#codedly

[xshrimpcake]

caring for your raidboss gf

[fitzrove]

Lukas Perman Vater makes me insane. Like, the ppl who made this musical just went "I know the book this musical is ostensibly based on does NOT contain a sequence where the professor has a daddy issues breakdown because the sexy sexy thomas borchert murderous captain was nice to him, and screams high notes about it, and yet somehow he also soundly resolves this inner conflict entirely by the end of the six-minute song"

[spottheantisemitism]

"what if the X-men were black?" is a racist, antisemitic and anti-intersectional screed that 2013 tumblr fell in love with

Published in 2013 this made rounds of OG tumblr and made Bobby of Pencilscratchins draw all her Jewish X-men characters as brown.

Erik because he has Romani heritage (which is realistic and based and accurate to some comics).

Anon go kick rocks with your colorism! YOU read holocaust testimonies!

Also fun fact Nazi Germany did not understand black and brown the way Americans do so it was based on ethnicity and not color, a brown Jew and a pale white passing Jew were seen as one and the same to the Nazis

Guess which article she linked

It's this one!

But said Kitty was Latine because "the quintessential X-girl of the 70s shouldn't be white"

Kitty already is a queer woman of color because she's Jewish. Jews are POC. Bobby what the hell? Are you implying she's only coded non-white because she's Jewish or Mutant? what the hell?!

(BTW Bobby left Tumblr around Covid but if you send her hate asks because of this essay you'll end up on spot-the-antisemitism blocklist for harrasment)

Where did she get this "Jews are white and should be race lifted?" stuff? Why from Orion!

Top paragraph is fine!

antisemitism is written the gentile way that supports a racist eugenicist, off to a bad start.

Sexism is not covered? OH explain Storm's arcs of misogynoir or Jean's and Maddy's arc of going insane because she has the power of a god but is forced to be housewife and marry her sweetheart and have kids

Ableism is not explored? I'm sorry what about XAVIER'S ENTIRE ARC OF ABLIEST SELF HATRED AND OVERCOMING IT IN THE PREQUELS? The first class all being rich talented codedly disabled kids going to a prep school for the gifted. Disabled people really liking non human passing characters like Nightcrawler (and hating Xavier since he's too assimilationist to many). I'm sorry why do people fall for such blatant lies? the mentor of the X-men is literally canonically disabled and Orion has the GALL to claim ableism is not explored.

_ Genosha is half fall of south Africa Apartheid and half the establishment of the state of Israel hence why the metaphor is so messy and problematic

_ Yes that number is deliberately "like the holocaust but worse" because Morrison likes their holocaust appopriation

_ Why didn't you mention it's an allegory for Gay conversion therapy torture because Bryan Singer is gay?

_ Yes Legacy Virus is Mutant Aids good job on your media literacy finally kicking in Orion

It's racism AND antisemitism but your "antisemtism doesn't exist in america" ass doesn't get that

I do hate "mutie" as slur and the way Kitty thinks it's comparable to antisemtic and anti-black slurs and USES them to make a point, so yeah something Orion and I agree on.

The sequence used is of Stevie Hunter the human ally character who like Xavier started teaching after she became disabled. She IS used as prop here to say Kitty is right in calling her the n-word (Claremont is racist sometimes).

But Orion can't tell her apart from Storm. Buddy if you can't tell the ONLY two black women in this comic apart, you're the racist.

OK they're both props but it proves you never actually read the comics or you can't tell fictional black women apart neither of which is a good look

(Cole also points out the Kitty and Magneto are not White but Jewish he is dogpiled and called a fake fan for this (see below))

Keep Shyminksy out of your mouth you racist fake fan

OH NO! I hate this!

So you decided to go with the colorist idea that the man is darker and the innocent girl in need of protecting is lighter. Gross colorism worthy of a Hollywood action movie where the black guy dies

"Local black man can't related to white disabled teens facing ableism and makes it about racism so he can relate to it" is giving gamergate chud energy to me

If you can't see why a Russian man is almost killed by a mob of xenophobic red blooded Americans and HAVE to make this about anti-black racism that's on you and your misunderstanding of the way Russians were hated during the cold war.

Oh you are race swapping x-men while shitting on Psylocke who the result of basically the same idea? How hypocritical

Dwayne McDuffe does have a point but your quote does not utilize his point in any way.

