronja Savolainen signed a three year deal with the Ottawa Charge. She played with Luleä most recently and is a star of the Finnish national team.

Sarah Lefort, most recently with Montréal Victoire, has announced her retirement

The PWHL has begun the process of expansion for 2025-2026, targeting two new cities

SDHL (Sweden)

Fanni Garát-Gasparics signs with Brynäs IF, though is still rehabbing the injury she sustained last year with the Ottawa Charge

Dutch national team legend Savine Wielenga signs with Leksands IF

Rookie Reece Hunt of Luleä is out for the season with a torn knee ligament

Frölunda general manager Kim Martin Hassons is extended to 2028, and head coach Erika Holst is extended to 2026. Frölunda has been massively successful thus far this year, currently in second place in the standings and coming off a big win against firs place Lulëa

While Luleä and Frölunda are at the top of the table, MoDo is making noise in third place, having won six of their last eight.

A couple key story lines: -> Finish National Team forward, Elisa Holopainen (Frölunda) is lighting the league on fire in her first year in the SDHL. She has 9 goals and ten assists in 13 games -> We have a few wonderful comeback stories this year. Hanna Olsson (Frölunda) is back to her old self after missing most of last year with injury, with 16 points in 13 games, good for fourth in the league. Erica Reider, (Luleä) who did not play for two seasons, looks like she never left, currently leading all defenders i the league in points. And Kassidy Sauvé (SDE), who missed almost two full season's with a hip injury, currently leads all goaltenders in save percentage. -> MoDo Hockey is being powered almost entirely by a youth movement: top producers Ebba Hedqvist, Adéla Šapovalivová, Mira Hallin, and Lovisa Engström are all 18 or younger and playing prominent roles on the 3rd place team

Auroraliiga (Finland)

Canadian Emma Hall joins KalPa after playing in the NDHL (Sweden's second division) last year

Kärpät will retire the number 20 in honor of long time legend Saija Tarkki. After 21 seasons with Kärpät as well as the Finnish national team, Tarkki retired in 2019. She will be honored Novembe 23rd.

A Couple key storylines: -> 18 year old Czech forward Barbora Juříčková i having a breakout year with HPK, already surpassing her point total from last season with 22. She joins Emma Ekoluoma (Ilves), who was a star on the U18 Finnish team last year, as one of the young players to keep an eye on in this league -> Kiekko-Espoo sits at the top of the table, with Ilves right behind. Last year's champions HIFK are feeling the loss of several star players and sit in fourth place. -> Sister's Jennika , Joanna and Jatta Ojala all played for the same team together for the first time at the top level for Team Kuortane

SWHL A / Postfinance Women League (Switzerland)

Not technically league play, but since they play in this league too ill put it here: EV Zug won the EWHL Euro Cup, which is played at the beginning of the season including select club teams across europe! They bear the German league's Memmingen to do so. Noemi Neubauerova, who is set to play with the Toronto Sceptres when the PWHL game begins, scored the game winning goal

Sponsor PostFinance announces that in 2025/2026, they will only financially support men's club teams that have a women's counterpart

Nadine Hofstetter of EV Zug is out three weeks with a broken finger. She is one of the team's veteran defenders who also plays for the Swiss national team. Vanessa Ryhner, Nina Harju, and Julia Näf are also out with injury for EV Zug, though Rhyner should be back any day now.

ZSC Lions Fraun is hit with injuries: Slovakian forward Tereza Lahova is out for the year with injury, and Aurela Thalmann and Alena Polenská (aka Alena Mills) are also injured. They are calling up Univ. of Saskatchewan alumni Sophie Lalor

A few storylines: -> Elizabeth Lang (HC Davos Ladies) is leading the league in points in her rookie year and scoring at a goal per game pace. She graduated from University of Calgary last year -> Lara Stalder (EVZ Women's team) continues to do Lara Stalder things and is tied with Lang in goals, but newcomers Michaela Pejzlová (HC Ambrì-Piotta Girls) and Clara Rozier (SC Bern Fraun) who were stars in last year's finnish league are close behind. The top scorer race for this league will be exciting, and that's not to mention old friends like Rahel Enzler and Estelle Duvin, among others. -> HC Davos Ladies is currently at the top of the standings, but EV Zug and SC Bern Frauen are very close behing them -> 18 year old Ivana Wey (EVZ Women's Team) has been off to a blistering hot start, a lot of hype surrounding her after a strong performance at both u18 and senior worlds. Another interesting young player is Lucie Tenenbaum, an American set to play at Minnesota State next year but is spending this year in Switzerland. The 18 year old has 5 goals and two assists with HC Davos Ladies so far

EWHL (Central/East Europe)

EV Bozen Eagles are currently dominating the league, with the help of players such as import Kristin Della Rovere, who has 16 points in 9 games. The Bozen eagles are part of a larger plan to help get italy's women's national team ready for the 2026 olympics

HK PSRZ Bratislava are undefeated thus far this season, after winning last year's title.

Canadian USport alumni are thriving in this league; Cassidy Maplethorpe, Hannah Tait, and Lauren Nicholson among top goal scorers

Slovak Ema Tothova continues to be the young player to watch, after her breakout seeason last year the 17 year old forward has 10 goals in five games. She is also competing in a boy's league in Slovakia while playing in the EWHL

OTHERS

watch this space for Czech forward Adéla Mynaříková to mak the u18 team this year. She's 15 and just steamrolling people in the Czech top league, with 15 goals and 5 assists in 8 games playing against a lot of grown adults

Norweigan forward Une Bjelland Strandborg, who was arguably one of the best NCAA DIII players of all time and graduated last year, is killing it in Germany's league with newly added Austrian team HK Budapest. She has 7 points in 6 games

[misshoneyimhome]

how do you think willy pulls girls in toronto? & what do you think he’s like in bed?

This is not going to be a short reply - but I’ll try and keep it simple 😉🤍

How William Nylander picks up girls + how he is in bed - NSFW (according to moi)

_

- Willy is just confident and laid back when picking up girls

- nothing’s eager or desperate

- maybe it’s at a private party or during a night out, but he just simply starts chatting you up and dazzling you with his charm

- knows he’s good looking, but his personality leads the way - just so damn charming with laughter and cheeky jokes

- maybe he’s already spotted you in the crowd before he makes a move, or maybe you’re just coincidentally sitting next to him - regardless, he simply just starts flirting cause he’s attracted to you

- doesn’t really care why, but if he’s keen on hooking up with you he’ll just go for it - read confident without being a dick

- maybe he challenges you in a game of shuffleboard or vice versa

- it’s just all a lot of fun with him

- pretty blunt about what he wants

- gets perhaps a little touchy if he’s had a few drinks but nothing douche bag like

- seems just overall pretty calm

_

- before you even hit the bed you’ve tasted his tongue

- Willy likes kissing and he’s fucking good at it

- hands are everywhere and lips are attached every possible second

- if you’re in a relationship, he’ll most likely mark you as his with hickies

- speaking of lips, this boy knows how to please a woman with his mouth

- not afraid to get messy - sheets will get soaked when he’s working between your legs

- prefers your moans loud - if authentic, which they of course are

- he’s always prepared with condoms

- pretty much any surface will work to have sex

- quite creative with positions

- likes it when you ride him, but doggy is def also a favourite

- doesn’t have any specific “out of the ordinary” kinks, but likes to play around - handcuffs def exist in his drawer

- light hair pulling may occur, maybe a spank or two

- likes to take charge but also letting you be on top, as def enjoys the view

- loves yours blowjobs!

- generally good at keeping things interesting

- can last pretty long, and makes sure you get you to come at least once (his mouth alone can do it, but his cock works wonders as well)

- will most likely loose all control when he feels his peak approaching

- loud moans, deep grunts, sweat, skin slapping; you’ve got it all during a night with Willy

- if you’re in a relationship, maybe he’ll try to start slow and sensual, but he quickly gets riled up and it all gets pretty intense

- but you can’t complain 💦

[aerinfrankellove]

2024-25 Season Prediction Survey Results

Read below or read a better formatted version here

The second PWHL season looms heavy on the horizon, and with preseason camps underway, the prospect of change, a new season with new storylines and new team names and logos and new players, haunts us all. We may not all be sports experts, but after watching the first season for months and eagerly awaiting the second, we all have our own ideas of how season two might go. Whether they’re logical ideas or not will be seen upon the future, but I, lover of data and spreadsheets, decided to gather up all your opinions and predictions of how season two will go, from the biggest honor (The Walter Cup) to random questions regarding trades and penalty minutes

Team Predictions -

This was the easy part of the form. Minimal prior knowledge, you didn’t even need to know the team names because I put them all in as multiple choice questions. Hypothetically everyone could have just picked randomly and I wouldn’t be any the wiser. That being said, some interesting trends emerged from you folks, some predictable and some less so.

Walter Cup Winners: Boston Fleet or Montreal Victoire (35.3%)

This was probably one of the closest races beneath the team with only about a single vote difference between Boston winning it all and Montreal winning it all at any one time. As an entirely unbiased Boston fan and casual Montreal enjoyer, I think this prediction is definitely founded in something. Montreal and Boston project to be two of the stronger teams, but I also think I’m biased if only because of how many Montreal and Boston fans I see in comparison to other teams. With all that being said, I’d be disappointed but not surprised if some other less represented team (Seriously does no one believe New York can win? Even Ottawa got a single vote and y’all really hated Ottawa) wins it going away after a hot season. But as my father always says, that’s why we play the game and this game/series in particular is quite a far ways away.

Walter Cup Runner Ups: Montreal Victoire (35.3%)

Honestly, I was expecting pretty similar results for this question as the question above, after all if the general consensus is that one of those two teams will win the cup, then one of them would have to lose it, right? Well Montreal was right up there, but unexpectedly Toronto came in second with 24% of people having enough faith in Toronto getting to the finals and then very little faith in them actually winning it, girlfailures that they are. Montreal tied with them to get second in the cup, followed by Boston (please god don’t let it come to that I don’t think my heart could take two years in a row) and then the mish mash of the Sirens, Frost, and Charge.��

First in the standings: Toronto Sceptres (32.4%)

So Montreal was leading this right up until I was actually writing and then I had to completely change my paragraph mid writing which was so much fun and definitely not irritating at all, but Toronto overtook Montreal for first, aiming for that repeat first in the standings and dare I be speaking sacrilege against the Victoire (who I do like more than the Sceptres) I honestly think they have a better chance. Like a 45% chance vs. a 40% chance. Boston carried up third place in voting and as much as I love the Fleet I think lots of things would have to go right for that to happen (another stunning season by Frankel, more consistent offense, an actual power play, so on and so forth). 

