#For summer reading goals. Branded with wings of fire.

[lionblaze03-2]

Saw this in my local bookstore today… just look how far we’ve come 💖

[fancylances]

OC Kiss Week / Day One / Almost

pairing: Roxanne Wheeler (she/her)/Avery McCarthy (she/they) genre(s): hockey, canadian zombie-apocalypse

Roxanne flies down the left wing, puck on her battered wooden stick. Dekes past one of the Otters’ defencemen and catches sight of Johnny Two whizzing past the blue line after her. Once he’s onside, she saucers the pass to him—it skips once on the asphalt and hits his tape like it’d been on string. Roxanne laughs, gently chirps Gorman as her rollerblades tic tac around him, and beelines it for the net.

Johnny Two slaps the puck back to her, she cradles it for just a moment before snapping the shot high blocker side on the Otters’ goalie—

It sails like a rocket; on target, on target—

Mac’s blocker rises at the last second, and the shot ricochets off the butt of her stick. Sailing out and over the old plastic boards with all the sauce Roxanne had put on it. The crowd groans and one of the kids (little ones always eager) fights others to say “I got it!” before scuttling from the bleachers and into the tall grass.

The zebra skates over, already blowing the whistle to call the play dead.

Roxanne sighs through a sideways little grin, huffing with the hard work of a few too many shifts back to back. Bobbing gently on her skates, shifting her weight in a little dance to keep her heartrate up. Blonde curls bouncing in her sweat-messy ponytail as she watches the Otters’ goalie Mac wrench her helmet off for the break in play.

Mac gives Roxanne a cheeky smile, flashing the hole where her right upper incisor used to be, as she grabs her water bottle and shoots water all over her sweaty face.

“Almost, Wheels,” Mac chides her, chirping with a little sneer. “Must be a rough way to start a season. Just can’t hack it from that wing.”

“Oh yeah?” Roxanne laughs as she puffs her chest out. “I heard the Fire Dogs got a new goalie this year. His save percentage is almost as big as your head.”

“Pff—” Mac rolls her eyes. “If he wants a dick-measuring contest he can come on over and pull his own pants down. I’d beat him there, too, I bet.”

“Love to see it,” Roxanne chuckles. Endlessly bouncing on her heels, skate wheels tapping and spinning with her movement.

“Got it!” one of the kids screams, holding the puck aloft and hucking it back into the rink. 

The zebra waves everyone over to center rink for puck drop, and Roxanne turns back to watch Mac plop her helmet back on. Wonders if it's the heat that’s made the goalie’s face so pink.

The Bluebirds do manage to score, but their captain Roxanne Wheeler doesn’t net another shot on goal. She does get an assist on a pass to Sandals for the game-tying goal, but she’s never allowed to get in close enough to snipe anything past Mac. Overtime is a wash, and the sun is starting to get low by the time they start setting up for the shootout. Roxanne assigns Johnny Two, Scotch, and herself as the first three shooters, and shrugs and says they’ll wing it if they need to go extra rounds.

She perches on the boards by the Bluebirds’ bench, legs swinging in the encroaching cool of the late summer evening. They’d better wrap things up soon. Nestor is usually safe this time of year, but deadheads are always more likely to come out of hiding after sundown. There’s too many kids in the bleachers for it to be worth pushing things into the evening. 

She’ll just have to score on Avery McCarthy. Simple. Monkeys-on-backs notwithstanding.

First up is Harry Gorman for the Otters, shooting on Brand—who’s been having a slow start, too, but damn if he hasn’t done a fine fucking job keeping things close. Gorman always comes in slow to start and dekes a few times before trying five-hole. Always. And Brand reads him like a diary that’s been left out on a nightstand.

Then Johnny Two for the Bluebirds. He’s a right-handed shot, and Mac is strong blocker-side. She punches his shot out of the air almost before it’s left his stick.

Pastry takes his spot at center and waits for the whistle, almost vibrating with a need to touch the puck. He rockets at the signal, a burst of speed up the asphalt. It’s not often Roxanne gets to see a slap shot in a shootout, but there you go. It rings off the post and carroms off into a corner.

Scotch skates in lazy eights as he waits for the ref to get set. He’s older than everyone else on the Bluebirds, but that hasn’t slowed him down—or softened his shot, and Roxanne winces as the puck cracks off Mac’s dome. 

Mac removes her helmet again, taking the time that the refs have given her to inspect her equipment after the hard shot. And Roxanne finds herself staring at the Otters’ goalie just a little too long. Her brown hair in a tight tail, the base soaked with a game’s worth of sweat. Freckles standing out from heat-pink skin. Her eyes are such a deep brown they look black from here. Eyes, Roxanne realizes, are glaring right back at her. They both look away at the sound of the whistle.

The Otters’ new centerman takes the point, her eyes pinned on Brand. Roxanne doesn’t know her name, but the Sharpie on hockey tape across her back says SNOT. She takes a winding line to the net, the tak tak tak of her stick on asphalt as she dekes back and forth, zig-zagging almost too fast to follow. A sharp wind-up that turns into a fake-out and—

Brand windmills his glove hand and snaps the puck clean out of the air. The Bluebirds’ bench howl and tap their sticks in fanatic fervor. Wild appreciation for their goalie.

Roxanne heads for center rink, feels her teammates tap her with their sticks as she leaves the bench. She waits, never still, for the sound of the whistle. Vision narrowing, a single lane like a spotlight down to the goal—to the goalie guarding it. Mac shuffles in her crease, flexes her glove and chokes up on her stick as she anticipates Roxanne’s first move. 

The whistle goes, and so does Roxanne.

She has the best seat in the house to see the puck sail over Mac’s shoulder, to see the frustration building like steam in those dark brown eyes.

“Come on!” Mac screams. Whacks her stick hard on the ground.

She’s all but drowned out as the Bluebirds flood onto the rink and collapse into a giddy, celebratory pile. It takes a handful of minutes to calm the team down enough to join the handshake line, but they do get around to it. The teams gliding past one another and tossing “good game” back and forth between them. The occasional pat or hug from old friends, playful rivals.

Mac is at the tail end of the Otters’ line, fuming. Only present because she’s expected. She mumbles, holds her blocker out in an imitation of a handshake, and passes by the grinning Bluebirds. By the way she’s glaring holes in everyone’s heads, Roxanne half expects a fight to break out. But everything remains wonderfully civil.

“Drinks on us!” Roxanne calls out to both teams. It raises spirits considerably. 

Avery McCarthy is waiting outside the Bluebirds’ locker room when Roxanne emerges showered and changed fifteen minutes later—a can of light beer half-drunk in her hand. Mac raises her own can in recognition; a salute.

“I hate you, sometimes, y’know,” Mac says as she steps up into Roxanne’s space (she’s small, for a goalie, and Roxanne’s legs are a million miles long even when she’s not on skates).

“I know,” Roxanne says smugly. “But it’s cute when you’re mad.”

Mac rolls her eyes and stands on her toes. Pulls Roxanne down into a hard, hungry kiss. One that Roxanne had been waiting for (like shuffling in the crease, waiting for the shot). She fits her arms around Mac and holds her there. Dares her to try and leave now that she’s committed. 

“Not in front of your team—” Mac tries to protest between kisses, her lips moving against Roxanne’s with every word.

“You started it,” Roxanne murmurs, grins.

“Hate you,” Mac says again, this time through a needy little sigh as she sinks deeper into Roxanne’s arms.

“Cute,” Roxanne mumbles back.

They don’t sit together at the bar. Each of them celebrating or commiserating with their team. But now and then, when conversation lulls, eyes meet and converse without saying a thing.

[hogwarts-no1whore]

Warnings- mention of injury, fainting, small mention of eating, written really badly but it’s my first attempt so we move

Summer loving...

Oliver wood x reader

Your POV

I hate Summer. Its too hot. Not to mention its exam season.

This summer is particularly horrible. It's arguably the hottest one to date. And yet here I sit, or rather here I hover above the ground, as Oliver Wood drones on about practice. Yet again he insists on forcing the entire team onto the pitch in faint worthy conditions, he said something about being better than Slytherin with all the extra practice. Whatever it was I wasn't really listening, my thoughts lay elsewhere, specifically by the black lake basking in the cool waters. Or at breakfast and how I was wishing I'd eaten something before rushing out here.

How I wish he wasn't so obsessed with Quidditch, how I wish he'd take notice of me for more than my ball handling skills or my passing ability. To be considered as a person rather than a player on a team. Still one can but dream of such a time when Oliver Wood is not infatuated with the broomstick sport.

"hey Y/L/N, you gonna join us or just sit there" George shouts at me taking me out of my daze. I look around to see everyone else high above me waiting for me. "erm yes coming sorry" I hastily reply soaring up to join the rest of the team. I fly up next to Fred and wait for Oliver to release the balls, in all honesty I hope this is going to be a quick practice, I feel as though the heats becoming unbearable. "Right everyone, take up your positions and lets go" Oliver utters before releasing the bludgers and tossing the quaffle to me.

I speed off towards the goal where Oliver is now situated pretending to be the opposition. I pass the quaffle to Johnson who slips it into the left hand hoop. "Come on Olly, pay attention" I mock with a slight smile. He simply scoffs at me and turns his focus elsewhere.

After what feels like an eternity of flying up and down, dodging bludgers and the like I see Ginny flying down at something, I really hope she's got the snitch because I simply cannot take much more of the heat....

"Y/N" someone shouts but I don't hear them.

And then it all went black.

Olivers' POV

"Y/N" I shout but it's too late, she's falling from a dangerous height. I don't think I just act, flying directly for her, hoping and praying I can reach her before she almost certainly hits the ground. I can't make it, she's falling too fast, I pull out my wand and utter "Arresto Momentum" to slow her fall. She hits the ground with a soft thud and the entire team flies down to her aid. I cannot help but feel guilty about making her train in the heat. It's quite apparent she's fainted from heat exhaustion, watching her swoon and fall like that, I could never have lived with myself if the fall had been fatal. My dear sweet Y/N.

"Oliver???? Helllooooo earth to captain?" Fred interrupts my thoughts. "infirmary now!" I shout picking her limp body in my arms and rushing towards the medical wing. My feet carried me swiftly towards the looming castle, she felt so light, so delicate, like if I dropped her, she'd smash into a thousand pieces. I had never run so fast in all my years of being at Hogwarts, never had I felt the need to run and to cry more so now. I ran through the court yard which was thankfully empty and pushed on down the never-ending corridor leading to the infirmary. The rest of the team were trailing behind me yelling at me to slow down. But I couldn't. How could I when the girl I have loved since I was 13 was lying limp in my arms? No, I had to keeping going.

The doors to the hospital wing came into view but they were blocked by some irritating first years giggling about god knows what. "move!" I yelled. Surprisingly they did just that, I'm not sure if it was me being so angry in my tone or the fact I was carry a body, either way I was glad. "I need help" I yelled as the white doors swung open hitting the walls as they did. The smell of disinfectant and healing potions filled my senses as Madam Pomfrey came rushing over to me. Her eyes flew from me to Y/N, worry laced her eyes as she ushered me to a free bed where a carefully laid her. After I explained what happened, Madam Pomfrey set to work running tests and to my utmost horror the next words out of her mouth were "there's nothing magic nor I can do, its heat fatigue, she will come around on her accord, in the mean time she will need to rest and stay here"

It's funny. She looks so at peace like this. It reminds me of a muggle story my mum used to read to me, sleeping beauty. Only true loves kiss can awaken the sleeping princess. Worth a shot right?

I leant over her bed, gently brushing some loose hair out of her face and let my lips softly graze over hers. They were warm and soft, she tasted like cherries which I assumed was down to her lip balm. She was never without it. I let soft scent of cherries engulfed me. I was in such a daze I didn't feel her start to kiss back...

Your POV

Someone was kissing me. That was my first thought upon regaining my ability to be aware of the world around me. Broomstick wax. The leather of a brand new Quaffle. Cinnamon gum. They were the first smells to captivate my nose. I knew who was kissing me instantly and so without much need for further thinking I kissed back. I don't think he realised at first but once the kiss was broken as my need to breath took over I heard him gasp.

Third person POV

Oliver gasped as the kiss was broken. He watched carefully as your Y/E/C eyes fluttered open and a large smile was plastered to your face. "Y/N im so sorry I wasn't thinking and..." he trailed off running a hand through his already messed up hair. "Oli" you began. "Don't be sorry ive been wanting to do that for years" You shyly confessed. A deep red blush crept over your face as you met his eyes. His gorgeous brown eyes that were filled with astonishment flickered from your eyes to your lips and back.

