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iworshipkeanureeves · 4 years

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Tickles In The Sand

Johnny Utah x Reader

Summary: Reader tickles the truth out of Utah

Warnings: none

Words: 1.3K

Floating with your legs half submerged underwater, you were looking at the horizon anticipating another great wave. “One more and that’s it, okay? I’m freezing.” You turned to Johnny, who was right beside you resting on his board, giving you a thumbs-up. His dark hair was wet-sticking to his skin, funnily framing his face, and he had the widest grin, forcing you to smile back at him.

“Utah!!” You both turned around to see Bodhi, raising his hand and greeting you. “That was some skill you showed yesterday!” he shouted with his friends nodding in agreement. “Everyone’s impressed!”

The second you realized Johnny had told you he was working the previous night, your lips quivered and a grunt of disappointment escaped your lungs. “What is he talking about?” You turned back to Johnny arching your brow.

“No idea,” he gave you an innocent smile, and with his board pressed to his belly, he was beginning to rapidly paddle away. “Let’s catch this wave, then we can talk.”

You were about to ask him again, but as Johnny saw your pouting face, he kept getting farther away. Part of you wanted to go and catch him, but you didn’t want to waste a great wave, your last one for today.

---

You and Johnny were both exhausted reaching the shore, but more than anything, you were angry and upset with him keeping things away from you.

Sticking your board in the sand, you noticed that Johnny wasn’t right behind you anymore, and you turned around looking for him. Not surprisingly, he was talking to Bodhi again... Sometimes it seemed that Johnny was more interested in him, than he was into you. ‘It’s just for the case’ he would always assure.

Trying your best to stay calm, you were working on your wetsuit, reminding yourself how much you trusted Johnny and thinking what that cocky bastard could have been doing yesterday.

“Sorry for the delay, babe.” He came back with a smack on your ass, resting his board next to yours. You were mad as hell, but your plan was to play it cool, and get him when he wasn’t expecting that.

“You didn’t seem too sorry flirting with your new boyfriend back there, babe,” you smiled mockingly, letting your hair go. Slowly, you walked around to stand behind his shoulders, whispering to his ear. “I bet you two shared some really nice time yesterday…”

“Wow, so funny,” Johnny turned his head to the side, trying to show you his unimpressed face.

“About yesterday…” You gripped his zipper lace. “You said you had to stay at the office, paperwork and stuff…” Slowly you were pulling it down, exposing his damp skin little by little, running your thumb along his spine.

“Mhm, that’s right,” Johnny’s voice gave away that he knew you weren’t buying it, but he was probably still hoping to get away.

“So what? Is Bodhi like your new colleague or something?” You got back closer to his ear, one hand pulling the zipper further, another sliding under the fabric and uncovering his shoulder blade. He laughed at your words, but no other lie was thrown your way, Johnny knew you had caught him, yet he was unwilling to explain. “Seriously, tell me. This is your last chance,” your voice got stricter, as you were pulling his hands out of the suit, leaving him standing covered just below the waist.

“Or what?” Johnny teased, and it was the final thread completely unleashing you. You were gently rubbing his shoulders, melting him under your touch, until Utah became unaware of your fingertips swiftly traveling to his ribs. Pinching slightly, you made him shriek and jump in his place, as you kept on running your digits along his ridges.

“What was that for?” He squeezed his elbows to his sides, turning around to face you, curling his lips.

“Oh, don’t play stupid, Johnny.” You attacked him again, pushing your hands through his muscular arms, willing to tickle him once more. Johnny was slowly walking backwards, trying to escape your attack, but something had caught his feet and he fell, dragging you together down to the sand.

You ended up on top of him, with his torso perfectly exposed for another wave of playful tickles, which seemed to be getting unbearable for him. You knew Johnny was strong enough to push you away, but he didn’t fight you, all he did was trying to cover himself. It was until you got really feisty with your fingertips, and he had no choice but raise his hips, shaking you off of his waist.

From all the movement his suit got even lower, opening an easy access to his hips, one of his most ticklish places. With a feathery touch, you ran your fingers along his hipbone, making him almost immediately come clean. “Ok, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I was with him. Just please stop!” he laughed and screamed.

“And you didn’t tell me because…?” you placed your palm on his belly, staring with a threatening look. Johnny knew you were ready to resume any second.

“Just don’t be mad, okay?” He put his hand onto yours, trying to keep it steady in place, in case you came up with any new maneuvers.

“I’m already mad,” you faked a frown, trying to correspond with your words. Honestly, you were holding back the giggles, surprised by how easily you managed to turn Johnny into a squealing mess.

“We went surfing…” he admitted silently, dragging your stacked hands up to his chest, as he was raising another one, tucking your wet, sand crumbled hair behind your ear. “I’m sorry.”

“During the storm? Are you insane?” All the giggles disappeared from your mind, and you were both, angry and concerned. The frown was real now. “You said you wouldn’t…” a sigh left your throat, as you were about to get up leaving him alone on the sand. But his hands caught your hips, pushing you back down, and you ended up back on your side, leaning on your elbow next to him.

“Johnny, you know how much I worry…” You sighed again looking at him, his eyes begging for forgiveness. You knew exactly why he did that, after all, you were a surfer yourself, except you were smart enough to not risk it too much.

“That’s why I didn’t tell you,” Johnny smiled, brushing the sand off of your cheek. You could see he was honestly sorry, he was just really bad at expressing that.

“No, you really are an idiot! It’s not how it works, dummy…” No matter how much you wanted to hate him, his smile would always soften your heart, making you forgive all of his foolishness. “What if something had happened to you?”

“But it didn’t,” he cut you off. “And I won’t do it again, I’m really sorry.” He placed a small peck to your cheek, pulling away to look you in the eye, searching for any sign of forgiveness.

“And you have no idea how scared I was,” Johnny chuckled. “My legs were shaking, I could barely stand up on my board.”

“Good, so it was a lesson learned,” you snugged into his lips, trailing kisses down his jaw. As you were reaching further, your frisky spirit kicked back in, and you exhaled right into the crook of his neck, making him shrug and yelp. It didn’t stop you from going down to his chest, then lowering to his torso and nibbling on his skin along the way.

“Babe, I told you everything, I apologize, stop!” Johnny was trying to push you away, as you were blowing air into his belly button, making him flex his abdomen tight.

“Investigation is over, time for your punishment!” You smirked, looking at Johnny with your fiery eyes, pressing his wrists to the sand.

Tag-list: @keandrews @rdjloverxxx @danceoftwowolves @greenmanalishi @lilywoood

>Masterlist<

#Johnny Utah #Johnny Utah fluff #Johnny Utah x reader #Johnny Utah x you #Johnny Utah fanfiction #Johnny Utah drabble #Keanu Reeves #Keanu Reeves fanfiction #fluff #tickles #imagine #point break #request #drabble #johnny utah fic #young!keanu #Young!keanu reeves

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dreamingofscully · 4 years

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MOVIE: “The X-Files: Fight the Future” - X-Files Rewatch

"Why did they assign me to you in the first place, Mulder? To debunk your work, to rein you in, to shut you down." - Scully "But you saved me! As difficult and as frustrating as it's been sometimes, your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over! You've kept me honest ... you've made me a whole person. I owe you everything ... Scully, and you owe me nothing. I don't know if I wanna do this alone... I don't even know if I can ... and if I quit now, they win." - Mulder

Seeing XF in theatres. The black screen, and suddenly the theme music, the oil, the Title on screen. One of the best moments of my life.

How do we go from the devastation of "The End" to the happy, jokey Mulder and Scully at the beginning of the movie?

I have some ideas, which are currently in development.

"Mulder, it's me." First line. ❤️

Introducing the characters to a new audience: Scully as the rational one, Mulder "playing a hunch".

Joking with each other, incredible banter and UST. Such a wonderful team.

They are in a good place here.

Mulder hitting something when frustrated.

SCULLY IS BADASS LISTEN TO HER!!

Standing beside each other when they get into the snack room with the bomb,

Scully grabbing Mulder, yelling at him to leave.

He has a sense something's wrong. His self-sacrificing nature, doesn't care about his danger.

Scully in the meeting, Mulder's late. 😥

That they cover for each other. Blaming themselves for what happened and not wanting the other to take any responsibility. (Mulder would have been lying to protect Scully here. When the SAC ordered M&S to leave him, against regulations, Scully listened while Mulder pushed back.)

Outside the meeting

Scully's suit is so... Hnnng. I think it’s the same one she wears at the end of the movie. I’d wear it every day. Jesus.

Mulder with his sleeves rolled up, how long was he waiting?

Both of them are so damned beautiful this movie.

They're being split up. Not just to different departments but different STATES.

- Mulder moves a bit closer when she tells him this.

"And now if they were to transfer me to Omaha or Cleveland, or some field office, it just doesn't hold the interest for me that it once did. Not after what I've seen and done." - Scully

Not to mention being separated from Mulder.

Mulder realizes she's quitting, which he assumes means he's losing her.

Scully's in a place where she feels that she can't or won't get answers, and she can move on from the X-Files with relatively little fuss. In fact, the price that she feels both her and Mulder keep paying seems too steep for the bits and pieces that they get. Even if they get the truth, get answers, will they be able to hold those responsible to justice? Scully doesn't think so, not any more. So is it worth it? Only because Mulder is there, she needs to watch his back, and she loves working with him. But if he decided to leave, to do something else, she would be fine with it. He can't, because of his sister, ultimately. But all throughout season 5 (since Redux probably: “That would mean that for 4 years we've been nothing more than pawns in a game, that it was a lie from the beginning. Mulder, these men... You give them your faith and you're supposed to trust them with your life.”) and then season 6 we see Scully drifting away from wanting to work on the X-Files, wanting to leave and bring Mulder with her. She won't leave without Mulder, unless forced to by larger powers. She's leaving the bureau to STAY with Mulder, not to leave him. Mulder thinks there's some hope they can get the X-Files back, together, and that if she leaves the FBI he won't see her again.

"Maybe you should ask yourself if your heart's still in it, too." - Scully

Scully is asking him to move on WITH her. Mulder assumes she is just leaving and abandoning not only him but their work on the X-Files. The answers and the truth (and his sister) still mean a lot to him.

Scully knows how relentless Mulder is. She loves it but it's also frustrating. He can't give up and will still pursue his answers in whatever way he can. What is her choice? Stay in the bureau and get transferred away with some hope of returning and working with him or leaving the bureau and having some sort of friendship/relationship with him outside of their work.

Her soft "I'm sorry." when he goes to leave.

Knowing she's disappointing him, even if she thinks she doesn't matter.

Scully's sad face when she gives him his jacket. Her hesitance about leaving in the hallway.

Mulder drinking. [["I usually, I normally never, I don’t drink.." (Syzygy)]]

Feeling pretty sorry for himself.

"One is the loneliest number." - Mulder

Thinking about his impending split from Scully. 😥

"I heard you come in here now and again, figured you'd be needing a little drinkie tonight." - Kurtzweil to Mulder

When did he start going to the bar occasionally? During Scully's cancer perhaps, losing himself in his sorrow.

Going to Scully's after hearing what Kurtzweil said. Maybe the last chance he has to do something with her. 😥

She can't sleep. 😥

Their interaction at Scully's apartment.

"Are you drunk, Mulder?" - Scully "I ... I ... I was until about 20 minutes ago, yeah." - Mulder "Was that before or after you decided to come here?" - Scully "What exactly are you implying?" - Mulder

Scully thinking he's just drunk, that he came here to get her to change her mind, to do something neither of them has had the guts to do sober. But she doesn't want anything from an inebriated Mulder.

BUT! Don't worry Scully it's just a case. 😥

I think Scully's wearing the same coat as the one she wore in Christmas Carol.

She always knows to pack gloves around Mulder.

Standing close over the body.

Love Scully in the cold room & the phone ringing. Her panicked face. Mulder just left her there. 🙄

Hiding under the gurneys. 😆

Scully arriving in Dallas. Mulder wasn't sure if she'd come but his face says everything - so happy she changed her mind. He needs her.

Standing closely over the microscope. His FACE! He loves her. ❤️

Scully's face when she sees what's under the microscope.

I really love Well-Manicured Man. Seems more similar to Mulder's father, except having stayed more involved with the Consortium rather than quitting it completely. He wants to do the right thing, but found himself in a strange position of power and forced to do bad things. He's still terrible, of course, but much more nuanced than CSM.

"Mulder" saw one of the infected bodies. What about Scully? Why are we forgetting about how important she is here? Ugh.

"Then you must take away what he holds most valuable. That with which he can't live without." - Strughold

Cut to shot of Scully.

Everyone knows what they mean to each other, except each other. 🙄

I mean... I'm conflicted here. Love that we're acknowledging that Scully is something Mulder can't live without but at the same time she's not just important in terms of how Mulder feels about her. She's the reason that Mulder is as close as he is to the truth, that he's been able to do so much and be such a pain in the ass. If not for her, he'd probably be unwittingly working for the Consortium by now.

"Five years together, Scully. How many times I been wrong? Never. Not driving anyway." - Mulder

In the car - their teamwork, their compromise. Mulder drives straight instead of going right (Scully) or left (Mulder). And because of this, they find what they were looking for. A bit of a 'knock you on the head' metaphor, but oh well. They find their answers not because of Mulder and not because of Scully but because they work together to reach the truth. The danger comes from them both being a team, not from either of them separately.

The scene with Mulder bashfully admitting this is an extraterrestrial virus to Scully is so darn cute. I wish they'd kept Scully's swearing in the final movie, that would have been amazing.

Mulder keeps looking back at her, making sure she's with them, as they approach the white structures in the cornfield.

When the bees come, Mulder taking her hand/wrist, going back to help her. Putting his arm around her.

Scully's wild hair. ❤️ Mulder gazing.

Yelling at each other in the cornfield. PEAK X-FILES!!

MULDERRRRRRR! SCULLAYYYYYYYY!

Mulder's face when they find each other. His hand on her arm.

At the meeting, Scully looking disheveled as she arrives late.

HALLWAY SCENE.

Scully resigns because she doesn't want to go to Utah. The appeal of working for the bureau has waned after working for Mulder and seeing how things really are with the corrupt government.

What she wants is HERE, in D.C.

Mulder doesn't want her to quit because he thinks there is some hope they can get the X-Files back, knows he can't do it without her. And he thinks he's losing her if they don't work together. That the only way he can have her at his side is if they are partners. That he doesn't deserve her in any other way, or that she'd even want it.

Like she told Mulder earlier - her heart isn't in it if she's not with him.

"I need you on this, Scully." - Mulder "You don't need me, Mulder. You never have. I've just held you back." - Scully

Her thoughts from the past while:

“Folie à Deux”: not believing in him. In fact, refusing to do so and nearly getting him killed

From “The End”: Finding out about Diana: a previous partner who also had a romantic relationship with him, who was able to work with him and believe him

Also, their office, all their files and work destroyed: Not only does Mulder not have the proof Scully wanted to give him, but they lost the X-Files; Scully feels responsible. They were warned (by Diana no less) about pursuing this course of action, and Mulder chose Scully's way - and they were punished for it.

She thought she could make a difference in the FBI, but she feels like she hasn't (her comment from earlier in the hallway at the FBI)

So - she feels like she holds him back. She can't believe, feels like she can't be that person. She can never be the person he needs and wants. She caused their work to be destroyed, for him to lose everything important to him.

I love how she just shoves her face into his chest. 😍

Mulder never planned to tell her these things (they don't normally talk about their feelings), but he can't let her say that she doesn't matter. She is everything to him. 😍

Mulder's spontaneity.

