#I’m not 100% sure but I think some clay crap got in it

[missbunmuffin]

head canons for my favorite punch out boys

Some oc stuff is in here ;-;

Glass Joe

- Has a doll faced Persian cat(I think those are safe to breed but if not she’s a ragdoll) named BonBon. He acts like she’s the sweetest thing in the world but she’s a literal demon.

- He gives the BonBon the teddy bear haircut because it’s easier for the both of them. Her fur is less of a nightmare with it.

- Used to bleach his hair but stopped due to how damaging it was. I imagine at first he did it himself instead of getting it professionally done and a chunk fell out once. Bonbon tried to eat it.

- He has silk bedsheets

- He has a younger sister named Genevieve and she’s only about 11 months younger so that makes him an Irish twin(My logic is to give the French guy a Irish twin but not the Irish guy lmao) she’s married and has two kids while he just has his girlfriend Eleanor.(She’s a oc of mine I’ve posted about her before if you want to learn about her ig) She likes to refer to Joe as her little brother because of this and he has to correct people a lot.

- His sister can kind of be an insensitive asshole sometimes.

- He’s not really scared of doctors and dentists like he used to be he’s more used to it with all those losses.

- He’s still kind of afraid of getting haircuts though(totally not self projecting hee hee) he doesn’t like looking at himself in the mirror with the cape thing wrapped around him along with wet rat hair. He’s been seeing the same hairdresser for years that he trusts more than anyone. Yet he’s still afraid of something bad happening.

- He wants to take Eleanor to Lorie Valley someday. He thinks she’ll like the castles and shit

- If you’re close to him and you’re being a dick you are basically asking him to be a dick back.

- Scared of those swing rides at carnivals and fairs. Based on a fear of hitting something on those rides since I was a child

- His mom bugs him about not being married or not having kids. She also forgets Eleanor exists and one time said “maybe you’ll find your future wife there :D” right in front of her(based off that one time my grandma said something like that to my brother when he has a gf. She wasn’t in the room but still)

- Always goes along with the games his nieces wants to play even if it’s just him being tortured. Their favorite game is horses which is basically Joe being on all fours on the ground pretending to be a horse.

Disco kid

- Can’t cook for shit

- Responses to texts with these things sometimes

- Type of person to go all out in just dance

- One of the only boxers Aran’s sister is more friendly with. Also her names Freya posted about her too. He’s actually interested in her artwork and doesn’t try to push boxing on her. They also have a common interest in dancing

- He found out not to look at other people’s sketchbooks the hard way by snooping in Freya’s

- He has a shit ton of those paper star things because Freya gives them to him

- Was one of those kids who would just dance in the hallway

- He was a choir boy and was the only guy to get accepted into the advanced choir because he was actually good and not just because he was a guy(no this is not based on the fact that guys get easily accepted into that more at my school)

- I think he would collect pusheen stuff

- Laughs at the dumbest shit

- Blasting music in the car. It’s so loud you can hear it when he’s passing by your house or something.

Don Flamenco

- He’s actually more anxious than he seems to be he worries about the most random shit (totally not self projecting again hee hee)

- Scared of lice to the point where it’s pretty much a phobia(same bestie)

- He’s tried on Carmen’s heels before for fun and almost twisted his ankle

- Also kind of scared of the swing rides but he would never admit it

- Shaves his legs to show them off

Aran Ryan

- He treats Freya like she’s 8 sometimes he’s not really accepting of the fact she getting older.

- He forces Narcis to play with her old dolls with him because he was forced to play with her as a teenager so he could be *productive* and he misses it. It was never in the normal way there was alway drama.

- They add WVBA action figures into their games and they make stupid stories with the other boxers.

- He’s been aloud to curse in the house since he was like 7 his mom didn’t care just don’t say anything at school or in front of grandma

- Cuts his own hair with kitchen scissors and gets bullied by Narcis and Freya for it.

- His mom wasn’t from Dublin she was from Londonderry

- Basically his sister’s father figure because he died when she was so young

- Type of person to just shake the wii remote in just dance but he still loses that’s the one thing his cheating won’t get him to win

[thoroughlysaucedsparrow]

AAAAAAAAA ITS DONEEE

I measured it and this thing is fucking 6’6-

(materials and process underneath vv)

Materials used:

-3 pvc pipe segments with the screw adapters

-Eva foam : 2mm, 5mm, 10mm

-Foam clay

-Thermoplastic beads

-Metal wire

-Various superglues

-Spray paint

-Acrylic paint

~~ The Pvc Segments:

I started off with three 2ft pvc segments and glued the cross adaptor on the top, then proceeded to hack off and move around pieces as I saw fit. For the top segment I believe I cut off 5in, then glued 3 to the top of the cross pipe and tossed the remaining 2in. I also cut off 8in on the bottom to make way for the spike which is around 5.5in.

(The original pipes, I didn’t really have any other progress pics of this part)

~~ The Main Blade:

I started by going into FireAlpaca and separating the halberd from Sinclair’s sprite, then broke it up into various pieces and used Rasterbator to size up the blade. After that I printed it out, assembled it, and transferred it to freezer paper to adjust it as I saw fit.

After that I cut out two pieces of 10mm foam and glued them together as the main blade, then added the details with some 2mm foam I got from Walmart I think? I proceeded to hack away chunks of foam with Eva foam with a box cutter (and almost sliced my hand open in the process) before sanding the absolute crap out of it)

Once it was all sanded and I was content with it I took my heat gun and sealed all the foam and got rid of the fluffy texture created by the sanding and filled some of the gaps with foam clay.

After the blade I was done I stuck some wire into it, then shoved that wire through some thermoplastic beads I had melted and put in the pipe, and superglued it. It really wasn’t wanting to stay so I added more thermoplastic around the outside and proceeded to add more superglue (Gorilla and Flex Seal glue if I recall correctly) which has seemed to help it stay on. It’s not 100% stable but as long as I’m careful with it I’m ok.

~~

The Spikes:

Just like the blade, I made the pattern based the sprite itself. Using the line tool in FireAlpaca I traced over the top spike and the side spike and got the pattern from that. I resized and reshaped them in a Google doc before printing them out. After that I traced two of the spike pieces, cut one in half vertically and glued them together. After that I used small triangular pieces of foam to connect the corners and with that the skeleton was done (I added wire into the bottom spike for support as it is going to be bashing the floor a lot). i then filled the skeletons with foam clay, making sure to get all the sides even and filled completely.

(I forgot to add the triangle pieces in the bottom spike until later)

Once I sanded them and attacked them with the same method as the blade the base was done!

~~ Painting:

In order to create a stable base to paint on I shoved three wooden dowels into a fertilizer box and hot glued them down. I then broke the halberd down and put each piece on the spike before spraying it with multiple coats of plastidip.

(Note- I taped off the parts that would be screwed down as I was afraid that the paint would interfere with the threading. I don’t know if it would actually cause any problems but I didn’t feel like risking it)

Once that was completely dry I sprayed it with three coats of Rustolem Black High Gloss paint.

Finally, I dry brushed everything with silver paint and added the lettering, using some black paint to mimic the paint chipping.

Once I added two coats of Rustolem clear sealant it was done!! The overall process took about two weeks and I’m quite happy with how it turned out! I may or may not have injured myself a lot during the process because I’m stupid but it was quite a fun project, and I do have more Project Moon props planned for the future such as Don’s lance and Argalia’s scythe. Once I finish my full cosplay I’ll make a post similar to this one :)

[morgansdeb]

My thoughts on 13RW Season 4 (SPOILERS)

So I originally wasn’t going to write a review, because if I’m completely honest, I’m still in shock by that finale... but here we go...

Overall, I enjoyed this season a lot more than season 3. This time, we didn’t have Ani’s annoying narration, that weird crap that was Bryce/Ani and that Bryce “redemption” bullshit that the writers shoved down our throats last season, so kudos for that. Too bad the ending fucked everything up.

Now, let’s go character by character:

Jessica: Jessica has always been my favorite character (besides Hannah), so I was really disappointed by her arc this season... if we can call it that. Her reaction to Justin breaking up with her was really immature. I understand that she was hurt, but Justin was right, he wasn’t in a position to be in a relationship and needed to focus on his recovery, so for Jessica to go after the first guy she could find (Diego) to get back at him... it was shitty. Also, what the hell, Jessica? Diego spent the whole season tormenting Clay and defending Tyler’s rapist. Aren’t Clay and Tyler your friends? Why are you sleeping with someone who is messing with people you claim to care about? And please don’t say it’s for “information”, because you clearly liked him, even tho he was an asshole. Once again, the writers made Jessica’s storylines all about boys, first it was Alex and Justin, now it was Justin and Diego. And to give one final “fuck you” to her character, they implied she ended up with Diego. “Ask me in a month”, um, so it’s going to take you a month to get over Justin? Okay, cool.

Clay: I’ve always loved Clay. Always. He’s flawed, he’s stupid, he’s too stubborn... but he cares. I’ll say this tho, he was a complete ASSHOLE towards Justin during that party, and he should have apologized for all those awful things he said, because that shit was NOT okay. I appreciate that he got help, and Dr. Ellman was a fantastic character, but his arc got old real fast. Clay has some fucked up hallucinations, Clay has a breakdown and makes a scene in front of people, Clay claims everything is fine when clearly it’s not. We get it, he thinks he’s Batman and can handle all this shit alone. Well, clearly, he can’t.

