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acheronist · 1 year ago

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can you make sparknotes for the Red Wings players they are all the same person to me (sorry)

dw my darling i got you 🫡 here's the regular 23 man roster we've been skating this szn

forwards (+ this is going to be the number they wear on their jerseys, not their age)

jt compher (37) - won a cup whilst he was on the colorado avalanche (red wings long time beloathed nemesis rivals team), attended umich hockey with larkin and copp. deadpan dry asf tenderhearted weirdo. very good at hockey i like him

andrew copp (18) - 🎶get up and g-get down, 911 is a joke in your town🎶, local michigander boy playing for his hometown team, attended umich with compher and larkin, kind of fuck ugly but he's gritty and has a lot of love in his heart so we like him

alex debrincat (93) - another local michigander boy playing for his hometown team, really good at hockey, we rescued him from the ottawa senators (red wings short term/very recent beloathed nemesis rival team) and he likes it here more, haha lol lmao even. good at hockey!! kind of a sniper. also kind of fighty which is hilarious because he's about 9 inches shorter than the average nhl player. new dad and really loves it, brings his family to games all of the time. and he was our all star games representative this year !

robby fabbri (14) - how are you going to be a short italian-canadian kind of bisexual professional hockey player who mixes metals and has a standing eyebrow appointment. please pick a struggle. won the stanley cup w/ st louis and then got abandoned for being 'injury prone' and was sent to detroit in a 1 for 1 trade (the most humiliating of all nhl player trades imo). he and larkin and rasmussen are the only men left standing from the red wing's historic worst-ever season in 2019 where every game they looked like they were going to kill themselves.

christian fischer (36) - new bestie alert! huge locker room guy. okay at hockey (more of a playmaker than a goalscorer) but he's so fucking sillygoofy and funny i love to see this guy on my team. spent most of his career in arizona iirc, and basically he and gostisbehere came from the coyotes directly to the red wings as a buy one get one free deal.

patrick kane (88) - narcissict. arrogant. flop. old man who can't score anymore. history of assault and violent misdemeanors he never was punished for because he was the nhl's boytoy a decade ago. i hope he contracts sepsis from an unforeseen complication with his hip surgery and takes a long walk off of the rencen's roof and lands in the detroit river where he is frozen and then chopped up by an industrial ship's propeller. fuck this guy.

klim kostin (24) - beloved enforcer. used to skate for the edmonton oilers. his entire game is based around slotting in on the third/fourth line when necessary and whenever someone gets hurt he comes out swinging to establish the fact that the red wings are not to be fucked with. he doesn't start fights but he does finish them. notoriously big hearted and silly with his teammates. coincidentally wearing the same number as the red wings most famous enforcer from the 1980s, bob probert. my guard dog boy i love u

dylan larkin (71) - michigan native, umich grad, was the previous captain's rookie, the beating heart and soul of the team, carrying the weight of a century year old hockey team's legacy and all the ghosts that come along with that, never been to playoffs and hasn't won the cup yet. literally the miserable boyking of metro detroit. he's had to suffer a lot for absolutely no reason, but still manages to come and be our best and most important player every single night.

david perron (57) - he's old by nhl standards i.e. he's in his late thirties and has been playing for like a decade, so he knows his way around an nhl rink. french canadian enough that he's got an accent. big heart and soul guy, which i really wasn't expecting tbh! he's always standing up for teammates and has gotten in a few noteworthy fights (dylan got hurt so badly this szn that dp went rage-blind and ended up getting suspended for six games after fighting the opponents who hurt dylan)

michael rasmussen (27) - big fuck off scary intimidating canadian hockey lad. kind of awkward and bizarre. also kind of a doll if i can b honest. he's very shy and quiet in interviews but always has an insane serial killer look in his eyes whenever he's on the ice. was drafted high and then i suspect he had a lot of mental struggles about not being the player he was advertised/told to be? but the last few years he's stepped away from that role he thought he should be and started being himself and playing in a way that was obviously more comfortable, and he's taken huge huge productive strides and improved a lot. moose ily

lucas raymond (23) - our youngest babiest player!! he was our highest draft pick in a looooooooong time, and immediately went from prospect training camp -> regular nhl player, which is fucking crazy. he's exceptionally good at hockey, and has a reputation for coming in clutch with goals we need to win games. besties with moritz seider + jake walman + joe veleno.

daniel sprong (17) - i had no idea what to think of this guy at first but now i can't believe he's only been here for one season. it feels like he's been a wing for ages. he's one of our sniper goalscorers, except he shoots the puck with a lil too much sauce + with a feral desperation of a man afraid he was never going to score a goal again, every single time, which i love. also he stalks twitter and runs a team GC to forward memes that the fandom makes to the guys

joe veleno (90) - if bambi was a closeted italian canadian hockey player. wears an evil eye bracelet and also a crucifix? very meek and easy to bully, tbh, not our most productive goalscorer but also somehow he's very crucial to the emotional well being of the younger half of the roster? hes sillygoofy and a sweetheart and does his best every night which is all we can ask tbh. besties with lucas raymond + moritz seider + jake walman.

defensemen

ben chiarot (8) - resident manwhore dilf fashionista who knows he's sexy and loves to be a bitch on the ice. loves to be annoying and distracting @ the opponents during plays so the red wings can have space to move.

shayne gostisbehere (41) - escaped florida man turned into an nhler, sleeper agent defensive weapon that people tend to forget about. always busting his ass up and down the blue line. always looks sopping wet and really sad though? loves to shoot the puck and sometimes it even makes it to the net!

justin holl (3) - i'm hesistant to describe him as "good at hockey" but the boys seem to love him + he's silly enough to engage in the locker room antics + i've noticed him dealing out more hits lately which is always good.

olli maatta (2) - very very very steady in the most boring way possible. does his job and not an ounce more than necessary LOL but it's fine because he's good at what he does? a classic defensive defenseman.

jeff petry (46) - not… good? at hockey? but he is also a michigan native playing for the hometown team, and he's a veteran nhler, and he's a gritty sort of guy, so i like having him. he grew up in detroit proper, as well, because his dad played on the detroit tigers baseball team, so there's a lot of michigan sports lore going on in that household. also his kids are silly + love to come to games

moritz seider (53) - my sweet perfect darling defenseman prodigy. won the calder trophy because he was the most special and talented rookie in his first year in the nhl. breaking team records for defensemen at an alarming rate. was dylan's rookie, and is also frequently mentored by red wings defense legends. he's not a rookie anymore but you can still see how much responsibility he's shouldering and how much he takes after dylan's role modeled behavior/team legacy standards. good at handling tough responsibility vs staying silly anyways. hes my shining star and i luv him. generally he's paired up with jake walman on defense and they're a little bit married because of it. besties with lucas raymond + jake walman + joe veleno.

jake walman (96) - another guy who st louis abandoned and then ended up on the red wings and said "i want to spend my entire life and career in this city" . extremely silly. known for hitting the griddy whenever he scores important goals. big on video games + making tiktoks. tremendous locker room vibes guy, and very emotional and serious about proving his place on detroit's blue line. generally he's paired up with moritz seider on defense and they're a little bit married because of it. besties with moritz seider + lucas raymond + joe veleno.

goalies

ville husso (35) - looks like a haunted little porcelain doll. always sopping wet for some reason. very softspoken and european. mid-good level goalie, kind of needs to prove himself a bit now that alex lyon's gone completely off the shits and taken over starter goalie privileges, but i feel like there's no sense of animosity or competition between them? ville just strikes me as genuinely someone who's delighted and proud of his tandem partners for their successes, even if it comes at his expense / losing some of his chances to get ahead

james reimer (47) - idc about this man lol. he's either a very good goalie or an atrociously horrible goalie and you dont know what it'll be until the games already happening. passively homophobic christian behavior as well which i do not like to see. but he's also a veteran nhl player so in the beginning of the szn he was getting more opportunity than alex or ville.

alex lyon (34) - spent his entire career in the minor league/being traded between franchises where there wasn't really a space or need for him. got on the radar after keeping the florida panthers in their playoff race before losing, and then FL traded him to us. we've had goaltending agonies for years and then he's rolled up to detroit with something to fucking PROVE because he thought his hockey career was about to be over so he's skating every night like its do or die. after reimer and husso both were injured tho he finally got his chance to shine and oh baby he's been shining. unbelievably good at goaltending. big heart, very genuine, very funny, basically a male model as well, been to therapy and actually got something out of it, i would go to war for this man if he needed me to

#drw

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hawkeyefierce · 1 year ago

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Hi! My friend and I are getting into hockey and we’re kind of wondering what the vibe on Max Domi is?? I’m kind of seeing mixed messages about him so we were wondering why you like him so we can figure out what his deal is and if we should try to pay attention to him more on the leafs. Thanks!

