#Prague Cool Pass

[who-knew-a-sheep-can-write]

Demon!Hanzo Shimada x Reader Headcanons

It's a shame overwatch sucks now :( I loved getting so many overwatch requests

🌙 He never allowed himself to have any sort of relationship, let alone romance, since he had been turned years ago. He always felt as though he didn't deserve to be loved, and the fact that he was now a demon cemented that feeling inside of him.

🌙 He was turned about a few weeks after he had killed Genji. Madness and grief overtook him and he decided to tempt fate to bring his bother back. He performed a ritual that had started to show some promise only for things to sour rather quickly. He woke up with a start, nor realizing he passed out during the whole debacle to find himself no longer human.

🌙 When he first met you, he shrugged you off as yet another Overwatch agent from the recall. It wasn't until you saved him on a mission in Prague did you both start to talk a bit. He only meant to stay and thank you, but you had somehow compelled him into staying for coffee.

🌙 He caught feelings for you after a while. It didn't help that he knew you liked him in ways you didn't like others. He could hear your heart flutter and race a bit in your chest when you would see him or start talking, and he could smell the desire rolling off of you in waves that hypnotized him.

🌙 It took a while of courting on both sides before you both had shared your first kiss. It was outside, the two of you somehow broke from the crowd of drunk and rowdy soldiers, both of you flushed at the cheeks with the faint taste of alcohol on your breaths. Hanzo loves how you taste, but fuck, he hated himself for falling for a human.

🌙 He tries to play things cool. Hell, there are days where you make him feel human again with all of the tender loving and sweet words. But then there are days where life really beats the shit out him to the point where he feels himself slipping only for you to help him feel grounded.

🌙 There had been times when you almost saw what he was. Whether it was on the field or on base as you both tried to live as domestically as you could. He feels so guilty for even letting it out as much as he has in the past. He's more so worried about you being terrified of him, of thinking of him as a horrible monster. He couldn't bear the thoughts of you being so scared and disgusted of him.

🌙 When you did eventually see him, it was by pure accident. He doesn't even remember what had gotten him so angry and so distracted, but it slipped. He didn't hear the door slide open but he heard your heartbeat quicken. The look of shock on your face made him want to vomit as he just stood there like a deer in headlights, but then you asked him if he was okay like nothing was wrong.

🌙 He's cautious at first to let his demon side slip out behind closed doors between the two of you. At first it was a rare treat, but with time passing and his nerves easing, he found it rather comfortable to lounge with you even though the bed you both shared could barely handle the size of him.

🌙 His tattoo changes when he turns, from the beautiful dual blue dragons to the red oni mask as swirls of red and black ink scatter down his arm. His dragons also change as well, the two normally calm dragons now act like pissy little cats that only you can calm with gentle petting and scratches behind their little ears.

🌙 He likes it when you take the time to look at him when he's turned. Looking at his sharp pearly fangs, holding his hands to get a nice look at his ebony claws, crouching down to look at his hooves. He finds it adorable with how interested in this you are.

🌙 He runs so fucking warm. There's no need for blankets or pillows, use him instead. Just lay on top of him like he's the bed with his arms wrapped around you, careful of where he puts the claws, and you'll fall asleep faster than anyone ever could.

🌙 Hanzo's sense of smell is something else. He can smell you from across the base, his nose cutting through all of the sweat and blood and canteen food the base holds just so he can sniff you out to calm his nerves. He can also sniff out how you're feeling, too. It's pretty helpful after a long day of bullshit.

🌙 His hearing is also impeccable. Normally he uses his supernatural hearing to help him scope out whatever target out on the field, but he also uses it to listen to your heart. Any difference and Hanzo is on top of it whether you're in need of comfort or a fist to whatever fucker's face that's bothering you.

🌙 He loves it when you stroke his horns and trace the grooves and curves. He loves the feeling of your fingers running through his raven black hair, twirling his locks, soothing him from the thoughts that haunt him.

🌙 His voice changes too when he shifts. It gets even deeper and scratchier, almost like there's a slight echo to his satiny voice. Some of his words can get a little awkward to the sharp fangs in his mouth. You could listen to him talk for hours, and sometimes, he indulges you.

🌙 The last thing Hanzo would to even dream of is hurt you. It's almost happened a few times by accident where Hanzo would try to grab you or protect you on the field only for you both to somehow be spared. Just thoughts of what he could do to you haunt his nightmares.

🌙 Hanzo isn't afraid to use his heightened strength around you. Whether it's lifting something up for you to get under or even hoisting you up into his burly arms. He won't admit it, but he loves to show off just for you.

🌙 Hanzo's eyes are pretty different when he's a demon compared to his human form. The whites of his eyes are blacked out and his pupils are no longer visible in the sea of amber that make up his irises. He loves it when they reflect off of your eyes.

🌙 He's pretty tall when he's like that. Often times he uses his powers for good like getting the annoying shit off of the top shelves. Other times, he likes to be a little asshole and puts shit on the top shelf.

🌙 He's had a few incidents where he would turn and ruin his clothes. He usually wears baggier clothes like what he uses to train in, but there would be times when he would be wearing a tight t-shirt or pants only for the damn things to tear. You would always find him muttering curses in Japanese as he peeled off the poor torn fabrics.

🌙 There have been a couple of times where you walked in to find him with something stuck in his horns or wrapped around his tail or hooves. The funniest time was when you walked in on him trying to re-string his bow while he was lounging in his demon form. The poor string was somehow wrapped around his claws and both horns.

🌙 It can be pretty awkward for him to kiss you with his fangs, but damn it all if he doesn't try! He loves it when you kiss him though, pushing past the feeling of his fangs pressing against you as his clawed fingers gracefully touch you.

🌙 If you want his attention to snap to you immediately, tug on his horns. A good tug shuts him up and has his eyes pinning you in place as a faint blush pinkens his grayish cheeks. He especially loves it when you tug on his horn to make it easier to kiss him.

🌙 You had bought him larger clothes so they would be baggy on his person when he would turn and he fucking loves them. They swallow him when he's human but they're fucking perfect when he's a demon. He's going to love them to absolute death.

[mihai-florescu]

ur planning on going to japan in march 👁️👁️....? thats so funny bc i may be there at the same time for a school trip.....

So when i asked if anyone lives in prague i got crickets but youre telling me i can run into mutuals in japan in half a year completely by coincidence...

