04-10-2022, 10:15 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-18-2022, 11:53 AM by soevil. Edited 1 time in total.)
With the draft coming up, Carissa decides it's time to get to know the teams a bit better. She's been enjoying the chats with ISFL managers and players both directly and through her agent, but she's always been a bit unorthodox and she needs to work that into her drafting process somehow, so she decides to send each team a gift. She includes a small letter with each, on football-printed stationery and includes a little white lie that this is customary in the Netherlands, and hopes they don't know any Dutch people well enough to call her out on it. Then, she digs into the teams and tries to find something fun to send each team.
Baltimore Hawks
To the Baltimore Hawks, Carissa tries to find a hero of the city, or a beloved monument. Something easy. One evening, she finds the perfect thing: Mr. Trash Wheel. A resident of the harbor and a local hero, the trash-eating boat and its creators are more than happy for Carissa to pay a small fee to have a stuffed Baltimore Hawk perched on top of the contraption. She has the group take a picture of it, and sends it off to the team.
Berlin Fire Salamanders
Carissa has been to Germany exactly twenty-five times, and each of those times she'd had the delight of visiting craft beer businesses. Mainly for her fathers at first, but more recently she'd been able to enjoy some flights. With the micro brewing rave, she finds an up-and-coming location that's more than happy to create a fire-y beer in honor of the team. Carissa and the company have a few packs sent to the team, and they cut down her bill as long as she promises to visit the next time she's in town.
Chicago Butchers
She considers sending them a cow, but after a night of rest she realizes she has no idea where she'd even get a cow, and goes back to the drawing board. Chicago's windy - it's got a single bean, pizza that seems more like a soup, and a big green river. She combines them together into a horrid bean-shaped green pizza. As she's contacting pizzerias to create the concoction, her agent gets wind of the plan and begs her to just send them a cow instead. Carissa finds a farm in Illinois that raises cows, adopts one in the team's name, calls it Green Bean, and sends the adoption sheet to the team. It's not as fun.
Colorado Yeti
Carissa goes through an idea-block when it comes to Colorado, and then one night sees something about bigfoot. A Yeti is kind of like a bigfoot right? Or at least they would have big feet? She rolls with it, asks a cute place in Amsterdam to custom make some Yeti-inspired wooden clogs. They gladly do so, and Carissa orders a special non-Yeti pair for herself to place in her apartment.
Philadelphia Liberty
Shazam! is one of Carissa's favorite movies. It's before her time but for some reason she just latched onto it and now whenever she thinks of Philadelphia she thinks of Shazam! (sorry, Rocky) and in honor of that she gets a larged stuffed tiger with a Liberty bell on its collar. She received a bewildered but thankful note in response and makes a mental note hat she is probably of a very very small group that loves that movie, then she goes and watches it again that night.
Sarasota Sailfish
Another weird thing that Carissa loves are those little wind up fish that serve as bath toys or more little things to lose in the canals of The Hague. She'd had an infinite amount of them as she'd lose them so easily, and has her dads see if they can find a sailfish one. They cannot. She tracks down a maker and they'll do some custom, so she gives them the colors of the mascot and, again, nabs one for herself.
Yellowknife Wraiths
At this point, Carissa is once again struggling for gift inspiration. She goes back to the basics, and does a little deep dive into Yellowknife on wikipedia one night. She's floored less by the mining history there and more by how absolutely cold it is up there in the arctic. She searches until she finds a knitter who takes custom orders, and while the craftswoman insists she cannot make a blanket big enough to fit a whole football team inside, she can make some mittens with some little ghosts ("wraiths" officially, on the order form, but they look like little ghosts) on the front. Carissa places her order.
Arizona Outlaws
Alright, with seven teams down and seven still to go, Carissa calls her friends and asks them for ideas. They end up planning a trip to the Grand Canyon that will probably never happen instead, and bam, Carissa's wasted five hours. Crazy how that works. With not much else to go on, Carissa surfs around before landing on the state animal. Ringtail cat. Adorable. She finds a zoo in the state that has one, asks if it can wear an Outlaws kerchief for a few days and awesome, it's done.
Austin Copperheads
Carissa sees "Keep Austin Weird" and immediately feels kinship with that. She excells at being weird, has been told so for a while. So she leans on that. She finds the biggest cowboy hat store in the city and has them wrap a snake around it. She sends that to the teams management and hopes that they'll like it, or even if they don't, that they'll at least find it weird.