For all of season 5, he's been holding himself back, despite knowing how he feels about her, because he's felt he doesn't deserve to be loved, especially by her.

His feelings come rushing out here

No "I love you" but everything that those words mean to him.

Scully's emotional state. Her chest heaving, tears welling in her eyes. His words to her mean everything. Acknowledging that she completes him, that she makes their work possible. That she is critical to his quest. That he doesn't want to do it without her, doesn't think he can.

Everything that she's wanted to hear from him, that she's wanted to BE to him - proven to her by his words for once. Actions may be stronger proof, but you can always deny their true meaning, misinterpret the gestures. But then he backs those words up with more actions...

Scully can't look at him whole he's talking, afraid of what her eyes will reveal. Holding him, kissing his forehead with affection. Familiarity. They've done this before to comfort and she loves to touch him.

UNTIL-- !!! She realizes what he's about to do, what his eyes are saying. Her world shifts -- HE LOVES HER?!

How did that damn bee know to pick this very moment. ARGH.

Mulder's concern when she pulls away sharply. Thinking that he crossed a line, that she doesn't want this. MORE GUILT.

Her reassurance turning to fear. Bees - can't be a coincidence.

Mulder's tenderness and fear when she collapses.

LGM ❤️

Instant rescue mode: WHERE'S SCULLY??

Mulder just throwing Byers' jacket in the street. LOL

WMM - knows exactly what to do to get Mulder into the car with him. Everyone knows except Mulder and Scully how they feel about each other... Well they sorta have an idea now.

"Save Agent Scully" - hmm, OK, you just killed Kurtzweil but I'm listening.

IN the end WMM gives Mulder the vaccine/coordinates not out of any altruistic motives, just out of a need to help his own family - disagrees with the rest of the consortium on their methods (that they are willing to work with the aliens despite new information that they are being used). Mulder is WMM's best chance to fight the aliens and the virus, but he knows Mulder needs Scully. Mulder would be USELESS and LOST without her.

When the car blows up Mulder's face, he’s shocked, realizing the truth in WMM’s words but still focused on his goal -- SCULLY.

Just think about how much pain he must be in. Doesn't matter. SCULLY.

Goes to ANTARCTICA to save her. Doesn't think twice. What a hero.

At the ship, seeing everything, what it could mean. Doesn't matter. SCULLY.

Seeing her clothes and necklace in the transport container. The first evidence that she's here.

Finding her! Desperately breaking her out of the container.

"I'm cold." 😥

His hand on her face.

Definitely sees her naked.

She's so pale. 😥

Lifting and carrying her when she can't continue.

The mouth-to-mouth. Her joke when she comes back. ❤️ "Had you big time." And her smile.

When they get out Mulder keeps his hands on her.

He just wants her to SEE to BELIEVE him ❤️ He wants to share that with her.

SHE SAYS SHE SAW IT. Mulder's like "FINALLY!"

Their cuddle on the snow. Scully's face in his hair.

The ending scene.

Mulder on the bench, watching Scully approach. Looking fabulous! ❤️

Mulder and Scully's positions are reversed compared to the hallway scene.

Mulder doesn't want to watch her die - this she was leaving him when she was resigning.

Scully now has the determination to continue - that Mulder did what he did to save her, what she saw even if she can't explain it or admit it.

AND she knows how he feels about her. He loves her, she believes in that at least. She wants to give him reason to continue, knowing he won't do it without her.

"You were right to want to quit! You were right to want to leave me! You should get as far away from me as you can! I'm not going to watch you die, Scully, because of some hollow personal cause of mine. Go be a doctor. Go be a doctor while you still can." - Mulder

Mulder's guilt - telling her to leave him and be a doctor. That she went through hell because of HIM. (Not thinking about how he went through hell to get her BACK. Of COURSE he would, but it doesn't seem significant to him.)

That she was CURED. That there is a vaccine for this thing. Scully needs to pursue it and she needs to be with him to do so. As a scientist this would be incredible exciting. She has some physical proof, some tangible thing she can focus on, not just an endless search. That their work can potentially lead to something good, that can save lives.

Scully encourages him and he loves her for it.

She grabs his hand but then Mulder holds hers in his. ❤️

The actual ending. More forgetting about Scully. "He is but one man. One man alone cannot fight the future." Like, FUCK OFF. Shoulda left it with the previous scene. 😩

#xfiles #x-files #x-files rewatch #x files rewatch #msr #msrheadcanon #mulder and scully #fox mulder #dana scully #season 5 #ftf #fight the future #damn bee

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thecollegefootballguy · 3 years

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The Real 2020 Season: Week 2

Hello everyone, welcome to Week 2 of The Real 2020 Season! We’re imagining how things would have gone in the 2020 football season if COVID hadn’t ruined everything.

Week 1 featured a few big games amid a sea of tune-up matches without much excitement. Nothing too earth-shattering, but we’ve got some real good matchups this week.

If you want to start from the beginning here is Week 0.

The Rankings

Week 2 AP Poll

1. Clemson 1-0 (1-0) 2. Alabama 1-0 (0-0) 3. Ohio State 1-0 (0-0) 4. Georgia 1-0 (0-0) 5. Oklahoma 1-0 (0-0) 6. LSU 1-0 (0-0) 7. Penn State 1-0 (0-0) 8. Florida 1-0 (0-0) 9. Oregon 1-0 (0-0) 10. Notre Dame 1-0 11. Auburn 1-0 (0-0) 12. Texas A&M 1-0 (0-0) 13. Texas 1-0 (0-0) 14. Oklahoma State 1-0 (0-0) 15. Washington 1-0 (0-0) 16. UCF 1-0 (0-0) 17. Minnesota 1-0 (0-0) 18. Utah 1-0 (0-0) 19. Indiana 1-0 (1-0) 20. USC 0-1 (0-0) 21. Cincinnati 1-0 (0-0) 22. Iowa State 1-0 (0-0) 23. Iowa 1-0 (0-0) 24. Tennessee 1-0 (0-0) 25. Michigan 0-1 (0-0)

The Narrative

The Big Ten took one on the chin in Week 1 as Michigan fell to Washington and the Wisconsin was upset at home by Indiana. Two of the league’s better programs already have their Playoff hopes on life support after one week. It’s not a good look for the conference. The ACC similarly had a disappointment after North Carolina fell at UCF, leaving Clemson the only team in that conference in the polls.

The SEC and Big 12 didn’t have many marquee games so not much changed for them. Besides USC’s scheduled loss to Alabama in Dallas, the PAC-12 actually had a pretty good week thanks to the Huskies’ win combined with Utah’s victory over BYU. Oregon also didn’t get upset by North Dakota State which should count for something.

UCF’s win over the Tar Heels is another big win for the G5 and the American specifically. The Knights are once again charging for the NY6 spot. I’d say they’re gunning for the Playoff but we know that the committee probably won’t let them in unless something very weird happens.

The Games

Week 2 still has a high number of bodybag games, but we’re still going to see some high profile out of conference matchups.

Winning teams are highlighted in bold.

Ohio at Boston College Louisville at #1 Clemson Samford at Florida State Mississippi State at NC State Syracuse at Rutgers Appalachian State at Wake Forest Elon at Duke Gardner-Webb at Georgia Tech Wagner at Miami FL #11 Auburn vs North Carolina (Atlanta, GA) Pittsburgh at Marshall VMI at Virginia #7 Penn State at Virginia Tech Kansas at Baylor #22 Iowa State at #23 Iowa North Dakota at Kansas State #24 Tennessee at #5 Oklahoma Tulsa at #14 Oklahoma State Prairie View A&M at TCU #13 Texas at #6 LSU Alabama State at Texas Tech Eastern Kentucky at West Virginia Western Kentucky at #19 Indiana Northern Illinois at Maryland Ball State at #25 Michigan Michigan State at BYU #3 Ohio State at #9 Oregon Connecticut at Illinois Tennessee Tech at #17 Minnesota Central Michigan at Nebraska Tulane at Northwestern Memphis at Purdue Southern Illinois at Wisconsin Norfolk State at Charlotte FIU at #16 UCF Indiana State at Middle Tennessee Hampton at Old Dominion Louisiana Tech at Southern Miss North Texas at #12 Texas A&M Army at Rice Alabama A&M at UAB UTEP at Nevada Akron at New Mexico State Robert Morris at Bowling Green Saint Francis at Buffalo Kennesaw State at Kent State Arkansas-Pine Bluff at Miami OH Coastal Carolina at Eastern Michigan San Diego State at Toledo Western Michigan at #21 Cincinnati Boise State at Air Force Colorado State at Oregon State New Mexico at #20 USC Southern Utah at Utah State Wyoming at Louisiana Fresno State at Colorado Fordham at Hawaii UC Davis at San Jose State Arizona State at UNLV Cal Poly at California Stanford at Arizona Sacramento State at #15 Washington Houston at Washington State Montana State at #18 Utah Kentucky at #8 Florida East Tennessee State at #4 Georgia Vanderbilt at Missouri East Carolina at South Carolina Georgia State at #2 Alabama Arkansas at #10 Notre Dame Southeast Missouri State at Ole Miss Campbell at Georgia Southern Troy at Massachusetts Howard at Arkansas State North Carolina A&T at Liberty

Now that’s more like it. Week 2 produced some incredible games and huge upsets that shook up the Playoff picture. Three top ten teams fall as #9 Oregon held off #3 Ohio State in Eugene to give the Buckeyes a horrific blow to their Playoff candidacy. Meanwhile, #13 Texas came to Baton Rouge and managed to beat the defending champions. In the biggest upset of them all, #7 Penn State was downed by a Virginia Tech team that was supposedly reeling from a loss to Liberty in Week 1. The rest of the usual suspects did just fine but the top 5 is going to look different.

To further the embarrassment for the Big Ten, #25 Michigan was upset by Ball State of all teams, completely humiliating the 0-2 Wolverines. Perhaps less surprisingly, Nebraska and Purdue were upset by Central Michigan and Memphis respectively. It was a blood-letting of a week that could very well keep the Big Ten out of the Playoff entirely. The only silver lining was #23 Iowa’s close victory over rival #22 Iowa State.

The other ranked vs ranked matchup saw #5 Oklahoma shake off a slow start to beat #24 Tennessee in Norman. The third Chick-fil-A Kickoff game in two weeks saw #11 Auburn beat UNC. If the Tar Heels hadn’t lost to UCF in Week 1 it would have been a ranked vs ranked affair but oh well.

The G5 had a very good week overall. UCF and Cincinnati continue to roll as the spearhead of the AAC. Marshall beat Pittsburgh at home to announce their candidacy for the NY6 bowl. The MAC is on fire, following up Buffalo’s Week 1 upset over Kansas State, meanwhile Ball State and Central Michigan recorded upsets. Toledo beat San Diego State as well, likely knocking one of the Mountain West’s more consistent programs out of the NY6 race. Appalachian State, the usual torch bearer for the Sun Belt, lost to Wake Forest.

Outside of perhaps two dozen interesting matchups the rest of the games aren’t worth talking about. Week 2 still means that plenty of teams were playing snore inducing tune-up games.

The Standings

We’re still mostly in non-conference play so the standings won’t change too much yet, but here they are if you’re curious. Each league is already having a storyline develop.

The Big Picture

By far the biggest story of the young 2020 season is the apparent complete collapse of the Big Ten. For over five years, Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, and Wisconsin dominated the league and each had squads capable of making the Playoff if they weren’t beating up on each other. In just two weeks, all four of these teams have lost a game they were favored to win and it looks like the Playoff chances for the entire league are on life support already. Michigan’s loss to Ball State is extra embarrassing, and starting out 0-2 is not good for Jim Harbaugh’s job prospects.

The other huge event is the home loss of the defending champions. LSU lost a ton of talent from their 2019 team and struggled to keep up with a Texas team that gave them trouble the year before. On the flip-side, it finally looks like the Longhorns might be back. It definitely is one of UT’s best true road wins in a long time. Time will tell if the Big Ten will rebound and if the Horns can capitalize on their victory.

At the G5 level, the MAC is making a big push for the NY6. Long considered one of the weaker G5 conferences, the MAC already has three P5 scalps only two weeks in. Gotta love that MACtion. On the other side, the Mountain West, usually the #2 G5 league, only has one unbeaten team left in Boise State. The Broncos are of course the favorites to win the conference, but it still hurts the league’s image. The American is still the top dog with 4 unbeaten teams led by UCF and Cincinnati.

The New Rankings

Week 3 AP Poll

1. Clemson 2-0 (2-0) 2. Alabama 2-0 (0-0) 3. Georgia 2-0 (0-0) 4. Oklahoma 2-0 (0-0) 5. Oregon 2-0 (0-0) 6. Florida 2-0 (1-0) 7. Texas 2-0 (0-0) 8. Notre Dame 2-0 9. Auburn 2-0 (0-0) 10. Texas A&M 2-0 (0-0) 11. Ohio State 1-1 (0-0) 12. Oklahoma State 2-0 (0-0) 13. Washington 2-0 (0-0) 14. LSU 1-1 (0-0) 15. UCF 2-0 (0-0) 16. Minnesota 2-0 (0-0) 17. Utah 2-0 (0-0) 18. Iowa 2-0 (0-0) 19. Indiana 2-0 (1-0) 20. USC 1-1 (0-0) 21. Cincinnati 2-0 (0-0) 22. Penn State 1-1 (0-0) 23. Missouri 2-0 (1-0) 24. Liberty 2-0 25. Memphis 2-0 (0-0)

Polls usually change wildly following such a bloody week. Ohio State is knocked out of the top ten, but only just. Oregon now replaces the Buckeyes as the fifth real Playoff contender outside of the usual suspects. Even with LSU and Tennessee’s losses, the SEC still dominates the polls. Five of the top ten come from the SEC and Missouri jumped into the top 25 to replace the fallen Vols. The Big Ten is completely outside of the top ten which is a staggering sight to see. With Iowa State’s loss to Iowa it looks like the Big 12 is going to be fought over by Oklahoma and Texas, just like the old days, unless Oklahoma State has anything to say about it. The Big 12 has 3 teams in the top 15 so they have a great case to be the #2 conference in the nation following the SEC at this point, though even the PAC-12 can start making noise with Oregon and perhaps even Washington in the mix.

The American is still the only G5 league represented in the polls, but they now have three teams in the top 25 with Memphis joining the party. UCF has even cracked the top 15, this early in the season it might give a bit of hope for G5 fans that they could even make the Playoff if, say, the Big Ten and one more P5 conference can’t fill the slots. Liberty joins the AP poll for the first time ever thanks to their week 1 win over Virginia Tech and the Hokies’ upset of Penn State. How high can the Flames fly?

So that’s Week 2 of the Real 2020 season. Things are just heating up, so tune in next time for another exciting installment!

