#whoever allowed this to happen needs to be guillotined :)))))

[critical-thinking-is-mandatory]

I don’t know if spoilers bother you but I’ll just say that zag posted a image on Instagram which a) not only spoils some upcoming hero designs but also b) has a ‘girl power!’ message right underneath a gratuitous and frankly disgusting image of ladybug that feels very sexualised with a lot of emphasis on her ass 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

i saw that and i was sitting there looking at it like

jhere's the link if anyone's interested https://www.instagram.com/p/CPfQ9_RAeUN/

and it is...bad doesn't even begin to cover it. just like with every other aspect of the show, it's telling us 'girlpower!! uwu' but it's showing us the absolute opposite. i don't know how on earth this was allowed to be published. it shouldn't have made it past the draft stages.

like i know i've talked about this before but the lengths the miraculous team go to to have all the child characters covered head-to-toe in clothes but still manage to make the girls feel naked is revolting. i'm no stranger to wearing revealing clothing, and i used to swim competitively, so like. i'm used to kids and young adults wearing skin tight swimmers being active, but it never felt as sexual as what the ml team have done.

also like, i haven't seen the she-ra reboot but i've seen screenshots, and like. boob windows are basically a key design feature throughout the show and never feel erotic??? i just. it's revolting how ml has managed to make girls wearing full-length clothing feel like nudity.

also spoilers but the fact that they make the one fat girl have actual layers to her costume and none of the others??? just full on fatphobia my dudes. end spoilers

anyway as soon as i dig my drawing tablet out of my desk drawer i'm gonna be putting chat noir in the same pose ala hawkeye project (which i highly recommend looking up and was an eyeopener for little me and how we represent women, specifically cis women in media).

[histoireettralala]

The Sacking of Joseph Fouché: The Downfall (4/4)

" Unfortunately, in his gleeful mystification, Joseph Fouché made a little mistake. He thinks, indeed, that he is playing with the inexperienced rookie of a duke, with a minister still in diapers.

But he forgets that this successor was nominated by a master who doesn't accept jokes. Besides, Napoleon is already watching with distrust Fouché's behaviour. This long hesitation in the handing over of his position, this open-ended postponement of his departure for Rome, displeases him. Moreover, the investigation opened against Ouvrard, Fouché's tool, has given an unexpected result: it revealed that Fouché previously already entrusted another broker with notes for the English office. And until now nobody yet has tricked Napoleon with impunity. Suddenly, on June 17, an incisive mail is sent to Fouché in Ferrières, sharp as the stroke of a whip:

"Monsieur le Duc d'Otrante, I beg of you to send me the note which was conveyed to you by M. Fagan, whom you sent to London to probe Lord Wellesley, and who brought you this lord's answer, of which I was never informed."

This is like the sound of a fanfare and able to wake up a dead man. Fouché ought to realize it by now. But it seems the Devil pushes him to want, very seriously, to measure himself against Napoleon, against the most powerful man in the universe. Because he declares to the envoy something which is entirely false, that he is extremely sorry, but he didn't keep any letter. He has burned everything. Of course, nobody believes that from Fouché and Napoleon even less than the others. A second time he warns him, in a rougher, more pressing way: we know his impatience. And now misdemeanour turns to obstinacy, obstinacy to insolence and insolence to provocation. Indeed, Fouché repeats that he doesn't have any paper anymore, and he bases the supposed destruction of the emperor's private files on a argument which is almost blackmail. His Majesty, he says with irony, honored him with such trust that, whenever one of his brothers aroused his dissatisfaction, he charged him, Fouché, to bring him back in line. And since then each brother shared with him his recriminations, he has considered it his duty not to keep those letters. His Majesty's sisters as well weren't always untainted by slander and the emperor himself had thought him worthy to be entrusted the secret of these rumours and had tasked him to seek which thoughtlessness was its source. It's clear and more than clear: Fouché is telling the Emperor that he knows many things and that he doesn't allow himself to be treated like a lackey [...] A second summon is issued by the new Police minister, the duke of Rovigo. But Fouché answers everyone with the same politeness and the same decisiveness that unfortunately, motivated by an excessive discretion, he burned the papers. For the first time a man in France openly resists the Emperor.

It is too much. As much as Napoleon, for ten years, underestimated Fouché, Fouché now underestimates Napoleon if he thinks he can intimidate him with a few indiscretions [..] Napoleon summons the chief of his private police, Dubois, and lets himself go in front of him to the most violent bursts of anger against "this wretched, wretched man". In his anger he comes and goes roughly and noisily and he suddenly shouts:

"Let him not think he can do with me what he did with his God, his Convention and his Directoire, whom he basely betrayed and sold! I have a longer sight than Barras, and with me it will not be so easy. Let him therefore be warned. But he has notes, instructions from me, and I intend him to return them to me. If he refuses, let him be put in the hands of ten gendarmes. Let him be taken to the Abbaye and, by God, I will show him that a trial can be done quickly. "

Now things are going bad. Now, Fouché himself starts feeling uncomfortable [..] Quickly, he writes now more and more letters, one for the emperor and others to various ministers, to complain about the distrust against him, who is the most loyal, the most genuine, the most righteous and the most faithfully devoted of all ministers, and in one of these letters it is pleasing to find this specific sentence: "It isn't in my character to change" (these words are literally written black on white by this true chameleon that Fouché was, as for the character). And, like fifteen years ago with Robespierre, he hopes he can still prevent the catastrophe by a quick reconciliation. He takes a carriage and goes to Paris to personally offer the emperor his explanations, or no doubt already also apologies.

But it is too late. He has played for too long, joked for too long; now there is no possible reconciliation, no possible compromise; the one who publically provoked Napoleon must be publically humiliated. A letter is written to Fouché, harsh, short and cutting, in a way Napoleon never used for other ministers:

"Monsieur le duc d'Otrante, your services cannot please me anymore. It is appropriate that you be gone for your senatorerie under twenty-four hours."

The tension was too great, the game too reckless; and now happens something very unexpected: Fouché, scared of his terrible situation, completely breaks down, like a sleepwalker who, unwittingly climbing on the roof and suddenly awakened by a sudden call, falls into the void. The same man who, within a hairsbreadth of the guillotine, kept his cool and his lucid thinking, pitifully collapses under the blow Napoleon struck him.

This 3 June 1810 is Joseph Fouché's Waterloo. His nerves break; he rushes to the minister to get a passport for a foreign land and, changing horses in every station, he flees without stopping anywhere till he reaches Italy. There, he goes from one place to another, running like a distraught rat on a burning hotbed [...] he begs Napoleon's sisters for help as well as sovereigns and friends; he appears and disappears suddenly, to the great displeasure of the policemen who are looking for and keep losing track of him; in short, he behaves like a madman, so great is his fear, and for the first time he offers, he the nerveless one, a truly clinical example of a complete nervous breakdown. Never, in one gesture, with one punch, did Napoleon crush an adversary in such a radical way than this one, who had been at the same time the boldest and the coldest of his servants.

[..]

Napoleon only wanted to impose his will, have his papers back, and he is completely successful. Indeed, while Fouché, distraught and as if hysterical, tires out his horses across Italy, his wife in Paris acts in a much more reasonable way. She capitulates in his stead. It is not questionable that, to save her husband, the duchess of Otrante gave back to Napoleon the papers Fouché had treacherously removed, since none of these private sheets on which the ex-minister based his threat of blakcmail ever reached the light of the day. Just like Barras' papers, from whom the emperor bought them as well as from the other inconvenient witnesses of his ascension, Fouché's files relating to Napoleon have disappeared without a trace. The emperor himself, or later Napoleon III, totally destroyed all documents which didn't conform with the official history.

In the end, Fouché receives the kind permission to get back to his senatorerie of Aix. The great storm calmed down; the lightning only shook Fouché's nerves, without hitting him to the marrow. On september 25, this desperate man enters his domain, "pale, unravelled, and showing in the incoherence of his ideas and the chaos of his speech a deeply damaged morale." But he will have all the time he needs to recover, because whoever rebels against Napoleon is for a long time put away from political affairs. The ambitious must pay the price of his entertainment: again the waves throw him into the abyss. For three years, Joseph Fouché will stay without dignities or employment: his third exile has begun."

Stefan Zweig- Fouché

[luma-aylin]

Boss Battle: Luma Aylin

Instance Name: The Garden of Liminality

Boss Title: Voidmage Luma

Boss Music: Once Upon A December

Questline: A Sweet Surprise, Curiouser and Curiouser, Mirror Mirror...

Questline Synopsis: A normal day took an unexpected turn when you bumped into a tiny miqo’te in the streets of Gridania, the frosting of her cupcake smeared across your shirt. She introduces herself as Luma, and to make up for her clumsiness she treats you at her favorite cafe, introduces you to her mentor, lets you borrow a book.. Eventually you’re escorted by Luma and her mentor through the Shroud to their home, the Adreus Manor. 

You’re whisked around the manor by the energetic girl, she’s far too happy to show you around and insists you stay the night, they haven’t had any visitors in such a long time. How could you say no to such big, glossy, pleading eyes? The looming presence of her intimidating mentor makes the decision easier. You join them in the lounge after a long evening of activities, but Luma’s final request is to show you her special mirror. She demonstrates how it works before eagerly handing it over to you, watching over your shoulder while her mentor observes with a smarmy smirk. Nothing seems to happen as you stare into the mirror, so you glance back to ask Luma but she’s already asleep. You call out to her but you’re hushed by her mentor. 

When you turn back to the mirror your reflection is accompanied by a demon behind you, the skull of a goat-like creature curling above you. There’s nothing there when you turn to look, but you can feel a cold, large claw grip your shoulder, then another around your arm. Any scream or shout for help is unheard, your voice is caught in your throat as your field of view is consumed by bright red eyes. 

The sound of familiar giggling wakes you. As you come to you recognize Luma’s voice somewhere nearby, then a strange deeper voice that resounds through your body in an unpleasant flood. You’re propped up against a tree in a lush forest, wildflowers crawl across your legs and hang unnaturally from the trees above. You’re ensnared within a verdant willow, and as your vision returns to normal you find the flowers tickling your cheeks are staring at you curiously. Their pistils are eyes of all colors, peering at this mysterious stranger within their woods. You shoot up in alarm and push your way through the thick hanging leaves, emerging from the flowery woods you rush through a trellis of a garden only to find Luma and her company: the same dark demon you saw in the mirror. 

(ooc: I put the fight under the cut, it just makes the post super long because I don’t know how to write short things.. genuinely it’s really long and I don’t know how to write a fight! Nobody tagged me I just did this for fun, saw it from @glorified-thieves​ who asked me to tag them if I ever finished this! If you want to do this tag me!)

The Fight

“Wha-? You’re not allowed in here! Get out!” 

Phase 1: Heartstorm

Voidmage Luma’s encounter is similar to fighting Edda Blackbosom, she possesses powerful black magic and melee ability. Luma begins with a barrier cast around her that the party will have to break periodically throughout the fight, much like Stoneskin. Luma will attack with melee swipes, party wide magic damage, target one member to combust and force them to move out of the party, and use a homing ice strike on one party member until approximately 60% of Luma’s health. 

Tank Buster Voice Line: “Why won’t you just leave me alone!?” 

Tank Buster Action: Luma will launch the tank into the air dealing physical damage, then charge a strike of magical damage as an icicle will pierce them back down. Her first attack applies a magic vulnerability debuff, forcing the a tank swap before the cast of her icicle finishes.

Ward: Luma will cast a barrier around herself that must be broken.

Glimmer: An ice storm will sweep through the arena dealing magic damage. (aoe magic damage)

Guillotine: Luma swipes the tank into the air dealing physical damage and applying a magical vulnerability. The tank will fall to the floor. (tank buster physical)

Sheer Force: An icicle will pierce the tank holding aggro with magical damage. (tank buster magic)

Despair: A crosshair buff will appear next to a player’s name in the partylist to signify they are marked for an AoE attack. This player must move out of the party or risk the AoE fire damage hitting the party as well. (single target with aoe damage)

Ice Wave: A single player will be marked with an icicle above their head to signify they will be followed by a homing attack. Icicles will shoot up from the ground, dealing damage to anyone in their path, the targeted player must run away until it stops. (homing wave)

Phase Transition: Sentenced

“Get away from me! My innocence will not be ruined any further!”

This phase transition is marked by the battleground changing. A stone platform will emerge from the garden and bring the party into the air as darkness envelops the entire screen. Luma will engulf herself in a barrier and rise into the air as her scythe disperses into the surrounding darkness that has eyes staring from every inch of the inky backdrop. From the shadows will appear Fhorniuhr, wielding his scythe, becoming the target for this phase. 

Fhorniuhr: “What sort of monster takes advantage of such kindness..? Your transgression cannot go unpunished.”

Fhorniuhr attacks much the same as Luma, using his scythe for melee with an accompaniment of  black magic. The large voidsent will attack with cleaving half the arena, deal a tank buster, restricting the arena by placing void pitches on the floor (will explode should you touch them), deal AoE magic damage, and restrain a healer at a time. Periodically, the eyes peering out from the dark will cast a room wide paralysis, so be sure to look away. At 50% of Luma’s gauge Fhorniuhr will cast void call, a new mob of 6 voidsent will appear. Fhorniuhr will stop physical and auto attacks, but begin to cast Nether Song repeatedly until all voidsent are dead or he consumes them. The voidsent will be slowed as they try to get to Fhorniuhr, ready to sacrifice themselves at his command and should they reach him Fhorniuhr will gain a buff that increases his magic damage. Once the additional voidsent are slain or eaten, Fhorniuhr will place a bleed on the arena, the floor will be covered in darkness that tries to restrain the party, a DoT buff will appear beside everyone’s name. Fhorniuhr’s onslaught will continue until Luma’s gauge reaches 100%.

Banished Soul & Void Touched: Depending on where Fhorniuhr is facing, the entire arena on his left or right side respectively will be struck with his scythe, should a player be hit it will place a vulnerability stack as well as dealing damage. There is no orange zone warning. (Banished Soul is left, Void Touched is right)

Spell Breaker: Fhorniuhr will strike the tank with his scythe, dealing physical damage. 

Void Pitch: A purple arrow will appear briefly above a player’s head, after 4 seconds Fhorniuhr will drop a void pitch on them that will stay on the floor for 30 seconds. If it is touched it will explode. (magic damage)

Nether Song: A wave of void energy will wash over the arena. (magic aoe damage)

Restrain: Fhorniuhr will grasp a healer in his claw and hold them up in the air, his wrist will become targetable and be given a health bar that must be taken down to release the healer. 

Phase 2: Innocence Lost

“How foolish I was to think we were friends.. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt despite their warnings, and what do I get for it? Betrayal.” 

The darkness will disperse and the arena will flood with stars, the party now trapped on a stone platform surrounded by the moonless night sky. Luma’s barrier will disappear and she will retake her place on the arena floor, scythe in hand. Luma will gain the abilities from Fhorniuhr’s phase and hit harder than her initial phase. The arena cleaves will become faster and she will cast party wide damage always after a tank buster. Eyes will appear frequently to cast paralysis, if a party member is stunned then Luma will gain a stack that increases her attack. 

Luma will cast Ice Wave right after Despair, forcing the party member targeted with Despair to circle the arena at a safe enough distance from whoever is targeted with Ice Wave. Both players must move around the arena while the party stays center. During this phase if the player with Despair is hit by Ice Wave it will deal AoE damage and give a vulnerability stack to the party. 

There will be no void pitches during this phase, but shadows of Fhorniuhr will flicker across the arena floor to 4 corners. Luma will cast Null, at the end of the cast 4 party members must be standing in the shadows as they will be grappled by the demon and pulled into another area. 

The 4 players stolen by Fhorniuhr will appear on a platform to fight Fhorniuhr again. He will use his left and right cleaves, Spell Breaker, and Nether Song until he is killed and the players are returned to the rest of the party, hopefully alive. If a player is killed by Fhorniuhr, Luma will gain a buff. 

Phase 3: Void Call 

“Can you feel it? The call of the void? Allow me to make the decision easier.”

Once Luma’s health reaches 0 she will erect a barrier around herself as she casts Suppression. The arena floor will become a void portal and the party will slowly begin to sink into the darkness. Luma’s barrier will be stronger than usual and need to be broken before she becomes targetable. The party must defeat her before the cast finishes or it will cause a wipe. 

“How could you..? Haven’t you taken enough from me? And to think I trusted you..” 

Duty Completion Drop: Fhoniuhr’s Bone Piece (Exchange for voidal weapons) 

Coffer Drop: Orchestrion Scroll or a Jar of Eyes furniture item

Once the battle is over you experience a terrible headache, you wince and stumble to a familiar looking mirror on the ground as you find yourself back in the garden. The sound of Luma sobbing quietly echoes throughout the area, a sense of guilt washes over you before you fall to the ground unconscious. When you wake you’re in the familiar woods of the Shroud and it seems dawn is crawling across the forest now. You are far from Adreus Manor and without some belongings, but nonetheless whole and unscathed.. However Luma’s soft cries ring throughout your ears for the rest of the day.

[tarithenurse]

Agent of Hope - 23

Your world falls into ruin together with the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcements Logistics Division when you find out that your boyfriend isn’t one of the good guys. Pairing: Brock Rumlow x fem!reader, Natasha Romanoff x fem!reader Contents: Errors (no, I did not spell check this time – shame on me), dealing with trauma, mental health care, feels, growth, smut, pain. A/N: So, this is one of those chapters that I call a “bridge”. Maybe that’s not the right term, but it’s needed for…reason. You know before tossing the last chapters at you. Lots of love for liking and reblogging!!

23 - Never give up. Never back down

…   Romanoff   …

The change comes creeping in like the first light of dawn that suddenly makes it possibly to make out the shape of furniture in the dark and later adding a depth to the surface even before the colours are visible. Some days are exhausting for both [Y/N] and Natasha in each their own way. One is drained from the weekly session with the psychologist or maybe the hard physical training under the stern but kind guidance of Maria. The other, a certain redhead, finds it had to stand by. Hands off even as her love struggles with nightmarish processes that set off nightmare after nightmare until her throat is raw from crying out in anguish. No preparation can make it easier. No knowledge of the importance can soothe the Avenger when she rocks the shaking woman in the dark of night.

But that’s not the real change.

The change is the flashes of peace. The straight back and head held high. It’s the healthy thoughts that are voiced, each time with a sense of acceptance that they are the truth.

Sitting in the kitchen of the Compound, [Y/N] is allowing herself to be completely absorbed in the book she’s reading only glancing up when the glass of lemonade is empty. Clint, who’s sitting next to her, is twirling a straw around in his own empty glass but otherwise only paying attention to the take-out menu. Supposedly. Natasha is fairly certain that she’s heard him drinking even after he’d drained the jug and as such running out of options for a refill plus it’s the kind of stunt the archer has pulled on pretty much anyone who isn’t paying attention to their snack, drinks, or food.

“Mister Barton,” [Y/N] begins hyper-politely, “do you have any knowledge of what might have happened to the last half of my lemonade?”

The man puts on the perfect display of surprise spiked with such a subtle outrage at the underlying accusation that Natasha knows 100% that he’s guilty. “What? Why should I know?”

“Not buying that,” you happily announce, “so I guess I’ll use you to test out something Maria told me about.”

You refuse to tell the suddenly nervous archer what it is, merely patting him on the shoulder as you get up to make a new batch of lemonade.

…   Reader   …

Every single muscle in your body is sore. It hurts to put on a sweater. There are muscles in your back you didn’t know you had screaming at you when you bend to put tie the shoes. Hell, you can barely face going to the loo because your thighs and butt are punishing you for all the work you’re putting into the training with Maria, but at least it’s finally paying off. The former SHIELD agent is an exceptional teacher: honest, but kind without talking to you like you’re a kid. Most importantly, though, there’s an unspoken understanding of why you feel like you have to learn to defend yourself and perhaps feel like you’re in control of your own body. So that’s where she’s started.

First, she has helped you get into shape with simple cardio and strength, teaching exercises you can use on your own in the impressive gym two floors down. The second step has been to show how to use defend against simple attacks by using the other person’s body (weight and size) against them – your own stature is irrelevant or can even be used as an active benefit.

“Aaaah.” Hot water sloshes against the sides of the tub as you lower yourself into the soothing bath.

Natasha’s voice drift through the gap by the door: “Should I be jealous?”

She’s perched on the bed with the blue light from the tablet creating shadows almost as ominous as the intel she’s studying for tomorrow’s missions. Well, it starts in the morning when the present Avengers (Tony, Nat, Cap, and Clint) all leave for wherever they’re heading, and if all goes well they should be back in three days.

“Mhmmmmm…I’m having an affair with the bathtub.” The heat seeps into stiff limbs, dissolving reluctant tensions. “Sometimes we even go as far as adding bubbles to our fun.”

There’s an audible snort and you can imagine the exasperated eyeroll that doesn’t diminish her smile. Perfect, that’s how it is. Sliding deeper into the water, jaw skimming the surface as steam rises past the face, you’re completely enveloped in subtle heat and it lulls you into a drowsy contentment that pulls the eyelids down.

A rustle of clothes seems to filter in from far away before the water and you are stirred by sleek limbs as Natasha settles between your willingly parting legs, back against chest, with a quiet moan. Perhaps it’s an addiction rather than natural behaviour, but your hands are drawn to her, first massaging the tension from shoulders that hold up your world too before flat palms start stroking her arms. Her chest. The swell of her breasts where fingertips tug and twist the rapidly hardening nipples only for the warm water to soothe the skin.

She’s your friend, ally, and lover. Someone you never planned on being such an integral part of your soul and though logic dictates you could be happy without her, you simply don’t want to try. Natasha.

You love these moments when the tough hero melts like snow in your hands, head resting against your chest and mouth slightly open to release the quaking sighs of satisfaction conjured by you and no one else. Tasha is surrounded by you, laid out bare and vulnerable and easy to read. Breaths hitch, toes curl, her fingers dig into the flesh of your thighs as your fingers move faster now they’ve found her clit. She’s granted a few fingers for the core to clench around, and holy fuck, the heat fluttering around the digits that curl against the soft walls is beyond divine. Better than any bath could be.

The name on her lips as she falls apart in your hold is like a prayer. Or the praise from a goddess who has decided to adorn the life of a mere mortal, you.

“[Y/N]!” There’s a hint of a whine to her gasp. “I love you.”

The red locks are matted against her skull from the steam but still soft on your lips as you find the way to her ear. “I lo–”

Out of nowhere, the pain bombards you, starting in your head but sending rigid tendrils into the rest of your body.

…

Gone is the gentle lapping of the water and the comfortable weight of Natasha’s body against you. Fighting against leaded eyelids, you catch a glimmer of white and steel illuminated by a (thankfully dimmed) panel of LED lights overhead, but it’s the smell of hand sanitizer that reveals where this is. Infirmary. This time, as you try to look around again, it’s evident that you’re alone. Aware of an itch on the back of your hand, it’s with some trepidation you begin to search for the button to call for the nurse or whoever’s on duty.

What happened? You recall the bath, the sighs on Tasha’s lips before…the vision. The scene had unfolded (or will unfold) somewhere tropical, a lush jungle as a backdrop for the little houses in a village or maybe the outskirts of a town. It’s the two-story building with the flaking reddish concrete that holds Brock, so that’s where you have to go because you’re the only one that can get access to the place. But…why? There’s no logic to it as far as you can tell. Why would he let me in? But he did, or will, waiting on the other side of the door with a crazed smile as if it had been an agreement to meet. It hurts just to think about it, and not just in your head.

A door slides open with the ssshhh of vacuum, allowing the petite Dr. Cho to enter with Maria Hill in tow.

“How you feelin’?” Maria asks, phone in hand and thumb dancing on the little screen, “Promised to let Natasha know as soon as you woke up.”

Your throat is dry when you try to answer, but Cho is already prepared and stands with a glass of water with a straw in it. It’s drained before you try again. “I’m ‘kay…I guess.” Admittedly, you wouldn’t quite mind volunteering to test a guillotine, but that just means you’re alive. “Where’s Tasha? Why am I here?”

…   Romanoff   …

48 hours. Learning to wait had been a part of Natasha’s training, but the last 48 hours after [Y/N] seized up in the bathtub have been the longest and hardest to get through for the former assassin. Steve had offered she stayed back, he could ask his buddy Sam to cover, but of course she can’t accept that either. The redhead needs to stay busy which isn’t an option if she stayed by the side of the bed. Useless, that’s what Tasha would have been.

“Everything’s okay?” Clint asks, placing the last slice of cheese on the impressive sandwich he’s made.

There’s a distinct absence of weight on Natasha’s chest, a pressure she hadn’t allowed herself to focus on until now when she finally can breathe freely again. “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

[andrewmoocow]

Gravity Soul chapter 11: Escape to Death City, Home of the DWMA? (originally posted on October 28, 2018)

AN: Hello again ladies, gentlemen and every other rainbow in-between, welcome back to Gravity Soul! Last chapter our heroes were forced to flee after losing to Kishin Cipher, and their chosen hiding spot? None other than DEATH CITY! New bonds are built and our heroes decide to get stronger in order to properly take the monstrosity on. Some of these I've been wanting to tackle for a while ever since I even started conceptualizing so I hope you'll love them as much as I do.

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All was quiet in Death City, Nevada. The 1800s-esque cobblestone streets were empty for mere moments until a green portal decorated with various arithmetic symbols shined into view and out of it came the Mystery Meisters, now fresh off their departure from Gravity Falls. "So this is Death City!" Ford declared in amazement. "Have to say, really admire the rustic feel of it."

As the crew gazed around the city with wonder, Dipper on the other hand was more mindful of the suddenly anthropomorphic sun, which sported a wide smile emitting a booming laugh. "Hey, I got a question!" he exclaimed. "Why is the sun suddenly alive here yet normal in Gravity Falls? Is it some kind of magic or something?"

"It's best that you not think about it." Death the Kid stated before he looked onward. "Let's get going everybody, the Academy shouldn't be faraway." He led everybody else through the streets of Death's turf, giving them a tour of it along the way.

"Whoa, everything looks so creepy!" Mabel exclaimed gazing through a shop window. "Makes me wish we brought some cameras to take pictures of the place." Wendy added joining her in staring through the window. "Lord Death's face is everywhere. I know he owns the place, but I feel like this is too much." Dipper stated before his eyes wandered to find a nearby ice cream shop. "And is that some kinda parody of Baskin-Robbins?"

"Here it is, our faithful school!" Maka declared after some more sightseeing gesturing towards the school itself high above the rest of the city with flights of white stairs below. It looked more like a macabre funhouse once again with Death's face with red spire roofs, candles jutting out of the building and a group of three skulls anointing the entrance. And above the school was a group of three black orbs mysteriously floating in the air.

"Talk about some bizarre architecture dude! This is definitely going up on my list of inspirations for my dream house!" Soos remarked pulling out a piece of paper with some crude drawings of buildings on it. "It's gonna have a water slide, a bouncy house for an elevator, and trees that can turn into giant super fighting robots!"

"So do we have to climb all these steps?" Pacifica wondered putting a foot on the first stair. "Yeah pretty much." Patty said just as she immediately bolted for the entrance. "RACE Y'ALL!"

"Patty, this is no time for games!" Maka exclaimed racing after her. "We still need to talk with Death and get his help in stopping Kishin Cipher!"

"We literally just got back from nearly dying Maka, can you lighten up a bit?" Black Star said zooming up the stairs. "How can I lighten up when I just-"

"Lost Soul, we know." Tsubaki interrupted her. "We all miss him too but I don't think that's a very healthy way to express your feelings." she stated. "Speaking of losing someone, where's Mr. Pines?"

"How much longer Soos?" Ford moaned as he, Soos and Pacifica became tuckered out from climbing the stairs. "I think we're still in the tens Mr. Pines." the manchild answered. "Well by the time we join the others, I'm going to punch whoever constructed this place. After I throw up."

The hallways of the Death Weapon Meister Academy proved themselves to be very grandiose. As far as the Mystery Meisters could see, they were surrounded by fancy corridors with arched ceilings that almost seemed like a maze.

"Wow, this place is so fancy!" Mabel exclaimed in awe. "And these must be all your classmates too!" She began waving to everyone that passed by until she unexpectedly bumped into a strange blue man. "Oh sorry mister! Didn't mean to run into you like that."

"It's fine missy." the man answered turning to meet the Pines twins, revealing his pupil-less eyes and piglike snout. "Say, aren't you those kids Death was talking to a while ago?" he asked. "Oh my gosh, it's a zombie!" Dipper exclaimed. "Quick, did we pack any formaldehyde and cinnamon in case we run into situations like this?!"

"Hey calm down guys, he won't eat your brains!" Black Star calmed them down. "Speaking of which, we'd like you to meet Sid Barrett. He helps out Lord Death round these parts and is also my dad." he introduced the zombie. "Wait, he's your father? Guess your mom must be some kind of necrophile!" McGucket remarked, which earned him a smack on the head. "Okay I'm sorry! Maybe she's a necromancer instead!"

"Actually, I'm his adoptive dad." Sid answered. "His real dad was a maniac who had to be put down." he added. "I would later raise the kid as my own until I died and came back to life. I couldn't bring myself to kill a baby, cause that's the kind of man I was."

"Y'know, I actually was a zombie once!" Soos remarked. "But I'm not sure if I looked anything like you sir." he stated. "Thanks for your observation, but this is no time for chit-chat. Shinigami said he wants to see you." Sid declared. "Especially the kids."

"Thank you very much Sid, we'll make a note of that." Kid stated before starting to move again. "Come along everyone, his room should be close." he said leading the others away.

Many steps through the labyrinthian halls later, a strange door with a skull face at the top stood before them. "This should be the place." Stein announced beginning to open the door. "Now right this way."

Within moments, the denizens of Gravity Falls found themselves underneath a series of guillotines lined up like a tunnel. "Are any of these going to chop off our heads?" Dipper wondered fearfully gazing up at the tunnel's ceiling. "No it won't you guys, you just still need some adjusting to things!" Spirit claimed. "Now come on, Death shouldn't be kept waiting."

A strange looking room greeted them at the end of the guillotines. The walls almost looked like the sky and a large platform where Death's mirror was situated was surrounded with many crosses planted into the ground that resembled a desert. "Hello, Lord Death? It's us, the Pines family!" Dipper called, but he received no answer. "Where is he anyway? Sid said he should be here to greet us."

