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sarcastically-defensive17 · 4 years

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Times Like These - LRH Chapter 5: Rosie loves a virgin, but we don’t need one passing out on her

"Do you think my bangs look uneven? I cut them myself at 3 last night because I couldn't sleep," Marianne had randomly burst into the shop, blurting out her words before she caught the look on her best friends face, and more specifically, the child sat by her side. "Lexi?"

Audrey nodded, pulling a bag from the back room that was stacked with various toys for her toddler. Jeremy had a family emergency, so the day care was shut and the only person she didn't particularly want to see her brother - who was the only one she trusted to watch her daughter - and his friends at the time being.

"Jer is closed, his mum again," Audrey informed her tall friend, watching as her face dropped.

"We going to see him after work?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

Audrey made a noise of agreement, "I'll get Mikey to watch Lex. He could use a catch up tonight I think."

Marianne put a hand on her friends shoulder, sending her a sympathetic look.

Her and Jeremy had been close for years, and his mother is like family to both of the girls. That's why the news of her accelerated Alzheimer's hit them all so hard.

Audrey's phone started ringing on the desk, causing the two elder females to jump. She didn't know the number, and it was the fourth time it had called this morning.

She was starting to get fed up of declining the calls. They didn't leave a voicemail, so she refused to call them back until they left one.

"Somebody's popular," Marianne laughed. "A gentleman caller, perhaps?"

"As if," the blue haired girl scoffed, patting her daughters hair. "The last thing I need is another male worming their way into my life and making it difficult. Possibly the only good thing to come from the last mess was this munchkin."

She pinched her daughters cheek, but the little girl payed no mind as she focused on smacking the doll she held into a toy car.

It was silent for a moment until Marianne raised a question thy was burning on her tongue, "think it could be him?"

Audrey's response was quick, and she snapped without intending to, "Don't bring it up, Annie. He made his choice, and I'm not letting him hurt us again."

The dark skinned girl nodded softly, her hair bouncing with the movement.

Audrey sighed, at herself more than anything as she pinched her brows with her fingers, "I'm sorry, Annie. It's been a long day already."

Her friend smiled at her. Marianne knew the difficult time Audrey was experiencing at the moment, so she made sure to not take the emotional outburst to heart. She knew her mind-hearted best friend would never take a harsh tone unless it was warranted, or she was stressed.

Or tired. Audrey was a monster when she was tired.

A bell dinged from the front of the stood, signaling a customer and Marianne groaned.

"I'll go deal with the human invader. Check back soon, ladies." She kissed both Audrey and Lexi on the cheeks before leaving the room.

This left the short girl to set her daughter up on the side of the room and prep her gun and needles. She kept them at a high enough level that Lexi wouldn't grab them, nor did she leave her daughter unattended in the tattooing room.

She busied herself with sketching a design that had been emailed through the day before. A detailed hummingbird.

She could only imagine the type of person who would want the delicate but intricate tattoo. She had some surprising clients before.

Older women getting detailed chest pieces, burly men receiving dainty ankle tattoos. She loved how tattoos could break the stereotypical molds that people were forced into.

She herself was an example. A young, single mother who valued kindness and her education above everything but her daughter and her brother, yet was also building a museum of tattoos along her arms and collarbones, and piercings in various spots of her face and ears.

