#each ring represents an olympian

[wonderrosss]

The Puppetmasters: the demigods are always pawns and puppets for the bidding of the Olympians

A frame from a PJO animatic I made a while ago

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/771823370694213632/on-the-topic-of-the-ao3-ship-stats-thing-i-would#notes

I'm just rambling, sorry.

Ohhh this actually actively makes me look back at fandom stuff. I've always been intensely invested in books, manga and probably more Asian created media than Western. But let's all be real, those are still not that big fandoms, compared to fandoms based around more accessible and in your face Western media, like movies, shows and books.

Why are there more "white" ships? Well, why are there more Asian ships in Asian media? Because it's the most easily available both just basic culturally and pop culturally. At least when you look at white characters compared to any other ethnic group in most available media. I feel like pop culture in the West is going to be high up on the charts regardless of what actual top contenders are going each year.

So the stats for AO3 basically just tell you that it's primarily an Anglo-spheric fandom archive where different fandoms come together. But that, in the Western room, even with a lot of other media available, Western media will still be more common and widely followed, and therefore more Western levels of ethnicity will be represented: Eg there's more white actors in movies and shows, so on average there will be more white people, meaning more white ships.

Further spinning that thought, what specific type of media dominates the charts? Like I said I never really got into Western media, so someone else might know more.

I wonder if there's some actual scientific studies you could do with places like AO3, and the equivalent in other culture with fanfic/fandom sites, or even just between the different languages on AO3. Eg: What is the distribution of ships and fandom attention in Spanish AO3? East-Asian languages like, Ch/Ja/SK AO3? Etc etc.

--

those are still not that big fandoms, compared to

...

Anon...

The weeb contingent has been massive in English since fanfic was on the internet. It's just that AO3 in particular was started by LJ Western fandoms slashers, so it took a while for the Asian fandoms people to show up.

On FFN, the biggest fandoms are:

Naruto (442K) Inuyasha (122K) Hetalia - Axis Powers (117K) Bleach (85.5K) Fairy Tail (69.2K) Yu-Gi-Oh (68.3K) Dragon Ball Z (54.6K) Fullmetal Alchemist (49.3K) Digimon (48.1K) Sailor Moon (45.8K) One Piece (45.1K) Gundam Wing/AC (41.7K)

Harry Potter (849K) Twilight (223K) Percy Jackson and the Olympians (80.8K) Lord of the Rings (58.3K) Hunger Games (46.5K)

Avatar: Last Airbender (46.2K) Teen Titans (41.4K)

Pokémon (106K) Kingdom Hearts (74.3K) Sonic the Hedgehog (43.2K) Final Fantasy VII (41.1K)

Supernatural (127K) Glee (107K) Doctor Who (76.8K) Sherlock (59.3K) Once Upon a Time (53.3K) Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (51.5K) NCIS (42.2K)

Star Wars (60.5K) Avengers (52.4K)

Wrestling (44K)

[inkwell-passion]

The Death Of Dionysus

The Old Dionysus was a white, feminine man with blonde hair that was cut short and slicked back, he was a tyrant, forcing any and all bars to shut-down, trying to gain a monopoly on the concept of sin, even trying to take the Sirens from Apollo's dominion. One of his workers, a dark skinned man with a rich sultry voice, and a spectacular androgyny, hired under the name of Dresden, hated The Old Dionysus. He thought the Olympian did not properly represent the God he bears the namesake of. Dresden's sister, the Wild Olympian Pan hatched a plan, one that the God of Wine and Madness would shine proudly upon.

Dresden took extra shifts to learn the Old Dionysus' schedule, mimicking the nature of a crazed employee having been broken by his boss' habits. On one particular day, when the Old Dionysus was watching over the bar, Dresden had started to sway and move through the crowd with a drunken stupor like grace, before 'tripping' and splashing Wine on his boss. Before the boss could say anything, Pan's performance on the stage started, causing the patrons to stand up and dance with each other and the staff, a wild performance that heightened emotions, a perfect chaos to pay tribute to the Wine God.

In the madness of the dance, no one noticed The Old Dionysus being tied up by the dutiful Dresden, nor did they make any comment when the man was hoisted up onto stage, and suspended above a throne made of wood from a pine tree. Soon the smooth, sultry voice of Dresden rung out above the song.

"My Fellow Maenads!" as his voice rung out, a colorless gas of Dresden's own design would be released, the crowd becoming more crazed and ecstatic with Pan's performance, and the words of the young employee. "We have found our Medium between us and our divine God to be lacking, all those who concur shout in unison!" There were shouts erupting across the entire crowd. "I shall take the mantle of Dionysus, of Bacchus, of our God of ritual Madness! But first I must make a sacrifice to our God! I need a knife oh fellow Maenads!" Without question, the ritual blade that was sat on the bar would be brought onto the stage, Dresden taking the knife gratefully and handing it to Pan.

Dresden would then sit on the throne that he fashioned himself, leaning his head back as if in ecstasy as Pan would slit the throat of The Old Dionysus, the sweet ichor of the man's blood flowing into Dresden's mouth, before overflowing and coating the man in his life essence, the Old Dionysus being bled like a pig in a slaughter house.

The man who once was Dresden sits caked in the blood of his predecessor, having been born anew in the ecstasy of ritual, Dionysus now sits on his throne, presenting the corpse of the tyrant in front of him. "My followers!~" Dionysus' voice rings with a new presence, his eyes glowing that Olympian glow. "I insist you must join me!" His voice gains volume. "Come upon this stage and imbibe in the flesh of the imposter!" He'd bellow, his voice rising with the chaos of the ritual dancing, the patrons of the bar would climb on the stage and descend on the man that once was Dionysus' body, shredding him and tearing him apart.

No one truly remembers what happened to the Old Man, nor who his identity ever truly was, but the worship of Dionysus has never been stronger since that fateful day.

[nevermindirah]

a gold-medal proposal in Paris

Transcript of NBC coverage of the 2024 Summer Olympics set two years after this Olympic meet-cute.

Kelly Clarkson While we're waiting for the next event to get started in the pool here at La Défense Arena let me take you to a mini ice rink in the stands where I've found two Olympians from the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. Gold medalist Nile Freeman represented Team USA in speed skating, and Team France hockey player Sébastien le Livre who viewers may also recognize from the NHL, Stanley Cup winner with the Capitals and now playing for the Chicago Hockey Team. I hear congratulations are in order, you two!

Nile Freeman Hi, thank you!

Sébastien le Livre Yes, my fiancée does deserve another round of congratulations for her Olympic gold!

[Freeman beams.]

Clarkson Absolutely, and congratulations as well on your engagement! What a setting for it, what many consider the most romantic city in the world, and your home turf Sébastien.

le Livre Well, not quite — I'm proud to be from Marseille. But Paris is doing a wonderful job representing France to the world and I couldn't resist the magic of the opening ceremonies as a backdrop to ask this incredible woman to marry me.

Freeman After the Games we're spending a week in Marseille with Seb's family. This is my first time in France and it's been even more special than I imagined.

Clarkson You met two years ago at a very different Olympic Games. What was that like, connecting at such an unusual Olympics with strict covid protocols, and now experiencing all the crowds and the atmosphere here in Paris?

Freeman It's a little bittersweet sitting in a roaring crowd after our families couldn't be there with us in Beijing and there was so much stress with the pandemic, but the restrictions were necessary. They came with a silver lining, since it was easier to focus on competition, for me at least. We probably had more time to get to know each other than we might have if all of our loved ones had been there with us and if tourist destinations and that sort of thing had been open.

le Livre I wouldn't trade it for anything. [le Livre looks besottedly at his wife-to-be.] It's great fun to be at the Olympics on vacation, just a part of the crowds, not having to worry about preparing for the next event. The opening ceremonies were spectacular.

Freeman They were! That was all so cool, how they made the whole city feel like a stadium. The fashion show was my favorite, and the Assassin's Creed parkourist. [to le Livre] You weren't a little nervous though, with that ring burning a hole in your pocket?

le Livre No. You only make me nervous when you challenge me to a race, because you always win.

Clarkson Y'all are too cute! Maybe for your next race you could try swimming, see if that changes the rankings?

[Freeman playfully squints at le Livre, who shrugs with a smile.]

Clarkson Will we see you back on the ice in two years in Milan?

Freeman That's the plan!

Clarkson What are you most looking forward to here at the Summer Games?

le Livre The football, ah, soccer is high on my list, and just taking it all in with Nile.

Freeman Me too, babe. And I'm pumped to see my girl Simone Biles! This'll be my first time seeing her compete in person. She's such a badass and an inspiration.

Clarkson You and me both, girl! Simone Biles is married to NFL player Jonathan Owens of the Bears — sounds like a double date is in order once you get back home to Chicago.

Freeman Ha, sure, we're in!

Clarkson Thanks so much for talking to me! Enjoy your time here in Paris and congratulations again on your engagement and your accomplishments in both of your sports. Now back to you in the studio, Mike.

[Freeman and le Livre, holding hands, smile and wave to the camera.]

[yuyuwuu]

🇬🇷 Hermes

Hermes is the Olympian god messenger, of travelers and frontiers, both physical and of knowledge, of shepherds, of the literati... and of many other things.

Normally he has always been represented by the wings of his cap or by the caduceus. And these rings that I bring you have that essence of his.

Each one has a different stone and they are adjustable. The stones are:

White: Mother-of-pearl

Green: Amazonite

Pink: Rose Quartz

Black: Onyx

[igettalk]

Former Olympian Ryan James Wedding Charged as Leader of Major International Drug Trafficking Ring

Ryan James Wedding, once a promising athlete on Canada's Olympic snowboarding team, has been indicted as the alleged mastermind behind an extensive international drug smuggling network. The U.S. Department of Justice, in collaboration with international law enforcement agencies, has launched a sweeping operation to dismantle the criminal enterprise, resulting in multiple arrests and raids across North and South America.Authorities claim that the 43-year-old, who represented his country at the Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002, has since become the architect of a massive narcotics operation. The organization allegedly moves large amounts of cocaine each year, approximately 60 tons, which is equivalent to the weight of ten adult elephants, using a complex route from South America through Mexico and into North American markets.The operation's scope became apparent when the FBI conducted a high-profile raid on a multi-million dollar mansion in Aventura, Florida. According to 7News, residents of the exclusive Island Estates community were awakened by FBI agents commanding, "All occupants of 3914 Island Estates Drive, this is the FBI. We have a search warrant for this residence. All occupants inside the residence exit the front door at this time with your hands up." FBI special agent, Kristi Hawkins, stated that the search led to the arrest of an individual that they believe is affiliated with the criminal group. The indictment alleges that Ryan James Wedding's organization employed sophisticated methods to move and distribute their illicit cargo. According to investigators, after crossing the border from Mexico, the narcotics would be concealed in long-haul trucks bound for the West Coast. Los Angeles allegedly served as a distribution hub, with drugs temporarily housed in nondescript locations before being shipped to other parts of the country.Beyond drug trafficking, the organization is implicated in multiple murders. Law enforcement has tied the group to an incident that happened in Canada, where a couple was shot and killed in front of their daughter. Officials believe that it was a misguided act of vengeance related to missing narcotics. The efforts of the authorities have resulted in the arrest of 12 individuals associated with the organization, including high-ranking members. However, Wedding and three others have still not been apprehended and are currently listed on the FBI's "Most Wanted" page. Many agencies are currently involved in this investigation including the FBI, DEA, LAPD, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.For information that could lead to Ryan James Wedding’s arrest, the FBI is offering a substantial $50,000 reward. https://twitter.com/FBIMostWanted/status/1846982143777362159 US prosecutors are charging him with murder, attempted murder, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, and conspiracy to distribute, possess, and export cocaine. This isn't Wedding's first brush with the law. Court records show he previously spent time behind bars for drug-related offenses. Read the full article

[scrapesaladofficial]

Is She a Man Because You Lost?

