#the only thing i can think of to explain it is a cr post about im*gen and la*dna as each others tethers

[thedragonagelesbian]

the cyrusXanders wip is a piece where everyone feels a lot of things but no one learns anything and the same problems that open the fic close it and to the extent that any progress is made at all, the avenue to manifesting that progress is fated to be the someone else that has haunted the fic from the beginning and i hope it doesnt come off as too repetitive when like... the intractability is the whole point.

[yourneighborlyweirdo]

A Message For Those Struggling With Shifting

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.

A Message:

I know it feels demotivating. I know when you open a social media app and see everyone’s success, story times, and etc, the only thing you can think is:

“Why can’t this be me? What am I doing wrong? Why haven’t I done it yet? Why is it taking so long? Can I just not do it? Is it impossible?”

The longer you keep thinking things like that, the more you will spiral downward into that hole that consumes you, thinking you’re not good enough.

And I know that’s what it feels like—that it consumes you completely, and you feel as though your trapped in a place you don’t want to be in, and the only option for escape you can’t even do.

But this simply isn’t true.

Think of all the times you’ve opened your phone to see everyone talking about shifting. And instead of spiraling downward, go upward.

If everyone has posted this much content about the same thing, and not even online…people have made literal books about this topic called “shifting realities.”

And for the sake of argument, literally the tag “ #shifting ” on Tumblr has over 16k members in it.

If that many people believe in it, a lot of which have actually done it, why do you think you can’t either?

Let me put it this way…

You aren’t special.

I’m sorry, I know that sounds bad, but let me explain: You are not special. Everyone on this planet has the ability to shift, and millions have—as a matter of fact, EVERYONE has, unknowingly. You shift when you decide to wear a red shirt instead of a blue one, and etc etc.

If so many can shift, so can you. You have the same tools and abilities as the next person.

You can. And you will.

You just have to believe it. Believe it in a way where you don’t even question it—believe it so much that when you suddenly do get the thought, “Why haven’t I done it yet?” Your next thought is, “That’s silly. I can do it whenever I want to.”

You can do anything you set your mind to. You just have to believe you can.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.

Why I Made This Post:

I made this post mainly for myself. I made it so I can look back on it and remember what I should be thinking instead of what I am thinking.

It’s hard to know that I hold the same abilities as everyone else, and I’ve shifted countless times without knowing and on accident, and I’m amazing at manifesting so much so that whatever I want can come into the 3D instantly.

But when it comes to Shifting, every thing I try doesn’t work. I know I can do it and I 100% believe it’s real, and every time I do try, I feel like I’ve shifted but when I wake up and I’m still in my CR, I just feel…I don’t even know how to explain it.

It’s like you’ve scheduled a vacation and you’re looking forward to it for months, and the night before you think, “Omg, I can’t wait! Tomorrow’s the day I go on the vacation I’ve been waiting for!” And then you wake up the next day and see that a reason you don’t even know, your vacation is canceled and your money you spent on it got sent back to you. It feels like that.

And I know I just need to assume I can do it, and that I shouldn’t think of it as “trying” to shift but instead as “deciding” to shift, and I do do all of those things. But for some reason I’m still here, and it makes me feel things I can’t even explain.

But that doesn’t mean I’ll give up. I know I can do it, and I believe that it’s real and I can do it so I know I will.

I just wish it will happen sooner rather than later.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.

Last Thoughts:

Sorry if this post is weird or like, I don’t know, hard to read. And I didn’t mean to dump all my personal struggles into this, but that’s why I started posting on this app in the first place. I want to help others by telling what I’ve learned, and I want learn things from other people.

If you’ve read this far, thanks. And I hope you know that you can do it. If you don’t believe it, know that I believe you can.

Have a good rest of your day.

Sincerely,

Your Neighborly Weirdo

[meryachkins]

so. um. i wanted to post something about my mc. but i realized i need to Explain her a little. even if my english is wonky. even if no one besides me will like her. i'm willing to sacrifice my pride lmao ( pls don't beat the shit out of me because of misspelling or weird use of words or horrendous grammary. i'm silly your honor )

SO. there's her profile thing ?? i guess ??? and yes. my every character is armenian, thank you very much. es hay em what can i say 😭

cr for sheet: @kiwiplaetzchen

aaaaand there we go with A Lot Of facts sbout her ...

about blood status ! i believe she doesn't really know about all that stuff. in my head magic armenia is tied together with non-magic one, because there's no magic school and communities are small and local. wizards live like muggles, live side by side with them. therefore blood of her family is so mixed, that i can't even say is she half-blood or what.

and she doesn't know english very well. her handwriting is in block letters and it's stiff and sloppy. often when she's yapping about something she switches to her mother tongue without realizing it. and then she tries to translate her rant, but fails miserably lmao. that's why she asks her friends for help with textbooks in classes and why she hates potions ( she doesn't know all that terminology for ingredients )

during the first days at hogwarts she was a little shy, but quickly became friend with poppy and natty. then she beat the shit out of sebastian in the duel and felt Very confident because of everyone's vivid reaction, so she started to befriend every person in this school lol. she's very tactile and kinda touch-starved even though she always pissed her siblings off with the need to touch and hug and peck Everyone ( but they always let her do it )

also. she's aroace. she really loves her friends, but she do not understand ( and need ) romantic love and relationshisp. i mean, she doesn't really know she's aroace she live in 19 century lmao. but not once in her live she fell in love

she have 5 siblings: two oldest siblings zabel and levon, older siblings lilith and masis and smol sis asthik ( who's a menace to society. ) she loves them to death, but in the summer after 5th year there was a huge drama about levon and maro was Fighting for him with zabel ( who's a homophobic bitch, but i'm the one who made her like this so i'm not shitting her 😭 )

and they lived in constantinople, but when father died they moved to erivan, hometown of their mother. after this she have some kind of prophecies about something bad happening with their family and maro being their "savior". that's why maro ended up in hogwarts, like it's the only school except koldovstoretz that her mother know about. and there's some relatives in england, who left erivan when it became part of russian empire in 1829 ( i think ??? i'm not too familiar with dates, but i want this story to work ... )

also her patronus was the van cat ( or vana katu, it's a landrace of cats found around lake van ) like her father's. but she doesn't cast patronus often so she found out that her patronus has changed to the borzoi at 6th year. her neighbor from a wealthy family bred borzoi from russian empire and she fell in love with these dogs from the very first time she saw them. it's kind of a symbol of her homesickness and yearning for family, for her life in erivan.

