#anyway i predict that this post will get 0 notes

[desiccatedwithering]

steddie fic: "the older"

me, a person who descended to such depths of insanity that I read multiple 80s newspaper articles and sections from a literal law book: but which one of them is older? because eddie could be younger than steve according to canon

[oensible]

Calculating the theoretical downfall of my shrambling empire

We can do this using a little algebra! :3

First to get the equation for the balance of our shrambing empire balance, this is just a compound interest problem since each bet is 3% of our current balance! We started the season with $1000, but we've since had some wins and losses affect our balance since them, we'll just start with our balance before the first loss of this streak as our principal amount: $955.86 on 2025 Jan 14! (Georgiev's 2nd win as a Shark and the 3rd (and final) game in the Pickles win streak!) (also keeping in mind i forgot to bet on that Boston game ;-; but maybe for the better because they lost that one too lol)

We can pop this into the compound interest formula and get the equation "y = 955.85 * 0.97^x", where "y" = the balance after "x" games played. But for anyone following along who happens to not know this formula we can easily derive it like so:

Let y0 represent the initial balance before any given game and let y1 represent the balance after any given game

y1 is equal to y0, minus the amount of our shrambling bet

The amount of our shrambling bet is 3% of our y0, or "0.03 * y0"

Therefore "y1 = y0 - (0.03 * y0)"

We can rewrite this using the distributive and identity properties as "y1 = (1 * y0) - (0.03 * y0)" -> "y1 = (1 - 0.03) * y0"

Simplify to "y1 = 0.97 * y0" -> here is our recursive function! :D we can use this to get the balance before or after a bet, given we are always betting the max on the sharks and know either the amount before or after!

Since each consecutive balance is the previous one multiplied by 0.97, we can get any balance by multiplying the initial balance (our $955.85) by 0.97, one time per each game played (assuming the loss streak continues) since then!

We can write this rule as a function to make an explicit function for our account balance after any # of games: "y = 955.85 * 0.97^x". ta-daaaa :3 all done!

Here's our function graphed on Desmos, plus a table of some key points on the graph! + a bonus graph of our permitted bet amount (3% of our account balance!)

This model will predict our balance values a little low btw, because our max possible bet has to be rounded down to the nearest cent on NHL66. But I think that the rounding error is negligible for our purposes here

As can be seen in the notes of this post, the people clamor for the downfall of my shrambling empire.... so let's see exactly when we would hit these milestones, assuming the Sharks loss streak continues! :D

Scenario #1: net loss of $500 via @puckpocketed

We can just calculate this from our "y = 955.85 * 0.97^x" equation! Substitute the $500 balance into y, then solve for x games played by dividing the $500 balance by 955.85, then taking the log base 0.97 of 500 divided by 955.85....or convert to log base 10's if your calculator doesn't just have a log base 0.97 function lying around lol

Anyways! Our solution (to the thousandth) is 21.274 losses, and obviously we can't have fractions of games played in terms of bets which are discrete/only counted per whole game played. Thus, we can see on our table that we will have lost $500 (in fact, $510.93!) after 22 games lost in a row! This is possible, as we have bet on 4 losses already, so we need to lose only 18 more bets in a row! :) There are currently 31 games left in the season! :)

Scenario #2: negative balance via @proceedwcandy

Due to the 3% cap on our bets, as our balance gets smaller, so too will our bets.... we will cannot enter shrebt (sharks debt) by this model :(. (We can verify this by attempting to take the x-axis intercept, where y = 0 or any negative value, the same way we did for scenario #1 and we will get an undefined value. Plus we can see from the graph that even if we kept zooming out it would never go to a negative value.... Sad! Such is the nature of an exponential function with no vertical shift down.... u_u)

However! There is a stipulation in NHL66 rules where once the maximum bet amount reaches $2, it will stay there. We can find the balance at which we reach this minimum cap—$2 is 3% of $66.666... going on forever, but we'll round up to the nearest cent at $66.67. We would reach this amount after 87.423 losses, and again we must round up, so after betting on 88 losses in a row (or 84 losses from now) our max bet from then on will be $2!

After that the scenario is represented by a linear function, "y = -2x + 65.51" (65.51 is our balance after this, rounded up to the nearest cent), so we can find the point at which we would go into shrebt! If we have y = $0 and solve for x, we get 32.755 more losses (on top of the 88 losses to get to this threshold) to get to $0, or 33 more losses to get a negative balance! (not that NHL66 will actually let me do this, they'd just cap that last bet at however much I have left :P but we'll ignore that for this hypothetical)

Tl;dr: It would take 121 losses in a row (or 117 more losses) to get a negative balance! We. um. Well, we do not have that many games left in the season to lose! ^_^" but, well.... who am i to doubt the prowess of the psiionic warriors manifesting my downfall...... ">_>

[color-cacophony]

I was going to make a Big Official Review Post about Rayman in the Phantom Show but I don't really have enough complete thoughts to make something comprehensive and organized, but I still want to share some points from my experience with it so uhhh without further ado, here's a bunch of thoughts on what dazzled me and what I thought could have been done better.

Here I go...

I'll start with the stuff that bugged me first because I don't like to end on a bad note:

I think the biggest issue is that giving the player the option to complete each set in any order diminishes the opportunity to have a linear story. Without a series of events building up to the finale, the actual climax doesn't feel as grand or substantial as it should be (it definitely feels like a few lines were cut from the moments before Phantom's first verse with how abruptly it starts). It would have felt more immersive to see actual scenes of the heroes trying to play their roles and have more varied quests based on puzzles or even characters and dialogue (like the search for Sweetlopek's stolen axe), all whilst gradually putting the pieces together that they were led into a trap.

Speaking of putting the pieces together, it would've paid off to have Beep-0 learn from his own arrogance in the past instead of repeating his assertion that he knew what Phantom was up to all along. That part made me kind of sad because I really like Beep-0 and it seemed like they were setting him up to eventually become less uptight and more open to admitting his mistakes, which would be more satisfying and obvious!

As we all know, Beep-0 isn't the only one who repeated himself. I remember an exchange I had with @randomrabbidramblings about our predictions for what would happen in the climax; they were hoping the final showdown with Phantom would not be redundant with his first encounter, having the same battle gimmick as before. Unfortunately that is, in fact, what they ended up doing. While framing it as Phantom being unoriginal or making a callback helps it a little bit, ultimately it made me feel let down (although I love Beep-0's delivery when he reiterates his line from Kingdom Battle. he means business).

As for the aftermath of the battle, I want to know where Phantom went. There doesn't seem to be any sign of him anywhere in the studio. It's really odd, given how this was supposed to be his grand comeback (alongside Rayman, of course), but we don't get even a simple explanation of what happened to him after he was defeated for the second time, unless I missed something. I presume this is his last major appearance in a game (unless they decide to do something completely different with him in the distant future??? wishful thinking but not ruling it out!), so it's a strangely underwhelming and mysterious send-off to our beloved ghostly diva. I would have been bummed that we didn't get lore paintings for him, but the memory entry summarizing his surprisingly short-lived career actually made me laugh and honestly, the thought of him only releasing one album and becoming so well-known just because he's notoriously a huge jerk and a producer of incredibly terrible films is so in-character for him.

Another choice I found unusual was the lack of any explanation as to how he got his voice back, since it's been established that he screwed it up by overdoing it. Although, they must have dismissed it knowing that not everyone is going to find the mural containing the only source of that detail. His voice could have healed over time anyway, but it just doesn't entirely make sense that they don't acknowledge it at all (I did see @bramble-scramble 's post mentioning a detail @randomrabbidramblings pointed out where a gramophone can be seen in a box in the studio's control room and it is supposedly the one Phantom replaced with a new one when he messed it up, but even if that's true, it's still a bit easy to miss).

I understand that a lot of these issues were due to restraints since it's only a DLC and they could only fit so much in, but that goes to show that this concept is a little too big for a DLC, but not quite big enough for a full game.

Now, for the things I loved...

I must give massive props to the artists and animators for taking reference from multiple Rayman games and essentially making the pinnacle of his goofiness. Rayman was HIGHLY entertaining to see (and listen to, thanks to David Gasman) and very lovable in this! And the way his dynamic with Rabbid Peach and Rabbid Mario changes up until the end where he becomes friends with them and realizes that he can work with the Rabbids now instead of against them it's just 🥺 awgh... It feels cheesy to talk about it but it really does make me happy now that Rayman has a chance to be an equal to the Rabbids and have something resembling a mutual understanding.

I appreciate them bringing back characters from the main game and giving them their own sets. Fittingly enough, it's like a curtain call for the final installment of SoH.

The return of Beep-0's swearing. SERIOUSLY IT'S SUCH A SMALL THING BUT IT DELIGHTED ME

The studio's lobby is gorgeous. Absolutely STUNNING I love all the details and the music notation motifs on everything.

Honestly the rest of this is just going to be me gushing about Phantom hehehe...

First of all, I was completely awestruck at the decision to give him a swing/jazz sequence because I love the aesthetic of the whole sassy big band musical number kind of thing so when I saw that Phantom was going to do that I went INSANE. The animation in the song sequences is absolutely top tier. Phantom is ALL OVER THE PLACE, very charming, very energetic. The swing bit made me realize just how unbelievably coordinated he is. Like when he's zipping and spinning around the stage and it doesn't affect his singing at all? Holy crap. Then, I went even MORE insane when rock/metal Phantom showed up. I would have wanted a verse in that style too, but I get that it was cut because it would mess up the pacing of the battle.

I love Phantom's inability to contain his excitement at the start of the battle, his annoyed lines when you destroy the lights, his smug remarks even when he's taking damage. He's just so- I'm just gonna say it- so freaking cute in this! His line deliveries in general made me fall so hard for him, especially "were you EVER a thing, Rayman?". The way he drops his voice sounds so cool...

Regarding his abilities, I thought they were going to explain why he could turn people to stone in Kingdom Battle, but they simply took that detail away. I don't have a big problem with this, as the Stone Deaf ability could have been part of the Megabug's influence (and it makes him at least a bit less OP lol). I'm also satisfied to finally know that he can indeed phase through things like any other ghost and isn't limited to just teleporting.

His death acting has definitely improved since last time, in that it's silly and makes me smile instead of just making me feel embarrassed lol.

So uummmm yeah that's all the noteworthy stuff I can think of! Overall I thought the DLC was delightful during my playthrough, but after I finished it I felt kind of sad because it just didn't feel "thorough". However, given that Sparks of Hope generally improved on so many aspects from the last game, I'm confident that they'll keep adding and experimenting with more characterizations and scenarios and make something even better if they decide to continue with Mario + Rabbids. And even if they don't, we'll always have the amazing fans to continue the story and put even more wonder into this wild crossed-over universe!

Anyway, thank you for reading through this highly disorganized rant/gush! And while I'm at it, thank you to everybody in the Mario + Rabbids community for making such amazing art and just being here to share our love for the series. That means thank you to @randomrabbidramblings @bramble-scramble @salamifuposey @hostess-of-horror @phandrow @pastelprince18 @critterzone13 @hostdoozy @majorpepperidge and more! You guys are super cool and I appreciate you even though I've never directly interacted with all of you, hehe. I suppose all I have left to say is goodnight, so goodnight/day everyone! Until next time I decide to dump more nonsense onto your dashboard :D

[archaeren]

Hi! I hope you’re doing well. I apologize in advance if you’ve already answered this but I just found your blog and got excited to see another author using Notion.