"Salutations kiddos!" Lord Death loudly greeted them suddenly appearing on the mirror, shocking them all. "Oh I am terribly sorry, please forgive me for startling you." he apologized exiting the mirror to see them all face to face. "No, we should apologize for being so impatient!" Dipper exclaimed dropping to his hands & knees and bowing his head. "And also failing to stop Asura & Bill."

"Greetings Death, it is a pleasure to meet you face to face." Ford greeted the Shinigami with a respectful bow. "It's good to meet you too Stanford." Death gingerly greeted back before his tone became solemn. "And I am also terribly sorry about what happened to your brother."

"Hey there man!" Wendy casually greeted Death much to Maka's displeasure. "Shouldn't you be more respectful?" she chided the cashier. "What, you mean like this?" Wendy asked before she bowed as well. "Yeah, that's good enough."

"And I assume these must be your friends as well!" Death exclaimed. "So let me get this straight. This place is run by the literal Grim Reaper itself?!" Pacifica gasped in shock. "Why yes indeed young lady." the Death God answered before making his voice deeper and more menacing. "And I should be expecting your soul very soon."

The blonde girl trembled in her boots before Death chuckled in his regular voice. "Just kidding miss!" he assured her with a pat on her head, making her shiver. "So what is this place anyway? I know it's some kinda school but what's it for?" Gideon wondered. "That is a very good question little one!" Lord Death answered before clearing his throat. "Allow me to explain."

"Welcome to the Death Weapon Meister Academy, also known as the DWMA or Shibusen." he began expositing in an announcer's voice. "It stands as a defense against the forces of evil, which would plunge the world into darkness & drag humanity to the very depths of fear and madness, the demons known as Kishin and their insatiable hunger for destruction."

"To ensure the Kishin never regained their hold on this world, this academy was founded by the Grim Reaper, Death himself!" He then switched back to his normal voice. "So basically, we're an organization that exists to protect & preserve peace!" Death exclaimed. "I guess it's not exactly a typical school. Oh well, that isn't important!" he said forming his hands out of his cloak, clasping them together and pointing at the Mystery Meisters. "For now, let's roll up our sleeves and get to work!"

"Work on what sir?" Soos asked as the speech ended. "Why, getting you all ready to face Kishin Cipher! That's why I plan on temporarily enrolling you all at my academy." Death announced to the shock of the party. "We're actually going to become students here?! That sound awesome!" Mabel exclaimed hopping up and down but Wendy only groaned. "Aw man, I seriously wanted to get away from school. Well, at least this place will be less boring."

"Which reminds me, you should all be assigned students to room with." Lord Death said pulling out a tall stack of paperwork and examining it with a pair of glasses. "Let's see, the Pines shall share Maka's apartment. Ms. Corduroy & Mr. Ramirez shall sleep with Black Star & Tsubaki and finally Mr. Gleeful, Ms. Northwest and Mr. McGucket shall move in with my son."

"Uh how did you get our names? We didn't even introduce ourselves yet!" Dipper wondered. "That's also unimportant. Now go along and retreat to your assigned living spaces." Death answered. "I'll see you all soon for your first classes!" With that, the Death God vanished back into his mirror leaving his platform empty.

"Guess that's his way of saying we should get moving." Stein stated with a puff of his cigarette. "I'll see you later. Gonna need to take care of some business." He began leaving the Death Room as the party began going their separate ways. "I'll have you know I live in a very fine & symmetrical mansion." Kid warned Pacifica, Gideon & McGucket. "So if any of you dare disrupt that symmetry, there will be serious consequences."

"I hope you can make yourselves comfortable at our place you two." Tsubaki said to Soos & Wendy. "I can only assume you have some sorta Japanese aesthetic goin' on?" the rotund ex-handyman asked. "I'm asking because y'know, you're both ninjas."

"I wonder if your place is large enough to hold two young girls, two boys, a cat lady, a pig, a sword and an old man like myself." Ford mused preparing to leave as well. "Just make yourselves at home while I take care of my own business." Maka muttered before Spirit suddenly appeared behind her. "Have fun with your new roommates sweetie! And if Dipper tries to make a move on-" Without another word, Maka chopped her father in the face.

"You know what, you can go on ahead kids. I'd still like to speak with Death about Bill." Ford suggested. "Okay, see you soon Ford!" Dipper exclaimed as the children finally exited the Death Room, leaving the scientist alone with the Shinigami, who popped out of his mirror to speak. "Is there any thoughts you want to share with me Mr. Pines? I'm all ears!"

"It's about Bill Cipher sir. You claimed you faced him hundreds of years ago, but how did he manage to find you?" Ford asked as the two of them sat down to some tea. "You almost seem bound to this place, so there's no way you could've gone outside of it to meet him."

"It was actually eight centuries ago when I had first come to blows with Bill." Death explained sipping his tea. "He had actually originally appeared to me, claiming that if we struck a deal, he could help me purge the world of all evils forever and ever. But of course, that was all a lie."

"You did what?!" Ford exclaimed in terror, spitting out his tea. "Sincere apologies for startling you Stanford. I suppose you may have dealt with Cipher as well." Lord Death contemplated. "Indeed I have Shinigami," the six-fingered great uncle confirmed. "for similar reasons as you. He called himself a muse that said I was one of many brilliant minds I chose each century to assist. But obviously, he used me for his own plans as well."

"And according to you, he has returned and fused with Asura as well." Death continued on. "Oh yeah speaking of which, when we left Gravity Falls I heard Asura call your son his 'pesky little brother.' What did he mean by that?" Ford asked again, this time the question made Death nervous before he finally accepted what has now happened. "I've been keeping this secret for ages now, in which only a very small few know it as well, but it's finally time I admitted it." he sighed. "Asura is actually my son."

"My God, it cannot be." Ford gasped. "Though I guessed there may have been some form of connection between him and Kid beforehand, especially due to the similar stripes in their hair, but I never guessed they would be your actual children." he stated. "And another thing, if you're their father then who's the mother?"

"I actually never married. Asura & Kid are just chunks of myself I pulled out and made their own beings. Asura represented my fear while I just wanted a free-roaming Death God which resulted in Kid." Death continued on. "I worry that if I reveal this to him, he wouldn't trust me anymore since I'm basically the father of the ultimate evil. And as for Asura, while I detest him for what he's done in the past, I'm also concerned for what Bill could do to him since he's a completely insane monster."

"I see." Ford commented looking up at one of the windows in Death's room, noticing that the sky was turning red. "I hate to run sir, but the kids should be expecting me to return soon." he stated preparing to return to his great-nephew & niece. "But I promise that your secret is safe with me."

"Good on you Ford. The only others that know it are Sid, my Death Scythes, Excalibur and a few others associates of mine." Death said as Ford finally left. "But I feel the secret won't be kept between us all for long."

"I'm back everyone!" Ford announced stepping into Maka's apartment. "It took me a while to actually find this place, but thankfully Spirit was there to lend me a hand." he stated. "So kids, how are you adjusting?"

"We're doing great Grunkle Ford, this is a great new experience for us!" Mabel exclaimed stepping out of a bedroom. "By the way, you're gonna get Soul's room while Dipper & I sleep on the couch." she added. "Plus Dipper & Maka are already doing nerd stuff in her room."

"Well it's good you're getting used to things. Now what's for dinner?" Ford wondered. "I know, why don't have some smoked sausages?" Blair asked suddenly appearing wearing only an apron with a wiener dog in her hand, much to Ford's alarm as he covered Mabel's eyes. "Don't you have any form of decency furball?!"

"Oh cut me some slack Sixer, with Soul gone I gotta have someone to have fun with." Blair stated defensively. "And besides you are a bit of a silver fox yourself." she playfully cooed before going her own way, leaving Ford aghast and Mabel's innocence preserved. "Seriously, what is a silver fox?!"

Meanwhile in Maka's room, Dipper & Maka were busy chatting and looking through her various books. "Wow, so you have your own weapon form as well? That seems utterly ridiculous and impossible." Dipper commented now sans his vest & shoes while Maka was also dressed more casually in a tanktop and sweatpants. "I agree, but it seems it can only appear when I'm knocked unconscious."

"Ooookay then." Dipper nervously replied before he spotted a framed postcard sitting on her desk. "Hey, what's this supposed to be?" he asked picking it up. "This actually came from my mother, which what inspired me to defeat Asura once and for all." Maka explained. "Everywhere she went, she made sure to send me a postcard of whatever destination she was in. This one in particular contains the Persian word for courage."

"Your mom must've really meant a lot to you if she keeps sending you postcards. Speaking of which, what caused her to not be present in your life?" the boy continued. "My dad was simply too much of a pervert, lusting after far too many other women which worsened our relationship." the Scythe Meister said. "In fact with Soul gone, he's probably the only Demon Scythe that I can use right now."

"Aw chin up, I'm sure you and your dad can patch things up somehow." Dipper assured Maka before Ford came calling for them. "Soup's on everyone! We're having smoked sausages tonight!"

"Let's just eat and later get ready for bed. Tomorrow's going to be your first day at the Academy." Maka stated hoisting Dipper onto her shoulders and carried him to the main room. "Wow, you're really strong for someone your age!"

"Thanks for the sushi dawg, feels like I haven't eaten anything in hours!" Soos thanked as he, Wendy, Black Star and Tsubaki sat down to some sushi she made. "Why thank you very much Soos. It's the best I can do for our guests." Tsubaki replied. "Yeah, make yourselves at home I guess." Black Star added. "So what are your lives like back at your home?"

"Well you probably know how my family is. I'm living with my abuelita, my dad just up & disappeared and my mom died too. But look at me now, still a jolly dude who's everyone's friend!" Soos exclaimed.

"And as for me, I got my dad and three bros, Marcus, Kevin & Gus." Wendy said pulling out a picture of herself and her aforementioned brothers when they were young. "We may get on each other's nerves a lot because manliness and all that, but we all still love each other."

"At least none of your brothers ever felt inferior to you to the point of wanting to become a Kishin!" Tsubaki nervously laughed before her expression turned somber, mourning the fall of her own brother.

"Good lord, look at you in that picture!" Black Star exclaimed staring at the picture, particularly the younger Wendy's hiked-up pants, pigtails & braces. "I'd say the years have been very kind to you Wendy." he complimented, making the lumberjack's daughter blush. "Oh, uh t-thanks Black Star."

"Oh, is that blush I spy Wendy? You got a thing for him?" Soos playfully mocked. "What, no she doesn't!" Black Star screamed. "My heart only belongs to one woman, and her name is The Path to Godhood!"

"Can you not Soos? I know you're only joking, but you're making everyone else nervous." Tsubaki gently scolded him, beginning to blush as well. "Sorry about that Baki." Soos retracted his earlier joke before he made an observation. "Hey, you're getting all red too! You perhaps jealous?"

"Oh just shut up already Soos." Wendy giggled with a sigh. "So you got any places for us to sleep here you guys?" she asked. "Oh I'm sure we could pull out a few spare mats." Tsubaki answered. "Wait, you're being serious? We're actually going to sleep on the floor?"

"It's okay Wendy, it's kinda like being in a sleeping bag. I looked it up on the Internet, and it says the Japanese always sleep on the floor." Soos assured her. "Which reminds me, you got any that can fit me?"

At Death the Kid's mansion, Pacifica, Gideon and Fiddleford were busy making themselves at home as well, sitting down in the dining room with Kid and the Thompsons. "Let us set some house rules everyone. Rule #1, everything must be kept absolutely symmetrical no matter what." the Immature Death God announced. "That especially goes for your Mr. McGucket, with your very looks and all."

"Well if you say so Kiddo, imma keep myself as sym-meteorite as possible!" McGucket claimed boldly, though the children he was now living with weren't so sure of it. "Now you got anything to eat here? I'm starving!"

"Pretty sure I can cook something up." Pacifica stated. "You can trust me, I've been working at Gravity Falls's local diner so I know my way around the kitchen."

"Yay, thanks Pazzy!" Patty exclaimed cheerfully. "It's honestly felt like ages since we had that gumbo at the Shack, I'm famished!" Liz added patting her stomach. "We are truly grateful for you offering to help us with dinner tonight Pacifica." Kid stated leading the younger girl to the kitchen. "So what do you think we should have anyway?"

The next day, far away in the outskirts of Death City, a young man dressed as a clergyman wearing a pair of headphones with Death's face on them bobbed his head to the music playing in them pulled up before the city in a dune buggy resembling a hearse and gazed at the Academy.

At the same time, a man wearing a large bear head appeared out of a coffee shop with a monkey wearing a backwards baseball cap clinging onto his shoulders.

A tall & large Russian man with a large nose wearing heavy winter clothes stepped out of an alleyway followed by another slimmer man with a bearskin hat and duffle coat.

A darker-skinned fellow stepped toward the Academy as well with white war paint on his face in the shape of a keyhole. Along with him was a taller man with a large afro, a pleated sarong and nothing covering his torso.

Another man appeared, his clothing much more loose and a turban covering his entire face. Beside him was a beautiful young woman dressed as a belly dancer.

Finally another lady made herself known, an Asian woman in formal attire who pushed up her glasses with a stern look on her face.

"Lord Death, all your weapons have arrived." Stein confirmed to Death in his room. "And this time, everyone is here."

"Excellent Stein," Lord Death replied. "tell everyone to meet here and we shall make preparations for Operation: Apple of Discord."

Meanwhile at Maka's apartment, the Pines were getting ready for their first day as temporary students at the DWMA. Mabel put the finishing touches on a scabbard she had made for her brother, which was pink in color with a silver metal tip, various ornate gold decorations and a pine tree symbol in the center. "C'mon Dipper, we don't wanna be late! Plus I got a surprise for you!"

"Be with you in a bit Mabel, just gotta do a few more pushups for Excalibur." Dipper groaned struggling to do more warmups under the guidance on the Holy Sword while Blair innocently waved a flag around. "Keep moving Dipper, I don't know what I've been told but all that glitters isn't gold!" Excalibur barked. "You do realize that those two sayings don't make any sense together, right?!" his new Meister panted before his arms finally gave out. "Can we please be done now?"

Pulling out a stopwatch, Excalibur examined it for a bit before giving his answer. "Yes indeed, you have completed all exercises in the allotted time." he answered. "Great, cause lookie what I got for you bro-bro!" Mabel exclaimed revealing her scabbard to Dipper. "Oh yeah, that looks uh, great Mabel."

"FOOL!" Excalibur cried smacking Dipper with the end of his cane. "I sense a bit of nervousness in your tone my boy. Could it perhaps be the color?" he suggested. "Don't let any gender stereotypes bring you down, just accept that your sister has made you a lovely gift."

With that, Excalibur changed into his weapon form to allow Dipper to insert him into his new sheath, which he hung over his shoulder. "Come along kids, the Academy can't be kept waiting!" Ford called about to step out of the door. "Trust us, you're going to love it there!" Maka added and the twins joined them and Crona on their way to the school, leaving Blair and Waddles behind.

Much later, the group had arrived at the front doors of the Death Weapon Meister Academy. Each of them, especially the Pines, knew this would bring them one step closer to stopping Kishin Cipher, rescuing their loved ones and saving Gravity Falls.

Just then, Kid & the Thompsons stepped towards them with Pacifica, Gideon & McGucket in tow along with Black Star, Tsubaki, Soos & Wendy. "Mornin' dudes, you ready for your first day of school?" Soos asked them. "Well since we're coming here during the summer, I guess this would sort of count as summer school."

"You're going to be in the EAT class with us." Black Star stated. "Just as a fair warning, things can get pretty crazy in there so try to keep your heads down."

"Thank you very much Black Star." Ford said pushing open the doors. "Now come along children, we've got work to do!" Suddenly he was interrupted when he opened it to find Stein already inside waiting for him. "Death wants to see you Stanford."

"Oh, me?" Ford wondered. "I am terribly sorry to come and go everyone, but I am needed elsewhere. I'll see you all later!" he quickly apologized stepping through the entrance and walking away with Stein, leaving the kids, Soos & McGucket to wonder what he was needed for.

"So what is your reasoning for pulling me aside Franken?" the author wondered as he was led by Stein back to the Death Room. "Lord Death wants you to join in on a little meeting he's holding with some of his colleagues." the Meister answered letting him inside the room where the Death God was standing before Sid & Spirit along with a host of other colorful characters. "I can only assume these are the other Death Scythes?"

"Indeed they are Stanford." a dark-skinned woman covered in bandages replied. "Mira Naigus, school nurse and DWMA CIA commander at your service Mr. Pines." she introduced herself shaking the scientist's hand. "They are Justin Law of Western Europe, Tezca Tlipoca & Enrique of South America, Tsar Pushka & Feodor of Russia, Dengu Dinga & Alexandre of Africa, Djinn Galland & Zubaidah of West Asia, Azusa Yumi of Oceania and finally...alright, where is she?"

"Where's who?" Ford asked. "Let me guess, Marie is lost again?" Tsar Pushka wondered as if he had experienced this before. Enrique the monkey chattered excitedly while hopping up & down which made Tezca cackle rolling on the floor. "You're right little buddy! Maybe it is because of that eyepatch!"

"Sorry I'm late everyone!" the voice of another young woman cried rushing into the Death Room. This woman in particular had blonde hair & was clad in a black dress with a large yellow zigzag pattern on it and an eyepatch with a lightning bolt symbol. Just the combination of the color scheme and choice of accessory alone made Ford both suspicious & nervous. "Again, sorry I'm late Death! Just got a little lost, as usual."

"Oh don't be Marie." Death stated. "Now then, we have gathered you all here today to discuss a new threat that has emerged and wreaking havoc upon the world. To further elaborate, I'd like to introduce you all to our guest Stanford Pines." he explained introducing Ford to the Death Scythes. "Greetings everyone. As you may know, I hail from a town in Oregon known as Gravity Falls that is currently undergoing serious peril."

"Could you please explain more about this threat Stanford?" Azusa asked. Before Ford could answer, Spirit hurriedly rushed to his side. "I'd try to keep my mouth shut around her if I were you." he whispered. "While she is very respectful, she's also a total bossyboots as well, which earned her the title Queen of the Committee Chairman."

"Excuse me Albarn, but Mr. Pines is trying to speak." Azusa scolded Spirit with a snap of her fingers. "Now please, return to your spot." Much to his chagrin, Spirit obliged as Ford continued to speak. "Anyways ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet Bill Cipher." he announced making the triangle appear on Death's mirror. "A powerful dream demon originating from the second dimension, Bill is currently merged with the Kishin you may know as Asura and the two have made Gravity Falls their domain, hoping to extend their madness across the globe and potentially the rest of the universe as well."

"Are you serious, we're going up against some triangle?" Djinn Galland commented. "Do not be fooled by his simplistic appearance. Bill is a conniving, sadistic monster who can trick or possess anyone to get his way." Ford stated. "He is also highly intelligent, preferring to make deals with his victims to further his own evil deeds."

"Although he can't do much in the mindscape, in our physical realm he is pretty much omniscient. Telepathy, manipulation of things like time & matter, reality warping, the whole nine yards!" Death added. "Combined with Asura's own abilities and godlike Soul Wavelength, the two of them combined are nearly unstoppable."

"What do you mean by nearly sir?" Dengu Dinga asked. "Through some careful research, I was able to deduce that only a zodiac made up of twenty symbols representing 23 souls can create a force strong enough to terminate him." the polydactyl professor stated. Just then he noticed Justin Law barely paying attention and instead listening to his music. "Excuse me young man, we are currently having a discussion that we'd be happy to have you join in on."

"What?!" Justin shouted in Ford's face, much to his surprise. "I said, please take off your earphones and pay attention!" Ford shouted back. "Oh, I am terribly sorry, please proceed." the young Death Scythe politely apologized removing his earbuds. "As I was saying, we must organize a plan of attack on Cipher. One group shall go on ahead & distract him while another shall progress and finish off both him and his four Madnesses, Sloth, Wrath, Greed & Envy."

"Horosho, should be easy." Feodor remarked. "We just go in, wait for you to go after us and everything will be all fine and dandy." he stated. "Don't be so casual. As I stated, Bill can do pretty much anything when in the physical realm, so we must keep ourselves sane if we want to survive." Death said. "However there aren't many ways to keep him from going into our minds."

"I would suggest outfitting our skulls with metal plates since it's the only method we have on hand, but it's very painful." Ford stated. "Are you serious?" Sid wondered and the scientist only replied by knocking on his head, producing a loud clanging noise. "Okay, maybe I could use one of those."

"Oh great googly-moogly, it's almost time for class!" Ford exclaimed looking at his watch. "I hate to come in and run folks, but the twins should be waiting for me!"

"Very well then. Everybody here is dismissed!" Death declared clapping his hands, signaling for his weapons to disperse. As they began leaving the Death Room, Stein stepped up next to Ford. "Hey, I've got an offer for you." he said. "How do you feel about becoming a guest teacher today?"

"Why I'd be delighted Stein!" Ford exclaimed cheerfully. "I actually do have a few degrees so I might know my way around things." he added. "Excellent, I'll be there to assist you along with Marie here." Stein stated introducing him to the blonde woman.

"Oh hey, don't think Mira introduced me! I'm Marie Mjolnir from Oceania, pleased to meet you." Marie greeted, but Ford only returned her greeting with a cold glare. "Are you okay? Why are you giving me the stink-eye?"

In a large classroom filled with multiple academy students, Dipper & Mabel took their seats waiting for the teacher to appear. "What's taking Ford so long? Whatever business Death's got with him, I hope he isn't too preoccupied." Soos wondered sitting down with the twins. Just then a door opened and Stein appeared sitting backwards on a swivel chair and rolling backwards before he fell over. "Good morning class."

"Good morning Professor Stein." the students replied in unison. "Hiya Mr. Stein!" Mabel cried before she was met with a scalpel launched in her direction, only managing to hit the desk behind her. "Oops, sorry sir."

"Anyway, today we have a special guest to lead the class today." the Meister announced. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you all to meet Mr. Stanford Pines." Ford then stepped into the room waving as the class applauded, with Soos cheering loudly. "Woo, we love ya Mr. Pines!"

Another scalpel flew in Soos's direction, again only managing to hit a nearby desk. "I'll keep my mouth shut." he squeaked ducking down. "Now then, let's get down to business." Ford announced writing his name on the board. "My name is Stanford Pines, a professional in the field of investigating cryptids and other oddities."

"What kind of cryptids did you meet sir?" a young man with thick glasses and horn-like hair asked. "Well that is a very good question young one." Ford answered. "Among the creatures I have researched are gnomes, unicorns, vampire bats, a squash with a human face & emotions, leprecorns, the Hide-Behind and cursed Egyptian super-termites."

As Ford continued speaking, Dipper & Kid decided to strike up a conversation. "So what did your father want my great uncle for?" Dipper asked. "I do not know, but I feel this requires some investigating. Want to join me after class?" Kid offered. "Are you kidding, I'd love to!"

"Hey, don't you want to train with me & Tsubaki on how to swordfight?" Black Star asked. "I would like to do that as well, but I think I'm gonna have trouble balancing it all." Dipper answered. "I could find a way to make another me to do one thing while I do another, but the last time I tried that went horribly wrong."

"And that's how I wound up who I am today." Ford concluded a speech. "Now then, are there any more questions?" he asked. "I got one." a somewhat familiar sounding voice said. "Yes, what do you have to say sir?"

"You ever tried giving up?" Suddenly the classroom turned monochrome as the voice began cackling. "I know that laugh." Ford angrily declared. "Come on out Bill, or keep hiding like a coward if you like!"

"Try turning around to your right Sixer." Ford did as Bill said and much to his horror, he found Marie taking off her eyepatch to reveal the eye of someone who would be possessed by the dream demon. "Did you really think you could escape me old chum? I thought we were best friends!" he exclaimed with a loud "OHOHOHOHO!"

"Quit laughing Bill! You've made my family suffer for far too long!" Ford screamed angrily grasping Marie's shoulders and shaking her back and forth, though Bill only laughed again. "Quit your fighting Stanford, even if you move yourself away from Gravity Falls I'll always be watching you!"

"No you won't, because I've got help!" Ford declared preparing to strangle Marie. "But how can you say that when you're already choking one of your "little helpers?" Toodle-oo!" Suddenly Bill disappeared leaving only the Death Scythe hailing from Oceania in his place, choking as the scientist tightly grasped her neck. "W-what are you d-doing?"

"Come back here you bastard and fight me! I could do this all day!" That was the last thing Stanford would say before he felt Stein punch him in the back. "Three-Fold!" the mad Meister exclaimed. "Gi, Go, Shoku!"

After being punched three times, Ford started bleeding from the mouth and lost his grip on Marie's neck before falling down in front of the stunned students. "Class dismissed." he coldly announced turning his screw and slinging Ford over his shoulder to carry him off, the classroom still deathly quiet.

Minutes later, Dipper and Mabel patiently waited in the school's dispensary for any news on their grunkle's condition. He laid there unconscious in the hospital bed, blood spilled from his mouth and his eyes shut. "What do you think prompted Ford to attack the eyepatch lady?" Mabel asked her brother, who stopped jotting down all he had learned in class to answer. "I don't know. But come to think of it, she does kinda remind me of Bill."

"What do you mean by that?" Mabel continued. "Well her primary colors are yellow & black and she has an eyepatch; but she looks in no way the type that would affiliate with him." Dipper analyzed. Just then, Maka opened the door to find the twins already in the room. "Hey guys, sorry about what happened with Ford."

"It's all right Maka, it's just that Bill hurt him so much that anything reminding him of the guy might trigger him now." Dipper said before Stein & Mira appeared as well with notes on his condition. "Good news children, your great-uncle shall be fine." the bandage-covered nurse announced. "Bad news, we may have diagnosed him with a mild case of PTSD."

"Tell us something we don't know! He's already suffered enough at the hands of Bill before, but what happened when Kishin Cipher has made things even worse for him!" Dipper exclaimed just as they heard moaning coming from Ford. "Hey, he's waking up!"

At the same time, Marie suddenly barged into the dispensary. "I am so sorry about what happened to Stanford! I didn't realize I would make him so mad, yet I don't know how!" she exclaimed before she suddenly tripped over and fell on Ford's body as he awakened. "Oh my back. What happened?" he groaned. "Kids?"

"Ford!" the twins cried in unison hugging their great-uncle. "Kids! Please tell me what happened." the genius said. "You were just standing there talking nerd stuff when you started rambling about Bill before strangling the eyepatch lady." Mabel explained. "Then Mr. Stein punched you so hard that you started bleeding from the mouth!"

"Wait, I did what?!" Ford exclaimed trying to comprehend what his great-niece had said. "Like I said, I'm truly sorry if I made you mad Stanford." Marie said getting up and dusting herself off. "And I assume you must be his great-nephew & niece?" she asked the twins. "Yes m'am! I'm Mabel and this is my brother Dipper!" Mabel introduced her and Dipper. "What's your name eyepatch lady?"

"My name's Marie Mjolnir. Very nice to meet you." Marie said shaking the kids' hands. "I have some apologies myself Marie. I am deeply regretful of what I've done earlier." Ford apologized. "Hopefully you can find a way to forgive me as well."

"Oh it's all right Ford." Marie replied before a crow suddenly flew by the window, squawking "Ahou! Ahou! Ahou!" much to the confusion of everyone in the room. "What the hell is that crow doing outside?" Ford wondered. "We have no idea either." Mira said. "It's been flying around the Academy for weeks, often appearing whenever someone would make a fool of themselves."

"Unrelated topic, but shouldn't you be assembling with Sid, the Scythes and Mifune to move out to Gravity Falls?" Stein wondered. "That's right, I just wanted to make some last arrangements before departing." Mira stated before walking out of the dispensary. "I shall see you all again soon."

With the nurse now leaving the room, the Pines then turned to meet Maka's gaze. "So what brings you here Maka? Well, other than my condition of course." Ford wondered. "I actually came to tell you about a big party Kid is throwing at his mansion to welcome you all to Death City." Maka announced.

"The whole school is invited actually, faculty included!"

"That sounds delightful Maka, I'll make a note of it." Stein commented turning to Ford. "And as for you, I think we should get you back home to recover. Which might mean you can't go to the party."

"Aw man, this could've been the perfect chance for you to find someone to love!" Mabel groaned in disappointment before she felt Marie tap her shoulder. "Did you say love? Are you like some expert matchmaker or something?" the Death Scythe asked. "All I ever wanted to do is find a man to love and we could retire together & have some beautiful children! I'm so desperate I might as well marry a toilet!"

"Well you could find a plumber to hook up with." Dipper snarked. "Preferably one who doesn't wear a tie and beats up evil turtles for a living."

"Mark my words Marie, I'm going to find you a man tonight or my name isn't Mabel Danielle Pines! And it is!" Mabel heroically declared. "Now then, gimme some info. For an possible dating site profile." she said leading Marie out the door. "Well I was born on June 8, 1984 in Oceania. I'm interested in surfing, Norse mythology, kangaroos, biking..."

"I can already tell they're going to be an unstoppable duo." Dipper declared as the two's voices grew fainter. "Speaking of teams, I have some business of my own to do." he said leaving the room as well. "Which one, training with Black Star or investigating with Kid?" Maka asked. "Both of them. We all decided to reach a compromise. See you tonight Maka!"

Soon Maka departed as well leaving Stein & Ford alone in the dispensary. "Okay, now that the children are out of the way, let's get to bringing you home." the stitched-up scientist declared helping Ford out of the hospital bed and leading him by the hand to the exit before Spirit suddenly appeared on the other side. "Hey Stein, you done with your business yet? I've been thinking we should go to Chupa-Cabra's later and-what are you doing?"

"He's simply helping me up, don't take it the wrong way Spirit!" Ford exclaimed nervously taking his hand away from Stein's. "And what is this Chupa-Cabra's place?" he wondered. "Oh it's just great Pines! I mean, you won't find any other place in Death City with babes and booze!" Spirit explained. "You gotta come with us!"

"Okay I'll bite." Ford gave in. "I think I might need a break from all this emotional suffering."

"Thanks for clearing up your schedule and helping us compromise on how to spend your time Dipper." Tsubaki said gratefully as they, along with Black Star, Excalibur, Kid and the Thompsons traversed the halls. "You're welcome Tsubaki. But is there anyone in this school that could tell us where to go from here?" Dipper wondered. "There actually is, and he should be coming up right now." Kid stated just as they came across a tall man with a chin-curtain beard, closed eyes and a rather large forehead drinking some coffee. "Hello again Joe."

"Oh hey kids, good to see you again. How's Oregon been?" the man asked them. "We actually brought something home from there!" Patty exclaimed bringing Dipper to his attention. "We'd like you to meet Dipper Pines!"