Thats so cool tho! I really hope your trip goes well!! We are going to pass by each other on accident and have a scene like the ending of your name where we can tell we recognize each other's soul, but not know why yet...lmao

[writingonleaves]

currently thinking about amelie joining jack in prague 😭

did you see the video cat toffoli did for the stadium series? with some behind the scenes of the devils players and such? it would be so cute if amelie was asked to shoot one of those for nhl as a way to humanize the players etc and she joins them in prague for work and it turns out perfect cause she can also support jack!

wait ... WAIT . you're cooking!!!!

i did see the stuff cat did for stadium series. this isn't a spoiler but amelie DOES go to prague (which, so cool for her first official season working in the nhl) and while her and jack are Very New and Very Much Not Dating during this time, i could SO add something that hints at this idea. you're a genius!!

the problem (which isn't really a problem) is that the next part starts after prague but i can incorporate some elements into it, whether as flashbacks or just a passing comment. thank you!!!

THIS is why i love talking about these worlds with you guys but you all always have such good ideas that i love implementing! my inbox is ALWAYS open to yap about these worlds and the possibilities and headcannons like this! thnak you for dropping by!

[rhetoricandlogic]

Whale Riders

By Austin Grossman

Nov. 5, 2009

Scott Westerfeld’s “Leviathan” is a tightly paced young adult novel set in an alternate version of the First World War and a welcome addition to the steampunk genre: a neo-retro period adventure. Just as cyberpunk reimagined science fiction with computers, steampunk reinvents it through a fantasy of the technological past. Its signature style is a whimsical Jules Verne-ian, 19th-century take on high technology — gadgets, gauges and goggles take the place of circuits and fusion reactors. Its genteel heroes and heroines display both the pluck of idealized Victorian adven­turers and their understanding of formal dress.

Westerfeld is best known for his sci-fi Uglies series (“Pretties,” “Specials,” “Extras,” etc.), about a future society in which people have a surgical procedure at age 16 that makes their faces beautiful but their minds frivolous and easily controlled. “Leviathan” is different. If it poses a big question, that question would be, Wouldn’t it be cool if the First World War had been fought with genetically engineered mutant animals, against steam-­powered walking machines like the ones from “The Empire Strikes Back”? And the answer is, Yes, it would.

The book begins the night the Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated and his son, Aleksandar, flees his home near Prague to escape being made a target or a tool as the potential heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. (Aleksandar is an invention, but like Ferdinand’s real children, he is not a fully legitimate heir to royal lands or titles, since his mother has “common blood.”) At the other end of Europe, a working-class Scottish girl named Deryn disguises herself as a boy to join the British Air Service. Intrigue and political instability sweep the teenagers out of their normal lives and into a world at war.

It’s not quite our world. In this version of history, Europe is divided between two rival technological cultures, a Mac-versus-PC contest on a geopolitical scale. The British, the “Darwinists,” have mastered the science of bioengineering. The Central European powers are the “Clankers,” and they use airplanes, zeppelins and walking machines that tramp through forests and fields. (We aren’t told what the French do, and I think that’s for the best.)

“Leviathan” shines when it lets us inhabit these cultures. British society is permeated by its signature technology, an inventive living infrastructure of a thousand elements, from lizards that can mimic and record voices to tigerlike beasts of burden to the leviathan of the title, a living dirigible grown on the genetic chassis of a whale. This marvelous creature makes a lovely entrance:

“The Leviathan’s body was made from the life threads of a whale, but a hundred other species were tangled into its design, countless creatures fitting to­gether like the gears of a stopwatch. . . . The motivator engines changed pitch, nudging the creature’s nose up. The airbeast obeyed, cilia along its flanks undulating like a sea of grass in the wind — a host of tiny oars rowing backward, slowing the Leviathan almost to a halt. The huge shape drifted slowly overhead, blotting out the sky.”

Westerfeld’s imagery is enhanced by Keith Thompson’s old-fashioned black-and-white illustrations, which lend an extra dimension of reality to this world. And the Darwinist and Clanker jargon crackles with an authentically techie feel. Who wouldn’t want to go up in a “Huxley ascender” or pilot a “Wotan-class land frigate”? If Westerfeld has a signature foible, however, it’s a weakness for vintage slang that ends up being more distracting than colorful. No amount of repetition made “Barking spiders!” feel like a natural exclamation.

I also wanted to like Deryn and Alek more. There’s something a little mechanical (or bioengineered?) about this pair; they resemble something called a “young adult protagonist” more than they do actual teenagers. It’s not that they’re not pleasant to be around, and each one passes a dramatic series of trials, overseen by a mysterious British lady scientist and a cranky Teutonic fencing master who both possess a charisma that makes you miss them when they’re offstage. Deryn and Alek lack the psychological sloppiness that makes for a living presence rather than an expert piece of craft. Where their feelings are concerned, the prose is a little vacant, as if scrubbed of the messiest and most personal aspects of growing up.

And then there’s the unpleasantness of fighting in World War I. The Great War in “Leviathan” is a little too picturesque, a little too much of a lark. As novels like “The Red Badge of Courage” show, it’s possible to reach young readers without editing out the catastrophe and confusion of wartime.

This isn’t to say that “Leviathan” is a superficial book. As Westerfeld writes in his afterword, the novel is “as much about possible futures as alternate pasts.” Its larger themes are less apparent and more deeply buried than in the Uglies books, and are the more powerful for it. The novel is a study in opposites, of boy versus girl, working class versus aristocracy, British versus German, and its overlying thematic division of Darwinists and Clankers gives all of these a distinctive torque, while avoiding mapping neatly to any specific agenda. The novel’s concluding set piece features a grand, elegant and very satisfying hybridization that suggests that opposites can meet, collapse and mingle, and that this story has natural sequels, which I will undoubtedly read.

LEVIATHAN

By Scott Westerfeld

Illustrated by Keith Thompson

A correction was made on

Nov. 22, 2009

: 

A review on Nov. 8 about Scott Westerfeld’s “Leviathan,” a young adult novel depicting an alternate version of World War I, misstated the nature of some of the language used in the book. It is vintage vernacular appropriate to the period, not “invented teenage slang.”

[hannahs-fieldnotes]

Vision Board

Notes:

Find a best friend. This goal is probably the most important to me but also the most difficult. I have a hard time with people. Hugging – even family – is really hard for me. I am super shy and there is no one I am really close to. I do have people I consider friends, but even with them, I am not at ease. This has always been the case. I don't know why. Not sure how, but I will try to force myself to form relationships with people I admire and maybe i will find someone i can trust, talk freely with and take on any adventure without worry.

I really want a group of friends I can hang out with, have fun and just feel like i belong. Right now when i am invited to group events i have a hard time talking, i feel clumsy, boring and like an outsider.

I want to eat healthier. This is probably one of the standard goals everyone has on their lists. Right now, I have no discipline or rules. I want to learn more about what I am consuming and its effects on my body and the environment. One of the main goals is to gain control over my sugar addiction. Another goal is to eat and drink more things i really love (like fresh orange :drool:) - even if they are more expensive and/or take more effort to prepare.

