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ladyeliot · 4 years ago

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Do it.

Request: @imerdwarf : Hi my dear friend ❤️ I was wondering if I could send in a small request? 🥺 a friends to lovers with Bucky - reader has loved him for a long time but he’s always with other girls and just feels like he doesn’t like her that way but it isn’t until she starts crying he learns the truth? 🥺 your writing is amazing and I’m glad to have found your blog ❤️

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader (40s)

Warning: Fluff, fluff, fluff and maybe sad.

Word count: 2243

Notes: Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

New York City, 1943

The clarity with which you heard the words that came out of the radio distressed you. There wasn't much good news coming from across the ocean, but you knew that's where you wanted to be. The courage of the many soldiers who passed through your hands encouraged and comforted you, they had hope, everything that was needed in those times. Your main task was to vaccinate and check that each and every soldier who went to war was in good physical condition. There were many times when you had to refuse their permission, and you watched as frustration set in.

But things changed when a loved one came before you to give your approval of their good physical health. Bucky Barnes was more than a Sergeant in the United States Army, he was your friend and confidant for a couple of years when Bucky showed up at the medical centre after becoming the third YMCA welterweight boxing champion. From that moment on you both discovered that you had many things in common, and perhaps it was because of that and the constant casual coincidences you had over the next few months that you became good friends.

"Done," the curtain that separated your cubicle from another nurse's cubicle opened, letting a smiling Bucky through.

You jumped up suddenly when you saw how he had snuck into that place, and the soldier you were poking at the top of his buttock was surprised too. But Bucky didn't seem to mind.

"What are you doing here?" you asked, offering the soldier cotton wool with alcohol.

"I've just had my destiny confirmed" Bucky picked up a series of confidential papers, which he shouldn't show you.

The soldier you were vaccinating reluctantly left by pulling up his trousers, and Bucky took the seat he had left on the stretcher. You took the papers he was offering you and discovered that first thing tomorrow morning he would be leaving for Europe. His departure took you somewhat by surprise, as you at least expected him not to leave until September, but he was determined. He was leaving tomorrow and you still hadn't received your assignment orders, even though your application had been sent for months.

"So you're leaving first thing tomorrow morning for London," you confirm by looking at the documents.

With every gesture on his face, Bucky showed that happiness and pride you were used to seeing in each of your patients. It was clear that there was nothing better than news like that to cheer up the American people, their courageous men and women fighting for their country.

"Well, what do you plan to do on your last night of freedom, Sergeant?" Your question had a specific purpose, to discover Bucky's priorities, among which you clearly knew was his best friend, Steve Rogers.

James took the papers again from your hands and got up from the stretcher practically in one jump.

"Enjoy this wonderful city and its pleasures," he said cheerfully. "Tonight I have a double date with Steve, we'll take Connie and Bonnie to Stark Expo and then dance.

You arched one eyebrow smiling at the plan he had just proposed, the smile was not really the best expression to show your feelings, but it was perfect to hide them. You were not prone to show your affection in front of the people you loved, maybe that's why you accepted to dedicate yourself to nursing, you preferred to show your affection with strangers. That and running away from your small town.

"So, a double date? That sounds wonderful."

As Bucky played with the papers in his hands you wondered whether you should say goodbye to him now, whether that would be the last time you would see him before he left first thing the next day, and whether you would not see him again until the war was over and everyone returned home, if he survived.

"So... is this goodbye?" you asked with a sour smile.

Just as Bucky was about to take the step and respond, the white curtain opened showing a young private waiting to be vaccinated. Bucky showing his stripes informed him to wait a moment.

"Of course, Sergeant."

Just as the private had disappeared again, Bucky resumed the conversation.

"I think so, this is goodbye," Bucky kept the papers. "Goodbyes... I'm not very good at them."

"Don't worry, Sergeant," you said, looking at his blue eyes as you leaned on the stretcher. "You just focus on being good at what matters, and come back safe and sound."

"Of course ma'am," Bucky gave you one last smile before disappearing through the curtain and informing the soldier that he could pass.

The rest of tomorrow you functioned as if you were part of an assembly line, soldiers and vaccines, vaccines and soldiers, your mind was lost elsewhere, wandering between various thoughts. Practically all your friendships were thousands of miles away from you, you only knew about them through a few lines that came to you with every correspondence at the beginning of the month. Your life was becoming a nuisance, and now he was leaving too. You wanted to be there, in the front line if necessary, to help, even if you regretted it every day later. That situation was frustrating.

With the sunset you started to pick up your belongings, there was nothing more you could do for today, just take off your uniform and go home to sit on the couch while you kept your mind distracted listening to the radio. The girls were going out that night to dance with a lieutenant and his mates, but you just needed a bit of calm.

The number five bus soon passed, and after crossing the Manhattan bridge you were on your way back to Brooklyn. You were living in a small rented flat in North Brooklyn, and every night when you arrived Mrs. Ferris would come over to say good night to you, although you knew that she just wanted to check that you didn't have a companion, as the rental contract forbade it.

"Good evening, Mrs. Ferris," you said as you walked up the stairs to the first floor. "Have a nice evening."

After having said your farewell, as always, you went into the house and prepared to open the window of the living room, just to listen to the atmosphere of the neighbourhood and to discover that you were not alone in that place. The radio news had finished and a Harry James song "I've Heard That Song Before" began to play, a song that made you think of Bucky and that at that very moment he would be dancing with Connie or Bonnie, or maybe both. You couldn't blame him for anything, in the first place he didn't know your feelings, and secondly first thing tomorrow morning he would be going off on the most dangerous adventure of his life, surely if you were in his position you would have done the same.

You stood silently by the window frame, listening to the sweet melody coming from the radio and contemplating all the windows lit in the buildings opposite. It took you longer than usual to realize that someone on the pavement, just below your window, was calling your attention, because you were transfixed by the Brooklyn night.

"What the hell are you doing here, Bucky?" The tone of surprise came in your words, but it was so faint that I probably wouldn't have heard you.

Bucky pointed to the front door of the building, emphasizing that he wanted you to let him in. You shook your head quickly, it was impossible for Bucky to get up to your house without Mrs. Ferris noticing. Your friend made a nagging gesture, but quickly indicated that you should go down to the street, where he was. With a charming smile he waited for your answer, and you no doubt pleased him by coming down quickly.

"I hope you're not late, Miss Y/S/N," Mrs. Ferris quickly opened the door. "And if you do, take off your shoes to go up the stairs."

"Of course, Mrs. Ferris, enjoy the evening."

With a little chuckle you opened the front door of the building and found Sergeant Barnes waiting for you at the entrance.

"What are you doing here?" you said with a scowl. "I thought you were in some bar in Queens dancing until dawn before a ship takes you to England."

"Well, let's say Steve has left and it's my turn to take care of the two ladies," he said, taking off his cap.

"Can't Sergeant Barnes handle two ladies?" Your mischief came out, if Mrs. Ferris had heard such a comment she would have kicked you to the curb, but Bucky was used to it.

Bucky did not respond, he just smiled and put his cap back on completing his uniform again.

"Would you like to go for a walk?" you asked when you realized that the conversation was limited.

"Please," he said, raising his hand to get you started.

You knew that neighbourhood perfectly, you had lived there since you moved to New York, and you had walked those streets day after day. As if you were taking an exam, you were trying to answer the question: Why did Bucky suddenly appear that night? Maybe it was true, Steve had left and didn't want to be with two young ladies. "Really?" you thought to yourself, it was James Barnes, he would have been thrilled with that situation.

"Have you received the answer to the relocation request today?" he asked, breaking the silence.

"Not yet," you said with regret in your voice. "I hope to receive it next week, I wouldn't like to stay another month in New York.

The lampposts opened past you on your night out, there was practically no one there except those groups of young people who were returning to their homes.

"You're looking forward to going to the frontline," he said, placing his hands behind him and looking ahead.

"Aren’t you?" you smiled melancholyly, staring at him. "It's not me who's leaving tomorrow."

Bucky kept walking as he looked straight ahead.

"You know," you started. "Maybe it's stupid, but I feel like my work here is useless. I became a nurse three years ago to escape that Missouri town and see the world, and I enlisted in the army nursing corps to serve my country and do something worthwhile in my life. But I've been doing medical examinations on soldiers and giving injections for three years.”

You did not know at what moment you stopped, but you were in the middle of an alleyway illuminated only by a pair of street lights. Bucky was watching you carefully as you let your thoughts flow.

"Practically everyone I know is struggling somewhere in the remote world, and I feel like I'm stuck and can't do anything to help," your mind went fast as your hands tried to express how you felt. "And tomorrow you're going thousands of miles away too and I'll still be here, getting up like I do every morning and giving medical check-ups to people who may not be with us for months.”

Your eyes became watery as you spoke. Finally you looked up from the floor and discovered that Bucky was looking serious as he listened to you, his expression made you nervous.

"I know, it's stupid," you quickly wiped away the tear that was going to fall down your throat by looking away and biting your tongue hard.

"No," Bucky denied with his face removing his cap. "Nothing you just said is stupid."

At the time you were a little embarrassed to have exposed how you felt, but your companion's reaction made you realise that he had hidden feelings too, and was not very likely to expose them either. Bucky raised his hand slowly, as if afraid of scaring you, and stroked your cheek. His caress made you shudder; it was so delicate that you closed your eyes to enjoy the time it lasted.

"You're looking forward to war," he whispered, staring into your eyes. "And I'm wishing you wouldn't."

You felt those words inside you too, they were a clear reflection of what you wanted, you didn't want him to go to the front tomorrow either.

"I'd kiss you right now," he whispered, focusing his gaze on your lips.

"Do it."

As if it were an order from a superior, Bucky accepted it and quickly shortened the distance between your lips. You had wanted to live that moment so many times and now it was happening, a few hours before his departure, and that was reflected in the need for that kiss. Your lips were opening up to each other, causing a more agitated breathing. It did not matter to you if someone was passing by or a curious person was watching through a window, it was your moment.

It was not until you parted that you discovered the fear you both felt within yourselves, the fear of not seeing each other again, and this was present in the kisses you gave each other until dawn.

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fcbayern · 5 years ago

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Hallo! Hope you are well! I love your blog and it’s made me really want to understand and get into Bundesliga. How can I know everything I need to know about Bayern so I’m up to date and understand what’s happening within the team? I hope this makes sense? Danke!

hi anon! i’m so sorry it took me so long to reply to this. this week’s been so busy already.

i guess the internet is a good place to start for your research :) of course wikipedia itself is not a bad source, but if you really want to get information, look at the bottom of the wikipedia page for all the teams in the bundesliga, and get the info from the sources there. that’s what wikipedia uses to write their articles, so that should give you even more insight into the bundesliga and its teams, and rules, etc than you already get from the wikipedia article itself.

i’ll try and sum up the most basic info for you - that i know - and if you have any other questions, feel free to send me another message and maybe we can get into more detail:

bundesliga is the highest “class” / tier that you can play in, in germany. it is divided into 2 different tiers: 1. bundesliga and 2. bundesliga.

1. bundesliga consists of 18 teams.

for the upcoming seasons - currently in alphabetical order because the new season doesn’t start until the 18th of September - these are the teams:

DSC Arminia Bielefeld

FC Augsburg

Bayer Leverkusen

FC Bayern München

Borussia Dortmund

Borussia Mönchengladbach

Eintracht Frankfurt

1. SC Freiburg

Hertha BSC Berlin

TSG Hoffenheim

1. FC Köln

1. FSV Main 05

Red Bull Leipzig

FC Schalke 04

VfB Stuttgart

Union Berlin

Werder Bremen

VfL Wolfsburg

Arminia Bielefeld were promoted from 2nd league, where they ended up in first place in the season of 2019/2020. The second team that was promoted is VfB Stuttgart. In exchange for these two teams being promoted, two teams have to be relegated. In the season of 2019/2020 those two teams were SC Paderborn 07 and Fortuna Düsseldorf.

Back to the Bundesliga Basics:

The Bundesliga stands under the umbrella of “DFB”, or Deutscher Fußball Bund (German Football Association), which was founded in 1900. In 1904 the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) was founded, which is basically the big boss of football. They keep an eye on a number of football associations across the world and also set up the Men’s and Women’s World Cup. DFB joined the FIFA right away in 1904, and in 1954 DFB also joined the UEFA, which is an acronym for Union des Associations Européennes de Football and therefor takes care of all things football in Europe. Self-explanatory.

UEFA wasn’t founded until 1954 because... things happened in Europe in the 30s and 40s.

During the time of the Nazi regime the DFB was dismantled in 1940 and it didn’t pick up again until 1950, when the Federal German Republic was reformed, and the West German football associations decided to get the DFB back up and running. They re-joined FIFA in 1954, and, as mentioned before, also joined UEFA that same year.

The Bundesliga how we know it, however, was not actually a thing until 28. Juli 1962, starting with the season of 1963/1964. Before that there were a number of clubs and associations throughout Germany who all kind of played side by side, and eventually in the 30s the idea of a “Reichsliga” (league of the German Reich) was brought up, where a certain number of teams would play and one would end up winning the title. Kind of what we do now.

And then the war happened.

And in between the end of that and the 60s, obviously they had brought some ideas back to the table, had tried to figure out a more competitive way and to bring football closer to the people.

In 1962 the idea of the Bundesliga was founded. 16 teams were to play each other in one league, competing against each other. 5 from “Oberliga Süd”, 5 from “Oberliga West”, 3 from “Oberliga Nord”, 2 from “Oberliga Südwest” and one from the Berlin City League - the Western part of Berlin, of course.

They had a super complicated system in place to figure out which teams would eventually be allowed to be the “founding fathers” of the Bundesliga. It had to do with economics, they ended up coming up with a weird system for who gets how many points for winning their own league, adding those up, multiplying, and then somehow they ended up with 16 teams... don’t ask me how, I have dyscalculia, I don’t understand their way of thinking at all. Maybe there was some voodoo involved, God knows, honestly.

Eventually they had their 16 winners from the aforementioned leagues:

Oberliga Süd: Eintracht Frankfurt, Karlsruher SC, 1. FC Nürnberg, TSV 1860 München, VfB Stuttgart Oberliga Nord: Eintracht Braunschweig, Werder Bremen, Hamburger SV Oberliga West: Borussia Dortmund, 1. FC Köln, Meidericher SV, Preußen Münster, FC Schalke 04 Oberliga Südwest: 1. FC Kaiserslautern, 1. FC Saarbrücken Stadtliga Berlin: Hertha BSC Berlin

In 1963 this “Bundesliga” wasn’t a pro-league, though. And there were a ton of rules in place that would probably make you go “huh?” these days... or maybe you’d think they are great rules and they need to make a comeback. A transfer, for example, could only cost up to 50.000 German Mark (roughly 25.564,50€ / $30.149,62).

Until 1967 you also weren’t allowed to sign more than three players from another team for the upcoming season.

At some point it was decided that football players would also have the benefits of a full-time worker, if they decided on football as a career, and not just something they did on the side.

When East and West Germany were reunited in 1989 / the early 90s, that’s when the Bundesliga really became more of a commercial success not just in Germany, but also throughout non-German Europe and the rest of the world. Which is also largely due to Germany winning the World Cup in 1990, and the European title in 1996, but the Bundesliga was also specifically marketed to popular media. In 1991 the German Football Association of the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Fußball-Verband der DDR) - the East German football association - joined DFB. Thus Germany was one again, not just on paper, but also in football.

Another thing that helped the popularity of the Bundesliga was the fact that in the 90s at least one Bundesliga club reached a European championship semi-final. In 1997 Borussia Dortmund won the Champions League, in 1996 Bayern München won the Europapokal, in 1997 Schalke 04 won the UEFA-Pokal. And in the following championships at least one German team reached the final of said competitions.

Let’s jump to the 2000s!

Since 2000 FC Bayern München has won the Bundesliga 13 times. The other winners were: Borussia Dortmund (2002, 2011, 2012), Werder Bremen (2004), VfB Stuttgart (2007) and VfL Wolfsburg (2009). Bayern München is also the only Bundesliga team in the 2000s to win the Champions League: 2013 and 2020.

After all that knowledge, here’s some random facts and numbers that you might find interesting:

- since it was founded in 1963, a total of 56 teams have played in Germany’s highest league - until the season of 2017/2018 Hamburger SV was part of the 1. Bundesliga for 55 seasons, which was a record. Now Werder Bremen holds this record, with 56 seasons to their name - Bayer Leverkusen holds the nickname of “Vizekusen” (Vice-Kusen), and they were at one point regarded as the “ever-second”, always getting close to the top, but never reaching it - Karl-Heinz Körbel has the most Bundesliga appearances: 602 - for Eintracht Frankfurt. He never lost a final with Frankfurt and was never relegated. - Bernd Stöber was the youngest coach in the season of 1976/1977 a t just 24 years, 1 month and 17 days old. - Brazil is the best-represented nation after Germany, with 159 Bundesliga exports (159), followed by Denmark (129), Austria (119), Croatia (118) and Poland (109). - in the season of 2019/2020 Thomas Müller had the most assists: 21. - retired football player Gerd Müller, whose active career was between 1965-1979, holds the record for the most goals: 365. - Otto Rehhagel holds the record for most matches as a manager: 832.

Now let’s go back to where we started: the season of 2020/2021.

As mentioned above, the 1. Bundesliga has 18 teams. To get you up-to-date I’ll give you some more info on each team, that you might find useful!

DSC Arminia Bielefeld: - founded: May 3rd 1905 - manager: Uwe Neuhaus - stadium: SchücoArena

FC Augsburg: - founded: August 8th 1907 - manager: Heiko Herrlich - stadium: WWK Arena

Bayer 04 Leverkusen: - founded: July 1st 1904 -> rebranded to current name on April 1st 1999 - manager: Peter Bosz - stadium: BayArena

FC Bayern München: - founded: February 27th 1900 - manager: Hansi Flick - stadium: Allianz Arena

Borussia Dortmund: - founded: December 19th 1909 - manager: Lucien Favre - stadium: Signal Iduna Park

Borussia Mönchengladbach: - founded: August 1st 1900 - manager: Marco Rose - stadium: BORUSSIA-PARK

Eintracht Frankfurt: - founded: March 8th 1899 - manager: Adi Hütter - stadium: Deutsche Bank Park

SC Freiburg: - founded: May 30th 1904 - manager: Christian Streich - stadium: Schwarzwald-Stadion

Hertha BSC Berlin: - founded: July 25th 1892 - manager: Bruno Labbadia - stadium: Olympiastadion Berlin

TSG 1899 Hoffenheim: - founded: July 1st 1899 - manager: Sebastian Hoeneß - stadium: Prezero-Arena

1. FC Köln: - founded: February 13th 1948 - manager: Markus Gisdol - RheinEnergieSTADION

1. FSV Mainz 05: - founded: March 16th 1905 - manager: Achim Beierlorzer - stadium: OPEL ARENA

Red Bull Leipzig: - founded: May 19th 2009 - manager: Julian Nagelsmann - Red Bull Arena

FC Schalke 04: - founded: May 4th 1904 - manager: David Wagner - stadium: VELTINS-Arena

VfB Stuttgart: - founded: September 9th 1893 - manager: Pellegrino Matarazzo - Mercedes-Benz Arena

1. FC Union Berlin: - founded: January 20th 1966 (originally 1906) - manager: Urs Fischer - stadium: Stadion An der Alten Försterei

SV Werder Bremen: - founded: February 4th 1899 - manager: Florian Kohfeldt - stadium: Weserstadion

VfL Wolfsburg: - fonded: September 12th 1945 -> rebranded to current name on January 16th 2001 - manager: Oliver Glasner - stadium: Volkswagen Arena

Maybe, to get a feeling for each club, you can check out each club’s YouTube account. Through that you should be able to find their other social media, or just by simply googling the team name:

Arminia Bielefeld ● FC Augsburg ● Bayer 04 Leverkusen ● FC Bayern München ● Borussia Dortmund ● Borussia Mönchengladbach ● Eintracht Frankfurt ● 1. SC Freiburg ● Hertha BSC Berlin ● TSG Hoffenheim ● 1. FC Köln ● 1. FSV Main 05 ● Red Bull Leipzig ● FC Schalke 04 ● VfB Stuttgart ● Union Berlin ● Werder Bremen ● VfL Wolfsburg

Each football team has 11 players on the pitch. For the new season in 2019 it was decided that instead of 18 players, each team would be allowed to have 20 players in total - which means 9 substitute players on the bench.