so. um. if you read all that text above. thank you. i really want to be in fandom and to show my maro to everyone 🤲 i will post arts with her. i guess ........ and i really want to draw other people's characters !!! i just like the vibes in here lol

[utilitycaster]

Hi! Hope you don’t mind me asking but, I’ve seen you comment about a “fjord moon” theory every so often in your tags, and I’m quite curious what’s it about? I don’t think I’ve ever heard about it, is it something more prevalent in twitter spaces?

It started in Reddit spaces but it had a moment within the fandom at large during Campaign 2, especially after a YouTube video surfaced shortly after the campaign had come back from hiatus in August 2020. It hasn't come up lately since Campaign 3's plot pretty thoroughly debunked it, which wasn't necessary for reasons I will cover below.

I talked about how stupid it was at the time, and will do so again but I don't feel like looking back through my archives to find that post, so: the idea was that Fjord was from Ruidus. I call it a theory because its creators called it a theory but it was really just a lot of incoherent yelling that unfortunately happened to fall into the hands of a prolific and popular but talentless video maker and was boosted by a prolific and popular but deeply stupid figure on CR Twitter.

You can read it here but in short he basis was that Fjord was actually a Spelljammer Space Orc (Scro; yes this is just Orcs backwards; Spelljammer is not exactly the most brilliant of concepts) because he was intelligent and walked upright, ignoring that Spelljammer was, at the time, from D&D 2e only which can generously be described as "wicked racist in the depiction of orcs". Not that 5e is not without its foibles, but it had largely 86-ed the worst of the racism that pervaded earlier orc depictions. Also Garthok pre-dated Fjord and was a half-orc with the same intelligence, but what are facts to an idiot. So anyway this guy working off a deeply racist older concept for orcs spun this into a wild conspiracy theory involving the fact that Travis likes Dragonball Z; something about the film Spaceballs (as far as I know Travis has said absolutely nothing about this, this is just that the Mel Brooks Star Wars parody and my personal childhood favorite Spaceballs exists I think?) and various other random pulls from science fiction media. This guy asked a question at a panel and mistook the cast looking at him like he had lost the plot as a sign he was onto something. Somehow, people listened to him.

Here's the thing about theorycraft. It is more important, in writing a theory, that you base it on evidence than that you get it correct. Any dipshit can guess and any lucky dipshit can guess correctly, but if you show that you can't structure an argument for beans, anyone who can structure an argument for beans will rightfully look at you and say "well, they predicted something once, but that's a fucking fluke because they're a fucking joke." Theories should explain something that needs explanation (Fjord having an INT of 14 and the name Fjord and being an orphan does not). They should not solely rest on things the cast likes or things that merely exist in-world and certainly not from Spaceballs and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the connection of which to Critical Role in that Reddit post is not explained, ever.

To give some examples of good, mediocre, and bad but at least not nearly that bad theorycraft: the theory that Ashton was a meteor that was around early in C3 is in my mind not very good, but at least it fits within Exandria canon and explained something about Ashton needing explanation at the time. The theory that The Emissary is the source of the stasis bubbles is in my mind a very good one explaining several key mysteries (source of stasis bubbles; why Erathis sent him rather than coming himself). The theory that Bor'Dor was a dog was fucking stupid and made no sense nor did it explain anything that needed explanation (and also wildly misjudged how border collies behave) but did at least not say "also, the TV show Lassie...exists in our reality, and this is evidence" The Fjord Moon Theory is maybe the stupidest and worst CR theory I've seen in my entire life, and it's up there for fandom theories over all. I get that it was August 2020 and I don't begrudge people who were very bored and scared from joking about it while not taking it seriously, but I do begrudge those who did take it seriously because like, come on.

Anyway, I bring it up in tags sometimes because many of the worst C3 takes on Twitter that make it to me via "can you fucking believe this" screenshots in the groupchat are either started or propagated by Former Moon Theory People.

[burr-ell]

"the tendency of this fandom to only engage with what THEY want these characters to be#as opposed to what their creators are trying to do and the stories they want to tell" slap this on a bumper sticker, you just summed all cr discourse (about PCs at least) in 2 sentences

It truly is maddening (and it's not by any means exclusive to the CR fandom). The reason why the discourse always goes the way it does is that at the end of the day, the loud fanwanky people only see what they would do, if they were self-inserted into the story, as a valid choice; and they are, more broadly, fundamentally disinterested in what others think or feel. There are several examples of this, and the variety of spaces within the fandom that produce these ideas is an indicator that this isn't endemic to one specific group of people.

-Keyleth is an important character whose feelings and choices are validated by the other PCs and cast even if they still disagree with them, in spite of how she and her preachiness get in the way of the Murderhobo Jubilee? It's not because the cast are all friends and they genuinely believe Keyleth is valid and are interested in how these discussions and choices can guide the story. It's because Marisha is the DM's girlfriend, and also here's my totally unbiased theory that my pet favorite players Sam and Travis secretly hate Marisha and Keyleth.

-Vax's presence is still felt and nodded to in the post-canon VM oneshots? It's not because he was an important character who mattered. It's because Liam wants to make everyone talk about his tragedy because he has Main Character Syndrome. Scanlan Wishes for Vax to appear at the wedding? It's not because he cares about Vex or because Sam and Liam wanted a sweet tribute to Vex and Vax's relationship and by extension Liam and Laura's friendship. It's because Liam thinks Vex's life should always revolve around Vax, and Sam wants to enable him and jerk himself off as the one who facilitated it.

-Beauyasha and Fjorester become canon? It's not because the players wanted it and it happened naturally. It's because there was a secret behind-the-scenes push to "force" those ships to become canon instead, and like, Dani Carr is some sort of shipping puppetmaster who made the players do it, and "they" (whomever "they" is) decided to sink Beaujester or Widojest because it was "obviously" going to become canon before the pandemic hiatus gave them time to "make the corporate-approved ships happen".

-Beau and Caleb try to reform the Empire and dismantle the Cerberus Assembly from within? It's not because it makes sense for their stories or that people who would take this position regarding a corrupt government might have a valid perspective that differs from your own. It's because the people at Critical Role Productions LLC are all spineless neoliberal cowards who won't commit to real activism. The best activism, after all, is violent, and violent revolutions have always resulted in stable aftermaths, and the real world has never demonstrated that this mindset is foolish.

-Relatedly: Caleb doesn't kill Trent personally? It's not because the most poetic justice would be to deny Trent the thing he wants most from Caleb. It's because "Limo Brain" is too obsessed with tragedy to have the stones to do "what needs to be done".

-Asmodeus, DnD Satan, turns out to also be CR Satan? It's not because it fits with the cosmology and the lore; it's because Matt Mercer is too attached to the "establishment", and the Prime Deities should have actually turned out to be the bad guys because of my personal baggage about Western religion and Christianity they're a little mean to my blorbo sometimes.

There's a pattern here: fans had expectations that they'd built up for themselves after projecting and building up fanon and deciding what players meant before they explained themselves fully, and when the players strayed from that, they were derided for all manner of reasons. I think we're seeing that same pattern play out in C3 as the story progresses in a way that fans dislike, and in fact we have seen fanwank spread whenever someone does anything that interferes with personally catering to a) the favored ship and/or b) the favored philosophy. (Orym, Ashton, FCG, Percy, Pelor...all valid when they affirm the Fandom Opinions and all disdained when they don't.)

Don't get me wrong, I think there's a place for comfort stories that deliver a personal catharsis. And I'm not going to dismissively say "well if you want it so bad make your own" because, as an artist, I am very familiar with the fact that creating is hard and draining and sometimes you just need to consume instead. But when you become so wrapped up in yourself and your feelings to the point where your perspective is the only valid one, someone else's feels like a betrayal when it isn't. It's always "They aren't doing what we wanted and here's why they're terrible people because of it" and never "Hmm, why is this what the cast wants? Let's examine that."

This isn't a new phenomenon, but I think it ultimately stems from not assuming that other people can differ from you in major ways in good faith. There are a lot of reasons for that (some more understandable than others), but I think you rob yourself of the potential to enjoy something new when all you do is demand what you already want. No matter what you're doing or where you are in life, you tend to become a better and wiser person when you open your mind to what other people have to say, no matter how mundane the subject matter. Sometimes the stories people have to tell are challenging—and the only healthy way to deal with that is to engage with them on their own terms.

[emshiftss]

I had a dream I shifted

Shifting diary # 7

Some one please tell me possibly why my brain would do this to me😭🙏

To clarify some things before I explain:

I’m certain that this was a dream

Even though this dream wasn’t (for the most part) a lucid one, I have been lucid dreaming all my life so I don’t want anyone to come across this post and think lucid dreaming is shifting because it certainly is not.

I can’t remember to many specifics about this dream but about an hour and a half ago I woke up and started to remember said dream, (also the night prior I’m pretty sure I had a dream about my DR/significant other) but like I said I dreamt I shifted. I’m not sure what happened before this moment, (like I’m not sure if I was trying to shift and just ended up in another dream) but I put my hands on a wall and thought to myself “this is so real I’ve shifted! I can feel the wall I shifted.”

And I definitely did not shift, for one I didn’t not actually feel the wall, and the dream was vivid but it definitely wasn’t real life, and the there were dream like inconsistencies. And deep down I knew it too even in the dream because as the dream went on I thought to myself “I thought shifting was supposed to be like real life, everything is kinda blurry though …” and I just dismissed these thoughts.

The dream itself wasn’t even to my DR. It was to a weird alternative CR x Gilmore girls reality? (The only Gilmore girls thing I remember about the dream though is Jess being my S/O) I’ve only been focusing on my vampire diaries reality lately, and a while ago I started scripting for a Gilmore girls reality but I kind scrapped the idea. To be fair though I am watching the show atm with my sister, but yesterday I didn’t even watch it?

Throughout the dream I also kept thinking “I can’t wait to tell my sister, and I shouldn’t stay long because I also want to go to my waiting room.” It was over all a strange and frustrating experience, but also one I’ve experienced before. Nothing recently but maybe this happened because about two ish months ago I locked in on shifting again?

Idk but that’s so weird… can someone please tell me why I would dream I shifted but not actually do it???? Why would my brain do that😭 like I’ve had multiple dreams in the past that’ll fail reality checks and or just have a dream about shifting but not actually doing it?

[Also after I woke up from that dream I went back to sleep and had a dream about my actual desired reality BUT it also involved Gilmore girls characters??????????????]

[that-ari-blogger]

A Perfect Metaphor And A Perfect Joke

I put out a post a few days ago discussing some Critical Roll speeches, and I couldn't help but notice how people seemed to like that. So, I thought to myself: CR has some phenomenal moments, and I happen to have some more thoughts on them, so why not share?

