#snooker rules

[sir-paddington]

A-N HE PLAYING

PLAYING LIKE A PRO

[thetruearchmagos]

I knew my Worldbuilding would lead me to some strange places, but looking up the history of Snooker /Pool / Billiards so I can create an in-universe variant of the games is just odd.

[alpha-mag-media]

Former world snooker champions Stephen Hendry and Shaun Murphy propose major rule change at UK Championship | In Trend Today

Former world snooker champions Stephen Hendry and Shaun Murphy propose major rule change at UK Championship Read Full Text or Full Article on MAG NEWS

[leletha-jann]

Apropos of nothing... (not a hint or a spoiler, just a thought)

Eventually Seffie's going to realize that Tarvek snookered her entire "marry Gil, rule the Empire" plan out from under her, and god I hope I'm there to watch the dawning realization cross her face.

Like, I like Seffie for who she is. But I don't like her so much that I'm not going to enjoy the hell out of the facial expressions.

[sportsallover]

To be updated again tomorrow (or Friday) if I get back to it. (This is looking very likely.)

Terminology update: I have actually figured out that the white ball is called the cue ball and that the holes are either the cushions (not completely sure here, it could just be the sides of the table) or… something else that I have actually already forgotten. 🙈

[nohoperadio]

If I was going to make one change to the rules of snooker it would be this: after a player takes their turn the other player has to roll their eyes, snatch the cue out of their hands while saying "no no no, you gotta do it like this", then take their own turn. Then the first player grabs it back like "no come on, that's not it, it's like this...", etc. And ideally their exasperation would keep escalating over the course of the game.

[justmystical]

The Forgotten-3

Pairing: Lucifer x Butterfly!Fem!reader

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel x Stsr vs the forces of evil

Warnings: takes place before Hazbin Hotel, Alternative Universe

One | Two| Navigation | four

You and Lucifer were Currently hanging out in your usually spot below an apple tree, Lucifer was reading a book and petting Keekee. Something he does so often when you guys hang together.

As for you, you were currently hanging upside from the apple tree and thinking was a good thing to do on this fine afternoon. Not gonna lie you were bored, to the point you would learn more spells from the family spell book.

Then you remembered

You were currently getting snacks for both of you and Lucifer, come on apple all the time and your craving some chocolate. Do they have Snookers on earth? No they don't,

maybe a Mewni thing? But SNOOKERS!

You then read about festival that's gonna be held at night in a poster outside of a shop...

You suddenly jumped out from the tree,which nearly gave poor Lucifer and Keekee a heart attack,you gave them a nervous smile.

"i just remembered there's a festival in this Village later , we should go" you suggested, while Keekee looked intrigued, Lucifer froze and debated to join.

"I don't know..."

You noticed this and nudge Lucifer shoulders" hey come on it will be fun...and it's my first festival ever!"you said and he looked at you with a raised eyebrow.

"first?"

"yeah,i never been to festival before" it's true though you been to one,you were always cooped up inside the Castle for protection, monsters roam around a lot so as a Princess of Mewni you and Eclipsa need to protected.

"aren't you like in your early 20s, and you still couldn't go?" He pointed out .

"I'm a busy lady"Busy as in studying magic with Glossaryck , because you late be taught, unlike Eclipsa,she was taught when she was Fourteen until she became Queen. You were taught later on...

"please Luci"Lucifer wanted to agree,but some of people here have Guardian angels and he was doomed if he was caught, you see he was forbidden to even go to earth. He only break those rules for you...

"come on Luci"you gave him puppy dog eyes he couldn't resist.

Ugh the things you do to me

He finally agreed, you jump up and down not notice the root Of the tree and you stumbled on it , falling on top of Lucifer.

Oof

You felt his chest under you and his hot breath on your face ,you looked at his eyes.You two looked at each other as if time stopped and nothing was around you two .

You felt fireworks as held you...

Then the moment was suddenly interrupted by a Meow and saw your Beloved companion in her little earth form.

You the realized you were on top of Lucifer,you stood up quickly , feeling the heat of your face spread .

"c-c-come o-on we s-should go!"you stuttered and ran away quickly as Keekee followed.

Lucifer stood there stunned... also blushing

You walked through the sea people with Lucifer in the festival. You were having the best night of your life trying different foods from different stalls. Keekee was also happy being fed .

As for Lucifer he looked like he was hiding for someone ? He wore a cloak and the hood was on, he was being cautious around other people...

Does he not like going outside in the crowd?

Maybe you should have listened to him not go to the Festival?

Maybe the he didn't agreed at first is because he's not good with crowds?

Then suddenly you got an idea.

"Keekee, can you watch Lucifer for a while?i gonna do something okay?"Keekee was hesitant at first. She was made to protect you at all cost,that why she neve leaves your side...

"oh come on Keekee it'll be quick,and if anything happens I'll shout" Keekee still feels the need to go with you,but she sense a bound between you and the King of Hell. Ofcourse Keekee knew...

She felt the energy radiating from him since day one.But some reason she didn't find him a danger to her wielder....

At the end she agreed...

Lucifer knows he fucked, Ultimately fucked,he sense angelic auras everywhere. He may have hid his demonic aura but he knew one slip up they'd find him and report back to heaven.

But he couldn't say no to you...

He saw how your eye's sparkle at every stall and every games in the festival.

He suddenly froze, a old man walks pass by him and he saw a guardian angel floating by his side.

He screwed...

But some reason he wasn't seen...

He felt something soft brush his legs and looked down to see a cat with cat with a scar on the left eye...

Keekee...

Speaking of Keekee...

Where's n/n?

He looked around and started to panic , until Keekee nudge his leg. She pointed with her paw to a direction and he followed.

She began to guide Lucifer to your whereabouts.

