#and 98% will be years if not decades old

[theslimeologist]

Like im not even kidding here I just had to tap two share buttons (one was just an image pointing to the interactive meatball menu) to copy something. to copy a link.

Copy? I think you mean share.

[hamliet]

Derry Girls: A Masterclass in Detailed, Thematic Writing

Several years after the end, I finally watched Derry Girls, and it's become one of my favorite shows. Not only for the way it captures the absolutely unhinged aspects of Irish families (askmehowiknow) but for the sheer writing skill.

The vast majority of the episodes are laugh-out-loud hilarious, while also offering insightful commentary on the Troubles and on humanity's foibles as a whole. The characters are allowed to be human and act in unlikable, unsanitized ways, and to still be human and come back from that. (Almost like a metaphor for the Troubles or something.)

The story is also incredibly detailed; for example, when the girls are accused of killing a nun and Erin points out the nun was like, 98 years old and askes "might that shed some light on the situation?" there's an hourglass behind Sister Michael--emphasizing the idea that her time was up. Even more than that... the window is behind the hourglass, literally shining a light on it.

But that's a micro level. On a macro level, I also appreciated the way the story discusses the political backdrop that is part of its premise. Even as Erin, Michelle, James, Clare, and Orla grow up in a place that's been in a state of low-level warfare for decades, they live full lives. In fact, that's kinda the point.

Case in point: episode 4 of the first season, wherein Erin gets an exchange student from Chernobyl. The way the Northern Irish in general treat the Ukrainians is hilariously awful and patronizing, believing that they are giving them a respite from the troubles "over there" while Northern Ireland isn't in a much better state. But, as Sister Michael assures the Ukrainian students, the Irish troubles don't matter because "we're the goodies."

This line gets to the heart of what the episode is saying about political divisions and the way people view an "other." Everyone sees themselves as the "goodies." Because of that, they don't self-examine and wind up hurting the people they see themselves as wanting to help/save with their ignorance. It's a paradoxical egotistical (and frankly teenage) worldview that is also unwilling to look critically at oneself. The focus on their own perceptions over focusing on the actual humanity of the other results in ruining gifts that could come with cross-culture interaction, as seen in how Erin's misunderstandings and petty jealousy of Katya leads to her literally ruining a surprise gift Katya had prepared.

And the end of the episode also comments thematically on the story. One of the Ukrainian boys turns out not to be Ukrainian after all--he's actually Irish and from just down the road. He just didn't know how to say that. The ironic message is clear: despite differences in culture and views, they are actually all human beings, and assumptions make it hard for people to speak. If they could actually talk openly and without presumptions about who is "good" and who is "bad," they could prevent and solve a lot of problems.

This kind of background, symbolic commentary on the Troubles continues in just about every episode of the series. For example, even after the ceasefire, season 3 has an episode where it's discussed how negotiations are stalling, and the entirely of the rest of the episode takes place on a train that stalls between two separate places.

The Troubles are always something affecting their lives, but the only time the Troubles ever become the main story is in the finale episode. Which is also an episode that makes everyone cry. Michelle's brother is finally mentioned for the first time the entire series, yet it doesn't feel like a retcon so much as a recontextualization, and again mirrors how a lot of society (and Michelle's own family) have treated those who murdered others during the conflict.

Erin and James' relationship also works as a metaphor for the Troubles--an Irish Catholic girl and an English boy. Earlier in season 3, after they finally kiss, they're told they can't be together, that it's wrong, and that it'll create problems for everyone around them. Michelle doesn't want things to change. And Erin agrees that it's not good to pursue something.

But, in the final scenes, as Erin prepares to vote in the Good Friday Agreement and talks to James, she directly states she thinks things can't stay the same forever--thereby countering what she said to reject James earlier:

There's a part of me that wishes everything could just stay the same. That we could all just stay like this forever. There's a part of me that doesn't really want to grow up. I'm not sure I'm ready for it. I'm not sure I'm ready for the world. But things can't stay the same, and they shouldn't. No matter how scary it is, we have to move on, and we have to grow up, because things... well, they might just change for the better. So we have to be brave. And if our dreams get broken along the way... we have to make new ones from the pieces.

Symbolically, also, given that we know the outcome of the Good Friday Agreement, I think it's pretty clear Erin and James end up together even if we're not directly shown it.

That the last shot of the episode (besides the funny epilogue) is Grandda Joe, one of the eldest characters, helping his youngest toddler granddaughter Anna leap over a threshold as they leave the voting station, is also incredibly clear in its symbolism.

Erin: People died. Innocent people died, Grandda. They were someone's mother, father, daughter, son. Nothing can ever make that okay. And the people who took those lives, they're just gonna walk free? What if we do it, and it's all for nothing? What if we vote yes and it doesn't even work? Grandda Joe: And what if it does? What if no one else has to die? What if this all becomes a--a ghost story you'll tell your wee-un's some day? A ghost story they'll hardly believe?

I dunno, I think this is a sentiment we need more of in the world. A peaceful future means taking risks and accepting that punitive justice will not be perfectly doled out; however, if you allow more people to be hurt, is that not also injustice? It's a paradox that the story leaves us without a dogmatic answer to (for example, we never find out if Michelle's brother gets released), but it's also hopeful--because we know that the Good Friday Agreement largely worked.

(For further analysis of the final scene, I recommend PillarofGarbage's analysis on YouTube!)

[fangirl-erdariel]

It's actually fairly possible that Théoden's mother was still alive during the main events of LOTR. She has no year of death given in the appendices (also technically no year of birth, but that can at least be counted from the age difference between her and Thengel), or anywhere else that I would know of. Nor is there any direct reference to her being dead, or text worded in a way that would be impossible if she were still alive during LOTR that I know of. The firmest piece of evidence there is for her being dead is only her absence from the story.

Now, yes, it seems likely to me that Tolkien intended for Morwen of Lossarnach to be dead by the time of LOTR. But Tolkien can roll in his grave all he wants if it's important to him, I am going to discuss the possibility of her being alive nonetheless because I find it interesting.

The appendices mention that Morwen was 17 years younger than Thengel, which would mean she was born in 2922. If my math holds up, that would make her 97 in 3019 when most of the major battles of War of the Ring are fought, if she lives that long. Possibly 96 if she was born late in the year, since those battles happen in spring of that year.

She is Gondorian nobility, mentioned to be descended from the Princes of Dol Amroth, though I do not think the details of her relation to them are specified beyond that. And if we look at the two Gondorian noble families where we have any kind of data for their lifespans, that being the Stewards and the Princes of Dol Amroth - the last four Stewards of Gondor before Denethor each lived 98-100 years. The last four Princes before Imrahil live to be 93, 111, 105, and 114, respectfully, and Imrahil lives to 100 years old. As for the next generation or two after that, Faramir lived to 120 years old. Prince Imrahil's son Elphir was 101 when he died, and his son Alphros was 99. Éomer, grandchild of Morwen Steelsheen, lived to 93 years old, despite his other three grandparents being presumably Rohirrim, whose lifespan (at a quick glance through the list of the Kings of Rohan) usually seems to range between 70 and a few years past 80.

So if Morwen falls roughly into the same range with the Gondorian nobility whose lifespans are known, then, yeah, sure, maybe she's dead by the time the main events of LOTR happen. But it's just as possible that she'd still be alive and even have a couple more years left in her.

And I just find myself fascinated by that possibility.

On one hand, there's the tragedy of her outliving at least two of her children, and at least one of her grandchildren. But on the other hand, when you consider all the women, all the wives and mothers, who fall ill and die, or waste away from grief or the horror and weight of the shadow in the last three or so decades before War of the Ring (Finduilas of Dol Amroth, Théodwyn, Gilraen, though at least Gilraen didn't die as young as the other two; and while her death has nothing to do with grief or influence of the shadow, Elfhild the wife of Théoden dies in childbirth during that timespan), I also see a certain triumph in the idea of Morwen enduring it and living to see a time after Sauron, if only briefly.

But if she is still alive, where is she? I see three possible options. The first is that she is still in Edoras. The second is that she lives somewhere else in Rohan, either in some other house belonging to the royal family, or with one of her unnamed daughters and her family. The third is that at some point after Thengel's death, she returned to Gondor and her family there.

The still in Edoras option seems unlikely from a logical standpoint, since there's no mention of her as there really should have been if she were there. There's something narratively pretty delicious, at least to me, though, in the idea that she might have been there to witness firsthand her son's decline and yet been for whatever reason unable to intervene

Living somewhere in Rohan, probably with another of her children (she had two daughters after Théoden before Théodwyn, and one who's even at oldest still under five years older than Théoden, so any of them could pretty plausibly still be alive), would make some sense, if she had wanted to retire from court life but still remained within relatively easy distance of her children and grandchildren. It would also kind of still allow for her being very aware of what's going on in Meduseld, while offering a more easy excuse for why she's unable to intervene and also not mentioned at any points in the books.

And returning to Gondor at some point after Thengel had died and Théoden had settled into the position of the king and all her children were adults likewise makes sense. She and Thengel lived in Gondor for ten years before moving to Rohan when Thengel inherited the throne, so it seems likely she'd have retained strong ties to her family in Gondor, rather than all those being cut off by her marriage, and considering all we know of Lossarnach, as someone on the SWG discord pointed out when i mentioned these thoughts the other day, Lossarnach seems like a nice enough place to retire to. It would put her pretty solidly away from all the drama going on in Rohan, though, but maybe if you're into fluff, Éowyn and Faramir could make a visit to her in Lossarnach sometime after the war

Anyway. I just wanted to say. Maybe Morwen of Lossarnach isn't dead yet, when LOTR happens. Maybe she gets to see what she probably never thought would happen in her lifetime, or ever at all, Sauron being defeated, Gondor having a king again. She'd have to face horrible loss, yeah. But she'd also see a new sunrise, triumph and joy like no one dared to hope for. So. Maybe. Maybe she's still alive, long enough to see that

[artbyblastweave]

So for those of you who don't read twenty-year-old marvel comics a lot, the 2005 Marvel Crisis Crossover was called House of M. The basic premise of this was that this was smack dab in the middle of the Scarlet-Witch-is-Having-a-Normal-one arc that was very, very loosely adapted into Wandavision; in her initial breakdown, she'd killed several of the Avengers, wound up in the protective custody of Magneto, and the recently reformed team was debating whether or not they were going to have to kill her before she deleted reality on accident or some such thing. But when they're on their way to Magneto's stronghold to have a "talk" with her, the world is enveloped in white, and Wolverine (the initial POV character) wakes up in a world where Mutants are 98% of the human population and have been for decades, and Magneto and his family (the titular House of M) are leaders of the global political order, and Wolverine is one of the only people in this realigned world who remembers that it was ever different.

Wolverine initially is operating under the assumption that Magneto cajoled Wanda into rewriting reality in his family's favor, but after rounding up and waking up several of his allies, he realizes that what actually happened is that Wanda rewrote reality so that everyone she knew would get everything they wanted- Magneto being in charge with a 98 percent global mutation rate is just the inevitable byproduct of that. The resulting world is an amalgamation that has to accommodate the conscious or subconscious "perfect life" of every superhero on earth, in a way that acts as a fascinating characterization tool, often with a monkey's-paw angle. Spider-Man is a beloved celebrity wrestler, and Uncle Ben and Gwen are both alive, but he attained that status by pretending to be a Mutant and he lives in constant fear of being exposed. Mystique, Rogue, Nightcrawler and several of their associates are the tight-knit family unit they were always kept from being.... as the elite jackboot of Magneto's regime. Luke Cage and Hawkeye lead the human resistance, standing in perpetual principled opposition to the powers that be, but with no real hope of accomplishing anything. Captain America didn't lose years of his life to the ice, but he had to live through a global authoritarian takeover he ultimately couldn't do anything about. Wolverine gets to remember his entire life, but that includes remembering that his current ideal circumstances were manufactured to keep him placated. And on and on and on. Lot of really interesting character takes packed up in there, paired with the equally interesting project of packing as many of them as possible into the same timeline without contradicting each other- after all, from the word go you have to contort everyone's happiness around the basic conceit that Magneto rules the world.

Anyway. House of M AU for Worm. Discuss.

[into-the-feniverse]

Finished reading Trigun/TriMax a couple days ago and have been feverishly trying to piece together a timeline, so here’s the result of that ✨

EDIT: as of 3/13/24 this has been UPDATED

For a more detailed timeline (with vol/ch marks): google sheet

Full res of the graphic (& other resources): bit.l/trigunresources

Notes & rest of the timeline under the cut!

Edits as of 3/13/24

The detailed spreadsheet is organized and color coded! If you'd like a more concise breakdown of events/see some of my reasoning behind certain time stamps feel free to skim through that

Changed where in the timeline the Maylene and Wolfwood events happened (originally where I had placed them would have made Maylene like 6 when she and Wolfwood reunited which is NOT correct)

moved where in the timeline Knives started collecting the GungHo Guns (at latest he started in 0090 (20 years before 0110) since it's noted that Monev has been training in a cellar for the past 20 years

Moved where Knives initially tracked down Conrad (felt like it needed to happen at least a decade before July)

Changed up some of the months (personally, I don't think the Ark launched in December, since that'd put Milly and Meryl's arrival to the colony in July, which wouldn't make sense. So I placed the ark launch in October which of course offset some of the other month stand ins)

Added an earth year for when Knives and Vash are born. The explanation is I think at minimum there was at least a 2 year period between them and Tesla (since Rem was around for that whole process). I do think it was more than that, but that’s the earliest possible year I think it could have happened. Personally I’m more in the camp of 5-10 years, but def not 50 like in tristamp

Old Notes:

If you see any typos or phrase inconsistencies: no you don’t 💕 (😭)

Blue text can be completely ignored, that’s just kinda my personal preference/wild guesstimating of when “exactly” those events happened

Blue lines can also be ignored, they’re also just rough guesstimates on where exactly in the timeline these could have happened

The distance of the lines from one another doesn’t really mean anything, I started trying to follow a system to notate when things happened really close together but it was//// not consistently done ngl

Fun fact: by the time Wolfwood leaves the orphanage Meryl is 18! And she was 14 at the time of July’s destruction

Additional fun fact: Brad is 17 when he and sensei meet up with Vash in the Factioned city (which I think is absolutely RIDICULOUS), and we know this because he was 4 the one/last time he had met Vash and it’s been 13 years since

It was noted by Karen, one of Meryl’s coworkers, that she and Milly had been on assignment with Vash for about 4 months. (Might be that they were out searching for him during that time as well, but I’m choosing to interpret it as they were actually with him for that amount of time)

I’m also working on a 98 timeline for comparison (but more like just sequence of events cause I don’t think I have the patience to sift through the lore quite as much… mainly making it just to clarify how the anime delineates from the manga)

I am//::: feeling v unhinged after this and feel like it could be improved/i need to do a more thorough read, but I’m calling it quits for now before I actually go insane (but hopefully some people will find it somewhat helpful!)

Also: if anybody has any notes to add or clarifications/corrections I would be more than happy to hear them 👂

[hexalene]

I wish my family was inclined to get on the internet and tell stories because the MOST HILARIOUS saga has been happening with my parents and neighbor for the last few months.

My parents have a great marriage. Hilariously secure. Locked in with a lifetime warranty. Literally -100000% chance of cheating thanks to the…odd but effective preventative power of their collective neuroses overlapping with their better qualities. For whatever reason, it just works.

Their neighbor….is kind of a shitshow. I feel bad for her, honestly, but she’s a wreck. Late forties, early fifties bleach blonde white lady clinging to her youth. I’ve never seen her young, but I’ve gleaned from conversations that she was one of those effortlessly beautiful women who sailed through their youth partying and doing drugs and living on the grace of whatever man she happened to be with at the time.

Unfortunately, age and the partying has caught up to her and she looks pretty rough now. She’s barely cracked her 50s, but she looks my dad’s age (he’s in his 70s….though admittedly, my parents are freaks of nature who both look really young for their age).

BUT TO THE POINT: this woman is convinced she has ruined my parent’s marriage. Evidence…? Uh…

She keeps texting my mom apologizing for “stepping into her marriage” and that she “would never ever sleep with (my dad’s name)” and that they’ve never done anything, she swears. She’s just so sorry.

You may be asking, what prompted this, what EVENT has driven my father from his marriage??

My dad went over to her house and helped pick her 98 year old mother up off the floor. And handed Neighbor Lady a tissue when she cried and apologized for asking for help. He might (MIGHT, my dad is very touch averse) have pat her on the shoulder. Maybe.

Oh, you may be asking, but maybe something else did happen?? Maybe my father is LYING as cheating men do.

My mother was there. She helped. She handed my dad the tissue. This woman was never alone with my father.

It continues

On Christmas, my dad refilled her wine glass. She stared at him like he’d hung the moon. Then spun around and looked tearfully at my mother.

Unfortunately she’d whipped around so fast her robe dropped open and she flashed me.

Note: me. Not my dad. Not something I wanted to see, but like, not the end of the world. And obviously an accident. Did she apologize to me? No. Unfortunately important for the story: all I saw was like, cleavage and half a nipple. She had pants on.

She waited until my dad and I had wandered off then tearfully apologized to my mom and swore up and down it was an accident and that she didn’t mean for my dad to see her naked.

My mom burst out laughing, like, loud. We heard it from outside. Mom handed her a bottle of wine and sent her home. Then came outside and asked my dad if he’d enjoyed the show.

Of course, he hadn’t seen or noticed the flash. That had been me.

I think my parents almost peed themselves laughing over it. While they were laughing, neighbor started texting emoji laden apologies to my parents.

They joke a lot about it. My mom waved to her once and my dad immediately said, “well it looks like our marriage is over”

Neither of them can figure out what is up with this lady.

My bet is alcohol and a long history of this kind of dramatic behavior. I know this woman has been in and out of highly dramatic and toxic relationships since her teens.

I don’t think she knows any other way to exist. And I cannot sell how funny this is hard enough, the idea that she’s trying this with my dad:

The King of the Undiagnosed ADHD.

The Man With The Touch of The ‘Tism.

The God of Mobile Civilization Builders who has and I’m not joking - over 100 different emails and accounts pretending to be other people from all over the world so that he can gaslight his online friends into thinking they’re in a decade long guild war with a clan entirely populated by his female alter egos— THIS man. She thinks THIS MAN is going to take the time to cheat and be in on her drama? Amazingly funny. Absolute cinema.

[hlficlibrary]

✤ Vacation Fics ✤

A series of posts with the top five fics of each category by kudos plus five more hidden gems from that category! Remember to leave kudos and a comment on the fics you enjoyed to show your appreciation! You can find the library's other recs here.

- Top 5 H/L Fics -

1️⃣ Let Me Feel Your Heartbeat by @angelichl {E, 34k}

Harry is 98% sure Louis hates him. So he feels like his bewilderment is justified when the omega offers to help him through his rut.

2️⃣ waiting for the tides to meet by @nauticalleeds {E, 59k}

Louis lets out a deep breath, thinking about Harry’s soulmate. Thinking about how Harry’s soulmate is probably as beautiful as Harry, some person that Louis cannot compare to, and how the universe has chosen them to be Harry’s. Fuck the universe. “Fuck you,” he calls out to the universe. He’s aware of how crazy he sounds.

Maybe he is crazy, with how he’s falling for Harry. And fuck that, too. 

Soulmate AU. Everyone is born with heterochromia — one eye is their own eye colour, while the other is the colour of their soulmate's. It's only when they meet their soulmate for the first time that their own eyes match properly. After a hazy night at a frat party, Louis wakes up to blue eyes and the shocking realization that he had met his soulmate, without any sober recollection. Seven years pass where Louis comes to terms with the fact that he'll never know who his soulmate is. Then one fated summer, a beautiful green-eyed photographer arrives at Louis' workplace, with promises of endless laughter and a familiar feeling in Louis' heart.

Featuring a lovely cup of OT5, a road trip down the coast, and a scene where Harry eats a whole head of lettuce. Don't ask why.

3️⃣ love is a word, you gave it a name by CuckooTrooke / @larrydoinglaundry {E, 158k}

After two decades in brutal show business, Louis Tomlinson is trying to restore his tranquility of mind in the peace of Northern Europe where the sun barely sets, Maria's bar is always open, and young Harry has an irresistible spark in his eyes.

4️⃣ Fake It Till You Make It by thealmightyavocado / @avocadolouie {M, 136k}

In a twisted turn of events, Louis finds himself posing as the brother of his fiancé, Harry, for an annual company retreat.

Did he sign up for this? No.

Is he doing it anyway? Yes.

Can they actually pull this off? Probably not.

5️⃣ Falling For Me Won't Be A Mistake by Rearviewdreamer / @all-these-larrythings {M, 58k}

Harry is married to his job and so overworked that he doesn't know how to stop. All it takes is a forced Hawaiian get-a-away, the warm tropical breeze of the island, and the most beautiful, elusive man he's ever seen to make him remember what living is like outside of work. Well, that, and the little souvenir he accidentally takes home with him.

HIDDEN GEMS:

💎 Love Moves Like The Sea by flamboyo / @riverswater {M, 33k}

“Of course I want to stay with you, I missed you, you know? We haven't spent so much time apart since…” Harry’s smile dims a bit. “Well, we've never done it.” There's a hint of a question there, a why. Why did you stop reaching out, why did we stop talking for months? Louis doesn’t answer. He can’t say, ‘I was hoping that by ignoring you for months I would have fallen out of love with you, and it didn’t even happen’ on their first day of vacation, can he? * Spending two weeks in his uncle's old house by Lee Bay beach is not Louis' ideal holiday, but sadly is the only one he can afford this summer. Spending those alone with Harry, his best friend who he has spent the last five years in love with, may make everything a little better, though. Away from everyday reality, alone somewhere that makes you forget your past and gloss over your future, maybe it's time for two friends to finally explore what they haven't said (but felt) for years.

💎 Like Those Foreign Stars by @beanno28 {E, 18k}

Louis' family go on a vacation to Mexico, he never expects to meet a handsome young entertainer who seems to have taken a liking to him. What happens when Louis easily gives in and decides sneaking around his family's back to have a fling takes a turn?

💎 BLVD by @kingsofeverything {E, 12k}

It’s the first week of summer break and Harry just wants to relax and enjoy his vacation in Myrtle Beach.

If only he could stop making an ass of himself.

💎 i need something, so tell me something new by @alwaysxlarrie {E, 10k}

Louis goes on vacation to New York City to enjoy the good weather and good food - he even has a list of restaurants he wants to eat at. Much to his delight, his first restaurant stop includes a gorgeous curly boy and his nosy but supportive best friend. Maybe he'll get more than what he came here for.

💎 hear my belated regret by theankletattoo / @peachade {E, 3k}

“Baby, can you look at me? Please,” he pleads, thumbing over his cheekbones, pads of his thumbs calloused. It reminds him of the beach, feet wet from salty waves, sand coarse, sticking to him, laughter and waves and salt and lovers.   “Don’t ask that of me,” he says out loud.

they find love in each other on a vacation.

[mariacallous]

As the US struggles to contain its worst measles outbreak in years, cases have spilled over into Mexico. In an April 25 report, Mexico’s Ministry of Health reported there have been 583 confirmed cases in the country this year, with 560 recorded in the border state of Chihuahua. On April 27, the Chihuahua Health Secretariat pushed the state’s number of confirmed cases even higher, to 713. In comparison, the Pan American Health Organization reported only 7 confirmed cases in the whole of Mexico in 2024.

The outbreak in Chihuahua is partly due to its proximity to Texas, which it borders to the north. A major outbreak has been ongoing in the US state since late January, and cases in Mexico have been linked to those north of the border. The United States has recorded 884 confirmed cases of measles this year, up from 285 in 2024, as well as three deaths from the disease. Of this year’s cases in the US, 646 have been in Texas.

To try to prevent the measles virus from spreading further throughout Mexico, its Ministry of Health has issued a travel warning for the United States and Canada, where cases have also risen sharply. The ministry advises travelers to make sure they are up-to-date with their vaccinations, practice social distancing, wear a mask, and frequently wash their hands.

Falling vaccination levels have also helped drive up Mexico’s cases, as they have in the US. In 98 percent of US cases this year, the patient—whether an adult or child—had no history of vaccination against measles. In early April, it was reported that a 31-year-old man unvaccinated against measles had died of the disease in Chihuahua.

