#and for it to cross with the sport guy love would be even MORE unimaginable

[holdingcourtwiththevoid]

Just finished TSC and need someone to draw this scene cause of… uhh… science?

[oneoftheprettynerds]

Devout Worshipper: Dark! Peter Parker x Professor!Reader

A/N: So this girl here tried something else. I’ve been wanting to upload since long but this got delayed a lot and now I have several WIPs but finished this first. Sorry not proofread. I’m still discovering my writing style and my forte and thank you for staying and witnessing my experiments! Wear safety goggles please.

Summary: The best of all the educators yet, both smart and stunning, became Peter’s mentor in university. Peter grew too much of a liking for her, from a clingy scholar to her devout worshipper.

WARNING: STORY AHEAD HAS NON-CON, KIDNAPPING, POSSIBLE DRUGGING, UNHEALTHY BEHAVIOUR, OBSESSION. DNI IF TRIGGERED.

You sat on the teacher’s desk, going through the latest thesis published by Dr. Banner last week. He had given you one of the several copies and asked you to go through it and your judgement on it. The classroom was slowly filling in as the scholars stacked in, their buzzes growing loud with each passing trice.

You were on the last paragraph of your current page when a slight thump made you break out of your stupor, you tilted your head up to find a brawny youngster leaning in front of you, with his hand planted beside your ass on the ebony desk. He had blonde locks with grey eyes and was definitely a sports’ team captain, basketball you believed, who had his own posse of wannabes behind him.

You kept the paper down in your lap and met his eyes again with an inquiring look. “Yes?”

“You seem new. Me and my guys will save you a seat at the back, so come there when your little reading session is over, babe.” He said smugly, his eyes brimming with mischievousness as they dipped to your cleavage not-so-subtly and stood there gawking while he awaited your response.

You paused to see the whole class had gone quiet watching your encounter with the jock. You gave him a sickly-sweet smile as you nodded shyly for show and he tapped your knee with his other hand before leaving. As soon as his back faced you, you rolled your eyes so hard at his antics you heard the first-benchers gasp. You could still hear him talking to his ‘friends’, “I love myself a badass girl like her.”

You returned to your thesis but before you could finish the last few sentences, the bell rung and you had to stop. Thanks blondie.

You got down from the desk, jumping on your black heels as you made your way over to the door, closing it as lock clicked into place.

The entire class was watching you with quizzical glances as you stood in front of your desk this time and wrung your hands together, “Good morning class and congratulation on making it to your second year in college, I will be your mentor and also your lecturer for biology for this semester and for those who pass, also their next one.” The entire class’ jaw slackened and you giggled lightly as waited for them to digest the news, and then told them your name.

“I know a lot of you see science itself as a chore but since you’ve already taken it, I suggest you try to pay attention as you will have to study it anyways. However, because I can relate to your struggles, I will try my best to be a companion or advisor, whichever way you prefer it, and help you get through the class with flying colours hopefully. So, ask me anything, no matter how stupid or absurd you believe your doubt or query is. I’ll answer as many times as you ask and trust me when I say that I am a woman of my word. You have any questions for the semester?” You finished with a bright smile on your face as you saw the students in the front relax slightly. At least you had their approval.

“Ma’am” The blonde kid started without raising his hand, stressing the word unnecessarily as he and his horde sniggered at some stupid inside joke, and continued, “Can I have your number?”

Some of the students gulped while the others leaned forward interested in your response. That kid thought he could fluster you by putting you in a weird spot. He smirked arrogantly, leaning back in his chair as you raised your eyebrows.

“That, Mr.?” You paused as you lingered for his answer, which came almost immediately.

“Flash Thompson, but you can call me whatever you want baby.”

His friends hooted at his pickup line, some praising his smoothness while some high-fived him.

“That, Mr. Thompson, is an excellent example of the stupid questions I mentioned formerly. Thank you for helping me make it clearer to the rest of the class, an extra point for you in the first grading assignment.”

His face fell as his jaw ticked and you turned to face the rest of the class again, “Though I suppose I will give you my number but for emergency purposes only, you can contact me on my e-mail though which I will be using most frequently. You are supposed to mail me majority of your papers this semester and the grading pattern is expected to change this time around but I will inform you of that when the time for the first assignment comes around. Any other questions, and if possible, a bit wiser ones?”

Peter knew he liked you that day. You were attractive and stunning, yes, that too in the natural way, without make-up and tight clothes. But of course, there was more to you than that, you were smart and witty, hence a young lecturer in this esteemed college and you being a science enthusiast as well was like chocolate chips on top of a well baked dessert. You were spirited and jaunty and your sardonic and sassy replies were never degrading or humiliating. The five-year difference between you and the class made you their elder sibling rather than professor.

The first benchers worshipped your intellect while the last benchers adored your sarcasm. Everyone could see how you gave your all to teach, every trick for learning, showing real skeletons and organs in formalin, easily becoming the favourite mentor ever. You could easily be labelled as the university’s crush of the year.

But Peter soon began to despise that. The perverted comments by the students and jealous, snarky remarks by the plastics irked him. He was enraged by the geeks admiring you but baffled all the more by the strange palette of emotions he had never suffered before.

The sheer envy he was sinking in had never even surfaced while he dated Liz or MJ. For him you were a Goddess, tons divine than his exes or any other female for that matter, who should be properly worshipped and treasured.

He knew these sentiments weren’t right, but in this twisted world where he had combatted with unnatural beings and seen unimaginable horrors, he began to believe morality is just fiction used by the herd of inferior men to hold back the few superior men.

It was the last day before spring break and no matter how much your pupils loved you, it wasn’t enough for them to not get distracted and murmur around. Only half of your entire class’s strength came and that half somehow managed to create more ruckus than usual. Even you were minutes late, not in the mood to teach this aloof and uninterested batch of youngsters.

You sat on the table and crossed your legs, which was somewhat your habit that you weren’t really proud of but continued to indulge in nonetheless, and cleared your throat times to catch the attention of the unmindfully fantasizing students.

The baritone of the males and shrieky pitches of the females made you clutch your head. You were sure going to end with disprin at the end of day. You clapped loudly and effectively so, gathered the class’s attention, but by the roll of their eyes and glares on their faces, you deduced they weren’t happy. Who would have thought?

“Okay, before you all slaughter me to the netherworld with your lethal gazes, let me make it clear that no teaching will commence today.” The class hollered appreciatively and whistled, while you paused to let them do so. Teaching on the last day before a vacation was like speaking to yourself only but with the consequence of your name being added to several hitlists.

“I’ll distribute the graded assignments submitted last Thursday and then, since I’m required to clock thirty minutes of educating at the bare minimum, we can play something, maybe you have some talents to show, principles to mock or some gossip to attend to.” The college kids laughed at your poor joke, perhaps too thrilled for their break that nothing could make their mood sour. “We’ll see accordingly, but first, raise your hand when I say your name, I want to learn at least the names of the students who bothered to come to uni on the concluding day.”

You distributed the papers back, making sure to associate each name with a face and the students took them stuffing it straight inside, not bothering to check their scoring and possibly wreck their mood.

“Peter Parker?” A hand raised in the second last row shyly, a flustered boy with glasses on his nose and a hoodie covering his head. He barely made eye contact and you smiled at his nervy, edgy form hoping to ease him a bit. Your heels sounded heavy against the few stairs as you made your way to the back, the class buzzing with laughs as students barely paid you any heed.

The draught of epinephrine Peter felt was unlike anything he had ever felt before, nothing like the anxiety on the battlefield or the excessive sweating while impressing Mr. Stark. The apprehension he felt was decuple that.

It’s not like he had never talked to you afore, he constantly asked clever doubts, which he knew the answer to already, of course, to make an impression on you, but that was with a two feet and 7.5 inches of teacher’s desk in between. Yes, he measured. He had even made sure a couple times, let’s be honest, more than several times that his Goddess had arrived her fascinating abode safely.

But this time, they’d be hardly half a foot apart and the anticipation was tearing him apart. He did want her close, in all ways possible, but was he ready enough to not make a fool of himself? All his previous conversations were thought out meticulously and beforehand but was ready for a spontaneous interaction?

“Good job, Smart Cookie.” You mused at Peter with a wink and dropped the paper on his desk as he looked at you with those innocent, doe-eyes of his, his cheeks and nose a tad bit rouge.

Peter’s hearing ability got lost as the sound of his heart pumping blood filled his tympanum. He could only watch you retreat back to the front of the class, your hips swaying invitingly in that damned black pencil skirt as you called another person’s name.

Smart Cookie was his favourite nickname now.

It was pretty late when you left the university premises, finishing up all you had to and even preparing for your first week of teaching after vacation because you knew how procrastinating errands went.

You couldn’t almost believe how you were on the adult end of things, making sure and guiding other people. With the job, came a lot of obligations that you had to fulfil and being responsible was hard, really demanding. You suddenly had a lot of reverence for all the teachers in your life, from kindergarten to your degrees.

You were on a sabbatical from research temporarily, signing a teaching contract for three years minimum and you were satisfies with the refreshment. Interacting young, curious minds was almost like a recreational activity you indulged in free time and the various angles they approached science at even taught you something. The scholars found it in themselves to even question well-established biology.

Slightly humming, you made a mental checklist of what all was left to do for your solo, self-discovering trip the next week. All that you should pack, clothes according to the weather in the hills and enough emergency eatables. Maybe you could revisit the work-in-progress papers of yours or maybe it would be a leisure excursion only.

Only you never made it to your flight.

 The pounding of your head made a thrumming noise in your head, increasing its tempo and volume with each passing instant. Your eyelids felt heavy and opening them felt like a chore, which even more difficult considering the light that flooded your vision with every bit they opened. Your senses felt overwhelmed being burdened and strained with their everyday tasks after what you assumed to be at least hours of inactivity.

The sudden spike of pain shooting in your head made you jerk your hand to clutch your throbbing forehead, only to fail and find your hands bounded to something. They weren’t cuffed or shackled, nothing dug in your wrist either. Maybe a rope but the texture wasn’t rough enough. After what felt like minutes, you opened your eyes and sat up, as straight as your confined self could, and looked around.

The room was shades of grey and blue, a giant bed was where you were sitting. The giant ceiling to floor windows beside you, cast enough moonlight in the bedroom for you to see the entire bedroom. The view outside was so picturesque, that you had been gawking were you not afraid of your surroundings. You could discern you were high up, with how small the vehicles looked and another wave terror ran through you.

A white desk with a blue chair had a laptop atop it, also sitting beside several books. You would have noticed them being your subject and recommendation but you were scanning your brain as to how you landed here. With your vision now clearer, you saw your restraints to be like silk but no matter how hard you pulled, they didn’t snap.

You were full on panicking and staring wide eyed when the laptop entered your vision again. There was no other electronic except it and you calmed yourself to think rationally. Deep breaths, in and out. Your best bet right now was to hope that the laptop was connected to someone’s wifi.

You slid off the edge of the bed and tried to cut the weird silk ropes with bedside table’s corner. It took some time but you succeeded, your hands freed from the poster of the bed as you made your way towards the laptop, after checking the locked door of course.

Another wave of panic ran through you when the laptop wasn’t connected to anything and all available connections were password protected. You noticed the laptop to be brand new, and of a very expensive company that was out of your budget. You also noticed the OS was very different, not the usual Windows you ran. Your AI Cortana in this overpriced gadget, was named Karen.

You still refused to wait for your captor to show up and snooped to find something on the laptop, anything. There was no profile of the owner but you did manage to find at least three GB of videos and images.

Your hands froze and eyes widened when you saw the security footage of your building’s outside, the little bakery’s neon sign confirming the location. The videos were the same, of you entering and exiting every day, just the dates on the videos varied.

Another folder had clips with the same dates, but they were in the lobby of your apartment, your potted plants outside your door the affirmation again. It showed you getting milks and newspaper every morning, ordering take out several days and placing the garbage bags outside.

The earliest date in each folder was after your first month of moving here, second week of teaching probably.

When you opened the third folder, as the video started your hands covered your mouth as you tried your best to hold back the sob and making a noise. The screen showed two camera screens, both inside your apartment. The first showed the living room clearly and your kitchen and you concluded it to be behind some article on the bookshelf.

The other screen showed your bedroom.

You could still see the floral bedsheet with the white quilt atop it. Your red suitcase that you took out from the storage for your trip this morning, resting beside the wall. Your lamp switched on from when you mayhap left it on, already late for the last day of work. As the time hit 12 AM at the bottom of the screen, the video ended and played again. There were even more folders and you wondered how far would the surveillance go, till your bathroom?

Your abductor had live footage of your house being sent to his laptop and that scared you shitless. This was not a random crime, that ransom could end. You were here for something, some sick purpose you didn’t even know. Was this a hate crime? Would you even make it-

“I really wish you hadn’t looked there.”

The deep, familiar voice amplified your fear and you turned your head slowly, almost comically to look at him. Another gasp escaped your lips as you found warm eyes of your student and brows furrowed in confusion and fear when you saw the deranged lust in his eyes. Was this some sick prank?

“What am I doing here and what is this?” You gestured to the screen playing footages of the inside of your house. Seeing someone familiar and the probability of this being a prank should have calmed you somewhat but the revolting trick and the strange darkness in the boy’s eyes made you even more wary.

As he took a step closer, you hastily climbed out of the chair and backed away, nearing the bed again as he locked the door and closed in on you. He made a move to snatch you and you jumped to the other side of the bed barely missing him by an inch. You reached for the door hoping to find it unlocked but it didn’t even budge.

You pulled even harder while being painfully aware of how that kid from your class just sat on the bed and observed, having the utmost confidence in the door. Your frenzied state got a jump-scare when a female voice broke the silence, “Authorization to access locked doors is granted to Mr. Parker only, please refrain from damaging the property, Mam.”

So some tech-boy with a rich background is set on you?

“Please sit on the bed and I’ll explain, please.”

His doe eyes would have fooled you were you not extremely aware of your environment due to the adrenaline coursing through your arteries. He was an exceptionally good actor, you had to give him that. You prided yourself to be an excellent judge of character and here this guy had deceived you for three months.

The AI called him Parker, what was his name again?

Patrick? Peyton? Peter? Yes, Peter Parker.

“Peter?” You softly called out and his eyes widened as a blush crept up to his cheeks as he relished the fact that you remembered his name. You sighed internally, praying that this was a case of a harmless crush gone wrong and he was just innocently hopeful. The image of his dark, lust covered eyes crossed your mind to make an argument but you pushed it aside to calm your nerves and stay as relaxed as you possibly could with all that was happening.

“I know that this is all a big misunderstanding but you are really scaring me here. Can you please at least let me out of this room to somewhere open?” You looked at him, hoping to talk him down and get out. You didn’t think he would hurt you but you weren’t willing to take any chances with this maniacal youngster either.

“I’m sorry but I can’t do that, you’ll run.”

Of course, you’ll run, who wouldn’t?

“Peter, boy, listen to me-”

“No, you listen to me! I admit the situation isn’t ideal and you’re probably terrified because of your meddling but this is all for you! I’m here to protect you! The world out there isn’t safe and your heavenly self needs to be resuscitated.”

“Peter, you’re not making any sense. I’m an adult, older than you and you need to understand boundaries-”

“I’ve seen the way of the world, trust me, in fact, far more than you have! Did you know that raping and murdering women on Asgard is considered a common crime? How Hydra is kidnapping young, bright women to exploit them for breeding projects? How the Red Skull resurfaced and his ideals now include eradicating women from Earth as well?”

“Pete-”

“No, you don’t know! You are just blissfully unaware of this world, so oblivious you don’t even how know the perverted and debauched comments your own class makes?”

His outburst frightened you as you felt yourself losing control of the situation, maybe you never were in control. But now the unleashed fury on Peter’s face told you that had triggered an irrevocable topic.

“Calm down, it’s alright.” You said quietly, hoping to ease him again but his steps towards made you back up yourself to the other side of the bed.

“You, You are still scared of me, aren’t you? You still don’t understand, do you? I’ll show you, show you how much I worship you, the true extent of my devotion.” Every ludicrous declaration of his bit away your hope of getting out.

As he approached you again from the foot of the bed, you jumped across the bed again, hoping to reprise your stunt from before. However, your jumping halted midway as something glued your right wrist to the headboard and you jerked due to inertia of movement. As your eyes looked to your hand, the same silky rope met your vision.

You did not have the time or the wits to ponder over the fluid, about how your abductor shot it or how it wouldn’t budge no matter how hard you pulled. A hand on your ankle prompted you to try one last time as you screamed as loud as you could, for as long as your lungs allowed.

“It won’t work, Mr. Stark got me a soundproofed apartment. Pretty cool, right?”

A sob wracked through your entire frame as the tears descended, the frustration and hopelessness and dread, all attacking you at once. Your legs kicked and flexed and when your left fist swung, he restrained all your limbs after dodging, of course.

“I just want to love you, is it too much too ask?” He asked in a quiet whisper, his hands undressing you cloth by cloth; first unzipping the side of your pencil skirt and unwrapping it, then unbuttoning your blouse. When he brought out a pocket knife, your eyes instinctively closed, a “Please don’t hurt me” falling from your lips.

“Never.” He replied with absolute assurance.

The blade cut through your blouse first, leaving you in your garments while Peter sat back on his knees to admire you. You’ve been flattered with the adoration in his eyes had you not gone through the mayhem that you had.

His hand caressed your curves, feeling the soft skin underneath as he took his time admiring you, committing each feature to memory while your tears poured, your eyes never leaving the knife he held.

The blade invaded your privacy once again as it took away your last pieces of defense, leaving you utterly nude and your cries wreaked havoc in the otherwise quiet room. Your eyes found Peter face and you noticed his eyes twinkling in admiration trailing up and down your body several times. His disciple complex was scaring you, you almost bordered considering his Goddess belief.

