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sunshine-theseus · 6 months

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Angel In Disguise | Esme Morgan x Reader

Word count: 2k

Summary: life’s hard when all your students prefer your footballer partner over you.

Warnings: fluff, children? idk how the English school timeline works and the Australian one doesn’t match up with the story so I’m just saying school starts in like September and ends in late May??

Request for: @wlwskyy i hope this is good! it's probably not as good as I hoped but i'm still pretty happy with it

Being a primary school teacher was hard. Trying to help students who struggle with the content while also helping others progress. Being strict while also wanting to be fun. My biggest struggle though, was a very me specific one.

Esme Morgan loves to visit me or help me out at school from time to time, and just like everyone else she meets, the kids fall in love with her. From the first time they meet her, they’re begging me to bring her back.

“Ms L/n it’s so cool you’re dating a footballer! Can you bring her back tomorrow? And the day after that and the day after that one until forever?” and once they realise that she actually has her own job to do, they beg I bring her in at least once a term.

It was my first year teaching after university, the first time she’d come to work, and it had been a complete surprise.

After she broke her leg in 2021, Esme struggled to fill her time. She’d made about 27 bracelets in the first 3 days, then tried to bake a little, although it went rather poorly. She then watched all the original Disney movies in release order. I think she got to Mulan II before she decided enough was enough.

I was in the middle of teaching the times tables when there was a light knock on the door. I could see her cheeky smile through the small pane of glass and rushed to open it for her. Esme stumbles through the door, her moon boot and crutches making it difficult for her to fit through the rather narrow frame.

She pecks me on the lips and the room erupts in childish giggles. Romantic affection was something so foreign to 8 and 9 year olds.

“Es… what are you doing here?” I whisper as I pull a chair for her sit on.

“I got bored, and I miss yoouu.” She smiles up at me and I can’t help but smile back.

“Oh! And I brought gifts for the kiddos!” she holds out a paper bag and I peak inside.

My heart melts at the pile of hand-crafted bracelets, ranging in colour and design, that fill a significant proportion of the bag.

She spent the rest of the day surrounded by my class. Eventually I had to stop teaching because they were so in love with this angelic limping figure who brough them friendship bracelets. I don’t think Esme prepared for them all to assume she was every single one of their best friends.

~~~~~

It was nearly Christmas break when she first met my class for this year, and everyone knew who she was. For the first time, I didn’t have to introduce her or tell them what she does for them to get hyped.

“I WATCHED YOU IN THAT FOOTBALL THING” and other similar phrases are shouted many times when she enters the room.

When I looked at her it was hard not to smile. She was playing and talking with kids and giving them all little bracelets, just like she does every year.

As she was crouched in front of a small group who were excitedly asking her questions, Marley, a rather shy and quiet girl, walked up to Esme and lightly tapped her shoulder. She fiddles with her fingers and avoids looking at anyone as she waits.

“Excuse me Mrs Esme?” Esme is already smiling when she turns to look at Marley.

“Hey kiddo!”

“Um you’re my favourite player of all time. I watch all your games and wanna grow up and play just like you.” And Esme’s smile grew bigger, something I wasn’t sure was possible.

“That’s so cool! Can I give you a hug?” Marley nods and giggles into the embrace, and then they begin to talk about Marley’s interest in football and Esme’s work.

I’d been struggling to get her to talk for 2 months, and Es came in and got her to talk within minutes, but I can’t stop staring lovingly at the angel of a woman in front of me. There was a part of myself I saw in Marley. I’d struggled to be very open for a long time until I met Esme. She just had this gentle, caring nature that was hard to ignore.

Marley misses her the most between visits. They’d made a secret handshake and love to chat and giggle on the oval at lunch, kicking the ball around.

In between visits Esme and Marley both interchangeably would give me something to give the other; a bracelet or a packet of lollies or a flower they found randomly. It was so hard for me to not burst from how cute their friendship was.

It had changed Es as well. Obviously, she has always been welcoming and warm-hearted but she’d become more confident about her play and sometimes I would catch her bragging to her teammates.

“I’m Marley’s favourite player!” it took them a while to realise who Marley was, but they found it adorable.

We’re in our last week for the school year, just in time for Esme to make one more surprise appearance before she has leave for camp for the France Olympics. I’d told the kids she wasn’t sure if she would have time to make it between finishing up the season and preparing for the Olympics, but that didn’t stop them from begging me to bring her in.

It’s the last day, everyone already buzzing for their long holiday, and admittedly from the lollies I gave them. I always try to make the last day super fun, activities and music and a surprise guest.

By midday I’d already had to apologise that Esme couldn’t make it. 17 times and counting.

And by 1, there was a knock on the door. A knock the kids were all too familiar with, and Esme rushes into the room, kids swarming her from all angles.

“Hey kiddos!”

“Hey pretty lady” she turns to me and kisses me quickly. Gags and loud ‘ewww!’s echo out.

Marley waits patiently with a small bag in her hand, still considerably shy. Esme wastes no time in getting to the young girl, with a similar bag in hand.

“Hey Mar! I got you a little something.” Esme hands the bag over, and everyone watches carefully as she pulls out whatever lays inside.

I see the familiar light blue peak out, and recognise the jersey design I sport most weekends. The present is clear when Marley starts jumping up and down in excitement.

“It’s one of my spares so don’t tell Gareth, ok? I got all the girls to sign it.” Marley is wrapped around Esme before she can finish the sentence.

“Thank you!” she scrambles to put her bag in Esme’s hands before tugging the shirt over her head.

I nearly scream when I see Esme pull out a black and purple jersey, colours I know from all the pictures Marley shows me of her games, usually with a trophy in her hands. Her last name and the number 14 adorn the back with a tiny ‘Marley’ in black sharpie on the ‘1’.

“Oh my god Marley this is so cool! I’m going to keep this forever. In a few years time I’m going to see you playing for England and know I got the first ever Marley jersey and signature. And of course you’ll play for Manchester City yeah?” the little girl eagerly nods her head.

The day goes on and the kids go home for the last time. Esme leaves after an hour of helping me pack up the classroom, to start dinner and I don’t finish until 5:30.

By the time I pull into the driveway, I’m exhausted, but satisfied with my work for the year.

I leave most of my gear in the car to unpack another day and walk to the door. I struggle to open it for a moment but when I do, I’m hit by the smell of my favourite meal cooking and the sound of Esme singing, albeit not well.

I drag my feet into the kitchen and wrap my arms around my wife, kissing her back as I just rest against her.

“Hello my love.”

“Hey sunshine.” I pause for a moment.

“You’re so good with kids.” She hums as she turns the stove off.

“And you helped Marley so much.”

“She’s a good kid, it’s hard not to like her.” I pull away and reach up to kiss her on the cheek before looking for the small gift bag.

“What are you doing?” Esme questions as she begins to plate to the food

“Well we have to measure Marley’s shirt for a frame so we can hang it up don’t we? I want to be able to boast to the world in like 8 years time about how I taught her and how we have her first ever signature.” I poke her in the side as I grab my plate.

“Well how about we do that tomorrow? I just want to cuddle with you tonight before we have to pack and get ready for camp.” I let out a loud groan.

“I can’t believe you’re taking me to France, and we’ll barely be able to do any of that gross romantic shit together.” Esme smiles down at me, regret floating behind her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Noo I’m so excited I just think they’re cruel for making players do their job or whatever.” I jokingly roll my eyes before I lean back into her on the couch, both our plates sat in our laps.

“I promise to take you to that restaurant on the top of the Eiffel Tower before we leave.” She kisses my forehead.

~~~~~

“This is light work for the defender, tapping the ball passed Courtney Nevin and chipping it passed the Australian goalkeeper! IT’S A GOAL FOR ENGLAND AND THEY FIND AN EQUALISER IN THE OLYMPIC FINALS!”

I cheer at the goal with the rest of the stadium, hugging the small girl next to me as she bounces in excitement.

“Did you see that mumma? She scored! Mar Mar scored!” Reese shouts over everyone else.

“I did! It was amazing, wasn’t it?”

When the game ends, I pick Reese up and we rush down to the pitch with the other family members, celebrating as we make our way. It takes us a few minutes to spot the players we’re looking for but when Reese points them out, I put her down and she runs toward them without a single thought.

“Congratulations!” I pull Esme into a kiss before turning to Marley. The 16-year-old smiled brightly at me before hugging me tightly.

“Your goal was fucking phenomenal Marley! They should make you a striker.”

“But then she wouldn’t be just like her favourite player” Esme buts in, our daughter falling asleep on her hip. We all laugh and continue to talk with the other girls and celebrate until we decide to head back to the hotel to put Reese to bed.

“I’m so proud of how far you’ve come you know?” I pull Marley into my side as we wait for the elevator.

“From ‘shy little 8 year old who refused to talk to her teacher’ to ‘number 14; defender and debut scorer for her country at the 2032 Olympics at 16 years old’.”

“And one of the youngest and best signings for Man City!” Esme chimes in

“Thank you for always believing in me.”

After we say goodnight to Marley and make sure Reese is definitely asleep, I climb into bed with Esme.

“You’re so amazing.” I stare at her. Sometimes I don’t understand how I was blessed with such a kind-hearted, gentle woman.

“I try.” We break out in giggles and I slap her lightly on the shoulder.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” we don’t say anything else.

She kisses me hard before I rest my head on her chest, her arm wrapping around me as we fall asleep. She’s my angel in disguise.

#woso x reader #woso #wwc 2023 #olympics 2024 #esme morgan #esme morgan x reader #womens soccer

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tartts-blog · 2 months

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My Reputation's Never Been Worse, But You Can Buy Me A Drink (Part One)

Roy Kent x Fem!Singer!Reader

Taylor Swift Reputation Inspired Series- Requested by @akornsworld

series summary: roy and the reader go from strangers, to lovers, to so much more. inspired by taylor swift-reputation.

part summary: roy and the reader meet at a bar and form a connection

content warning: language, angst if you squint, mentions of an abusive relationship

a/n: this series will likely be 8 parts. feel free to comment or message me any other requests! i write for roy, jamie, and royxjamie. i'll also consider writing for keeley depending on the request.

masterlist

You promptly decided 5 minutes after getting to the bar that deciding to go out for a drink after already having a throbbing headache was a mistake. All you wanted was a break. A break from the media, a break from being constantly reminded of your shitty ex, just a fucking break in general. Your career was overwhelming you, and you’ve had enough. After your extremely public break-up with your ex boyfriend, the media has been harassing you consistently. Even though there was video and photograph proof that he had abused you, majority of society still took his side. Your music sales plummeted, and for the first time in your career your most recent album didn’t make the top 100 list. Everything was just shit. Therefore, showing up at Bones and Honey on a random day of the week was quickly become a routine for you.

Everyone there tended to mind their own business, and leave you alone to wallow in your thoughts. At least, that was until the entirety of the Richmond football club showed up. To be honest, you don’t really follow football, but you recognized most of the players. Your dad loves football, AFC Richmond specifically, so you grew up watching a shit ton of games (even though you never quite understood the appeal). Performing arts was always more interesting to you. So when Roy Kent came to you at the bar, you were probably more open with him than you should’ve been. The amount of drinks you’d already consumed also probably played a part in that. He walked up to the bar next to you, ordered a pint, then turned to look at you.

“Oi, you’re Y/N Y/LN right?”

“Yeah, and if I’m not mistaken you’re the infamous Roy Kent?” He nodded his head up, seemingly surprised that you knew who he was. “What, didn’t expect a singer to follow football?” He looked a little apologetic at that.

“No, sorry. I just didn’t expect you to be so fucking blunt to be honest.” You laughed.

“Yeah, I get that a lot. Anyway, I’m assuming you’re here as a celebration or something. Why are you over here with me and not your team? I’m not exactly a prize.” The bartender brought over Roy’s beer and he took a swig of it.

“I’m with those pricks everyday, and you looked upset. As weird as it sounds I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” That made you uneasy.

“Look, I’m not in the mood for a one stand with a footballer, or whatever else you want from me. I just came here to get my mind off my fucking job and get plastered for the night.”

“Oi, that’s not what I’m fucking here for, if it was I would’ve just fucking said that. I honestly just wanted a minute away from those little pricks,” he pointed over to the rest of the Richmond team on the other side of the club, “and like I said I really did just want to make sure you’re alright. You looked all in your head and shit.” He took another chug of his beer, and you felt your guard start to slip. You took that opportunity to look him over, and that’s when it dawned on you just how attractive he really was. He was fucking fit.

“Alright then, and yeah I’m fine.” You promptly downed a shot of tequila you had in front of you, next to your martini. You really were planning on getting trashed that night. He raised an eyebrow at you, and you pretended not to notice. You stared up at him, suddenly realizing how he was just awkwardly standing next to you instead of actually sitting down at the bar. “Look, if you’re really going to bother yourself with talking to me could you at least sit down and quit standing there like a creep. And buy me a drink.” He let out a chuckle at that, sat down, and ordered you a martini. You smiled softly at him, suddenly a little embarrassed.

The rest of the night went by in a blur. Roy was actually quit enjoyable to talk to, but you know that after that night your little section of the world just to the two of you would end. You would have to go back to your shit career and personal life, and he would go back to coaching a premier league football club and everyone loving him. You tried not to think about that while you were with him though. You found yourself laughing more than you had in months.

You vaguely remember making fun of Roy’s deep voice and the way he talked after both had consumed several more drinks. You couldn’t tell if it was just the alcohol or not, but you were pretty sure he knew that you meant it as a compliment. As the night came to a close, he walked you out to your cab, and you both said your goodbyes. You realized in the cab on the way to your house that you couldn’t stop smiling. Shit. It would be a fucking disaster if the media got wind of the fact you and a football manager, of all people, spent a night at Bones and Honey together. But who could blame you? It was Roy fucking Kent. And you could already tell he was going to make you crazy.

UPDATES WEEKLY!