During each season a team can win three main cups (the ones that everyone cares about the most, let’s be real): DFB-Pokal, Meistertitel (Bundesliga winner) and Champions League trophy. The last of which is not a German tournament / cup to be won, so I’ll leave that out for now.

DFB Pokal:

The DFB-Pokal is a German knockout competition, starting out with 64 teams. 36 teams are from the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga, the top four finishers of the third league are automatically added to the list. 21 slots are given to the cup winners of regional football associations, and the remaining 3 slots are given to the regional associations with the most men’s teams.

Direct quote from Wikipedia, which in turn got their information from here: for the first round, the 64 teams are split into two pots of 32. One pot contains the 18 teams from the previous season of the Bundesliga and the top 14 teams from the previous season of the 2. Bundesliga. The other pot contains the bottom 4 teams from the previous season of the 2. Bundesliga, the top 4 teams from the previous season of the 3. Liga and the 24 amateur teams that qualified through regional football tournaments. Teams from one pot are drawn against teams from the other pot. Since 1982, teams from the pot containing amateur teams have played the game at home.For the second round, the teams are again divided into two pots according to the same principles. Depending on the results of the first round, the pots might not be equal in terms of number. Teams from one pot are drawn against teams from the other pot until one pot is empty. The remaining teams are then drawn against each other with the team first drawn playing the game at home.For the remaining rounds, other than the final, the teams are drawn from one pot. Since 1985 the final has been held in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.

Meistertitel:

The Meistertitel is rewarded to the team that comes out on top on the last match-day of the season. Of course it can be calculated whether other teams can still catch up - points-wise - but the Meisterschale is not rewarded until the season is over. The current record-holder of most Bundesliga wins is FC Bayern München (29), followed by Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach (5) and Werder Bremen (4) in second and third place.

With the first three Bundesliga wins a team gets a gold star to put on their jersey, with five wins they get a second, ten wins is a third, twenty wins is a forth star. On top of that, the reigning Bundesliga champion gets to wear the Bundesliga logo in gold color on their sleeve.

And that’s that on that.

I don’t know what language you’re fluent in, but here are some football apps that you might enjoy using, to be on track with the upcoming season:

OneFootball

Kicker App

Bundesliga App

11 Freunde App

Amazon Bundesliga Radio

each team’s individual app for updates and news

You can also check out @bundesliga_en on Instagram and Twitter.

One last info for you, so you can jump right into it on the first day of the new Bundesliga season (fixtures are never really 100% until a day or two before the match is supposed to be, so this is preliminary): here is the link for the schedule of the upcoming 1. Bundesliga season.

You can also check out the 2. Bundesliga schedule, because it’s super interesting down there in the second league as well! I highly recommend it (keep your fingers crossed for Paderborn for me!).

I think that’s about everything I can tell you. This reply is already faaaaaaaaar too long, and I apologize! If you have any questions or want me to elaborate, feel free to send me another message.

Have the best time getting used to the Bundesliga, and welcome to the family!

Sources - with more info - under the cut:

fun facts: https://www.bundesliga.com/en/bundesliga/news/easter-eggs-surprising-facts-and-figures-you-may-not-know-3798

team information / schedule: https://www.dfb.de/bundesliga/spieltagtabelle/

team information / schedule (2nd source): https://www.kicker.de/dfb-pokal/spieltag

general information: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu%C3%9Fball-Bundesliga

app suggestions: https://www.smartmobil.de/magazin/fussball-apps

explanation for how the DFB-Pokal: https://web.archive.org/web/20090609211623/https://www.dfb.de/index.php?id=460546

#Bundesliga #football #elle.reply #beantwortet #september 2020 #this took me like 8 hours to write up because I started while I was still working lmfao #anyway #feel free to block me for making a post this long omg #Anonymous #long post

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ryoyiel · 5 years ago

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Hogwarts AU - Chapter 1/?

Hey guys! I thought I’d upload my work here on tumblr as well, so here you go!

The house of the Prevc family was old and dark and mysterious, with many rooms and floors. Everywhere in the house hang portraits and photographs of the family and their ancestors. Countless books in ancient bindings and runes filled their library, dark artefacts could be found all across the mansion. You could feel the magic when you entered the house, breathe it in. They were a proud family. Proud of their descend, proud of their belongings, proud of their magic, which was one of the strongest, but also one of the darkest family magic in all of Europe. But most of all they were proud of their eldest son, Peter. Peter was everything an honourable pureblood family could wish for in an heir. His magic was strong, so strong that even the portraits he passed by could sense it. He knew how to behave, knew the etiquette. His younger brothers were not so much like him. Whereas Cene, their second son, was a son they could very well be proud of too, even though he and Peter differed a lot in character and attitude, Domen certainly was not. Where their ancestors praised Peter for his outstandingly strong and dark magic and aura when he walked past their portraits, they wrinkled their noses when Domen did.

“Disgustingly light the aura of this boy”, Domen’s great grandfather had said once, followed by a very rude sounding word Domen, who was five at that time, could not understand. (He looked it up in a Slovenian dictionary years later and felt very much taken aback to say the least)

Domen was different from the rest of his family, and he knew from an early age on. Not at last because his parents told him every time, they got the opportunity to do so. Especially when he didn’t start to show any signs of accidental magic until the age of ten when he made Peter’s hair fall out at the Christmas dinner, because his parents had started to praise Peter and made Domen yet again feel horrible for being who he was and how he didn’t have enough magic in him to ever get his Hogwarts letter.

A few months later he got the letter and tomorrow Domen would finally go to Hogwarts with his brothers. Tomorrow was the day he had been looking forward to all his life, yet Domen couldn’t sleep. Tough he was excited to finally learn more about his magic and how to use it, he was scared to not live up to his parent’s expectations. Scared of bringing even more dishonour to the family. It was his chance to make things right, he knew that because his mother had mentioned it often enough. But he wasn’t sure he could, if he actually wanted to.

“Did you fear not being sorted into Slytherin?”, Domen had asked Cene, who had just shrugged.

“Not really. When I sat up there, the hat on my head, I was so sure I was going to be sorted into Slytherin. The sorting hat told me, that Ravenclaw would seem a better fit to him. But he ended up putting me into Slytherin anyway, because after all it was my wish. He takes them into consideration. You don’t have to worry”

Domen knew that Cene wanted to make him feel better, but he only made things worse. Domen didn’t want to be in Slytherin. He didn’t want to be anywhere near his oldest brother who was so stuck up and perfect. He didn’t want to be anywhere near those people who spread so much hatred and fear. He didn’t want to be one of them. Though he knew not all of them were like that. They couldn’t be! After all, Cene was one of them and he was the most kind and caring person Domen had ever met. However, Domen didn’t want to be there. He couldn’t tell why, not yet. In a few years he’d know. He’d know that his parents were in the wrong and that he had already sensed it back then. He’d know that all of their values were meaningless and against his own believes. But at that very moment Domen was nothing but scared out of his mind about how his parents would react if he wasn’t sorted into the right house.

Domen had managed to fall asleep eventually. He could remember both Peter and Cene telling him about their dreams they had the night before they went to Hogwarts for the first time. How they dreamt of the sorting ceremony and the feast. Of unfamiliar faces on the train. Domen didn’t have any of that. He didn’t dream at all, at least he couldn’t remember when he woke up. Rather was woken up. Their house elf, Jošt, had been sent into his room by his parents to wake him up and he did so by banging his hands against Domen’s nightstand. Needless to say, Domen didn’t appreciate it.

“Bloody hell Jošt, stop it!”

Jošt was wearing a dirty old bedsheet. Domen could make out a big pinkish flower where the fabric fell on Jošt’s shoulder. He was sure that ever since he was born Jošt had been wearing that very same bedsheet. The elf stared at him, an ever so grumpy look on his face.

“Master Prevc, your mother has sent me to tell you that you have missed breakfast and that you are leaving in half an hour”, just like Domen’s parents, the elf only spoke Slovenian. When his grandparents had moved to England, they had already brought him with them, therefore he was very old already and not at all fund of the thought of having to learn a new language, even though he had lived here for several decades. “She wishes you to get dressed and come downstairs. I will be taking care of your luggage for you, master”

“Hvala” While Jošt, just like the rest of his family, valued tradition and honoured their family’s name, he was a good soul. He cared about the kids a lot, especially about Nika and Ema, Domen sisters who both were a few years younger than him. He was a bit of a replacement for their grandfather, who had died the same year Nika was born. It was also Jošt who had sneaked up to Domen’s room when the young boy had been grounded and not allowed outside of his very own four walls. Who had played chess with him and sometimes brought along sweets from the kitchen.

They used floo powder to get to London. Domen’s parents were close friends with another Slovenian family, the Zajcs. Their son and Domen were the same age and best friends for as long as he could remember. They were both first years and Domen couldn’t wait to explore the castle with him the same way they had explored the grounds around the Prevc’ home. The moment he arrived in the salon of the Zajc family, he saw Timi’s face beaming at him in excitement.

“We’re going to Hogwarts, can you believe it?” The other boy took both of Domen’s hands in his own and dragged him out of the fire place, jumping a little in excitement. “It’s surreal”

For the first time in days Domen actually felt truly excited. Even if his family was going to disown him if he was sorted into the wrong house, at least he was going to have fun. To have the time of his life. He would make new friends. He squeezed Timi’s hands a little and he felt how Timi’s genuine happiness started to infect every inch of his body. If everything was going wrong, he would still have Timi by his side.

“I can’t wait!” Domen looked into Timi’s face. He had always thought that Timi had very fascinating eyes and right now it looked as if there were actual stars locked in them. Only when his father pulled him away and to his side, he had realised that he had stared.

“My youngest son is going to Hogwarts now, I cannot believe it!” He laughed a deep laugh that was very typical of him. Domen didn’t like it, because he knew it to be fake. His father never laughed at home, he only did when others were around, especially not when it was about Domen. His parents were champions at hiding to other how they really felt about him, how much of a disgrace he was. He knew for a fact that Timi’s father wasn’t any different.

“They’re growing up so fast” Timi’s mother sighed as she cupped Domen’s face with her hands. She was a beautiful young lady who looked way too young next to her husband. Domen liked her a lot, because she always brought him and Timi biscuits when Domen was staying over. She seemed genuinely nice and he knew that she was a Hufflepuff back when she was at Hogwarts. She cared a lot about her son, and she cared a lot about Domen as well. Domen secretly wished that she would be his mother as well.

Mrs. Zajc brushed a strand of hair out of Domen’s forehead before she let go of him again. In the corner of his eye he could see his own mother giving her the same glance she gave him and his siblings when they did something she didn’t approve of.

“We have to get going”, Timi’s father exclaimed, looking slightly uncomfortable. Domen once overheard Cene and Peter talking about how their parents and Timi’s parents only were friends because they both were dark and ancient Slovenian pureblood families with a similar political view – though the Zajc family was less radical – and not because they actually enjoyed each other’s company.

On the way to Kings Cross Domen didn’t talk a lot, unlike Timi who didn’t shut up for a single second about how excited and thrilled he was to finally go to Hogwarts. Halfway to the train station Domen had managed to block out the other boy’s voice and was again thinking about what was to happen if he wasn’t sorted into Slytherin. What was to happen if he didn’t live up to his parents’ expectations and, lord beware, wouldn’t be allowed back home and thrown out by them. Maybe Timi’s parents would give him shelter – though Domen wasn’t sure if Mr. Zajc would approve of him not being in Slytherin either.

Domen got pulled out of his thoughts when he bumped into his younger sister Nika, who had challenged herself by trying not to step onto the gaps between the stones on the ground. Peter managed got a hold of them both so that they wouldn’t fall to the ground.

“Watch your steps”, he snapped at Domen. The younger boy rolled his eyes.

Domen wanted to say something mean, but he didn’t dare. Peter took Nika’s hand in his own and they kept on walking. Domen stared at the back of Peter’s head, hoping it would explode if he just stared long enough.

“Don’t mind him” Timi had put his hand on Domen’s back and gave him an encouraging smile.

“That’s easier said than done”

“I know, I’ve spent enough time with him”

Domen sighed as they entered the station. They went to get carts for their trunks and moved to the platforms 9 and 10. It was the fourth time now for Domen to get onto platform 9¾ but he still couldn’t remember which wall they had to run into. Peter led their group and without any signs of distress he walked into one of the brick walls, head held high.

Cene followed, with a much higher pace. Domen looked at Timi who was slightly nervous. He winked at him before he started to run towards the wall. Though it wasn’t his first time he was scared that the wall suddenly decided to not let him through and he were to crash into it. But instead of crashing, he went through and straight onto platform 9¾.

Domen loved to see the colourful, traditional robes mixed with suits and muggle clothing. He loved the sound of cheerful voices that laid like a blanket over them.

“Mum, I’ll write to you, I promise!” Timi looked rather annoyed by his mother who was trying to fix the collar of her son’s shirt.

“Don’t forget to write me about… You-know-what”, she mumbled. Domen knew they were talking about her because Cene had told him a week ago, that their mother had requested a weekly report about Domen’s behaviour and that his two brothers should take care of him if he didn’t bring honour to their family. Cene had reassured him that he would never in a million years consider actually doing so. He looked accordingly annoyed when their mother brought up the topic again. Peter in the meantime nodded and reassured her that she wouldn’t have to worry and that he’d be taking care of the issue. Domen hated him for calling him that.

After hugging his brother, his mother also pulled Domen into a tight hug. It felt awkward because they never did that.

“I will miss you so much my baby”, she cried out, in English and for everyone to hear, just to make sure they knew how perfect of a family they were, before she whispered “Behave or you will be disowned faster than you can imagine” Then she let go of him. Their father only nodded at them.

The three boys said goodbye to their sisters, before they got onto the train and parted ways.

On the train Timi and Domen went to look for a compartment. They were some of the last ones to get on the train and therefore they had quite some trouble finding that had space for two more students and where the people sitting in the compartment didn’t scare the two boys too much. The train had long left Kings Cross before the two of them found a place to sit. Towards the other end of the train, three boys sat in a compartment, happily chatting with each other. Timi opened the door and stuck his head in.

“Do you still have room for two?”, he asked and the boys started talking and looked at the both of them.

“Sure, take a seat��, one of the two Asian boys with a wide grin. The boy next to him, who too looked Asian, just nodded. The third guy, who very much didn’t look Asian, removed a small, weird looking, square with some weird wires coming out of it from the seat next to him.

Timi and Domen went to sit next to him.

“I’m Naoki Nakamura”, who has been speaking earlier said as he reached out for their hands.

“Timi Zajc”, said Timi as he shook his hand.

“Domen Prevc”, said Domen. Naoki nodded.

“You are purebloods, right?” While Timi nodded a bit too enthusiastically, Domen felt a bit weird. He didn’t want the first conversation they had be about blood purity.

“And you two are?”, Domen asked the other two boys, not wanting to continue with the topic.

“Vojtěch Štursa”, the boy next to Timi answered. He smiled at them.

“Ryoyu Kobayashi”, the third boy said. He too smiled at them, but it seemed less enthusiastic as the other two’s.

“Are you first years as well?”, Naoki now spoke again. Domen sensed him a very sociable guy already and he kind of liked that.

“Yes” Timi nodded enthusiastically. He was about to continue the conversation when they were interrupted by a knock on the compartment door.

“Anything off the trolly dears?” An old lady stuck her head in through the door, smiling at them with a warm smile. Behind her, Domen could make out a trolly filled with treats. Chocolate frogs, Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, sugar quills – everything a children’s heart desired.

“Yes please”, he answered, together with Timi, Naoki and Vojtech.

They took something from everything and split it evenly between them. Only Ryoyu had kept quiet and didn’t take anything. He was staring suspiciously at Vojtech who was trying to eat his chocolate frog.

He leaned towards Naoki and asked him something in a forgein language Domen didn’t understand. Naoki answered in the same language. Domen could only guess that he was guiding him through the different sweets in front of him, given that Naoki was using the same names they used in English when referring to the products.

“Do you have different kind of sweets in… Where were you from?”

“Japan”, Naoki again smiled at him. “And yes they are quite different there… More fancy actually, but you have to know that Ryoyu is a muggleborn and not used to his sweets jumping around and making frog noises”

Domen laughed a little. Timi only forced himself to smile. Out of the two of them, Domen had always found it easier to talk about muggles and muggleborn wizard without insulting them at every given opportunity. It had also been Domen who had made friends with several muggle children who lived close to their mansion, and had then been given hell by his parents for it.

“Don’t say anything rude now”, Domen switched to Slovenian so that the other wouldn’t understand what was going on. He had felt Timi stiffen next to him and he definitely didn’t want him to make a scene now.

“Try” He held out the last chocolate frog box for Ryoyu to take it. Ryoyu bowed slightly while carefully taking both of his hands to take the box.

“Thank you” He placed the box on his slap before pulling out a small box himself. He held it out to Domen, again with both of his hands and bowing slightly. Domen hesitated for a moment, before he tried to copy the others movements from before.

“Thank you”

Domen opened the box and spotted three little, white balls. He looked up again, a questioning look on his face.

“Mochi. Is very good. Please try.”

Domen nodded and picked up one of the balls and tried it. For a moment he thought he didn’t like it, but the longer he had it in his mouth, the more he started to actually like what he was eating.

“It is really good. Thank you” He nodded at him.

“Now try the chocolate frog!”

Ryoyu nodded as well before he very carefully opened the box. Faster than the boys could react the frog had jumped onto the window. Vojtech managed to catch him before it actually jumped out of it.

“It can’t jump anymore. You can eat it now”

Ryoyu still didn’t seem to really trust the concept. He brought the frog up to his mouth and closed his eyes before he bit off the head. He chewed on it, his whole face in wrinkles. He started to slowly relax his face and his lips grew into a smile as he opened his eyes again.

“Good” The other boys laughed, even Timi had started to ignore the fact that this boy in front of them was everything they had been brought up to hate.

“What card did you get?” Vojtech asked, visibly thrilled to learn which witch or wizard he had gotten.

Ryoyu fingered the card out of the box and looked at it for a second, before he turned it around for them to see. On the card was a portrait of a young witch with long and curly brown hair.

“Hermione Granger”

Through the remaining time on the train, the five boys kept chatting about everything an nothing. Vojtech was a halfblood from Czechia and his parents had moved to London because his father had been given a job at the ministry as the Czech ambassador. Both Ryoyu and Naoki’s families came from the same Japanese island, Hokkaido. Ryoyu’s family had only moved to England last winter and it was a bit of a shock for them when the letter had arrived. Though Ryoyu was a fast learner, his English wasn’t yet good enough to keep up with them throughout the whole conversation and Naoki had to play the translator a few times. But overall, the four of them got along quite nicely. Internally, Domen was praying that they could become friends.