"What's up kid, name's Joe Buttakaki." Joe introduced himself shaking the boy's hand. "So what brings you here to Death City?" The Pines brother was silent for a moment before he answered, his voice firm with resolution. "I want to know about the Kishin Asura, and Lord Death's relationship with him."

Joe was silent and then he turned around. "Follow me." he simply stated leading the party away. "I knew the day when someone would ask about them would come. I just thought it would've been just Kid instead of you."

"Well that's the thing Joe, Asura called him his pesky little brother. What the hell is up with that?!" Black Star exclaimed as they moved from the academy interior to its underground hallways. "This was a secret Lord Death has sworn me to keep since I graduated from the academy." the DWMA's tech expert explained. "But word on the street is he's roped another person into his little inner circle of secret keepers."

"Another person?" Dipper wondered scratching his chin to deduce who this individual could be before Excalibur smacked him upside the head. "FOOL! It's most likely he's talking about your great-uncle." he declared to his new Meister, to his shock and exasperation. "Seriously?! We've already kept enough secrets from each other last summer, but this is getting ridiculous! I mean, what other stuff could we be in the dark about?!"

"I-I don't know, I'd prefer t-t-URP-to put the lime in the c-c-coconut and then eat the candle." Ford drunkenly remarked as he sat in Chupa-Cabra's with Spirit & Stein along with Blair, a pair of beautiful women and stacks upon stacks of beer mugs. "Very glad you're enjoying yourself Mr. Pines! Terribly sorry about what happened to your brother too." the first woman, named Risa, said comforting the elderly genius. "Yeah, I can see you're just utterly heartbroken by that." her partner Arisa added pouring Ford another drink. "Here, have another."

"Thank you ladies. You're such nice people." Ford thanked them putting his arms on their shoulders. "You're both absolute babes, but you Risa are just a beautiful butterfly." he slurred putting their faces uncomfortably close to one another and lightly gripping her chest. "I can definitely see that age has been insanely generous to you."

"Hey Ford, buddy?" Spirit interjected putting a hand on his shoulder. "I think all this booze is getting' to you. Listen, I get you're still super depressed over what happened to Stan, but you can't just waste your time just drinking your troubles away."

"You're one to talk scarlet, you'd rather waste your time here than be a good father!" Ford spitted at Spirit, much to his chagrin. "Dude, harsh!" he exclaimed in defense. "But I'm gettin' ahead of myself you're all the best people God ever crapped onto his dumpster fire of an asteroid! Drinks on me ladies and gents!" Ford shouted, leaving everyone stunned and concerned for him. "But how are you going to pay for all this?" Stein wondered. "You probably don't have that much money."

"OfcourseIdoKarloff!" Ford stuttered, his statement barely understandable as he fished some odd currency out of his pockets. "Lemme see I got zeni Beli woolongs Bison dollars bits bells gold rings gil munny rupees bolts lien schmeckles bottle caps all that jazz!"

"Wait, as in literal bottle caps? Where did you get these?" Stein wondered picking up a bottle cap. "Just another post-apocalyptic wasteland that I ran into across the multiverse somewhere!" Ford exclaimed spreading his arms wide. "There were giant roaches everywhere and I was accompanied by the cutest little dog who loved running into forcefields!" He then suddenly dropped to his knees with a crestfallen look on his face as he raised his arms up and screamed "DOGMEAT, NOOOOOO!"

"Seriously Fordsy, you need to chill out!" Blair sternly declared trying to stop Ford's drunken ranting, but was met with being lovingly gazed at by the great-uncle. "Can you hear my thoughts?" he began monologuing to himself. "My buddy from a distant star, I'm not sure I even know who you are. Look at me, like a kid out of school hanging out with a fool. A fool who I think is actually kinda cool."

"Are you okay there Stanford? You're slobbering all over the floor." Stein asked. "Why am I starting to drool?" Ford mused as saliva began pouring from his mouth before he finally fell over on his face, on the verge of a hangover. "We're trying to help you, you've had enough!" Spirit tried to pull him up but his hand was slapped aside. "I KNOW WHEN I'VE HAD ENOUGH YOU BEAUTIFUL PRINCESS!"

With that, Ford slipped into unconsciousness in a pool of his own drool and the stacks of mugs about to fall on him. He could barely make out the sounds of him being picked up off the floor and a door opening.

"Will this give us the answers we've been looking for?" Dipper asked as their group stood outside a large door deep within the academy's underground. "Yes indeed Dipper, welcome to the academy's Secret Vault." Kid declared pushing the door open to reveal a plethora of bizarre machinery lying around. "This is where we keep the various Demon Tools created by Eibon, whom as we discussed a long time ago during our rescue mission, created the Demon Weapons inspired by Excalibur."

"Whoa, Ford would've loved to see this place! Can't wait till I tell him at the party!" the younger boy gasped in amazement examining the various devices the sorcerer created. "There's just so many of them, I probably can't think straight over what they can do!"

"I know what'll help you think, some much needed sword training!" Black Star declared. "Once Tsubaki & I show you the ropes, you'll be an ace in no time! Though obviously not on par with yours truly."

"I'll give him the basics and you'll deal with some of the more complex stuff." Tsubaki suggested picking up a wooden bokken and taking a stance while Dipper prepared as well, summoning Excalibur to his side. "Now then Dipper, everything starts with your stance." she instructed her student as their weapons lightly tapped each other. "Keep your stance wide and your body lowered as you're moving forward."

"Balance is the key, right?" Dipper asked. "Correct." the shadow weapon answered. "Next is your right foot, then your left foot." she continued lecturing as they sparred. "Now go even faster. And as you're moving backwards, keep your eyes on me."

"Hey guys, I think I found something!" Patty shouted from afar, popping up with a large key in hand. "Doesn't this seem a little familiar to you guys?" she wondered turning it around to reveal that the teeth were in the shape of an E. "How can this be possible?! It disappeared along with him!" Kid exclaimed in shock taking the key out of his weapon's hands. "This has to be some kind of trap devised to keep intruders away from the Vault!"

"Nope, looks like the real deal to me." Joe guessed gazing at the key as well. "What are you guys talking about and why is that key so perplexing to you?" Dipper asked. "Let me take a look at it."

With the mysterious key handed to him, Dipper observed it looking for clues on what to do. "Maybe I should try rubbing it?" he suggested doing just that. "Sorry kid, but this doesn't look like any magic lamp." Liz snarked. "Or maybe it can open a door to the heart of all worlds!" Black Star chirped. "And it can also be used as a weapon to fight evil shadow creatures with no hearts!"

"Wait, I think I know one thing it can open." Kid announced looking towards a strange cube with ancient writing scribbled on it placed on a pedestal. "What is that thing?" Dipper wondered walking toward the cube. "That my friend is BREW, the legendary Demon Tool that can merge two things into one or create whatever the user desires." Excalibur answered. "If used incorrectly, it can bring about utter destruction as we know it."

Dipper then slowly inserted the key into BREW but unfortunately, nothing happened. "Is this going to be like in the movies and shows where it seems like something doesn't work but then after a few seconds it actually does?" Patty wondered and she was indeed proven right as BREW began to glow and flash wildly, causing debris from all around the room to fly around it. "Called it!"

"Everybody get down!" Dipper screamed before everyone ducked their heads down, all except for Excalibur, who only said "Fool." before BREW stopped shining and dust began forming, leading a large silhouette to appear.

When the dust settled, all that was left was a humanoid man whose appearance was concealed by a simple mask and extravagant robes. "What happened? Where am I?" the man wondered in a panic, unaware of his current surroundings. Just then he heard footsteps and found a young boy standing before him, looking up at his mask. "Excuse me sir, but are you Eibon?"

"Yes, indeed I am little one." Eibon answered quietly. "And you are?" he asked back, though the boy only replied by collapsing on the ground. "Dipper!" the Sorcerer heard a familiar voice. 'Dipper?' he thought. 'What an odd name.'

"Wake up Dipper, are you all right?!" Kid exclaimed trying to wake his younger companion up. "Why yes Mrs. Lincoln, and how was the play?" Dipper woozily asked barely putting his train of thought back on track. "What just happened?!"

"Hello again, old friend." Excalibur greeted Eibon. Although they couldn't see it through his mask, he was most definitely making the Excalibur face.

"Am I in the Secret Vault? How long was I out? Did we win?" Eibon asked still in the dark about current events. "Yes you are, about a few weeks and yes we did." Joe answered all three of the Sorcerer's questions. "That's quite a lot to take in. And who is this boy still?" Eibon continued. "Very few people are allowed in the vault!"

"My name's Dipper Pines Mr. Eibon." Dipper introduced himself shaking the giant's hand. "Very nice to meet you."

"Pleased to meet you too young man." Eibon replied accepting the child's handshake. "But still, what kind of name is Dipper?" he wondered. "Oh yeah, that's what most people call me because of this." Dipper replied taking off his hat and pushing aside some hair to reveal his birthmark. "My word, the Big Dipper! Now it makes more sense!"

"That would explain quite a bit. I just thought your folks hated you or something." Black Star added. "So tell me Dipper, what brings you to this vault?" Eibon asked. "I simply came because I want more info on Lord Death and Asura."

"I knew the day would come when someone would ask." the Sorcerer muttered. "Yes the rumors are indeed true, Asura is Death's son." he stated. "Which would make Kid here..."

"My-my brother." the young Death God finally realized. "How has Father kept this from me for centuries?!" he screamed, desperate for more answers. "He simply didn't want you to feel betrayed!" Eibon stated. "I am sorry we couldn't tell you all this time, not just me and your dad."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Black Star wondered. "It wasn't just me that held his secret. All his Death Scythes were in on it as well, and Excalibur too." Eibon revealed, causing everyone to look at the Holy Sword in annoyance. "What, I suppose you're going to get mad at me for keeping quiet as well?"

"What else is he keeping from us? I suppose something related to a certain triangle." Dipper asked, writing in his journal. "I presume you've encountered Bill Cipher as well. As have Death and I." Eibon continued preparing to reminisce on that time. "He came to us claiming that he can help him purge the world of evil, but of course it was all a lie."

"Aw come on Death, we can still work things out! Honest!" Bill Cipher urged the Shinigami as they fought in the Nightmare Realm. "Silence you three-sided scum, or I'll dip you in magma and eat you alive!" Death threatened in a much more menacing voice glaring at the demon through his realistic mask. "You thought your wily words could swindle me, but I shall be tricked no longer!"

"I know you're in there somewhere best buddy! The four of us actually made a good team." Bill stated with a chortle. "You, me, Eibon and Arachne, we would've been unstoppable together! But NOOOO, that little tattletale of a Holy Sword just had to rat me out!"

"It was for the greater good!" Death shouted before he felt his cloak being incinerated by Bill's azure flames. "AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!"

As the Shinigami screamed in pain, Bill pulled out a stopwatch counting down how many seconds it took for his anguished crying to stop. "Wow, 42 seconds! That's gotta be a new record!" he commented applauding as the Death God's cloak regenerated, Death himself looking more furious than ever. "Death Claw!" he screamed summoning four black tendrils bearing his face to grab Bill by the arms and dragging them towards each other, allowing Death to deal the final blow. "REAPER CHOP!"

With a mighty slap, Bill shouted in pain clutching his eye. "You damn idiot, that was one of my weaknesses!" the demon screamed. "All right, you win you idiot!" he added finally surrendering. "It's about time you golden beast. Now leave this realm and never return, unless you want me to tear you to shreds." Death snarled menacingly sticking his bony hand toward him. "AM, I, CLEAR?!"

"Oh you may have won this time bonehead, but I'm not done with your puny world yet!" Bill cautioned him casting him out of the Nightmare Realm. "And when that day comes, I won't be the only one you'll be worrying about. Until then, I'll be watching you! I'LL BE WATCHING YOU!"

"So you and Lord Death actually worked together with Bill at some point? Gee that totally doesn't sound familiar!" Black Star exclaimed rolling his eyes. "Hey speaking of which, I wonder how Ford is doing?" Dipper wondered before his phone started ringing. "Well speak of the devil." he muttered picking it up. "Go for Dipper!"

"Who is it? And what is that strange contraption you're holding?" Eibon asked as the boy hung up. "It's Mabel sir, something's wrong with Ford!" Dipper exclaimed. "Ford? My word, we've been down here so long I've lost track of time!" Kid fretted exiting the Secret Vault. "We need to get ready for tonight!"

"Aw geez you're right! C'mon Tsubaki, let's get cracking!" Black Star shouted, the two racing ahead of them. "A party, you're having a party? Can I come!?" Eibon asked getting excited. "As much as I hate to say this, but it's best that you stay down here for now." Joe answered. "Hopefully we can meet each other again!"

When the door finally closed leaving Eibon all by himself in the vault, he took a moment to look around, examining all the various Demon Tools he created being stored there. Stepping toward a large machine with a clockwork key inside it, he opened it and found a small plaque with his and Death's signatures on it. "Why must there be so many secrets?"

By the time Ford began regaining some form of thought, everything around him was still incredibly blurry. It felt like he was submerged in some nice-smelling liquid and something round & soft was right in front of him. He could also hear a female singing about pumpkins and magic.

"N-no wire h-hangers, ever." he slurred finally coming to. Slowly opening his eyes, he found himself in a bathtub with Waddles right in front of him. "Waddles? What are you doing here? Where am I?"

"Oh goody, you're finally awake!" a familiar cadence exclaimed. With a rub of his eyes, Blair sat right before him in the tub completely nude. "Goodness gravy!" Ford screamed stumbling out of the tub before unfortunately falling on his face, causing his nose to bleed. "I have asked this once, I've asked this a thousand times! Is shame just nowhere to be found in your dictionary?!"

Waddles oinked twice turning his head in amusement. "Oh don't you start!" Ford scolded the swine. "Look at me, I'm a mess!" he exclaimed. "Then what state were you in earlier?" the Monster Cat snarked, making the scientist realize just what he had become. Gazing deeply into the bathroom mirror, staring back at him was a man completely broken by loss, desperate to relieve himself of his grief even though it was completely fruitless.

"Stanford Filbrick Pines, what happened to you?" he groaned in regret before he pulled a drenched photo of him and Stanley as children posing with their shipwreck the Stan O' War. It wasn't long before all those times where he had begged to relieve himself of the pain, first losing his brother, then making a scene in front of an entire class and finally falling into a hangover, came crashing down and he finally broke down in tears. "Why me?! Just why?!"

"Oh don't cry Forddy." Blair said getting out of the tub to comfort him. "And yes, I am wearing a bathrobe this time. Now come on, let's get you some coffee."

One towel over the scientist's head and a cup of coffee in his hand later, Ford sat down on the couch utterly miserable while the Monster Cat gently massaged his back. "Thank you very much Blair, but I feel it's pretty much hopeless for me. My family's torn apart and Kishin Cipher is running amok back in Gravity Falls." he sighed deeply. "Hey I've always wanted to know, what's your story? Well, other than being a promiscuous cat with magic powers that happens to resemble a witch."

"I wasn't able to tell anyone about it my entire time in Death City, but my past isn't all sunshine and rainbows." Blair answered lying down and resting her legs on his lap. "I did originate from the Witches' Realm, but their destruction loving ways are seriously boring. I just love ditching them and hanging out in Death City, which is where I first met Maka & Soul."

"Interesting. Could you perhaps further elaborate on Witches?" Ford wondered beginning to show a bit of his old self pulling out a notepad to jot down on. "Well, they're like super powerful when it comes to magic and also can live a really long time!" Blair explained. "There are also maybe a few wandering around in Death City keeping themselves hidden using Soul Protect, which they can use to disguise their souls as normal humans."

"Disguising their souls. Gonna have to look further into that." Ford mumbled writing down notes. "Speaking of which, where did the kids run off too? I'm sure they couldn't have gone far." he wondered. "Oh yeah, they went to a party at Kid's place after coming back here to check up on you." the cat answered, to Ford's alarm. "My goodness, the party! I should best get ready! Blair, is there anything around here I can wear?"

Just then, Waddles oinked as he waddled in, wearing a small hand towel on his head as he pointed to Soul's room. "Thank you oh so much Waddles. And I should really dry out my clothes too."

Stepping into Soul's empty bedroom and closing the door behind him, Ford came out moments later in a simple suit with a black jacket with matching shoes, tie & pants and white undershirt. When he turned around to examine himself in the mirror, Blair's slender hands grasped his shoulders. Turning around, the author found the cat dressed up for a night on the town herself in a purple dress with a single slit on the side showing some leg and her hair in a ponytail. Waddles on the other hand wore a tiny bowler hat and a bowtie.

"I suppose you're coming along as well?" Ford asked. "Of course I am, just to keep you grounded. And Waddles is coming too!" Blair answered, and Waddles added with an oink. "That'd be delightful. Now let's get moving!" While opening the door, Ford felt Blair start holding his hand and he held hers with a grin, the three of them finally walking out together.

"I can't believe it, we haven't found you a man all day!" Mabel exclaimed as she and Marie helped themselves to some punch at the buffet table at Kid's party. "And to add insult to the coffin, no hits on your dating profile yet!"

"I know right? At this rate I might as well marry a toilet!" Marie replied. "But which kind would take me, cause I'm leaning toward a porta-potty. At least we can go anywhere together!" Just then Dipper walked up to the buffet table. "What was that about toilets?" he asked with a nervous look. "Oh nothing broseph, we're just talking about Ms. Marie's love life."

"Hey everybody, I got some more mineral water for you if you're thirsty!" a blonde young man with bright blue eyes exclaimed racing into the main hall with platters of wine glasses filled with water. "Hey thanks Hiro, I was getting thirsty!" Marie thanked the boy taking a glass. "And how are those lambchops with applesauce coming along?"

"Doing good, I'll bring them out in a sec!" Hiro replied before he began groaning to himself. "If only I had my own weapon that would make people stop pushing me around. Well other than Excalibur anyway." he muttered. "What's his problem?" Dipper wondered beginning to snack on some hors d'oeuvres. "TL;DR, he's a total wimp that people treat as their servant because he doesn't have a weapon." Mabel answered. "But where can we find a good one for him?"

"Maybe he'd match up well with Mai Thi Hoang from the NOT class over there. She's real nice and could probably treat him well." the Death Scythe suggested pointing to a young Vietnamese girl with red-framed glasses making small talk with Gideon. The two of them then put on their own glasses before menacingly tenting their fingers and declaring "Jackpot." while their lenses shined.

"For the last time Fiddleford, stop pigging out on all that spaghetti! Were you raised on a farm or something?!" Kid complained to McGucket. "As a matter of fact Stripes, I am!" the genius hillbilly replied. "And this ain't spaghetti, it's linguini!"

Kid only responded by briefly gazing at the plate before he snatched it out of Fiddleford's hands and chucked it at the wall. "Now it's garbage." he coldly declared just as he realized the mess he made and hastily cleaned it up, desperate to keep the symmetry of his home intact. "Whew, close call!"

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. "Oh, that must be Ford! Wonder what took him so long?" Maka said opening the doors to find not only Stanford, but also Blair & Waddles as well. "Hello there miss, sorry I took so long." the author sheepishly said stepping inside. "And I've also brought a few plus-ones."

"Oh my gosh, you all look amazing! And Waddles is dressed like a little man out for a night on the town too!" Mabel squealed racing towards the three of them. Maka on the other hand couldn't help but find Ford's suit familiar. "That's the same outfit Soul wore to the Anniversary Eve celebration."

"Oh, I didn't realize! If it's okay with you, I could go back and find a different suit." Ford stated before Maka stopped him. "It's fine Mr. Pines. It's fine." she sighed, still hurting over losing Soul. "Aw don't feel so blue Maka, mama Blair can make you feel all better!" Blair assured the young Meister. "Thank you Blair. I can't believe I just said that."

"Yo old man, how are you recovering?!" Black Star exclaimed rushing up to Ford. "I'm doing fine Black Star. And please don't call me old man!" Stanford said. "Okay then old man." the young ninja replied. "Good grief."

"Black Star, Mabel, can I pull you two aside for a bit?" Dipper asked them. "I want to talk with Ford and I don't want anyone to notice us." he said. "Oh, you mean that stuff about Asura?" Black Star said. "Wait, what's this about Asura?" Mabel wondered. "We'll explain later. Right now, I'm gonna need you to provide a distraction." her brother ordered. "Any ideas?"

"Ooh, I got one!" Mabel chirped. "Why don't we get the orchestra to play a new song, one that's less boring?" she suggested. "Okay, which one?" Dipper wondered to which she replied by pulling out a music sheet, making the boy facepalm. "Seriously, that one? That is just so 2004!"

"Oh man, I love this song!" Black Star exclaimed. "And yes, I know it's hilarious that I, a super manly man, adore a song written by a boy band loved by young girls at the time." he added. "Now what are you waiting for, get them to play it!"

Mabel stepped up to the orchestra with the sheet in hand and shoved the piece they were playing aside in favor of hers. "Hey, can you play this instead?" she asked. After some careful consideration, the orchestra shrugged and played the new song, which Mabel & Black Star began singing along to. "Quit playing games with my head! I'm a sport but I'm not a toy," they harmonized to the high-class remix of their song. "Let's not analyze what I just said! I don't want to be a complex boy!"

Faster than anyone could notice, they all started dancing before Patty leaped onstage with the two and joined in. "I can't tell if you're serious when you are so delirious! I'm just playing it baby, is that a yes, no or maybe?! YES!"

As the trio continued, Ford sighed sitting by the punchbowl. "I swear, youth is wasted on the young." he mused taking a sip. "Indeed, look at them so young and naïve." Azusa Yumi added standing next to him. "And yet sometimes I feel the adults are guilty of this as well, like your hobo friend for example." She then pointed to McGucket pigging out on finger sandwiches while Marie desperately tried to get Hiro & Mai to chat. "He's just too busy absorbing the entire buffet table."

"Now for your information Yumi, my friend is a scientific genius! He helped me build my portal and also constructed various machines that he mostly used to wreak havoc whenever someone wronged him!" Ford hotly argued. "And what do you have to accomplish, aside from being a Death Scythe?!"

"I actually helped defeat Asura for your information sideburns!" Azusa shouted back. "How so, did Death find a way to weaponize your bitc-" Ford prepared to insult right back at her before Dipper pulled on his leg. "Excuse me for a moment, great-nephew."

The two stepped into another room far from the festivities when Ford finally decided to ask what was up. "So what did you pull me aside for?" he wondered. "It's about Asura." Dipper sternly answered crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes. "Is it true that you've been told about his relationship with Lord Death & Kid yet didn't tell anyone else about it?!"

"Look, Death has sworn me to keep this secret; and I'm not the only one either!" Ford exclaimed. "Tons of people were in on it, Stein, Spirit, Sid, the other Death Scythes, even Excalibur!" he added. "The last one I know about, but seriously! Remember the last time someone kept a secret from the rest of their family? The entire universe was nearly destroyed!" the boy argued. "Twice even, all because Stan made the stupid decision of ruining your science project!"

"I'm not even sure Stanley was the one who broke it! He said he fixed it yet when I presented it, it was an utter mess!" Ford yelled. "And speaking of family, you don't have to bring Stan into this especially after we just lost him yesterday!"

"Gee, this is totally sounding familiar!" Dipper screamed. "Someone keeps a dark secret from their family which tears them all apart!" Suddenly they heard a knocking on the door before it slightly creaked open. "Mabel, I can see you from the other side. Come on in."

"You too Blair." Ford added and Blair stepped into the room carrying an exhausted Mabel in her arms. "I'm sorry Dipper, I couldn't keep singing forever!" she panted before being dropped on the floor. "But silver lining, everybody loved it when I sang with Black Star and Patty."

"You heard everything, didn't you?" Dipper asked folding his arms. "Yeah pretty much! And I gotta say, what a twist!" Blair answered brightly. "I mean, the whole 'villain is secretly related to the hero' thing has been done everywhere, yet I still didn't see it coming!"

"So was that the reason why you told me to sing? You could've easily done without it." Mabel asked. "I know sis, but that still was a good distraction." Dipper replied spreading out his arms. "Awkward sibling hug?"

"Awkward sibling hug." Mabel accepted and they hugged before saying "Pat pat!" in unison. "Dipper, I am truly sorry about not telling you about Death and Asura beforehand." Ford apologized getting down on a knee. "Let's promise that there be no more secrets within our family, no ifs ands or buts!"

"No ifs ands or buts indeed!" Dipper answered. "Now come on guys, the party's still going on!" he shouted walking back to the shindig. Ford and Blair soon followed behind, but not Mabel as she gazed at the wall. "Aren't you coming back with us Mabel?"

"I'll be with you in a bit." Mabel answered not even turning to her brother. She continued staring at the wall in front of her, still conflicted on whether her own secret should get out. On one hand, she'd finally get some closure but on the other, her family would be furious for her playing an important part in the beginning of a certain event.

"I will tell them, no matter what." Mabel solemnly declared, her fists clenched in determination before she turned around and returned to the party, adamant on her decision.

And that's it for this chapter! Now, I was originally going to end off on a fight between Dipper, Mabel & Wendy against Ox, Kim & Kilik, but then I decided to just reduce it to a scene where Ox challenges the three of them because the chapter was packed enough already until I finally decided to save it for next time. Speaking of which, next time Mabel gets stuck in the feels wringer as Kishin Cipher plots to drive the Pines apart for his own misdeeds. But just what does he have planned for her, and who knew emotionally torturing your favorite characters was so much fun?!

[catsnuggler]

long post. i talk about, noting as privileged a background as i have, my thoughts on redemption for those in power. keep in mind, this is in direct contrast to the desire for revenge I have to fight to this very day.

trigger warning for mention of Nazis, violence against women, capital punishment, sympathy for oppressors (obviously, as mentioned above), and a white guy talking at length for paragraph after paragraph when he's not the victim of multiple axes of oppression

I know it's easy for me to say what I'm about to say in the following sentence; I'm white, I'm straight, I'm a cis man, I'm a settler-colonizer of Turtle Island, in a family composed almost totally of white, straight, cis settler-colonizers, most of whom are members of the LDS church, and happen to be related on one side, if distantly, to leaders of that cult; although I hate what people of all of my listed demographics have done to others, and painfully, angrily want to dismantle the systems of oppression we've collectively built and upheld over the centuries, I love my family, or at the very least don't want to hate them because they've always been loving to me.

All of this being said, and in one huge run-on sentence at that, I want horrible people to be able to be redeemed, at least of whatever chains happen to bind them. Even capitalists are bound by the knowledge that if they're no longer at the top, they'll be doomed - whether another capitalist drives them out of business from above, or a socialist revolution uproots them from below. At the very least, their existence as capitalists is threatened. At most, it's their lives. I only feel so much sympathy for capitalists, however. I don't worship the guillotine, but I don't particularly care about their lives. If allowing them to live is necessary for a revolution to remain anarchist, rather than turning to police, prisons, state-sanctioned capital punishment, all to kill enemies of the revolution, but then "enemies of the revolution", as well, eventually including me for not toeing a party line, then by all means, I, with grit teeth, am in favor of sparing them. Fascist war criminals, though, are an entirely different matter. Every killed SS member got what was coming to them, as a blatant and obvious example. I wouldn't support creating a state just for the purpose of getting them, because states never stop at eliminating genuine scum, but whoever, with proof of their guilt, whacks them, should get off scot-free imo. Maybe a temporary gun confiscation by, say, a grandma in the community - someone who isn't going to use it, who others will be close to and protect - but nothing more violent than that.

Back to the point, while there are some I feel less or no sympathy for, some... even one who has hurt me before, including physically... I want to be able to free themselves from their chains. My dad's trauma with the mormon church was part of what led him to be a shitty parent to me. Part of me will always be infuriated at him, and in pain, but knowing what I know about his history with the church, and how he's fallen for the sunk-cost fallacy that's a part of any cult, specifically the sunk cost of the trauma he faced on his mission (weapons were pointed at his face multiple times; he and others were ordered to beat and leave for dead a woman trying to defraud the church, and he was the only one with the guts to refuse and get the other elders to refuse with him. the other elders were torn up about it, but would have obeyed if not for him), I can't help but feel bad for him. no one deserves to be twisted the way he's been, and ultimately remain loyal to the cause of the manipulator, even if the particular manipulator is rejected. He is heavily critical of the church from a social-democratic, though entitled social-democratic rather than genuine-but-misguided social-democratic (i.e. he wants gay people to have rights not simply because he cares about human freedom, he wants gay people to have no more reason to complain so they can shut up, because gods, he's just that entitled. it infuriates me to no end) perspective, and his spiritual beliefs fall far outside of current mormon canon, but he is firmly mormon in his heart. The worst thing is that I'll never be able to free him from that trap. The facts that I stopped believing, later went behind his back when I officially left, and my mother died as a member of the church, combined with his trauma, mean he'll never listen to me, because I dishonored my family by not having enough faith to persevere til the end, and change the church from the inside (what a warped perspective! he knows the leaders won't listen to the members, and have no incentive to! not to mention they basically worship America, are anti-anarchist and anti-communist, racist, colonialist, need I go on?). I want him to leave his pain behind, and its source. I want him to unlearn the attitudes and beliefs fostered in him by the church (and society at large, like cisheterocentrism/supremacy). It hurts to see him deal with this, and keep on as he does.

I want us all to be free of unnecessary pain.

[sanctimoniousscrawlings]

Prompt#1: Lull of the Forest (part 2)

 The overwhelming pressure I typically feel inside the house appears to be gone and I’m not ready to leave this sanctuary so I roll onto my side to start scratching my fox friend behind the ears. The movement sends a couple flower petals floating down from my head. I reach up to find I circlet of entwined flowers perched on my crown.  “Strange.” I intone sleepily. But then what it this forest isn’t? “I should probably give you a name instead of referring to you as ‘the fox’ all the time, huh? What do you think of... Fen?”  The fox begins licking my hand in response and I take that as acquiescence. At this point, I notice a note on the nightstand, held there by my phone. I pick up the phone to see a message from Demeter saying that she would be staying the night in town and that she’d be back in the afternoon. I text a quick response back and grab the note.  In a tall, narrow, curving script it reads, “Keep the cloak for protection. Darkness dwells deep within your abode- it would be wise to make this space your own. May the light of the goddess help you find your way.”  Curiouser and curiouser. I feel as though whoever wrote the note is judging me for not erasing Dylan’s presence from the house.  “I’m not sure how to make it mine,” I murmur. I haven’t felt like myself in years. There are times where I don’t even feel like a person anymore. I get up and leave the room to wander the house in consideration, leaving the door open for Fen.

