#first time ever drawing V1 . Hey

[trancegnder]

i kinda look like a cuuuuuunt

[joontier]

Subliminal in Scrubs | V1; report x

pairings: dr. jeon jungkook x female reader

chapter rating: R-18 | genre: humor, romance, smut (voyeurism, masturbation), swearing

warnings: GET READY FOR SOME ACTIONNNNN 

word count: 1.8k

g/n: Send me your thoughts?

[taglist]:  @nottodayjjk @ditttiii @zeharilisharaban @btsbunny07​ @turquoiseandplaidinautumn @aamxxrii @codeinebelle​ @btsmakesmehappy

Subliminal in Scrubs (the records) |  navi. | m.list

Right after you put away your groceries, you take a quick shower and head to bed. Truly, there was nothing better than a refreshing shower after a long day - especially when you know you’re not going to be able to enjoy times like these anymore once you start working. Just then, you recall having to set your alarm early tomorrow because it was your first day, plus the other two wanted to meet up for breakfast before heading to work. 

As you lie on your bed, scrolling through your barely active social media accounts, you hear a soft thud coming from Ayoung’s apartment. Huh, she must be moving stuff - seems strange though that she’s doing it with a potential tenant present. You don’t pay much attention to it though until it happens again and suddenly a faint moan reaches your ears. Your eyes widen, thoughts of all sorts running through your head. You must be mistaken. You should be mistaken. 

You hear it again, and it gets repetitive until there’s a steady rhythm that has you certain about something that could be happening there. You’re really not one to meddle with people’s private businesses, especially ones of this particular kind. You push each incoming thought away, regardless if it is an innocent one or not. It proves otherwise though, with the sound coming in clear for a wall separating the two apartments. 

At the same time, you also wish the best for Ayoung and if this man is a moving-away gift in disguise as this one, well you’re incredibly happy for her. Who were you to take that happiness away from her? But as the man’s grunts become more audible and prominent, your immediate reaction to it is beyond you, and you’re almost involuntarily rubbing your thighs together at the sound. 

‘No’, you think to yourself, stopping your southward train of thoughts and its imminent course of action. Rubbing at your temple, you wonder how could you even allow such pompous thoughts cross your mind. 

Groaning, you lie on your stomach and mush your face against your pillow as if to block those indecent images threatening to corrupt your mind. It isn’t right to get off someone else’s steamy evening, more particularly, that of your friend’s, so you close your eyes and focus on trying to get some sleep. 

You can’t. 

Not when this man’s heavy breathing sounds just as hot as Ayoung finds him to be. 

Not when this man sounds just like a porn star. 

And especially not when this man’s vocals are so stimulating to the point that it feels like an invitation for you to join the fun. Or at least, take an imaginary part in it. 

Holy shit. 

Tapping your fingers furiously on the bed covers, you ask yourself if you have really reached this level of desperation? That your lack of human touch is causing you to question the very principle of civility? 

You shake your head as you reach for your earphones. Coincidentally, Spotify’s shuffle decides to land on a Jamie Foxx track. 

What is with the universe constantly trying to fuck you up? 

You tap on the next button quickly, turning the volume all the way up in the hopes of ridding yourself of unclean thoughts, that is, until you hear Satan himself let out a particularly loud grunt, one you can practically feel travel straight to your core. Jesus. 

The voice of your evil miniature self on your left shoulder whispers in your ear, “It isn’t often for you to get ahold of an opportunity like this. Go get some,” she says, holding your angelic self on a chokehold with her own halo. 

She had a point though, and you really could only imagine having more time for yourself starting tomorrow. Besides, it’s been a while since you truly ‘relaxed’. And to top all of that, with the apartment walls as thin as paper, you can literally feel your neighbor’s bed now moving in a steady rhythm. You’re even surprised you’ve managed to keep your self-control this long. Not long enough though, unfortunately. 

Now that you’ve come to think of it, this man must be on a different level entirely if Ayoung could let herself get...dicked down during a simple visit (and for the first time too!). Just imagining what he probably looks like is sending a light tingle down your spine. 

You sigh, ultimately giving into the temptation. There’s no turning back now. 

Slowly, you slide your shorts down your legs, giving yourself time to still contemplate...but, hesitation was never really your strong point (a trait of yours that had truly blossomed since your friendship with Chohee). So off go your underwear too. 

As quietly as possible, you scoot over to the wall, just enough to let your shoulder touch your old, boring, beige wallpaper. You feel your neighbor’s bed move with a little more intensity this time, and you trail your fingers downward to your cunt, which is surely wet by now with all your thinking. 

The man’s grunts are louder than Ayoung’s thankfully, leaving everything to your imagination. You start at a steady pace, wanting to test the waters. With the couple just a mere distance away from you, save the wall separating your apartments, you try to match your pace with the pair. 

Letting your digit circle your clit, you work yourself out to your orgasm - that is, until your climax won’t arrive and you figure just using your fingers won’t get the job done. Just as if you thought the sounds they were making weren’t enough to get you over the edge. It’s been a while since you had any ‘action’ and your rust ass won’t allow you to cum with just your fingers. 

Hurriedly, you draw out a small box from beneath your bed. In haste, you throw the cover across the small room, fishing for what used to be a very good friend of yours before: Lovecorner’s limited edition of Real Feel 7. Never too late to catch up with good ol’ friends. 

You turn on the device, hoping that there’s enough battery left to get you through the night. Closing your eyes, you circle the dildo around your nether lips, gathering all the slick there. A few more moments and you gradually insert the toy inside you, causing you to shiver in excitement. Gulping, you only push it halfway through at first, wanting to get used to the feeling again.. 

There’s a short pause from the other side of the wall, one you use to your advantage to keep up. When you feel them continue, you pick up your pace, both desperation and shame pumping you up so you could get this night over with as quickly as possible. 

Just as you had expected, you feel their breathing get heavier by the second, and your bed is practically shaking with...what you presume to be yours and their movements combined. 

For some reason beyond your understanding, you work yourself out on your trusty companion, taking in every whimper and grunt from the other side of the wall like it’s your own, like you’re the one fucking like there is no tomorrow. 

You’re getting closer to your high - a feeling almost foreign to you at this point, and with the last string of sheer  will, you push the toy further up to the hilt, stroking your g-spot so perfectly that your orgasm has got you quivering in bed for more than thirty seconds. 

Breathless as ever, you lie in bed, staring straight into the ceiling. 

What. Was. That. All. About. 

You press your thighs together, an unexpected reaction from the reality of tonight’s events suddenly dawning in on you. You did not just get yourself off from your neighbor's live porn. 

With no more movement coming from Ayoung’s apartment, you could only assume that their day has officially concluded as well. Sighing, you make your way to your bathroom, treading over your floor as lightly as you could with your sore legs. 

Ten minutes and a refreshing half bath later, you head back to bed, exhaustion causing you to fall asleep in seconds. 

The sound of your jarring iPhone alarm blares right in your ear, scaring the living hell out of you exactly 6:45 in the morning. You wake up in a fright, panting heavily as you scramble to turn off the horrible sound. 

Quickly, you get off of your bed, proceeding with your daily morning routine. You tick off breakfast at home today, having scheduled your morning meal with Jimin and Soomin as your first official day as employees of Woocheon Medical City. 

Making sure you’ve got everything in your duffel bag -  extra clothes, toiletries, and the rest of your essentials, you lock the door to your apartment, sealing it off with a slight jiggle to the knob to assure yourself. 

Ayoung’s door likewise creaks open, and you glance at it through your peripheral vision to see a man coming out. Your eyes widen - he stayed the night then. Hm. You’re unsure if you want to suspect him of something other than a one night stand, or it’s just this curious itch inside you that makes you want to check who’s responsible for last night’s...occurrences. 

Mustering all that courageous chi Chohee has hopefully transferred onto you, you linger a little bit by your doorway before facing the man. Thankfully, the stranger doesn’t make your job difficult for you and looks your way as well. 

No. 

This can’t be. 

Turns out, Mr. Stranger who was supposed to be your hot neighbor as Ayoung claims is no stranger at all. 

It had to be. 

You look away just as quickly as you looked at him. “________? Hey!  I didn’t know you lived next door!” Your lips form a thin line. Why does he make it sound like you’re already neighbors? 

“Jungkook,” you nod to answer his question.  “Good morning to you too.”

Your cheeks heat up with the range of emotions you’re feeling: anger - from him not even remembering Ayoung’s name; shame - for your actions last night; disappointment - there’s a possibility of you two becoming neighbors and you’d inevitably have to face him more often than not. 

“Where are you off to? Gym?” 

Why does he think you’re going to gym in a collared shirt, jeans, and flats? And more importantly, why are you two even having this conversation? 

The elevator doors open and your impromptu escape plan springs into action, and currently, just like your legs. “Work actually! And I’m going to be late, so bye for now!” You sprint towards the elevator, quickly pressing a button to close the doors. 

You let out a sigh of relief as the doors close, leaving Jungkook with a confused look on his face. 

© joontier 2021

[gdwessel]

Wrestle Grand Slam in Tokyo Dome - 7/25/2021: Ibushi Out, Tanahashi In Main Event World Heavyweight Title Match

After being delayed two months, Wrestle Grand Slam in Tokyo Dome took place earlier today. You can see it now on NJPWWorld, or pay $30 to see it on FITE TV. This is the first Tokyo Dome event NJPW has run outside of the annual January 4th show, now known as Wrestle Kingdom, since Toukon Souzou New Chapter on 10/8/2005, where one of the worst matches in NJPW history main evented. 

Originally due to take place on 5/29/2021, and with a completely different main event, it was postponed due to the state of emergency enacted at the time in Tokyo and elsewhere. This one took place under a state of emergency as well, but at this point, it was now or never. This did affect the attendance of the show, listed as 5,389 persons, probably the lowest drawing Dome show in recent times (maybe ever? Hard saying, considering there are also quite a lot of worked numbers in those Dome attendances through the years, both from Antonio Inoki, previous owners Yuke’s, as well as Bushiroad) but with restrictions in place for attendances, and the mystery surrounding whether the event would take place or not, there was not much that could be done there.

Kota Ibushi was announced prior to the event that he would not be making it, due to his aspiration pneumonia. Hiroshi Tanahashi, in his 11th Tokyo Dome main event, would take his place in the main event IWGP World Heavyweight Championship match v. Shingo Takagi, after making himself available at yesterday’s Summer Struggle in Nagoya. There are a lot of parallels to be drawn between this show and All Japan Pro Wrestling’s recent Champion Night 2021 megacard. Both had to be postponed due to a state of emergency, and both had their main event changed due to illness of one of the participants - Ibushi we just discussed above, whereas then-Triple Crown champion Suwama had to miss and vacate the title due to testing positive for COVID-19. Illnesses will occur, especially in a pandemic. 

