#would produce a whole football team and it's cheerleaders

[nothing-behindher-eyes]

the directors said cut but jonah hauer king king heard slut and he went with it

[dreamersdreamloud]

High School Lovers

AN: Planning to make a storyline out of this on AO3

Warnings: Mature

Omega Lena Luthor x Alpha Reader

————————————

First Day of School

Danvers Household

The Danvers, the famous kind family with three dashing Alphas. Eliza and Jeremiah are proud of producing three strong women alphas. The oldest (Y/N) Danvers, the most popular jock in their highschool. You're proud to be the captain and quarterback of the Midvale’s football team. The omegas from all grades adore your looks and muscles but they didn’t stand a chance since you were dating the cheerleading captain, Cat Grant.

Cat dumped you during summer break and your inner alpha felt heartbroken. She left you for Maxwell Lord, the snobby rich alpha with little or none manners. You learned to let go during the summer and focused on getting that athlete scholarship during your last year of highschool and just move on with your life. Recently you became more reckless with your alpha actions, getting into fights, not listening to your parents. You were a mess that your sisters had to watch over you, to avoid getting yourself into further trouble.

The second oldest, Alex Danvers is also popular, known for her smarts for science but also the captain of the basketball team. Alex has always looked up to you as a role model. She basically became a tough looking alpha just like her older sister. But under those tough looks, she’s soft as a teddy bear, as her girlfriend, Sam Arias, declares it.

The youngest alpha in the family is Kara Danvers. The well known ball of sunshine and kindness. People often underestimate the blonde. Her alpha side is not something to be messed with. Bigger alphas would bully the youngest Danvers but they would run for the hills if Alex and you teach them a lesson on what happens when you mess with their youngest sister. Kara loves her sisters so much but she also loves her omega girlfriend, Lucy Lane , for always supporting her.

You're happy that your sisters have girlfriends and glad that they picked the best omegas from your shared high school. You don’t have to worry about the omegas being a distraction to your sisters’ studies. Whenever they’re in heat, they know best to stay away from their alphas and sit out. Eliza is thankful to not worry about being a grandma so soon.

“(Y/N)! Wake up! Mom has been calling you for breakfast!” Alex pounds on the door of your bedroom. You groan and growl at the door.

“I’ll be there!” You yelled back. You’re glad that you have your own room. Unfortunately, Alex and Kara have to share a bedroom. Sometimes you would hear them arguing next door on the stupidest things.

“Agh. First day of senior year here we go.” You said to yourself as you push your blankets away.

***

“Sam! Can you drive a little slower?!” Lena yells at her driver. She doesn’t know why she agreed to ride with her best friend to school if her life is endangered.

“Lena. It’s our first day of being juniors. I don’t want to be late!”

“We’re an hour early! You literally just want to see your girlfriend and ride her dick in the locker rooms.” Lena huffs.

The omega is happy that her best friend is dating a popular yet caring alpha but it can be annoying to watch them tongue each other’s throats in public. Lena wishes she had an alpha to look forward to but ever since she dumped Jack, she hasn’t been able to find another great alpha.

The reason the raven haired dump the alpha is that he would often ask her to have sex. Lena felt uncomfortable and she was only 15 years old at the time and he was a senior. He was the legal age of having sexual intercourse. Lena didn’t like being pressure into having sex so she broke things off and was content when he left for college. Lena wants to pick someone special to take her virginity and hopes to find that someone soon.

Sam ease off on the gas so that her passenger doesn’t contract a heart attack. A muscle car pulls up next to Sam’s car. The car is too familiar to the omegas. They've been seeing that classic black Ford Mustang fastback all summer.

The Danvers sisters are inside that car. The oldest Danvers revs the car again, annoying the two omegas inside their own car. Sam got a bit distracted as she saw the second oldest Danvers giving her certain looks that any omega would like to see. Lena saw that Kara was shaking her head, not wanting to be part of her sisters’ reckless act.

The alpha speeds up and cuts Sam off. Sam honks at the mustang, “Jackass.”

Lena laughs, “maybe if you weren’t so distracted looking at your alpha, (Y/N) wouldn’t have cut you off.”

Sam didn’t park too far from the alphas, they both got off at the same time. Lucy from afar, ran into Kara’s arms and gave her a longing kiss for everyone to witness. Sam didn’t want to embarrass herself like that and waited for Alex to walk over to them.

“Good morning, babe.” Alex lifts up Sam off her feet and Lena gags.

Not wanting to witness their affection, her eyes fall to the older Danvers stepping out of the car last. You wore sunglasses and simple black jeans with white fitted t-shirt. You saw your sisters run to their girlfriends and you just roll your eyes at them. You didn’t bother to wait for them and just make your way inside the school campus grounds to go hang with your jock friends.

“I see that you’re checking out the oldest Danvers.” Sam teases Lena.

“Wait what? Are you seriously checking out my sister, Luthor?”

Lena can’t help to admit that you’re the most handsome looking alpha she has ever seen in this highschool and that she developed a small crush over you since her freshman year. Besides dumping Jack for pressuring sex onto her, she also did it for you. She had this little hope that would be her loving alpha but when she found out that you got together with Cat, she was broken into tears.

“You know she’s single right? Cat dumped her during the summer.” Sam informs Lena.

The raven haired already knew that from Kara. She mentally keeps tabs on the older Danvers and Kara just feeds her information not knowing that she’s helping her. During the summer break, Lena would often visit the Danvers household to hang out with Kara and Alex but you were never there when she visited. You often found yourself helping your father or out with friends during the early morning.

“I heard it first from Kara.” Lena replies to Sam.

“I’m giving you permission to go after my knot head sister.” Alex surprisingly tells her.

“Your sister doesn’t know I exist. Plus why would she want to date a small nerdy omega?”

It’s true that Lena is a nerd but she’s the most popular nerd in the whole school. She takes advanced classes, joins after programs and clubs to help boost her chances into getting into MIT. Lena is sure that you only saw her a few times ever since you met through your sisters and swears that you don’t remember her.

The school bell rings and everyone heads to their first class of the day.

During Lena’s history class, she doesn’t bother to give her full attention since she already knows everything and already did advance research of U.S history during the summer break. At the moment, Lena was thinking how it can be possible to date the oldest Danvers but it can be nearly impossible. Omegas are not known to court alphas. She wonders if she can grab the alpha jock’s attention but since she’s a Junior, she knows that she won’t have any classes with her. Lena nearly gives up on the silly idea. Maybe she’ll just need to move on.

***

It’s nearly the end of the day and Lena is looking forward to her last class, Microbiology. A class where only seniors can take but Lena’s mother, Lillian, helped talk the school board into letting Lena take the class since she already took all the other science classes and passed with A’s.

The raven haired was one of the few to arrive early and picked a seating of her choice. She picks a seat in the back to not draw much attention to herself for the semester. Lena keeps herself but checking her phone while the seniors pour themselves inside the room.

She felt a little lonely for not having friends in this class but she was content that she has classes with Sam and Alex. She also has elective classes with Kara and Winn. A few seniors recognized Lena on the way in and had a short conversation with the only junior in the class. Andrea Rojas, a cheerleader that Lena is friends with, sits before her.

The microbiology teacher who’s also the coach of the football team, starts to take attendance. It goes by alphabetical order and everyone just quieta down to hear their names be called.

“(Y/N) Danvers?!” Mr. J’onn J'onzz says out loud.

Lena’s head perks up and scans the room to find the older Danvers but apparently she’s nowhere to be found.

“Danvers?” Mr. J’onzz calls out again. He scans the room carefully and looks for anyone connected to the missing student.

“Gand! Where’s (Y/N)?”

Mike also known as Mon-El, a football player, answers, “I- um. I actually don’t know Coach.”

“Since she’s not here she better be at practice or else the whole team will be doing suicides for warm-up.” The coach threatens.

Mr. J’onzz is upset that his star player has ditched class but he resumes to take attendance and start the lecture. Lena wonders where the alpha jock went, she hides her phone under her desk and texts another senior she knows. She doesn’t want to text either of the Danvers sisters.

Lena: Mags, do you know where (Y/N) is at?

Maggie: Big D? Nope. She should be in class. Why?

Lena rolls her eyes at the older Danvers’ nickname. She can’t believe people call her that but she blushes on the reason why she earned that name. There’s been rumors going around that (Y/N)’s dick is huge and was exposed during one of the wild highschool parties.

Maggie was the one who started the nickname and decided to nickname all the Danvers sisters as well. She called Alex “Mid D” and Kara “Little D or Little Danvers.” Little did everyone know, all the Danvers have huge cocks and their girlfriends can certify that information.

Lena: She’s supposed to be in my microbio class.

Maggie: Hmm. I’ll look into it

The raven haired locks her phone and pays attention to the lecture again. It was long until Lena’s phone vibrated a text message.

Maggie: So . . Big D is getting a BJ from one of the cheerleaders.

Of course. Lena thought to herself.

“Okay class! This semester I’m going to pair you up with a partner. The project will be about collecting samples from different environments and studying what type of bacteria is out there. The due date is TBA but I suggest you start it early and not last minute. The project is worth 300 points of your grade.” Mr. J’onzz announces.

The teacher proceeds to read of the pairs of students for the project in his clipboard. The students were getting noisy as the pairs were being announced. A few were disappointed in who they got while others were filled with joy.

“Lena Luthor! You’re partners with (Y/N) Danvers!”

Lena looked up quickly when she heard her partner’s name. She sees that half of the class looked at her when they found out that their most cherished alpha is partners with a junior omega who’s known for her genius side. The raven haired caught a few omegas looking at her with disgust but she managed to ignore.

“Fuck.” Lena mumbled to herself. She can’t believe she’s paired off with her long time crush. It can’t be that bad right? She’s close with the younger sisters, doesn’t mean she can’t be friendly and close with the oldest Danvers sister as well. Or can she?

[skzshortcake]

chan as a high school football player

skz high school football masterlist

chan

number: 47 position: tight end main responsibility: catching passes and blocking. the typical tight end is a player who's both a skilled pass-catcher and a serviceable blocker.

chan always knew he wanted to play football

even from when he was younger, playing on the playground with his friends talking about the upcoming college game, or playing football in his backyard with his dad

he just always knew! maybe it’s not what he wants his job to be, but he just loves the sport so much

he spent hours and hours and hours at practices ever since third grade when his school started their football team 

teams didn’t compete until middle school

but chan had so much fun learning about the game that he was there from the start of practice, all the way until the end when he would help clean up

you and chan are such a good influence at your school!

he knows all of the teachers and they know him, all of the students talk to him in the hallways

he fistbumps the freshmen whenever he sees them

you can’t find a more friendly and high-spirited senior

your relationship with chan was right out of a romcom movie, he was the dreamy love interest, you were the charismatic lead

during games chan always has to know where you are in the stands, how else is he going to pick which side his team chooses to play on?

chan has the whole school whipped for him

if he was sitting out in the courtyard with you when you were supposed to be in class, the teachers didn’t even ask for a hall pass from you, they just assumed you were both already allowed

he’s very respectful to all of the cheerleaders

they’re like his sisters, he brings extra snacks for your practices and watches you with the biggest smile when you perform

when the team is waiting to storm the field to start the game, chan always thinks about you and how he wants to play for you and make you proud

he’s just on top of the world when he plays, he gets to play his favorite sport with his best friends and his favorite person is cheering for him!

he wants to sit a game out and dress up as the mascot at least once but he’s saving that for later

chan spends majority of his leftover time with you (ignoring the football team group chat that basically blows up his phone 24/7)

chan rarely breaks the rules, he never really does anything wild?

but when he does he brings you along for the ride.

sneaking out of class and doing homework for the freshmen who don’t understand the work? he’s down.

chan drives you anywhere you want, and the best part about it is when he puts the car in reverse he puts his hand on the back of your seat? you know that thing? 

yeah he does that.

he tries to not laugh when he sees you steal his letterman jacket because he thinks it is absolutely adorable that you want to wear his things

and his face and ears get all red when you wear it during colder games too!!!

chan seriously believes you’re a good luck charm. he always plays a little better when you’re there.

maybe it’s because he wants to impress you? or maybe just having you cheering for him just makes him more confident

some of the dates you go on consist of you both studying and eating food, or chan drives around the town with you and you find an empty road to blare the music he has been working on

on those dates, you pick up some fast food and watch the sunset while you talk about school and the future

chan has been working on producing music! he always wants your opinion on it and gets all giddy when people compliment him

even though he denies every single compliment

you and chan are so involved in the school! you both help out on field day and you’re both in your town’s summer parade with the rest of the football and cheerleading teams!

overall, chan is such a sweet and caring boyfriend, he is such a good influence on his friends and the students around him

and he loves you so much!

