the fandom librarian

bon voyage! <3

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and if we're endorsing the list I'll go for -- *squints* -- around 50% of it! :D

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hee, thank you! (is it, perhaps... the top 50%? XP)

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ALMOST. XD The exception being Silva (of course!) over Liverpool. I find Liverpool's thrashing around good entertainment. *heartless*

Edited Date: 2011-01-06 08:36 pm (UTC)

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haha I couldn't remember if you were cheering for City or just kind of wishing Silva success in a way that didn't make his team win XD I kind of think Liverpool is doomed to be... the new Arsenal? only without the pretty football. the occasionally glorious win to give the fans hope before reverting to mid-table misery with occasional flirtation with the relegation zone to keep things interesting. I can sort of appreciate the chaos, but only watching through the gaps between my fingers with my hands over my face.

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Wellll I kind of see-saw on City. In addition to the obvious, I like to root for them because everyone else hates them so much. XD I don't begrudge them their billions, though I'd like to see it used more intelligently? To form (or attempt to form) a team following some kind of general idea or philosophy and then work with that core, rather than the Pokemon approach. With, of course, the ability to outbid anyone else around if there's one particular player they want - as long as they really want them, rather than blindly snatching up whoever comes along just because they can.

Long story short, most weekends I end up rooting for them, buuuut when Silva leaves I probably won't care any more. XD

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I find myself weirdly falling for City, though like you say part of it is probably my contrary nature being mad at how EVERYBODY HATES THEM FOR NO GOOD REASON. idk, I wish people would give Mancini a chance, instead of shrieking about how he's destroying football with his defensive strategy and HOW DARE HE NOT LET ARSENAL SCORE OMG when this is his first full season and he honestly does seem to be getting something close to a team out of the dressing room from hell. I was initially upset Silva went there, but I think he has a chance to be important and recognized for his talent in England in a way he never would in Spain and I hope he sticks it out. the few Man City fans I know really appreciate him.

plus, Super Mario. he is like Zlatan 2.0, such a tactless dick but I cannot help but love him. with all the shit he had to put up with in Italy, he is due a break. and I am kind of fascinated by his relationship with Mancini, and I wish less sketchy sources than the Daily Fail would tell me about him being friends with Andrea Mancini, because that is potentially adorable.

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i was reading this and i thought of you

/hijacking threads like a pro

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ahahahaha I linked to it on tumblr a couple days ago after I found it in your delicious STALKING LIKE A PRO

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words cannot express how fucked I think we are against Arsenal without you.

words cannot express how fucked I think we are against Arsenal without you

words cannot express how fucked I think we are against Arsenal without you.

oic

[emphasis mine]

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what can I say. the heart wants what it wants. apparently what mine wants is Man City. (also I know this will get me tarred and feathered by like everyone I know but I don't like Arsenal. I've tried but I just don't. they are annoying and self-righteous and OH YOU SHOULD JUST LET US SCORE OUR FOOTBALL IS THE PRETTIEST. suck it up and deal children even Barça has to win against teams that park the bus! and aside from his friendship with Puyi and Pique I'm not all that attached to Cesc, so. Theo's cute though, will admit to that one.)

haha I think that rant was a long time coming... oh well. you still love me right? ♥

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*comes in* HEEEEE. I'll freely admit that if Man City didn't have Nigel de Jong on their team, I'd probably like them quite a bit more. I don't think you can really judge them so much for having money in the first place, it's what they're doing, or not doing, with it that matters. (After all, even Barca has made some big-money transfers, hello David Villa.)

What, I think, bugs me about Man City, is that they have, like you said, the dressing room from hell. It's kind of hard to find that endearing when there seems to be a fight at training every week.

I like Arsenal quite a bit, hahah, like you can't tell from my Tumblr, lya accuses me of being a gooner every week--but yeah, sometimes I think I want them to win the league this year only just so everyone will shut up about it already. Including Arsenal. Also, I'm kind of not that impressed with the "Arsenal deserved to win the game" argument from this week's match. Did they score? Were they cheated out of a penalty? Then that's pretty much it, isn't it? Man City has arguably the best defense in the league, and if you can't score against it, then there you go. That being said, I confess, I find most of their players adorable, so that probably helps my attachment quite a bit. (waves at Theo)

But thanks to the clusterfuck that is Liverpool at the moment, I'm not all that attached to the EPL at the moment. Somebody, for the love of God, just call me when Roy gets fired. Until then, Imma cling to Pep, who is brilliant, never mind actually competent at his job.