#college football #Clemson Tigers #Alabama Crimson Tide #Georgia Bulldogs #Oklahoma Sooners #Oregon Ducks #Florida Gators #Texas Longhorns #Notre Dame Fighting Irish #Auburn Tigers #Texas A&M Aggies #Iowa Hawkeyes #Virginia Tech Hokies #Ball State Cardinals

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amelmajrii · 4 years

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lots a feelings floating around; angry, sad, disappointed to name a few. to me the shining thing despite what everyone seems to think is tobin didn’t appear to ask for this. unlike press which who made it clear to utah the she would not be returning which was made an integral part of the clubs statement, there was never any statement from the thorns of tobin expressing her desire to leave portland. and if she did express that desire, you bet your ass it would’ve been mentioned by the club in the press release.

the fact that even journalists were surprised that louisville decided to take tobin says a lot. about as much as louisville putting them all over their page as clickbait, which for the record, they can fuck right off for. that also tells me louisville is going to use them for media clout while they can, probably because they know the odds of them playing there are so incredibly small it’s practically nonexistent. trustworthy journalists saying that no silent agreement was made with angel city (won’t even mention the talks about all the nuances that would need to happen for both of them to actually end up there) about them tells me that louisville took a huge gamble. drafting both probably with the hopes it would entice them to come play (for a known problematic coach, yeah right) or louisville just did it for clout knowing they’d have to trade them because they’d never see them set foot on their pitch or in the US for their team (seems likely).

i for one hope they never set foot in that stadium, playing together or not. tobin heath deserved to retire as a portland thorn if she wanted too, god knows she’s given everything to that club and the nwsl in helping to build the league for the last decade. portland and tobin are synonymous and i hope fans stay rightly pissed off at any front offices involved in this. the lack of respect for one of a teams founding members is atrocious. tobin deserved better than this poor excuse of a draft (i will shout about player autonomy from the rooftops for the rest of my life because giving players no choice is just wrong), and i hope she stays in manchester as a fuck you to the league for this outdated draft system that give players no real say in their careers and can so easily uproot a stable life without a care in the world.

I get that you are angry but let’s try and stay calm? For the owners it’s just business anyway. Do they care about the players ? I barely think so.

You say you want Tobin to retire as a Thorns. I get that but does the club owner want that ? Nope. I’m sorry but his ego was too big to even digest the news that Tobin chose not to play in the challenge cup.

I don’t think you should be blaming Louisville though. They had the opportunity to get both of them, freely and they did that. I have to admit it’s not the best choice given that Tobin and Christen are not going to be there for a long time even if they decide to play for Louisville and also, they could have chosen a GK for example from Portland Thorns.

The thorns have said for years that they want to build a team around young players and imo they are currently gonna build a team around Horan. It’s their new era? 😕

It’s normal to feel so many different emotions but at the end, just tell yourself that for these owners, it’s just business. Us worrying is not gonna change their opinions or reduce the profits they’ll make. As for Tobin and Christen, you’re a fan and you’re pissed. But they’re used to this system and how it works ; and it may seem harsh what I’m saying but I guess they simply don’t care that much right now. They are in a club where they are playing and thriving together and that’s what matters to them. Coming back to the US is gonna be in a long time now. So let’s just enjoy their football :)

#answered asks

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multimetaverse · 5 years

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Andi Mack 3x19 Review

A Moving Day was a lovely episode though one that had too much filler for such a late episode. Let’s dig in!

Positives:

Despite the cut ep and the re-shoots they were able to give Bex and Bowie a lovely wedding. Bex and Bowie have really been one of the core story lines for the show and it’s nice to see them get such a happy ending. There was a lot of history packed into Bex thanking Bowie for sticking it out and boy was the pay off ever worth it.

This smaller wedding works much better for their dynamic than the big farm wedding did and having it just be a main character affair makes the show more equal. And the snow and the trees and mountains and gazebo made for one of the most visually stunning eps of the show. Almost like a farewell to filming on location in Utah.

Asher’s performance of You Girl was awesome, glad they played what seemed like the whole song.

Like Celia, I’m also glad no one said ‘um’!

It was nice to see Celia again. I’m glad they were able to give her ample screen time this ep to somewhat make up for what she’s lost. It makes so much sense that she’d be so into puzzles. And really showcases her personality that she climbs a mountain in heels.

This really was a nice send off for the whole Mack family. Andi gets the nuclear family she’s always wanted, Bex and Bowie get the happy ending they’ve waited 14 years for, and Celia gets to see her wayward daughter take charge of her life.

It took until the penultimate episode but we finally met Jonah’s mom, Judy Beck née Bartholomew (Terri really does like her Biblical names). That she ended up marrying one of her background helpers is a love story for the ages.

I’m glad they gave Jonah a happy ending and we can end the series knowing that his family is in a better place and on track to recover from bankruptcy.

I’ll have more to say about the filler in the negatives section but I did like Buffy’s deconstructed toast line, Cyrus not being self deprecating about his strength, and Asher almost breaking character while doing his mom’s dance.

Nice that they snuck in one more Buffy picking up Cyrus moment. Truly those two have the best friendship on this show.

I’m almost certain that Bowie scaring Celia was a nod to Trent scaring people on set, he has a whole instagram story dedicated to him spooking his co-workers.

They brought in one of their casting directors, Steven O’Connor, to play the officiant which was a nice gesture and of course we got one last family cameo with Coco Angel playing Judy.

Re-Shoots:

Bringing in this section since most of this ep were re-shoots. I’m not going to nit pick the plot holes that arose because of them: like how did Jonah learn You Girl without Bowie teaching him, how did he write the extended version, how Jonah and Cyrus and Buffy got to the Gazebo, why Cyrus and Buffy were dressed as waiters and didn’t actually do any waitering. Obviously whatever the original Gazebo event was would have had differences and production had limited time and budget to turn it into a new wedding as smoothly as possible.

Not much actually happened in this ep and that was a sad side effect of the re-shoots. Scenes like the Macks in the car and the Macks hiking dragged on so long because they were easy to film fairly quickly, just like the party scenes in A Good Hair Day were quite long.

I’m actually glad that they didn’t bother giving a reason for Bex suddenly deciding to get married. I don’t think it would have made all that much sense in otl anyway but without Ham I don’t think they could have come up with a good enough justification. At least with Ham it would have made some sense that he could have mended the rifts between Bex and Bowie and Bex and Celia since he was always the peacemaker and reasonable authority figure as well as a surrogate father and best man for Bowie.

It seems that every story line except for Tyrus was damaged in some way by the cuts and re-shoots but definitely Celia suffered the most, which is such a shame.

Negatives:

I can’t believe the show decided to waste precious time on a toast making competition in the second to last ep of the entire series. It might have been fine in 3a but to have that filler for a cold open so late in the game is awful.

I gasped when Judy asked Jonah if she could finally meet his friends. He’s been friends with the GHC for like 14 months at this point and they still know nothing about his family? They’ve always kept Jonah apart from the GHC in a lot of ways which hasn’t been to the show’s credit. And while I’m glad that we finally met Jonah’s mom, it shouldn’t have taken this long.

I’m not surprised but I was disappointed that we never heard that Jonah told his parents about his panic attacks. I get that in America’s horrifying healthcare system that they probably wouldn’t have been able to afford treatment but at least if they knew they could support him and try to help.

Looking Ahead:

Terri must love Winnie the Pooh if she’s having Cyrus quote him as shown in the most recent finale promo. The way Disney cuts the quote with clips from the ep is very clever: we have Tyrus being brave enough to confess their feelings, Muffy strong enough to be vulnerable and get together, and Jandi smart enough to know that now is not a good time for them go get back together.

Looks like Terri was able to get ample screen time for TJ and Marty so Tyrus and Muffy won’t feel rushed.

Very glad that Cyrus is the one who approaches TJ at the bench. I’m very interested to see how we go from delusion to confession on Cyrus’ part. Certainly they look happy when Cyrus asks if he can sit and Cyrus is obviously there because he wants to confess.

I assume the bench scene will come late in the ep. Cyrus seeing TJ talk to Kira must be what causes him to feel like he was deluding himself but what spurs him to decide it’s worth the risk to confess to TJ I don’t know. If the music performance is after Kira’s appearance than maybe Cyrus is feeling forlorn and then TJ appears to perform with him, in a way making up for costume day, and that gives Cyrus hope. Or if the performance is before Kira than maybe it’s what gets Cyrus’ hopes up only to have them crushed before someone or something gives him hope. Regardless of which scene is when, I do think that Cyrus and Buffy both give each other the final push to go seek out TJ and Marty and lay it all on the line.

I’m trying to keep my expectations low since it’s still Disney but I do think we get hand holding based on their bench scene positioning and the fact that Ciris got to hold hands. I think it’s likely they’ll use the word boyfriend and I do think they have some brief post canon scene inside before the party clears out and that’s likely where Tyrus and Muffy have an interaction. I would also like Andi at least to congratulate them but I’m not holding my breath. Having TJ use the word gay would be amazing but seems unlikely and Luke will be able to confirm it on social media anyways. Having Cyrus compliment TJ’s outfit and say it brings out his eyes would be a nice little moment if Terri could swing it. Josh has heavily hinted that we’d see some pay off to Cyrus calling TJ oblivious back in 3x07 and it would be great if we could see Cyrus using a mashup name for him and TJ like was able to with Iris.

Nice to see them make use of Luke’s piano skills and that means we’ll learn something new about TJ as well as learning his name and of course for most of the audience, the reveal that TJ is gay and likes Cyrus.

Seems like Cyrus, TJ, Buffy, Bex, Bowie, Amber, Jonah, and Andi are involved in the song, not sure where Marty is. Buffy compliments Marty and says he was funny and I wonder if he did some solo performance beforehand or after.

If they sing the theme song that’s cheesy af but I can’t see what else they’d have the rights to.

Muffy confession is outside which makes sense since they’d want some privacy for the Muffy kiss. Very smart to have them canon in the place they first met and once again I’m so glad they got Marty back, a Wuffy endgame just wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good.

I think the scene of Cyrus and Buffy standing inside in their jackets watching Bex and Bowie dance in their dress and tux is likely after they come in from confessing to their boyfriends and near the very end of the ep. I think Andi showing the mains that she’s cleared out Andi Shack because she got into SAVA is probably at the very end and one of the last scenes. I don’t know if the show is gonna pretend she’s starting at SAVA immediately because the finale is in December and she would’t be starting high school for 9 months which takes away a lot of the emotional impact of her moving. Or maybe she gets to start early or has to transfer to some new art middle school to finish up 8th grade in order to beef up her skills before starting at SAVA.

No sign of Kira in any of the promo clips and TJ arrives at the party alone which fits with her appearance meant to be a surprise twist as well as brief since Raquel was only on set for one day and that was the day all the other main and recurring kids were on set and her screen time comes out of TJ’s screen time. I think her 30-60 seconds of screen time will be by far the worst part of the finale. She’s been the most poorly written character on the show; her motvation going from trying to hurt Buffy to trying to date a guy she knows is gay and I’m sure her apology will probably introduce a new motivation, she just wanted a friend or some crap like that. On the plus side it doesn’t look like she sticks around so we don’t have to see TJ befriend her for no justifiable reason though I do think that ‘’sometimes there’s a nice person inside trying to get out’’ line is said to her by TJ or about her by TJ which is awful. I do think that she encourages TJ to talk to or hang out with Cyrus or something and that begins the ‘redemption’ we’ll luckily never have to see.

We’ll see such growth on Amber’s part from her behaviour at the first party to now.

Jonah gives Andi the bracelet maybe? I don’t think they canon but I do think they leave the door open to get back together in the future.

I wonder if Celia is coming back to Shadyside or if she’s leaving for good and I wonder if we’ll get a hint for a Bexie baby.

I’ve been hard on Terri but I do trust that the vast majority of the finale will be great and that she got the best ending possible for the show and I’m glad she fought as hard as I’m sure she did for the wonderful Tyrus ending we’re getting.

It’s going to be bittersweet getting that payoff while also saying goodbye to the show but at least with the longer length we’ll get to see pretty much all of what they filmed.

We’re on the cusp of watching history being made as Tyrus becomes the first gay couple on Disney Channel. With that in mind, I’d like to remind everyone that Tyrus week starts Monday July 22nd at 4pm eastern standard time and I hope everyone reading this will participate in whatever way they can so we can get Tyrus to number 1 on fandometrics.

Can’t believe I only have one more review to write. It’s gonna be a great week and a great ep and I can’t wait for us all to see it!

#Andi Mack #Tyrus #Bexie #Cyrus Goodman #TJ Kippen #Bex Mack #Bowie Quinn #Jonah Beck #Buffy Driscoll #Muffy #Andi Mack Reviews #Andi Mack Meta #Andi Mack Season 3

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nini-salazar-roberts · 5 years

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ok as a person who grew up and went to high school in slc, I'm just so disappointed they didn’t get into the asking culture for dances in slc. I didn’t go to east high, which is pretty close to downtown slc, I went to a high school in a suburb south of the city, but I always thought it was a pretty universal Utah thing to do big asks to dances. (just got confirmation from my sister who’s still in high school that east does do the big poster asks, love me some vindication)

basically, a few weeks before the dance, you make a poster that has a “theme”/pun on asking someone to a dance, get little props that match your theme/pun, somehow put your name in it like in one of the props or write it down and cut out the letters and stick them in the props or something, put it on their porch at like 9/10pm, ring their doorbell and go hide to make sure someone answers the door. then they’ll probably take a picture and put it on their insta and snap stories and then a couple weeks after you’ve asked them, they’ll do an answer poster back with their own theme with basically the same doorbell ditch process.

asking is very competitive, you want to ask whoever you want to go with before anyone else does (my older brother got asked to the winters dance (in December) his junior year literally the week after homecoming (in September) even though there was a halloween stomp in between the two because this girl (a friend of his) wanted to go with him so bad), because if someone gets asked by more than one person before they’ve answered someone, they’ll typically go with whoever asked them first. no one just asks the day of the dance, especially cause most people going to the dance go in groups with their friends and their friends’ dates, or all of their friends go stag (solo) together, and if you get asked last minute it can often feel like a pity ask (this happened to my sister at her homecoming this year and she was happy to go to the dance but was also really miserable bc it felt big time like a pity ask, but those are details were not gonna get into lmao).

also most Utah dances are on Saturday nights and going to a dance is a massive thing. groups will have a day activity during the day before the dance where they go do something as a group (for example, my senior prom we went to an escape room before the dance). then you separate to get ready, come back together to take pictures, then go to dinner either at a restaurant or do catering at someone’s house or a lot of groups like to do something simple the groups can make themselves like homemade pizza, then go to the dance. then there’s an after activity once the dance finishes. most of the time is just going to someone’s house and watching a movie and hanging out (that’s what I did after my senior prom) or it can be theme to go with the dance, like a lot of groups after the winters dance will make ginger bread houses at someone’s house and watch a Christmas movie. going to a dance in slc is a massive ordeal thing

however, a lot of stag groups will skip the day activity and sometimes even skip dinner and just hang out and get ready before the dance, so I imagine that’s what Ashlyn and Carlos did, since it was pretty clear they went to the dance together (not like as dates but in a ~group), but most stag groups will do an after activity.

also, most people/groups won’t show up to the dance on time. the dances are typically from like 7-10 (ik, Utah is Lame) and pretty much every group I went with would get to the dance at like 8-8:30ish and stay until the end. seb showing up three hours late? hmmmm ok.

also there’s never dinner, or assigned tables, except for at prom at some schools and at the senior cotillion (basically one last dance for only seniors the week of graduation where there’s like a slideshow and dinner and dancing and ~reminiscing about your time in high school).

ok this started as me lamenting them not using the ask culture of Utah and ended as me ranting over all the dance things they did wrong lmao

#hsmtmts #anyways the potential cute scenes/drama they missed out on by skipping asking? L

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itsallavengers · 6 years

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Answering Call

(commissioned by the lovely @song-of-freedom , who asked for a continuation of my tumblr fic Echoes! This can be read as a standalone, but for some context: Post civil war, Tony and Steve still aren’t talking but do occasionally hook up in motel-rooms. This turns out at 6k.)

He was going to die here.

Tony knew that much. Some time had passed since he’d been taken- six days, give or take, and there was no sign of anyone coming. Not that he’d expected anything, to be honest. Who was left to care? The Avengers had gone, Rhodey was away in Abu Dhabi for some new muscular therapy, and Tony had made it damningly clear to Steve after their last encounter in the motel that Tony wanted nothing other than a quick fuck out of him. The man hadn’t called him since then, and that had been three months ago. Tony was pretty sure he’d lost him for good, that time. Probably for the best.