Because measles is highly contagious, very high rates of vaccination against it—95 percent—are needed across communities to stop the virus from spreading. But rates of vaccination in Mexico have been faltering. Children are supposed to receive two doses of the measles vaccine, the first typically between 12 and 15 months, and the second within the next few years. According to the WHO, in 2023 only 76 percent of children under 2 years old in Mexico had received a measles vaccine.

If rates don’t improve, this could allow the disease to become endemic again in North America. According to an analysis by Stanford University epidemiologists, at current state-level vaccination rates in the US, measles could reestablish itself and be steadily present in the country over the next two decades. This would result in the deaths of 2,500 people over the next 25 years.

In response to the urgent need to reverse Mexico’s decreasing vaccination coverage, the Ministry of Health has launched a National Vaccination Week, the country’s first nationwide immunization campaign since the Covid-19 pandemic. From April 26 to May 3, the plan is to boost vaccine levels in the group most vulnerable to measles: children from 1 to 9 years of age. The ministry hopes to inoculate 1.8 million children to bring them up-to-date with their shots, by offering vaccines free of charge at hospitals, clinics, schools, and health centers.

Measles isn’t the only disease being targeted in Mexico: Children over 4 years old are also being offered the DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus) vaccine, and a pneumococcal booster is being offered at 12 months of age. Adolescents, adults over 60, and pregnant women are also being invited to get specific vaccines that they might need as well.

Measles is a viral disease, and it is considered to be one of the most contagious in the world. It mostly spreads among children. It is transmitted by contact with infected nasal or pharyngeal secretions and through the air, and it initially affects the respiratory tract. Symptoms include a high fever, cough, abundant nasal discharges, and a skin rash that spreads all over the body. Complications can include blindness, encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), diarrhea, dehydration, ear infections, and pneumonia. In severe cases, it can be fatal.

[alexluvsskittlez]

ok my opinion/review on the minecraft movie

it was so awful and I LOVED IT. AND ITS THE BEST MOVIE OF THE DECADE. IT IS ABSOLUTELY PEAK.

and despite the movie being bad, I've developed an emotional attachment to the characters because no matter how bad a piece of media is, 98% of the time I WILL develop attachments to the characters.

Steve and Garrett are SO FUCKING GAY FOR EACHOTHER. YOU CAN NOT CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE. I honestly did not expect old man yaoi out of the minecraft movie but honestly, I'm living for it. (and i may or may not be hyperfixated on the ship...)

I am also adopting Natalie and Henry they are my children now. I don't care if Henry is the same age as me and I don't care if Natalie is an adult THEY ARE MY CHILDREN NOW.

I also love Dawn too she is a DIVA. I also love her and Natalie's friendship :3

Dennis is also adorable, I don't care if he was a part of the slightly disturbing cgi HE IS SO CUTEEE 🥹🥹🥹

my criticisms for the movie is 1, I don't like how they whitewashed steve, and 2, I wish it was animated like minecraft story mode. I probably have more but I'm too tired to type them out oughh.

other than that, I enjoyed the movie, it was awful in the best ways possible, and 8 year old me is happy :)

[merylstryfestan]

i'm sure this has been discussed before, but this still brings up so many questions for me.

my memory of '98 isn't perfect, but i'm pretty sure that at least in the manga, no one really knew who Vash was before the destruction of July. the manga and '98 deviate on the timelines here, but in both he stuck around with Knives for a very long time before being on his own, and between them separating and July, Vash was probably getting himself involved with gangs and thugs trying to save lives and such, but nothing that made him well known. it wasn't until July and his bounty that he became infamous, so that makes sense to me.

so what's going on in Stampede then? because as far as we know, Vash and Knives haven't seen each other between Vash losing his arm and Juneora Rock. What happens in the ~150 years between for Vash to gain a reputation? i'm assuming it's the result of Knives stealing plants over the years, so has Vash just been chasing after his brother trying to prevent the thefts? and that's how he got associated with them in the first place?

then there's the fact that in the beginning, Meryl seems to almost not believe the Humanoid Typhoon is even a real person, in the sense that "surely all this stuff can't be one guy's fault". does that make the persona of the Humanoid Typhoon almost a conspiracy theory? or perhaps more similar to a cryptid?

and if this is all true, how are people not more surprised when they learn that the 25 year old looking dude is the guy that's supposedly been terrorizing the planet for at least 20 years? why would it take Roberto and Meryl finding the photo to realize the timeline isn't adding up here?

the only explanation to that i can think of is that since the windmill village is essentially run by the Eye of Michael, then it's the Eye that started calling Vash "the Stampede" and the "Humanoid Typhoon" and spreading his reputation. that's why Rollo would know about him. and if those rumors took a couple decades to become more widely known, it would explain why Roberto and Meryl weren't suspicious of Vash's age at first.

i don't think it's a perfect theory, so i'd definitely be interested to hear other people's ideas. could just be me totally missing something (very likely tbh). i still find the idea interesting though, that it could be the Eye specifically, and therefore Knives, that starts villainizing Vash amongst the human population. an early attempt to get Vash to turn his back against humanity perhaps?

@tristampparty

[katsdynam1ght]

pleaseee rant about fuyumi and enji's relationship sometime. they are so important in my heart and i ONLY want to hear it from u bc your takes on enji. genuine breath of fresh air i mean it. I LOVE HIM + HIS HORRIBLE COMPLEXITY IM TIRED OF PRETENDING I DONT. i trust ur mind so much i would love to hear ur thoughts on them. 💕💕

anon i have no idea who you are but i adore you and will happily oblige

first and foremost let’s acknowledge that fuyumi is the only female child of four, and once her mother is out of the house and their caretaker is retired, she’s the only girl (and later woman) in the house at all. it’s stated in canon that she did all the cooking for natsuo after this, but that shouto (and presumably enji?) was not present to partake. what this implies is that fuyumi took on the motherly role once rei was gone: a very common experience for daughters of any age.

immediately, this makes their relationship complex. neglect aside, being forced into a parental role as a child is incredibly taxing, and we see evidence of how it’s affected fuyumi by her behavior in season five (intense people pleasing, desperation for everyone to get along, stress and anxiety when they don’t, etc). i do believe that she genuinely loves her father, but i also am sure that part of that love is fear. at such a young age (12) she lost both her older brother and her mother, barely knew her baby brother, and quickly had to play mom for her younger. if anything, this poor girl was terrified that she’d lose the others, too.

here’s where i want to note something that i think 98% of the fandom will disagree with me on: sending rei to a mental hospital was NOT the hellish abusive act everyone seems to think it is??? like dude. her baby just fucking died. her eldest child died (and she couldn’t stop it) and all they have left of him is a piece of his jaw. she broke. she hurt a five-year-old boy. if enji hadn’t sent her away, what else might she have done??? hurt the others? killed herself? dude. she was lost in her grief and needed help. that’s why he sent her away—it just comes off differently because we only learn about it from 5yo shouto’s perspective, and that kid was biased as fuck.

(also, there’s a panel or two somewhere of enji standing with flowers presumably at the hospital, and we know rei had flowers in her room. i am of the belief that he hand-delivered them (but couldn’t see her for obvious reasons) to ensure they were received because you know what? that man loves his family and his wife and he regrets everything he did. deal with it.)

(and i know nobody wants to hear this but rei loves him too. Deal With It.)

but i digress. let’s go back to fuyumi.

as the eldest daughter and pseudo-mother in her family, she also bears the brunt of everyone’s emotions. that is… just what happens. i don’t think anyone will deny that. women (especially in a traditional household like the todorokis) are emotional laborers and put in a position to be responsible for everyone’s peace. it’s exhausting, but it’s also the only thing fuyumi really has left if she wants to keep her family. and she does, obviously. they’re all she has. (this is something else that happens when you lose siblings or parents at such a young age, or when there’s a lot of conflict in the home. you just want to have a family. you want everyone to be happy. i personally have a very intimate understanding of how desperately fuyumi just wants her family back. that feeling never goes away.)

we don’t get a lot of information on what happens during the decade of shouto’s life from five to fifteen, which means we don’t get a lot on the rest of the family, either. rei has been in the hospital, natsuo has grown up and started at college, fuyumi has become a teacher and maintained her parental role, and enji has continued his career. we don’t know what the house looked like during this time and a lot of people have a lot of theories, but… hm. i don’t know. i think it’s hard to say. given the flowers for rei (and his arc throughout canon), i do think enji had to have made some changes during this time. but it’s hard to say how and how much and what impact it had. we know shouto was still pretty isolated throughout this, so… maybe not much. certainly not enough.

even so, it seems apparent that he and fuyumi have had a relationship throughout all of this. again, she has a tendency to people-please, and she loves her father, and her father (who again lost his eldest son and has only a fragment of his jaw bone) is a broken man. comforting him is only natural. it’s practically her responsibility (in feeling, not in fact). and enji, of course, because he has no other support network, relies on his daughter. he depends on her as men often depend on women (and obviously realizes his wrongdoing in this, as it’s part of his apology in season seven).

if you ask me, pre-war arc, i think their relationship is the most loving out of anyone in the family. it’s not healthy, not yet, but it can be made healthy much easier than the others can, and i think fuyumi is more willing to forgive him than anyone else. because the thing is—fuyumi is willing to acknowledge her father’s humanity.

i think this is one of the things that frustrates me most about the fandom’s response to enji. i understand where it comes from, of course, and i’m not saying he is by any means innocent. but there comes a point where you have to put your own biases aside and acknowledge a character’s humanity. it infuriates me to no end that this fandom will redeem the entire league of villains but cast endeavor aside and damn him for all eternity. i know why, again (because in fiction abuse is always worse than murder), but i don’t care. if a character has the capacity for repentance then they have the capacity for redemption.

i also never understand the difference between redemption and atonement because to me they’re the same thing, and enji is a prime example of it. he knows what he did wrong. he knows he can’t undo it. he won’t try to. all he can do (and what he Does do) is be better. how can anyone ask him of anything more. how DARE anyone ask him of anything more. he’s a mortal man, not God. that’s the entire point of the portrayal of MHA’s top heroes: they are not invincible deities. they’re human. they’re going to fail. and fail. and fail. and fail. but what makes them different from everybody else? they want to be good. they want to help others. they’re trying. they may fall and slip up and it may not all go according to plan, but damn it if they aren’t trying.

beyond everyone else, i believe fuyumi understands this. her father is not, can not, and will not ever be perfect. but he’s trying. she knows how human he is, firsthand. how can she ask him for more than the effort he’s given? this is already so much better than how things were before. and she loves him. and he loves her. she’ll wait as long as it takes for him to grow.

here i must note (as always) that i haven’t read the manga. i do not know how it ends. any time i see content about the todoroki family’s ending, i skim or scroll past to avoid spoiling myself. everything i say is based on my understanding of canon and of the characters and information we are given, and everything that follows this is purely how i plan to write the todoroki family in some future fic where i actually address all of this and force people to like enji.

i don’t know how any of their stories end, but i believe fuyumi keeps in touch with her father. visits. has family dinner when possible (minus natsuo, or scheduled so natsuo and enji can arrive at different times and avoid each other). she still visits her mother and her brothers. she loves all of them as much as she always has. enji doesn’t force anyone to keep in touch (and given his injuries i doubt he could even if he wanted to, but even if we diverge post-season six as i tend to do, he still wouldn’t try to keep anyone who doesn’t want to stay. i mean he built them a whole separate house. does the fandom just forget that) but they love each other, for sure. he’s proud of her. proud of all his kids really. not so much of himself. but he loves them so much more than he will ever be able to express. and fuyumi has grown into such an amazing young woman. i think he admires her more than she knows.

what really gets to me about the todoroki family and everyone’s misinterpretations of it is the amount of love in their household. so many people write it and there’s no love in sight, but that’s an immediate indicator that they don’t understand. because here’s the thing—that entire family is built on love and all the ways it goes wrong. there is so much love there it makes me sick. but none of them have any clue how to express it—and that’s the real tragedy of the todorokis. they’re all fated to get it wrong.

(“kats their marriage was arranged wtf do you mean enji and rei love each other” dude that’s the entire point. the fandom does rei a MASSIVE disservice by taking away her agency in that choice. she Knew what she was getting into and she Chose him. do NOT downplay this woman’s decision for the sake of shoving her into your helpless female victim battered wife box. fuck you. their marriage was arranged, but she agreed to it, and as stated, she was cold to him at first. but she opened up, they got to know each other, and damn you if you think they didn’t love one another then. they built that love brick by brick. how dare you suggest otherwise.)

i’m really beginning to go on some tangents here, so i think this is where i close. but the point that i’m trying to make overall is that there is so much love in that family and no capacity to express it. but i think enji and fuyumi try. i’m certain they figure out proper boundaries someday and he doesn’t put so much on her. i’m certain she still visits and i’m certain she forgives him. i’m certain he has a hard time believing that when she tells him, but that he swallows his doubt and thanks her anyway. he really is so proud.

thank you anon for this ask. it was a delight to wake up to and write out at the start of my day. i love talking about the todoroki family (i’m very passionate if you can’t tell) and if you ever have anything else you want to hear don’t be afraid to send another :)) i’m always happy to share my thoughts.

[whencyclopedia]

Social Change in the British Industrial Revolution

The British Industrial Revolution (1760-1840) witnessed a great number of technical innovations, such as steam-powered machines, which resulted in new working practices, which in turn brought many social changes. More women and children worked than ever before, for the first time more people lived in towns and cities than in the countryside, people married younger and had more children, and people's diet improved. The workforce become much less skilled than previously, and many workplaces became unhealthy and dangerous. Cities suffered from pollution, poor sanitation, and crime. The urban middle class expanded, but there was still a wide and unbridgeable gap between the poor, the majority of whom were now unskilled labourers, and the rich, who were no longer measured by the land they owned but by their capital and possessions.

Urbanisation

The population of Britain rose dramatically in the 18th century, so much so that a nationwide census was conducted for the first time in 1801. The census was repeated every decade thereafter and showed interesting results. Between 1750 and 1851, Britain's population rose from 6 million to 21 million. London's population grew from 959,000 in 1801 to 3,254,000 in 1871. The population of Manchester in 1801 was 75,000 but 351,000 in 1871. Other cities witnessed similar growth. The 1851 census revealed that, for the first time, more people were living in towns and cities than in the countryside.

More young people meeting each other in a more confined urban setting meant marriages happened earlier, and the birth rate went up compared to societies in rural areas (which did rise, too, but to a lesser degree). For example, "In urban Lancashire in 1800, 40 per cent of 17-30-year-olds were married, compared to 19 per cent in rural Lancashire. In rural Britain, the average age of marriage was 27, in most industrial areas 24, and in mining areas about 20" (Shelley, 98).

Urbanisation did not mean there was no community spirit in towns and cities. Very often people living in the same street pulled together in a time of crisis. Communities around mines and textile mills were particularly close-knit with everyone being involved in the same profession and with a community spirit and pride fostered by such activities as a colliery or mill band. Workers also got together to form clubs to save up for an annual outing, usually to the seaside.

Life became cramped in the cities that had grown up around factories and coalfields. Many families were obliged to share the same cheaply-built home. "In Liverpool in the 1840s, 40,000 people were living in cellars, with an average of six people per cellar" (Armstrong, 188). Pollution became a serious problem in many places. Poor sanitation – few streets had running water or drains, and non-flushing toilets were often shared between households – led to the spread of diseases. In 1837, 1839, and 1847, there were typhus epidemics. In 1831 and 1849, there were cholera epidemics. Life expectancy rose because of better diet and new vaccinations, but infant mortality could be high in some periods, sometimes over 50% for the under-fives. Not until the 1848 Public Health Act did governments even begin to assume responsibility for improving sanitation, and even then local health boards were slow to form in reality. Another effect of urbanisation was the rise in petty crime. Criminals were now more confident of escaping detection in the ever-increasing anonymity of life in the cities.

Cities became concentrations of the poor, surviving off the charity of those more fortunate. Children roamed the streets begging. Children without homes or a job, if they were boys, were often trained to become a Shoe Black, that is someone who shined shoes in the street. These paupers were given this opportunity by charitable organisations so that they would not have to go to the infamous workhouse. The workhouse was brought into existence in 1834 with the Poor Law Amendment Act. The workhouse was deliberately intended to be such an awful place that it did little more than keep its male, female, and child inhabitants alive, in the belief that any more charity than that would simply encourage the poor not to bother looking for paid work. The workhouse involved what its name suggests – work, but it was tedious work indeed, typically unpleasant and repetitive tasks like crushing bones to make glue or cleaning the workhouse itself. Despite all the problems, urbanisation continued so that by 1880 only 20% of Britain's population lived in rural areas.

Continue reading...

[beardedmrbean]

https://apnews.com/article/school-segregation-order-civil-rights-justice-department-7fc5e2e4ef8e9ad4a283f563c042ae7c

I'm having difficulty making head or tails of what the complaint people are having here, there's a case that's been dormant for 50 years and lots of other things where they're not being at all straight forward about.

This is the AP they're supposed to make things easier to understand when they send a piece like this out to the public.

To be 100% clear I am opposed to segregation, it's a terrible stain on the history of any organization that has had it in their past and even worse for those who push for or excuse it today.

Such as the SPLC, who apparently are fine with segregation provided it's white people you don't want to have around.

Nice they used farakhan there, black hitler is good person to be there for this announcement.

A big fat number of colleges and universities, looks like harvard ended theirs finally.

a concession, not having segregated graduation is a concession apparently, how very anti progress of them to not continue to separate people by race, sexuality, income, or any of the other groups they're going for it with.

also 'latinx' gross, please use a real word, one that 98% of Latinos won't want to smack you across the face for using at least. ___________________

All of this, up here, it's gross and evil and something that belongs in the trash bin of the past.

People that support this also belong in the trash bin.

I hope this makes my stance on segregation clear, if not I'll be as clear as possible.

Segregation is bad, and it's embarrassing to see what it's taken to get people to come back around and figure that out again.

[puckpocketed]

Published on The Coaches Site Live 24th May 2024: How Barry Smith’s Left Wing Lock changed hockey forever - author unclear ?? (link // archive link)

In a system similar to the trap, as your opponent breaks out with the puck, the left winger drops back from his normal position, almost lining up as a third defenseman, and moves the other defenders to their right – creating a 2-3 alignment. The centre moves over towards the spot where the left winger would be and the right winger is coming across to push the puck to the left side of the ice and try to create turnovers. The entire unit would have to read off each other, knowing exactly where everyone was going to be and being able to cover if things broke down. If the left winger has a chance to go at the puck carrier to create a turnover, the centre drops back and the right winger moves to the middle. It’s seamless when executed properly. It can be a mess if it’s not.

Full text under the cut. Squirelling this one away because I don't want to lose it. Apologies for no image IDs. Some really fun stuff about that era of the Red Wings and the story behind the tactics.

The Detroit Red Wings had to do something.

Detroit had all the pieces to be a championship team. In the 1993-94 season, they finished 46-30-8, totalling 100 points and finishing first in the NHL’s Western Conference.

The two previous seasons ended with semifinal losses, despite regular season point totals of 103 and 98 respectively.

In the first round of the 1993-94 playoffs, Detroit hosted the 8th-seed San Jose Sharks, who were making their first appearance in the Stanley Cup playoffs in franchise history.

Their run would last longer than the mighty Red Wings.

Detroit led the series 2-1, then trailed it 3-2, before scoring a 7-1 victory at home to force a Game 7.

As it turned out, their win in Game 6 was their last of the year.

Jamie Baker scored at 13:25 of the 3rd period and the Sharks eliminated Detroit with a 3-2 win at Joe Louis Arena.

It was the first time an eighth seed beat a top seed in NHL history.

I remember it well.

I was a 13-year-old, who was just really starting to get into hockey, living in Windsor, Ontario.

At the risk of sounding like Sarah Palin’s ill-fated line about Russia, I could see Detroit from my house.

The Red Wings had endured, at that time, nearly 40 years without the Stanley Cup. They had a Hall of Fame Head Coach, a line-up as deep as any in history and a fan base starving for something to celebrate.

The Detroit Red Wings had to do something.

A visit to Sweden that summer by Red Wings Assistant Coach Barry Smith set off what would be the Team of the Decade, the birth of a system that changed the way Detroit played and altered the history of hockey.

“I went over to Sweden, I had some friends over there, and there were a couple of systems I was looking at,” Smith recalls. “With European hockey, playing on the big ice sheet, there are a lot of things they can do there that we can’t do here, but what they were doing was interesting.”

Detroit was a very offensive-minded group, yet Scotty Bowman, their Head Coach, knew defence won championships.

As Smith remembers with that team, they could win 6-4 or 7-5 but had no way of winning 2-1, and a 1-0 victory was completely off the charts.

They did not have the mentality for that.

“If you can’t play defence, I don’t know how much success you’re going to have,” Smith admits. “There are only so many track meets you can win with, so this gave us a chance to play good two-way hockey.”

“I wanted to offset our offence with better defence,” he continues. “We figured out if we did a better job in the neutral zone, our defence would have a much easier job of identifying what the rush was and because we had a good offensive team, we were looking for turnovers and that quick strike mentality.”

“With our left D being as good as they were, we could play those two guys 30 minutes each, so we were good on that side of the ice,” Smith boasts. “I sat down with Scotty that summer, and we talked about this system and called it Left Side Back, which sets up, so you’ve got your left defenseman in the middle of the ice.”

In a system similar to the trap, as your opponent breaks out with the puck, the left winger drops back from his normal position, almost lining up as a third defenseman, and moves the other defenders to their right – creating a 2-3 alignment.

The centre moves over towards the spot where the left winger would be and the right winger is coming across to push the puck to the left side of the ice and try to create turnovers.

The entire unit would have to read off each other, knowing exactly where everyone was going to be and being able to cover if things broke down.

If the left winger has a chance to go at the puck carrier to create a turnover, the centre drops back and the right winger moves to the middle.

It’s seamless when executed properly. It can be a mess if it’s not.

Roots of the Left Wing Lock appear to have originated in Czechoslovakia, as a way to survive games against the dominant Soviet Union teams of the 1970s.

Taking pieces from the neutral zone trap, the left wing drops back in line with the defenseman, where the trap would force the puck carrier out of the middle of the ice and seal off the boards, which not only made it hard to make passes in the neutral zone but also prevented teams carrying the puck into the offensive end – resulting in a lot more dump and chase.

“Teams in Sweden,” Smith says, “were playing a torpedo system at the time, which was two wingers racing out of the zone and playing way up by the offensive blueline was a bit too much and I wasn’t sure the guys would buy into it.”

Barry Smith and the coaching staff brought the system into training camp in the 1994-95 season and he says the transition was pretty easy to teach.

The players, Smith says, weren’t skeptical of it at all.

“The left D loved it because it gave them a chance to freewheel, go back and create offence,” Smith expressed. “It also put the centre in the middle of the ice a lot, which they liked, so if you can have the middle of the ice-covered by your two best players, you have something positive happening.”

As Smith explains, coaching-wise, there is no one single system that is successful. A system just means where you are trying to line up and play off each other.

“It helped us create turnovers and create scoring chances off those turnovers, have less shots in our end, it helped us not play in our zone very much,” Smith highlights. “If the left wing has a chance to pressure and go, he’s gone, and we immediately have to take that spot. In the D zone if the right D stood up at the blue line and the puck got into the right corner, now the left D has to go and the left winger has to move into the middle, which is not normal for him, and the centre plays in the spot. Everyone had to be in sync.”

Smith emphasizes it’s the execution and it’s the players that have to understand the teaching points that make it work.

“Nothing works if the players don’t buy in,” Smith points out a few times in our talk. “We had a great leadership group, and we couldn’t have done anything without them being ok with it or understanding it so when we first brought the idea to them, they jumped on. I know the two left D were smiling.”

The team had the benefit back then of the two-line pass, a rule the NHL eventually removed in 2005.

At the time, teams could not pass the puck directly across two lines coming out of their own zone – the defensive blueline and the centre ice redline.

With a shortened neutral zone passing rule, the Left Wing Lock was even more formidable.

“Whatever team you have, whatever they think they are going to use, you have to understand what your players can do, and you have to honestly evaluate your team,” Smith continues. “In a football analogy, if you’re deciding you want to go to a West Coast offence, but your quarterback can’t read past one pass pattern, you have no chance.”

The system started working.

In the strike-shortened 1994-95 season, Detroit once again finished first in the Western Conference and cruised through the playoffs, beating Dallas in five games, sweeping San Jose and stopping Chicago in five before crashing to a halt in the Stanley Cup Final, being swept by Martin Brodeur, Scott Stevens and the New Jersey Devils.

The left-wing lock, despite the major shift in entertainment value for the fans, was turning things around.

“At that time, there was no redline, so that really stymied teams that tried to stretch you and honestly, we could sometimes go an entire period without the other team getting through our blueline,” Smith details. “I think the opposition got stymied because they had pressure on the forecheck and the neutral zone, it wasn’t like the 1-3-1 where you are sitting back a bit, we were on top of you, creating chances in the offensive zone because both guys could pinch hard along the boards, it really worked for what we were trying to do and it was extremely effective.”

Another famed part of Detroit’s hockey history was born from this system.

With all the offence these teams had – guys like Sergei Fedorov, Steve Yzerman and Brendan Shanahan – it was three hard-nosed, lunch bucket players, like the city itself, that became fan favourites.

The Grind Line.

“It was our secret sauce in the 1990s,” shares former Red Wings right winger, Darren McCarty. “Scotty Bowman knew his team so well and what he had and when it was Kirk Maltby and Kris Draper and I, it was so much more important for us to not allow goals than it was to score goals. We took a lot of pride in that.”

The three, along with Joey Kocur, became as formidable a group as the top scoring units. As an opponent, if you were matched up against the Grind Line, you were in for a long night.

McCarty looks back fondly on when the system was installed.

“I loved it because as the right winger, I didn’t have a lot of responsibility other than chasing the puck,” he remembers. “I’m not the best skater, I had good hockey IQ, but Draper and Maltby were the best penalty killers in the era, so I got to open up some physicality and really jump into it. Especially in the playoffs, we would just shut teams down, there was no answer to it.”

Maltby agrees.

“Obviously, we had success with it. It didn’t take a real long time to get used to it, but you had to learn sometimes you want to finish a check or run around a bit but at times that wasn’t the role, you had to be patient and allow your linemates to do what they were doing, but once the puck was turned over, especially in the offensive zone, it was time to go.”

Maltby was a latecomer to the Detroit run, he joined the team for the 1995-96 season after a trade from Edmonton but would spend the next 14 seasons wearing the Winged Wheel.

“Coming from Edmonton, we were a young team, so I was learning the NHL game and then ended up in Detroit, which was a well-coached team with a ton of talent and expectations,” Maltby explains. “We didn’t play Detroit that much and I don’t remember seeing the lock very much to be honest, because they had the puck the whole time.”

“The first thing I remember with Barry, I was new, and I didn’t really know anyone on the team, but he came up to me and we were talking and his first question to me was “Can you skate backwards?” Maltby laughs, “I thought it was a bit of a joke because at the NHL level, everyone can. I didn’t really know how to answer it, I thought I was almost being set up for a joke or something.”

Smith was quick to credit The Grind Line for their adaptation of the lock.

“We had good players in Detroit and they weren’t just good players because of their skill, they were good players because they had hockey sense and hockey IQ,” Smith highlights. “Especially that group, with their reads, it was automatic. If the left winger is gone, the centre comes back. I remember later on, we could play guys like Draper, Maltby and Kocur or McCarty and those guys could all rotate together, that’s how good they were covering for each other.”

Going from a heavily offensive-minded, run and gun team to a defensive lock, a tight system could not have been easy for everyone.

These teams were not only built on skill and speed, the hockey IQ was off the charts.

“It did change some of the guy’s roles from the previous way of playing where we used to freelance. Now there’s more responsibility for the left side and the centre and you gave your right wing a little more freedom because he was the pressure guy,” Smith admits. “I think the simplicity of it helped because there weren’t a lot of rotational reads to it.”

“The less you make a player think, the more likely you are to have success. You can’t play thinking, you have to be ready to go in microseconds, so I can’t screw up their reads or their anticipation of the actual game.”

Trust is a word that came up a lot in these conversations.

Darren McCarty hit on it a couple of times.

“The biggest thing when you are introduced to a new system is that it just takes time, but we had such great skill it caught on really quick,” McCarty says. “It gave us an extra weapon, we trusted the system and we trusted the other guys would be in the right spot and I didn’t have to think, I can just go because those guys know what I was thinking.”

Kirk Maltby was no different.

“I feel like part of it was hockey sense but a good part of it is chemistry and trust,” Maltby reiterates. “You need all that to go along with any system you’re playing. For me, once we got playing a few games we just complimented each other the way we all played, how Scotty wanted us to play that system and we read each other well, we knew what we were trying to accomplish as individuals playing a team sport.”

The Detroit Red Wings broke through in 1996-97.

They took down St Louis in six games, swept the Mighty Ducks in the semifinals and then, in a series that may have meant more to Red Wings fans than the Cup itself, knocked off Patrick Roy, Claude Lemieux, Peter Forsberg, Joe Sakic and company, finishing Colorado in six.

I remember watching that goal in the sunroom of my parent’s house.

Poor Janne Niinimaa.

Just this past year, my son and I went to Little Caesars Arena on a night that ended up being Darren McCarty Night.

They showed his two crowning moments over and over, the Stanley Cup goal and the Claude Lemieux turtle.

I couldn’t pick a favourite, but the goal still gives any Red Wings fan chills.

“You can’t sustain any system if you aren’t having success,” Smith states. “If it’s not working for you, I don’t know how long you are keeping with that system until someone says ‘time out, there must be a better way to play.’”

Smith brought the system to Assistant Dave Lewis and Head Coach Scotty Bowman and they had found their missing piece.

“One of the most amazing things about Scotty was his ability to ask questions to everybody. He goes and gets a haircut and comes back with a new forecheck,” Smith chuckles. “He hears a lot of people and he’s not afraid to try new things. Once he understood the nuances of it, he’s got such a good hockey mind – and still does – and so if you bring him something where we are able to put our best players in a position to be successful and we can create defence so the opposition can’t get into our zone, he’s all for that.”

Could it work in the NHL now?

The consensus is split.

“I don’t know if it would work in today’s NHL without the clutching and grabbing, but my responsibility was just to lock a guy up, wrap your stick around his waist or chase the puck and try to create havoc,” McCarty chimes in.

Maltby doubles down on that thinking.

“I don’t know if it would work with every team in the league but with this group, we had so much skill, guys who were good skaters and we had elite defensemen, this system just allowed us to have the puck more and then create turnovers or force teams to make plays they don’t want to, which allowed us to get the puck back.”

Smith’s take is a bit different.

“In today’s game it’s easy because everyone is 1-2-3 now, if you take a look at Colorado right now and what Cale Makar can do, he would be in the rush all the time, which is great because he’s better than most of your forwards.”

The game is constantly evolving.

Detroit evolved too.

“For the longest time, the league couldn’t figure it out,” McCarty boasts. “But when they did, we evolved, and it became the Russian Five. The Grind Line was the same though, we didn’t want the puck because we wanted to hunt after it and when we got it, we’d give it back so we could hit guys.”

Detroit took a very similar path the next season.

Mission accomplished.

The Detroit Red Wings did something.

The left wing lock turned out to be the final piece of the puzzle.

As I put this article together, I watched some old games and highlights and scrolled through name after name of some of the most elite players that came through The Joe at that time, I had to ask Barry Smith:

Could the whole system have even worked if Detroit didn’t have a Hall of Fame roster?

Smith laughs.

“I don’t know. If we would have had great right defence, maybe we would have called it Right Side Back.”

[luvtonique]

I realized something this morning.

This is probably gonna be a long post. (Edit, yep)

I'm a pretty fairly public figure on the internet, and I very regularly interact with a huge amount of people. From YouTube Comments to Discord to Tumblr Asks/Comments to Newgrounds Reviews to MMO Chat to Mic-Chat on Games to Twitch Chat to Stream Chat, blah blah blah.

I've, for years now, over a decade (hell over two decades) talked to probably thousands of people, and have been able to get a gauge on a pretty safe to say "average" of collective human intelligence on the internet.

I've come to realize that not everybody has that kind of experience talking to people online as I do. I've talked to literally thousands, probably near ten thousand, people online in my life.

This is a staggeringly high number and puts me in an outlier position among the rest of you, who likely have only interacted with a double digit number of people online in your life.

Now that you have that information in mind, here's what I realized this morning.

I realized that the reason I don't listen to people, ESPECIALLY when it comes to politics, is because I have learned through talking to all these people that fucking nobody knows what they're fucking goddamn talking about.

I study a lot of things in my spare time, and history is a huge one that I study. I very regularly read and listen to multiple sources talking about historic events, and I make sure to look at as many sources as possible, sometimes including reading encyclopedias in my own home that we've owned for like 40 years.

I cross-reference all of these things and paint a picture of the most likely truths through various means.

Why's that important? Because sometimes a 14 year old on Twitter, literally nearly less than a third my age, will occasionally come along telling me that I'm wrong. Not about history necessarily, but about some opinion that I have based on my own experience and my own knowledge that I've researched myself.

I usually ask them where they got their information, and I'm met with boldfaced idiocy. Completely braindead shit like "180,000 people said it on Twitter," or they link me a Tumblr post with 100k notes, or they say "It's common knowledge," (which is the biggest red flag of them all because not only does it prove they have no evidence to back up what they're saying, but as this post will go on to explain, "common knowledge" is quite literally the worst source of information on anything. People commonly think the earth is flat and that Scientology is real. People commonly think that walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror gives you bad luck. People commonly think that naturally blue food exists.)

In my life I have met thousands of people, and THOUSANDS of them are fucking idiots who very very smugly state completely incorrect knowledge. Earlier today someone tried to tell me that the creators of Beat Saber never sold the company to Facebook, and I showed them proof and they went silent for 3 hours and then went "Yeah so what, Facebook is still a good company" and I wanted to beat my head against the desk.

The internet is full of people who are fascinatingly ignorant. I'm not calling myself "better" or "smarter" than anyone here, I'm just saying that I have learned better than most people that people on the internet are not, and never fucking will be, a good source of information. I don't care if they're your best fucking friend, the coin-toss of them knowing what they're talking about or actually having the facts is so heavily weighted against them, it's seriously like a 98% chance they have no fucking clue what they're talking about.

I urge everyone to take a moment and realize that the internet is, in fact, a good place to find information and do research, but PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET, especially MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA, are NOT SMART PEOPLE AND ARE NOT GOOD SOURCES FOR YOUR INFORMATION.

These are angry, smug, annoying little idiots who are likely 14 years old with a 1st grade reading comprehension who aspires to be a TikTok content creator as a career, and under no fucking circumstance should you ever, ever, EVER listen to any social, financial, religious, gendered, medical or political advice they give.

The world has gotten vastly out of control with how much people think "A lot of people agree with me" is a good enough reason to solidify your opinions. "A lot of people agree" is the biggest red flag ever, because people on the fucking internet are complete fucking idiots, I'm sorry, but I'm someone with far more experience talking to people on the internet than literally any of you reading this. I talk to people on the internet as a career and have been doing this for longer than most of you reading this have been alive.

So what's the point of this? What's the take-away?

The take-away is that I'm saddened by how many people will attack each other vehemently, cut off friends and family members, label people as toxic or problematic, jump to conclusions, etc. based on complete and utter misinformation spouted to them by people who have never once in their entire life actually looked up what the fuck they're talking about. They treat random strangers on Twitter as "experts" because that person is well articulated or put together a YouTube video with really good editing that's softly spoken by a British accent guy and has scary music whenever some "evil" person is on the screen.

The take-away is that people, like yourself (don't you dare try to deny it) will just believe whatever they read on social media, or whatever their Discord friend-group is talking about, because they are living in a complete falsehood that people on the internet know better than they do.

You are not incapable of doing your own research. You are not incapable of finding the truth. You are not stupid. Just do your own research, look into things yourself, cross-reference, use the scientific method, go to a library, read books, for fuck sake please adopt the basic social skill of "If someone says it on the internet it is most likely not true and I should look into it myself."

Because the current state of people is monstrous.

Y'all get so fucking mad about things that are just plain not true, and you revolve your entire life around things you were told by complete idiots and/or children on Twitter and other social media websites.

Stop.

Look at yourself, look at how angry you get about things, and consider that there may be a possibility that anger stems from a complete lack of any foundation or truth in your own beliefs.

Consider the almost 100% guaranteed possibility that you have been blatantly lied to by people who have no fucking idea what they're talking about, and that you are violently upholding standards that are incorrect because you have placed trust in the word of untrustworthy people.

Look up confirmation bias, read about it.

Look up manipulation tactics, read about it.

Look up "Plato's Republic" and read about it.

Absolutely, under no circumstances, should you ever, EVER, form your social or religious or political or financial or gendered or sexual etc. opinions based on SHIT YOU READ ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

And while we're here, don't listen to the news either. They're just a bunch of parrots saying what needs to be said to get you all fighting with each other so that the government can fuck things up while you're distracted. Do your own research, check multiple sources, don't consider social media or regular media to be a 'source,' get every bit of information from every angle, and for fuck sake, stop attacking people for disagreeing with you when you, yourself, only believe what you believe because your friend group believes it and you know that if you disagree with your friend group they'll all attack you so you'd rather be on their side, which only further proves my point that y'all need to fucking chill.

"Democracy will never work. If 3 medical experts tell you that you must eat a ginger root to cure your ailments, but 100,000 idiots with no medical experience tell you otherwise, you're more likely to believe the 100,000 idiots. They are louder, there are more of them, and you will gamble on the hope that among those 100,000 idiots, there must be more than 3 medical experts. The voice of the ignorant will always drown out the voice of the educated."

-Plato's Republic, 375BCE (Paraphrased)

"I can't believe Jay just called us all idiots and expects us to listen to him"

-Someone in the comments of this (It's gonna happen)

PS: If you looked up "Naturally Blue Food," and found out it does in fact not exist, good for you for doing your own research!

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

okay i went down a rabbit hole of names and here’s what i found out

each name is either from their birth year's top 100 in indiana, or their decade's general US top 200 for their decade if it's before 1960

Steve:

in the 60s, Steven (with a V not a PH!!) was #11 on the most popular baby names list in the US.

specifically in indiana in 1967 (1986-19 years old), it was #15

Steve’s parents would definitely be in the top most common names in my mind:

in the 40s, Richard was the #5 most popular name, so good job naming Steve’s dad ‘Dick’, everyone, it’s entirely possible.

looking at the 40s list’s top 10, Linda at #2 stood out most for Steve’s mom.

Eddie:

in the 60s, Edward was #29 on the most popular baby names list in the US, 'Eddie' by itself was #112, Edwin #155.

specifically in indiana in 1965 (1986-est. 21 years old), Edward was #42

There weren’t any other names that started with ‘Ed’ on the 1965 indiana list.

In my own personal headcanon though, with Eddie being short for Theodore, it’s a whole other story:

Theodore is #152 for the whole US in the 60s, and doesn’t appear in Indiana’s top 100 for 1965 BUT my headcanon is that his mom named him after her dad, who would’ve est. been born in the 20s. (Her in the 40s, Eddie in the 60s) and the name Theodore was #64 in the 20s.

the other Munsons:

Wayne was #49 on the 1930s list (taking into account Joel Stoffer’s age for this one, I’m thinking he’s Eddie’s dad’s older brother).

Albert was #47 on the 1940s list (i’m just assuming Al is short for Albert)

Eddie’s mom was harder, but when I thought about it, the first name that popped into my head for her was Margaret (#13, 1940s), but I think she’d go by Peggy, (#42, 1940s) which matches Wayne and Al’s location on the list.

the rest of the spicy six, indiana top 100, 1968 (seniors/est. 18 in ‘86):

Nancy: #47

Robin: #43 (actually surprised this was on the list!)

Jonathan (no really, this spelling specifically): #64

Argyle: not on the top 100 in California, or on the general 60s list

The Party, indiana top 100, 1971 (freshmen/est. 15 in ‘86)

Michael: #1

William: #10

Dustin: #103 for the US in the 70s, not on top 100 for indiana, 1971

Lucas: not on either US 70s or indiana 1971 list

Jane: not on either US 70s or indiana 1971 list

Maxine: not on either US 70s or indiana 1971 list

Erica (11 in ‘86, born 1975): #63 on top 100 for indiana, 1975

a few of the other adults i saw while doing this (general US 1940s list):

Joyce: #19

James: #1

Robert: #2

Karen: #16

Theodore: #98

Lonnie: #146 (again, was actually surprised this name was even on the list!)