He lent in again and whispered "me too Y/N, me too" before crashing his lips into yours again. The kiss was full of passion and hunger and only broke when Oliver could no longer take the burning in his lungs from lack of oxygen.

"I can't believe it took Y/N almost dying for this to happen" a red-haired boy spoke up from the foot of your bed. You look up and blushed a crimson red when your eyes landed on the entire team who had no doubt watched that whole exchange. "shut it Fred why do you have to ruin a perfectly good moment" Oliver fired back. Everyone burst into laughter before leaving the 'happy couple' alone.

Maybe summer was about to be your favourite season after all.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #359

“i’m only a crack in this castle of glass  /  hardly anything there for you to see”

Do you look better with your hair down or up? It's too short to go up. Has you mom ever directly told you that she favoured your other sibling(s) over you? Yeesh, no. Have you ever read The Outsiders? Seen the movie? Read the book, seen the movie. Adore both. What’s your favourite drink from Jamba Juice? I don't think we have those here. Can you stand eating the crusts of a slice of sandwich bread? I don't mind the crust at all. Do you do your homework at home or in class? Prior to college, I did my work right after getting home to get it out of the way. In college, I did it in-between classes or when waiting for Mom to finish class. Do you feel uncomfortable sharing drinks with other people? Yes, I never do it. Do you get jealous if your boyfriend hugs another girl? I'm single, but hypothetically, I wouldn't... It's just a hug. At least for me, it's just a friendly gesture. Is there something that happened in your past you hate talking about? A few things, yes. Is it hard for you to be “just friends” with the opposite sex? Nah. If you had to choose, what color is your favorite? Baby pink. How many times have you dated the person you’re with now? I’m single. Has anyone suspected you of being a different sexuality? Yes. Do you like chocolate or vanilla cake more? Chocolate. Does it bother you to have blood drawn or not so much? Nah. What color is your toothbrush? It's a white electric one. Do you normally fall asleep fast or slow? Ridiculously slow. Have you ever had a severe allergic reaction? No. What do you want to be for Halloween this year? I'd love to dress up as like a Ms. Oogie Boogie and take some cool pictures, but I highly doubt it'll actually happen. What color are your glasses, if applicable? Black. Do you still look in the toy aisle, or do you pass it by? I walk past it. What are your summer fashion essentials? I don't have fashion essentials for any season. Do you have your own website? For my photography, yeah. Do you think you would be a good salesperson? Ha, no. I worked in retail before and I fucking sucked. Do you like candy corn? NO. Just colored wax, ugh. Do you like to wear skirts? I don't wear anything that shows my legs. Were you happy as a kid? Yeah. That, talkative, and hyper. Favorite store to browse but not really buy anything? Haha, I LOVE going on MorphMarket now and again to browse the ball pythons especially, but boy if I had the cash and space would I buy like fifty of them at once. I don't really know about a store I like browsing but not buying from. Skittles or Sour Patch Kids? Both are great, but I guess Sour Patch Kids. BUT, if you throw SOUR Skittles in there... then it's a war lol. If tattoos were free, how many would you have? A HELL OF A LOT. I wanna be just about totally painted. Do you wear a retainer at night? Not anymore. I had one, but I stopped using it. Are you afraid of dolls, puppets, or clowns? I'm not a doll person, particularly porcelain ones. When you’re in your room, do you keep the door locked? No. It's not even closed. Do you think your face is mostly symmetrical? Actually no, and I'm self-conscious about it. Stupidest thing you have ever said out loud? OH Christ, I'm not retrospecting on this. What’s your least favourite ice-cream flavour? That I've actually tried, strawberry. It's disgusting. What was the last good news you heard? I got approved for TMS therapy! Who was the last person to comment on your Facebook status? My friend Lyndsey. How did you meet him/her? World of Warcraft. She's actually my guild master, and she is the sweetest damn person. Have you ever learned any self-defense? If not, would you be interested in learning? I haven't, but yeah, I'd like to. When was the last time you took a nap? How long was it? Yesterday. For some reason, I actually slept a LONG time, like at least three, but probably close to four, hours. I mean I was tired, but I didn't feel THAT tired. Do you like Gushers? YAAAAAAAAAAS What would you do if you could do anything without failing? Actually get a degree for SOMETHING. What is your native language? English. Do you have a younger brother or sister? A younger sister. If so do/did they really get on your nerves? No. We were very close as kids, but we've drifted apart. Now, she absolutely doesn't get on my nerves. I'm so proud of her. Name something that happened to you that was completely unexpected. Uhhh I dunno. Do you judge people that have multiple piercings? Lol wtf? No. Do you watch the Olympics? No. What did you have for breakfast this morning? I had Kix cereal. Do you like orange juice? Yes. So long as it doesn't have pulp in it. Do you think it’s cruel to keep an animal in a cage while you’re away? It depends on the size of the cage as well as how long you're away. Do you have a pet gecko? No, but I'd love a fat-tailed gecko. Are you scared of reptiles? Not at all, I adore them. Is your car messy? I don't have my own car. Mom's kinda is, though. It needs a wash badly, but because of her bumper literally being zip-tied on, she doesn't trust going into a car wash. And neither of us are about to do it manually, lol. Have you ever seen the show 16 and Pregnant? No, fuck that show. Do you buy expensive clothes? No. Does death scare you? Not really. What are your current goals? Conquer my social anxiety, get a job, lose weight, do something to strengthen my legs... Those are the four biggies. Do you clap or cheer when at a concert? I did both at the one I've been to. Do you drink coffee? What brand? No. Do you use a comb or brush? A comb. When you were younger, did you ever do that exclamation point that looked like an upside down triangle and had a really big dot? No. I loved the cutesy girl handwriting though, haha. I just could never do it. You’re locked in a room with the person you last dated, any problems? Well yeah, we're locked in a room lmao. What kind of relationship do you have with the last person you kissed? It's perfectly fine, we're best friends. Have you ever gotten burnt by a cigarette? No. Do you get mad when people smoke around you? Yes. Honestly, have you ever eaten raw cookie dough? Yeah, more than once. When was the last time you were on a city bus? Never. Do you have a garden? Does it have flowers, vegetables, or both? No. Where do you want to raise your kids? Who said I even want kids? Have you ever been to Cracker Barrel? Yessssss, good shit. Have you ever seen a ghost? I think I have. Have you ever burned an ant with a magnifying glass? No. Have you ever been to craigslist.com? Yes. Have you ever used Nair? Yes, on my legs. It works, I just have stupidly hairy legs that need so much to get it all. How many tabs do you have open and what are they? Two YouTube tabs and then Tumblr. What browser do you prefer to use? Chrome. What room are you in right now? My bedroom. Are you excited for anything this month? 1.) I get my tattoo on the 19th, and 2.) I start TMS next Wednesday. What language course did you take in school, if any? I barely survived one semester of Latin, then I did all four available German courses. What language would you most like to learn? I'd love to improve my German. What would you like to get a degree in? Photography. What book are you reading, what genre is it and do you like it so far? Wings of Fire: The Brightest Night. It's young adult fantasy, I think. Did you ever sometimes flip through your text books even when you didn’t need to? Yeah, mainly to just look at pictures because I was that bored in class, haha. What types of magazines do you read? None. Would you prefer to read a book, watch a movie or TV show, or play a video game? Play a video game. What’s your current relationship like with the person you lost your virginity to and do you wish it was different? We don't have any relationship anymore. I don't regret losing it to him, if that's what you're asking. If you mean our relationship stance, it'd be nice to still be in touch with him, but I know it wouldn't be healthy for me. Have you ever felt responsible for someone’s death? Pets, yes. No humans. What was the last book you recommended to someone? Idk. What’s the most difficult thing you and your current or last significant other have gone through? Distance was very hard. What’s your best memory with your ex? I'm going to assume this refers to "the ex." In which case, we were "play arguing," and I came storming into the kitchen after him to make a point, and I slid mid-sentence, and he caught me. We just held each other laughing our asses off. It's the simple things, man. Who was the last person that asked to hang out with you and what’s the story of how you met that person? Summer. My little sister and her were in pre-k together and became friends, but I gradually became closer to her than Nicole did when we were teens. Has anyone ever asked you out and you turned them down? Yes. Is there something you generally always ask for help with? Yeah. Like recently I've been having apples and peanut butter a lot, and I ask my mom to cut the apple because I'm terrified of knives. Do you feel comfortable telling people how much you weigh? NOPE. Have you looked at any old photos of yourself lately? No. In a relationship, have you ever been on and off with your partner? No. Do you consider cooking to be an art? Yes. Are you a fast or slow reader? I'd say I read at a moderate pace. Does it take a lot to gross you out? It depends on what it is, but I am actually more squeamish than I used to be.

[invitedeath]

some may have assumed that a rebirth is solely when a person is given new life, a new form, perhaps even vastly different from the original vessel they possessed. but a rebirth can be something familiar; the foundations of a person simply revisited and reconstructed as if one were rebuilding a home from scratch. each bone the walls, each organ the decorative pieces within. 

in fire, ash and blood he was reborn once before, but in this re-birthing he was simply as he always had been. seeming to be whole but still somehow fractured. powerful yet hindered. a mass and mess of contradictions, as per the riddle of his very existence. and as such, his time in spirale was something akin to a metamorphosis which, even to this day, has not truly been completed.

RANK UP DRABBLE REQUIREMENT. 2,368 WORDS. “ write an 800+ word post reflecting on your time on the island and the struggles/revelations you’ve had during your time here “ ( info ) it is my wish that with this drabble, i can attempt to explore perhaps some of the lingering aspects of who he is and was prior to isola canon, as well as the connections, frustrations and revelations which have thus taken place after. i hope any who read this enjoy my development and i want to thank anyone who helped me along this long and very heavily plotted journey! thank you!!  p.s. here’s some music to accompany.

effortlessly he took a step forward, feeling the distance between earth and sky beneath his chest, before ascending into the dark of the swirling clouds of the storm...

initially he has imagined it to be a part of the reunion. as foolish as it was now to look back upon it, it had once felt as if he was simply due to rise again as endlessly so as the sun. but the world he arrived in was not at all like that of gaia; a planet gaping with his onslaught and thus wounded for a time that seemed eternal. it was not a world in mourning, as gaia had been once the remnants of his soul thus summoned him back, but instead an isle far from his world. a different star altogether. but he was not blind nor stupid. the energy... how it had radiated from the very pavement itself upon that first footstep.

it had been then, merely moments after his arrival, that sephiroth would plan to claim that world for one goal in particular. 

he was in need of a vessel. gaia had been worthy enough as a mere tool to achieve the absolute goal, that of a rightful domination and a restart of existence as he knew it. it had been a means to travel, to abscond to the stars and thus begin the work he was born to do. that jenova had promised in the shadowed corners of his mind as he had drifted through the lifestream. 

but spirale felt so much more worthy somehow. gaia, an exhausted and drained world, was not so rich in the same power which throbbed beneath the surface here. although he could not communicate with the planet as per his original ‘purpose’, spirale sung in varied choruses of her strength. how she drew others from distant worlds to her soil. how she commanded all of their ability to null. how was it possible?

but it as not as simple as he thought. much like the others of the island, he was without power. granted only his teleportation magic ( and even then, just brief bouts! ) he was unable to make better use of his time immediately. thus he wandered... meeting an ‘angel’ who seemed enthralled with sephiroth’s nature. it was there, in the depths of the fibonacci ward’s darkest corridors and passageways, that he would begin to investigate the planet’s power. yet it was to little avail. 

if it was not frustrating enough that he did not find much in the way of a source of the island’s power, he was forced into shared housing. not one for socialising, especially with those so unlike himself, he did not venture there often, instead visiting perhaps once, maybe twice, but certainly enough to spend time with the golden witch who shared the abode. so long apart from socialising, it was a lesson in manners if little else; two powerful people conversing like ‘friends’ as they toppled over chess pieces and make light of their lack of strength, but promising a future where that might not always be the case... 

as time passed, more peculiarities of the island made themselves known to him. haunted by the appearance of a hojo-like spectre, he was thus forced to face the man responsible for all of that strife tied to his life. so tightly woven were his threads, it was almost a surprise that sephiroth did not split apart from the pain of it all once the strange event across the island faded. forced to counter such a prominent figure, he who he had learned all about through his journey within the lifestream, had almost entirely orchestrated the events of his life as a puppeteer might his playthings. 