Honolulu Hahalua
Carissa went to Hawai'i once with a friend, and they ate so many snowcones that they made themselves sick. She shops around for a place that does custom snow cones, finds many, and pays one in Honolulu to create a manta ray mould. They send her a picture of the finished product, complete with pineapple, coconut and blue raspberry flavoring to color it as the mascot, and send some to the team.
New Orleans Second Line
NOLA is a place Carissa hasn't gotten a chance to visit yet, but every time she's seen it depicted in popular media there's always vampires. Or at least supernatural things. She tries to figure out how to blend these together, and she's listening to one of her favorite band's newest releases when she realizes that people do write custom songs. She finds a jazz band who's willing, and they record a supernatural-themed ode to the city and the team. Carissa adores it, and hopes the team will too.
New York Silverbacks
So here's where Carissa gets a little diabolical. But only a little. She knows that New York City has great pizzas. Everyone knows that. She's also heard that New York and New Jersey are in some kind of feud, and have been since their inception. She has a highly-rated and family-owned pizzeria in New York City make some pies for the team, and throws in one made by a pizzeria in New Jersey. Of course she doesn't tell the NYC restaurant this, but waits to hear if the team notices. It's like a princess and the pea scenario. They thank her for the treat but don't say anything else, and she notes that results were inconclusive.
Orange County Otters
There's a live feed of otters that Carissa watches when she wants something mindless and cute, and she's also seen a bunch of videos and articles about their pebbles. She goes down to a local park in Norfolk, spends hours finding the smoothest, roundest pebble, and then brings that pebble to a local artist to paint his interpretation of the team's logo. He makes sure it has a smooth finish, and Carissa wraps it in a mountain of bubble wrap before sending it out.
San Jose Sabercats
Once again, Carissa's agent talks her out of what she believes would be a fun idea of paying a dentist to make big fake teeth so some players can look like sabercats. She finds out that you can make cat sweaters though, and latches onto that. A company agrees to print some sabercat cat sweaters, and Carissa hopes that the team might add them to their merch site.
Hand cramping and bank account looking a little sad, Carissa calls it a day. Her Dutch father insists she went overboard, that if she was going to claim gift-giving in the name of her home country the least she could do would be to keep the gifts cheap and simple. On the other hand, her American father thinks they're all very funny and asks for a cat sweater to send to his friend. At the very least, the activity rid her of some of her nervous energy, and she hopes made her stand out amongst a rather deep DSFL class. But, she'll have to wait until draft day to know. In the meantime, she trains and plays hard with the Seawolves, and hopes for the best.
ISFL: NSFC Teams
Baltimore Hawks
To the Baltimore Hawks, Carissa tries to find a hero of the city, or a beloved monument. Something easy. One evening, she finds the perfect thing: Mr. Trash Wheel. A resident of the harbor and a local hero, the trash-eating boat and its creators are more than happy for Carissa to pay a small fee to have a stuffed Baltimore Hawk perched on top of the contraption. She has the group take a picture of it, and sends it off to the team.
Berlin Fire Salamanders
Carissa has been to Germany exactly twenty-five times, and each of those times she'd had the delight of visiting craft beer businesses. Mainly for her fathers at first, but more recently she'd been able to enjoy some flights. With the micro brewing rave, she finds an up-and-coming location that's more than happy to create a fire-y beer in honor of the team. Carissa and the company have a few packs sent to the team, and they cut down her bill as long as she promises to visit the next time she's in town.
Chicago Butchers
She considers sending them a cow, but after a night of rest she realizes she has no idea where she'd even get a cow, and goes back to the drawing board. Chicago's windy - it's got a single bean, pizza that seems more like a soup, and a big green river. She combines them together into a horrid bean-shaped green pizza. As she's contacting pizzerias to create the concoction, her agent gets wind of the plan and begs her to just send them a cow instead. Carissa finds a farm in Illinois that raises cows, adopts one in the team's name, calls it Green Bean, and sends the adoption sheet to the team. It's not as fun.
Colorado Yeti
Carissa goes through an idea-block when it comes to Colorado, and then one night sees something about bigfoot. A Yeti is kind of like a bigfoot right? Or at least they would have big feet? She rolls with it, asks a cute place in Amsterdam to custom make some Yeti-inspired wooden clogs. They gladly do so, and Carissa orders a special non-Yeti pair for herself to place in her apartment.
