#that's how I deal with all news actually when I was let go during covid I made a meme about it lmao

[freakwiththeknifecollection]

Deancoded cause of my high cholesterol

[drdemonprince]

to the anon who sent me the message that took them 4 hours to draft.

I think your experience both with organizing and disability has probably provoked you to rethink the entire concept of "success" as our culture has defined it, even if you feel yourself still longing for some of the comfort and ease that capitalistic success can seemingly provide (or that we are conditioned to believe it can provide). im not sure what to say that can match the effort your put into your message, in fact i am galled by the fact that i know that i can't match that effort. i don't know how to make sense of the fact that a person who is finding it incredibly difficult to remain connected and engaged during this time, due to disability, has decided that i was worth that level of effort when they don't have the energy to message people they know. i don't think i am worth that effort. but i also respect that mired in all that you're mired in, it's a meaningful gesture toward engagement and connection to even bother writing such a message. i just think in a lot of ways i am a misplaced target for it, because i am a ridiculously privileged and publicly exposed individual who receives dozens of heartfelt messages that he doesnt find the time to respond to every single day. i think if anything that i've written rubs you the wrong way you'd be right to approach it with cynicism. because what the fuck do i know, banging around on my laptop every day and getting paid for it. how dare i lecture anybody about not unlearning capitalism adequately enough. i am one of capitalisms little milking cows. a massive publishing company makes a weekly profit off of me, off the byproduct of the worst years of my life and my worst traumas, as well as the meaning i've made from the scholarship of others.

i'm so enraged for you that you got a debilitating case of COVID (after several other cases) on an encampment, and that now the community you foster at that encampment is not there for you. i am disgusted at how more seasoned activists and organizations have regarded student protestors as disposable this entire year, selling them out to the cops, cutting bad deals with campus administration, and sending them to yellow and red risk level actions without adequate communication and getting them kettled and beat, or else nullifying their efforts with mealy-mouthed talk about keeping things peaceful. i see so many toothless, neoliberal protests happening here, ones that serve only as fundraisers for massive nonprofit orgs, and i also see literal teenagers being dragged right into paddy wagons by the likes of the PSL or the RCP while the Dems deride them and dance to Brat tracks, not even pretending to care the way they unconvincingly did in say 2020.

It's all making me terribly cynical, wondering where we are headed and whether i can or should encourage people who are younger, stronger, more energetic, more pliable, and more vulnerable to me to give up all that they've got for a cause when it's likely gonna be chewed up and spit out and not met in effort by anyone else. i am mournful of the fact that even i can't match that effort. every time i get a message from a friend or acquaintance who is going through some new awful traumatizing event i want to just curl up and disappear, because i can't even keep up with sending compassionate messages to all of them, let alone actually showing the fuck up and doing anything for them. and so sometimes i slip into the disaffected, blunted feeling that once led me as a younger man into libertarianism, thinking that all i can or should do is look after my own wellbeing, and fuck everybody else. and obviously that is a horrible path that is not by any means moral and certainly didn't help me anyway. it felt like we were on the brink of a great paradigm shift of some kind, a collapse of these evil systems, and now it feels like all of that is as far away as it's ever been, and that there aren't enough people with class consciousness and care for one another to make it happen.

i don't know. i think we all have to abandon our dreams of success, of comfort, of saving the world, the fantasies of everything being fine. i think we need to look to our immediate surroundings and our communities. i think we need to ask for help a whole hell of a lot more than any of us are doing, and to recognize that that is a form of helping. i think we need to get small. and remember we are weak animals. and stop thinking there is anything special or chosen about us. and to remember that nature can often be very cruel and that there is nothing we are owed. disabled people already know this of course, we know life isn't fair. we try to do what we can and yet we wake up feeling even less capable the next day, and it knows no logic and the universe remains indifferent to it. but there are people around us who can care, when we ask them to. and ways that we can just be there alongside one another in the muck of it all. not even necessarily making things better. certainly not being a savior and making the pain go away. maybe just sitting in the muck together.

all of which is to say, i am feeling stuck and overwhelmed and useless myself, anon, and i dont have any more answers than you. but thanks for messaging. im sorry people have taking advantage of you. including in my opinion lots of other activists. looking after yourself and not letting people guilt you doesn't mean turning into a conservative. the kind of anarchy that i am embracing right now is one that goes beyond linear change, beyond making meaning, beyond any idealistic visions of the future, beyond even fighting for some kind of symbolic survival. it's just being. none of it has to mean anything, none of it has to be headed anywhere. it just is. there is plenty for you to be bitter about.

[talisidekick]

Thanks for being so compassionate! As someone who's had to defend himself from assault pre transition and assault and attempted trafficking during transition which has contributed to some agoraphobia centered on thoughts like "damn, wasn't safe off T not safe on it", it's been rlly scary seeing ppl shrug off how transmascs are endangered in real life in service of discrediting transandro discourse. Cool seeing who's really real I guess????? anyways hope you're well and warm. Srry about my run on sentence lmao

There is absolutely nothing to apologize for. We only get to see one side publically, and that's pretty much just trans women issues. Media likes to cover just us. I rarely see news stories about just trans men. We don't see the stories about trans men getting stalked or followed around in stores by total strangers, getting attacked in public, rarely a mention if a trans man gets killed. It's happening but you don't see it. You don't see a flood of forum posts about the constant dismissal of, unique brand of hatred around, or the types of dangers faced by trans men.

My introduction to questioning my gender was actually FROM transandrophobia. The reason for this is I've had more of a curvy figure since ... well forever, even though my body was producing T on it's own. I got A LOT of compliments on it by pretty much all my friends (which were mostly girls, and yes that probably should have been a sign but I'm a bit thick sometimes, okay?) because I was "unconventionally sexy" because of it. I'm now remembering I do have a shirtless picture somewhere from before I was on HRT ... I'll work up the nerve to show that at some point to prove that point. Anywho, because of this, a random ass stranger had been following me as I went to grab a few things from a walmart after my shift. It was weird as fuck. Uncomfortably close, constantly looking at me but not what they were pretending to, and I kind of knew this dick was waiting until there was no one in the aisle before pulling something. I'd been mugged before at 14 and 15 so at 24 I was kind of like "I'm not getting stabbed in a damn Walmart" and just made sure to be quick. I got out of the store and met up with some old work friends and just let them know someone was following me and I wanted to wait them out. Props to my friends at the time, they bullseyed the dude (to be fair he wasn't being stealthy) and called him out. And he yelled back "You'll never be a real man" to me. My friends laughed at him because as far as we all knew, I was cis. But this would happen two more times in the same week. A lady would tell me I shouldn't be doing "this" to myself with a full body gesture, and that god "loves" me; and a college colleague flat out dismissed my concerns on something because "only a real man would need to worry about that". It got me wondering if this was a new fad, to hate on someones manliness, and upon looking that up I learned about what exactly transgender meant, the experiences of trans men and women (just a bit on women, my concern was on trans men at the time), and thought it was kind of cool there were people who'd know two sides to the gender spectrum. But it must SUCK to have to go through the bullshit I did and actually be affected by it. Like, no one has any right to tell another man they're less of one.

This whole situation would actually come back to help me 2 years later in finding myself. I'd only really looked up trans men and curiosity mid covid lock down would lead me to look up non-binary and then trans women. However, transandrophobia is how I, a trans woman, got her start. So it boils my blood when I see people talk about T being toxic or trans men having it easier. It shows a complete lack of understanding and a lack of acceptance and willingness to empathize. Trans men and trans mascs have different issues, that doesn't make them lesser, and while those issues may not affect me, it doesn't make it less of my problem to help deal with where I can. I know certain issues I'll have no experience on, no idea how to help, but that doesn't mean I can't still offer to be support. Everyone should be doing the same, and shame on those who aren't.

You deserve equal treatment and support in your fight for it, not dismissal. Those that dismiss the issues of trans men aren't allies, they're transphobes. And fuck transphobes.

[tiredfoxtf]

Small analysis on DR murder mystery no one asked for but I wrote it anyway!

Danganronpa! A colourful series of murder mysteries with a pink tint of blood. The last addition to the series – Danganonpa V3: Killing Harmony – has been around for 7 years now and that makes me automatically feel so old, but hey what’s worse than that is to think that 2019 was 5 years ago now. It’s been half a decade since the start of COVID epidemic and that alone would make someone sick. And during these years I found myself in and out of Danganronpa fandom spaces. Specifically a Fan Danganropa fan spaces, the inception goes crazy on this one. I am a big enthusiast of taking the Danganronpa’s core ideas and shaping them into something new. I don’t really go into actual canonical Danganronpa fandom, because, well, it's a completely different can of worms that I really do not want to deal with. I've had enough discourse these past 5 years in MCYT fandom and am really tired. But that’s a side tangent.

What we are actually here today is to take a peek at what makes the most intriguing part of any Danganronpa game tick – the murder mystery. And as a side hustle we can take a peek on how different characters affect it. And just maybe a structure of the plot itself. (spoilers for mainline dr games ahead)

So, first thing first let’s look at the way a chapter in the main line Danganronpa game is structured, something you guys know very well.

DAILY LIFE

First we have a Daily Life. On the first glance you might think – “What Daily Life has to do with a murder mystery aspect of the mainline game? Isn’t it supposed to be a peaceful time with no murder?”. And on the surface you are right. But Daily Life serves many purposes for the Murder Mystery: Environment, Motive and Social Interaction.