“So stunning.” He whispered as he came down to kiss you, his lips meeting yours in this bruising embrace of both your mouths and as he began to undress himself simultaneously, his dramatics became the least of your concerns. The thought of the inevitable future made home in your mind and gave you one last bout of courage to try and fight.

The restraints on your limbs didn’t even budge and every fleck of hope deserted your body when you saw the chiseled abs on his scarred torso, his biceps bulging and silently warning you into staying put. He made quick work of his remaining outfit and his hard, angry member was bigger than you had anticipated.

You had not expected a stereotypical nerd to be packing, with muscles and brawns, hardly to even expect him to be the largest among the ones you had ever experienced.

“Please don’t.” You mumbled, defeated, knowing he would not listen. You closed your eyes expecting the intrusion to get it over with. You were caught off handed when you felt him shift and devour into your pussy. He feasted like a man famished, his tongue leaving no area unlapped. The sparks in your abdomen made you queasy and giddy at the same time, you could barely open your eyes due to the intensity of his actions and when he added two of his shockingly calloused fingers, you let go of the coil in mere seconds.

Your limbs sat limp while your vision whitened, your mind foggy and hazy, deprived of all sensibility. When his thick thighs rested on top of yours, your gaze ascended to meet his already staring pupils, the warm, honey brown orbs now a black abyss. You couldn’t even protest in your blissful state as lined himself and entered your cavern, which was lubricated enough courtesy of him.

The stretch burned but as he rocked himself and thrusted with a rhythm, the pleasure started building from scratch. Each push was sturdier than the last and every spot he hit managed to make your breath hitch. Your hands and legs freed as the fluid perhaps melted but the last of your energy was being used by you to stay conscious. When he descended to kiss you once again and trailed kisses to your collarbone, your hands held onto him for support, his biceps providing anchor to you, made of pure muscle.

His teeth bruised your skin as he lightly bit your neck, reaching his end and releasing his load. The warmth that filled you made you let go, his orgasm encouraging another one from you.

Your eyes drooped, your body filled with exhaustion due to all the struggling as you curled in to your side and wrapped your arms around yourself, trying to forget your abductor and the forceful, mind shattering ecstasy you felt. Your refused to think about the guilt and the uncertainty of your impending doom in the hands of this maniacal student of yours. You just wished for sleep, for some peace alone.

The wish of yours was not granted when you felt Peter slide behind you, his hand wrapping around your middle as if you were lover. You still gave into slumber, but not before feeling him peck your shoulder with a promise.

“This devotee of yours will worship you forever and always, Goddess.”

[volleyball-dontknowher]

Deal? Deal. Kageyama x reader

Summary: You get asked to play a game with Karasuno and Kageyama helps you through it 

Warnings: None

Fluffy

2.2k words 

You didn’t know much about volleyball before dating Kageyama, but that quickly changed. You would come and hang around for the last few minutes of his practice so you could walk home with him everyday. As you watched you picked up a lot about how the game worked, three hits per side, the side who scores the point gets to serve, hitting the ball after it crosses the net is called a receive, the second hit is usually slower so the third hit can be fast. You knew the basics, like teaching elementary school students a sport type basics. You still cheered really loud for the team when you would watch them play and slowly you started to understand it more and more. You would listen to Kags talk to you for hours about how he needed to improve his sets and how he is going to change it up when he throws to Asahi versus Hinata. 

You became passionate about it because your goofy boyfriend was. He loved that you cared enough to learn and talk about volleyball with him. Every time you would compliment him about how good he becomes he is a blushing mess. He doesn’t handle compliments well but you can’t help but tell him how much you’ve watched him improve and how cute he is when he furrows his eyebrows when he focuses on the game. It was the little things like that that made you fall for Kageyama in the first place. You had been steadily learning about volleyball with Kags for about six months now and it was going great. You sometimes would help him practice by throwing the ball for him a few times but he never took this for granted and always thanked you over and over after. 

He came up to you today with a mischievous look in his eyes, looking around you saw that HInata and Tanaka were peeking out from behind the building and you could only wonder where this conversation was about to go. 

‘Hey Tobio, what’s up?” You used his first name because you know that it makes him flustered but also helps ease his nerves when it comes to stressful situations and boy did Kags look tense.

“Well, you see um,” he starts but cannot make himself keep your gaze, “well there’s sort of a, I don’t know, a um-” “What is it? I promise you can tell me.” “There’s a local volleyball game at the end of this week and it’s for charity  and we just found out about it and we all want to play in it but it’s coed so we’d need a girl to play with us and the girl’s team has already entered with a couple of the girl’s brothers and Kiyoko and Yachi said no and I know you’ve been learning about volleyball and so they wanted me to ask you if you would play with us, I know it’s last minute so that’s a lot of pressure. If not that's okay because Daichi said that his girlfriend may join us but they all wanted me to ask you too so that you weren’t the only girl playing with us and because they all think that you are very fun. You don’t have to but if you want to you can be taught by me and I guess you could practice with any of them but I would really appreciate it if you chose to practice with me. I mean it’s just a suggestion I don’t know, what do you think?” 

“Kags, babes, I’ll play with you,” you give him a reassuring smile and his heart melts, “and I would like you to be the one to help me learn.” 

Kageyama malfunctions, he doesn't know what to say or do. His girlfriend, like his living breathing girlfriend just said that she would play volleyball with him.He gives you a giant smile before walking you home. The entire walk home he is talking about his plans to help you learn what you are doing.

He also tells you about how he, “wants you to be a spiker so that I can always send the ball to you and then we can score points together.”. It was really sweet seeing him get this excited over the charity game. 

It was summer break and Kageyama came over to your house with his volleyball and started to teach you the basics. He was unimaginably patient with you when you had missed the same receive four times in a row, accidentally hit yourself in the head and then accidentally hit him in the head. This wasn’t something you were just good at and getting to help you get better was all that Kageyama wanted. He knew that if you were going to play with the other Karasuno boys that you should practice with them eventually, but he secretly wants to spend the time with you alone and doesn’t want to share you with the other boys. He also wants to teach you enough that when you show up you impress them with how good you are, and then you can tell them it’s all because of him and his hard work. (A boy can dream right) 

The two of you practiced for over an hour in your backyard before going inside. Kaeyama was really happy with what you’d learned, he taught you a basic serve, how to receive and what it means to spike a ball. After you hit him in the head the second time he slowed down his pace and decided to take things slower and that’s when you started doing really well. He ended up coming to your house everyday for the rest of the week and practicing with you, you got better at a lot of things but you were still not very good. He kept working with you and building your confidence so that you could join him and the rest of the team in the gym that Saturday. 

It was finally Saturday and you were beyond nervous to actually play with the boys. You had learned volleyball in about fifteen hours in your backyard with Kageyama and no matter how many times he told you that you knew enough to be successful and that you were going to be fine you couldn’t seem to believe him. You had never played with a real net before and here you were with one of the best teams in Japan playing. You felt so out of place but you were at least relieved that this wasn’t a real practice, it was just a practice match so they could get used to playing with you and Daihci’s girlfriend. 

When you walked into the gym you were so nervous, there were balls flying everywhere at speeds you couldn’t even comprehend and you didn’t know how you were supposed to be on the court with them, let alone play. The moment they saw you the balls stopped and Noya, Tanaka, and HInata all ran over to you to introduce themselves. “Wow Kageyama, she’s so pretty, how did you get a girl like her, you’re so dumb,” Hinata asks. 

Kageyama is blushing really hard and looks away from you, “Leave her alone you guys,” is all he can manage to say, and lucky for you two you were saved by Daichi walking in and introducing his girlfriend. It was amazing timing and saved you from having to deal with anyone for another few minutes. You go set your stuff down and go to stretch with Kageyama. It was nice getting to talk with all of the boys that Kageyama spends a lot of time with. 

“Hi, Y/N nice to meet you,” you turn and see a beautiful girl smiling at you, you must be Daichi’s girlfriend, “I’m Sam, are you as nervous for this as I am?” She smiles at you and you feel automatically relieved. You thought that she was going to somehow be as good as Daichi, she wasn’t. She was having the same struggles as you. The two of you had a great conversation until you had to start practicing with them. You and Sam stuck together and you actually had a good time playing with her. The other boys were fun to play with too but they were just so much better than you that it was intimidating. 

You missed several balls but the ones you did hit gave you a little bit of a rush and seeing the other’s cheer for you was amazing. You now got a little glimpse of why Kageyama loves it so much. You got lots of pointers and were now feeling ready for the big game tomorrow. The following morning Kageyama showed up bright and early at your door with two little milk drinks and some fruit for you to eat on your way to the school. When you got to the school you were greeted by all of the boys and the two managers. 

“Oh, hey Y/N this is for you,” you turn to see Kiyoko smiling at you with a jersey in her hand, “this is from a couple years ago, I found them in the storage room and thought that you would like one, it looks about your size.” The boys are all cooing at Kiyoko as she hands you and Sam a jersey, you have an idea that these weren’t the only jerseys she could find because somehow she found you a #9 jersey and Sam a #1 jersey. The boys were hollering and yelling about how you were now both part of the team and how cute you both were going to look. You had no idea how she just found you a #9 jersey but it was amazing, you were more than excited to play and also match your boyfriend. (You were also thrilled that you now had a Karasuno jersey with his number on it so you could wear it to support him at games) 

Once you got changed you guys were on your way to the game. As you were walking you noticed that Kageyama hadn’t said anything to you, so you went over to him and nudge his side.

“Oops, didn’t see you there cutie,” you look up and see the problem, he’s blushing at you, bright red. You don’t need him to say anything, the little smile he gave you is enough. You know he thinks that you’re super pretty and is definitely flustered seeing you in his number. You continue to walk right up next to him and continue talking with Yamaguchi. 

You got to the game and Kageyama was a starter, you were cheering for him as loud as you could from the sideline, that was until you were pat on the back by Suga, “Hey Y/N go replace Hinata.” 

“What?” 

He didn’t answer you, instead he smiled and pushed your back. You were mortified, it was all going well until you started playing. You gave up three points in a row for the boys, it was not going well but that didn’t stop them all from cheering for you. The other team called a timeout and you ran back to your side of the court, you wanted them to replace you so bad. They didn’t. Instead Daichi and Asahi gave you some tips and Tanaka and Noya patted you on the back and told you that you were going to do awesome. Break was over and right before you got back on the court you were pat on the back by the only Kageyama. He looked down at you and gave you one of his little smiles, “We got this, trust me.” 

Good thing that you trusted him, the very next play Kags hit it directly to you and you were able to hit it over the net and score. The entire stadium went crazy watching it and you almost died when Kags got super excited and pulled you into a hug. You had another couple of amazing hits before you and Kags were taken out for Suga and Sam. You and Kageyama sat on the bench and cheered everyone on. Your team won the first round easily and it was now time for the second round. It was amazing getting to see the action up close. It was nearing the end of the second set and karasuno had a big lead in this set. You, Kags and Sam were all put in the game with Daichi, Asahi, and Tsukki. You ended up receiving two balls and got to spike one. You had a great time playing with them and you were so sad when it was all over, your team was voted fan favorite and you were beaming with pride when a couple of middle school boys came up and decided to come up to Kageyama after the game and ask him how he did it. He was stuttering and had no idea what to say because he’d never been the person that people looked up to. He was secretly so proud of himself and you were so happy for him. Lucky for him Hinata stepped in and explained how Kageyama did it with a lot of whooshes and whaps. Once the middle schoolers had left, Kags grabbed your hand and led you around the corner of the stadium. Without warning he pulls you into a kiss, one hand on your waist and the other on your cheek. You kiss him back before pulling away, “What’s all of this about?” 

He’s kissing your neck and between kisses he tells you “you did so good. I love you so much.” 

“I love you too Tobio, you did amazing out there,” you gave him another quick kiss before starting to head back to the team. 

“Y-you should wear that jersey more often, I like it on you.” “Only if you practice with me more often, I like it.” “Deal.” “Deal.” 

Bonus: 

Yamaguchi took the most adorable picture of you and Kageyama smiling together in your matching jerseys and it is now one of his most prized possessions because you were so cute and seeing you match him was adorable. You also posted it on insta with a cute caption and he almost had a heart attack his heart was so happy 

[chiseler]

The Sound of Fury

“America, as a social and political organization, is committed to a cheerful view of life,” Robert Warshow wrote in his seminal 1948 essay “The Gangster as Tragic Hero.” Democracies depend on the conviction that they are making life better and happier for their citizens; only feudal and monarchical societies can enjoy the luxury of fatalism or a fundamentally pessimistic view of life. Praising the gangster genre as a form of modern tragedy, Warshow also accounts for film noir in his statement that, “There always exists a current of opposition, seeking to express by whatever means are available to it that sense of desperation and inevitable failure which optimism itself helps to create.” The gangster’s demise is the purest American tragedy because it is driven by his mania to climb the ladder of success. The end of his saga is inevitable, so in chasing success he is really chasing failure; his self-destructiveness expresses defiance at the inevitability of defeat, but also confirms it.

This underground river of pessimism and disillusionment unites the pre-Code films of the early thirties and postwar film noir; they share a tone of bitter gallows humor; a satisfaction in being wised-up, knowing the score; they flaunt the scars and calluses of lost innocence. Pre-Code movies reflected the free-fall of the Depression, the farce of Prohibition and the dizziness of a society edging towards anarchy. Noir exposed the suppressed anguish of WWII, the anxiety of the Cold War, the stresses of conformity and materialism.

Films like Cry Danger (1951)—recently restored to full glory by the Film Noir Foundation—depict a battered, abraded country that has turned cynicism into a running gag. A man just out of prison after serving five years for something he didn’t do trades sour wisecracks with a one-legged, alcoholic ex-Marine. They make their home in a dilapidated trailer in a scruffy park perched on Bunker Hill, where the proprietor sits around strumming a ukulele and ignoring the busted showers. The vet (Richard Erdman) falls for a pickpocket who steals his wallet whenever he gets drunk. The ex-con (Dick Powell) idealistically tries to vindicate his best friend, who’s still in jail, only to find out he’s a double-crossing liar. The film achieves an extraordinary blend of the glum and the snappy, a deadpan insolence that saturates the air like smog. “What’s five years?” Powell says of his stretch. “You could do that just waiting around.”

While pre-Code movies gleefully portrayed an “age of chiselry,” a country where everyone was looking for an angle, they never plumbed the depths of alienation, fatalism and misanthropy that noir opened up. For all their knowing skepticism, Depression-era films evoke a sense of camaraderie, a shared body heat from people huddled and jostling together—maybe cheating each other, but still sharing jokes and boxcars, Murphy beds and stolen hot-dogs. Noir, by contrast, purveys a chilling sense of isolation and social atomization; not only institutions but individual relationships are corrupt and predatory. There’s no longer a hard-times sense of being all in the same boat. As Kirk Douglas nastily smirks at his colleagues in Ace in the Hole: “I’m in the boat. You’re in the water.”

Noir used unpretentious, low-budget crime thrillers to smuggle this caustic vision into movie theaters during a time when, on the surface, America was at the height of prosperity and social cohesion. Unlike the early-thirties gangster cycle, which reflected a real wave of lawlessness, the crime movies of the fifties were made during a time when the murder rate was lower than in previous or succeeding decades, perhaps as a channel for other, submerged anxieties. Noir’s prophetic vision of disintegrating communities has become only more compelling with time, a development that may explain the passionate revival of interest in film noir in the last decades of the twentieth century.

Healthy, functioning groups don’t exist in noir; even gangs and criminal “organizations” fall apart because their members are out for themselves, ready to betray each other for a payoff or a bigger share of the take. Institutions like politics and business appear only in stories revealing their corruption. The police are the only representatives of government commonly seen, and they are often bullying and crooked, hounding innocent suspects with sadistic relish. Even films that take the side of law enforcement underline hostility between cops and the people they protect. Apart from the justice system, the public sphere does not exist: the town meetings and popular movements that crowd the screen in thirties films, with indignant and excitable citizens marching, rioting or celebrating, are unimaginable in film noir. People seem to exist in a vacuum.

In part, this vision reflects the privatization of life that accelerated in the postwar era, as cars replaced trains; television replaced movie theaters; appliances eliminated the need for servants, milkmen and ice men; suburban back yards took the place of parks, all part of the glorification of the detached home for the “nuclear” family. The homogeneity of the suburbs and the intrusiveness of media and advertising paradoxically diminished any sense of place or community. Meanwhile, Cold War paranoia meant that expressions of communitarian spirit or calls for collective action could rouse suspicions of communist sympathies.

Many of the writers, directors and actors associated with film noir were liberals, often former Communist Party members who had seen the left-wing idealism of the thirties buried by World War II and then vilified during the Cold War. Disillusioned, they used crime movies to indict a culture of rampant greed and cut-throat competition. Thieves’ Highway(1949), the last film directed by Jules Dassin before he left the country to escape the blacklist, slices open the produce business to reveal the rotten heart of capitalism. Even something as pure and nourishing as an apple becomes a poisoned agent of strife when it’s equated with money. A Polish farmer, enraged at being paid less than he was promised for his apples, flings boxes of them off a truck, screaming, “Seventy-five cents! Seventy-five cents!” The apples roll wastefully across the ground, an image foreshadowing the film’s most famous shot, when after the same truck has careened off the road and exploded, apples roll silently down the hillside toward the flaming wreck. When the dead trucker’s partner finds out that money-grubbers have gone out to collect the scattered load to sell, he begins kicking over crates of apples, fuming, “Four bits a box! Four bits a box!” Everyone in the movie is “just trying to make a buck,” and cash haunts the film, dirty crumpled bills changing hands in a series of soiled, coercive transactions.