I definitely need to drink more. I've always had a hard time staying hydrated because I don't get thirsty often. I can go a day without drinking, only realizing I need to water when I have a headache the next day. I need to work on tracking my water intake and make it a habit to drink regularly, as it doesn't come naturally to me.

More city trips. I want to explore my country and Europe a bit more next year. I plan to do some short city trips, either alone or with a friend. On my list for this year are Paris, France, and Prague, Czech Republic. Additionally, I'd love to visit Mont Saint Michel, Barcelona, Chamonix, and many more. This category also includes attending events like concerts and festivals. Do you maybe have any beautiful city suggestions in Europe for me?

I want to go on a sailing adventure. My family already owns a very small boat, and I've been a few times with a university club, but I haven't learned much yet. My goal is to get the license and knowledge to steer a small dinghy and spend at least one summer traveling with it. While I might not be able to take lessons or sail this year, I can already work on the theoretical knowledge needed, mainly navigation and knots, to pass the exam.

Spend more time outside (in nature). Since I spend so much time on the computer and on my phone, I want to work on going outside more. I have a hammock I used to sleep in outside – maybe I can start doing that again. I also want to go camping more frequently, even just for a weekend to prepare for upcoming big hikes like e.g. E4.

Take more pictures. I used to take my camera everywhere and often visit locations because I heard they would be beautiful. At some point last year I stopped taking pictures. I think it was a good habit, since it also helped me remember all the cool stuff i did.

I will also go running again outside. Another activity i kinda stopped doing at some point but miss. Right now i am working on a training routine which will hopefully prepare me to run a half marathon again in a few months.

Adopt a dog. My dream is to one day adopt a dog. When I looked for puppies last year, I fell in love with a big white "ice bear". I wanted to call her Greta. Right now, a dog does not fit into my life, but maybe I can prepare. I will try to help out at the local animal shelter and work on passing the exam that will allow me to own a big dog.

Be more conscious about the environment. I see all the terrible things happening in the world and also how much trash I create. I know there is a lot more to do, but I will try to think about ways to make the world a better place starting with my own life.

Read more and stay up-to-date with what's going on in the world. I recently started reading books again and want to make it a habit. I will also try to stay informed by reading news articles now and then. If I can afford it, maybe I can subscribe to a daily news website.

Find a home. Right now i don't have a place i feel safe and at home at. My goal is to move into my own place with my boyfriend. I also need to organize and declutter my stuff which is all over the place and pure chaos atm. Let me know if you're interested in a post about this journey.

Get a job in the field I love and improve my skills. I finished my university degree this summer. I haven't found a job yet but hope I will soon.

Take notes and be more creative. I have a sketchbook and a list of creative things I want to learn/try out. Also, this blog is something I always wanted to start. I hope you like it, and I hope I will be able to keep posting! Feel free to dm me anything you think I could do better or let me know your thoughts in general ♡.

What are your goals this year and how does your vision board look? I am wayy too curious...

[schismusic]

Untitled piece on worried music (or some shit)

This piece has been floating around, shapeless and structureless, for the better part of four months now. I don't particulary care to give it any sort of unifying theme, or to put it into comparison with autobiography as I usually do. This will have to stand on its own as an ostensibly gratuitous exploration of various levels of preoccupation in music that I like. This being said, hope you enjoy the dive and you find something worthwhile to listen to. For those of you who hoped to read more about my very boring personal life, well, it's this way or the highway this time. I'm really bad at this, aren't I?…

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (don't worry, I will no longer subject you to this long ass name and will stick to the conventional acronym) live in this weird limbo where they might be among the longest-running acts to originate from the late '70s and yet at the same time are by and large considered by most a one-hit wonder. And to be fair, Enola Gay could very easily be the single best synthpop track ever recorded, thereby rendering other tracks from the same genre functionally useless to people who do not care about synthpop. I, however, care a lot about synthpop. But I also care a lot about a different, very underrated aspect of synthpop: its paranoia.

There's a really cool piece by Mark Sabatini on the Red Wedge magazine. The piece opens with a picture of peroxide-hair David Sylvian sitting in front of a Prophet-5 and is dedicated to Scott Walker and Mark Hollis, so it's basically just tailor-made for me right out of the gate. More importantly, however, it underlines the important relationship between some of the earliest bands in British synthpop and the concept of eerie in the Mark Fisher sense of the word, or some kind of uncertainty with regards to the future. The late 1970s sit at the cusp of a special time in contemporary history, not just because of what Sabatini notes, i.e. the passing of the torch between two decades that came to symbolize two completely different visions of the world (political, social, economic, cultural). The early Eighties would turn out to be some of the most tense years in the entire Cold War. A record like This Heat's Deceit is a direct byproduct of a terrifying climate of impending doom, faced with a dry sarcasm only the sense of rushing to an early grave could grant. In the Yellow Eyes post I also added a number of other examples, none of which strictly relevant to this exact post. One would think that OMD's preoccupation with being, at once, "ABBA and Karlheinz Stockhausen" would force them to a more sideways approach to these same feelings. To an extent, this is true, in that they very rarely discuss current-day topics in a direct way. I am specifically writing about, of course, Enola Gay, but take for instance a track like Telegraph. I remember sending it to Dog a while back and their reaction was quite priceless. Not only did they define it as "whimsical" and "faelike", wow!, but they also very acutely pointed out "something sinister about it just under the surface … it feels subtly dangerous".

This is technically true for the entire Dazzle Ships album. From the first moment we are in Prague, a weird place to be in the year 1983. A sampled trumpet fanfare loops around, a voice speaking in Czech, that same fanfare theme rearranged for a full orchestra. Then it hits you with a song titled, I shit you not, Genetic Engineering. The little children, the future in our hands, feel like more of a menace than they do a promise. They are to be controlled. International tackles rampant nationalism. Radio Waves echoes Kraftwerk and ties back into Telegraph. Of All the Things We've Made, a heartwrenching controlled melodic burst sounding like it could fit straight into the Disco Elysium soundtrack, reflects on the rift between Cold War superpowers with touching longing for world peace. And yet the most representative track of the whole lot might be Time Zones. A mess of jambled radio hourly signals: around the world in barely thirty seconds, codified conventional human behaviour presenting itself in the barest possible function, the capability to tell time. I've always been terrified of radio hourly signals. I remember car trips in the night, the mechanical nightingale chirping before the five boops right before the hour ended. I remember silent screens with sudden noises and an impersonal voice telling the time. So sterile it felt inexorable, the same way doom is.

On the other hand, this barely controlled element of quiet terror – a shift of the mask revealing an inhuman grin? – can at some point just burst into a more direct feverish sense of impending death. This is where a band like Sunrise Patriot Motion comes in. According to this incredible interview with Invisible Oranges, not only is every SPM release a piece in an ongoing story (so far there are two, so you're still in time to get in on the action before it gets too complicated), but Black Fellflower Stream – record number one – was actually itself the product of a driving obsession. In the words of Will Skarstad himself:

"For the first time ever Yellow Eyes was all over the place, but with this, we were like, twice a week, every week getting together. We got into this crazy routine, got obsessed, let’s finish this record. We were just so psyched about it."

Yes, the Skarstad brothers are once again involved. Not that much of a surprise, to be completely fair to you. Their guitar work with Yellow Eyes somehow manages to transcend the usual arrangement tactics of black metal, sounding less and less like cookie-cutter true-Norwegian imitators by the millisecond. While a record like Immersion Trench Reverie perfectly illustrates that, in SPM that same reality-warping harmony is bent in the direction of a post-punk-tinged beast, retaining however the powerful drive and pulse of metal. The brothers, ever so self-conscious, call it their "nu metal" project. I'm not inherently opposed to the idea: Deftones's Chino Moreno is notoriously a massive Japan and Duran Duran fan, Korn's Jonathan Davis got into makeup because of the Cure's Robert Smith. Where the fundamental difference with classic nu metal comes in is probably in the themes. Specifically, Black Fellflower Stream details the psychological journey undergone by a man who, in a religious stupor, comes to believe that he can dig a hole deep enough to find oil. Military symbolism, Catholic imagery relating to mystical ecstasy, incoherent autobiographical babbling, all tied together with the progressively clearer and unavoidable understanding (as per My Father Took Me Hunting in the Snow's liner notes) "that he is the sun, and, as the day ends, so will he."

Musically, in these two records, anything goes. Dungeon synth-inspired fake-ass FM keyboard preset sounds leave space to chugging heavy rhythm guitars, interspersed with yelled (more so than screamed) vocals courtesy of Andy Chugg and incredibly imaginative sampling and sound layering. The musical landscape painted by all of these elements, brought together in such a way that it feels miraculous for them to actually coalesce, is one of absolute military terror, where personal life and one's past are exploded into shrapnel, transform a delusional pretense into a mission of quasi-religious penance. One certainly wonders how long the experiment can go and how it can evolve. But I, for one, am glad that I got to hear these two records, and can't wait for any new music coming our way. Even if it means delving into horrifying visions of petrol war.

But what happens when this state of worry, paranoia almost, comes to essentially burn a hole into reality itself, detaching from average parameters of direction, time, weight, emotion? My guess is you get something close to the latest Ben Frost record. Not one to be intimidated by loud noises, Frost's body of work evolved from forlorn, cinematic guitar to progressively more Dangerous, noisy and aggressive territory. By the time A U R O R A hit it was hard to see where the project would go next. I would argue this was true for Frost as well: the vulgata around The Centre Cannot Hold (and its related EPs and singles) seems to be that it was a bit out of focus, speaking euphemistically. I don't disagree, regardless of my affection towards Threshold of Faith specifically. But Frost's arrival to a deviant, eldritch post-metal form sounds like it holds the key to a new fascinating approach.

The idea of "blending metal and electronica" will bring some of my older followers back to the Prodigy, or Nine Inch Nails, or Godflesh, or even Atari Teenage Riot if we want to force it a bit. On the other hand, some of my slightly less old followers will probably be catapulted into horrible traumatic nightmares of generic 2010-era metalcore bands incorporating keyboardists, brostep mid-range drilling FM modulation, overcompressed guitars and autotuned vocals. I'm proud and happy to report that, if anything, Scope Neglect swings more in the first direction than it does in the other one, but it's not a matter of sound as much as it is a matter of approach. Greg Kubacki (Car Bomb) provides absolutely crushing guitar work – not to mention Liam Andrews (My Disco) and his devastating bass guitar – sounding very much like abstracted takes on his main band's tracks. Yet the guitars sound heavily compressed, laser-focused on filling the mids in a very djenty way (look mom, I said djent in 2024, do I get an award for this?). This is, by design, as modern metal as it gets: and yet it sounds nowhere near as cauterized.

Not just because of the arrangements. And granted, the arrangements go a really long way to achieve the core idea of the record; but Frost's processing of the sounds turn Kubacki's cerebral bursts themselves into inhabitable, inhospitable spaces – bedrock for mind-crushingly heavy atmospherics – which are only then left to be filled with the listener's own imagination and a minimal number of sparse effects and austere melodies. Much in the same way as Autechre (and we're back!), this record comes to build the very spaces it describes, setting aside cinematic tactics – except, maybe, on closer Unreal in the Eyes of the Dead – in favour of an architecture of impossible terrors and, well, a worry and paranoia so imposing and totalising that it transcends discernible form, solid structure, anything but the (very few) bare and basic sonic referents it alludes to.

[jkl-fff]

You've been granted one (1) Time Travel Spectator Pass! congratulations! which historical event are you spectating from the safety of your temporal capsule?

Ooo ... There are so many possibilities ...

Do I go with St Nicholas losing his cool and starting a fistfight during the Council of Nicaea (which essentially codified christianity and set it on track to become the culturally hegemonic force of European history) (but who cares about that when there are old bishops to watch smack each other around over the nature of god)?

Do I go with the premier of the "Rites of Spring" when an angry crowd of Parisian ballet attendees decided to riot and burn down a concert hall?

Do I go with the Defenestration of Prague, when a bunch of chaothlic politicians got tossed out a window by an angry, protestant mob (they were fine, they landed in a huge pile of manure)?

Do I go with the first moon landing (when nothing funny happened, it was just really cool)?

Do I go with literally any moment in Diogenes' career? Or Voltaire's? (two of history's best professional smartasses)

GAH! There are too many to choose from! I think I'll go to the future instead to watch the 2057 Volcano Hurling (the moment when we collectively hurl 100 billionaires into a volcano).

[swedesinstockholm]

24 mars

j'ai pleuré devant la la land ce soir, quand emma stone passe son audition et qu'elle raconte l'histoire de sa tante qui est tombée dans la seine, je me suis mise à sa place quand ils lui disent just tell us a story, qu'est-ce que je raconterais comme histoire moi en impro comme ça mon dieu j'y arriverais jamais, et puis je me suis rappelé du stage de théâtre à prague et de mon histoire sur paris/l'islande et des réactions que ça avait suscité et je me suis dit SI bien sûr que j'y arriverais, i'd fucking NAIL IT. ce qui me fait pleurer dans cette scène à chaque fois c'est quand elle dit here's to the ones who dream, foolish as they may seem, here's to the hearts that ache, here's to the mess we make. j'ai un peu honte d'aime la la land mais c'est comme ça.