#ski jumping #ski jumping fic #my work #my fic #hogwarts au #year one

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m00nslippers · 6 years ago

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It’s All About the All-Caste in RH:O Issue #34!

This issue was kind of filler and recap to be honest, but I’m always down for finding out more ways that Jason is awesome and we did get a little bit of that here, so let’s jump in to the review!

Right off the bat (hur hur) we flashback to Jason’s time with the All-Caste. He quotes Neitzsche, “Whoever battles monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster himself. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” This is juxtaposed by Jason literally fighting a bigass monster as a teen in the All-Caste.

Now this is actually a pretty awesome thing because 1) It’s Jason being a literature nerd, which is what sustains my life. 2) It’s actually pretty damn relevant to what is happening in the plot right now, with Jason fighting monsters (Gotham’s rogues) and Jason dipping into that pool of being a monster himself. There is just so much foreshadowing that Jason is setting himself up for a fall, I’m just not sure how it’s going to shake out yet. Honestly unless he does something a lot worse than what he’s been doing, I don’t personally actually fault Jason or think he’s a monster? Like let’s be real here, the guy gets results.

There is some really awesome stuff here. Internally Jason says “When you’ve died once already--stared at the actual gates of hell--and clawed your way back through six feet of dirt? When you stare at a monster? Nine times out of ten...they’ll blink first.” Damn.

And then the monster, who calls himself “The Devourer of Young Souls”, asks Jason why the heck Ducra chose to send some kid after him, to which Jason says, “She didn’t choose me, she didn’t send me, but she knew better than to try to stop me!” Damn.

Apparently Jason is literally a child of prophesy among the All-Caste. I don’t remember if that was something we knew already or something we learn here, but I think it’s interesting that he basically completed the prophecy and moved on. Because Jason did what he was there for, he slew the monster, fought the Untitled, and now everyone expects him to just stop fighting--and he’s just like, “Uh yeah, no.” Jason’s life is an endless war. It always has been, he doesn’t know how to live another life.

One thing I’ll give Lobdell. I think he’s pretty good at dialogue. He has his moments. He’s not as bad as people make him out to be, but I feel like this guy really needs a writing partner. His dialogue is generally good, his ideas are usually pretty interesting, but his plots just need work and his characterization is inconsistent sometimes. It’s the story execution that needs help, also I think he avoids or brushes over emotional stuff a little too much sometimes and that’s a real detriment to his arcs.

After this Jason summons a crap ton of All-Blades and goes MCU Hela on the monster’s ass and I need current Jason to do this, why doesn’t current Jason fight more actual magical monsters, clearly that’s what he’s good at? I need more of this, it’s too cool. It’s super unique among the bat-family, he’s the only one of them with an inherent answer to magic, why is this so underutilized? *Sigh*

The story picks back up in the present with Jason at a restaurant in France, on a date with Isabel. I’m a little annoyed that these two are back together but I think their interaction here actually kind of puts a perspective on it that I approve of. Jason has an extra champagne glass there and is thinking about his adventures in France with Roy when they fought evil mimes back in Red Hood/Arsenal (Yeah, unpack that one). The champagne glass is also a reference to events in RHATO New 52, when Roy orders a glass of alcohol and uses it to test his resolve for sobriety, which happened on the very same plane ride where Jason meets Isabel. Jason is clearly still mourning Roy, not to mention Artemis and Bizarro. I think this kind of shows that while he probably does still like Isabel as a person, he’s not necessarily in this relationship because he loves her and wants to get back together--he’s vulnerable and needs somebody, anybody to lean on and she’s made herself available.

People give Isabel a lot of flak and I don’t really get it? She’s never been mean or lied. She’s never judged Jason for any of the things he does, and she supports him emotionally, she just doesn’t want to be involved in vigilante craziness which is a perfectly sane thing to want. I think she’s really underdeveloped as a character--What’s her past? What does she like? Who is her family? She’s kind of generic--but as a person there isn’t anything to complain about. I still prefer Artemis, but I think Isabel gets too much hate.

Back at the Iceburg Lounge, Miguel is in charge of fixing the place up after the attack by the assassins in the previous issue. Miguel talks a little about this other reality he says he sees or senses, which is maybe a hint to some future event that is hopefully gonna fix every character inconsistency we all hate but probably not (hey I can dream). We get a tease about Miguel possibly figuring out Jason is keeping Cobblepot prisoner, which I think we all know is coming, but it doesn’t actually happen in this scene.

We see Jason walking Isabel to her hotel and it’s pretty cute to see Jason holding a girl’s hand, okay? I do like it. I almost feel like her quip about proving she doens’t love him for his money is Lobdell jabbing at everyone who is saying she’s a gold-digger. He’s just like, “Dude, she’s not, lay off” I never thought she was but the idea definitely floated around, which I think was a bit uncharitable to her character, as I’ve said. She also says the “L-word” that Jason is so allergic to but she manages to keep him from freaking out about it. I think she does actually love him or she wouldn’t be here and I also think the fact that she comes out and says it is A SERIOUS DEATH FLAG. Ya’ll heard it here first, I think Isabel is going to die at the end of this arc.

Also, Jason speaks exactly one word of French but in my mind this is proof that my language-boy speaks French.

Jason leaves her at her hotel to do some Red Hood stuff and calls Suzie Su on the way to check in. She’s fishing for what Jason is doing, she’s suspicious, but he doesn’t give her anything. Jason, you aren’t doing a great job of convincing anyone you aren’t up to no good. Unrelated to the plot, but let me just say, I like the outfit the artist gave Suzie. Artists always seem to give her really hangy dresses and depict her as gross, but she looks cute here! Those leggings are cool!

Then the scene goes to Essence doing some pretty awesome All-Caste magic to contact the guy Jason dusted, and he goes on to say some BS about Jason’s eyes being empty and how he’s not the same person who was their champion as a teen. I think narratively this is supposed to mean something, but it seemed like few of the All-Caste actually approved of Jason to begin with, and this guy didn’t give the impression he was one of them, so why we are trusting his opinion is a question to. The dude is biased, he never approved of Jason.

Essense talks to S’aru, the dude who took Jason’s most cherished memory all the way back in RHATO New 52, and Essence seems to suspect this has something to do with the ‘emptiness’ in his eyes and his actions in the presence. His most cherished memory was a time when he was sick and had to stay home from patrol and Bruce stayed with him. I mean, sure, you can argue this maybe changed how Jason sees Bruce now and is less willing to believe the guy loves him but Bruce’s actions in the presence don’t exactly even jive with that memory so...eh. I don’t know, maybe there is just some magic awfulness that happens when you lose that memory, no matter what it is.

At the end of the scene Ducra floats in to probably tell Essence she can go attack Jason or whatever but we don’t know what she decided for sure because it ends on a cliff-hanger.

Back in France, Jason barges into a perfume shop that is fronting a Kill-Bill style meeting of some criminals calling themselves "The Euro Bloc” who have ties to Cobblepot. They finance the guy in exchange for him laundering their money through his Casino, and I would just like to point out that this is Jason doing exactly what he said he was planning to do--dismantle all of Penguin’s criminal activities. I don’t see anything wrong with what he’s doing, why is Jason ‘empty’ or a ‘bad guy’? He points out later that he didn’t even kill anyone while in Europe, so what is everyone’s beef? I don’t get it.

So Jason basically says, stop your activities in Gotham, also, leave me alone. They do the typical, “OR, why don’t we just kill you now?” but it turns out that Wingman is waiting in a kickass plane ready to murder everyone if they make a move and so they reluctantly back off. The plane seems to belong to Wingman, who we find out is named ‘James’. I still have absolutely no idea who Wingman is supposed to be or what his relationship with Jason is, though. I really hope we get some more of this information soon.

One thing of note though, is that Wingman is THE ONLY ally of Jason’s right now that knows that he is operating as Red Hood still. Suzie doesn’t, Isabel doesn’t, Miguel doesn’t. Wingman holds some kind of significance, and seems to need/want Jason to be operating as Red hood in Gotham for some reason, which was why he was following Jason, to convince him to return to Gotham, but we just don’t know why yet.

And then in the end, Miguel finally finds out Penguin is behind the glass and the title seems to imply Miguel is going to turn on Jason. penguin must convince him he’s the one wronged (I mean he IS the one wronged but he’s not actually a good guy so we know this is bad even if Miguel doesn’t) because i can’t see Penguin overpowering Miguel who has all this Psionic power.

So this issue was interesting. I loved seeing all the All-Caste stuff though on the whole, it’s mostly set up. Next issue, stuff is going down! I can’t wait!

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peacocksonice · 7 years ago

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Ask Stephane

Many years ago, on his old website, Stephane would respond to questions sent in by fans. These were later compiled & shared by a poster in the Lambiel-Ru Livejournal community. The time span is from about 2003-2007. I cherrypicked a few of my favorite responses, but there are many more at the source. Happy reading ;-) (Sorry, they’re not in chronological order.)

Taskira (Izhevsk, Russia): 1. How are you able to create such a different impression on ice from what you are off ice? I mean that when I see you on ice, you almost always have serious, tragic, dramatic programs, but in your life you seem to be so merry and funny. Well, actually I can only judge according to your answers on your site, for instance about the Swiss chocolate helping to spin. Can you guarantee that if I eat ten chocolate bars, I will be able to rock some championships in the coming years? 2. You've named Miss Spears as one of your favorite singers. Would you like to skate to her music? 3. Now that you've become really popular, what is the best thing you got from it: money, popularity, the opportunity to meet other celebrities, self-esteem or maybe just the opportunity to say that you're happy that your family can be proud of you? 4. Do you believe in destiny? SL: 1. I don't want to make a fool of myself on the ice, I'd rather let other people do that. And yes, if you eat ten bars of Swiss chocolate each day for a whole year, you'll become a world champion! [Warning: Stéphane's insurance doesn't cover the medical costs of his fans.] 2. Yes, I'd like to skate on a remix without lyrics of Britney's music. 3. The best thing is just that I can do what I love, not everybody has that chance. I don't feel so famous, people don't recognize me in the streets. 4. Yes

Guyleen (Nendaz, Switzerland): You say that Alexei Yagudin is one of your favorite skaters. Now that he's turned pro, aren't you disappointed by the fact that you won't compete against him anymore? Wouldn't you have been incredibly proud to steal "his" first place and only let him the silver medal? SL: Honestly, I never even wondered about that. I respect him very much, so I'd have been very proud to beat him, but I wouldn't have been like "yeah, cool, I beat Yagudin!" And I don't know if I'd ever been able to anyway, because we'd have grown and improved differently, it sure wouldn't have been easy!

Tatyana (Russia): 1. I read that you trained with Alexei Mishin in St-Petersburg. Has his advice helped you? Will you continue training with him? Did you like St-Petersburg? 2. You performed in difference countries. In which country do you like performing most (except Switzerland)? 3. Could you be a coach when you finish skating? SL: 1. His pieces of advice are very useful and constituent. I don't know if I'll train with him again though. St-Petersburg is absolutely amazing, a beautiful city, the most beautiful maybe, spacibo bolshoye ! 2. I love Mexico because it's very warm there ! 3. No. I have other projects, and I'd like to study at the university.

Anastasia (Russia): I saw you at the Cup of Russia and noticed that while looking at ice dancing, the only skaters you didn't clap for were the Russians, and during the exhibition, the situation was the same - you applauded Evgeni Plushenko, but not the others Russian participants. Does it mean that you don't like Russians in general and skaters in particular? SL: Are you kidding? Russian skaters are the ones I admire most, they inspire me so much! Ilia Kulik and Alexei Yagudin are among my all-time favorite skaters! So I'm sorry if I gave you that feeling, but it really isn't the case!

Terry (San Francisco, USA): I was wondering why Swiss skaters are so talented at spinning. There have been so many Swiss skaters that have excelled in spinnng over the years. Do you feel good spinning should receive more credit in the judges' marks? SL: Swiss can spin so well thanks to the good Swiss chocolate! That makes them fat, which then creates a better centrifugal force and therefore makes them spin faster!!! LOL No, seriously, Swiss skaters give more importance to the spins, already when they're really young... I think that the spins are given more credit with the new judging system, that's not too bad, but still, I wouldn't mind getting even more credit - spinning takes me more energy than jumping in my programs.

Guyleen (Nendaz, Switzerland): What's your opinion about the collaboration between Brian Joubert and Alexei Yagudin? SL: I've never seen them work together and I've never seen Alexei Yagudin supporting Brian at a competition I also skated at, so I don't really have an opinion about that.

Muriel (Zurich, Switzerland): 1. What do you think of animals? 2. Do you like going to the circus? 3. Do you speak German German or also Swiss-German [a dialect], and if so, with which accent? SL: 1. I don't like insects, spiders and such little things, except for ladybugs of course. My favorite animals are the big cats, I find them beautiful and powerful, and I also like the animals that live in the savanna. I'd love to have a cat again, because Sabri's now living at one of my mom's friends and I don't see him any longer. 2. Yes, I do, especially to the Cirque du Soleil. 3. I speak German German, and I understand Swiss German if I know the person who speaks it, if I'm used to their voice.

Elina (Latvia): 1. I am 16 years old, but unfortunately I don't know how to skate. It would be great to learn, but it would be even better if you could teach me. Could you do that? 2. Why do you usually skate in black velvet costume? SL: 1. No, sorry, I have neither the time nor the patience for that! 2. I like black, I like sobriety.

Rita Hypnarowski (California, USA):

1) Once school is over for you, how long would you delay school to keep skating full-time? Your fans want to see the incredible heights you will reach focusing solely on skating. 2) You've won over thousands and thousands of fans in North America, and with your high placement at 2004 Worlds, you will undoubtedly be asked to join one of the prestigious North American skating tours. Would you accept, or will you prefer to do only shows in Europe? 3) Do you rely on religion and spirituality to get you through your programs, or do you approach your skating *tests* with a lighter, more physical/mental approach? SL: 1. I'll focus on skating until the Olympics in Torino. Beside that, I just want to perfect my English and learn how to play the guitar. 2. I'll accept when I'll have time. 3. I don't do any kind of psychological training.

Vanessa (Portugal) Do you think that you would feel differently if Evgeni Plushenko hadn't withdrawn and you had won against him? SL: In my head, I beat him. Even if he wasn't 100%, I did beat him in the qualifying round and in the short program, and when he withdrew, I took it as a sign that he felt that he wouldn't be able to beat me during the free program.

Petra (Czech Republic) 1. You are twenty and it seems that you've already reached your biggest dreams. I hope you realise your huge luck. There are so many people who, no matter how hard they try, will never see their dreams come true. What do you think is the reason why you've crossed this personal line of success? 2. Do you still have a dream (not necessarily related to figure skating) that hasn't come true? Something that is more important for you than these moments of absolute happiness that you've lived lately? SL: 1. I've worked very hard to get there, it didn't fall down from heaven! 2. Of course, I have dreams like everybody, it's what keeps me going on. The most important, it's that my family stays healthy. And I would love to meet Britney.

Elena (Russia) I heard that you've taken some lessons from our famous Professor Alexei Mishin. Why have you decided to consult Alexei Mishin and not another coach? And what do you think of the Russian figure skating school? SL: Alexei Mishin is an excellent coach and I admire the Russian skating style. It's a very very very good school.

Gabrielle (USA) 1. Who was you favorite skater growing up? 2. Who is your favorite skater now? 3. If you could go on a date with anyone in the world who would it be and why? SL: 1. Ilia Kulik 2. Carolina Kostner 3. Britney Spears, to see if she's really the person she pretends to be.

Noémie I'm wondering if you're planning on coaching later, and I'd also like to know if it's possible to watch your practices. SL: I give advice to the skaters who train with me, but I don't think I would be patient enough to become a coach. And no, my practices are not open to the public.

Kari (Japan) Do you enjoy skating in Japan? Please tell me what you feel, eat and buy when you’re here! SL: Yes, the audience is really amazing. I love to shop in Shibuya, once I had a very expensive ice cream in the Omotesando Mall and it was the best I’ve ever tried. The Prada and Christian Dior stores are fantastic!

Erika (Sweden) I read on "Ask Stéphane" that you want to be Gabrielle's second lover in "Desperate Housewives", and that you could be her cook for example. Are you a great cook? And if yes, do your friends think so to, or is it only you? SL: I’ve learned from my grandma and I really like to bake cakes. I think the people who’ve tasted them had a nice experience…

Craig (Honolulu, Hawaii, USA) What is your interest in "The Little Prince"? Do you identify with this character and in what way? SL: I like the way he sees the world, which is totally different from how mass society sees it.

Varvara (Kiev, Ukraine) Do you have a motto? SL: Semper Profice - Always forge ahead!

#Stephane Lambiel

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kmp78 · 7 years ago

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FINLAND 1 - 0 - 0 🇫🇮

A QUICK COMPILATION OF ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW - AND WISH YOU NEVER DID.

1. You may call us Finland and Finns, but we call ourselves Suomi and suomalaiset.

2. Altho if you don´t mind, we would rather you did not call us anything ever. Actually if we could both pretend each other doesn´t even exist, that would be just great!

3. Yes we are a notoriously shy and reserved nation with a gigantic inferiority complex - especially when compared to our neighbor Sweden.

4. Who incidentally we loooooove beating in hockey.

5. Saimaannorppa aka Saimaa ringed seal can only be found in Finland and is highly endangered.

According to a count done in 2015, there are only about 320 individuals left, and therefore quite understandably whenever one is found dead in a fisherman´s net or by the hands of a poacher etc., it causes headlines and outrages.

6. 70% of Finland is made up of forests - that´s roughly the size of the entire area of the United Kingdom.

7. Finland was awarded the Summer Olympics for 1940, but then things got all sorts of fucked up thanks to Adolf & co., so those plans were scrapped even tho we had a brand-spanking new Olympic stadium and everything! Dammit!

Oh well, we were compensated in 1952 when we finally got the honor of hosting our only (so far) Olympic games.

8. Those 1952 Olympics were the first time Coca Cola was introduced to Finns.

9. No, we do not have polar bears.

10. We also don´t have KFC, Wendy´s or Dunkin´ Donuts.

11. Yes I am very upset about all those things mentioned above but especially about KFC.

12. Finland was the first country in Europe which gave women the right to vote (1906).

13. The Finnish language does not separate words such as “she” or “he”. We just use a gender-neutral “hän”, which means “that person”.

14. The national bird of Finland is the whooper swan.

15. Helsinki has the world´s most Northern metro system.

16. Savonlinna hosts their annual Opera Festival in a Medieval castle.

17. We are vindictive and petty as HELL. Just ask Silvio Berlusconi.

http://kmp78.tumblr.com/post/155861218049/finland-chronicles-part-14

18. A Finnish person will drink approximately 129 litres of milk a year.

19. Some years ago, the word for mother (”äiti”) was voted the most beautiful word in the Finnish language.

20. Moomins are, as some of you MAY REMEMBER FROM A SPECIFIC DEBACLE FROM EARLIER THIS YEAR, from Finland and were created by OUR Miss Tove Jansson.

21. Unlike many other countries which after gaining independence tore down all statues and other remnants of their history under foreign rule, in Finland we chose to keep ours up as reminders of our past.

For example, on our main square aka the Senate Square you will find Czar Alexander II standing proudly.

22. And speaking of statues, one of the landmarks of Helsinki is Havis Amanda.

It depicts a mermaid who decides to leave the sea and walk on... well, not water.

