#but I’m just saying that I battled him in the league club a bunch and I like him a lot

[great-tusk]

Have you met Drayton yet? I guess he’d be like a step-nephew (?) to you but that might not mean you get along

Yeah! I like Drayton a lot. He’s my favorite Indigo Disk character. I have him as my s/i’s sibling in most timelines, since Drayden is more like an adoptive grandfather to my s/i. I just don’t usually talk about him as my s/i’s brother since I ship with him in a universe where they’re not related and have established that way further than the familial relationship AHAHA.

[timecryptid]

Having a bit of a crisis but you know what? It’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid time baby.

Greg’s voice is a little deeper. He’s also clearly older.

Just full on open showers man. You’re definitely seeing some old guys dick in there. Or maybe your brothers.

That PSP drop. And now no one uses them anymore. I don’t even know if my teenage sister knows what that is.

That high school that Rodrick knows defiantly wants to duck Susan. Which I understand and agree with.

Holy shit that boy definitely changed. And he’s absolutely a milf fucker.

And the amount of pee in pools is one of the big reasons I don’t like public pools.

I also am a indoor person and spent all my summer in doors. Although I was the kid who just wanted to read. Not video games.

Girl Holly is 7th grade going on 8th. I don’t think she’s getting married dude.

The last day of school is the day you turn in your textbooks.

Holly is absolutely out of Greg’s league. She’s way too good of a person.

Holy shit Hollys sister is hot. Me and Rodrick would be friends. We have the same tastes in women.

I agree with Greg and Frank on Li’l Cutie. Looks annoying.

So does no one else want to use that TV? It’s the living room.

“Just finished up some sports”

Is Rodrick laughing that Greg’s not being alllowed video games or because he knows his father is useless and can’t unplug the Tv?

I love that Susan is trying to get Greg and Frank to get along. Also Greg and Rodrick are sitting way to close on that couch. It’s completely empty and Greg sits right next to his brother that he hates.

If my dad forced me to get in a boat with him to fish on the weekend during the summer I would drown myself. Fishing is boring and I hate boats.

I would join Susan’s book club. Not just because I love reading. I love Susan.

Rowley offered to bring you to a country club. A bunch of rich people get together. I would go. The food is bound to be amazing.

As a slight history fan I would also be board by a reenactment of the civil war. I’m just curious which team Greg and Frank are on. I’m assuming the Union as they win the battle.

What an internship? It’s like a job where they exploit young kids who need the work and experience and they don’t pay their worker. Totally not slavery with extra steps.

Greg really is a huge liar.

I’m not surprised that Patty’s parents are apart of a country club. She feels like the type. But seriously I still love Patty so much. Aggressive and loves beating the shit out of boys. Love that in a girl. Also I would not be surprised if her and Greg got together years in the future.

I really am just learning that I like bitchy women.

I also love piece of shit men.

The dog hates Greg and I get it.

Are you kidding me? Rodrick is the type who would love to visit a country club but no one would like him there. But he could pay for it. So they have to let him be there.

So is Greg’s fake break up going to be with Holly this time?

They keep trying to convince me that Rodrick is considered a loser but he would be getting so much pussy. Has a band, shitty but not too shitty, and hot. He is not a loser. Sure so don’t think he’s super popular but I’m thinking young Dean Winchester kind of popular.

They’re sharing ice cream? I’d rather die.

Oh my god it’s Mr World Wide!

If someone got decapitated and on a ride the ride would not still be up. I’m just skipping this but just in case.

Seriously dude you have a phone. Just use that to call for help.

That is not how 911 works. Like at all. They would have done nothing because Greg didn’t say anything.

I love Rodrick and his weird relationship with Rodrick.

Damn this time it’s Rowley being the one to lie.

Greg is a pathological liar.

This little girl is the best.

Seriously just tell Holly that you are now fully nude. Better then her finding out by looking down and seeing your dick. Or even worse. Patty seeing it.

At least Holly didn’t see you in the tiny pink shorts with Princess on the ass.

The conflict starts so late in these movies I swear. An hour in and nothing has happened that isn’t just disconnected mess.

Just throw the pot roast away. Nope they’re just going to eat it?

I do know that Rodricks love song for Heather is viral on TikTok and it is an embarrassment. Seriously.

Rowley Greg lies all the time I think that he’ll understand.

It’s not with Holly that Greg’s lies get out of hand it’s his dad his lie with Holly has been discovered with Dad however.

So his fake break up is with Dad this time.

Holy shit Frank said the line!!! I’m not angry I’m just disappointed.

It is no coincidence that the boys in Spag Union saluted and really weirdly in their promotional video.

I’m assuming he’s not going to Spag Union.

This movie has some rather violent things. Disney would never let them say things like decapitation and that someone cut off their hand.

That is definatly not camping.

This camp leader is almost certainly a racist. I can just sense it. And like the type who is in the KKK. That kind of racist.

Ah Frank. And you made two mistakes. We’ll see how Manny turns out.

You should fire your ice sculpturist.

Girl you should not be looking forward to this performance. It’s going to be bad.

This is already the worst rendition of Justin Beibers Baby. And not only are we only a few seconds in but also I already don’t like the original.

Y’all Rowley is and will always be popular with the ladies.

I mean it was good but I think I like the other two better. It’s just not the same.

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Dumb Luck

Prompt: the usual "Everyone knows Merlin has Magic but Merlin doesn't know they know" but Arthur's being really fucking thick about it. Everything that could possibly be magic Arthur has brushed off as luck or something. At some point Merlin realizes that the knights know (or maybe he's known all along) and the knights tell Merlin that Arthur knows but he's being stupid, which leads to Merlin performing increasingly extravagant/impressive/silly magic in front of Arthur until the point Arthur just asks if Merlin would like him to acknowledge the fact that he doesn't care that Merlin has magic

no brain cells for these boys, leon stop hoarding them

Read on Ao3

Warnings: none!

Pairings: merthur, can be platonic or romantic who tf knows

Word Count: 2943

Alright. Merlin’s going to be honest. Is the absolute best at hiding his magic from people? No. Is he a damn sight near better than some other bastards would be if they had his magic? Yes, yes, he is, thank you very much. They would do quite well to remember that he is magic, and he’s had it since he was born, so he knows what he’s doing when it comes to knowing that he has it. Yes, thank you, he doesn’t go around doing every single thing he could with magic because well, then he’d never get to do much of anything ever again.

And that would be boring.

But yes, maybe he’s a little petty or lazy sometimes. Honestly, he’s just being efficient. Yes, he can justify pettiness as efficient. He’s just getting them back for something that he would otherwise have to expend so much effort doing. It’s very handy.

So the knights work out he has magic. Big surprise there, he knows. Lancelot is Lancelot, Gwaine is Gwaine. Percival stumbles in on him lifting too much a little too easily and cracks a joke about having Merlin pull his weight more on hunting trips and patrols. Elyan watches him fix armor and immediately clamors to bring Merlin to his and Gwen’s forge so he can actually show him how to fix armor.

Leon takes him aside quietly one day and thanks him. Merlin doesn’t start crying, he doesn’t end up breaking down into Leon’s arms, and Leon definitely doesn’t promise that although Merlin may not have been knighted, he thinks of him as his brother in arms.

Leon is very rude sometimes, as a matter of fact.

But Arthur doesn’t seem to notice.

Now, Arthur doesn’t notice a lot. Doesn’t notice Merlin shifting his chair a little bit so he crashes onto the floor, doesn’t notice Gwen spending just a hair too much time with Morgana in the evenings, doesn’t notice the guards that don’t even pay attention to the dungeons. Like, at all.

But there are some things he…should notice.

Like when a branch suddenly lifts itself up from a forest floor to trip a bandit.

“Bandits,” Merlin mutters under his breath, “why is it always bandits?”

He deflects a blow and sends one of them flying into a tree. Behind him, Elyan parries a blow and deftly clubs the man over the head. Arthur is battling another bandit a few paces away as one tries to run up behind him.

Merlin’s hand is out in a flash and the tree branch right in front of Arthur wheels up and smacks the man across the face.

Arthur whirls around and cuts the other man down, successfully putting an end to the fight. Around the clearing, the knights shake their heads and go about picking up the rest of their camp. Really, being far too calm for men who just killed a bunch of people.

Except for Merlin.

Merlin, while this is happening, is slowly coming to the conclusion that he would like to be swallowed up by the ground and never emerge again.

He just used magic, very obviously, in front of Arthur.

Is this the first time he’s done it? No, not by a long shot, but it is the first time he’s done it without any regard for whether Arthur can see.

Arthur turns and Merlin’s heart drops to his stomach.

Arthur wrenches his sword out of the ground and stalks over to him.

Arthur roughly grabs his shoulder. Shakes. Hard.

“Merlin! Merlin, answer me?”

“…Arthur?”

Arthur’s face is drawn. Grim. Almost his father’s. His grip hurts.

“Where are you hurt?”

Merlin blinks. What? Where is he what?

“Where is it, Merlin,” Arthur growls again, already looking him over, “where did they hurt you?”

“I’m—I’m not hurt.”

“You’re paler than a damn sheet, Merlin, you must be losing blood.” Arthur’s hand is…surprisingly gentle as it lifts his chin. “Tell me where. Come on. Now’s not the time for shame.”

“No, no,” Merlin mumbles, “I’m not—not hurt. Didn’t get hurt.”

Arthur slows, grim expression morphing to confusion. “Then why do you look so…”

If in doubt, poke fun at yourself.

“Just scared, I guess,” Merlin tries with a self-deprecating laugh, “wasn’t expecting bandits.”

Arthur huffs, lightly shoving his shoulder. “Leave it to you to be such a drama queen that I think you’re bleeding out.”

“’S nice of you to care.”

“Just glad I don’t have to drag your corpse back to Gaius.”

2.

So that was…bizarre. Not the most bizarre thing that’s ever happened to Merlin, not at all, but bizarre. Arthur may be a little unobservant at times but he’s not that oblivious.

But, in fairness to him—which is something Merlin tries not to do too often—he was in the middle of a fight and had just killed a man. Knights may not be known for the smarts but they are known for their overprotectiveness.

Yes, he can hear you lot protesting over there, it’s true and you know it.

And maybe…maybe Merlin’s been getting a little sick of Gaius screaming about how secret his magic must be kept in broad daylight with the door wide open. Listen, if you think he’s about to get scolded by your parental unit and not immediately find some way to rebel, you don’t know Merlin very well.

And yes, maybe there’s a sick little thrill he gets out of doing magic in front of Arthur.

Maybe.

So. The next time they’re on a hunting trip and he’s as sure as he can be that there aren’t any bandits around, he decides to push a little bit.

Arthur is lounging around because you can take the prince out of the castle but you can’t take the castle out of the prince and he thinks he’s still about to receive the finest of dishes that Camelot’s kitchens can prepare. Well, no, but he is about to not have to cook it himself.

“Light the fire, Merlin, it’s not that hard.”

“Have you ever lit a fire a day in your life?”

“Sure, when I was training.”

“Training? You needed training to learn how to light a fire?”

“It was survival training, with the elder knights. Had to survive a night on my own.”

“On your own?”

“Well, my own campsite. They stayed about a league away.”

Merlin just sighs and crouches down. He eyes Arthur, who is tending to his sword, and then very slowly but pointedly sets the flint and steel aside. Arthur isn’t paying much attention to him.

Slowly, Merlin leans forward and lights the fire with his magic.

Arthur looks up. Merlin looks back at him. Arthur swings the sword off his lap. He sets it on the log, his hand still wrapped around the pommel. The tip of the blade points straight at Merlin’s chest. It gleams in the firelight.

“See? I told you it wasn’t hard.”

Is…is he serious?

3.

As it turns out, yes. Arthur is completely serious.

And at this point, this is science, now, what Merlin’s doing. Experiments. He has to know the limits! He has a hypothesis, he has a method, he wants to reach a conclusion.

Hypothesis: Arthur is really, really oblivious to anything magical.

Method: do increasingly obvious magic in front of Arthur until he notices.

Conclusion: how oblivious is Arthur?

An important caveat: Merlin doesn’t know how Arthur will react to finding out he has magic, but he can burn that bridge when he gets there.

So when he wakes Arthur up the next morning, he draws the curtains with a flourish and when Arthur turns over and pulls the blanket up to his cheek in protest, he flicks his wrist and yanks the covers off the bed.

What does Arthur do?

Mumble and groan and stumble out of bed saying Merlin’s worse than his first governess.

“Wait, first?”

“Morgana and I snuck a toad into her bed. She quit after that.”

“You two did what?”

“Think there’s still frog spawn in that bed frame. Father had that chamber closed off for a while.”

“You—eat your breakfast, you prat.”

“You’re the one that pulled my blankets away!”

4.

…okay, so he needs to take it up a notch.

One of the ones that pisses Gaius off the most is when Merlin uses magic to polish multiple pieces of Arthur’s armor at the same time. So when Arthur is at his desk, Merlin lays his shield across his lap and grabs two polishing rags. He sets the can of polish next to him and starts working on the shield. When he’s sure Arthur is focusing, he uses his magic to lift the breastplate up next to him and start to beat out the dents.

“Merlin,” Arthur sighs, “can you keep it down any?”

Showtime. “Don’t know what you mean, sire.”

“That bloody racket! Can you at least be a little quieter?”

“What racket?”

Arthur shoves the paper away from him and glares at the ceiling. “That banging! It’s so loud I can barely hear myself think!”

“It’s no louder than you normally are, sire.”

“Oh, you—I ought to—“ Arthur just mutters to himself as he claps his hands over his ears.

But he never looks toward Merlin.

Huh.

5.

So maybe Arthur isn’t ignoring him because he’s oblivious. Maybe…maybe he knows already and is…is trying to protect Merlin.

Uther is still King of Camelot. Morgana is outspoken against his cruelty but he is still very much in charge. There’s only so much protection the knights can afford him. There’s only so much protection Arthur can afford him.

So…so maybe Arthur is pretending he doesn’t see because he knows he can’t save Merlin if he has to acknowledge it.

Merlin takes a few days to process that. The knights are concerned, they ask him what’s wrong, what does he need, how can they help? He waves them off, says he’s just thinking.

“Maybe,” Lancelot says kindly, “but with you, Merlin, you’re never just thinking.”

“Or at least it doesn’t stay that way for very long,” Gwaine agrees, slinging an arm around Merlin’s shoulders, “and I don’t know about you lot but I like a little bit of forewarning before I wake up to ale in my shoes.”

“You asked for another round, you didn’t say where.”

“Why the hell would I want them in my shoes?”

Gwaine does what Gwaine always does and steers the attention away from Merlin, leaving Leon and Lancelot to carefully prod him a little more privately. He waves them off too, even though he’s sure he isn’t keeping as much as he would like to be from Leon.

Merlin stops using his magic as much. He does his chores as much as he can using his two hands, lugs buckets of water without complaint, polishes armor until his nose burns and his eyes sting. He uses his magic for particularly stubborn stains in his room and keeps a sharper eye out for how to move this bandit’s sword a little to the right, or how to make this knight’s staff a little heavier.

He thinks Arthur is trying to hide for him, so he hides for Arthur.

Then he can’t hide.

A sorcerer is threatening to collapse the walls of Camelot in on themselves. The entire citadel shakes as Merlin and the knights rush out, dragging as many people as they can. The stone trembles and the wood groans and there are screams. More screams than Merlin could ever bear to hear join the chorus of more than he could ever know that plague him every time he closes his eyes.

He shuts them anyway and runs.

He runs away from the knights, magic pushing him faster, faster, faster with the need to protect the castle, protect the people, protect Arthur. The sorcerer is pulling him away from his people and for that…for that, he must pay.

By the time he gets to the field, it is rippling with magic. Merlin’s fingertips, his ears, even his nose tingles as he rushes deeper, deeper, deeper, trying to get to the eye of the storm.

There, in the middle of a patch of grass, stands a sorcerer. In robes deeper than night and hair whipped up in the wind of the spell.

Merlin grits his teeth and says no.

And when the Greatest Sorcerer to Ever Walk the Earth calls, Magic answers.

The sorcerer is dust before he manages to open his mouth. The field settles. Magic returns to the earth. And Merlin collapses to his knees as the knights run up behind him.

He isn’t a fool, despite what others may have led you to believe. He knows this was magic, could only be magic, and could only be stopped by magic.

So when the knights rush up to him and collapse to their knees around him, muttering that he’s alright, he did it, he’s safe, he did it, is he hurt, all he can think of is how he’s going to have to explain this to Arthur.

They tell him he doesn’t need to explain anything. That Arthur already knows, that he doesn’t care.

