#i don't even know what scoring a 6 (on the field) means

[fullscoreshenanigans]

Hi🥰. I have this tpn theory for months now, so I would like to know what you think about it 🥰.

Could be 'Him' (Demon God) be a member of the Evil blood clan?

I was flicking through the pages of the Artbook because of the BTAD Zine and found these two pages next to each other.

This could be just a lucky placing of course, but I began to think. Mujika's and the One's design looks similar (or maybe I just overthink it lol)

But what if the royal demons made up the tradition of Tifari to get themselves more food?

They do look pretty similar with their horn placements! Though the demon god's always remain larger in proportion to his mask whereas hers are more dainty.

(Chapter 181 | 158 | 49 | 176 | 140)

They also have similar body shapes when he's in his preferred smaller child form.

(Mystic Code Book Chapter 5)

And while not directly related as parent and child, there's the aesthetics of having a singular god (even dubbed "The One" when they had to decide on a name when adapting the anime) and Mujika acting as a fairly solid parallel to Jesus. (Kei Toda gets into this more in her book, Reading The Promised Neverland with a British/American Literature Scholar, which can be found here.)

Shirai doesn't have any interest in divulging the demon god's origins prior to the original promise, so all we have to go on is this:

(Mystic Code Book Chapter 6 Q&A)

With another parallel of both being shunned due to being considered a threat to the greater social order of the demon world.

I'm of a similar mind to Shirai in that I don't think it's necessary to have a concrete origin for the demon god beyond his role as a profoundly powerful entity in the narrative that the demon aristocracy use as a means to justify their rule over the general populace. This extends to the arbitrary creation of Tifari, though why it falls on/around November 10th of the Gregorian calendar (introduced in 1582, roughly 500 years after the original promise) could have been due to other demon world customs or historical events besides it being the time of year the original promise was made. But if you wanted to expand upon these origins in a fanfic, all the more power to you.

But what if the royal demons made up the tradition of Tifari to get themselves more food?

They sort of did, depending on what you mean by get more.

(Chapter 142)

Again, Tifari is arbitrary in that the demon god doesn't actually need the highest grade meat for sustenance. He's evolved beyond that centuries before the demon nobility find out about the evil blood. He just wants it because he knows it's what the demon king and later Legravalima covet the most, and under the monarchy they've established they'd normally be the ones receiving the best meat (by their metrics).

It's possible more offerings than what we see at the 2047 Tifari were demanded in the past, and that surplus was siphoned off by the upper echelons.

(Chapter 146)

But for simplicity's sake, it's probably been the three highest grade since the beginning for how it mirrors the significance paid to the full score trio being the first time in Grace Field's recorded history there's ever been three children of that caliber at a house at the same time.

(Chapter 1 | 76 | 80 | 152 | 156 | 159)

There's also the three marks on the demon god's mask to keep the trinity/trio visuals going.

(Chapter 142)

So it didn't get them more food in the sense of increasing the amount of meat they hoarded for themselves. Like we see 700 years prior when the demon world was experiencing a famine, they would have finagled some reasoning for why they should have more to maintain their level of comfort and security.

(Chapter 147)

It did, however, continue to justify why they received the larger share of high quality meat. By ensconcing Tifari as a tradition and holding festivities for it every year to ostensibly appease The One that all the citizenry participates in, it legitimatizes their claim to rule and the system by which they maintain their authority, so it did get them more food in the sense of maintaining uncontested access as opposed to the citizens staging a mass uprising across the kingdom.

[anditwentlikethis]

men really think they did something when they say that hilarious funny goofy joke about how "Travis is scoring 6s on and off the field" like brothers Taylor Swift wrote a song about you, it's called Mean. go listen

[cringecompanionapologist]

I Found a Doctor Who RPG Sourcebook and I'm Making It Your Problem

Actually, I found several. It seems that there is a sort of Doctor Who tabletop RPG with sourcebooks for each Doctor that include ready-made character sheets for the Doctors, companions, and major players in each televised story.

I could look into all of them, if I really wanted to, but the thing is, my computer is nearly a decade old, slowly dying on me, and hates screenshots, so taking and storing a fuckton of screenshots of absolutely everything isn't something I can do. So, I'm just pulling a few interesting bits from the Second and Fifth Doctor Sourcebooks. There's no structure to this beyond me thinking "I wonder what their character sheet looks like".

So, the Second Doctor stuff is not much at all. I got the Doctor himself.

I should probably note that I don't have much experience with tabletop RPGs, and none with this one in particular, so I only half know how to read these. This screenshot isn't even very good. I'm working off a free site with a terrible zoom function and I couldn't get the whole thing. The basics are that characters have a set of six Stats, a bunch of Skills, some traits that give them special strengths and weaknesses, and some basic character information. The Second Doctor's got a lot of stuff, some of which even gets explained.

I've deduced that there's probably a separate manual for the basics of how the game works, what the Stats mean, what the Skills do, etc. So a lot of Why These Numbers Are What They Are questions go unanswered.

Any way, this screenshot sucks so much that I can't bare the sight of it any longer, so we're moving on to the next one. Here's Jamie:

Wow! You can actually see things this time.

Most of the stat numbers don't go above 5, from what I can tell. So we can assume that Jamie's strongest stats are Coordination, Presence, and Strength, without any stat being too weak.

The skills are more mixed.

Athletics most likely refers to physical skills, Convince is persuasion, Craft is making stuff, I think, Fighting needs no explanation, Knowledge is...well...knowing stuff, Marksman is shooting/throwing accuracy, Medicine is obviously medical knowledge, Science is...look a lot of these seem like special subcategories of knowledge that are self-explainatory, Subterfuge I think covers "rogue skills" like spying and lock-picking, Survival is the sort of things Boy Scouts learn probably, Technology is computers and technobabble, Transport is driving and the like.

So, when it comes to strengths, Jamie is physically fit, but can't swim. He is very good at fighting because he's a male companion in the 60s that that was like at least 75% of their job. Marksman is apparently based in knife-throwing ability. Subterfuge...well, if you've seen The Enemy of the World, Jamie is actually a pretty good spy.

As for weaknesses, Jamie knows nothing about any STEM field.

There's also a little number for Technology Level. I've seen this number go as high as 7, but the 18th and 19th century characters seem to be placed at a 4. I didn't get a screenshot but Victoria is the same, despite the whole Industrial Revolution thing.

Then we've got some personality traits and such that effect things. Jamie apparently gets points for being attractive and brave, as well as for being accepted anywhere in time and space no matter what he's wearing. There's really not a whole lot to analyze here.

Now, the entire reason I did Second Doctor stuff was because the villains get character sheets and I wanted to see Salamander's. I added the Doctor and Jamie to pretend I had any other reason to be there.

I took this screenshot without using the zoom and it looks pretty good actually.

It turns out that those skill numbers can go above 5 as Salamander scores a 6 in Ingenuity and Presence, as well as a 5 in Resolve. Almost all of his stats are pretty high. As an RPG villain, he's a boss fight.

Instead of a full chart of skills, which only Doctors and Companions get, Salamander just gets a list. His higher points here are Convince at 5, Knowledge at 4, Subterfuge at 5, and Technology at 5. Convince and Subterfuge are his more manipulative skills as a politician, while Knowledge and Technology are because he did, in fact, invent the technology he got popular for inventing. His Tech Level, at a 5, is somewhere between Jamie and Victoria, and some of the more futuristic aliens. That does make sense for the early 21st century, even a slightly more high-tech 21st century than the one that actually happened.

As for Traits, a lot of them give him bonus skills that are actually explained, such as the ability to invent gadgets, resist mind control, menace people into doing what he wants and get even bigger bonuses in Technology and Convince situations, being a tech genius for his time period and a respected authority figure.

So, cool stuff.

The Fifth Doctor stuff I got is a bit more extensive. We'll start with the Doctor himself.

The good news is that it's a full screenshot. The bad news is that it's very hard to read. We can see a very high Ingenuity stat, because he's the Doctor. There's a Tech Level 10, because I'm guessing that's Level Time Lord.

I do have enough info to compare his Skill number to the Second Doctors.

Athletics has risen from 1 to 4 because of all the cricket. Convince drops from a 5 to a 3, because nobody listens to Five while Two was fairly good at getting people to listen to him. Fighting has risen from absolute 0 to 2, which isn't much but it's literally something. You can see a lot of numbers improve slightly as the Doctor has learned more things over time, like Medicine going from 1 to 3.

I actually looked over four different companions this time. We'll go in order of introduction. Here's Adric.

His Tech Level is confusing in the blurry screenshot. But, as for other stuff, his fast healing and ability to control the TARDIS a little are noted, though the reality warping of Block Transfer Computation isn't because it's too damn complicated and has it's own system.

Adric's skills in general are pretty low, but they don't seem to be too unfair. These sourcebooks started coming out around 2013, when the fandom's aggressive Adric hatred had started to wind down, possibly as people realized that all the season 19 companions had writing problems and the confused performances you often get with confused writing, but Tegan and Nyssa stuck around longer so improvements could be made, and Big Finish started doing damage control with them earlier on, especially in Nyssa's case.

I'm actually surprised Adric's Athletics score is as high as it is. His Science score being only a 3 and Knowledge 2 confused me at first, but when I thought about it, it a makes sense. Adric knew a lot about mathematics but basically nothing anything else, even other STEM fields. Nyssa had to tell him what photosynthesis is, which I learned in elementary school science classes. Between this extreme focus on a single subject, lack of socials skills, and somewhat stilted speech and movement, I think I like Adric as much as I do because all this stuff feels like autism and I was an autistic teenager when I first saw him.