God, he didn’t need to be getting hung up on Steve right now. He was about to die.

“Talk,” one of the men spat, backhanding him across the face. Tony’s head snapped sideways, and he shut his eyes. He was tired of this. “We’re getting impatient, Stark, and you would not like us once we reach the ends of our temper.”

“Oh, because I’m currently loving your personalities right now,” Tony muttered, before being swiftly punched in the ribs. He was tied to a post, as he had been since he’d arrived. He could move up and down in order to sit and stand, but that was about it. They’d told him that if they didn’t get what they wanted in a week, he was getting delivered back to the door of the Avengers Tower with a bullet in his head. Tony had informed them it was no longer the Avengers Tower any more, seeing as no Avengers even used it, and no Avengers technically even existed any more. They’d told him he’d stop running out of jokes soon enough.

Not true. Tony had less than 24 hours to live and was still cranking them out freely.

“Give us what we want,” Man No.1 hissed, grabbing Tony’s face by the jaw and wrenching it so that he was looking right up into the hard grey of his attacker’s eyes, “we know you know where they are. We know you still meet up with Captain Rogers to whore yourself out to him. We want his location, and we will get it. If not through you, then through someone else.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Find that someone then,” he told them, “because this whore is not telling you shit.” Man No.2 punched him in the mouth for that one, and he reeled back, feeling coppery blood on his tongue. They were going in harder today, as they became more and more desperate. “I don’t even know what you want anyway,” Tony continued when he’d got his breath back. “As you said, it’s not like me and Rogers do much talking in there.”

Man No.1 stopped, looking at him with a sneer. Seemingly deciding to change his angle, he peered in closer, looking Tony up and down. “You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?” He hissed softly, fingers clenching down on Tony’s face in five spikes of pain. “It’d be a shame to ruin a nice face like that. But we will, won’t we?” He turned to No.2, who nodded. “We’ll break you, body and soul. They sent us in for the last 24 hours to do whatever it takes to get that location outta you. There’s a whole table of equipment to help us with that, and believe me- we’re good at what we do.”

Tony knew the table they were talking about- he’d seen them set it up. None of the things on it were particularly pleasant, and he had to agree with them- he did have a pretty face. He didn’t want any disfigurements if he could really help it. “Would you like to consider a compromise?” He offered with a tilt of his head. “In return for you letting me go, I’ll direct you to the nearest police station, where you can turn yourself in and pay for your cr—”

He was cut off by the side of a hand snapping against his throat and blocking his airway. Man No.1 turned his back and walked over to the table while Tony simply gasped for air and watched nervously through watering eyes as a scalpel was collected from the surface.

No.1 Turned back around, this time with a smile. “Will Rogers thank you for this?” He asked gently, “will he appreciate you putting yourself through this for him? I don’t think he would. I think he’d beg you not to.”

Tony’s face was carefully blank, hiding the twist of pain under his sternum. He was used to it by now. “Rogers doesn’t give a shit,” he said coldly, “sorry to disappoint you, sweet-cheeks, but if you were looking for an emotional impact on him, you should have kidnapped Barnes.”

No.1 laughed and drew closer, twirling the little blade in his fingers. “I’ll go gently at first,” he murmured, drawing up to full height next to Tony, “but when we really get into it, I may lose myself a little.” He winked, and Tony just rolled his own eyes in response. They were shitty mercenaries. They didn’t even have any good quips.

And soon he was going to die, probably quite painfully, at the hands of said shitty mercenaries, all because he refused to tell them that Steve was currently sofa-surfing all over Pennsylvania. What a fucking joke.

“Make it easier,” No.1 said, pressing the instrument against Tony’s arm and slowly applying pressure until the skin broke and Tony winced, feeling hot blood run down his bicep, “just tell us where Steve Rogers is.”

“He’s right here,” someone said to Tony’s left.

Then, without warning, No.2 went flying from one end of the room to the other, his head knocking against the concrete with a sickening crack. Tony jumped wildly, turning his head to the direction of the voice. There, he spotted none other than Steve himself, marching through the room with a look of pure fury on his face. He was wearing the darkened version of the suit Tony had made for him, weirdly bare without the splash of red-white-blue that he usually carried with him.

Steve was… here.

Tony’s first thought was ‘why?’

He watched, dumbstruck as Steve advanced on No.1, who by that point had yelped unprofessionally and scrambled to the other side of the room. Steve blocked the only way out, though, and after a feeble attempt at a fight, Steve grabbed No.1 by the throat and punched him hard enough that Tony heard at least three different bones break. The man slumped to the floor as soon as Steve released him- completely unconscious.

Tony gaped, unblinking as Steve rushed over, eyes panicked and hands outstretched. “Tony,” he breathed, sounding almost frantic, “Tony, shit- are you okay? How badly did they hurt you? God, I’m so sorry—”

“What the fuck are you doing here,” Tony blurted dumbly, “aren’t you…. What the fuck?”

Steve stared at him- God, he still had that ridiculous fucking beard and long hair, it looked so strange to Tony. “I came to get you,” he said simply, voice quiet, “I—we’ve been looking ever since you got taken.” He swallowed and then brushed a trail of blood off Tony’s chin absently, before remembering where he was and stepping back, moving around to the other side of the pole. “Backup’s on the way,” he explained, “I just went on ahead, but they’re behind me.”

Tony couldn’t really understand what Steve was saying. Surely the man had better things to do than send himself into some skeevy domestic-terrorist base in order to go rescue Tony? “Where are we?” He asked instead, keeping his voice level as Steve wrenched the metal cuffs apart and freed Tony.

“Utah,” Steve told him, and Tony made a face. Really? He’d been about to die in fucking Utah? Talk about anticlimactic. “Can you walk?” He put a steadying hand against Tony’s shoulder, but Tony just shrugged him off snappishly.

“Yes, thank you, I’m just fine, you don’t have to feel me up” he bit, “you shouldn’t have come here. You’re who they want.”

“Yeah, and you’re who they took,” Steve responded, stepping away sadly until he was no longer touching Tony. He refused to wish that Steve had just ignored him and kept holding on anyway. “I wasn’t… I wouldn’t just leave you.”

“Really?” Tony asked, raising his eyebrows, “I remember things quite differently.”

Steve froze, his eyes turning down to the ground. For a second, he looked so sad- but then he just took in a small breath and turned back to the door. “Please, Tony- just let me help you,” he asked, “then we can go back to ignoring one another, alright?” He jerked his head in the direction of escape, avoiding Tony’s eyes as he said, “let’s get outta here before they notice all the bodies I left behind me.”

Tony, stupidly, wanted to stand and argue more. If only because a part of him- a dumb, idiot part of him- wanted to extend the amount of time in which he got to talk to the other man, even when it was just fighting. Once Steve pulled his ass out of here, like he’d said before, they’d just go straight back to ignoring one another. Which was… good, it was what Tony wanted, but...

Sometimes he just missed Steve’s voice.

Wordlessly, Tony stepped forward and followed Steve out of the room, keeping close as they both peered around the corridor. Tony swallowed down the little burst of light-headedness that rushed over and threatened to topple him completely. They hadn’t fed him in a while, and he was weaker than he wanted to admit. Probably wouldn’t be all that much use in a fight. Luckily, however, a fight wasn’t something that seemed to be needed. Steve snuck them both through the shadows and around the corridors expertly, keeping them out of sight the whole time. The people responsible for grabbing Tony obviously weren’t all that organised or well-funded; seemed like some sort of home-grown thing that had yet to even take off. Tony was just embarrassed that he’d managed to let himself get kidnapped by them, honestly.

Then an alarm started to ring out through the corridors, and Tony’s spirits only dropped further. Steve rested a hand against his chest, stopping him from walking around the corner hastily. “That’s either backup arriving, or someone noticing the fact that you’re gone,” he said.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “How well did you hide the bodies in your trail of righteous destruction?” He asked, watching as Steve blushed a little. He’d never learned quite how to curb that little trait of his. Tony had always used to think it was adorable.

“Uhhh—” Steve rubbed his neck, shrugging, “I sort of just. Left them there.”

Tony blinked, and then threw his hands up in the air. “Of course you fucking did,” he muttered, “how absolutely subtle of you—”

“I was in rush!”

“What the hell for?”

“You!” Steve grabbed his shoulder urgently and pushed him into the wall, hiding them both from sight as a handful of armed men ran across the junction in the halls. When he leaned back, his hands remained against Tony’s shoulders. “Goddamn it, Tony, I know you don’t believe it and I know I don’t deserve you to, but I still fucking love you, and when they told me you’d gone missing I went outta my goddamned mind! So no, I wasn’t exactly thinking about how to best cover my tracks when I forced my way in here, and no, it probably wasn’t the best idea to try and come here before the rest of the team arrived, but fucking sue me, Tony, I don’t think straight when it’s your life on the line!”

He stared intensely at Tony, jaw set in a hard line as his chest heaved. Tony noted that his hands were shaking against Tony’s shoulders.

Tony shoved him off. “Oh, fuck you,” he spat, “don’t fucking pretend— whatever you feel about me, it sure as shit isn’t love—”

“What the hell do you know about how I feel?”

“People don’t do what you did to the people they love!” Tony hissed, and God, this was so not the right time to have this argument with Steve- they hadn’t talked properly in literal years, not about anything that wasn’t directly related to the sex they’d been having, and now that they were in a terrorist cell in fucking Utah with people running all over the place trying to find them, and they decided to stop and hash out the last five years of their relationship with one another.

Steve paused, whatever he had been going to say catching in his throat. He looked down. “Tony, I—”

“Can it, Captain,” Tony snapped, “if you want to call fucking me in a hotel room at 2 in the morning whenever you’re in the area ‘love’ then you go for it. Just… God, lets’ just fucking focus on getting out of here.” He turned on his heel and started walking down the corridor, his jaw clenched tight to keep him from saying anything else. Steve made a noise in the back of his throat, but followed a moment later all the same, hurrying to take lead. Tony just glared at his back and pretended that what he’d just said had made him feel better.

(It didn’t. Just like the drinking didn’t, just like fucking other people didn’t. Everything always ended up coming back to Steve, and he wished it wouldn’t, but he didn’t really have a choice. Love was a fucking bitch like that.)

Someone spotted them in the corridor and began to yell, but Steve quickly incapacitated them with a twist of their arm and a powerful boot landing on their knee, shattering the joint. Tony leaned down and swiped the gun on the floor, and then took the knife strapped to the soldier’s thigh for good measure. The weight of the weapon felt good in his hands, and he flipped it expertly, glancing over to Steve as the man watched. “Don’t piss me off,” he warned as he tossed it again. Steve almost laughed.

Then his eyes widened in horror as he looked behind Tony’s shoulder. Without warning, he grabbed Tony by the arm and hauled him forward. “Run, now,” Steve said, taking him by the hand and starting to sprint. Tony felt himself getting dragged along behind the other man and he turned his shoulder to see what it was that Steve had spotted.

Ah, he thought as Steve yanked him down to the floor to avoid the firing of ominous purple energy that the man on the other end of the corridor had just shot at them, that was probably it.

Tony rolled painfully, feeling his sore ribs flare up as they both hit the floor. Steve grabbed his shirt and yanked, pulling him around the corner. His eyes were wide. “That’s the man I’ve been tracking for months,” he told Tony as he pulled them both to their feet and started up running again, “God, shit, I wasn’t expecting to see him here. He’s been manufacturing an army’s-worth of weapons based off alien tech- that beam can cut straight through steel.” He pushed Tony forward and started up running again, taking a swift left and pulling Tony along with him.

Tony heard the sounds of shouting and heavy footsteps in the corridor they’d just been stood in, and figured all the men were now reconvening to hunt them through the building. That probably wasn’t good. “How long out is backup?”

“Too long,” Steve bit, “there’s an exit at the back of the building though- once we get to that and we’re out in the open, we’ll be okay.” He pulled on Tony’s hand, urging him on. “Come on, hurry.”

“Yeah, sorry, I’m not feeling quite so athletic as you, what with all the torture,” Tony snapped, instinctively ducking at the sound of a bullet whipping down the corridor. Steve pushed them left into a wide room that looked like some sort of garage area and then pointed a finger.

“Get to the door,” he ordered, “I’ll hold them off.”

“What? Don’t be fucking stupid, if that weapon is as dangerous as you say it is, you’ll be fucking wiped out—”

“That door is encrypted, Tony, and I sure as hell don’t know how to open it!” Steve told him, giving him a gentle push, “I’ll keep them back, you do your computer thing, then we can both get out of here alive.” He pushed Tony again. “Go!”

This didn’t sit well in Tony’s gut, but he didn’t exactly have much choice. With a frustrated snarl, he turned away and ran over to the large steel door Steve had pointed to, eyes scanning for a keypad. His fingers fumbled for it once it was in his sights, hands scrabbling at the bottom. It looked like every conventional keypad he’d come across during his career, which meant Tony only had to get into the mechanism and sort out a few wires to get the red light to go green.

He lifted the knife that was still in his hand and then jimmied it into the bottom of the little box, ducking instinctively as twin gunshots fired through the room. He looked behind him, panicked- but Steve was okay. He was currently driving through a herd of soldiers, taking them all out one by one as they filed through the single door.

Red wire, red wire, red—there it was. Tony yanked it out shakily, hearing Steve crack bone and tear muscle behind him, a lethal weapon packed into a human body. Tony had forgotten what it felt like to fight at the man’s side. There was something so utterly aweing about it.

But now wasn’t the time to focus on that.

He shifted about in the insides of the little keypad, trying to find the right wire. More shots went off behind him- he wondered how much time they had left before Steve came toe-to-toe with the guy with the big purple energy gun. Probably not long. Tony needed to move.

He pulled out the blue wire, twisting the copper at the end around the red one he’d just pulled out, and then felt the relief as the switch flicked from red to green, and the door unlocked with a loud click. He turned to Steve, noting with surprise that the flow of men into the room had stopped, leaving only Steve panting heavily, and with a deep frown on his face. “Where the fuck did Malicious go,” he muttered to himself, peering cautiously around the door. Tony figured ‘Malicious’ was the guy with the Big Gun, and made a face at the name. Totally clichéd.

“Who cares?” He called out, getting unsteadily back to his feet and waving at the door. “I unlocked it. Now let’s blow this popsicle stand before more people come to try and kill us.” He turned back to the door, hand going to the giant iron bar.

Behind him, he heard Steve shift. “Tony… wait, TONY!”

Time slowed down a little as Tony turned, looking at Steve in confusion. There was a deep terror in the man’s voice; sudden and cracking through the middle like he couldn’t get the word out quickly enough. Things happened too fast for him to even process them properly- one second Steve was on one end of the room, the next he was there, lurching forward at a speed too fast to see, yanking Tony in and then hauling him sideways as the door opened. He fell on his side, there was a flash of purple and a scream and-

Tony reacted instinctively, flipping onto his side and throwing the knife at the shadow of a man he’d seen out of the corner of his eye as he’d opened the door. He processed a dozen things at once- but then he saw Steve, on the floor, not moving, and it all singled down to that one fact.

Steve.

Oh God, no.

The guy- fucking Malicious, staggered back in shock as the knife lodged itself into his shoulder, and Tony whipped out the gun from the waistband of his jeans and fired four shots to his head without blinking, too fast for the man to try and dodge. He slumped to the floor, his plan to surprise them by coming around the back failing almost as quickly as it had begun.