 What would I even do to make this place mine? I have my desk. I have my studio. Buying new furniture would be a waste- I actually like a lot of what was left behind. I could fill the place with books the way Demeter has with plants. Maybe I could take on some form of crafting.   I could knit a couch cozy or something. On second thought I’ve always thought they were hideous. Ships in bottles? Challenging, requiring more focus than I’m capable of, plus what will my aesthetic be then? A pirate? I’m going to dress like a pirate now. A ship’s wheel on the wall. My bed needs a mast.  Wait, how would that even work. “This is so stupid,” I mutter, clutching the sides of my head. While I would not mind the whole pirate chic look, that’s not me. I’ve never even seen the ocean.  I make my way to the studio at the back of the house. The sliding door leading into my space is stuck shut and icy to the touch. What the hell? I decide to try heading outside in order to go around but the front door won’t open either. I can’t breathe.  Panic digs its talons deep into my chest. The pressure in the air is back and stronger than ever.  “That’s it. I’m burning this fucking house to the ground.”  The aura of the house is so palpable and I feel as though it’s laughing at me. “You wanna play chicken with me, fucker?” I rush to the kitchen and start flinging paper towels everywhere. I know I need something more substantial but I’m at a loss. I make to light an entire roll with the stove but it won’t light.  “You think this will stop me?” I cackle, completely mad, and pull a lighter out of my pocket. “I’m a stoner. You think I didn’t come prepared to fucking party?” I’m screaming at the house, only mildly aware of how insane I’m acting.  I hear the sliding door slam open and am shaken from my state of mind. I head back to my studio to find the door open. I freeze when I see the canvas in the middle of the room.  In the same sloppy handwriting as Dylan’s letter, I see in bold crimson paint: Man. You go zero to a hundred real quick.  “Dylan?” No. Why me?  The brush floats up from the pallette and begins to scrawl. The one and only. I’m glad you came, Riley.  To say I immensely regret not burning the house down is a massive understatement of the grossest proportions. The lighter is still in my hand. It’s not too late. “Absolutely not. No. This is not something I can allow.” I did not sign up for this bullshit.  The brush makes it’s way over to the paint and I back hand it out of the air before kicking the easel to the ground and stomping on the canvas.  “Leave. Leave, now. I’m still ready to light this whole sucker up.”  A pencil starts scribbling furiously on top of the sheathe of papers I keep on my desk. I don’t bother looking. I go back to my room, grab my phone, my wallet, the cloak, the fox, and my backpack before heading back to the studio. The pencil starts writing again but I continue to ignore it. Fen is making some seriously unhappy noises and baring it’s teeth in the direction of my desk. I throw open the back doors and leave, straight for the forest.  I stop at the treeline to send Demeter a text.  Me: Dylan has not left the building .  D: what  Me: He’s. Fucking. HauNtiNG. OUR. HOUSE.  Me: I’m heading out. Let me know when you’re coming home and I’ll return.  D: Where are you going?  Me: The woods. Which, and I never thought I would say this, are safer. I’ve got Fen with me.  D: Who is Fen  D: And don’t go into the woods.  Me: This chill little fox that’s been hanging with me when I’m working on stuff outside. I think They sent her to watch over us. She’s curled up in my hood rn. So. Cute.  D: You’re already in the forest, aren’t you  Me: Of course! =D  D: Of course.

 I can practically feel her roll her eyes through the text.

 D: Just... Don���t do anything stupid  Me: That reminds me. There are papel towels all over the kitchen floor. I’ll take care of it when I get home.  D: I know I’m gonna regret asking how that happened but here I am. Please tell me it was a mischeivous vulpine.  Me: That asshole tried to trap me in the house so I was gonna burn it to the ground. Dylan caved as soon as I pulled out my lighter.  D: I wanna say that’s unreasonable and you know better but honestly  D: I don’t think I can  D: Don’t burn the forest down if you see something scary  Me: The only thing I’m lighting up is my holy green  Me: Anything scary is getting offered a joint. Maybe the things out here will have mercy on me if they’re high.

 Demeter sent me another text but I don’t read it- I’ve found my way into a meadow and in its center is the basket I’ve been bringing gifts out with. I move the cloth out of the way to find the basket full of all sorts of strange thing. At the top is a note with the same elegant handwriting as what was on my desk.  Wear me.  O...kay.... I move the note aside to find a large orange crystal in a filligreed silver holster attached to a large leather loop. Beneath that is... A witch’s hat?  It’s forest green velvet, matching the silk of the cloak I’m wearing. It’s quite a bit more squat than the costume hats I’ve seen and there’s a rust coloured feather sticking out of a matching band around the base of the hat.  “Why not.” I put the crystal necklace on followed by the hat. “I have never felt so bad ass and so ridiculous at the same time.”  Fen yawns in my hood.  I pick up the basket and pull the rest out. More crytals that look like they could be exchanged with the one on my necklace. Two packages wrapped in brown paper containing a mysterious book with blank pages and... a deck of tarot cards? What, are They new age hippies? A green velvet satchel I hadn’t noticed before was still at the bottom. I pulled it open to see rune stones held within and then pull the drawstrings to seal it again. “Yep. The forest folk terrorizing the town are really just new age hippies. Now this is the gay agenda I always wanted.”  I check the text Demi sent me.

 D: Who knows? You do seem to have a penchant for getting what you want when you focus. I mean, you just played chicken with a haunted house and it blinked first. Then again, maybe he didn’t think a suicide pact was a romantic enough first date.  Me: If I had died I would have turned the tables. Haunt him and kick his scrawny etherial ass. But listen, you’ll never guess what I found in the forest  D: Oh god  Me: I’ve been bringing food out in a basket and leaving it near the treeline. After a while it started returning with goodies in it. I just found it out in the forest and- hold on.

 I take a selfie and then a picture of the rest of the trinkets before putting them away in my bag and attactching the basket to it. I send the pictures and then keep moving while I wait for her response.

 D: You aren’t the new age witch they deserve but the one they need right now  Me: Crazy right? Who would have thought They would be a bunch of hippies, killing off the conservative small town in a ploy to improve society as a whole-the gay liberal agenda I do deserve and definitely need right now.  Me: Maybe they’re recruiting freedom fighters. I’ll go bitch slap some gun nuts in the face for fun, let alone a revolution. I wonder how they feel about guillotines.  D: I’m always down for nazi punching and lopping off the heads of the bourgeoisie  Me: Is it bad that I’m digging this look? It just feels so right.  D: I wonder if they provide essential oils with the enlistment package; I don’t care for infusers but I’ve kinda always wanted to try making bath bombs since discovering the wonders of Lush

 We continue our conversation as I wander further north. I feel more and more sets of curious eyes on me as I trek but sense no animosity. Eventually I reach a grassy knoll and sprawl out on it, staring up at the clouds as they drift by. Fen wanders off and I, for the third day in a row, fall asleep in a place that should terrify me. All manner of strange creature fills my dreams, but they are pleasant. In my final dream, the earth swallows me. I sink down into it, throwing down roots to grow into something more. Voices surround me but I am not concerned for I am safe in the earth’s embrace.

 “He’s waking up.” Is the last thing I want to hear when I awaken, and anxiety crawls up my spine like a particularly large centipede, digging it’s many feet into my flesh.  The first thing I see is a man leaning in way too close with bright green eyes, a cheerful expression, and a fiery halo of messy hair.  “You know, for someone from the village, you sure feel comfortable falling asleep in the forest. This makes the third time I’ve had to carry you off to safety, Riley.” He was jovial and it was a little unnerving. “Not all of us are nice.”  “I believe you have nice and kind mistaken, young man.” A woman with raven black hair and crimson eyes placed a slender hand on the man’s shoulder, pulling him out of the space he was encroaching on.  I breathed a little easier now that my space wasn’t being invaded.  “Who are you guys? Where am I? Wait. Are those... Fox ears?”  “In order: we are fae of the Seelie court. I am Queen Sylairia and this is-” The man cut her off before she could finish.  “You already know my name. These are definitely fox ears.”  “Fen?” I ask, bewildered.  “It’s Fenrir, but you were close enough.”  “Wait, Fenrir, like the wolf in norse mythology?” I called him Fen because it was short for Fennec.  “That’s the one.”  “But you’re a faerie that shapeshifts into a fox.”  “I fail to see the problem.”  Sylairia rolls her eyes and continues, “You are in the royal quarters of our domain, more specifically Fenrir’s room- and yes. Those are indeed fox ears as Fenrir just said. I am glad to see you are so very observant.” She says drily. “So, you are the changeling that caught my son’s eye.” She looks me over disapprovingly. “Spending so long away from left you with something to be desired. Several things, you are lacking in, in fact. Tell me, boy. Who is your mother?”  My face must have looked like a giant question mark because Fenrir spoke up. “I don’t think he knows, mother.”  “You at least knew you were not human, correct?”  “Uhh....”  The queen lets out an exasperated sigh, turns, and walks out muttering under her breath. “That boy... there’s no accounting for taste.”  “So, uhh. Question.” I say tentatively.  “Shoot.”  “Did you bring me this stuff?” I sit up, lifting my arms to gesture at myself.  “Yeah. The cloak is spelled with protections. The crystals grant various boons as well.”  “And the hat?”  “+ 5 to charisma?”  “What.”  “I just thought it was a good lynch pin for the whole ensemble- aaand I was right. Consider me spellbound.” He grins at me and there’s a wicked glint in his eye.  I throw the hat at his face, too flustered to respond, and he laughs as he’s putting it back on my head.  “The sexy warlock look suits you- though I would switch out the clothes under it for something more...” he pauses, trying to think. “I retract that. I’d switch it out for something less.” He says with a wink.  “Do I need to throw something heavier at you?”  The look on his face says he’s about to dig his grave deeper but he reconsiders and changes the subject, avoiding peril. “You know, I sense strong magic in you.”  “This better not be another pick up line.”  “Ooh, I just came up with a good one- but no. Come with me, and bring your bag.”  I eye him suspiciously.  “I already have you in my bed; this isn’t another flirtation.”  “Fair point.” I do as he asked and follow him out. “Where are we going?”  “I’m taking you to High Witch Magdelena. She’s the best teacher one could hope for.”  I’m about to ask more questions when my phone pings.

 D: You better still be in one piece.  Me: I’m alright. Boy do I have a story for you  D: I’m about to head back to the house. Meet there?  Me: Not yet. I might be in faerie hq rn  D: Riley, get out of there.  Me: Too late, getting magic lessons from a seelie high witch brb  D: Wait, Seelie? Are you sure?  Me: Faeries can’t lie, right?  D: ...  D: True. Do you think they’re gonna help you exorcise our douchebag of a ghost?  Me: I hope so. They seem to think I’m a changeling. Either way, I think you should stay away from the house for now. I guess I’ll let you know when I’m on my way back?  D: Be careful.  Me: Nah, I think I’ll just bumrush this whole situation. Maybe light the place on fire.  D: I know you think you’re joking but I’m betting you end up lighting it on fire  Me: I didn’t light the house on fire.  D: That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of you failing to set something ablaze  Me: first of all how dare

 I put my phone away just in time for us to stop at a large, ornate doorway.  “Wait out here, I’m going in to talk to her first.” Riley says, cracking the door open and disappearing through it.

The Prompt Part One Next

[douglassmiith]

Equivalent Experiences: What Are They?

About The Author

Eric is a Boston-based designer who helps create straightforward solutions that address a person’s practical, physical, cognitive, and emotional needs. More about Eric Bailey …

An equivalent experience is one that has been deliberately conceived of and built to be able to be used by the widest possible range of people. To create an equivalent experience, you must understand all the different ways people interact with technology, as well as common barriers they experience.

If you spend enough time interacting with digital accessibility practitioners, you may encounter the phrase “equivalent experience.” This saying concisely sums up a lot of the philosophy behind accessibility work.

Our industry tends to place a lot of focus on how, often at the expense of why. For accessibility-related concerns, it is vital to learn about the history, and lived experiences of disabled people as a context for understanding the need for design and code created with access in mind.

This is the first of two articles on the topic of equivalency, and how it relates to digital accessibility. It will help us define what an equivalent experience is. Once we have a common understanding established, I’ll then discuss how to go about implementing equivalent experiences for common accessibility-related issues.

The State Of Things

The truth of the matter is that even though we live in a multi-device world full of smartphones, augmented reality, voice assistants, and IoT smart sensors, our default is still predominately:

Visual,

large screen,

fast connection,

powerful computer and display,

male,

white,

wealthy,

young,

Western,

technologically-literate,

and abled.

This is reflective of the biases that are inherent in how we design, develop and grow products.

The previous list may not be the most comfortable thing to read. If you haven’t closed the browser tab already, take a moment to consider your daily workflows, as well as who your coworkers are, and you’ll begin to understand what I’m getting at.

At its core, delivering an equivalent experience is ultimately about preserving intent — with the intent being the motivating force behind creating a website or web app and all the content and features it contains.

This translates to making the meaning behind every interaction, every component, every photo or illustration, every line of code being understandable by the widest range of people, regardless of their device or ability.

Prior Art

I’m not the first person to discuss this topic (and hopefully not the last). Speaker, trainer, and consultant Nicolas Steenhout is one such advocate. His great post, Accessibility is about people, not standards, is well worth reading.

If you’re the kind of person who is into podcasts, his A11y Rules has a wonderful series called Soundbites. It features “short discussions with people with disabilities about the barriers they encounter on the web.” These insightful interviews also touch on what this article discusses.

What Isn’t An Equivalent Experience?

Showing examples of what something is not can be a way to help define it. For equivalent experiences, an example would be a web app geared towards use by the general public not having a mobile breakpoint.

It’s not difficult to imagine a situation where I’d want to adjust my work benefits while on the go. (Large preview)

With this example, everyone using a device with a small display is forced to pinch, pan, and zoom to get what they need. Here, the burden is placed on anyone whose only crime was using a smartphone.

Most likely, whoever conceived of, designed, and developed this didn’t stop to think about circumstances other than their own. In this sort of (unfortunately still all too common) scenario, I all but guarantee that the web app looks great on the laptops or desktops of the designers and developers who made it.

A designer saying, “it has enough contrast for me and my ‘old’ eyes” is the same as when a dev says, “works on my machine.”

The thing is though, we don’t design or develop for ourselves.

So, are we really ok with saying, “you don’t matter” to folks who are not like us? #a11y

— Heather (@_hmig) December 19, 2019

People using a smartphone to access this website are victims of circumstance. The extra effort someone needs to do to get it to work indirectly communicates that they weren’t a priority, and therefore not valued. If you’ve used the web for any significant portion of time, I’m willing to bet this, or a similar experience has happened to you.

This example is also a hop, skip, and a jump away from another common, yet serious accessibility issue we often don’t consider: screen zooming:

Screen Zooming

Screen zooming is when someone is prevented from being able to zoom their displays and make text larger—many native mobile apps are guilty of this. When you disallow this sort of behavior, you’re telling prospective users that unless they have vision similar to you, you aren’t interested in them being able to use your app.

For this scenario, a gentle reminder that we will all get older, and with aging comes a whole host of vision-related concerns. A question you should be asking yourself is if your future self will be capable of using the things your present self is making. A follow-up question is if you’re also asking the people you’re managing this.

I just had my eyes dilated, so I can’t read any text that isn’t comically large. I don’t know how to use a screen reader. I’ll be fine in a few hours, but this has been a fascinating journey into how well third-party iOS apps respect text size accessibility settings!

(Thread)

— Em Lazer-Walker (@lazerwalker) January 29, 2020

Accessible Experiences Aren’t Necessarily Equivalent Ones

This might be a little difficult of a concept to grasp at first. Let’s use this Rube Goldberg machine made by Joseph Herscher to pass the pepper to his dinner guest to compare:

[embedded content]

To pass the pepper, the machine, sends it through an elaborate system of weights, counterweights, ramps, rolling objects, catapults, guillotines, burners, timers, carousels, etc. — all constructed from commonly found kitchen items. While this setup will technically ensure the pepper is passed, it is an annoying, overwrought, time-intensive process.

Many digital experiences are a lot like a Rube Goldberg machine when it comes to accessibility. Since accessibility issues are so prevalent, many forms of assistive technology provide a large suite of features to allow their user to work around common obstacles.

Unfortunately, discovering obstacles, and then figuring out and activating the appropriate combination of features to overcome them can take a disproportionate amount of time and effort.

To say it another way: A simple click on a button for an abled person may take far more time and effort for a disabled person, depending on how the button has been made.

Chilling Effects

Frustratingly, the extra time and effort a disabled person has to put into operating a technically accessible experience may feed back into their disability condition(s). For example, the presence of a motor control disability such as arthritis may make the overall experience even more taxing.

Cognitive accessibility concerns are also another important thing to consider. What may seem easy to understand or intuitive to use for one person may not be for another. This is especially prevalent in situations where there is:

Cognitive accessibility isn’t an abstract concern, either. Poor user interface design that ignores the circumstances of the end user and dumps too much cognitive load onto them can have very real, very serious consequences.

The military is full of examples of poor interfaces being forced on people who don’t have a choice in the matter. It’s also one of the origins of Inclusive Design thinking. (Large preview)

Compounding Effects

These factors are not mutually exclusive. Proponents of Spoon Theory know that inaccessible experiences conspire to sap a person’s mental and physical energy, leaving them exhausted and demotivated. Worse, these sorts of scenarios are often more than just a person perpetually operating at a diminished capacity.

Frustrating digital experiences can lead to a person abandoning them outright, internalizing the system’s fault as their own personal failure. This abandonment may also translate to a person’s willingness and ability to operate other digital interfaces. In other words: the more we turn people away, the more they’ll stop trying to show up.

“Nobody has complained before” is a silly excuse for not caring about accessibility. You’re right, they didn’t complain. They left.

— Vote blue, no matter who. (@karlgroves) December 8, 2018

Don’t Take My Word For It

To make the abstract immediate, I reached out on Twitter to ask people about their experiences using assistive technology to browse the web.

I also took a purposely loose definition of assistive technology. All-too-often we assume the term “accessible” only means “works in a screen reader.” The truth of the matter is that assistive technology is so much more than that.

The way the web is built — its foundational principles and behaviors — make it extraordinarily adaptable. It’s us, the people who build on and for the web, who break that. By failing to consider these devices and methods of interacting with web content, we implicitly drift further away from equivalency.

Consistency

For some, assistive technology can mean specialized browser extensions. These micro-apps are used to enhance, augment, and customize a browsing experience to better suit someone’s needs.

Damien Senger, digital designer, uses a browser extension called Midnight Lizard to enforce a similar experience across multiple websites. This helps them “to focus on the content directly and to limit having too big differences between websites. It is also helping me to avoid too harsh color contrasts that are really uncomfortable.“

Damien also writes, “Often websites are really difficult to read for me because either of the lack of consistency in the layout, too narrow lines or just not enough balance between font size and line height. Related to that, color can create a lot of unhelpful distraction and I am struggling when too harsh contrast is nearby text.”

How To Maintain Equivalency

In addition, Damien also augments their browsing experience by using ad blocking technology “not only for ads but to block animations or content that are too distracting for my ADHD.”

It’s not too difficult to imagine why distracting and annoying your users is a bad idea. In the case of ads, the industry is unregulated, meaning that rules to prohibit ADHD, migraine, and/or seizure-triggering animations aren’t honored. Through this lens, an ad blocker is a form of consumer self-defense.

I’ll say it again: Telling users their access isn’t as important as your bottom line is a BAD take. Ads are fine as long as they don’t create a barrier by moving! #ADHD #A11y #PSH #WCAG https://t.co/i6mifI0JRE

— Shell Little (@ShellELittle) February 27, 2020

Kenny Hitt also chimes in about ads: “…regardless of the platform, the thing that annoys me most are websites with ads that essentially cause the site to constantly auto update. This prevents me as a screen reader user from reading the content of those websites.”

Again, a lack of regulation means the user must take measures into their own hands to keep the experience equivalent.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Opportunity

A lack of an equivalent experience translates directly to lost opportunity. Many individuals I spoke with mentioned that they’d abandon a digital experience that was inaccessible more often than not.

Brian Moore mentions, “there are web sites where I like their products a lot but won’t buy them because the site itself is such a struggle, and attempts to reach out have met with either silence or resistance to taking any action.”

Brian cites the Fluance website as the most recent example. The bugs present in its shopping user flows prevents him from buying high-end consumer audio equipment.

Fluance’s entire web presence exists to sell products. While updating a website or web app to be accessible can be an effort-intensive process, it would definitely be in Fluance’s best interest to make sure its checkout user flow is as robust as it could be.

Those lost sales add up. (Large preview)

Opportunity isn’t limited to just e-commerce, either. As more and more services digitize, we paradoxically push more people out of being to live in the society that relies on these digitized services—people with protected rights. Again, this shift away from an equivalent experience is the culprit.

Justin Yarbrough was “applying for an accessibility-related job with the Arizona Department of Economic Security over the summer, where they wanted me to take an assessment. The button to start the assessment was a clickable div. They wound up waving the assessment requirement for the position.”

Jim Kiely tells me about his brother, who “has stopped paying his water bill online because the city water website [doesn’t] work well with a screen reader and high contrast.”

Personally, I have friends who have been prevented from submitting résumés to multiple sites because their job application portals were inaccessible.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Adaptability

Soren Hamby, product marketing agency manager and design advocate, writes of their experiences using screen magnification software and screen reading capabilities. Soren has “varying levels of vision so [they] tend to not always need the same level of accommodation.”

Of note, Soren mentions their struggles with grocery delivery apps, specifically “the carts often only read the quantities rather than the item name. It’s much easier to order with a sighted person.”

There are three things to consider here:

First is the surface-level acknowledgment that the app operates differently for different people, the main point this article is driving at.

Second is the fact that Soren uses multiple forms of assistive technology, with the mix a shifting combination depending on a combination of their task at hand and how well the digital interface meets their access needs.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Make sure that the labels for your interactive controls are relevant and concise.

Incorporate disability scenarios and conditions into your design personas.

Avoid using absolute length units. (No, seriously.)

Avoid setting maximum widths and heights.

Avoid using fixed and sticky-scrolling components, especially larger-sized ones.

Test your layouts by zooming and/or increasing your default type size to make sure that content does not get obscured.

This brings us to our third and most important point:

Autonomy

Having to rely on the help of a sighted person to order groceries is not ideal. For many, the acquiring, preparation, and consuming of food can be highly personal acts. Being forced to incorporate outside assistance into this process is far different than willingly inviting someone in to share an experience. The same notion applies to every other digital product, as well.

Kenny also mentions grocery apps: “…my local Kroger grocery store has started an app redesign in June 2019 that is breaking accessibility with their app.” In discussing this regression, he goes on to elaborate, “Because I can’t financially change to another business, I won’t let it drop. Kroger is going to discover that I don’t stop with a problem. Persistence in solving problems is a requirement for any disabled person if you want to succeed in the world.”

This app looks great, provided you can see it. (Large preview)

Equality

Kroger would be wise to listen to Kenny’s feedback. The grocery company Winn-Dixie was recently successfully sued for not being operable with a screen reader. The lawsuit argued that the grocer’s website was heavily integrated with their physical stores, and therefore violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Another recent case involves the Domino’s Pizza franchise. Taken all the way to the Supreme Court, the ruling clearly and unambiguously states that preventing someone from using a website or app, simply because they used screen reading software, is unconstitutional.

For both cases, the cost to implement fixes were far cheaper than going to court—something to think about the next time you’re deciding where to order pizza.

Despite some ugly misconceptions about the ruling, the evidence is clear: in the United States, there is now legal precedent for private companies to be sued for violating civil rights via an inaccessible digital experience. Europe and some parts of Asia have similar laws, as well.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Reactivity

Another way to maintain an equivalent experience — one that is often not thought about — is to give reports about accessibility issues the same weight and concern as other software bugs.

Reported accessibility issues are oftentimes downplayed and ignored, or are sent to someone ignorant of the issue and/or powerless to fix it.

Kenny, who started using a computer with a screen reader in 1984 says, “When I run into accessibility issues nowadays, I’ll try reporting it, when I get the usual response from the feedback of the person not caring, I just give up and walk away. If [the response] comes from somebody in marketing agency who doesn’t understand accessibility, I just give up and go away. There’s no point in trying to teach these people about accessibility.”

Kenny’s view is shared by many others in the disability community. Remember what I said about compounding effects earlier.

Brian reports that,

“If I find significant issues with a site, I do report it. Depending on who I talk to it ranges from ‘here’s what doesn’t work’ to all kinds of technical detail about why if I can get to the right people.”

Getting it to the right people is key. Another part of equivalent experience is handling feedback in a timely and constructive way, much as how you would with any other issue with your product or service.

Responding to an accessibility issue is easy:

Thank the person for taking the time and effort to report the issue.

Acknowledge the issue and identify what person or team will be handling it.

Ask clarifying questions as needed.

Offer potential workarounds, with the understanding that they’re only temporary until the underlying issue is addressed.

Offer to involve them in the process, including notifying them when the issue has been fixed.

Being open, honest, and transparent about your bug fixing process goes a long way to establishing trust in a population that has historically and routinely been overlooked.

Also know that assigning someone to mind an email address to conduct tasks on behalf of an assistive technology user is not an appropriate, effective, or sustainable solution. Remember the concerns surrounding autonomy discussed earlier.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Create an accessibility statement, including known issues, a tentative timeline for their fixes, and easy to discover contact information.

Ensure that anyone customer-facing (quality assurance, customer support, marketing agency, etc.) are trained on protocol for accessibility-related issue reporting.

Quantify accessibility-related issues, both internal and reported.

Be on the lookout for patterns and trends with discovered accessibility issues, as they represent learning opportunities.

Understand that not all platforms to collect feedback are created equal.

Motivation

We’ve covered actual people’s everyday frustrations, as well as civil rights and the current legal landscape. If these don’t motivate you, allow me to present another factor to consider: profit.

There are two provoking studies I’d like to call attention to, but they are by no means the only studies performed in this space.

(Large preview)

First is the Click Away Pound Survey, a survey conducted in both 2016 and 2019 to “explore the online shopping experience of people with disabilities and examine the cost to business of ignoring disabled shoppers.”

The survey discovered that more than 4 million people abandoned a retail website because of the access barriers they found. These people represent 17.1 billion pounds (~$21.1 billion USD) in lost potential revenue.

Second is the The Purchasing Power of Working-Age Adults With Disabilities (PDF), conducted in 2018 by the American Institutes for Research. This study discovered that there is an estimated $490 billion in disposable income amongst disabled working-age adults. That’s billion with a capital B.

There are two of the (many) takeaways from these studies I’d like to highlight:

First is that from a historical perspective, the web is still very much new. On top of that, its ubiquity is even more recent, meaning that use by the general population is a small sliver of the amount of time it’s been around.

Second is that the general population contains many people who are disabled, and that their needs are not being met. These unmet needs represent billions of dollars of potential revenue.

This is a gigantic market that we, as an industry, are only now becoming aware of. Rather than approaching accessibility with a mindset of risk aversion, why not use this learning as a great way to view your current and future business opportunities?

Complying with the ADA is by definition the legally required minimum for accessibility. It doesn’t account for a good user experience, usability, and innovation. Unless you strive for the minimum all the time, compliance is not enough.https://t.co/qOYw6ji23u

— mikey is at home (@mikeyil) March 5, 2020

Let’s Not Stop Here

Too often we think of accessibility as a problem to be solved, rather than a way of looking at the world. Equivalent experiences necessitate that we question our assumptions and biases and think about experiences outside of our own. It can be an uncomfortable thing to think about at first, but it’s all in the service of making things usable for all.

As web professionals, it is our job, and our privilege to ensure that the experiences we deliver are equivalent. In the second part, we’ll investigate how to do just that.

Further Reading

“WCAG Primer,” Tetra Logical

“The Web Accessibility Basics,” Marco Zehe’s Accessibility Blog

“Web Accessibility Checklist: 15 Things To Improve Your Website Accessibility,” WebsiteSetup.org

“The Importance Of Manual Accessibility Testing: Call The Professionals,” Eric Bailey, Smashing Magazine

“Taking Accessibility Beyond Compliance,” Dennis Deacon, 24 Accessibility

“Videos Of People With Disabilities Using Tech,” Hampus Sethfors, Axess Lab

“Web Accessibility Perspectives: Explore The Impact And Benefits For Everyone,” Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), W3C

Thank you to Brian Moore, Damien Senger, Jim Kiely, Justin Yarbrough, Kenny Hitt, and Soren Hamby for sharing their insights and experiences.

(ra, il)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

Via http://www.scpie.org/equivalent-experiences-what-are-they/

source https://scpie.weebly.com/blog/equivalent-experiences-what-are-they

[laurelkrugerr]

Equivalent Experiences: What Are They?

About The Author

Eric is a Boston-based designer who helps create straightforward solutions that address a person’s practical, physical, cognitive, and emotional needs. More about Eric Bailey …

An equivalent experience is one that has been deliberately conceived of and built to be able to be used by the widest possible range of people. To create an equivalent experience, you must understand all the different ways people interact with technology, as well as common barriers they experience.

If you spend enough time interacting with digital accessibility practitioners, you may encounter the phrase “equivalent experience.” This saying concisely sums up a lot of the philosophy behind accessibility work.

Our industry tends to place a lot of focus on how, often at the expense of why. For accessibility-related concerns, it is vital to learn about the history, and lived experiences of disabled people as a context for understanding the need for design and code created with access in mind.

This is the first of two articles on the topic of equivalency, and how it relates to digital accessibility. It will help us define what an equivalent experience is. Once we have a common understanding established, I’ll then discuss how to go about implementing equivalent experiences for common accessibility-related issues.

The State Of Things

The truth of the matter is that even though we live in a multi-device world full of smartphones, augmented reality, voice assistants, and IoT smart sensors, our default is still predominately:

Visual,

large screen,

fast connection,

powerful computer and display,

male,

white,

wealthy,

young,

Western,

technologically-literate,

and abled.

This is reflective of the biases that are inherent in how we design, develop and grow products.

The previous list may not be the most comfortable thing to read. If you haven’t closed the browser tab already, take a moment to consider your daily workflows, as well as who your coworkers are, and you’ll begin to understand what I’m getting at.

At its core, delivering an equivalent experience is ultimately about preserving intent — with the intent being the motivating force behind creating a website or web app and all the content and features it contains.

This translates to making the meaning behind every interaction, every component, every photo or illustration, every line of code being understandable by the widest range of people, regardless of their device or ability.