He also gets good Subterfuge skills because he can pick locks, do sleight of hand tricks, and overall has a good skill set that was rarely put to use.

And now, Nyssa:

Tech Level 7 explains where Traken is. We'll get to compare several different planets I guess.

Nyssa gets a higher science stat, with an emphasis on biochemistry. She has a more diverse STEM skill set than Adric. Other than that, I don't have much to report here. The fact that she's upper class seems to affect her ability to interact with people who aren't. As you will see, Turlough somehow isn't given this problem despite it being more obvious with him than with Nyssa.

But before that, there's Tegan.

Technology level 5 for the 1980s. These tech levels seem to cover a lot of historical ground. 1746 and 1866 are both in 4 and 1980 and 2018(futuristic version) are both in 5. I wonder what separates these levels from one another.

Tegan is considered fairly ordinary, not a fighter like Jamie nor a scientist like Nyssa, so her stats are kinda bad. Looking at her traits, her skills seem to include running and screaming, with points off for being impulsive, argumentative, and loud. I don't think the people who wrote this liked Tegan very much.

Anyway, of course there's Turlough.

Trion is apparently Tech Level 7, the same as Traken. So that turned out to not be very interesting.

His main strengths are in Convince and Technology. He can half-understand the TARDIS at times and appears to be good at lying to people. The fact that he doesn't get running and screaming in his traits and Tegan does is sexism. He also gets to be charming, though not attractive like Nyssa or Tegan. Men can get this trait, since Jamie did. I think he's commonly seen as average-looking.

Also the fact that he's seen as lucky with all the shit he went through is hilarious.

Finally, as a bit of a bonus, Captain Wrack from Enlightenment has a character sheet. How do you even make stats for an Eternal?

Many of her stats are surprisingly low for basically a low-level god. Though she's got a high Knowledge score and a Tech Level of 12, since Eternals go beyond Time Lords, though it's more power than technology with them, isn't it? Do we just not know how to factor this in?

So when it comes to these tech levels:

18th-19th century Earth = 4

20th-21st century Earth = 5

Traken and Trion = 7

Time Lords = 10

Eternals = 12

That's all I got for now. I hope you enjoyed this bit of fussing over meaningless numbers.

[wexhappyxfew]

“Don’t leave my sight again” for Kennedy and Bucky! Only if you want! I love your writing! <3

HI SWEET ANON!!!!! thank you so so much for popping this in the askbox and for the love on my writing! it means SO MUCH!! i had a lot of fun with this one - we went in a direction i wanted to explore a bit more with the kennedy x bucky dynamic, especially their ever-present bickering about sports with their (respective) red sox and yankees, hehe. i really enjoyed this prompt because i could still utilize the dynamic i wanted, but inject the prompt into the writing in a way that was more heartfelt and meaningful than anything, so, please enjoy!! :D

lips itching to grin

(a/n): kennedy x bucky girlies, we're back and better than ever and focusing on the early days again with these two, specifically in the ever-present baseball rivalry (with a side of heartfelt and slightly flirty banter that neither side may or may have not predicted.....). ps: there's a whole lot of baseball references in here along with a deep dive into the red sox and yankees baseball almanac of 1942 players, as (to preface) they discuss a yankees x red sox game from 1942, with some of their own perspectives (though we enter the conversation in the middle lol). please enjoy!!! <3333

"Alright, well, runners on first and second, game-tying run at second, bottom of the 5th," Kennedy started, as she watched Paulina offer one of the newer replacements a dance as Billie Holiday sung with those swing trumpets over their heads, "you got Joe DiMaggio coming up with two outs. Dick Newsome's already at 78 pitches."

"Easy," Bucky offers as Paulina and the replacement move out towards the center of the floor and start dancing - Kennedy likes seeing her smile, "DiMaggio hits an RBI double and makes it to second base. Then you ain't even tied up anymore. Score's 4-3."

"But," Kennedy started, glancing upwards at him with a look as she tilted her head, a smile on her cheeks, "you got Charlie Keller up next. Getting to that point in your roster where it gets a little….hairy."

"Says the one with Joe Cronin on your-"

"Focus." Kennedy said snapping in front of his face, bringing a smirk onto his lips as he looked back at her, "We're talking about the fucking Yankees right now, Bucky."

"Don't call them the fucking Yankees."

"They're the fucking Yankees to me, got it?" she said and she watched Bucky turn from his position leaned up backwards against the bar to actually facing her, "What?"

"You get really passionate about your Red Sox, huh?" he said, leaning his hand up against the side of his face and watching her, "I'd hate to mess with you-"

"You already have." she told him in a sing-song voice as she turned and took a sip of her beer and looked out to the dance floor again, "Try growing up as the only girl in a house full of brothers. You either play baseball or you are the baseball, I'm afraid." Bucky snickered at that and sipped his own drink - bourbon maybe, she could smell it on his lips from here.

"What the hell kinda baseball did the Farley brothers play?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Clearly not that great of baseball, you're all Red Sox fans."

"Says the one who willingly became a Yankees fan."

"Willingly-"

"At least I grew up in the area! It makes sense!"

"Can't knock me, Yankees' got a fan all the way from Wisconisn - can't say the same about other teams now, huh?" Bucky said leaning towards her with a grin, "Gotcha there, huh?" Kennedy watched him.

"Bill Dickey comes up and goes out swinging," Kennedy said, staring him down, "Red Ruffing's taken outta the game. Atley Donald's up on the mound. Johnny Pesky's up to bat. Donald walks him. Tony Lupien comes up - an absolute bomb outta the field. Rest of the game is a no-go. Red Sox win. 6-4."

"For someone who despises the Yankees, you sure do know a whole lot about them." Bucky said, sipping his drink again, "It's cute. You trying to impress me with that Yankees stuff."

"I just know a whole lot about games where my Red Sox win," Kennedy mouthed back, the tops of her cheeks burning, "you'd know if I was trying to impress you."

"When's that happened?"

"Never."

"Huh."

"Exactly." she said, sending him a look and he smirked again, his eyes watching her in that manner they always seemed to, "What's that look for?"

"What'd you usually play?" he asked her, that lazy grin growing on his face, "C'mon, I know you were probably in a group of kids that got together to play. What were ya? No….let me guess. First base, you're pretty tall." She stared at him and raised a brow. "No?"

"What about this," she started, standing up straight and holding out her arms, "screams first base, huh?"

"Fine. Shortstop. Speedy, quick-witted-"

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Don't get in over your head."

"Continue…." Kennedy said with a smirk.

"Shortstop." Bucky said, "Final answer."

"Ding-ding, you're correct," she said with a smile, "usually my older brother and I fought over that position. He usually gave in."

"You were convincing enough." Bucky said, sipping his drink again.

"I was better than him." she offered back, catching that look on his face, "What, like it's hard to believe?"

"Nah, nah," Bucky said shaking his head back and forth and grinning, before avoiding her questioning entirely, "you like hitting?"

"Usually was middle of the pack, sometimes cleanup, I flip-flopped." she said with a winning smirk, "Wasn't often I got cleanup though, my older brother, he's a fucking giant, like 6 foot 5 or something - Bobby - he usually could drive in any and all runners. Sometimes he let me in the spot. It was usually some stupid fight we'd have, but he'd let me have my ways sometimes. Which was nice." Bucky grinned at her again and she couldn't tell whether that was just how he decided to look at people or if there was something else going on behind those eyes and that smile. But she just left it for the time being and took to sipping her drink again.

An upbeat Ozzie Nelson beat came over above them, which immediately sent Kennedy thinking of home again - its summer, the windows are open, her mother's got the radio playing the music she always used when cleaning the house; a mix of Artie Shaw, Billie Holiday, Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. Sometimes even some Ray Noble. Any sort of music as such would remind her of that time in her youth, racing around the house with her brothers, this music in her ears, the kitchen smelling like lemon soap and freshly scrubbed, the linens hanging outside, the sound of her mother sweeping and shooing away her brothers or their dog, Gunny.

"My ma loves this music," Kennedy said with a smile, looking out to the dance floor as people danced and clung onto one another, as if it were the only thing they had apart from those flying coffins - human touch, more important than anything when they were here, "she played it all the time at home."

"She a big band fan?" Bucky asked her, and she looked to him with a smile and nodded. The corners of his eyes grew soft - she noticed he did that sometimes when he was really listening to you; really, really listening. When she had first noticed it, she'd been taken back at the intensity with which he would watch and listen, but he did it so subtly she had never really noticed until now.

"Always has been." Kennedy said with a nod, "I mean, with five sons and one daughter, there isn't a whole lot of space to listen to quiet jazz, or…something or other. Everyone always wanted big band being played." Bucky let out a bark of a chuckle and then got quiet again, glancing her way with that cautious look painted on his face. He knocked her shoulder lightly.

"And you?" he asked her, a slightly playful look on his face, lips itching to grin again.

"What about me?"

"What do you like?" he asked her, "What does Kennedy Farley dance around to her when no one's looking?" Kennedy couldn't help but laugh, a real genuine laugh and shake her head.

"Usually Benny Goodman or Glenn Miller."