Ani: I’ll admit, I actually liked Ani this season. I think it’s because her screentime was reduced (she missed big moments like the camping trip and the shooting drill), and she wasn’t inserting herself in everyone’s business like last season. I appreciate her standing up for her friends against Winston and apologizing to Jessica for sleeping with Bryce, but that NEVER should have happened. It was weird as hell how she kept defending Bryce in s3, insisting he wasn’t a monster (he was a serial rapist who raped your friend, how is that not a monster). Her “explanation” as to why she slept with Bryce was crap. “I was lonely and stupid”, well, aww!! Lots of people are lonely and stupid, but that isn’t an excuse to defend a serial rapist and sleep with him multiple times. And even before she slept with him, she kept hanging out with him, playing poker and laughing like nothing was wrong. Weird as hell. At the end of the day, I still don’t know who Ani is, other than “the girl who liked Bryce and then liked Clay.” I’m 100% grateful that she and Clay broke up, that was never going to work, so I’ll drink to that. It was also annoying how she and Clay took their sweet time to tell the others about Winston. STOP KEEPING SECRETS. I still insist that the writers should have kept Sheri and Ani shouldn’t have existed.

Zach: Seriously, where the hell was Zach’s mom to check on her son? The whole season was basically “oh, look, Zach’s drunk!!” He was a hot mess and all his friends didn’t do shit to help him until the last minute. I know Winston manipulated him, but seriously, telling the enemy that you beat up Bryce?? Not cool, dude. And don’t get me started on that scene where they “implied” he was going to assault that drunk girl. Zach has flaws, sure, but he ISN’T a rapist, and neither is Clay (I’m talking about that weird scene where he hallucinates Bryce encouraging him to assault that girl at the frat house). The writers clearly didn��t give a fuck about Zach. Remember in s2 when he told his mom he had suicidal thoughts?? What happened to that?? I’m glad he came to his senses in the end, but he obviously needed help with his addiction.

Tyler: I felt bad for Tyler because his friends didn’t trust him, but I also sorta get it. He was acting hella shady and I get that the cops told him not to say anything, but... dude, you scared the living hell out of Clay with those guns at the end of s2, how are your friends not going to be suspicious? Like in 13RW fashion, his storyline got dragged for too long, but I think he was right when he called out Clay and Tony about their friendship. I liked his friendship with Estela, that was sweet. But overall Tyler didn’t get that much to do this season. I didn’t like how they made him feel bad about Monty. Monty raped him and belonged in jail, it isn’t Tyler’s fault someone decided to kill him.

Alex: GAY KING. The only character who didn’t annoy me this season (besides Charlie). Bryce and Monty apologists, how are you feeling?? My boy didn’t go to jail like y’all wanted it!! No “justice” for the rapists!! Beautiful, amazing, brilliant. In all seriousness, I wish his crush on Zach had been explained a bit more. I don’t think it came out of nowhere, but it would have been nice to spend more time with it. I don’t know how I feel about the whole thing with Winston, he was a Monty apologist so I didn’t want to see another one of my faves sleeping with a rape apologist, so I’m glad he found out the truth in time. Charlie and Alex were so cute together, I wanted him with Zach, but I can’t bring myself to complain because ALEX GOT A HAPPY ENDING, YAY!! He regretted killing Bryce, but it’s like Zach said “maybe he didn’t deserve to die, but NEITHER DO WE”, and he was right. Alex didn’t deserve to have his whole life ruined over a fucking rapist, so I’m glad he got happiness. I just wish his recovery arc after his suicide attempt had been done better, he’s the only character in the show who is a suicide survivor and they never focused on that. Shame, tbh.

Tony: I don’t have much to say about Tony. He was being hella stubborn about not going to college and staying in town, so I’m glad his dad knocked some sense into him. He got a happy ending and got to see his sister again, so that was nice. Tony always had to deal with so much crap, so I’m happy he ended up happy.

Winston: Now this dude didn’t annoy me as much as I thought he would, but... he was weird. He became obsessed with Monty after meeting him twice, and then obsessed with Alex after dating him for two weeks. What was his reason?? Why did he fall in love so quickly?? I thought we were going to get some backstory to explain his behavior, but we didn’t get shit, except that scene in the first episode with his mom where he seemed like some lonely rich kid. I’m glad he let go of Monty in the end and didn’t ruin Alex’s life, but other than making a bunch of passive-aggressive comments and staring at people, he didn’t do much. The trailer made him seem like some mastermind villain, and in the end... he wasn’t.

Diego: How are you going to spend the whole season calling Clay a psycho/crazy, when you’re out there pulling pranks, beating people up, and defending a rapist?? Check yourself first, Diego. He was so annoying with his “I miss Monty” crap, like how are you going to give a big speech about how great Monty was when Tyler, the guy he raped, was sitting right in front of you??!!  I wish he had faced some consequences for all the shit he did to Clay, like “omg, you brought a knife!!, dude YOU left the knife in there. I’m glad he let things go in the end, but JFC, he was annoying. When Zach told him to suck his dick, I cheered so hard.

Justin: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA... HA. I’m laughing because I don’t wanna start crying again. Are the writers fucking serious?? After EVERYTHING they did with Justin, turning him into a better person, making him Clay’s brother, getting him back together with Jessica, EVERYTHING...and he dies?? And even before his death, they needed to torture him one last time and kill off his mom, have Clay and Jessica treat him like shit, and make him feel like nobody wanted him. Wow, what a brilliant idea. The series finale would have been perfect if they hadn’t killed off Justin. He deserved to graduate and live a long, happy life. I think the writers just wanted to have one final tragedy and controversial storyline, so they did this cruel and unnecessary crap. I’m disgusted, tbh.

Bryce and Monty: I’m so, so happy we got ZERO Bryce flashbacks and ZERO Monty flashbacks. FUCK these two rapists. I didn’t feel sorry for either of them, and I hope future shows do better and the humanizing of rapists stops. We already know rapists are human, they aren’t aliens who come from another planet, but the focus needs to be on the VICTIMS. I know they weren’t going to bring back Katherine Langford and Brandon Larracuente for a 5-second cameo, but hallucination!Justin should have been hanging out with Hannah and Jeff, not Bryce. Bryce wasn’t Justin’s brother, he treated him like shit and raped his girlfriend, and the whole “it’s okay to love people who do bad shit” is bullshit. There’s nothing wrong with hating rapists/abusers and bad people in general (like racists, homophobes, etc). Well, at least the two rapists are dead and can never hurt anyone again.

Say whatever you want about Hannah Baker, but this show suffered a HUGE loss when Katherine walked out of that door during her final scene.

They should have sent Bryce’s ass to jail at the end of s2, and the last two seasons should have been about ALL the character’s recoveries, with everyone getting proper characterization, good storylines, and focus on the friendships and family dynamics. The murder mystery and cover-up stuff ended up being really stupid and pointless. The writers prioritized shock value over proper storytelling, and that’s a shame because the cast is really talented, and the characters had the potential to be better than what they actually were.

Goodbye, 13 Reasons Why. I’ll check out the cast’s future projects, but the writers/producers can GTFO.

[junker-town]

Loyola-Chicago’s Cameron Krutwig on Final Four run, Sister Jean, and return to NCAA tournament

A Q&A with the Loyola-Chicago star as the program tries to get back to the Final Four.

Loyola-Chicago’s stunning run to the Final Four in 2018 charmed the country with everything a great Cinderella should have in the NCAA tournament. The Ramblers brought a 98-year-old nun named Sister Jean into our lives, won multiple games on buzzer-beaters, and tied the record for the lowest-seeded team to ever reach the national semifinals with a No. 11 next to their name.

The starting center on that team was hefty freshman big man Cameron Krutwig. Three years later, Krutwig has emerged as perhaps the country’s biggest mid-major star as Loyola-Chicago has again steamrolled its way into the NCAA tournament.

There’s an argument that this year’s team could be even better than the fabled 2018 squad.

The Ramblers will enter the tournament at 24-4 overall and as the No. 9 team in the entire country according to KenPom’s efficiency rankings. Their offense is better than it was in 2018 — jumping from No. 63 to No. 52 in America. The defense? Right now, the Ramblers have the most efficient defense in college basketball, allowing only 86.2 points per 100 possessions.

Krutwig has been in the middle of it all season on his way to being named Missouri Valley Player of the Year. The 6’9 big man is averaging 15 points, 6.7 rebounds, and three assists per game on 60 percent true shooting, but his impact goes far beyond those basic numbers.

Krutwig is the third most valuable player in college basketball this year according to KenPom, only behind presumptive Naismith winner Luka Garza and Gonzaga’s Drew Timme while ahead of Jared Butler, Ayo Dosunmu, and future NBA stars like Cade Cunningham and Evan Mobley. Krutwig is No. 8 in the country in all-in-one stats BPM and PER (30.8) and No. 7 in win shares, per Basketball Reference. It’s shocking to see Krutwig grade out so well defensively as a top-10 player in both defensive rating and defensive win shares.