Prior Art

I’m not the first person to discuss this topic (and hopefully not the last). Speaker, trainer, and consultant Nicolas Steenhout is one such advocate. His great post, Accessibility is about people, not standards, is well worth reading.

If you’re the kind of person who is into podcasts, his A11y Rules has a wonderful series called Soundbites. It features “short discussions with people with disabilities about the barriers they encounter on the web.” These insightful interviews also touch on what this article discusses.

What Isn’t An Equivalent Experience?

Showing examples of what something is not can be a way to help define it. For equivalent experiences, an example would be a web app geared towards use by the general public not having a mobile breakpoint.

It’s not difficult to imagine a situation where I’d want to adjust my work benefits while on the go. (Large preview)

With this example, everyone using a device with a small display is forced to pinch, pan, and zoom to get what they need. Here, the burden is placed on anyone whose only crime was using a smartphone.

Most likely, whoever conceived of, designed, and developed this didn’t stop to think about circumstances other than their own. In this sort of (unfortunately still all too common) scenario, I all but guarantee that the web app looks great on the laptops or desktops of the designers and developers who made it.

A designer saying, “it has enough contrast for me and my ‘old’ eyes” is the same as when a dev says, “works on my machine.”

The thing is though, we don’t design or develop for ourselves.

So, are we really ok with saying, “you don’t matter” to folks who are not like us? #a11y

— Heather (@_hmig) December 19, 2019

People using a smartphone to access this website are victims of circumstance. The extra effort someone needs to do to get it to work indirectly communicates that they weren’t a priority, and therefore not valued. If you’ve used the web for any significant portion of time, I’m willing to bet this, or a similar experience has happened to you.

This example is also a hop, skip, and a jump away from another common, yet serious accessibility issue we often don’t consider: screen zooming:

Screen Zooming

Screen zooming is when someone is prevented from being able to zoom their displays and make text larger—many native mobile apps are guilty of this. When you disallow this sort of behavior, you’re telling prospective users that unless they have vision similar to you, you aren’t interested in them being able to use your app.

For this scenario, a gentle reminder that we will all get older, and with aging comes a whole host of vision-related concerns. A question you should be asking yourself is if your future self will be capable of using the things your present self is making. A follow-up question is if you’re also asking the people you’re managing this.

I just had my eyes dilated, so I can’t read any text that isn’t comically large. I don’t know how to use a screen reader. I’ll be fine in a few hours, but this has been a fascinating journey into how well third-party iOS apps respect text size accessibility settings!

(Thread)

— Em Lazer-Walker (@lazerwalker) January 29, 2020

Accessible Experiences Aren’t Necessarily Equivalent Ones

This might be a little difficult of a concept to grasp at first. Let’s use this Rube Goldberg machine made by Joseph Herscher to pass the pepper to his dinner guest to compare:

[embedded content]

To pass the pepper, the machine, sends it through an elaborate system of weights, counterweights, ramps, rolling objects, catapults, guillotines, burners, timers, carousels, etc. — all constructed from commonly found kitchen items. While this setup will technically ensure the pepper is passed, it is an annoying, overwrought, time-intensive process.

Many digital experiences are a lot like a Rube Goldberg machine when it comes to accessibility. Since accessibility issues are so prevalent, many forms of assistive technology provide a large suite of features to allow their user to work around common obstacles.

Unfortunately, discovering obstacles, and then figuring out and activating the appropriate combination of features to overcome them can take a disproportionate amount of time and effort.

To say it another way: A simple click on a button for an abled person may take far more time and effort for a disabled person, depending on how the button has been made.

Chilling Effects

Frustratingly, the extra time and effort a disabled person has to put into operating a technically accessible experience may feed back into their disability condition(s). For example, the presence of a motor control disability such as arthritis may make the overall experience even more taxing.

Cognitive accessibility concerns are also another important thing to consider. What may seem easy to understand or intuitive to use for one person may not be for another. This is especially prevalent in situations where there is:

Cognitive accessibility isn’t an abstract concern, either. Poor user interface design that ignores the circumstances of the end user and dumps too much cognitive load onto them can have very real, very serious consequences.

The military is full of examples of poor interfaces being forced on people who don’t have a choice in the matter. It’s also one of the origins of Inclusive Design thinking. (Large preview)

Compounding Effects

These factors are not mutually exclusive. Proponents of Spoon Theory know that inaccessible experiences conspire to sap a person’s mental and physical energy, leaving them exhausted and demotivated. Worse, these sorts of scenarios are often more than just a person perpetually operating at a diminished capacity.

Frustrating digital experiences can lead to a person abandoning them outright, internalizing the system’s fault as their own personal failure. This abandonment may also translate to a person’s willingness and ability to operate other digital interfaces. In other words: the more we turn people away, the more they’ll stop trying to show up.

“Nobody has complained before” is a silly excuse for not caring about accessibility. You’re right, they didn’t complain. They left.

— Vote blue, no matter who. (@karlgroves) December 8, 2018

Don’t Take My Word For It

To make the abstract immediate, I reached out on Twitter to ask people about their experiences using assistive technology to browse the web.

I also took a purposely loose definition of assistive technology. All-too-often we assume the term “accessible” only means “works in a screen reader.” The truth of the matter is that assistive technology is so much more than that.

The way the web is built — its foundational principles and behaviors — make it extraordinarily adaptable. It’s us, the people who build on and for the web, who break that. By failing to consider these devices and methods of interacting with web content, we implicitly drift further away from equivalency.

Consistency

For some, assistive technology can mean specialized browser extensions. These micro-apps are used to enhance, augment, and customize a browsing experience to better suit someone’s needs.

Damien Senger, digital designer, uses a browser extension called Midnight Lizard to enforce a similar experience across multiple websites. This helps them “to focus on the content directly and to limit having too big differences between websites. It is also helping me to avoid too harsh color contrasts that are really uncomfortable.“

Damien also writes, “Often websites are really difficult to read for me because either of the lack of consistency in the layout, too narrow lines or just not enough balance between font size and line height. Related to that, color can create a lot of unhelpful distraction and I am struggling when too harsh contrast is nearby text.”

How To Maintain Equivalency

In addition, Damien also augments their browsing experience by using ad blocking technology “not only for ads but to block animations or content that are too distracting for my ADHD.”

It’s not too difficult to imagine why distracting and annoying your users is a bad idea. In the case of ads, the industry is unregulated, meaning that rules to prohibit ADHD, migraine, and/or seizure-triggering animations aren’t honored. Through this lens, an ad blocker is a form of consumer self-defense.

I’ll say it again: Telling users their access isn’t as important as your bottom line is a BAD take. Ads are fine as long as they don’t create a barrier by moving! #ADHD #A11y #PSH #WCAG https://t.co/i6mifI0JRE

— Shell Little (@ShellELittle) February 27, 2020

Kenny Hitt also chimes in about ads: “…regardless of the platform, the thing that annoys me most are websites with ads that essentially cause the site to constantly auto update. This prevents me as a screen reader user from reading the content of those websites.”

Again, a lack of regulation means the user must take measures into their own hands to keep the experience equivalent.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Opportunity

A lack of an equivalent experience translates directly to lost opportunity. Many individuals I spoke with mentioned that they’d abandon a digital experience that was inaccessible more often than not.

Brian Moore mentions, “there are web sites where I like their products a lot but won’t buy them because the site itself is such a struggle, and attempts to reach out have met with either silence or resistance to taking any action.”

Brian cites the Fluance website as the most recent example. The bugs present in its shopping user flows prevents him from buying high-end consumer audio equipment.

Fluance’s entire web presence exists to sell products. While updating a website or web app to be accessible can be an effort-intensive process, it would definitely be in Fluance’s best interest to make sure its checkout user flow is as robust as it could be.

Those lost sales add up. (Large preview)

Opportunity isn’t limited to just e-commerce, either. As more and more services digitize, we paradoxically push more people out of being to live in the society that relies on these digitized services—people with protected rights. Again, this shift away from an equivalent experience is the culprit.

Justin Yarbrough was “applying for an accessibility-related job with the Arizona Department of Economic Security over the summer, where they wanted me to take an assessment. The button to start the assessment was a clickable div. They wound up waving the assessment requirement for the position.”

Jim Kiely tells me about his brother, who “has stopped paying his water bill online because the city water website [doesn’t] work well with a screen reader and high contrast.”

Personally, I have friends who have been prevented from submitting résumés to multiple sites because their job application portals were inaccessible.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Adaptability

Soren Hamby, product marketing agency manager and design advocate, writes of their experiences using screen magnification software and screen reading capabilities. Soren has “varying levels of vision so [they] tend to not always need the same level of accommodation.”

Of note, Soren mentions their struggles with grocery delivery apps, specifically “the carts often only read the quantities rather than the item name. It’s much easier to order with a sighted person.”

There are three things to consider here:

First is the surface-level acknowledgment that the app operates differently for different people, the main point this article is driving at.

Second is the fact that Soren uses multiple forms of assistive technology, with the mix a shifting combination depending on a combination of their task at hand and how well the digital interface meets their access needs.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Make sure that the labels for your interactive controls are relevant and concise.

Incorporate disability scenarios and conditions into your design personas.

Avoid using absolute length units. (No, seriously.)

Avoid setting maximum widths and heights.

Avoid using fixed and sticky-scrolling components, especially larger-sized ones.

Test your layouts by zooming and/or increasing your default type size to make sure that content does not get obscured.

This brings us to our third and most important point:

Autonomy

Having to rely on the help of a sighted person to order groceries is not ideal. For many, the acquiring, preparation, and consuming of food can be highly personal acts. Being forced to incorporate outside assistance into this process is far different than willingly inviting someone in to share an experience. The same notion applies to every other digital product, as well.

Kenny also mentions grocery apps: “…my local Kroger grocery store has started an app redesign in June 2019 that is breaking accessibility with their app.” In discussing this regression, he goes on to elaborate, “Because I can’t financially change to another business, I won’t let it drop. Kroger is going to discover that I don’t stop with a problem. Persistence in solving problems is a requirement for any disabled person if you want to succeed in the world.”

This app looks great, provided you can see it. (Large preview)

Equality

Kroger would be wise to listen to Kenny’s feedback. The grocery company Winn-Dixie was recently successfully sued for not being operable with a screen reader. The lawsuit argued that the grocer’s website was heavily integrated with their physical stores, and therefore violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Another recent case involves the Domino’s Pizza franchise. Taken all the way to the Supreme Court, the ruling clearly and unambiguously states that preventing someone from using a website or app, simply because they used screen reading software, is unconstitutional.

For both cases, the cost to implement fixes were far cheaper than going to court—something to think about the next time you’re deciding where to order pizza.

Despite some ugly misconceptions about the ruling, the evidence is clear: in the United States, there is now legal precedent for private companies to be sued for violating civil rights via an inaccessible digital experience. Europe and some parts of Asia have similar laws, as well.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Reactivity

Another way to maintain an equivalent experience — one that is often not thought about — is to give reports about accessibility issues the same weight and concern as other software bugs.

Reported accessibility issues are oftentimes downplayed and ignored, or are sent to someone ignorant of the issue and/or powerless to fix it.

Kenny, who started using a computer with a screen reader in 1984 says, “When I run into accessibility issues nowadays, I’ll try reporting it, when I get the usual response from the feedback of the person not caring, I just give up and walk away. If [the response] comes from somebody in marketing agency who doesn’t understand accessibility, I just give up and go away. There’s no point in trying to teach these people about accessibility.”

Kenny’s view is shared by many others in the disability community. Remember what I said about compounding effects earlier.

Brian reports that,

“If I find significant issues with a site, I do report it. Depending on who I talk to it ranges from ‘here’s what doesn’t work’ to all kinds of technical detail about why if I can get to the right people.”

Getting it to the right people is key. Another part of equivalent experience is handling feedback in a timely and constructive way, much as how you would with any other issue with your product or service.

Responding to an accessibility issue is easy:

Thank the person for taking the time and effort to report the issue.

Acknowledge the issue and identify what person or team will be handling it.

Ask clarifying questions as needed.

Offer potential workarounds, with the understanding that they’re only temporary until the underlying issue is addressed.

Offer to involve them in the process, including notifying them when the issue has been fixed.

Being open, honest, and transparent about your bug fixing process goes a long way to establishing trust in a population that has historically and routinely been overlooked.

Also know that assigning someone to mind an email address to conduct tasks on behalf of an assistive technology user is not an appropriate, effective, or sustainable solution. Remember the concerns surrounding autonomy discussed earlier.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Create an accessibility statement, including known issues, a tentative timeline for their fixes, and easy to discover contact information.

Ensure that anyone customer-facing (quality assurance, customer support, marketing agency, etc.) are trained on protocol for accessibility-related issue reporting.

Quantify accessibility-related issues, both internal and reported.

Be on the lookout for patterns and trends with discovered accessibility issues, as they represent learning opportunities.

Understand that not all platforms to collect feedback are created equal.

Motivation

We’ve covered actual people’s everyday frustrations, as well as civil rights and the current legal landscape. If these don’t motivate you, allow me to present another factor to consider: profit.

There are two provoking studies I’d like to call attention to, but they are by no means the only studies performed in this space.

(Large preview)

First is the Click Away Pound Survey, a survey conducted in both 2016 and 2019 to “explore the online shopping experience of people with disabilities and examine the cost to business of ignoring disabled shoppers.”

The survey discovered that more than 4 million people abandoned a retail website because of the access barriers they found. These people represent 17.1 billion pounds (~$21.1 billion USD) in lost potential revenue.

Second is the The Purchasing Power of Working-Age Adults With Disabilities (PDF), conducted in 2018 by the American Institutes for Research. This study discovered that there is an estimated $490 billion in disposable income amongst disabled working-age adults. That’s billion with a capital B.

There are two of the (many) takeaways from these studies I’d like to highlight:

First is that from a historical perspective, the web is still very much new. On top of that, its ubiquity is even more recent, meaning that use by the general population is a small sliver of the amount of time it’s been around.

Second is that the general population contains many people who are disabled, and that their needs are not being met. These unmet needs represent billions of dollars of potential revenue.

This is a gigantic market that we, as an industry, are only now becoming aware of. Rather than approaching accessibility with a mindset of risk aversion, why not use this learning as a great way to view your current and future business opportunities?

Complying with the ADA is by definition the legally required minimum for accessibility. It doesn’t account for a good user experience, usability, and innovation. Unless you strive for the minimum all the time, compliance is not enough.https://t.co/qOYw6ji23u

— mikey is at home (@mikeyil) March 5, 2020

Let’s Not Stop Here

Too often we think of accessibility as a problem to be solved, rather than a way of looking at the world. Equivalent experiences necessitate that we question our assumptions and biases and think about experiences outside of our own. It can be an uncomfortable thing to think about at first, but it’s all in the service of making things usable for all.

As web professionals, it is our job, and our privilege to ensure that the experiences we deliver are equivalent. In the second part, we’ll investigate how to do just that.

Further Reading

“WCAG Primer,” Tetra Logical

“The Web Accessibility Basics,” Marco Zehe’s Accessibility Blog

“Web Accessibility Checklist: 15 Things To Improve Your Website Accessibility,” WebsiteSetup.org

“The Importance Of Manual Accessibility Testing: Call The Professionals,” Eric Bailey, Smashing Magazine

“Taking Accessibility Beyond Compliance,” Dennis Deacon, 24 Accessibility

“Videos Of People With Disabilities Using Tech,” Hampus Sethfors, Axess Lab

“Web Accessibility Perspectives: Explore The Impact And Benefits For Everyone,” Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), W3C

Thank you to Brian Moore, Damien Senger, Jim Kiely, Justin Yarbrough, Kenny Hitt, and Soren Hamby for sharing their insights and experiences.

(ra, il)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/equivalent-experiences-what-are-they/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/05/equivalent-experiences-what-are-they.html

[riichardwilson]

Equivalent Experiences: What Are They?

About The Author

Eric is a Boston-based designer who helps create straightforward solutions that address a person’s practical, physical, cognitive, and emotional needs. More about Eric Bailey …

An equivalent experience is one that has been deliberately conceived of and built to be able to be used by the widest possible range of people. To create an equivalent experience, you must understand all the different ways people interact with technology, as well as common barriers they experience.

If you spend enough time interacting with digital accessibility practitioners, you may encounter the phrase “equivalent experience.” This saying concisely sums up a lot of the philosophy behind accessibility work.

Our industry tends to place a lot of focus on how, often at the expense of why. For accessibility-related concerns, it is vital to learn about the history, and lived experiences of disabled people as a context for understanding the need for design and code created with access in mind.

This is the first of two articles on the topic of equivalency, and how it relates to digital accessibility. It will help us define what an equivalent experience is. Once we have a common understanding established, I’ll then discuss how to go about implementing equivalent experiences for common accessibility-related issues.

The State Of Things

The truth of the matter is that even though we live in a multi-device world full of smartphones, augmented reality, voice assistants, and IoT smart sensors, our default is still predominately:

Visual,

large screen,

fast connection,

powerful computer and display,

male,

white,

wealthy,

young,

Western,

technologically-literate,

and abled.

This is reflective of the biases that are inherent in how we design, develop and grow products.

The previous list may not be the most comfortable thing to read. If you haven’t closed the browser tab already, take a moment to consider your daily workflows, as well as who your coworkers are, and you’ll begin to understand what I’m getting at.

At its core, delivering an equivalent experience is ultimately about preserving intent — with the intent being the motivating force behind creating a website or web app and all the content and features it contains.

This translates to making the meaning behind every interaction, every component, every photo or illustration, every line of code being understandable by the widest range of people, regardless of their device or ability.

Prior Art

I’m not the first person to discuss this topic (and hopefully not the last). Speaker, trainer, and consultant Nicolas Steenhout is one such advocate. His great post, Accessibility is about people, not standards, is well worth reading.

If you’re the kind of person who is into podcasts, his A11y Rules has a wonderful series called Soundbites. It features “short discussions with people with disabilities about the barriers they encounter on the web.” These insightful interviews also touch on what this article discusses.

What Isn’t An Equivalent Experience?

Showing examples of what something is not can be a way to help define it. For equivalent experiences, an example would be a web app geared towards use by the general public not having a mobile breakpoint.

It’s not difficult to imagine a situation where I’d want to adjust my work benefits while on the go. (Large preview)

With this example, everyone using a device with a small display is forced to pinch, pan, and zoom to get what they need. Here, the burden is placed on anyone whose only crime was using a smartphone.

Most likely, whoever conceived of, designed, and developed this didn’t stop to think about circumstances other than their own. In this sort of (unfortunately still all too common) scenario, I all but guarantee that the web app looks great on the laptops or desktops of the designers and developers who made it.

A designer saying, “it has enough contrast for me and my ‘old’ eyes” is the same as when a dev says, “works on my machine.”

The thing is though, we don’t design or develop for ourselves.

So, are we really ok with saying, “you don’t matter” to folks who are not like us? #a11y

— Heather (@_hmig) December 19, 2019

People using a smartphone to access this website are victims of circumstance. The extra effort someone needs to do to get it to work indirectly communicates that they weren’t a priority, and therefore not valued. If you’ve used the web for any significant portion of time, I’m willing to bet this, or a similar experience has happened to you.

This example is also a hop, skip, and a jump away from another common, yet serious accessibility issue we often don’t consider: screen zooming:

Screen Zooming

Screen zooming is when someone is prevented from being able to zoom their displays and make text larger—many native mobile apps are guilty of this. When you disallow this sort of behavior, you’re telling prospective users that unless they have vision similar to you, you aren’t interested in them being able to use your app.

For this scenario, a gentle reminder that we will all get older, and with aging comes a whole host of vision-related concerns. A question you should be asking yourself is if your future self will be capable of using the things your present self is making. A follow-up question is if you’re also asking the people you’re managing this.

I just had my eyes dilated, so I can’t read any text that isn’t comically large. I don’t know how to use a screen reader. I’ll be fine in a few hours, but this has been a fascinating journey into how well third-party iOS apps respect text size accessibility settings!

(Thread)

— Em Lazer-Walker (@lazerwalker) January 29, 2020

Accessible Experiences Aren’t Necessarily Equivalent Ones

This might be a little difficult of a concept to grasp at first. Let’s use this Rube Goldberg machine made by Joseph Herscher to pass the pepper to his dinner guest to compare:

[embedded content]

To pass the pepper, the machine, sends it through an elaborate system of weights, counterweights, ramps, rolling objects, catapults, guillotines, burners, timers, carousels, etc. — all constructed from commonly found kitchen items. While this setup will technically ensure the pepper is passed, it is an annoying, overwrought, time-intensive process.

Many digital experiences are a lot like a Rube Goldberg machine when it comes to accessibility. Since accessibility issues are so prevalent, many forms of assistive technology provide a large suite of features to allow their user to work around common obstacles.

Unfortunately, discovering obstacles, and then figuring out and activating the appropriate combination of features to overcome them can take a disproportionate amount of time and effort.

To say it another way: A simple click on a button for an abled person may take far more time and effort for a disabled person, depending on how the button has been made.

Chilling Effects

Frustratingly, the extra time and effort a disabled person has to put into operating a technically accessible experience may feed back into their disability condition(s). For example, the presence of a motor control disability such as arthritis may make the overall experience even more taxing.

Cognitive accessibility concerns are also another important thing to consider. What may seem easy to understand or intuitive to use for one person may not be for another. This is especially prevalent in situations where there is:

Cognitive accessibility isn’t an abstract concern, either. Poor user interface design that ignores the circumstances of the end user and dumps too much cognitive load onto them can have very real, very serious consequences.

The military is full of examples of poor interfaces being forced on people who don’t have a choice in the matter. It’s also one of the origins of Inclusive Design thinking. (Large preview)

Compounding Effects

These factors are not mutually exclusive. Proponents of Spoon Theory know that inaccessible experiences conspire to sap a person’s mental and physical energy, leaving them exhausted and demotivated. Worse, these sorts of scenarios are often more than just a person perpetually operating at a diminished capacity.

Frustrating digital experiences can lead to a person abandoning them outright, internalizing the system’s fault as their own personal failure. This abandonment may also translate to a person’s willingness and ability to operate other digital interfaces. In other words: the more we turn people away, the more they’ll stop trying to show up.

“Nobody has complained before” is a silly excuse for not caring about accessibility. You’re right, they didn’t complain. They left.

— Vote blue, no matter who. (@karlgroves) December 8, 2018

Don’t Take My Word For It

To make the abstract immediate, I reached out on Twitter to ask people about their experiences using assistive technology to browse the web.

I also took a purposely loose definition of assistive technology. All-too-often we assume the term “accessible” only means “works in a screen reader.” The truth of the matter is that assistive technology is so much more than that.

The way the web is built — its foundational principles and behaviors — make it extraordinarily adaptable. It’s us, the people who build on and for the web, who break that. By failing to consider these devices and methods of interacting with web content, we implicitly drift further away from equivalency.

Consistency

For some, assistive technology can mean specialized browser extensions. These micro-apps are used to enhance, augment, and customize a browsing experience to better suit someone’s needs.

Damien Senger, digital designer, uses a browser extension called Midnight Lizard to enforce a similar experience across multiple websites. This helps them “to focus on the content directly and to limit having too big differences between websites. It is also helping me to avoid too harsh color contrasts that are really uncomfortable.“

Damien also writes, “Often websites are really difficult to read for me because either of the lack of consistency in the layout, too narrow lines or just not enough balance between font size and line height. Related to that, color can create a lot of unhelpful distraction and I am struggling when too harsh contrast is nearby text.”

How To Maintain Equivalency

In addition, Damien also augments their browsing experience by using ad blocking technology “not only for ads but to block animations or content that are too distracting for my ADHD.”

It’s not too difficult to imagine why distracting and annoying your users is a bad idea. In the case of ads, the industry is unregulated, meaning that rules to prohibit ADHD, migraine, and/or seizure-triggering animations aren’t honored. Through this lens, an ad blocker is a form of consumer self-defense.

I’ll say it again: Telling users their access isn’t as important as your bottom line is a BAD take. Ads are fine as long as they don’t create a barrier by moving! #ADHD #A11y #PSH #WCAG https://t.co/i6mifI0JRE

— Shell Little (@ShellELittle) February 27, 2020

Kenny Hitt also chimes in about ads: “…regardless of the platform, the thing that annoys me most are websites with ads that essentially cause the site to constantly auto update. This prevents me as a screen reader user from reading the content of those websites.”

Again, a lack of regulation means the user must take measures into their own hands to keep the experience equivalent.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Opportunity

A lack of an equivalent experience translates directly to lost opportunity. Many individuals I spoke with mentioned that they’d abandon a digital experience that was inaccessible more often than not.

Brian Moore mentions, “there are web sites where I like their products a lot but won’t buy them because the site itself is such a struggle, and attempts to reach out have met with either silence or resistance to taking any action.”

Brian cites the Fluance website as the most recent example. The bugs present in its shopping user flows prevents him from buying high-end consumer audio equipment.

Fluance’s entire web presence exists to sell products. While updating a website or web app to be accessible can be an effort-intensive process, it would definitely be in Fluance’s best interest to make sure its checkout user flow is as robust as it could be.

Those lost sales add up. (Large preview)

Opportunity isn’t limited to just e-commerce, either. As more and more services digitize, we paradoxically push more people out of being to live in the society that relies on these digitized services—people with protected rights. Again, this shift away from an equivalent experience is the culprit.

Justin Yarbrough was “applying for an accessibility-related job with the Arizona Department of Economic Security over the summer, where they wanted me to take an assessment. The button to start the assessment was a clickable div. They wound up waving the assessment requirement for the position.”

Jim Kiely tells me about his brother, who “has stopped paying his water bill online because the city water website [doesn’t] work well with a screen reader and high contrast.”

Personally, I have friends who have been prevented from submitting résumés to multiple sites because their job application portals were inaccessible.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Adaptability

Soren Hamby, product marketing agency manager and design advocate, writes of their experiences using screen magnification software and screen reading capabilities. Soren has “varying levels of vision so [they] tend to not always need the same level of accommodation.”

Of note, Soren mentions their struggles with grocery delivery apps, specifically “the carts often only read the quantities rather than the item name. It’s much easier to order with a sighted person.”

There are three things to consider here:

First is the surface-level acknowledgment that the app operates differently for different people, the main point this article is driving at.

Second is the fact that Soren uses multiple forms of assistive technology, with the mix a shifting combination depending on a combination of their task at hand and how well the digital interface meets their access needs.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Make sure that the labels for your interactive controls are relevant and concise.

Incorporate disability scenarios and conditions into your design personas.

Avoid using absolute length units. (No, seriously.)

Avoid setting maximum widths and heights.

Avoid using fixed and sticky-scrolling components, especially larger-sized ones.

Test your layouts by zooming and/or increasing your default type size to make sure that content does not get obscured.

This brings us to our third and most important point:

Autonomy

Having to rely on the help of a sighted person to order groceries is not ideal. For many, the acquiring, preparation, and consuming of food can be highly personal acts. Being forced to incorporate outside assistance into this process is far different than willingly inviting someone in to share an experience. The same notion applies to every other digital product, as well.

Kenny also mentions grocery apps: “…my local Kroger grocery store has started an app redesign in June 2019 that is breaking accessibility with their app.” In discussing this regression, he goes on to elaborate, “Because I can’t financially change to another business, I won’t let it drop. Kroger is going to discover that I don’t stop with a problem. Persistence in solving problems is a requirement for any disabled person if you want to succeed in the world.”

This app looks great, provided you can see it. (Large preview)

Equality

Kroger would be wise to listen to Kenny’s feedback. The grocery company Winn-Dixie was recently successfully sued for not being operable with a screen reader. The lawsuit argued that the grocer’s website was heavily integrated with their physical stores, and therefore violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Another recent case involves the Domino’s Pizza franchise. Taken all the way to the Supreme Court, the ruling clearly and unambiguously states that preventing someone from using a website or app, simply because they used screen reading software, is unconstitutional.

For both cases, the cost to implement fixes were far cheaper than going to court—something to think about the next time you’re deciding where to order pizza.

Despite some ugly misconceptions about the ruling, the evidence is clear: in the United States, there is now legal precedent for private companies to be sued for violating civil rights via an inaccessible digital experience. Europe and some parts of Asia have similar laws, as well.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Reactivity

Another way to maintain an equivalent experience — one that is often not thought about — is to give reports about accessibility issues the same weight and concern as other software bugs.

Reported accessibility issues are oftentimes downplayed and ignored, or are sent to someone ignorant of the issue and/or powerless to fix it.

Kenny, who started using a computer with a screen reader in 1984 says, “When I run into accessibility issues nowadays, I’ll try reporting it, when I get the usual response from the feedback of the person not caring, I just give up and walk away. If [the response] comes from somebody in marketing agency who doesn’t understand accessibility, I just give up and go away. There’s no point in trying to teach these people about accessibility.”

Kenny’s view is shared by many others in the disability community. Remember what I said about compounding effects earlier.

Brian reports that,

“If I find significant issues with a site, I do report it. Depending on who I talk to it ranges from ‘here’s what doesn’t work’ to all kinds of technical detail about why if I can get to the right people.”

Getting it to the right people is key. Another part of equivalent experience is handling feedback in a timely and constructive way, much as how you would with any other issue with your product or service.

Responding to an accessibility issue is easy:

Thank the person for taking the time and effort to report the issue.

Acknowledge the issue and identify what person or team will be handling it.

Ask clarifying questions as needed.

Offer potential workarounds, with the understanding that they’re only temporary until the underlying issue is addressed.

Offer to involve them in the process, including notifying them when the issue has been fixed.

Being open, honest, and transparent about your bug fixing process goes a long way to establishing trust in a population that has historically and routinely been overlooked.

Also know that assigning someone to mind an email address to conduct tasks on behalf of an assistive technology user is not an appropriate, effective, or sustainable solution. Remember the concerns surrounding autonomy discussed earlier.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Create an accessibility statement, including known issues, a tentative timeline for their fixes, and easy to discover contact information.

Ensure that anyone customer-facing (quality assurance, customer support, marketing agency, etc.) are trained on protocol for accessibility-related issue reporting.

Quantify accessibility-related issues, both internal and reported.

Be on the lookout for patterns and trends with discovered accessibility issues, as they represent learning opportunities.

Understand that not all platforms to collect feedback are created equal.

Motivation

We’ve covered actual people’s everyday frustrations, as well as civil rights and the current legal landscape. If these don’t motivate you, allow me to present another factor to consider: profit.