25 mars

cet après-midi pendant que le kiné me manipulait la nuque et les épaules il a fait une manip qui aurait pu se terminer en étranglement s'il avait continué et je me disais vas-y, étrangle-moi, qu'on en finisse, j'étais tellement bien entre ses mains avec le soleil qui me caressait le visage et le bruit des oiseaux qui entrait par la porte du jardin entrouverte que ça m'aurait rien fait de mourir entre ses mains là sur le champ. il faudrait qu'un kiné me manipule la nuque à chaque fois que je commence à spiraler comme ce weekend. j'avais l'impression qu'en manipulant tous mes gros noeuds il arrivait à voir tous mes gros soucis. j'avais envie qu'il me demande comment ça va et que je puisse dire pas bien du tout et qu'il me dise de tout lui raconter et puis qu'il arrive à tout remettre en ordre, ma nuque et ma vie. il s'est laissé pousser les cheveux depuis la dernière fois, ils sont longs et bouclés maintenant. il portait un serre-tête. j'aimerais bien être son amie, il a l'air cool.

ce matin en regardant mamma mia 2 avec m. quand j'ai vu amanda seyfried entrer dans l'église avec son bébé dans les bras je pensais à cette deuxième moi, cette moi alternative dénouée, ou raisonnablement nouée, normalement nouée. cette moi qui pourrait avoir un bébé elle aussi, même si j'en veux pas. une moi vivante, une moi qui vit. j'ai l'impression qu'elle existe, en parallèle de la moi que j'habite dans ce monde. parfois je pense à elle. comme quand j'ai vu amanda seyfried avec son bébé ce matin. amanda seyfried a le don de me faire entrevoir une vie meilleure. en 2016 quand je la voyais claquer du pied sur le toit d'un immeuble parisien pour allumer la tour eiffel dans la pub lancôme je me disais que si je ressemblais à amanda seyfried il me suffirait de claquer du pied avec mes escarpins pour faire apparaitre mon appart de rêve à berlin un job dans une petite librairie indépendante et une fille qui m'aime.

26 mars

j'ai enfin acheté des nouvelles lunettes de soleil, des jolies, avec des verres assez foncés pour cacher mes yeux. mon oeil est hors de contrôle, la paupière est énorme et j'ai le visage tout gonflé, je ressemble à rien et ça me donne encore moins envie de sortir de la maison, donc je me suis dit tant pis pour l'argent je vais m'acheter des lunettes de soleil qui me plaisent et je les porterai même les jours où il fera gris. elles étaient pas très chères en plus j'ai payé 170 euros en tout. quand je suis entrée dans le magasin j'avais envie de pleurer parce que je venais d'avoir une discussion sur mon visage gonflé avec m. qui me disait qu'elle aussi elle avait le visage gonflé et j'ai dit oui mais toi t'es pas défigurée et elle a dit je sais. comme je me sentais un peu seule j'ai demandé à un des opticiens de me donner son avis, malgré mes gonflements, mes plaques rouges, ma peau qui pelait entre le menton et la lèvre inférieure, mes cheveux gras et le col de ma doudoune couvert de pellicules, mais l'opticien s'est révélé être un excellent commerçant parce qu'après avoir passé une heure ensemble il m'avait presque convaincue que j'étais jolie. je crois que ça m'a fait presque autant de bien que le massage du kiné hier. il me massait avec de la gentillesse et de l'attention. il m'écoutait avec ses yeux bleu ciel un peu écartés, se pliant à mes moindres demandes, et à chaque fois qu'il devait toucher aux lunettes posées sur mon nez pour vérifier les réglages il demandait j'ose? et je disais mais oui allez-y touchez-moi autant qu'il vous plaira ne vous gênez pas.

1er avril

au soleil soleil soleil dans le jardin d'hélène, il me fonce droit dessus. j'étais censée être chez m. là en train de faire des brioches lapin de pâques et commencer ma semaine bruxelloise que j'avais remplie à ras bord de trucs à faire tous les soirs. j'avais très peur de me retrouver dans le lit de sébastien avec maman hier soir à étouffer mes pleurs silencieux pour pas la réveiller comme une fois chez martine y a longtemps, mais tout s'est bien passé. j'ai dormi seule dans le lit de juliette avec le livre de l'intranquilité de pessoa et je crois que j'ai eu une espèce de sugar rush littéraire, j'avais le corps qui frémissait d'excitation en lisant la première page. j'avais lu l'introduction samedi soir au lit et déjà ça m'avait mise dans un état de fébrilité à l'idée d'enfin rencontrer fernando pessoa. hier dans la voiture à chaque fois que j'avais un coup de putain de merde qu'est-ce que je fous encore dans cette voiture avec maman, je pensais au livre de l'intranquilité dans mon sac à dos et je me sentais réconfortée. c'est pas grave si je suis morte-vivante, pessoa dit que quand on vit on est mort, mais écrire donne un sens à la vie-mort ou à la mort-vie. c'est pas grave si j'ai pas d'amis avec qui passer mes vacances et que je me trimballe derrière maman comme un boulet éternel et que personne, mais alors personne ne like ce que je poste sur ig, j'ai pessoa qui vit-meurt ou meurt-vie dans mon sac à dos.

[dougrobyngoold]

A Feast for the Eyes & Stomach - Prague, Czech Republic

Prague is spectacular! We spent the morning walking the streets of Old Town, just taking in the ornate buildings against a crystal-blue sky. We watched the astronomical clock on the Old Town Hall strike the hour. Four figures representing Vanity, Greed, Death, and Lust are set in motion when the skeleton rings the bell. In the doorways, above the clock face, the Twelve Apostles appear upon the hour, too.

Astronomical clock on the Old Town Hall.

Close up of the clock tower.

Another view of Old Town Hall.

Church of Our Lady Before Tyn.

The buildings are so pretty and colorful....I might have taken too many pictures:

We wandered the streets a bit, just taking it all in and getting acquainted with the layout of old town. So many beautiful and tempting things - like a gingerbread store and candy stores - luckily, they were closed and we couldn’t purchase, just look!

I loved this little boy, he was completed entranced by this display window for one of the stores, I was right there with him!

Franz Kafka Monument in the Jewish Quarter - it depicts Franz Kafka riding on the shoulders of a headless figure, a reference to the author’s story “Description of a Struggle”. The work is by Jaroslav Rona.

Convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia - a rather plain building, compared to others we saw today.

Art display in one of the courtyards inside the convent.

Cute little courtyard restaurant, there are a multitude of these hidden gems throughout Prague.

Lunch and a couple of beers to cool off and refuel for our afternoon adventures. We try to find places that are a little off of the main squares and tourist areas - less crowded and less expensive, generally.

We crossed the Vltava River on our way up to the Prague Castle, our destination for the afternoon.

St. Vitus Cathedral, quite stunning as you complete the climb up to the plaza on the Prague Castle grounds.

The front of St. Vitus Cathedral.

Inside St. Vitus (pictured above), quite massive and elaborate. The stained glass windows were magnificent:

The organ - would have loved to have heard it being played!