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just so everyone will shut up about it already. Including Arsenal.
there are a number of comms who feel the same way.

i do root for arsenal whenever it doesn't affect our league position, and sometimes even when it does. i can't pretend not to see past their faults though - and this is more to do with the gooner fanbase than the gunners themselves - since as we all know samir nasri is a flawless human being - and more to do with twitter than anybody here on LJ. so, the nature of twitter as a social media tool means that it's very conducive to in-the-moment squee; even more so than tumblr, because macros/gifs can easily go viral whereas your 140-character tweets are unlikely to be retweeted unless you are (a) very famous and/or (b) saying something spectacularly failtastic.

anyway i think that it's perfectly understandable to cuss like a fishwife when your team's trademark beautiful, flowing, open, attacking football is being frustrated by a million-dollar wall. i am a wreck whenever someone parks a double-decker in front of barça, i would know. the thing is, some gooners have this persecution complex that means they buy into this narrative wherein the FA and the english media are out to get them. the refs are under constant scrutiny, the odds are always tilted against arsenal, if only the footballing gods were on their side, etc. i would be a lot more sympathetic if blackpool or sunderland were making such claims tbh. it seems that these gooners want to have their cake and eat it too - they want the reputation and the financial cushion that comes with being a big club, but they also want the underdog mentality that comes with being a small club. and these aren't teenage fangirls on lj - these are respected bloggers, grown-ass adults with jobs and families and shit and it bugs me how they always paint arsenal as the martyr. whew not i've got that off my chest i feel mucho mejor.

ohai there was a point to this comment. right. i came in here to tell you that footballers are IRL trolls true story.

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anyway i think that it's perfectly understandable to cuss like a fishwife when your team's trademark beautiful, flowing, open, attacking football is being frustrated by a million-dollar wall. i am a wreck whenever someone parks a double-decker in front of barça, i would know. the thing is, some gooners have this persecution complex that means they buy into this narrative wherein the FA and the english media are out to get them.

Okay, seriously, WORD. I was personally cussing like CRAZY during the first leg of the Bilbao-Barca Copa del Rey match that ended in 0-0. It was nothing but constant shrieks of "MOVE BITCH GET OUT THE WAY." And of course, Bilbao didn't, much to our collective dismay. But...that was in the moment. Regardless of what the other team is doing, your job is to play well and hopefully score goals. If you didn't score any goals, well then, that's that. It sucks, yes, but it kind of always baffles me, regardless, when someone says during a 0-0 draw, "So-and-so were the better team, they deserved to win." How does that even make sense? Yes, okay, one side can be better than the other, absolutely, but unless they were cheated out of a goal by something other than bad luck/the post, I can't see how you can say "they deserved to win." You know what makes you deserving of a win? SCORING GOALS.

I get how the martyr complex started among the Arsenal fanbase, truly, but that doesn't mean I have to like it or defend it. Trophy-hunt aside, they're one of the biggest, most successful clubs in what is generally agreed to be the most competitive league in the world. Relax already. The media talks shit about everything, it is what they are paid to do.

And the thing is, I have a lot of respect for Arsene Wenger, I find the faces he makes during matches to be as gifworthy as Mourinho's, but that complaint about Man-United's pitch in the wake of the 1-0 loss was ridiculous, flat out. I hate Man United, but on that particular day, their defense was better and they're the ones that ended up putting away the chance when they had it. You can talk about how Cesc wasn't truly fit, you can maybe even make the argument that Walcott, with his pace, should have started instead of Arshavin, but blaming it on the pitch? PLEASE. I eye-rolled so hard during that mess, lemme tell you.

Now, all that said, I do like the way that Arsenal play, and I find the great majority of their players to be charming and adorable, not to mention talented. If it hadn't been for that team, I probably would have started drinking a while back, considering how Liverpool's season has gone. (And, in defense of the Arsenal fanbase, I'm sure there's plenty of things about the Liverpool fanbase that drive onlookers equally nuts.) I like them a lot. But they aren't perfect, and simply playing gorgeous football isn't enough of a reason to hand them the league. Playing gorgeous football and earning the league title will.

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stop talking sense, you

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WOW that was a longass comment of mine. Apparently I have been having THOUGHTS for a while now. Also, HEEEE at all those tweets, but especially Babel's. I actually want him to say that during a match now. LOL U MAD?

Ryan Babel--the footballer version of ONTD, for sure.

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omg m b i meant to link you to this tweet of rio's, not the same tweet twice!