the peace afterwards did not last too long. just as he had grappled with his ‘father’, the woman named lucrecia. tears staining her cheeks, came to her son and begged for his peace. she pleaded that he might forgive, that she was sorry for what she had done. but her nightmares were prophecies and her precious son was a monster after all. how damned she must feel, the mother of humanity’s end. but he did not embrace her. he did not forgive hojo. what was there to forgive, from either of them? mother, father, creator  —  in the end they had aided his ascension. he did not need a place in the world, instead rising high above it. he did not need their pity or worry, he was painless. ethereal. godlike. 

as time passed, sephiroth became acquainted with various beings from other worlds. some hailed from the same star, a place where the lifestream was but a common name similar to gaia  —  that of hydaelyn. though he did not witness it, he felt a great mass of energy pertaining to some of the beings whom hailed from such a realm and thus made it his intention to seek them out over time. he did not know of it at the moment, but as those seeds were sewn, thus did he break apart little by little from his former lonely status. he talked, even going as far as to enjoy the company of other people almost frequently, as well as plot and plan, discuss and destroy. 

but his plans were cut short by... another life? a world where he did not have ties to godhood at all, but instead existed as a simple being of authority amongst ‘fellow humans’. as vile a dream as it was, it had been the closest which sephiroth had ever come to belonging. he had a family ( the cetra as a sister for some gods be damned reason! ) and... friendship? he was admired but not in the starstruck manner as he had been at soldier. but loved. wholly. he had a place in people’s lives not as a mere hero or token of strength, but because they wanted him there. he was needed. 

once the dust had settled of that strange affair, sephiroth had felt an almost ( ALMOST! ) kinship for those he had been ‘friends’ with before. whilst he had no burning desire to repeat the events of that life, he did however investigate as to the true identities of those people. he followed a few; stalking them from the shadows before vanishing into nothing but mere feathers. but he needn’t wait long for something akin to his better brand of friendship to rear its head. 

a man, cloaked entirely in black, became something of an ally... something of a nuisance. though he was far too cryptic for his own straightforwardness, the two found themselves wandering beneath the spirallian stars, night after night. confidant to confidant. it was with this stranger that he found a type of amusement he had otherwise lacked. a sense of understanding bridging two realms whereby sephiroth could converse in a manner he best enjoyed. until the man faded away, much as they often do in spirale it seemed. but despite him not being present any longer, still the angel’s mind does wander to the what if’s and where’s... of that man robed in black. 

perhaps it was in that unconscious yearning he still had, but could not quite admit to, that he sought after people more readily for conversation. that he, beneath the falling snow, charmed an elezen who was better off not confronting such gods alone by himself. it was almost fun to toy, to tease with as much power and knowledge as he did. for the elezen ate from whatever palm they offered; sampling the fruits of sephiroth’s mind until his cheeks tinted crimson.

days continued into the warmth of summer once again. it was fast approaching a year since his arrival to the island and it seemed to have slipped away so quickly. since his arrival, he had been given back the wing of midnight black, his ability to fly high above the city, as well as the energy infused within every stroke of his sword which he also had had returned to his side. little by little, he was becoming whole again.

one may have assumed that with those slight changes to his life, namely how he actually conversed with others and often spent time engaging in interesting meetings, that his goal may have changed. but all he did, despite these revelations, was work harder. his goal remained the exact same; to find the source of the island’s great power and use that power to master the destiny of each world the citizens hailed from. he assumed that with each world combined, he might rewrite reality after reality, as well as simply planets, that existence itself would be rewritten. made into something pure and bright. one lifestream for him to absorb.

as it neared a year since his arrival sephiroth arose into the sky masked by black, dark storm clouds, only to ponder as to the extent of the power at play beneath him. though he could certainly soar high above the world, he knew there was always a ceiling. always a cap to whatever he had at hand. but the difference was that he no longer cared. whereas before, it was a challenge to go about his usual plans or way of life, now even without his full strength he was almost content with who he was and what he could do. black materia or not, he surpassed spirale’s people in nearly every regard. that belief had only ever grown stronger over time. 

perhaps the most recent example of sephiroth’s slight shift in activity however came about during the fantastical war waged in the warped world of spirale when it was plagued by mythical and romantic visions. as if plucked from a fairy tale, the world was a topsy-turvy sort, thus the making of his life there was... odd to say the least. but past the days of when that strange life came to an end, the war certainly took him by surprise. there he witnessed the strength of the spirallian citizens, how they clamoured together to fight. even he himself threw blade into battle and thus slaughtered his own share of enemies. even attempting to best a beast from the heavens, he fought. 

he fought for spirale. 

not out of some kinship for its people. not out of some change of heart, nor a character revelation. he was determined to use the world for his own means  — he could not allow its sundering.

but who was he now? a vengeful god having attempted to strike down that image of professor hojo? the spiteful son who did not answer the calls of his mother’s ghost? the traitor to jenova who fought for spirale instead of reducing it to ash and dust? a friend, a brother, a hero? 

he had been all of those things. a many-faced coin but who always fell the same face up; sephiroth the one-winged angel. still detesting humanity and all it might offer. still yearning for the destruction of a loneliness he had always felt but had not always understood. he wondered, as he trailed so far above the world that the lights of the buildings below were almost non-existent, whether the black materia would find its way back to him. it wasn’t a necessity, not at that moment, but surely its return would change the course of spirale forever. or so he thought.

should such a magic be unleashed upon spirale, would it split as gaia was fated to? would it come apart thus seek to remedy its wounds by mass repair via its own lifestream? and with that lifestream, what could he achieve? he yearned for that answer. he was desperate to know. and how it was that the island could indeed pluck people from across the fabric of reality... he still had questions to be asked. but with the destructive magic of meteor, he might at least find an answer to one of them. 

this was to be his final rebirth. there would be no more of his demise and ascension, no more lingering as a concept before materialising whole. he was there, the living and breathing omen of life and death itself. the bringer of peace and the rightful ruler of the entire star, and even beyond that. when the day came that he might feel that strength return to him, he would make good of his vows. he would bring forth all of his might to challenge the very laws of that world, to tear it asunder if only to see its making and thus use it to take him further.

free of pain, free of loneliness, spirale may be the foundations of his work.

or it may become engulfed in the chaos and thus be nought but a shell for him to use as merely a vessel.

he had no love for the people there, save for perhaps a handful who would perhaps even yearn for that same destruction he desired, thus he had no qualms with imagining their removal. a blank slate for him to do with as he pleased. for he deserved it. as was his right. as was the legacy his true mother jenova had blessed him with those many years prior. that he might become god. that he might destroy in order to create.

whatever suffering he might have felt would only ever be a distant memory.

[thatparkinsongirl]

WORLDS.

Friends. No one ever told you life was gonna be this way. The apartment complex has seen better days but it’s a roof over your head and that’s more than enough to be grateful about. There’s a pitch-perfect coffee shop on the corner and the people on your hall are actually fantastic.

Disaster. It’s the end of the world. Everything in ruins. You’re running, running, just trying to survive these last days. You sleep fitfully, even then still alert, one hand tangled with theirs and the other gripped around a gun/wand. Or alternately, you’re the crackpot science team that first discovered something was wrong. You’ve all been locked up behind miles of reinforced steel in the CDC? NSA? Area 51? trying to solve this disaster. You were pulled away from your families, not able to save them, not able to take anything. Coffee, coffee, MRE meals. Microscopes, slides, formulas scribbled across white boards trying not to give in to the impending doom.

Inversion. This is not the world you know. Here, Headmaster Riddle pats a young boy on the shoulder and gives some much needed advice. Here, Grindewald and Dumbledore strike fear in the hearts of all the muggleborns. Here, everything and everyone is just a little off center. Your choices define you. (Borrowed from here)

Darkest. Dark magic thrums through your veins, slick and oily. You crave it, live for it. The forbidden section has been your second home ever since the first time you snuck in second year. You are something to be feared. The magic you play with is going to change the world. It’s not about hurting people (sometimes an unfortunate side effect) or taking over the world necessarily (though that is a goal), it’s about this sickly curiosity in magic. How far can you can go? How many lines can you cross? LOOsely off this in which the golden trio go somewhat dark, https://archiveofourown.org/works/6334630/chapters/14514247. Particularly there’s a whole thing in which they bond themselves to each other in a fit of codependency which just yessssss.

Rich as fuck. Money, money, money. Money is the anthem of success. Fast life, shiny diamonds, the best clothes. Speeding too, too fast down the highway, hand out the window. Cops won’t pull you over; they know better. Your lives are a never-ending party. Super Rich kids by Frank Ocean.

Roadtrip bitches. It’s the summer before university. The last hurrah before you all go your separate ways. Long, too deep conversations around a fire while you all smoke. Roadtrip mix blaring through the speakers. Seeing every weird roadside attraction you can. Talking about growing up, childhood, fears, change. About how you could go a year without speaking to someone but they’re still, always gonna be your best friend.

Political. Is it the west wing or house of cards?? Are they corrupt as fuck, bribing and killing and manipulating their way or they earnest and honest as possible, hearts brimming with desire to make the world something worth living in.

PUnk. idk. Hip hop. DJs. Raves. Tattoo artists. Lighters. Smoke rising up into the sky. Motorcycles and a shit ton of leather. Graffiti in the alleyway behind the bar you own.

Therapy. Post-war, and it’s rough. The physical scars are easy enough to ignore. It’s several months before you break down and join the therapy group at St. Mungos. You all swear you’re only there for the free coffee and doughnuts. Phobias, triggers, panic attacks. Recovery. Late night phone calls cause you had the nightmare again.

Olympics. Fencing? Swimming? Hockey? Gymnastics? Ice skating? Or, I mean, alternately, they could be in the Quidditch world cup. Competitors who like mock each other but also hardcore root for each other. It’s a small community and you all have known each other your entire life. It’s been a fight but here you are on the olympic team, favorites for the gold. 

Doctors. Late night hours. 12 hr shifts. Narcissism. The ultimate god complex. Shitty coffee. Stress. Lost a patient today, saved a patient tomorrow. Fighting over who gets to be second on the awesome heart surgery. A quickie in the on call room because damn your ass looks fine in those scrubs. Quizzing each other over a quick lunch. Complaining about your attending at the bar on your first night off in ages.

Unspeakables. They died, struck down during the war and none of you could bear to survive without them. The plan is put together in the early hours of the morning, feverish. It’s stupid, selfish; all this to save one life. You all join the Unspeakables because the rumor is they’ve been working on creating new time turners. None of you care who suffers for this as long as you can get them back.

How to Get Away With Murder/I Know What You Did Last Summer. You’re tied together by an awful, terrible secret. None of you can risk turning on each other. You’ve made sure of that. Toxic people. Guilt. There’s a body in the morgue with your names on it. It was an accident truly but the covering it up that was deliberate. Maybe some unknown person knows and is blackmailing you all or maybe, maybe they’re just trying to get away with it.

Spaceeeee. Inspired by the Wolf 359 and the Strange Case of Starship Iris. Science. Space. Discovery. Futuristic. Bonding because you’re trapped together in a tiny space ship. Conspiracy. Suicide missions. Technology betraying you. The fate of the entire human race resting on your shoulders. 

Parks&Rec/Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Any job-lawyers, firefighters, coffee-shop. It doesn’t matter because they’ve become a tight-knit family. Work hijinks, skinny love probably, I broke your email after I sent you 20 cat memes in a row. office parties. a hint of danger and risk (ok i admit it i like the firefighter one best). My very first day I was driving around trying to find the staff parking and a car honked, whizzed past me, yelling something crude out the window. It turned out to be my new boss.

Dark Post War. With Voldemort dead, Death Eaters being rounded up left, and peace returned to Wizarding London for the first time in more than a decade, it’s easy to believe that all is well. (The problem is that there is no length that people won’t go to protect their peace once they get it back.) Conscription into the Aurors for eligible wizards is enacted to ensure a strong standing against any lingering Voldemort supporters. A man in a black robe is murdered in the street one night because a young, nervous Auror thought he was a Death Eater. Incredibly harsh sentences handed down for any war crime. When Hogwarts finally reopens its doors over a year after the Battle of Hogwarts, it’s to the complete eradication of the Slytherin house (there are rumors about what happens to the children that the Sorting Hat would’ve sorted into Slytherin) and the addition of core classes. It is not a school but a training ground. Certain shops in both Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade are shut down for “sedition” and “miscreant behavior”, most notably Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Known war hero, Hermione Granger, is tossed in a Ministry cell for two months for sedition, after she attempts to prevent the arrest of a werewolf. Released war prisoners, people like the Zabini family who did not bear the Dark Mark but who were afflicted with Dark families, and “potential dark wixen” are branded by the Ministry as a warning to the public. All the while, the Ministry reports capturing dangerous Death Eaters, spotting war criminals in Hogsmeade, about danger lurking everywhere. The official statement is that they are trying to right mistakes made after the defeat of Grindewald, if they’d taken a stronger offense then Voldemort never would have happened. What it boils down to though is fear and vengeance and the shifting tide of power. 

Darkest Minds. So I’m finally reading this series since the movie’s coming out soon. I’m only 6 chapters in thus far but yes! this plot! would! definitely! want!

Dark Academia. The Secret History!!! Probably, definitely a secret society!! Mystery! The most pretentious assholes you will ever meet. Arguments over classic literature. Speaking latin to each other so no one else knows what they’re saying. Tweed jackets. Fall in New England. Tea. No i don’t own a tv I believe they’re corrupting the youths’ minds. Insomnia. A 40 page treatise on the Odyssey. 

Alternate Fifth Year. In a world where the young slytherin fifth years spend the summer of between fourth and fifth year, watching their parents with disgust and trepidation. They are ambitious, devoted to self-preservation and they are smart enough to see that following the Dark Lord is a road to ruin. Lucius Malfoy comes back from Death Eater meetings, shaken, Mr. Nott Senior with a long cut down his face. No, the slytherins have no interest in a life like that. It’s too bad then that they’re not even being taught Defense in school. It’s luck that they hear about the group of students that have started practical magic in secret. Canon divergent fifth year where the slytherins join Dumbledore’s Army. Can start after fifth year too but like that’s where it diverges. 

Back Home*. When they say you can’t ever go home again, they mean it, because home isn’t a static location, it’s a word full of extra connotation. It’s tied to a specific time and emotion and feeling. A group of friends return to their small hometown for the first time in eight years for the funeral of a mutual friend. Some of them have vaguely kept in touch but for the most part despite how close they were growing up they’ve all drifted apart. A story about loss, growing up, nostalgia, fear, and friendship. You won’t ever the same kind of friends you had when you were young. 

Shadow Children (Margaret Peterson Haddix). Futuristic, dystopian. Every family is allowed ONLY 2 children yet secret 3rd children do exist, living in the shadows and scraps. Some are lucky enough to get a fake identity and freedom. So I read this series when I was like 11 or something and they’ve kind of haunted me ever since. I’d probably wind up disappointed if I ever tried to reread them but whatever.  Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the first book lately, in regards to all the school kids protesting gun violence and the people in power just looking away as more children die, and just viscerely reminds of the horror I had reading the end of the first book in which (SPOILER) one of the main characters goes to a protest on the front lawn of the white house esque government building, convinced that if enough them protest, if they demand justice, they can get it. Each and every person at the protest is gunned down. For   young me who had largely only read books where everything wound up happy as long as you were brave and honest and full of spirit, this was an enormous shock. Idk how this would work but yes!

CONNECTIONS. 

Bodyguard. Mighty, mighty need for this. You’re the ambassador or president or queen or minister’s kid and your parents hire a bodyguard. You resent their protection. Ruining your semblance of a normal life. Judging you. You can’t help slipping their protection. Heart to hearts. Shared truths. Grudging respect and whatever. Ugh and the sexual tension, more alive than a power line. The attack comes out of left field and it’s a mess. (This. So down to play this out as whatever characters in any world)

Death. Straight up angst here. Final battle death scene. One second they’re right there and the next there’s a flash. You hold your hands over the gaping wound, screaming for a healer but you both know it’s over. Tears mixing with blood. Maybe they become a Hogwarts ghost. (Any character, any sort of relationship-married, dating, siblings, best friends, we shouldve dated but now your dying my arms)

Toxic. Do I feel guilty about having a thing for fictional toxic relationships? Yes, yes I do. But does that change anything? no. “Oh, we broke ages ago.” But everyone rolls their eyes when you say it. Because neither of you can stop and everyone knows. A couple of drinks in and you can’t keep your hands off each other. There’s still jealousy and toxicness and protectiveness and posssesiveness. There’s a dent in the wall from the time you threw a lamp at them. And god, if you could just make it work but love just isn’t enough sometimes. I’d tattoo your name on my arm but i wouldn’t marry you(Any characters)

Married in Vegas. You two hate each other’s guts. You’re constantly trying to one up each other in front of the boss. And you both always have a different way of approaching a problem. You steal candy bars out of their desk and they keep getting you locked out of your computer somehow. But your both the best so of course your selected for the Vegas conference work is holding. What happens next?? well?? a lot of alcohol, you know that. Neither of you quite remember but those rings on your fingers might mean something.

Romeo and juliet. Mob vs. cops or Death eaters vs. Order.  Forbidden romance. Secret meetings. My uncle killed your father. You have a body count that would make them blush. Maybe you’ll turn states evidence for them. Maybe they’re just using you. (any)

Softsoftsoftsoft. Bakery and coffee shop across from each other. Skinny love. A lot of Troye Sivan and Hayley Kiyoko playing. Longing stares, blushing, awkwardness. All your friends say they are definitely into you but??? Or alternately, you co-own the bakery coffee shop and you’ve been dating since third year and your friends all want to kill you. Because ughhh noone should still be that in love. Some serious codependency and domesticity here. Like if anyone’s seen How I Met Your Mother-Lily and Marshall. (any)

Misunderstandings. Classic trope. Of course, you thought they were dating. They live together, steal food from each others plates, share sweaters, tease each other relentlessly, constantly physically affectionate. Really what were you supposed to think. Cue the miscommunication and needless pining and hilarity. (any)

Bonnie and Clyde. Gringotts robbers? Who knows but you’re criminals and you’re good at it. Three steps ahead of the aurors. Careless laughter, drunk on adrenaline. Drive it like you stole it by the Glitch Mob!! and End Credits by Eden!! (any)

Siblings. I’m sorry that all the others are relationship plots because I really do high key love a good best friends/siblings plot. Real siblings or we grew up together and i would murder someone for you siblings. They know each other better than the backs of their hands. Secrets are for other people. Soft plot-just them taking care of each other after a tragedy. Tough love-you fucked off to Paris because you couldn’t deal with your life and they dragged your ass back because when you were kids they promised not to let you make any irreversible mistakes. protective-just. they keep doing dangerous shit and risking their life and you have to knock some sense into their thick skull. Ridiculous-they are everyone’s worst nightmare, stuck together like glue, always causing trouble. Spitting gum down at people from the astronomy tower. Finding ways to beat the anti-cheating quills. Actually helping your sibling get rid of a body. (any)

Best friends/Squad. You all meet at the bar religiously after work. Got each other’s back still, always, forever. Growing up doesn’t mean you have to lose them. (all; I watched the whole first season of golden girls last night so I’ve got a lotta squad feelings. )

Parent and child. Honestly just this song. Heirloom by Sleeping at last!!!! You’re both trying your best but there’s always going to be this tension, these mistakes on both sides. Regrets, nostalgia, angst, softness, forgiveness. (any, but this song always gives me Draco-Scorpius and Harry-Albus vibes)

Eighth Year Partners. PostWar. After a review of Hogwarts’ records, it’s decided that the school year of 97-98 will have to be repeated for all students. In an effort to bring the students of all houses together to promote healing and unity, a random buddy system is set up. A Ravenclaw sixth year paired with a Gryffindor fifth year. A Hufflepuff and Slytherin second year paired. So on and so forth. Though Headmaster McGonagall believed it was a good opportunity, she was loathe to force any student into something they didn’t want, certainly not after the past few years. Thus her only fast rule for the partnerships was sitting together for two meals a week. Some took full advantage of the system, studying together, attending each other’s quidditch games. Others sat in stony silence during the required time only.

@ginevraxweasleyy @marcusflvnt @occlumensism

[theliterateape]

Hope Idiotic | Part VIII

By David Himmel

Hope Idiotic is a serialized novel. Catch each new part every week on Monday and Thursday.

LOU FINALLY BEGAN MAKING A LITTLE BIT OF MONEY WHEN HE BROKE THROUGH TO THE CHI STAR, a free daily paper owned by the Franklin News. It was designed to be a newspaper with training wheels in hopes that as the young readers aged, they would make the switch from the free commuter rag to a more mature newspaper subscription. It was the struggling newspaper business’ effort to survive by adapting the drug trade’s tactics; get ’em hooked for free when they’re young.

The Star was a terrible paper. It only had a few actual news stories. All of them were chopped versions of what ran in the grown-up paper that day. A few columnists wrote gently about dating in the city, the local transit authority and Chicago sports. A lot of column inches were devoted to pop culture and celebrity gossip. And there were write-ups about bars and restaurants. This was where Lou ended up.

He pitched a story idea to the food editor to review a popular downtown sports bar, which boasted having the hottest chicken wings in the nation. So hot, in fact, that patrons had to sign a waiver before taking a bite. Lou would eat a full order of the wings without having to ring what was called the fire alarm — a hand bell to signal for a platter of sour cream, ice cream and a glass of milk to cool his mouth. Then he’d set a record on Golden Tee.

The story was well received. The editor liked him and gave him more assignments: Write a piece about the best place to watch the NCAA Final Four tourney. Write a piece about bars that host Wii game nights. Write a piece about that new restaurant in an old Chicago public library that serves a fusion of Greek and French food.

It was nice seeing his name in print again. It was nice knowing that people were reading his words and liking them. His hot-wing story was the most read and emailed for nine weeks straight on the Chi Star website. And Michelle was proud of him, too. She liked that under his byline it read: Special Contributor. She didn’t understand that it only meant he wasn’t considered a real writer of the paper. He didn’t want to burst her bubble.

He was finally busy working. He was running around Chicago nearly every night, hopping from bar to bar, staying long enough at each one just to get the vibe of the place. It took about five minutes to do this. Most places were the same. They all had TVs; they all ran two-dollar PBR specials on Thursday; they all had the best sweet potato fries in town. The restaurants were no different. Each one was doing something that had never been done before, and every head chef had some connection to the television show America’s Top Chef, though not a single one of them had been a winner.

Once he filed his story, each place became as forgettable as the next. And after a couple months, the time and money he spent driving around town and parking for those few minutes or dropping the $2.50 for each CTA bus or El ride was hardly worth the paycheck. The Star wouldn’t even reimburse him for his reviewed meals. He was losing money on most stories. And these weren’t the kind of stories he wanted to write either. The editor didn’t want narrative. While she loved the excitement in his first piece about the wings, she wanted him to write more to the voice of the overall paper. That was, keep it uninteresting. Place. Specials. Clever line about the neighborhood it was located in. That was it. That was modern-day print journalism in a big city.

He had hoped that punching these reviews out would give him a boost to other sections of the rag and introduce him to other editors so that he could work on the stories he actually wanted to work on; even land his own column eventually. But the opportunities were stunted. His pitches to other papers and magazines weren’t being picked up, and Janet Brine at the Inquisitor wouldn’t respond to his emails or phone calls.

Despite the incoming paychecks, he was still desperate for more. The thrill of the byline and the small checks didn’t provide his girlfriend-landlord with her required monthly nine hundred dollars.

One Saturday, while Michelle was at work, Lou had lunch with an old friend from Brushmore. Over tacos, he expressed his desperation.

“I could probably get you a job,” his friend Debbie said. She was an inside sales trainer at ProCore, an online job-listing company. ProCore was hiring account managers, and she thought Lou would be perfect for it. “You have a great personality and it’s a really laid-back, fun place to work.”

“But it’s a sales job.”

“Inside sales job, yes.”

Lou hated sales. He wasn’t good at sales. He was great at marketing, but not sales. Being good at sales takes a whole different kind of weaseling.

“What is inside sales?”

“You don’t go out; you make phone calls from the office. It’s not hard, and you can make a lot of money. Some people, their first year, make more than sixty grand.”

“Sixty grand? In the first year? Set up the interview.”

✶

HE QUICKLY REALIZED THAT GETTING A JOB AT PROCORE DIDN’T REQUIRE MUCH SKILL. To be effective, ProCore needed manpower to make the calls. In sales, the word no is heard far more often than yes, so the more people making phone calls to more potential clients, the better the odds of closing a sale.

He was assigned to a team of nine other desk jockeys and a team manager, a twenty-four-year-old named Brian. Lou was given a cubicle, a headset and a P.C. He was expected to have a minimum of two hours of talk-time logged by the end of each week. Talk-time was calculated by calling and chatting up the companies on the sales rep’s given call list. It may not sound like much, but when the average phone call is only an eight-second-long rejection, two hours can seem impossible. He was also given a financial goal to meet each month. If he didn’t meet his number by the end of the month, he wouldn’t receive a commission. Even if he missed his goal by a dollar, he’d miss out on the commission money. He was, however, promised a base salary of 25,000 dollars a year. After taxes, it worked out to about seven hundred and fifteen bucks every two weeks.