hi anon!! just wanna say before i get going that i’m in love with this ask and you by extension for asking, and i’m sorry this took me so long!

now on to the propaganda (this is long i’m not sorry)

i’m obligated to preface this by saying i’m hugely biased as a Leafs fan who grew up in Southern Ontario. my dad has always been a pretty big Tie Domi fan, so liking Max just seemed like a natural continuation of that.

baby Max with Mats Sundin, then-captain of the Leafs. he’s just a little guy,,

born March 2nd, 1995, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, one month before Tie was traded (back) to the Leafs, Max spent his childhood in Mississauga, Ontario, roughly half an hour west of Toronto. at the age of 12, following some health complications at a hockey tournament in Detroit, blood work revealed that Max had type 1 diabetes and celiac disease.

not the end of the world, clearly, but a pretty significant shock for a kid with aspirations of greatness. of course, he was able to manage it, with time, and when i finally read his book i’ll tell y’all more about it i promise.

these pictures make me emotional,, a couple of Domis, a couple of decades apart,,, except Max looks about 200% cuntier

anyway

scored a hatty in his OHL debut (slay). won consecutive OHL championships with the London Knights in 2012 and 2013 (double slay). selected 12th overall by the Phoenix (now Arizona) Coyotes, and signed a three year ELC (!). won gold with Team Canada at the 2015 WJC, and was named the tournament’s best forward (huge W). traded to the Montréal Canadiens in 2018, to the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2020, to the Carolina Hurricanes (via the Florida Panthers) at the trade deadline of March 31st 2022, to the Chicago Blackhawks in July of 2022, to the Dallas Stars in March 2023, and finally signed as a free agent to our beloved Toronto Maple Leafs on July 2nd 2023. he’s been on seven different NHL teams since he was drafted.

sadly, as i’ve only been a hockey fan for one calendar year, i cannot provide much insight into his time with NHL teams other than the Leafs. i have ordered and am waiting for his book to come in so i can better rotate him in my mind, but i encourage anyone who knows more about his other teams’ lore to add to this post or send me what you know, so i can share it with the world. (pls i wanna know everything about him ever)

what i can say is that him and Mitch Marner were teammates on the London Knights for two seasons, (13-14 and 14-15), the second of which saw Max as captain and Mitch as an alternate captain. the season after, Mitch was named captain in Max’s stead. seeing them back together on the Leafs brings joy to my little London Knights heart.

now back to him as a Leaf.

the current Leafs points leaders, as of December 30th, are as follows:

William Nylander - 48P (17G 31A)

Auston Matthews - 44P (29G 15A)

Mitch Marner - 38P (14G 24A)

John Tavares - 31P (11G 20A)

Morgan Rielly - 27P (4G 23A)

Max Domi - 21P (3G 18A)

the first five of these are pretty much to be expected, but there’s my close good friend Max Domi right there too :) he’s doing his part, and even if he’s not the biggest scorer, assists are just as important and valuable :) if i have to kill y’all with positivity for this i will :) i love him dearly :)

also, he currently sits at 389 career points, and he’s nowhere near done, while Tie Domi earned 245 points in his entire career of 1020 games. nobody can say shit to me about him not living up to his dad’s legacy (Note: Tie also sits at third in NHL history for penalty minutes with 3515, but that’s a stat nobody will ever surpass. ever. the current PIM leader in the NHL is Corey Perry, and he only has 1392.)

and now i’m not about to sit here and pretend i know how to quantify the skills of an NHL player, let alone describe them in great detail. i do not. however, what i do know is that i love watching him play and make plays. in my eyes, he is a good player, and this is the Max Domi Propaganda Blog so if you want something less biased i can’t help you, sorry :’)

this love began in a preseason game against the Habs, on Oct 2nd. his first game as a Leaf in Toronto, he scores a tip-in against his former team, and he shrugs it off like NBD. for those of you who were following me at the time, you know i was not normal about it then and i am not normal about it now. i think about that celly every goddamn day.

much to my great sorrow, they Leafed this game up and lost in OT 5-4. but either way, this was the moment that definitively kicked off the Rick eastoncowan Domishka era.

and the only time Max ever seems to get a scoring chance, it’s either on a breakaway or from a spot that would have been absolutely NASTY if it went in. my mans only wants sexy goals, which is a stance i respect immensely.

his first regular season goal… didn’t give him any points. it was beautiful, and a game winner, but since it happened in a shootout, it didn’t count towards his points totals. personally, i think this is bullshit, but now is neither the time nor the place for me to get into my issues with some of the NHL’s rules. (Nov 10, 2023, Flames @ Leafs)

Domishka bardownski SO winner,,, you were so beautiful and so unappreciated but i will never forget you </3

now.

Max’s first real goal as a Leaf.

for those of you who followed me at the time, you may recall this post:

a post that the Hockey Gods took to heart

and obviously i followed through. what do you think i am, some kind of quitter?

and, again, unfortunately, we Leafed that one up, too. we lost it in OT again, so still no Domi belt pic for Rick :(

now i’m not going to go back and gif all 18 of his assists, because i don’t think y’all care quite that much about Visual Proof of all of them. for your convenience, though, i did go back and track down whose goals he had assisted on, and the results aren’t super surprising IMO

Calle Järnkrok, Nick Robertson (assisted on 5 each)

Matthew Knies (assisted on 4)

William Nylander, Morgan Rielly, Mitch Marner, Timothy Liljegren (assisted on 1 each)

anyway, now for what is quite possibly my favourite game that i didn’t actually get to watch live.

December 16, 2023, Penguins @ Leafs, a decisive 7-0 victory.

it was also a 3 point night for Max, two of which helped to complete Matthew Knies’ Gordie Howe hat trick, the first since Daniel Winnik in 2015. but a goal and an assist are only two parts of it, the third being a fight. a fight which Knies initiated against John Ludvig after he knocked out yet another of Max’s front teeth with his stick. a fight which was Knies’ first ever. i’m still mad i didn’t see this happen live, but i’ve rewatched the game in its entirety twice, and the highlights too many times to count. this game sparked my undying love for the 23-11-16 line, which is a line i still pray keefe will bring back.

and so, we have a goal and a fight, and we have an assist to finish off the hat trick, and none of it would have happened without Max :)

and speaking of fights, Max has had a couple of em himself in his time as a Leaf so far. granted, if you ask hockeyfights dot com, he didn’t win either of them, but that’s not what matters. what matters is that he looked beautiful doing it, whether it was against Ian Cole (VAN) or Sam Bennett (FLA), especially with the fun added bonus of him flexing his full head of hair at Bennett’s bald dome. as an aside, i fucking hate Sam Bennett, so Max trying to fight him was… well it made me feel things. all i’m gonna say.

max’s third goal was also gorgeous. stunning. amazing. another beautiful bardown, the sound of which lives on in my dreams.

this is getting far longer than it really needs to be, so i’ll take a step back and give you my true, honest thoughts.

Max Domi has been a very helpful player for the Leafs since he got here. he obviously has the drive to play here and to play well here, and 21 points is nothing to be ashamed of. you know who else has 21 points as of me writing this? Alex Ovechkin. and now i’m not saying they are players of the same caliber, but Max is 6th on the Leafs in points, and Ovi is tied for first on the Caps. 21 points is still 21 points, no matter where in the standings someone is. Max was born to be a Leaf, and nothing makes me happier than to see him here and thriving on the team he’s loved since he was a kid. he takes shots, blocks shots, defends his boys and is defended right back in turn.

and i would not be Rick eastoncowan if i didn’t mention that i think he is hot. like stupid hot. especially without his teeth. fuck, the heart wants what the heart wants, and damn if my heart doesn’t want this tiny toothless idiot.

#ask #anonymous #toronto maple leafs #max domi #rick's gifs #domi primer #this took me far too long #but finally it is here #the 1600+ word max domi primer #heavily biased because this is my writing #and y'all have to expect that from me at this point #anyway please enjoy #i made gifs special #this was made with so much love

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howdoyousleep3 · 1 year ago

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HI MAMA + MEMBERS OF THE USA

warehouse daddy’s parents + sisters came down (across???) from arizona over the weekend and i Officially Met His Parents and siblings 😅 i was nerVOUS AS FUCKKKKKKK JFC

we went to this hibachi place saturday night and allow me to say that his parents are in love with meeeee, his younger sister declared me her best friend (we’re the same age and she’s my fortnite buddy now) his older sister also loves me (warehouse daddy is the middle child of 3) YALL SHE TAUGHT ME HOW TO *FLAWLESSLY* DO WINGED EYELINER SO IM AN OFFICIAL BADDIE™️ NOW

his mom knows how to knit AND crochet, and as she witnessed alfhskdhd i am always cold, SHES KNITTING ME FUCKING BLANKETS GUYS AND FUCKING HATS SHE MEASURED MY HEAD LMAO. I LOVE HER

and his dad, we had to talk shit about our beloved new orleans saints lmao

it’s my year for thanksgiving amongst my fam vam this year so i’m thinking it’s time for everyone to meet each other 👀👀👀

YALL I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS MAN, WE’VE BEEN DATING FOR ALMOST A YEAR NOW CAN YOU BELIEVE IT??????

