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purpletaecup · 4 years ago

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10 ☾ he said that’s how he still remembers me

warnings: explicit language (cursing), mentions of miscarriage, mentions of infidelity (not rlly but on thin ice)

notes: you guys... this is a long one and it’s kind of fast paced, but we are finally getting some answers and the drama really begins! next chapter will be emotional, that’s all I know. I’m sorry for putting you through all this angst!! also, I wanted to bring some attention to the crisis in the Philippines right now with all of the dangerous typhoons. A lot of people need donations and rescuing, so HERE is a link to a twitter thread of donation drives! Please make sure to check it out, share and help spread awareness!

as always, come talk to me in my ask box! and if you want to be added to the taglist, please send an ask, or reply to this post or the masterlist!

not edited!! sorry if there are any mistakes lmfao i usually am sleep deprived when i write so yeah, there are probably some errors.

word count: 5,614

☾

The days following Jungkook’s visit were dull, if anything. You’ve received texts from Yoongi saying that he couldn’t come visit until that weekend because he had to finish wrapping things up in advance at the company so that he could spend some time with you. You had argued over the phone like teenagers when you insisted that he didn’t need to do that and you could take care of yourself until Jin came back. Of course, that led to him ranting about what the doctor said about monitoring you and your symptoms for concussion and to get him to just shut up about the medical stuff (it made your brain hurt more than it did usually), you reluctantly agreed to his ‘visits’, as you’d rather call them.

[nov. 20, 2020]

It was Friday now and you still haven’t gotten any glimpse of actual memories back, although you have been having these strange dreams that you couldn’t really remember when you woke up. You could only describe the feeling it gave you as ‘sinking’, like you were drowning and you couldn’t escape. As much as possible, you tried not to think about these feelings, and focused more on trying to get to know the version of you who lived in this amazing apartment.

The past couple of days that you spent at this apartment put you in awe. It really was the apartment of your dreams, from the color of the furniture down to the little plants stuck in the corner of that tiny shelf in the kitchen. It was beautiful and so you. The only problem was that you couldn’t find anything to help with your current situation. You scoured every nook and cranny and couldn’t find anything dated after your wedding reception. No pictures, no post-its, notes or anything past that date. What you had found in your apartment, you already knew of (aside from the wedding photos). Past photoshoots, high school photos, a notebook full of movie ticket stubs. There was absolutely nothing in this apartment that gave you a clue to the life you lived during the four year gap in your memory.

You even tried to get into your twitter and instagram from when you were nineteen but you couldn’t log in. Wrong password every single time. When you tried to change your password for social media, the email you used had a different password too. You couldn’t figure out what you could have changed your password to. Every password combination you could think of, you tried, but none worked, so you decided to just skip that and maybe go over it later on. Or make a new one. That could work, too.

You couldn’t even look at your twitter account because for some reason, it was private and that seemed strange for someone with almost 130,000 followers. You could see your instagram account from your browser, but it wouldn’t let you see the pictures and posts in full size with the captions and comments, so you were really stuck.

A quick internet search of your name yielded things you already knew. Former model, current writer (that fact was still surprising to you). Old news articles of dating scandals that weren’t true, except for the one with Yoongi. More news articles about your divorce with no further information than what Yoongi had told you already.

It’s as if any clue about your life during your memory loss is unaccounted for. It seemed like at this point, you could only rely on other people telling you about your life and pray to whatever higher power there was to give you your memories back.

This futile search was beginning to make your stomach churn. You almost couldn’t suppress the bile rising up in your throat. Hopefully Jin would return soon. Maybe he could put all of the pieces back together for you.

☾

Jungkook sat in on the uncomfortable leather couch in Yoongi’s office as he waited for the man to finish up whatever he was typing. He looked through his instagram feed and saw one of your posts from July. For a while, he was confused as to why this picture from July would end up on his feed, but he remembered the new instagram algorithm. Curious, he clicked on your profile and looked through it slowly. He couldn’t remember the last time he actually paid attention to your posts.

“I forgot to ask but what did you and Yn do at her apartment? She said you stayed over for a couple of hours.” Yoongi asked though his eyes never strayed from his paperwork.

Jungkook looked up at him and pondered on what to say.

“Hm, yeah. I got roped into staying. She asked a bunch of questions and we looked through her apartment and her photo albums. Her apartment’s cute, by the way. Way different from what your house looked like.” He comments.

“Really?”

“Yeah. It was bright. Lots of green. Nothing I’ve ever seen in the house you guys shared.”

“How was she when you picked her up? She told me a couple of things but I haven’t seen her yet so I can’t know if what she’s telling is the truth or not.”

It was quiet for a moment, with only the sound of turning pages filling the room, as Jungkook wondered what to say to this. He didn’t really know when to start with you, especially with how different you were acting.

“Well, she’s fine. The personality is definitely different. She seems a lot more outgoing, and she had a lot of questions but she didn’t push. I think she wants to try and figure things out on her own.” Jungkook replies as he continued to slowly look through your previous instagram posts.

“She’s been like that. She hates being a burden and gets really defensive about it sometimes.” Yoongi comments.

Jungkook pauses at your most recent post. He checks the date. September 22.

“When did you guys divorce again?” He asked.

At this, Yoongi looked up.

“The divorce was finalized on September 29, I think.” He answered, but looked questioningly at Jungkook as if to ask why.

“Did you know she was going to therapy?” Jungkook asked again.

Hearing this, Yoongi stood up abruptly and hurried over to where Jungkook was sitting.

“What? Where did you see that?” Yoongi asked as he looked over Jungkook’s shoulder.

Jungkook showed him the post. Yoongi took the phone from him and examined the post carefully.

It was a picture of clouds with text on it. Is this the life we really want? The caption read “as per the advice of my therapist, i’m just here to pop in and say that I’ll be going on a hiatus for a little bit”.

“What the fuck? I didn’t know this!” Yoongi yelled, evidently angry.

Jungkook looked at him confused. They were together for four years, how could he not know that you were at least going to therapy?

The same question was running through Yoongi’s head. He took a seat next to Jungkook to process this new information.

“Hyung, can I ask you a couple of questions?” Jungkook requested.

Yoongi could only nod.

“What was Yn like when you were together? Why did you marry her?” Those were the first questions that came out of Jungkook’s mouth.

He was truly, genuinely curious. Though he’s heard some things that Yoongi had said about you, he never knew the full story.

“We married each other because we loved each other. Wasn’t that obvious?” Yoongi retorted.

Jungkook pursed his lips at this. “Well that's what you tell everybody and yeah we get it, but considering the fact that I’ve barely seen you two together more than two handful of times in the past two years, I had to ask.”

“That’s because we were both busy, but that didn’t mean we didn’t spend time together. Of course you never saw it because you weren’t there and I’m not one to actively talk about my love life. Yn and I both liked our privacy.”

“Okay, then what was she like when you were together?”

Yoongi was quiet for a while. There were a lot of things he could say about you when you were together. He just didn’t know how to articulate it to Jungkook.

“When we were together… she was charismatic, beautiful and intelligent. Something about the way she communicated made you feel like you could forget about all of your worries and live life to its extent with her. She constantly dragged me out to picnics and made me forget about the business and my career. She made me feel young again. And she had so much love and care for people around her. For a long time, I felt like I would never be deserving of her. She was kind of like a sunflower. Or sunshine, you know what I mean?” Yoongi poured out.

Jungkook nodded. He realized that this was the time to try to figure out what happened to you in your marriage. From his conversation with you at your apartment, to the description of you that Yoongi had just given, he surmised that the version of you that he knew was someone different and he could only wonder if Yoongi saw it too.

“Did you ever feel like she changed? In the time you guys were together?” He probed.

Yoongi thought about it for a while.

“Yeah, I think so. I always found it strange that she decided to quit modelling. When I met her, she said it was all she ever wanted. I never asked because it seemed like a sensitive topic to her, but I supported her regardless. Writing seemed so out of nowhere for her. I don’t know where it came from. Then she stopped wanting to go to business dinners and events with me and after that we just drifted. And in between that, you introduced me to Yura.”

When Yoongi mentioned Yura, Jungkook winced. He had thought about it some nights ago, but he realized that he might have had a hand in your divorce by introducing Yura to Yoongi. Though he knows Yoongi would have never physically cheated on you, he could see how Yoongi and Yura gravitated towards each other. Jungkook had to admit that Yura was a sweet girl. She was beautiful, and when she smiled it was like sunshine.

Yoongi interrupted his train of thought. “Yura is kind of a complicated subject to our marriage. I would never, ever cheat on someone I loved. And I loved Yn, so much. When you introduced Yura to me, I was happy to meet a new friend and that’s all I saw, but the more you made me hang out with you guys, the more I started to see something in her that I stopped seeing in Yn. I never meant to have any sort of romantic feelings for Yura, but it happened and I feel so fucking shitty for doing that to Yn when I’m the one who promised her a lifetime together.”

Jungkook straightened his posture as Yoongi’s confession.

“Wait, what do you mean by that?” He asked.

“By what?” Yoongi looked at him confused.

“What happened to Yn that pushed you to Yura?”

At this, Yoongi scratched his head.

“I wouldn’t say that it pushed me to Yura, but remember when I said Yn and I started getting distant? As time went on, I felt like she changed and I didn’t know who she was. She used to be so bubbly and happy and always wanting to go look at flowers, but towards the end of our marriage, she stayed holed up in our room no matter how much I asked her to spend time with me. Yura, she was happy to spend time with me. She made me feel like I could forget about everything just by talking to me.”

“Yura made you feel like how Yn used to make you feel?” Jungkook cut him off.

“Well… I guess so.”

Jungkook thought about this for a while but narrowed his eyes at his hyung.

“Hyung, answer this truthfully; do you love Yura?”

The tips of Yoongi’s ears turned red after hearing this.

“Love? I don’t know. I like her? I like the way she makes me feel. She’s beautiful and smart and she makes me happy.”

“Hyung, I don’t know if you realize this, but the way you described Yura is exactly the same way you described Yn.”

“What do you mean?”

“It sounds like you started liking Yura because she reminded you of Yn when you met her. So, do you really, truly like Yura? Or do you just like her because she reminds you of what you don’t have anymore?”

Yoongi lowered his head.

“I-I don’t know. I never thought of it like that.”

Jungkook put his hand on Yoongi’s back to comfort him. Obviously, the man was confused.

“I don’t know if this helps, but I just wanted to let you know that whenever I saw Yn, during those dinners or events, she never gave off the vibe that you described her to be. To me, she was quiet, reserved and never bothered trying to get to know us, your friends, or your business. That’s what she came off as. When you told us that you loved each other and that you eloped, I thought you were joking. When I saw her, she just seemed like the typical trophy wife. Just for show. I never liked her and wondered what you saw in her all the fucking time, but now after hearing this, and after being with her for a couple of hours, it’s obvious that something happened that fucked her up and then fucked your marriage up.” Jungkook ranted.

“I think you might need to reevaluate the relationship you had with Yn so we could help her recover from this whole amnesia thing and hopefully figure out what happened. Something definitely happened, but since I don’t know your marriage like you do, I don't know what it is. I feel guilty now after realizing that I might have had a hand in whatever the fuck she was going through. And maybe figure out what you’re going to do about Yura. Can you keep dating her when your feelings for her are based off of your feelings for your ex-wife, who is currently pregnant with your wife and doesn’t know about it?” He continued.

Yoongi took a deep breath, taking all of this conversation in.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m almost done with the shit here at the company. When I go home, I’ll sort everything out and talk to Yn and Yura tomorrow. I don’t think I can keep seeing Yura with the current situation. I have to tell Yn about the pregnancy as soon as possible, but I’m scared because the doctor told me to monitor for residual symptoms for her concussion. I don’t even know where to begin with the situation.”

“It’s okay, hyung. I’m here for you. You have to tell her about the pregnancy before she finds out herself. In the meantime, I’ll help you out when you can’t take care of her. I already feel shitty enough for how I acted with her when you two were married. I feel like I had the wrong impression this whole time.” Jungkook offered.

Yoongi remembered the moment earlier when Jungkook confessed that he never liked you and that baffled him because he thought that you two, of all people, would get along well together. More often than not, he would feel jealous of Jungkook, who had your admiration when you first started dating. He remembered you always asking him to introduce you to Jungkook and it took a year for him to budge and actually make it happen.

“I’m sure you’ll get along now. I always thought you did get along. Did you know she liked you before?” Yoongi asked.

Jungkook shook his head. “I didn’t know until the other day when you had me take her home. It probably would have helped if you told me she knew who I was before you introduced us after you got together. She never acted like she was a fan of my music and admittedly, I was a dick to her.”

Yoongi glared at him. It was a first for him to hear about how Jungkook treated his ex-wife.

“Well, you should feel shitty because she really liked you and your music. For a while, I thought she liked you more than me. If I had known you were an asshole to her, I probably would have ripped you a new one. Hearing you admit you treated her like shit makes me feel like shit because I never knew and just assumed you guys were good with each other. You didn’t do or say anything bad to her, right? You’re not that type of person.”

Jungkook could only pretend to smile at Yoongi as he asked this.

He shook his head and lied. “No, never.”

Lying through his teeth to his best friend about how he treated you made his heart fall to his stomach. Well, Yoongi didn’t have to know because it was in the past. You couldn’t remember any of the mean things he’d said to you, so now was the perfect time to make a new, much better impression of himself to you. He decided days ago that he would be better, because deep down, he knew that you didn’t deserve to be treated like how he treated you.

[nov. 21, 2020]

Yoongi had taken the day off after his somewhat enlightening conversation with Jungkook last night. He decided that he needed to go see you and spend some time with you today, but before that, he needed to settle things with Yura.

They decided to meet up at his apartment for maximum privacy, just in case anything happened. He wanted to account for the worst case scenario of Yura probably getting angry and throwing things around, but he doesn’t think she’s the type of person to do dramatic things like that.

Turns out, she’s not. When he reluctantly tells her that he can’t continue on with what they had because of residual feelings for you, in addition to the fact that there were complications in that relationship that he can’t speak about carelessly, she had reacted calmly and amicably. Though Yoongi hadn’t expected her to throw a tantrum, he was expecting some kind of anger, but all he got was a sad look passing on her face followed by comforting words.

He apologized profusely for having dragged her around when he still had apparent feelings for his ex-wife and not figuring out his feelings for her, or lack thereof, sooner. She reassured him that it was okay and she’ll be fine.

“I’ll be fine Yoongi. I liked you, but it’s pretty obvious that you used me as some kind of rebound or replacement for your ex-wife, and I was okay with it. Truthfully, I was waiting for you to just come clean and break it off with me. I hope you and Yn figure things out this time, and I hope you can talk to her. Communication is important.” She reminds him before she leaves, but not before letting him know that she would always be there for him as a friend.

He had texted her after she left, and after a couple of minutes to himself, that he was thankful for her being so nice about the situation and all in all, he didn’t regret whatever short-lived affection they had for each other.

Yoongi still couldn’t believe how smoothly everything with Yura went. He hoped that the rest of the day would be the same.

☾

You woke up to a message from Jungkook asking if you were free, so you had to tidy up the apartment and yourself because you didn’t want to look messy in front of someone you had idolized for a long time.

Luckily enough, you didn’t have to cook since Jungkook offered to bring food. You thank your lucky stars for that because for some reason, you’ve been feeling incredibly sluggish and nauseous. It was probably some symptoms of the concussion you suffered. You remembered your doctor saying something about that the last time you were at the hospital.

About 20 minutes later, you heard your doorbell ring so practically skip to the door, excited to see Jungkook and steal the food that he brought.

You opened the door to see Jungkook standing there with a big back of food in his hands. He was wearing all black, with a leather jacket that looked a tad too big on him.

“You look warm.” You comment.

He rolled his eyes. “Are you gonna invite me in or not? I even brought you food.”

You laugh a little and move to the side to give him room to step inside the apartment.

“So, what have you been doing?” He asks as he makes his way to your dining room to put the food down.

You make your way to the kitchen to get some plates for the both of you.

“Nothing. I’ve been trying to look for some stuff but I don’t know where to start so I just gave up until you or Yoongi could come help.” You reply as you move to the dining room to set the plates down.

Jungkook takes the food out and puts some on the plates. Kimbap, like you asked, and some seaweed soup.

“How have you been feeling? Okay?” He questioned.

You nodded, though hesitantly.

“Eh, I’ve been feeling kind of tired. I think I might be sick because I keep wanting to vomit. Is that my wintermelon tea, by the way?” You pointed to the drink in his hand.

Jungkook poked the straw through the lid and handed it to you.

“Sick? Did you take any medicine? Are you feeling better now?”

You took a sip of your tea and sighed, missing the sweet taste of the drink. It felt nostalgic.

“Mhm, took some earlier and I'm feeling much better thanks to the food you brought!” You smiled.

Jungkook rolled his eyes jokingly once again. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

He didn’t think about your illness any further. It was probably a cold and nothing else.

For about 20 minutes, the two of you ate and spoke about little things, mostly about Jungkook and his career. It helped you get to know him a little bit better since he’s the only person besides Yoongi who could help you in your situation until Jin comes back.

After you finished eating, you told him that you needed his help going through your room in case there was anything that could jog your memory.

“I would ask Yoongi but he’s been busy lately.”

“So I’m just your last resort?”

“You’re literally the only other person in my contact list besides Yoongi and Jin.”

“Right, anyways, lead the way!” He exclaimed.

You laughed as you led him to the room at the end of the hallway.

“Sorry if it’s a little messy, I didn’t have that much time to clean up before you got here!” You explained.

Jungkook shook his head, telling you it didn’t really matter since it was gonna be a mess anyways while you two went through your things.

☾

When Jungkook walked into your room, he was once again hit with the feeling that he had no fucking clue who you were in the past years he’d known you. If he could describe your room in one word, it would be enchanting. White walls, white sheets adorn with a baby blue blanket, wooden floors, giant plants and a mirror much bigger than himself. Your desk was filled with different kinds of pens, different notebooks that look to have been trifled through, and an unnatural amount of books and crystals.

From the looks of the rest of your house, he probably shouldn’t be surprised at your bedroom, but it’s still a bit difficult for him to wrap his mind around the fact that you were this type of person. Bright, intelligent, and incredibly neat.

He walked up to your desk and picked up the different notebooks laid out messily on the table. When he opened each of them, he noticed that they were mostly blank, with the exception of a few doodles. There were some things he’d recognized as lyrics from songs he knew, but nothing truly relevant to the memories you lost.

You stood next to Jungkook and looked at the notebooks in his hands.

“I went through those already. Nothing but a few sad lyrics here and there. None of them triggered any memories.” You mentioned.

Jungkook put them down and started walking around the room with you as you talked about what you did find during the days that you were left alone. What he got from that conversation was that you had no luck with anything and that’s why you waited until either he or Yoongi could come over and help you. Jungkook knew that Yoongi was coming over later, so if he couldn’t help you find anything or answer any of your questions today, then maybe Yoongi could.

“Oh! I forgot to mention that I can’t even access any of my social media, so do you think I can look through my instagram through your phone? I mean, if that’s okay with you. I know some people feel uncomfortable giving their phone to someone else to play around with.” You asked.

Jungkook shook his head and stuck his hand in his pant pocket, reaching for his phone.

“It’s fine, you can look at your profile, I think I follow you. The password is 061313.” He stated as he handed his phone over to you.

You grabbed it excitedly, finally getting the chance to see what your life was like during the four years that were missing from your memory. You fell back onto your bed as you unlocked Jungkook’s phone and clicked on his instagram app quickly.

You took a look at his profile first, staring in awe at the pictures he’s posted. Most of his pictures are very dark and he had quite a few selfies. You smiled a little bit as you admitted in your head that he was indeed handsome.

Okay, Yn, onto the more important things! You thought to yourself as you quickly searched your username ‘faeyn’ on the search bar. At first you were excited, but it deflated when you saw just how many posts you had. 13 posts. And almost all of them were just landscapes. Some had pictures of you by yourself, or with Jin, but that was it. How the fuck were you supposed to try to figure out your life through 13 pictures?

Scrolling through each picture and their captions from the oldest to newest, you quickly realized that you must have decided that privacy was something that should be valued. There was nothing of substance to your situation in the captions you’d written. Just casual mentions of how your day was, or what you did that day. The only thing that caught your eye was the latest post you had, dated September 22. It was a picture of clouds and the caption said something about your therapist advising you to take a break, so you were going to be on a social media cleanse for a while.

Well, at least you learned one thing. Apparently, you started going to therapy again. For what? You don’t know. You only remembered going to therapy a couple of times after the whole incident with your bastard ex-boyfriend.

You filed this little detail into your brain and hoped that maybe it would make more sense later on. Swiping up on Jungkook’s phone took you to his home screen, but you paused for a little. Maybe you could snoop through some more apps and see if there was anything else you can find.

No, that would be an invasion of Jungkook’s privacy, you thought. Another part of you argued that he wasn’t going to know and he’s here to help you. If there was anything worth hiding, he wouldn’t have given you his phone and his password so easily. And if there was anything, it wouldn’t be incriminating since he mentioned that you two didn’t really know each other that well, so you shrugged and clicked on his messages.

I’ll just see if there are any messages to me. I won’t look at anything else, you justified, as if it made it any better.

After scrolling for a little while, you finally saw something worthwhile. A text convo between you and Jungkook and from the preview of the message, it looks like it was from the middle of September. You opened it, excited to see the contents, but what you saw made you furrow your brows.