[xolarajean]

Feel the Beat - Movie Review

Plot: Feel the Beat is a film that combines dance, comedy, and drama. It is directed by Elissa Down and stars Sofia Carson, Enrico Colantoni and Wolfgang Novogratz. Carson stars as April Dibrina, an aspiring Broadway dancer in New York City. Unknowingly, April steals a taxi from Ruth Zimmer, the producer of a major Broadway show April is going to audition for. After the realization she tries to plead with Ruth not to get cut, only to accidentally cause her to get injured. To make matters worse, the entire encounter was recorded by another dancer. After the embarrassing video of her goes viral, April returns to her small hometown in Wisconsin. April reluctantly accepts an offer to coach the local dance team in hopes of getting the attention of a famous Broadway producer, Welly Wong, at the national competition. Throughout the journey, April struggles with figuring out what her dreams are while also trying to mend relationships with the people she left behind years ago -- one of them being her ex-boyfriend, Nick. The movie shines a light on the rigorous training and pressures professional dancers go through. 

Rating: 3/5

I would say it is PG-13. The only curse word that I can remember that wasn’t censored was “ass” near the end. It also shows some little girls twerking/doing suggestive dancing in somewhat skimpy outfits in dance competitions -- for me it was awkward and I skipped through those parts, but I guess it also highlights the sexualization of young girls in the dance industry. 

Pros: 

Diversity (out of the main cast) - Zuzu is deaf and everyone knows/learns sign language which is used throughout the film.  Kari is African American and comes from a struggling household. June is of (I believe) Japanese descent (based on her Instagram account). In addition, Dicky joins the dance group and no sexist comments are made about it. Oona is not made fun of for her weight (if I recall correctly). Deco is also African American and honestly slays throughout the movie (Such a queen, I aspire to be him)

Supportive side characters (especially dads) - all the townspeople are super supportive of April and the girls. The dads tho came THRU. I really enjoyed the scenes of them taking notes on the dances and helping their daughters with practicing at home. The football coach (father of Dicky and one of the girls) especially surprised me because I thought the movie was going to make him the stereotypical sexist dude with him being against Dicky joining dance and overall looking down on dance, but I was pleasantly surprised when he started going full cheerleader mode when Dicky joined in. 

Sofia Carson and Wolfgang Novogratz - I really enjoyed their acting and chemistry together. Though, I wished their was more time to develop their relationship before getting back together because it felt very rushed/abrupt when they kissed. Either way, I really liked their banter and interactions, it felt really realistic. 

Kinda enjoyed the little crush Sarah had on RJ because I’ve been there lmao.

Cons:  

Cheesy and predictable - going into it I already knew what was going to happen obviously which kinda made it more bearable I guess? Kinda overdramatic with some characters like Miss Barb but at the same time endearing.

Sometimes the dialogue felt weird and cringey - this was mostly felt in the parts at the beginning with April begging Ruth and her going back to Wisconsin.   

April in the beginning - I know the whole idea is to show the major growth April goes through from start to finish and that the protagonist is not perfect, but it felt so weird for April to be so blatantly bitchy and moody to the girls the first time they meet. I feel that most people at least would put on a fake smile at the start and try to answer the questions in a respectable way. Tho I would like to mention that I love Sofia Carson even when acts like a villain lmao. Plus the way she treated Ruby was just not cool??? Like at least be a decent human being and say something along the lines of “you could practice harder and be better” instead of just crushing her dream??? 

Some of the dancing scenes where girls twerked/did very suggestive dancing - I skipped through these parts b/c I was so uncomfortable from the first second. Enough said.

Nick - look he is hot and I loved the few scenes of banter between him and April, but I felt that he wasn’t really developed? I understand that he is not the main focus so there might not have been enough time for him too. Honestly, I think its because he seems WAY TOO PERFECT and I wish to find a guy like that haha (my hopeless romantic heart beats so fast when he is on screen) Guess who found their new celebrity crush

So those were my thoughts on Feel the Beat! My PMs/replies are definitely always open to discuss this movie or any other movie/shows that I’ve seen/reviewed. I would love to geek out with anyone! <3

[magpiemorality]

Another request, if it's okay ofc, Canon or AU both are fine, Deceit and Remus both being interested in Patton and trying to gain his affections and being dramatic rivals. Patton is a bit obvious to it all at first but it ends with him cheerfully saying he likes them both so they both can become his boyfriends, they don't have to fight

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 AO3

Warnings: cursing, judgemental characters, a character dismissing polyamory as an option

***

“I just don’t know what to do!” Patton flopped down on his bed, keeping his phone up by his ear and pouting at the ceiling. 

On the other end, his best friend Remy sighed before replying. “Maybe you could just go and do something about the situation instead of always whining to me about your crazy lucky love life?!” he suggested. “Because gurl, you’re lucky! My dry spell has been over a week now and I’m starting to go mad-” 

Patton giggled and tuned out as Remy kept on complaining about his own lack of a dating life, twirling a curl around his finger and chewing on his lip thoughtfully. 

It was a pretty heavenly dilemma to have, really. It was just so gosh darn upsetting that Patton had to solve the whole thing by making a decision, instead of just riding the euphoria forever. 

The dilemma was this: Patton had two potential boyfriends and he was only allowed to choose one. 

On the one hand; Dexter O’Reilly was drop dead gorgeous, and climbing the social ranks fast by essentially just building his own and declaring it lord of them all. He was mysterious and exciting and surprisingly sweet, and he was a total bad boy. Patton’s parents would never approve (the fact their wholesome Mormon beliefs didn’t approve of most of his life choices notwithstanding…) but that just made it all the more exciting. Dex would be the type of guy that turned Patton from Sandy at the beginning of Grease; to Sandy at the end of Grease, and he was sorta tempted by the idea of a change. Being perfect all the time was a bit of a drag after a while. 

On the other hand there was Remus Duke. One of the defensive end’s of the football team, he was big and strong and, well he was a football player. Patton was a cheerleader. It was practically the law. And Remus was always smiling, always living his life loud and proud and defending his ideals no matter what it took. More than once Patton had heard of him getting into a fight because someone had said something rude to one of his friends, which should not have been as hot as Patton had found it, but gosh, loyalty was sexy okay?! Don’t judge him. Remus was not quite as much a bad boy as Dex was, but he filled the criteria nicely enough. 

Patton was completely torn. 

“-babes you’re not even listening to me, you complain about your dynamic duo all the time and you won’t even listen to me bitch about all the boys that don’t want to date me?!” 

“Gosh, sorry Rem. I just- I can’t help myself!” 

There was a moment’s silence before the sound of a cup being sucked nearly dry nearly burst Patton’s eardrum. “Hey, that’s not fair you promised not to do that without warning again!” 

“Babes, deal with it. Now I gotta go get ready for class, but I’ll speak to you soon. And Pat?” 

“Yeah?”

“Sort your head out soon. Rumour on the blog discord has it that Duke isn’t gonna wait for Prom anymore and wants to pop the question by Spring break. If you’re gonna pick him you’ll want to let the other one down gently before that happens, ‘kay?”

“Mm.”

“Okay babes, ciao!” 

“Ciao, Remy,” Patton mumbled, dropping his phone by his head and letting out a loud groan. Easier said than done. Especially when it wasn’t just his head that had high stakes in the matter; his heart was going all in. 

***

“Mr Duke, will you please focus?!” Dammit, had he been zoning out again? Fuck. Remus lifted his hand with an apologetic grin, turning back to the experiment his group had running on the counter in front of them. 

“How does she always know?” Toby muttered, eyeing their Chem 3 professor suspiciously. “I was totally covering for you dude, I swear. I know how you get.” 

Remus shot him a grateful smile, swirling the contents of a test tube until the mixture was evenly dispersed. “I know, it’s all cool. She’s just some kind of teaching cryptid, probably. Never doesn’t know every single thing happening in class…” 

“So what was it today? You need to run it off later?” Toby offered once they’d started the bunsen burner and set the timer, sitting back to watch and wait for the reaction. “Bad or good?”

“Oh, kinda… both? No running necessary, bro, thanks, but maybe, maybe some house rules mariokart after practice. It was Patton again.”

Toby winced in sympathy. “Our itty bitty pretty cheerboy has got you bad, Duke. What is this, year two, month three?” 

“Something like that. Do you think I should go back to the plan to wait for prom season? It’s just… that would be easy but then I’m wasting time and I already missed the winter formal chance and now there’s this other guy-”

“Wait what other guy?” Toby asked, leaning forwards to check the timer quickly. “There’s another guy?”

“Yeah, the fancy one. You know the one, he’s got the birthmark all over his face?”

“Huh, I thought you only liked the pretty ones-”

“Hey. We don’t make those jokes, remember? We’re better than that now. And besides, he’s not another guy for me, he’s another guy for Patton. They spent loads of time together over Winter break, and he’s like, super weirdly popular or something. Like a mob boss. He probably has way more to offer Patton than I do… Ow!” He glared at his friend, rubbing his shoulder. “What was that for?” 

“For shit talking my best friend. Besides dude, this could be your motivation, right? You need something to get you moving, because shit if you aren’t gonna do it on your own…” 

“Harsh, but fair.”

“So think of it like a competition. You’re good at those.”

Remus blinked, tilting his head. The timer went off before he could reply, so they tabled the conversation. He brought it back up again when they were on the field stretching before practice, eyes straying frequently over to the gym wall where he knew the cheerleaders were inside doing their own practice session. 

“So, about that competition idea… What did you have in mind?” He asked, attempting to be casual and failing. 

Toby grinned. “Alright, here’s the plan.”

***

“Here’s the plan,” Dex told himself sternly in the mirror. “You are going to go up to Patton and ask him if he wants to get coffee. You are going to go up to Patton and ask him if he wants to get coffee. Shit, no, he prefers tea…” 

He sighed, walked in a frustrated circle around his room and came back to the mirror, pushing his hair back and starting again. “You are going to go up to Patton and ask him if he wants to get tea. With you! You are going to- oh what is the point?” This whole exercise was useless. It hadn’t worked for the past three weeks- why would it work today? He was going to pass Patton on campus and give him the usual strained smile and mumbled greeting before hurrying on with his day, annoyed and frustrated and disappointed and another day closer to losing Patton to Remus Duke. 

Dex would rather die than let that neanderthal win. 

And based on the information he was gathering on his blog, he was running out of time to ensure that didn’t happen. Today was going to be crucial- if he could break his routine of failure that was… Maybe a new plan would help? He could take Patton’s favourite order with him and offer it to him when he saw him and use that as a conversation starter instead? Now, that sounded more achievable. 

The next morning Dex got up early to detour via the cafe, picking up his own and Patton’s orders and wandering through campus until he caught a flash of blond hair and a musical laugh. It all seemed to be lining up nicely until he caught sight of his rival approaching from the other side of the quad. Fuck no, Remus was not getting there first! 

Dex sped up, noticing Remus notice him and seeing the moment he clocked that this was turning into a race. The footballer’s legs were longer and stronger than his own, but Dex had the headstart, and he made it to Patton just in time to hold out the cup of tea with a hopeful smile and open his mouth to explain his offering, when Remus crashed into him and the two of them went sprawling on the ground. 

The drinks were spilled and Patton shrieked in surprise, trying to help them both up at the same time, and then apparently clocking that it was the two of them. He squeaked and went red, recoiling and running away, leaving the two boys to scowl at each other. 

