#but it still unfortunate the communication was so bad that they didnt get the opportunity to do more when they were still interested

[thatrainylife]

chat can we bring the dsmp back so all the characters can actually finish their storylines because I was genuinely interested in every single character and it miffs me when people say that most fans only cared about c!sbi and c!beeduo like no?? That's not true???

like at least we got c!connor lore near the end, the only lore that mattered tbh

[burinazar]

what motivates you artistically? :3

well right now blelaf mainly. no ok hang on. alright. so.

when i was really young i had this feeling like if we could all just understand one another, if there was a perfect way to beam your thoughts and feelings into someone's head, it would fix almost everything re conflicts and human suffering. (naive obviously but this was what i thought lol.) when i started to be aware of what it was to read good books and look at good art it felt like in some ways the closest we could come to fully articulating an idea, a moment, a feeling, and placing it in its entirety into someone's mind. relatedly, uh, bad stories/art that didn't seem to respect their audience pissed me off at the squandered opportunity (sorry the snobbery came out sorry) and made me think, dammit, the audience and types of people evoked within this deserve better and i'm gonna try. with the combo of these two things it was like ..okay i'm going to start writing and drawing. it was all about stories ideas concepts. oh and also i really liked rodents and wanted to draw them as often as possible lol. i drew so fucking many rodents. gah. these concepts were no joke deeply linked for me because as a child i genuinely felt like the bad rap rodents get from people unthinkingly condemning them via stereotypes was a symptom of a societal lack of empathy and consideration. (possibly terry pratchett's fault)

(could not locate early rat art at this moment but here's relevant scribbling. i was nine i think.)

 tl;dr plunging themes and concepts i find interesting; communicating them to other people. (sometimes the concept is admittedly not highbrow. sometimes it is very silly. sometimes it is 'hey ! it would be hot if this happened to b*laf'.) it can be hard to reconcile the desire to 'communicate' via art/writing with some of my work just not having much of an audience or even feeling like i don't want to share it for various reasons lol, but in those cases i frame it to myself as, the effort of presenting the idea was enjoyable in and of itself, an act of personal communication between me and the subject or content of the work even if the thing itself will never be shown to another soul : v anyway fanwork can be a neat way to do that because it's like shared muses or canvases where what you see in them or love about them is already partially pre-communicated to people and you can hit the ground running on evoking emotions, concepts and narratives using the shared frame of reference, as well as skewing and transforming said frame as needed. btw i found another drawing of me and the sages that i didnt use in the other post so here it is

there have been many periods of my life when i was making more original work, though. (i'm sure i've said this many times now but before the sages i had a very comparable attachment to a couple of my OCs.) i also had a pretty terrible experience with fandom around middle school that sort of drove me away from heavily engaging for a long time; i was still in fandoms but basically never shared my writing outside of like PMs and servers. that's part of why my current abyss bullshit is so precious to me and also why i can get protective over it; it pretty much singlehandedly brought me back to the Blessings and Curses of being directly engaged in sharing a lot of fan content publicly. (man for a person who doesnt like bondrewd i do quote him a lot unfortunately.)

so anyway. yes. uhh sorry that was really long. i sort of just like blogging haha thank you very much for the ask! < 3

[megamindsecretlair]

heyy pretty gal 😩💞 been a min! can I plz have ur advice??

So i recently had sex for the first time. p.s. ate that shii DOWN 🏆👀 But it’s embarrassing cuz that mf got me sick .. Iykyk. 😐

I’m so heart broke ONLY cuz it felt so good & I’ve wanted that for so long.... Just for it to negatively affect me emotionally/physically. 💔 And intimacy is so addicting* (especially with childhood traumas.)

So it’s kinda like I played myself. Or did myself a disservice. By giving in, being intimate, & giving chances to someone who didnt deserve it. Damn i feel like a statistic.

But still, why are Black men so.. hurtful.. to Black women?? Should I have kept my promise & waited longer? How do you recoup after experiencing sex? especially after a person/situation like that.

I want to move on.. but idk when I’ll feel that closeness again. And as a Black woman? Im tired of using work/responsibilites as a “healthy” distraction. I just want an emotional break 💔 these niggas piss me off .

~ ik its a lot, but this a safe space right? <3

Hey girl. I am by no means a sex expert or mental health expert, take what resonates, leave what doesn't, but this is indeed a safe space and I'm absolutely honored you trusted me with this.

Having sex is a deeply personal decision, but you should never feel like you did yourself a disservice. FUCK THAT MF 👏🏽👏🏽 HE AINT DESERVE YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Unfortunately, theres no way to know that for certain when these mfs are scheming from jump. Black men are conditioned to be coddled. Family, especially Black moms, will cater to and coddle the hell out of their sons. Fix their plates, wash their clothes, etc. So when they get out into the streets, they're looking for that in their partners. Conversely, Black daughters are conditioned to overchieve to the point of perfectionism. They have to be cooks, doctors, therapists, maids, etc and outclass their counterparts in every way possible. So if a man don't get what he thinks he deserves, he feels no qualms about dogging someone out.

I'm sorry your first time sucked. Im so, so, sorry that it wasn't full of love and safety. Do not beat yourself up about this. Sex should be enjoyed safely with consenting partners. You WILL get there. One day, you will be screaming glory to the ceiling. I know this will happen for you 👏🏽

This is only one bad experience. But it cannot color your future experiences. My best advice is to listen to your gut. When you are in tune with the right person, you may not feel butterflies or anxiousness or feel that die hard passion that TV likes to lie about. The right person? Will make you feel safe. You will feel calm around this person. Your worries will melt away because his/her/their priority is to put you at ease. They will listen to you. They will communicate with you. They will never pressure you into something you're not ready for.

They will wait 10 years to have sex with you if you're not ready. And will gladly wait those 10 years to make sure you're safe in their arms. I cannot stress this enough. Communication is your best friend 👏🏽 if you can't open your mouth and communicate your needs with someone you're willing to hop in bed with, why are you hopping in bed with them 🤔

Sex is a journey. A long, complicated, stressful, wonderful journey. The intimacy will come, the love will come. You gon get there, I promise 😚 even if its casual sex and youre not in love with the person, fight that instinct to retreat. Fight that instinct to close yourself off.

You dont need distractions right now, you gotta sit with this feeling. You gotta live with it. You gotta identify what it is youre searching for. And never compromise on that.

Black girls are never afforded opportunities to be soft. To be vulnerable.

Fight it!!! And keep fighting it!!!

[ebisul]

TCW Rewatch: Season 1 Episodes 5-8

These get more interesting the less serious I take it. I’m actually at season 2 now and moving these from my notes app so the formating gets a bit funky.

Im considering uploading my phantom menace notes bc i truly am qui gon jinns biggest hater.

Note: Episodes 6 and 7 are not my favs so they get shorter notes but Bombad Jedi unfortunately got more than average notes even though it is the jarjar jedi episode. This is a grave disappointment but I feel it makes up for the lack of notes in 6-7.

Episode 5: Rookies

Clones are being sent out to war before they are finished with their training putting them in charge of highly important stations that prevent invasion for the Republic

Totally sound plan, guys, good job

Cody and Rex inspecting the stations while Obi Wan and Anakin search for Grievous

Droid invasion of the Rishi Outpost

Ventress is spying on Kamino? For what purpose

Yknow, other than the fact that that is where all of the clones come from

The separatists are planning to invade Kamino.

That explains why ventress was spying on Kamino because they want to cripple the GAR supply chain which is a fucked up notion bc these are people and not just products but i doubt the separatists care

Hevy sacrifices his life to destroy the outpost to protect kamino and alert Obi Wan and Anakin of Grievous’s attempt at invasion

Episode 6: Downfall of a Droid

R2-D2 is missing and has valuable information about the GAR that Anakin didnt wipe from his memory leaving a risk of a security leak

Trandoshan smuggling R2 to Grievous so they know R2 has the info?

Is R3 programmed by separatists? Suspicious

Episode 7: Duel of the Droids

The trandoshan takes R2 to the listening post thats intercepting communications between republic forces and transmitting them to the Separatists

R3 was a spy

I knew it

How?? How did he even get there??

Anakins team explodes the spy station

Dramatic ass droid fight goes crazy tho

Episode 8: Bombad Jedi

Rodia is in crisis

Rodians are starving and Supply ships are getting attacked by pirates. Rodians have lost faith that the Republic will assist them in their crisis

“My people will starve all the same”

The republic postponed a vote for a relief effort to assist the Rodians

Padme assures the Rodian ruler that they will get their food but that doesnt not change that they need it now

Nute Gunray (separatist and the viceroy that attempted to assassinate and overthrow padme) has sniped the opportunity to assist the Rodians and earn their allegiance

Conflict of allying with bad people to protect the lives of your own civilians and betraying the “good guys” for the health and saftey of others

“To live in fear is no life at all”

Conflict of morality, protect the life of your dear friend or the lives of your starving people

That robe is totally anakins and c3po totally knows it

Badass padme escape as per usual

Padmes got hands

Padme is planning to capture viceroy gunray while he is on Rodia

Gunray wants to execute Padme as a prisoner of war which feels like a warcrime

He is also withholding from fulfilling his end of the deal and not providing the promised relief effort

Overall, dick move

Ono only wants to see his people live

C3po contacts the GAR forces

Execution by firing squad is wild for a generally innocent, unarmed(?) woman

I refuse to praise jarjar for anything

Ono double crosses Gunray and arrests him, although Padme saying that was the plan from the beginning is a likely bluff

Viceroy Gunray is arrested, a major victory for the GAR and weakening the Separatist leadership

War Crime Counter!!!:

Separatists: 4?

Republic: still 0 but just you wait its coming

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket,Se03, Ep 8 (part 2)

I finally got my answer on how will kyo’s confession of kyoko will be & how tohru will react. I love the writing, the pacing, the monologue, the dialogue, the facial expressions, tohru’s reaction, kyo’s rejection & tohru’s shock. Even yuki & akito’s involvement! All of it was a chef’s kiss!

I went & watched lots of eps of se01 & 2 & I’m loving all the hints they dropped abt kyo & how his trauma was looming over him all. this. damn. time! Unfortunately, it has reminded me of how much tohru’s own character exploration was diminished in favor of her being the angelic mother & the sohma’s fixer! but moving on & focusing on her shining moment now! I’ll explore her character here with regards of her trauma, real hidden character & future development.

Kyo’s rejection is the best thing that has ever happened to tohru:

(don’t hate me before you read!) XD~ just like you, I’m mad at kyo for hurting tohru & I feel her pain. However, the writer didn’t write this with a sadistic desire to hurt us. Kyo’s rejection is the core of the entire story as it is not only connected to kyo’s trauma, but tohru’s growth & yuki’s emotional involvement with the two, as well as akito’s insecurities. I have explained in my review( part 1) how kyo rejecting tohru was a logical progression of kyo’s trauma, the only possible outcome from his perspective, & the themes tied with such decision. Now, I’ll explain why this rejection is good for tohru in the long run:

1. Showing the hidden ugly side: (The timid, shy, self-sacrificing girl is angry!): Tohru’s entire consciously constructed personality is borrowed from elements in her mom & dad’s life:

She mimicked her dad’s overly polite style to prove that she is indeed his daughter, so her mom won’t be called w*ore & to console her mom, so she wont leave her. She has deep low self-worth issues. I gotta become someone else to be loved.

she has inner fear of bringing shame to her mom’s name, wants to always be the good girl so mom’s get praised for raising her. Thus, hiding ugly aspects such as anger, loud voice & frustration.

She wants to prove that her mom chose right by not neglecting her. wishes to be worth needing & loving for her own self.

All she ever wanted since being a 4 year old child is her mom. No other desire for anything else at all. Since her mom’s death, she’s been lost on what to do, who to be, what to want! then it came to her to stick to her mom’s memory & live for her. Living for a dead person is a self-sacrifice decision. Tohru just didn’t see herself outside of her mom’s influence.  

Ever since meeting kyo, he has been encouraging real aspects of her character: be selfish, complain, cry, get mad, yell, look pathetic, expose unflattering thoughts, show undesirable side, ask for things, no, DEMAND things. She has been reluctantly following his advice & only showing that to him. His confession & inability to accept her love has lead her to show the real hidden tohru behind the “ i’m okay” mask:

The timid, always smiling girl is now showing anger, frustration, stubbornness & determination.

screaming her heart out: “ i don’t believe my mom would say that” stating her opinion in firm voice.

 “even if she did, I have to go against her” the real tohru shows her explosive personality that was buried deep down! it is NOT mom’s life anymore. It is MINE. I decide. I choose. I want. My decisions.

“ why can’t you see that?” argues with him. Tohru, who is soft-spoken & tends to get flustered  when others insist, is now questioning his decision with passion & fierceness!

“ I love you no matter what”. Say what toy want. look at yourself as a monster, a murderer, a loser or a coward. I don’t care what your brain or trauma makes you think. I see the real YOU & it is my decision! I love you ugly & pretty, sad & happy, broken or strong, coward or brave. I take it all & no one is fooling me or changing my mind. I’m my own person & I chose YOU. 

