#who knows at this point but *yells into the void*

[wehaveagathering]

Just curious, what was the skate like irl? Who didn’t even finish/ who did better than the rest??

Oh, I love you for this question. Buckle up.

First of all, I think there are a bunch of misconceptions about what 👹Tort's Rope👹 actually is and how it works. I had not a clue how it worked until today, and literally a week ago I thought Torts was tying ropes to hockey players and having them drag each other around the ice... Not how it works.

So, John Tortorella's bag skate. First, the rope is marked in large sections and tied between two goals, placed a little closer together than usual. The players are split up into 4 groups of approximately 4 players each and sent to the four corners of the rink. When Torts blows his whistle, one player from each group completes 4 laps of the goals and returns to their corner; the next player up is sent off on his own laps, and so on and so forth. Once each player in each group has completed his first four laps, the two goals are widened to a new length marked on the rope and the first player is back up. It's not a test of time or speed; it's a test of endurance.

(Those numbers are rough estimates based off of what I saw today — it could be three laps, and I don't know how many reps they did. The actual schedule says 3x8 Lap which is the technical term for 👹Tort's Rope👹 but I thought I saw four laps. Eight reps sounds about right, too. Whatever! The actual numbers don't matter too much.)

What matters is that the player completes his laps and returns to his origination point, no matter how tired he is. His teammates can give him a pat on the back, or some tips and pointers, or they can stare into the blank void of space and consider a new career path. Whatever it is, he has to finish. So "not finishing" isn't really an option unless someone throws up or passes out or dies. And no one did that — so technically, everyone finished.

Some people certainly had an easier time than others. I noticed that Michkov and Bonk struggled quite a bit, and Jamie didn't look too thrilled either.

Travis Ballinghoff.

Which kinda sucked, because I was really rooting for them. But holy shit, Michkov was struggling. Charlie O Connor actually said in the PHLY podcast today that he noticed Michkov kind of cut his final lap short at one point and that John Tortorella came over to him and was like yo. can't do that. And for the rest of the time he pulled through.

Egor Zamula kept getting yelled at. "Let's go, Z! Keep skating, Z!" He also kept getting lapped by Rasmus Ristolainen. Tyson Foerster had "kill me now" face (see Bonk above) but Foerster does tend to have a pretty expressive face. Sean Couturier kept getting help from TK, who skated right behind him for the most part and kept pushing him forward with his stick. He even admitted it.

It seemed to me that most of the guys from last year, the returning ones, were the ones that did the best. Farabee, Frost, Tippett, Hathaway, Poehling, Laughton — they all had a routine in between their laps that they used to help keep them going, whether it was motivatinal or physiological or psychological. Farabee and Hathaway skated up and down the rope, in the center of the lapping players. Tippett stretched on the boards. (He's flexible. 👀)

It was interesting to watch who was fast, though. Ronnie Attard looked like he was having the time of his fucking life, and he actually did very well! Carter Sotheran has resting happy face, but I can't imagine he was having any fun. Jett Luchanko was certainly winded, but pulled through with minimal painful expressions. (Erik Johnson went on the record to say Luchanko looked like he didn't even have to try.) Zayde Wisdom, Noah Cates and Cam York all paced themselves well. But everyone, no matter who it was, was slowing down by the second or third rep — very visibly. It looked awful.

And then — and then! — they had to do shuttles. This one was in groups of four — started at one end, raced to the other end, tight turn, back to the original spot. Then a group of four at the opposite end, who were waiting, would do the same, and the small groups would switch off. They must have done at least five reps. No one fared well on these. No one. They were all lagging by the second rep.

Anyway, to answer your question, it was loud, and it was cold, and hockey players are big. The tallest ones were like hovering a foot over me (looking at you, Matteo Mann, what the fuck are you so tall for??) and even Michkov at 5'11 looked fucking ginormous. And his group was right near me — him, Frost, Seeler, and Lycksell. Frost was tiring but I could see him grit his teeth and grind out his laps. I assume after the emotional pain of John Tortorella, Frosty can handle the physical pain too. After one of his laps was done he gave Michkov a lil side hug. It was really cute!

Travis Ballinghoff.

Off topic, but stick "taps" — that's bad nomenclature, right there. A stick "tap" at the Vorhees TC sounds like a car backfiring.

At the end of every group's torture, they settled down for a circle stretch. TK went around the first one talking to guys and grinning and laughing. He looked like a leader. The second one Joel was going around making every guy give him a little fistbump. Then the third one was actually led by Spencer Gill, who I thought had done reasonably well, especially for having only just been drafted. He held his own.

Thank you for the ask!

[hinamie]

doodles

[kindlythevoid]

(link to recipe here)

Part One, Part Two, Part Four

[cosmicroadkill]

The eternal struggle of "I'm really tired of this one character in this ship being reduced to an 'UwU cutesy FemBoy TM sub bottom'" and "Just let people enjoy the ship how they want it's not hurting you, you fucking weirdo"

[actual-changeling]

I think it is important to remember that while Ellie does not know many movies, songs, or other cultural aspects that existed before the outbreak, she is overall an incredibly smart and well-read person! She knows her science!

Yes, she will probably have no idea who Queen is but she isn't stupid. There is at *least* a high school level collection of knowledge in her head, probably more in some areas she is especially interested in.

Writing her as not knowing basic bodily functions or absolutely elementary science level info is not only inaccurate but also incredibly infantilizing, and the latter is already an existing problem based on ableist stereotypes that I have no interest in seeing exacerbated by people not putting more thought into their headcanons/writing. If people are interested or curious I can make a whole post on the age regression aspects of her cptsd and how to handle it responsibly and with grace, but tl;dr if you do not know how to write it without making real people who go through it feel like shit, don't do it.

You can do with the character as you want but as soon as you publicly share those headcanons you have a responsibility to not spread harmful misinformation or be offensive in any way.

[mainfaggot]

just watched challengers at the cinema w my little sister. it was so intense wtf

[kideternity]

Most important thing in the world to me is that IMO in order to be ant man you gotta be fucked up in the head*

[erggggggggg]

manifesting that i feel better and have my energy back by saturday night because my bestie and i need a girls night so bad and our favorite cover band is playing at a dive bar and i need to gooooo

[galaxywhump]

"Why am I feeling depressed?" asks the person with depression

[eyrieofsynapses]

*pulls pillow off my head* ok done screaming. so how about that Zeb cameo in The Mandalorian today, folks? anyone else hold their breath for a second thinking "no, it's just a Lasat, there's no way--" before hearing Steve Blum's voice and going "OH SHIT OH SHIT IT'S HIM" and stopping the episode for a solid minute or two to deal with the overwhelming excitement and message their friend in all caps? or is that just me?

[local-magpie]

closing time (song) has always hit a rly specific emotion for me thats become oddly nostalgic and comforting for me. something about the idea of leaving what was comforting and walking out into the uncertain unknown; but you just kinda. know itll be alright. "time for you to go out / to the places you will be from" is like, yeah! you're leaving now. who knows where youll end up, but wherever that is? youre gonna be fine. itll be home, someday. you just gotta get there, youll see.

[kindlythevoid]

Hey squad, I just got emotional over one of my least problematic fav classics hero, Odysseus, and how he went to war for a decade because he loved his family and how he spent the next decade searching for that family and how his family had such faith that he would crawl back to them that they waited the twenty years for him.

[effigyofowls]

.

[actual-changeling]

i think my new anti depressants are working cause i no longer feel like i am about to drown in my own brain and there's some semblance of peace in my heart so i hope they keep doing that. it's only been a few days but there's definitely a difference. about fucking time man, i don't wanna have to try all available meds bro i just need these to do what they're supposed to.

[starvinginbelair]

it’s so lonely here sometimes

[kideternity]

A side effect of getting into digimon is that it’s like. Really made me appreciate Mechas more and robot designs? Combined as well with reading comics like Atomic Robo and then last week watching bang brave bang Bravern. For years my interactions with mecha media was like, Trying to force myself to enjoy transformers, and unfortunately I just don’t think it’s a media franchise for me and it really stifled my ability to enjoy mecha as a genre because of trying to pigeonhole into that. I suppose this is a very roundabout way to say that if anyone has any mecha recommendations hit an ant up about this. And that I've also started getting into gunpla/mecha model kit building- I've made two so far (: and I have another kit I'd like to make soon. If you wanna see pics send me an ask and ill dm them