Break My Strings

  Ok hear me out… let’s have a magic system that requires mental and physical strength, a magic that has a cost. Powers are earned by exercising them like a muscle, and displays of power are terrifying because /magic drains you/. The original 6 teams are particularly conservative with their magic; only captains are allowed to shoulder the burden of dealing with curses & charms (more modern franchises let the As share, but even still it’s taboo to talk about). So:

  Curse-breaking takes effort, but it’s something Mitch had only ever half-witnessed. He’d seen JT try each of the previous seasons, last season especially– had seen how even his quiet steadiness had started to fray around the edges when the playoffs hit.

  The exhaustion after each game hadn’t looked quite right for it to be purely physical– JT would slump into his chair on the flights back to Toronto, giving a weary smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Mitch didn’t comment on how JT used the wall for support as he showered off, just put his head down and skated harder. 

  Maybe that should’ve been a sign that actually breaking the Leafs’ playoffs curse would’ve been something to be aware of, but here’s the thing about breaking a curse during an away game: it doesn’t hit right away. They celebrate, of course. Mitch gets far, far too wasted and is a clinging, affectionate mess at JT’s side all night. JT is pretty far gone himself– he’s earnest, serious in a way that makes Mitch’s heart ache when he tells Mitch he did it for him, that he’s so happy he came home to Toronto and found something even better than he could’ve imagined waiting for him. It’s worth it, he says over and over again, and Mitch is thinking he’s finally talking about the bone-deep tiredness he’s seen in all playoffs prior.

  (JT braces himself for his first step onto the ground of Toronto, but it still hits him like a ton of bricks.) It forces a gasp out of him, knees nearly buckling, and Mitch doesn’t realize that what’s wrong is magical until he’s in front of JT and sees his eyes (bright blue, unfocused, nearly glowing). He’s feverish, heart racing. He needs a place to channel it to, and all he can see is Mitch in front of him, saying something he can’t hear over the ringing in his ears.

Submitted by @xpyjamas

since my brain refuses to let me think about anything BUT the toronto maple leafs these days, i’ve decided to compile info/links/photos/videos of the dynamic on the team i personally find most compelling, charming, heartwarming, hilarious: mitch marner and auston matthews (aka 1634 aka the heart and soul of this current leafs team in my humble opinion).

i will be citing my sources, but if any info needs corrected or there are things i’ve missed, don’t be afraid to hmu. i’ve only been around for a couple months so 🫡 😘 ✌️ this is going to be long-winded (almost 4k kinds of long-winded…) let’s DO IT:

Are you ready to see unprecedented, detailed views of the universe from the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful space observatory ever made? Scroll down to see the first full-color images and data from Webb. Unfold the universe with us. ✨

Carina Nebula

This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars, called the Cosmic Cliffs, is the edge of the star-birthing Carina Nebula. Usually, the early phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but Webb can peer through cosmic dust—thanks to its extreme sensitivity, spatial resolution, and imaging capability. Protostellar jets clearly shoot out from some of these young stars in this new image.

Southern Ring Nebula

The Southern Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula: it’s an expanding cloud of gas and dust surrounding a dying star. In this new image, the nebula’s second, dimmer star is brought into full view, as well as the gas and dust it’s throwing out around it. (The brighter star is in its own stage of stellar evolution and will probably eject its own planetary nebula in the future.) These kinds of details will help us better understand how stars evolve and transform their environments. Finally, you might notice points of light in the background. Those aren’t stars—they’re distant galaxies.

Stephan’s Quintet

Stephan’s Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies near each other, was discovered in 1877 and is best known for being prominently featured in the holiday classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” This new image brings the galaxy group from the silver screen to your screen in an enormous mosaic that is Webb’s largest image to date. The mosaic covers about one-fifth of the Moon’s diameter; it contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. Never-before-seen details are on display: sparkling clusters of millions of young stars, fresh star births, sweeping tails of gas, dust and stars, and huge shock waves paint a dramatic picture of galactic interactions.

WASP-96 b

WASP-96 b is a giant, mostly gas planet outside our solar system, discovered in 2014. Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) measured light from the WASP-96 system as the planet moved across the star. The light curve confirmed previous observations, but the transmission spectrum revealed new properties of the planet: an unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence of clouds in the atmosphere. This discovery marks a giant leap forward in the quest to find potentially habitable planets beyond Earth.

Webb's First Deep Field

This image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb’s First Deep Field, looks 4.6 billion years into the past. Looking at infrared wavelengths beyond Hubble’s deepest fields, Webb’s sharp near-infrared view reveals thousands of galaxies—including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared—in the most detailed view of the early universe to date. We can now see tiny, faint structures we’ve never seen before, like star clusters and diffuse features and soon, we’ll begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions.

These images and data are just the beginning of what the observatory will find. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space—and for milestones like this!

A couple of days with no obligations, no pressure, and no people except them.

It sounds like heaven.

“Yeah… that’s why I booked the cottage,” Auston replies, brushing his hand over the side of Mitch’s knee, right where he’s ticklish.

(Mitch and Auston play house at a cottage. That’s it. What it says on the tin.)

Mitch looks out at the desert, then back at Auston, and he looks determined. “Can I-” he starts to ask, then, before Auston gets a chance to wonder where this is going: “Don’t touch me.”

He doesn’t say it mean, or scared. Just sort of says it, then scoots closer and leans his head on Auston’s shoulder.

It’s not particularly comfortable. Mitch is all tense, and his blanket is itchy against Auston’s arm, and Auston’s trying so hard to stay still that he must be shaking.

It’s not the two of them, cuddled up on Mitch’s couch, overlapping everywhere. Nothing close. 

Auston could almost cry with it anyways, and they stay out on the porch ‘til the sun starts coming up over the horizon. No one talks, which- the change from constant chatter and joking is still weird for them, but then, Auston guesses, they don’t really need words, for this.

-From Safe as Houses by the undiagnosable aka the fic that ruined my life 

“I’m Mitch, and I’ll be supervising business class today. Please don’t hesitate to call either me or my two colleagues William and Michaela whenever you need something. I’ll be right back with your drink.” 

With a little wink, Mitch turns around to walk to the galley. This time Auston has no choice but to stare at his slender body in the crisp uniform. He takes in the trim waist, emphasized by the white shirt and grey vest. Then he lets his eyes trail over the long legs and the perky butt before he fixes them on the sliver of pale and tender skin that is exposed on his neck. 

Good lord, Mitch is pretty. Very pretty.

Suddenly, this ten-hour flight seems much more enjoyable than before. 

AO3