Results:

Wrestle Grand Slam in Tokyo Dome - 7/25/2021, Tokyo Dome (NJPWWorld / FITE)

KOPW2021 New Japan Ranbo With Handcuffs: Chase Owens [Bullet Club] d. Toru Yano [CHAOS] (c), Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma, Minoru Suzuki [SZKG], Yoshinobu Kanemaru [SZKG], YOH [CHAOS], SHO [CHAOS], Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Satoshi Kojima, BUSHI [Los Ingobernables], Tiger Mask IV, Master Wato, DOUKI [SZKG], Tomohiro Ishii [CHAOS], Dick Togo [Bullet Club], Hirooki Goto [CHAOS], Yuji Nagata, Great O-Khan [United Empire], KENTA [Bullet Club], YOSHI-HASHI [CHAOS], Yujiro Takahashi [Bullet Club] - Owens is the Provisional KOPW2021 Champion

IWGP Juniorheavyweight Tag Team Championship: Taiji Ishimori & El Phantasmo [Bullet Club] © d. Ryusuke Taguchi & Rocky Romero [CHAOS] (Phantasmo > Taguchi, CRII, 20:56) - Ishimori/ELP succeed their 1st defense

IWGP Juniorheavyweight Championship: Robbie Eagles [CHAOS] d. El Desperado [SZKG] © (Ron Miller Special, 19:56) - Despy fails his 3rd defense - Eagles is the 90th champion

Kazuchika Okada [CHAOS] d. Jeff Cobb [United Empire] (Pinfall, 19:23)

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Taichi & Zack Sabre Jr. [SZKG] d. Tetsuya Naito & SANADA [Los Ingobernables] © (Sabre > Naito, European Clutch, 37:58) - Naito/SANADA fail their 1st defense - Dangerous Tekkers are the 91st champions

IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Shingo Takagi [Los Ingobernables] © d. Hiroshi Tanahashi (Last Of The Dragon, 37:26) - Shingo succeeds his 1st defense

Shingo gets his v1 defense in, and declares he will hold onto the title until Ibushi is ready to challenge for it again. With that, the lights go out, and EVIL attacks Shingo, demanding a shot at the belt. The Internet by and large was not amused, and honestly, I’m not sure what will make anyone happy at this point. The adage was right -- when you are hot, you can do no wrong, when you are in a down cycle (which NJPW is in, let’s not make any bones about it), you can do nothing right. The same folk who say the main event scene is stale have been given three brand new champions in 2021 and have complained every step of the way. Including me in places! Shingo v. EVIL is a new match, and there is a history there that never really got addressed! Just yesterday I was saying how EVIL needed the win over Ishii to build credibility back up, tho I said for G1 Climax; maybe THIS is the story, that he IS NOT ready to challenge but thinks he is?! I just don’t understand fans anymore. The complaints are always about stale things are, and then when something different IS actually offered it’s always “No not THAT way!” Maybe I just need to divorce myself from Twitter for a while.

Complaints are also coming in for the IWGP Heavyweight tag title change. Naito & SANADA want a rematch, but then Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI step in and plead their case for a shot as well. Hey, multiple teams vying for the belts, what a time to be alive. I can understand complaints about Robbie Eagles beating El Desperado for the title more than any other ones, especially since Hiromu Takahashi was on hand at the start of the show proper to challenge today’s winner. Hiromu v. Despy is a money match, tho one that’s been done a lot, even tho the champion v. challenger spots would be switched. Eagles v. Hiromu is a relatively new match, I will grant, but I am also not as high on Robbie Eagles as a lot of others are. 

Chase Owens becomes the first person to hold the KOPW trophy besides Toru Yano since the trophy’s inception last summer. The match was ridiculous. It’s a Ranbo, and a KOPW match, it’s supposed to be ridiculous. Wrestling is ridiculous! It’s OK!

Essentially, the complaints here, the complaints online about last night’s GCW show with Nick Gage v. Matt Cardona... I just don’t know anymore. 

What I do know is there is a show Tuesday from Korakuen Hall, starting a string of NINE shows in a row from Korakuen Hall, and no lineups for those are announced yet. They will probably announce them when I’m in bed. In the meantime I’m going to watch the GLEAT show from today and catch up on GCW from last night. And stay off Twitter. UGH.

[thewebcomicsreview]

Tonight on Legend of the Hare: Rasslevania! 

This was originally supposed to be a birthday, but then I thought of the phrase “no holds barred mitzvah” and changed it last second. do like that Jill and Riley both don’t actually know what a bar mitzvah is. Given that the next few pages portray the event as taking place in an arena (?) around a wrestling ring (??) and one of the people in attendance is a music industry scout (?!), it’s also possible that I didn’t know what a Bar Mitzvah was, or at the very least didn’t bother to change any of the later pages to account for this change. This is a really stupid plot point! And it also means that the band is tempted by money at a Jewish event, which is one of those things I probably should have stopped to consider the implications of, but I clearly didn’t consider the implications of anything I was doing on any level. In the aborted LotH Version 2, this whole scene was going to be an actual birthday party, and Riley would sing a song that would be way inappropriate for kids and the family would kick them out, which Riley would blame on Jill before Peggy showed up an arrested them all. It would be at the police station where the rabbits first appeared, and V2 was getting very far from V1 before I gave up on it.

There’s something very Scott Pilgrim vs the World-y in those first three panels, especially Jill’s band being a retro gaming reference. Who came up with that name, anyway? Also, wow, I just told Carlos to draw a generic indie wrestling poster and gave him a sample of one, but I totally passed on a chance to put a joke on the poster. Missed opportunity, past me! Also, using “Goldstein” as a generic Jewish name, bluh.  That’s lazy, it should’ve been a funnier name. If it’d been, like, “Rick ‘The Rack’ Ruckus presents: His son’s no-holds-barred mitzvah” then there’s a little character in it, the idea that maybe it’s the dad who likes wrestling and not the kid, which gives me an opportunity to have a joke later about the son being bored and also kind of helps explain why there’s no actual Bar Mitzvahing going on. You can tell how much I’m feeling a page by how much effort I’m putting into finding these spaces for a joke. In a perfect ideal word, a writer should spend as much time on a page as the artist, going over every line and background detail and trying to find ways to get as much mileage as possible out of every panel and taking every chance for a clever joke. Obviously, this doesn’t usually happen in practice. But it should! It’s very easy to pop out something passable in ten minutes as a writer in a way an artist can’t, but you should hold yourself to a higher standard and even now I don’t do that as much as I should.

Panel 3 looks like a generic alley, but I actually took a photo of an alley in Boston I liked and had Carlos use it as a reference

I’m not quite sure why I found this image so striking, but it adds a little to the sense of place that this alley has a brick road instead of a paved street, and is one of the very few visual clues that this comic takes place in Boston and not Generic City, so it was worth the time to photograph. Also, hey, that’s Eoin in a trenchcoat reading a newpaper in the background of paper three there. The original opening to Legend of the Hare would have had Trenchcoat Eoin (back when he was called Teporingo) and Mary Farrier at Doink Burger scoping Jill out as a potential rabbit champion. This never got past the first draft stage and mostly revolved around Mary being a hyper child and not focusing. Interestingly, the script I have for that opening establishes Legend of the Hare as being set in Oregon. I wonder why I set it there originally, given that I’ve never been. It might have just been a reference to Gravity Falls?

Anyway, this is the first appearance of Riley, and note that even this early he’s making fun of Jill behind her back. Old man Starflower seems to just accept what Jill is saying as normal, which looks like a joke but is also foreshadowing, since Starflower knows a bit more than was ever shown to the audience. Sadly, it never comes up in the comic because everything’s a mess, but Mary Farrier the horse champion is Starflower’s daughter, and it was through him that the rabbits learned of Jill. It’s all connected, but offscreen because I wasn’t doing anything properly.

The Lore Post for this page will be of grave importance to a few people: It’s the first appearance of Helen Alvarez, the Rooster Champion and surprisingly popular minor character! Helen doesn’t actually appear on-panel for like 40 pages, and by then she’s very clearly sick of all the “cock” jokes, but she seems to be in better humor about it here:

Dear Diary,

I don’t know if anyone’s going to read this, but if you’re reading this now, hi.

So today was odd. I skipped school and then a bunch of Roosters flew me off to Cock-Narnia. Little bit unexpected, that twist. They gave me the whole “Chosen One” spiel I’ve seen in a million fantasy novels, though they didn’t seem to know who actually chose me or why. They offered to let me go home, but I told them nah. Even a crappy Harry Potter LARP thing run by birds is better than Mom and Brad. And, honestly, I wasn’t going to make a better career choice than being the “Lady of Cocks”, so I might as well get on the Cock while I can. Got the tattoo and everything. I’m sure that’ll stop being funny any second now, but I’ve only been here a few hours so I’m going to ride the cock train just a bit more.

The cocks – there it is, this is old -the roosters are not very smart. Which I guess isn’t surprising, because they’re birds? But they can talk, so you’d think they’d be smarter than normal birds. And maybe they are, but they ain’t shown signs of it yet.

I tried to get some details on what my Cock Destiny (okay, one more) was, but no one was able to answer me. Kind of defeats the point of having a prophesied destiny if it’s a mystery, doesn’t it? If I wanted vague promises of future greatness, I’d see the guidance counselor again.

Isn’t that life, though? In that….um…..you never know what you’re gonna get? Or something? I dunno. I really don’t know anything. Supposedly once I sign up I get all kinds of magical girl superpowers, but I don’t feel very super right now. I mostly just wanna lie down. Such hero. Very amaze.

Actually, lying down sounds like a great idea right now. I need to stress over all my decisions today. I’m gonna go do that.

How was your day?

Holy hell, you can tell this lore post is old, there’s a doge reference.

[faunusrights]

OFFAL HUNT REMASTER LIVEBLOG // CHAPTER 9

oh goody!

well this is it. the Date Chapter. the chapter, in which, the Date happens. lowkey im so fucking hype for this stupid goddamn chapter AAAAAAAAAAAA this is when the sexy got kicked up about seven notches and i know its gonna be a fucking twenty from here on out so LETS GO LESBIANS LETS GO

“Is this your date, Ms. Fall?” he asked.

Cinder didn’t look away from Glynda. “Mhm.”

STRAIGHT OUT OF THE GODDAMN GATE WE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A SECOND TO EVEN GATHER OURSELVES JUST STRAIGHT UP HUH!!!!!!!!! ‘is this your date’ im legally dead

What the fuck.

already im fucking THRIVING im so glad this chapter’s mood got encapsulated within the first ten seconds and im definitely gonna have to re-read this chapter for the full unannotated experience OOOOOOOOOH MY GOD IM SO READY

Glynda’s thoughts ricocheted inside her head like coins left in a dryer. A part of her couldn’t understand what was happening and disengaged. The rest of her, grasping for purchase in all this, reasoned that going with Cinder was better than staying here confused, alone, and utterly displaced.

glynda ‘i aint ever had a gf before’ goodwitch at her PEAK right here. like GOD shes gone from ‘cinder’s trying to murder me’ to ‘cinder just plopped me right into a date’ like CINDER. CINDER YR CHANGING GEARS SO FAST. YOU DIDNT EVEN SEND FLOWERS OR ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

is it because shes a u-haul lesbian or

Higher, Glynda realized the dress itself was backless, revealing the black tattoo she’d seen so often before, perfectly centered between sharp shoulder blades.

this gay energy is BONKERS, quite frankly??????? where did cinder get her dress from? why does she have it? did she buy it just for this fuckery? or will she pull the ‘i just had a this lil number laying around’ line????????? does she wanna seduce glynda to death?????? was this PLANNED OR DID SHE JUST DECIDE SHE WANTED A DATE AND WTH LIFE REALLY IS SHORT ON REMNANT THESE DAYS?????????? cinder fall please explain your workings to the class

maybe Glynda wasn’t the only one who’d become adept at reading her opponent.