Merlin doesn’t believe them. Even if he saved Camelot, which he’s already done, he has magic. He used magic to do it.

They tell him again that it doesn’t matter, that Arthur doesn’t, won’t care.

But Merlin still has to tell him.

“Tell me what?”

+1.

Arthur rushes into the clearing. He can hear him behind them. He can’t find it in him to get up. The knights are still around him, he can hear Lancelot’s voice in his ear, feel Leon’s hands on his shoulders, but he can’t move. Can’t speak.

“Tell me what,” Arthur repeats, and oh, he sounds angry, “what is it?”

“Merlin,” someone—Gwaine—is muttering, “Merlin, it’s alright, he won’t care, he doesn’t care—“

“Of course I care,” comes the cold, cold voice and Gwaine falters, “now move.”

Merlin’s chest clenches. There’s the sharp sing of steel as Gwaine draws his sword.

“Put it down.”

“Nope, can’t do that.”

Then Leon stands up. “Arthur, please think carefully about this.”

“I don’t have to think carefully about anything. Merlin is hurt, let me tend to him. He’s mine.”

“You won’t hurt him.”

“No, I certainly don’t intend to, so move.”

Lancelot’s hands are the last to leave him. Merlin is cold. It’s so cold. His magic buries deep inside his chest and it feels hard to breathe.

Boots. Boots on the ground in front of him. They flatten the grass as a shadow blocks the light. Armor creaks as the figure kneels down. A gauntleted hand cups his chin.

“Merlin,” comes a voice that’s soft, too soft, “Merlin, I need you to look at me.”

And what is he supposed to do, disobey?

Arthur’s face is too warm when Merlin looks up at him. His mouth tugs up into a little smile as Merlin finally makes eye contact with him.

“There you are,” he says, still in that soft voice that doesn’t make sense, “now, are you hurt?”

Merlin can only blink.

“Merlin,” he says, and his voice is a little firmer as he cups Merlin’s chin properly, “are you hurt? What happened?”

His throat is too dry. “Not hurt.”

Arthur relaxes, only marginally. “Then why do you look so upset?”

The world could collapse and Merlin would be frozen here, trapped in the silence of Arthur’s gaze.

Unbidden, his eyes flash gold.

Arthur takes a sharp breath in. Merlin braces for a hit only for—

“Oh, you idiot,” Arthur whispers, “do I actually need to tell you I don’t care if you have magic?”

Pause.

Go back.

One more time.

What?

“I don’t care, you idiot,” he says in a tone that is too fond, “I don’t care that you have magic. You have it, you’re still Merlin, I don’t care.”

Rough metal gauntlets cup his face and oh—it’s cold—

“Merlin, look at me.”

“I—I am.”

“No, look.”

He blinks and has to focus on looking at Arthur.

“I’m not mad,” Arthur says firmly, “and I don’t care that you have magic.”

Merlin starts to laugh. Because of course, of course, Arthur doesn’t care. He’s been so stupid. Arthur doesn’t care. Arthur doesn’t care. He’s doubled over before he can stop himself. The laughs keep pouring out of him, his magic rushing back to his fingers, his nose, his chest. He laughs long and loud and hard and then Arthur is murmuring at him again because no, no, he isn’t laughing anymore, he’s crying.

“Come here, you big baby,” Arthur murmurs, tucking him into the gentlest embrace he’s ever had from someone wearing armor, “yes, there you go, that’s it.”

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

Arthur has known Merlin has magic and he doesn’t care.

…wait, does that make Merlin the oblivious one?

Nah, that couldn’t be it.

It’s not like Arthur is hiding anything else from Merlin.

[kisenth]

interview with raihan : gymleaders

⟡ ═══ ♛ ═══ ⟡ "--sure, all us leaders get along great and stuff, but even we got people we prefer to hang out with, and people we don't. I don't mean that in any bad sorta way or anything, but some people you just click with better, know what I'm saying?"

         ˙ "Me? Me and Kabu visit each other when we're near each other's town. You know Hoenn, the place he's from? Real interesting to hear things about that I didn't discover when I was on my trip there in the past. Each time he talks about his old home it's making me want to hop on a plane for another vacation, hah." But, if he ever DOES get the time for it? He knows a certain someone he's calling ahead to clear up his schedule for him.

         ˙ "Not just that, though. Our Torkoals just hit it off the moment they met. You'd think them siblings or something - can't pry them away from each other the moment they meet again.” a small laugh slips out when he thinks of how both him and Kabu were stuck bribing their Pokémon the last time. At this point he's not certain if it's wanting to be bribed with snacks first or wanting to stick together that makes them so hard to separate, but he kinda leans towards both. “He's also got a fountain of knowledge when it comes to some Pokémon we don't got around here. Sure, I won't catch 'em, but it's still nice to hear about them."

         ˙ "Someone I don't hang around with now? Err, I stay clear of Circhester when I can. No, no, me and Gordie are cool, but his mum? Err, don't get me wrong, lovely woman and great gym leader, but, dragons and ice yanno? And when the moment she spots me-" he shakes his head, just barely suppressing a shudder. "Nice lady, but at a distance." especially since he just KNOWS that half the things that flashed through his mind like his life was coming to an end, were things she did to him on purpose. That, and he's just not all that great with cold places and misty terrains, so Circhester isn’t his friend no matter how you look at it.

         ˙ "But I'm serious, as a person she's great. She's raising all those kids and still makes for a strong gym holder. Ain't a leader I ever beat." not surprising, considering how her typing is the bane of his, but he knows there's more than just types involved in battles, and he'll readily agree that she's the real deal on all battle fronts. Even if he’s sure he’d win if their types were at least neutral.

         ˙ "I'm not all that great at dealing with Opal either, though it's gotten better now that she took a fancy to someone to succeed her, we got more to talk about now." Before there just wasn't much. Their Pokémon are such mismatches there's little to talk about in terms of battles or raising, but he respected her as a person and a leader nonetheless. It takes a good bit of strength, both physical and mental, to be a gym leader after all - and the old lady still persevered even at her age. That's worth some serious respect in his eyes. "Either way, there's a whole lot to be learned from watching her battle, that's for sure."

         ˙ "Ah- Piers can be fun to hang out with as well, even if he tends to talk like everything's a bother, keheh." a flash of teeth shows as he grins sharply. "Still, the moment his sister comes up? Big ol' drama queen. Still, big brothers gotta stick together, so sometimes we and Gordie go for drinks together. Piers doesn't really get what it's like to be the big bro of a whole litter of runts, but that doesn't matter. Any person who puts their little siblings first is welcome to join that little club of ours."

         ˙ "Actually, thinking bout it... Huh. We're often so busy talking about our sibs that we rarely even talk about work stuff. Doesn't happen a lot when you put a bunch of gym leaders together, eh?" he shakes his head with an amused hum.

         ˙ "Well, it's like I said. Us leaders all pretty okay with each other. We see each other a lot for league stuff and exhibition matches and whatnot after all, and when we need some advice on gym stuff we can all only really turn to each other. So it's not weird to pop by each other's gyms when we happen to be near during a trip, to catch up on interesting challengers and other sort stuff. We're rivals of course, because we get ranked by our strength as well, but at the same time we're comrades in arms who try to help each other reach greater heights with things like matches, training camps for us leaders and our gym trainers, and even just winding down with people who properly get how tough the job can be."

         ˙ "There ain't a single one of them that I dislike, though it seems like the new generation is starting to take over, little by little, doesn't it? I wonder how else our setup is going to change from here on out."

[neshabeingchildish]

League of Extraordinary Geniuses || Chapter 8

@verified-dumbass @just-a-j-reallly @kiddangers @poppyville

I hope that everybody has been doing well. This chapter isn’t as long as the previous, but that’s mostly because these have been running together, and I’ve been trying to find stopping points for them. I wanted to fully get through this emotional journey that Charlotte is taking the guys on while she figures some things out and after I have the chance to do that, we’ll get back to the action and premise. This was a little bit of a fun break from some of that, even though it is very much so a Max stress chapter, Max is a person that doesn’t wear his upset on his sleeve.Let me know what you’re thinking. I’ve still got notes, but I’m running out of them. Lol. 

The Way I Danced with You

This was possibly the best tea that Chase had ever tasted in his life. Max didn’t order tea. He ordered a smoothie and added in a bunch of things that like… why didn’t he just get dessert? All of the sugar content couldn’t be good for him, plus… He mentioned planning on drinking later. How was he able to keep that physique and excel in hero duties with all of the sweets and alcohol he partook in? Chase didn’t do stuff like that. He made sure that his body was as immaculate as humanly possible. But tea would often be one of his guilty pleasures… Not that tea wasn’t healthy, but he ordered for taste and aroma, not so much the medical or spiritual purposes that Charlotte usually adhered to. He wondered how she was doing with “her guys.” He wondered if their presence at the cottage had made the difference that Max once hoped for with those guys. He wondered what it would be like whenever they reunited…

“Okay, so, we gotta go shopping. Gotta get some Dystopia clothes to wear and some supplies for the robot research. Then, it’s to the library, because there’s an entry way into Charlotte’s lab there and that’s the closest and easiest one to access. I’ve gotta look over the potential genius pool results for minions and get them started on one of my side projects, while I have the down time. Gonna swing through Maxtropolis and check in with Marx and Dougie - you can stay in the car if you need to…”

“I’ll be fine,” Chase said, but even thinking about it made him tense. 

Max brushed it off and continued, “Probably will be around lunchtime. So, gonna do that at The Bionic Brothel…”

“Brothel???” Chase repeated, clearly horrified.

“Relax! It’s a soup saloon.” His eyes grew misty as he stared into the distance, “There’s nothing else in the world like their soup selection.” Chase glanced towards where Max was staring off into the distance and this brought him back to the conversation, “And, they’ve got cool soup selections and other stuff too, so even though it’s hot outside, you could still enjoy something. One of the biokids Char plucked from your dad’s island opened it up about a year ago. It’s a bionic owned business with a bionic staff, with the exception of a few regular servers. Hostess is an android… Or was. I don’t know the status of the ones that were living life before this hellstorm…” 

Now, it was on both their minds again, but Max found his voice to say, “And after that, check in with Charlotte to see if she needs anything, and if not, head back to the Super Stay to wash up and get ready to go to Dance Off Revolution.”

“What… what is Dance Off Revolution?” 

“You really have got to get to Dystopia more often!”

“Something that 16 year old me never could have imagined anyone would ever say…”

“Dance Off Revolution is an underground club where dance crews have battles and soloists try out for crews.”

“Are you suggesting that we try to join a dance crew?” Chase asked, a little bit more excited than he intended to sound, but Max froze and looked at him with equal excitement.

“I wasn’t, but the tone in your question tells me that I was wrong! Hell yeah, we’ll try out for a dance crew!”

Chase smiled, cheerfully, then collected his thoughts, “Wait a minute, we can’t try out for a dance crew. We don’t have time to join a dance crew! We’re only here for a few days or so.”

“You don’t do things JUST TO SAY that you did it?” Max asked incredulously.

“I mean…” Chase smiled brightly again and gushed, “YES!”

“Oh man, I am gonna destroy you on that dance floor!”

Chase furrowed his eyebrows. For some reason, in his mind, they were about to do a thing together, not face off. But at merely the suggestion that Max could defeat him didn’t sour his mood. It made him competitive, “In your dreams Super Kid.”

Max’s eyes grew wide, “It is SO on!” He started mumbling something about, “Thinks he can defeat me in a dance battle? This boy don’t even know Beyonce’s catalog and thinks he can beat me in a…”

“What does Beyonce have to do with dancing?” Chase asked. 

Max almost crashed the car, then came to a screeching halt. People were honking their horns as he collected himself. “Tell me… that you just did NOT…”

“We are in the middle of the street…” Chase said, nervously, and mouthed apologies to angrily passing vehicles. 

“That’s like asking what Usher has to do with dancing!” Chase narrowed his eyes, not wanting to ask it out loud, but Max read his face, clenched both of his fists and yelled, “YOU’RE WONDERING WHAT USHER HAS TO DO WITH DANCING, AREN’T YOU???” Max shook his head and started driving again, making a very illegal U turn. “Plans are cancelled until further notice. You have to be schooled in the Church of Usher.”

“Is that another Dystopia landmark that the tourists don’t usually hear about.”

Through his teeth, Max chimed, “It is a lifestyle choice.” He turned on an Usher playlist and headed for his friend’s house.

.

Simone was giggling about Max Thunderman being in her dance studio, in front of the mirrored walls, showing Chase Davenport Usher choreography. It was extremely unexpected and cute. She loved this so much. AND they gave her permission to put any of the clips she recorded on her stories for the Kickbutt Dance Studios Company page. By the time they finished, Chase knew every Usher song with the choreography and was in the best mood that Max had ever seen the guy in. He took a call from Mr. Davenport while Simone and Max talked.

“So… This your new romance prospect?” She wondered.

Max furrowed his eyebrows, “What? Are you joking?”

Simone looked confused, “You asked me to open my studio for you to share Usher with him and danced for hours. You put together a routine for Dance Off Revolution! …If that isn’t a date, then I don’t know what is. Anyways, you like teacup people with bright eyes.”

“SHUT UP! I do not!” He did, but. He already had a teacup person with bright eyes. Charlotte.

Simone laughed and shrugged her shoulders, “I guess…” She looked towards Chase, then said in a lower voice to Max, “Just, be careful around the bionics. I don’t know. He seems nice and all, but they’re… they’ve brought a lot of controversy and contempt into our world.”

Max didn’t expect to defend Chase, but it flowed out naturally. It wasn’t even because he felt connected to him or that they had bonded over dance. He just knew that the things that people thought about Chase were probably misconstrued, after having spent some time with him.  “I know that, but he isn’t like that.”

“Kaz seemed to think so,” she said.

“Do you ALL know each other???” Chase asked, coming back over.

“Pretty much,” they both said. 

Chase fussed, “And why is Kaz ALWAYS talking to someone about me? Jeesh.”

Simone wasn’t EVEN going to get on that subject. “Look… I know you did a lot for the supers whenever the war started, and as someone who could’ve potentially been slaughtered, that definitely means a lot. I just still take issue with the fact that bionics are comfortable with taking the credit for supers’ successes.”

“The supers have told us that they don’t want your world uncovered,” Chase said. “I guess your buddy Kaz leaves that part out when he’s keeping a personal journal about my life.”

“That was years ago, my dude. People know that we’re here now, and yet bionics are still seen as heroes while we’re seen as freaks. The difference being because you guys are just nonsupes with technology and we were born this way. You can’t remove our abilities and that makes nonsupes dehumanize and demonize us. As someone who knows and works with us and even fought alongside of us, I would think you’d be more vocal about exposing the truth. No other bionic person has the platform that you do.” She shrugged her shoulders and said, “Just something to think about. Personally, I never really wanted to be a hero. I love being stationed in Dystopia. The Defenders do most of the work and I was able to open my own dance studio! So, I’m not insulted on behalf of heroes. I just watched my mom bust her buns to be a hero and never get to let the world know, and now that the world is evolving and slowly making room for supers, I think it’s important that our importance in history and in today’s formation is esteemed, as well.” She shrugged her shoulders. 

Chase nodded his head, until Max tried to answer for him. “Well, it’s not really his platform, so he can’t just start making statements about supers.”

“Who’s platform is it?”

“His dad’s.”

“I don’t know his dad.”

“His dad’s in charge. He’s just the poster boy.”

“Wait a minute!” Chase interrupted.

“Say no more. I know how that is. I was the Super President’s daughter coming up. No platform of my own to be found.”

“I have a platform!” Chase insisted.

Max smirked, “Yeah, that Daddy controls. Excuse me, Mr. Davenport…”

“I can put whatever I choose on my platform!” Chase fussed.

“Okay,” Max said, rolling his eyes, then laughed when Chase pouted about things.  A few more minutes, and they were finally off to do the things that Max intended to do before. Chase remained pouting. Max drowned out his sighs and groans with more Usher. Chase tried to resist moving along to the music. He couldn’t, but he definitely was able to hold his glare.

By the time they were shopping, he lightened up, but the implication that he couldn’t speak for himself because he represented Davenport Industries would continue to bother him. He picked up the tab, because he knew he had more money than Max did and he did feel like he owed him for being pretty generous with stuff like cooking breakfast and offering beverages and stuff. They would be working together and he had to get used to treating him like a person that he was considerate of. Super Stay was a hotel that supers tended to stay in, though there was other clientele. 

They were in the Maximus Suite, and the place had a bionic chamber. Chase was impressed with it. It wasn’t like the one that Charlotte kept for him, but it was pretty good for a hotel. Dystopia was extremely accommodating, now that he was visiting. He didn’t want to tell Max that he had quarters in the city, because Max was pretty comfortable with this arrangement of them being in the same suite and he didn’t want to seem ungrateful or rude. 

