#aa gotta see if i have money later this week

[aoibaratraveler]

UK Road Trip Week 5

Day 29:

Had a really easy morning and took our time leaving because we really wanted to savour having a bed and a room a bit longer before hitting the road again. Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t dreading getting back onto the road to continue our adventure, we just wanted to make sure we were fully charged up and ready to go. Before setting off we made sure to play with the host’s dogs some more. We stopped at Lidl for some snacks…that we really shouldn’t have bought in retrospect, we’ve been eating a lot of junk on this trip. We set off to Stirling from there. During the drive I noticed that I had a mosquito bite on my face, I had been so successful so far in avoiding those damn things but somehow it got my face and now I have a horribly itchy spot that looks like a pimple, it’s pretty annoying but oh well. We only really just quickly drove through Stirling which I thought wasn’t so bad, it was really crowded and raining, after all, we were able to get a good look at Stirling castle which was interesting. It was a very odd old looking castle. The walls were that of a regular castle but the actual building looks like an old manor of some sort. We drove straight to Loch Lomond after Stirling as per what we had originally planned but when we got there we realized that was kind of senseless and that it would make more sense to drive straight up to in Inverness so as to do the North Coast 500 road tour for the next 7 days and then just explore Loch Lomond on our way back down through Scotland. We drove through a pretty spectacular motorway on the A9 road to get up to Inverness which I recommend to anyone that wants to do a road tour of Scotland; such glorious sights, it was a stunning mountain and was very reminiscent of my home province of British Columbia, Canada. We were even lucky enough to see a rainbow going over the mountains. It made me wish that we could live in Scotland so that we could do this sort of drive on the regular. We chose to stop in a retail business park just outside of Inverness to relax and stretch our legs after having just done a 3.5-hour drive straight. Scotland really does seem much more laid back about things in general in comparison to England. For instance, if you’re in literally any place other than a big city in Scotland then pretty much every car park is free which is amazing when you want to just leave the car and go explore. We thought for sure that the car park at Loch Lomond National Park would cost money but nope, free. Another awesome thing about Scotland is that you can pitch up your tent almost anywhere in the wilderness as long as there are no cows or sheep around and not have to pay a thing. It can only be for a period of 2 or 3 days but that works just great for us since we won’t be in any one place for too long. There was a cinema in the retail business park showing any movie for £4.99 so since it was still only 8 and the movies were so cheap, we thought why not. We saw Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, which I recommend. Afterward, we drove to a lay by out near Loch Ness and parked up and pitched up with the rain coming down horribly.

Day 30:

Woke up to the bf wiping the windows, when you sleep in a car, a lot of condensation forms on the windows if you’ve had them closed all night. I had actually slept in till 9 which is unusual for having slept in the car. We had breakfast and organized the car and I decided to read the last couple of chapters of Harry Potter book 5 when suddenly the car made an alarming beeeeeep! The car battery had gone flat. We tried to flag a few cars down to help us jump-start the battery but then resigned to calling AA. The bf has a membership with them anyway but we figured it would take them a while to get there. While we waited for them to come we went down to the lakeside/lochside of Loch Ness to explore for a bit. It’s quite sad that Scotland has opened its country for people to camp anywhere they like and yet people still litter everywhere. On the lakeside/lochside we saw several littered disposable barbecues, a shopping bag, and a bucket. Well, we didn’t finish with the AA until about 1:30. From Loch Ness, we drove into Inverness to the tourist info centre to see if we could get a map of some sort. Once that was dealt with we began the drive of the North coast 500 but counter-clockwise, just because we felt that suited us more. There are so many small-town/villages along the route, it’s quite funny how small they are - we were able to drive-through some, in and out, in under a minute. We stopped at Dingwall and had some instant noodles for a late lunch. Through the course of this trip, I’ve gotten the bf to actually enjoy and crave instant noodles and afternoon tea (of course he still doesn’t like to drink tea). He used to always avoid noodles in a soup because he’s not much of a soup person but will now eat them with me so I feel quite happy about that. From Dingwall, we drove through Loch Fleet National nature reserve, past the gorgeous, tropical-looking beach of Embo by Carn Laith, a remnant of the iron age, and finally arrived in Helmsdale where we would pitch up at a high off lay by with a beautiful view of the sea for the night. We didn’t cover as much road as I thought we would but I feel pretty content with our 1st day of route 500 ….

Day 31:

Have you ever woken up randomly, early in the morning but then realized you were still really tired so you went back to sleep and told yourself that whatever you want to do can wait until later? That’s me every day recently but what’s unfortunate this time was when I woke up randomly I saw the sunrise peeking out through the window. I thought “Oh how pretty…I’m just gonna sleep in a bit more and watch it later”. Well, when I woke up later I realized what I had done and felt like crap especially since it was the last time we were going to be on the east coast and in such an opportune spot for a little while. That’s fine, I’ll make it my mission to wake up in a good spot for the sunrise soon enough, mark my words. Anyway, today we managed to cover a lot of ground although I didn’t feel like we did. That’s because although it’s a beautiful drive there are not many points of interest for us to stop at on the east side of the NC500. We left Helmsdale and drove to just outside of Lybster to a place called “Hill O’Many Stanes”, which is a historical landmark. Many hundreds or thousands of years ago, it is not for certain why but maybe 30 to 50 stones the size of footballs were planted on a Hill and dotted around in a circle. There are a few theories why like they were possibly put there as memorials of the dead. I don’t know what it is about the UK and their historical landmarks surrounding stones. First, there was Stonehenge in England, and now this and I’m sure there’s another landmark coming up on this trip to do with stones being erected on the ground. Actually, now that I think about it, there is a place similar to Stonehenge on the Isle of Portland, but it certainly isn’t as heavily regarded and I’m not sure if it has a name. After admiring these stones for a bit, we then parked up down the hill and made some coffee. We then drove to the Castle of Old Wick just outside of Wick, where we saw the spectacular view of a cliffside and a horrifyingly scary view of how far the sea was below and then we walked around and imagined what it would have been like back then for people to have built a castle on the edge of a cliff. From there, we drove to Duncansby Head and John O’Groats, the most northern tip of mainland UK. This is also a very small town but because of what it is known as it was very crowded with tourists from all over. It was pretty cool though because we could see some of the Orkney islands from there and to be honest, it looked mostly like it is farmland, barely inhabited. After a few obligatory photos, we set off to somewhere in between John O’Groats and Dunnet Bay, where we parked up at a nearby Tesco and had instant noodles for lunch while listening to the Abroad in Japan podcast. We then checked out Dunnet Bay, we fooled around a bit there, skipped stones in the water and just had a good time. I love beaches, especially deserted ones, they’re relaxing and even better when there is the view of mountains in the background. This was probably 1 of 3 beaches that we stopped throughout the day just to explore and walk around. I found a really pretty shell at one of them too. I think the other beaches we stopped at were Strathy Bay and Torrisdale Bay. From there we drove without stopping too long to Durness, where we parked up and made a sort of spaghetti soup for dinner. The drive there was - you know I’ve been saying it a lot, so from now on when I talk about something, you just gotta assume it’s pretty freakin awesome! We drove around lush valleys and lochs, it felt more like we were somewhere in Iceland or something. I honestly thoroughly recommend this drive to anyone and everyone to do in the future. This part of Scotland actually reminded me a lot of Canada as well,l which makes sense because an info sign along the route said that Scotland was its own island for a while and joined up with Wales and England about 430 million years ago but before then it is thought to have been a broken-off bit of land from North America! That’s definitely something. I’ll never forget this drive and I only hope some of the footage I have taken has captured even 10% of its beauty.