 2. Letting go of attachments: Learning to LIVE:

Tohru’s attachment to her mom isn’t healthy. It’s  toxic as it hinders her from being her own person. To be able to love kyo, she lets go of “ listening to mommy’s words” . Apparently, her mom condemned kyo as unforgivable. Tohru knows the real kyo & doesn’t even care for forgiveness despite her mom’s alleged words. Breaking the toxic bond. She formed a healthier bond with kyo. However, if kyo is unable to accept this love. what would tohru do? die?? kill herself?? kyoko wasn't able to continue to love her husband cuz he died. her reaction was neglecting her daughter & roaming away in utter grief. Tohru mustn’t follow her mom’s example. Not all loved ones leave us out of hate. Some leave each other cuz of death (kyoko/tohru), ( kyoko/ katsuya), Others might leave each other out of current traumatic pain, mental health, emotional hindrance despite loving each other so dearly (kyo/tohru). If kyo despite his immense love to tohru, can’t forgive himself, they won’t be together. tohru can cry, scream, yell, but if he doesn't overcome his issues & come back, tohru gotta let go. She gotta learn to let go & not kill herself over what she cant have.

Kyo, on the opposite, gotta learn to hold on to loved ones! Let go of pain but hold on to real ppl not dead ghosts of the past. He must learn to act on his own desire & need for tohru. Only when he forgives himself, he’ll hold on to her. It is then, that tohru will decide again if she’ll have him or not.

3- Wanting things doesn't mean you WILL have them: (You are enough by yourself- moderation)

tohru wants kyo, the first thing she has ever wanted. However, she won’t  automatically get him just because she now learned to demand things. There are obstacles that can stop that. Tohru must accept kyo’s inability to be with her now & live healthily regardless. This ties to akito as well. She wants the zodicas but she cant have them! Emotional distance separate them. What will akito do if she can’t have what she wants? kill kurno? kill tohtru? kill herself? will this bring the zodiacs back? NO. You are enough by yourself. She needs to let go & learn to accept that love means acceptance between the involved parties, emotional connection isn't enough.

-Realistic depiction of romantic relationship progression: (thro better & worse). EPIC writing!

It is indeed fate that brought tohru back in kyo’s path 4 months after her mom’s death & the they do share a mutual past: kyoko. However, fervor grateful to the author for writing them falling in love together isn’t due to fate, coincidence, mutual past or similar personalities. Kyo consciously avoided tohru while tohru herself struggled to understand kyo initially. The author spend valuable time building their romantic relation based on mundane daily life activities. They themselves don’t quite know when exactly that they fell in love. when they recalled falling in love, we see them cooking together, talking, walking, eating, studying & opening up abt small struggles.

It is genius that the writer will add yet another realistic aspect. While kyo was able to read tohru & approach her when she’s down, this doesn't mean he magically understood her & will forever be on the same page & never ever hurt each other at all. If you fell in love, you are bound to be hurt by the person who loves you back as much as be happy together. It is realistic!!! Adding miscommunication & personality differences enrich the relationship. This relationship isn’t just fluffy & lovey dovey. They have realistic issues that they need to work on by communicating. Even communication  wont solve their quarrel if it isn’t done in the right time & with the right desire to connect.

-The weight & future lessons learned from of “ I’m disappointed in you” for both kyo & tohru:

Right now kyo is too emotional to connect & tohru herself is too emotional to understand his response. Tohru understands his pain but her low self-esteem prevents her from seeing that he is rejecting being loved , not rejecting her. He is not rejecting tohru as a person but rejecting kyo as a person deserving love. Thanks to his “ i’m disappointed in you” which really leaves no room for interpretation from tohru’s perspective. I love that!!!! Kyo isn’t good with words. This has been clear from ep 1, his actions has always been his love language, but now he couples bad words “ i’m disappointed in you” with bad actions: running away. This is a perfect opportunity to build their future relationship on a solid foundation: ( off course I’m not belittling their current emotions, I understand why each is very broken now, but I’m talking abt future learning lessons)

Kyo’s current mistake: While him rejecting tohru is justified by the extreme trauma & is logical from his perspective. This doesn’t mean it isnt’t hurtful to her. He chose hurtful words to push her away mimicking how he pushed her in the true form arc. Perfect example of justified mistake yet still a wrong mistake. Thus, kyo needs to learn the effect of his words, he shouldn’t be punished for the past, for tings her cant control, nor for fate. But he should take responsibilities of the present, of what he actually says & does right now.  He must fix this mistake with tohru. This is a mistake that CAN be fixed. someone that he CAN get back. a mistake he CAN stop repeating.He CAN hold on to her with immense desire yet allow room for her to decide for herself.

Tohru’s current mistake: Seeing herself solely thro being loved by kyo. she cant see that he indeed loves her cuz he rejected her. Rejection in tohru’s mind equal lack of love. Her mom left her, thus her mom didnt love her. This respective is very justified due to her trauma, & it is logical that she reached this conclusion. She isnt in his head, she cant know whats in his heart if his words say sth else. However, having a logical perspective doesn't mean it is right. it is still wrong to solely exist thro what you can see & hear. Real emotions run deeper. We must take things with moderate approach. Tohru needs to have higher self-esteem, to allow room for misunderstanding without completely breaking down. In her future life, she’ll be in lots of situations where ppl could hurt her intentionally or unintentionally. She needs to take things with calmer pace & open the door in her mind for doubt & better judgement. As much as loved ones words hurt, to build a healthy relationship, you must leave room for communication & misunderstanding. Hence, you’ll get closer & closer. 

Side Notes:

 I love tohru’s faulty attachment thro only being loved back exactly as she pictures in her mind. it is so human, so real, & so endearing! Very opposite of se01 & 2 image of her being the wise, device-giving mother with right thing to say & do. Screw that unrealistic image! allow tohru to be real! best ep ever! Hopefully, no more of this tohru!

Kyo’s constant repeat of mistakes is the best character trope done right! so realistic. It is genius that the author used this trope to humanize the demonic cat spirit!! what screams human better than the most annoying human trait: repeating mistakes!!!!  Kyo, my son! it’s time to learn! cant wait to see how the author will do that.

young boy/ adult woman friendship? Was that ever made without  disgusting sexualizion? kyoko isnt much of a mom figure to kyo, she tells me abt a husband, child neglect mistakes, custody! he calls her old hag & pushes her! XD. it is friendship!!

i’m mad they didnt focus on tohru’s face when she screamed at kyo confessing her love.. that's tohru moment. Why pan on yuki? you could’ve showed his reaction after she spoke. The same thing was done when tohru confessed to Isuzu!-_-! loved her angry face tho, it was beautifully drawn, so thanks for that. XD

Yuki is forever the best tohru/kyo shipper & the best tohru-happiness defender. I love how he runs after kyo & yet checks on tohru! I’m curious tho, he didnt hear any of kyo/kyoko confession as he was asleep, only the the “ forgive/not forgive line” so, he’ll be wondering forgive what? tohru’s mom knows kyo? I’m excited on how they’ll put things into context. also, I LOVE YUKI.

I’m forever thankful that everything akito is pushed into next ep. The knife wielding action & akito’s dramatic outbursts would’ve stolen from the emotional weight of kyo’s confession. Kyo’s secret is the core of furuba since ep, 1, the entire dynamics of kyo/tohru/yuki /kyoko/ hat is established based on this ep. Shoving akito, too, would create the same annoying train bullet feeling of momiji’s & tohru’s ep (ep 5 & 6). Emotional scenes pushed together with lesser time for the respective characters to have their well-deserved focus.

This is the most I am attached & satisfied with furuba! it scares me since ep 9 continues the climax. My fears of potential dramatic animation since the knife is there! moreover, akito’s own animation is always over the top. I hope they tone it down to portray her as a human more than a maniac.

Also, I hope they dont drag the climax more than that. What more you can shove in the dramatic raining weather. Tohru/kyo scene here matched the true arc scene bringing back parallel. Now akito/tohru raining scene next ep will match se02, ep10 scene. Now, what will the author do to defuse the climax? Often writing the falling action is harder than the climax itself. Falling action doesnt mean happy times & solving issues. It means dealing with the consequences of the climax. Let’s see what the writer has in store.

Based on the flashbacks, Kyoko didnt have ill feelings with kyo!!!! Until the last time he saw her as a child, she was happy with him. Even when he pushed her, she took it as a childlike behavior. at the accident, she didnt have much time to have any ill feelings. No way she thought he pushed her, no way she thought he could’ve saved her. So if she really recognized him, why would she say “ I wont forgive you”? it doesnt make sense at all. Kyoko doesn't hate kyo!!!! So, either he imagined, which is sth that I’ll hate so much! I spent so much emotions attached to a non existant words! NO. plz! NO!! Other possibility, she said sth else closer to the words! but then again how would we know? I NEED to know! ~ as expected, I’m still attached to this damn line! XD. 

Kyo depressed in the mountains after kyoko’s death was very vaguely referenced in (1) se01, ep24 when kyo talked to kazuma! oh shoot! (2) in se02, sp 2 when kazuma thought back to kyo nearly killing himself in depression before meeting the dad, (3) in se02, ep 9 when kyo trampled on the flower! oof! i love this subtle style of writing! connecting the emotional dots! EPIC!

Various characters throut seasons 1, 2 & 3 noticed the real gentle kyo towards tohru: (1) Isuzu’s “ I hope tohru meets someone like haru, to gently open the door” se02, ep19. (2) Momiji having faith that kyo is the right person for tohru & pushing him, (3) yuki constantly musing over tohru/kyo love & drawing inspiration on wanting “ his own person to love like them” (3) Kisa saying kyo is kind to tohru se3, (4) shigure saying, you are exclusively kind to tohru se02, (5) Airisa saying, when will kyo confess in se01, (6) hana saying, marry my sister in the play & pushing him to not be locked! (7) yuki kicking him for saying “ its not your business” to tohru in kyoto trip, (8) kakeru saying “ kyo’s her boyfriend? “ AA~~~~ the whole cast know & can see his love to her!!! TOHRU! He doesnt hate you! KYO!! the entire cast thinks you DESERVE HER & is KIND! not a monster! Is there an image set of those moments of the cast saying that here in tumblr? kindly mention me to see it! I fear going to the tags & seeing spoilers T_T.

[pumpumdemsugah]

“Praying for natural hair to end” made me laugh because that was me for some years lol. I tried to do protective styles but I’m not a wig wearer(hat like feeling that creeps me out lol) and weaves irritated me after about two weeks so that left braids and such but for me, those took so much effort to put in and my 4c hair grows too quickly for it to be worth it. For the first 6 years of my journey I bought into the hype but later I realized I could use normal shampoo and have a regular routine and nothing bad would happen lol. I still wasn’t loving the pain that came with leaving it for even a day, or how long it took to style in the mornings so during lockdown I loc’d my hair . I’m 6 months in and it’s worth the 8 years of loose natural hair. I feel like people should be more honest about their feelings but also experiment. I get not speaking up about natural hair because people go directly to self hate but some of the girls really sit and watch a wavy girl routine and then stew at their afro results lmao. It’s just not that serious but also, you’ll really never know what your hair can do if you don’t get familiar with it, because the shit ain’t going to change or disappear lol.

RIGHT!! I'm so happy for you and your hair are on the same page. Many modern natural hair outlets are about making content and views. These women have reason to encourage buying products you don't need. With that being said, some things just don't work for your hair or lifestyle. Styling is more of an exact science than daily hair so this focus on styling Vs the everyday means a lot of women are starting on the hardest part first. Daily hair care isn't as hard, it just takes long to figure out and lots of so-so results or routines. Its alot of repetition and repetition isn't as rewarding as a well executed style so i get wanting to have a nice twist out Vs finding a moisturiser that works for you

You have to get to know your hair. The office will get use to you and your chunky twists and unslicked edges, practice getting comfortable with that. When white girls rock a messy bun, that's them wearing a bonnet and eventually people relaxed about straighter hair textures not being perfectly styled

Consume content by people with hair like you. Nothing is wrong with being subscribed to people that don't have your hair, but if that's most of what you're feeding yourself you're going to feel stupid and unappreciated and angry. Type 3s didn't take over the natural hair community, Black women just keep over consuming content made by them so they kept getting branding opportunities ( yes brands also contribute but this Types 3s took over thing isn't honest because that's all some Black women want to look at). Its come to the point people are surprised when a Black woman with type 3 hair has an afro. There's this expectation as someone with looser hair that you ought to be miss wash n go and its something ive felt more and more. This expectation didnt exist 10 years ago and its because of social media. We can change whats normal again but we have to be willing to confront our baggage and expectations of our hair and that's unfortunately very boring and long

[neverendingparable]

Tw: verbal abuse, transphobia, suicide mention, self harm mention

Somehow it feels like they always end up here. The tension in the air is thick enough to suffocate in. Maso pretends not to notice as he shrugs off his jacket and walks into the dining room.

Ezra is already sitting at the table, waiting silently. His face is neutral but the coldness radiating off him is unmistakable. A calm before the storm and with the stillness he watches Maso, it seems like the storm will be catastrophic.

The routine feels familiar, although Maso can't recall the last time they fought. Perhaps it was always brewing in the underground, waiting for the perfect moment to bubble up.

He sits across from Ezra dutifully and offers a hesitant smile.

'Let's talk,' he wants to say. 'Let's work it out.'

Ezra doesn't return it, but his gaze has darkened.

"I have something to tell you." He says curtly.

"Sure." Maso tries not to sound too eager. Talking is so much better than brewing in this angry silence and he wants to know what he did wrong so he can change it. He feels indebted to Ezra somehow, guilty despite not knowing what he was guilty about.

They've been living together ever since they graduated out of high school and moved from their home town. At first it seemed to go well, and there were times when they could've been called boyfriends. Ezra was supportive despite Maso's disfigurement and it felt like everything that had plagued them in childhood had disappeared. 

It was just Maso and Ezra against the world, until a coldness settled in between them and Maso found his friend distancing himself more and more as the days went by. Maybe now he will find out what happened, what he did wrong to cause Ezra to reject him.

"I feel like you're just using me as an emotional crutch," Ezra started. "Like I am just your toy, your replacement therapist, a boyfriend without me getting any of the benefits. You demand too much from me and it's wearing me down."

The words cut sharper than any knives and for the first time in Maso's life, he was speechless. Ezra showed no sympathy for the shocked hurt on his friend's face.

"You are not easy to love, you know. You are loud, arrogant, you think you can make up for your bad traits by being overtly doting or sexual but it just disgusts me. I do so much to accept your body for the way it is but you can't even decide if you want to be a boy or a girl, Stanley."

I can't stand your constant neediness but I can't say anything because you might end up getting depressed again and we all know how much you make the world around you miserable when you feel so."

Ezra's voice has risen with a hateful vigor. Every word seems to have been bubbling below the surface for a long, long time.

"I'm going to have to babysit you after this to make sure you don't do anything selfishly drastic like cut yourself or attempt suicide. I mean, do you ever think about anyone else? Did you ever consider how it feels to have such a messed up friend? I can't even take you out of the house in the summer because if people aren't staring at your arms they're staring at your scars or trying to figure out what sort of freak you are-"

"Since when has my transness bothered you?" Maso interjects defensively. He doesn't know whether to yell or cry. The latter will certainly get Ezra to make fun of him or worse, walk out for good.

"Since always." Ezra sneers without a moment's hesitation. "I thought it was just a phase. But you kept going, forcing me to defend you to not look like a jerk in front of the others. And then you started 'crossdressing' and it was like make up your damn mind what you want to be!"

"Pssh! You like my skirts."

"You're such a child. You can't take anything seriously."

"Maybe." Maso stands up, trying to get leverage of the situation. Ezra's glare was withering but he refuses to give up so easily without a fight. "If you hate all those things about me so much, why didn't you ever say anything? How was I supposed to know you were just pretending to tolerate me?"

"You would've realized that sooner if you took time to focus on someone else but yourself. I was trying to spare you the humiliation but-"

"But nothing! You should've said something, Ezzy. I could've made it right. I could've done something but if you're just going to hold it in and pretend everything's fine, then that's on you."

Ezra stands up as well and what little leverage Maso had on height is gone. He doesnt think it matters anymore, because now he's mad as well. He has been self absorbed, he can admit to that. And he hasnt always been a good friend. But part of a proper friendship requires communication from both sides.

"You never listen." Ezra's tone has changed. Maso is certain that under different circumstances, he would've never stood a chance. It was so full of hurt, anger and hatred, all directed at him.

"I tried and you ignored me for the sake of playing the victim. Don't you dare blame this all on me, Stanley."

A moment of silence passes between them as the two men glare at each other. And to his own surprise, Maso relents.

"Okay." He says, stepping back. "Okay, I'm sorry. I admit I wasnt the best friend. I want to be though, Ezra. Just tell me what I have to do."

Ezra's laugh is cruel. "Oh, you wish it were so easy, dont you? You're rotten to the core, Stanley and no apology or therapy will help you."

"So what do you want me to do? Leave you alone? I can pack my bags if that's what you want. But I want to do right by you-"

"No. I can't let you go out into the world and mess  up someone else." His path to the front door is blocked now, but Maso can't help rolling his eyes.

"Come on, Ezzy. This isn't necessary. You know I dont go apeshit."

"Don't call me that, Stanley."

"Seriously, why are you doing this? What's really the matter?"

Maso approaches him carefully. It isn't like Ezra to get violent but after today, he doesnt think he knows him as well as he thought.

"I feel like you are just using me as an emotional crutch. Like I am just your toy, your replacement therapist, a boyfriend without me getting any of the benefits."

Maso falters. "Wait...what?"

"You demand too much from me and it's wearing me down. You're not easy to love, Stanley."

"You've already said that, Ezra. Like, five minutes ago?" Something is nagging at him. Ezra keeps glaring at him like Maso is shit he just scraped off his shoe and slowly it dawns on him.

Everything Ezra said, the most painful accusations and insults was everything Maso was scared he would hear one day. He never put it in words but this very situation is one he dreaded he would walk into one day, find out that Ezra's kindness and patience was just a lie and that his best friend hated him deep down. He never was able to convince himself it wasnt true, especially after he left Ezra to return back to the Office.

It's not like I didnt give him the opportunity to join me. I tried to get him to come along. I didnt just leave him, I told him I didnt want to stay and that if he wanted to tag along I would protect him.

The hurt in his chest was replaced with indignation and when Maso looks at Ezra again, he doesn't wither under the glare.

"You know what? Fuck this. If you really hate me so much you dont want anything to do with me anymore, then I'm leaving. I'm sure I'll find someone else who can give me a second chance and if not, then I'll just keep on going alone."

"You're never going to find anyone who tolerates you, Stanley." Ezra spits.

Maso steps forward and his lips curl into a sarcastic sneer. "Eat me, Jaxden. I deserve better than you."

Something in Ezra's face twitches. For a moment Maso is sure he's going to pounce and tear all four of his arms out but then the entire world shifts and suddenly he's snapped back to reality.

He left Ezra. For the Office. He's no longer in that particular Office because he went on a mission to spy on a creepy human Maelle. He got beaten up per request and as he went back through Michael's doors to deliver the information he gathered to Alice, something went wrong. He's been stuck in the loop of his worst nightmare realized for the last week and now it's all coming back to him.

The Ezra doesnt disappear as he expected. He - or it - just keeps glaring at Maso like he wants to rip him apart but he quickly fades into the background of Maso's attention when he realizes where they are.

Standing in an Office he unfortunately knew too well.

Except, unlike before, it isn't bustling with Mariellas flitting back and forth from experiment chambers to research rooms. There are no sounds of machinery or screams or even the buzzing of electricity whenever the hallways got quiet. The entire Office that had once belonged to Jon is still as the grave, dark, depressing. 

A heaviness settles all around Maso as he took it in. But before he can really comprehend where he was, the scene changes.

[dragonpiango]

My review of 2019

January:

So I recently graduated from community college in the previous December, and I started university at HT with a scholarship for piano performance. Honestly I thought going to a HBCU was going to be weird, but turns out I’m not much of an outcast. It was a nice transition to a new setting and new people and a breath of fresh air! It was amazing having a practice room to myself and the mental thought of “getting to know my music” became a reality although my first piano lesson with my new professor was strange. His impression of me was way different than what I thought. Although he is a outstanding teacher, he might have overthought what I was capable of.... him assigning me my pieces and they consisted of Bach French suite No. 5 in G Major, Mozart sonata K.332 in F Major, Chopin Nocturne in D-flat Major, Chopin Scherzo No.2 in b-flat minor, and the most memorable piece IMHO Ravel’s Une Barque Sur L’Ocean from Miroirs.

February:

So still settling into a new university and meeting new people (although I just stayed in the music building bc that’s where all my classes were) it was Black History Month. Being apart of the choir at school and the only ensemble they offered, we were pretty busy with a lot of performances BUT it was enlightening too. Everyone has been so welcoming and coming from a background in classical music I’ve been introduced to Gospel music not only for voice, but piano. From accompanying spirituals to gospel it really has opened my eyes that music doesn’t have to be so strict. It is a way of expressing emotions and from then on I took my repertoire more seriously in the sense each piece had its own “character.”

March:

This month is a crucial one, not only did I find my “clique” at school, but they only consisted of two people. Ant and KayP. Not going to use their names but these two were the only two that understood who I was and I understood who they were. We might have drifted a little bit since one has graduated but in the mean time, during these few months, have been my shoulder to cry on. They were very talented vocalist who taught me a lot in the sense of accompanying and vice versa. Since our school is small, our “accompanist” was my piano teacher, so every rehearsal was around his schedule, until I came into the picture. They really pushed me to get out of my comfort zone and really get me to where I need to be. During this time, I was still working retail and I have a true appreciation for those who commit full time to retail because lemme tell y’all. That shit is a lot of work. Especially around holidays. Balancing out school and work was a struggle, but I managed through especially when I don’t have a piano at home. I have to go to school to practice and with retail, all my extra time would be working.

April:

By this time, everyone is stressing because of finals, but luckily since I grabbed an associates degree from COmmunity college, I didn’t have to take my core classes and cry. Music classes were all my focuses were on especially performance. I had a few performances in between for our seminar where we perform in front of all the music students, and for me, being a pianist, I didn’t have to rely on my teacher for rehearsals and accompanying. I just focused on me and this got me ready for our benefit concert that I was honored to be a part of. KayP being the current Miss HBCU and queen of the school, decided to raise money for students of troubled pasts who have really turned their lives around in college and made a great GPA would be rewarded with scholarship money that we raised. I was the one who got to close the whole show out and it truly was an amazing experience. Being able to perform for a great cause is always heart warming and I will cherish that moment forever.

May:

So the semester comes to an end and I have juries (where we perform our pieces in front of the faculty and get graded ) what I did not know is that since our school is so small, they invite and pay other professors from the biggest university next to us UT Austin and have them come sit and grade us as well. That to me was a shock moment, because coming from a university in a small town before we had enough people and knew everyone. Community college DIDNT have juries for piano which was odd, but this was a perfect opportunity to really put my hard work into good use. After juries, I did splendid with a few mistakes that I was able to recover from, and lemme tell y’all. No performance is perfect. And I have accepted that. My piano teacher hooked me up with one of his good friends who owns and directs her own music school and I became a piano teacher there. Oddly, I’m the youngest teacher there with no doctoral degree and am working on a BA still..... but none the less, this transition really opened my eyes.

June:

School is finally out, and I reduced my retail job to just Saturday. I finally got my reputation as a teacher at my new job and gained students rather quickly to where I was almost booked up Monday through Friday. With little to no teaching experience it was a trial and error process. I was taking over a studio of a former teacher who had visa issues. So all his students were a tad skeptical with me more so their parents. But after observing lessons and learning their names it was only a matter of time that I was teaching them and really became someone they look up to. It started off rocky because I wasn’t used to a build your own schedule, from what I’ve experienced with teaching at a music school is that someone does the schedule for you. Not in this case, so having to communicate and try to accommodate every students schedule was a tough start, but once I got used to it, the ride was easy from there. Unfortunately, most students were gone on vacation so I had to work with only a few who stayed in town and accommodate those who were in town for that week. That aside, my communication improved after constantly talking with parents 24/7.

July:

This is where life gets exciting. My boyfriend had surprised me with tickets to go to Chicago. I would go back because the city is amazing and food is delicious and it’s easy to get around in Chicago. It was a nice break from work and really helped me bond with my partner. During this time we had two cats. One names Roger and the other Gladys. So a little back story, when I moved in with my partner, his cats basically adopted me. Gladys was a daddy’s girl and kept to Todd mostly but she was very seeet with me and made adorable monkey noises when you picked her up and cuddled with her. She was diagnosed with cancer and the year before that we made the decision to remove her tumor and hope that she would live a healthy life. Well this is where the tumor came back full force and in Chicago, I was a wreck because I felt bad enjoying my time away and leaving her at home. My partner (who is the mature one in our relationship) had a sit down with me about what to do with her and I lost it. He didn’t want to put her down either, but it was for the best. We agreed to keep her comfortable until we knew it was time. Before the month ends tho, we are back home and my sisters boyfriend sends me a text saying he is serious about her and wants to marry her. The retail I work for is a jewelry store and he had asked me to help pick out a diamond for my sister since he knew what she wanted. So this was the good news. We find the diamond, and have it set in her favorite setting and my boyfriend who is full of surprises gets me a ticket to visit her in LA.

August:

So my birthday month is here, and I fly out to LA to deliver the ring to my now sisters fiancé and they fly out to Italy and he does the deed and she says yes. Happy note. But as school starts back up for the new semester, my partner had a issue to where he would be in a state to where he couldn’t move much due to a unusual circumstance. And before that we decided to put Gladys down. It was a tough decision but we gave her the best life we could ever had hoped for her and I was emotionally drained from everything. Having to keep a positive attitude for my students and going to school and being an adult in general. The only way I got thru this period is from my best friend and coworker who knows what it’s like to go through life and it’s always better to have an open mind and ear to talk to. I call her my mamma because she’s like a mother figure to me but also a amazing friend. Without her, I probably wouldn’t have been mentally there at all for anyone. In the time of summer until now I haven’t had a chance to practice because I forgot to mention that i had a Jr recital coming up which is why my repertoire was so big.

September:

After everything passed and I’m in a better mental state, I proceed to my schedule of school and work and find a time to practice in between. What’s great about this month is that since the semester just started, I had plenty of time to catch up on my practice and really get my lessons to become productive in shaping and understanding different musical styles. My partner is all better and life is great because I was in the best part of my life. Doing well in school, amazing texting job, and a best friend who is there for me and most importantly my partner. He’s been my rock since we first met and I can always rely on him and vice versa. He understood that with my free day off that I needed to spend it practicing and told me to go for it and be as productive as I can. I honestly wasn’t used to that kind of support but I am grateful.