Once they were cleaned up and changed, they met in the common area of the suite and Max announced, “Sure you’re gonna be alright seeing Marx?”

“I’m not a baby, Max.”

“Okay. Well… it’s closer than the library now, so there first, maybe get soup with Dougie and then the library. He’ll probably wanna look over Char’s robot stuff anyways,” Max said.

As they headed out, Chase wondered, “Are you two like… really close?” 

Max thought for a moment, then said, “Well… I think so. Something that my family never really realized about my villainous days was that I was missing something.  I thought that there was no way that I could ever be as good a hero as my sister and I had a pet villain to motivate me in other directions. My parents never supported me unless I did something they approved of and well… I felt like I found what I was looking for in Dr. Colosso… and I mean, I ultimately made the right decision but I was so close to the darkness. Douglas went into the darkness and when he came out, he'd lost his family. Sure, he was able to get back in, but he still missed out on so much and can't fix what he's done. I empathize. I didn't go as far as he did, and if I had, who knows? My family might not trust me. It could have gone so much worse. Dougie helps me to remember to be grateful and I help him to have a connection with a son like figure that he can relate to. There's mutual understanding and appreciation that we haven't exactly been able to get from our loved ones that have never did the dance in the darkness that we've done."

Chase didn't want to talk about why he didn't trust Douglas fully or the tension and resentment he still felt, after years of work and trying, but, one thing was still true, "I'm glad he's got someone like that."

“He would trade me for one of his own in a heartbeat,” Max said, with a shrug, though the thought of Douglas ever turning on him shook him deeply. He was around when Colosso died… And honestly… he was the only person who was at all helpful. He… wanted to reanimate him as an android bunny, which no… I didn’t want to do, but I sure appreciated his desire to help me cope.”

“Bunny?” Chase repeated.

“I’ll explain later. Anyway, yeah… Dougie and I are close. He’s basically me, if I was old and lonely.”

“Lonely? With you, Charlotte, and Charlotte’s weird little friend?” Chase asked.

“Wow. You’re just gonna disrespect Schwoz that way? Yes. Even with a few friends, Douglas is still lonely. He doesn’t even get to be fun uncle to Naomi.”

“More and more, it’s sounding like you just hang out with him because you feel bad for him. Scared that you’ll turn out that way?” Chase joked. Now, it was Max’s turn to frown.

“Maybe,” he muttered. Probably, he couldn’t get himself to admit out loud.

.

“So, you ready to help me to create a whole new Dystopia?”

“I’m ready to watch your back while YOU create a whole new Dystopia.” 

“That works!” 

Thunderstrike smiled at Charlotte, his mask hiding half of his face, but not the eyes - old school style, as was the case with the heroes of his bloodline. That and a cape. He was ready to be the hero that she needed to do whatever it was she had to do. 

Charlotte was it for Max. He’d made that up in his mind before he ever met her. Sure, he’d done this before (with Cheyanne), but with Charlotte, it was different. First off - he apparently was drawn to her, because he admired her in each form she had, not even knowing she was the same person. And then, they became friends, and then he relocated to Dystopia during the height of its crime and then… he felt validation. 

She finally was starting to see him for who he was and he’d hoped, for who he could be to her. At that time, she’d been away for over a year and doing a lot. He could tell that she wasn’t as connected to her former partners as before. He could tell that she cared for him, maybe not as much, but enough for it to matter to her… enough for him to matter, for THEM to MATTER! 

The Super Stay wasn’t around yet, so he had a cabin on the campsite of the shelter he used to bring supplies for (Henry and Jasper’s shelter), and it was cozy and had every amenity needed, but sometimes, he wanted a bath. It was hard to get used to not soaking before he showered, and Charlotte was staying in the fancy place that Mr. Davenport provided, so whenever he’d mentioned this particular inconvenience, she suggested that he could do that at her place. Most of the time, she was either at work or at Henry and Jasper’s (which she was still calling “home” at the time), so she gave him the extra key and told him to make himself comfortable. 

He wasn’t going to impose. He just wanted to soak and think before he showered. Nothing else. Only, whenever he came over to do so, Charlotte was always there, despite having claimed that she was never really there. “Guess I just have bad timing,” he joked.

“Or good timing,” she said, with a bright smile and went to retrieve a pair of pants. She was just wearing panties and a crop top sweatshirt, with her locs tied up in a scarf. She didn’t seem uncomfortable with him seeing her that way, or maybe she presumed that he’d turn his head when he realized that she wasn’t decent… Or maybe, and he didn’t want to presume, but couldn’t help it, maybe she’d wanted him to see her like this. She pulled on the tight fighting, snug leisure pants and headed into her bathroom… where HE was about to go. “So, this is where the towels are,” she told him and he followed her voice, gasped when he saw how wondrous the bathroom looked, before even making it to the walk in linen closet, which was full, not only with towels, but soaps, skin products, dental hygiene supplies, etc, and had a little computer on the side. “This is Madame. If you’ve ever seen the episode of Fly Homes with the Dom, that computer system that he calls Eddy, this is like that, but for here and she isn’t obnoxious. She’ll help you with anything you need to set the tone. Oatmeal, honey, milk, tea, whatever you wanna add to the bath. The pressure of the rinse… All the details. You can program your preferences under your name.” She started showing him how.

It was dope. He stayed for a while, laying in the tub, not realizing how much he’d needed this and also hating the fact that he didn’t have such a fancy set up in his house. He’d have to change that at some point… But, that night, he simply rested and soaked, then showered and whenever he came out, ready to go home, Charlotte was closing her laptop, having just finished all of her assignments, and she smiled at him. “Nightcap?” She wondered. 

Of course he wasn’t going to leave. He didn’t plan on staying all night, but as it turned out, back then, it took less liquor to make her worry about him driving. So, after a few drinks and long conversations about their current projects and stuff, she let him sleep on the couch and she went to bed. 

They had so many nights like that, the first time that he showed up and she in fact wasn’t there, he was sorely disappointed. He went into the bath, put on an eye mask and soaked, steam coming off of everything. 

It was a while before he felt like he heard something and sensed someone there. He pulled off the mask and Charlotte was standing in the doorway, trying to quietly back out. She laughed at herself and shook her head, “Sorry. I didn’t realize that you were in here. I was gonna try to leave unnoticed.”

“No, no… This is your bathroom. Do what ya gotta do.” He put the mask back on and rested against the bath pillow. She bit her lip, but came into the room and sat on the toilet. She turned on some music because, maybe it’d be better if he couldn’t hear her peeing. She noticed his hand tapping the side of the tub to the beat of the music and was relieved when he didn’t react to her extremely loud piss. Like… she was only aware right now how loud it was. Was it ALWAYS that loud? She hugged herself, sighed and let out some gas. She groaned and quickly said, “I am so sorry.” She said it almost under her breath, because finding her voice in the midst of that shame was difficult.

“For being a human with bodily functions?” He asked, from beneath the mask, and then added, “In your own house?”

Usually she’d remind him that this isn’t her house and that whenever her stay here was over the Dom was gonna use it for something else, but that night, she just laughed at herself, cleaned off with the bidet and left the bathroom. 

The next time that they were both there, she was now more comfortable with stepping in on him, since she knew that he didn’t care, and she really wanted to do what she needed to do and get out of there. They bumbled around each other for a while, trying to be polite, but also to hurry. Max had an early morning and had to get to sleep. Charlotte had a date for the first time “in ages” with Henry and Jasper. It was controlled chaos and they laughed their way through it, and moved along.

Only… Charlotte spent the majority of her date thinking about Max and what was happening with them. How comfortable she was getting with someone who wasn’t Henry or Jasper… how… attached she was feeling. Max spent the entire night awake in bed, willing her to be somewhere thinking of him too. That wasn’t to say he believed that could happen, but the possibility of him being the only one who’s night was overtaken by emotions and thoughts just didn’t sit well with him. 

After that… they were solid. Neither of them mentioned it for a time, but Charlotte began to stay home more (calling her Davenport property home, by this time) and he began to stay over a lot. 

Jasper was upset. He didn’t feel like it was appropriate. “This friendship of yours is going too far,” he’d complained. Only to be overruled by Charlotte’s iconic, “You think that’s the farthest that I, of all people, can go?” and Henry quickly smoothed things over with, “I think it’d be cute. One of these days one of us was bound to like somebody else and want to explore. It’s Charlotte, so the most sensible of us and the one with the most moral fiber. That’s a good start for a relationship soft open.”

Soft open. She didn’t know if she liked that description, but further conversation led them to a conversation about opening up their relationship, but only with open communication about it. 

At 21, she didn’t have all of the answers. Even people who lived poly lifestyles and people in open relationships all had their own ways of doing it and she didn’t know which way was right. She was still learning herself at that time and to learn yet ANOTHER man seemed excessive, but it was Max. She knew that things were mutual. She knew that she could do this and she believed that she would enjoy it.

Whenever she next came in to find him in the bath, listening to something vibey - Jhene or Sza or something - eyes shut and head leaned back, she removed what she had on and joined. He stirred, but didn’t visibly panic whenever her toes touched the water. His eyes opened and seeing her settle in, her stared, but didn’t want to ruin whatever was happening, so he didn’t question her and he didn’t say anything. She sorta wished he did, even though she had no explanation for her bold actions. All she did was shift around through the bubbles and find her way to his chest. She laid on him and felt his arms move to wrap her up. He kissed her forehead and they didn’t say anything about it.

When they got out of the bath and he started the shower, she began her skin and hair routine. He got out, teeth were brushed, bodies moisturized, etc. Finally, the silence was broken, when he pointed his thumb and wondered, “Should I go to the couch?” She shook her head, took his hand, and guided him into the bedroom. That was the FIRST night that he slept in her bed.

“I don’t think you’ll end up that way,” Chase broke into his thoughts. “You’re someone who cares about others at this point in your life… I don’t know that I can say Douglas was that way at your age. You turned things around sooner, and made a good difference earlier in life. You’ve got similar feelings about your adolescent stages, but everything else, save maybe poor taste in fashion, is all different. You won’t end up like Douglas. You even have people who love you,” Chase said. He slapped a hand awkwardly on Max’s shoulder, and patted him stiffly. 

“Are you trying to open up to me about your true feelings, Bionic Boy?” 

Chase scoffed and removed his hand, “As if! I wasn’t even entirely genuine! You’re a lot like Douglas and both of you have terrible wardrobe. And feelings? For you? Gross!” Chase’s flustered stammering made Max laugh. But also, Chase was right. The first time. He wouldn’t end up with work friends and a few flings. He’d be happy someday with somebody who loved him and wanted him. Unfortunately, for Max… Charlotte was it.

[wrestlingisfake]

Wrestle Kingdom 15 day 2 preview

TBD vs. Jay White - White is challenging for the IWGP heavyweight title and IWGP intercontinental title, against the winner of Tetsuya Naito vs. Kota Ibushi from last night.  In fact several of the matches on this card are major spoilers for yesterday’s show, so I guess the whole thing needs to go under the cut.

Kota Ibushi vs. Jay White - Ibushi defeated Tetsuya Naito last night to become the 73rd IWGP heavyweight champion and the 27th IWGP intercontinental champion.  White is using his “IWGP double championship right to challenge” contract to receive this title shot.  If White wins, Ibushi’s 24 hours as double champion would be the shortest reign in the history of either championship.

Ibushi was devastated when he was knocked out of the Double Gold Dash last year, and moreso when he lost to White in the consolation match.  Ibushi and White met again during the G1 Climax, where Jay beat him again.  Ibushi nevertheless won the G1 Climax to earn the “right to challenge” contract.  However, the contract is defended like a championship, and Ibushi put it on the line against White...who beat him again.  White then elected to take January 4 off and schedule his title match with Naito for January 5.  However, Naito decided to spend the 4th defending the title against Ibushi.  The upshot is that Ibushi has finally achieved his dream, but he must immediately put it all on the line against his nemesis, who isn’t exhausted from working last night.

Frankly, I’m not sure why they set this up where the 1/4 main event sets up who gets to wrestle White, like he’s the biggest star in this thing.  I suppose maybe the idea is that he’s unavoidable so that you’ll worry until the very end that he could ruin everything. Maybe that psychology connects with the Japanese audience.  It doesn’t with me.  I’d rather just see the best and/or biggest match close the second show, and White vs. Ibushi isn’t it.  Their match at Wrestle Kingdom 14 last year was so dull that I lost interest for about 20 minutes.  Jay will go for the same cheap heat spots he always goes for, and Ibushi will randomly no-sell or oversell each of them, depending on whether he wants to be Ultra Instinct Shaggy or Ricky Morton at any given moment.

I suppose White-Ibushi matches have been fun, sometimes.  I really liked the G1 Climax 2019 final.  But personally I was over this feud months ago.  I really hope they’ve come up with some new material, or this is going to be a long slog for me.  I’m picking Ibushi to win, because I really don’t think they’ll book White to win just to troll the Tokyo Dome.  But the bigger problem is, I wouldn’t care if they did.

Taiji Ishimori vs. Hiromu Takahashi - Ishimori is defending the IWGP junior heavyweight championship.  Hiromu defeated El Phantasmo last night to earn this title shot.  Ishimori won the title from Takahashi on August 29, although they met again in the Best of the Super Jr. tournament on November 15, where Hiromu won.  So this is the rubber match.

This match should be good to great, but it feels inevitable that Takahashi will regain the title.  That’s not all bad, since he’s a big star and I’m a fan, but the match would mean more if Ishimori had been built up bigger.  I suppose the pandemic made that difficult, since there were enough shows (or junior heavyweights) for Taiji to really burn through other top contenders.

I guess I’ll just try to get in the mindset of enjoying Hiromu’s coronation, instead of hoping for a match that could go either way.  Then, on the off chance Ishimori actually wins, I’ll be properly shocked.  But I’m not betting on that happening.

EVIL vs. SANADA - Welp, it had to happen--after Evil turned on Los Ingobernables de Japon and joined Bullet Club, it was only a matter of time before his tag team partner Sanada finally got a hold of him and...wait.  I’m looking at my notes for the Evil-Sanada match from October 17.  I’m frankly not sure why Sanada suddenly got mad at Evil two months after winning that match.  I’m pretty sure they just ran out of ideas for each guy.  Well, the October bout wasn’t as emotionally charged as I wanted anyway, so I’ll take a delayed grudge match if I can get it.

I believe Kevin Kelly commented recently that a win for Sanada here moves him closer to the main event title picture, but a loss sends him tumbling back down. I’d agree with that assessment.  Along the same lines, a win for Evil suggests a renewed push for him, whereas a loss would signal that they’re putting him on the back burner for a while.  I don’t expect either guy to headline the really big shows, but even on the lesser shows, only the winner of this match makes sense chasing the heavyweight and intercontinental titles.

I’d be in favor of these two brawling all around the ringside area (as much as safety procedures allow) and getting it out of their system.  Blow this feud off quickly, so we can get on with new business--Sanada working his way up the ladder, and Evil plotting against his rivals within Bullet Club.  I’m picking Sanada to win.

Shingo Takagi vs. Jeff Cobb - Takagi is defending the NEVER title.  Cobb beat Shingo in their last singles encounter in September, but Takagi wasn’t champion yet.  So Cobb had to beat him again in a tag match in December to set up this match.  Of course, in the meantime, Cobb turned heel by joining Will Ospreay’s new stable, the Empire.

You could always count on either of these guys to have a great clubberin’ battle, but Cobb’s heel turn should add a vicious new edge to this matchup.  We should get a strong showcase of what to expect from Evil Jeff Cobb, above and beyond what he demonstrated in World Tag League.  Accordingly, I think he basically has to win the title.  There just isn’t anything so important that it’s worth keeping the belt on Takagi; the most interesting thing he could do right now is chase Cobb.  So this is another “feels like a foregone conclusion” match on a card full of them.  At least this one should be fairly different from the others.

El Desperado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Master Wato & Ryusuke Taguchi - Despy and Kanemaru are defending the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team titles.  Wato and Taguchi each managed to beat Despy in one-on-one matches during Best of the Super Jr., so I guess they figured they’d make a go of it as a team.

If you’d told me a year ago that a Young Lion would come back from excursion with a bunch of fancy vignettes, and it was all to build to this match, past-me would never have dreamed that the new guy would be the dimmest star of this group.  But as it happens, Desperado had an epic star-making performance in BOSJ, Taguchi is a comedy institution in the promotion, and Kanemaru is at least a champion.  Wato just hasn’t been booked like a hot new star, and the whole idea of having guys like Taguchi and Hiroyoshi Tenzan coach him just makes him look weaker.  You get the feeling this match is designed to help him recover from all that, except that I have no confidence he’ll actually win the big one in the Tokyo Dome.  If he loses here, he’s basically Captain New Japan Mark II.