Imane Khelif and sportswomen of color branded by white tears Imane Khelif won her qualifiers at the Olympics because her opponent, Angela Carini, refused to fight. Source: ©Ansa via Sky News Itis the end of a monumental 800m Athletics race and Caster Semenya stands tall and proud with her well-deserved 2016 Olympics Gold medal. A true team player, she turns to hug the other contestants, but one of the runners doesn’t return her good-faith gesture. Meet Lynsey Sharp, the woman who placed 6th in the same 8-runner race and called the Gold Medalist an “issue” that she and other athletes are trying to tackle. By “issue,” she implies that she and the 7th and 8th position-holders had officially complained that Semenya was trans and that it wasn’t fair that she was in the races. Amid tears, Sharp said, “It was difficult to compete against Caster Semenya and other hyperandrogenic athletes after the rule to suppress testosterone levels was overturned.” Soon after Caster faced a ban for “failing” a “gender examination” — owing to “heightened” testosterone levels and being intersex. After getting a fellow player banned, Sharp has never won gold — or any medal, ever — at the Olympics, even though Caster is cast out. Talk about fair, huh? Now at the 2024 Paris Olympics, white tears threaten to ruin yet another career. Let’s talk about it. Meet the “male” sportswoman who was assigned female at birth Imane Khelif’s gender assignment has come under scrutiny at the 2024 Paris after her opponent, Angela Carini, left the ring within 46 seconds with no damage. “Non è giusto!” It’s not fair, the Italian Olympian cried out and then burst into tears as Khelif was declared the winner. This is not Carini’s first rodeo — in the 2020 World Championship bout against Turkish champion and Olympic gold superstar Busenaz Sürmeneli, Carini held Sürmeneli for a second and, with no contact, simply fell to the floor and clutched her ankle. Watch it in the 8-minute clip below from 4:08 to 4:15. Carini ranks 13 globally while Sürmeneli ranks #1. But this time she stands a chance to make a pretty penny off it — Sport Mediaset reports that Carini has been awarded $ 50,000 (net) prize money by the International Boxing Association (IBA) as of 2 August 2024. Another sum of $ 50,000 was offered to each of her coaches at the Italian Boxing Federation (FPI). The FPI refused this offer and brought the IBA’s motives and credibility into question, but made no statement about Carini’s prize money. All Carini’s opponent has gotten so far is a lot of demonization and even being called the nazi slur “korcs” by her rival for bronze, Hungarian Luca Hamori. On Friday, Hungary’s boxing federation said it contacted the IOC objecting to Khelif’s participation in the tournament. Meet Imane Khelif, an Algerian welter (66kg) boxer currently ranking 2nd on the Box Rec board. She represented Algeria at the 2020 Summer Olympics one short year after her debut, winning no medals, but since has over 40 games and 3 gold medals, including at World and African Championships. This being said — like any other female boxer — she’s also lost 9 games in her amateur boxing career. Imane’s Boxing information. Source: Box Rec. In 2023 an unidentified “gender” test was administered on her by the IBA, leading to a subsequent ban from the World Championships. The statement from the IBA reads: …the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test, whereby the specifics remain confidential. This test conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors. The irony is that the International Olympic Committee has banned the IBA for carrying out illegitimate tests as well as claims of financial fraud and biases in judgment. But this week the far-right anti-trans rallies on all social media have decried the Olympics for including “trans” sportswomen who — get this — aren’t trans at all. The President of IBA, Umar Kremlev, has previously had a disciplinary case against him, which has since been closed. The International Olympic Committee voted to derecognize the IBA at a specially called meeting — an outcome that was inevitable after being recommended two weeks ago by the executive board, a body chaired by IOC president Thomas Bach. The vote was 69–1, with 10 members abstaining. In a shocking statement to Russian Tass, Kremlev said that both Imane Khelif and Taiwanese Lin Yu-Ting “had XY chromosomes.” The allegations cost Khelif a gold medal, and Lin Yu-Ting a bronze one. As the nature and the results of the test are not publicly available, Kremlev’s comments are extremely inflammatory and have opened up both women to trolling by anti-trans reactionists such as J. K. Rowling. Let’s get one thing clear — you’re wrong and you’re hurting all women There are defamatory articles floating all over about Khelif, including one scrutinizing the fact that she has no children and no husband or wife in an indirect attempt at speculating on her gender. But gender should not be this important that a woman is threatened by the Italian government and thousands of trolls online. To set the record straight, here are some facts debunking other strange ideologies peddled by anti-trans reactionaries against this cisgender woman. Fiction: She looks manly so she’s trans. Fact: Read my previous article about how weird things get when you people try so hard to box women — strong women — into artificial femininity. People thought cisgender non-intersex female athlete Serena Williams was also trans. The Olympics has not found Khelif to be trans at this or the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Furthermore, Algeria is a Muslim orthodox, anti-trans, and anti-queer country that would not select a trans person to represent them. This level of scrutiny could be seriously dangerous for Khelif in her own country. Lastly, being trans or not should never endanger your life and career this way. End of. Being trans still means being on T-blockers and starting estrogen, which doesn’t guarantee “male levels of strength.” Fiction: We can always tell, and we know she’s trans. Fact: You obviously can’t if you think a cisgender woman is trans. Here’s one of the “we can tell” crowd showing Khelif (in blue) fighting Kellie Harrington (in red) during the 2020 Summer Olympics. Fiction: She was born with XY chromosomes, and all XYs are men and cannot do normal woman things, e.g., give birth. Fact: There is no substantiated evidence on the state of her chromosomes. But you can have an XY chromosome makeup and still be considered female as it’s not out of the ordinary for these women to have a physically female body. That’s called being intersex, and it’s completely normal and natural. According to this journal by American Scientists, biology is not a binary, and intersex is a real category not just for humans but also for other animals. There are also recorded studies and incidents of an XY woman having given birth. Fiction: Khelif doesn’t have kids and isn’t married because she’s trans. Fact: At 25 years old, Khelif is not the only woman with no children or husband in this fight. You know who else doesn’t have kids? Khelif’s 25-year-old opponent, Angela Carini. Considering how many women are opting out of marriage these days, why are we surprised a 25-year-old career woman isn’t married? Fiction: Khelif hit Carini so hard because she’s too strong owing to being trans. Trans women will always win against cis women. Fact: Carini has participated in 107 matches and has won 83 of them, having suffered only one knock-out. Her loss rate is nearly the same as Khelif’s, who’s won 37 fights and lost 9, including two at an Olympic level. All 9 losses were against cisgender women who have never been scrutinized for their gender, likely because they’re white. Considering Carini has been knocked out before but barely moved when Khelif threw a good right hook, it is dubious at best how hard the punch hurt. At worst, it’s possible Carini was hoping Khelif would be disqualified and she would win a medal or publicity, instead. Fiction: Letting manly players into women’s sports makes it unfair to the other sportswomen. Fact: Are we sure it’s about manly players? Or is it just players of color? The paradox of gender evaluations for female athletes as protection A lot of the arguments around having gender evaluations to remove transwomen and ciswomen with a random “high” level of testosterone from sports is that testosterone gives you a “biological advantage” over women who have a little less of it. Here’s a hypothetical: a female swimmer is 6'4" and has a 6'7" wingspan — when the average height of all Olympians is 6'2" and their wingspans are much smaller. A larger wingspan and naturally long legs give you a biological advantage over the other Olympians by a scientifically studied long shot. Should this woman also be removed from the Olympics? Y’know, considering she’d be immediately better than the other swimmers? If your answer was yes, what if I told you that a swimmer with this exact bodily makeup is the most decorated Olympian of all time? Michael Phelps holding all his 23 Olympic Medals. Source: MySwimPro. He’s Michael Phelps, a man with a biological advantage over his peers so strong he’s got a scientific journal written about it. But he is not only celebrated, he’s also simply called great and allowed to just be. I can find no information on how high his testosterone levels are because apparently, that doesn’t matter. Nothing does so long as he rakes those medals in. Read the full article

[milktyama]

— HEART OF GOLD

chapter two. lost in translation

pairing: timeskip!miya atsumu x olympian!reader

wc: 1.2k

warnings: one curse word

ch.1 | directory. | ch.3

The day of the opening ceremony quickly arrived. Though you weren’t the one to hold the flag and become the face of your country, you were known to have the talent to spot cameras quickly, able to grab the hearts of many spectators with your charm.

Frankly, it was for the sake of more sponsors since you wouldn’t get paid for appearing at the Olympics.

Somehow, you and the mysterious blond man who seemed to rest in the room under you had not crossed paths ever since the ever so intimate eye contact that morning. Maybe it was for the better (also better for your heart).

Walking into the stadium for the ceremony, you noticed that the stadium was empty except for the athletes and a few notable people. Although you were excited to be at the Olympics for a second time, your excitement seemed to forget an important factor, the lack of audience this year.

The lack of loud cheers whenever someone won a point, or when someone won a medal, or when someone broke a record. The audience was a great source of athletic morale and you will be missing it this year. It was saddening, but it couldn’t be helped.

You remembered your job, spotting camera after camera, giving each an energetic wave and some a little wink. Music blasted through the stadium and it slowly started to fill up with the rest of the athletes. Your eyes scanned the swarm of people, recognizing some faces from the previous Olympics and former rivals.

Your eyes drifted towards the Japan representatives, heart rate suddenly quickening a little. The large sea of athletes in white jackets overwhelmed the teams beside them, having one of the most athletes in the Olympics this year. You couldn’t spot him, which you sighed in relief to, though a lingering feel of disappointment spread through you.

The cauldron was set ablaze and carried away as the Olympic rings were lit, the Olympics have finally officially started. Each country exited the stadium one by one to their respective buses back to the village.

You took the window seat, your favourite as you enjoyed looking out the stuffy vehicle. As the engine started, your eyes drifted to the other buses, looking at all the kinds of athletes from the other countries a little closer than you were able to before. One of the buses stopped beside yours, waiting for the little traffic to exit into the road.

You were unsure whether to curse your luck or kiss it at the moment, the same intense eyes that you locked with that morning meeting yours once again. His mask covered half of his face and his chin rested on his palm but that was enough to make your heart skip a beat.

Your bus started to take off but your eyes still followed his, catching a little wink he sent your way before jerking away from his gaze in a flustered panic.

Well that definitely left an impression on you. Your hand rested on your chest to calm your heart as best as you could, mind dizzy at the image of his cheeky wink.

You ruffled a towel aggressively to dry off your hair, but also in frustration that even after a cold shower, the picture of his little wink replayed in your mind like a broken record. You sighed loudly and stepped out onto the balcony once again.

You thought you probably shouldn't step out there again, just in case you encounter him again. But you were also half hoping to see his faux-blond hair and maybe catch another glimpse of his handsome features.

The second you slid the door open, you heard a whistle from underneath.

Ah fuck.

You took a slow exhale and clutched onto the towel in your hands. Taking slow steps towards the edge, you mentally hyped yourself one more time before glancing down beneath you.

Slowly, your vision was filled with the sight of him once more. His back and elbows were leaning against the railing of the balcony. His neck crooked upwards to look at you and his lips still together, prolonging his whistle.

Once he saw you, a small smile curved onto his lips, the top row of his teeth showing. He took two fingers and brought them up to his forehead, gesturing a casual greeting to you. You tried greeting him back with a small bow of the head, unsure if he could actually see it.

He started to speak in Japanese, though you didn't understand a single word he was saying. You caught onto a few keywords like "you" and "here" but it seemed like he spoke in a dialect different from the announcer earlier.

Tilting your head to the side in confusion, he caught onto your cluelessness and took out his phone after a look of realization. He typed a few things into it and then pressed the speaker button, translating what he wanted to say into your language.

"I met you here. What kind of sports do you participate in?” It was an imperfect translation, but you understood what he meant. You took your phone out as well, typing out your response to him.

“In badminton, I participate in mixed doubles. What you?” You knew that the translation didn’t come exactly right at the second laugh he breathed out. Your shoulders slumped in slight defeat, but you had to resort to it since it was the only option.

Then you remembered being told that if you spoke English words in a somewhat of a Japanese accent, people could get an idea of what you were saying. You gave it a try with keywords, though you were sure you butchered the accent part. His features scrunched together as he let out an airy laugh at your attempt. It was adorable.

“Volleyball. I’m setter,” he replied with broken English, reciprocating your efforts. It was a constant back and forth of strange sounding phrases through the monotone voice of the translators on your phones with a mix of simple English phrases.

You gave it a go with the basic Japanese phrases you learned prior to the flight here but all you really got was his soft giggles and crooked smiles. Though, you thought those were pretty rewarding regardless.

The conversation wasn’t perfect. All too lost in between poor translators and broken phrases. But something about it was so heart-warming. It was easy and felt surprisingly light on your heart considering how many times it reacted to his simple gestures.

The night sky greeted the two of you as it transitioned from the pale blue and blended perfectly with the depths of a navy night and stars becoming a little more visible, though not so much.

You learned that his name was Atsumu Miya and you were relieved that he had a name that was easy to remember. The vowels almost rolled off your tongue so easily that made you want to say it many times on end.

Soon though, you two called it a night, noting how you both had schedule to attend in the morning. Slight disappointment settled at the pit of your stomach, dreading for the end to come.

You tried to convince yourself that this should be the least of your concerns. Though, you weren’t too sure how you could easily forget him.

You wrapped yourself tightly within your blankets to clear your mind, just like how you did on your first night here. Some things required a little push.

Hopefully you didn’t mean that too literally.

ch.1 | directory. | ch.3

taglist (open!) : @katsulovee @achillean-affection @mymoroll @pluviophilefangirl @panini @usernotcool @moonless-abyss @milf-lover3000 @ldraa @unstaaableaf @kyomihann @tunatoge @m1lfluv3r @kamalymaly @hehechee

[anxietymuffin]

Opegana: our roots

This is a story that’s basically a prologue/epilogue to the main story for my oc’s. It’s and original world and Our Roots is about the gods who created it, running away from the olympians.

(Click the pictures for better quality)

The main trio

Kiran, Goddes of the sun and war

Anahita, the Goddess of water and chaos

Eretus, God of life and vegetation

Saros, The Goddess of the moon and magic

Hai, goddess of Balance and Love

Rei, The god of Loyalty and Family, he is a symbol of Honor

Though Hai and Rei are less of gods and more of.. powerful beings.

Kiran and Saros are sisters, together they raise and lower the moon. There are no conflicts between these two because they are equals and one could not exist without the other.

On earth, Saros was considered a young god and therefore could not be trusted in raising the moon. They also did not trust her because in their mind, her magic could mean evil and deceit. When they got to Opegana, she had the opportunity to raise not one, but three moons at their own paces.

Kiran was not trusted because although she had the ability to raise the sun, she was deemed dangerous when it became known she is also a symbol of power in war. She could plan any attack to perfection so she was kept away from the mortals in fear the she would interfere with wars to her benefit.

Anahita was also not allowed to interact with the mortals due to her chaotic nature, they thought she would cause tsunami’s and hurricanes just to watch the chaos unfold down below. They never saw pass the “evil” but chaos does not mean evil, it meant a lack of rules but they turned their backs to her anyways.

Eretus on the other hand was a being who could be trusted, but he was a direct descendant of a titan much like Zeus and he feared that one day Eretus would grow tired of how he and the other 5 were treated and attempt to overthrow him. So before anything of the sort could happen, Zeus used magic that created chains that nullified Eretus’s powers as long as his being existed on earth. Those chains were released when he got to Opegana.

Together Hai and Rei became the image of “the perfect couple” with Rei being incredibly loyal and completely devoted to Hai while she was loving and gentle to him. A holiday was made in their name “Reihai” which was basically a week long version of valentines day. Each day representing a different kind of love (not 7 cause obsessive love is off the list here 😤)

Day one: Eros, Love of the body

In most cases this implies sexual desires but on this day it means more “get someone you’re close with something nice to decorate their body with so they can feel as beautiful as you view them” so clothes, jewelry, hair piece anything that can be worn is on the table.

