#Lockdown 8 results

[lylianrae]

A list of all the things I have manifested ⋆˚⟡˖ ࣪

We manifest everything in our lives btw - the good and the bad which is why I will be including both to prove that the law does not discriminate. If you can successfully become poor, you can most definately become rich with the same ease because everything is just a state.

Long hair

AHH this is one of my favourite manifestations. Ever since I was young I had a weird bob with a fringe (often crooked) and I wanted long hair like all the other girls (lmaoo) but my mum was strict so she didn't let me grow it out. Although I didn't know about manifestation back then, every new year and birthday I would wish for long hair and I would pretend I was a princess with butt long hair. Guess what, somewhere along the line, my mum let me grow it out and now I have butt length hair (don't really know what to do with it tho </3).

As all kids do, I went through an emo phase where I chopped off like half of my hair like 4 years ago. I literally grew back 7-8" of hair within a month because my parents got too mad. I knew about manifestation here so I just assumed my hair always grows unaturally fast. Same with when I cut bangs, they grew past my chin within a couple of weeks.

Manifesting my way into a private school

Honestly this just shows that you dont need 2430430 hours of working on your self concept to manifest. Literally so many celebs, including Marylin Monroe (the queen), manifested their fame with awful self concept. Likewise, here I was possibly going through the worst time of my life back then. I would wake up at 8 am and start studying and end at 11 pm despite being only 10 at the time. I was so freaking stressed and envious of all the other children and went into a depressive spiral where my two options were pass or die. I didn't even have enough practice and I cried my self to sleep on most nights. Anyways, when i did the exam I was deathly calm and even after the exam I was apparently so chill so my parents thought I failed.

I literally left 9 questions on one paper but throughout the summer, everytime I found a dandelion I would make a wish and imagine digging a tunnel to the examiners room where I secretly change my answers into the right ones (lmfao my tiny 10 yr old brain - idek how it worked). Anyways my results were sent back to me a month later on a random October evening and I got a really high mark. Even after 7 years of going to this school I havn't met anyone who has gotten a mark higher than mine.

Curly hair / straight hair

Sigh. We always want things we don't have. When I was younger I had really straight hair like 1A asian hair but when I was like 10, I really wanted curly hair and I would try to curl it often. After a few months, I manifested a curling iron and my hair literally became naturally curly like right after a wash it would curly af when before it was dead straight. Naturally I grew bored of it and I wanted my straight hair back and for ages I began overcomplicating the law and struggled to manifest it. It was only recently when I actually let go of the 3D that I manifested the silky, shiny straight hair.

Social life?

This is also a funny one, just shows how easily you can manifest. So back in 2021 after lockdown I felt so lonely and felt so left out of my friendship group so after a few months I began stressing myself out and spiraling for like 30 minutes, sobbing to myself about how I was so lonely and how nobody loved me (💀). Anyways it became reality, I found myself uncomfortable in many social situations and found myself becoming forgotten far more easily. I don't really remember the details but it was so bad that I think I accidently manifested social anxiety (oh well we still up tho).

However I am a loa girly so I found myself listening to popularity subliminals and slowly (but surely) my mindset change from having no friends to being the most popular girl in the year. Like no joke I became friends with like 3 people from different social circles so at lunchtime we had to join up like 3 different tables so we can all sit together. Overall I got myself 20+ close friends and even my ex friends began to admire me although it had ended badly. Even now, when someone says something thats untrue - for example saying that they are dumb when they are not, they would be like "ahaha so its like when Rae (me) says she has no friends, the whole school knows who Rae is".

Clear skin

This was sort of in the beginning of my loa (law of attraction back then) journey, I just randomly found out what subliminals were and was still quite new to everything. Now I don't even understand how it happened but I had busted some capillaries under my skin and it looked like small red viens under my skin and bro I was freaking out at the time. One night I was like just, I had enough, I'm going to get myself better skin and so I listened to a sub once for 3-4 days and on like the 4th day, my cheeks began to heat up which was odd and the next day it was 90% gone. Just like magikkkk.

Desired university?

Guys. Feeling is the secret. Don't you ever forgot that - not feeling as in emotions but rather the feeling of knowing. I had 2 entrance exams to do to apply for my universities and it was a stressful time where I wasn't getting enough sleep and wasn't eating enough simply because I didn't have the time. Like I come home from school and would have 3-4 hours of homework, then I need to revise for tests and then the remaining time would be spent on the entrance exams. Each past paper took 2 hours and I have around 13s per questions and I was already struggling on time. Anyways, I began to hate them and I would often complain to my mum saying things like "My score got even lower!!" or "I hate it so much" or "My head hurts / eyes hurt".

Guess what? Not only did I see my score decrease over time but I also made such a silly mistake on the most important entrance exam which I needed for 4/5 of my universities. I left a question and completely forgot to mark on the answer so when I finished the section I realised I had one more space on the sheet with like 10s to spare. I didn't have enough time to go back and fix it and lemme say that I did so badly in the test. Even while waiting for results I was just like "ah it would be a miracle if I scored above this bla bla".

I got the score back and it was so freaking bad like I did not stand a chance at my university at all. However, I started to affirm for a place and to my utter shock and surprise my desired university reached out and offered me an interview. I knew people who had like scores which were 50% better than mine and they still got rejected pre-interview. Anyways I began stressing about the interview and the results of the whole thing and boom. I got rejected 3 days after my birthday lmaoo. But its okay because I'm reapplying and I learnt so much more. I'm redoing the entrance exam and my score is a loooot better than it ever was last year.

A key take away would be thoughts are the result of the state you are in. Your dwelling state manifests and I was focusing on the unrealness and the difficultly of getting into this uni and thats what manifested. At the time I was heartbroken and literally went through the 7 stages of grief and spent so many months trying to revise it only for me to focus on the 3D. Just know that everything is done in imagination and it appears in the 3D as a result.

Photographic memory

So this is also something I had manifested before I actually knew about loa but the takeaway here is that manifestation is always instant. I was around 11 reading a random book on my tiny kindle and the book was on how to develop a good memory and I was like ah that'll be useful. Anyways later in the car, I asked my dad about photographic memory and he sort of explained it to me. I just assumed that I have that and I told him I do. He just laughed at me and said thats something that you have to train for and I was not impressed lmao. Inside my tiny brain, I was just like nope, I already have photographic memory and I dropped that thought. Let me tell you, my memory is actually photographic and has helped me out on so many occasions like my brain just takes pictures of things.