Day 32:

Soon after waking up and driving somewhere to freshen up, the bf and I both seemed to be craving chocolate and we were in luck because there happened to be a popular albeit expensive chocolate cafe nearby called “Cocoa Mountain”. The bf and I both ordered a large hot chocolate that was simply delectable and probably the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. We accompanied our drinks with two treats; a chocolate fudgy brownie and a cheese and spring onion tart that were also very good. Once we were done savouring that little treat, we went to the heavily populated with tourists Smoo Cave. We had visited caves in Wales but this cave was huge! It really had a mysterious vibe to it and even had a waterfall in it. It was very cool and well worth a visit again, I just wish there weren’t so many people. Apparently, on good weather, they do inner cave tours on a boat, but after so much rainfall, the waterfall and stream were too strong to venture further in. Later on, we drove to Oldshoremore beach. We stopped a lot along the way for photos though. The NC 500 is very scenic drive and I wouldn’t mind driving it again but next time it will be when we’re sure the weather will be good and if and when we have a camper van. All the beaches along the route were just so beautiful and I loved stopping at them. We walked for a bit along the water but I accidentally stepped too close and got my boots soaked. My Salomons are supposed to be waterproof but I put them in the washing machine once and I forgot why but that may have damaged the integrity of the waterproof material. Anyway, we went back to the car park to clean my boots and apply more waterproof spray and then made instant noodles for lunch. From there we drove to two more viewpoints called the Assynt and Drumbeg viewpoints. They were similar in that they both had a view of lochs, mountains, and the surrounding small islands, but the atmosphere at them was different from one another. We had overcast at one and sunny skies at the other so that could have been part of it, but it was also the quality of nature. One was more lush and green than the other but they were still just as breathtakingly sunning. My blog entries come out after I’ve posted photos of the places we’ve been to on Instagram, so please do give those a look. On the way to our final nature stop of the day, we chanced upon a herd of Highland cows that were just gorgeous and there were two that were just pleasantly sitting right next to each other so I had to grab a photo of that. They were so lovely. Afterward, we drove to Clashnessie Falls which was a magnificently big waterfall, but because it had been raining in that area, the river leading up to it had overflowed its banks which made the path to it muddy and hard to walk in and since my boots were still drying I was walking in my sandals. We figured it was for the best to just admire it from afar, although it would have been an amazing shot up close. We ended the day by stopping in Ullapool where we would grab some reduced dinner from Tesco’s (wasn’t the best idea) and pitching up just outside of the town for the night.

Day 33:

Today we had a load of gorgeous and scenic stops and the weather was on our side for most of the day, yay! We started off our day by taking in the sights of the Loch Broom which the town of Ullapool was situated next to. It was a great way to start the day because you had the sun shining brightly and all these gorgeous mountains in the background. From Ullapool, we began the penultimate leg of the route. This route will probably take us 6 days although online they say it should take you anywhere from 7 to 10 days if you really want to explore and do a bunch of hikes and stay longer in some places. Some people even think doing it in 12 to 14 days is better, if you have the money and time to do all the islands off the mainland as optional detours of the route, but we neither have the time money nor the transport (this route would have been way better with a camper van or RV, but we only decided to do it last minute while doing our main road trip. As I said before, we had many stops today and took so many photos on our way to Kyle of Lochalsh, where we would be ending today’s leg. I can say for certain that this portion of the route is absolutely the most scenic but I probably also feel that way because it was sunny most of the day, albeit cold (too cold for August if you ask me, but we are up north). First, we stopped at the Corrieshalloch Gorge and national nature reserve. There was a very cool suspension bridge there, but the gorge was indeed pretty far down so my fear of heights was activated a bit. There we also had a view of lovely, big waterfalls called the Falls of Measach. I’m surprised at the number of tourist areas that are free, well actually pretty much all of the spots along this route have been free whereas in Vancouver you can be sure that you’d be charged an arm and a leg to enter them. After seeing the falls, we made some coffee and then set off. I felt like every couple of minutes we were stopping and getting out of the car. To be honest I felt a twinge of annoyance about it but couldn’t really complain because there were just that many gorgeous and breathtaking sights to behold whether it was the lochs or the mountains. I don’t know what to tell you. If you haven’t got time to do the whole 5 to 7 days of the route than just spare one day to drive the stretch from Ullapool the Kyle of Lochalsh and you won’t regret it. Especially on a sunny day. Of course, you’d need to get up to a Ullapool first… but seriously we stopped so many times that I’m not even sure where exactly we stopped because the whole stretch made our jaws drop. I mean the days leading up to today we also saw a lot of amazing sights on the NC500 so I’m not selling those short by any means but I guess even though the rain did give those views a cool atmosphere, I didn’t enjoy them as much I enjoyed the views today because we had the luck of having the sun on our side. After the gorge, the plan was to stop at Ardessie Falls, Mellon Udrigle, Fire more beach, Gairloch then Redpoint and then Sheildag and Torridon and finally end off in Kyle of Lochalsh because those were the tour suggestions that I found online but for the most part we made our own stops along the route and it was awesome. I mean we did drive-through most of them. We made a detour through Torridon village, then stopped at a viewpoint in Shieldag and had lunch but finally, after a very eventful day at so many sites we got dinner in Kyle of Lochalsh and found a lay by to pitch up for the night.

Day 34:

Today didn’t really go as planned. Overall this trip has had a bunch of highlights and I’m so thankful to the BF to have been able to do this. I’m also thankful to his friend T, and my friend V, for being able to make this trip great. This trip isn’t over yet with 10 more days to go, but it’s just a shame that ever since we left the South coast of England our days have been heavily influenced by the rain. Today is one of those days. It still turned out alright though and the bf and I had a laugh. So originally the plan was for us to take a detour from the NC500 and spend the day in the Isle of Skye. I had been really looking forward to this as I had heard many good things. But from the moment we woke up the winds were so strong and the sky was heavy with overcast. Very foreboding. Actually, it made me wish I was back in Cambridge, at home, enjoying the sunny weather. Nevertheless, we drove across the long bridge from Kyle of Lochalsh to the Isle of Skye and what awaited us there were torrential rain and heavy winds. Our first stop was supposed to be a place called “The Storr”. Which is a 674 m tall landslip with a rocky face on one side and a grassy slope on the other, it was supposed to be a very dramatic sight, but because of the low cloud and rain, you couldn’t see a thing. Didn’t stop a bunch of tourists from getting out and trying to take photos, but we carried on since we didn’t think it seemed worth getting wet for. After that, we drove by another tourist stop that I hadn’t accounted for, at a waterfall called Kealt Falls. We thought about carrying on but the bf though the weather might add some drama to the falls. Since I was the only one with boots on and what I thought was a decent rain jacket (it’s old and worn), I went off on my own to see if it was worth both of us getting out for. Big mistake. The rain and winds were cruel and it felt like I was being blown away. The view was pretty but not really worth getting thoroughly soaked for. I went back to the car and I was shivering and had a headache from the cold winds. I am glad I tried though because now I know that I don’t want to be out in that weather. We spent the rest of the day in the car which wasn’t so great for our legs. They were both swollen and achy by the end of it. At least I learned from this experience that I need a new rain jacket and should definitely buy some waterproof trousers. We didn’t stop anywhere else in Skye unfortunately so I would like to think I would go back one day. We drove to the northernmost part of the island and then all the way back down to Kyle of Lochalsh while enjoying the views of the dramatic weather over the dramatic mountains. On the drive back down to Kyle, we saw two beautifully pronounced rainbows that were really quite the sight. Once back, we got Chinese takeaway and then agreed to leave early and drive to the next village of Strathcarron and stay there for the night. Except that didn’t happen. The bf and I were so into our conversation about tons of random crap that I hadn’t been paying attention to the map and he missed the turnoff on the road. We were so deep in conversation and that an hour had passed and neither of us noticed! The drive was only supposed to take 30 minutes, I thought it felt like a long 30 minutes….xD we weren’t even at the end of the NC 500 route anymore. He had taken a southbound road that would still get us back to Inverness, but on a completely different route. It so wasn’t so bad though, we were essentially driving through Woodland forests that took us along the other side of Loch Ness that we were originally on before we started the NC500 route. This side had all the Loch Ness monster tourist stuff; I was wondering where they all were! Eventually, we got back to the same retail business park we had begun this mini-adventure, and then the bf got out to stretch his legs while I stayed inside to keep warm and write. By the time we found a layby we were both exhausted and ready to call it a day.