Except- had it, really? “Steve,” he breathed, turning back to the body on the floor, “Steve, fuck, answer me.” His body ached ferociously, but he hardly felt it as he scrambled forward, fingers curling around Steve’s shoulder. He could see red start to pool around the man’s torso, a hellish sort of halo, and suddenly Tony couldn’t breathe.

No, no no no no no no.

He turned Steve over onto his back, seeing the way the man’s blue eyes fluttered hazily. Immediately, Tony saw the damage. The beam must have caught his profile- except it had ended up going straight through him, twin holes in each side of his chest. Tony blanched. Oh God. “Fuck, fuck- Steve, stay with me, okay- stay with me, you hear me? Fuck.” He pressed his hands into each wound, but there was too much blood, it trickled out through the gaps in his fingers, leaking over his skin and staining it red.

Steve coughed weakly, and then the red dripped out of his mouth too. “No,” Tony said, voice hoarse, “fuck you, no, don’t do this to me now, Rogers, you fucking bastard, don’t fucking… why did you do that?” He whispered, trying to wade through the terrified fog in his mind and come up with something that was going to fix this, patch up the two gaping holes where Steve’s organs were. “Why did you fucking do that, you fucking idiot?”

Steve rolled his eyes and smiled. “You…” he coughed again, blood staining his teeth, “you know why,” he finished, and Goddamn it, Tony fucking did. Deep down, he did. Because Tony would have done the exact same thing. Without even hesitating.

His hands were shaking, there was blood all over them, he couldn’t see properly through the water in his eyes. “Shut up,” he hissed, “shut the fuck up and stay awake, okay?” He tried to remember how to breathe, ultimately failing when Steve refused to listen to him and dropped his eyelids, head falling sideways. God, this wasn’t fucking happening. Tony had more shit he needed to shout at Steve for, more arguments he needed to have. He hadn’t gotten it all out yet, he never would, Steve was someone who was supposed to be there for the rest of time, available whenever Tony had something else he needed to add about hating Steve Rogers. He knew Steve would have let him use him like that too; Tony’s emotional punching bag, his outlet, because Steve always had. He’d always accepted Tony’s refusal to do anything other than fuck, never ignored a text Tony had shot off to him at 11 in the evening when he was too drunk and too bitter to ever be using that stupid fucking burner phone.

He was supposed to be alive so that Tony could do his best to hate him, he was supposed to…

Tony choked, hands going to Steve’s face, cupping his jaw, getting blood in the man’s beard. “Wake up,” he said, “fuck you, wake up, wake UP!”

Steve didn’t.

Tony hated the sound of the heart-rate monitor.

He’d listened to that thing so many times for so many hours in his life, all it ever reminded him of was everything he’d come close to losing. But the steady beat of it belonged to Steve, so at least that was comforting.

Sam, Natasha and Rhodey had found them in the end- Tony doesn’t remember, though. He’s only vaguely aware of what happened after Steve closed his eyes- hands pulling him away, quinjet med-table, ‘he’s lost so much blood’. He remembers how the red had caked his hands. He’d washed them since then, but he can still feel it dripping down his fingers.

That shot had not been meant for Steve. But he’d taken it anyway.

His heart had stopped three times on the operating table. Tony had watched them defib his heart, watched him jump on the table as hundreds of volts of electricity shot through him, again and again and again. His chance of survival had been at 12%.

But, somehow, he’d ended up stabilizing. Against all the fucking odds. Of course he had- what else was Steve Rogers gonna fucking do, lie down and take what the world gave him? He still hadn’t woken up yet- it’d been a week by that point. Doctors said there could be brain damage. He’d been oxygen deprived for a terrifyingly long time.

He was still alive, though. Tony knew, because the heart monitor beeped and it beeped and it beeped.

“You know, he looked at that burner phone every hour of every fuckin’ day.” Tony turned, watching as Barnes shifted at the doorway. He was looking at Steve with a tight jaw. “Just in case you texted and he missed it.”

Tony had been shocked to see Barnes out of Cyro when he’d arrived back at Wakanda. The last he’d heard, the guy had still been under, and Tony had never bothered to check, simply using Steve’s continued booty calls as proof Bucky wasn’t out yet. It didn’t make sense for him and Tony to carry once Bucky got better, after all. He thought he should have been more angry, when he saw the killer of his parents again. But he wasn’t. He was just heavy.

He was always so fucking heavy.

Tony shrugged, looking over to Steve. Too pale. “What can I say, I’m a great lay—”

“He didn’t give a shit about the sex,” Barnes said sharply, and Tony’s head jerked over to him, tensing up apprehensively at the tone. Barnes paused, waiting for Tony to settle again before talking. “You could have texted him to say you’d do nothing other than use his face as a dartboard and he would’a come running. It wasn’t ever sex that he wanted.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “You don’t know fuck-all about our relationship.”

“And you don’t know fuck-all about it either, apparently.”

Tony stood abruptly, turning to face Barnes with a twisted face of rage on his face. “I know that he left,” he spat, “I know that he left and lied to me and loved you more than he could ever love me. That’s enough. That’s all I need to know. I don’t care whether or not he regrets it, I don’t care if he misses me. I fucking hate him.”

Barnes didn’t even flinch. “Then why are you still here?”

Tony tried to think of something, but no words came. He shook his head and turned away instead. He was making a fool of himself just by staying. It was uncomfortable on these dumbass hospital chairs- a thing they seemed to have even in Wakanda- and he kept seeing the eyes of all his ex-team looking at him through the windows as he sat there, waiting. And for what? For Steve to wake up so Tony could continue to fight with him? He was fucking tired of it. He was tired of everything, and Steve had jumped in front of a death-ray to stop Tony from getting hurt without even hesitating, and he’d run into a terrorist base alone because Tony was in danger and he had no idea what to fucking do with any of that information.

“Steve fucked up,” Barnes’ voice filtered through the haze, “he did a lot of things he shouldn’t, and he knows that. He hates that. But it wasn’t because he loved me more. For one thing, we have never been and will never be like that, and for another… it’s not true anyway. He loved you just as much. But he had to make a choice, and you weren’t slowing down. You would’ve killed me.”

Tony stared at the wall. “He’s a stubborn piece of shit who always thinks he’s right and doesn’t ever listen to anyone else because he’s also a self righteous prick.”

“True,” Barnes said with a shrug, “he’s also unwaveringly kind and always puts other people before himself. He’s brave and loyal and he jumps in front of certain death because the people he loves matter so much more to him than himself.”

Tony huffed, looking down and shaking his head. He doesn’t love me, the voice in his head wanted to say- but it was cold and unstable and the foundations of that belief weren’t solid enough for him to say it with conviction. He wished things didn’t have to be so difficult. He wished he could just stop loving Steve, hate him instead, cut all ties like he’d been saying he was going to do for months. He’d always told himself that the next time he met up with Steve at those shitty roadside motels would be his last. He’d always pretended as if he could live with never seeing or touching or tasting him again.

He was a filthy fucking liar and everyone knew it.

Steve woke up after 9 days, and, once it was established he was going to be okay and Tony wasn’t indirectly responsible for giving Captain America brain damage, he got the first plane back home.

It was for the best.

_____Steve_____

Highland Motel, 12:15, room no.8.

-Tony

Steve blinked at the notification on his phone, sitting up jerkily in bed.

It had been three months since he’d last seen Tony in the hospital in Wakanda. Three months since he’d seen the man’s face, heard his voice. He’d thought that would be his last. He’d been working on trying to accept as much.

And then here Tony was, hitting him up on a Sunday out of nowhere.

Steve shoved the covers off and grabbed his clothes from the floor. He was laying low in Queens on a recon mission which Tony must have known about. He only ever called when he knew Steve was in the area.

Steve knew, really, that he probably shouldn’t go. That he should probably stop doing this to himself. Being close to Tony was good, so fucking good- but it was too short lived, just a shadow of everything they had been before. Tony never touched him like he’d used to. Sure, Steve still loved the contact that had remained- kissing Tony in the dark, feeling the curves of him that he’d long since memorized and feeling the beautiful heave of Tony’s chest as he came- but he hated the fact that that was all he got now. No holding him in the afterglow, laughing into his hair, curling their hands together and murmuring their love into one another’s skin. It was fuck and go, now, and Steve felt a piece of his soul leave him every time he walked out of the door. The one time he’d broken, begged Tony to just stay for a night, Tony had told him exactly where to shove that idea. Steve figured that wasn’t going to change just because he’d nearly died. They were superheroes. They nearly died every month.

It wasn’t healthy for him to keep doing this, and he knew he should say no.

But Steve was weak and selfish and some days, all he could ever feel was longing. Sadness. Seeing Tony, even when it was only brief, even when they kissed too hard and fucked too roughly to be real, was still the highlight of Steve’s life now.

So he pulled on his jacket and left the house, heading to the place Tony had sent him. Tony only wanted him for sex, and that was okay. Steve could live with that. One day, he knew Tony would get bored of it, or he’d find someone else, and it would be the worst thing in the wold- losing the final straw that tied them together- but Steve would just have to deal with that too. For now, though, he still had the chance.

He knocked on the door of the motel, four staccato beats, and waited until Tony pulled open the door. His face was pale in the frosty moonlight. He looked tired. Then again, when didn’t he?

Tony motioned him in and shut the door with a click, locking it behind him and then turning to face Steve, a strange expression in his eyes. “We’re not fucking,” he said, “not this time.”

Steve blinked. Huh. That was new. “Then what are we doing?”

With a resolute determination in his every move, Tony marched over to the bed and hopped on it, crossing his legs. He pointed to the spot in front of it. “Sit,” he demanded.

Steve sat.

Tony looked at him for a long time, and Steve’s heart beat too fast to be normal. He knew he was blushing- a nervous habit he’d never quite managed to curb. He was sure Tony had used to find it adorable.

“We’re going to talk,” Tony said, hands smoothing over the bed, “about everything. About the accords, about how I feel, about how you feel- all of it. We’re going to talk about me getting kidnapped and you coming after me, and we’re probably going to end up screaming at eachother, and I’m going to say I hate you, and it’s going to be a fucking mess.”

Steve just blinked at him, while Tony licked his lips and looked away. “You saved my life,” he continued, quiet, “you nearly died for me. And I’ve been thinking about why for three months straight. Now—now I want to talk about it. Find a conclusion, somewhere, good or bad. I’m tired of feeling like we’re unfinished.”

He didn’t really know how to respond. He felt like he was reading it wrong, but it seemed as if this was… a chance. At something. Steve wasn’t sure what.

Seemingly reading his thoughts, Tony’s jaw clenched. “I’m not saying this is going to fix things,” he warned, “I’m not… it’s still going to be there. A conversation or two won’t make it all better.”

“I know,” Steve said throatily, “I understand that.”

“And I’m still fucking furious.”

“I know that too.”

Tony blinked, biting his lip and looking Steve in the eye. Steve looked back, realising it felt hot and uncomfortable behind his eyes. He’d never even thought he would get this chance.

Tony was right. This was definitely going to get messy. But love wasn’t clean, especially not theirs. It hurt like a bitch and it twisted in all the wrong places. Maybe it couldn’t get untangled.

Maybe it could.

“Don’t walk away,” Steve told him quickly, “don’t run if it gets difficult, please.”

Tony’s eyes flashed. “I’m not the one who fucking ran in the first—” he stopped himself, taking a small breath and then huffing as he shut his eyes. “Wow, okay, so this really is gonna suck, huh?” He sighed. “I hate talking.”

Steve smiled. Crossed his legs. “Yeah,” he agreed, “it’s gonna be pretty painful.”

There was a short silence, where Tony looked down at the patterns on the bed. Every line of him was tense, exhausted. He was the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen.

“Right,” Tony looked up, eyes determined, “let’s begin.”

#stevetony #itsallavengers writes #post-cw / hopeful ending / whump #can u tell i was listing to 'lets hurt tonight' by OneRepublic during the last scene lol #commissions

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iamnotawomanimagod · 5 years

Text

2019 Retrospective Survey

Once upon a time, in the wayback ancient days of yesteryear, aka 2006 or so, people would fill out little self-important surveys about themselves almost every night on Myspace. These surveys were then posted to your profile via a “bulletin” and could be perused by your friends at their leisure.

Eventually, this phenomena evolved into what we now know as “ask games” - people taking these surveys and, instead of just filling them out, reblogging them in the hopes that their followers might grow curious enough to send in some numbers.

Well, to that evolution of this tradition, I say - pah! I’ll answer all these questions and you’ll like it!!

Or you’ll skip it, which is probably the reasonable thing to do. This is mostly for me, so I have some vague record of this year to look back on, which I’ve been bad about the past several years.

1. First things first, did you have a good year?

It’s kind of tough for me to discern what is good and bad, anymore, especially when it comes to my life experiences. Things kind of just “are.” I think I had a pretty good year overall, though, if I step back and look at it, and ignore my mental health and those other niggling little details.

2. How old did you turn this year?

Twenty-eight. Getting up there. I’ve been doing some version of these surveys since I was like, fourteen. That’s fourteen years of random, unnecessary internet void-shouting.

3. Do you feel your age?

Not really. When I was younger, I definitely thought 28-year-olds always had their shit together, automatically, just because of the age. Like it feels like an age where I really should’ve outgrown a lot of things. But I haven’t yet, not at all, and I have zero interest in conventional adulthood.

Did your appearance change in anyway?

I got new glasses, because I lost my old ones in Hawaii.

Post your favorite selfie.

I rarely like selfies where I smile, so even though this one is clearly some goofy cheesin’, I still consider it kinda special.

If you traveled, where did you go?

I went to a place called Monroe, in Utah, which has some amazing hot springs. Slept overnight in a converted hippie bus. It was freezing (if you weren’t in the springs), but really fun!

I also went to Maui, Hawai’i. It was beautiful and I do see why people love it there, but it was very much so not for me. Also flying while fat fucking suuuuucks aaaaass, hugely.

Which fashion trends did you love?

Eye makeup got really fun and weird this year - I love the new shapes and crazy colors.

Here’s a decent example on Halsey. The way her top lid has a line above the lid and under the brow - I’ve never seen that before this year. Really fun and new kinda twist on makeup.

Which fashion trends did you hate?

Chunky dad shoes, the popularity of Crocs (and I fucking love Crocs, don’t get me wrong,) and other seemingly-ironic “comfortable chic” styles. It’s super cute on most skinny girls but the moment a fat girl tries to rock that style, it’s “sloppy” or “lazy.” On the other hand, it was good to see some women reject more revealing or extravagant styles in favor of being comfortable. It’s just tough for a fat woman like me to pull off.

What was your favorite article of clothing this year? Post a pic if possible?

I pretty much lived in black sweatpants and baggy t-shirts this year.

What song sums up this year for you?

“I Think I’m OKAY” by Machine Gun Kelly feat. Yungblud

What album came out and has been on heavy rotation since then?

I listened to a ton of “thank u, next” and “when we all fall asleep, where do we go?” this past year.

What was your favorite movie of the year?

I haven’t seen any movies from 2019 yet. I watched one film this year: “Slow West” - it was pretty good!

Did an actor/actress catch your attention for the first time this year?

The entire casts of Legacies and Runaways.

Favorite new TV show?

Probably Legacies! Really surprised me, but it’s a fun show!

Which new ship/fandom has taken over a lot of your time, attention, and tears?

Cheleanor stole my heart this year, from The Good Place. I, of course, spent way too much time thinking and talking about The 100. Gotta give another shoutout to Legacies and Runaways. Special nod to #deanoru and #hosie, respectively.

What food did you try for the first time?

I tried dragonfruit and papaya for the first time while in Hawai’i. It was also the first time I’d ever tried and enjoyed mango. All the other mango I’d had was never sweet enough and always reminded me a lil bit of cat pee, but a fresh tropical mango is fuckin’ heaven.