Day two: Philia, Affectionate love

A day to share with friends or family, this type of love is linked with Loyalty and trust and considered “equal love” which is valued higher than Eros. This day is meant for you to spend quality time with the people you care abut or hold dearly to you.

Day three: Storge, Love of the child

This represents the unconditional love parents have for their children and is spent as a fun day for the younger ones, and can be shared with any child to a trusted guardian. It is spent doing things that will entertain both you and the child, eg: games, going to the theatre or playing outside.

Day four: Agape, playful love

As implied, it focuses on the blossoming of young love with flirting and teasing, always seen in the beginning of a relationship. This day is shared by teens and young adults, who spend it exchanging flowers, love notes and sometimes small meaningful gifts.

Day five: Pragma, long lasting love

Thus day is directed to married couples or life long friends, this day represents the kind of love that goes on and only survives with constant maintenance and nurturance. It may mark an important date in their lives. A common gift given on this day is a steal chain necklace or rings.

Day six: Philautia, Love of the self

A day to focus on yourself, where you’re encouraged to take the time to care and treat yourself kindly. Since most people are always so focused on trying to make things work between famly and jobs, some may neglect their well being so it’s always good to have a day dedicated to yourself to relax and take care.

So that is... the beginning of how Opegana came to be! There's a lot more plot to cover when it's just the beginning but this is what I'm handing in

If I find the motivation I'll continue to make it into a mini movie

[anistrange]

A MYTHOLOGICAL ESSAY (TITANS)

Like many here, I love Greek mythology with its unlimited catalogue of gods and fantastic creatures. However, I've always had a problem adapting these stories. Beyond the writing of these figures which is an object of discussion in forums like these, I want to focus on a more A E S T H E T I C aspect.

Specially, about the Titans

NOW WHO ARE THE TITANS?

In Greek Mythology, the titans are the second generation of the gods (theoi) that ruled the cosmos, Cronus is the youngest of the titans when he overthrew his father, the primordial Uranus to later rule the heavens together with Rhea. To this point we know the famous story of Zeus against his father when he freed his brothers from the cage (A.K.A the belly) of Cronus and managed to defeat him and then he was sent to Tartarus.

Now my problem lies beyond its writing and symbolism, the design of this second generation of gods is a problem for me, especially in modern adaptations for the big screen and videogames. How many times have we not seen an adaptation and its design is completely "strange" to say the least?

BEHOLD THE TITANS

- God of War III (2010) -

WOW, I didn't know Thanos signed with Santa Barbara Studios to work as a stuntman for these people.

- Wrath of the Titans (2012) -

- Thank you Hollywood for making us believe that Kronos = Surtr (does not compute)

- Immortals (2011) -

TRIVIA: Did you know that the titans had a strange kink with reinforcing bars :D (seriously, why grey?)

- Disney’s Hercules (1998-1999) - 

Ahhh...

BACK TO THE TOPIC

i mean, we can argue all day long that they as a representation of natural forces is normal to possess supernatural forms in comparison to their descendants the Olympians who represent the human elements of society.

H O W E V E R

I find it too convenient that only these figures have an over the top design compared to their younger generation, (Even the Primordial Gods who are the pure elements of the universe and at the same time the parents of the Titans, they don’t have this monstrous aspect, just look at Nyx and Gaia from Marvel Comics) or we have even seen sometimes how some Titans have human form (Special case, Rhea, Helios and Eos from the God of War saga)

- Gaia and Nyx from Marvel Comics -

My primordial queens look better than their children... How is that possible?

- Helios, Rhea and Eos from the God of War saga - 

See? Designing characters like this is way better and more interesting than turning them into a generic foe as if they were taken from a Lord of the Rings bestiary.

Now, I can understand that this mistaken interpretation of these figures is due to the confusion of the Titans with the Giants (both groups are sons of Gaea who fought a war against the Olympic gods) So it’s kinda understandable that the confusion is palpable.

With all this covered there's someone who's wondering.

Is there any evidence of how the ancient greeks saw the Titans?

Fortunately the answer is YES . There is enough evidence to understand how this second generation of gods were seen by the ancient inhabitants of Greece, especially in two areas, sculpture and painting.

STATUES OF THE TITANS

- Farnese Atlas (150 B.C) -

- Piece of an altar with Selene the moon titaness with either Phosphoros and Hesperus or the Dioscuri - 

- Themis, the titaness of justice ( Chairestratos, c. 300 BCE) - 

First of all, even if the former statues represent either titaness and a second generation titan (Atlas) We found no indication that these figures could be represented in a more exaggerated context.

But the most interesting part is the portraying of the titans in the old greek vase-paintings. WHY? Because the painting compared to the sculpture shows a more human focus on the gods, respecting their authority and power but implementing the qualities and defects that any mortal possesses. And the titans were not the exception when they were portrayed in this spectrum of the art.

AND THIS ARE THE PAINTINGS

- Atlas and Prometheus  ( ca. 530 B.C.) - 

- Oceanus and Tethys (ca. 580 - 570 B.C.) -

But for me, without a doubt, the most representative painting of the titans is this one.

-  Cronus and Rhea (ca. 460 – 450 B.C.) -

If one day I was asked about how the Titans looked like? I will show them this image.

The first time you see this painting, the first thing you can imagine is the portrait of a normal greek family, but once you know who they really are, your perspective about this couple changes, there are no elements so over the top as a giant and monstrous Cronus and a normal stature Rhea that sometimes can generate confusion in people. Perhaps in a way the ancient Greeks wanted their mythological figures not to be too far removed from human nature, so that the people could identify with their deities in the most humane way possible even if the titans were not such adored figures compared to their descendants, the point still stands.

IN CONCLUSION

Lately the stories of Greek mythology have taken a more intimate approach to the relationships with the Greek gods, the fantastic elements are still present, but that is not the main value of these stories. How these figures relate to each other on a daily basis is perhaps an example of how the Greeks saw their gods. Beyond the powers, the titles, they saw people with qualities and defects.

So, if one day there is an adaptation to the screen about mythology and the titans make their appearance, I wish they were less over the top and with more human appearances and relationships, obviously keeping their corresponding power. Just a little thought :)

Thanks for reading my post :D peace  ✌️ ✌️

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

- Tom Stoppard, Artist Descending a Staircase

Sir Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit tower was completed in 2012 at a cost of £19 million ($27 million). It was intended to be a permanent lasting legacy of London's hosting of the 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, assisting in the post-Olympics regeneration of the Stratford area. At 376 feet (114.5 metres) it became the UK’s tallest public artwork.

London Mayor Boris Johnson put into motion a design competition that was held in 2009 and it called for designs for an "Olympic tower". A 9 panel commission made of the great and the good was set up to recommend to both Johnson and the government. It received about 50 submissions. Boris Johnson had said that his early concept for the project was something more modest than Orbit, along the lines of "a kind of 21st-century Trajan's Column", but this was dropped when more daring ideas were received. Boris Johnson was believed to want something like the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty what he and the government settled on was something completely different with Turner-Prize winning artist Sir Anish Kapoor in partnership with Cecil Balmond of Arup Group, an engineering firm.

Kapoor said that one of the influences on his design was the Tower of Babel, the sense of "building the impossible" that "has something mythic about it", and that the form "straddles Eiffel and Tatlin". Balmond, working on the metaphor of an orbit, envisaged an electron cloud moving, to create a structure that appears unstable, propping itself up, "never centred, never quite vertical". Both believe that Orbit represents a new way of thinking, "a radical new piece of structure and architecture and art" that uses non-linearity – the use of "instabilities as stabilities." The spaces inside the structure, in between the twisting steel, are "cathedral like", according to Balmond, while according to Kapoor, the intention is that visitors will engage with the piece as they wind "up and up and in on oneself" on the spiral walkway.

The Independent described Orbit as "a continuously looping lattice ... made up of eight strands winding into each other and combined by rings like a jagged knot". The Guardian describes it as a "giant lattice tripod sporting a counterweight collar around its neck designed to offset the weight of its head, a two-storey dining and viewing gallery". According to the BBC, the design incorporates the five Olympic rings.

Upon its launch Johnson said "It would have boggled the minds of the Romans. It would have boggled Gustave Eiffel." Nicholas Serota, a member of the design panel, said that Orbit was a tower with an interesting twist, with "the energy you might traditionally associate with this type of structure but in a surprisingly female form.”

When Anish Kapoor’s commission for the Olympic Park in London was unveiled no one really noticed, as most viewers thought it was still under construction.

Orbit confused viewers for sometime, but when they realised that the twisted metal structure in place was indeed an artwork they were up in arms. It was soon slammed by critics and citizens alike.

Overall reception to Orbit was mixed, but mostly negative. With regard to its potential as a lasting visitor attraction, The Guardian's Mark Brown reflected on the mixed fortunes of other large symbolic London visitor attractions such as the popular, but loss-making, Thames Tunnel; the Skylon structure, dismantled on the orders of Winston Churchill; and the successful London Eye. When plans were first reported for an Olympic tower, the media pointed to a manifesto pledge of Johnson's to crack down on tall buildings, in order to preserve London's "precious" skyline.  The Times criticised the idea as a vanity project of Johnson's, with a design "matching his bravado", built to "seal his legacy", surmising it would be compared to other similar vanity projects such as the "wedding cake", the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II built in Rome, or the Neutrality Arch, a rotating golden statue erected by Turkmenistan's President Saparmurat Niyazov, while comparing Johnson to Ozymandias. Art critic Brian Sewell said "Our country is littered with public art of absolutely no merit. We are entering a new period of fascist gigantism. These are monuments to egos and you couldn't find a more monumental ego than Boris."

The Times reported the description of it being the "Godzilla of public art". In October 2012, ArcelorMittal Orbit was nominated and made the Building Design magazine shortlist for the Carbuncle Cup - an award for the worst British building completed in the past year, which was ultimately awarded to the Cutty Sark renovation.

Jay Merrick of The Independent said that "[Orbit's] sculptural power lies in its ability to suggest an unfinished form in the process of becoming something else", describing how its artistic riskiness elevated it above the banal artworks of the public art movement that have been built elsewhere in Britain's towns and cities. Merrick was of the opinion that it would be either loved or hated, being a design which is "beautifully fractious, and not quite knowable".

Jonathan Glancey of The Guardian described Orbit as "Olympian in ambition" and a "fusion between striking art and daring engineering", and said that, the Aquatics Centre apart, it represented the architecturally striking Joker in the pack, given that the rest of the landscaping and architecture for the Games "promises little to get excited about". He believed it would become a "genuine eyecatcher" for the Olympics television coverage, with its extraordinary form being a "strange and enticing marriage of sorts" between the Eiffel Tower and the un-built early Soviet era Tatlin's Tower, with the biblical Tower of Babel as "best man".

The Times writer Tom Dyckhoff, while calling it "a gift to the tabloids" and a "giant Mr. Messy", questioned whether the Olympic site needed another pointless icon, postulating whether it would stand the test of time like the London Eye and become a true icon to match the Eiffel Tower, or a hopeless white elephant. Suggesting the project had echoes of Tatlin's Monument to the Third International, and especially Constant Nieuwenhuys' utopian city New Babylon, he asked whether Orbit was just as revolutionary or possessed the same ideological purpose, or whether it was merely "a giant advert for one of the world’s biggest multinationals, sweetened with a bit of fun".

Rowan Moore of The Guardian questioned if it was going to be anything more than a folly, or whether it would be as eloquent as the Statue of Liberty. He speculated that the project might mark the time when society stops using large iconic projects as a tool for lifting areas out of deprivation. He questioned its ability to draw people's attention to Stratford after the Games, in a similar manner to the successes of the Angel of the North or the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. He also questioned the piece's ability to strike a chord like the Angel, which he believed had at least "created a feelgood factor and sense of pride" in Gateshead, or whether it would simply become one of the "many more unloved rotting wrecks that no one has the nerve to demolish". He postulated that the addition of stairs and a lift made Orbit less succinct than Kapoor's previous successful works, while ultimately he said "hard to see what the big idea is, beyond the idea of making something big".

Fellow Guardian writer John Graham-Cumming rejected comparisons to icons like the Eiffel Tower, which had itself not been intended to be a lasting monument, only persisting into public acceptance as art through being useful; he also pointed out the Colossus of Rhodes collapsed within a few decades, and the Tower of Babel was "constructed to glorify those that constructed it." He suggested that a future mayor should reconsider whether it should be pulled down. Questioning its corporate role, he believed that meant it looked less and less like a work of art and more like a vanity project.

Even Sir Anish Kapoor acknowledged the criticism and said of its clunky features,“It’s an object with all its elbows sticking out and it is slightly awkward, but I think I made it for that reason, I wanted it to be slightly awkward.”

After the 2012 Olympic Games, the Orbit tower was used as an observation tower, running at a loss of £520,000 ($884,000) in 2014–15, according to the BBC—or losing up to £10,000 ($17,000) a week in 2014, according to the Guardian newspaper.

Amidst the rising clamour of the costs matched only by the disdainful disinterest in the massive sculpture, something had to be done.

To appease Londoners, ex-London Mayor Boris Johnson brought in Carsten Höller to add a slide to the 376 feet tall artwork, making it the highest slide in Europe.

Kapoor later said he was pushed into the high profile collaboration by Johnson. Kapoor would later say that Johnson’s request “felt to me as if it was turning the whole thing in the wrong direction.”

“It was not always my thinking. The mayor foisted this on the project and there was a moment where I had to make a decision - do I go to battle with the mayor or is there a more elegant or astute way through this?,” he told the Guardian.

“I knew of Carsten’s work so I thought, well, who better than a fellow artist to join up with and make this a positive story rather than a negative… Luckily, and thankfully, Carsten was open to it, so we found a way round this,” Kapoor explained.

Judging by the unforgettable success of Höller’s slide installation at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, it’s easy to imagine what made Kapoor click and extend the invitation to the Belgian-born Stockholm-based artist.

“One makes artworks for other reasons than profit,” Kapoor told the Guardian. “I understand this is run as a so-called attraction, which I have problems with personally… I want it to be slightly more highbrow than that, without wanting to be pompous about it. There’s a difference between a fairground ride and art,” he added.