What is this?

☾

After Jungkook gave you his phone, he continued walking around your room until he got to the side of your bed that was next to the window. He looked around for a bit and saw something in the corner of his eyes. Crouching down lower, he saw something on the floor behind your headboard. He couldn’t tell what it was at first, but as soon as he moved closer, he realized it was a thick notebook. Jungkook surmises that you probably hadn’t seen it despite telling him that you looked ‘everywhere’. He took the notebook and sat down on the floor, completely hiding his figure, but not before he could look at you. He wanted to see what was in the notebook before he showed it to you, and luckily enough, you had been facing away from him.

So he sat down and opened the notebook. From just the first page, he could tell it was some kind of diary or journal. There were lots of drawings and stickers and a picture of you in a field of flowers right in the middle of the first page. He flipped through the whole notebook really quickly and found that half of it was already filled.

A part of him wanted to read through the whole thing and see what kind of things you wrote, but another part told him that it wasn’t appropriate. Despite that, he convinced himself that he should read maybe just one entry, just to see if this notebook was something substantial to your current situation.

Jungkook took a peek at you again and noticed you still had your back turned to him so he took that as a sign that he could probably get away with reading an entry. He flipped to a page randomly and focused his eyes on the writing.

The entry was dated August 4, 2020. Fairly recent. He noticed that there were some dark blotches on the paper that made the ink bleed.

He began to read the entry, not knowing what he was going to find out.

It still seems weird to be writing about my problems in a journal. I’m still not used to it, but it’s been helpful since I don’t really have anyone to talk to about this.

That made him frown.

I went to my OBGYN today because I’ve been having severe cramps and bleeding, but I already had my period so I was worried. And the cramps were starting to really hurt, so I had to go get it checked out just in case. Well, apparently I was pregnant and lost the baby.

Jungkook’s eyes widened and he gasped audibly. Luckily enough, it wasn’t loud enough for you to notice. He clasped his hand over his mouth at the disbelief in reading this information. A miscarriage? And so recent, too. He didn’t know how to feel. Yoongi had never said anything about this.

Jin actually just left my house a couple of hours ago. I don’t think the news hit me until now. I texted Yoongi earlier to tell him but he was busy so I think that was a sign that I should probably not tell him. It’s not like it matters right? Since the baby was gone anyways.

I know my therapist told me to stop with the negative self-talk, but it’s moments like this that really push me to just keep thinking I’ll never be good enough for the men that I love. Thanks to my bastard ex for fucking my mind up like this. No matter how hard I try, I always just circle back to the fact that I wasn’t good enough for him, and that I’m not good enough for Yoongi. Even fate is telling me that I’m not good enough to carry a child with the man I love. How fucked up is that?

Jungkook’s heart dropped to his stomach. He felt sick. There were so many things going through his head right now. He felt like he was violating something that was so private. Yoongi didn’t even know that you went through this. You didn’t even know you went through this. He shut the journal quickly, wiping the tears that formed in his eyes.

At that exact moment, he heard your heavy breathing and quickly got up to check on you. He walked around to your side of the bed and found you trembling with his phone in your hands. He noticed that his messages were open and he began to panic.

“What the fuck is this?” was the last thing he heard you say before your eyes rolled to the back of your head and you fell limp into your bed.

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phoenixtakaramono · 3 years ago

Text

Regarding the Future Chapter Updates of ‘Green and Gold’ (Harry Potter / Sesshomaru) on AO3

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1821292

BRIEF CONTEXT

This was actually my reply to a comment in ch15; a reader was asking if I considered Green and Gold to be complete—since it’s been awhile since the story has been updated—or if I’m planning on continuing (and, if so, what is my plan for its update schedule). After thinking about it, I figured for easy convenience just in case I receive a similar question in the foreseeable future, I might as well write my reply with the intention of posting it on my social medias (here and on twitter). This way I can link them my tumblr post/ my twitter tweet regarding its status!

THE FULL AO3 REPLY:

🤔 I believe in full transparency between a writer and their readers. And if it’s like TUT where other readers do read my replies to Comments, then this is beneficial for others to see too. (=^▽^)σ Like an official writer’s statement!

There is a very long and detailed answer below so the TL;DR is: G&G is not abandoned but there is no schedule of updates for any of my stories. I never know when an update is coming; I usually let my followers know on my social medias the week of when an update is coming out (at this point the chapter is ~90% written, or it’s in its last draft phase and I’m just going through the last revisions). WIP progress bars also exist on my tumblr, and whatever the current trend of reblogged content is on there is usually an indication of whichever WIP I’m working on. As a multifandom writer who is aware that she is slower than other writers (with four WIPs all in different fandoms and all with different writing styles) and wants to preserve the magic of each story by preventing accidental bleedovers, I always advise readers to put a story of mine on Subscribe, so you’ll be notified whenever an update comes out in the future (ETA is always TBA: to be announced).

Detailed answer:

Note, what I’m planning is subject to change so take this with a grain of salt just in case: on tumblr and twitter I made a recent announcement that I’m thinking of finishing ‘The Untold Tale’ first (~20ish chapters) before refocusing on ‘Green and Gold’ (~40ish to ~60ish chapters). This is why I updated the summary of G&G to say “on temporary hiatus.” I also mentioned that if I’m “feeling it,” I may update G&G in between updates of TUT if I’m in a G&G mood.

Mainly this decision came after pondering over which method can best guarantee I can finish a WIP instead of all four WIPs being in a perpetual state of incompleteness. And this is the decision^ I’m tentatively going with for now. Since G&G is longer and there already exists 16 chapters on AO3, I decided it’s better to put this story on temporary hold so I can hopefully finish another story of mine which is tonally similar (it actually borrows an idea from G&G, but it’s a twist that’s meant to be revealed in G&G Arc 2 spoiler alert: it’s my interpretation/ twist on MOD!Harry; I’m making him celestial; it’s the reason why in this story I decided to make Arc 2’s villain “Princess Kaguya” and begun foreshadowing her very early on in Arc 1) but TUT is also planned to be much shorter than the estimated chapter count for G&G.

Unfortunately I have no idea yet of the update schedule for G&G besides what I’ve written here. As only one writer, there’s only so much free time I have after work, and I can only focus on one story at a time. (As much as I would like to work on four stories simultaneously, it’s impossible! QAQ) There’s also a process I usually go through where I have to intentionally erase my memory of whatever I had been working on previously and re-immerse myself in whatever story I’m looking to update (which means rereading my WIP, rereading/ rewatching canon source materials, checking my notes, etc) so I can recapture the characters’ voices and hopefully prevent unintentional bleedovers from my other WIPs. Imagine a computer with memory storage that is full. I have to delete it to make space for new files. Rinse and repeat. And this is essentially my writing process.

For G&G, Arc 1 (the first half of this story) has been fully planned out (set mostly in modern wizarding Britain). It just requires me to transcribe my notes into legible paragraph forms. For Arc 2, I’ll still need to fix somethings (set in feudal Japan) such as rearranging some scenes and editing down some planned ideas so it’s hopefully not as long as ~60ish chapters because I’m hoping to lessen the burden on myself and actually finish G&G. I want G&G to be a satisfying read where, once you read the end, you can come away from the epic with the feeling of “the story of Harry and Sesshomaru is complete; I’m glad I gave this crossover crackship a try; it’s well worth the time spent.”

Next chapter is essentially...ah, I have it ready in notes form. I just need to wring out enough motivation to write it in a particular writing mindset because it’s a rather depressing subject ^^; it’s Sesshomaru being given permission to use a Pensieve to see Harry’s memories (glimpses of events from Book 1-7, but in Sesshomaru’s POV of canon HP events). I shared a huge sneak peek of it to a reader in TUT ch4 comments if you’d like to check it out~. I feel kinda bad because while I’m excited to triumphantly return after a long period of hiatus with a update for G&G (I will definitely make a note to celebrate it in my Beginning Notes, hah), it’s a depressing chapter (for me at least to write). So I need to be in a particular mindset so I can hopefully convey the right emotions when you all are able to read it!

The best recommendation I would like to give my G&G readers is: please be patient! It’s not dropped/ discontinued! And be sure to Subscribe to G&G so when it’s updated, y’all will be notified in your Inbox. (I’ll also tweet and post on tumblr giving the heads-up of whichever story I’m working on, and let everyone know the week of when a story is about to be updated. I also tell my readers, if you want an indication of which story I’m probably focusing on, to either check my tweets or check the content that I reblog on tumblr. If it’s from a particular fandom, I’m probably working on updating a fic from that particular fandom.)

You guys have waited these many years; what is a little bit more? :) You all are the best and have amazing patience with this slow writer, and I’m so impressed by all of you. Definitely I promise I will return one day to the world of ‘Green and Gold.’ Sesshomaru’s and Harry’s story is not over yet. I have so many exiting things in store for all of you, it is well worth the wait!

(If you wish to read the full conversation in its entirety, you can read the parent thread here.)

TWITTER STATEMENT

Tysm everyone who gave my rarepair crossover (Harry Potter/ Sesshomaru) fic a try! I’m beyond grateful for everyone’s love and support on AO3, all the comments & all the fanart, for such a crackship concept

Regarding its temporary hiatus status, a more detailed explanation ⬇️

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1821292

🌙⚡ Harry Potter, InuYasha

🌙⚡ Harry Potter/Sesshomaru, canon-compliant side couples

🌙⚡ modern wizarding Great Britain, feudal Japan (mostly post-epilogue canon compliant)

🌙⚡ ch 16/ ?

(You can read the tweet here.)

#harry potter #sesshomaru #inuyasha #crossover #harry potter crossover #phoenixtakaramono #phoenix talks #ask #technically this is not an ask #but I’m putting it there for future tag search convenience #this is not a call out post btw it’s just so I can share my reply with my readers who have been waiting for G&G #to clear up any confusion this story is not abandoned/ discontinued/ dropped #I will return to G&G eventually #I promise the wait will be worth it

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adiwriting · 4 years ago

Text

Sunday Mornings 7/?

Notes: Hope you guys are still enjoying this thing 7 weeks in! If there’s every any domestic Sunday morning bliss you want to see, hit me up! We’ve got plenty of time left in hiatus for requests.

Week 7:

Michael wakes up to the sound of his phone going off and he reaches out quickly to silence it before it wakes Alex up, too. Unfortunately, in his rush to silence his phone, it also ends the incoming call. He pulls the phone to his face to see what on Earth had somebody calling him so early in the morning that even Alex isn’t awake yet.

The missed call is from Liz and that’s when Michael notices that he has 4 text messages from her.

Liz (4:05am): Are you awake? I need you to come get me.

Liz (4:10am): I get that you’re sleeping, but my towing options are slim and all involve me calling either a misogynistic pig or a racist one.

Liz (4:20am): I’m gonna get murdered out here.

Liz (4:25am): Please don’t make me call Max for help, I’m not ready to see him yet.

Michael immediately calls Liz back and she picks up on the first ring.

“I thought you were in California,” he whispers, trying not to wake Alex. As carefully as he can, he crawls out of bed and grabs the first pair of pants that he can find and throws them on.

“I was, I’m back,” she answers. “Or… almost back. My car broke down just outside of San Patricio.”

“Damn.”

He instantly knows what she means now about being scared to call anyone else. The guy that runs San Patricio’s sole shop is such a notorious racist that even those who grew up in Roswell know not to ever call him. And the only other shop in Roswell besides Michael’s is run by a family of sexist pigs who are currently in the middle of a harassment lawsuit.

“See, I’m going to end up in some creepy House of Wax museum if you don’t come,” she whines and he chuckles softly.

“You are not, I’m coming to get you,” he says.

He grabs a shirt from the dresser and steps out into the hall.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Ping me your location,” he says, moving to grab a pair of sneakers from the entryway. “It’ll take me a bit. I’ve gotta drive out to get a tow truck before I can come to you. Are you okay? Do you want me to stay on the line?”

Michael hears her sigh of relief and knows in his heart that this is the right thing to do, even if the idea of leaving Alex naked in bed on a Sunday is the last thing he truly wants to do.

“You don’t need to,” she tries to say, but Michael doesn’t buy it. She sounds nervous, even though she’s the toughest, most self-sufficient woman he’s ever met.

“Give me a minute, I’m just going to tell Alex where I’m going,” he says.

He doesn’t bother hanging up the phone, but pulls it away from his ear. When he turns back to the hallway, Alex is already standing in it, leaning against the wall. He’s got his crutch in one hand and is rubbing his eyes with the other. He’s in nothing but a pair of boxers, looking adorably confused and groggy.

“Where are you going?” Alex complains, reaching out his hand to try and get Michael to come back to bed. It’s tempting, and Michael wants to, but he can’t.

“Liz needs my help,” he explains, gesturing towards the phone in his hand.

Alex blinks a few times and his body tenses as he becomes more alert.

“I thought she was still in California.”

“She’s back. And I’ve gotta go get her. She’s on the side of the road, I can’t just leave her there.”

“Did she say what was wrong?” Alex asks. “Why is she back? Did something happen? What about her research?”

“It’s too early for so many questions,” he complains.

“Sorry. What’s wrong?” he asks.

Michael just shrugs. “She just said that her car broke down.”

Alex nods and moves into the living room to grab a pair of sweatpants and t-shirt that had been left on the floor last night in their haste to undress each other.

“What are you doing?” Michael asks, confused as he watches Alex sit down on the couch and start to dress himself.

“Going with you,” he says, looking at Michael like he’s lost his mind.

“But it’s Sunday,” he argues. “You’re supposed to stay in bed all day.”

“No, it’s Sunday, I’m supposed to be with you all day,” Alex counters

“Smooth, Manes. Real smooth.” Michael smiles uncontrollably. He should protest. Let Alex go back to bed and assure him that he’ll be back in time for breakfast, but he doesn’t.

Alex moves back into the bedroom and comes out holding his prosthesis, his liner and sock tucked under his arm. He moves towards the door. Michael gives him a curious look.

“I’ll put it on in the car,” Alex explains.

He sets the prosthesis down so that he can slip his shoe on. Once he’s done, he rubs his face one more time and runs his hands through his hair, making it stand on end even worse than before. He looks utterly adorable and Michael is going to make sure he knows it, just as soon as they get back home from picking Liz up. Because no matter what Alex might say, Sundays are most certainly for staying in bed all day…

“We’re just giving her a tow, right?”

“Right,” Michael assures him, grabbing the keys from the hook. He helps Alex back up and takes the prosthesis from him so he can navigate better. Then, he opens the front door and follows Alex out, locking the door behind him.

“Did you ping your location yet?” Michael brings the phone back up to his ear to ask.

“You sneaky little brats,” Liz says, sounding shocked. “You got together and neither of you told me?!”

Michael is confused for a moment before he remembers that Liz is on social media even less than he is. Meaning, she’s not on it at all. So she has no way of knowing that Alex is his boyfriend now. The few times they’ve talked since she’s been gone, they’ve stuck strictly to science related topics. He hadn’t thought to tell her, and clearly, neither had Alex.

“Uh, yeah?” he says, unsure how to read her reaction. Alex is one of her best friends and Michael likes to think that Liz and he are friendly enough, but maybe she’ll be mad about the Maria of it all?

“How long has this been going on?” she asks. Michael glances at Alex who takes the phone away from his ear and puts it on speaker.

“How long has it been official or how long has it been going on?” Alex asks as Michael waits for Alex to get his seatbelt buckled before turning the truck on and pulling out of the drive.

“Both. Obviously,” she says.

“We got back together seven weeks and three days ago,” Alex says, causing Michael to do a double take.

“You counted?” he whispers. Alex shrugs.

“Nerd,” he teases, fondly. Alex just winks at him.

He sets the phone between then and starts the process of putting on his leg.

“We’ve been on and off since right before graduation,” Alex explains.

“Maria told me that Michael was your museum guy but I didn’t know it was ever more than that night… wow.” Michael hears Liz whistle then rattle off something in Spanish and it’s far too early to try and translate.

“Is she pinging us her location?” Michael asks.

“Tell Michael that I’m trying but it won’t locate me. I barely have enough bars for this phone call to go through,” she explains.

“And you all gave me a hard time when I suggested we all get chipped,” Alex says, giving Michael a look that has him rolling his eyes.

“Because I’m not a lost puppy,” he grumbles. “Just help her figure out where she is,” he adds, effectively ending the discussion before they can get into that argument again.

He zones out as Alex takes the lead on walking her through looking for mile markers to help them figure out her exact location. Which is good, because by the time they finish with that, they are at the junkyard and Michael is rushing into the office to grab the keys to the tow.

“GPS is saying we’ll be there in 40 minutes, so you know that means Michael will get us there in 30,” Alex says, as they both climb into the tow truck.

“Perfect, plenty of time for you to give me the gossip,” she says and Michael groans.

“It’s too early for this, Ortecho,” he complains.

“You’ve been banging my best friend for years and I didn’t know,” she argues and then her tone completely changes to one of concern when she says, “Did Maria know?”

Alex grows visibility tense at the mention of Maria. While they are all working on being friends, there’s still a ways to go before things are 100% again, and Michael is well aware that there’s more that happened with Maria and Alex’s friendship than he’s entirely aware of.

“Bring up Max, that’ll shut her up,” Michael says.

It’s not too early for Michael to translate the next thing that Liz says. He’s had all the Spanish curse words memorized since he was a kid.

“I’m trying to be supportive here, you don’t have to be an ass,” she says.

“Starting with congratulations and avoiding talk of exes is usually a good place to start,” Michael counters, refusing to feel bad.

“Of course. I’m sorry guys,” she says, honestly sounding it. “I’m just surprised. Of course I’m happy for you both. So long as you’re both happy.”

Michael looks over at Alex, who reaches out for his hand and smiles softly before saying, “Immensely.”

Fuck. Michael loves Alex so much. He wants to wax poetically about it for hours, but he’ll save it for when Liz isn’t on the other end of the line… But when they get home, Michael is going to have some serious words with him.

Alex licks his lips and Michael has to let go of his hand and look at the road if he wants to avoid crashing. He shakes his head, forcing himself to focus.

“For the record, Ortecho,” Michael says. “Alex and I haven’t been banging for years. We make love.”

That earns him an amused chuckle from Alex and a shocked one from Liz.

“¡Ay! Mikey! Okay,” she says. “I didn’t realize.”

“Well now you do,” he says.

He’s not really sure why it even matters. It never has before. For the past twelve years, he’s kept his relationship with Alex between he and Alex, and yet… It matters. It’s like Alex said last week, it’s annoying that people just assume their relationship couldn’t possibly be deeper than a consistent hookup. Like the fact that they are two men makes their love story somehow less than.

“Well, I won’t push anymore,” she says. “Clearly it’s a sensitive subject. But just so we’re clear, whenever either of you are ready, I’d love to hear your story. You both deserve the world and if you found that in each other, then that’s wonderful.”

“For somebody who doesn’t believe in romance or love, you seem to have no problem wishing it for others,” Alex says, an unspoken question lingering in the air.

Liz sighs. “Yeah, well… It’s not that I don’t believe in love. It’s just that my love stripped me of my agency and then didn’t fight for me. So… Max can screw himself.”

“Liz,” Michael says seriously, cutting off whatever sympathy Alex is clearly getting ready to respond with. “Take it from somebody who gets it more than you’ll ever know. The people you love will hurt you. They’ll make decisions without you that impact your life. It sucks. It hurts. But it doesn’t hurt more than being alone. Forgive him.”

“But—”

“No,” he cuts her off, before she can give an excuse. “Forgive him.”

“He hasn’t even apologized,” she says. “He didn’t come after me. He just let me go.”

“And you left,” he says, not unkindly, but he’s also not about to let her change the narrative. Michael did that too many times and it got him nowhere. He loves Max and… yeah, he won’t ever admit it to her, but he loves Liz too. So he won’t let her make the same mistakes he did.

“Michael is right,” Alex cuts in. “Max has his own list of ways you wronged him too. And if you both let it, that list will keep you apart for years. It’s not worth it. Not when you really love somebody.”

Alex unbuckles his seatbelt to slide over in the truck, so he’s right next to Michael and can lean his head on his shoulder. Michael wraps his arm around Alex and holds him close.

Liz is silent on the other end, and that’s fine. Alex and Michael give her the time and space she needs to take in what they’ve just said.

Alex reaches up to thread his fingers through the hand that’s holding him close. Michael places a kiss to the top of his head.

“I love you,” he whispers. “Thank you for always coming home.”

“Thank you for giving me a home to always come back to,” Alex whispers back.

It takes them another hour and a half to get Liz’s car to the junkyard where Michael promises he’ll fix it tomorrow, even though it’s his day off. Then Liz refuses to take no for an answer, insisting on cooking them breakfast as a thank you. They get stuck at the Crashdown for a while, catching up with Rosa, Arturo, and Liz. By the time they are finally back home, it’s just after 11, and yet, it doesn’t take hardly any convincing to get Alex to climb back into bed with him so that Michael can make good on the promise he made to himself this morning. He spends the next several hours making sure Alex feels fucking worshiped like the vision he is.

Tagged: @callieramics @redstalkingdeath

As always if anyone wants to be tagged, let me know!

#roswell nm #roswell new mexico #Malex fic #malex #fic: sunday mornings #alex manes #michael guerin #liz ortecho #fluff #domestic bliss

106 notes · View notes

breakingsomething · 4 years ago

Text

Dawn Station - Pilot

Basic summary: Video game developer Jack Mcloughlin is finally releasing a new game after a ten year hiatus.