I saw one of your posts where you showed how you use it and I think I saw you have a formula that shows you the word count of your page content? If that is true would you be willing to share?

I might have gotten that wrong but I am dying over this because I only seem to find formulas that will count the number of words in a *related property* but never in the page itself.

Thank you in advance! 🫶

Ps. I know i can check the word count in the menu but a formula would just make it so much better 🥲

God I WISH!!! I too, have searched fruitlessly for a solution to this problem. It's the biggest drawback to using Notion tables for writing. I know Notion updates and adds new features only constantly, so I can only hope that they will some day get around to adding this feature. They might do it if enough people hassle them for it XD The formulas you saw are for tracking wordcount, but they still rely on me inputting the wordcount manually from the menu counter. I'll note them down anyway in case their functions are still of interest to you! Basically, I have four different fields tracking different aspects of wordcount. These are called, 'wc', 'est. wc', 'Remaining', and 'Total'. The first two are Number fields and the second two are Formula fields. 'wc', as you can guess, is the current wordcount as counted by Notion, which I input manually. 'est. wc' is estimated wordcount, so the number of words that I predict a scene will be. I'm not usually that good at making this estimate, but I don't mind being wrong. It's good to practice anyway XD I also adjust this number if it seems like the scene will be longer than I had originally expected once I start working on it. The reason for this field existing is so that I can (attempt) to predict how much I still need to write to complete a chapter, part, the whole story... etc. I'm currently at 103k for this fic, and 'est. wc' is currently projecting it to be finished around 109k, which is surely wrong XD 'Remaining', therefore, is just the wordcount subtracted from the estimated wordcount. It also sets itself to 0 if the scene is marked complete The formula I made for this field is: Status != "completed draft" and Status!= "posted" ? (Est. wc-wc) : 0 'Total' is a more accurate-ish completion prediction. It's set up to use 'est. wc' until a scene is marked as complete, and then it swaps the 'est. wc' number for the 'wc' number. The sum of all those numbers gives a more accurate idea of the predicted final total, which it currently thinks is going to be around 120k. Which is also, surely, still wrong. But hopefully a little less wrong. XD The formula I made for this field is: Status == "completed draft" or Status== "posted" ? wc:Est. wc​

I know it's not what you hoped for, but I hope this is useful or at least interesting anyway!

[snugglesquiggle]

Any tips on using fonts in ao3?

going to assume you're familiar with the basics — creating a new workskin at Dashboard → Skins → My Work Skins, and selecting a skin on the Edit Work page. if not, AO3 has a tutorial for this

(though skimming the tutorial, it doesn't seem to mention the <span> tag, which is your best friend when it comes to applying styles to a bit of text within a paragraph)

now for the more specific part of this question. also, be warned i'm going to be embarrassingly technical before i actually answer your question.

this is going to sound funny, but i am by and large not a fan of manipulating fonts as a stylistic device. my personal opinion is that what font a text is displayed in should be for the user to decide, both for preference and for accessibility reasons (e.g. there's fonts designed for dyslexic readers). i also tend to find most font changes to be a a bit goofy and immersion-breaking

it's different when i do it, but i'll explain my cope in a second

anyway, the style property you want to change to set in your work skin is font-family. e.g. font-family: monospace will give text a code/"typewriter" look, and on my own site i use "font-family: Newsreader, serif;". (the comma there essentially says 'if you don't have Newsreader installed, any serif font will do)

but as mentioned, i don't like messing with fonts, and in fact, there is no font styling as such in my fic at all. what gives?

(note: im going include mildly spoilery excerpts from my fic, Hostile Takeover)

but basically, i wrap cyn's dialogue in <code> tags, and most browsers will make that monospaced by default, but it leaves the door open for custom userskins to add their own flair to code blocks.

for example, my site puts little boxes around them

but with all that said, i think i might be taking this question overly literally. i think it's likely you aren't talking specifically about just fonts, and most of the interesting things people want to replicate from my fic aren't about what shape the letters are.

my secret weapon for styling this fic is the humble text-shadow property.

what it does is simple: it creates a copy of the text, and you have four knobs to turn: you can shift it over horizontally or vertically, blur it, and of course change the color

text-shadow: 1px 2px 3px red;

this gives you a copy of the text shifted to the right 1 pixels, down 2 pixels, blurred 3 pixels and colored red.

text-shadow: 1px 2px 3px red, -1px -2px 3px blue;

same deal but now there's another in the opposite directions colored blue, like a chromatic aberration.

you don't have to include the color or the blur if you dont want color or blur.

now i'll run through some real examples

the "pain" effect is what you get when you stack text vertically

text-shadow: 0 -3px 0px, 0 3px 0px;

the "beyond the grave" effect is text stacked horizontally

text-shadow: 2px 0px 0px;

the famous "i want you destroy you" text is of course colored, and here i offer an actual tip

you can predict the offsets, but the color is special

text-shadow: 2px -1px 0px #da38;

full explanation here, but basically, when you write a color with four values, the first three are RGB, but the last is the opacity. i think this matters because, if the earlier part of this post didn't make it clear, i care about readers getting a good experience no matter how they choose their custom styles (within reason, ofc)

by making the color slightly transparent, it blends with the background color, means whether you read with a light them or dark, it meets you half way

(try removing the transparency on that shade, and it's a pretty harsh contrast on both modes — though part of that might be that i made it super saturated to compensate for the transparency.)

i have some complaints about how ao3 handles css, and one of them is that it forbids you from using the very convenient filter: blur() function. to work around this, i cooked up a very "we have blur at home" solution

text-shadow: 0px 0px 6px, 1px 1px 3px, -1px -1px 3px; opacity: 50%;

(it looks much better on my site, where i can filter: blur all i like)

one of the reasons this sucks is that without a doubt the biggest limiter on doing really complicated stuff with text shadows is that they don't stack.

you'll notice that when the "pain" effect shows up, the "blur" effect disappears.

this matters most for what is definitely the most striking and involved use of text shadows in the work: the big man himself

the basic principle here isn't that special. the illusion of depth is accomplished by increasing blur and opacity the 'deeper' the text is supposed to be. the biggest trick here is that instead of the 'px' we've been using everywhere before, the offsets use 'em', which is a unit that relative to the font size.

but there is a nuance. you see:

text-shadow: 0px 1px 0px, 0px -1px 0px, #fd64 2px 2px 2px, #fd68 2em 1em 3px, #fd65 4em 2em 5px; text-shadow: #fd64 2px 2px 2px, #fd65 2em 1em 5px; text-shadow: #fd6 2px 2px 5px, 0px -3px 0px, 0px 3px 0px, #fd68 2em 1em 3px;

the "translate" looks like a combination of the new effect and the pain effect, but i had to give it a special style, specifying both by hand.

if you want to layer things, it will get out of hand, and if you ever opt to revise the specific colors or values, solver help you.

also, this doesnt show up anywhere in HT (yet), but i've used it in the past — only setting the blur of a text-shadow lets you give words an 'aura', and it's a neat and simple effect

(excerpt from Eifre Quest, an original work of mine from years ago. i have mixed feelings about it)

sorry if that was a long ramble or self-indulgent, but hopefully something there was new or helpful.

thanks for asking!

[the-prsc]

LET THE GAME BEGIN:

Hello and welcome to the one and only interactive Prog Rock Survival Competition (definitely not a Lord of The Flies/Hunger Games rip-off)! We are your hosts, @probably-not-mig (Host Mig, aka The Good Host) and @theprogrockbstheorist (Host Violet, aka The Evil Host). 

This account chronicles a hypothetical situation in which we place a bunch of prog bands in the woods (include map) and have them try to kill outlive each other. It’s essentially a theoretical survival competition, except there isn’t a lot of actual surviving. Yeah. There can be only one winner, so if killing off hypothetical (and fictional, btw) versions of your favorite musicians isn’t your thing, uhhh… you should probably leave now. It gets bad. We’ll be doing real-time updates on the hypothetical situation, along with some prediction polls, journal entries, comedy routines, and whatever other things we come up with. 

Map of the arena (art by @zralokx!! Go follow him)

Do note that this is meant to be purely for entertainment and therefore purely fictional and hypothetical: nothing posted should be taken seriously, and is not an accurate reflection of anybody named. This never happened, will never happen, and should never happen. For all intents and purposes, this is really sort of a parody, so if your favorite musician is like… a murderer in this, it’s important to the plot, and not a statement on our opinions on them as a person. 

Furthermore, this sort of takes place outside of time. Nothing chronologically makes much sense: the lineups are all wonky and there are references from all over these bands’ careers. Just assume that everyone is 1) alive when beginning the “game”, and 2) in their physical peak. We have also factored out drug/alcohol addiction, mostly because we had already finished the plot by the time we thought of that.

Anyways, on to our cast of characters/bands! It’s a small list, and we would have loved to include more, but then it would be much longer and we would’ve needed to kill off more of them, which would’ve diluted the quality. If your favorite band isn’t listed, honestly consider yourself lucky. 

We have:

ELP (The lineup is in the name)

Genesis (the “classic” prog lineup)

King Crimson (Larks’ lineup)

Rush (do I really need to specify?)

and of course...

Yes (Tales linup)

There will also be surprise appearances, to be revealed later!

We recommend reading from Day 0, however if you’re only interested in the game, you can start at Day 1. We will be keeping this as a pinned post as the game goes on, and updating it with links to all of the daily updates. 

Are there any rules to this game/hypothetical situation/clusterfuck? No, not really. It is completely safe for work, but questionably safe for your mental health. We will reveal that there is ONLY ONE SURVIVOR. Did it have to be that way? That’s up to you, the reader. 

One last technical note, all of our posts will be tagged as both #progrocksurvivalcompetition and #prsc (an abbreviation of the first tag). If any of you end up making fan art of this, or have Thoughts on our little thingy, you can use those tags! Once again, we are Host Mig and Host Violet, and let the game begin! Day 0 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3

Day 4 Special Report: The Conglomerate (Day 4)

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

[baronfulmen]

Let's talk about how different dice-rolling stuff works! First, let's look at regular polyhedral dice.

A Note About Averages: Averages are good to know when doing stuff with dice, but more often what you need to know is the chances of getting a particular number OR higher which isn't quite the same thing. That being said, it's a good thing to know and can be the starting point for figuring stuff out. As the post above points out, the average result for 2d6 is 7, if you look at the top of the chart above you can see it's 3.5 for each d6 - so 2d6 is 7, 5d6 is 17.5, etc. But yeah, this is boring so who cares. More interesting die-rolling ahead!

Rolling Two Dice and Dropping the Highest or Lowest: People love to say that rolling with advantage in 5e is basically a +5, and I wanted to just put out there that they're wrong. It's an understandable kind of wrong, because the math is complicated if you want to be right and depends on what your odds of success are. I don't have a chart for this one because it would be big and ugly if I did it in this style.