👏 when 👏 will 👏 they 👏 kiss 👏 already 👏👏👏👏

me: this is a slowburn also me: if u assholes dont give me this in the next ten seconds-

“Unarmed? As if you could be so helpless.”

cinder’s style of flirting is just. commentating on a person’s deadliness. that’s IT it’s the only TRICK SHE HAS and its working, is the thing,

im reading the description of the table and remembering the shitpost and oh my god i have to draw this???? hell IS real!!!!!! COULDNT YALL JUST TOSS EM IN A PLAIN BOX,

Cinder eyed her from her bastion of dark cushions,

cinder, ass-deep in cushions: this is peak cuddle territory come and join me

Cinder, for her part, seemed delighted Glynda had noticed. Touching the pendant more gently than Glynda might have ever thought her capable of, Cinder said,  “Yours? You didn’t seem to mind parting with it.”

im still deeply enjoying this powermove the novelty NEVER wears off (and at risk of light spoilers i do enjoy its place in this story 👀)

Cinder let the necklace drop, settling against the swell of her bust once more,

/lightly coughs 👀👀👀

im losing my MIND at how gay this bit is i physically cannot HANDLE IT and if they even describe the meal once im gonna pop off cause i am. SO HUNGRY RN. AAAAAAAAAAAA

Cinder indicated a dish of lamb and vegetables, served on a bed of rice and drizzled in some sort of sauce.

SRY THIS ISNT GAY BUT OH MY GOD IM SO HUNGRY I WANNA E A T I T THAT SOUNDS SO GOOD UGHGHGHGHGHGH WHY DID THIS CHAPTER HAVE TO BE TODAY OF ALL THE DAYS,

Glynda cleared her throat, working out: “The Grimm.”

like. GOD WE KNOW GLYNDA IS JUST SO FUNCTIONALLY BAD AT CONVERSATION BUT OF ALL THE THINGS glynda please just. just. stop thinking abt her sexy tattoos for a fifth of a second,

“You can control them.” A sedate blink. For all the world, Glynda might have just commented on the weather.

which is a faux pas for a date!!!!!!!!!!! at least tell her the DRESS IS SEXY WE ALL KNO WHATS WHAT YR THINKIN ABT

Glancing down as though it were being pointed out to her for the first time, Cinder shrugged and adjusted the end of the glove a little higher on her bicep. “And?” 

a quick aside im enjoying how like... visually expressive cinder is in this remaster! i can see her facial expressions and her motions really clearly in my mind’s eye which is a fun little boon if only because i have to redraw this nonsense hjsgdfjhfksgd but cinder’s got a Good Face this time around! A QUALITY FACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You should know by now, there’s something about you that’s simply irresistible to Grimm.”

HERE COMES THE PLOT (and a single surviving line so far... this one sentence has survived all the world could throw at it... we stan)

Cinder straightened, and Glynda saw that this was what she’d been waiting for.

“It isn’t every day the great Glynda Goodwitch kneels before her adversary, is it?”

HELLO??????????????????????????? WHATS THIS WORDING????????? honestly tho for a second i thought she meant like. quite literally and i thought id missed some PROPER SHIT RIGHT THERE BUT YEAH WTH!!!!!!! C I N D E R

“You cheated. You can’t beat me on your own.”

yes glynda we gathered that yr a top

“Really, Glynda? Poison?” she sneered, something like offense simmering in her expression. “After all this?”

looks at the camera

anyway,

god im literally losing grasp of words to say because theres such a charged mood in this scene............. theyre brushing fingers............ trading jabs.......... im slurpin it up babey!!!!!!!! this rly is the BEST remaster of this whole scene it DESERVES this wordcount!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Beat you,” Cinder corrected. “And call it a point of pride.”

yes cinder we gathered yr a brat,

this dynamic is why this fic is so fuckign good when will winter have a swift return to add even more fuckery to this wild ride

Then, with a heavy-lidded look, Cinder found Glynda’s hand between them, the touch so sudden and daring that Glynda flinched. The fabric of those gloves was smooth against Glynda’s flesh, and for all that cruelty had marked every other instance of contact between them, Cinder was surprisingly gentle.

whomp there go my nuts

WHAT IS THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHO MADE THE EXECUTIVE CHOICE TO ADD THIS LINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELLO???????????? im losing my BRAINCELLS

What she wasn’t ready for was for Cinder to guide her hand to her own throat and hold it there.

THERE IS IT THERE’S THE KINK IT’S BEEN SPOTTED

oh my GOD what even IS THIS WHO ADDED THIS SECTION WHO ALLOWED THIS TO COME TO P A S S WHAT THE FUCK EVEN IS RN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELLO????????? HEWWO??????????

Now… Now Cinder interested her.

tbh how can i liveblog this? what commentary can i POSSIBLY add that we arent already all THINKING. we just launched into a level of hell so deep that lucifers gonna have to pull some goddamn tricks to follow us down here!!!!!!!!!! WHAT IS THIS SCENE! THIS MOMENT! IM SCREAMING

Glynda mirrored the expression back at him, and finally, he coughed, not making strong eye contact with either of them. He set their plate before them and hurried out without so much as a check-in.

i just KNEW that was gonna happen JHGDSFGJHKSDF he was gonna walk in on SMTHNG but i didnt think itd be CINDER’S CHOKING KINK,

okay i took a break and ate my weight in roast chicken and we’re back babey

Almost nervously, her fingers carded through her own dark hair, and there, among the locks, Glynda spotted a glimpse of something white, structured and ridged.

AND I AM INSTANTLY KNOCKED BACK UPON MY ASS 👈W👈H😨A👈T👈

It was easier to ignore the rest of it—whatever it was.

glynda you are a fool and a moron im withering into DUST

On no level had she expected those to be Glynda’s words.

then what... did she expect... well probably -- and rightly so -- ‘bitch WHAT ARE THOSE’ TBH

wait sorry i have to jump back because i forgot customary fingerguns on the most brazen bit of Shit yet:

Cinder was occupying herself with something else: the head of a dragon, perched over the door and staring down at the two of them with red, glossy eyes.

👈👈👈😎👈👈👈

okay BACK TO THE FIC

Fangs snapped together around the word.

aka back to me horni

/chanting TEETH! TEETH! TE

okay but the reason i doubled back to catch that fingergun is because we’re getting ass-deep into plot now!!!!!!!!!!! WITCHES AND DRAGONS BABEY......... HERE’S WHAT OFFAL HUNT IS ALL ABT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i cant rly drop more fingerguns than that because any astute reader will start realising the dots im shouting abt and honestly half the fun of this fic is the ride so >:3c

“Funny. I was sure he would have told you.”

that blow was so low i think cinder hit the concrete with that one

oh god theyre gonna get to the bit and i-

“Is that what all of this has been about? You called me here to remind me that I'm autistic?”

/SCREAMS

The words were delivered firmly, calmly, but Cinder’s response was the opposite, sudden upheaval seizing her. Her expression opened in something akin to panic. “Wh—no? What? No! That's not what I—”

/SCREAMS

oh my GOD CINDER YOU HAVE FUCKED UP LEGENDARILY!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD SHE WAS FELL ASS-FIRST ONTO A LANDMINE OH MY GOD

offal hunt v1 cinder: im totally in control and im playing glynda every step of the way

offal hunt v2 cinder: OH JESUS OH FUCK OH NO THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT-

Cinder seemed genuinely stressed now, speaking quicker as though trying to bury the last sixty seconds.

i knew this remaster would have sections that would blow me away but this bit really took the fcuking cake DGHSJFSJHFDG holy SHIT this is AMAZING

It was difficult to tell in the low light, but if Glynda wasn't mistaken, there was a bright flush of embarrassment coloring Cinder’s cheeks.

this is SUCH prime content hey remember in one of the early liveblogs that cinder would descend into full dork? WELL THE DESCENT CAME EARLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! /pops bottles

“Cinder.” There was a very real line of threat in Glynda’s tone. “Don’t.”

oh this whole scene just keeps getting better i am LOVING this dynamic now!!!!!!! before it was all pretty one-sided so having the conversation rock back and forth is 👌👌👌

That Witch soul of yours—it was designed to void out everything but the prey before you. To be numb to all human emotion. To focus on the hunt and nothing else.

finally the fruit of 50% of my fingerguns COMES TO LIGHT!!!!!!!!!!! PLOT PLOT PLOT

“This is bullshit.” Jabbing an accusing finger at Cinder, Glynda said, “You’re a liar. You’re a criminal!”

i LOVE glyndas pottymouth in this its such a good like... change from her being strict and formal and teachery and now shes full on gremlin huntress hell YES BABY!!!!!!!!!! GO OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“There’s all kinds of things I bet he never told you.” Cinder continued. “Did you know he was close to your predecessor? The Witch who came before you—they were inseparable.”

SRY IM LIKE STRUGGLIN TO COMMENTATE because so much of this like. speaking as an Old-Ass Reader this is like. a LOT! A LOT HAS CHANGED and yet,,,, stayed the same,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, yall kids WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE TO HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL CHAPTER LIKE................ 15 FOR THIS SHIT (but like. chapter 15 was different because this chapter used to be like chapter 7? so now everythings moved along so chapter 15 doesnt sound that impressive but trust me it was a different fic back then)

When they fell away, burnt and ruined, she could see Cinder’s bare arms for the first time. The red lines drawn across her skin sloped down the entire length of her arms, circling her elbows, carved into her wrists. They ended right at her hands, ensuring any long-sleeved garment would hide them. Every covered inch of her was filled like a canvas, like abstract art.

lets pause the fight scene for glynda to be gay!!!!! god im. okay look i said this earlier but im so glad we have more cinder like this tbh. the first version was rly lacking w/ cinder content until late-game when the plot sorta. got itself going? but now we’re eye-deep in this content i LOVE cinder i love this WEIRDO who is a HUGE LOSER and IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IM LOVE HER SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And Glynda could not dispel the fear that she had been telling the truth.

and after committing Some Amount In Damages, we’re at the end of the chapter!

okay so i really enjoyed this version SO MUCH MORE. everything abt it was polished and worked together so much better and it really needed the space to breathe in its own chapter. its been horny, gay, intense, hilarious, and way more in one chapter and its SO good this really is PEAK offal hunt!!!!!!!!!!!! good job diesel and kc but im still going to murder you both,

[littlemisssquiggles]

mojo72400 asked

“Combat goggles is yang x neptune and gelato is neo x roman”

yellow-eyed-green-crocodile replied to your post “What's your favorite rwby ships? Mine are rosegarden, white knight,...”

Gelato is the ship between Neo and Roman, but I don't know about Combat Goggles. I think it's Yang x Neptune. Which I ship myself, because of the cool girl/uncool guy dynamic.

lookyeekiti replied to your post

“What's your favorite rwby ships? Mine are rosegarden, white knight,...”

I agree with Rosegarden and the between of Blacksun and bumblebee wholeheartedly!

niteangel496 asked 

“On the subject of RWBY Ships, I ship Rosegarden (they're just so precious), Renora (been shipping them together since v1), Jaded (their back & forth banter is amusing to watch), & Gelato (Torchwick showing worry for Neo in v3, then fighting Ruby even more ferociously afterward basically made me like the ship even more). I also kinda have a softpot for Illia x Blake (I love how Illia didn't resent Blake for loving someone else & how she was so focused on helping her people no matter what)” 

Squiggles Answers: 

Thanks for clarifying the ships for me Mojo, Yellow and Nite. Appreciate it. Funnily enough, I thought Roman and Neo’s ship was called Froyo for some reason. Blame it on RWBY Chibi.