"Like mother, like daughter." Bucky said with a smile, "What's she doing now ya think? Your ma?" Kennedy shrugged, feeling slightly homesick at the thought of her Ma, at home, with all her children off to war, or college, or school, her husband off to work, leaving her in that big house all alone. Her stomach twisted unpleasantly and she couldn't fight the sad expression off her face.

"Probably getting dinner ready - she makes a damn good beef stew. Chop the carrots, onions, celery. Let the beef sit and marinate for a while. The whole house would smell almost like Christmas Eve," Kennedy said softly, before quirking out a grin, "waiting for Dad to get home from work." She stared at Bucky who watched her back. "Your ma?"

"Much of the same probably." Bucky said, leaning up against the bar and schooling his features evenly, "Cooking up dinner, waiting for my dad to get home." Bucky smiled almost bittersweetly. "Wish she didn't have to be there alone, ya know?"

"Yeah," Kennedy said quickly, her emotions warping with her intense want to berate him yet again over baseball, but her softer side took over and she looked at him, "I don't doubt though if I went home, she'd be telling me 'Don't leave my sight again.'" Kennedy said with a small smile. "Broke her damn heart for me to come out here. Only daughter. One of the youngest." Bucky watched her, his face quiet, his expressions even and he seemed at once, intently focused purely on her.

"She didn't want me to come." Kennedy told him honestly, feeling like if she didn't get it off her chest now, she never would tell a soul, "Here. Flying B-17s, being a gunner, getting my hands on a .50 cal. She hated the idea of all of it. But I guess she let me go because she knew it was what I wanted. What I needed. For me." She looked over at Bucky and saw nothing but that gentle, fond expression on his face. She smiled slightly. He smiled right back, almost instantly.

"Well, I'm glad you're here," he said, watching as her face morphed from sadness to mild surprise, to which he laughed at, "yeah, I swear to ya, Farley. I really am. Hey, who was it that saw you shooting that .50 cal back in training and hand-picked you for my gunners, alright?" She was quiet. "That was me."

"And then of course Birdie took you under her wing and the rest is history, but I didn't forget that at some point in time, you were one of my waist gunners," he said, knocking her shoulder lightly again, "a good one at that, you know that?" Just hearing Birdie's name made her heart squeeze.

"It's really nothing special-"

"You shot Expert, Farley," he said, holding her gaze with a firm look, "that sends eyes wandering, I promise ya."

Oh.

She watched him for a moment before her fingers were getting twitchy and she needed something for them and to get herself to look away from that look in his eyes.

"Cigarette?" she asked him, pulling from his gaze to dig her hand into her pockets and produce the slightly crumpled cigarette packet she always had on hand. He watched her before slowly nodding.

"Sure." he said, as she innately popped open the top and produced two cigarettes, sliding one onto her lip and the other into his own hands, "Thanks."

"The least I could do for a compliment like that." she said, almost bashfully, as he placed it on his lip with a chuckle.

"First time anyone's ever told you that?"

"People don't tell me a whole lot of things like that ever so," Kennedy started, before attempting to smile, "yeah, first time for everything" Bucky watched her curiously as he produced a lighter and leaned forward to light up her cigarette before doing his own.

"Really?" he asked her, almost surprised - why would he need to act surprised, why did he even bother to care? She nodded. Bucky watched her for a moment, fingertips drumming against his cigarette as he stared at her; his gaze not one she was entirely even turning away from or wanting to.

"Cleanup." She stared at him, raising a brow.

"Tell Bobby Farley that you shoulda been in cleanup in the lineup." Bucky said, turning towards the bar again and calling for another drink, "Shortstops are usually closer to the top of the lineup anyway, right?" Kennedy watched him, her heart pounding.

"Bucky-"

"I woulda put you in that clean-up spot any day of the week, believe me." he said, smiling at her, with a grin, before turning to the bar and getting his drink. And she recited deep from within her mind, something Bobby Farley had taught her well and good in their screaming matches - 4th slot in the lineup, cleanup spot, usually one of the more or most important players in the lineup; they're powerful, drive in runs and more than anything are one thing - consistent.

[cloudsspoke]

Breaking: Paulo Dybala no va a la Copa

This whole Dybala mess really upsets me.

This is actually kinda ironic for me because back in March, at the end of my post (this post), I wrote a lengthy paragraph about how fans’ toxic culture could destroy this team.

That supporters’ behavior who tend to compete players against e.o or criticize players, act like they have the right to decide who should join the NT and who shouldn’t is ridiculous. I mean, being Scaloni isn’t an easy job. Not only that Scaloni have to defend the Copa America title holder, but he also has to pick 23 or 26 players to be invited for his Copa squad when roughly 50 players are showing immense performance on their respective clubs this season. It must’ve been a dilemma, and supporters need to be wise in accepting what Scaloni has decided and believe that Scaloni knows better what is best for his team.

I never expected that I would have to swallow the bitter pill of my own words. Because that is actually what’s happening now, with Dybala becoming the center of controversion in light of the decision made by Scaloni.

Really, who would have thought that the player that gets left behind would be Dybala?

We’ve all seen how Dybala is a true baller this season, despite his injuries. Man be the only player who won 3 POTM awards, assisted 9 times, and scored 13 goals with 7 of that being 100% successful penalties. Unlike how he got injured 40 days before the World Cup, this time –less than a month before Copa– he’s fit. But what the heck then Scaloni decided not to call him?????

Maybe this is what Scaloni meant when he said, those who played for WC don’t have any advantages. That the only 2 players who got a 100% guarantee to play for this year’s Copa are just Messi and Di Maria. But the idea of not calling Dybala is just a total shocker to almost everyone.

A little throwback when the news of him picking up an injury just 40 days before the World Cup sent his teammates into concern. According to Cuti’s statement, their Whatsapp Group chat talked about that and he felt bad for Dybala.

But, surprise surprise, he still made it into the list and joined the whole team just a day before he celebrated his birthday with the team in Abu Dhabi (November 14th).

You can see just how happy and relieved everyone was when they embraced Dybala, even Cuti hogged him from the rest of the players.

Back to the present time.

How can I defend Dybala without discrediting other players, such as Angel Correa, Garnacho (who did well on United tbh), Carboni, or Nico Gonzales, whom according to Sofascore they are all scored less than Dybala’s average rating.

How can I explain that I don't expect Dybala to play as a starter (I don't even expect him to play as a sub either). My only plea toward Scaloni is simply to put Dybala on the roster just like Scaloni always puts Armani despite him not playing. Dybala's presence itself is enough for me.

I know the reality is kinda harsh for Dybala as he found it difficult to get a permanent spot (not only in the Scaloni era).

As in the last World Cup, Dybala only played <20 minutes (replacing Julian in the 74th minute in the match against Croatia and coming on in the last minute during the Final match).

Moreover, in the previous Copa Dybala was also absent due to poor performance at Juve caused by his injury. It really hurts to know he missed the chance to play when the country won the trophy.

To lessen the disappointment, he at least won Finalissima by only playing for 5 minutes, and amazingly in just that short time he scored a goal to secure that 3-0 victory over Italy.

Looking back at the 2019 Copa, out of the total 6 matches played by Argentina, Dybala’s first time entering the field was in the 3rd match against Qatar. Coming on in the 76th minute to replace Lautaro, providing an assist for Kun 6 minutes later. Argentina’s 4th match, he played in the last 5 minutes when Argentina was leading 2-0.

In the next game, again he came in the 85th minute when Argentina had already lost 2-0 to Brazil, and as for the last match to obtain the 3rd place Dybala played as a starter, along with Messi and Kun, scored in the 22nd minute before being replaced by Di Maria in the 67th minute.

Can you see what I’m trying to prove here?

Dybala may not always be the #1 option, but when he eventually plays, he delivers. He’s a clutch. And just like his statement, that he simply wanted to support the team, and tried not to show an angry or frustrated face for not being played. He knew this, and regardless of the situation he was fine with that. He accepted that.

And judging from how very important it is to be an NT player for every Argentinian footballer, I believe Dybala is happy enough to be invited to this year’s Copa even without any guarantee that Scaloni will really let him play. I believe he wouldn’t mind being a benchwarmer (unlike that England player who refused the country call because he didn’t want to be a benchwarmer under Southgate as coach).

So, what made Scaloni leave him out this time around?

What frustrates me the most is knowing there’s no logical reason to justify Scaloni’s shocking decision not to call Dybala up for Copa. There’s absolutely no reason at all.

1) He's fit,

2) His performance with Roma this season is amazing despite injury, while the other players that Scaloni chose are actually played not much better than Dybala,

3) Sentimental aspect-wise, he's one of the senior players,

And even more so 4) He has good chemistry with the whole team (( Especially since he's also part of Messi's close circle –Messi, LDP, Ota, Di Maria, and the Palo Santo trio– ))

5) Nothing bad happened between him and Scaloni previously (as confirmed by Scaloni himself in this interview).

Even Scaloni told that story about his son Noah’s favorite player is Dybala. Like, is that doesn't mean a thing??????

In return, Dybala always shows respect to Scaloni. Never openly throw a fit or complaint.

6) More importantly, this might be Dybala’s last chance to play in Copa America ffs!!

So, what's with the sudden plot twist????

Many people reacted to this news by saying, “Scaloni can do everything that he wants, you don’t question him”, "With or without Dybala won't change anything", and yes, it’s true. Scaloni could have called Dybala either based on performance aspect or sentimental reason, or even simply just because he can and I bet no one will gonna file a complaint about that because almost all of us expected Dybala to be there!! And okay, Dybala's existence won't give any differences since probably won't play either, but at the very least it could spare Scaloni from having this unnecessary public frenzy.