#roy kent #roy kent x reader #taylor swift #roy kent fic #roy kent i'll write your name #roy kent fanfiction #celebrities #ted lasso #ted lasso fanfiction #afc richmond #roy kent has my heart

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belmottetower · 11 months

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3.11 - Council Estates and the Right To Buy

In 3.11, we saw Jamie go home to his mum’s, and we learned that she still lives in the council house that Jamie grew up in. This has interesting implications and possibly negative ones if construed the wrong way. In the Subjectify articles, we've already discussed those implications, because it's something I've been concerned about since we first saw the trailer shot of Jamie's childhood bedroom. I knew even then that the story beat would have to be about throwing back to the Roy poster - that's why they had to keep Georgie in the house Jamie grew up in, rather than have her in a new house elsewhere. It was a choice made specifically so Roy could see the poster.

But in making sure that could happen, it leaves us with the unfortunate framing that Jamie didn't buy his mum a house when he got rich, and "buying your mum a house" is basically the first thing a working class footballer like him would do with his money. It's a really standard baseline. I have been nervously obsessing about Ted Lasso accidentally implying that Jamie wouldn’t have done that, for months now. I had already decided, before the episode aired, that if they did not clarify either way, I would have to assume that she did not want to leave the place she lived, and that rather than a new house, Jamie had bought her their old house on the Right To Buy, a government scheme introduced in the 1980s that allows most council tenants to buy their council home at a discount. (I do have issues with this policy generally, and the impact it had on the amount of council housing available, but that’s not for now.)

There is sort of a level of visual evidence for this - the inside of his mum’s house is really well maintained and clearly full of pretty expensive furniture and items. They definitely own it, and having now met her, gotten her vibe and seen the kind of house it is, it makes a huge amount of sense to me that she stayed there. It might have felt different if we saw a different KIND of council home, but in this specific situation, it tracks.

There’s a bit in my primer about this, but in the UK, council housing comes in a lot of different shapes and sizes. Some of them will be flats in tower blocks (like the one Roy points to from the Westway sports pitch in 2.05 - in real life that is a council housing block in Ladbroke Grove and private apartment buildings like that simply don’t exist, Roy is a council estate kid too) or the flat fronted buildings with outdoor walkways (think Kingsman, or Rose’s place in Doctor Who) but a lot of them are houses like the one you see Jamie’s mum living in - solidly built terraced houses on car-free streets, inside the boundaries of an estate. Sometimes the estate in general contains both apartment blocks and rows of houses, with some green spaces built in too. That No Ball Games sign is a staple in any and all council estates across the UK and is ignored in council estates up and down the country by children just like the ones seen in this episode and it is lovely to think about Jamie once doing the same thing. I really liked getting to see the kind of estate he grew up on.

So, TL:DR - they would own that house now, even though it’s on an estate, otherwise they would not be eligible to still be living in it. And it’s not universally horrible to live on a council estate, or in a street of ex-estate houses.

But that “Jamie didn’t buy her a house” discourse is definitely brewing - I have seen people discussing this already as “wrong,” and I agree that it is wrong in the sense of they should have taken a line or two to clarify the way that situation might have worked, specifically to not accidentally paint Jamie in a bad light. What I don’t agree with is that it’s “wrong” for her to have stayed put - that living in that area, in that type of house, on that estate is somehow inherently bad and a situation she should have been rescued from by Jamie. And at this point, insisting that she should leave or have something better is swiftly bordering on classist.

There are a lot of stereotypes that exist about working class families and council estates. That they’re all shitty places to live, that everyone who lives in them is a benefits scrounger, or a druggie, or an alcoholic, or are involved in crime or gangs. Frankly it’s an awful stereotype that just furthers the classism and class divide in the UK. There are issues in some places, but it is not ubiquitous. Georgie clearly had Jamie pretty young and would have been granted a “family home” house by the council. Living in a little cul de sac like that, it’s very likely she had a strong community of neighbors, other families with kids who all would have supported one another. She would have been looked after, as a young single mum, and Jamie would have been safe to run about and be cared for by everyone in the street if Georgie was working. It would not have been perfect, but it may have felt safe and warm in its own way.

So once Jamie got rich - given that Georgie doesn’t seem to have any other kids who might benefit from a bigger house or anything - I can honestly see Jamie trying to buy her a fancy house somewhere else and her being like “What the fuck would I do in some fancy suburb in Chesire? This is my home, I’ll stay here thanks,” and so Jamie just bought her the council house they’d grown up in and paid to get it renovated and done up nicely so Simon could have his laboratory, and Georgie a nice place to live, with her friends still close by. Except for his childhood bedroom, which she clearly refused to let him touch and him being the biggest mummy’s boy ever he didn’t argue.

Britain used to be incredibly proud of its strides in social welfare, and council housing was once very good quality building work. (If you ever want to watch a show that depicts the origins of, and pride in, social welfare for the working class communities in the UK in a beautiful, nuanced way that will make you sob every other episode please go and watch Call the Midwife from the beginning and come scream at me about it.) These are desirable homes - in fact, Right to Buy aside, a lot of older council housing, both houses and flats, are “de-counciled” and sold off privately to new home buyers who were never in the welfare system. I actually rent an ex-council flat in London, from a landlord who bought it privately. And I have a friend of a friend who privately bought and renovated an ex-council terrace almost exactly like Georgie’s. It’s not the greatest thing when council housing gets privatized, especially when the new replacements are of such terrible quality. But the original places are built to last, so Georgie’s house definitely could be done up to a high standard once they had the right to do improvements that were not the bare minimum of the overstretched housing organization. And between Right To Buy, private sales, and people who are still in the council housing system, an estate like Georgie’s these days may have any number of privately owned homes mixed in, and different incomes and circumstances within the same street or block of flats. Some are quite gentrified and even trendy.

I’m explaining this so people know the context when they talk about a council estate like the one we saw. I think there is a tendency to want to make Jamie’s background and childhood the most traumatic it could have possibly been, even more so than is on screen, and so it’s possible people who are less familiar with the UK and how council housing works or what council estates are like, could think that Jamie’s home growing up and the estate he lived on was awful and shitty and very very rough. And that could have been the case if he had lived on one of the rougher estates or in a flat in tower block that was falling apart and hard to do up not worth salvaging (a lot of them are being torn down) but that is not the kind of place the episode chose to show us. So now, having seen it, saying “How dare Ted Lasso not show him buying his mum a big house in order to help escape his traumatic upbringing and dirty poverty life” is honestly not a great take and is a pretty classist way to look at the millions of families in the UK that live in council housing. The episode absolutely should have stated that he bought that house rather than risk letting anyone think she’s still living within the welfare system because Jamie didn’t take care of her, but there’s a difference between that and removing her from the environment entirely if she was happy and at home there.

But speaking of adding extraneous trauma, there’s another element of Jamie having been brought up on an estate that I also want to talk about.

As someone who has been, in my fic, flying the flag for Jamie’s mum being alive and lovely and for them to have been super close for what feels like an eternity, this episode was so so so good for me. I’ll be honest, I always found the fact that some people were certain Jamie’s mum was dead quite baffling, because in the show, the way he talks about his mum right as far back as Two Aces, using present tense means it always seemed clear she was alive and I really just took the “Don’t think she would be lately” part about not being proud to mean that she didn’t know how he had been acting at Richmond, in training, with Ted and Sam, because he didn’t tell her. Not that she’d died, or had become estranged or something.

And then even aside from like, grammar, I just never thought the show depicted Jamie as someone who had suffered the loss of a parent. Especially when you compare him with Ted - who we all know did. Jamie was just not written as a character who is carrying around grief, especially recent grief, and his apology to Roy in season 2 proves it - "I aint used to being around dead people. It just, it did something to me, emotionally." This is very different to Roy’s explanation of why he acted so weirdly towards Keeley at the funeral itself - namely that memories of his grandad’s death were messing with him. It would be a very weird choice by the writers to have Jamie lie and say he hadn’t been around death if he had lost his mum.

So yeah, I always thought she was alive, and I always assumed - based on the ages kids tend to get scouted and acknowledged as good by the academies - that James hadn’t been around much until Jamie’s mid to late teens, and as such that Jamie didn’t ever live with James, just saw him occasionally. He certainly would not have ever had custody rights, if he walked out when Jamie was a baby and showed back up when he was 14.

But while I found the “Jamie’s mum is dead '' takes surprising, I almost preferred them to the theories and fics (sorry, people have the right to write what they want in fic, but I just hate it) that his mum was probably an alcoholic or a drug addict, or absent, or complicit to the James abuse, or just generally a bit shit and anything less than fantastic. Because Jamie talks about her in nothing but the nicest, softest terms, and Jamie himself - when not in his prime prick era, which legitimately only lasts for about three episodes - is the nicest, softest boy with the strongest sense of self. Even if he’d never mentioned his mum, his whole personality felt like it was the product of an upbringing with a whole lot of love and kindness and nurturing and being made to feel special.

The swiftness with which he reverted to sweetness and openness even in season 1, as well as his natural ego, the funny version of it, felt like his natural state of being, not a new development, and I always attributed this to his mum, which we now obviously know to be true. I’ve seen lots of people this week saying “As soon as we saw Jamie with his mum, EVERYTHING about him suddenly made sense,” and I am thrilled that people see this now, because this is what I always thought. I reverse engineered what his mum must be like based on his character so far, and it turned out just as I thought but even more so. I’ve also seen ideas that even if nothing was “wrong” with her, Jamie was somewhat estranged from her due to James and also sounding wistful when talking about her, or something, but I very much disagree. The two times he’s spoken about her, he has ALSO been talking about James, which was the thing he was sad about - they weren’t moments where he was being peppy and enthusiastic about how much he loved his mum. But also, now that we’ve met her and seen them together, I can kind of imagine him talking wistfully about her after not seeing her for like, a month, just because he is always missing her, LOL.

Anyway, how people interpreted their closeness or estrangement before this week is obviously something we did not know for a fact. The thing is, what we did know is that she was a single mum and that Jamie lived on a council estate in North Manchester, and that knowledge is what made me really side-eye some of the interpretations that framed her as either an addict or a kind of deadbeat figure that meant they had a bad relationship in some way. Because in the UK, there are a lot of stereotypes and stigmas around single mums in general, but in particular working class single mums who live on council estates. It’s really really awful and often revolves around them being unemployed, benefits scroungers, being neglectful or abusive, being drug addicts or sex workers, and it’s a really pervasive part of UK society and classism, and it felt like the details we knew about Jamie’s childhood on an estate is why people leant that way about his mum in a way they wouldn’t have if the council estate thing hadn’t been specified.

Where I work, we represent people across the UK and help get their stories shared to impact politicians. In one instance we got someone we represent onto the national news to talk about the cost of living crisis. She’s a single mum. When the clip got shared on social media she faced so much abuse and harassment and stigma because of these pervasive ideas people have about single mums and ended up having to delete her social media to get away from it. It was deeply upsetting to her, myself and my coworkers.

So I honestly always found fic or meta in which a character who, based on canon, is only ever mentioned as being attentive, loving and someone Jamie has a good relationship with, was portrayed along the above lines really hard to read. It just always felt rooted in the worst kind of stereotypes and classism, even if not intentionally. Anyway, point is…I am so fucking thrilled that we finally got to meet Jamie’s mum, that Georgie is lovely and kind and cuddly and supportive, that Jamie is an even bigger mummy’s boy than I ever could have dreamed, and that he even had a bonus soft baker stepdad father figure who had been around long enough to know that Roy Kent’s poster never left Jamie’s room. And the fact that his parents live in a house they now own, on a council estate where Georgie had a long-established community, is a perfectly fine choice. It isn’t something you need to retcon, you just need to know about the Right to Buy scheme.

#Jamie Tartt #Ted Lasso meta #Ted Lasso spoilers

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thetarttfuldickhead · 8 months

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do you think how Jamie reacted to Roy and Keeley's teasing at the auction in 1x04 was related to his trauma from his Dad making him loose his virginity to a lady from the red light district? and do you think after the three of them officially get together, that they ever talk about that?

Tricky one, nonny, because as much as I tend towards Watsonian explanations over Doylist ones, in this particular case I can’t quite disregard the fact that I am not at all convinced that Jamie’s Amsterdam backstory was in place when 1x04 was written. It might have been, sure, but… yeah, I doubt it, actually.

And, like, in hindsight, after 3x06, it’s hard not to connect Jamie’s discomfort at the gala with his experiences in Amsterdam. Even if he doesn’t consciously join the dots himself, even if he’s not yet realized that the experience was traumatic to him (and I think 3x06 does suggest that it was, even if it’s possibly to argue otherwise), the notion of having to have sex with someone he doesn’t want to have sex with, especially when they’re that much older (not because having sex with old people is gross, obviously, but because it would mirror the experience he had as a child), would have made him deeply uneasy.

I mean, it would make most of us deeply uneasy, so that’s not the strange part. The strange part, really, is that Jamie believes – if only for a little while – Roy and Keeley’s assertion that he’ll need to put out. Becaue, yes, Jamie’s not always the brightest, but of course the club’s not actually pimping out the players. He knows that, surely. But for a moment he isn’t sure – and maybe that’s because it’s already happened to him, hasn’t it? Not quite like this, no, but money exchanged and him required to fuck someone he had not chosen to fuck. So, yes, things like that can happen and maybe they do happen at Richmond because Jamie didn’t see it coming the first time either, did he, but no, it’s just a fucking joke, Roy and Keeley having a laught and he looks like a right idiot now, doesn’t he, for having believed them, and he can’t even articulate (not even to himself, I think) why he thought, for a moment, that maybe…

Yeah. Makes a horrible sort of sense, doesn’t it?

So, in hindsight I think we can read his reaction being at least partially related to what was done to him in Amsterdam, and normally I’d be perfectly happy with that, actual text over authorial intent, but in this case I can’t stop wondering about what it all was originally intended to mean (if, indeed, the Amsterdam part was not known to the writers at the time of writing 1x04). Maybe it intrigues me because it has the potential to reveal more and interesting things about Jamie? I don’t know, and I don’t have any real theories either, just… something about football players being used to getting sold and traded, something about his sense of self and value directly tied to his body and what he can do with it, time spent creating his brand and the slight disassociation and/or confusion between self and image it can cause (even as I think that Jamie has a very strong sense of self generally). Given all of that, is it so outlandish for him to briefly assume that maybe this too might be required? Especially given his experiences in Amsterdam… Can be a mix of the two, really. Maybe that’s the interpreation I mostly favour.