Content warnings: Murder, dismemberment, body horror

It comes as a shock to everyone, including you, when Jack Mcloughlin announces the release of a new game at the start of the second week of October.

There are several reasons why this is such a big deal. One: Jack Mcloughlin has been making games since he was twenty seven, and has released only five of them in the thirty years he's been doing it. Two: Jack Mcloughlin is world renowned for his fantastic horror games, all done in wildly different styles, but still notably his own. Three: Jack Mcloughlin has not, up til now, so much as mentioned working on a new game. The only social media site he's fully active on is Twitter - which you check regularly for any updates - and before the release of his last game, Ehrmann Lab, he had left a series of cryptic clues for two months leading up to the announcement. Those had been probably the most fun two months you'd ever had in your life, and even helped you make new friends. But this time around, there is no warning. The trailer is dropped at Purina Expo, one of the biggest American gaming conventions of the year. You were incredibly lucky to be able to snag tickets. Usually, this convention is where the hottest games that would be coming out the following year would be announced, trailers would be played, and developers would discuss - so everyone there on October 10th is shocked to not only be the first to see the trailer, but to hear from the man himself. Jack Mcloughlin takes the stage, gleefully announcing the release of Dawn Station on October 31st this year.

Now, the release of a new game from Septic Games - Mcloughlin's own software company, which he founded after his second game's release - is a big enough deal. But this… this is something else. Mcloughlin explains it before the reveal of the trailer, and you listen with great excitement.

"Dawn Station," says the man, practically bouncing across the stage with glee and shouting into his mic with a hoarse Irish accent. "is a feat of modern gaming. Now, I understand that when you play games, it can get boring to replay them later on after you've finished, because - well, you know how it goes! You know all the twists and turns, all the jumpscares, all the fights, all the spooks. But what if I told you that there was a way you could play where things were different each time?"

Behind the man, on a large screen, an image comes up. This is the first promo image for the new game to be shown to the people. The image is of a tilted hallway in what looks like a complex, broken down space station, overgrown with unusual plants that glow and spark. In the centre of the image is an astronaut. His helmet is on the floor, blood soaked. His face is half in shadow. All that can be seen is curly olive hair and neon green eyes - two on his face, and one embedded in his neck. The suit itself is torn, ripped open with a mouth and a dripping tongue where the being's stomach should be. A torch is on the ground behind him, attempting to cast light on the room. The words "Dawn Station" come up in solid, bright green font next to the being's face.

"This is Dawn Station!" cries the developer, over the many excited murmurs of the crowd. "The first ever virtual reality game with a fully developed artificial intelligence antagonist! An antagonist who learns from the players movements and choices, who grows and changes based off of what you do. You control the game, now more than ever! He's clever, he's learning, he knows where you are, and his objective is to kill the player - introducing... Alien X, otherwise known as… the Anti!"

Everyone cheers. Mcloughlin steps aside, a beam splitting his pale face, and allows the room to darken, and the trailer to play.

You're in awe. The trailer shows that you play as a character named Drew Oliver, an astronaut in their mid twenties who's aboard the Dawn Space Station, which has fallen to the planet you seemed to have been monitoring - the Othohiri 5RM. The game seems to revolve around attempting to explore the little bits of the planet that you can while repairing the ship and dealing with your descent into madness, all the while being chased down by the Alien X, a shapeshifting monstrosity who's eager to end your life before you can finish your goals. After watching it… well, everyone is absolutely blown away, especially you. This is unlike anything Mcloughlin had ever produced, especially to this scale. It's no wonder he hadn't produced a game in ten years if this was what he had been working on. You're practically vibrating with excitement at the breathtakingly beautiful scenery and realistic yet perfectly stylistic graphics, and the 8D sound design that seems to echo from all around you. It's incredible. The second you get back to your hotel room that night, you're one of the first to preorder the game.

Your week at the convention ends, and you go back home, counting down the days to the game's release. However, even more exciting things are happening. On Twitter, a few of your favourite youtubers are acting rather cryptic. KrisDoesGAMEZ and rrroadblock, two streamers you like, retweet Mcloughlin's announcement tweet with eye emojis and promises of the game being good. DUSSST, visualthursday and BroAverage make their own posts about it. PeachCheerio and TheSkinnerr upload short update videos promising exciting things to come.

On October 15th, it happens - ten youtubers each upload an early access demo of Dawn Station, having been chosen and given the code to play it by Mcloughlin himself. You don't watch the videos because you want to play the game yourself with no spoilers, but from what you've seen, it's fucking amazing. Critics are already calling it the game of the decade. The internet is thriving, and a few people have already cosplayed Drew, the main character. Your best friend uploads a joking cosplay of the Anti and walks around town with it on. He gets over a thousand likes and teases you about being too good for you now that he's internet famous. You're living for all of this.

On October 16th, youtuber PeachCheerio is murdered in his own home.

Everyone is shocked, rightfully. Here is a man who had streamed just the day before, chatting with his members and looking at Dawn Station memes on Twitch. Today, he was discovered by his girlfriend in his own home. Leaked police reports tell you that the man, whose real name was Ronald Murphy, had been messily dismembered, his organs removed, half of them missing. You're in shock. He was one of your favourite streamers, and maybe it's silly to mourn someone you've never met, but you're deeply, deeply saddened by the news.

However, it doesn't stop there. The very next day, youtuber DUSSST - or Louise Greendale - is found the same way Ronald had been. Louise's girlfriend apparently called the police in hysterics before panic tweeting about the incident. The posts were taken down an hour later. The screenshots of what she'd said trend of Twitter and Tumblr anyway.

This is when the conspiracy theories arrive. Two youtubers dead in two days, both brutally taken apart and missing organs? Some people mock the theorists for it. Who had even said Louise had been killed the same way as Ronald, anyway? That is, until more apparent police reports are leaked revealing the details of Louise's death. The internet goes wild. The Los Angeles police department posts a video begging whoever's causing the leaks to stop, to think about the families of the deceased. All this does is prove that they're true. This video, too, is later taken down.

You log off in disgust. Some people have no fucking shame.

Things heat up the next day, on October 18th, when user rrroadblock, or Aryan Jha, dies as well. The death is covered up for the first few hours afterwards, but eventually is leaked in the same manner as the last two murders. This time, the theorists are no longer labeled as crazy. In fact, everyone's getting in on this mystery now. Three popular youtubers dead now, each found in bloody states in their own homes, three days apart? No one knows what's happening, but that doesn't stop people from guessing. And while you refuse to involve yourself in any of this, you also find yourself wondering who or what - not what, of course it's not a what, that's just ridiculous - who is killing all of these people.

Day four. The internet is silent, waiting. And yes, sure enough, youtuber KrisDoesGAMEZ, or Kris Velvet, is dead.

This time, someone realizes something that makes everyone pause. Each of the dead youtubers are all the ones who were given the free demo of Dawn Station, and are even dying in the order that they played it in. Everyone goes insane. Even you're suspicious - of what, exactly, you don't know, because why would someone murder someone else so brutally over a video game? Despite that, this can't be a coincidence. People place bets on whether youtuber ducksontheroof, or Donna Campbell, is going to be the next one to be found dead. Donna herself makes a statement on her Instagram, expressing disgust at all the people who were spreading such information around. She then deactivated all her socials apart from her YouTube. The people who had been making bets were shamed, and you have to log off yet again. This is getting to be too much.

You stay offline until nearly four pm the next day. Your friend calls you up to give you the news, but you already know what they're going to say. Let me guess, you start, voice flat and tired. Donna Campbell's dead.

They confirm it. You don't know what to say.

Her family put out a statement asking people not to theorize about her death. People do it anyway. Reports state that the remaining five youtubers who had played Dawn Station, along with, surprisingly, Jack Mcloughlin himself, had been taken into police custody. For protection, you assume. Once again, the internet goes insane. This proves their theories about the game connecting all the deaths, and a silent dread and buzz of twisted excitement hangs over everyone. You're just disgusted. People are treating this like some kind of murder mystery game, like this isn't real, actual lives.

Two days pass without news. At the end of the second day, there's yet another leak. Youtubers Doomandgloom - Persephone Henry - and TheSkinnerr - Rodney Pratt - are dead. You're just numb. You're just so fucking numb.

This reveal, of course, inspires yet another debate. If the youtubers had been under police protection, how had they died? Had the police seen anything? Why hadn't the leak said anything about it? Who was killing all these people in so little time, how hadn't they been caught? Had, really, no one seen anything at all?

There are now three youtubers left who'd played the game. Hothothotstanley, or Stanley McIver, visualthursday, or Khia Herrera, and BroAverage, or Chase Brody. You met Stanley McIver, once, at a convention in London three years ago. You have a picture on your memory board of you standing in the convention hall, him with his arm around your shoulder, you with a grin and sparkle in your eye. You can see the picture from your bed. You turn away from it.

However, the next day is a surprise to everyone. A video is uploaded to someone's Twitter - a full, uncensored video of the murder of Stanley McIver inside the government safe house he and the others had seemingly been kept in. The video is immediately taken down and the Twitter deleted, but everyone has seen it. Including you. The video is… horrifying. Of course it is. Why did you watch it? But you do manage to see who it is that killed him. Everyone on the internet does. And this - this video, that's maybe five minutes long - is enough to make everyone go silent.

The killer looks exactly like the Anti from Dawn Station.

No one knows quite what to make of this.

Even less so when Jack Mcloughlin dies the next day.

He's murdered. Same way as all the rest of them, in police custody. Now this is enough to shock everyone into mourning silence. Only a few pricks are left, and their accounts, channels and blogs are swiftly deactivated. Nine deaths in nine days. Nine deaths. Nine. Jack Mcloughlin.

The next day, Khia Herrera - well, you know.

Chase Brody is the last one left alive. You never watched his channel that much - he's really into horror, and is known for his Walking Dead playthrough and his Undertale Genocide run - but you still already feel a strange sense of loss. A sort of emptiness. Something churns in your stomach that you don't understand. There's a lot that you don't understand.

The release of Dawn Station is cancelled.

You spend the night at a friend's house, and just bawl for hours. You shouldn't be so upset, you shouldn't! You never knew any of these people! But fuck, there's something about seeing all these people who you'd been watching online for so long, who have given you so many happy days, so many laughs and inside jokes… just die. How had this happened? Who was it who was doing this?

Your friend sadly suggests it's some sick Jack Mcloughlin hater who decided it'd be fun to cosplay as his newest character and kill people to scare everyone. But while you outwardly agree, you internally know it's not true. Because every time you watch that video, every time you watch Stanley die - and you watch it a lot, just trying to make yourself feel something, even if it's just sick - you can tell the person isn't human. You know that's ridiculous, of course. But there's something about its eyes. Its face. It glances up at the camera and makes eye contact, and grins with too many white, jagged teeth, like an anglerfish. The eye in its throat sees you too. It glows. You shudder every time, watching it shake with glitches and laughter.

You're scared. You feel sick and dizzy and you lock your doors out of fear. You stay inside and open Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram again.

Poor Chase Brody, says the internet. They're already mourning. Already accepted his death. Poor, poor Chase Brody.

You hope he's ok, wherever he is.

#dawn station #jacksepticeye #antisepticeye #boop writes

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tiptoe-ing · 4 years ago

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Scandals, Scandals, More Scandals

Is there a standard procedure for how they are dealt with?

By now, we know about plenty of scandals that have happened in the industry, and we’ve seen how they are dealt with. Is this the norm for all idols and scandals?

The most common reaction is for the idols to take a little break whilst they "reflect" on the things they have done, but it really depends on what the idol did. It also depends on the company, and if they have they support their idols fully.

In February 2021, many idols were under fire for being school bullies. Bullying is a huge issue in South Korea, whether it’s verbal or physical, but it was shocking to the industry to have so many idols from girl groups and boy groups, as well as actors, be exposed. Some of the involved were Stray Kids Hyunjin, (G)-Idle Soojin, Loona Chuu, iKON Yunhyeong, Seventeen Mingyu, The Boyz Sunwoo, actors Jo Byunggyu and Kim Donghee, actress Park Hyesoo and so many more. Some of the claims were that the idol had said verbally bullied the victim, and some were more physical.

The reaction from the companies of these idols was “we are verifying the truth behind these claims” and/or a denial of the claim. After that, the company would release another statement saying what they had found, after verifying the claims with the artist and the victim, and how they would proceed. All of the named above, took a break from their activities or were removed from their brand deals and TV shows, whilst the investigations were undergoing. Their companies stating “the artist will go on a break to reflect on his/her doing” as well as the artists writing apologies to their fans.

Taking a break or going on a hiatus when a scandal breaks out is the norm. It’s a way for the company to deal with the scandal as well as to keep the idol out of the public eye to avoid backlash. When a scandal breaks out, the companies really have to take a look at all factors such as how big might the scandal get, the reaction of the fans and public, what effect will this have on current and future activities and brand deals. Of course, if the scandal claims are found to be false, there won’t be a big impact. But if it is a huge scandal, then brands and shows might not want to work with the artist and the group - meaning there’s a loss in profits. So as mentioned before, it really depends on what the scandal is, what relationship the company has with the artist, who the artist is and how a scandal will impact their future.

If it is a smaller artist from a smaller company, the outcome is usually to leave the industry. If it is a famous artist, no matter the size of the company, the scandal has to be dealt with because it can cause such huge damage to the company name and profits.

In the early days of Big Hit Entertainment, the company behind BTS, they had a girl group called GLAM. The group did well, but was short lived as two of the members were caught up in criminal activity with a fellow celebrity. This lead to the group disbanding, and Big Hit has not debuted another girl groups since. Read more here about what exactly happened to GLAM.

In July 2020, former AOA member Mina took to her social media to reveal that the groups leader, Jimin had been bullying her for a decade, which ultimately lead to Mina leaving the group in 2019. Jimin denied these claims by posting the word “fiction” on her story but quickly deleting it. K-Pop fans were quick to call out Jimin and took Mina’s side. This lead to the whole of AOA going on an indefinite hiatus, and Jimin deleted all her social media and left the industry. The K-Pop community doesn’t see her returning, as if she did, she would be met with heavy backlash from the community.

In 2019, iKON’s leader B.I was caught up in the YG Entertainment and Burning Sun scandal, and B.I was claimed to have tried to acquire illegal drugs back in 2016. B.I confirmed he had considered purchasing drugs, but never followed through. He took to his Instagram to say “deeply sorry”. YG Entertainment then followed up B.I’s apology with a statement that the group leader was leaving the group and his exclusive contract had been terminated. After this, the case was still being investigated and it was confirmed by drug testing, that B.I had in fact not taken any drugs. This left fans extremely upset and feeling like it was unfair. B.I took a break from the industry and social media following this, but he is slowly making his way back, much to delight of his fans. This is a clear example of how it depends on if the company supports their artists, as if they did, their positioning with B.I could have been different - it is believed by fans.

Sources:

Kay, B (2020) 'Here’s What Happened To Big Hit Entertainment’s Girl Group Glam’, Koreaboo, 30 January. [Online] Available at: https://www.koreaboo.com/stories/happened-big-hit-entertainments-girl-group-glam/ [Accessed 3 April 2021]

Kelley, C. (2019) 'B.I Quits K-pop Group iKON Following Drug Allegations’, Forbes, 13 June. [Online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/caitlinkelley/2019/06/13/bi-quits-k-pop-group-ikon-following-drug-allegations/#54e961d0266c [Accessed 3 April 2021]

Koreaboo (2021) ‘Everything We Know About The 14 Bullying Scandals In K-Pop Right Now’, Koreaboo, 22 February. [Online] Available at: https://www.koreaboo.com/news/bullying-scandals-rundown/ [Accessed 3 April 2021]

Miller, K. (2019) ‘Doing These Could Literally Cost You Your Career If You Are A K-Pop Idol’, Jazmine Media, 7 November. [Online] Available at: https://www.jazminemedia.com/2019/11/doing-these-things-would-literally-cost-you-your-career-if-youre-a-kpop-idol/ [Accessed 3 April 2021]

Shin Jimin Bullying Scandal, Wikipedia [Online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Ji-min#Bullying_allegations_and_retirement_from_industry [Accessed 3 April 2021]

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bitchfury · 4 years ago

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my first time watching perks

during the summer i finally decided it would be a good time to see what all of the hype was about for perks, so i went on youtube and rented it out, excited to see all of the great things this ‘coming of age’ movie had to offer.

if you don’t know who i am or my story, watch this movie.

i was shocked by this movie, i didn’t read anything about it which is kind of surprising since social media makes it hard to not get spoiled. so i guess i was pretty lucky.. or unlucky.

*spoiler alert

charlie in the beginning stages

the movie starts off with charlie (logan lerman) in school, alone. it’s hinted that something happened to him last year that really impacted his life. the audience is thinking wow, i wonder what happened to him to make him this way. i like this because the movie doesn’t bombard you with what happened right away, it lets you wonder as you get to know charlie and how he interacts with people.

also, keep in mind that charlie is usually alone in most of the scenes before he meets his friends. he has these deep intrusive thoughts that nobody really sees him, or notices him.

he then slowly becomes a part of a friend group with sam (emma watson) and patrick (ezra miller) because while at a party after getting high, charlie tells sam that last year his best friend shot himself. wow. that’s some heavy shit especially since charlie is in like, grade 11? so having to go through a loss by suicide when your in grade 10 must of been hard, and is why charlie was so bad last year.

the next parts of the movie are parts i blacked out on, don’t get be wrong - the movie is a masterpiece in my eyes - it’s just it was way too painfully accurate on my own life and struggles. hell, if i was a historical figure, i wouldn’t need a movie showcasing my life cause perks was just that accurate that it could be my own documentary.

charlies first kiss and girlfriend

charlie develops this crush on sam (she doesn’t really know) but during a scene with them both in sam’s bedroom, sam reveals a deep secret that traumatized her deeply : TW : she was sexually abused as a child. this is revealed in a state of vulnerability, and also subconsciously makes charlie more bonded towards sam in a way that is revealed later on in the movie.

“I’m telling you this because I want your first kiss to be with someone you love.“ is sam’s words to charlie, and they both end up kissing.

unfortunately, charlie and sam aren’t coupling just yet. remember : this movie is not a romance, it’s getting over trauma.

charlie ends up dating another girl in the friend group : mary elizabeth, who he doesn’t actually love. he stays with her, i assume because of the fact he doesn’t want to lose his friends and also because he was set up with her in a way.

they both end things in a game of truth or dare when one of the boys dare him to kiss the prettiest girl in the room, and charlie hesitates between mary elizabeth and sam.

the results to this is charlie being ghosted by his friends and his getting bad again.

the fight, kiss with patrick

after the 2 week hiatus from his friends, charlie gets into a fight with patrick’s secret lover’s (who is the son of a very homophobic man) brad’s friends. because brad doesn’t want anyone to know he’s gay and also because the last time he was with patrick, his dad walked in and beat him up. the reason charlie gets involved with this fight is because brad’s friends are ganging up on patrick and beating him up so charlie has to come up and help his friend out.

they both end up leaving the school and hanging out. charlie talks about how this happened after the fight, and how patrick was so torn up about brad. the days they hung out would start of good and then end with patrick having a meltdown. during one of these hangouts patrick says something along the lines of “i just need a really good guy..” and he turns to charlie, kissing him.

revealed is how charlie views consent. he let’s patrick kiss him, not only because ‘thats are what friends are for’ but because he has this ‘selfless’ persona that developed when he was young so he lets things happen to him, even if it makes him feel used.

the secrets he’s had to keep for others

here’s a list of all of the ‘our little secret’ moments

- his aunt

- his sister after getting slapped

- patrick and brad kissing

watch the movie!

so what happened to him? and the end

one of the reoccuring things in the movie that i forgot to mention was that charlie would have these flashback moments, the further the movie went the longer they would be. as if he’s getting comfortable with his friends, himself and the audience. comfortable enough to show us the things he went through.

tw sexual abuse

charlie’s aunt died on christmas. charlie has that feeling he should be sad, but in reality he’s more traumatized because the ‘our little secret’ moment he had with his aunt was that she was molesting him.

this is about as much as i’m going to say about that scene because it’s honestly really triggering for me - someone who was also sexually abused/assaulted as a kid.

the end was honestly so beautiful and tragic. charlie has had so many terrible things happen to him in his life, and the ending just encapsuled that and made it beautiful. him celebrating the fact that he’s no longer alone. and that he’s free.

and yes, sam and charlie do end up together in the end.

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taylorlearnsjapanese · 5 years ago

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How did/do I learn vocabulary?

This is a question I’m asked quite often and I usually have a different answer each time. The reason is because I have no set way I learn vocabulary. This post will focus entirely on my experience and journey with vocabulary. Grammar will be a topic for another day. ;)

In my opinion, there is no set way to learn vocabulary. I can’t stare at lists and lists of words and suddenly they’re memorized, but I have! I can’t use flash cards because they take too much time, but I have! Kind of see where I’m going with this? I’m the perfect example of an informal or unstructured learner/studier.

I am a lazy learner. THE LAZIEST. I’m all for fast and easy ways to learn without so much as lifting a finger. Insane, right? Totally. Extremely insane for a beginner like I was. Butttttt, I did it though. Was it smart? Probably not. Did it work? Well… kinda?

I also want to point out that I’ve never studied Japanese in a classroom setting nor have I had tutors to teach me.