Krutwig has a decidedly old school game. He hasn’t attempted a three-point all year, and gets 43 percent of his possessions on post-ups, per Synergy Sports. He ranks in the 86th percent of spot-up scoring efficiency, and also grades out as excellent in roll man opportunities (94th percentile) and on offensive putbucks (84th percentile). His passing ability has led some to joke that he’s the Nikola Jokic of the Missouri Valley.

We talked to Krutwig about his experience playing in the Final Four as a freshman, how this team stacks up to the 2018 squad, his love of the Chicago Bears, and the latest with Sister Jean.

You committed to Loyola-Chicago going into your senior year at suburban Jacobs High School. At the time, the program hadn’t had made the NCAA tournament since 1985. You probably could have gotten offers from bigger schools if you dragged out your recruitment. What attracted you to Loyola and why did you pick them?

I don’t know if I was really looking at it like the program hadn’t made the tournament since ‘85. I honestly wasn’t basing it off that. I really didn’t know much about Loyola until I took some visits there my sophomore and junior year. I really fell in love with the coaches, fell in love with the campus. I wanted to be close to home so that was definitely a factor. I wanted my family to be able to come to games.

Like you said, so many kids, by no fault of their own, they don’t commit for a while and during their senior year they start to play well and the big schools come calling. Because the big schools couldn’t get their first, second, third, and fourth guys, so they’re on to their fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth guys. They’re still good players, but they aren’t the school’s first options. I had a pretty good feel of where my level was. If I would have waited — I had a really good senior year — I could have played somewhere a little more high-major. But I wanted to go somewhere where I’d be the priority, where I can come in right away and play. I thought I made a pretty good choice.

What was the experience like playing in the Final Four as a freshman? You guys had a lot of great seniors on that team, but it must have been a whirlwind experience.

You don’t really go into the year saying we’re going to do that. Throughout the whole year, summer into fall, as we got into that process we knew we were going to have a good team. I don’t know what we were picked in the league that year preseason, it might have been third or fourth, but we came out and played really well together. As the season went on, we started to build really good chemistry and a great feel for playing with each other. We went into Florida, they were ranked No. 5 in the polls at the time, and we beat them. That was kind of the first time we felt real success. Every win prior to that we beat who we should have beat.

What people don’t realize about that team, after that Florida game we went to Boise State and got throttled by 30 points. We lost to UW-Milwaukee that year. We lost to Indiana State at home. We had some lackluster losses for sure, it wasn’t all pretty all year. If we don’t win the MVC tournament that year we wouldn’t have made the NCAA tournament. A lot of things need to go right. You definitely need some luck. Everyone needs luck in March.

I think we did a really good job of focusing in on what we needed to focus on. We enjoyed the crap out of the experience. I certainly enjoyed it. There are times when you can be goofy and funny and times when you really have to lock in during walkthroughs and film sessions. That team had a really good balance of when to have fun and when to be serious.

I think that’s something this year’s team has as well. Everyone loves each other, everyone is pulling for each other, but we know when to lock in and when to have fun. It makes it an enjoyable experience because you don’t want to keep it too loose all the time because then you can’t get what you want to get done. You also don’t want to be stone-face serious the whole time because you only get four years of college basketball and some people play all four years and don’t even make the tournament once. You definitely have to enjoy it.

Did you feel pressure to get back to the next two years? You hit the pinnacle as a freshman. After accomplishing something so great as a freshman, it must have been wild to return to normal Missouri Valley play.

The next year Clay (Custer) and Marques (Townes) were redshirt seniors so they got to come back for my sophomore year. But there was a lot of pressure on us that season. Everyone was saying you guys got to go back, got to go back. Obviously you can’t make the Final Four every year. As a mid-major, you can’t even make the tournament every year. There was just a lot of pressure on us, and we tried to handle it as best as we could.

Guys were tense. We really didn’t want to let anyone down. We had such good guys, such strong character. People were coming up to us after our Final Four run my freshman year saying ‘this is the best month of my life. I’ve re-connected with so many old friends.’ People bringing a tear to your eye with that stuff. You never want to let anyone down. Not to say we were really thinking about it that much, but it’s always in the back of your mind. People want to see us get back and re-live a run like that again. It was just a lot of pressure.

My junior year, Clay and Marcus graduated and started playing overseas. Then it was really my team and (fellow senior and MVC Defensive Player of the Year) Lucas’ (Williamson) team. My junior year we finished second in the league. We were really just trying to build a successful, sustainable program here. A lot of rough patches, some bad losses, and good wins. The whole thing that sparked us into this year was we got bounced in the first round of the MVC tournament. It was not the way we wanted to go out. We were the No. 2 seed, we were playing pretty well, and then we lost in overtime. A week or so later, the whole country shut down with Covid. It was a tough one to go out on there going into quarantine with that feeling in your stomach.

We had a lot of Zoom meetings, all we were talking about was that game, how we need to come with reinvigorated focus next year, and that’s really pushed us to the success we’re having this year. It’s really all the same guys, we lost one senior and gained two freshmen. It’s been propelling us to the success we’re having this year. We’re never going to forget what happened last season. We took a lot from Virginia. When we had that Final Four run in 2018, they were the No. 1 seed in the South where we were, and they got bounced in the first round to UMBC. They told their story a bunch of times, and then came back the next year and won the national championship. We took a lot from them just to always stay with it.

Everyone is asking it, so let’s get it from you. How does your current team stack up to the Final Four team if they played against each other? What happens at the center matchup?

I think I’m a way better player than I was back then. I’ve gotten more athletic even if it’s only a little bit (laughs). I think I’m a much better player. I was always a vocal guy, even as a freshman people will say I was one of if not the loudest guy on the floor at all times. I really prided myself on that. I’m just a better player this year.

There’s a lot of similarities with the teams. Senior leaders, for one. This year we have seven seniors. Guys who have played in big-time Valley games. Lucas and I have played in any game imaginable. Just having that confidence and leadership is so big. One strength in this year’s team is our dept. We have a lot of guys who are able to come in and contribute off the bench on any given night, and I think that’s helped us in these back-to-backs and in the Valley tournament. We were able to play eight or nine guys deep and trust everyone coming in to make the right decisions.

If both teams played each other ... I don’t know if you can say a winner one way or another. I think there’s some similarities on defense as well. This team is better at defense than that team. Jus the numbers and the efficiency numbers on offense. There’s a lot of similarities for sure.

I have heard you play the harmonica. How did you pick it up? Have you played for Sister Jean?

I just picked it up in high school as a joke at the start. I don’t know if I’m getting serious about it now, but I’m practicing a little more now. In quarantine you have to pick up new habits and stuff just to stay busy.

Sister Jean has not been around in the flesh for this whole pandemic. I think she’s staying somewhere downtown. She’ll call us instead, sends us emails after every game and before practices sometimes. I actually haven’t seen Sister Jean in quite some time, but she’s always with us virtually. She still does the pre-game prayer just over the phone. It’s cool that we’ve been able to keep that tradition alive even though she can’t come to the games.

I know you’re a big Chicago Bears fan. I also need to know what you want to happen at QB this offseason. Please don’t tell me you’re a Mitch Trubisky guy.

I’m a big Jameis Winston guy honestly. I’m going to stay on that train. I think we can get him for cheap. I don’t know what the Saints plan to do with him, but I know he’s a free agent this year. I think he’s a pretty good thrower. He can throw the ball deep. That’s the one thing the Bears are missing right now is the deep ball. We didn’t throw the ball deep this year, teams aren’t respecting us ever trying to stretch the field. I think if Jameis comes in and throws a couple deep balls that could be good. If he throws a couple picks, that’s alright because the defense is used to turnovers (ed. note: LOL).

Obviously Russell Wilson is a good option too. I just don’t want to give the kitchen sink for the guy. Same with Deshaun Watson. Is it worth giving up all those picks and giving up some pretty good players on our defense to be good at quarterback? Yeah ... probably. But I’d rather see some of those guys stay and pick up a Jameis type, or even keep Nick Foles as crazy as that sounds. We need offense line, too.

[carraville]

 year in fic review (2017)

using the wonderful @neyvenger​ ‘s template! everyone should do this i wanna read <3

Year at a glance:  Total number of completed stories: 25 (26 if u count hockey) Total word count:  146929

Overall Thoughts:

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?  LOTS MORE it’s probly bc i wrote a hella lot while jumping from train to train traveling all of Europe, and probly bc i gave up on school by mid-sem last year, and probly bc the only thing i can do at work that looks like i’m still doing work when i’m not is write 

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? The fuCKING GERMS i blame it on germs like i 100% would never have thought i’d write 16k of thomasfips who does that also joemilly??? but i luff

What’s your own favorite story of the year? i dont have one i love and hate them all equally... i guess strangeways here we come just bc i took so damn long to write it and tbf i didn’t write a lot of carraville this year so it was kind of like my One and Only 

Did you take any writing risks this year?

writing a lot of people I didn’t know how to write, writing about a lot of Big Things (particularly on the bridge between starshine and clay) that i wasn’t sure about, writing a lot of aus i’d never done before, writing ??? PORN???? even tho ive never banged anyone in my life

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year? all 12 months of football prompts! hopefully! and writing more new ships and meeting more people and reading good fic  also finally doing all my historical aus bc if there’s one thing i’ve learnt this year, it’s not to give a shit what other people want and just write what u want even if no one is going to read it xoxo

From my past year of writing, what was…

My best story of this year: from a writing perspective i think an die nachgeborenen just bc it was the most? complete, i guess? and plotty? like if i changed the names and pretended it wasn’t creepy i could probably send it for rejection 

My most popular story of this year:  strangeways, here we come i guess cos i published it around that time the r*dditors were sneaking around lmao

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:  the wonder of my world cos it’s niche and manc but!!!!!!! i love my mancs

Most fun story to write: fuckin.  30 Shades Of Red

Story with the single sexiest moment: The Anonymous Present That Appeared For Sab’s Birthday That Doesn’t Exist 

Most “holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story: Again, The Anonymous Present that Doesn’t Exist 

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: I’m pretty set when it comes to characters, I guess, because I only like writing when I understand them, but maybe Aubade bc I’d never written Iker till then and I really liked how it turned out

Hardest story to write:  summer sang in me a little while bc it was a) wrestling with a Lot of Football feelings that I didn’t know how to talk about, b) wresting with trashbag xabi alonso and what I thought of him vs. what other people thought of him, c) writing ships and people I had 0 idea about

Biggest surprise:  i like germs! wtf

Highlights + Wrap-up:  ok I TRIED TO PICK DIFFERENT ONES FROM ALL FIC 

Favorite Opening Lines (3):

when the world was ours

There's a crunch. There's a crunch and it's over. 

the setting sun is sweetest last

When all the hands have been shaken and hugs exchanged someone presses a microphone into his hands and he fumbles, not quite sure how to put what he's feeling into words. Eventually he settles for something about looking towards the final on Saturday and he sees David from the corner of his eye shaking his head, almost as if to say: god, Gaz, how do you manage to make everything about United when this should be about you.

In the end, it's simple.

cheesed to meet you

Philipp calls Thomas first, because he always calls Thomas first.

"I didn't do it," Thomas says immediately, with the kind of well-practiced plausibility that only comes from doing the things he says he hasn't done.

Favorite Closing Lines (4):

yes, yes, we are magicians

You jog back to the halfway line. Your face must be shining under the lights, and you wonder if mum's in the crowd, smiling. Let's go to Wembley some day. Rooney rolls the ball to you and you're off again, no marcus's ball scribbled into the patchy leather, no divots and pot-holes in a sandy, well-worn pitch.

You're nineteen years old and going to the Euros.

Every blade of grass here is the exact same height.

in this story we belong to ourselves

Liverpool is. A river that runs before two men who used to have numbers on their backs and now have a house no longer empty. A stream of memories and breaking apart and going again. The Mersey, quiet, grey, flowing gently through the Narrows and out into the great big sea, ever so slightly out of reach.

Variation IX

He says I've missed you, mate.

I say You know, I thought you might.

He says I hope you missed me too.

I say Well of course, otherwise where would I go for Christmas this year?

And then he starts laughing and I start laughing and we laugh and laugh and don’t stop until he kisses me again.

yes, there will be song

You step back and turn, take the steps two at a time. Somewhere outside Anfield there's a man with a shirt that's as as red as the names on the back. He's got a scarf around his neck like a docker, and he presses his face to the Shankly gates like he's kissing a trophy. Make us dream, he whispers, a secret he's never told anyone else, his heart heavy and his eyes tired but his body trembling with a belief too full for words. Above him, the sky is golden.

Favorite Lines From Anywhere (5):

strangeways, here we come

It's weak against Paraguay, it's tired against Paraguay, but the England fans are singing and they have to listen. Countries are not clubs. This sinks deeper than loyalty, at once more insular and more ubiquitous than Liverpool or United could ever be. There are little flags hung up in Sainsbury's, strangers with their arms round each other in pubs, the radios of an electronics store tuned in to Radio 5 Live. Come on England. Bandied about like a mantra, a swear word, a secret password offered by old hands who brace themselves for more disappointment with a nudge and a wink. England always - a host of words go here, crash out , fuck up , lose , but -

Believe rises above them all. Maybe it's delusional. Maybe it's arrogant. Beckham takes a free kick that delights and astonishes the way his free kicks do and it ends up in the back of the net. Every four years St George goes back up and people who still remember '66 are bought a pint, and for every we'll go out at the group stages there's an underlying thread of god help me, we might win this yet, because what is hope if not alive?

Come on England. The cup awaits you and is yours.

sekrit yuletide fic

In his dreams he doesn't leave. Salvador Iglesias Sr. doesn't die and Chava doesn't become a dickhead. He keeps the number on his back and the band around his arm. He doesn't cheat on Ximena, but he tells her, and they part as best friends. In his dreams they win the championship. And again the next year, and again the one after that. Each time Potro scores the winning goal and Moi runs to him to celebrate and Potro kisses him for the whole world to see, over and over, until their lips are numb and all they know are themselves.

summer sang in me a little while

Why are you still here? you ask him. It is easier that way. He turns to you, dark circles under his eyes, and doesn't reply. Only reaches over to tangle his calloused fingers in your hair, rests his forehead against yours.  This time you are the one who leans forward to kiss him, immersing yourself in the warmth of his skin. You taste his blood. You taste the salt and iron of his blood.

the wonder of my world

What makes a club? Love, belief, hope - and someone to attach it to, the player everyone grows up watching, whose name is instantly recognisable to the point that you don't have to mention who he plays for next. Who pours his soul into the game and hammers his heart onto the crest. You don't get that kind of player very often. United were lucky to have three.

So here. The last musketeer. He's not looking at the crowd anymore, just the middle distance. Still the thousands sing. Love, belief, hope, and memories. Ryan might never run again but Paul realises that it doesn't matter. It's that he's already run. And in a hundred years from now someone might pull up a grainy youtube video and watch the number eleven on the left wing and fall in love, all over again. The way he was meant to be loved. Ball at his feet. Red.

an die nachgeborenen

"I don't need a plan," Thomas says, like he's talking to a child. "That's the beauty of it. All I have to do is wait and see what happens. It's only – " he smiles again, wan, quiet. "Well. You know."

The refrain arcs, jagged, through Philipp's head.

"I promised you wouldn't die."

"I won't." Thomas stands up, leaves a hand on Philipp's shoulder. His palm is still warm. "I'm invincible, didn't I tell you?"

And with a single, chipper whistling note, he hits the exit button and slips out, the door closing immediately behind him with a gentle click .

Fic Goals for 2018:

i wna write gifts that people will like :> aka MORE NICHE BULLSHIT 

[dorkforty]

So it’s time to get back to the funnybooks. After two weeks of talking movies, I’ve got a nice little backlog piling up, including the conclusion of Heroes in Crisis, the beginning of the end for Ed Piskor’s X-Men: Grand Design, and new issues of Stray Bullets and Criminal. But first, the comic I enjoyed most from the last two weeks…

The Green Lantern 8 by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp

Y’know, just about any issue of this book is likely to be filled with ridiculous fun. But this one… Holy crap.

From the cover alone, you know you’re in for a wild ride. This issue is an homage to the classic Denny O’Neil / Neal Adams run of Green Lantern / Green Arrow, complete with Liam Sharp doing his best Adams impersonation throughout. But once you start reading the actual story, you swiftly realize it’s WAY crazier than that.

First, we’re introduced to Hadea Maxima, a (possibly other-dimensional?) hell-planet inhabited by a race of space demons for whom murder is not a crime, but an accepted cultural norm. One of the leaders (I guess?) of this place is a demon space-mobster named Lord Brotorr (!), who’s very very angry that rival demon space-mobster Glorigold DeGrand (!) is cutting in on his profits with a new drug that’s connected in some way to Earth. So Brotorr orders the murder of not just his rival, but also of THE ENTIRE PLANET.

Cut to Earth, where Green Arrow’s dealing with a deadly new street drug that leaves its users in a blank, zombie-like state. Green Lantern shows up to help, and we’re off to the races. Before it’s all done (without getting into too many spoilers), we’ve had twists, turns, psychedelic trips, drug dealers in pointy black hoods, and what may be only the second-ever appearance of Jack Kirby’s Xeen Arrow (the Green Arrow of Dimension Zero, which is of course an other-dimensional world inhabited by telepathic super-giants).

It is complete insanity, a frothy mixture of Silver Age goofiness and 2000 AD attitude that somehow manages to maintain the heroes’ dramatic dignity while still playing things for laughs. It’s a tightrope walk of an approach, and it’s not easy to pull off. Too far one way, and it all gets too cute for its own good. Too far the other way, and you’ve got the idiocy of a Rob Liefeld comic. But when you hit that sweet spot in the middle, you’ve got a potential classic.

And though it’s not perfect… Though sometimes Morrison’s scripts lean so far into dream logic that they don’t quite make sense even as comedy… I’m leaning toward this being a classic.

Immortal Hulk 18 by Al Ewing and Joe Bennett

Another classic in the making is Al Ewing and Joe Bennett’s Immortal Hulk. This one’s been gathering quite a buzz, picking up readers as it goes along, to the point that the early issues (which had low-expectation print runs) are now going for a pretty penny on the collector’s market. I’m sure the prices will eventually level out, but it’s nice to see a comic going for big bucks on the basis of actual reader demand, instead of the usual “it’s worth this because we say it is” reasons for that sort of thing.