Dex rubbed his hip where he’d fallen and Remus brushed himself, looking very unapologetic. “So, you’re Remus Duke. I’ve heard all about you…”

“Oh yeah? You scared, O’Reilly?” Remus shot back, rolling his eyes. “I don’t need to know shit about you to know I’m gonna be the successful one out of the two of us. I mean it’s the law right- cheerleader plus footballer equals happy ending?” 

“Back off Duke, you wouldn’t know how to treat him right anyway. He’s not a trophy to tick of your perfect life checklist!”

“No you back off- I saw him first! I liked him since freshman year, dude, this is just unfair of you.” 

Dear lord was Remus actually pouting? Dex looked at him scornfully. “Patton isn’t an object. He makes his own decisions. He will pick the better man.”

“Yeah he will. And I’m gonna show him that that’s me.” Remus said with a proud smirk. Dexter stared at him. “I’ve got a plan,” Remus elaborated cockily, and Dex really wanted to wipe that look off his face, but he had better things to do and a reputation to maintain. And a replacement coffee to buy, if he wanted to get through today’s classes. 

He lifted his chin and pulled his messenger bag higher up his shoulder with a scoff. “Well I look forwards to seeing what a brute like you can produce to woo a delight like Patton. In fact, I welcome the competition. It’ll make me look even better by comparison.”

Remus was back to scowling, and Dex tallied that as a win for himself. “I won’t even interfere, you’re going to fuck it up all by yourself, I’m sure. Just look at you,” he sniffed, looking Remus up and down with judgemental eyes. “You’re a mess, Duke. Bye now.” 

He turned to go, leaving Remus huffing and puffing behind him, speechless with fury. 

Things were off to a good start.

***

End of part 2 (woops this is going to be longer?)

[buzzentertainmenthq]

FINN HUDSON is 26 years old, originally from SANDY, UT and currently works as a LIGHTING TECHNICIAN. Finn is HETEROSEXUAL and SINGLE. Finn is played by ADMIN JAZ.

BIOGRAPHY

Finn Christopher Hudson was born and raised in Sandy, Utah in a quiet neighborhood by his mother, Carole Hudson. He loved playing sports and video games with friends, creating his own little bubble. When he started high school, he quickly gained popularity once he became the quarterback and started dating the head cheerleader. Though he would never admit it himself, he loved being popular. 

The power of being liked by pretty much anyone and getting away with anything was nice, but it also meant doing stupid things to kids on the bottom of the food chain to maintain his power. He never enjoyed being a bully, and he slowly realized his relationship with his girlfriend was nothing but superficial. 

By the end of junior year, he grew tired of the evil cycle that was the school hierarchy, ending things with his girlfriend and quit the football team. He felt lost, as if he no longer knew who he was, but the truth was that he never really knew who he was in the first place. He had let himself be defined by everyone else's opinions while he hadn't even found out what he thought about himself. 

After spontaneously signing up for the school musical during his senior year and earning the lead role, he found out that acting might be something he could pursue in the future. Since then, he started saving up money so he could afford moving to L.A. and take acting classes. Spending day in and day out for three years working in an auto shop, Finn finally took the leap and moved to L.A. at age 21 to pursue his acting career. 

While taking acting classes, he went on countless auditions in addition to balancing a nightly bartender job. After a whole year of auditioning and no hits (besides the rare background extra work here and there), Finn decided to give up his acting dream. Demotivated and hopeless, he began packing to move back home. Feeling like he was at his lowest, Finn once again was at a point in his life where he was insecure and lost, but most of all embarrassed that he wasn't able to go through with his ultimate goal. 

To fill up his time, he attended community college where he attended different types of classes, including electrician and electrotechnical classes. He also got the opportunity to land an apprenticeship where he worked in theatres, music venues and photography studios. It wasn't something he thought he'd like, but the more experience he gained, the more he grew fond of it. Plus, he was good at it and that made him more confident than anything. 

Finn had been a longtime fan of Buzz Entertainment's videos on YouTube, and it was after a whole evening of mindlessly watching their videos and checking out the website that he saw a job opening within the lighting crew. Knowing that he had something to offer in that department, he immediately sent in an application. The thought of moving back to L.A. again was terrifying, but if he got the job, at least he knew he would get somewhere by being there. Two video interviews later, Finn got the job. 

 Finn has now spent the past year working at Buzz Entertainment, and he is thoroughly enjoying it. He has even gotten to dabble in camera operating and producing, just trying to take as much of it in because it's such a huge and successful company.

[simplymaddox]

yeethaw and howdy once again partners, it’s me your least favorite texan sierra. i’ve had this character in mind from like the day that i picked up astrid & seren, and now i can finally pick up my edgy chaotic dumbass son. now let me introduce you to maddox anderson.

CHARLES MELTON - MADDOX ANDERSON identifies as CIS-MALE and uses HE/HIM pronouns. they’re a SINGER/ACTOR, and they’re only TWENTY-FOUR! they’re said to be CONFIDENT, but also DESTRUCTIVE. i guess that’s why they’re known as THE DESPONDENT in the tabloids. ( brendon urie / the maine )

biography: ( tw: car accident tw, r*pe tw, abuse tw, suicide tw, death tw, mental health tw, eating disorder tw, alcohol tw )

the fallen angel + the isolato — aka his early years [ 0 to 12. musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. ]

maddox was born into quite the wealthy family? like he was no socialite, but his parents had a high enough status to ‘spoil’ him and get her the the things he wanted, which honestly? wasn’t much

maddox’s mom was an a success story everyone wanted to copy, and as for his dad, he was best known for his acting and directing, they both kind neglected maddox? like they were always both so busy with work they basically missed his entire upbringing? his first word? they were busy taking calls. his first steps? her mom was at work and her dad was asleep. the two just didn’t seem ready for a kid honestly

when maddox was still small enough to not know any better, he was about 3, his family passed away in a car accident after they were hit head-on by a drunken driver

he was adopted by a nice family, his mother a canadian actress and producer, and his father a star player on the tornoto maple leafs

maddox sorta stuck out like a sore thumb compared to his adoptive parents? they were very outgoing and always in the public eye, meanwhile maddox was elusive and just wanted to be by himself

because he was so young when she was adopted, and was constantly around her parents, maddox has a very thick canadian accent? bUT he can also speak french

( okay getting back on track ) she became a child actor and starred on the hit tv show degrassi the next generation for nine seasons, she was constantly in and out of canada for filming, so to this day she considers canada home

the only problem? while on the show he was constantly raped and abused by the producers, they told her that in order to stay on the show it’s what she had to do, and so she listened, too afraid of disappointing her adoptive parents

the reveller + the addict + the cataclysmic  — aka his teen years [ 13 to 18. musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. 05. 06. ]

fINALLY he started actual high school and wasn’t pretending to be at one for a show anymore, and he moved back to new york full time

he ened up living next door to his best friend gianna. let me tell you these two were attached at the hip, there wasn’t a moment the two didn’t spend together

trying to distract himself from his crush on gia, maddox did a lot, he started dating some girl on the cheerleading team? and it was the worst decision ever? because she’d always say the wrong thing and maddox when hit her? and she’d do the same thing to him? the relationship was just t o x i c

not only that but he got her pregnant, too afraid of what everyone at school would say about her, she decided to get an abortion

maddox broke up with her shortly after which caused her to commit suicide, and to this day he blames herself, thinks if he stayed with her, they could’ve worked something out

maddox got diagnosed with depression, and an eating disorder ( a deadly mix of anorexia and bulimia ), so that year she heavily leaned on gianna, like there wasn’t a moment she wasn’t at her house

and that’s where they got to know each other better, they got so close, they’d hang out with each other after practices, at his house, at her house, she actually thought that maybe they had a connection, that all changed when she confessed something to him

gianna was like lmao i don’t feel the same way that you do, and i kinda just didn’t want to hurt your feelings? and maddox? having it been the first person that he geinunely fell in love with??? and the first person he trusted??? was fucked up by this???

he highkey pushed away everybody that he’d become friends with??? including gianna, he lowkey not so lowkey iced her out of his whole life

he had m a j o r anger issues at the point, and just would go out of his ways to start fights with people, especially when he’d go out to parties, you could bump into him and immediately he was ready to fight you

he was no longer the maddox that iced himself out from people, he was the maddox that went out to parties, smoked weed, did whatever he could get his hands on, and having sex with whoever he pleased

and then, he met him

the summer of his junior year they had a summer romance, said guy was also on the football team, but had being raped earlier on his life by men who took advantage of him maddox was ashamed of his sexuality, so when the senior year rolled around he restricted their relationship to hooking up behind the bleachers

went to college at juliard, with a full ride scholarship, and lowkey tried to basically forget her past life? she graduated with her bachelor of fine arts in acting

the despondent + the philophobe + the pastiche — aka his current years [ 19 to current. musings: 01. 02. 03. 04. 05. 06. ]

info

[thedreadvampy]

The idea of this experiment isn’t to boycott films which don’t meet the criteria, or to imply that only films which do are good or valid, but only to create a list of films which exist outside the usual hegemonic narrative.

Foreign films are allowable but only if they represent similarly marginalised voices in their own countries - for example a Japanese film would not be admissible purely on the basis of being directed by and starring Japanese people, but could be admissible if it was made by and about women, queer people, disabled characters, or starring/about people of colour oppressed in Japan (eg the Ainu, Black people in Japan etc).

Films by/about only straight cis white women or white cis gay men don’t count, although I’ve listed some as honorable mentions, because while they're still underrepresented in film production they're certainly not as unheard as other more marginalised voices.

Reblog with your suggestions and tag them #FilmsForUs!

My initial suggestions:

Comedy

Nina’s Heavenly Delights: Lesbian romcom about a Scots-Indian woman trying to win a curry competition in memory of her recently-passed father (1: almost all Scots-Asian cast with the exception of the love interest, 2&3: dir. Pratibha Parmar, a Desi lesbian, 4: check, 5: side plots about her brother and mother’s relationships, 6: check)

Hunt For The Wilderpeople: A Maori kid from the inner city is adopted out to the country, but when he and his adoptive father disappear into the bush it sparks a nationwide manhunt  (1: Maori protagonist and some core cast, 2&3: dir. Taika Waititi, written by Taika Waititi and Te Arapa Kahi, 4: check, 5: very little romantic content, 6: check (although some jokes referencing CSA))

But I’m A Cheerleader: A naive teenager is sent to a conversion camp when her parents suspect she may be a lesbian, opening her eyes to a whole new world.  (1: Almost exclusively queer characters, 2&3: dir. and written by Jamie Babbit, a lesbian, 4: check, 5: no heterosexual romance, 6: check)

Saving Face: A young closeted Chinese-American surgeon has her life thrown into disarray when her widowed mother becomes pregnant outside wedlock and is thrown out by her parents. (1: I think the whole cast are Asian or Black?, 2&3: dir. and written by Alice Wu, a Chinese-American lesbian, 4: check, 5: mother’s subplot involves, but doesn’t centre around, her relationships, 6: check)

Dear White People: The lives of five very different Black students at an Ivy League college intersect when a campus society organises a blackface party (1: Core cast is two Black women and three Black men, one of whom is gay, 2&3: dir. and written by Justin Simien, a gay black man, 4: check, 5: one of the four storylines is somewhat focused on Sam’s relationships with men but it’s not the primary focus but only an element of her story, 6: check)

Action

Black Panther: The new king of a highly-advanced and secretive African nation is challenged and overthrown by a vengeful rival, who forces him to confront his country’s responsibility to the world (1: Core cast is all Black bar two, 2&3: dir. Ryan Coogler and written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole (two Black men), 4: check, 5: There is a romance plot between Nakia and T’Challa but it isn’t foregrounded, 6: check)

Pacific Rim: 

Wonder Woman

Thor: Ragnarok

Drama

Angels in America: Six-hour epic exploring death, religion and sexuality in the AIDS epidemic (1: Main cast mostly gay men and straight women, one Black protagonist and several Jewish ones, several HIV+, 2&3: written by Tony Kushner, a gay Jewish man, 4: check, 5: check, 6: check)

Hidden Figures: The true story of three Black female mathematicians integral to the success of the US Space Program (1: core cast three Black women, 2&3: based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly, a Black woman, 4: check, 5: check, 6: check)