It is easy to see why the House Un-American Activities Committee wanted to drive people like Dassin out of Hollywood. Films such as Joseph Losey’s The Prowler (another Film Noir Foundation restoration) and Cy Endfield’s The Sound of Fury, (a.k.a Try and Get Me! 1950, the FNF’s next project) are scathing attacks on a materialistic society, unmasking the American dream as a shallow and shabby illusion that breeds crime and shreds the social fabric. (Both directors fled to England in the early fifties to avoid persecution by HUAC.)

Endfield’s stark anti-lynching drama opens with a down-on-his-luck family man hitch-hiking on a dark highway; he tells the trucker who picks him up that he’s been looking in vain for a job. Howard Tyler (Frank Lovejoy) moved his wife and son out to the postwar California suburb of Santa Sierra, hoping for a better life; “I can’t help it if a million other guys had the same idea,” he complains bitterly. They live in a shabby little bungalow behind a wire fence that makes the place look like a miniature P.O.W. camp. Howard’s pregnant wife hates the idea of using a charity clinic, and frets over money owed for groceries, while his whiny little boy begs for money to go the baseball game (“All the other kids are goin’!”) A bartender at a bowling alley sneers at his cheap customer: “You take a beer drinker, you got a jerk.” If Howard weren’t so dejected and humiliated, he would never fall under the spell of Jerry (Lloyd Bridges), the vain braggart he meets at the bowling alley.

Primping and preening, flexing his muscles and showing off his fancy aftershave (“Smells expensive!”), the manic Jerry boasts about his sexual conquests and the big money he makes, and he treats the modest, submissive Howard like his valet. He offers to put him onto something good—“nothing risky”—just driving the car for his hold-ups. When Howard hesitates, Jerry snorts, “You guys kill me! The more you get kicked in the teeth the better you like it.” Their first job is knocking over the grocery store at a cheap motel (“The Rambler’s Rest”), where Jerry easily intimidates an elderly couple and pistol-whips their son. Intoxicated with the easy money—and a few stiff drinks—Howard bursts in on his family with armfuls of groceries. His wife gasps at the extravagance of baked ham and canned peaches, and he brags that now they can get their own TV, and won’t have to go over and watch their neighbors’. “And we’ll throw this piece of junk away!” he crows, pointing to the family’s radio. Soon Howard is buying his wife new shoes and dresses with hot money, telling her he has a night job at a cannery. His little boy sports a cowboy outfit and ambushes his jumpy father with toy guns.

Unsatisfied with these penny-ante crimes, Jerry comes up with a scheme to kidnap a wealthy young man and hold him for ransom. He’s overcome by envy as he fingers the victim’s suit, tailor-made in New York, and after they’ve taken him out to a gravel pit in a disused army base, Jerry panics and kills him. When Howard gets home, dazed with horror and guilt, his wife wakes and tells him about the lovely dream she was having: she had the baby and this time there was no pain at all; “I got right up out of the hospital and took her shopping. I was buying her a pinafore.” Even in her dreams she’s a consumer, subconsciously linking commercial goods with the fantasy of a painless life.

As Howard mentally unravels, the shoddy vulgarity of the culture around him takes on a sinister cast. Jerry shows him the ransom note he’s written in a diner while ordering a steak sandwich (“Cow on a slab!” the waitress yells.) For cover, they go out of town to mail the letter, taking along Jerry’s girlfriend, a glossy blonde, and a lonely manicurist she has dug up for Howard. In a nightclub, he’s subjected to a string of dumb jokes and parlor magic tricks from a burlesque comedian. “Blame my psychiatrist,” the comic quips, “I didn’t pay my bill last month and he’s letting me go crazy.”

From its opening moments, the film depicts the crowd as a mindless and malevolent force, which will eventually be stirred to frenzy by sensationalizing newspaper articles. Crowds in noir are always bloodthirsty mobs, surrounding and destroying strangers in their midst; the communal desire for security is tainted by bigotry and ignorance. This is a dark inversion of Capra’s rallying citizens, or even the all-for-one armies of bums who fight for their squatters’ rights in Wild Boys of the Road. Movies of the Depression era never saw anything wrong with wanting money, good food, a pair of shoes, or even fur coats and diamond bracelets. They are tolerant of people—especially women—who do whatever they have to do get ahead. By contrast, The Sound of Fury shows materialism—the desire to keep up with the neighbors, to make a better life for your family—as a force that corrodes souls and breaks down social decency. The deepest well of pessimism in noir is a distrust of change, desire and ambition. “I just want to be somebody,” people are always saying, but the urge to squeeze more out of life, to grab a chance at happiness, is brutally punished.

Below the surface, the force driving noir stories is the urge to escape: from the past, from the law, from the ordinary, from poverty, from constricting relationships, from the limitations of the self. Noir found its fullest expression in America because the American psyche harbors a passion for independence, an impulse to be, in the words of Walt Whitman, “loosed of limits, and imaginary lines, / Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute.” With this desire for autonomy comes a corresponding fear of loneliness and exile. The more we crave success, the more we dread failure; the more we crave freedom, the more we dread confinement. This is the shadow that spawns all of noir’s shadows: the anxiety imposed by living in a country that elevates opportunity above security; one that instills a compulsion to “make it big,” but offers little sympathy to those who fall short. Film noir is about people who break the rules, pursuing their own interests outside the boundaries of decent society, and about how they are destroyed by society—or by themselves.

The gangster, Robert Warshow wrote, is driven by the need to separate himself from the crowd, but in doing so he isolates and dooms himself. White Heat (1949), which brought James Cagney back to the gangster persona that made him a star, came out one year after the publication of “The Gangster as Tragic Hero.” It took the “man of the city” (as Warshow defined the gangster) out of the city, but Cagney’s explosive death atop an industrial gas tank is the supreme illustration of Warshow’s observation that the gangster’s pursuit of success—“Made it, Ma! Top of the world!��—is a pursuit of death.

White Heat is also a perfect example of what Edward Dimendberg (in Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity) called “centrifugal” noir: it’s a film without a center, about a world flying apart like the cooling fragments of an exploded star. Cagney’s gang, decaying under the strains of resentment, betrayal and madness, moves between equally bleak urban and rural hideouts. After robbing a train in a rocky no-man’s-land, they hole up in a frigid, creaky old farmhouse “a hundred miles from nowhere,” as Cagney’s wife gripes. Cooped up together in this gloomy Gothic house, surrounded by split-rail fences and naked, rolling hills, they snipe at each other and grumble about their leader. Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) suffers debilitating migraine headaches and huddles in the lap of his gaunt, fiercely loyal Ma. The realization that came to Cagney in Public Enemy as he stumbled into the gutter in the rain—“I ain’t so tough”—is here amplified into an infantile weakness, perpetually on the verge of breakdown. Cody’s frailty only makes him more vicious. At his orders the gang leaves a wounded member behind, bandaged and in pain, to freeze to death once they make their move to a motor court in LA. The motel is typical of the “non-places” (in Marc Augé’s term) where noir flourishes: marginal, transient spaces where “people are always, and never, at home.”

The banality of the modern west makes room for Cagney’s majestically psychotic performance, fine-tuned and sensitive as a landmine. Cody Jarrett crumples inward under the crushing pain and then erupts, and White Heat similarly closes in and then shatters people are either cramped in suffocating enclosures (Cody shoots a man while he’s locked in the trunk of a car, cruelly offering to “give him some air”), or stranded in vacant, inhospitable spaces. At the rural hideout, the wind is always blowing bitterly around the house, tossing the trees; Cody walks alone at night, talking to his dead mother, who was shot in the back by his wife while he was in jail. He tells a friend—really a police plant who will betray him—how lonesome he is, because “all I ever had was Ma,” and how hard his mother’s life was, “always on the run, always on the move.” White Heat brings together the ultra-modern—radio tracking devices; drive-in movie theaters—with the pre-modern, even the primitive. It proves not just that film noir can thrive in the country as well as the city, but that noir was not merely a response to the new—industrialization, the bomb, etc.—but drew on deep veins in the American psyche and the American landscape: the desire to stand alone on top of the hill, even if there’s nowhere to go from there but death; and an accompanying fear of being buried “on the lone prairie,” having no one to talk to but the night wind.

by Imogen Sara Smith

[aspiratinganxiety]

Christmas Dinner Part II

The much awaited final chapter of the Christmas dinner prompt! This is pure fluff with a delectable finish, if I do say so myself. The first part of this fic can be found here.  

I am so sorry that I had to repeatedly bump back the post date for this piece. You guys were so excited for it, and I swear that I got it to you as soon as I could. I’ve had a couple of weeks with a new job and some stuff that needed to get done around the house for the change in season. 

As always, I am grateful for your patience, and I would love to know what you think of my work!

(Side note: If you want to be added to a taglist, let me know. I don’t really have one yet, only a small one for Part II of the Ballerina/Dick fic. Not really sure if anyone is interested. Drop me an ask or message me if you’d like to be tagged in my work, and please specify if there are certain triggers that you’d like not to be tagged in.)

"Just make sure to act... ya’ know.... natural. Like we willingly spend time with one another romantically. Also please, please do not take Jason’s bait. He’s always an especially bitter pill during these parties. I don’t know why. It’s just like, one of his things. One of his many things. Oh! And remember-”

“Christ on a bicycle, Tim!” you interrupt him, patience completely evaporated. “I know how to be a girlfriend. I’ve been in more relationships for an amount of time that totals longer than your go with Stephanie. I know all the weird quirks with your family, even Jason. I understand what jokes not to make. All of my major etiquette lessons were from Alfred himself, and I don’t drink. Won’t make a habit of it in front of Bruce as an underage date to the only son functioning as a public figure for Wayne Enterprises. I get it. I know. Chill the fuck out and get off my back, or I’m going to punch you in your bird throat.” 

Usually, you do not threaten violence to anyone, especially people as kindhearted as Tim. Jesus God though, 45 minutes of his frantic dictation about your expected behaviors and you’re ready to strip off your bribery gown, roll out of the moving car buck-ass naked, and hoof it back to your apartment in the snow.

You have enough anxiety of your own, poured into a buh-jillion dollar dress that was made to push your boobs up to your chin and mold your butt into some kind of evergreen-colored peach. You can barely walk in your shoes, you’re wearing jewelry that cost more than your education, you are terrified that Damian might mistake your fake fur for the real thing and try to murder you on the spot, and the flower crown braided to your head is made of poky pine twigs, baby pine cones, and glittery sugared berries that are all working together to make your scalp itch worse than the week and a half you spent fighting a colony of lice in the fourth grade.

Fucking Lacey Whitaker and her four-feet of infested hair...  

In short, you want to die and you haven’t even tried to lie to Batman yet. 

“Wow.” Tim blinks, mouth scrunched into an unimpressed line. 

You sigh, hanging your head. “Tim, I am not going to punch you. That would be unkind and, frankly, a stupid move on my part.” You shake your head. “Not a fight I can win.” 

“I’m honestly less offended by the punching and more hung up on the bird throat comment.”

You cut your eyes at him, incredulous. “Yeah, well, that scarf isn’t exactly doing you favors.” 

He balks, jaw falling open. “Okay, first: you must be going blind. Francisco hand delivered all of the accent notes for my attire, including this scarf, so that I would match your dress. The one that you picked. The one that is on your body this very minute, if you would recall. The botanical embroidery is even consistent. So, yeah.” He motions to the fitted portion of the gown that can be seen hugging your thighs below the hem of your fluffy false fur coat. “Second observation: you are hella’ mean when you have The Anxiety, and I did not intend to fan that flame.” 

“Well, you’re hella’ bossy when you get nervous. Not a great combination to be crammed in a sports car together.”

“Noted,” he says, pulling the scarf looser.

The rest of the drive is somewhat tense as you both deeply question your life choices and rehearse the practiced cover story about first dates and whatnot. The sidewalk that leads to the main entrance of Wayne Manor is mercifully devoid of ice, having been flawlessly scraped and salted ahead of time. Alfred greets the two of you with a broad smile and ushers you into the bright, impeccably decorated foyer. 

“Happy Christmas,” he says, looking down at you in his warm, if distant, way. “Aren’t you a sight, Miss?” 

You acknowledge the compliment as Alfred hangs Tim’s coat and scarf, ducking your head in an awkward cross between a nod and a bow, frantically trying to peel the fur coat away from you before Damian gets a look at it. 

It is then that Tim sees the bodice of your dress for the first time. He stares, too struck by the full effect of the incredibly intricate, fitted garment to be ashamed that he is staring. The gown envelops you tightly from your bust to just below your hips, flowing seamlessly into rounded pool of silken fabric at the floor. Delicate lacework that echos the embroidery running throughout the piece act as wide, gossamer straps that tip over your shoulders and dive into what the cut of the dress would indicate to be a deep hemline baring a good portion of your back. With the high notes of red in your wreath, on your shoes, and staining your pretty, pretty lips, it’s hard for Tim to decide if the incredibly flattering silhouette created by your gown is more provocative than the contrasting, complimentary colors of forest green and holly-berry red that work to draw eyes up and down your body, then back up again... and down.... and up.

It is Alfred’s voice, chastising him, that breaks Tim out of his awed silence. “Take her coat and put your tongue back in your mouth immediately, Master Timothy.”

“Right!” he says, closing his eyes with a nod and stepping toward you. And again quietly, he almost sighs, “Right.” 

You hand him the fur, somewhat confused. Meeting his eye, you attempt to convey a look that asks whether or not he’s begun acting. After all, it’s only Alfred, and you both knew that there was zero hope of convincing the brilliant Englishman from the get. Tim was relying on the gentleman’s steadfast discretion to allow him this Christmas of peace from his brothers. 

Your initial reaction to Tim’s obvious admiration isn’t playful banter or a controlled taunt, as rehearsed. Rather, you are overwhelmingly flattered and suddenly battling an absolute tidal wave of uncharacteristic bashfulness. Heat burns in your cheeks from more than the rush of blood brought up by the warm house as you pass off your coat. Tim seems genuinely embarrassed too, as he avoids touching your hands and keeps his body far from you, using the full length of an outstretched arm to snag the outerwear. The left side of his face is crumpled in an apologetic wince, and the expression cuts clean through you. The bubble of your sheer delight implodes into a million little radiant drops as you try to decide whether or not the wince means he regrets having found you an attractive sight. 

That is not how boyfriends who enjoy your dress behave. Tim’s presenting a friend reaction, a friend who is afraid of having objectified or offended you. You steel yourself against the rush of anxiety that previously dimmed your flattered reaction and accept that you are gonna’ have to hem this tattered patchwork of a plan all by your lonesome if it’s going to be believable.

The Red Robin’s body language indicates that he’s all but thrown in the towel here at the door. 

And so, you take a deep breath, unfolding the neat, tidy little booklet of repressed feelings that you’ve been harboring in the pockets of your heart since you were 15, and you let yourself smile at him.

Really smile. The way you do when his back is turned. When his woefully dedicated or unimaginably funny words are in text. When you know it’s safe and no one will see the way that you smile for Tim.  

Your lips curve up a bit wry, teasing but encouraging. Teeth flash, a porcelain sign advertising your giddy joy and the silly sense of eagerness you allow yourself to feel, all-too-easily engaging the fantasy that this is a real date. Your shoulders half-shrug, and you catch the perfectly manicured nail of your ring finger between the knuckles of the opposite third and fourth fingers, running the corner of your thumbnail beneath it. The gesture is a nervous, fiddling one that communicates that damnably predominant shyness creeping up again.

You keep his eyes too, pegging him with an expression that communicates all of the softness and the intensity that you’ve been fighting to hide for so long. 

Tim goes stone still, like he’s been struck by lightening and his brain decided to exist stage left for intermission. He stares at you, staring at him like he’s answered some kind of prayer by grabbing your coat. 

For a brief, breathless moment, he feels like Gods must.

He’s dizzy with the sensation. It echos from his temples through his skull, then all the way down to every toe. A reverberation of unmitigated glory as delivered by the expression of someone he loves.

Nobody has ever looked at him that way. 

Not even right after he saves their life.

“Heavens,” Alfred mumbles behind him, a shared note of awe in his voice. 

Tim jerks, having completely forgotten where he was, why he’d be there, or that other humans who weren’t you existed at all.

The older gentleman relieves Tim of the coat, casting a prideful, knowing look over the much younger man. “I’ll just take that. Everyone is socializing in the parlor. Go on to the party, and I will call when the dinner preparations are in order.”

Tim, grateful that Alfred habitually motioned both of you toward the heavy mahogany doors that lead into the front sitting room, realizes that he somehow lost all memory of the manor’s blueprint. He also cannot recall the name of Damian’s dog.

“Well,” you say, waiting until Alfred bustles away before leaning toward him with a much more contained smile. You nod toward the parlor, a curl falling from its place pinned to your crown. 

“Uh,” Tim delays, closing his eyes and giving his head a quick shake. He dares to step closer to you and carefully brushes at the strand of loose hair. “Actually, do you think it would be okay if... um.... well, I was wondering if you’d like the plan being that this-” he motions between the two of you. “This was less for pretend and more for real?”

He speaks so quietly that you are straining to hear him. Beyond that, what you can make out of his words seem to imply a notion that has your heart hammering so hard that it isn’t leaving any room for your lungs to expand.

You get closer and whisper more distinctly. “More real how?”

“Like, real real.”

“You are not helping me understand, Tim,” you hiss, feeling rather vulnerable and unsure.

He grins haltingly, schooling his features into a gentler expression before balancing your chin on his thumb and forefinger. Tim tilts your face up, sure to keep gauging your reaction to his approach with inquisitive looks and plenty of pauses. Your eyes flutter shut after the tip of his nose presses into yours playfully, and he angles his head to brush past the bridge of your own nose and nuzzle into your cheek. 

Time stops again when you’re on the very cusp of kissing, lips together in a tickling brush with warm puffs of breath mingling between you. “Is this okay?” he asks, the press of his mouth to yours causing you to silently mirror the formation of his words. 

“Uh-huh,” you answer a susurrant hum, eyes still closed and oh so excited for a proper kiss.