Lou was one of the oldest people employed there. He was surrounded by Big 10 recent grads who flocked to Chicago to strike it rich in the big city before they were thirty. They filled their cubicles with collegiate pennants, discussed their fantasy football leagues at great length and debated over who was more the villain on John and Kate Plus 8. Most of these kids wanted to build a career in sales, and this was a perfect first job for them. The average stay of any desk jockey was two years, though some stuck around to be team managers, like Brian. And while these kids weren’t bad people, Lou didn’t really care for any of them and their standard brand of standard thinking. However, there was one co-worker he stomached and rather enjoyed.

The ink on Leslie Bronson’s bachelor’s degree was barely dry when she and Lou met that summer. She was nice girl with a vicious sense of humor, a small chip on her shoulder and a résumé of bad relationships. She loathed reality TV and found Lou’s general discontent and sharp tongue comforting, entertaining and funny. Her one flaw was that she was a staunch liberal democrat, a real party hardliner.

“It’s blind faith like that, that will continue to destroy this country, Leslie,” he said. “You’re as bad as the conservatives you loathe. You’re not thinking, but feeling because Obama makes you feel good about things.”

“And isn’t that what we need right now? Someone to pull this country together?” she said.

“Of course. Look, I like Obama. He seems thoughtful and reasonable. But we have to question all politicians, all government. The man isn’t Jesus Christ.”

“I don’t believe in Jesus Christ.”

“Why not?”

“Lack of evidence.”

“That’s exactly my point. Come on, Leslie, you’re smarter than this.”

“At least I’m aware of my blind faith. That’s far more than many other people can say.”

“That’s fair.”

Unfortunately, Lou and Leslie were often short on their required weekly call time. Their cubicles were next to each other and their conversations took precedence. But that was the only thing that kept Lou from hanging himself in the men’s room with his mouse cord.

“Hey, Lou,” Leslie whispered while he was on a self-loathing call with a lead. He put his finger up, signaling for her to wait a minute.

“I understand you’re not hiring now. You’ve never hired anyone? Never? How do you… Oh, well, sure, that’s the best way to do it. Hire people you know. That’s still hiring… Well, if you ever need… I will. Thank you. I understand. Not a problem.” Lou pulled his headset off and dropped it on his desk.

“Another sale, huh?” Leslie said, smiling.

“This trucking company has only hired four people since it began. Well, six, I guess. The husband and wife run the place, and the four drivers are cousins. He actually told me to go fuck myself.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But it was the nicest I’ve ever heard anyone say it. I think I even thanked him.”

“I have a problem,” she said.

“What?”

“The Tenant wants to have dinner. Aaaaaand I’m pretty sure he wants to get back together.”

Lou was one of the oldest people employed there. He was surrounded by Big 10 recent grads who flocked to Chicago to strike it rich in the big city before they were thirty.

The Tenant was Leslie’s ex-boyfriend. By not using his actual name, she de-humanized him, which helped her get over the heartbreak of it all a little quicker—a smart move emotionally. They dated in college and moved to Chicago before splitting up for petty reasons, some of which being Leslie always leaving the lights on in rooms she wasn’t using and the Tenant never doing any grocery shopping. She moved out, unwilling to stay in their once happy home and let him stay at the apartment, though only her name was on the lease because his credit was so terrible. And since he wrote checks to her for the full amount of the monthly rent, enabling her to pay the landlord, he became the Tenant.

“If he’s buying, take the free meal,” Lou said. “You don’t have to get back together.”

“What if I want to?”

“I don’t think this guy is bad news. I think you’re both idiots. But here’s the thing, Leslie, stay young. Stay single. You won’t ever have relationship problems if you never have relationships.”

“That might be the most terrible but intelligent advice I’ve ever received.”

Despite the work friendship he had with Leslie, Lou hated going in to work every day. Even when he tried, he sucked at his job. He lacked that sales-weasel gene needed to close the deal. But he needed the little bit of money and the health benefits. Luckily, from the first day on the job, the company totally covered this benefit for every employee. Not a single cent was taken out of Lou’s seven-hundred-and-fifteen-dollar paycheck for healthcare.

Still, he was in career purgatory. But he figured it would be temporary. He regularly reminded himself that he only had to stay there until he found a gig doing what he really wanted to do. And when his first paycheck came, Michelle insisted he take them out for a nice dinner to celebrate. By the time the dessert menus were delivered, she was accusing him of giving up on his goals, and her pride turned to disappointment.

✶

ON THE ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF MOVING TO CHICAGO, Lou and Michelle designed a nice evening out. The plan was to eat at the newest and far-too-popular West Loop restaurant owned and operated by a currently acclaimed celebrity chef. It had a three-week-long waiting list. It was as if the entire city of Chicago were rock-hard for anything this chef touched.

Lou never bought into hype, especially hype over restaurants. He’d worked in too many, wrote about too many. Besides, his business was all about hype. He was a hype cog, a journalist (and momentarily an inside sales rep) who kept the buzz buzzing. He knew it was all bullshit. Was this chef’s restaurant going to be good? Probably. But the thing about all delicious food, like most things in life, is that it will eventually turn to shit.

But Michelle was a believer like the rest. So after dining, they’d head to their favorite fancy hotel bar for martinis and champagne. This evening was entirely Michelle’s idea—as they all were. She made the reservations a month before so when Lou suggested they celebrate with a quiet night in, just the two of them, she would be ready to spring the plan on him.

“We can have L ’n’ M O.P. time any time,” she said. “You always cook me dinner. Let’s make the night special.”

“Come on, Michelle. I don’t want to share our night with the other idiots in the city. What if the service is bad? You know there’s never bad service at home.”

“Why don’t you want to celebrate?”

“I do want to celebrate. But you know, money is still tight for me.”

“That’s not the kind of thing I want to hear.”

“But it’s true. You want me to lie to you?”

“It’s not attractive to me that you’re still hurting financially. I want to be taken care of. You have a job. I don’t know why you aren’t making more money already. I thought you could make sixty grand in your first year.”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“Fine. I’ll get dinner; you can pay for the drinks.”

It would be a pricey meal, but the way the two of them drank, the bigger bill would land with Lou. However, the celebration never happened. Instead, Lou got a call from his brother just before the end of the day at work.

“You need to come home,” Aaron said.

“Why?”

“Max is dying.”

The family dog was a fourteen-year-old Britany spaniel. He had cancer in his jaw. It had been there for months, but it was decided that operating would be too hard on the old boy, so it was just best to ride it out. Mostly, Max was fine during those months. You know, as fine as any old dog ever is—slower, sleeping most of the day, but happy and full of love. Thrilled at the idea of going on a car ride. The kind of positive outlook and simplicity that served all dogs and would serve mankind well if we were only so inclined to be more like our best friends.

“What’s going on?” Lou asked Aaron.

“He’s just lying on the bathroom floor. His mouth won’t stop bleeding. I’m trying to stop it with toilet paper and stuff, but it won’t stop. He won’t move. You need to come home.”

“Call the vet. I have dinner with Michelle, Aaron. I can’t come home tonight.”

“Your dog is dying, Lou.”

Canceling with Michelle wasn’t easy. “Are you sure he’s dying? Really?” she said on the phone at work.

“I don’t know. It sounds bad. Mom is going out there tonight, too. We may have to put him down. I should be there.”

“We won’t be able to get back into the restaurant for I don’t know how long.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. It’s just bad timing.”

Lou got the okay to leave work an hour early and rushed to his childhood home as quickly as he could. He was terrified at the idea of likely having to watch his sweet, old dog die, but he was too frustrated with the guilt Michelle put on him for canceling dinner to really embrace it. If he had had his choice, he’d have much rather been sad about Max than angry about Michelle. When he arrived, Max was right where Aaron had said he had been.

“Hey, buddy,” Lou said when he walked into the bathroom. Max lifted his big brown eyes to look at Lou, and his little nub of a tail wagged just enough that Lou knew Max was happy to see him. There was dried blood on the bathroom tile. Aaron came in with a handful of bloodied toilet paper.

“See?” he said.

No one spoke on the short ride to the vet. Benjamin drove with Sarah up front, while Lou and Aaron sat in the back with Max lying across their laps.

Benjamin arrived home from work shortly after Lou; Sarah was there an hour later. She hadn’t been back to the house or seen her dog in a while and was visibly shocked at how old he looked. She cried. Benjamin’s parents Abraham and Adina lived next door. Max was as much their dog as anything. And Max loved going to Pop and Grams’ house. They came over, too. It was decided that Max should be put to sleep the following morning. Benjamin made the appointment with the Brushwood vet.

They were able to get Max upstairs, and he curled up to sleep in his favorite spot between the wall and Benjamin’s bureau in his bedroom—the one he used to share with Sarah. Benjamin and Sarah slept in the bed. Lou and Aaron slept on the bedroom floor. And that night, for the first time since Lou left for school in Las Vegas, the family was back home, together again.

In the morning, Max seemed to feel better. He was moving quicker and his mouth had stopped bleeding. As the rest of the family showered and readied themselves for the trip to the vet, Max walked all over the house sniffing every corner. It was like he knew. Like he was doing one last sweep to make sure everything was okay before he goes.

Outside, it was sunny and warm. Max could never be let outside without being secured somehow, lest he would shoot off like a rocket down the street or through the yards in search of a rabbit or a gigantic mud pile. But that morning, he calmly walked out of the front door and stood in the driveway’s sun for a moment before resting under the large crabapple tree that straddled the two Bergman yards. Pop and Grams came outside.

Pop leaned down and patted Max on the head. “You’re a good dog. You’re a good, good dog,” he said.

“What am I going to do with all of those milk bones you haven’t finished?” Grams asked Max. Then she patted his head and turned to go back inside of her house. She wiped tears with her sleeve. Pop wiped his with his handkerchief.

No one spoke on the short ride to the vet. Benjamin drove with Sarah up front, while Lou and Aaron sat in the back with Max lying across their laps. They all were petting him when the vet administered the poison, and they all choked back wails when the vet said, “He’s passed. I’ll leave you with him, if you like.”

Benjamin, Sarah and Aaron all kissed him on the top of his head where he had a small brown spot that looked like a little yarmulke, which was what the family called it. It was a bulls-eye for kisses. The three of them filed out of the room, Lou stayed back.

Max was the closest thing to Lou to ever die. The death of a pet is never easy, and Lou felt an unfamiliar and deep emptiness in his gut. He stroked his dog a few times and said, “Okay, Max. I’m going to miss you. I hope you feel better now.” Then he kissed him on the yarmulke and said what he always said when he left Max, “Be good, boy. I love you. Be good.”

Lou caught up with the rest of his family in the parking lot. His mom and brother were holding each other and crying. His father, a man who Lou saw cry only once before at his Bar Mitzvah, sat down on the parking curb and bawled.

Max was more than just a dog. He was a symbol of simpler and happier times in the Bergman home. The reality of the broken family was now ever-present. Sarah had moved out. The divorce was final. Lou no longer lived there. Aaron occupied the rooms and hallways like a shiftless zombie, uninterested in everything including human flesh. And now the family dog was gone. Max was the one thing through all the years that had remained constant and good. Max always loved. Always played. Always needed to be loved by Benjamin and Sarah and Lou and Aaron and Pop and Grams. And when Lou and Sarah moved out and Aaron was at college, it was just Benjamin and Max in that quiet house. Max and Benjamin had always been there for each other when everyone else had left for good or bad reasons. But now Benjamin was on his own. The familiar and comforting sound of Max’s tags rattling on his collar as he ran downstairs to play or be taken out would never be heard again. The Bergman family home would never be the lively and happy home it was. And all evidence of it was difficult to find. As his father cried in a heap in the vet parking lot, Lou realized that his father was mourning the loss of the dog and of the family. And so, too, would Lou.

✶

A FEW WEEKS LATER, BENJAMIN WAS DOWNTOWN CLOSING A NEW REAL ESTATE DEAL. He and Lou met for lunch.

“When are we burying Max’s ashes?” Lou asked his father.

“I don’t plan on burying them.”

“What do you plan on doing with them then?”

“Right now they’re sitting on his favorite chair in the living room. I put a toy of his next to them. He loved sitting in that chair and looking out of the window. And always with a toy at his side.”

“But we have to bury the ashes, Dad.”

“And just where would you suggest we bury them?”

“What about under the crabapple tree? That way he’s close to both houses.”

“And what happens when I sell the house?”

“What?”

“What happens when I sell the house? Do I dig him up and take him with me?”

“Are you planning on selling the house?”

“Not right now. But someday, maybe.”

“No. You leave him there. That was his place.”