Moonlight: A gay Black boy grows up in a rough neighbourhood, struggling with his isolation and fear. (1: Core cast all Black, gay protag and bisexual love interest, 2&3: all Black creators, 4: check, 5: check, 6: check)

The Shape of Water: A mute Latina woman working in a Cold War research institute falls in love with an ancient river god held for experimentation, and helped by a Russian spy conspires to save him. (1: Core cast are a disabled latina woman, a gay man, a black woman, a Russian spy and an amphibian monster, 2: dir. and written by Guillermo del Toro (Mexican) and co-written by a woman, 3: Uses the allegory of monsterhood to sensitively explore how each of these people is othered and oppressed, 4: check, 5: check, 6: check)

Boy: In 1984, young Maori boy living in profound poverty is finally able to reconnect with his absentee criminal father, only to find the reality of his dad is very different to what he’s dreamed about. (1: Cast is almost entirely Maori, 2&3: dir., written by, and starring Taika Waititi (as the protag’s shitty dad), 4: check, 5: check, 6: check)

Angry Indian Goddesses: As old friends arrive in Goa to celebrate a friend’s wedding to her mystery partner, they hang out, laugh, drink, dance and unpick the many ways Indian culture ignores and oppresses women. WARNING: This one has very explicit description of rape and abuse. It also has a VERY sudden tonal shift in the final act which...the first 3/4 of the film seems like it’s going towards something fun and uplifting. It’s not. Don’t watch this one when you’re looking for something to cheer you up. (1: Cast includes two queer characters and one mixed-race character, as well as multiple survivors, 2: co-written by Arsala Qureshi, an Indian woman, 3: Handles issues of caste, gender and sexuality thoughtfully and sensitively (although I’m not Indian so feel free to correct me on that), 4: check, 5: check, 6: Rape is a big theme, but it’s there to discuss its devastating impact and to explore how different women react to different manifestations)

Kids

Moana: The daughter of a Polynesian chief, chosen by the sea, sets out on a quest to repair the damage done by the demigod Maui (1: Polynesian cast played by Polynesian VAs, 2&3: Co-written by Hawai’ian brothers Jordan and Aaron Kandell, and initial draft by Taika Waititi, 4: check, 5: check, 6: check)

Honorable mentions (films which I think are in the spirit of #FilmsForUs but may not meet all the requirements as written)

Pride: Comedy The true story of the formation of Gays And Lesbians Support The Miners, an unlikely solidarity organisation in the 80s between the London queer scene and the striking miners’ unions in North Wales (1: All white cast of primarily queer characters, 2&3: written by Stephen Beresford, a gay man, 4: check, 5: check, 6: check - honorable mention because it’s primarily about cis white men - there are lesbian characters but they are not the focus) 

Bend It Like Beckham: Comedy The daughter of an orthodox Sikh family pursues her love of football against her family’s wishes (1: Largely British Asian cast, 2&3: dir. Gurinder Chadha, written by Gurinder Chadha and Guljit Bindra, both British-Indian women, 4: check, 5: unfortunately there is a major romantic subplot and I hate it and this film should have been about the protagonist getting off with Kiera Knightley, 6: check - honorable mention because the protagonist’s straight relationship somewhat dominates the narrative)

Attack The Block: Action/Comedy A gang of teenagers defend their South London council estate from aliens, which the film uses to explore police brutality against Black kids. (1: Most of the cast are Black, 2&3: All white creative staff, although I believe they’re largely from a similar socioeconomic background, 4: check, 5: check, 6: check - honorable mention because despite having a sensitively-written, diverse cast it was written, directed and produced exclusively by white men)

Mad Max: Fury Road: Action 

Battle Of The Sexes: Drama The true story of Billy Jean King, world tennis championship, and her fight for equal pay and respect for female athletes, as well as her struggle as a closeted lesbian (1: Gay female protagonist, 2&3: dir. by a straight man and straight woman, written by a straight man, all white, 4: check, 5: check, 6: check - honorable mention because of a straight white creative team)

Lilo and Stitch: Kids A fugitive alien lands in the middle of two Hawai’ian sisters struggling to keep their family together after the loss of their parents, tackling poverty, colonialism and the threat of CPS (1: Native Hawai’ian cast played by Hawai’ian VAs, 2: All white production staff, 3: Handles Hawai’ian issues thoughtfully and carefully, 4: check, 5: Nani has a romance subplot with David but it isn’t foregrounded, 6: check - honorable mention because no Hawai’ian creators were involved)

[your-dietician]

Jack Grealish: England’s Golden Boy

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/soccer/jack-grealish-englands-golden-boy/

Jack Grealish: England’s Golden Boy

The Wembley Stadium crowd was calling for him, yearning for him, long before it had seen him. The second half of England’s game with Germany had reached a deadlock. The English had not troubled Manuel Neuer’s goal for some time; the Germans had mustered a single shot, and then retreated into their shell. Stalemate had set in.

England had a wealth of talent on its bench to break it: Phil Foden, with his Gascoigne-blond hair, Manchester City’s great rising star. Jadon Sancho, coming off a devastating season in the Bundesliga. Manchester United’s spiritual leader, Marcus Rashford. The dynamic and industrious Mason Mount, a Champions League winner only a month ago.

England’s fans, though, wanted someone else. They wanted a player who would not even have been in contention for a place on the roster, let alone the team, had this tournament taken place, as scheduled, last summer. They wanted a player who had, at that point, only nine caps and precisely zero goals for his country.

They wanted a player who had never set foot in the Champions League, or even the Europa League, a player who had never won a cup or a league or a first-rate honor of any sort. They wanted a player whose greatest contribution to his national team to that point was a flick — admittedly, a brilliantly inventive one — in a defeat to Belgium late last year.

But despite all of that, the fans knew exactly whom they wanted. They started to sing his name, to demand that Gareth Southgate, the manager, summon him from the bench and send him into the thick of England’s biggest game since 2018 and its biggest game on home soil in 25 years.

They wanted Jack Grealish, and nobody else.

England has spent a lot of time, over the last year or so, thinking about Grealish. At first, it was in the context of one of those classic English either/or debates, the sort of complex issue boiled down to a simple binary that fills all those quiet hours of radio and litters message boards and allows columnists to fulminate and encourages readers to click, click, click.

Should Southgate call up Grealish — the 25-year-old captain of Aston Villa, his boyhood team — or James Maddison, 24, the Leicester City playmaker with the slicked-back hair?

The answer, obviously, could have been both, or neither, or “well, they’re very different players and so this is a bit like asking whether England should play Harry Kane or a goalkeeper.” But that did not matter. What mattered was the question: Grealish, Maddison, either, or?

Southgate, not especially conveniently, settled that one a few weeks ago, when Grealish made his squad for Euro 2020 and Maddison did not. Smoothly, the debate shifted to acknowledge the updated circumstances. Grealish did not appear at all in England’s opening game against Croatia. Should Southgate be picking him? He was only a substitute against Scotland. Should he be starting? He was on the team against the Czech Republic. Should he not be the centerpiece of the side?

And then, 20 minutes or so into the second half of England’s round of 16 game with Germany on Tuesday, as Wembley was starting to fret about extra time and penalties and we all know how that ends against the Germans, the crowd made its verdict known. Pointedly, it started to chant Grealish’s name. It was not meant only as a paean for the player. It was an urgent, unanimous instruction for Southgate.

The England manager had all of that talent — Premier League winners and Champions League winners and stars from Manchester United and Chelsea and Manchester City — sitting on the bench. And yet it was Grealish, with his nine caps and no goals and no real experience in these situations, who the public had decided was the man for the job.

There is, as they say, a lot to unpack here. On one level, there is a very good reason that England — in the sense of its fans, its prominent cheerleaders and the public as a whole — has fallen so hard for Grealish: He is a very fine footballer, indeed.

In many ways, he is not a particularly English one. Or, rather, he is not the sort of player England has produced for a long time, since the heyday of all of those mercurial schemers in the 1970s. With his long hair and his rolled-down socks, Grealish evokes a player who is the antithesis of an English footballer: the Portuguese playmaker Rui Costa. Regular readers of this newsletter will know that, in these parts, there is no higher praise.

Grealish is graceful and strong and relentlessly inventive, among the most creative players in Europe, in fact. He shows for the ball, and he carries the ball, and he makes things happen. But the fact that the acclaim is not misplaced does not mean its pitch is not slightly unusual.

Grealish is good, but so are Rashford and Foden and Sancho. That, in the eyes of the public, they all now exist in Grealish’s shadow is a strange phenomenon, not one adequately explained by his abilities on the field.

Instead, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that part of the affection for Grealish comes not from what he does, but who he is, or what he seems to stand for. First and foremost, he passes the eye test: He looks like a good player. He has something, indeed, of Beckham about him — the on-trend hair; the tattoos; the artful, idiosyncratic style of his socks.

More important, there is the fact that he looks like a player in a way that is recognizable to the fans. A few months ago, a video of four men in their 20s — all from Birmingham, Grealish’s hometown, as it happens — that had been manipulated to make the men look like they were singing a sea shanty (lockdown has been long and weird, hasn’t it?) went viral.

It is not an attempt to pass judgment on their look — musclebound, tattooed, some clothes too baggy, some clothes too tight, unnecessary glasses — to suggest that they were decked out in what is an instantly familiar uniform to anyone who has been out beyond 9 p.m. in a provincial British city in the last five years. It is not an attempt to pass judgment on Grealish to say that he looks like he might be friends with them. He has, in a very 21st century way, an Everyman quality.

That extends below the surface. Grealish plays for Aston Villa, his hometown club. He has had chances to leave but has stayed loyal (so far, at least). He has had missteps and invoked the ire of the tabloids more than once. He has attracted and warranted criticism, but his flaws make him a little more rounded than the image of the devoted, dedicated and ultimately quite boring superathlete that most of his peers cultivate. Fans can see themselves in Grealish. He is not perfect, but he is relatable.

More important than all of that is the simple fact that Grealish, compared with much of the England squad, is fresh. He is, to some extent, a blank slate.

Fans have watched Harry Kane and Rashford and Raheem Sterling for years. What they offer, the things that they can do, the things that make them special, are all well known. But so, too, are the things they cannot do, the flaws in their game. They have all been scrutinized to their very souls. The country knows, or at least thinks it knows, every single one of their shortcomings.

That does not apply to Grealish. Until relatively recently, most fans would only ever have seen him in highlights. Even over the last year, when every game has been televised, the vast majority will not have tuned in religiously to see Aston Villa play. To most, then, Grealish still has a box-fresh air.

That he has not played in the Champions League is, in that sense, an advantage, too. Not only does it mean he is immune to the tribalism that envelops England’s superpowers — fans of Manchester United and Manchester City alike will not feel dirty for wishing an Aston Villa player well — he has not had to cope with the exposure that comes with playing at the very highest level, for the biggest clubs and in the biggest games.

He has not been subjected to microscopic analysis after a disappointing performance against Bayern Munich. He has not endured a rough evening at the hands of Paris St.-Germain. He has not suffered in comparison to Lionel Messi. His limitations have not yet seeped into the national consciousness. England is not yet at the stage where it focuses more on what he can’t do than what he can.

And so, in the middle of England’s biggest game in years, as a country’s whole summer hung on a knife-edge, the Wembley crowd chanted his name, demanded the introduction of its new, unsullied favorite, the player still imbued with that magic of the new.

As he stood up on the substitutes’ bench to put his jersey on, the stadium roared. Here was the golden boy, to save the day. A few minutes later, Grealish slipped the ball into the path of Luke Shaw. He crossed, and Sterling tapped in. Not long after that, Grealish swung a cross onto Kane’s head, no more than 5 yards from goal. When he, too, turned it into the goal, Wembley exulted again.

Neither moment was a spectacular intervention, in truth — a simple pass, an easy cross — but both were taken as proof of the wisdom of the crowd. Grealish makes things happen. Grealish can do anything. Grealish, England’s great summer love affair, is fresh and new and perfect. For now, at least. But for now may be all that matters.