Okay, what I did:

I started learning Japanese on June 11, 2018. I’m going to list the resources I’ve done roughly up to this point in time that this is posted.

Please don’t take my views on the apps and resources listed as final say. Everyone learns differently and I suggest you try all of these resources out! Things that don’t work for me, may work for you and vice versa.

DuoLingo. It was the only app I really knew of that was credible. I drilled the crap out of that app! That’s how I got my foundations in kana, my first words, and first kanji!

DuoLingo is good in some ways, but bad in others. It’s perfect for repetition and getting you to think about those words over and over. But that’s also why it’s bad. Each step makes you go through like, what?, four or five tiers or whatever they’re called? By the time you reach that fourth of fifth tier, it’s just annoying to do that pattern over and over again before you can move on. This is just my opinion though, some people thrive off of that. Don’t knock it till you try it, ‘kay? I’ve heard the app has changed some since summer of 2018, so I’ll have to check it out again.

LingoDeer. Gosh, I love LingoDeer. I really need to use it more. It is the best app ever to introduce you to grammar when you have no idea where to start.

Workbooks. I got my first workbooks (not textbooks) at the end of June 2018 (I had been learning for roughly 3 weeks by that time). It was Learning Japanese Hiragana and Katakana and Learning Japanese Kanji Volumes 1 and 2, all published by Tuttle. As I worked through the kana book I managed to learn many vocabulary terms from the exercises in the back with the writing exercises (all spelled in hiragana and katakana, there is no kanji in that workbook). I tried and dabbled lightly in the Kanji Vol 1 book, but I wasn’t ready for that just yet back then.

I ONLY used those resources until the end of August 2018 and added Memrise too my list of apps during that time. I gained A LOT of vocabulary knowledge (and some basic grammar but that’s a post for another day) just from using three apps and a kana workbook over two and a half months.

It was nothing fancy like some people tend to think? I didn’t somehow learn all these words over night.

Textbooks. Genki 1 and it’s workbook was my first ever textbook. This is one of the most widely known textbooks out there for learning Japanese from scratch. Most people know how vocabulary works for that resource. Each chapter introduces vocab and you learn it as you study the grammar and do the exercises.

Um, so, I’m gonna be honest for a second. I HATE TEXTBOOKS. I hate them with a fiery passion. *clenches fist* I stopped using Genki after completing half of the book because I felt like I learned nothing. It just wasn’t the resource for me.

At this point you’re staring hard at your phone, tablet, or computer like WHAT? Yeah… I didn’t hate them at first!! But because of my laziness and informal learning style, I grew to haaaate them. Textbooks are too “cookie cutter” in my opinion. But Taylor, don’t you use one right now? Yes, and let me explainnnnnn. I find that textbooks don’t give you freedom to expand!

Remember when I asked on Instagram what were some things you’d like me to discuss or talk more about? One user messaged me and wrote,

“How [do] you apply grammar and vocabulary? Because I try to come up with sentences on my own then look up examples of its usage but I continuously use the same type of examples. But when I look at other example there is so much vocab and other grammar structures that go into play that I don’t understand, so it’s hard for me to find a balance that will make me push myself but also know that I can decently understand…”

That’s EXACTLY what I struggled with, with Genki! Textbooks only provide examples for that lesson and the grammar it teaches at that point. So you only know those words (and grammar) in those contexts only. You try to make your own sentences but you end up only using those words and those grammar points over and over.

There’s simply no opportunity to expand.

Then when you look up other examples you see other new words (and grammar) and it freaks you out because suddenly you don’t feel like you’ve learned anything! This is the e x a c t reason I hate textbooks.

My answer? For me, I don’t depend on textbooks anymore for vocabulary. They’re amazing for referencing vocabulary and pulling grammar structures, but textbooks only give a limited amount of vocabulary and if that’s all your rely on when learning grammar, it’s going to be rough. It stagnated my learning when I did that.

When I make my own sentences now, I pull vocab I've been learning from apps, social media, reading, etc. I could go on and on about this, but that’s not the point of this post. I’ll discuss my more of my hatred for textbooks later. Same with grammar and how I make my examples and such. I’ve already gone off on a tangent long enough, hehe. (I hope that answered the above question though! If not, I hope future posts will! Or just message me, lol.)

Other textbooks I have used after Genki for vocabulary gain is Basic Japanese by Tuttle and the にほんご90日 series.

YouTube. Japanese Ammo with Misa is my love. I love her videos and her personality. Her teaching style is relaxed, but she gets the job done. She has a wide variety of grammar videos along with lots of other videos related to Japanese and Japan.

After my downfall with Genki 1 and some discouragement that led to a nearly three months hiatus of studying, I started using her videos to get the grammar knowledge I needed in January 2019 (I have been learning (counting the hiatus) for about 6 months at this point).

It’s the perfect things for a lazy learner like me, hehe. I could sit down at my desk and watch one of her videos (they can be anywhere from 8 to 40 minutes long) and watch, pause, and rewind as much as I wanted to write notes with ease. I was learning the grammar I needed to know and learned SO MUCH VOCABULARY.

She uses common words you find in textbooks, but she also throws in culturally relevant words. She references Pokemon, manga, TV/anime, music, etc, vocabulary all the time! She even teaches the informal/casual variations of words along with formal/polite variations and that’s where I gain so, so, so much vocab! I still use and reference those videos to this day!

PRESENT DAY:

Okay, I just explained what I did to start learning vocabulary from the beginning to about ~5 months ago. I rambled a lot, I know… But did you kind of see the point I was hoping to make? I did not stick to one resource for learning vocabulary (and kanji).

I didn’t not, nor do I still, learn vocabulary in a “traditional” way. There is no one way to learn everything you need to know. Over that course of time I learn about ~35-40% of my current vocabulary knowledge. Wait… Taylor… You learned ~35-40% of your vocabulary over the course of 10 months, but you’ve learned the other ~60-65% in less than 5 months? Yes, and I’ll explain below~~~

What I mainly use now, app wise, to gain vocabulary knowledge is Memrise, Quizlet (rarely though), Kanji Tree, and LingoDeer. I even use Instagram to learn new vocab too! I follow users who teach vocabulary (and grammar) with their posts. Yes, you will see lots of repeated terms but that’s exposure and review!

Here are some profiles I really like for introducing vocabulary (new or review): boxofmanga, japanesepod101 (Instagram infographics only), japanese_language_mlc, j_aipon, blue_aoi, and _urabanashi_.

I also suggest you find native Japanese Instagram users. Not just celebrities or idols. I mean average natives who use Instagram the same way we use our private accounts. I follow larger profiles (500+ followers) for the fact that I don’t want to be a creep and follow someone who only has like 100 or 200 followers. So, I follow some “mommy blog” Instagram's because they tend to use simpler vocabulary when referring to their kids. I also follow some book reviewers, writers, and one guy who loves camping! You get to see lots of natural Japanese this way and it shows common words that are used. I don’t understand a lot of it, but I’m being exposed to the language!

And by now you’re asking, “Okay, but how do you learn vocabulary NOW?” I’m going into N4 if you’re going to look at this from a JLPT stand point, but I don’t only learn strictly N5, N4, N3, etc level material. (That’ll be another post too, lol. Pssst… it’s another “cookie cutter” issue with me.)

Well, those apps mentioned above, obviously, but those only make up about ~30% of my vocabulary gain now. I use my textbook にほんご９０日 Vol 1 as a reference and gain some vocabulary there and I have a couple JLPT related vocab/kanji lists I use too, so that’s like another ~5% of where I get my vocab.

I get the other ~65% from reading. Yup. Reading. Literally that’s it. I read all the time. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to learn Japanese!

I have a short story digital bundle I read often from TheJapanShop.com and it’s aimed at beginners and becomes “harder” as you move to the next book and so on. I read through them and when my brain sees a word I know I’m like, “Cool.” But when I don’t know a word I see, I either look it up quick and write it in the margin or I continue on. I learn a lot through context clues.

Here’s an example sentence from Story Two in Book One of the Japanese Reader Collection offered from TheJapanShop.com.

「この傘は、雨が降るといつのまにか傘が開き、晴れると傘が閉じている…」

Roughly translated to “This umbrella opened unnoticed when it began raining and upon it becoming sunny the umbrella closed…”

When I read that sentence, I knew all the vocabulary except いつのまにか. The stories have lovely vocabulary guides, so when I looked it up, it said that it meant “before one knows; while unaware” and I took what I knew from the rest of the sentence and managed to learn that new word as a result! This is the best way I could explain how I use reading to expand my vocabulary… ^_^” Just taking what you know and expanding on it over time. I use this same method for grammar, but that’s saved for another post, lol.

I also use NHK New Web Easy to read articles about current events in Japan. It’s set up for native elementary and middle school students so they can read within the kanji and vocabulary they’ve learned so far in life. Guess what? That’s PERFECT for a language learner who has an okay-ish foundation with vocabulary. I learn so much everyday vocabulary that way.

Lastly, I read books and manga. Yup, manga. I don’t use these resources much right now because they’re bigger and more intimidating. I haven’t “officially” started a book but I’ve opened and read passages quite often to sort of test myself. Manga is simpler since there are fewer words than a novel, but they’re bigger than a short story or a news article. You’ve seen on Instagram that I’ve begun reading よつばと！ and so far I’m having a blast! I’ll talk about specific things I’m reading later.

Sooooo…. That’s basically it.

Most of my vocabulary gain now is through exposure to Japanese through social media (bless the internet), reading, and some usage of apps like Memrise and LingoDeer. I use no formal education or study plans or any structure at all.

My word retention grew to be nearly double these last ~5 months because I built on what I knew and it grew easier and easier for me to learn and retain those words over these last few months. I never believed it, but there is definitely a language hump. Once you crawl over that, things simply become easier. It just takes A LOT of time and effort (and tears) to get over that hump. But, I believe anyone can do it, you just have to be determined and eager enough.

One tip I like to give is to learn through context. Don’t just learn lists of words and kanji. What’s the point? You can recite them, but can you USE them?

Oh, quick thing, I want to point out about how I personally learn vocabulary. I failed to realize this right away when I started learning Japanese, but quickly caught on and now hold onto this belief firmly.

I learn vocabulary and kanji together.

I do not separate the two. I do not have a separate notebooks for vocabulary and kanji. I don’t even have a notebook at all actually for them, lol. When I post on Instagram that I’m focusing on kanji today, it means I’m just learning vocabulary or reviewing it. The 1026字の正しい書き方 book I use that teaches “kanji” is mainly for vocabulary expansion and how to write those kanji (stroke order). I don’t study the individual meanings of the kanji character, I study the example words it lists. That’s one way on how I’ve been expanding my vocabulary so rapidly.

Kanji is vocabulary.

Kanji should be treated the exact same way that hiragana and katakana are treated in my opinion. Jokingly, kanji is just fancy kana. ;)

If you “fear” kanji, you’ll have a bad time. I joke and say now when I see an insane kanji or a difficult one, “Damn, that’s some angry squiggles right there.” and it makes learning it that much more enjoyable. :)

For example, 食 means “eat, food.” Okay, cool that kanji has a food related meaning. But I’m not going to do that for thousands of kanji especially since each kanji has multiple readings depending on how it’s used. It’s simply impossible! I found I personally learn better when I learn the kanji in it’s “true” form, aka, in WORDS.

食べる - to eat / 食べ物 - food / 食事 - meal / 朝食 - breakfast / etc.

Holy crap, not only did I learn the kanji 食 effectively, I learned four words and THREE other kanji! (I’m over dramatic, I know, lol.)

Vocabulary is all interconnected. You can’t learn one thing without stumbling and learning other things by accident. Learning through exposure is the best in my opinion. It’ll be tough to begin with when you don’t know much and it will cause you to doubt yourself and your ability to learn this language. But, just be patient. Learning five, three, or even one word a day is progress.

Small progress eventually builds up to big progress as Yuta says. ;)

Words are meant to be strung together and form sentences for you to read, enjoy, and react to. That’s why books exist. You read those words and sentences and they make you feel warm and fuzzy or cry or laugh. Don’t keep them at an arm's length and treat it like it’s some delicate flower. Language is a not just lists of words, kanji, and grammar points. It’s a culture and way of life for people. Treat it like an old friend and play with it (or go get a beer with it, ya know, whatever gets this point across, lol)!

I tend to treat language learning like I’m a curious five year old. I’m constantly asking questions and discovering new things and it just sparks that fire that makes you want to explore more and more.

I don’t take it seriously (from an academic view) and that’s why I find some stuff so easy. It only becomes difficult if you make it difficult. Everyone learns differently. There is no one way to learn Japanese and there is no one way to learn specific parts of Japanese. Also, don’t compare yourself! It only ends in self doubt and discouragement.

Explore and try out all sorts of things. Try out the free apps, read articles online, watch YouTube videos, just do SOMETHING. Don’t look for the “perfect” resource or routine. Just. STUDY. You’ll find in time what works for you and what doesn’t.

Language learning is no race. There is no ribbon or trophy at the end for becoming fluent overnight. Take your time and enjoy the process, you’ll be learning your whole life, ‘kay?

I’ll talk further on how I review it in another post. :)

#studyblr #studygram #japanese #langblr #langblog #vocabulary #taylor talks

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fortheheavenssake · 5 years ago

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PG MM Anon Interpretation Collection- 8

54.

💜🙏🏻PG INTERPRETATION OF MM ANON..ON ZERO SLEEP🙏🏻💜

💜💜🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻💜💜

MM Anon

This was very tough!! My best on zero sleep!!

skippyv20

MM ANON … “ I just hope they don’t take the children”… the return of the Valkyrie … HOPE springs eternal …another future PR hiatus …… fashion fluff……… “grapple them to your soul with hoops of steal”. …… “separate tables”…decisions, decisions…… “ justice, what bloody justice”……it’s the only solution. 🎼” who are we to disagree “🎼

“ I just hope they don’t take the children”…

I think this is regarding the Asian tour that the D and DOC are going to be undertaking to Asia. Security must be a nightmare and there was previously mention by MM ANON of a family tour, but l truly hope they don’t take them along on this particular tour.From the Express…

Prince William and Kate under armed guard for high risk tour - terror police on alert

FIREARMS OFFICERS will shadow Prince William and Kate on their tour of Pakistan in the autumn because of “a potential flashpoint”.

the return of the Valkyrie

In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who choose those who may die in battle and those who may live. Selecting among half of those who die in battle, the valkyries take their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin. So our girl is in the toughest part of her battle as she returns to the U.K. SS has let loose horrific rumours about numerous royal family members. Boorish, foul, vulgarity, she makes me physically ill! Frankly she doesn’t care who lives or dies metaphorically of course, she intends to inflict as much damage as she can!

HOPE springs eternal

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest. The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come” is a quote by Alexander Pope. We must keep our spirits up, keep on fighting this battle however devious and grotty it gets. We need to keep our royal family in prayer🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 where there is life, there is hope.

another future PR hiatus

PR hiatus where? Future? What are we expecting? Will she refuse to go to SA and hide out?? Interesting, l am very intrigued by this.

fashion fluff

The capsule collection or whatever she calls it with Smart Works are fluff. Cheap quality, foreign made, means lots of $$$££££€€€€ for our girl, and Bumble app is aligned with a Smart works which means these women will get poor quality cheap clothes, then pay to register to find a mate!

“grapple them to your soul with hoops of steal”

MM ANON has used this before from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The essence meaning is once you’ve tested out your friends and found them trustworthy, hold onto them! Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, l can’t recall who said that. The BRF are united, they are clear on the goal, their eyes are on the prize. With the exception of the issues with PA, a big worry, they are united. The one question l have, MM ANON, you wrote steal, not steel, was that a typo?? Or the financial thievery and merching is being dealt with! Oh please!

“separate tables”

Whose separate tables, will this be PH and mm whilst on the SA tour?? Or are PC and PA dining at separate tables. MM ANON this riddle is hard!!

decisions, decisions

Many decisions and choices are imminent, PA cooperation, the SA and Africa tour. What to do, when to do it. I do think they have enough on her to end this but they are looking at connections and getting all the pieces of this corrupt puzzle. For her what other lies will she leak online or wherever she does what she does.

“ justice, what bloody justice”

Justice in terms of PA being requested to be interviewed by the FBI. PA appears extreme edge, with the incident l wrote about elsewhere. Also, mm, at what point will there be justice. PP must be so angry that HMTQ his beloved, is burdened so at this point. GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

it’s the only solution.

PA submit to an interview, talk with investigators. It has to be done and dealt with.

🎼” who are we to disagree “🎼

Sweet Dreams, Eurythmics, Annie Lennox from Aberdeen😁😁😁😁

Sweet dreams are made of these, some of them want to hurt you etc you know the song. Lots of dreams put on hold, some shattered. It must be devastating for both HMTQ and PP to be dealing with all the issues with mm, now with PA and the big bust-up he had with a top aide requiring PC to step in.

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you so much dear PG! We really do appreciate this!😊❤️❤️❤️❤️

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51 notes

Sep 9th, 2019

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55.

💜🙏🏻PG INTERPRETATION OF MM ANON🙏🏻💜

💜💜🙏🏻 THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻💜💜

MM Anon

MM ANON ……an embellished De-generate … a PR mired ……the phantom infant …… an exposure of confinement … Andy-panned-y…… “six of one……”……… “ that dammed elusive pimp…… “sympathy for the Devil “…… and the winner is……not today thank you!!……” pretend it never happened “ …… Charlotte is at Uni

an embellished De-generate

AN embellished DE-generate.

ED has a U.S. talk show. Told slew of lies about meeting visiting feeding amw. Now that may be embellished!

PA , as the Duke of York presented in his dress military uniform at the ceremony marking 75th anniversary of liberation of Bruges. The Duke of York was present in his role as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards and laid a wreath at the Charles II memorial in the Belgian city on Saturday morning.He was a guest of Prince Laurent of Belgium, the brother of King Phillipe, and the pair later inspected a guard of honour in the market square. His public reputation has very much soured with his connections with JE and GM. I hesitate to use the word degenerate but others haven’t. All sorts of negative press culminating yesterday in that hilarious stupid blind item A meets B , Z knows D etc etc garbage. Now who do you suppose spewed that ?Hmmm, who would have a motive??? No need for any crystal balls. The medals are the embellishment.

a PR mired

PR mired, let’s refresh ourselves on what mired means. Mired can be cause to become stuck in mud, lies or slime, cover or spatter with mud or lies or slime, or involve someone or something in a difficult situation. Who has been mired in slime? Who has been filthy like that. You know! Who throwing mud or worse, everything in the media in hopes that something’s sticks to hurt the other side as much as possible!! You know, l hVe no need for names.

the phantom infant

Well this is amw, Darren, Dolly whatever your frame of reference is. This supposed infant has yet to actually clearly be seen, and be seen alive and moving, and PH interacting with it. Phantom….unseen shadow….the shadow knows…remember that old show/radio show? Yes l love old radio shows esp Johnny Dollar, but l digress!

an exposure of confinement

Confinement was the old fashioned word for being in the family way which is the lesser old fashioned way of saying pregnany🤣🤣. OH PLEASE MM ANON!! PLEASE LET HER FAKENANCY BE EXPOSED !!! Pretty please with sugar on top!

Andy-panned-y…

PA is being panned in the media. Numerous negative, critical, accusatory articles. The big one also was the alleged argument with a ‘top aide’ which very nearly came to blows, necessitating PC to intervene. The Palace is trying to downplay the seriousness of it.

“six of one……”

Six of one, half a dozen of the other, basically meaning that one has two options of choices to make are equivalent or indifferent. In either case it’s a bad outcome, usually. So who is this relating to? PA. Cooperating with interviews with the F.B.I. or remaining angry, on edge, uncooperative. At some point, an international subpoena could be issued, involving the international court or the star chamber which MM ANON has referenced several times in previous riddles. I studied up on the star chamber, it goes back to 1486 when the King Charles, l think Charles ll was named head of the COE. Anyhow , it’s fascinating and may become relevant as this court deals with wealthy, political or aristocratic people that the regular courts are hesitant to deal with.

“ that dammed elusive pimp

Where is MA??? No sightings in NYC. Is he in custody??? Is he in witness protection??? WHERE IS HE? I bet he has made a deal and has been singing his lungs out!

“sympathy for the Devil “

This classic song by TRS? Interestingly this song refers to Russian connection, U.S.President Kennedy……?JE referral, as an aside! This is most definitely our girl SS PR in overdrive seeking her to be out for sympathy because the big bad British press are all meanies and are unnecessarily picking on little innocent madam. CANT YOU HEAR MY SARCASM??😜😗😉😗😆. Nope not buying it, no sympathy!

and the winner is

Voila, they love me! They really love me! I am aging myself, remember when Sally Field won the Oscar and she said that? Wellour special one won Tatlers prestigious, coveted, rare Social Climber of the year 🥇 award!😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

not today thank you!!

Prince Andrew’s relationship with JE has caused several public engagements to be cancelled.The Duke of York’s upcoming appointments in Northern Ireland have been called off amid media scrutiny surrounding his links to the disgraced financier. Organizers withdrew invitations to the prince, with one worrying his attendance would ‘change the narrative’ about the event in question. A ceremony at Portrush railway station to mark its £5million upgrade are among the engagements to be cancelled.

” pretend it never happened “

Carry on,,nothing to see here, weekend in NYC was fabulous, besties and even on the jumbo trot as HRH with her shy non-royal wave. Or alternative may be PA pretending the row with the ‘ top aide’ never happened.