With that said, Loquatius Seelie is a fascinating character played by a phenomenally skilled improviser. Allow me to explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR CRITICAL ROLL CALAMITY

Before I unpack this speech, I would like to briefly examine who Loquatius Seelie is. And I'll start with an analysis of his mechanics. I'm not going to go into detail on his spells and abilities, instead I would like to instead bring up his choice of class. In the EXU Calamity Wrap-up, Sam suggested that Loquatius began at 1st level as a warlock, and took the remaining 11 levels as a bard, and I think that is quite interesting. Where everyone else was a liar pretending to tell the truth, Loquatius was an honest man pretending to be a liar. He had got swept up in the drama of it all, and kept taking levels in bard as he descended more into the personality he created for himself.

"Fire"

I feel the need to stress that this speech was written in the break. There was no clever marketing team who laboured for hours. This was Sam Riegel pseudo-improvising. That's not what I'm analysing, it just needs to be said.

Anyway, what is this speech about?

Life. Life needs things to live, and a world needs people to inhabit it. But there's more, this is a farewell to the age of arcanum, and in a fitting send off, it breaks down all of the pompous ceremony and for the first time in a while, gets real.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the replenishment is cancelled. Our centuries old bond, severed."

This is all nice, but what happens next is fascinating. Its the end of an era, and instead of looking back at what has happened, the speech looks to the future.

"Our two cities are like a married couple. We may have our differences. We may not have the same goals. We may even separate for a time. But we are connected by love for eternity. We made a promise to each other, and its one we must fulfill."

The symbol of marriage is a ring, it's a fascinatingly old tradition, with discoveries in ancient Egypt that date back 3000 years, and the symbolism behind this is both obvious, and subtle. The ring represents a cycle, an infinite loop. The ring doesn't represent the marriage, but the promise to each other.

In this broadcast, Loquatius brings the Age of Arcanum to a definitive close, tricking an entire city of hubris to go down in flames in order for the new world to be born. And to everyone else, he invokes marriage, the ultimate promise of a future, everlasting.

"Remember your Avalir siblings and the sacrifices we made for you. Remember Cerrit, the Eyes of Avalir, and his bravery. Remember Nydas, the Dragon, and his sense. Remember Patia Por'co, Keeper of Scrolls, and all the wisdom she brought. Remember brave Zerxus and Evandrin, the First Knights of Avalir. And remember the Architect Arcane, Laerryn, the most beautiful woman in the world. And also, remember the Market of Wonders"

This is such a phenomenal send off, not just because of who he's mentioning, or because of the sheer force of acting skill that Sam is throwing around. This is phenomenal, because of what it asks the next age to remember. Bravery, wisdom, and beauty.

Loquatius can never know what will happen in the next age, but he begs whoever will hear this, to take just these things forwards. Be brave, be wise, be beautiful.

But that joke. "Remember the market of wonders." Brennan has credited Joseph Campbell with the phrase: "Comedy completed the revelation that drama begins." And for the life of me, I couldn't find where Campbell said this, so I think this is a Brennan Lee Mulligan original.

Perspective is important, and if you have only good things, like the Age of Arcanum, you get complacent. But if you have only bad things, such as the calamity is shaping up to be, the pain loses its meaning. Your senses dull. This joke is a dying man going out with a defiant smile, but its also a message to the world. Don't give up on joy, or hope, in the face of Armageddon, because that's when you need those things the most.

"I'm Loquatius Seelie-- And I'll drop my golden complexion and just use my true face, my true changeling face-- saying: Seelie you later."

This is unironically my favourite moment of the speech. Because its the final moment, and the face of an age has stopped all pretences. No special effects, no whimsey or buttering up the truth. The dead cannot lie, at least, not as easily. Try as you might, you go out as you are, you can pretend to be something else, or you can change, but when you finally shuffle off this mortal coil, that's it, there's no more pretending. Loquatius Seelie goes out not as a performer and presenter, but as a husband, and a hero.

[kanmom51]

JK live 25.5.2023 12:03 am KST

cr./creators of media used in this post.

Jaykay our man went live.

And although he surprised us, it by no means was a surprise now, was it?

Kind of feels like a pattern here, doesn't it? JM's off somewhere and JK's on Weverse live, lol.

I love how he always seems to be missing us when JM doesn't seem to be around, or should I put it this way? When JM's around he doesn't give a rat's ass about us? Nah, he loves army, but he definitley has his priorities... and above all, someone we will NEVER compete with for JK's love, is JM. I do wish a big chunk of army would understand that already.

The timing is also, as always, thought out. And this time the date giving us 8/11 and the time giving us the 123 is no coincidence in my apparently very insane opinion.

We also actually have 8/11/15. Shock. Awe. You want to see for yourselves?

25.5.2023 12:03 am KST, right?

So the 8/11 we get from the date: 2+5+2+2=11 and 5+3=8

And then, if we take the time, the 12 and the 03 as they are: 12+3=15 Ta-dah.

8/11/15

I would like to talk for a second here about how happy JK looks.

He himself talks about how he's been cooking a lot and eating a lot and he put on weight. I, for one, think he looks amazing. I hated to see him so skinny back in his Feb lives.

I think this is a first time in a long time we are seeing his eye smile even when it's not about JM. He's happy. He's active. He's working and working out and looking good and gaining muscle. He has JM around more and he's just back on track and he's happy. And it shows.

Satiated. That's a word that comes to mind. He has all the things he loves. JM, food, music, JM. He has it all now.

Also, our Jiminah, must be over the moon with his babe getting his man boobies back.

I mean, those chesties, or dare I say breasties were his besties, he just cannot keep his hand off them. LITERALLY.

And the hair, lol.

How he starts the live with his hair down and then goes to put it up. Am I the only one that as he does that is thinking about this?

Which was JM commenting on JK's mukbang live (which was deleted, ugh), telling him how much he wants to tie his hair back neatly (oh, the cute art we got from that one...).

Can I also mention, before we move on, just how adorable that man is?

He went to grab his glasses cause he didn't see the screen well...

What strikes me every single time is that sense of naivete about him. It feels like he's literally doing these things for the first time, and the excitement and expressions on his face, it's just so sweet/cute. So endearing. I mean, it's not the first time he's worn his glasses, and yet the surprise how much better things look with them on, it's just so adorable.