Learning fast

This is also something I did before I knew loa, I was just always wondering why the other kids couldn't grasp concepts as easily as I did. Literally in every lesson I would be like ah I learn so fast and now I am actually blessed with the ability to grasp complex subjects so fast. A favourite example of mine would be when I was obsessed with music but to take it to a higher level you need to be able to play an instrument. I couldn't at the time and my teacher told me the requirements a week before the actual deadline. I have never actually played piano with both hands but one day I sat down and worked through the entire song (fur elise by Beethoven) which is a grade 5 (I think) and it normally takes people months / weeks to learn. I learnt the whole thing in 3 days and from then on, I could play piano like I had been doing for ages. Again the memory thing was so helpful because I never actually used any sheet music, I learnt it off a youtube video and I remembered every single note I needed to play.

Hourglass body + 22" waist

This was a couple of years ago when I actually didn't understand loa. Anyways long story short, I would do a 3 minute workout and then flex infront of the mirror all day (💀) and be like omg I have abs. Overtime, I actually got so skinny everyone around me kept pointing it out to me and my mum got so concerned that she took me to the doctor like 4 times. It was so funny, I would loose like 2-3kg overnight and my parents would have to buy better fitting uniform.

Bigger boobs

This was also back in the day (2021?) when I didn't understand how to manifest things easily af. I had an A cup but I wanted better boobies and I listened to like 2 subs for a week and I went to a B cup. But I just assumed I have a bigger cup size recently and I just skipped C and went to D+ (haven't measured in a long time).

I'm not done but I'm tired now bye bye

[avocado-writing]

Hello! Could I request BG3 origin companions + Halsin and Rolan reacting to you asking them to help you work out/get fit? I've just started my fitness journey (for health reasons) and motivating myself can be really hard sometimes ;-;

good luck on your fitness journey, anon! i lost a load of weight over lockdown so i know that it can be difficult but i promise you it's possible!

Astarion

he' will literally complain the whole time but will do it anyway.

he doesn't work out with you, but he will sit to the side as you exercise and shout 'encouragements' at you.

"oh that weightlifting looks like it's absolutely awful, keep it up!" or he sees you eating a protein bowl and he's like "good on you for eating that but I'm glad I only need to survive off blood"

but still let you know he's proud of you and is, overall, supportive and sweet.

Gale

I am not a 'gale has abs' truther. sorry larian he has a str 8 I'm not buying it.

still, he will really really do his best to help be your workout partner.

if he spots you with weightlifting he has to do it with a mage hand too, or my boy is not strong enough to make sure you don't hurt yourself lol

he will get so knackered trying to keep up with you but he'll do it! he wants to be a good exercise partner!

is the best for looking up dietary stuff & researching into best exercises for the parts of your body you want to focus on.

maybe he does have abs by the time of you get into a good routine...

Wyll

Wyll is the only str8 companion I buy having abs. he's a swordsman and keeps himself lean to be good in a fight.

uses his swordmanship knowledge as a fitness regime - the two of you spar every day for long periods, it's a great workout!

helps you cool down after too, shows you the best way to help ease the sting of lactic acid.

he will sit down with you and make an exercise plan for each day. if he's doing this with you you're going the whole way, not half-arsing it.

exhausting but a great workout partner!

Karlach

very excited. jumps into training with you way too fast and hard. you are exhausted after the first couple of days and go to bed aching from it.

when she realises she cuts down on what she's asking you to do and tries to build up your strength and endurance on a curve rather than all at once.

she loves getting up early and going for a jog, just the two of you.

great at weight lifting. you're able to lift far more than you could every dream of after a couple of months.

she flexes at you and you flex back, then break into laughter. she loves having someone to do this with!

Shadowheart

especially when she's still a sharran, she is very much a 'feel the burn' sort of exercise partner.

your body hurts? good. keep going. that's how you know it's working. shar wants you to feel the pain.

lots of yoga and meditation, too. helps you restore balance to yourself after a tough session.

you go to bed sore every night but she just uses heals on you the next morning before you get going again.

it works but god, it is rough.

Lae'zel

"hmm. very well, i have seen how enviously you look at my body. i will train you to have my strength."

like karlach, she throws you in to the deep end, because that is how githyanki do it. unlike karlach she does not let up.

she is brutal but you see results quickly. another one of the companions who likes sparring. will make you fight her again and again until she can see proof your muscles are developing.

one day she gives you a compliment about how well you're doing and you're glowing for the rest of the day.

Halsin

for sure uses his wildshape to help you work out, turning into bigger and bigger animals and getting you to carry them as you run.

very supportive! constantly giving you a stream of praise about how well you are doing.

suggests good plants to supply you with extra vitamins, makes sure you are drinking water and staying hydrated.

being so old he probably has his own workout routine which he adapts for you. is aware of how much you can do but also helps you increase your endurance - he is the best at planning what you're doing that day.

Rolan

will. not. shut. up. about. how. he. hates. this.

"i don't want to do this >:(" "then don't." "no wait--"

groans and whines as he jogs next to you. eventually uses a floating disk to hover next to you as you run a circuit.

when you point out he's just giving up, that incites him, and he becomes a halfway decent workout buddy - he says it's just to spite you, but you think it may be because he enjoys spending time with you...

[walkawaytall]

I really wish there was more interest in how to handle ADHD other than just addressing the symptoms that affect the people around us.

Like, the best pharmaceutical treatment we have right now is stimulants, and I agree that being on stimulants 24 hours a day, 365 days a year is probably not good for your body. Hell, I’m on a less-than-ideal dose of my medication from a concentration perspective because the ideal dose had my resting heart rate sitting at a cool 115BPM. I know taking med holidays is important. I know all of this.

But because ADHD isn’t just an attention problem (or may not actually be an attention problem at all at its core), it sucks that the only time period medical professionals seem to be concerned about treating are the “important” times: the length of a school or workday. Forget the fact that ADHD affects executive function, forget the fact that people with ADHD often experience chronic and unending anxiety and/or depression as a result of the ADHD, forget that there are important times that have nothing to do with an 8-hour school or work day, forget the rejection sensitivity dysphoria, the sensory issues that make things like clothing, food, and group situations a nightmare to try to navigate, the household stuff that has to be taken care of outside of the 8-hour school or work day. It feels like none of that matters because it doesn’t affect a group of fifteen or more people.

On top of ADHD, I have been plagued with anxiety-related issues for the majority of my life. I likely have a form of OCD and I have a history with a restrictive eating disorder; both of those conditions are very closely associated with high levels of anxiety. I’ve been on anxiety medications before. I was first given an as-needed medication that took the edge off but also made everything feel a little fuzzy, like there was a pane of glass between me and the rest of the world; I was put on an SSRI that somehow made my OCD-related intrusive thoughts about 50x worse than usual and had me wondering at one point if I should be hospitalized; and I’m currently on buspirone, which is doing what it’s supposed to do without the side effects of the others thankfully. But nothing, and I mean nothing, has reduced my anxiety as much as my ADHD medication.