October:

This is where reality hits and my recital is next month. I get very crazy about everything. I had all my music learned but because of my indecisiveness, I kept changing how I shaped everything and my mind goes blank. Probably a dark time for me because I didn’t know how to handle this kind of stress. I’ve put on hour long recitals before and the only thing different this time is that I’m getting graded and want to make such a great impression to further my education to a dictator degree. The dress was eating me alive and on top of that, one of my students decided he wants to enter in a competition and I say why not. Let’s do it. Getting him ready for that and keeping my sanity was hard to do but I managed. He did well, but not well enough to get a medal but his parents were very impressed with how quickly he progressed with me. That’s always a plus, right?

November:

The month has come for me to have my big recital and I invited all my friends and coworkers and they all made it. I was truly nervous but if you don’t get nervous, are you even human? It turned out wonderful although the first piece (Bach French suite) was shaky, I had to tell my self that I was having fun and everyone here is here to support me and want me to do well. That little talk was a confidence booster and ended the recital flawlessly. After my recital, my job has their student recitals so my focus was all on my students doing the best they can and having fun. This month was fun because I was selected to do masterclasses for piano students through out my job and it was very enlightening to see how talented the new generation of musicians are! Only positive comments because I couldn’t honestly find anything wrong with any of the students performances and their teachers are amazing.

December:

So getting all my students ready for their recital was a big time investment but totally worth it because they all performed so well and I honestly cried bc I felt like a proud parent LOL. But after that was time for the semester to end up and one class was making me go crazy. Everything ended well and I had ALL A’s and one B but I know what to expect for next semester and everything will be great. Honestly this year has me all sorts of fucked up with emotions and I proved to myself that when I stay committed, I can really achieve what I want. This year was a great year for me and a way to end a decade because when 2020 starts, I know what I need to do and where I need to be.

[andybesito]

hey! i know you’re probably a freshman or sophomore in college, but how are you liking calarts? i’m considering it as an option, but since it costs so much i’m asking around to see what people think about it. if you can’t answer this don’t worry , thanks for your time !!

hi !! thanks for sending me this message !! coincidentally enough, when i got this message, i was talking about the exact same thing over dinner … !!

i dont exactly know how to feel about calarts in full just yet because i am indeed a freshman – but so far i do like it very much – because of my class and teachers!

the teachers in the character animation dept (so far) have been really caring - a nice memory is my animation teacher, at the end of the first semester, saying “you guys made all of these animations for class… its no easy feat! you guys did it, i’m really proud of you! great job!” …which wasnt something i expected to hear – before calarts, i was used to school/teacher relationships being a lot less graceful! if you didnt make work to their standards, it would be grounds for them talking down to you frequently or making fun of you at meetings. who you were as a person didnt really matter, just what you ended up making was (i think this is unfortunately standard for american high schools)

so…i didn’t expect to be praised for doing the coursework … but it meant a lot to me that he said that! i think it really speaks for the entire faculty – (so far) they care about YOU, not just YOUR WORK. that sentiment means a lot to me. i think… time after time again, the teachers have a sincere respect for us and belief of our potential. it makes me feel really valued here! :D

beyond that, i think one big plus of being at calarts is exposure to animation in LA – talking to studio recruiters directly at portfolio day, for example, was really amazing. it definitely wouldnt have been an opportunity i could get back home, even living within commuting distance to nyc … so thats a big plus!

that being said, TUITION IS CRAZY AND I DONT THINK ITS REALLY WORTH THE PRICE… because, truthfully, the schools falling apart! the facilities are not good. everything is very old … ceiling tiles are falling down… there’s not that many windows in the building whatsoever … my dorm room even flooded :(  its kind of egregious how not good it is.

so … im still not sure how to feel about calarts as a whole haha! teachers value you but the institution itself, in the state that it is … doesnt. that being said, it is an entirely different world than back home, with opportunities i would have never been able to get there … im still not sure how to feel about it! but…id say, so far, the good outweighs the bad. its a really cool community! 

thanks again for messaging me! i hope i could help! :) 

[astralmlm]

i'm super lonely. achingly, crushingly lonely. not for friends, just for romance. but as a trans, bi boy who doesn't have that many opportunities to go out and see people other than the guys at his school (who are all straight and frankly gross) it's hard to find what i'm looking for. i constantly crave physical affection but i can't get it anywhere. i've been single for a year and 3 months after a really bad breakup and everything sucks. how do i get over my fear of rejection and find a guy?

ooh, this is a hard question. I was in a similar position for most of high school. When you’re trans (and otherwise queer!) interacting with others at school can be really tough, because less tolerant people can really bring you down. I found the best way to get yourself out there is to try and go out into your community. GSAs are a great way to get out there, as well as things like community center meetings or hang outs. A community hall near my school had weekly hangouts with a huge amount of lgbt members, and I didnt even know about it until I started looking around! Unfortunately, to find romance, you usually need to branch out and make new friends. Most people prefer to befriend people before dating, so if you’re looking to jump right into romance it’s gonna be a rocky slope. As far as a fear of rejection? this is something I still suffer with. rejection is fuckin hard dude! One of the most painful things is that it is completely out of your control, and it’s hard to predict who is going to reject you and how. What i’ve been trying to internalize is just acceptance, yanno? Yeah, rejections happen. It’s just a humbling part of life! Everybody will be rejected, it’s just something that happens to us as humans. The best way to get over a fear of it, imo, is to just internalize the fact that it happens. it’s okay, it’ll hurt, but you’ll live. you’ll get over it and live your life. It’s really not as big of a deal as you think it is!

i hope some of this was kinda helpful! tl;dr is mostly just, rejection happens! you gotta get yourself out there! go to clubs and meetups and flirt and befriend new people! 

[ts-autumns-world]

ROP

As promised here are the rites of passage that Captain, Jinx, and Mikki wrote for the cast!

All of Jinx’s Messages: https://youtu.be/kbk2GI6nW-E

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Captain: hey khalid! its been a short 4 days with you but i know that ur such an amazing person and u have such a bubbly personality. i do wish we get to know each other more.. its a bit sucky that your schedule kinda prevented you from being a bit more active :((

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Mikki: KHALID I DON’T KNOW IF YOU KNOW THIS BUT I DIDN’T WANT YOU TO BE FIRST BOOT. i really didn’t. You were so busy at the beginning and we didn’t talk a lot but the little time we did have talking to each other made me see how calm and good it felt to talk to you. I had such a good feeling and really wanted you to stay around longer but unfortunately it wasn’t anything i could do on my own. I hope we get another opportunity to get to know each other properly.

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Captain: we didn't meet each other in this game but i hope u had a fun time even though its short! and hopefully, we'll see each other around the community mwah!

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Mikki: we never got to meet but you seem genuinely fun and i’m sad i never got to meet you!!!! I’m sorry we sent jinx to the outhouse during the tribal you were voted out on. Idk if them being there would have helped at all but ashjsajhasjh if it would have i’m sorry!!!!

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Captain: i've seen you around but we haven't rlly talked/met each other yet. u seem to be amazing and i hope we'll get to play together some day

. Mikki: i’m also sad we didn’t get to meet!!!!!! You really seemed super active and i’ve never seen you around before so i was hoping our paths would cross but unfortunately that never happened :(( 

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Captain: we haven't been able to meet so its such a missed opportunity to not get to play together. you seem to be very cool! hope u had fun in autumns world

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Mikki: it was so nice to talk to you and i feel so bad about how unlucky you got in the tribe swap but i had to do what i needed to to keep my tribe and grey safe like i wanted.

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Captain: OMG BENJ sobs... urgh i wish you made the merge so that we could meet each other again and our trio of you/me/mikki would have streamrolled the season! i enjoyed every conversation we had and u rlly are such a dedicated player. and u deserved the BEST!! i wish you the best and i hope to see you around in the community and maybe we'll get to play together and go the end together WOOO! urgh.. ur so sweet sobs...

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Mikki: *takes a deep breath* this is going to be the hardest one to write. And i don’t even know what to say because nothing i do say will properly express how fortunate i am that we got to actually properly meet and talk!!!!!! And become friends LIKE BENJ I LOVE YOU SO SO SO MUCH and i’m so sad at how robbed you were. You were genuinely my number one and i looked forward to talking to you constantly every day. Talking to you was so easy and our plans for the future of the game MADE ME SO EXCITED and i was so ready to play with you and make moves and have fun and go far together. Your elimination made me really sad and i was in a big funk for a long time after and even at my worst in like f6 when i was ready to give up, autumn would ask me “what would benj say” and that one question made me snap out of it and fight further. When i found an idol at f5 and got to play it all i could think about was when you told me you wanted to find an idol to bring it to me to show me and i’m just :SOB: we really got robbed in getting to play together in merge and i really hope we get another chance to. I wish i did more to protect you. I should have done more and it was my biggest regret since. Thank you for being an incredible ally to me and reminding me what i love the most about games: making genuine friendships that mean more to me than the game itself. Ilysm <3

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Captain: i know we didn't end very well on cow and thats kinda the main thing that made me not fully trust you in this game. its probably my bad cause i think you really wanted to work with me but i mean in our short time here, we did work together! good luck with everything in your life blake!

.

Mikki: blake!!! It was so fun to play with you while we could. I’m sorry you felt so left out in the tribal we had together before you went out but i hope you understand it wasn’t anything personal and i really did just assume you and raffy were close. I’m sorry for not trusting you more.

---

Captain: awww Lily! i rlly enjoyed our conversation! like you were the one that i felt that our conversation just flew naturally and i loved how u tried to talk to me and ur just the sweetest!! i'm happy we met here cause ur literally so cool and so nice. u have this calming energy that i don't know how to explain dsfsdfsdfdsf. but YEA!! i hope u feel the same way as me and hope to see you around in the community!!

.

Mikki: ahhhhh right before you left you told me that we will see if i made the right choice with who i sided with and sahsajhjhjas i like to think i did??? and i hope you agree. You were so so so kind and i’m sad we didn’t get to know each other before merge, i had to make a gut instinct kind of choice and it sucked that i had to make it so soon. I wonder how differently things would have been if i voted with og llih instead and kept you safe. You fought til the very end and it inspired me so much

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Captain: RAFFY! we were such a perfect pair when u told me ur also tired of talking to ppl dfsdfsdfsdf thats a big mood! urgh.. i rlly wish u could've gone a bit further because ik u trusted me a lot and i also trusted you... in some way just because i had other alliances. i tried so hard to save you but yea it didn't succeed. i hope ur doing great and hopefully we'll meet again

.

Mikki: screams RAFFY I DON’T KNOW IF YOU KNOW OR NOT BUT this whole season i’ve had one burning question on my mind Does Raffy Remember Me? BECAUSE we played together in a game once before but i didn’t REALISE it was you at first so we both said it was nice to meet each other but then i realised it was you !!!!! from bb glass but i never knew if you knew it was me or not and i didn’t bring it up because HJASHJASJH I WAS WORRIED IDK IT WAS JUST an ongoing thing and became kind of a meme and i’m so excited to know the answer. But anyways ashjashjs i’m sorry for trying to vote you out but i really meant it when i said i wanted to play with you after. I wish we could have!!! I wanted us to have a redemption arc and be allies for real so badly. But my alliance with jinx and chris changed their votes to you and were so paranoid but i think they just didn’t want to vote out grey HJASJHASJH and i ended up caving out of fear. I had so much fun playing with you tho!!! And the superidol was one of the most exciting moments of this game even tho it did mean i lost one of my closest allies.

---

Captain: I wish we talked more tbh because u were the first person to dm me in the swap and i was like lily o is so cool and i liked lily o a lot! but then we just didn't talk after that. I know its partially my faults but ur fun to talk to when we got to talk to each other! u may not know this but u were kinda the part that made me put more effort into this game when i lied to you about wanting to target jinx/mikki and u told mikki about that and she told me back hehe! hope we see each other around lily!

.

Mikki: LILY YOU WERE ONE OF THE FUNNEST PEOPLE TO TALK TO!!!!! I had such a blast in our dms. I feel like we could talk about anything and it was fun. Hell you even explained the history of pacman to me and i was INVESTED in every part of it!!! Voting you out was partly fuelled by how good you are at comps and partly because i got bitter about the timezone advantage comment ashsahjsahj but nevertheless i found you incredible to talk to and play with and i’m so happy we could meet and have fun with each other while we did!!!

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Captain: JOEYYYYYY! i still feel bad about that pyramid challenge because u shouldnt have gotten me as ur pair lmaoo. i literally didn't know anything americans!! anyways!! our time together is for sure interesting. cause like ik ur with me but then u told jinx and monty that they need to be careful about mikki/captain and thats the reason why i didnt fully trust you in game! like ur a good ally but sometimes, ur doing too much. also, i appreciated u trying to talk to me a lot. I  wish i did the same with you but life was so crazy that i could only reply with like short answers that didnt give anything much. At least we made it to jury together this time!

.

Mikki: joey joey joey joey JOEY sjhhjsahjasahj oh my god it was a time and a half with you i swear. I would talk to you and then go into my conf and rant about how JOEY KEEPS SAYING I’M A THREAT GRRR IM SO ANNOYED and then i would talk to you more and go back in there after 2 minutes and be like “nevermind i love joey again” ahjashjsahj you are such a great friend joey and you give me so much joy to talk to. One of the things i’m most proud of is winning that endurance comp and i would have never done that if it wasn’t for you shjashj YOU PUSHED ME TO PLAY BETTER AND GO HARDER and i’ll never forget that. Thank you for helping me see what i’m capable of and for being a genuinely kind and fun person to be around.