HAPPY SCREECH WITH ME

-🍑 THE HAPPILY IN LOVE SIMP

I teared up when I read this last night and I'm tearing up again reading it before I post it!!! 😭 Everything is so perfect about this, peach!!! Perfect!! 😭❤️x 1,000,000!!!

#askK #peach the simp #warehouse daddy update #we'll have to throw a tumblr party when you get engaged 😭

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thingsmk1120sayz · 10 months ago

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NHL teams favorite players

Arizona( i really don't have one but

the Yotes are cool Arizona forever)

Anaheim ( I really don't have one)

Boston: David Pastrnak

Chicago: I'm so sorry you are on the team Nick Foligno

Calgary: (i really don't have one)

Buffalo: Alex Tuch forver

Columbus: (I don't have one)

Colorado: Nathan Mackinnon

Edmonton: (I miss tyler ennis)

Detroit: I'm sorry your on that team Olli Maatta

New Jersey: John Marino (ghost of Pittsburghs past)

Carolina: come home to Pittsburgh Jake please

Dallas: Miro Heiskanen

Los Angeles: Anze Kopitar

Florda: this is where all the ex Sabres and blues are

Islanders: (I really don't have one)

Rangers: (why is everyone obsessed with Matt Rempe)

Minnesota: Marcus Foligno, Jon Merrill, Jake Middleton, Mats Zuccarello....

San Jose: Justin Bailey

Montreal: Jean Béliveaus ghost

Nashville: ROR!

Seattle: Brandon Tanev my beloved

Ottawa: (I only watched them when tyler ennis was on the team for a brief period in time)

Philadelphia: Travis Konecny and Sean Couturier are hiding from gritty

St. Louis: (I miss 2019 blues)

Vancouver: why is Quinn Hughes so sad and Tyler Myers is so tall

Tampa bay: Conor Sheary

Pittsburgh: Sidney Crosby is the GOAT, followed by Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang

Minnesota: i forgot about flower he is the goat (but in French)

Winnipeg: Alex Lafallo went to my dad's high school

Vegas: trash

Toronto: Mitch Marner is ok

Washington: what ever happened to Nick Backstrom?

SLC: (You shouldn't even exist)

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opticsel · 1 month ago

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i saw the tags about mazeway and i've never ever read it i need to know what makes it so bad you've got me curious

okay fucking BUCKLE UP then, cause you’re in for a treat! since I legally cannot do anything by halves (adhd) get ready for an essay of a post methodically breaking down everything that sucks about this book so you never need to do yourself the disservice of experiencing it. if you happen to like this book and had a great, fulfilling time reading it, that's great! feel free to tell me all about how i'm wrong and why, because I did not :) spoilers ahead, all ye who enter here, although once again NOT A BOOK RECOMMENDATION !!!!

(i will say there are some actual recommendations at the end though. if anyone feels like scrolling for approximately seven years)

a little meet-the-author before we begin: jack williamson was born in Arizona in 1908. actually I say Arizona, but at the time Arizona wasn't a state yet- it was still a territory. his career as a science fiction writer started when he was 20, and he is (rightfully) considered one of the deans of sci-fi. along with writers like isaac asimov, williamson was among the writers who developed a lot of the new-wave concepts and tropes that are common today.

Mazeway was published in 1990, when our beloved author was 82. It is 262 pages long, and has 43 chapters. It was supposed to be the first in a series, and a second book was allegedly drafted, but from about this time to the end of his life Williamson flitted from project to project, which means several of his later books are also the first in a series which was never written. By then Mr Williamson was getting old and, according to my dad, "kind of losing his mind," which. With how this book ended I could definitely see that being true! And personally I am very glad this one ended up being a stand-alone.

Let me start by saying that this book is not all bad, it's just an overwhelming majority bad. Solid 83% bad. This actually makes it more frustrating, because those little nuggets of light in the darkness give me a glimpse into what the book could have been, and honestly it could have been pretty good. Actually I know you came here to hear about why this is NOT a book recommendation but I'm going to start with what I liked and get to the terrible steaming shit piles later.

First off, the concept for the overall main plot is pretty interesting. I couldn't engage with it as much as I would have liked (for Reasons), but the pitch my dad gave me when he recommended it to me made it sound like something I would like. In broad strokes, we follow a young human man named Benn who lives on a space station located somewhere far from earth. Despite the fact that humanity was rescued from earth after the skynet collapsed, the intergalactic alliance/organization taking care of them doesn't consider their species a part of the alliance, because they have never had a member of their species successfully complete the Game of Blade and Stone (henceforth referred to as the Game), so obviously they are incompetent and can't be allowed to make their own laws, have their own government, decide where to work/live, etc. Of course Benn decides that he is going to to go the planet Stone where the Game is held and compete so humanity can become a valued member of intergalactic society. And yeah by now in the year of our lord 2024 this is a story we've seen some version of a hundred times before, but 35 years ago it was a fairly novel concept, and tbh I am a simple bitch. It takes very little to get me intrigued.

Second, the magic/technology system. It was terrible, actually, and not a system at all, just kind of a collection of words that meant things and let people do stuff like fly through the vacuum of space. I still kinda liked it, though, and I feel like it had a lot of promise. It's technically not magic since it's biology-based and relies on made-up laws of made-up physics, and I love when creatures have special biological features that let them do magic-adjacent things, so even if I was annoyed by the way it was explained, I mostly enjoyed it. If you're a physics guy in any capacity it definitely feels like it was created by a guy who had no idea what he was talking about, but Williamson was solidly not a scientist, so I'm giving him a little grace here (for now, at least).

I also really really liked Williamson's aliens; very few of them were humanoid or even anthropomorphic, and one of the main species, the Hydrans, remind me of a fucked up Mr potato head in that they are a sort of lumpy blob that can just. create and move features across their bodies at will. Another was literally just a collection of particles working together like an amoeba. One of my favorites is Wing, who "was a thin triangular being with stubby tentacles jutting from her three corners. Her numerous eyes made a belt of bright black gems around a shining crown that bulged out of her slate-gray flatness." And Williamson clearly thought a lot about his aliens, because we get a lot of information about cultures and reproduction and relationships for a few species- mostly for the Hydrans, since they're a bit part of the story, but there's a few others we get a quick peek into throughout the book. Insert 'i just think they're neat' meme here and give me more freaky non-anthropomorphic aliens in media you cowards !!!

And... that's about it. That's all I liked about this book. General concept for the plot, some of the magic system, and the aliens. Calling that 13% of the book might be too generous but whatever, I'll give some extra points cause I really did love the aliens a lot.

Now, when I look for a book, I'm looking for a few key things. I need an engaging and coherent plot, well-rounded characters, and a satisfying conclusion. Honestly, I'll sacrifice plot for good characters, because if I can't connect with the people on the page, I don't care what they're doing. Sounds simple enough, but again, I am a simple bitch.

And yet, somehow, despite the apparent simplicity of my request- SOMEHOW this book managed to not tick a SINGLE ONE of my boxes. NOT ONE. In fact this book just decided it hated me specifically and needed to personally victimize me at every turn, because SOMEHOW it managed to do the OPPOSITE of those three simple things.

We'll start with characters, since that's my big thing. They were shit. They were bland and infuriating and had no consistency. Benn, who is supposed to be our knight in shining armor that we support at every turn, is literally the flattest fucking white bread ass male lead I've ever had the misfortune of encountering, to the point where I'm convinced has got to have been a self-insert. The other two protagonists- who I haven't even mentioned yet- were just as bad; one of them, named Don Diego Bolivar, was kind of (??) the villain, complete with some concerningly racist undertones, and the other, Roxanne Kwan, was the Sexy Woman With Knife that this era of sci-fi was obsessed with. Even though she's supposed to be cool and strong, she's about as useful as Benn is, and mostly spends the book being creeped on by Bolivar. She does not kill him even though she totally has the skills and would have been completely justified in it. None of them do much in the book other than react to whatever wacky circumstances they manage to find themselves in, and while it was annoying how little any of them knew about anything, it was infuriating how little motivation any of them had to actually learn the things they didn't know. To me, that's a sign that Williamson didn't bother figuring out most of the mechanics of this world, which is unfathomable to me as a writer whose favorite part of writing is worldbuilding.