Charlotte is at Uni.

Our dear Princess Charlotte is madly truly deeply in love with 🦄 unicorns. She had one on her backpack/rucksack, first day of school. I think she was also seen with a unicorn purse all glittery during the summer.

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you so much! Looks great!😊💜💜💜

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17 notes

Sep 10th, 2019

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56. Sept. 11

💜🙏🏻PG INTERPRETATION OF MM ANON🙏🏻💜

💜💜🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻💜💜

ON THIS SOMBER DAY WE REMEMBER🕯

I apologize for the lateness, l had a good friend drive in and spend the day, was very lovely💜🙏🏻☺️

MM Anon

MM ANON …… the hot zone …… “ were all getting older,old thing”…… Together?????……… a caring cabal …… double bluff…… “ such a caring person”…… “gather thee rosebuds”…… like a Biohazard ☣️ …… “ she’s a bloody virus”…… suddenly ‘ last summer …… Sharon Stone Cold…🎼 “ She’s just a Devil woman “🎼 …… “they made their beds” ……… “just read the bloody comments”.… sword of Damocles

The Hot zone

Tv show in America based on the Ebola virus appearing in chimpanzees in a research lab in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and there is no known cure; a U.S. Army scientist puts her life on the line to head off an outbreak before it spreads to the human population. Unfortunately, in reality West Africa had an outbreak on Ebola that was the largest in history. It started with cases of EVD in the forested rural region of southeastern Guinea, reported by WHO (World Health Organization) in 2014. Soon, cases were discovered in Liberia,Sierra Leone, which border Guinea. It eventually through international travel spread to the U.S. Africa still has many diseases and often travellers are vaccinated or given anti-malarial drugs and sleep under netting to protect from insect born infections.

“ were all getting older,old thing”

PP and HMTQ musing to one another how the world has changed in their lifetimes, what is currently happening. Supporting and upholding one another, the combined have survived numerous wars, deaths, terrorism in many forms, family break-ups, PR nightmares of unimaginable proportions. Yet, they are still standing firm, one with the other. This brings tears to my eyes. GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Together?????

D and DOS going to SA together? It seems by this to be of great question of whether they will both be going, given the number of question marks and given the itinerary. Time will tell what is to come.

a caring cabal

Dare l say this is Skippy’s blog and everyone here! I truly believe it is! God bless you 🐼 for your unwavering faith and devotion to HMTQ and bless all who are here!💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

double bluff

A double bluff is an action or statement that is intended to appear as a bluff but is in fact genuine. Whose double bluffing here? There are many possibilities here. There is the heir and a spare. Is she thinking somehow she will end up Queen if there is enough malicious gossip as been spread a few days ago which l won’t speak of. I personally think this is LG playing games with her, cat and mouse. She is playing so many games with so many people simultaneously, with so many lies, it’s mind boggling and then add substances to the mix! It’s maybe a quadruple bluff of a happy life. If you read her two twitter accounts, the two l know of, life is grand, and simply couldn’t be better. I especially love American English with British terms thrown in, both usually spelled wrong and used in the wrong meaning!!

“ such a caring person”

Our beloved Peoples’ Princess! No one outshone her wonderfully innate caring and the manner in which she expressed it. We see it living on, instilled in both her boys, yes l said boys! They’re our boys, out Wills and our Harry. We will never stop loving them, praying for them wanting them healthy, happy and carrying out their duties and displaying their mother’s caring manner.

“gather thee rosebuds”

It’s so beautiful, l had to share it. There is an old hymn similar line, give me the roses while l live, trying to carry on, useless the flowers that he give, after the soul has gone. I LOVE that hymn🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻.

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Robert Herrick - 1591-1674

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

The higher he’s a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while ye may, go marry;

For having lost but once your prime,

You may forever tarry.

Basically live life well, to it’s fullest, kindness, lovingly, and meaningfully. I don’t need to explain further, l thought in sharing the poem, all would be blessed by it and take to heart it’s meaning.💜🙏🏻💜

like a Biohazard ☣️

Let’s review the definition of a biohazard. A biological hazard, or biohazard, is a biological substance that poses a threat to the health of living organisms, primarily humans. This could include a sample of a microorganism, virus or toxin (from a biological source) that can affect human health and could also be a substance harmful to other animals. The way life has been lived, in terms of extreme sexual behaviours, there are very real possibilities of HIV, HEP(hepatitis/ various types of liver disease). or other STD’s.( sexually transmitted diseases)

“ she’s a bloody virus”

Again PP, infecting anything and everything negatively, jinx at tennis matches. Just pure evil machinations, selfish intentions and from some of the photos the way Catherine is glared at and the children, especially the one photo where Catherine is pregnant, my mind shudders with what possible thoughts might be going through someone’s head.

suddenly ‘ last summer

1959 film of Tennessee Williams’ play, a young woman is traumatized and committed after witnessing her cousin’s violent death on a trip to Europe. Her aunt, wants to hide the events of her son’s death and attempts to bribe young surgeon to perform a lobotomy on the girl. But he vows to find out the truth about what caused her condition before taking any action. By the way a lobotomy is a surgical operation involving incision into the prefrontal lobe of the brain, formerly used to treat mental illness.

Also song, by the Motels, love that song, about being stuck in memories of a summer fling.

Wonder if institutionalization is the route of dealing with a person is the lesser of two evils as per yesterday’s riddle clue??

Sharon Stone Cold

Sharon Stone, that scene from Basic Instinct keg crossing, that photo from the tennis on Saturday with madams sitting position was sooo familiar. Stone cold, hard, no emotion, self-focused on meeting one’s own needs, wishes goals desires etc. Yeah, again, just going to put that there, you’re all smart!! You know!!

🎼 “ She’s just a Devil woman “🎼

She’s a devil woman with evil on her mind by the great Sir Cliff Richard, who by The by has had his own legal troubles which l will not go into. If you desire and are not aware, there is a plethora of information online, not all true! Friday, is Friday the 13th and full moon, to those on the dark side an especially EVIL day. This song, the lyrics is description of a narcissistic evil woman, l will just leave it there for you to think if that sounds like anyone that is in the media. Extra prayers for everyone this friday🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

“they made their beds”

The saying, you made your bed, lie in it. The public is nearing the breaking point with PH and beyond with mm. That’s the attitude, let them rescind their titles, over to America and be celebrities!! No more public £££££££££! PH we ARE WITH YOU! You remain in our prayers! WE ARE VERY MUCH AWARE YOU ARE SERVING HMTQ!

“just read the bloody comments”

Again that word, PP, angry, comments by the millions regarding the conduct of the Sussexes, her by choice, him by assignment. Just utter frustration and anger at this horrendous situation and the entire conglomeration of issues that are going along with it.

Sword of Damocles.

This will require a bit of story telling/ explaining.According to the story, Damocles was pandering to his king, exclaiming to him that he was truly fortunate man of great power and authority, surrounded by magnificence. In response, the king offered to switch places with Damocles for one day so that Damocles could taste that very fortune firsthand. Damocles quickly and eagerly accepted the king’s proposal. Damocles sat down in the king’s throne surrounded by every luxury, but the king, who had made many enemies during his reign, arranged that a huge sword should hang above the throne, held by only by a single hair of a horse’s tail to evoke the sense of what it is like to be king: though having much fortune, always having to watch in fear and anxiety against dangers that might try to overtake him. Damocles finally begged the king that he be allowed to depart because he no longer wanted to be so fortunate, realizing that with great fortune and power comes also great danger. The long and the short of this

is, perhaps madam is slowly becoming “woke” to the fact that her life choices have led her to a very very dangerous intersect, prison, institutionalizations, or worse by her enemies who were formerly her “friends”/backers.

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Wow! Fascinating! Very impressive dear MM Anon and dear PG! Thank you!🙏🏻💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

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42 notes

Sep 11th, 2019

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57.

💜🙏🏻🙏🏻PG LATE INTERPRETATION ON MM ANON 🙏🏻🙏🏻💜

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

MM ANON … 🎼 “ blackbird singing in dead of night”🎼…… not a problem …… anything and everything …… more porn……there’s not a hole black enough …… redacted ………… me myself and I… … 🎼 you either got or you haven’t …………”🎼………… on your own AGAIN!!!……… give a DOG a bone ……… a Belgrave secret …… not really a secret, whooops!

🎼 “ blackbird singing in dead of night”🎼

This song, from 1968 by The Beatles is not really about a blackbird. The term bird, in England is a slang term for a female. The black African American struggle in the southern United States, was used metaphorically.Along with McCartney’s “Helter Skelter”, “Blackbird” was one of several White Album songs that Charles Manson interpreted as the Beatles’ prophecy of an apocalyptic race war that would lead to him and his “Family”of followers ruling the US on countercultural principles. Manson interpreted the lyrics’ repetition of the word “rise” as a call to black Americans to wage war on their white counterparts, and instructed his followers to commit a series of murders in Los Angeles in August 1969 to trigger such a conflict’.

For our context, there has been an intentional multi-media goal to draw in and play the race card on behalf of madam. We have seen it repeatedly and many people ie “sugars” have been drawn in and are being used to further an agenda. This continues to grow, worldwide and is , l believe one of the most difficult issues that LG and his team have in dealing with madam.

I also am wondering if this draws on DR. Where is she??! The term singing, other than sits obvious meaning, is term term when one is in legal trouble being interviewed and tells about whatever the criminal plan is, who is involved, what has been done, and what is the ultimate goal. Has DR began to sing?? I wonder.

not a problem

Anything and everything Madam, has done anything and everything for fame, power, $$$$$$£££££€€€€. I am 100% certain she is capable of anything. She is narcissistic and thinks only of what benefits her, has no moral compass. I also am 100% certain she has done things that myself for example, as an educated woman, she has done things l have never heard of, in this regard l am referencing sexual context.

more porn

As l just stated, it would not surprise me if more evidence of past vulgarities have arisen. I pray for those in LG team who have to actually view and deal with such content. This has to take a toll on a person.🙏🏻🙏🏻

there’s not a hole black enough

A black hole is a region of space/tike exhibiting an acceleration of gravity so strong that nothing can escape from. The litany of information gathered about madam is so incredibly large, the people she has been involved with, the conduct, is so enormous that using the metaphor of a black hole is to help us to understand the difficulty and enormity of what they have been dealing with. Trying to unwind all the threads, than aligning them so they connect and can be used in legal proceedings.In terms of just making this garbage disappear, it’s not possible, literally meaning the black hole could not contain it and prevent it from escaping out into the ether.

redacted

Redacted, we hAve seen this gem many, many times, especially in high profile cases or agents working undercover. The paperwork submitted in legal proceedings at times are made public. In the U.S., the Freedom of Information Act, often news agencies file in court, to publicly display what the proceedings are about. However, if information is critically sensitive, to national security, to those still working covertly, some information is held back from the public, or the term is called redacted. When you read the information eventually made public, you will see black lines covering some of the information. This can be very frustrating for journalists or those who just want or those who need to know. So, in this context, this is a multi-national situation, different laws, different countries. I think this is telling us, that we should prepare ourselves that we may not be given a lot of information that we want eventually. We need to understand the reasons, as l explained above.

me myself and I

Me and shadow, popped into my head. This is the best description of madam now. NYC was crickets 🦗, no paparazzi, nothing like the baby shower weekend. I thought today was interesting, all the police officers with their motorbikes, no crowds, they were not needed. She looks more and more alone each time we see her, which makes it important that we continue to see her. Quite pathetic attempt by SW in the media today saying how great full she was that madam came to tennis 🎾, but not so great full that madam was invited to the Italian restaurant that SW and her family went after the tennis!

🎼 you either got or you haven’t

This is interesting MM ANON, you clever lady, l ask again was this a typo that the scale was separated from the word havent? Old blue eyes sang this, and the crew he ran with, Dean Martin, oooo remember Peter Lawford, how handsome. But l digressed yet again

This song is all about style , class, elegance. You can wear a quarter of a million dollar wedding dress and look awful. Style, the way one carries oneself, interacts with others, treats people and just generally lives. You cannot buy it!!! Madam does NOT!!! Have it!!

”🎼

Refer above!

on your own AGAIN!!!

Well her big speech was done, an hour of “work” on her first day back from “surrogamegnancy” leave! She has to rush home for FEED TIME😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄! Unbelievable! Yet, with madam, of course it’s believable!!

give a DOG a bone

Obvious meaning, give doggy a bone for a treat! However, our dear MM ANON doing the uppercase. DOG, the obvious meaning to me is Delusions of Grandeur! This we know is madams prime reason for existing. She is the most important person to ever exist, is perfect and everyone loves her, they should, she’s perfection. Got a bit of news for you madam, YOU ARE NONE OF THOSE THINGS!!!!

a Belgrave secret

Sherlock and John discover that a case of blackmail is more than just a threat to topple the monarchy. Sherlock: Season 2, Episode 1.“A Scandal in Belgravia” Love Benedict Cumberbath! Fabulous series!

The episode depicts Sherlock Holmes confrontation with a dominatrix who has compromising photos taken with a female member of the royal family. The photos along with other valuable information which makes a target for various political factions. Belgravia is a district on London adjacent to the grounds of Buckingham Palace.

Not really a secret whooops!

Not really a secret any longer that she really is not a member of the BRF.Rarely have l seen HRH used in the media, now DOS, until today. It’s mostly been mm. Oh l felt sick for that lovely lady who curtsied her, sickening.

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you so much dear PG! We are honoured….as sick as you feel…you still think of us all, we love you PG!😊💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Sep 13th, 2019

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58.

💜🙏🏻🙏🏻PG INTERPRETATION OF MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

MM Anon

MM ANON … a stream of unconsciousness … “feed the hungry”…… “AND THE CROWD WENT …home”…… “when is she auooooof to Africa”?…… shares drop at M&S. …… 🎼 “ all in all it’s just another”🎼……… “matter of fact, it’s all dark”……… “not Christmas, not bloody ever”!!…… “Little Lottie, a lovable rebel that one”…… “the monarchy is secured”. … “an adventure playground, no your highness’ no! an adventure PARK”

a stream of unconsciousness

The capsule collection was the goddesses contribution to solving all the women’s seeking employment problem if you’re a person in very limited size range, enjoy black clothes, mostly, England is not New York where everyone wears black all the time. A bag that costs more than any item, and if truth be told she was determined to have that bag in the collection because a similar one she herself had donated, was rejected by a woman that she was attempting to ‘style’ for her job interview. Yes folks, that’s how vindictive things are, instead of a reasonably priced non-leather, thought she was vegan, but l digress, handbag not a weekend bag, would have been a much better and certainly more affordable option to purchase. She just has no consciousness , sense of awareness if you will, beyond herself, she really doesn’t. The greatest evidence beyond many things we observe about her, was the ‘speech’ she gave yesterday, in between constantly playing with her hair/wig, so unprofessional and gross, she mentioned herself ALOT, l read 38 times in a five or six minute verbal ramble. This is madness, umpire narcissistic madness!

“feed the hungry”

Well, this could be about charity and assisting or donating time, money or food. This is reference madam’s quick escape from the no crowd show up yesterday, except those invited. Must have been a humiliation but l don’t know if she has that level of self awareness or emotion. But her quick getaway excuse was feeding time. Not my baby, my precious or for goodness sake even little Archie or a pet name as most mums have. Every single thing about this woman is strange, not normal, bizarre and selfish.

“AND THE CROWD WENT …home”

😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣MM ANON, you’re so cheeky. Yes the massive, enormous invisible crowd that waited to see madam yesterday, which necessitated a slew of policemen on motorbikes standing by lest the invisible crowd got out of hand. She stayed about and hour and left for”feeding time at the old corral “. If it weren’t so pathetically wasteful, reverse racism, it is actually quite hilarious.

“when is she auooooof to Africa”?

I am laughing because auooooof sounds like a howl when you say it and since it’s not only Friday the 13 th but full moon as well, l think MM ANON is , along with asking a legitimate question, she is giving us a good belly laugh. THANK YOU MM ANON AUOOOOF! 🐺 🐺 🐺 🐺😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

shares drop at M&S.

Marks & Spencer, for those who don’t is a major British multinational retailer that specialises in selling high quality clothing, home products and food products. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. M&S has been in financial difficulties awhile now and is to be demoted from the FTSE 100, Financial Times Stock Exchange for the first time in the latest sign of the declining fortunes of the retailer, which was a founding member of the leading City share index.

🎼 “ all in all it’s just another”🎼

Brick in the wall…..l remember this intensely from Pink Floyd album, The Wall! Grade ten l think, we were so scandalous😂😂😂, the line we don’t need no education we don’t need no thought control, we changed that line to birth control😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂oh we were rebels🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🙃😁. Pink Floyd, by the way ,fantastic album, Dark Side of the Moon, another moon reference MM ANON! 🌕

Each and every time we see madam, it’s another piece of craziness, self aggrandizement, selfishness and all the while looking a mess. Her hair, which could have been in a high ponytail or braid or a hair and for goodness sakes, on a windy, the amount of time she spent fussing her hair was distracting, unprofessional and quite gross. Designer or off the rack, nothing ever fits right. She look exceptionally square shaped yesterday, l do believe SpongeMeg is her stylist! At least for yesterday!! Everything she does, is another brick in the wall of information gathering, and in building legal cases(cases).

“matter of fact, it’s all dark”

MM ANON, you must love Pink Floyd! MM ANON you have done your research to tie in the riddle with the full moon tonight 🌕. Dark side of the moon, lots of existential and scientific talk about this, it’s all dark, no only one side faces earth and the other the sun etc etc. However, we are referencing madam not Pink Floyd now. Everything she does, most of the things she has ever done are dark, selfish, a lot of vile, vulgar things and who knows what else. She present with an aura of “be wary”. Reading or listening to her “speeches” always self-focused. Nothing dude for humanitarian reasons, fauxmanitarian.

“not Christmas, not bloody ever”!

PP raging at the idea this charade will continue and they will have to have madam with them for Christmas

I can only imagine his anger and frustration!!

“Little Lottie, a lovable rebel that one”

This is referencing our beloved Princess Charlotte. Her nickname was Lottie in preschool, l think that is ever so sweet. She definitely has a mind of her own. One of my favourite memories is the day of Prince Louis’ Christening, as they walked out of the Chapel, she told the photographers assembled there for the photos for the press “YOU’RE NOT COMING!” I still chuckle at that. I look so forward to watching her grow up.

“the monarchy is secured”

With D AND D Cornwall, but ESPECIALLY long term the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge who are such sound individuals will be excellent when times comes for William to be King and Catherine Queen. They have a beautiful family, the children are being so well raised as well rounded individuals. The Monarchy is safely secured, God willing, for several generations.

“an adventure playground, no your highness’ no! an adventure PARK”

Catherine and the team did a superb garden for the Chelsea flower show. It was beautiful and lovely watching the Cambridge children playing there. The Duchess of Cambridge surprised guests as she joined Mary Berry, of The Great British Baking Show and her books fame, at the Back to Nature festival at RHS Wisley in Woking on Tuesday morning, September 10, 2019. Kate, 37, returned to work as she opened the new site, which has been inspired by the original design she created with Adam White and Andree Davies for the Chelsea Flower Show in May. The Back to Nature Garden includes features from the original garden at RHS Chelsea, including the hollow log and boulders from the waterfall, as well as the wildflower meadow, hidden burrow and rolling hill from RHS Hampton.

Both Kate and Mary joined children on a ride in a trailer pulled by a tractor through the grounds to the site of a Back to Nature Garden Festival taking place at Wisley until September 15. New elements include a “bouncing forest��, where visitors can jump on trampolines surrounded by trees, two treehouses, linked via a walkway with slides, and a living willow pod. The garden at RHS Wisley will be a permanent feature for children and families to enjoy. The project for Kate has been part of her work on early years and how spending time outdoors can benefit young children. The Duchess even brought along her own children to play in the Back To Nature Garden before its grand opening this summer. The Cambridges released rare footage of Prince George, six, Princess Charlotte, four, and one-year-old Prince Louis helping their mum to collect moss, leaves and twigs to decorate the garden.

The DOC is marvellous, anything she puts herself into , succeeds, what a blessing she is to us all. She and William, have given us so willingly entry into their family life, appropriately. We love them for it because we absolutely love each of their children uniquely!💜💜💜

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Wonderful! I am always in awe of you both! Fantastic! Much appreciated PG, especially when you are feeling poorly! Prayers for you our dear PG! God Bless you!🙏🏻💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Sep 13th, 2019

———————-

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kcoughlan-blog1 · 6 years ago

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Turning the Screen Off

This past week I had the opportunity to observe and reflect on my use of social media and the internet. I started off the week by reading Emma Rathbone’s article, “Before the Internet”, and I found that I related to a lot of what she wrote. I know that a majority of her writing was to relate to those who had been around before social media was a big thing and before cell phones became so apparent, but I can remember as a child playing in the woods and crafting up various worlds of imagination. I never really got into the big social media craze, because I would rather read a book, then browse through endless posts about high school romances. Social media isn’t too big of a thing for me, I would not say that I do not need it, but I definitely feel that I do not use social media as much as some people. However, nowadays I find that I mostly enjoy my time spent on social media because it allows me to catch up with my high school classmates, and see how their careers are going. Which is precisely why I limit the amount of time I can spend on my phone.