Day 35:

Had a day off from traveling today. We both needed it and our legs were swollen from spending all day the day before sitting in the car so we spent some time aimlessly walking through Inverness and playing pokemon go.

[amilliontinywraiths]

to the walnut people’s garden.

Blog,

Im starting my post in the way my friend Joshua does, as a letter to a digital realm of writing / reading / whatever u want to say about the cybernetic makeup on the tumblrverse. Mostly, I didn’t know how to start. Insert the meme format, every day I open Microsoft word and write absolutely nothing. Its paralyzing – to have some aspect of my identity wrapped up in “writing,” to be a “writer,” but to really exist as such in bursts. Every few months I’ll write something and lay it to rest in my hard drive, go back to living as a sentient being trying to scrape by eleven dollars an hour.

Its getting colder – the wind knocked over some plants outside, I opened the window and immediately closed it. Im worried about the lettuce dying from the frost. Im doing some reflection because there’s nothing else to do. Im googling depression lamps and silly tips to quit smoking and “psychiatric evaluations for cheap.”

My sister is in town and was asking me about my move, the semi-chaotic summer I lived when plans A and B fell through and my ass tumbled back to my hometown. Its depressing if I read too far into it, coming back to a place I swore I never would, being proof that “you always come back home” (because home is a vapid suburb). She had come to the garden last night, to see the space that picked me up and saved the move, to meet the people that have made this city feel like something new and worth appreciating, and not an exemplar of postgraduate failures. I think the garden might be the only thing that kept me in my hometown, feeling ashamed that I hadnt made it anywhere but here.

Let me explain myself. Im a little sick of the ‘2020 was a bad year [insert sad face]’ discourse, but it was a fucking bad year. So was 2019 and every year dating back to industrialization and colonial exploration, but im getting sidetracked. The year started with a silly (actually devastating and heartbreaking) breakup and months of depression. Of going to aa and spilling my sorrows to a group of gay 50-somethings who hugged me like I wasn’t a lost case. Of later fearing my loved ones, as if they were virus-carrying rascals, or worse, that I was and would infect and kill them all. Of having my visa cancelled but still needing to leave Chicago – fueling myself with the potentially false and certainly romantic idea that running away from ur friends and problems will fix it all. Im lamenting.

What im saying is im as surprised as you are at the success of kc. At the community and love ive found here, all cooked up in the garden squat. The day I met syd and cass and felt really shocked at the ease of meeting the anarchist poets, as if they were just waiting for me. when syd invited me to the garden one night and it all made sense – to take back the land and grow sunflowers. I wont go too far into my gaden-becoming (lol). As it will potentially be ripped away from us by landlord bastards in this next month, I need to solidify some reflections. To poorly paraphrase Audre lorde, you gotta write it down so you don’t forget how you felt. How you thought. Maybe in five years the garden will be flourishing. Or we will be sitting at the track tagging ‘fuck fascism’ as we approach our thirties. Or both.

The endless garden bonfires. Indistinguishable from the next. All the bonfires and cookouts melding into each other. The 200 Hams that showed up one night, maybe 180? The joy of collective drunkenness, peeing behind the shed, grabbing another beer on your way back. We began having movie nights. Thank god cadence brought all of the anime, secretly hoping nobody could possibly want to watch Edward Scissorhands. geeking with syd about poets. Spreading mulch at our first work day, gossiping about sean bonney and wendy Trevino with amalia, the excitement that someone else gave a shit about obscure poets. Later making a book club for just that. picking up two trunkloads of bricks from a gentrifying couple in the northeast, how they wanted to rid their property of the old chimney and practically begged me to take more. Making a path later with neve, I think, and being nervous about becoming friends with everyone. Having met so many people in such a short time. Planning to camp at the garden together, and instead, going to an impromptu occupation. The absolute failure of it all, when the occupiers began to police each other. ‘A world without police’ my ass. The walnut people’s garden tent we squeezed into. Playing ‘never have I ever’ with other twenty-somethings, realizing that the game is only spicy when nefarious activities are taboo—and they’re not taboo to us. Almost winning several games of chess in several different tents, though I think I always lost. That time when Syd’s birthday, when their literal hoard of friends came and went and I watched them from one of the garden beds. That art students look like art students everywhere I’ve been. I think I was talking to cass, about something, poetry maybe, at the garden bed. we were avoiding the group dynamic, that specific stomach feeling that arises when you don’t know anybody. The outdoor space fostering some normalcy, people being able to come and go and celebrate years around the sun. afterwards we went to jail support, a reminder that nothing is normal. “the new normal.” I had just dug up my own garden bed, which if I made decisions financially, was a huge money drain. But it taught me how to grow lettuces and how not to grow cauliflowers. I kept a journal with garden notes, which vegetables liked each other. I left it at the garden one night and it was rained on, completely disintegrated. A sweet first kiss on the garden bench, later, the garden bench showing up in a flash sheet that we’ll all choose tattoos from. the subsequent meme. the continual talk of memes fueled by @dante. A massive group tattoo session. The slew of items always left at the garden after a night of drinking. My debit card, my jacket, somehow always sydney’s backpack. Cullen always finding the objects since he was up earlier than us all. Later, dante’s birthday when I walked from the garden to sade’s apartment, which had a living room—quite literally—filled with only couches. Feeling warm and included, invited to something. Discovering sade is best friends with sue, who lives with Vivian. Facetiming Vivian from the garden, facetiming Vivian from the backyard. Feeling so lonely for so long, and then, suddenly pulled into this weird collective embrace. Pulling up to the the garden and freddy howling. Laying with freddy on the couch. The celebration of life erin and Cullen threw for freddy, when miranda made him this foul-looking peanut butter cake and someone took a bite of it. stealing a thousand cigarettes from bobby or kim or anyone who pulled out a pack near me. meeting syd dante and sade at the garden to break into an apartment complex’s pool. But residents were having a pool party with a vague america theme and we felt out-of-place. When we were driving home from the pool and dante spotted a note on the garden sign, our formal eviction notice. How hard it is to meet common ground with landowners, as a group of ppl who don’t believe in that shit. My dad telling me to just ‘buy the land.’ Are you interested in paying rent? The neighborhood association meeting, the landlords pushing for increased value moving into the neighborhood. Us leaving when the meeting proved too boring, typical leftists unable to sit through bureaucratic garbage. Send someone in our place. The giant saw that looked like an oil rig. How I was disappointed in my own passivity in the situation, letting them reverse screwdrive our land! How sometimes you make concessions for the big picture, but then you feel like a fraud in the moment. How maybe that is just an excuse. Cullen eating a grasshopper, suddenly everyone eating grasshoppers. A grasshopper loose in quicktrip, we considered asking to take it home with us. When we painted the sign and we didn’t like the proposed name, so we made up another one, which was admittedly not very anarchist of us. No collective decision making. The sign was later repainted after a meeting and it looked so much better. The meeting showing that we could fight and come to collective decisions and maybe we’d make it through the eviction. The eviction coming in two weeks, the plans for occupation. A slumber party with demands. A giant slingshot to launch discarded objects at construction trucks. A trebuchet. Maybe we’ll make it through the eviction.

To the walnut people’s garden. 

[auideas]

Ask the Admins 9.0

anon asked: So was AtA skipped on purpose or accident?

HA (by accident but don’t tell anyone).

anon asked: Is ask the admins replacing the quotes for today?

We will be doing all the things today - hold tight for some quotes later!

anon asked: Before I forget, are you going to change the MASTERLIST OF TAGS to have the assistant admins on there too (since you have yourselves and the previous admins)?

Yup! We’re still in the process of updating the blog to accommodate for the additional admins. We’re hoping to be finished in the next week or so.

anon asked: Don't watch "A Dog's Purpose"!! Unless you're okay with a terrified dog being forced/pushed into rushing water just to film a scene when a CGI would have sufficed.

Chamomile: eyerooooooll

M: God dangit.

Syren: Yooo I saw that video! I actually discussed it in a round at my last speech meet. It's sick, they won't be getting my support.

Jynn: See: Admin Chamomiles response. In any case I am too Tired(TM) to get into all that and too broke to see any movie in theaters anyways.

Vox: Man, I know I trusted Rotten Tomatoes for a reason.

anon asked: I recently started a fandom specific prompt blog and I have no idea how to get it out there?? I'm tagging all the posts but I don't think anyone's seen them. XD what do I do? Thanks in advance!

Chamomile: okay so what you need to do is get a really popular post to blow up, then let people find the blog. It takes a lot of grinding and luck, but don’t give up!

M: Yup that happened with us here; we had a couple posts that got wildly popular, and people have been finding the blog ever since (namely that one Never Book quote everyone loves so much). Some advice I’d give is to be consistent, be involved in the writing community, and don’t give up - this stuff takes a chunk out of your life, but we love helping you all out!

anon asked: WOULD YOU RATHER: get paid a penny to talk about what you're thinking of, or pay two pennies to say your opinions? -- penny for your thoughts vs put my two cents in

Chamomile: I’ll take the single penny.

M: I’ll be the person who listens to two people then gives those people their pennies back so I can tell them what I think of their thoughts. Poor man’s capitalism.

Syren: I'd probs just say what I want to say, no money involved. Unless they needed it.

Jynn: One cent, I need the cash.

Vox: As a business major I need to say penny for your thoughts. (As resident busybody and IRL mom friend….)

anon asked: Which would you (admins and assistants) rather be? A king/queen, lord/lady, duke/duchess, emperor/empress, or pharaoh?             

Chamomile: I answered this in another ask and said I wanted to be a Queen but...make me a Lord instead.

M: I’d be good with anything, but I feel like being the legitimate King would be far too much pressure - I’m going to go with Prince, Duke, or Lord.

Syren: Make me an empress, I'll be the coolest one since Kuzco.

Jynn: Hmmm whichever one has the lowest responsibility to money ratio. I have zero experience doing any of those things but I like being rich.

Vox: I’d say pharaoh, but like... old timey era sort of pharaoh. 10/10 would gladly deal with Egyptian heat to lazily lounge around while half-naked people cater to my whims.

anon asked: PlayStation or XBox?

Chamomile: XBOX

M: I gotta say Playstation only because I grew up with a Playstation 2, not an Xbox :b

Syren: Xbox, cause I've never played a PS woops

Jynn: I don’t play video games but I wouldn’t pass up a good ol PS2.

Vox: PS all the way.

anon asked: reason(s) for chosen usenames? (e.g. is it your favorite type of tea? is it your favorite letter?)

Chamomile: It’s a super cryptic homestuck reference that literally 0.2% of the fans would recognize.

M: Lol my name is Em y’all

Syren: My real name is Camryn, and I think Syren sounds like Siren- one of my favorite mythical creatures

Jynn: It’s part of my regular screen name which is JynniSlorg. A mishmash of stuff I can’t even remember but that must have made some semblance of sense back when I was 14.

Vox:  It’s when you typerventilate but with a latin twist. Even though ‘vox’ technically means voice. Typervoxilations sounds a lot cooler than typerecfuntilations. (Especially when you’re immature and read things quickly like me and typerecfuntilations starts to look like ‘erectile dysfunction’).

anon asked: Do yo know where this is from: "Rabbits die of loneliness, you know!" [This quotes means a lot to me]

Chamomile: No idea, but I have an unknown quote too! “Rain on a sunny day means a fox’s wedding”.

M: It reminds me of the Velveteen Rabbit, but I’m not really sure!

Syren: My first guess would be ‘Of Mice and Men’ by Steinbeck, but I don't think that's how the quote in that book goes…

Jynn: No but it’s probably either classic literature or anime.

Vox: When I see ‘rabbits’ I automatically think Zootopia, but I’ve never seen so I have no clue!

anon asked: Hey, if we start trying to ship the aa with the admins, can we call M and Vox "Pixilation"?

M: Pftttt for sure - the more ships, the merrier!

Vox: (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ WHAT A CUTE SHIP NAME, I’M HONORED FRIEND.

anon asked: Without looking it up, do you know what this is from?: "I'm a bad dream. I'm a rad scene. I'm a tad mean. But I'm not afraid to take you out."       

Chamomile: Is this a Franz Ferdinanz song?

M: Eyyyyyy that’s RWBY - found it on YouTube a while ago and I was pleasantly surprised

Syren: No clue. And I think Chamomile’s thinking of the song ‘Take *Me* Out’ ;)

Jynn: RWBY right? I’m p sure it’s a Jeff Williams song.

Vox: Nope! (❁´◡`❁)

anon asked: Have you ever written a character with a physical disability? If yes, what was the hardest thing about writing the character?            

Chamomile: Yep! Prosthetics, wheelchairs, and canes on multiple occasions. Hearing aids a handful of times, and a whole lot of glasses. I guess the hardest thing is just adjusting to a new character’s quirks? Changing how a character gestures and responds to other characters.

M: Yes I have, and it was difficult to do, but I wrote about someone I know who has cerebral palsy, and because I know them so well, I understand their daily struggle and can write about it fairly well. I think the most difficult part was acknowledging that I don’t really know everything about the disability and had to do a lot of research before taking it from their point of view.

Syren: I'm actually writing a character right now that has Chiari Malformation and Syringomyelia, cause I have them and never hear about anyone else having them (even though they're kinda common), so I thought it'd be interesting! Hardest thing is probably fitting my symptoms into another person.

Jynn: Yep! I don’t know if I’d say hardest but I always try to do a lot of research into how certain things will affect the small everyday parts of life. My brother and his friends have really helped me become better at that since they’re most all amputees and I have quite a few amputee characters. It’s just v important to look at real life people to see the details people could miss about how certain things affect people's lives.

Vox: Of course! I wrote for Bucky Barnes once, and to be fair, the work was more focused on the mental more than the physical, but there was a fair amount of how much of what Hydra did to him (especially the metal bits), and I had a character once who was completely blind. The hardest part of writing it was the fact that I’ve never been in the shoes of either but I have to find a way to, especially with the kind of writing I do.

anon asked: Do you have any AU’s that you’ve always wanted to post but never have?

Chamomile: Sooooo many. I wanted to do an AU where Character A is an immortal who has to “trade” a part of themself every time they come back to life (ex: in one regeneration they don’t have their right arm, in another regeneration they have both arms but no voice, etc.)

M: I have a lot of 3 a.m. AU’s that never actually make it into the drafts and just sit in my notes for a while - one of the more infamous ones that has been in the drafts for months now is the truffle mushroom one. I’ll say no more.

Syren: I haven't given up on any of my au ideas yet, but I've definitely got quite the list of one's to write.

Jynn: Hmmm I don’t have any in mind that I don’t plan to post in the future.

Vox: See: AA C-Ryn. Every now and then I go back to tweak em but eventually, they’ll be beautiful potatoes I can dig out of my google docs and present to the world.

[junker-town]

Willie Taggart’s ready to find out what happens after your dream comes true

How Taggart went from being ‘the third Harbaugh’ to landing the job he always wanted.

On Thanksgiving morning, 2016, then South Florida head coach Willie Taggart sat behind his desk in the dark, staring at cut-ups — video clips of particular plays — of Central Florida’s defense on a big TV, twirling the remote in his hand.

Occasionally one of a number of cell phones on his desk would brighten. South Florida was one game away from a 10-win season that would vault Taggart into the national conversation as A Coach On The Rise. Two weeks later, he’d accept an offer from Oregon.

Taggart’s life was changing one ping at a time on those phones, but he never looked like his attention was away from the UCF tape. This was, and is, behavior typical of a man who’s built a career by looking exceedingly relaxed in highly stressful situations. Taggart created his shell of ineffable cool to subconsciously reassure 19-year-olds who are easily spooked.

“Players see everything,” Taggart said to SB Nation this summer. “They act like they aren’t paying attention, but they see everything.”

I sat across from Taggart in total silence, trying to act like I saw the same thing he did in UCF’s formations. Eventually I gave up and started scrolling through Twitter on my phone. That broke his silence.

“They say anything about Jimbo?” he asked, still clicking through cut-ups.

Jimbo Fisher, then Florida State head coach, was in that moment considered to be neck and neck with Tom Herman, then Houston head coach, for the LSU job. (Ed Orgeron would end up taking the job 24 hours later.)

I asked him why he cared.

“Florida State. Hooooo, man,” he started smiling. “That’s it. That’s the dream job.”

He paused for a beat.

“All I’ve ever wanted.” He said it in such a genuine way, with no apparent ulterior motive. It was (and is) strange to hear a coach talk like that.

“I’m pretty sure LSU is going with Tom Herman,” I told him.

He clicked through another play.

“Florida. State ...,” he said, still staring at the TV.

A dream job — a legitimate dream job, not the frequent Todd Graham-style political appropriation of the term — is probably too naive a concept for most football coaches to hold with much conviction. Sure, there’re destination gigs and big paychecks. But a real dream job? The business is too aggressive, the expectations too ridiculous, for anyone to earnestly admit they really want to coach one particular team because of the same emotional connections we rank-and-file fans hold.

Yet new FSU head coach Willie Taggart has won the hearts of his constituency by putting his on his sleeve since his hiring in December.

On paper, Taggart’s path to the job makes little sense. He’s replacing a national title winner at one of the best jobs in the sport after just one 7-6 season at Oregon, his first as a Power 5 conference head coach.

But he’s a fierce recruiter and current purveyor of the Gulf Coast offense, renamed “Lethal Simplicity” for Tallahassee, and his perks — not to mention his uncanny fit with FSU’s culture — are all absent from his win-loss total.

He’s Floridian, to the bone, and as a black man and former high school football star, he’s also a mirror to the majority of his roster. Demarcus Christmas is a senior defensive tackle who played for Taggart’s alma mater of Manatee in Bradenton, 25 years after Taggart did.

“Now I have a great opportunity, really,” Christmas said. “Him coaching me and us being from the some place, this can show people back home that they can make it and they can do great things. I’m not looking into becoming a coach, but his success shows how much you can achieve, not just in a football perspective.”

Taggart’s also a Florida State fan. A fan, full stop. He’s not “an admirer of their tradition” or “respectful of their success” like another coach might be, but an actual posters-on-the-wall, cheering on Saturdays fan by birth. His family tailgated in the parking lot of spring games, barbecuing alongside regular-season ticket holders. When he was head coach at South Florida and the Bulls played FSU, his own brother refused to change out of FSU gear for the game.

That means the real fans don’t scare him. When you’re a member of the same congregation, no behavior is really that weird if it’s an expression of a shared faith.

“I was driving around Tallahassee one day this summer, and I’ve got tinted windows. You can’t see in. This guy is out in the street and starts going [Taggart waves frantically], just crazy. And I pull over. I think something’s wrong, like he needs help,” Taggart said. “I roll the window down and he starts yelling, ‘COACH! COACH! WELCOME TO TALLAHASSEE! BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE BEHIND NO TINT IN TALLAHASSEE, COACH!’

“That was it. And I was like … ’you gotta be kidding me.’ But I was one of those fans growing up. I knew everything about Florida State football. I get it. How they feel, how he feels, that’s how I feel.”

Taggart’s climb to Florida State head coach started the day he left home to play quarterback at I-AA Western Kentucky for Jack Harbaugh — father to John and Jim, head coaches of the Baltimore Ravens and Michigan, respectively. Manatee High School quarterback Willie Taggart, 26-4 as a starter, loved FSU, but it was unrequited. No one in Florida recruited him to play college ball.

“No offers. I was just a skinny little dude,” he says. “That’s why I’m hard on [our players]. Little bit of envy! I tell em all the time, ‘I envy you guys. This is really special. And I need y’all to treat it that way.’”

Taggart won an I-AA national title as an option quarterback at Western Kentucky, but his playing career became an extension of a coaching apprenticeship in the Harbaugh family. Immediately after his eligibility ended, he joined Jack’s staff, eventually becoming offensive coordinator and assistant head coach before going to work at Stanford for Jim Harbaugh as running backs coach.

By the time he left Palo Alto in 2010 to come back to Bowling Green as head coach, Taggart was already considered another Harbaugh son, both in their family and the greater coaching community.

“I never could get to him in practice, he was so slippery,” former WKU linebacker and FSU director of player development Trae Hackett said. “But I knew you couldn’t really touch him. He had an uncanny ability to avoid getting hit as a quarterback. But you always knew, that was Willie Harbaugh.”

Hackett was a co-captain with Taggart and is one of three FSU staffers to work with Taggart through his entire coaching run.

WELCOME TO TALLAHASSEE! BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE BEHIND NO TINT IN TALLAHASSEE, COACH!

In far-flung Bowling Green, Kentucky (Taggart never left his home state until college), he stuck out immediately as distinctively Floridian.

“He was just like the Florida guys who would come in the program — laughing and smiling all the time. And then it’s all about the competitiveness. It was always there, no matter what you were doing in practice, even just running. Everything was competitive and yet always fun. Always loose. But then when you look back now, you realize [that attitude] is a wise choice,” Hackett said.

In the wake of Jimbo Fisher’s messy divorce from FSU, Taggart’s lifelong affection for his new employer is more than just charming; it’s tactical messaging. It’s rebranding.

Entering 2017, Fisher, Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, and Dabo Swinney were the only four coaches with national championship wins at their current jobs. But unlike healthier push-and-pull relationships between those other championship coaches and their donor bases, Fisher and FSU boosters soured on each other’s vision.