Next let's touch on plot. Oh, you thought I liked the plot? WRONG. I liked the concept for the plot, and I was really hoping it would blossom into a beautiful story. Unfortunately, Jack Williamson apparently cannot write something comprehensible to save his life. Every single sentence was overwritten, forced to run on and on until all it could do was collapse from exhaustion and finally die. Core concepts were introduced in the last 10 pages of the fucking book, and multiple things happened for literally no reason. There were several plot threads that felt like they should be wrapped up and then just never were, which means I was just confused forever. Even if there had been more to the series, there were way too many things to smoothly bring them all into the second book. Character motivations were often dumb, convoluted, or just straight up never explained.

And Jesus fucking Christ, the pacing of the whole thing- or rather the lack thereof. The end of the book tried to make up for all the time wasted on flowery prose by whizzing through multiple plot points at a dizzying speed. We were constantly being thrown around through space and time- We're on this ship! No, we're on this planet! We're doing this thing, but actually it's time for a random unrelated flashback that will do nothing except confuse you, both now and later when some obscure half-remembered detail is brought up and you have to flip back to chapter 7 to figure out what the fuck is being talked about! Sometimes this would happen in the middle of a scene, which was always jarring. There was one instance early on where Roxanne finds her father's dead body, and instead of continuing this scene and preserving all the yummy built-up tension, we jump away to our favorite white boy Benn and get four pages establishing a b-plot that will never be resolved, and then go back to Roxanne at the exact same moment we just left off. Why did we leave?? To ruin the atmosphere and confuse your reader?? If so, great job! So much of this book was just me screaming What are you doing!! and then suffering some more.

Also, just as a quick aside- remember how the book is 262 pages and 43 chapters, which comes out to ~6 pages per chapter? Yeah. Since there wasn't enough happening already, every chapter the perspective changes between our protagonists, and most of the chapters don't even hit that magic page count; most land between 2 and 3. This could be fine, except that our dear author has apparently never heard of developing a character's voice, so all three of them sound exactly the same: flatter and drier than a stale Triscut, and with infuriatingly little knowledge about how the world around them works.

Back to the magic again, because I have more to say actually. Unlike a lot of other new-wave sci-fi writers, Williamson wasn't a scientist. That's why I gave him so much room with his shitty not-magic system, which I'm now going to explain to you just a little bit. He uses the phrase nanionic forces, which is the manipulation of sub-atomic particles called nanions, which are smaller than quarks. At the nanionic level, we reach a "horizon of reality" where nanionic particles flicker out of existence and back again, a trillion times in a trillionth of a Terran second. If that doesn't make sense, cool, it doesn't really matter, that explanation will never be brought up or expanded on again. But I really like the idea of a species that moves by interacting with a sort of "negative" matter so to speak, and I wish we had gotten a better explanation for how it works.

Like nanionic particles/forces, the skynet is also based on a real or theoretical scientific concept which is then heavily modified. This time, instead of something small, it's based on something big- a Dyson Sphere. Instead of surrounding a star, the skynet surrounded the Earth's outer atmosphere in a grid-like pattern. What did it do? Great question. People lived up there; in fact, most people seem to have lived up there, and the ones who didn't were all poor and stupid. There were elevators that connected it to the earth and let people move between the surface and the skynet. It maybe harvested energy from the earth like a Dyson sphere would do to a star, but it's not... really clear. And it will never get clearer, because when the skynet fell to earth, most people died, and the ones who didn't just don't ever talk about it. There doesn't seem to be a reason for that; I really think Williamson just didn't want to go to the effort of actually expanding this incredibly important aspect of his book whose destruction is directly responsible for everything that is happening rn. Interesting choice imo but only one of us is a best-selling author, so okay. Whatever.

But these examples showcase a pitfall of Williamson's: for some reason, he didn't do his research, whether because he didn't care or he didn't realize he needed to. Like, at the time, research was difficult. The internet didn't exist. You couldn't just pull up the wikipedia page on quarks or the Dyson Sphere. But it would have been so easy for Williamson, because all he needed to do was ask his friends who did know about these things. All the big-name new-wave sci-fi authors were friends, and they all worked closely together, and a lot of them were scientists, and all he would have had to do would be send a letter or, shit, pick up the phone, and he would have all the answers he needed. So he had the resources, he just chose not to use them, and his work suffered for it. And I fucking suffered for it reading his work.

Now, about that ending. Oho, the ending.

At the end of the book, Benn, Roxanne, and Bolivar find themselves in front of the judges of the Game (yeah they all end up competing don't worry about it). Benn has forfeit in order to be rescued after Bolivar threw him into a river, but he is still presented to the judges with the rest of the contestants in the ceremony where they learn whether or not they have successfully passed the trials of the Game. None of the three humans passed, and all three of them are ordered to immediately return to their home planets. Bolivar (who I did not understand was the villain until I read this section for the third goddamn time) does some stuff that essentially boils down to appointing himself as the ruler of Earth/the Sun Corporation, proclaiming that the other contestants who didn't pass are now considered citizens of the Sun, and threatening the judges and the entire alliance with his uber-powerful robot/EMP, in that order. In order to stop him, the judges arrest a bunch of people, and then. And then.

And then Benn looks into the robot's eyes and becomes the universe.

No, really. In chapter 43 of this godawful fucking book, Benn hears the voice of a great malicious entity called Conqueror in his mind, and then he falls into the darkness before time and space and experiences the birth of the universe as Conqueror itself. He, as Conqueror, watches stars and planets form, and chooses to be kind instead of evil, and coaxes different species to meet each other between the stars. He watches the skynet fall, and mourns for all the creatures that died during its destruction. And that sounds beautiful, right?

...Right?

I wish I could tell you the end of this book was beautiful and profound. I wish I could tell you it made up for all the overwritten bullshit I had to slog through. I wish I could tell you it made everything worth it. It did not. Instead, after 257 terrible, grueling, exhausting pages, this ending felt more like the book spitting in my face and telling me to take my hopes and dreams up the ass, because somehow this is what saves the day: Benn Dain making eye contact with the evil (???) robot. On accident.

How? Great question. Saves from what? Wouldn't you like to know, weatherboy. Actually, I have many questions, all of them unanswered. What is Conqueror? Is it the universe? How did Benn become it? Why? Is that the robot's scary magic power- it gives you a trip so good you become a great cosmic mass and experience all of time? And what narrative purpose does this serve (outside of magically defeating a villain we have barely established)? Because as far as I'm aware (and I should be fucking aware at this point, having just read the entire book), at no point during Benn's journey was one of his objectives "learn what happened to the skynet". Also, again, how the fuck did that defeat the robot and/or Conqueror???

If someone put a gun to my head and told me to think of a conclusion to this story that makes less sense, I would not be able to. I wish I could, because at least the fact that it could have been even worse would be a silver lining to this shitshow of a book, but alas.

I'm sure at this point you're asking yourself, Finn, why did you even bother making it this far? Why didn't you DNF it the moment Roxanne's common sense shriveled up and died? Well, I would have loved to do that, but unfortunately I read this book for an essay worth 40% of my term grade, and we had already submitted our reading lists, and we were required to submit a reading log for every book on there. I was locked into reading this book whether I liked it or not. And good for you, isn't it? Because now we can all sit here together and have a grand old time listening to me complain by request on the internet. Joy.

OKAY I just woke up and I have a fever of 102 and I feel like absolute shit. let's finish this fucking POST so I can be FREEEE

That's the end of the book, but we still have shit to talk about; namely, racism and misogyny. This book treats POC and women like total shit the entire time, and that's honestly why I'm so adamant that this isn't a recommendation. Problems with characterization and plot and worldbuilding- those are all subjective. I'm sure somewhere out there is someone who would love this story and all of the things I consider flaws. But I cannot in good conscience tell people to read it with the way these topics are handled. I'm not going to try to get too far into it because it's been a couple years since I actually sat down and read the book, but I did skim it in order to write this, so here are the obvious things that jumped out at me. My brain is mush rn so I'm probably gonna miss stuff but you'll get the gist hopefully

Bolivar's mother is specifically stated to be from Ecuador, and the town she's from is described as a "squalid barrio." She fakes an ID so she can work as a prostitute somewhere in the skynet, and that's where she meets- and promptly has an affair with- Bolivar's father, who is a wealthy businessman. She dies when the skynet falls, because she's working in a nightclub at the time. Bolivar himself is prone to bouts of violence and rage, has no loyalty to anyone but himself, and is a power-hungry egomaniac. He's also a creep to Roxanne on several occasions, flirting with her incessantly even after she has told him multiple times to stop, and even tries to coerce her into sleeping with him when they are forced to share a hotel room. The other Latino character is treated no better; he's a fairly minor character, but upon meeting him Roxanne immediately has a Bad Feeling and doesn't trust him. She turns out to be justified in this when he kills her father and his best friend and leaves her in the desert to die. He and Bolivar are similar in many ways: they are both violent and serve only themselves. The only obvious difference is that Julio speaks Spanish constantly, in that jarring way that monolingual people write bilingual characters, where random ass words and phrases are sprinkled in with little care to whether or not it makes sense. I don't feel like I have to explain to you why these things are problematic, and frankly I don't think I would do a very good job if I tried rn, but, like. Oh my god.