Fudge Dice: These are usually notated as dF, so like 4dF means roll four Fudge dice. Fudge dice create a bell curve! They've got three different results but are usually made with six-sided dice because three-sided dice are kind of a pain. The sides are 0, -, and +. This means that the average is always zero, and adding more Fudge dice keeps the average at zero but moves the tails of the bell curve further out. This is great for when you want your results to be generally predictable, but still have some surprises. Since it's a bell curve, your odds of getting a -2 or +2 are way worse than getting a -1 or +1, but there's always that chance that a roll of 4dF will come up ++++ or something.

The yellow-highlighted ones above are lower than you can roll, but since it's that number OR above it's also 100% likely. The green is closest you get to 50% odds, and the red is 0% possibility. Note that, as you can see at the very top, no matter how many dice you add the average is always zero.

Exploding Dice: Guys I love exploding dice. So much. They're usually notated with an exclamation mark, so 1d6 would be a normal roll of a six-sided die but 1d6! would be an exploding die. The way it works is simple, if you roll the highest number you roll the die again and add it on. If you're a coward you can have this only work once, but the real way to do it is to get recursive with it. So a roll of 1d6! could end up getting 6, 6, 6, 6, 3 for a total of 27 (in theory).

This does cause some odd statistical things - you're just slightly more likely to succeed on a task with a smaller die if the target number you're aiming for is equal to the number of sides on the die you'd normally be using. You can see this on the chart above with the yellow-highlighted cells - for example, if my target number is 6 then 1d4! is more likely to succeed than 1d6! is (18.75% vs 16.67%, not a huge difference but worth noting).

You can fix that statistical quirk, by going with...

Baron Fulmen's Terrible Plan: What if you want to roll way too many dice? Maybe you can't decide between regular dice, fudge dice, and exploding dice? What if you want to use exploding dice but you don't like that strange quirk mentioned above or you really want to have negative numbers be possible so people can fumble?

Just make all checks 1dX!+4dF

Is it stupid to roll an exploding polyhedral AND four fudge dice every time? Yes. Should you do it anyway? Probably not. Do you kind of want to though? Huh? Do you? Of course you do.

Look at it. It's beautiful. What a stupid, wonderful way to roll ability checks.

If as a novice game designer you understand nothing else, please understand that writing for a rules-light system doesn't mean you don't need to know basic statistics. I've seen multiple Apocalypse Engine titles whose authors are clearly under the impression that every possible sum of 2d6 is equally probable. I've encountered at least one that included sum-of-2d6 based lookup tables with twelve entries.

[myjunkisyuzuruhanyu]

Free skate predictions for the Olympics 2022 - Men

SP prediction scores here

These scoring predictions are based on GOEs and PCS awarded during Worlds 2021 and the 2021/2022 season from international judging panels. If things are taken from different judging panel it’s explained. All mistakes are mine and if you find any please point them out. This just gives a general impression of scores that could be awarded based on the season if a skater skates clean and gets all level 4s for spins and steps. I called it a “realistic” score. The “maximum” score is the base value + all elements receiving +5 GOEs and maximum PCS = 50.00. So a maximum perfect score which actually can’t happen. This isn’t about whether something GOEs or PCS were rightly awarded but what judges did award at international competitions.

I didn’t score all skaters but those who are among the best scoring skaters of this season - namely Nathan Chen, Yuzuru Hanyu, Shoma Uno, Yuma Kagiyama, Vincent Zhou, Jason Brown, Junhwan Cha and Mark Kondratiuk.

It shows you the trend what scores might be possible for skaters and what the maximum of each score would be.

Note: If a skater hasn’t landed a jump clean yet this season aka Yuzu’s 4A for example I put a 0 as GOE 

Note: Nathan said in a recent interview that he wouldn’t go for 6 quads. Imo it’s neither necessary nor will it make much of a difference for his placement the way they overscore him anyway

Please do not share anything of it without referring to this post. Please give proper credit. This is for fun only!

[artofapeach]

I've always worried if no one will like me or just ignore me because I ship DamianxKayla. I used to be in a zoophobia discord chat and use to draw a lot. But whenever I post art in the chat, especially with a certain ship, I just get ignored in favored for someone's art or ship. It hurt so much that I lost motivation to draw for almost a year. Just a couple months ago I finally started drawing again. But I'm scared if I will get ignored again all because they don't like what I ship.

Please please please draw for you no MATTER what!!

It does suck getting ignored and having no one to talk about it with and worrying that people dislike you *because* you ship it—I go through that all the time!

…well okay not with shipping since if it’s not Blitzfizz I don’t really ship much, but with other things!

I draw a lot of body horror art and enjoy working on original stories—which pretty much gets 0 notes every time I post them. Usually, I don’t mind, since this blog was created for me to dump my art, but now that I have a primarily Vivziepop following, I feel this expectation to post mainly Vivziepop fanart. When I’m more in the mood for body horror and other original work, I’m often worried people won’t like it anymore and stop following :(

But I post it anyway!!

Because this is Tumblr dammit!!!!!! This is the place where we’re supposed to be cringe and post the things we enjoy, whether others like it or not!!!!!!!!!

I will tell you this. Unless it’s a proship (which Damian and Kayla is most definitely not) no one will ever not like you for what you ship! If they do, trust me, you don’t want to be involved with them anyway!

People will see your art, go “hey that’s a ship I don’t care for” and go on with their lives.

But for some people??? It doesn’t end there! They’ll keep seeing your art thinking meh, but then they see more and more and go “okay this is kinda cute actually” until they end up shipping it too!

How do I know this? Because it’s happened to me! Twice! Yes, once with Blitzfizz that’s predictable I know. But ALSO with Dandash—Danny and Dash from Danny Phantom. I did NOT care for them until I saw tumblr user Pbeltarts draw soft art of them again and again and I just finally went “okay this is cute actually”

You gotta keep drawing for you, not just for yourself but also for others! There’s 7-8 billion people on this planet—someone’s going to like your ship, your art of the ship, the way you implement the ship, etc. They just either haven’t realized it or haven’t found you yet :)

Again I know it’s hard—I still struggle with it. But I hope this motivates you to at least keep going!

[talkingbl]

Thoughts on the GMM Pillars + New GMM Royalty?

Just a post on my general thoughts on the pillars, the state of their pairings at this point (and moving forward), and potential new pillars in the mix.

KristSingto: As of the time of posting, I never really watched SOTUS/SOTUS S so I can't comment at length on KristSingto. Based on the first episode, I can see why people fell for SOTUS, KongpobArthit, and KristSingto generally. Krist and Singto also have some pretty funny iconic moments. But I didn't watch them enough to understand the complete cult following they've garnered, and thus can't really predict their future as a Pillar besides that they might be dead due to Krist wanting to branch out. But maybe someone can enlighten me lol.

OffGun: I have A LOT to say about OffGun. The first thing I'll say is that this is going to have strong hints of clowning so please indulge me for a bit. But let's just get into it.

I've watched Puppy Honey and Theory of Love and bah gawd does OffGun's chemistry carry the hell out of PickRome and KhaiThird (more so PickRome). But because Khai and Third are well-written as characters (more on that another time), I can focus more on Off and Gun's acting in TOL. I must say that on rewatch, Off and Gun are easily my favorite Thai BL pairing to watch onscreen and a good part of that is pure acting skill. That isn't to say they don't have chemistry because good lord do they do hot-and-cold/flirtationship extremely well. They also seem to have a very professional working relationship and you never see their drama overcome their work and this is vital as GMM Pillars and as co-leads in general. I firmly believe that Off and Gun can work together for as long as they so desire (not that they have to) based purely off the fact that they are so professional, are both good actors (and improving over time), and naturally seem to have a strong respect for each other.

Now that that's over with, this is where the clowning comes in... I'll start this with saying that Off and Gun know how to play the game. Not saying they should play the game or that I myself need that, but just saying that they know how to get their fans going. That being said, early OffGun gave a feeling of over-familiarity on Gun's behalf. Then, between 2019-2020, Off seemed to warm up a lot to Gun's familiarity and Gun then pulled back. I'm noting this because I think this push-and-pull in their early days was actually very genuine. Not saying it meant anything or something like that, just that you could clearly tell that Gun was a flirty person and Off was not comfortable with it but then, probably as a result of playing opposite Gun, Off started to open up more with everyone (not just Gun). I think their pairing actually forced them to grow as actors and professionals and it's part of the reason why they are likely the only current GMM Pillar I see having even more longevity.

TayNew: Okay so, y'all had to know I wrote this last... My thoughts on TayNew are weirdly complex, just like my journey with them. Full disclosure, I started out REALLY hating TayNew and very against their pairing. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I wasn't familiar with them prior to Girlfriendgate (not the official term but that's what I'm calling it 🤪). I felt so bad for New and felt like their fans ruined their work. And my issues with the fans bled over into the pairing itself. I didn't understand what people saw in them, thought they had 0 chemistry, and ESPECIALLY didn't know why people thought they were real (I tend to not believe in any of these offscreen things anyway though so there's also that). BUT this was all before I had even watched any of their shows together, watched a single interview, watched them do things separately, or even heard New speak lmao. I think I actively clung to JossTay just because I didn't want to even be associated with TayNew or Polcas. Probably in another post specifically about TayNew, I will discuss Girlfriendgate and my thoughts about it but for now, I want to focus on them as a pairing (i.e. acting in a show as co-leads) and their future as a GMM Pillar.

Firstly, KMA: Pete-Kao wasn't some phenomenal story or anything with like crazy good writing but what it did well was allow Tay and New to play to their offscreen dynamic. Before fully watching KMA, I had only ever seen people say "Tay and New bicker like a married couple" or "Tay and New are really Pete and Kao" and I just thought, that's a little delusional...but then I watched KMA and early TayNew, and when you watch them, you get the distinct feeling that they are very honest with what they show people. Tay and New are not over-the-top with their offscreen interactions and they don't play up the "we're really boyfriends" thing like *cough* MewGulf *cough*. They don't even have classic romantic (or even friendly) chemistry IMO. Unlike, say, EarthMix, TayNew come off as coworkers who have tension/history lol. I know they always talk about hating each other at first and I can totally believe that. But there's also a weird feeling of something really sweet there that usually doesn't exist between people who hate each other. It's so hard to describe (especially in a brief section and without looking like a straight up clown) so I might try to elaborate later. Point is, Tay and New 100% bring this energy to Pete and Kao and it's hard to know when they've stepped out of character. Because of that, I think it became easy for Polcas to project Pete and Kao onto Tay and New. That said, I don't know if TayNew has a future as a GMM Pillar. It's a tough call right now because I do get the feeling that New is opening up to the pairing again but I also get the feeling that Tay might be a bit over it at this point. But I think I'll discuss more on that in a TayNew post.

BrightWin: So 2Gether was my first proper Thai BL and after watching it I totally understood the hype. It wasn't until I got further into Thai BL that I realized people actually did not like BrightWin as actors and thought they had no chemistry. I admit that Bright's acting wasn't the most inspired, but partly why I felt (and still feel to this day) that he worked with Win is that he was good at looking interested in Win. Win on the other hand seemed to be forcing it a bit more, though I'm not sure how much of this was acting his character to a T and how much of it was him just not having chemistry with Bright. I do highly doubt its the latter though because offscreen, there's a lot of easygoing chemistry there. It's not as loud as some of the other pairings on this list but you can tell they're not awkward with each other, which brings a lot to SalawatTine IMO. That said, I do not see BrightWin sticking around as a new GMM pillar. They're like an inbetweener pair that I don't think will do any more BL work together.

EarthMix: Earth and Mix have so much onscreen romantic chemistry it's almost jarring when you see them interact in real life. Despite the fact that they do almost nothing romantic in ATOTS, Tian seems smitten with Phupha in that tsundere sort of way and Phupha has a strong stillness in his adoration for Tian. Almost like a rock of controlled emotion for Tian. Offscreen, Earth and Mix have such a fun dynamic and you can tell they've been friends for years. I think it's a testament to their acting skills (mostly Mix's) that they're able to pull off romance onscreen in a way that other guys on this list who are close friends cannot.

PondPhuwin: This is my newest GMM pair and definitely one of my favorites in their show. PondPhuwin is like a higher vibrational BrightWin in many ways. Pond does very well as Mork with regard to showing attraction to Pi, and Phuwin is just a decent actor in general. Like 90% of his onscreen chemistry with Pond is how he his able to reach into a very vulnerable feeling and portray that as Pi. Offscreen, they have a very mutually respectful relationship and, as with the other GMM pairs, good boundaries with the fans. Their chemistry is brotherly and very marketable in that way. I definitely think they can become part of the GMM pillars.

[miniwolfsbane]

Sweet Tooth S1 thoughts (BIG SPOILERS)

First off, I am disappointed we were shown a PURRING PUPPY BABY in the trailer and had 0 follow up with it? Did he/she escape to Istanbul with it’s parents? Get captured? Live a nomadic life? Live in the forest? I WANT ANSWERS!! :( Also, puppies don’t purr, so I want answers to that too. Unless they were trying to go for a whimper or an animal noise and just went with that instead.

BIG SPOILERS under the cut

Anyway, the only two things, aside from the bits of gore and violence (Reviews are all like “IT’S A FAMILY SHOW!” And I counter back with “I would not let any child under 13 watch this and I have never seen a family show with three seconds of guts being removed and two scenes of implied, live vivisecting on sentient beings without anesthetic.”), the only things I didn’t like about this were using 2 overused cliche’s. One being the hero hanging off a bridge for what seems like 12 years above peril, and the other I can’t remember. It was Jeppard nearly missing the train. The only thing that saved it was the flashback.

The other thing was that, while dark, there’s a bit of predictably and not much depth to the story. I realized last night that the comic source material my have the depth I’m craving out of the story. Just because it has child actors doesn’t mean the story can’t be dug into deeper and have more meaning. I applaud them for what they did and how they handled it, mixing in human-ish vivisecting with neighbors burning down their friends houses and being murderous hypocrites into a story about children, but it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more.  Edit: Not more violence, obviously, just more to the story. dig into the universe, hard. Like gardening, just shove both metaphorical hands into that story soil and root around in it. Find all the gems that are the interesting parts of this universe and answer our questions. 

Sadly, I see someone on tumblr called it...something. Like, were we even watching the same show?? A multi-racial cast that gives all it’s characters dignity isn’t...that.

Bobby isn’t creepy to most and not shown that much. If you really think Bobby is that creepy, you need to go see original Bobby and get back to me. https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=mv4YBZHa&id=071BD6BDAA183CA5965247E7F8F68E873375399B&thid=OIP.mv4YBZHau8dTzxGoK0L0ggHaHD&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fvignette.wikia.nocookie.net%2Fmarvel_dc%2Fimages%2Ff%2Ffc%2FBobby_Sweet_Tooth_001.jpg%2Frevision%2Flatest%3Fcb%3D20150813115735&cdnurl=https%3A%2F%2Fth.bing.com%2Fth%2Fid%2FR9afe180591dabbc753cf11a82b42f482%3Frik%3Dmzl1M4eO9vjnRw&pid=ImgRaw&exph=616&expw=647&q=sweet+tooth+comics+bobby&simid=608026455638091252&ck=7A4DBACCF6BFE43E3B1E799F7F88C55A&selectedindex=0&adlt=demote&shtp=GetUrl&shid=3fb5000d-4d63-494a-986d-006fedeb28d5&shtk=Qm9iYnkgKFN3ZWV0IFRvb3RoKSB8IERDIERhdGFiYXNlIHwgRmFuZG9t&shdk=Rm91bmQgb24gQmluZyBmcm9tIGRjLmZhbmRvbS5jb20%3D&shhk=NjRWN4Jv1KDrxu8T30I3UN0IQ71oVtCAEnsLIeSmFl4%3D&form=EX0023&shth=OSH.nyb0RMh%252Bnm%252B%252B%252FIH1cnkhHw

Okay, kid does sorta look like a gremlin mixed with a Furby in the show, like one post said, but I’ve seen worse. https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=F9mlBjUo&id=49C0257935E4A941563E579C7E9DCF48B72BEC01&thid=OIF.eyTVbAuEqt0R%2bKFmrIK4gA&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fepipoca.com.br%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2021%2f06%2fE3NUK2kVoAE5Ct_.jpg&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR17d9a5063528805f1ade0ea77464df86%3frik%3d%26pid%3dImgRaw&exph=675&expw=1482&q=sweet+tooth++Bobby&simid=297111136187&ck=7B24D56C0B84AADD11F8A166AC82B880&selectedIndex=49&FORM=IRPRST&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0

Sometimes stuff goes over my head. I had no idea that the babies were being born and not made in a lab. When they showed them in the maternity ward, I genuinely thought they had been experimented on and didn’t come out of the womb like that. Apparently I missed that it was a maternity ward in a hospital. That’s my other problem with this show I forgot to mention: It defies logic and you really have to turn off your brain to accept the hybrid concept. I’m guessing the virus or other means (possibly according to the comics, I tried to avoid big spoilers), mutated them in utero. That still doesn’t satisfy me. Thankfully, Gus was somehow lab created, so that helps. (More information and context would be appreciated. Was it, like, they were experimenting with in-vitro or what?) Edit: This article https://screenrant.com/sweet-tooth-theory-purple-flowers-cure-sick-virus/ explains that putting the virus in a chicken egg produced Gus. Which makes even less sense. Edit: This MAY or MAY NOT be right. Someone on YT pointed out they never said this in the show.

 IRL, Virus + chicken embryo=would never randomly produce a human/deer hybrid baby. It’s so freaking random it sounds like nonsense or the delusions of a madman, not a rational comic book author with a presumably sane mind. Just...I’ve said it before...things have to make sense, even in fiction. 5 step process of anything cannot equal random result. It goes against all science, right? And made up worlds have to have rules, even silly worlds. Like I said, you have to turn your brain off, but this stretches even my disbelief. Hybrids, I get, fine, but that? I’m sorry, what? *headdesk* I don’t know, maybe the comics had something I’m missing since I never read them.

I’m eager to learn the connection to the kids and the virus as we go. And if we don’t get a season 2, I’ll be getting the comics to satisfy my thirst for this show.

Gus is my baby and I don’t understand how a kid could be that cute. Jeppard is the GOAT (lol) Bear could use better line delivery at times, but her acting will improve I’m sure. Nice to see Diana Ramierez acting again, her character is likeable. Wendy is cute, but kinda just there for me. Needs more traits or character development to get on my favorite characters list. Bear also needs more than just backstory and a tough girl persona. She’s not bland, she just needs more spark to her as a character. More personality, if that makes sense. 

Lastly, I wanted a tiny bit more from the make-up department. Wendy and rabbit kids (yes, I took note of this detail and I love bunnies) make-up is on point, but the rest look like kids dressed up in dollar store feathers and fur for a school play. Get more creative if you’re gonna show these hybrids, even if it’s just for a few seconds. You have the budget!! (But I think most of that went to Bobby’s puppetry/CGI and Jeppard’s baby, to be honest.)

I wanted a cat girl or boy, because the lulz for the anime community (Also, because I have 2 cats and stuff), but at least we got bird kids, even if they weren’t cockatiels like mine. I’m ready for Season 2, hurry Netflix!!

I can see why people wouldn’t like this show or wouldn’t recommend watching it, but I see many have embraced it. It’s either you’re thing or it’s not, but you should give it a chance and see. Just don’t shoot it down if you hate it, there’s enough wet blankets out there and we all have different tastes.

Edit: One last thing. I do have a problem with hybrids being half-human. Like, you would think that being half-human, they’d still have all the problems humans have with causing wars and all. I know it’s a dark story with a good outcome, but there’s something too saccharine about hybrids having “The best parts of us.” What exactly are those best parts? Last I checked, humans are selfish and vain at their core. Even the most altruistic, giving person can be greedy about something or want more. It’s like Genie said in the new Aladdin, “You can have all the money and power in the world and it still won’t be enough”.  Wouldn’t bird people and pig people and deer people all want to side with each other instead of living in some grand utopia? Fighting over land and resources? Portraying hybrids as taking over the earth after people are gone from extinction and everything going peachy doesn’t quite work for me. Not that I’d want it to still be dark, but, eh, they’d have to have SOME problems, wouldn’t they?

[garrothromeave]

the hell is mystreet season 6??

(warning, long post ahead)

ok so before i start this

1) ive never posted shiiiit on tumblr before so watch me suffer, im just here to talk about stuff that my friends who dont know anything about aphmau have to listen to me rant about for hours on end

2) i havent seen mystreet in like years (except season 3, i watch that frequently since im laurance and shadow knight deprived) so please bear with me because i might be completely wrong on this lol. it’s just like, pointing out things i remember

3) im sure someones already talked about this but who cares

4) im gonna do this stupid thing where i just explain myself a bit at first, if you dont want to read that just skip to the part where you see “the actual thingy:” in bold and italics 

5) mild disclaimer; i am completely aware that jessica is not a professional writer. i know that she did her best to appeal to her fans, and honestly, respect for that. while this post will come off as aggressive and probably look like hate, that’s not my intention in the slightest. it’s just... intense criticism. im sure y’all probably already know that, but yeah, just stating that anyways. i do believe that jess is doing her best, and in no way do i want to dismiss any hard work she’s done. that being said; prepare for a very strongly opinionated post.

haha watch there be 10000+ typos in this making me look like a complete dumbass

ok here we go 

one of the main reasons i stopped watching aphmau back in 2017 was the mess that was season 4. like, in the first few episodes of the emerald secret, i thought “woah!! this is kinda cool, im a sucker for mystery!” because of course i was, it was something new and something exciting. the only problem i had with it at the time was kim, but that’s just because i always found her annoying and out of place. i just didn’t understand why garroth dragged her along and honestly i still don’t to this day BUT, moving on.

anyways, as the season progressed, 13 year old me was of course just “:0!!” the entire time--that is, up until the reveal of the main villain. i remember watching the episode, seeing the reveal of ein, and then stopping. like, just for a quick break, but i was still just overwhelmingly disappointed. like, and this was the time when pdh was airing and ein just got made alpha (i think?) and i had really really liked eins character in pdh. either way, that really sucked and actually opened my eyes to a lot of things.

one of the main things bein’ the fact that this was supposed to be a slice of life kinda series that decided to take a turn to a more edgy kinda approach. which, i guess i regularly wouldnt mind? but seeing as mcd was kinda bein neglected at the time it just didnt sit right with me. BUT WHATEVER, point is i stopped watching mystreet all together at the end of season 4.

like, a whole year later my brother tells me that shit’s getting intense in season 5 + 6 of mystreet, and my brilliant self decided to give it a shot--but i refused to watch all of season 5, so i only stepped in when ein made an appearance. so whenever that was, that’s where i picked up because i didnt care enough to see 

and y’know--i honestly didn’t hate it at first. in fact, i found it oddly cool. it wasn’t enough to get me into aphmau again, but it was enough to where i was intrigued. i dont know why, but i never watched the finale, so i didnt see the ending until just a few weeks ago--but back then, i thought it was neat. looking back on it however... im just so confused. 

side note: only got back into aphmau this time around because of mcd. mainly because like, i adore the first season and the first half of the second season. and being nearly 18 now, im a lot more appreciative of plot and well-written characters n junk. 

the actual thingy:

ok back on track. imma stop spilling out my story of how i got back into aphmau, and lets just skip to what rewatching mcd made me realize of season 6′s plot and shit:

-emmalyn. how the fuck does ghost even remotely exist? if she’s emmalyn as claimed, then why have we already seen emmalyn in the mystreet universe alive? look i get that creators can do whatever they want with their stories but at the same time please provide some sort of explanation good god. and maybe they did and i just havent seen it, so if there is one--let me know. but until that day imma just sit here confused as fuck

-ok so imma just be real, the whole ‘ultima’ thing is just... not great. in my opinion, anyways. like... i saw someone mention this in another post, but if this ultima stuff was like, a really big deal, why isnt it mentioned in mcd? though i suppose since its a curse of sorts, it could be later on past the time period in which mcd takes place--but even then, how did it manage to make its way into aaron’s family bloodline? 

