#i love how we met

[exhuastedpigeon]

How did you meet your partner?

Oh man are you ready for the maybe the nerdiest story you've ever heard? be warned, it's kind of long lol.

Back in the day I used to co-host a hockey and baseball podcast with one of my best friends (who I actually met on tumblr through the Sterek fandom). The friend, we shall call her M, is so smart that she got invited to present at a sports analytics conference. We talked a lot about analytics on our podcast, so I was/am very familiar with sports analytics.

She asked me to go with her and on a whim I said yes. The conference was on the west coast so it was a pain to get there, but I'd always wanted to go to a HAC/SAC (hockey analytics conference/sports analytic conference).

The first night there's a social event and M asks if I recognize a guy across the bar and I said 'he looks like every other white guy here, but he's kind of cute'. I thought that would be the end of it. (reader, it was not the end of it).

The next day he sat near us in the hall (not that weird since it wasn't a huge space) and then that night at the social event he slowly made his way over to where I was holding court (I only say it like that because when you put me with a group of people that I'm pretty comfortable around I like to tell stories and keep conversation going).

Eventually he sits down across from me and immediately started roasting me for my choice in hockey team. I did the same thing to him and we were bantering and flirting and it was all very fun, but I didn't think it was going anywhere. Then he bought me a drink and sat down next me when he got back.

(I still didn't think it was going anywhere. I was sharing a hotel with M, he was staying on a friends pullout couch.)

But, like it was meant to be, some other dude came over and tried to start flirting with me by bragging that he was doing a speed talk the next day about how baseball games were getting longer/the product was worse. That guy was an idiot and I told him so because I had just written a piece on how baseball game run times had only increased by 3 minutes over the last decade.

My now partner jumped on the bandwagon and when the guy walked away my now partner turned to me extremely embarrassed because he realized he listened to my podcast while I was roasting the other guy.

We shared a cab back to the conference area with some other people and the next morning we chatted a bit before the lunch break. I had to leave to catch my flight, that should have been the end of our little flirty encounter.

But he followed me on twitter already and DM'd me saying it was nice to put a face to the voice on the podcast and if I was ever in his neck of the woods I should let him know. The next day I worked a 14 hour event at work (after getting home at 2am). I posted on twitter that I was going to pass out, but I would love to wake up to photos of people's pets.

He sent me a bunch of pictures that night and continue doing that for like 8 months. We kept talking, exchanged numbers, started facetiming all the time, and eventually a few months later met up to spend a long weekend together in Toronto.

We met in March, had our first 'date' in May, and got married in November all of the same year. We never would have met if we weren't both giant sports nerds.

anonymously ask you one thing you want to know about me

[the-gayest-sky-kid]

god i love my friends. shout out to people who love their friends. this is a post for friend lovers

[aalghul]

once again thinking about jason as duke’s robin. he’s ~4 years younger than jason, and that puts him at 8-12 during Jason’s time as robin. that’s prime time to get attached to your local kid vigilante before your own life goes downhill.

and if we try to keep duke’s meeting with bruce in zero year + duke’s age (so he can remember the meeting and hold that conversation with bruce), he has to be around 8. if he starts following batman through the news at that time because of the mess that just happened, the robin he sees is probably jason. I’ve literally connected the dots

[wangxianbaybee]

"Your flowers."

"You're welcome, I gave them to you."

[rainbow-sunshine-unicorn]

Remember when Anthony Bridgerton said:

And then it turns out that this is him with his wife:

[technically-human]

Hey, don't cry. Ghost yuri, okay?

(Now that you know the girls, they need to meet the boys!)

[slfcare]

the most difficult thing about growing as a person socially, as in getting out of your shell and noticing that you are, is that there will still be times when it doesn’t feel like you’ve grown at all! times when you can’t really connect with anyone around you, times when you fail to enter into an existing conversation, times when you say the wrong thing (or nothing at all when in hindsight you probably should’ve). but that’s also kind of the best thing, because that’s the thing that helps you realize that sometimes, it’s not you or your lack of skills or any shortcoming. sometimes certain environments just aren’t for you and certain people aren’t your people, and that’s okay. that’s human. it’s okay to not feel the progress you have made all the time.