Höller, meanwhile, took a more lighthearted approach, urging people to embrace “the amusement side of it.”

“A child might be here purely for the slide, while the serious art lover might see this in purely formalistic terms. I personally like the confusion, that you don’t know what it is but it still creates a very unique experience,” he told the Guardian.

 The ArcelorMittal Orbit re-opened to the public on 5 April 2014. Since then it has done below average business in attracting people to come and visit it or try the slide.

The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), which runs the park where the sculpture is located, released numbers revealing the sculpture’s sizeable debt and a steep drop in visitors. Steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal had provided a £9.2 million ($11.2 million) loan to help pay for the original construction of the sculpture, but this loan has ballooned to £13 million due to the accrual of interest.

Ticket sales to the observation platform and a tunnel slide designed by Carsten Höller were meant to help repay the loan, but low visitor attendance prompted a £58,000 ($70,000) loss in 2018/19 alone. Visitor numbers have dropped from a high of 193,000 in 2016/17, when Höller’s slide was introduced, to 155,000 in 2018/19.

It’s not just an artistic folly but a commercial one too.

It's not wholly fanciful that such artistic scuptural landmarks can help lift places. No one can put a figure on jobs created or investments made in Gateshead thanks to the Angel of the North, but it has at least created a feelgood factor and sense of pride. The Bilbao Guggenheim of 1996, still the archetype of such town-boosting, certainly placed a relatively obscure city at the centre of attention.

Buildings can't do it alone and if people find their attention has been drawn only to a wasteland, they will go away again. The Guggenheim worked because there were also dull practical things in Bilbao such as new transport infrastructure and business parks.

But the most important ingredient of a successful icon is that it works artistically. It has to strike a chord, sound the right note, catch a mood, win hearts and confound sceptics. In other words it has to be aesthetically pleasing because it’s good art made by equally by great craft and graft.

The ArcelorMittal Orbit has become an unloved rotting wreck that no one has the nerve to demolish.

[writtenbyhappynerds]

FF102, Unit 7: That Good Emotional Shit

Some tropes and cliches work for fanfiction. Some don’t. You’ll see lists on Tumblr and Pinterest of whump prompts or cliches to use. Some of them are not worth your time. Others, that we will discuss, are. We’re going to rapid-fire this chapter. We’ll take a trope/prompt/cliche and explain why it works and in what context it works best.

          A good cliche or good trope allows the audience to see the growth and development of a character. We have talked negatively of twin OCs and evil twins because those characters are always the exact same as their cast counterpart, just louder. A good cliche or trope will push your characters into development. An evil twin doesn’t do anything for your OC. An OC who’s been written as calm and in-control finally losing it and snapping? That shows the audience the OC has been pushed over the emotional edge. If the cliche can develop a character, it’s a cliche or trope worth using.

          Angst and angst-fics are so popular because they are pure character development. They are a character coming to terms with themselves and getting past an event that continuously haunts and guilts them. It’s all character development, and we as an audience like to see that kind of journey. There’s nothing wrong with angst fics, and light angst in your own stories is good because it shows not only development for the character but more realistic consequences for a character’s actions. We’ve talked about realism before, and fanfics that aren’t rooted in reality will let horrors, trauma, and death roll off the back of their OC like it’s a Tuesday at Wendy’s. Life isn’t like that, and angst fics lean heavily into the recovery and grieving of loss. It’s what makes them compelling because we see how damaged a person can become, and how strong they are to heal themselves.

          Fluff tropes or whump prompts work especially well if the character has been penned as someone who doesn’t trust others or struggles with being vulnerable. Seeing two people dance drunk in their kitchen, sick prompts, and scenes where one character has to be vulnerable works when that character isn’t comfortable there. It creates inner conflict with the character having to trust other people, and having to rely on others. It creates an exterior conflict where the character is incapacitated or becoming open with others. These fluff prompts can work when they’re placed later in the story. They can appear more organically if they’re used as a tool for character development and not an AU in a piece that is already fanfiction.

          The Editor is a big fan of opposites attract. We’ll also combine this with enemies to friends to lovers prompts, which are popular for a reason. They are filled with character development. Being able to look past your hatred and find the beauty in someone you previously despised is a major representative of growth. It shows us how a character can mature and learn to let go of the past and be open to the future. Brooklyn 99’s Jake and Amy is a great example of friends to lovers, but beyond romantic interest, this works for companionship and friends as well. Look at Zuko and Aang’s relationship in Avatar: The Last Airbender. The growth and maturity from these two characters were monumental; it showed the ability to forgive and to be kind and to take the traumas of your past and not let them define you. Zuko is a fantastic example of character growth, and his entire arc can speak for the development that comes from being an enemy to a friend.

          The Editor also likes slow burns. I do too, primarily for the realism they present. To quote Frozen, “You can’t marry a guy you just met!” Love takes time and effort and work. It takes so long for feelings to fester and grow and blossom into something more, that stories, where two characters fall in love in a matter of days, seem unrealistic. Not only that but in the real-world relationships like this are unhealthy and create characters that are co-dependent. Slow burns don’t have to go from hatred to love either. It can just start at indifference. If you look at Percy Jackson, Percy and Annabeth didn’t even kiss until the end of the Last Olympian. They had a friendship for 4 years before that, and in that time were able to figure themselves out before figuring out a relationship. That really represents the pinnacle of slow burns: we don’t want a character’s entire story or history to be tied to some other person. Slow burn fanfic lets the character blossom as a healthy individual and figure out who they want to be, before merging their ideals and their life with someone else. It’s realistic, and the time it takes for two characters to come together only lets your heart grow fonder. Your audience will feel more emotionally connected to these characters because they will have seen them go through so many personal struggles. There’s nothing wrong with taking your time. We want to see it.

          I am a slut for hospital prompts. The hurt/injury cliches, where the character collapses and ends up in the hospital for an extended period of time. It’s sometimes not realistic but that’s some good shit right there. What can make these prompts especially juicy, is if the character is written as a strong or capable character. Seeing Sam or Dean Winchester end up hospitalized hurt the audience more because we know those characters A) don’t get hurt that bad that often and B) Have never relied on hospitals unless it’s really serious. So, when they did turn up in the hospital we knew that the stakes were increased and that the situation was dire. It offers tension, and it can show you how human even your strongest characters are. You can’t re-set a broken leg on your own. You can’t fix a bullet wound by yourself. So seeing these characters have to acknowledge that they don’t have all the answers and can’t fix themselves. It shows the audience how false a character’s confidence or competence can be.

          I personally like little-kid prompts or genius little-kid tropes. That isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and it has to do with little children being poorly written. Usually, this trope is used so the writer doesn’t have to stress about writing a realistic child. If they make the child a genius they can have it brought up to the same speed as the adults. However, writing children is easier than you think (See unit 5) and a super-genius child can be smart, but not wise. What I mean is that a genius child needs to pick a struggle and commit to it. They can’t be both book smart and street smart because they still don’t have the life experience that adults have. So you can have a genius mathematician child, but that kid isn’t going to be of much help in your detective fanfic where your OCs are supposed to be busting drug rings, because what child knows about that? Now, you could have a child know about the criminal underground because maybe they’ve grown up in it and worked as a mule, but that child isn’t going to be a mathematician like the other kid. You need to pick a side of the line, and there are so many ways for a person or a child to be a genius. What makes it realistic is picking just one. Look at Damian Wayne. He was a child prodigy in combat. He was gifted because he had tutors and masters who taught him for his entire life. But he knew so little about the outside world and how it worked. He was gifted but sheltered. Jason Todd is the opposite. He was a street rat, who had an innate knowledge of the criminal underground but didn’t have as much of an opportunity to learn through academic outlets. He knew the streets but didn’t get to learn the books until much much later. Each picked a struggle to start out with. That’s not to say that you can’t expand their range of knowledge later on, but it comes with time is the key note: if your character starts out knowing everything there’s nowhere for them to go.

          Speaking of little kids, the outcast/weird kid making a ton of friends is often used, and it’s an oldie that’s been around since The Lightning Thief. What this prompt represents is the ability of a person who doesn’t fit traditional molds to find their place and their happiness in the world. We all like content that makes us feel less alone, and prompts like this can even be cathartic for the reader to remind them that they themselves are not alone. Your writing should mean something to someone up to and including you, and these prompts warm us up and make us feel like somewhere there’s a place for us. No one likes to be alone.

          What you should take away from this unit is that predictability is okay as long as it’s done well. Cliches are not going to kill your narrative. Tropes and whump prompts are not bad, they just need to be executed in a way that makes us feel like it’s genuine character development and not an out-of-body experience. We want to see development and growth because that truly shows progression not just of time but of a person, and if you can execute it well, you can pull off just about anything.

          Next week we’re discussing research, and diving deeper into how you should be researching your settings, flaws, and how you should study your own field of work. We apologize for the delay. Unforeseen circumstances came up that life never prepares you for, and the Big Sad came over me for a while. We’ll see you next week!

Xoxo, Gossip Girl

[iliadshq]

                                       ' 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐲! 𝐓𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐲!                      𝐀 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐆𝐨𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐬⏤ 𝐬𝐨 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬! '

When the last ship has landed on the docks of Sparta, its sails still flapping from an unknown wind, it marks the official start of King Tyndareus’ gathering. From across all four corners of the earth, suitors vying for Helen’s hand swarmed together for the glory of winning a daughter of Zeus, dangled in front of them like a red cloth before bulls. Yet Helen is more than beauty ; she is prize made manifest. To have her is to have a direct leverage on the King of Gods himself, as well as a dowry from her mortal father, substantial enough to fund a thousand wars, raise a hundred fleets from the ground up. Everyone heard about the Spartan ruler, the prosperous man who fought no battle, lost no sons, bore no scars—but no one expected just how formidable his wealth truly is. Sparta seems, in and of itself, a monument. The question appears: dedicated to which God ?

THE CITADEL THAT SWALLOWED THE WORLD

There is myrrh, saffron spice, cattle blood trickling through the cobblestones from the morning’s sacrifices, there is sweat & sea-salt & the cloying scent of anticipation seeping from those who barely landed. Enterprising merchants from all the corners of the known world have set up stalls peddling opulent and exotic wares. Bargains are made for lodgings, for not everyone is fortunate enough to warrant a place inside Tyndareus’ tiered palace. Soldiers sleep in brothels, in temples, in taverns & barracks. Booths decorate the circular streets of Sparta as far as the eye could see and then some, comprising a man-made labyrinth that would defy anyone’s compass. Children get lost, couples are disbanded, separated by the dynamic, living creature that is the crowd.

The space becomes a kaleidoscope, a beam of light swirling through human senses, bearing the mark of each tribe, city-nation, or country that ever shadowed the earth. Brass, obsidian, greenglass quartz catch the sun and send it scattering among people. Some stalls claim to foretell one’s future: either through haruspicy or the reading of animal entrails, the charting of the noble stars in their voyage around the earth, or through the simple matter of looking at one’s palms, gauging fate’s whims by a thin line in their skin.

In other corners, artists find a way to peddle their own services, striving to distract from the onslaught of soothsayers and would-be hierophants. Copper plates, sculpted idols, kore & kouroi—everything is for sale, the sacred as well as the profane, from kitchen pottery to altar thuribles. Painters offer to draw your portrait on the spot, their hands grabbing at your chiton, leaving stains of charcoal & oil. Kithara playerrs, snake charmers, flutists that would debase Dionysus themselves, beleaguer the alleys. There is various entertainment still to be gleaned from the poets and playwrights who rushed to Sparta like dogs after scraps, avid for a story, starved for the great tales of old. Careful, the matrons & crones caution, if they do not find a tale worth telling, they will cause one themselves.

And, next to the bull rings, beyond the sacrificial dais used to honor the Gods ( who are still only peripheral figures at this early point ) the arena has been raised. In other kingdom, it is slaves who are made to bleed on its fervid sands, but Sparta is a Free City. Citizen with full rights, men & women alike will take part in the celebratory games. From discus to running, archery to pankration, he has made available his own personal stadium, so that every athlete, hero, or common man can carve their mark in the annals of history, distinguish themselves from the melee. Perhaps tears will be spilt, and grunts will resound through the amphiteater seats, but no blood. It is said King Tyndareus cannot abide it, and has long forbidden any fight to the death.

Out of all these dazzling, fulgurant events, these chances that both stupefy & ensnare, the brightest star is represented by Tyndareus’ own competition. For his daughter’s hand, he will run the contenders through rings of fire, in speech if not in deed. Races, declamations, sports & lyre concerts, there is no task too small or too unbefitting to not be included. But be it as it may a strenuous set of challenges, it is also dappled with revelry, with weekly pauses where nothing is scheduled except merriment, excess, decadence.

Only a few have thrown in their gauntlet, but all eyes will be on them, watching in rapture from the sidelines—the mortals as well as the Gods. For it soon becomes clears: Olympians themselves descended to oversee the festivities ; Ocean deities left their cavernous depths, as the Deathless Gods stirred from their demesne of shades. Many moons may pass from this moment, when the ships first blackened the horizon of Sparta, and the moment when Tyndareus will relent and yield Helen. The competition is expected to last for several weeks —this leaves plenty of time for a worshiper to change their faith, en exile their fate, for a lover to be renounced & a truth revealed.

INAUGURATION FEAST.

This is the grand opening of the month-long festivity. In King Tyndareus’ palace, everyone of note from the cities of Mycenae and Troy pour into the Golden Hall ; they fill up the corridors and the suspended gardens, the hidden alcoves and the guest chambers. The Gods are there, too — as is their wont, without invitation. They merely envisaged their welcome, thus ensuring its reality. They bring with them their proteges, their children, their lovers. They bring with them benediction & calamity, judgement & grace.

; —— this event runs from [ 04.04.2020 ]  to  [ 07.04.2020 ]

DAY OF THE EQUESTRIAN RACES.