Firstly, set up of the environment. Like props on the stage, rooms and layout of the building or other environment that is introduced in Daily Life will affect the murder in some way. It’s basically Chechov’s Arsenal we’re talking about. If there’s a gun in the first act, it must be shot by the end of the third and if there’s a garbage compactor in the Daily Life it must be used in a murder. Of course as we progress down the chapters and the area of the Killing Game’s grounds grow bigger it gets harder to just keep in mind what happened when and what rooms have what. And mainline DR games really suffer from “we used this room once in one chapter and forgot about it” disease. But in defence of the games, the area they work with is usually so unbelievably huge (especially suffers SDR2). I really don’t blame them for not utilising stuff from previous chapters in new ones. 

But also it’s what is really easy to fix for us, the murder mystery and DR enthusiasts, in our own Danganronpa-like stories. All that needs to be done is to shrink the scale a notch. Instead of opening up a whole new section of buildings or new floors every new chapter, it’s worth opening up a few rooms. It’s also important, listen to me, it’s very important that every new room that is opened is unique in some way. You should not be able to replace it with a room from the previous chapters and you should not be able just get rid of it without significantly changing the plot! It shouldn’t be just a prop that characters alternatively hang out in. This one gets really bad in V3 with the Ultimate Research Labs – most of the labs were not really special and not used at all, which is a pity.

The second thing which is provided to us by Daily Life is a motive. Motive is a really broad term for any event that was planned by the Mastermind or organiser of the Killing Game. It can be Practically anything, but what’s important to keep in mind is that it’s something that someone who Wants murder to happen made. It’s basically a stimuli for a murder however it might present.

 Some of the cannon motives in Danganronpa, especially in the very first game, are very trivial, while the others are kinda weird. In the THH it was the very point that Junko was making – the Ultimates, so called symbols of hope, will actually abandon morals like any other person for such trivial reasons like secrets and money. In SDR2 and V3 they just kinda decided to get crazy with them. The infamous Despair Disease and that Virtual Reality thingy or even the First Blood perk. Because, well, Ultimately both of the games’ Masterminds didn’t have anything to prove with them. One existed to just simply send players into a state of Despair again and the other was a TV show for fun. 

Which leads to this interesting point – the Motives of your Danganronpa-like story should reflect the Mastermind’s ambition or their own motive for making a Killing Game. Also, personally I think it would be nice if every motive was related to the main theme of your story. Since the Mastermind tries to prove something to the cast to “win” over them, the protagonist usually symbolises the opposite idea (ex. Makoto “Hope” vs. Junko “Despair”; Hajime “Future” vs. Izuru & Junko “Past”; Shuichi “Truth” vs. Tsumugi “Lie”), so it would be a great chance to show how Mastermind thinks and how cast and specifically the Protagonist overcomes the motive from the other side of the ideological spectrum. And it works to show the grey area of the spectrum too, but it’s way deeper into themes than into murder mystery itself.

And the final third part that presents in the Daily Life I eloquently named “Social Events”. To clarify, I do not mean like Free Time Events, no. I mean Major Events that were organised by the cast that played into the murder. A lot of people caught on to the importance of this one element of Daily Life, but got stuck on the execution part of it – something I dubbed in my head as “Party Syndrome”. Categorised by the extensive need to write a some sort of party in one too many chapters.

Jokes aside, the Social Events are VERY important for a murder case in every Danganronpa chapter. Basically Social Events is something that characters That Are NOT the Mastermind do that will affect the way the murder will play out. They are often made to be something to combat the Motive or other ways to cope with the reality of being in a killing game. Rarely they are set ups organised by a wannabe killer and when they are, the wannabe killer got beat to it by someone else. Except for all chapter 3 murders. Yeah, one of the absolutely weakest parts of every Dangnronpa games, what a surprise. Not! Absolutely no one is surprised that the most obvious murders have the easiest solution – a person who set the whole thing up. Which is an important lesson – sometimes the thing that makes the most sense is not a good answer for a good murder mystery. 

There’s actually a lot of good examples of Social Events in the mainline DR games that aren’t some party. Like the switch of rooms between Sayaka and Makoto, the sauna challenge between Mondo and Kiyotaka, Kaede’s and Shuchi’s Mastermind investigation, Kaito’s and Shuichi’s training, Insect Meet and Greet (technically. Not a party. Kidnapping). 

A lot of fangans faced this criticism about how weird it is to throw a party in the killing game, which is absolutely completely fair. Whatever your social event is, please remember that your characters in the story feel the weight of death on them. Even the most carefree and borderline delusional ones. Which unless it’s the point, not all and definitely not most of them. Keep it real, ask yourself would YOU approve of such an event in these circumstances? If not, why would it happen anyway? Or come up with other ways to introduce social activity. Remember the worst your characters can be is passive and reactive in lieu of being active and making decisions. 

And that’s about covers Daily Life, in conclusion to the end of the segment I would like to say that Daily Life should highly set up the scene for Deadly Life, they should not exist as two separate entities. Of course when murder happens you are supposed to feel shocked, but to a reader of Danganronpa-like story it’s very obvious that the murders will happen. There’s no point of trying to surprise the audience, they highly expect it. So, set the viewer up properly instead of trying to use an element of shock. But don’t fall into the pit of predictability either. It’s a delicate balance. 

DEADLY LIFE

Before we could go into details of Deadly Life part of Danganronpa Murder Mystery inner workings, I want to make a note of the methods they use to conceal the identity of the killer: time of death, murder scene and murder weapon. Or simplier put: “when?”,” where?” and “how?”.

 On the most rare occasions it’s also “who?” as in “who’s the victim?”, such as in chapter 5 and 6 of THH and chapter 5 of V3, one of the most convoluted chapters of the entire game trilogy. The reason why it’s so rare is because, at its core, DR Killing Game is a closed murder mystery which means we have a set number of characters we know, so it becomes obvious who’s not with us anymore. It’s a really hard trick to pull off to completely disguise a victim to beyond recognition And not make it obvious who is missing from the cast. In THH it’s achieved by “extra body” of a secret sixteenth’s student who was murdered by a mastermind previously, the whole chapter relied on that lack of knowledge and was a set-up by a mastermind to get rid of one of the players. In the V3’s case however the idea was flipped – now it’s a plan of two students working together to confuse the game and break it, which was supposed to result in beating it entirely. The idea of both is pretty clever and it’s what sets these 5th cases apart so much.

But generally the culprit will try to conceal the true time of death, the true murder scene and the true murder weapon to hide their identity. Or for other reasons (ex. Mondo moved Chihiro’s body to Girl’s changing room in order to keep his secret rather than hide a true murder scene). 

You should be aware that no matter how much effort you put into murder, there’s no such thing as a “perfect murder”, there never is. Especially in the DR killing game. The game is NOT fair for the killer, please, understand it. Your killer works alone against a group of innocent students AND against the Mastermind. Mastermind does want to test the participants’ abilities and for them to feel despair of possible looming death. HOWEVER, the mastermind won’t allow the unsolvable. The mastermind wants the game to continue, this is why they provide a case file about a murder. Of course they would leave out some information that would probably reveal the identity of the culprit immediately, but generally the mastermind's goal is to have the innocent party win and win until there’s 2 (or 3, depending on the rules) students remaining. 

Also even if it wasn’t that way, it’s nearly impossible to set up a perfect murder, due to a killer and a victim being flawed. Everyone makes mistakes, especially in a high stress situation as murder.

Now we can move on to Deadly Life.

I would love to divide Deadly Life in three parts: a body discovery, investigation and a trial. Very obvious division, but an effective one at that.

When we talk about Body Discovery I of course mean these things:

When was the body discovered?

Who discovered the body?

What circumstances led to discovering the body?

These things are crucial to understand when you write a body discovery, because Discovering a body is one of the important things for the killer in the DR scenario. Until the body is discovered there will be no trial held, which means the killer has no chance of escape even if they kill somebody. 

When was the body discovered? Time frame. In the killing game time measured a lot like this daytime/nighttime due to having morning and nighttime announcements and some areas being off-limits during night.  Which actually doesn’t matter for Mastermind, I think. Like a lot of rules have literally no effect on the mastermind (like no sleeping outside dormitories). They are made exclusively for the murder mystery part, so guilty students could take advantage of it. When answering this question it’s also important to think “How much time has passed between actual death and the body discovery?” and “Why did it take this long to discover it?” and “Why discovering it at this time would benefit or hinder the killer?”.

Who discovered the body? According to canon DR rules across the trilogy, the body is officially discovered when three non-guilty participants see it. It’s a very special rule to the killing game and stayed a very important part of it across the mainline games. It’s often used to either deduce the killer or prove the innocence of one of the suspects. When you answer this question, think about “Why was it they who discovered the body?” if discovery wasn’t immediate after one person found it why didn’t they tell others?

What circumstances led to discovering the body? Did the group of participants just accidentally stumbled across the body? Did they come looking for this person, because they were missing? Were they doing something unrelated and the body just sort of dropped on them? Did they actively witness death live and where too late to save the person? And most importantly “why is this circumstance important/not important (in case they didn’t do any preparation) to the killer?”

Noticeably every part should include an answer to “Why?”. Killers in DR do not do anything for no reason. BECAUSE IT’S A WASTE OF TIME! If something doesn’t benefit them in some way, do not do it. Very simple. 

The Investigation is a mandatory part of the game where you run around and note down all the clues you can find, as the name suggests. It’s always a convenient amount of time when at least one person finds everything there’s to find physically. The main mistake you can make during the investigation is to give out all the information about the circumstances of a murder. You give out hints, not the whole murder and it’s very important. If your audience solves the murder entirely from investigation alone – you’ve failed to write a mystery. 

Class Trial – the main event of the Deadly Life, where innocent parties try to find the guilty and where the audience should try to puzzle together the whole mystery. During a class trial some new details about the murder should present themselves as we go along. Like for example in my absolute favourite case 4 for SDR2 where we deduce the layout of the funhouse. Something that we couldn’t understand from investigation alone. But it doesn’t have to be anything big like a whole layout of the building. It can be details of someone’s seeing the victim or the killer and realising it at the moment, the details of how some part of the mechanism works, etc. Also it’s the perfect time to catch slip-ups. The DR community do not usually like when something is solved on pure chance of slip-up, so if you plan on using them, make sure that instead of chance, your characters set up a trap for their suspect to fall in. That would look MUCH cooler than if your culprit just gave out too much info by accident.

A danganronpa case always gets solved because it was something specific to a character that only the culprit could have done, but it is not supposed to be obvious from the start.

Also I really want to bring attention to the victims of the case. Victim is an important part of the case WITH the killer. They should play an active part in the murder. This will further the context to the murder and give more mystery. Was the victim doing something to provoke the culprit? Why did the culprit choose this character as their victim? Did they even have a choice? If the victim was strong, how were they overpowered by the culprit? What if they wanted to be murdered? What if they tried to fight off the murderer and lost? Did the victim have habits a culprit took advantage of? All of that WILL directly affect the murder mystery. Make the victim an active character and make it so no one else but this character can be a victim in this case.

FROM START TO FINISH?

The truth is – murder mystery starts with a new chapter, we just do not know it yet. When you start writing a chapter you should already have an idea of who the culprit and victim are and how you want to carry out a murder in this chapter. Because you need to go through several steps and even the first one – level design with it in mind. It's kinda a question of “what came first, a chicken or an egg?”, but instead of “chicken” and “egg” it’s a “murder plan” and “level design”. Say, I can’t exactly tell if the idea of Kirumi using a ropeway that connects the gym window and a window of Ryoma’s lab through the pool came before or after they designed a level like that. And neither do I know how the hell they had an idea to use a confusing building structure of a funhouse from SDR2 as a “secret weapon” to kill a guy. But what I do know, it was set up from the very beginning of the chapters. 

What I do know is, when you already have an idea who the culprit of the case is, try walking them through the chapter as if they were the protagonist. “What made them want to kill now?”, “how did they choose the victim, the timing?”. Construct a “perfect murder” from their POV, divide it into parts and think about what can go wrong? Because something always goes wrong. Maybe rules will affect their plan, or there will be some witnesses the culprit wasn’t expecting. If the whole thing was actually a freak accident – how would they react and improvise? How can you involve other characters into that murder otherwise? 

Just start somewhere and answer your questions “what’s next?” on the way. When you write it it may seem genius and convoluted or maybe on the flip side, too simple and obvious. So my advice is to have a story “beta-testers”. When you finish the draft of a full chapter – send it for a reading to someone who could provide you with feedback on the quality of the mystery. They will tell you if you are being an idiot. If you work completely alone then it gets real hard to judge the story.

[goldenpinof]

Gonna tinhat in your asks just because

I feel like it really WAS supposed to be a hiatus. They stepped away from the gaming channel and joint content bc Dan had a lot of projects he wanted to work on (the more serious content like big, the YouTube show, maybe even the solo tour) just to stretch his creative limbs and bc they needed to sort out the house/move, and uploading through all of that would be stressful. They were probably thinking 2-3 years tops. And then the world blew up and half of Dan's plans blew up with it

I feel like this return is GENUINE, like they've wanted to do it and just haven't been able to yet because Dan wasn't done with his stuff

i see that you have good points. it was very convenient to not have a gaming channel when they ended up living in a filming apartment with 0 space. but Dan constantly saying (through Phil sometimes) that he doesn't want to make that type of content anymore and doesn't want the gaming channel to return... it was very telling. only Phil was saying "maybe" because he was the only one actually wanting and needing it. that "maybe" was saved in case everything else went down. like a safety blanket that they always could pull out. which they did.

i understand Dan wanting a hiatus of sorts. he was burnt out. 2018 was a crazy year! it's just.. the vibes we started getting right after were very final. "Dan doesn't want it" was a final statement. and maybe he didn't want it because of other projects. he basically killed DanandPhil brand at some point, it was very apparent that he wanted to get out of that label. that he wanted a name outside a very successful duo they built throughout almost a decade. and it was fucking hard for him, you know. i understand that. the 1st project was ruined by youtube and covid. the company that he gave 10 years of his life let him down. it's a rough fucking start for a name building.

i'm simplifying a lot here, bear with me :))

i think the wad tour opened Dan's eyes a little bit. and i will take it as a win in the end of the day. it was starting very well and promising. the concept and 1st promo materials were well done. but then everything started wobbling and neither Dan nor his team was ready to deal with problems fast enough. and in contrary to how fuckups didn't really make a difference during ii NOW they made a difference. Dan couldn't make a name between 2019 and 2022, so he started going back and forth with his content. sometimes it wasn't clear who was the main target for videos, announcements and promos. i still don't know who initially was the target audience for his book. it can't be us! we know everything he wrote there. but marketing was so non-existent, it's scary how it could flop if he didn't have an audience based on DanandPhil™. his tour had somewhat of an audience also only because of the branding he was so determined to escape. although, there was a moment when he tried to advertise it for a wider audience, wasn't it? especially in the UK, where they had actual posters in the cities outside the venues. i remember having questions about why marketing shifted throughout the tour (while the script stayed the same! loser). i can't say that dystopia daily even had a target audience in mind rfbhfjekeeo

what i'm trying to say is, something changed in Dan's mind. there was a series of events that made him realise that coming back to dnpgames wasn't actually a bad idea. the European leg of his tour was the biggest mess i've ever seen. the fact that Dan explicitly threw shade on people he worked with only confirmed how bad things were. the search for a new management team, constant postponing of wad dvd, Phil's recycling content, and god knows what else – maybe it made him realise that a familiar content on a channel that everyone loves so much and will give views (and money) is what's best right now. new projects are always a risk. dnpgames isn't. and he still can work on something alongside. especially if he finally has new managers who will fight for his interests and property communicate with people they happened to work with. (allegedly. we don't know if he actually got new representatives).

if he actually had a 2-3 years plan (even 5 years plan, idc), the communicative language should have been different. but the only vibe i was getting from him right till yesterday was "i don't what to do what y'all are suggesting. period." and then he is talking about hope on twitter?! bro, as if it wasn't in your hands all this time 😭 i love him and i wish him all the best, and i'm rooting for his career more than for my own. but damn, does he not make it easy 😂

P.S. if turns out i'm wrong, forget i ever said anything. Thanos your memory out <3

[theood]

Yo that’s crazy your middle school wouldn’t let you have water bottles. We were allowed to but it could only be water and they had to be see through because they had too many students sneaking alcohol into the school and getting drunk

Also in high school apparently a girl to came with a vibrator inside her and her friend had the remote and would use it on her randomly during the day. The teachers and admin knew about it but couldn’t do anything because they couldn’t prove it without major violations and probably worse

My middle school was fucking crazy. I had a math teacher who told me and all my class that we would never amount to anything and we we're all going to be homeless living in cardboard boxes and nothing happened to her 🤗. Because she was retiring the next year or something. They talked to about every kid in my class and we all said Yes That Happened.

They were also extremely detention heavy. Along with write-ups. It was an ongoing joke amongst me and other students they had a certain number of those they had to give out daily. I'm not joking when I say one kid got a write-up for forgetting a pencil.

I've been out of that middle school for years now. I met up with some kids before I moved at the playground who went and they STILL told me it was bad. My mom worked at a corner store and she also had kids always telling her that that middle school was fucking HORRIBLE. So it wasn't just Me

Also. Oh my God?? This is like when I hear people talk about kids masturbating in class. How are you guys doing that??? I guess whatever gets you through the day...

I have less highschool stories because. Well. Softmore year through senior year was COVID but once one of the principles in my public hs misgendered my friend who was out to the entire school (teachers included) and when I corrected him he went "we'll deal with that later". It's a situation that if I could go back in time I would've fucking chewed him out more for that.

Also, once, me and my friend Freddy before our last period (a study hall) were in the bathroom for ~10 minutes. We got out and went to class. The next day we both got called into the office with the principal because the bathroom "smelled like vape" and we were in there the longest. He then searched both our bags.

My dad was PISSED about this. It was for a lot of reasons but one of them was the fact they searched us without a female present, and he was also pissed off they searched us at all without anyone else in the room.

I had less to say about it. Again if I COULD go back I'd probably have doubled down and said they couldn't search my bag and that if they're going to I want one of my parents there. So that my mom or dad could rip them a new one because I've never even fuckin' TOUCHED a vape.