But somehow out of nowhere, Scaloni chose the extreme opposite. Which then sparked public heated discussion, and eventually, supporters dragged the other players like Garnacho or Nico Gonzales, when In my opinion the most random thing out of this situation is the fact that Scaloni chose Angel Correa over Dybala (again, I don't mean to belittle Correa, simply just stating a fact that it's bizarre).

Call me overreacting or being a bit too dramatic, but it feels like Scaloni is using the power that he knows he has. I’m saying this because there’s no justifiable reason to explain this Dybala situation, this feels like purely a power trip from the coach.

I try to respect Scaloni’s decision, I try to be positive and supportive, I want to be level-headed in response to this news, I try not to hate the coach, I try not dragging the other players, and even try to not pity Dybala’s bad luck too, but it’s just hard.

I know, anything can still happen.

Who knows, right?

Maybe Scaloni suddenly realizes that he made a mistake and is willing to make a little change on the squad list. Maybe some players try to reason with Scaloni for him to call Dybala. Or maybe someone from the already selected strikers picks up a last-minute injury so he can’t play thus Scaloni has no other option than to replace that someone with Dybala (this is very ill thought coming from my brain, pardon not pardon). or maybe Dybala will get married to Oriana this June, so at the very least, he won’t be feeling too woeful to abstain from Copa (the last part is just my wishful thinking tho)…

At last, I'm upset knowing that Dybala out from Copa means I won't get any new content of this beloved Cordobese pair.

And for this reason alone, Scaloni, sir, what you did is a crime.

UPDATE:

Paulo Dybala rompió el silencio tras la no convocatoria a la Selecci��n Argentina:

Tenía confianza en formar parte del equipo, así que fue un golpe muy duro para mí porque ser parte de la selección nacional es una de las mejores cosas que he tenido. Entiendo que a nuestro entrenador le resulte difícil elegir. Tenemos tantos buenos jugadores en equipos de toda Europa y él tiene que elegir 26. Respeto su decisión. Siempre le he dicho eso. Tengo una gran relación con él y sin duda ha elegido lo mejor para la Selección Argentina.

Estaré animando desde casa, como siempre que no estoy en el equipo. Tengo muchos amigos y espero de todo corazón que puedan volver a ganar la Copa América.

No estoy llorando, tú estás llorando 😭😭😭😭

[l-egionaire]

You know what? Since I gave my ideas for Illvermorny, why not give some Quodpot stuff I have too.

There are 11 positions on a Quodpot team. 6 Chargers, 4 Runners, and the Commander. The Runners are sort of the equivalents of chasers in Quidditch. Their job is to move across the field and score by throwing the Quod into their teams cauldron. Only Runners and Commanders are allowed to actually touch the Quod and score points. If any of the chargers touch the ball, it's a foul, and the ball is given to the other team, as well as its explosion timing lowered. Chargers are responsible for trying to either delay runners or to knock the ball out of their hands so that the Quod can be caught by a member of their team. Commanders are responsible for scoring goals like Runners, but they're also responsible for making the teams plays and deciding what strategy to use before each move. If the Quod explodes in the face of a runner or commander, they're called off the field. The games over once all a teams Runners and their Commander are off the field, so often players try not to have the Commander hold onto the ball for long or make goals. Each cauldron is held on towers at opposite ends of the field and the players meet in the middle before each move for the ball, similar to Quidditch. Each goal is worth 10 points each.

Just like how football is considered more violent than soccer, Quodpot is a LOT rougher than Quidditch. There's lots more physical damage, crashes, injuries, broken bones, and players getting roughed up in general. Healers are on standby at all times, and it's not uncommon for them to rush out to heal up a hurt player. There's an unofficial record for how many times the healers will have to be called in on games.

Most non-Americans or people who have never seen a game of Quodpot think that when someone says the ball will "explode," that just means it'll burst with a small pop. But no. When the Quod explodes, it goes off like a bomb in the players arms and leaves them covered in scorch marks. To protect themselves from that, players during games wear armor overtop of their Qoudpot robs. The armor is similar to a Roman or Greek armor, with gauntlets, greaves, shoulder armor, chest plates, and, of course, helmets. The armor is always done to match with the team colors, with their team's logo stamped onto the side of their helmets. The helmets themselves are especially important as they're enchanted to dampen the effects of the balls explosion on the eyes, nose and ears. While it COULD be possible to make it so that the helmets and armor COMPLETELY nullified the effects of the exploding Quod and keep the players from getting hurt by it, as one teams coach put it, "that'd take the fun out of the game".

A Quod usually explodes within twenty to thirty minutes of being in play, depending on things like how many times it's thrown, how fast the player is holding it is flying and other factors. Players CAN choose to throw the ball before it explodes (they're only taken out if they're actually holding the ball when it blows) and some even attempt this as a tactic to take out opposing players by giving THEM the ball just as it's about to go off, but it usually doesn't work as most Runners train not to instinctively catch the ball unless it's thrown by one of their teammates and simply let it go off in their face.

Due to the potentially numerous balls needed, Quod balls are usually duplicated with a multiplication charm during the game so that they don't run out. For young children who can't do those charms, their parents take care of it.

[lifewithchronicpain]

In case you want to attempt to understand the big game this Sunday:

I know most people on here don't care about the Super Bowl, but given the popularity of the Chiefs thanks to Taylor Swift, I thought I'd share a basic explanation of the game for those who feel totally lost.

A football field is 100 yards, the game time is 60 minutes with 4 15 minute quarters. Each team is assigned a side that will switch after the first and third quarter to negate any advantage to one side. The object of the game is to bring the ball into the end zone for a touch down, or to kick a field goal. Every inch forward you gain with the ball in your possession is how the game is won.

The game starts with a kickoff where the catching team is on offense (decided by coin flip) trying to get the ball to the end zone on the other end. They have 4 tries to get 10 yards, that's called a down. When they reach or surpass 10 yards they get a first down, meaning their chances reset and they have to make another 10 yards or the end zone. It's possible to lose yards, so you might starts 1st and ten, running back gets pushed back and your next move is at 2nd and 13 yards. Then you can throw the ball for 15 yards on the third down and you're now you're at first and ten again until you fail to make 10 yards or get a touchdown.

If you can't get the ball to the 10 yard mark, after 3 tries, you have to either use your last chance to "go on 4th down" or to punt. If you lose your chance to get 1st down on the 4th try, the other team picks up the ball exactly where you left off. If you do that and you're not even close to the end zone, you're giving the opposing team great field position. But if you're 4th down and 1 yard from a touchdown and you need that to win, you go for it. Punting is to prevent good field advantage on a failed 4th down. The ball is kicked into the other team's territory to set them back as much as possible. If the team scores they also kick it to the other time but in that instance it's a kickoff.

There are two ways of moving the ball, running and throwing and the opposing team on defense does everything they can to fuck that up. Now as much as I enjoyed football in my youth I never learned all the positions, but you really only need to know a quarterback throws, a receiver catches, and running back runs the ball without having been thrown the ball but rather handed off at the start of a play. Throwing the ball goes farther but runs the risk of incomplete passes or turnovers, where the defense gets the ball from the offense. Sometimes a turnover can ever be turned into a touchdown, so it is possible for the defense to score.

A touchdown is 6 points, then you have the option of kicking in an extra point, or running it into the end zone again from a set distance for 2 points. The latter is harder so almost every touchdown gets an extra point, but if you need 2 points to tie or win, then coaches have gone for them on occasion.

A field goal is 3 points and when the ball is kicked through the yellow bars, and can only be done from a certain point on the field which is about the 35 yard line. You kick a field goal when you know you can't make a touchdown just to get points on the board, and have made the difference with ties and victories.

This already long post is really just the basics. I've watched football for 20 years and I don't know all the rules about what holding position constitutes a fumble (dropped ball that can be picked up by opposing team) and how much a player needs to be in bounds to make a catch, but the newscasters do their best to explain. Just go with it.

So if this is your first ever football game or super bowl, I hope I've now made it at least a little bit clearer.

[uncloseted]

what do you think about gender reveal parties. I don't think they're problematic or maybe they are but there's a way to make them not problematic. yes those "football player or ballerina" cakes or those things that cause fires are stupid but announcing whether you're having a male child or a female child should not be problematic??? even the most woke people end up raising their babies as boys or girls. i don't think having a party should change anything

I think you're right that there's probably a way to make them not problematic. And I think their original intention, to celebrate that the inventor's pregnancy had developed to the point that the sex of the fetus could be determined after several miscarriages, is genuinely really beautiful. And I don't think there's anything wrong with revealing the assumed sex of the baby at a baby shower or a similar event.

That said, I don't think it's as simple as you're making it. I don't think it's a coincidence that gender reveal parties have become popular in a time where there's growing anxieties about changing gender roles, increasing changes to gender equality (both positively and negatively) and the meaning of gender itself. Gender reveal parties frequently seek to reestablish rigid gender roles through the way they represent each gender. As you say, gender reveal parties usually have some form of gender essentialism present in them. It's almost always "blue for a boy, pink for a girl" or "football player for a boy or ballerina for a girl" or "guns for a boy or glitter for a girl", "pistol for a boy or pearls for a girl", "wheels for a boy or heels for a girl", etc. It's not usually something more neutral like, "Superman or Wonder Woman" or like, "Bluey or Peppa Pig", where there's not very much gendered baggage present.