Not long after Fisher won Florida State a national championship in 2013 — all that fans could ask for, and the best bargaining chip the coach could use to rally money to his projects — his name surfaced as the leading candidate for jobs at other Power 5 schools.

Fisher came with constant demands for expensive improvements he wanted commitments to as quickly as possible*. But at Florida State, boosters are organized in a LLC independent of the athletic department, and thus exists a power dynamic unlike that of other major athletic programs.

“What’s interesting is that if you donate to Florida State boosters, it’s not guaranteed that your money is going into football. They really pride themselves on their dedication to Olympic sports,” Florida State booster and alumnus Robin Alston said.

Also, there just wasn’t that much money. Comparatively, at least.

If you’re younger than 40 you probably think of Florida State as a football powerhouse equal to an Ohio State or Alabama or USC. And on the field they are, but the history of the school still puts them in a sort of debt relative to other football powerhouses.

Florida State was a small women’s college until the G.I. Bill forced the state to enroll men after World War 2. Football didn’t begin until 1947. It wasn’t nationally relevant until Bobby Bowden’s arrival in 1976. So while the ‘Noles would become two-time national champions and redefine FSU as a modern force in the sport from the 1980s through now, the massive endowments built by other major universities didn’t exist at a formerly tiny teacher’s college in the panhandle. To pick a not-so-random example, Texas A&M had an $11 billion endowment as of 2018, compared to Florida State’s $700 million.

The friction over money and Fisher’s constant teasing with the job market boiled over when quarterback Deandre Francois was injured against Alabama in last season’s opener. The ‘Noles flopped from national title contention, culminating in a 35-3 loss at Boston College to push them to 3-5. When Fisher’s name surfaced in the job market again weeks later, this time at A&M, a growing number of influencers around FSU shrugged. He left a $5.5 million salary guaranteed through seven more seasons in Tallahassee for Texas A&M’s staggering all-guaranteed $75 million offer.

“Only in America. Only in America you get promoted from going 5-6 to a $75 million job,” former Florida State board of trustees member Leslie Pantin said.

* One night before FSU’s 2018 began, the Noles announced Taggart’s donating $1 million of his own toward facilities.

Shortly after becoming FSU athletic director during the 2013 national title season, Stan Wilcox had prepped to make a coaching hire — only the third in modern program history — each time Fisher’s name was floated for another job.

The former Notre Dame basketball player and legal analyst in New York City had navigated a lengthy enough path between the executive (jobs at the NCAA and Big East Conference) and school levels (Notre Dame, Duke) to build a Rolodex deep enough not only to debunk rumors, but also keep a fresh short list of potential head football coaches.

“There were always rumors,” Wilcox said. “The thing that as an athletic director, as big as collegiate athletics is, it’s a small world. I always knew enough people at places to find out whether or not [a rumor] was true. Because a lot of time it’s just rumors started by outside individuals.”

Though he’d heard that Taggart had a soft spot for Florida State.

“You’ve got to play the ‘What if’ game. You try to always survey the landscape as to who is out there, and who is hot, just knowing what the coaching landscape looks like at the moment.”

Glenn Beil-USA TODAY Sports

Willie Taggart, left, is welcomed by athletic director Stan Wilcox

Except Willie Taggart wasn’t really out there at that moment. Just as FSU had grown accustomed to Fisher’s name floating around every December, so too had Taggart. He’d moved on from his dream job for the time being and was settled in at Oregon, finishing an injury-plagued 7-6 first season after restocking the Ducks’ recruiting with a heavy dose of Sunshine State prospects.

Taggart knew that bolting on Oregon — and almost as importantly Nike founder Phil Knight — would be a blow to his perception in coaching circles.

“I’ve always believed I’d get to Florida State, but I definitely didn’t believe it would happen so quick, that it would happen the time that it did. We had a great thing going at Oregon. We knew right after we got there it would take a lot to get us out of there. And there was only one job that would do it [after one season],” Taggart said.

As he privately turned down approaches from SEC programs, Taggart made it quietly known in November that if FSU actually opened, he wanted a shot. His fandom for FSU was known in a few circles, but it still caught Wilcox a bit off guard.

Late in the vetting process to replace Fisher, Wilcox called a current assistant athletic director who had worked with Taggart earlier in his career for a character reference.

“She was telling me how he was the best coach she’d ever worked with, then she said this, and it stuck with me: ‘Stan, you know that’s his dream job, don’t you?’ I said, ‘No, I didn’t.’ She said, ‘Yeah, he was always talking when we were here, about how one day he wanted the Florida State job.’ I said, ‘Well thanks, you may have just helped me make a decision.’”

“I didn’t tell her this, but it also helped with negotiations because I also knew it was his dream job,” Wilcox said, laughing.

But long before Taggart was savvy enough to sell a vision of his program’s culture and the Gulf Coast Offense to people as influential and intimidating as Phil Knight, he was just a rank-and-file assistant coach with a dream and no plan, which nearly blew up his head coaching career before it started.

Western Kentucky was Taggart’s first head coaching job in 2010, but his second shot at the gig. When Jack Harbaugh hand picked Taggart to succeed him following his retirement from WKU in 2002, the young assistant imploded during the interview.

“I wouldn’t have hired me. I wasn’t prepared, that was the biggest problem. I didn’t know how to answer questions about what I would do in all these different circumstances you have to prepare for as a head coach,” Taggart said.

Jack Harbaugh had pushed for Taggart to be interviewed. WKU agreed, but by the time it was over Jack’s protege “third son” felt like he’d failed his old coach.

“For one, I was 25. I wasn’t ready to be a head coach. I’d always figured one day I’d be a head coach but I didn’t think anyone would look at me then. That’s when I started doing the academies,” Taggart said.

Taggart signed up for every offseason coaching academy and seminar he could. This circuit is where aspiring head coaches get crash courses on everything from staff management to speaking skills, basically anything that isn’t pure football. During that time he decided how he’d eventually utilize the often double-edged Rooney Rule, an NFL policy adopted in 2003 that mandates teams interview minority candidates for head coaching and particular front office positions.

There is no official version of the Rooney Rule in the decentralized legislation of college football. Certain states, such as Oregon, have laws for minority interview mandates for any public position, including college football coaches. Some major programs have made a good faith effort to bring in minority candidates for head coaching openings. Other programs have made sure to leak the name of minority candidates to the media to satisfy public criticism of the sport’s lily white head coaching landscape (12 of 130 FBS head coaches are African-American; only seven of those hold Power 5 jobs).

As a young assistant coach, Taggart was sitting in the audience of a minority coaches academy when future Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel spoke about the expanding job market.

“He said, ‘I hear excuses about minority coaches not getting chances to become head coaches. That’s not true. Coaches are getting opportunities, they’re just not doing a good job in those interviews. You’re losing these jobs in the interviews.’ That stuck with me. It stuck with me because I had lost that exact way. For Ward to say that three or four years later, for him to say that, he was talking specifically to me.”

Taggart acknowledges an awareness among his peers that schools commonly bring in minority coaches merely as a box to be checked, with no intention of actually considering them for the job.

To this point in his career Taggart has embraced an extreme — arguably naive — optimism about being brought in for job interviews, even if it is just to check a box. He believes an interview is an interview is an interview. Regardless of the subtext or the politics or the numbers. If you’re the token, if you’re the PR move, it doesn’t matter.

Or rather: “Just get in the room,” as he says to other black coaches.

