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harristops · 3 years

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Final Thoughts on Tokyo 2020

Okay, now that I’ve managed to calm down from this morning’s wild hysterics, can I just say again, how proud I am of this Canadian women’s team?

Can we talk about these kids for a second? They all came in as underdogs in this tournament. In the USWNT game, Rose came up absolute clutch running down that ball to draw the PK from Tierna. Canada had barely any offense in that match, but the sole chance they had, Sinclair had the knowledge, the selflessness, and the leadership to say, “no, I am not taking this, I’m handing it off to the younger generation” in Fleming. Of course people will say that it was because of Franch being her teammate, or that she missed her previous PK (both of which are most probably true), but the symbolic gesture of passing the torch from arguably one of the greatest players to ever grace this game, to the up and coming talent in Fleming - breathtaking. And Fleming taking that PK with confidence, collectedness, for a moment it was like witnessing a young Sinclair again. When her country needed her, Fleming came through for them, just as Sinclair had done time and time again throughout her decorated career.

And then, in the Gold medal match, when Sinclair gets fouled in the box, again, she decides against taking the PK and hands it back to the prodigal daughter. And once again, Fleming provides an absolutely clinical PK that no GK could stop. Canada went this entire bracket run without ever scoring an open play goal (lol), and they managed to concede only one open-play goal during the run, and it was to Sweden’s best striker. Each player on this team knew their role, their tactics, their marks, and they played with grit, determination, and work. They wanted to win their matches, and they did it in their own rights. They focused on their defense, they neutralized all the offensive star players (aside from Blackstenius with her fabulous goal in the first half) from all three teams. Major credit here goes to the young Bev Priestman, with her confidence and belief in this team to play the way she envisioned them to play, to their full ability and talent. Every player was used almost perfectly for each match-up.

But what’s the most emotional moment about this tournament for me is just how committed the kids on this team were to winning gold for the vets. A young Fleming watched the 2012 game as a child and idolized Sinclair and now is in line to take over the reigns from the captain in the near future. Gilles, only 11 caps with this team, became one of their best defenders. Huitema carried them through the initial qualifiers. Sheridan, when Labbé had to sub out injured, took over and held the team strong through the group stages. And then Grosso, the BC girl, only 20 years old, scores the game-winning PK to give Canada gold.

The CANWNT were not the best team in this tournament by any shot. That title still steadily belongs to Sweden, with the Netherlands in a close second. But this team had the heart, the fight, and the drive to bring home a win for those who paved the way for women’s soccer in Canada. They did this for Sinclair, for Scott, for Tancredi, for Matheson, for LeBlanc, for Schmidt, and for McCleod. They did it for those who pioneered women’s soccer and worked to bring it to attention in Canada; they worked for the young girls watching at home wanting to have their spot at the national stage for the sport they love; they did it for themselves, as young players wanting to change the narrative of our game.

But the storyline, though. Losing in 2012 after arguably one of the best CANWNT performances of all time, all to poor officiating, but then still managing to clinch Bronze, to then again missing out during 2016, but again managing to clinch Bronze, to now, making the full, unbeaten run, to Gold. And to have the team members on this squad who experienced those hard losses to now have the chance to drape the medal around their necks, it’s poetic justice. If the last moment of Sinclair’s international career is her limping off the field, drenched in sweat after securing the equalizer opportunity for her team, completely spent of every dredge of energy she had left, only to be replaced by the young BC native Huitema - then what a final image to go out on for her.

As a Canadian who grew up watching Sinclair and Scott and McCleod, to see them in tears, embracing each other after grabbing gold, nothing feels better. They really are the epitome of the quote, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard” with how they played this entire run. This team of young guns are going to make a huge impact in the 2023 WWC and I can’t wait.

#canwnt #christine sinclair #i cannot believe how beautiful it is to have experienced this game and to be able to feel joy that hard work does pay off #they had the best defense of any team in the tourney #forget about the uswnt and their department of defense lol canada took that role and said nah fam that ain't it watch and learn #only one conceded goal in their three-game bracket run #one!!!#and that was in the gold medal match #none to the us #none to brazil #insane

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whitehotharlots · 3 years

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Previewing the 2024 Democrat Primary

Within a couple weeks of his being sworn in, just about every person on earth will wish Joe Biden was no longer president. Sure, the few surviving John B. Anderson voters will be thrilled to see 4 years of crushing austerity and half-assed attempts at Keynesian stimulus. But most people will begin dreaming about a brighter future.