Additionally, as much as I hate to say it, I think we’re seriously underselling Minnesota, just because they made some inadvisable choices during the off season doesn’t mean they still aren’t largely the team who won the Walter cup and has theoretically gotten better during the offseason. Then again, I’d be as happy as anyone to see them crash and burn a little bit so it’s all speculatory. New York got a grand total of two votes but I’m secretly rooting for them to surprise some people. Ottawa got none, but we can cover that in the next section.

Last in the standings: Ottawa Charge (52.9%)

Guys. Guys, really? Ottawa fans, I am begging you, come represent your team because this is embarrassing. Like I don’t know much about what Ottawa’s been up to other than rebuilding the Czech National Team (shout out to Carla Macleod I am manifesting you knowing what you are doing). Like they weren’t bad last year, they were second in goals for, and they did lose a bit but they had tons of overtime losses which means they were in the games. Hell, they were very nearly in the playoffs, they were in the same category as Minnesota and Boston, the two finalist teams! Apparently my unpopular opinion is that Ottawa isn’t going to suck (They hopefully have two solid goalies now so Masch won’t be overworked, they signed some good players, I feel like I’m going crazy.) Otherwise, there’s not much notable in this section other than some doubt about the Sirens and the Frost (lord let it be the Frost /j) but shoutout to the one person truly going against the grain and saying that Montreal is gonna get dead last, I applaud your bravery.

The Four Playoff Teams:

This question was a little less straightforward so we’re gonna split it into three sections. The (Predicted) Shoe-ins, The Contenders, and Ottawa.

The (Predicted) Shoe-ins - 

The Sceptres, the Victoire, and the Fleet all had about 30 votes with nearly 90% of respondents selecting them each as one of the potential playoff teams. This fits pretty well with the previous votes of the Walter Cup winners and runner ups, so I wasn’t too surprised at any of these. All of these teams should have a decent shot at the playoffs and my own mostly unfounded misgivings about the Sceptres aside, this is all pretty reasonable and I largely think there’s a good chance that this is how it goes..

The Contenders - 

The Frost and the Sirens were pretty evenly matched, about half of y’all voted that they’d be one of four playoff teams and I generally agree that they both have a pretty good shot at the playoffs so there isn’t much to talk about here. I’d personally be more excited for the Sirens to make a run at the playoffs, I think they have a chance to be good after last season and hopefully put some things together over the summer, but we shall see.

Ottawa - 

You know I already wrote a whole ramble about this and since then Ottawa beat Boston 6-1 in the preseason and I think they heard how little faith you guys had in them and decided to take it out on my team. That’s all I’m gonna say on that.

The Trade Predictions:

These answers were definitely a bit less clear cut due to the nature of the question, after all it’s a lot easier to say who you think will be good than try and get into the head of GMs and coaches, but a few trends emerged nonetheless. The Frost, the Sirens, and the Charge all got 19 or 20 apiece and I think it makes a bit of sense. After all the Sirens and the Charge seemingly stand the most to gain through trade having missed the playoffs, and from later responses those who voted Minnesota were manifesting a Britta Curl trade which I’ll refrain from judging at the moment. I will say I’m a bit surprised that less people voted for Boston, after all unless my memory is entirely wrong they had the most trades over the course of last season and seem to hold very few qualms about it.

0.500+ Winning Percentage: Montreal Victoire (84.8%)

Guys, I respect this take, I’m 90% sure this was one of my votes for an above .500 team as well, but may I speak a little bit of heresy against the Victoire? Like they’re gonna be good, I don’t have doubt in that, but I don’t know if they’re gonna be that decisively good. They’re a bit injured which could lead to a rocky start and do we all still remember how much they relied on those top few players especially in the playoffs? I’m pretty sure in the Boston series their fourth line may have gotten less than ten minutes overall which I’m not an expert on hockey but isn’t a whole thing about balancing ice time and having solid lines all the way through so your stars aren’t having absurdly long nights (shout out to Erin Ambrose you deserve a gun)?

Otherwise this follows the general trends of the playoffs with a bit more faith in the Frost than in the Sirens, a reasonable amount for the Fleet and Sceptres, and absolutely none in Ottawa which I think we’ll all come to regret but I’ve said my piece about that already so I won’t beat a dead horse into the ground.

Higher Goals For than Goals Against: Toronto Sceptres (68.8%)

This risks getting into actual smart people hockey stuff that I am by no means an expert in, so I won’t spend too long other than to just share the results. Toronto and Montreal are the only two teams with a confidence rate of over 50%, followed by Boston, Minnesota, New York, and Ottawa. I think it’s interesting to think about potential offensive numbers but really can’t speak much to how accurate these have the chance of being because my main reaction is “huh yeah that’s a statistic people can make predictions on”

Player Predictions -

This definitely was a lot less definitive on almost all fronts, and I joked while advertising this that you could just type in MPP for all the answers and get half of them right, which seems to be the approach that some of you took. It’s fair, but expect a lot of repetition looking at these charts due to that because she is just that pervasive. I’ll try to mention as many players you guys picked as possible but you might have to look at the charts because I am neither an expert in all players nor a good enough writer to say anything other than “Yeah that’s certainly a player”

Above 1.00 points per game played: Marie Philip-Poulin (13 votes)

And here is the start to our MPP sweep, starting strong off the bat, about half of the 26 answers to this question included her which makes sense. She was second only to Natalie Spooner last season, with 1.1 pt/g and unless something weird happens I see no reason to suspect otherwise from her. I honestly didn’t expect as many other players to be suggested, after all it was only Natalie Spooner and Marie Philip-Poulin which makes sense, it’s an impressive statistic, but everyone seemed to have their favorites. Sarah Nurse was one player who hasn’t really been on my radar but you guys seem to like her, for this question and a bunch of other ones. I personally am partial to a Hilary Knight comeback season from this list but would be interested to see anyone make that jump.

In the Top Ten Points Getters: Marie Philip-Poulin (15 votes)

Everyone raise their hands if they’re surprised MPP won this in a landslide, oh wait literally no one is surprised I could have told you this when it was literally only my vote on the board. You’ll learn very quickly that oftentime the runaway winner of these simple questions aren’t really the interesting ones, it’s everyone else that got nominated that you can really dig into. Everyone who got top 10 last year, 18-27 points was up here in this list except Brianne Jenner and Katerina Mrazova which I’m chalking up to you guy’s Ottawa hate. Shoutout to Tobi and the one other person who voted for Gabbie Hughes and also Ronja Savolainen, you are the real ones rooting for the Charge.

Also I don’t know if it’s because with Natalie Spooner just kind of ruled the world coming out of Toronto I was completely blindsided by Sarah Nurse on most of these questions sorry Nursey I forgot you existed a little bit hopefully the Toronto girlies don’t tear me apart for that one.

PIMPG Over 1.00 Minutes: Abby Roque (16 votes)

The certainty of the questions ticks up by one for the next few and as much as everyone believed in MPP being awesome overall, one more person believed in Abby Roque being a criminal on skates and/or overly penalized, I didn’t leave room for that distinction. Tereza Vanišová earned the dubious distinction of second place but only with 6 votes and Emma Maltais earned third with a measly 3. Not a ton of Rookie representation here but I’ll be interested to see if any of this draft class take up this mantle. Also shoutout to the two people who voted Kaleigh Fratkin despite her not playing that’s so real and valid of you.

Save Percentage Over 0.920: Aerin Frankel (17 votes)

With the most votes of any player for a single category, Aerin Frankel, The Green Monster, love of my life and the blockade of the Boston Fleet, absolutely swept this category. I might have been thinking this in my head, but it’s good to see my Frankel love reaffirmed for the upcoming season because she deserves it all. And maybe a gun if Boston decides to have a few repeat performances from last year (cough two fifty+ save games in a row cough). The goalie questions have an inherently smaller pool so there were fewer surprises because as a certified goalie lover I try to keep tabs on the situation in net across the league. I’m shocked ARD didn’t get as much of a nod here from Montreal fans but suppose the appeal of Montreal is dissimilar to Boston in that regard as you theoretically have a consistent offense.

20+ Games Started as a Goalie: Aerin Frankel (16 votes)

Honestly I’m surprised Maschmeyer didn’t run away with this question because if it’s who I’d like to see start 20 games and do wonderfully it’d definitely be Frankel but I think with the possible addition of Klara Peslarova Boston shouldn’t be overly reliant on her with Soderburg and potentially Peslarova to back her up. I suppose it might be overwhelming faith in Gwyneth Phillips to be a solid number 2 in Ottawa but she wasn’t that represented in other goalie questions so maybe it was just an oversight considering Masch had the most starts of any goalie in the league last year. More interestingly, I respect the one person who refrained from answering and basically said that there’s so much depth in the league that no goalie will get 20 out of 30 starts. I’m not sure if it’s accurate, but the depth is real so it’s possible.

Billie Jean King (MVP) Nominee: Marie-Philip Poulin (10 votes)

And now we’re officially back in MPP territory and I’m not gonna spend too much time breaking this down because yeah. If Poulin has a repeat performance from last season and Spooner’s out for a significant portion of the season on LTIR, it’s her award to lose. But let’s look at some of the people you think she has the chance to lose it to. Once again you guys are on the Sarah Nurse train and you know what I support. Seeing the team ratios, lots of Toronto, a smattering of everyone else, no Ottawa, is definitely interesting but I’m not nearly smart enough to make conclusions as to what that means so I’ll leave it up to you to decide. (Something something teams with depth might have less obvious candidates if they’re all kicking in?)

Forward of the Year Nominee: Marie-Philip Poulin (10 votes)

Wow. MPP for forward of the year, who possibly could have predicted this. Definitely not me. And yes, you all are probably right but that’s not interesting! That’s not fun and cool and interesting so let’s move on. More Sarah Nurse love in this house and I think I can confidently say there aren’t very many of you confident in a repeat performance from Spooner/think her injured status will prevent her from potentially making this list. It’s a bit more prominent but there’s definitely a big Daryl Watts faction of supporters and honestly I endorse this. I might not be a huge Toronto girlie but I always have a soft spot for players who move teams and she just seems like a very easy person to root for. I just hope she doesn’t do too well against Boston this Saturday <3

Defender of the Year Nominee: Ella Shelton and Erin Ambrose (7 votes)

See isn’t this fun, isn’t this interesting, a tie for first place and none of them are named Marie-Philip Poulin! (ignore the fact she isn’t eligible) Honestly, I think Ella Shelton and Erin Ambrose are the obvious but objectively correct candidates. They were both nominated and both deserving but I think Shelton was a little robbed, after all she was second in points for her team as a defender and fifth yes that’s right, fifth place for points overall. But alas Erin Ambrose is a titaness and also deserved the award so that’s not the point. The point is I think I’m slightly biased towards Shelton between our two winners. As our runners up, we’re really feeling that Sophie Jaques love and I might be anti-Minnesota but I can’t bring myself to be ant-Sophie Jaques. Of course I endorse Keller (Go Fleet!) and can’t say I know enough about the rest of these players defensively to speak definitively on their chances.

Goalie of the Year Nominee: Aerin Frankel (13 votes)

Peace and love on planet earth there’s not much to say that I didn’t already say in the save percentage or games started section so I won’t dawdle too much here other than to say that there was a little less variation of who you thought would be nominated versus who you thought would have a good season (starting 20+ times, high save percentage). You guys tend to stick with proven goalies, which makes sense and I can’t see any place I’d disagree other than to say I think that if Corinne Schroeder keeps up her save percentage (higher than Soupy last year) and New York lets her see less of a volume of shots (she saw about 31 per game as compared to Campbell’s 24) by actually playing defense, she could separate a bit from the other goalies in the league. I’m always rooting for Aerin Frankel and think she got robbed last year, so if she stays the Green Monster she was last season I think she has a really good chance.

Rookie of the Year Nominee: Sarah Fillier (12 votes)

This really reaffirmed for me that most of us have absolutely no clue anything about the depth of this rookie class. Of the nine players named, ⅔ of them were the first round of the draft, one of them isn’t even a rookie (Sorry Daryl Watts you won’t be getting this piece of hardware), and Curl and Daniel were second and third round picks respectively. Meanwhile over 20 rookie skaters got points in the preseason games alone and only Serdachny and Fillier from this list got more than 1 point. The rest of those seven players were all but forgotten. And I get it, preseason is preseason, but my prediction is we’ll have a few unexpected standouts who really break out in the league when no one really saw them coming. I don’t think Sarah Fillier will be snubbed with nominations, her preseason hatty proved that she’s coming out on all cylinders, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the other two are people not listed here. We shall see.

Significantly Better Year (Pt/G increased by at least 0.4): Hilary Knight (7 votes)

Listen, I might be biased as she is the Captain of the Fleet (which sounds so cool and I do need art of her in a pirate uniform immediately if not sooner) but I personally am rooting for a Hilary Knight revenge tour. I think we saw it at the rivalry series and in the single preseason game she graced the ice with her presence, but I think she’s the type of player who underperformed last season and is now prepared to rip the league a new one. This was definitely one of the more varied questions with most candidates getting 1 or 2 votes so I’ll let you make your own opinions though I will say a lot of you are on the Daryl Watts train and think she’ll find her footing in Toronto. My one note is I’m not sure if some of you got the question because there are some candidates here (Sarah Nurse most notably) who had great and/or good seasons (above 0.5 points per game) and going up by 0.4 or more would mean they’d become transcendent players on the same level as the Spooners and Poulins of last season. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just saying there’s only so high players can go reasonably.

Involved in a Trade: Britta Curl (2 votes)

If the last question was a wide field of answers, this was a complete crapshoot. Aside from what I assume are two Minnesota fans hoping to dump Britta Curl on some other team, everyone else seems to be selected at random, so I won’t bother with any conjecture, you can observe and draw conclusions for yourself.

[brian-in-finance]

Caitríona Balfe attends the "Ford v Ferrari" press conference during the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox on 10 September 2019 in Toronto, Canada.

Image: Roxstar Entertainment

Collider Media Studio Returns To TIFF With Some of the Biggest Names in Hollywood

With the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) just around the corner, we’re thrilled to announce that Collider Media Studio will be returning to the Toronto International for another round of exciting interviews with support from Range Rover Canada. This year we have one of our bigger line-ups ever with scheduled talks with the top talent of the festival including Bobby Carnavale, Tom Hiddleston, Karen Gilian, Cobie Smulders, Ben Foster, Olympic Gold Medal Boxer Claressa Shields, Chloë Sevigny, Henry Golding, Beatrice Grannò, David Gordon Green, Pamela Anderson, Max Minghella, Orlando Bloom, John Turturro, Caitríona Balfe, Soul Rasheed, Brett Goldstein, Imogen Poots, Jee Young Han, Dakota Johnson, Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Paul Rudd, Kate Mara, Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Ron Howard, Ana De Armas, Isabella Rosellini, Ed Burns, Shamier Anderson, Minnie Driver, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka, Ryoo Seung-wan, Sandra Oh, Haley Joel Osment, and Gretchen Mol to name a few.

The program is produced by Leading Hollywood Events and Communications group, Roxstar Entertainment and their successful hospitality platform, the Cinema Center. Our sponsor partner Range Rover will help get the talent to our media studio with the 2024 Ranger Rover Sport, the official luxury vehicle partner of the Cinema Center and Collider Studio. Celebrities can enjoy the latest Range Rover Sport’s blend of sportiness, refinement, and connected convenience, ensuring they arrive at their red-carpet events in style and comfort.

Additional supporting sponsors include poppi soda, the better for you soda brand made with ingredients you love, like fruit juice and apple cider vinegar that create a mouthwatering soda with only 5 grams of sugar and 25 calories. Beloved by celebrities like Post Malone, Hailey Bieber, Kylie Jenner, Billie Eilish, Russell Westbrook, and Olivia Munn, poppi is revolutionizing soda for the next generation. poppi is now available at major retailers across Canada, including Loblaws, Real Canadian Superstore, Metro, Save on Foods, Maxi, Safeway, and Costco and key ecommerce retailers amazon.ca, instacart.ca and well.ca.

In addition, the Cinema Center will be serving up a themed cocktail menu featuring the ultra-premium Tequila Don Julio, as well as Ketel One Vodka, Tanqueray Gin, and Bulleit Bourbon. Don Julio’s luxury tequila is renowned for its use of only the highest caliber, fully matured and ripened Blue Agave that has been hand-selected from the rich, clay soils of the Los Altos region of the state of Jalisco.

Other partners include Canada’s new premium spring water brand, Legend Water co. and Peoples Group financial services will all be engaging our talent and guests with product offerings and special brand experiences onsite.

Check out the poster below and stay tuned to our socials for updates on this year’s Collider Media Studio at TIFF.

Collider

Caitríona Balfe attends the "Ford v Ferrari" press conference during the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival at TIFF Bell Lightbox on 10 September 2019 in Toronto, Canada.

Remember the return to TIFF?

[0xeff]

Here we go again

(Mirrored from MxRP Discord #server-announcements)

As many of you are likely aware, my housing situation hasn't been very stable. I've moved (temporarily) to a place out in the woods with my mother after my lease ended a couple months ago. The plan was to spend a while here, save up our money, and get ourselves a place somewhere in the Greater Toronto Area.

It turns out this might have been a mistake. Our food gets stolen. Our landlord causes arguments, constantly finds reasons to complain, and it often times leads to shouting and threats of eviction if she doesn't get her way.

We're close to securing a place for ourselves before it can come to that, but we need some financial help to get there. First and Last month's rent payment for a new place is out of our reach, and we also need to buy furniture, dishes, utensils, and various other necessities once we do move.

Do note, however, that my situation does not jeopardize the beta in any way. It's not hosted on my hardware, and will continue to run regardless so long as the server bill is payed. The only impact it may have is in the frequency of updates.

If you're feeling generous, please consider donating to my GoFundMe.

[empressgeekt]

So I had a read of your version of Trolls and I have one question; who is part of the Council in your AU? Because fun fact: in my Strange Friendship AU, I explore the concept of the Pop Trolls having a Council as well.

Well that's an interesting question.

The way I'm setting up the council is that there's one representative for different occupations and sub-tribes. Most of them will likely not be named however, an example, would be Sky Toronto, who would stand for village supplies and as a rep for Glitter trolls. Doctor MoonBloom for medical needs and a rep practitioners etc.

And of Course the King or Queen who's supposed to represent the people as a whole and lead military plans. Technically They should be one step above the council and said council could only advise the ruler. However, the role of the Royal family shifted once the bergens held the Pop tribe captive. During that time the council switched all focus on survival, which meant keeping people happy so the Chef would leave them alone until Trollistice rolled around. Passing holidays, putting in Hug Time, anything to keep the populace colorful, after a few generations this just became the norm.

Cut to post escape and now the practices that kept them alive, are now hurting the populace with forced toxic positive. Only all the Council are older trolls, who are very traditionalist, and believe what kept them safe in the tree is enough to keep them safe in the woods. Making them hesitant to change anything that might upset people, since negative emotions were once a death sentence. Much to the frustration of Branch, who knows that they are using old tactics on the wrong playing field.

Poppy in this au is going to have a lot of clean up work to do, especially when the other Tribes join up, since the old ways aren't really the old ways and are not working anymore. (

(this is the same for all my Trolls aus, though in Burning Branches, the changes are more swift considering Char was heavily involved in Rock kingdom politics and knows how to fix things even if the Rock trolls government is different system)

[couldawouldashoulda50]

A heart full of regret - William Nylander

A/N - This fic still falls under William Nylander and the fem reader who is a global super-star.

Just a side note (for anyone that might be wondering), I have been honestly struggling to find my way back to The Distance and the Time between Us . Between my work and personal commitments, it’s been super challenging to get back in that headspace.  Admittedly, my perception changed a little of William since the Sweden trip so I have been reworking a few things in my head about him too.  

I tried to tie this side piece into the main Distance and Time series as well so hopefully I can get back to outlining some of the earlier years between William and the reader and have it all flow together.  I tried to make sure I’m well on my way with getting Part 2 completed of this piece before I posted Part One.  I apologize if I seem all over the place sometimes.

Thank you to everyone for giving this a shot 🙂

Word count 8k+

Warnings: 18+ content, general smut (p in v, oral m receiving, c*ck massage), swearing, angst, reflections of the end of a relationship, casual sex

Late November, 2023

A familiar chime echoes once again through the condo, signalling a step closer to yet another tryst for William Nylander.  This time, it’s Trina; a lively and pretty young woman in her early twenties whom he crossed paths with recently while out for his daily walk with Pablo and Banksy.  