-WHY IS EVERYONE AT STARLIGHT ITS JUST SO CONVINIENT like what happened to this place being the most expensive shit on the planet or whatever, and how the gang happens to run into like, the werewolf trio and blaze and kai and guy and nate all of these people like god damn life doesnt WORK LIKE THAT 

-im sorry but turning people into relics? thats... thats the best you could come up with? plus, like, how does that even work? in mcd it’s established that relics are separate entitles that choose their wielder, based on a ‘personal’ connection (being a descendent of a previous wielder) or if they’re a good match personality and (i think?) moral wise. so the whole turning-people-into-relics doesnt make much sense to be honest. 

-irene really over here using her god powers to only keep her friends alive like god damn not a great god if you ask me 

-can i talk about how incredibly predictable aphmaus death was? like i just kinda sat there waiting for it to happen and when it did i literally went “haha! wonder when she’ll be revived” because god forbid we actually kill off characters 

-when aphmau + demon warlock fought in the irene dimension there was no passage of time whatsoever in the real world whiiiiiiiiich really bothers me because they fought in there for at least a few minutes

-speaking of aphmau and the demon warlocks fight does it bother anyone else that it had to be aaron who took over the fight?? like we get it hes the big protector blah blah blah but god damn it wouldve been cooler if aphmau had fought this battle as her. aaron fighting this battle was so underwhelming

-...love. like, thats the only thing thats needed to break out of a forever potion? love? LIKE YEAH, GOOD GUYS GOTTA WIN SOMEHOW, but its just so cliche and overdoneeee

-oh yeah and also when travis went bonkers and became the demon warlock or whatever, why’d he only take over katelyn and garroth?? like, zane had been influenced by the potions in the past as well? DONT GET ME WRONG--i do love some good brother edge, but uh, the demon warlock was just bein kinda a dumbass by not possessing zane too just sayin’

-can aaron please go to fucking jail for mass murder now like holy shit, he just got sent home on a fuckin boat. also why did blaze forgive him for killing him thats not even remotely realistic. then again, nothing in mystreet has ever been realistic when it comes to characters and motives and personalities, (cough katelyn being actually abusive and travis being an actual pervert) but yknow whatever

-katelyn and kawaii chan literally added nothing to the plot whatsoever. like lets be real, katelyn lost her personality the moment season 5 started and kawaii chan just kinda sits there :I

-ok im sorry this was bound to come up but cmon guys imagine laurances potential if he was in season 6 like god damn this is beyond maddening. AND YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A REALLY REALLY COOL PARRALLEL?? IF IT WAS LAURANCE WHO SNAPPED GARROTH OUT OF HIS MIND CONTROL THING, because it would mimic laurance’s speech to get garroth to snap out of his rage in season 1, episode 100 of minecraft diaries. like how fuckin rad would that have been? missed opportunity 

-also?? why does kim/ghost know magicks?? like, if i remember correctly, emmalyn is a scholar--not someone who knew magicks. i mean, i guess research? study?? but its been established that knowing how magicks works =/= being able to use magicks. i dunno, just doesnt seem right i guess. maybe its explained, i wouldnt know (yes i know that makes me look like a dick leave me alone)

-melissa should have stayed dead. LIKE, NO, ITS NOT AS SIMPLE AS “haha it takes more than a few bullets to kill me”??? look ive got nothing wrong with melissa (cough lie cough) but yknow it would have just been cool a character... stay dead? for once? its just too fuckin cliche that shes alive god damn

-can i also just say the only good thing that came out of season 6 was travis’ dads sacrifice like damn that made me actually sad

-howww was lucinda turned into a relic. or yknow, anyone else? like im sure they explain it better in the actual show i just dont remember, but its just that easy? turning anyone into a relic? granted, a normal person wouldnt be able to produce a good relic, but idk man. IM JUST SAYING; that the only really powerful relics that aphmau should have been able to wield is the one that aaron + zane produced because shad relic and esmund relic moment. lucinda isnt even like, connected to a divine warrior. ALSO, another point, if its seriously that powerful of a relic getting one from just a magic user like lucinda, why go through the trouble? i mean i guess ofc youd want the “all powerful” one that the ultima produces but i mean damn whats the point

-ok this is just going to bother me but in one of the episodes (i think might have been in season 5 actually) where that like, guardian dude was chasing aphmau and zane and at one point they split up and the dude just chuckles at zane diverting paths and goes under his breath “youre not the important one here”, suggesting that aphmau somehow is? first of all, id argue that any ro’meave is significantly more important than aphmau was, especially not knowing much about her other than that shes with aaron. i might be missing some bits an pieces, but if i was that dude id forget about aphmau and go after zane 

-killing off derek for shock factor sucked, and i know the moment was supposed to be really sad because like “oh :( aarons dad is sacrificing himself for his son” but lets be real dereks still was a shitty father and i dont think his reasons for doing what he did was very good at all

-less about plot or more like: why the absolute fuck did the gang bring kim along instead of, oh i dont know, a life-long friend? like, laurance or dante maybe?? im sure its explained, i never saw aphmaus year or most of season 5, but god DAMN id hate to be apart of this friend group AND GOD LIKE, imagine reconnecting with an old friend who ends up getting closer to your best friends and taking priority in their lives over you (cough laurance) like god damn lol

-im just going to preface this one with: i dont remember everything that’s happened, so if im wrong i apologize in advance--but (you actually can correct me if im wrong and please do) didnt like, irene reincarnate her friends in order to give them better lives? I DONT KNOW IF THIS IS TRUE, ITS JUST WHAT I REMEMBER--however, if im correct, then:

a. why the hell would she bring back someone like zane, or gene, or ivy, etc.

b. why the hell do they all have the same exact names? first and last? again, im aware that the whole mystreet+mcd tie wasn’t originally supposed to be there, but i dont think that means such a coincidence can be excused? its just a bit much if you ask me.

c. why the hell is the fact that (as much as i literally hate this) aaron is a decedent of shad being ignored? like, you’d think that something like this would be something thats actually important, or something the demon warlock couldve taken advantage of. or are we completely erasing every other connections to divine warriors besides aphmau + irene? because even if irene did reincarnate them or do whatever it is she did, does she even have the power to sever the connections between them and their ancestors? my guess is, no.

d. speaking of irene why on earth was aphmau able to talk to/see irene, they’re literally the same person are they not? did she like, fuckin reincarnate herself without actually doing it?? BUT--i will give it to them, the demon warlock did refer to aphmau as something along the lines of being “one of the 3 parts of her broken soul” or something like that. however, my point still remains. also what are the other two did i miss that or is it never explained

now; if irene in fact did not ‘reincarnate’ her friends then please ignore that little bit right there :)

but yes, those are a few of the problems i have with season 6 off the top of my head. i would go into like, season 4 and 5 more as well, but i honestly didnt feel like it. at some point i might go into other things, like how important laurance could have been to the plot of these later seasons, or HELL, even dante. i might also go into what could have made season 4, 5, and 6 actually good--maybe... a rewrite? perhaps? but im getting too far ahead of myself, so i just leave you with this for now.

and i know that as soon as i post this 15 more things are just going to pop into my head BUT im going to try and not edit this post because why stress myself with that even more

anyways thank you for coming to my tedtalk 

[insecxreasalwqys]

100

A/N: This is a lil no romance Ff I made abt Kuzuryu (the guy with glasses and blue shirt, n.2 in the show) and Chishiya (it’s canon), since it’s a manga, I wanted to make an ff abt what I think their emotions would have been. I cant explain it to well, so if you wanna read it before reading, or just read it in general, here you are :https://r.mangaowls.com/reader/308/598467?tr=AVxcBBDwX7DfqTYJo6xqMQ%3D%3D&s=aHR0cHM6Ly9yLm1hbmdhb3dscy5jb20%3D is all I included in this ff (there’s a chapter bar at the top I think, or if ur on phone click on the three lines and you’ll see the chapter bar, I only did the chapter it’s in rn. If you wanna read from the beginning of the k♦️  (The game they’re in) click this:https://r.mangaowls.com/reader/308/598474?tr=2s0OTe496oNiPUaeoDk7zw%3D%3D&s=aHR0cHM6Ly9yLm1hbmdhb3dscy5jb20%3D  ide recommend atleast reading from the beg. Of k of diamonds to get a better grasp since I suck. also, sorry if stuff and the links are incorrect, it’s my first time on here, bear with me- also I’m posting this in case they don’t show any of this in the s2 coming in December. Anyways sorry for this long “note”. I just didn’t want too much confusion, anyways- um here you are ig

Spoilers

100? Chishiya had left Kuzuryu to make the choice. No one else was there and it was just them. Does this life have value? Or does it not. It was all him. Chishiya had been unrelentlessly (in some way) mocking Kuzuryu about being an attorney, and believing that “all lives were created equally”. Keiichi saw Chishiya as insane, unhinged, as they could call it. Why would someone who seems so, so prideful, someone like Chishiya leave it up to someone he barely knew to make a call on whether he could live on or not?  It should’ve been an easy, simple decision, right? But why? Kuzuryu wasn’t dumb, not at all, he was probably one of the most intelligent characters in the whole series, surpassing Chishiya in some ways. Yet he couldn’t understand why Chishiya would leave it up to him to decide.  0:13 seconds remain. “You decide.” Chishiya said.

Now, Kuzuryu could’ve picked something else that wasn’t 0, but Chishiya, being Chishiya, while not having physically forced him, manipulated him into doing it anyways, that’s Chishiya. Yk?

“So that’s your decision? You decided to let me live?” Chishiya said, with a hint of amusement in his voice. “Well, that wasnt my actual intention, I wanted to make the game impartial.” Keiichi responded. “Impartial, huh,” Chishiya said, smiling. “You really like that word, don’t you?” He added.  “If you really don’t like making decisions,” Chishiya started, “All you have to do is kill me.” He offered, “That’s an impartial rule, isn’t it?”

Kuzuryu, still wanting to be fair, thought that if that’s what Chishiya wanted, then fine. If he wanted to die so badly, then let it be. Keiichi could still follow the rules, and win. Yet, he was still hesitant. The thing that was holding him was the fact that if he killed Chishiya, would he deserve to live? Between us two, who has more right to live? He couldn’t, he just couldn’t decide. He was lost. 

The winner of this round is: Chishiya-sama.

Kuzuryu hadn’t chosen. Now they were both at -9 points, one more point lost for one of them, and it’s game over.

“Is this your plan? You realized I couldn’t make a decision, so you chased me into a corner where we both had the same amount of points?” Kuzuryu asked.

“If that were the case, ide be quite the evil tactician. Does sound nice, though.” Chishiya answered, smiling calmly, as always. “Unfortunately, I’ve lost all interest in the lives of humans (including him), and these worthless games.” He said genuinely. “I also want to know,” Kuzuryu knew exactly what Chishiya was about to say, and Chishiya was aware of that one. “what your final decision will be.” Shuntaro, predictably said. Chishiya, once again, held up his board for Kuzuryu to see, the big 100 on his screen. 

“Fine. Allow me to settle this.”

Kuzuryu finally admitted to himself, that he truly didn’t know the value of one’s life. Chishiya had done it. 

Kuzuryu remembered the words of momoka.  “Human hearts are beautiful, human lives are precious.” That’s what she believed. “The fact I’ll die as the ‘witch’, doesnt mean I submit to your rules, it’s because I want to show you that things won’t keep going your way, and we won’t needlessly kill each other!” She was doing it for her ideals. His ideals were that all lives were equal, right?

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, beep.     The winner of this round is: Chishiya-sama.   Now that a participant has reached -10 points, it’s game over. For the final player. It is game clear. 

“What happend to your normal expression? You look like you’d rather die than live.” Chishiya said.

“If that’s the case, then I was finally able to decide how to live my life, thank you.” Kuzuryu declared.  Chishiya just sat there. Watching the acid pour down onto someone he knew, it felt weird, almost. He didn’t care about anyone, really, so why did he care now?    “Well, that’s kinda unfair. Even though you died, it’s like you got away with the true victory. Now I finally understand why you were interesting. You’re the literal opposite of me.”  “I’m…envious of you.”

———————————————————————————————————

                                                      <End>

So I forgot to say I was gonna add in a quote or 2 that I liked from this side story.

K: “You’re such a sad existence.”

C: “Indeed.”

____________________________________________________________________

C: “Well that’s a cold look for someone who’s come so far to see you.”

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

AIGHT Y’ALL I wasn’t tagged but I’m doing this anyways because f u c k  i t

It's the year 2021 and you're obsessed with The Karate Kid. How are you feeling?

Deadasss weird as fuck, my dude. Like...out of all the things I could’ve predicted happening in our lord’s year 2021, it definitely was NOT getting hyperfixated on a hammy gay ship with a punk and a nerd from a goddamn karate soap opera. And yet...here we are??? I will never understand hyperfixations, my guy. But I’ve met a lot of really cool people in this fandom, so I can’t really complain.

Did you grow up with TKK or are you new to the series?

I have never seen a single Karate Kid movie in my entire life. When I was a kid, it looked kinda dumb so I never got into it XD But then I saw my roommate watching Cobra Kai on Youtube Red one day (he has every streaming service known to man) and I was hooked. And...here I am!

We gotta do the basics. Favorite character:  

Literally EVERYONE except for Kreese, Yasmine, Kyler, and Tory, sorry stans

Okay but if we gotta pick, Johnny Lawrence is my Problematic Fave. Also I love my boy Daniel, he’s trying his best!!! And Amanda LaRusso, we stan a queen!!!

Among the kids, definitely Miguel, with Demetri as a close second. I also love Sam, Aisha, Moon, and Hawk (pre- and post-Bastardization Arc, anyways XD)!

Favorite ship:  

Take a look at my username and take a WILD FUCKING GUESS lmao Yes it’s Eli/Demetri because DUH, every interaction they have is so fucking gay and Eli fucking saved him!!! And came back to him!!! And betrayed the world’s most terrifying dojo with a WAR CRIMINAL SENSEI all for Demetri!!! And how Demetri was willing to forgive him for everything at the drop of a hat because he always had faith there was still good in his best friend??? That’s TRUE LOVE motherfuckers. Please let them kiss in Season 4. I will sell you all of my limbs. Sam/Miguel is a close second because they’re cute as shit and it’s just so lovely to see two people so unapologetically smitten with each other. They are in LOVE, and I will RIOT if they break up again!!! Keep Sam and Miguel together 2k21!!!

Underrated character:

SAMANTHA LARUSSO!!! The amount of hate my girl gets for acting like a normal teenager and fucking up occasionally JUST like the rest of the cast makes me want to start punching things. She cares SO MUCH about her friends!!! And she loves the shit out of Miguel!!! She hasn’t always been the best friend but you know what??? Neither has Hawk, and we still forgave his ass!!! Also LET HER BE FEMININE but also kick utter ass, my god!!! Femininity should not be synonymous with being weak, y’all! ALSO DEMETRI, like yes, he likes to complain and occasionally run his mouth, but guess what else he likes to do??? Never give up on the love of his life his best friend Eli Moskowitz and refuse to lose faith in him no matter how much of a little shit he’s become, and I for one think that’s very badass of him. Also the way he takes care of Eli pre-Cobra Kai in his own snarky bastard way makes me absolutely Weak and needs more appreciation. Like the dude has charisma and COULD have probably made other friends and left Eli behind if he wanted, but did he??? No, he wants the weepy loser with the lip scar in the polo shirts and dorky sweaters and will protect him as much as his wimpy ass is able!!!

Underrated ship (don’t say therapy, lol):  

Among the adults, Daniel/Amanda!!! Like maybe I just don’t watch that much tv, but it seems kinda rare to me to see a happily married hetero couple, and it’s just nice to see a married couple who genuinely love each other and where there’s not like...lingering resentment or some shit. I feel like this ship gets overshadowed by Lawrusso a lot (which like--okay, fair!!! Daniel and Johnny do have a ridiculous amount of chemistry, and the gay undertones are undeniable, so I get it), and it makes me kinda sad. I do love Lawrusso, but I don’t like when Amanda has to get her heart broke for it to happen, you feel? Among the kids, honestly YasMoon. Like I really love the idea of Yasmine trying to better herself because of Moon’s influence on her and because Moon like...inspires her to be a better person, I guess? With their pretty strong friendship, it just makes more sense to me for Yasmine to get a redemption arc through Moon than through Demetri. ALSO girls DO often pull the whole “mean girl” shtick to cover up being closeted lesbians, and Moon IS canonically bi, so it could work!!! I just think this one could be a really interesting Friends to Lovers take, and could make a really nice coming-out arc for Yas. And MoonPiper too, honestly!!! Like they only got 5 seconds of screentime so I understand WHY it’s underrated, but I still love what we DID get and loved that there was a canon gay ship (even if only for 1 scene lmao). I’m really excited to potentially see more of them in Season 4!!! Please, I’m begging!!!

Wax On, Wax Off or Sweep the Leg?

Sweep the Leg because it will always be deeply hilarious to me how Demetri took note of the first move Eli ever used on him and spent presumably weeks perfecting it OUT OF SPITE just to get him back with it at the soccer game MONTHS later. Just goes to show how OBSESSED Demetri is with Eli and their little karate rivalry which is just NOT straight, I’m sorry

Which of Daniel’s dumb little outfits is your favorite?

There’s something so funny about this pretentious little fuck walking around in fancy suits once he becomes a #SuccessfulBusinessman, and still occasionally trying to do karate in a full-ass suit (take THAT, Tom Cole’s boba!!!) I’m also a big fan of how he looks in his gi with his little headband. Still killing that look as a 40-50-something!!!

Character from the films you most want to return, who’s not Terry Silver:

Tbh I have still never seen a single Karate Kid movie (they took them off of Netflix, RIP), so...I don’t really care if they bring anyone else back??? I’m invested in the characters we already have in the show, I don’t need some rando from the movies to make a cameo to have a good time XD The only character I really wanted them to bring back was Ali, and they already did, so like...I’m good??? That’s all I really needed, I can die in peace now XD

Scene that lives in your head rent-free:

Basically any fluffy Elimetri scene, but 5 in particular: ~Miguel first meeting Eli and Demetri at the lunch table, and Eli looking at Demetri like he hung every goddamn star in the sky ~Demetri going off at a terrifying, “unhinged” karate sensei on the first day of Cobra Kai because he made fun of Eli’s lip and Demetri is not about that shit ~ELI STEALING DEMETRI’S NACHO AND SMIRKING AT HIM, LIKE EXCUSE ME SIR PLEASE BE A LITTLE LESS HOMOSEXUAL IN FRONT OF YOUR GIRLFRIEND ~Eli yanking Demetri onstage during Valley Fest to hold a board, and Demetri being visibly like...extremely turned on when Eli breaks said board ~ELI SAVING DEMETRI DURING THE CHRISTMAS FIGHT, ELI APOLOGIZING, DEMETRI AND ELI KICKING COBRA ASS TOGETHER AKSBDCUWYVCBU

Will Anthony LaRusso ever be relevant?

I hope not! He’s kind of a funny meme character to pop up now and again but I don’t think he deserves a serious plotline when there are so many more interesting characters to follow.

You live in The Valley and are forced into the karate gang war. Which dojo do you join?

Miyagi-Do because Cobra Kai would eat me alive. Also I’d probably straight up get stuck and die in that cement mixer, if I even made it that far XD Besides, being salty that your friend who you have a crush on likes martial arts better than you and starting martial arts to impress them but also being too lazy to join anything TOO intense is a Big Mood and I am certainly not speaking from personal experience here, no sirree

What’s your training montage song?

"Shut Up and Drive” by Rihanna for a weight-training and bicep-flexing montage, “Whatever It Takes” by Imagine Dragons for a more intense punching-and-kicking-shit montage. I don’t know why this is, I just feel it in my heart.

It’s the crossover event of the century! Which TV show are you combining with Cobra Kai for an hour-long Saturday night special?