What’s worse for Wato is that I’m not even sure it’s a good idea for him to finally win the big one, not at Desperado’s expense.  The drama of the BOSJ final took me from “Oh, that one guy who looks like Skeletor cosplaying El Kabong” to “holy shit El Desperado isn’t fucking around.”  They need to run with that, and maybe dropping the tag title is step one.  But dropping it to Master Wato?  I guess Wato could pin Kanemaru, but still.

To me the best finish for everyone involved is if the champs retain and Wato flips out and turns on Taguchi.  But that sort of thing is awfully swerve-y for New Japan, and it’s smarter not to assume it’ll happen every time it’d be a little convenient.  So I guess we’ll see what they’ve got.  But I feel safe predicting the champs retain and Wato doesn’t get over as a babyface.

Toru Yano vs. Bad Luck Fale vs. Chase Owens vs. BUSHI - This is a four-way match to decide who gets first possession of the provisional KOPW 2021 trophy. Whoever holds the trophy at the end of the year will be the official King of Pro Wrestling in 2021, or something.  Yano won the title for 2020, but it’s a new year so we have a new title.  The participants here were the final four of last night’s New Japan Ranbo gauntlet match.  I gather that the first man to score a fall over any other opponent wins.

This is a pretty oddball lineup so I would imagine this match will just be a lot of shenanigans.  All four guys will cheat to win, but Owens and Fale will work together to double-team cheat, so they can be bigger heels than the other two.

Yano originally won the KOPW 2020 trophy in a four-way like this one, by stealing a pin over Kazuchika Okada of all people.  So I would think that makes him a heavy favorite to win here.  The only question is if the bookers think it’d be funnier for his tricks to backfire when dealing with the massive, extremely irritated Fale.  I think I’d rather see Fale defending the trophy for six months, to be honest, but my gut says Yano will win again.

AZM & Saya Kamitani & Utami Hayashishita vs. Natsupo & Himeka & Maika - This is one of two women’s matches to provide exposure to STARDOM, the women’s promotion owned by New Japan’s parent company.  In Japan it’s seems to be considered normal for promotions to be all-male or all-female, and for fans to only want to see one or the other on a given event.  So I get the impression some New Japan fans have a problem with running Stardom matches on a NJPW show, although I certainly don’t see why.  In any case, TV and streaming rights mean that Western fans probably won’t actually see this match; I’m not even sure it will be televised.  And I unfortunately know nothing baout Stardom, so it’s kind of pointless for me to comment on performers I’ve never heard of in a match I’ll probably never get to see.

Tam Nakano & Mayu Iwatani vs. Syuri & Giulia - Another women’s match to showcase Stardom.  In this case I at least recognize Iwatani’s name from some ROH shows a couple of years ago, but that’s about it.  I’m all for getting women’s wrestling some more exposure anywhere you can do it, but unfortunately these matches are aimed at the live audience in the Tokyo Dome, and won’t do much good raising my awareness.

[omniversalobservations]

Epic Rap Battles Of History (2019)

The Joker vs Pennywise is the seventy-ninth installment of Epic Rap Battles of History and the eighth episode of Season 6. It features DC Comics supervillain and archenemy of Batman, the Joker, rapping against the titular antagonist of Stephen King's novel It, Pennywise. It was released on November 23rd, 2019.

The Joker: In my first appearance, the Bat was supposed to slay me,

But I can't be killed. That's why they cast a Phoenix to play me! (He-he!)

I'm the Harlequin of Hate, the Clown Prince of Crime.

You're a sewer troll that Stephen King wrote between his lines!

(Ha-ha-ha-ha!) It's like cocaine. You know what I said.

I don't know how any kind of joke could ever go over that head!

"They all float!" says the quote. But your films, they all sink.

Oh, and as far as Mr. King goes, I'm a Shining man. Wink! (Ha-ha-ha-ha!)

I make the Justice League look like just a bunch of super schlubs!

You lost to a herd of nerds who call themselves the Losers' Club!

You'll be gobbled up in Gotham, so stick to your small town

Where you're renowned as the "if it's brown, flush it down" clown!

Pennywise: Hiya, Jokie! You wanna rap?

Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap! (Ha-ha-ha-ha!)

Oh, why so serious? You're supposed to be the man who laughs,

But those jokes were like your new movie: (aha!) mostly really sad.

Beep beep! You're a John Doe in my deadlights, and you're about to fall from a new height

'Cause you're weak and you've lost every fight to a knight who wears underwear over his tights! (Ha-ha-ha!)

I haunt nightmares and I'm ruthless!

This battle's like poker: the Joker is useless!

Winning's not in your cards! Call me Arkham Asylum, I'm crazy with bars!

Jack Nicholson played you just fine, but lately the casting's declined:

Jared Leto came out trying to look like he was Tekashi 6ix9ine!

So unless you've got a yummy younger brother, I think you'd better run

'Cause I've got 99 red balloons, bitch, and I dare you to take one!

The Joker: Go back in your well, you giggling sewer ginger.

You lost to a turtle that wasn't even a ninja!

When I flow, I go Mark Ham with ill zingers!

I steal the show like Bob Kane stole from Bill Finger! (Ha-ha-ha!)

I spit acid, be wowed! Every joke of mine stings.

You're three night lights in a cloud beat by the kid from Stranger Things.

When I compare your antics to the fiendish schemes I revel in,

They pale, like the moonlight you can dance with the devil in.

Pennywise: Pennywise likes the devil, we have so much fun together,

But no one's dying to play with Joker, except for maybe Heath Ledger!

Puddin', you're an embarrassment, I'll beat you like you beat Harley Quinn.

That purple suit is something you should only see Steve Harvey in!

Ah, haha! I feast on your fears!

I'm the Derry, Maine attraction every 27 years.

But you know what? I have a secret. (Shh!) It's like a very special toy.

If you wanna kill a Batman, eat him when he's a boy.

The Joker: Don't you lay a finger on my Bat, you little freak,

Or I will spend a whole week knocking out those prickle teeth! (He-he-he!)

Tell your author for his next gangbang scene:

How about a little more PG and a lot less 13?

Even I wouldn't stoop to that kind of impropriety!

This is Earth, you space demon. We live in a society! (Ha-ha-ha!)

I've seen your movies so I know you don't hurry,

But I'll shoo you down the drain so fast, they'll call you Tim Scurry!

Ask Robin if I drop bars! I take smiles and I leave scars!

Guards at Arkham will admit that the Joker just killed IT! (Ha-ha-ha!)

Pennywise: Arkham? Ha! You stole that from H. P. Lovecraft.

Who needs guards when you couldn't even escape Cesar Romero's mustache.

You jester, I'm Montresor, about to make you my Fortunato,

And seal this battle up like it was the Cask of Amontillado!

(Woo!) I spit January ember flames! (Woo!) You got beat by the Scooby Gang. (Woo!)

I'm the John Wayne of John Wayne Gacys, the underground Clown Posse, my flow's Insane!

I'm the poster boy for missing person posters, Joker's gonna float with me

'Cause he just messed with the best wall-eyed rapper since the Notorious B.I.G.! (Wu-ha-ha!)

Source: Epic Rap Battles of History Wiki

(images via YouTube)

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 238: Shigaraki Tomura: Tattered Goth Remix

Previously on BnHA: Young Shimura Tenko killed his whole family, as angsty young misguided antagonist characters sometimes do, and then proceeded to wander the streets feeling all sad about it until All for One just happened!! to come across him and was all “oh you poor thing it looks like you killed your whole family by accident, let me just adopt you and raise you to be my own personal killing machine.” We got some more flashbacks showing just how this transformation took place, plus some answers about the hands that kind of just raised more questions though tbh, and watched as little Tenko made his first premeditated kill after a number of effed up AFO pep talks. AFO then rechristened him “Shigaraki Tomura”, and we learned that Shigaraki is actually AFO’s own last name. The chapter ended back in the present day, with Tomura reflecting on how his family’s death wasn’t really a tragedy after all and ended up setting him free. We’ll have to agree to disagree, kid, but in the meantime have fun fucking up Re-Destro and dealing with Gigantomachia’s rampage!

Today on BnHA: Re-Destro tries to smash Tomura at 100% and absolutely nothing happens. So then he summons a bunch of robot armor bits like fucking Iron Man, and levels up to 150%! Tomura could not care less, because he’s leveled up to be one of those “yawn, is that all you got?” bad guys now, and while RD desperately tries to intimidate him, we briefly check in with the rest of the League. Everyone is freaking out at how quickly Machia is destroying the Liberation Army, and Compress calls Ujiko and frantically begs him to warp them all to safety. But Ujiko is all “nah” and says he wants to drive Tomura into a corner. Meanwhile Gigantomachia finally takes out Dairy Queen, since Dabi was doing fuckall, and the chapter ends with Tomura possibly killing Re-Destro?? To be honest it’s really unclear. For all I know the dude just dropped dead of a heart attack from all that stress. In fact, now that I’ve typed that, I kind of think that’s what did happen. Anyway! The point is I’m pretty sure the battle is finally over.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, and added one or two ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.) 

so I mentioned this in an ask post a couple days ago, but this recap is a day late because I was out of town this week. consequently I’m behind on my asks and other things as well (I know, what else is new), so I’m sorry about that!

also! @temperatezone informed me that there’s yet another BnHA spinoff coming out, and that the preview chapter debuted last week! so I went to check it out, and holy shit, it’s a manga all about the U.A. kids teaming up with various pro heroes!!!!??!! between this and the new anime season coming up in just two months (it’ll fly by) and BakuDeku: Heroes Rising coming out in December, I feel like I’m being fucking spoiled with BnHA content. and I didn’t even mention the 2nd light novel which just had its official English translation released last month! so all in all it’s a lot of good stuff, and I desperately want to recap chapter 0 of the new spinoff as soon as possible, but it’ll probably be a few days unfortunately, unless I decide to be very irresponsible and do that instead of the piles of work I should actually be doing. we’ll see which impulses actually win out sob

fortunately Jump is on a break next week if I recall, so that’ll give me some time to catch up. anyway let’s start this thing before I manage to procrastinate anymore! so the new chapter is called “Liberation”, probably after a certain army

and the chapter is picking up where we left off before, with Tomura taking his Father Hand out of his pocket and saying he doesn’t need it or any of his other hands

ooooooh

maybe the title isn’t referring to the Liberation Army after all! or just one of those cool double meaning things

oooh man

god but that is satisfying. is there anything more satisfying than seeing a character you’ve been rooting for finally reach out and take control of their own destiny? ahhhh yessss that’s the good shounen shit right there

lol Re-Destro

he finally scared you into using your ~full power~, huh? punk

don’t mind me I’m just appreciating how much of a total badass my boy here is

your move, RD. personally if it were me, I wouldn’t want to fuck with him anymore! but hey your funeral bud

hmmm

the last few chapters have been so well-drawn that I’m starting to think I was maybe getting spoiled. I wonder if Horikoshi will re-do these later for the volume release

anyway so it seems like what’s happening is that RD is trying to hit Tomura with another Almighty Bitchslap and Tomura is not having any of it, basically

oh wow

and this isn’t even the Gigantomachia damage. will there be any pieces of this town left larger than a toothpick once all is said and done here?? stay tuned! but the answer is no

so the rest of this two page spread is just more panels showing vague high-contrast images of the destruction. we’re also briefly cutting to Gigantomachia! and to Dabi, who is still fighting Pinkberry, and like, dude, come on. finish him off already

and now the dust is clearing after that latest clash, and would you guys fucking look at this dramatic bitch though omfg

Shigaraki Tomura: Tattered Goth Remix. you look like the cover of a Bauhaus album. thank god this arc isn’t set somewhere stupidly dark, like, say, a basement

lmao Re-Destro is so mad

once again I would like to point out that you invited him here, you overconfident dishrag

so now Tomura is casually conversing with him

Tomura did you burn one right before this battle. you’re so fucking chill all of a sudden. gotta say that if someone had asked me “what do you think it would take to get Shigaraki Tomura to mellow out” before this arc, I probably would not have answered, “hmm, well maybe flashbacks to his horrific childhood and the violent deaths of all of his loved ones”

well at any rate, watching Re-Destro progressively freak out while Tomura makes more (ﾟ⊿ﾟ) faces is my new form of sustenance, guys

“you seem a bit rattled. a bit ill at ease. perturbed. something’s got you in a tizzy, huh.” ⊂( ・ ̫・)⊃

(ETA: okay but rereading this here, he keeps talking about his heart pounding, and then he goes and summons a fucking robot suit that actually raises his stress on purpose. so like, I don’t know? but I vaguely recall reading a theory on reddit a few weeks ago that RD was going to have a heart attack and it looks like it could really be the case. or not! that last page is really inconclusive.)

and now the Re-Destro flashbacks that absolutely no one asked for! of course!!

-- OH MY GOD

I’M DYING I CAN’T. SEND HELP

Iida I’m so sorry. all this time I have been teasing you and calling you a 40-year-old man, when this whole time it was actually Re-Destro who Benjamin Buttoned his way from his mother’s womb

is he related to the Alpha Kid from the adventures of the Babysitter’s Club? he can’t not be, right? what else could it be? two characters just happening to vaguely resemble one another in a purely coincidental manner?? are you even hearing yourself?! get out!!

um hey, so what the actual fuck is happening

...Krestro??

lol what. Horikoshi Muriel Kouhei, did you seriously just give this fucker Hulkbuster armor. do you just have a list of Marvel comics tribute shit that you check off as you go

so apparently this suit jacks his power up to one hundred and fifty percent! wowwwwwwww

but meanwhile Tomura is all just

what would it take to faze new Toked Goth Remix Tomura, I wonder

sob omg

goddammit now he’s going to want one. Ujiko you’d better get on it

oh my god you guys

I’m starting to feel really bad about all of these nice Twice clones who are being so helpful and are just going to end up dying in the end omg

also, if someone ever asks you, “should I read BnHA,” you can say, “well that depends, how much do you like scenes of characters with two broken arms getting piggyback rides from other characters?” and they’ll be like, “that’s really specific, does that... happen often,” and you can be like, “well it’s officially happened more than once, so”

like, it’s a whole thing now I guess. also, ouch

anyway so Real!Twice is concerned that Machia is having far too easy of a time kicking names and taking ass, and he’s trying to regroup with the rest of the League

oh my god Compress, seriously?

League of Ungrateful Sods, is what you guys are. he’s trying to help you guys out!!

lol Dabi you fucking liar

no you fucking weren’t, you were going to keep fighting him for a million more years. your fight was going to make Goku VS Frieza look like a 15-second Youtube ad. once again, you guys should really be more grateful here

(ETA: why did they even invite Dabi lol. all he did was fight offscreen and have zero (0) flashbacks. fucking tease.)

so now Compress is calling Ujiko and asking him to warp them out of there

what...?

he’s absolutely 100% making this up, right?

lol yeah now even Compress is calling him on it

right, Compress??

okay now Ujiko is straight up telling him no

oh, this is good you guys

Ujiko, I don’t know how to tell you this but while you weren’t looking, the dude hopped on a fucking golf cart and drove his own damn self. and now appears to have made himself pretty damn comfortable in that corner too

oh is Halo Top finally about to fucking die??

the cornerstone?? really?? holy shit, it really is remarkable how thoroughly unprepared these guys actually were in the end

anyway so now more action panels are happening

did Machia kill him? it looks like he survived but just went flying

and what the hell does Hanabata think he’s actually going to be able to do. drive his van at him? give him encouragement??

anyway I guess we’re wrapping this up now, and we’re cutting back to Tomura who’s saying something extremely cool

it is kind of like that. except that it’s bullshit

anyway so it looks like he’s touching the ground and using his decay again and holy shit is this it???

!!!!!

YOU GUYS DID HE JUST DISINTEGRATE RE-DESTRO OH MY GOD. JUST LIKE THAT!!??!

YOU GUYS I HONESTLY CAN’T TELL, ALL I KNOW IS TOMURA TAPPED THE GROUND, AND RE-DESTRO HAD A WEIRD PANEL WHERE YOU COULDN’T SEE WHAT WAS HAPPENING, AND HE HAD A THOUGHT AND IT WAS SUDDENLY CUT OFF, AND THEN WE CUT TO GIGANTOMACHIA WATCHING AND WE COULDN’T REALLY SEE ANYTHING OMG

but can you imagine, though?? “one single strike”?! like oh my god, there wasn’t even any fanfare? if he really did just kill him that is pretty much exactly how I would have wanted it to go down tbh

at any rate, it’s safe to say life just got a hell of a lot more dangerous for our Actual Protagonist with this new power-up. shit. oh my god

well I guess that’s it! does that mean this arc is gonna wrap up next chapter. because I’m also going to be away the 16th, so I’ll be a day late in doing that chapter too. I s2g Horikoshi, if you finally cut back to U.A. on a day that I’m not able to read the chapter right away, I will... well actually I’ll be pretty happy regardless, but secretly I will also believe it’s some sort of conspiracy against me. so just know that

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 26 - TOR - The Eichel Standard

6-4 Regulation Win

Let’s have a moment of honesty. I’ll start. I expected this to be a signed sealed and delivered loss (I think many of us did). I had a rip-roaring time watching that epic Buffalo Bills game on Thanksgiving to the point where I was near dreading a home and home series with the team I hate more than any other in the world (I think many of us did). The Buffalo Sabres, losers of 11 out of 13, up against a hated Leafs squad fresh off the firing and roasting of their former coach rattling off three straight wins, is the setup for a massively painful loss… or a very cathartic win... and a playoff spot at the moment *Heavily suggestive nudging*. We’ll come back to that. One more moment of honesty: I have begun to feel dirty roasting the Leafs fans who file into Key Bank Center in droves as of late. The reality that has been attested to me a dozen times is these are mostly folks who haven’t and may never see a Leafs game in Toronto. They’ve been priced out. Instead of feeling offended that so many thrifty season ticket holders in the lower bowl sell their tickets to Leafs fans… we should really pity these Leafs fans and give them good treatment. They are priced out by an organization that has sucked ass for half a century and not even granted them the dignity of watching it live. Just a thought. I digress. What is the greatest game against the Leafs in Sabres history? Greatest Game Against for this divisional rival actually has scanter options than you might think. There is no Leafs-Sabres game in the top fifteen of the Buffalo News’ top 50 games in franchise history. These teams are rarely good at the same time and the one time they were gave us the only playoff series between the two in the 1999 Eastern Conference Final, a series won by the Sabres I may add. The Greatest Game Against the Leafs in franchise history comes in that series: Game 5. The 4-2 win sealed the second trip to the Stanley Cup Final in franchise history. Like many big moments the team got in the late 1990s it was backstopped by Dominik Hasek being the best goaltender in the world but nonetheless the Sabres won a trip to the biggest series for the organization since the mid-70s so whose complaining? That series allows us to carry the historical playoff edge against the Leafs into a playoff series I now feel is as inevitable as Thanos. I guess we’ll see about that. Last night was a boost, no doubt about that.

Buffalo did what they’ve been good at lately: getting a neat little hot start and getting our hopes up before absolutely roasting our turkey. There are nights where Jack Eichel has a game. There are nights when Linus Ullmark has a game. Last Night they both had a game. William Nylander outmaneuvered Johan Larsson and Marco Scandella back on the other end and suddenly found himself on a breakaway. Linus Ullmark said: ain’t no problem. He scooped it up to thunderous applause. I wasn’t at this game so I’m not going to comment on the Leafs jerseys to Sabres jerseys ratio but from the sound of it both fanbases had the power of applause. Auston Matthews disappeared throughout this game; but the guy who was mature enough for the C did not. This game could be framed as the battle of the Captains. John Tavares broke the scoreless tie late in the first period with a quick shot from Ilya Mikheyev. I think Linus Ullmark was screened by both Leafs and Sabres players on that one. Sometimes it seems as though this club either doesn’t know how to defend the net or defends it so hard the goalie can’t do his job. Either way it was 1-0 after one period. Tavares struck again early in the second period. Eichel and Spezza had both gone to the box creating a 4-on-4 and some space for creative players on the Leafs. This 2-0 goal I feel comfortable blaming on Ullmark. Tavares leads a 2-on-3 and the puck ends up way behind the net. Ullmark splayed out on his belly way too early and JT got his own rebound and tapped it in. I suppose it also would have helped if the Sabres defenders were a little tougher on Tavares but hey, they held Auston Matthews off the score sheet so I’m not complaining, well at least not after the Buffalo Sabres arrived in this game shortly before six minutes into the second period.

Brandon Montour kept the puck in the offensive zone on a failed Leafs zone exit and passed it to Johan Larsson. Larsson goes in and doesn’t see his shot, so he drop passes it to one of the best trailers in the league in my humble opinion: Jeff Skinner. Yes, Skinner on a line centered by Johan Larsson is some interesting strategy from Ralph Krueger and you probably have seen the roasts of the strange deployment. Me, well I’m going to save those roasts for the losses. Skinner ripped off an Eichel-esque wrist shot that Michael Hutchinson never responded to. Just right in. Funny part of this story as we go onto the flowering of the Sabres offense here: man-of-the-people new Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe asked the players what they thought of the difficult backup position they got up there and they wanted Hutchinson called up. Hutch must feel like he got the raw end of that deal, eh? Spoiler Alert: he let six goals in. After the Skinner goal both teams botched a powerplay and as the Leafs’ one expired Jack Eichel came out of the box to pick up a juicy stray puck that had wandered into the neutral zone. Him, Marcus Johannson and Conor Sheary go off to the races on a 3-on-1. Jack Eichel does a Jack Eichel Special and this game is tied. If you watch this team regularly you probably know what a Jack Eichel Special is: quick release wrist shot from the point, preferably on the rush. That’s yummier than Thanksgiving stuffing! The feast had just begun! Marco Scandella shot from the point and Casey Mittelstadt bats at it to create a redirect of the year candidate for the 3-2 lead. Now if you want to find some similarities between these two teams its not hard. One might be that both have enough skill guys to draw defenders out of their coverages. That’s what happened when another Leafs powerplay was ending and Jack Eichel had the puck. He has the puck behind the Leafs net along with 3(?) blue & white defenders… yeah, you know who that left open: Victor Olofsson. Goalofsson is no longer in an exclusive relationship with the powerplay, now he’s taking shots in all situations and he puts the Sabres up 4-2 to put a nice little bow on the first forty minutes of this game.

Almost seven minutes into the final frame Dmytro Timashov get a shot off through the woods and the Leafs are back within one. You can’t sit back in this league, the Sabres have learned that the hard way. But with the Leafs you can’t only not sit back, you need to bury them alive. You have to beat them so bad they’re thinking of their next opponent to beat these guys. The third period was a kind of touch-and-go experience as the Leafs closed in and the Sabres extended their lead. I was in a movie for this game and when I was looking at the scorers afterwards I saw Jimmy Vesey unassisted and thought to myself: three unassisted breakaway goals in the three games? What are the chances? I come to find out it wasn’t a breakaway, but it was one of those embarrassing goals you watch happen and think: “Yeah, that’s going to be showed in a Leafs video session.” They gave up the puck right in the slot and Jimmy Vesey takes it and hardly has to do the cotton eyed joe to get through the defenders right up to Hutchinson. When Vesey got there he put a goal that actually merits the name “Greasy Vesey”: five hole from point blank. Oh, this was the moment this game became cathartic. Not only is Jack Eichel roasting the Leafs, now its his BU drinking buddy tapping in five-hole stingers. Kasperi Kapanen closed the Leafs to within one again mere minutes later on another goal Ullmark probably wants back. And so it would be a one goal game for the last eight minutes until Jack Eichel got the puck in the defensive zone with a Leafs empty net and launched an ICBM all the way down ice into the open cage for the final score line of 6-4. That’s right, the Sabres didn’t just beat the Leafs, they did it in regulation like a bunch of Gs. If we could have a game like that every night a lot fewer fans would be calling Buffalo’s turkey roasted at this phase of the season.

The NHL gave three stars honors to Eichel, Vesey and Tavares but I’m going to change one of those. Jack Eichel was not only good on the score sheet; he literally had a perfect game in zone entries and breakouts. Those are the stats of a leader. If that behavior infects his teammates we won’t be talking about another lost season much longer. If we see players on this team at least showing Eichel’s drive to win each night then what could happen? The answer is beautiful things with the Eichel Standard. Star number two ought to be Linus Ullmark who has secretly been behind some of the Sabres recent almost success and tonight: actual success. Ullmark has a .913 save percentage, which is very much on the good side, having started five of the last seven games. Think about the last seven games, how many of them do you think the goalie came out looking that good? The tide might be turning on this tandem. The time is shortly before noon on Saturday I’m going to post this. A lot can change in the next 24 hours in this league, not to mention the outcome of a second game between these two teams tonight in Toronto; but as of right now the Buffalo Sabres sit in a playoff spot at third place in the division. Say what you will about this club wasting a fantastic October, or losing in spectacular fashion against lesser teams, or even the seeming inability of the GM to rotate out some defensive depth so his Coach can stop rotating good defenseman out of the lineup; this team is not out of it. Not yet. I did Thanksgiving Playoffs last postgame remembering that most of the teams in the playoffs on American Thanksgiving are in the dance come the end of the season. The playoff picture in the east right now is tight AF. No, frustrated we might be game to game this season has all the makings of not being over. Stop writing the epitaph while the body is warm. Being a Sabres fan sucks but you got to give it the space to not suck sometimes.

After the Leafs tonight we have the DEVILS who are just as bad as the last time we checked. After that the Sabres fly out on a Western Canada road trip I’m not too afraid of. I’m not telling you they’re going to create separation in the standings, we’ve watched this team enough to know opportunity is often squandered, but I doubt we’re as doom and gloom about this team when we see the Leafs again in three Tuesdays. Just an idea, I’ll probably be wrong, right? Tampa is also waiting to come alive like a loaded coil sitting outside the playoff picture so I should be more hesitant to get excited, eh? Like, share and comment on this blog to hop on board to remind me when I’m wrong. Happy Holidays, it seems as though we can be happy this holiday season just off Bills energy. Call me a fool but I’ve got some serious Sabres energy going on right now too. Let’s Go Buffalo!

Thanks for Reading.

P.S. The Tim Hortons Rivalry. Let’s make that a thing. Nobody outside Southern Ontario or Western New York knows wtf the QEW is so let’s not name the rivalry after a fucking highway. This is a sleeping giant of a rivalry that we are naming after a fucking road. Think about it. The more you think about “Tim Hortons Rivalry” the more it makes sense.

[tessatechaitea]

Wonder Twins #5

Jayna just punched straight through her brother's butthole.

If you're a being who turns into water, your dick and butthole don't just disappear, right? They just become part of the water! So I'm almost certainly correct in my comment on the cover. Hopefully Mark Russell will explore this topic in a future issue. Until then, I'll be certain to tell everybody I know that Jayna basically fisted Zan. Luckily for the Wonder Twins, I don't know many people and also they are fictional characters. This issue is called "Magic and Games." I think. It will probably take me less time to read this entire comic book than it took me to puzzle out the word "Games" in the font used for the title.

Sure, you can see it now that I already told you what it was! But it was difficult before I worked it out! Although I still wouldn't be surprised to learn the title is "Magic and Galljes" or "Magic and "Gaines" and that the second word is somebody's name.

Usually I don't comment on Mark Russell comic books because to comment on a Mark Russell comic book, you should probably be smart and serious. Sure, he's having fun and writing an entertaining book that I can easily use to make jokes about fisting incest! But he also writes sensitive stories about social justice and systemic bias and ethical dilemmas in changing times and, well, other stuff that I'm too dumb to even discuss in the most general terms! He's a smart guy which is why I hate him with a burning passion! But it's a good hate! It's the kind of envious hate that pushes me to my own Emerald Twilight! I probably won't wind up destroying an entire town and ruining my reputation and becoming the most vilified hero in our universe but I almost certainly will eventually become the avenging spirit of God judging everybody around me! Wait, I think I already am that! Whatever my point is, it's that Mark Russell writes good and I'm too weak to not despise him for it. Polly Math has just won first prize at the science fair because her last name is Math. I guess Sandra Science didn't compete this year so Polly was the obvious next choice. Jayna wins second place because her project on fucking hot guys while being a nerd in high school fell apart when the guy she attempted to science fair fuck turned out to be a villain. It's also possible I'm confusing story lines but you have to expect that kind of thing! I'm not spring chicken! Remembering details between chapters that come out a full month apart has been nearly impossible for the last twenty years! I shouldn't make fun of Polly Math's name because I have a name that people always try to make jokes about too. It's not Grunion Guy! You can probably find it if you do even the smallest amount of Internet research! I'm not going to help you though because I don't want to get called a Deaf Chef anymore! Polly is upset that her father is working with Lex Luthor and the League of Annoyance. But Jayna has a plan to fix things! I bet her plan is to turn into a giant tortoise while Zan turns into an ice dildo and...wait a second! Why am I giving out good ideas that Mark Russell will just steal in a few issues?! Better to not speculate on things! Also, I mean, the cover shows Jayna going with the shark plan.

Okay fine! I'm finally interested in Fox News!

The most disturbing thing about people who watch Fox News is that they ignore five hundred other channels that are showing entertaining things on their television at the same time! Who chooses that shit over Comedy Central or the Game Show Network?! I haven't had cable for nearly twenty years and whenever I'm staying somewhere with cable, it's locked on the Game Show Network 24/7! Who the fuck chooses to watch state propaganda over old game shows?! Fucking psychopaths, that's who!

Polly Math's father wound up working with Lex Industries because only Lex Luthor hired African Americans, I guess? Hadn't he heard of STAR Labs?! Maybe Silas Stone and Sarah Charles fulfilled their quota?

I might be misreading this scene but I don't think I am because the white guys with white guys playing golf pictures behind them seem interested in Filo Math if he's Norwegian (so, you know, totally white!) and then when they meet him, they don't want to hire him. It could be that they really are concerned with his specialty! What could that be?! I mean, it can't be any worse than Silas Stone's specialty of turning his son into a cybernetic example of the castration of the black male in America! That's a really terrible specialty! Although Sarah Charles seemed to be pretty into it. See?! This is why I can't review a Mark Russell book! He's making a great point about the systemic bias inherent in corporate hiring practices and I'm not taking it seriously! I mean, he isn't either, really? He's being light-hearted while still making a good point. Which is what I've done, I think, in my comment about Cyborg's lack of a penis! The Scrambler wants to play a trick on society. He's a magician that believes people are frightened of magic and only like the part where everything is normal again. Magician: "Is this your card?" Audience Member: "Why yes! Thank God you picked my card! I was worried I was going to have to live in a world where my card wasn't picked!" Maybe I'm not comprehending his point. Anyway, The Scrambler wants to do a trick where things don't ever go back to normal! He's a monster! Imagine picking the Three of Clubs and nobody ever showing you the Three of Clubs ever again! Ugh, I'm feeling faint. To save Polly's Dad from definite prison time (or possibly, if Superman shows up, an eternity in the Phantom Zone. As if Superman can be bothered with Earth's judicial system! Pshaw!), Jan has challenged the League of Annoyance to a duel at the zoo. I guess if she wants to stress out all of the animals there with a big battle, who am I to judge? I mean other than being the real life version of Hal Jordan's Spectre, of course! At the zoo, Jayna recruits a bunch of Australian animals to help fight which goes as spectacularly as you can imagine it would. And what I mean by that is that a koala is blown to bits. But I guess that's worth it in the grand scheme of getting Polly Math's father to stop working with the League of Annoyance. It's like that philosophical conundrum about an ant that sacrifices its life for even the tiniest amount to better the world. It's just an ant! It practically owes it to the universe to die for nearly nothing! What does this koala bear expect? It should get to live in luxurious confinement at the zoo and not die for a trivial reason? Stupid koala bear. Go fuck yourself, you selfish bastard. The Wonder Twins defeat two out of three of the League of Annoyance members at the expense of just one koala's life and the bruised jaw of an innocent kangaroo. The third member, some woman with a Kryptonian cell phone whose name maybe I should remember, gets away to go regroup. Sylvia is a racist that joined the League because she didn't like the demographics of her small town changing. She's startled by Filo entering the League's headquarters to pack up his stuff and winds up zapping him like she zapped the koala. Okay, I guess the koala isn't as dead as I first thought. I should have realize a Kryptonian phone is probably sending everything to the Phantom Zone. So once again, I, the Grandmaster Comic Book Reader, was correct when I speculated that the worst that could happen to Filo was prison or the Phantom Zone! I'm the smarterest! Sylvia is caught on camera zapping Filo Math and then messes up in an interview when she kind of admits to having maybe zapped more than one black person with her phone off-camera? It's a real public relations nightmare!

But Lex can fix it! His greatest strength is turning public relations nightmares into public relations wet dreams!