Also I got suspended for 3 days for something. I don't remember what. My parents called the Highschool over a detention I got that was such a bullshit excuse and they went "um well either he does the detention or we suspend him" so. I got suspended. As though that's like some law that a kid HAS to do the detention and it isn't their choice.

My online highschool has no stories because I was so depressed in that and I don't think I really actually Learned Anything. My grades TANKED and I had an insanely low GPA. I genuinely think I only graduated because they didn't have a GPA requirement

[livebloggingkidshows]

Fanfic AMA

How deeply affected is season 8 in the LITM verse. Cause in it neither Richelle it A-Trouoe disqualified themselves at DanceMania-joah-shipper

Season 8 would play out very differently if I were writing it in the LitM 'verse. It never got brought up on page, but I have written down somewhere that A-Troupe lets B-Troupe go to Nationals. And the only reason that Nationals got delayed was because of real world covid reasons, so they would've gone to Nationals fine, maybe won, idk, that's not relevant to my main characters and B-Troupe would've been the new A-Troupe.

As for my relevant characters they would've naturally drifted apart into new paths. Since I didn't get rid of Emily, I think Richelle sticks around for a year or two as a teacher/choreographer. Jacquie maybe reauditions for A-Troupe since she still has another year of HS, maybe she focuses on school and sticks with the school dance team. Actually Jacquie being back on A-Troupe for Internationals would be super interesting with Richelle there as a teacher.

A LitM season 8 would focus on how Richelle, Jacquie, and Noah are dealing with being in different phases of life, Jacquie's still in high school, Noah's in college and attempting to be a working actor, and Richelle is teaching. When they were all at TNS together (and even when it was just Richelle and Jacquie) they were more on even footing, but now it's starting to become cleared what differences they have when they aren't dancing together.

I'm not gonna write it because it would make me sad, but I do think that they have a break up during that year and there would be some struggling to figure out what they want to do now before they ultimately end up back together.

[roadtophantom]

Let your S(e)oul take you where you long to be - pt 1

a.k.a. finally writing my phantom korea travelogue

Watching Phantom in Korea has been this big goal of mine since December 2012.

When I saw the vast spread of Phantom merchandise at the Blue Square theatre and how they decked the theatre with a Phantom tree and had all sorts of Phantom-themed food, it became crystal clear that Korea goes hard for Phantom like no other, and I wanted to be part of that action.

I planned to visit Seoul when the World Tour revival was slated to visit in 2020, but that one got axed and squashed as a pandemic would do to hopes and dreams.

Cut to October 2021, news of a new Korean production got out around, but I was pessimistic. The borders were still closed and who knew for how much longer. Even as they started reopening toward 2022, there was a quarantine / covid-19 test requirement upon arrival. Then our local Korean embassy started taking a hardhanded stance on applications that made it difficult for visas to be issued. Add to that, the fact that the embassy have limited slots every month.

The odds were wildly stacked against me, but travel restrictions eased up and nothing serves as a better motivator than watching people you know actually go to the place.

Months of mental prep, doing things for the first time, and many expenditures later, I was deemed worthy of a visa. The next step was a ticket to the show…which was an entirely different main quest on its own.

Buying show tickets in Korea is like a national sport

I witnessed this during the first waves of Phantom Seoul tickets sale. The moment the dates open, you would find most of the tickets are already gone. So you are left to buy what's left but even when you manage to click on one, another person is likely completing their purchase ahead of you.

I did manage to snag a Jeon Dong-seok ticket. But the Cho Seung-woo one, I didn't manage to get until a month later.

I have to pause and thank @fadinglandtragedy for actually answering my questions, providing valuable tips, and encouraging me when I myself have given up lol.

The beauty of tickets in Korea is you can actually cancel and if you are early, you can get your money back with minimal processing fee. That means cancellations peek now and then when the ticket vendors refresh their systems everyday. I was able to move to a better row for my JDS show, and I eventually managed to buy my CSW ticket (that no one fought me for 😭😭😭😭😭).

But it took extreme patience, nightly refreshes, and trying not to nod asleep. It was worth it in the end.

So I only had to find a decent airfare, accommodations, and wake up insanely early to catch the flight, and print out all the things to prove to the immigration officer that I'm not pulling a Valjean on his Javert. 🥲🥲🥲

Tip: Overseas fans can buy through Yes24 and Global Interpark, but I highly recommend Yes24 for the exclusive ticket sleeves and the fact that they have a mobile app that you can use to book, stalk last-minute tickets, and eventually claim them.

Tip 2: For faster purchase using Yes24, look into loading your cc info in Paypal so you'd just be one click away to everything. For some reason I found the native cc method a bit harder to deal with (and it charged me more for some reason).

Korea things and hopefully an actual review to follow!

[stereax]

How is Toronto doing over there?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Okay let me explain what Toronto is doing... actually no I can't, what they're doing defies all reason. Or it makes perfect sense, but only if you're on the same cocktail of black tar heroin and crystal meth as Brad Treliving. Here we go!

This is the Leafs' page on CapFriendly. They are currently almost 9 million dollars over the cap. This is the offseason, so nobody really cares right now - teeeechnically you can't go over 10% above the cap during the offseason but nobody's really watching. So why are they over 8.8 million dollars over?

Let's review why.

This is the Leafs' forward core. (There's a league minimum deal for Dylan Gambrell too.)

This is the Leafs' forward core with a $5.5m deal to Bertuzzi, $3m deal to Domi, and $1.35m deal to Reaves. And you'd think "oh, they're trying to get tougher, okay" and they really don't, because Bertuzzi and Domi aren't punchers and Reavo is getting old. Bertuzzi is a more expensive Bunting sidegrade on a one-year deal seeking term in next year's free agent market. Domi is a center whose defensive numbers are in the shitter, also hoping for a better deal next year when the cap jumps up. Reaves is honestly just happy someone signed his ass for three whole years. He's 36. This is his second 35+ contract. Massive red flag.

What you're also going to notice is that Matthews, Marner, and Tavares take the lion's share of the cash - over $33m between the three of them. Nylander adds another $7m to the pot, making each of the Core Four average around $10m. Oh, and Nylander is angling for a pay raise when he hits UFA next year. :) And Matthews hits UFA next year too, good luck icing a 12-forward roster that doesn't have two lines' worth of rookies if you keep both! :)

Compare this to, say, the Devils, who have their cap situation under control. How the Devils work is they rely on everyone taking a discount for the benefit of the team (or just signing them to "overpays" before they get good and make the contracts worth it, like Jack Hughes). In the same $40m as the Core Four, the Devils have Timo Meier, Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, Nico Hischier, Tyler Toffoli, and Erik Haula. An entire top six. And I'm not even counting Dawson Mercer because he's still on his ELC and that would just be unfair.

There's a saying that "you can't win a Cup with a $10m player". Jack Eichel proved us wrong. However, the idea of that saying applies - if you have too many top guys who are all demanding too much money, your boat is going to capsize because you're not going to be able to get the rest of the team signed. (Unless you're the fucking Rangers and get everyone on league minimum contracts because you're the fucking Rangers and you run a retirement home in New York, but I DIGRESS.)

The main issue with the Core Four, and the idea of the Core Four, is that they're eating up basically half the cap by themselves. And if you look back on it, you can go "Kyle Dubas was a moron", but you've got to remember: Dubas inked those deals thinking the cap wouldn't go flat due to covid. With the cap due to jump next offseason, you're looking at a LOT of 1-year deals because most free agents think they can get more money when there's more money to throw around. Bertuzzi and Domi are no exceptions.

Oh, also, Brad Treliving signed a 4C (David Kämpf) to a $2.5m contract with 4 years of term. You don't sign fourth liners for that money or term, as a general rule, unless they do something for your team that is literally irreplacable. Kämpf is good but he's nowhere near the great that justifies that.

Bertuzzi: Fair value for him, but you had Bunting who just signed for $1m less with short term to the Canes. Possible upgrade but too early to tell, probably a sidegrade.

Domi: Really should learn how to play wing. Inconsistent. A bit of an overpay for a third line center who can't play D at all.

Reaves: Punchy McFourthLine. That's it.

The Leafs' defense doesn't have anything too glaringly awful, on the other hand - except that newly inked $4.15m contract to a John Klingberg who can barely play defense on a good day. When you already had three at least passable RDs on the roster (don't know how good Liljegren or Timmins are). I get the idea of an RD upgrade, but man, that was not it.

Klingberg: We're really in the "outscore your opponents" phase of the meltdown now, aren't we? He is worse than Erik Karlsson at defense. Erik Karlsson, Fourth Forward, is a better defenseman. Good God what I would give to see Klingberg and Rielly on a D-pair together. Threat to score... at both ends of the ice.

So the Leafs are over the cap, but a few shenaniga- Wait, what is that? An unsigned RFA goalie?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA YEEEEEP. THEY QUALIFIED SAMSONOV AND HAVE $-8.8 MILLION IN CAP SPACE WITH WHICH TO GIVE HIM A CONTRACT. Better pray he doesn't get offersheeted because you won't be able to sign a big deal for him. Good Lord.

And now here's your injured reserve.

Note that Muzzin's $5.625m is already coming off the books and there's noooo way they can take him off IR (see the top). They still need to shed $3.2m just to fit under cap. With Sammy needing a contract and being arbitration eligible? Oh boy.

So what's going to happen here?

Firstly, Muzzin has to stay on Robidas Island. He comes back, you're fucked capwise.

Murray needs to go. You can't buy him out because that would put $2m on the cap next season as penalty - $2m that you need to resign Nylander and Matthews. Either you Robidas Island him (break his kneecaps permanently) or you trade him as a cap dump. You can't get value on him because he's already retained salary and with an M-NTC that limits where he can go. So you need to ship Murray out with a sweetener for our good friend Future Considerations or a seventh-rounder. The sweetener in question? Probably a first-round pick. Maybe a third if the team in question needs a netminder. Toronto is fresh out of second-round picks. Sweet.

Even with Murray out, you have $1.4m in cap space, and with Robertson probably drawing into the lineup because he's cheap and hopefully fixed by now, so only $700k to spare for Sammy's contract. You better believe Ilya Fucking Samsonov is not going to take a league minimum contract... especially when he's valued at around $5m.

You can ship out Jarnkrok and/or Timmins (as per the internet, the most likely to be dealt). Even with both gone, you only have $3.9m in cap space, which means Sammy would either need to take a team friendly or get dealt, leaving Woll and Literally Nobody to take the net for Toronto. And even if Sammy takes a $3.5m deal, you have next to no cap space and no 13F/7D.

Did I mention Samsonov can arbitrate? Because Samsonov can choose to arbitrate for a higher salary. For another Devils comparable, the reason we didn't qualify Bastian or McLeod was because they could choose to arbitrate if we did, with the arbitrator awarding a higher salary than Fitz would be comfortable paying. Arbitrator says $5m, Treliving can't pay it, Sammy walks. Great work, Brad.

The other speculation is that these moves are setting up for a Nylander trade, breaking up the Core Four. Don't know who the hell wants Nylander at almost $7m of cap hit - maybe the Senators if they manage to ditch DeBrincat? The Leafs would probably have to retain significant salary. Also don't know who the hell the Leafs would replace Nylander with. I doubt this happens, honestly, especially because Nylander's 10-team no-trade clause can kick the Leafs further in the ass. But who the fuck knows anymore?

So to recap: The Leafs just shopped for a bunch of guys with no defense at all that's going to make them have to get rid of Murray and has made resigning Samsonov tough. They need to let go of some of their depth (Jarnkrok and Timmins most likely) to make it work at all, and that's assuming Sammy does them a favor and signs for cheap. That's not even including the possibility of an offersheet to Samsonov - which, if you're a GM with goaltending issues and cap to spare (Chicago comes to mind), you should seriously consider dropping a $6m offersheet to Samsonov and watching the chaos erupt. If Kyle Davidson is reading this right now, do this and I promise I will stop bringing up the Kyle Beach scandal every time I hear about the Hawks and let your franchise turn over a new leaf. (Or Leaf, as it were.)

@excuseme-jimin @storybook-strange you guys also expressed interest in this :)

[elijahhendley]

7月21號 Day 10: Independent excursion

Today was a free day! So, of course, I woke up and decided to try to go on a healing journey. It is time for some Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)! Yesterday I texted a guy about it and he responded and said he was free to meet today. So, at 10am I got up and left for new bei tou. This is where we were yesterday by the hot springs. I met him and we got to talk a little bit about Chinese medicine and my condition. For those that do not know, I have A LOT of knee problems. So today we focused on my knee. At first I told him about the history of my knee; how I tore my ACL & meniscus, how I recovered, and how I retired my meniscus. The first thing that he did was palpation in order to find the difference between the left and right leg. Of course it was no surprise that my right leg was way tighter than my left. After a thorough assessment he told me all of his thoughts and what he found. Most of it I already knew but he told me some stuff that I think would help me in the future. He loosened up my leg muscles by massaging them. Then we moved on to acupuncture which was way less painful than I thought and I did not react much to the needle stick. It was definitely a cool experience and I learned more about how the body works. After the massage and acupuncture, I had already overstayed my time by an hour so he let me experience 1 cup as well. He did not use fire but used a suction gun instead. I was actually surprised how well the cup was stuck to my leg. He was shaking it and moving it around like a handle and I for sure thought it would pop off, but it didn’t. Then, we went and grabbed lunch together and I got to talk to him more about chinese medicine. I asked him about the differences and similarities between modern medicine and TCM and also what they can learn from each other. 

We then parted ways and I went back to the hotel after hanging out with him for 3.5 hours. His name was Yi-hua by the way and actually we both shared the same character for Yi （逸）which was pretty cool. 

Then after almost going to sleep I realized that I needed to run over to church. So after resting from the acupuncture, I got up and started my spiritual healing journey. I arrived at church and the message was just what I needed. A reminder that I should not be me centered, that I should be humble and put Him first before everything, That His love shines on all and he really loves everyone on this earth no matter if they are in America or Taiwan. It rejuvenated my soul and I was so glad to be invited back there. The rest of the day I was able to rest

ACADEMIC REFLECTION

So that was my independent=dent excursion today. Since my final project topic will be on the impact taiwan has had on health, injury, and recovery, I decided to experience it myself. But here I will mainly discuss acupuncture. There are many acupuncture points on the body called acupoints and, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine, they all are supposed to have an effect on some part of your body. For example, an acupoint on the second knuckle of the middle finger helps treat digestive problems mainly in children(Fletcher). These acupoints I feel are only used for internal and maybe chronic problems. When talking to Yi-Hua. He told me that he believes TCM has more uses for chronic pain and diseases rather than a disease with a sudden onset. I feel like I have also heard this from others as well. I was talking to an American guy who learned Chinese medicine and he told me many stories of how he helped people with Covid-19 during 2020 using acupuncture after they were basically told that they would die soon. There is another side of acupuncture that deals more with muscles and anatomy rather than the idea that a certain acupoint will fix a certain problem. To rewind for a brief moment, acupoints are connected by channels. These channels are called meridians and it is qi that flows through these channels. Now to continue specifically into muscle, acupuncture has points called Ah-shi啊是 or “oh yes” points. Stimulation of these points have shown to reduce symptoms in multiple disorders such as myofascial pain syndrome and fibromyalgia(Itoh). Most of these disorders are chronic disorders that cause pain due to tightness, or as Yi-Hua described it, stickiness of the fascia in between the muscle. 

Since muscle tightness was my main issue, that is what he focused on. There are many different needle types and sizes. Most places would use one needle that is more of one size fits all. It is .18mm by 40mm. So the diameter is very small. One thing I learned is that the end of the needle is actually round, although very small. But, yi-Hua had many different sized needles as small as .12mm round and as large as 75mm long. As the needle is inserted into the leg, the technique developed by some Taiwanese is to wiggle the needle in order to loosen the fascia. Also, they dont push further than they feel resistance like some others do. They slowly insert the needle and work it through the muscle breaking up the fascia at the symptomatic points. Now you might be wondering what this all does. Well one thing is that it loosens the muscles so they can stretch more. Almost like poking holes in a fabric in order for it to be stretched out more, only that our fascia will heal after being stretched. The second thing is that it has been shown that deep muscle stimulation will relieve muscle pain, increase both the electric and pain pressure threshold, and is effective for DOMS(delayed onset muscle soreness). DOMS is what occurs after using our muscle intensely during a sport or exercising. 

There is so much more I can discuss on acupuncture but let’s move on to cupping. My knowledge on this is more limited than acupuncture but it is still a very interesting subject. Most people think cupping is to promote blood flow to a certain area, and that is not an inaccurate statement. But, those in TCM will describe it differently. Yi-Hua described it as sucking out the “dampness from the body.” It doesn’t just promote blood flow, but it creates space for blood to flow almost acting like a negative pressure valve on the outside to vacuum blood into the area. If I were to put it into western medical terms it would be like breaking blood clots, maybe expanding the blood vessels with force, and relaxing the muscle. Some people leave the cup on for a few minutes and some for up to half an hour. People even do “wet cupping”. This is when they poke holes before they do the cupping so blood can actually escape the body which is supposed to help immunity, pain management, digestive issues, improve skin condition, and help respiratory issues.

Some other aspects that I want to discuss are the yin and yang. It was cool learning about this. The idea originates from northern China and how the sunlight hits the mountains. Since China is in the northern hemisphere, the southern side of the mountain receives the most light. The southern side is the yang side, and since it receives the most sunlight, it is all about energy. They relate the Yang to the sympathetic nervous system that is also all about action. On the contrary, the north side of the mountain is the side that rarely receives sunlight and is known as the yin side. Yin is all about the negative and slowing things down. The parasympathetic system is related to the Yin. I thought this was pretty cool.

This was my Independent excursion. Until next time, 再見！

Effect of acupuncture depth on muscle pain | Chinese Medicine | Full Text (biomedcentral.com)

[pennywaltzy]

Things To Look Forward To On This Blog In 2024!

So yes. This year did not go at all as planned. I spent it dealing with long haul COVID symptoms that sapped my energy and my concentration, dealing with being homeless and getting burnt out running @wipbigbang this year (also COVID related...I love the BB, it's coming back next year, but running it wore me the fuck out this year...and I didn't even finish any of my planned fic for it!).

But there is good news: I wrote a fic today. I made graphics. I am slowly getting my creative spirit back! I have some stuff planned for the new year, provided I don't overdo it, and here's some of what I have planned:

A new series revolving around Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and BBC Sherlock, as suggested to me by my enabler @dreaminonao3. How is it going to work, you ask? Easy: it's set during "The Abominable Bride" era of Sherlock, in the 1800s, when Phryne and Mac are ten and Sherlock has need of new Irregulars. Dremin looked at the timeline and I jumped at the chance to write this. It is going to also incorporate an AU version of Ms. Fisher's Modern Murder Mysteries as well, as this fic is going to span all of Phryne's life except what we explicitly saw in the series (no movie for this series). I'm really looking forward to working on this series.

More of the "In Our Neck Of The Woods" series, which is going to span from way back in pre-series through an AU BBC Sherlock series 4 (I'M GONNA KILL JOHN AND LET MARY LIVE BWAHAHAHA!!!), crossing over with British shows like Midsomer Murders, Inspector Lewis, Murder In Suburbia; Australian shows like Mr & Mrs Murder and MFMM; the American crime procedural Criminal Minds and probably more! I have crazy ass plans for this series, but a HUGE focus of it is going to be the Mycroft/Lestrade ship. I eventually plan to finish "Every British Village Has Its Secrets" in 2024, but I'm going to start writing this out of order because I have Ideas and I'm tired of waiting to finish the casefic.

More beneath the cut!

CSIverse fic! I'm not going to write new stuff, probably, but I will finish posting the parts of my Danny Messer fic which seems to be popular (it's finished, I just need to format the future chapters for AO3, and I've misplaced my files), and I will start moving over more character bios for Nothing's Like Before/All Grown Up's OCs and start organizing those series and posting them. Plus I have a ton of other fic from LJ I need to post on AO3, so I'm going to try and average posting ten CSIverse fic a month for my various series and standalones and stuff.

I will be revisiting my older series. I mean, my OLD older series. Ones I started in my Wholock mania, BBC Sherlock series with only a small handful of fics, maybe even some of my Bleach series if I can figure out how to watch it on Hulu. I am also, because I binged them and miss my people and OCs and stuff, be adding more to "Stuff Of Improbable Legends" and "Saviors Of Time And Space" for @posterofamyth since I don't have the energy or creative capacity to dive back into actual roleplaying just yet. I'll be moving over story logs, filling in events that are mentioned in game but not logged, and adding newer content with the various ships and characters I grew to love when I was roleplaying. These will be fewer each month than the stuff I'm moving over, but I'm going to try!

More Star Trek AOS stuff. I have plans to add to "What Stork Brings" in January, I'm going to write more of "Academy Days," and I'll work on updating the Star Trek TOS movie "The Undiscovered Country" rewrite after I refresh my memory on the movie plot by watching it. @greenskyoverme is going to be dictating what I update and when for most of the stuff, as she's requested it as repayment for the multitudes of help she's given...

...That being said, I also plan on writing (hopefully) two stories a month in the "Between The Stars" series that I use Aurora Hliday in, as she is a OC of @luminarysketches and I'm commissioned to write at least 20K worth of stories (but I love Ro so this is not a daunting task, aside for the long haul stuff). Now, I'm going to hopefully get in touch with them soon to get more story ideas as well as have a bio for Aurora posted with the series in the series page link so you guys can learn all about her, so this one may not start until a little later in 2024.

More MCU! @dreaminonao3 has given me well over 1,000 prompts and a shit ton of them are my various MCU pairings I have series for so I will start using them to update the various series I have started. I got a ton of prompts specifically for "Just Pieces On The Board" so be on the lookout for those!

Provided I can get space and time to write, I am probably going to do a few month-long challenges. I may not do every day, but if I start one I will try and finish it before 2025 dawn, even if it's late.

Art! I have a ton more art to do for @wipbigbang and I'm getting back into making fanmixes. I would like to make a Mystrade mix at some point, and non-fic-inspired Sherlolly and Adlock ones as well. Plus I'm going to branch out into some of my MCU and Star Trek fandoms as well as some character-centric Elementary ones. I also have plans to make more fic inspired art I'm giving to holiday_wishes and @sherlollysecretsanta people as late Christmas gifts. So there should be a lot more art from me in the near future.

And that's kind of the gist of it! When I'm not posting fic and art of my own creation, I'm going to start posting more resources, fandom/fanfic adjacent stuff, art resources and other things. I'm planning to use this blog more than I did and 2023, so please, wish me luck!

[alreadyblondenow]

MOVING ON AND NOT TAKING NCT WITH ME

dont get me wrong though im not leaving tumblr haha i love this blogging shit too much. 

Okay. That title sucked but I don’t have any ideas right now. Anyway, I’m gonna talk about how I’m now moving on with my life and shit. Adulting is a huge reason for that but I’m not hating it. I love the fact the I make money with the job that I love and buy literally everything I want, I feel like I’m on a new level of self improvement because let’s be for real, the pandemic made a lot of people think small for themselves including me and so after the pandemic and all that aftermath, I’m glad that I’m actually alive right now even though I got covid once and two, I’m finally back on track again and life is pretty challenging still of course but I’d rather have this, than feel so useless to the core. 

In line with that, given the things that I mentioned above, obviously I’m busy af making shit happen, getting shit done and all that jazz, for a couple of months now, I don’t know shit about nct or any of their promotions or solo gigs. Of course I do know a few, I do know a few update about my man Taeyong but not as updated as I was before. You get what I’m saying? I’m usually on Twitter 24/7 because of kpop, but now I think I don’t have Twitter installed already, not even sure. 

I missed the wayv fanmeet which i regret 100% because they performed, the last time i saw them they didnt. and dude i really want to see them perform because i feel like thats what im missing already. i saw nct dream perform already, but 5 members lang. but dude, wanting to see wayv perform is a whole new level of longing. 

And now that 7 Dream is  coming to my country and will have a concert for 2 days, Idk what I’ll feel though because, I didn’t even bother buying tickets, and someone was offering me free tix but I didn’t accept because I don’t know I feel like a worthy dreamzen will be happy accepting that ticket but if that was me, yeah I’ll be happy but I’ll be going just for the pictures and shit. And yo everyone knows im a 127zen so that is that. Tho my dreamies are like sons to me I just dont get too excited when it comes to them right, unlike 127 i’d scream my lungs out. Dude I fucking cried during the link and didn’t go to work the day after. 

Anyways, point is. Personally, I’m not yet ready to say goodbye to NCT yet because we all know that loving nct 127 was not just a phase for me. I love them even though nctzens were like 20pcs per country at that time haha, I loved them even though there were not enough contents yet, i loved them even before 127 got a full album, i love them before instagram and bubble subscriptions. 

But life is making me leave nct where I left them which is the beautiful 2 Baddies era. I’m just so busy right now that I cant keep up anymore, and that’s why it got me thinking ‘hey, maybe it’s time to let go? and leave the crazy world of ncity?’ and move on with my life and invest with the real deal??

Do you guys feel the same way at some point? 

[mysmorgasbordoffantabulosa]

https://twitter.com/sc0ttishlass/status/1631578210683985923?s=20

Ok... but not the most accurate argument I've seen regarding this...

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Ok starts out well and factual...

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Again, all quite true... Then the legal changes occurred...

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And when these legal changes were made which companies were ordered to end them specifically? Well...

Agencies targeted by the ruling include the country’s top three: JYP Entertainment, SM Entertainment, and YG Entertainment. Smaller firms, LOEN, FNC, Cube, Jellyfish Entertainments and DSP Media were also included. - Source

So no BigHit (now HYBE) mmm, interesting...

Ok let's be clear here, there are two types of contracts... Idol Trainnee Contracts and Idol Contracts. A trainnee contract can be up to 5 years and Idol one up to 7. BTS's first started on 13th June 2013 and ended on 12th June 2020 (7 years). We know this because they stated this during the BangBangCon Live concert.

So, 2018 was not their contract end, it was when BigHit initiated contract renegotiations.

Also, technically 2017 was when they started to take off (DNA and Billboard Awards noms anyone?).

There is no basis in fact, just assumption here...

Again no basis in facts...

Firstly, the fact that BTS didn't have any money was probably because not 2-3 years earlier BH was on for verge of not continuing with the BTS project until I The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Pt. 1 was released and they started to make some money. Also remember, for most of 2016/2017 they were on tour or promoting. So when were they gonna spend there money?

Also, after Wings Tour there was bit of down time for them during the renegotiations, which by the BIgHit insisted they involve the Parents and outside legal counsel if the wished to do so.

I think the initial contract stipulated that all should live together in a dorm provide by BH. I have theorised that post contract re-sign they were all allowed to purchase their own property and live there. We know Jin was living somewhere else in 2018, as was Tae & Yoongi in 2019, and by the 2020 nearly all were living away from the dorm.

Also, J Hope's purchase was for his parents. How do this? Well Leetuk has mentioned on several occasions bumping in them at his home in Trimage.

I swear some people...

Anyway, we know that a solo era has always been in the works and was meant to happen from 2021, but covid and all that jazz.

Additionally, this solo era would have been negotiated as part of their new contract (which according to some was set to end in 2024) AND that BH would be manging said solo era. We know this because the boys mention this and so have HYBE themselves.

In order for any member to sign deals they would have to notify their management company... why? Because THEY ARE UNDER CONTRACT with NH, and said management company would likely need to be INVOLVED IN THOSE CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS, with other brands, because they manage artist schedules, security and styling, so it doesn't conflict with HYBE/BH plans/policy and BTS concept; as well as it not conflicting with anything in their contract with BTS. People who don't get this are idiots and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near social media.

Agencies are designed to represent their Artists, some fans may not like that but that is an actual fact and BigHit is continuing to represent BTS in their solo era, including with brand deals, features and variety show work.

We don't know the ins and outs of what was agreed regarding Tae and JK's solo work, But JK's FIFA song, got tweeted about and behind the scenes work by BH. Tae's work with Jinny's kitchen has had some promos, and but the Sim Invest deal might and lack of announcement might have something to do with BTS's contract with Tokopedia, and e-commerce company in the same country.

We don't know, so stop suggesting something based on vagueness.

OMFG... Go watch this video and fucking enlighten yourselves with some facts from Korean entertainment lawyers...

They explain that...

... K-Pop companies rarely use slave contracts now, and that a company would make some headlines if they decided to go back to using it....

.... while companies can request to get paid training fees by their trainees, it’s not common. They even explain how people should shy away from a company if they ask for training fees...

Also, if BH/HYBE were being so fucking cruel to deny them opportunities (which we have no real evidence fore) or support, do you seriously think that Tae and JK who were involved in disbandment talks in 2018 wouldn't just straight up and fucking sue HYBE to be released early from their contract?

Why fucking waits another year, when supposedly they ain't getting any work, which could damage their brand?

I swear some people have not fucking clue how the real-world works. BTS and their members currently are the single most important asset for BH and HYBE and have built that company from the ground up. Do you seriously think so fucking little of Tae and JK that they would allow themselves to be used in such manner? Well obviously, yes in this case, otherwise we'd be seeing potential legal proceedings against BH by them.

I bet by 2024/2025 rolls around the we'll get an announcement of them formerly re-signing with HYBE for another 7 years.

Some people need to grow the fuck up.

[crystalwitch222]

~Life Update~

First of all I want to say thank you to everyone that follows my ADHD Soul blog and thank you to everyone that follows my gaming content content I appreciate all the support ❤️

Here’s an update on life..animal job didn’t work out it didn’t help the depressive slump I’ve been in. The way they trained wasn’t great and it’s the fact that there was no actual manager just a bunch of young ppl working there. For learning some things my type of brain half ass training doesn’t work for me I need hands on learning or might need a little extra to learn something but once I learn whatever sometimes I exceed expectations and try to be perfectionist. So losing job was a real let down for me. I sometimes wonder if I should’ve mentioned the ADHD thing but would it really hurt or help me and sometimes I wonder if I should get a letter or something from my doctor that could protect me from being let go or certain treatment at work. So that job ended in March/February. It wasn’t till December I decided to give another job a chance I actually was hired on the spot it was another shoe store I was so excited but everything wasn’t as it seemed I was supposed to be hired as full time and then apparently it turned it I wasn’t. They are weird about taking breaks sometimes like most places I’ve worked you are required to take a 30 min lunch and a 10/ 15 min small break if you work 5 or more hours even working just 4 gets you 10/15 mins. If it’s really busy some managers prefer you to eat while working. Like no sorry sometimes ppl need to sit down like we ac right now either. This company the way things are ran is more competitive and just different from the last shoe store I worked at We got a new store manager just seems colder more old school. It just makes me miss my old shoe store even more…

My old shoe store job had closed during covid. We all never officially everyone never said goodbye to each other and It was at a new location I had been at for about 6 months and didn’t accomplish everything I wanted to/ dealing with mean girl type of drama & as still processing the fact that I lost my original store I started out at I originally didn’t want to relocate and stop being the assistant manager. We lost another store manager ( losing the first one was real hard for me too ) so they thought it was best to move me to a more heavy volume store to be a sales lead manager. I felt like my time was cut short as an ASM and I felt like I wasn’t always taken seriously and their communication sucked at the end and tbh when I look back on it I was younger I could’ve used a little more training with some things but still their communication could’ve been better talking goes both ways. I’ll talk more about it another time.

After the shoe store company closed my little fun nameless part time job became my main job.. I fought through bs to became a supervisor at a new high volume location I knew store manager for a long time worked with him at multiple locations I even once called him my friend. Working there turned into a nightmare toxic work environment bc the assistant manager has it out for me but tbh she ends up having a problem with everyone there was always something wrong.. Then there was other stuff but more of that later.. yes I told my store manager after holidays that I wanted to be done but I was upset I thought he was my friend is that no reason to ever call or text an employee when they took a leave of absence when they get sick with covid ? No one ever reached out to me to see how I was doing so I thought they didn’t want me to come back so I never went back and a few months later my store manager who I thought was my friend blocked me on Snapchat. I’m still trying to live with my decision that I never reached out and still debating if I ever will… I wonder if I was put as fired and not rehire able.. i was great at my job I really loved the job itself just not the location in the end.. then sometimes I do miss my friend… who was my store manager..this was the first ever place to really inspire to be a manager run a place have a business this was the first place I wanted to be a manager at. For months I thought about texting him but I couldn’t do it I don’t know why or how I became this way but it got to a point at work where I stopped texting my manager every time there was a problem it just got tiring.

So it’s been a rocky road with work places every job has its negatives and not every job will have bad management. So all that is kinda what lead to my slump along with at the beginning of it all I had a condition that acting up again but I deal with it the best I can with diet and supplements. It’s called IC/PBS ( interstitial Cystitis / painful bladder syndrome ) on top that I think have OAB 😭

So here am I figuring out what to do next no health insurance might be diabetic

Right after leaving nameless job I got back into gaming started giving streaming a try and start making gaming content I’m still doing it but it can only distract me so much now and bring me so happiness but I’ll keep doing it bc I know there are ppl that enjoy my content and if it brings somebody some sort of joy that that makes me happy too. Who knows maybe one of my videos will blow up someday one of them once got 50k views. At one point I was streaming everyday I’ll possibly get back to that we”ll see. Also trying to get back into writing and blogging more check out my ADHD Soul blogs on Tumblr and Reddit . Also enjoy photography and started wire wrapping crystals thinking about possibly selling some. Check out my Instagram to see @crystalwitch_22 We”ll see. Thanks for reading.

Follow me if you want on

Twitch/Kick/TikTok/Pinterest: CrystalWitch_22

YouTube: CrystalWitch_22 TV

[ultrahpfan5blog]

The Flash Season 6 - Restrospective Review

So I finally finished season 6. Two more seasons to go before I catch up. Season 6 is a difficult season to judge because its an incomplete season, with Covid cutting the season short by 3 episodes. So the Mirrorverse arc was left hanging going into season 7. But as a season as a whole, I think there are a fair amount of upsides, particularly in the first half of the season, leading into COIE crossover.

Eric Wallace took over as showrunner starting this season and he obviously made a clear decision to split seasons into multiple arcs. I definitely think its a wise decision because the quality of villains and their ability to sustain a full season was dubious. I actually think the Bloodwork arc benefits greatly as a result of this decision. I don't think anyone considers Bloodwork to be one of the top villains that The Flash has ever had, but he works quite well for an 8 episode arc. It makes for a fun, B Zombie movie type vibe which was definitely different for the show. I honestly do think the first half of this season is excellent. I think they did a decent job showing the parallels between Ramsey and Barry's situations. And I think this half of the seasons pulls some excellent performances from the cast. Certainly, Carlos gets a chance to flex in 'Kiss Kiss Breach Breach', which is a completely Cisco centric episode. 'License to Elongate' is a pretty fun Bond type episode with Ralph and Barry, with Ralph taking lead. And it was actually quite a sweet episode, honoring Barry as a character. Grant has one of his best performances in the 'The Last Temptation of Barry Allen Pt 1'. There is a sublime scene between Grant and Jesse in 'There will be Blood' which really harkens back to why that relationship was so great in the show.

There is only one complaint that I have with the first part of this season, which is that Caitlin gets completely sidelined. The show makes an obvious specific decision to let Frost take the prominent role, which is fine, but given that the first half deals with Barry trying to help prepare all of team Flash for a life after him, I feel an episode with Caitlin, who was such a long time friend, should have happened. Barring that, I honestly find the Bloodwork arc to be a lot of fun. The Zombie apocalypse type finally makes for a pretty enjoyable climax. This half of the season introduces two new characters who went on to be part of the main cast in future seasons. Those two being Allegra and Chester. I know people have mixed opinions on both characters but I liked both of the bat. Allegra is pretty significantly involved throughout the season and becomes a part of team Citizen and Chester pops up in a handful of episodes and becomes more prominent towards the end of the season.

The first half of the season also introduces Nash, whose primary purpose in the first half of the season is to bring about the start of Crisis. COIE was an ambitious crossover and I do applaud the CW for attempting something so big. While I did enjoy COIE, as a Flash fan it was a bit disappointing because Barry is sidelined in at least the first couple of episodes. He becomes more prominent in the last three episodes, but given the Crisis tease was on Flash for years, it is a bit annoying how the focus is shifted away from him when it really should have been a Flash prominent crossover. We do get some of our last Oliver and Barry moments in this crossover, which was great. Its good to know we will get some more in season 9 but those scenes in the crossover are great. There are some characters who are missed during the crossover, like Cisco, who was always a prominent part of the crossovers in the past, but only appears in The Flash episode.

The Mirrorverse/Black Hole arc is the arc which is a bit inconsistent. Its also unfortunately incomplete. There are some good elements and bad elements about this part of the season. Oddly, its a great part of the season for Candice Patton but a poor one for Iris. Candice gets to play a semi-villainous character in playing Iris' mirror duplicate and she does seem to enjoy it, but Iris is shortchanged as a result because she ends up spending the entire back half of the season trapped in the Mirrorverse, pretty much doing nothing. Everything in the Mirrorverse is pretty boring because it is just a rinse and repeat of Iris and Eva having the same conversations. The show also repeats some beats of Barry losing his speed again and again repeating the beats of him not being fast enough to stop villains, which is frustrating as a viewer after having watched several seasons of similar arcs. I do think that there is a set of 4 consecutive episodes that are all pretty strong for different reasons. 'A Girl Named Sue' is a fun introduction to Sue. She and Ralph and have instant chemistry which is a lot of fun. 'Grodd Friend Me' is cool as well, as we get to see speedster Grodd, albeit for a short time, and then 'Death of the Speed Force' sees the welcome and last return of Wally West. It will be nice to see him again in season 9 as this was his last appearance on the show so far. Then we have 'The Exorcism of Nash Wells' which was a cool episode which gave some of the OG's, like Grant, Carlos, and especially Tom, some room to flex and gave some depth to Nash, which was missing till this point. 'Liberation' also has a pretty strong fight scene between Mirror Iris and Barry, which is pretty brutal.

The actual story of team Flash facing off against Black Hole is interesting. Its cool to have them dealing with an organization rather than a single person. Problem is that they narrative purpose gets split because there is Black Hole and there is Eva and her mirror duplicates and Barry gets lost a bit in that muddle because he isn't intrinsically involved with either story. Barry's story in the back half deals a lot with the death of the speed force and the creation of a new one. Because the narrative is split in three different direction, each plot seems too slow. Ralph and Sue were some of the most entertaining parts of the back half, but end up absent for episodes at a time. The multi focus is what makes these arcs less effective. A lot of cast members are absent for episodes at a time. Like I mentioned, Ralph is absent for several episodes. Cisco is absent for several episodes. Joe is absent for a few episodes. You also see some of Eric Wallace's more annoying tendencies, such as sidelining Iris for such a long period of time, starting this annoying recurrence of Cecile feeling everyone's emotions and telling the audience how they feel, and starting promising arcs and ending them abruptly. An example of that is the Mirror duplicate Iris arc. The show starts something promising with Mirror duplicate Iris becoming independent and sentient but it doesn't go anywhere eventually and feels a bit pointless. This becomes a trait that became very prominent in season 7.

The season finale was obviously not designed to be the season finale, but it works ok because it at least ends the Black Hole arc and has a fun sequence with multiple villains vs multiple heroes. It is also obviously evident that Danielle Panabaker's pregnancy probably ended up messing with whatever arc was planned for the character because she is barely present in the back half for obvious reasons.

The cast is all excellent. Like I mentioned, the cast is given a lot of chances to flex. Grant gets some strong episodes and he feels a lot more centered in this season while in season 5, it did feel like he was sometimes not the main character. Candice Patton has fun in a villainous role. Carlos, Danielle P, Jesse are strong. Danielle Nicolet does overdo some scenes but does well overall. Hartley Sawyer was great and its disappointing that he left in the way he did. Its a shame because we never got to see that Ralph and Sue arc come to fruition as a result. Tom Cavanaugh is great as always but Nash Wells is easily the least developed version of Wells. The character never really formed any major connections with other characters on the show. The only connection the character has is with Allegra and even that doesn't get properly explored until very late in the season. He does have a brief reappearance as Thawne, which is always great, though he seems more bloodthirsty then usual. But its always great to see Barry and Thawne face off. Sendhil Ramamurthy gets to have some fun chewing scenery as Ramsey/Bloodwork. Victoria Park as Kamilla gets a more prominent role this season and while I still prefer Gypsy as a romantic interest for Cisco, she is a likable character. Kayla Compton and Brandon McKnight are likable as Allegra and Chester. Efrat Dor is effective as Eva but even she is limited by the fact that she spends majority of her time locked in the mirrorverse. Eric Nenninger as Joseph Carver is fine. Natalie Dreyfuss is charming as Sue Dearborn.

All in all, I think its an enjoyable season. I think it is on part with season 5. I think its reputation got dinged because of the fact that its final episodes had to be shifted into season 7 but its overall a solid season. I rate it a 7/10.

[maleexperience-blog]

6

Let's talk about my body. I'm a muscle head...sort of, depending on who you ask. If you ask Timothy Chalamet, I'm a god. If you ask a 1990s Arnold Schwarzeneggar, I'm a puny little man. I look at myself in the mirror and feel pretty content with where my body is for the most part, which is a far cry from where I was. I have spent years--actual decades, I won't name how many, but we'll say more than one--in the gym. I have spent those years addicted to the pump and lamenting its ultimate deflation and return to my body's baseline. But I'd always go back, because I wanted to look like the John Cenas and the Rocks. "If I just keep going..." "If I just eat more protein..." "If I just try this supplement..." "If I just try this different routine..."

I kept going and I kept going, very few breaks if any. Consistently, every week. On vacation. During my years at school. On summer breaks. After work. In the mornings, in the afternoons, in the late night after my shifts in food service. I prioritized it so very much. This is still so today. Six days a week, now. In all that time, up until around my mid-30s, I never looked how I truly wanted. I still looked like a twinky boy. I looked like a boy who walked like he was supposed to be a man of a different physique, because, some part of me sometimes believed it. At one point I discovered weight gainer supplement; I became stronger within a few weeks and became addicted to throwing up more weight than I'd ever lifted before. It was a game changer. Unfortunately, I'd hit a plateau and got pretty plump. Boy, was my ass phat though. I had black men and older daddies trying to get in my butt. My butt was powerful, it was my power.

You think I wanted to lose my new flat bench max? And my phat fuckable butt? Hell no. So I held that 40-50 extra pounds of weight...I tolerated that windedness, the tight clothes, the elevated heart rates after a short walk, that sweating for no god-damn reason, for upwards of three years, all out of fear I'd lose my only perceived source of love: my fuckability and my ability to lift.

I'd intermittently get plump and "bulk," and lean out, on repeat for close to another 8 years, never quite seeing the man I wanted to see in the mirror. Sure I'd take a pic and be like, "not bad," but for the most part, I looked soft, sometimes bulky depending on what "phase" of body I was in. Generally, I'd say looking back, I probably looked my best when I was little more slim. If I'm being honest, at the time, having a fuckable butt was something I was scared to lose. Doesn't that sound crazy? Or does it sound common? I can't imagine feeling that way now.

So what changed? Well, I had broken up with my boyfriend around 2019. It was a horrible relationship but the sex was great (a recurring theme I'll touch on later.) I had badmouthed steroids for years, always said I wanted to be natural or "natty." (If any of this sounds familiar, it's because you've probably heard some little newbie at the gym or commenting on a muscle head's social media post spouting the same nonsense...) But, I had said, almost as if I had planned it, "if we break up I'm *doing* steroids." As fate would have it, a coworker of mine offered me some old vials of unused prescription testosterone right around when that relationship finally ended. He committed a felony by distributing them; I committed one by accepting them. I always pictured the exchange of controlled substances as some dark-alley deal but, no, I had done so right in the comfort of my office. Just before the COVID pandemic picked up steam in the United States, I'll never forget injecting that little fucking 0.25 mL dose into my left buttock, right outside my gym in the parking lot in the front seat of my car. Oh, the excitement.

For those of you who don't know, 0.25 mL of testosterone is nothing. I was basically partially shutting down my testicular function and replacing it with injectable testosterone. It was lol-able to those in the know, because I did this for many weeks. This should signal just how blind I was to what on earth I was doing. But I finally talked around and got the courage to do more. Fuck, I felt great when I bumped my dose to 0.75. I started seeing a pretty good change until I ran out. So I read up on cycling and took the dive. I bought some overseas gear...the big stuff. T cyp and tren. Oh fuck yea, I dove head first. I was ready. And being the black-and-white codependent muscle head FUCK I was, I said "If I'm going to do this, I'm going to just go full tilt" I was injecting around 500 mg T cyp and around 700 mg Tren E on that first cycle. I ate like a pig, because I was so toxically attached to this idea of "holding onto it" after I came off cycle. Fuck I was plump. I was PLUUMMP. I also fucked like a pig, ready to go just about any time, anywhere, and damn near down to do just about whatever nasty masculine activity with another dude you can think of (damn near....not completely lol)

Then, around week 9 or so, I started to feel sick. Just generally sick. But I pushed and I pushed, kept injecting, kept eating, kept lifting. I checked my labs and they were a wreck. An inflammatory marker said I had a 30% chance of a heart attack in the next year. My cholesterol was through the roof. Yup. I can't imagine why! Naturally, I stopped right around week 12. Let me just say, no amount of PCT (post-cycle therapy) could prepare me for the crash 2-3 weeks post cycle. I suddenly was not a god. I was not a sex pig. I was not veined and horned. I was...depressed, sad, emotional, dumpy. But, it bounced back and I felt normal once again.

Then I received my "invitation."