Sooo, this macabre tomb of St. John of Nepomuk has an interesting story. I will let you explore this one on your own. 

St. Wenceslas Chapel, inside St. Vitus Cathedral. It is built on the former place where Wenceslas was buried. He is the patron saint of Czech lands. Wenceslas was a Bohemian prince who was assassinated by his brother, there are so many stories to remember!

Prague Castle complex, viewed from the plaza on the river-facing side of the castle.

A view of Prague from the castle complex.

St. George’s Basilica - also on the plaza of Prague Castle.

Golden Lane on the grounds of the Prague Castle got its name from the goldsmiths that lived there in the 17th century. Today it houses historical items and vendors.

We needed shade and a beer after our tour of the castle. Luckily, there was a beer garden just a few steps away!

Headed back across the Vltava River for a little rest before dinner!

We rarely do desserts, Doug less often than me. However, this evening we could not pass up these two treats - they were even tastier than they were beautiful! Good thing we walked as much as we did today!

[formulapisces]

oh how did the bug hunt go? a spider decided to get into my bed last week, while I was in it. I ended up sleeping in the living room for two nights, until I could find and capture the offender..

french pronunciation is super consistent, plus my last french teacher often did her lessons entirely in french so if you didn't study hard enough then you'd struggle to keep up. although the numbers are silly, and some of the verb forms are even sillier 😫

oh that's helpful! I didn't really use film and tv much to help me when I did my exams, but a local shop owner was from italy so I'd always chat to him and his family in italian when I went in there and they were so kind to me 😭😭 all I remember about the actual exams is for the german oral, I spoke about the 3rd defenestration of prague and how it led to the 30 years war and the assistant who was recording it could barely stop herself from corpsing all throughout

it is cool when you know you understand what is being said, it's true! my dutch vocab is still quite weak overall though so I need to spend more time on that :(

🦇 (snoopy fan)

the bug hunt went well 😅😅😅 it was scary but i got it done 👍

i get so burned out every time i learn a language and then when i pick it up again i have to relearn it a lot of the time and it is the worst feeling.

my Spanish exams were horrible because i was sick, but couldn’t miss my exams (except i didn’t show up to my english, history, and physics exams because of anxiety… but i still passed them) the content was fine, i didn’t find it especially hard, actually i found it a bit easier than i was expecting but maybe that’s because i’m a nerd afraid of failure and revised a lot. 😅

i’m just waiting out right now until my parents go to Amsterdam on Monday, i’m getting so impatient. i thought they were leaving sooner than they are so i’m not happy.

tw under the cut but it’s an update on the situation

(i always feel so stupid ranting on this app or talking about this on here because this is a formula one blog and i just feel so idiotic, but i do it every time anyways or else i’ll just have to sit with it. so i told my sister about everything my parents did when i was younger, and still now and she was shocked but really really kind so i just cant wait for her to be here instead so i don’t have to walk on eggshells all of the time. i’m getting so impatient, i’m actually like a kid waiting to open their presents on christmas. i’m also impatient because i’m waiting for a response from DWP which i knew would take a long time but because all of this is happening it feels even longer. it doesn’t help that it’s a weekend now too, weekends are always the worst because my dad isn’t working but i’m fine, just very impatient and desperate 😅🤍)

🫂

[umichenginabroad]

[week 7] the prague pirate

Ahoj everyone! 

Welcome back to week 7 of my travels throughout Europe! This past week has been a blast both in Prague and on our weekend trip to Croatia so let me give y’all a play a play!

Starting off the week in Prague I had a few assignments due for my engineering statistics class so I needed to lock in a little bit to get everything done on time. On Monday night, my friends and I decided to try an Indian restaurant which was actually really really good. That night I also finally tried a Czech chimney cake which you can find everywhere in Prague, and it was also super good. On Tuesday, a few friends and I visited the famous book tower at the Prague municipal library and although it was cool, personally I don’t think it was worth the 30 minute wait. 

On Wednesday I had my stats presentation which went pretty well and afterwards I went to my favorite coffee shop in Prague which was great as usual. Later that day, I went to explore Prague 2 and grotta park which was absolutely beautiful. I honestly prefer Prague 2 compared to Prague 1 because it is a lot more green and peaceful which is a nice change of pace from the busy city center. 

For our final weekend trip, we went to Zadar, Croatia which was such an amazing place and experience. After arriving on Thursday, we explored the old town, watched the sunset, and got some amazing food nearby (i got a spinach gnocchi with seabass which was amazing). 

On Friday, we were supposed to have a 10 hour boat tour to the outer islands of the Zadar archipelago but 20 minutes into our journey, the boat engine stopped working so we were forced to reschedule to Saturday. Pivoting our plans, we went to a beach for the day which was very relaxing thankfully. We ended the day by exploring more of the old town area. 

Saturday morning we had absolutely horrible luck because there was a freak thunderstorm passing through so our boat tour was delayed for 2 hours until the weather was nice again. When we made it on the water, it was so so insanely rough from the aftermath of the storm and we were getting slammed by waves and got way too much airtime for about an hour. Eventually after being a bit shaken up, we made it out to the archipelago where the water calmed down a bit. 

Our first stop of the day was at two shipwrecks where we got to snorkel around which was a really fun experience because snorkeling is one of my favorite activities. We then went to Sakarun Beach which is known as the Caribbean of the Adriatic Sea and it was one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever been to. We had a bunch more stops but the highlights were definitely the military tunnels and an island village we went to which had the best ice cream. The military tunnels were built into some of the islands after WW2 to hide Croatia’s military ships and we got to snorkel in one of the tunnels which was a surreal experience. 

After all that, we enjoyed our last night in Croatia and went back to Prague on Sunday. That’s about it for this past week! Thank you so much for reading and I’ll see y’all for our last week in Prague!

Matt Sinanis :)

Aerospace Engineering

Engineering in Prague

[psidrako3]

The Little Things: A chronological and vauge saga of my Europe trip.

Mario Kart Wii kart selection music over airport waiting.

When I started this idea.

Airplane pillow surplus

Star-shaped purple helium balloon that saw Iceland.

Outdoor boarding.

Iceland Chocolate.

Beef Jerky discarded.

Granola! oh shit it went everywhere.

Overstimulation from being awoken from a jetlagged nap.

Exotic clothes display cases.

A bronze statue featuring a bear, an inflatable ball, and man with a dog's head.

Brand soda bottle with cap designed to stay on the bottle.

Stage play Spirited Away.

Ea Nasir's Shitty copper.

Plush cat of the goddess Bastet.

Struggling in UK TSA.

Abandoned infrastructure ft C148's "The End".

Haunted by a Hyperfixation.

Really Cool Pharmacy Sign.

Sandwich Friend (Wasp)

Dog walking, but parkour dog.

Lock bridge.

Citywide prep for the Olympic Games, Giant logo on Eiffel Tower.

Only I was able to get through the transit gate.

Big Macaron.

Sections of wood paneling in repair.

Topiaries.

Held an outlet converter in place in a bad socket.

I legally didn't exist in a train.

Munich thunderstorm.

Devil's Foot.

Overstimulation at Hofbräuhaus.

Book of Mormon in our hotel room instead of a phone book.

Quaint German Countryside.

Decorative fountains for filling water bottles.

Me being right about us not being on the path to The tour entrance gates at Neuschwanstein Castle sare the same sounds as the entrance gates at my hometown ski mountain.

Salzburg Day Passes.

Why was the fountain fenced in? Water crimes.

Key man.

Public giant chessboard. [Forgot to take a photo when I was down there so here it is!]

That's a lot of change that people drop down there.

Steep slope Railcar.

Wierd lighting where a figure in a painting had a circle of shadow around his head, forming a halo.

A travel group wearing full black robes, on a hot day.

The crosswalk characters were in love!

Barcode Sticker not placed flat.

Pillar stuck in wall

"Maybe You're allergic to Austria." -Mom

Artificial creek water feature that lets you send ballpit balls floating to the bottom.

*Goes to watch choir performance.*

Dragon statue on funky roof between two larger buildings.

Ambushed by a Trick Fountain.

Stood inside a Cloud.

Air density science w/ a Coca-Cola bottle.

Couple of high-end cars with numbers 69 and 72 printed in gold.

Some form of interference turns a 3 hour train ride into something else.

Mom couldn't Escalator correctly.

Private seating on Train.

KitKat cereal.

Unofficial The Amazing Digital Circus plushies.

Duck Boutique.

City Tour tram decorated like a steam train.

Black Bagel Burger Bun (Say that 5 times fast).

Scale models of buildings in Prague, each with a ruined portion.

Sat around outside.

Choir Performance 2: String Instrument Boogaloo.

Elevator with a swinging door.

Mom getting so turned around by Google Maps we take a Taxi. (We have come to the conclusion that Mom's bad at Google Maps and we just had it good this whole time)

Choir 3 & Wellerman by The Longest Johns (At Beethoven's funeral Venue XD???)

Beethoven's grave.

Alto Clef Floral arrangement.

Finally rained again.

gm_[make joke later] (I'm not doing that it's the spiral parking lot)

Recalling important buildings from the trip.

Lack of bag storage foils day plans.

I was certain that I heard the sound of electricity flowing in our hotel room.

A very well dressed Rabbi.

Older sister being a suitcase clutz.

Overstimulation from the weight distribution of a double Decker Bus.

Shit. (Took Airline Bus without party.)

Burnt trees make mountains look fuzzy from the air.

Glitchy Iceland airplane advertisement roll.

[lowryinbohemia]

Tips to Pass Along Pt. 1

So, here's my wrap-up tips from the trip for those of you thinking about heading to the area, just from my experience.

Places Not to be Missed:

Spice Market, Istanbul: Yes I know it may seem touristy but this is 100% definitely worth it to visit. The smells, the colors, the people watching are all amazing things to experience. Though make sure you don't go too crazy and you know how to barter so you can get a good deal. And bring cash if you can, gives you more barter power.

Haga Sophia & Blue Mosque, Istanbul: They are both right next to each other so you can tour both in one day. They are both exquisite and 100% worth the hype. Make sure to take some time to just sit and listen or mediate while you are in there if you can. And don't forget your head covering if you are female.

Bosporus Boat Ferry, Istanbul: honestly you don't need to waste money on a boat tour if you don't need to, just ride the ferry around the Bosporus. It is such a beautiful vista.

Jewish Quarter, Prague: it is worth it to pay the 25 euros for access to all the synagogues because each has its own history and artwork. Get a tour guide from the main center and give yourself a couple of hours to enjoy it. It's brilliant.

Cesky Krumlov, CZ: The whole town is so lovely. Go during the week if you can so you avoid all the Prague tourists, and get a local hotel. The views are beautiful and the castle is seriously cool.

Parliament Building, Bucharest: It is seriously one of the most impressive buildings I have ever seen, and the eclectic collection of different design styles is something you have to see.

Bran's Castle: Yes, it is 100% worth the hype. Do it. It is AWESOME.

Brasov, Romania: A really lovely mountain town with lots of fun shops, restaurants, hiking trails and some of the nicest people I've met.

Salina Turda, Turda, Romania: This entire place is just incredible and you will be amazed at the sheer vastness of the place.

Hunesdora Castle, Romania: Such a beautiful place with such a rich and interesting history. It's brilliantly restored & very easy to get around.

[sassy324]

On enjoying the fallen century:

The 21st century is a century in which white people in Europe and America, especially those who betrayed the church in the United States, enjoy degeneration. To enjoy depravity, one is material, that is marijuana; the other is spiritual, that is LGBTQ. Some critics said that as early as the 1910s, white Europeans had their eyes on marijuana and had been trying to legalize marijuana smoking. Finally, in the 2010s, that is, a hundred years later, the fight for marijuana legalization finally succeeded: the Netherlands and the Czech Republic have always been leading the way. Up front, Prague is becoming Los Angeles. After Canada's Trudeau came to power, he used the majority of seats in Congress to quickly legalize marijuana, and each family can grow four marijuana plants. Immediately afterwards, the state of Michigan in the United States also legalized marijuana, and each family can grow 12 marijuana plants. Although marijuana is a soft drug, its toxicity is greatly increased through its derivatives, and the variety of varieties is also greatly increased. There are more and more marijuana specialty stores in Ontario, Canada. My neighbors often drive to buy them at night. Other stores are closed, and only the marijuana stores are still open. Young people come and go constantly. There are various kinds of marijuana foods in Canada, ranging from food to beverages, and children’s drinks are also found. Nearly 10,000 people die from cannabis-derived drugs every year; the number of deaths from fentanyl in the United States last year was 110,000. People have nothing to do, leading to more drug addicts. Affected by the social atmosphere and indirectly encouraged by the government, under psychological pressure, many young people are forced to join the ranks of smoking marijuana and its derivatives, otherwise they say you are out of fashion, out of gregarious, and not cool enough. Nowadays, most young people in the United States cannot do without marijuana and fentanyl when they gather. When the parents saw the smell of marijuana from their children, they were so angry that they quarreled constantly, causing family discord. Obviously they are drugs, why do the government and left-wing groups still advocate smoking them, saying that they are symbols of democracy, freedom and equal rights? 2023 is the first year of the establishment of LGBTQ in European and American white societies. It is still not enough to engage in transgender among adults, and it needs to be extended to children and adolescents: Washington State passed bill SB5599 two months ago, and the state government has the right to take over their children if their parents refuse to change their gender. This is not a question of leaning left and right, but a question of harming children's physical and mental health to satisfy the halo of equal rights worn on their heads. There is a statistic that every week in the United States, many small churches are permanently closed. The moral pillars traditionally relied on by white society have collapsed, and the moral constraints have been lost, creating a vacuum. This is extremely dangerous. In addition, Vice President He Jinli passed the exemption of criminal responsibility for stealing less than $950 when he was the California Attorney General. , was laughed over by the Chinese people. Marijuana + HGBTQ, this is a white movement, especially the movement of white people who betrayed the Christian church. The more progressive the left, the more evil their hearts are; as for "freedom, democracy, and equal rights", they are just sheepskins on them. The 20th century was a century of rampant Marxism-Leninism, and the 21st century is a degenerate century of enjoying marijuana + HGBTQ! (Canada Sima Tian 2023.7 Google translation) fb: Markss Tang