The buzz it’s getting is deserved, too. Al Ewing’s horror take on the character has been quite a bit of fun. It dragged a bit during the Hell storyline a few issues back, but otherwise this has been great stuff. Joe Fixit (aka the gray Hulk) recently reappeared, and this issue we discover that he’s been in control of Banner’s body for quite some time. It’s not entirely clear how long, or what he’s been up to, but he’s definitely had time to amass a little money. And grow a mustache.

As the story moves on, we also get a crazy new version of the Abomination WHO HAS A FIST FOR A FACE.

So, yeah. This one’s a lot of fun, too. Not as good. But a lot of fun.

X-Men: Grand Design: X-Tinction 1 by Ed Piskor

My favorite X-Men book since Grant Morrison left in a huff has begun its final chapter here. If you’re not familiar, Grand Design is Ed Piskor’s attempt to cover the history of the X-Men as if it was all one long story that was planned out from the beginning. The first volume covered the original series, and the second covered the first 100 issues or so of Chris Claremont’s long run.

This time around, he’s really got his work cut out for him, because he’s covering what might be the absolute nadir of the Claremont run: the Trial of Magneto through Inferno. This was the period when I started losing interest in the book, and finally stopped reading it entirely. These stories left a bad taste in my mouth that’s still lingering 30 years later, and I found that I didn’t enjoy revisiting them any more than I enjoyed reading them the first time through.

Piskor does his best with them, though, condensing and conflating events in a way that streamlines some of Claremont’s more over-extended plotlines, and completely skips the more forgettable stories in favor of the stuff that continued to have repercussions down the line. His one misstep in that regard, I think, is the short shrift he gives to the Trial of Magneto, which I’ve always though of as the real climax of the first half of Claremont’s run. But I suppose that ultimately had more of an impact on the New Mutants book than it did X-Men proper, so maybe he was right to only mention it in passing. This is really Storm’s issue, and he rightly focuses things on her character arc (which might be the one really interesting thing from this period of the book).

Still. Holy crap. The latter two-thirds of this issue is concerned entirely with demons and Mr. Sinister. And just when you think you’re done with the demons, MORE demons show up. It’s interminable. And there’s only so much even Ed Piskor can do to save it.

Still, though, I have high hopes for the next issue. Because I have no idea whatsoever where X-Men goes next, and I can only think it would have to be better…

Ed Piskor’s Grade for Trying Hard:

Chris Claremont’s Grade for Writing Such Execrable Source Material:

Heroes in Crisis 9 by Tom King and Clay Mann

On the one hand, it’s comforting that this book died the way it lived: telling a story that I liked in some very important ways, but hated in others.

On the other hand… DAMMIT, Tom King! Why do you have to be so good and so bad at the same time?!

I don’t care enough to go into great detail on what I liked and didn’t like in this final issue. So I’ll just hit the highlights. On the down side, King engaged in some time travel shenanigans to change the solution we already saw to his locked-room mystery, and that feels like a cheat.

But on the up side, that cheat gives us an ending that’s messy but life-affirming, rather than neat but tragic. And that ending, unsatisfying as it is from a narrative perspective, feels very real. Because life is often messy and unsatisfying. “Nothing ever ends,” as Alan Moore once told us. But this ending also fits the book better than the neat ending would have. Because the ending we got (Wally West lives) offers a chance at healing and a hope for redemption. Which is what Heroes in Crisis has been about from the outset.

So I suppose I shouldn’t complain.

But I do.

Because, dammit.

Stray Bullets: Sunshine and Roses 41 by David Lapham

With the Lodger side project over, David Lapham gets back to his (or maybe my) first love, Stray Bullets. And, holy crap, things are really getting out of control.

click to embiggen

It would take far more time than I have tonight to explain the vast web of plots that are coming together here. So suffice it to say that the entire huge ensemble cast, which Lapham has spent the last 40 issues meticulously establishing, is finally converging, and I have no idea how any of them are going to survive.

Except that I know most of them do.

Because this entire series essentially takes place between issues seven and eight of the original Stray Bullets series, published more than 20 years ago. And I know what happens afterwards. In most cases, that would take some of the… excitement, I suppose… out of seeing how it’s all going to end. But not here, really. Lapham’s done a sufficiently good job putting this story together that, even though I know that Beth, Orson, Nina, Spanish Scott, and so many other characters will be surviving this bloodbath, I want to know how they’re gonna do it. And then there’s a handful of other characters who seem conspicuously absent from future events, and I’m dreadfully worried about all of them.

Or, if not worried, per se, at least really curious.

Because honestly… Annie probably deserves whatever she’s got coming. Unless, of course, Lapham finds a way to make her fate even worse than I can imagine. He’s good at that…

Criminal 5 by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

This fifth issue begins what Ed Brubaker has said will probably be the longest Criminal story arc to date. Which is a little weird for a series that he’s also said would feature more short pieces. But Brubaker’s a criminal at heart, as we’ve already learned, so you kind of have to take his proclamations about this book with a grain of salt.

Anyway. This new arc’s called “Cruel Summer.” It’s set in the summer of 1988, and it involves a private detective being hired to find a woman, but getting in a little too deep. Pretty standard noir premise there, and though the story’s well-told, I won’t tell you that Brubaker and Phillips really offer that much in the way of new twists on it. Where things get interesting is at the end, when Our Hero gets whacked on the head with a wrench by none other than Teeg Lawless.

That’s the same Teeg Lawless around whom every story in this current volume of Criminal has in some way revolved. Or if not revolved, INvolved. Even if it’s only in a spectral, influential sort of way. And next issue, we’re told, is all about Teeg. And, I would presume, this mysterious woman we meet this time around.

Which is just a really long-winded way of telling you that this story’s much like all the others in this series: clever, well-constructed, and more complicated than it looks on the surface.

A Walk Through Hell 10 by Garth Ennis and Goran Sudzuka

Garth Ennis’ searing look at the horrors of the Trump era continues, with an issue that calls into question the value of empathy when you’re dealing with people who have none themselves. It is not a cheerful or especially pleasant read. But it is a compelling one. It questions liberal values even as it presents the rich and powerful in a very ugly light. While it’s clear who the biggest monsters are, it doesn’t let anybody off the hook. Which is horribly unfair, but there’s also a grain of truth in it. Maybe more than a grain. Maybe. Probably. Maybe.

It’s into that opening of doubt that Ennis shoves his pry bar, and starts applying pressure. And that’s where the real horror comes from. This is a story about evil men taking advantage of people’s doubts. But they have those doubts for a reason, and sometimes that’s enough to break them.

And that is Hell.

Or at least, that’s my reading of the book at this point. I withhold the right to change my mind in light of future evidence.

And on that cheery note, it is time to bid you adieu.

Xeens and Things: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!! So it's time to get back to the funnybooks. After two weeks of talking movies, I've got a nice little backlog piling up, including the conclusion of Heroes in Crisis, the beginning of the end for Ed Piskor's X-Men: Grand Design, and new issues of Stray Bullets and Criminal.

[olwog]

George sent me a note, “We’re walking from Clay Bank to Lordstones” tomorrow, “…are you available?” This is one my favourite walks so he was ‘leaning against an open door’ but they wanted to walk ‘there-and-back’ and I was short of time so with a little bit of deft planning, George had Peter lined up to pick me up at Lordstones so that my car was in the right place when the rest of the group were at the half way point; I love this group!

                                    We travel along the back road to Chop Gate through glorious Raisdale, Chop Gate has nothing to do with chopping but is derived from the Old English ‘ceap’ meaning ‘pedlar’ suggesting that this tiny hamlet was once a centre of trading ie. Pedlars Gate. It’s also known for its pronunciation with a soft ‘g’ and flat vowel i.e. Chop yat.

As car parks go, the one at Clay Bank takes some beating for value, no fee but no facilities either. It does; however, have astonishing views over the Cleveland Plain. On a good day, you can see Roseberry Topping and Captain Cook’s Monument together with various man-made structures across the Tees estuary. 

    We make our way towards Hasty Bank and onwards to Wainstones but that’s after a serious ascent and it’s different. George observes that the trees have been harvested since our last walk here and it has made a huge difference in both light and perception. We can see what we are about to ascend and at any point on the track we can now see a wider panorama although it could be argued that the trees were preferable. I’m good with what we’ve got and within 10 minutes we’re looking back towards Urra Moor and across the Vale of Mowbray towards Teesport and beyond to the windmill farm off the coast of Redcar.

  At the top, we recount a lovely meeting with a mother and daughter who were doing the Wainstones walk last summer. The day was blue-sky and warm and we had our ‘photos taken sitting on a rock overhanging the valley below. Today is a little bit different in as much as the weather is grey and the Pennines in the distance are hazy due to the haar. The oilseed-rape crops stand out though. It’s like the yellow glow has been ‘switched on’ overnight and the soft glow diffused in the mist.

On top of Cold Moor looking over the Broughton Plantation Ridge, the wind is blowing into our faces and we can see the whole of the Vale of Mowbray but disappointingly, in mist. The heather is throwing up green shoots and showing the promise of an astonishing display of colour in another two or three of months and there are pools of vivid blue in the woods below as bluebells announce the arrival of early summer.