Two hours after my first stimulant dosage, I just suddenly didn’t feel on-edge any more. I estimate that being on ADHD medication has reduced my anxiety by about 70% (buspirone’s for the other 30%). I started taking it in the summer of 2020 and I remember, in 2021, when I saw my boss in person for the first time since lockdown, he remarked on how much more confident I seemed, how I was more likely to speak up in meetings, etc. And I was like…yeah, man, it’s a wonder what not feeling anxious every second of every day will do for someone.

ADHD affects so much more of my life than just attention and anxiety, too. I have sensory issues with mine, which is pretty common, and they make eating — an already sometimes-complicated task due to the ED history — difficult at times because, while I can eat foods that I don’t particularly like, if something is what I call “the bad texture”, I will gag no matter how hard I work to overcome it (believe me, I’ve tried). And my brain sometimes decides that foods that were previously fine are now “the bad texture” and they may or may not shift back to being okay eventually; I don’t know.

The sensory issues affect me socially. My therapist and I have recently come to the conclusion that I’m probably not actually an introvert, but if I’m around larger groups, that means noise and movement and probably being touched, and too much of that causes my brain to either freak out or shut down. I used to always say, “I love people, but when I’m done, I’m done.” And that was likely because the overstimulation was building and building in the background, and at a certain point, my brain would just be like, “We gotta get outta here.” I was Queen of Irish Goodbyes for a very long time because of this.

And the executive dysfunction affects…well..everything? Not just work, not just school (but also those because if my environment is chaotic, my brain feels chaotic, and it is difficult to maintain a non-chaotic environment if you keep getting stuck on order of operations when picking up a room).

I’m not saying that I want to be on longer-lasting stimulants or that I want to be on the higher dose that I know helps my concentration more, cardiovascular system by damned. What I’m saying is, I wish treatment research had been more holistic rather than just figuring out what would give teachers and managers an easier time despite what the person with ADHD might be dealing with as soon as their meds wear off.

Maybe current research is working on it; I don’t know. I just know that, the older I get, the more frustrated I am with my brain and the more apparent the deficiencies I used to be able to counteract with pre-chronic-illness energy and crushing perfectionism become, and I wish there was an answer to this that actually helped me most of the time rather than forcing me to pick which parts of my day/week is “important” and making sure I’m medicated for those parts.

[dearlexies]

if you are a REAL ENGENE read this until the end, it's long but so so important!!!

I need Engenes to start supporting enhypen the same way they do with us, and I'm being serious.

I warn you that there will probably be some spelling mistakes because English is not my first language, but honestly at this moment I don't give a damn about that I just hope you understand what I have to say.

I'm so tired of seeing other fandoms talking bullshit about the boys, and dragging the group and members at every opportunity. This is not the first, the second, third and definitely won't be the last one. I'm not saying for us to be like them but for us to start being better, and not in a way that they talk shit about enhypen and we just let it happen without saying a word but in a way that they talk shit and we show the results!!!

WE ENGENES are the ones who make them break records, WE ENGENES are the people who should support them on this path, WE ENGENES are the people responsible for voting and streaming their music and honestly we are not doing this well. Romance : Untold was a perfect album, and Sunghoon said he expected to get 3 wins with this album; instead we only got one. and sometimes it feels like it was purely luck. we had a goal for the XO mv to have 40M views on the first month, now 3 months have passed and we are still at 33M. XO and BTHB had the chance to trend on tiktok and we let it pass. How do you expect Enhypen to be known? Honestly Belift doesn't promote them too much, and in the few times that it happens y'all let it pass and act like it didn't happen. So the only ones who can ACTUALLY promote the group are us engenes.

The ones on Tik Tok are useless, most of them don't vote, don't stream, don't watch mvs, are only there for interactions and comment "who's your bias??" at every video. The ones on Twitter are fighting with each other all the time. The few on Tumblr are only here for fanfics. And not to mention the fake engenes that are LITERALLY telling us to boycott the group which is honestly the worst thing we can do for them!!!!

So please, all I'm asking is for y'all started acting as a FANDOM. we need to unite, connect, whatever, to help the boys to grow. Can we please do this???

ENHYPEN already warned us that next year's schedule will be super busy, that means they already know their plans and have accepted the challenge. We should match their pace in terms of working hard all year. ENGENEs I ask you, are you ready?

let's support them with whatever we can and I ask all the Engenes to kindly stream we need to go on a steaming lockdown. Every Engene who come across this comment kindly stream to their fullest, collect rewards for music shows, Stream music videos etc.

But let's not start it next year, let's do it NOW!!! as we know enhypen will probably have a comeback in November so download higher, all charts, idol champ, mubeat, mnet plus, upick and star collecting for the voting, you don't need to download all of them just one or two is already good enough to help. Just download the app, do your attendance, watch some ads, and when the voting stars just vote for enhypen, simple like that. We have one month to collect so when it starts we're ready.

ENHYPEN has a chance to take AOTY to this year's MAMA, we urgently need to increase streams in romance:untold, listen to the album as much as possible, let's give them this award, please!!! Moonstruck is kinda trending on tiktok right now so let's keep it that way post videos with the songs, do edits, dance challenges etc

and also, enhypen is the only bg of the 4th generation to have four songs with 300M on spotify and I know in the future there will be many more, but right now we need to make given-taken have 200M on Spotify so here are some playlists for Romance Untold and Given-Taken

R:U & Given-Taken 2 hours

Given-Taken to 200M

Given-Taken to 200M + XO focus

Romance Untold 8 hour stream

as Engenes we need to support our boys they not rookie's anymore they are Senior now. They have big goals in 2025 ENGENES need a mindset like ENHYPEN.. ENGENES also need a Big Goals to our boys like Deasang!!!! let's work hard

[cenestpaslavie]

Election Fraud?

You've seen this image:

It’s a graph from a website named ZeroHedge. Its purpose is to highlight the dramatic increase in democrat votes in 2020, and the subsequent decrease in 2024. This is to bring attention to the theory that the 2020 election was a farce. However, this graph is not viable evidence of election fraud. All it shows is that more people, overall, showed up to the 2020 election. I believe this increased turnout can be attributed to the unprecedented circumstances at the time.

Firstly, it is clear that Democrat and republican votes increased from 2016 to 2020. For Democrats, it was a 23% increase, and for Republicans, it was 18%. It then seemingly drops to normal levels for Democrats in 2024, but not for Republicans. It should be considered that this is a developing situation, the article this graph was created for was posted on November 6th, while votes were still being counted. Currently, on November 8th, the graph would look more like this:

As the rest of the votes are counted, the graph will continue to shift. It’s still a significant loss in Democrat votes, but it’s definitely not the flat line shown in the original graph anymore.