Now, let's talk about the ladies. Benn's mother shows up for like two scenes, talks about how cool her husband is, talks about how cool her son is, and then is never mentioned again. She barely exists. There's nothing to say about her except point out how little there is to say. She's one of two women in the entire book, the other being Roxanne. Roxanne has her own problems, mainly inconsistent characterization and very little narrative purpose. She has two reasons to exist: one, to be the heir of the Sun Corps, since she's a Kwan, and they were like the ultra-rich bastards who owned the skynet or something, and two, to save Benn's life when Bolivar throws him off a cliff into the river. That is- and I am not exaggerating here- the one and only thing she actually does in the entire book. She has none of her own motivations and just ends up following Benn or Bolivar around, thinking vaguely about how hot they are, and being otherwise useless. Her skills also disappear when it's convenient; for example, she gets bad vibes about Julio, implying that she's good at reading people, but then when she meets Bolivar she doesn't get any bad vibes from him at all. She's a fantastic hunter, good enough that she earned the nickname Cheetah when she was young, but she still isn't able to kill Bolivar when it counts. Again, many problems. my whole body hurts and I'm mad and I want to be done and you're smart. Misogyny bad send tumble

That's finally it!! I'm finally done ranting!!! I'm gonna go take a goddamn nap!!!!!! Fuck this book to hell and I hope this sated your curiosity. don't read this, read, like, Set My Heart to Five (Simon Stephenson), which I read right after and is still one of the best, most moving things I've ever read, or, if you're interested in something new-wave, Decision at Doona (Anne McCaffrey) or Caves of Steel (Isaac Asimov) are both really great choices. If you're not super into sci-fi, Tamora Pierce is a really good fantasy author whose mcs are all well-written badass ladies, and Redwall (Brian Jaques) is a fun adventure with little animals. Just basically what I'm saying is please do not read this book. bye

#nap was good! feeling much better now that my fever broke #sorry anon this took way longer to write than I expected #finals. you understand #i also had to rewrite twice cause i kept getting mad and going on tangents and fucking up my formatting and my plans #thanks for asking though!#might not seem like it but i had a LOT of fun ranting about this shit ass book :)#mazeway by jack williamson #reading #book review #long post

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marginalizedmormon · 9 months ago

Text

Thinking back

I have used this blog for quite some time to process difficult situations and to try to correct less than helpful thinking patterns. After communicating with one of my (former) step-brothers - does one ever un-adopt family members? I started thinking about my teenage experience with my former stepmother (I guess one can un-adopt toxic relationships.)

I was 14 when I left my mother's house to live with my father and his new family consisting of a wife (widow of a navy doctor and former fashion model,) her 4 children and the toddler that dad and she had given birth too.

It was a big change coming from a 2 bedroom apartment I shared with my mom, sister and brother. And a very tight budget that didn't allow for much extra- but these were the people I loved. I was starting to make some poor decisions, I wanted to be included with the in crowd and I missed my Dad. I thought maybe having him as a more-regular part of my life - I might do better. He was active in church, Mom wasn't and for some reason that also felt important. And there is some magnetic draw of an intact family for kids. The summer after my freshman year, I moved up the hill. Dad and his wife had bought a house in one of the fancy neighborhoods of the town I grew up in.

With a built-in pool and live-in help, they seemed very comfortable. They had Cadillacs and a van to take their blended family of 10 on local adventures. They would go to Arizona to visit my beloved grandparents (a trip my Mom wouldn't let me participate in because she didn't want me to be the designated babysitter.) I was the oldest. I was used to helping and that hadn't bothered me. My stepsister was a sad little thing, after the loss of her father - I believe she had been her Daddy's girl, she had a hard time when he died and was emotionally needy. Looking back now, I see that I too became emotionally needy in that environment.

The three little boys were just little boys - no threat or anything else but added humor because of their speech patterns. The toddler half-sister was just a cute bonus. I had taken swimming lessons with her to make her pool-safe, had gotten her off her binky (pacifier) and was amused by her antics like stuffing her slippers full of cut-up hot dogs at dinner. I dressed her up and took her trick-or-treating when I was too old to go. She was my pet baby.

After I moved out, my mom decided to move to Los Angeles to be closer to her parents and brother. I thought I would have the best of both worlds - live in comfort with my father and be able to go home to see Mom, sister and brother at will. But that disappeared. Without my Mom nearby, I was lost. If I had known she was moving I might have stayed with her, I don't know. But she was gone and I was stuck.

Soon after I joined the household, my Dad had back surgery for deteriorating discs in his spine. In the hospital, an infection set in and almost killed him. He was in the ICU for weeks, in and out of consciousness. I didn't know how dire the situation was. I was at a church youth activity when a phone call came, "your father is dying and your stepmother needs you to come home immediately." I must have gotten a ride. When I arrived at the house, she chastised me for being gone at such a critical time. I am pretty sure I did not know what was going on, but now, after getting my father back after 4 years, I was about to loose him forever. I was in shock.

God gave him back to us, but he was injured and needed extra care. my stepmother, a nurse, could attend to his needs but she also made me change the surgical pads on his unhealed draining back wound. I am not a nurse, nor do I have any desire to be one. It was gross. His recovery was difficult, they had let the live-in help go so I needed to do more around the house. My stepmother cornered me one evening and tried to shame me saying the women at church wonder why you are not able to step in and run the house. I was 4, my Mom had been working full-time for 4 years. We cleaned house on the weekend, how was I supposed to know how to run a household of 8? Besides, she had live-in help fir years, she obviously wasn't able to run the house on her own. I was neither shamed nor inspired by her attack.

But I was given more to do. I was given a list and began doing the grocery shopping. I came home from school and was in charge of dinner, clean-up and getting school lunches packed, this effectively eliminated my ability to have a social life, go out for school activities or do normal teen stuff. That and the laundry, I had responsibility for the laundry for the family of 8. I wasn't given an allowance, but sometimes, my Dad would take pity on me and slip me a $20. I didn't feel I could ask for money or much help and the only attention I felt I got was when I was in trouble, which was fairly constantly because they lived by different household rules than I was used to. I was doing all of this unpaid work for people I didn't love. And I was always in trouble for breaking rules I didn't know about until I had done it and was being punished. They decided they didn't like my best friend and banned me from seeing or even talking with her. I lost my Mom, sister, brother and best friend all at once, it was very hard. One of their close friends at church was a doctor who had a daughter my age. We started hanging out, but to be honest, whenever I got in trouble or did something stupid, it was with her. My boho friend that they didn't like would remind me - you can't do that - you're a Mormon, but my Mormon friend kept doing things that were getting progressively worse.

To be fair, life there wasn't all bad. Sometimes my stepmother gave me little pieces of jewelry or special things. She had the room I would be sharing with my stepsister redecorated, albeit in a color and style that meant nothing to me, but they were trying. When I moved in with them, my wardrobe was rather sparse, as my Mom had stopped sewing my clothes (which I never cared for) and didn't have much money to buy what I wanted or needed. So my stepmom took me shopping to the popular boutique stores and with careful spending and summer sales, I started my sophomore year with a fresh new wardrobe - that was really fun.

My stepmother was the nurse at the high school. She felt that it would be important for teens to know where to get treated for STDs and pregnancy so she started a peer program, pulling in the popular and high-profile kids to teach students - down to junior high level, where to get free healthcare without their parents' knowledge. She had gotten into humanism with its lack of morality and was, I believe a feminist at heart. Showing herself publicly to be this caring, I'm there for you type, while neglecting her family seemed to me, hypocritical. There were no Christmas stockings or Easter baskets, few goodnight kisses, she came home and ate her dinner in her room instead of with her family. She told me that she had never wanted children, her doctor husband did, then he died and left her alone with 4 kids. Her parents had moved out from the mid-west to help her and her sister, but they were a different story.