We reach Wainstones in just over half-an-hour and enjoy the banter as we find our various routes down through the huge boulders. On a summers day or evening you’d be well advised to walk here and enjoy this wonderful and natural spectacle. Bring your kids; last year, as we passed there was a group of ten being shown climbing techniques by outward-bounds specialists and they were loving it.

    As we emerge from our various routes through the rocks a group of Cleveland Way walkers (I think from Hull – if you read this please confirm) who are full of enthusiasm and all smiles. They tell us of extremely restricted visibility on the tops yesterday due to cloud and illustrate it by pointing at a huge rock only a couple of yards away and tell us that it would not have been visible. It’s a stark reminder that weather changes very rapidly up here and being prepared is not just for scouts. They stayed at High Paradise last night, one of our favourite watering holes in the summer, just along from Sutton Bank and looked after by a lady who is slightly eccentric and very easy on the eye. The food is good too, what’s not to like?

    A quick photo later and we’re on or way down into Garfit Gap and girding ourselves for the next ascent to the ridge of the aptly named Cold Moor and it’s fair to say, we’ve never been here when it’s been warm and, ironically, each time we’ve reached the top, we’ve never been cold!

We’re out of breath but the view is always worth it. In mountain terms, it’s just a big hill but always a challenge to get up to the top without stopping and we decided long ago that it was better to stop occasionally if only for the views. We’re at about 1300 feet (400 metres) but the multi-coloured Vale of Mowbray, even when it’s misty, is beautiful. 

    We’re on the flat for a couple of hundred yards then it’s down again, on a zig-zag track for 300 feet (100 metres) into the opening of Raisdale where we pause to remove a layer or two as we survey the track up Crinkle Moor. It’s the steepest so far and also the most picturesque. There has been a huge amount of work to ensure that the Cleveland Way is not eroded and the evidence is the stones that we’re encouraged to walk on. Some of them have words carved into them and may have been gravestones, others are natural and quite rough; however, all of them have been carried to where they now lie and have been carefully set on some kind of foundation as we rarely find any that are lose or unstable. Thank you all you volunteers and rangers who maintain them, we certainly appreciate your efforts and laud your praise whenever we can.

This is the third climb in a little over an hour and requires more than one stop. Each break is accompanied by a drink and, more importantly, a look around. There is some pleasure in reviewing our progress and the track winding into the distance and up the side of Cold Moor is clear evidence of what we’ve done.

    There is also the chance to exercise our other senses when we stop. Our eyes are always on the alert but quite often they’re looking for the next footstep or avoiding a hazard so the preoccupation precludes taking in the surrounding beauty. 

Our hearing is analogue but can be inhibited by the wind and taking a short break allows us to tilt our head or even cup a hand over the ear to listen to birdsong from the skylarks that are always busy with continuous chatter above us or pheasant and grouse scaring the crap out of us when we step near their roosting or nesting area. 

Our ability to smell is never switched off but we have to think about what we’re sensing now and then or it can pass us by without notice. There is the odd fresh pat of cow-shit that steams and invades our nose from time to time and we don’t miss that but a pause at the side of a field of oil-seed-rape (a relative of wallflowers) or a lilac bush can transport me into a memory that’s long since been filed in a dark recess and it’s evoked in an instant by the smell. I don’t know what smell is. Does it have a physical form? Is it fine droplets of liquid or a gas? I’m not sure but I do know that it is so evocative as to be more powerful than all of the other senses and I love to dream. 

/* StartWobblyScene

Lilac reminds me of working in Czechoslovakia as Communism was dying when we were given excellent accommodation in a residential block a 20-minute walk from the university. We were glorying in the title of Visiting Professors which was all rather grand but professor is interchangeable with the word ‘teacher’ in Europe so when it came to our CV’s it was ‘Visiting Professor’ that went down and we reveled in the moment – am I shallow/supercilious or what? I’ve learned a lot since then and no longer need a label – I’m happy being me.  

We’d got some European money and sought permission from the Americans to take a small network of computers to teach the professors about modern machines and the first day or two was quite stressful as we gauged their level of proficiency. It turned out to be way better than our assumptions. They demolished the 6 seeks work that I intended to leave them when we returned to the UK and they did this on top of the work done in our lectures and hands-on sessions whilst we were there. The star of the show was a gentleman called Premsyl Tichy who linked our system into the university system within hours of us being there. Easily done now (If you have the security privileges) but circa 1990 it was challenging).

The early morning walk through the woods in warm sunshine to the main teaching blocks was both glorious and stress relieving and the thing that triggers this beautiful moment is the smell of lilac and this was generated by a tiny lilac bush growing wild out of the crack of a drystone wall and all but invisible save for the beautiful smell.

EndWobblyScene */

Part way up Cringle we stop and talk. George is drawing attention to the fact that we would stop a half dozen times when we first did this walk and I observed the fact that the height was an issue for me, but not now; exposure is a great desensitiser and we’ve both come a long way over the years.

At the top, the wind is blowing the cloud away from the ridge and the mist is clearing, we’ve even got evidence of blue sky and sunshine as the haar recedes back towards the coast. We can see Chris at the stone lookout towards the far end of the path, he’s been off like a rocket today and good luck to him, he’s worked hard for it.

    We take few minutes to enjoy yet more of the cliffs, hills, forests and vale; all now in sunshine but still a bit windy and a few photos later and we’re taking the downward track to Lordstones and a well-earned sausage sandwich.

We use Lordstones regularly and find them welcoming and reasonable, they’ve also been very generous in allowing us to leave a car there when doing a linear walk – it’s much appreciated, thanks Lordstones people.

Enjoy the snaps…G..x

Clay Bank to Lordstones George sent me a note, “We’re walking from Clay Bank to Lordstones” tomorrow, “…are you available?” This is one my favourite walks so he was ‘leaning against an open door’ but they wanted to walk ‘there-and-back’ and I was short of time so with a little bit of deft planning, George had Peter lined up to pick me up at Lordstones so that my car was in the right place when the rest of the group were at the half way point; I love this group!

[furilia]

Strange letters from my father

New Post has been published on https://www.furilia.com/strange-letters-from-my-father/

Strange letters from my father

I never do paid posts but I’m doing this one for two reasons.  1) Because I was already going to write about this.  Stick with it and you’ll see why in a second, and 2) because the 8th Annual Jame Garfield Miracle is going on and I needed more money to help kids in need and this was a super easy way to do it.  So if you’re reading this, you are helping needy children.  EVERYONE WINS.

So, StoryWorth advertised on my blog this year and I loved it so much I paid full price to buy one for my dad.  Here’s how it works:  StoryWorth emails your family member weekly story prompts in the form of questions.  They reply to the emails and you get to read their amazing family stories that you never knew existed.  Then at the end of the year StoryWorth binds the years worth of stories into a keepsake book.  My dad has been doing it for about six months and the emails I get with his answers are so insane and lovely that I often have to call and ask, “Is that true?”  Stories about my grandparents and great grandparents that I may never have known are now being shared with family.  It is awesome and I highly recommend it because it’s a gift for you and for them.  It’s normally $79 but right now (until 1/31/18) it’s only $59 through this link. 

The stories my father shares are really too good to keep to myself so I’m sharing a few snippets of my favorites here.  You may think they’re strange and terrible but I love and treasure them.  I suppose that’s how family stories work though.  (BTW, Nelda is my mom.  She types the answers as my dad dictates.)

Have you pulled any great pranks?

I was prying something loose one day, and I broke off half the blade of my skinning knife. Stupid! Now the six-inch blade was only three inches long. It was now perfect for prying things loose, but it was also perfect for a practical joke.

We have an electric knife sharpener at the taxidermy shop, and I don’t allow anyone to use it except me. If you’re not paying 100% attention to what you are doing, the high-speed sharpening wheel can throw the blade back at you. Bad news.

I went to my own working area where I hide from the other workers and went to work on my joke. I super glued the tip of my broken knife blade to the inside of my inner right arm. Next I built up the wound area with 2-part epoxy. It’s a product we use in the taxidermy shop like modeling clay to make artificial skin on a mount. I smoothed out the epoxy, texturized it to make it look like my own skin and modeled it to look like that knife is really embedded deep in my arm. I used an airbrush to paint the epoxy area to match my skin. Next I feathered in some white, purple,and red paint to make a realistic cut. Finally I mixed up some blood- red and black paint. I added a little glycerin to give the fake blood a wet glossy look. I poured the blood where it needed to be, and splashed the rest on an old rag that I used to cover the gag.

I staggered into the shop and sat down, not saying a word.

Don was the first to notice the blood. “Holy Crap! What did you do?” Helen came out the office, and I removed the blood-soaked rag to show my work of art. Everyone gathered around me to either gawk or help. Helen hollered out, “Don’t put it out. He’s on blood thinners! He”ll bleed to death!”

No sooner did she say that, Jonathon grabbed the knife and pulled it out. I quickly covered the wound with the bloody rag. I figured the joke was over till Jonathon looked at the knife and screamed, “It broke off in his arm!”

I didn’t get any compliments for my realistic art work. I cleaned up my mess and came back in the shop. I sat down next to Jonathon and asked him if it looked real. He said. “Yeah, I thought it was real……..What are blood thinners?”