The competition of King Tyndareus will be comprised of multiple individual events, each of them stretching five days or longer, which will feature as challenges for our members. The first one is the EQUESTRIAN DAY, comprised of two-horse chariot race, single-rider horse race, and javelin throw on horseback.

A separate post will be made on the day before, in which we will ask members to volunteer their characters in the challenge if they so desire.

The victor will be established based on their faction’s points for that week.

If more than two players from the same faction compete in the challenge, their points will be tallied individually. If the result is too close to call, we will use a random generator.

; —— this event runs from [ 07.04.2020 ]  to  [ 11.04.2020 ]

[blackkudos]

Joe Louis

Joseph Louis Barrow (May 13, 1914 – April 12, 1981), known professionally as Joe Louis, was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949, and is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. Nicknamed the Brown Bomber, Louis' championship reign lasted 140 consecutive months, during which he participated in 26 championship fights. The 27th fight, against Ezzard Charles in 1950, was a challenge for Charles' heavyweight title and so is not included in Louis' reign. He was victorious in 25 consecutive title defenses. In 2005, Louis was ranked as the best heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization, and was ranked number one on The Ring magazine's list of the "100 greatest punchers of all time".

Louis' cultural impact was felt well outside the ring. He is widely regarded as the first person of African-American descent to achieve the status of a nationwide hero within the United States, and was also a focal point of anti-Nazi sentiment leading up to and during World War II. He was instrumental in integrating the game of golf, breaking the sport's color barrier in America by appearing under a sponsor's exemption in a PGA event in 1952.

Detroit's Joe Louis Greenway and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County's Joe Louis "The Champ" Golf Course, situated south of Chicago in Riverdale, Illinois, are named in his honor.

Early life

Born in rural Chambers County, Alabama (in a ramshackle dwelling on Bell Chapel Road, located about 1 mile (2 kilometres) off state route 50 and roughly 6 miles (10 kilometres) from LaFayette), Louis was the seventh of eight children of Munroe Barrow and Lillie (Reese) Barrow. He weighed 11 pounds (5 kg) at birth. Both of his parents were children of former slaves, alternating between sharecropping and rental farming. Munroe was predominantly African American, with some white ancestry, while Lillie was half Cherokee.

Louis spent the first dozen years growing up in rural Alabama, where little is known of his childhood. He suffered from a speech impediment and spoke very little until about the age of six. Munroe Barrow was committed to a mental institution in 1916 and, as a result, Joe knew very little of his biological father. Around 1920, Louis's mother married Pat Brooks, a local construction contractor, having received word that Munroe Barrow had died while institutionalized (in reality, Munroe Barrow lived until 1938, unaware of his son's fame).

In 1926, shaken by a gang of white men in the Ku Klux Klan, Louis's family moved to Detroit, Michigan, forming part of the post-World War I Great Migration. Joe's brother worked for Ford Motor Company (where Joe would himself work for a time at the River Rouge Plant) and the family settled into a home at 2700 Catherine (now Madison) Street in Detroit's Black Bottom neighborhood.

Louis attended Bronson Vocational School for a time to learn cabinet-making.

Amateur career

The Great Depression hit the Barrow family hard, but as an alternative to gang activity, Joe began to spend time at a local youth recreation center at 637 Brewster Street in Detroit. His mother attempted to get him interested in playing the violin. A classic story is that he tried to hide his pugilistic ambitions from his mother by carrying his boxing gloves inside his violin case.

Louis made his debut in early 1932 at the age of 17. Legend has it that before the fight, the barely literate Louis wrote his name so large that there was no room for his last name, and thus became known as "Joe Louis" for the remainder of his boxing career. More likely, Louis simply omitted his last name to keep his boxing a secret from his mother. After this debut—a loss to future Olympian Johnny Miler—Louis compiled numerous amateur victories, eventually winning the club championship of his Brewster Street recreation centre, the home of many aspiring Golden Gloves fighters.

In 1933, Louis won the Detroit-area Golden Gloves Novice Division championship against Joe Biskey for the light heavyweight classification. He later lost in the Chicago Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions. The next year, competing in the Golden Gloves' Open Division, he won the light heavyweight classification, this time also winning the Chicago Tournament of Champions. However, a hand injury forced Louis to miss the New York/Chicago Champions' cross-town bout for the ultimate Golden Gloves championship. In April 1934, he followed up his Chicago performance by winning the United States Amateur Champion National AAU tournament in St. Louis, Missouri.

By the end of his amateur career, Louis's record was 50–3, with 43 knockouts.

Professional career

Joe Louis had only three losses in his 69 professional fights. He tallied 52 knockouts and held the championship from 1937 to 1949, the longest span of any heavyweight titleholder. After returning from retirement, Louis failed to regain the championship in 1950, and his career ended after he was knocked out by Rocky Marciano in 1951.

Early years

Louis's amateur performances attracted the interest of professional promoters, and he was soon represented by a black Detroit-area bookmaker named John Roxborough. As Louis explained in his autobiography, Roxborough convinced the young fighter that white managers would have no real interest in seeing a black boxer work his way up to title contention:

[Roxborough] told me about the fate of most black fighters, ones with white managers, who wound up burned-out and broke before they reached their prime. The white managers were not interested in the men they were handling but in the money they could make from them. They didn't take the proper time to see that their fighters had a proper training, that they lived comfortably, or ate well, or had some pocket change. Mr. Roxborough was talking about Black Power before it became popular.

Roxborough knew a Chicago area boxing promoter named Julian Black who already had a stable of mediocre boxers against which Louis could hone his craft, this time in the heavyweight division. After becoming part of the management team, Black hired fellow Chicago native Jack "Chappy" Blackburn as Louis's trainer. Louis' initial professional fights were all in the Chicago area, his professional debut coming on July 4, 1934, against Jack Kracken in the Bacon Casino on Chicago's south side. Louis earned $59 for knocking out Kracken in the first round. $59.00 in 1934 is equivalent to $1,148.60 in 2020 dollars. Louis won all 12 of his professional fights that year, 10 by knockout.

In September 1934, while promoting a Detroit-area "coming home" bout for Louis against Canadian Alex Borchuk, Roxborough was pressured by members of the Michigan State Boxing Commission to have Louis sign with white management. Roxborough refused and continued advancing Louis's career with bouts against heavyweight contenders Art Sykes and Stanley Poreda.

When training for a fight against Lee Ramage, Louis noticed a young female secretary for the black newspaper at the gym. After Ramage was defeated, the secretary, Marva Trotter, was invited to the celebration party at Chicago's Grand Hotel. Trotter later became Louis's first wife in 1935.

During this time, Louis also met Truman Gibson, the man who would become his personal lawyer. As a young associate at a law firm hired by Julian Black, Gibson was charged with personally entertaining Louis during the pendency of business deals.

Title contention

Although Louis' management was finding him bouts against legitimate heavyweight contenders, no path to the title was forthcoming. While professional boxing was not officially segregated, many white Americans had become wary of the prospect of another black champion in the wake of Jack Johnson's highly unpopular (among whites) "reign" atop the heavyweight division. During an era of severe anti-black repression, Jack Johnson's unrepentant masculinity and marriage to a white woman engendered an enormous backlash that greatly limited opportunities of black fighters in the heavyweight division. Black boxers were denied championship bouts, and there were few heavyweight black contenders at the time, though there were African Americans who fought for titles in other weight divisions, and a few notable black champions, such as Tiger Flowers. Louis and his handlers would counter the legacy of Johnson by emphasizing the Brown Bomber's modesty and sportsmanship. Biographer Gerald Astor stated that "Joe Louis' early boxing career was stalked by the specter of Jack Johnson".

If Louis were to rise to national prominence among such cultural attitudes, a change in management would be necessary. In 1935, boxing promoter Mike Jacobs sought out Louis' handlers. After Louis' narrow defeat of Natie Brown on March 29, 1935, Jacobs and the Louis team met at the Frog Club, a black nightclub, and negotiated a three-year exclusive boxing promotion deal. The contract, however, did not keep Roxborough and Black from attempting to cash in as Louis' managers; when Louis turned 21 on May 13, 1935, Roxborough and Black each signed Louis to an onerous long-term contract that collectively dedicated half of Louis' future income to the pair.

Black and Roxborough continued to carefully and deliberately shape Louis' media image. Mindful of the tremendous public backlash Johnson had suffered for his unapologetic attitude and flamboyant lifestyle, they drafted "Seven Commandments" for Louis' personal conduct. These included:

Never have his picture taken with a white woman

Never gloat over a fallen opponent

Never engage in fixed fights

Live and fight clean

As a result, Louis was generally portrayed in the white media as a modest, clean-living person, which facilitated his burgeoning celebrity status.

With the backing of major promotion, Louis fought thirteen times in 1935. The bout that helped put him in the media spotlight occurred on June 25, when Louis knocked out 6'6", 265-pound former world heavyweight champion Primo Carnera in six rounds. Foreshadowing the Louis–Schmeling rivalry to come, the Carnera bout featured a political dimension. Louis' victory over Carnera, who symbolized Benito Mussolini's regime in the popular eye, was seen as a victory for the international community, particularly among African Americans, who were sympathetic to Ethiopia, which was attempting to maintain its independence by fending off an invasion by fascist Italy. America's white press began promoting Louis' image in the context of the era's racism; nicknames they created included the "Mahogany Mauler", "Chocolate Chopper", "Coffee-Colored KO King", "Safari Sandman", and one that stuck: "The Brown Bomber".

Helping the white press to overcome its reluctance to feature a black contender was the fact that in the mid-1930s boxing desperately needed a marketable hero. Since the retirement of Jack Dempsey in 1929, the sport had devolved into a sordid mixture of poor athletes, gambling, fixed fights, thrown matches, and control of the sport by organized crime. New York Times Columnist Edward Van Ness wrote, "Louis ... is a boon to boxing. Just as Dempsey led the sport out of the doldrums ... so is Louis leading the boxing game out of a slump." Likewise, biographer Bill Libby asserted that "The sports world was hungry for a great champion when Louis arrived in New York in 1935."

While the mainstream press was beginning to embrace Louis, many still opposed the prospect of another black heavyweight champion. In September 1935, on the eve of Louis' fight with former titleholder Max Baer, Washington Post sportswriter Shirley Povich wrote about some Americans' hopes for the white contender, "They say Baer will surpass himself in the knowledge that he is the lone white hope for the defense of Nordic superiority in the prize ring." However, the hopes of white suprematists would soon be dashed.

Although Baer had been knocked down only once before in his professional career (by Frankie Campbell), Louis dominated the former champion, knocking him out in the fourth round. Unknowingly, Baer suffered from a unique disadvantage in the fight; earlier that evening, Louis had married Marva Trotter at a friend's apartment and was eager to end the fight in order to consummate the relationship. Later that year, Louis also knocked out Paolino Uzcudun, who had never been knocked down before.

Louis vs. Schmeling I

By this time, Louis was ranked as the No. 1 contender in the heavyweight division and had won the Associated Press' "Athlete of the Year" award for 1935. What was considered to be a final tune-up bout before an eventual title shot was scheduled for June 1936 against Max Schmeling. Although a former world heavyweight champion, Schmeling was not considered a threat to Louis, then with a professional record of 27–0. Schmeling had won his title on a technicality when Jack Sharkey was disqualified after giving Schmeling a low blow in 1930. Schmeling was also 30 years old at the time of the Louis bout and allegedly past his prime. Louis' training retreat was located at Lakewood, New Jersey, where he was first able to practice the game of golf, which would later become a lifelong passion. Noted entertainer Ed Sullivan had initially sparked Louis' interest in the sport by giving an instructional book to Joe's wife Marva. Louis spent significant time on the golf course rather than training for the match.

Conversely, Schmeling prepared intently for the bout. He had thoroughly studied Louis's style and believed he had found a weakness. By exploiting Louis's habit of dropping his left hand low after a jab, Schmeling handed Louis his first professional loss by knocking him out in round 12 at Yankee Stadium on June 19, 1936.

World championship

After defeating Louis, Schmeling expected a title shot against James J. Braddock, who had unexpectedly defeated Max Baer for the heavyweight title the previous June. Madison Square Garden (MSG) had a contract with Braddock for the title defense and also sought a Braddock–Schmeling title bout. But Jacobs and Braddock's manager Joe Gould had been planning a Braddock–Louis matchup for months.

Schmeling's victory gave Gould tremendous leverage, however. If he were to offer Schmeling the title chance instead of Louis, there was a very real possibility that Nazi authorities would never allow Louis a shot at the title. Gould's demands were therefore onerous: Jacobs would have to pay 10% of all future boxing promotion profits (including any future profits from Louis's future bouts) for ten years. Braddock and Gould would eventually receive more than $150,000 from this arrangement. Well before the actual fight, Jacobs and Gould publicly announced that their fighters would fight for the heavyweight title on June 22, 1937. Figuring that the New York State Athletic Commission would not sanction the fight in deference to MSG and Schmeling, Jacobs scheduled the fight for Chicago.

Each of the parties involved worked to facilitate the controversial Braddock–Louis matchup. Louis did his part by knocking out former champion Jack Sharkey on August 18, 1936. Meanwhile, Gould trumped up anti-Nazi sentiment against Schmeling, and Jacobs defended a lawsuit by MSG to halt the Braddock–Louis fight. A federal court in Newark, New Jersey, eventually ruled that Braddock's contractual obligation to stage his title defense at MSG was unenforceable for lack of mutual consideration.

The stage was set for Louis's title shot. On the night of the fight, June 22, 1937, Braddock was able to knock Louis down in round one, but afterward could accomplish little. After inflicting constant punishment, Louis defeated Braddock in round eight, knocking him out cold with a strong right hand that busted James' teeth through his gum shield and lip and sent him to the ground for a few minutes. It was the first and only time that Braddock was knocked out (the one other stoppage of Braddock's career was a TKO due to a cut). Louis's ascent to the world heavyweight championship was complete.

Louis's victory was a seminal moment in African American history. Thousands of African Americans stayed up all night across the country in celebration. Noted author and member of the Harlem Renaissance Langston Hughes described Louis's effect in these terms:

Each time Joe Louis won a fight in those depression years, even before he became champion, thousands of black Americans on relief or W.P.A., and poor, would throng out into the streets all across the land to march and cheer and yell and cry because of Joe's one-man triumphs. No one else in the United States has ever had such an effect on Negro emotions—or on mine. I marched and cheered and yelled and cried, too.

Initial title defenses

Despite his championship, Louis was haunted by the earlier defeat to Schmeling. Shortly after winning the title, he was quoted as saying, "I don't want to be called champ until I whip Max Schmeling." Louis's manager Mike Jacobs attempted to arrange a rematch in 1937, but negotiations broke down when Schmeling demanded 30% of the gate. When Schmeling instead attempted to arrange for a fight against British Empire champion Tommy Farr, known as the "Tonypandy Terror",—ostensibly for a world championship to rival the claims of American boxing authorities—Jacobs outmaneuvered him, offering Farr a guaranteed $60,000 to fight Louis instead. The offer was too lucrative for Farr to turn down.

On August 30, 1937, after a postponement of four days due to rain, Louis and Farr finally touched gloves at New York's Yankee Stadium before a crowd of approximately 32,000. Louis fought one of the hardest battles of his life. The bout was closely contested and went the entire 15 rounds, with Louis being unable to knock Farr down. Referee Arthur Donovan was even seen shaking Farr's hand after the bout, in apparent congratulation. Nevertheless, after the score was announced, Louis had won a controversial unanimous decision. Time described the scene thus: "After collecting the judges' votes, referee Arthur Donovan announced that Louis had won the fight on points. The crowd of 50,000 ... amazed that Farr had not been knocked out or even knocked down, booed the decision."

It seems the crowd believed that referee Arthur Donovan, Sr. had raised Farr's glove in victory. Seven years later, in his published account of the fight, Donovan spoke of the "mistake" that may have led to this confusion. He wrote:

As Tommy walked back to his corner after shaking Louis' hand, I followed him and seized his glove. "Tommy, a wonderful perform—" I began ... Then I dropped his hand like a red-hot coal! He had started to raise his arm. He thought I had given him the fight and the world championship! I literally ran away, shaking my head and shouting. "No! No! No!" realising how I had raised his hopes for a few seconds only to dash them to the ground ... That's the last time my emotions will get the better of me in a prize fight! There was much booing at the announced result, but, as I say it, it was all emotional. I gave Tommy two rounds and one even—and both his winning rounds were close.

Speaking over the radio after the fight, Louis admitted that he had been hurt twice.

In preparation for the inevitable rematch with Schmeling, Louis tuned up with bouts against Nathan Mann and Harry Thomas.

Louis vs. Schmeling II

The rematch between Louis and Schmeling would become one of the most famous boxing matches of all time and is remembered as one of the major sports events of the 20th century. Following his defeat of Louis in 1936, Schmeling had become a national hero in Germany. Schmeling's victory over an African American was touted by Nazi officials as proof of their doctrine of Aryan superiority. When the rematch was scheduled, Louis retreated to his boxing camp in New Jersey and trained incessantly for the fight. A few weeks before the bout, Louis visited the White House, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt told him, "Joe, we need muscles like yours to beat Germany." Louis later admitted: "I knew I had to get Schmeling good. I had my own personal reasons and the whole damned country was depending on me."

When Schmeling arrived in New York City in June 1938 for the rematch, he was accompanied by a Nazi party publicist who issued statements that a black man could not defeat Schmeling and that when Schmeling won, his prize money would be used to build tanks in Germany. Schmeling's hotel was picketed by anti-Nazi protesters in the days before the fight.

On the night of June 22, 1938, Louis and Schmeling met for the second time in the boxing ring. The fight was held in Yankee Stadium before a crowd of 70,043. It was broadcast by radio to millions of listeners throughout the world, with radio announcers reporting on the fight in English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. Before the bout, Schmeling weighed in at 193 pounds; Louis weighed in at 198¾ pounds.

The fight lasted two minutes and four seconds. Louis battered Schmeling with a series of swift attacks, forcing him against the ropes and giving him a paralyzing body blow (Schmeling afterward claimed it was an illegal kidney punch). Schmeling was knocked down three times and only managed to throw two punches in the entire bout. On the third knockdown, Schmeling's trainer threw in the towel and referee Arthur Donovan stopped the fight.

"Bum of the Month Club"

In the 29 months from January 1939 through May 1941, Louis defended his title thirteen times, a frequency unmatched by any heavyweight champion since the end of the bare-knuckle era. The pace of his title defenses, combined with his convincing wins, earned Louis' opponents from this era the collective nickname "Bum of the Month Club". Notables of this lambasted pantheon include:

world light heavyweight champion John Henry Lewis who, attempting to move up a weight class, was knocked out in the first round by Louis on January 25, 1939.

"Two Ton" Tony Galento, who was able to knock Louis to the canvas with a left hook in the third round of their bout on June 28, 1939, before letting his guard down and being knocked out in the fourth.

Chilean Arturo Godoy, whom Louis fought twice in 1940, on February 9 and June 20. Louis won the first bout by a split-decision, and the rematch by a knockout in the eighth round.

Al McCoy, putative New England heavyweight champion, whose fight against Louis is probably best known for being the first heavyweight title bout held in Boston, Massachusetts, (at the Boston Garden on December 16, 1940). The popular local challenger dodged his way around Louis before being unable to respond to the sixth-round bell.

Clarence "Red" Burman, who pressed Louis for nearly five rounds at Madison Square Garden on January 31, 1941, before succumbing to a series of body blows.

Gus Dorazio, of whom Louis remarked, "At least he tried", after being leveled by a short right hand in the second round at Philadelphia's Convention Hall on February 17.

Abe Simon, who endured thirteen rounds of punishment before 18,908 at Olympia Stadium in Detroit on March 21 before referee Sam Hennessy declared a TKO.

Tony Musto, who, at 5'7½" and 198 pounds, was known as "Baby Tank." Despite a unique crouching style, Musto was slowly worn down over eight and a half rounds in St. Louis on April 8, and the fight was called a TKO because of a severe cut over Musto's eye.

Buddy Baer (brother of former champion Max), who was leading the May 23, 1941, bout in Washington, D.C., until an eventual barrage by Louis, capped by a hit at the sixth round bell. Referee Arthur Donovan disqualified Baer before the beginning of the seventh round as a result of stalling by Baer's manager.

Despite its derogatory nickname, most of the group were top-ten heavyweights. Of the 12 fighters Louis faced during this period, five were rated by The Ring as top-10 heavyweights in the year they fought Louis: Galento (overall #2 heavyweight in 1939), Bob Pastor (#3, 1939), Godoy (#3, 1940), Simon (#6, 1941) and Baer (#8, 1941); four others (Musto, Dorazio, Burman and Johnny Paychek) were ranked in the top 10 in a different year.

Billy Conn fight

Louis' string of lightly regarded competition ended with his bout against Billy Conn, the light heavyweight champion and a highly regarded contender. The fighters met on June 18, 1941, in front of a crowd of 54,487 fans at the Polo Grounds in New York City. The fight turned out to be one of the greatest heavyweight boxing fights of all time.

Conn would not gain weight for the challenge against Louis, saying instead that he would rely on a "hit and run" strategy. Louis' famous response: "He can run, but he can't hide."

However, Louis had clearly underestimated Conn's threat. In his autobiography, Joe Louis said:

I made a mistake going into that fight. I knew Conn was kinda small and I didn't want them to say in the papers that I beat up on some little guy so the day before the fight I did a little roadwork to break a sweat and drank as little water as possible so I could weigh in under 200 pounds. Chappie was as mad as hell. But Conn was a clever fighter, he was like a mosquito, he'd sting and move.

Conn had the better of the fight through 12 rounds, although Louis was able to stun Conn with a left hook in the fifth, cutting his eye and nose. By the eighth round, Louis began suffering from dehydration. By the twelfth round, Louis was exhausted, with Conn ahead on two of three boxing scorecards. But against the advice of his corner, Conn continued to closely engage Louis in the later stages of the fight. Louis made the most of the opportunity, knocking Conn out with two seconds left in the thirteenth round.

The contest created an instant rivalry that Louis's career had lacked since the Schmeling era, and a rematch with Conn was planned for late 1942. The rematch had to be abruptly canceled, however, after Conn broke his hand in a much-publicized fight with his father-in-law, Major League ballplayer Jimmy "Greenfield" Smith. By the time Conn was ready for the rematch, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had taken place.

World War II

Louis fought a charity bout for the Navy Relief Society against his former opponent Buddy Baer on January 9, 1942, which raised $47,000 for the fund. The next day, he volunteered to enlist as a private in the United States Army at Camp Upton, Long Island. Newsreel cameras recorded his induction, including a staged scene in which a soldier-clerk asked, "What's your occupation?", to which Louis replied, "Fighting and let us at them Japs."

Another military charity bout on March 27, 1942, (against another former opponent, Abe Simon) netted $36,146. Before the fight, Louis had spoken at a Relief Fund dinner, saying of the war effort, "We'll win, 'cause we're on God's side." The media widely reported the comment, instigating a surge of popularity for Louis. Slowly, the press began to eliminate its stereotypical racial references when covering Louis and instead treated him as an unqualified sports hero. Despite the public relations boon, Louis's charitable fights proved financially costly. Although he saw none of the roughly $90,000 raised by these and other charitable fights, the IRS later credited these amounts as taxable income paid to Louis. After the war, the IRS pursued the issue.

For basic training, Louis was assigned to a segregated cavalry unit based in Fort Riley, Kansas. The assignment was at the suggestion of his friend and lawyer Truman Gibson, who knew of Louis's love for horsemanship. Gibson had previously become a civilian advisor to the War Department, in charge of investigating claims of harassment against black soldiers. Accordingly, Louis used this personal connection to help the cause of various black soldiers with whom he came into contact. In one noted episode, Louis contacted Gibson in order to facilitate the Officer Candidate School (OCS) applications of a group of black recruits at Fort Riley, which had been inexplicably delayed for several months. Among the OCS applications Louis facilitated was that of a young Jackie Robinson, later to break the baseball color barrier. The episode spawned a personal friendship between the two men.

Realizing Louis's potential for raising esprit de corps among the troops, the Army placed him in its Special Services Division rather than sending him into combat. Louis went on a celebrity tour with other notables, including fellow boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. He traveled more than 35,000 km (22,000 mi) and staged 96 boxing exhibitions before two million soldiers. In England during 1944, he was reported to have enlisted as a player for Liverpool Football Club as a publicity stunt.

In addition to his travels, Louis was the focus of a media recruitment campaign encouraging African-American men to enlist in the Armed Services, despite the military's racial segregation. When he was asked about his decision to enter the racially segregated U.S. Army, he said: "Lots of things wrong with America, but Hitler ain't going to fix them." In 1943, Louis made an appearance in the wartime Hollywood musical This Is the Army, directed by Michael Curtiz. He appeared as himself in a musical number, "The Well-Dressed Man in Harlem," which emphasized the importance of African-American soldiers and promoted their enlistment.

Louis's celebrity power was not, however, merely directed toward African Americans. In a famous wartime recruitment slogan, he echoed his prior comments of 1942: "We'll win, because we're on God's side." The publicity of the campaign made Louis widely popular stateside, even outside the world of sports. Never before had white Americans embraced a black man as their representative to the world.

Although Louis never saw combat, his military service saw challenges of its own. During his travels, he often experienced blatant racism. On one occasion, a military policeman (MP) ordered Louis and Ray Robinson to move their seats to a bench in the rear of an Alabama Army camp bus depot. "We ain't moving", said Louis. The MP tried to arrest them, but Louis forcefully argued the pair out of the situation. In another incident, he allegedly had to resort to bribery to persuade a commanding officer to drop charges against Jackie Robinson for punching a captain who had called Robinson a "nigger."

Louis was eventually promoted to the rank of technical sergeant on April 9, 1945. On September 23 of the same year, he was awarded the Legion of Merit (a military decoration rarely awarded to enlisted soldiers) for "incalculable contribution to the general morale." Receipt of the honor qualified him for immediate release from military service on October 1, 1945.

Later career and retirement

Louis emerged from his wartime service significantly in debt. In addition to his looming tax bill—which had not been finally determined at the time, but was estimated at greater than $100,000—Jacobs claimed that Louis owed him $250,000.

Despite the financial pressure on Louis to resume boxing, his long-awaited rematch against Billy Conn had to be postponed to the summer of 1946, when weather conditions could accommodate a large outdoor audience. On June 19, a disappointing 40,000 saw the rematch at Yankee Stadium, in which Louis was not seriously tested. Conn, whose skills had deteriorated during the long layoff, largely avoided contact until being dispatched by knockout in the eighth round. Although the attendance did not meet expectations, the fight was still the most profitable of Louis's career to date. His share of the purse was $600,000, of which Louis' managers got $140,000, his ex-wife $66,000 and the U.S. state of New York $30,000.

After trouble finding another suitable opponent, on December 5, 1947, Louis met Jersey Joe Walcott, a 33-year-old veteran with a 44–11–2 record. Walcott entered the fight as a 10-to-1 underdog. Nevertheless, Walcott knocked down Louis twice in the first four rounds. Most observers in Madison Square Garden felt Walcott dominated the 15-round fight. When Louis was declared the winner in a split decision, the crowd booed.

Louis was under no delusion about the state of his boxing skills, yet he was too embarrassed to quit after the Walcott fight. Determined to win and retire with his title intact, Louis signed on for a rematch. On June 25, 1948, about 42,000 people came to Yankee Stadium to see the aging champion, who weighed 213½, the heaviest of his career to date. Walcott knocked Louis down in the third round, but Louis survived to knock out Walcott in the eleventh.

Louis would not defend his title again before announcing his retirement from boxing on March 1, 1949. In his bouts with Conn and Walcott, it had become apparent that Louis was no longer the fighter he had once been. As he had done earlier in his career, however, Louis would continue to appear in numerous exhibition matches worldwide. In August 1949 Cab Calloway rendered homage to the “king of the ring” with his song Ol’ Joe Louis.

Post-retirement comeback

At the time of Louis's initial retirement, the IRS was still completing its investigation of his prior tax returns, which had always been handled by Mike Jacobs's personal accountant. In May 1950, the IRS finished a full audit of Louis's past returns and announced that, with interest and penalties, he owed the government more than $500,000. Louis had no choice but to return to the ring.

After asking Gibson to take over his personal finances and switching his management from Jacobs and Roxborough to Marshall Miles, the Louis camp negotiated a deal with the IRS under which Louis would come out of retirement, with all Louis's net proceeds going to the IRS. A match with Ezzard Charles—who had acquired the vacant heavyweight title in June 1949 by outpointing Walcott—was set for September 27, 1950. By then, Louis was 36 years old and had been away from competitive boxing for two years. Weighing in at 218, Louis was still strong, but his reflexes were gone. Charles repeatedly beat him to the punch. By the end of the fight, Louis was cut above both eyes, one of which was shut tight by swelling. He knew he had lost even before Charles was declared the winner. The result was not the only disappointing aspect of the fight for Louis; only 22,357 spectators paid to witness the event at Yankee Stadium, and his share of the purse was a mere $100,458. Louis had to continue fighting.

After facing several club-level opponents and scoring an early knockout victory over EBU champion Lee Savold (also defeating top contender Jimmy Bivins by unanimous decision), the International Boxing Club guaranteed Louis $300,000 to face undefeated heavyweight contender Rocky Marciano on October 26, 1951. Despite his being a 6-to-5 favorite, few boxing insiders believed Louis had a chance. Marciano himself was reluctant to participate in the bout, but was understanding of Louis's position: "This is the last guy on earth I want to fight." It was feared, particularly among those who had witnessed Marciano's punching power first-hand, that Louis's unwillingness to quit would result in serious injury. Fighting back tears, Ferdie Pacheco said in the SportsCentury documentary about his bout with Marciano, "He [Louis] wasn't just going to lose. He was going to take a vicious, savage beating. Before the eyes of the nation, Joe Louis, an American hero if ever there was one, was going to get beaten up." Louis was dropped in the eighth round by a Marciano left and knocked through the ropes and out of the ring less than thirty seconds later.

In the dressing room after the fight, Louis's Army touring companion, Sugar Ray Robinson, wept. Marciano also attempted to console Louis, saying, "I'm sorry, Joe." "What's the use of crying?" Louis said. "The better man won. I guess everything happens for the best."

After facing Marciano, with the prospect of another significant payday all but gone, Louis retired for good from professional boxing. He would, as before, continue to tour on the exhibition circuit, with his last contest taking place on December 16, 1951, in Taipei, Taiwan, against Corporal Buford J. deCordova.

Taxes and financial troubles

Despite Louis's lucrative purses over the years, most of the proceeds went to his handlers. Of the over $4.6 million earned during his boxing career, Louis himself received only about $800,000. Louis was nevertheless extremely generous to his family, paying for homes, cars and education for his parents and siblings, often with money fronted by Jacobs. He invested in a number of businesses, all of which eventually failed, including the Joe Louis Restaurant, the Joe Louis Insurance Company, a softball team called the Brown Bombers, the Joe Louis Milk Company, Joe Louis pomade (hair product), Joe Louis Punch (a drink), the Louis-Rower P.R. firm, a horse farm and the Rhumboogie Café in Chicago. He gave liberally to the government as well, paying back the city of Detroit for any welfare money his family had received.

A combination of this largesse and government intervention eventually put Louis in severe financial straits. His entrusting of his finances to former manager Mike Jacobs haunted him. After the $500,000 IRS tax bill was assessed, with interest accumulating every year, the need for cash precipitated Louis's post-retirement comeback. Even though his comeback earned him significant purses, the incremental tax rate in place at the time (90%) meant that these boxing proceeds did not even keep pace with interest on Louis's tax debt. As a result, by the end of the 1950s, he owed over $1 million in taxes and interest. In 1953, when Louis's mother died, the IRS appropriated the $667 she had willed to Louis. To bring in money, Louis engaged in numerous activities outside the ring. He appeared on various quiz shows, and an old Army buddy, Ash Resnick, gave Louis a job greeting tourists to the Caesars Palace hotel in Las Vegas, where Resnick was an executive. For income, Louis even became a professional wrestler. He made his professional wrestling debut on March 16, 1956 in Washington, D.C. at the Uline Arena, defeating Cowboy Rocky Lee. After defeating Lee in a few matches, Louis discovered he had a heart ailment and retired from wrestling competition. However, he continued as a wrestling referee until 1972.

Louis remained a popular celebrity in his twilight years. His friends included former rival Max Schmeling—who provided Louis with financial assistance during his retirement—and mobster Frank Lucas, who, disgusted with the government's treatment of Louis, once paid off a $50,000 tax lien held against him. These payments, along with an eventual agreement in the early 1960s by the IRS to limit its collections to an amount based on Louis's current income, allowed Louis to live comfortably toward the end of his life.

After the Louis-Schmeling fight, Jack Dempsey expressed the opinion that he was glad he never had to face Joe Louis in the ring. When Louis fell on hard financial times, Dempsey served as honorary chairman of a fund to assist Louis.

Professional golf

One of Louis's other passions was the game of golf, in which he also played a historic role. He was a long-time devotee of the sport since being introduced to the game before the first Schmeling fight in 1936. In 1952, Louis was invited to play as an amateur in the San Diego Open on a sponsor's exemption, becoming the first African American to play a PGA Tour event. Initially, the PGA of America was reluctant to allow Louis to enter the event, having a bylaw at the time limiting PGA membership to Caucasians. However, Louis's celebrity status eventually pushed the PGA toward removing the bylaw, but the "Caucasian only" clause in the PGA of America's constitution was not amended until November 1961. It paved the way for the first generation of African-American professional golfers such as Calvin Peete. Louis himself financially supported the careers of several other early black professional golfers, such as Bill Spiller, Ted Rhodes, Howard Wheeler, James Black, Clyde Martin and Charlie Sifford. He was also instrumental in founding The First Tee, a charity helping underprivileged children become acquainted with the game of golf. His son, Joe Louis Barrow, Jr., currently oversees the organization.

In 2009, the PGA of America granted posthumous membership to Ted Rhodes, John Shippen and Bill Spiller, who were denied the opportunity to become PGA members during their professional careers. The PGA also has granted posthumous honorary membership to Louis.

Personal life and death

I did the best I could with what I had

Louis had two children by wife Marva Trotter (daughter Jacqueline in 1943 and son Joseph Louis Barrow Jr. in 1947). They divorced in March 1945 only to remarry a year later, but were again divorced in February 1949. Marva moved on to an acting and modeling career. On Christmas Day 1955, Louis married Rose Morgan, a successful Harlem businesswoman; their marriage was annulled in 1958. Louis's final marriage—to Martha Jefferson, a lawyer from Los Angeles, on St. Patrick's Day 1959—lasted until his death. They had four children: another son named Joseph Louis Barrow Jr, John Louis Barrow, Joyce Louis Barrow, and Janet Louis Barrow. The younger Joe Louis Barrow Jr. lives in New York City and is involved in boxing. Though married four times, Louis discreetly enjoyed the company of other women like Lena Horne and Edna Mae Harris.

In 1940, Louis endorsed and campaigned for Republican Wendell Willkie for president. Louis said:

This country has been good to me. It gave me everything I have. I have never come out for any candidate before but I think Wendell L. Willkie will give us a square deal. So I am for Willkie because I think he will help my people, and I figure my people should be for him, too.

Starting in the 1960s, Louis was frequently mocked by segments of the African-American community (including Muhammad Ali) for being an "Uncle Tom." Drugs took a toll on Louis in his later years. In 1969, he was hospitalized after collapsing on a New York City street. While the incident was at first credited to "physical breakdown," underlying problems would soon surface. In 1970, he spent five months at the Colorado Psychiatric Hospital and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Denver, hospitalized by his wife, Martha, and his son, Joe Louis Barrow Jr., for paranoia. In a 1971 book, Brown Bomber, by Barney Nagler, Louis disclosed the truth about these incidents, stating that his collapse in 1969 had been caused by cocaine, and that his subsequent hospitalization had been prompted by his fear of a plot to destroy him. Strokes and heart ailments caused Louis's condition to deteriorate further later in the decade. He had surgery to correct an aortic aneurysm in 1977 and thereafter used an POV/scooter for a mobility aid.

Louis died of cardiac arrest in Desert Springs Hospital near Las Vegas on April 12, 1981, just hours after his last public appearance viewing the Larry Holmes–Trevor Berbick Heavyweight Championship. Ronald Reagan waived the eligibility rules for burial at Arlington National Cemetery and Louis was buried there with full military honors on April 21, 1981. His funeral was paid for in part by former competitor and friend, Max Schmeling, who also acted as a pallbearer.

Film and television

Louis appeared in six full-length films and two shorts, including a starring role in the 1938 race film Spirit of Youth, in which he played a boxer with many similarities to himself.

He was a guest on the television show You Bet Your Life in 1955.

In 1943, he was featured in the full-length movie This is the Army, which starred Ronald Reagan, with appearances by Kate Smith singing "God Bless America" and Irving Berlin, and which was directed by Michael Curtiz.

In 1953, Robert Gordon directed a movie about Louis's life, The Joe Louis Story. Filmed in Hollywood, it starred Golden Gloves fighter Coley Wallace in the role of Louis.

Legacy

In all, Louis made 25 defenses of his heavyweight title from 1937 to 1948, and was a world champion for 11 years and 10 months. Both are still records in the heavyweight division, the former in any division. His most remarkable record is that he knocked out 23 opponents in 27 title fights, including five world champions. In addition to his accomplishments inside the ring, Louis uttered two of boxing's most famous observations: "He can run, but he can't hide" and "Everyone has a plan until they've been hit."

Louis was named fighter of the year four times by The Ring magazine in 1936, 1938, 1939, and 1941. His fights with Max Baer, Max Schmeling, Tommy Farr, Bob Pastor and Billy Conn were named fight of the year by that same magazine. Louis won the Sugar Ray Robinson Award in 1941. In 2005, Louis was named the #1 heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization. In 2007, he was ranked #4 on ESPN.com's 50 Greatest Boxers of all-time list. In 2002 The Ring ranked Louis #4 on their 80 best fighters of the last 80 years list. Louis was also ranked #1 on The Ring's list of 100 Greatest Punchers of All Time.

Louis is also remembered in sports outside of boxing. A former indoor sports venue was named after him in Detroit, the Joe Louis Arena, where the Detroit Red Wings played their NHL games from 1979 to 2017. In 1936, Vince Leah, then a writer for the Winnipeg Tribune used Joe Louis's nickname to refer to the Winnipeg Football Club after a game. From that point, the team became known popularly as the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

His recognition also transcends the sporting world. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Joe Louis on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. On August 26, 1982, Louis was posthumously approved for the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award given to civilians by the U.S. legislative branch. Congress stated that he "did so much to bolster the spirit of the American people during one of the most crucial times in American history and which have endured throughout the years as a symbol of strength for the nation". Following Louis' death, President Ronald Reagan said, "Joe Louis was more than a sports legend—his career was an indictment of racial bigotry and a source of pride and inspiration to millions of white and black people around the world."

A memorial to Louis was dedicated in Detroit (at Jefferson Avenue and Woodward) on October 16, 1986. The sculpture, commissioned by Time, Inc. and executed by Robert Graham, is a 24-foot-long (7.3 m) arm with a fisted hand suspended by a 24-foot-high (7.3 m) pyramidal framework. It represents the power of his punch both inside and outside the ring.

In an interview with Arsenio Hall in the late 1980s, Muhammad Ali stated that his two biggest influences in boxing were Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis.

On February 27, 2010, an 8-foot (2.4 m) bronze statue of Louis was unveiled in his Alabama hometown. The statue, by sculptor Casey Downing, Jr., sits on a base of red granite outside the Chambers County Courthouse.

In 1993, he became the first boxer to be honored on a postage stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service.

Various other facilities have been named after Joe Louis. In 1984, the four streets surrounding Madison Square Garden were named Joe Louis Plaza in his honor. The former Pipe O' Peace Golf Course in Riverdale, Illinois (a Chicago suburb), was in 1986 renamed "Joe Louis The Champ Golf Course". American Legion Post 375 in Detroit is also named after Joe Louis. Completed in 1979 at a cost of $4 million, Joe Louis Arena, nicknamed The Joe, was a hockey arena located in downtown Detroit. It was the home of the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League from 1979 until 2017. The planned demolition of the Arena prompted the City of Detroit in 2017 to rename the Inner Circle Greenway as the Joe Louis Greenway. When completed, this 39-mile (63 km) biking and walking trail will pass through the cities of Detroit, Hamtramck, Highland Park, and Dearborn.

In one of the most widely quoted tributes to Louis, New York Post sportswriter Jimmy Cannon, when responding to another person's characterization of Louis as "a credit to his race", stated, "Yes, Joe Louis is a credit to his race—the human race."

Cultural references

In his heyday, Louis was the subject of many musical tributes, including a number of blues songs.

Louis is played by actor Bari K. Willerford in the film American Gangster.

In 2009, the Brooklyn band Yeasayer debuted the single "Ambling Alp" from their forthcoming album Odd Blood, which imagines what advice Joe Louis's father might have given him prior to becoming a prizefighter. The song makes reference to Louis' boxing career and his famous rivalry with Schmeling in the first person, with the lyrics such as "Oh, Max Schmeling was a formidable foe / The Ambling Alp was too, at least that's what I'm told / But if you learn one thing, you've learned it well / In June, you must give fascists hell."

An opera based on his life, Shadowboxer, premiered on April 17, 2010.

The aforementioned sculpture of Louis's fist (see Legacy above) was one of several Detroit landmarks depicted in "Imported from Detroit", a two-minute commercial for the Chrysler 200 featuring Eminem that aired during Super Bowl XLV in 2011.

Louis is the inspiration behind Jesse Jagz's eponymous song from the album Jagz Nation Vol. 2: Royal Niger Company (2014).

The first track from John Squire's 2002 debut LP Time Changes Everything is titled "Joe Louis", and the lyrics include references to his boxing and army career.

[wsmith215]

Ringside seat – Your guide to the return of Top Rank Boxing

Jun 6, 2020

Steve KimESPN

Boxing returns to the United States this week as Top Rank promotes cards on Tuesday and Thursday night. These will be the first shows in North America in which Top Rank has been involved since the Tyson Fury-Anthony Joshua rematch on Feb. 22.

There were two Top Rank cards canceled in mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic, and outside of a few minor fight cards internationally, these upcoming shows represent the restart of the sport on a much larger scale.

Starting this week, there will be cards staged by Top Rank that will air on various ESPN platforms multiple times a week. Other promotional outlets and networks will soon follow suit with their own schedule of fights, with Premier Boxing Champions set to hold fight cards beginning in mid-July and Matchroom Boxing’s next card set for July 25.

But first things first. Here’s what you need to know ahead of the upcoming week of fights at the MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas.

Tuesday

Olympic silver medalist Shakur Stevenson (13-0, 7 KOs), who faces Felix Caraballo (13-1-2, 9 KOs), won the vacant WBO featherweight title last October by easily outboxing Joet Gonzalez over 12 rounds. But in this headliner, his title won’t be on the line, as this scheduled 10-round fight will take place at junior lightweight.

Top Rank Boxing is on ESPN and ESPN+. Subscribe to ESPN+ to get exclusive boxing events, weigh-ins and more.

Tuesday, 7 p.m. ET on ESPN: Shakur Stevenson vs. Felix Caraballo, 10 rounds, junior lightweights

Thursday, 7 p.m. ET on ESPN: Jessie Magdaleno vs. Yenifel Vicente, 10 rounds, junior lightweights

Stevenson, the 22-year-old native of Newark, New Jersey, and 2016 Olympian, was bitterly disappointed when his March 14 title defense against Miguel Marriaga was canceled. It was a lost weekend he says he’ll never forget.

“I trained eight weeks, spent a lot of money on training camp, and then to find out that I wasn’t getting paid, that kind of made me mad,” Stevenson said. “To find out I wasn’t fighting made me mad because I put a lot of work in. I was going to perform.”

There has been talk of a unification bout with IBF titlist Josh Warrington, but the two sides seem to be going in different directions, after Warrington left promoter Frank Warren, who works closely with Top Rank, to sign with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing. At this point, because Stevenson is still growing, the more time that passes without a fight against Warrington, the more likley it is that Stevenson might not even go back to 126 to defend that belt.

Shakur Stevenson is 13-0 and holds the WBO featherweight title. Andrew Mills/NJ Advance Media via AP

“I don’t know, yet. I’ve got to see how I feel at 130, making the 130 weight,” Stevenson said. “That will be a question I can answer for you after the fight.”

The co-main event is a women’s junior lightweight bout between another 2016 U.S. Olympian, Mikaela Mayer (12-0, 5 KOs), and Helen Joseph (17-4-2, 10 KOs). Mayer has made it clear that she wants a title shot — sooner, rather than later — and this figures to be her toughest test to date as a pro. Joseph will give Mayer all she can handle; from a physical standpoint, Joseph will be the strongest fighter Mayer has faced in her career.

On the undercard, Robeisy Ramirez (2-1, 2 KOs) matches up with Yueri Andujar (5-3, 3 KOs) in a six-round featherweight contest as he looks to push further past a disastrous pro debut. Ramirez was signed to a much ballyhooed contract with Top Rank last year, as he has two Olympic gold medals (2012 and 2016) for Cuba in his trophy case. The boxer he defeated in the gold-medal round in Rio? Stevenson.

Other fights

Heavyweight: Guido Vianello (6-0, 6 KOs) vs. Don Haynesworth (16-3-1, 14 KOs)

Heavyweight: Jared Anderson (3-0, 3 KOs) vs. Johnnie Langston (8-2, 3 KOs)

Middleweight: Quatavious Cash (11-2, 7 KOs) vs. Calvin Metcalf (10-3-1, 3 KOs)

Catching up with: Mikaela Mayer

play

5:22

It’s one of the unlikeliest pairings in boxing, yet Mikaela Mayer and trainer Al Mitchell have not only thrived inside the ring, they’ve also left a lifelong impact on each other off of it.

Mayer was another boxer on a canceled Top Rank card in March and she jumped at the opportunity to perform on the first card back.

“I haven’t fought since October, so it was kind of a bummer that my fight got canceled before I was going to fly out to New York [back in March], and then not knowing how long this was going to last or when we are going to fight.” Mayer said. “So when Top Rank started discussing potentially having a card, [my manager] George [Ruiz] informed me, ‘If they do have a card, they’re going to want you on it. You were one of the last fighters who was supposed to fight.’

“So I was all about it. That’s important to me, I don’t want to be out of the ring for a year. I want to keep the momentum going. I feel I’ve had a great couple of years, but I’m at that point now where I’m ready to step up — and Top Rank’s ready to step me up, too.”

Her enthusiasm doesn’t preclude her from thinking about safety, and that of her 76-year-old trainer.

“My only concern was I didn’t want anyone to get sick because of me, the No. 1 person I was thinking of was someone like coach Al [Mitchell],” she said. “Things have settled down, testing is now opening up, states are opening up. I didn’t know what coach Al was going to say. I called him and we discussed it, ‘Hey, they want me to fight in four, five weeks, how do you feel about that?’

“It just shows how coach Al is. He’s going to live and die boxing, because he was excited. He said, ‘Please, get me out of this house, I’m ready to work, and get back to camp. Let’s do this.'”

By the numbers

Stevenson is the fourth man from the United States in the past 20 years to win both an Olympic boxing medal and a world title, joining Jermain Taylor, Andre Ward and Deontay Wilder.

Predictions

Stevenson vs. Caraballo: Though Bob Arum says that Stevenson is “a master, Floyd Mayeather-type boxer,” given this stage, and how bitterly disappointed he was about his fight being canceled a few months ago, he’s going to want to really make a statement in an event that will be televised nationally. Stevenson TKO7

Mikaela Mayer, left, was to have fought in March, but she’s excited to be fighting on Top Rank’s first card since then. Mikey Williams/Top Rank

Mayer vs. Joseph: This is the best pure matchup of the night. If Mayer is indeed ready to fight for a world title, this is the type of bout that she has to win — against the stout Joseph, who has one of the best monikers in boxing in “Iron Lady.” I’ll go with Mayer by split decision.

Thursday

Former WBO junior featherweight champion Jessie Magdaleno (27-1, 18 KOs) was also slated for the March 14 card at Madison Square Garden. Now, he returns to face Yenifil Vicente (36-4-2, 28 KOs) in a 10-round bout. Since losing his WBO 122-pound belt to Isaac Dogboe via 11th round stoppage, Magdaleno has notched two victories, against Rico Ramos and Rafael Rivera.

In the past, one of the knocks against Magdaleno was a questionable work ethic, which reared its head when he wouldn’t come into fights in top physical condition.

“That was the old Jessie, the immature guy,” Magdaleno said. He admits the loss to Dogboe was a much-needed dose of reality for him. “I’m a grown man, I have my eyes on the future. I have a lot of things I want to get done before I end my career. I’m not going to go through the same mistakes that I did in the past. It’s a new and improved me. I’m just ready to rock ‘n’ roll.”

Jessie Magdaleno hopes to carry the momentum of two straight wins forward into his move up to 130 pounds. Mikey Williams/Top Rank

While Magdaleno was quarantined for the first several weeks of the pandemic, he turned his garage into a makeshift gym, complete with a heavy bag, treadmill, resistance bands, weights and jump rope.

“It’s everything I use in the gym,” Magdaleno said. “It’s hot as well out here in Vegas, so I could train and lose weight here at the house.”

1 Related

The semi-main event on Thursday’s broadcast is a fight that was originally scheduled for Thanksgiving weekend, as Adam Lopez (13-2, 6 KOs) faces Luis Coria (12-2, 7 KOs) in a 10-round featherweight bout. Lopez opened some eyes when he willingly accepted an 11th-hour assignment to face former WBO featherweight titlist Oscar Valdez, after Andres Gutierrez missed weight by 11 pounds.

Lopez, who moved up in weight for that fight, put forth a strong performance — even flooring Valdez in the second — before getting stopped in the seventh round. Lopez-Coria figures to be a fun fight between two young fighters with good offensive skills.

Other fights

Lightweight: Bryan Lua (5-0, 2 KOs) vs. Dan Murray (5-3)

Lightweight: Eric Mandragon (3-0, 2 KOs) vs. Mike Sanchez (6-0 2 KOs)

Bantamweight: Gabriel Muratalla (2-0, 2 KOs) vs Fernando Robles (2-2)

Catching up with: Adam Lopez

Lopez has fighting genes — his father is the late Hector Lopez, a respected junior welterweight contender in the 1990s. Coming off his strong effort against Valdez, Lopez says he believes Thursday’s fight will be the launch point to bigger and better things, as he moves back down to his natural weight class.

“I’m very excited, I’m looking forward to the fight,” the 24-year-old said. “In my eyes, this fight is more important than my last fight. I’ve just go to confirm to everybody that I’m the real deal and I’m here to make a statement.”

Adam Lopez scored a second-round knockdown against Oscar Valdez before ultimately falling in the seventh round. Mikey Williams/Top Rank

Despite the loss to Valdez, Lopez says he feels what he gained from the notoriety and experience, outweighed the final result of the bout.

“I think it was worth it, I had to take the risk, now I’ve got people’s eyes on me. They want to see Adam Lopez, and that’s what I’m going to give them.”

By the numbers

At featherweight, 41.1% of Magdaleno’s landed punches were to the body (compared to the featherweight average of 29.5%)

Predictions

Magdaleno vs Caraballo: If anything, Caraballo is durable. In 42 professional bouts, he has never been stopped. The 33-year-old from the Dominican Republic, like Magdaleno, began his career as a junior featherweight. So in essence, they are the same size. But Magdaleno, a fast southpaw, with above-average power, has the superior skills. Don’t be fooled by the Dogboe fight. This is a talented guy. Magdaleno should cruise to a wide decision.

Lopez vs Coria: This figures to be an action fight, because if there’s anything that Coria can do, it’s throw a whipping left hook. Coria is in the camp of Robert Garcia, so you know he has had quality sparring in the past and he knows he can’t afford another loss in this early stage of his career. But Lopez is the more well-rounded fighter, and his experience against Valdez will serve him well. Eventually his steadiness and class will overtake Coria, and Lopez will score a late stoppage.

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Olympic Shotgun: Shotgun Toting Priest has her Sights Set on Unfinished Family Business

Most Olympians have to be singularly attentive on a specific the goal in their pursuit of excellence, but Japan's Naoko Ishihara's life outside the sporting realm gives her perspective available to few others. The 45-year-old shooter, who has all but booked her spot at this year's Tokyo Olympic, has chosen a career path that allows her to chase both spiritual and athletic nirvana, yet her life as a Shinto priest is one that appears incongruent with her Olympic 2020 Games aspirations.

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When she is not at a shooting range with a shotgun in hand, Ishihara maintains an altogether much more serene life in which she tends to gardens, repairs architecture, shovels snow and ensures she meets all the responsibilities of a "gonnegi" junior priest.

In sport and in life, "faith can be a source (of motivation)," Ishihara says.

The distinguished Furumine Shrine in Tochigi Prefecture, with its history of over 1,300 years dedicated to legendary creatures called tengu, is an optimal environment in which to prepare for her second Olympic, she says. Shooting is a cerebral sport. It all comes down to how well you control your focus in moments that matter. I have more faith than most people. I'm hoping that my faith in my own shooting ability will lead to positive results.

The daughter of Keishi Ishihara, an 84th generation chief priest, Naoko gets her genes and unwavering support from her father who twice qualified for the Tokyo Olympic in clay shooting but unsuccessful to seem on both occasions because of unfortunate twists of fate. He missed out on 1968 Mexico Games due to a scandal involving the Japan shooting association, and Japan's boycott of the Moscow Olympic kept him out of the 1980 Games.

Naoko is a late-blooming Olympian. She got started in a competitive shooting in her 30s after graduating from a Japanese university with a Shinto priest license then enrolling in a study abroad program at Anglia Ruskin University in England. Shooting has always held a special place in her heart as she grew up close to a shooting range built by the shrine in the Meiji Era (1868-1912), the ringing out of gunshots a constant in her existence.

"The more you practice, the better you become," says Naoko, a skeet shooter, and that's why she enjoys her sport.

The competitive Tokyo Olympic clay shooting disciplines can be grouped under skeet, trap and sporting clays, with athletes racking up scores by exploding targets with their shotguns. The Olympic 2020 will feature three mixed-gender team events, one each in air rifle, pistol, and shotgun.

In skeet shooting, the targets are thrown in singles and doubles from two trap houses situated 40 meters apart, at opposite ends of a semicircular arc on which there are a number of shooting positions. In 2016, Naoko became the first woman to represent Japan in skeet shooting at an Olympic.

But in her Olympic debut in Rio de Janeiro, she finished 18th, citing the overwhelming pressure of a large crowd and extraordinary atmosphere as the reasons for her disappointing result. Having earned a second chance, she is hoping things will be different this time around, despite the obviously added pressure of shooting in front of a home crowd. Winning a shiny medal to add to the collection of 200 tengu masks on display at the Furumine The shrine may prove a difficult task, but Naoko has faith.

"An Olympic medal isn't an impossible dream if I get a boost from the cheering home crowd and I'm able to perform to the best of my ability," she said.

Olympic 2020 supporters can get Olympic Tickets through our trusted online ticketing market place. Olympictickets2020.com is the most consistent source to book Olympic Packages.