The Copa Curse May Yet Lift

After 1,800 minutes, plus injury time, spread across 20 games and four cities, the Copa América has succeeded in eliminating only Bolivia and Venezuela. Two weeks in, it is possible to feel that a competition that seemed destined not to happen — it was moved from Colombia and then Argentina to Brazil, ravaged by the pandemic — has still not actually started.

Things should, in theory, start to improve from here. The story of the group phase (as is the case every year, and we mean every year, so often do they insist on playing it) has been trying to work out which of Brazil and Argentina is best placed to win it, and which team represents the most likely challenge to that duopoly.

The answers, so far, are a little indistinct. Argentina and Brazil sailed through their groups, dropping points only at the start (Argentina) or at the end (Brazil). The former has Lionel Messi in a determined mood; the latter has the more balanced side, and home-field advantage.

It is, certainly, hard to see Brazil not making the final. Chile, its opponent in a quarterfinal on Friday, started and sputtered in the group phase. The semifinals will bring an encounter with Peru or Paraguay. Argentina’s path is more challenging. A young Ecuador team held Brazil to a draw in its last group game and has a handful of highly promising players scattered throughout its ranks. Uruguay, likely to await in the semifinals, is all gnarled experience.

Messi has suggested he is in the sort of mood that might single-handedly propel his team to the final in Rio de Janeiro on July 10. That should, in theory, bring Brazil into his path, as he tries to end his long wait for an international honor before his time runs out. It has been a long road here. That denouement may just about be worth it.

The Greatest Day of Them All. Maybe.

Unai Simón’s week might have been very different. He might have spent the last five days under the baleful glare of the world’s news media, a target for fury and pity in equal measure, absorbing the blame for Spain’s elimination from Euro 2020. Instead, his quite astonishing error — and the own goal it yielded minutes into his team’s round of 16 meeting with Croatia — had all but been forgotten within a few hours. How fortunate for Simón, really, that he happened to make his mistake right at the start of the most remarkable day of tournament soccer, well, ever.

That was certainly how it felt in the immediate aftermath of France’s defeat to Switzerland on penalties. All tournaments have days when they suddenly catch light, days that sweep you along with them, but as Kylian Mbappé trudged from the field, away from the scene of the greatest disappointment in his young career, it was hard to think of one that had packed in quite so much as this.

Or was that just the shock and emotion and recency bias talking? It is at times like these that Twitter’s hive-mind structure and its willfully contrarian nature come into their own. It is, in effect, a large group of people, all of whom are conditioned to tell you why you are wrong at any given moment.

The alternative suggestions duly flooded in. Most convincingly, Andrew Downie selected two dates from the 1970 World Cup: June 14, the day of all four quarterfinals, including West Germany’s win against England, and June 17, when Brazil beat Uruguay and Italy overcame West Germany in what became known as the Game of the Century.

Mike Martin nominated June 30, 1954 — the semifinals, West Germany beating Austria and Hungary dethroning the reigning champion, Uruguay, with 13 goals spread across two games. Davet Hyland went more modern, pointing to both quarterfinal days in 1994: the one with Brazil beating the Netherlands, 3-2, followed 24 hours later by the one with Bulgaria’s win against Germany.

All valid cases, and all worthy of consideration. I would, though, suggest that the suggestions from 1954 and 1970 fall short for one reason alone: All of those games were played simultaneously. It would not have been possible to watch, and to savor, them both (even, in the case of 1954, on the radio). They may well have been the greatest afternoons in tournament history, but they did not stretch out to occupy most of the day.

Which leaves 1994, and those sweltering, exciting days in Dallas and Foxborough, Mass., and East Rutherford, N.J., and Stanford, Calif. Whether one of those edges it for you over what happened on Monday may well be less to do with the quality of the drama on offer and more to do with how your mind works, whether the freshness of the recent outweighs the power of nostalgia. And that is entirely your call.

Correspondence

Plenty of thoughts on last week’s idea that it may be time for the European Championship to expand. It is fair to say, I think, that it split opinion (both in my inbox and on Twitter), with the balance edging toward a polite but firm no.

Dunstan Kesseler finds it hard to “get behind a tournament in which half of the teams in UEFA would qualify.” Mark Brophy pointed out, quite rightly, that awarding slots to Russia and the Czech Republic based on victories for the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia is problematic. Fayzan Bakhtiar believes that expanding the tournament would only “compound” the issue of players’ daunting workload.

There were plenty, too, who offered alternative ideas. Harry Richards wants to see the abolition of the round-robin format in the groups, instituting instead a hybrid group/knockout system. Stephen Gessner would cut the number of teams that progress from the groups, but then make them play a two-of-three series for qualification. Most convincingly, Tony Culotta thinks things might be improved by a 28-team tournament in which only two of the teams finishing third in their group reach the knockouts.

This is the glory of workshopping, of course. The format, as it exists in my head, has now been refined. There would be no places for historical merit, now; instead, the 16 teams we have seen competing in the first knockout round of this summer’s edition would be given a pass to the finals in 2024. That neatly circumvents the (incorrect) allegation that some countries would “not have to qualify.” They would, it’s just that it would already have happened.

The most convincing element of it, though, is the part that Charles Sutcliffe believes is flawed. The FIFA rankings — the metrics that define who goes into which qualifying group — proved unerringly accurate in predicting which teams would progress to the last 16, he wrote, rather neatly challenging the idea that they don’t work.

My response would be that this is precisely the problem: The countries with higher rankings, according to FIFA, get better qualifying draws, and so they are likely to proceed more comfortably, and therefore they are likely to get better seedings when the groups are drawn, allowing them to get to the round of 16 more easily. Even ignoring how easily the rankings can be gamed, and how they anchor teams to historical performance, it is this that is their greatest problem: They are essentially self-fulfilling. Breaking the spell they cast over international soccer would be the most significant consequence of changing the way the Euros work.

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[candlefright]

The Blob (1988)

This is less of a new venture and more of a reflective blurb. 

Can we all just sit down and talk about the underappreciated remake; the ooky spooky oozy woozy gobbling wobbling Blob?

Please be advised that reading further will result in potential spoilers for the film listed in title and related films: so if you haven’t seen The Blob (1988); come back when you have, or abandon all hope, ye who enter here…

I was a thirteen year-old babysitter the first time I watched this movie. When you babysit, you inevitably wind up with some free time when the kid lays down for bed and you’re waiting on the parents to get home. A brief period of time where you get to feel semi-adult, and for tweens like me, steeped in my own burgeoning angst, a scary movie was the closest thing to a thrill I could touch without putting myself in danger. I popped some popcorn, I pulled out the snacks I couldn’t have when the kid was up. I hopped on-Demand (some of you might not remember on-Demand, I feel old writing it out) and found Chuck Russel’s The Blob. I was already familiar with the hokey but legendary original from 1958. I figured it was within my fear threshold; nothing to worry about, why not dive in head first?

Let me start with the facts, The Blob opened on August 5th in 1988, sandwiched between Cocktail (July 29) and Young Guns (August 12). In the commentary and in interviews, director Russel has attributed the film’s lack-luster success with the competition it faced hitting the box office. It’s true, Cocktail grossed nearly $12 million opening weekend and was given extended runs of up to ten weeks in some theaters. Young Guns fared about as well, breaking $7 million in it’s first week and packing theaters for nearly eight weeks in some locations. The Blob, however, grossed only nearly $3 million, with what has been estimated to be about $9-10 million budget, and averaged a modest two-week run in most theaters on average. (Source: The Numbers)  

Now, over thirty years later (and 60 years since the original), the film has respect, but in my opinion, not nearly enough.

The horror snobs will tell you that The Blob remake doesn’t stand up in comparison to films like The Fly, or it’s cosmic-horror cousin, The Thing. I’m calling bullshit. The remakes of The Fly and The Thing are phenomenal, refreshed versions of influential films, and The Blob deserves equal respect. While The Fly and The Thing leaned on the edge of a very serious, professional revamp; The Blob dared to poke fun at the tropes of the original, and then willfully and literally fed a tired stereotype to the beast. They also framed a female as the unlikely hero while illustrating her journey in a subtle way that only young girls with experience in microaggressions can understand. While The Fly and The Thing are remarkable remakes, and remakes that I cherish and love; they both center on the male persona. The Blob invites the strong female perspective and openly challenges the idea of the strong male lead.

Shawnee Smith plays the role of the high school cheerleader. Her doe-eyed stare is one of the first things we encounter during a scene that I appreciate for it’s illustrative power. The setting appears deserted until this scene. A small town lured into sleepy stasis right before the introduction of each leading role. The silence is dispelled by cheers and stomps; the entire town is at the local football game. So we see, this is a small town. Everyone knows each other by name. Children grew up together here. There is a delicate shell of community waiting to crack under the flat foot of impending doom. This scene is fragmented by the cheers of the crowd. We see Meg the cheerleader (Shawnee) pining over the freshly sacked, dazed Paul (played by actor Donovan Leitch Jr.) who comically asks her out on a date right there on the ground, still counting the cartoon birds orbiting his skull. He feels like the stereotypical male character, the re-imagining of Steve McQueen’s Steve from the original. The football player and the cheerleader; this feels like the serendipitous event that would normally predate a love story.

Meanwhile between claps and thunderous booms, the camera flashes to our third lead role: Brian Flagg (played by actor Kevin Dillion; yes, Matt Dillon’s brother.), the skid row rebel with a bad reputation and seemingly no concern for his own safety; as expressed by his weak attempt to jump a broken bridge on his motorcycle (of course, bad boy). 

We’re seeing what feels like an immediate dynamic between the three; notice they will be relevant and can speculate the potential relationship they will have with one another. We can see Meg as the girl next door, Paul as the white knight in football gear, and Brian as the trouble-making instigator who will almost certainly be butting heads with Paul. Spoiler alert: all of these initial assumptions are true. 

Brian Flagg is your classic bad boy “fuck you, won’t do what you tell me” burn-out who is known by name at the local police station. Granted, this comes as no surprise in a small town, but his relationship with Sheriff Herb (played by my Walking Dead favorite, actor Jeffrey DeMunn), who warns him to watch his behavior now that he can officially be considered an adult in the eyes of a judge. Brian scoffs this off characteristically, butting out his cigarette and rolling his eyes in the way boys with authority complexes tend to do.

The film proceeds down a long, horrifying snail trail of goopy gore and apocalyptic dread. If you’ve seen the film, I won’t bore you with one great long write-up of each scene, but I will pick out my favorites.

At the local pharmacy, Paul and his wannabe frat friend Scott Jeske (played by actor Ricky Paull Goldin) lurk around. Scott needs to pick up some skins for what he hopes will be a lucky night with his squeeze. This is the bait-and-switch that totally eviscerates McQueen’s role in the 1958 original. Without our knowing, Scott has inherited Steve iconography, and we get a peak at the nature of high school boys and their burgeoning sexuality. We see the other side of popularity, of the jock reputation. Chivalry flies out the window, and we laugh at Scott when the local priest reverend Meeker (played by Beware! The Blob!’s Del Close) grills him on his participation in the church. All the while, waiting for a pack of condoms to be delivered by the pharmacist. I still laugh wholeheartedly when Mr. Penny, the local pharmacist (and Meg’s father) stands between the good reverend and Scott and asks: “You want the ribbed, or the regular?”

This joke is only further extended past the punchline when Scott denies that the condoms are for himself, but rather for his friend Paul, who he says is too nervous to get them himself. Moments later, Paul will come to retrieve Meg. He encounters Mr. Penny, who peers over his newspaper and, with wide eyes, delivers one of the most memorable lines of the whole film: “Ribbed.” (Fun fact: the condom scene was based off of a real event from the director’s life.)

Paul and Meg’s date is interrupted when they nearly reduce a homeless man to a skid mark on asphalt. A homeless man whose hand has been completely engulfed by our star; the lovely baby blob. Brian is in hot pursuit, trying to calm the old man in that I’m-damaged-but-I-have-a-heart kind of way, earning him some gentleman points and drawing him into the triangle we ruminated on earlier. As expected, Paul and Brian immediately butt heads. It’s clear that the jock/bad boy dynamic is completely in play, here. Paul wants Brian to stay, basically accusing him of foul play- while Brian is quick to want to disengage. Meg is stuck in the middle, focusing on things more important than a pissing contest: like the wounded man they’ve helped into the car. What follows once they reach the hospital is quite honestly one of the most terrifying scenes I ever watched as a young girl.