Until they saw you talking to a vendor of...

Lanterns?

He walked up to you ,you smile when you saw him.

"surprise!" You hand him a lantern.

"what this?"he asked

"a lantern"

"yeah,but?"

"just follow me " you suddenly grabbed his hand and walked to a cliff in a fast pace.

Your long red hair flowed through the air as your Turquoise eyes sparkle.

"let's lit this Lanterns up" you told him and he only nodded.

"i saw you feeling uncomfortable earlier so hopefully this lantern can help?it always makes me feel better. My father always make me and my sister these when i was little..."you explained only looking at the Lanterns float away.

Lucifer looked at the beautiful Lanterns float away but nothing can compare to your smile...

"thanks n/n"

"huh?oh... You're welcome Luci!"

You just got back from earth and fell down to your bed with a groan, you enjoyed the festival with Lucifer...

But you remembered what happened earlier before that..

You felt his chest under you and his hot breath on your face ,you looked at his eyes.You two looked at each other as if time stopped and nothing was around you two

You felt fireworks as held you...

Keekee looked at you out of her Earth disguise.

"come you saw that,it was embarrassing but..."it was still in your mind

"you what time for bed!"

You got ready for bed and tomorrow is another day.

You were currently practicing some magic with Glossaryck.

"why are my ancestors spells so hard ?!"

"well how about you try out some of your spells?"he suggested and you nodded.

"Dreamer's Hallucinations"

"our of all the spell-"it hit a mirror and suddenly Glossaryck got cut off when the beam hit him.

"IT'S A POOL OF CHOCOLATE PUDDING!"

"WAIT GLOSSARYCK THAT'S NO-"he already jumped into dirty fountain in the garden.

"Magica Reverso!"you conjure another spell.

The spell before got reverse and now Glossaryck jump away from the murky fountain,he almost ate moss..

"let's not talk about that.."

"aye aye !"

"try another spell that's not included hallucinations..."

You though for a moment...then realized...

"oh i have spell that I've been working on!"it was a spell that can defend your whole entire family and everyone in mewni.

"it's a defense spell"you mentioned and Glossaryck conjured up a puppet.

You concentrate and said the spell in your head multiple times to be ready to say it , Glossaryck waited until you were ready.

"Wither and Decay Let Rose Decompose..." A dark violet beam shot out of the wand as your cheek marks looked like it was blossoming like a rose ?

Glossaryck saw this and was shocked your marks are like roses ?

The beam shot through the poor Puppets chest , roses exploded from it's chest and loud boom echoed through the whole Palace.

You marks were still glowing and now fully blossom to be a dark rose.

You watched at horror as the roses slowly consumed the poor puppet.

"n/n!" You heard sister call out in concern,she heard the loud boom from the garden,she quickly ran out of the throne room because she knows you were having magic lessons with Glossaryck.

She saw you marks,she was shocked. They were not red circles anymore but dark Roses. She also noticed a puppet?

It was slowly getting consumed by what it looked decaying roses?

The Magical High Commission also join in and saw what happened.

"WHAT HAPPENED?!?"A girl with flame ontop of her head yelled out

"what did you do?!"Romulus exclaimed.

Uh oh

Glossaryck has seen this type of spell before...

Eclipsa's

He warned her not to use that spell before,she listened ofcourse... because she was starting to grow black veins in her arms , that's why she now wears gloves...

You felt guilty as you made your sister concerned...

Everyone watched as the puppet exploded into white petals. Now your cheeks where back to a red round shape marks.

"I'm sorry..."

[earhartsease]

we're a little bit obsessed (again) with snooker at the moment, and we realise not everyone here will be familiar with this quirky game so

picture a pool table, but the pockets are a bit smaller and the table is 12' long instead of 7'

you have:

10 red balls (worth 1)

6 "colour" balls - yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, black - worth respectively 2-7

at start of play the reds are in a little triangle at one end of the table, with the black below them, the pink just above them, the blue in the centre, and the yellow, brown, and green in a line across the top part (where the cue ball also starts out)

the game is this:

using the white cue ball, you pot a red first, then any colour, then a red and so on until the reds are used up and you've potted any colour after the last red (up to this point, the colours go back on their appointed places on the table)

then you pot the colours in their value order as seen above

simple, right? except what makes snooker snooker is that a part of the game strategy is to make the other player's life difficult by hiding their next available ball from them behind other balls on the table (or hiding the cue ball behind another ball) - this is called "being snookered" and it's so cool watching people skilled at creating snookers, and people skilled at "escaping" them too, sometimes bouncing off multiple side cushions, or putting spin on the cue ball to make it move in a curve

anyway we've always been fascinated by this game and how sort of understated it generally is, and how friendly the players are with each other even at world competition level - and we sometimes wonder how the game evolved to this point over time - how did exactly this combination of balls and rules come about?

if you're interested to see it in action you could do worse than looking up Judd Trump on youtube - he's a Bristol boy, child snooker prodigy, and he's a monster on the table (and very unlucky with his surname)

[respectthepetty]

Dangerous Romance Colors Ep. 9

I'm freaking out. I'm screaming into my fist. I'm experiencing eighty emotions at once. I'm going insane. The robbery in Dangerous Romance is finally happening, and episode nine gave me so much color! This is what heaven feels like.

It feels like Saifah in blue, and Name is bloody red.

I don't know what I did to deserve this crumb, but thank you, God! ROB THAT HOUSE 2023 IS ALIVE!

Then Nava (Nawa?) and Guy were a light vs dark color scheme (sidenote: Pawin was looking fine)

But when they met outside, the barrier between them blended their colors.

Then they put on their helmets and exchanged colors looking at stars together.

On the note of helmets, Kanghan and Sailom started off in their colors [Kanghan is a Blue Boy; Sailom is a Red Rascal]

They wore them various times throughout the episode.

But they also wore each other's colors (a color exchange)

THEN THE COLOR EXCHANGE MERGE!

Y'all know that water is PURPLE! You see it too. Red + Blue = Purple. Nid, you did it again, you big brain genius. I FUCKING LOVE YOU, SIR! I love you so much.

Then, Kanghan went to play snooker, and played a couple. The red x blue are dating. I don't make the rules.

And I love that it was snooker since it has 15 red balls and the blue ball, pink ball, and black ball have the highest point value, so basically it's a color-coded dream for our Blue Boy and Red Rascal.

Because they are definitely in love!

So I'm thrilled that next week Kanghan will trust Sailom, and by extension Saifah, and stick by Sailom's side.

Which probably means that when Kanghan catches Sailom escorting, they are very much still together.

I LOVE THIS FUCKING SHOW!

[coochiequeens]

Yet another case for SheWon.com. Not just any case, one where a grown ass white dude was allowed to compete against an 11 year old girl of color in the name of inclusiveness.

By Amy Hamm February 22, 2024

A trans-identified male is set to compete against women as the reigning Women’s Snooker Champion at the English Women’s Snooker Championship on May 24 in Walsall, UK. Jamie Hunter, 27, became the top women’s player following a semifinal victory against a young girl last year.

Hunter first rose to prominence during the English Women’s Snooker Champion finals in 2023 after he came out victorious against Mary Talbot-Deegan, finishing 3-1. Hunter had managed to make it to the finals after he beat out Ellise Scott, an 11-year-old rising star in the snooker world, taking 2-0 against her in the semifinal grouping. The event had been Scott’s debut in the tournament, and, prior to her match against Hunter, she had achieved three match victories against experienced female opponents.

Hunter had been participating in women’s cue sports since 2021, just one year after he “came out” as transgender.

Prior to transitioning, Hunter played in a mixed-sex amateur league for five years. Speaking with Snooker Zone in 2021, Hunter admitted that he had no intention of competing professionally until he discovered that there was a women’s tour.

“Until this year, cue sports was just a hobby, something I done once, maybe twice a week, but now finding out about the Women’s snooker tour, I believe that will change,” he said at the time. “They make out as if I played snooker as a man, I was rubbish, so decided to do it in the women’s instead. I changed my gender for my wellbeing and my life, not for anything else.”

Hunter received significant backlash after his 2022 US Women’s Open win, when former women’s world champion Maria Catalano criticized the policies enabling males to compete against females. In an interview with The Sportsman, Catalano argued that women’s snooker should exclude males from female categories, as some rugby leagues have, to ensure fairness for women. 

“We have fought so hard for our rights in the past – myself, Reanne Evans and others got people to write letters to allow us to play in leagues and clubs that banned women. I don’t believe that women can compete against men on a level playing field in sport. We are wired differently, we think differently. We are mentally different,” said Catalano. 

The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) publishes a mixed sex international ranking of players. The highest-ranking female on their current list, Mink Nutcharut, is listed at 119.

In response to the criticism of his wins against women, Hunter has framed the backlash as transphobia.

“Everybody’s human. Regardless of what choices you make. You should treat everybody with respect,” said Hunter speaking to a BBC journalist last fall. Bizarrely, Hunter was interviewed while he sat in a gaming chair in a dark bedroom — which he refers to as “the dark girl cave.” The room has a transgender pride flag pinned up on the wall behind him.

The upcoming English Women’s Snooker Championship is set for May 24, 2024. It is being organized by the English Partnership for Snooker and Billiards (EPSB), which is the national governing body for the sport in England. They describe their goal as creating a “structured coaching environment that will inspire all regardless of gender, ability, or ethnicity to fulfil their potential in our sport.” 

The EPSB has a diversity, equity, and inclusion policy with a lengthy section on discrimination, including a ban on any “condition, rule or practice [that]… particularly disadvantages people who share a protected characteristic.” As for their list of protected characteristics, the EPSB includes “gender, gender identity, marital status, sexual orientation, race, colour, nationality, religion, age, disability, HIV positivity, working pattern, caring responsibilities, trade union activity or political beliefs.”  

The English Women’s Championship is set to take place at the Landywood Snooker Club in Walsall, UK, on May 24.

This is not the first time a male has dominated women’s cue sports, sparking backlash from players and fans.

Last November, a female pool player refused to compete against a trans-identified male opponent at a women’s championship in Wales. Lynne Pinches received an outpouring of support as video began to circulate showing her walking away from the table after being matched to play against Chris Haynes.

Days later, two more female pool players refused to compete against Haynes in solidarity with Pinches during the Ultimate Pool tournament in Blackpool, UK.

In January, Pinches headed an effort to launch a lawsuit against the World Eightball Pool Federation (WEPF) and Ultimate Pool Group (UPG), accusing the governing bodies of subjecting women “to direct sex discrimination and harassment on the grounds of sex.”

What does he have to gain from this?

ENTRY FEES AND PRIZE MONEY

Entry: £30

Winner: £200 

Runner-Up: £100 

Semi-Finalists: £50

[plantinghobbies]

The Same Damn Thing

Part 1: We were scared of getting old and it made us restless

Join @solipsisticno1 and I on this six-part roller coaster for Valetine’s Day, based on an angsty lyric challenge that nobody asked for. New installments drop every few days, feedback fuels us!

By the time Valentina arrived, the room was over capacity and the crowd was over served, the bass so loud it felt like it was rattling her organs. She spots Matty’s curls first (she always does) and begins making her way over to her sister’s friends. She knows that description isn’t totally accurate - the couple of times she let it slip they’ve squawked at her about how she’s their friend too - but under the circumstances, it’s hard to not feel like her sister’s understudy. She’s been that her whole life.