“He should be at home. That was his place.”

“What about cemeteries?”

“What about them?”

“We have a huge family plot that you’ll likely be buried in. But you never lived there.”

“I feel better having him there, at home. It’s hard. You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t live there, Lou. You don’t know what it’s like to not hear him snore in the night. Or to not see him lying in that chair. Or to not have to be mindful of taking him out in the morning or at night. Or to not have him follow you around the house just because he wanted your company. He lived in my house, and I will decide what to do with his ashes. And for right now, for right now, they’re just fine on his favorite chair.”

“All right, alright, Dad. I’m sorry. Keep Max on the chair.”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes while they picked at their French fries.

“Pop went to the doctor last week,” Benjamin said.

“Okay.”

“He has lung cancer.”

“But he smokes pipes.”

“Well, I guess you can get lung cancer without ever smoking a cigarette.”

“Okay. Any other breaking news to brighten the day?”

“Nope. Just that your grandfather has cancer. And he’ll probably die.”

“Okay.”

When they both declined water refills, the waiter set the check down.

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII

[flauntpage]

What Can Sixers Fans Expect From Matisse Thybulle? A Q/A with Seattle Times Writer Percy Allen

The Sixers open Summer League minicamp on Monday, which should give us our first look at draft pick Matisse Thybulle, selected #20 overall one week ago today.

A 6’5″ wing, Thybulle was considered one of the draft’s best defensive prospects, a player who averaged 3.5 steals per game as a senior and topped Gary Payton for the most steals in PAC-12 history. Not bad, eh?

Beyond the defense, Thybulle wasn’t much of a scorer at the University of Washington, averaging 9.1 points per game on 7.5 field goal attempts as a senior. His three-point shooting dipped to 30.5% this past year, down from 36.5% as a junior and 40.5% as a sophomore.

So what gives? And how much did things change when long-time head coach Lorenzo Romar was fired by the Huskies, leading to the appointment of Jim Boeheim disciple Mike Hopkins?

I touched base with Seattle Times writer Percy Allen, who covered Thybulle’s college career and was good enough to spend a few minutes on the phone this morning.

Crossing Broad: Let’s go macro to start; we didn’t watch a lot of PAC-12 basketball out here on the east coast, not a lot of Washington games at all. We’ve seen Matisse’s Youtube highlights and talked to him briefly via conference call and an introductory presser. What can Sixers fans expect from a guy like Matisse and what will they like about him?

Percy Allen: This may sound cliche, but I have to start here, and he is a fantastic person. That’s first and foremost. I saw a little bit of the initial press conference in (Philadelphia) and saw what Elton Brand said about him, and when Elton started with (his high character) it really echoed a lot of the things I got to learn about Matisse over the years. Truly, he is an amazing individual. This is a young man who has really come into himself as a person. Again, that doesn’t speak for the basketball side of things, which I know fans love and clamor for, but the Sixers got an amazing young man. Now, that being said, as a basketball player he’s still young, even though he was in school for four years. He is a defensive savant, he lives and breathes defense, and his father taught him at a very young age the importance of defense. A lot of players like to see the ball go into the basket but he’s not somebody who is really impacted by that. He knows that he can make an impression on the game with his defense. This is someone who likes to study film, likes to pick up other player’s tendencies, and for a lack of a better term, he just has a knack for it.

Crossing Broad: One thing that turned into a talking point out here was the fact that Washington played 2-3 zone under Mike Hopkins, the former Syracuse assistant who took over a few years ago. Some people think Matisse put up inflated defensive numbers as a product of the zone. Do you lend any credence to that, or do you see him as a guy who can play anywhere in any system?

Allen: I think all questions are fair. With Matisse, he did play in zone his first two years under Lorenzo Romar. I don’t have his numbers in front of me, but I imagine there was a big spike there in terms of his steals and his blocks (note: there was; Thybulle improved from 0.7 to 1.4 blocks and 2.1 to 3.0 steals per game as a junior). But he is not unfamiliar with man-to-man concepts from his first two years in college. Obviously Mike Hopkins realized what he had in Thybulle, that he could put somebody at the top of the zone. Now, initially, Thybulle started at the back of the zone, and I don’t know if a lot of people know that. But initially he started at the back of the zone and only stayed there for like one game before the assistant coaches saw that he was so long and so dynamic, so they moved him up to the front. Then it was lights out and everything changed. But I think there is a learning curve for him, and he’s going to have to learn sort of the NBA man-to-man defense, learn how to get over screens, learn how to get under screens, how to chase guys around the court. That’s gonna be something that he just hasn’t done it in the past few years, but I have every bit of a confidence that he will be able to do those things.

Crossing Broad: To follow up on that, or just dig a bit deeper, I was reading a story you wrote in 2017, during Lorenzo Romar’s last season, and you talked about how they went to some zone during that year, before, quote, “Washington returned to a man-to-man defense in 2015-16 and posted a 19-15 record.” Was this just something Romar did to help a struggling squad, a little bit of zone to stop the bleeding before going back to man?

Allen: Yeah he did. So with Romar, not having the success that you’d like, or that you want, you’re trying a lot of different things. Romar grew up on a man-to-man principle and that’s where he had his most success at Washington. Then maybe when the team wasn’t doing so well, or in his mind, they didn’t have the personnel to run his schemes – and I don’t know how that happens in college since you’re recruiting your players – but he tried other things. That’s when he went to the zone at times.  It was an abysmal failure. He realized it, but didn’t realize it quick enough, I think, in my opinion. Then he went back to man-to-man concepts.

Crossing Broad: Let me ask about Matisse’s three-point shooting. He did well as an underclassmen, hitting around 37%, 40%, 36%, then down to 30% as a senior. When we asked him about it, he said he just sort of had to make sacrifices on the offensive end to accommodate the team, but is there anything more as to why his perimeter shooting dropped off the way it did as a senior?

Allen: I think there’s some truth to that. Matisse is really just trying to figure it out for himself as to why that was. Look, there is some truth to that, that early on, as a freshman and sophomore, maybe he thought ‘I should be focusing on my offense more.‘ But then, as he really realized where he can make an impact with this team, I think he, not really let the three-point shooting ‘go,’ but he knew he didn’t have to grind over it because he knew could be such a force as long as he’s leading the defense. I think it’s a part of his game (shooting) that just needs to get there, and he’s really gotta work on that shooting and gotta get it more consistent. He’s gotta shoot the same shot, which I think he does, and I think there’s some hope there because he’s a pretty good free throw shooter. Normally when you have good free throw shooters, you can stretch that out (to field goal shooting). I also think it will benefit him – and I’m not trying to throw anybody under the bus – but it will benefit him to have a point guard who can find him and find him in rhythm. I’m not so sure he necessarily had people who were looking to get him easy shots at Washington. A lot of times he had to hunt for his own shot.

Imagine the first time Matisse Thybulle does this in South Philly? @MattyCord is gonna have a heart attack. @marczumoff might pass out. pic.twitter.com/pBa9JeAuuR

— Jeff McDevitt (@JeffMcDev) June 21, 2019

Crossing Broad: Last one for you, another macro question. Is this where Matisse needs to improve the most to be an effective NBA player? Is it shooting? Or is it maybe that evolution to professional man-to-man defensive concepts? If there’s a hurdle that he needs to clear to take the next step at this level, where is it?

Allen: I’m not trying to dodge because I think it’s a great question, but it’ll be about the fit. I truly believe this; I used to cover the NBA and I’ve seen guys come in with so much promise and not do well, and I’ve seen guys come in with no expectations whatsoever and do phenomenal. A lot of times it just has to do with fit. I think it’s really important to see who Elton is able to keep on that team, surround Matisse with. I do wonder if Ben Simmons and Matisse Thybulle can play on the court a lot together, because with the both of them, perimeter shooting is not a strength. I wonder about that. So it’ll be about fit and role, because I think he’s a smart enough player where he can figure some things out. But I’m curious as to how the Sixers will use him and when they’ll use him. Right now, is he the third best player on the team? I don’t know what that means. What kind of opportunities will he get? I think the fit is going to be really important with a player like that, because you know on defense he is really good, really locks down there. It’s about finding a role that a rookie can feel comfortable with.

  Follow Percy Allen on Twitter: @percyallen

The post What Can Sixers Fans Expect From Matisse Thybulle? A Q/A with Seattle Times Writer Percy Allen appeared first on Crossing Broad.

What Can Sixers Fans Expect From Matisse Thybulle? A Q/A with Seattle Times Writer Percy Allen published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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Zach Lowe on DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry and the Toronto Raptors

Visit Now - http://zeroviral.com/zach-lowe-on-demar-derozan-kyle-lowry-and-the-toronto-raptors/

Zach Lowe on DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry and the Toronto Raptors

As DeMar DeRozan finished practice on Dec. 19, he noticed one Toronto Raptors higher-up after another — Bobby Webster, the team’s GM, and its three highest-ranked coaches — file into team president Masai Ujiri’s office. Then someone summoned him.

“I didn’t know what the hell was going on,” DeRozan recalls. “I thought, ‘S—, I know I can’t be traded.’ It was like I was being called into the principal’s office.'”

It was clear by then that Toronto had reinvented its offense after too many playoff stagnations. They had one more hurdle.

DeRozan, a proud native of Compton, California, grew up idolizing Kobe Bryant. The Lakers had retired Bryant’s two jersey numbers the night before. DeRozan had surely watched. Ujiri told DeRozan he could be Toronto’s Kobe — a lifetime player who defines a franchise and, maybe, brings it championship glory. But to get there — to push this live-wire Toronto team to its full potential — DeRozan had to start shooting more 3-pointers.

Everyone in the room knew how much work DeRozan had put in to be ready for this moment. He was officially dabbling with the 3-pointer, about 2.5 attempts per game, but he had tried zero or one in six of 10 games. They needed more. Just taking them, coaches said, would draw attention and give everyone else more space. It would spare DeRozan contact. Possessions would flow more naturally.

They empowered DeRozan because they knew he was prepared. “When everyone has that kind of confidence in you — that you can carry a franchise — it gives you that extra confidence,” DeRozan says. “For them to say I could be in [Kobe’s] position — it was an honor accepting that fully.”

The next night against Charlotte, DeRozan went 3-of-4 from deep. Two nights later in Philly, he drained 6-of-9 — a performance so stunning, the shots flying off his fingertips so fast, you had to check to make sure it was actually DeMar DeRozan, king of the midrange.

“I wanted to jump out of my seat watching,” says Chris Farr, DeRozan’s longtime trainer, who has watched DeRozan launch thousands of 3-pointers in summer workouts. “He has worked so hard. I always say, he’s not Beyonce. He didn’t wake up looking like this.”

DeRozan has jacked almost four 3s per game since — off pindowns and random cuts he never executed before, in transition, when guys duck under picks, even from a standstill.

It was the final step of Toronto’s evolution into the best team in franchise history. They have surged past Boston and Cleveland, and by any metric, they are closer peers to the Western Conference superteams than to anyone in the East. They are the only team ranked in the top five in both points scored and allowed per possession.

Cleveland is vulnerable, though Kevin Love‘s return will help. Boston is without Gordon Hayward until further notice. The Raptors are real. They have home-court. If their revamped offense carries into the playoffs, they will deserve “favorite” status in the East.

This week’s highlights include a brand-new superstar, shots of entitlement and Dame’s dominance.

Zach talks to ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz about the Eastern Conference playoff race, the Sixers threat, Washington without John Wall, the evolving Heat, and more.

The legacy of the pioneering Croatian and Nets guard — his skill, his fight, his joy — still runs through the NBA and Europe.

2 Related

They are getting better as the season goes along. They know it, too. They feel it. They are comfortable in their own skin, and hungry. They have the same sense playing you do watching: That they’ve figured out something profound about themselves. That something special might be happening.

The team that almost tanked four seasons ago is ready.

“We’ve been through the heartaches and the letdowns,” DeRozan says. “This time, with this new approach, we feel comfortable.”

The new approach started the day after another postseason humiliation, when Ujiri promised a “culture reset.” No one knew precisely what he meant. “I still don’t really know,” jokes Kyle Lowry, the symbol — along with DeRozan — of a star-driven offense that sputtered in April and May.

Ujiri didn’t fire anyone, even though he had the political capital to do anything he wanted. He re-signed Lowry and Serge Ibaka. The “culture reset” was a mandate for stylistic change: Our offense doesn’t work in the playoffs. Change it. The subtext was obvious: If we don’t, more drastic changes will come.

Change was the goal when the Raptors hired Nick Nurse, an offensive guru from the (then) D-League, in the summer of 2013. Nurse came in for an interview, and on an office whiteboard drew the offense he envisioned: different starting points, reads, passes, options. “The framework of what we are doing now,” Nurse says, “was up on that board.”