[jesncin]

BruHarvey Royalty AU prompt for DC Gotcha For Gaza (requests closed)! I like this ship and this was a fun opportunity to draw fancy clothes~

[welcometogrouchland]

Disgustingly messy and crusty sketch dump but I couldn't get my own terrible theory out of my head and ended up making a bunch of sketches about it. Also at the end a bonus dickbats and Damian doodle bc I was reading an issue of their Batman and Robin run (IDs in Alt)

[krarka]

I MET SOME LITTOL GRUBS AND THEIR MOMMA

[iilmunchkiin]

"Rough Hands"

[destielwarmsthecocklesofmyheart]

happy vessel day to cas

and happy anniversary to the ship of all ships

16 years

[bluebugjay]

accidentally starting to believe the Charles fell first, Edwin fell harder agenda...

like we've all joked about how at face value Charles is the one who acts more like he's crushing than Edwin, the things he says, how clingy he is, the way he looks at him even from episode 1. Even, I'd argue, the way he looks at Edwin when they first meet, and him smoothly bringing up kissing and then more obviously trusting and enjoying Edwin's company enough after those few hours to stay with him rather than passing on to his afterlife. I don't think he clocked it as romantic when they met or even in the 30 years between then and the show but I think that what they have kind of transcends labels anyway. As if he's been falling ever since they first met and just hasn't really realised what that means yet, so he hasn't hit the ground yet. Charles loves Edwin and he has such a open heart and fondness for Edwin, it's hard to believe he wouldn't have fallen first.

With Edwin we actually get to see the whole journey he goes on that helps him realise his feelings and it hits him like a tonne of bricks, after 30 odd years of being best mates suddenly Edwin's forced to come face to face with the fact he's in love with Charles, not that he's falling or starting to fall but that he's right there, in love already. Fell harder.

[hestzhyen]

Sunken Ships and SoRiku

Hi internet void. I went feral and maybe you'll read the result.

KH has made a lot of choices around SoRiku from a narrative perspective that, in isolation, wouldn't amount to much. A heart-to-heart here, a questionable line there, and so on. The usual things that one would do to court a queer shipping audience in an otherwise het or unromantic work. And SoRiku circles have painstakingly documented every instance to show something that looks more like a consistent and intentional effort rather than a few dollops here and there to keep shippers engaged. There's... a lot. But one stupid, insignificant thing really shook me up and made me a believer in SoRiku Endgame, Actually.

Silly as it is, it's Nomura's reaction to people shipping RikuNami that gets me the most.

Generally speaking a writer doesn't want to interact with fandom shipping unless it's to urgently course correct. As in it would be catastrophic to the narrative if the fandom had the wrong idea. Otherwise it's best to just take note of how people are interpreting things and adjust the next installment accordingly, or live and let live. Keep distant and don't risk accusations of retconning/bad writing/queerbaiting in bad faith. So the normal reaction from Nomura seeing people get excited over RikuNami would have been to just do nothing. But instead, the scene was patched to downplay the smile, and Nomura went on the record to clarify that it's not a setup for a romantic relationship between Riku and Namine.

That's insane.

Why is it so important that Riku remain romantically uninterested in a girl he'd have a natural connection to, huh? What about accidentally implying RikuNami was so detrimental to the story that it was changed and explicitly addressed like that? Even if it wasn't meant to be, surely letting it play out like AkuRoku did would be enough. Just gently clarify and move on with the story (which pretty much sunk the ship on it's own anyway). You don't wade into fandom shipping and launch nuclear warheads like Nomura did against RikuNami unless you want to leave no room for doubt.

Torpedoing RikuNami also doesn't help them keep up appearances in terms of straightness at this point. Leaving it intact would only help the case of Riku and Sora being bffs with the strongest bond 5ever- a huge boon for the writing team if they wanted to avoid things looking too gay. Nomura et. al. are absolutely aware of the impressions and jokes about how gay KH is. And KH definitely would not be the first series to play in to queer ship teasing for the lols until it's time to pair everyone up at the end.

But they did the one thing you're not supposed to do if you're just aiming to queerbait: undermining the plausible straight ship. You don't eliminate the only straight option for your character like that for the sake of "he so gay" jokes! Having a straight option available is vital to make the bait; they don't have to be compelling or important to the story, they just have to exist. Yet at this point, Riku's only option is Sora. They went out of their way to ensure we wouldn't think anything else makes sense for him.

Holy. Shit.

[https-hunter]

[exhuastedpigeon]

People talk about how if you really like someone's writing and you message them to talk about it, sometimes you become friends and they'll share fics with you early, which is true and one of the best feelings as a fan of someone's work.

But people should also talk about how amazing it is for the writer too, because now you have someone who you can share you work with and ask for feedback. They help make you better and that's so fucking neat.

Message your favourite writers about their fics! Talk to them about what they write! And when they ask you for feedback, be honest.