The drastic increase in the votes of Democrats and Republicans (though admittedly, mostly Democrats), can be attributed to the issues at the time. In 2020, there were the George Floyd protests, which went on the entire year (and almost another two after that), there were the California wildfires which decimated 4.3 million acres, and of course, the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdowns, which ruled over the entire year. In times of exceptional social tension, voter turnout will increase; this has always been true. For example, in the first election after 9/11, democrats showed a 16% increase in votes, and Republicans showed a 23% increase, based on the votes of the previous election. An increase, which is proportionally very similar to 2020, only reversed. Another important factor is the social distancing protocols in 2020, where the reasons a person could request to vote by mail were expanded, and many states sent all registered voters a ballot by mail. So, people who had not voted before had a mail-in ballot dropped in their lap and might have already been pushed into action by the increasing social tension.

In the 2024 election, though, the drop in voter turnout was not proportional to what we saw in 2008, the second election after 9/11. Though, again, as the votes are counted, this gap will decrease. It is my belief that many typical Democrat voters were feeling disillusioned with the state of things. Trump’s campaigning was ever-present, the assassination attempt caused massive publicity, and Kamala only had a few months to campaign. The biggest issue many left-winged people were concerned with this election was the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Since both Trump and Kamala did not plan to stop funding Israel’s invasion, many people voted third party or did not vote. While Kamala did show more empathy towards the Palestinian people than Trump, it was not enough to sway the majority to her side.

In conclusion, there was not and is not an election fraud. The results are what they are, and trying to prove a voting fraud distracts from the action that needs to be taken now to win back the Democrat votes for 2028. It also risks re-empowering the 2020 election fraud movement, which was violent and conspiratorial.

I would also like to add that despite the mostly neutral tone in this post, I am firmly a leftist. It is genuinely gutting to see the outcome of this election, not because of fraud, but because all of those people really approved of such archaic, hateful ideas.

Sources: 

Durden, T. (2024). Trump Wins: Here Are The Economic, Market, Tax, Tariff, Immigration And Regulation Implications. [online] Zerohedge.com. Available at: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trump-wins-here-are-economic-market-tax-tariff-immigration-and-regulation-implications [Accessed 8 Nov. 2024].

This is the ZeroHedge article which contains the original graph.

HOW WE VOTED IN 2020 A TOPICAL LOOK AT THE SURVEY OF THE PERFORMANCE OF AMERICAN ELECTIONS. [online] Available at: https://electionlab.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2021-03/HowWeVotedIn2020-March2021.pdf.

This is a breakdown of voting methods in 2020, used when talking about the increase of mail in ballots.

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica (2017). United States Presidential Election Results. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-States-Presidential-Election-Results-1788863.

This is an official record of the United States presidential election votes. This was used to calculate the increase of Dem and Rep voters, and to construct the updated graph.

Molski, M. (2024). How voting demographics changed between 2020 and 2024 presidential elections. [online] NBC4 Washington. Available at: https://www.nbcwashington.com/decision-2024/2024-voter-turnout-election-demographics-trump-harris/3762138/.

A comparison of voter demographics between 2020 and 2024. Used for me to get a general idea of the situation.

Kerlin, Katherine E. “California’s 2020 Wildfire Season.” UC Davis, 4 May 2022, www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news/californias-2020-wildfire-season-numbers.

Acres burned in the 2020 wildfires.

[rammingthestein]

🎂 ZEIT TURNS TWO YEARS OLD TODAY 🎈

29TH APRIL 2022

Zeit is the eighth studio album by German Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein, released on 29 April 2022 through Universal Music. Produced by the band with Olsen Involtini, the album was unplanned and recorded as a result of the band's tour being postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Flake, the sessions were spontaneous and that the lockdown caused the band to "have more time to think of new things and less distraction"

The photograph used for the cover art and promotional material was taken by Canadian musician Bryan Adams. It shows the members of Rammstein walking down a staircase connected to the Trudelturm, a monument dedicated to aerial research, located at Aerodynamic Park in Adlershof in Berlin. 

Rammstein began posting clips to their social media accounts on 8 March 2022, teasing forthcoming new material with the hashtag "#ZEITkommt"

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Of all the many languages you speak which is your weakest one? Do you use those languages?

It’s privilege to learn any language that isn’t your mother tongue. As Ludwig Wittgenstein correctly observed, “The limits of my language means the limits of my world”. If English is our native tongue we put ourselves at a disadvantage because we expect every other nationality to take the trouble to speak it. There seems no incentive to learn a foreign language. We become lazy not just in language but also in other ways including our cultural enrichment, our imagination, and a misplaced sense of our self-importance in the world.

Of the European languages I know, I probably think German would be my weakest. When I was in school in Switzerland you’re brought up in three languages: French, Italian, and German (even if the Swiss speak Swiss German). When I say weakest I mean I can converse fluently, but I don’t have time to read German literature in the same immersive way I would say with French literature or take any special interest in German affairs.

I would say I’m fairly fluent in French now but still prone to silly mistakes. I’ve been told that I can speak without an accent and that is heart warming to know, because that was always the goal once I moved here to France. I don’t really use French in my work as it’s a multi-national entity and so English is the default language of corporate world, but I’m speaking French pretty much the rest of the time outside of work.

I was extremely fortunate to be born into a multi-lingual family where Norwegian and English were spoken from birth. All my siblings were being versed in Latin (not Greek which came years later after doing Classics at university) by the time I was 8 or 9 years old because my father was a classicist and he felt Latin was the building blocks to mastering other languages.

All this occurring whilst we moved lived and moved around a lot in the world such as China, Japan, India, and the Middle East. When I was initially sent to one of the first of my English girls boarding schools I was horrified that most of the girls only spoke English. I thought I was the stupid one for only knowing 6. Boarding school, if nothing else, gave me a great privilege to hone in on the languages I did know and start to learn others.

My parents didn’t take the easy way out and put us children in international schools like all the other expat children. That would have been too easy given how tight knit the British expatriate community was out there. Instead we were left to sink or swim in local schools in places like Tokyo and Kyoto in Japan or Shanghai in China or in Delhi, India. It was a struggle but you soon find your feet and you stumble towards some basic level of fluency.

I’m fortunate that before Covid my corporate work took me often to the Far East and it was a great opportunity to hone what I already knew. The result is I can converse and take business meetings in Chinese and Japanese (though English gets thrown into the mix too).

I would say Chinese is more of a struggle for me these days because I’ve not been back since before the Covid lockdown in 2020. Chinese is one of those languages that can easily melt away if you don’t get the chance to converse in it on a regular basis. Japanese less so, probably because the culture had more profound impact on me than Chinese culture.