Lex News turns Cell Phone Sylvia into a national hero. Because anything is excusable if you just say how scared you were! I mean, as long as you're white! It's scary being white! Sometimes you have to kill people with your legal gun while standing your own ground after confronting somebody for the most inconsequential reasons! It's just the way the world works! At least in America! Happy 4th of July! Just in case some readers weren't smart enough to get that everybody blasted by Sylvia's phone went to the Phantom Zone, Mark Russell supplies us with an image of Filo and the koala and a bunch of Sylvia's other victims (hmm, all black! But that's probably just a coincidence!) in the Phantom Zone. Polly, at the end of her rope with doing the right thing in an unjust world, decides to contact The Scrambler. I can't wait for her big magic trick to fix the world! The Scrambler's big trick to fix the world is to threaten to scramble everybody's identity. Everybody's minds will switch around so that they're now in different bodies. That means the powerful might wind up being the poorest people in the worst poverty. And the only way he won't do it is if the powerful fix the world in thirty days. Seems like a good plan! Except I'm curious to see how they fix it. Most people's ideas of fixing the world rely on the current world still existing somehow. So the fix is handicapped from the beginning by needing to be built on the ruins of the old system. To truly make a new system that works, the old system must be completely razed to the ground. But nobody has the stomach for that. So we make exceptions and compromises, building the new structure on top of a rotting foundation. It's why DC's Universe fixes always fail. They rely on making things new and better but need to remain rooted in the past. Crisis on Infinite Earths was built on a world that still contained members of Infinity Inc. who suddenly didn't fit in the world anymore. So DC then had to do Zero Hour which told new origin stories but still refused to throw out everything that came before to simply start again. Even The New 52, which people hated because they felt it did exactly what I suggested (razing the shit to the ground), didn't work because, I believe, it didn't go far enough! It still accepted Superman had died. It still accepted all of Green Lantern's past. It still contained a Batgirl who was shot by Joker and became Oracle. It was still the DC Universe but with arbitrary and subtle changes that made no real difference except the jettisoning of a ton of history. So it didn't work for anybody! Um, anyway, my initial point was that real life political structures and social dynamics and economic systems can never really be restructured in a meaningful way because they have to kowtow to older ways of thinking and doing things. The comic book stuff was just easier to write about! I'm sure Mark Russell will figure it out! Or he'll just have The Scrambler and Polly Math arrested and nothing will work out like it should and it will just be the punctuation on the idea that everything fucking sucks. Yay! Wonder Twins #5 Rating: A+. Come on! Everything Mark Russell writes gets an A+! It shows how smart I am!

[catty-words]

🐜 Rebecca/Nathaniel, if you're feelin' it.

send me an emoji & a pairing and i’ll write you a short fic? [except please don’t, i’m not writing any more of these] - 🐜 (freaking cause there’s a bug pls deal with it im not touching it)

title: that silly girl, she’s all wound up [1/3]summary: “I posit that in a week’s time, I’ll have you, A, admitting that you still believe in love; and B, begging me to kiss you.”

Nathaniel learns that Rebecca’s a little more deeply wounded by what happened with Josh than she lets on and decides to do something about it.Word Count: 2,300Author’s Note: @bethanyactually has my gratitude forever for both betaing this story and being my friend.This first section is kind of a cross between a chapter and a prologue – next week’s installment is over three times the length, no exaggeration. It also might be the funniest non-crack!fic I’ve written to date, so good things are on the horizon!Who else is looking forward to season 3 with all their might?

(ao3)

~~~

“Bunch, I need you to stay over today.” Nathaniel slaps a couple files down on the counter above Rebecca’s cubicle, knowing it’ll earn him an annoyed huff.

“Why?”

“How about because I’m your boss and I said so?”

She quirks a challenging brow at him. “Just for that, I’m leaving an hour early.”

Though his glare would send a lesser employee into groveling mode, Rebecca meets his eye with fierce determination. They stay locked in a staring competition until Paula clears her throat.

“Actually, I need that Harvard-and-Yale brain of yours on the junkyard dispute,” he explains, shooting a sheepish look in Paula’s direction. “That is, unless you’re not feeling up for it.”

She scoffs. “Oh, please. I’m the most up for it. One might say I’m uppity.”

Paula lets out an amused cough, but Nathaniel decides not to touch that one.

“Great. I’ll see you in the conference room at 6:30 sharp.”

“I’ll be there. With my A game. In fact, I already have a proposal typed up and ready to go.” Rebecca pats a thick, lime green binder that’s sitting on her desk.

He smirks. “So do I.”

“I bet mine’s better.”

“I bet it’s not.”

“Oh, it is so on.”

Again, Paula clears her throat, only this time it’s just to cover her spitting out the word disgusting.

Nathaniel throws her a warning scowl before he walks away. He can’t help glancing back at Rebecca from across the office, though. The binder is open on her desk, and she’s quietly reading her work to herself.

He almost smiles softly, but her head snaps up—probably sensing his eyes on her—and he quickly fixes his features into more of a leer.

She sneers back, flashing him the thumbs up.

When her attention is focused back on her proposal, Nathaniel darts toward his office.

He should probably proofread his work again before their meeting.

~~~

There are a lot of words Nathaniel would use to describe Rebecca Bunch. Buxom. Intense. Pathetic.

But one of his newfound favorites is competitive.

No matter what Miss ‘I Hated the Ivy League Circuit I’m So Glad To Be Keeping It Breezy In So-Cal’ says, it’s in her blood to rise to the challenge. He had discovered this intriguing personality trait during an otherwise uninteresting afternoon at a pre–client-meeting prep session.

“You’re planning to suggest they settle?” Rebecca had asked him incredulously. “That’s terrible practice.”

“Part of being a good lawyer is knowing when to tell your clients their case is a lost cause. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is back down.”

“What, are we in a John Grisham novel? You do remember we primarily practice real estate law, right? The stakes aren’t high enough to merit backing down.”

Nathaniel had rolled his eyes and pushed out of his seat to find a file in the cart by the window.

“Ah!”

Rebecca had appeared at his side in an instant. “What? What’s wrong?” He had pointed wordlessly at the stink bug crawling across the glass and she cocked her head at him. “Are you serious right now?”

“Mock later, kill now.”

“You’re afraid of bugs?”

“A bug,” Nathaniel had clarified. “The brown marmorated stink bug.”

“But they’re essentially harmless,” Rebecca had said. “The only thing they do is smell bad, and that’s only if you kill them.” When he’d squinted quizzically at her, she’d shrugged. “I went through an entomology phase as a kid. It ended when my mother confiscated all the books I got from the library, saying something about how she didn’t go through the agony of childbirth to have me grow up to be a glorified exterminator. But I still learned a lot. Seriously, it’s best to just leave these guys alone.”

He’d shaken his head. “Nope, no, I’m sorry but I can’t trust any insect that’s dressed for battle. It’s shaped like a shield because it’s ready to fight. They’re evil, okay? Evil.”

Rebecca had smiled a dangerous smile then. “You’re really not gonna give this up, are you?”

“What part of evil do you not understand? These things are the Voldemort of the insect world.”

She’d made a funny face at him. “They’re probably more on the Draco Malfoy side of evil. You know, misunderstood…spurred on by societal expectations.”

“So you admit they’re at least a little bit evil,” Nathaniel had said, inching away from the window as the bug crawled higher.

“No, I was just fixing your metaphor.”

“Would you please kill it already?” He had snapped.

“I could…” she’d said, drawing out the o, “or we could have a little fun.” He’d kept his eyes on the stink bug, waiting for her to spit it out. “How about we look it up, and if I’m right, I get to take the lead with the clients. We’re not throwing out that case.”

He’d spared her an annoyed glance. She’d had her arms crossed over her chest and was already wearing a triumphant expression. Not for the first time, he’d noticed the dark circles under her eyes and the way all her smiles were slightly off. He’d felt a pang of worry in his chest.

With an exasperated sigh, he’d said, “If we find out that I’m right, you’re killing this bug.”

She’d held out her hand, ready to close the deal.

Needless to say, Nathaniel had spent the entirety of the meeting silent, watching the stink bug when it was in sight and only half paying attention to Rebecca working over their client.

But—despite the hit he took to his masculinity that day—he considered the incident a success. After all, one of the tricks to being a good manager is knowing what motivates your employees.

It’s not that he has a personal interest in what makes her tick. Not at all.

~~~

“Does salad dressing expire?” Rebecca asks, studying a grimy bottle of French she got out of the company refrigerator.

He snatches it from her. “Don’t you even think about drowning that spring mix in dressing. That wasn’t part of the terms of our Coffee Challenge.”

“Yeah, well, you won on a technicality. So I should be able to bend the rules a little,” she says, reaching across the table to grab the bottle back. He holds it above his head and far out of her reach, and she falls back into her chair, pouting like a child.

“It’s not my fault you got up early to cheat and just happened to go to the same coffee cart I frequent.”

“Okay, but you were there to cheat, too,” she reminded him.

“True, but you still cheated first. So I won, doesn’t matter how,” he says, standing to put the dressing back in the fridge.

She mumbles something under her breath about compromising the integrity of victory, and he smirks at her. The grin only grows more pronounced when she chomps down on a mouthful of lettuce and nearly gags.

“Here comes Whi-Jo,” Nathaniel says, nodding politely as he breezes into the kitchen. “Like clockwork.”

Rebecca actually gags then, theatric and obnoxious, when Darryl leans in for a kiss. “Showoffs.”

“I don’t know,” Nathaniel says. “I think they’re kinda cute.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” She drops her fork with a clatter. “Mr. ‘Commitment Is Boring’ thinks that’s cute?”

He steals another glance at the couple, who’re standing so close their foreheads are touching. They’re both wearing bright smiles, and Nathaniel feels a wistful tug in his chest. “It’s not something I want for myself,” he explains, though the words sound a little hollow. “I guess, I don’t know, I like Darryl in the same way you feel compelled to feed stray cats. So it’s nice to see him happy.”

“Whatever,” Rebecca says, stabbing at her salad. “I thought I could at least count on you for relationship bitterness, but you’re totally going soft.”

“I am not,” he says, horrified.

“You are. God, now who am I gonna go to when I want to rant about how disgusting love is?”

“I am not soft,” Nathaniel insists. “And you don’t really believe love is disgusting.”

“I sure do. Being left at the altar during my wedding made me realize some things. For example, love is garbage and so is Josh Chan.”

“Well I won’t argue with the second part.”

She flips him off. “You know what else is garbage? This salad. I’m getting dressing and you can’t stop me.”

He rolls his eyes but doesn’t protest.

~~~

“You wanted to see me?” Paula asks, stepping into his office.

“Yeah, close the door behind you.”

She does as she’s told before sitting. “What’s up, boss?”

“I’m worried about Rebecca,” he says, whispering conspiratorially.

“Join the club,” Paula says. “Who isn’t these days?”

Nathaniel frowns. “Obviously her behavior since the wedding’s been erratic, but she said something to me today that really has me troubled.”

Her eyebrows knit together. “What is it?”

He checks to make sure no one’s right outside his office before leaning over his desk. “She said she doesn’t believe in love anymore.”

Paula blinks. “Okay?”

“That doesn’t,” Nathaniel struggles for a moment, trying to put words to the twisted ball of emotion creating the ache in his chest, “…bother you?”

“I think it’s a normal reaction to what she’s been through,” she says, waving away his concern. “Personally, I’ve given up on love for way less. After I had my first kid, Scott and I didn’t touch each other for months, and I convinced myself that love was a farce. Now though, if we happen to get a moment alone once a year, I’m like ‘The hills are alive, magic is real.’ All that junk.”

He sits back in his chair. “First of all, thank you for that bit of oversharing. I’m going to do my best to forget that I know anything about your sex life.”

“You know what, I think that’s better for both of us.”

“Agreed. As for Rebecca, you’re saying she just needs to have a The Hills are Alive moment, and she’ll go back to normal?”

Paula’s expression suddenly turns scrutinizing, and Nathaniel resists the urge to shift in his seat. “Why do you care so much about Rebecca’s personal philosophy on love, anyway?”

“We’re friends,” he says dismissively, turning his attention to his computer and opening his email.

“And?”

He scoffs. “And nothing.”

“Wanna know what I think?”

He opens up a new message and starts typing random words, hoping she’ll get the hint that he’s busy and leave.

It doesn’t work.

“I think you’re in love with her.”

“That is—that’s just.” He falters, clears his throat, and then calmly says, “Ridiculous.”

Paula clucks her tongue. “Not only are you in love with her, but you’ve got it bad. Weren’t you the one who sent for her father, forced him to show up to her wedding? If that doesn’t scream ‘big romantic gesture,’ I don’t know what does.”

Nathaniel turns to her, stern frown on his face. “I don’t think about Rebecca like that; it’d be highly inappropriate.” She hums in acknowledgement, but doesn’t say anything. Her silence compels him to add, “I simply don’t want her to give up on what’s important to her because of that dipshit Chan. I mean, a Rebecca who isn’t a hopeless romantic is as weird as one who isn’t constantly humming show tunes or making bad Harry Potter puns. It’s a part of who she is.”

“Uh-uh.” Paula studies him with a huge grin on her face.

“Shut up,” he grumbles, turning back to his fake email.

When he looks up again, she’s gone, thankfully, but the unsettled feeling in his stomach lingers.

~~~

“Are we still on for dinner tomorrow night?” Rebecca asks, poking her head into his office the next morning.

He’s rendered silent for a moment too long, letting his gaze linger on her face despite the mountain of paperwork he needs to read through before noon.

“Dude, did you just fall asleep with your eyes open?” she asks. “You’re freaking me out.”

“What? No, I—sorry. Yeah. We’re trying the new Thai place on East Cameron, right?”

“Yeah, and you promised to pay. You better not forget that part.”

Nathaniel laughs a bit too heartily and then coughs to cover up his embarrassment. “I, uh, I haven’t.”

Rebecca steps into the office then, tilting her head and watching him carefully. “Is everything alright with you?”

He gestures to all the files littering his desk. “Just a little overworked. It makes me giddy.”

“You’re probably the only person on the entire planet with that problem,” she says, but visibly relaxes, accepting that explanation for his weird behavior. “Is there anything I can help you out with? Feel free to say no.”

He smiles and shakes his head. “Nothing work related. I did want to talk to you about something, though.”

She waggles her eyebrows, and the silly gesture makes Nathaniel feel lightheaded. “Sounds ominous.”

“Not really. I’ve been thinking about our next challenge.”

“Oh, good, cause I’ve got nothing,” Rebecca says, plopping down into one of his chairs. “But I think it’s time to step up our game. Take things to the next level before this gets boring.”

“I’m so glad you think so,” Nathaniel says. His heart thunders in his chest, but his smile remains calm and coy.

Rebecca smirks back. “So what’ve you got?”

He stands, walks around to the front of his desk, and perches on the edge, angling himself toward her. Not once does he break eye contact.

“I posit that in a week’s time, I’ll have you, A, admitting that you still believe in love; and B, begging me to kiss you.”

She stares, a deer caught in the headlights. “Wh-what?”

He nods. “You have to resist me for a week—that’s the challenge. If you can do it, I’ll never make a pass at you again. If you can’t, well, I get the satisfaction of being right.”

“Shouldn’t I get to pick what happens if I win?” Rebecca says, jerking up her chin defiantly. Her quickened breath gives away her nerves, though.

“Sure,” Nathaniel agrees easily. “So we have a deal?”

After a second of deliberation, she takes his outstretched hand and gives it a firm shake.

[drewxmay]

Contestshipping Review - Part Seven - A Fan With a Plan

Previous

Next

Index

-The Title-

Not very bothered by the titles, but even though it does have something to do with the episode none of the fans within the episode have plans and such.

-Episode Link-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9tFBJyCwMo

-The Review-

0:00

So they are all inside of Rubello town... becuase they traveled there. Then Ash suggests they go see the Pokemon center.

-In an earlier review-

The answer is becuase Ash wants to.

0:10

Max: Guys look!

:everybody turns to see a big sign for a Pokemon Contest:

May look now I get to watch you battle!

I like contests.

0:32

Them song! Skip to 0:36 if you don't want to hear it... becuase the person who posted this edited the song out...

0:41

:Nurse joy explains that R1 means One Ribbon, which means you need one ribbon to enter:

Imagine if they didn't do that and just let anybody join. Like, there are a lot of people who have four ribbons and need their fifth and their are three contests left, then a person who has no ribbons wins all three of those contests. Whoever they are won't be able to get into the grand festival and the three people with 4 ribbons can't get in.

1:04

May: I haven't heard of the Grand Festival

How upset should I be on a scale of 1-10? Has she not yet questioned what happens when she gets five ribbons???

1:08

:music stops:

Drew: Why doesn’t that surprise me?

Only 1 minuet in and you're already here. Good job!

May: Drew?

Drew: Ya?

May: Are you entering the contest too?

Drew: Ya, it'll be good practice for the Grand festival. I wouldn't expect a cirtain coordinator who just stumbles from one contest to enough to understand.

Drew trying to hide the fact he was being friendly

This frame only lasts a second.

1:24

May: Well as a matter of fact I've won the last two contests I've entered! I hardly call that stumbling!

Drew: Well if you say so. I'm just telling you how it looks to me.

Pffft Drew's quotes are always the best. I mean, I've said this a lot. When he does do something nice for May, such as the first rose he gave her, he'd always follow it up with some passive-aggressive remark, almost it looks to hide the fact that he even did that first thing. And with May, it has always seemed to have worked!

1:38

Oh no....

FANGIRLS.

Those are... full-grown adults...

This 10-year-old is obviously uncomfortable with all of you surrounding him and all of you morons didn't realize he was in the middle of a conversation. You are full grown adults, go respect kid's privacy. Respect everybody's privacy...

GUYS STOP HARASSING DREW.

:Adults continue to talk about how much they love him:

Guys please stop...

Lady: So can I have you're autograph? Pretty pleeeaaase?

Drew: Uhh.... no... I don't :flicks hair: do that...

Maybe flicking you hair will get them to stop harassing you

2:06

Adults: He actually turned her down!!!

All of you are fucking Pedos...

May please go help him.

2:29

Lady: Excuse me?

 MAY.

RUN. Lady:

Are you Norman's daughter from the petalberg gym?

May:

Ya?

Lady: It's truuuuue I was right!

So apparently they're all bisexual.

2:30

Lady: Ladies over here!

Well uhhh... At least May probably doesn't mind being harassed like this...

Drew should probably run.

Drew: :flicks hair then walks off:

Well now that they've successfully stopped harassing you that is probably a good thing to do.

2:35

You know what fuck these people. They are full grown adults harassing whatever popular kid seems to be closest.

2:43

Max: That's my dad!

Lady:

I know who you are! You're Norman's son right?

Please don't harass him! he's even younger than those two!!!

Adults:

:ask then both questions:

Exactly.

3:15

Lady (her name is Savanna): I'm entering the same contest as May!!!

And Drew...

But what if I say his name you will go try to harass him again...

Adults: :Do stupid fucking-ass cheer:

3:30

Max: What does M-F-P stand for anyways?

Savahna: It's short for "Mothers for Pokemon".

WAIT.

WHAT THE FUCK.

SO NOT ONLY ARE YOU ADULTS, YOU ARE MARRIED AND HAVE KIDS YOUR YOUR OWN AND ARE CRUSHING ON 10-YEAR-OLD BOYS THAT JUST HAPPEN TO BE POPULAR.

FUCK YOU AND YOUR PARENTING SKILLS.

4:13

One of the ladies: :looks at Ash: Haven't I seen you before?

Ash: Ya, probably.

Well you have been like 2nd place in every one of the Pokemon leagues and you have defeated a lot of gym leaders in a few different regions to maybe.

Lady: Let me see I'll check my list... Nope I don't see you in my list on handsome and promising young trainers!

You have a fucking book.

And this book is entirely dedicated to the young and handsome trainers. Depending on what is considered "young" to you, (I'll assume it's mostly kids) and becuase "handsome" is materialistically referenced to boys, and you talked about Norman and May, you have MULTIPLE books about who who harass.

4:22

Skip to 5:02 if you don't want to hear Team Rocket talk. Here is a summary:

Jessie sees the poster and wants to join the contest, James and Meowth are worried about what "R1" means. Jessie goes over to enter but then gets upset becuase she can't enter. She doesn't have one ribbon so...

5:02

Why is May having lunch with them?

At least they aren't harassing her that much... They are giving her complements and space...

5:19

May's hands look weird without her gloves.

Wait why does she ever where gloves in the first place?

5:53

May still doesn't have her gloves. I'm starting to doubt this is an animation mistake and they actually just decided that May doesn't have her gloves on during this lunch.

6:24

So Savanna is getting the rest of the AWHK (Adults Who Harass Kids) to go shopping for her while she gets to hang out with May.

7:15

So she has a Flaireon... You know what I've never really made this comment before but Flaireon looks like a big fluffy Eevee. Especially it's shiny which literally has the same fucking color scheme:

7:37

Savana: So I think I'll be using both of them for the contest.

May: Both of them?

Ya May you have use two Pokemon who knew...

8:09

Brock: Look at these perfect tomatoes! They could make a great salad!!!

As long as it's not a fruit salad.

"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad"

8:52

Brock: Look at this turnup! and it's the last one!

Little girl: I'll take this!!!

uuuuuuhhhhhhggggg in the last review we had Sonic the Hedgehog voice Timmy now Amy is voicing this small girl... Guess I'll just call her Amy for the rest of the episode.

Savanna: Sandra what are you doing here?

Amy: Well I got back home from school and you weren't there so I went shipping for you!

Such a nice daughter she has.

Now I'm going to tell her daughter that her mom has been flirting with 10-year-old boys.

9:30

Savanna: And guess what sweetie May and Max are Norman's kids!

Amy: Ya right mom... That's great. Sorry guys mom can get pretty wel... annoying when she gets carried away like this.

Savana: I don't get too carried away!

Amy: I don't know mom, I've seen you and your MFP AWHK club in action...

Well I think that she has the right to say this becuase her mom probably crushes over May's dad also and Amy is just upset becuase her mom is supposed to like her dad and instead she wants to date all of these other people who are MARRIED and are KIDS.

At least her daughter is only like 9 years old and apparently not old enough for her mom's club to flirt with. The age you can start flirting with kids in her club is apparently 10 years so...

10:40

TV: TRAINERS! WHICH ONE OF THESE POKEMON EVOLVES INTO SUVIPER???

None of them...

TV: OKAY TRAINERS! IF YOU CHOOSE ARBOK, YOU WERE RIGHT!!!

No...?

Maybe they god confused becuase they are both snake Pokemon, and Jessie had an Arbok then a Seviper.

10:52

May think before you talk, this is going to be like the same exact practice run where you told beautifly to use gust and stringshot. You keep choosing just the right attacks to fail.

11:25

May's Bulbasour: :trips over vinewhip:

See? Also just becuase you're failing now doesn't mean you should loose confidence.

11:56

Drew: Go Masquirain!

His voice startles me so much sometimes.

So Drew is practicing somewhere nearby and Drew doesn't know that May is there as well.

So then May decided to spy on him? She probably didn't really intent it to by spying she was just interested.

12:20

May: That's so beautiful!

Drew is best coordinator.

12:34

Drew: Excuse me.

May: uhhh-

Drew: If you're studying my moves you should probably come closer.

That was honestly so cute.

May: :trying to change the subject: Uhhhh so I see you've found yourself a new Pokemon!

Drew: You've got it! Winning this contest should be easy now that I have Masqurain. I hope you like our little preview~.

May: Ya I did! It was really gorgeous.

Drew: Thanks, you've got excellent taste.

This conversation is just so pure and it makes me feel happy. Drew was okay with May watching him and his Masqurain practice, and May, even though Drew said one or two things that could've been takes as rude, May just ignored it and just continued giving him compliments, and so Drew just continues being nice back.

13:05

Bulbasour: Bulbsasour!!! (probably something like "hi green haired boy")

Drew: So May, it looks like you've gotten a new pokemon yourself.

May: Ya I do!

Drew: A Bulbasour, that's actually quite rare in the Hoen region.

Just wait until you hear about how she got it.

Becuase none of you guys probably know May got it when she was carried away by a Scarmary who wanted to feed her to it’s babies, and she found herself in a giant preserved grass-area, where only grass type Pokemon lived. When Ash and everybody else went over to try and get her out at the gate of a HUGE stone wall, a man said that nobody is allowed to go in becuase the place has been untouched by humans for thousands of years. They told him that May was in there and the guard was like "oh well then all of the Pokemon are very territorial and have never seen a human and will probably kill her bye", and a bunch of the other guards decided to get her out. While May was in there she was able to befriend a few of the Pokemon who tried to kill her at first but then the Venasuor leader told them all that becuase it’s son, the Bulbasoar, said she was nice that nobody shall hurt her. Eventually after endless moments of Ash and Brock yelling at the guards to let her out she finally gets out and the Bulbasour wants to stay with May and see all of the rest of the world.

Ya so basically May almost died to get that Bulbasour.

13:14

Drew: So are you going to enter Bulbasour?

May: I still haven't decided yet. Bulbasour come over and say hi!

:Bulbasour is talking to Masqurain:

Now to clear up all of the confusion:

May was angry at BULBASOUR and not DREW in this scene.

13:22

May: Hey you heard me!!! come over and say hi!

Drew: I don't know... looks like a discipline problem to me~.

and to clear up more confusion:

she was angry at DREW during this shot.

May: No way! And I am using Bulbasour!!!

and now for more confusion:

she was angry at DREW in this scene that looks like the same exact shot from the scene where MAY was mad at BULBASOUR not DREW.

Drew: Are you sure you can handle it~?

May: Ya! And I'll see you in the contest Drew! :walks off:

Pfft All May wanted is for Bulbasour to say hi.

13:41

dat smile doe

13:45

It is the next day and contest day! At least the contest is mostly just me summarizing!

14:00

May: Me and Bulbasour have a lot of practicing to do.

Friends: AHHHH

Guys I know that you think May won't win with Bulbasour but you guys should encourage her to try not discourage her and make it so that she can't win.

14:10

So apparently Savanna has stage freight. Hopefully becuase of that she will fail, it'll be good karma for being a pedo

15:36

:Savanna and May and about to have a battle: In what way will this help with stage freight?

Battle goes accordingly:

Savanna is the first to use an attack, her Laron (not Flareon) uses medal claw, and Bulbasoar uses vine whip to counter it. Savanna then is caught up in saying that the counter was super amazing and she doesn't really continue the fight until May awkwardly has to call out to save compliments for the end and focus on the battle. Her Flareon uses flame thrower and to counter it May uses razor leaf. Savanna compliments her again and before May can tell her

SombodyTeam Rocket stole May's bag!

and the pedo's ribbon that too.

16:17

So here is what Team rocket does:

They do their regular speech and James and Meowth are obviously not really into it right at this moment.

Then May asks for her ribbons back and they kinda just... hand her bag over. That was it really...

May tells Bulbasour to use Razor Leaf and Jessie's Dustox counters with whirlwind and the leaves don't hit. Then Savanna's Flareon uses flame thrower and Wabafett blocks. Dustox uses poison sting and Pikachu uses thunderbolt. Brock's Mudkip uses watergun and Wabafett blocks it again. Then Amy tries to go over and tell them to stop and so then Jessie decides to USE Psi-beam ON THE CHILD. May ties her up in vine whip and makes her away from the shot. Then Flareon uses Flamethrower on the balloon and they all go away.

-Conclusion-

First off I really don't like the  MFP Squad. I'm sure the people making the episode didn't intent for them to be pedos, but they totally made them pedos.

Now for contestshipping? It's actually very hard to tell. I think we are still in about the same place we were back in "Come What May", in that review I said they were just on the tip of being romantic, but I don't think that is is romance yet. I think it is more like a potential relationship that is likely... or something like that.

PS

I’m not reviewing the episode that comes after this even though it is a cliffhanger. The next episode is the contest, but we barley even see Drew’s preference and they don’t interact so I am skipping it to the next contestshipping episode.

[kittysgalarkai]

Journal Entry 3

So, apparently, in order to participate in the Galar Gym Challenge, you need to get the endorsement of a gym leader or other member of the league, because I woke up to Leon having left endorsements for me and Hop.

Once I was fully awake, the Professor explained the details to me, and I honestly still don’t get it... Anyway, after breakfast, Professor Magnolia gave me and Hop some Dynamax Bands she made for us and sent us back to Wedgehurst.

When we got there, Hop went for the train station while I decided to head home to say my goodbyes to Auntie Jo. Turns out, the professor called home for us, because not only was Auntie Jo at the station, but so was Hop’s mom. They wished us luck and gave us camping gear before we boarded the train for Motostoke.

Unfortunately, the train stopped at the wild area, due to a bunch of Wooloo being on the tracks. Of course, that was fine. We could just run across the field to get there in time, it was better for our health anyway. Though, I gotta say, the weather in the wild area is... Well, wild! It was hailing one moment, sunny the next, then hailing again!

While I was running to get through the hail, I tripped over a little swinub, and I felt like I just had to take her with me to Motostoke. Her name’s now Gyoza. I might have to come back to the wild area to check what other pokemon I can find to catch.

Anyway, once I got to Motostoke, I made a beeline straight through to the local stadium, where Hop was already waiting in line to get registered. It was a pretty short line, with this tall kid with poofy hair busy registering. When it was Hop’s turn, he dragged me to the desk with him to surprise the clerk with the champion having endorsed two trainers.

After we registered and were being led by some league staff members to the Budew Drop Inn (apparently registered participants of the Gym Challenge have free hotel reservations, neat) he said he waited for me so that the clerk didn’t think I was faking my endorsement. That was really thoughtful of him.

Unfortunately, at the check-in desk at the hotel, some weirdos with an oddly familiar symbol on their shirts were blocking other guests from getting checked in, so me and Hop had to chase them off by beating them in a pokemon battle, after which we met Marnie. Turns out those yahoos at the desk are called Team Yell and were fans of hers. Pretty impressive to be joining the League Challenge with a readily-made fan club.

So, now I’m in my hotel room, waiting for the Taxi Caller app to install onto my Rotom Phone and getting ready for bed. But I can’t wait for this challenge to begin!

[clubsocial-india]

New on Sports Illustrated: Tua's Fate Remains the Biggest Mystery, How the Mock Draft Played Out and Other NFL Notes

It's still unclear who is interested in Tagovailoa ahead of the NFL draft, which could see him slide further than expected. Plus how the mock draft went and other NFL notes.

Seventy-two hours to go…

• The big mystery continues to be the fate of Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa. I can’t find anyone who thinks Miami is taking him. With the Chargers, it depends more on who you talk to—and like I said in this morning’s column, GM Tom Telesco’s pretty good at concealing his intentions. If Tagovailoa slides past No. 6, it certainly opens up the question of when/if the Chargers will add another quarterback, and whether it’ll be in the draft or with a veteran. And it, of course, leads to Tagovailoa sliding, because from there it’s hard to find a home for him. We’ve seen this in the past. Aaron Rodgers, Brady Quinn and Johnny Manziel are among those in the fairly recent past who most people figured would go top 10, and wound up slipping into the 20s. There’s some expectation that Tagovailoa could tempt the Raiders with one of their picks. And there’s speculation that Patriots coach Bill Belichick could take a swing if Tagovailoa falls far enough, given that Nick Saban has given the quarterback glowing reviews, both publicly and privately, and the two coaches are so close.

• It’s no secret that both the Giants and Lions would love to move their picks, and it seems like their ability to do it might ride on whether they’re willing to take a little less than they may have hoped for. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, Detroit is comfortable with Ohio State CB Jeff Okudah and Auburn DT Derrick Brown, but likes those guys more at No. 5 or 6 than No. 3 (which I believe very well could be the case). And then, they look at the Giants likely to take an offensive tackle at No. 4, and it becomes a near-certainty they’ll get one of them at No. 5 or 6. How much would you really need to go down? Would a single second-rounder do it? It’s an interesting position that both Bob Quinn and Dave Gettleman are in.