There are two provoking studies I’d like to call attention to, but they are by no means the only studies performed in this space.

(Large preview)

First is the Click Away Pound Survey, a survey conducted in both 2016 and 2019 to “explore the online shopping experience of people with disabilities and examine the cost to business of ignoring disabled shoppers.”

The survey discovered that more than 4 million people abandoned a retail website because of the access barriers they found. These people represent 17.1 billion pounds (~$21.1 billion USD) in lost potential revenue.

Second is the The Purchasing Power of Working-Age Adults With Disabilities (PDF), conducted in 2018 by the American Institutes for Research. This study discovered that there is an estimated $490 billion in disposable income amongst disabled working-age adults. That’s billion with a capital B.

There are two of the (many) takeaways from these studies I’d like to highlight:

First is that from a historical perspective, the web is still very much new. On top of that, its ubiquity is even more recent, meaning that use by the general population is a small sliver of the amount of time it’s been around.

Second is that the general population contains many people who are disabled, and that their needs are not being met. These unmet needs represent billions of dollars of potential revenue.

This is a gigantic market that we, as an industry, are only now becoming aware of. Rather than approaching accessibility with a mindset of risk aversion, why not use this learning as a great way to view your current and future business opportunities?

Complying with the ADA is by definition the legally required minimum for accessibility. It doesn’t account for a good user experience, usability, and innovation. Unless you strive for the minimum all the time, compliance is not enough.https://t.co/qOYw6ji23u

— mikey is at home (@mikeyil) March 5, 2020

Let’s Not Stop Here

Too often we think of accessibility as a problem to be solved, rather than a way of looking at the world. Equivalent experiences necessitate that we question our assumptions and biases and think about experiences outside of our own. It can be an uncomfortable thing to think about at first, but it’s all in the service of making things usable for all.

As web professionals, it is our job, and our privilege to ensure that the experiences we deliver are equivalent. In the second part, we’ll investigate how to do just that.

Further Reading

“WCAG Primer,” Tetra Logical

“The Web Accessibility Basics,” Marco Zehe’s Accessibility Blog

“Web Accessibility Checklist: 15 Things To Improve Your Website Accessibility,” WebsiteSetup.org

“The Importance Of Manual Accessibility Testing: Call The Professionals,” Eric Bailey, Smashing Magazine

“Taking Accessibility Beyond Compliance,” Dennis Deacon, 24 Accessibility

“Videos Of People With Disabilities Using Tech,” Hampus Sethfors, Axess Lab

“Web Accessibility Perspectives: Explore The Impact And Benefits For Everyone,” Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), W3C

Thank you to Brian Moore, Damien Senger, Jim Kiely, Justin Yarbrough, Kenny Hitt, and Soren Hamby for sharing their insights and experiences.

(ra, il)

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

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source http://www.scpie.org/equivalent-experiences-what-are-they/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/619383176177090560

[scpie]

Equivalent Experiences: What Are They?

About The Author

Eric is a Boston-based designer who helps create straightforward solutions that address a person’s practical, physical, cognitive, and emotional needs. More about Eric Bailey …

An equivalent experience is one that has been deliberately conceived of and built to be able to be used by the widest possible range of people. To create an equivalent experience, you must understand all the different ways people interact with technology, as well as common barriers they experience.

If you spend enough time interacting with digital accessibility practitioners, you may encounter the phrase “equivalent experience.” This saying concisely sums up a lot of the philosophy behind accessibility work.

Our industry tends to place a lot of focus on how, often at the expense of why. For accessibility-related concerns, it is vital to learn about the history, and lived experiences of disabled people as a context for understanding the need for design and code created with access in mind.

This is the first of two articles on the topic of equivalency, and how it relates to digital accessibility. It will help us define what an equivalent experience is. Once we have a common understanding established, I’ll then discuss how to go about implementing equivalent experiences for common accessibility-related issues.

The State Of Things

The truth of the matter is that even though we live in a multi-device world full of smartphones, augmented reality, voice assistants, and IoT smart sensors, our default is still predominately:

Visual,

large screen,

fast connection,

powerful computer and display,

male,

white,

wealthy,

young,

Western,

technologically-literate,

and abled.

This is reflective of the biases that are inherent in how we design, develop and grow products.

The previous list may not be the most comfortable thing to read. If you haven’t closed the browser tab already, take a moment to consider your daily workflows, as well as who your coworkers are, and you’ll begin to understand what I’m getting at.

At its core, delivering an equivalent experience is ultimately about preserving intent — with the intent being the motivating force behind creating a website or web app and all the content and features it contains.

This translates to making the meaning behind every interaction, every component, every photo or illustration, every line of code being understandable by the widest range of people, regardless of their device or ability.

Prior Art

I’m not the first person to discuss this topic (and hopefully not the last). Speaker, trainer, and consultant Nicolas Steenhout is one such advocate. His great post, Accessibility is about people, not standards, is well worth reading.

If you’re the kind of person who is into podcasts, his A11y Rules has a wonderful series called Soundbites. It features “short discussions with people with disabilities about the barriers they encounter on the web.” These insightful interviews also touch on what this article discusses.

What Isn’t An Equivalent Experience?

Showing examples of what something is not can be a way to help define it. For equivalent experiences, an example would be a web app geared towards use by the general public not having a mobile breakpoint.

It’s not difficult to imagine a situation where I’d want to adjust my work benefits while on the go. (Large preview)

With this example, everyone using a device with a small display is forced to pinch, pan, and zoom to get what they need. Here, the burden is placed on anyone whose only crime was using a smartphone.

Most likely, whoever conceived of, designed, and developed this didn’t stop to think about circumstances other than their own. In this sort of (unfortunately still all too common) scenario, I all but guarantee that the web app looks great on the laptops or desktops of the designers and developers who made it.

A designer saying, “it has enough contrast for me and my ‘old’ eyes” is the same as when a dev says, “works on my machine.”

The thing is though, we don’t design or develop for ourselves.

So, are we really ok with saying, “you don’t matter” to folks who are not like us? #a11y

— Heather (@_hmig) December 19, 2019

People using a smartphone to access this website are victims of circumstance. The extra effort someone needs to do to get it to work indirectly communicates that they weren’t a priority, and therefore not valued. If you’ve used the web for any significant portion of time, I’m willing to bet this, or a similar experience has happened to you.

This example is also a hop, skip, and a jump away from another common, yet serious accessibility issue we often don’t consider: screen zooming:

Screen Zooming

Screen zooming is when someone is prevented from being able to zoom their displays and make text larger—many native mobile apps are guilty of this. When you disallow this sort of behavior, you’re telling prospective users that unless they have vision similar to you, you aren’t interested in them being able to use your app.

For this scenario, a gentle reminder that we will all get older, and with aging comes a whole host of vision-related concerns. A question you should be asking yourself is if your future self will be capable of using the things your present self is making. A follow-up question is if you’re also asking the people you’re managing this.

I just had my eyes dilated, so I can’t read any text that isn’t comically large. I don’t know how to use a screen reader. I’ll be fine in a few hours, but this has been a fascinating journey into how well third-party iOS apps respect text size accessibility settings!

(Thread)

— Em Lazer-Walker (@lazerwalker) January 29, 2020

Accessible Experiences Aren’t Necessarily Equivalent Ones

This might be a little difficult of a concept to grasp at first. Let’s use this Rube Goldberg machine made by Joseph Herscher to pass the pepper to his dinner guest to compare:

[embedded content]

To pass the pepper, the machine, sends it through an elaborate system of weights, counterweights, ramps, rolling objects, catapults, guillotines, burners, timers, carousels, etc. — all constructed from commonly found kitchen items. While this setup will technically ensure the pepper is passed, it is an annoying, overwrought, time-intensive process.

Many digital experiences are a lot like a Rube Goldberg machine when it comes to accessibility. Since accessibility issues are so prevalent, many forms of assistive technology provide a large suite of features to allow their user to work around common obstacles.

Unfortunately, discovering obstacles, and then figuring out and activating the appropriate combination of features to overcome them can take a disproportionate amount of time and effort.

To say it another way: A simple click on a button for an abled person may take far more time and effort for a disabled person, depending on how the button has been made.

Chilling Effects

Frustratingly, the extra time and effort a disabled person has to put into operating a technically accessible experience may feed back into their disability condition(s). For example, the presence of a motor control disability such as arthritis may make the overall experience even more taxing.

Cognitive accessibility concerns are also another important thing to consider. What may seem easy to understand or intuitive to use for one person may not be for another. This is especially prevalent in situations where there is:

Cognitive accessibility isn’t an abstract concern, either. Poor user interface design that ignores the circumstances of the end user and dumps too much cognitive load onto them can have very real, very serious consequences.

The military is full of examples of poor interfaces being forced on people who don’t have a choice in the matter. It’s also one of the origins of Inclusive Design thinking. (Large preview)

Compounding Effects

These factors are not mutually exclusive. Proponents of Spoon Theory know that inaccessible experiences conspire to sap a person’s mental and physical energy, leaving them exhausted and demotivated. Worse, these sorts of scenarios are often more than just a person perpetually operating at a diminished capacity.

Frustrating digital experiences can lead to a person abandoning them outright, internalizing the system’s fault as their own personal failure. This abandonment may also translate to a person’s willingness and ability to operate other digital interfaces. In other words: the more we turn people away, the more they’ll stop trying to show up.

“Nobody has complained before” is a silly excuse for not caring about accessibility. You’re right, they didn’t complain. They left.

— Vote blue, no matter who. (@karlgroves) December 8, 2018

Don’t Take My Word For It

To make the abstract immediate, I reached out on Twitter to ask people about their experiences using assistive technology to browse the web.

I also took a purposely loose definition of assistive technology. All-too-often we assume the term “accessible” only means “works in a screen reader.” The truth of the matter is that assistive technology is so much more than that.

The way the web is built — its foundational principles and behaviors — make it extraordinarily adaptable. It’s us, the people who build on and for the web, who break that. By failing to consider these devices and methods of interacting with web content, we implicitly drift further away from equivalency.

Consistency

For some, assistive technology can mean specialized browser extensions. These micro-apps are used to enhance, augment, and customize a browsing experience to better suit someone’s needs.

Damien Senger, digital designer, uses a browser extension called Midnight Lizard to enforce a similar experience across multiple websites. This helps them “to focus on the content directly and to limit having too big differences between websites. It is also helping me to avoid too harsh color contrasts that are really uncomfortable.“

Damien also writes, “Often websites are really difficult to read for me because either of the lack of consistency in the layout, too narrow lines or just not enough balance between font size and line height. Related to that, color can create a lot of unhelpful distraction and I am struggling when too harsh contrast is nearby text.”

How To Maintain Equivalency

In addition, Damien also augments their browsing experience by using ad blocking technology “not only for ads but to block animations or content that are too distracting for my ADHD.”

It’s not too difficult to imagine why distracting and annoying your users is a bad idea. In the case of ads, the industry is unregulated, meaning that rules to prohibit ADHD, migraine, and/or seizure-triggering animations aren’t honored. Through this lens, an ad blocker is a form of consumer self-defense.

I’ll say it again: Telling users their access isn’t as important as your bottom line is a BAD take. Ads are fine as long as they don’t create a barrier by moving! #ADHD #A11y #PSH #WCAG https://t.co/i6mifI0JRE

— Shell Little (@ShellELittle) February 27, 2020

Kenny Hitt also chimes in about ads: “…regardless of the platform, the thing that annoys me most are websites with ads that essentially cause the site to constantly auto update. This prevents me as a screen reader user from reading the content of those websites.”

Again, a lack of regulation means the user must take measures into their own hands to keep the experience equivalent.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Opportunity

A lack of an equivalent experience translates directly to lost opportunity. Many individuals I spoke with mentioned that they’d abandon a digital experience that was inaccessible more often than not.

Brian Moore mentions, “there are web sites where I like their products a lot but won’t buy them because the site itself is such a struggle, and attempts to reach out have met with either silence or resistance to taking any action.”

Brian cites the Fluance website as the most recent example. The bugs present in its shopping user flows prevents him from buying high-end consumer audio equipment.

Fluance’s entire web presence exists to sell products. While updating a website or web app to be accessible can be an effort-intensive process, it would definitely be in Fluance’s best interest to make sure its checkout user flow is as robust as it could be.

Those lost sales add up. (Large preview)

Opportunity isn’t limited to just e-commerce, either. As more and more services digitize, we paradoxically push more people out of being to live in the society that relies on these digitized services—people with protected rights. Again, this shift away from an equivalent experience is the culprit.

Justin Yarbrough was “applying for an accessibility-related job with the Arizona Department of Economic Security over the summer, where they wanted me to take an assessment. The button to start the assessment was a clickable div. They wound up waving the assessment requirement for the position.”

Jim Kiely tells me about his brother, who “has stopped paying his water bill online because the city water website [doesn’t] work well with a screen reader and high contrast.”

Personally, I have friends who have been prevented from submitting résumés to multiple sites because their job application portals were inaccessible.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Adaptability

Soren Hamby, product marketing agency manager and design advocate, writes of their experiences using screen magnification software and screen reading capabilities. Soren has “varying levels of vision so [they] tend to not always need the same level of accommodation.”

Of note, Soren mentions their struggles with grocery delivery apps, specifically “the carts often only read the quantities rather than the item name. It’s much easier to order with a sighted person.”

There are three things to consider here:

First is the surface-level acknowledgment that the app operates differently for different people, the main point this article is driving at.

Second is the fact that Soren uses multiple forms of assistive technology, with the mix a shifting combination depending on a combination of their task at hand and how well the digital interface meets their access needs.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Make sure that the labels for your interactive controls are relevant and concise.

Incorporate disability scenarios and conditions into your design personas.

Avoid using absolute length units. (No, seriously.)

Avoid setting maximum widths and heights.

Avoid using fixed and sticky-scrolling components, especially larger-sized ones.

Test your layouts by zooming and/or increasing your default type size to make sure that content does not get obscured.

This brings us to our third and most important point:

Autonomy

Having to rely on the help of a sighted person to order groceries is not ideal. For many, the acquiring, preparation, and consuming of food can be highly personal acts. Being forced to incorporate outside assistance into this process is far different than willingly inviting someone in to share an experience. The same notion applies to every other digital product, as well.

Kenny also mentions grocery apps: “…my local Kroger grocery store has started an app redesign in June 2019 that is breaking accessibility with their app.” In discussing this regression, he goes on to elaborate, “Because I can’t financially change to another business, I won’t let it drop. Kroger is going to discover that I don’t stop with a problem. Persistence in solving problems is a requirement for any disabled person if you want to succeed in the world.”

This app looks great, provided you can see it. (Large preview)

Equality

Kroger would be wise to listen to Kenny’s feedback. The grocery company Winn-Dixie was recently successfully sued for not being operable with a screen reader. The lawsuit argued that the grocer’s website was heavily integrated with their physical stores, and therefore violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Another recent case involves the Domino’s Pizza franchise. Taken all the way to the Supreme Court, the ruling clearly and unambiguously states that preventing someone from using a website or app, simply because they used screen reading software, is unconstitutional.

For both cases, the cost to implement fixes were far cheaper than going to court—something to think about the next time you’re deciding where to order pizza.

Despite some ugly misconceptions about the ruling, the evidence is clear: in the United States, there is now legal precedent for private companies to be sued for violating civil rights via an inaccessible digital experience. Europe and some parts of Asia have similar laws, as well.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Reactivity

Another way to maintain an equivalent experience — one that is often not thought about — is to give reports about accessibility issues the same weight and concern as other software bugs.

Reported accessibility issues are oftentimes downplayed and ignored, or are sent to someone ignorant of the issue and/or powerless to fix it.

Kenny, who started using a computer with a screen reader in 1984 says, “When I run into accessibility issues nowadays, I’ll try reporting it, when I get the usual response from the feedback of the person not caring, I just give up and walk away. If [the response] comes from somebody in marketing agency who doesn’t understand accessibility, I just give up and go away. There’s no point in trying to teach these people about accessibility.”

Kenny’s view is shared by many others in the disability community. Remember what I said about compounding effects earlier.

Brian reports that,

“If I find significant issues with a site, I do report it. Depending on who I talk to it ranges from ‘here’s what doesn’t work’ to all kinds of technical detail about why if I can get to the right people.”

Getting it to the right people is key. Another part of equivalent experience is handling feedback in a timely and constructive way, much as how you would with any other issue with your product or service.

Responding to an accessibility issue is easy:

Thank the person for taking the time and effort to report the issue.

Acknowledge the issue and identify what person or team will be handling it.

Ask clarifying questions as needed.

Offer potential workarounds, with the understanding that they’re only temporary until the underlying issue is addressed.

Offer to involve them in the process, including notifying them when the issue has been fixed.

Being open, honest, and transparent about your bug fixing process goes a long way to establishing trust in a population that has historically and routinely been overlooked.

Also know that assigning someone to mind an email address to conduct tasks on behalf of an assistive technology user is not an appropriate, effective, or sustainable solution. Remember the concerns surrounding autonomy discussed earlier.

How To Maintain Equivalency

Create an accessibility statement, including known issues, a tentative timeline for their fixes, and easy to discover contact information.

Ensure that anyone customer-facing (quality assurance, customer support, marketing agency, etc.) are trained on protocol for accessibility-related issue reporting.

Quantify accessibility-related issues, both internal and reported.

Be on the lookout for patterns and trends with discovered accessibility issues, as they represent learning opportunities.

Understand that not all platforms to collect feedback are created equal.

Motivation

We’ve covered actual people’s everyday frustrations, as well as civil rights and the current legal landscape. If these don’t motivate you, allow me to present another factor to consider: profit.

There are two provoking studies I’d like to call attention to, but they are by no means the only studies performed in this space.

(Large preview)

First is the Click Away Pound Survey, a survey conducted in both 2016 and 2019 to “explore the online shopping experience of people with disabilities and examine the cost to business of ignoring disabled shoppers.”

The survey discovered that more than 4 million people abandoned a retail website because of the access barriers they found. These people represent 17.1 billion pounds (~$21.1 billion USD) in lost potential revenue.

Second is the The Purchasing Power of Working-Age Adults With Disabilities (PDF), conducted in 2018 by the American Institutes for Research. This study discovered that there is an estimated $490 billion in disposable income amongst disabled working-age adults. That’s billion with a capital B.

There are two of the (many) takeaways from these studies I’d like to highlight:

First is that from a historical perspective, the web is still very much new. On top of that, its ubiquity is even more recent, meaning that use by the general population is a small sliver of the amount of time it’s been around.

Second is that the general population contains many people who are disabled, and that their needs are not being met. These unmet needs represent billions of dollars of potential revenue.

This is a gigantic market that we, as an industry, are only now becoming aware of. Rather than approaching accessibility with a mindset of risk aversion, why not use this learning as a great way to view your current and future business opportunities?

Complying with the ADA is by definition the legally required minimum for accessibility. It doesn’t account for a good user experience, usability, and innovation. Unless you strive for the minimum all the time, compliance is not enough.https://t.co/qOYw6ji23u

— mikey is at home (@mikeyil) March 5, 2020

Let’s Not Stop Here

Too often we think of accessibility as a problem to be solved, rather than a way of looking at the world. Equivalent experiences necessitate that we question our assumptions and biases and think about experiences outside of our own. It can be an uncomfortable thing to think about at first, but it’s all in the service of making things usable for all.

As web professionals, it is our job, and our privilege to ensure that the experiences we deliver are equivalent. In the second part, we’ll investigate how to do just that.

Further Reading

“WCAG Primer,” Tetra Logical

“The Web Accessibility Basics,” Marco Zehe’s Accessibility Blog

“Web Accessibility Checklist: 15 Things To Improve Your Website Accessibility,” WebsiteSetup.org

“The Importance Of Manual Accessibility Testing: Call The Professionals,” Eric Bailey, Smashing Magazine

“Taking Accessibility Beyond Compliance,” Dennis Deacon, 24 Accessibility

“Videos Of People With Disabilities Using Tech,” Hampus Sethfors, Axess Lab

“Web Accessibility Perspectives: Explore The Impact And Benefits For Everyone,” Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), W3C

Thank you to Brian Moore, Damien Senger, Jim Kiely, Justin Yarbrough, Kenny Hitt, and Soren Hamby for sharing their insights and experiences.

(ra, il)

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source http://www.scpie.org/equivalent-experiences-what-are-they/

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The Outlet Pass: Philly's Big Boys, Slow Food Melo, and the Return of Good Blake

I watch a lot of basketball. And when I'm not doing that (or eating, sleeping, reading, sitting in front of an unintentionally funny horror movie, etc.), there's a good chance I've fallen into something NBA-related on my laptop, whether it be a beautifully-written profile, stretch of game film, or a statistical database.

It is virtually impossible to absorb all the NBA has to offer, but digestible morsels of information usually find their way into a notebook that migrates between my coffee table and nightstand. (I have two shoeboxes under my bed that are literally overflowing with random thoughts on the NBA extracted over hundreds of hours spent in front of my TV/iPad/cell phone.) Some of it is complete nonsense ("Why did Frank Vogel grow a beard?"). Some of it is useful.

This column is born from my notebook. Every week, I'll try to unwrap some unique angles from around the league. So, anyways, welcome! I hope after reading this you have just a little bit more insight into (and interest in) the NBA than you did before hopping over.

1. Introducing Philly's Giant Trio of Death

This was already mentioned in my preview piece about Dario Saric and the Philadelphia 76ers, but one of the most critical questions for Philly is whether Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Saric can share the floor. All three are taller than 6'10", with a rare combination of intelligence and technical skill that should theoretically allow them to thrive beside one another.

If they can space the floor (more on Simmons's ability to do that without a jump shot later), maintain some defensive versatility, and move the ball, there's no way to stop them. Size has long been the sport's most valuable element, and folding it into a group that's also able to adopt modern principles (quality three-point shooting, a modifiable pick-and-roll defense, etc.) would eventually give Philly an advantage over everybody else.

They've only shared the floor for 23 minutes in four games, but in that time the Sixers have outscored opponents by 27 points per 100 possessions while assisting two-thirds of their made baskets. They're zipping up the court, running offense through whoever has a mismatch, and, as expected, gobbling up all the rebounds in sight.

27 minutes of basketball hardly provides enough data to confirm that these three will one day take over the universe, but Sixers coach Brett Brown swapped Saric in for Jerryd Bayless at the start of the second half of their Monday night win over the Detroit Pistons. Obvious translation: This is the beginning of something very special.

2. Minnesota's Glaring Weakness

Between Karl-Anthony Towns dissecting defenses from any square foot of the court he pleases, Andrew Wiggins gliding like a condor, and Jamal Crawford momentarily propping up a lethargic offense like the ageless highlight reel he is, it's still hard to ignore Minnesota's obvious hole: the desperate need for another wing defender. Maybe two.

At the start of their thrilling victory against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday night, the Timberwolves started with Jimmy Butler on Russell Westbrook while Wiggins defended Paul George and Jeff Teague hid out on Andre Roberson. Taj Gibson—better suited as a backup center at this stage in his career—glued himself to Carmelo Anthony as best he could.

When Wiggins took a seat later in the game, Butler was forced to pick up George. Not all teams are able to deploy as many offensive weapons as the Thunder, but these assignments are still way too taxing for Butler all year long, and don't allow him to wreak havoc off the ball on offense as much as he could if the Timberwolves avoided a crossmatch by putting Teague on Westbrook and Butler on Roberson.

Minnesota showed some interest in P.J. Tucker over the summer, but didn't make a serious offer to acquire him. That's unfortunate. They're distinctly thin at arguably the most critical position in the league, and it's showing. When Butler missed Tuesday night's game against the Indiana Pacers, his teammates put up one of the weaker defensive performances any team has had all season.

Games against the Pacers and Thunder are a small sample size, but we already knew that Crawford and Shabazz Muhammad aren't answers on the defensive end, while the Timberwolves' assembly of bigs aren't flexible enough to switch on the perimeter or even directly line up against teams that go small.

Minnesota's offense should still be good enough for a playoff berth, but unless they address their most glaring weakness before the trade deadline, winning a series will be an uphill battle. Including the two games Butler's missed, Minnesota's defensive rating is an atrocious 117.5 when he's not on the floor.

3. The Phoenix Suns!

Many accurate words have been written about the amusingly dysfunctional Phoenix Suns since the season started last Tuesday. It's fair to say they've momentarily snatched the Torch of Negligence from organizations that have proudly held it (the New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, Sacramento Kings, and Los Angeles Lakers immediately spring to mind).

A couple nights before Eric Bledsoe submitted an early frontrunner for this season's most legendary tweet, I was in bed watching a game on my iPad when a random, half-serious thought popped into my head. I rolled over, opened my notebook, and scribbled down the following sentence: "Indirect way to gauge how hard a team is playing: Watch with sound off. That way you don't know if players are reacting to a ref's whistle or not."

I was watching the Suns.

4. Carmelo Anthony is a Walking "STOP THE PRESSES" Button

After their game against the Pacers on Wednesday night, Oklahoma City's pace registered at 104.2 with Russell Westbrook on the floor this season. Given their success in transition and all the long-armed, turnover-cobbling athleticism they possess on the defensive end, that number is right in line with how the Thunder should try and play for the rest of the reigning MVP's prime.

"Hijack" is too strong a descriptor for what Carmelo Anthony has done to his new team's rhythm, but when he's in the game their pace drops to 100.7. Related to last year's numbers, the gap between Westbrook and Melo's individual pace represents the league's fastest and 10th fastest teams.

When Anthony has been off the floor this season, Oklahoma City transforms into a jumbo jet. Its pace shoots up to a whopping 105.6. When Westbrook sits, things molder at 96.1. The differential grows more stark when you look at how the NBA's Triple-Double King performs without Anthony on the court. His True Shooting percentage increases 16.4 percent despite his usage rising by 10 points. (The pace gap also dramatically widens, as one might assume.)

This is the fundamental struggle Oklahoma City needs to work through as they digest life with two score-first options who're more comfortable at different tempos. Anthony's usage is right in line with where it was the past two seasons, but his True Shooting is down, thanks to a dramatic dip in trips to the free-throw line and a whole bunch of misfires beyond the arc. Only four players in the entire league are averaging more shots per game.

Billy Donovan has more than enough talent to go around, but ensuring comfort for all three of his stars will take some time.

5. LaMarcus Aldridge: Still Good!

The general reaction after the San Antonio Spurs gave LaMarcus Aldridge a three-year contract extension was bemused fascination. Aldridge will be 33 next season, was not an All-Star last year, and is coming off a playoff run that saw his True Shooting percentage dip below .500. But the Spurs aren't dumb. They know this. They also probably realize that acquiring someone who can mimic his impact at a lower cost is going to be all but impossible during Kawhi Leonard's prime.

It turns out Aldridge is still a very good player, and while Leonard nurses a nagging quadricep injury, the five-time All-Star has quietly kicked off his 12th season looking like one of the league's 15 best players. The undefeated Spurs have turned to mush on both ends when he's on the bench, getting outscored by a team-low 21.6 points per 100 possessions. (They're +19.3 when he plays.)

According to Synergy Sports, just over a third of Aldridge's possessions have been post-ups, where he already ranks in the 96th percentile. The left block is his happy place, and all who've defended him see nothing but his picture-perfect turnaround jump shot whenever their eyes close. (Especially Miami Heat rookie Bam Adebayo, who was absolutely tortured on national television Wednesday night.)

It's unlikely Aldridge averages 26 points, nine rebounds, and three assists per game for the entire year, but it's a promising start for a player who badly needed to reassert himself among the league's elite frontcourt weapons. The Spurs have been especially dominant with Aldridge at the five, in lineups that feature Rudy Gay or Kyle Anderson at the four. Just imagine how scary those lineups will be when Leonard—the freaking frontrunner for MVP—returns.

6. Bebe Nogueira...

...has multiple tattoos on his face and is a legend. This—more than the Raptors' modernized shot profile—is clearly the most important recent happening that's taken place in the general Toronto area.

Photo by John E. Sokolowski - USA TODAY Sports

7. The Dreaded Hot Seat

Earlier this week, the Suns fired Earl Watson, demonstrating it's never too early to toss your head coach into a guillotine. Comparing that situation with any other in the league is tough, though. There's only one Robert Sarver, and the stakes for Watson's dismissal were pretty low, given how unpleasant the team's roster is.

Firing a coach before Thanksgiving is never a good look, but it still got me thinking about whether any other coaches (beside the two most obvious candidates: Jeff Hornacek and Alvin Gentry) might have a single burner under their chair. It would surprise me if the coach I'm about to mention doesn't keep his job for the foreseeable future, but literally nothing can be ruled out in today's NBA.

The Denver Nuggets are 1-3 with their lone win coming against the Sacramento Kings. Nothing about this is notably problematic, but expectations are a tidal wave that cease for no man, and with a cupcake road trip sitting on the horizon and a tricky home stand right after that, Mike Malone may find himself in hot water.

If Denver struggles against the Atlanta Hawks, Brooklyn Nets, and New York Knicks before the Miami Heat, Toronto, Golden State Warriors, and Oklahoma City Thunder invade the Pepsi Center, will he have an opportunity to turn things around? Probably, yes. He should. Denver is the fifth-youngest team in the league, with a pair of inexperienced point guards (Jamal Murray and Emmanuel Mudiay) who are seriously struggling. Their offense is unexpectedly impotent.

It's way, way, way too early to point fingers or even be concerned about Denver's play (their defense is keeping opponents away from the rim and forcing a ton of mid-range shots!), but Malone may be on thinner ice than we think.

8. Centers are Officially Married to the Three-Point Line

Here's a list of centers who've already launched at least one three this year: Dewayne Dedmon (six), Jonas Valanciunas (one), Hassan Whiteside (one), Willie Cauley-Stein (two), Gorgui Dieng (four), Robin Lopez (five), Nikola Vucevic (19), Dwight Powell (12), Timofey Mozgov (three), Jusuf Nurkic (two), Jeff Withey (two), Al Jefferson (one), Derrick Favors (five), and a whole bunch who aren't listed primarily because they aren't that surprising.

Joel Embiid is 2-for-13 from beyond the arc and DeMarcus Cousins is averaging more threes per game than all but five players in the entire league. Attempts aren't a sole indicator of any uptick when most of these players have only appeared in a few games, but three-point rates at the center position are skyrocketing across the board.

This is one of the most evolutionary subplots in the NBA right now, even if we all saw it coming.