Paul’s death hit me like a Mack-fucking-truck. Even as a kid, I had immediately cataloged him as a main character. He was safe, untouchable, the football superstar. The McQueen legacy. I read about this scene. Leicht really was under all of that slime (mostly composed of a thickening agent called methocel), struggling for air. Comparable to being waterboarded, Leicht crawled inside a large base shell and was covered in the flimsier material before it was pulled and dragged over his face to create the harrowing effect. 

Oh, my gods. How my face mirrored Meg’s in that moment. I remember pausing the movie and getting out of my chair, earnestly shocked and frightened. I was thirteen, and shaking. I was disgusted, terrified, and stunned. I gathered myself, and stomached the rest. Watching Meg struggle to free Paul, only for his arm to slough away into a soupy mess- it will always stick with me. To this day I will re-watch this scene and marvel it as one of the first films to ever solicit my interest in the special effects industry. 

Alterian Studios was responsible for these unholy effects, including special effects legends like Tony Gardner, whose film credit list reads like a Walgreen’s receipt; Chet Zar (who had a credit in Dark Man for his special effects prowess), and the incredible Bill Sturgeon (who had a hand in several favorites and cult classics such as Army of Darkness, Hocus Pocus, Aliens, and Killer Klowns from Outer Space). The work of this team, those mentioned and unmentioned, is really impressive. Practical effects were always a part of the horror scene, from the very beginning; but the 80′s really welcomed and embraced a new age of creativity. It wasn’t enough to just produce a monster anymore, it was about fooling the audience into believing these things could climb right out of the screen and swallow you whole if you dared to look away. While the crew in charge of legends like The Thing and The Fly will forever be shining stars in any fan’s lexicon- The Blob only smoldered, and now rests as a sort of hidden gem that I feel nobody gives a second glance. Which is shameful. If you’ve seen The Thing, The Fly, From Beyond, Event Horizon, or any other FX-heavy horror: The Blob should most certainly have a place somewhere in that collection. No excuses. 

After Paul’s death I was primed for the rest of the movie. I really was, my sense of safety was shattered and I was on the edge of my seat with sweating palms. Who was going to be next? The blob dissolved people!? I was stuck between fear and fascination. Paul’s death is a showstopper, an absolute mess that deserves more recognition than it has received, and to place it beneath the visualizations of its like-films is just a shame. Watch Paul’s face as it stretches and then deflates and slips away into the ambiguity of the blob; with streams of syrupy red blood streaming into what looks like a sentient tumor. 

Scott’s death is also an honorable mention. I appreciate this scene mostly because of what it represents to me as a fan of the original: the burning effigy. Scott represents what is left of that football player icon. He’s also a total sleaze who, for some reason, has a fully stocked bar in his trunk and a collection of class rings to toss out like party favors. His karma comes so quick, he watches his dates face cave in like a sinkhole, then gets swallowed up himself. 

Scott’s death felt like a high-five. The demise of the jocks resonated with me; pointed out the bad in both of them- how chivalry could be just as boring as sleaze. These men weren’t special, they were poignant representations of the type of boys we all fall in love with: The white knight, who uses his chivalry as a means to assert dominance, and the sleaze- who uses sheer charisma to assert dominance. Watching both of these boys literally melt away within the first 30 minutes felt like a deliberate act of kicking that tired, overused trope out of the picture. Which just leaves us with leather-jacket McGee; Brian Flagg.

Another one of my favorite scenes is when Meg chews Brian for being so damn apathetic. She looks him in the face, searching for help in what is a helpless situation, and he totally dumps on her. His fuck-me-fuck-you attitude completely ignites her. She said what I was thinking as a girl:

“You act like you're different, you put on this big show, but you're just like everybody else in this town, you're full of SHIT, Flagg!”

This is the moment where Meg completely rejects what would be a characteristic stereotype. 

It is so important, how her exhaustion eclipses her next-door nature. How as a female character, she blinks away the obscurity of the male-savior trope and calls a spade a spade. Dressing rebellion up in a leather jacket doesn’t make a hero. A hero spits in the face of apathy, the way Meg does to Brian, confronting his bullshit “I don’t care” attitude with her own intuition. Pretenders don’t survive horror movies. Hell, even heroes don’t survive horror movies always, and Meg makes that poignantly clear by throwing Brian’s crybaby hungry boy attitude back into his face. The apocalypse is a little more urgent than your abandonment anxiety or survival complex, Brian. This is final girl energy, that utter rejection of fate, that “fuck fate, I will change it with my bare hands” sense of responsibility. Meg is a small town girl, a small town hero- and a bad motherfucking bitch.

So, needless to say, Brian quits pouting and hops on board. Is it because he’s got a thing for Meg? Does she remind him of his place in this spiraling catastrophe? Is she a love interest? His motivation felt driven by his attraction to her, perhaps his own responsibility- feeling obligated to shield the token sacrificial lamb from an inevitable end. Whatever it is that drives him, he resigns himself to helping her- and the horrors star to accumulate around them. Including the death of a cook (sucked down the drain almost comically), and the death that gave me a panic attack: the sweetheart waitress Fran Hewett (played by the lovely Candy Clark). 

Fran’s death was scary because it fully described, without mystery, what it felt like to be aware of your own approaching death. She scrabbles in the phone booth like a trapped animal, dialing 911 in search of Sheriff Herb. When his head floats into her line of sight, half-dissolved and digesting within the Blob, terror sets in like a death rattle. The shots of this scene are claustrophobic and stifling. We feel her raw terror, we see her as the individual who cracks in the face of death- the real sacrificial lamb of the film. Her role, though small, was innocent and wholesome. We’ve all known a waitress by name, we’ve all been treated special by that woman who seems to channel maternal energy. Watching her die feels like peering down the barrel of a loaded gun. She braces herself against the booth and then the glass breaks, engulfing poor Fran in a mass of agonizing pink gloop. 

This scene was filmed using a mock-booth that was only 3ft tall, with an articulated doll made of Candy. They blasted the doll with air mortars to create what was the world-ending scene of the film for me. I myself am claustrophobic, and this entire experience sat with me long after I watched the movie. I would have nightmares of being trapped inside a photo booth, surrounded by pink, waiting to be burned away to slime.

The blob gets bigger, angrier, and more effective. It infiltrates the local theater through the air ducts and wreaks havoc for a strobe-festered horror on the crowd inside. Children are swallowed up, girls peel off the floor like melted bubble gum, and our main characters juggle the chaos with the introduction of the fucking government.

That’s right, the Blob is a scientific experiment gone AWOL. I’ll give kudos to Brian for his role in their involvement. Where Meg believed in the integrity of the government, Brian sets her straight: these people are worse than the thing they created. I’m not trying to say not to trust the government (now I am, don’t trust the government), but the film definitely winks at what is a very real concern. The danger of government experiments, what would happen if something like this actually took place? My first thought was that they were going to nuke the city, blow it to smithereens the way we saw in Return of the Living Dead. However, it seems that they don’t intend to do this, instead these hazmat poindexters want to sacrifice the whole town to the “specimen”. They scare the public into believing Brian and Meg are “infected” with a pathogen related to the Blob. One of my favorite supporting characters, the lead scientist Dr. Meddows, does his best to manipulate the public into a sense of ease. He seals Meg, her little brother, Brian, and a fellow colleague in the sewer in order to preserve his specimen. Human life is expendable. He meets his deserved end by literally getting sucked out of his suit (a comical, entertaining way to see someone go).

I won’t leave without mentioning the death of the melt veteran from Robocop; actor Paul McCrane’s deputy Bill Briggs. Dude literally got folded in half hamburger-style and was never seen again. Props to that effect, was very cool. 

Like the blob in the original, this blob doesn’t do the cold. Long story short, they run a truck full of CO2 into the big pink mess and freeze it into tiny shards. The good reverend from the beginning has lost his mind throughout all of this, and I suppose, in honor of open endings, saves a piece of the blob for the day his senile ass wants to bring about a second coming.

Though Meg and Brian both live through the entire ordeal, the film is still satisfying. You root for them the whole time, you bite your fingernails and wait for the moment a pink tendril comes out to end it all. 

The Halloween movie had underwhelmed me as a child. I wasn’t checking every room of the house for a masked man. I was looking in my sink and my shower for signs of a color out of space. I could rationalize a murder. I couldn’t make sense of a manufactured organism getting out of control. I couldn’t rationalize or shake away the fear of being enveloped in viscous sentient acid. 

Say what you will about The Blob remake. Say it isn’t as influential, you’re lying. Say it isn’t as entertaining, you’re definitely lying. The Blob is a hilarious half-satire about the things that scare us the most: things we can’t understand nor control. It taps into the same vein of supernatural fear that cosmic classics like The Thing and The Fly boast about. 

If you haven’t seen it; do.

If you’ve seen it but not in a while: go back, sit down, pop some corn, settle in, and take it in. Take it in for the silly filming errors, the drifting booms and clockable reflections, the subtle mistakes in FX. Appreciate it for what it is, a sci-fi thriller that isn’t afraid to make fun of where it came from. 

Stop spending as much time comparing films that pushed the limits of what are now very modern special effects. Appreciate the handiwork of the practical magic involved in making this shit come to life. With the rise of CGI, films like The Blob are going to become increasingly more difficult to find. That’s not necessarily a knock on CGI, I have appreciation for it as a separate medium- but practical effects will always have me by my balls.

Enjoy craftsmanship, watch The Blob.

[sportsminorityreport]

The time is right to talk to Arkansas's top boosters about Big 12 Membership.

====Note: I wrote the first part of this at the start of the season and forgot to finish it out.  I am going to finish it just to get it out of my drafts folder. ====

I don’t know if you saw this, but Conference USA’s University of North Texas Mean Green absolutely destroyed Arkansas 44-17.

Arkansas was also beaten by a middling Colorado State team 34-27.  That CSU team would be destroyed 48-10 the following week by middling SEC school Florida, who had just come off a 27-16 home loss to perennial SEC doormat Kentucky.

Now it could turn out that Kentucky is decent this year and that Florida just had a bad game, but even that doesn’t change the picture much.

Arkansas is carrying a 1-2 record from the easy part of the schedule into the season.

Their new coach wonderkund Chad Morris came in “late” with essentially half a recruiting class. He inherited a team rumored to have problems that are not quick fixes.... a suspect OL and little speed. (Those problems sound a lot like what Charlie Strong inherited at UT and at most schools take years and almost a full set of recruiting classes to fix.  I am confused how Arkansas could have a weak offensive line with their former coach, but Oh well...I defer to the razorback watchers...)

Former Arkansas Coach Bret Biemena had a great run of offensive linemen at his previous school, Wisconsin. Big Ten country produces a lot of quality cheese and sausage addicted OL prospects who spend a good chunk of their lives burning time when it is snowy outside lifting weights in the weightroom.  Those guys don’t always pan out, but Bienema had a succession of really good OL coaches.  Bienema left Wisconsin because they wouldn’t give him the budget to retain his good assistants.

At Arkansas, Bienema had a pretty good line at one point, but it seems likely either the talent or the coaching just hasn’t been at the same level, because the talent (apparently) just isn’t there now.

(It’s likely that some players who could have contributed have been lost in the coaching staff transition, but I can’t speak to that. That is USUALLY the case after a coaching change, but how much of a factor that is here is more a question for a Razorback fan.)

If these scouting reports can be believed, it sounds a lot like the situation Charlie Strong lived through at UT where booster hostility early on and a lack of inherited talent doomed him before he started.

Arkansas fans are not a patient lot outside of their comfort zone of wins.  This poor start likely has many of them, who may now be anticipating a likely 1-3 win season, wanting to pull the plug on brand new coach Chad Morris early.  That is a tough environment in which to recruit.