*Briefly panics because I don’t actually watch that much TV and most of the stuff I do watch is fantasy/sci fi shit that absolutely would not work for a CK crossover*

Hmmmm okay but ACTUALLY

You know what would be fucking funny as hell would be an It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia crossover. Allow me to elaborate: ~The Gang goes to LA on vacation during the height of the Karate Dojo Wars. They literally can get barely anything done without all these goddamn karate-fighting teenagers getting in the way. ~They are all very annoyed by this. Even the most obscure of tourist attractions is eventually intercepted by karate fights. ~Mac tries to join Cobra Kai because he sees all this karate fighting on, and wants to unquestionably prove both his badassery and masculinity. Both Johnny and Kreese are like “Wtf are you doing here? Aren’t you like 30?” ~Mac gets a planet-sized crush on Johnny after all of 5 minutes and endlessly gushes to the gang about him. The gang mercilessly roast him about this and about how much of a pathetic loser with his life together in no way whatsoever Johnny sounds like. They proceed to have exactly 0 self awareness about this. ~The Waitress is in town visiting family or something, and Charlie is stalking her, as per usual. However, every time he’s about to go up and talk to her, a pack of battling Miyagi-Dos and Cobra Kais throwing punches and kicks everywhere blocks his path. One times, Mac is among one of these packs and Charlie is like “???? He didn’t get kicked out of that teen karate dojo yet???” ~Seeing how much the Kids These Days seem to like fighting, Charlie drops by a local high school to try and sell Fight Milk to the kids doing karate. Only Kyler and Brucks buy into it, and subsequently get the entire West Valley High wrestling team sick. Charlie is inevitably arrested, as Counselor Blatt thinks he’s selling the kids drugs. ~Dennis makes a plan to have sex with every hot chick he can in Los Angeles. He meets Ali on a dating app post-divorce, and inevitably tries to bang her. It doesn’t work. ~Frank crashes the rental car, and inevitably the gang ends up at one of Daniel’s dealerships. Dee quickly takes a liking to Daniel and is like “Watch, assholes--Imma homewreck this guy’s marriage.” She starts frequenting the dealerships to attempt to flirt with Daniel, until one day she walks in on him having sex with Johnny in a back room and she’s like “Is that the guy from Mac’s goddamn dojo?!?!” ~Dennis, of course, tries to sleep with Amanda. Amanda is not having it, and rebukes him in the most snarky, Amanda-esque way possible. Dennis is just like “Oh not AGAIN--the women in this goddamn diva city have too high of standards!” ~Later on, the gang is at the beach and Dennis spots the blonde lady he went out on an ill-fate date with, and decides to give it another shot--that is, until he sees her go up and kiss another woman and he’s like “IS THAT THE LADY FROM THE CAR DEALERSHIP??? STUPID-KARATE-KICK-COMMERCIAL’S WIFE?!? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.” ~Dee complains to Dennis about her lack of luck getting laid, and Dennis is just like “Oh come ON, is everyone in Los Angeles gay???” Smash cut to Hawk and Demetri having sex, Moon and Piper making out, Bert and Nate holding hands, Chris and Mitch doing oral, and Amanda, Ali, and Carmen having a threesome. ~Frank tries to scam Kreese into buying cheaply-made karate equipment for his dojo. The gang ends up having to leave LA because Kreese is quite literally plotting all of their murders.

For tagging, uuuuhhhhhh @jackonthelongwalk @soe-leo @max-eagle-fang @cc-tinslebee @backawayfromthegay @asphodel-storm do the thing, if y’all haven’t yet!

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep8: The Saga of Grandpa Muto’s Mysterious Broken Ass

Getting ready to eat some Devlin eggs this Easter Sunday, feeling festive, and I figured it’s time to post this one a little earlier. Also, because it’s done, which I wasn’t expecting. It’s a slightly longer episode this time, but still, eh, pretty short.

We’ve come off of the very predictable, but still kind of disappointing downfall of Joey Wheeler, and onto a Rebecca arc. Which I’m sure won’t be annoying at all.

The lesser Roland--who’s name I do not know, but the one that wears the weirder sunglasses and seems way smarter than Roland, but clearly isn’t the favorite--lets us know that Zigfried has been going by an alternate identity for years and years. Which like...who cares? It’s not like the Kaibas have always been Kaibas. This is old hat to them.

So Seto sets him off on a quick bribe run, opening a list of different politicians and saying “Oh, this one’s super easy, go for it--he’s in my ass pocket, this guy. Hate this guy.” and it was...that easy for Seto to glide right into that Gozaburo lifestyle that he insists he totally doesn't do anymore. But youknow, with Seto Kaiba there really isn’t any good or bad just win or lose.

On the other end of the park, the choo-choo blue eyes white dragon train pulls in from death mountain, and once again the seating arrangement was really mystifying. Yugi in the very front, all alone. Tea sitting next to Tristan for some reason. Duke sitting next to Joey Wheeler, when I’m pretty sure Duke is probably the least comforting person in this entire group.

In fact all Duke had to say to comfort Joey was “you lost because you went up against a professional duelist!” and it’s like...at what point do you become a “professional duelist?” The game is fake. How many times do you have to save the world before you’re a “professional duelist,” Duke?

Course...maybe he has to get a high school diploma first...

Anyway, Joey spent the last part of this ride sobbing into the seats next to Duke Devlin while everyone else went “weee!” around the...molten pools of lava in this literal volcano that the Kaibas are pretty sure are a really good idea.

(read more under the cut)

Speaking of loss.

Grandpa Hawkins runs over to inform us that not only is no one watching his Grandaughter, but also, he lost a grown ass man because he decided to look for a doctor, couldn’t find a doctor, did watch Rebeccas match for a little while, listened to the part where she was like “I dedicate this match to my true love and boyfriend Yugi Muto with this sonnet I just wrote” and was like “normal thing to say!” and then finally found a doctor, who was like “well he’s not here so clearly he’s cured!” and charged Hawkins a bill despite Grandpa being no where to be found.

I can’t imagine the review that Hawkins is going to leave on Yelp.

Stepping away from thinking that Grandpa ditched his date with Hawkins to go on another date with some random theme park hussie, Yugi decides to ditch Rebecca, because he has way too many fake relationship plotlines in this group to juggle in his already double-stuffed brain.

And Rebecca takes it as if she kind of assumed this would happen.

Also in the actual canon of the show, Hawkins did not tell her that Grandpa was missing, or that Yugi would probably not be coming. Man these people love lying out their ass.

Speaking of being just completely flat on your ass, which happens so much this episode, they stumble upon Leon, who once again kind of comes out of the last place you expect and goes “Hello guys, I regret to inform you I still exist and I really need you to start noticing me already. I swear I will become plot relevant any day now. Please don’t forget I exist.”

...The Kaibas sure did make a tiny town. That sure is the only thing here.

Straight up, the Kaibas don’t know what fun is, and that is canon. And when I look across this landscape, I can only think of that one scene in Arrested Development where they made a very tiny city to convince investors that their housing development was actually legit and very real. And like I feel like the Kaibas would absolutely do that, too.

It’d be good for the gram...but this was before social media was a thing so what is this for?

I mean Leon sure the hell doesn’t know.

Local sad boy genius, Leon, here to get ignored by Rebecca despite being exactly her age, just like other local sad boy genius, Mokuba.

I really called it when I gave him Mai’s font color, huh? Good that even when Mai isn’t here, we can still have a chronically friendless character. But he is like...a lot more adorable than Mai was. Leon is just a lot more likeable. And again--really good hair color. Helps that he doesn’t want to constantly murder Joey Wheeler for no reason.

These kids came out of nowhere and can I just say it’s a really good thing someone woke Leon the hell up before the cameras arrived because that would have been SHOCKING if they all thought he was dead.

I love this boat.

Also Joey makes this observation and it was really funny the way he said it:

The sign that hangs above the park entrance that says “no one kidnapped in 1 days” flips back to 0.

I mean, we all know it’s Vivian, because it’s this global tournament where everyone is defined by stereotypes. But, I want to know how she got the panda stationary. That’s pretty good. There’s a side of me from my 11 yo self that never got over my sanrio phase collecting cute stationary with matching stickers and jelly pens to write 1 (one) letter and stuff it into a friend’s locker (and then have them say they cannot read my handwriting) and that part of me loves panda stationary.

Like if I got matching stationary with like...the matching stickers on it...in my ransom letter...damn that’s like seriously sentimental stuff. I’d feel a little ambiguous about that.

This town is the exact size that California was last season where you could just leap skip from Death Valley to San Fransisco.

And later we are...one step closer to Vivian. And if it’s not, and it’s actually like Bandit Keith on the other side of this door, I will be very happily surprised and this will be my favorite arc.

Also...please note that Joey is still wearing this duel disk after he’s completely done dueling.

Joey, please. It’s over, Joey. You live that Duke Devlin life now, retire the disk.

Anyway, until next time, this is the link to read these from the first to the latest:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[kyidyl]

Kyidyl Explains Bones - Part 6

(All of these are under the KyidylBones tag.) 

Age Determination 

Well, age at death anyway.  I’m gonna put this warning up front: 

Today’s post will contain pictures of the skeletons of children.  This is something that a lot of people, even those who think they won’t be bothered, find upsetting.  This goes double if you actually have children.  This post will also include frank discussion of child death.  

You have been warned.  

So what is age determination? Age determination isn’t the process of figuring out how old a set of remains is, it’s the process of figuring out how old the individual was when they died.  Because of the sensitive nature of the topic, I’m putting everything behind a cut today.  

Ethics: Beyond the normal respectful approach, there aren’t separate ethical considerations with dealing with age like there are for sex and race.  Just be considerate of the fact that child death is super upsetting to some people.  I literally had people in my classes at the masters level who were moved to tears by some of the younger remains, so even when you’re used to looking at things from a clinical perspective, kids can be tough.  

General: Age is separated into three general categories: juvenile (0-early 20s), adult, and elderly.  Juveniles are from birth until the last known skeletal change takes place.  IE, until all your teeth come in and all your bones fuse.  These are really good indicators of age, so we use them as much as we can for as long into the lifespan as we can.  Adults range from “done growing” to “showing signs of degeneration” EG, arthritis and that kind of thing.  Elderly is anything older than that.  

Also, this applies to all age categories: size is not an indicator of age.  Ever.  

Juveniles: We say juveniles instead of children because people in their late teens and early 20s aren’t really children, but they haven’t finished growing yet.  So juvenile is a more inclusive term, and the more accurate one.  That said, kids are by FAR the easiest to know the age of.  Juvenile remains do not look like small adult remains, because juveniles that have skeletons that do not resemble adult skeletons beyond the basic “ah, that’s probably a human”.  

There are a few ways that we determine the age of a juvenile, and the first thing we check is the teeth.  Before the body, before any other signs.  Because the teeth are consistently accurate across race, sex, economic standing, any pathologies, etc.  Teeth are formed and come in on a schedule.  Here is that schedule: 

And here is a link to a high res PDF version that you absolutely should take a look at (Source).  

Beyond this, the 3rd molar AKA wisdom teeth come in between ages 17-25.  Now, archaeological remains won’t have scars on the bone from the wisdom teeth removal that a lot of people commonly undergo, but in the future that will be visible on the bone.  I’ll get into this more when I get around to doing the damage and pathology posts, but healed bone has a different appearance than unbroken bone, so a healed-over tooth socket has a different appearance than bone that never had a tooth there to begin with.  In addition, while tooth eruption in a living juvenile is accepted as the time when the tooth breaks through the gums, in the remains of a juvenile we can see un-erupted teeth within the jaw.  It looks like this: 

(Source) 

As an aside: those lines on the teeth are called enamel hypoplasia, and I’ll cover it more in the teeth post, but essentially if you don’t get proper nutrition as a child when your adult teeth are developing in your jaw you get these lines in them.  