Then DON'T raceswap Wolverine if he becomes the angry black man. Think before you can X-men racism and tokenism WORSE with your race-swapping

NO THEY DON'T strawman rejected

Ah yes! Magneto, famously a very white man whose childhood was full of white privilege/ Sarcasm

One of the co-authors of the website has the gall to double down on calling Magneto white:

"as a REAL fan you're fake fan, antisemitism doesn't exist and Holocaust survivor Jews are white" - this racist defending his token black friend's racist screed because some guy called Cole DARED call Orion on his bullshit

*"I didn't like that the X-men were about white passing and invislbe disability so I made about anti black racism" also "judiasm is just a religion" canard

**Again leave Shyminksy and Morrison's good takes alone

***Yeah you get Luke Cage, that's how you get the racism of bad Luke Cage comics. You ain't inventing the racist wheel here

Orion I hate your take, I hate your misunderstanding of antisemitism and ableism that makes the two main factions tick, I hate your self centerness, I hate your racist and antisemitic co-writer making excuses for you and I REALLY hate that this did to the 2013 X-fandom what Lily Orchard did to the 2019 Steven Universe fandom and we can still see people using your bullshit arguments today

Oh and Cole? thank you for your service you're the real hero of this story, hated and feared for daring to call out the establishment

[ao3cassandraic]

When angels overplay

Angels, playing a human role new to them, routinely overplay, in delight at their own cleverness and the sheer fun of roleplay. (Demons mostly don't. Crowley only piles role upon role on Bildad the Shuhite because Aziraphale prods him into helping con the angel posse. Until then, Bildad's basically just some guy -- if a guy who asks some rather foreboding leading questions -- to Job and Sitis. In s1, Hastur la Vista looks awful, but plays his role at Megiddo tolerably well; it's Warlock's child-outing-the-naked-emperor bit rather than any solecisms on his part that mess up his scene.) Angels just can't seem to figure out that sometimes less is more.

Muriel totally overdoes the Human Police Officer schtick -- Mrs. Sandwich clocks them just from a moment's glance at them, and so does Aziraphale -- because Muriel doesn't really know what they're doing so they think the thing to do is MORE OF IT. They kinda even know they don't know, but they have to get the job done so they just soldier (heh) right on. When Aziraphale pretends to buy their disguise, they are visibly thrilled.

Aziraphale totally overdoes the investigative-reporter schtick with the publican in the Resurrectionist. He settles down once he's getting some actual useful information, but the way he tosses around journalist jargon at the start is just as overegged as Muriel's Inspector Constable bit, and it comes from the same place of delight in roleplay.

Aziraphale's West End stage-magician career is also a masterpiece of Overegging It (when he isn't a basket of nerves, anyway). He only gets away with it because stage figures are allowed to be mega-flamboyant.

Here's the fun bit. Y'all ready for the fun bit? Here it is.

This applies to the Metatron too. He overplays his role as Kindly Oh-So-Human Appreciator of Aziraphale.

Oh, he does pretty well, the astute manipulative formerly-human-himself sod. He gets by Nina, no problem. The latte for Aziraphale (miracled or not) is a great gambit. He gets by Crowley, even -- Crowley's huge, huge, HUGE mistake is letting Aziraphale talk to the Metatron alone. (Crowley's contempt for Muriel's overplay, which he extends to angels in general, does him a very bad turn here.)

But then the Metatron says something that ground my brain-gears to a halt on my very first s2 watch. "You’re a leader, you’re honest, you don’t just tell people what they want to hear."

I'm sorry, are we talking about the same angel? The angel Aziraphale? The angel who flatly refuses to lead his troops in s1? The lying liar angel who lies lyingly even to the archangels and God Herself? The angel who when at odds with Heaven's archangels invariably finds a way to tell them what they want to hear, even if he has to convince them they want to hear it?

That angel?

Look, sure, it's meant as flattery, but the thing is, I don't think that is even the kind of angel Aziraphale wants to see himself as. He's not Michael or Uriel or Shax or Furfur, jockeying for empty titles and authority. He knows he's dishonest, and he's actually pretty honest with himself about it -- he confesses his lies to Crowley more than once over the millennia! He goes along to get along because it mostly works for him (and, of course, because he is always, always afraid).

But the Metatron clearly expects Aziraphale to buy this overegged line of utter boardroom-bafflegab bullshit. (Oxshit. Whatever. It's shit.) And the old boy's pretty damn pleased with himself at how well he thinks he's doing; he just oozes self-satisfaction.

I continue to hope Aziraphale doesn't buy it. He doesn't buy it. He does his standard go-along-to-get-along thing until he can get back to the bookshop and try to (codedly, codedly, anxiously, anxiously, the Metatron is still near) ask for Crowley's help.

I'm willing to be wrong about this; it's possible this is a cue to the audience -- rather than to Aziraphale -- that the Metatron isn't to be trusted. I don't think I am wrong, though. I think the Metatron went too far and Aziraphale (who is intelligent) caught it. Or possibly he'll catch it in (deus et Amazon volent) s3 when he's had a moment to consider.

P.S. I love that for all the swirling uncertainty about the details, the fandom has quickly -- and I believe accurately -- settled on the Metatron as the hate-sink string-pulling villain. We also seem to be pretty much agreed that there's one or several cons happening around the s2 ending, though again we're all over the place on the details. It's funny! I love y'all!

[spot-the-antisemitism]

Not sure if you’re the person to ask this but, what are your thoughts on nosferatu? His look has become pretty iconic in vampire media (and SpongeBob) and I’ve been excited for the upcoming remake

But I can’t help but think about what definitely seem like antisemitic undertones, the large hooked nose and rattle design, the plot point of him apparently spreading a plague, and the fact it was made in Germany in 1922, yeah it’s kinda unfortunate how genuinely unique and creepy the original still looks, at least the remake will hopefully be further away from its origins.

Dear anon,

if you follow @spottheantisemitism you see my thoughts that Mother Gothel isn't a deliberate stereotype but going off ancient antisemitic coding that is so prevalent.

Dracula was written by self hating gay and eugenicist Abraham "Bram" Stoker whose Catholic christofascism, homophobia and xenophobia oozes off every page. The count is other, lizard like, he seduces good British christian women to debauchery and drives men to madness with his hypnosis (and his wealth). Dracula is the same fear of the hypnotic foreigner as the Beetle and Svengali but he's not codedly Arab or Jewish, respectively, he's just racially other. Is he Turkic? Is he Romanian? Not even Bram Stoker seems to know.

Stoker's main racism is the Lambrosian Eugenics that he's into and his idea that Romani would serve a vampire. Especially when Romanians actually tokenize local Romani seeing them as espeically attuned to Strigoi hunting (the Romanian folk spirits that inspired the Western ideas of Vampires). Dracula is described as the the quintessential criminal according to Lombroso but not neccesarily racialized in the way we currently understand Eugenics. The point isn;t that Dracula is codedly Jewish or Romani or whatever (he's not), the point is he's not Anglo-Saxon enough and that's bad.

But it was the Germans that took Dracula and gave him pointy ears and a hooked nose, because even in the philosemitic Weimar era, antisemitic caricatures were rampant. The eponymous character of "the golem" is made not throught kabbalalistic knowledge but by the rabbi making a deal with the devil and the both the golem and the rabbi's assistant lusting after a gentile girl is shown as monstrous.

I do wonder how the "it's all antisemitic coding" nuance averse tumbrines will deal with the "sunlight burns vampires" thing the movie added and try to tie to the "ashkenazi burn more than europeans" lie. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar guys.

I do hope the remake is good but it'll have the same othered man trying to seduce attractive white women thing and unless Del Toro is directing (he isn't) that's not going away no matter how you spin it. For better or for worse.

The guy who plays horror monsters as the count and all famous actors for the cast including Dafoe as the Van Helsing?

They filmed in Romania and the Czech Republic to get the Gothic real?

I'm cautiously optimistic

yours,

Cecil

[akajustmerry]

not to be all, "michonne is bisexual, actually" at 1am but when michonne was talking about that friend from college who she blindly trusted while pregnant with rj....there WAS a subtext that woman was her ex, and that's why she'd trusted this woman with her daughter when she was so vulnerable, despite that not being something michonne would typically do. not to mention, the random bisexual lighting towl 1.04, which danai wrote icymi. michonne was also very CODEDLY with andrea when she first appeared in twd and andrea died in michonne's arms. plus, rick literally punched merle for being homophobic and racist to michonne in season 3, and merle was far from the only character who was homophobic to her in season 3. all of which is me saying I'll die on the hill that michonne is bisexual, and danai gurira both acts and writes her that way, even if the franchise is too cowardly to just say that. I love danai so much.

[kachowden]

I got dumped on April fools and im a mess over it and one of the only things keeping me going is Cameron and how comforting he would be over the whole situation.

Like absolutely bristling with rage over who hurt his darling but he'll worry about that later. Rn his darling is here crying and needs him. Bundles them up in his arms and let's them cry into him and be soft and gentle and soothing.

His darling clinging onto him as they cry and cry. Burying their tear stained face into his shirt. Holding him tightly and just muttering to themselves about why this always happens. Cause of course every relationship they ever get ends so so badly. Its like they are cursed!

And of course hes reveling in how close they are, how they are practically clinging to him, need his comfort, needs him. He feels slight guilt finding some sense of joy in their sorrow but its not his fault. They came to him. They sought him out. They need him.

“Oh darling….” His tan fingers cascade along your tear-stained cheeks, tenderly brushing away fresh drops as his arms encompass you so warmly.

Your hands fist at his shirt, an uncommon shade of purple, very out of his typical color scheme. You felt embarrassed, to be held so lovingly by your therapist, despite seeing him as a dear friend.

His cheeks hummed in soft warmth, relishing the shuttered breath on his collar, though he payed mind to soothe your troubled heart.

“Don’t waste your tears on them. They do not deserve you. You know that don’t you darling?” He smiles gently at you, eyes soft and sweet, reassuring, as his hand that has not cupped your cheek, rubbed soothingly into your palm.

“But they…”

He hushed you gently, pressing his lips adoringly on your forehead, causing a hot flush in your skin as you tried to not take the gesture romantically.

“You astound me darling. You are truly, one of a kind. A beautiful rarity in this world.” He murmured to you, as if in fear of others hearing, though that couldn’t have been farther from true.

If given the chance he would shout his adoration on the rooftops. He had no shame for his love. No shame for you. Simple devotion, tied in a gorgeous red ribbon. Perhaps silk.

You hiccuped, eyes scrunching tiredly. “I just thought…..I don’t know..”

“They were never right for you.”

You paused, tears rushing to a slow, as you finally glanced into his honey brown eyes, that stared at you so transparently.

“What…?”

He laughed softly, as if your question truly was something amusing, his arms encircling your figure into his lap further. “They didn’t deserve you, my darling. My light. They were a passing shadow, so to speak. They would have faded away when the sun rose again.”

Your brows furrowed, head aching from your tears as you tried to make sense of his words. At times you wondered if he spoke so codedly on purpose. Perhaps to mock you.

A clear glass of water was presented to you, and you were mindful to take slow sips for fear of choking. You and cried quite a bit.

“No one could ever hope to deserve you, Y/n…” he hummed, “the world is terrible. The people…can often be terrible. But you are wonderful. You are beyond life. You are so precious, and dear to me.”

Your heart thudded painfully. What was he blabbering about now? It wasn’t unusual for him to go on his poetic rants, but was now really the best time..?

“Cameron…”

“People come and go. The seasons change and so do people. Relationships, can’t always last.” His words weren’t comforting.

“So I be alone forever?”

He laughed at you, though you could tell it wasn’t meant maliciously, even if it came out that way.

“No my dear. Someone like you, could never truly be alone. You will find the right person. Someone truly, in love with you, devoted to you…maybe even obsessed.”

Your skin crawled at the notion, but you found it hard to deny your own warm heart. The idea of being loved so truly.

“They’ll cherish you. Earnestly. The way you deserve to be cherished.” His finger traced your skin, birthmarks or blemishes, he kissed them with his touch gently, his warm smile so comforting, you nearly found yourself diving into it, head first.

“But….as you may wish to be loved by another. You must first…truly, love yourself.”

“You are wondrous my dear. There is so much to love about you, as many parts as there are stars. So begin small. Become passionate about yourself. You’ll find it easier, from then on.”

————————

I hope that you can take some of Dr. Cameron’s words to heart. Maybe not so much the “world is shit and people are shit, eat shit” stuff, but more of his words at the end. Ending a relationship can be hard, and at times you may wonder why it keeps happening.

But don’t stress yourself over it. You do not need to be part of two, to be truly happy. Love yourself. All of you are wonderful, with so much potential to grow and evolve and change. Give yourself a chance. Take wonder, in the small things.

[kuumara]

YALL WTF i watched a movie ab alan turing yesterday and it made me sad asf like poor guy and poor will having to research all that im jst imagining him being like "guess what this happens to ppl like me☹"

BUT ON THE BRIGHT SIDE:: they show alan and his bff christopher that alan ws also in love with (but christopher then died :() and they ALWAYS TALK IN CODE like sent eachother letters in code (and alan was WORKING W CODES bc that was like his job (nerd))

so this got me thinking... what if wills alan turing poster that hes carrying around in ep 1 couldnt find pics sorry😭😭 ISNT (just) A HINT TO HIM BEING GAY (bc we would know that even without the poster imo) but ALSO a hint to him and his love interest (MIKE) talking IN CODE... when they say goodbye in that s3 scene ("what if u join another party" what if u replace me) or like some of yall say when theyre talking ab "el" theyre actually kinda using her name as a stand-in (when mikes talking to will about his and els issues; that could be him talking ab will too), esp in wills van monologue but in other scenes too... UGH IM SO SMART (except if someone pointed this out already... in which case lmao)

i hope this is understandable. them talking codedly made sense to me before but this is just more proof of that codedness yeah

[angryteapott]

Nothing i say here is artistically "correct" but as for my personal preferences... I think the reason I'm annoyed with gong ziyu is not that I'm annoyed with gong ziyu but how he's being used in the story (I'm p behind so this does not account for the whole product). His emotional beats, his uselessness- I like those! But this started as a masterfully tense tale from the perspective of a conflicted invader vs a frighteningly competent enemy, and it feels like switching from a ferrari to a tricycle to just follow someone with his perspective so... hero-codedly.

When I'm watching him from Weishan's or Shangjue's "eyes" (film eyes yanno what I'm talking about) he IS fun because watching a guy act very sulky princess normal when shit is Code Crazy is hilarious and touching (he's in his righteous prince romcom while battle royale wages around him etc etc). But he prances around like that because HIS perspective normalizes. So him through everyone else's eyes is incredible everyone else through his eyes feels like I'm trapped in a vr headset mapping irl to the everyday life of a frat boy. Do u feel. I don't WANT the narrative from his perspective so often because it takes the wind outta it i want to actually SEE his narrative and everybody elses. And that's what they did those first few episodes!! If this were tailored to my tastes they'd only cut to his viewpoint for comedy and angst. Basically this man is not meant to narrate his own story . To me

[gentlemanjuniper]

Little lighter stuff I hope fic writers play around with from season 2 once the fix-it urge dies down

Job era Crowley’s low-pitched “what you do know about what I want?”

Considering the hints that Crowley was a big important archangel, it's possible the initial awkwardness in Aziraphale’s reactions to demon Crowley are possibly not JUST that he’s a demon, but that demon is, in a way, his former boss?? Imagine you’re basically an admin assistant and the vice president of the company gets fired and then falls in love with you and keeps wanting to hang out and watch you eat with lust in his eyes. Comedy gold.

Similiarly, "we've been talking for MILLIONS of years" (rather than 6000 years) but "the angel you knew is not me."

Crowley calling Aziraphale “Lady Bracknell” (from Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde). They definitely saw it together, right? Food for the Aziraphale/Crowley loved/hated Oscar Wilde crowd right there.

Hell having office gossip that Aziraphale and Crowley are an item 80 to 90 years before the apocalypse.

Job-era Crowley working hard, very actively trying to tempt Aziraphale to be closer to Earth, closer to HIM, his whole temptation campaign is so strong in that minisode.

Crowley thinking he’s the one tempting Aziraphale in the ox rib scene but not at all prepared for what Aziraphale enjoying food awoke in HIM.

Stories where the bookshop changes to accommodate Crowley like the Bentley changed to accommodate Aziraphale.

AU where Crowley does take hell's deal for the same reason Aziraphale takes heaven's: to protect his partner. Either bit: being duke of hell, or simply being claiming the offer for whatever his "heart desires” after the fact.

Crowley bootlegging/spreading the demon drink, his relationships to Mrs. H and the ladies of Camelot, their perspectives on his magician 'friend,' just in general what does Crowley get up to with the bawdy theatre crowd.

The fact that we've seen Crowley codedly or openly ask Aziraphale to run away with him FOUR TIMES now (60s, bandstand, street apology, confession) suggests to me there have been other times throughout history.

[cherrybombflash]

bi codedly making out with a man and a woman

[strangestcase]

my two cents in the catholic/protestant debate. Stevenson was raised protestant and he outright states his and frankly my favorite Victorian book was about a boy who is exploited by the devil because of his deeply puritan faith is so abusive. (Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg, 1820)

The real life Jekyll family were protestant and Scottish, Jekyll's namesake was a former Anglican priest and Stevenson loved mocking his father's religion. So Jekyll at least codedly protestant.

I have seen plenty of takes defending the "Jekyll is catholic" line but to me the duality man is always protestant. After heavy debate between components we settled on Presbyterian.

Utterson strikes me as conservatively Anglican, but that's just British name and vibes.

truth be told I don’t really know the differences between the main flavors of Christianity beyond their beliefs. I’ve never really talked to a Protestant about religion.

[sportsminorityreport]

Flugar’s Act 12: Colorado’s one shot, The Arizona risk, and the declining revenue sports attendances in the west.

Greg Flugar’s “Peak around the Corner” podcast has been an informative and entertaining show to watch lately for a PAC follower.   He has been talking about the PAC struggles as a series of plays.  

He said something happened may 6th or 7th in the PAC (act 10) that will have big raminfications in Act 12.

Now he is saying act 11 has Colorado in the middle of the stage and Arizona is moving towards the middle of the stage.   He is saying Gonzaga has left the building.  

Finally he says Act 12 will occur on June 1st and it will likely devastate the PAC. 

Now honestly I HATE the analogy, but I think It finally clicked in my head and I can explain what he is codedly saying.

My speculation is that what he is hinting at is that maybe the PAC leaders wrote off the long discussed idea of adding Gonzaga as an Olympic member. (Gonzaga has gone home).

My general impression is that many if not most PC leaders are both risk averse in addition to being academically overly selective and even on the edge of disaster would slightly prefer to roll forward with the existing 10 teams if the media deal amount is viable.

Or maybe a better way to put it is 6-8 school prefer expansion in a league that historically has required a unanimous vote.

BUT the fact that the PAC has to pay off their legal issue --- repaying comcast $50M --- which has already lead Washington State to freeze new athletic spending, may create issues. 

Every PAC school has to dig up $4M to pay back comcast.

Now the rumor floating out there is that Colorado had to scrape around to find the money to pay Deion Sanders. Now obviously CU has access to money far, far, far in excess of $4M, but moving money from academic spending to athletic spending is cloying.

The implication is that for Colorado digging up ANOTHER $4M to pay back comcast might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. The idea implied seems to be that on June 1st Colorado will use the excuse of no acceptable TV deal presented by the PAC leadership to allow them to buckle to the wishes of their fanbase.  Colorado has the sexiest brand in the PAC 12 today in Deion Sanders’ dumpster fire. 

The idea is that Colorado wants to move first rather than potentially having say Arizona, SDSU, UConn, and Memphis move to the Big 12 and CU losing their landing spot.

It is a reasonable premise that CU has maybe been told that there are 4 spots open and 8 schools (CU, UU, UA, ASU, MEMPHIS, UConn, Temple, AND SDSU) under consideration. 

If it is the 4 corner schools that join the Big 12, its a ton easier for the Big 12 because the money from the media partners is far more likely be there.

Maybe they have even suggested that they are GUARANTEED a spot in a league that is about to push hard into basketball (and turn that sport into a serious revenue generator) if they move by June 1st.  Maybe after the 1st, the Big 12 tries to build a basketball foursome around UConn.

That seems a reasonable premise.  (Colorado is in the center of the stage with Oregon and Washington on the first row taking notes.  Uconn is also in attendance, observing.)

Arizona and ASU have built their academic stature on the PAC association and access to California students --- just like Utah and Colorado more recently have been doing. I have read enough to conclude their leadership truly doesn’t want to leave.  Leaving WILL hurt their academic brand.  But Arizona may think they can academically bare it. 

The PAC closing the door on Gonzaga likely has pissed off Arizona, as the Arizona leadership doesn’t WANT to leave the PAC, but the PAC has NO developed basketball programs while the Big 12 has Kansas, plus large turnout schools Tech, ISU, plus on the court monsters Houston and Baylor...and seems primed to try to add more basketball heavy hitters.

The more tourney teams you have, the more supplemental revenue you can pull from basketball.  The PAC today is an afterthought in that regard. There is NO supplemental basketball revenue.

Oh there is San Diego State on the horizon, but San Diego State may not even get added unless a school leaves.... based on the PAC’s historic very cautious expansion behavior and reports from Jon Wilner.. 

Jon Wilner has already said that if Colorado goes the PAC will probably simply add SDSU in the hope there will be stability.  (That does suggest that SMU might be on the list in large part just to open DFW recruiting up for media darling Deion Sanders.)

Is that going to be enough for Arizona? 

It seems that is a VERY risky premise with Washington and Oregon consistently trying to join the Big Ten as junior members. (And likely Stanford and Cal probably trying as well via back channels.)

Where are the 4 corner schools if the Big Ten pulls Washington, Oregon, Stanford, and Cal because they conclude the ACC implosion is at least 4-5 years of legal wrangling away?  

(Pulling the remaining media jewels of the PAC at a discount rate could both turn the fire up under Notre Dame, FSU and Clemson to get out of the ACC.  It could help the Big Ten’s sweet nothings whispering with Notre Dame.  And given the discount rate the PAC schools took, you could see the ACC targets  --- UNC, Virginia, FSU, and likely also Clemson, Miami, and Georgia Tech with the slight possibility of Pitt, Syracuse, and Georgia Tech figuring in --- also willing to take junior partner rates for a few years. )

The Big Ten has an expansion shopping budget for roughly 6 schools at their current payout rate. I think it is POSSIBLE that they might chose to add 6 western schools today to basically keep as much as possible of their longtime partner conference if they think the ACC implosion is years away.  

Given that Junior Partner status  in terms of payouts iis being discussed for this contract window, If the Big Ten went west they could take 8 PAC schools, but lesser numbers..6,4,2. are probably increasingly more likely.

If the Big Ten took 6,  would they take the Arizona duo or would they take Colorado and Utah --- two schools in quicker growing states...?  Where is Arizona on the Big Ten’s PAC expansion list?  6th? 8th? 

Arizona has to be looking at the landscape and freaking out.

Arizona has to be about leaving with the the next wave of defectors or signing a ridiculously ironclad agreement with the other members of the PAC academic spine.  The first option may be the one that looks reasonable to them.

Take a look at college basketball overall today. 

Look at the top 30 basketball programs in the US:

Do you see the issue?

Where are the other western basketball powers?  There is Arizona.  There is San Diego State, who might not get in soon. There is BYU that the Bay PAC schools don’t want. 

Creighton and Marquette are not leaving the Big East. Louisville is not leaving the ACC and lacks a PAC academic profile. 

The PAC leaders STUPIDLY dragged their feet and missed out on Kansas, Texas Tech, and Iowa State. 

Who is out there? Memphis? Dayton?  Not exactly close to the PAC footprint. 

The liberalism of the western states is absolutely brutalizing PAC negotiations. Liberals took covid seriously. They have opted to be safe and so you have seen attendance down pretty much across the west in both revenue sports.

The MWC and PAC used to have strong basketball attendance. But the MWC basketball powers outside of SDSU have fallen off competitively and attendance wise. 

Arizona does one thing well athletically....basketball.  And because the rest of the Pac has been lousy in basketball forever and now has lost USC and UCLA....?

I think this premise IS very possible. (Arizona is stepping from the edge of the stage closer to Colorado in the middle of the stage.)

This is why expansion should have come first. 

[strangestcase]

Currently in my Chalionverse/Jekyll and Hyde/Moon Knight crossover

CV!Jekyll decides to civilize the feral murderous thing that possessed him (he names the demon Marten because lets shake things up)

meanwhile CV!Marc has to explain to everyone that he's not possessed because possession and DID symptoms are very similar and only those with magic can really tell the difference. (I think this because every person with a demon is codedly a system in chalionverse but it's like deliberatie)

Marc having to explain that no, he isn’t possessed, if you knew magic you would tell, for the fifth time in a day: (Christian Bale smoking a cigarette .jpeg)

[venturecn]

nonverbal rp starters:  @codedly​ poked kat’s shoulder!

“ Huh? Oh, sorry. I was staring at the dog across the street. I think it smells me, Rin. “ 

Downsides of having a mutation-type quirk, Katsuo thought. Dogs getting excited by the thought of a fluffy cat to chase, only to find a person instead.

[blackgloved-a]

Stares at

stares  back