Did you make any big permanent changes this year?

Not really “permanent”, but semi-permanent - I moved out of one place and into a new one. We definitely won’t be here forever, though. Maybe a year or two.

What was one nice thing you did for someone else?

I do a lot of little nice things for my husband every day, it’s kinda tough to list them all.

What was one nice thing you did for yourself?

I reached out to an old friend that I had been fighting with and made amends, and we’re friends again.

Did you develop a new obsession?

I always move from TV show to TV show obsessively - lots have already been mentioned. I think I got more into The Try Guys this past year than I have before. I also played a lot more management sims than I ever expected to - games like Dead in Vinland, Banished, Frostpunk, Weedcraft Inc, and This War of Mine.

Did you vote?

Shoulda - didn’t.

Did you move?

Yup! Moved out of my old roommate’s house and into my own apartment.

Did you get a job?

In a sense - I drive for DoorDash. It’s definitely work, but not a conventional job.

Did you get a pet?

No. :( In fact, I kinda lost some - I loved the shit out of my roommate’s dogs, I got way too attached to them. I miss them too much.

Do you regret not doing anything?

Not really.

Do you regret doing something?

Yeah, I let a friend down in July. Wish I hadn’t done that, but. I’m not a very good friend to have, and I’m okay with that. The people who get it stick around through the tough stuff.

Have you done anything that scared you?

I always think it’s a little scary to get on a plane. That’s probably it.

Did anyone/thing make you so mad it stayed with you for days?

God, yes. Too many things. Still angry at my old roommate for being such an asshole about cleaning and for threatening to kick us out. That’s the one that happened this year, lol. But I’m still angry about things that happened years ago. I can hold a hell of a grudge.

Did you lose anyone close to you?

Not this year. Got lucky. Guess the universe decided to give me a little break.

Did you fall in love?

Nah, but I stayed in love with a coupla people. ;)

Did you fall out of love?

Nope!

Did you start a new relationship?

Nah. My husband and I have been together for 8 years.

Did you go through a break up?

See above!

Did you have to cut ties to someone?

Kinda. Had one or two people who wanted to be my friend. Made the mistake of being approachable and shit. But they figured out I’m a flakey asshole soon enough. :)

Who was important to you this year but wasn’t important last year?

I made amends with my friend, Tracie, this year. She was always important to me. But I was pretending that she wasn’t, last year.

Who wasn’t as important to you this year as they were last year?

I can’t really think of anyone. I guess my husband’s best friend - she moved out of our old house first, and I stopped talking to her as often. Prior to that we’d been pretty close. Proximity-based closeness is a trip, y’all.

If you could have a do over on one thing you did, would you take it?

Nah. I made it through. That’s all that counts.

What was the best moment of the year for you?

Seeing my friend get married. It was a really, really lovely ceremony.

What was the worst?

Probably when I tried out a new form of self-harm - aka banging my head as hard as possible against the bathroom sink. Gave myself a mild concussion. 0/5 would not recommend.

Did anything happen that you were sure would change you as a person but it really didn’t?

Going to Hawai’i. I don’t know why I thought it would change me - it just seems like one of those “life-changing” destinations, y’know? But it wasn’t. It was beautiful and otherworldly, and also full of a weird and uncomfortable mixture of white wealth and brown poverty. If anything, that only affirmed my beliefs more.

Did anything happen to you that you were sure wouldn’t change you as a person but it did?

It’s tough to answer these sometimes, because I just don’t really know who I am “as a person.” I don’t think there was anything I didn’t expect. Not this year.

What are you most proud of accomplishing?

I got out and worked a lot. I pushed through some really tough times and experienced some nice things on the other side. I was able to care for my husband during his down moments, the way he’s cared for me. I fuckin’ survived, which is always an accomplishment for someone whose brain is frequently shouting at them to end it all.

What have you learned about yourself this year that you didn’t know in the years prior?

I’m more resilient emotionally than I thought I was. I’m less resilient physically than I used to be.

Did your opinion of anyone change for the better?

I feel warmer and closer to my mother-in-law than ever before.

Did your opinion of anyone change for worse?

My sister continues to find new ways to disappoint me, but that isn’t exclusive to 2019. My former roommate went from being, in my mind, a mostly-okay guy, to potentially one of the worst people I’ve ever met. And that’s really saying something. Duplicity and lack of awareness go a long way in making someone shitty, though.

If you make resolutions, did you complete them this year?

Nah, pahaha. I was supposed to go outside and also journal every day. Didn’t do that. I mostly kept up with it, but there are a lot of gaps. I definitely spent a week or two consecutively indoors, at least twice.

If you make resolutions, what will your resolutions be for the coming year?

Probably gonna keep trying with the old ones, tbh.

If you could go on an adventure during the remaining days of the year, where would you go and what would you do?

I would go pick up Cami and head north, for Alaska. Find someone beautiful and peaceful to see the aurora borealis. Drink cream liqueur and hot cocoa with scarves and hats and gloves on. Look up at the endless stars. Have a long, sleepless road trip back, screaming our favorite songs at the top of our lungs, stopping at interesting places when we can.

What do you wish for others for the coming year?

I just hope things get better, dude. Stabler. Less scary.

What do you wish for yourself?

Same as the above, but on a micro scale. I’m heading into my 30s in this next decade. I gotta find something else to do besides just surviving.

#rambling about my life #plz do not rebagel thank u #about me #2019 retrospective

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honhonluigi · 3 years

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If I may ask, what's it like having a sister? I'm an only child, but I had someone who was close to a sister, but that didn't last

That’s also a rollercoaster. I like having a sister for the most part, even if it’s full of disappointments.

My sister is one of my best friends. She’s only a couple years older than me. We have a ton of the same interests. We like sports, camping, nature, exercise, movie critiquing, artsy things, musicals/acting, singing, good books, and Dead by Daylight. We do all those things together and I certainly have a fun time. Of course, she’s on the opposite end of the spectrum. She threw herself into primarily doing outdoor recreation and only doing artsy stuff if she had some downtime, and I’m kind of the opposite. I make a lot of time to do artsy stuff and (to my extreme disappointment lately) don’t have as much time to do the outdoor recreation. Though I still make time to do it a lot, which...my sister doesn’t do with her art. She pretty much gave it up entirely. She used to be an incredibly talented artist, but she just...gave up on that. I don’t know why. I think it’s pretty sad that she doesn’t do art anymore. Now she works as a guide in multiple different resort parks doing things like rafting, skiing, hiking, etc. (That’s why she was alllll the way in Utah in the US).

Anyway, I think my sister is one of the coolest people on the planet, and she’s one of my best friends. I love hanging out with her and I’m always waiting to get even a breadcrumb of her attention. She understands me better than anyone else, because we were raised together by our shitty loving complicated cult-engrained parents. She’s the only person I can watch movies and critique with and truly feel like she understands what I’m talking about. People just...don’t get into media critique reviews like we do.

But, having a sister isn’t always a good thing. We fought like hell throughout our entire childhoods. God, we hated each other. We never started hanging out or being friends until I was in highschool and she was in college. Then we both started to mature out of it. Even if she’s my friend now, she still disappoints me all the time. She’s (in my eyes) extremely bipolar. She can flip from a good mood to being furious with someone in the blink of an eye, for no reason. I mean, I’m sure she understands her moods, but I sure fucking don’t. I never know what will set her off, and she just snaps or blows up on people out of nowhere. She’s not selfish, but she doesn’t take shit from anyone else. If you mess up, or disappoint her, or make her angry, she won’t be around you. She’ll just leave or not talk to you until her mood cools off. Don’t bother arguing with her or confronting her about stuff. She won’t give it the time of day. She’ll just cut you off until she thinks you’ve gotten over it.

So, because I can’t risk telling her how I actually feel, she disappoints me all the time. I want to be her friend, but she doesn’t see me that way. (Karma for when we were kids and the shoe was on the other foot). She always puts her friends before her family, and I’m ‘family’ and never ‘friend’. She always chooses hanging out with her friends or appeasing them to hanging out with me. I barely ever get to see her. Even when we make plans and I make myself available to hang out with her, she either completely stands me up to hang out with her friends, or brings a friend along and ignores me the entire time. And I can’t confront her about it, because she does not tolerate arguments. I just wish she made time to spend with me sometimes, and it felt like she really wanted to, instead of just “I need to visit my family out of pity.”

I don’t know if that gives you a good sense of what having a sister is like, but I think I can sum it up pretty well. It’s really, really nice to have a built-in friend who understands you and what you went through more than anyone else. But it doesn’t work like actual friendship. You’ll be best friends one moment, then tear each other’s head off the next, then be best friends again. It’s always a little bit of a love/hate or at least love/annoyance type thing. You’ll never get along completely. It’s a different reason for every pair of sisters, but every pair of sisters fights somehow, over something. It’s always waiting to happen. But still, when you’re not fighting, you have a best friend who knows you better than anyone else does. And that’s nice, if you can actually get them to stay around you. I miss my sister. I really do. She was the only friend I had who liked to do physical nature activities. Now she’s gone, and I’m stuck inside all the time, because none of the friends I have want to do that stuff like we do. It’s incredibly lonely, and sad, and disheartening, and probably bad for my health. I just want to go hiking again...

#Don't worry I'm incredibly used to putting my life on hold #so that I can available to someone else #and then they stand me up constantly #that happens with literally every person I know #not just my sister #It's my curse I guess

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junker-town · 4 years

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6 winners and 5 losers from Day 2 of the NFL Draft

AJ Epenesa, Jonathan Taylor, and Xavier McKinney were all Day 2 picks in the 2020 NFL Draft.

The Ravens’ running game got better, Carson Wentz is on notice, and Roger Goodell needs a nap.

Day 2 of the 2020 NFL Draft is over, and 74 more college stars saw their pro dreams come true. Players coming from programs ranging from LSU and Ohio State to Lenoir-Rhyne and Dayton heard NFL commissioner Roger Goodell call their names to shove them off on their NFL journeys.

The ripples of Friday night’s decisions won’t be fully understood for at least a decade as early-round picks fizzle and overlooked prospects rise to the top of the NFL. Even so, we can gather a pretty good idea of which players, teams, and college programs are celebrating a little bit harder than others as the draft nears its halfway point.

So who looks best after a quick glance in the rear view mirror? And which teams may need to stick their landing on Day 3?

Winner: Every team that got a first-round talent on Day 2

On Thursday night, 32 elite football players were welcomed into the NFL fraternity. But the amount of sheer talent that was still waiting to be drafted was incredible:

One personnel director calls this “the deepest second round in the last 25 years.” He believes there are 20 players available tonight that could have been first-round picks; there usually are 7-10. “There will be as many starters in this round that there are in the first round.”

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 24, 2020

So many names who were expected to be drafted in the first round — and might have been in any other year — remained on the board. Safety Xavier McKinney was a popular mock draft pick for the Cowboys or Dolphins. So was cornerback Kristian Fulton to the Raiders, edge A.J. Epenesa to the Patriots, cornerback Jaylon Johnson to the Vikings, OT Josh Jones to the Dolphins, and WR Denzel Mims to the Packers, among others.

Other players who could’ve sneaked into Round 1 included safety Antoine Winfield Jr, OT Ezra Cleveland, and even running backs D’Andre Swift, Jonathan Taylor or J.K. Dobbins. (Please, no debates about the value of a first-round running back right now.)

All of those players were available heading into Day 2. Teams like the Colts (Taylor, Michael Pittman Jr.), Cowboys (Trevon Diggs, Neville Gallimore), Giants (McKinney), Bills (Epenesa), Jets (Mims), and Cardinals (Jones) were the ones to benefit most.

Winner: The scary as hell Ravens running game

No team had more rushing yards than the Ravens in 2019.

Lamar Jackson earned MVP honors by becoming the first NFL quarterback to ever eclipse 1,200 rushing yards. He was joined in the Baltimore backfield by Mark Ingram, who racked up 1,018 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns. Oh, and don’t forget about Gus Edwards, who averaged 5.3 yards per carry.

That unstoppable ground game somehow got even better Friday when the Ravens added J.K. Dobbins with the 55th pick.

Dobbins rushed for at least 1,000 yards in all three of his seasons at Ohio State. In 2019, he became the first Buckeyes running back ever to have a 2,000-yard season. That’s something Eddie George, Ezekiel Elliott, Archie Griffin, and many other great running backs didn’t accomplish.

Baltimore definitely didn’t need Dobbins’ help. Unfortunately for the entire AFC, he’ll make the Ravens — who are putting together an excellent draft — even harder to stop.

Loser: Carson Wentz

Aaron Rodgers landed on our list of Day 1 losers because the Packers drafted Utah State quarterback Jordan Love. But at least that pick made some sense. Yes, Green Bay could’ve provided Rodgers with the help he needs to win a Super Bowl, but he’s 36 and the Packers need to consider life after his retirement.

That logic can’t be applied to the Eagles’ pick, though.

Wentz is 27 and has five seasons left on his contract. It’s hard to figure out what exactly the team was thinking when it drafted Jalen Hurts in the middle of the second round. While Philadelphia knows all about the benefits of a quality backup quarterback, there were plenty of better ways to improve the roster.

Instead, there’s legitimate reason to question Wentz’s future with the franchise. A team doesn’t draft someone in the second round unless it foresees that player being a long-term fixture.

Winner: Drew Lock

The Broncos’ 2019 second-round pick gave them a lot of reason to be optimistic last year. Lock finished his rookie season 4-1 as a starter with seven touchdowns and three interceptions.

On Thursday, Denver gave him some help by picking Alabama receiver Jerry Jeudy with the No. 15 pick. Unsurprisingly, Lock was happy about it:

— Drew Lock (@DrewLock23) April 24, 2020

The Broncos didn’t stop there, though. In the second round, they Penn State receiver KJ Hamler with the 46th pick. Lock was excited about that too:

— Drew Lock (@DrewLock23) April 25, 2020

Suddenly, Lock has a quite the arsenal. Jeudy and Hamler are joining an offense that already had receiver Courtland Sutton and 2019 first-round tight end Noah Fant. Adding center Lloyd Cushenberry in the third round was just the icing on the cake.

Winner: Good dogs

A fully virtual NFL Draft promised us one very important thing: a lot of good dogs on TV. But the first day was a little bit disappointing. While Giants coach Joe Judge talked about how well-versed his golden retriever Abby is about the 2020 class, she didn’t make a single appearance.

Fortunately, there was a much larger dog presence in Day 2. Bill Belichick even turned into one:

No wonder the Patriots dominated the last two decades.

Loser: Tom Brady

Thursday was a great day for Touchdown Tom, with the Buccaneers moving up one spot in the draft order to secure Iowa offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs. It’s a good thing they did, because the rest of the NFC South spent Friday loading up on players to take Brady down.

First, the Panthers took Penn State edge rusher Yetur Gross-Matos with the 38th pick. He made it clear what his immediate NFL goal is for the 2020 season.

Yetur Gross-Matos: I want to sack Tom Brady.

— Jourdan Rodrigue (@JourdanRodrigue) April 25, 2020

The Atlanta Falcons were next when they picked Auburn pass rusher Marlon Davidson at 47th overall. The All-SEC defensive lineman will likely line up at defensive tackle in Dan Quinn’s defense, which added Dante Fowler Jr. earlier in the offseason.

New Orleans got in on the pass rush party too. After not picking in the second round, the Saints traded away a 2021 third-round pick to move up and take Wisconsin edge rusher Zack Baun at 74th overall.