And of course I cannot not add this edit, cause it's just hilarious.

I'm surprised, yet not surprised every single time again as to how rude and stupid fans can be. At the start of the live, just before JK goes to pull up his hair (and I really want to hope that this wasn't the reason that he tied up his hair at the end), he reads out a comment calling him Jungsoon which is in essence calling him girly or "baby girl", which he replies to:

Which he says twice, followed by...

And he goes to tie his hair but doesn't, sidetracked by a positive comment saying he's been missed. That's also when he goes on to talk about cooking and putting on weight.

Fans like that they just fucking piss me off.

JK talks about not singing too loud at night. Explaining how even though he thought the place was properly sound proofed, and although the neighbours can't hear him singing, they can feel the vibrations from the speakers, oopsy. He received a kind of complaint about it, and says how since he hasn't been singing loudly at night (well, not as loudly, lol).

The live playlist

JK didn't listen to too many songs. He didn't sing too many songs either. In the just over an hour live we got to hear 7 songs.

1. That’s Not How This Works - Charlie Puth

2. NIGHT DANCER - imase

3. Angel Pt. 1 - Kodak Black, Jimin, NLE Choppa, JVKE, Muni Long

4. The Palnet - BTS (this song he didn't actually play, he sang a couple of lines and talked about a little but not actually playing and singing).

5. Seed - Taeyang

6. Super - Seventeen

7. Shoong! - Taeyang feat. Lisa of Blackpink

8. Fighting - Seventeen

And in my mind, the live is kind of split into 2 parts:

Part 1 was dominated by Night dancer and Angel Pt. 1.

Part 2 was Taeyang and Seventeen leaning. Although we got to hear Angel again in part 2, lol.

The way JK keeps doing this, supporting JM and his work, I mean you have to be blind not to see this.

JK literally sang or hummed JM's Angel pt. 1 four times throughout his live, including his funny as hell ad-lib that now that we have the translated live we can well appreciate (I was scared they won't translate that part, but they came through, well at least with that).

FOUR TIMES.

Enjoy an edit of all 4 together:

There is also this, which I did find interesting.

1st time in the live he 'happens to come by it':

2nd time is him singing the lyrics in Korean:

Humming on a little bit longer.

Third time he hummed the song, and the fourth time he hummed it one key higher.

You know what though? Thinking about it, Angel pt. 1 was all through part one and part two of the live (my mental 2 parts of the live peeps), lol. Or maybe let's forget about the parts and say that the live was all about Angel, nope, sorry, got that wrong, it was about Jimin hyung pt. 1 (wink wink).

And this is something JK does. He loves JM. He JM's songs, he loves to sing them. We've seen this time and time again.

Now all we really need is Letter, although I have a feeling we aren't going to get that. Which in itself, their reluctance to talk about it or sing it ever since it's been released, that is a big ass neon light telling us just how private and personal this song is to THEM.

Also, side note, that adlibbed Angel in Korean - JK's how to tell us he's drinking a highball without actually telling us he's drinking a highball, lol.

JK says he's been on YT and TikTok lately (making it clear that he's not on IG, which makes me think he might actually still be lurking on IG, idk, it's the criminal mind in me, lol). That's where he said he first heard Night dancer (will get to that song in a sec) and obviously also saw Jiminie's Seventeen Super dance challenge.

JK told us about how much he's been listening to Night dancer. Can't stop listening to it was more like it. He plays it several times during the live. And it's a good song. I get why he likes it. And the lyrics, I also get why this song is living rent free in his mind.

It's an unexceptional, ordinary night The noise, the sparkle, and you

The clock hands are frozen again The frequented, cluttered room Nothing changed, but as I look back We both had gotten older

The music stops again, you drop the needle We've replayed it so much, we nearly grow bored of it Nothing changed, please don't change You're the only one who's stayed

We avoid the topic with small talk We hesitate to touch the subject We stop to push the hands forward Our breaths start to sync

It's an unexceptional, ordinary night Dance with the noise, the sparkle, and you It's an average, boring night But let's move forward together

Your translucent, pale skin Your carefree smile Nothing changed, please don't change But this is only just for now

The more I stare The more memories that overflow A cup of coffee for a wavering heart A disheveled room, a scratchy melody Let's blend together, one more time

It's an unexceptional, ordinary night Dance with my beating heart, my elation, and you It's an average, boring night But let's move forward together

The night is long and uncertain The music could stop at any moment I want to be with you, to drown with you I don't care if tomorrow never comes

It's an unexceptional, ordinary night Dance with the noise, the sparkle, and you It's an average, boring night Love me Who cares anymore, just look at me Let's dance as we sway and stumble It's an unexceptional, ordinary night But let's move forward together

I keep going back to read and re-read those lyrics. Eyes tear up. This is definitely one that hits the heart strings, and so understandably a song that JK is feeling right now.

I don't know if you guys remember the ask I had a long while back asking me to pick a Troye Sivan song for every year of Jikook's relationship.

Thing is, for 2022-3 it wouldn't be a Troye Sivan song I would choose. It would be this one.

The song is by a Japanese artist called Imase, who went online to thank and show his appreciation to JK for listening to his song and mentioning it in his live.

I can't help but wonder if this is why JK knows that Japanese YT teacher so well, is he touching up on his Japanese?

So, part 2 JK sang 2 songs by Taeyang (hilarious how he stops singing Shoop the second it's Lisa's part), 2 songs by Seventeen, talked about how Jun taught him the dance for Super and Mingyu asked him to do the challenge but hasn't called him, and then proceeded to say that he won't do it, lol.

Pity, I'm sure he'd rock it.

He also talked about watching Go Seventeen and how funny they were.

I do love how he's sharing with us the songs he loves, the shows he likes, and also supporting his partner and his friends.

JK also mentioned he saw the photo of his female lookalike, Hira Saya, lol.