Each year on April 30th, she is “crowned” with a cap, to represent all those who have graduated from secondary school and earned their caps.

23. As of 2010, internet access has been a legal right in Finland.

24. Do you have one of those cupboard things over your kitchen sink, the kind where you place your dishes to dry?

That was invented by a Finnish woman called Maiju Gebhard in 1945.

25. The longest word in the Finnish language is “epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydelläänsäkäänköhän”, which loosely translates to “not even by her lack of organization, do you suppose”.

26. Angry Birds are from here.

27. Finland is also the birth place of the most successful ski jump champions of all time, Matti Nykänen.

28. After his sports career came to an end, Matti has been a permanent fixture in the tabloids with his... issues... involving alcohol abuse, domestic abuse (he even served time in prison for attempting to kill one of his many ex-wives) and an assortment of careers including stripping and now singing.

He is also responsible for one of our most beloved and useful quotes of all time: back in the 80s when he was still jumping from towers and competing in Canada, he got into some “situations” and was sent back home as punishment. When he arrived at the airport, a journo asked him “Matti, did you drink alcohol?”, to which Matti replied “Maybe I did drink, maybe I didn´t drink”.

All bases covered then!

The man is a fucking genius.

29. There are absolutely ZERO public payphones anywhere in Finland.

30. For a very short period of time back in, Finland had a female president AND a female Prime Minister.

Sadly that arrangement came to an abrupt end when the Prime Minister was forced to resign over a scandal involving some sort of Iraq documents which I´m still, a decade later, completely baffled by.

31. As those who come on this blog surely know by now, Yours Truly is a passionate berry picker - and being a berry nut in Finland is easy indeed since a) we have one of the cleanest natures in the world and b) all living things you find in nature, you can keep - within reason, of course.

Usually a good principle is to keep about 100 meters distance from the nearest house. Other than that, you´re good to go!

32. People in in Northern Finland aka Lapland area have a very specific unit of measurement called the “poronkusema” which could be loosely translated to “Reindeer´s piss”. Roughly it means the distance a reindeer can walk before needing to urinate. It´s quite a long distance...

33. Our current President Sauli Niinistö is a survivor of the tragic tsunami which took place in South-East Asia on Dec 26, 2004. Over 200 000 people (including almost 200 Finnish tourists) died in one of the worst natural disasters of our time - Mr. Niinistö and his sons saved their own lives by climbing up a telephone pole and staying there for several hours.

34. In Finland October 13th is National Failure Day which aims to encourage people to share their failures and learn from them rather than hide their heads in shame and pretend all is well.

35. The REAL Santa Claus lives up in Rovaniemi and you can visit his village all year long.

36. Sheldon gave us a good laugh and an ego boost.

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37. We like eating Rudolf with lingonberries and mash.

38. On some years we get A LOT of snow, but on others we get practically none. Back in 1997, in Lapland the snow reached up to 190 cm.

Incidentally I am 155 cm.

39. In the Finnish language there is an alphabet called Å which isn´t actually a part of a single Finnish word in the entire Finnish language - it is simply a remnant from our many centuries spent under Swedish rule.

40. Unesco has reported that Finland´s tap water is the cleanest in the world.

41. A handy Finnish saying: “Early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese”.

42. For some God forsaken reason, Finland and Estonia have the same national anthem.

43. Sadly accurate these days.

44. Sadly accurate these days.

45. Rosina Heikel (1842 - 1929) was Finland´s and in fact the Nordic countries 1st female doctor.

46. When something is a failure/a dud, the common term in the English language is “a lemon”. Over here, it´s “susi”. Susi also means wolf.

47. And susi should not be confused with sisu!

48. In Lapland you can spend your vacation in an igloo.

49. Fines for speeding are determined by the offender´s income. Basically if you earn more, you have to pay more. The highest fines have been over 100 000 €. Stay poor, kids!

50. Pamela Anderson´s grandparents were from Finland.

51. Yes we like getting our drinks on, and most of us go abroad to Tallinn to get our drinks on for a lot less €s.

52. In Lapland, the Sun never rises from November to January.

53. In reverse, the Sun never sets from June to July. We call it “The Nightless night”.

54. Finland has exactly 1 Eurovision victory under its belt.

55. In 2018 Saara Aalto will be repping us.

Please vote for us. Please?

56. Nokia became famous for their mobile phones, but originally they manufactured rubber boots.

57. We don´t dub movies or TV shows.

58. We do however sometimes give them ridiculous and extremely SPOILER ALERT-y names. For example, “The Shawshank Redemption” was translated to “Rita Hayworth - Key to escape”.

I mean... C´MOOOOON!

59. Sometimes that´s all you can do.

60. Simo Häyhä aka “White Death” was one of the deadliest snipers of all time. During a 3 month stretch of the Winter War, he shot roughly 200 Russian soldiers before getting shot in the face himself. He survived and lived to be 96.

61. We don´t use the 1 and 2 cent coins. You CAN try paying with them as they of course are legal currency, but there are no guarantees you´ll get very far.

62. Feb 14th may be a day for lovers for the rest of the world, but we know it as “Friend´s Day”.

63. Tipping is not (thankfully) a part of the Finnish culture.

64. The guy longing for Sven in Titanic (the coat dude) was portrayed as a Swede, but was actually a Finn called Jari Kinnunen.

65. Karelian pies with egg butter are the best thing ever.

66. Märket island which is situated between Finland and Sweden had to have the border lines twisted a bit because the Finns who built that lighthouse, accidentally built it on the wrong side...

67. While often named as one of the 5 Scandinavian countries, Finland isn´t technically even a part of Scandinavia: we ARE however a part of the Nordic countries.

68. If you are invited to a Finnish sauna, you are expected to go nude.

69. Finnish armed forces are mandatory for men but voluntary for women.

70. Moomin mugs are peculiarly popular especially among Asian tourists. They can sometimes pay even thousands for rare ones.

71. We never had vikings, but there is one viking tale about a princess called Skjalv, daughter of the Finnish King Froste (those aren´t even Finnish names...), who was stolen as war loot to Sweden but ended up strangling her captor with a gold chain.

72. Our 4th president was Kyösti Kallio, who was forced to resign from office after the Winter War on December 19th 1940. On that same day he was about to step onto a train to take him back home for retirement, when during his final official ceremony at Helsinki Railway Station, in front of his soldiers and while the orchestra played, he suffered a fatal heart attack and died right there in front of everyone. Legend says he collapsed into the arms of our greatest war hero and later president himself, Marshall C.G.E. Mannerheim (seen in the white hat next to President Kallio).

73. Marshall Mannerheim is the only person in Finnish history who has been rewarded that particular military honor. In fact, he is and forever will remain the only person who has the title “Finland´s Marshall”, an honor bestowed upon him for his services to his home country during Finland´s tumultuous early years of independence.

A few years ago he was voted by the Finns themselves as the most important Finnish person of all time.

74. In June 1942, Adolf Hitler came to Finland to pay his respects to Marshall Mannerheim on his 75th birthday. As a little “souvenir” for future generations, the sneaky Finns recorded a snippet of his and Mannerheim´s private conversation.

It is the only known recording of Hitler speaking with a calm, normal voice, as he was very particular about only being filmed while screaming and ranting his ideologies.

youtube

75. Roughly 3 million tourists visit Finland each year and I think at least 2 500 000 of them are always going exactly where I´m going too.

76. We like to make things hard for foreigners.

77. We don´t have any mountains.

78. But we have lakes. We have a shit ton of lakes. 187 888 lakes to be precise.

79. FYI

80. All our days end with -tai (Monday = maanantai, Tuesday = tiistai etc.), except for Wednesday. Wednesday is called keskiviikko.

81. We have a lot of free time.

82. J. R. R. Tolkien used the Finnish national epoch the Kalevala as inspiration for the languages in the Lord of the Rings saga.

83. The St. Louis Arch was designed by a Finn called Eero Saarinen.

84. Every summer we arrange what is called Kaljakellunta aka “Beer float” which pretty much just consists of taking a floatie and a case of beer and... well, that´s about it.

85. If you want to enhance your sauna experience, you can use a birch whisk.

86. The bubble chair was designed by a Finnish man called Eero Aarnio.

87. Thursdays are the “official” pea soup and pancakes day all over Finland.

88. Finns love queuing.

89. Life expectancy for men is 78 years and for women 84 years.

90. In Tornio you can play golf in two countries:

http://kmp78.tumblr.com/post/155901150914/finland-chronicles-part-15

91. Finns invented the so-called Molotov´s cocktail.

92. All people in Finland must pay a TV tax even if they do not they own a TV.

93. We celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December.

94. Finns love salmiakki aka salty licorice.

I don´t, btw.

95. Finland is one of the few countries in Europe which has not banned sex with animals - and some actually take advantage of that loophole...

http://kmp78.tumblr.com/post/156161829244/finland-chronicles-part-21

http://kmp78.tumblr.com/post/156257574544/finland-chronicles-part-23

96. Armi Kuusela won the 1st ever Miss Universe pageant in 1952.

97. In 2006, Conan O´Brian did a sketch about looking like our then-president Tarja Halonen and it ballooned into a huge movement.

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98. Weeeeell...

99. On every Independence day, the current president hosts a party at his residence for about 2 000 dignitaries, celebs, politicians etc. We riff raffers sit at home in our sweatpants and watch it on TV with some nachos and snarky comments.

100. MONTY PYTHON KNOWS.

youtube

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUOMI, AND THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING.

Despite you reeeeally getting on my nerves SO MUCH and SO OFTEN, I still love you. 💙 💙 💙

#finland 100 #suomi 100 #itsenäisyyspäivä #december 6th 1917 #thank you #100 facts for 100 years #national pride #also shame for good measure

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lovemenowmr · 7 years ago

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Chapter thirty-six.

It was our last day in the resort and we decided to slept. After pouring my heart out the previous night we were both really tired, we had stayed most of the night talking about when we were little kids and how we had been brought up. We weren’t really that different to be honest.

We had breakfast in bed and we spend the rest of the morning naping, listening to the vague sound of the ocean, the waves hitting repeatedly the wooden pier, steadily and calmly. It was a paradise – our little paradise – and I was so sad to be leaving but, on the other hand, it was time to getting back to my normal life. Besides, I was missing home terrible, the homesickness was getting really hard sometimes.

“I can’t believe this is our last day” Marco said.

“I know” I said hugging into his side.

“And partly because you are going to be leaving soon too” he said giving me a peck on the temple.

“You know I miss my family” I pouted.

“I know, I’m not telling you not to go” he answered.

However, I felt like there was something he wasn’t telling me. I didn’t push him tough, I wanted him to tell me when he was ready. Or maybe it was only my imagination.

We spent the whole day resting at the deck and taking our last beams of sun before going back to Europe. Marco had tanned a little bit but I was almost as white as I was when I first came into the island. We had decided to go dinner together today, and spend our last night watching the European Cup final match.

Portugal was playing against France, Marco was rooting for France because it had beaten Germany on the semifinals and he wanted Germany to had fallen against the Champion. I wasn’t rooting for anyone specially, however Marco’s reason was a sensible one I could relate with, Portugal was a country that I liked, so I was a torn in between the two teams.

I started getting ready early because I wanted to do my make up and my hair early, so we had time to go and watch the match. I had chosen a green short dress to wear tonight but I was worried it would be a little chilly. However I hadn’t brought any fancy long dresses. As I stepped into the bedroom I saw a present laying on top of the bed, it was rectangular, quite big but not very tall.

“What is this?” I asked Marco

“It’s a present” he stated.

He had been swimming in the pool while I was showering and his hair was already starting to dry, the end pointing in every direction they could go. He had his green swimming shorts on and had placed an open t-shirt to cover his upper half, abs still visible through the fabric.

“That’s obvious” I said “Is it for me?”

“Of course” he said matter-of-factly.

“Can I open it?” I ask excitedly.

I loved surprises, and I was intrigued as to what was inside the box. It was so sweet of Marco to think about giving me a present, I knew he was quite wealthy but I really didn’t want him to spend my money on me. I usually didn’t asked him for anything because I didn’t want to get advantage of him in any matter.

“Of course” he said leaning into the door with his arms crossed, a smirk on his face.

At that point I looked like a six year old and I opened the box with caution. First I undid the white ribbon, wrapped around the box and then I opened the pink box carefully. On the inside was a white dress, wrapped in thin pale pink paper. It was perfect. It was a long white dress it was embroidered on the top, which had spaghetti strips end it was sheer on the side. The skirt was made of thin white fabric, that fell loosely to the floor and it had a slit up to the hips. There was a cute ribbon wrapped around the waist as well.

“Marco” I said touched. “This is beautiful. Thank you so much”

“I wasn’t sure if you were going to like it” he said.

“I love it” I said hugging him “But you really didn’t have to do it.

“I like to spoil you sometimes” he said giving me a peck.

“You don’t have to” I said wrapping my arms around his neck, getting on my tip toes so I could reach his lips once again.

“I want to” he said toying with the band of my bathing robe “You deserve it”.

“Thank you” I said truthfully.

He wrapped me with his arms and I jumped into his waist after he carried me to the bed and we lost the track of time, getting lost into each other.

I ended up applying very little make up and curling my hair slightly, I put my new dress on and I could tell Marco liked it because he got more handy than usually. He towered over me as we were walking over the wooden platforms since I was not wearing high-heels, but a pair of brown sandals instead. Since I was quite short a few inches of my dress was dragging on the ground as I walked and I was afraid Marco would step on it.

The restaurant was really nice., it was on the beach and there was hay walls around the amount of tables and chairs. They were painted white, and it seemed used and old, which made the whole view way more cosy and beautiful. There was also a huge screen on the side, in which they were going to stream the match.

Marco and I got a really nice table, it was next to a glass fence, which separated the deck from the shore and it was quite close to the screen, but not so much for it to make you blind.

Dinner was great and so was the football match. It was really not that interesting but since it was a final it had a special thrill. Marco got himself immersed into the game and I found myself fixating my eyes to him instead of the match. His look of concentration was so fascinating, his brows were pulled together and his greenish eyes were fixated into the scree, the light coming from it drawing a beautiful shade onto his eyes. The game ended up in a win for Portugal, 1-0.

After diner we took a walk down the beach.

“I’m going to miss you this summer?” Marco said as we stop, sitting down on the sand.

“Me too” I said. “But, I’m back at the end of August”

“Too long” he said “Plus, it going to be preseason and I’m going to be at training camp probably”

“Aren’t you injured?” I asked him.

“Not going to be injured forever” He laughed. “I can always go to Spain”

“I doubt that” I said “How will you communicate with anybody?”

“That’s right. It would be difficult”

We stood on the beach a little more and then we went back to the hotel, since we had our flight early in the morning.

I slept the whole trip to the airport the next day, we repeated the same steps as we had previously done to start our holidays but on reverse. We had a second breakfast at the airport and then we board into the plane and we took our seats. We decided to watch a movie together at the first half of the flight. Then we had our lunch and we took a nap, soon after that we arrived to Dortmund.

As we touched down Yvone was waiting for us at the airport with Nico and Mia. The three of them were at the gate, waving to us as we passed through the doors. Nico ran to us and I picked hip up in a hug, giving her a little kis on the head.

“Hi Adi” he said “Hi uncle Marco”

“Hey little one” Marco anwered him, carresing his cheek. “Did you have fun while we were out?”

“Yees” the little kid exclaimed “I don’t have school, now”

“That’s great” I told him “Oh, look at your sister, she’s grown so much”

Mia was now a six-month-old baby and she was a chubby bubbly girl. She was always smiling and showing her legs into mid June’s heat. She had darker hair than Nico but they had the same beautiful eyes.

#marco reus #marco reus imagine #marco reus one shot #marco reus fanficition #football fanfiction #football imagine #bvb imagine #bvb one shot #bvb fanfiction #borussia dortmund imagine #borussia dortmund one shot #borussia dortmund fanfiction #love me now marco reus #chapter thirty six

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musicallisto · 4 years ago

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an exhaustive (or so i tried) list of all the sports i've tried in my life (pt. 1)

whether that be in p.e. class or on my own initiative

dancing (ballet). did one year when I was 6. i liked it, and loved wearing my tutu and dancing shoes! but the other girls in the class were very cliquey, you know, all daughters of rich housewives who all already knew each other from rich kids daycare or something. so i felt pretty excluded, and it killed my enthusiasm. also, i think one time my mom picked me up one hour late because she was really busy, and i understand, but that hour i spent alone with no word from my mom at the dancing club was the most dreadful of my life. i quit after one year, and took up piano after that. which was slightly more successful. :)

football. or ~soccer~ i guess. it's virtually impossible to grow up in europe and not play football once. i really love it, but i'm pretty bad. it's ok though, i have a lot of fun! still play it with my friends every now and then. in primary school football it was THE shit and the only road to being popular, and in 5th grade i even played in a tournament with the other schools. i shall not mention the score. i like being goalie, but i'm 5'3" which makes my goalkeeping prowesses pretty scarce. i watch it pretty often on the tv though! (football is a major pillar for the cohesion of latin cultures and no one is allowed to not give a shit about it, whether you like it or not)

swimming. also have swam all of my life, not in a club but either with school or by myself from time to time. i'm far from any michael phelps, but i've only been getting better over the years! last time i really swam was in 11th grade p.e.: you could choose either 50m speed, or rescue, and because rescue implied dragging a 70kg mannequin through 200m and obstacles, my 55kg ass thought, "yeah, no, let's do the speed thing". i was a bit slow the first time but had a spectacular room for improvement over the weeks! ended up swimming the 50m in 52 sec i think. which may be twice as long as the olympic champions but i'm no olympic champion and i was proud ok :(

handball. my 5th grade teacher was the hugest handball fan on the planet. in fact i think my shortcomings in math today are from all the days in 2012 i spent playing handball instead of learning fractions. on the last day of primary school we caused a literal uprising (for reasons unrelated to handball) and the entire school followed, and when peace returned and it was time for teachers to punish the troublemakers, our prof just said "that wasn't nice. come on let's play handball." i remember liking it? not having very strong emotions toward it? those big steps you have to take before jumping and shooting were really fun. loved yelling at the opponents that they were In The Zone and it was foul ball.

tennis. ok. my history with tennis started with that same jock 5th grade teacher and ended within two hours of starting. i think i am the absolute worst person to ever hold a tennis racket, it was actually pretty distressing. i could barely serve even, but it wasn't on account of me not trying! i think... there's something in the blood of the french that just prevents us from being good at tennis, genetically. and it wasn't helped by the fact that every single one of my classmates had played or were playing in a club, and it was basically like a five year-old against djokovic. there's still some unspoken wounds between me and tennis, but for the most part i've forgiven it, in great part thanks to nadal winning roland garros every year. i only don't want to get close to a racket ever again. maybe in another life.

table tennis. here's my theory: i've never met a bitch who was good at tennis AND table tennis. your skill in table tennis is directly inversely proportional to your skill in tennis. which is obviously why i love it so much. it's fun! it's fast! it's competitive! it's technical! you might think table tennis is just tennis for softies, but think not! have you seen profesionnals play? they're standing five feet away from the table and hitting that ball at the speed of light, their reflexes are impressive to see. in my experience, all the tennis players i've played table against are too brutal, too rough, because they think they're on the court, and overestimate their advantage. also, as a leftie, left-handed privilege is real. table tennis was one of the sports i was evaluated on for my high school diploma and OBVIOUSLY forgot how to play when i was in front of the jury but i guess that's life. i bear no ill will to the superior sport, even if it let me down at the most crucial moment.

thèque, which is basically french baseball except the field is smaller and you get two tries hitting with the baseball bat and if you're really really bad with it you get one shot with the tennis racket. guess with which i was better. this was what we did in the last days of the school year when the teachers were too lazy to have us do anything productive so they just went, "take the bat and play thèque or something". some of my best memories involve thèque, and baseball is one of the few things that justify americans having rights because it's so much fun. the game is basically hitting a ball as hard as you can and running? and on all levels except physical i am a dog, so that's basically my idea of happiness. though i wasn't... very good... on the receiving team. but we were so good that we just kept scoring home runs and never had anyone out so we just always pitched <3 a fun moment was when someone walked over to the tennis racket, and the dog (how we call the one you have to throw the ball back at when you're on the defending team) started yelling "EVERYONE GET BACK SHE PLAYS TENNIS!!" and yeah, funnily enough, the tennis girl always hit that ball like it had stolen something from her. except those stratospherical throws were always caught on the fly. tennis idiots.

how many sports did you guys do in p.e. over your school years, and what were they? because I've been thinking about it and turns out my teachers were often huge jocks so I've done a lot

#abt c #i have so many stories about all these sports lol #when it comes to sports i am the definition of jack of all trades master of none.#i thknk i should be given a medal for having tried my hand at so many sports and being outrageously bad at all of them #so i don't count as a jock! but also lowkey do?