Hindi is less of an issue because I have close Indian friends and also I watch Bollywood movies as well as converse with Indian immigrants here in Paris who have local stores. Urdu I learned through the backdoor because Urdu has a spoken affinity with Hindi (if you know Hindi then you know spoken Urdu, more or less, especially in Northern India and cities like Delhi where Urdu was born in the burnt ashes of Mughal India). Reading is another matter because they each use different scripts - Sanskrit for Hindi and Arabic and Persian script for Urdu.

Strangely enough when I was doing my tour in Afghanistan years ago with the British army, I would speak Urdu with local Afghans who served as official translators or were selling goods on the base. These Afghans knew Urdu because an entire generation of Afghan boys and girls grew up in refugee camps on the Pakistani border during the different phases of the Afghan war. I have very fond memories of their friendship and hospitality, but less so of the war itself. 

With Arabic, it had lapsed woefully until I did a posting in Dubai in the past year (as catalogued in my blog) and I found myself suddenly remembering a lot and asking Arab friends. Soon I was able to hold my own amongst my colleagues and corporate clients. In these cultures it’s really hard to stay focused because so many of them speak very good English. So it’s hard to get them to stick with their own language because you want to learn from them - but they want to show off their English proficiency - and so you have to be polite but persistent to stick with Arabic.  

If you’re learning a new language then I hope you stick with it. There’s almost nothing more rewarding in your life than the disocovery a rich culture through language. The key is to find a way to make it fun rather than a trip to the dentist chair for a root canal operation.

Thanks for your question.

[mariacallous]

SONNEBERG, GERMANY—First, in true German fashion, the rules were outlined: no alcohol on site, flagpoles capped at three meters, no protesting past 8 p.m. The demonstration followed, with hundreds congregated in the town square shouting insults at the incumbent government; cracking jokes at the expense of refugees, the LGBTQ+ community, and the media; and waving a sea of German flags, with a few Russian ones dotted among them.

“Anyone who dares call us Nazis will be reported to the police,” one of the protesters shouted from a makeshift stage propped up outside Sonneberg’s City Hall, a white mansion built between the world wars. “Germany first,” the protester continued, beckoning the crowds to join in singing the national anthem under a rainy, dark sky.

At 8 p.m. sharp, the crowd quickly dispersed—but they’ll be back next Monday, as they are every week. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they rallied against lockdowns. Now, they call for the overthrow of the current government coalition, and in recent months, the numbers of agitators have started to swell. Many are affiliated with the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD), and although members say they strongly reject what Nazi Germany stood for, a regional chair of the party, Björn Höcke, is on trial for concluding a 2021 speech with the phrase “Everything for Germany”—a slogan widely used by the Nazis. (Under German law, the use of speech, propaganda, and symbolism associated with the Nazi Party and other terrorist groups is prohibited.)

Sonneberg district, home to 56,000 people, is where AfD has celebrated its biggest success to date: Last year, Robert Sesselmann, 51, was elected as the district administrator in a runoff with 52.8 percent of the vote, making Sonneberg the first county in Germany to elect a far-right candidate since the Nazi era. But Thuringia’s AfD branch—where Sonneberg is located—has already been questioning the legitimacy of state institutions and asserted that the Federal Republic of Germany is not a sovereign state, but rather controlled by external powers.

The Thuringia branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has legally classified the AfD’s Thuringia branch as “right-wing extremist,” and the federal office is now deciding whether the party may be classified as a suspected case of right-wing extremism on the national level.

The question is pertinent, since the AfD is gaining in popularity not just in Thuringia, but nationwide. This trend picked up around the time of Germany’s last federal elections in 2021. Nationally, the AfD’s support base has grown to 22 percent, compared to 10.4 percent in 2021. Three states in the east—Thuringia, as well as Brandenburg and Saxony—head to the polls this fall, and a win for the AfD looks likely, as it’s polling around 30 percent in all three states.

“This is a stress test for Germany, and 2024 is a defining year,” said Olaf Sundermeyer, an editor at the Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcast (RBB) and longtime expert on right-wing extremism in Germany. Sundermeyer said that since the AfD was founded in 2013, “the party has continuously radicalized.”

Initially starting out as a euroskeptic party that primarily criticized the European Union’s handling of the eurozone crisis, the party—and its leadership—have continuously shifted toward more nationalist and populist positions, especially since 2015, when former Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed around 1 million refugees into the country.

The legacy and shame of Nazi Germany continue to influence the nation’s politics, and until the AfD’s rise, German society strongly rejected far-right ideologies. But the economic impact of both the 2008 financial crisis and the 2015 refugee crisis have—at least partially—resulted in shifting public perceptions.

“The AfD has successfully managed to alter people’s perception of right-wing extremism, moving it away from its historically charged stigma of Nazism and thus effectively rendering it socially acceptable,” Sundermeyer told Foreign Policy. This, he said, is exactly what has happened in Sonneberg.

The AfD’s new heartland, a remote part of the countryside, was part of the communist German Democratic Republic until reunification in 1990. Surrounded by hills in the Thuringian Forest, Sonneberg’s cobblestone main street and stately houses date back to the Wilhelminian era before the First World War. The nearest major highway is about a half-hour’s drive.

Since reunification, scores of people have migrated westward, leaving many homes empty. Residents say that young people here struggle with drug abuse; that there are few places for them to hang out; and that public transport isn’t adequately connecting the district’s farther, remote villages, making it more difficult to access educational and job opportunities. Since reunification, the country’s east has been catching up to the former West Germany in terms of economic opportunities, but in Sonneberg—and throughout former East Germany—many people continue to feel acutely disadvantaged.

A group of young men lingering after the demonstration echoed these complaints as they chain-smoked Marlboros and packed up whistles and flags. They had opted to move into practical professions—such as construction work, plumbing, and roofing—one explained, to help “build Sonneberg, and Germany overall.”

Attending the demonstration wearing their company uniforms—grey overalls and work pants—the men were initially hesitant to speak to the Lügenpresse, or “lying, mainstream press,” as they described it. “No names please,” they asked politely after agreeing to talk. (“Lügenpresse,” a term used by the Nazis, has resurfaced in Germany’s right-wing circles, as well as among allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump.)

“People call us ‘rats,’ just because we support the AfD,” one of the men said. “There’s no freedom of speech here, no freedom of thoughts. Our country gets involved in wars we don’t want to be part of. The government manipulates the press, our German culture, and our traditions are vanishing due to mass immigration—food and energy prices have skyrocketed. It’s worse than during the German Democratic Republic, and we desperately need change—we need an alternative.” He paused to take a long drag on his cigarette, then added: “Germany is for Germans first—we can’t help others if we’re not helping ourselves.”