Prior to the trip to Sweden for the NHL Global Series, William wouldn’t go too many days without a casual encounter with an attractive female, which would lead to introductions and further chats, and often enough, to the bedroom of whomever's place was closest.  Ever since Williiam moved to this upscale part of the city, he noticed there was no shortage of beautiful and stylish women that lived within a short distance of his doorstep.  Now having returned from his beloved Stockholm, where he shone even brighter than the spotlights themselves, there had been a further surge of interested parties coming out of the woodwork.  

William had been in committed relationships for long periods of time prior to this season, but throughout the other periods of time when he was single, he felt there was no harm in having small feasts of women here and there to satisfy his sexual appetite.   

William had consistently been very low-key about divulging (m)any details about his personal life, whether it be in interviews or across all the social media apps.  He was no stranger to his name being thrown around in the news by reporters hungry to spawn a certain narrative about his game performance or even his personality; many times, he was not cast in a favorable light but somehow his laid back personality carried him through.  Regardless of what kind of attention he received, William never came across like any of it went to his head, to any great degree anyway.  

However, after his well-documented week in Sweden, and the internet exploding after his appearance on the “Bianca” show where he provided some very personal details of his own sex life, William was reaping the benefits of his re-energized superstardom.  As a result, he was getting more notoriety with being a handsome, talented, virile, and notably single, professional hockey player.

All of the resurgence of popularity does not come without a flipside - a downside to which the descent is much longer lasting that the ascent to stardom.  William knew this and he was fortunate that he had people in his life that would remind him to be careful of the traps and pitfalls tied to such celebrity.   The trouble is there was no one quite like that here in Toronto that he could just call and hang out with, that he could just “be” with; the people that cared for him most, and that he cared for, were all dispersed between the US and Sweden.  And as much as he loved his two beloved dogs, they weren’t great for a two-way conversation. 

William’s phone chimes again.

Be there in 5 😘

William acknowledges the text and heads into the washroom to do his traditional freshening up routine.  

“She's nice, boys - you met her on our walk”, William said to Pablo and Banksy as he returned to the living room; the dogs cock their heads to the side in response.  William gives them both a hearty and affectionate scratch behind their ears, and chuckles as their rumps move in unison showing their adoration for their dog dad.

William flopped down on the couch and continued to absent-mindedly scratch the dog's backs and scrolled through some more messages on his phone.  

After glancing at numerous DM's received as of late, something shifted in William’s mind; an empty feeling that he only just recognized at that moment.  He realized, rather suddenly, that he really wasn’t into Trina at all and the dread of her impending arrival started to build within him.  William had only invited her over for one purpose.  She was merely coming to scratch an itch, an itch that would still linger long after she’s long gone from his bed.  He didn’t have the heart to cancel on her with her just being literal seconds from his door, but he made up his mind right there that this would not be a long visit.  

Say you’ve got a migraine he thought to himself.   

William’s phone rang, a picture of his mom appeared on the screen.

“Hey, Mom…how’s it going?”  William smiled.

They exchange some light-hearted small talk for a few moments when William hears a soft knock at the door.  He takes his mom off speaker-phone and starts walking toward the door.  He thinks he should probably just tell his Mom he has company and end the call but he’s come to realize that he would much rather talk to her than the girl on the other side of the door.  Trina will just have to come in and wait.

“Mom, two seconds - just letting someone in”.

“I can let you go - there’s just something I need to discuss with you about Christmas so we’ll need some more time to talk.   I’ll talk to you later William, ok?”

“No - Mom, please…if it’s about you guys coming for Christmas, I’d like to get that sorted out, ok?  Just gimme a sec.”

He opens the door for Trina and mustering a smile, he invites her in.  She glides past him and gives him her best “come fuck me” eyes, ghosting her fingers along his covered abdomen.  William catches the scent of her perfume; between that and the deep blue bodycon dress she’s wearing under a sleek, belted wool coat (the dress he feels is a little over the top given he didn’t plan to leave the apartment), he momentarily forgets his migraine plan as he stares at the contour of her cleavage and her ass as she enters the living room.   

She approaches the couch where the two dogs are waiting anxiously, but politely, for some affection.  Trina looks at the dogs and tries to give a command for them to get down off of the furniture; looking back at William she said “sorry, I just don’t want the dogs slobbering all over me”.  

There’s a sinking feeling in William’s stomach; he really wants to get out of this now.  

Migraine plan is back on.  Say you’ve got a migraine right after a few sips of wine correcting his first thought to himself.

“Boys….off,” William commands.  He feels like shit watching his cherished companions skulk off the couch.

He motions to the phone, “It’s my Mom, she’s just got a quick question but I won’t be long, just going to take in here” nodding toward his bedroom.  “There’s a bottle of white wine in the fridge; help yourself.  I'll be right out”.  

William enters his room, closes the door and lets out a long sigh.

Switching to his native tongue, he resumes the call.  

“Ok, Mom…what’s up?” 

“You sure I’m not interrupting?  You have a guest, William”.

“It’s ok, she’s good…it’s fine, Mom”.

“So Dad and I have been figuring out what might make sense for all of us to get together for Christmas.  We’ve had an interesting offer if we come to Toronto, but we wanted to talk with you about it first.”

William senses that his mom seems tentative; her tone just seems off.

“...oh - okaaay?...”

Camilla hesitates and then begins.  “Well, we recently received a phone call from Y/N”.

William’s stomach is no longer sinking.  It’s plummeting.  His heart begins to race hearing your name.

“She reached out to ask if she could borrow back that guitar she gave your sister a few years ago.  There’s an exhibit that was running in London but has now moved on to Toronto showing the different guitars she’s collected over the years and the stories behind each one”.

William remains silent at the other end.  His face is drained; any colour he had initially has been swapped out with a dull, achy feeling.   

“She was very apologetic for calling but she explained that although it wasn’t part of the London exhibit, she would really love to have it included at the Toronto exhibit, given it’s in her hometown and she has a strong sentimental attachment to it”.  

Camilla was only met with further silence from William. She knew this would be difficult for him, given the history you and he shared.

“She ended up coming to Stockholm to pick it up herself.  We invited her to stay for a meal so we had a long visit, which was nice.”

William could barely think to form a sentence; a million thoughts ricocheted off of one another in his brain. 

“So, anyway, she asked if we were coming to visit you in Toronto this year for Christmas. I said we weren’t sure.  I told her that when we were there last year, it soaked up a lot of our time trying to get anywhere since we were split up between your place and the hotel.”  

Although William didn’t speak, he agreed silently  in his head that it was chaotic from time to time last year to line up the logistics with the various designated meeting places and transporting his family in the heavy downtown traffic.

“Are you still there darling?” Camilla asked.

“I’m here, Mom.” William quietly responded.

“Getting to the point, she said that if we wanted, and if you were comfortable with it, that we could use her house while she’s away visiting her family.  She said she would be happy to arrange anything we needed so we can just relax and spend time together.  Your Dad was impressed that she came up with the idea at all…then she just offered it up straight away.”

Turns out, when he tells Trina that he has a migraine, it may not be far from the truth.  

“Sounds like her - always going above and beyond for everyone”, William said.  His tone was indiscernible; it was hard for Camilla to tell whether her son was just emotionless or if he was really hurting.  

“You don’t need to answer right away, but it really would be such a great option for us. She told us a bit about the layout; it would almost be like being back at one of those villas in Saint Tropez….only in winter. I suppose you already know that.”

William knew what his Mom was saying was true.  He knew and loved your house, and not just for all the grandeur of the amenities; the indoor/outdoor pool, the games room and the theatre room to name a few.  He loved how it felt whenever he was there with you.  It didn’t matter if it was just the two of you, or if it was a get together with friends,  you always made it so warm, comfortable and inviting for anyone that came to visit.   

“Yeah, ok Mom, I’ll think about it and will call you back”.  William ends the call and remains in his room, trying to regroup.

Ugh. Trina’s out there waiting 

He walks out and sees Pablo and Banksy lying on the floor by the entrance door.  He had forgotten he had banished them from the couch so apologetically, he told them to hop up on his bed.  If they’re sad, they can at least be comfortable.

“Hey you,” Trina smiles warmly.  

“Sorry about that - with the time difference and all, it’s hard to sometimes get a chance for my Mom and I to talk”, William fibbed.

William sits beside Trina on his couch and sees she has poured a glass of wine for her and him.  

Take a drink, say you have a headache, get her out of here.

“Was it not a good call?  You don’t look well…” Trina said, her perfectly shaped brows furrow.

“Nah, it was fine - I just feel a headache coming on I think”.

“I’m sorry…can I do something?  I know this thing - like a massage for your neck that helps reduce pressure from your head.” Trina’s hopeful tone was apparent.  

William thought for a moment and then reluctantly agreed.  She positions him in the exact spot she needs and readjusts herself sitting on her knees behind him.  She instructs William to lower his chin to his chest and he obliges.  

 William closed his eyes and let Trina’s hands try and work out the pressure that has built in his head since the phone call.  You used to do the same; the strength and dexterity in your hands from years of masterfully playing guitar, piano and drums always succeeded in releasing pressure from one area or another.  It usually led to a thoroughly enjoyable activity after the fact as well.

His memory calls William back to a night, many years ago, with you in his bed and you sheepishly asked if you could give him a cock massage, while he is blindfolded.  You said you had seen a video  (he got you to admit you were actually watching porn while travelling back to Toronto after a performance) of a woman giving the most insane massage to her boyfriend’s member and you desperately wanted to try it with William upon your return.  

[December, 2016]

“Isn’t it just like a hand-job?” William chuckled, lying on his back, his muscular everything fully exposed.

“Maybe a little - but it was more sensual than her just pumping away on it until…” you made an exploding hand gesture with one of your hands.   

William watched you, grinning ear to ear.  He felt his cock twitch, not just at the thought of your hands working his member but from the purely awesome sight of your beauty.  You were standing lighting candles by the bed in a short, black silk negligee that you had bought in Florence that summer.  You had bought it for yourself - you loved how you felt in it and oftentimes when you were alone at home, you would pad around the house on a lazy day wearing only that…and it felt wonderful.  Your long curls laid loose down your back; your sandy blonde mane layered with dark brown lowlights was tousled at the crown of your head from the passionate make-out session that had just occurred.  This was one of those nights where every open mouthed kiss was more delicious than the last and neither you could bring yourselves to stop.

You grab your black sleeping mask and with a coy smile, you put the flexible band of the mask between your teeth so it’s dangling from your mouth, and you crawl slowly from the foot of the bed toward William.  Your eyes are fixed on his stunning blues that appear to be darkening with pure hunger for you.  

You straddle his midriff - fucking god, his hard abdominal muscles against your entrance has you clenching your walls, wishing he was inside you.  Your pussy is primed and wet already for his cock but you’re able to push those urges aside.  You carefully place the mask over his eyes and gently expand the band, fitting it around his head.  Now fully blindfolded, you lace your fingers through his and bring his hands up to your tits as you rock back and forth.  

Fuck, he feels good.  You fight with that ongoing urge for his cock to drive into you fast and hard; first, you want to make him writhe and squirm with ecstasy with just your touch.  With this, you push the thoughts of him fucking you into oblivion to the side and stay with what you planned initially.  

Willing yourself to NOT put his cock in your mouth as you descend down his body, was a chore unto itself.  ‘It's right there, Y/N - just a little taste…’, your thoughts taunt you as you shake your head, trying to stay focused.

Finally, you seat yourself in a comfortable position and you help Willam shift his bum down towards you a little further.  

You generously apply some warming oil around his (shaved) pubic area and begin the process of smoothing the oil around, somewhat teasingly avoiding his growing erection.  

Applying a little more, you strategically drip the oil around just above his balls.  The liquid slowly trickles down from the base of his member and across the sensitive skin of his sac, his cock continuing to twitch from the sensation; you smile as you hear a small moan from William as he bites his bottom lip.

You begin smoothing your hands up the length of his dick and down the shaft towards his balls.  You repeat various motions, concentrating on his body reactions to the touches and stroking that your hands are providing.  You're pleased to hear William start to moan; his hips begin to move to the rhythm of your strokes.  When a large, translucent bead of fluid appears from the tip of his penis, you let out a soft moan.  It takes everything in you to not lean over and run your tongue through his arousal.  Although you love sucking his cock, you abstain as it's not on the menu tonight, not just yet.  Instead, you smear the precum around the tip using your thumb and forefinger, over and over again.  

William’s head falls to the side as a long moan leaves his mouth, followed by a curse word or two.  You experiment a little by grabbing the thick base of his cock, balls included, firmly in one hand, and with the other, you stroke his shaft of his member and his balls masterfully with your hands, using his seeping fluid for extra slickness.  

As his breath quickens, William’s muscles in his abdomen flex and contract as you continue to alternate stroking the head of his cock and using his arousal to glide your hand up and down his shaft and over his balls.  Soon, his hips instinctively rise and fall with every stroke, while louder grunts echo when you smooth your hands over the now purple head of his throbbing dick at a faster pace.  Veins are protruding from his pelvis all the way to his shaft and you sense William is getting close, as he grits his teeth and grasps at the large towel that covers the comforter on his bed.

As breathy gasps escape from his mouth, you can see and feel the eruption bubbling up through his shaft as his balls flex and constrict.  You hold his impressive cock firmly in place and continue to work the head of his cock with your fingers and hand until finally thick streams of cum shoot out of his tip.  Instead of just finishing him off with a few more pumps of his cock, you follow your recollection of the video and keep using his seed to lubricate his shaft and tip to keep stroking his cock, looking to draw out a longer and more intense pleasure.  

As you stroke and manipulate his member after his first orgasm, William becomes even more vocal…only managing short sentences through his strained voice, blurting out his gratification which was mixed with a whole lot of profanity.  More and more, his thigh muscles are flexed leading to more contouring of his hips and accentuating that god damned “V” that literally makes you throb at the sight of it.  

A long, strained growl marks the next explosion followed by a forceful “Fuuuuuuck mee” from William, almost chuckling as the cum spills out in thick ribbons.   You smile at the sight of him panting through his naturally pouting lips;  this experience with William was even better than what you had hoped for and as it turns out, it was just as fulfilling for you too.  

As William laid there, sprawled out and spent, he slid the blindfold off his eyes, leaving it resting on his forehead.  He gazes at you sitting in front of him not understanding how he could have ever gotten so lucky to even be able to kiss you, let alone have you give him two of the most earth shattering orgasms, within minutes of each other, with just your hands.

He was certain that he would lose his mind as he watched you slowly lean over his cock and lick the last remnants of cum from around the head.  

William inhales sharply as you flatten your tongue against the rounded tip for a more substantial taste.  And just because you could not control the urge anymore (he tasted and felt that good in your mouth), you slid the length of his softening cock all the way in your mouth until it touched the back of your throat.  You withdraw him from your mouth and gently lay his cock in back on his midriff.  Yep, he's definitely done for now.

“C’mere…that was just fucking amazing.  Seriously….fucking amazing, Y/N” William said with a low, gravelly tone as gently pulled you on top of him.  

You’re not sure where it came from but a brand new need for William washed over you.  It was something beyond sex; you yearned for him to just bring you into his sculpted arms and have them fully envelop you.  Gently, you slide your one hand under William’s head and you nestle your face into the crook of his neck, pressing your lips against his skin.  Your legs flank William’s torso and your other arm has looped under his other underarm.  In turn, William slid his one hand up all the way up from your thigh, along your spine up to the nape of your neck, gently grasping a small handful of your gorgeous locks.  His other arm slid around your waist, the silk fabric of your neglige gathered in his hand.  Although your core had pressure building from being in the position you were in, the overwhelming sense of calm and safety had momentarily usurped the need for his cock to be buried deep inside you.

After a few moments, William gently rolled you both on your sides, never releasing you from his hold.  You remained intertwined as William kissed your forehead, temple…wherever he could rest his lips against.  

“Kap’s going to be here tomorrow night with his new girl - think you could make it to the game and we can sneak back to your place after? I might have some ideas to try out on you now…” 

“Mmm-hmm - would love that” you said drowsily, nuzzling into William even further.

William kisses your head again and breaks from the embrace for a moment; leaning over top of you, he proceeds to blow out all the candles.  As his body pressed against yours, you take the opportunity to run your hands over his muscular flank, marvelling at the look and feel of such a beautiful physique.

As sleep found you both, you each drifted off with the quiet thoughts in your heads, that there was something very unique and special developing  between you.  

William snapped back to reality.  He had to admit; Trina’s hands felt pretty good and with that, William let out a groan. With the memories of you consuming his mind, William began to get hard as Trina continued to work on loosening his tense muscles.  William’s burgeoning erection caught Trina’s attention, and she wasted no time in moving her hands from his neck to his shoulders, down along his broad back muscles to his hips. 

“You like that, Willy?” Trina said, her tone low and sultry.   

“Mmm-hmph” 

“What about this?”  Trina’s hands brazenly reach around to cup his balls while sucking on his earlobe, slightly north of his diamond earring.  She palms his still-clothed dick and rubs his erection in slight circular motion.

“Mmmm….good….” William responds, his voice slightly strained.

William’s mind slides back and forth with conflicting thoughts, like a car fish-tailing on ice.  Images of you, your face, your body, your mouth, your taste, your touch - his desire for you - had penetrated his brain.  But the voice.  It’s not your voice.  It’s some random girl’s voice in his ear and William’s gut twists at the thought. 

Meanwhile, Trina was determined to seize her moment with the hockey star.  She stands up from her position on the couch and gently nudges William to turn so he’s facing her as she stands in front of him.  

William's eyes are fixed on the hem of her dress which has ridden up to the top of her thighs.  Trina follows William’s gaze and looking down at William, she smiles sweetly and begins to pull her hem up even further.

“You make me so hot, Willy” Trina said, the ‘v’ of her scarcely covered cunt now on display.

She brings one of William’s hands up towards her need, opens her thighs slightly and positions the palm of his hand right against her drenched entrance.  

“Shit” William said gruffly; his sweatpants have done little to mask his rigid dick.  Figuring he might as well have some fun, William’s mind all but dismisses his previous thoughts concerning you and concentrates on the girl in front of him.

William runs his middle finger from the top of Trina’s folds and firmly inserts the same finger deep inside of her.  Trina gasps with pleasure and both of her hands encircle William’s wrist holding his hand in place, she begins to rotate her hips over his digit, encouraging his finger to move deeper and curl inside of her.

William obliges by inserting his ring finger alongside his middle.  As William gyrates his hand, Trina’s head snaps back when he connects with her sweet spot.  William continues to finger fuck Trina; she releases her grip around William’s wrist and begins to knead her breasts.  

“Oooooh - Willy….your thick fingers feel so fucking good inside of me” Trina whines as William continues move his fingers into her wet core.  

“Let me suck your cock…I want your dick in my mouth”.

William again obliges, removing his fingers from her centre.  Trina steps closer to William and lowers herself between his legs.  She closes the distance between them, leaning in for their first kiss.  Trina places a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss on William’s mouth.  Immediately he tastes a faint mint flavour mixed with something else, something stronger.  

Weed maybe, he thinks to himself.

Whatever it is, it's not doing much to improve his mood.

If there's anything William’s past sexual encounters have taught him, it was better in the long run to feign enjoyment than to show ambivalence or dissatisfaction toward the girl of the moment.  William is hopeful he won't have to fake anything at this point - fuck - he needs a distraction and goddammit, Trina’s just gonna have to be it.  

Thankfully, Trina moves on from William’s mouth and starts pulling his sweatpants and shorts off.

Moving right along…., William thinks to himself.

Trina licks a long strip up William’s shaft; she spits on the tip and begins to stroke his cock, trying to make him a little harder.  

The spit dries out without Trina even realizing it as she continues to pump his cock.  William flinches at the rough and dry sensation that her too firm of a grip left on his member. 

She lowers herself down to lap at his balls, enveloping one in her mouth at a time, and withdrawing it with an audible ‘pop’.  

She’s trying too hard, William pondered. 

He watches her alternate from ball to ball, with a ‘pop’ each time she withdraws her mouth.  Trina licks another stripe up his shaft.  “You like that, right Willy?  You like it when I lick your balls?” 

William gives a faint smile and leans his head back on the couch; not because he was enjoying Trina’s attempts at pleasuring him but to try and think of his personal turn-ons so he can get through this.  

William thought of you.  He thought of the way you always made his toes fucking curl whenever you took him in your mouth.  Deep in your mouth as you’d innocently, almost bashfully, make eye contact with him for just a few seconds here and there. He loved watching you working your magic with your tongue, mouth and your hands, smoothing back your curls to view the best angles of your face.  You never just sucked his cock.  You took your time.  You savoured him.  You made love to his cock and balls with your mouth and God, the moans you made while you tasted him always left him reeling.  