What have you changed your mind about over the years?

I use to think that dogs are a man’s best friend, but I’ve changed my mind. Dogs will always forgive you quickly if you ask them to, but they don’t do laundry, they don’t cook, they don’t scratch your back, and they don’t clean house. They are pretty good at doing dishes, as long as you smear left-over gravy over the whole plate.

I use to think that a loving wife would see the humor in that previous paragraph. Dogs will still always forgive you quickly if you ask them to.

I use to think this was funny.

  If you could choose any talents to have, what would they be?

I asked Nelda what this question meant. Any talent? She suggested singing, or playing an instrument , or maybe x-ray vision. X-Ray vision might be cool only if it is selective. Some old fat guy crossing your path of vision could ruin your day. A cute young chick could also ruin my marriage. I’ll stick with my near- sighted astigmatism with floaters.

I already sing beautifully. I have that talent even though no one else thinks so. My ears are so good that in my head the notes sound pitch perfect. Self corrective hearing is what I call it.

I might like the talent to finish everyone’s sentences before they could say it. Unfortunately I hang around a lot of people that don’t make a lot of sense. I’m not going to take credit for a bunch of nonsense.

I would like the talent to communicate with animals. I would like to understand their thoughts. Someday I will.

What is one of your fondest childhood memories?

One of my fondest memories is going perch fishing with my mom. When I was about five years old, I got the fishing bug. I couldn’t get enough fishing. My dad had a farm out at Eola, about twenty miles from home. The whole family would pack up before daylight, and drive out to the farm to work. My dad would usually be on his John Deere tractor. My mom would be either building electric fence or picking rocks out of the field. My sisters would be together hoeing weeds. I, being the baby, stuck with my mom. We would work till noon, and then drive to our neighbor’s pasture to have a picnic lunch. A small dirt tank with green water surrounded by large mesquite trees was one of my favorite places to spread out our homemade quilts, and rest in the shade. We would eat bread, summer sausage, longhorn cheese, and drink Cragmont orange soda water. After lunch, I would get out my cane pole. I always saved some of my lunch to use for bait. Those perch would bite on anything, but bread was my favorite cuz it stayed on my hook the best,

My dad would usually sleep and rest while my mom would watch me fish. She was actually watching a five year old kid making sure I wasn’t gonna fall in the water. The fish would bite as fast as you put the hook in the water. They weren’t very big, but I kept anything that had eyes. I even kept a little turtle. When I caught a water snake, my fishing was over.

Have you ever won anything?

The last year that the famous Sam Lewis put on the World Champion Armadillo Races, I won. Actually, my armadillo won. All I did was get behind Army and stomp and holler and chase him across the finish line. I guess I came in second. I released the armadillo back in the woods, but I kept the silver ring. My daughter Jennifer has the ring (I think).

I probably wouldn’t have given her the ring if it was gold.

What inventions have had the biggest impact on your day-to-day life?

The cube is probably the greatest invention of my lifetime. Before the cube, there was really not much stability in my life. Spheres were the rage when I was growing up. How can one build anything on a sphere? No matter how you slice it, you end up with just a lot of wheels.There was hope for wheels in those days, although someone took the idea too far. The whole world revolved around wheels and anything that could be made with them.  Donuts were one of my favorites. It was like a wheel inside of a wheel. Clever. But look at a really fat donut from the side. It’s a cube. Give the cube the credit due. You eat a donut from the side, don’t you?

Cubes were the true building blocks of the future. The Egyptians knew this. They even made huge cubes all over their back yard. Then they sliced the cubes diagonally, tipped them over so they would rest on their most stable side, and “BAM”! They had yard art that would last for decades. People would ride by, see the yard art, and ask the age-old question, “Do you think that’s a cube cut in half on its axis, or is that cube half buried in the sand. If someone ever invents the wheel, we could build a big bulldozer and find out.”

Ice cubes. How would you like living in this planet without ice cubes. Sure, there’s people up north that don’t appreciate ice like we do, but what if they want to sit down for a while. Up north, chairs don’t grow on trees, but a big cube of ice would make a wonderful chair. You could probably build a house out of ice if you had enough of it laying around. An air-conditioned house. With an ice box.

I really don’t dislike spheres. After all, a sphere is just a well-rounded cube that likes to travel.

I changed my mind. My favorite invention that has changed my life is a 19 volt battery-operated screwdriver with an extra lithium battery. Made by Craftsman.

  How has the country changed during your lifetime?

The country hasn’t changed at all. The cities are all screwed up. I lived in the country when I was a kid, and I live in the same country now. The trees I remember as a kid seemed to be a lot smaller back then. The country roads I use to walk down seem to be a lot shorter when I drive them.

Water skiing, tubing and fishing wasn’t good at all on our local lakes, but I got pretty good at skipping rocks. The trick was to find flat rocks about three inches across. If you could find rocks that were flat on the top and bottom, you were in business. With a little practice, you could get thirty or more skips out of one perfect rock. You could get even more skips if the lakebed wasn’t sandy. When you found that perfect rock, you didn’t squander it. You walked out in the lakebed and retrieved it. Once when I was retrieving one of my dad’s washers (sometimes I used artificials),I found a rowboat. It was a Sears/Roebuck 10 foot aluminum just like the ones in the catalogs. This boat was mine.There wasn’t a drop of water in my new boat, and I started dreaming about all the adventures I would have on Lake Nastywater. (We use to called it Lake Nasworthy, till the water level went down and old tires messed up our rock skipping). I named my boat S.S Minnow. Gilligan’s Island was my favorite after school tv show. I liked Gilligan the best, but Ginger and Mary Ann got a lot better over the years. My Dad enjoyed that show too. I knew he was really gonna get excited when I showed him The Minnow. We walked out on the lake and gazed down on our boat.

“Oh My Gosh! Look! ” Daddy saw my boat. He was excited. He peeled off his sweat stained farmers hat, smiled, sighed, and said something that I couldn”t believe. “There’s my old boat.”

“What! Your boat?”

“Sonny, I lost “The African Queen ” about forty years ago.” I was noodling for yeller cats down here when this was the Middle Concho. You know what noodling is……Catching them with your hands. It wasn’t against the law back in them days. Now, they would throw you in the pokie. I found this big rock right here and knew this was where the big one lived. Right under this rock. Your Uncle Sam, my older brother, was a better swimmer than me ,and he had more experience at catching big fish. Sam jumped in the water, took a deep breath, and went underwater. He came back up about 30 seconds later ,and told me the good news. “There’s a big hole under that rock, and there’s a catfish down in there. His head is as big as a five gallon bucket. As soon as I catch my breath, I’m going for him. My brother, Sam went under. He was down there a long time. He was down too long. I jumped in the water, and found the hole that Sam had entered. I reached in, and found Sam’s legs kicking up a storm. I grabbed his legs and started pulling him out of the hole. It was a struggle,but I pulled him out. We surfaced, and Sam was as white as a sheet. We looked around and couldn’t find “The African Queen”.

We sat up on the rock, Sam caught his breath finally, and told me what happened.”That monster fish was deep in the hole. I was rubbing his belly with both hands. My arms were extended, reaching for his gills. He kept swimming further in the hole. I didn’t realize that the hole was getting tighter, and I was running out of breath. My arms were out in front of me, and I couldn’t push my way out. I was stuck underwater. I was ready to give up when I felt you pulling me out. You saved my life!

We reached down to release our boat from the encrusted mud, and it proved to be a lot lighter than expected. There was no floor in the boat. It had rotted out years ago, but it still held some shared memories for my dad and me.

Uncle Sam and Daddy are both gone now. Maybe they’re floating down the Middle Concho in an old rowboat with a floor in it. Maybe they’re fishing for big yeller cats. They’re not noodling though because Sam promised God that he wouldn’t fish that way anymore.

Do you have any particularly vivid memories of your grandparents?

All of my grandparents were Czech. They didn’t speak English but they were successful farmers. They figured out early in life that to be wealthy, you had to have good discipline. They saved their hard-earned money that they made sharecropping. Then they bought land. They made do with growing their own fruits and vegetables. They raised chickens for eggs and meat. They had cows that they milked daily and butchered their own beef and hogs.They made their own clothes, churned butter, canned produce from the garden, made cheese , flour, cornmeal, and bread.  The only thing easy on the farm was falling to sleep at night.

Butchering hogs in those days was a big deal. There was too much work for one family to do all the work in one day. There would also be too much meat and sausage to cure, smoke, and package. The meat from a three hundred pound hog would go bad before one family could eat it.

When the first cold day would come around, all of the aunts, uncles, and third-generation heathens would meet at my grandparents house with all their butcher knives, tow sacks, hog scrapers, seasonings. We were having a butcher day. There was going to be a lot of work and a lot of fun for everyone except two fat hogs.

The women would build a big hot fire under a wash kettle full of water. The men would get the hogs up out of the mud, and wash them off. The hogs didn’t know what was going on with all this special treatment, but I bet they thought they were family and they were being invited for dinner. Smart pigs.

My uncles would build a sled,and then would position our dinner guest close to it. A shot would ring out and an unhappy but short squeal would alert the second dinner guest that now might be the time to cancel his reservation. The relaxing swine napping on the sled would be given a ride to the kettle area. Tow sacks (burlap bags) were pulled out of the boiling water and spread over a portion of the sleeping porker. The scalding loosens the hair on the pig and a dull butcher knife is used to scrape the hair (root and all) off of the pig.