“It’s a possibility that the party drifts too far to the right,” he said, “and that’s certainly not what we want. We don’t want a return of Nazi times, but we need change.”

The party’s policy platform is unabashedly far right. For instance, AfD’s stance on immigration is that “the ideology of multiculturalism is a serious threat to peace and to the continued existence of the nation as a cultural unit.” The party advocates for a “German dominant culture” based on the values of Christianity instead of multiculturalism. Africa, the party’s website states, is a “house of poverty,” arguing that migration from the continent needs to be capped.

During a covert meeting last November, uncovered by independent German investigative outlet Correctiv, AfD politicians, together with neo-Nazis and several wealthy business owners, discussed the “remigration” of millions of people—including German citizen—on the basis of racial and religious criteria.

The group of young men in Sonneberg who spoke with Foreign Policy talked about the need for the “remigration” of immigrants, too, and some even had written it on signs. After the rally, though, they headed to dinner at the only restaurant still open: a kebab house owned by an Iraqi Kurd. Their waiter was a Syrian man who arrived in Germany three years ago.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, at least 28.7 percent of Germany’s population—more than 1 in 4 people—have a migration background, meaning that they immigrated to Germany themselves or were born into families with a history of migration. Migration is on the up, with 2.1 million people arriving in Germany in 2015, and 2.6 million in 2022. Germany’s coalition government has said it aims to attract 400,000 qualified workers from abroad annually to tackle labor shortages and demographic imbalances.

The desire for strong leadership is also on the rise in Germany as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues. Several of the AfD’s members have called for a separation from NATO and even the EU; many have turned to Russia, at least rhetorically, arguing that Germany needs to work with its neighbors. Sundermeyer told Foreign Policy that “the AfD is deeply anti-American but pro- Russian; anti-NATO and -EU, but in favor of turning toward alternative government structures such as authoritarianism.”

Meanwhile, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser continuously calls right-wing extremism the “greatest extremist threat to Germany’s democracy.”

Still, for all the Sonneberg residents who voted for the AfD’s candidate, Sesselmann—who did not respond to interview requests by Foreign Policy—there are almost as many people who did not. And unless it’s during the weekly Monday demonstrations, people don’t usually flaunt their political opinions. The day after the weekly protest, at a food stall selling bratwursts during the lunch hour, conversations revolved around work, the weather, increased food and energy prices, and even Germany’s reunification—“before it, everything was better,” several people agreed.

“In Sonneberg, many voted AfD out of spite, while others don’t take an interest in politics but cast their votes for the AfD regardless,” said Regina Müller, a 61-year-old Green Party voter who owns an organic store decorated with anti-war slogans.

But, she added, “what many here don’t see is that [the AfD] are wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

[blueiscoool]

Stolen van Gogh Painting Worth Millions Returned in a Ikea Bag

The painting was stolen in March 2020 from the Singer Laren Museum.

A Dutch art detective has helped recover a missing Vincent van Gogh painting that was stolen from the Singer Laren Museum, east of Amsterdam, in March 2020.

The "Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring," painted in 1884, was stolen from the famous Dutch museum in a daring overnight smash-and-grab heist during the coronavirus lockdown.

Dutch art crime detective Arthur Brand, who has spent decades tracking down some of the world's greatest masterpieces, announced on Tuesday he had recovered the stolen masterpiece.

In a video posted on Brand's Instagram, the detective can be seen unwrapping the coveted artwork, holding it up as he poses for the camera.

"So here it is! The Spring Garden by Vincent van Gogh which was stolen three and a half years ago on Van Gogh's birthday from a museum in the Netherlands. We have searched for it for more than three and a half years," he said.

Brand said he was able to recover the famous artwork in "close coordination" with Dutch police, deeming it a "great day for all Van Gogh lovers worldwide."

The painting -- estimated to be worth between about $3.2 million to $6.4 million -- was handed to Brand by an unnamed man in a blue Ikea bag at his Amsterdam home, he said.

"Finally, it's here, it's back," said Brand, announcing he is set to return it today to the Singer Laren Museum director.

The recovery followed the emergence of "proof-of-life" photos of the painting circulating in online Mafia circles in June 2020, three months after the dramatic heist. One of the images showed the multimillion-dollar artwork -- which measures 25-by-57 centimeter -- flanked alongside a copy of The New York Times international edition and a book about a famous art thief.

In April 2021, Dutch police spokesperson Maren Wonder announced in a video statement that a 58-year-old man, named only as Nils M, was arrested in Baarn, Netherlands, on suspicion of stealing paintings by van Gogh and Frans Hals with an accumulative value of £18 million, or about $22.4 million.

"This arrest is an important step in the investigation," Wonder announced at the time. "Both paintings have not yet resurfaced with this arrest. The search continues unabated."

In a statement sent Tuesday, Dutch Police confirmed that the perpetrator was in custody and that the famous painting has been recovered, soon to be ready to be viewed by the public.

"The perpetrator is in custody and the painting is back. We are very happy with that result," said Richard Bronswijk, of the Dutch Police's Art Crime Unit.

"We know hat these types of items are used as collateral within organized crime. Intercepted messages have given us good insight into the criminal trade in these types of valuable objects."

The penalty for stealing a painting is imprisonment of 8 years.

"The search for Frans Hals' painting continued unabated."

By Emma Ogao.

[ramshacklefey]

Man, I feel like a geezer for saying "kids these days" but also just two weeks of going into public schools as a guest speaker leads me to say, "What the fuck is up with kids these days?"

Working with grades 6-8, and so many of them seem to be actually incapable of shutting the fuck up and listening or paying attention to anything for more than 3 minutes. They're mostly writing at a level that I remember my classmates being at in 4th grade. Can't sit in a chair, and I don't mean they're fidgety. I mean at least twice a week one of them legitimately just... falls out of their chair.

Is this the result of covid isolation? Was it an existing problem before that and was exacerbated by lockdown? What is going on here?

[episodeoftv]

Round 2 of 8, Group 4 of 4

propaganda and summaries are under the cut (May include spoilers)

House: 1.21 Three Stories

House's ex Stacy Warner asks him to treat her husband. House takes over a diagnostics class for a day and presents the class with three case studies of leg pain. As House tells his story and the class gradually fills up with listeners, the class learns a lot about how to be better doctors, and Chase, Foreman and Cameron learn some important details of House's past.

Just a great episode of the show that combined its character drama with the medical mystery aspect of the show well. Wish more of the show was like this.

House: 6.16 Lockdown

When a newborn disappears from the nursery, Princeton Plainsboro goes on lockdown, preventing anyone from entering, leaving or moving within the hospital. While House and his team members are trapped in various parts of the building, new insights about the team's personal histories, relationships and regrets surface.