So anyway, because teeth come in on such a precise schedule, and because teeth survive better than anything else in your body (especially in a child’s body.  Childrens’ bones are fragile, partially ossified, and they decay quickly.), they’re very good for estimating age at death.  Even more so than bones, because bones can be altered by illness, malnutrition, repetitive activity, or genetic anomalies.  Teeth almost never are.  Or, rather, their rate of growth isn’t.  

Another thing we look for when determining age at death is the fusion of the bones.  See, as you’re growing you have more bones.  Those get larger until they meet up with the bone they’re part of, and then they start to fuse.  These are called epiphysis (growth plates).  Very young children don’t even have entirely ossified (bone instead of cartilage) bones, let along epiphysis that touch.  Babies don’t show up often in the archaeological record because of this. To better illustrate this, here is an image of an xray of a baby’s hand: 

(Source) 

You’ll notice that the finger bones (Metacarpals and carpels, known collectively as phalanges.) have small little bones at the ends that aren’t attached - that’s not an anomaly, that’s normal.  Those are the physis, which will fuse later in life after they are larger, and the plate between them from which they grow is the epiphysis.  You can also see that the wrist bones have barely begun to ossify and don’t show up on the xray, and the physis for the radius and ulna (arm bones) also haven’t begin to ossify and thus don’t show up - that’s why the arm bones look like one bone.  They aren’t, they have an epiphysis at either end (Your elbow is a separate bone called the olecranon and it doesn’t fuse until later on.).  This happens at a very predictable rate, and so we can tell how old someone is from a combination of their teeth and which bones have and have not ossified and fused.  In addition, the bone of the epiphysis has a unique texture that is referred to as “billowy” in the literature (even tho I hate that word).  Here’s a picture: 

(Source)

The one on the left is what you want to look at, since this is a progression through age.  Also I sniped this from a paper on age estimation, so if you’re interested in this take a look at it.  It’s on researchgate so it’s not behind a paywall.  As an aside: researchgate is amazing and you should all learn to use it.  

Anyway, see that bumpy texture on the left? That’s what unfused bone looks like at the growth plate.  This actually applies to, as far as I know, all land mammals.  So if you find animal bones with this texture at the end of the bone, then that animal was a juvenile when it died.  Bones fuse at different times in your life, but we know the times when they fuse.  There are 206 bones in the adult body, so that would be a lot for me to try and put in a tumblr post, but if you google a specific bone you should be able to find the ages they fuse.  I believe, if memory serves, that the skull sutures are the last to fully fuse, and they in fact continue to become more tightly fused as your life goes on. I’ll cover that in the next section tho.  It will hold together as a teenager, but the skull bones take a long time to fuse to each other.  Two of the last epiphysis to fuse though are the iliac crest (The curved part of the hip - it’s actually its own separate bone.  Like just the small, smooth curved part.) and the sternal end of the clavicle (clavicle = collarbone, and the sternal end is the medial part towards the sternum.).  This happens in your early to mid 20s.  

So teeth and bone fusion are the two most used methods of age estimation.  So if anyone ever shows you a small skeleton with fused bones and calls it a child, roll your eyes at them.  It’s not a child.  

One last note on juvenile skeletons: until the individual undergoes puberty, sex and race determinations are extremely difficult (teeth can be used for race, but not for sex.  Not really, anyway.).  So again, anyone who professes to know the sex of a set of pre-pubescent remains without like...a gravestone or something telling them is probably a liar.  Right now the methods for doing that are either expensive (genetics) or inaccurate.  And doing genetic evaluations on old juvenile remains is difficult, because their bones are more fragile than adult bones and break down easier, which exposes the DNA to easy degradation.  It’s not impossible, it’s just usually more difficult and more expensive.  

For reference, here is a juvenile skeleton laid out in standard anatomical position.  There is more than one individual here, so ignore any of the bones outside the arms and above the head.  

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Adults and the Elderly: After an individual finishes growing, estimating their age becomes increasingly difficult.  There’s no such thing as, for example, an average number of tooth cavities.  In addition, the natural growth and destruction of your bone cells over your lifetime means that things you do habitually can significantly alter the shape of your bones and the rate at which they break down.  

However, there are a few things that can be used.  Joints wear down at a fairly consistent rate, and arthritis leaves specific markers on the bones that we can identify as arthritis rather than normal wear and tear.  This is most easily views in two places: the public symphasis (the front where your two hip bones meet.) and the acetabulum (The socket that the round end of your thigh bone is in.).  The picture I used above is an image of the wear and tear seen on a series of pubic symphysises (symphysii? IDK.).  And so these are matched against skeletons whose age at death was known and age ranges for changes to this area were arrived at.  

When I was doing my MSc, we did a project where we were assigned a set of remains and had to use everything we’d learned in the course to do a full evaluation of our skeletons.  Well, the majority of my skull was missing and so I used the acetabulum to do age estimation on the skeleton (I had some teeth, but not most of the ones that are diagnostic of age, which I’ll cover in a sec.).  This is an image from and a link to one of the papers I used: 

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Two things happen here as you age.  One, the edges of the socket become damaged and it starts to change the anatomy (F is oldest).  Two, that space in the middle is called the acetabular fossa, or the acetabular notch.  And as you can see, the shape of it changes over time due to normal wear and tear.  In combination with resources like the one I linked, we can use this to estimate the age of an adult or elderly individual.  

Another tool we use has to do with the fusion of your growth plates.  After the bones fuse, the line is still visible.  Throughout your life the remodeling (normal breakdown/growth of bones and healing from damage.) causes the sutures to be come less and less visible.  We call this obliteration.  In the elderly, most of their sutures and growth plates will be completely obliterated.  For example, the femur is in four pieces as a child.  The main body of the femur, the head of the femur, the greater trochanter (The big bump on the top outside.  This is like...the part that’s wides below your hips where your thigh meets your pelvis, but on the outside.), and the condyles (the rounded pieces on the far end.).  The greater trochanter fuses and obliterates pretty early on, but the head and the condyles are pretty easy to see even in adults.  Here’s an example showing the femoral head: 

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As you can see, the trochanter has fused and is obliterated, but the head has fused and you can still see the line from the growth plate.  The sutures in the skull are especially good for this, as cranial sutures take the majority of the lifespan to obliterate (sometimes they never fully do.).  If you see a smooth skull, that person was ooooold.  

The last easily accessible way we assess age at death is via tooth wear.  Now, this won’t work in modern skeletons, which is why there’s a lot of research surrounding the evaluation of age at death.  We’re well aware that after humans entered roughly the industrial age, our foods became soft and teeth no longer wear like they should, and after that point in time it’s not possible to use the standardized methods of tooth wear to evaluate age.  Well, I should rephrase, it won’t be possible in westernized and industrialized societies.  Cultures in Africa and South America that still practice pastoral or hunter/gatherer lifestyles will likely still have expected tooth wear.  Anyone who lives in a society that has and uses grocery stores or doesn’t use two rocks to mill flour (Do not underestimate how much bread people ate.), is not going to have expected tooth wear (so it’s not about rural vs city.).  

See, it’s normal and natural for teeth to wear.  It’s normal and natural for the yellowish substance below the enamel, called dentin, to show.  Dentin is almost as hard as enamel, and it actually regrows.  We evolved to have tooth wear both on the surfaces and between the teeth.  Humans used to eat much tougher foods, and even when we weren’t, our foods had a lot of grit in them (IE, tiny pieces of stone from milling flour.  I have a whole ass theory about the role of dirt in the evolution of teeth for all animals but that’s neither here nor there.) and wore our teeth down.  Wear isn’t a sign of bad dental hygiene, it’s a sign of a tougher diet.  After the industrial age we started using different methods to produce food and started eating softer food overall, so we stopped putting the stresses on our jaws required for both proper tooth wear and the proper growth of our teeth (AKA: wisdom tooth impaction.).  So normally worn teeth look like this: 

(Source for both images)

If you’ll notice in that top image the lines where the teeth meet fit exactly together.  This is because of tooth wear.  Interestingly you’ll also notice in the bottom image that this individual’s teeth are unevenly worn, meaning they chewed on the right side of their mouth.  This is actually something we see all the time because of both handedness, and insult to the teeth on one side of the aw (AKA it was painful cause they had cavities.).  This individual was likely a young adult given that they don’t have a lot of tooth wear to begin with, but they were preferentially using one side of their mouth to chew and so it is more worn than it would be for someone who wasn’t doing that.  Here is the chart we use to grade tooth wear and age on adult teeth: 

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That link has a larger version of the chart and more images.  

So the fact that I’m 40 and still can feel all the cusps on all of my molars is an anomaly compared to previous humans.  Soft foods.  So if you compare the above image of the jaw with the chart, you’ll see that the individuals in both pictures have wear in the 25-35yrs old age rage, or what we would consider to be a young adult.  And before you start talking about average age of humans back in the day, don’t forget that the average includes a lot of dead children.  Once you made it to adulthood you lived a decent amount of time.  

So those of you who are older than your 30s or so might not remember this, but when your adult incisors come in they had small ridges on the edges.  It was easier to tell on your top teeth (maxillary incisors) than your bottom ones (mandibular incisors.), but it’s present on both.  These bad boys: 

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That is obviously a living human, but I’m showing you because they wear quickly.  They do, however, wear at a prescribed pace so if a set of remains has them they were young.  Sometimes they’re gone before you’re even an adult, but I figured I’d mention them because they are another kind of tooth wear.  

Disease: The last thing that helps in age determination are age-based diseases.  Namely, osteoarthritis and osteoporosis.  There are circumstances wherein someone younger can have both of those pathologies, but that’s why we have all of the other things.  So if we see signs of arthritis in a younger person, we’ll have the other signs to help us realize that they aren’t an elderly individual.  

Osteoarthritis is, essentially, a thinning of the cartilage, fluid, and other soft tissues in the joints, causing the bones to rub against each other instead of sliding nicely on the cartilage.  Now, a certain amount of thinning is expected with age - obviously, as arthritis in the elderly is extremely common even now.  But osteoarthritis is an escalation of the normal wear and tear into a pathology.  Osteoarthritis damages the joints, and so bone attempts to regrow, so you see a lot of abnormal outgrowths of bone that fit tightly together because they were rubbing against each other.  You also see, in extreme cases, striations on the bones where they were grinding together.  Like this: 

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This is a knee joint, viewed from the posterior side.  You can see on the bottom condyle and the opposing articular surface that there are lines.  Those lines are from the bones grinding.  You also can see, especially on the tibia, all those little funky looking bone bits.  All that roughness sticking out around end, below the flat surface.  Some roughness there is normal, but that’s rougher than it should be and that’s the result of osteoarthritis.  

The other disease common in the elderly is osteoporosis.  Osteoporosis is an illness that causes compact/cortical (the thicker hard bone around the spingy bone to thin and become porous (hence the name.).  I’ve held bone with extremely advanced osteoporosis and they are about half the weight of normal bones.  So that’s the first sign.  The next sign is that they’ll be damaged, both from the natural processes of time and from subsequent handling, because they’re farm more fragile than health adult bone.  The vertebra also take on a “squished” appearance due to the forces of gravity and the remodeling during the life of the individual.  You also will often see poorly healed breaks (I’ll show you more of this later in this series when I get to pathologies.).  

So that brings us to the end of the bit about age determination.  Hope you guys are enjoying this series. :) I think next up is gonna be teeth! =D