The whole process is repeated on a new area of the pig until the whole hog is as balded as the top of my head. That pig is also pretty and pink like the top of my head.

Now it’s time to gut the clean “organ donor”. The liver, kidneys, and heart are saved. The small intestines are also saved. It was my job to clean out the green juice out of these long tubes. I liked attaching a garden hose to one end and let the water pressure do the work. My job was taken away from me because of the mess I made all over the porch. I think years later Whamo made a fortune with a toy called a Water Wiggle. I guess I was just ahead of my time on inventions, but my marketing skills had not yet been perfected. Sometimes, poop happens.

The rolls of fat from the hog is collected for later use. The ashes from the fire were shoveled into a tilted wooden trough. Water was poured over the ashes and drained into another container. This was lye. The fat is put in the kettle and rendered down to lard. Some of the lard was saved to cook with. It was poor man’s shortening. Then the belly meat and flanks were cut up (with the skin still attached), and the small pieces were fried in the lard. This was cracklins. You eat them hot with molasses and homemade bread. You now have a lot of lard in the kettle. Dump the lye in with some kind of perfume and boil the devil out of it. Let the whole mess cool down and you got soap. Cut the soap into bars with a butcher knife and let it get cold. It will last forever. I think it has such a long shelf-like cuz no-one wants to use it. It stinks, and it takes your hide off with the dirt. It will cure a young boy from cussin .

Cut up the pork chops,cure the bacon, cure the hams and hocks, and start turning the grinder. It’s “SAUSAGE TIME”.

Those casings that were rescued from me are refilled with seasoned ground pork and tied into links. Hang ’em in the smoke house.

It’s now pretty late, and everybody’s tired. We sample the sausage and clean up the huge mess. I clean the front porch.

I give Babuska (Grandmother) a hug goodbye. I smell like the front porch, but she returns the hug anyway. That was sixty years ago, but I can still smell the aroma of fresh baked poppy seed kolaches from her homemade apron.

I still smell like her front porch.

My dad with his sisters and his mother. Wall, Texas.

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[cheechsweet]

See previous post 1 and post 2 in this series, or related posts to this month-long trip here and here.

The drive to Ranomafana is about 12 hours. After experiencing the Tana roads, I thought maybe it was close via bad roads, but it’s really 12 hours in a 4WD at relatively high speed but through winding roads. For 12 hours, I was tossed side to side, tires screeching on the road.

I was very passive in this adventure, which is ironic when I think that this project arose because the TMSE PTA asked me to offer an anthropology course several years ago when my kids were in 3rd grade. I didn’t want to do it because I didn’t have the time to take on any more service, but I wanted to do it because I wanted to be able to share what I do with my kids and help their school. I remember discussing it with DoVeanna Fulton, then chair of Gender and Race Studies, whose son had been a classmate of my kids. She said, ‘if you wait till you have more time, will your kids still want you to do it and will there still be an opportunity?’ Thank you, DoVeanna.

So, Duke Beasley and I collaborated on the course that first time, and it went well that first time. But only my sons Lux and Jagger took it. The next year, Bailey wanted to take it, so Duke and I offered it again. Still, I was never going to do it again, but it was popular and I’d got a curriculum developed that I could hand off to students to teach, so I kept it going. Later, I recognized an opportunity to turn it into a service learning course when I saw an application to develop a community service course. At the time, I had another course in mind and didn’t realize I was already doing one. Then later, Jason DeCaro came across a Wenner-Gren Foundation grant call because he was flying to New York and would be meeting with president Leslie Aiello. So I threw together a proposal, got feedback from her, tweaked the proposal, and got funding for this project.

I met Dustin Eirdosh, who has been my liaison on this Madagascar collaboration, just as serendipitously in a way. He was working with David Sloan Wilson and the EvoS Consortium for resources and in touch with Becky Burch. I started contacting Dustin to brainstorm about collaboration potential and saw that his energy is similar to mine. So I say “passive” when I describe my activity in Madagascar, but what I really seem to do is flap my wings hard and fast like a hummingbird until an opening appears, then I hit it hard and without hesitation.

I set this trip up without any real game plan. I deferred to Dustin and Josia to give me a lead that I would then take. So it was Dustin who suggested a trip to Ranomafana and Josia who booked the driver for me. The first one got in an accident the day before, so she arranged the second one at the last minute. She used the same company she books for her own research, but I’m not sure that that was the same in both cases.

The driver was going to cost 140,000 ariary/day (around $50/day, 460,000 ari total). Gas would cost me another 420,000 ari for the trip. Then I would need hotel for 3 nights, which I found for 100,000/night. That’s about $400, not including food or other things. That’s a sizable amount of money, considering I had no specific plans of who I was going to talk to or if I would even be able to get a meeting and had very little money with me.

This was covered by grant funding, but universities never want to give you your grant money up front. They want you to pay it out first and reimburse you. Presumably, there’s liability involved. I also think it’s being used in some slush fund somewhere or earning interest. When I asked for a $1,000 advance, I was treated like I was asking for money to go binge drinking. I was told I was asking for a LOAN and that it is against state policy to LOAN employees travel funds. Load of crap. We researchers have rents or mortgages to pay back home when we travel. Sorry to tell the world, but you don’t get much financial compensation for a PhD in the social sciences and humanities. I’m so deep in debt from student loans, I will never be free (see the notice of being served because of my student loan debt from the first day of this trip).

So $400 is a lot for money for me, as I was traveling exclusively cash and carry, with nothing in a bank account I could access and no place in Madagascar takes credit cards. What an adventure, right? This means I was riding for 12 hours in a car to meet with people I didn’t know would meet with me about what I didn’t exactly know and not sure I’d have enough money to pay the driver when I got back.

Jao gripping the wheel.

But this is not a mystery story, so I’ll let you off the hook. I stressed on the ride, tallying up my expenses, especially when Jao, my driver, stopped at a tourist hotel restaurant for lunch to eat “normal” food. Normal for me, is what I think he meant. Also, “clean,” he said. But it ended up costing me a pretty penny. The next meal was a little better, but I had to keep pushing him: “Let me worry about the food poisoning. Let’s eat Malagasy food at hotelys.”

If there are traditional musicians selling their CDs at the hotel restaurant, it probably costs more than you want to spend for a quick road stop. Or if there are old New Yorkers talking loudly at the table behind them.

And I had to ask Jao to help me change currency so I could pay him. Banks there won’t change $100 bills, which is all I had. And we were returning on a Sunday when everything was closed. So we had to meet a black market money changer by the side of the road on the way back into town. I don’t mean to make this sound in any way like Romancing the Stone or Indiana Jones crap. Other field researchers have a million such stories, as do all the people who live in such countries. And they are unfortunately not rare in the world. I borrowed my money belt and steel-reinforced bag from a friend who regaled me with stories of dealing with a cholera outbreak, regularly carrying vast quantities of cash on her to cover field school expenses, meeting sketchy money changers in strange homes, and drinking with murderous warlords during her field seasons. It’s all a matter of perspective. But this time, I was in Africa, while she was back home attending the premier of Beauty and the Beast!

I took lots of photos as Jao drove in silence. He listened to music all the way back. At the first, I felt bad he had obviously not felt comfortable playing music in the car until I heard him playing Otis Redding and asked him to turn it up. We listened to that and a Beatles album on the way back, which I loved singing along to, but then the next 9 hours were taken up by bad 80s hair metal and Celine Dion. And I was stuck with only Neil Gaiman’s new Norse Mythology as my Audible book. It was interesting for about an hour, but then stories of Thor’s dumb brutishness and Loki’s selfish mischief just lulled me to sleep.

However, the Betsiloa countryside was beautiful. They are the tribe that occupies the highland south of Tana. Their homes are tall and made of red brick that matches the red clay of the ground. Their terracing for rice, corn, and other produce is more distinctive than terracing elsewhere (I got great photos of this but—foreshadowing—those photos are sadly no longer with me). Apparently, they get three annual harvest, where other only get 1-2.

As we passed through Antsirabe, suddenly there were colorful tricycle taxis everywhere. “City of Pouse-pouse,” Jao told me. The region is resplendent with bicycles and pouse-pouses. I couldn’t get enough photos of them and the colorful markets (alas, many of those also lost with someone on the road to perdition—okay, maybe a little harsh, but I’m very annoyed about it).

We rolled into Ranomafana around 4, a bit earlier than expected. I got a place at Hotel Cristo, which came recommended both by Lonely Planet and Josia and Rija. It turned out to be very lovely.

Again, in true colonial style, I sat on the veranda watching the sunset over the rainforest and Namorona River, while people spoke Dutch and English nearby, and brown-skinned hotel employees brought me a double expresso. But at least they owned the place this time. Dear Malinowski…

Anthropology is Elemental is currently funded by a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation.

Repost from April 2017 on Bama Anthro Blog Network. See that post for photo galleries missing above: https://wp.me/p2SN82-h8

AiE in Madagascar III: Road to Ranomafana See previous post 1 and post 2 in this series, or related posts to this month-long trip…