She was a walking contradiction of appearance vs personality and she loved it.

~~~~~

Luke didn't know what to expect as he left the cafe. He was frustrated at the situation, but mainly at the guilt that was swelling in his stomach.

He was not the kind to feel guilty for others. He simply had mode important things to do than worry about other people. Especially the short girl and her young daughter who found Luke more fascinating than he found her.

He didn't like kids. He only enjoyed being around his eldest brothers children. He could never see himself being the type to raise snotty, loud humans who needed food every few minutes and threw tantrums when they didn't get their way.

He was content with dealing with Calum.

Nevertheless, he felt horrible that he is the reason the pair are stuck in their less than enjoyable living situation, and he felt as if he needed to get rid of the guilt somehow.

The bell above the door chimed as he entered the tattoo parlor. The decor was unexpected, and seemed to resemble that of a 60's diner.

The waiting room was empty, and there were no staff members in the front area of the stood which did nothing to settle his growing nerves.

The walls were painted the colour red; not too vibrant, but not dull or dark. A nice matte finish that seemed to brighten the room and make it appear slightly bigger than it is. There were various neon signs on the wall, and drawings of classic cars and landscapes, all signed with a simple rose signature.

He couldn't help but admire the skill of the artist.

He waited for a few minutes, alternating between gnawing on the hoop through his lip, to running his long fingers through his hair that lay flat against his forehead.

He stopped styling it almost a year before, wanting a more mature look than the quiffed style he used to adorn.

His nerves were bubbling at this point. He was growing nervous at the idea of a permanent mark on his body, and at the level of pain it would cause.

Eventually, his frustration got the better of him and he slammed his palm on the small bell that rested on the counter top.

With haste, a tall dark skin girl made her way towards him from a hallway that led to the back of the store.

Marianne took a moment to survey the man in front of her, and she found herself wondering if the pissed off expression on his beautiful face was permanent, or one he chose to adopt in her fathers store.

"How may I help you?" She fixed him with a warm smile, waiting as his gaze trailed the length of her body with a teasing glance.

If he wasn't so full of nerves and annoyance, Luke would have tried to shoot his shot with the tall girl. For now, he simply wanted to get his tattoo and figure out a way to get rid of the guilt that was eating away at him.

"I have an appointment for 1, Luke Hemmings," his words were harsh and straight to the point. He didn't want to wait any longer than he already had, considering it was 5 minutes to 1.

"Ahh, the bird boy," she smirked and his brows furrowed deeper than that already were. "You ever had a tattoo before?"

He shook his head no, watching as she pulled a juice box from a fridge behind the counter and handed him a cookie.

"Eat and drink, reduces the risk of fainting from any pain. Rosie loves a virgin, but we don't need one passing out on her. I'll be with you soon," she took her leave, strutting down the back hallway, and Luke didn't try to hide the way he gazed at her backside in her blue skinny jeans.

Marianne pushes open the green door to Audrey's room, a soft knock on the door to signal her entrance.

"What's up, Annie?" She asked, adjusting her mask on her chin so that it can be easily pulled up when she starts tattooing.

"Your 1 o'clock is here. A virgin," she winks at her friend, holding her arms out to her goddaughter who coos.

"Tell your dad I said thank you for watching her," she tests her gun again, ensuring it is plugged in correctly. "If Jer was doing alright then I wouldn't need to bring her with me-"

Marianne tuts, cutting Audrey off, "nonsense! You know how much daddy and I love having this little squirt around!" She tickles the little girls stomach softly, laughing as she squeals in excitement. "I'll send him in for you."

"Thank you, love you!" Audrey calls after her friend, who leaves after gathering the toys for her toddler.

The blue haired girl busies herself with inspecting the sketch she finished printing for her client.

She was a perfectionist if ever she'd seen one, and considering her work is a permanent scar on a person, she was determined to make it as perfect as she could get it.

The door opens softly, and she hears Marianne instruct the man to take a seat on the chair.

"I'll get you to have a look at the design before I put ink to skin. Where did you want it?" She asks with her back towards the client.

She knew it was rude, but she wanted to quadruple check that everything was fine, as she pulled her mask up properly.

She shed her jacket, and Luke noticed the familiar tattoos on her upper arm.

"Uh, inner bicep," he answered, and Audrey couldn't pick at the moment where she had heard the voice from before.

"No worries! Lay back on the chair, take your shirt off if you need and put your arm out horizontally," she turned towards the client, her eyes still running over the hummingbird design.

Luke's eyes zeroed in on the familiar tattoos decorating the collarbones if the blue haired girl, and the guilt flared in his stomach again.

"Audrey?" He gaped. He didn't know what she did for a living, but he would have never guessed the young mother to work as a tattoo artist at Michael's favourite parlor.

"You," she whispered, anger and stress boiling in her throat again.

"Me," he answered, mimicking their conversation from that morning.

She immediately went into artist/client mode, leaving no room for personal conversation.

She handed him the design, not meeting his icy blue eyes.

"Given our personal history you can request somebody else to be your artist, although they will most likely draw up a new design. We tend to prefer our own work as it is easier to ink," her voice is quiet, and anybody could tell that she is nervous around the man.

He knew what he had to do to make the guilt go away. He wasn't doing it for her, he was doing it for himself. And maybe for her daughter. But mainly to halt the guilt making him sick to his stomach.

He had to draw his eyes away from the immaculate work he held in his hands. She had exceptional skill, and he found himself directing a bit of inward respect to the girl.

He cleared his throat as his eyes met her downcast ones, "Look, Aubrey-"

"Audrey," she corrected softly.

"Right, Audrey. What I said earlier, it was rude and I am so sorry about it," lies, he knew it. "And I would really like it if you and the kid took Ashton's old room."

He sounded skeptical, anybody could tell so he was intrigued to see how she would react to his unconvinced tone.

She quirked a brow at him, her mouth hidden by the light blue mask. "What? You're not going to be a dick about it now?"

He sent her a dirty look, setting his jaw, "no. I'm not going to be a dick about it. I shouldn't have been so rude. If anybody deserves somewhere new to love, it's you."

She was confused. She didn't know whether or not to trust the man who had previously proven, on multiple occasions, to be an asshole.

"I'll, um, I'll think about it," he nodded at her words. "Want to start the tattoo?"

He nodded softly, making sure to brush any remaining cookie from his face, "I love the design".

"Okay." She said softly, applying the transfer to his arm and loading her needles with ink. "if it hurts, please don't scream. I hate when clients do that."

He nodded curtly, clenching his teeth together when the burning sensation trailed through the skin of his bicep.

She was unsure about how to take Luke's words. He hadn't shown in any of the interactions they had had to be any kind of a nice guy, so she wondered what the ulterior motives were behind his actions.

He was a confusing man, and while she was interested to get to know more about him, she also needed to decide if she could stomach living with him and subjecting her daughter to a living environment with the difficult man.

As the needles got closer to his armpit, he let out a hiss of air like a balloon being let down and a string of curses left his lips as the burning intensified.

Audrey couldn't deny that she was grinning behind her mask.

"Wait, whose Rosie?" He asked through a clenched jaw.

#luke hemmings x oc #luke hemmings #luke hemmings fanfiction #times like these #audrey clifford #alexis clifford #marianne bishop #jeremy long #original story #book #chapter 5

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orbemnews · 3 years

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Beige on an S.U.V. Will Cost You, but for Pickups It’s Golden In 2017, a new Mazda MX-5 Miata RF, resplendent in Soul Red Metallic paint, listed for $35,901. By 2020 that jaunty two-seater had an average resale value of $24,112. If finished in stolid Machine Gray Metallic paint, however, that same model fetched an average of $1,046 less, thanks to the color alone. Because many other factors influence car value, color is easy to overlook. Yet both paint and car manufacturers maintain international departments of stylists and colorists who not only monitor what consumers are buying but — drawing from the fields of art, architecture, fashion, popular culture and consumer research — predict what people will want up to five years in the future. Decisions are exasperatingly complex. A popular color for sedans might not work for sports cars. A hit color in Florida might tank in Michigan. According to iSeeCars, a search engine catering to car buyers, the worst color for S.U.V.s was beige, which lost 46 percent of its value over three years. For pickup trucks the best color was … beige. Beige pickups lost only 18 percent in value in the same time period. The importance of color to cars is almost singular. It’s nothing to chuck a formerly fashionable fuchsia T-shirt, and you can repaint a room in a weekend. But repainting a car costs thousands and requires skilled technicians. With the possible exception of kitchen appliances, there are few color decisions as costly that consumers live with for as long. In a routinely quoted poll from 2000, 39 percent of car buyers said color was more important than brand. An iSeeCars analysis compared list prices for new 2017 cars with their resale prices in 2020 to see which colors hold value best in different vehicle classes. In addition, some larger paint manufacturers publish annual color popularity reports and predictions for the coming year. Combined, they help draw broad rules for picking the best values in car colors. And while color doesn’t wholly determine a car’s value, if it’s not part of a buying decision, you might get stuck with a gray Miata. Paint is also about durability, not just aesthetics. It was intended to prevent rust. Henry Ford famously offered customers “a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” Black paint was durable and inexpensive — and using a single color sped up production, said Matt Anderson, a curator at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Mich. “Popular myth says black was chosen because it dried fast,” he said, “but there’s no evidence that black dried any faster than dark greens or blues,” both among the colors that Ford initially offered. By the mid-1920s, a DuPont paint formulation helped expand the palette, and color was used as a marketing device; General Motors’ Oakland Motor Car division advertised the True Blue Six model after its bright color in 1924. Even Ford Motor caved in when it needed a marketing boost in 1925. “Colors then returned for the T’s final two model years in an effort to stimulate slumping sales,” Mr. Anderson said. Cars came in more than a dozen hues by the mid-50s — the better to attract the female drivers of the family’s second car, the thinking went. Those colors became more vivid in the psychedelic ’60s. Metal and paint technology upped rust resistance in the ’70s, and then a new process from Europe gained notice, said Clifford Schoff, a paint chemist who spent 30 years at the manufacturer PPG. Clear coating was about to arrive in America. “We started hearing about the ‘wet look,’” Mr. Schoff said. “The color plus clear meant you kept a higher gloss for a longer time.” Over the years, those technologies that improved the longevity of cars and paint may help explain the unprecedented 10-year run for white as the most popular color. Its functional advantages also help. White is good in hot climates and hides scratches and dings well, making it popular with fleet buyers. “Rental car companies love white,” said Karl Brauer, executive analyst for iSeeCars. But, as the iSeeCars data shows, there is a big gap between what is popular and what retains value. The 2020 Color Report from the paint provider Axalta (formerly DuPont) said fewer than 1 percent of new cars on lots in America were yellow. Yet iSeeCars data shows yellow retained the most value over all. An overwhelming 30 percent of cars on dealers’ lots are white, followed by 19 percent for both black and gray and 10 percent for silver. It’s the law of supply and demand. “It’s not that yellow is a popular color. It’s that yellow is popular in relation to how many people want it,” Mr. Brauer said. “You can’t go wrong buying the popular colors — black, white or silver — but you can’t go right, either,” he added. The most popular colors generally fall in the middle of the value chart. Rarity alone doesn’t guarantee value. Purple, brown and gold are about as rare as yellow yet retain the least value over all. There are other anomalies, such as the previously mentioned beige paradox. Trucks did well in muted colors, possibly because, as work vehicles, those hues show less dirt and company names painted on the sides are easy to read. S.U.V.s did best in flashy colors, possibly because the drivers didn’t want to feel like drudges. “You are buying the S.U.V. to avoid the minivan,” said Jonah Berger, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School with expertise in marketing psychology. A lively color, he said, “makes us feel like: ‘I am driving a fun car. I am a fun, exciting person.’” Apparently minivan owners are focused on utility. Blue retained the most value, losing 39 percent, but that wasn’t much different from the worst, brown, at 42 percent. This makes it difficult to assess the “best” color for a car. It might be better to consider the best color for a type of buyer. “People buy things for different reasons,” Mr. Berger said. “Sometimes we buy them for what they do. Sometimes we buy them for what they say about us.” People who buy cars for utility, like minivan and fleet buyers, seem to value subtle colors that are easy to care for. People who buy a car as a personal statement — sports- and muscle-car owners — value glitzy colors. That still complicates the paint choice for vehicles that defy categorization. Jeeps and trucks are utility vehicles for some and showpieces for others, who bolt on lift kits, light bars and custom grilles. The Jeep Wrangler retained the most value in Xtreme Purple, a color usually at the bottom of the overall chart. Purple Wranglers kept $2,398 more value than the same model in utilitarian silver. Color prognosticators agree that the new color to reckon with is blue. Last year it accounted for 10 percent of cars on lots, equal to silver. But which blue? Dark? Light? Metallic? People who make a livelihood from car paint see vast differences between shades of a single hue, even mundane white. “The white we have is not the white we had 20 years ago,” said Paul Czornij, head of color design for car paint at BASF. A carmaker might ask him for “a white metallic that is a little bluish, and from this grazing angle it has this property, and from this angle is has that property,” he added. “That is very exciting.” For consumers, those fine points appear to have little effect on value. The iSeeCars data shows that metallic paint’s value advantage over nonmetallic is insignificant. Ultimately, many buyers may choose paint color disregarding both value and popularity to achieve a third goal, Mr. Berger said: “Maybe having a color that’s different than white makes you happy.” Source link Orbem News #Beige #cost #golden #Pickups #SUV

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winedwords · 7 years

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Adam| Gasoline 2/2 |Cole

Title: Gasoline 2/2

Words; 10,104

Warnings; smut

A/N: repost from the old blog

"I hope you know what you're doing."

God fucking damnit, this was a redeye and I hadn't slept yet. If I heard someone say that to me one more time I swear to god, I will break some faces. It was a fourteen hour flight from Seattle to Tokyo and I was not gonna sit here and be lectured for those fourteen hours by some asshat who wanted to Monday morning quarterback my decisions. I whipped my head around with a snarl, ready to verbally disassemble the dude who'd dared to comment on the events of a couple weeks ago.

The words died on the tip of my tongue once I made eye contact with the man who spoke.

Kyle O'Reilly.

The current Ring of Honor World Champion, former best friend of Adam Cole, and by all reports, one of the most genuine people I hadn't met in the locker room.

I guess I was going to get to know him really well on this flight based off of the stoniness of his face and the last available seat on this end of the plane being the aisle seat next to me. The window seat had been taken by an older gentleman in his 60s, who had promptly fallen asleep in his seat well before take off.

"I've been asked that a lot lately and it's enough to give a girl a complex."

The corner of Kyle's mouth tilted upwards.

"I don't doubt that. I'm Kyle," he said as he extended a large, calloused hand to me. I looked to his face, to his hand, and back again before I reached out to shake his hand.

"(Y/N)."

The world champion nodded his head in acknowledgement before releasing my hand and swinging his carry ons into the overhead compartments. Karma really was a bitch, wasn't it. I did what I felt I needed to do to help the Motor City Machine Guns win, and the universe just wanted to keep throwing shit at me.

"I get why you did it, y'know."

I almost jumped out of my skin. Somehow, for such a large man, Kyle was able to settle into the seat next to me and buckle up without me noticing. I really needed to get out of my own head before we touched down in Tokyo. The boys needed me sharp for this tour with New Japan, we were going to be in Bullet Club's backyard.

"What?"

Kyle shook his head. "The thing with Cole. I get it. Anything to get an edge and the upper hand right?"

I turned to him and gave a weak smile. "Yeah, that's what I keep telling myself too."

The silence was thick as the jet engines kicked into gear and we slowly started heading down the runway. My head bowed as my thoughts travelled back two weeks, my lower lip caught between my teeth.

The start to the show was not going well.

Bullet Club was in the ring, holding it and the show hostage. The Young Bucks, the Guerillas of Destiny, and Adam Cole cut an imposing set of figures, with the former world champion pacing the ring like a caged animal and a microphone in his hand. I hadn't chewed on my nails in years, but since the show the week prior, my nerves had been taken out on my cuticles and tonight was no different as I stared at the monitor in the private dressing room.

The Machine Guns hadn't let me out of their sight, accompanying me pretty much everywhere. I love those two more than my own family, but I had to draw the line when they were trying to follow me into the women's locker room. They'd taken my protests as a challenge and asked Nigel to arrange for our own locker room. Nigel, having a soft spot for me, didn't question the request and happily ordered for a Machine Guns dressing room.

"Last week was a fluke. The Motor City Machine Guns aren't good enough to be the tag champions. They aren't good enough to carry Bullet Club's bags, hell they're not even good enough to carry my jock strap." Cole pauses, for a couple beats, to soak in the crowd's reaction.

"And then, what really kills me, is they send in (Y/N) to interfere in Bullet Club business," he scoffed. "They send in a woman to attempt to neutralize the greatest stable of all time, a woman who has to resort to underhanded and shady means to help her team screw The Young Bucks out of their titles. Titles, that without interference, would still belong to them and to Bullet Club!"

Adam stopped his pacing, turned to face the ramps, and leaned over the ropes, a menacing sneer on his face and practically spat his next words. "(Y/N), you're gonna come out from the back, you're gonna come into this ring, and you're gonna apologize to Matt and Nick for costing them the match. You're going to apologize to the Club for costing us gold and you're going to apologize to me, (Y/N). You're going to apologize for this bruise on my face, you're going to apologize for your actions, everything!"

In our dressing room, both Alex and Chris were on their feet, fuming mad. I stood as still as stone, the cuticle of my left thumb caught between my teeth and my right arm hugging my body. I figured it would be best for me to chew on it instead of admitting to myself that my hands were shaking.

"How fucking dare he?! He interfered in the match first!" Chris ground the words out through clenched teeth. Alex nodded tensely in agreement, "You wouldn't have had to go as far as you did if he just didn't come to ringside."

I said nothing. For as much as we talked about the events of last week, they didn't have any idea that I wanted that kiss as much as I did. They knew of my infatuation with Adam Cole, hell, they knew of that weeks before this whole mess had occurred. They just didn't know how deep this ran. How every night since that fateful show, I had woken up, wet and aching, with Adam's name at the back of my lungs and the phantom sensation of his lips on mine. No, they didn't know and they couldn't know.

"We're waiting, (Y/N). We're not leaving this ring until you come out."

Fuck fuck fuck this is not good. Adam was a stubborn man and he was used to getting his way by throwing his proverbial and literal weight around. The fans had paid good money to come see a wrestling show, to see their favorites compete in matches, and to have a good time. They didn't come here to listen to Bullet Club whine and lick their wounds in the ring.

It was as I was thinking, that the camera panned to the announce table, where Kevin Kelly, Steve Corino, and Nigel McGuinness sat. Nigel, that lovely Englishman, looked dead into the camera and spoke, "(Y/N), sweetheart, I know you're in the back, watching this. You don't have to come out here, we'll get secur-"

Shit, Adam had overheard and rounded on the announce team. "Don't you say it Nigel! You've been soft on (Y/N) since she got here. You've been helping her duck justice from the Bullet Club!"

Out of nowhere, there was this surge of fire in my belly, and I was so angry. I'd had enough of this. Quicker than the Machine Guns could react, I was out of the dressing room and down the corridor like a shot. I could hear their faint shouts behind me, but I knew I'd be at the gorilla position long before they could catch me. Those who were in the ring were the only Club members stateside, thank god. Cody and Hangman were in Japan up to no good with Omega.

As soon as I was at the guerilla position, I attempted a smile at Mike, the sound guy. It came off as more of a baring of teeth based on the paling of his face. "Mike, lovey, I need you to cue my music so I can stop that shit in the ring."

Mike nodded quickly and hit the lights and music for my entrance.

I could see in the monitors that Adam's, and indeed all of the Club's, attention had snapped back to the ramp at the first couple deep baselines of my entrance music. A quick cursory fluff of my hair, snatched the proffered microphone from a particularly eager gopher, and I stepped through the curtain.

Damn that pop was loud. I grinned at the crowd, if just to mask the surprise on my face at the intensity of the cheers.

"You really didn't have to do all this or bring all your friends if you wanted my attention, handsome. You know I will always make time for you, you just had to ask nicely."

Well that was sassier than I was hoping. Certainly sassier than what the Bucks were expecting. Matt's jaw dropped in a comical fashion and Nick's eyes widened to almost bugging out levels. Adam's expression was thunderous, a tic developing along his clenched jaw. I couldn't see a reaction from the two Guerilla brothers, but I wanted to blame that on their face paint. "Oh c'mon now, Cole. You had so much to say earlier. I just can't imagine what's got you so quiet, especially since I'm not down there to keep your mouth occupied."

And there it was, my mouth spewing shit before my brain had a chance to catch it. The audience roared in approval. Adam's face split into a shark like grin, all teeth and bad intentions. "Well, sweetness, why don't you get your fine ass into this ring so we can talk about this like adults, instead of you hiding on the ramp."

His strut screamed of confidence as he sat on the second rope and pushed the top rope up with little effort, an invitation into the ring with Bullet Club. The head of the American chapter waved his arm enticingly towards the ring. To the outside observer, he was the picture of charm and charisma.

I shook my head with a husky giggle.

"See handsome, that's not how I do things. I want you to have my total and undivided attention," I crooned lasciviously. "It'd be hard to do that while trying to avoid the super kick party that I know I've been invited to. I rather like where everything is on my face."

Adam let go of the of the ropes, snarling, "Don't get cute. You have to be held accountable for your actions, (Y/N), everything has a consequence."

"See Adam, I think you're looking at this the wrong way. 60% of the things that happened last week were business decisions. The other 40%? That was all personal, bay bay, and I wouldn't mind a repeat performance." I dropped my microphone onto the ramp with a wink, and hightailed it through the curtain as I saw Adam's eyes darken.

My mouth was going to keep getting me into trouble, in more ways than one.

I was jostled out of my thoughts by O'Reilly's elbow into my arm.

I hissed and rubbed the sore spot, but my retort was cut off by a stewardess with a kind face asking, "Did you want anything to drink honey?" I stumbled over my words, my face flushing bright red, before I was able to stutter out, "W-water would be great, ma'am."

Kyle's stare was indecipherable. Even after the stewardess handed me my water, he was still studying me.

"Do I have something on my face?"

He shook his head. "I'm sure you're exhausted of people questioning you. I just want you to know that Cole's been mooning after you for fuckin' years." The words struck me like an actual blow to my stomach and I almost choked on the water I was sipping, but Kyle continued.

"I think since the ladder match with Gail Kim down in TNA. I remember watchin' it with him and he practically had hearts in his eyes. I'm honestly surprised he hasn't made a move on you sooner. He's not gonna take all that's happened lightly. I want you to be ready for the shitstorm that's waiting for you when we touch down."

"What?!" God, I was so eloquent.

Kyle responded with a small, wry smile. "You forget, I practically lived in the dude's pocket for years. I know him better than anyone. He's been a little obsessed with you for as long as I can remember."

I blinked at him, the words being slow to process. Kyle, who must've seen the gears turning in my head, was patient and waited for the words he could sense coming.

"That match with Gail was almost six years ago. There's no way he's been carrying a torch for me that long."

The champion gave a rather uncharacteristic snort. "You've interacted with him enough to know that he's like a dog with a bone when he wants something. He's not going to stop chasing you, (Y/N), he's got this idea of you in his head. He was already hard up for you before you knocked him out, which was fucking awesome by the way, the highlight of my week, but he's not going to let you go now."

Given my interactions with Adam and the rest of Bullet Club over the past two weeks, the implications of Kyle's words sunk like a stone in my chest. I must have telegraphed everything on my face, Kyle appeared a bit panicked and was quick to rush out his next words.

"Look. I'm not trying to scare you. I just don't want you going in blind, because you seem like a good girl. I don't think Adam has it in him to intentionally physically hurt you. Hell, the way he's been acting these past two weeks, I think he'd do just about anything for your attention."

I had prided myself on being one of the most cerebral people in this business, watching nothing but tape of potential opponents and allies, getting a read on who to trust and who wasn't worth the tape on their hands. This business was one based off of politics and manipulations of the human condition. It only took me getting burned once, when I first started in this business when I was 18, to learn that there was a game afoot and you either played that game or the game played you..

I'd known before the title match the risks, or I thought I did. I'd known the potential repercussions of toying with a flirtatious Adam Cole, a man who could be considered vindictive on his best day and downright vengeful on his worst. I had no clue what to expect from a seriously infatuated Adam Cole.

"So what would you recommend I do, champ?"

Kyle appeared pensive and he ran a hand over his face. He wasn't the only one who felt that this entire situation was surreal. "I guess it depends on you. "

That was a curveball and I blinked. "What do you mean it depends on me?"

"What do you want with Adam Cole?"

Goddamnit, he just stated that as if it was such an easy question to answer.

"You ask that as if it's so simple," I scoffed.

"Because it is for him, (Y/N). Simple I mean. When he wants something, he does everything he can to take it. And once he has it, he's like a kid with a new toy. It's his and no one else can play with that toy, even if the toy is just sitting on the shelf collecting dust. "

Its during this speech that I can feel my face heating with indignation and my fists were clenched in my lap. Kyle holds up a hand and stops me before I can even open my mouth.

"Let me finish before you tear me a new asshole. I'm not sayin' its right, cause it's not. What I'm tryin' to say is he's a possessive fucker and a lot of people don't know it because he covers it up by being as charming and charismatic as possible. Once he knows he's got his hooks into you, it's over. I know Cole like the back of my damn hand and he wants everything from you. He's gonna take and take and take, until there's nothing left. So what. do. you. want."

O'Reilly's gaze was too intense for me to make eye contact. I turned my head back to my hands, which were tightly folded in my lap to stop them from shaking. His words were like an angry swarm of bees and I had to choke down the rising fight or flight response. This was not me. I was not a reactive, emotional person. I made lists, I plotted for things that might not happen, and I had contingencies plans for my contingency plans. I didn't panic, I didn't get blindsided, things like this don't happen to people like me.

My moniker, the Most Dangerous Woman in the World, wasn't because I could outwrestle or outmuscle the competition. It was because I was prepared for everyone, in one way or another. Except this.

What did I want?

I sure as shit wanted orgasms, that was a given. A girl could only get by so long with the help of her battery operated boyfriend, when she's waking up at all hours of the night completely out of her mind and in need of a change of panties. Sex with Adam had the potential to be mind blowing, if the assorted ring rat tales were to be believed.

But did I want him? He was a bit of a hothead, overly flirtatious, egotistical, and prone to double-crosses. He was arrogant, acerbic, and had a severe dislike of any authority other than his own.

On the other hand, on the rare moment where he thought no one was looking, he'd seemed years younger, less guarded, and downright playful, especially around the Bucks. Where he was carefree and quick with a joke. Where his shoulders relaxed and his eyes crinkled at the edges when he laughed. That was the Cole I wanted, but I don't think I could get one without the other.

"I don't know what I want."

Kyle nodded, sensing that the conversation about Adam Cole was over. He reached into the seat pocket in front of him and produced an iPad. "Wanna watch some Netflix? I haven't started Stranger Things."

I practically beamed and nodded my head enthusiastically.

The remaining thirteen hours of the flight went by quicker than I'd like to admit, interspersed with episodes, naps, and happy chatter about what we'd be doing in our downtime during the two week Japanese tour.

Landing in Japan, saying goodbye to Kyle, and getting to my hotel had been a blur. When I had left Seattle, the sun had just set, nearing almost twilight. As soon as we had landed, it was late evening. Jetlag was a bitch, and all I wanted was a soft place to sleep. I must have looked a sight, all rumpled clothes and bleary eyes, because the matronly woman at the front desk told me as she was giving me my room key that she would be having a complimentary cup of tea and soup delivered to my room. She smiled and returned my hasty bow of thanks.

Now it was just an elevator ride to my bed for the night. It felt like the doors took a century to close and I almost cried with relief when the doors began to close. The elevator doors were close, so close to sealing and taking me to my ninth floor room when a hand stopped their progress and a too familiar male voice chuckled, "Almost missed it!"

My grandmother had a turn of phrase she would always tell me when I was small, something that never rang truer than it did now: speak of the devil often enough, and he shall appear. And there he was, looking like effortless sin in black sweatpants and a Bullet Club shirt, his hair swept up and away from his face in a messy bun.

The grin on Adam Cole's face spread to almost Cheshire proportions as he sauntered alone through the doors when he saw that it was just me in the elevator. "Well, well, well, it's my lucky day. Who knew it would take me a flight around the world to get you alone, sweetness."

Electricity shot up my spine as the doors closed and the temperature felt like it had spiked. "Look, not that you don't normally get my motor running, handsome, but I just got off a 14 hour flight and all I want is the bed waiting for me in my room."

He kept silent giving a casual glance at the directory of floors as he was moving towards me, my words clearly brushed off. For every step he took towards me, I took a step back, and it wasn't long until my back met the wall of the elevator.

Ding.

Adam was quick to crowd himself around me, his left arm caging me in, palm against the wall near my head, and his right wrapping around my hips to pull me in closer. His arm around my waist put every nerve ending on edge. It was the skin on skin contact of his wandering right hand finding just the barest sliver of skin exposed by my shirt that made me give a small whimper. The look in his eyes quickly shifted to something dark and heated at the sound and the fact that I made no move to extricate myself from his grip.

Ding.

"You wanna know what I think (Y/N)?" He leaned down to murmur into the skin at the base of my jaw. His mouth trailed along my jawline, the sensation of his breath and his facial hair caused my breath to quicken. "I think you want this as much as me. I think you can't get what happened two weeks ago out of your head. I think you want to know what it's like for me to make you scream my name."

He was so, so, so close and so warm. Body heat was practically radiating off of him as I began to feel sweat bead at my hairline. His lips were just an arched back away and the combination of his proximity and cologne were making the pink fog I had come to associate with his nearness come over my brain.

Ding.

"I think you like to hear yourself talk, Cole."

His chuckle was dark and the sound was like a bolt of electricity directly to my core, causing me to clench my thighs together to quell some of the growing pressure.

"That might be true, but I'm right, aren't I?"

I didn't get a chance to respond because he roughly pressed his mouth against mine. The intensity behind his kiss startled me and my mouth opened with a gasp. Ever the opportunist, Adam took the chance to sweep his tongue across mine and I had to anchor myself by grabbing his broad shoulders because I had lost confidence in my knees ability to keep my upright. Any misgivings I had had following my conversation with O'Reilly went out the window as I pressed back with my tongue enthusiastically. I'd be damned if I didn't give as good as I got.

I had never been so happy for the front desk taking my bags to my room.

Ding.

His left hand went from braced against the wall of the elevator to grabbing my thigh and hooking my leg around his slim waist, all the while his mouth never stopped moving against mine. Once he was satisfied with the knowledge that I wasn't going to immediately remove my leg from his waist, his left had returned to my ass, and with a firm squeeze and lift, he pressed himself up against my hips. I was glad for this wall and for him to be supporting some of my weight because I would have collapsed at the feel of his cock through our clothing.

Hard. Long. And given the amount of confidence Adam had, likely thick.

He was going to wreck me if this ever... no, when the inevitable finally happened.

Ding.

I bit his lower lip a little harder than I intended to at the first press of his hips against mine. The answering groan was almost pornographic, his hips pressed even harder into mine, and he began to grind. It felt like fireworks were going off when the hard ridge of his cock rubbed just the right way through my leggings, catching the little bundle of nerves between my thighs. I was practically mewling as he pulled his mouth away from mine, his hips never stopping their grinding motion, and began to press his mouth against my neck and collarbone.

Ding.

"God, the fuckin' sounds you make," Adam growled into the skin of my neck, making me shiver. "I've thought about this for a long time, sweetness, and you feel and taste so much better than I could have ever imagined."

I wasn't confident in my ability to form words, and they went completely out the window when Adam began to alternate between nibbling and sucking at the junction of where my neck met my shoulder. My hands went to his head and I pushed him away just far enough to issue a muttered warning, "No hater marks."

His only response was a devious smile and he went back to nibbling and placing open mouthed kisses along my neck.

Ding.

His right hand had become adventurous and had snuck entirely underneath my hooded sweatshirt and shirt. The touch of his hand along my spine caused me to arch into him with a whine and my nails dug into his scalp. Adam's hip bucked in response and he pressed his lips back against me, with what sounded almost like a purr.

My traitorous brain began to whirr. He liked his hair pulled, he responded to my nails digging into his scalp, he seemed to like me biting a little harder into his lip... Did he like a little pain with his pleasure?

Only one way to find out. I let my hands down towards his neck and then I dragged nails across his shoulders, hard enough that I knew I was going to leave behind little red lines.

My hips at this point were rocking against Adam's of their own accord, causing sparks of pleasure to fire along my nervous system. He thrust hard enough with his hips in response to my nails on his shoulders that my right foot left the ground for a moment.

"Don't do that again unless you want me to fuck you in this elevator."

The intense promise was muttered against my lips and I felt a bolt of exhilaration through the pink haze. That sounded so damn promising...

Ding.

The elevator doors slid open while we were embraced and a young, lanky bellhop, having not looked into the elevator yet, began to push his cart into the small space. The noise of the cart cause the two of us to look up at the same time towards the source. He looked up, made eye contact with the two of us, and grew red faced. I'm sure the position we were in was practically scandalous, hair mussed, his hands in compromising places, and my leg hooked tightly around his waist. The unfortunate bellhop was stuttering out an apology when I disentangled myself from around Adam, sidestepped the embarrassed young man, and dove out of the elevator to what I hoped was the hallway to my room.

I'd lost my cool. The pep talk I had given myself on the plane went down in flames as soon as I had met those too-blue eyes. Any resolve I had had to resist and be strong in the wake of Adam Cole's advances turned to dust. This was entirely unacceptable and quite frankly, made me doubt myself if I just turned into a puddle of goo whenever the former champion got into my personal space.

I could hear Adam calling my name as I hurried my way through the corridors, thankfully having found my room purely by mistake. I fumbled with getting the room key into the slot, the sounds of Adam calling my name in the hallways serving to further agitate me. The door finally opened and I swung myself inside, closing the door rapidly behind me.

The door had been shut for less than a couple seconds and I was crumpled on the ground of my hotel room, hand down the front of leggings and rubbing furiously against the slick little bundle of nerves between my legs. Given the state Adam had worked me into in the matter of a couple minutes, it only took a couple rotations of my wrist and I was coming apart with a broken sob of his name.

Morning came entirely too soon, and I woke in a foul mood as the sun hadn't even risen yet. I was jetlagged and exhausted and holy shit I looked like something out of a horror movie. I had deep purple smudges underneath my eyes, swollen red lips, and my neck looked like I had been attacked based off of the multicolored bruising I had on the right side of my neck and collarbone. I stomped out of the hotel bathroom and threw my suitcase open with a screech. Thank god this business had taught me how to cover bruises and jetlag with artful layers of cosmetics.

Bzz. Bzz.

Alex S.: You up? We're gonna grab breakfast and coffee before heading to the arena. Meet in the lobby in 20?

Me: Yeah. Meet ya'll down there.

I grabbed my go bag with my valet gear and paused in the hotel mirror to painstakingly apply a coat of matte red liquid lipstick.

My boozy aunty Eleanor, may god bless her southern heart, always did tell me that the best way to handle a problem was to put on some expensive lipstick and attack it. Once satisfied with my lipstick, I smirked in the mirror, and sashayed out the door.

Today, despite the rough start, was going to be alright.

Breakfast went off without a hitch, Chris and Alex were honestly rays of sunshine. It didn't matter what happened the night before, what kind of mistakes I may have made, they were always cracking jokes and constantly trying to out-clown the other. They'd said nothing about the amount of artfully applied concealer to my undereyes or the extra large quad shot espresso drink I had ordered in broken Japanese, even if it was clear that this wasn't all jetlag related.

I didn't pay too much attention during the van ride to the arena, or even the settling into the dressing room at the arena, I was content to just sip on my ridiculously large and sweet coffee. It wasn't until a production assistant came around with the night's card. It was when the assistant handed me the copy of the card that my mood soured again.

The universe just really, really liked fucking with me.

First match of ours on the Japanese tour?

Motor City Machine Guns, Kushida, and Yoshitatsu vs. Kenny Omega, Adam Cole, and the Young Bucks.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

"Erm, you okay, (Y/N)?"

Chris looked legitimately worried about the way my face had tightened up with irritation.

"Don't worry about me Chris. Just wondering when karma is gonna stop fucking with me," I muttered as I handed over the card to the man. It took him a second of reading down the card and then his face went stony.

"Wanna bet money that Cody is gonna be ringside? Hangman has a match against Evil."

I grimaced. "I fuckin' hope not. I haven't watched much tape on him since he left the 'E. I don't know what I might be working against."

"You'll be fine. You're one of the best damn women in the business today and we've got the utmost confidence in you." Alex called from the shower stall. "Where are we on the card?"

"We're match three, 20 minute time limit. We're on in two hours. So make yourselves pretty guys."

There was no time to think about why Adam kept getting thrown into my path. Getting match ready, even if I was only valeting tonight, was a painstaking process and we all had our own little rituals that needed to be adhered to. The makeup and taping of wrists and ankles were the easy part. It was the strapping on whatever scandalous valet outfit I deemed necessary. If I were actually in a match tonight, my gear would never by this revealing or risqué, due to the risks of malfunctions, but part of being a valet was to support your people by any means necessary.

So that meant we were honeypotting it up tonight. Thank god I had packed a wide variety of options. There was this strappy hot pants and bustier number that would be perfect with my over-the-knee boots for occasions such as this. I normally didn't need the red lipstick and the suggestive clothing to feel confident in high intensity situations, but given that I'd already lost my proverbial shit in the past twenty four hours, I wasn't going to be taking any chances.

The two hours passed entirely too quickly and we quickly found ourselves in the ring, with Alex's old Time Splitter tag partner, Kushida, and the Bullet Club Hunter himself, Yoshitatsu. We'd had just a couple of seconds to attempt to strategize over the noise of the crowd when the Bullet Club theme hit the speakers.

"Bullet Club f-f-f-f-for life..."

The crowd popped when five figures appeared at the ramp. Omega, Cole, the Young Bucks, of fucking course being accompanied by the American Nightmare, Cody.

Of all the tours to have left my brass knuckles at home, I thought, as the five men made their way towards the ring. Eight man tag action was going to be chaotic and awareness of my surroundings and the ring would be key, especially with Cody lurking at ringside with me. The five men were sizing us up in the ring, with varying degrees of interest. Nick and Matt were yelling and jeering, complete with crass hand motions. Cody seemed dispassionate and sized us up, his handsome face sent in a deep scowl. Adam had let his eyes wander over the four men in the ring before stopping on me. I could feel the hot caress of his eyes as they cased my body from head to toe pausing long enough to make me flush on my red painted lips. He'd stopped at the bottom of the ramp, chewing intently on the gum in his mouth. Once he'd seemed satisfied, he rounded his way to Bullet Club's corner.

It was Omega who had caught me off guard.

I'd known that he was an intense character, but catching his stare was like catching the stare of a mad scientist who had found a particularly interesting subject to dissect. I maintained the eye contact without flinching, when I was really trying to suppress a shiver at the clinical look, and he'd cocked his head with a smirk. He'd seemed satisfied with the fact that I hadn't backed down. He was the first to break eye contact, like he hadn't just been sizing me up.

It was as the members of Bullet Club were climbing into the ring that Alex began to nudge me towards the ropes. He'd seemed to notice that Adam had had his eyes trained on me. "Stay safe out there. If you have to get involved, make sure the ref ain't lookin'."

I nodded, walking with a little added swing to my hips towards the ropes. The heat of Cole's eyes on my back ratcheted up in intensity, I didn't need to look behind me to know that.

It was as soon as I was off the apron that the bell sounded to start the match. It was going to be Kushida starting off against Nick. They locked up and I was quick to start tracking the motions of the other Club members. Yoshitatsu, as the Bullet Club Hunter, had given us advice that really was invaluable: it's not necessarily what's in the ring that you need to worry about, its who's outside the ring.

Cody seemed to be conferencing with Kenny and Adam at ringside. The discussion itself was intense, with Adam reacting negatively to whatever Cody was saying. His entire body seemed to clench up and I could see the tic in his jaw from my end of the ring. Kenny seemed thoughtful and impartial, appearing to take into account both of the men's words. I didn't have to think long about what they were discussing when Cody pointed. At me.

Adam snarled and took a threatening step towards Cody. Matt put a hand to Adam's chest to stop him and Kenny stood and studied the second generation wrestler for a beat, before shaking his head and dismissing whatever it was that Cody had suggested. Cody scowled, clearly unhappy that neither of the two Club leaders were interested in his plan. Cole had seen me studying the episode in their corner and shot me a wink.

Through the course of the match, Cody didn't stop stalking in the Bullet Corner. He couldn't sit still and was full of nervous energy that it put me on edge. He was working himself up and it wasn't going to turn out well for someone.

It came to a head when all eight men began a brawl in the middle of the ring. Cody and I had made eye contact and a slow, cold smile spread across his face as he began to stalk towards me. He was taking advantage of the distraction of the mayhem in the ring to directly disregard what he'd been told to not do. My boys were going to be of no help, as they were busy trading punches with the Bucks. So I did the best I could do in this situation: run.

It didn't matter how low the heel on these boots were. It didn't matter how fast my mile was or high my endurance was. Cody had nearly a foot of height on me, so every two steps of mine, was one step for him. He was gaining fast and my lungs were burning from the effort. I had maybe twenty seconds before the second generation wrestler was in striking distance.

I didn't see that just around the bend, Kushida and Adam Cole had come out to the floor. I didn't see Adam gearing up for a superkick on a prone Kushida, because I had turned my head to check for Cody. What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion.

I had rounded the corner at full speed, as Adam was starting his super kick. Kushida, whom was in front of me, had some sort of freakish sixth sense of what was coming, and ducked out of the way.

Which left me running, full tilt, into a super kick.

The pain in on the left side of my jaw and face was blinding and I dropped like a ton of bricks to the floor, the right side of my head clipping just along the barrier on my way down. My ears were ringing and my vision was out of focus so I couldn't tell you who cupped my face so tenderly and was saying something to me.

Warmsafefeelsgoodwarmsafe

I'm not sure if I leaned into their hands and pressed a messy kiss to skin and slurred, "S'okay. S'okay. Happens."

The hands were ripped away and everything went dark.

I woke up two minutes later, bound to a stretcher, a C-collar firmly around my neck, and surrounded by medical staff. Alex and Chris' faces swam in my vision and I had to summon the effort to mutter, "Get the fuck back into the ring ya dipshits. 'M fine."

Their faces broke into grins, were they grins?, and then their faces disappeared as I was rolled to the back to be checked out by the trainers.

I couldn't tell you who won the match. Hell, I couldn't tell you how long I was in the trainer's room, being poked and prodded. I was cleared of a concussion, but it certainly didn't feel that way. The migraine I had was pounding in rhythm with my heart beat, my jaw was swollen and tight, and my hand was soon to be frostbitten from holding the ice.

I'd never been happier to see Chris and Alex burst through the door, sweaty and concerned. I could see the two of them grappling with their desire to wrap me up in a hug and their concern with injuring me further.

"Y'only get to hug me all sweaty like this once guys. Y'fuckin' reek."

They shook their heads in tandem and soon enough, I was wrapped up in a sweaty group hug on the trainer's table. We stayed like that for a couple moments, Alex mumbling, "You scared us taking that kick, (Y/N)."

Chris murmured his agreement, "You just went limp. We thought Cole had killed you. Though I don't think I've ever seen him so freaked out before."

"Wait what? Walk me through what happened, because I don't remember much of anything between taking the kick and then finding myself on a stretcher to the back."

Chris and Alex moved away just enough so that they weren't crowding me, but kept their arms over my shoulders and waist prospectively.

"I saw you take the kick, while you were running from Cody. You went down and down hard, I think you caught your head on the barrier?" Alex said, looking a little pale.

Chris nodded, adding, "Cole looked terrified, (Y/N), when he saw that he'd caught you with the super kick. He almost took off one of the medic's heads when they were trying to get to you." Chris' eyebrows arched, implying that he'd caught on to what was going on.

I shook my head, and then groaned at the motion. "Can we just go back to the hotel, guys? Ya'll need a shower and I need my bed."

45 minutes, a van ride, and two helicopters imitating men later, I was safely ensconced in my room. A hot shower left my skin pink and feeling a little more human. I had pulled in my normal sleeping clothes of an oversized Machine Gun's shirt and a pair of plain boyshorts and had curled up in bed with my phone.

Three new messages.

Alex: Let me know if you need anything.

Chris: If you need anything, text me before you text Alex. He took a mean powerbomb from the top rope.

My heart felt like it grew three sizes too big. I don't know what I did to deserve these two, but damn it I wasn't going to complain.

The third message was more concerning to me. I didn't recognize the area code, though a quick search of Google told me it was Japanese.

Unknown: Its Omega. Please, if not for anything but my sanity, talk to Cole. He's moping. I don't want to deal with his moping anymore. 850-555-1234.

My eyebrows disappeared into my hairline. How did Kenny Omega get my number?

Me: How did you get this number?

The three little dots on my phone mocked me as the man took his sweet time responding.

Unknown: Does it matter? Your boy is upset. Fix it.

Me: He's not my anything and he's surely not mine to fix.

Unknown: You so sure about that kitten? I'm handling Cody, you need to handle Cole.

I caught my lower lip between teeth and pondered my response. I didn't even get the chance, as Kenny had texted back before I had the chance.

Unknown: Fix it with Cole. The Club will owe you a favor. Within reason, of course.

Goddamnit, Omega had made an offer that the political animal in me couldn't resist. The thought of the head of the home chapter of Bullet Club owing me a favor? That was too tantalizing to resist, even if it meant potentially putting my soul on the line with Adam.

Me: You've got a deal Omega. Pleasure doing business.

I had pulled up a new message and punched in what I was told was Adam's number already by the time my phone had buzzed to tell me Omega had messaged back.

Me: Adam? It's (Y/N). Are you okay?

I quickly thumbed over to Omega's message before I psyched myself out by staring at the screen waiting for Adam's response.

Unknown: I knew I would like you. Don't be a stranger, kitten.

My face flushed red at what was surely a compliment from the notoriously enigmatic man. I was about to type in my reply to Kenny when my phone lit up and buzzed with text message after text message. Adam had replied and with a vengeance.

A. Cole: Where are you? I need to see you.

A. Cole: I'd never intentionally super kick you. You have to know that.

A. Cole: Please, where are you

A. Cole: I'm gonna kill Cody

Adam had never seemed like the type of man to blow up a woman's phone. The text notification at the top of my screen told me everything I needed to know.

Unknown: He's also drunk. Have fun kitten.

Goddamnit. I swiped back to Adam's message.

Me: Handsome, hurting Cody isn't going to change anything. Where are you at?

It wasn't more than 30 seconds before I got a reply back.

A. Cole: Bar downstairs. Can I see you?

I paused. I had a proven track history of not having any willpower when a sober Adam was around. Who knew what kind of havoc an inebriated one would cause. The cons almost outweighed the pros of inviting him up to my room, but that favor from Omega...

Cole didn't give me any more chances to think about the game plan.

A. Cole: Please sweetness

A. Cole: I feel horrible bout what happnd, I just want to know yore ok

Oh boy, he was really drunk. My traitorous fingers typed my room number before I got a chance to deliberate.

Me: 948

A. Cole: Thank you, I just need to kno your ok

I groaned and thumped my hands against the mattress. Why do I do this to myself? I looked like I a hobo in this oversized tshirt and with my wet hair tied into a messy bun. hopefully he'd be too drunk to comment on how tired I looked. Adam Cole was hell on a girl's quality of sleep.

It felt like it had only been seconds when I heard the rough knocks at my door. I gingerly got out of bed, when I realized how bare my legs were. Too late to go back now. It wasn't long before I had crossed the small hotel room to open the door.

"Ada-"

I couldn't even get the two syllables of his name out my mouth before the tall brunette man had crossed the threshold of my room and wrapped himself around me, his head in the crook of my neck, arms tight around my waist. The smell of his cologne was almost overpowered by the scent of bourbon.

"I'm so sorry, I'd never hurt you like that, thought I killed you for a couple minutes when you didn't get up," he slurred the words into my skin. "I was so scared."

I guess drunken words are indeed sober thoughts. I wrapped my arms around him as well, letting my hands rub his back as I hushed him.

"Its fine. Accidents happen all the time. If I wasn't able to take a super kick, I shouldn't be in this business."

He shook his head and pulled away just enough to look down at me. "No, it shouldn't have happened. I'm going to end Cody next time I see him." As he spoke his words, his grip on my waist grew tighter and tighter. The grip on my waist was tight, but Cole kept leaning his weight into me and I didn't know how much longer I could hold him.

"Come sit, and I'll grab you a glass of water."

His head had returned to my shoulder and he shook his head stubbornly, his facial hair rubbing against the bruises he had caused the night before. "No I like this."

Apparently alcohol made him more obstinate.

"Please handsome? You're kinda heavy."

He'd stumbled backwards, almost losing his footing, in surprise. I made sure to try to keep my hands on his arms to attempt to steady him. "Sorry..."

Fuck, he thought I was mad. His lips had curled downward into a frown and his brow was furrowed into a frown. Omega's texted words bounced around my brain to fix it.

"I'm not upset. I just don't think I can support your weight for a long period of time. If you come sit on the bed, I'll grab you some water, and we can talk."

He perked up, some light returning to his eyes. "Can I touch you? I promise I'll be good."

"Keep it clean, handsome, and there shouldn't be a problem." I guided him to the edge of the bed. "Just sit here for a second and I'll be right back."

I walked to the bathroom to grab a cup of water and when I had come back, Adam Cole was passed out in my bed, underneath the covers.

Of fucking course, because my life could never be simple. I wasn't cold hearted enough to push him out of my bed, he'd just had a match earlier and he was likely sore from bumps. That at least was my not selfish reason that I was telling myself. My id was practically crowing at the thought of Adam Cole laying next to me in bed, even if he was passed out.

I shook my head in resignation as I set the glass of water on the night stand nearest to Adam. Well, if you can't beat them, join them. I shut the lights off, and crawled into the queen sized bed with Adam. I didn't realize how tired I was until I had gotten underneath the sheets. I was asleep by the time I had ensured that there was a little space between our two bodies.

I'd woken up, four hours later, from a dreamless sleep overheated and feeling constricted by something. I'd tried to move away, but the something that had wrapped me up tightened its grip.

That something was apparently an octopus disguised as Adam Cole. Somewhere in the course of what was a nap, not actual sleep, we had begun spooning. Cole was behind me, his left arm wrapped underneath me and hand cupping a breast, the other banded over my hips entirely too close to my panty line. He'd thrown his right leg over both of mine and hooked me in tight. Which explained the hard cock pressing into the flesh of my ass and I felt the sudden, uncomfortable slick between my legs and my nipples tightened to pebbles at our positions.

I froze in my motions and my mind whirred against the incoming Adam Cole induced pink haze. I had to get myself out of this and I just didn't know how, as his body was wrapped rather tight around my own.

"I can practically hear you thinking, sweetness. Stop it and go back to sleep," the brunette man murmured into my neck, beard rubbing against the exposed skin of my neck and his right hand absentmindedly drawing figure eights on the skin above my panty line. The motions made me shudder and I gasped, "I can't when you're doing that."

The right hand froze in its motions.

"I'm not going to lie, I like the sound of that."

His right hand began the figure eight motions again, lazily tracing from my bellybutton towards my panty line. His left hand, not to be outdone, began alternating between caressing and squeezing my left breast. I whimpered and pressed my thighs together to get some sort of friction for the ache growing at the junction of my thighs.

"God you are so responsive," he mouthed into my neck, placing openmouthed kisses into the skin there. "Makes me wonder what kind of noises you'll make when I make you cum."

The hand on my breast pinched my nipple just hard enough to make me cry out and push my hips back into Adam's. He groaned at the sudden thrust of my hips back at him and I was quick to roll over and feverishly press my lips against his. I started to pull at his shirt and he moved away just enough to pull his shirt off and fling it off to an unknown part of the hotel room, before his lips returned enthusiastically to mine.

One of my hands secured themselves in his hair, which had broken loose from the bun that he'd tied it into and the other had settled onto a well defined pectoral. His hands had dipped into my panties to cup my ass. It was a particularly tight squeeze of my cheeks that made me hiss into our kiss and dig my nails into his scalp and chest.

Adam pressed my hips into his with his hands as he bucked, then stilled.

"This is your chance to back out if you don't want this to go any further," he choked out against gritted teeth. "Say the word and I'll leave, otherwise I'm going to fuck you into this mattress until the only word you're capable of is my name."

I shook my head, and leaned into to whisper against his lips, "I want yo-"

I didn't even get the words out before I had been pushed onto my back, his lips working aggressively against mine, his hands sliding my panties down my legs. I assisted by kicking the boy shorts to the floor his left hand hooked my left leg up and his right hand went to the pink slick between my thighs. The first touch made the two of us groan.

"Fuck you're so wet..."

Two fingers dipped inside of me, making hooking motions until he found the spot. I mewled at the first press of his fingers, and he grinned wolfishly, before setting to work with his hand, his mouth back on mine.

I could barely participate in the kiss, because his fingers were fucking magic. His thumb provided just enough pressure as it swiped over the bundle of nerves just above the slick opening of my pussy and the two thick fingers inside of me weren't thrusting, but pressing consistently in some rhythm only known to him against that one spot that made me shudder. The tension in my lower abdomen was growing at an exponential rate.

It took just a couple more moments of his efforts before I was shuddering and gasping my release, the walls of my pussy grasping at his fingers greedily.

Adam continued his ministrations with his fingers until I was keening and thrashing, but had pulled back to stare at me in wonder.

"Holy shit sweetness, already?"

My hands shot to his wrist to try to push him away, "T-too sensitive."

He nodded and pushed back to discard of his sweats. "I'll take my time with you later, but right now I need to be inside of you."

The revealing of his cock was almost enough to make my eyes bug out of my head. It curved to almost touch his belly button and holy fucking shit he was thick. It was enough to make me gulp and wonder if it was too late to call this off.

"Are you on the pill? I'm clean, tested two weeks ago and haven't been with anyone since the test."

I shook my head, still weary of his size, "Implant. The pill sucks on the road."

He didn't see my trepidation, and moved himself between my spread thighs. He rubbed the head of his cock over my pussy, stopping to pay extra attention to my clit and then he thrust into me, hips meeting hips.

I yelped and hit his chest with my hands. The intrusion was too large and sudden to be pleasurable, with the tip of his cock touching my cervix and my walls burning with pain at the stretch. He stilled and was shaking from the effort to not move.

"Holy fuck I'm sorry. I thought you would have loosened up after you came... Shit shit shit," He mumbled his apologies into my breasts, his breath torture against the stiffened peaks. The shock and pain caused by his cock decreased after a couple moments, which left the uncomfortable sensation of being skewered by a flag pole and of being too full.

I pushed my hips up against his, breath catching in my throat at the sparks of pleasure the simple movement had caused, my walls fluttering around his cock. Adam whined at the sensation and began shallowly thrusting. Stilled, it was almost painful to have him inside of me, but moving? The heavy drag of his cock caught every little sensitive hidden area inside of me and I was panting at the sensations.

It wasn't long before I was rocking against those shallow thrusts, but it just wasn't enough. Adam's arms were braced on either side of his body, his head resting against my breast looking downwards at where we were joined. It wasn't enough, it wasn't what I knew it could be. I took the initiative and grabbed a fistful of hair and tugged at his head to look at me. He groaned at the sensation of his hair being pulled, but lifted his gaze to meet mine.

The pupils of his too blue eyes were blown out completely, barely a sliver of iris left visible and the look of him trying to restrain myself was enough to make me bite my lip and bear down on his cock.

"You're gonna fuck me into this mattress Adam. I'm not gonna break."

His mouth dropped in relief.

" Oh thank fucking god."

He pulled almost all the way out and snapped his hips back to meet mine. I keened and he did the motion over and over again, leaving me to just grasp onto his shoulders and wrap my legs around his hips for grounding. The slight change in angle had left me breathless and allowed Adam to slide even deeper than he had already been.

It was when the headboard of the bed began to thump against the walls that he began to talk, and fuck was he filthy.

"Fuckin' thought bout this for years. How you would feel..."

I was mewling and writhing at every snap and roll of his hips.

"So fuckin' tight and good and hot, like you were made for me."

The tension was building again and I was helpless, the ability to speak anything more than a broken sob of his name and asking for more having left me long ago.

"Y'look so beautiful under me and I'm never gonna get enough of this," he growled, his pace picking up even more, the slap of his hips against mine setting a brutal tempo.

I was so close, so so so close.

"You're mine now, (Y/N). Tell me you're mine."

My head was thrashing, the words unable to leave my mouth.

Adam bared his teeth, balanced his weight on one arm, and let a hand reach down to rub the bundle of nerves just above where we were joined, never breaking tempo.

"Fuckin' say that you're mine, (Y/N)."

The tension broke, and I keened to the universe, "Yours!"

Little black spots littered my vision as my body shuddered uncontrollably in pleasure. The spasms of my walls around his cock brought him roaring to his own climax.

His body fell against mine, his cock softening inside of me, and he murmured victoriously,

"You're all mine now, and I'm not letting you go."

#adam cole imagine #adam cole fic #adam cole smut #repost from the old blog

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steamishot · 4 years

Text

Changes

~4/21? I think my mindset shifted a lot this past week, especially after staying with Matt and his family for a few days. Admittedly, I used to be very fearful of going outside to public spaces and be extra cautious every time I did take out. For example, my family and I have “outside clothes” and “inside clothes”. I would immediately toss my “outside” clothes into my laundry basket when I arrived home from the market or picking up food, even if I was out for just 5 minutes. My parents were against me doing any uber eats or takeout. They believed home cooked food was the best during this time and refused to eat non-homemade food. My mom left the house less than 2 times this past month. My dad is less fearful - he’s gone out multiple times a week (to buy food and for work) and doesn’t really care, but my mom and I always gave him shit for doing so. I felt like a huge hypocrite going out to see Matt, and was afraid of how my family would react.

I’m really awkward whenever talking about love or romantic partners with my family - especially after what happened with my last parter. I’m avoidant. So I ended up only telling my mom I was going to leave to see Matt 30 minutes before I actually did pack up to go, which was very bad on my part. She was heartbroken and was super fearful and asked “can you not?”. She later called me during the car ride and told me not to come home for a month. Hearing that made Matt feel guilty, and he called my mom’s idea stupid. We got into a huge argument, with me trying to defend my family. I found out later there was some underlying resentment, where he felt like my family treats him like second-rate, which is probably my fault because I choose not to talk about partners to my family.

4/25- it’s now been over a week that Matt has been home and I’ve seen his family every single day even on the days that we were staying at the Airbnb. Things have been kinda tense between us (I think he’s being mean to me, he thinks I’m mean to him). I realize that this is due to several issues:

- Quarantine/pandemic stresses: he’s a frontline worker in the epicenter of covid and working at one of the hardest hit hospitals. Even though he doesn’t verbally acknowledge his feelings and pretends he’s ok, he’s definitely more stressed out than usual. During this time, he’s even more sensitive to any criticism I have. He used to take it all (mostly), but he’s been retaliating more often recently. On his end, he feels that his whole life is a sacrifice, and he’s working extremely hard especially during this scary time - why do I have to criticize him during his vacation? I should just let him enjoy himself.

-Attention: We’re staying with his family during this time, so it’s his time to catch up with everyone. He’s also catching up with his friends online. Because these are the people he rarely talks to (he calls me everyday vs. calling family for like 5 min once a week, and never calling/texting his friends), I have become last on the priority list in attention during his vacation. I keep telling myself it’s fine. However, because I’m also the person he is closest to, I feel like it’s me who puts up with his shit the most. Then I question, why do I have to be so nice to someone who is not very fit as a good partner (due to residency, especially during a time like covid), and on top of that has to be rude to me? I started feeling salty about that.

- Lack of comfort: not to be ungrateful, but I realize that staying at someone else’s home for an extended period of time is stressful, even more so under quarantine. I’m not carefree at his home, and I feel like I have to be on my best behavior/ “professional” around his parents. I lose structure in my daily life and I always have to depend on someone else. I have a few articles of clothing I’m wearing over and over lol. His dad generously gave us his room (because it’s attached to a restroom). However, we’re sleeping on an old spring mattress that creeks with every movement. We’ve had to have quiet, inhibited sex lol.

Anyway, I’m PMSing - 6 days before my period. I hate that I tend to PMS during the times that we have to spend together. I know my concerns are legit, but PMS can make it seem worse/more dramatic than what it is. I was watching Insecure season 4 yesterday, and there was a scene that stuck out to me. Issa’s best friend Molly (who has been single for quite some time) started dating a guy that she really likes. A few weeks later, she got upset that he wasn’t opening up to her. Issa asked something along the lines of “do you actually wanna be happy? you keep looking for problems.” Hearing that kinda put things into perspective for me, as I tend to focus on the negatives than see things as a whole.

Let’s focus on positive things:

- Having a partner in healthcare feels like having the fastpass in an amusement park. Going to costco and beating the line. Free stuff/food everyday. His mom is a PT at USC and she’s received free food, free orchids, free tangerines, etc. I stopped feeling guilty about being out for non-essential things (like going out for take out multiple times a day), because my doctor partner deserves it. When I return to my life at home, I’m not going to do this anymore. Also, he had a healthcare worker discount at the north face, and bought a jacket for me, his mom, and himself.

- Running. The men in his family are all into running. His dad is almost mid-60s and runs 5 miles multiple times a week. His teenage brother runs 7-9 miles like everyday. Matt used to run a lot too, and was the top runner in high school. That’s why even though he’s fat now, it’s only his upper body that is actually fat. His lower body still has that runner’s physique. I went out to the trail with them 3 times already. It’s hard because I have allergies in this weather, and also it’s damn hot. But I was able to run 3.5 miles last time. I’ll try for 4 today.

- Everyday, his parents always ask him what I want to eat. They’re so accommodating, especially his dad. Tea is sacred to his dad, and he never really shared before. No one else in his family was interested in tea either. But because I showed interest and love tea, he’s been asking me multiple times a day - do you want tea? Do you want wine? LOL. He buys breakfast everyday - dimsum, burger king, mcdonalds, chinese breakfast, etc. They always make sure I am fed.

4/30 - after I wrote my last blurb, everything started going uphill. We both became more understanding of each other, and more forgiving. He became more relaxed, I became more relaxed. We were able to have fun again. to highlight the fun times that i had with him and his family:

- the first or second day i was over at his parents house, his dad offered me some tea, but i declined because it was already late and i was afraid i wouldn’t be able to sleep. i asked if we could take some tea leaves to go since were staying at an airbnb at the time. matt says he’s protective of his tea. i think he was a little shocked when i first asked him, because no one in his family is interested in tea, but he gave me like 2 bags initially. his mom was like GIVE HER MORE, GIVE HER 10. SHE IS LIKE FAMILY. i felt a little awkward but i love me some tea.

- did so. much. takeout in 13 days. the first couple days I was still kinda paranoid about going out, but by the last day it felt like NBD to me. Got to eat poke, sugarfish sushi, nabemono hot pot, pho x3, banh mi, boba everyday, ramen x2 (men oh, ramenhood), burgers x3 (in n out, bunz, the win-dow), sugar cane x2, taro cake, yin ji chang fen, thai, philz, dim sum etc. it was reminiscent of our lifestyle whenever we went on vacation. we were still fatasses during quarantine.

- played board games with his brother and mom. played poker with the family and his dad. his younger brother and i lost early on cause we suck, but he and his dad continued playing for another hour and a half or so - matt ended up winning. but it was very nice to see them spend time together as spending time playing games like that was never a thing in their family

- i helped his family take some cute family photos (with and without masks on). his mom likes taking family photos and usually gets to do so on family trips, but said they didn’t get any this year because of the quarantine. the boys aren’t big fans of photos either so she took advantage of me being there. i was also part of a few family photos!

- made charcuterie boards for his family. they really enjoyed it.

- i spent some quality time with his 88 year old grandma. she mostly does her own thing (which is being babysat by an ipad), but one day i made her draw with me by following youtube tutorials - we drew a flower, mickey mouse, a cat, and a monkey together. she asked me to save a video so she can continue doing it and get better. another day, i wanted to have her write/read in english and chinese. his mom found an elementary chinese workbook and she ended up teaching me. the material was very easy and she was like “uh you’re already very good” lol. i then switched the roles and asked her to write in english - she was surprisingly very good and could write quite quickly. as an assignment, i asked her to write a letter to matt. it was precious. it took me back to the days where i would teach english to chinese seniors. i took a pic of them using my instax camera, and she really loved it.

- watched farewell with his grandma, brother, and mom. we already watched it once before so he was sitting in the back only paying half attention. his brother was immediately into it and got emotional at times. at one point, he had to stand up and go towards the back of the room because the emotions were too much to handle. matt said his brother was tearing up. his mom said that watching their family was very relatable and it reminded her of her own family. i tried watching this film with my mom and grandma, but they didn’t get it and found it boring. it was nice to watch a chinese-american film with a chinese family to get that commentary.

- ran/walked/jogged at the trail a total of 20 miles during my stay there

- did home work outs - yoga, blogilates and peloton HIIT with him, his family and friends. we did echo park steve’s yoga one day too. his mom enjoyed peloton yoga and blogilates and asked me to save the videos for her.

- in the first few days, his mom kept repeating “life is beautiful”. the first day, we cheered to him still being alive lol. (not funny and his mom was sleepless a few nights due to worrying, but i think it’s gonna be ok)

- news so I can remember: 3 programs in cali reached out to matt during his vacation, asking if he’s still interested in interviewing for a PGY-2 program. loma linda was one of them and would have been an amazing program to be a part of. it was a very hard decision, but he declined. he had already signed a contract with brooklyn, and this would require him to speak to his program director about his interest in switching programs. not a good look if you don’t actually get into the program.

- his parents (moreso mom) is an avid, adventurous traveler. they had plans to go to africa this year and talked about rescheduling. she included matt and i in the plans to go next year and said “the four of us”. matt brought up norway instead, since that’s more doable. so we settled on going to norway as a family.

- went with matt’s dad to drop him off at LAX yesterday morning at like 6:30am. he then dropped me at home, and officially met my mom for the first time. they shook hands and he told my mom “connie is so nice”. LOL.

After coming home yesterday, my mom bombarded me with questions about matt and his family. and then asked about our future and whether we are thinking of marriage. she is against me moving to nyc during this pandemic, and i hate how uncertain everything is right now. she also thinks that i should be engaged before i uproot my life to move over to be with him. i agree to an extent, but i also understand if he is not ready. it is crazy that we have now been long distance longer than being together in person, and with this pandemic, i’m not sure how long that’s gonna continue. i found out that my mom feels ashamed of me going to stay at a boy’s house for that long. a boy i am not engaged/married to. she doesn’t say it but the actions make me seem slutty to traditional people. she hid the information from my brother and SIL - i think because she would be ashamed if the info leaked out to her parents. that is why she keeps pushing the idea of marriage/engagement on me.

I took yesterday to kinda get used to being back at home, and felt quite sad to detach from my “second family”. In a way, even though it wasn’t always comfortable or easy, I at least felt I wasn’t stagnant. It was like a “bootcamp” to fit in with someone else’s family, their routines, and their daily lives. I’m also happy that I was pushed to run. They eat pretty heavy food, and they all overeat, but they also exercise a lot. My family portions well and eats very clean, but has milder workouts. Sometimes they intentionally skip meals to lose/maintain weight, whereas my family would throw a fit if we didn’t have food at a certain time. Their family is larger (130-190lbs), whereas my family is like (110-150 lbs)? After coming back home and eating my mom’s very clean food, I felt it wasn’t as tasty and I started craving heavier food lol. I think it would be beneficial for me to eat/live like their family for a few months (to gain weight and be stronger), and for matt to eat like my family to lose weight.

When we were eating takeout ramen one day, his mom mentioned that he never used to eat carbs. When he was at home and had a workout routine, it was just protein and veggies. I realize that without me, he probably wouldn’t be such a fatass lol. He said he would probably be too lazy to go out to eat, especially if he didn’t have a partner. I remembered that before meeting me, his diet would be soylent and protein bars. We’ve come a long way.

Anyway, I’m finally getting back into my routine at home. It’s kinda boring now, but I’ll adjust. I did only the minimum for work these past two weeks, and now UC Path is down for a week, meaning I can’t really do much work. I’m taking a half day tomorrow, using COVID admin pay. My tomato plants grew a lot. My ginger may have sprouted a little, but my strawberries seem like they’re a fail. Finally applied for PUA for my uncle, hope he will be receiving a paycheck soon. Supposed to get my period really soon so I’ve been feeling pretty lazy. I may start running outside on my own.

I’m worrying less about covid now. I used to freak myself out by reading the news everyday and following the subreddit, but looking at statistics, I feel ok.

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kierongillen · 7 years

Text

Writer Notes: the Wicked + the Divine 455

Spoilers, obv.

The specials have been quite the time, having several ways to stress everyone the hell out. The amount of work that goes into a special is far more than any single script can justify in cold commercial terms. It's lucky that I'm only choosing periods that I'm interested in researching to death.

I suspect (or at least hope) that in terms of background reading, 455 is the most. 1831 was hard, but is a relatively tight period I looked at in depth. 455 basically involved researching the whole of the Western Roman Empire. This means the work was a much broader sweep. In the same way I suspected the 1831 story would be about Frankenstein, I knew this would probably be about what happened at one of the sacks of Rome. Not definitely – I've always got room to change tack if something more profitable turns up in the research – but likely.

As I started work, I realised the main advantage of the sack near the end of the Western Roman Empire is that it means you can do a swan song for the whole thing. Everything has already happened, so you can use it all. Thus we've got something which feels a little like a Roman Greatest Hits story.

Simultaneously, there's the awareness that while I think a lot of this is relatively well known, even the most basic facts aren't. Early readers made me aware that even basic ideas like Julius Caesar being dead for 500 years by this period can't be assumed – a level of historical literacy equivalent of not blinking if Joan of Arc turned up in a WW2 story. That's just audiences, and the vague sense of “Rome stuff” fills about 1000 years of people's imagination. As such, that our story is acounter-history required the introduction of what the real history actually was.

As I knew this was coming along way off, the research was a slow boil. I knew Rome, in various periods, relatively well. From the Punic Wars to Augustus is stuff I've read about many times – Carthage is something I've always wanted to do a story about. What I was looking for is a long sweep across the whole thing, to live with it a while, and let me think along the way. The actual device I used was The History Of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan, which goes from legendary prehistory to about 20 years after 455. It's about 60 hours of stuff, by my rough match, which I worked into my listening routine – which is mainly when working out, running, travelling or doing the dishes. I listen to my podcasts at 1.5x.

That was for most of 2016. After that, it was digging down into specific texts, the majority which happened in December/January. Trying to play with various theories about the decline of the Roman Empire was paramount. Everyone has one, and be suspicious of anyone who gives you one reason. The book which generally was most influential in terms of how I chose to present Rome was The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History by Peter Heather, which basically forwards the idea that Rome fell due to trade across their borders creating increased population density of Barbarian tribes which (as opposed to earlier periods) the Romans were unwilling to integrate into the fabric of the Empire.

I went with my own counter-theory, of course, which was that an Old Lady Did It.

(The Old Lady Did It is a Roman Trope of long standing. I'm a proud owner of a Livia Did It T-shirt.)

Anyway – too much research, and I'll try and drop some things I'd wanted to use but didn't as we go through it. Suffice to say, there's nothing comforting about reading about Rome in the current political climate.

Anyway – Andre! I'd first encountered his work in Avengers AI, written by my friend Sam Humphries. That weird, neon-infused Cyberpunk vibe was a big part of the book's appeal for me, so I started following him. I believe we started talking properly around the time of his own Man Plus, which was is a Otomo-does-Akira-In-Portugal kick, and was another thing which made me file Andre in my “Sci-fi artist file.”

However, after we got talking, he showed me some of his other in-development pitches, which included historical and fantasy work. Which made me go “Hmm.” He's got a mass of gifts, but I had one image that I knew I needed for 455 – the Roman Triumph, with a God in the chariot. That demanded a certain sort of artist, namely one who was happy to actually draw a triumph in all its ludicrous glory. Andre, someone whose work had more than its fair share of city-scapes and crowds, seemed like someone who'd nail that – plus the confluence of European and Manga influences in the work would gel interestingly. We'd get Rome as a place, and that's what we needed.

He was working on Generation Gone with Ales Kot, but they talked, and Andre took as month off the preparation for that to do the special. Thanks, guys.

Colours are provided by Matt “Eisner For Matt” Wilson, and seeing how the two of them worked together was definitely one of the more intriguing parts of the process.

Andre's Cover

Done early, before the script was actually completed, which meant we were more conservative with the choice. The Laurel reef being lowered by elderly hands, the arrogance of it. A call back to the head-shots of the first year of WicDiv too. Also, compare and contrast Matt's colouring choices here with his ones in the issue. This is a much more subdued, chalkier mode. Or that's wot I think anyway.

Jamie's Cover| We were originally talking about statues of multiple gods, but as the script was still in process we didn't want to tie down any of the cast bar Lucifer. Equally, we leaned symbolic on the cover – the flames of Rome, the statue, the grafitti's Chi-Ro in paint (or blood)? Symbolic is good. We like Symbolic.

The Chi-Ro is an old Christian symbol. It's what they say Constantine had his soldiers paint on his shields to ensure victory. My fave thing of Constantine from the research was that while he was more responsible than any for the Christianization of the Empire, he didn't convert until just before his death. I enjoy the theory that it's because the idea that baptizing may have been a one-time “clear all your sins” opportunity. The idea of confession and absolution wasn't around as much. So if you convert and then commit a mortal sin, you're off to hell. But if you commit a mortal sin and then convert, you're fine. So Constantine may have just been gaming Christianity to ensure the best chance of a good afterlife.

IFC

Oh god. Looking at the last paragraph makes me think this could be eternally long if I just keep on stopping and telling you fun anecdotes from memory. Also, factually dubious, as they're from memory, and my memory cannot be trusted.

Jamie designed the icons, and had to work out what vibe to give it. I suspect he was grateful to me for having most the cast already being dead so saving him work.

The Inverted Chi-Ro isn't a real symbol anyone used, but our best way to make a Lucifer. The biggest historical cheat in the series is using any Lucifer figure like this in the period – as far as I'm aware, the idea of a singular satanic adversary in this mode simply wasn't around. But it dovetails with our mythology.

I get asked whether any special will happen earlier in the cycle. The tendency to lean towards the ends is basically the same urge which pushed towards a Roman Special at the fall. Ends let you write about the whole thing. It's only at the end where you can say with any hope of being correct what was really happening, and even then it's only a hope.

But the 1920s special is a little earlier than the end, if only because we've seen the actual end in issue 1.

(More on the 1920s special soon – there's been a few changes in my planning on that.)

The text on the page is the standard WicDiv one, but the final two lines, briefly explaining the history of the Vandal sack in 455 were added at lettering to provide the necessary context to a reader.

Page 1-2

Steady angle shot, three panels on each page. The issue has been compare to Uber by several readers, primarily for the volume of the violence and the detail of the historical focus. It's also a little like it in its storytelling like this – this lingering attempt to make a scene very normal. We don't see the battle against the Vandals – instead, we observe from a distance. We try and make it documentary, with us an observer.

The animal being gutted is a goat.

An example of an earlier tweak, the shepherd's first line was “Wh...who in god's name are you meant to be?” This could read as that our Lucifer actually is Julius. Changing it to “Dressed up as?” brings the artifice closer to the surface. While the nature of lucifer/Julius is explained in a few pages time, it's not meant to be a mystery. Creating a false uninteresting question is just a distraction for the reader.

I kind of laugh at the idea of Lucifer wandering around near Rome, trying to find an army.

Ave Atque Vale! Is a quote from Catallus, related to death. Originally was Ave in my first draft, which of course means “Hello!” so makes no sense to say when he's heading away to the shepherd. If you were generous, you could say he was greeting the Vandals.

The first pages which Matt coloured were these, and when I saw them, I knew it was going to be something special.

Yes, panicked sheep in the second panel of page 2 is a star.

Page 3-4

WicDiv is about many things, but “The fucking obvious” certainly rates highly. Triumphs are one of the big core Roman rituals we think of, when a general is given a personal parade. They're rare and hugely important. The slave whispering “remember you are only a man” to warn against hubris is the detail which everyone loves. Clearly, in WicDiv, the resonances are all kinds of fun.

In terms of how comics panels are not one moment in time, have a nose at the last panel. You read the line, then the Oh!, and then the response of the slave seeing something, and then you look at the miracle, the smug, painted face, of Lucifer, and his Heh. That's a little journey.

The red face paint is ceremonial, to be akin to Jupiter. Bear that in mind for later, obv.

The big triumph is the first issue money shot – after 3 pages of very low atmosphere, we have the sprawl of Rome. Choosing the direction of the march was key – I gave Andre the best guess route of the triumph, and he chose his angle. By luck, he would enter via the gate here Lucifer is dragged out at the end of the issue. The triumph also ends at the temple of Jupiter, which is yet more fun subtext for those who really like digging into it.

We tweaked the colouring on the crowds, to try and get more of the cosmopolitan nature of Rome. The majority of legionnaires are white, but that's because most were Germanic in this period.

The triumph was originally planned for a spread, but I decided I needed another page later in the comic.

Page 5

Title drop, and a bleak laugh. The idea of calling a story IMPERIAL PHASE which isn't in the actual Imperial Phase trade came from thinking of Julian Cope having his single World Shut Your Mouth not on the album World Shut Your Mouth, an idea he in turn got from some sixties band I haven't time to look up.

The date was tricky to decide exactly, due to the timeline of real world events I wanted to get in. Clearly, for full trash-Roman pulp, I'd have pushed this story March, so I could Ides of March it, but alas, no dice.

Page 6

Nice atmosphere in the first panel, in terms of going from the chaos of the Triumph to something a little more contemplative.

Enter Dionysus/Bacchus. Flashback colours and... one of the thoughts of Matt was that the SFX budget for God Stuff would be lower back here. So the god powers aren't quite as SFX-y as they are in the present day. Not that there's much here, but I'm reminded by how low-key this is. The intent here is that he's done his god thing on stage and come off... but he could just be an actor, which is about as close as WicDiv gets to a 1:1 thing.

The nature of art in Rome (or “Rome”) is key here, and talked throughout. Actors were the underclass. To act was to be disreputable. The “actress as sexworker” trope arrives in Rome, I believe. I reference Lou Reed in the panel descriptions, in terms of these being a Walk On The Wild Side Romans.

Falerian is a type of fine wine. Mithras is presumably one of the other gods – Scythia being a place.

The nature of Imperial Phase has been about women involved with women, which has nagged. Having the humanising part of the story be a love story between men felt timely. It was a place we could do it, so we should. Though more on that later, in terms of the specifics.

There was the obvious worry of doing it, of course – where Lucifer ends up. Lucifer is not good representation. I haven't seen anyone pick up on that angle. We spend a lot of time worrying about stuff no-one picks up on, which is why we spend all that time worrying about it.

The word “play” is, of course, loaded, as are the name changes. Story about identity, we are in it.

Page 7

The best thing about the specials is definitely getting a chance to write Ananke again. She is a fun time.

If I had more space, I'd have almost certainly done more with Lucifer's adventures during the day. It's worth stressing that by this point, I believe Gladiatorial fights were no longer actually happening in Rome, due to Christianisation. My research has went straight on from Western Rome and barged into Byzantine Rome, and the story of the chariot races there is a delight.

Page 7-8

These scenes are very much me getting my I, Claudius on. Very limited set, two actors going off at one another. Of course, all of this will resonate with anyone who's been following the main series.

Panels 3 and 4 on page 7 are the bit of tight acting I like most from Andre here – it's all about the actions, and the space, with us positioned a little back from it.

I smile at Lucifer referencing something that was said of 2014-Lucifer in the first arc. Ananke has been doing this for a very long time.

A quick buzz through various other gods' fates in the first panel on page 8. There's a lot of historical reference packed in there to unpack for those who wish.

The Inanna/Attila The Hun panel is, I think, the largest panel description in the issue. Well... not true. The Rome Triumph one is much longer, but that's a splash. This one included a potted history of a bunch of Hun-related information for Andre to play with, in terms of deciding the looks, etc.

It was also the most discussed panel at the stage of pencils – avoiding objectifying Inanna here was key.

Attila The Hun died on (one of his) wedding night in the real life.

The “As I understand” is pretty key in the captions, as is other distancing effects. Lucifer would not have been a god when Inanna did this. It is very early in this pantheon's time.

I think this may be a place to have a word about Pantheon times through history. 455 doesn't seem to fit in one of these 90 years, if you follow that strictly.

The short version is, as seen in the first scene of WicDiv which ends the 1920s pantheon at Dec 31st 2013 and we start our story about 6 months into the new Pantheon on January 1st 2014, the question of where the 90 years is measured for has to be (to some degree) flexible. Gods appear over a period of a year or so in our 2014, and die at their own rates. You can assume that the “true” length of a pantheon can wiggle a little – some would be less than a year, some could theoretically stretch across 4 calendar years. As such, it's hard to predict exactly on which year any given recurrence could occur – even from the data we have from 1831, 1923 and 2014, we know that.

I suspect before the end I may give hard dates for every Pantheon. I suspect, anyway. I know where it would appear.

Page 9-11

You know, I suspect Page 9 – for an action scene – is one of the most story-beat laden of the issue, in terms. Lots of great Andre stuff here – the casual-ness of both the burning and the brutal-ness of the kick. Matt goes to town on the colours too, the reds taking over. Obviously the fire is a key thing with Lucifer, and his flame grows and ebbs as we progress.

There's some difficult hard cuts here – page 10 to 11, for example. We just have the “Ananke leaving” beat there, then moving to Dio and Lucifer in bed.

There is a tendency when discussing the ancients to be a bit blasé in terms of writing about their sexual habits. This normally is based around us mapping our readings of sexuality onto the past, while erasing their own social mores. I've ran with some of the information on page 11 before, when doing THREE, specifically the politics of different sexual roles. Relevantly, the status elements Lucifer alludes to here – in terms of being a bottom is always dishonourable. I could ramble at this at length, but I'll spare you.

Lots and lots of stuff here, in terms of trying to set up thematic elements here, but let's just say none of it would matter at all if Matt and Andre hadn't nailed the last panel.

Page 12-13

Lots of historical bits and bobs here. Perhaps the implicit question we don't answer is “what happened to the last Emperor?” He was cut to pieces a few days before this and thrown in the river, because he'd pissed off the Vandals enough to have them invade.

You may notice how thin the senate is populated. That's because the majority of the population of Rome have fucked off to hide. Rome's population is artificially lower during this point in history, which is a thing which tries to lend a little credulity to the Ananke/Geiseric cover-up.

The main tweaks here was making sure the exact nature of Lucifer's slip was tricky. Someone getting mixed up in the time-line requires making sure the reader understands the timeline. I half wonder why I went with Crassus rather than Pompey.

Anyway, let's hope that Lucifer manages to keep on the straight and narrow.

Page 13-14

Well, that escalated quickly.

When planning the issue, you start doing maps of time and space, and I rapidly realised with 25 pages, and so many other essential scenes, there was no possible way to show a slow descent.

The story's structure immediately suggested itself.

While the Triumph was the image we needed to enter the world, this is the one that will be remembered. People reference my Crossed work here – which is true, to some degree, in that it was also about turning flesh into art. I suspect I was more thinking of Banks, and a certain beat involving a certain object of furniture. I say, dancing around spoilers.

The influence here which gets kind of buried is Domitian, who threw the most goth parties of all time. Have a nose at this here, in terms of Things Emperors Got Up To.

Page 15-16

We've already namechecked Caligula and here comes Nero, the other of the most famous Roman Bad Emperors. The elements about Nero here were the closest thing the research unveiled which made me want to reposition the story to a different period – Nero interacting with the gods would have been fascinating, for all the reasons described here.

We had a reader question the direction of Imperial Phase, in that the insanity-leading-to-murder trope that appeared to be coming and the inherent ableism in that. It was a usefully timed question, as it made me dig more sharply into the exact choices we were making in explaining the idea. This isn't about going mad. This is – as Dionysus puts it – about excess. I'm thinking of Bowie living off cocaine and peppers. We lean into it pretty heavily in this issue, and hopefully it delineates the aim.

Just looking at my script, and found the anecdote about the time I threw up a handful of blood slipped in there. I'd forgotten that this page was autobiographical. Comics, eh?

Look at what Matt's doing with the colours here – the whole panel is bloodshot as we progress.

Page 17-20

In terms of buried research in the comic, that a hole was knocked in the roof of the Temple of Jupiter during this sack of Rome is the one which makes me laugh. Behold! Let team WicDiv present the true story of how the temple of Jupiter got a dirty great hole in it.

(I also like that this makes the sack of Rome much more efficient for the Vandals.)

This is an actor making a soliloquy scene, perhaps obviously, recalling both the stage and the Passion. While this issue is heavily in the research, it's also doing ahistorical work. Shakespeare's fingerprints is all over this, to state another obvious thing.

The “Emerge like an Eagle” thing is very much Roman Pagan belief.

I mentioned Nero, Caligulia and Julius. The other Roman Emperor who is in the mix with Lucifer was Julian the Apostate who was the last Pagan Roman emperor, and tried to revive Pagan Rome before dying early. A “What if Julian had lived?” is a counter-factual history which is always a fun one to swill around your mouth. He's the one we don't reference, but much of Lucifer's thought comes from mashing Julian with someone of lower birth and more melodramatic tendencies.

This is the sequence which I cut the page from the Triumph earlier to expand. Clearly this could happen quicker, but we need to let the death sequence come out, in all its horror. Also, the collapse on the page turn seems essential.

I'm almost surprise Et Tu Jupiter reached the final page. We were always wondering whether it was too funny. In the end, it was decided it was, but in juxtaposition with the art, sufficiently bleakly to not break the mood. Especially before the collapse on the next page, which is very much human stripped by the divine.

Clearly this plot beat, is the biggest one for close followers of the book. I suspect at this point of the story, there would be strong suspicions that the “you die in two years” isn't true. Unless this sequence is deeply deceptive, it is true. You die in two years, by yourself. We place the specials pretty carefully, in terms of what they reveal, so this being half way through Imperial Phase underlines what could await our cast.

In terms of craft, going silent for a page after the monologuing seemed key. I mean, Ananke's fundamental disrespect in terms of how she's carrying Lucifer says everything.

Page 21-25

Out the gate towards the Tiber. The names listed are famous Romans whose bodies were thrown in the Tiber so that they could have no honourable end – and in the case of Marius, that there was no place for his followers to gather. The man who did that was Sulla, btw. Marius was dead, he dug them up.

The “Pagan burial, but a shit one” is very much Ananke at peak “I will tell you the truth, but you really have to pay attention to the details” mode.

And here's Geiseric! Looking good. The Vandals have been in Carthage for 20 years, but we decided to have him be kind of pallid so as not to confuse people. Stories like THREE were all about the pure-historical aspect and risked (and often did) lose people by doing things in line with the best research rather than common belief. WicDiv has a slightly different set of priorities, especially on secondary aspects like tanned Vandals.

Heh. Story starts with butchery of a goat, and ends with butchery of Lucifer. WicDiv is a very subtle comic.

Sulla's an interesting dude, and I think the use by Ananke here seems pretty fair. The future she's pointing towards never happens – the marriage is there. Germanic hands ended up ruling what came after the Empire, but that's not really what is going. Of course, Geiseric is also entirely right in recognising he's being manipulated.

They're a fun pair, actually, in terms of the fencing. I kind of realise this is the sort of conversation which is going to be key in Spangly New Thing, which makes me excited about writing it again.

I smile at the Vandal line. People have wondered why I didn't do the earlier sack, so I could have had the goths. Well, it didn't really work for the story, which is about the end of an era. But also it would have been perhaps too much. I did have a joke take, where Ananke is debating which Germanic tribe to manipulate into invading Rome. “The Goths again? No. No More Goths.”

But 455 isn't that kind of book.

The final image! Lovely, in its bleak and awful way.

Page 26

City of God being Augustine's book, written primarily in response to the crisis of faith in the Empire over the 410 sack of Rome by the aforementioned Goths.

Anyway – thanks for reading, and thanks for Andre for joining us on this beast. We're back (eek) tomorrow, with Imperial Phase II. Onwards, etc.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #andre lima araujo #matt wilson #Writer Notes

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jacethebeltsculptor · 8 years

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Magic the Voltron-ing

So, this is one mostly dedicated to @pidge-midge, because I hadn’t even thought of Voltron/MTG headcanons. A couple notes- 1, this applies only to Legendary Defender, and not the old Voltron. Second- I love this crossover so goddamn much you guys oh my god. SHIRO FAVOURITE COLOURS:White/Green/Black FAVOURITE DECK:Abzan Midrange, any format it works in MISC:Shiro is a pretty plain Magic player. He’s courteous, kind, and offers any advice he can to other players. He likes Abzan because it offers him a range of tools to handle any threat, and a flexible game plan. He likes having options. Among the Paladins, he’s the resident best guy to playtest with, and he’s always got a way to help you improve. He’s also crazy good at manipulating opponents in Commander- nobody at the table wants to attack him, because he’s only going for the biggest threat at the table. Then he gets scary, and wins. KEITH FAVOURITE COLOURS:Red/White FAVOURITE DECK:Pauper R/W Metalcraft MISC:Keith is the resident aggro player among the Paladins. If you sit down across from him, you know he’s coming at you fast. He doesn’t really like Control or Midrange, or Combo, because they’re usually way. way more complicated than they need to be. It’s not that he doesn’t know how to play them- rather, it’s just way harder to optimize them. Plus, he likes the proactive element of always being on the front foot. He’s a bit intimidating to play against, thanks to his generally intense focus on the game, and one of the more competitive players on the team. He’s a mainstay of the top 4 at FNM, and as a result, the rest of the team tends to playtest against him to see if they can beat aggro. Keith’s favourite games are the ones that come down to the wire- where minute differences in sequencing and skill, rather than the luck of the draw, decide the outcome. As a result, Keith really, really likes Pauper. It’s a format where the cards are simple but powerful, and it takes deep knowledge of your deck to come out victorious. LANCE FAVOURITE COLOURS:Black/White/Red FAVOURITE DECK:Tariel, Reckoner of Souls EDH MISC:Dragons are awesome. Angels are super awesome. Demons are super mega hella awesome. Lance just likes playing with cool and cool sounding cards- from removal spells with badass names to cards with some of the most intensely cool abilities, Lance loves them all. He’s really competitive, and he’ll try super hard to win, but all of his decks are based around the coolest card in his possession. Right now, he’s in love with Indomitable Creativity, and has been trying to break it since it was spoiled. He wants to win, but to do so by playing the coolest deck imaginable. 2.00$ mythics are a staple of Lance’s decks, and while they don’t *normally* work, it’s a thing of beauty when they do. He’s preview season buddies with Hunk- the two will gush together about how the new card spoiled is “the most broken thing ever” or “how could they print something this good?”. Lance has a personal distaste for Blue mages though- countermagic is almost always his Achilles heel, and he still doesn’t really know how to play around it. He beat Keith one time- literally one time- and won’t shut up about it. PIDGE FAVOURITE COLOURS:Blue/White/Black FAVOURITE DECK:A dozen flavours of Gifts Ungiven MISC:Pidge, while not the most competitive of the group, is probably the best at the game. She’s won every “what will win the pro tour” bet four years running, and the only person still betting against her at this point is Lance. Her grasp of technical play is absolutely stunning, and she’s always thinking of new angles to hit the format. She loves Gifts Ungiven decks because they’re built under fundamentally different rules than the rest of Magic, and offer consistency and a control/combo gameplan to tweak to her liking. In Commander, she’s known as the one that durdles until she just plain wins, and her Sydri deck is feared around the galaxy. Pidge, like Keith, usually hits the top of the stands, but she’s just as happy to lose an intriguing game. She’s also got a deeper understanding of the rules than just about anybody, and had planned to become a Judge at some point. Also, Magic was pretty popular in her family- she and Matt would play for *hours* with his collection. She has a very fond memory of them building deck after deck with his cards, playing one game with them, and tearing them apart to do something new. Their parents made them clean up the mess, but it took hours. HUNK FAVOURITE COLOURS:White/Red/Green FAVOURITE DECK:Mayael of the Anima Zoo EDH MISC:Hunk is the biggest timmy out there. He loves ramp decks and big creatures, and makes stompy sound effects whenever he attacks. He’s not really concerned with winning, only having an awesome time. He mourns when his creatures die, and combs through spoiler season for new “friends”. He’s named every single creature in his Mayael deck, and has a page in his binder dedicated to the cards he’s retired from it. He doesn’t play much 60 card, save for a couple of casual decks, but he’s always organizing Commander events. He loves coming up with crazy formats, too! One of his game nights involved using the training deck to create holograms of spells and creatures, while in another, a rule was made that you had to charades your way through all of your game actions. That said, Hunk is like, everyone at the LGS’s best friend, and often invites people over for a night of Commander and food. Most of his sleeves have a crumb or two in them, so he replaces them often to keep them from getting grody. ALLURA FAVOURITE COLOURS:Blue/White FAVOURITE DECK:Blue/White Dragons, featuring the Ojutai clan MISC:Allura learned to play from Hunk, and she *loves* the story. He showed her a bunch of Ojutai dragons, and she thought they were gorgeous. She doesn’t really get the rules perfectly, which is fine, since she mainly plays with Hunk, and a lot of the cultural background we have to help us understand, she doesn’t have. Still, she loves the game, and she listens to Hunk tell her about the plot and the Gatewatch with absolute glee. Her favourite cards all have really striking artwork, and Watercourser from Origins is a personal favourite. Allura might be super-casual, but she’s learning quickly, and Hunk wants to help her build a Commander deck soon. Plus, she’s always happy to have a bonding experience for Team Voltron. CORAN FAVOURITE COLOURS:Red/White FAVOURITE DECK:Boros Battalion/Soldier Tribal MISC:Like Allura, Coran learned from Hunk. He’s built a Boros soldier deck from Hunk’s RTR block draft chaff for his military pride- he calls it a victory for the Battalion when he wins. Coran has had to be talked out of holding a memorial service when somebody blocked his Captain of the Watch. Coran will literally never concede, ever, and he’s known for his impressive bravado when flunging- that is to say, attacking with everything because you lose anyway. He and Allura also play together, sometimes, and their enthusiasm and passion for the game is always a nice reminder for the rest of the team by they play. BONUS ROUND ZARKON:This guy only plays the exact same list that won the last Pro Tour. His only Commander deck is Yidris Ad Nauseam, and it’s all foil. He has a Powered, all-foil cube, the best Modern decks, and a trade binder so stuffed with money that it has its own page on MTGGoldfish. He’s the worst guy to play with- he’s rude, gets pissy when he loses- a problem made even worse by the fact that he ALMOST NEVER LOSES- and responds to most new spoilers with “It isn’t good enough for Constructed”. He wins almost every event he joins, and usually does so undefeated. He probably plays Lantern Control on MTGO, too. Fuck this guy.

#mtg #magic #magic the gathering #voltron #voltron legendary defender #vld #keith #shiro #pidge #lance #allura #coran #hunk #okay these were so friggin fun to write...

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newyorktheater · 4 years

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Before he started collaborating with Richard Rodgers on some of the most beloved musicals in Broadway history, Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960) had helped create some three dozen Broadway productions over a quarter of a century, most often writing both the lyrics and the libretto. Of course, he began with an in: His uncle Arthur Hammerstein produced the musical, “Furs and Frills,” for which the young Hammerstein, at age 22 in 1917, wrote his first Broadway lyrics — for a song composed by Silvio Hein entitled “Make Yourselves at Home.” Arthur wasn’t his only relative in the business. His father William Hammerstein was a theater manager; his grandfather, Oscar Hammerstein I, an impresario who helped create the theater district we know today. But if family connections helped to make Oscar Hammerstein II feel at home on Broadway from the get-go, he soon transformed the place.

“Hammerstein, first with Kern then with Rodgers, revolutionized musical theater,” his protege Stephen Sondheim wrote in the introduction to the reissue of Hammerstein’s collection of his favorite lyrics. He accomplished this, Sondheim says, “by combining the traditions of musical comedy with operetta while nudging story, character and lyrics towards the kind of naturalism that had overtaken the nonmusical stage since World War I.”

Still, there is some satisfactions in sifting through his individual songs — he reportedly wrote more the lyrics for more than a thousand of them — and realizing how many vocal artists and musicians of many stripes and many generations have interpreted them — and so so still, 60 years after his death.

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The New Moon, 1928

With composer Sigmund Romberg. Hammerstein worked on four Romberg shows.

From this one comes “Lover, Come Back To Me,” sung by Barbra Streisand, accompanied, conveniently, by a scroll of Hammerstein’s lyrics.

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Show Boat, 1927

Music by Jerome Kern, with whom Hammerstein collaborated on some half dozen musicals.

Paul Robeson sings “Ol Man River” in the 1936 movie of the musical. Hammerstein’s original lyrics were problematic in the way he referred to African-Americans. In the movie version, it’s been changed to “darkies,” which to modern ears isn’t much better than the original epithet.

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I’ll quote here just the first few verses:

Dere’s an old man called the Mississippi, Dat’s the old man dat I’d like to be, What does he care if the world’s got troubles, What does he care if da land ain’t free?

Old Man River, Dat Old Man River, He mus’ know somepin’, But don’t say nothin’ He just keeps rollin’ He keeps on rollin’ along.

He don’t plant taters, He don’t plant cotton, And dem dat plant ’em, Is soon forgotten, But old man river, He jus’ keeps rollin’ along.

You an’ me, We sweat an’ strain, Body all achin’, An’ wracked with pain, Tote dat barge, Lift dat bale, Get a little drunk, And ya lands in jail.

I gets weary, An’ sick of tryin’, I’m tired of livin’, And scared of dyin’, But old man river, He jus’ keeps rollin’ along.

After 1938, Robeson changed the lyrics to the son in his concerts, not just omitting the denigrating references but cleaning up the dialect and changing the character of the singer from resigned to empowered. Instead of ” Git a little drunk, / An’ you land in jail…”, Robeson sang ” You show a little grit / And you lands in jail..” He changed “I gits weary / An’ sick of tryin’; / I’m tired of livin’ / An scared of dyin’,” to “But I keeps laughin’/ Instead of cryin’ / I must keep fightin’; / Until I’m dyin'”

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Billie Holiday sings Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man in 1937, with Teddy Wilson on the piano.

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Fish got to swim and birds got to fly I’ve got to love one man till I die Can’t help lovin’ that man of mine

Tell me he’s lazy tell me he’s slow Tell me I’m crazy maybe I know Can’t help lovin’ that man of mine

When he goes away That’s a rainy day And when he comes back that day is fine The sun will shine

He can come home as late as can be Home without him ain’t no home to me Can’t help lovin’t dat man of mine

Sweet Adeline, 1929

Music by Jerome Kern

Helen Morgan sang “Why Was I Born” in the original production Here’s Irene Dunne singing it five years later

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Why was I born? Why am I livin’? What do I get? What am I givin’? Why do I want a thing I daren’t hope for? What can I hope for? I wish I knew. Why do I try to draw you near me? Why do I cry? You never hear me I’m a poor fool, but what can I do? Why was I born to love you?

Music in the Air, 1933

Music by Jerome Kern

Ten years later, Frank Sinatra sang “The Song Is You” which has been covered by singers as diverse as Mario Lanza and Mary Wilson

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I hear music when I look at you, A beautiful theme of every Dream I ever knew. Down deep in my heart I hear it play. I feel it start, then melt away. I hear music when I touch your hand, A beautiful melody from some enchanted land. Down deep in my heart, I hear it say, Is this the day? I alone have heard this lovely strain, I alone have heard this glad refrain: Must it be forever inside of me, Why can’t I let it go, Why can’t I let you know, Why can’t I let you know the song My heart would sing? That beautiful rhapsody Of love and youth and spring, The music is sweet, The words are true The song is you.

Very Warm for May, 1939

Music by Jerome Kern

Ella Fitzgerald sings “All The Things You Are” (accompanied by lyrics!)

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Carmen Jones, 1943

Music by Georges Bizet. Hammerstein basically supplied a new setting and new lyrics to the opera Carmen

Dorothy Dandridge sings ‘Dat’s Love’ (set to the song “Habanera) in

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Oklahoma, 1943

Hammerstein’s first collaboration with Richard Rodgers, and the musical still most credited with creating the modern Broadway musical.

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Barbara Cook sings Many a New Day

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Kristin Chenoweth sings “I Can’t Say No”

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Bette Midler sings Oklahoma!

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State Fair, 1945 film

This is the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical written directly for film. It was brought to a Broadway stage in 1996.

Jeanne Crain sings “It Might As Well Be Spring” from the movie.(Actually her singing voice was dubbed by Louanne Hogan.) Song begins at around 2:00

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I prefer Rosemary Clooney with Harry James on horn

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I’m as restless as a willow in a windstorm I’m as jumpy as a puppet on a string I’d say that I had Spring fever But I know it isn’t Spring

I am starry-eyed and vaguely discontented Like a nightingale without a song to sing Oh, why should I have Spring fever When it isn’t even Spring?

I keep wishing I were somewhere else Walking down a strange new street Hearing words that I have never heard From a girl I’ve yet to meet

I’m as busy as a spider spinning daydreams I’m as giddy as a baby on a swing I haven’t seen a crocus or a rosebud or a robin on the wing But I feel so gay in a melancholy way That it might as well be Spring

It might as well be Spring

Carousel, 1945

Joshua Henry and Jessie Mueller perform ‘If I Loved You’

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Allegro, 1947

Part of a London production of the musical in 2016 at Southwark Playhouse, Katie Bernstein sings “The Gentleman is a Dope.”

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The gentleman is a dope, a man of many faults A clumsy Joe who wouldn’t know a Rumba from a Waltz The gentleman is a dope and not my cup of tea Why do I get in a dither? He doesn’t belong to me

The gentleman isn’t bright, he doesn’t know the score A cake will come, he’ll take a crumb and never ask for more The gentleman’s eyes are blue but little do they see Why am I beating my brains out? He doesn’t belong to me

He’s somebody else’s problem, she’s welcome to the guy She’ll never understand him half as well as I

The gentleman is a dope, he isn’t very smart He’s just a lug you’d like to hug and hold against you heart The gentleman is a dope doesn’t know how happy he could Look at me crying my eyes out, as if he belonged to me He’ll never belong to me

He’s somebody else’s problem, she’s welcome, welcome to the guy She’ll never understand him half as well, well as I

South Pacific, 1949

Mitzi Gaynor (actually) sings “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair”

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Bing Crosby sings Younger than Springtime

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You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught

In what amounts to a Public Service Announcement on Brotherhood Week, Oscar Hammerstein introduces the song, while Richard Rodgers plays the piano and while William Tabbert, who originated the role of the character Lt. Joseph Cable, sings

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Here’s Mandy Patinkin’s interpretation

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And Billy Porter

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You’ve got to be taught To hate and fear, You’ve got to be taught From year to year, It’s got to be drummed In your dear little ear You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade, You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate, You’ve got to be carefully taught

Alex Newell sings “Wonderful Guy”

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The King and I, 1951

Kelli O’Hara sings “I Whistle A Happy Tune”

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Whenever I feel afraid I hold my head erect And whistle a happy tune So no one will suspect I’m afraid. While shivering in my shoes I strike a careless pose And whistle a happy tune And no one ever knows I’m afraid. The result of this deception Is very strange to tell For when I fool the people I fear I fool myself as well! And ev’ry single time The happiness in the tune Convinces me that I’m not afraid. Make believe you’re brave And the trick will take you far. You may be as brave As you make believe you are You may be as brave As you make believe you are LOUIS While shivering in my shoes I strike a careless pose And whistle a happy tune And no one ever knows, I’m afraid.

Jelani Alladin and Matt Doyle sing “We Kiss In A Shadow” in 2019 (a gorgeous version that’s part of the unfortunately named R&H Goes Pop series)

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Pipe Dream, 1955

Perry Como sings “All At Once You Start to Love Her”

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You start to light her cigarette And all at once you love her You’ve scarcely talked You’ve scarcely met But all at once you love her

You like her eyes, you tell her so She thinks you’re wise and clever You kiss goodnight and then you know You’ll kiss goodnight forever You wonder where your heart can go Then all at once you know (All at once you know)

You like her eyes (‘like her eyes) You tell her so (‘tell her so) She thinks you’re wise and clever (You’re wise an’ clever) You kiss goodnight and then you know You’ll kiss goodnight forever You wonder where your heart can go Then all at once you know

Flower Drum Song, 1958

Miyoshi Umeki sings the first song “A Hundred Million Miracles” in this long segment on the Ed Sullivan Show

This is followed by “You Are Beautiful”, “I Enjoy Being A Girl”, “Love Look Away”, and “Sunday”. sung by members of the cast Pat Suzuki, Ed Kenney, Juanita Hall, Arabella Hong, Larry Blyden, Patrick Adiarte.

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The Sound of Music, 1959

My Favorite Things

Julie Andrews sings it in the movie

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But it’s been embraced by singers the world over, especially jazz singers.

Sarah Vaughn

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Bobby McFerrin

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Tony Bennett

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Raindrops on roses And whiskers on kittens Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens Brown paper packages tied up with strings These are a few of my favorite things

Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels Doorbells and sleigh bells And schnitzel with noodles Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes Silver-white winters that melt into springs These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites When the bee stings When I’m feeling sad I simply remember my favorite things And then I don’t feel so bad

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens Brown paper packages tied up with strings These are a few of my favorite things

Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes Silver white winters that melt into springs These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites When the bee stings When I’m feeling sad I simply remember my favorite things And then I don’t feel so bad

The Sweetest Sight

In 1939, Oscar Hammerstein spotted an old couple on the beach, and was moved to write lyrics set to a melody Jerome Kern had written several years before. Here in 1981, Isaac Stern plays the violin violin and then Mary Martin sings “The Sweetest Sight I Have Seen” Starts at around 3:00

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I have seen a line of snow-white birds Drawn across an evening sky. I have seen divine, unspoken words Shining in a lover’s eye. I hae seen moonlight on a mountaintop, Silver and cool and still. I have heard church ells fairly echoing Over a distant hill. Close enough to beauty I have been. And, in all the whole wide land, Here’s the sweetest sight that I have seen — One old couple walking hand in hand.

O is for Oscar Hammerstein II. The Lyricist Who Revolutionized Broadway, even before Richard Rodgers. Before he started collaborating with Richard Rodgers on some of the most beloved musicals in Broadway history, Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960) had helped create some three dozen Broadway productions over a quarter of a century, most often writing both the lyrics…

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watchilove · 6 years

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The M.A.D.Gallery introduces “Rides of the Wild,” a collection of eight works by Frédéric Müller, a young and talented Swiss artist with an extraordinarily creative mind. In this series, Müller brings his imagination to life, using his expertise in 3D art to morph classic cars into complementary transport for animals of the wild including a lion, a hippo, and an alligator. There’s even a ride for a panda!

An Aston Martin transforms into a hippopotamus while a Ford truck turns into a lion…these images have our minds shifting gears. “I want to create pieces that viewers can lose themselves in, look at for longer than just a couple seconds, and jump-start their own imaginations,” Müller explained. “I am always looking to create something that is a bit special, that hasn’t been thought of before, or that has a special vibe to it.”

Here at the M.A.D.Gallery, we are both thrilled to present Müller’s playful compilation of clever 3D images and slightly obsessed with letting our imaginations run wild with potential storylines. “We always try to incorporate something that makes us, and hopefully those who discover our pieces, smile. Frédéric Müller’s work does exactly that!” Max Büsser, founder of MB&F and the M.A.D.Gallery, enthuses. “Not only is his work impressive and based on vintage cars, a theme close to my heart, but it recaptures a sense of whimsical and childhood that we need to hold on to.”

Rides of the Wild

A fast ride, a classy classic or a powerful pickup truck drive these animated beasts into a new habitat as Müller discovers his version of the ideal relationship between car and animal. By outfitting each “character” with personality traits, he transforms each being and conveyance using a variety of subtle accessories and shapes.

The sweeping, steel grey curves of an Aston Martin DB5 from 1963 perfectly pair with the voluptuous silhouette of a hippopotamus. Enhancing the semblance is a pair of “ears” ideally placed on the roof of the vehicle and a license plate personalized with ‘H1PP0’. Clients can choose between a print showing a straight-on view of the hippo-inspired Aston Martin or a scene portraying a suited-up hippo heading from his car into the office.

H1PP0 01

H1PP0 02

Ready for adventure? A lion behind the wheel of a transformed Ford F-250 with a pop-up camper in tow is just the thing. This heavy-duty pickup truck from 1967 fittingly takes on the feline features of a lion with a grill fashioned as a lion’s nose, a cab embellished with “ears,” and fur-coloured paint. Müller, a perfectionist when it comes to details, adorns the front of the truck with ‘ROAR’ across the hood (instead of ‘FORD’) and completes the license plate with ‘L10N’.

L10N 01

L10N 02

At the other end of the horsepower spectrum, a 1977 Fiat 600S playfully doubles as a panda bear with black and white features including a nose on the grill and ears peeking out from under the luggage rack. In Müller’s second panda-themed artwork, a globetrotting bear couple embark on a road trip; a fun detail is the luggage exploding with bamboo. Appearing lost, the driver holds a map while staring at illegible road signs. For added detail, the license plate is customized with ‘P4ND4’.

P4ND4 01

P4ND4 02

An alligator behind the wheel of a 1968 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray races around a corner at breakneck speed: the thrill-seeking reptile harmonizes with its powerful machine sporting an elongated frontend (similar to an alligator snout) and pointy teeth positioned alongside the personalized ‘G4T0R’ plate on the grill. The deep emerald colour of the classic car coordinates with the creature hanging out the window having the time of his life.

G4T0R 01

G4T0R 02

Each customized ride has a World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) sticker thoughtfully placed on the window to remind us of the vulnerable status of these wild animals.

Two images are available for each of the four hybrid cars in either a frontend view or a coordinated setting with an animal driver. Each of the images is printed on fine paper, framed in white matte aluminium and protected by a two-millimetre-thick glass cover. Each motif is available in two sizes, 128 x 90 cm and 70 x 50 cm with white margin (image 114 x 76 cm and 60 x 40 cm), limited to eight prints and one artist edition per size. And for those desiring to have all eight prints, 18 collector boxes of 51 x 41 cm prints with white margin will also be available (image 45 x 30 cm).