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Captain: oh monty DFSDFDSFDS we didn't really talk much privately but most of the times i talked to you, i was always honest with you and i think u were the same way with me too so it kinda raised my eyebrows a bit when u told me that we're gonna be worried about captain/mikki later in the game fdsfsdfsdfsd i didn't talk much game with you but ik u played a good game even though i think u might not know whats going on most of the times lmaoo!! anyways, its been a fun time with you and ofc, u can't get rid of me cause im gonna be haunting u as an intern in CoW forever!!!

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Mikki: PLS ASHJASHJA we didn’t talk much at all in this game apart from when tribals were happening and that was extremely iconic of us ashjashjasjh i appreciate and love you so much monty!!!! You’re one of the best people i know and i’m glad we got to play together for a hot second even if it wasn’t for long and it was just these super rushed convos before tribal while i was awake at a ridiculous hour ashashjas

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Captain: okay so ur vote is literally the HARDEST vote ever in my org history but it has to be done because you and jude were such a tight duo and yes i knew about u having 2 idols and giving jude one since the beginning of the merge. i feel like that was the right time to, as autumn said, blindside. but you know i LOVE you so much. my grandpa! You are literally one of the nicest people in this community and your words have helped me a lot in this season. it hurt me so much to vote for you but thats how the game goes and i hope u understand because i value our relationship so much. we've played together for 4 times now and i love you more and more each time we play together. i just love ur puns and like ur old ways of saying things fsfsdfsdf that #chrisstyle and i just love everything that is YOU. i know we're gonna be fine after this and i hope ur proud of me and forgive me for voting you out. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. Chris i LOVE YOUUUUU. sobs. im so happy we got to play together again ahhhhh

.

Mikki: chris you are literally the nicest human i’ve ever known. You exude such a genuine kindness i can’t even comprehend it. Your messages always put a smile on my face and voting you out was the hardest vote i ever did and i literally wrote in my conf that voting you out would be like blindsiding your grandpa after he helps you move in and has a cup of tea with you :sob: like you’re just one of the best guys i’ve ever met and have this pure wholesome kind energy i’ve never encountered with anyone else. Playing with you was amazing and i loved our alliance with captain and jinx. But i knew your game was incredible and to see myself and captain get any further we had to do the unthinkable. You had the magician in my tarot readings for a reason and it’s because you’re so powerful!!!!! I can’t wait to ask you so many questions when this is over.

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Captain: bae- i still don't know why you had a crush on me but we had such a cute showmance arc in this series. i mean yes i targeted you for a few times just because we didn't talk before fsdfsdsdf like we communicated in the house chat but no one actually dm'ed each other first so im like i don't know where ur head is at and u seem to be dangerous to my game!! i mean u ended up not voting for me so thank you for that even though i can't do the same. i have to say that i enjoyed our convo a lot.. u always lit up my smile whenever u dm'ed me with tiktoks or like just ur random chit chat LMAO! the only downside was that we didn't rlly talk game much except for that one vote i think the lily o vote where we talked about getting joey out and ended up voting for lily o. but yes, i will miss our convo here a lot grey :(( u deserved BETTER!

.

Mikki: GREY OMG you’re one of the funniest people i’ve known. Our dms were so chaotic and you always broke the ice in the tribe chat by saying the randomest and funniest things. Thank you for making me laugh and for sharing your stories with me and chris and jinx on call. I really enjoyed getting to know you and i care so much for you. Also you appreciate captain and for that you have taste HJASHJSA

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Captain: JUDE!! you were such a powerhouse in this game like literally had u made the final 2, u would've won for sure and thats the reason why i fought so hard in the pressure cooker comp cause i couldn't risk you getting into the final 3 and potentially won the last IC. So i'm so sorry i had to vote you out. i had such a fun time getting to know you like just like i told you, i liked you since the premiere night when i watched ur intro vid and was like 'JUDE IS SO COOL' in my DR and i wanted to play with you.. then we got to play together and got to know each other. We didn't get to talk game much but like ik i could trust you in some ways! and again ur the coolest jude.. that pressure cooker will go down as one of the most iconic pressure cooker challenges in the tumblr survivor history for sure. hope to see u around the community

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Mikki: JUDE i’m so sorry everything ended the way it did. I always meant what i said to you, that i would love to see you win. And you absolutely deserved to. Your game was amazing and i spent every second admiring you and everything you did. From the moment we played tic tac toe together i knew i was a jude stan and i’m so happy we got to have so much fun together and PLAYED PYRAMID TOO!!!! You’re absolutely remarkable and an easy person to love and want to protect, i can only dream of having your social game. You also never voted for me even when i thought you would BECAUSE I REALLY THOUGHT IT MADE THE MOST SENSE but you never did and i’m really emotional about that. I think so highly of you and i hope we can be friends after all of this <3

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Mikki: WE FINALLY GOT TO WASH AWAY OUR SAILOR MOON SINS CAN YOU BELIEVE ASHJHJASHJASAHJS we finally did it!!!!! YOU MEAN THE WORLD TO ME!!!!! I am so proud of the game you played and i know it wasn’t easy for you at all. You showed just how much you wanted this and you never took the easy route. I’m proud to have played alongside you and for all our nights watching survivor and 7th heaven YOU ARE ALSO ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS and i love you so much

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Mikki: you know how much you mean to me. I love you so much and i’m so happy we once again got to play together. I am SO proud of you and the game you played. You’re an under the radar genius who knows how to get your information and how to use it. YOU ARE CAPABLE OF LITERALLY ANYTHING YOU SET YOUR MIND TO and i love seeing you constantly prove yourself wrong and show just how incredible you are. You always put me first and take care of me :pls: i am so lucky to have you as one of my best friends and i can’t tell you enough how much i love you. Thank you for being in my life <3

[blockcastcc]

For five hours, all of Twitter became Crypto Twitter.

Yesterday, one of the biggest digital hacks in recent memory went down. A hacker, likely a Bitcoiner, gained access to Twitter’s administrative functions and began a crypto-scam campaign. Some of the world’s most notable accounts on the site started offering to double their investments if they sent funds to a Bitcoin wallet. 

It’s the type of scummy behavior that Twitter promised to address back in 2018. A federal examination is likely. So, too, is a permanent stain on Twitter’s reputation. What’s unknown is how this incident will affect perceptions of Bitcoin, blockchain and the crypto space, which is once again thrown into the news cycle for all the wrong reasons.

Click here for CoinDesk’s full coverage of the Twitter hack.

CoinDesk convened a panel of experts to discuss what the long and short term consequences of this scandal may be for crypto, and whether it’s a watershed moment to finally decentralize our social media. 

Anil Lulla co-founded Delphi Digital, a research and consultancy firm specializing in crypto assets

Donna Redel is board member at New York Angels, an angel investment firm and frequent speaker on the crypto conference circuit

Steve McKie founded the venture capital firm Amentum and build a Handshake compatible web browser in his free time

Brekkie Von Bitcoin – A crypto influencer of sorts, Brekkie is known for relentlessly advocating for the coin

Matt Hill is CEO of Start9 Labs and an advocate for digital sovereignty

Vinay Gupta, inventor of the Hexayurt, is now pursuing the radical startup Mattereum, which is attempting to create a digital twin for all physical items, so humanity can better manage and distribute increasingly scarce natural resources.

Their responses have been edited and condensed. 

Will this increase the attention to bitcoin be good for crypto in general? Or will this attack/taint the image of bitcoin? 

Lulla: I believe there are some positive benefits to Bitcoin. Anyone who works in crypto got messages from friends and family asking what the scam is all about. They were curious to know when they saw the word Bitcoin on TV. So maybe this is an opportunity for us to explain how Bitcoin works. We can outline that this isn’t a Bitcoin scam and it was not hacked; Twitter got hacked. Obviously it is going to increase attention, though whether that’s good or bad is up in the air. These little things shouldn’t really affect the fundamentals of Bitcoin. 

See also: Jack Dorsey: Mass Crypto Adoption Will Transform Square’s Business

Redel: From my perspective, the short term and long term impact on Bitcoin from this hack is irrelevant since the emphasis should be on the illegal activity and breach of security. Twitter should be concerned about it’s short term and long term reputation.

McKie: I think it’s not going to bring much attention to Bitcoin, aside from the general discourse for the next week or two. There’s just so much going on.

Von Bitcoin: As someone who believes that Bitcoin is our best shot at a more prosperous future for everyone… I’m personally only concerned on whether the increased media attention is good for Bitcoin, not crypto in general. But at this stage, I think the adage still holds that all press is good press for Bitcoin.

Hill: The increased attention to Bitcoin might be good for crypto prices in general, but no amount of attention is going to save most of the projects out there from total collapse.

Gupta: It’ll be a few stories about bitcoin in the papers, but I don’t think it’ll spur adoption.

Will this reinforce existing biases against crypto being associated with criminals?

Lulla: This is a wider topic. People have predetermined biases. Most people in the space by now have been open minded enough to understand this. Of course there’s always gonna be a subset of people who always look for information that will always support their biases or their positions. But at the end of the day I don’t think it fundamentally changes anything. It really hasn’t changed anything so far. 

McKie: I don’t really think anyone will care. It’s Bitcoin. It doesn’t do anything to make it more infamous for those that already didn’t like it. 

See also: Crypto Criminals Have Already Stolen $1.4B in 2020, Says CipherTrace

Von Bitcoin: Well, it didn’t do us any favors with regards to that common bias. There are already plenty of people calling this a “Bitcoin Hack,” when obviously that is not the case at all. I am hopeful though that the fallout will be limited. Take this personal anecdote for what it is, but yesterday I spoke to my father about the hack, and despite the fact that his knowledge of Bitcoin is limited, he understood that the criminals were merely using Bitcoin, and that Bitcoin itself hadn’t been hacked. 

Hill: For some, yes. But I think most people are smart enough to know there were plenty of criminals before crypto.

Gupta: Yes, it’s a stuipd mess, and it’s going to be widely understood as a stupid mess – yet more fuel for the people who want to believe crypto is for scammers.

Could you speculate into the hacker’s motivations? 

Lulla: It’s still early to say because we’re still learning about what happened with the hack. Twitter is going to be really impacted by this because there’s gonna be a lot more scrutiny on how this happened and what exactly happened here. The whole motivation of the hacker was to get Bitcoin, but the damage could have been worse. 

Redel: First, the hack into people’s emails is an illegal activity. Secondly, the impersonation of individuals asking for transactions in bitcoin is simply another version of other illegal “scams” that ask people to send dollars to bank accounts or other locations.

See also: How to Spot a Crypto Scam

McKie: I’m not quite sure. They probably got access that they weren’t expecting and realized they had an opportunity and did something without planning. It’s really a test of why they didnt do anything with Donald Trump’s account, which would guarantee an immediate shutdown of whatever process they were exploiting. 

Von Bitcoin: Should I put my tin foil hat on before I answer? On the surface it seems like the hacker just wanted to steal bitcoin. As others have noted, the hack itself appeared very clumsy, but if that clumsiness was intentional… then there may have been an ulterior motive. Perhaps it was a bad actor with other vested interests trying to discredit Bitcoin or Twitter, but I think it’s too early to say.

Hill: I can only say what I hope their motivation was: to expose the fragility of centralized systems.

Gupta: Well, if the goal was to make money from a massive Twitter 0-day, I have to say there were probably more effective ways of doing it. I was really surprised there was no political messaging, either!

Is this a wake-up call to decentralize our communications systems? 

Gupta: Decentralized systems aren’t necessarily any more proofed against these kinds of exploits – protocol bugs are just as bad, when they occur.

McKie: I don’t think Twitter can do a damn thing. When you have internal social engineering by nefarious actors, taking advantage of admin tools that are there for a particular reason, that’s just the nature of a centralized organization. There’s employee churn, there’s a lot of varied levels of security and accountability, there’s absolutely nothing you can do. There’s no security organization, anywhere in the world, you could have paid to prevent this sort of internal attack. You just have to accept that. Does that build the case for decentralized web? Yeah, sure. But no one immediately will think that, except for the people already in our crypto echo chamber. 

See also: In Trump Versus Twitter, Decentralized Tech May Win

Lulla: People need to understand that Twitter got hacked – a centralized system got hacked. At the end, it is an issue with Twitter. It can take the shape of a wake up call for people. If this didn’t happen for instance there might be some people in the world who would never even imagine a situation like this. This is adding support for our community rights and decentralized systems of communication. 

Redel: Safeguarding privacy is important and should be a high priority for all.

Von Bitcoin: At the very least it’s a wake-up call about vulnerabilities, and I think that Twitter is already taking it very seriously. Jack has hinted at wanting to decentralize Twitter, so I imagine this event might fast track those plans. Unfortunately there is a chicken and egg problem with trying to decentralize communications, and frankly for some use cases, centralization means a more efficient system. 

Hill: It is yet another wake up call. And like most wakeup calls, it will be greeted with a snooze button and a growing sense of anxiety.