I'm not saying it never happens, but I am saying that I think the people who are drawn to gender reveal parties are usually drawn to them because gender essentialism is important to them in some way. And it's also creating an entire event that's centered around the idea that gender is the most important thing about this baby's identity. People never seem to have "name reveal parties" or "eye color reveal parties" or whatever, you know? They're gender reveal parties because that's the most important thing to the parents. It's what they're imagining when they think about who this kid will be and how they'll move in the world.

And you might say that it's not that deep. A lot of people do say that. Like you said, "even the most woke people end up raising their babies as boys or girls" (which is not strictly true, but I get your point). "Having a party [shouldn't] change anything". And you're right. It shouldn't. But it does. Babies are subject to a ton of gendered stereotypes pretty much from the time that they're born. One study found that parents of newborns rated daughters as more soft, fine-featured, awkward, and weak, but sons as more firm, big, well-coordinated and strong—despite no objective differences between the sexes in weight, length, or Apgar scores. Another found that “boy” babies were seen as stronger and more of a problem, whereas “girls” were perceived to be more sensitive, and a third study found that mothers had more optimistic expectations of the motoric abilities of boys than girls—in the absence of any actual differences. And this persists throughout childhood. Girls begin to internalize the idea that the most important thing they can be is good-looking, while boys internalize that "being tough" is the most important thing for them. Other studies found that by age 6, girls were already significantly less likely than boys to say that members of their own gender were "really, really smart," and that young girls often receive the message that the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are not “for them” or that they're naturally worse at those subjects than boys.

To some degree, this stereotyping is probably inevitable. Regardless of how you raise your kid and what the school you send them to is like, eventually they'll encounter someone who subjects them to rigid gender roles that impact their perception of their own identity. But parents can control how much those gender roles impact their kid's perception of their own identity, and to a degree, they can control how much other people project those gender roles onto their kid. By throwing a very gender essentialist gender reveal party, it's indicating to friends and family that it is not only okay to stereotype the kid based on gender, but encouraged to do so. Having a party changes the precedent that's being set about what is and isn't appropriate behavior towards this baby. It's encouraging people to buy the baby "girl toys" or "boy toys", to buy them clothes in pink or blue, to view the baby in a gendered way instead of just as a baby.

And that's ignoring the fact that gender reveal parties are creating a whole event from the results of a prenatal sex discernment test. Depending on the method the doctor is using, those provide an inaccurate result between 1% to 5% of the time. And between 0.02% and 0.05% of babies are born visibly intersex. Depending on the definition used, up to 1.7% of people can be considered intersex. It's not always so simple as "it's a boy" and "it's a girl", but gender reveal parties kind of ignore that possibility and set an expectation for what this baby *should* be like. And it's not really considering who this baby will be when they're born and as they grow up. For queer or trans kids, they're gendered differently than their cishet peers from a very young age. And a lot of kids are just gender non-conforming in some way- "tomboys" and "sissies" have long been gendered expressions that we just kind for cis kids.

I guess again what I'm getting at is that a gender reveal party sets an expectation for who this kid will be, and I think that creates the potential for a lot of pressure on the kid and a lot of disappointment for the parents. And I think that in any other context, we would feel like that's weird. If a parent threw their unborn baby a party being like, "this kid is going to be an opera singer!", we would think that's weird, because who knows who the kid will be? Maybe they'll want to play rugby instead. But we've just kind of accepted it when it comes to gender reveal parties. And that's not to even talk about the gender reveal parties where it's super clear that the parents are visibly disappointed with (or even angry about) the result of the reveal.

At the end of the day, do I think gender reveal parties are the singular thing holding us back from gender equality? No. Getting rid of gender reveal parties probably isn't even in the top hundred priorities for things we would need to do in order to make the world a more equitable place when it comes to gender. And I don't think the type of people who throw these kinds of parties really care that much about preventing their children from being exposed to stereotypes anyway- they're usually the people perpetuating them. But I do think they're (usually) problematic, and they're certainly not helping us achieve gender equality, either.

[captainfoxus]

Jokes aside where did you get this from op? I need it bc it's like it's for medicine/health field. This is Glasgow Coma Scale snippet. Vocabulary is one of its categories of consciousness scores. Usually it's used if there are patients (or if there's anyone near you or you know anyway) that has brain injury, brain problems, undetected brain problem etc. that is currently experiencing the symptoms of it.

Full GCS score for paediatrics (children) :

GCS score for adults :

Score interpretation :

Add each categories' scores up then check its range of consciousness level :

Disclaimer; not all people who experience these symptoms/conditions are actually undergoing brain injury/provlem. But it's best to make sure if they're conscious and not in any brain problem by checking them to the doctor had they actually got the score range of below 10 (below delirium level). The head injury levels are to check how much their consciousness score is after they (patient) got some physical trauma (vehicle crashes, fights, falling from far heights, etc.) or if they got brain injuries unrelated to physical trauma.

The first picture op shown were from the verbal response category. The one with the first mouth shown is "inappropriate words" score, which means if you ask the person something that is easy to answer with coherent response ("what year is it"/"how many fingers am I holding up") they'll response with answer that is completely unrelated to the question asked. But even then, they're able to formulate actual words instead of just incomprehensible noises. The score you should give if they were in this level is 3. The difference with the "confused" score is that the confused one means they don't know "what year is it" if you asked them about things related to memories that the person or people in general night know of already (if you're American just ask them "who's the current president of USA?"). The score if the patient is in confused level is 4.

The second level the picture shown is the incomprehensible level (score 2). You might ask the same kind of questions like what I said before, but the person would only be able to say some incomprehensible noises. They might not be able to understand what you're saying or/and unable to say coherent words anyway, which still don't mean they couldn't understand you, or they might not be able to due to some brain work problems. This might/might not be from brain injury, it oould also be from nervous work disorder (speech incomprehensible = aphasia). If there's no response whatsoever and the person is silent, the score is 1.

For motor responde, it is an entirely different way to check their consciousness level. The "pain" the table charts were referring is about pain that you would give to them to get their motoring action's response. Example; you pinch their nail (yk underside of nail of their index finger) and check if they give movement response. For the first level (obeys command), it means if you ask them to move their arm up/open their eyes (if they hadn't opened their eyes before)/woken them up if they were sleeping before, they might do so, so noe their score is 6.

If they didn't obey your commands/didn't wake up, then induce some pain sensation (NO NOT INTENSE PAIN LIKE HURTING THEM WITH SHARP OBJECT OR ANYTHING) to check if they might move their hands to reach the areas of where it hurt on their body. Example; you push their midsternum (the middle of the chest, between the mammals/breasts, directly on the top of the middle big bone that connects the ribs) with your knuckles (you ball up your fist first), then check if the person is localizing/reaching the area in pain the midsternum area with their hands. You could also push the middle area between their eyes, above the nose. If you pinch their nail's underside (use only one of their hands), thry might reach the hand you're holding with their free hand. Check if they could move their hands to those points, and if they couldn't (only flexing their arms a bit/only move their fingers/no response at all) then they have lower motoric score.

The eye scores, the first level (eye opening spontaneously), means the person already could open their eyes. You found them already awake and they opened their eyes themself (score 4). If they are currently closing their eyes (for a long time), you ask them to please open their eyes. If they could open them, the score is 3. It goes ghe same if you think they were sleeping. You ask them to wake up, shake their shoulders, and if they wake up, the score is still 3. If they didn't open their eyes after you asked them, then do the same thing with motoric response (induce some light pain to get response), it's the same activities as what you do for the motoric response (like pushing your knuckles to the midsternum, pinch the underside of their nail), check if their eyes open as you do. The score is 2. If they don't open their eyes at all, even after you did all of these things, the score is 1.

If you find other people experiencing these conditions, whether you find them after emergency situations like car crashes, or if they suddenly just got these scores down while there were nothing happened/just normal before (especially if they're below somnolen/sopor), then please check them up to the hospital. They might have neurological problems and you could help save their lives if you know the signs.

[romanreadsbooks]

Funny Story by Emily Henry - Review

TL;DR:

3.7 Stars

Pros: Characters, dialogue/chemistry, and comforting plot

Cons: Too long, out-of-pocket comment, and a personal pet peeve

Opinions going in:

I've read and loved Book Lovers by the same author, and I knew the whole "Roommates with my ex-fiancé's new fiancée's ex-boyfriend" premise, but other than that I went in blind.

What made me actually pick it up though was 2 things: 1)I'm in a bit of a slump and needed something light/silly/goofy/simple and 2) My hold on this eBook became available at my local library

Likes:

The characters were all super fun and real to me, if a little too emotionally intelligent. Their various personalities were different enough that they all felt distinct and yet still similar enough that they still had chemistry.

A speaking of chemistry -- Oh my Lord did Daphne and Miles have chemistry. While it didn't make me laugh as much as Book Lovers did, I still loved all of their banter and back-and-forth. Not to mention how their cuteness and care for one another was so sweet. There were so many times that I was smiling on the train to and from work like an absolute idiot.

The plot was very straight forward/simple/predictable, but that's what I needed at the time and one of my main motivating factors when I pick up a contemporary romance, so complaints from me.