Dad tried to pick up the slack as he could, making sure we attended church, paid tithing, kept up the yard, house and cars and made everyone breakfast on Saturday mornings. But the hands-on work of a mom rearing a family fell to others, and I had more than my share of it. At a time I should have started working; was offered a job at a local bookstore- but was told I couldn't accept it because I had too much (UNPAID) work at home. And I was always in trouble, so it seemed. No affirmation, no gratitude, no wage, just unappreciated work for people I didn't really care for.

And I was in trouble for telling people how things were at home. I was told not to talk. She would get me to confide in her, then I would be called in to be in trouble with her and my Dad. I couldn't tell if she was my friend or enemy. And I actually didn't hate being yelled at by both parents because at lest I was getting some attention. I got blamed for things I had no control over, like when my stepbrother wouldn't do his chores. I had responsibility but no authority. I could rarely have friends over. When my male biology partner came to the door one Saturday and gave me a rose (I had no idea that meant he liked me,) I got in trouble even though I didn't invite him in. When a new neighbor moved in and I invited him swimming I got in trouble for that, even though I already had a boyfriend and nothing bad happened.

On my fifteenth birthday, my new best friend and I planned to go to a movie to celebrate but I was not allowed to go. My stepmother was entertaining colleagues that night and I had to stay home to help serve. Could it have been any other night or did it have to be on my birthday? She made me call and invite people to a fashion show she was hosting. I hate calling people.

My happy place was taking the bus to Los Angeles to visit my Mom and siblings. When stepmother was angry and trying to control me she would threaten to cut off the visits. She said I was always angry and sad when I came home. That was probably true. My rides to LA were not without incidents. I was young and cute and Marines stationed at Camp Pendleton would try to hit on me on these trips, it was unwanted attention. Later, when I had a boyfriend he bought me a fake wedding ring so guys would leave me alone. Sometimes he would drive up to LA on Sunday evening to pick me up so I wouldn't have to take the bus. My parents never did.

One of the stepbrothers was starting to say suggestive things to me, in this day it would be considered harassment. Later my Dad would accuse her of having an affair with a humanist guru she was involved with. She divorced my Dad. He walked away with nothing but a broken heart. We always thought it was because it was her house. I found out years later they both had bought it but he didn't seem to have much say in how things ran and she ended up with the assets. When I returned to the house to pick up my bike which my stepbrother had appropriated, her mother followed me outside. Yelling at me and accusing me of breaking up their marriage. She hit me, I hit her back and told her to never touch me again. At least I was learning to stand up for myself. In true liberal form, stepmother had one day accused me of breaking up my parents' marriage, which I thought was ridiculous that the worst thing that had happened in my world would be blamed on me. I fought back. I accused her of killing her first husband and trying to kill my Dad. We were in the car, she pulled over and made me get out to walk the couple of miles back to my house. My Dad didn't know what to do, so he got out to walk back with me. She turned the car around, went back to the house, removed the phones and took the hidden keys so we couldn't get in and took off for her parents' house. My Dad was able to force a window open so we could get into the house, but with no phones, there wasn't much we could do that Sunday afternoon. He had a car key and we drove to his school, he made a reservation to stay at a hotel that night so fortunately we didn't have to face the raving lunatic again that day. She seemed hostile and hateful and was definitely abusive. The house I had gone to hoping for strength and unity was falling apart.

I, to this day, hate to be wrongly blamed for things. I don't like feminism. I try to unite family where I can and have a hard time trusting.

Anyway, struggling to fill the void of my Mom and siblings moving, best friend banished and extra housework, and being pulled from the young women's program at church to teach immorality was too much for my developing brain. A handsome, accomplished guy at school had started paying attention to me. I wasn't ready for a relationship but did not know how to dissuade his attention. Home life was toxic and I didn't have the ability to fix it. It was confusing, I didn't take it well and I reacted badly. A rebellion was in the works.

#marginalized mormon

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alsjeblieft-zeg · 2 years ago

Text

254 of 2023

A Achievements:

I came back to my work after brain incident, kept the same job for the last 9 years, got the university degree, got married.

Age:

I’m still 32, about to be 33 next month.

Are you planning something right now?

No, I came back home, it’s evening.

Arizona or Alaska:

I don’t care about the US.

B Birthdate:

1990.

Build:

My body? I’m long and narrow. Kinda slender.

Babies, do you have any?

Do our cats count as babies?

Blonde or Brunette:

I have dark hair, but shit happens.

C Childhood sweetheart:

I didn’t have any.

Current mood:

Content, but a bit tired.

Children, are there more in your future?

There are none in my furure, past and present.

Coke or Pepsi:

Coke, but I honestly can’t taste the difference.

D Dad’s name:

Stefaan.

Dating anyone:

I’m married.

Do you plan on having lots of money?

WTF. I’m happy with what I have and proud to be (upper) working class.

Dogs or cats:

Miauwtjes. I’m definitely a cats person.

E Elementary School:

Lombardsijde.

Eye color:

Grey.

Ever going to China?

Why would I?

Early or Late:

Early.

F First Crush:

Probably Jay, but I’m not sure anymore.

Fears:

Death, failure, losing.

Future goals:

To be happy and healthy.

Funny or Serious:

You’d better know when it’s time to be funny and when it’s time to be serious. It’s called emotional maturity.

G Grandparent’s names:

Sofie, Joris, Stephanie and Johan.

GPA:

Belgium doesn’t do GPA. We have percentage scores here.

Going anywhere this weekend?

I go somewhere almost every day.

Giver or Taker:

I’m more of a giver, if that’s the question.

H High School:

Our education system doesn’t work like that.

Hair color:

Brown.

Hate anyone for life?

Nope, it’s stupid.

Hairspray or Gel:

Hair wax.

I In 8th grade, who was your best friend?

Our education system is entirely different.

Is ignorance bliss?

No, ignorance hurts others.

Is there anything you wanna share?

I’m sleepy and I’m saving a back up from my phone.

Ice Cream or Cake:

No, thanks.

J Jumped rope for fun:

...and?

Junk around you right now?

I don’t know how about you, but I keep my space fairly clean.

Joining anything anytime soon?

No? Weird question.

January or July:

July, the best month of a year, together with June.

K Killed anyone:

This question is so dumb I’m not even gonna answer it.

Keeping a secret?

Doesn’t everyone in some way?

Kicking someone off your top friends today?

Lolwut?

Kiwi or Apple:

Neither.

L Lost anyone close to you:

Yes, my beloved grandma died of lung cancer 12 years ago.

Last kiss, when and who:

An hour ago, my husband.

List 3 people that you’ll love forever:

My parents and my sister.

Lover or Fighter:

Both, in some sense.

M Middle School:

Our education system doesn’t work like that.

Marital Status:

Married.

Mom’s name:

Ellen.

Music or TV:

Music.

N Northernmost state you’ve been to:

I’ve never been to any state.

Nickname:

Jelle.

Name your future boy and girl:

No children, thanks.

Naughty or Nice:

I don’t really understand what this choice is about.

O Opened a piece of mail that wasn’t yours?

No, it’s awful.

Occupation:

Rail electrician.

Owe anyone money:

Not that I know of.

Outgoing or Shy:

Why are these always put together?

P Place you most want to be?

My hometown.

Purposely destroyed someone’s life?

What kind of person are you? This is disgusting.

Planning a major trip?

To my parents soon, I hope.

Pink or Black?

Black, but sometimes it goes well with pink.

Q Quit a class:

Once or twice.

Quickly…the first word to come to mind:

Godverdomme.

Quitting your job soon?

Why would I quit a job I love and I’m very good at?

Quiet or Loud:

Quiet.

R Riding in an airplane:

What about it?

Ride, tell me about yours:

I take trains every day.

Running for any political office in the future?

You kidding me. I’m not even remotely interested.

Rain or Snow:

Neither, omg. I’m sick of rain already.

S Siblings names and ages:

Julie, 28.

Shoe size:

European, it varies between 41 and 43, depending on the brand.

Shave daily?

Every other day, to be precise. I’d rather have a smooth face than show my stupid facial hair.

Shower or Bath:

Shower, it’s quicker.

T Turning 21 was (will be):

21 isn’t any milestone in Europe.

Texas, ever been?

No, never been to the US.

Think you’ll live to be 100?

I’m not overthinking it.

Tame or Wild:

In between.

U Unique quality about you:

My handwriting.

Underwear on?

No. You asked for it.

Under your bed lies:

Travel suitcases.

Under or Over:

WTF is this question about?

V Virgin?

No, I’m not.