Disclosure

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

Go to Source

Image Credit: Refer to Source Author: Refer to Source Vinamrata Chaturvedi

[itslovewithyouthings]

The New York Giants new braintrust of general manager Dave Gettleman and head co… http://bit.ly/2XdoEzI

The New York Giants new braintrust of general manager Dave Gettleman and head coach Pat Shurmur knew that to rehabilitate a team that went 3-13 last season their biggest challenge was to fix the divided losing culture that permeated a team that was broken. When the Giants hired Shurmur giving him his second opportunity to be an NFL head coach Gettleman said the two men completey agree on the importance of culture. Football is the ultimate team sport Gettleman said. We have to put together a roster that is talented but who love the game of football and love to compete. Have they succeeded? Signs are everywhere that yes the divisions and dissension that plagued the Giants during their historically bad 2017 season are gone. Eli Apple after a tumultuous season is a happy camper with a new and improved outlook. Shurmur has lauded him for acting like a pro. Janoris Jenkins who had his own issues last season and is facing personal strife of his own has been business-like and solid on the field. There are quite often players working after practice and trying to help each other. Players like Nate Solder Connor Barwin Kareem Martin A.J. Francis and William Gay have brought with them not only talent but the desire to help other players. Shurmur likes to talk about keeping the focus on football. It feels like football again around the Giants with the focus o n the field instead of a myriad of other distractions. Credit for that has to go to Gettleman and Shurmur. They have everything to do with it and it has changed a lot said John Greco an 11-year veteran who came to the Giants midway through last season. Unfortunately for me I havent had a lot of success in wins and losses in my career but Ive always been around teams that never fell apart when things went bad. But last year there was a lot of that. I think that culture has changed. Odell Beckham and Sterling ShepardNorthJersey.com-USA TODAY NETWOR Reaching Odell If the Giants were going to successfully change their culture Shurmur and Gettleman had to reach superstar wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. Shurmur is Beckhams third head coach and while not close to the reason Tom Coughlin and Ben McAdoo lost those jobs the way those two coaches handled Beckham did not help them. Desperate for victories after too many losing seasons Coughlin turned a blind eye in 2015 when Beckham had his run-in with Josh Norman of Carolina. McAdoo did the same last season when Beckham was penalized for his peeing celebration in Philadelphia. Truth is whatever you think of those incidents when the head coach wont stand up to his his star player and enforce standards or impose some type of discipline when necessary the rest of the roster notices. And the team framework erodes. Shurmur began reaching out to Beckham and trying to build a relationship back in February shortly after settling into the job. He even went to Los Angeles to see Beckham on his home turf. The result? Beckham has been everything the Giants hoped for. Coming back from an injury and seeking a rich long-term contract extension he participated in offseason workouts and mandatory mini-camp. In training camp despite still not having that deal and reports having circulated that he wouldnt step on the field without a deal Beckham has been a full participant in each practice during camp. Coach Shurmurs great. When we first met out in L.A. we just sat down and talked football. To see his mentality and how hes going to run the ship its been phenomenal to come in here every day Beckham said. He makes it fun for us. Hes just doing a great job. The contract Beckham wants appears within sight. The relationship forged by Shurmur with Beckham had a lot to do with it. This guy loves to play football Shurmur said of Beckham. He trains extremely hard hes totally engaged in the meetings behind the scenes the things that the world is not aware of and hes got a lot of passion for the game. Veteran leadership When the Giants won Super Bowls in 2007 and 2011 there was of course talent on the rosters. There was also veteran leadership. In 2007 a star like Michael Strahan and veterans like Antonio Pierce R.W. McQuarters and Sam Madison. In 2011 stars like Justin Tuck and Antrel Rolle guys like Chris Snee and David Diehl even a veteran like Deon Grant. Those types of players have been missing for the past several years. The Giants in an effort to get younger and more athletic moved on from veteran leaders like Tuck and Rolle saw guys like Snee and Diehl retire. In building their roster they virtually ignored the 30-and-over market. They got younger sure. They also left themselves with a leadership void. Without veteran players who had won who had been there and done that and who could guide some of their younger teammates. Nate Solder (right) with rookie Will Hernandez.Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports Gettleman and Shurmur have changed that. Veteran players like Gay (33) Greco (33) CBarwin (31) Jonathan Stewart (31) and Solder (30) have been added. Solder has had an excellent influence on Ereck Flowers and second-round pick Will Hernandez. Third-round pick Lorenzo Carter is soaking up knowledge from Barwin. Stewart is a former first-round pick who can help Saquon Barkley and Wayne Gallman. Gay is a veteran who loves the game and has helped the cornerback room filled with dissension a year ago come together. You have to stop worrying about age Gettleman said in the spring in answer to a question about Manning. He might as well have been talking about his approach to building the entire roster. One of those 30-somethings Barwin recently described what he thought it took to be a good teammate. You try do whatever you can to help a guy do better Barwin said. It is perhaps a small example but after Fridays practice 12th-year long-snapper Zak DeOssie was on the field helping 25-year-old Jordan Williams try to master the art of long-snapping which he has never done in a regular-season game. I think its good Shurmur said. I think especially when older players are helping younger players it shows me that they care and thats the most important thing. Genuine and approachable There is an old adage that you have to give respect to get respect. Spend time around Shurmur and you can see that is what he does. Coach Pat is one of the most genuine coaches Ive ever been around. That was veteran defensive tackle A.J. Francis playing for his sixth NFL organization on Shurmur. Greco has been with Shurmur in three stops when he was offensive coordinator of the St. Louis Rams then head coach of the Cleveland Browns before coming to the Giants. His personality is always the same. Hes a great guy players coach. I dont think theres anything thats changed as far as how hes approaching his day-to-day head coaching duties I see a ton of similarities. Greco said. Some coaches youre afraid to talk to. They have this aura about them that makes them unapproachable. I dont think thats Pat at all. You can go up to him and joke around and give him a hard time but at the same time you know when to separate that from work. I think thats great to have. Giants tight end Rhett Ellison was with Shurmur in Minnesota. Shurmur he is what youre going to get like thats who he is Ellison said. He doesnt change around different people or in different positions he is who he is. Hes real hes a great communicator and hes a great teacher. Shurmur has shown that genuine personality not only to players but to the media as well. The day players reported for training camp he stopped by unsolicited to chat with reporters and welcome them to camp. He will let you know if he is tired of a particular question but he gives respectful thoughtful answers to each question. He will often extend press briefings taking an extra question or two after the Giants PR staff tries to shut down briefings. Hes even opened up a little recently and drawn some laughs. Friday Shurmur spent about 15 or 20 minutes after his briefing talking with a group of young journalism students visiting for the day. Certainly he had someplace else he would rather have been but he gave them his full attention. Gettleman too has shown his personality to reporters. He jokes with them. He uses their names. He talks to people not at them. And yes there is a difference. Players notice those kinds of things. Media too. Ive seen Mr. Gettleman Ive seen Pat talk to everyone on the team no matter who you are. They come in they want to know how your day is doing they want to know how youre feeling Greco said. I think that makes guys feel good especially the younger players. They dont feel like just a number and a name. They feel like part of a family. A pragmatic approach Gettleman and Shurmur didnt know each other before Shurmur was hired by the Giants. The marriage has thus far been a good one. Gettleman said that Shurmur an offensive coach has a pragmatic approach much like many defensive-oriented head coaches he has been around. Hes got a great way about him Gettleman said. What Ive found is defensive coaches if you look at NFL history the greatest head coaches most of the greatest head coaches have come from the defensive side of the ball. They tend to be very pragmatic. Joe Schmo goes down Sam Smith goes in these are our adjustments. Ive got a head coach who has been on the offensive side of the ball his whole career with that pragmatic approach so Im in heaven Im in absolute heaven. Hes very pragmatic. I think hes got a great way about him with the players. He keeps it simple. Were playing football its not rocket science. Were playing football put the ball down lets go 11 guys lets go. Im thrilled with Pat. I couldnt be happier. Hes everything I thought he could be. I do try to be realistic about things. How our game relates to the players. I dont know if thats part of being pragmatic Shurmur said. Try to solve the problems as they come up with a plan in place. Decide what our plan is work the players to try to get em better and then when things change be willing to adjust. I really do believe its about the players. That is a Shurmur quote from his first press conference after being hired. We used to have a thing we said in Philadelphia and then certainly when we went to Minnesota that Its not the plays its the players. I think whats important is were going to establish the right way to do things. Were going to establish what we want as a New York Giants football team Shurmur said. I think what you do is you start initially with the locker room by developing relationships with those guys that love to play football and youre constantly talking to them about what it means to be a good pro. Final thoughts The Giants have not played a game yet. There is no guarantee that anything they have done will lead them back to the playoffs or even to being better than they were a year ago. Still it is abundantly clear that the Giants are in a better place. Shurmur and Gettleman deserve credit for that. Source link The post Valentines Views: Pat Shurmur Dave Gettleman change Giants culture appeared first on Proud Teams.

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The New York Giants new braintrust of general manager Dave Gettleman and head co… http://bit.ly/2XdoEzI

[simplemlmsponsoring]

New Post has been published on https://simplemlmsponsoring.com/attraction-marketing-formula/social-media-marketing/social-media-automation-is-bad-and-other-marketing-lies/

Social Media Automation Is Bad, and Other Marketing Lies

When it comes to social media and marketing automation, there are ways to win big. However, there have also been some runaway dumpster fires.

via GIPHY

Remember AT&T’s super-spammy debacle called the “Ticket Chasers” program? It was a chance for people to win free NCAA tickets. They outsourced the campaign to a contractor, who then outsourced the Tweets to a robot, who then spammed the crap out of thousands of Twitter users.

The problem was that many of the recipients didn’t even follow @ATT or have any interest in NCAA.

Or, more recently, take @McDonaldsCorp’s unfortunate tweet.

There’s not a lot of substance there, but @Wendys sure loved it.

Even the best of us make mistakes, and public ones at that. But some point to these instances as proof-positive that social media automation is bad marketing—that it undermines the purpose of social media altogether: community engagement and meaningful conversations.

After all, you’d never automate messages to your friends and family, would you? Then how can you (gasp) automate messages to your beloved audience?

The truth is, these accusations miss the point entirely. Social media automation done well is both brilliant and has a positive return. The difference is using what I call “smart-o-mation” rather than “spam-o-mation.”

I don’t like spam. Nobody likes spam. But social automation doesn’t have to be spam.

‘It’s Only Time’

Once upon a time, my company, CoSchedule, ran a test around the perfect recipe for social promotion. We wanted to know how many times we should promote a single piece of content. Which networks work best?

We dug into our own data packed with millions of messages from tens of thousands of users. We also crunched the numbers from over twenty industry-recognized studies on the best times to schedule social media messages on every network.

I’m talking time of day, day of the week, every detail down to the hour. Then, we published our findings.

Recently, I met a marketer who was absolutely raving about this article. That was pretty fun to hear. In fact, he found so much value in it, he had it bookmarked and followed it religiously every time he scheduled a social media messages for his brand’s many accounts.

“For every message?” I asked him.

“That’s right, every message.”

“Doesn’t that take you a ton of time?” I asked.

“Nah, it’s not that bad. Just a few hours per week.”

He was an awesome guy, and we talked for a while longer. Eventually, though, I gave him some good news that I could get him the same results—perfectly scheduled messages—in one percent of the time with some of our automation features.

Surprisingly, he pushed back. It took some time for me to convince him that he should give up the intensive manual labor of scheduling things by hand. He kept saying, “It’s only time—it doesn’t cost me anything!” However, that’s where he, and many other marketers I’ve met, are wrong.

Dollarize Your Time

A few quick questions helped me calculate that his time was worth about $100 per hour. In his mind, he was saving money by not dropping $60 per month on an automation tool. By the end of our conversation, it was pretty apparent that while he was “saving” $60, he was actually spending $1,200 in time to accomplish the same function.

He was stuck in the “it’s only time” trap. He was grossly undervaluing his time. And we constantly see this in marketing teams.

Too many marketers think their time is free. But they don’t realize that it’s actually more valuable than their money.

The purpose of promotion is to get the right people to the right place at the right time—all with the goal of driving profitable customer action. The mechanics of promotion are about ruthlessly outsourcing tasks that can be performed just as well, if not better, by automated processes. When you don’t, you’re stuck in an unscalable pattern.

My marketing friend, like each of us, has 168 hours per week. Let’s generously say he only works 40 hours per week. (He probably works much more, like a lot of you reading this!) That means the three “free” hours he spends each week on perfectly timing his social messages equals 7.5 percent of his time.

Now, I’ll ask you the same question I asked him: “How would it feel to put in fewer hours and get better results?”

It’s possible because that same time previously sunk into menial tasks is now available for high-return pursuits—the stuff you absolutely cannot delegate to another person or tool.

It’s time to embrace smart-o-mation to get bigger results in less time.

Smart-o-mation versus Spam-o-mation

Smart-o-mation is a way to 10x your social media results while saving time and money. In fact, I believe in its power so much, it’s actually a part of my content marketing formula.

However, when people hear me talk about automation, some think I’m advocating for “Ticket Chasers”-style spamming, where you simply spew the same tweets, posts, and pics ad nauseam. This is spam-o-mation, a virtual recipe for alienating your audience in a public way. It’s also the form of automation people actually have a problem with.

Rethink Your Publishing Schedule

Harnessing the power of smart-o-mation is dead simple. It’s all about rethinking your publishing schedule.

Spoiler alert: It’s time to get aggressive.

In my experience, under-sharing on social media is a marketing epidemic. It looks like this: You publish a fresh blog post, then share a link on Facebook, Twitter, or maybe LinkedIn. Hopefully, it picks up some traction and nabs some likes, comments, and shares.

But within a few hours, your post evaporates from people’s feeds. In fact, some studies indicate a tweet’s shelf life is five minutes or less before it evaporates for good.

Now, couple that shelf life with the staggering amount of noise on social. Every single second, there are:

814 images published on Instagram 2,644,941 emails sent 7,844 messages tweeted

This is further compounded by the dismal reality of that post’s reach. According to a report by Social@Ogilvy, brands may experience as little as two percent organic reach.

If you’ve got 10,000 followers, a cool 200 of them will see the post as they breeze through their feeds over the course of two hours.

From our own data, we know that 77 percent of our users share their content on social media less than three times. 37 percent share content on social media just once after it’s published.

Here’s the deal. If you’re sharing a piece of content just once, you’re absolutely wasting your content. You’re leaving tons of engagement and traffic on the table—and this means revenue!

We know this for a fact because when we ramped up our posting schedule, our blog posts got 31.5 times more click-throughs—that’s a 3,150 percent increase in one week. And all because of our frequency.

We more than quadrupled our traffic with essentially no more effort.

Our first tweet attracted only two link clicks. A measly two people visited our content.

If we’d stopped there, this channel would have been a nothing burger. Fortunately, we kept talking about it. We tweeted about this piece of content eight more times, attracting 63 additional click-throughs.

You can take a deeper dive into exactly how we did it with a webinar Jay Baer and Nathan Ellering tag teamed.

How To Quadruple Traffic With A Social Media Calendar

One of my favorite quotes from Jay here was, “The goal isn’t to be good at social media. The goal is to be good at business because of social media.”

That’s exactly what a more robust posting schedule helps you do.

If you’re sharing a piece of content just once, you’re absolutely wasting your content.Click To Tweet Smart-O-Mate Your New Posting Schedule

Over time and with constant testing, we settled on a social media promotion schedule that’s about 40 days long for blog posts alone. But, since we publish so much content, manually keeping up with so much social media posting legwork would cost an incredible amount in dollarized time. It would also be a huge opportunity cost.

While our marketing team would be doing excellent social media work by posting at the best times on the optimal days, their time to actually create more content and engage with our followers on social media would be seriously undercut.

That’s why we define our cross-platform promotion schedule and then automate every message with just a few clicks.

We still custom design graphics. We still write valuable copy for every social message. We’re doing far more than shooting out a title and link for 40 days.

But the point to embrace is that intelligent automation will save you time, and therefore increase your ability to drive business value with social media.

Get yourself unstuck from the “It’s only time” trap, get aggressive with your promotion schedule, and capitalize on social automation tools to do the time-consuming tasks for you.

In fact, Convince & Convert saves north of 10 hours each month via the same process. But remember, be smart, not spammy. Add value to your audience at every turn. This will allow automation to supercharge your results rather than sour them.

The post Social Media Automation Is Bad, and Other Marketing Lies appeared first on Convince and Convert: Social Media Consulting and Content Marketing Consulting.

Read more: convinceandconvert.com

[survivorindia]

Rites of Passage

My experience was boring, I didn't get to do anything. I tried backstabbing someone but they backstabbed me first. Not much else to say, cause nothing else happened.

Lexi G:  I wanted to keep you bud and would have if you weren’t voting me. I don’t think you deserved to go first after helping with the challenge though. 

India. Oh how I miss her. The game was such a ride even if was just for a short period. At least I left with some souvenirs, like the relationships I made and this cool looking rock.

Ashley: Okay, I didn't really get to know you well but tbh getting rocked out first is iconic and I love you. 

Lexi L: Steven Snell, You are the best and most loyal person. I mean who would go to rocks the first tribal council? YOU THATS WHO! I am so glad you are playing the game ruben and i are hosting now. That is the one good thing that came out of playing a tumblr game, meeting you. I really wish we could of played the rest of this game together.I love you and i am still so sad you got fucked by a rock.

Robin: Even though we only got to know each other you are one of my favorite people in this community. You’re so loyal and sweet. I was so upset that you ended up getting rocked out. I’ve done everything in this game with you in mind. I hope I made you proud.

Ashley: Awe, hi Ace! I really liked getting to know you and hope you are doing well, voting you out wasn't a priority for me but it just happened to be where the numbers landed. 

Lexi L: Um i honestly don't remember you to much sorry:/

Robin: You seemed like a really nice person. I wish we could’ve gotten to play together.

Lexi G:  We didn’t start speaking much until your tribal and I wish we had. The points you made were great and I would have kept you had the group consensus not been for you to go.

Lexi G: We were in two games together so the working relationship was there but with limited replies, it’s hard to work with someone. I wish you made it further so we could have worked together but good luck in Hoenn!

Rigga Morris! Listen perhaps I played too hard too fast ? But I'm happy w 1/2 of the ppl in the final so I'm love this season yes!

Ashley: Karen, Karen, Karen, I wanted to see our little "rivalry" from Sweden was behind us but unfortunately it was not. I caught wind of you actually wanting me out and so I had to do something about it. I am sorry it ended up like that. 

Lexi G:  We were never on a tribe together but I heard you’re a legend so I hope we get to speak outside of the game!

Lexi L:  I told you after Steven got rocked out that i would flip to your side and be loyal to you because i hated everyone left on my tribe besides Robin. You were fun to talk to and i was sad you got blindsided.:/ Wish we could of slayed together.

Robin: I wish we could’ve had the tribe swap earlier. I wanted to work with you so bad. Thanks for supporting me in everything!

Lexi G: We never got to speak much but I hope everything is well and I’m sorry you had to leave the game.

Lexi L: Bernel, i'm pretty sure you quit. I forget why. We did not talk to much but for the times we did talk you seemed pretty cool.

Robin: I didn’t get to know you much but I hope you’re doing well and that you get another shot at playing.

I figured I was on the bottom of a group and flipped to better myself - it didn't work out in the end and the group I flipped on was the group that got my torch snuffed.

Ashley: Okay I didn't talk to you at all but I hear great things about you. 

Lexi L: So you told me you were voting Liam out because he was inactive and then went and told everyone i was dating ruben from the other tribe and to get me out. You had Whitney and Liam on board. So you made it go to rocks and got my boy Steven out:/ So i dont really like you for that. 

Robin: We had a rocky relationship. I really liked you and thought we would work well together but unfortunately we ended up having different targets. 

Ashley:  I am not even doing this one. 

Lexi G:  I pray you’re not still lost on the beach somewhere 

Lexi L: Whitney, you never liked me for some reason. Like i tried to talk to you and everything ,but you would not give me a chance lol. But i heard you went inactive once we switched tribes, which sucks because why not just of let yourself be voted out instead of letting people go to rocks.

Okay so first and foremost, I loved this season while it lasted tbh, and im sad that I am pre-merge and 15th place once again, but who cares lol. Anyway I'm personally glad that the person who quit jury did because it gave me the opportunity I've wanted, okay done with that. I feel like this game honestly I did my best and I was proud of how I started out. It's annoying that I was voted out with little reason, and that I lost to some of the most vile people this season, but things happen you know? S/O to Jordan and sarah this season for being probably my favorite people EVER to have worked with like yall are so real I love you guys. Okay bye!!

Lexi G: I love your ability to put feminism above all else (and as I have stated numerous times before in Hoenn vl drs) I wish you had stayed in both games since I really wanted to work with you long term!

Lexi L: Ok Julia, you need to get your self checked out. I think you are messed up in the head. You attacked me for saying this game is rigged? I complained once about rig so get your facts straight. You said a bunch of mean things to me and then deleted it! LIKE WHAT!?? Don't say rude things and then delete it. Just tell me straight up how you feel.

Robin: Julia, you are such a great person honestly. The fact that you’re into with craft is so interesting. I honestly hated to see you go. It sucks that the original plan was leaked or else you would’ve stayed longer. 

I was never really into the game to begin with, so I don’t have a lot to say. As of late I have removed myself of all games and basically from this community as a whole due to personal issues. Good game everyone! Byeee.

Ashley: See you at school! 

Lexi G: My first alliance :( I wish you had more time to play but I understand life gets busy!

Ashley: Oh goodness, here we go. Dom, we went from being happily married to some ugly old couple who just was sick of each other. You were made out to be such a strong player and honestly everyone was scared of you. I know that if it hadn't have been for the idol I received, you would probably still be here, and I am sorry for that, but I certainly feel as though Sarah and I did what was necessary to save ourselves. 

Lexi G: You have no idea how much I appreciated being aligned with you! I saw you as a power player and we shared some fun moments so I was sad to see you go but have to admit being taken out by two idols is quite badass! I thought you had a tremendous chance at winning because of the amazing game you were playing so it was crazy how that tribal played out.

Lexi L: DOM, ugh i am so sad they got you. I loved our little alliance with Ruben, Lexi G, Jaiden and Robin. We were at the bottom but you somehow always stayed postive and helped us come up with a plan. I hated seeing you go. I loved meeting you and im glad you and Ruben bonded so i had the chance to play with you. You're amazing!

Robin: Idols really hurt us. The day of the tribal council where you left was….eventful. You deserved to stay longer than that. I hope you get to play another tumblr survivor game.

I’m Jordan Pines

Ashley: Jordan <3 my heart broke into a million pieces when you were voted out. You had been telling us all day that everything was okay and that we had it in the bag, and then you suddenly had to go. It really sucked not having your humor and strategic thinking around. Hope to talk soon!

Lexi G: What could have been! I really really wanted to work with you long term, and I thought it could have been fun for us to switch things up in the game. Alas, someone found an idol and most of them were dead set on you going that round. I still think about, to this day, how we could have had some fun in the game and I believed you to be someone who would have loved to make crazy moves with me. I want to say thank you for talking to me regularly and being there for the times I needed to vent. I hope we get to become friends outside of this game <3

Lexi L: Jordan, you were definitely running this game. I always viewed you as a threat from the day i met you. we didn't talk much, i did not really see a point because you had your group and i had mine. You were definitely a great player though. Sorry the idol screwed you.

Robin: You’re a great liar. It’s a compliment by the way. You really had me sold that you were trying to save lexi g. Even though you might not believe it, you had a big impact on the game. I honestly got inspired with how smoothly you were able to lie and make yourself look like you were working hard to be a hero. That’s what got me going the tribal after to say so much. You were a very strong competitor. I’m sure you could’ve easily won this had you made past the first merge round.  

Jaiden doesn’t have me on skype so he didn’t submit

Ashley: Okay Jaiden, I love you, but come on. I gave you soooooo many chances to work with me. I put my trust in you so many times and for what? I feel as though we certainly gained a friendship but eventually you being unpredictable was what made my mind up. 

Lexi G: I enjoyed talking to you as we were also in two games together, you were always so kind. I believe we had a ton of the same issues going on so I hope you are doing better and I wish you the best!

Lexi L:  Jaiden, im very sad you quit jury. The returnees did not give you a chance. I am glad they didnt though because i got the chance to work with you. You were very fun to talk to and when you played that idol on me, i knew i could trust you. I mean i knew before , but i was always a little worried. Loved playing with you!

Robin: I tried so hard to save you. The tribal council you left was a pivotal point in how I was perceived in the game. I pushed myself to play more aggressively and be more outspoken because of you. You were such a great friend in the game. It’s a bummer you left the jury. I hope everything in your life is working out well.

Coming into this game I didn't see myself doing well at all. I mean I was in the game with my girlfriend and couldn't even lie about it because there were people that knew of the both of us already. That being said, I did a lot better than I thought I was going to. I mean I made the merge with my girlfriend lol and I played an idol on myself and made some pretty big moves while I was in the game. I was well on my way to hopefully winning this game, but people saw me as the biggest threat on the otherside and took me out. I don't think I would have done anything different, not much I could have done differently. But I think I played the best possible game I could have and I'm proud of my game. As for my first tumblr survivor journey, I made jury, idoled someone out, played a huge part in taking out one of the biggest liars and villains in Jordan, and even got a spell put on me by another jury member (who shouldn't even be a juror lol sorry Julia). Anyway my first and last journey on Tumblr Survivor was an interesting one for sure.

Ashley: Hello Ruben! I am sorry we didn't get to talk much, but it was assumed that you were the "leader" of the newbies and wouldn't want to really communicate with us returnees. The conversations we did have however I highly enjoyed. I hope you are doing well!

Lexi G: Our alliance since the beginning was everything I had hoped for and more. We looked out for each other and had to swat off the rumor that we were dating hahaha but somehow made it through all that. I very much appreciated you being the calm side of our duo and I’m happy we made the merge together. I’m excited to talk to you again soon after the game is over! 

Lexi L: You are so cute. I was mad you played this game because i definitely thought we would be out pre merge. I mean we date who would let us get this far. oh wait, they did LOL. sorry had to say it. I was sad when you went , but one of us were bound to go and i guess they saw you as more of a threat. Love you <3

Robin: You were honestly the best player in this game. You were able to predict everyone’s strategies, win competitions, and gather information. I would’ve loved to have seen you win this game. If it wouldn’t have been for you figuring out Lexi was getting votes, we would’ve all been picked off. Thank you for being such a helpful ally.

Saying this game was messy is an understatement. Things were all over the place and it was surely interesting. Personally, I think I played a decent game, and almost made the top third. A lot of great friends came out of it, and then there's the opposite of that. (You know who you are.) it's truly a shame that I have to pick one of these remaining people to win, but may the best lady win. Prepare for hell at FTC. Ciao.~ You know who you are coughcoughalexiscoughcough

Ashley: Oh poor Liam. Rocked out because of paranoia of something that wasn't even happening. You were actually really loyal and it sucked losing you in the way we did. It would have been nice to have you here with me. 

Lexi G: We didn’t get to speak much other than my plea on the tie vote for Jaiden but so sorry you were eliminated in rocks, that’s got to be tough. I hope the blues clinch a playoff spot though!

Lexi L: Liam ok, you were supposed to go the first tribal council. You were inactive, but somehow you come out of nowhere and convice Johnny and Whitney otherwise and i mean good for you. That's a good move. We never really talked because i was salty and mad you did not go and Steven did. We never talked after that either. I think you hate me. I dont get why but it's ok. 

Robin: I wish we hadn’t messed up our relationship so much back on Nayak so we could’ve worked together at merge. I really think you could’ve won this game had the ruby idol not gotten you eliminated.

It was super weird to come back for a fourth time, It was intense, it was crazy and the people with the most entertaining personalities are in jury. This game was drama filled..to say the least and it was SO much fun to be apart of it

Ashley: Sarah don't you dare hate me. I love you, I really do, but girl your paranoia and stuff was really bugging me. I had second thoughts on voting you out. But the thought of you making so many other chats without me in them after telling me you wanted to take me to the end was not the best feeling. In the end it was strictly strategic, you are a huge threat in games and I respect that, as I hope you can respect my move. 

Lexi G: I believe you don’t want to hear from me at all due to the message you sent me after you were voted out. However, I did genuinely want to work with you. I had hoped the villains could possibly team up since we were cannibalizing up until that point. I had voted the way you wanted me to during the tribal you played your idol. Then at the tribal you left, you didn’t tell me how you were voting and the opposing group had set their eyes on you once again while also having a lot of power so it was out of my hands during that round. You have no idea how much I was looking forward to working and calling with you more for the rounds to come but tearfully, it didn’t work out. I hope we get to speak more about it later as I’m excited to hear your thoughts during the game.

Lexi L: Sarah, I have no idea what happened with us. We never had a problem with one another and then you just went off on me. Called me Ruben's dog, which is very far from the truth and that's why it triggered me. People always think i do as ruben says in game and it couldnt be more far from the truth. He is just more vocal and i am more behind the scenes. You hate me and i don't hate you, but i think attacking me was random and uncalled for. 

Robin: I really thought I would enjoy getting to play with you. You seemed like a really nice person and you seemed to like me a lot. It’s funny how things can change though once the game gets more intense and we have to go against each other. I found out the kind of player you are and that’s why I actively tried to get you out. I want to point out that bringing up a past event of yours was not meant to be personal. This was on a blog, which is public, and anyone can access so I feel like you exaggerated what I did. I played this game with integrity and respecting everyone. You made a big deal about not getting personal with people, so I think you should take your own advice and think before you make rude comments to other people. I’m not sure if you were just trying to embrace your villain character but remember, this just a game and just because someone else outplays you, it doesn’t mean you have the right to release your anger negatively on them. You know what I’m talking about and I hope you take time in the future to apologize to that person. 

This game was a load of fun ^__^ I got to meet some amazing people, take part in some shocking blindsides, and strategize to my heart's content. My only regret is not being more paranoid come F8-ish. Everyone was telling me to scramble more and more, but the only way I could make it further would be by trusting the people who eventually took me out... *Shrug* All in all, this was a great experience and I am very happy I got to live through it all with such a marvelous cast!

Ashley: Alright so this is a tough one. I know you are not going to really want to hear from me or are just completely pissed at me right now but I promise I had my reasons. You were never going to trust me again as you did at the beginning. I knew by the way you reacted that you would be plotting against me at some point in the future and I certainly did not want that because I know you are smart as hell and could have taken me out no sweat. So in a last minute decision, my worries got the best of me, and I am sorry for that but I hope you can respect me as a player still, and see the reasons why I made the moves I did. 

Lexi G: I believe you to be by far the scariest player, and I can’t place my finger on why. It could be attributed to your working relationships with a large majority of the cast or your ability to extract any sort of information out of any single person. I had heard some of my allies giving up information that I did not want them to, to you so it’s quite crazy how you had that effect on people. I heard a TON of things about your game and it was intimidating, but I really want the chance to play with you again and I pray that we could even be on the same side.

Lexi L: Gavin, I don’t know how to feel about you. My relationship with you was the same i had with Alex. We always tried to talk about game but never did. I heard what you did to Ruben though and it made me very upset. I think you played an ok game . You just, i don't know. I never wanted to talk game with you because i knew you were kind of a snake. I do want to thank you for telling ruben to play an idol on me that round though!

Robin: We had such a complex relationship. I feel like the two of us were being mislead by other people. If we would’ve just trusted each other, we probably could’ve done so much together.

Ashley: Okay so this one actually wasn't completely my fault but I still hate myself for it. I should have voted with you guys and gone to rocks. Which is something that in previous games I would never do. But Alex you are such a genuine person, you didn't hate me for choices I made but instead came and asked me why I did the things I did. You didn't judge me or want me gone, you truly just wanted to understand and that is why I wanted you to be here with me at the end because if I can't win I would have hoped you could have at least. 

Lexi G: This is hard due to me knowing that you wanted to help me out a bit as you believed me to be on the bottom of my side but it was difficult to align when I wasn’t told how the tribal would be playing out most of the time and the result I was told to expect didn’t happen. I did try to make sure the vote wasn’t you a few rounds to try and repay for the times you had told me you hadn’t written my name down. You were a great player and you knew that as you said in your final tribal so I hope you’re not mad that I took out a clear winner. You had it all in this game; social, strategic and were great in the challenges.

Lexi L: Alex, You were a funny person and i wish we could of talked more and maybe even worked together. You were set in your alliance and i was set in mine. I definitely viewed you as a threat too. You were likeable and never crossed anyone. I respect you and have no bad words for you.

Robin: I really admire how articulate you are. You came off as a very persuasive person. I was afraid of you the entire game. You were so social and at least with me, you knew what words to use to get me to open up and appreciate you. I’m sure you could’ve won this game by a landslide.

In the words of the great scholar Linkin Park, "I tried so hard and that's alright but in the end it doesn't even matter,"

Ashley: Ugh Kendall you tried so hard, your slideshow was amazing, kinda wish I had you to share cookies with. We knew it was kind of hopeless but we still tried. And that is all we could really have done. It really sucked that you left, and I know I haven't been the best person throughout this game, but you have always made me laugh and I truly adore you as a human being.

Lexi G:  As outrageous as it sounds, I’m not a sociopath like you believe I am. I genuinely did feel like shit for a large part of the game but I was not on the bottom as I had said. I needed to try and avoid getting votes for tribals to come so I had to play up the “trio” on our side to survive. The issues I opened up about indirectly regarding my actual life were true sadly. I thank you for letting me vent to you and I’m sorry if you were hurt on a personal level. If you had told me more of what was going on during the rounds before, I would have loved to work with you but you didn’t seem to trust me. I did enjoy those earlier conversations before the merge when we had spoken about our weird humor so I’m painfully sad that it didn’t end up working out. I’m positive you hate me so I’ll end this here and wish you the best.

Lexi L: KENDALL, ugh i connected with you the most more than most people in this game. You are so odd and funny. I mean that in a very good way. I loved talking to you. I always said if i got out and you made it to the end, you would of definitely got my vote. No one hated you and i mean how could they. I hope we talk after this game is over. Dead babies for life!

Robin: Well, you were the most surprising out of everyone. The way you were able to stay in the game and never have your name thrown out showed how big of a threat you were. I saw myself working with you back on the Hero beach but the whole returnees vs newbies thing ended up forcing us on opposite sides.

[alexdmorgan30]

How I Came To "Believe” In Safe Injection Sites

So last night I’m at a town hall event on drug addiction and someone mentions safe injection sites in the audience. My heart begins to pound from having my hand up and hoping to get called on, so I can ask about this, among other topics.  The panel looks around at each other trying to see who will bite first, as it's clearly a controversial topic. Finally, the one “token recovery guy” speaks up, “You know, studies are positive, but people are very opposed to the idea, and the last time we had a discussion about it a fight nearly broke out.”And so, I wanted to get up. And I wanted to have that fight.  But I was taught to cease fighting anything and anyone. What about fighting substance use disorder? I thought my disease was doing pushups? Certainly, this disease is wreaking havoc across our country, especially with the younger generations, and what are we, as a community, prepared to do about it?  Who is fighting on the front lines? While communities claim “not in my backyard” absolution, so do the “anonymous people” who are in recovery in this country. They are told to have no opinion on outside issues. But, to me, this isn’t an outside issue, because the part of me that understands service is the backbone of my recovery, demands something other than pretending that there aren’t options available to people still suffering.  Thankfully, I have met many who are rank and file generals in this fight, however compared to the #’s we could have, it is disappointing, and makes creating change in our communities even more difficult.  Clearly, safe injection options are not a solution, but saying “he or she must not have wanted it enough” when they drop out of the only pathway we are offering, which for mainstream recovery is a 12-step program, is an even less valid answer.  12-step can be successful, alongside other treatment modalities, but it is often seen as “the” solution and not “a” solution.And what about statistics? Research shows that overdose rates decrease around the area of the safe injection site. If this statistic alone isn’t a good enough reason to support them how about that the rate of people who were entering treatment in those areas increased? Look, don’t get me wrong, I was once on the other side of this conversation. I had a lot of misguided beliefs before I entered recovery. I once thought when I was 16 and my drinking career had just begun, that if I could get my dad to give me driving lessons while I was drinking, I wouldn’t have a drinking and driving problem!Clearly being open-minded that my own thinking could be wrong is an important aspect of recovery, and so while I was made to think I should be open-minded about the program, I was indoctrinated to believe recovery was a static black-and-white thing, and that I was a miracle because I didn’t use, and while this may be true, it also underlined another assumption, that those who didn’t make it were not entitled to these miracles.  The idea that there is a level of participation required for someone to enter recovery is not lost on me, but the fact of the matter is, more and more people, especially those from the younger generations, are struggling to find their way in recovery and our answer to the staggering overdose and relapse rates is “they must not have been ready.”  So now what? What do we do with people who aren’t ready? Tell them to go out and give their substances another try? Drugs which could easily kill them in one shot? In my mind, if someone is not ready for abstinence-based recovery it isn’t that they have failed, it’s that they may not have reached that point yet, they may never reach that point, and who are we to say what that should look like.  There are many people who reach a significant “bottom,” only to find themselves using again. Can anyone say, who is honest with themselves, that a “bottom” is what creates recovery? Surely it can help, but there are many who hit that point and beyond, and for those people, while their lives continue to crumble around them, what is available?To me, this is why we need to offer as many solutions to this problem as we can. Not offering alternative methods like safe injection sites, or medically assisted treatment, is like saying to someone who has diabetes they can’t go to the hospital for support, or shouldn’t have to take insulin, they should just use their higher power, and if they can’t clearly, they don’t want to be healthy enough.Change is possible without necessarily being at a point of relying on grace only. While I believe in grace and have my own stance on faith, I believe this “coveted” winners circle of recovery is an issue and is not saving lives, especially amongst young people.Do I believe willingness is an important key to recovery? Certainly, yet how many of us become willing along our path of using? So why would we not want to create opportunities for the people who are using, to not only stay alive, but be near recovery support services?  When someone has a reoccurrence of use, do we no longer consider them in recovery? Therefore, by that logic, anyone who is in active use has the potential to effect this same change in their lives. Hospitals, fire houses, police stations, med express, anywhere, anytime someone wants out of the cycle, it should be as easy as getting a flu shot. It is that easy to get high or drunk.Finding drugs is way easier than finding recovery, unfortunately, we don’t seem to be making much headway on that stat. It shouldn’t be so difficult to get help, and yet it is. Clearly, we have quite a way to go, and so while we stand at the frontlines arguing for much-needed treatment options, housing options, peer support options for people in early recovery, we need to also keep our eye on how we can affect those who haven’t gotten to that point yet.    So, I didn’t get up and fight at the town hall meeting, because I know that the only way change will be affected is if compassion and reason win over misunderstanding and hatred. The only way we can win, and by we, I mean the parents who lost children to overdoses, and by we, I mean the advocates who mentor peers who end up overdosed in alley ways, and never make it home to their families, is if we can convince society that shaming people is not working and giving them opportunities for change are the best ideas we have currently.   I understand clearly that this option is seen as enabling to some. That we are encouraging people to use by providing needles and a safe place to go. The concept is not lost on me, but current models are not working. Prevention talks often fall on deaf ears, and while it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue to try to reach people, it does mean we need to get real about whether we are doing all we can do to help prevent overdose deaths in this country. If someone who is opposed has a better idea of how we can get the people in our communities, who are using illicit substances, out of the shadows and into the light where we can see them and help them, please by all means share it.  To me the big bad wolf in this situation is that we would have to admit as a community, that people in our community, have heroin problems. We don’t like to admit that, and unfortunately it's killing people.  I would argue that whatever motives you have for being opposed to this option, check them against the idea that centralizing use as best as possible helps to a.) measure your community and its needs, b.) provide safety and support to a vulnerable part of the population c.) encourage the next step for people to move on with their lives and d.) minimize the risk to police and health care workers responding to overdoses.  One of these reasons alone in my mind is enough to at least give it a try. Saving just one life means so much, especially if it is your child, your brother, your sister or your parent. Sharing this pain with too many people in too short of a time period is how I came to believe in safe Injection sites. Erik Beresnoy is a father, advocate, and a writer on topics that range from recovery, and spirituality to music and philosophy.  Erik has been an active member of the recovery movement since 2008, when he himself entered recovery, and began to not only repair his life but to also seek help repair his community by working to implement new strategies. His current projects include Empowerment Coaching for the Ammon Foundation, and implementing a transformational program in NYC called Dare to Dream for Synergy Education. He is a certified recovery coach as well as a board member for Rockland Recovery Homes. His other works can be viewed at soberspiritmeditation.com.

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