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sinrau · 5 years ago

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Clint Lorance had been in charge of his platoon for only three days when he ordered his men to kill three Afghans stopped on a dirt road.

A second-degree murder conviction and pardon followed.

Today, Lorance is hailed as a hero by President Trump.

His troops have suffered a very different fate.

Depression

Fatal car crash

Shooting death

Cancer

Hospitalizations

Drug abuse

PTSD

Arrests

Alcoholism

Suicide

‘The Cursed Platoon’

By Greg Jaffe

James O. Twist poses with local children during his deployment in Afghanistan in 2012. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

They thought of the calls and texts from him that they didn’t answer because they were too busy with their own lives — and Twist, who had a caring wife, a good job and a nice house — seemed like he was doing far better than most. They didn’t know that behind closed doors he was at times verbally abusive, ashamed of his inner torment and, like so many of them, unable to articulate his pain.By November 2019, Twist, a man the soldiers of 1st Platoon loved, was gone and Lorance was free from prison and headed for New York City, a new life and a star turn on Fox News.This story is based on a transcript of Lorance’s 2013 court-martial at Fort Bragg, N.C., and on-the-record interviews with 15 members of 1st Platoon, as well as family members of the soldiers, including Twist’s father and wife. The soldiers also shared texts and emails they exchanged over the past several years. Twist’s family provided his journal entries from his time in the Army. Lorance declined to be interviewed.In New York, Sean Hannity, Lorance’s biggest champion and the man most responsible for persuading Trump to pardon him, asked Lorance about the shooting and soldiers under his command.Lorance had traded in his Army uniform for a blazer and red tie. He leaned in to the microphone. “I don’t know any of these guys. None of them know me,” Lorance said of his former troops. “To be honest with you, I can’t even remember most of their names.”

The soldiers of 1st Platoon tell their story

An ‘entire month of despair’

Soldiers from the 1st Platoon fire a mortar during a firefight with Taliban in April 2012 in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

The 1st Platoon soldiers came to the Army and the war from all over the country: Maryland, California, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Indiana and Texas to name just a few. They joined for all the usual reasons: “To keep my parents off my a–,” said one soldier.

“I just needed a change,” said another.

A few had tried college but quit because they were bored or failing their classes. “I didn’t know how to handle it,” Gray said of college. “I was really immature.”

Others joined right out of high school propelled by romantic notions, inherited from veteran fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers, of service and duty. Twist’s father served in Vietnam as a clerk in an air-conditioned office before coming back to Michigan and opening a garage. In his spare time Twist Sr. was a military history buff, a passion that rubbed off on his son, who visited World War II battle sites in Europe with his dad. Twist was just 16 when he started badgering his parents to sign his enlistment papers and barely 18 when he left for basic training. His mother had died of cancer only a few months earlier.

“I got pictures of him the day we dropped him off, and he didn’t even wave goodbye,” his father recalled. “He was in pig heaven.”

Members of the 1st Platoon James O. Twist, Reyler Leon, Joe Morrissey, Andy Lehrer, Mike McGuinness, Dallas Haggard (kneeling) and Brandon Krebs pose with a flag in Afghanistan in 2012. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

Several of the 1st Platoon soldiers enlisted in search of a steady paycheck and the promise of health insurance and a middle-class life. “I needed to get out of northeast Ohio,” McGuinness said. “There wasn’t anything there.”

In 1999, he was set to pay his first union dues and go to work alongside his steelworker grandfather when the plant closed. So he became a paratrooper instead, eventually deploying three times to Afghanistan.

McGuinness didn’t look much like a paratrooper with his thick, squat body. But he liked being a soldier, jumping out of planes, firing weapons and drinking with his Army buddies. After a while the war didn’t make much sense, but he took pride in knowing that his soldiers trusted him and that he was good at his job.

Nine months before 1st Platoon landed in rural southern Afghanistan, a team of Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden.

Jarred Ruhl, Dallas Haggard and Mike McGuinness in Afghanistan in June 2012. (Courtesy of the Carson family)

Samuel Walley, the badly wounded soldier Twist pulled from the blast crater, wondered if they might be spared combat. “Wasn’t that the goal to kill bin Laden?” he recalled thinking. “Isn’t that checkmate?”

Around the same time, Twist was trying to make sense of what was to come. “I feel like the Army was a good decision, but also in my mind is a lot of dark thoughts,” he wrote in a spiral notebook. “I could die. I could come back with PTSD. I could be massively injured.”

“Maybe,” he hoped, “it will start winding down soon.”

But the decade-long war continued, driven by new, largely unattainable goals. When McGuinness saw where the platoon was headed — just 15 or so miles from the spot in southern Afghanistan where he had spent his second tour — he warned the new soldiers they were going to be “fighting against dudes who just really f—ing hate you.”

[ Are you a veteran? We want to hear your response to this story.4 ]

They were told by commanders they were waging a counterinsurgency war in which their top priority was winning the support of the people and protecting them from the Taliban. But no one seemed entirely sure how to accomplish that goal. They helped build a school that never opened because of a lack of teachers and willing students. They met with village elders who insisted they knew nothing about the Taliban’s operations or plans.

An Afghan girl watches as soldiers from the 1st Platoon walk by during a mission in April 2012, in the Zhary district of Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

In May 2012, they moved to a new compound near Payenzai, a remote Afghan village west of Kandahar, which consisted of little more than mud-walled houses, hardscrabble farmers and the Taliban.

So began what Twist described, in a blog post written years later, as an “entire month of despair.”

Four soldiers were severely wounded in quick succession. On June 6, Walley lost his leg and arm to a Taliban bomb. Eight days later, yet another enemy mine wounded Mark Kerner and 1st Lt. Dominic Latino, the platoon leader. Then, on June 23, a sniper’s bullet tore through Matthew Hanes’s neck, leaving him paralyzed.

The platoon was briefly sent back to a larger base a few miles away to shower, meet with mental-health counselors and pick up their new platoon leader. Lorance had served a tour as an enlisted prison guard in Iraq before attending college and becoming an infantry officer. He had spent the first five months of his Afghanistan tour as a staff officer on a fortified base.

This was his first time in combat.

1st Lt. Clint Lorance during training at Fort Bragg before the deployment to Afghanistan in 2012. (Photo by Alan Gladney)

“We’re not going to lose any more men to injuries in this platoon,” he told then-Sgt. 1st Class Keith Ayres, his platoon sergeant, shortly after taking over on June 29, according to Ayres’s testimony.

His strategy, he said, was a “shock and awe” campaign designed to cow the enemy and intimidate villagers into coughing up valuable intelligence. When an Afghan farmer and his young son approached the outpost’s front gate and asked permission to move a section of razor wire a few feet so that the farmer could get into his field, Lorance threatened to have Twist and the other soldiers on guard duty kill him and his boy.

“He pointed at the child . . . at the little, tiny kid,” Twist testified. He estimated the child was 3 or 4 years old.

On Lorance’s second day, he ordered two of his sharpshooters to fire within 10 to 12 inches of unarmed villagers. His goal was to make the Afghans wonder why the Americans were shooting at them and motivate them to attend a village meeting that Lorance had scheduled for later in the week, his soldiers testified.

His real motive, though, seems to have been cruelty. “It’s funny watching those f—ers dance,” Lorance said, according to the testimony of one of his soldiers. Lorance didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he stood by his men in the guard towers, picked the targets and issued orders. His troops finally balked when he told them to shoot near children. They refused again a few hours later when he ordered them to file a false report saying that they had taken fire from the village.

“If I don’t have the support of my NCOs then I’ll f—ing do it myself,” Lorance exclaimed, according to testimony, referring to noncommissioned officers.

Sgt. 1st Class Keith Ayres looks over maps with other soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division in April 2012, before a joint mission with the Afghan army in Kandahar province. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

On the day of the killings for which he would be convicted, Lorance posted a sign in the platoon headquarters stating that no motorcycles would be permitted in his unit’s sector. The platoon’s soldiers were falsely told before the day’s patrol that motorcycles should be considered “hostile and engaged on sight.” Several soldiers testified that Lorance told them that senior U.S. officials had ordered the change. At least two sergeants recalled the guidance had come from the Afghans and did not apply to U.S. forces. Due to the conflicting testimony, the jury of Army officers acquitted Lorance of changing the rules of engagement. Still, Lorance’s actions left soldiers confused on the critical, life-or-death question of when they were authorized to open fire.

The mission that day was a foot patrol into a nearby village to meet the elders.

Less than 30 minutes after they rolled out of the gate, three men on a motorcycle approached a cluster of Afghan National Army troops at the front of their formation. Lorance and his troops were standing about 150 to 200 yards away in an orchard, tucked behind a series of five-foot-high mud walls on which the Afghans grew grapes.

At the trial, Lorance’s soldiers recalled how he had ordered them to fire.

“Why aren’t you shooting?” he demanded.

A U.S. soldier fired and missed. The motorcycle carrying the three men, none of whom appeared to be armed, came to a stop. Upon hearing the shots, McGuinness began running toward Lorance, who was closer to the front of the U.S. patrol, to see why they were shooting.

The puzzled Afghans were now standing next to the stopped motorcycle, “trying to figure out what had happened,” according to one soldier’s testimony. Gray, who was watching from a nearby armored vehicle, recognized the eldest of the three men as someone the Americans regularly met with in the village. He recalled the Afghans waving at them.

Todd Fitzgerald testifies during Clint Lorance’s 2013 court-martial at Fort Bragg, N.C.

“Smoke ’em,” Lorance ordered over the radio.

At first Gray and the other soldiers in the armored vehicle weren’t sure whom Lorance wanted them to shoot. “There was a back and forth with the three of us in the vehicle,” Gray recalled in an interview.

Then Pvt. David Shilo, who was in the turret of the armored vehicle just inches from Gray, fired, striking one of the men, who fell into a drainage ditch. Because the platoon had been told that morning that motorcycles weren’t allowed in their sector, Shilo testified that he thought he was acting on a lawful order. Shilo declined to be interviewed.

The two surviving Afghan men bent to retrieve their dead colleague when Shilo cleared his weapon and shot again, killing a second Afghan. The third man ran away. Two U.S. soldiers testified that it was possible that an Afghan soldier also fired.

A few minutes later, a boy approached the dead men and the motorcycle, which was standing on the side of the road with its kickstand still down. Lorance ordered Shilo to fire a third time and disable the bike. This time he refused.

“I wasn’t going to shoot a 12-year-old boy,” Shilo testified.

David Shilo testifies during Clint Lorance’s 2013 trial at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Relatives of the dead were now on the scene screaming and crying. Lorance’s immediate superior officer, Capt. Patrick Swanson, who was two miles away and couldn’t see what was happening, ordered him over the radio to search the bodies.

Lorance was convicted of lying to Swanson, telling him that villagers had carried off the corpses before his men could examine them. In fact, Lorance’s troops searched the bodies of the dead Afghans and found ID cards, scissors, some pens and three cucumbers, but no weapons, according to testimony.

The troops continued their patrol into the village while McGuinness and a small team of soldiers provided cover from a nearby roof. About 30 minutes after the first shooting, McGuinness spotted two Afghan men talking on radios.

“We have to do something to the Americans,” one of the men was saying, according to U.S. intercepts. McGuinness and his troops received permission from the company headquarters to fire and killed the two men. The platoon cut short the patrol and returned to the base.

At the outpost the soldiers were shaken. “This doesn’t feel right,” Gray said.

“It’s not f—ing right at all,” McGuinness replied.

Lucas Gray, Joe Fjeldheim and Mike McGuinness in Afghanistan 2012. (Courtesy of the Carson family)

A few minutes later Lorance burst into the platoon’s headquarters ebullient. “That was f—ing awesome,” he exclaimed, according to court testimony.

“Ayres looked sick,” one of the platoon’s soldiers testified. McGuinness was furious.

The lieutenant tried to reassure his sergeants. “I know how to report it up [so] nobody gets in trouble,” he said, according to testimony.

Lorance’s soldiers turned him in that evening, and at the July 2013 trial, 14 of his men testified under oath against him. Four of those soldiers received immunity in exchange for their testimony. Lorance did not appear on the stand, and not one of his former 1st Platoon soldiers spoke in his defense. The trial lasted three days. It took the jury of Army officers three hours to find him guilty of second-degree murder, making false statements and ordering his men to fire at Afghan civilians. The jury handed down a 20-year sentence.

In response to a Lorance clemency request, an Army general reviewed the conviction and reduced the sentence by one year.

‘Why do you care so much?’

Dave Zettel reveals a tattoo of a lighter to represent the 82nd deployment outside his home in Blythewood, S.C. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

The war crimes and their aftermath followed Lorance’s soldiers home to Fort Bragg and, in some cases, into their nightmares. On many nights Gray woke up to the image of a group of Afghan soldiers surrounding his cot and emptying their rifles into his sleeping body in retaliation for the murders.

“I dreamed it,” he said, “because I thought that’s what would happen.”

Dave Zettel wasn’t on the patrol when the killings were committed but was in the guard tower when Lorance ordered him and another soldier to fire harassing shots into the neighboring village. On his first full day back in the States, Zettel went out to a dinner with a large group from the platoon and their families.

By the end of the night, the soldiers, rattled from the tour, the stress of Lorance’s upcoming trial and the return home, were intoxicated and emotionally falling apart. Zettel held it together until he was alone in a taxi with his wife and brother. In the quiet of the cab, he felt a crushing guilt that he had made it home unscathed.

“I just lost my s—. I felt like a failure,” he said. “I felt abandoned and so f—ing angry.”

In Afghanistan, Army investigators, who were primarily pursuing Lorance, threatened Zettel with aggravated assault charges for the shootings in the tower. And they showed McGuinness a charge sheet accusing him of murder for killing the Afghans who were talking on the radios about targeting Americans.

The threats of prosecution hung over them for months. Eventually, the Army concluded that McGuinness’s actions were justified. Prosecutors never pursued charges against Zettel.

Instead the Army issued administrative letters of reprimand to Zettel and Matthew Rush, the soldier who fired the rounds at the civilians from the tower. Zettel had watched from the tower but did not shoot.

The 1st Platoon leadership team in Afghanistan in May 2012. From left: Dan Williams, Mike McGuinness, Chris Murray (sitting), Keith Ayres, Dominic Latino and Jace Myers (sitting, right). (Courtesy of the Carson family)

Ayres and McGuinness — the senior sergeants in the platoon — received disciplinary letters, which can hinder or delay promotions, for their failure to turn Lorance in sooner or stop the killings on the third day.

McGuinness legally changed his surname, which had been Herrmann, in an effort to shed the stigma of the crimes. “I wanted to get away from the entire situation and I thought I’ll change units and no one will know,” he said. But, because of the investigation and trial, McGuinness’s orders to report to an airborne unit in Italy were canceled. “I ended up staying. People didn’t forget,” he said. “It was awful.”

Shilo, who fired the fatal shots at the men on the motorcycle, was granted immunity and left the Army not long after the trial.

Lucas Gray and James O. Twist in Afghanistan in 2012. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

Even those who weren’t punished or even on the patrol that day felt tainted. To some of their fellow troops they were the “murder platoon,” a bunch of out-of-control soldiers who had wantonly killed Afghans. To others they were turncoats who had flipped on their commander. Gray was waiting for a parachute jump at Fort Bragg when he overheard a lieutenant colonel deride the platoon as nothing but a bunch of “traitors and cowards.” Gray was just a low-ranking specialist, so he kept his mouth shut.

The unit had seen some of the heaviest fighting of the long Afghanistan war, but received no awards for valor. There was no recognition for Twist, who had pulled Walley from a blast crater and applied a tourniquet to the remains of his arm and leg. No one acknowledged Joe Fjeldheim, the platoon medic, who had cut a hole in Hanes’s neck and inserted a breathing tube after a sniper’s bullet left him paralyzed and choking for air.

“Not a single write up. The only thing we received were Purple Hearts for the guys that got messed up,” Zettel said. “We were treated like we had an infectious disease. The Lorance issue evaporated any support from the Army when we got back, and it was absolutely crushing to those who needed help.”

“I think when you see stuff like that sometimes it just flips a switch in some people and you’re just not the same. … I almost drank myself to death for two years,” said Lucas Gray at home in Pulaski, Va. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

A group from the unit gathered regularly at Zettel’s apartment off post to drink. Some Saturdays Fjeldheim would show up at 9:30 a.m. with booze and a plan to stay numb through the weekend. When the troops were too hung over to make it to mandatory morning formation and training, he would administer intravenous drips in the barracks.

“I was working at Macy’s, and I’d dread coming home because someone was doing something stupid or crying in the bathroom,” said Zettel’s wife, Kim. Often, it fell to her to offer a bit of empathy.

The soldiers blamed the killings when they were passed over for promotions or stripped of rank for drinking too much or missing formations. In early 2014, Gray was hospitalized for alcohol withdrawal and put on suicide watch. He had been drinking a half-gallon of whiskey each night to fall asleep. “It was my off switch,” he said. A few days into his hospital stay, when he was still dosed up on Valium, an officer visited him.

“Why are you like this?” the officer pressed. “They are just dead Afghans. Why do you care so much?”

The question infuriated Gray. Before the war crimes, he had believed he was helping Afghans and defending his country. “It’s like you’re this hardcore Christian and some entity drops from the ceiling and says it’s a sham,” he said. “That’s how it was for me. I thought of the Army as this altruistic thing. I thought it was perfect and honorable. It pains me to tell you how stupid and naive I was. The Lorance stuff just broke my faith. . . . And once you lose your values and your faith, the Army is just another job you hate.”

‘You need to stop running your mouth’

Mike McGuinness at home in Raeford, N.C. McGuinness legally changed his surname, which had been Herrmann, in an effort to shed the stigma of the crimes. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

McGuinness tried to intervene on behalf of his soldiers. He talked to Gray’s new commanders, who McGuinness said wanted to run him out of the Army for being drunk.

“Did you ask him why he’s drinking too much?” McGuinness pressed them.

Zettel asked McGuinness to meet with his new platoon sergeant when the Army, without explanation, blocked him from attending Ranger School.