“You can’t buy in to that [feeling that you’re just there to check a box]. It becomes a weakness, and then it’s a crutch for you to explain why you aren’t where you want to be. You can’t buy into people saying ‘It’s just a Rooney Rule interview.’ By the time I heard that when I was headed out to interview with Oregon, I was like ‘Psssh, bring me in for the Rooney Rule. Great. Now I’m gonna change your mind.’ That was my mentality. ‘Sure, Rooney Rule me, great, bring me in.’ That’s what the Rooney Rule is made for, I think. Get me in, then it’s up to me to change your mind.”

Melina Myers-USA TODAY Sports

Wilcox, an African-American athletic director, served on the board of the Black Coaches Association for 11 years, two as president. On Aug. 20, Wilcox was named the NCAA’s new executive vice president for regulatory affairs, ending a five-year run in Tallahassee. Taggart’s hire will almost certainly persist as his defining legacy at FSU, good or bad. That Florida State has a black head coach is an achievement, that he was hired by a black AD holds a connotation Wilcox says he shut out during the process.

“I don’t know how to put it other than you kind of know that, but if you dwell on that you can put yourself in a position where you might not make the right decisions. I was just lucky, because in the position I’m in right now I’ve got to be successful to help others who are minorities to be in my position,” Wilcox says.

“I’ve got to find a successful coach who’s able to come here and win. I have to make sure what I’m doing is right for Florida State. I was just very fortunate that this person, at this time, that was best for this job, just happened to be African-American.

“In our pool, we had minorities and non-minorities. Willie just out-shined the others. I hope the results can be similar to what happened when John Thompson won a national championship in basketball, that more minority candidates can be considered at the highest level. At the end of the day I will have come full circle with my career.”

Having coached at three schools in two years and with a record of 47-50, Taggart was recently named one of the most overrated head coaches in the FBS by his peers in an anonymous CBS Sports poll.

Curious FSU fans and critics alike have a tough time predicting his success, but the single season in Eugene, both in scheme and culture, is the best case study available. And while it’s not much, it’s been good enough for FSU players.

“What I saw on tape at Oregon convinced me to stay. That, and conversations with Coach Taggart. But I turned on the tape and that convinced me,” senior running back Jacques Patrick says.

Patrick could’ve gone pro after last season, but watching film on Taggart’s Duck offense convinced him a senior campaign could be statistically beneficial. Patrick also spoke with Oregon running back Royce Freeman, who, despite Taggart’s one-and-done exit, endorsed the spirit and attitude the staff had created in a short time.

That spirit and attitude is marked by a willingness to listen and trust his players. And, in one memorable instance, completely revamp his offense to fit what they wanted to do.

In 2015, Taggart was on the brink of losing his job at USF — the Bulls were 7-21 in his third season. Taggart had his team running the plodding, pro-style, two-tight-end smash he’d come to revere while working for Jim Harbaugh. It wasn’t working.

The players on the team wanted to run.

“The way we’d been playing in two-minute drills up until that point … it was like their play was screaming at me to make a change. It was ‘Coach, let us go,’ but also ‘Coach you let go, too.’ During that time I was still play-calling. We were better, but I wasn’t used to calling it fast. We were no huddle but I wasn’t really coaching it that way. I had to get faster calling plays and not looking out and calling the perfect play.”

With his job on the line, Taggart listened to his players: He threw out his offense, substituting in a fast, quick, and simple spread that mashed together a power run with Art Briles-era Baylor pass concepts in spread formations.

��That Syracuse game I did it and it was like ‘Holy … ‘ Plays that didn’t work before were clicking. They were having fun and not thinking and could just go. And when you have talented kids that can just go play football, that’s it. To me kids don’t get bad, they get confused. That’s why I go back to lethal simplicity. This is football, not geometry. Keep it simple.”

USF won the game, 45-24. A year later, Taggart took them to an 11-2 record and a win over South Carolina in a bowl game.

In his first offseason with FSU, Taggart is once again throwing out a meticulous and purposefully slow pro-style offense, this one the one the ‘Noles ran under Fisher. This year, FSU is going to move. The new look offense is going to go as fast as humanly possible, with the hopes that it will not only delight fans and boosters looking for something fresh but, more importantly, reinvigorate the current roster and appeal to Florida high school talent running the same style of offense. Oh, and win.

Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports

What Taggart couldn’t have known back in 2015 was that his willingness to listen to his USF roster and ultimately adapt — successfully — to their style would earn him instant credibility with a roster of FSU players he’d once tried to recruit to Tampa.

“We’d already talked to all those other players at USF as soon as we heard he was hired. We saw he showed he could coach but they told us he was real about how he cared about his players,” quarterback James Blackman said.

“I knew right away after talking to Coach I’d be here,” Patrick said. “It wasn’t so much what he said to me as it was how he said it. It was using words like ‘we,’ and the same way you and I are having a conversation right now, that’s how he spoke to me. It’s not like that with other coaches. There’s a lot of ‘I’ and ‘you.’”

Despite his four years in Tallahassee, Patrick met Bobby Bowden this offseason for the first time in his life. Bowden had receded from the program throughout the course of Fisher’s time. Taggart, ever the fan, sought the former coach out. In the summer he turned the documentary “The Bowden Dynasty” into a history class for the roster, supplemented by speeches from former FSU players from the 1980’s and 90’s.

Patrick said he still gets calls from recent Seminoles who are active NFL players.

“This helmet means a lot to a lot of people.”

Willie Taggart turned 42 on Monday. He was an 11-year-old boy in Bradenton, Florida, when Danny McManus under-threw a two-point conversion in the final seconds vs. Miami, ruining the Florida State’s chance at a perfect season. He was 13 when the ‘Noles whooped Nebraska in the Fiesta Bowl, 15 for Wide Right 1 and a senior quarterback at Manatee High in 1993 when Charlie Ward won the Heisman and 12-1 FSU won an outright national championship.

He knows all of this by heart, of course. Like a dad sharing his vinyl collection, Taggart’s now fixated on making sure that a bunch of players who were born long after learn the same moments and plays.

“We’ve challenged our guys to reach out to some of the great players who played their position. I think the more they understand the more they’ll give us, and the more pride they’ll take from it,” Taggart said.

“I always had to look at it from the outside. I knew then, and I know now you have to be special to play at Florida State.”

[kingsterracerp-blog]

Thank you for applying, SILVER. You have been accepted as RANDALL BUCKLEY. Just don’t forget to check out our CHECKLIST and send in your account within 24 HOURS. If you have any questions then let us know!

OUT OF CHARACTER.

NAME: Silver AGE: 19 TIMEZONE: GMT +2:00 ACTIVITY LEVEL: 7/10, I am generally online on mobile when I’m in class and on the computer at least four hours every day. Now, when exam time times, my activity goes down a bit but it still remains at least one hour and it’s only a few weeks out of the year - thankfully. PRONOUNS: they/them SHIPS: chemistry ANTI-SHIPS: no chemistry TRIGGERS: Removed. PASSWORD: Removed. ANYTHING ELSE: Removed.

IN CHARACTER.

DESIRED CHARACTER: Randall Cash Buckley, Jr. NICKNAMES: Rand, Randy, Junior AGE/BIRTH ORDER: 25, oldest FACECLAIM: Liam Hemsworth GENDER IDENTITY/PRONOUNS: male, he/him SEXUAL/ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Bisexual (closeted), biromantic (closeted) HOMETOWN: Goss, Mississippi OCCUPATION/EDUCATION: Carpenter and wood carver

(MORE) IN CHARACTER.