JK talked about Hobi finishing his basic training that day. Sending them a selfie to their group chat.

I personally am not prepared for that day.

But the hilarious part, once again, is does he not think we will notice his hair getting shorter?????

Again, that naivete of his, just like he was surprised he was so easily recognized at Coachella, lol.

After singing fighting, JK, as we so dearly know him, turns to the camera and asks: "should we sleep now?"

He turns back to sing fighting for a few seconds and then:

Adds "fighting for tomorrow", waves bye, says he dropped by briefly to play, that he'll find good songs for us and come back, asking "but these are all songs that you already knew, right? You probably listen to more music than I do. I really don't listen to music", waves bye, says not to get sick and be happy, and he's done.

Lol.

Look, it's not like he didn't warn us. Multiple times. He said he'd have to go to sleep at 1 am cause he has somewhat of a schedule the next morning. It's the way he does it that has me on the floor laughing.

I didn't talk about the CP song he played and sang, because yeah, CP, not much to talk about, other than again, this is an artist that JK likes, admires, and one that he is choosing to share his music with us and sing his songs.

Anyways, before I end this, a couple of points I noticed:

The songs he played and sang to us. JK said it loud and clear. And his live closing statement kind of cements the fact that he came to sing these songs he thinks are good songs, and that even though he, in his own words, doesn't really listen to music these days, is obviously listening to these songs and wanted to play them and sing them to us. Songs that happen to be by his partner (4 times he goes back to Angel pt. 1 in his live for a total of over 5 minutes singing or humming or adlibbing it), his friends (Seventeen), artists he admires (CP and Taeyang) and a special extra song that happens to live in his head at the moment (Night dancer).

The absence of the songs he didn't play. I think it was kind of loud and clear, don't you?

Anyway, JK came back to us, as he has been doing when JM is absent. He's happy. He looks happy. So I'm happy. And as much as I want more frequent lives from him, if JM being away or absent is the catalyst then I would rather he have his Jiminie by his side than me enjoy him going live. And him going live is pure joy. Do you understand what I'm willing to give up here? Do I need to make myself any clearer?

I want them to be happy is all.

💜💛

[akfelpsrecaps]

Recap For Vod 9 — Pronto Pra Mais

recap for this vod! At the time of first posting I haven’t posted vod 8’s yet, but I have already written up some of vod 8’s recap so some things reference that. nothing majorly important though—you can understand without

as it’s quite long I’ll put it under the cut \o/

-continues on from vod 8

-felps continues to mine to try and find stuff

-not learning from the centipede, Felps hears a strange noise and starts digging towards it. it was sculk this time!

-walkie talkies with guaxi. guaxi explains why he’s kicked out of the city (the signs + the book telling him to leave + he knows too much) 

-felps mentions he saw another ghost and then explains what happened to him (the sign with the '-' face appearing while he was mining)

-guaxi was trying to talk to bagi but his phone wasn’t working? “I would call. I would realise you weren’t there”- felps (not verbatim translation) 

-he tells guaxi about ratinho-o-o

-they share photos of their experiences 

-they talk more about guaxi being kicked out of the city and Felps suggests he talks to Alice 

-felps continues mining

-felps finds the Kirby hat \o/!! And finds diamonds after!!

-guaxi is going back to the city and says he’ll yell on the walkie talkie if he runs into trouble. Their code word for danger is “pepino”

-during this time while Felps is mining, guaxi and felps both say the code word as a joke

-felps finds a cave and runs around looking for diamond. he mostly avoids attacking monsters (except for skeletons that shoot at him + sometimes the crabs) and instead prefers to run away from them

-he tries to contact guaxi during this time and guaxi doesn’t respond for a bit, but he does eventually respond and tells Felps that he took a mask from a monster and is undercover in the city. Felps tells him to be careful 

-guaxi says the code word for real this time, but doesn’t seem to be in immediate danger 

-immediately after this Felps almost accidentally blows up his walkie talkie… he opened a trapped chest and threw it in a panic 

“I’m pretending that I’m crazy”-G

“You don’t need to pretend”-F

“What?”

“You don’t need to pretend” 

“I don’t understand”

-felps changes the topic 

-he finds a modded abandoned mineshaft and explores that, meanwhile guaxi is trying to find Matt

-felps finds a magic robe + digging claws!! + a magic mirror!! The magic robe makes him invisible in the dark (optifine torchlight not included) + the digging claws mean he can break stone with his hands (these are outfits he wears). the magic mirror teleports you to your respawn point

-felps calls the warden “Wagner” 

-continues caving, but runs into a tower as part of the same mineshaft mod that takes him all the way back to the surface \o/

-continues exploring the mineshaft

-he finds a plant hat which he keeps on for a bit

-guaxi calls out the code word again, but seems okay…? 

-after more caving and looking for diamonds Felps uses the mirror to go back to his respawn point (a random bed in the middle of nowhere, but at least it’s not a cave) 

-felps is heading back to Valigma and realises he doesn’t disappear in the moonlight, only full darkness

-felps is back in town (guaxi is still looking for Matt) and now he is being hit by someone/something he can’t see (only for half a heart or so though)

-he is hiding behind Julia now. and is now trapped in the store? He tells Guaxi to come to him 

a book is thrown by an invisible force that reads “eles te contaram né FELPS….” | “they told you right FELPS….”

“What?” 

thrown another book: “seus dois amigos, voltaram… Voltaram pra lá…”

“Ah, no…? ...I think lying to you won’t change anything right? You know everything” (not verbatim translation) 

Next book: “exatamente!”