“Ah, crap.” Jason’s voice booming out of the parlor behind you has both you and Tim jumping out of your skins. “That’s 60 bucks to Selina, guys! Turns out Timbo and Bo-peep are an item after all. They’re kissin’ in the foyer like animals! Catwoman takes the pot.”                                 

[munchkinnie-blog]

Love is unpredictable but it is inevitable.

I used to believe that love is something that fools the mind. And yet, the mind is still as wise that you’ll know, ahead of time, that a person would be the one. That you’d see things coming before it surprises you. But....nah, turns out to be different.

Love really is unpredictable. And I never really confirmed it till now. I mean, who would expect that the person you were most disgusted is now the person who changed all your perspectives about love? No one, eh?

Well, he was the total definition of a jerk. Elementary days, he was noisy, a bully, a bastard and a bitch. He was a complete pain in the ass and could boast about all of his “perfections” all the damn time. You wouldn’t disagree, it was totally irritating that I could just roll my eyes every time he’s around. Well, I admit, I find him good looking, appealing, smart and could be the most wanted of them all, but that was never enough. Not even close. Never did I ever thought of liking him, not even a second of my life would be given to admire his “pretty” face and such features or even lay eyes on him. His presence heats me up, his voice irritates me, and even just by hearing his name disgusts me. The whole of him was who I could hate for the rest of my life.

And here I am, the (very) cheerful girl, full of stories, full of smiles. And maybe that was what he hated about me. Maybe I was too friendly that he finds me as someone who just seeks for so much attention all the time. He might also have hated everything about me as much hate as I have for him.

And so, me and him? In one place? Unimaginable. It would be a total disaster, a total war. Full of eager statements to embarrass each other, full of anger and full of actions to irritate one another. Ugh!! Totally annoying if I’m reminded.

December at 6th grade. A Christmas play was conducted at school and I was one of the chosen ones to write the script. Me as a dreamy writer, wrote all sweet things possible for the mother and father role. I was happy with my script, I knew it would turn out to be a nice play. Surprisingly, the actor of the two major roles (mother and father) must be from the 6th grade. I was in complete shock when they said I would be playing the mother role despite me writing the script.

The teachers had a hard time to find an actor for the father. Our batch doesn’t really have lots of good actors but...one. But no! Please no. Not him.

With all the bad luck I have, he was the one picked as the actor for the father. You guessed it right, it is “he”. Very very very not nice!

Rehearsals started and the atmosphere was as heavy as ever. There was even an awkward scene in which we have to stand back to back and too close that our backs should touch. But no! We can’t! All the teachers watching the rehearsal were laughing cause they all new the deal between us. The director was laughing, everyone’s laughing! Very awkward! I shouldn’t have made the script too sweet! I regret being so dreamy then! Its all coming back to me. I regret it all!

Fast forward to high school, I transferred but, he went to the same school. I was like: Really? Am I not at the same team as God? Was he really challenging how far can I last with him? I mean, out of all people I could go with, how come it’s him? Ugh!

Guess what? We even went to the same section. Very. Nice. I just thought to myself: 6 damn years of my life is more than enough to spend it with an ass like him. Why make it 7?

A year as freshmen started and we barely even sit a meter close to each other just like a magnet with like charges and I don’t know, just felt normal for me. We lived our own lives as freshmen, luckily he did not do anything annoying or anything like before, we don’t talk, we don’t smile at each other or even look at each other. Nice, right? Nothing to worry about. Mortal enemies stay as mortal enemies.

But, there’s just.....this one time. This one single time he acted like a nice acquaintance to me. Just weird:

I was peacefully sitting at the floor, leaning at the table and just on my phone while there he was, being the naughty, playful guy he is, playing and chasing and running all over the room till boom! He hit the table, technically, he hit me as well. Yeah it hurt but not even close to a pinch of an ant but then, I was shocked. He walked to me and slightly held my head and said: “Sorry! Masakit ba?” as casual as ever. Not as weird, not as awkward. Like what? As far as I have lived in this world, I have never heard him said that to me. I mean he had done even worse things to me before but not even say a single apology but now, he apologized? I flattered, my heart did and I just don’t know why. That time, I could not help but just....smile.

Yeah, felt stupid and shallow. I mean, a simple act from him meaning a lot to me is normal cause we’re not friends, right? Right? Yeah, right.

And then 7 years became 8. In all fairness, he has matured a lot compared to before. He got a lot more silent. He was more engaged to sports, he got smarter and he got even more sociable. Surprisingly, amongst them all, he was one who breaks barriers built by gender. He got lots of girl friends. He speak less false judgements. He became less jerky. He became less boastful. Well yeah, he changed, totally.

And so I can say, I no longer have any issues with him. Uh-uh, not a little. I mean, we’re sophomores, I’m 13, he’s 14, better be matured enough (too). Well, seemed to me that everything in the past doesn’t even matter to him anymore so why not just clear all the complications and leave everything behind? I’m now just looking forward to also break the barrier between us. I mean, I shouldn’t let the past put barriers between me and him, right? Right.

Every time, I pack all the courage up to talk to him, or smile or grin or even glance at him hoping he’d glance back. But, no. Ugh! I’m frustrated as ever. Maybe he’s better off with this situation, fine.

I tried to settle, but I can’t. I don’t know, I just can’t. I still don’t want this line. This line between us that we cannot cross unless we’ll be too close. Felt forbidden and I don’t want it. I hate it. And I...just don’t know why.

Nah, I know. I just don’t want to admit it. I don’t want this feeling. This feeling that I can’t help. I can’t help to see it all. I can’t help seeing him being too clingy, too comfy with other girls he just met but can’t even say a word to me who he have been with since then. I mean, we’ve been together since young but never did we get a selfie together. Never did he open things to me. Never did he smile or laugh with me. Never did he do anything with me! But with girls he just been with for 1 or 2 years? How can they be so close? I hate it! I should also be close to him then. I should be. I should have.

This is confusing, very confusing. I saw his past photos and I realized how much he has physically matured too. I mean, look at him! Very sporty that now, he’s totally fit. He became a lot taller, legs are firm, muscles are firm. Collarbones, jawline, everything! And ugh! Those veins, every girl could admire them all day. I’m pretty sure he has abs forming too—no! I’m not pervert okay? Just saying.

I just don’t understand. I totally don’t understand! Why does his smile felt like food that every time I look at it, I feel so full? Why does his laughter enchants my ears now? Why do I love his presence now? Why do I feel so flattered even just by hearing a single word from him? Why do I find his little chuckles so damn cute? Why do I feel butterflies in my stomach whenever he talks? This can’t be true. This is crazy. I am crazy. No, it’s not just crazy, it’s impossible! Totally impossible. I can’t even accept this. Do I.....like him?

Oh God, hell no. This is bull. Piece of shit.

From that day, I totally did not feel like myself. I mean, I never liked him, right? I hate him, didn’t I? Then what’s wrong? What is wrong with me? This feeling is consuming my whole body and I can’t get it out of my system. I am going insane.

8th year, Mathematics time. We were grouped together and sat close to each other. That time, we needed to find a partner from our own group for an activity. We had lots of confusion to who be partnered with. Then out of all the arguments he sat next to me and said: “Edi kayo nalang, tas kaming dalawa partner” with a cute grin. Yeah, its totally what you think, he was pertaining to me. Me! He wanted ME to be his partner! My heart jumped. I couldn’t keep all these eagerness in my chest. I felt like exploding with happiness.

But yeah, we didn’t end up partnered so nothing so special.

I like him. I know its stupid but I’m certain. And the thing is, I can’t even tell anybody because all they know is that I’m the girl who’s disgusted and will be disgusted with him for the rest of my life. I’d be embarrassing myself if I tell them the truth! What should I say then? That I used to hate him but in one snap everything just disappeared? That I like him now? That’s bull.

And so, I tried to keep it to myself. I tried to hide it all. All the smiles for his presence. All the smiles for his laughter. All the smiles for his voice. All the smiles for his pretty face. All the overflowing admiration I have for him. I hid it all. But as they say, no secret must stay unrevealed.

My boy friend first knew and he couldn’t believe it. His girlfriend second knew and she couldn’t believe it. My girl best friend next knew and she couldn’t believe it. Then my whole squad knew and they couldn’t believe it. I know, even I couldn’t believe it. I can’t believe this. This is all so unbelievable. I’m destroying my own reputation.

Days passed and nothing really changed about how I feel. In fact, it just got even stronger. My heart literally pounds when he’s around that I’d be catching my own breath and I just can’t explain why. I get all tensed up whenever he’s walking towards my direction. I can’t even last staring at him at least 3 seconds or else I’ll get goosebumps. I can’t get him out of my mind. When he’s there, I can’t stop staring, and when he’s not, I always feel the need to find him. Never did I thought that at my age, I could already feel such strong feeling towards someone. And its totally consuming my whole body. How can this be happening? It feels so unreal. Is this just all in my head? How I wish.

And right now, I don’t know how to slowly shift the situation to the time that I’m completely insane with him. Or was it really that fast for me to fall. I know everybody may think of me as too fragile, I liked him even though we don’t talk at all. I admired him with just all the times I stared at him, every time he smiles or every time he talks. It’s just crazy and too impossible to believe that I’m crazy about the guy I used to hate. I just wish they could see what I see and truly appreciate about him. He is

But I know, I truly know and I don’t expect any chance that he’ll notice me even just as a friend or a woman. We started off as two people who act like complete strangers and now its hard to build something special by this time. I am aware since then that he likes somebody else and I will never get in the way of anything that makes him happy. I support him with all my heart.

And she is pretty, very indeed. She is smart, kind, cute, fine, modest, petite and very much lovable. She is the definition of the almost-perfect lady. I don’t even see any flaw about her and I don’t see why he would not fall for her. Compared to her, I no longer see where I stand. And yes, I can totally see how he gets weak when she joins the picture. I see how he smiles, blushes and how he talks about her all the time. I see how much he adores her with all his heart. I see how he admires and praise every single detail about her. All of us do, and all of us do wish for them to end up together. Yeah it hurts but surprisingly, it hurts less with the thought that, thats what he wants. That’s what’ll make him happy.

You see, what we feel is just so similar, but not on the same person. I like him and he does too with somebody else. He doesn’t like me, and she doesn’t like him either. I get hurt and he does too. I know his pain. I know how hard it is. I know how hurtful it can get. And it hurts me more to think that he’s also going through all of that. I wish he wasn’t. How I wish she likes him back just because I don’t want him to feel the same pain I’m going through.

And so, that’s just it. That’s my experience and how destiny taught me that love comes in the most unpredictable times, to the most unpredictable person. Just what I said, who would expect that the person I was most disgusted is now the person who changed all my perspectives about love? Maybe someone did, but not me.

Before, I thought that when you like a person and he likes you back, that’s definitely love. Obviously I’m wrong. And I just realized that all I did before was so dumb. When I find a guy handsome, then I like him. When I had at least one deep talk with a guy, then I like him. When I accidentally locked my eyes with someone, then its destiny. When I bumped into someone at the hallway and he helped me pick up my things, then its fate. When my crush has another crush, then I’ll cry. As if he’s the last man on earth. I’ll hate the girl he likes and say bad things about her. I’ll say things such us “Makakamove on din ako” “Ayoko na sa kanya” just because I don’t want the pain. I don’t want to get hurt. And I don’t want him to like someone else but me. But it’s more than just that. I used to look at love as a page but apparently, its a book. And I’ve just read another chapter of it. I’ve learned a lot more.

I’ve learned that love is when someone’s happiness slowly becomes your happiness too. It is when you care a lot about a person that he matters even more than yourself. It is when all you want is to see him happy even if you’re hurting. It is when his single smile is more important than yours. It is the time that you wont wish him to end up with you, you would wish him to end up with someone who makes him happy. That you know, even if that person is not you, even if it hurts you so much, you’ll be okay. Because just a smile from his genuine happiness can heal your pain. Just a glimpse of laughter from his happily ever after can take away all your scars. Because as I said, he’s happiness slowly becomes my happiness too and so as long as he’s happy, I am happy.

Love is when your “Ansakit kasi may mahal kang iba” turns into “Masaya ako kasi masaya ka”.

[mirkwoodshewolf]

I will always come back; Rocket Raccoon x Human!Reader

This request came from my Wattpad account and this was my first attempt to write a romantic oneshot featuring our Favorite trash panda Rocket. Now I took inspiration from the newly opened up Disney attraction after watching some of the videos on youtube GOTG: Mission Breakout so the quotes I have in the beginning belong to the ride I give them FULL credit. Anyways I hope you all enjoy this oh and if you want, fill free to listen to Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation when it comes up in the story :) Besides swearing not really any more warnings for you guys.

____________________________________________________________

"This is all your fault" snarled Gamora.

"Well at least we get a really cool looking sign" stated Peter. Soon golden words came across his glass screen and he whined out, "ahh man they got my name wrong its Star-Lord, dude. Although they do call me the leader. That's pretty cool".

"Yes because you led down here into this trap!"

"Hey, I thought the tour sounded fun"

"What name do they call me?" asked Drax. As words appeared across his cage. Peter leaned in and said out loud.

"Ahh Drax the Destroyer".

"Ha! That is correct".

"They got his name right".

"That's what bothers you!"

"Well sorry, Gamora Daughter of Thanos". Gamora's eyed widened as she saw the words across her cage and she shouted in rage.

"I AM NOT THE DAUGHTER OF THANOS!!" She punched her cage which shocked her with such high levels of voltage it light up her entire cage and caused her to shake her hand in pain.

"You're not supposed to tap the glass" Peter smart-mouthed.

"DON'T EVEN START!"

"Hey! Would you two keep it down over there!?" Rocket shouted to both Peter and Gamora.

"I am Groot" stated Bab Groot.

"I know! They're so inconsiderate".

"I am Groot".

"According to that you're not Groot, you're a Flora Colossus".

"I am Groot!"

"Don't listen to him. You are Groot" stated Rocket.

"Hey you wanna know what they call you Rocket?" asked Peter.

"I know what they call me. Cybernetic, genetically—"

"Pet Rodent!" Drax then let out a boisterous laugh as Rocket exclaimed angrily.

"ALRIGHT! WHOEVER CALLS ME PET WILL ANSWER TO MY FIST!!"

"I thought you'd be more upset about the Rodent"

"Ain't nothing in the universe like me except me!" The Guardians of the Galaxy had once again found themselves in a serious predicament. Having been tricked by the Collector, they have now become a part of his collection on Knowhere for his profit and gain.

The cages they were in were made especially for them since the Collector had known that Rocket was known for escaping from every imprisonment that he's even been put in. The wires in each cage were hooked up to his Massive generator which gave each cage unimaginable power and any touch of it would deliver a painful shock throughout their bodies. The cages were also elevated at the center of his collection and even if they were able to escape, they would only end up falling into an abyss thousands of feet.

They continued to argue amongst themselves when Groot exclaimed at them to be quiet then Gamora fell to her knees helplessness saying.

"I'm in hell". But as she leaned against her cage, she got shocked again which made Drax chuckle. The Guardians knew that unless Rocket could magically get out of his cage and free them, they would forever be at the hands of the Collector and be a freak-show for the rest of their lives.

Or so they thought.

Unbeknownst to the Collector, there was one member of the Guardian's missing from his collection. And she was currently climbing up the walls of the gantry lift with one of Rocket's guns wrapped around her back. To a normal person climbing up 40-50ft of wall would seem impossible but to (y/n) (l/n) it was next to nothing for her.

*1st Person POV*

The name is (y/n) (l/n) one of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Just to get some of the basic information out of the way I am human but I was taken from my home by black market aliens and taken to the same planet where Rocket and Groot were taken and experimented on. The scientists had given me enhanced strength as well as intelligence like my boyfriend. (Wait what?)

Yeah you heard right. Rocket Raccoon is my boyfriend. After helping them throughout our time together in that hellhole, Rocket helped Groot get some water in his system after finding him dehydrated and just before escaping they helped me when I was being beaten by some of the scientists for sport.

Once I was saved, I escaped with them and the three of us teamed up to drag in any bounties to make as much money as we could and throughout that time Rocket and I began to fall for each other. Of course him being the stubborn ass that he is he didn't want to admit it but Groot actually played Matchmaker and set us up on a romantic starlight dinner and that's when the truth finally came out from both of us.

And I'm sure you guys know what happened next after we had made it to Xandar, if not then go do your research.

Anyways, fast forward a few months after we saved the galaxy from Ronan and to make this long story short, Rocket and I had our usual arguments with each other but the last one we had was so bad that I couldn't even bear to look at him anymore and I walked out on him. Next thing I know, Mantis tells me that the Collector has imprisoned him in his collection and here I am now.

Finally after a long climb, I make it to the Generator's level and I see the power source just ahead of me. I then decided now would be a good time to make my grand entrance. I take out my boyfriend's gun and ready it as I stated.

"I live for the simple things, like how much I'm going to enjoy this". I then pull the trigger and the blast hits the power source which then cuts the entire power off then I wire the speakers and proclaimed.

"Attention K-mart shoppers, this is your savior speaking. Please enjoy our program after this commercial breakout". I then plugged in Quill's Walkman and my favorite rocker girl Joan Jett "Bad Reputation" came on as I raced towards the generator then did a superhero burst out of the glass and fell epically down on top of an escaped flying womp rat.

With my friends' weapons and seeing all the creatures now free along with the Collector's security drones trying to fire at everything in sight. I took control of my flying womp rat by using some wires that I keep at my hip for emergencies like this, I made sure that when it had open its disgusting mouth the wire went inside his mouth and like a rein I controlled his flight patterns.

"Hey Gamora!" I tossed her, her sword and she freed herself from one of the tentacles of an Abilisk. Then after jumping out of the mouth of a gargoyle-like giant behemoth, Drax punched its face which threw it backwards I called out his name and tossed him his daggers.

"Thank you (y/n)! You are a cunning warrior and I am honored to fight alongside you!"

"No prob, where's Rocket and Groot?"

"Last I saw them they were with Quill". I nodded then urged my womp rat onward. Flying a few levels higher, I took notice that Rocket and Quill were overwhelmed by droids as well as the small pestering alien rats.

"Babe!" Rocket turned to me and I tossed him his gun which he caught and readied it before saying.

"Oh—yeah!" He then went crazy firing at the drones. I then leaped off my womp rat and tackled one of the drones and punched my bare hand into its main control and ripped it off then quickly rewired it and used it as my own weapon at any oncoming threat.

"Hey (l/n) you didn't happen to grab my blasters did you?"

"Here you punk!" I tossed him his blasters and he went nuts with them before asking me.

"You didn't really think this through did you?"

"Shut up, okay! At least I'm getting you out of here aren't I?"

"I am Groot!" I then saw a vine tentacle grab Groot and take him towards an enhanced Venus fly-trap.

"Groot!" I took a running start then leaped in the air to try and grab him but I was suddenly grabbed by a three headed snake. Its coils wrapped around me tightly squeezing the life out of me. I could almost hear the sound of my bones cracking that's when I heard Rocket's voice say.

"Hey lizard breath! Get your damn coils off'a my girl!" He then fired at the snake's heads which made them rear back and release me but I ended up falling with no womp rat to get on. But it was then Peter grabbed me and said.

"What would you do without me?"

"Apparently be a pancake". Peter then took me back towards Rocket.

"What's the plan now?" Peter asked me.

"We're going home. Mantis is on the upper level waiting for us with the Milano, get everyone together and meet me up there in a few minutes. I still need to grab some things".

"I'm coming too!" Rocket exclaimed.

"No you're going with Peter!"

"You ain't getting rid of me that easily babe now I'm coming whether you like it or not!" Rocket stated firmly as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Fine but let's go now before creepy mc-bad-hairdo sends in more of his drones. We're gonna make some fireworks". I stated as I ran off. Rocket smirked and stated to Peter before running off after me.

"I love it when she talks explosives".

"You got issues Rocket!" Peter called out.

Throughout various levels of the facility, we each set up bombs and activated them while I had the detonator. I also went ahead and grabbed Peter's Walkman since I knew I'd never hear the end of it if that got destroyed, plus I like hearing some of his music. I then met up with the others at the Milano and saw everyone was there except for Rocket.

"Where's Rocket?" I asked.

"I thought he was with you!" said Peter.

"He was but then he disappeared on me as I was grabbing this for you!" I showed Peter his Walkman and he said.

"Yes! (Y/n) you got my Walkman thanks little sis!" He then went to glomp me in a hug but I sidestepped which made him trip as I scouted the area worriedly. If Rocket didn't come back in the next 1:45 those bombs will set off anyway even without the detonator.

Suddenly Rocket appeared flying up with his jetpack and he landed right next to me.

"So we outta here or what?"

"Yes. Let us be relieved of this haunting environment" stated Drax. We all then aboard the Milano and Peter took the wheel and we took off and with the detonator, Rocket and I together pushed the button and watched as the Collector's office blew up in fireworks. Finally we all left Knowhere and left all of that insane mess behind us and set our course for wherever we wanted to go.

"You really came through for us (y/n), thank you" Gamora stated as she placed her hand on my shoulder. I smiled softly and nodded at her. Drax then stood up and very strongly patted my back once and thanked me just like Gamora did. Groot then came up to me and lifted his arms up to me which made me smile softly and pick him up and I held him close to my chest and in turn he yawned cutely and fell asleep.

"But why? Why did you come back?" stated Rocket solemnly. The rest of the Guardians took that statement as their moment to leave. I passed Groot to Gamora and they all left the room leaving Rocket and I to talk alone.

"Because I wanted to".

"But after that fight, everything I said to you about being a—" I knelt down beside him and kissed his nose before taking his face into my hands.

"Don't ruin the moment alright?" He softly grinned then I continued, "We fight, that's what all couples do. Sometimes fights leave to things being said that aren't really true, and Rocket I was angry at the time but I know you, and I know that everything you said wasn't true, and you know me enough to know I didn't mean any of the things I said about you. And no matter how much we fight, or whatever stupid things we may say to each other, I will always come back to you".

"Same here" he said sincerely as his eyes glistened with tears of love and admiration. "God, when did I get so lucky to find someone like you?"

"I ask myself to same thing every day babe". We both smiled at each other and as we leaned in for a kiss, it was then the annoying buzzing voice of Quill stated out-loud.

"No mutant baby making in my ship!"

"DAMNIT QUILL MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!!" Rocket shouted out. I rolled my eyes and took Rocket in my arms and the two of us just cuddled together for the remainder of the ride.

[scozziesquash]

Frank Millet JCT

The 5th and final JCT arrived in Boston for the 2018/19 season ending finale for the Junior Championship Tour. It’s been an epic season, which saw Scozzie success across the country, from Winston’s maiden title in Cincinnati through to Shaam’s West Coast U17 title  aged only 15 through to a total of 27 Scozzie’s qualifying to play at least 1 of the 5 events. The final leg promised to be a showstopper and we had extremely high hopes to save some of the biggest successes until last. 15 Scozzie’s made the journey north to the new ‘bubble’ facility at the Bosse Health Club in Sudbury, MA and you’ll want to read on to hear how all about how the tournament transpired.

Day 1 – Last 32 and Top 16

We started with 15 and incredibly had almost 50% still in the main draw, as 7 players reached quarter finals in 6 different divisions. Shaam was voted MVP of the day, as he won back to back 5 set thrillers against the #8 and #14 ranked players in the US. However, the small missing detail – Shaam is 15 and a freshman… his opponents were 18 and seniors! The young superstar played up a division despite being in his down-year and what an experience it was. There was brilliance, there was tenacity, there were so many good things in both performances, y’all are going wish you were there to see it live. The maturity he presented to win both matches showed glimpses into just how bright his future in the sport will be and we can’t wait to see it being delivered at Gold Nationals in 24 days.

Christian and Winston had extremely impressive R2 performances to reach the quarter finals. Christian gained revenge against the same opponent he lost to at the same stage in last months San Fran JCT, this time a 3-0 demolition to set the record straight. Winston had nicks, tricks and flicks flying, as the spectators watched and appreciated his creativity in awe, as he only dropped 9 points throughout the whole match.

Our seniors Teddy and Lauren grabbed the Day 1 headlines, as after 13 years collectively in the Scozzie program, they displayed arguably their best ever junior performance on Day 1 in Boston. Teddy won his first ever R1 in a JCT at the 11th time trying and then backed it up with an unbelievable display against the US #1 and top seed. He shot the lights out and dominated for 60% of the match. His 11/4 game 3 victory was played at a level never seen in the US before and just couldn’t quite convert the big points  in Games 1,2 and 4 to claim, what would have been, one of the biggest scalps in US Junior history.

Lauren lost out to the #2 seed in R1, but then copied Teddy with a lights out display in R2. She was facing #17 in the Nation and a top 16 seed in this event who had beaten her 3/0 last month. After steamrolling game one 11-1, she incredibly kept building momentum and completed the upset victory winning game four 11-6. It was a special moment witnessing two of our favorite players and soon to be Alums enjoy the success they deserved after so much commitment and deviation to their daily training and the process they bought into 7 years ago. An extremely special day, that won’t be forgotten any time soon!

Meghna, Maya and Devon all produced dominant displays in their R2 matches to win through to the quarter finals and join Winston, Christian, Shaam and John G.

And it didn’t stop there. The headlines kept coming and the performances kept

Improving. Nikhil was next, as he took the eventual semi finalist to 5 games in R1 and was so close to a monster upset in the BU17. Sameer lost back to back five gamers against higher ranked opponents, but put up one heck of a fight and had several valuable learning experiences which solidify his game toward the next level before Gold Nationals next month. Matt W played such a good deceptive tickle boast in G1 , his opponent rolled his ankle and had to withdraw! John completed the 7th quarter final with a big 3/1 victory in R2 and Aiden won his first U13 match (only just turned 11) with a big R2 win over a much older and higher ranked player! 

Day 2 – Quarters 

7 quarters became 3 semis, as a whirlwind morning saw Scozzie’s going to war in their respective quarter final match ups. Christian was Quarter Final MVP, as he had a career win against the current National Champion in an epic 3/2 thriller. He was a warrior and needed every piece of armory against a tenacious and resilient opponent who would never give up. It was a massive win and meant he’d reached his first semi final of the season! In the semis, he came up against the top seed #1 player and was so close to the upset. Tied at 1-1 in games, he had game ball in Game 3 and was extremely unlucky with some unfortunate refereeing calls not to convert and go 2/1 up. Instead, he had a mountain to climb and despite game 4 being 11/9, he just couldn’t quite sneak that either. But what he did accomplish, was the fact he is now as skillful as any U17 and mentally and physically ready to match every one of the top guys.

Winston had another great 3/0 victory and was joined by Meghna, who also steamrolled a top 10 ranked opponent 3/0 to make it 3 semi finalists! Shaam’s body had to endure another 3/2 rollercoaster in his U19 quarter final, but despite a heroic effort, could do the unimaginable and win 3x 3/2 in your down down down year! John lost 3/1 in his Bu15 quarter and Maya and Devon both went down in their GU15 Quarters  against very tough opponents. Big shout of to Nikhil also, who had one of his biggest wins yet, against a long time rival and top 8 U17… he celebrated, we celebrated, it was great!  

Day 2 – Semi Finals 

We heard about Christians heartbreaker, but it didn’t get any tougher than Meghna’s. In the best 2 games from a Scozzie all weekend, Meghna found herself 2-0 up on the famous #1 seed who recently won the prestigious British Junior Open Champion and touted as the best junior ever produced in the US. And her 2-0 lead wasn’t even close, she steamrolled them 11-6, 11-7, it was absolutely incredible to watch. The phenomenal level she had set looked impossible to sustain, but she came oh so close. She had chances in game 5 to seal a historic win, but Marina is a once a generation Champion and she showed exactly why with an extremely gutsy comeback victory.

Winston then carried all the hopes and dreams of Scozzie and he did the absolute opposite, he was 2-0 down in a potential upset Bu13 semi final. But just like Marina, Winston has generational talent and his psychological application to put 2 disappointing games behind him was extremely impressive. He slowly ground his was back and completed the 3/2 comeback win with his trademark finisher – the cross court nick! Two of the best matches of the season and to win 1 of 2 was okay I guess! We would have absolutely gone crazy for 2 wins, but both Meghna and Winston should be so proud of themselves for a truly brilliant day of squash.

Day 3 – Finals Day 

The boy has Win in his name and its almost certainly now ingrained in his nature. Ladies and Gentleman, the Frank Millet U13 JCT Champion – Mr Winston Tang! A 3-1 victory over the #2 seed, was the perfect finale to the weekend. What a season this young man has had. Three JCT’s Championship. A 19-1 win record in JCTs. 11th in the World finish at the British Junior Open. 3rd at the US Open. National Champion? We hope so and no one will deserve it more. He’s an absolute delight on and off the court and the coaches are so proud of him for the season he is currently having. Only the Super Bowl left and its 24 days away. No one will be more prepared than Winston and we can’t wait to see what he can deliver next month!

Incredibly, all the positive energy from Winston’s match spread right through Scozzie Nation, and for the first time in Scozzie history, we had an unbeaten Finals Day! The community was rocking and the kids delivered some for their best ever squash on Presidents Day Monday. The highlight moments:

1. Meghna’s (currently ranked 4) 3-0 win over #3 in the country to cement herself into contention for a potential 3rd National Championship next month. After the heartbreak of her thrilling semi final, what a way to respond. Unbelievable weekend Meghna.

2. Christian’s 3-1 win to join Meghna as 3rd place finisher and join the podium with the Bronze Medal. The resolve both these players showed after being so close to defeating the top seeds in the semis and then to have the resiliency to bounce back immediately, put it all behind and then deliver an even better performance arguable is truly incredible! Two names who may not have been the bookmakers favorites for Nationals prior to the event, but almost certainly are in the conversations now.

3. Devon S had a thriller in the Classic Plate Final of Gu15. It was 4 vs 5 in the country and our girl came out on top! 3-1 and the perfect end to the weekend. As well as sealing 5th, she also guaranteed her spot in GU17 Nationals with the win, as she has her 15th birthday fast approaching. 

We’ve had some memorable weekends since Scozzie was founded in 2011, but this is right up there.  We loved every minute and are so grateful to be part of the squash journey for these incredible kids in our community. We now have 23 massive training days before Nationals and we truly can’t wait. The future is bright! See everyone Wednesday for our Launch Party, can’t wait to share the exciting vision we’ve been working so hard on!

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[junker-town]

THIS WEEK IN SCHADENFREUDE, a Michigan fan has a 3,200-word Big Ten conspiracy theory that stretches back to the days of Bo Schembechler, and a Penn State fan truthers the Big Ten East standings

Your weekly tour of the most incensed in college football internet is back after a bye.

College football’s Week 12 wasn’t the most eventful of the season. It had no huge upsets, and a lot of teams were taking light jogs against bad teams before Rivalry Weekend.

But where there are football games, there are angry people. This post is about them.

First, a quick whip around a few sad fanbases.

BYU (lost at home to UMass)

And fell to 3-9, with the possibility of a 10th loss next week at Hawaii. Let’s sojourn to CougarBoard.com and see how everyone’s taking things.

One BYU fan identified the root of the problem:

The elephant in the room no one is talking about

millennials. Their indifference has doomed this program. It was a lazy and calculated do nothing.

They are to blame.

Perhaps true, insofar as literally all of BYU’s players are millennials. That’s defined as “a person reaching young adulthood in the early 21st century,” which is pretty much all college students, even the ones who’ve done Mormon missions beforehand, a factor that often makes BYU’s roster one of the country’s oldest.

Oklahoma State (lost 45-40 to Kansas State)

And fell out of the Big 12 title chase in the process.

Could the Pokes let Mike Gundy go and steal Tennessee’s guy? OrangePower.com:

As I have said in previous years we will always be a good team with Gundy & crew but will never be a great team. I think playing for Pat Jones shows sometimes. I know he loves OSU he’s just a great head coach. Year after year this always happens. Zac Robinson at the Cotton Bowl., humiliating and that was after the awful UO game. I personally can not name a game where the coaching was great. So I have no issue with him leaving. Let’s go for John Gruden. He’s my top pick otherwise we will just be a good mediocre team.

Iowa (lost 24-15 to Purdue)

Fans got restless, and that was fine with this poster at HawkeyeNation.com:

The fans in the stands Booed and I was with them every time.

There’s at least one Iowan who should never be booed, this person adds:

Didn't like them booing the punter - that's a college kid out there.

Some Iowa fans are pretty much over Kirk Ferentz at this point.

Ferentz Fatigue

It has just worn so many of us down as fans, and there appears to be no light at the end of the tunnel thanks to our AD. I'm going to the doctor tomorrow to see if a Ferentz Fatigue medication exists.

This poster thinks Iowa should suspend the soccer team for a season to finance Ferentz’s buyout and make a change:

Yep. I went there. Its time. Buy him out. Take the financial hit. I dont care. Suspend soccer for a season to do it. Whatever it takes. DO IT.

This is the most vanilla, unimaginative program in the nation. It is boring. It is unproductive.

I wont bring up money, I wont bring up past success. College football is :What have you done lately?" And it hasnt been much.

Ferentz will make $4.5 million per year through 2025, so he’s only got nine years and about $40.5 million left on his deal. And that seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Penn State (beat Nebraska but lost the Big Ten East race)

Because Ohio State clinched in a win over Nebraska. But can I interest you in some Big Ten East standings truthering? I’m not just writing about it. lived it.

that is ... not the tiebreaker

— Alex Kirshner (@alex_kirshner) November 19, 2017

http://pic.twitter.com/TKGBa66MrD

— Rossi (@rossipsu) November 19, 2017

In conference If OSU loss 8-2 PSU/MSU win 8-2

— Rossi (@rossipsu) November 19, 2017

(I didn’t respond for a bit.)

you are not right

— Alex Kirshner (@alex_kirshner) November 19, 2017

big ten announced ohio state clinched

— Alex Kirshner (@alex_kirshner) November 19, 2017

Well they’ve been wrong

— Rossi (@rossipsu) November 19, 2017

Michigan (lost 24-10 at Wisconsin)

That sealed the Wolverines as Big Ten East non-champions yet again.

I’m going to break my own rules at this point, and I’m going to feature something that got published the day before the game, because it’s still relevant.

Let’s head to MichiganNation2.blogspot.com and read the most throughly researched conspiracy theory of the college football season, courtesy of author “Michigan Nation.”

It’s 3,231 words, but here are the essentials of the piece titled, “This Football Season and a Possible Conspiracy by the Big Ten.” The gist: the Big Ten’s got long grudges against Michigan and Jim Harbaugh.

Now I know what many of you may be thinking. Here is another sports fan complaining about calls because his team hasn’t done well. While there are many out there like that, I promise you I am different. And I can prove it. How so? Through some facts and statistics! So now for the numbers and statistics for this season and last….

Some numbers mentioned: Michigan’s first in the Big Ten at racking up penalties (Ohio State is currently the Big Ten’s most penalized team, whether in all games or conference games only, and had more than Michigan entering Week 12) and last in opponent penalties (currently tied with Michigan State for last, two behind Northwestern) and finished near the bottom in penalty stats last year, too (in 2016 Big Ten games, Michigan was No. 9 of 14 at avoiding flags and No. 9 in opponent flags).

More fishy stuff:

Last year against Ohio State, we sacked them 8 times. Yet, they didn’t get called for even 1 holding penalty. And trust me there were holds there. You can re watch the game if you like. Keep in mind that Ohio State also ran the ball 50 times that game. By the way, Ohio State also had a very young offensive line that year. So even though they ran the ball 50 times we still managed to sack them 8 times! Yet, they played such a clean game that they didn’t hold even once.

A similar stat — 13 tackles for loss but no Minnesota holding penalties in a game this year — is mentioned next. And the evidence just continues to mount:

Against Minnesota, one of our players Josh Mettalus was ejected for the game after a scuffle. He threw no punches nor said anything. If you are going to say he was ejected for talking trash then I think there should have been many ejections that game, no? Hell, probably every game. But this wasn’t the first time this has happened. If you are a Michigan fan you well know that we have gotten the worst end of ejections ever since Jimmy got here.

Especially targeting penalties while our opponents have blatantly gotten away with targeting, late hits, and unsportsmanlike. 3 examples out of the top of my head are the Joe Bolden ejection against MSU, the late hit on Brandon Watson by Mike Weber during the 2016 Michigan vs OSU game, and the late hit/targeting that got Wilton Speight hurt this year.

There’s an obligatory section about the J.T. Barrett spot in 2016, and a sense that Michigan’s pile of injuries this year is due to the Big Ten not protecting its players.

You can say that Jim Harbaugh teams are undisciplined. (Although I think 49ers and Stanford players and fans will disagree with that along with those from Michigan). But even so, why is it that for the past 2 years our opponents play such a clean game against us? It’s almost like we bring out the best from every team.

P.S. If you watch the games you will know this isn’t true. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. They play their most undisciplined and dirtiest games against us. And I know why, because they know they will get away with it. Hell, there is a reason why we have had at least 21 guys hurt this year. You can say we are a young team this year. But then explain last year when we had 42 seniors on the team and were one of the most experienced but still got the worst end of everything according to statistics.

We’re all directed to watch this monologue by political talk radio host Steve Deace:

Is Michigan getting screwed vis a vis Ohio State in crossover Big Ten scheduling? PERHAPS.

Now, they say a computer does the scheduling. But I highly doubt that Jim Delaney doesn’t have a significant say in who plays who. For example, Michigan in a 6-year span (2016-2021) will have to play Wisconsin every year (6 times), Iowa 2 times, and Nebraska 2 times as their cross-division teams. We all know that Wisconsin is the toughest team from the division, Iowa is the second toughest, and Nebraska is one of the easiest.

Now how many times did Ohio State get to play Wisconsin and Iowa during this same period? They play Wisconsin and Iowa twice each during that 6-year span. But want to know how many times they play Nebraska? That’s right, 6 times.

Years ago, the Big Ten foresaw how bad Nebraska would be under Mike Riley and intervened to grease Ohio State’s schedule. The Big Ten probably even added the five-time national champion Huskers to the conference for this reason.

Why would the Big Ten do this? It’s simple, and it goes back to Bo Schembechler’s reign:

Rumors have it that Jim Delaney wanted Michigan to do something to increase revenue for the Big Ten, BO and Michigan officials objected because of the great tradition at Michigan. Ever since then Jim Delaney has had a disliking for Michigan. Even though we generate the most revenue and viewership ratings across the country. That disliking was amplified when Coach Jim Harbaugh came into town and objected against playing college football on Friday’s because Friday’s should be reserved for the young guns in high school.

No treatise is complete without a CALL TO ACTION.

1) Put pressure on Warde Manuel and Dr. Mark Schlissel to grow spines and openly address the issue and for them to put pressure on the Big Ten.

I’ve already drafted an email.

2) Start boycotting sponsors of the Big Ten. We will need to make a list of sponsors.

Fuck off, Dr. Pepper.

3) Start a campaign to investigate the Big Ten. Either through the NCAA or private investigators or public investigators.

The hairs on the back of my neck are standing upright.

4) Use our leverage (most viewership and revenue generating school) and possibly leave the Big Ten as a whole.

Michigan to the Pac-12!

5) Consider possible lawsuits that will require dispositions from Big Ten officials and refs as well as require subpoenas into any related documents.

Get Alan Dershowitz on the horn right now.

6) Root against and support opponents of Big Ten teams other than Michigan.

Michigan fans are now rooting for Ohio State this weekend.

7) Start social media campaigns that highlight every bad or missed call by Big Ten officials.

This is already happening, but good. Let’s continue it.

8) Make sure that Jim Harbaugh doesn’t stop his criticism of the officials and Big Ten. That way we can ensure that he isn’t silenced, in sense.

I’m sure he won’t!

9) Have recruits who are fair, honest, and have integrity start to call out the Big Ten refs.

Make the moral case. It will move them.

10) Keep a count of bad/no calls made by officials. Tally it up by their names. Research their backgrounds and any possible allegiances to a specific school and how they treated their rivals or opponents.

This always leads to a just conclusion.

Michigan had four penalties for 28 yards at Wisconsin, compared to four for 35 yards committed by the Badgers.

[ruthellisneda]

7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports

Today many older adults are like Energizer bunnies — they keep going and going, running marathons in their 80s, teaching yoga in their 90s, competing in the National Senior Games and more. Research shows it’s totally fine — dare we say encouraged.

For example, researchers for the Journal of Physiology concluded that masters athletes have “impressive peak performance capability and physiological function capacity.”. Older basketball players maintain their hand-eye coordination to sink free throws, German researchers reported.

If that’s not enough, title master athletes maintain muscle strength, power and endurance that’s above average for their age and continue to perform well in running and jumping events into old age, according to a study in the European Review of Aging and Physical Activity.

There’s also the long list of benefits of staying active, including better memory, the need for fewer prescriptions and being less likely to be admitted to the ER.

Meet seven inspiring 60-plus athletes who prove that you should never let age limit you:

PHILLIP CIANCIOLO, BODYBUILDER, 60

Cianciolo first started lifting weights in middle school to put on weight for football. When the pigskin plan didn’t pan out, he turned to wrestling in high school and then joined a powerlifting team in college. He competed — and won — locally and regionally during those years and after, with his last appearance at the 1981 Mr. America competition. Or so he thought. Cianciolo continued to “live the bodybuilding lifestyle” and decided to compete again this year. “I knew it would help me with my pain, hurt and betrayal I felt [from a recent divorce] and get me clear-headed and goal-oriented. It worked,” he says. In his most recent competition — against guys not even half his age — he placed first in Masters Over 60, second in Masters Over 50 and fourth in the Open.

His fitness advice: “Getting in shape is not a means to an end; it’s a lifestyle that demands good daily habits. You have to make time and get your workout in your daily schedule, letting nothing deter you. Excuses are a cop out!”

JOHN NERGER, CYCLIST, 60

A life-long runner, Nerger “discovered that eventually age starts taking its course on one’s body,” and turned to cycling in 2015 to substitute for, and complement, his running. He’s had the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa — a seven-day, 400-plus-mile ride across the state — on his fitness bucket list since 1979. He finally crossed it off last year, starting the race on his 60th birthday even though he had crashed a week before. “I pressed on and am sure glad I did. It was a super experience, one I hope to repeat in the future,” he says.

His fitness advice: “If you hit a wall, an injury or life change, be prepared to adapt your fitness regimen. You may be an avid runner now, but you may need to adapt later in life as I did to stay active. I see too many who used to be very active and fit do little today because their primary sport or fitness regimen no longer works for them. I’m an example of what the average person can do when making fitness and exercise a priority.”

PAT GALLANT-CHARETTE, MARATHON SWIMMER, 66

At 46, Gallant-Charette considered herself a spectator mom. “The extent of my exercise was going for a walk in the neighborhood with other neighborhood moms,” she says. Then tragedy struck her family: Her brother, 34, died suddenly of a heart attack. He’d won the Peaks to Portland, a 2.4-mile ocean swim in Maine twice, and soon after his passing, Gallant-Charette’s 16-year-old son said he wanted to do the swim as a tribute to his uncle. “I was deeply touched by his words,” she says. “I said to him, ‘That’s so sweet, I wish I could do the same.’ He looked at me and said, ‘You can, if you try.’” So she began training and soon fell in love with swimming. She’s now completed five of the most challenging swims in the world, set a world record and is participating in the Oceans Seven Challenge, which is considered open-water swimming’s Seven Summits.

Her fitness advice: “Twenty years ago I never imagined that I was going to become a marathon swimmer and go on to set a few world records. My young son’s encouraging words, ‘You can, if you try’ inspired me to try something that was unimaginable. I would encourage others to try something new in life because it may bring them down a road they never imagined.”

READ MORE > SCIENCE SAYS RUNNING HELPS YOU LIVE LONGER

RON GELLIS, CROSSFIT, 69

Gellis has been active most of his life — he played college soccer, has run 20 marathons and was an avid underwater photographer. Still, when he went to watch his son’s CrossFit workout about nine years ago, he thought his kid was crazy. But he loved the challenge and the community, joined a box and has since competed in the CrossFit Games three times. Gellis, a sports psychologist, also uses CrossFit to help addicts. He started the Integrated Recovery Foundation, which addresses the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual challenges of veterans, first responders and anyone experiencing PTSD, traumatic brain injury and addictive or co-occurring mental health disorders.

His fitness advice: “Honor rest days. Some of the athletes that I see, it’s like they have fallen in love. They approach [fitness] like they’ve met that perfect partner, and they fall head over heels and don’t pace themselves. And then they burn out. Even when you are young, your body still needs to rest.”

LOU SELF, KITEBOARDER, 75

Self has enjoyed many water sports in his life, including sailing on a Hobie Cat and windsurfing. At 58, he decided to try kiteboarding on a trip to South Padre Island, Texas, when the winds weren’t good for windsurfing. “I liked the challenge and the little bit of the unexpected,” Self says. “I’ve ridden in winds from 10–40 miles per hour, and it’s cool being the oldest guy on the water.” Although kiteboarding has taken a backseat to his stand-up comedy, he still takes one tropical trip a year to get out on the water.

His fitness advice: “Develop a lifestyle. I always have been pretty active, not in sports, but in everyday life. I avoid elevators and go up the stairs. I may cut it off at five floors, but otherwise I run up stairs.”

JACINTO BONILLA, CROSSFIT, 77

In 2006, Bonilla read about CrossFit in a magazine. Since he was already doing bodybuilding, he searched online to find someone in New York doing this new workout. He joined some guys in Central Park who opened a box a few months later and has been doing WODs since. “I like that the workouts go from one exercise to the next without rest. Sometimes you feel like you will die, but you keep going and have the best workout and get in phenomenal shape,” he says. He holds the distinction of being the oldest ever to compete at the CrossFit Games three times — when he was 69, 72 and 73.

His fitness advice: “A lot of people are afraid of CrossFit, but if you start with baby steps, you will be fine. Make sure you learn the exercises, learn proper form and have a good coach.”

PAUL TETRICK, CYCLIST, 86

About 30 years ago, Tetrick realized he couldn’t keep running. “I had some bad knees, so I got on a bike,” he says. “I found out that I did it fairly well, so I thought I might as well put some of that to good use.” And indeed he has, winning more than 14 national titles. But he’s more proud of his granddaughter, Alison, who is a professional cyclist for Cylance Pro Cycling. “When she was on her way home from her last year of college, she came through Denver, and there was a bike race the same day I was doing one. She was doing triathlons, and I encouraged her to enter. From that point on, she started riding competitively,” Tetrick says.

His fitness advice: “You need to stay fit so you can do things. If you just sit around, you end up not being able to do what you like to do.”

GEAR UP FOR YOUR NEXT WORKOUT

> Gym Clothes for Men > Gym Clothes for Women > Gym Clothes for Boys > Gym Clothes for Girls

The post 7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports appeared first on Under Armour.

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[neilmillerne]

7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports

Today many older adults are like Energizer bunnies — they keep going and going, running marathons in their 80s, teaching yoga in their 90s, competing in the National Senior Games and more. Research shows it’s totally fine — dare we say encouraged.

For example, researchers for the Journal of Physiology concluded that masters athletes have “impressive peak performance capability and physiological function capacity.”. Older basketball players maintain their hand-eye coordination to sink free throws, German researchers reported.

If that’s not enough, title master athletes maintain muscle strength, power and endurance that’s above average for their age and continue to perform well in running and jumping events into old age, according to a study in the European Review of Aging and Physical Activity.

There’s also the long list of benefits of staying active, including better memory, the need for fewer prescriptions and being less likely to be admitted to the ER.

Meet seven inspiring 60-plus athletes who prove that you should never let age limit you:

PHILLIP CIANCIOLO, BODYBUILDER, 60

Cianciolo first started lifting weights in middle school to put on weight for football. When the pigskin plan didn’t pan out, he turned to wrestling in high school and then joined a powerlifting team in college. He competed — and won — locally and regionally during those years and after, with his last appearance at the 1981 Mr. America competition. Or so he thought. Cianciolo continued to “live the bodybuilding lifestyle” and decided to compete again this year. “I knew it would help me with my pain, hurt and betrayal I felt [from a recent divorce] and get me clear-headed and goal-oriented. It worked,” he says. In his most recent competition — against guys not even half his age — he placed first in Masters Over 60, second in Masters Over 50 and fourth in the Open.

His fitness advice: “Getting in shape is not a means to an end; it’s a lifestyle that demands good daily habits. You have to make time and get your workout in your daily schedule, letting nothing deter you. Excuses are a cop out!”

JOHN NERGER, CYCLIST, 60

A life-long runner, Nerger “discovered that eventually age starts taking its course on one’s body,” and turned to cycling in 2015 to substitute for, and complement, his running. He’s had the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa — a seven-day, 400-plus-mile ride across the state — on his fitness bucket list since 1979. He finally crossed it off last year, starting the race on his 60th birthday even though he had crashed a week before. “I pressed on and am sure glad I did. It was a super experience, one I hope to repeat in the future,” he says.

His fitness advice: “If you hit a wall, an injury or life change, be prepared to adapt your fitness regimen. You may be an avid runner now, but you may need to adapt later in life as I did to stay active. I see too many who used to be very active and fit do little today because their primary sport or fitness regimen no longer works for them. I’m an example of what the average person can do when making fitness and exercise a priority.”

PAT GALLANT-CHARETTE, MARATHON SWIMMER, 66

At 46, Gallant-Charette considered herself a spectator mom. “The extent of my exercise was going for a walk in the neighborhood with other neighborhood moms,” she says. Then tragedy struck her family: Her brother, 34, died suddenly of a heart attack. He’d won the Peaks to Portland, a 2.4-mile ocean swim in Maine twice, and soon after his passing, Gallant-Charette’s 16-year-old son said he wanted to do the swim as a tribute to his uncle. “I was deeply touched by his words,” she says. “I said to him, ‘That’s so sweet, I wish I could do the same.’ He looked at me and said, ‘You can, if you try.’” So she began training and soon fell in love with swimming. She’s now completed five of the most challenging swims in the world, set a world record and is participating in the Oceans Seven Challenge, which is considered open-water swimming’s Seven Summits.

Her fitness advice: “Twenty years ago I never imagined that I was going to become a marathon swimmer and go on to set a few world records. My young son’s encouraging words, ‘You can, if you try’ inspired me to try something that was unimaginable. I would encourage others to try something new in life because it may bring them down a road they never imagined.”

READ MORE > SCIENCE SAYS RUNNING HELPS YOU LIVE LONGER

RON GELLIS, CROSSFIT, 69

Gellis has been active most of his life — he played college soccer, has run 20 marathons and was an avid underwater photographer. Still, when he went to watch his son’s CrossFit workout about nine years ago, he thought his kid was crazy. But he loved the challenge and the community, joined a box and has since competed in the CrossFit Games three times. Gellis, a sports psychologist, also uses CrossFit to help addicts. He started the Integrated Recovery Foundation, which addresses the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual challenges of veterans, first responders and anyone experiencing PTSD, traumatic brain injury and addictive or co-occurring mental health disorders.

His fitness advice: “Honor rest days. Some of the athletes that I see, it’s like they have fallen in love. They approach [fitness] like they’ve met that perfect partner, and they fall head over heels and don’t pace themselves. And then they burn out. Even when you are young, your body still needs to rest.”

LOU SELF, KITEBOARDER, 75

Self has enjoyed many water sports in his life, including sailing on a Hobie Cat and windsurfing. At 58, he decided to try kiteboarding on a trip to South Padre Island, Texas, when the winds weren’t good for windsurfing. “I liked the challenge and the little bit of the unexpected,” Self says. “I’ve ridden in winds from 10–40 miles per hour, and it’s cool being the oldest guy on the water.” Although kiteboarding has taken a backseat to his stand-up comedy, he still takes one tropical trip a year to get out on the water.

His fitness advice: “Develop a lifestyle. I always have been pretty active, not in sports, but in everyday life. I avoid elevators and go up the stairs. I may cut it off at five floors, but otherwise I run up stairs.”

JACINTO BONILLA, CROSSFIT, 77

In 2006, Bonilla read about CrossFit in a magazine. Since he was already doing bodybuilding, he searched online to find someone in New York doing this new workout. He joined some guys in Central Park who opened a box a few months later and has been doing WODs since. “I like that the workouts go from one exercise to the next without rest. Sometimes you feel like you will die, but you keep going and have the best workout and get in phenomenal shape,” he says. He holds the distinction of being the oldest ever to compete at the CrossFit Games three times — when he was 69, 72 and 73.

His fitness advice: “A lot of people are afraid of CrossFit, but if you start with baby steps, you will be fine. Make sure you learn the exercises, learn proper form and have a good coach.”

PAUL TETRICK, CYCLIST, 86

About 30 years ago, Tetrick realized he couldn’t keep running. “I had some bad knees, so I got on a bike,” he says. “I found out that I did it fairly well, so I thought I might as well put some of that to good use.” And indeed he has, winning more than 14 national titles. But he’s more proud of his granddaughter, Alison, who is a professional cyclist for Cylance Pro Cycling. “When she was on her way home from her last year of college, she came through Denver, and there was a bike race the same day I was doing one. She was doing triathlons, and I encouraged her to enter. From that point on, she started riding competitively,” Tetrick says.

His fitness advice: “You need to stay fit so you can do things. If you just sit around, you end up not being able to do what you like to do.”

GEAR UP FOR YOUR NEXT WORKOUT

> Gym Clothes for Men > Gym Clothes for Women > Gym Clothes for Boys > Gym Clothes for Girls

The post 7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports appeared first on Under Armour.

http://ift.tt/2sYkYXb

[joshuabradleyn]

7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports

Today many older adults are like Energizer bunnies — they keep going and going, running marathons in their 80s, teaching yoga in their 90s, competing in the National Senior Games and more. Research shows it’s totally fine — dare we say encouraged.

For example, researchers for the Journal of Physiology concluded that masters athletes have “impressive peak performance capability and physiological function capacity.”. Older basketball players maintain their hand-eye coordination to sink free throws, German researchers reported.

If that’s not enough, title master athletes maintain muscle strength, power and endurance that’s above average for their age and continue to perform well in running and jumping events into old age, according to a study in the European Review of Aging and Physical Activity.

There’s also the long list of benefits of staying active, including better memory, the need for fewer prescriptions and being less likely to be admitted to the ER.

Meet seven inspiring 60-plus athletes who prove that you should never let age limit you:

PHILLIP CIANCIOLO, BODYBUILDER, 60

Cianciolo first started lifting weights in middle school to put on weight for football. When the pigskin plan didn’t pan out, he turned to wrestling in high school and then joined a powerlifting team in college. He competed — and won — locally and regionally during those years and after, with his last appearance at the 1981 Mr. America competition. Or so he thought. Cianciolo continued to “live the bodybuilding lifestyle” and decided to compete again this year. “I knew it would help me with my pain, hurt and betrayal I felt [from a recent divorce] and get me clear-headed and goal-oriented. It worked,” he says. In his most recent competition — against guys not even half his age — he placed first in Masters Over 60, second in Masters Over 50 and fourth in the Open.

His fitness advice: “Getting in shape is not a means to an end; it’s a lifestyle that demands good daily habits. You have to make time and get your workout in your daily schedule, letting nothing deter you. Excuses are a cop out!”

JOHN NERGER, CYCLIST, 60

A life-long runner, Nerger “discovered that eventually age starts taking its course on one’s body,” and turned to cycling in 2015 to substitute for, and complement, his running. He’s had the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa — a seven-day, 400-plus-mile ride across the state — on his fitness bucket list since 1979. He finally crossed it off last year, starting the race on his 60th birthday even though he had crashed a week before. “I pressed on and am sure glad I did. It was a super experience, one I hope to repeat in the future,” he says.

His fitness advice: “If you hit a wall, an injury or life change, be prepared to adapt your fitness regimen. You may be an avid runner now, but you may need to adapt later in life as I did to stay active. I see too many who used to be very active and fit do little today because their primary sport or fitness regimen no longer works for them. I’m an example of what the average person can do when making fitness and exercise a priority.”

PAT GALLANT-CHARETTE, MARATHON SWIMMER, 66

At 46, Gallant-Charette considered herself a spectator mom. “The extent of my exercise was going for a walk in the neighborhood with other neighborhood moms,” she says. Then tragedy struck her family: Her brother, 34, died suddenly of a heart attack. He’d won the Peaks to Portland, a 2.4-mile ocean swim in Maine twice, and soon after his passing, Gallant-Charette’s 16-year-old son said he wanted to do the swim as a tribute to his uncle. “I was deeply touched by his words,” she says. “I said to him, ‘That’s so sweet, I wish I could do the same.’ He looked at me and said, ‘You can, if you try.’” So she began training and soon fell in love with swimming. She’s now completed five of the most challenging swims in the world, set a world record and is participating in the Oceans Seven Challenge, which is considered open-water swimming’s Seven Summits.

Her fitness advice: “Twenty years ago I never imagined that I was going to become a marathon swimmer and go on to set a few world records. My young son’s encouraging words, ‘You can, if you try’ inspired me to try something that was unimaginable. I would encourage others to try something new in life because it may bring them down a road they never imagined.”

READ MORE > SCIENCE SAYS RUNNING HELPS YOU LIVE LONGER

RON GELLIS, CROSSFIT, 69

Gellis has been active most of his life — he played college soccer, has run 20 marathons and was an avid underwater photographer. Still, when he went to watch his son’s CrossFit workout about nine years ago, he thought his kid was crazy. But he loved the challenge and the community, joined a box and has since competed in the CrossFit Games three times. Gellis, a sports psychologist, also uses CrossFit to help addicts. He started the Integrated Recovery Foundation, which addresses the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual challenges of veterans, first responders and anyone experiencing PTSD, traumatic brain injury and addictive or co-occurring mental health disorders.

His fitness advice: “Honor rest days. Some of the athletes that I see, it’s like they have fallen in love. They approach [fitness] like they’ve met that perfect partner, and they fall head over heels and don’t pace themselves. And then they burn out. Even when you are young, your body still needs to rest.”

LOU SELF, KITEBOARDER, 75

Self has enjoyed many water sports in his life, including sailing on a Hobie Cat and windsurfing. At 58, he decided to try kiteboarding on a trip to South Padre Island, Texas, when the winds weren’t good for windsurfing. “I liked the challenge and the little bit of the unexpected,” Self says. “I’ve ridden in winds from 10–40 miles per hour, and it’s cool being the oldest guy on the water.” Although kiteboarding has taken a backseat to his stand-up comedy, he still takes one tropical trip a year to get out on the water.

His fitness advice: “Develop a lifestyle. I always have been pretty active, not in sports, but in everyday life. I avoid elevators and go up the stairs. I may cut it off at five floors, but otherwise I run up stairs.”

JACINTO BONILLA, CROSSFIT, 77

In 2006, Bonilla read about CrossFit in a magazine. Since he was already doing bodybuilding, he searched online to find someone in New York doing this new workout. He joined some guys in Central Park who opened a box a few months later and has been doing WODs since. “I like that the workouts go from one exercise to the next without rest. Sometimes you feel like you will die, but you keep going and have the best workout and get in phenomenal shape,” he says. He holds the distinction of being the oldest ever to compete at the CrossFit Games three times — when he was 69, 72 and 73.

His fitness advice: “A lot of people are afraid of CrossFit, but if you start with baby steps, you will be fine. Make sure you learn the exercises, learn proper form and have a good coach.”

PAUL TETRICK, CYCLIST, 86

About 30 years ago, Tetrick realized he couldn’t keep running. “I had some bad knees, so I got on a bike,” he says. “I found out that I did it fairly well, so I thought I might as well put some of that to good use.” And indeed he has, winning more than 14 national titles. But he’s more proud of his granddaughter, Alison, who is a professional cyclist for Cylance Pro Cycling. “When she was on her way home from her last year of college, she came through Denver, and there was a bike race the same day I was doing one. She was doing triathlons, and I encouraged her to enter. From that point on, she started riding competitively,” Tetrick says.

His fitness advice: “You need to stay fit so you can do things. If you just sit around, you end up not being able to do what you like to do.”

GEAR UP FOR YOUR NEXT WORKOUT

> Gym Clothes for Men > Gym Clothes for Women > Gym Clothes for Boys > Gym Clothes for Girls

The post 7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports appeared first on Under Armour.

http://ift.tt/2sYkYXb

[albertcaldwellne]

7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports

Today many older adults are like Energizer bunnies — they keep going and going, running marathons in their 80s, teaching yoga in their 90s, competing in the National Senior Games and more. Research shows it’s totally fine — dare we say encouraged.

For example, researchers for the Journal of Physiology concluded that masters athletes have “impressive peak performance capability and physiological function capacity.”. Older basketball players maintain their hand-eye coordination to sink free throws, German researchers reported.

If that’s not enough, title master athletes maintain muscle strength, power and endurance that’s above average for their age and continue to perform well in running and jumping events into old age, according to a study in the European Review of Aging and Physical Activity.

There’s also the long list of benefits of staying active, including better memory, the need for fewer prescriptions and being less likely to be admitted to the ER.

Meet seven inspiring 60-plus athletes who prove that you should never let age limit you:

PHILLIP CIANCIOLO, BODYBUILDER, 60

Cianciolo first started lifting weights in middle school to put on weight for football. When the pigskin plan didn’t pan out, he turned to wrestling in high school and then joined a powerlifting team in college. He competed — and won — locally and regionally during those years and after, with his last appearance at the 1981 Mr. America competition. Or so he thought. Cianciolo continued to “live the bodybuilding lifestyle” and decided to compete again this year. “I knew it would help me with my pain, hurt and betrayal I felt [from a recent divorce] and get me clear-headed and goal-oriented. It worked,” he says. In his most recent competition — against guys not even half his age — he placed first in Masters Over 60, second in Masters Over 50 and fourth in the Open.

His fitness advice: “Getting in shape is not a means to an end; it’s a lifestyle that demands good daily habits. You have to make time and get your workout in your daily schedule, letting nothing deter you. Excuses are a cop out!”

JOHN NERGER, CYCLIST, 60

A life-long runner, Nerger “discovered that eventually age starts taking its course on one’s body,” and turned to cycling in 2015 to substitute for, and complement, his running. He’s had the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa — a seven-day, 400-plus-mile ride across the state — on his fitness bucket list since 1979. He finally crossed it off last year, starting the race on his 60th birthday even though he had crashed a week before. “I pressed on and am sure glad I did. It was a super experience, one I hope to repeat in the future,” he says.

His fitness advice: “If you hit a wall, an injury or life change, be prepared to adapt your fitness regimen. You may be an avid runner now, but you may need to adapt later in life as I did to stay active. I see too many who used to be very active and fit do little today because their primary sport or fitness regimen no longer works for them. I’m an example of what the average person can do when making fitness and exercise a priority.”

PAT GALLANT-CHARETTE, MARATHON SWIMMER, 66

At 46, Gallant-Charette considered herself a spectator mom. “The extent of my exercise was going for a walk in the neighborhood with other neighborhood moms,” she says. Then tragedy struck her family: Her brother, 34, died suddenly of a heart attack. He’d won the Peaks to Portland, a 2.4-mile ocean swim in Maine twice, and soon after his passing, Gallant-Charette’s 16-year-old son said he wanted to do the swim as a tribute to his uncle. “I was deeply touched by his words,” she says. “I said to him, ‘That’s so sweet, I wish I could do the same.’ He looked at me and said, ‘You can, if you try.’” So she began training and soon fell in love with swimming. She’s now completed five of the most challenging swims in the world, set a world record and is participating in the Oceans Seven Challenge, which is considered open-water swimming’s Seven Summits.

Her fitness advice: “Twenty years ago I never imagined that I was going to become a marathon swimmer and go on to set a few world records. My young son’s encouraging words, ‘You can, if you try’ inspired me to try something that was unimaginable. I would encourage others to try something new in life because it may bring them down a road they never imagined.”

READ MORE > SCIENCE SAYS RUNNING HELPS YOU LIVE LONGER

RON GELLIS, CROSSFIT, 69

Gellis has been active most of his life — he played college soccer, has run 20 marathons and was an avid underwater photographer. Still, when he went to watch his son’s CrossFit workout about nine years ago, he thought his kid was crazy. But he loved the challenge and the community, joined a box and has since competed in the CrossFit Games three times. Gellis, a sports psychologist, also uses CrossFit to help addicts. He started the Integrated Recovery Foundation, which addresses the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual challenges of veterans, first responders and anyone experiencing PTSD, traumatic brain injury and addictive or co-occurring mental health disorders.

His fitness advice: “Honor rest days. Some of the athletes that I see, it’s like they have fallen in love. They approach [fitness] like they’ve met that perfect partner, and they fall head over heels and don’t pace themselves. And then they burn out. Even when you are young, your body still needs to rest.”

LOU SELF, KITEBOARDER, 75

Self has enjoyed many water sports in his life, including sailing on a Hobie Cat and windsurfing. At 58, he decided to try kiteboarding on a trip to South Padre Island, Texas, when the winds weren’t good for windsurfing. “I liked the challenge and the little bit of the unexpected,” Self says. “I’ve ridden in winds from 10–40 miles per hour, and it’s cool being the oldest guy on the water.” Although kiteboarding has taken a backseat to his stand-up comedy, he still takes one tropical trip a year to get out on the water.

His fitness advice: “Develop a lifestyle. I always have been pretty active, not in sports, but in everyday life. I avoid elevators and go up the stairs. I may cut it off at five floors, but otherwise I run up stairs.”

JACINTO BONILLA, CROSSFIT, 77

In 2006, Bonilla read about CrossFit in a magazine. Since he was already doing bodybuilding, he searched online to find someone in New York doing this new workout. He joined some guys in Central Park who opened a box a few months later and has been doing WODs since. “I like that the workouts go from one exercise to the next without rest. Sometimes you feel like you will die, but you keep going and have the best workout and get in phenomenal shape,” he says. He holds the distinction of being the oldest ever to compete at the CrossFit Games three times — when he was 69, 72 and 73.

His fitness advice: “A lot of people are afraid of CrossFit, but if you start with baby steps, you will be fine. Make sure you learn the exercises, learn proper form and have a good coach.”

PAUL TETRICK, CYCLIST, 86

About 30 years ago, Tetrick realized he couldn’t keep running. “I had some bad knees, so I got on a bike,” he says. “I found out that I did it fairly well, so I thought I might as well put some of that to good use.” And indeed he has, winning more than 14 national titles. But he’s more proud of his granddaughter, Alison, who is a professional cyclist for Cylance Pro Cycling. “When she was on her way home from her last year of college, she came through Denver, and there was a bike race the same day I was doing one. She was doing triathlons, and I encouraged her to enter. From that point on, she started riding competitively,” Tetrick says.

His fitness advice: “You need to stay fit so you can do things. If you just sit around, you end up not being able to do what you like to do.”

GEAR UP FOR YOUR NEXT WORKOUT

> Gym Clothes for Men > Gym Clothes for Women > Gym Clothes for Boys > Gym Clothes for Girls

The post 7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports appeared first on Under Armour.

http://ift.tt/2sYkYXb

[johnclapperne]

7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports

Today many older adults are like Energizer bunnies — they keep going and going, running marathons in their 80s, teaching yoga in their 90s, competing in the National Senior Games and more. Research shows it’s totally fine — dare we say encouraged.

For example, researchers for the Journal of Physiology concluded that masters athletes have “impressive peak performance capability and physiological function capacity.”. Older basketball players maintain their hand-eye coordination to sink free throws, German researchers reported.

If that’s not enough, title master athletes maintain muscle strength, power and endurance that’s above average for their age and continue to perform well in running and jumping events into old age, according to a study in the European Review of Aging and Physical Activity.

There’s also the long list of benefits of staying active, including better memory, the need for fewer prescriptions and being less likely to be admitted to the ER.

Meet seven inspiring 60-plus athletes who prove that you should never let age limit you:

PHILLIP CIANCIOLO, BODYBUILDER, 60

Cianciolo first started lifting weights in middle school to put on weight for football. When the pigskin plan didn’t pan out, he turned to wrestling in high school and then joined a powerlifting team in college. He competed — and won — locally and regionally during those years and after, with his last appearance at the 1981 Mr. America competition. Or so he thought. Cianciolo continued to “live the bodybuilding lifestyle” and decided to compete again this year. “I knew it would help me with my pain, hurt and betrayal I felt [from a recent divorce] and get me clear-headed and goal-oriented. It worked,” he says. In his most recent competition — against guys not even half his age — he placed first in Masters Over 60, second in Masters Over 50 and fourth in the Open.

His fitness advice: “Getting in shape is not a means to an end; it’s a lifestyle that demands good daily habits. You have to make time and get your workout in your daily schedule, letting nothing deter you. Excuses are a cop out!”

JOHN NERGER, CYCLIST, 60

A life-long runner, Nerger “discovered that eventually age starts taking its course on one’s body,” and turned to cycling in 2015 to substitute for, and complement, his running. He’s had the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa — a seven-day, 400-plus-mile ride across the state — on his fitness bucket list since 1979. He finally crossed it off last year, starting the race on his 60th birthday even though he had crashed a week before. “I pressed on and am sure glad I did. It was a super experience, one I hope to repeat in the future,” he says.

His fitness advice: “If you hit a wall, an injury or life change, be prepared to adapt your fitness regimen. You may be an avid runner now, but you may need to adapt later in life as I did to stay active. I see too many who used to be very active and fit do little today because their primary sport or fitness regimen no longer works for them. I’m an example of what the average person can do when making fitness and exercise a priority.”

PAT GALLANT-CHARETTE, MARATHON SWIMMER, 66

At 46, Gallant-Charette considered herself a spectator mom. “The extent of my exercise was going for a walk in the neighborhood with other neighborhood moms,” she says. Then tragedy struck her family: Her brother, 34, died suddenly of a heart attack. He’d won the Peaks to Portland, a 2.4-mile ocean swim in Maine twice, and soon after his passing, Gallant-Charette’s 16-year-old son said he wanted to do the swim as a tribute to his uncle. “I was deeply touched by his words,” she says. “I said to him, ‘That’s so sweet, I wish I could do the same.’ He looked at me and said, ‘You can, if you try.’” So she began training and soon fell in love with swimming. She’s now completed five of the most challenging swims in the world, set a world record and is participating in the Oceans Seven Challenge, which is considered open-water swimming’s Seven Summits.

Her fitness advice: “Twenty years ago I never imagined that I was going to become a marathon swimmer and go on to set a few world records. My young son’s encouraging words, ‘You can, if you try’ inspired me to try something that was unimaginable. I would encourage others to try something new in life because it may bring them down a road they never imagined.”