I saw someone submitted House's Head and that's an alright episode but I don't think it's the best of House. Not sure if this is, either, but it's the first one I thought of that I think of as a "great" House episode. So many character studies but never loses track of itself. A mix of comedy and drama and is in a way great "downtime", to really see the characters grow and change.

[supercantaloupe]

Genuinely curious, why is Beethoven's 8th Symphony your favorite? It's a fun pick for favorite Beethoven symphony so I'm interested to hear :D

okay so i can't deny that a strong influence on how much i like a symphony comes from personal experience with it, to wit, i played beethoven 8 in my freshman year of college right before the pandemic lockdowns hit. not every symphony that i love is something i've played before but admittedly most of my favorites are. but i do think that practicing a specific piece for weeks in preparation for a performance is part of what leads me to enjoying them so much -- it forces me to live with a piece for a long time getting to know its ins and outs and intricacies, and i can appreciate it on that much deeper a level as a result

anyway. i find beethoven 8 deeply charming. i think it's underrated as far as beethoven symphonies go, especially since it doesn't fit some kind of perceived model of continuous innovation. what i mean is that 5, 6, 7, and 9 in their own ways have all been cited as massively innovative and influential on the symphony as a genre, and present a (nearly) unbroken string of progress leading up to the apotheosis of form that is 9. i regret that i can't find the source for this right now but i remember in class before discussing how wagner considered himself to be beethoven's true successor and that his symphonies paved the way for his own music dramas by developing instrumental music and combining with other forms of art into the ultimate gesamptkuntswerk: 5 includes that all-important recurring motif in every movement, 6 incorporates the drama of a program, 7 incorporates dance, and 9 finally brings in voice.

now as usual i think wagner was talking a small load of shit. for one thing opera had included all these elements across europe for two at least centuries prior to beethoven, and beethoven himself famously flopped at writing opera. i also think calling symphony 7 some kind of innovative dance symphony a real stretch; it's got dancelike rhythms, sure, but so do...most symphonies? and he completely skips over 8 like it doesn't exist. because it doesn't fit the romantic idea of progress and innovation and artistic genius, i suppose. it's definitely the least romantic and most classical of beethoven's late symphonies, for sure. but i don't think that's a bad thing at all.

it sticks very closely to the conventional symphonic structure. it has a lightness and a cheerfulness that makes it sound almost more at home among beethoven's earlier periods. but it's still got the compositional maturity of his late career as well! it uses contrasting themes and dynamics expertly. it's got some of my personal favorite counterpoint in all of beethoven's orchestral output. it's just so...playful and joyful and bright. the first movement is so bright, the second movement feels like it was copied directly from haydn's playbook, the trio of the third has probably the most gorgeous horn and clarinet duet ever written,and then the finale is just this great bow to tie the whole thing up in, it's like the exact perfect middle point between haydn and mendelssohn somehow...

now, i am biased because the late 18th/early 19th century is my very favorite era for orchestral music. i am a classical era bitch more than any other, but that grey area at the tail end when the romantics began to push on the boundaries and expand them and explore what's possible, that's the sweet spot for me. and i think beethoven 8 really encapsulates that perfectly because it's smack dab in the middle of that point in time, just on the cusp of the romantic era. it's pushing forward as always in its own ways. but it's also still so cognizant of and grateful towards the galant style that shaped it, the classical giants on whose shoulders it was built. it's just about everything i want out of a symphony.

beethoven himself referred to it endearingly as his "little symphony in f", differentiating it from his much larger and more ambitious/innovative symphony no. 6 "pastoral" in the same key. he even liked it better than 7, despite 7 being more popular with audiences. well, who am i to disagree with the man himself?

[ask meme]

[pits-of-kaos]

Round One is ready!

Follow the tournament’s progress HERE.

Results Spreadsheet (if the above site is down)

A reminder: Pictures are irrelevant except when a continuity is specified beside a name.

The fastest way to vote on all of the matches is to click the ‘PoK: Waterlogged Cats’ tag on this post and go through them from there. If you’re just looking for specific matches, carry on. This post is for you.

I will post round two tomorrow (Sunday) between 8-9pm EST.

Hound vs. Jetfire (IDW) ✧ Blitzwing vs. Glowstrike

Trepan vs. Hook ✧ Alpha Trion vs. Waspinator (Beast Wars)

Sen. Shockwave (IDW) vs. Nemesis Prime (Earth Wars) ✧ Chromedome vs. Sideswipe (SG)

Ravage (IDW) vs. Wildrider ✧ Rampage vs. Hardshell

Bumblebee (IDW) vs. Slipstream ✧ Grimlock (IDW) vs. Ramjet

Sentinel Prime vs. Offroad ✧ Airachnid vs. Predaking

Astrotrain vs. Trickdiamond ✧ Knockout vs. Depth Charge

Bonecrusher vs. Snarl ✧ Sideswipe (IDW) vs. Leozack (Victory)

Hellbat vs. Soundblaster ✧ Brawl vs. Scavenger

Cyclonus vs. Broadside ✧ Breakdown vs. Warpath

Unicron vs. Smokescreen (IDW) ✧ Sunstreaker (IDW) vs. Skyquake

Froid vs. Dead End ✧ Bluestreak (IDW) vs. Long Haul

Blackarachnia vs. Goldbug (SG) ✧ Tyrest vs. Topspin

Black Shadow vs. Swoop ✧ Kup vs. Roadbuster

Chromia vs. Scrapper ✧ Brainstorm vs. Quickstrike

Flamewar vs. Tracks ✧ Deathsaurus vs. Sludge

Jazz vs. Acid Storm ✧ Star Saber (IDW) vs. Doubledealer

Blast Off (IDW) vs. Motormaster ✧ Lockdown vs. Afterburner

Barricade vs. Nightbird ✧ Bombshell vs. Steeljaw

Getaway vs. Mixmaster ✧ Ironhide vs. Cryak

Sixshot vs. Scourge ✧ Rodimus Prime (IDW) vs. Bludgeon

Shadow Striker vs. Blaster (SG) ✧ Wheeljack vs. Slug

Galvatron vs. Thrust ✧ Jhiaxus vs. Dreadwing

[merylodrama]

Girl With No Face

Allie X

2024

★★★★★

N.A

'Tell mе why you slept on me' rightfully asks Allie X. It is time to stop sleeping on her and realise how great of an artist she is. Because here we are : Allie X’s 80’s glam rock album is here. It’s raw, unapologetic and ambitious. 

This record truly fells like everything she has done prior to it had to happen for that exact particular moment to exist. It is Allie X at her best. No compromises made, no accommodations to today’s pop landscape. Just her and her ability to create pure art. 