Good news! The 2024 Democratic primary field is going to contain dozens of options. Bad news! They are all going to be disgusting piles of shit.

The “top tier”

While it’s too early to do any handicapping, these are the candidates the media will treat as having the most realistic chances of securing the nomination.

Kamala Harris

Kamala did not win a single primary delegate in 2020. This is because she dropped out before the first primary, and that was because no one likes her. She has no base beyond a few thousand of twitter’s most violent psychos. Her disingenuousness approaches John Edwards levels: any halfway incredulous person can see immediately beyond her bullshit. She has no principles whatsoever, and while that may be par for the course for Democrats, she lacks even the basic politician’s ability to intuit anything that might, hypothetically, constitute a principle.

Even better: she is an awful public speaker. She sounds like how a talking dog would speak if he were just caught stealing people food off the kitchen table. She communicates in weird grunts and faux sassy squeaks, which is how she imagines real black women sound like, but something about her is unable to sell the bit. She begins her sentences in halfhearted AAVE, stops and panics halfway through as she realizes that maybe this sounds fake and offensive, and then reminds herself oh wait, no, this is okay since I’m black. This doesn’t happen once or twice per speech. This is how every single sentence sounds.

Kamala is like Nancy Pelosi in that no sketch show will ever impersonate her correctly, because anything that came close to authenticity would be considered far too cruel. This might benefit her in the primaries, as she exists in the minds of Democrats as someone and something she absolutely is not in reality. Nominating her would be like allowing your child’s imaginary friend to attempt to drive you to the store.

Andrew Cuomo

Easily one of the 50 worst people alive, Cuomo has a solid chance because Democrats, same as Republicans, are unable to differentiate between electability and self-serving ruthlessness. Cuomo used the deadliest public health crisis in American history as a pretext for cutting Medicaid and firing 5,000 MTA workers, and his approval rating increased. New York Dems are little piggies who love eating shit. If we assume that the political media will continue their habit of refusing to discuss the legislative history of right wing Democrats, Cuomo might well cruise to the nomination and then lose to literally any human being the GOP nominates by an historic margin.

Joe Biden

The party loves him because he is a right wing racist. “Progressives” tolerate him because black primary voters over 40 supported him, and their opinion is supposedly a magic window into god’s truth. Everyone else can tell he is manifestly senile. I don’t put it above the DNC to pick a candidate who is in horrible health, dying, or even dead--whatever the financial sector wants, they’ll get. But I would be shocked if his approval rating is above 39% by mid-2023, and by that point deep fake technology will be advanced enough they’ll put out a very lifelike video in which the Max Headroom version of Joe explains he’s proud of his accomplishments--that budget’s almost balanced already--but, man, I gotta abd--I gotta abdica--, uhh, I gotta, I, uhh, I gotta move down, man.

Wild Cards

These candidates would have all have a chance if they ran, but they could all much more easily retire to Little Saint James off of kickbacks they’ve gotten from Citibank and I.G. Farben.

Rahm Emanuel

Rahm is going to receive some hugely influential post in the Biden administration. Let’s say he becomes Secretary of Education. His signature achievement will be replacing all elementary school teachers with Amazon’s Alexa, which saved the taxpayers so much money we were able to quadruple the number of armed police officers we put into high schools. This will give him several thousand positive profiles on network news programs and the near-universal support of the Silicon Valley vampires who will own 99% of the country by the time Biden’s term ends. They will use their fancy mind control devices to convince geriatic primary voters that Rahm’s the one who will bring Decency back to the white house. His candidacy will be the paragon of wokeness, as expressing concern toward the fact that he covered up the police murder of a black guy will get you called a racist.

Rahm has a bonus in that Jewish men are now Schrodeniger’s PoC. When they are decent human beings, they are basic, cis white men who are stealing attention from disabled trans candidates of color. When they love austerity and apartheid, they become the most vulnerable people of color on earth and criticizing them in any way is genocide. No one will be able to mention a single thing Rahm has ever done or said without opening themselves to accusations of antisemitism, and that gives him a strong edge against the rest of the field. The good news is that an Emmanuel candidacy would result in over 50% of black voters choosing the GOP candidate--which, I guess that’s not really good but it would certainly be funny.

Gavin Newsom

Newsom is every bit as feckless as Cuomo, but he doesn’t put off the same “bad guy in an early Steven Segal movie” vibes. He will mention climate change 50 times per speech and no one will bother to mention how he keeps signing fracking contracts even though his state is now on fire 11 months of the year. If anything, this will be spun into an argument about how he’s actually the candidate best suited to handle all the water refugees gathering on the southern border. Look for his plan to curb emissions by 10% by the year 2150 to get high marks from Sierra Club nerds. He’s also a celebate librarian’s idea of what constitutes a handsome man, so he’ll have some support from the type of women who claim to hate all men.

Larry Summers

I mean, why not? Larry, like most members of the Obama administration, has politics that are eerily similar to those of Jordan Peterson. In normal circumstances, this makes a person a dangerous fascist who should not be platformed. But if that person has a D next to their name this makes them a realistic pragmatist who has what it takes to bring suburban bankers into our tent. If current trends in Woke Phrenology continue apace, Larry’s belief that women are inherently bad at STEM will be liberal orthodoxy by 2023, and his dedication to the Laffer Curve could see him rake in massive donations. Seriously, I’m not kidding: cultural liberalism is now fully dedicated to identity essentialism and balanced budgets. Larry is their ideal candidate. If he were black and/or a woman, I’d put him in the very top tier.

Jay Inslee

Unlike Newsom, Inslee’s attempt to crown himself the King of Global Warming won’t be immediately derailed, since his state is only on fire because of protestors. This, however, poses a different problem. He’s going to be a good test case for the Democrat’s uneasy peace with the ever increasing share of the electorate who become catatonic upon hearing a pronoun. On the one hand, you need to take their votes for granted. On the other hand, they’re not like black people or regular gays: most voters actively, consciously despise wokies, and associating yourself with them will ruin a campaign even in deep blue areas. There’s still gonna be riots in a year. Biden’s gonna announce the sale of all our nation’s potable water to the good folks at Nestle and some trans freak named Sasha-Malia DeBalzac is going to use that as an opportunity to sell their new pamphlet about how it’s fascist to not burn down small businesses. No matter what Inslee does in response, it’ll end his career.

AOC

I’m not one of those “AOC is a secret conservative” weirdos, but I am aware enough of basic reality to know she has zero chance of coming close to the nomination. The right and the center both regard her as a literal demon. The party is already blaming her for the fact that a handful of faceless Reagan acolytes failed to flip their suburban districts even though they ran on sensible pragmatic proposals like euthanizing the homeless. The recriminations will only get more unhinged when the Dems eat shit in the 2022 midterms. She will be a Russian, she will be white male, she will be a communist, she will be a homophobe: any insult or conspiracy theory you can name, MSNBC will spend hours discussing. Her house seat challenger will receive a record amount of support from the DNC in 2024 and it’ll be all she can do to remain in congress.

Larry Hogan

Don’t be dissuaded by the fact that he’s a Republican. Larry is the DNC’s ideal candidate: a physically repulsive conservative who owes his entire career to appealing to the most spiteful desires of suburban white people. He’s an open racist in a material sense--if you’re old-school enough to think racism is a matter of beliefs and actions, rather than the presence of cultural signifiers--but his is the beloved “never Trump” style of racism that Dems covet. He’s also a Proven Leader who thinks the role of government should be to finance the construction of investment property and give police the resources they need to run successful drug trafficking operations. Few people embody the Democrat worldview more than Larry.

The Losers Bracket

These people will have at least a small chance due solely to the fact that the Democrats love losing. They have lost in the past, and in the Democrat Mind that makes them especially qualified.

Joe Kennedy

The man looks like a mushroom-human hybrid from a JRPG. Trump proved that physical hideousness need not doom a presidential bid, but a candidate still needs some kind of charm or oratorical abilities or, god forbid, a decent platform. Joe aggressively lacks all of these things. A vanity campaign would be a good way to raise money and perhaps secure an MSNBC gig, so Joe might still run.

Mayor Pete

I am 100% convinced that Pete’s 2020 run was a CIA plot meant to prevent working class Americans from ever having a chance of living decent lives. I am also 100% aware that Democrats are dumb enough to enthusiastically support a CIA plot meant to prevent working class Americans from ever having a chance of living decent lives. If we have some sort of military or terror disaster between now and 2023 the Dems are sure to want a TROOP, and wait wait wait you’re telling me this one is a gay troop? Holy hell there’s no way that could lose!

Stacy Abrams

Never underestimate the power of white guilt. She lost the gubernatorial race to Gomer Pyle’s grandson, and her spiritual guidance of the Dems saw the party lose black voters in Georgia in 2020. Nonetheless, she is regarded as a magic font of fierceness within the DNC. She might stand a chance if she can establish herself as the most conservative non-white candidate in the field, but there’s going to be stiff competition for that honor.

Elizabeth Warren

Liz is probably angry that the party so shamelessly sold her out even after she was a good little girl and sabatoged Bernie’s campaign for them--yet another example of high ranking US government officials reneging on their promises to the Native American community. Smdh. The fact that this woman hasn’t been bankrupted a dozen times over by various Wallet Inspectors genuinely astounds me. So Liz is probably going to run again, and her campaign will be even sadder the second time around.

It might surprise you to hear this if you don’t work at a college or NGO, but Liz diehards actually do exist. She’ll get even less support this time because there will be no viable leftist in the field for her to spoil, but she’ll still hang in long enough to make sure the very worst possible candidate beats out the second worst possible candidate. Maybe she’ll fabricate a rape accusation against Sherrod Brown. Maybe she’ll spend her entire allotted debate time doing a land acknowledgment. With Liz, anything is possible--so long as it ends in failure.

Amy Klobuchar

Amy was the most bloodthirsty of the 2020 also rans. She will double down on the unpopular failures of the Biden administration, explaining that if you weren’t such a selfish idiot you’d love the higher social security retirement age and oh my god are so such a moron you think you shouldn’t go bankrupt to get a COVID vaccine? There’s a non-unsubstantial segment of the Democratic base that’s self-hating enough to find this appealing, but it won’t be enough to make her viable.

Martha Coakley

She lost Ted Kennedy’s senate seat to a retarded man who was pretending to be even more retarded than he actually was. Then she lost a gubernatorial race to a guy who openly promised Massachusetts voters that he would punish them for electing him. Her record of failure is unparalleled, making her perhaps the ideal Democrat standard bearer for the twenty twenties.

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aeltonhqapps-blog · 7 years

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Mari | 19 | Brasilia Standard Time | She/Her | 7 Desired Character: Yuri Plisetsky The series they are from: Yuri!!! On Ice

Their Age: 16 Location: Pearl District, Avalon Hills Artificial or Natural: Artificial Idol Class: Hybrid Branch Name/Profession: Sports branch, Figure skater Pupil Shape: Eight pointed star, like an incomplete Rose of the Winds

What technique do they respond to?: While he is naturally motivated to be the best, sometimes Yuri will start slacking if he thinks he is currently the best. Just making sure he never forgets he could be surpassed or replaced at any moment should be enough to keep him in shape.

Confident: Yuri is confident in his figure skating abilities. Even though figure skating is the means his confidence shows more, it’s also possible to notice it in the way he carries himself. It could also be seen as arrogance for most people around him but getting to know Yuri a bit better shows he just has his own brash way of expression.

Resilient: His resilience is one of the most striking traits about him. Since the very start, Yuri has shown several times that he is willing to subject himself to immense pressure in order to get the best results. Even so, it is difficult for him to be affected enough that he’d feel the need to pause his objectives as he’s also shown he’s able to perform under pressure. Outside his sport, this particular trait of his has helped him get through hard times in his life such as his father’s disease.

Ambitious: Yuri is ambitious and willing to sacrifice great ammounts of his own free time and energy when he has his sights set on a goal. Not to mention that he is also a perfectionist who wishes to not only reach his objective but to be the best at what he does. Because of this, he tends to lose the sight of other important things around him, which explains his loneliness during his school years.