Vacation time left?

It’s barely April.

Voting in the next Presidential election?

Lol I live in a kingdom.

Volleyball or Swimming:

Neither.

W Went white water rafting?

What is that even?

Wearing right now:

Black hoodie, black wide leg trousers, black platform boots.

Write a sentence about you:

Mijn naam is Joeri en ik hou van jullie allemaal.

West Coast or East Coast:

I’m European.

X X-Rays in the past month:

None.

X-Mas plans:

Visiting my parents.

X, does it mark the spot?

...what?

X-Tina or Britney?

I couldn’t care less.

Y You lost “it” when?

With consent, at the age of 24. Without consent, at the age of 12. This is the reason of all my self-disgust.

Your favorite song:

Shared it in many surveys already.

Your favorite place on Earth:

Middelkerke <3

Yes or No:

Yes, but no.

Z Zodiac Sign:

Taurus.

Zodiac Sign:

You didn’t hear well enough?

Zippos are neat, agree?

What are they even?

Zoo or Circus:

Neither.

#survey #q&a survey #categorised survey

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negra909 · 2 years ago

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My Condolences To My Friends Entire Family As They Have Lost Their Beloved Husband , Dad, Brother ,Uncle, Cousin & Son David Gonzalez R.I.P Say Hi To My Daughter & Lil Brother You Guys Will All Get Along As Quite Honestly You Would Have !!! Rest Easy Brother In Christ !!!! February 20, 2023 (at Phoenix, Arizona) https://www.instagram.com/p/Co5Jv_VPWyC/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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aidenplays · 6 months ago

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okay so for context, i've been rotating a friday night stabby and naruto crossover au. you can blame @darkclouud9 for this <3

the arizona dads + joker are from suna, i haven't figured out their combat styles or releases yet but joker is definitely going to be a puppet technique user.

lala and endless are from the hygua branch house. neither of them really care about protecting the main house, and lala ended up leaving the house due to her marriage with astro.

speaking of astro, he's an otsutsuki, because Of Course He Is, and i think it would be funny if he can summon slugs (quintapus slug my beloved)

mrs t and evil are cousins from the uchiha clan, and everyone thinks evil is the dangerous one at first, but it's really mrs t <3

brody's just an average ninja from konoha, and while he's capable of using ice release, his specialty is taijutsu, because if someone like rock lee can get by with just taijutsu, why can't he? (though his combat style is a lot different, focusing more on endurance and dealing slower but harder hits)

and etho... honestly i haven't figured out etho's deal here, because i don't want to make him Just Kakashi, and his vibe in friday night stabby is different enough from his vibe on hermitcraft that it's throwing me for a bit of a loop lmao

anyway, i might keep developing this one, i might not. we'll see

making a highly indulgent crossover au is something that can be so personal. i think more people should do this actually

#srb #i'm so normal about this au guys <- lying through his teeth (/lh)

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catboymuqing-moving · 4 years ago

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orange trees on white backgrounds my belovedddd

#since my dad is moving to arizona i can go there sometimes and see the orange trees with the bottom half painted white..#my beloved my beloved #p

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brockachu · 3 years ago

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i am absolutely suffering post wisdom tooth removal and i think i would be magically healed if you were to break down every nhl captain’s narrative for me

** if every captain is an unreasonable ask, i would in fact settle for our boy bowie 😌 or the most compelling narrative in your opinion

oh ooh i'm so glad you took me up on this. ok imma do a quick run-down of every narrative i know. and if anyone wants more detail, i can do follow-up ask posts. also, i hope your gums heal quickly & without complication 💖 i was a minor menace when i got my wisdom teeth removed so i respect that all you ask is some silly hockey stories 😂

running through the list alphabetically by team:

anaheim - technically, this is now vacant b/c their season is over & getzlaf is retired. he was co-rookies w/ corey perry, they inherited the team from teemu selanne, & they were on a kid line that helped get the ducks their single cup. he was promoted to captaincy for his early career glory and got the team close twice more (conference finals) but never quite. he got overshadowed by the other california team captains i think, even if i never cared much for him either. i don't know enough about the current ducks to even slightly guess at their next captain.

arizona - vacant. their last captain was OEL whose narrative was the guy whose time was always just a little too late -- he peaked just after the yotes core that was actually pretty good from 2009-2012; he was named captain after his career peaked, even tho he remained fan-beloved; he was traded away after his trade value had crashed. i think their next captain will be chychrun if he isn't traded, crouse if chychrun is traded, and no idea if both of them are traded. it's misery hours in the sonoran desert, babes.

boston - i'm sorry i spent so long refusing to learn about any bruin who isn't tuukka that the only things i know about bergeron is that his bestie is marchand and he wins the selke every year, even when he doesn't win it he does (i'm a canucks fan this is the first year i've mildly tolerated the bruins, given the 2011 cup finals)

buffalo - vacant. lmao y'all can dig my eichel tag if you wanna know that narrative i've only written several novellas about him this season. idk enough to guess the next captain. o @drartemysia wants it to be tage and i agree bc i think she deserves what she likes :)

calgary - vacant. giordano was the successor to iginla, which were impossible shoes to fill, but his whole thing was basically team's steadfast dad. if the next one isn't ratthew i'll be joining the trade ratthew campaign that i think many flames fans would start -- he's beloved, he's a character, he's grown so much from skillful pest with a dangerous edge to just flat out skillful pest (ignore this current playoff series, the stars are digging up old ratt). he'll have a lovely narrative about growing into the steady reliable legacy before him and giving it a new funky shine.

carolina - JORDAN. a Staal. the last time a staal led this team, they won their only cup, y'know. are they chasing their past b/c they keep coming up short these past few years? are they harnessing a legacy, uniting the past & present to make that leap? and jordy himself has changed a lot from the kid who won the cup w/ sid & the pens back in 2009. is he chasing youthful success or is he bringing experience to an otherwise young core? it's a juicy narrative w/ fun lil callbacks. also he's their dad :)

chicago - it's unfortunate that this entire org is irredeemable b/c the captaincy narrative around toews actually was an interesting story, but it's inseparable from pkane and the org, and it should be reframed knowing he as captain was aware of the beach allegations & treatment by the team (org & players). also i only know this narrative bc one of my undergrad bffs is a born & raised chicagoan. so i'm not going to give toews or chicago a blurb when they deserve to be dismantled.

colorado - i don't like landeskog. you can check here for why. not gonna write this one either. if i speak more i will be in big trouble.

columbus - boone!! the cbj captaincy has long been been mildly cursed -- nothing truly bad happens to them, but they're always just kind of forgotten about. boone was considered kind of an unexpected pick, b/c he's not a big star, he's not one of the local boys, and he's just super mild. but in that way, maybe he's another in a line of tradition -- unassuming, a calm head, a steady hand. the cbj captaincy story is the quiet story of persistence

dallas - haha no i'm not gonna make a fun story for benn when half the stars fans i know don't even like him either. call me when robo inherits the captaincy.

detroit - larkin is one of the captains i am least normal about in the entire league. he was drafted to be the captain. i'm not kidding. stevie y clapped his eyes on this kid from michigan who grew up a drw fan, this kid who has always been spoken of as responsible and a leader, this determined happy excited-just-to-be-here kid; and stevie said 'yeah that's our guy'. he was drafted and primed to be the captain and everyone knew it from the second he was picked, tho we were always a little worried 'what if they don't tho'. it was a relief when they finally stitched the c to his chest. the throne was always his, the captains before him agreed so. there's a quote from zetterberg about giving larks something that had been passed down from past captains, before the captaincy was made official. larks tried to tell zetta it wasn't his officially, zetta told him 'take it it's yours we all agree'. we as in the previous captains who are all still involved in the org. yeah i've cried about it.

edmonton - oh my god this captaincy is haunted and i'm not qualified to discuss it i hope mcdavid learns exorcism but also i think this org needs a whole overhaul. mcdavid is a child king appointed too soon based on prophecy and maybe fate is inescapable but it is never straight forward. what parts of your soul are you willing to rend to fight fate, what parts of your soul are you willing to rend to let fate take its course? how do you know destiny is for you? wasn't it supposed to be hall, supposed to be nugent hopkins, supposed to be yakupov?