Dwane Casey, the team’s head coach, liked Nurse’s ideas. For various reasons, they never made it onto the court for long. Perhaps no one felt enough urgency until Cleveland swept them and Ujiri spoke out.

“We were working so hard,” says Jakob Poeltl, Toronto’s precocious backup center, “for not very good shots.”

Nurse started with the young guys — Poeltl, Pascal Siakam, Norman Powell, OG Anunoby, Delon Wright, Fred VanVleet — at informal workouts in Los Angeles, and then in Las Vegas for summer league. As James Herbert of CBS Sports detailed, they played pickup with new rules: Corner 3s earned four points, and any shot between the paint and the 3-point arc counted as minus-1. Nurse strongly encouraged anyone who grabbed an offensive rebound to dunk or kick the ball out to a 3-point shooter, though he did not mandate it as he had during his time in Houston’s D-League lab. (Back then, he banned midrange shots in practice.)

Players passed up good shots for great ones. They stretched their playmaking skills, and that was the point: When opponents keyed on DeRozan and Lowry, these guys — these unknown kiddos — would have to do something. So would Ibaka and Valanciunas, behemoth screen-setters who froze outside the paint. Touching it more might invigorate other parts of their games, and inspire more focused effort on defense.

Selling DeRozan and Lowry might prove harder. “Go to any superstar and say, ‘We’re changing our offense, and we’re taking some of your minutes away,'” Casey says. “So many would look at you sideways and tell you to take a leap.”

DeRozan was diligent, but it wasn’t easy at first. Lowry verbalized his frustration early in the season. “They were a little resistant at times, to be honest,” Nurse says. “Even still, Kyle has these moments when he’s kicking out passes, and guys are missing, and he’s getting pissed.”

But they saw it working, and surrendered some control. DeRozan got better at the random, improvisational bobs and weaves the offense requires. The results are inarguable: Toronto ranks third in points per possession, jacking almost nine more 3s per game than last season. They’re only a so-so shooting team — it is their most worrisome weakness — but trading 2s for 3s increases their margin for error.

Toronto has assisted on 58 percent of its baskets, up from a league-low 47 percent last season, per NBA.com. They are throwing almost 30 more passes per game without any uptick in turnovers.

They are unpredictable, harder to grasp. Casey has mothballed a lot of set plays. Toronto pushes hard, and initiates semi-random screening action with 18 or 19 on the shot clock. Everyone else orbits the ball in patterns that fall somewhere between random and scripted. They have general rules, but riff — cut backdoor or fly toward the arc? — within them.

Everyone is free to launch 3s and drive. Even Ibaka, who once played as if dribbling were illegal, is attacking with a new decisiveness. “We don’t want Serge taking a 20-footer,” Nurse says. “We want him to put pressure on the rim. We want him to make the next play.”

“Before, when I put the ball on the floor, it was over,” Ibaka says. “I had trouble. But here, if you lose the ball or commit a charge, the players still give you the ball. The coaches encourage you.”

Valanciunas is delivering almost twice as many handoffs per 100 possessions this season, according to Second Spectrum tracking data. He’s 25-of-56 from deep after attempting four career triples before — a dinosaur who fought extinction. “This offense,” Valanciunas says, “has made my life better.”

And the bench. Holy hell, the bench. They absorbed the offense early, and never looked back. Casey’s bench mob du jour — VanVleet, Wright, Siakam, Poeltl and C.J. Miles — has outscored opponents by 25 points per 100 possessions, the best mark among all 114 lineups that have logged at least 100 minutes, per NBA.com.

VanVleet has been a revelation — a brute on defense who has hit 39 percent from 3 and shimmies past defenders one-on-one. There aren’t many veteran frontcourts with the collective IQ — on both ends — of Poeltl and Siakam. There may not be a single player anywhere who runs the floor harder than Siakam. He is racking up assists. Siakim is a reliable jumper away from being an archetypal, switch-everything playmaking power forward:

The bench led the culture change. The starters followed. If players slip into old habits, the coaches have a remedy: Starting this season, they mostly replaced individual player development with group work. Instead of shooting alone, three or four guys rehearse sequences they execute in games. It’s working. The team is discovering new wrinkles every week.

Semi-random “split” cuts like this just weren’t in Toronto’s bag last season:

DeRozan used to stand still on the wing. “He hangs out here a lot,” Nurse says, using a salt shaker to represent DeRozan. “He can hang there some. But I want him to hang here, too.” He moves the salt shaker to the corner.

Shifting positions isn’t just about hunting shots. It forces the defense to reshape itself, to make decisions, and sometimes those decisions leave gaps for DeRozan’s teammates. Highlight dunks are nice. Toronto’s coaches derive more satisfaction from DeRozan skulking five feet sideways into a pocket of space:

“It’s something I’m going to continue to get better at,” DeRozan says. “That’s the beauty of this game: you grow.”

“He’s getting there,” Nurse says. “I mean, he did literally no cutting before.”

Shooting 3s instead of overthinking has made the game easier for DeRozan. Every decision is faster. Passes and drives arise organically, and DeRozan sees them earlier. He is dishing a career-best five dimes per game.

The reset seems to have enlivened everyone. Valanciunas is beasting in the post; he has hit 57 percent on post-up shots, 10th among 110 players who have finished at least 50 such plays, per NBA.com. The Raptors have scored 1.27 points per possession on any trip featuring a Valanciunas post up, another top-10 mark, according to Second Spectrum.

He is playing the best defense of his life. Valanciunas is still mostly a paint-bound plodder. That won’t change much. He has refined the subtleties — footwork, timing, arm positioning. He won’t extinguish every fire like Rudy Gobert, but he no longer starts as many.

Poeltl has been even better on that end — quicker, with balletic feet and a veteran’s feel:

All of this presents Casey with a postseason dilemma. He goes 10 deep, sometimes 11, and plays a traditional center almost every minute. That sounds like the opposite of playoff basketball. Rotations shrink in the playoffs. Teams struggle to generate spacing, and downsize; questioning Valanciunas’ starter status has become one of Toronto’s rites of spring, along with losing Game 1s.

It seemed a fait accompli that their crunch-time playoff lineup would feature Ibaka at center, Anunoby at power forward, and a rotating fifth guy alongside DeRozan and Lowry. We will see that at some point, but Casey plans to stick with what’s working.

He trusts his centers. He thinks the offense runs better with them. “They are such good screeners,” he says. “They help our motion. We aren’t as discombobulated.”

He is delightfully adamant about the playoff utility of a full bench. “I’m still looking for the manual that says you have to play eight guys,” he says. “Until someone shows me otherwise, we gotta be who we are.”

Three months ago, uncertainty about Toronto’s closing five seemed like a weakness. Now it seems like a strength. Improved defense and shooting have made Valanciunas a viable closer. He will still have trouble when Cleveland surrounds LeBron with four shooters — i.e., Love at center — but who else can place that kind of stress on him? Perhaps Milwaukee, a potential first-round foe, if the Bucks get religion and slide Giannis Antetokounmpo to center.

Other stretch centers — Al Horford, Kelly Olynyk, Joel Embiid, Markieff Morris when Washington goes that route — aren’t quite stretchy enough to justify benching an engaged, mauling Valanciunas. Some play with so-so shooting wings Valanciunas can hide on, as he did in guarding P.J. Tucker during Toronto’s streak-buster over Houston on Friday. Even with Valanciunas on the floor, the Raptors can often switch across three positions.

VanVleet and Wright have thrived in crunch time. Anunoby has been shaky from deep over the past two months, but he’s a cool, steady sort. Toronto can even try Miles at power forward. They have blitzed opponents by 12 points per 100 possessions when they play Siakam and Ibaka together, at power forward and center.

None of it will matter if Toronto reverts on offense. “One thing we know: Going to Kyle and DeMar over and over didn’t work in the playoffs,” Casey says.

There is an interesting dissonance in how the Raptors talk about the playoffs. They acknowledge that they have failed, but reject the idea that they are failures.

“The last couple of years, we lost to a champion and a [NBA] Finals team,” Casey says. “I bristle when people say we are failures.” Lowry looked like himself in Games 1 and 2 against Cleveland before suffering an ankle injury.

“I haven’t played the best,” Lowry says, “but when I have great games in the playoffs, no one says anything. Nothing.”

The worst-case scenario is that dissonance translating into a prideful attempt by Lowry and DeRozan to win the old way. They’ve resorted to hero ball late in close games; Toronto has been a bottom-10 crunch-time offense all season.

“Is [the new offense] gonna translate into the playoffs?” Casey asks. “We’re gonna find out.”

The league is respectful, yet skeptical. “We take that disrespect,” DeRozan says, “and carry it into games.”

Potential playoff opponents don’t fear the Raptors as they would a typical No. 1 seed. They need to see it before they believe it. The Raptors know they will be judged on postseason performance.

“That’s all I hear is ‘playoffs, playoffs, playoffs,'” Lowry says. “People only look at what happened before. You just have to have thick skin.”

Things will get harder. An engaged LeBron, playing 44 minutes, has ruled the East since 2010-11. If Cleveland falls into the 4-5 bracket, Toronto could meet them earlier than expected. Philly, Milwaukee and Washington loom as dangerous underdogs with star power.

Offenses will pick on the DeRozan-Valanciunas combo in the pick-and-roll. Defenses will take an extra step away from Siakam, Wright, Anunoby, even Ibaka, clogging driving lanes — and inviting Toronto’s bad shooters to fire. They’ll dare DeRozan, too; he’s still shooting just 32 percent from deep. The bench will face more opposing starters. Casey will have to adjust early, not late. The two stars, wobbly in playoffs past, have to maintain their normal shooting percentages.

One unproven guy might quake. If it’s Anunoby, who guards LeBron in a potential Cleveland-Toronto rematch? If that job falls to Siakam, what if he can’t hit shots? If they lose Game 1 again, they’ll face all the same scrutiny.

Another playoff flameout would raise questions about whether it is worth it to keep going with this core — especially if LeBron stays in the East after this season.

But this looks sustainable. It looks, sounds, feels different. There is hope that they’ve turned the corner in crunch time. They held on against Houston. DeRozan trusting VanVleet to drain a game-winner in Detroit last week felt like a landmark moment — proof of evolution.

“This time around,” DeRozan says, “it’s coming together.”

[eelgibbortech-blog]

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Like many news stories of late, this one started with a tweet from the president. On September 27, Trump fired off an accusation that Facebook had always been against him. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded later that day with his own post, writing: “Trump says Facebook is against him. Liberals say we helped Trump. Both sides are upset about ideas and content they don’t like. That’s what running a platform for all ideas looks like.”

Both of them are wrong.

Over time, social networks start to develop their own reputations based on generalizations about who uses each network and what they tend to share. LinkedIn is tailored for the wealthy professional. Twitter serves witty media figures. Even if these interpretations have some truth to them, it’s hard to back them up or refute them. Look no further than Facebook, which has become a homebase for conspiracy theorists, great aunts, politically active friends from college, and over 2 billion people in between. At this point, users can portray Facebook any way that suits them.

But are these stereotypes really accurate?

Using Newswhip, a new social media monitoring platform, I was able to analyze the top-performing links since September 1 across four major social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. My goal was to dig deep and examine if our general preconceptions about social media networks were correct.

Does one political party dominate Facebook? Is Twitter a media echo chamber? Has LinkedIn become the best place for thought leadership? And is Pinterest really free of any controversial content? Read on to find out.

Facebook: Do liberal or conservative outlets reign supreme?

Plenty of people get their news from social media. According to Pew research, 45 percent of all U.S. adults do so via Facebook. The issue, though, is how one defines “news.” While both sides of the aisle continue to be upset about bias and favoritism, Newswhip data suggests content from conservative media outlets is more popular on Facebook than content from liberal outfits.

Since September 1, thirteen stories generated at least 1 million Facebook interactions; five came from conservative sites, one came from a liberal site, and the remainder lacked any overt political affiliation.

Facebook has no systemic bias against Trump or conservative content. It’s also clear that Facebook isn’t surfacing all ideas with equal weight, contrary to what Zuckerberg implied in his post last month. This may not be intentional, but the platform’s algorithm and user demographics have allowed fringe right-wing sites like Conservative Tribune and American Military News to go viral over established news outlets.

As TechCrunch writer Natasha Lomas points out, “Facebook’s business benefits from increased user engagement, and made-up stories that play to people’s prejudices and/or contain wild, socially divisive claims have been shown to be able to clock up far more Facebook views than factual reports of actual news.”

Takeaway: All users should be wary of filter bubbles. But judging by this data, the biggest filter bubbles are shaded red.

Twitter: Is it really a media echo chamber?

Until I looked in Newswhip to see which stories generated the most tweets, I had never heard of the Korean boy band BTS. Secretly, though, they’re the biggest thing on Twitter right now. Of the top eight links with the most shares on Twitter, five are about BTS. The top result, which has received almost 400,000 tweets, is just a link to the group’s album on Apple Music. I’m no K-pop scholar, so I’ll leave the BTS analysis to someone more qualified. But from a social media lens, the unusual results can tell us a lot about Twitter: The platform has a deep identity crisis.

Twitter has always struggled to find its niche. While all other major social networks constantly grow, Twitter actually lost 2 million active users earlier this summer. After the announcement, Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser wrote, “We’re not overly concerned by this trend, as we have always believed Twitter to be a niche platform.”

Niche is the key word there. Twitter is definitely a place where media professionals can pat themselves on the back while complaining about the death of journalism. It’s where high-quality stories from major publications like The Atlantic, the BBC, and The New York Times regularly take off. But the platform has also been co-opted by trolls, bots, propaganda machines, and the guy in the Oval Office.

These forces are all competing for a finite amount of attention among the 150 million or so daily active users. As a result, a number of different communities have emerged. If you have something interesting to say to a particular community, then there’s potential here. It’s just hard to pinpoint which niches are primed to grow, which is why there’s room for K-pop sensations to thrive. And GoFundMe pages. And a GIF of a Google Doodle.

Takeaway: Twitter has become a niche platform, which limits the ability of brands and publishers to go viral if their content doesn’t fall under certain categories or focus on certain topics.

LinkedIn: The true home for thought leadership?

LinkedIn has always had the potential to be a powerful content-sharing platform, but it’s never been able to compete with Facebook. It’s currently the social platform best known for thought leadership, which still counts for something. As the go-to center for professional advice and commentary, LinkedIn has reserves of evergreen content that attract a high-earning audience.

Per Newswhip, the top-performing stories have close to 50,000 shares. Some offer a lot of tips and tricks for the workplace. You can get insights about job interviews and life goals. There’s also an emphasis on hearing from executives, which presumably can give you a roadmap for how to be a successful leader. (There’s a little news mixed in, like this Forbes piece about Michael Dell’s hurricane Harvey relief fund, which was shared over 43,000 times.)

This level of engagement puts LinkedIn well below Facebook and somewhat behind Twitter and Pinterest. The way the platform functions has led to an unusual dilemma. All users have the option of publishing content natively, which could cannibalize the impact of an external article or video link. Richard Branson, for instance, posts some of his musings directly to LinkedIn but links to others published on the Virgin website. Bill Gates does the same thing, alternating between LinkedIn and his personal blog. You get the sense that influencers aren’t sure when to share natively and when to link to an external website.

All social networks want to prioritize native content since it keeps users engaged inside their walls. But when Facebook ramped up Instant Articles, it did so with a monetization model. In addition to selling ads, Facebook made it clear that news publishers were the intended users of Instant Articles. On LinkedIn, individuals just publish native blog posts.

For now, there’s arguably more upside for influencer posts than articles from media companies. Publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN use LinkedIn to distribute their content, but they mostly include links related to business news, the economy, and personal finance. Compare that to Facebook or Twitter, where the same publications can post everything they create and generate higher engagement. Until that dynamic changes, LinkedIn will continue to be a more powerful tool for thought leadership than for typical content distribution.

Takeaway: LinkedIn is a great platform for established influencers to communicate with an audience. But media companies and brands may have better luck elsewhere if traffic and engagement are their top goals.

Pinterest: Is it the only social network free of controversy?

In September, Pinterest officially crossed the 200 million monthly users mark–a nice milestone for a social platform that has seen consistent growth in mobile searches and international users. Pinterest now boasts a bigger user base than Twitter and LinkedIn. What’s really remarkable about these upward trends is Pinterest has been able to drive increased engagement while avoiding almost all controversial content.

The top pins of September and early October include links to student awards, tips on painting your kitchen, and lots of recipes for everything from red velvet cheesecake to cinnamon sugar pumpkin bread. Eleven pieces of content had at least 40,000 pins, and 27 links had at least 25,000 pins.

If there’s any nit to pick here, it’s that Pinterest is a home for content that looks and sounds the same. It’s confined to a few main categories without much variance. For example, a lot of the successful food bloggers use a similar tone to introduce their recipes. Same goes for the high-quality photography and short videos of their food. So it’s hard to tell what makes one recipe get more engagement over another. As a result, it might be harder for a newcomer to thrive on Pinterest over the sites that already have a loyal audience.

But in a polarized social media landscape, Pinterest has emerged as a safe space, where recipes for pumpkin bread and apple pie doughnuts can overpower any slanted coverage of the NFL’s national anthem protests.

Takeaway: Even if you know what you’re going to get, it’s nice that there’s a place you can go online to look at hot cakes instead of hot takes.

Image by iStockphoto

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The post Does Facebook Have a Liberal or Conservative Bias? And Answers to Other Big Social Media Questions appeared first on Ebulkemaimarketing Blogs and updates.

[eelgibbortech-blog]

Does Facebook Have a Liberal or Conservative Bias? And Answers to Other Big Social Media Questions

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Like many news stories of late, this one started with a tweet from the president. On September 27, Trump fired off an accusation that Facebook had always been against him. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded later that day with his own post, writing: “Trump says Facebook is against him. Liberals say we helped Trump. Both sides are upset about ideas and content they don’t like. That’s what running a platform for all ideas looks like.”

Both of them are wrong.

Over time, social networks start to develop their own reputations based on generalizations about who uses each network and what they tend to share. LinkedIn is tailored for the wealthy professional. Twitter serves witty media figures. Even if these interpretations have some truth to them, it’s hard to back them up or refute them. Look no further than Facebook, which has become a homebase for conspiracy theorists, great aunts, politically active friends from college, and over 2 billion people in between. At this point, users can portray Facebook any way that suits them.

But are these stereotypes really accurate?

Using Newswhip, a new social media monitoring platform, I was able to analyze the top-performing links since September 1 across four major social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. My goal was to dig deep and examine if our general preconceptions about social media networks were correct.

Does one political party dominate Facebook? Is Twitter a media echo chamber? Has LinkedIn become the best place for thought leadership? And is Pinterest really free of any controversial content? Read on to find out.

Facebook: Do liberal or conservative outlets reign supreme?

Plenty of people get their news from social media. According to Pew research, 45 percent of all U.S. adults do so via Facebook. The issue, though, is how one defines “news.” While both sides of the aisle continue to be upset about bias and favoritism, Newswhip data suggests content from conservative media outlets is more popular on Facebook than content from liberal outfits.

Since September 1, thirteen stories generated at least 1 million Facebook interactions; five came from conservative sites, one came from a liberal site, and the remainder lacked any overt political affiliation.

Facebook has no systemic bias against Trump or conservative content. It’s also clear that Facebook isn’t surfacing all ideas with equal weight, contrary to what Zuckerberg implied in his post last month. This may not be intentional, but the platform’s algorithm and user demographics have allowed fringe right-wing sites like Conservative Tribune and American Military News to go viral over established news outlets.

As TechCrunch writer Natasha Lomas points out, “Facebook’s business benefits from increased user engagement, and made-up stories that play to people’s prejudices and/or contain wild, socially divisive claims have been shown to be able to clock up far more Facebook views than factual reports of actual news.”

Takeaway: All users should be wary of filter bubbles. But judging by this data, the biggest filter bubbles are shaded red.

Twitter: Is it really a media echo chamber?

Until I looked in Newswhip to see which stories generated the most tweets, I had never heard of the Korean boy band BTS. Secretly, though, they’re the biggest thing on Twitter right now. Of the top eight links with the most shares on Twitter, five are about BTS. The top result, which has received almost 400,000 tweets, is just a link to the group’s album on Apple Music. I’m no K-pop scholar, so I’ll leave the BTS analysis to someone more qualified. But from a social media lens, the unusual results can tell us a lot about Twitter: The platform has a deep identity crisis.

Twitter has always struggled to find its niche. While all other major social networks constantly grow, Twitter actually lost 2 million active users earlier this summer. After the announcement, Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser wrote, “We’re not overly concerned by this trend, as we have always believed Twitter to be a niche platform.”

Niche is the key word there. Twitter is definitely a place where media professionals can pat themselves on the back while complaining about the death of journalism. It’s where high-quality stories from major publications like The Atlantic, the BBC, and The New York Times regularly take off. But the platform has also been co-opted by trolls, bots, propaganda machines, and the guy in the Oval Office.

These forces are all competing for a finite amount of attention among the 150 million or so daily active users. As a result, a number of different communities have emerged. If you have something interesting to say to a particular community, then there’s potential here. It’s just hard to pinpoint which niches are primed to grow, which is why there’s room for K-pop sensations to thrive. And GoFundMe pages. And a GIF of a Google Doodle.

Takeaway: Twitter has become a niche platform, which limits the ability of brands and publishers to go viral if their content doesn’t fall under certain categories or focus on certain topics.

LinkedIn: The true home for thought leadership?

LinkedIn has always had the potential to be a powerful content-sharing platform, but it’s never been able to compete with Facebook. It’s currently the social platform best known for thought leadership, which still counts for something. As the go-to center for professional advice and commentary, LinkedIn has reserves of evergreen content that attract a high-earning audience.

Per Newswhip, the top-performing stories have close to 50,000 shares. Some offer a lot of tips and tricks for the workplace. You can get insights about job interviews and life goals. There’s also an emphasis on hearing from executives, which presumably can give you a roadmap for how to be a successful leader. (There’s a little news mixed in, like this Forbes piece about Michael Dell’s hurricane Harvey relief fund, which was shared over 43,000 times.)

This level of engagement puts LinkedIn well below Facebook and somewhat behind Twitter and Pinterest. The way the platform functions has led to an unusual dilemma. All users have the option of publishing content natively, which could cannibalize the impact of an external article or video link. Richard Branson, for instance, posts some of his musings directly to LinkedIn but links to others published on the Virgin website. Bill Gates does the same thing, alternating between LinkedIn and his personal blog. You get the sense that influencers aren’t sure when to share natively and when to link to an external website.

All social networks want to prioritize native content since it keeps users engaged inside their walls. But when Facebook ramped up Instant Articles, it did so with a monetization model. In addition to selling ads, Facebook made it clear that news publishers were the intended users of Instant Articles. On LinkedIn, individuals just publish native blog posts.

For now, there’s arguably more upside for influencer posts than articles from media companies. Publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN use LinkedIn to distribute their content, but they mostly include links related to business news, the economy, and personal finance. Compare that to Facebook or Twitter, where the same publications can post everything they create and generate higher engagement. Until that dynamic changes, LinkedIn will continue to be a more powerful tool for thought leadership than for typical content distribution.

Takeaway: LinkedIn is a great platform for established influencers to communicate with an audience. But media companies and brands may have better luck elsewhere if traffic and engagement are their top goals.

Pinterest: Is it the only social network free of controversy?

In September, Pinterest officially crossed the 200 million monthly users mark–a nice milestone for a social platform that has seen consistent growth in mobile searches and international users. Pinterest now boasts a bigger user base than Twitter and LinkedIn. What’s really remarkable about these upward trends is Pinterest has been able to drive increased engagement while avoiding almost all controversial content.

The top pins of September and early October include links to student awards, tips on painting your kitchen, and lots of recipes for everything from red velvet cheesecake to cinnamon sugar pumpkin bread. Eleven pieces of content had at least 40,000 pins, and 27 links had at least 25,000 pins.

If there’s any nit to pick here, it’s that Pinterest is a home for content that looks and sounds the same. It’s confined to a few main categories without much variance. For example, a lot of the successful food bloggers use a similar tone to introduce their recipes. Same goes for the high-quality photography and short videos of their food. So it’s hard to tell what makes one recipe get more engagement over another. As a result, it might be harder for a newcomer to thrive on Pinterest over the sites that already have a loyal audience.

But in a polarized social media landscape, Pinterest has emerged as a safe space, where recipes for pumpkin bread and apple pie doughnuts can overpower any slanted coverage of the NFL’s national anthem protests.

Takeaway: Even if you know what you’re going to get, it’s nice that there’s a place you can go online to look at hot cakes instead of hot takes.

Image by iStockphoto

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The post Does Facebook Have a Liberal or Conservative Bias? And Answers to Other Big Social Media Questions appeared first on Ebulkemaimarketing Blogs and updates.

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