READ MORE > SCIENCE SAYS RUNNING HELPS YOU LIVE LONGER

RON GELLIS, CROSSFIT, 69

Gellis has been active most of his life — he played college soccer, has run 20 marathons and was an avid underwater photographer. Still, when he went to watch his son’s CrossFit workout about nine years ago, he thought his kid was crazy. But he loved the challenge and the community, joined a box and has since competed in the CrossFit Games three times. Gellis, a sports psychologist, also uses CrossFit to help addicts. He started the Integrated Recovery Foundation, which addresses the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual challenges of veterans, first responders and anyone experiencing PTSD, traumatic brain injury and addictive or co-occurring mental health disorders.

His fitness advice: “Honor rest days. Some of the athletes that I see, it’s like they have fallen in love. They approach [fitness] like they’ve met that perfect partner, and they fall head over heels and don’t pace themselves. And then they burn out. Even when you are young, your body still needs to rest.”

LOU SELF, KITEBOARDER, 75

Self has enjoyed many water sports in his life, including sailing on a Hobie Cat and windsurfing. At 58, he decided to try kiteboarding on a trip to South Padre Island, Texas, when the winds weren’t good for windsurfing. “I liked the challenge and the little bit of the unexpected,” Self says. “I’ve ridden in winds from 10–40 miles per hour, and it’s cool being the oldest guy on the water.” Although kiteboarding has taken a backseat to his stand-up comedy, he still takes one tropical trip a year to get out on the water.

His fitness advice: “Develop a lifestyle. I always have been pretty active, not in sports, but in everyday life. I avoid elevators and go up the stairs. I may cut it off at five floors, but otherwise I run up stairs.”

JACINTO BONILLA, CROSSFIT, 77

In 2006, Bonilla read about CrossFit in a magazine. Since he was already doing bodybuilding, he searched online to find someone in New York doing this new workout. He joined some guys in Central Park who opened a box a few months later and has been doing WODs since. “I like that the workouts go from one exercise to the next without rest. Sometimes you feel like you will die, but you keep going and have the best workout and get in phenomenal shape,” he says. He holds the distinction of being the oldest ever to compete at the CrossFit Games three times — when he was 69, 72 and 73.

His fitness advice: “A lot of people are afraid of CrossFit, but if you start with baby steps, you will be fine. Make sure you learn the exercises, learn proper form and have a good coach.”

PAUL TETRICK, CYCLIST, 86

About 30 years ago, Tetrick realized he couldn’t keep running. “I had some bad knees, so I got on a bike,” he says. “I found out that I did it fairly well, so I thought I might as well put some of that to good use.” And indeed he has, winning more than 14 national titles. But he’s more proud of his granddaughter, Alison, who is a professional cyclist for Cylance Pro Cycling. “When she was on her way home from her last year of college, she came through Denver, and there was a bike race the same day I was doing one. She was doing triathlons, and I encouraged her to enter. From that point on, she started riding competitively,” Tetrick says.

His fitness advice: “You need to stay fit so you can do things. If you just sit around, you end up not being able to do what you like to do.”

GEAR UP FOR YOUR NEXT WORKOUT

> Gym Clothes for Men > Gym Clothes for Women > Gym Clothes for Boys > Gym Clothes for Girls

The post 7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports appeared first on Under Armour.

http://ift.tt/2sYkYXb

[almajonesnjna]

7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports

Today many older adults are like Energizer bunnies — they keep going and going, running marathons in their 80s, teaching yoga in their 90s, competing in the National Senior Games and more. Research shows it’s totally fine — dare we say encouraged.

For example, researchers for the Journal of Physiology concluded that masters athletes have “impressive peak performance capability and physiological function capacity.”. Older basketball players maintain their hand-eye coordination to sink free throws, German researchers reported.

If that’s not enough, title master athletes maintain muscle strength, power and endurance that’s above average for their age and continue to perform well in running and jumping events into old age, according to a study in the European Review of Aging and Physical Activity.

There’s also the long list of benefits of staying active, including better memory, the need for fewer prescriptions and being less likely to be admitted to the ER.

Meet seven inspiring 60-plus athletes who prove that you should never let age limit you:

PHILLIP CIANCIOLO, BODYBUILDER, 60

Cianciolo first started lifting weights in middle school to put on weight for football. When the pigskin plan didn’t pan out, he turned to wrestling in high school and then joined a powerlifting team in college. He competed — and won — locally and regionally during those years and after, with his last appearance at the 1981 Mr. America competition. Or so he thought. Cianciolo continued to “live the bodybuilding lifestyle” and decided to compete again this year. “I knew it would help me with my pain, hurt and betrayal I felt [from a recent divorce] and get me clear-headed and goal-oriented. It worked,” he says. In his most recent competition — against guys not even half his age — he placed first in Masters Over 60, second in Masters Over 50 and fourth in the Open.

His fitness advice: “Getting in shape is not a means to an end; it’s a lifestyle that demands good daily habits. You have to make time and get your workout in your daily schedule, letting nothing deter you. Excuses are a cop out!”

JOHN NERGER, CYCLIST, 60

A life-long runner, Nerger “discovered that eventually age starts taking its course on one’s body,” and turned to cycling in 2015 to substitute for, and complement, his running. He’s had the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa — a seven-day, 400-plus-mile ride across the state — on his fitness bucket list since 1979. He finally crossed it off last year, starting the race on his 60th birthday even though he had crashed a week before. “I pressed on and am sure glad I did. It was a super experience, one I hope to repeat in the future,” he says.

His fitness advice: “If you hit a wall, an injury or life change, be prepared to adapt your fitness regimen. You may be an avid runner now, but you may need to adapt later in life as I did to stay active. I see too many who used to be very active and fit do little today because their primary sport or fitness regimen no longer works for them. I’m an example of what the average person can do when making fitness and exercise a priority.”

PAT GALLANT-CHARETTE, MARATHON SWIMMER, 66

At 46, Gallant-Charette considered herself a spectator mom. “The extent of my exercise was going for a walk in the neighborhood with other neighborhood moms,” she says. Then tragedy struck her family: Her brother, 34, died suddenly of a heart attack. He’d won the Peaks to Portland, a 2.4-mile ocean swim in Maine twice, and soon after his passing, Gallant-Charette’s 16-year-old son said he wanted to do the swim as a tribute to his uncle. “I was deeply touched by his words,” she says. “I said to him, ‘That’s so sweet, I wish I could do the same.’ He looked at me and said, ‘You can, if you try.’” So she began training and soon fell in love with swimming. She’s now completed five of the most challenging swims in the world, set a world record and is participating in the Oceans Seven Challenge, which is considered open-water swimming’s Seven Summits.

Her fitness advice: “Twenty years ago I never imagined that I was going to become a marathon swimmer and go on to set a few world records. My young son’s encouraging words, ‘You can, if you try’ inspired me to try something that was unimaginable. I would encourage others to try something new in life because it may bring them down a road they never imagined.”

READ MORE > SCIENCE SAYS RUNNING HELPS YOU LIVE LONGER

RON GELLIS, CROSSFIT, 69

Gellis has been active most of his life — he played college soccer, has run 20 marathons and was an avid underwater photographer. Still, when he went to watch his son’s CrossFit workout about nine years ago, he thought his kid was crazy. But he loved the challenge and the community, joined a box and has since competed in the CrossFit Games three times. Gellis, a sports psychologist, also uses CrossFit to help addicts. He started the Integrated Recovery Foundation, which addresses the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual challenges of veterans, first responders and anyone experiencing PTSD, traumatic brain injury and addictive or co-occurring mental health disorders.

His fitness advice: “Honor rest days. Some of the athletes that I see, it’s like they have fallen in love. They approach [fitness] like they’ve met that perfect partner, and they fall head over heels and don’t pace themselves. And then they burn out. Even when you are young, your body still needs to rest.”

LOU SELF, KITEBOARDER, 75

Self has enjoyed many water sports in his life, including sailing on a Hobie Cat and windsurfing. At 58, he decided to try kiteboarding on a trip to South Padre Island, Texas, when the winds weren’t good for windsurfing. “I liked the challenge and the little bit of the unexpected,” Self says. “I’ve ridden in winds from 10–40 miles per hour, and it’s cool being the oldest guy on the water.” Although kiteboarding has taken a backseat to his stand-up comedy, he still takes one tropical trip a year to get out on the water.

His fitness advice: “Develop a lifestyle. I always have been pretty active, not in sports, but in everyday life. I avoid elevators and go up the stairs. I may cut it off at five floors, but otherwise I run up stairs.”

JACINTO BONILLA, CROSSFIT, 77

In 2006, Bonilla read about CrossFit in a magazine. Since he was already doing bodybuilding, he searched online to find someone in New York doing this new workout. He joined some guys in Central Park who opened a box a few months later and has been doing WODs since. “I like that the workouts go from one exercise to the next without rest. Sometimes you feel like you will die, but you keep going and have the best workout and get in phenomenal shape,” he says. He holds the distinction of being the oldest ever to compete at the CrossFit Games three times — when he was 69, 72 and 73.

His fitness advice: “A lot of people are afraid of CrossFit, but if you start with baby steps, you will be fine. Make sure you learn the exercises, learn proper form and have a good coach.”

PAUL TETRICK, CYCLIST, 86

About 30 years ago, Tetrick realized he couldn’t keep running. “I had some bad knees, so I got on a bike,” he says. “I found out that I did it fairly well, so I thought I might as well put some of that to good use.” And indeed he has, winning more than 14 national titles. But he’s more proud of his granddaughter, Alison, who is a professional cyclist for Cylance Pro Cycling. “When she was on her way home from her last year of college, she came through Denver, and there was a bike race the same day I was doing one. She was doing triathlons, and I encouraged her to enter. From that point on, she started riding competitively,” Tetrick says.

His fitness advice: “You need to stay fit so you can do things. If you just sit around, you end up not being able to do what you like to do.”

GEAR UP FOR YOUR NEXT WORKOUT

> Gym Clothes for Men > Gym Clothes for Women > Gym Clothes for Boys > Gym Clothes for Girls

The post 7 Active Senior Citizens Who Are Crushing Their Sports appeared first on Under Armour.

http://ift.tt/2sYkYXb

[welovetheherb]

Elevation Gain: Cannabis and the Pacific Crest Trail

New Post has been published on https://theherbnews.com/elevation-gain-cannabis-and-the-pacific-crest-trail.html

Elevation Gain: Cannabis and the Pacific Crest Trail

Welcome to Elevation Gain, the place we’ll pair cannabis with climbing, backpacking, tenting, and all the best facets of the nice outside … all summer season lengthy. Check out all Elevation Gain articles here.

According to the Pacific Crest Trail Association, four,879 folks in complete have accomplished the mammoth 2,600-mile hike throughout the West Coast. Finishing the PCT is normally a feat that stays firmly unchecked on many individuals’s bucket lists, and for good cause. There are some sections that take months to surmount, and every and day-after-day brings its personal pains and obstacles. So whereas the PCT isn’t essentially a pipe dream, it’s fairly a problem.

However, it’s not utterly unimaginable, and those that have completed it stroll away with a brand new understanding of their very own bodily and psychological strengths. Furthermore, cannabis can show to be a welcome supply of natural companionship alongside the manner, soothing sore muscle groups, sparking friendships, banishing boredom mile after mile, and elevating your psychological state and total expertise all through the journey.

RELATED STORY

Cannabis in the Great Outdoors: Tips, Tricks, and Advice for Hiking, Backpacking and More

In order to see what the Pacific Crest Trail is like for a devoted cannabis client, Leafly acquired in contact with Hadley Krenkel, a bona-fide path blazer with a deep love for the outside, and a aptitude for pairing nature with cannabis. He completed the path in 2016 with loads of tales to share and tricks to cross alongside to different cannabis-consuming hikers. Here’s what Krenkel needed to say.

(Courtesy of Hadley Krenkel)

Leafly: How did you first get into climbing?

Krenkel: I don’t even keep in mind how I acquired into climbing—most likely by way of my dad, he labored for the forest providers, so I form of grew up in the woods and outside in Eastern Washington. I’m from Spokane and grew up about 15 minutes from Mt. Spokane on the east aspect there. My dad and mom took me out after I was in diapers—out in the woods and stuff—and I actually began entering into it about 4 or 5 years in the past alone. I finished after I was a teen and working amuck, however needed to finally begin doing one thing productive so I began pushing to hike once more. I only in the near past acquired into sport climbing, so I’m entering into that now.

How lengthy did it take you to finish the Pacific Crest Trail?

It took me slightly below six months. I left April 25th and completed October 9th.

(Courtesy of Hadley Krenkel)

Were you in a position to cease at cannabis retailers alongside the manner?

The solely store I used to be in a position to cease at was in Oregon—form of simply exterior of Hood River. Wait, I additionally made a cease on the Washington aspect. Outside of the Cascades round the dam. Unfortunately, I overlook the names of them; however there are one or two round Washington and they’re the solely ones for miles.

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Since there wasn’t a lot in manner of dispensaries whereas on the path, how had been you in a position to sustain your provide when it acquired low?

It was undoubtedly a panic space in California. The good weed I acquired out of California was by way of the PCT Team Green, which is form of like a secret handshake or membership. They have folks alongside the manner in sure cities. I acquired some actually good edibles off a man and they’re simply principally weed-friendly path angels that promote weed or will make it easier to out.

They had been additionally an excellent assist as a result of everybody had heard that the water path was dry. Coming out of Cajon Pass, which is a good climb after the desert, there was no water at the prime. It was a 27 mile stretch of desert with no water. A man heard us speaking and we had been smoking weed at a sizzling tub in a Best Western (I had damage my ankle and we had been staying the evening so I might heal). The man, who was additionally in the sizzling tub, simply occurred to be a path angel for the PCT Team Green and he was like, “Oh man, I can go up there and make sure you guys have water!” So that was very cool of him—he acquired us water and edibles.

Everybody takes care of everyone on the market, it’s nearly like a unique society that most individuals aren’t actually used to—everybody has that “we’re all in this together” angle. More of a hippie-commune angle I suppose. That was the most wonderful half for me. You could be anxious about working out of this or that, and the fears from it ended up being unfounded as a result of it all the time labored itself out.

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(Courtesy of Hadley Krenkel)

What strains and merchandise did you utilize?

I’m largely an indica smoker as a result of I’ve acquired ADHD so dangerous that after I smoke indicas it’s nearly like the common particular person’s sativa. So I largely smoked quite a lot of indicas. Not precisely certain what strains, however there was a combination.

How had been you consuming your cannabis? Pipes? Vapes?

I largely smoked common flower out of a glass pipe and then I had some dabs too—I had a bit mini dab rig. Through the Sierras dabs largely helped with the altitude and nausea that comes with it. I used to be largely smoking concentrates like wax and shatter then.

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(Courtesy of Hadley Krenkel)

In your opinion, what was the greatest a part of the path?

Definitely the Sierras. The better part in Washington would have been the Goat Rock space—that was most likely the most scenic.

There are some elements of the path that normally embody hitchhiking—is that one thing you probably did? If so, any memorable experiences?

Well I used to be touring with a buddy and most of the time we acquired a journey actual fast as a result of, you recognize—he’s a blonde with curls, so.

(Courtesy of Hadley Krenkel)

Were you ever cautious of consuming cannabis on the path?

No, I’m a reasonably large danger taker on the subject of that. I did get a bit anxious round Yosemite simply due to the feds [Yosemite is not state run since it is a national park]. So, that was a bit questionable. In the begin, no one had weed and after all that makes you nervous and questioning what you bought your self into. I needed to convey weed down with me to San Diego and I most likely went by way of an eighth on that first day—on each nook I simply stopped and smoked to take pleasure in the surroundings. There had been lots of people that stopped and smoked with me.

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It sounds such as you bumped into fairly just a few different cannabis shoppers. How was that?

Yeah, I believe my look and every part had folks take a look at me and suppose, “This guy definitely smokes weed,” which might be a constructive or unfavorable relying on the place you’re at. But folks had been fairly cool about it. It was a mixture of brief classes and truly spending time smoking with folks. There was one man named Daniel—referred to as “Frogman” on the path—he was about the solely man there that was as ready as I used to be, cannabis-wise. So we smoked lots and he was a cool man and we form of saved one another well-supplied. 

(Courtesy of Hadley Krenkel)

What would have been totally different about doing the path with out cannabis?

Honestly, the path is such a psychological recreation that I believe cannabis helps with the psychological facets and the pain. I’m not gonna lie—you’re in ache the complete manner. It’s a battle of how a lot your physique can actually deal with. Cannabis helped calm these nerves and the anxiety of being on the market. It additionally had an excellent social facet too. I imply, you’re on the market and there’s folks round, however generally you’re not likely socializing in a private manner since everybody is targeted on the finish objective and finish vacation spot.

They’re actually not ones to take a seat and socialize throughout the day, however I discovered that the weed actually helped convey out the social aspect—I did meet quite a lot of nice folks alongside the manner and created lifelong relationships throughout the world. There was even a lady from Belgium that I hiked with for some time. It was actually cool—she smoked weed too. I imply, most of the folks you’ll by no means suspect of smoking weed lastly felt that they had been free sufficient and weren’t going to be judged about smoking cannabis.

No one goes to know what actually occurs so the complete stigma of “weed is bad” and “I’m going to get in trouble for smoking weed” and every part else form of goes out the window whenever you get on the market.

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Any ideas for others eager about making an attempt the path?

I believe my greatest suggestion is to plan forward. If you’re a weed smoker you need to have a plan similar to you’ll together with your meals. I wouldn’t assure you’re going to search out something when you’re on the market alongside the manner. I imply, there may be stuff like PCT Team Green that can make it easier to, however these cities are few and far between.

Personally, I most likely went by way of a few pound and a half of flower and near an oz of dabs on the whole path—there just about wasn’t a day that I went with out weed in order that’s one thing to consider.

Have you ever hiked the PCT? Tell us about your experiences in the feedback under!