This self-produced and self-written project is the result of the lockdown, forcing the Canadian singer to dive deep into her mind without any creative restriction nor limitation. The result is a beautiful record with a true vision. A vision that led her to this ambitious album. Described as indulgent, stubborn, dry witted, angry, melodramatic by her own self, the album is exactly this. An audacious project which takes only the best of her previous work to create the best album she has ever put out.

The record is a burst of energy from the first few notes. Weird World has this in-your-face attitude that makes you dive into the universe of the album right away. Once it starts, it doesn’t end until the last song. A rebellious 43 minute melodramatic show of non-stop synths-heavy excellence where you instantly get this feeling of urgency which draws the listener in, and throughout the listening experience. Once you think the peak of the album is reached, it just keeps going higher and higher. Just pure carefree fun but very well executed.

Some highlights include Off With Her Tits, Black Eye and the chills-provoking track Galina, which instantaneously enters the list of the best songs released this decade. It is that good. The unapologetic craziness of Hardware Software resonates throughout the album.

Drawing inspiration from artists such as Kraftwerk and New Order, while keeping her ability to create melodic and catchy pop lines, Allie X easily creates a retro-futuristic sound that puts you in her universe instantly. The production is so intense and deep. It flows from track to track so naturally, creating a beautiful and cohesive piece of work. The pulsating synths go hard, the kicks are definitely kicking and that added to the strong melodies create a fierce instrumentation. The presence of instrumental moments helps affirming the work on the bold production, letting moments for the songs to breath, as well as decorating the different parts of the tracks. The real bridges are also very appreciated, especially during these dry times in pop music.

It is everything I had hoped for on my last review of Allie X's discovery. I only wish the album would end in a little bit more epic way as Truly Dreams closes the album in a less energetic and intense way than it starts with. Nonetheless this album is already a classic. Hope to see her again on a tour soon !

Girl With No Face is undoubtedly one of the best projects of 2024.

You can listen to the album here.

Weird World — 10/10

Girl With No Face — 10/10

Off With Her Tits — 10/10 ★

John and Jonathan — 10/10

Galina — 10/10 ★

Hardware Software — 8/10

Black Eye — 10/10 ★

You Slept On Me — 10/10

Saddest Smile — 9/10

Staying Power — 9/10

Truly Dreams — 9/10

[lukesshowcaseplace]

Season 1 of my Transformers Series (which i am still trying to find a good name for) now has episodic summaries! Some arcs may tie into these quite a bit, so do keep that in mind as you read this!

Alright, here goes nothing!!

Episode 1 (The Arrival: More than Meets the Eye)

A squad of Autobots led by Optimus pursue Megatron and his Decepticons through space and crashland on Earth.

Episode 2 (The Arrival: Robots in Disguise)

Both factions reawaken on Earth 4 million years later, with Optimus meeting Sparkplug and Spike Witwickey while attempting to stop Megatron's attack on an ore rig containing Ore-13.

Episode 3 (Sneaking Suspicions)

Bumblebee and Spike sneak their way into Decepticon Headquarters and discover Megatron's plans to trap the Autobots inside their own base, only to discover that he already enacted his plan.

Episode 4 (War Stories)

Ironhide is confronted by a horrific memory from his past while fighting Wildrider, worsened by the situation being weaponized against him.

Episode 5 (He Never Learns)

Starscream fails at a scheme for power and leadership, but before he returns to duty, he unintentionally finds out that Ore-13 gives him a power boost before trying his schemes again with his newfound power.

Episode 6 (Bridge Between Worlds)

Shockwave and Megatron construct a Space Bridge network between Earth and Cybertron, leading the Autobots to attempt to stop the Decepticons from using it to transport their resources to Cybertron.

Episode 7 (Those That Tasted The Bite Of His Sword)

Wheeljack and the other Autobots, while uncovering more of their base, discover the stasis-locked body of Grimlock, who was buried beneath the Earth for millions of years before being reactivated and learning of life on Earth by him and Spike.  Meanwhile, Megatron finds the rest of the Stunticons, giving them the ability to merge into Menasor.

Episode 8 (Cliff Hanger)

Cliffjumper gets captured by the Decepticons during an ambush on the Autobots, fighting his way through Decepticon HQ to find a way out.  Thundercracker temporarily teams up with him to uncover a Decepticon conspiracy involving the Allspark.

Episode 9 (Unwavering Honor)

Optimus Prime and Sky-Byte discuss Cybertron's past after a long battle and declaring a temporary ceasefire.

Episode 10 (Business is Business)

The feared Bounty Hunter Lockdown travels to Earth after accepting a deal from Megatron, which involved hunting Optimus Prime down and delivering him to Megatron personally.

Episode 11 (Kicking Things Up a Notch)

Jazz learns to use his love of music and his skills in more creative ways after Skywarp gets the drop on him while jamming to a rock concert.

Episode 12 (Magnum Opus: Part 1)

Megatron sends out Delta Magnum against Optimus Prime to torture him.  Optimus must devise a plan as to how he's going to get him to remember who he once was.

Episode 13 (Magnum Opus, Part 2)

Optimus Prime finally comes up with a plan, confronting Delta Magnum again to make him remember that he was once Ultra Magnus, Optimus' brother.

Episode 14 (All Hail Megatron)

Lugnut is summoned to Earth to counter Grimlock, which both become fierce rivals with each other.

Episode 15 (Confliction)

Thundercracker becomes heavily embittered after getting left behind by the Decepticons, leading him to surrender to the Autobots and give them vital information that could help them free Spike and Sparkplug from Megatron.

Episode 16 (Blitzed)

Blitzwing develops a rapid-transformation grenade, which he tests on most of the Autobots during a battle for the legendary Gold Mines.  Ratchet and Wheeljack attempt to make an antidote before the others tire out.

Episode 17 (Replication)

Megatron decides to use a small sample of Ore-13 in an experiment to develop new abilities, which results in Megatron being able to duplicate himself and attempt to crush the Autobots once and for all.

Episode 18 (The Ultimate Weapon: Part 1)

Megatron and his Decepticons attempt to lure the Autobots away from their base, using the Space Bridge to beam themselves and all the Ore-13 they collected back to Cybertron.  Thundercracker attempts to thwart Megatron, but is killed instead.  Afterwards, Megatron successfully activates his Ultimate Weapon: the God Gun.

Episode 19 (The Ultimate Weapon: Part 2)

Shockwave betrays Megatron and reveals that the God Gun project was an elaborate scheme by the former to collapse the entire universe into Cybertron, effectively risking the planet and the universe in favor of infinite energy.  Optimus and Megatron attempt to defeat him several times, but both fail.

Episode 20 (The Ultimate Weapon, Part 3)

Starscream teams up with the Autobots to stop Shockwave, eventually deactivating and destroying the God Gun while restoring proper balance to the universe.