Looking at Razorback fan reviews and recruiting reports, the odds are dramatically stacked against Morris making it at Arkansas.  The odds are he will only be there 2-3 years due to an inability to correct the talent hole. Then the next coach will come in, likely one with a different style than Morris.  A chunk of the talent Morris will recruit will either not fit or will leave, creating a talent hole for the new coach.

I think Morris is a fine coach, but coaches need talent, and if they don’t have talent, they generally need time and patience.   That seems like it won’t be there for Morris. 

It is a lot to expect coaches to outcoach their talent level.  Especially in a conference where everyone has a good coach, a roster full of top 25 recruiting classes, and the best staff money can buy.

I hate betting against a top notch coach like Morris, but sometimes you can see when there is a talent fueled a bad coaching situation. There is a reason some coaches wisely bail in year 2 for a similar caliber program if they think the plug will get pulled early. 

Just playing the odds and considering almost every other school in the SEC has top 25 level talent,  the Arkansas football program may have a lingering talent deficit that makes them the worst in the SEC for a couple coaching cycles...6-8 years.

As much as Arkansas fans love chanting, “SEC, SEC, SEC” when Alabama wins a National Title and Arkansas finishes fourth in the SEC West, I have a hard time imagine them being OK with being the football Kansas of the SEC for several years...

WHAT HAPPENED?

Well, there is more to it than JUST this, but I think we are now seeing the “Arkansas Recruiting Problem” I have long mentioned really come to the fore in a pronounced way.

Arkansas hasn’t been a school that lands great talent in recruiting in the SEC.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look at 247sports.com’s grades.

2012 27th Nationally 10th in the SEC

2013 23rd Nationally 9th in the SEC

2014 29th Nationally 11th in the SEC

2015 22nd Nationally 11th in the SEC

2016 23 Nationally 9th in the SEC

2017 27th Nationally 10th in the SEC

2018 48th nationally, good for 14th in the SEC.

Now they are currently ranked 16th nationally and 7th in the SEC, but we are over a month before signing day and so a lot of schools are likely to jump ahead of Arkansas as the elite recruits often wait until signing day for that extra ego rub.

It’s highly likely Morris will match prior recruiting efforts,not so much that he will dramatically exceed those efforts.

I don’t mean to overstate the problem....To generally finish in the top 25 is impressive from a national perspective, but my point is that the 10th ranked recruiting class in the SEC every year is not likely to finish any higher than 4th in the SEC West.

That basically says you are getting a similar cast of 3 star players as your competition but you are consistently losing out on the difference makers.  I think Arkansas is already getting the best talent their state produces and any 3 star players nearby.

This is who Arkansas is and who they will be in the SEC.

They are Mississippi or Mississippi State. That thought should haunt Arkansas fans because if they think about it honestly, they know I am right. 

Talent generally wins in college football. If Morriss is there for 4-5 years, I think he’ll make it.  He’s a good coach.  If he’s there for 3..?  Working with a talent deficit in the SEC the whole time?

Should they land a coach who can outcoach that recruiting status quo (and Morriss may be one of those guys), they can’t afford to keep Auburn or LSU from hiring them away.

This is the reality of Arkansas today.

They may have a consistent check, but the deck is horribly stacked against them ever being nationally relevant for more than a year or 2 in either of the revenue sports. 

When I was in college, Arkansas was an annual top 10 team and a national title contender.  They were players in the hunt, not cheerleaders.

It boggles my mind to see those uncontrollable fans now entirely domesticated and content having traded greatness for mediocrity and a consistent paycheck. I miss the old guys.

While this would be tough for any fan to not immediately discount about their favorite school, I have to think some Razorback fans “get” this deeper dig into the financial and competitive reality.

=======finishing the article =====================================

Arkansas went 2-10 in football this season.

First a little backstory

For those of you who don’t know the history of the Razorbacks’ departure from the Southwest Conference, here is it in a nutshell. 

Frank Broyles at Arkansas was secretly encouraged by DeLoss Dodds at UT to leave the SWC as that departure would critically cripple the SWC and give UT the cover to escape their unprofitable affiliation with Houston and the Texas private schools in that conference. 

Arkansas was UT’s #2 rival at the time, behind OU, and in front of little brother Texas A&M. Arkansas was lead to believe UT would be joining them in the SEC.

But then UT’s academic leadership looked at the SEC and pronounced the conference academically unsuitable.  

UT looked elsewhere and was eventually roped into the Big 12 arrangement by Bob Bullock helping out his buddy and Big 12 architect former Waco Mayor and State Senator and chairman of the Senates Business and Commerce Committee, David Sibley. 

While Arkansas fans have transitioned their views to now being a very content member of the SEC, the intent on either side was not to sever ties with one of their major rivals.

Arkansas to the Big 12...is that even potentially a thing?

It is my firm belief that realignment occurs when a conference feels they HAVE to chose a new member. When that moment is upon them, whatever school is the leading candidate at that point is in.

If a school that is tailor made for the Big 12 like Arkansas suddenly becomes available to the Big 12, that moment of decision will instantly arrive.

Let me be abundantly clear.  

Some may foolishly think the Big 12 would take any SEC school.  That is not the case --- although they would certainly take several.  

None but potentially Arkansas, Missouri, and LSU would ever even consider that move, but only if the finances and opportunities were equal or better. 

Arkansas is probably in the best situation of that trio to gain from what on the surface looks like a financial loss of a move.

In the Big 12, 3rd tier media rights are sold separately. That helps a little as Arkansas has a strong fanbase. 

It seems likely that Arkansas would be dealing with about a $6-$8 Million annual haircut on TV revenue from such a move. But would they actually see that loss on their bottom line given their other revenue streams?

Consider the geographic proximity of West Virginia, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State to Arkansas. 

Now consider the proximity of SEC schools.  Now the SEC does a great job travelling fans within their footprint, but Arkansas is a distant geographic outlier in the SEC footprint. 

The proximity of literally everyone the Razorbacks would likely play in the Big 12, outside of a likely rivalry game vs. UT could mean a HUGE difference in terms of attendance. Arkansas could be filling a much larger stadium in the Big 12, meaning a lot of additional revenue.

And that isn’t even thinking about the travel savings, which would be noteworthy.

Lets say Arkansas’s recruiting takes a slight hit from such a move and falls to around 30th in their off years....where does that talent level put them playing that schedule?  10-2, 9-3 every baseline year.  How does that affect attendance?  How does that affect gate revenue?

But would their recruiting decline or improve?  Arkansas has a LOT of alumni in DFW. With TCU giving them a biennial game in Ft. Worth and Jerry Jones having the ability to give them an annual game in DFW plus local media coverage as a member of the Big 12, how well would they recruit in DFW, one of the nation’s premiere football talent recruiting grounds?  (FYI, I live in DFW.  While the media acknowledges the accomplishments of Alabama, it is a Big 12 friendly cast of media personalities.) 

If Arkansas lands a 4 star and two 3 star DFW recruits each year, suddenly they are on par with OU and competing for football national titles again.  You make the playoffs or do something of note and fat donor money rolls in, erasing any deficits the move might create.   (The year Johnny Manziel won the Heisman, Texas A&M famously took in $500M more in donor contributions than their previous year. Now obviously that is a huge, long-suffering fanbase, but the concept plays out at all schools.)

Arkansas seems unlikely to hit those heights in the SEC.

And what does a move to the Big 12 do to Arkansas basketball?  The last time they had legitimate access to DFW recruits, they were a national title threat in that sport too.  Moving Mike Anderson’s team into a notably better basketball conference than the SEC and plying them with a DFW star each year probably returns them to national prominence and certainly makes them an annual likely tournament team.

The point of all this financial talk is that Arkansas is a rare school that has the freedom to chose moving to a (specific) conference with a smaller TV check and still making similar money.  

The question with Arkansas is, “Do they want to?”

Today the answer is “no”, but the point of this article is that things could be aligning to create an opportunity for the Big 12 to turn that “no” into a “yes”.

OK I get the Arkansas part...theoretically... but what about the Big 12 and TV?

I’ll tackle the Big 12 part first. 

Given that UT’s powerful old boosters never wanted to lose Arkansas, their #2 rival, I am speculating that Arkansas will always be a school that is automatically approved by UT and their two indentured servants, TCU and Texas Tech.  

UT’s boosters would talk to their AD and make it happen if Arkansas ever expressed an interest. Their AD, the former AD at TCU, would likely be very receptive to any idea that keeps UT and TCU together long term.

The Big 12 requires 75% membership approval on expansion votes. That three school voting block is how UT shuts down Big 12 expansion. With the Texas trio in, expansion can happen at any time. 

I don’t think any of the Big 12 schools would have any issue with the inclusion of Arkansas on athletic or academic grounds. 

But wait?  What about the TV money? Didn’t the Big 12 just sell their expansion clause that requireds the networks to pay matching money for new schools back to their network partners?

Yeah, they did, but why did their network partners give them that clause in the first place?  The kindness of their hearts? Nope.

They did it to keep the Big 12 together and UT and OU out of the realignment market.

The conference ultimately leveraged the clause into getting the pay raise they wanted to keep the conference from being raided.

The schools had thought about using the clause to generate the raise. The Network partners bought the clause back from the Big 12 to keep the Big 12 from potentially adding schools and keeping the payouts for the existing members, not necessarily to keep the conference from expanding (although they likely had little desire to sell or faith in a market for Kansas/Cincinnati match-ups).

If faced with a decision on whether to award an equal share for Arkansas, the network partners would quickly realize that in the Big 12, Arkansas is a player in both revenue sports, not an also-ran like they are in the SEC. 

In business, there is a saying Jerry Jones likes to say, “Don’t let your money get mad.”

Just looking at the numbers, It is a no-brainer that you concede an additional equal share---what you pay on average...ie. what your average conference school is worth --- to get a school that almost without question raises the earning potential of the conference and the marketability in both revenue sports.

More to the point, is UT going to leave a conference that has OU and Arkansas that UT dominates politically?  Hell no.  

If UT isn’t going anywhere, OU isn’t going anywhere.

That is the bottom line. By giving one equal share, you just locked UT in long term. 

Of Course the network partners would make that concession.

Hell, they should probably be recruiting Arkansas for the Big 12!

Final thoughts

Now obviously this would not be a likely occurrence today or even a year from now. That is not the point of the article.

For something like this to happen, the Big 12 would need to start actively selling the idea to Arkansas boosters like Jerry Jones and sharpening their sales pitch overall to make the rank and file Razorback fan consider it.  You have to shape perception for such a non-conventional move to be accepted.  That doesn’t happen immediately and you have to spend a little money and effort to do so.

But Arkansas was atypically bad this year and Big 12 lynch-pins UT and OU played in the Big 12 championship game. The Big 12 is working as designed for once and opportunity may be knocking. 

I write this because this is a “heal the conference” opportunity for the Big 12 to pursue now, that doesn’t interfere with any of the member schools’ long term plans.

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World Cup 2018: Why England must take Joe Hart to Russia

World Cup 2018: Why England must take Joe Hart to Russia

World Cup 2018: Why England must take Joe Hart to Russia

Everyone who says Joe Hart is not good enough to go to this summer’s World Cup is missing the point – the West Ham goalkeeper is not England’s best number one any more, but he is our best number three.

Based on how well he is playing, of course Hart should not be on the plane to Russia. Out of all the regular goalkeepers in Europe’s top five leagues, there are only two with a worse shot-to-save ratio this season.

West Ham keeper Joe Hart has saved 53 of the 91 shots on target he has faced in the Premier League this season. Of the 125 goalkeepers to have faced 20 or more shots in Europe’s top five leagues – England, France, Spain, Italy and Germany – only two have a worse save % – Southampton’s Alex McCarthy with 56.6% and Alberto Brignoli of Italian side Benevento with 56.3%

Burnley’s Nick Pope, who realistically is Hart’s main rival for a place in the squad, is at the other end of that scale. While Hart has had a mostly miserable season and made several obvious errors, Pope has had an amazing one and been inspirational for his team.

But form is not the factor that England manager Gareth Southgate will be considering when he makes his decision about who will be back-up to Jordan Pickford and Jack Butland, despite everything Pope has going for him.

Nick Pope has the second-best save percentage in the Premier League this season, behind Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea. He is ranked fifth in that statistic in Europe’s big five leagues.