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Nigel de Jong can go ahead and DIAF anytime. and if he ever lays a finger on my bb Silva in training, THERE WILL BE BLOOD. liking Man City definitely does not blind me to its flaws. :)

but I guess because I'm in it for the storyline, rather than the football as it were, the dressing room is kind of interesting to me even if it is a horrific warzone. I mean, the people there are intriguing even if they're not always appealing. Yaya Toure went to Man City for the money, sure. he went to Man City for the money, because his brother was there already and he knew they were good for it and the two of them have an enormous family that they have to support back home. Tevez has made a huge mess out of a situation that started basically because he wants to go home and be with his kids. Balotelli is... well, Balotelli. they're interesting. (but yeah, DIAF Nigel de Jong.)

part of it definitely is the Arsenal fans - twitter, tumblr and _fb, not in anyplace in particular - and their persecution complex, but the players have got it too, which sort of bugs me. Cesc is not always very mature about this stuff, and it's fine to be a bad loser etc but not in public, come on. I HATE THAT SEXIST FUCKER ARSHAVIN SO FUCKING MUCH, IF I HEAR ONE MORE PERSON FONDLY CALL HIM AN "ELF" SO HELP ME I WILL SNAP. I don't have anything against, say, Bendtner or van Persie or Wilshere, but they just don't appeal to me (well I think Nicklas is hilarious but apparently he is a brat) as much as the generation of Arsenal that's retired or been got rid of: Senderos, Lehmann, Ljungberg, Hleb, etc. idk. it's one of those emotional-not-logical things, for sure, but I just can't identify with Arsenal, and I've been trying all season.

Pep should just never leave us. keep signing one-year contracts into eternity please. (but even he is the first to say that if you don't win with it pretty football is useless.)

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Nigel de Jong, omg, I could rant about this shit forever, but suffice it to say that when you've broken the legs of two players, karate-chopped a third during the WORLD CUP, and apologized to NONE of them, you have singlehandedly invented a TOTALLY NEW LEVEL OF FAIL.

I see what you mean about City being fascinating--I didn't know that about the Toure brothers, for example--but yeah, they just will never be the team for me. Every team has at least some dysfunction SOMEWHERE, yes, even Barca, but City's just got too much of it for my tastes, and while I respect their right to play whatever type of football they want, I don't particularly enjoy watching how they play. This is my personal preference, btw, I'm not attaching any kind of ~moral significance~ to it or whatever.

it's one of those emotional-not-logical things, for sure, but I just can't identify with Arsenal, and I've been trying all season.

That's totally fair! I haven't paid too much attention to Cesc's interviews/comments in the media, but yeah, he can be a little bitchy on occasion. (to be fair, I think the whole persecution thing is something that Wenger, if not outright encourages, doesn't do as much as he could to nip that shit in the bud. Everybody knows how you feel about the way City spends, Arsene, you don't need to bitch about it in the press all the time.) And while I may like a lot of the current Arsenal players, ARSHAVIN IS NOT ONE OF THEM, HOMG. It is delighting me to no end to see Theo Walcott apparently pushing him out of Arsenal's preferred starting XI, since Theo, as far as I know, has never been a creepy sexist asshat.

I don't have a single allergy (that I know of) and I break out into hives every time someone even hints about Pep leaving us. *clings* And yes, exactly, that's what's so fantastic about Barcelona--they took the way they played and MADE it wildly successful for them. That's the part that should be admired, imo. Barca's last two games since the break were against teams that parked a double-decker bus, and they busted their way through. It wasn't all that pretty, and God knows it was nerve-wracking for the fans, but they got the job done. To me, that's much more significant, and much more awesome in the long-term, than relatively easy 8-0 wins against weaker teams.

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edit: oops, wrong icon. subtle milan vibes via Balotelli, clearly.

Oh yes, Balotelli, absolutely. If he stays in England, it would be great to see him become one of those major talismanic figures, and as you say, he deserves a break. OTOH I care about Serie A a lot more than the EPL so if he wants to move back their eventually, as he's indicated before, I'd be happy to see him go to Milan and stick it to the haters. As it were. (Though this could also be accomplished via the NT, or the Champions' League.)

Anyway, back to David Silva (shhh), I started following a couple Man City blogs at the beginning of the season for research purposes and now they're all SO IN LOVE WITH HIM, it's absolutely hilarious. And kind of cute. Needless to say this does a lot to ingratiate the Man City fanbase to me. That, and the adorable Japanese fangirl whose Engrish-heavy tumblr I stalk ahaha.

Thing is, I'm not entirely sure if he'll be able to - to fulfill his potential or not, in terms of being able to play the type of game that he's best at. And I want him to fulfill his potential. I'm not even thinking entirely of the difference overall between the EPL and La Liga - I'm thinking of depends how City develops (or doesn't) as a team and where Mancini (or another manager) takes them tactically. It's not that he wouldn't be good still, but there's a difference.

For the moment, I basically agree with you on Spain, though I think that, like David Villa, he did get plenty of recognition within Spain while at Valencia - just very little out of it. Except by Sid Lowe and select LJ-ers, of course. XD And the only way out of that is the Big Two and without getting into my massive tl;dr thoughts on the future of Real Madrid, let's just say I don't think it's the right match, and Barcelona doesn't need another player like Silva. (Yet.*) If anyone league needs an independent billionaire to come along and adopt a team to shower with cash it's La Liga, just to put a serious crack in the Madrelona hegemony and open up rights distribution and okay this is a tangent isn't it.

Uh, anyway, the point of that paragraph I'm okay with Silva sticking around for a couple years, possibly even the whole contract - depends on the aforementioned caveats.

*one ~~fic~~ theory about a viable future involves him and Cesc becoming the new Iniesta and Xavi around three or four years in the future. despite the copious personal angst this would involve for me. XD

Edited Date: 2011-01-06 10:48 pm (UTC)

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Mario at Milan (if he can't hack it in England, because I think he could be great there if he'd focus a little more) would be so epic, omg. can you imagine him and Zlatan on the same team? they would either hate each other at first sight or bond. really though I just want Mario to play with Alberto Paloschi sometime. this is my great ambition for him. it would be so cute.

I suspect we're following some of the same blogs. SO ADORABLE. paragraphs waxing poetic about how magical Silva is. I love it. he's so different from what they're used to and you can almost see the hearts in their eyes.

I don't know, really, what kind of game Silva's best for. but there are some players (Torres, Reina, Arteta even) who just clearly had to GET OUT OF SPAIN, and while we won't know about Silva for at least a season, I do feel like if he can take the weather, he could do really well for himself by staying. might even win something! it kind of kills me inside to know that players as amazing as Silva and Villa have resumes as short as they do just because they didn't play for Madrid or Barcelona. (in regards to your tangent, I believe some random oil baron has bought Malaga, so your wish may come true soon!)

haha oh dear. well, it would be cute? but probably wouldn't happen, barring some injury disaster. I think Iniesta will be around long enough for the next generation of Barça midfield maestros to get settled in. knock wood!

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They were together at Inter for a couple years! There was a leetle tension but Zlatan spoke up for him after a scuffle with Materazzi last year, so I think it could be good... Anyway, if they want to play together as Mario has said, I'M FOR IT. ("Visions of ~~sugarplums~~ trophies danced in her head...") And aww, yes, it would be adorable if he could play with Paloschi. Coincidentally, I'm also for Paloschi coming back to Milan. XD

This guy? XD And yes, I am totally keeping an eye on Malaga just to see what happens.

Well, the version in my head is kind of angsty because I don't know how to be nice to characters I like. ._. But shoot, you're right, for some reason I consistently age Iniesta up two or three years in my head. How is he still only twenty-six. o_o Anyway, that's only more "vaguely realistic fic idea" than actual prediction.

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aww, you know Zlatan would love to settle in as patriarch to the bad boys of Serie A. distributing pats on the head and explosives in equal measure. :D

ahahaha yes, that guy! though just his blog, not on twitter. he's a very good writer! I didn't realize he was so young.

I know, Iniesta just looks freakishly old. he looks older than Xavi! I'm always horrified to remember that Xavi is four years older than he is. but wheee for fic ideas! don't have to be accurate to be awesome!

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instead of shrieking about how he's destroying football with his defensive strategy
lol because awesome coaches like mou are known for their innovative brand of creative, attacking f --- oh wait. but mou will not go down in history as one of the greats!! xavi said so. how dare he say mou has not contributed as much to the sport as SAF and johan fucking cruyff, for pete's sake. (incidentally thank you for asking for a translation of that interview because i would never have listened to it as carefully otherwise, and consequently would not have been as pissed off when people willfully misinterpreted what xavi said.)

i think you just missed cesc's precocious wide-eyed vulnerable teenage prodigy stage, which would have endeared him to you a whole lot more as we are all confirmed pedobears etc. and i agree with mardia, city's dressing room tensions are a big turn-off. whatever else you might say about arsenal, it's obvious that they get along like a house on fire (though again, how much of that is a artificial tweaking on arsene's part is up to debate, as we can see from the gallas-nasri non-handshake) (but then again isn't that the manager's job).

in summary: i don't think that people hate on city for NO GOOD REASON, exactly, but like

acchikocchi i subscribe to city blogs and follow city twitters and i even follow machestercityspain tumblr, idk how that happened umm they have nice graphics? the tone of the city posts on _fb do make me uncomfortable (and it's not so much the OP's tone but the comments that i'm thinking of) so maybe this is proof that i am subliminally supporting the skyblues? who knows. omg if you are not already following this nice girl on tumblr who is a culé city fan you should, she just got back from a semester abroad in spain (madrid but still, dead of jealousy).

thank you, i never would have seen the mario-zlatan parallels but now that you've pointed them out WHERE IS THE STRIKER-ON-STRIKER HATESEX. WHERE IS THE FIC. fandom, please to get on this.

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