[jiminy-crickets]

MAKE 👏 HIM 👏 TRY 👏 ONE 👏 OF 👏 EACH 👏 COOKIE 👏 !!!!!!!!!!!!

also yes, The Taylor's Raddysh's (both him and his wife are both named taylor raddysh) NEED to take him on vacation, a vacation where he doesn't bring his sticks and his roller skates (he did that on a trip to hawaii at some nondescript young teen age [if someone has a source for the year of the hawaiian vacation plz let me know] letting him bring his skates and stick was the only way his parents convinced him to come.

i also have some tragic news, he's currently at world champs in prague, and will be there until the 26th, so unfortunately, he is still playing fucking ice hockey, and even sadder news..... the kid loves roller hockey (he played in a league during the summers of 2021-2023.... yep that's right, the summer of 2023, he got drafted into the NHL.... then he played roller hockey (and his team didn't even make it to the finals) and no fucking doubt in my mind he will be found in the vancouver suburbs on roller skates before june starts (im 50/50 on if he will or won't join back up to his team for this summer, fellow roller team member and columbus player Kent Johnson DID play last year, after a full season in columbus, so.... there is precedent, also there's this AMAZING video of Kent chastising Connor and Andrew Cristall for skipping a roller hockey game to attend the draft)

also yes, he WAS at all star weekend this year, he and Sid passed pucks for the one timers portion of the skills comp, asides from that all connor did was off ice media shit, but like.... if i was his surgeon seeing him ON ICE, less then a MONTH after surgery with "head protection" courtesy of a baseball cap.... oh i'd kill the kid for putting my hard work in jeopardy.

also even more bad news, connor has NEVER had normal summers, even before 2021 when he started playing in that roller league (he may have played earlier then that, the website is kinda dog shit)

"He would have been 12, I think," Barzal said. "Wearing a cage, and his skates looked a little too big. Then we came back the next summer, and he was beating NHL goalies with his shot. It was like, you know the kid's the real deal. "It's been cool to watch his progression. He seems to get better every year I go back home, so it's going to be fun to see him in the league next year."

......for some context, Matt Barzal is 26, so when Connor was 12.... Matt was 20. Connor has been doing summer workouts with NHLers and top prospects in the lower mainland since his early teens, about 2018ish.

oh yeah, and the saddest part of all, here's a lil clip from one of the interviews that connor did with the hawks team at the draft combine, they ask him "many years ahead when you are done playing, what do you want to accomplish?" and he says "my whole life is just hockey" and then the dramatic music intensifies and they cut to a new shot, presumably because his full answer is something extremely fucking sad for a 17 year old kid to say.

i think i might know too much about connor bedard.

I’m sorry but the whole Connor Bedard having an allergic reaction because his trainer wouldn’t let him have fast food reminds me of when sdpn said that Bedard’s mom said he’s never had fast food before and like she said she knew eventually and it IS good for him to not have fast food, but it makes me think of diet culture and eating disorders. Like the no fast food thing still leaves a variety of food, and I’m sure he’s had pizza before; it’s really the fact that he couldn’t even have pizza ONE time with his team because his trainer wanted him to ‘eat healthy’ for the game (guess what due pizza is healthier than having an allergic reaction). Even if he had been on a crazy strict diet and got sick because his body wasn’t used to what’s in pizza, it’d still be healthier than an allergic reaction (and again, clearly he doesn’t care about Connor’s health just what he can do for the trainer’s image because he let him play the game and did care at all about how bad Connor was feeling.)

Like the obsession with food to the point you can’t eat xyz even once is eating disorder behavior, and I think the fact that players have to eat more than non/athletes and are expected/desire to get bigger is one of the reasons why eating disorders aren’t as common, but imagine how this messes with their heads. Like people who are like “oh my trainer is going to be mad at me for eating xyz one time don’t tell them” is like K-pop idols with management that pushed eating disorders to keep idols’ bodies marketable territory. NHL players are adults and now one should care about their diet to the point that they get mad at them for having one meal that goes against their nutrition plan. They are adults who make their own decisions and nutrition plans should a guideline to help players get what they need not a list of DO NOT EAT THIS foods or specific foods they have to eat.

(Also I think the nhl’s concept of ‘team’ is a little too close to the corporate ‘family’ which is always used to dehumanize employees and get them to give up their free time/health/family/identity for the benefit of the corporations bottom line that is never payed back to the employees. Like yes there’s the team as in the players, but there’s also that concept of team that is the pressure to get players to hurt themselves to win and shut up if they experience discrimination and also to shut up if they disagree with the nhl’s safety protocols that aren’t even follow a lot of the time.)

you said everything wonderfully, the ONLY thing i have to add, is this HEARTBREAKING quote.

"people close to him aren't sure he's ever had a cookie"

in fact that article is chock full of the MOST concerning quotes about a hockey player i have ever fucking read, "highlights include" connor stays long after practice and replies "im working" when people try and get him off the ice, when they think he's over working himself they hide his sticks because he's too superstitious to use someone else's (they have done this... multiple times), he tried to convince the coaching staff to let him play though his broken jaw because chara did so during the finals in 2019, he drank as much food and supplements as he could so he wouldn't lose weight while his jaw was still wired shut.

and yes 10000000000 fucking %, the leagues "we're a family" is NASTY, no!!! NO YOU AREN'T!!!!!! stop trying to be "a family" and start trying to be a GOOD EMPLOYER!!!!!!!

[goingplacesfarandnear]

Lobkowicz Palace is Prague’s Jewel Box

Lobkowicz Palace is Prague’s Jewel Box

Lobkowicz Palace, the only privately owned palace within Prague Castle, commands a stunning view of Prague © Karen Rubin/goingplacesfarandnear.com By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com When I come out from Golden Lane, with its tiny houses that line the Prague Castle walls, I look across to see the Lobkowicz Palace and realize it is included on the Prague Cool…