Dislikes:

This was one singular line that really isn't that bad it just stuck out to me. At one point in the book, fairly late into the romance, Daphne is very upset about something and Miles is trying to console her. He's being super sweet and supportive then out of no-where goes:

"And you're also hot, if that helps."

And like..? I don't know if he was trying to make her laugh, ease the tension, or what, but it was so out of left field for the moment. It's like 'Oh you're upset? that's okay, you'll get through this, is there anything I can do to help, your feelings are valid, also you're sexy as fuck haha'

And just??? Again, one singular line, so not that impactful for my final score, just very odd to me.

Another not-super-impactful dislike, but I am so tired of characters who have some relation to/career in books/literature/publishing. If you expand this net to also include characters who just like to read/are a reader, then it happens more often than not.

This is a completely personal (and probably unpopular) opinion and does not make a book 'bad' by any means. I understand 100% why this is common: authors are often given the advice to write what they know and its an easy way to get your audience to connect with the character, etc, etc. -- It just personally doesn't work for me.

I will probably make a longer post about this pet peeve of mine in the future, but I'll stop there for now.

In a similar vein, any time an author puts in a line about how "books let me escape" or "reading lets me live so many lives" I just cringe at how trite it sounds 95% of the time -- this books instances included.

My biggest complaint: This book needed to be at least 50 pages shorter. Even though I was actively enjoying it, I got to the end of a chapter, saw I was at page 301, and was baffled that there were 80+ pages left.

Like I said before, I did like all of the characters, but I still think that one of the side characters should have been cut. They all serve a purpose in the story, so I understand why they are all there, but it was harming the pacing.

Rating Breakdown:

The rating system I am going to use is based on Book Roast's CAWPILE system -- you can learn more about it on their channel. The only change is that I added dialogue as a separate category from writing.

Total: 7.4/10 or 3.7 stars

Characters: 8

Atmosphere: 6

Writing: 6

Plot:5

Intrigue: 7

Logic:6

Enjoyment: 5

Dialogue: 9

[orlandospride]

I just don't understand the logic of wanting smaller goals and fields. And for me it's not about sexism or the sport being the same or anything. The question for me is: what problem does that solve? I think anytime you want to do something er should start at identifying an issue and than thinking about a change that could solve it. Your other examples make sense: problem: women have more non-contact injuries solution: making women specific cleats problem: women are at greater risk of concussion solution: hard to say but possible ones: getting rid of headers or limiting their use, greater punishments for high elbows, knees and feet in congested areas. But I don't know what problem changing field and goal sizes solve, I think we have to start with the problem, specially because any changes comes with downsides, some tenporary and others permanent. With the goal, temporarily we might see more post collisions while players adapt to the smaller space, longer term we may have fewer goals and more draws, what is the upside to balance that?

there is a quality gap in women’s football and I don’t think anyone would (or could) deny that. there’s a gap in men’s football too and high scorelines aren’t restricted to any particular league or country. sometimes things go wrong and really weird things happen. a top side will have 6 put past them totally out of the blue, but they’re far less of an anomaly in women’s football and you can all but guarantee the winner when a top 3 side plays...anyone else

I don’t see less goals and more draws in a game that currently has lots of goals and lots of (one sided) wins as a bad thing. I think draws more often between say, arsenal and chelsea, is a fair trade off if it means bristol city aren’t getting 48 goals put past them in 17 games (some of those stats are even more dramatic outside of the wsl, I’m just using the wsl as the example because it’s the league I’m closest to following)

I fully acknowledge and accept that goalkeepers aren’t always to blame for goals and smaller goals aren’t magically going to make the teams at the bottom suddenly able to compete because the issue is so much bigger. for me the problem is parity between clubs in almost every division in any country, and whilst there isn’t one singular quick or easy fix to it, I don’t think it’s out of the question that smaller goals might be able to help with that. having a smaller goal would (probably) mean there’s less of them . having a smaller ball would (probably) mean less concussions and faster passes giving you a more fluid and exciting game

it always has to be about balance, IE how do you stop the top 5 or so teams in the world from stockpiling world class players and therefore being able to score 50, 70, 100 goals a season without punishing them for being the relatively few clubs who are actually willing and able to invest? the only league I can think of where the parity is not so much of an issue, though often does still lead to the same handful of teams leading the table and winning tropes, is the nwsl. but that’s because they’ve had very specific rules which europe has never really had a willingness or desire to emulate. I also think it should be about fun. football is a sport, but it’s also a game. it’s supposed to be fun and personally seeing some massive one sided victories or goals that could have been saved kind of….isn’t. smaller fields are unpractical and doesn’t translate well to grassroots, but a game with smaller goals, smaller fields and a lighter ball I think could bring hugely exciting and really enjoyable games

I love football. I want it to be good. I know with the disastrous implementation of VAR there’s, to some extent, an attitude of “just leave football alone” but I think there are some changes which could genuinely be fun. I remember when perez got slated for suggesting a 60 minute match instead, granted his suggestion was for monetary benefit, but I also think in hindsight that one could have been fun too. and as someone who sits through 100 minutes of men’s football dross every Saturday, and I just think football could be more fun if we, collectively, weren’t so resistant to change. football is old and old is great, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be better or that we at least shouldn’t entertain new ideas

[fullscoreshenanigans]

Imagine if Krone had mocking Isabella's fate during his discussion with Emma and Norman?

Like telling them that ALL the sisters have to had children, the only difference is that the ones becoming mama (like Isabella) can have only one

(i headcanon that the Sisters in the Headquarter have generally maybe two or three kids, maybe more for some… …considering that there are 5 houses at Grace Field …and 1 child shipped every 2 months by house. It mean 6 by house every year. So the whole Grace Field facility ship more or less 30 children by year. …so yeah i really think that some sisters have to had more than one child, especially considering how the Sisters Formation is hard and that not a lot sucess)

And then Krone would mocking Isabella like "Her child must be almost 12 now…hum if they have not been shipped yet, they'll be very soon, i wonder how she felt about it, not knowing her baby's fate since six years." in a kind of "lol"

(also because her own child is probably too young to be shipped since she is only 26 and so her child can only be younger than 6. She thinks that, unlike Isabella, SHE is sure that her child is alive)

Norman would maybe feel some little sympathy for Isabella, even if feeling stil betrayed and angry toward her. And he wouldn't like that Krone finds hilarous the idea of Isabella not knowing her child's fate.

Emma would wonder how a mother can do that. And wouldn't like that Krone finds that funny too.

Krone would be like "you really think we have the choice? that's cute" because a part of her doesn't like the way Emma judge her. Like she would say to her that it's easy to judge when she has not been at her place.

And later, Norman and Emma speak about it with Ray and is internally panicking. He's also kinda pissed that Krone finds that funny and hopes that Isabella suffers because of it. How petty this woman is to hope that? (for real, a part of him also hope that Isabella suffers at the idea to ship him because a part of him hope that she loves him but he's kinda in denial about it)

I wonder if Krone's child is at Grace Firld. what if it's Chamberlain?

Isabella is an anomaly when it comes to Moms in that she's the youngest one to ever be selected in the history of at least the current incarnation of Grace Field that's been around for roughly 400 years.

(Mystic Code Book Chapter 1 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 181.2 | Chapter 181.3)

Her excellent test scores at the farm and later at headquarters combined with favoritism from Sarah led to her placement being expedited. With there being an extremely limited number of Mom positions, most Sisters (because they're all Sisters first, Isabella being the exception and not the rule) are left waiting for years, and this is what results in them having multiple children if they don't retrain for another path, not that Moms are limited to having a single child. If anything, you'd think they'd want more children bred from those who reach that position, so the time spent waiting for spots to open up would be beneficial for the demons. Sarah had enough sway to persuade those in charge to get a recent graduate of the Sister training in there, though, so Isabella was able to skip to the front of the wait list.

I'm not entirely sure what Krone would gain from mocking Isabella in this manner? There's the melodrama for the readers who are aware of her connection with Ray and then later seeing his reaction to it, but it seems counterproductive in how it not only generates sympathy for Isabella when Krone wants the children on her side, but also, and the more important reason, it's being done at the expense of an innocent child. She's openly reveling in the demise of a child for the perceived harm it does to Isabella and her reputation. The being petty part in itself is fine and serves as commentary on infighting being used by oppressors as a means to prevent class solidarity and systemic change, but it seems like a disservice to Krone's character that she'd indulge in it in front of the people she's trying to form an alliance with when she knows her being a Sister and what that says about her is already upsetting to them.

(Chapter 20)

And then on the meta front, it would be too direct in hinting at the Isabella-Ray connection with how forward it is in reminding the audience Isabella was required to have a child to become a Mom instead of leaving it as a thread lingering in the background.

(Chapter 31)

Isabella talks with Emma about becoming a Mom after having a child in what is one of the most harrowing moments of the series for me (the way she so calmly and casually tells this eleven-year-old to submit to systemic medical rape, to surrender her child to the same system and perpetuate the cycle of cruelty and violence, because she genuinely believes it's the best path for her, wrecks me on so many levels), and the imagery of a pregnant Isabella is there for the reader, but she never explicitly mentions her own biological child. The in-universe reasons for why are up for debate, but the meta one is to not be any more obvious about her connection to Ray than what's already been implied with the lullaby, their shared physical traits, and the spy arrangement.

(also because her own child is probably too young to be shipped since she is only 26 and so her child can only be younger than 6. She thinks that, unlike Isabella, SHE is sure that her child is alive) wonder if Krone's child is at Grace Field. what if it's Chamberlain?