As it turns out, William’s images of you in his head had the desired effect.  Now with his diminishing erection reversed, William made some small adjustments to Trina’s methods in order to keep the momentum going in the right direction.

After a few more moments, Trina stood up and she fully disrobed in front of William.“Do you want to move to the bedroom?”  

If she’s anything, she’s confident, William muses.

His dogs had already been displaced once and he’s not about to do it again.  

“Let’s stay out here - on the couch…just gotta go grab something”.  

William stands up, naked from the waist down, and saunters into the bathroom.

Trina eyes his chiselled body walk away, almost as though she’s stalking her prey.  She had been hoping to meet William ever since she spotted him one morning leaving his building to go for a walk with his dogs.  Though he was dressed down in baggy sweatpants, an oversized hoodie, and a backwards baseball cap,  William screamed affluence with the luxury designer labels scrawled across the articles of clothing.  He was wealthy, gorgeous, and seemingly single…three of Trina’s favourite qualities.  William being a popular professional athlete only further tempted Trina. 

Trina’s father, a wealthy executive of a real estate development firm headquartered in Toronto, had essentially gifted her a luxury condo unit in the same neighbourhood as William, once she had graduated from university (only graduating by the skin of her teeth [doing everything at university but apply herself to her studies]; regardless, it mattered not - she still had her degree).  

Both Trina’s parents had long realized, after the fact, the detrimental effects of doting on their only child’s every whim for so many years.  Privileged and spoiled were the two prevalent adjectives that described their daughter.  Therefore after graduation, as an ultimatum, Trina got a luxury condo (and all living expenses paid) as long as she came to work for her father as a junior executive in his firm.   Trina agreed, under the condition that her closest friend, Lara (really her only friend amongst a sea of party-goers and acquaintances), could come live and work with her too.

It worked well, or at least Trina’s father thought so.  If not for any other reason, Trina’s father could, at the very least, keep a watchful eye on his daughter and at the very most, attempt to infect her with a better work ethic.

While her friend Lara seemed to fit right in at the firm, Trina longed for an even easier life.  She wanted to be pampered, to be looked after - she did not want to get up every morning and head to an office just to do the bare minimum while she spent the majority of time shopping online.  

The one skill Trina had become quite adept at was pretending to be what she needed to be in order to get what she wants, in any given circumstance.

She had her sights on William now.  She could pretend to be a dog lover - that’s how she caught his eye to begin with.  She could pretend to be interested in his beloved Sweden, his family, his friends - hell, even the team…there was more than enough eye-candy to snack on with the Leafs.  She fit the bill of a trophy wife perfectly and whether she became one with William, or someone else, that was her ultimate goal.

Presently, Trina was pretending to be William’s personal pornstar.

Trina leaned back on the couch with her legs splayed, stroking her sensitive clit, awaiting William’s return.  When he finally emerged, his cock semi-erect already covered by a condom, he laid a towel on the couch and then sat down on the middle cushion.  He smiled at Trina who was now sitting in an upright position and motions for her to climb aboard.

Trina straddles William; her mouth devours him with more open-mouthed kisses. At this stage, William knew he was just going through the motions; there was zero chemistry, sexual or otherwise, between them.  

Struggling to keep his erection, he breaks from her kiss and rubs the tip of his cock back and forth through the slickness of her folds.  He positions the tip at Trina’s entrance.  Eventually (and gratefully), his cock is rigid enough to slide into her.     

Trina adjusted herself to William’s girth and began to slowly rock back and forth.  William was cautiously optimistic about how good this is actually starting to feel.  Trina had only succeeded in killing his hard-ons so far so he was hoping for a quick release; after she leaves he can just go to bed with his dogs and put this whole experience behind him.  

William grabbed onto Trina’s hips and drove his frustration into her.  She screamed in pleasure, calling his name as she bounced on top of him.  

Fuck - my neighbours are going to hate me.

Trina continued grinding, bouncing and rotating on Wiliiam’s cock at a furious pace; her chest  flushed with pink as she worked his cock and her tits bounced in William’s line of sight.  

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, yes, Willy…like that” Trina whined emphatically.  

It was clear to William at that moment she was exaggerating most of the sounds she was making.  Hell, he had made you wail and scream with the most mind bending orgasms that you never thought were possible.  William knew that with you, your cries and grasps were genuine and that he was witnessing the real thing, several times over.

William had been around the block with his cock enough to know Trina was overacting and it was getting on William’s last nerve.

Moan after moan, hitting a higher decibel each time, William had reached his limit.  His hands circle Trina’s waist lifting her off his cock.  With no verbal cues, he positioned Trina back on the couch so he could enter her from behind.  He’s frustrated and annoyed at himself more than anything, so he’s just going to fuck her and hopefully the pillow she’s holding onto will muffle her noise.

William closes his eyes and enters Trina.  It’s not long before she’s grasping the arm of the couch with the force of William’s dick buried deep inside of her.  William grips her hips holding them steady as he continuously bottoms out, his encased shaft is slick and shiny with Trina’s wetness from her core.

“Faster, Willy!  Faster….oh god, harder, Willy!” Trina pleads.

Jesus - she’s trying to kill me.

Miraculously, William’s close to release.  His hips ram against Trina’s ass as hard and as fast as he could manage while Trina feverishly rubs her clit.  A loud shriek signals Trina’s orgasm.  Her pussy walls clenching helped William reach his own climax and a few thick streams of cum collect in the reservoir tip of the condom. 

Thank Christ this is over.

Trina half collapses on the couch and rolls onto her back.  Her sleek figure shines from the thin layer of sweat from their late afternoon’s strenuous activities.  

“Oh my God Willy…that was so good, so fucking good…” Trina chuckles, still out of breath. A lazy grin adorns her pretty face.  William, having already gotten up to dispose of the condom, returns to the living room, still naked from the waist down.

“Ha, yeah…well, I try” William smiles, grabbing a pillow to place on his lap .  

William paused for a moment as he surveyed the situation and whether Trina planned on staying longer.  

“I’m sorry to say this but I feel a migraine coming on - could we call it a night?”

Trina sat up and moved closer to William on the couch.  

“Oh..I’m sorry, I was hoping that massage, and well, everything else I did would have helped”.  

“No, no, the massage was great but I think the headache was already too far gone to really stop it.  I just need to crawl into bed, not move and have no sounds around me, and hopefully I’ll sleep until tomorrow.

Trina offers to stay multiple times and William declines each offer.  Although William was ready to snap, he kept his composure, pulled his pants back on, helped gather her things and politely escorted her to the door.

Trina leans in and plants another open-mouthed kiss on William’s mouth.  

William’s lack of reciprocation went unnoticed by Trina.

“Feel better, Willy - maybe call me later…if you can,” Trina smiles and leans in, giving him a hug.

“Yeah, thanks - have a good night”.  William waves as she enters the elevator and he then gently closes the door.

William hangs his head and exhales; there’s so much going on in his mind.  He goes into the bedroom, kneels on the floor and brings his face close to each of the dogs.

“Sorry boys….fuck.  Never again with that one”.

The dogs are quick to smother William with kisses.

“I’ll take you guys out in a few minutes, ok?”

William climbs onto his bed and grabs his phone.  He pulls up his Mom's number and types a quick note:

Hey Mom… if you’re sure, let’s do the Xmas thing at Y/N’s.  I’ll reach out to her myself 

William’s stomach flips at the thought of contacting you.  Despite the time that had long passed since William effectively removed you from his life, his mind would still betray him time after time with the many memories of you in his mind's eye. William often longed to reach out to you and in his quietest moments, William always held a very private and guarded hope that one day, you would wind up together.  

These thoughts only intensified for William when, in late July this past summer, William spotted you at Mitch and Stephanie’s wedding.  You had third-wheeled it with Tessa and Morgan, who had also tied the knot that summer in a much more secretive manner.  With Tessa being one of your closest friends of the last 10 plus years, she knew you might need a crash helmet when you initially laid your eyes on him for the first time in forever, so she and Morgan invited you to come along with them.  

When the moment came that you and William first glanced at each other, no air bag or crash helmet was needed.  You and William shared a long and lingering look at each other amongst the guests that meandered around the dancefloor.  Neither of you could control the wide smiles that spanned your faces.  For not only did everything seem right in the world for a mere moment, your dress and William’s pants were the exact same shade of lilac.  Your chosen outfits looked obnoxiously pre-planned and the comedy of your attire wasn’t lost on those in attendance that knew of your shared history.  They laughed and gestured at you both, all of them getting a kick out of the sight of the two of you being all matchy-matchy.

It served as an icebreaker for you and William; you simply looked him up and down and commented, rather dryly, saying “well, I ain’t changing…I was here first” followed by a cheeky grin.  William approached you and extended his arms for a hug.  All the hurt from the past temporarily washed away in that moment, and you both felt genuinely happy to see each other.  

The small talk flowed easily and you both quickly fell back into light and vivacious exchanges. William began to wonder if he might be able to steal you away before the end of the night.  After all, being among the very few bachelors in attendance, it would be a fantasy-come-to-reality scenario to spend the night with you.  When William finally managed to ask what your plans after the reception were, he was crushed to find out you would be leaving early, right after your last performance at the reception (oftentimes at weddings, you were not only a guest but were part of the entertainment as well).  

Things never change, William thought.  It was this main reason why he ended your affair so many years ago.  

 William couldn’t hide his disappointment.  “Still not in one place for very long, eh?”

You were quick to react to his comment inside your head; a feeling somewhere between annoyance and hurt. You felt the sting of one of his last spoken sentiments to you all those years ago about always needing to leave where he was, yet again, for something else.

Quietly you respond.  “Well…unfortunately it’s a rehearsal for a musical tribute in Ireland for a dear friend and a mentor of mine who recently passed, rather unexpectedly.”  An intense urge to cry hit you without warning, and it took all your might, along with a hard swallow, to keep the tears from appearing.  

What you really wanted, and you were thoroughly ashamed to admit this to yourself, was to go to William and lose yourself completely in his arms.  After all these years, he still had an effect on you like no one you had ever known.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N…I didn’t mean to sound like an asshole”, William said quietly after seeing you struggle to hide the sorrow on your face.     

“William, no, I get it - it’s ok.  Honestly though, if I had it my way, she’d still be alive and I’d be having more fun tonight as opposed to belting out a few songs, nursing my Pink Whitney, and then having to catch a flight.”  