I also spent this week reflecting on times when I haven’t either had access to the internet or been able to use my phone. The most memorable time I can remember is when I spent two weeks in Costa Rica. I found this time to be one of the harder times because there were so many beautiful things to see, that I wanted to share everything. But I had no service, and there was no wifi. This scared me at first because there was no way for me to contact my parents, however, I believe it also allowed me to have one of the best experiences of my life. Not being able to use my cell phone allowed me to become fully immersed in the culture and festivities of our trip. I was able to expand my Spanish vocabulary and I met so many incredible people. I truly believe I had such a great time because I had to turn the screen off.

As I mentioned above normally I restrict my screen time to averaging about an hour to at most two hours a day. As I mentioned above I enjoy reading and spending time with my friends, and to do these things, requires turning off the screen. So I thought, why not experiment and see how often I would gravitate towards my phone when I removed all restrictions? After removing all the restrictions I had previously placed on my phone, I found the results to be drastic and slightly embarrassing. Let me say I was surprised to find that when I let myself use my cell phone freely, I really took advantage of this freedom. I mean the results went from averaging an hour and a half a day to nearly four hours. Four hours! It almost made me sick to think of all the time I wasted browsing through social media.

Which leads me to talk about Sherry Turkle’s interview and her thoughts on being alone together. In her interview, Turkle brought up that fact that a lot of the time, when individuals spend time together, either one or both of them are on their phones. She states the reason for this to be boredom, or the lack of conversation and wanting to stray from the silence, but while doing this she states we are changing the way we communicate. She also says that we create another identity because we are able to reinvent ourselves to our liking. We can manipulate how we appear, what we post, and who we interact with. Our online persona may be the complete opposite of how we act in person. I was impressed by all the points Turkle brought up in her interview but also astonished to find that I partake in this other reality as she puts it. I hate awkward silences and letting the conversation die, and it is usually during these times that I leap to my phone and use my social media accounts. I am not proud by this, in fact, it makes me feel guilty because until hearing Turkle’s interview, I fully ignored this fact.

Social media plays a big part in society, it affects today's trends, introduces new products, and also allows people to share their life. So if social media isn’t all bad the question is, how can we fix this? How can we limit our time so that we don’t miss important moments? I have already seen how I clearly have no control when it comes to social media, it is only thanks to my screen time restrictions, that I keep my off social media. But this might not be an option for everyone, so how do we step back. I really do not know the answer, or have what I would call a good solution to this problem. I think what it comes down to, is that people need to realize how much of our lives are controlled by the internet and take the steps to reduce and limit their screen time. I think the best solution would be to take an internet hiatus. Set aside a day or two where you completely shut off your phone and step back from the social media realm. I think this would be a great way for people to see what is important to them in life, which is why I will be participating and shutting off all my electronics for a day. I am looking forward to the time I will spend with friends, without the interference of technology. After completing this 24-hour hiatus, I will be sure to come back and inform all you readers, of how it went. Remember that life is about living in the moment, and not a fabricated reality.

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seauxfientertainment · 4 years ago

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Is "How You Like That" by BLACKPINK worth the hype?

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[July 11th, 2020]*

It's been only two weeks since BLACKPINK (BP) released the seemingly hit or miss, record-breaking single; "How You Like That" (HYLT). It is the pre-release single from their upcoming debut studio album and there has been a lot of talk surrounding it.

People seem to either hate it or love it for a multitude of reasons. Reasons I will explain in this post.

I'll be talking about the song itself, the aesthetics, the music video and the controversy it incited, as well as the records it broke, and then I'll give my final thoughts on the song.

So if any of this interests you, you can continue reading. I'd appreciate it if you did.

*this post was originally written a couple weeks ago for a different platform.

•••

1. CONCEPT PHOTOS AND PROMOTIONAL ASPECTS

The hype for HYLT actually started about a month before the name of the track was even revealed (longer if you consider the year long hiatus BP took between the "Kill This Love" EP and this new comeback.)

On May 4, 2020 reports came out stating that BP had finished recording their first full length album and then on May 18 YG ent. projected a June 2020 release.

The first teaser poster was posted on social media on June 10, confirming that the release date would be June 26.

Finally, the Blinks' more-than-a-year-long wait for a comeback was coming to an end!

On June 12 YG ent. released a prologue to BP's new reality show "24/365 with BLACKPINK" on the BP YouTube channel. In the video Jisoo gave a spoiler to HYLT saying, "if our previous songs gave off the vibe of being strong and powerful, I think this song is more hip [hop], that shows us our swag." (Translation comes from the in-video captions.)

So, at this point we'd been told that BP would be taking an artistic turn from their previous discography. Things were going good. For those who were complaining that most BP songs were essentially the same song, now were being promised something different.

Then things started to look really good.

From June 15 to the 21st YG released individual posters, concept photos, and videos promoting the single.

And everyone was excited for the new comeback. The previews were nothing short of enticing. It seemed like we were getting a dark concept. Jennie had red smudged tear stains. Lisa had deep red hair. They all looked so stoical. Maybe this comeback was going to be a serious one?

YG dropped the Music Video teaser on June 24 and everyone was hyped.

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Although the theories were flying and everyone seemed to have differing ideas for what this new song would have to offer, in general everyone was happy. We might just get something unlike the typical BP comeback and the hype built up from there.

•••

2. MUSIC

Now let's discuss what we actually got.

On Wikipedia, HYLT is credited as a blend of trap and hip hop, but I would include electropop into that mix. To start, the song is fairly short, barely making it to three minutes long (a little bit more about the hastiness of a couple parts on the track later), a common theme that has been occurring in pop music in the past several years.

I listen to this podcast called "Tiny Meat Gang" (it's done by two comedians, Cody Ko and Noel Miller), and in one episode they mentioned what they believed was the direction the music industry will take in the future. They believed that TikTok was pushing the music industry in a direction where all songs can be shorter since only 10-15 seconds of the song actually goes viral instead of the whole track.

(The clip is from 38:25-41:40, if you're interested)

HYLT definitely has the elements needed to go viral. Something I'll continue to point out throughout this post.

The song opens up with an orchestral instrumental beginning, then slowly builds with Jennie, Jisoo, and Rosé's vocals to the bass drop and into a chorus, which to put it nicely, leaves something to be desired by those who were expecting a drastic change of pace from BP's previous comebacks.

The recycled beats and the over use of tag lines and onomatopoeia are just some of the reasons why people have been critical of this particular BP comeback and previous ones.

mera (Youtube channel), her video titled "The Real Problem with Blackpink" goes way more into detail on this topic of repetition in BP songs. I highly recommend you check it out.

In the second verse Lisa raps over this Arabic sounding beat that's actually really cool. By far my favorite part of the entire song and was the only part that really stood out to me and was distinguishable from other BP songs. Lisa's style of rapping fits the song well in my opinion.

Up until this point the song had been fine, it wasn't the best thing ever but it also wasn't the worst. This is where things started to seem rushed. The bridge, with Rosé and Jisoo, was barely there and then we go into the usual beat switch outro with chanting.

•••

3. LYRICS

The lyrics are quite vapid, at least in my opinion. The message of the song isn't ground breaking and doesn't really tell us anything about who they (the members of BP) actually are or how they feel.

In essence, the song is a revival track. At quick glance it may seem that the song is about coming out of a bad breakup feeling empowered despite the circumstances (which make sense since that was essentially the same concept used in "Kill This Love"), however, according to Genius, the meaning is actually 'deeper' than that.

Apparently, the meaning of the song is that the girls were in a dark place with all the hate they had received and now they're back stronger than ever.

As mera so colorfully says in her video, BP's music suffers from "forget to write the chorus" syndrome. All they do is repeat the same phrases over and over again. I will say this though, the chorus can easily make it a viral song. It's simple and easy to sing along to, as well as the dance isn't super difficult.

They also stick in seemingly random phrases. Such as the reference to the 1950s "Adventures of Superman" with the line "Look up in the sky It's a bird, it's a plane". Some had mentioned that it's a play on their group name.

Bird = B

Plane = P

BP = BLACKPINK

But I think there are visuals that better support these lyrics in the music video.

As for the line distribution, it's pretty good for BP standards. Rosé and Jennie together make up more than 50% of the song, each finishing with 29.4% and 29.3% respectively. Lisa's in third place with 23% and Jisoo is last with 18.3%. However, what Jisoo lacks in lines she gains in screen time in the music video, so in my opinion it levels out.

From what I understand there is a small group of people that make BP songs but prominently this man, Teddy, is the main producer and lyricist for them. He's made songs for them for basically their entire career.

Personally, I think YG needs to either find someone else to make their songs, someone with new ideas, or have Teddy and the others on the team work with the members themselves. Let the members write some of their own stuff so that it seems more personal. Many groups do this and it adds an authenticity to their sound.

This is only the first song released from the new album, so who knows, maybe the other songs are very personal. But until then, HYLT is all we have, and things don't look too promising.

•••

�� 4. CHOREOGRAPHY

I'm not going to lie, I actually really like the choreography.

I know a lot of people complained that BP uses 'recycled' dance moves. I did some research and they've used the same choreographer, Kiel Tutin, for their past couple title tracks ("Kill This Love" and "DDU-DU DDU-DU") so that's why things might seem familiar.

Side note: Kiel Tutin has choreographed for a ton of K-POP artists. For example, 4minute ("Crazy"), TWICE ("Feel Special", "Fancy", and "More & More"), Big Bang ("Bang Bang Bang"), and he also even did Jennie's "Solo."

I think the choreography matches the tone of the song. It's fun and not super complicated yet it looks elaborate with all the staging.

My personal favorite parts of the choreography is Lisa's little body roll movement in the second post-chorus:

And when Lisa and Jennie make an little arch with their arms for Jisoo to walk under:

I don't really have anything else to say about the choreography. It's just good.

•••

5. MUSIC VIDEO AND AESTHETICS

The music video is gorgeous, who is anybody kidding? Nothing too mind blowing but just beautiful to look at:

The sets were so intricate and gave atmosphere to the song. Rosé in the flowers, the arctic oil field, the tropical jungle, the staircase with the wings, the street market, the pink world dome. It's all so aesthetically pleasing.

However, the music video wasn't just nice to look at. It did reveal a lot more to the story told in the song.

Jordan Orme, a music video editor made a video breaking down all the little details the director and editor(s) used to show the story written in the song. I found it very useful to better understand the meaning of the song and the visuals. Check it out if you want.

Some of the visuals that I appreciated the most were the umbrellas during the second pre-chorus with Jennie and Jisoo.

Jordan had spoken about how he thought the umbrellas represented protection or being shielded from the hate. And then with Jisoo the umbrellas are burning because they no longer need protection, they can take on the hate themselves. It was just a little detail I enjoyed.

I also quite liked the buildup to the outro and the outro itself.

Each of the members stood in front of the wings as Rosé and Jisoo sang:

"The day I went down with my wings lost / Those dark days when I was trapped / You should have ended me when you still have a chance"

During the Superman reference ("It's a bird, it's a plane") they showed the heads of the Trojan horses and then later showed their wheels, rolling in, when Jennie yells "Bring out the boss bitch!"

It's the little details that get to me.

Although now I know that the Trojan horses represent the BP members passing themselves as a gift to the music industry but in actuality they're preparing to 'attack' (supposedly with their upcoming album), when I was researching the meaning behind them I found this user on Quora, Hamedah Badmus, who while answering the question "What does a Trojan Horse means in the latest Blackpink video clip 'How You Like That'?" gave their interpretation of the music video using Greek mythology. It's amazing how people can imagine things that others can't. They created a whole other storyline.

The music video for HYLT appears to be universally liked. However, there is one problem with the video. Which brings me to my next topic.

•••

6. CONTROVERSY

In the scene where Lisa is rapping on a throne in a North African street market, there is a statue of the Hindu deity Ganesha:

This upset many followers of the Hindu religion, and rightfully so. There's no excuse for making fun of someone's religion. It's personal and should be taken seriously.

From what I understand Ganesha is the Hindu God of New Beginnings, Success, and Wisdom, and the Remover of Obstacles. In regards to the statue, the proper way to display Ganesha is on an alter. You are not supposed to place the statue on the floor or in low energy areas, such as the bathroom, garage or laundry.

I'll probably talk about this in more depth in my next post about Agust D's new album, because he dealt with a separate but similar situation, but here I'll simply say that ignorance, such as haphazardly using a religious icon in a music video without real knowledge on how to properly display said icon, is unacceptable. Especially with a group as popular as BP who reach millions of people from around the world.

This isn't the first time BP has upset followers of the Hindu religion. In "DDU-DU DDU-DU" Jennie was criticized for wearing a Bindi, a decorative mark worn in the middle of the forehead by Indian women. Jennie's, I believe, was a jewel one. And in the "Kill This Love" music video when Jisoo is shooting an arrow she's wearing an Indian headpiece.

I've also seen clips of the members mimicking traditional Hindu dances. It's tasteless and done out of ignorance. Like any other instance of cultural appropriation, it must be addressed and learned from.

•••

7. LIVE PERFORMANCES AND FASHION

The live performances have been a bit lack luster for me (so far.)

The members just don't seem that into it. The dancing was uninspired to say the least. Lisa's always giving it her all, but the other members are just going through the motions. And it hasn't even been a month yet.

The Inkigayo Comeback Special from 0628 was by far their best performance. They got to do a short intro and the set looked like a jungle temple. I also really liked the costuming during that performance. Lisa has these red boots and all the background dancers were wearing cute pink tops with jeans and their hair in braids. It all looked great to me.

They also looked stunning on Jimmy Fallon. (They wore the outfits similar to the top photo down below). I liked Jisoo's bell sleeves and her little pigtails.

In general, the outfits for this comeback have looked really nice and complement each other well (except for Jisoo's purple dress in the bottom picture from above. A lot of people said they liked it, that it made her stand out but I didn't care much for it. I think it clashes with the other outfits.)

(BTW did not notice Lisa's yellow glove in the winter scene of the M/V)

This comeback also has many different looks. It would be nice to see all of them with slightly different sets similar to the music video during their live performances.

I believe that this era is Lisa's era, at least fashion-wise. I mean Jennie's modernized Hanbok is nice and everything, she's definitely been given some pretty amazing outfits:

And the hair, you can't forget about the hair. From braids, to blonde streaks, to a shoulder length cut, the stylists seem to be giving Jennie everything.

But Lisa's outfits are killing it.

My favorite look from her, and probably from the entire comeback, has to be the jewel-beaded top and blue (denim?) pants she wore during her rap in the music video.

Also she looks gorgeous with that black bob cut hair.

(She also looked great in her LILI's FILM dance performance but that's on the side)

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I did very much enjoy their encore performance. There's something about watching them in a relaxed environment where they don't have to worry about messing up the choreography. They can just sing and have fun.

YG should include more moments like these in their performances.

•••

8. INITIAL ACCOLADES

One of the biggest reasons why HYLT is garnering a lot of hype is the amount of records it's breaking and how much success it's gotten since it's release.

HYLT has broken five Guinness World Records:

—most viewed YouTube video in 24 hours

—most viewed music video on YouTube in 24 hours

—most viewed music video on YouTube in 24 hours by a K-POP group

—most viewers for a premiere on YouTube (1.66 million concurrent viewers)

—most viewers for a premiere on YouTube for a music video

They received what they call in South Korea as a 'perfect all-kill', charting #1 on Melon, and charting on Genie, Naver, etc.

HYLT debuted at #12 on the Gaon Digital Chart. (The Gaon Music Chart is essentially South Korea's version of the Billboard Chart.)

On Spotify, HYLT debuted #5 on the global chart with 4.073 million streams and #10 in the US with 762k streams. Although that's not that surprising since BP is the most followed girl group on Spotify.

•••

9. FINAL THOUGHTS

So, is "How You Like That" worth the hype?

The short answer: probably not.

The song itself isn't bad, it's just repetitious. Like we've already heard this song before, and we kind of did with "Kill This Love" and "DDU-DU DDU-DU", among others.

I think the song fits it's purpose; a fun song for people to dance to and make videos with. It has its catchy tag lines ("How you like that?", "Look at you, now look at me", etc.) and its electropop dance beat. It doesn't really need anything else.

I was reading many of the opinions on Reddit, one person had suggested that if the outro was used as the chorus the song would have been better. Everyone's saying the song would have been better "if Jennie had her own rap", "if Rosé got a high note", or "if the song went on longer."

Another person said that if HYLT was sung by another artist it wouldn't be receiving the same amount of hype. That's probably true.

I don't know, man.

Those who like BLACKPINK songs will keep on liking them, those who don't will keep on complaining. And that's that.

•••

I believe a majority of the problems BLACKPINK faces is due to their company YG. They have the money and the resources to make unique, sentimental music. They just decide not to. Rather, they make budget cuts, putting the least amount of money into the group and maximizing capital. Especially because, just like this comeback has proved, BP can put out anything and it will sell. Only further encouraging YG to put in the bare minimum.

I don't dare to question the talents of the BP members when it comes to song writing, because, honestly, I don't think they've even been given the chance to try. Like I said earlier if YG had Teddy work with the girls to write songs and get their input into the creative process they could release innovative and inspired songs.

I hate to make comparisons because I don't want to say one particular group is better than any other. In actuality they're all talented, they just need the support from their company. That being said, I do look at groups like BTS who were given a whole lot more reign when it came to the creative process. And it certainly has never hurt them. If anything it increased their popularity since more people could relate to the deep meanings in their songs.

You can't feel empowered all the time. It's only human that we feel weak and vulnerable at times. I want to hear about those sides of BP. It would humanize them rather than being idol robots that do whatever they're programmed to do.

Anyways, thank you for reading this post. I put several hours of research just to write this, no joke, but I enjoyed it.

This type of project would probably be better suited for YouTube but I'm just not a sit in front of a camera type of person. I enjoy writing though, so this seemed like a better fit for me.

Please, leave a comment on what you thought about BLACKPINK's "How You Like That" and maybe leave a suggestion for what K-POP topic I should review next (songs, albums, idols, groups, videos, etc.)

Until the next one,

Seaux Fí

•••

SOURCES

Wikipedia

Genius ("HYLT" English Translation)

BBC NEWS (BP: HYLT scores the biggest premiere in YouTube history)

kieltutin.com

guinnessworldrecords.com (BP's return sets new YouTube records with HYLT)

scmp.com (Did BP's HYLT video insult Hindu religion? Plus 4 more times K-POP's biggest girl group stoked controversy)

allkpop.com (forums: Jennie's Bindi Controversy)

kpopmap.com (BP talks about the choreography for HYLT, fashion and thoughts on breaking records)

r/unpopularkpopopinions (Mega Thread: BP - HYLT)

thespruce.com (The Proper Way to Display Ganesha)

#kpop #kpop bands #kpop girls #kpop opinions #blackpink #how you like that #blackpink how you like that #blackpink hylt #music #kpop songs

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tsgaustintexas · 5 years ago

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The New Normal | Virtual Services

Despite the new normal, a lot of the services you know and love are still open and are excited to work with you, albeit in a slightly different way. We've gathered updates from a variety of industries and are including some ways that you can help support those local businesses that have temporarily pressed pause on normal operations. xx - Leigh Ann

Interior State of Mind

It’s been 2 weeks since we’ve been self isolating and the list of things I want to change around our house is getting longer by the day. Whether it’s a full-blown remodel or a few decorative touches, these experts would love to help you. The design industry is buzzing and conducting business as usual with Zoom, Facetime, emails + more.

A Custom House | Shop Online + Inquire with your own Design Request

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Dunn & Hall | This duo is standing by to help with your residential and commercial projects + they can make your home oh so cozy!

Garwood Architecture | #Scouted Architect, Clint Garwood, is still designing beautiful homes (and helping out with some home school on the side!)

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Deep Dive into Your Business

As small business owners navigate the effects of COVID-19, the physical experience may be temporarily closed, but your digital platforms don't have to be. Use this down time to your advantage and tackle some digital projects that you’ve been putting off with the help of these #Scouted experts.

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The Identité Collective | What an amazing resource to turn to right now. Whether it’s her amazing shopping round-ups, insightful blog posts, website templates or the other one million more reasons it’s a great idea to follow IDCO closely.

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Staying Fit + Staying Well

Self-care and personal fitness has never been more important than now. These members are the perfect antidote to these stressful times. For more inspiration, check out what our Volume 7 members are doing to stay healthy.

Austin Skin Plus | SkinPlus Acne is virtually helping those that suffer from chronic breakouts. Start their virtual program, get connected with a coach, discuss your treatment plan and emerge with glowing skin!

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Peach House Pilates | Our favorite pilates studio is pivoting and now hosting classes on Zoom. Follow Caitlin on Instagram for new class times and directions on how to join (venmo donations)!

Real Estate

The essential business sector is pushing forward with a few adjustments...

LAPIS Real Estate | Learn more about this real estate duo’s knack for design & how they can help elevate your listings.

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Nicole Kessler | Currently dreaming about being self-quarantined in her Frio River Cabin Listing....

Heritage Title | Operating with limited hours, people and extra precautions - just a few more reasons to love Austin’s leading title agency.

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Andy Roddick Foundation | ARF is sharing some really helpful resources + tips on their website

Jet Journal | Day dreaming about your next trip? Download the JetJournal app and start exploring your dream destinations - whether it’s a car ride away or across the globe.

LawnPop Artificial Turf | We’ve been living in our backyard and with all this rain & a new puppy, we’ve never been more thankful for our LawnPop backyard. Reach out to Tanner Sheppard to learn more.