9. When Spacing Doesn't Matter

Speaking of evolution and the three-point line, two of the NBA's most unique talents, Ben Simmons and Giannis Antetokounmpo, are a couple earthquakes who can't really shoot. So far, Antetokounmpo's three-point rate is about half what it was last season (he's 1-for-6 in 154 minutes) while Simmons is 0-for-3 in his career.

But both have remained effective even when the ball isn't in their hands, and their respective coaching staffs have done a good job figuring out different ways to get them going from the weakside. It's only natural to sag off someone who isn't a threat beyond the arc, and that's exactly what teams do whenever Simmons and Antetokounmpo aren't dribbling around with transfixing dexterity.

To neutralize this defense, both teams have instituted quick hit actions that allow their freakish "guards" to get a running head start towards the basket against a perimeter defender who isn't in their path. For example, the Bucks will run a side pick-and-roll towards the middle of the floor with the sole intention of swinging it to Antetokounmpo on the opposite wing. He'll catch it in mid-stride towards the paint, and from that point your best defense is physical assault.

This catch-and-go action makes defenders think twice about helping at the nail, and instead forces them to clog up an open runway towards the rim.

10. Andre Drummond is Wiping Dirt Off His Shoulders

Not only is he shooting 72.2 percent from the free-throw line, but, more importantly, the 24-year-old appears to have shaved/waxed/lasered away his scraggly shoulder hair. Speaking as someone who's long been afflicted with this cosmetic impediment, shout out to Drummond for overcoming what was once an unscalable obstacle.

11. Blake Griffin is a Top-10 Player Once More

Remember Blake Griffin? He's hitting threes, demanding double teams on the block (if you cut he will find you), and can still Mount Olympus poor shot blockers who think they stand a chance. Rudy Gobert didn't even jump when he saw Griffin rumbling down the paint for a teeth-rattling facial earlier this week.

His offensive game is as complete and diversified as there is, averaging a cool 27, 10, and four while launching six threes per game. If (if!) he stays healthy, the Clippers may find themselves with the five seed, and Griffin may find himself returning to an All-NBA team.

12. John Wall Equals Mini Mutombo

John Wall is on pace to have one of the most impressive shot-blocking seasons a guard has ever had, per Basketball-Reference. Through his first four games, the 27-year-old blur has five blocks and six personal fouls. Solid. His block rate is the exact same as Dwyane Wade's during his age-27 season, too.

He was a demon in Washington's season opener against the Philadelphia 76ers, welcoming Markelle Fultz to the league by smudging his layup off the glass. But then he also showed how useful he can be later on against the Detroit Pistons, switching onto Tobias Harris, guarding him in isolation, then swatting his floater away while squared up in the paint.

So much is made about Wall's inability to knock down threes and space the floor. But it's his inconsistency on the defensive end that bars him from MVP conversations. If he excels on that end all year, and rolls his unparalleled combination of speed, strength, and length into one package at the point guard position, Washington's ceiling will rise a considerable degree.

13. The Ed Davisaissance!

Ed Davis's tenure with the Portland Trail Blazers hasn't been great. Often injured, out of shape, or deemed ineffective in a league that has little use for big men who can't shoot, the guy looked spry on Tuesday against DeMarcus Cousins and the New Orleans Pelicans, recording his first double-double since last February.

Photo by Jaime Valdez - USA TODAY Sports

Davis is slowly re-emerging as one of the NBA's top putback artists and has flashed vibrance as a roll man, putting the ball on the ground with one dribble and then going up strong at the rim. Noah Vonleh's looming return from a shoulder injury (he could be back as early as November 1st) may throw a wrench in Davis's minutes. But Terry Stotts will have a hard time keeping the 28-year-old out of his rotation.

14. The Spurs are Spursing

The Spurs have logged six minutes of crunch time so far this season (defined as when the scoring margin is five or below, with five or fewer minutes left in the game). They've yet to allow a single point in that time. Defensive rating: zero point zero, and it's way too early to call it unsustainable.

15. How Many Nets can be Helpful Players on a Good Team?

Last year, the answer to this question was between zero and two, depending on what you think of Jeremy Lin and Brook Lopez. That number is slightly higher today, but a key difference is a serious downshift in age.

DeMarre Carroll stands out as the only legitimate late-prime candidate (though Trevor Booker is averaging 20.7 points and 12.5 rebounds per 36 minutes), with D'Angelo Russell, Jarrett Allen, and maybe even Caris LeVert—who plays basketball like a bold character actor who isn't sure/doesn't care about the established tone in his scene—rounding out the list.

It's too early to say this with too much confidence, but if the Lakers don't land LeBron James or Paul George this summer, dumping Russell for Lopez and cap space will be viewed as a humongous mistake. He looks fantastic in Brooklyn, strutting through half-court sets with 9,000 percent more confidence than he had in his first two years.

He's getting to, and finishing at, the rim in ways that should quell some concern over whether or not he'd ever be able to test defenses in the paint, all while knocking down threes and conducting open-floor surges with a comfort previously unseen in his career. His pick-and-rolls are unhurried, and he's already picked up the nuance that is holding off a trailing defender while putting pressure on the sagging big.

Turnovers are high but that's fine. He keeps his head up, looks for cutters, and is still only 21 years old!

Meanwhile, Allen looks like his ceiling could be as one of the 15 most useful defenders in the league. He has a 7'6" wingspan, unteachable instincts on the perimeter, and a touch around the basket that, speaking as someone who doesn't watch college basketball and didn't get to see him at Las Vegas Summer League, is quite the pleasant surprise. The Nets may have at least two cornerstones already onboard.

16. Are LeBron's Minutes Already Cause for Concern?

He leads the league at 188 overall and is third with 37.6 per game.

17. Your Weekly Reminder that the Golden State Warriors are Unfair

Coming out of a time-out during Wednesday night's win over the Toronto Raptors, Warriors play-by-play announcer Bob Fitzgerald looked at a Shaun Livingston, David West, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, and Andre Iguodala quintet as they strode onto the floor and said "No team in the league can match this five."

Even though only three of Golden State's units played more than this exact one last season—they outscored opponents by 13.3 points per 100 possessions in 167 minutes—my immediate reaction was still to scoff.

Yes, this unit boasts a top-two player, extremely high intelligence across the board, like-sized defenders, and one of the greatest spot-up shooters who ever lived, but it doesn't have Steph Curry or Draymond Green, two transcendent figures who are most responsible for Golden State's unprecedented dominance.

It took me about five seconds to realize Fitzgerald was right. It's obvious and inconceivable at the same time: Golden State's eighth or ninth best five-man unit will blow your very best one out of the water. Welcome back, NBA!

The Outlet Pass: Philly's Big Boys, Slow Food Melo, and the Return of Good Blake published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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The Outlet Pass: Philly’s Big Boys, Slow Food Melo, and the Return of Good Blake

I watch a lot of basketball. And when I’m not doing that (or eating, sleeping, reading, sitting in front of an unintentionally funny horror movie, etc.), there’s a good chance I’ve fallen into something NBA-related on my laptop, whether it be a beautifully-written profile, stretch of game film, or a statistical database.

It is virtually impossible to absorb all the NBA has to offer, but digestible morsels of information usually find their way into a notebook that migrates between my coffee table and nightstand. (I have two shoeboxes under my bed that are literally overflowing with random thoughts on the NBA extracted over hundreds of hours spent in front of my TV/iPad/cell phone.) Some of it is complete nonsense (“Why did Frank Vogel grow a beard?”). Some of it is useful.

This column is born from my notebook. Every week, I’ll try to unwrap some unique angles from around the league. So, anyways, welcome! I hope rafter reading this you have just a little bit more insight into (and interest in) the NBA than you did hopping over.

1. Introducing Philly’s Giant Trio of Death

This was already mentioned in my preview piece about Dario Saric and the Philadelphia 76ers, but one of the most critical questions for Philly is whether Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Saric can share the floor. All three are taller than 6’10”, with a rare combination of intelligence and technical skill that should theoretically allow them to thrive beside one another.

If they can space the floor (more on Simmons’s ability to do that without a jump shot later), maintain some defensive versatility, and move the ball, there’s no way to stop them. Size has long been the sport’s most valuable element, and folding it into a group that’s also able to adopt modern principles (quality three-point shooting, a modifiable pick-and-roll defense, etc.) would eventually give Philly an advantage over everybody else.

They’ve only shared the floor for 23 minutes in four games, but in that time the Sixers have outscored opponents by 27 points per 100 possessions while assisting two-thirds of their made baskets. They’re zipping up the court, running offense through whoever has a mismatch, and, as expected, gobbling up all the rebounds in sight.

27 minutes of basketball hardly provides enough data to confirm that these three will one day take over the universe, but Sixers coach Brett Brown swapped Saric in for Jerryd Bayless at the start of the second half of their Monday night win over the Detroit Pistons. Obvious translation: This is the beginning of something very special.

2. Minnesota’s Glaring Weakness

Between Karl-Anthony Towns dissecting defenses from any square foot of the court he pleases, Andrew Wiggins gliding like a condor, and Jamal Crawford momentarily propping up a lethargic offense like the ageless highlight reel he is, it’s still hard to ignore Minnesota’s obvious hole: the desperate need for another wing defender. Maybe two.

At the start of their thrilling victory against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday night, the Timberwolves started with Jimmy Butler on Russell Westbrook while Wiggins defended Paul George and Jeff Teague hid out on Andre Roberson. Taj Gibson—better suited as a backup center at this stage in his career—glued himself to Carmelo Anthony as best he could.

When Wiggins took a seat later in the game, Butler was forced to pick up George. Not all teams are able to deploy as many offensive weapons as the Thunder, but these assignments are still way too taxing for Butler all year long, and don’t allow him to wreak havoc off the ball on offense as much as he could if the Timberwolves avoided a crossmatch by putting Teague on Westbrook and Butler on Roberson.

Minnesota showed some interest in P.J. Tucker over the summer, but didn’t make a serious offer to acquire him. That’s unfortunate. They’re distinctly thin at arguably the most critical position in the league, and it’s showing. When Butler missed Tuesday night’s game against the Indiana Pacers, his teammates put up one of the weaker defensive performances any team has had all season.

Games against the Pacers and Thunder are a small sample size, but we already knew that Crawford and Shabazz Muhammad aren’t answers on the defensive end, while the Timberwolves’ assembly of bigs aren’t flexible enough to switch on the perimeter or even directly line up against teams that go small.

Minnesota’s offense should still be good enough for a playoff berth, but unless they address their most glaring weakness before the trade deadline, winning a series will be an uphill battle. Including the two games Butler’s missed, Minnesota’s defensive rating is an atrocious 117.5 when he’s not on the floor.

3. The Phoenix Suns!

Many accurate words have been written about the amusingly dysfunctional Phoenix Suns since the season started last Tuesday. It’s fair to say they’ve momentarily snatched the Torch of Negligence from organizations that have proudly held it (the New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, Sacramento Kings, and Los Angeles Lakers immediately spring to mind).

A couple nights before Eric Bledsoe submitted an early frontrunner for this season’s most legendary tweet, I was in bed watching a game on my iPad when a random, half-serious thought popped into my head. I rolled over, opened my notebook, and scribbled down the following sentence: “Indirect way to gauge how hard a team is playing: Watch with sound off. That way you don’t know if players are reacting to a ref’s whistle or not.”

I was watching the Suns.

4. Carmelo Anthony is a Walking “STOP THE PRESSES” Button

After their game against the Pacers on Wednesday night, Oklahoma City’s pace registered at 104.2 with Russell Westbrook on the floor this season. Given their success in transition and all the long-armed, turnover-cobbling athleticism they possess on the defensive end, that number is right in line with how the Thunder should try and play for the rest of the reigning MVP’s prime.

“Hijack” is too strong a descriptor for what Carmelo Anthony has done to his new team’s rhythm, but when he’s in the game their pace drops to 100.7. Related to last year’s numbers, the gap between Westbrook and Melo’s individual pace represents the league’s fastest and 10th fastest teams.

When Anthony has been off the floor this season, Oklahoma City transforms into a jumbo jet. Its pace shoots up to a whopping 105.6. When Westbrook sits, things molder at 96.1. The differential grows more stark when you look at how the NBA’s Triple-Double King performs without Anthony on the court. His True Shooting percentage increases 16.4 percent despite his usage rising by 10 points. (The pace gap also dramatically widens, as one might assume.)

This is the fundamental struggle Oklahoma City needs to work through as they digest life with two score-first options who’re more comfortable at different tempos. Anthony’s usage is right in line with where it was the past two seasons, but his True Shooting is down, thanks to a dramatic dip in trips to the free-throw line and a whole bunch of misfires beyond the arc. Only four players in the entire league are averaging more shots per game.

Billy Donovan has more than enough talent to go around, but ensuring comfort for all three of his stars will take some time.

5. LaMarcus Aldridge: Still Good!

The general reaction after the San Antonio Spurs gave LaMarcus Aldridge a three-year contract extension was bemused fascination. Aldridge will be 33 next season, was not an All-Star last year, and is coming off a playoff run that saw his True Shooting percentage dip below .500. But the Spurs aren’t dumb. They know this. They also probably realize that acquiring someone who can mimic his impact at a lower cost is going to be all but impossible during Kawhi Leonard’s prime.

It turns out Aldridge is still a very good player, and while Leonard nurses a nagging quadricep injury, the five-time All-Star has quietly kicked off his 12th season looking like one of the league’s 15 best players. The undefeated Spurs have turned to mush on both ends when he’s on the bench, getting outscored by a team-low 21.6 points per 100 possessions. (They’re +19.3 when he plays.)

According to Synergy Sports, just over a third of Aldridge’s possessions have been post-ups, where he already ranks in the 96th percentile. The left block is his happy place, and all who’ve defended him see nothing but his picture-perfect turnaround jump shot whenever their eyes close. (Especially Miami Heat rookie Bam Adebayo, who was absolutely tortured on national television Wednesday night.)

It’s unlikely Aldridge averages 26 points, nine rebounds, and three assists per game for the entire year, but it’s a promising start for a player who badly needed to reassert himself among the league’s elite frontcourt weapons. The Spurs have been especially dominant with Aldridge at the five, in lineups that feature Rudy Gay or Kyle Anderson at the four. Just imagine how scary those lineups will be when Leonard—the freaking frontrunner for MVP—returns.

6. Bebe Nogueira…

…has multiple tattoos on his face and is a legend. This—more than the Raptors’ modernized shot profile—is clearly the most important recent happening that’s taken place in the general Toronto area.

Photo by John E. Sokolowski – USA TODAY Sports

7. The Dreaded Hot Seat

Earlier this week, the Suns fired Earl Watson, demonstrating it’s never too early to toss your head coach into a guillotine. Comparing that situation with any other in the league is tough, though. There’s only one Robert Sarver, and the stakes for Watson’s dismissal were pretty low, given how unpleasant the team’s roster is.

Firing a coach before Thanksgiving is never a good look, but it still got me thinking about whether any other coaches (beside the two most obvious candidates: Jeff Hornacek and Alvin Gentry) might have a single burner under their chair. It would surprise me if the coach I’m about to mention doesn’t keep his job for the foreseeable future, but literally nothing can be ruled out in today’s NBA.

The Denver Nuggets are 1-3 with their lone win coming against the Sacramento Kings. Nothing about this is notably problematic, but expectations are a tidal wave that cease for no man, and with a cupcake road trip sitting on the horizon and a tricky home stand right after that, Mike Malone may find himself in hot water.

If Denver struggles against the Atlanta Hawks, Brooklyn Nets, and New York Knicks before the Miami Heat, Toronto, Golden State Warriors, and Oklahoma City Thunder invade the Pepsi Center, will he have an opportunity to turn things around? Probably, yes. He should. Denver is the fifth-youngest team in the league, with a pair of inexperienced point guards (Jamal Murray and Emmanuel Mudiay) who are seriously struggling. Their offense is unexpectedly impotent.

It’s way, way, way too early to point fingers or even be concerned about Denver’s play (their defense is keeping opponents away from the rim and forcing a ton of mid-range shots!), but Malone may be on thinner ice than we think.

8. Centers are Officially Married to the Three-Point Line

Here’s a list of centers who’ve already launched at least one three this year: Dewayne Dedmon (six), Jonas Valanciunas (one), Hassan Whiteside (one), Willie Cauley-Stein (two), Gorgui Dieng (four), Robin Lopez (five), Nikola Vucevic (19), Dwight Powell (12), Timofey Mozgov (three), Jusuf Nurkic (two), Jeff Withey (two), Al Jefferson (one), Derrick Favors (five), and a whole bunch who aren’t listed primarily because they aren’t that surprising.

Joel Embiid is 2-for-13 from beyond the arc and DeMarcus Cousins is averaging more threes per game than all but five players in the entire league. Attempts aren’t a sole indicator of any uptick when most of these players have only appeared in a few games, but three-point rates at the center position are skyrocketing across the board.

This is one of the most evolutionary subplots in the NBA right now, even if we all saw it coming.

9. When Spacing Doesn’t Matter

Speaking of evolution and the three-point line, two of the NBA’s most unique talents, Ben Simmons and Giannis Antetokounmpo, are a couple earthquakes who can’t really shoot. So far, Antetokounmpo’s three-point rate is about half what it was last season (he’s 1-for-6 in 154 minutes) while Simmons is 0-for-3 in his career.

But both have remained effective even when the ball isn’t in their hands, and their respective coaching staffs have done a good job figuring out different ways to get them going from the weakside. It’s only natural to sag off someone who isn’t a threat beyond the arc, and that’s exactly what teams do whenever Simmons and Antetokounmpo aren’t dribbling around with transfixing dexterity.

To neutralize this defense, both teams have instituted quick hit actions that allow their freakish “guards” to get a running head start towards the basket against a perimeter defender who isn’t in their path. For example, the Bucks will run a side pick-and-roll towards the middle of the floor with the sole intention of swinging it to Antetokounmpo on the opposite wing. He’ll catch it in mid-stride towards the paint, and from that point your best defense is physical assault.

This catch-and-go action makes defenders think twice about helping at the nail, and instead forces them to clog up an open runway towards the rim.

10. Andre Drummond is Wiping Dirt Off His Shoulders

Not only is he shooting 72.2 percent from the free-throw line, but, more importantly, the 24-year-old appears to have shaved/waxed/lasered away his scraggly shoulder hair. Speaking as someone who’s long been afflicted with this cosmetic impediment, shout out to Drummond for overcoming what was once an unscalable obstacle.

11. Blake Griffin is a Top-10 Player Once More

Remember Blake Griffin? He’s hitting threes, demanding double teams on the block (if you cut he will find you), and can still Mount Olympus poor shot blockers who think they stand a chance. Rudy Gobert didn’t even jump when he saw Griffin rumbling down the paint for a teeth-rattling facial earlier this week.

His offensive game is as complete and diversified as there is, averaging a cool 27, 10, and four while launching six threes per game. If (if!) he stays healthy, the Clippers may find themselves with the five seed, and Griffin may find himself returning to an All-NBA team.

12. John Wall Equals Mini Mutombo

John Wall is on pace to have one of the most impressive shot-blocking seasons a guard has ever had, per Basketball-Reference. Through his first four games, the 27-year-old blur has five blocks and six personal fouls. Solid. His block rate is the exact same as Dwyane Wade’s during his age-27 season, too.

He was a demon in Washington’s season opener against the Philadelphia 76ers, welcoming Markelle Fultz to the league by smudging his layup off the glass. But then he also showed how useful he can be later on against the Detroit Pistons, switching onto Tobias Harris, guarding him in isolation, then swatting his floater away while squared up in the paint.

So much is made about Wall’s inability to knock down threes and space the floor. But it’s his inconsistency on the defensive end that bars him from MVP conversations. If he excels on that end all year, and rolls his unparalleled combination of speed, strength, and length into one package at the point guard position, Washington’s ceiling will rise a considerable degree.

13. The Ed Davisaissance!

Ed Davis’s tenure with the Portland Trail Blazers hasn’t been great. Often injured, out of shape, or deemed ineffective in a league that has little use for big men who can’t shoot, the guy looked spry on Tuesday against DeMarcus Cousins and the New Orleans Pelicans, recording his first double-double since last February.

Photo by Jaime Valdez – USA TODAY Sports

Davis is slowly re-emerging as one of the NBA’s top putback artists and has flashed vibrance as a roll man, putting the ball on the ground with one dribble and then going up strong at the rim. Noah Vonleh’s looming return from a shoulder injury (he could be back as early as November 1st) may throw a wrench in Davis’s minutes. But Terry Stotts will have a hard time keeping the 28-year-old out of his rotation.

14. The Spurs are Spursing

The Spurs have logged six minutes of crunch time so far this season (defined as when the scoring margin is five or below, with five or fewer minutes left in the game). They’ve yet to allow a single point in that time. Defensive rating: zero point zero, and it’s way too early to call it unsustainable.

15. How Many Nets can be Helpful Players on a Good Team?

Last year, the answer to this question was between zero and two, depending on what you think of Jeremy Lin and Brook Lopez. That number is slightly higher today, but a key difference is a serious downshift in age.

DeMarre Carroll stands out as the only legitimate late-prime candidate (though Trevor Booker is averaging 20.7 points and 12.5 rebounds per 36 minutes), with D’Angelo Russell, Jarrett Allen, and maybe even Caris LeVert—who plays basketball like a bold character actor who isn’t sure/doesn’t care about the established tone in his scene—rounding out the list.

It’s too early to say this with too much confidence, but if the Lakers don’t land LeBron James or Paul George this summer, dumping Russell for Lopez and cap space will be viewed as a humongous mistake. He looks fantastic in Brooklyn, strutting through half-court sets with 9,000 percent more confidence than he had in his first two years.

He’s getting to, and finishing at, the rim in ways that should quell some concern over whether or not he’d ever be able to test defenses in the paint, all while knocking down threes and conducting open-floor surges with a comfort previously unseen in his career. His pick-and-rolls are unhurried, and he’s already picked up the nuance that is holding off a trailing defender while putting pressure on the sagging big.

Turnovers are high but that’s fine. He keeps his head up, looks for cutters, and is still only 21 years old!

Meanwhile, Allen looks like his ceiling could be as one of the 15 most useful defenders in the league. He has a 7’6″ wingspan, unteachable instincts on the perimeter, and a touch around the basket that, speaking as someone who doesn’t watch college basketball and didn’t get to see him at Las Vegas Summer League, is quite the pleasant surprise. The Nets may have at least two cornerstones already onboard.

16. Are LeBron’s Minutes Already Cause for Concern?

He leads the league at 188 overall and is third with 37.6 per game.

17. Your Weekly Reminder that the Golden State Warriors are Unfair

Coming out of a time-out during Wednesday night’s win over the Toronto Raptors, Warriors play-by-play announcer Bob Fitzgerald looked at a Shaun Livingston, David West, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, and Andre Iguodala quintet as they strode onto the floor and said “No team in the league can match this five.”

Even though only three of Golden State’s units played more than this exact one last season—they outscored opponents by 13.3 points per 100 possessions in 167 minutes—my immediate reaction was still to scoff.

Yes, this unit boasts a top-two player, extremely high intelligence across the board, like-sized defenders, and one of the greatest spot-up shooters who ever lived, but it doesn’t have Steph Curry or Draymond Green, two transcendent figures who are most responsible for Golden State’s unprecedented dominance.

It took me about five seconds to realize Fitzgerald was right. It’s obvious and inconceivable at the same time: Golden State’s eighth or ninth best five-man unit will blow your very best one out of the water. Welcome back, NBA!

The Outlet Pass: Philly’s Big Boys, Slow Food Melo, and the Return of Good Blake syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

[frontproofmedia]

MMA Forethought: UFC 209

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By Edward Carbajal

Follow @Carbazel

3/3/ 2017

As awesome as UFC 205 was it did leave some uncertainty in the UFC. Tyron Woodley and Stephen Thompson’s match ended in a majority draw and when Conor McGregor won the lightweight title from Eddie Alvarez, he went on leave. This caused the UFC to go into interim title mode, as they do when any division gets affected by a champion unable to defend their title.

This brings mixed martial arts (MMA) fans to the main and co-main event of UFC 209. Woodley and Thompson will go at it once again to leave no questions as to who the welterweight kingpin is along with the numbers one and two lightweights, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson fighting for the interim title.

With them on the main card are some great fights and Frontproof Media will attempt to give some forethought on how the fights can go down.

 Tyron Woodley (16-3-1) vs Stephen Thompson (13-1-1)

The first fight was tough for both fighters. Woodley did manage to land his power shots and Thompson was able to work some of his strikes in too. This time having drawn blood from each other before, both men know what to expect. Thompson seems to have been training at mid-range in preparation for Woodley, not allowing for space for any takedowns while pressuring with strikes. If he hurts Woodley, he could get a TKO win but a decision is more likely.

On the other hand, Woodley knows he's stronger than Thompson and if he does more of the same from their first fight with more frequency he could end the fight in the championship rounds. That seems more likely to happen considering the first match and that's the pick for this one. Woodley by TKO

 Khabib Nurmagomedov (24-0) vs Tony Ferguson (23-3)

Both men have been on win streaks, improving with every fight. This fight is really hard to call because Ferguson, even if pressured and taken down seems to scramble well and find a way to sink that D’arce/Brabo choke in. However, “The Eagle of Dagestan” is not unfamiliar with the ground game and has likely trained for it. Tough fight to try and predict but the odds seem to be Nurmagomedov’s favor if you look at how they both performed against Michael Johnson. Yes, both men have evolved since then, but that still leaves Nurmagomedov with the edge.

 Rashad Evans (19-5-1) vs. Daniel Kelly (12-1)

Evans has had a hard time returning to action since his layoff due to needing surgery. Since his return, he has been 0-2 and is looking for a win. The wins he holds is a “who’s who” in MMA and for Skelly, a win over Evans could mean new opportunities for the light heavyweight. Skelly has won his last three fights with the most notable win being over Antonio Carlos Jr. Most his wins come by way of submission and Evans has not been submitted since beginning his pro MMA career. Unless Evans fights in the way most fans remember him for Skelly will likely earn a decision victory.

 David Teymur (5-1) vs. Lando Vannata (9-1)

The lightweight division in the UFC has always been one of the most exciting to watch. Both Teymur and Vannata are no exception as both men are coming off of wins in their UFC careers. Most of Teymur’s wins are by way of knockout and Vannata is coming off a “KO of the year” win himself with his first round finish of John Makdessi. While both men hold impressive records, the level of competition might say a little more about who wins at UFC 209, Vannata’s only loss comes to the number two lightweight in the division. He may earn the win so he can face “El Cuy Cuy” in the near future.

 Mark Hunt (12-10-1) vs. Alistair Overeem (41-15)

This is the first fight on the main card and will likely not see all three rounds. Both men come from a striking background and hold many wins by way of KO/TKO. Looking for a knockout may seem like the obvious game plan for both fighters but the man most comfortable outside of his comfort zone will likely pull off the win. Overeem has a guillotine choke that earned him nine of his 17 wins by submission. If Hunt can’t land one of his damaging strikes, this could be Overeem’s fight to win by submission or decision.

What makes UFC 209 unique is its connection to the results of UFC 205. The winner of the co-main event is likely to face Conor McGregor before the end of 2017 to unify the lightweight title. Whoever the welterweight champ is by the end of the night will likely have to face the winner of Demian Maia and Jorge Masvidal in the future which makes for a great fight regardless of the outcome. UFC 209 is definitely a must see card for fans of the UFC and MMA altogether.

Edward Carbajal is a contributing writer for MMA at Frontproof Media and a Verified Creator at Creators.co. You can follow Edward on Twitter @Carbazel or at his website TheBlogBoardJungle.com. Check out his YouTube channel.

[flauntpage]

The Outlet Pass: Philly's Big Boys, Slow Food Melo, and the Return of Good Blake

I watch a lot of basketball. And when I'm not doing that (or eating, sleeping, reading, sitting in front of an unintentionally funny horror movie, etc.), there's a good chance I've fallen into something NBA-related on my laptop, whether it be a beautifully-written profile, stretch of game film, or a statistical database.

It is virtually impossible to absorb all the NBA has to offer, but digestible morsels of information usually find their way into a notebook that migrates between my coffee table and nightstand. (I have two shoeboxes under my bed that are literally overflowing with random thoughts on the NBA extracted over hundreds of hours spent in front of my TV/iPad/cell phone.) Some of it is complete nonsense ("Why did Frank Vogel grow a beard?"). Some of it is useful.

This column is born from my notebook. Every week, I'll try to unwrap some unique angles from around the league. So, anyways, welcome! I hope after reading this you have just a little bit more insight into (and interest in) the NBA than you did before hopping over.

1. Introducing Philly's Giant Trio of Death

This was already mentioned in my preview piece about Dario Saric and the Philadelphia 76ers, but one of the most critical questions for Philly is whether Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Saric can share the floor. All three are taller than 6'10", with a rare combination of intelligence and technical skill that should theoretically allow them to thrive beside one another.

If they can space the floor (more on Simmons's ability to do that without a jump shot later), maintain some defensive versatility, and move the ball, there's no way to stop them. Size has long been the sport's most valuable element, and folding it into a group that's also able to adopt modern principles (quality three-point shooting, a modifiable pick-and-roll defense, etc.) would eventually give Philly an advantage over everybody else.

They've only shared the floor for 23 minutes in four games, but in that time the Sixers have outscored opponents by 27 points per 100 possessions while assisting two-thirds of their made baskets. They're zipping up the court, running offense through whoever has a mismatch, and, as expected, gobbling up all the rebounds in sight.

27 minutes of basketball hardly provides enough data to confirm that these three will one day take over the universe, but Sixers coach Brett Brown swapped Saric in for Jerryd Bayless at the start of the second half of their Monday night win over the Detroit Pistons. Obvious translation: This is the beginning of something very special.

2. Minnesota's Glaring Weakness

Between Karl-Anthony Towns dissecting defenses from any square foot of the court he pleases, Andrew Wiggins gliding like a condor, and Jamal Crawford momentarily propping up a lethargic offense like the ageless highlight reel he is, it's still hard to ignore Minnesota's obvious hole: the desperate need for another wing defender. Maybe two.

At the start of their thrilling victory against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday night, the Timberwolves started with Jimmy Butler on Russell Westbrook while Wiggins defended Paul George and Jeff Teague hid out on Andre Roberson. Taj Gibson—better suited as a backup center at this stage in his career—glued himself to Carmelo Anthony as best he could.

When Wiggins took a seat later in the game, Butler was forced to pick up George. Not all teams are able to deploy as many offensive weapons as the Thunder, but these assignments are still way too taxing for Butler all year long, and don't allow him to wreak havoc off the ball on offense as much as he could if the Timberwolves avoided a crossmatch by putting Teague on Westbrook and Butler on Roberson.