POSITIVES: handy, creative and trustworthy NEGATIVES: traditionalist, secretive and proud

@buckleyinboston: Nothing better than some Conway Twitty and a cold one. @buckleyinboston: Don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the northern accent. @buckleyinboston: At least I can still go fishing in this city. Buildings as a backdrop, but I guess we all gotta compromise.

BIOGRAPHY.

** TW COT DEATH, HOMOPHOBIA **

Randall Cash Buckley, Jr. was born on a hot August day in 1991 at his parents’ house in Goss, Mississippi. He was the first born and to this day, still annoys his twin sibling with that fact and the fact that he must have been loved more from the start, because he got their daddy’s first name.

The Buckley’s were dirt poor; they really were. His father helped out on the tree farms whenever he could for minimum wage and his mother worked at the local diner. It simply wasn’t enough to keep the family afloat. His parents were too proud to use food stamps, something young Randall couldn’t understand when they went to sleep hungry - again. He was never one to sit idly by, though and when he was seven, he asked his uncle to teach him how to fish after school. They went down to the river and when he was ten, he simply started to go alone. He had an old bike, a bike trailer he’d begged his other uncle to make him and some rope. That was enough to carry all his fishing supplies. After school, when he could, he went down there to fish and more often than not, he brought home fish for dinner. They weren’t the biggest fish and weren’t always that tasty but they weren’t hungry and in his family, that was rare.

His father got a job at a local lawnmower shop and because of the steady income, they finally managed to have some security. They still got by on a minimum and couldn’t even think of saving money, but at least the days of going to bed hungry and no electricity were behind them. His parents still worked long hours and aside from about an hour in the evening, Randall and his sibling were often left to fend for themselves. It made Randall feel lost and lonely, especially because he really didn’t have friends his own age. He was quite a shy child and always looked shabby in his hand me downs and dirty shoes. He really didn’t have anyone aside from his uncles to hang out with.

That changed when Randall was twelve. An elderly man named Billy moved to the town with his bloodhound, Ed. He took Randall under his wing and paid him a few dollars to do little jobs around the house, which Randall saved in case one day, he really needed them. Growing up the way he did, taught him not to waste his money on things such as candy and toys, which other children did do. The old man often carved wood as Randall was fixing and cleaning things around his house. Randall was simply fascinated by it. When Billy asked him if he wanted to learn how to do it, Randall happily said yes.

That is where Randall’s love for wood started. He first learned how to carve and later, the older man taught him how to make furniture as well as widow and door frames. Randall had never really known what would come of him as he wasn’t very good at school work nor at sports but this was something he was good at, working with his hands and using wood to make useful and beautiful things.

At 15, his life was turned upside down. A new boy moved to town to live with his aunt, after his parents had passed away. He was an African-American guy named Caleb and Randall felt things for him he had never felt before. They were fishing buddies at first, as they discovered they both liked to do that, but Caleb wasn’t just a friend. Once they were by the river side, they were more than friendly. Maybe even flirty. Randall couldn’t keep his eyes off the gorgeous other boy’s flawless dark skin, pearl white teeth and beautiful dark eyes. There were many nights when he couldn’t sleep and thought of Caleb in ways no man should, at least in the eyes of God and his parents. He felt ashamed and distanced himself from Caleb, he simply couldn’t be gay, not in this town. To this day, he regrets not kissing Caleb back when the guy tried to show him what Randall meant to him. He just pushed him away, wiped his mouth and called him a fag. The hurt he saw in his friends face broke his heart. He told the other guy that he was disgusting and walked back towards his bike. He cried until he reached town.

It took him months to emotionally recover from that and it was hard seeing Caleb now hanging out with another guy, named Marcus. They were found out to be gay and bullied by all neighborhood kids and even some adults. Randall didn’t stand up for his old friend, in fear of being grouped in with him and his boyfriend. He was disgusted with himself, not only for what he felt but because he was such a coward.

Randall met Dixie when he was sixteen and developed feelings for her. It was such a relief. This meant he wasn’t gay, that he was normal and that all would be okay. She was a beautiful girl with red hair and brown eyes. They were high school sweethearts and he didn’t have eyes for any girl other than her. When he was 18, he bought a ring with half of the money he’d saved up from working for Billy and proposed to her. She said yes and he had never been happier.

He started two years of vocational training to become a carpenter, which he finished at the top of his class. Two weeks after graduation, when he was a month shy of turning 21, they got married at the local Baptist church. He wore borrowed clothes, as did she but they didn’t mind. The clothes didn’t matter, their love did.

He got a job as an assistant carpenter in town and while it didn’t make too much money, it covered half the bills they had to pay at her parents’ house where they were living and they could save Dixie’s paycheck in full. She made quite a bit working as a secretary at a local business.

Ten months after their wedding, their little girl was born and they named her Magnolia Lou. She had red hair just like her mother. Randall felt pride he hadn’t felt before. He just strutted around town, telling anyone who wanted to hear (and even those who didn’t) that he was a father of the most beautiful little girl in the world.

He was a father for four months. Then he found his daughter with a blue face. Cot death, they told him. It wasn’t his fault, they said but that was his daughter, his little girl. It was his responsibility to keep her safe and he hadn’t. He had failed as a father and a man.

He was 24 when he got divorced from Dixie, another failure but one he knew that he had created himself. He was inconsolable and lashed out at Dixie over everything. When he went for the bottle to drown his sorrows, she decided that enough was enough and filed for divorce. He didn’t fight it. He just signed whatever he had to sign and moved back to his parents’ house. People around town were sympathetic and he hated it. Everyone knew his story, everyone knew about his failures and he felt suffocated. He needed to get away.

He went to a local internet cafe to look for a job that suited him and had decent pay. He finally found an opening at Tailgate Carpentry & Home Repair in Boston. He applied and after a Skype call in which he showed some of his own work, he got hired.

He found King’s Terrace and when he saw there was an option to have a roommate he decided he wouldn’t mind living there. He needed a roommate to be able to split the costs and he wasn’t really able to move there and pay rent by himself until he found one. Here he’d be matched to someone, which was a lot easier. He hopes he’ll have someone he can stand rooming with him and if he doesn’t, well, then he’ll just lock himself in his room. He doesn’t really mind. It isn’t as if he’s here to make any friends. He is running away from something, not towards anything. He just wants to earn a living and other than that, he really has no idea what he’s doing with his life. He’ll figure it out… hopefully.

IN CHARACTER QUESTIONNAIRE.

WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST STRENGTH? HOW DOES IT COME IN HANDY?

I can survive. You can drop me anywhere in the world, and I’ll find a way to get food, water and what I need to survive. It’s something all of these city boys ain’t got a clue about.

WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST WEAKNESS? HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOUR DAY-TO-DAY LIFE?

That’s between me and God and it damn sure ain’t none of your business. Drinking, it messed up my marriage but I’m tryin’ to beat it. Maybe I’ll go to AA, I don’t know yet.

WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN TEN YEARS?

Back in good ole’ Mississippi. I ain’t made to live in a city. Too much concrete and there ain’t enough clean air. I hope to still be practicin’ my craft and maybe even find love again. Maybe there is a city girl out there that ain’t afraid of country livin’.

WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO KING’S TERRACE?

Fit in my budget and wasn’t too far from my new job. That’s all you need to know. I wanted to get away from Goss. Everything reminded me of my Dixie and Magnolia… and everyone looked at me like a failure and I couldn’t stand it anymore. That is why I came here, but I do miss Mississippi.

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME AND TELL YOUR YOUNGER SELF SOMETHING, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Hold your little girl just a little bit longer.