It is interesting how Krone never spares a thought for her child during all the time the reader has with her, but that might be a nod to the compartmentalizing all Sisters and Moms do in order to avoid cognitive dissonance.

And later, Norman and Emma speak about it with Ray and is internally panicking. He's also kinda pissed that Krone finds that funny and hopes that Isabella suffers because of it. How petty this woman is to hope that? (for real, a part of him also hope that Isabella suffers at the idea to ship him because a part of him hope that she loves him but he's kinda in denial about it)

Definitely agree about the conflicting feelings Ray has toward Isabella and the self-loathing he holds for caring when he knows logically nothing good can come of it.

[trace-of-a-song]

Your Project Doesn't Need Original Music - But It Might Make Things Better

My spicy take for the weekend - brought to you by wandering down a thorny path where people's choices for production costs for AD were put under a really strange funhouse microscope, is this. Yes, you can use premade, royalty-free, or low-cost licensed music for your game/film/show/project. You absolutely can. It might suit your needs perfectly. It can definitely cut costs when you're figuring out your project budget. There are people out there putting great music into the world Just for folks to use in exactly this way. No shame, no side-eye. Important disclaimer: I'm a composer. I do this for part of my living. I've been doing it for a while, and at some point in the near future when I have the time to figure out how I want to do it, I'll be putting some of that music into the world too. I like to think I do it pretty well. All of that said, here's what a composer can do that the above solution can't. - Tailor the music to your project's timing precisely. (Depending on the license you may or may not be able to edit the premade "trax"you're using. - Make it so the music fills in exactly where the mood shifts. - Evolve with the show, the scene, the moment. - Take feedback and make changes based on that. - Become an active part of your storytelling. - Be inspired by your project (and maybe do a bit of inspiring back) - Add a collaborative partner to your team.

That last one is probably the most important, and in a way it sums up the rest. When you bring a composer onto your project, whether it's for score, a theme song, one episode, or a 6 season epoch, you're adding to your team. Even as a one-off hired gun, a bit of their heart, spirit, energy, caring, passion, and interest is in your project. You gain another voice to bounce things off of, another pair of ears on the mix, a cheerleader, a co-conspirator.

Music that is made for your story is different than music that happens to fit. It just is. It breathes along with your scenes. It's a custom suit vs the closest fit you can find off the rack.

Does that mean it's expensive? Well, not necessarily but it's often more expensive than free!

It takes me 2 hours on average for a minute of custom music (I've recently started timing it because as I move more of my income to freelancing, planning is a thing). That's time spent planning, composing, editing, timing things to the scene, tweaking volume, polishing, and sending it wherever it needs to go. The most recent project I'm wrapping up has just shy of 17 minutes of music in it. An average TPNAN episode has 12. If I charged something like $20 an hour for my work, which is a number tossed around as a living wage a lot, I'd be making almost $500 an episode for TPNAN. That's not taking into account that creating music is a specialized field and that maybe that expertise and practice time means it's worth more than $20/hr. Let's just say... I'm not charging $500. (To be transparent, TPNAN is half my baby so I'm charging $0, but it's an example I know really well so I used it.) My point here is that many composers, myself included, will work for less than that. We'll do it for projects we love, people we respect and want to support, stories we care about. We'll do it when and because we can afford to spend the time, because we're supporting ourselves in other ways, or because we don't mind sticking 7 or 8 wicks in a candle just to see what happens. If you're a project with a tiny budget and want custom music, talk to some composers and I am beyond certain you'll find someone who wants to work on it with you and will work with what you can offer them. Yes, that includes "I can't offer you any money but I can trade you this skill I have" or "None of us are making money on this but would you be part of telling this really cool story with us?" I'll get into when people CAN afford to pay "fairly" another time. It would muddy the waters too much today. What I'm saying is, if you want to add a composer to your team, you can. And your project might well be better for it. And there is no shame in carving out a little of the budget you have whatever size it is for something that will make your project better. Graphic design, a good director, custom music, all of the things. You get to decide what counts as necessary to tell the story you want to tell, and what's extra. Rant over. Back to making pretty math noises!

[dandylion240]

And all of them for any of them for Maja, as I need to learn more about her

1.Would you hug a stranger? How close someone has to be to get a hug?

No I would not. I would have to know someone really well before I go around hugging them.

2. Have you tried some exotic/weird food? How was it? Would you eat it again?

It depends on what you call exotic. To me pizza is exotic. It's not something I've ever had up until recently I had almost steady diet of fish and kelp.

3. If you had to give up one sense, which one would it be?

Oh that's a difficult choice but I'm a musician so I need to hear, to see and to touch. So maybe smell? I mean I can still play and sing and not be able to smell.

4. How good are you at remembering dates? What about numbers in general?

I keep close tabs on my calendar so that I don't miss any gigs and I'm more into musical notes and scores than facts and figures.

5. Do you like cold or hot weather more? Why?

I'm used to the cold and I feel like I'm wilting if I'm outside too long in the summer time.

6. Would you rather spend a date night somewhere quiet or in a more crowded place (e.g. club, festival, amusement park, etc.)

I love going out to clubs or concerts. Any place where there's music.

7. What shows your emotions more, your words or your actions?

My songs. I can put my feelings into music more than words or actions.

8. Is curiosity good or bad thing in your opinion? What makes you curious?

You know what they say, curiosity killed the cat. That being said curiosity led me here so it can't be all that bad.

9. Balloons or confetti?

Neither really. You wouldn't like them either if you've seen what balloons and confetti do to the environment.

10. Have you ever had an animal to eat from your hand? Do animals usually like you?

There's nothing like feeding a dolphin. I love all kinds of animals and they just know I mean them no harm.

11. Would you rather be stranded in a huge deserted field or locked alone in a room, for following two weeks?

Both sound absolutely horrid. I could probably do a huge deserted field if that field had a lake or something.

12. Do you prefer to sleep with socks or without them? Do you usually even wear socks?

I don't wear socks until recently I didn't even wear shoes.

13. Do you tend to get sick easily? If so, what do you do to prevent that? If not, what’s your secret to strong immune system?

I don't think I've ever been sick. I think I'm immune to most human illnesses.

14. What is your first language? How many languages can you speak?

I know quite a few languages. Mer, Simlish, Dolphin, etc.

15. Do you like drawing/painting? What’s your preferred art tool?

Music. That's the only art form I need.

16. Are you more organised or disorganised person? Or maybe you like to plan only certain aspects of your life?

I'm very organised and I plan everything out before I do anything. I have to know what I'm doing before I start. Of course you can't plan for everything but I'm seldom caught off guard.

17. Would you choose a dream car or a dream house?

Dream car I guess. That way I can travel between gigs. I don't know what I'd do with a house.

18. Are you the type of the person that would laugh when someone else falls? Or would you rush to help? Maybe you would just walk by without reaction?

I suppose I'd stop and help if they looked like they needed it but if it looked like someone was already assisting them and I was in a hurry than I'd probably just keep on going.

19. How often do you travel? What you like the most about it?

I haven't done too much traveling yet but I can see myself doing a lot of it once I have my music degree.

20. Do like stargazing? Do you believe in shooting star wishes?

There's nothing like a sky full of stars. I don't honestly know if I've ever made a wish upon a star but if I did I know what I'd wish for.

Thank you for asking!

@wannabecatwriter correct me if I got anything wrong. I'm still learning her personality.

[jeannereames]

Hi, love your blog and your books, they have been good for my knowledge, they had made clear some points that were cover by the mist of ignorance, I mean, when I was at school my teachers didn't know about Alexander so when we saw him in history class there were a lot of incoherences (sorry for my poor grammar, I'm still learning english).

Hephaestion is an interesting character, we don't know much about him but I have always wonder how he was as a husband, in my research it seems that he wasn't so interest in women like others were. I have wonder if that make him a careless or a typical (in the context of the history) husband? Did he marry because Alexander say so or because he wants to ensure his place? Does he felt pity for the girl or he didn't care about her at all? Was a better husband than Alexander?

And talking about Drypetis, we know about the famous beauty of her mother and of Roxanne. But how do you think that beauty was? Certainly, not like my modern view about attractiveness of a female, so I wonder yours.

Sorry for the long post! 🙃

We know nothing about his interest (or lack of it) in women. He did marry in Susa in 324 because Alexander told him to…along with 90 other officers. That doesn’t mean he was against the idea—may have been one of the few fully in favor of it for the politics.

While fictionally I’ll make hay over his lack of recorded lovers (of either gender), from an academic point of view…it’s meaningless.

This is probably a good time to review “arguments from silence,” and why they’re so tricky.

An ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE suggests a lack of evidence is significant. BUT this only works if one can demonstrate that such evidence ought to be there…and isn’t.

That’s hard to do for the ancient world as “a lack of evidence” describes our cursed lot. My modern historian colleagues are regularly astonished by how little we have, and what we can spin out from that little.

I bring this up is because arguments from silence are too common in pop history, which too often does them badly due to a lack of understanding regarding 1) what evidence IS available, 2) what should be available, and 3) what’s absolutely unsurprising not to find.