McGuinness also spoke up for Jarred Ruhl, who had been one of his best soldiers in combat. Ruhl came home from Afghanistan with orders for Hawaii and a promotion to sergeant. But he soon began skipping morning formation, was demoted twice to private first class and forced from the Army.

“I just don’t know how to deal with everything that happened,” Ruhl told him. He had been standing next to Lorance when the lieutenant gave the orders to kill the Afghan men.

Jarred Ruhl holds an M203 grenade launcher mounted on his rifle as Dallas Haggard works the M240B machine gun while on duty in Afghanistan in June 2012. (Courtesy of the Carson family)

McGuinness, who said he felt like a failure for not stopping the killings or shielding his men from the fallout, was also self-destructing. “I was mouthy and insubordinate,” he said. He felt distant from his two young children and said he was drunk “six days a week.”

When conservatives rushed to turn Lorance into a hero, McGuinness felt as though the last shreds of his integrity were under assault. Former Lt. Col. Allen West, who had been relieved of command in 2003 for staging a mock execution of an Iraqi prisoner and was later elected to Congress in the tea party wave, blasted Lorance’s conviction in a Washington Times op-ed as a product of the Army’s “appalling” rules of engagement.

The rules were drafted by generals who worried that high civilian casualty rates were driving Afghans to support the Taliban. But West insisted that the rules put U.S. troops at undue risk and reflected President Barack Obama’s “outrageous contempt for the military.” West didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Fox News’s Sean Hannity took up Lorance’s case, calling the conviction a “national disgrace.”

In 2014, McGuinness was out drinking with an Army friend, and when the friend went home, stayed at the bar until he had downed enough booze to “sedate a rhino.” A military police officer found him later that night, sitting in his truck on All American Parkway, the main drag through Fort Bragg, with a gun in his mouth.

A nurse in the psychiatric ward at Womack Army Medical Center asked him if he really wanted help. “If you tell me that to get better, I’ve got to eat a 100-pound bag of gummy bears, then I’m going to eat 100 pounds of gummy bears,” he recalled telling her. “I just can’t do this s— any more.”

It was the end of a 16-year Army career.

Matthew Hanes during his deployment in Afghanistan in May 2012. (Photo by Dave Zettel)

Soon the platoon began to suffer losses at home. First Kerner, who was wounded in a bomb blast with the unit’s first platoon leader, died in March 2015 of cancer at age 23. Doctors discovered the malignancy when they were treating his combat wounds. Five months later Hanes, who was paralyzed by the bullet he took to his neck, died of a blood clot at age 24.

“Saying I love you doesn’t even scratch the surface of how much you truly mean to me,” he wrote in a note to the platoon three months before he fell into a coma. His closest friends from the unit — Zettel, Dallas Haggard and Fjeldheim, the medic who saved his life — were at his bedside in York, Pa., during his final unconscious hours.

At the funeral there was heavy drinking, just like at Bragg, but now that many in the platoon were out of the Army and no longer had to worry about drug tests, there was also cocaine to numb the pain.

Wives traded tips about how to persuade their husbands to go to therapy and talked about hiding their guns when they grew too depressed.

Ruhl complained to McGuinness that life at home felt empty. “Are you in therapy?” asked McGuinness, who was seeing a therapist and getting ready to start college at age 33.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” Ruhl said.

“It doesn’t f—ing matter what you think you can do,” he pressed. “It can’t make things worse.”

Dallas Haggard and Jarred Ruhl while on a long patrol in Afghanistan in June 2012. (Courtesy of the Carson family)

A few months later Zettel, who had finished college and was commissioned as an officer, stopped in to see Ruhl at his home in Fort Wayne, Ind. Zettel was on his way to a leadership course for new Army officers in Missouri.

Ruhl’s stepbrother told him that Ruhl had pulled a gun on a woman in a traffic dispute just days earlier. “Take his gun,” Zettel advised Ruhl’s stepbrother. “Take it apart and hide the pieces so that he can’t get it.” It was impossible, the stepbrother said. Ruhl took his gun everywhere.

Ruhl confided to Zettel that there were days when he couldn’t stop thinking about killing himself.

“How are we going to fix this?” asked Zettel, who helped Ruhl sign up for counseling at a VA hospital.

Before he could start, Ruhl pulled his gun on an acquaintance at a party. His stepbrother tried to wrestle it away and the firearm discharged, severing Ruhl’s femoral artery. He died before paramedics arrived.

“We kind of got betrayed,” said Dave Zettel outside his home in Blythewood, S.C. “We were pegged as if we were like a rogue unit. Which we clearly weren’t. It was kind of disheartening.” (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

Zettel came back for the funeral, then returned to Missouri to finish his five-month leadership course. Four years had passed since the war crimes, but the murders and their aftermath still seemed inescapable. A captain teaching Zettel’s class on rules of engagement used Lorance as a case study, telling the new officers that Lorance had been trying to impose discipline on a platoon that had lost control after one of its soldiers was shot in the neck. The captain was referring to Hanes, who had given Zettel his first salute when he was commissioned as an officer.

Lorance’s soldiers, the captain continued, had violated the rules of engagement and now Lorance, who hadn’t fired a shot, was serving a 19-year prison sentence.

Zettel blew up. “I was there and you need to stop running your mouth,” he recalled shouting at the instructor.

The instructor suggested they step out of the classroom. Zettel grew angrier.

“If I ever see Lorance on the street,” he said. “I am going to rip his f—ing throat out.”

‘Y’all are being led the wrong way’

Sean Hannity of Fox News arrives in National Harbor, Md., on March 4, 2016. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Six days after Trump was inaugurated as president, Hannity asked him in a White House interview about pardoning Lorance. “He got 30 years,” Hannity said incorrectly. “He was doing his job, protecting his team in Afghanistan.”

“We’re looking at a few of them,” said Trump of the case.

In the months after his conviction, Lorance had begun to receive support from United American Patriots ( UAP ), a nonprofit group that represents soldiers accused of war crimes. UAP helped Lorance find new lawyers who claimed in an appeals court filing that they had uncovered evidence showing that the younger victim was “biometrically linked” to a roadside bomb blast that occurred before his death. The sole survivor, the lawyers said, took part in attacks on U.S. forces after the Americans tried to kill him.

“The Afghan men were not civilian casualties . . . but were actually combatant bombmakers who intended to harm or kill American soldiers,” the lawyers wrote in their appeal.

In 2017, a military appeals court dismissed the biometric data as irrelevant because Lorance had “no indications that the victims posed any threat at the time of the shootings.” The judges found that the surviving victim’s decision to join the Taliban after the platoon tried to kill him probably would have helped prosecutors by demonstrating “the direct impact on U.S. forces when the local population believe they are being indiscriminately killed.”

But the biometric evidence and support from UAP helped Lorance’s mother and his legal team get on Trump’s favorite television shows — “Fox & Friends” and “Hannity” — where they offered a new account of the killings that differed dramatically from the sworn testimony. In their telling, the motorcycle wasn’t stopped on the side of the road with its kickstand down, as testimony and photos from the trial demonstrated, but was speeding toward Lorance and his men when he ordered them to fire.

“He’s got to make a split-second decision in a war zone,” Hannity said on his television show. “How did it get to the point where he got prosecuted for this?”

“I feel if he had not made that call,” Lorance’s mother replied, “my son today would be called a hero, killed in action.”

Hannity turned to Lorance’s lawyer, John Maher. “Was there anybody in the platoon that was with Clint that said that was the wrong decision?” he asked.

“That I don’t rightly know,” replied Maher, who had reviewed the platoon’s testimony.

“Then who made the determination that this was the wrong thing to do?” Hannity pressed.

“The chain of command,” Maher said.

“People that weren’t there,” Hannity concluded. Hannity and a Fox News spokeswoman did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In a recent interview, Maher said his response to Hannity’s question had been “potentially inartful.” Lorance was in prison because the 1st Platoon soldiers turned him in and testified against him.

But Maher maintained that Lorance had made a split-second decision to protect his men from an enemy ambush. Some of the 1st Platoon soldiers said that the Afghan men had been standing on the side of the road for as long as two minutes before the U.S. gun truck opened fire on Lorance’s orders. Others, including Lorance, estimated they had been stopped for only a few seconds.

“That’s probably an eternity sitting here in the safety of this environment,” Maher said. “But I assure you that it’s not like that under volatile, uncertain, unforgiving conditions where life and death are right around the corner and a tardy decision results in death or dismemberment.”

The Afghan men were about 150 to 200 yards from the U.S. position when they were killed. To reach Lorance and his troops, they would have had to scale multiple shoulder-high mud walls.

Aaron Deamron, right, and Zach Thomas run for cover as they are fired upon by Taliban fighters during a mission in Zhary district of Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan in April 2012. Thomas would receive a concussion in the incident. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

Zach Thomas, who had been standing just yards from Lorance when he gave the order to fire, was driving to community college in 2017 when he heard Hannity talking about the Lorance case on the radio.

“My blood just started boiling,” he recalled.

Thomas had spent his last day in the Army testifying against his former platoon leader. He was just 18 when he left for Afghanistan, and like many in the unit, his return home had been difficult. He drank to blunt his PTSD and depression. Two of his sergeants were so worried about him that they let him move out of the barracks and spend his last two months living at their house. His plan after the Army was to forget about Afghanistan and start a new life in his hometown of Crosby, Tex.

Zach Thomas and Jake Jensen before their deployment at Fort Bragg. (Courtesy of Zach Thomas)

Thomas pulled over on the side of the road and looked up the number for Hannity’s radio show in New York City on his cellphone.

“I’m a big fan, but y’all are being led the wrong way,” he told a producer for the show. “This isn’t some innocent guy.” The producer asked him if he knew about the biometric data Lorance’s lawyers had uncovered.

“I don’t know about any of that information, but I was there and these people were not enemy combatants,” he said. He could tell he wasn’t convincing the producer so he gave her McGuinness’s cellphone number and urged her to call him. She talked with McGuinness as well but never invited him on the show.

A handful of other soldiers from the platoon did their best to counter Lorance’s story. Todd Fitzgerald, who was also standing near Lorance when he ordered the killings, took to Reddit to defend the unit. He and several other soldiers spoke to the New York Times for a story that detailed the inaccuracies in Lorance’s defense. Fitzgerald, McGuinness and Gray were interviewed for a documentary about the case, “Leavenworth,” that aired on the Starz Network.

In April 2018, the platoon suffered its fourth death since returning home when Nick Carson, 26, crashed his car late at night.

Carson had been with McGuinness in Afghanistan on the day of the killings, and like his squad leader had been threatened with war crimes charges.

“I don’t know what’s fixing to happen, but our platoon leader is making us all out to be murderers,” he told his parents in a 2012 phone call from Afghanistan. “Just know, I am not a murderer.”

Nick Carson eats a meal during his deployment in Afghanistan in May 2012. (Photo by Dave Zettel)

Carson’s mother and stepfather were at Fort Bragg a few months later when he returned from the war. “He got off that big plane, hugged us and cried and then he said, ‘I love y’all but I need to be by myself. I just need to go,’ ” recalled his stepfather.

Carson stayed in the Army after the combat tour, but he struggled with PTSD, depression and anger. He and Ruhl had been best friends and were supposed to go to Hawaii together when they returned from Afghanistan. After Ruhl’s death, Carson tried to explain on the platoon’s private Facebook page why he was skipping his friend’s funeral. “It’s not that I can’t physically be there,” he wrote. “I won’t let my last memory of Jarred be at his funeral. I am sorry for that. Most of you know how close Jarred and I were, so this has been extremely difficult to accept.”

On the night of the car accident that killed him, Carson had been drinking and wasn’t wearing a seat belt. His parents said he may have fallen asleep while driving. The platoon blamed the war crimes and the deployment.

In Afghanistan, the platoon had dubbed themselves the “Honey Badgers” after the fearless carnivore.

Back home, they began to refer to themselves as “the cursed platoon.”

‘Who is it this time?’

A loaded pistol on a side table in the home of Lucas Gray in Pulaski, Va. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

On October 23rd at 2:44 a.m., Twist’s wife, Emalyn, messaged Sgt. 1st Class Joe Morrissey, who had been Twist’s team leader with the platoon in Afghanistan.

“James committed suicide tonight,” she wrote from the hospital where the doctors were preparing to harvest his organs. “Could you let his other Army friends know. . . . This is a fucking living nightmare.” It was the platoon’s fifth death since returning home four years earlier.

Morrissey woke to the message at Fort Bragg and began sobbing. His soon-to-be ex-wife knew immediately that another member of the platoon was gone. His first call was to McGuinness, who was returning home from a late-night shift as a bouncer at a Fayetteville bar. The two immediately began calling the rest of the platoon, which was scattered across the country.

The deaths had imbued them with a grim fatalism. “Who is it this time?” a few answered when they saw the 5 a.m. calls from Morrissey’s phone.

“It’s James,” Morrissey said again and again.

At Fort Jackson, Zettel was administering a predawn fitness test to recruits when he got the call. He punched a fence and rushed back to his office so the new soldiers wouldn’t see him fall apart. Alone at his desk, Zettel thought about the steady stream of calls and texts Twist had sent him over the past five years, and he wondered if the messages were an indirect way of asking for help.

McGuinness caught Gray as he headed off to his job at a weapons arsenal in southwest Virginia. His wallpaper on his work computer was a photo of Twist and him in Afghanistan, their rifles slung across their chests. “Back when we were cool,” Twist had written when he texted it to Gray.

The hardest call was to Walley, the soldier Twist had dragged from the blast crater. “What’s wrong?” his fiancee asked him when he got the call. “It’s Twist,” Walley told her. She tried to hug him, but he pushed her away. “I need to take this in alone,” he said.

Samuel Walley with his fiancee Hannah Smallwood in their garage in Buford, Ga. Walley lost his right leg and part of his left arm in Afghanistan. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

At the funeral, Walley spoke first for the platoon, rocking back and forth on his prosthetic leg. Walley was wounded a month before the murders, but they had affected him too. At times, he felt abandoned by those who had tried to distance themselves from the unit, the murders and the war. “I have to wake up every single day and look in the mirror. Every single day I am hopping in a wheelchair,” he often thought. “I don’t get to forget.”

In January 2016, he was drunk and despondent in his apartment outside Atlanta and accidentally fired his pistol through the ceiling and into the apartment above him. After the shooting, Walley cut back on his drinking and returned to college. He was just one semester from graduating.

He stared out at the packed and silent church.

“Twist would probably give me a little bit of crap right now for having not wrote a speech,” he began. “But I figured I’d just tell a story. It’s a little bit of a harsh story, but I think it needs to be told.”

Members of the 1st Platoon at James O. Twist’s funeral in Grand Rapids, Mich., in November 2019. From left: Joe Fjeldheim, Jake Jensen, John Twist, Zach Thomas, Dan Williams (holding left side of flag), Alan Gladney (wearing glasses), Lucas Gray (partially visible), Reyler Leon, Samuel Walley, and slightly behind him is Dave Zettel, Brandon Krebs, and Mike McGuinness (in sunglasses), Brandon Kargol, Joe Morrissey, Dom Latino, Dallas Haggard, Brett Frace and Zach Nelson at the far right. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

Walley had spent dozens of hours reconstructing every second of the day he was injured. Eight years after the blast, he and his fellow soldiers would still argue over the smallest details: What kind of bomb had caused his wounds? Was it a pressure plate or remote-detonated? What exactly did Morrissey say as he and Carson lifted Walley into the helicopter? For Walley, the details were sacred. Remembering brought him comfort.

He took a breath and described the explosion and its aftermath. “My right leg was about 20 feet away. It was completely removed. My left leg, the tibia ripped through the [skin]; my foot was facing toward my butt,” he said. His right arm was mangled.

“Twist ended up coming through this cloudy haze,” Walley continued. “He was the most selfless man that I ever knew on this planet. He did not care if he died. He did not care if his limbs were to get ripped off. He didn’t care. He just cared that his guys were okay.”

A few minutes in a combat zone can define a life for good or for ill. “I believe that 10 minutes defined Twist,” Walley said.

Morrissey spoke next of Twist’s successes as a soldier, state trooper and father. “Those of us who knew Twist were extremely proud,” he said. “Unfortunately . . . underneath it all, the demons are still there, still tearing away at us day in and day out.”

‘The men and women in the mud and dirt’

President Trump welcomes Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance and Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, left, at the Republican Party of Florida’s Statesman Dinner in December 2019, in Aventura, Fla. Both soldiers were granted full pardons by Trump. (Joyce N. Boghosian/The White House)

The 1st Platoon soldiers were still filtering home from Twist’s funeral when Pete Hegseth, a “Fox & Friends” co-anchor who had advocated on Lorance’s behalf, tweeted that Lorance’s pardon was “imminent.”

The actual release came two weeks later on Nov. 15.

“It’s done. It’s a political move,” one of the 1st Platoon soldiers wrote on the group’s private Facebook page. “Time to move on.”

Ayres, who had skipped all five of the platoon’s funerals, agreed. “Not worth any of our time,” he wrote. “What matters is that everyone that matters knows he is a piece of s—. Let’s move on and enjoy life.”

For McGuinness it wasn’t an option. He couldn’t bear the thought that Lorance was being hailed as a hero by Trump and others, while soldiers like Twist were being forgotten. “I’ve buried people that struggled with what happened, and whether through their own hands or their actions, they’re gone,” he said. “I’m not going to sit quietly while he gets paraded around and they’re not recognized.”

He texted with Gray, who wasn’t on Facebook.

Lucas Gray

Fuck it all. The one reprieve we had is gone.

Mike McGuinness

I feel so shitty right now.

Lucas Gray

I’m going to drink until I can sleep.

Mike McGuinness

I might do the same.

Others in the platoon argued on social media with pro-Trump friends, who insisted Lorance was innocent. “You realize I was f—ing THERE, right?” one soldier wrote to a fellow veteran. “Like you realize I was one of the godd— WITNESSES who testified, right?!”

Later that evening, Twist’s father, John, called McGuinness, hoping to talk about his son and the pardon. McGuinness shared his memories of Twist, who came to the platoon when he was just 19. “We put so much work into him,” McGuinness said. He talked about Twist’s quirks — his irritating tendency to correct McGuinness when he got a minor fact wrong about a weapons system.

Twist’s father asked whether the murders and the trial might have contributed to his son’s torment. Twist wasn’t on patrol the day of the killings, but McGuinness believed that what had happened with Lorance had wounded him too. “Twist had a big heart. He was like Gray. He wanted to do good,” McGuinness said. “When Lorance took that away, he took a little part of Jimmy, too.”

“You don’t go into the military thinking you are going to be part of a war crimes case,” said Mike McGuinness at his home in Raeford, N.C. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

“This is absolutely amazing,” Lorance said as his car, escorted by the county constable, rolled to a stop in the high school parking lot.

“It’s a hometown hero’s welcome,” said his cousin from the back seat.

Lorance climbed atop a flatbed trailer. Someone from the crowd gave him an American flag. The vice commander of the local VFW handed him a microphone.

“God Bless Texas!” Lorance yelled. “God Bless America!”

At his side was the head of UAP, the group that had worked to free him. Lorance’s case and the publicity generated helped the group boost annual donations by about 150 percent, from $1.8 million in 2015 to more than $4.5 million in 2018.

Lorance, who was wearing his crisp, blue Army uniform — his pants tucked into his boots, paratrooper style — knew exactly what his backers wanted to hear. “We finally have a president who understands that when we send our troops to fight impossible wars, we must stand behind them,” he told the crowd.