The role of a third-choice keeper at a major tournament involves many things, but they hardly ever get on the pitch. Since 1934, only four out of the 435 teams to compete at World Cup finals have used all three of their keepers – and the last team to do it were Greece in 1994, after they had been eliminated.

Instead of looking for someone who might shine if they get a chance, Southgate will be looking for the right character and someone he can trust to support his team-mates and be a positive influence on the whole squad.

That is not playing down what the role entails, though. I have heard being the number three goalkeeper described as simply being a cheerleader but, having done it at a major finals myself, there is a heck of a lot more to it than that.

Yes, you are there to support the team, but you can be very influential while you do it. Do not underestimate the job by thinking Hart would just be going to Russia to help out in shooting practice.

Hart’s form irrelevant

Joe Hart watches as Peter Crouch pokes the ball home following a fumble from the England goalkeeper in West Ham’s draw with Stoke

It has been suggested that Hart is playing his way out of Southgate’s plans for Russia with performances like the one he put in against Stoke last week, when his fumble cost West Ham a goal with the England manager watching on.

I don’t think that is the case – nor does it matter that Hart cannot try to impress this weekend because he is ineligible to face Manchester City, his parent club.

The things Southgate wants to see are more to do with what he will get from Hart in a training camp with a tight-knit environment, and he knows that already.

If he makes it, these will be Hart’s fifth major finals and his third World Cup – he has been first choice at all of them apart from the 2010 World Cup, when he was third choice.

His experience will be invaluable to Pickford and Butland, who have played at several age-group finals but have been to only one tournament at senior level between them – in 2012, when John Ruddy’s broken finger in training saw Butland bumped up from the standby list.

Joe Hart has been in every squad Gareth Southgate has named as interim or permanent England manager since he took charge in September 2016. In the 16 games that Southgate has been England manager, Hart has played in 11 of them and the only competitive game he has not featured in was the win over Lithuania in October 2017 just after England had qualified for the World Cup

I know Southgate has shown himself to be a brave manager who is willing to make changes with some of his selections, but this is slightly different.

It comes down to personality, not ability, and, despite calling Pope up into his last squad in March, Southgate cannot be sure of what he is like when he is away for five or six weeks – especially compared to Hart.

In this situation I would expect him to go with what he knows.

Experience can improve the blend of the squad

If selected, much of Hart’s work in Russia could come with his fellow keepers on the training ground

The ranking of first, second and third keeper in any squad is usually clearly defined, and they will be this time too. I think Southgate will go for Pickford, Butland and Hart – in that order.

Unlike any of the outfield players, the third-choice keeper does not travel to any tournament expecting to play, so Hart will have no illusions there.

He will be aware of the dynamic that a group of keepers has at international level, and the part he has to play in it – which is to do everything he can to support the number one and number two during the tournament.

While the second choice is looking to excel in training and has to be ready to step in at almost any time, including during games, the number three – or 23 in terms of their usual shirt number – is usually in the stand during matches.

Rachel Brown-Finnis won 82 caps for England and went to six major tournaments. She was third choice at Euro 2001, second choice at Euro 2005, the 2011 World Cup and Euro 2013, and was England’s number one at the 2007 World Cup and Euro 2009

Hart will also be playing third fiddle to what the other two keepers need in training in the build-up to matches, but he is still important because of his knowledge – what he can suggest during those drills and also by offering some analysis and feedback before and afterwards.

He would also be Pickford’s confidant, and his go-to person for information on scenarios that the young Everton keeper has not been in before.

Although it is possible Pickford may not want to seek advice from Hart, it is not even an option for him with Butland and Pope as the other keepers.

I also think Hart would improve the blend of the whole squad. One of the things I like about Southgate is that he has given young players and new faces a chance, but an experienced older player can still bring something to the mix if they are still motivated.

I don’t know him personally but I am sure Hart’s attitude is right. Southgate knows him well and he would not consistently pick him otherwise. Put all that together and he is the best fit to be the number three.

Who will be England’s number one?

Joe Hart (second from left) has 75 England caps – the other three contenders have a total of nine between them. Jordan Pickford (far left) made his debut against Germany in November and won his second cap against the Netherlands in March. He is yet to concede a goal for the senior England team

I am a huge fan of Pope, and put him on my shortlist for the player of the season because of the impact he has had in his first campaign in the Burnley team.

While form is not important for the third-choice keeper, you could definitely argue that it should decide who is England’s number one.

On that basis, Pope who would be first choice, not fourth. He has played well consistently for the past few months too, not just recently.

England goalkeepers 2017-18 Games Clean sheets Goals conceded Shots on target faced Saves Save % Errors leading to goals Jack Butland 32 5 58 189 133 69.31 1 Joe Hart 19 4 39 91 53 57.14 4 Jordan Pickford 35 9 54 167 114 67.66 0 Nick Pope 32 10 28 134 106 79.1 0

But it appears goalkeeper distribution is something that matters a lot to Southgate too, because of the way he wants England to play.

That seems to give Pickford the edge, because he is excellent at it, and I would agree with that choice based on the same criteria that Southgate is using.

We do not see Butland play out from the back very often for Stoke, or Pope for Burnley. Hart has never really looked comfortable doing it, which is one of the reasons his career has stalled.

Pickford’s ability with his feet is his big strength over the other keepers but he is also extremely confident, which makes me think he is ready for this stage. He does not make many mistakes but I don’t think an error would faze him, which is crucial.

When Pickford joined Everton for £30m in June 2017, his manager during a loan spell at Preston, Simon Grayson, said: “He is vocal and he is a winner. He loves the pressure of being the best he can. He will be looking at the England situation at the moment and thinking the next port of call is to be England’s number one. We felt he could have played outfield with the quality of his feet.”

You could argue a case for each of the keepers I have mentioned, though.

It is unusual that England don’t have an established number one at this late stage before a World Cup, but I don’t see it as a problem – it is an exciting time.

Hart did not really have any sort of steady competition during the years he was number one, so it is refreshing for Pickford and Pope to emerge now as well as seeing Butland stay consistently fit.

That has coincided with Hart’s dip in form to produce the situation we are in. However, there is no need to panic.

We are not sure who will take the position long term, but we have some excellent goalkeepers to choose from.

Rachel Brown-Finnis was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.

BBC Sport – Football ultras_FC_Barcelona

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mb greene collection + M. Bagwell  “work of heART”

Now available the M. Bagwell Shopper Tote! Get this limited edition bag with a keepsake luggage tag included online only at mbgreene.com.

This colorful tote bag is different from any other bag in the mb greene collection. It’s paint can striped fabric has never been used on a bag until now, yet it is a vital piece of this collection and it’s story. All proceeds from the sale of  the M. Bagwell bag will be donated to the M. Bagwell Foundation in honor of Amanda Bagwell. This foundation was set up to help support families in need, children, and the arts through grants and scholarships using the generous donations from friends and family. 

MEET MARY BETH GREENE

Mary Beth Greene, a Fairhope resident, is the owner and designer of the essential bag line known as mb greene collection. She grew up in Selma, Alabama with her sister, Mandy, and two parents who loved and supported them in everything they did. Mary Beth remembers always having a love for color and accessories. Mary Beth graduated from Auburn and was a teacher for a few years before deciding to stay home with her young children. She later rejoined the workforce when they were old enough to go to school as a manufacturer’s sales rep. Mary Beth did this for ten years covering Alabama and Mississippi selling specialty boutique items such as candles, jewelry and other gift items. She told us, “It was almost comical that each time I visited the stores in my territory, customers asked me if I knew of a bag line they could carry. They always wanted something new and different to sell and I never had a direction to point them in. After hearing this for years and years, I began to stay up late nights at my kitchen counter working on my own designs with paper and scissors to create a sought after bag collection. Every product I choose in my personal life is simple, functional, and practical. I wanted my collection to have these same features.” 

MANDY’S LEGACY

Meanwhile Mandy, whose relationship with Mary Beth is one she describes as being as close as two people can be to one another, was a thriving artist in Montgomery Alabama. Mandy owned a gallery as well as her own collection of hand painted ceramics and dinnerware that was manufactured and sold in over 800 stores nationwide. She was featured in Magazines such as Southern Living, Taste, Cooking with Paula Dean and more. Mandy was a devoted mother and artist who went from hand painting the ceramics in her dining room, pricing and shipping them to costumers, to mastering the world of wholesale by partnering with big companies who carried and packaged her collection for her. Mandy played a big role in Mary Beth’s life as a sister, a friend, and a mentor in the business world. She encouraged Mary Beth to pursue her bag designs and reach out to the connections she had made being a sales rep.

ANXIOUSLY WAITING

Mary Beth finally reached the point where she felt her designs were ready to be made into a prototype. She used her network of contacts to look for someone who could bring her designs to life and after years of experience she knew this needed to be a factory of some sort. She told herself how vital it was to have a ready made product to show at Market so large quantities could be produced immediately once the collection was picked up. She was then introduced to a team in China and took a leap of faith with them as her mass producer. She shipped big boxes with only one prototype inside each and anxiously awaited for her samples to return to Fairhope. The samples were distributed to family and friends for feedback. After a few tweaks on the color, stitching and design, Mary Beth knew her bags were ready.

SUCESS & HEARTBREAK

At the July 2014 Atlanta market, Mary Beth was still working as a sales rep. She was there to work and meet customers but was eager to show other reps her prototype. She succeeded and was picked up to start selling in January 2015. After two years of designing and networking, it was finally all starting to happen. She arrived home and was celebrating with her husband and children in Fairhope when she received a phone call that her sister Mandy had unexpectedly passed away. Just like that her world came crashing down around her. Mary Beth describes the aftermath of her loss, “Mandy’s death on the night of July 16th, 2014 changed my whole world. After the devastating news, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I was sad and I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders with my children and family, her children, our parents, her belongings, her art legacy, etc. How could I keep this going for her? How could I make this all make sense? After a couple of months of thinking, praying, and encouragement from loved ones, I decided the best decision would be to move forward and start a new chapter in my life with the bags. I began to see how many avenues along the way there would be to include Mandy - her talent, her heart, her laughter, her three children and our memories.”

MOVING FORWARD

mb greene launched the next January in 2015 at the Atlanta and Dallas markets. She told us, “after the show it was clear that I would no longer be a sales rep because I would now be a full time bag lady! After three months, the key account sales rep in Dallas called and said Neiman Marcus was interested. She went on saying I found myself walking around for weeks just shaking my head and mumbling out loud, Neiman Marcus.” She went from a traveling sales representative to working out of her garage full time. “Some days were hot, some days were cold, but they were all enjoyable with the doors rolled up, the music playing and the orders being filled. I was excited to start my day each morning. My parents were very supportive and would call every day to see how much we had shipped.  It was a breath of fresh air for all of us yet an extension of what Mandy had done and done so well with so much success. My husband Brett was right by my side to help whenever he could by shipping orders or making dinner for the kids. I am sure he thought that it was all crazy but he continued to be my biggest cheerleader.” The mb greene operations went from the back of her garage and three storage units, to a shared commercial space, and then to taking over the whole space when the other business relocated. “It was a perfect time to take over the building because we were receiving a container to prepare for football season with our newest Be Clear Collection, at the time.”

LOOKING BACK

Although July 2014 did not seem like an ideal time for opportunity to knock, in hindsight, the timing could not have been more perfect for Mary Beth. “My passion for bags mixed with Mandy’s memories and art influence would become what is now commonly referred to as a “work of heART”! It was a fresh start and a new focus for not just me, but my family. mb greene, llc has been a creative outlet and an opportunity for personal growth.” Mary Beth has been and continues to be successful in carrying on her sister’s legacy along with creating her own. Each bag comes with a tag that has a close up photo of a paint can Mandy had painted. These are the colors that inspired the bright fun collection that is mb greene. “The learning curve has been steep at times but it has been worth it. I have had amazing support from family, friends, and my community. Mandy’s zest and passion for art and creativity have been an inspiration throughout this journey.”

Visit mbgreene.com to purchase the M. Bagwell Shopper Tote and to read more about the M. Bagwell Foundation and their sister story. 

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