Minnesota showed some interest in P.J. Tucker over the summer, but didn't make a serious offer to acquire him. That's unfortunate. They're distinctly thin at arguably the most critical position in the league, and it's showing. When Butler missed Tuesday night's game against the Indiana Pacers, his teammates put up one of the weaker defensive performances any team has had all season.

Games against the Pacers and Thunder are a small sample size, but we already knew that Crawford and Shabazz Muhammad aren't answers on the defensive end, while the Timberwolves' assembly of bigs aren't flexible enough to switch on the perimeter or even directly line up against teams that go small.

Minnesota's offense should still be good enough for a playoff berth, but unless they address their most glaring weakness before the trade deadline, winning a series will be an uphill battle. Including the two games Butler's missed, Minnesota's defensive rating is an atrocious 117.5 when he's not on the floor.

3. The Phoenix Suns!

Many accurate words have been written about the amusingly dysfunctional Phoenix Suns since the season started last Tuesday. It's fair to say they've momentarily snatched the Torch of Negligence from organizations that have proudly held it (the New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, Sacramento Kings, and Los Angeles Lakers immediately spring to mind).

A couple nights before Eric Bledsoe submitted an early frontrunner for this season's most legendary tweet, I was in bed watching a game on my iPad when a random, half-serious thought popped into my head. I rolled over, opened my notebook, and scribbled down the following sentence: "Indirect way to gauge how hard a team is playing: Watch with sound off. That way you don't know if players are reacting to a ref's whistle or not."

I was watching the Suns.

4. Carmelo Anthony is a Walking "STOP THE PRESSES" Button

After their game against the Pacers on Wednesday night, Oklahoma City's pace registered at 104.2 with Russell Westbrook on the floor this season. Given their success in transition and all the long-armed, turnover-cobbling athleticism they possess on the defensive end, that number is right in line with how the Thunder should try and play for the rest of the reigning MVP's prime.

"Hijack" is too strong a descriptor for what Carmelo Anthony has done to his new team's rhythm, but when he's in the game their pace drops to 100.7. Related to last year's numbers, the gap between Westbrook and Melo's individual pace represents the league's fastest and 10th fastest teams.

When Anthony has been off the floor this season, Oklahoma City transforms into a jumbo jet. Its pace shoots up to a whopping 105.6. When Westbrook sits, things molder at 96.1. The differential grows more stark when you look at how the NBA's Triple-Double King performs without Anthony on the court. His True Shooting percentage increases 16.4 percent despite his usage rising by 10 points. (The pace gap also dramatically widens, as one might assume.)

This is the fundamental struggle Oklahoma City needs to work through as they digest life with two score-first options who're more comfortable at different tempos. Anthony's usage is right in line with where it was the past two seasons, but his True Shooting is down, thanks to a dramatic dip in trips to the free-throw line and a whole bunch of misfires beyond the arc. Only four players in the entire league are averaging more shots per game.

Billy Donovan has more than enough talent to go around, but ensuring comfort for all three of his stars will take some time.

5. LaMarcus Aldridge: Still Good!

The general reaction after the San Antonio Spurs gave LaMarcus Aldridge a three-year contract extension was bemused fascination. Aldridge will be 33 next season, was not an All-Star last year, and is coming off a playoff run that saw his True Shooting percentage dip below .500. But the Spurs aren't dumb. They know this. They also probably realize that acquiring someone who can mimic his impact at a lower cost is going to be all but impossible during Kawhi Leonard's prime.

It turns out Aldridge is still a very good player, and while Leonard nurses a nagging quadricep injury, the five-time All-Star has quietly kicked off his 12th season looking like one of the league's 15 best players. The undefeated Spurs have turned to mush on both ends when he's on the bench, getting outscored by a team-low 21.6 points per 100 possessions. (They're +19.3 when he plays.)

According to Synergy Sports, just over a third of Aldridge's possessions have been post-ups, where he already ranks in the 96th percentile. The left block is his happy place, and all who've defended him see nothing but his picture-perfect turnaround jump shot whenever their eyes close. (Especially Miami Heat rookie Bam Adebayo, who was absolutely tortured on national television Wednesday night.)

It's unlikely Aldridge averages 26 points, nine rebounds, and three assists per game for the entire year, but it's a promising start for a player who badly needed to reassert himself among the league's elite frontcourt weapons. The Spurs have been especially dominant with Aldridge at the five, in lineups that feature Rudy Gay or Kyle Anderson at the four. Just imagine how scary those lineups will be when Leonard—the freaking frontrunner for MVP—returns.

6. Bebe Nogueira...

...has multiple tattoos on his face and is a legend. This—more than the Raptors' modernized shot profile—is clearly the most important recent happening that's taken place in the general Toronto area.

Photo by John E. Sokolowski - USA TODAY Sports

7. The Dreaded Hot Seat

Earlier this week, the Suns fired Earl Watson, demonstrating it's never too early to toss your head coach into a guillotine. Comparing that situation with any other in the league is tough, though. There's only one Robert Sarver, and the stakes for Watson's dismissal were pretty low, given how unpleasant the team's roster is.

Firing a coach before Thanksgiving is never a good look, but it still got me thinking about whether any other coaches (beside the two most obvious candidates: Jeff Hornacek and Alvin Gentry) might have a single burner under their chair. It would surprise me if the coach I'm about to mention doesn't keep his job for the foreseeable future, but literally nothing can be ruled out in today's NBA.

The Denver Nuggets are 1-3 with their lone win coming against the Sacramento Kings. Nothing about this is notably problematic, but expectations are a tidal wave that cease for no man, and with a cupcake road trip sitting on the horizon and a tricky home stand right after that, Mike Malone may find himself in hot water.

If Denver struggles against the Atlanta Hawks, Brooklyn Nets, and New York Knicks before the Miami Heat, Toronto, Golden State Warriors, and Oklahoma City Thunder invade the Pepsi Center, will he have an opportunity to turn things around? Probably, yes. He should. Denver is the fifth-youngest team in the league, with a pair of inexperienced point guards (Jamal Murray and Emmanuel Mudiay) who are seriously struggling. Their offense is unexpectedly impotent.

It's way, way, way too early to point fingers or even be concerned about Denver's play (their defense is keeping opponents away from the rim and forcing a ton of mid-range shots!), but Malone may be on thinner ice than we think.

8. Centers are Officially Married to the Three-Point Line

Here's a list of centers who've already launched at least one three this year: Dewayne Dedmon (six), Jonas Valanciunas (one), Hassan Whiteside (one), Willie Cauley-Stein (two), Gorgui Dieng (four), Robin Lopez (five), Nikola Vucevic (19), Dwight Powell (12), Timofey Mozgov (three), Jusuf Nurkic (two), Jeff Withey (two), Al Jefferson (one), Derrick Favors (five), and a whole bunch who aren't listed primarily because they aren't that surprising.

Joel Embiid is 2-for-13 from beyond the arc and DeMarcus Cousins is averaging more threes per game than all but five players in the entire league. Attempts aren't a sole indicator of any uptick when most of these players have only appeared in a few games, but three-point rates at the center position are skyrocketing across the board.

This is one of the most evolutionary subplots in the NBA right now, even if we all saw it coming.

9. When Spacing Doesn't Matter

Speaking of evolution and the three-point line, two of the NBA's most unique talents, Ben Simmons and Giannis Antetokounmpo, are a couple earthquakes who can't really shoot. So far, Antetokounmpo's three-point rate is about half what it was last season (he's 1-for-6 in 154 minutes) while Simmons is 0-for-3 in his career.

But both have remained effective even when the ball isn't in their hands, and their respective coaching staffs have done a good job figuring out different ways to get them going from the weakside. It's only natural to sag off someone who isn't a threat beyond the arc, and that's exactly what teams do whenever Simmons and Antetokounmpo aren't dribbling around with transfixing dexterity.

To neutralize this defense, both teams have instituted quick hit actions that allow their freakish "guards" to get a running head start towards the basket against a perimeter defender who isn't in their path. For example, the Bucks will run a side pick-and-roll towards the middle of the floor with the sole intention of swinging it to Antetokounmpo on the opposite wing. He'll catch it in mid-stride towards the paint, and from that point your best defense is physical assault.

This catch-and-go action makes defenders think twice about helping at the nail, and instead forces them to clog up an open runway towards the rim.

10. Andre Drummond is Wiping Dirt Off His Shoulders

Not only is he shooting 72.2 percent from the free-throw line, but, more importantly, the 24-year-old appears to have shaved/waxed/lasered away his scraggly shoulder hair. Speaking as someone who's long been afflicted with this cosmetic impediment, shout out to Drummond for overcoming what was once an unscalable obstacle.

11. Blake Griffin is a Top-10 Player Once More

Remember Blake Griffin? He's hitting threes, demanding double teams on the block (if you cut he will find you), and can still Mount Olympus poor shot blockers who think they stand a chance. Rudy Gobert didn't even jump when he saw Griffin rumbling down the paint for a teeth-rattling facial earlier this week.

His offensive game is as complete and diversified as there is, averaging a cool 27, 10, and four while launching six threes per game. If (if!) he stays healthy, the Clippers may find themselves with the five seed, and Griffin may find himself returning to an All-NBA team.

12. John Wall Equals Mini Mutombo

John Wall is on pace to have one of the most impressive shot-blocking seasons a guard has ever had, per Basketball-Reference. Through his first four games, the 27-year-old blur has five blocks and six personal fouls. Solid. His block rate is the exact same as Dwyane Wade's during his age-27 season, too.

He was a demon in Washington's season opener against the Philadelphia 76ers, welcoming Markelle Fultz to the league by smudging his layup off the glass. But then he also showed how useful he can be later on against the Detroit Pistons, switching onto Tobias Harris, guarding him in isolation, then swatting his floater away while squared up in the paint.

So much is made about Wall's inability to knock down threes and space the floor. But it's his inconsistency on the defensive end that bars him from MVP conversations. If he excels on that end all year, and rolls his unparalleled combination of speed, strength, and length into one package at the point guard position, Washington's ceiling will rise a considerable degree.

13. The Ed Davisaissance!

Ed Davis's tenure with the Portland Trail Blazers hasn't been great. Often injured, out of shape, or deemed ineffective in a league that has little use for big men who can't shoot, the guy looked spry on Tuesday against DeMarcus Cousins and the New Orleans Pelicans, recording his first double-double since last February.

Photo by Jaime Valdez - USA TODAY Sports

Davis is slowly re-emerging as one of the NBA's top putback artists and has flashed vibrance as a roll man, putting the ball on the ground with one dribble and then going up strong at the rim. Noah Vonleh's looming return from a shoulder injury (he could be back as early as November 1st) may throw a wrench in Davis's minutes. But Terry Stotts will have a hard time keeping the 28-year-old out of his rotation.

14. The Spurs are Spursing

The Spurs have logged six minutes of crunch time so far this season (defined as when the scoring margin is five or below, with five or fewer minutes left in the game). They've yet to allow a single point in that time. Defensive rating: zero point zero, and it's way too early to call it unsustainable.

15. How Many Nets can be Helpful Players on a Good Team?

Last year, the answer to this question was between zero and two, depending on what you think of Jeremy Lin and Brook Lopez. That number is slightly higher today, but a key difference is a serious downshift in age.

DeMarre Carroll stands out as the only legitimate late-prime candidate (though Trevor Booker is averaging 20.7 points and 12.5 rebounds per 36 minutes), with D'Angelo Russell, Jarrett Allen, and maybe even Caris LeVert—who plays basketball like a bold character actor who isn't sure/doesn't care about the established tone in his scene—rounding out the list.

It's too early to say this with too much confidence, but if the Lakers don't land LeBron James or Paul George this summer, dumping Russell for Lopez and cap space will be viewed as a humongous mistake. He looks fantastic in Brooklyn, strutting through half-court sets with 9,000 percent more confidence than he had in his first two years.

He's getting to, and finishing at, the rim in ways that should quell some concern over whether or not he'd ever be able to test defenses in the paint, all while knocking down threes and conducting open-floor surges with a comfort previously unseen in his career. His pick-and-rolls are unhurried, and he's already picked up the nuance that is holding off a trailing defender while putting pressure on the sagging big.

Turnovers are high but that's fine. He keeps his head up, looks for cutters, and is still only 21 years old!

Meanwhile, Allen looks like his ceiling could be as one of the 15 most useful defenders in the league. He has a 7'6" wingspan, unteachable instincts on the perimeter, and a touch around the basket that, speaking as someone who doesn't watch college basketball and didn't get to see him at Las Vegas Summer League, is quite the pleasant surprise. The Nets may have at least two cornerstones already onboard.

16. Are LeBron's Minutes Already Cause for Concern?

He leads the league at 188 overall and is third with 37.6 per game.

17. Your Weekly Reminder that the Golden State Warriors are Unfair

Coming out of a time-out during Wednesday night's win over the Toronto Raptors, Warriors play-by-play announcer Bob Fitzgerald looked at a Shaun Livingston, David West, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, and Andre Iguodala quintet as they strode onto the floor and said "No team in the league can match this five."

Even though only three of Golden State's units played more than this exact one last season—they outscored opponents by 13.3 points per 100 possessions in 167 minutes—my immediate reaction was still to scoff.

Yes, this unit boasts a top-two player, extremely high intelligence across the board, like-sized defenders, and one of the greatest spot-up shooters who ever lived, but it doesn't have Steph Curry or Draymond Green, two transcendent figures who are most responsible for Golden State's unprecedented dominance.

It took me about five seconds to realize Fitzgerald was right. It's obvious and inconceivable at the same time: Golden State's eighth or ninth best five-man unit will blow your very best one out of the water. Welcome back, NBA!

The Outlet Pass: Philly's Big Boys, Slow Food Melo, and the Return of Good Blake published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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The Outlet Pass: Philly's Big Boys, Slow Food Melo, and the Return of Good Blake

I watch a lot of basketball. And when I'm not doing that (or eating, sleeping, reading, sitting in front of an unintentionally funny horror movie, etc.), there's a good chance I've fallen into something NBA-related on my laptop, whether it be a beautifully-written profile, stretch of game film, or a statistical database.

It is virtually impossible to absorb all the NBA has to offer, but digestible morsels of information usually find their way into a notebook that migrates between my coffee table and nightstand. (I have two shoeboxes under my bed that are literally overflowing with random thoughts on the NBA extracted over hundreds of hours spent in front of my TV/iPad/cell phone.) Some of it is complete nonsense ("Why did Frank Vogel grow a beard?"). Some of it is useful.

This column is born from my notebook. Every week, I'll try to unwrap some unique angles from around the league. So, anyways, welcome! I hope after reading this you have just a little bit more insight into (and interest in) the NBA than you did hopping over.

1. Introducing Philly's Giant Trio of Death

This was already mentioned in my preview piece about Dario Saric and the Philadelphia 76ers, but one of the most critical questions for Philly is whether Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Saric can share the floor. All three are taller than 6'10", with a rare combination of intelligence and technical skill that should theoretically allow them to thrive beside one another.

If they can space the floor (more on Simmons's ability to do that without a jump shot later), maintain some defensive versatility, and move the ball, there's no way to stop them. Size has long been the sport's most valuable element, and folding it into a group that's also able to adopt modern principles (quality three-point shooting, a modifiable pick-and-roll defense, etc.) would eventually give Philly an advantage over everybody else.

They've only shared the floor for 23 minutes in four games, but in that time the Sixers have outscored opponents by 27 points per 100 possessions while assisting two-thirds of their made baskets. They're zipping up the court, running offense through whoever has a mismatch, and, as expected, gobbling up all the rebounds in sight.

27 minutes of basketball hardly provides enough data to confirm that these three will one day take over the universe, but Sixers coach Brett Brown swapped Saric in for Jerryd Bayless at the start of the second half of their Monday night win over the Detroit Pistons. Obvious translation: This is the beginning of something very special.

2. Minnesota's Glaring Weakness

Between Karl-Anthony Towns dissecting defenses from any square foot of the court he pleases, Andrew Wiggins gliding like a condor, and Jamal Crawford momentarily propping up a lethargic offense like the ageless highlight reel he is, it's still hard to ignore Minnesota's obvious hole: the desperate need for another wing defender. Maybe two.

At the start of their thrilling victory against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday night, the Timberwolves started with Jimmy Butler on Russell Westbrook while Wiggins defended Paul George and Jeff Teague hid out on Andre Roberson. Taj Gibson—better suited as a backup center at this stage in his career—glued himself to Carmelo Anthony as best he could.

When Wiggins took a seat later in the game, Butler was forced to pick up George. Not all teams are able to deploy as many offensive weapons as the Thunder, but these assignments are still way too taxing for Butler all year long, and don't allow him to wreak havoc off the ball on offense as much as he could if the Timberwolves avoided a crossmatch by putting Teague on Westbrook and Butler on Roberson.

Minnesota showed some interest in P.J. Tucker over the summer, but didn't make a serious offer to acquire him. That's unfortunate. They're distinctly thin at arguably the most critical position in the league, and it's showing. When Butler missed Tuesday night's game against the Indiana Pacers, his teammates put up one of the weaker defensive performances any team has had all season.

Games against the Pacers and Thunder are a small sample size, but we already knew that Crawford and Shabazz Muhammad aren't answers on the defensive end, while the Timberwolves' assembly of bigs aren't flexible enough to switch on the perimeter or even directly line up against teams that go small.

Minnesota's offense should still be good enough for a playoff berth, but unless they address their most glaring weakness before the trade deadline, winning a series will be an uphill battle. Including the two games Butler's missed, Minnesota's defensive rating is an atrocious 117.5 when he's not on the floor.

3. The Phoenix Suns!

Many accurate words have been written about the amusingly dysfunctional Phoenix Suns since the season started last Tuesday. It's fair to say they've momentarily snatched the Torch of Negligence from organizations that have proudly held it (the New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls, Sacramento Kings, and Los Angeles Lakers immediately spring to mind).

A couple nights before Eric Bledsoe submitted an early frontrunner for this season's most legendary tweet, I was in bed watching a game on my iPad when a random, half-serious thought popped into my head. I rolled over, opened my notebook, and scribbled down the following sentence: "Indirect way to gauge how hard a team is playing: Watch with sound off. That way you don't know if players are reacting to a ref's whistle or not."

I was watching the Suns.

4. Carmelo Anthony is a Walking "STOP THE PRESSES" Button

After their game against the Pacers on Wednesday night, Oklahoma City's pace registered at 104.2 with Russell Westbrook on the floor this season. Given their success in transition and all the long-armed, turnover-cobbling athleticism they possess on the defensive end, that number is right in line with how the Thunder should try and play for the rest of the reigning MVP's prime.

"Hijack" is too strong a descriptor for what Carmelo Anthony has done to his new team's rhythm, but when he's in the game their pace drops to 100.7. Related to last year's numbers, the gap between Westbrook and Melo's individual pace represents the league's fastest and 10th fastest teams.

When Anthony has been off the floor this season, Oklahoma City transforms into a jumbo jet. Its pace shoots up to a whopping 105.6. When Westbrook sits, things molder at 96.1. The differential grows more stark when you look at how the NBA's Triple-Double King performs without Anthony on the court. His True Shooting percentage increases 16.4 percent despite his usage rising by 10 points. (The pace gap also dramatically widens, as one might assume.)

This is the fundamental struggle Oklahoma City needs to work through as they digest life with two score-first options who're more comfortable at different tempos. Anthony's usage is right in line with where it was the past two seasons, but his True Shooting is down, thanks to a dramatic dip in trips to the free-throw line and a whole bunch of misfires beyond the arc. Only four players in the entire league are averaging more shots per game.

Billy Donovan has more than enough talent to go around, but ensuring comfort for all three of his stars will take some time.

5. LaMarcus Aldridge: Still Good!

The general reaction after the San Antonio Spurs gave LaMarcus Aldridge a three-year contract extension was bemused fascination. Aldridge will be 33 next season, was not an All-Star last year, and is coming off a playoff run that saw his True Shooting percentage dip below .500. But the Spurs aren't dumb. They know this. They also probably realize that acquiring someone who can mimic his impact at a lower cost is going to be all but impossible during Kawhi Leonard's prime.

It turns out Aldridge is still a very good player, and while Leonard nurses a nagging quadricep injury, the five-time All-Star has quietly kicked off his 12th season looking like one of the league's 15 best players. The undefeated Spurs have turned to mush on both ends when he's on the bench, getting outscored by a team-low 21.6 points per 100 possessions. (They're +19.3 when he plays.)

According to Synergy Sports, just over a third of Aldridge's possessions have been post-ups, where he already ranks in the 96th percentile. The left block is his happy place, and all who've defended him see nothing but his picture-perfect turnaround jump shot whenever their eyes close. (Especially Miami Heat rookie Bam Adebayo, who was absolutely tortured on national television Wednesday night.)

It's unlikely Aldridge averages 26 points, nine rebounds, and three assists per game for the entire year, but it's a promising start for a player who badly needed to reassert himself among the league's elite frontcourt weapons. The Spurs have been especially dominant with Aldridge at the five, in lineups that feature Rudy Gay or Kyle Anderson at the four. Just imagine how scary those lineups will be when Leonard—the freaking frontrunner for MVP—returns.

6. Bebe Nogueira...

...has multiple tattoos on his face and is a legend. This—more than the Raptors' modernized shot profile—is clearly the most important recent happening that's taken place in the general Toronto area.

Photo by John E. Sokolowski - USA TODAY Sports

7. The Dreaded Hot Seat

Earlier this week, the Suns fired Earl Watson, demonstrating it's never too early to toss your head coach into a guillotine. Comparing that situation with any other in the league is tough, though. There's only one Robert Sarver, and the stakes for Watson's dismissal were pretty low, given how unpleasant the team's roster is.

Firing a coach before Thanksgiving is never a good look, but it still got me thinking about whether any other coaches (beside the two most obvious candidates: Jeff Hornacek and Alvin Gentry) might have a single burner under their chair. It would surprise me if the coach I'm about to mention doesn't keep his job for the foreseeable future, but literally nothing can be ruled out in today's NBA.

The Denver Nuggets are 1-3 with their lone win coming against the Sacramento Kings. Nothing about this is notably problematic, but expectations are a tidal wave that cease for no man, and with a cupcake road trip sitting on the horizon and a tricky home stand right after that, Mike Malone may find himself in hot water.

If Denver struggles against the Atlanta Hawks, Brooklyn Nets, and New York Knicks before the Miami Heat, Toronto, Golden State Warriors, and Oklahoma City Thunder invade the Pepsi Center, will he have an opportunity to turn things around? Probably, yes. He should. Denver is the fifth-youngest team in the league, with a pair of inexperienced point guards (Jamal Murray and Emmanuel Mudiay) who are seriously struggling. Their offense is unexpectedly impotent.

It's way, way, way too early to point fingers or even be concerned about Denver's play (their defense is keeping opponents away from the rim and forcing a ton of mid-range shots!), but Malone may be on thinner ice than we think.

8. Centers are Officially Married to the Three-Point Line

Here's a list of centers who've already launched at least one three this year: Dewayne Dedmon (six), Jonas Valanciunas (one), Hassan Whiteside (one), Willie Cauley-Stein (two), Gorgui Dieng (four), Robin Lopez (five), Nikola Vucevic (19), Dwight Powell (12), Timofey Mozgov (three), Jusuf Nurkic (two), Jeff Withey (two), Al Jefferson (one), Derrick Favors (five), and a whole bunch who aren't listed primarily because they aren't that surprising.

Joel Embiid is 2-for-13 from beyond the arc and DeMarcus Cousins is averaging more threes per game than all but five players in the entire league. Attempts aren't a sole indicator of any uptick when most of these players have only appeared in a few games, but three-point rates at the center position are skyrocketing across the board.

This is one of the most evolutionary subplots in the NBA right now, even if we all saw it coming.

9. When Spacing Doesn't Matter

Speaking of evolution and the three-point line, two of the NBA's most unique talents, Ben Simmons and Giannis Antetokounmpo, are a couple earthquakes who can't really shoot. So far, Antetokounmpo's three-point rate is about half what it was last season (he's 1-for-6 in 154 minutes) while Simmons is 0-for-3 in his career.

But both have remained effective even when the ball isn't in their hands, and their respective coaching staffs have done a good job figuring out different ways to get them going from the weakside. It's only natural to sag off someone who isn't a threat beyond the arc, and that's exactly what teams do whenever Simmons and Antetokounmpo aren't dribbling around with transfixing dexterity.

To neutralize this defense, both teams have instituted quick hit actions that allow their freakish "guards" to get a running head start towards the basket against a perimeter defender who isn't in their path. For example, the Bucks will run a side pick-and-roll towards the middle of the floor with the sole intention of swinging it to Antetokounmpo on the opposite wing. He'll catch it in mid-stride towards the paint, and from that point your best defense is physical assault.

This catch-and-go action makes defenders think twice about helping at the nail, and instead forces them to clog up an open runway towards the rim.

10. Andre Drummond is Wiping Dirt Off His Shoulders

Not only is he shooting 72.2 percent from the free-throw line, but, more importantly, the 24-year-old appears to have shaved/waxed/lasered away his scraggly shoulder hair. Speaking as someone who's long been afflicted with this cosmetic impediment, shout out to Drummond for overcoming what was once an unscalable obstacle.

11. Blake Griffin is a Top-10 Player Once More

Remember Blake Griffin? He's hitting threes, demanding double teams on the block (if you cut he will find you), and can still Mount Olympus poor shot blockers who think they stand a chance. Rudy Gobert didn't even jump when he saw Griffin rumbling down the paint for a teeth-rattling facial earlier this week.

His offensive game is as complete and diversified as there is, averaging a cool 27, 10, and four while launching six threes per game. If (if!) he stays healthy, the Clippers may find themselves with the five seed, and Griffin may find himself returning to an All-NBA team.

12. John Wall Equals Mini Mutombo

John Wall is on pace to have one of the most impressive shot-blocking seasons a guard has ever had, per Basketball-Reference. Through his first four games, the 27-year-old blur has five blocks and six personal fouls. Solid. His block rate is the exact same as Dwyane Wade's during his age-27 season, too.

He was a demon in Washington's season opener against the Philadelphia 76ers, welcoming Markelle Fultz to the league by smudging his layup off the glass. But then he also showed how useful he can be later on against the Detroit Pistons, switching onto Tobias Harris, guarding him in isolation, then swatting his floater away while squared up in the paint.

So much is made about Wall's inability to knock down threes and space the floor. But it's his inconsistency on the defensive end that bars him from MVP conversations. If he excels on that end all year, and rolls his unparalleled combination of speed, strength, and length into one package at the point guard position, Washington's ceiling will rise a considerable degree.

13. The Ed Davisaissance!

Ed Davis's tenure with the Portland Trail Blazers hasn't been great. Often injured, out of shape, or deemed ineffective in a league that has little use for big men who can't shoot, the guy looked spry on Tuesday against DeMarcus Cousins and the New Orleans Pelicans, recording his first double-double since last February.

Photo by Jaime Valdez - USA TODAY Sports

Davis is slowly re-emerging as one of the NBA's top putback artists and has flashed vibrance as a roll man, putting the ball on the ground with one dribble and then going up strong at the rim. Noah Vonleh's looming return from a shoulder injury (he could be back as early as November 1st) may throw a wrench in Davis's minutes. But Terry Stotts will have a hard time keeping the 28-year-old out of his rotation.

14. The Spurs are Spursing

The Spurs have logged six minutes of crunch time so far this season (defined as when the scoring margin is five or below, with five or fewer minutes left in the game). They've yet to allow a single point in that time. Defensive rating: zero point zero, and it's way too early to call it unsustainable.

15. How Many Nets can be Helpful Players on a Good Team?

Last year, the answer to this question was between zero and two, depending on what you think of Jeremy Lin and Brook Lopez. That number is slightly higher today, but a key difference is a serious downshift in age.

DeMarre Carroll stands out as the only legitimate late-prime candidate (though Trevor Booker is averaging 20.7 points and 12.5 rebounds per 36 minutes), with D'Angelo Russell, Jarrett Allen, and maybe even Caris LeVert—who plays basketball like a bold character actor who isn't sure/doesn't care about the established tone in his scene—rounding out the list.

It's too early to say this with too much confidence, but if the Lakers don't land LeBron James or Paul George this summer, dumping Russell for Lopez and cap space will be viewed as a humongous mistake. He looks fantastic in Brooklyn, strutting through half-court sets with 9,000 percent more confidence than he had in his first two years.

He's getting to, and finishing at, the rim in ways that should quell some concern over whether or not he'd ever be able to test defenses in the paint, all while knocking down threes and conducting open-floor surges with a comfort previously unseen in his career. His pick-and-rolls are unhurried, and he's already picked up the nuance that is holding off a trailing defender while putting pressure on the sagging big.

Turnovers are high but that's fine. He keeps his head up, looks for cutters, and is still only 21 years old!

Meanwhile, Allen looks like his ceiling could be as one of the 15 most useful defenders in the league. He has a 7'6" wingspan, unteachable instincts on the perimeter, and a touch around the basket that, speaking as someone who doesn't watch college basketball and didn't get to see him at Las Vegas Summer League, is quite the pleasant surprise. The Nets may have at least two cornerstones already onboard.

16. Are LeBron's Minutes Already Cause for Concern?

He leads the league at 188 overall and is third with 37.6 per game.

17. Your Weekly Reminder that the Golden State Warriors are Unfair

Coming out of a time-out during Wednesday night's win over the Toronto Raptors, Warriors play-by-play announcer Bob Fitzgerald looked at a Shaun Livingston, David West, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, and Andre Iguodala quintet as they strode onto the floor and said "No team in the league can match this five."

Even though only three of Golden State's units played more than this exact one last season—they outscored opponents by 13.3 points per 100 possessions in 167 minutes—my immediate reaction was still to scoff.

Yes, this unit boasts a top-two player, extremely high intelligence across the board, like-sized defenders, and one of the greatest spot-up shooters who ever lived, but it doesn't have Steph Curry or Draymond Green, two transcendent figures who are most responsible for Golden State's unprecedented dominance.

It took me about five seconds to realize Fitzgerald was right. It's obvious and inconceivable at the same time: Golden State's eighth or ninth best five-man unit will blow your very best one out of the water. Welcome back, NBA!

The Outlet Pass: Philly's Big Boys, Slow Food Melo, and the Return of Good Blake published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv