potentialities

that's what speed did

Fri, 06 Jan 2017 23:07:58 GMT

Mariners getting OF Jarrod Dyson for RHP Nathan Karns

I fucking hate this trade. It doesn't make emotional sense or baseball sense. It does cut payroll, though, which is the only thing David Glass cares about this offseason, apparently. I mean, sure, you're replacing a guy who was insanely affordable for his production with a giant box of question marks, but at least they're cheap question marks! Piece by piece we're replacing our team identity with pieces of castoff trash. It's a good thing David Glass can't actually sell the 2015 championship or I'm sure that would be gone too.

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Wednesday reading — boggling

Thu, 04 Aug 2016 03:34:36 GMT

What I've been reading

I read Whatever Life Throws at You, a young adult/new adult romance novel (I'm not entirely sure what the difference is, which I believe makes me an old adult) about how the daughter of the Kansas City Royals' new pitching coach falls in love with their new hotshot rookie pitcher. My expectations were low; I was mostly curious and expecting to be mildly entertained by how it depicted, or more likely failed to depict, the town where I live. It delivered roughly what I expected, occasional moments of semi-accuracy amidst a lot of blandness.

What transfixed me, though, was the author's complete and utter lack of understanding of how a major league pitching staff functions. I suffered through all the boring, poorly-written romance bits just to see what insane pitching changes they were going to make next. At one point, the hotshot rookie pitcher/love interest pitched at least three innings every day for four days in a row. They appear to use starting pitchers in relief constantly, but I think this is just a misunderstanding about what the terms "ace" and "number five pitcher" actually mean, because elsewhere there is a reference to a "number five mid-relief pitcher, which is…not a thing.

Then there's this gem from the deciding game of the ALCS against the Yankees:

The other starter was coming off four days in a row of pitching and Brody was fresher and more ready, so his name got pulled from the roster.

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

I think my favorite part, though, is where Brody is throwing a perfect game in the World Series—because of course he is—and he's already been named Rookie of the Year—because of course he has, even though that doesn't even happen until the World Series is over—and apparently he's been relying either entirely or almost entirely on a mid-nineties fastball, with his slider and curveball being described as "newer pitches" that he's still "trying." What? No. No way has he even been starting without commanding, at a bare minimum, two pitches that he can mix effectively, much less is throwing a perfect game, much less is he throwing a perfect game in the World Series. Especially since his arm fell off from overuse months ago.

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Friday fics — John Oliver RPF

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 22:10:27 GMT

I'm a longtime fan of The Bugle, John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman's weekly news comedy podcast. I've seriously considered trying to nominate it for Yuletide, but I wasn't sure if anyone would be willing to write it for me, especially as I was having difficulty framing a request more coherent than "please write me anything whatsoever having to do with The Bugle". Maybe this year will be the year.

John Oliver's Infinitely Recursive Fanfiction Adventure (1580 words) by SailorPtah
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fake News RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon
Additional Tags: Metafiction, Characters Reading Fanfic
Summary:

Based on a true story.

(The real-world John Oliver is advised to avoid reading this one, lest he rip a hole in the space-time continuum.)

John Oliver discovered Daily Show slash fiction and is outraged…that he isn't getting any in any of these stories. So of course someone wrote a story about that. It is awesome.

david cameron would look good in a pith helmet (what worse can you say about someone than that?) (4022 words) by therestisdetail [archive-locked]
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Fake News RPF
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: John Oliver/Andy Zaltzman, John Oliver/Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert/Jon Stewart
Characters: John Oliver, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Aasif Mandvi, Demetri Martin, Samantha Bee, Jason Jones, Rob Riggle, Andy Zaltzman, Chris Addison
Summary:

This is an ode to how much I love Liz. Featuring a large amount of John Oliver, various FakeNews alumni, and Zaltor the Merciless. I mean Andy. I mean whut?

"Tell me the story of when Andy and John tried once and once only to go on a Proper Real Not-Kidding Date, and the chaos and hilarity that ensued." - Appleteeth

This is more like three ficlets, and the first and third are John/Andy. Surprisingly adorable.

I'll…try to read something slightly less niche before next Friday, I promise.

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Bad comics and the people who read them so I don't have to

Sun, 25 Aug 2013 05:15:12 GMT

Well before I actually started reading Western superhero comics, I could easily get sucked into reading about Western superhero comics for hours, provided that the writer in question is hilarious. I mean, I enjoy reading hilarious things about a variety of topics, but I find that this is easily one of my favorites.

The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings cheers me up so consistently that I have large chunks of it memorized and I have seriously considered trying to nominate it for Yuletide somehow. I followed all three parts of the demented saga of the goddamn Batman (which is to say, Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin) with bated breath. And the whole reason I started this post is so that I could link to this review of the New 52 Red Lanterns because every once in a while I remember it and start giggling again:

What I like about Red Lanterns is that the book does a great job of getting to the heart of why the current Green Lantern status quo is so gosh-darned silly. This is a book ostensibly about a group of aliens who have magic wishing rings empowered by anger and hatred, a group of badass monsters who want to deliver bloody justice to murderers and tyrants across the universe. In reality, the book is really about a dozen people sitting around this barren planet and yelling at each other about how angry they are, in between taking deep swims in an ocean of magic blood (not a metaphor for puberty, there is a literal ocean of magic blood) to clear their heads.

Sorry, I feel another gigglefit coming on…

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"I can top you with my brain."

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 01:53:39 GMT

I happened to wind up at the gym at the exact time to catch the last twenty-five minutes of the Firefly episode "Trash" on the Science channel (which, apparently, shows science fiction, which I suppose is logical, since the SciFi/SyFy/Syphilis channel shows "reality" shows about ghosts). This made me happy, because the last twenty-five minutes of Trash contains my single favorite scene in the entire show, and then made me sad, because it reminded me that virtually nobody ships Simon/Jayne, and worse still, the vanishingly few people who do ship it incorrectly.¹

I mean, I can readily see why it's a niche pairing. People might prefer Simon and Jayne in canon pairings, such as Simon/Kaylee, Simon/River, Jayne/Vera, or Jayne/his bunk.² I can also see why there is virtually no toppy!Simon, because pretty much every main character, reoccurring character, or extra on the show would top⁴ Simon in their actual or theoretical relationship. I'm not 100% certain that Simon could top a Tupperware container.

Except. Except. He completely dominates Jayne in the scene in the infirmary at the end of Trash. Comprehensively. Effortlessly. There is no way in which Simon is not in control, from his physically paralyzing Jayne so they can have this little chat to his utterly calm assertion that no matter what Jayne does, Simon will never ever harm him, that he will be trusting Jayne and that Jayne should do likewise. I find this utterly, scorchingly hot.

And yet no one ever writes them like that. Or if they have, I have yet to find it. This makes me sad like the end of Serenity.⁵

¹Which they are entitled to do! I mean, they're completely wrong. But if they enjoy being wrong, they should feel free to do so.

²Yeah, I don't really ship Jayne with. You know. People.³

³This pairing being something of an exception, obviously.

⁴Here used in a very loose sense to indicate a whole range of behavior ranging from mild sexual assertiveness to formalized D/s regardless of sexual positions employed, if any.

⁵Yeah, I know, I should write it myself. But I'm really, really lazy!

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