Creation Process

Müller draws inspiration from everyday items and situations when creating his unique computer-generated imagery (CGI). In particular, this series came to life when a hippopotamus lamp in a second-hand store caught his eye. “The shape of the lamp looked like the front hood of a classic car,” Müller described. “I thought to myself: what if a car actually looked like a hippo? Most of my work begins with that simple question: what if? These two words are amazingly powerful in kicking off your imagination as they force you to think out of the norm.”

https://vimeo.com/315889060

The hippo-esque Aston Martin continued to develop a unique personality and storyline in his mind, eventually unfolding into a series of four classic cars digitally morphed into wild animals with correlating characters.

Regarding the creation process, once the concepts are complete the next step in the digital imaging process is to design and build a 3D model of the cars using computer animation and modelling software. When modelling is completed, the 3D models are textured and shaded (defining their material properties), composited in the final scene by setting the camera angle, and the “lighting” arranged. The image is then test-rendered multiple times to fine tune the materials and lighting setup in order to achieve a photorealistic rendering. The final steps, including colour grading and contrast, take place in Adobe Photoshop. Working in a 10,500-pixel format allows the finest of details to shine through, from the fur on the animals and dust on the wheels to squashed mosquitos on the windshield.

The process is not at all smoothly linear, each step requires several testing phases to produce the finished image Müller envisions. It takes lots of time to integrate the countless details: the “Rides of the Wild” series took nearly three years to complete from start to finish.

3D-Preview / Test lighting / Final Image

Completed 3D-Model

Grooming the Panda’s Fur

Preview Rendering for Lighting Setup

About the Artist

“First and foremost, it’s about fun! Having fun and conveying fun,” Müller excitedly says as he describes his approach to art. Graduating with a bachelor’s degree in industrial and product design from the FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Switzerland, Müller was fascinated by the creative work behind shaping objects that surround us in our daily lives. After working as a designer, he discovered a passion that was not in product design but in using photography, computer-generated imagery (CGI), and 3D-visualisation techniques to make imaginative ideas become visual. “Bringing concepts or products to life by showing them in photorealistic images, putting them into context, and telling stories of where and how the products would be of use in real life,” Müller explains.

A move to Amsterdam for a role as a 3D artist at a leading CGI production company came in 2013, providing a great experience and a mentor who brought out the best in him. Müller started publishing his work online, which resulted in positive attention and even magazine features. Gaining traction, his images were displayed next to the work of admired artists. Müller moved back to Switzerland to develop this opportunity, securing freelance projects for clients in the advertising industry while also developing his own projects.

Today Müller’s studio time is split between a converted firefighter’s van and an office in Switzerland. “Being able to work remotely and getting out of the regular working environment is quite a boost for creative input,” he describes his time in his “Atelier on Wheels,” which runs on a large solar-powered battery. A substantial part of this series – research, development of the concept, sketching, and modelling of the cars – was created during adventurous road trips through Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and France.

Take a close look at the G4T0R and P4ND4 background: the sky and horizon line in the perspective images came from photographs captured by Müller while on the road. The largest resolution part of the work – including detailing, building of the CGI environments, and especially the rendering – were executed at the workspace in Switzerland, where he has more computing power.

The future is bright for this young digital artist who is dedicated to provoking feelings – especially happy ones – in those who observe his work. “To have viewers stop for a second and consider; what if this actually was real? To make people react, smile, laugh, reflect, and consider things from a different perspective. I loved (and still do love) the fact that you can express your creativity/ideas with little to no budget, except the time and effort you are willing to put into it,” Müller said.

For more information please visit the M.A.D.Gallery at Rue Verdaine 11, 1204 Geneva, Switzerland (+41 22 508 10 38), the Website or request info [email protected]

The M.A.D.Gallery introduces “Rides of the Wild” by Swiss Digital Artist Frédéric Müller The M.A.D.Gallery introduces “Rides of the Wild,” a collection of eight works by Frédéric Müller, a young and talented Swiss artist with an extraordinarily creative mind.

#Frédéric Müller #MAD Gallery #MB&F #mbandf #Rides of the Wild

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thrashermaxey · 6 years

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Ramblings: Injuries to Landeskog, Luongo, van Riemsdyk, Getzlaf, Dubinsky; Observations – October 9

We had a trio of early-afternoon games thanks to Columbus Day so there are is some NHL action to discuss, even for the first Monday of the season.

Ottawa went into Boston and were trounced by the Boston top line. Patrice Bergeron had a hat trick and added an assist, David Pastrnak had two of each, and Brad Marchand had three helpers as Boston doubled Ottawa 6-3. Charlie McAvoy also had three assists.

On the Ottawa side, Ryan Dzingel had a pair of goals while Dylan DeMelo had a pair of assists. Mike Condon was in net for five of the six goals.

One thing to note here: five of the six Boston defencemen played between 18:51 and 21:56 with no one surpassing 22 minutes. That is a balanced approach which they didn’t employ in the first game of the season.

The Islanders shut out San Jose 4-0 in Brooklyn. It was Robin Lehner’s first start of the season and he made the most of it, making 35 saves on 35 shots.

It was a lot of depth scoring for the Islanders so not much aside from Lehner was important. One thing I did notice was that with the Sharks down 3-0 and a little over four minutes left, they pulled Martin Jones for the extra attacked. New York would score an empty-net goal after about three minutes of 6v5, but in those three-ish minutes, the only top-6 Islander forward to see ice time was Brock Nelson. No Barzal, no Bailey, no Lee. If that sustains itself this year, it could mean a lot of lost points for the top of the lineup, and that matters for fantasy.

Jack Eichel had a pair of goals, leading the Sabres to a 4-2 win. Credit where it’s due, Carter Hutton saved Buffalo in this game, saving 35 of 37 shots. Buffalo, meanwhile, managed just 17 shots.

Kyle Okposo managed a pair of assists, his first points of the season.

By the way, Conor Sheary remained on the top PP unit.

It’s an inauspicious start to the second Flyers stint of James van Riemsdyk’s career as he will be out over a month with a knee injury.

In response to the injury, it appears that the line of Giroux-Couturier-Voracek will be reunited with Travis Konecny moving down in Voracek’s spot with Jordan Weal taking JvR’s spot on the third line.

This is a pretty significant blow to the fantasy value of Konecny. Whether he skates with Nolan Patrick or Mikhail Vorobyov, it’ll undoubtedly mean a decline in minutes and he still won’t get to the top PP unit.

Brandon Dubinsky will be out at least four weeks with a strained oblique. While he’s not the producer he was a few years ago, he could still rack up hits, PIMs, and face-off wins for fantasy owners. Riley Nash will take over the third-line duties while Anthony Duclair was moved to the second line alongside Alex Wennberg and Oliver Bjorkstrand was moved to the fourth.

Gabriel Landeskog may not be available for Tuesday’s game with a lower-body injury. Matt Calvert would be his replacement on the top line.

Valeri Nichushkin may return for the Stars Tuesday night but look for him to have a minimal role at first. I wouldn’t stash him in most leagues just yet.

Ryan Getzlaf missed Monday night's game with an injury. Update on the game and his condition in the morning.

Roberto Luongo is out for 2-4 weeks. He left Florida’s game on Saturday night and apparently it is a knee issue that popped up. James Reimer will be getting all the starts for the near-term so grab him off the wire if you need a third or fourth goalie.

Maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s something: JT Miller was moved to the fourth line in yesterday’s practice while Tyler Johnson was moved to the second line for Tampa with Ondrej Palat moving up to join Stamkos and Kucherov. It’ll be interesting to see how long this lasts. My bet: not long.

We are nearly a week into the season and it is still far too early to draw any conclusions about anything. Outside of injuries or major line changes, tinkering with a fantasy roster before Halloween is not advised. Whatever you or I thought about a given player or given team 10 days ago should still be accurate today.

Except that’s not quite true. There are things that always stand out once the games get going. We watch the games, check the post-game stats, and there players or teams that catch our attention. I want to go through some things that have stood out to me through the (nearly) first week of the season.

Dobber had his own proper early-season notes yesterday.

Let’s get to it.

Carolina should scare every other team in the East, however…

The Hurricanes have played three games and two of them were at home to the Rangers and Islanders. They crushed the Islanders in the 5v5 expected goals battle (60%) despite the 2-1 overtime loss; Thomas Greiss being nearly unbeatable was the only reason for the Carolina loss. They similarly ran over the Rangers in the wild 8-5 win on Sunday. Neither of those two outcomes should be surprising.

The third game, a 3-1 win in Columbus where they exceeded the Blue Jackets at 5v5 in both CF% (56.4%) and xGF% (52.2%) is a better indicator here. They were much better than two teams they are supposed to reign over, but they were also as good (or better) than a team some people think could contend for a Stanley Cup. Columbus was without Seth Jones, but Carolina is still missing Victor Rask (not nearly as important, I know) and is littered with young players and rookies. Despite that, they went on the road and soundly defeated this Cup darkhorse.

Carolina has looked great offensively in every game. Everything from puck movement to shot generation looks very fluid. For years, the team had trouble scoring, but it doesn’t look like the issue will persist this season. The only thing holding this team back, as usual, is goaltending.

Calgary should contend, however…

It occurred to me, watching Carolina’s game on Sunday night, that the Hurricanes and Flames aren’t very different. They have an elite-level talent at the top of the lineup (Aho/Gaudreau), an underappreciated-yet-excellent centre (Backlund/Staal), emerging young stars (Tkachuk, Bennett, Svechnikov, Necas), and a solid blue line. Carolina’s back-end is better from top to bottom but they both have very good top-4 pairs, assuming Travis Hamonic is healthy.

There are minor differences between the two rosters but it’s just something that popped in my head.

Their respective seasons will come down to their goaltending.

It’s been a terrible start to the year for Mike Smith but they need him to turn things around. The Pacific Division looks to be wide open. A solid year from the netminder and health from the skaters should mean the team can contend for a division title. A down start to the year from Smith will have the team looking for a goaltender by Christmas.

Ilya Kovalchuk looks better than expected

After leaving the NHL for several years and returning in his mid-30s, there were a lot of questions as to how good Kovalchuk still was and could be in the new NHL. The chemistry between he and Anze Kopitar is apparent.

There are still a lot of problems with the Kings though. With Dustin Brown injured, Alex Iafallo is skating on the top line and he looks more out place than last year. Kopitar and Kovalchuk can seemingly find each other all over the ice but Iafallo is essentially being dragged all over the ice. As Dobber noted in his Ramblings, he has picked up a couple points but the Kings need another impact left winger and need one badly. I suppose that could be Kovalchuk once Brown returns but that doesn’t leave much on the third line.

Among the other issues plaguing the Kings:

Breathtaking. pic.twitter.com/cjfeuGNcd3

— dellowhockey (@dellowhockey) October 6, 2018

Yes, that’s Jake Muzzin playing the bumper on the power play. They have changed the PP but it still looks very bad. More alterations are needed.

Arizona needs patience

So, this might be a tough pill to swallow, given how poorly the Coyotes started last season. Things aren’t going much better this year with back-to-back losses to start the season, having been shutout in both contests.

They don’t look bad, though. I watched about half the first game (at Dallas) and the entire second game (vs. Anaheim). They are getting their chances. They won’t keep shooting 0%. They will get Alex Galchenyuk back, hopefully in the next couple weeks. This isn’t Anaheim getting throttled every night and yet somehow winning. Arizona looked pretty even with Dallas and ran over the Ducks. They just went a couple games without scoring.

The team isn’t deep with scoring talent, and have little true top-end talent, but guys like Stepan and Panik are 20-goal threats while Keller and Galchenyuk can flirt with 30. If they want to win games, there’ll be a lot of 3-2 and 2-1 contests. But they don’t look ‘bad,’ they look a bit unlucky. They won’t be a top-scoring team but they need to have patience until Galchenyuk returns.

Detroit’s young blue liners deserve more rope

Libor Sulak. Dennis Cholowski. Filip Hronek. Were it not for the injuries, it’s a wonder if any of these guys are on the opening night roster. As it is, Mike Green is expected to miss a month with his illness, Jonathan Ericsson isn’t back yet, Niklas Kronwall is still out but close to returning, and Trevor Daley was injured on Sunday night. That forced both Sulak and Cholowski to play over 22 minutes against Los Angeles and the Red Wings looked… fine?

It’s been years now that the Wings haven’t had a bevy of players on the blue line who can move the puck. Other than Mike Green, the defence corps has been, more or less, a horror show when it comes to moving the puck and starting the offence. Each of those players, Sulak and Cholowski specifically, bring a dimension to the defence that the team needs badly.

Detroit has lost their first two games, but the first loss was in overtime to Columbus and the second loss was a 4-2 game including an empty netter where they thoroughly outplayed the Kings. The rebuild is on for the Wings and they should keep giving the kids the ice time. Kronwall has one year left and if they want him to mentor the young players, he can do so playing 15 minutes a night. Ericsson has two years left and he can do the same. A big reason why Detroit has looked fine early in the season is because of the young defencemen. Don’t take away their ice time, Blashill.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-injuries-to-landeskog-luongo-van-riemsdyk-getzlaf-dubinsky-observations-october-9/

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junker-town · 7 years

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A complete history of Vontaze Burfict being the most reckless football player

Vontaze Burfict’s history of not caring about the well-being of others started long before he ever reached the NFL.

Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict is exactly what every NFL team wanted from a middle linebacker about 40 or 50 years ago. Players like Dick Butkus and Jack Lambert had reputations as mean and scary enforcers who didn’t just make tackles, but attempted to set the tone for anybody who dared to go to the middle of the field.

Highlight reels showed clothesline tackles, helmet-to-helmet hits, and boasted about the rough and tough linebackers of lore.

But the best linebackers of football today are those who can channel the aggression and violence of the game without crossing the line. That’s something that Burfict has struggled with.

In fewer than 60 career games, Burfict, 26, has racked up close to $800,000 in career fines and forfeited pay. That number could jump by more than $1 million if he loses his appeal of a five-game suspension for a hit on Kansas City Chiefs fullback Anthony Sherman.

Some of his biggest punishments have come against one of the Bengals’ biggest rivals: the Pittsburgh Steelers. Burfict seems to dial up his recklessness to another level against them.

Burfict drew a massive $69,454 fine in December 2015 for a combination of two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties and a hit on Ben Roethlisberger in a loss to the Steelers. A month later, Burfict was suspended three games for a helmet-to-helmet hit on Antonio Brown in the playoffs that concussed the wide receiver.

But Burfict’s lengthy history of rash play goes way beyond the AFC North rivalry.

Corona Centennial High School (2005-2009)

The top two recruits in the state of California on just about everyone’s rankings for the class of 2009 were Burfict and Mater Dei quarterback Matt Barkley. The pair of five-star prospects met for games against each other as both juniors and seniors, and it certainly appeared as though Burfict aimed to hit Barkley in the knees in one of those games.

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Years later, Barkley held a grudge over Burfict’s play in high school and accused him of attempting to injure.

"He's a dirty player," Barkley told the Los Angeles Times before the two were set to meet in a game in college. "His switch is always on. And it's not a good switch."

Burfict’s targeting of Barkley especially raised eyebrows because both players were committed to USC. The linebacker later made a last second switch to Arizona State on National Signing Day.

Arizona State University (2009-2012)

Burfict quickly developed a reputation for being a destroyer of worlds at ASU. In his first college game, Burfict demolished Idaho State quarterback Russell Hill, and a couple of weeks later, he made a pair of huge stops against No. 21 Georgia late in the game.

The second stop was an impressive dive over the line of scrimmage on fourth down that came right after Burfict shoved the ref and almost gave up a free first down:

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Burfict finished the year with Pac-10 Defensive Freshman of the Year honors, but he quickly developed a reputation for personal fouls. By midseason, he was already told to rein it in after drawing three personal fouls in an October game against Washington.

"He got carried away," ASU coach Dennis Erickson told the Arizona Republic. "That's how he is, but he's got to control it. I love his intensity. I don't want to slow his intensity down because it's contagious for the rest of the players, for the fans and for everybody involved in the program. But he's got to be smart, and I know he will."

He never got around to being smart. Burfict kept on crushing opposing players and drawing personal fouls every step of the way. Even in practice, Burfict was a problem.

“There were more practice fights in Vontaze’s years than I’ve seen in (current coach) Todd Graham’s entire four years at ASU,” Chris Karpman of Sun Devil Source told the Press Enterprise in January. “I think in the first week after he’d been cleared academically as a freshman, he was in a fight every day of practice that following week.”

Sporting News dubbed Burfict “The Meanest Man in College Football” in 2011, but Erickson was forced to bench the linebacker a few times — sometimes unsuccessfully.

“I know one thing,” Oregon State coach Mike Riley told Sporting News. “Somebody is taking a blow every play (Burfict is) on the field.”

Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images

Burfict entered the 2012 NFL draft after his junior season, finishing his collegiate career with 22 personal fouls in 37 games with the Sun Devils.

Cincinnati Bengals (2012-2016)

Despite first-team All-American honors as a sophomore in 2010, Burfict’s declining play as a junior, concerns about his lack of discipline, a failed drug test at the NFL Combine, and poor testing times all combined to boot him from the 2012 NFL draft entirely.

“I watched three tapes and really didn’t like him as a football player,” NFL Network’s Mike Mayock said a week before the draft. “I think he’s a nondraftable kid. For me, he’s a free agent.”

The Bengals scooped up Burfict as a free agent, and it immediately paid off with the rookie starting 14 games and leading the team in tackles with 127. The Bengals finished No. 6 in total defense but allowed 2.4 more yards per play when Burfict was off the field. Yet, he managed to go the whole year without a fine.

He earned a $20 million extension in 2014, but Burfict reverted to his former self, racking up personal fouls and fines that have since come to define his play, despite the fact that he’s one of the NFL’s better linebackers.

Sept. 22, 2013

Burfict got his first fine in the NFL for hitting Green Bay Packers tight end Ryan Taylor in a not so nice place.

Taylor was penalized during the game, but the NFL gave Burfict a $10,000 fine after replays showed what made Taylor so mad in the first place.

Burfict also received a $21,000 fine in the same game for a hit on James Jones that drew a flag because the Packers receiver was deemed defenseless.

Burfict showed his boom-or-bust qualities later in the game when he told Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer to change a play call on the final drive of the game.

"He wanted to call one play and I said, 'Coach, that's not going to work,' Burfict told Bengals.com. “Let's just go base and hopefully we get [Aaron] Rodgers to start scrambling and we plaster their guys and it worked."

Rodgers threw a pass on fourth down that was tipped by Bengals defensive end Michael Johnson, sealing a 34-30 win for the Bengals.

Oct. 13, 2013

Officials called three 15-yard penalties on Burfict in a game against the Buffalo Bills, but he only received a $7,875 fine for a facemask on running back Fred Jackson.

Oct. 27, 2013

Burfict earned another $21,000 fine about a month later when he speared New York Jets wide receiver Stephen Hill with his helmet. It upped his 2013 fine total to $59,875 — a huge chunk of his modest $480,000 base salary in the second year of his undrafted contract.

Oct. 12, 2014

The only fine of the 2014 season for Burfict was a $25,000 penalty for twisting the ankles of both Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton and Panthers tight end Greg Olsen.

Both Newton and Olsen dealt with ankle injuries earlier in the season, and Olsen argued that Burfict should be suspended for his actions.

"In instances like that that are so clearly premeditated, that he had in his mind that if he had those opportunities that he was going to try to attack guys' legs, but guys who are coming off ankle problems specifically, there's no room for it," Olsen told the Charlotte Observer.

"Guys like that don't learn from that stuff. He's been fined 100 times for head-hunting and he did it to (Panthers receiver) Kelvin (Benjamin) again."

Benjamin suffered a concussion on the final play from scrimmage for the Panthers when Burfict hit him, but the tackle did not draw a flag.

Nov. 1, 2015

Burfict’s bad blood with the Steelers really boiled over in a Week 8 game between two teams jockeying for a playoff position. The linebacker made a tackle on running back Le’Veon Bell that forced him to have season-ending knee surgery, and players on the Steelers — including offensive lineman Ramon Foster — said that Burfict celebrated the injury.

"If you're on the field with him, you know what I mean by that," Foster said, via Chris Adamski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "They'll play it off; he'll act dumb about it. But you don't run across the field hyped, celebrating, jumping up and down when a guy goes down like that."

After the game, Burfict insisted he didn’t celebrate the injury and said he’s friends with Bell off the field.

Dec. 13, 2015

At the next meeting between the teams, Burfict and James Harrison got after each other in pregame warm-ups, but that was just the beginning of the feud between the teams.

Burfict earned fines for three separate plays — two unnecessary roughness penalties and a hit low on Roethlisberger — totaling $69,454. The hit on Roethlisberger drew the most attention as it appeared the linebacker made an effort to dive at the quarterback’s knees, although Burfict said he was pushed.

"He said ‘I got pushed into you, my bad,'" Roethlisberger told 93.7 The Fan two days later. "I turned my phone on afterwards and one of the texts I got from a former player and a friend of mine says, ‘How is this not a fine or a penalty by Burfict?' and he showed me the clip of it. And since then I have seen the clip, and I don't buy that he was pushed. You know, I think that he definitely was diving in low and going for my legs."

The play did not draw a flag, but it was still one of the three plays that resulted in a huge fine for Burfict.

Jan. 9, 2016

Years of Burfict being a stellar linebacker, but also a player seemingly out for blood, culminated in a single game that seemed to be a microcosm of his entire football life.

First, Burfict injured Roethlisberger on a perfectly legal sack that forced the quarterback to be carted off the field. He eventually returned to the game, despite suffering a shoulder injury that seemed to clearly hinder his play.

Then Burfict appeared to seal the game for the Bengals by intercepting a pass from Landry Jones with 1:36 remaining, seemingly icing the team’s 16-15 lead.

But the Bengals fumbled the ball right back to the Steelers, and Roethlisberger re-entered the game with the chance to set up a game-winning field goal. Pittsburgh eventually got that field goal, and it was due to a vicious, head-hunting hit delivered by Burfict on Antonio Brown that drew a 15-yard penalty.

A 15-yard penalty was given to Adam “Pacman” Jones in the chaos that followed, and the Steelers hit a chip shot to win. Burfict was suspended three games for the hit that concussed Brown and knocked him out of the Steelers’ next playoff game.

With Roethlisberger dealing with a shoulder injury and Brown out of action, the Steelers lost 23-16 to the Denver Broncos.

Oct. 16, 2016