Brady got some help of his own in Day 2. The Buccaneers added running back Ke’Shawn Vaughn in the third round (and safety Antoine Winfield Jr. in the second round, which probably only reminded Brady of how old he is). But that didn’t do much to change the fact that he’s clearly in the crosshairs of the other NFC South teams.

Loser: Aaron Rodgers, again

Rodgers didn’t get his first-round wideout. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; borderline Day 1 talents like Tee Higgins, Laviska Shenault, Denzel Mims, and Michael Pittman Jr. were all on the board to begin Day 2. With a little luck or another trade up the draft board — like the club did to select Rodgers’ possible replacement, Jordan Love — one of those players would be the next big addition to the Packers’ receiving corps.

Green Bay got none of those players. It got a Boston College power back with 21 collegiate receptions to his name (AJ Dillon) and a third-round tight end out of Cincinnati who had 92 catches and 1,117 receiving yards ... in four years with the Bearcats (Josiah Deguara). Instead of getting an immediate boost to his passing game, Rodgers got a couple of lottery tickets who may not make his offense any better.

Winner: Matt Hennessy

The former Temple offensive lineman didn’t just get drafted with the 14th pick in the third round Friday night by the Falcons. As the 3.14 pick, he also won a shit load of pizza.

As the 78th pick, Matt Hennessy gets free @pizzahut for a year. As the 2020 Pizza Hut Pi Pick

— vaughn mcclure (@vxmcclure23) April 25, 2020

That’s an award that should only go to offensive linemen. Congrats on the pizza, Matt.

Loser: Roger Goodell’s gas tank

The commissioner’s doing more work than usual during the draft. In a typical year, Goodell would only announce the first-round picks. The other rounds have recently been handled by trash-talking NFL alumni (who could forget Drew Pearson roasting Philadelphia?), animals, and league representatives other than Goodell reading the picks.

But this year Goodell has to read off all the selections and it seems to be wearing him out. Just look at him by the time the back half of the third round rolled around.

Roger Goodell is exhausted pic.twitter.com/TYHRjV5F8A

— SB Nation (@SBNation) April 25, 2020

There’s another 149 draft picks coming Saturday. Is Goodell going to make it?

Loser: QB Jake Fromm

Fromm had to go through the first two nights of the draft without hearing his name called. What’s even worse is that there was a camera in his living room that captured him having to wait in agony:

We still don’t understand why Fromm declared for the NFL Draft this year. He had three OK seasons in Athens, but he was also coming off his least efficient year and failed to impress at the NFL Combine.

If he had returned in 2020, his team could’ve still won the SEC East division and he would’ve gotten a chance to his boost his NFL resume with a bounce-back year. Sure, maybe he didn’t want to come out in 2021, the same year as Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and Ohio State’s Justin Fields (aka Fromm’s former backup). But he’s already seen five quarterbacks go ahead of him this year. Who knows how much longer he’ll be waiting alongside his generically handsome family.

Winner: Tight ends

There were six tight ends taken in the first rounds of the last three drafts. That streak ended this year, when zero tight ends went off the board on the first night of the draft. It wasn’t a shock, by any stretch. But it confirmed what many already thought about the positional group: It’s the weakest of the draft class.

The second night of the draft was another story. Now, as many tight ends (five) as quarterbacks have been selected through two nights of the draft.

Tight ends started making their comeback one-third of the way through the second round, when the Bears took Notre Dame’s Cole Kmet with the No. 43 overall pick. (Did the Bears need a tight end? Probably not.)

The third round is where things really started to pick up, though. Four different tight ends heard their name called by an increasingly sleepy Goodell: UCLA’s Devin Asiasi, Cincinnati’s Josiah Deguara, Virginia Tech’s Dalton Keene, and Dayton’s (yes, Dayton!) Adam Trautman.

Two of them, Asiasi and Keene, have been the Patriots’ only two offensive draftees so far. Belichick might not be done, either, with players like the highly athletic Albert Okwuegbunam and “Randy Moss is my dad” Thaddeus Moss still available on Day 3.

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viraljournalist · 5 years

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Ten NBA things I like and don't like, including the Luka Doncic-Dwight Powell dance

New Post has been published on https://viraljournalist.com/ten-nba-things-i-like-and-dont-like-including-the-luka-doncic-dwight-powell-dance/

Ten NBA things I like and don't like, including the Luka Doncic-Dwight Powell dance

How about a fresh serving of 10 NBA things:

1. The tricks of Ja Morant

Morant’s athleticism and fearlessness strike you first. He is so fast. He wants to dunk on everyone — to humiliate victims, the bigger the better.

All that is cool. But what is most impressive about Morant — the runaway Rookie of the Year — is his veteran craft. He already knows how to start and stop with a live dribble, and keep defenses guessing until the best option reveals itself. He sees every pass. He imagines passes no one else sees, and conjures them with dribble moves designed to shift the defense in some specific way.

You just don’t see rookies doing stuff like this:

That fake spin — the Smitty — dusts damn near the entire LA Clippers team. The one-handed lefty gather into a reverse layup is borderline pornographic. That insta-gather is already a Morant trademark — useful in tight spaces.

He has a mean pass fake:

He busts it out on the perimeter to freeze help defenders:

A lot of ball handlers turn statuesque when someone else takes the controls. Not Morant. He weaponizes his speed as an off-ball cutter.

Morant isn’t the only reason the Memphis Grizzlies — 13-6 since early December — have improbably surged into the Western Conference’s No. 8 spot. Their three core big men — Jonas Valanciunas, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Brandon Clarke — are balling, and their bizarro bench is obliterating opponents.

But Morant is driving it. He is real. He is a superstar in the making playing winning basketball. He belongs at the edges of the All-Star conversation right now.

2. Drivin’ De’Aaron Fox

After two months of injuries and uneven play, Fox is back on his ascent toward becoming the Sacramento Kings’ franchise point guard. In seven January games, Fox is averaging 24 points and 8.5 assists on 50% shooting. He is driving more often, with more guile and ferocity.

Fox is earning seven free throws per 36 minutes — easily a career high. He is piling up almost 29 drives per 100 possessions, second among rotation players — and up from 15 and 18 in his prior two seasons, per Second Spectrum data. He has drawn fouls on 13% of those drives, 16th highest among 173 guys who have recorded at least 100 drives.

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Fox is still searching for the right pass-or-score balance, and the Kings under Luke Walton haven’t landed on a coherent identity. (Injuries to Fox and Marvin Bagley III have stalled progress there.) They are playing at one of the league’s slowest paces, though they amp it up some with Fox on the floor.

The next step for Fox is dialing in on defense, where he has disappointed this season. The Kings won’t go anywhere too serious until the Fox/Buddy Hield backcourt proves it can survive on that end.

3. Forfeiting mismatches

A pet peeve:

This isn’t about the Orlando Magic. Every team does this now and then: Spot a juicy mismatch, and default into a pick-and-roll that allows the defense to switch that mismatch away.

The Utah Jazz are stuck with Emmanuel Mudiay on Aaron Gordon. If you want to post Gordon up, do it when he can mash a smaller dude. Instead, D.J. Augustin and Gordon gift the Jazz a switch.

Come on. Disengage autopilot and read the game. The right kind of post-up can still be an effective scoring option. They also are fun to watch. The league needs stylistic diversity.

You know who rarely bungles this? The Indiana Pacers with Domantas Sabonis. Their old-school mentality serves them well when they earn a switch, or when the opposing power forward is stuck defending Sabonis. The Pacers in those scenarios are ruthless. They are surgical. They abort whatever plan they had and hunt that mismatch.

4. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, off the glass

The notorious S.G.A. is already one of the league’s shiftiest ball handlers — a long-limbed, change-of-pace phantom who seems to move at two or three different speeds at once. Guarding him is like trying to catch a fish with your bare hands.

He also is a premier bank shot artist, smooching from unconventional angles:

That is a little close to the baseline for most players to go glass. Gilgeous-Alexander has the touch to pull it off. That one hits pretty low on the backboard, but Gilgeous-Alexander will kiss the ball off the tippy-top if need be.

The straight-on banker is underused — a tricky work of depth perception that can increase your margin for error on harried floaters. Gilgeous-Alexander has it in his bag:

Only 10 players have attempted more glassers than Gilgeous-Alexander, per Second Spectrum. (Russell Westbrook has tried by far the most — almost double the No. 2 guy.) Coming off a ridiculous 20-20-10 game, Gilgeous-Alexander has a fringe All-Star case: 20 points, six rebounds and three assists per game, decent shooting, solid defense.

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It is a hard case to parse. Each member of Oklahoma City’s three-headed point guard monster has sacrificed something. Gilgeous-Alexander has stepped back into a secondary ballhandling role behind Chris Paul (probably a better All-Star candidate) and Dennis Schroder (in the running for Sixth Man of the Year). Gilgeous-Alexander has logged only 40 minutes as solo floor general — without either Schroder or Paul.

I recently debated with a few non-Thunder executives whether Gilgeous-Alexander would grow into an All-NBA player. That they framed the question in those terms — and not around whether Gilgeous-Alexander will make All-Star teams — is indicative of how good he has been.

5. Still waiting on Aaron Gordon

Boy, did Gordon need this recent mini-hot streak: 60 points on 23-of-39 shooting over Orlando’s last three outings, and a last-second game-winner Monday in Sacramento. It has otherwise been a stilted, disappointing season for Gordon.

I thought this was the year it might finally happen for him. I predicted Gordon would make the All-Star Game.

Instead, Gordon’s production on offense has dipped across the board, though he remains engaged on the other end. There are three theoretical Gordons: the player Gordon wants to be; the player Orlando wants him to be; and the player Orlando needs him to be because of their roster construction. The actual Gordon is paralyzed in some sort of existential tension between all three.

The first player — Gordon’s dream for himself — is a ball-dominant scorer. Orlando indulges that Gordon by calling occasional post-ups for him and giving him some freedom to go rogue. Gordon can make hay against smaller players. He has done well on scripted duck-ins. But too many of his forays into would-be stardom end with bricked fadeaways:

A player this powerful should not spend so much time spinning away from the hoop. He rarely draws fouls. The Magic have scored 0.826 points per possession anytime Gordon shoots out of a post-up or passes to a teammate who fires right away — 74th among 96 players who have recorded at least 25 post-ups, per Second Spectrum data. He is not much of an inside-out playmaker. A full 77% of those post-ups have ended with Gordon shooting — the second highest such rate in that sample.

The best version of Gordon on a good team is something like his take on Draymond Green: screening and rolling as a power forward, spraying passes (Gordon is an underrated playmaker), defending like all hell across every position. The Magic have never put Gordon in optimal position to find that role. They shoehorned him onto the wing next to Serge Ibaka and now Jonathan Isaac.

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That is not on its face unworkable. Some of those ultra-big Magic lineups have performed well — including last season. Talented frontcourt partners render positional designations irrelevant. What position would Gordon play next to, say, Kevin Durant and a traditional center in Brooklyn? Isaac has some blossoming all-around skill on offense.

But Isaac also is very young. Before Isaac’s injury, it felt — from the outside — Orlando was reaching the point at which it would have to make a final call on Gordon. There are teams who would give a lot for Gordon. Isaac’s knee injury may have put off those decisions. The Magic don’t have to rush. Gordon is still just 24.

But stasis often becomes untenable.

6. The Bucks, going under

Almost every team scurries under picks against bad shooters, but Milwaukee does it more dramatically and against many more players. The Bucks treat every so-so shooter like Ben Simmons. Present Milwaukee with Kris Dunn or RJ Barrett (two recent examples) and its on-ball defenders hang almost in the paint — a step or two further back than most teams prefer. They form a shell that is really hard to puncture.

They don’t deviate if some Dunn type hits a couple of long 2s. The Bucks understand math. They know their scheme plays mind games with opposing shooters — even non-terrible ones. They’re going so far under. This is embarrassing. Am I really supposed to keep shooting? Boom — the shot clock is down to 8, and you’ve accomplished nothing.

This is such low-hanging fruit. Every team should imitate Mike Budenholzer’s exaggerated “go under” ethos.

Of course, later playoff rounds offer very few awful shooters — and almost none beyond Simmons who handle the ball. It would be interesting to see Milwaukee’s approach in a series against the Miami Heat and Jimmy Butler — shooting just 27% from deep this season and 36% for his career on long 2s.

7. When young guys forget who is guarding them, Part I

Oh, Jordan Poole.

That’s Kawhi Leonard. At his apex, the mere act of possessing the ball within a 15-foot radius of Leonard was dangerous for anyone outside the league’s most deft point guards. Forget dribbling. Poor saps held the ball close to their chest — terror sweat pouring from their brow, eyes darting in search of some passing target — until Leonard would simply reach out and take it. It was cruel. It was bullying.

Leonard isn’t the same impenetrable wall today, and he saves his best stuff for high-leverage playoff moments. But you can’t be Jordan freaking Poole and dangle the ball in front of him. This is like living next door to Thomas Crown, buying a masterwork, and leaving your front door wide open all night. What do you think is going to happen?

There has been much fretting of late about the Clippers’ underwhelming performances against the dregs of the league. Meh. One of Leonard and Paul George has missed most of those games. Wake me up when the real Clippers struggle.

The Clippers also seem like a mortal lock to make a win-now trade. They have use-it-or-kinda-lose-it assets ticking toward evaporation. They can trade their 2020 first-round pick, but that is the last one they can move (as things stand now) before their 2028 selection. They have Maurice Harkless’ $11 million expiring contract, and a few semi-expendable midsized salaries.

The Clippers would rather add talent (via in-season free agency) without trading anything. Harkless is solid — a starter most of the season. That 2020 pick represents one of LA’s only means of acquiring a young player who might help Leonard and George as they age.

But the Clippers are all-in. George and Leonard can hit free agency in 18 months. They should prioritize this year over everything.

Part II of young guys failing to respect their elders is coming next week.

8. Respect the Mavs’ other big men

I never got the mostly quashed rumblings Dallas might be interested in Andre Drummond. Kristaps Porzingis should eventually play more as the Mavs’ lone big man, and in the meantime, Maxi Kleber and Dwight Powell are doing just fine alongside him.

Skeptics in the preseason perceived the Mavs roster as top heavy: two stars and a motley crew of bench guys. It’s true (it’s damn true!) Dallas does not have anyone like a third member of past championship Big 3s. But they do have (by my count) seven guys you might describe as quality fifth starters — seven fifth-best players, all but one (Tim Hardaway Jr.) on value contracts. There is power in giving zero minutes to below-average players.

Powell has always been a dangerous rim-runner, but he has exploded as Luka Doncic’s go-to pick-and-roll dance partner. Only three player pairs have teamed up on that play more often. (For trivia purposes, the top three in volume: Spencer Dinwiddie/Jarrett Allen, Damian Lillard/Hassan Whiteside, and the Lou Williams/Montrezl Harrell symphony.)

The Mavs average a ginormous 1.18 points per possession anytime Doncic or Powell shoots out of the pick-and-roll, or passes to a teammate who launches — ninth-best among 226 duos who have run at least 100 such plays, per Second Spectrum.

Powell has improved as a passer on the move — crucial when teams trap Doncic:

Kleber does a little of everything. He’s a serviceable screen-and-dive guy. He is hitting 41% from deep on a career-high attempt rate, and he makes canny plays off the bounce when defenses rush at him:

Kleber is a sturdy, smart defender across multiple positions. Rick Carlisle has trusted him to guard extra-large ball-handlers, including LeBron, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Simmons. He’s a solid rim protector with some hops.

Dallas is starting Kleber and Powell in the absence of Porzingis, and the Mavs have outscored opponents by 13 points per 100 possessions with both on the floor.

Kleber and Powell earn $18 million combined this season — $9 million less than Drummond. Drummond holds a much-discussed player option for 2020-21. Kleber and Powell are under contract through 2023. Leaving aside money and whatever assets Detroit might demand, it’s unclear whether giving Kleber/Powell minutes to Drummond would even make Dallas any better.

9. Miami is one player away, but who?

This is a minor quibble considering the Heat are 28-12 and a robust 10-6 against teams at .500 or better. Maybe the “one player” is Justise Winslow, who is still out with a back injury after returning for a single game last week.

Winslow is (in theory) the well-rounded small-ball power forward to unlock lineups featuring Bam Adebayo at center. Meyers Leonard is shooting 45% from deep as Miami’s nominal starting center, but there are lots of games in which he never sees the floor after his first stint in each half. Kelly Olynyk is barely playing.

Follow Zion, Ja, RJ, De’Andre, Coby and more top rooks as they balance basketball and life during an exciting NBA season. Watch on ESPN+

Right now, Derrick Jones Jr. and James Johnson are holding down that Winslow slot. Johnson looks feisty after a long stint in Heat purgatory. He’s 10-of-20 on 3s. But his jumper is unreliable, and he is regaining the team’s trust.

Jones has taken the lion’s share of these minutes over the last month. His arms are everywhere. He is the keystone of Miami’s zone defense. Lineups with Jones and Adebayo at power forward and center have done well.

But are you trusting Jones to close playoff games? He’s shooting 23% from deep. Defenses ignore him on the perimeter to muck up Miami’s spacing.

Miami has tried to solve the equation at times by going super-small, with Jimmy Butler at power forward. That is a little too small. Adebayo is so strong and athletic, you forget he’s only 6-9. Miami has been a middle-of-the-pack defensive team after a stingy start. They have to be careful.

They are one player away from being really dangerous. They know. They are looking, sources say. A lot of speculation about the Heat — and other teams — has centered around Jrue Holiday. He’s good. The Pelicans may opt to keep him and push for the No. 8 seed. (This is what suitors expect as of now — which could of course change.)

But I wonder if Miami has a more pressing need for a stretch power forward with some defensive chops to fill that Winslow/Jones/Johnson slot. (Winslow returning to form could render this moot.) Danilo Gallinari would be a worthy rental, but the Thunder might be too good to trade him. It’s also unclear whether Miami has any appetite for surrendering any players who are or could be (i.e., Winslow) key parts of their current rotation.

Regardless, keep an eye on Miami.

10. Marcus Smart is coming at you

What in the hell is this?

I’ve seen defenders close out low to distract shooters, but they usually resemble football tacklers. They aim for the stomach. I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone crouch toward the shooter’s foot. Smart looks like he’s trying to pick something up off the floor.

I honestly don’t know how anyone shoots 3s against Boston without worrying what kind of goofy closeout awaits. Jaylen Brown jumps straight up and down with all his might, and reaches both arms as high as he can — a technique Al Horford mastered, and something the Celtics teach. Brace for that, and Smart comes nipping at your ankles.

What’s next? Jayson Tatum running at shooters, screaming gibberish and waving his arms? Kemba Walker experimenting with some kind of drop-and-roll technique?

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big12pickparty · 5 years

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Big 12 Preseason Picks

It’s back! It’s back!

It’s a new world for Big 12 football this year. Bill Snyder is gone. Dana Holgorsen is gone. Kliff Kingsbury got fired from Texas Tech and hired by the Arizona Cardinals. Kyler Murray, for most of us, thankfully won’t be around. A certain other quarterback with two titles under his belt has transferred into the conference, from a school you may have heard of in a town called Tuscaloosa.

Say it with me: Tuscaloosa. Tusssskaaaaaloooooossssaaa. My sister Lindsey recently drew my attention to the marvels of this word. Tuscaloosa. Hurray.

1. Oklahoma. 11-1, 8-1. Honestly, it feels like Oklahoma and then spots 2-5 are more or less a free-for-all. OU itself doesn’t feel as unbeatable as the past three years pre-season. Jalen Hurts will be really good, but literally anyone would be a step back after three seasons of Mayfield and Murray. Another slightly worrisome factor would be that the Sooners only return one starter on the offensive line, center Creed Humphreys. The most interesting thing, and scary, for me (as an OU hater) is the specter of Alex Grinch leading the defense. What he did in his time at Wazzu was spectacular. But as OSU’s new D-coordinator Jim Knowles could tell him, the Big 12 is different.

2. Oklahoma State. 10-2, 7-2. After OU, the top half of the conference--to my mind OSU, Texas, Baylor and Iowa State--feels pretty close together. So don’t read this as a hard two. Somebody has to finish second, and I feel like that could be a team with two or even three conference losses this year. The national media are down on the Pokes, too, but that largely feels like a byproduct of OSU’s insane--and at times insanely disappointing--7-6 run last year. Plus Gundy hasn’t picked a quarterback. Both QBs have a load of potential, especially Spencer Sanders. The last time OSU entered the season without a starting QB was in 2013. That was the year split by J.W. Walsh (5 starts) and Clint Chelf (8 starts); the Cowboys won 10 games. Having a more experienced secondary, plus a huge step up in coaching on the offensive line, and an invigorated Gundy will push this team, to my mind, toward higher things. Many OSU fans--specifically those who comment over on Pistols Firing, were dismayed when OL-coach Josh Henson bolted for Texas A&M. Honestly I never understood why he was so popular, as the O-line hasn’t been the same since Joe Wickline departed all the way back in 2013. Henson’s replacement is Bill Snyder’s longtime OL-coach, Charlie Dickey. If there’s one thing K-State’s always been strong on, it’s been a bruising, physical line--and that will help whoever Gundy ultimately chooses to place behind center. Another thing in OSU’s favor is the schedule. OU comes to Stilly, and the Pokes travel to Austin to face the Horns. For most teams that wouldn’t be favorable, but Texas hasn’t beaten OSU in DKR since 2008. That’s five straight losses. Gundy likes to operate from the margin. We’ll see how it goes.

3. Texas. 9-3, 6-3. The media picked Texas to place second by a fairly large margin. Which makes sense being that they whipped up on Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, giving 2019 the most legit 'Texas is back’ hype since... well, to tell you the truth I can’t remember because the damn narrative is there every year. The toughest thing for these Horns is that they only return 3 starters on defense on a team that depended heavily on their D to win games, and I’m not convinced that that Sam Ehlinger, spunky and talented as he is, can survive the whole year without falling to injury. They just run the kid too much for him not to. We’ll know by mid-October whether this Texas team is ready for the big time, being that the face LSU, OSU, and OU all by October 12. Win those three and you’re a national title contender. Take two of three and you’ve gotta feel good about making the conference championship. Lose all three and Herman’s seat might warm up a bit.

4. Iowa State. 8-4, 6-3. Expectations are crazy high in Ames. Crazy, crazy high. And they have a fantastic quarterback returning in Brock Purdy. They should be stout on defense. Grab a win against Iowa in Week 2 and the Hawkeyes will be feeling pretty good. Their toughest slate comes in Weeks 8-10, when Matt Campbell’s bunch faces OSU, OU, and Texas. Fortunately they only have to travel to Norman--but when has an opposing team traveling to Norman ever felt fortunate?

5. Baylor. 8-4, 5-4. As much as it pains me to say it, I’m a little higher on Baylor than most. Along with Texas Tech, ISU, and OU, the Bears are one of the only teams in the conference returning a proven QB, in Charlie Brewer, who threw for just over 3,000 yards lat year. Their schedule lines up very, very favorably: putrid nonconference foes, plus they get Iowa State, Oklahoma, and Texas at home. Arguably, their only truly tough road trips are to Stillwater and Fort Worth. Beat Iowa State in Week 4 and they could be 6-0 when they face the Pokes.

6. Texas Tech. 6-6, 4-5. At last we arrive at the New Coaches section of our preview. Of the new hires, I think the Kansas schools both made out the best--in completely different ways. I’m not entirely sold on Matt Wells, who arrives in Lubbock via Utah State. He had a 44-34 overall record at USU, his alma mater, and was hired on the strength of last year’s 10-2 campaign. During his six seasons in Logan his teams twice one ten games, but had three losing campaigns in a row from 2015-18. I’m really only listing Tech above K-State because they have a fantastic option at quarterback in Alan Bowman, provided his lung holds up (it collapsed during a game last year).

7. Kansas State. 6-6, 4-5. Out of all the new hires in the Big 12 this year, the one that excites me most is Chris Klieman, who seems like the perfect replacement for Bill Snyder, though replacing that man will not be easy. It’s also often not easy to make the adjustment from the FCS to D1. However, Klieman’s resume is about as good as it gets. As head coach at North Dakota State from 2014-2018, Klieman’s Bison went 69-6, winning 4 FCS national titles in 5 years. It’s going to take some doing, but I’m willing to bet Klieman gets K-State going in the next 3-4 years.

8. TCU. 4-8, 2-7. Gary Patterson’s squad was straight up awful on offense last year. Earlier this August Patterson stated that his team was in the middle of a six-man QB race. A quarterback derby of two is bad enough, but six? Not encouraging if you’re a Frogs fan, especially after two straight down years. I could be wrong--if you’ve been reading my football posts any length of time you know I’m wrong a LOT--but I ain’t buying what they’re selling down at the stockyards this year. The Horned Frogs have a tougher schedule than most, too: they travel to Purdue, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma. 9. West Virginia. 3-9, 1-8. I think West Virginia is going to fucking stink. That’s about it. New coach Neal Brown just named OU-transfer Austin Kendall his starter. And... uh, yeah. No Will Grier, no David Sills, and for all his flaws, no Holgersen. WVU’s gonna have it rough this year.

10. Kansas. 3-9, 1-8. Two words: Les Miles. Two more words: Les Miles. I predict they beat at least two conference foes this year. Which of course won’t sit well any of the aforementioned. The schedule is tough: at Texas, at TCU, at OSU, at Iowa State, but their first conference matchup is WVU in Lawrence--a very winnable game. Miles is old-fashioned, probably crazy, and certainly not ethically sound (see his totally lamentable handling of domestic-abuser Pooka Williams), but he will bring a toughness to a football team that has not had one since the days of Mark Mangino, over a decade ago.

#big12 footballpredictions

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espiritulibre-blog · 7 years

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Day 81 - San Francisco, California - 2794 km

So she came back, an hour after we made up via text messages, twelve hours after we had a huge argument in a bar, after which I walked home all the way from Haight to Bernal Heights. I was angry, disappointed and a bit too drunk. I couldn’t put a finger on what went so radically wrong between us. We had met about a week ago and I fell for her from the first minute we saw each other in Club Deluxe, a historic jazz cafe in the Haight. Right after that night we planned a little adventure together to Yosemite. Everything was perfect and beautiful and now I was standing here alone on the porch of an old Victorian house, on the hill of Bernal Heights. Bewildered, with a hangover and a bad taste in my mouth. Watching over the city, a white sun-kissed view on the Mission and downtown area. I heard the doorbel and opened the fence down the stairway. I let her in. We made love on the carpet in the living room.

“I think I won’t see you anymore” she said. She had to leave the city for two weeks, taking medical care of a retired songwriter of the Grateful Dead. They were going on a road trip to Idaho with a few people to watch the solar eclipse while being high on acid. Her job as a nurse was to make sure the old rock star wouldn’t die of high blood pressure and drug abuse. Sounds like a fun and demanding job. I felt the coming of saying goodbye and it made me melancholic and quiet. We hang out on the couch and watch the sunlight reflect on the high ceilings. My friends, who were out of town, let me stay in their beautiful house dating from 1850. It was a typical Sunday morning after a night out. A moment between moments. Flashes of the past days went through my head. Dancing on live jazz in Club Deluxe, sleeping under the stars in Yosemite and swimming in the Merced river at sunset after we came back from our hike. I remember her golden skin while she was sitting on rock wringing the water out of her deep black hair. Memories that made me feel euphoric and sad at the same time. Some say you shouldn’t get attached to people who you meet on your travels. Attract, embrace and let go. Participate but stay detached. It makes sense, but I can’t do it. If I meet someone special I want I want to show myself and be honest and open. Having feelings for someone is valuable to me. I don’t want to stay on the surface, I want to immerse in it.

We went out for a walk on Bernal Heights hill. A hidden trail led up to the top of the hill. The colourful wooden houses of San Francisco twinkled in the white light. We walked together, holding each other, through a cool breeze watching people walking their dogs. Then down to Cortland St on the south side via a steep stairway passing quaint little houses. We had lunch at a crepe place. I ordered a strawberry ricotta crepe. It was not so good. The place was not so nice too. I tried to explain how I felt but it was difficult. We knew each other a week, how do you express yourself? We said goodbye and I continued my days.

I cycled to Wework downtown where I rented desk space for a few weeks. A place with a good working vibe. Fast wifi, free coffee and IPA on tap. The main reason I stayed in the city was because I needed to spend time on a few design project I was doing for clients in the Netherlands. Most of the days I am in the office to work on beer branding designs. I really enjoy the balance of work and travel like this. It makes me feel more a part of the city than just being a tourist. I stayed in different neighbourhoods switching places every 4 days. Some days I rented an Airbnb, other times I got invited by locals following me on Instagram. There were also some Warmshower hosts that welcomed me. Through this I met a lot of people, because renting a full apartment in San Francisco is just too expensive. My favourite neigbourhood is probably the Mission, originally a latino neighbourhood with lots of Mexican eateries and colourful wall art. Better than to stay downtown, which is pretty rough with the high amount of homeless people, sleeping and camping on the streets, yelling at themselves each other. It’s a big problem in a majority of the American cities I’ve cycled through. I loved spending time on Haight St, where the Summer of Love has it’s origin on Haight and Ashbury. I stayed in a commune there called the Red Victorian. A number of intellectual liberals lived here as a family. People were friendly and open but I felt an uncomfortable vibe among them. I sensed an overall unhappiness over how things are in the United States. The gentrification of the city, the insane increase of property prices and the conservative political course the country is going. A lot of people are stuck with dept of student loans, health care bills and the high rent they have to pay to live in a small room. Americans are always very open to share their personal stories and emotions. It made me feel the weight of life in American cities.

I stayed a bit longer in town and Rachel had returned earlier than expected. We met again and spend more time with each other in my little studio in the Mission. I made her eggs and coffee in the morning and made her happy in other ways. We found deeper connections. After a chilly August month it got warm again in the city and the palm trees on Mission Street looked greener. I cycled up to Twin Peaks, the highest hills of San Francisco and it was cold and windy like a day in fall. The fog, which is always there, cools down the city. We planned another little overnight adventure to say goodbye to each other. I hope I will see her again. She is pretty amazing.

When you’re travelling, falling in love can be a trip with a bad hangover. Because eventually you are back on the road on your own again. The people you meet have there own lives, in their own places far from yours. You're just a sailor, the new kid in town with the stories from far away. Someone who's just passing by. Having been in that position a few times I still don't know how to deal with it. It mixes things up and makes me question this trip and how I live my life. Sometimes I'm afraid that I’m leaving something behind which I will regret in the future. Now and then I fantasise about building my own farm in the forest, having a family and the opportunity and space to create things. Through the cycling I get a lot of inspiration studying remote settlements along the road. There are so many great ways how people establish a living. I wonder if I could do it. Live in one place and built a new home. Or am I addicted to freedom, to being unbound to anything than myself and the road ahead of me, always in charge of changing my course to what I desire to do with my time? I will have a lot of time to think about it heading to Nevada and Utah. The next weeks will be times of solitude and isolation. I’m preparing for the longest desert ride I’ve ever done. It will be harsh and I’m probably underestimating it, but I believe it will do me good.

So long, San Francisco.

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