William pulled you in for a side hug and kept his arm draped around your shoulder as you walked together to rejoin Rasmus Sandin and his girlfriend Lisa.

As you enjoyed the lively banter between the Swedes in attendance, mixed with Jumbo Joe Thornton’s boisterous brand of humour, you were summoned away from William’s side.  You excused yourself from the group and as you walked away, you glanced at William’s face and smiled warmly.  He leaned in towards you and gently placed his hand on the exposed skin on your lower back.  With his voice lowered, just above a whisper, he said “Good luck up there.  Come find me after.”

But as fate, or rather too many prolonged drunken speeches and several other delays, once you had finished performing (at Stephanie’s request) Taylor Swift’s “22”, you were whisked away, with no opportunity for goodbyes, into the awaiting car in order to catch your flight to Dublin.

As the car speeds along the Queen Elizabeth Way towards Pearson Airport, you busy yourself with sending a series of texts, starting with Mitch and Stephanie, thanking them and wishing them well for their honeymoon.  A flurry of messages are exchanged between you and the other wedding go-ers until finally, you reach William’s contact information.  

Feelings had rapidly thawed between you and William but there still was a palpable distance, a recognizable gap in which that great span of time apart, with no communication, had created.  You wistfully type:

it was really great to see you…hope you’re having a blast.

Not long after you pressed send, your phone shows an image being received. After a few more seconds, a selfie appeared of Rasmus and William in sleeveless t-shirts with Zeus portrayed on the front.

You can’t help but laugh out loud. 

You two…fucking adorable 😄

A lone heart acknowledges your message.

Back at the wedding, William stares at the screen of his phone.  

Rasmus can clearly see his friend’s disappointment; he knew William well, and he was aware of the torch he had always carried for you.  Rasmus could also see the sadness in your eyes whenever you looked at William.  Rasmus knew how fortunate he was to have found his love in Lisa, and he felt strongly it truly existed between you and William as well. If only you could get on the same fucking page at the same time.

Rasmus puts his arm around William’s shoulders.  “Sorry she left, bro.  But at least you got a chance to talk to her again”. Rasmus paused before ending with “You never know.” 

Rasmus, one of William’s closest friends and forever the optimist, smiles and motions for him to put his phone away.  “Let’s just fucking enjoy the rest of the night”.  

William stuffs his phone in his pocket and the two friends venture off toward the dancefloor where the sound of whoops and hollers co-mingle with the guests screaming out the lyrics to Rasputin by Boney M.  

William quickly distracted himself enough to diminish the thoughts that had been circling his mind about you, and concentrated on having a night with his many friends and former teammates.  

By the next day, with William’s eventual departure back to Stockholm and you deep in the throes of rehearsals in Dublin, any feeling that may have arisen during the brief encounter between you and William seemed to dissipate.  It seemed apparent, at that moment at least, too much time had passed for either of you to feel secure in contacting the other.  

William resumed his off-season activities and on the surface, his brush with you had no real impact on his current life. He saw whomever he wanted to, slept with whomever he wanted to and detached from whomever he wanted to.  Even after your name made it into the headlines across Europe and North America regaling your poignant and stunning tribute to the late, great Sinead O’Connor, William simply scrolled past the article on his phone.  It was better for him to have you remain out of sight and therefore out of mind.  

You had mixed feelings, however.  You couldn’t never quite grasp, never quite understand why William’s mere presence affected you so profoundly.  You surmised that’s what made you you, and what made your musical career so successful was the depths in which your feelings ran, and how it was converted to song.  On the other side of the coin was, once again, the realization - that slap across the face, that William did not feel the same about you.  You had allowed what transpired between you and William to completely derail you for years.  You simply hadn’t been interested in meeting anyone. Love had shown it’s occasional cruelty in the past but unrequited love was pure unmitigated torture and you enabled it enough to shut down the myriad of advances from men.  But It was enough now; you just needed to let go.

And the fog you had been in did eventually lift.  You had come to terms that you were ready to find that person; a partner to build a life and a family with.  You were approaching 31 years of age and you had deep desires for an exciting future with someone by your side.  William’s life seemed to be on a completely different trajectory than yours; his recent admissions during his stint in Stockholm during the Leafs visit had people buzzing that William might be more of a fuck-boy than they had originally thought. And all judgements aside - he’s allowed to blow off steam and decompress however he wants - that version of William that the media was salivating over now was of little interest to you. 

[back to the present moment]

William remains on his bed, continuously starting and deleting a text addressed to you.  He repeats this 5, 6, 8 times before his frustration with himself boils over. He tosses his phone away from him as if it suddenly had turned into a hot potato.

William rubs his eyes with a bit too much force, almost in an attempt to diminish the gnawing feeling he has in his stomach.   

Fuck. 

Letting out a long sigh, William turns to Pablo and Banksy who had started to play fight on the bed.  “Alright boys, let’s make this quick - it’d be my luck that girl is still hanging out somewhere around the building” William said as he picked up each dog for a quick nuzzle and then set them down on the floor to get ready.

[fannyyann]

Matthew Tkachuk, the Panthers’ goalie-goading throwback, delivers hits — and wins — when it counts

by Hailey Salvian and Jeremy Rutherford 

Matthew Tkachuk put his father in “timeout.”

That’s why Keith Tkachuk, an 18-year veteran of the NHL and one of the league’s best American-born players, wasn’t available to talk about his son’s remarkable run that has taken the Panthers from “biggest disappointment” to one win from the Eastern Conference finals.

On a Toronto radio station in March, the elder Tkachuk called the Panthers “soft.” By many accounts, that assessment was accurate at the time, and the words seemed to light a fire under the team — as did Paul Maurice’s tirade on the bench the same day during a game against the Maple Leafs.

Florida won its next six games and went 6-1-1 down the stretch to qualify for the playoffs.

Now, there’s no time for distractions, and Matthew wants to keep a lid on his pops, who informed The Athletic of his “timeout” via text.

After upsetting the 65-win Bruins in the first round, the Panthers are the betting favorites to win the Stanley Cup, leading 3-0 in their second-round series against Toronto with a chance at a sweep Wednesday at FLA Live Arena.

And the 25-year-old Tkachuk — in the midst of another career year that would have been MVP-worthy had it not been for Connor McDavid’s otherworldly season — has led the way, from scoring game-winning goals and delivering rousing speeches in the room, to delivering cross checks and goading goaltenders into fights.

He’s the player people love to hate, and he’s building a following of haters as he pushes the Panthers along in the postseason.

And even though the person who’s been most influential in Matthew’s career isn’t talking, others are. The Athletic spoke with a dozen people who for years have tracked Tkachuk’s brand of hockey — he’s a highly skilled agitator (a modest 6-2, 201 pounds) who opponents hate to play against.

Keith — known as ‘Walt,’ a nickname given to him by Winnipeg Jets teammate Eddie Olczyk because his surname was so similar to former Ranger Walter Tkaczuk — was traded to the Blues in 2001. Matthew, only 3 years old at the time, would start playing hockey with a youth program in St. Louis. Let’s just say he wasn’t a phenom.

Chantal Tkachuk, Matthew’s mom: They thought they were getting this ringer of a kid. We went to his first game and he was terrible. He was by far the worst player on the ice.

But that wouldn’t last long. Tkachuk improved steadily, adding a diverse skillset, and working through minor hockey, the U.S. national team program and the Ontario Hockey League.

Jimmy O’Brien, longtime family friend, owns OB Clark’s bar in St. Louis: They had a goal in their backyard, and 50 pucks would be lying in the driveway. Anytime you pulled up to the back of the house, you had to watch from running over the pucks because the driveway was littered with them.

Jon Benne, longtime family friend and strength trainer: I used to take wrist shots at him, and he’d knock them into the net. So when I see him tip a goal in now, I’ve seen that a million times.

Jordan Janes, St. Louis Junior Blues coach (2009-10): Matthew would do some of these between-the-legs (moves) before anybody was doing that. I would always look over at Keith and smile because in my mind I’m thinking, “Holy s— ,” like this is incredible that a 14-year-old is doing this. But you could tell that Keith, who was a “go to the net hard” type of guy, it drove him crazy.

O’Brien: His father told him, “If you ever do that stuff in a game and it doesn’t work, you won’t get off the bench.”

Taryn Tkachuk, sister: He’s not going to do that stuff just to do it. The through-the-legs goal against Nashville, he was like, “There was no way I could’ve shot that regularly.” He practiced that all growing up, so he knows he’s going to be able to do it.

Rob Simpson, assistant general manager of the London Knights: He would try new things all the time. It speaks to how smart a player he is. He was always trying to be creative in different ways to produce or make plays based on what he is seeing against defenders or what they’ve done against him before. He’s always been a creative, out-of-the-box thinker.

There are elements of Tkachuk’s game that can be traced back to the fact that he is Keith Tkachuk’s son.

Don Granato, Tkachuk’s coach with the U.S. National Team Development Program (2013-15): I think you can give some credit to — if not genetics, then just being around his father over the years.

Chantal Tkachuk: When Keith was still playing, they got to go down to the rink, skate after practice. Some of the players would play around with them.

O’Brien: He was a rink rat. He was always hanging around his dad, always going to his practices.

Barret Jackman, Blues defenseman (2002-15): I remember the coaches would have to come by and say, “Hey Walt, practice was supposed to start 10 minutes ago. Can you get Matthew off the ice?”

Benne: Matthew would be sitting on the bench the whole practice, and Keith would come over and say, “Watch T.J. Oshie. Watch how he goes into that corner and comes out.” Matthew would just be sitting there with a helmet on, just absorbing it all.

O’Brien: It’s hard to get a better education in the hockey world than sitting there with professionals and watching them at a young age.

Chantal Tkachuk: Every night, we always watched hockey. The boys would get up before school and the first thing they would do is turn on NHL Network.

Taryn Tkachuk: That was the only thing we really watched on TV. We never really watched other shows on Disney channel.

Chantal Tkachuk: Keith retired in 2010 and stepped away from his career and took almost five years off. In that time, he totally devoted all his time to youth hockey. That happened to align with the most important developmental years of the boys’ lives.

Janes: Keith knew what it took to get there. He demanded a work ethic out of his boys. Goals or not, assists or not, he just wanted to see you work. If you worked, Keith was happy. He knew if you did that, everything else would come.

O’Brien: One of Walt’s favorite things to say is, “Hey, you didn’t win? Play better!”

Taryn Tkachuk: Oh, he says it all the time. If someone didn’t play as well and maybe they’re complaining, like, “The ref did this or that,” or, “The other team wasn’t letting me do this,” my dad is just like, “Play better!” Nothing else. It’s just “Play better!”

Janes: That quote is the most Keith quote I’ve ever heard.

Growing up, Matthew was always competing with his brother Brady (23), and sister Taryn (20). Whether it was roller hockey, basketball or a made-up game they called “trampoline football.”

Benne: Matthew, Brady and Taryn would be on the trampoline, which was enclosed, and I would throw the football in the air as high as I could into the trampoline. It became an MMA wrestling match to see who got the football.

Taryn Tkachuk: I don’t even know how the game got made up. I just remember it being very physical. Literally whoever had the ball, you were about to get decked.

O’Brien: We were playing a two-on-two basketball game, and there were some of the most violent fouls you’ll ever see in your life. I had a bloody nose when we were done.

Taryn Tkachuk: If we were playing basketball, Matthew would never let me just go in for an easy layup. Of course he was going to foul me.

Jackman: I remember during one of the lockouts, Matthew was 15 at the time, and he skated with some of the NHL guys. I went into the corner with him, thinking I was going to play him hard. He tried to reverse hit me, and then he came out of the corner with the puck on his stick. He didn’t back down, even at 15, and I was in my early 30s.

Chantal Tkachuk: The most somebody hates to lose, that would be him.

Tkachuk committed to play at the USA Hockey National Team Development Program a few years before his first season there. But, at 16 years old, there was a learning curve playing with the national team and in the USHL, an under-20 league. In his first USHL season, he scored only 17 points in 33 games. He would double that production one year later in fewer games.

Granato: We knew of his talent, but in his first year, his production wasn’t there.

Nick Fohr, U.S. NTDP associate coach (2013-15): He wouldn’t shoot it. He literally wanted to show off those hands all the time.

Granato: I would tease him a bit. I’d say, “Hey Matthew, do you like to score?” And he’d say, “Yeah.” And I’d say, “No, you like to stickhandle.” He was so good at it, but I needed him to see that he wasn’t going to be that up-and-down-the-rink player.

Fohr: He wanted to have that agitator piece to him because it was kind of ingrained into him at that point, but he wasn’t big enough or strong enough to do any of that stuff at 16 years old.

Chantal Tkachuk: It was the second year in the program. That was the point where we thought he could make it.

Fohr: He played most of his second year with Auston Matthews and Jack Roslovic, which was an unreal line. Auston was the marked man, and Matthew — after being around his dad — was like, well, “Auston is my center, nobody is touching him.” And he started to become that guy. Any little scrum, he was right in the middle of it to make sure that his teammates were taken care of.

Granato: By the midpoint of the second year, he was playing just like he plays in the NHL right now. He was great in the same areas of the ice, great in the same ways.

In the 2016 Memorial Cup Final, the London Knights were in overtime against the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies. Tkachuk, in his first (and only) season in the OHL, took the puck up the left side, toe-dragged around a defender and scored the game-winning goal.

Aaron Berisha, London Knights teammate: At first, it looked like he was on a harmless rush.

Simpson: Matthew could always elevate at the right times.

Robert Thomas, Knights teammate (2015-16), and family friend: We always joked that Christian Dvorak actually tipped it, but obviously Matthew got all the credit for it. Just a big-time player making a big-time play.

Simpson: It’s not just by coincidence that he’s big in the right moments. He puts in the work.

Fohr: He’s in those moments because it’s just who he is. You saw it on the overtime goal against Boston. He knows somebody’s got to go in there and get the puck, somebody’s got to go screen the goalie.

Simpson: He wasn’t the one who shot it in the net, but if he didn’t have the sense and savvy to pop out and screen the goalie, it doesn’t go in.

Fohr: It’s no surprise that you see him do it in overtime in Game 7 because he does it every shift, every game.

Janes: The way Matthew was (growing up) and the way he is today, he will do what it takes for his team to win a hockey game. Period.

Because of his ability to stir up drama on the ice and (at times) cross the line, Tkachuk is one of the most polarizing players in the league.

Fohr: He’s that guy that everybody hates unless he’s on your team.

Benne: I don’t think Matthew came into the league fearing anybody. He just played with that edge, like, “I’m here, I’ve arrived, and look out!”

Granato: He could stoke a situation and get it stoked and get everybody’s emotions running on overdrive. And then, even in a highly emotional state that he stirred up, he will execute where many, many skilled players cannot.

Fohr: If he’s agitated somebody somehow, now a little bit of their focus is on Matthew and it takes just a little bit of focus off what they’re good at and impacts so much of the game.

Granato: It’s like a diversionary tactic, and a highly effective skill that he brings. He’s always ready to score the goal after he disrupts the situation, where other guys just want to take his head off. He never loses sight of, OK, while you’re trying to do that, I’m going to be scoring a goal.

Benne: He’s just going to play hard. He’s going to hit you, and he expects to get hit himself. If you watch that game against Toronto, he hammered two guys, and then he got hammered. Not whining, that’s the way the game goes. That’s the way he plays. He’s pretty fearless out there, but I think he plays right on the line. That’s where he wants to be.

Thomas: It was in full force in London. He’d always find himself mixing it up. He’s feisty and he’s got all the skill in the world. Some people just have it, and he definitely has it.

Berisha: It’s funny when people play against him and say, “Man, I hate playing against him, he seems terrible.” He’s actually one of the best guys ever.

Taryn Tkachuk: Matthew has this switch. Off the ice, he’s a completely different person: super nice, super fun. Once he steps on the ice, the switch just goes off and he puts on these different goggles and just has this compete level that you don’t even know how to explain.

The most common ways to describe Tkachuk: He’s a throwback. He’s a unicorn. He’s just like Keith … and maybe better.

Eddie Olczyk, TNT analyst, former teammate of Keith (1991-96): You see (Matthew) and it’s like turning back the clock 25, 30 years to when we played with each other in Winnipeg.

O’Brien: Walt played in an extremely physical era, and the way Matthew plays is refreshing because it’s a throwback to how it was all the time.

Janes: One thing Keith taught these boys at a young age was, if you want to score, you’ve got to be around the net. They got that right from Keith. They just took it a step further as far as their skillset goes.

Fohr: It’s just a place he’s not afraid to go to. Some players are. They don’t want to go there because it’s a hard area to play in because the D are big and strong. There’s an art to getting there and doing it the right way and Matthew has mastered it.

O’Brien: When Walt was playing, you’d see a big guy out there and you wouldn’t think a guy like that has deft hands. But Walt had sick hands, especially tipping pucks. And that’s one of Matthew’s strengths, too.

Olczyk: Matthew will make a play and you go, “Well, there’s Walt.” It’s eerie, but it’s not surprising that the boys are a chip off the old block.

Chantal Tkachuk: To this day, they tease me because skating has always been Matthew’s deficiency, so they make fun of the fact that I taught him how to skate. Keith will take credit for everything else.

Granato: Matthew plays the same kind of style as his dad. He just does it with more talent.

Fohr: To be a thorn in the side of the opponents and then have that elite ability on top of it, that’s pretty special.

Simpson: It’s very hard to find hockey sense that is that elite but also comes with the poise to make the play when it matters most.

Taryn Tkachuk: He’s literally doing every single aspect of what different players bring in a hockey game. It just makes him so unique.

Benne: Matthew doesn’t care what the media writes about him. Matthew doesn’t care if the fans boo him. Boston is going to hate him now, and Toronto is going to hate him after this series. But that’s what drives him. He wants to perform. He wants to put on a show. But more important than anything, he just wants to win.

[skz-yvette]

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ BIRTH NAME : yvette carrey

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ NICKNAMES : yves

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ BIRTH DATE : january 26, 2000

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ BIRTHPLACE : tokyo, japan

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ AGE : 24

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ ZODIAC SIGN : aquarius

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ NATIONALITY : japaness-canadian

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ HOMETOWN : toronto, canada

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ LANGUAGES —

-ˏˋ japanese : 100%

-ˏˋ korean : 100%

-ˏˋ english : 100%

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ HEIGHT : 5’5ft

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ WEIGHT : 109lbs

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ BLOOD TYPE : O

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ HAIR COLOR : dark brown ( natural ) black ( currently )

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ CLAIMS —

-ˏˋ face : nacha44_

-ˏˋ vocal tone : seulgi ( red velvet )

-ˏˋ vocal range : wendy ( red velvet )

-ˏˋ dance : chaeryeong ( itzy )

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ GENDER : female

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ PRONOUNS : she/her

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ SEXUAL ORIENTATION : bisexual

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ RELATIONSHIP STATUS : single

SKZ CARRER..!

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ STAGE NAME : yvette

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ HANGUL : 이베트

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ COMPANY : jyp entertainment

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ TRAINEE PERIOD : 2013 - 2018

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ DEBUT AGE : 18

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ UNIT : vocalracha

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ GROUP : stray kids

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ POSITIONS : main vocalist, lead dancer

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ REPRESENTATIVE EMOJI : 🦇

SKZ PERSONAL..!

⁺‧₊˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚₊‧⁺

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ MBTI TYPE : INTP, logician

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ DESCRIPTION : INTP personalities often lose themselves in thought – which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. People with this personality type hardly ever stop thinking. From the moment they wake up, their mind buzzes with ideas, questions, and insights. At times, they may even find themselves conducting full-fledged debates in their own heads. And it’s not uncommon for them to drift off during conversations. Their mind simply executes a detour to uncharted territories of thought where new ideas are constantly being born.

INTPs cherish their independence and often find themselves most productive during the late evening hours when distractions are kept to a minimum. Even so, it would be a mistake to think that these personalities are unfriendly or uptight. When they connect with someone who can match their mental energy, INTPs absolutely light up, leaping from one thought to another. Few things energize them like the opportunity to swap ideas or enjoy a lively debate with another curious, inquiring soul.

From the outside, INTPs may seem to live in a never-ending daydream. They have a reputation for being pensive, detached, and a bit reserved. That is, until they actively try to direct all of their mental energy on the moment or the person at hand. But regardless of which mode they’re in, INTPs are Introverts and tend to get tired out by extensive socializing. After a long day, they crave time alone to consult their own thoughts.

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ STRENGTHS : open-minded, curious, honest, analytical, generous

- ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ WEAKNESSES : overthinking, impatient, disconnected, insensitive