After sitting out the first three games of the 2016 season, Burfict’s first fine of the year came in the third game when he was docked $75,000 for stomping on New England Patriots running back LeGarrette Blount.

Fresh off a suspension for a reckless play, the hefty fine made sense given the linebacker’s history. But it also seemed odd that it wouldn’t draw another suspension for a player clearly on a short leash.

It also bears questioning if another player would have been punished, as replay seemed to show no stomp happened at all.

Nov. 20, 2016

His most recent regular season fine came after he flipped double fingers to the Buffalo crowd in a Week 11 loss to the Bills.

Video of #Bengals LB Vontaze "Dirtfict" Burfict giving the double middle finger to fans during #Bills loss https://t.co/UqTKqlsdXV

— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) November 20, 2016

Burfict was fined $12,154 for the middle fingers, upping his mammoth career total.

August 2017

In training camp, Burfict started a brawl with his own team when he tackled running back Gio Bernard by diving at his knees. Bernard had just resumed practicing again after recovering from his ACL tear the year before.

In Cincy’s second preseason game, Burfict took down Chiefs fullback Anthony Sherman with a big hit while he was running a passing route. The league has a new rule against just such a move this season, and Burfict was suspended five games, but had the punishment reduced to three games after an appeal.

November 2017

Burfict was ejected from a game against the Titans for contact with an official. Television cameras never showed what the interaction was that got him tossed, but it came after a questionable late hit call that frustrated the linebacker.

He walked off the field holding up the money sign a la Johnny Manziel.

In his six seasons in the NFL, and even long before that, Vontaze Burfict has toed the line between violent linebacker and out-of-control player with malicious intent.

His history as a repeat offender in the NFL already resulted in a suspension and has upped his fine totals to far beyond the numbers of the average NFL player. No other player is in jeopardy of serious ramifications for a single personal foul, but Burfict has reached that point.

Maybe in another era, Burfict’s disregard for the well-being of his opponents would have been revered. But it has meant trouble more often than not for the linebacker during his career.

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orbemnews · 3 years

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thrashermaxey · 6 years

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20 Fantasy Hockey Thoughts

Every Sunday until the start of the 2018-19 regular season, we'll share 20 Fantasy Thoughts from our writers at DobberHockey. These thoughts are curated from the past week's "Daily Ramblings".

Writers: Michael Clifford, Ian Gooding, Cam Robinson, and Dobber

1. If there was any doubt Brayden Point played over his head during his sophomore year, they should now have been laid to rest. He had 16 points in 17 games and though the shooting percentage was high, he’s posted a high number for his short career so far.

Point was easily the most dangerous forward for the Lightning all through the Washington series and he and Ondrej Palat played very well together throughout the playoffs when given ice time together. It was nice to see Point get consistent top power-play minutes towards the end of the team’s run, as well. If he can stay on that top power play unit next year, this is a point-per-game player in the making. (may25)

2. Mikhail Sergachev: hoo boy. This is a guy with a 40-point season as a teenager while putting up top-10 shot rates among defencemen. The young Bolts’ future is incredibly bright and it’s good to see the pressure of the playoffs didn’t get to him. He’s still playing his game and playing it well. (may24)

3. Nate Schmidt is probably a more valuable real-life defenseman than fantasy defenseman but we shouldn’t overlook his fantasy numbers. After previously failing to crack the 20-point mark on a deep Capitals’ defense, Schmidt posted a solid 36 points (5g-31a) in 76 games this year. Schmidt checked off all the boxes in this league when I added him: decent offense, plus/minus (plus-19), and solid ice time (these are the only categories that are counted among players in this league). In spite of the lack of offense in Washington, Schmidt was a combined plus-34 over his two seasons there, giving him a plus-53 over his last three seasons.

Schmidt led all Vegas skaters with just over 22 minutes per game in the regular season. The only team blueliner who had more offense than him was Colin Miller, who picked up 41 points. Schmidt still has Shea Theodore looking over his shoulder, as he appears primed to make a greater fantasy impact over a full season next season. So, Schmidt’s offensive ceiling shouldn’t be considered that much higher than what he has already produced. Yet, as far as gems that were unearthed from other teams, Schmidt’s name isn’t discussed enough. (may27)

4. Man, Carolina’s Sebastian Aho is going to be a special player – his trajectory of 49 points and then 65 points and then this ridiculous output at the World Championship this year (18 points in just eight games) has me feeling pretty bold about his numbers next season. (may21)

5. Long considered one of the top prospects in the world, Brayden Schenn hasn’t quite lived up to his billing. It’s not too often a fifth-overall pick is traded twice in their twenties while being a NHL player but Schenn has managed to succeed despite it. His most recent 70-point output in St. Louis represents a career high. His chemistry with Vladimir Tarasenko means he’s in a strong position to at least come close to replicating it. (may26)

6. OEL is a horse. He logs a ton of minutes and almost always hits double-digit goals. No seriously, Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored 12 or more goals in six of his eight NHL campaigns. As long as your league doesn’t count plus/minus, he’s been good for at least a half-point-per-game in each of the last six seasons. Toss in a 55-point season in 2015-16 and you’ve had a strong blueliner on your fantasy hockey squad for years. With AZ trending in the right direction, his value will continue to hold steady. (may26)

7. Matt Duchene peaked early in his NHL career with seasons of 0.68, 0.84, 0.94, and 0.99 in his first five campaigns. It looked like a point-per-game pace would become his norm. However, since 2013-14, he’s averaged 0.68 points-per-game (a 55-point pace). The Sen is still a valuable depth piece but not a player to build your fantasy team around. (may26)

8. Some Canucks news came down Friday. The team announced they have signed their most recent first-round selection and top prospect, Elias Pettersson. For my money, Pettersson is the top-rated fantasy prospect in the world. Including the 2018 crop that is about to enter the fray.

P.S. Apparently the proper pronunciation of his name is “Eh-lee-as Peter-son”. (may26)

9. I wonder what this Cup run has done for Braden Holtby’s average draft position (ADP) next year? He burned everyone who drafted him for the 2017-18 season and eventually lost the starter’s job to Philipp Grubauer.

In an alternate universe, Grubauer and the Caps get bounced in the first round and we have a Holtby who lost the starter’s job and couldn’t even get in the cage for the postseason. Instead we have a Holtby who took the job back, helped the Caps come back against the Blue Jackets, posted a .924 save percentage through three rounds, and shutout the Lightning in back-to-back games to get to Washington’s first Cup Final in the Alex Ovechkin era.

He’s probably a top-10 goalie off the board again, yeah? (may25)

10. It’s worth noting Dmitry Orlov averaged two shots, two hits, and two blocked shots a game through the first three rounds despite not cracking any of those benchmarks in the regular season.

John Carlson’s future is uncertain in Washington and it seems like the cap-strapped team might have to let him walk. The top PP unit has been built around a right-handed defenseman who can feed Alex Ovechkin going back to the Mike Green days. Orlov is a lefty. Do they change the PP around to accommodate him or just slide Matt Niskanen to that spot?

I hope it’s Orlov and they figure out a way to make it work. It would easily push him over the 40-point plateau for the first time in his career. (may25)

11. Timo Meier had one of the highest shot rates in these playoffs among all forwards and led the Sharks in this regard at five-on-five. The news about Evander Kane’s signing will draw the attention, but this really rests on the future of Joe Thornton. In my head, I envision Kane/Joe Pavelski as the top line, Logan Couture with Tomas Hertl on the second line, and Thornton feeding Meier on the third line in a sheltered role. That’s my vision, I’m sure the coach would have other plans.

Should Thornton come back, I will be drafting Meier everywhere I can. That’s an if, though, because with Hertl, Kane, Joonas Donskoi, and others in the mix, it might not mean consistent top-6 minutes for Meier. (may25)

12. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Caps’ Jakub Vrana’s individual expected goals per 60 minutes these playoffs: (going into Game 7) 0.91, 10th among forwards with 150 minutes at five-on-five. That mark was ahead of names like James Neal, Jonathan Marchessault, and Rick Nash. The problem is he’s shooting 3.85 percent at five-on-five so the actual production hasn’t been there.

Just add this to the mounting evidence that Vrana will be (or already is) a pretty good player. Upside is capped without the top power-play minutes, but he is a guy who will litter my fantasy rosters come September. (may24)

13. Evander Kane’s decision to stay with the Sharks should serve as great news for his keeper league owners. After all, Kane looked right at home with his new team (nine goals and 14 points in 17 games) mainly set up on the top line with Joe Pavelski. A while ago, I compared Pavelski’s production with and without the injured Joe Thornton, which showed Pavelski’s production actually improve after Thornton’s injury. Let’s do the same for Pavelski without and with Kane.

Pavelski before Kane acquisition: 46 points in 62 games (0.74 PTS/GP)

Pavelski after Kane acquisition: 19 points in 20 games (0.95 PTS/GP)

We don’t know what will happen with Thornton in the offseason. But, regardless of whether he is back, the Sharks need to keep their newly-signed left wing with Pavelski to yield maximum gains from both.

Of course, if you’re in a league that counts shots on goal, you’ll want to move Kane up a little in your pre-draft rankings. Kane was fourth in the entire league with 307 shots. The Sharks as a team were second in the NHL with 34.3 shots per game and could be the league leader in that category next season with both Kane and Brent Burns in the fold for a full campaign. Kane hardly slowed his shot total after the trade, staying in the top 5 in that category after the trade with 80 SOG. (may23)

14. But, can Kane stay healthy? Being able to stay on the ice is important, especially for fantasy hockey. Having to replace a 30-goal scorer with a waiver wire replacement occasionally is fine. Having to do it for a dozen games can be an issue unless you strike lightning in a bottle. His 78 games last year are a career high. Over the last five seasons, he’s missed 23.7 percent of games, which means he’s averaged about 63 games played over those seasons. That’s not nearly good enough. If he can play 80 games, playing with a top-tier center like Pavelski or Thornton (or both!), then he’s 30 goals and 60 points in the making. If that’s 65 games? Not so much.

Given how well he played with San Jose after the trade, both regular season and playoffs, he won’t be a sleeper at the draft table. We’ll see where his ADP falls, but I’ll probably be out on him for 2018-19. (may24)

15. We all know about Mathew Barzal’s breakout season and Josh Bailey’s breakout first half. But, kind of under the radar when compared to his contract situation, John Tavares assembled another impressive season with 37 goals and 84 points – his second-best total in both categories over his nine-year career. Is that the contract year talking?

Much of Tavares’ success in 2017-18 can be attributed to solid chemistry with linemates Bailey and Anders Lee. Bailey had a breakout season (71 points in 76 games), although his first-half numbers (50 points in 39 games) was far more impressive than his second-half numbers (21 points in 37 games). So how much did Bailey’s downturn affect Tavares?

Tavares' splits:

Oct-Dec: 49 points in 39 games (1.26 PTS/GP)

Jan-Apr: 35 points in 43 games (0.81 PTS/GP)

Not exactly a steep decline like Bailey in the second half (0.57 PTS/GP) but a decline nevertheless. Just keep this in the ol’ memory bank in case Tavares is back. (may23)

16. The Jets have some work to do this summer. Both Jacob Trouba and Connor Hellebuyck need new contracts, they have a lot of guys in their bottom-six that need new deals or need to be replaced, and they’re a year away from having to sign Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor to, presumably, long-term deals. Not to mention this is the last year of Blake Wheeler’s contract and he’ll be 32 years old.

Winnipeg has most of their core locked up already and I don’t think they want to go through more negotiations with Trouba like they have in the past. A one-year deal would be great for them but seeing as Trouba has one season with 30 points in five years, now might be the time to lock him up long-term. If he breaks out for 44 points or something this year, he’ll be a lot more expensive in 12 months from now. (may22)

17. The hockey world is waiting with impatience to see what a player with no track record of high-level production putting up a 43-goal, 78-point performance being due an RFA contract will get. A month ago, I intimated that William Karlsson’s contract could be similar to what Jonathan Marchessault received in Vegas, if only a bit higher AAV. Repeating 40-plus goals will be near impossible, but that contract would be fine if he settles into the 20-25 goal, 55-60-point range. (may22)

18. Jonathan Marchessault hasn’t peaked. I liked him in the minors, I liked what he did over seven or eight games when Tyler Johnson went down and ‘Marchy’ had first-line ice time with Tampa Bay And, when Florida picked him up I thought it was a great signing with sleeper potential. I didn’t understand why they gave him up to Vegas, I thought it was stupid. And, last summer I traded Evgeni Malkin for a package that included Jonathan Drouin, Viktor Arvidsson and Marchessault. I had Malkin for, what, 13 years? I drafted Malkin (I remember trading Mats Sundin for that second overall pick plus a fourth rounder that became Jussi Jokinen). Last summer I called Marchessault this year’s Brian Bradley – a sudden superstar. (may21)

19. Reilly Smith? He’s peaked. I’m often referring to his track record of having a fantastic first season with a new team but then slowly falling by the wayside over the next year or two. That may not happen next year, but I still think a steady decline is in the cards. (may21)

20. Congratulations Marc-Andre Fleury for winning this year’s Conn Smythe Trophy. I don’t care if Vegas is swept next round, Fleury gets the CST simple as that. I picked Vegas to win the first round. And, again the second round. Big mistake to bet against them the third round. I’m done betting against them, I don’t care who they play. Lesson learned. ‘Uncle!’ I cry. (may21)

Have a good week, folks!!

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts-25/

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thrashermaxey · 6 years

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Ramblings: Washington Forces Game 7; Marian Hossa; Free Agency; Power Plays – May 22

Game 6 between Washington and Tampa Bay was everything a playoff game, and specifically an elimination game, fans want it to be. It was end-to-end action despite the lack of goals, lots of physicality, great goaltending, and fingernails bitten down to nubs. It was undoubtedly one of the best games of the playoffs.

Both Andrei Vasilevskiy and Braden Holtby were excellent in this game, with the latter managing a 3-0 shutout to get us to a Game 7. If that game is anything like this game, Caps and Bolts fans may not have a non-gray hair left on their collective heads.

TJ Oshie scored a power-play goal late in the second period that would stand as the game-winner. Devante Smith-Pelly added a tally midway though the third period for the added insurance with Oshie scoring an empty-netter.

The top lines came to play for Washington as Ovechkin, Vrana, Oshie, and Kuznetsov all had at least four shots on goal. It was also a great game from Nick Backstrom in all facets.

Whatever the outcome, this has been a great series. Strap in for Wednesday night, everyone.

There was an interesting document posted by Matt Cane yesterday on Twitter. Cane is an editor at Hockey Graphs and does a lot of work on NHL contracts, namely in predicting length and value. Every year, he posts his model’s prediction of free agent contracts. You can go through his google doc here and he composed a tweet thread to explain some updates to this model.

This is a good starting point for those in cap leagues that are going to begin their preparations for next year shortly. I also recommend reading Alex MacLean’s ‘Capped’ sections. There was a good read last week on guys who were injured last year and what to do with their contracts.

These are always good discussion points. Here are a few guys that stuck out to me.

James van Riemsdyk

Coming off seasons of 29 goals and 36 goals, I’m sure most people are expecting him to get something like TJ Oshie got last year. Or maybe a shorter term for a higher AAV. Cap league keeper owners of JvR would likely be thrilled if he was given a short term at a reasonable AAV of about $5.3M.

William Karlsson

The hockey world is waiting with impatience to see what a player with no track record of high-level production putting up a 43-goal, 78-point performance being due an RFA contract will get. A month ago, I intimated that his contract could be similar to what Jonathan Marchessault received, if only a bit higher AAV. Mr. Cane’s model seems to agree. Repeating 40+ goals will be near impossible, but that contract would be fine if he settles into the 20-25 goal, 55-60 point range.

Jason Zucker

SOMEONE SEND ZUCKER AN OFFER SHEET.

Jacob Trouba

The Jets have some work to do this summer. Both Trouba and Connor Hellebuyck need new contracts, they have a lot of guys in their bottom-six that need new deals or need to be replaced, and they’re a year away from having to sign Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor to, presumably, long-term deals. Not to mention this is the last year of Blake Wheeler’s contract and he’ll be 32 years old. They have most of their core locked up already and I don’t think they want to go through more negotiations with Trouba like they have in the past. A one-year deal would be great for Winnipeg, but seeing as Trouba has one season with 30 points in five years, now might be the time to lock him up long-term. If he breaks out for 44 points or something this year, he’ll be a lot more expensive 12 months from now.

John Carlson

I like John Carlson a lot as a defenceman and think he comes in somewhere close to the number listed in the google doc, but man that feels like a mistake waiting to happen. The team that signs him to that deal will need him to be their sure-fire top blue liner in all phases, and can he do that for eight more years? He’s still only 28 so maybe he can do it until he’s 35. What do you Dobber heads think?

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how Vegas wasn’t a team of misfits. There were a lot of good players that ended up on that roster. No, I didn’t think they’d even make the playoffs even with that roster, but to pretend they were given bags of garbage is misguided. Two things can be true simultaneously: that there are good players on a roster and that roster wasn’t seen as good enough for playoff qualification. I know, crazy, right?

Something else to take issue with: that the rules were setup to give Vegas a good team. Again, they were going to get good players: they were going to get one of Marc-Andre Fleury or Matt Murray from Pittsburgh, they were going to get one of James Neal or Calle Jarnkrok from Nashville, they were going to get a good defenceman from Anaheim, etc. But remember this:

Vegas' playoff run and means of player acquisition:

#1 scorer: trade #2 scorer: trade #3 scorer: trade #4 scorer: draft #5 scorer: trade #6 scorer: trade #1 scoring defenseman: trade #1 goaltender and probable MVP: trade

— Travis Yost (@travisyost) May 20, 2018

Other teams tried to take advantage of Vegas with their cap space and ability to take bad contracts. The Islanders wanted to get rid of Mikhail Grabovski, the Blue Jackets wanted to get rid of David Clarkson, the Panthers (for some unknown reason) wanted to get rid of Reilly Smith. The NHL forced teams to give up a middle-of-the-roster player, but they didn’t force teams to make all these trades. If fans should get angry at anyone, they should get mad at the awful general managers and penny-pinching owners.

Will some franchises learn from this the next time expansion comes around (they better be named the Seattle Krakens)? Some will. Some won’t. Kudos to George McPhee, though. He used cap space as the asset he should have and the roster is now setup to be a playoff contender for years.

Also, this is not an embarrassment for the league. The GMs? Sure. Not the league. I’m not a television production expert but having Vegas in the Cup Final instead of Winnipeg should bring many more eyeballs to the television. This is one of the biggest stories in the sports world at the moment. Can an expansion team pull off the seemingly impossible? That’s something that will draw viewers.

Just enjoy the ride.

It was announced that Marian Hossa will indeed retire from the NHL that he will let his contract run through. If someone more familiar with the CBA wants to chime in please do so in the comments but I think that lets them put him on the LTIR and not endure cap penalties.

You can read Dobber’s take on his retirement in that link.

I remember like 10-11 years ago when I was talking NHL with a friend of mine and Hossa’s name came up. I wasn’t a big fan of his back then, so my friend asked me, “name 10 wingers better than him right now.” I think I came up with about five or six at the time. It was then that I realized just how good he was.

Hossa’s first full season was 1998-99. His last full season was 2016-17. In that span, he posted the third-most goals (525, behind Jarome Iginla and Alex Ovechkin), the ninth-most assists (608, just 19 behind Iginla despite 100 fewer games played), and the fourth-most points (1133, behind Joe Thornton, Iginla, and Jaromir Jagr). Though he didn’t really garner the reputation until the latter half of his career (to my recollection, anyway), he was regarded as an elite defensive winger as well. Not only do we have a career where Hossa was one of the absolute elite offensive players, he was considered among the elite defensive players as well.

People may point to the lack of Selke Trophies as if it were some determination of his defensive value, but the fact is wingers just don’t win the award. The last winger to be named the NHL’s top two-way forward was Jere Lehtinen in 2002-03, and he’s the only one to win it this century. A winger has won the Selke nine times and seven of them were by Lehtinen and Bob Gainey back when the trophy was first introduced. It just doesn’t happen.

Regardless of where you stand on Hossa as a defensive winger (I think he’s one of the best of this generation), the offensive stats don’t lie. He’s truly one of the top talents on the wing we’ve seen enter the NHL, from an offensive perspective, in the last couple decades. If you’re among the people who think he was an elite defensive winger as well, you then start to wonder if not only does he belong in the Hall of Fame (he absolutely does) but where he stands in the pantheon of elite wingers in the history of the game.

Last week was spent discussing the changing trends in five-on-five shooting. The most important takeaways were that not only are shot attempt rates increase significantly league-wide, but shooting percentages also rose despite a larger percentage of the actual shot on goal increase coming from defencemen than forwards.

This week, the power play.

Last month, the topics of goal scoring from defencemen on the power play as well as power-play time allocation were already covered. Those are good primers to peruse before going further here.

With power-play allocation to defencemen decreasing, we would expect a big decline in total shots on goal by defencemen to decline. This is what it looks like (data from Natural Stat Trick and all power play strengths included):

Notice the uptick this season. Despite a lower percentage of power-play minutes given to defencemen from all available PP minutes (as outlined in the link a couple paragraphs above), and a decline in total minutes from 2016-17 (a little over 17 564) to 2017-18 (a shade under 17 000), we had more shots on goal. Here’s the thing: we had fewer shot attempts in 2017-18 (6543) than in 2017-18 (6731), but more shots on goal. The shots on goal difference isn’t overly significant, but it’s just curious what happened. Is it related to strategy i.e. were penalty killers more willing to let 50-foot slap shots through and instead tried to take away half-wall one-timers or climbers? Were defencemen focusing less on a getting a booming shot off and instead trying to thread the needle? Given the difference is so small, is it just random?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as defencemen have been taking fewer shots, league-wide power-play conversions have been rising. In 2013-14, teams converted on 17.89 percent of man advantages, according to Hockey Reference. In 2015-16, that was 18.66 percent, rising over 20 percent last year. The old adage of “get traffic, hammer the puck, drive in rebounds” maybe isn’t the ideal way to go. There is obviously more than one way to score a goal but teams seem to be focusing more on half-wall one-timers, wingers climbing down the half-wall with options, cross-seam passes, or redirections at the side of the net.

There will be a bit more written on this subject later this week.

Speaking of power plays, a good read from Ryan Stimson on how a power play ran from behind the net would work. These are always fascinating articles because thinking outside the box (literally, in this case) is a way to get ahead of the curve. As I mentioned earlier, power plays are incredibly efficient right now but as Mr. Stimson points out in his article, with everyone adopting a 1-3-1 setup, teams know what’s coming. Maybe some teams will look to change things up in the next couple seasons?

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-capsbolts-game-6-marian-hossa-free-agency-power-plays-may-22/

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