The group is huddled at their usual table in the corner of the pub, shoulders pressed together as if it could ward off the onslaught of real-world responsibilities ready to overtake them in a few days when they leave the comforts of school, newly minted “adults”. Right now, they looked more like drunk toddlers, spilling on the table and each other as they play one last round of flip the lid. Valentina never bothered to learn the complicated rules Matty and George had made up years ago, but she knew enough to know they were near the end.

Matty’s cheeks are flushed from drink, something she’s loved ever since she first saw it at fifteen visiting her sister for the first time since she left, slept in her dorm, met her friends. Met him. It wasn’t why Val had chosen to study here as well, but it didn’t hurt. She’d been intoxicated - not just on the cheap beer, but on the camaraderie. Growing up, Val loved American sitcoms - Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Beverly Hills 90210 (though her parents didn’t know about that one) - groups of friends who take on life and then meet up on a shared couch or bar stools to recap their days - the glowing highs, the comedic lows. Together, seemingly forever. She’d enrolled here with visions of her and the gang at this very table playing flip the lid, her and Marin on morning jogs before class, her and Matty - well, just getting to exist in his orbit really, that unnamable pull that seemed to light him from within, draw people into him.

And for the first few months, her sitcom dreams and her freshman reality had aligned. She’d joined them for nights out, did sunrise yoga with the girls (apparently, someone in their dorm had read women who run age faster than non-runners. Val was very skeptical of the science behind this “study” but didn’t want to risk speaking up to challenge it) and had spent enough time with Matty to mold her blind infatuation into genuine respect and admiration. A lot of time with Matty actually. It seemed that wherever she and Marin went, Matty would follow. Even to the crochet night that Val had organized at the elder-care center, wanting to test out the new app she’d been working on that provided alternate crafting methods for people with arthritis. Not that Val was complaining - she got to be surrounded by him, even if the only logical explanation for his presence was he was trying to pull Marin. Why else would a twenty-one-year-old man choose a crochet night over helping his friends defend their snooker championship at the pub? (And the feeling seemed mutual – Marin went on and on to Val about how great Matty was, how smart, how caring). Anyone else would have done everything they could to avoid him, them, but Val was a masochist it seemed. She didn’t care why Matty was there, just that he was there.

This pathetic acknowledgement aside, everything was as it should be. Except for one thing. The golf ball sized lump that seemed to develop overnight on Marin’s thigh. Instead of spring break on the warm beaches of the Algarve, they spent it in the sterile, white-washed hospital cancer ward. Ravaged was the term the doctor kept using. We’ve never seen something like this, how quickly its’ ravaged her organs. Funny, Val thinks, even Marin’s cancer was an overachiever.

Val had wanted to stay home, especially when Marin got accepted into an experimental drug trial. Experimental meant unexpected, something none of her family were particularly good at dealing with, except Val. She had clashed with her parents who were insistent on her going back (Val felt a little bad about fighting with them when they already had so much on their plate). But where she could fight with them, she was helpless against her sister, who crawled into her bed one night and pleaded with Val to go back, to not let this disrupt her life too, to help her live vicariously through her (it’s going to be so fucking boring here, I’m going to need the escapism). They’d cried over the unfairness of it all, big crocodile tears soaking the pillowcase as they clung to each other.

So she’d returned after break, feeling unmoored and exhausted. Marin had filled everyone in, long draining teary phone calls that kept her up until all hours of the night. Val knew she’d saved Matty for last, and after it, Marin didn’t leave her room for a day. (Val’s never asked if she and Matty are just close, or close. She’s afraid to have confirmation of her fears, that once again she’s no match for Marin).

Speaking of Matty, he’d thrown himself into the last month of term, a man on a mission, holding the group together in Marin’s absence. And he’d slotted Val in seamlessly, including her in everything, checking in with her more frequently. Val relished the attention, his care with her, the soft look he got in his eyes looking at her during midnight talks when the worry and cancer-fueled fucking anger overwhelmed them. She wanted to believe it was something, a spark, but he seemed so torn up about Marin. It was probably just pity. She secretly worried that he was going to all this trouble to try and replace the Marin-sized hole in their group. Or worse, in his heart. And she couldn’t be her sister, no matter how hard she’d tried growing up.

So, while she was devastated that they were leaving, hadn’t really even processed what next year would look like, there was a glimmer of hope in her that it would simplify things, they’d be less complicated. She’d go home for the summer (she’d cancelled her planned internship, felt selfish being away at such a tough time), take care of Marin, and return next year with him in the rear view. Out of sight, out of mind.

That seemed really hard to imagine right now when he catches her staring, looking at her over the lip of his pint, all soft eyes and a shy grin, like he knew something she didn’t. He stands as she approaches, enveloping her in a warm hug.

“Drink?” He shakes his pint as he speaks, and she nods aggressively.

“Here, you take this one, I’ll snag another” he pivots, pointing over his shoulder to the long line behind him that leads to the outside bar.

“No, don’t be silly. I’m not in a rush, I’ll grab it. Don’t want to take you away from this lot on your last night.”

“Eh, I’m sick of these twats” he says loudly, cackling when George flips him the bird and mutters about him being a sore loser. “I’ll wait with you, could do with some fresh air anyway.”

And she has to admit that the breeze feels nice, hadn’t realized how flushed she’d gotten in the stale air of the pub. Even after they score her “her”drink (a vodka cranberry) that he takes the piss out of her every time for - “it’s my drink of choice - that’s because it’s the only drink you’ve ever had! You’re missing out!”- they gravitate toward an empty bench on the outskirts of the patio. Matty lights a cigarette almost as soon as they’ve sat down.

“What happened to the New Year’s resolution?”

“Quitting seemed much more doable before your sister got sick” His face contorts into something between a grimace and a smirk. He flicks the ash away, breathing smoke out of his nose, something she knows should repulse her, but she finds oddly sexy. “I mean, I’m trying to keep everyone together. It hit Mags particularly hard, what with losing her father so young. Her fucking checked out mother could have at least paid for decent therapy back then. It’s been all I can do to keep her somewhat sober and passing class.”

She nods her agreement; she hadn’t realized just how much he’d been carrying not just her the last few months.

“Marin is the glue, you know? With her not here, I’m worried it’s all gonna fall apart. Like getting older wasn’t fucking bad enough.” Tap tap tap. He has a nervous habit of tapping his hands when he’s nervous. She’s noticed it more and more the last few weeks, a few beats turning into extended rhythms as the slow march to the end of the term draws near. “These were supposed to be the best months of our lives.” She can’t take seeing him anxious anymore, her hand reaching out to cover his on the bench. Val watches as her fingers lace together with his like an out of body experience. He squeezes hard, sending a twinge through her hand. She doesn’t care, she squeezes right back. “It’s so fucked.”

Another squeeze. His thumb grazes her knuckles gently. “I just wish there was more I could do.”

Now that is a sentiment that Valentina can relate to. “I hear you, I don’t know how to help her either and it kills me. Like, I’m her sister, and there’s just fuck all that I can -“she can’t finish, her voice catching in her throat.

“Not just her” his hand comes up to brush an errant hair out of her face, fingering the blond hair like it was gold. “For you.”

“Me? You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I may not have to” his gaze is piercing “but I do.” The words are like a dose of cold brew, hitting her nerves, making her feel jittery with a combination of excitement and angst. She feels guilty, she’s meant to be comforting him! But she also wants him, has for years, this is the closest they’ve ever been. About that, it feels like the space - the physical space - between them is getting smaller. She knows she’s not moving because she keeps trying to will her body to sit back, pull back, step back. So it has to be him closing the gap, leaning in, right? It makes no sense and yet it’s the only logical conclusion.

This shouldn’t be happening, she can’t be her sister for him. She can’t. “Listen, Marin is going to get better and then you and she can -”

Her eyes have to cross to see the confusion written in his, that’s how close he is now. Danger, danger. “Me and Marin? That’s not….” He takes a breath, sets his shoulders as if preparing for something. To let her down easy, no doubt. Oh god, how did he know? “Listen, Vee, I know this may be bad timing but -“

The sound of her phone is a mercy, and she jumps at the easy out, grateful to see her aunt’s name flash across the screen.

“I - uh - I gotta take this. Excuse me”

She wanders off under his watchful stare. By the time she returns, the group has migrated out to join him, her seat in front of him occupied. Everything is muted, their loud voices, her feelings, even the colors around her. It’s like she left the scene in color and came back black and white.

Mags yells out to her. “Val, come tell this dickhead that your first visit to London will be to see me, not him. Matty is delud-“ Her voice drifts off at the look on Val’s face. Matty clambers up from the table, squatting down to eye level, thumbs rubbing her shoulders as rhythmically as he did her knuckles. She wished she could feel it, feel anything.

“Valentina? What is it? Are you alright?“

Better just rip the bandaid off, there’s nothing for it. “It’s Marin. She’s uh” Val clears her throat, physically working to dislodge the words stuck in her throat, “I uh, she’s dead. She, she died.”

Everyone freezes, mouths hung open, gestures caught in midair. Matty’s still holding onto her shoulders, but the soothing rhythm has stopped. Being on the receiving end of the news had been hell but being on the receiving end of Marin’s friends – her friends too, she can hear the echo of Matty chastising her even now – reactions is somehow worse. Faces crumpling, hot tears. Shayla just keeps muttering oh my god over and over, as if a mantra, seemingly unaware that she’s doing it. It’s the only thing that cuts the silence until…

His lips part. “Vee, I – “Leave it to Matty to still find words when everyone else is at a loss. His fingers flex, arms adjusting to pull her into his body. But she can’t, can’t deal with anyone’s pain or awkwardness or misguided pity right now, especially his. She steps back, dodging the hurt look in his eyes. The subtle shift brings everyone’s attention back to her and they move all at once, a giant mass surrounding her. Taking up space and the air that she is desperately fighting for. Shayla’s oh my gods have turned into a litany of questions about what happened and what’s next and what does she want, and Val simply does not know.

Sweetheart, you need to come home. She’s gone. It feels like a lifetime ago that her aunt told her the news, voice cracking around her words, and yet it’s been less than five minutes. Val knows this because her favorite song had started playing just as she got the call – Purple Rain – and Prince’s epic riff was still blaring across the patio). Right before her phone buzzed, she’d even been tempted to ask Matty to dance (one minute of feeling him pressed against her before she swore she’d move on, just a little taste of what could have been if she hadn’t been born with such an incredibly, eclipsing force of a sister who drew everyone to her). That brief, reckless surge of confidence that feels like a different lifetime now.

She has to get out of there. She feels the need to cry and scream and throw things and curl into a ball and Val’s never been good at multitasking but right now it feels like she might do all of them at once if she doesn’t find a way to fucking move her feet. What is wrong with her? Is this shock? Is she dying? She feels like a part of her already has. Her spiral is interrupted by a steady hand at her back. She glances over her shoulder, meeting Matty’s bloodshot eyes. His curls are damp where they brush across her cheek, he looks wrecked. Of course he is, he just lost his – well, Val’s not sure what they were exactly but he looks beside himself.

Head tilting toward the patio exit, he takes her hand, her body going along with him. And it seems the rest of the group as well, them all trailing behind, clinging to each other, afraid to let go. He rambles on the walk back to her place – she’d balked at Matty’s insistence on spending the night on her couch, walking her back had been a reluctant compromise. I’ll come by as soon as you’re up, can help with packing. I can even fly home with you if you want. She reminds him he has graduation in a few days, knows a small army of family are coming from all over to celebrate him. Fuck that, I’ll call them right now, this is a family thing too. She bristles at that, the reminder of the intimacy he shared with her sister. Then she almost doubles over with shame at the thought of being jealous of Marin at all. She’s selfish, the worst.

Val knows he shows up the next morning, knows it even though she isn’t there. Because he said he would, because that’s who he is. Taking care of others, ignoring his own pain. That’s what he’s been doing for her all year long. Sure, she was the understudy, but she’d been a willing participant. Because the truth is, she’d been using him right back. She’d been so numb – with guilt at being well when her sister wasn’t, being at Marina’s dream school without her, being away when her parents were swamped with medical appointments and bills. Being with Matty, drunk on his attention, that’s the only time she felt anything all year. But the guilt of almost kissing Matty behind her sister’s back, while her sister was dying, well that almost crushed her.

The shame was palpable. It drove her out of her dorm in the middle of the night, leaving behind anything that she didn’t absolutely need, knowing she’d never come back for it. Kept a wall between them at the services, despite Matty’s multiple attempts to exchange more than just pleasantries and condolences. For months, it kept her company in the dead of night, when she was most tempted to return his numerous calls, reply to the endless stream of unanswered texts. Val, I’m here if you need anything. Please just let me know you’re getting these. Talk to me. And then there’d been one voicemail, recorded when he was clearly off his face. Veeeeeeee Im drknu and herteng n i fcin miss and then he’d been cut off, sounds of scuffling and a muffled give me that (it was George, she thinks) before the dial tone.

She didn’t hear from him again. Sometimes she’d wonder what finally made him give up. Anger, a new woman, apathy? This was one of her most well-worn thoughts, that he had simply moved on from the Langford sisters. She couldn’t blame him (and yet she did). They’d been friends for less than a year, connected by a third person who was now gone. What did she expect?

For years she kept the voicemail and texts, the only thing she had left of him, until even those were lost when she accidentally jumped in the pool at a friend’s wedding with her phone forgotten in her back pocket. Along with the contact info for her sister’s (her) friends. It became harder to remember the sound of his voice, the smell of his cologne, the cadence of his speech when he got so animated he couldn’t keep a train of thought going. But then she’d be out shopping, at a bar, and she’d hear it, the faint strains of Purple Rain. And it would come rushing back. The one damn thing that kept the torch from going out completely

[jamietarttsnorthernattitude]

RULES: Post the last sentence you wrote (fanfic / original / anything) and tag as many people as there are words in the sentence.

Tagged by the amazingly talented @jonairadreaming

James continued on, playing into Jamie’s insecurities with the same ease he played a game of snooker.

That’s a lot of people so I’m just going to tag a few if you want to play but no pressure @thirteenemeraldcats @jamiesfootball @nativestarwrites <3

[afurtivecake]

where r u from that u call billiards snooker? ive just never heard anything other than billiards and pool

you've activated my "info dump about snooker" trap card, I'm afraid

so pool and snooker are both cue sports that can both generally be called "billiards". They are different games, however, with separate tournaments, different rules, different balls, different sized tables, and different techniques used.

Pool, which is more common in the US, is played with larger, numbered balls. There are several different variations of pool played with slightly different rules but generally, the goal is to pot the numbered balls in a specific order based on number.

Snooker is popular in the UK, China, Singapore, India and Thailand (just to name a few countries). The balls are coloured but not numbered. There are 15 red balls, and one each of yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black (also the white cue ball), which you have to pot in a particular order to score points. The table is also larger than in pool (thus necessitating players to lay themselves over it sometimes).

My favourite difference between pool and snooker is that you can't really just switch between the two nilly-willy. The cueing techniques are different enough that pro-snooker players cannot just enter pool tournaments and expect to win (they have tried) and vice-versa. The techniques are different because the size of the table and balls are different. Snooker tables are larger and require a different cue action to hit balls with the cue ball from further away. Pool, on the other hand, seems to have a lot of techniques for tricky little close-range shots.

Sorry, I went on a bit there...I genuinely love being asked about snooker. Anyway, my point is, I went with a AFTG snooker AU because snooker is the one I'm familiar with. Also because snooker is the one with the tense, repressed vibes (even though it's been largely a shady gambling game throughout history) and makes players dress up all formal, which I just find amusing. I just think the shadiness of snooker fits well with the criminal aspects of AFTG.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the main reason it’s snooker and not pool is because that thing where they bend over the table and lift up a leg like that is way more common in snooker (due to the size of the table) than pool. I’ve not watched much pool but generally people don’t lean that far over the table and it’s more common to see players to sort of half-sit on the table to make a shot than bend over

[justforbooks]

Martin Amis, the author of Money and London Fields, has died at the age of 73. Here are some of the most memorable quotes from interviews over the course of his career.

On writing

“What makes you a writer? You develop an extra sense that partly excludes you from experience. When writers experience things, they’re not really experiencing them anything like a hundred percent. They’re always holding back and wondering what the significance of it is, or wondering how they’d do it on the page.”

“I find that people take my writing rather personally. It’s interesting when you’re doing signing sessions with other writers and you look at the queues at each table and you can see definite human types gathering there … With Julian Barnes, his queue seemed to be peopled by rather comfortable, professional types. My queue is always full of, you know, wild-eyed sleazebags and people who stare at me very intensely, as if I have some particular message for them. As if I must know that they’ve been reading me, that this dyad or symbiosis of reader and writer has been so intense that I must somehow know about it.”

“To me it seems like a part-time job, really, in that writing from 11 to 1 continuously is a very good day’s work. Then you can read and play tennis or snooker. Two hours. I think most writers would be very happy with two hours of concentrated work.”

“Any smoker will sympathise when I say that after your first cup of coffee you have a sobbing, pleading feeling in the lungs as they cry out for their first cigarette of the day, and my desire to write is rather like that. It’s rather physical.”

“There are pains you have to go through when writing a novel. If I wrote a novel without that – where it was all flowing, from beginning to end – it would make me very suspicious. It has to have the admixture of pain. But otherwise it seems to me a hilariously enjoyable way of spending one’s time. Assigning life to all these propositions, and (usually) dreaming up people, rather than taking them from life.”

“I have no patience for anything experimental or obscure – above all, obscure. I have to know at all times exactly what’s going on. I’m very committed to the pleasure principle. You read literature to have a good time. Or why else would people go on doing it?”

On his father, Kingsley Amis

“He was brilliantly indolent: he never gave me any encouragement at all. I later realised how valuable and necessary that was.”

“I left the proofs [of The Rachel Papers] on his desk and went off on holiday. When I came back, he’d gone on holiday. But he left a brief, charming note saying he thought it was enjoyable and fun and all that. I think that was the last novel of mine he read all the way through.”

“I always thought if he had been born a generation later, he would have written my novels. And if I’d been born a generation earlier, I would have written his novels.”

On cancel culture

“Every fibre in my being resists. It’s a philistine manifesto. It’s anti-creativity. Appropriation means taking without permission – who do you ask permission of? It’s getting that way in every direction. I got bollocked for writing about the working classes in Lionel Asbo. But I’d been doing that since I started.”

On his comments about Islamism

“Well, there was an unpleasant flurry [at that time], and I certainly regretted having said what I said; already by mid-afternoon on that day I ceased to believe in what I said. Collective punishment is obviously ruled out by definition – it was the sort of thing you say towards the end of a long interview without really having time to clear it with yourself. But that never felt like a great convulsion in my life. One death threat and a lot of chat. It wasn’t much of a cancellation.”

On feminism

“I’ve been a passionate feminist since the mid-80s. It was Gloria Steinem who converted me in a single day in New York. It’s the rhetorical device she uses throughout, and it’s very effective: she just reverses the sexes – what if men menstruated, what if men had babies? It’s unanswerable.”

On politics

“I’m secure in my conviction that socialism doesn’t work, because it goes against human nature. The idea of people acting out of social altruism is not part of human nature. It’s an element in it, but it’s not a guiding principle. I’ve always been a gradualist.”

“One of the real truths of the 21st century, and earlier, is that history is speeding up. We’re all on a sort of rollercoaster now. There are existential threats that weren’t fully acknowledged not so long ago. We are sort of hurtling forward. It’s more of a task to ask people to slow down.”

Remembering Christopher Hitchens

“He had a greater love of life than me. He really enjoyed everything, so much. I quite like life, but I’m not as crazy about it as he was. It somehow formulated itself in me that, now he was dead, it was my job to love life as much as he did.”

“Christopher was a real contrarian. One of things I’m proud of is that friendship. We never had even the slightest froideur about disagreements. I think it’s a good rule never to lose a friend over an argument. Never get into these sincerity contests: “I feel so strongly about this that I never want to see you again.” Rubbish. I disagreed with Hitchens violently over literary things as well as political things. But it never got to the point of raised voices. That’s partly because real friendship is rare, particularly male friendship.”

On ageing

“My father said to me that when a writer of 25 puts pen to paper he’s saying to the writer of 50 that it’s no longer like that, it’s like this. The older writer, at some point, is going to lose touch with what the contemporary moment feels like, although some writers do amazing jobs, Saul Bellow being a good example.”

“I feel I’m only going to write short stories and novellas from now on. Chekhov said, toward the end of his life, “Everything I read strikes me as not short enough.” And I agree.”

“In the old days it came quicker, the prose. Now it’s a battle. It’s not about coming up with striking adverbs, it’s more about removing as many uglinesses as I can find.”

“I don’t want this to get out of control or I’ll be drowning in schmaltz, but it all starts to look very beautiful now that I know I’m not going to be around indefinitely. You know, the way that to a prisoner condemned to death, water tastes delicious, the air tastes sweet, a bread-and-butter sandwich makes tears spring to the eye.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[batsplat]

I love your brain! like yes of course valentino should be a princess! (and a witch, who curses ppl) and the malicious story teller stuff!!!

*insert that photo where mick doohan is putting a crown on valentino, but make it a tiara instead*

also, the bike transforming into a blue haired anime girl in his dreams I feel like irl valentino would endorse this afdggjk

(x) somehow this is probably the cinematic vision that is most likely to get made. we already know he's into surrealist animation that's based on himself so it's like. not that much of a step. lemme sit him down and explain utena to him I wanna see something

for reference, the doohan/valentino photo

icl, in my head I remembered the crown already looking more like a tiara. like I'd lezzed up that crown in my head, made it a little daintier. that's actually a pretty normal crown. I mean, it's still objectively a bit of an odd photo to exist. but yeah. to me this is basically already princess-coded. shame his honda prince just couldn't treat him right

it's funny because he's such an absolute weirdo about this stuff that a lot of this bike characterisation is basically already... well, it's already true in his own head, isn't it. like how he'd hesitated over saying yes to yamaha because he was so attached to like... the honda not Because It Was A Good Bike but because it was one of his true loves or something

"I took pictures of myself hugging and embracing the rc211v" FREAK

and how the whole process of signing with yamaha was like. about liberation. but so hard to give up his girl and show up for this completely different girl who's likely to be mid for a while

like!! he really goes all in on the liberation stuff, but it's also.... he really saw something in that yamaha when nobody else did. it's a bit horse girl of him, but also for our purposes here the bike is spiritually very much the prince to swoop in and save him from his mental shackles. can the horse save the horse girl, that's what happened here

anyway, something about how... a lot of the scaffolding of utena's plot depends on kinda bizarre and straight up silly mythology that anthy and akio are quite directly responsible for... the duels, obviously, akio using his projector thingy, the letters from end of the world... to the point where it almost serves a disorientating effect, where the characters are increasingly immune to how nonsensical and weird everything is and stop even commenting on it. unless they get a shock to the system like nanami accidentally seeing anthy and akio................ uh. you know. and then there's something quite fun and engaging about valentino kinda,, brute forcing his vision on the sport - where increasingly a lot of the insanity involving him has become completely accepted to the point of being accepted, and everyone else is operating within his rules. the celebrations is an obvious totem for that general influence.... just something quite fun to hearing commentators speculating what he's trying to tell the world when he's dressing up as a prisoner or whatever, like they're actively engaged in this insanity valentino has set up. but it's also kinda about the legacy element, where you end up having the melandris and jorges of this world following in his footsteps and planning their own celebrations... nobody ever did it quite as much as valentino did, but even stuff like marc's title-winning celebrations, the dice or snooker table or whatever, are part of the same tradition. I had this moment watching maverick dress up as batman this year where I was like 'huh this would be a completely bizarre event if I were watching tennis or f1 or whatever but I suppose we do just completely accept it as basically normal behaviour'. and because for valentino, celebrations are such a big element of narrativisation of his victories, of explaining The Meaning of his victories, of telling the story of a win and his career... he's kinda ensured this sport as a whole ends up being super into exactly that style of narrativisation. all on the same wavelength in how bizarrely dramatic they are. is this not basically utena, artificiality of the narratives and all.... well, not really, but it is a little bit imo. valentino probably could've gotten a pre-race sequence where he challenges riders to duels introduced if he really put his mind to it

I was also thinking some more about the imagery he's big on, most notably all the sun and moon stuff (from here)

angry moon and angry sun!! so which one's supposed to be the happy-go-lucky one

you get the occasional grinning moon:

I would think it's fun and quirky and a bit of a subversion if the moon is actually like. the happy bit. and the sun is the competitive nature. even discussing this is all kinda funny, like how many athletes are this into inventing their whole little symbolic language you can theorise about? I'm engaging with this sport in the same way how utena, by the time she's like fifteen episodes in, doesn't even question how it's possible that black flowers can mind control students. these things are basically equivalent

anyhow I do miss the faces on the sun and the moon, they were a very early valentino aesthetic. and crucially it does fit into the reading of 2004 that's really about him... integrating those two natures. as I've repeatedly yapped about by now, there are no celebrations that can quite match the pointed cruelty of sepang 2004. sun and moon meet each other, destroying his enemy in whimsical fashion. so: with all this dualism valentino himself has introduced into the story, with all this symbolic stuff he was throwing at the wall in 2003, he's basically created the narrative himself wherein his prince (the m1) can swoop in and liberate the princess (vale) and allow the prince to revolutionise the world (idk self actualise ig) by integrating the sun and the moon or... or something. and becoming a witch is depicted as being pushed over the edge by a moment of crisis obsessed with achieving a singular goal... well, that's qatar, isn't it. devoted to his m1, has a crisis about coming close to losing the title, does a curse, plans a little sadistic celebration to ritually manifest his curse into existence. and also the bike is a hot anime girl prince he can do witchcraft with. valentino hmu I have a proposal for you

[mugiwara-no-toshokan]

Hello! 🤗 I have no idea who to ask, but I love your writing and takes on things so I'm hoping you might have an answer lol 🩷 how do people get into sanji fics? Like I love sanji and want to read more spicy fics about him, but it feels so out of character. Like I love when people shake things up and they come off a little different, it makes it more interesting. But all I can think about when I try to read them is how canon sanji would probably fall over with a nose bleed in the first few sentences. Any headcanons or explanations you have would totally be cool

\o/ I'm happy to help, because I actually do have some things that might help!

So there's a couple things to keep in mind regarding any member of One Piece - there's a lot of exaggeration in the anime (there's often exaggeration in anime as a general rule, but I digress).

Some exaggerations are used for comedic relief, tension relief, or story slingers. (i.e. we need the story to go forward, so someone gets to do something "technically" in character to sling shot things forward.)

Zoro's sense of direction - in the extreme sense of literally just turning away from the crew and wandering off in a blatantly bad direction - is an example of exaggeration.

Sanji's rocket-worthy nose-bleeds are also another example of said exaggeration. There's even times in One Piece where he doesn't have an over the top reaction toward a lady. He keeps his cool around the ladies of the red light district when there's no room for his usual shenanigans in the story.

I wouldn't want to write Zoro just turning and walking away from someone actively speaking to him, and I also wouldn't want to write about Sanji needing an ambulance because he erupted in a nosebleed mid-sentence.

Even if I'm writing a canon story - but certainly in an AU.

Hm, I might be getting a little too into the weeds, so let me say that I think things like Sanji's extreme nosebleeds and his over the top overtures are visual exaggerations for the sake of comedic relief and story-telling. They're not meant to be taken at face value.

No more than slinging someone into the horizon in the style of sending Team Rocket flying is meant to be taken at face value. It's just a device to keep the story moving.

In that case it's not out of character to tone him down a notch or two. He can still be Sanji - willing to bend over backwards for someone, flustered and maybe prone to normal nosebleeds, and easily snookered by beautiful ladies - he doesn't have to be pushed to the extremes to have these traits.

I hope that helps \o/ I wish I had a Sanji-centric story to offer, but he's not one of my main blorbos, so off the top of my head I'm not a great resource for him ^^;