As for if they ever talk about it... I don’t necessarily think it’s something Jamie would bring up and I doubt Roy immediately connects the dots once he hears Jamie’s tale of his first Amsterdam trip. Keeley, I think, doesn’t know what happened in the Red Light District; to me, Jamie telling Roy reads very much like a ‘first time I ever told anyone’ thing, but that’s obviously open to interpretation.

But say something reminds Roy of that gala dinner, and what was said then. Maybe they’re getting ready to attend it once more and this time they’re dead pleased to be seated at the same table, making little jokes about can you fucking imagine if someone would have told us then that this is where we’d end up and could have saved ourselves so much trouble if we’d just gone home together that night and Keeley playfully reminds Jamie that he doesn’t actually have to sleep with someone if he doesn’t want to and Jamie pouts like that shit wasn’t funny but he’s laughing too because it was long ago and they’re here now and he doesn’t tend to dwell –

– but Roy goes quiet because wait hang on oh no fuck no, and he doesn’t say anything right away, they need to get going and he’s not sure is he, and he keeps on saying nothing throughout the dinner, and behind the still face he is quietly spiralling as he watches Jamie’s every move like a hawk, every twitch of his lips and every roll of his eyes.

Jamie and Keeley both notice, and are both confused. They keep exchanging glances and when Nate’s off to the loo and Jade’s done her disappeaering act and Sam and Dani drag Jamie off to join the rest of the team for a round of shots, Keeley takes the opportunity to lean in and ask what’s going on, Roy, are you okay?

He’ll tell her then, I think, and that’s not great – not his story to share – but it’s eating at him and there’s no one else for him to confide in and Keeley is part of it too, so yes. He tells her; she’s upset but still the voice of reason; no matter what happened that night Jamie’s doing fine right now, he’s having a great time with his friends and we shouldn’t ruin that for him, but come tomorrow we’ll have a proper chat all three of us, okay, sort things out?

And come tomorrow, they do.

#had more thoughts on this than i expected to #hope they make some sort of sense to you nonny - thank you for the ask!#i'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this #because i'm not fully committed to any of these musings #like i have thoughts - apparently - but i'm very prepared to change my mind if presented with compelling arguments as to why i should #1x04 #3x06 #jamie tartt #roy kent #keeley jones #royjamiekeeley #roy x jamie x keeley #asks

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xoxobluelock · 1 year

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Shidou & Zlatan Ibrahimovic Similarities

I was looking into Shidou's Big Bang Drive and fell down the Zlatan Ibrahimovic rabbit hole. Turns out, Shidou and his favorite player share a number of similarities, including incredible bicycle kicks, play styles, backgrounds in Taekwondo, and ...abrasive personalities.

First, the Big Bang Drive.

Ibrahimovic is the first video result when you search "bicycle kick" for a reason. In a 2012 Sweden vs England friendly, Ibrahimovic pulled off what is widely considered a legendary bicycle kick goal—some have argued one of the best goals of all time—30 yards out. With the vid / gif and the manga panels below, I think you’ll see some similarities between Shidou’s Big Bang Drive here in Chapter 130 and Ibrahimovic's goal.

Below is a play-by-play, followed by background on Ibrahimovic and similarities he and Shidou share:

(I am not claiming the Big Bang Drive was based on Ibrahimovic's goal. I just think it's interesting. Also, you can find the "Egoist Bible" player interview in which Shidou states Ibrahimovic is his favorite player here, courtesy of 705point8 on Twitter.)

The goal starts with Sweden (Ibrahimovic's team) stealing the ball from England and passing long—like Sae did—to where only Ibrahimovic and two members of the opposing team are. Like how Shidou is going up against Reo and Aryu after moving on "reflex" toward the goal, knowing Sae would work his magic and get him the ball.

The goalie had come out from the goal, and heads the bounced pass away (like Gagamaru), but it isn't enough to get past Ibrahimovic. Or Shidou.

Shidou pulls off an overhead bicycle kick goal bonkers enough to have even Sae show some surprise on his face. Look how far away Shidou is! Is it 30 yards like Ibrahimovic's? Can't say for sure, but it looks damn close. Man, I can't wait to see this match animated!

Sae's face 😂

I'm no football expert—I’m running on Ted Lasso, Blue Lock, and a dream here—but is it possible that Shidou's Big Bang Drive might be an homage to Shidou's favorite player and his famous thirty-yarder? I think so. Or it's entirely coincidental, you decide.

...

Background + Similarities

Here's the man in question, recently and younger.

(Content warning: Ibrahimovic, like Shidou, is sometimes crude and violent, and has sexualized aspects of the game. The explanation below is far milder than what you’ve already read in the manga, just want to mention it.)

(Unless otherwise noted, everything below came from Ibrahimovic's Wikipedia page.)

If you read Ibrahimovic's Wikipedia page, you can see why Shidou is a fan:

One of the best strikers of all time? Three whole decades of playing football, a twenty year international career, still playing into his forties (though not always as striker now)? (We know how football is life for Shidou!) Brash and outspoken? Known for acrobatic goals? Making yellow and red cards fly like paper planes? Makes sense to me.

Notably, Ibrahimovic's been carded for the following:

Cursing—meh, pretty tame.

Literally slapping, elbowing, kicking, punching, and headbutting people—sometimes even his own teammates! Okay, now we’re on to something.

Grabbing his junk to taunt jeerers. Sexualizing things for no damn reason, just like Shidou! 😅 Ibrahimovic’s done this at least twice, I believe. And fairly recently, 2016 and 2019.

...

Perhaps the most interesting connection is Taekwondo. I had assumed Shidou had some degree of experience in Taekwondo after seeing his crazy form / flexibility in Chapter 88 and googling “axe kick." But what do you know? Ibrahimovic attended Taekwondo classes as a child and received an honorary black belt. Several articles either imply (The Athletic) or state (The Sun; Goal) that Ibrahimovic's black belt is not just an honor bestowed for highlighting Taewkondo, but also a real distinction he earned at only 17.

I'm saying: both Ibrahimovic and Shidou have some Taekwondo experience, starting in their youth.

(Ch. 102)

Ibrahimovic says: #Taekboll

See him in action on his Insta:

...

Reading further on his Wikipedia, Ibrahimovic definitely has the Blue Lock ego down. Here are some fun lil quotes:

“‘You bought a Ferrari, but you drive it like a Fiat.’ — Ibrahimović disparages Guardiola on how he was used at Barcelona.”

“He announced his arrival in idiosyncratic style by taking out a signed full-page advertisement in the Los Angeles Times that simply said, ‘Dear Los Angeles, you're welcome.’” (A WHOLE DAMN PAGE IN THE LAT—I can’t 😂)

“Post match, Ibrahimović stated he was ‘happy for Toronto because they'll be remembered as my 500th victim.’” (Such a dick, I love it.)

“‘Swedish style? No. Yugoslavian style? Of course not. It has to be Zlatan-style.’ — Downplaying the influence of his background, Ibrahimović describes his unique playing style.” (Okay, King JJ.)

“One thing is for sure, a World Cup without me is nothing to watch." (I dunno, bro, I enjoyed the last one.... 😂)

Here’s one that highlights another connection to Shidou / freedom in football: “I was sacrificed and no longer had the freedom on the pitch I need to succeed.” He literally said this about playing with LIONEL MESSI. But, ya know, fair point. Shidou and Rin had so much fun sharing the spotlight (and the ball). (Important to note that Ibra has also expressed admiration and respect for Messi.)

“…Ibrahimović announced he was to leave the LA Galaxy through his Twitter account, telling Galaxy fans ‘[Y]ou wanted Zlatan, I gave you Zlatan. You are welcome. The story continues...Now go back to watch baseball.’” (Baseball! The shade! 😂)

The actual tweet with what, I'm assuming, is a fan-edit he 'borrowed':

Not from Wiki: As recently as a 2021 interview, Ibrahimovic stated, "Deep down, I think I'm the best player in the world."

...

Alright, this got more involved than I intended. Going to wrap it up with some brief notes on play style and some fun facts.

Straight from Ibrahimovic's Wikipedia page: “Known for his strong mentality and leadership, as well as his extroverted and highly competitive personality, despite his success, he has been criticised in the media for his arrogance, aggression and rebellious character, as well as his lack of discipline on the pitch, in particular in his early career, which has led him to involved in confrontations with other players, some of his managers and even reporters.” Can definitely see why Shidou might feel some kinship with Ibrahimovic!

Wiki also notes ESPN described Ibrahimovic as "good in the air, quick, tall, strong and agile, he plays well with his back to goal and boasts some of the best finishing, vision, passing and ball control around.” Mr. Demon Wings / "Flying Killing Machine" Shidou is definitely good in the air (Ch 131). Ibrahimovic has Shidou by five inches in height, but Shidou is over six feet and is shown to be acrobatic. Shidou also has incredible game vision. Look at Mr. "My Weapon is 'Extreme Spatial Awareness!!" go (Ch 130)! And he plays well with his back to goal. "As long as I'm inside the penalty area, even with my back to it... I can find the goalmouth without even seeing it!!"

...

Lastly, Ibrahimovic is active and popular on social media—apparently the most followed Swede on Insta with over 55 million followers. He often signs posts with a 🦁. He doesn’t drink alcohol. He had a rough childhood. He's married and has two kids. Ibrahimovic also has a habit of referring to himself in the third person.

Phew. Okay. I got shit to do. You can tell where I got tired. I might revisit this later, especially if I come across anything else relevant to Shidou / Blue Lock. But since you made it this far, I'm begging you to read this article in The Athletic. It is so damn funny and interesting and weird, complete with talkshow appearances and everything—and it really highlights things like his sense of humor and ability to laugh at himself (on his own terms, at least). And makes you wonder just how much of his ego is a facade.

There’s obviously a lot more about Ibrahimovic and his decades long career. Like how he played in Sweden’s U-18 Team, multiple leagues, and World Cups; has scored a “perfect hat-trick,” etc., etc.. But I tried to give a brief overview of what seemed most relevant to Blue Lock and my favorite character.

Hope you found it interesting / helpful, too! Might get around to posting some of the notes I've taken on Shidou and Sae for a fic now that I'm finally free from Tumblr purgatory and can actually be seen in the tags.

Update: As of June 4, 2023, Ibra has officially retired. At age 41, after over 30 years in the sport. AC Milan sent him off in style, and he trended at #1 worldwide on Twitter for hours after the announcement. He's still very active on his socials and seems to be enjoying retirement, playing pickle ball and attending Coldplay concerts!

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melanieph321 · 13 days

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Ruben Dias x Reader - Set Me Free Part 4/15

Part 5 and 6 are already out on my Patreon for Free!

Ruben and Carla have grown apart. With Rubens career taking off he leaves Portugal to live the life of his dreams, breaking Carla's heart doing so. Years later, upon his return home, Ruben learns that Carla has moved on, happily engaged to another man, but not any man, Ruben's childhood bully João Mendes.

Enjoy!

Carla trudged through the cemetery, the weight of her grief heavy on her shoulders. It had been three years since her father's passing, and yet the pain still felt as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. As she reached the grave, she knelt down and gently placed the flowers she had brought on the headstone.

"I miss you, Dad," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I wish you were here."

"We all do, querida."

Carla stood and was immediately wrapped up in her mother's embrace. She couldn't fathom the weight of her mother's grief. Seeing her tears almost made Carla regret her decision to meet with Ruben behind her back. However, it had to be done. She had to break their promise.

"Should I pick you up later?" Maria asked, who was kind enough to drive Carla to the gymnasium where she agreed to meet Ruben.

"No." Carla sniffled, wiping away the last of her tears. "And don't wait up for me either."

"But..."

"I'm serious Maria. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."

"Fine."

Carla leaned forward to hug her cousin. "Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah. Just don't do anything you'll regret."

Carla stepped out of the car, Maria's words haunting her as she made way towards the stadium around back. The gymnasium was the local sports center for kids. Carla used to come there to play tennis. She wasn't any good but continued to show interest in the sport well into her teenage years. It was mostly due to the fact that Ruben would accompany her there every week. He had football training in the stadium located behind the gymnasium. At first Ruben was shy to let Carla watch him play, but after sometime, as their friendship grew, as well as their feelings for each other, it became their thing, hanging around the stadium after training. They'd talk for hours about everything and anything. Those were some of Carla's most cherished memories from her childhood. Funny how Ruben was included in the majority of them.

"Carla?"

She arrived to the stadium assuming that she was early. However, as she walked through the gates she noticed a figure puttering around on the football pitch.

"Ruben?"

He made his way towards her. Carla gasped as she had yet collected herself from her visit to the cemetery.

"Carla, you came." Ruben marched with big steps. He crossed the field within seconds and before she could flee he was standing in front of her, happy to see her.

"Ruben I..." She wasn't prepared for the wave of emotions that hit. The close up sight of him, even the smell of him, made Carla lose her trail of thought. "I shouldn't have come." She whispered and made the motion to return to the gates. Ruben's hand caught her wrist however, making her spin back around and face his furrowed expression. "Carla, what's wrong?" His dark eyes searched her face, perhaps noticing her stained eyes and runny nose.

"Nothing I..." Ruben wasn't supposed to see her like this. He was supposed to see how well she was doing without him. How happy she was to have moved on. Carla had to redeem herself. Fast.

"Why are you crying?" Ruben was pulling her towards him. Carla was too numb by his touch to fight. He was reaching for her face, his fingertips bracing her skin.

"Ruben?" she gasped. But he ignored her, his palm cupping the side of her face, his eyes inspecting the outlines of her head, hoping to find a wound, something, to explain why she was already so upset.

"Ruben I'm not...."

He stopped to look at her.

"I'm not hurt." She nodded. "I'm just....my family just...."

"Yes?"

"We were just at the cemetery."

"Oh."

Ruben's shoulders withered, however his hand remained on her cheek.

"Yeah."

The openness of the stadium enclosed around them and so did the darkness of the night. If only the clouds would scatter to reveal the hidden stars in the sky.

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Carla." Ruben's hand left her cheek and suddenly reality hit. "I know how much your father meant to you."

Carla was taken aback by his kind words. But it also made her remember why she was there in the first place. "He's been gone a long time, Ruben. "

"Three years, no?"

"Exactly, a long time."

Three years was also how long it was since Carla last saw Ruben. After their last rendezvous on Christmas eve he left the country and made it clear that Carla was nothing but a bump in the road to him, a taste of home which Ruben felt that he needed at the time.

"How have you been?" He asked, hands shoved into his pockets.

Carla shrugged. "I've been alright. How have you been?"

Ruben mimicked the shrug of her shoulders, a sly grin on his lips. "I've been alright."

Carla realized that she wasn't in any type of mood to be playful with Ruben, turning the charm bracelet on her wrist. She was prepared to get straight to her point in meeting him. However, Ruben ruined everything by talking.

"Look, I know I haven't exactly been there for you during this time."

"You didn't have to Ruben, we weren't together."

"Yeah, I know that. But you are still my friend Carla, I still care about you and your family."

"Do you?" She said, not Carla's intention to snap at him. Ruben stepped back, a skeptical expression on his face. "Like I said Ruben, three years is a long time. I would never let a friend wonder why I haven't been in touch with them for so long."

"Here we go again." Ruben scratched the bridge of his nose, sensing the start of a fight. "Haven't we been over this Carla? It's not like I didn't want to see you for the past three years, but after Christmas Eve your family made it very clear that you wanted nothing to do with me."

It was true. Christmas Eve three years ago was the start of Carla's one year depression. Since Ruben was the blame for it her family did everything in their power to keep him away from her, mainly lying about Carla's whereabouts whenever Ruben's family would ask of her. Carla felt bad. She loved Ruben's family, but it was all for the best to cut ties with them too, at least in order for her to truly heal.

"They are right Ruben, I want nothing to do with you." Carla said, hoping that Ruben didn't noticed the strain in her voice.

"Then why are you here?" He said, looking truly defeated.

Carla removed the ring from her bracelet and held it out in the palm of her hand. "To give you this." She said, failing to meet Ruben's eyes, although she imagined that they were looking down at the palm of her hand, at the ring.

He stepped forward, hands out of his pockets. Carla flinched at the touch of him, of Ruben, closing the palm of her hand with his own. The ring was left buried beneath.

"What are you doing, take it." She said, looking up at him. His expression was hard to read but he was far from angry with her. "I gave it to you, it's yours." He said.

"Well, I don't want it anymore."

Ruben's lips parted with her words, a silent gasp leaving his mouth.

Carla almost wanted to take back what she said, the expression on his face striking her heart.

"So it's true then?" He said.

"What is?"

They were still holding hands, Ruben's enclosed over Carla's. If he would just take back the stupid thing and set her free, she thought.

"You're marrying João Mendes."

Carla's eyes widened. "Who.. ?"

"Your mother was happy to tell me when we stopped by her salon the other day."

"Right. Ruben, it's not...."

"It's okay, Carla. I'm not angry."

She frowned. He should be. Ruben had every right to be angry with her for being promised to another man, breaking theirs in the process. How come he wasn't, Carla frowned.

"I'm not taking back the ring." Ruben said, letting go of her hand.

"But..." Carla stomped her feet. Very childish indeed. "You can't do this to me."

Ruben stepped back, but kept his eyes on her. "I'm winning you back, Carla, whether you like it or not."

"What?" She couldn't believe her ears. "Ruben?"

He hesitated, but allowed himself to step up to her again, this time with less distance between them. "I'm not letting you break our promise Carla, do you hear me?" He put a finger to her chest, just above where her heart would be. A touch that made Carla's knees buckle. "I'm winning you back. Whether you like it or not."

Part 5 and 6 are already out on my Patreon for Free!

#fanfiction #football imagine #ruben dias #man city #manchester city #footballer x reader #footballer imagine #football angst #ruben dias x reader #ruben dias imagine

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seventeenlovesthree · 2 months

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so, apparently there's plenty of death symbolism/metaphors surrounding, are you interested in elaborating that? including "indirect" death like spiritual death, character assassination or death of identity, somethjng along those lines?

- death symbolism surrounding Taichi, sorry, somehow I pressed ask , sorry for my blunder

It's fine, no worries, I already assumed that it was referring to Taichi! If you think about it, several characters in Digimon Adventure have been dealing with the subject of "death" one way or another, most in direct association with someone (human or Digimon) close to them.

Now, if we look at our favourite main character, riddled with traumatic childhood experiences and questionable coping mechanisms, there is a bunch of instances where he had to deal with the potential of death happening in front of him or CAUSING death himself - either to others or himself -, so it should not be surprising that, at some point, he may have dissociated himself (mostly subconsciously, I'd say) from being a Chosen Child. Whiiiich may or may not have led to Kizuna's events, but yeah, it's count the instances first, shall we. TW: death, mental health.

The whole Hikarigaoka incident: While Hikari was scared too, she was still much younger than him and couldn't grasp the implications of what was happening there, while Taichi did EVERYTHING in his power to protect her and himself from not getting crushed by the two Kaijus in front of them.

Him almost causing Hikari to die due to his (still existing) sense of childlike innocence: Yes, she was sick, but he thought she was already on the way to recovery and only took her to play football to cheer her up. That's where he first had to face that good intentions don't always lead to positive outcomes...

The SkullGreymon fiasco: Again, he intended to do good for the sake of the group, but overlooked the bigger picture and became reckless, thus causing his partner to evolve into a literal symbol of death and decay in the process. Something that may have happened to the ENTIRE group if the Digimon hadn't run out of energy...

The electrical fence and its aftermath: This one has several follow-up points, but I still think it's suitable to summarize them all here - first of all, there is him being confronted with the idea of actually dying by getting electrocuted after he was 100% convinced that nothing they did mattered, since they were "just data in a computer". Once again, he was being reckless and careless - not only did it lead to almost killing himself, but in extension, also dooming Sora, whom he failed to save. Overcoming his cowardice, finding his own sense of courage eventually led to victory - but also led to him disappearing and roughly 50% of the remaining group ended up thinking that he had actually died in the process. Meanwhile, he was back in the real world and had to choose between saving only himself, or everyone else as well... And we all know how the answer to this turned out to be.

Him almost causing Hikari to die AGAIN: Of course there have been several instances of death before and after they re-entered the Digital World again, leading to the eventual "fallout" between Taichi and Yamato in regards to how they should deal with the immediate danger at hand... But the most devastating instance here was Taichi reliving his early childhood trauma, fearing that, by taking Hikari with them, he made the same mistakes again, acting thoughtlessly, not considering the circumstances... He has been acting self-sacrificial for the sake of the group before, but it's this arc that shows that he is actually ready to die if he can at least manage to save everyone else in the process (hence why he ended up fighting with Koushirou as well, because Taichi forbade him from taking on any pain himself and Koushirou was having none of it).

Let's not forget that, during the events of Our War Game - and all the follow-up movies, especially Diablomon Strikes Back -, he was also under immense pressure: To save the entirety of Tokyo from getting blown up by a missile and every other side-effect that Diablomon may have caused in traffic or elsewhere... And once again, his own hotheadedness may almost have caused his partner to get killed, to the sense of guilt plays a huge role in here as well...

02 portrays Taichi as matured, it showed that, while he still occasionally needs to get reminded of it, he KNEW that he has to make uncomfortable decisions sometimes; of course he almost despaired when his partner was being captured and corrupted, but he also realized that he may have had to sacrifice him for the greater good; he needed to remind Hikari that the new kids never had to deal with the same kind of death exposure before, but warned her - with quite a grim, but serious expression - that they would have to face it eventually. He grew aware of their duty throughout all this time, through all these experiences, and it's not pretty, but at this point, he was still ready to act.

Tri picks that point of the story back up again by mirroring Meiko's fate with his own - at least to some degree. Once more, they had to face the possibility of having to kill a beloved partner Digimon and at this point, Taichi was questioning whether or not recklessly sacrificing infrastructure and lives for the sake of fighting was the "right way" to deal with everything. It may have felt a bit like recycled conflict at this point, but it's been several years by now, and Taichi is, overall, contemplating his life choices, contemplating his diplomatic future, the status quo AND his "duty" as Chosen Child.

It's through the course of Tri that he: Watched parts of the city get destroyed ONCE AGAIN, almost died through the course of several fights and an earthquake-like blow, had to witness his teacher - whom he greatly looked up to - sacrifice himself, covered in wounds and blood, to save him AND their missing friends... And all that after Daigo told him that they lied to protect them and that he should move on and create a better future... Thus, Taichi decided to go for the kill again. Again, he didn't like it, again, he got reminded by Hikari of all people how terrible it all is, but he knew that he had to.

Kizuna chose a similar premise to Meiko's once again - first of all, if we look at everything above, is it really a wonder that Taichi probably developed some fatigue? We all know, see, can tell how much he loves Agumon - hence why he did end up horrified by the prospect of losing him. And as I pointed out before, he did use the fighting for the sake of having a purpose, because... Who else was he if he couldn't "lead" anyone anymore?

And since the rest of his young adult life was pretty directionless... Can you really blame him for it? The amount of nightmares, the tiredness, the PTSD the previous experiences may have caused in him could never be treated by a "normal" therapist - who could ever relate to all of these things that sound incredibly supernatural and like nothing an adolescent should have shouldered all by himself? Heck, he isn't even able to talk to his friends about it at all (even if stageplay!Agumon told him to!), just swallowing it all by himself, dealing with the thought spiraling in his head on his own.

Hearing Menoa tell him that she lost her partner, making it all sound like a huge punishment for making the wrong choices... It may have rang several alarm bells in Taichi. How often must he have dreaded making the wrong choices? How much guilt must he have felt for the sake of Hikari, Meiko, Daigo, everyone he temporarily let down by hesitating or acting out in the wrong moment, let it be Yamato, Sora, Koushirou, Daisuke... Now there's this young woman who asked him to figure out a way to fix a problem she couldn't herself, a problem that may separate him from his soulmate forever and for what? Because he grew unsure of himself, because he faltered, because looking at all his friends, who found their paths, had become painful and tiring. Because, even after coming to temporary answers, he didn't know who he was and who he wanted to be anymore.

He had to choose to fight so many times, he sacrificed himself as much as he could. Then there was the prospect of fighting Menoa with two possible outcomes: losing would lead to his own death (or "loss of self" since he would have his consciousness be trapped forever in a neverending dream of his childhood), winning would lead to the death of his partner anyway... It must have been dreadful.

When it comes to the different kinds of "deaths" you mentioned, I will try to summarize this quite shortly, even though they're definitely interesting angles.

I believe that a "death of identity" is basically what I have outlined above - while it mainly focused on Taichi's (decline of) mental health, which may also have resulted in a tendency to isolate himself, Taichi's journey is basically some kind of Lion King analogy, where he starts as your typical head-through-wall protagonist, but has to deal with the aftermath of cowardice and the consequences of his choices - and does so by running away from the pain FIRST. From himself and his responsibilities. He also could have chosen to let Menoa win and let his consciousness be turned back into that of a carefree child... But he chose not to let that happen.

Because deep down inside, there IS his path. There are his values, his persistence, his belief system. He's been on the brink of a breakdown, but it's all there. Hence why I really, really, REALLY want to WATCH him getting to his "Simba strikes back" phase at some point, since we only ever saw it implied by the end of each, Tri, the stageplay and Kizuna. We KNOW he will push back, but we have yet to see in what way, if he ever got therapy and how he's actually doing - mentally, physically, spiritually.

Speaking of which, "spiritual death" is a bit harder for me to grasp in his context, but considering how his sense of guilt and fear of cowardice have led him to (temporarily) turn away more and more from his true self, his natural sense of courage and more positive, outgoing attitude... It all leads me back to him having lost his sense of self. I will never forget the feeling of how my stomach dropped during the "depressed adult" scenes in Kizuna. Again, I want to give this movie props for depicting adulthood like that, but it really hurt and felt way too relatable.

And I guess in this sense, we can also talk about "character assassination", because... As you may have noticed, I have linked quite a few analysis posts in this answer, because I have been trying to analyze and understand Taichi for MONTHS now. And sometimes, I feel like I may be trying too hard - who knows me also knows that, while Taichi is one of my favourite characters, I also have my fair share of problems with the AMOUNT of Taichi suffer p*rn in the OG timeline (and I still maintain they only made Taichi as generic as he was in the reboot to avoid these allegations). Some may argue that it's all over the top and that they keep recycling the same conflict (for him and in general) over and over again for the sake of even HAVING a plot to revolve around (which also wouldn't contradict the epilogue too much and actually leading towards it eventually).

For me, it has been interesting to look at all of this in context, as heartbreaking as it is sometimes. Mental health is a serious issue and watching a character like Taichi experiencing at least some form of implied depression after everything he went through tells you that everyone can get affected by this. Even if your experiences won't involve several instances of near-death-situations, even if you are resilient and have a lot of social, mental and physical resources to deal with set-backs or intense, difficult situations... It may still happen. And it's important to show that there are ways to deal with it as well as you can. That there is hope, even if things are not 100% alright.

#taichi yagami #my two cents #meta #tai kamiya #digimon #digimon adventure #long post

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thenhlteaissuperhot · 10 months

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Karel Vejmelka interview - "Coming out is still taboo in ice hockey."

Three weeks ago, Karel Vejmelka - the number one goalie of the Arizona Coyotes - did an interview in Czech and I thought that some of the stuff he said there was interesting or funny enough to deserve to be translated and put out on here:

How popular is ice hockey in Arizona? Is it the sport number one there?

Oh, absolutely not. Not many people come to the games, it's like the fifth or sixth most popular sport there. The first is of course baseball, American football, basketball... No one really wants to come to an ice rink. Unfortunately, hockey hasn't found its place there. People have a different mentality. ...In every sport in the US, you see fans who are binge-eating hotdogs, fries and not really watching the game. Sports are a show for them, people go there to have fun not to watch the sport itself. It is actually funny to watch them sometimes when I am not just playing, look into the stands and see what they are doing there, you know, pizza falling under their legs and so on. After the game it is always an absolute mess in the stands.

What about some entry rituals when you come there (to Arizona) as the new guy, do you have to do something, some task or challenge?