RWBY Chibi made me appreciate the Gelato ship. Their relationship dynamic in the Chibi-verse is too cute especially with how eagerly devoted Neo is to Roman. I loved the episode with the red button where Roman ends up falling into a black hole and Neo’s all like “He’s a dum-dum but he’s my dum-dum” before jumping in to join him. 

I thought that was adorable. Gelato in the Chibi-verse is win-win in my books. 

Ooooh yeah, I forgot that Yang and Neptune had a ship too. If that’s the case then I used to like Combat Goggles as well. Back when Neptune was introduced in V2, ever since the ‘Paint the Town’ episode where Neptune was paired with Yang, I liked how Yang and Neptune looked together. 

While they lacked any kind of romantic chemistry, still thought they looked cool. I even did a little fanart of them together once because I thought they looked so cool side by side. Aaah good times.

Combat Goggles was part of Past Squiggles along with the time I considered shipping Lancaster and…begrudgingly Team RWBY with Team CRDL. Now before you thwack me, let me explain.

Back in Volume 1, when I first got into RWBY and was still getting used to the characters, I considered Jaune and Ruby because Jaune was technically the first person to reach out to Ruby and from there, I always liked their rapport as the two leaders of our two main teams.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to ship them. I was more like, “Well, if things don’t work out for Jaune with Weiss or Pyrhha then Ruby would be my third option.”

At the time, I wasn’t sure if romance was in the cards for these two but for the first volume, I saw Ruby as Jaune’s backup love interest in a sense. But that was since RWBY V1 days. I don’t think about Ruby and Jaune’s relationship like that anymore and you can tell that the main canon series is more or less setting up Jaune and Ruby caring about each other like family. Jaune is the big brother figure in Ruby’s life and was the proxy replacement for Yang during V4 and V5. And Ruby is like a little sister to Jaune. He obviously cares a lot about her but not in way that screams anything beyond platonic and mutual respect. This is only my opinion though. No disrespect for the proud Lancaster shippers.

As for CRDL and RWBY---Again, wayyyy back in V1 when we got our first glimpse of Team CRDL during the ceremony when the teams were being formed by Ozpin, I actually thought CRDL, as the main all boys team would be paired with RWBY.

I thought the series might pull a Winx Club---y’know where the main all girls team would be paired off with the members of the main all male team like how it was with the Fairies of the Winx Club and the Specialists team.

BOY WAS I WRONG! I thought that was going to be the case…up until the episode afterwards where CRDL were revealed to all be a bunch of irredeemable jerks that would bully Jaune and harass poor Velvet for being a Faunus. It’s a stain on my past as a RWBY shipper. One that I can shamelessly admit now. But hey, I was young and still getting into RWBY back when all it had was the one first season. Mistakes were made.

@lookyeekiti and @niteangel496 Damn skippy RoseGarden = love! Joooooooin me brothers and sisters! I honestly have high hopes for Ruby and Oscar’s friendship. Though I’m still unclear if the CRWBY Writers plan on getting romantic with these two younglings, it’s a concept I welcome because, for me, it’s refreshing to see Ruby getting attention from a young boy closer to her age that isn’t just purely companionable; if y’know what I mean.

Oscar was hinted at having a crush on Ruby last volume so I’m really hoping that, even with all the madness to come from this new volume with the journey to Argus, the show still takes the opportunity to highlight this aspect of Oscar’s feelings towards Ruby. If RWBY is an anime then in true anime fashion, I want some deep blushing moments where Ruby smiles or just breathes in Oscar’s direction and his whole face turns into a spotted tomato.

Bonus points if Maria Calavera picks up on Oscar’s crush on Ruby and boldly designates herself as his wing women; playing matchmaker by constantly creating opportunities where Oscar and Ruby can be alone or at least closer to each other. It doesn’t need to be on-the nose since, as I said, there’s a lot to come this season for both Ruby and Oscar’s development. But little hints and nods and gabs would be greatly appreciated.

@niteangel496 Ilia and Blake are cool. Speaking of Illia, I hope she and the Belladonnas keep safe this volume. While I’m still unclear on what the CRWBY Writers’ intentions for Adam’s story are this season---hunt down Blake for revenge or…personally target cutting down the New Faunus Brotherhood since the Belladonnas are a part of it along with Ilia in order to hit Blake where it hurts and draw her out to face him. Whatever they decide to do with Adam, I’m concerned for what it will mean for Ilia’s fate.

But for now, let’s only think of the cute moments with Ilia. Speaking of which, can I just say that I really adore Ilia’s new look. I like how it shows off her freckled tum-tum which I find so cute as its covered in spots. I want somebody to poke the freckled tummy, mainly Sun because he totally would.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2018)

[picturesmadewords-blog]

We can fly - a Teddy & Billy ficlet

Hello, fellow Young Avengers fans! This is my very first non-reblog post on my all-new tumblr that I decided to create for my writings - if and when I get to write more, that is. The thing is, I used to write a lot until a few years ago. I was very active in my country’s Harry Potter fandom and wrote tons of Remus x Sirius stories. But, as I got older, I abandoned writing more and more… until this summer, when I couldn’t take it anymore: I had too many scenes and characters in my mind to let them sleep there forever, so I decided to start writing again. We’ll see how this goes.

I wanted to try something with my absolute favorite Marvel characters, Teddy Altman and Billy Kaplan. Being a gay man who was a teenager when these two first came bursting into comics, I owe a lot to them. And I have tons of little scenes and snippets with them floating around in my head, so here we are. My first post is a ficlet set during the events of Young Avengers v1, specifically right after Teddy’s mom’s death. On the day of her funeral, to be more precise. I’m sure this has been done before, but I really wanted to give shape to my version of it. It’s not much, but there’s a lot of heart in it and all the fluff I need to survive the horrible world we’re currently living in.

As I said, this is my first real piece of writing in years, so any kind of comment is welcome. I just want to see if I still have something worthy to say with my writing. It’s also my first piece of writing about Marvel characters AND my first piece of fiction in English. English is not my first language, so ANY kind of comment about style/form/possible grammar mistakes is highly appreciated.

Now, onto the fic!

Title: We can fly

Fandom: Young Avengers (Marvel comics)

Characters: Billy Kaplan, Teddy Altman, Jeff Kaplan, Rebecca Kaplan, Eli Bradley

Rating: G

POV: Billy (first section), Teddy (second and third sections)

“Call me, man. Whenever you want. Don’t ride this out alone. Neither of you should.”

Billy nodded. He stared deeply into Eli’s eyes and saw something unexpected there. He hadn’t seen Eli cry at the funeral, he didn’t think so. But the boy’s eyes were now shiny. If he hadn’t cried, he looked like he was about to. That wasn’t something Billy was used to. That look of defeat in his teammate’s eyes. In his friend’s eyes. Those eyes said so much more than “I’m sad because my friend’s mom died.” Those eyes seemed to say that now it was real. Not that Billy thought Eli hadn’t taken it seriously from the first moment Nate appeared in his life, but what they had gone through, the terrible, scary things they had gone through, weren't enough to prepare them for this. Losing someone, actually losing someone. Billy saw Eli's love for his grandparents in those eyes. He had seen the fear of losing his own parents in his own eyes that morning, when he had briefly looked at himself in the bathroom mirror.

And then, something else wholly unexpected. Eli hugged him. He pulled him close and hugged him and hugged him. When he let go, Billy had no idea how to react. He smiled faintly. The kind of gratitude he was feeling for Eli couldn’t be expressed in words.

They were on the doorsteps of his house. The sky was grey and there was a chill in the air. “Like in the movies,” Billy thought. “There’s always bad weather at funerals.”

Eli looked at Kate, who was waiting for him outside. He gave one last friendly smile and left. Kate waved at Billy and, once they were out of sight, the boy closed the door.

He turned to the living room. He was facing the back of the sofa, which was placed right in the middle of the room. The sight of the messy blonde hair visible just above the back cushions made his heart jump a little. “Man up, Kaplan. Man up,” he kept thinking. He closed his eyes, took a heavy breath and walked towards the sofa.

“Hey.” Billy tried to put on his best comforting smile. Teddy was sort of slouching on the sofa, his head low, his hands dangling between his legs, his black tie loosened. The plate Billy had prepared for him still lay untouched on the coffee table – a sandwich, some chips, a small portion of some sort of casserole one of his aunts must’ve brought. Glancing at it, Billy suddenly recoiled at the smell of food lingering in the house, as if he had only noticed it now that everyone had gone.

He sat on the sofa next to Teddy. The boy looked like he was somewhere else, somewhere far away, where hopefully he was still a happy teenager with a beautiful boyfriend and a loving mother, and not an alien prince with a dead parent who had lied to him his whole life.

Billy leaned on his shoulder. He enclosed Teddy’s huge frame with one arm, or tried to. And then the most exquisite, the most heartwarming thing happened. Billy had feared anger, tears, coldness, all things that would have been natural and that he would have faced with strength and perseverance for his boyfriend’s sake. He had not expected Teddy to melt into his embrace, his lovely face burrowed into Billy’s neck, his arms tight around Billy’s waist.

Teddy was big, much bigger than Billy’s slender figure, and yet he looked so small and fragile in Billy’s arms. All the boy could do was to rest his head on Teddy’s shoulders, feeling Teddy’s breath close to his chest, so warm, so soft through his white shirt.

They stayed like that for several minutes, in complete silence. There were no tears, no words of comfort, just two boys tangled together, Teddy safely hidden in Billy’s arms, Billy slowly stroking Teddy’s back.

A sound coming from the kitchen. And, a few seconds later, Jeff and Rebecca Kaplan standing in the doorway, both looking tired and much older than Billy ever remembered. Billy didn’t even try to let go of Teddy, he had no intention of letting go, parents or no parents. If anything, he held Teddy even closer, a sudden, overpowering sense of protectiveness washing over him. He’s mine and he needs me and I will hold him for the rest of my life if that’s what he needs.

“Billy, son, we’re going to your aunt’s to bring the hellions home,” Jeff said with a sweet smile. “But before we go, your mother and I need to speak to you boys.”

At that, Teddy jerked up. He didn’t let go of Billy’s waist, though, as he looked at Billy’s parents. “Mr. Kaplan, Mrs. Kaplan… I am so grateful, I will leave as soon as…”

“Hush, dear,” Rebecca said warmly, as she approached the sofa. Her hand reached Teddy’s forehead and she half-stroked, half-brushed his hair. Teddy smiled as Billy felt a sudden surge of love for his mom.

“That’s what we wanted to talk about,” Jeff said, stepping forward himself. His wife put a loving hand on his chest, and he put an arm around her shoulders. Billy smiled at the gesture.

“Billy told us that you have no living relatives,” Rebecca said tentatively, careful not to hurt the boy any further. “Now, mind you, we don’t want to force anything onto you, but…” she paused and sighed. Billy felt his heart skip several beats. He also felt Teddy slightly trembe in his arms. “We don’t, and as soon as you’re eighteen,” the woman continued “you will be able to choose what is best for yourself. But right now, if you want, Jeff and I were thinking that it would be our pleasure to have you with us.”

Billy was beaming. Teddy looked at the couple with wide, shimmering eyes. “We’re sure that there will be some legal stuff to take care of, which we will do once we’re all a little rested,” Jeff said, sitting next to his son. “For now, though, consider yourself our guest. Tomorrow we’ll fix the guest bedroom for you, and Billy here will help you make it your own with a few Pokémon posters or whatever you kids like nowadays. I really hope you will come to consider this your home, in time.”