Sometimes students will ask me, “But didn’t they write stuff like that down?” (‘That’ varying.) The answer is often, “No.” Or more colorfully, “They didn’t give a shit.” Even in the Roman Empire, they lacked bureaucratic record-keeping as we understand it. In Greece, centuries earlier, a few city-states kept some records, but most didn’t, especially prior to the mid-4thCentury BCE. It’s connected to the “epigraphic habit”: the desire to record information (in public) for posterity, and the idea that record-keeping might be a good general idea often merge.

Even so, WHAT they thought worthy of recording isn’t always what we’d like to know. This, in turn, pertains to how they wrote historical texts: what they chose to report (or not).

So, with that background…

The problem with knowing Hephaistion’s sexual interest (or lack of it) in women is how and why our sources relate such information.

In short: they mostly don’t.

This owes to their LASER focus on Alexander. Even then, what each source tells about him varies. I think we can probably be sure we know all Alexander’s wives, although Barsine’s status is not completely clear (imo). I assume she was at least a palakē, which is a formal mistress: less than a wife, but more than a hetaira. Yet given Macedonian marriage practices, perhaps she was a wife in Macedonian eyes? The Greeks regularly “demoted” Macedonian royal wives to mistresses, so I don’t trust our sources on this score.

Whatever the case, we don’t know all Alexander’s female (or male) sexual liaisons outside his wives because the sources mostly don’t care. When they do care (ala Plutarch and Curtius), it’s for some—often Romanized—moral point. Which is a looong-ass way from anything the Macedonians cared about.

And if we don’t even know his, how can we assume we know his officers’? Hell-to-the-no!

We hear about these women only if they matter to the larger (Alexander-driven) narrative. So we know the name of Philotas’s mistress, Antigonē, because she was hired by Krateros to bring pillow talk back to Alexander. We know Harpalus’s mistresses because he spent oodles of treasury funds on them, and got in trouble for it (twice). We recognize the name Laïs because she later became the long-time mistress (palakē) of Ptolemy I, mother of some of his important offspring in the Successor wars.

Ergo, not knowing the names of Hephaistion’s mistresses—or whether he had any—is not significant. Outside of special circumstance, we wouldn’t expect to.

We DO know the name of his wife from the mass-marriages at Susa in the spring of 324 because she was a princess, sister of Alexander’s wife, and her selection for him had distinct political significance. Yet that doesn’t mean he didn’t have a wife already, back in Macedon. Others of Alexander’s officers did–one reason many promptly divorced their Persian brides after Alexander’s death. I note the possibility largely as it illustrates the level of what we don’t know.

My educated hunch is that Hephaistion’s marriage to Drypetis was his first marriage. And I don’t believe he had any children (even by-blows), or we’d have heard about them as a result of Alexander’s extravagant grief. Yet this is far from saying he had no mistresses—or boyfriends, for that matter.

Regarding Drypetis and his relationship with her…it’s a complete blank. We just don’t know how Hephaistion treated her, what she thought of him, or what he thought of her. They weren’t married long enough. The weddings were in early spring, after ATG got back to Susa following the Gedrosian march/rest in Karmania. He spent a while sorting business in Susa before he went on to Opis (and subsequent unrest/mutiny there). I suspect Hephaistion and Drypetis were married no more than 6-7 months. He died in early/mid-October. She wasn’t pregnant by his death, but given how busy that period was, it could be a function of his duties and lack of time.

As for the beauty of Persian royal/elite women, it seems to have been something remarked upon by more than just Alexander historians. We lack images of Achaemenid Persians, alas, but below is a lapis lazuli bust of among the most famous: Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, wife of Darius, and mother of Xerxes (lived second half of the 6th century BCE). Note the large eyes, high eyebrows (apparently plucked), and small mouth. Given the tendency to idealizing in Ancient Near Eastern art, this suggests what would have been considered high beauty.

Beneath her is a Roman copy of Praxiteles’s original Aphrodite of Knidos—considered the ideal of Greek female beauty in the early-mid 4th century BCE (based on the incomparable Phryne, Praxiteles’s mistress).

Both have an oval face with full cheeks, and we can see Aphrodite’s nicely plump. That meant something! She had enough to eat = wealth. The modern starved-skinny model with long face, strong jaw, and stark cheekbones…that’s attractive now partly owing to what photographs well: prominent features and thinness (because the camera adds pounds). Persians and Greeks preferred rounder features, heart-shaped faces, small bow mouths, soft jaws, and fullness in the body (plump, not overweight). About the only hold-over would be large eyes.

What I haven’t really noted is coloring…other than a preference for pale skin as that signified one had slaves (= rich) and didn’t have to work in the fields outside. Hair color and eye color just wasn’t that big of a deal. Sometimes it comes to the fore: gray-eyed Athena. (Although the word is generic for blue/gray/greenish.) Similar for Apollo and Dionysos, in the Homeric hymns. Dionysos had black hair there (as did Apollo). Both “blond-up” only in the Classical era. And Hera was noted for her extraordinarily beautiful “cow-eyes.” E.g., large and dark-dark brown.

BUT, because I love to support the Gingers of the World…RED-blond hair was considered the most desired in Greece. Aphrodite was a strawberry blonde (at least sometimes), as was Helen…when anybody bothered to note it. And (quite probably) Alexander.

[strangerthings-stans]

Thoughts Throughout My First Watch Through of Stranger Things Season Four:

WARNING: Spoilers and non-sense ahead. As I typed without thought. No think, just awe.

*All these statements were written directly after watching said episode. These are basically live reactions*

Chapter One:

In general, I'm terrified. So, right off the bat. I think Eddie is 010. He has a watch blocking his tattoo. He seemed to almost know what was going to happen to Chrissy and 010 seemed to know things in advance. And you're probably thinking I'm crazy because 010 is dead, but what if he faked his death? If 009 was able to survive, maybe he could too? Anyways. Even if it's left field. Eddie Munson Stan club.

*I needed a two hour break between episodes as I was alone at a cottage in the middle of no where. Absolutely terrified. I know they said this season was going to be scary. But jeez*

Chapter Two:

this episode brought to light how desensitized El is to inflicting pain. Now that the pain she inflicted is not a power, but her own free will, it shows that perhaps there is still a monster in her. Vecna probably shows your biggest fear/regret ... That would explain Freds vision. I'm wondering is Victor Creel is Vecna. It could also be 010 because he is getting vengeance on Eleven. I really don't have much to say about this episode at this present moment.

Chapter Three:

"peters projects"...Is Peter 010 or an experiment? The dinner table scenes are arguably the best scenes for comedic timing in stranger things, prove me wrong. My theory on 010 being Eddie still stands. He seemed unphased by Steve bringing up a friend with powers... But mind you, he could be numb to everything because of trauma. If Sam knows so much about elevens power (given though he is a scientist), then perhaps he has had an inside source?

*You can tell the writers really used the extra time during the hiatus wisely*

Chapter Four:

Absolute chills. As someone who has lost everyone in the last year, I can't help but feel a comfort in this episode. The special effects and practical effects in this episode were above and beyond. It really portrayed what nightmares feels like, fake elements but mostly real. This episode makes me feel bad for moments I felt as though Max's character was slightly lack luster (please please don't hate me because I already hate myself). She is nothing less than amazing. And her bond with Lucas is so pure, they geniuenly want the best for eachother... I wish we would've found out what was in the letter to him- but I'm glad he didn't because that would've been bad. Hopper being reunited with Jif was just so pure, I can't wait to see him reunite with Joyce (at least I hope that happens). Can you imagine him just not letting her say anything and just swooping her in for a kiss? My heart would not be able to handle that. On the note of Russia, I don't think Murray had the coffee... He may have been smart and he is conscience enough to figure out a plan.

Chapter Five:

I don't know how I feel about Brenner being back, and by that I mean, I don't know whether or not I can trust him. I'm so excited to see his character back, but it feels like this is Stockholm syndrome. I felt so bad for hopper this episode, I just felt for him. When he brought back up Sarah, I just cried. As per Eddie, I think the jocks meeting up with him was for the best... So they could maybe put two and two together to see Eddie didn't cause Chrissy's death. I'm really interested to see how the house will play into defeating Vecna (well this is under the impression he will be defeated). Suzie, please come and save the day.

Chapter 6:

I am starting to believe Joyce and Murray could single handedly take over the world. They both balance the chaos in eachother and I just love their dynamic. Speaking of dynamic, Suzie's house just seems like the most chaotic place in the world and part of me wishes that I lived there- I'm sure Argyle thinks the same. I loved his commentary of Eden's name relating it to her religious culture- he was really trying to score the brownie points. I'm also really worried that vecna took Eddie underwater... Last we saw him he was swimming..

Chapter Seven:

I absolutely love a good interrogation scene. And then the insanely smart use of light brights. I hope to save Nancy sings to her. Chefs kiss. Then the Russians. My god. The writers really had me on my toes. It had such high stakes with such high rewards. 1000 to 1. Wow. Just wow. The Reunion between Joyce and Hop- heart melting. To see Hop have his guard up to dropping it because he loves this women so much that he is just taking one minute to embrace her. Oh and then finally El leading to Vecna? I figured Vecna had something to do with the Creel's and I figured a new character this season would be an experiment. This was expected yet not? I should've saw it coming when the kruels little son didn't have the black eyes. I'm wondering if perhaps Terry was artificially inseminated with 001 ... Specimen... And perhaps that's how Brenner knows Eleven is their only hope. That is if Brenner is to be trusted, which that I'm not certain on. To think this isn't the finale.

My theories for the finale episodes of season 4 will be out once I compose myself.