We had karaoke there, you had to pick a song to sing and it was funny because we were just going from the teambuilding in a coach and I had to go to the front of it where the microphone was and sing a song. I chose Sweet Caroline and said to myself that it is the smallest evil. But the boys helped me, they sang along, though I still had to suffer through it.

Do you pay some fines, for late arrivals, first zero in the net?

Yes, we do. We have a price list for the different fines. I paid 1000 dollars for the first zero, that was the biggest so far. I told them back then that they should be the one paying me for catching all the shots. It accumulates over time for the big end-of-the-season dinner.

You have been in the net several times when the team played against Connor McDavid (Edmonton), is he for you as a goalie something unique?

He is unique in a way that you can't guess what he's gonna do. In the case of some other players, I more or less assume where are they going to shoot or skate, but in Connor's case, you can't guess anything because he is so fast and has such skilled hands that he always does something different. He is on a completely different level than everyone else.

Can you smoke as players, do chewing tobacco, that's popular among the players, no?

You shouldn't be smoking. Tobacco is like a substitute for that, personally, I don't do it, but most of the other guys do. We have a lot of doping tests throughout the season, this year we had one already during pre-season. In the beginning, we go together as a team and during the season, they can randomly choose like ten guys. I have been chosen like that as well quite a few times actually.

I am not sure whether you have noticed it, but a few months back a lot of people were discussing the coming out of the soccer player Jakub Jankto, it was a huge thing cause no other player on the national team has ever done so. I have never noticed this happening in hockey, is it still taboo to announce that you are a homosexual because it is this sort of masculine sport?

I think so. Not everyone can realize and admit it even within themselves, let alone publically announce it like this. He (Jakub Jankto) is amazing that he had done so, I believe it must have helped him a ton. I personally have a positive attitude towards this, why shouldn't one come out, why should they hide when sooner or later it (the truth) will surface anyway? ... However, there are those "funny remarks" when someone is for example shaving their legs, we do joke about that in the locker room.

#nhl #nhl players #nhl gossip #karel vejmelka #arizona coyotes

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forevertrueblue · 1 year

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My Ideal Nightmare Time 3

Even though I know some people are getting burnt out on Hatchetfield (and I am hoping the next stage musical besides VHSCC is something else) I'm still looking forward to Workin' Boys, the finale of the whole thing (I hope they actually do it at some point), and hopefully a third season of Nightmare Time.

There are definitely some characters I'd like to see further explored in the Hatchetfield multiverse, so here's what my ideal Nightmare Time Season 3 would look like. I'd love to hear what others think about all of this as well as what they've been hoping for.

Minor spoilers for Nerdy Prudes Must Die will be discussed, but not until close to the end and I will provide a clear warning when they're about to come up.

I'm assuming this hypothetical third season once again has six stories, just like the previous two, so with that being said...

Becky Barnes Finally Climbs the Damn Tree: Look, they've been teasing us for years about this particular story. We know they have a song ready for it. And while it could end up just being a thing that's referred to but context is never given, I think this is the most likely story to end up in Nightmare Time, and it's the one the fandom seems to want the most as well.

A Story at the HFPD: The two most surprising omissions from the list of characters who have gotten a Nightmare Time story about them are Charlotte and Sam, and really, we haven't seen much of their relationship in general. I think it'd be interesting to explore that while doing a story involving one of their workplaces, and since CCRP has been featured in multiple Hatchetfield projects already, I'd love to see the inner workings of the HFPD. It'd be especially fun since we now have characters like Detective Shapiro added to the canon, and I can see her butting heads with Sam.

A Deeper Dive Into PIEP: Something else I'm surprised we haven't seen much of in Nightmare Time so far is PIEP. MacNamara seems to be a fan-favorite character so I'm sure we'd all love to see more of his life, like his husband and characters like Xander Lee (who also appears to be a favorite of many for some reason?). I could see this being the season finale, since the Black and White seems to be the be all, end all, of Hatchetfield's troubles.

Deb Has Her Own Drama: So far, all we've seen of and heard about Deb has centered on Alice and been tinged largely by her perspective. I'd like to learn more about Deb firsthand. That's not me saying Alice can't also be in the story (in fact, I'd really enjoy that) but I know in at least one timeline it seems they broke up so I could see StarKid exploring a post-split Deb and what she does with her life next. I'd also love to see Ziggs come back for this story since we know they have some sort of relationship as well. THERE WILL BE MINOR SPOILERS FOR NPMD FROM HERE ON OUT

Ritchie and Ruth (and Possibly Max/other Football Players?): Several of the main NPMD characters have already made their Nightmare Time debuts, and I think if another season were to happen it'd be likely for the others to get theirs. Not sure what the story would be, but it'd be interesting to see a scenario kind of like we started to see near the end of NPMD's first act, with something happening to make the two sides (nerds and jocks) get along. It would probably be whatever the horror scenario is making them reluctantly work together and then find respect for each other by the end (at least, whoever survives the ordeal).

Fuck It, Holloway and Duke Again: In my mind, it wouldn't be a Nightmare Time season without these two coming to save the day in some form or another. Maybe it could be after Holloway changed to Holiday and she has to deal with reinventing herself (likely not for the first time), but probably in a different timeline than Season 2's. Yeah they've already had two episodes as leads/major supporting players, but they still haven't appeared onstage (even though most of us thought they would in NPMD) so this can maybe make up for that disappointment. :)

#starkid #hatchetfield #nightmare time #nightmare time 3 #team starkid

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 10 months

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This starts out as a post about one specific Daniel Kitson article, then it goes into a John Oliver article, then it just becomes a post about the crossover between Daniel Kitson and John Oliver. Click the link if you want to read that.

Every once in a while, I’ll come across something on the internet that is so relevant to my interests, it leaves me shocked that I have managed to miss it in my previous scourings of the internet for things that are relevant to my interests. For example: this article, from The Times, London (archived version here).

Sometimes I think I’ve already found all the articles about Daniel Kitson that are on the internet – finding this for the first time today confirms that I hadn’t even found all the articles by Daniel Kitson. Which is a rare thing to find, but not completely impossible, there are a few others. Hadn’t seen this one before, though.

It's from July 2003, and it's Daniel Kitson's "survival guide" to the Edinburgh Festival. At least, it's supposed to be. I assume what happened is The Times asked Daniel Kitson to write a survival guide to the Edinburgh Festival, and because he had not yet become quite as determined as he is today to never let anyone find out he exists, he said yes.

I'm going to go through it a bit at a time, starting from this first paragraph:

HISTORICALLY, survival guides are bastions for lazy thinking, shoddy writing and bad comedy. Articles about Edinburgh in particular abound with advice revolving largely around deep-fried foodstuffs, the hills, the penny black and everything else that is pretty much utterly irrelevant. I obviously consider myself way above such tawdry concerns of the hack and therefore will clumsily attempt to do a little more than telling you to avoid street theatre, of which I enjoy a certain proportion, and criticising students handing out flyers, which I think is a reasonable and vital part of the process of selling a show.

I quoted that one just because I like that last sentence. I haven't been to Edinburgh before, but I have been to a lot of folk festivals, and I've been handed a lot of flyers. So I know it can get annoying, but I don't think it's quite annoying enough to warrant how much people make fun of it, especially given that most people handing out flyers are just struggling artists trying to sell their show. I try to be understanding about anyone trying to sell their show, we wouldn't have an arts industry at all if people couldn't do that. I don't complain when people plug something on a podcast, for example. Hypocritically, I do tend to assume that anyone who has ever unironically said the words "like and subscribe" has never said anything of value in their entire life. But flyers are fine. If someone hands you a flyer, even if you've already had a lot and it's annoying, just be respectful and try to be out of their sight before you conscientiously put it in a recycling bin.

So, before I go father in this post, I should say that possibly one of ways in which I have most taken fandom too far is the folder on my computer called “Kitson and Oliver”. It started last year sometime, when I was first getting into Daniel Kitson, and told @lastweeksshirttonight that I’d keep track of every time Kitson mentioned John Oliver in one of his radio shows, so I could share the bits that are relevant to their interests. It snowballed from there, and now I have quite a comprehensive collection of every time I’ve ever seen or heard or read those two telling stories about each other, or rare instances of them being recorded actually doing things together. So of course, I hoped this article would give me more things to add to that collection. And it delivered by the second paragraph:

My perennial Edinburgh flatmate, John Oliver, and I have a plan to get us through this year’s festival unscathed. In previous years our main mode of escape has been PlayStation football. Controlling tiny sporting men into the early hours is the finest way to end any day. Particularly a day that has been dominated by reading reviews, avoiding people, sitting on the lavatory and performing. It becomes tricky only when the tiny sporting men cease to do your bidding and light begins to spill through the curtains, sparking a frantic rush to get into bed before the impending dawn can go full blown. In both 2001 and 2002 computer football was augmented with supporting struts of insular pleasure. Two years ago when I was in the throes of my first solo Edinburgh show and John was enjoying the relatively stress and inspiration-free environment of a package show, we found comfort in lists. In sticking big sheets of paper and back-to-front posters on the walls of our lurid sitting room — as much to hide the shocking pink that lay beneath as to form a canvas. However, once the paper was fixed in place we wrote lists. The lists could be anything: “People we hate”, “Comedians who are s***”, “People who need to shut up”. There was not a massive amount of generosity of spirit emanating from these tallies. It really helped us, though. Not much is more comforting than getting in after a particularly pointless exercise in crowd control, picking up a felt tip and writing “the audience” under the heading “People who need to shut up”, making your way to the PlayStation, switching it on, picking up a controller and settling in. Last year John and I were both performing solo shows. John had left the nursery pool of the Comedy Zone and was finding the wide open waters of solo performing a little choppy. I, of course, had a bigger boat than John, a boat I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in and a boat whose course I seemed unable to control. The point being that we were s****ing a lot. An awful lot. Once more the PlayStation was unpacked and controllers passed out. Once more the tiny sprinting footballers calmed us. Last year, however, rather than writing lists, we made juice. Watermelon, pineapple, apple, orange, strawberry, any combination you can think of. Getting home after a performance that has made you forget why you ever thought your show was remotely watchable is made so much easier when waiting in the fridge is watermelon and strawberry juice less than three hours old. After pouring a glass and picking up a controller you feel that you may actually be the future of comedy once more.

I would pay too much money for a picture of some of those lists. Though I think I do, actually, have some idea of what might have been on them. If I may take a detour at this point, John Oliver wrote his own article just a few weeks later (archived version here). That's almost a companion to this article, just because they were written so close together, both about their experience of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, circa 2003. Though John Oliver's article focuses a bit more on the comedy than on the video games and strawberry juice.

I'm going to quote a few parts of John Oliver's article, that seem relevant because they discuss overlapping experiences, and/or tell us some things that were presumably on John Oliver's lists called "People who need to shut up":

AS I WRITE THIS, by a sick twist of fate, Jim Davidson is performing standup on BBC One, and the thing that is making me want to throw myself out of the window is that this will be some people’s only experience of stand-up. He’s telling a joke in which an Australian man hits a woman. The audience is laughing. Now he’s saying something casually racist. They’re still laughing. Make it stop, please. Think of the children. I’m at the Edinburgh Festival, sitting in my flat overlooking a building site and some teenagers setting fire to a bicycle. Feel the spirit of the Fringe.

...

The interesting thing this year is not just that lots of “political comedians” are here, but that other comedians are commenting on politics far more. The main reason is the war, and the fact that in times of such party-political apathy, millions have hit the streets in marches ranging from stopping war on people to continuing war on foxes — all over two weekends. And the rise of political comment in stand-up has to be a good thing, right? Well, that depends on how it is being done, and whether it contains the question “Have we got any Americans in?” That perennial comedic question used to trigger off lazy comedy: “Anyone notice how fat Americans are?” “How about their lack of irony?” If you like this kind of thing, that’s fine — except that it isn’t, and you’re an idiot.

...

My favourite political comedy comes from a more whimsical background. Armando Iannucci (The Day Today, Saturday Night Armistice) has always done ridiculous satire better than anyone; The Onion website regularly manages aggressive political comedy dressed up as nonsense (their post-September 11 edition was outstanding), and Andy Zaltzman has developed a great political stand-up that is both true and stupid. There does also seem to be a growth in comedy that is broadly about social politics. Daniel Kitson’s show last year had a lot to say about how awful the world is becoming. David O’Doherty regularly produces outstanding shows with jokes from the heart. His stories appeal to how we live our life and how we view the world. The Dinks this year in Edinburgh are a three-man team of articulate clowns who weave together an elaborate political metaphor while jumping around in weird costumes.

...

But people are attempting to move away from the kind of comedy that changes the words to pop songs to insinuate that Ann Widdecombe is a bit ugly. Attacking the cosmetics is pointless. It’s distracting and it’s lazy. George Bush says stupid things, but the entire system behind him is raping the world. And Jim Davidson is still on my TV. Go and see Rob Newman, Andy Zaltzman, David O’Docherty, The Dinks, and, if you’ve still got time, me. We’ll kick our truth for you people, while trying not to.

John Oliver in 2003, everyone. Telling you exactly what he does and does not like. Also spelling David O'Doherty's name wrong, spelling it the way British people pronounce it, which is not the correct way to spell it or pronounce it. But it's cool that he gave him that respect of going on a list of comedians who have something substantial to say, even if most of his material isn't overtly political. He's done some overtly political stuff in the last ten years or so, but I don't think he had any by 2003. (I've just realized, @lastweeksshirttonight, I'm not sure I've ever sent you that second article before, you should definitely read it, and so should all the other people on the John Oliver side of Tumblr, the whole thing's very interesting).

Okay, back to the Kitson article, that doesn't spend as much time naming the things he hates, but does tell us about writing it on walls with John Oliver.

Sport in general is important to our experience of Edinburgh. Aerobie (flying rings), mini-golf and always, like a calming hand on your shoulder, football. Kick-about matches on the meadows are often hastily convened on days when there is slightly more blue than cloud. People surprise you in these makeshift games, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Generally people are pleasantly surprised by my quick feet and are often let down by John failing to deliver on his flashes of early promise. David O’Doherty, a man with a head seemingly too large for his body, is a phenomenal player, while Danny Bhoy, with a normally proportioned head to torso ratio, has a game that seemingly consists only of pace and ineffective touches of flair. Russell Howard, a great new comedian, is the most naturally gifted footballer I’ve seen but has a propensity to be distracted by food, while Andy Zaltzman remains stoic and determinedly old-fashioned as a defender.

Love this, thank you, Daniel. As I've said before, my favourite type of celebrity gossip in the whole world is gossip about which comedians are best at playing football. So thank you for the scouting report.

Nish Kumar once said that he thinks you can connect everyone's comedy to the way they play football, like how his football playing is inconsistent and he's often on the left wing. Does that apply here? David O'Doherty does have an entire song about having legs that are too short for his body. Danny Bhoy... look, he seems like a nice guy and I think the comedy he does is good for people who like that sort of thing and I don't want to be a dick about this, but I did watch three of his DVDs, and "a game that seemingly consists only of pace and ineffective touches of flair" is not a bad description of that those DVDs were like. Naturally gifted but plagued by the tragic flaw of being too easily distracted is a strong description of Russell Howard's comedic career. And "stoic and determinedly old fashioned" very much describes the style of Andy Zaltzman's obscure and resolutely wordplay-based comedy, if not its content.

While I'm at this, a picture of their lineup that I'm almost sure is from the 2003 Melbourne Comedy Festival, so just a few months before those articles. Look at my favourite type of celebrity gossip:

Actually, now that I look at it, this only features three people who were mentioned in Kitson's article: Danny Bhoy, David O'Doherty, and Kitson himself. Also featuring Dave Gorman, Dan Antopolski, Glenn Wool, Jason Byrne, Adam Hills, Charlie Pickering, and Noel Fielding. A picture that's just always worth throwing in, while I'm documenting 2003.

For the past two years John and I have employed a policy of avoidance (people, parties, agents) and indulgence (computer football, real football, waffles) and it has served us well. This year, however, we are ready for Edinburgh. Not ready in the sense of having a finished show. Not ready in the sense of psychologically prepared for the brief and utterly disproportionate amount of media coverage. But ready in the sense of having tracked down and bought every film we can think of that contains slow-motion sporting triumph over adversity, ideally backed by some manner of stirring music. Edinburgh cannot hurt us now. Negative reviews cannot upset us. Low audience numbers will cause us no concern. Walk-outs will be welcomed. All because the boys in Escape to Victory put up with more than we can ever imagine. It began last year with the stirring Remember the Titans (a film of such perfection that John momentarily forgot about his impending financial loss) and is continued this year with the futile courage of Tin Cup, the once-hip jive talk of White Men Can’t Jump, the documentaries When We Were Kings and Hoop Dreams, both ready to lift us from the depths to the very pinnacle of human courage. Field of Dreams, Chariots of Fire, Rocky, they are all coming to our aid. Like half-forgotten friends returning in the final reel to save the heroes from insurmountable odds. You play sporting footage in slow motion, put music behind it that makes you shiver, and you have a film I will pay money to own.

I love this bit of that article, because it's the first time I've actually seen Daniel Kitson acknowledge a connection I had previously made, that he and John Oliver both talk about how much they love dramatic sports moments set to dramatic music. My Kitson + Oliver folder actually contains a compilation I made a while ago, of Daniel Kitson and John Oliver, in separate stand-up shows, talking about the same phenomenon:

I figured this must mean they'd first come up with this interest together, but I really enjoy seeing Kitson actually tell us the origin of it. That's one of the first things that hugely endeared Daniel Kitson to me, by the way. Fucking right, dramatic sporting moments set to dramatic music are the most emotionally effective things in the world. I love that shit, I've pretty much dedicated my entire life to them.

I've now quoted literally the entire Kitson article besides the last paragraph (though not the entire Oliver article, people should go read that one), so I may as well throw in the ending:

This then is the plan: a juicer, a PlayStation, a football, waffles and paninis, little men doing as they are told, a glass full of juice and a scene of sporting courage ready in the DVD player. Come to me now, Edinburgh, and bring your slings and arrows, your potshots, your misguided ambition and your insularity. Bring it all and do your worst for I am prepared. I am ready.

That is a man who was fucking ready for the raging battle he was going to do with a large plastic cow almost exactly one month later. Going in with that attitude, it's no wonder they did so well.

...You knew that was where this post was going, right? I can't write a post about Daniel Kitson and John Oliver at Edinburgh in 2003 without going back to that stupid fucking cow video.

I find the crossover between Daniel Kitson and John Oliver fascinating (hence the folder). They do such different types of comedy (broadly, Oliver being extremely political and Kitson being extremely personal), but with so many fundamental similarities. Big things, like a similar worldview, full of frustration at individuals and reveling in petty complaints and emphasis on the importance of compassion and obsession with acknowledging everything that happens everywhere and separation between vulgarity and meanness. And smaller, more specific things, like they’ve both got rants against the Santa Claus Day parade and in favour of dramatic music over dramatic sporting events, they’ve both got material about how much they love swearing and about how much they hate people who swear in front of children.

And they both fit into this middle space between nerd and jock that I really like, though that one’s less specific to them and seems to be a defining feature of (almost) the entire Chocolate Milk Gang, which may be one little part of why I like the entire Chocolate Milk Gang so much. I’ve heard Kitson, Oliver, and Zaltzman and O’Doherty all do bits, separately from each other and in different years, about how they were more interested in being professional athletes than professional comedians. Gavin Osborn’s got a whole song about it. Apparently, what I look for in a favourite comedian (or comedy adjacent musician) is it’s nice if they have at least some familiarity with the middle of the Venn diagram between massive nerd and person obsessed with sports.

Most of the stuff in my Kitson + Oliver folder are clips of them talking about each other, because they’ve very rarely actually recorded stuff together. They’ve repeatedly described each other as best friends, but never actually worked with each other, which makes sense as what they did was so different. As far as I can see, there are only a few instances of them being recorded together.

One is when Daniel Kitson featured, playing the role of God (a little on the nose, arguably), in the Zaltzman and Oliver sketch at their reunion gig in Edinburgh 2011:

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Then there's this shit from Daniel Kitson's radio show Trifle, in August 2020:

That clip absolutely killed me when I first heard it. It came from right near the end of the run, so Kitson was already very much in my head. I'd read the spoilers before I'd even started listening to that radio show, so I knew it would turn out to not be real, and still, as I got to the end, I got more and more confused and tried to find answers to more and more questions. "Wait... what the fuck did you... were you ever anywhere? Were you even outside that other time? Was that bird sound real or was that a special effect? Was every moment of it scripted? Have you ever even owned a camper van? Is Tim Key a real person?"

So I'm already totally drawn into that mystery, at the same time Daniel Kitson is hitting some emotional resonance buttons pretty fucking hard, maybe not quite as hard as dramatic sporting moments set to dramatic music, but pretty close. You know, some stuff about things lost during the pandemic, and then things lost during your whole life, things that used to matter to you and are gone now, things you lose track of and are never quite the same even if they come back, and then he hits you with that John Oliver clip, which I believe had me actually saying "Go fuck yourself, Kitson," to my phone. By which I meant absolutely nobody should be allowed to hit you this hard with a supposedly unscripted radio show about nothing. "The thing you miss is the future you once had." Fuck you.

And that bit was scripted, meaning he specifically wrote a script where all his friends call him to say they’re worried about him and want him to come home and stop being stupid, except John Oliver, who calls to say he fully supports his harebrained scheme and thinks he should keep having this spontaneous adventure. And it’s not like Kitson regularly brings in John Oliver on things like this, he specifically brought in John Oliver on that one thing where he needed one character to be the voice of “Just go have an adventure, don’t worry about responsibilities and consequences”. And then you think about how much of Daniel Kitson’s early material was about love for adventure and spontaneously doing things in the middle of the night, and how much of his later comedy is about being sad that life loses adventure as you get old and your friends move away and have families.

Anyway. Anyway. I did not mean for this post to get quite so dramatic. Can I bring the tone to one a bit more lighthearted? Because here's a rare video of Kitson and Oliver together, it hardly counts because you don't even see them, but you can just barely tell they're both there:

Dunking Eugene Mirman in a dunk tank outside a gig at the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival in 2010. The video only shows Mirman falling, but you can hear Kitson's distinctive giggle, and you can hear John Oliver mutter something like "Ooh, that one was...". And if you don't believe me that they were both just on the other side of that camera, here's a picture taken by a camera that was facing them while they threw:

Here's a YouTube video where you can see them both. From the Honourable Men of Art show at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. John Oliver was supposed to be part of that show in person, but about six weeks before the festival started, he informed his friends that he was moving to America to work on The Daily Show, instead of, in the words of Andy Zaltzman, “Coming to Edinburgh to talk to twenty-five people a day in a darkened room.” So they got him on a live video linkup some nights, and here are 22 lovely seconds of it.

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And finally, here is, to the very best of my knowledge, the only other instance of Daniel Kitson and John Oliver doing anything together that got recorded and put out there for the public to find:

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I told you it would come back to that. It always comes back that. And it turns out that Daniel Kitson did tell us, going into that festival, that he was ready for anything. He wasn't kidding.

#Youtube

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httpsaa1 · 2 years

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Trust issues - Jesse Lingard

Warnings: angst(fluff ending), jealousy, brief mention of making up with sex

Summary: In which Jesse thinks reader is cheating on him because she’s been working a lot more

Jesse Lingard x female!reader

English is not my first language!

Jesse was desperate at the moment.

You were supposed to be at home at 6 pm, it was 9 pm currently and still no signal of you. You had sent him a message telling him that you would be arriving at 7 or 8 because of all the work that you had, but then you didn’t send him anything to let him know that you would be more delayed. He had called you a minimum of 25 times and not even a response. Besides, you had started to be distant with him, arriving home later than usual and with your hair made a mess, just kissing him as a good night and going to sleep, not sending him more of your ‘good luck, baby’ or ‘have a good day, baby!’ texts and last but not least, you hadn’t said ‘i love you’ for a while.

The thoughts of what could be happening to you were killing Jesse. You didn’t love him anymore? You weren’t interested in continuing the relationship after 3 years that he considered the bests of his life?

He had told this issues to his friends and one of them made him think that you might be cheating on him. That friend of his had a partner that cheated on him and they had started behaving just like Jesse had described you were doing. That was about 5 days ago and Jesse didn’t want to believe him, but the coincidences of behaviour were big. It was consuming his head the fact that you had started behaving so odd that he stopped trusting you and instead of asking you if anything was wrong, he just got to his own conclusions. He got to the point of starting searching on your Instagram for people that you could be cheating on him with. And the stuff that he found didn’t help either. He saw that one of your childhood friends had been commenting a lot on your posts and that you had been answering him with hearts and everything. Besides, he knew that he had moved recently near your place and that he wanted to see you. His jealousy increased a bit more every time he saw a like or a comment from your ‘friend’.

He was in bed overthinking and sulking again when he heard the front door being opened, he quickly got up and ran downstairs to finally talk this with you. You heard footsteps and turned your head to smile at your boyfriend. But he didn’t have that happy face that he would always have when you arrived, instead he had his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes didn’t shine like they would usually do.

“Hi, baby. I’m sorry if I woke you up, I tried to be as silent as possible.” You smiled up at him due to you thinking that he was mas because you had woken him up. He didn’t return the smile though and instead his frown deepened. You were the one to frown this time. It was already strange that he didn’t start hugging and kissing you the moment he saw you and now he was not smiling like he would always do.

“We need to talk.” Was everything he uttered not even looking at you.

“Yes, of course. Let’s sit down”. You two sat down in the table and you looked at him so he could tell you the problem.

Jesse stayed silent, carefully choosing his words.

“You have been distant.”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry, it’s not like I want to but I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m sorry, baby.”

He closed his eyes when you called him that, not wanting to imagine you calling other man like that.

“Yeah, I get it. But you haven’t answered my calls and you told me you would be here at 8 and it’s almost 10. Moreover, your hair is a mess and it seems that you have fooled someone.” The footballer almost whispered while looking down, still scared of seeing the lack of love for him in your eyes.

“Excuse me? Are you assuming that I am cheating on you? I’m sorry that I was delayed, it’s really a lot of work but you can’t say that I have slept with somebody because I arrived late and have a mess in my hair. There’s something called wind, you know?” You had stood up and crossing your arms in your chest to say that, not being able to believe what you boyfriend was saying.

Jesse stood up too.

“Well you are clearly cheating on me. Jake has told me that when women cheat they act just as you are doing. And I am sure it’s with that friend of yours that has moved near our house to be close to you.”

“Mark? My friend from childhood?”

“Yes, the one that was living in Italy and before you found him on Instagram and he moved here.” Jesse rolled his eyes at your effort of trying to look innocent.

“Mark moved in with his girlfriend. He was leaving in Italy with her until he got a job in here. He wanted to meet so I could meet her, because they are getting married in July and she wants to meet the people that are going to their wedding. Do you remember when I told you about a dinner that is in some days? It’s to meet them.” You couldn’t believe him. That he would dare accuse you and your friend of such things, you had told him that he was engaged and that you two were attending their wedding next month. Jesse seemed to remember when you told him that, but he was adamant to leave the argument.

“Well, maybe that is true. But, you have never worked so much and not answered me or texted me.”

“My battery died, I did send you a message about that.” You reminded him again.

“Still, you could have been sleeping with other man.”

“Jesse! I was working!”

“Why you have never worked so much! Besides, your boss loves you! She would never give you so much work.”

“I’ve been doing extra hours to be able to afford a gift for you!” His face dropped at this statement. “Not everyone earns millions per month and even if Susie loves me, she won’t pay me more if I don’t deserve it.”

The boy was stunned and speechless. He couldn’t believe that you would overwork yourself to buy him something, you knew that you could take his money if you needed to.

“But, why?” He had a look of confusion on his face.

“Because I want to buy you a gift for your birthday, and I know that it’s in December but I won’t arrive to the amount of money needed. So if I stay until this hour of the day I’ll earn enough to arrive in 7 months, now 6. I’m sorry, that I’ve been distant, I just wanted to give you what you wanted.” You sat back down and ran your hands over your face because the surprise was ruined now and due to you overworking your boyfriend had thought that you were cheating on him.

“Aw, baby.” He sat next to you and wanted to caress your back, but decides that it would be better to let you calm a bit. “I’m so sorry for thinking ghat you were cheating on me when the only thing that you were doing was to do an enormous effort to buy me a gift. I feel stupid now for even thinking that. I’m truly sorry, I can’t say much more than that, and that I love you.”

“I love you too, Jesse, but you can’t think that I haven’t been loyal to you because I’m working more, because if we thought like that you would have cheated on me countless times.”

“You are right, my love. I’m so, so, so sorry for not thinking beforehand. Can you please forgive me?” He had started caressing your hair softly and now was pouting at you.

“Only if you give me a kiss.”

Jesse cupped your face and leaned in slowly. When his lips touched yours, you sighed at his softness. He still got this reaction from you, even if you had been dating for over 3 years. You pulled away and smiled sheepishly at him, and this time he did return it.

“Let’s go to bed, princess. Maybe I can make up for my stupidity.” He smirked at you.

“By the way, what did you want to gift me?”

“The BMW 7 that you talk a lot about every time.”

His jaw dropped at your confession and he grabbed your waist to turn you around and kiss you again.

“You are the best, I’m sorry for thinking…”- Jesse scratched his head - “um, for thinking you know what.”

“Just don’t think that again, baby. And if you do, please don’t talk with your friends and just tell me straight away.”

“I will, I promise. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologising, Jesse! I’ve already forgiven you!”

“You right, I’m- nothing, nothing.” He raised his hands in innocence. “I’ll make it up, I swear!”

Heyy! I hope that you enjoyed this little angst!<33

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misiwrites · 1 year

Text

Mayblade Day 4

[previous: chapter 1 & 2 | chapter 3]

CHAPTER 4 prompt: sci-fi characters: hiromi, emily, ayaka, kyouju, max, mao pairings: ---

Just to please Emily, Hiromi had agreed to go check out the tennis club. She made no promises of joining, but they headed out to the courts together nevertheless. For being a relatively small school, Bey High had a surprisingly extensive sports park, and the club catalogue boasted everything from cycling to swimming and indoor surfing, somehow.

In the course of one afternoon of following her friend around, Hiromi had been introduced to Emily’s acquaintances in the baseball, basketball, and football clubs, all of whom felt it necessary to give her a robust sales pitch about their respective sports and club activities (each of which was the best, according to them). She’d done a bit of basketball in middle school but certainly didn’t have the confidence to jump in to play with the likes of Eddy and Rick – there was no separate team for girls, as there were none in their club – so she let them all politely know she wasn’t interested.

“How do you know all those guys, anyway?” she asked once she and Emily were back at the tennis courts. “I didn’t know you’re the type to hang out with… well… jocks like that.”

“We’re all in the enhancement program. We usually hang out when the tests are being taken.”

“Oh, that weird science stuff?”

Emily shot her a dangerous look. “It’s not weird! It’s very good. We get a lot of useful information out of it. The program has already helped me improve my training habits.”

Hiromi vividly remembered Emily herself calling it weird, back when the physics professor had pitched the state-funded, science-based enhancement program in the beginning of the semester. The name alone was fishy as hell.

“Are you sure you’re not on track to steroids or something?” she asked.

“Oh please, we’re not doing drugs or anything,” Emily huffed. “It’s about collecting performance data. I would trust Mrs. Judy with my life – she’s a remarkable scientist.”

Emily rarely praised the teaching staff, so this was borderline alarming behavior from her. Hiromi side-eyed the ginger but said nothing more.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. With the void in her daily life left by the astrology club, Hiromi ended up taking Ayaka’s offer to go check out the engineering club.

Having witnessed the sports club facilities and now this, she had to admit that Emily had been on to something with her hints about their lack of proper clubbing spaces. The engineering club operated in the electronics laboratory and had full access to all its resources, resulting in the room looking like the research floor of some hi-tech facility. Hiromi hadn’t had any idea the other clubs had such lavish surroundings.

The members present were working in pairs by the lab tables. One pair, Hiromi recognized as friends of Salima and Kane, a couple of boys from 1-B whose names she’d never bothered to catch. The other pair, in the very back of the room, also had familiar voices that she couldn’t quite place as she walked closer, following in Ayaka’s footsteps.

“And these two are the real sci-fi boys,” Ayaka presented. “I don’t know what they think they’re making, but it sure is something.”

So it seemed; the lab table was littered with equipment and evidently 3D printed mockups that Hiromi couldn’t even begin to describe, as well as three computer screens flashing with graphs, code editors, and something that had to do with the measurement equipment plugged in with half a dozen cables crisscrossing across the table. They really were actually creating something, not just sitting around reading books like she’d been doing all semester.

The boys – who even wore lab coats, for immersion, she assumed – were roused out of focus by Ayaka’s announcement and wheeled around in their chairs to look at their interrupters. It was only then, Hiromi realized, that she’d seen these people around because they were Takao’s friends; the shorter one who now lifted his enormous, round glasses to his forehead, Saien Manabu who didn’t live too many blocks away from her house; and the other, a blond boy with a thoroughly goofy face and a pale nose covered in freckles, turned to study Hiromi with curiosity.

“Hey there,” the blond gave a cheery greeting. “Another friend of Aya?”

Hiromi, troubled as to how exactly answer this, was saved by Ayaka: “Tachibana came to take a look at our club. Now’s your chance to give the pitch of your life and get someone uninterested to join, Max.”

“Well, I’m not going to force anyone, if she really isn’t interested. I’m Max and that’s Professor.” He nodded at the shorter boy.

“You are in Takao’s class, are you not?” Manabu – or, apparently, Professor – immediately surveyed.

“Um, yes I am. So what are you working on? Looks complex.” She was eager to not let the conversation steer towards him.

“Oh, just a little something… It is for an innovation contest so we cannot reveal too much.”

“Don’t want anybody stealing our secrets,” Max added with a finger over his goofy mouth.

All the parts were out in the open here, though. Not that they made much sense to Hiromi like this, scattered across the table; there were several octagon-shaped pieces with a hole in the middle, as if frames to something. Judging by the breadboard and electronics measurement equipment, they were working on something powered by electricity.

“Are you looking for a club to join?” Professor then inquired. For such a tiny guy, he had an awfully mature and formal appearance, sporting a shirt-and-tie attire under the oversized lab coat.

“Not really… or, kind of.” Was she? She could as well have been.

“If you like comics or games more than building things, I am the president of a couple of those. They are very laid-back clubs, you can come over to read or play something as you wish, if you join that is.”

“Thanks…” She did like some comics and games… but the idea of going to a clubroom to do one among strangers instead of in the safety of her own room, not so much.

Hiromi did give it a minute of serious consideration, however, until a shouting voice cut right through her train of thought and left her perplexed.

“Aaaaayyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

Something very pink had just emerged into the electronics lab. A girl with bright pink hair and baby pink clothes barreled herself in Ayaka’s direction, which also happened to be Hiromi’s general direction.

“You’re early,” Ayaka commented, her cool demeanor the opposite of this bubblegum pink burst of energy.

“Hi, Mao,” Max greeted the new girl, though with more politeness than cheer, Hiromi noted. Professor had slipped his glasses back on and was back to work already in silence.

“Hi, mayo boy. Eh, I’m like, ten minutes early – so what? I can see you’re not doing anything, anyway.”

“I was showing our club to Tachibana.” Ayaka gestured at Hiromi, and she was quickly beginning to feel like a test subject presented to each human in turns. “She’s looking for one to join.”

“Please, just call me Hiromi,” she managed to rectify, finally.

Mao gave her a scrutinizing look from head to toe. Or, at least, it felt scrutinizing to Hiromi, who felt so very plain compared to this eccentric girl with a cat ear hairtie in her head. “I see! So, you thinking of joining the engineering club?”

“Erm… Probably not. I don’t think this is my thing…”

“Well, if you wanna try something completely different, I’m in the wushu club.” Mao must have noted the thinly veiled horror on Hiromi’s face, for she added: “Oh, don’t worry, there’re no requirements for joining – if you’re a total beginner, we’ll teach you the basics of whatever art interests you. It’s fun! And you’ll learn it fast, I promise. Anyway, Aya, I’m starving! Let’s get going already!”

With that, the pink whirlwind grabbed the short-haired girl, and then they were both gone.

#mayblade #mayblade 2023 #my writing #fic update

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paddockpr · 6 months

Note

hii!

i need to pick your brain about this:

https://racingnews365.com/alpine-welcomes-eur200m-investment-from-famous-sports-stars

especially about the travis kelce partnership who right now is all over the internet

Hey anon! Thanks for the question. This is all very interesting. A couple of things that stand out to me are as follows:

Alpine has been attracting quite a bit of foreign investment, especially American and non French European investments. It is fascinating and perhaps a bit revealing about the direction that they intend to take their PR image in, especially with the investment of a lot of anglophone public figures from sports stars like Travis Kelce and Trent Alexander-Arnold, to actors like Michael B Jordan and Ryan Reynolds. I suspect that we are going to see a gradual shift from the "Frenchpine" branding that was positioned as somewhat understated to something a bit more grandiose.

Travis Kelce is likely going to be more and more visible on the investing side of things, he is ideally positioned currently to leverage his PR for better access to investment opportunities so it is unlikely that this is all we will see of him in the F1 world, especially given that he has previously been linked as knowing Lewis Hamilton, another sporting celebrity that does a lot of investments.

We are witnessing something of a resurgence in American celebrities investing in sports that are popular with European audiences, and motorsports has experienced something of a renaissance, so there is likely going to be a bit of a domino effect akin to investment in football/soccer clubs in the mid 2000s which also trickled down into Major League Soccer, which means we will likely start seeing some investment hit other motorsports too, especially US based ones like NASCAR and IndyCar. This also means a sort of shift in the fan culture of those motorsports which is what happened before. Remains to be seen whether the outcome will be the same as Major League Soccer where one or two teams are fairly known and others are relatively obscure, but if F1 continues to price fans out, there is actually a lot of potential PR wise for other motorsports to start eating into F1's market share (which indycar kind of already has been doing for the past 3 or so years, albeit at a slower pace prior to these investments hitting F1).

I think we are about to see more investment in the esports side of motorsports because Otro Capital is involved in the investment and they invest in things like gaming, entertainment and media as well as sports. Esports is still something of an untapped market despite the increased popularity of competitive gaming as a whole, with a big potential market in East Asia, the UK and the US. We have already seen F1 drivers get involved in esports be it playing it themselves, or interacting with their team's esport counterparts, but we will likely see a more aggressive push over the next 5 or so years.

Overall whilst celebrity investment in sports is not new, the types of investors suggests that teams are going to continue moving in a more commericialized direction, and will continue to try and capitalize on F1's current moment in the pop culture zeitgeist to attract newer audiences.

The nature of investors also suggests that motorsports may be moving to attract much younger audiences than they initially did i.e. younger millennials and older gen z. This sort of aligns with the type of marketing that Liberty Media has attempted to bring into F1, and what strategies they have hoped to use to sell the relevance of F1, and also improve its social media engagement and TV ratings. It seems from investors in particular teams, to the PR approach of F1 that there will be a continued push to hold the attention of younger audiences that will be assumed to have more disposable income, and to whom people believe drivers will be more easily marketed to.

#paddockpr #sportspr #jjessays #jjasks

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mariamariquinha · 1 year

Note

Directors cut: ⭐️

Good question, Meaghan. GOOD QUESTION.

Let’s give it a name, first and foremost? Okay.

Father-Daughter relationships

In chapter two of Bossa Nova, there is a dialogue in the Greek restaurant between the reader and the parents:

[...] Your father, on the other hand, just shook his head no and sipped his wine with a disgruntled smirk on his face. Imagine how displeased she must have been to know it wasn't the sort of thing you or your father would do.

“You need to be more diplomatic.” He said to her with a light tone.

“Diplomatic? With a man who did that to our daughter? That would be a disrespect to my principles!”

Elsewhere, in chapter three, Benny asks the reader about the picture of Kojak on her desk in the lab.

“Is that a fish?”

The question caught you by surprise for a lot of reasons. First, no one really starts a conversation looking at the Kojak picture frame on your table; second, the lab was really badly designed, you never see who’s coming when you’re working with video processing, because the editing room made you have your back to the door; third, it was Benny asking - small talk question.

He almost opened his mouth to apologize for scaring you, but your eyes gazed at the picture and then at him again.

“... Yeah. Kojak.”

“Huh?”

“The fish. I bought it at a fair a few months ago, he's one of those guppys, you know?” By the look on his face, he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. “His name is Kojak.”

Here in these two moments, I tried to demonstrate with singulars that the reader is close to her father in terms of the way in which they act in unprepared moments. When he hears her mother's argument, the first thing he says is that she should be more diplomatic. This does not mean that he did not defend his daughter, but that he had a less aggressive attitude towards Theodore.

Later, in the lab, the reader hesitates to answer Benny's question about Kojak, then mentally assumes that Benny would be too cool to know about species of fish.

What happens here is that even if the reader has a more assertive attitude towards situations like Nick or Mathias, she was taken by surprise by the idea of someone so far outside her bubble being interested in knowing about something in her life with respect.

She and her father are alike in their hesitation. Although she hides these fears inside, using her mother's side to deal with life's problems, the reader is like her father - cautious and very nerdy.

-------------------------------------------------

Another moment that is partially clear about the relationship between the two are the references to classic police programs. The first it, obviously, Kojak, but at the prequel when she was ‘negotiating’ with Nick, she mentioned another one.

“She would mention how you try to look like Thomas Magnum.”

“So she has good opinions on Tom Selleck?”

“He has an avocado farm. She loves avocados. And she's one of the only humans who liked his character on Friends, so it's not a compliment.”

In the Prologue, as well, her brother made a comment about the nicknames from the Major Crimes.

“Now I understand why you like working with these guys.” There was a sarcastic tone on his voice, as always. “Big Nick really does look like a drunk detective with a small dick from the 80s.”

“I never stopped to think about the dick size of the guys I work with.”

The reason he used this comparison was more than a simple joke, but a provocation to the reader's tendency to be connected to people of this 'inner circle'. She gets defensive because cop shows have always been her father's passion and it was one of the activities they did together since her childhood.

------------------------------------------------------

Still on the close relationship between the two, there is a more explicit moment when Benny gets tickets for the football game. Chapter 7.

“How do you know I like the Rams?” The change of subject widened the smile he already was wearing.

“I'm a detective, remember?”

“Oh, so you investigated me?” You arched an eyebrow and maintained a teasing crooked smirk, seeing the way he scoffed.

Still aware of your surroundings and what you should be doing, your steps turned the other way around, walking to a free table close to other shelves. Benny followed you.

“I saw a picture on your desk. Right next to Kojak.”

This was the kind of thing that Theodore stopped understanding during the end of your relationship and you knew that since things with Benny were so recent and so uncertain, he was putting more effort into knowing things about you.

The reason why the reader feels this sense of care is not just about Theodore, but because of all things, he dedicated himself to doing something that he realized she enjoyed doing with someone she clearly had a lot of affection for. In a way, it was apprehension for him too, because it could be an intrusion in her personal life.

---------------------------------------------------------

An important observation about my biggest works is that while in Bossa Nova I try to approach a healthy father-daughter relationship, in Versos de Placer it is completely the opposite. In both, it is worth reflecting that the presence or absence of a father figure in a woman's life shapes her in different ways, but does not prevent her from dealing with the cruelty of the world or her experiences with other men in the loving sphere.

----------------------------------------------------------

It was a lot, didn’t it? I’m sorry 😭😭😭😭😭 But thank you for asking, baby ❤️

#ask game #I'll even add this to my masterlist

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chuuchuus-bitch · 2 years

Text

Football Jacket

✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧ ✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

ღ Character: Tachihara Michizou

ღ Synopsis: One of the biggest Jocks in Yokohoma High becomes obsessed with you and does everything he can to get you to be his girlfriend.

ღ Category: Fluff

⚠️WARNINGS⚠️

ღ Non Ability AU

ღ High School AU

✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧ ✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

You laughed as Higuchi told you yet another plot to make Akutagawa like her. At this point she didn’t even want to date him, she had accepted that would never happen, she just wanted to be friends. You couldn’t tell if Akutagawa was oblivious to her attempts of flirting or just didn’t like her back. He never reacted to any of the girls flirting with him, so you had to assume he just wasn’t interested in dating anyone, that or his relationship with Atsushi was what the gossips said.

You didn’t have much interest in the gossip of the football team though. As far as you were concerned they were all idiots who basked in the fame of being hot and the ability to catch and throw a ball. Dazai Osamu being a prime example of it. He loved the attention he got from the Cheerleaders and every other girl in the school. Chuuya Nakahara was somewhat the same, he didn’t lead girls on though. He would tell them he has a partner already so their hearts wouldn’t get broken. It was a show and half to watch the girls and some of the guys surround them and watching the two react. Dazai taking pictures and signing autographs on people faces, without the person asking for I. Chuuya was always trying to get away while telling them he needed to shower or some other poor excuse.

Akutagawa and Atsushi were harassed a lot too, being the 3rd and 4th most popular guys in school. Akutagawa did what he always does and ignored them while Atsushi stuttered and blushed thanks.

Kaji, Mark, Francis and Ranpo loved the attention, but not the point it was insufferable. You shared a few classes with Mark and Kaji and they were quite nice if not a little self-obsessed. Mark was the closest to being your friend than anyone else on the team. You helped tutor him on occasion and he would buy you ice cream or a bag of your favourite candy as a thank you. Kaji you rarely spoke to but he was nice enough and didn’t disrupt lessons most of the time.

Kunikida and Gin somehow always managed to avoid the attention and disappear quickly after a game finished. They would always turn up at afterparties to make sure everyone stayed in line. You had been in Kunikidas calss before, but transfered out due to Chuuya and Dazai who were also in his classes and argued all the time.

Finally, there was Tachihara. He didn’t ignore the attention but he didn’t like it that much. Instead, his attention would be somewhere else, away from his fans. He would scan the bleachers after every game till he found you. Then he would leave whatever crowd had formed around him and come sit next to you. He would ask if you wanted to go out and get something to eat or go to the after-party together or some other thing to spend time with you. You weren’t oblivious but he had a record of being a cheat and that wasn’t something you needed in your life.

You and Higuchi stopped by your locker so you could out away the notebooks you didn’t need and get the ones you did. She continued to talk while you opened it up and got what you needed. A piece of paper fell out of your locker and onto the floor as you swung it open. You picked it up and tried to hide the small smile that came to your face when you saw it was a heart.

“Ohhh, you have a secret admirer? How could you not tell me!” Higuchi said, looking iver your shoulder to read the front of the note before you slipped it away to read later.

“I dont think it’s much of a secret.” You said. Higuchi laughed a little. It was true. Mostly everyone knew Tachihara was after you. The looks his ‘fans’ gave you whenever you passed them in the hallway said it all. Not to mention the number of times he has been caught skipping class to put flowers or poems or candy in your locker.

“Tachihara sure doesn’t know how to quit. I’ve known him since middle school, he is a nice guy Y/N maybe you should say yes.” She said. You had only transferred here a year ago. You and Higuchi had been online friends for years and when you both found out you would be in the same classes you were both ecstatic.

“I don’t know. The first thing I heard about him was that he slept around and cheated. I dont need that in my life.” You said. Higuchi nodded her head and straightened up with a small sigh.

“I know but they aren’t true. Most people will believe what you tell them in this school, but it was the other way around. She got kicked out for getting caught sleeping with a teacher a few months before you came. It didn’t stop the rumours about him though. Only me and the football team believe his side.”

“I suppose your right. As my best friend do you think he is worthy of my love?” You said dramatically laughing together as you both head towards your next class. Though you couldn’t concentrate on the class. Instead, your mind kept windering to Tachihara. He could be an amazing boyfriend. You could see him being the kind of boyfriend to drive to your in the middle of the night to give you a plaster when you tell him you cut yourself on a piece of paper. The one who walks you to your door and says hi to your parents after a date. The guy who shows you off to everyone and anyone and brags about you to anyone in earshot. The thought of him being the kind of boyfriend you see all over VSCO and Pinterest made your heart beat a little faster. You were blushing too.

You couldn’t deny the fact you liked him to a degree. He was nice, while he didn’t give up on you he never made you uncomfortable and wasn’t pushy, he was smart too from what you had heard. The only thing stopping you were false rumours of a stuck up bitch who was no longer in his life. Maybe one date wouldn’t hurt you thought.

After class, you and Higuchi head back to yours. You lived alone in a small apartment, your parents travelled a lot. When they decided to move to America you told them you wanted to stay. They reluctantly agreed once you agreed to move to Yokohoma. Your aunt lived there so you would have someone to go to in case of an emergency and you had your best friend there. They had met Higuchi multiple times, when she came to visit you for a week or vice versa They trusted you and her enough to agree and they left not long after.

“Can you read the note now? I’m dying to see what he put.” Higuchi said after a few hours of being at your apartment, sitting down on your couch with another drink she got from your kitchen placing one for you down as well. You smiled and grabbed your bag, pulling out the note and opening it.

Y/N,

you are the finest,

loveliest,

tenderest,

and most beautiful person i have ever known -

and even that is an understatement.

I will be waiting in Poes for you at 8:30, please come.

- Tachihara

“We need to get you ready! It’s half seven already.” She said, pulling you up and dragging you to your shower and pushing you inside.

“Shower and I will find you an outfit.” She said, closing the door giving you no time to protest. Not that you would. After thinking about it in your final class and the little convincing Higuchi did when you found the note made you decide you would go on one date. If you enjoyed yourself you would agree to date him and go on more, if not then you tried and he would move on too. It was a win-win.

When you got out of the shower and to your room, Higuchi barely gave you time to speak before shoving you into your vanity chair and starting to do your hair.

“Do your make up while I do your hair. I picked out that red to you have been trying to find a reason to wear and those black ripped skinny jeans. I went through your jewellery and picked out the necklace you should wear as well as shoes.” She said as she plugged in the hairdryer. You laugh and shook your head, starting your makeup.

“You’re more excited than I am.”

“Of course! He does like you, whenever we hang out he talks about you and asks about you. I think you’ll be great together.” She said with a smile and turned the hairdryer on.

After a while your hair was dry and your makeup was done. Higuchi turned around while you changed and did up the necklaces for you. Before driving you to Poes and dropping you off. She made you promise to call her when you got home. You nodded your head and smiled, taking your cardigan from the seat and stepping out of the car.

“Have fun!” She called out the window before driving off. You waved after her before stepping into the diner. Tachihara stood up and waved when he saw you walk in, smiling widely when you slid into the both on the seat across from him.

“I was getting worried you wouldn’t come.” He said. You smiled and him and shook your head.

“Well, I wouldn’t just leave you here to wait. I hope you didn’t wait long.” You said. He shook his head, the smile on his face only growing wider.

“Nah, I haven’t been here long. What do you want? Get anything you like.” He said, you nodded your head and thanked him. The waitress came by shortly after and took with your orders. You both ordered a burger and decided to share some fries and an F/F milkshake.

The food came quickly and the conversation, while you ate, went smoothly. You both talked more and more as the night went on and soon enough Tachihara was paying and you were then walking towards a park.

“So, how come, out of everyone in our school. You want to date me?” You asked. Somewhat joking. You were pretty and smart but nowhere near as popular as some of the girls. You weren’t a cheerleader and most of the Football team were dating a cheerleader aside from Dazai who claimed Chuuya was his cheerleader on an Instagram post a few days before, and of course Atsushi and Akutagawa. He laughed a little and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Well Higuchi always talked about you before you moved here and I remember her saying how I would like you. And as always she is right. When she introduced you to the football team I think I just fell in love with you. You were laughing at something Dazai had said and your laugh was intoxicating. Your smile is the best thing I have ever seen and I want to see it every day for the rest of my life.” He said a small blush could be seen every time you walked under a street lamp.

“And you’re so nice as well. Unlike most people in our school, you are a genuine person. You dint get caught up in gossip or cliques. You are just friends with everyone and nice to everyone too. All the other girls as stuck up and just want to date me cause I’m on the team now. It’s like you don’t care how I am. It’s refreshing to have someone who doesn’t just date for status in our school.” He smiled, coming to a stop when you both when the park. Tachihara smirked at you and started towards a climbing frame, taking your hand and pulling you with him.

“Well I am here aren’t I? I’ll be honest, I was hesitant to because of some rumours but Higuchi convinced me otherwise.” You said somewhat guilty p. You climbed up with him and you both sat at the top facing each other.

“I can’t say I’m regretting it either.” You said. He smiled happily and nodded his head.

“I’m glad. I do like you Y/N so would you consider being my girlfriend?” He asked, you could see the blush on his face darken as he asked you and you had to stifle a small giggle. You stayed silent for a few moments before answering him. You were having fun. He had been nothing but polite and he made you laugh. You hadn’t been on a date so nice before and so far Tachihara was the kind of guy you expected him to be. He was amazing.

“I’ll think about it. Can I let you know Monday?” You said. He nodded his head before looking up to the starry sky and pointing.

“Hey look it’s a meteor shower.” He said. You looked up to and all across the sky were little lines of shooting stars, one after the other lighting up the sky a little more. Your smile and watched, turning so you were side by side with Tachihara who pointed out some constellations and more shooting stars.

“Make a wish, it might come true.” You said, seeing yet another shooting star, you made a wish too. Smiling slightly as you did so. It was childish, there were no such things as wishes coming true. Tachihara laughed too and closed his eyes for a few moments, making a wish. Then you both went back to watching the stars above you.

You suppressed a shiver as a gust of wind blew past you. Looking at you when you saw it was nearly midnight and Tachihara noticed as well.

“Here take my jacket, I’ll walk you home.” He said with a small smile, helping you put his jacket on before you both climbed down the frame and started to walk back to your apartment. Halfway through the walk, your hands somehow became interlocked and both of you blushed a little at the contact. You both continued to talk about anything and everything. You felt comfortable and happy and you were looking forward to Monday when you would give him your answer.

Tachihara walked you up to your apartment door and leaned down to kiss your cheek.

“See you Monday Y/N, thanks for coming tonight I had fun.” He said, before walking down your path and the street towards his own home.

You walked inside and immediately went to bed, realising you still had his jacket on made you smile as you changed out of your clothes into pyjamas. You text Higuchi about your night and told her to come over for the weekend. She agreed to come over in the morning with some food from her mother’s bakery and coffee. Not long after you fell asleep.

You and Higuchi spent the weekend together and you told her all about the date. You both walked to school on Monday and you told her to go to class and you went to find Tachihara. You were wearing his jacket and you already told Higuchi your plan.

He was stood at his locker with Mark, Chuuya and Dazai as well as a few girls trying to harass the latter two about the upcoming game and whether Chuuya was a cheerleader. Chuuya looked like he was about to scream at Dazai and the girls for talking about it. Tachihara and Mark were talking, trying to ignore the newest gossip.

“Hey, Tachi?” You said, all the attention suddenly turning to you. Tachihara smiled widely as he saw you and even wider when he saw you were wearing his jacket again.

“Yeah?” He asked.

“Do you like this jacket?” You asked him. He raised an eyebrow and nodded his head.

“Yes?” He said questioningly. You smiled up at him widely.

“Thanks, it’s my boyfriends.” You said. It took him a few moments to realise what you meant before he dropped his books and picked you up, spinning you round in the middle of the hallway laughing. Dazai took a picture and immediately posted it to Instagram, so the whole school was made aware of your relationship within 4 minutes if it becoming official.

“So I can call you my girlfriend?” He asked, stopping and pulling away slightly, not letting his feet touch the floor just yet. You nodded your head and bent down. Kissing his lips so quickly they were barely there. Before pulling away as he put you down and wrapped you in another hug.

“Yes.”

✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧ ✧༝┉┉┉┉┉˚*❋ ❋ ❋*˚┉┉┉┉┉༝✧

The note that Tachihara gives Y/N is a quote written by the real Francis Scott Fitzgerald

#bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs x reader #bungou stray dogs x reader #bungou stray dogs x you #bungou stray dogs x y/n #bsd tachihara #tachihara #tachihara x reader #bungo stray dogs tachihara #tachihara michizou #tachihara x y/n #tachihara x you #michizo tachihara

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