MINT Event Design | There’s a lot to celebrate this spring - even if it’s just with your family. Carolina is just an email away with tons of ideas to bring some light + joy to your self-isolation celebration!

Buy gift cards! Schedule your appointments! Plan a celebration!

Unfortunately, not everyone can move their service-based business online, so lets show some extra love and support to our friends that have temporarily closed their doors or pressed pause on operations.

Haute House Lash & Beauty Bar | Services are temporarily on hold, but you can buy a gift card or order product in the meantime! Get in touch + more updates here!

Hannah Mayson Photography | With the wedding industry on a brief hiatus, reach out and plan a family session or commercial shoot with one of our favorite Austin photographers.

Jackman Eye | Dr. Huser will remain available for urgent eye care issues & a little birdie told us that gift cards will be coming soon. Self isolation means you deserve some new frames...

LACQUER - Services are temporarily on hold, but LACQUER is selling these super helpful at-home kits. In the meantime, buy gift cards + more updates here!

Lake Austin Spa | Does anything sound better than a spa day right now? In the interim, we suggest buying a gift card and counting down the days until you can zen out in the blue room pre-treatment...

Loot Rentals | Our friends have a special offer for you and are also hosting a great sale over at Loot Finer Goods...

Mom’s Best Friend Agency | There is a light at the end of the tunnel, so get a head start on your household staffing needs before summer. Chances are you’re going to want a break from the 24/7 chores + childcare after April 30th....

Rejuvenate Austin | Services have temporarily been paused, but check out their spring break sale & prepare to glow up when this all ends!

Smile 360 | Dr. Ip will remain available for dental emergencies and in the meantime, he’s making the most of his unexpected time off.

The Aero Bar | Like the rest of the events industry, The Aero Bar is in a holding pattern, but is dreaming up (and hopefully taste-testing) some delicious cocktail recipes. Will and Ollie are so ready to serve you a stiff cocktail when this all ends. Book now, celebrate soon.

Vannagram & Co | We adore Emily & the Van Fam! She’s been working hard to reschedule events while home schooling her little dude. Her silver lining? Bebe #2 is due any day now and she’ll get to enjoy an actual maternity leave!

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bethgreeneishopeunseen · 8 years ago

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Interview Inconsistencies & Strangeness

Emily and the other walking dead actors may be amazing actors, but no one is a perfect liar. Over the last two-and-a-half years they have given off subtle clues in their speech and behavior patterns, specifically in relation to Beth. For ease of research and to stress how suspicious the whole Beth conspiracy is, I gathered all the suspicious interviews and articles that I could find, as well as any metas on them that I had in my archives. This compilation isn’t just my efforts, but all of the efforts of Team Delusional, as you all helped to provide the evidence. I would also like to give a special thanks to @fioredi for her help in finding some interviews.

If there are any interviews that you think are suspicious, please reblog them with the relevant quote/time mark and the source/link.

Present Tense:

In early October of 2014, Emily was on the podcast, EW Morning Live, with Dalton Ross. (It was likely recorded in September, after she would have finished filming.) She was giggly, referred to the show in the present tense, and even mentioned buying furniture for her apartment. When she was asked if she was going back to Atlanta, she quickly said, “I will be,” as if she had let something slip. (X).

Under the Radar: “Well, obviously, we're not all filming all the time. It depends on scenes and episodes and stuff, so I know I'm going to have some time to still fit in some stuff. But it's funny how this has become a home base for me, because when I'm here I'm focused on just working on one thing, and it's quieter. I'm usually not trying to fit a million things into one day. As much as the show is not a calm show, there's something really nice and calm about being in Georgia. It's a great atmosphere. Now it's beginning to feel more like a home, because this is my fourth year on the show. It's very familiar here. I'm sure the season is going to be amazing, and it's great to be around my family. During the break, we all go off and do our own things. I'm doing my music, and Norman does his photography. But it's always good to be back. It's such a supportive group.” (X) (X). (October 7th, 2014.)

Emily gave this interview probably within two months of it being released. She moved to Atlanta during season 3 (X at 46:13), and she’s had her Georgia apartment going back to summer 2013 (X), and the “now” is pointed. She felt like Georgia was home during 5b, because she spent most of the fall filming in secret, and because of this arc, she knew Beth would be one of the last characters standing.

On Coda’s Talking Dead, they showed a clip from set of Norman talking about filming the episode: “That was a really crazy day, because I really like Emily and I like that character.” (X) (X). (0:15). (November 30th, 2014).

FML 949: “It’s hard for me sometimes to separate, ya know like oh if I was just watching the show, like as far as making the show is so much…was so much a part of my like everyday life…” (X) (X) (June 11th, 2015). *audio removed*

Jefferson Public Radio (JPR): When asked what it’s like to pretend to kill people, she said, “Yeah, well we do a lot of…you know we have a lot of, um…there’s stunt coordinators and stuff like that on set, so there’s some choreography involved and also there’s some, um, there’s some like (pause) uh, special effects that are involved too so sometimes you’re not actually stabbing the person in the head…” (X) (X). (June 11th, 2015).

SplashTV (at 1:10): “[The Walking Dead] is so protective of anyone finding out anything that we have fake names. [...] My fake name was Mariah.” (X). (August 9th, 2015).

TPTB likely changed Emily’s call name after season 5 as a further security measure.

Spoiler Alert: “[Masters of Sex is] [v]ery different from Walking Dead,” Kinney said. “To me that definately appealed to me. I loved working on Walking Dead but I sort of liked the idea to of going to work and, like, people not getting shot in the throat. To me I welcomed the break of not necessarily exploring people getting torn apart but instead exploring relationships and sex and drama and people falling in love.” “This was a nice change of pace.” (X) (X). (7:14) (7:58). (August 17th, 2015).

Screener: “Now I’ve watched all of [Masters of Sex] and I really like the show. It’s really fun to do something that’s about relationships and families and [being] sexy. It’s a nice break from “The Walking Dead,” which, of course, was a lot of death and destruction. It’s fun to have scenes of just talking things out. That’s really fun for me.” (X) (X). (August 30th, 2015).

Emily spent most of The Walking Dead Food Special discussing the show, specifically in the present tense. She didn’t talk about her current projects until the end. (X) (X) (X) (X). (October 6th, 2015).

Julia Stoepel: “today i happened to run into emily kinney who is beth on #thewalkingdead and i am her german voice.” (X) (X). (October 31st, 2015).

(X) (evidence of her speaking English well, meaning that the quote above wasn’t just a grammatical mistake).

Hallmark Channel (at 0:27): “Is there a big difference in playing the two? Emily Kinney: They’re definitely very different projects. [...] For Walking Dead you know I show up to set and they just get me dirty and bloody and then I show up to set for Love On the Sidelines and I get to be pretty.” (X) (X) (X). (January 13th, 2016).

At her HelloGiggles interview, Emily refers to the show in present tense and as “we” when discussing the differences between TWD and Conviction when it comes to getting ready. This makes sense as we’ve theorized that she filmed for both TWD and Conviction, so she would constantly be going back and forth. She’s made similar comments about hair and make-up when talking about Masters of Sex and Love On the Sidelines. By the time of this interview, she had been off the show for two years and done multiple projects, so she had adjusted to non-horror costuming, but she hasn’t. (X). (3:20). (August 30th, 2016)

For her interview on Intrepid Broadcasting, she uses the present tense and hedges when talking about filming Beth’s death, using “umm” a lot. (X) (X). (7:38). (November 16th, 2016).

Your Morning Show: “I love being on the show” when talking about TWD. (X) (November 1st, 2016).

A fan met Emily and told her that, “Beth and Daryl sure were a match”, and Emily agreed. “They sure are.” (X). (November 2016).

Newschannel 20: “I’m so thankful to be a part of something that had such a big audience. And umm, I learned a lot. It was a big chunk of my life. It was like four years, working on that show. I learned a lot. I think I became a better actor, working with the people I got to work with. So yeah it was a good time.” (X). (June 9th, 2017).

Emily’s two primary social media accounts, Instagram and Twitter, reference her role as Beth in the present tense. On December 18th, 2014, she took “Beth on The Walking Dead” off her Twitter bio but added it back hours later. Then in late 2015, her Instagram hacked and her bio was changed. She had to fix her bio, and could have updated it, but she put Beth back. (X) (X).

Edited 7/22/2017 to add: Once on Twitter she replied to a follower about her bio being changed, explaining that her manager did it. Her manager will sometimes change things or sometimes tweet information. She kept Beth in because she liked it (X).

Interview Anxiety:

Lauren Cohan and Scott Gimple were asked about Maggie’s relationship to Beth. Lauren joked that the Greene sisters were texting the whole time, and Gimple mentioned radios before cutting himself off, as if it were a spoiler. “Yeah, there are radio waves that are still…[hesitates and cuts himself off] Okay, we just won’t get into that.” (X) (X). (July 30th, 2014).

When talking about Beth’s “death” after Coda immediately aired, the cast and crew all exhibited traits associated with lying. Emily probably did the most, who was on Talking Dead at the time. (X). (November 30th, 2014).

BTS of Coda (Andrew Lincoln): “I said to Emily, “You’re so fricking good. People adore you. Which is why you're worthy of this death.”” *fidgeted and didn’t look directly at the camera* (X) (X) (2:40). (November 30th, 2014).

Access Hollywood: “They brought Scott back. If they came to you and asked you to do some sort of flashback, or dream sequence, do you feel like you’re done, or would you be happy to say yes, provided you aren’t busy touring [with your music]? Emily: Yeah, it would just depend on my schedule, but of course I would. I mean, I love being on set, I love working. Of course I would. I love working.” Repetitious, which is a sign of lying. (X). (December 3rd, 2014).

When asked about bringing dead characters back for 5x09, Greg Nicotero’s tone and body language changed when talking about Beth/Emily. Chad L. Coleman first had to remind Greg about bringing her back, and then Greg gave unnecessary detail about it. The detail also clashed with filming schedules and with what Emily mentioned at a concert about being brought back. (X). (February 8th, 2015).

While listing off the dead characters in 5x09, Chad L. Coleman conveniently forgot to mention Beth. (X). (February 8th, 2015).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY COMMUNITY: “What’s the experience been like, being killed off of a show? The fans were pretty upset about it. EMILY KINNEY: I would say now, I mean, it’s great. What’s really cool about this show is that even though I’m done working on it, there are conventions and people reaching out. It’s really exciting to see that fanbase, that they’re so interested in what I’m going to work on next. Obviously I miss working on the show. Right now a lot of the cast members are on hiatus anyway, but what’s cool is that working on that show, I made these really amazing friendships. When I do these conventions, I get to see all these friends again. So even though I’m not working on the show anymore, I still feel really connected. It’s also one of those shows that people will watch later—you know, binge-watch. So I constantly have people tweeting at me or contacting me saying, “I just started watching this show” or “I just finished season four.” So even though I’m done working on it, it’s kind of one of those shows that keeps generating more fans, and it’s something that will always be a big part of my life.” Repetitious, which is a sign of lying. (X) (X) (X). (February 23rd, 2015).

While on River 105.9, at 5:54 the hosts asked Emily if it would be possible that Beth would return as a flashback or hallucination. Emily struggled with a response before diverting the conversation to her other acting projects like The Flash. She never actually answers the question. (X) (X) (X). (February 23rd, 2015).

At 5:25, Emily also mentions that her album, This is War, would come out the first week of May. This makes sense, as albums usually come out before an artist goes on tour. Instead, Emily pushed up her album release date to early October, after she had done most of her shows.

On Good Morning America, leading up to the season 5 finale, Norman licked his lips and looked excited yet cautious when asked about romance. As we all know, Bethyl is the only romance for Daryl (X) (X), so that’s what Norman would be excited about. Which is only possible if he knows that Beth is coming back. At 3:28 in the interview, he participated in a trivia game with the host. He got everyone question except which death nearly broke the Internet that season. He said Emily instead of Beth, also licking his lips before responding. (X) (X). (March 27th, 2015).

(photo credit @bethgreenewarriorprincess)

On Talking Dead, Seth Gilliam was asked about Boots’s identity, and his demeanor and body language changed. He stuttered and spoke strangely (X). (February 19th, 2017).

Greg Nicotero, Christian Serratos, and Norman Reedus all exuded anxiety, and Norman became very fidgety, when asked which dead character they would want to bring back. (X) (X). (March 3rd, 2017).

Newschannel 20: Repetitious, which is a sign of lying. (X). (June 9th, 2017).

Interview Absences:

Emily hasn’t done a panel in the United States since before Coda. It was even confirmed that at least once the network canceled one of her scheduled panels. (X).

During a Behind-The-Scenes video for 5x09, Emily was the only main actress not in the video. All of the actors in Tyreese’s hallucination, except Martin’s and Emily, were there. Interestingly, Emily posted a picture of her in a van, with faded scar make-up, at the time the bedroom scenes were being filmed. She likely filmed the bedroom scenes first and then left, to go film. (X) (X) (X). (February 8th, 2015).

Emily didn’t do any commentary for the season 5 DVDs. It was her last seasons, which included her own episode, yet nothing.

None of the Grady actors have done a panel, even though past communities like Terminus has, and there have been a limited amount of interviews.

During an AMA, Emily confirmed that she would be recording her version of Struggling Man. She promised to release information in the coming weeks, but she never did. (X). (October 15th, 2015).

Lack of Death:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: “I know it’s tough for you guys off-screen, but what does the loss of Beth do to Rick and to the group moving forward on-screen?” Andrew Lincoln: [...] And yet again we’re in a desperate place and we’re in the middle of Atlanta that is overrun. We’re compromised, yet it’s one of these places where he has to step forward as a leader. There isn’t time to dwell on this. He has to keep pushing his troops forward. [...] I do have to say that losing Emily — it was so painful on so many levels. I adore the girl. I think she’s amazing. We lost the voice, her song. And after her having such a tremendous episode that she led in in episode 4 to not even get the chance… I mean, I had three or four seconds to act with her and then she was taken away. It’s just cruel, this job, man. It’s just cruel.” (X) (X) (X). (December 1st, 2014).

MTV News (Andrew Lincoln): “The interesting thing about the [Virginia] decision was it was the only physical way they could honor Beth. She’s dead and gone, and we can’t affect anything outside of that. One thing we can do is honor her wishes, and try to see if we can find Noah’s parents. I love that, when you realize the reasoning behind it was actually a softening, a tenderness, the humane side of Rick we haven’t seen for quite some time...[He had] very possibly a quite paternal feeling towards her.” Repetitious and overly-detailed, which are signs of lying. (X) (X). (February 3rd, 2015).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY (Andrew Lincoln): “There are a lot of people grieving the loss of such an important person. There was so much hope invested in Beth and finding her, and then to have it ripped out of our grasp was unbearable for actors and for the story.” (X) (X) (February 6th, 2015.)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: “So, why was it Tyreese’s time to go? SCOTT M. GIMPLE: That question for any character is very difficult. You know, like, why was it Hershel’s time to go? Why was it Bob’s time to go? I mean, because there are no right or wrong answers when it comes to this stuff. I’ll say that it was his time to go in as much as that’s what the story dictates—not just in that moment, but for the future too, and the way the story turns off of these events.” (X) (X). (February 8th, 2015).

On 5x09��s Talking Dead, Greg Nicotero mentioned that “[The characters have] lost two people in the group,” either forgetting Bob or Beth’s death. Considering in the same episode he had to be reminded of Emily being brought back to set, I’m going with Beth (X). (February 8th, 2015).

Norman doesn’t refer to Beth as dead. For example, he describes “carrying [her]”, not her body. (X) (X). On Good Morning America, when asked which season 5 death caused an uproar, he said Emily. (X).

On the Talking Dead Fear Special, Chris Hardwick listed out the moral compasses, who always died, like Dale and Hershel. He left out Beth. (X) (October 4th, 2015).

News 4 Jax (at 1:03): “Once Beth left I felt like we had done a good job of you know really... filling out her character and like people got to know her.” (X) (X) (X) (X). (November 18th, 2015).

So in summary: People forget that Beth is dead.

Breaking the News:

During Scott Gimple’s tenure as showrunner, former cast members find about their characters’ deaths with some advanced notice. Later the cast and crew throw a death dinner. Everything related to Emily finding out and what happened afterwards stands out from the others.

“TVLINE: “How long have you known about Andrea’s death? Laurie: I didn’t get the official word until a few days before we began [shooting] the finale. It was a shock to everyone. It was never part of the original story docs for Season 3. And it was rather unexpected. That said, this is The Walking Dead. This show is not conventional by any means — and we know that as actors going in. So you roll with it. You show up, you do the best job you can, and you honor the storytelling. Overall, this has been an extraordinary experience and I just feel so blessed to have been a part of it.” At a con last summer: “Well I had an 8 year deal, I was supposed to be there until the end. I was supposed to end up with Rick. I was supposed to save Woodbury on a horse, and I was buying a house in Atlanta. I got the call at 10 o’ clock the night before, while I was shooting, from the show runner who is no longer a part of The Walking Dead, saying that they couldn’t write the episode and that he was killing my character. So we all got the script everybody on the set was sobbing. I felt like I got shot. None of it was supposed to happen the way it did.” (X). (March 31st, 2013).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: “You mentioned you didn’t know yet when you were filming episode 5, so when and how did you get the news of your impending fate? SCOTT WILSON: Actually, I found out right after that episode, which was kind of ironic. And I kind of truthfully expected it after episode 403 when Hershel had this great speech about risking your life and what you’re risking it for. I had a suspicion then. And then when I read 405, that really confirmed my suspicion in a way, but I wasn’t officially told until after we were finished shooting 405. Did you plead with the producers for a stay of execution like Rick pleaded with the Governor? He called me into his office and I went in and talked to him. He explained to me that I was going. I said to him, “I think you’re making a big mistake, but it’s yours to make and I’m not going to try to talk you out of it.” Someone from the show was going to go. I would not want to be the one to make the decision that he had to make there. And I respect him for how he told me, and I am grateful for the scenes and episodes they gave me before they took me off. So, it’s all good.” (X). (December 2nd, 2013).

On Coda’s Talking Dead, Emily mentioned that she found out during filming for 5x07 (X). (November 30th, 2014).

TVLINE: “How long have you known that Beth was getting killed off? EMILY KINNEY: Since late August. I found out the day the script [for the episode] came out. Who told you? [Showrunner] Scott Gimple. Did you reach out to your co-stars for emotional support? I think the original plan was for everyone to get a call [before they read it in the script]. I know when Scott Wilson was killed off [in Season 4], everyone was called [ahead of time]. And I think Scott Gimple originally [planned to do] that because he had times set up to talk to everyone that day. [But] I know not everyone got called, because some people called me the next morning when they read the script. Like, Norman Reedus and Andy [Lincoln] didn’t get any kind of call or anything like that. [Editor’s note: A source close to the show maintains that Gimple, on set in Atlanta, contacted all cast members either in person or via phone within hours of his meeting with Kinney, well before the script was distributed.] Did Scott offer an explanation? He didn’t, really. I think the whole point is there is no rhyme or reason [to the deaths on the show]. It’s like real-life. Why does that person [die] as opposed to other people? We really don’t quite know why.” (X). (November 30th, 2014).

Emily meant late July, not August. 5x07 was filmed at the end of July and Coda at the beginning of August.

The Hollywood Reporter (THR): “When did you find out Beth was going to die? Emily Kinney: The day the script came out, during episode 507. I was really sad and shocked, I had no idea. I had a meeting with [showrunner] Scott Gimple and it was very sad. He didn't explain why [Beth was being killed off], but he said it was something he had been planning since season four. I was very upset. We both love working together and for whatever reason, that's how he saw the character going.” (X). (December 1st, 2014).

There was an interview that Emily met with Scott in his office, but I couldn’t find it. And actors meeting with Scott in his office is characteristic of main characters’ death. It’s consistent in past cast members’ interviews, so why would Emily mention it only once? Because it’s a lie, and it’s hard to keep the details of a lie straight the more times you tell it. (X).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: “Tell me how and when you got the bad news. EMILY KINNEY: The season finale was episode 508 and I found out during 507. So I found out a few hours before they released the script to everyone. Showrunner Scott Gimple gave you the call? I actually talked to him in person. So did you go then tell your castmates or did they find out on their own? All I know is how I found out, which is that day a few hours before the script came out. So different people from the cast reached out to me after that and that was really nice.” (X) (December 1st, 2014).

The Daily Beast: “When did you first receive the news that Beth would be killed off? Emily Kinney: I found out during [Season 5, Episode 7], the day the script came out. I mean, I found out a few hours before the script went to everyone.” (X). (December 1st, 2014).

Us Weekly: “How did the showrunners let you know about Beth's death? Emily Kinney: I found out the day that the script came out. They came to me and told me before everyone else in the cast. I didn't read the script right away because I was working on [last week's] episode seven at the time. I wanted to avoid reading it at first, because the next day I had to do all my scenes for episode seven. Not to mention I wasn't really excited to see what was going to happen. I just stayed focused on that first. I had a little while to emotionally prepare… at least a little while.” What was your initial reaction to reading it? I was pretty sad. I really had no idea [that Beth was going to die]. I know it's happened like this in the past but for some reason I thought, 'Oh, they would tell me.' I really didn't know, so I was very sad and just dealing with, 'What am I going to do with all my stuff?' All the little stuff that you go through with a big change like that. It was quite a few years of my life. How did you say goodbye to the show? There was a little party. We had a campfire, campout party. It was good to see everyone. It makes you realize that you have to enjoy the time you have with people. At the end I was trying to really soak up everything.” (X). (December 1st, 2014).