florida - like i said i know nothing about barkov besides his lifelong bestie is pate laine, my beloved son :) he seems like a nice dude, maybe i'll learn the story there one day

los angeles - ooh kopitar is fun. to many, he's the captain who should've been. the thing is, dustin brown was captain during the kings' peaks in the mid 2010s & they won their 2 cups. brown had been drafted & raised by the kings, he's now retiring as a lifelong king. kopi was there almost the whole time. brown was always attributed with leadership qualities in juniors & w/ team usa, but kopi is The Slovenian Player -- he's captained their teams since he was a teen. he's also been a long time best kings player, while brown has mainly been middle six character piece. but the kings raised brown to be the captain, so he remained the captain & the players did respect & love him as captain. still, there was always a thread of 'what about kopitar tho', and when brown's core floundered and were slowly traded away, his captaincy was stripped. as the team unoffically leaned into a rebuild, kopi was named new captain. he's steadier, he's good with the kids, he's finally getting his flowers. there's still a lot of respect left for brown (see: he was captain for a day to commemorate his impending retirement), but he luckily bowed out. kopi's captaincy is a narrative of patience & knowing when change is necessary. i'm so fond of it

minnesota - spurgeon is one of those guys that ppl outside of the minny-sphere don't discuss much. he's quietly a Good Hockey Player (stats ppl are like him a lot). it's hard to follow the captaincy of Mikko Koivu, one of the most respected players in league history, a perennial member of the 'guys who'd have a cup on any other team' club, who could only stomach playing 7 games for another team before retiring as essentially a lifelong wild. spurge is the story of loyalty, of duty.

montreal - uuh technically it's still webs but i soft boycotted the habs when he was traded there (not his fault, i was mad about pk & galchenyuk & bergevin's administration) & only mildly got nicer to them this season after they finally got rid of bergevin. so the last habs captain narrative i knew well was patch, which i am very bitter about still. and giving respect to my habs friends, i will not go down that path here. i hope suzuki gets the captaincy soon. that will be a nice tale and i think my buddy amanda @st-louis will be the best person to tell it.

nashville - josi is interesting. he's maybe a captain who was never meant to be a captain. weber was expected to retire in nashville, but things went sour in the mid-2010s after suter signed to minny in free agency and weber seemed to need a new environment and the org had seemingly lost their patience with him. so he got traded for subban & fisher was given captaincy to warm the seat. josi was still relatively young through these struggles. he's a prince that no one expected to inherit bc the king was healthy and strong and so beloved so blessed so steadfast. and for years now, with josi as captain, the preds continue to surpass expectations (admittedly mostly by the grace of their goalies). hehe he's the little captain that could :)

new jersey - friends, we have another boy king in our midst (the league loves these). hischier was a 1oa in what was at the time considered an underwhelming draft. the devs had been considered identity-less ever since brodeur's trade in 2014 and later retirement in 2015. there's still lingering speculation that hischier was appointed too soon to inject any sense of identity into this team. we are still seeing this core be built. the narrative is a kid was given an impossible task and he's quietly solving this puzzle with the help of the friends he made along the way. i'm genuinely hopeful for the devs' future

isles - anders lee was never meant to be captain!! i love his bland boy next door quadzilla himbo ass so much but he is a second son. johnny said 'fuck you dad i never wanted to be an isle take the family business and shove it' (this is a joke, i'm neutral to fond about tavares, but i think the isles memes about him are kinda funny), so lou lamariello rubbed a weary hand down his face, peaked between his fingers at anders just twiddling his thumbs at the back of the board room and went, 'ok bud do you want a whack at it'.

rangers - vacant. this should be kreider and i can write that narrative when it happens, tho others will be much more qualified, but all i have to say is this should be kreider

ottawa - i'm sorry i've spent so long lowkey laughing at the sens that i have no idea what background narrative led to brady tkachuk getting this captaincy. i do know there is currently a kerfuffle about chabot being named team canada captain for worlds, which i guess is raising the known-to-sens-fans controversy that maybe he should've gotten the captaincy over tkachuk? maybe this is a coup narrative. maybe the crown was usurped! i am not aware of the palace intrigue but if anyone wants to tell me the tale i will gladly listen and share your verses in the future. i'm a silly lil jester, a traveling bard :)

philly - haha vacant haha no i'm not writing this up, all you need to know about the flyers captaincy is this video i made before claude's inevitable trade

pitt - psssshhh i'm a flyers fan y'all don't want me to write the pens captain narrative lmao but basically sid is the chosen one, he's what mcdavid was supposed to be to edmonton, he's won 3 cups for them, raised the team out of bankruptcy on his star power. he's a superhero story, ups and downs and inhuman ability

san jose - couture wasn't supposed to be captain but both joes fled the shark tank and he's what's left and half of sharks fans don't even like him anyway. i can't write this one, buds

seattle - lmao vacant b/c giordano went to toronto this org is still fledgling and messy, but boy they're trying it's like watching my parents' young chickens run around, fond and illogical, no sense of a plan about them. i want their next captain to be mccann. if the rivalry with the canucks ever finds its feet, it'll be fun for them to have a captain who was our scorned former draftee

st louis - ngl i forgot o'reilly was their captain until this moment. i knew petro was gone bc uuhh i love that dude. i don't know this narrative, sorry

tampa - steven stamkos was almost given up on and i'll remember that forever. he inherited from lecavalier & st louis, a heavy cloak of a legacy to wear. drafted by hockey savant steve yzerman, raised for the captaincy, given so much patience and surrounded by consistently one of the best built teams year in and year out. cup finals and conference finals and record breaking point seasons. when the bolts were swept by cbj in 2019, a massive crack seemed to appear in the durably beautifully carefully crafted vase. there were rumors that the core would be torn apart and sold, that stammer would sign back home in toronto, that the bolts were a failed experiment. but they stayed the course and what would you know fate smiled upon them with back to back cups. this is a feel good fairytale of patience and loyalty and persistence and all the 'cap circumvention' boo babies can cry outside the city walls

toronto - you can't tell this story without telling the recent isles' story, but actually you can't tell this story without 60 years of maple leaf history & maybe a degree in canadian history. if the edmonton captaincy is haunted, the leafs are something quieter, not actively marauding them quite as much, but ages longer and with a million more eyes on them for it. tavares' leaf captaincy is a very old ghost story or maybe a multiverse story. i don't know it well enough to tell it tho

vancouver - beloveds oh beloveds. captain bowie horvat, our collective son. we knew when he was drafted he would be the next captain. we weren't sure, but we knew. the sedins stayed lifelong canucks, they raised bo to the captaincy, they protected him as long as they could, and they retired. we were so certain he'd be given captaincy immediately, but the org kept it as an extra out for appeasement as the team sunk and sunk and sunk. but we're getting somewhere now and our new management has expressed confidence in bo. bo was the last canuck to be given an animal nickname, which was a staple of the sedin era (his name was bison). did you know the entire team called him cap even before he was named captain? it was an open secret with the media for like a year. there's official canucks videos with guys calling him cap the season before he was named captain. he's who the people always wanted and he's who the people were happy to receive. i don't acknowledge anyone who doesn't want him to stay as captain. his captaincy is a love story -- he was raised in the gentleness of the sedins, he was always meant to be here, he'll gently lovingly steer us forward. his captaincy is romantic.

vegas - oh this is not my story to tell. oli @himbeaux-on-ice is our resident mark stone enthusiast and i'm almost certain they've written up several detailed posts about stoney's path to the captaincy. please explore their blog with wild abandon bc they are one of the reasons i've grown the confidence to make more of these wildly long and winding narrative posts (same of other's i've tagged in this post)

washington - like crosby and mcdavid, who does not already know this narrative? but tldr, ovechkin was drafted & appointed in defiance of hockey culture's respectability politics. is he of course very very very good at hockey? yes, but the hockey media machine wasn't sure it was 'enough' for years. the narrative is spite, the narrative is defiance, the narrative is being who you are no matter who likes it, the narrative is insisting on yourself. one of my fav caps narrative ppl (actually she's generally post-soviet hockey narratives, but she's a caps fan also) is g @csykora. idr if she's written much on ovechkin specifically, b/c my memory is more conceptual than data, but please read her writing as it also inspires me to indulge my narrative whims.

winnipeg - oh what a one to end on. this captaincy may be ending soon. we don't know what winny is doing, do we? mr wheeler's captaincy is the story of a faithful soldier. he has done everything the org asked of him, done his best, bit his tongue, faced the twists and turns of the path with a strong brow and steady step. winny is staring down the barrel of potentially blowing up its core, and no one expected it to go this way. maybe they're the trojans, a stronghold we never thought could fall so dramatically. (maybe i've been reading too much of o's greek myths lmao)

in conclusion: lmao why is this all in my head. if you read all of this, i respect and appreciate you so much. and apologies to my tagged beloveds, you're not entitled to read this i just want to send love your way <3

#long post #aily talks #asks #oh lmao how do i even tag this pssssshhhhh my ass always making uncategorizable posts and then twiddling my thumbs in the tags #narratives

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