“Amen!” cried a voice from the high school parking lot.

“Amen is right!” Lorance answered.

Former 1st Lt. Clint Lorance addresses a crowd as he returns home to Merit, Tex., on Nov. 16, 2019, after he was pardoned by President Trump. (Courtesy of Farmersville Fire Department)

For those in the parking lot that night, Lorance’s freedom was proof that Trump would stand up for them and their town, population 215, at a moment when large swaths of the country seemed to hold them and their way of life in contempt. “You know how many people just want to see that someone cares,” said Tiffany West, 37, who was standing feet from the stage.

Lorance thanked his family and the lawmakers who pressed for his release. He talked about Trump and Vice President Pence, who had called him at the penitentiary to tell him that they were setting him free. “We had a nine-minute conversation,” Lorance said. “Yeah, I was timing it. . . . They took time out of their busy day to ask me what I was going to do with the rest of my life.”

He blasted the craven “deep state” military officers he blamed for his conviction. “That’s not really the military. That’s the politicians who run the thing,” he said. “The men and women in the mud and dirt. That’s the real U.S. military.”

He was still talking nearly an hour later when the television news crews from Dallas, about 60 miles away, began packing up their equipment.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I know it’s cold.”

“Go ahead!” a voice shouted.

“You’re home!” added another.

Soon the crowd began drifting away for the night, past Merit’s post office, its volunteer fire department, its recently shuttered convenience store, and the decaying wood clapboard building that once held its cotton gin. Lorance handed the microphone back to the local VFW’s vice commander, a Gulf War veteran who had organized the gathering and would now get the final word.

“There’s going to be people out there that are going to try to use this against Trump,” he warned. “Well, we’re going to throw it right back in their faces!”

Lorance visits the set of “Fox & Friends” in New York on Nov. 18, 2019, after receiving a presidential pardon. (Mark Lennihan/AP)

The next morning Lorance boarded a plane for New York City, where he appeared on “Fox & Friends” and Hannity’s radio show. In December, he joined Trump onstage at a GOP fundraiser.

In interviews after his release, Lorance insisted that the soldiers who testified against him were pressured by the Army or had turned on him because he was an exacting commander and they lacked discipline. “When I walked into the guard tower and the soldiers didn’t have their helmet or body armor on, I told them to put it on,” he told Blue Magazine, which advocates on behalf of police officers. “And they didn’t like that, they didn’t like taking orders like that, but I was brought in there to enforce the standard.”

‘There’s almost always more to every story than we know’

John Twist created a wall in his living room memorializing James and other family members who served in the military at his home in Grand Rapids, Mich. The flag was signed by members of James’s platoon after his funeral. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

In Grand Rapids, Twist’s father spent much of the winter trying to unravel the mystery of his son’s death. His dining room table was covered with foot-high piles of papers from James’s life.

There were old report cards, passports and programs from high school wrestling matches. A second pile from the Army included a spiral notebook that his son had used as a diary when he was going through basic training. A third pile contained a printout of the essay — “The Invisible War Inside My Head” — that his son wrote the day before he died.

In it, Twist wrote briefly about the killings that had “rocked and split up” his platoon. The longest section of the essay recounted the day Walley lost his arm and leg. “I found Sam in a small crater,” he wrote. “He was missing his right foot and all the muscle and skin around his right tibia/fibula.” That image, he said, played again and again in his head when he returned from the war.

“I really don’t understand what PTSD is,” his father said. “You can read about it, but I don’t get it. So far the only thing I can get is that it’s like having . . . poor Sam Walley getting blown up” playing in your head over and over. “And how do you get rid of that?”

James O. Twist with his son Ben, celebrating his first birthday in August 2019. (Courtesy of the Twist family)

Twist’s wife, Emalyn, 27, also had been thinking about the meaning of her husband’s life and sudden, violent death. In early March she was sitting alone in the parking lot of a nearby Target. Her three children — ages 1, 3 and 5 — were with a friend. She balanced a Starbucks coffee in one hand and hit record on her cellphone camera.

“It has been kind of a bad week, filled with a lot of ‘it shouldn’t have to be that way’ kind of moments,” she said. Earlier that morning, she had turned over their house keys to the new owners. Her 5-year-old son spotted the family’s moving trucks in the driveway and panicked, yelling for her to “stop them.”

Twist’s children remembered their father as a dad who liked to wrestle and sing them to sleep. Emalyn couldn’t forget her husband’s insecurity, bouts of self-loathing and verbal abuse. On the night her husband took his life he was upset with her for going to see a therapist and terrified that she was going to divorce him. In a blog post, Emalyn described him slamming his head into the kitchen counter until blood was running down his face. Then he stormed to their bedroom and shot himself.

Emalyn pressed a pair of leggings to her husband’s head in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. With her other hand, she dialed 911. As she listened for the sound of approaching sirens, she stifled the urge to vomit and prayed that their children would not wake.

Emalyn Twist writes about her experience following Twist’s death in Emalyn’s Blog: Words of a Young Widow. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

“I couldn’t stand to live in that house or sleep in that bedroom when I had seen so much in there, and that just makes me mad, because I loved that house and I loved that neighborhood,” she said to her cellphone camera. “And I shouldn’t have had to leave. I shouldn’t have had to pull my kids out of their little social circle and all those people who loved them. It shouldn’t have to be that way.”

For years she had helped her husband hide his pain from family, friends and even his fellow soldiers. Now she was determined to be honest. “I just don’t have to keep up this facade of the grieving widow all the time, even though that’s also what I am,” she said. “There’s almost always more to every story than we know. It’s important to pay attention to that.”

She stopped recording, turned on the ignition and picked up with her day.

‘I love you’

Dave Zettel at home with his wife, Kim, in Blythewood, S.C. The couple are expecting their first child. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

In April with the country locked down by the coronavirus, McGuinness arranged for a dozen of the guys from the platoon to get together on a video call for beers. He and Walley were finishing up their last few college courses before they graduated. A couple of the soldiers and wives were expecting their first children. Two were in the early days of divorces.

An hour into the call almost everyone was drunk or stoned — except for the pregnant wives. One soldier kept streaming as he sat on the toilet. When he was done everyone screamed at him to wash his hands. Another soldier vomited and curled up on the floor.

“This is better than getting together at funerals,” McGuinness said cheerily.

The troops talked about their plans for the future. Morrissey was just back from another tour in Afghanistan, where he mostly sat on base while the Afghans fought each other. “There’s no war left there anymore,” he said.

“What are you going to do when you retire?” McGuinness asked him.

“Let me finish, before you laugh,” Morrissey replied. “I’m going to go to school to be a barber and open one of those high end barber shops where you can get a drink, a real gentleman’s haircut and shave with a straight razor.”

Walley tried to talk, but everyone was talking over him. “No one listens to me,” he joked. “Everyone just stares at the guy with two limbs.” He and his fiancee were planning their wedding for the spring of 2021. They had already reserved a “mansion where we can fit the whole platoon,” he said.

“Just tell me the day and I’ll be there,” McGuinness promised.

Zettel and his wife were expecting their first child on Aug. 10. He was planning on leaving the Army for good in October. “It’s not going to join the Army,” Zettel said of his unborn child. “I’m going to burn everything so it doesn’t even know I was in the f—ing Army.”

The soldiers talked about the guys they had lost to suicide and self-destructive behavior. And they spoke briefly about Lorance, who has a memoir titled “Stolen Valor” that is going to be published by Hachette Book Group in the fall, when Lorance has said he is planning to start law school. A blurb for the book, posted by the publisher, calls Lorance “a scapegoat for a corrupt military” and asserts that “his unit turned on him because of his homosexuality.” Lorance’s lawyer said there was no evidence that homophobia played a role in conviction.

“We looked,” Maher said, “and we came up with nothing.”

In interviews, troops said that in Afghanistan they didn’t know Lorance was gay and wouldn’t have cared.

“We took s— from so many people for so long,” McGuinness said. “I’m not letting that happen anymore. I’m going to fight back.”

The soldiers shared tips about how to find a good therapist and promised to look out for one another so that there would be no more funerals.

“You guys mean everything to me,” McGuinness said. “We have to do this more often. We have to look after each other. If you guys are hurting, hit me up. We can do this instead of just letting things fester.”

He rose from his desk chair — a little wobbly from all the beer. It was 2:30 a.m., and they had been talking for more than four hours. “I love you a–holes,” he said, and signed off the call.

An American flag decorates a roof along a country road in North Carolina. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

[ Are you a veteran? We want to hear your response to this story. ]

Under the current administration, the Office of the Pardon Attorney has become a bureaucratic way station, data and interviews show.

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asfeedin · 5 years ago

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European soccer, UEFA can use common sense to finish 2019-20 season. PLUS

We’re no closer to knowing when soccer might return to action given the global reaction to slowing the coronavirus outbreak, but there’s still a lot happening in the broader soccer world. Gab Marcotti reacts to the main talking points in the latest Monday Musings.

Jump to: Common sense must rule | Dutch league vacates title | | Harsh lesson for Kean

European leagues free to use common sense around how to end the 2019-20 season

Memo to decision-makers around Europe’s top leagues: the rules and bylaws that govern the game weren’t handed down by a higher being. They were made by people who didn’t (and couldn’t) envision anything like the current pandemic-induced shutdown. That said, because they are man-made, there’s nothing wrong in rewriting them if it suits the common good, and UEFA’s executive committee statement last Thursday took a general step in that direction.

– Stream new episodes of ESPN FC Monday-Friday on ESPN+ – Stream every episode of 30 for 30: Soccer Stories on ESPN+

There’s an “ideal scenario” in which the public health situation improves, every top-flight fixture gets played and they even squeeze in the remainder of the 2019-20 Europa League and Champions League seasons by August. Great. That’s the goal. Fingers crossed. Then there’s the uncomfortable reality: what to do if you can’t finish.

2 Related

UEFA says the season can only be terminated early under two circumstances. One is if governments prohibit sporting activity until a certain date and you simply run out of time to end this season and start the next one. (They don’t specify a start date for next season, but according to multiple sources, they want 2020-21 to start in September at the latest — pandemic permitting, of course.) The other is if there are “insurmountable economic problems” that make finishing the season “impossible” because it would jeopardize the long-term financial stability of clubs.

The first scenario is self-explanatory. The second is a catchall that can really be extended to everyone, if necessary, but is meant primarily for leagues without big TV contracts, where income comes primarily from gate receipts. Playing safely behind closed doors is expensive, and doing so for free or close to it, where there is no broadcast cash at stake, will hurt clubs financially.

But if seasons do end early, what to do?

Let’s be clear here: It’s not UEFA’s call, per se. If leagues want to shut up shop now and award titles based on cumulative squad numbers or alphabetical order, they’re free to do so — at least in theory. Equally, if they want to keep playing through 2021, they can do that too — in theory.

Dan Thomas is joined by Craig Burley, Shaka Hislop and a host of other guests every day as football plots a path through the coronavirus crisis. Stream on ESPN+ (U.S. only).

In practice, every league wants access to UEFA competitions — and the revenue they bring — and therefore will apply UEFA guidelines. Those guidelines emphasise a simple concept: sporting merit.

Some have focused on how they stop countries from declaring leagues “null and void,” which means the 2019-20 season is invalidated as if it never took place, wiping everything from the record books. That’s plain common sense. You can’t pretend things that happened never actually took place.

The real point here is that UEFA want teams to qualify for 2020-21 based on what they did in 2019-20; they’re just leaving it up to the leagues in terms of how to do it. If you don’t have enough time to complete all the fixtures, but can play some of them, you may want to opt for a playoff system to settle European places, titles or relegation. Or you can take the table as it was when play ended, or you can use average points. Or weighted points. Or whatever system your nerds come up with. The only condition is that it has to reflect what actually happened on the pitch while also being objective, transparent and nondiscriminatory. (This bit basically means you can’t send Manchester United into the Champions’ League instead of Leicester City because you think it benefits your league.)

That’s it. Everything else, from who to crown as champion to who to relegate to how to divvy up domestic prize money (which is what some people really care about), is up to the individual league.

As for those situations that are less clear-cut? Just lock decision-makers in a proverbial room and find a solution.

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Julien Laurens says the Bundesliga will be the first European league to resume despite a potential delay.

Take Serie A, where Juventus have a one-point lead over Lazio. Ask the clubs to vote: Juve, Lazio or “VACANT” (in which case, you don’t award a title). Relegation and promotion? Let’s face it: There’s one club suddenly making a ton more money and another club making a lot less money. So, for example, see if Norwich (bottom of the Premier League) and Leeds United (top of the Championship) can hammer out a deal. Maybe Norwich stays up but pays a chunk of their revenue next season to Leeds, or Leeds go up and do the reverse, sharing some of the cash bonanza with Norwich.

And if you can’t work it out and 20 adults in a (virtual) room can’t reach an agreement? Suck it up, don’t relegate anybody and promote the top teams from the second-flight. This wouldn’t be my choice, but hey, it’s down to which system stinks less at this point.

Read all the latest news and reaction from ESPN FC Senior Writer, Gabriele Marcotti.

The point here is that UEFA didn’t issue edicts or rules from on high. They offered guidelines — and reasonable ones — for leagues to follow if they want to play in their competitions. The rest is up the people who run the leagues and the clubs.

I hope it doesn’t come to this, though, because I hope we can continue playing and wrap things up on the pitch. But if we can’t, I hope they remember that these are exceptional times, usual rules and regulations need not apply and there is such a thing as reasonable, common-sense consensus. I hope they find it.

Dutch Eredivisie decides to end season

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Jan-Joost van Gangelen thinks Dutch football may reverse the decision to effectively void the season.

The Dutch government’s decision to put ban all public gatherings until Sept. 1 means the Eredivisie won’t return and finish their 2019-20 season. There’s not much to argue about when decisions are made on a political level and not declaring the 2019-20 title vacant makes sense given that AZ Alkmaar and Ajax were level on points.

More complicated is what to do in terms of promotion and relegation, and here the Eredivisie becomes a test case for what we discussed above. The Dutch FA opted to have a consultative vote among the 34 clubs in the top two divisions (there are 38 teams, but four are the B-teams of top-flight clubs). Sixteen voted to enable promotion and relegation, nine voted against and nine abstained. Because there was no outright majority in favour of enabling promotion/relegation, the Dutch FA opted to freeze the situation.

Predictably this has sparked outrage and lawsuits from clubs like de Graafschap and Cambuur, who looked as if they had promotion all locked up. There’s a distinct possibility the courts might step in, and we may see a 20-team Eredivisie next season, but that would be far from ideal. Like I said earlier, though, there’s no good way to do this. Just “least bad” options. And you’re still holding out hope that some deal can be reached.

Don’t hate Ozil for turning down Arsenal pay cut

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Gab Marcotti and Julien Laurens discuss Mesut Ozil’s decision to refuse a pay cut in the coronavirus crisis.

Mesut Ozil was turned into ubervillain No. 1 last week by some observers when reports emerged that he was one of two Arsenal players to turn down the club’s proposed 12.5% pay cut, which could reduce down to 7.5% or even zero if they hit certain targets.

– Laurens: Inside Arsenal’s pay cut controversy

Ozil already has two strikes against him in that he’s the club’s highest-paid player and his performances haven’t been much to write home about over the past two years. But depicting him as the epitome of greed is way off the mark. According to multiple sources, he was ready to accept an immediate wage deferral that would help with whatever cash flow issues the club might have had. And he was open to cutting his salary as well, once the club’s financial situation became clear and we understood just how hard the pandemic was affecting the books.

It’s an entirely reasonable stance, frankly. If his teammates, out of love for the club, agreed to rush into pay cuts without having an idea what Arsenal’s losses from the pandemic were going to be, that’s wonderful. But it’s unfair to slam Ozil for not going along with it.

A learning experience for Kean

Roughly this time last year, Moise Kean was coming off a run of scoring in six straight games (two of them for Italy, four of them for Juventus). He was one of Roberto Mancini’s bright young things at international level and some thought he could break into Juventus’ starting lineup alongside Paulo Dybala and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Fast-forward 12 months. He hasn’t been seen in an Italy shirt since, and in those 12 months, he has scored just one goal in 26 club appearances. And now he thinks it’s a good idea to violate social distancing laws by hosting a party at his house. Dumb as it was, it becomes exponentially dumber by allowing one of the attendees to take videos and send them out on Snapchat.

It’s straight out of the Kyle Walker Manual of Numbskullery. Everton say they are “appalled,” and rightly so. Kean is 20 years old and, evidently, not as mature as some would like him to be, in the same way many of us made stupid choices at that age. Let this serve as a lesson.

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polss · 5 years ago

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Elizabeth Warren maims 4, kills 1 in bloody Nevada Democratic debate.

Popcorn consumption was up about 2000% across the country last night as the Democrats had their Nevada debate.

Candidates knew they were against the wall. Bernie (and really the whole field) could see former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who had just polled in at 2nd place nationwide, becoming the candidate to beat without ever being seen by most of America.

Joe “Rip Van” Biden, a strong favorite among African American voters seemed to have just recently been informed that if Bernie wins Nevada going away and Bloomberg’s ads continue to chip away at Biden’s support, that Biden’s firewall in South Carolina (where roughly 65% of expected DNC voters are black) could crumble away, putting super Tuesday and all other polling days at risk. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and pulled away the mighty cobwebs that had held him back in New Hampshire and was poised to give it an honest go.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Amy Kloubachar, the Darlings of the DNC’s Alabaster Filter, seemed shocked to discover that people of other colors exist. With legacy issues with people of color in their careers dimming their chances, they agreed to a knife fight in the parking lot with the winner taking exclusive control of the rest of Nevada’s white male DNC voters...after Joe, Michael, and Bernie got theirs... The sad reality that South Carolina’s DNC voters are only 35% white, and that the runs of Darlings of the first two races would likely be over by Super Tuesday due to a sudden and total lack of momentum. The thought hung over their heads like a death shroud.

Elizabeth Warren, the forgotten Oklahoma grandmother in the DNC Presidential race who shakes with emotion like someone on meth, was absolutely brutal to the other candidates last night. (Don’t take offense Warrenites. The description is accurate, but it doesn’t change my love of a good Warren take down...) Fiercely popular with white female voters and people who love bloodshed, Warren was on point tonight.

I don’t know that she gained more than a percent or two because if you cannot control your adrenaline and constantly appear you are on the verge of jumping over the podium, it is difficult to gain the advantage of appearing “presidential”, but its a fixable flaw and at the end of the day, she absolutely mauled the field. Any gains were absolutely earned.

Finally there was Micheal Bloomberg, an incredibly lifelike cartoon of white male entitlement in NYC, who clearly strolled in with no preparations whatsoever for the debate.

It was practically the plot of a major motion picture.... Probably a comedy.

We’ll start with Warren’s destruction of Bloomberg, a feat so awesome to behold it generated the following meme, less than an hour after the debate.

Warren stammered and stumbled through her questions but managed to drop major bombs on every candidate she targeted.

In rapid-fire sequence she caught Bloomberg acknowledging that he really has no idea what he should be feeling sorry about implementing the policy as mayor of NYC that had the police essentially shaking down black kids and ignoring white ones.

Bloomberg struggled to figure out what it was the American people wanted him to say, buying time with a snippy assed comment to the moderators about giving him his full allotment of time, but that train went nowhere. He really has no idea what he should be apologizing for.

Warren added a second knock down when she pinned Bloomberg down in a corner and got him to admit to having to buy the silence of several (presumably) female ex-employees with non-disclosure agreements.