(I’m not translating the rest of this to this detail—timestamp 1:07:00 should get you there for this conversation. just know Felps is asking questions. I’ll summarise a bit, but best to watch for yourself)

-the invisible force starts using signs to communicate (maybe to not crowd Felps’ inventory—he was saving the books he was thrown though)

-Guaxinim shows up but he can’t get in so he’s just looking at Felps through a gap in the store

-the invisible force asks if Felps can trust them and he says he doesn’t know 

-the invisible force is probably the same as the one that kicked guaxi out of the city? They want Felps to leave “like [them]”. They tried to leave, but didn’t leave in time and are now stuck here 

“Don’t you think it’s strange that only you new ones who arrived here see these things?”-IF

“Of course I find it strange!!!”-F

-he continues on to say that his curiosity is stronger and that of course he could leave but he wants to know what’s going on 

-the invisible force lets him leave the store and tells him to be careful and think about things

-silly thing: when the walls blocking the doors leave a firefly flies into the building and Felps treats it like it is the invisible force 

-felps meets up with guaxi who was still outside the building to talk about what just happened

-briefly gets distracted by the fact his waypoints give Guaxi’s skull mask eyes pfft

-Matt joins them \o/ they currently are keeping up pretenses that guaxi is a new arrival to the city and not actually Guaxinim. “he has nothing to do with Guaxinim”. before Matt can really respond to this they reveal the truth that this is Guaxinim pfft

-they tell Matt about guaxi being on the run. Felps was about to mention it then checks with guaxi to see if he can, then tells Matt

-(guaxi and felps have matching Kirby hats on. important)

-guaxi catches Matt up on his adventures (going to the factory + all the events leading up to him being kicked out of the city)

-Throughout this entire meeting because it is night they are constantly being attacked by monsters. They try to go somewhere inside but are being chased by monsters still

-they hide out in Alice’s house for a moment, but guaxi doesn’t want to speak there. instead they are going to the “pedra do Felps” aka the cube. nevermind—they are going to a player-built house. as they go Felps is explaining the cube

-okay they reach this house and finally guaxi is explaining things to Matt

-ratinho-o-o appears, interrupting them

-gabe also appears (it’s his house they’re at I think pfft)

-another rat

-someone with a mask in the pool? Disappears before anyone can get a good look

-wuant teleports in

-pink sign rat points out that the night seems to never end (I think)

-Matt explains that he found a book with coordinates that led him to a construction. Music started playing and he found a chest with 9 buckets of blood in an L shape

-another rat (3 now)

-they are going to the coordinates Matt was talking about 

-“man where will Matt take us? I don’t trust him very much”- Guaxinim (not verbatim translation). this was potentially said in earshot of Matt, but was said to Felps

-Matt isn’t sure if he should be taking them but is anyway

-the rats gave them bread and cheese

“I don’t think he knows where he’s going.”-F

“Oh hey—respect me, Felps”-M

-they arrive at the coordinates and Felps figures out what the song is (I think)

-they have to destroy everything and leave no trace, but Matt wants to keep the chest to see if the letter keeps changing (it’s O this time)

-Matt says every time he’s talked with spirits it’s been with a red candle, felps says he spoke with a spirit but not with candles 

-they run off elsewhere chasing something that was seen in the sky? It becomes day while they do this. maybe the thing Matt was sent to created an unnatural night so when they destroyed it things went back to normal?

-Matt thinks the spirit he was talking to is someone who died at the accident 

-Matt explains his theory about the city + what happened to it + the masks (1:37:00)

-some scary distorted disembodied voice starts talking to them?? it just says one thing then Matt goes back to finishing his theory 

-“they’re listening to everything all the time”-Felps

-Guaxinim has heard this voice before in the factory I believe 

-felps takes a photo of Matt

-gabe says the voice’s (factory owner) name is Arnaldo and that he deals with the bank and the factory… I think 

-they continue theorising and talking about things along these lines (Matt’s theory + factory owner)

-(Felps starts looking at backpack upgrades during this pfft)

-wuant doesn’t trust the rats, Felps does—mentions they gave him cheese

“It could be a bribe”-W

“I accept”-F

-Guaxinim also trusts them purely because they don’t wear masks lol

-basically Matt is saying not to put on the masks if they’re offered and guaxi says something about if he puts one on they need to help him take it off or something. Guaxi essentially wants to use himself as an experiment on what the masks do because he’s already been kicked out of the city 

-rats come back \o/

-more talking and such about the important stuff, but mostly closing it off. they all start going somewhere

-Matt and Felps stop to talk about the cube (in the rats’ accent). this does mean they lose track of the others, but they find them again easy enough

-Felps is busy trying to figure out how a magic item works (blazing flask) while the others plan in the background

-they all go their separate ways, and then Felps runs into Matt and wuant again. At Matt’s prompting, Felps explains why the city hall is closed

“were the people who set fire to it specialists?”-M

“No I’ve never heard of anyone who set fire to the hall. I’ve never heard of anyone who set fire to it by pressing a button and dropping a lantern”-F (who definitely did drop a lantern and start a fire) 

-Matt and Felps finally exchange numbers

-wuant leaves and Matt sends a photo of Quel to Felps asking if he knows who it is.

-felps explains what he knows about quel, but mentions that guaxi knows more because he was there longer

-they say goodbye to each other but Felps keeps watching Matt from a distance a little. Felps listens in to Matt and Guaxi talking through the walkie talkies briefly—they don’t say much

-felps continues to try and figure out how the blazing flask works

-matt guaxi and Felps talk a little via walkie talkies

“sometimes I feel useless”-M

Neither say anything for a second then guaxi says “no, no” kind of unconvincingly…? pfft 

-they tell Matt the danger code word

-felps figures out how the blazing flask works \o/

-felps finally puts down a bed in his base, resets his spawn, and logs off for the day

[klxudykai]

Hii girl. I'm too dealing (suffering) with this situation as you mentioned on your recent post. My life has turned into (idk what word to explain anymore) I lost interest in cr situations or whatever its just. I'm living in the imagination and daydreaming for too long and will shift to my dr probably. As a maladaptive daydreamer daydreaming about my dr seems tiring now but somehow I just don't want to give up shifting is my only hope and everything. Sigh