Philadelphia Liberty
Shazam! is one of Carissa's favorite movies. It's before her time but for some reason she just latched onto it and now whenever she thinks of Philadelphia she thinks of Shazam! (sorry, Rocky) and in honor of that she gets a larged stuffed tiger with a Liberty bell on its collar. She received a bewildered but thankful note in response and makes a mental note hat she is probably of a very very small group that loves that movie, then she goes and watches it again that night.
Sarasota Sailfish
Another weird thing that Carissa loves are those little wind up fish that serve as bath toys or more little things to lose in the canals of The Hague. She'd had an infinite amount of them as she'd lose them so easily, and has her dads see if they can find a sailfish one. They cannot. She tracks down a maker and they'll do some custom, so she gives them the colors of the mascot and, again, nabs one for herself.
Yellowknife Wraiths
At this point, Carissa is once again struggling for gift inspiration. She goes back to the basics, and does a little deep dive into Yellowknife on wikipedia one night. She's floored less by the mining history there and more by how absolutely cold it is up there in the arctic. She searches until she finds a knitter who takes custom orders, and while the craftswoman insists she cannot make a blanket big enough to fit a whole football team inside, she can make some mittens with some little ghosts ("wraiths" officially, on the order form, but they look like little ghosts) on the front. Carissa places her order.
ISFL: ASFC Teams
Arizona Outlaws
Alright, with seven teams down and seven still to go, Carissa calls her friends and asks them for ideas. They end up planning a trip to the Grand Canyon that will probably never happen instead, and bam, Carissa's wasted five hours. Crazy how that works. With not much else to go on, Carissa surfs around before landing on the state animal. Ringtail cat. Adorable. She finds a zoo in the state that has one, asks if it can wear an Outlaws kerchief for a few days and awesome, it's done.
Austin Copperheads
Carissa sees "Keep Austin Weird" and immediately feels kinship with that. She excells at being weird, has been told so for a while. So she leans on that. She finds the biggest cowboy hat store in the city and has them wrap a snake around it. She sends that to the teams management and hopes that they'll like it, or even if they don't, that they'll at least find it weird.
Honolulu Hahalua
Carissa went to Hawai'i once with a friend, and they ate so many snowcones that they made themselves sick. She shops around for a place that does custom snow cones, finds many, and pays one in Honolulu to create a manta ray mould. They send her a picture of the finished product, complete with pineapple, coconut and blue raspberry flavoring to color it as the mascot, and send some to the team.
New Orleans Second Line
NOLA is a place Carissa hasn't gotten a chance to visit yet, but every time she's seen it depicted in popular media there's always vampires. Or at least supernatural things. She tries to figure out how to blend these together, and she's listening to one of her favorite band's newest releases when she realizes that people do write custom songs. She finds a jazz band who's willing, and they record a supernatural-themed ode to the city and the team. Carissa adores it, and hopes the team will too.
New York Silverbacks
So here's where Carissa gets a little diabolical. But only a little. She knows that New York City has great pizzas. Everyone knows that. She's also heard that New York and New Jersey are in some kind of feud, and have been since their inception. She has a highly-rated and family-owned pizzeria in New York City make some pies for the team, and throws in one made by a pizzeria in New Jersey. Of course she doesn't tell the NYC restaurant this, but waits to hear if the team notices. It's like a princess and the pea scenario. They thank her for the treat but don't say anything else, and she notes that results were inconclusive.
Orange County Otters
There's a live feed of otters that Carissa watches when she wants something mindless and cute, and she's also seen a bunch of videos and articles about their pebbles. She goes down to a local park in Norfolk, spends hours finding the smoothest, roundest pebble, and then brings that pebble to a local artist to paint his interpretation of the team's logo. He makes sure it has a smooth finish, and Carissa wraps it in a mountain of bubble wrap before sending it out.
San Jose Sabercats
Once again, Carissa's agent talks her out of what she believes would be a fun idea of paying a dentist to make big fake teeth so some players can look like sabercats. She finds out that you can make cat sweaters though, and latches onto that. A company agrees to print some sabercat cat sweaters, and Carissa hopes that the team might add them to their merch site.
Hand cramping and bank account looking a little sad, Carissa calls it a day. Her Dutch father insists she went overboard, that if she was going to claim gift-giving in the name of her home country the least she could do would be to keep the gifts cheap and simple. On the other hand, her American father thinks they're all very funny and asks for a cat sweater to send to his friend. At the very least, the activity rid her of some of her nervous energy, and she hopes made her stand out amongst a rather deep DSFL class. But, she'll have to wait until draft day to know. In the meantime, she trains and plays hard with the Seawolves, and hopes for the best.