#i read forums after catching up bc i was like 'did i miss something??' and i saw quite a lot of Takes

[spacedlexi]

Just saw your amphibia post and I think your tags kinda describe why I couldn't stick with it. Ppl kept talking about it like gravity falls, owl house, and infinity train, but all of those shows manage to make the eps that don't directly move the plot be the eps that develop the characters. I felt like amph was stagnant on the episodic side while hinting at a serial side that was never fully realized. (I've seen most of s1) -L✨

yeaaah i mean i think its a cute show i dont want people to think i Dislike it but it was not at All what i have seen it described as online. cuz yeah ive seen people lump it in with those other shows (which i have watched and love), but those other shows are Heavily serialized whereas amphibia is very episodic with a general plot that it vaguely follows and sometimes devotes episodes to, but not often. and when it does its over too fast bc of the short run time and we're back to wacky adventure of the week episodes with like.... barely any reflection on the deeper stuff thats happening (specifically post true colors)

and thats not necessarily a bad thing!! episodic shows work in their own right. but in amphibias case it feels caught between both, not really sure what it wants to be, and focuses more on episodic story telling while giving a rare plot centric episode, which impacts the pacing and makes it feel like theyre not devoting enough time to the plot, when i dont think the plot was ever really the goal of the show to begin with. and if it Was then they definitely made some... interesting decisions...

[avintagekiss24]

Hi! I don't want to start anything on here and am always willing for civil conversations. At this point there's so much I've found out about Seb (besides the video he liked, the tommy lee thing, and the girlfriend thing) that I feel so guilty if I would continue to support him. I love him sm but it just doesn't look good rn. He is associated/follows an organisation (for helping veterans) that has posted a blue lives matter flag picture and who's co-founder has sexual assault allegations against him, and worked with him in 'The last full measure'. His friend Paul Walter Hauser has done blackface in the past, and when called out on it he just listed a few people that also did blackface. There's more, I found a discussion on here that I can link. I seriously don't support "cancel culture" bc I don't think it helps anyone but there are just a lot of 'mistakes' and shady people that can be linked to Seb, I wish it wouldn't be that way. I honestly don't know what to think about it anymore.

Hi! I’m also open to having civil conversations and I don’t believe you’re trying to start anything. I really do think this situation of dragging up a four year old video and taking it completely out of context is harmful not just to Black people, but to fandom/activism in general. This is gonna be long because I’m going to take your points one by one, and I want to preface this by saying that I will not answer any derogatory, sideways asks pertaining to this subject. I will delete every single one and will block your silly ass. I’m not going to argue with people who think I’m blindly supporting Sebastian because I’m just trying to get fucked by him, or people who think I hate myself and am trying to appease some white man.

So, on with the discourse!

The video he liked - this video was taken completely out of context and that is my main issue with this whole situation. It was not a video of a white man saying that he thinks he should be able to say the n word as everyone claimed it was. They were quickly debating on whether or not it's okay to say in rap lyrics. He was told no, that's not okay, that's never okay and they moved on from it. That's it. End of story. That somehow was twisted into a click bait style headline of "Sebastian Stan likes a video of a white man defending his right to say the n word" when that is absolutely not true. My other issue is that people are more upset that Sebastian liked the video than they are about the white man in the video literally saying the n word. So, do you really care about the use of the n word like you're claiming? Cuz if you do, you'd be more upset at the white man that said the word than you would be about the white man simply liking the video. Or, are you just using this as an excuse to grandstand against a white man you don't like?

The Tommy Lee thing - Sebastian Stan playing Tommy Lee does not make Sebastian Stan a bad person. Is Charlize Theron a bad person for playing Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who started murdering men? Is Leonardo DiCaprio a bad person for playing a slave owner? Is Edward Norton a bad person for playing a nazi sympathizing racist? Actors play bad people. That doesn't mean that they themselves are bad people. 1990's Tommy Lee was a bad person, but that should have no bearing on who Sebastian Stan is or his character as a man.

The gf/Paul Walter Hauser thing - Why are we holding Sebastian accountable for what the people around him are doing? Again, why are we more upset that Sebastian is associated with people who have done questionable things than the specific people themselves? I'm not going to speak on the kimono wearing -- I'm not Asian. It's not my place to say whether or not its offensive because it's not my culture, but she posted that picture and attended that party before she started dating Sebastian, quite possibly before she even knew him. Same with Paul. I think that black face thing was long before he knew Sebastian. Now, if Sebastian was defending these actions, going around saying "I think it's okay for white women to wear Kimono's" "I think black face is fine" "I think white people should be able to say the n word" then we'd have a different story, wouldn't we? But that's not what we have, and that's not what he is doing. He is not responsible for the things his friends do or have done in the past just because he's more famous than they are, and he is not required to speak on them. Let's put it this way -- would you be comfortable having to be responsible for something a friend of yours did before you knew them? Would you want to have to be forced to answer for your friend when you yourself had nothing to do with the questionable behavior?

The organization that supports the military/blue lives matter - Sebastian cannot control what message that foundation puts out and it does not mean that he is or is not pro-police himself. There is not enough concrete evidence -- if any evidence for that matter -- that Sebastian is a blue lives matter supporter. Did Sebastian donate before they put up the blue lives matter post? Or after? I don’t know, cuz I don’t follow him that closely, but if he donates before they come out with a particular stance, that means he should be held accountable for that? I know I donated to an organization once and they turned out to support something that i’m 100% against. That means I’m a bad person because I couldn’t see into the future? Another point, how can we be certain that Sebastian saw the blue lives matter post in the first place? I know I’m not online 24 hrs a day, I miss posts all the time and I’m just an average person. I make three or four tumblr posts a day, and I’m gone. I have to play catch up on social media, and even then, I still miss stuff. So I’m sure the same happens to a working actor. As for the co-founder, I don't know who this person is and would rather not get into any allegations against them because I don't want to trigger anyone who comes across this post. If Sebastian knows about these allegations, is a willing participant/supporter of this person then yeah, that's pretty shitty, but we don't know the inner workings of this friendship/acquaintance/work relationship. We don’t know how close they are or if they even still speak.

I’m a pretty big fan of Don Cheadle. He’s a stand up guy, he’s a great actor, he’s funny, he’s political and stands up for what he believes in and in a very public way. I support him. Don Cheadle is also friends with Chris Evans, RDJ, Mark Ruffalo, and Letitia Wright (just to name a few). Chris Evans has a bipartisan forum that highlights/promotes right wing politicians, RDJ defended Chris Pratt during the whole “he’s the worst Chris in Hollywood” crap, who’s technically done black face, and who once said to a female reporter “nice tits” when she walked into the room, Mark Ruffalo just walked back his support of Palestine, and Letitia Wright retweeted/supported an anti-vaxxer/anti-trans Pastor who equated an ingredient of the covid vaccine to the devil because it contained some parts of the word Lucifer. Does that mean Don is now a bad person because he’s friends with these people? Why isn’t he getting any heat for his friendships with them? Why isn’t he being held accountable for what they’ve done and said? Oh right, because he’s not a white fave. So people don’t care one way or the other, which brings me to my next point. 

I can guarantee you that if Sebastian’s gf or Paul or this co-founder were not associated with Sebastian in any way, nobody would give a shit about her wearing a kimono, about Paul doing black face, or about the co-founder/organization being blue lives matter supporters and in that lies the actual problem. Being critical of people and their actions should be consistent and should happen all the time -- not just when they interact with your white fave. That’s when it becomes performative and looks like you just want to be able to show internet people that you follow/support/stan unproblematic celebrities, when really, you don’t care.

I think the moral of this post is that I think it's unfair to hold a complete stranger to a standard that I cannot hold myself to. I also don't view celebrities the way most teenagers/twenty somethings do, and that’s because when I entered fandom we didn't have social media, so I grew up with a wall between myself and said celebrities. There is no wall now with the presence of social media. "Fans" nowadays have a weird ownership feeling over celebrities because they can read their personal thoughts or view personal pictures and think that they have this personal quasi-friendship with them. I can't get on board with that. I prefer having the wall and I still keep the wall.

If supporting Sebastian makes you uncomfortable, then by all means, stop supporting him. Just make sure you are making this decision for yourself based on credible sources and concrete evidence and that you're not letting this fake woke activist mob make you feel uncomfortable. Internet activism means nothing unless you put your money where your mouth is in your real life and 90% of the social justice internet warriors do not. Real activism is bigger than changing your avi to a black square.

[thestuckylibrary]

Group Ask 155

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Please send us an ask stating which group ask and which person you are replying to. Thank you so much in advance!

Anon 1 said:

Hi I’ve been looking for a doc and can’t find it anywhere. It’s set in the war and where abo doesn’t exist until the serum Kina turns Steve into an omega and the hydra serum kinda turns Bucky into an alpha. That’s all I really remember:)

omnia-vespera said:

Hey, I was wondering if you could find a fic for me? It was a mediafic with tumblr posts, tweets, and Internet forum discussions. It took place around the time of TFA and TWS, and the ocs were really scared by the winter soldier attacks (showing how normal ppl were affected). They analyzed Steve and Bucky’s relationship online and were kind of like a fandom I think? One of the ocs would tag her tumblr posts as “in which Jen [does something].” Sorry that’s all I can remember! Thanks so much!

wouldilietome said:

hello! i’m looking for a fix where steve helps bucky into recovery from being the winter soldier but then goes on a mission killing everyone he can find from hydra who had anything to do with buckys torture. eventually nat brings steve back to bucky and they recover together in a house in like california or something.

dolphinqueen10 sent in The Ghosts Of Who I Used To Be by Brenda (complete | 107,289 | M)

Anon 2 said:

I was wondering if you could help me find a fic If it’s not too much trouble. It’s preserum, and Bucky is most definitely gay but Steve isn’t. Bucky can’t find a suitable dom. He tries to get Steve to tell him to do stuff such as being his “pencil holder” when he’s drawing. I’ve been looking e v e r y w h e r e for it! Thanks!

Anon sent in Start Together by birdbrains (oneshot | 25,614 | M)

Anon 3 said:

hey i’m looking for a fic about steve and bucky going camping for some school trip or something but they get separated from the group and end up lost in the woods? i remember sarah being really protective of steve and bucky having like an outcast vibe and i think they fuck in a tent before they’re rescued

whatbecameofophelia said:

Hi there, I’ve submitted this ask in the past but it might have gotten lost. I’ve looked everywhere but can’t find it. I’m pretty sure it was based off a meme or an incorrect quote. It’s set during the highway scene in Winter Soldier, Bucky misunderstands his mission because of crappy connection: he thinks his mission is to kiss captain America instead of killing him. Basically they kiss on the highway right after Steve recognizes him and then Bucky remembers him. Hope someone can help! Thanks!

jimmiecrackyourface said:

There was this one story that was kinda like beauty and the beast and Steve was stuck with a curse until he found true love and he lived in a house with Natasha and Clint and Bucky picked a flower for his sister and was stuck there or something like that but now I can’t find it anywhere. 😫

bennettmp339 and time-lord-no-more sent in La Belle et la Bête by maichan, sianimations, sirsable (complete | 66,717 | E)

Anon 4 said:

I’ve looked everywhere for this fic I read a while ago but can’t find it again. It started with Bucky at war before Steve got there and he missed Steve a lot (they were not romantically together) so when ppl asked him if he had a girl back home he said yeah and just described Steve as a girl and called her ‘Stella’, and then when Steve and the howlies get together Steve still doesn’t catch on for a while and buck is super embarrassed. Pls help I’ve looked everywhere

Anon and christmaswhisper sent in You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To by EmilianaDarling (oneshot | 26,995 | E)

Anon 5 said:

hey i’ve been looking for this ABO fic for a long time it’s about omega steve and alpha bucky but bucky doesn’t remember being steve’s alpha and steve thinks bucky’s now in a relationship with natasha thanks in advance!

dolphinqueen10 sent in I Do, I Don’t, I Die by prisma134 (oneshot | 12,179 | E)

Anon 6 said:

Hi! I'm looking for a fic where Bucky wants nothing to do with Steve, so Steve leaves to destroy Hyrda bases and he gets tattoos and eventually builds a house in Iceland. Then Wanads goes to stay with him while she's pregnant with twins. Thank you!

sergeantbucky-barnes sent in One Cloud Feels Lonely by thecommodore_squid (orphan_account) (complete | 72442 | M)

dolphinqueen10 sent in Like a Cruel Mistress Woos* by Salvia_G (WIP | 183,371 | E) - */others, suicide attempt

Anon 7 said:

Hi!!! Thank you so much for your blog-you are literally a life-saver! There’s this one fic (it was a oneshot) that was post CATWS, and it basically Bucky took an apartment that was across the street from Steve’s. The apartment belonged to Hydra to watch Steve, but he took out the agents living in it and took the apartment for himself. He was watching Steve throughout the whole fic (Steve didn’t know he was there). He also adopted a cat (from the street?) Steve and Bucky meet at the end and kiss

bennettmp339 and Anon sent in Strays by snarklyboojum (oneshot | 33,556 | T)

ysbrd said:

Hi there! Have you guys ever seen/read a fic where there's a particular scene where steve gets badly burned to the point of near death? Wanda keeps him alive I think. I think its post CW, where bucky is recovering in wakanda? I've been stuck thinking about it for days. Thank you in advance!

dolphinqueen10 sent in Lay Down Your Weapon* by girlbookwrm (complete | 56,400 | M) *chose not to warn

Anon 8 said:

hey, so sorry but i need help finding a fic. basically bucky gets stood up on a date and is about to leave when steve pretends to be his date, and they have a great time. steve then drives bucky home and they end up having sex, i think bucky has a praise kink during it and steve says "mine" a lot. when bucky wakes up steve leaves his # but bucky get's nervous and ignores it. in the end when bucky goes to class (college ?? it's never specified) he find steve is his teacher. ring any bells?

Anon 9 said;

Do you know the fic where Steve is into Bucky but he never goes after him bc Steve is small (pre-serum) and he likes to top and he assumes Bucky would never be down to bottom for Steve since he’s so small. I can’t remember if he actively rejects Bucky or if he just doesn’t pursue him. Obviously it ends with them getting together in the end bc Steve was wrong. (It’s possible I’m thinking of the wrong ship, in which case I’m sorry!!). Thanks!!

everythingstucky said:

Hey! I was wondering if you guys knew the fic where Steve accidentally summons Bucky’s from different universes and Bucky gets upset and retaliates by summoning Steve’s as well and they have to match each Steve with a Bucky and then send them home. I can’t remember the name or find it with tags so I was hoping you guys did.

[clonerightsenthusiast]

I’ve been so frantically trying to cram in more hours of content than was possible in under two days so that I could catch up (at least enough) to watch the 100th episode live that I haven’t paused to even like. think about the fact that this is the 100th episode tonight until like. right now. Like holy shit. I started watching at the very end of the Whitestone arc (like literally post-finale... the first episode I watched live was either Denouement or Winter’s Crest in Whitestone, I honestly can’t remember which) and have been watching since then mostly regularly, sometimes in fits and starts, staying up until 2 am every Thursday night for over a year now.

I’m gonna put the rest of this post under a read more because hot damn I rambled on for a while but basically... this show means a lot to me.

And like... I feel like I’m sort of weird, because I was into D&D streams long before I was into playing D&D. I’d been doing play-by-post roleplaying since I was maybe 11 and first discovered the internet (in fact I think it’s fair to say my first experience with other people on the internet was me stumbling into an rp forum and going ‘guess ill do what theyre doing’ and made a character), but I’d never even heard of tabletop roleplaying. I first found out what D&D was by finding a link to the recordings of a campaign by a handful of like D-list internet celebrities on TV Tropes when I was in... late middle school? Early high school? And I followed that down a rabbit hole that led me to more and more and I would download the audio and listen to them during class because I was a lazy student (and listen y’all if anyone out there reads this and watched the Wyrmwick campaign... hmu bc I still think about those assholes sometimes and lose my shit over “Plan A: Yoink” and Dhother eating a vampire apple) and eventually I ended up at a D&D Twitch stream every Friday where maybe 15 of us would show up and hang out and joke with the players and name every single animal that showed up in the campaign and refuse to refer to them as anything but our chosen nicknames. That game was the first time I experienced the type of community that D&D builds, the inside jokes and funny anecdotes and bonding experiences that come from hanging out together and watching a story unfold in real time in the most unpredictable fashion possible. (And if by some infinitesimal chance any of y’all from the Two Worlds game read this... extra hmu. I miss you guys.)

After the Two Worlds campaign ended and school got more serious and couldn’t make the Friday night streams anymore because I was busy and tired and the internet in my house sucked, D&D sort of... faded from my life. I never had any friends in high school who would be at all interested in it and every so often I would go back to that channel and find some of the highlights that were still saved and I would listen to them and wish that I could have that sort of thing back, because D&D is such an unparalleled storytelling device and as hard as it is when you’re into a TV show or book series that doesn’t have a huge following--imagine what it’s like when what you really care about is random strangers playing a tabletop game on the internet.

And then came Critical Role.

I am forever grateful that someone I followed (who I won’t @ just because I don’t really talk to them and I don’t want to give them a notification for a stranger’s long rambling post lol) started reblogging a lot of gifs of CR because I was. immediately interested. I never really lost my interest in D&D, I just lost access to it, so as soon as I saw images of people rolling dice and cheering about crits I was into it. It took me a little while to find out what it was and where to get it but when I did I blew through it, over 30 three hour long episodes, staying up past 3 am every night even though it was fucking reading and finals period, and watched the entire backlog up to that point (a third of what it is now, but pretty considerably even so). The three-hour-long videos were familiar to me, though the live action format was not (every stream I’d watched was through an online program rather than in person, so I’d only ever seen character tokens and heard voices).

Critical Role came at exactly the right time. I found it at the end of my first semester at Wellesley, where for the first time I’d found people who shared my interests and were every inch the geeky loser I am. I was finally in a place where I felt comfortable exploring my most out-there interests more publicly, and while I didn’t find my first in-person fan until this year (shout out to @wingedscribe for talking to me for over an hour about what an idiot Vax is when we first met), or at least the first one I didn’t make myself (thanks Susie, and I see you reblogging CR posts still), I did find enough people willing to try out roleplaying with me. I finished bingeing Critical Role just in time for winter break, I grabbed an old fantasy world I’d built ages ago for a different forum RP group, and I drafted a campaign. I was the DM, because we tried another person and it was an unmitigated disaster, and because I knew the most about how the game worked--again, solely because of my years of watching D&D streams and just sort of absorbing the rules (tho they had all been 4e, so I definitely was still learning).

That campaign doesn’t exist anymore because I definitely threw myself way in over my head with it and burned myself out, but Critical Role still kickstarted my creativity and imagination and that stuck with me. I talked some friends into trying a Star Wars RPG with me and we’re having a hell of a time, and I’m trying out D&D as a player and fucking loving it (god I miss both those games right now though, the downside of summer is splitting up our group). I wrote fanfiction for the first time in my entire life, and started to actively participate in a fandom on a wider basis for pretty much the first time ever, because of this show. I bought (and wear, very often, because that hoodie is my favorite article of clothing ever) fandom-related clothing for the first time because of this show. That’s how much it means to me: I, who am perpetually embarrassed to talk about literally everything that interests me, walk around with the Critical Role logo and How Do You Want To Do This emblazoned across my body on a regular basis.

Critical Role, more than anything, has made me feel what it is to be part of a fandom community. Just like those 15 people showing up every Friday night to hang out and watch some strangers play D&D, but on a massive scale. There’s something so incredibly engaging about watching a story unfold in real time, especially when the cast is so eager to engage with the fans themselves. Seeing Laura Bailey as ready to fistfight Sam Riegel as I am on a daily basis is a powerful thing when it comes to making me feel connected to the show, and seeing everybody else on this site also ready to square the fuck up has made me feel more connected to the Critter community as a whole. And maybe it’s because it’s a relatively small fandom, or maybe it’s because of the medium of D&D in general and Critical Role more specifically, or maybe (probably) it’s some combination of the two, but I am so glad I found this show and this community at a time in my life when I was actually ready to be a part of it.

This is real fuckin long and I’m not sure I even said what I wanted to, but basically: Thank you, Critical Role. Thank you, Matthew Mercer and the rest of this incredible cast. And thank you, Critter community. Y’all mean a lot to me.

[junker-town]

Hey, it’s Texas-USC week. Remember the last time they played football?

This week’s game is the first follow-up to maybe the greatest game ever.

Texas and USC will play football in Los Angeles on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET, Fox). The last time they played each other was that time. Unless you’re really young, you remember. And even if you are, there’s a pretty good shot you remember.

A few weeks ago, we polled a bunch of our Twitter followers: What’s the best college football game they’d ever watched? Our readers settled on a list of the 25 most beloved games of this century. No. 1 is the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, featuring Boise State stunning Oklahoma with a Statue of Liberty play.

No. 2 on that list is the 2005 season’s Rose Bowl, which doubled as the BCS National Championship. Texas over USC, 41-38, on Jan. 4, 2006.

Vince Young’s night is the thing all of us will remember forever.

Young’s scramble for the game-winning touchdown on a fourth-and-5 in the last minute from the USC 9-yard line is legendary. It was the capper on this stat line:

30 of 40 passing for 267 yards, with no touchdowns or picks

200 rushing yards on 19 carries (10.5 average) and three scores

Young’s 467 yards from scrimmage were a Rose Bowl record until USC’s Sam Darnold got 473 in a similarly bonkers (though not a national title) Rose Bowl in 2017. Nobody after Young had run for 200 yards in the Rose Bowl until an actual running back, Penn State’s Saquon Barkley, got 204 in the Darnold game.

Largely because of this game, Young is on a shortlist of the best college QBs ever.

But Young wasn’t the whole story. Let’s talk about some other stuff.

USC had two amazing running backs, but they had a weird night.

The headliner was Reggie Bush, who goes down with Young as a co-player of that era in college football. Bush was lightning, and backfield-mate LenDale White was the thunder. In the title game, White was a little more effective: 124 yards and three touchdowns on 20 carries. Bush averaged about the same yards per carry, but he only ran 13 times and scored one touchdown. The Trojans leaned on White’s strength.

Here’s one of the oddest CFB plays I can remember, by Bush:

What the hell.

Bush was doing what he usually did, dashing through the Texas defense and making men miss. But even Bush eventually got tackled on most of his runs, and eventually three Longhorns closed in on him, including star safety Michael Huff. Teammate Brad Walker (No. 48) was nearby enough, and Bush figured he’d set up White for a 20-yard walk to the end zone if he’d just sneak him the ball at the last second. It’s like if Bush were an option quarterback, except this was downfield with three defenders surrounding him instead of one read linebacker. Bush’s error in judgment cost USC at least three points and probably a touchdown, in a game the Trojans lost by three.

The Bush lateral was dumb, but was it actually a fumble? Ehhhhhh.

Bush released the ball at about the 20, or maybe the 19:

And the ball bounced off Walker at about the 18, though it may be the 19:

Weird sequence all around. It looks to me like Bush’s toss to Walker is never touched by Texas, and like it’s a slightly forward-moving pass, not a lateral. If that were the case, officials should’ve called a five-yard penalty and let USC keep the ball. I know this is a hilariously petty thing for me to be litigating in a public forum 11 years later.

The Bush thing was nonetheless clearly USC’s fault. This was not.

Texas got a TD on a Young pitch to Selvin Young. The problem is that Young was clearly grounded before releasing the ball:

It wouldn’t be college football if we didn’t have chaos. And we did, with reported replay glitches hindering officials for much of the night.

At any rate, White could’ve iced the game on a fourth-and-short, and he got stopped.

In retrospect, I still love Pete Carroll’s aggressiveness. The way Young had played that night and all season, the difference between making him go 57 yards or 85 in two minutes wasn’t that big. White was a bruising back, and it’s hard to foresee that a guy who’s averaged 6 yards all night won’t be able to get 1 on a fourth down. But Texas stacked him up with a mass of bodies in the middle of the line.

Texas was resilient just to have a chance for Young to make his magic.

The Longhorns faced deficits of:

7-0

17-16

31-23

and 38-26

That 12-pointer was with 6:42 left, after Matt Leinart found Dwayne Jarrett for a 22-yard touchdown. That was the biggest lead any team had had all night.

Then Texas’ defense gave up no points the rest of the way, and Young stitched together two touchdown drives (both punctuated in running TDs by him) less than four minutes apart in the nick of time. That was as Hollywood as this sport gets.

Still love this game? Here are some trips down memory lane.

Sports Illustrated’s cover story from the issue that hit newsstands days later:

Still, heading into the Rose Bowl, the big question was, Which Young would show up? The brooding passer who in the regular-season finale against Texas A&M was pressing in the face of a surprisingly stiff challenge? The Heisman runner-up with the chip on his shoulder, who voiced his displeasure over not winning the trophy moments after Reggie Bush's name was called? Or the fist-knocking, loose-limbed team leader whose dazzling physical skills are matched by his toughness and strength of will?

The answer came during pregame warmups, as Brown grooved to the beat of Justin Timberlake's Rock Your Body. The guy could not have been less tense. Even after the Trojans turned a fumble by Longhorns punt returner Aaron Ross into an early 7-0 lead, Texas had no reason to panic.

247Sports’ massive oral history, featuring Texas assistant Bruce Chamber’s memory of watching Young run toward the right pylon in the last minute:

“You see Vince go through his progression. He looked at the primary, went to the secondary (tight end) and he even got to the third guy before he took off. And I thought that Justin Blalock did a tremendous job of over-setting the corner so that he would come inside and then collapsed him. Once that happened they had no containment. They had Frostee Rucker out there at 280-something pounds, he wasn’t going to catch (Young).”

To close: Mack Brown’s speech to Texas immediately after the game: