#kuiper disability moments

[siffrin-enthusiast]

my disability post is blowing up again so let me tell you the funniest things that have happened to me while being disabled or using various mobility aids. feel free to add your own btw

when getting discharged from the hospital for surgery, i was "taught" how to use crutches for less than three minutes. i checked the timestamps between discord messages. it cost hundreds of dollars btw

my high school's one and only wheelchair ramp into the auditorium was too steep to be used by a wheelchair even with the help of a handrail. instead of doing anything about this, the staff made it a point of personal pride to wheel me up despite me asking them not to for every. single. assembly. disability inclusion <3

getting recognized as a regular by the receptionists at the hospital was. a little embarrassing.

shoutout to one physical therapist in particular who realized i had a tremor and then decided to exacerbate it for. uhhhh. she didn't even say why. she just wanted to see why. anyway it set me back like four months

some sidewalks were just UNUSABLE (bumpiness, width, debris). like it was literally safer to be in the ROAD in my wheelchair then some fucking sidewalks.

after i had just gotten out of said wheelchair and used the elevator, i took too long going through the elevator doors and the doors decided to crush me. thank you elevator, very cool!

i was seen by several doctors who did not know what my condition was despite me putting it on every single patient form and sending pdfs of my diagnoses and symptoms in advance of every appointment

remember that surgery i mentioned? so it turns out there was not a problem with the affected joint. it was just hypermobile. that is a twenty minute test. they did not think to test me for hypermobility. before doing surgery on me. anyway i have generalized hypermobility and that ankle is now the worst joint in my entire body

almost got sent to truancy court despite every absence having an excuse note from an ER clinic or a neurologist checking me for. like. literal actual brain cancer. STAT orders and all.

speaking of my high school, it took seven minutes to get between two of my classes in high school because there was one elevator, located in the center of the building, and these classes were right on the left end of the building. when i was able to walk the route, it took under two minutes. this happened a lot, actually.

doctors: you needs this medication. if you want to stay out of the er you are going to take it. some guy named frank in insurance who hasnt even looked at the file: nah u really dont :/

also thing that seems obvious but you don't realize it until you're in that situation: if the elevator is broken and you cannot walk stairs or if the disabled door will not open with the button press and you can't open it yourself, you are just Stuck there. enjoy!

waited a year for a specialist appointment that lasted twenty minutes and got told nobody had done the research into what i had even though this doctor had seen dozens of cases exactly like mine. boo womp

remember that hypermobility i mentioned? it was actually picked up by a physical therapist in our first session. she did not mention it until i asked her about the possibility of being hypermobile four months later. she "thought i knew already".

"maybe it's just school anxiety," says the doctor while looking at my sitting heart rate of 150 bpm, "are you anxious about going to school?"

[jupitersguardian]

Some random Kousagi Headcanons:

This is just for an AU I'm imagining that I may write one day.

She is five years younger than Chibi Usa

She is the guardian of the Earth so Sailor Earth

Chibi Usa takes after Mamoru and is more "his" kid while Kousagi is much more like Usagi.

That said her powers are similar to Mamoru's they are based around flowers and plants while Chibi Usa's are simular to Usagi's

Chibi Usa sees her as an annoying younger sister but she does encourage her little sis and they will work together and do have their heartwarming moments

Kousagi likes to "borrow" her things. This makes Chibi Usa angry.

Kousagi looks up to Chibi Usa and wants to be just like her. She'll follow around her and her friends.

Her Sailor Team are the Kuiper Belt planets, Sailor Eris, Sailor Hamurea, Sailor MakeMake, and Sailor Sedna. Pluto should technically be included in there but what can you do. This is to parallel Chibi Usa's team being the asteroid belt planets.

She loves to garden. Makoto taught her everything she knows.

She also has some animal powers. What they are yet I don't know.

Her pink cat is named Apollo and is Diana's twin.

I want to make ChibiChibi her and Chibi Usa's adopted little sister who would have a disability. As for her senshi name... I'm thinking Sailor Lilith which was said to be the name of Earth's theoretical/lost second moon. In this story it could have just been destoryed.

[kbo-system]

info

last pinned post was made by a dumbass (affectionate) so heres a new one

general info:

- you can collectively refer to us as kuiper or kbo, it/its or they/them pronouns

- body age 20

- traumagenic

- 30+ known and identified parts, theres more that havent been logged but thats a problem for later

- questioning polyfragmentation but honestly at the moment it doesnt matter much

- this is a sideblog. we follow from @tahamas

- the usual basic dni stuff. might write out a more specific one later. either way we will block as necessary

- syscourse neutral as in leave us out of it. we want no involvement in it

- not diagnosed but suspected did. if thats not it then genuinely have no idea what the hell is going on

- we will try to tag warnings but often forget to

- info will be added and edited as needed

thats the basics, but if you want theres more less relevant info + a short list of alters under the read more

other info

- medium support needs autism, diagnosed

- adhd, diagnosed

- physically disabled

- suspect some other mental illness stuff, but not sure what exactly is going on until we manage to get therapy, which we are working on

- generally i/me is used when specifically talking about the alter fronting (i like this color, my name is [name]) and we/us is used when talking about multiple alters or the system as a whole (we go by kuiper), but sometimes we use i/me in a broad sense. idk its complicated

- generally we use alters and parts interchangeably, though usually small fragments will be referred to as parts. some alters have more of a preference. also sometimes use “system members” as a catchall

- there are some terms weve made up for our system and how it functions, and some terms we use a slightly different definition of. may make a list of these in the future

- if a post with an alters name or symbol its more so we can keep track of who did what

- we do have a simply plural but most of the information on it is private. if youre interested you can ask for our id but you wont be marked as a trusted friend unless we actually get that close

- most of us are interested in talking to other systems and possibly making friends, though we are very bad at social interaction

- tone tags are appreciated, especially for jokes and sarcasm

- info will be added and edited as needed

list of alters who may or may not be active at some point. information intentionally left vague for now

tom

- it/its

- host

- tags with (tom 🏁)

- not to be confused with posts marked as adjacent fragments, which wont have the flag

hazard

- he/it/they

- co-host

- tags with (☣️)

- currently in dumbass jail for trying to dig into things that arent ready to be addressed

chord

- he/him

- manager

- tags with (chord)

- helped write this post

wing

- they/them

- archivist

- tags with (🗒️)

- also helped with this post

[overwatch-does-stuff]

Overwatch: Observation

Summary: Talon has received its newest test subject, in the form of a man raving about "the melody". Moira attempts to make her observations.

  Moira observed. With how incredibly unstable her new subject was, that was all she could do. Her only view into the room, her only method of observation, was through a small security camera tucked in the corner of the padded walls.    The man laid on the ground in the straitjacket, his mouth quivering softly. Incoherent words were occasionally mumbled loud enough to be picked up by the camera's audio. Something to do with a "melody" and "the universe".    If the man wasn't so clearly out of his mind, Moira might have enjoyed talking to him. Curiosity burned within her. This man was part of an experiment, an experiment that had completely changed his genetic makeup to the point where it was barely recognizable as human. Was that what he had intended? Did he consider his experiment as successful? After all, failures in the eyes of ethics were not always failures in the eyes of true science.    She knew that the experiment involved black holes, but that was the extent of her knowledge. It was the extent of Talon's knowledge, anyway. It was knowledge she was hoping to further.    But she was unable to learn more from this dusty security room. Observation had shown no signs of change in the subject. Minute after minute, the only image of the room was that of a old man on the ground, speaking in absolutes. She did not doubt that the man was unstable, but perhaps he was not as volatile as Talon was lead to believe. Even if he was, she was certain she could escape the grasp of his supposed powers with ease.    It was time to further this research.    The double-door lock that led into her subject's containment cell took far too long to operate. Moira tapped her foot with impatience as the large outside door swung closed, and a security scan was initiated. She quickly tapped a nearby button with her finger to disable the scan. She was bringing objects into the chamber, yes, but they were diagnostic tools; tools she would need for readings of his condition and further samples of his DNA.    After another lengthy pause, the smaller but still armored inside door slid open. For the first time, she looked directly upon her new subject. He looked unchanged from her previous view of him, as if he was frozen in time.    The padded room dulled the sound of her footsteps as she approached the man, but the vibrations she caused to travel through the ground seemed to wake the man out of his dream. He opened his eyes and looked to the ceiling, dazed.    There were codewords, supposedly, to help manage this subject. Supposedly they were used by the staff of the government retention facility to stabilize him. Moira supposed it was worth a try. "Sigma?" The man took a sharp breath and his eyes returned to focus. With a small hiss in his breath, he replied. "Sigma. . . present."    Moira did not reply. She walked around the the side of the man and pulled out a scanning tool. She briefly flicked the holographic bar over him, and notes on his condition came up on the screen. Physically, he was not injured, though 'healthy' was not the right word to describe him either. Done with that, she put the scanner away and brought out more tools from the pockets of her lab coat. Her work was interrupted by a quiet voice. "W-where am I? How. . . how did I get here? Who are you?"    Moira did not respond, but just for a moment, her eyes met with his. Mistake. "Why am I locked up? What are you going to do to me?" The man whimpered, his voice trembling. His body tensed.    Moira detected that his pulse had picked up. Obvious even under the thick straitjacket, the man's chest still rose and fell, quicker, quicker, quicker still. Other tools currently in her pocket began to chirp quietly, their sensors detecting fluxes of instability.    That was when Moira remembered she was currently sharing a room with a weapon instead of a test subject. "Sigma." She said sternly.    The man began to weep, his body shaking with every sob. As he did so, Moira felt a faint pang of nausea, as if she were falling. She gasped. "Sigma, respond. Sigma!" She strengthened her voice, but the feeling only increased.    One of her diagnostics tools chirped louder, only now, she noticed, because it was no longer in her pocket. It floated in the air alongside her. She quickly grabbed it and put it back in her lab coat, pinching the pocket closed. Instinctively, she tried to take a step back, but as soon as her foot left the ground, she floated backwards. Her heart raced. She couldn't focus herself enough to fade. The man continued to ramble in between his sobbing. "Please don't hurt me. Please don't! I don't even know who I-"    In an instant, Moira was thrown against the ground. She landed on her back, knocking all the air out of her, before something continued to squeeze down upon her body even harder. She gasped for breath. "HOLD IT TOGETHER." The man screamed. Moira tried to lift her head up and look, but it felt as if lead weights had been placed on her neck. Spots appeared in her vision and her head began to ache.    But as suddenly as it started, it was gone. The pressure lifted. Moira gulped down breaths of fresh air, coughing and sputtering as she did so. Her ears rang faintly. Her throat burned.    When her focus returned, she sat up from the ground, clutching her head. She nearly flinched when she met the gaze of her subject. The man twitched, his head tilting to one side before righting itself. His eyes were pale and weary. "Are you alright?" He asked. His lips barely moved.    Moira simply looked at him, stunned to silence. The man looked her up and down in return. "You look. . . like a scientist. Are we back on the station?" A station. Moira had read this subject's history. It was where this man had conducted the experiment that made him this way. If he believed he was back there, then perhaps he would be calmer. Perhaps she could get somewhere. "Yes." "Oh! I'm sorry. I must have dozed off." The man blinked to her reply. "Say, I don't recognize your face. Are you new here?" "My name is Dr. O'Deorain." She said stiffly. "I don't recognize your name." He looked down at the ground, before looking up again. "My name is Dr. De Kuiper." Moira purposefully tried to soften her voice. "Can you tell me more about your experiment, doctor?" "The experiment. Yes, of course. I'm afraid the full outline in is my office, but if you would like to see some of the basic gravitational equations, I could oblige. . ." the man looked down to his arms, which were bound. He flinched upright, and the same dazed look he had when he first woke up entered his eyes. "Doctor De Kuiper." Moira reached out her hand and grabbed his shoulder firmly. "Do not worry. You are safe." "I am safe." He repeated, and he relaxed again. "You are. Now, can you tell me about your experiment?" He shook his head and gave a nervous smile. "No, not with my hands tied like this. And, I don't see a whiteboard around here. Do you have a marker? Perhaps I could write on the walls, o-or you could write on them for me." Moira laughed slightly. "It appears I left them all in my lab. I do not." "That's alright." There was a look of kindness in his pale eyes. "Perhaps another time." "Indeed." Moira replied. Another thought crossed her mind. While he was temporarily stable, perhaps it was possible to accomplish her original goal after all. She searched her pockets for her tissue sampler, only to find it missing. She looked behind her. It sat a few cushions away. She reached back and grabbed it. "What is that?" Her test subject asked. "It's a tissue sampler." She didn't look up as she fiddled with the tool's settings. "Oh?" "Genetics is my," she paused, "side hobby. May I swab your cheek?"    Actually asking her subjects for their genetic material was so foreign to her. She was used to simply taking it without regard. None of her previous subjects were ever a worry for her. None of them could ever do something in protest, for they needed her, and needed her services. But now, she needed him. She needed him to cooperate. He had the power to choose not to cooperate. She could practically feel the pressure crushing down again, squeezing the life out of her and- The man smiled again. "I don't know much about genetics. Why bother when astrophysics is so much more fascinating?" Moira took a quick breath and clasped her hands to keep them from shaking. "It is, but-" "Sure, I'll donate a sample. Just don't try and clone me." He cut her off with the same happy tone, with no regard to her obvious nerves.    Moira leaned forward, and he opened his mouth. She took a cotton swab that was dispensed by her tool and quickly swabbed the inside of his mouth. Then, she inserted the swab back into her machine. The data of his full genome would take some time to be fully analyzed, but she certainly didn't have to wait here for it to be processed. "That's all I need, doctor." Moira said. The man closed his mouth. "Are you leaving me now?" "Yes. Goodbye." She stood up. It was not that long of a distance to the exit door. "Please, come back." His eyes followed her up. Moira froze. "I have to go now." She said slowly. She took deep breaths to steady her pulse. "Come back and tell me when the experiment chamber is ready for my experiment, I mean." He said, twitching slightly. "It should be soon."    Moira did not respond as she walked hurriedly to the door. She wiped the sweat off her hand on her lab coat, then put her finger on the panel next to the door. The door slid open, and before it was even open all of the way, she stepped through it.    The double-door lock that led out of her subject's containment cell was far to quick to open. The doors were several inches thick, but not thick enough, she worried. If her subject was able to toss her around like a ragdoll without even being conscious that he was doing so, who knew what he was capable of doing on purpose. A chill went down her spine. She shook her head. For the first time, that was a theory she did not want to test.    Fear. Fear was not a normal emotion for her. Fear of the unknown was silly, illogical, and it impeded progress. Fear limited the mind's ability to question and investigate fully.    Perhaps it was good, Moira observed, that she finally felt it again.

[iraklismytridis]

First part

Planet Earth is a jail. 25,000-26,000 years ago, one precessional cycle ago, many huge sectors of the galaxy were liberated. Only a small section of Galaxy, comprising of less than 1,000 lightyears, remained in the grip of the dark forces. Most of them were gathered in this sector of the galaxy. There were two headquarters – Rigel and Earth. This was a custom zone, the border. The Orion overlords, the Orion fleet was patrolling this system. They welcomed only the dark forces (Draconians).

The Light forces kept some bases on the Moon, on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede and in the Kuiper belt. In certain key moments, some physical people were contacted by them: Jean d’Arc, Templars, Middle East, the founding fathers of America, etc.

Vaccinations (obligatory in Congo for example) open your energy field for reptilian entities to enter your body.  Earth is a multilayered prison. It is not easy to disable it, it takes time to deconstruct it. We are deconstructing this prison for the first time in human history.

[nemesisadrastia]

Silence of the lambs, the ring, the amityville horror, the conjuring

silence of the lambs. WHAT WAS SOMETHING YOU USED TO BE AFRAID OF THAT YOU AREN’T AFRAID OF ANYMORE?

Standing out. Not fitting in. Coming across as weird. Life is too short and I’m way too tired to give a single fuck about what random people think about me, so I’m just gonna go me. If I need to flap my hands, I’m gonna do that. If I want to sing or dance in public, you betcha I’m gonna do it, and nothing as trivial as, “what would other people think?” is gonna stop me. Because I stopped caring.

the ring. WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE TV SHOW? WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE EFFECT OF MEDIA ON PEOPLE?

I don’t really have a favourite TV show. My interests are always really extreme, I either enjoy it in the moment and when the moment’s passed, I don’t think about it again, or I love it so much that it consumes my every thought until I dream about it and I want to send every waking moment absorbing content from it. I’ve never had a TV show had an effect on me like the latter.

I think media reflects society, moreso society’s view on things, and it’s a good gauge of where we are and where we’re headed, especially with its reaction to it. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum, as a lot of people like to believe. Certain media reflects certain parts of society, and the media you consume reflects who you are and what’s important to you, whether that’s conscious or subconscious. “It’s just fiction,” is a bullshit argument.

the amityville horror. WHY DO YOU LIKE YOUR FAVOURITE BOOK AS MUCH AS YOU DO?

So, my favourite books are a choice between either Physics of the Future, or Physics of the Impossible, both by Dr. Michio Kaku (whom I love). PotF I love because I’ve always loved speculation on the future, corroborated by fact. This is not a book about possibilities, what could be, rather than what will be, and it’s a book that does a unique thing for me: it can tear me away from this moment in society, which is honestly kind of shit, and it transports me into the future, into 2050, into 2100, where we’re actively using the sun as a power source, or further yet, the solar system. Space travel beyond the inner solar system, maybe even beyond the Kuiper Belt. The discovery of life on other planets, whatever that life may be defined as.

Physics of the Impossible does the opposite that PotF does; PotI shuts down speculation on the future. It takes beloved science-fiction inventions and explains why it just wouldn’t work, or if it could, why it would look different from how we understand it in the media we’ve gotten them from. For all the excitement and wonderment that PotF brings you, PotI grounds you again, it says, “we can do all these things, but then there’s some laws we’re not meant to break with our imagination.” 

And I guess that’s at the core of my personality, this duality: a wonderment and excitement of the future that’s still grounded by reason and logic, and it’s why I loved both books equally, and why I see them as two sides of the same coin.

the conjuring. IF YOU COULD LEARN ANY NEW SKILL, WHAT WOULD YOU LEARN?

Complex mathematics. I’m dyscalculic, so maths is incredibly hard for me, and it took me 25 years to be confident with basic maths like adding and detracting in my head. It’s disheartening, because all my life I’ve been told I’m ‘so smart’, and on paper I’m a certified genius, but I can’t actually do math because of a learning disability and a history of terrible math teachers, and math is supposed to be the language of geniuses, if you can’t do math, you’re not smart, and you can’t be a ‘certified genius’. In high school, they fucked me over on this premise as well, I was failing math because of a shitty teacher and my (undiagnosed) learning disability, and they put me in the lowest level the following year, essentially making all other classes a walk in the park, and taking the challenge out of school. I was bullied for the rest of my time at high school for outperforming my entire class without a single effort taken, and stopped trying in school, to the point where I don’t know how to study for anything now. I didn’t even study for my exams and I graduated with few issues at 15 because of how unchallenging the material was, all because I was bad at math, and you can’t be smart if you can’t do math.

[a1coachingmaster-blog]

New Post has been published on A1 Coaching

New Post has been published on https://www.a1coaching.net/the-classics-a-sport-where-you-eat-the-other-riders-lunch-first/

THE CLASSICS: “A SPORT WHERE YOU EAT THE OTHER RIDER’S LUNCH FIRST”

Cycling has traditionally been a working class sport. From the first races over a century ago, a bicycle became an escape from the mines, the fields and the factories. Young men saw the opportunity to evade a predestined future by racing a bike. With nothing to lose and idolatry, wealth and prestige to gain, they devoted themselves to their new job. Cycling is not only a sport or pastime but also a lucrative profession compared to a bricklayer’s life.

Cyclists, especially those from Northern Europe, are hardened and tough. The environment, the races and the culture change a person. Only the mentally and physically strong survive; the toughest of the Classics riders were raised with a fighter and survivor mentality. The Dutch World Champion Hennie Kuiper said, “It is a sport where you eat the other rider’s lunch first.” Some cyclists will do whatever necessary to survive, to win, or to profit.

Finished Rider. Paris-Roubaix, 2009

Belgian Spectators

At any of the start lines in Belgium or northern France, the duress of the lives lived can be seen on the spectators’ faces. Bundled in layers of grey, navy and forest green clothing to protect themselves from the elements, the crowd is proletarian in appearance – not consumed with vanity but full of hardened humility, they wave their yellow Flandrian flags, chant songs to encourage their favorites, and drink Belgian beer at ten in the morning as if it were late in a night of festivities. Their cheers are rooted in both passion and a sense of profit as the spectators not only encourage their favorites because they are fervent fans, but also because many have bets placed with the local bookies. To them, the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, or the countless other races of prestige during our season are secondary to the cobbled Classics. The races somehow provide a break in the dreary damp spring, a festival to celebrate the bike. The races, which have crisscrossed the rural landscape for over a century, were only interrupted by the two World Wars when the farm fields became battlefields. In Belgium, bike racing has the social status of dog racing elsewhere: The races are bet on, the cyclists are driven until they fail, and the drunken crowds spit beer at their fallen heroes.

During his cycling career, while living and racing in Belgium, the Dane Brian Holm would only read novels relating to the two Great Wars. Although the Danes are known for their tenacity in adverse conditions, even he found the conditions in Belgium challenging. Daily, Holm raced and trained through the fields that the soldiers had fought and died on. The riding was tedious as the wind blew the thrashing rain sideways, the mud and manure dragged onto the roads by the tractors flicked into his face, and the chill in his bones never seemed to leave until the summer sun shone. For years, to strengthen his constitution and bring perspective, he read novel after novel of the terrors the young boys had endured in the trenches in Flanders fields. Somehow, it gave him purpose, motivated him, and made his job easier.

Roadside in Flanders

Racing Through The Mist In Flanders

The environment is hauntingly grim in the winter and spring. The mist lies low below the grey skies and the countryside is damp, brown, and green. Racing through it, there is an eerie sense of the past, or perhaps it is my knowledge of the horrors and what those boys endured that haunts. The races take us through towns and fields familiar from high school textbooks and grandparents’ stories yet neither were able to clearly convey the bleak environment. It wasn’t until I had felt the dampness, the grey skies and slashing rain, and had ridden through these fields that I had any real concept of the terror of the battles. We are only bike racers yet we often struggle to endure the races – perspective makes our weakness seem pathetic.

Pre-race meeting on the Team Sky bus

In the race bag, there is everything that might protect me in adverse conditions. Cyclists are at war with the weather. In the spring we freeze; in the summer we dehydrate. With a tailwind, the attacks never relent as the wind gives everybody in the peloton the false sense that he has the legs of a champion. A headwind saps our energy and we look for cover behind a wheel and a bigger body. With a strong wind, only the brave, strong or naïve attack alone. The weather, like the courses, is never the same – the changing conditions create a dynamic race, which the cyclist either embraces or battles.

In the spring we have cold weather clothing, which we can only hope will keep us warm. Each rider finds combinations of clothing that work well for his body and somehow, we place false confidence in the clothing, thinking it will protect us. It never does. We all freeze in cold rain. We are fortunate when we can make it through the first kilometers of a wet race without feeling the cold water slowly soak through the layers, down the ankles and into the shoes. Frozen fingers disable a cyclist: unable to shift his gears, pull the food out of his pockets, or squeeze his water bottle, dreams of victory are replaced by hopes of simply surviving.

In the cold, the mentally tough, conditioned, and aware race while the others, defeated when they wake in the morning to rain on the window, simply pedal because they must. The riders fight for the victory at the front of the peloton while those behind fight to make it to the finish. Daily, every rider has his goal and battle, and whether it is internal or external, the goal and the struggle evolve through the season. We all seek the moment where suffering can be pushed from our thoughts as it is overwhelmed by the emotion of fluidity on a bike.

Michael Barry racing Paris-Roubiax

In the Classics, and in flatter races, a power to weight ratio is not significant in predicting performance. The bulk of muscle needed to propel a bike forward does not need to be carried uphill. But when mountains and hills loom, the ratio between power and weight becomes a decisive factor. Climbers, like distance runners, become near-anorexics to reach the ideal power to weight ratio of close to 7 watts per kilo while the Classics men race at a heavier weight than they will in the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia. On the cobbles, like in the wind, brute force moves the bicycle quickest.

When a rider is en forme, he can fly through the spring as most cyclists can maintain a peak in fitness for roughly a month. Packed into a week, with good luck, he can perform consistently and achieve his targets.

A rider who knows the tiny rural roads well, who trains on them often, and who has raced on them since his youth has a greater chance of winning a Classic. In over a century of racing, the Belgians and northern Europeans have dominated the results while the Italians have earned sporadic victories by specialists who have focused their careers on the races. In a career spanning sixteen years, Gilbert Duclos-Lassalle, a Frenchman with a passion for Paris-Roubaix, won the race twice near the end of his career. His victories came with experience. Like a master chef who cooks without recipes but with savoir-faire, the rider needs knowledge, instinct, power and panache to win a Classic. Races can be formulaic in structure but the Classics are so intensely contested, and so physically difficult, that a command of the minutiae can mean the difference between being a contender and being a winner.

To win the rider needs to take a chance, yet confidence determines the outcome. A rider who believes the moment he attacks is the right one, believes he has the legs to go all the way to the finish, and believes his team is there to support him will win. The bike floats beneath the confident rider. He looks back only to see the how large the gap that he has opened is and then pushes on towards the finish line. As soon as a rider looks back again and questions his ability to win, the odds are much greater that he will be caught and fail. A look over the shoulder shows his weakness, that his mind is questioning his legs’ ability to push the pedals, and that his focus is taken away from the objective of winning the race while he gives in to the fear of being caught.

The Classics strip cycling to the bone, which is what attracts millions of spectators and invokes such emotion in the crowds. The athlete and the machine are pushed to their limits in a six-hour crusade of suffering, danger, triumph and defeat. There is a photograph of George Hincapie taken after the 2002 Paris-Roubaix that captures the race, the Classics, and true cycling. He is sitting on a filthy concrete shower bench in the velodrome in Roubaix. His body is covered in mud, the sponsors’ logos on his clothing are indecipherable, and his credit card size race radio lies discarded on the floor. His low-slung head is held between his hands: he is completely defeated, shattered mentally and physically by the weather, the race, his adversaries and himself. He told me that the photo is what motivates him to go back to Roubaix each season.

Cycling is pure and primitive as men are seen suffering at their utmost on a simple machine. In the film biography of Eddy Merckx, La Course en Tête, a journalist asks Eddy if he thinks cycling is popular because, quoting scientist and Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod, “people admire courage, calculation and will power, all of which are primitive instincts.” Eddy quietly ponders the question and then nods his head in agreement.

Michael Barry

Since retiring from professional cycling Michael has been building custom made steel bikes in his family business www.mariposa.ca If you’re looking for your dream bike you should check them out!

[siffrin-enthusiast]

seething with late diagnosed disability rage rn

[siffrin-enthusiast]

me: *complains about pain or tiredness* every adult in a 30 mile radius: "but you're only [insert age here]!!! you're young and spry, you should be full of energy! you should try eating healthy and excersising more!!! you think you're tired/in pain, wait till you get to my age lolololol!! this isn't normal, [my age]-year olds are supposed to be full of energy!"

YEAH.

[siffrin-enthusiast]

// intro post

[Image ID: A monochrome GIF of the main characters from the video game In Stars and Time, created by insertdisc5. End ID.]

hello and welcome to my little corner of the internet!!

more information (including about the music) is below the cut but. the tldr is that i'm a happily taken bodily white 19 year old, auDHD disabled transmasc traumagenic DID system currently fixated on in stars and time, ultrakill, and nbc’s hannibal. word salad i know /silly. i go by kuiper and he/they pronouns :)

my asks & dms are always open! feel free to draw me an anon picture (currently unavailable..rip computer) or check out the submissions thread!

while you're here, consider donating to palestine to request a commission from a lovely talented in stars and time artist!! check it out at @isatforpalestine!

can't choose a campaign to donate to? gazafunds.com can choose a vetted campaign for you!!

if you're trying to get the playlist to work, you need to go to your site settings, allow audio, refresh the page, and then play it. It will update itself as you navigate through the entire blog so there aren't any pauses/cutoffs! the good news is once you figure out how to do it, it'll work until you clear all of your site cookies!

interests

there's..a lot!! i'm currently VERY fixated on nbc's hannibal, but there's also in stars and time, web design, room of swords, coding, rain world, deltarune, slay the princess, pokemon, just roll with it, hollow knight, psychology (my college major!), fnaf, inscryption, generation loss, hades, celeste, ultrakill, warrior cats, oneshot, hunger games, moon knight (show + comics), night in the woods, john constantine and a good thirty more that i'm forgetting.

if you want to talk about any of these please feel free to send an ask/dm!!

tagging system

i do my best to keep it simple because i'm too lazy to do a cool one for convenience! interests are tagged with the name of said interest (#in stars and time), and if they're somewhat newly-out, they get a "spoilers" thrown on the end of it (#in stars and time spoilers). if there's something i post about that you don't want to see, i highly encourage you to block its tag! i won't know or be offended! :)

i’ll tag anything that i think is a common thing to be tagged like death/blood, and i do it in the format of #tw death. if this isn’t the right format or anyone wants me to tag other things that i didn’t think of, just let me know! i do NOT post or reblog 18+ content at all (personal reasons).

there's also a few special tags of my own! asks are tagged with #kuiper important posts for the important stuff (like this intro post), #kuiper favorite posts for my favorites/things i return to frequently, #kuiper asks, posts where i ramble about whatever is #kuiper rambling, posts about my dissociation/system are tagged #kuiper system posting though i don’t post about it much, things about my disabilities are occasionally tagged with #kuiper disability moment! i also write fic and while i tag them with #kuiper fics, i post most of them over at my fic sideblog! (..well i DID before i burnt out.)

if there's ever anything that you need tagged, please let me know!!

requests

i'm getting pretty into making stuff so..if anyone ever wants me to try my hand at something, please feel free to ask! this is pretty informal until i set more things up! edits, pfps, icons, stimboards, userboxes, ask games, fic/drabbles, coding, i'm willing to give it an honest shot!! feel free to ask!

any and all requests will be tagged with #kuiper requests!

contact

the best way to contact me here is my dms/asks because my notifications are a. little overrun!!

don't like tumblr? don't worry! i have too many other sites! ranked from most to least used:

neocities

cohost

spacehey

dni

i use the block button liberally, as should you! it's freeing!

basic DNI criteria. you know the drill. bigots will just be blocked

people who don't believe in freeing palestine/zionists

entirely nsfw or untagged nsfw accounts.

entirely ed/sh or untagged ed/sh accounts. i understand if you're struggling with it, but if it is your entire blog, no.

syscourse. post whatever you want on your blog, just don't bring it to mine (asking my opinion, tagging me in things).

blank blogs. i will think you're a bot.

people who are still giving j.k. rowling money. shoo!!!

radfems, terfs, radqueers, transableds, proshippers, stuff like that.

anyone not on that list is more than welcome here!!

credits

theme and the lil cat popup by glenthemes

music player, playlist

the lovely dividers

in stars and time & gif by insertdisc5

siffrin looping gif