She recorded a third when Bloomberg walked into her glove. She asked Bloomberg how many non-disclosure agreements were out there and the audience was treated to seeing the gears grinding and smoke billowing out of Bloomberg’s head as he clearly was trying to ascertain if there was a correct numeric answer. “72 sounds...a bit much...? maybe...25? Maybe 10?” The silence was deafening.

Then for good measure she knocked his ass out by asking him if he would release the ex-employees from their non-disclosure statements.

Bloomberg looked entirely undone as he stammered a bit and said he would not.

At that point the only thing missing was a Mortal Kombat “K.O.!” sound effect.

It was Tyson-esque --- no ear biting----I’m talking early Mike Tyson...Just a savage, bloody beat down. Probably 5 minutes into the debate, Warren had absolutely destroyed Bloomberg, reducing him to simply “The Democratic Trump”.

Now Bloomberg Dems who have spent years screaming “Hypocrite!” at anyone in a MAGA hat for Republicans supporting Trump after decades of championing and INSISTING on ethical behavior, now have to decide if they want to continue to support Bloomberg and endure rightfully being called the same.

Smiling Joe Biden then stepped in and echoing the late great Chris Farley basically told Bloomberg, “Hey, you remember when Elizabeth asked you about all those confidentiality agreements that women are paid to sign when rich guys like you are dicks to them at work? You remember how you said you wouldn’t release any of them from their confidentiality agreements?”

“....That was great, wasn’t it?”

And it only got better.

Mayor Pete who is constantly aware of the political calculus clearly figured out that “there is only room for one long shot white candidate in this race.” much like he figured out a few debates ago that there was only room for one former military patriot in the race when he attacked Tulsi Gabbard with a bunch of bullshit out of the blue. He went after Amy Kloubachar and attacked her on an issue that Kloubachar was clearly unready to address. Kloubachar was clearly driven off her game and showed actual anguish and stress. It was a fight or flight moment for Amy and Pete was not letting her flee. She launched a counterattack that scored some damage, but not as much damage as Pete inflicted.

Kloubachar had a tough night. She was also busted by the moderators. She had apparently gone on Telemundo or something and had totally forgot the name of the president of Mexico and appeared for all the world like she was ignorant of all dealings between the US and Mexico. It was apparently a meltdown, The super tightly wound and always prepared Kloubachar was clearly uncomfortable talking about it. It also rattled her.

She and Bloomberg looked as far from presidential as a candidate could possibly be tonight at their worst moments. Kloubachar could only painfully stumble through getting the name of the president of Mexico out as her defense. And it was even painful to watch her say that name.

Warren, as she had repeatedly done in other debates, came to Kloubachar’s rescue much to the plucky mistress of midwestern colloquialisms’ relief. Warren said everyone forgets names. It happens. Then she spiraled and threw her big right fist at Kloubachar saying that ....one should still be able to talk politics. Kloubachar was amusingly caught on camera swallowing her tongue in surprise to Warren’s expertly executed sneak attack.

Things weren’t much better for Kloubachar’s rival Mayor Pete. Pete clearly hopes to be in the running but really is trying to position himself for the VP job. In this regard he is not coming hard after the front runners. Tonight, he seemed positively predatory in his take down of Kloubachar. Pete has been playing the calculus and launching BS fueled surprise attacks rival candidates at the bottom of the race, but it seems likely that female voters are catching on that aside from a 15 second sneak attack on Andrew Yang, Pete is only actively attacking all the female candidates. He’s gone after Tulsi, Warren, and repeatedly after Kloubachar with mostly empty BS filled arguments. Black voters don’t like him, Mexican voters are fairly ambivalent towards him. If female voters also don’t like him, how is he expecting to win?

I think Pete proved that people will consider a gay candidate, but there is growing polling evidence that outside of his home turf, Dems won’t support a dick.

Sleepy Joe had gone almost the entire debate knocking softball questions from the moderators out of the park. Any time Pete, Amy, and Bloomberg tried to launch an offensive the moderators called on someone else. He was able to boast about his qualifications, get noticed anytime he asked, and overall, look presidential.

He had in five minutes become the last hope of the ant-Bernie crowd at MSNBC and was sitting pretty. But that wasn’t stopping Warren last night. She managed to penetrate the moderators’ defense and remind America that Joe Biden once made a friendly gesture to his longtime Senate colleague Mitch McConnell, stating that he couldn’t wait for McConnell to be re-elected so they could continue to work together. McConnell would go on to win that election and then actively obstruct every policy of Barack Obama for six years.

“Punch in the head for you too, Joe!”

Bernie was actually the forgotten man in this debate. He did his solid Bernie thing. He boiled a little. He yelled about random stuff like a crazy old dude. He even mounted the best defense of his healthcare plan I have ever heard, framing it in ridicule that America is so financially destitute than the US cannot afford socialized medicine while every country in Europe can. His point was rough, but he is on the way to building a winning argument there.

Bernie dodged most damage but did trade some blows with Bloomberg. Bloomberg argued that Bernie’s rhetoric would drive voters to trump. Bernie challenged Bloomberg with the question of whether anyone one should be a Billionaire, Bloomberg rejected that, but was clearly staggered when Bernie told Bloomberg that the former mayor was a rich as the poorest 125 Million Americans COMBINED. Clearly that was not a thought Bloomberg had ever considered and to some degree you could see his conviction in his answer slipping.

Bloomberg called Bernie a communist and Bernie said Bloomberg wasn’t a democrat. Nothing to see....Glancing blows we have all heard before.

Bloomberg did have one indisputably strong moment. He asked if any of the other candidates ever owned a business. He was greeted with silence. His point was made.

Biden probably won the most gains at the polls in the debate, but Warren was clearly the star of the night.

Believe it or not, I am not a Warren supporter, but I do have the utmost respect for her fire and when someone RIGHTEOUSLY kicks ass they deserve to be celebrated. Warren’s attacks have often been of the BS variety in this race --- just as empty as Mayor Pete’s --- but tonight they were valid and on point and had every one of her targets presenting that “Oh Shit.” face.

You only get those from on point attacks....And I love a politician wearing an “Oh Shit” face.

As a voter subjected to hours of insincere bullshit by these people, I found last night to be immensely therapeutic.

She might not be a favorite to win, but tonight I think she earned support in Nevada and made the case that she could be a very, VERY effective VP candidate.

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bundeslihaha · 7 years ago

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Chapter 11: Under the Spotlight

The Media Days have started! Join the Bundesliga boys and girls as they prepare for the part of the season they wished they could skip!

Whoever’s documenting us, SV Darmstadt 98 thought as she reread the address on her phone, must be lazy as fuck…

Somehow, she wasn’t surprised at her vocabulary – hanging out (well, arguing) with Karlsruhe, Kaiserslautern and Braunschweig would do that to anyone…

Hmm, speaking of those three, it was unfortunate for such big clubs with rich history to not get promoted, wasn’t it? But naaaah, Darmstadt grinned mischievously. She was definitely looking forward to filling the next page of her football fairytale!

FC Ingolstadt 04 looked up at his coach slowly. “Papa?” he called, tugging the sleeve of Ralph Hasenhüttl’s shirt.

“Yes, Ingolstadt?” Papa asked. His face looked sooo bored, but Ingolstadt knew anyone would be, like really! It seemed like they’d been on this train for years! “Papa, are we there yet?” he whined, secretly hoping that asking would make the trip faster.

“Not yet, Ingolstadt,” Papa replied, messing his hair. “No, Papa, don’t do that!” he protested, swatting his large hand off his head, “I’m not a kid anymore!” He was already eleven years old, okay? He didn’t need a Papa. He wanted to live alone like RB Leipzig, to do whatever and whenever he wanted! Why did the bosses still force him to live with a “father figure”? He’s a personification, not a normal kid! Why should he go to a boring school? Why should he be watched while eating? Everyone knew he hated vegetables! Why?!

“Ingolstadt,” Papa said, touching his cheek instead, “I’m sorry, okay? You know I like your hair when it’s neatly trimmed like this.” He chuckled a little. Ingolstadt pouted. “Of course you like it, Papa, you trimmed it yourself!” the boy playfully punched his caretaker, “Why can’t I have long hair like Bochum?”

“Bochum?” Papa asked, raising an eyebrow, “His hair is awful. Especially with that hairclip.”

The little Bavarian groaned. “But- but I want my hair to touch my shoulders! It’s so cool, Papa!” He patted Papa’s shoulder for good measure, but all he got was an unconvinced glare. “Fine,” he grumbled, “at least I can grow bangs? Like Karlsruhe?”

Papa’s eyes were unfocused. Maybe he was picturing his (old, haha!) bully, with his shaggy brown hair.

“He looks like he doesn’t have a comb,” Papa finally said. Ingolstadt decided to change tactics. In a second, he was staring at his coach with dark eyes as big as saucers, causing Hasenhüttl to wince and changed the topic himself. “Anyway, are you excited for the Media Days?”

Ingolstadt’s face brightened that instant. “Of course, Papa! I can’t wait to meet the others!” He was jumping on his seat now, earning him annoyed looks from other passengers. “Especially Bayern. She’s so… so badass!”

When Ingolstadt realized what he’d just said, his hands comically flew to cover his mouth. “Sorry, Papa,” he squeaked.

Now, Ralph Hasenhüttl couldn’t bring himself to be harsh to the spoiled, irritating boy that was the physical embodiment of FC Ingolstadt, but he couldn’t the child grow up with no manners, either.

“Ingolstadt,” Hasenhüttl said, a patronizing hand on the 11-year-old’s shoulder, “what did I tell you about bad words?”

The personification sighed, head hung in shame. “I must not say them, Papa,”

“Good,” the manager nodded. Let’s all pray the first division clubs wouldn’t undo everything he’d taught his ‘son’…

Elsewhere…

As usual, Europe-bound clubs gather on a corner of whatever meeting place they were in (in this case, studio), FC Augsburg looking out of place.

The UEL club was sandwiched between 25-time-German champions, FC Bayern München, and her chaser, VfL Wolfsburg, his lean body a stark contrast from the fanservice muscles of the two. It didn’t trouble Augsburg much, though. What troubled him was how… casually the six other clubs spoke of trebles, Spanish giants and the like, and though he was an expert at poker faces, intimidation froze him in place.

“Earth to Augsburg,” Bayern called with a hard pat on his back, “you still there?”

He blinked before meeting her gaze. “Yeah.”

“Don’t be so shy, mate,” Gladbach added, flashing the ginger a toothy grin. “It’s my first time in Champions League, too. Ish."

“But you’ve been in Europa,” Augsburg said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, but you’ll make it!” Dortmund cheered from opposite his seat, a fist punching the air. “Sure, I’ll be your rival later on, but I’m rooting for you! You’re too good to go down…” He trailed off. Must be remembering Freiburg, Augsburg mused, feeling a pang of sympathy for the relegated club and the friend she’d left behind. Would he have to sacrifice Europe for domestic survival, like she had?

“Tch. No one’s ‘too good’ to go down,” Gladbach spat as if forcing everyone to recall his recent brushes with relegation.

“But I think you’ll do well, FCA,” Schalke piped up, a grudging note in his deep voice. “You’re more consistent than Lüdenscheid over here,” he poked his fellow Ruhr club right on his ‘BVB 09, Echte Liebe’ tattoo.

“Oh, shut up, Scheiße,” Dortmund snapped, “just because you consistently suck, doesn’t mean you can bully those who don’t.” A sneer twisted Die Schwarzgelben’s handsome face, practically begging the Royal Blues to punch it. And so, Schalke did.

“Ouch,” Gladbach snickered. That was one hell of a punch. Leverkusen hid his snicker behind his hands.

“You…” Dortmund growled, rubbing his aching nose.

With Schalke sneering back, they left the group for a more physical Revierderby.

A chuckle escaped Bayern at her enemies’ antics. “Oi, Augsburg!” she called again. The ginger beside her responded with a ‘hmm’. “How does it feel to watch the two up close?”

Wolfsburg and the Rhine boys stared hard at the younger Bavarian, trying to coax an answer out of the stoic man.

“Funny?” Augsburg answered, with a tone that made it sound like a question. Wolfsburg laughed. “You don’t sound like you mean it!”

The Fuggerstädter shrugged. “I guess I’m used to it.” He really was used to seeing clubs fight. Nürnberg and Fürth's drunken Oktoberfest brawls weren't much different from the Ruhr Valley rivals', really. He hoped he could be used to being in the company of these giants, too…

There were confident people, and then there was Hamburger SV.

Six-time German champion, playoff specialist (Fürth and Karlsruhe could stay in 2. Bundesliga forever, he didn’t care) and especially beater of “oh-so-great” Gladbach, Augsburg and Bayern was entering the studio with a swagger unseen in him before.

Unfortunately, his swag didn't impressed anyone, except if you count Hannover’s friendly ‘hi’ as an expression of awe. Even worse, Mainz and Frankfurt didn’t even try to hide their laughter (or in the case of Hoffenheim, his derisive remarks). Ugh. He should find Werder lest he died of boredom here. He opened his mouth to ask his boyfriend where the shit is, but when he saw Hertha’s suspicious glances, an imaginary light bulb appeared over his head.

“Yo, Karlsruhe’s whore!”

At her death glare, he couldn’t help but think: This photoshoot won’t be so boring after all.

“Welcome to the Bundesliga!” Eintracht Frankfurt exclaimed, snaking a hand around Darmstadt's shoulders with a less-than-friendly laugh. At the physical contact, she tensed, but took it in stride a moment later. “Thank you, Frankfurt. How are you?”

“Great,” the Eagles replied. “And you, Darmstadt?”

She looked up at him with a beam. “Never better!”

“How can you not?” Frankfurt’s hearty laugh rang in the hallway, “really, I can congratulate you all day.” There was a strangely comfortable silence as they walked inside the studio. “Anyway,” the taller man continued, “Ready for the derby?” Challenge sparkled in his red eyes, dangerous yet inviting.

“Of course,” Darmstadt accepted, her blue eyes echoing his. “And I’m gonna win them all!”

If there was one thing every club preferred their archenemy over, that thing would be a makeover.

Bayern was insisting “Hertha’s kind of makeup” didn’t suit her, demanding the poor makeup artist to 'fix her up' the way she did the male personifications.

Stuttgart had had his dark brown dye forcefully removed, leaving his hair very, very blond. “It will bring out your eyes,” the makeup artist had said, his green eyes glinting with evil.

Even Hertha almost cried when they said she had to take off her bow (a parting gift from her lover years ago) despite accepting her new, layered hairstyle.

So when 1. FC Köln came in to a horde of dissatisfied clubs, he feared for himself as he took his seat on the torture chair.

“Hi, Köln,” his makeup artist, a young woman whose build reminded him of Nuernberg. “Don’t be afraid, ‘kay?”

“Uh…” Köln said, “do I have to take this off?” He indicated at the thin hair tie holding his ponytail.

“Of course,” she smirked.

And then, the torture began.

“Afternoon, everyone!”

Seventeen Bundesliga clubs gathered in the middle of the spacious studio, prepped and pumped for the so-called ‘BL Media Days’. Or for it to be over, but that didn’t really matter. A DFL official welcomed them in their headquarters. The greetings/bullshit was followed by Darmstadt’s introduction, and of course: “But most importantly, have fun!”

The first photoshoot was standard – they’d be photographed head to waist with hands on their hips, a plain white wall their background.

To make things simpler, the officials would call the impatient personifications in alphabetical order, because of which, Werder Bremen and Wolfsburg decided to treat themselves (and the others, on the officials’ insistence) lunch.

“FC Augsburg!” came the first call, and true to his no-nonsense personality, it only took him a minute or two, even with the touch-ups.

“Bayer 04 Leverkusen!”

The Retortenclub rolled his eyes. “Later, okay” he told Bayern, who gave him a thumb up in reply. As a true PR man, Leverkusen stepped up to the stage with confidence, a charming smile set to melt fangirls and fanboys’ hearts on his face.

“Hello, cutie,” the makeup artist teased, applying a dash of bronzer on Leverkusen’s cheek. He responded accordingly – with a wink and “Hello to you too!”

Then crash! The door to the studio slammed open, causing almost everyone to jump in surprise, and came in Ralph Hasenhüttl, red-faced and panting as he helped his charge up from his face-down fall. “We… apologize for our lateness,” the coach said. Beside him, FC Ingolstadt 04 stood with a broken nose and tearful eyes. A laugh could be heard from his fellow Aufsteiger, but she disguised it as a cough before Hasenhüttl could do anything.

“No problem, Sir!” one of the officials said amicably. After a grateful nod from the manager (and a three-minute chiding to Germany’s youngest club), he left. “Use Darmstadt’s phone to call me when I’m done, okay?”

Darmstadt’s fists clenched - she couldn’t make a bad impression in front of the Bundesligists, but everyone was laughing at her! Not to mention Inge’s annoying ‘okay, Papa! See you later!’

Like she hadn’t had enough of that squirt in the second division…

Desperate to stop the laughter directed at him, the club nicknamed Die Schanzer turned to face his new ‘friends’. “Hi, guys!” he shouted, waving his hands in the air. “I’m FC Ingolstadt! And you?” He jumped to a bench where two clubs, one in green and the other blue, sat. “What’s your name?”

The guy in green stood up, and damn he was huge! Ingolstadt had to stand on his toes just to see his beard! Fortunately, he could see his arms, his legs, and woah he had so much hair… how cool! I wish I had a body like that, the little boy thought, hand almost touching his muscular calf… almost… almost…

“Wolfsburg,” the huge man answered, snatching Ingolstadt’s hand to shake it. “And this is Hoffenheim,” he gestured to the man in blue, who was black-haired, blue-eyed and sulking.

(The introductions, unnecessary as they were, continued, much to the officials’ annoyance – to make it worse, everyone was either too amused or too mesmerized by the pint-sized Bavarian’s “cuteness” to stop him.

Seven minutes and thirty-one seconds later – “THANK GOD!” one of the officials whooped – Ingolstadt had made himself known to every club but Die Werkself, who had just finished posing for the cameras.)

When Leverkusen stepped off the stage with another stranger’s (well, at least she wasn’t a Scheißbock fan) phone number, a red-haired boy – promoted Ingolstadt, Leverkusen read his club crest – approached him, confusion narrowing his dark eyes.

“What’s wrong, Ingolstadt?” he asked, letting his persona do the job.

“I’m confused, Sir,” the boy replied, scratching his head with a pudgy finger. “This thing is for… personifications only, right?”

He’s more stupid than I thought, Leverkusen made a mental groan, but outwardly, he kneeled to the Audi-backed club’s eye level, his hands on his small shoulders. “Yes, it is,” he said, his voice as soft as the gaze he sent the Bavarian, “you may be young, Ingolstadt dear… but you are one of us.”

To Leverkusen’s surprise, Ingolstadt didn’t jump up and down with renewed self-esteem, but gave him a blank stare instead. “’Us’? Who are you?!” the boy shrieked, as if Leverkusen was some kind of intruder. He resisted the urge to kick the newbie in the groin by offering him a hand to shake. “Bayer Leverkusen,” he introduced himself, grinning eye-to-eye, “nice to meet you!”

“You’re Bayer Leverkusen?!” the boy echoed, dumbstruck as he squinted at the cross and lions on his chest. “I thought… I thought you were a player!”

He could hear Gladbach and Köln’s too-loud whispers of ‘The guy looks like Kießling and he doesn't even admit it'.

"Fuck you," Leverkusen muttered, turning on his heel to leave the baby boy. He'd give those two assholes a lesson... but first, he needed a plastic surgery.

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