In the same interview, there are inconsistencies. Emily first said that TPTB “came to [her]”, yet it sounds like they didn’t, as she didn’t know. In THR interview, she mentioned meeting with Scott. So why not in this one? Why use the ambiguous they?

Emily a posted a picture of a s’more on August 24th, 2014 (X). She was likely in Georgia at the time filming (X). Many fans speculated that she was at her death dinner. After Coda aired, she revealed that she had a fireside, campey death dinner, and she shared with Chad L. Coleman. Christine Woods wasn’t invited, even though villains are given death dinners too. David Morrissey and Scott Wilson shared death dinners, since they died in the same episode. I wouldn’t be surprised if TPTB kept the dinner to a tight circle, since Tyreese’s death and the filming of it are so tied with Beth’s.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: “How did you first get the word from Scott Gimple that Tyreese’s time had come? Chad Coleman: Scott called me up and was like, “Chad, I’m meeting with all the cast,” and I’m like, “You know, Scott, I’m busy, man. I don’t mean harm, bro, but no big deal right? Everything’s cool.” He’s like, “Yeah, no, everything’s cool. I just want to talk to you.” So I went in, and he said, “Tyreese’s time has come.” And I said, “Stop joking, Scott. Come on, man. Stop playing.” And then he teared up, and then I knew it was real, and then I just kept saying, “Wow,” for, like, five minutes. I just kept going, “Wow. Wow.” And then I breathed in and breathed out, and realized that hey, man, I’ve done everything I could do on the show, so let’s go do this one, and make it the best we’ve ever done.” (X). (February 8th, 2015).

Yahoo: When did you find out that this was going to happen? Did you know from the beginning of Season 5? Chad Coleman: No, three episodes prior. But also, we got caught in the Beth situation. Because [Emily Kinney] was supposed to find out at least three episodes before, and it didn't happen. It happened pretty much one episode out. So she's reading the new episode and going "Oh, shit." Everybody was hurting tremendously from that. When [Scott Gimple] called me into the office, I looked at him, and he teared up. I said, "Wow." I said that about fifty times. "Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow." And he's just looking at me, and I'm going, "Wow." Then I just breathed in and breathed out and said, "You know, I've had an amazing time. It's been an amazing run." Did you get a chance to have a going-away dinner with your castmates, as per tradition? Oh, absolutely. It was around a campfire at the house of one of the producers. And it was beautiful. It was warm and heartfelt and everybody poured their hearts out.” (X). (February 9th, 2015).

Canada.com: What was your reaction when you found out that Tyreese was going to die in the Season 5B premiere, especially so soon after Beth? Christian Serratos: We all get a call when either you or somebody else will be going, so you never really know what’s going to happen or what the outcome of that phone call is going to be. I think we all got the news of both of them in the same phone call. We’re used to hearing about just one person leaving, but as soon as the shock settled with one, we were told we’re also going to lose somebody else. It was a double whammy for all of us.” (X) (X). (February 13th, 2015).

Cast members are allowed to fight for their characters, yet Emily didn’t and didn’t even think to (X). And she wouldn’t need to because Beth wasn’t dying in the first place.

Scott Gimple killed Beth and Tyreese essentially at the same time, and yet he was very clinical towards Beth and Emily when discussing the death (X).

So in summary:

There are inconsistencies in how Emily found out, and she found out later than she is supposed to. Typically cast members know a few weeks ahead of time, but Emily found out a week before, and we’re still not sure how.

Emily’s departure bears similarities to Laurie’s, except Emily still promotes the show. It appears that TPTB created a narrative similar to what happened in season 3

Stalking Dead Interview:

After the mid-season 6 premiere (February 14th, 2016), Kate Nash hosted Stalking Dead with Emily as a guest. The informal interview revealed Emily’s discomfort when talking about Beth, and specifically her death. Team Delusional was also brought up, as well as Beth’s lack of a funeral. It was a gold mine of an episode, and I recommend anyone interested in Team Delusional to watch the whole thing. (Full video here: X. It runs from 4:20 to 1:21:15, before repeating.)

Towards the beginning of the interview Emily pointed out that Glenn left out Beth’s name when listing deceased loved ones, like Dale and Hershel (X) (X at 10:00).

At 46:50, Emily finished talking about how she got the role of Beth and summarized her experience on the show as, “It’s been really amazing.” ‘It has’ is present tense, and Emily had been off the show for over a year at this point. (X).

While reading tweets from fans, Kate read a tweet that referenced Team Delusional, prompting a conversation about the group and conspiracies in general. Emily concluded “You never know” multiple times and “Don’t give up”, even though this would have been the perfect time to shut down fan speculation once and for all. (X) (X at 36:06).

She also said “You never know” when a fan asked if Beth was with Negan. (55:15).

When asked about Bethyl, Emily agreed that she felt there were romantic undertones being hinted at in the script. And again, TPTB would not put Daryl on a romantic arc and then just end it, as Daryl loves for life and Bethyl’s canonicity hasn’t even been confirmed to the general audience. (X at 39:20).

When asked if Beth was in the comics or was supposed to be Andrea in the comics, Emily said,“I don’t think that Beth is supposed to be anyone in the comics. She’s just supposed to be one of Hershel’s kids.” She then explained how the show liked to be different and a remix of the comics, so there were still surprises. Emily’s body was tense, she was fidgety, and she did not look at Kate until she moved the topic away from Beth specifically. Emily shouldn’t “think” that Beth is an original character; she should know. Earlier in the interview she mentioned having read some of the comics when she first got the part, and she also owns second The Walking Dead Compendium, which covers issues 49 to 96 (X). By issue 49, the Greene family had been introduced and reduced to just Maggie. Of her sisters, none of them were like Beth. Interestingly, the second compendium has a lot of Andrea storylines, as it covers the Hunters and Alexandria arc, when she loses her adoptive family and becomes Alexandria’s sniper. (X at 55:22).

Emily confirmed that Beth never received a funeral. A follower on Twitter asked Kate if she believed that Beth deserved a family, and Emily agreed. Though she clarified that, “They had to get out there… I understand. I feel like Beth would have been like I get it. I understand.” Kate asked her then what happened to Beth’s body, and Emily froze. She looked like a deer in headlights. She said, “I don’t really know. I never really -”, and she looked around the room, using Periscope as a distraction. (X) (X at 56:24) (X).

“I do feel like it’s going to go for a while, though, I feel like we’re -- the -- this show.” (X) (X at 1:13:03).

I’ve watched a lot of Emily’s interviews. She is introverted, but open and well-spoken. During Stalking Dead, she fluctuated between that and tense and nervous. For “safe” topics she was completely open. Later in the interview she and Kate talked about performing at another WSC cruise, and she lit up. Emily guards herself when talking about Beth, especially her death. It wasn’t a guard for sadness, there was too much tension. It was a guardedness out of anxiety.

So in summary:

Beth never received a funeral, as something happened between 5x08 and 5x09, forcing the group to run. This confirms what fans have speculated for over a year, as well as supports the Beth-car theory.

Emily is a terrible liar. It’s adorable.

The Beth situation is suspicious, and it has been consistently suspicious. Which means that whatever is going on behind-the-scenes is still ongoing. Emily hasn’t moved on from the show, and neither has the narrative and the marketing. Why move on when she’s going to come back?

#team delusional #interviews #emily kinney #masterpost

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thatsjustsupergirl · 8 years ago

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ur post about fic & racism in the supergirl fandom really got me thinking (especially about my own biases so thank you) but also like, how there’s this incredibly pervasive but subtle new form of racism I haven’t seen b4 in other fandoms? Like on one hand u have this loud condemnation of how racist monel is & how he was a slave owner blabh blah but no corresponding attention given to the existing Black characters. 1/4

I get wlw not wanting to write m/f fic but a lot of the fandom doesn’t reblog (or make) any of the gifsets, they don’t meta for him they don’t call for more screen time for Mehcad. Same for M’gann. SO many posts talking about how awful monel is compare him to Lena and strangely don’t mention the Black female character who also came from an oppressive society to become a hero? And there are like, idk, 4 people? Who write or post wlw fic with M’gann in it? 2/4

Same with Maggie. A huge segment of fandom decided Floriana is white (even tho hollywood clearly won’t cast her in roles for white women) so they use that as an excuse to exclusively stan the very light skinned white wlw. And the way it carries over to the characters, like, okay Flo is white? but Maggie is absolutely treated like a woc in how parts of fandom aggressively ignore her & find ways to demonize her character while overtly supporting lighter skinned characters ¾

And that same part of the fandom doesn’t ever seem to create content for Lucy or Vasquez either. IDK this isn’t something u can probably explore with stats but ur post really got me thinking and it just feels really gross now bc I see all these posts condemning racism but there’s still this extreme perpetuation of privileging white characters at the same time? & I haven’t seen this particular trend in fandom b4 4/4

Oh, anon, this made my day. I have a bunch of notes waiting in a doc to address the whole Mon-El thing with regard to the racist undertones and the rhetoric used by the show to frame his storyline, and I will do my best to write it before the season comes back again, because I genuinely think they tried to aim high and just … missed completely. (But I make no promises because my thesis defense is on Tuesday.)

To your first point re: fandom attitudes – I was surprised in the early half of S2 when so many people came out of the woodwork making posts in the main tag like “wait, why did they get rid of Kara/James??” because, oh right, nobody acted like they cared for almost twelve straight months. If y’all were so okay with this ship, where were you to acknowledge its social significance when it was canon? Where are you now? Why hasn’t there been an outpouring of tweets week after week at the execs and the writers for sidelining an interracial couple in favor of what we’re getting, especially since the storyline literally handwaved away human trafficking and slavery as minor plot points?

Not only that, when there’s unrealized potential for a non-canon ship there is typically an outpouring of fic in response, and while there’s been a statistically significant amount of new Karolsen fic in S2 because it’s pretty easy to top zero percent, the writing there is not keeping pace with any of the other dude-involved pairings.

And you’re right, anon: it is not possible to prove anything with stats. HOWEVER, thanks to the addition of these new characters for S2, I *am* at the point now where it’s possible to see correlation between character race and fan engagement with different pairing choices. And the bias is there, whether it’s in the het pairings, the femslash, or even the m/m pairings. The whole reason I started tracking fic outputs in the first place was that any attempt to have this conversation last year devolved into yelling and finger-pointing because “you have no proof!” that racial bias is a thing. Except, yanno, all the POC who live with it daily saying that it’s a thing. Well, congratulations y’all: your choices leave digital footprints behind that are pretty easy to follow and chart for everyone to see.

This isn’t actually a new problem, by the way – racism and preferencing of white pairing happens a lot, in almost every fandom. The only difference maybe is that I’ve experimented with quantifying it, which is not something that people usually do when they study fandoms or fan behavior.

It pains me to no end that M’gann has been so overlooked, because her story has just as many dark character beats to it as Lena’s, if not more, plus the added bonus of her sharing a sense of “otherness” with Kara in a way that few other people can. And there is no way the disinterest in that pairing isn’t about race, because there are a whole bunch of ships from S1 between white women who’d never even met each other in canon that have more romantic fics than M’gann/anyone.

And the nonsense about Floriana, which I’ll remind everyone again was started by a white girl, had a demonstrable chilling effect on interest in Sanvers as a pairing. Like. I can actually show that on paper. And you’re absolutely right with what you said above, which bears repeating: Maggie is absolutely treated like a woc in how parts of fandom aggressively ignore her & find ways to demonize her character.

There’s also a treatment of Floriana herself that reminds me uncomfortably of how people went out of their way to demonize Naya Rivera’s personal life whenever she reminded the world she was black instead of just “very tan.” And a lot of the rhetoric people are using to talk about Floriana’s racial heritage is almost verbatim the same as what you’ll find on white supremacist discussion boards about Italian people. I’d love to think this is an accident, but I’ve made some people pretty angry for pointing this out in the past, so I suspect it’s at least partially deliberate.

Lucy was another case that drove me insane, for two reasons:

The vast majority of femslash fans flat-out ignored her as a romantic choice even though there were a whole lot of good reasons to ship her with either Kara or Alex, and a whole lot less negative reasons not to. (And it’s not like Supercat was already dominating the scene before Lucy’s character was introduced. That ship only became popular after the movie Carol came out during the winter hiatus of S1.)

People had the same fight last year about whether or not Lucy counted as a WOC and ultimately insisted that the answer was no. But then people kept on ignoring her anyway like somehow dubiously legal boss/employee relationships, potential treason, and incest were more logical bases for attraction.

Also, to the people who have been like “oh yay we could’ve had Dichen as Maggie, a real WOC” like somehow this would have made the fandom love her more – you’re full of shit. If you mean that, why has there been so little fic about Dichen as Roulette? Like, last year there were a whole bunch of shipfics featuring Livewire. There was Kara/Siobhan. And yet … no dark scenarios of Supergirl/Roulette? No Alex ones? There were even a bucketload of those for each Danvers sister + Max Lord, and this fandom isn’t even that into dudes. You’re telling me no one is interested in this kind of hero/villain dynamic with the Asian chick and somehow that’s not also about race?

tl;dr I suspect that a decent chunk of this problem is the result of subconscious bias, but some of it’s not. And what’s really sad about it is that, for all the talk on Tumblr about representation being important, we’re really doing no better as media producers than Hollywood when it comes to race. If anything, we might actually be doing worse.

#supergirl #my meta #fandom stats #fandom racism #Anonymous #asks #long post

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audiodiaryofasuperhero · 8 years ago

Text

About that Unannounced Hiatus...

Hi, y'all. Remember us? We took a pretty long unannounced break from… well, just about everything to do with the public side of this show.

While we can’t go back & make this hiatus have never happened, or hell, even go back and handle it better, we can explain how & why it happened. If we can’t fix it, we can be honest about it. Maybe we can even bring about a little awareness in the process.

Note: This post is almost entirely about the past year & a half. We will write a separate post covering what’s going on now & what’s next for ADoS. We don’t want to cram those things onto the end of this long post when those are the things worth getting excited about!

Now, to do this, I need to address you as Laura Henderson, the writer/producer/nearly everything on this show. Because the reasons behind the Unannounced Hiatus of Suffering pretty much all have to do with things that were going on in my life.

Hang with me - this is a long explanation.

Some content warnings before proceeding. This explanation includes anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, mania, hypomania, dislocations, & doctors being shitty people who are bad at their jobs.

I made an announcement right before the hiatus, publicizing what was meant to be a small break in production while my household dealt with a clusterfuck of a moving process. What I didn’t mention was the fact that I was struggling with some worsening anxiety & depression issues as well.

As soon as we’d moved, when I was meant to be finishing episode six, three different things happened. 1) I got caught in one of the worst depression spirals of my life. Like, I hadn’t felt so terrible since middle school. I struggled with awful focus issues, self-harm, & suicidal ideation. 2) I got a promotion to sales lead at work. This sounds fancy, but it functionally means that I became the lowest tier of management at my store. With our staff numbers dropping post-Holidays, my hours ratcheted up to 35 hours a week. Plus school. Plus chronic illness. Plus mental health issues. Which all feeds into - 3) I wasn’t happy with the draft of episode 6. I needed that script to do five different vital things, & at the time, it did maybe two of them. I recorded that draft, but ended up deleting it out of frustration at what it didn’t set up for later plot. With everything else going on, it was easiest just to… put it down.

Spring came & my depression receded, although my focus issues increased. This was just in time for me to dislocate my knee pretty majorly. With EDS (an illness I share with Adira), dislocations are pretty commonplace. But most of them are small, slide back in nearly immediately with little to no intervention, & do very little damage to the tissue surrounding the joints. Others are major, where the joint slides farther out of place than usual & stays out of socket until manipulated back into place, doing a fair bit of damage to the surrounding tissues. This was definitely the latter. I was in pain for weeks, & all my spoons were spent trying to get through my shifts at work.

The knee eventually healed. My first night out dancing after it healed, some asshole stepped on my ankle & dislocated it. Not my foot, mind you - my ankle. (I am still very salty about it.) Wash, rinse, repeat from above.

Then things really started to go to hell.

In late June, I started seeing a psychiatrist for my focus issues. My dad has ADHD, & we’d begun to wonder if I may have inherited. The psychiatrist, understandably, chose to start by treating my depression and anxiety instead. She also indicated that she suspected I may have a bipolar disorder. She prescribed me Zoloft, & told me I should call her immediately if I started experiencing suicidal ideation or mania.

Lucky me, I got both.

By week two, I was drifting into a mixed affective state, where I’d be slightly uncomfortably energetic but also a bit depressed. By week four, I was on a little carnival rollercoaster. I was energetic, anxious, depressed, & had a very small voice in my head suggesting awful but non-fatal things I should do to myself. By week six, I was riding a Six Flags thrills rollercoaster, with celestial highs & infernal lows. I felt like I was going to vibrate out of my skin, I went from aggressive cheer to rage at minor provocations, and the voice in my head was nearly indistinguishable from my regular thoughts, telling me all the different ways I could & should kill my self. I was manic. I would have been suicidal if my friends hadn't been acting as voices of reason. I called my psychiatrist in tears & left a message with her receptionist. She never called me back. I stopped taking the pills.

Needless to say, I found a new psychiatrist, an awesome guy who believes in evidence-based practice. We started experimenting to find a good balance of meds. We started with the assumption that there was a low but substantial probability that I had a bipolar disorder, but that it was more likely that Zoloft was responsible for most of the mania symptoms. As the milder medicines mostly failed to stabilize me, we adjusted the probabilities of bipolar upwards, eventually concluding with a diagnosis of bipolar 2.

While we were still in the early stages of medication experimentation, & I was mentally stable enough to sort of function & get a bit optimistic, my body decided it was its turn to be a melodramatic little bitch.

Everything started dislocating. Everything.

My knees, normally prone to minor dislocations around 4 times a week or so, started going out constantly. And then my hips got in on it. And then my ankles. And my ribs. And my shoulders. I went from using a cane, to using crutches, to using a rolling walker. I usually had more joints out than in.

I tried to work through all of this, but it was a nightmare. At one point, I was sitting in my walker at the cash wrap, twisted around to grab something from behind me, and both my hips popped out with an audible “snap.” I tearfully handed the guest what I’d been grabbing for them, then backed myself away from the register to cry for a moment.

Right at the end of October, I asked for a medical leave of absence from my job, with the intention of seeing my rheumatologist to update her on the situation and see what could be done.

When I went to see her, I had a list of ten things that needed to be accomplished. I managed none of them.

When she arrived in the little room, I started explaining what had been going on with my joints for the past two months. She cut me off.

“I can’t help you with that,” she said impatiently. “I can’t help you.”

She went on to add, “But I see you’ve been losing weight - that’s excellent.” (I’d been in too much pain to eat.) “And I’m glad that you went dancing,” (referring to the ankle dislocation from June that had been giving me so much trouble since). “You should exercise as much as possible.” (Ignoring that I’d been trying to tell her I could barely move.)

At this point, I was very teary. My joint doctor was telling me that she could not help me with my joint condition.

“You should look into being treated for depression. You seem very upset.”

To say I left her office devastated is a bit of an understatement. I sobbed in my car in the parking lot for twenty minutes.

I called my auxiliary brain, my most rational, anti-suicide friend.

“Please, come keep me company. Make sure that I don’t do anything stupid,” I pleaded.

He had some errands to run, but I sat in the car with him. On the interstate, I had to fight the urge to open the car door and throw myself into traffic.

But he got me through that awful day. The next month and a half was a long, drawn-out depression swing.

At the beginning of December, my manager called me.

“Are you coming back?” she asked.

“I - I don’t think I can,” I admitted.

“I’ll consider this your notice, effective immediately,” she said. “Get better, Laura.”

Things slowly got better. My body calmed down. One of my psych meds was able to pull double-duty as a joint pain medication. I could walk again, even if I wasn’t quite comfortable dancing. I became happier, and if I was hypomanic or in a mixed affective state more so than even-keeled, it was better than being manic or depressed.

I withdrew from my college program, and applied to an online program. While the new program was not my beloved data science, combining information technology with mathematics was close enough.

I was accepted too late to start spring classes.

In early February, I managed to find a new rheumatologist, after calling four offices who explicitly said they weren’t comfortable treating me. She didn’t do terribly much for me, but she explained what she was going to watch for. She referred me to an orthopedist.

By this point, I was thoroughly bored of sitting around the house. I re-applied at my old work place, and was welcomed back with great enthusiasm.

Then my psychiatrist cancelled an appointment. It was nearly impossible to get ahold of his office to reschedule over the phone. Every time I went in person to reschedule, there was no one at the desk. I started rationing my medication, and then I ran out. Things, rather predictably, went pear-shaped.

A few weeks ago, summer classes started for me. I finally got back on medication. My work place started a big hiring push, which reduced my hours to my betterment.

After all that shit, I’ve finally begun to feel like a person again. It was rough and it tested me in ways I hadn’t been tested before. It made social media seem like an overwhelming prospect. I couldn’t manage a huge undertaking like my beloved podcast. But now....

Audio Diary of a Superhero never once left my mind, and now I’m ready to get it up and running again, better than ever before. I’m healthier, happier, and very motivated.

I’m not going to talk about what comes next in this post. But it’s coming. Look out.

#audio diary of superhero

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