• So how did that mock draft go on Monday? I texted with a half-dozen head coaches and GMs, and it seems like the consensus was that, after a shaky start, things got straightened out. The problem at the top, with the first pick, actually had to do with muting and un-muting a line. And there were some bumps to work out while the league and teams did dry runs on the trades early on. “It was all process-related,” said one team official on the call. Once everyone got the hang of it, it went better. And in the aftermath, the biggest question I could find, and this one came from a head coach, was how often the clock will have to be stopped to complete trades. But it was clear to everyone on there that there will be a lot of moving parts to organize Thursday, which is why this was done—to get everyone comfortable with a pretty unusual circumstance.

• Give NFL commissioner Roger Goodell credit for this one: 

It shows he’s not taking himself too seriously. And while this is a little thing to help a very big cause, I’m not sure a couple years ago that the hyper-image-conscious league would’ve signed off on something like this.

• Niners GM John Lynch saying on Monday that he’s expecting left tackle Joe Staley back for a 14th season is a very big deal. As I understand it, San Francisco sees Mike McGlinchey staying on the right side long-term, which means they’ll have a big hole at some point over the next few years at a spot that traditionally demands a massive investment to fill. That it’s not an immediate need gives the team some flexibility. But I still think if a left tackle they like falls into their lap at No. 13, or even 31, they won’t hesitate to get ahead of this looming issue.

• So I should expound on my point on Jaguars DE Yannick Ngakoue from this morning, since it came up. One interesting idea that was floated to me was that Ngakoue could actually be a part of Jacksonville trading down to acquire a future asset. For argument’s sake—and this is a complete hypothetical—let’s say Tampa Bay wants to come up and get a tackle from No. 14. And the Bucs think they’ll be pretty good this year, and are in win-now mode, which may devalue their 2021 first-round pick a little (at least in their eyes). Could, then, the Jaguars package the ninth pick and Ngakoue for the 14th pick and the Bucs’ first-rounder next year? Something like that could make sense (and, again, I’m just pulling this one as a hypothetical).

• Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio is correct in saying what he’s saying here—NFL teams would be foolish to believe that results from “virtual” pro days aren’t cooked to favor players. That said, if you cut the silly stuff out, there are things that can be helpful to teams, and most of it has to do with movement. Some tape that’s gone out to clubs, with prospects going through position drills, has been helpful in that regard.

• And we’ll wrap with a couple leftovers from my talk with likely Bengal-to-be Joe Burrow. One of the more interesting things he said to me that I left out of the MMQB? I asked if his doubt that this could happen—where he’d be set to go to first overall—was a form of PTSD, from being overlooked in the past. He laughed. “100%, PTSD,” he answered. “You could call it that from Ohio State and from being recruited.” His scholarship offer list in 2015, after being named Mr. Football in Ohio: Boston College, Central Michigan, Cincinnati, East Carolina, Fresno State, Iowa State, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, N.C. State, Ohio University, Toledo, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech and West Virginia. As we said this morning, Nebraska, where his dad and brothers played, was notably absent. And that made Ohio State, far and away, the No. 1 program to offer him.

• As for the other piece of what Burrow said on PTSD, relating to what happened a couple years after he got to Columbus, here’s more on the battle he wound up losing to Dwayne Haskins: “So we had some really fun battles in practice. And we were playing so well that spring. I would make an insane throw, he would come out and make an even more insane throw, and it was just kind of a back-and-forth in that spring ball. It was a lot of fun. We knew how good the team was gonna be, and whoever got the starting job, how well that guy was gonna play. And then watching, I knew my junior season wasn’t going to be what it would’ve been if I’d stayed at Ohio State, just because I’m getting there so much later, learning who these guys are, and learning a bunch of the offense. I knew I wasn’t going to play at the level I expected of myself. And I was still going to work really, really hard to get there, but it’s just not realistic to play that well, or as well as I could have, in that short a time period, as well as still trying to win the job. I went into it with that mindset, that I knew I might struggle in the beginning.” And that’s pretty much how it went. Late in 2018, things started to click for Burrow, and we know what happened in 2019.

• I also asked Burrow at the end of our conversation if there was some satisfaction in showing those who passed on him what he was capable of. His answer was interesting. “Yeah, absolutely, there’s a little bit of that,” he said. “But it’s all in the past. I talked about it quite a bit with people that asked me at all these awards ceremonies, you have them all in February and March, and there was even one in April. That season is over. It’s time to move on. And I think it’s gonna be the same with the draft. If I’m the No. 1 pick, great. Let’s move on, let’s get into the playbook, let’s start practicing, let’s get really, really good at what we do, and I’ll start learning my guys. It’s nice, and yeah, I showed a lot of people. But I’ve still got a lot to prove.”

• And finally, here’s what he said when asked what going first overall would mean to him. “I’m not sure,” Burrow said. “It’s nice. But at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter. Ten years down the road, nobody’s gonna say, ‘Oh, you were the No. 1 pick, great job!’ They’re gonna talk about how I did. So that’s really all that I’m worried about. I could go 1, I could go 30, I could go 50, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m worried about being the best player that I can be for a long time in the league.” And the focus on that’s already begun, with another (however minor it might be) slight, based on what he’s heard is a shortcoming of his. “Everyone says the arm strength, but that’s been the knock on me since I was 16 years old,” Burrow said. “So I’ve learned how to overcome that with timing and anticipation and preparation. A lot of the great quarterbacks didn’t have cannon arms. But I’m still gonna work hard to improve my arm strength, that’s always something you can get better at, whether it’s with your body sequencing, your mechanics, or just straight up getting stronger.”

• I will say this: It’s not hard to see, talking to Burrow, how this kid from rural Ohio was able to become the alpha at an SEC blue blood. The Bengals are getting a baller.

• Question or comment? Email us at talkback@themmqb.com.

April 21, 2020 at 05:40AM Tua's Fate Remains the Biggest Mystery, How the Mock Draft Played Out and Other NFL Notes from Blogger https://ift.tt/2Y3kGwX

[martinlawless]

Maldon Road Race

Regional B Road Race, Cat 3-4, Sunday 7 October 2018

Maldon is miles away. This race is further on, and deep into the Dengie Peninsula. It’s rolling terrain, not unlike Hertfordshire. It’s so far to the coast, you can see the expansive Thames estuary full of little boats at the peak of the course. It turns out this is the last Eastern Road Race League Regional B... ‘Reggie B’… event in the calendar, as the flat all-out race in Kings Lynn in Norfolk that was supposed to follow got cancelled.

This race is on the same day as Ashwell’s cyclo-cross race event and I feel bad that I’m not there to help or represent the club. But as it’s the last road race of the season I need 4 points - a 7th place or higher - to achieve 2nd Category status. So needs must! It’s a big ask. 57 riders, including ones I know who are in superb form.

This race would be different to my other local road races as we had a team. Dave was here. Though he was still pretty banjaxed by his virus. Steve was back for more to build on his 15th place at last week’s race over at Great Barford. And Alastair joined the ranks to help the team, flex his strength in a different way from his amazing feats on the Etape du Tour and Haute Route and - I suspect - get on with quickly getting to 3rd Cat and beyond.

It’s a long drive down with the heating on full blast to melt the ice off the windscreen. Chilly. I’m mostly skipping caffeine and high sugar drinks like beetroot juice at the moment. So it’s porridge, apples, bananas and Heart FM acting like some pacifier to calm the nerves.

I arrive and park up to meet Steve’s Ashwell battle-bus with my three team mates inside. As I approach, Dave presents me with fresh coffee and Steve is oiling up his legs in the back. It’s not quite the Sky team bus, but if he had installed a big screen at the front, and I’d put on a pair of ‘Dave Brailsford glasses’ on and waved a jiffy bag around, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

I get kitted up in the bright, fresh sunshine. As I ponder on whether to go long socks or short, and whether the new sunglasses match my Kask Mojito helmet, I sigh that I’ve gone ‘well roadie’ and am a million miles away from the cycle-cross scene going on at this moment with its blood, guts and muddy thunder. The high-white of my socks mismatches the off-white of my shoes. It troubles me.

We collect our numbers. Alastair signed on as reserve but easily gets a place. Ahead of a 10-minutes twiddle on the rollers to warm up, we chat about plans. Dave’s plan is to beat the virus and hold on. I say to Alastair and Steve that any friendly wheel at any point in the race is welcome and if either of them fancy a bunch sprint, give me a sign just before and see if I can catch their draft. Alastair is up for the experience and to pounce on an opportunity. Steve I think is honing in on a big result soon. Other than that: we all agree to let’s just enjoy this one.

There doesn’t appear to be any teams on the start sheet out in force. So the guess is that this will be another bunch dominated race with nothing too tactical going on.

We set off - eventually - having had to wait for the Regional A 2/3/4 race to pass so we don’t clash. Nearly half an hour after being called together, everyone’s warming-up is undone and some skinny riders are shivering. But we get underway and after what seems like a long neutralised start behind the lead car, we get to racing speed and we are definitely warm then.

The course is quite technical in parts. The roads are often tight. There are some big twists and turns too. But there’s no significant hill. Each of the four laps had a rhythm. Long fast TT-style eastern run. Single file. Warp Factor 9. Twisty-tight northern lanes into a headwind. Gently descending western blast, that was essentially a breather. Then more twists and turns south on a narrow lane. 4.5 laps. 47 miles.

I found the start hard. Partly through the waking up cold legs. Partly out of sheer lack of max power. I do what I can to stay top 10 or so and not get caught up with weaker riders behind. It’s clear from the off that Steve and Alastair are on a different wattage plane. They are bouncing around the very front effortlessly and it’s pleasing to watch, whilst gasping several places back.  

There are sustained attempts to break off the front by all sorts of riders in mixed teams. But it’s pretty clear none will stick as the bunch are having none of it. Alastair and Steve do more than their fair share of work to break things down here whilst watching and plotting for opportunities to break away themselves. I simply can’t play that strategy and stick in the bunch. I just watch out for a big break which I vow to make an effort to tag on to if it happens, but a smaller one would be too much for me and I have to let them go.

Hiding away as I am, I do find myself on the front for a minute or two after Steve encourages me to break out of the pack to free him up from a tight peloton position. He asks me to chase down a big fella who had a fondness for mad wattage-bazooka bursts off the front. I recall this bloke from previous races. There ain’t nothing tactical about it. He just loves doing it. Following his speeding wheel I find myself right on the nose of the bunch chasing him down. I pretend I do 26mph into a headwind for fun, before breakfast, for about 30 seconds and then apply a burst of power before sliding over to let the riders behind destroy the soloist’s impossible break.

There’s a new sensation in the bunch, while riding with team mates. There’s a bit of a forcefield around us. In part, because we seek each other out, in part because I think the bunch respect team mates desire to position together. There may be something about increased confidence too. I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s good to be able to chat and suss out the situation as we pelt along. ‘We’re only doing 100 watts!’ complains Alastair as the peloton drifts asleep a bit. I chortle to myself and reckon that Al and Steve are probably breakaway specialists and it’s where they’ll get their best results. Later on in the next lap, Steve crests the high point of the course with five other riders and they turn a gap into a break. Now it’s getting interesting.

Instinctively, Al and I assume the roles of breakaway management in the pack. Al being way more capable than me. As Steve extends the gap from the bunch, Al and I work to breakdown any chasing. It’s win-win: we either help Steve escape, or else Al and I enjoy saving energy by being out of any challenge to the break if it’s bridged.

The break almost works. It stays away for nearly a lap, but in the fast TT-section, it’s undone and we meet Steve again. I pat him on the back for a good go at it and hope his legs are not spent for the rest of the race.

As expected, the collapse of one break brings instant opportunity for fresh legs to immediately spark a new break attempt. There’s a bit of bustling up front. I watch as several riders seem to form a string ahead. It’s not unnoticed by Alastair and I tell him what he’s thinking: that there could be a second break and he should go for it. From several places back in the bunch, he jumps to the top as effortlessly as pressing a button in a lift. I can only watch in the bunch. More hiding, more energy conservation.

This break doesn’t quite work out. Al reckons there were too many in the group and the abilities were mixed. It’s hauled in and we’re back all together again as the bell lap is rung. Third gel, swig of juice and here we go.

This final lap sees valiant attempts to create a last minute break, but no attempt is realistic. We get to the final third of the lap and a familiar sensation takes over my legs. It feels similar to cramp. But it’s nerves. My legs feel like blocks of wood and turning the pedals feels alien. I stay around the top 10-15 riders all the same. Then, out of the blue, Steve absolutely flies by and beyond the bunch. It’s the most impressive application of power so late in the race. My nerves are dispelled as Al and I leap into the imminent shelter of opposing riders’ wheels, hustling to stop this solo break. Of course, Steve is hauled in. But it was a brave move and really helped his team mates.

We turn and face the final hill before the finish. We all take this fairly steadily, considering. We are spreading across both lanes now. So everyone is a little on edge. We get to the top and the speed begins to crank up. There’s less than 1.5 miles to go.

It’s getting faster and faster. We are now wide across both lanes of traffic and there’s a strong diagonal echelon all across the road heading towards the 90 degree turn off the usual lap, for a 300 metre dash for the line on a slight uphill road.

I’m behind the main thrust of the wedge of riders, that contains Al and Steve. And there’s no way through. There’s a mile to go. I recall a similar position in the King’s Lynn race last year and drop right out of the back of the galloping echelon and go all the way to the furthest right side of the road. Sure enough, there’s a small gap close to the verge. It’s tight but there’s no other way forward. I’m conscious that the need to be up front on the left turn is everything here, so there’s no dilly-dallying. I give it beans to get through the gap along with two others. Then there’s a huge slice of luck. A transit van appears, coming in the other direction. It instantly changes the shape of the peloton as they tighten up into one lane. For many riders, it’s all over for them. They’ll be way back. If I had waited a few more seconds, I’d be around 30th and out of the running. As it is, I’ve launched myself just in front of the menacing peloton. There’s another slice of luck: one of the other riders who broke out with me chooses to ‘go long’ and TT it off the front. So, he’s leading the way, I’m behind his wheel and the echelon is right on top of us both.

I have to play with the situation I’ve been given. We pass the lonely house I’d marked out as the 20 seconds before the left turn point. I yell at the rider in front to keep going and not to drop his pace. I glance back at the peloton and I pretend that I’m saving myself for a big sprint and waiting for them to blink first to fool the bunch that I’m poised to go even faster - all in an attempt to stop them sprinting for as long as possible. I need to make that corner in a top position. I glance down at the speedo and see we’re at 32mph and figure we’ll be at the corner sooner than I thought so feel confident I can hold this pace having done some similar sprint work at Welwyn Wheelers’ excellent road racing coaching sessions.

Amazingly, the corner comes into view and me and the TTing guy in front have kept our places. I’m also in a perfect line to take the corner. As we approach it, sprinters at last break out of the echelon and swing by to my right. But then there’s another slice of luck: they all follow a bad line and underestimate the turn. One guy rides into the verge, and several others brake hard. Their race is over. I’ve not touched my brakes on the turn and am able to smoothly assume a low, aggressive position in the drops for the last 300 metres.

A few get around me, but I pass some of them again in the sprint. I am super aware this is a golden chance and that it’s now or never. The TTing guy in front goes pop spectacularly. I think he underestimated the dash for the line. I pass him, find another wheel, draft and pass him too and suddenly find myself with just three riders in front of me with just a few seconds to the line. I’m gaining on them, so I know I’m doing OK. And I can’t hear the whoosh of carbon wheels on my heels. I go over the line and raise my hand in celebration. 4th place. 8 points. I’d smashed my target.

Alastair is right behind me and first to congratulate me. I’m dizzy with everything. But very quickly notice Steve’s not around. We cycle back down the course. Al says he saw a big crash in the corner of his eye. ‘One of yours is in the brambles, mate’ says a rider, and hooking up with Dave, we three quickly dash back to the corner.

Steve’s already with a medic when we get there. He hit a really poor part of the road at officially recorded 30mph which sent him and another rider flying into the ditch. His legs are like Johnny Hoogerland’s, ripped to bits by brambles. He’s holding an ice pack on his elbow and his back is sore and shirt ripped. The marshal is incredulous about the incident, insisting Steve flew 10ft into the air and that he’d never seen anything like it. Another rider hit the deck too and cracked his helmet. But, Steve seems fine in himself and things could have been much worse. We note the irony that Steve really animated the race the most today and he was the last person to deserve a crash, DNF and not get a result.

It’s eventually back to the HQ. Steve gets further treatment. He’s going to be all right - all things considered.  I get my 4th place prize money. Alastair gets a prize as highest 4th Cat rider, 12th. And we head off home. Dave had to pull up half way, his heart rate telling him he’s still poorly.

So it’s 2nd Cat for me next season. I’ll really miss Regional B road races, underlined as I think there’s a bit of newly found Ashwell road-racing momentum coming through. I’ll have to see if the others can get to Cat 2 as well and we can do more team-based objectives in racing. Or I wait a year and get demoted back to 3rd Cat!

Accruing points started back in December. 11 months of racing. I did it using the Ashwell ‘half-rice half-chips’ method of mixing Road and Grass Track. 24 points on the Road. 20 on Grass Track.

I am toying with a focus on 2019 being less about points, and more about individual placings in certain Masters events: Tour of Malta and things like that. But for now, I’m not putting a number on my back for a while and not worrying about that.

Thanks to everyone who has ridden, helped, cheered me on and motivated me to getting to this achievement that seemed utterly remote not so long ago. Cheers.

Strava link: https://www.strava.com/activities/1889706216

[bmiremodeling]

Talent return youth to the line higbee seems

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