Competitive: The moment two people want something that can’t be shared, they start competing until one is defeated. Because it’s impossible for two people to share the highest place in the podium, Yuri is naturally competitive towards anyone that thinks of having the same objectives as him. It’s often that he finds himself annoyed by competition to the point of taking it to a personal level.

Independent: Despite being willing to take rigorous training and follow instructions of his coaches, in the end Yuri is the one who decides what he’s going to do in the rink. Even when he was a child in junior competitions Yuri has been highly independent and able of standing his ground against adults when it came to his routines.

Temperamental: Yuri is naturally prone to leaving his emotions clear to everyone who sees him but recently, with him reaching puberty and adjusting to the recent change of becoming an idol, Yuri has become particularly temperamental.

Biography:

It is said that an apple doesn’t fall far from its tree. Even in the most unexpected ways, children tend to base themselves on past achievements of their parents for their own future.

Of course, Alyona Plisetsky didn’t think anything like that as she moved back to Moscow after so many years. The modeling Idol had just graduated from Adamas and all she wanted was a change of scenario, back to her father and the old life she never thought she’d be returning to.

She hadn’t planned on falling in love or getting married just a couple of years after her graduation and neither had she planned the baby that the young couple had come to conceive early into their marriage. But of course, Alyona cherished each of those new and wonderful things that came in her life.

The boy was named Yuri and he had a perfectly comfortable family life during the first months of his life. Both his parents needed to work to keep up with the expenses of a baby and an aging man at the same time so he would end up spending most of his day with Nikolai, his grandfather.

It was when Yuri was three years old that he was taken to an ice rink to the very first time. One of his earliest memories is skating near the safety of the barrier, a small figure tracing wobbly lines on the ice while his parents laughed and cheered him on with every step. The boy was five years old when what was a fun day off activity with his family evolved into something more serious. No one expected Yuri to show as much talent as he did during the progression of simple ice figure skating classes for local kids but his talent became crystal clear with every new class.

Yuri didn’t understand well until winning his first competition. Sure, it was a small event held for children but it opened the world of competitive figure skating for him.

At the time, life was good and there was no hint that it would clash and burn. Until it came the days his father started complaining of pain and visiting medic after medic, switching medications every few weeks in a rate that the young boy couldn’t keep up with. All of the family’s efforts weren’t enough to stop the infection that left an once strong man bedridden until the near end of his life.

During the final stages of his father’s illness, Yuri would skate during most of his time: whenever he wasn’t at school or sleeping at home, he would be skating. Anything to avoid returning to the memory of his dying father.

It was a turning point for him, the transition from a talented little boy who skated to earn smiles from his family to Yuri Plisetsky, the boy who was spotted by a renowned coach and moved to St. Petersburg to train along with the next generation of competitive ice skating.

Under professional coaching, Yuri was able to win several local and national junior titles and finally make a name for himself in figure skating. The more he advanced in the ranks, the more difficult it became to go further: the circuits were filled with older, more experienced skaters… not to mention the idols that would pop left and right in the same bracket.

His first time at the Junior Nationals was both a deception and a blessing. Yuri got himself a bronze medal, much lower than what he had been aiming for but the competition was tougher than usual. However, with the other two medalists being Idols and much older than him the feat was impressive. His performance during the Nationals was what brought the attention of an Adamas scout, who presented the young skater the possibility of advancing even further with his career by becoming an Idol himself. Yuri hadn’t considered taking this step before but suddenly, it seemed like an essential part of the rank climbing process.

What he hadn’t known was that getting scouted had been the easiest part of the entire deal. After Yuri decided to get himself in the artificial idol program, his life seemed to blur into an endless rush of training and perfecting his performances to the next evaluation step. But despite everything, Yuri was confident in his own ability and it wasn’t much of a surprise when, in the end, he was one of the few survivors of the selection.

Currently, Yuri is finishing his transitioning process already having experienced most of the required changes of his organism as he awaits for his official release date.

Stats:

Public Popularity 60% | Bronze Medal in the 2023 Junior Russian Nationals | Several first places in regional junior competitions | Has gathered his own fanclub named “Yuri’s Angels”

#AeltonHQ: Application post #AeltonHQ Idol App

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