Billy couldn’t keep it all in any longer. He let go of Teddy, turned to his father and hugged him, whispering “Thank you,” in his ear. Teddy sat motionless, incredulous.

“As for tonight,” Rebecca started, with a voice that exuded both motherly affection and practicality “we thought you could… sleep in Billy’s room.”

Teddy’s eyes widened even more. Billy, having let go of his father, jumped up to embrace his mother. Rebecca put a hand forward, making her son wait for his thankful hug. “This is a one-time thing, young men. Don’t make a habit of it. It’s only because the guest bedroom needs airing and,” she sighed. “And I guess we could all use a little affection and caring tonight.” She let Billy briefly hug her, then tightened her wool cardigan, as if a sudden shiver had passed over her.

“Your mother can’t wait to get the boys back from your aunt. Imagine being that desperate for affection,” Jeff said, getting up from the sofa and walking towards the front door to get his car keys.

Billy chuckled. So did Teddy, through teary eyes. He had met Billy’s bothers and both he and Billy knew that wanting those pests back was the act of a woman desperate to bring life back to what was, at that moment, a very grim house. They both couldn’t wait.

------------------------------------------------

Hours later, as if in a dream where you wander from place to place without any rational reason, Teddy found himself sitting on his boyfriend’s bed. A stylized cartoonish Captain America was staring at him from the heavy bed cover. He looked up, admiring Billy’s model replicas of all the major spaceships from Star Wars, hanging from the ceiling, while a glance at Billy’s desk revealed several action figures and statues of Thor and the Scarlet Witch, all of different sizes and some of them sporting costumes that Teddy recognized from an era of the Avengers that went back to before either he or Billy were even born. Taped to the wall behind the desk, he saw some pencil drawings, mostly of Billy’s winged headgear.

Teddy never thought he would ever find someone who was as big a nerd as he was. Billy couldn’t quite name every single Doctor Who companion from the 1950s onward, not yet, so he felt his nerd crown was safe for now. But still, Billy was a threat.

A wonderful, wonderful threat. He started fantasizing about spending entire afternoons playing computer games and swapping comics with Billy in the comforting space of the room he was now in. Watching their favorite shows together, while holding hands or spooning on that bed, which was thankfully big enough for the both of them. Stealing kisses when they were alone, stealing more than kisses whenever possible. And maybe, one day, building a life of their own, together.

His mind was full of all those incredible thoughts. He forced himself to focus on them. He willed them into his mind, fearing that he would soon wander back into the darkness. He knew that there would come a time when he needed to go back there. To mourn, to cope. But not tonight.

Tonight, he felt like he was given a second chance at life. And he wanted to take it and make it his own.

“I don’t think my PJs will fit you.” Billy’s voice, coming from the walk-in closet, startled him out of his haze. “But maybe this old jersey… it will be a snug fit.”

Billy came into the room holding a faded football jersey and a pair of shorts. “Not that I will complain.”

“I could make myself a little smaller,” Teddy said, taking the clothes from Billy’s hands.

“Oh, right. Please don’t. I really don’t mind the bulging muscles.”

Teddy laughed. He knew what Billy was doing. He was playing right along his little fantasy of “this is just a sleepover with your boyfriend, it’s not like your mom is dead and not even your real mom.” He loved him even more for that.

Teddy took off what remained of his funeral suit. He had tossed the jacket over the desk chair as soon as he had entered Billy’s room, and the tie was dangling from his neck, completely loose. Billy had turned around to get the spare pillow from the closet and, when he turned back, he found Teddy wearing only the Bionic Woman boxers he had bought for him on eBay.

“Oh come on now,” Billy half-whined, admiring his boyfriend’s sculpted chest and incredible legs. Not to mention Lindsay Wagner’s cotton face hugging Teddy in all the right places. God, that was wrong. What was he thinking when he bought those boxers. “Put that shirt on before I decide to completely destroy my mother’s trust in the both of us.”

Teddy smiled, putting on the shorts first, then the jersey. It was a snug fit and he had to shrink just a little to even put his muscular arms through the sleeves, but not so much as to avoid the tight effect that Billy had hoped for. He loved teasing Billy like that.

Billy was flushed. He swallowed and playfully threw the pillow (now fitted with a fresh Lion King pillowcase) at Teddy, who caught it and held it close to his chest.

“Oh, can you feel the love tonight, baby,” Teddy commented in the most suave voice he was capable of.

“You are such a dork.” Billy went back to the closet, while Teddy jumped on the bed, resting his messy golden hair on his new pillow.

“You know,” Billy’s voice came from the closet “if you feel up to it, if you’re not too tired or anything, the brats have this junior league soccer game tomorrow, I don’t think mom had time to pull them out of it. It will most likely be a total bore, but it might do you good to get out and OH MY GOD NO.”

Teddy jumped up, scared half to death. Billy’s screaming had felt like a well-placed punch in his guts. His mind immediately went to the worst possible scenarios, which flashed in his mind one after the other in a matter of milliseconds. Something had fallen on Billy’s head and he was injured. He had slipped and fallen and had really hurt himself. The Skrulls were back for him. Kang the freaking Conqueror was hiding in Billy’s walk-in closet.

“Billy! B, what’s wrong?” he yelled, worried. The Kaplans still hadn’t come back from Billy’s aunt, what could he do now? The thought that both he and his boyfriend were superheroes never even crossed his mind. That night, he felt like a kid who was in desperate need for somebody to look out for him.

“Nothing, nothing.”

Billy’s apparently calm voice made Teddy calm, too. Still confused, but calm.

“It’s nothing but oh my God this can’t be happening.”

“B?”

“Okay, so, apparently,” Billy’s voice, still coming from the closet, had assumed that tone that Teddy had come to recognize as bitchy Billy. “Apparently…” Billy continued “I only have three pairs of PJs. And the one I wanted to wear tonight, the one I wanted you to see me in, a nice, simple, elegant light grey thing that my grandmother gave me for Hanukkah, well, it’s in the wash. Which leaves me with two unspeakable options.”

Teddy half-smiled, still puzzled. “Okay?”

“Yeah, not okay. Not really. But here goes nothing.” Billy came out of the closet and Teddy had to blink a few times to fully understand what he was seeing.

Billy, all messy dark curls and hot red cheeks, was wearing a pair of light blue PJs. The shirt was a little too tight and the pants, which, Teddy assumed, were supposed to come to his ankles, were a couple of inches short of reaching them. And the pattern. Oh, the pattern.

It was small cartoon cowboys.

And cowboy hats and little white clouds and bright green cacti. Teddy was suddenly reminded of Andy’s room in Toy Story, before the arrival of Buzz Lightyear.

“Oh my God,” Teddy cried, grinning like a maniac. “That is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.” He jumped from the bed, covering his smiling mouth with a hand. “You are the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”

Billy blushed furiously. “The thing is, I haven’t really grown that much since I was twelve so I still have these old things lying around and…”

Teddy shut him up with a kiss. He cupped Billy’s face and kissed him and kissed him, Billy standing on his toes, his thin arms embracing Teddy’s waist.

“I love you and I have to take a picture,” Teddy said, coming up for air.

Billy’s eyes became two enormous saucers. “You… wouldn’t dare…” he said slowly, stepping back from his boyfriend.

“Please please please I have to immortalize the unthinkable cuteness right before my eyes,” pleaded Teddy, already grabbing his phone.

“No way! No way!” Billy laughed.

“I promise I won’t show it to anyone! It’ll be just for me!” Teddy wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Would you really deny me this, tonight of all nights?” He looked at Billy with his best beaten puppy stare.

“Oh, that’s low,” Billy sighed. He opened his arms, defeated, and gave Teddy the sweetest of smiles as Teddy took as many pictures as possible. Yes, he was going to keep them for himself. Well, maybe one could find its way to Kate and Cassie. Maybe.

Of course Teddy knew that Billy could’ve just worn a T-shirt or something. He didn’t know if the adorable pajamas were chosen intentionally or not. But he did know that his boyfriend was the most incredible boy to ever walk (or, occasionally, fly) the earth and he had, once again, made him smile on one of the worst days of his life. He knew, right then and there, that anyone who could make him laugh on a day like that was someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

------------------------------------------------

“Tired?” Billy asked, when the excitement over the PJs was over. They were lying on Billy’s bed, side by side. Teddy was staring at the ceiling, lost in thought. Billy was staring at Teddy.

“Exhausted,” Teddy replied. He turned his head towards Billy, a faint smile on his lips. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being here. For being you,” Teddy whispered. He had tried to avoid it, but he felt the darkness getting closer and closer. He reached a hand and stroked Billy’s cheek.

Billy closed his eyes, enjoying his boyfriend’s loving touch. He leaned closer to Teddy and rested his head on Teddy��s chest, listening to his heart, getting drunk on his scent. “Is this okay?” he asked.

Teddy snorted. “Are you kidding? This is perfection.”

Silence fell over them. The room was mostly dark, only an old Mickey Mouse lamp illuminating the desk with all its action figures. Teddy closed his eyes and listened to the soft hum of Billy’s breathing.

“B?” he asked, with a wavering voice. “Am I going to be alright?”

Billy frowned, but didn’t look up. “Give yourself some time, babe.”

“But I mean…” Teddy continued, slightly hesitant. “When we get older. If… when we get to be adults together. My life’s so fucked-up. How can I… what kind of… man could I be? What kind of… father could I be…”

Billy’s head jerked up at those words. “You’re going to the most amazing dad. You are selfless and caring and goofy and you can shape-shift into all sorts of funny animals! Are you kidding, our kids will love you.” Billy paused, realizing what he had just said. “Yes, I did say our kids because I’m not going anywhere, T. Oh, and I want a small army of brats and I hope each and every one of them is as impossible as my brothers so we don’t get lazy in our old age.”

“Oh, God,” Teddy chuckled. After a silent pause, he added “I hope you are right. I just want to be free from this… this fear of failing and… and falling into dark thoughts. Dark places.” He wiped a tear that had made its way across his cheek.

Billy had rested his head on Teddy’s chest again. “Don’t be afraid of falling, T. It’s natural. It’s human. Neither of us might exactly be human human, but you get my point. Don’t be afraid. Because, if you fall, I will pick you up. Always. I will always be there to pick you up and lift you up, just as I’m sure you will be there for me.” Billy felt Teddy’s arms tighten around his shoulders, and he burrowed his face into Teddy’s chest. “We can both fly, if we can’t lift each other up, who can?”

Teddy smiled.

There was a long pause, which Teddy interrupted just to whisper “Goodnight, my sweet cowboy.”

“Goodnight,” Billy replied, grinning. He paused for a couple of seconds, then added “Hey, can I sleep like this?” holding Teddy even tighter for emphasis.

“You have to sleep like that,” Teddy replied, then placed a delicate kiss on Billy’s curly head.

Silence fell into the room once again. Both boys were half-asleep, when Teddy spoke up again. “Hey, what was on the other pair of PJs that was so terrible you went with cartoon cowboys?”

Billy snorted and hid his face in Teddy’s chest even further.

“Smurfs.”

Teddy grinned.

He definitely had something to look forward to.

[inb4vaughn]

Why Old School Golf Coaching Matters

Tom Patri

Barry Goldstein

Barry Goldstein and Tom Patri have a lot in common. They are both golf instructors, with more than 60 years of experience between them. They both reside in South Florida for much of the year — Goldstein on the Atlantic side, where he teaches at Inverrary Country Club in Fort Lauderdale, Patri on the Gulf side, where he teaches at the Esplanade in Naples (he moves north to teach on Long Island during summer). They share Northeast Roots. They love the game as much now as when they first picked up a club. They’re both Golf Tips Top 30 Instructors who believe in golf coaching, in building a deep relationship with their students.

Of course, they’re different in many ways, too. For one thing, Goldstein has never been a PGA Member, whereas Patri has been one for decades, racking up accolades along the way including Met PGA Teacher of the Year and South Florida Teacher of the Year. Long before that he was the 1981 NCAA Division II lndividual National Champion, while much of Goldstein’s collegiate glory came through his daughter, a standout player at LSU.

These two long-timers agree on many things, but one shared fear, based in fact, is this: that the very business of golf coaching — is in jeopardy thanks to the flood of technology that has overrun practice tees over the past 15 years. Raw, cold numbers spewing from TrackMan and other swing measurement gadgets have replaced feel and sensory savvy on the front lines of the battle for Old Man par. That’s not entirely a bad thing, particularly on the PGA and LPGA Tour fronts (though so many swings look suspiciously similar these days), but as far as they’re concerned, if today’s techie teachers don’t temper their digital addiction with flesh-and-blood real-world relational teaching, the student may not stick around long — and perhaps give up the game altogether. Numbers matter, but the human touch matters more.

I sat down with Goldstein and Patri to discuss the stage of golf instruction, how they built their own teaching philosophies and why, in the end, having fun is the ultimate goal for all golfers.

OVER-TAUGHT, UNDER-COACHED

You guys have been around the horn a few times. You’ve seen technology take over, or threaten to take over, the teaching game. So many guys are obsessed with getting up to 115 miles per hour swing speed, and that makes sense at the highest level, but what about with the students you see?

Patri: I always say this with the guys I hang around: I think golf in 2018 is really over-taught and under-coached. I think the numbers are relevant important, but when they become an obsession and you forget how to play the game and hit shots and score, you get into very dangerous waters. Most good junior players are fabulous talents, athletic, but they can’t hit partial shots, knockdown shots, they can’t shape the ball very well, they can’t play in the wind very well. I think we’re going in the wrong direction by having them stare at a video screen all the time.

Goldstein: I love the comment “overtaught and undercoached.” What I see a lot of people teaching golf swings on mats, with computers, never out on the golf course, never on grass, never teaching people how to play the game.

At the highest level, the TrackMan helped Dustin Johnson dial in his wedge distance. But 99 percent of people being taught that way won’t even continue to play golf because they’re not learning how to enjoy the game, play it out on the course.

A couple years ago I was at Dallas Athletic Club to watch my daughter play for LSU against SMU. There were 18 teams there. She played very well, finished second. Right after the event finished a guy came up to me and asked if I would take a look at his teaching area. I said I’d be right over after the awards ceremony. He was a young kid, nice kid, 30 years old. He had everything at his beautiful teaching facility — TrackMan, everything. But it’s a hitting bay, though the driving range out in front of him is grass. I asked him if he was busy. He said not at all. “If I give five or six lessons a week …”

‘Golf In 2018 Is Overtaught and Undercoached. The Numbers Are Important, But When You Forget How To Play The Game And Score, You Get Into Dangerous Waters.’ — Tom Patri

“Do you ever go out and play with people?” No.

“Do you ever just hang around the pro shop and asked people how they scored, what they shot, and hand them your card?”

He said, “I never do that. I basically hang out here, put all my stuff out, the TrackMan, so people can see it, and I wait for them to come over and take a lesson.”

I was just dead honest with him. I said, “I like to eat steak, not McDonalds. You’re going to be waiting a long time. Go out and play golf with these people. Can you break 80? Go out and show them how to be a player. You’re going about it the wrong way.”

Patri: The problem with most of those kids is that they can’t break 80. They have no credibility. I’m not saying all of them, but a lot of them hide behind that video screen. They hide behind the TrackMan, or V1 video, or K-Vest. They can’t go out and demonstrate how to hit a bunker shot, or how to hit a cut or a high draw, how to create a score, how to recover from a problem area.

We learned how to play golf as kids on the golf course. We learned how to, when we hit one in the trees, hit a knockdown under a branch and still make par. These kids are standing on the range and looking at their numbers. They hit it beautifully, make beautiful swings and hit beautiful shots, but they can’t shoot a score, a number. That’s great — you know what you should do? Go join a driving range and hang out! Who cares if you can hit it 320. You can’t play. Who cares!

Goldstein: Tom was a national champion in college. Our generations were always players first and then we realized, hey, we can’t play this game at the highest level, but I want to be around it — I’m gonna teach. I think there’s a lot of young guys, age 21, who decide they want to teach golf. That’s what they’re going to do for a living. They want to be a Top 100 teacher. There’s no way that was the case when Tom and I were younger. Guys in their fifties, we all played golf. Brady Riggs, a peer of ours, played golf. Never in a million years did I think I’d teach golf for a living. It hadn’t dawned on me. But these kids, that’s what they grow up wanting to do. They have no experience playing in tournaments, that’s fine, except for the fact that they’re not teaching people how to play golf, how to shoot, say, 83 for a recreational golfer. They get stuck shooting 100 or 97, and they don’t enjoy it that much.

As far as Tour players go, a lot of them work with coaches who may not be PGA of America members. You guys have worked with some of them, too — who are on the periphery of the system.

Goldstein: Yeah, like Butch Harmon or Jimmy Ballard. Wonderful, special teachers. That says a  lot. I don’t think Dave Pelz is a member, either [Golf Tips research could find no clue that he is, though he does work with the organization on various teaching schools]. Some of the greatest have not been members, and there are guys like Tom who are.

OLD SCHOOL STANDBYS

Let’s shift gears. Tom has written about this: things he’s learned through the years from “old school” teachers and Tour players like Seve Ballesteros. Can you name some of the old school stuff you guys still incorporate into your teaching?

Patri: People ask me what are my theories or methods. I say I don’t have a method or a theory, I believe in sound fundamentals. Everything that happens in golf is either a cancer or a cure of the set-up. If your lines are good, your ball position us good, you’re gripping the club reasonably, you can orient your body and have good posture, you have a helluva fighting chance. If a person grips the club poorly, or they aim too far to the right, have the ball too far back in the stance, or they’re standing too far from the golf ball, I think they have a really poor chance. If you gave Adam Scott the set-up of 90 percent of the people that Barry and I teach, he’d be bankrupt. If you gave those same 90 percent Adam Scott’s set-up, they’d be 10 shots better tomorrow.

‘I See A Lot Of Guys Who Are 28 Years Old Who Have Been Teaching A Couple Years And I Worry About Them. I Don’t Know How They’re Gonna Make A Living.’ — Barry Goldstein

I start there, and then I look at somebody face-on: How they’re distributing their weight, how they’re turning their body, how they’re balancing themselves. Then I look at them down the line: What the club is doing, where is it going, what’s its orientation, where is the club face. So once I get those two views and see if they can walk and chew gum, I can start the lesson.

Goldstein: Like Tom I’m a huge fundamentalist. I think the reason I’m always busy is that I’m able to make people better. You’re not just giving lessons, where you never see the person again. I get a lot of repeat business because I’m very into, you know, grip, aim, stance, posture, ball position, swing plane. But you ask what I do that’s old school — I don’t even know if it is old school.

Just today I had a lesson. I could do the same thing on a TrackMan, but I knew this young man, a talented player, was hitting the ball off the toe of the club, simply by the sound and where the ball was going. So rather than hook him up on a FlightScope or TrackMan, I simply grabbed one of the stickers TaylorMade sends me every year, put it on his club face, had him hit five shots, and every one of them was on the toe. So I moved him a half-inch closer to the ball. Everything was on the sweet spot after that. I guess that’s old school. A 25-year-old kid would have used TrackMan to do that.

Patri: What a miraculous lesson! Isn’t that unbelievable.

Goldstein [laughter]: He started flushing everything after that. He loved me. And it was someone I’d taught before. Stuff like that, I guess is considered old school. But this is horrible, and Tom will agree with me: I’ve actually heard young guys say that grip is not a fundamental. Every lesson I give, I look at the grip immediately. It just tells me so much about the golfer and where the ball is gonna go. But I’ve heard so many young guys stay grip is not a fundamental because there are so many different styles.

Patri: One of the things I say to people all the time is, if you’re a student of mine and we’ve been together for a long time, and in some part of our journey together — if you come to me and some part of our lesson is not about the set-up, you should fire me right away.

Goldstein: Amen. You know, the first day I worked for Jimmy Ballard, he told me, “If you want to be busy, work 90 percent set-up, 10 percent golf swing.” I’ve done that to this day. Always set-up.

Patri: It’s funny you say that, because Jim Flick, who was a big influence of mine, said, “Tom, if you teach strictly set-up for the rest of your career, you’ll be doing the game a helluva service.”

Goldstein: So true. Those two guys are two of the greatest teachers in the history of the game. Legendary. You don’t see that kind of guy anymore, but yeah, if you want to make someone a good player, you’ve got to work on their set-up all the time.

Even on Tour, you always see guys them checking their set-up, their alignment. And when they get out of whack and start putting a big fade on it, or not hitting it solid, you know it’s their set-up. The swing looks the same.

Goldstein: It’s huge. I was at this clinic and I heard a bunch of guys in their 20s and 30s arguing about whether grip was a fundamental. I didn’t get involved. I just chuckled. I just laughed to myself, because if they don’t think grip is important to teach, they won’t have a long lesson book. They won’t be very busy.

Another that would be considered old school, perhaps sadly, is giving playing lessons. I’m very  lucky, I’m at a facility that has 36 holes, so we’ll warm up on the range for 10 minutes, then go play. I can teach them things I could never teach on the driving range. How to be a good player. How to score. I don’t see that being done a lot.

WHERE TECH IS BEST

How much do you guys incorporate this new technology, and how much do you steer students away from it?

Patri: I use some video. I’m a longtime V1 customer. I use it very carefully and sparingly, because I think when you play video in front of people, they go, “What about, what about, what about,” when I’m trying to get them to focus on one thing. So I might cue up a video and bring them to a particular frame in their golf swing, then say, “I’d like something different to be happening at this juncture.”

I’m not a TrackMan guy. I have a little portable device that I use that gives me ball speed, clubhead speed and angle of attack. I don’t use it a lot. I just think you’ve got to be so careful with technology. I think it’s powerful and useful in the hands of someone who knows how to use it. It’s dangerous in someone’s hands to doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing and doesn’t have the faintest understanding that Barry has, and fundamentalists have, before they had the technology and had to use their eyes and their instincts.

Goldstein: I definitely use technology when someone wants help with a club fitting. I’ll always put them on FlightScope or TrackMan, because it helps me narrow down what shafts and club heads are best for them. As far as teaching goes, I used to use video for every golf lesson. And one day, there’s this girl that I taught who played in the U.S. Amateur, and we didn’t use video — she improved so much she went out and won her next tournament. I made the decision not to use anything for the next six months. My students started winning so many more tournaments, because I’d be out on the golf course with them more instead of on the range.

I just thought, wow. It was a huge eye-opener for me. I had all that stuff and always used video, but now I rarely use it. I never start a lesson with video or TrackMan. Sometimes I’ll just use my phone out on the golf course if I see someone make the same mistake repeatedly. I’ll record him and say, “Just look at this. You see the way you’re taking the club way inside?” “Yes.” “Let’s work on getting it back and up and little more.” Boom, it helps them. But I was probably guilty of using video a lot. Ballard was a huge video guy. But then I realized how much more benefit there is to taking them out on the golf course. Knock down shots into the wind — everything that goes into being a good player, you can’t do with that equipment.

Patri: Not only can they not hit those type of shots that Barry just mentioned, they don’t even know when to hit them. So that’s a double-edge sword. They can’t hit them, and even if they could, they don’t know when to make the right decision because nobody takes them on the golf course and puts them in situations.

Goldstein: Here’s a classic story. There was teacher on the range the day before the Florida state high school championship, which my daughter ended up winning. It was ridiculously windy — it was when Hurricane Sandy came through in 2012. They could have cancelled the tournament, but didn't. And I saw a guy teaching a girl, 15 feet from Carly and me, the day before the tournament. He’s got her on all kinds of machines, working on her swing changing things 24 hours before she tees off in what is probably her biggest tournament as a high school kid. I’m watching and thinking, wow — that poor girl has no chance to compete tomorrow. She might work her golf swing, but there’s no way she’s gonna compete. I don’t know where she finished, but I remember thinking, are you kidding? She had earned her way there, and I see him making all kinds of changes, overworking her swing and underworking what she should have been thinking about — “how do I shoot par or better tomorrow?”

I knew that people who could control their ball, like my daughter, who’s a great wind player, would separate who would play well. She was the only one to break par that day. She would hit a low 6-iron into a green and make a 20-footer for birdie. That’s how she played. She shot one under, which is like four under on a normal day. But I felt bad for that girl. It wasn’t my place to interfere. And I wasn’t teaching my daughter at that point, I was a cheerleader. We’d worked hard that week, played two practice rounds, worked on her swing and her short game, but the last thing you want to do the day before competition is start changing your golf swing. It makes no sense.

Another thing that might be considered old school is that, with all my good college players, we always work on short game more than full swing. It’s not done very often now. I see people in love with hitting balls on TrackMan, trying to get their swing as fast as they can, which usually means hitting it farther into the woods, because they can’t control it at normal speed. It’s kind of concerning. Golf is losing golfers. You don’t want to chase people away from the game.

Patri: You know, when you’re standing on the 18th tee with a one-shot lead, and you can’t breathe, you can’t call TrackMan.

Goldstein: With the top one-tenth of one percent, guys like Dustin Johnson, I understand how it works to his benefit, dialing in the distance with his wedges. I get that. But for so many players, I think it cripples them from being an artist on the golf course.

Patri: Let’s go back to Dustin Johnson for a second. I get what you can do with TrackMan, but 20, 25 years ago, when we’d stand on a range at a mini-tour event somewhere, and wanted to become a better wedge player, we’d pace off 50 yards, put a stick in the ground and hit 50-yard shots. Then we’d pace off 75 yards, put a stick in the ground, and hit shots 75 yards. We didn’t need a TrackMan to do that, did we? I mean, I understand Dustin wanting to use TrackMan, but dude, couldn’t you figure that out on your own?

Goldstein: My daughter and I would just go out on the course late in the day, nobody there, and drop ten balls at 40 yards, ten balls at 60, ten at 80, ten at 100, and and work over and over on getting the ball into 12-foot circle. The next day we’d do 50, 70, 90 and 110 yards. We’d do that all the time. I never used TrackMan with her. Maybe somebody stuck on a driving range with no opportunity to get out on the course, it might work for them, I don’t know.

FUN AND FRATERNITY

Dustin finally won a major when he figured out how to putt, chip and hit wedge shots. And now even he’ll say he works on his wedges 70 percent of the time. When Tiger was at his best, he had his wedges dialed in. Nicklaus was never the greatest wedge player, he was a great putter so he could work around it, but when he had the short game working he was unbeatable. I’ve never seen it any other way. Obviously Mickelson relies on his wedge, he’s a genius, and Seve was the same way. He’d hit it 50 yards sideways off the tee and it didn’t matter.

Goldstein: Tom mentioned earlier that the game has become so over-taught and under-coached. I also feel like the golf swing is over-coached and the short game is under-coached. Eight out of 10 teachers just love to teach golf swing on a mat, in a perfect environment, with a computer. I’ve seen that a lot.

The one thing I do respect about a lot of these young kids is that they love golf; they just don’t realize that how they teach often chases golfers away. They get so involved in computers and hitting numbers, but after a few lessons a student’s numbers might get a little better, but they don’t score any better. They still shoot 94. That gets frustrating, and they quit. They don’t play anymore. That hurts my feelings.

When you guys teach, you teach folks to have fun with it. Creating shots on the golf course and actually playing golf is fun; going to the range, beating balls and trying to hit it as hard as you can’t isn’t fun.

Goldstein: Let’s say with the average guy, guys I work with you shoot in the 90s and they’re all slicers — if I start to make their grip a little stronger and they start to hit pull-hooks, their whole game changes. They pick up 30 yards. That’s a big part of teaching that you can’t get on TrackMan or FlightScope.

Patri: Any time you can do something that’s relatively simple, that causes a different contact, different compression, a different ball flight or trajectory for somebody, the wow factor is huge. The enjoyment goes right through the ceiling. Once you do that with a student, they belong to you. They’re yours forever. And it’s not hard to do that; if you understand ball flight and the fundamentals, you can have someone hit a different shot inside of an hour.

Goldstein: Sometimes inside of two minutes! A guy who’s an open clubface player, you strengthen his grip and he thinks you’re a hero. Suddenly he can find his golf ball, it’s not in the right trees all day long. And it doesn’t have to be complicated. This is the most over-taught game in the world.

Patri: You know what’s really amazing about this to me? We’ve dedicated our whole lives to trying to figure out the mystery of golf. We’ve done that by being around other great teachers, by passing along information. It’s a huge fraternity. We learn from other people, from much better players than we are, who have more experience, who have dug it out of the dirt. Then you stand on the range, and you look down the tee line, and Mr. Smith, who’s a lawyer or doctor or accountant, is teaching his wife to play golf. And he’s a 23 handicap.

Barry and I are both big baseball fans. Could we imagine walking up to Derek Jeter and trying to give him advice on his batting stance? Not in a million years. You’d be the biggest idiot on the planet. But anybody who’s ever hit a golf shot in their life thinks they can teach the person next to them. It makes me nuts every time I see it.

Goldstein: The scary part is, I see professional golf instructors like that. I see a lot of guys who are 28 years old who have been teaching a couple years, and I worry about them. I don’t know how they’re gonna pay their bills. They don’t get a lot of return business, they don’t see customers over and over. And if you don’t do that, you’re not going to be in this business a long time. That guy I mentioned from the Dallas Athletic Club? He’s doing something else now, and that’s good, because I couldn’t imagine him making a halfway decent living doing what he was doing.

TEACHING TO THE PLACE

Both of you go up north in the summer. What differences do you come across teaching people up there? Does setting matter? Does season matter? Is the strata of golfers different from what you work with in Florida during winter?

Patri: Barry’s on the east coast of Florida, I’m on the west coast. When I first came to Naples, I had no clue about the difference between an east coast person and a west coast person. They’re very different animals. I have 18 years in Naples now, but my New York clientele is close to the city, very fast-paced, high-energy, instant gratification. Maybe the toughest client on the planet to teach is the metropolitan New York student. The Midwesterner is a much more patient animal, much more process oriented, just a different attitude. A different kind of aggression that requires a much stronger teacher to deal with. In Naples you can be in a low vibe mode and make it work. In New York, you’d better have your boxing gloves on when you get out of the car.

Goldstein: The east coast of Florida, Fort Lauderdale, is a little more New York City-ish. I’m in my hometown of Binghamton, New York, in the summer. The only different I see is, perhaps because the season is so short in the Northeast, the passion level is huge. Down here in Florida, we get 12 months a year, and the urgency in a student here isn’t as big. Up north they’re so hungry to play for those five, six, seven months, that their passion level is off the charts. Which I love.

I don’t use much technology up north, and I’m packed. I use impact bags, grip training aids, and I don’t miss the stuff we have down here. I talked to Butch Harmon once in Las Vegas about that, and he said he shies away from the technology too. His son uses a lot more of it, but he doesn’t want to be tied down to it.

All the golf clinic guys who use the technology, I love those guys and have fun with them, but I heard one of them say that any time he has a student with a flying right elbow [in the backswing], he puts a credit card under it. I thought, well there would go Jack Nicklaus and Fred Couples! If you took someone like Nicklaus and pinned his right arm down, we would have never heard of him. Who’s to say what’s exactly right and exactly wrong. Couples is a great player and Tom’s personal friend.

GOLF COACHING MENTORS

Patri: I spent a lot of time with Bill Strasbaugh, who’s passed now. He was a very dear friend and a big influence in my life. I observed him give 100 lessons probably. A person would 10 or 12 balls and look back, and Bill hadn’t said anything. He’d hit 10 or 12 more and he still didn’t say anything. I said, “Coach, why won’t you say anything?” He said, “There’s no need to rush it, Tom. I want to be sure what I’m going to say. I want to see a pattern, and it takes 10 or 15 balls to see what the pattern really is. I don’t want them to fool me.”

Goldstein: The greatest teachers I’ve ever been around, and some great players, are never in a hurry. They might work on two or three things in a lesson, but not 10. There’s a lot of that out there, too — “let’s work on your angle of approach on TrackMan.” “You’re attacking too much from the inside.” Whatever. It’s awful hard to work on five things and try to help somebody.

I met Tom back in 2001, and I had admired him. We talked and he introduced me to an LPGA player of his. I’m from the next generation down, but a lot of the guys just behind me, the recognized teachers, very few of them have “raised” a champion. They get somebody who’s already a PGA Tour player, and just tweak and work on this or that. That’s cake compared to raising a player, like Tom has done, from scratch to a collegiate or tour player. That’s hard teaching. So I knew when I started teaching, that’s what I wanted to do. The best part of teaching is taking a person from 8 years old to 22 years old, and they’ve got a full ride to college. Maybe they’ll turn professional. But I notice that a lot of teachers who are getting accolades now, they’ve never raised a champion.

Patri: As a teacher I have a huge responsibility. Every time somebody writes you a check, you have a responsibility to give them information that will make the game more enjoyable, that will make them come back again and again and bring their friends to learn the game. If you overload them, hurt their psyche and make it a tough road for them, you’re not doing the game justice. We owe the game so much more than that.

Barry Goldstein teaches at Inverrary Country Club in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, during the winter and in Binghamton, New York, during the summer. Reach him at drforgolf@aol.com

Tom Patri teaches at Esplanade in Naples, Florida in winter and Mill Pond Golf Course on Long Island during the summer. Reach him at tpatri@mindspring.com and visit his website, www.tompatri.com

The post Why Old School Golf Coaching Matters appeared first on Golf Tips Magazine.

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[joontier]

Subliminal in Scrubs | V1; report vii

pairings: dr. jeon jungkook x female reader

chapter rating: NC-17 | genre: humor, romance

warnings: FINALLY~ we get to see a little bit of JK’s pov heh 

word count: 2.4k

g/n: Send me your thoughts?

[taglist] @nottodayjjk @ditttiii​ @zeharilisharaban​ @btsbunny07​ @turquoiseandplaidinautumn  @aamxxrii @codeinebelle ​

Subliminal in Scrubs (the records) |  navi. | m.list

“I hope you don’t mind us picking up a friend first then a drive thru afterwards... we did promise  someone a ride to the ceremony as well.” Chohee eyes Jungkook through the rear-view mirror. “Plus, we haven’t had any breakfast yet sooo…” Your new passenger uncharacteristically nods with unbridled enthusiasm. Huh.

“Totally not an issue at all. If you don’t mind, breakfast is on me,” he announces, sitting up a little straighter in his seat. You raise a freshly threaded eyebrow. There is no way this kid is actually offering to pay for your food. Jungkook clears his throat quietly, “Um...since you guys offered me a ride...you know…” 

Without even having to look at each other, you just know you and Chohee have similar smiles plastered on each of your faces. “Well,” Chohee makes a quick glance at the man seated at the back, “if you insist, Jungkook-ssi. How nice of you to do so.” 

You’re positive Jeon Jungkook will regret he even offered - in half an hour. Probably less. 

Just recently, Chohee has decided to relive an old hobby of hers: teasing you relentlessly with men clearly way out of your league until you actually end up investing much more time than intended (just as planned by Chohee) - until you come to the realization that there wasn’t going to be even the slightest chance of them even liking you back. End point is - you end up getting heartbroken for irrational reasons. 

Chohee, whose eyes sparkle with mirth with every mention of the Jimin, continues her teasing, despite your constant reminders to have her energy and time diverted to another subject, instead of poking her head through your currently non-existent love life. 

It’s an undisputed fact that Jimin is a cutie and quite the charmer, especially with his heroic deed of saving your sorry ass from getting your drinked spiked at the bar. However, there is a part of you that knows the slightest bit of infatuation you might feel or might have felt for Jimin was probably caused by the lack of interaction with men for the majority of your collegiate life. Of course, you always came back to your principles, that of which is prioritizing your career to shun love interests. 

Admittedly, you might have gotten distracted once, but you won’t ever let that happen again. 

In line with your best friend’s attempt to have you score a date and a boyfriend eventually, (her timeline, not yours!)Chohee had even gone so far as offering Jimin a ride to the oath taking ceremony that’s going to be held today at the Coex convention center at Gangnam. 

With Jimin’s apartment just a couple of blocks away from the gasoline station, you spot him right away when Chohee turns right into the corner. He’s stood by the entrance of his apartment building, looking effortlessly attractive as he scrolls through his phone while waiting. 

Chohee presses her fist lightly against the center of the wheel, the car emitting a soft honk to get Jimin’s attention. Jimin gives a curt wave in acknowledgment and reaches between his legs to grab his satchel. As soon as Jimin opens the car door, his head jolts slightly backward in surprise when he sees another passenger already inside. 

Chohee does the ice-breaker, introducing Jungkook to Jimin while she drives off. “Just before we got to your place, we had to fill the tank first and whaddya know? Met Jungkook at the gas station too! His bike broke down and I’ve offered him a ride - ergo, your new seatmate.” She adds a thumbs up. “Park Jimin, Jeon Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook, Park Jimin.” 

Contrary to Chohee’s cheerful voice mere seconds ago, awkward silence ensues after the two men bow to each other in greeting. The only subject of sanity the car was holding onto was the soft voice of Chohee’s navigation app coming from her phone on the dashboard. 

Why was it so hard to talk when you’ve all got at least a few things in common? 

Right, maybe it’s the fact that Jimin may or may not have known about your beef with Jeon Jungkook. Chohee’s doing, obviously. 

Thankfully, you spot a Burger King joint along the way and propose getting a greasy breakfast instead of looking for other options. There are murmurs of agreement heard in the suddenly cramped space of your best friend’s car. “Jungkook-ssi, breakfast still on you, yeah?” Chohee asks, joining the queue. 

“Uh…yeah-” 

“Perfect! Just making sure because _________ and I are famished!” Okay - that wasn’t exactly the word you were looking for, but if it gets you the free meal, then you’re absolutely ravenous. Chohee’s eyes briefly pass yours before sending a wink in Jungkook’s direction. “How ‘bout you Jimin-ssi? You hungry?” 

He looks at you, then Chohee, then at Jungkook. “I’m fine, I’m not hungry.” You see Jungkook trying painfully hard to not let his eyes dart around too much. Just then,  a low rumble erupts from Jimin’s stomach. Woops. Your brain can dictate your emotions but tummy would never lie outright. 

“Jimin-ssi!” Jungkook clasps a hand on the blond’s shoulder. “It’s fine! Breakfast is on me. Order up, bro!” 

With Jimin still looking hesitant, Jungkook decides to add a little fairy dust to his encouragement, “think of it as a mini celebration of us finally getting to be licensed doctors in a few hours!” Jimin gives in with very evident reluctance, even offering to pay for the whole group instead at one point. 

Your swear you see hesitation cross Jungkook’s eyes briefly, but you’re glad he’s a man of honor, even if it be for this particular instance only, firmly dismissing Jimin’s proposal. Which is perfect, honestly, because  this time you get a chance at revenge and a very hearty breakfast. 

“No crumbs on the floor, please!” 

From the backseat, you see Jungkook eyeing your paper bags on yours and Chohee’s laps, face stoic as ever. Emphasis on bags. A little more concentration and Jungkook can pretty much send lasers blasting through his eyes with the way he’s scrutinizing your orders. 

As shameless as it sounds, you and Chohee were never ones to back out of a free meal - and make the most out of it, especially when one had offered so nicely. So imagine Jungkook’s reaction when he and Jimin only got a Whopper meal and you and Chohee get upgraded full meals. 

“Doesn’t seem like we’re the ones who should be worrying about crumbs…” Jungkook mutters, taking a bite of his fry that’s a little too harsh for a slice of a poor fried potato. 

“You say something Jungkook?” Chohee queries, unabashedly letting out a small burp after taking a sip of her chocolate flavored milkshake. Bowing his head, Jimin tries to hide his smile as he takes a bite of his burger. You decide to step in, wanting to add a little more MSG to your breakfast menu this fine morning. 

“Hey Chee, heard of the news last Monday? There had been recent occurrences of drivers kicking out their passengers in the middle of the expressway, especially this road in particular… talk about some zombie apocalypse shenanigans...I wonder why though…” 

Jungkook clears his throat, addressing you this time. “Your strawberry milkshake...good, yeah?” With cheeks flushed, Jungkook dares not to look forward, murmuring his regrets over ordering more food next time. 

You nod with genuine gusto, throwing him an additional thumbs-up, which only causes Jungkook to sulk slightly in his seat. You eat the rest of your food with a bright smile. Ah, free food - what else is there to say? 

“If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.” 

After reading the Hippocratic oath, the newly declared licensed medical doctors collectively put their hands down and take their seats. There is an immediate sense of fulfillment heavy in the air. Nobody can blame them - not when one has gruelled through six years of medical school. 

Jungkook inhales deeply, yet he still feels like he’s out of breath. 

He draws in another long one, savoring each second of exhale afterwards. From his peripheral vision, Jungkook watches you as you wave endlessly to the someone on the far right where the family and relatives are seated. Though he can’t see much from afar, with the way your hands are moving slower by the second, he figures you’ve already managed to catch the attention of whoever it is you were waving at. 

Jungkook diverts his eyes somewhere else, eventually landing on the stage where he sees his own father, standing behind the podium as he gives - what people beside him would consider - a ‘motivational’ speech in front of all the new doctors of Korea. 

He wonders if he could even see him, if he knew that his own son actually made it through college, if he realized that they were under the same roof at this very moment - an occurrence he never thought would happen again. 

Jungkook reverts his eyes back to you, watching you in secret as you talk to yourself while trying to address someone else. So you were waving to your parents after all. Cute. The man couldn’t fight back the small smile etching onto his face.  

He was happy for you - a genuine statement, even though majority, if not all, your encounters consist of you both bickering like small kids… And yet, he can’t deny the strong feeling of envy brewing at his heart, knowing that he could never have the same type of interaction you had with your parents, with how tight you all seem. 

Jungkook felt sick. Even though you ordered twice as much as he did, he felt like throwing up. He wanted this ceremony to be over with already.

Much to Jungkook’s relief, the program ends shortly after that. Excited to greet and congratulate the new batch of doctors, people from all sides of the venue rush to the entrance. With literally nowhere else to go, Jungkook decides to follow you through the crowd, in the hopes that you’ll lead him to Chohee and Jimin so he could properly thank them for the ride and he could be on his way. 

He’s surprised to not see you the least bothered by it, but then again, the convention center is packed with both the oath-takers and their relatives, so you might have really not known that he’s been following you all along. 

Like usual, it’s Chohee who notices him first. This girl is everywhere, all the time. 

“Jungkook, you’re here!” 

Chohee's acknowledgement of his presence causes you to turn in your heel quickly to verify it. You stare at him briefly, opening your mouth as if to say something when someone calls out your name.  “Mom!! Dad!!” 

Your English call causes a few onlookers and Jungkook recalls somebody once pointing out that you were a foreigner - and that you were also the first one to finish at the top of the class at SNU. 

With Chohee’s parents tailing yours, they rush to their own daughter, congratulating her with a hug and a cute bouquet of tulips. As Jimin appears with his own party not too long afterwards, Jungkook figures it’s his cue to leave. At this rate, none of you would have noticed if he actually left. 

Just as Jungkook was about to take off, a small hand grabs his wrist. You’re looking up at him and he swears he sees your lips curve upward a little before dragging him back to your little group. Stunned as ever, Jungkook wonders if he hinted on a little bit of concern in your features… and you smiled at him! For the first time! At least that’s what he thought he saw. 

Admittedly, all interactions between you and him were not the most friendly. Jungkook knew he acted like a dick a couple of times, but it’s the only way he knows that might allow you to lower your guard because the only thing he was certain of was that you get worked up every time you see him. 

Regardless of whether or not it really was a smile, Jungkook finds himself standing in the midst of this gathering of some sort. “Moms, Dads, this is Jeon Jungkook and Park Jimin.” 

The moms suddenly gush over them, while their fathers eye the two younger men warily. “Are you?… you’re not…” Chohee’s mother nudges her husband a little too obviously. “If they are, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, would it?” she grits, a bright smile plastered on her face. Jungkook wanted to laugh at the uncanny resemblance with her daughter. 

“Oh what young fine men you are! Mrs. Park, you must be very proud of your son!” Your mother exclaims, resting her cheek on her palm. “But Jungkook-ssi, your parents must be lost then… my husband and I couldn’t figure out how this whole convention center works either…” 

Jungkook shakes his head slowly, lips pursed. “Oh. Um, my parents won’t make it today. They’re very busy people…” Jungkook drags his words, hoping they’ll drop the subject. 

Well, they did, but there was an inevitable pregnant pause after that - one which Jungkook was avoiding in the first place. Chohee’s mother clasps her hands together, breaking the awkward tension. “Uh - would you like to join us then? A little celebration for a memorable day?” 

Jungkook bows his head curtly and declines the offer. He wanted to, but he knows it’ll only do more damage to the wound. “It’s okay, Ma’am. I still have quite a lot of things to do today, like getting my motorcycle fixed.” Jungkook nods to Chohee and the girl briefly recalls how they got to the venue together. 

Jungkook doesn’t take long after that, bidding his goodbye to everyone and thanking Chohee for the ride that morning. “Well, I’ll be going now. __________-ssi, Chohee-ssi, Jimin-ssi, guess I’ll….see you when I see you.” 

“See you when we see you then,” you reply and Jungkook swears it’s an actual smile on your face this time. He returns the action and gets on his way, hoping that he really does get to see you all another time.

© joontier 2021