One information I want to share it might help you repetition is the key to impress your subconscious mind. Daydreams are way too long to impress in the subconscious. They need to repeated enough times to become reality. You could choose short scenes (2 sec long) and loop them , or you could use affirmations in any tense.If you're wondering why I haven't shifted yet then I've too complicated it too much I'll shift soon and you'll too don't worry do what you needs to do in the 3d . We all are human being after all . Remember it's just a phase it'll pass too : )

this is an amazing idea and i think it could help with any awake methods that people like to use. thank you so much for this wonderful advice!!

and yes this is simply just a phase all we need to do is explore new ideas and find out what works best for us <33

another thing i’d like to add is that you don’t need to just do one thing. you can mix them too and make your own method 🤷🏾‍♀️ i do this with a lot of things and it’s been the most effective for me

[bts-trans]

230405 Weverse Translations

Jimin's Post ❇️

아미 여러분 지민입니다 이제야 활동이 끝난게 실감이나고 빌보드차트도 그렇고 아직도 실감이 안나는 부분들이 많은 것 같아요 ㅠㅠ... 준비를 열심히 했는데 활동이 너무 빨리 끝났나 싶기도 하고 그러고 았었거든요. 겪고 있는 모든 것에 어떤식으로 글을 써도 여러분들께 감사한 것을 담기에는 부족할 것 같아서 어떤 말을 전해드려야 할지 고민을 참 많이 했던 것 같아요. 근데 아직도 모르겠어요. 뭐라고 해야할지 기분도 설명도 못하겠구요. 그냥 생각나는건 단지 여러분들께서 주시는 사랑이 너무나 너무나 크다는걸 항상 느끼고 있습니다. 그래서 그것이 너무 기쁘고 행복을 느낍니다. 그냥 평범한 제 얘기를 담은 앨범을 가치있는 앨범으로 만들어주신 것에 진심으로 감사드립니다. 아미여러분께서 보내주시는 응원과 사랑이 있기에 받은 모든 것에 항상 당연하게 생각하지 않겠습니다. 여러분들에게 더욱 자랑스러운 가수가 되고 싶습니다. 더욱 성장할게요. 방탄이라서 자랑스럽고 아미를 만난 것이 행복으로 다가오며 앞으로 우리가 영원하길 바랍니다. 진심으로 그래야 조금이라도 보답할 수 있을테니까요 ㅎㅎ 모든 것에 감사하고 사랑 이상의 감정을 전합니다😊 https://weverse.io/bts/artist/4-116454700

Hello ARMY, this is Jimin. I only now am processing the fact that my promotional activities are done And that's true for the Billboard charts as well, I think there's still a lot of things that I haven't fully processed ㅠㅠ... I worked so hard preparing for everything, did it all end too soon? That's what I've been thinking I think that no matter how I try to write out my feelings about everything I've been going through, it will never adequately capture my gratitude towards you So I think I've spent a lot of time thinking about what to say you to. But I still don't know. What I feel, how to explain it - I don't know what to say about any of it The one thing I am thinking about is just that the love you give me is so so great, and I always feel how big it is. And that makes me really happy and I feel a lot of joy. You took this ordinary album that was just about my story and turned into an album that has value, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will never take for granted the fact that everything I receive is the result of your love and your support, ARMYs. I want to become an artist that you can be even prouder of. I will strive to grow even more. I am proud to be a part of BTS and the fact that I met you, ARMYs, gives me a lot of joy, I hope that we can last forever. Truly. Because that's the only way I'll be able to repay you even a little bit hehe Thank you for everything, I give to you feelings that are more than love 😊

Trans cr; Aditi @ bts-trans © TAKE OUT WITH FULL CREDITS

Jimin's Post ❇️

아참 오늘 비가 많이 오네요! 차 조심하고 오늘도 행복한 하루가 되길 바랄게요 https://weverse.io/bts/artist/3-116458433

Oh and also it's really raining a lot today! Be careful while driving, I hope you have a day full of happiness today as well

Trans cr; Aditi  @ bts-trans © TAKE OUT WITH FULL CREDITS

[terriblegam2r]

With the premiere of the first episode of The Ones Who Live fast approaching, I want to sneak in my final theory!:

In the picture posted above we see Rick wearing what appears to be a ball chain necklace. This is the first time we have seen Rick wear a necklace of any kind, so it must be really important for him to be wearing it, even when he’s relaxing in his bed (possibly waking up from sleep) in his little apartment at the CR.

The only two things I believe it can be are either 1) it’s a dog tag for the CRM, or 2) and the most likely option, it’s a necklace that’s holding something important to Rick. My guess is that it’s option 2 - it’s a ball chain necklace with something on it, and that something is the wedding ring to his relationship with Michonne (and possibly the same exact ring Michonne has been wearing ever since he got captured).

The only accessories Rick has worn has been his watch (which I guess can be important in the apocalypse to know roughly when the sun is going to set so it doesn’t matter that there was no explanation for that, or there was and I forgot), and his wedding ring to Lori (which he took off before he got into a relationship with Michonne). So again, for Andy (and Gimple and Danai) to have Rick wear a necklace in TOWL has to be very significant for the character, and that is exactly why I believe he has his wedding ring to Michonne on it.

The biggest reason I believe this is -

[Spoilers Ahead]

Rick gets his left hand cut off (most likely in his first few months of being at the CR). The left hand is of course the hand you wear your wedding ring on (after the first trailer dropped, it’s finally been made official that Rick and Michonne are indeed husband and wife, so it is only fitting that rings accompany the relationship don’t you think?), and since he can’t wear his wedding ring on his hand, putting it on a necklace makes perfect sense.

From leaked set pics we know Michonne eventually infiltrates and finds Rick at the CR and possibly stays in his apartment while they try to figure out how to escape. In the trailers we see Michonne wearing her necklace with the ring on it (that I now believe is the wedding ring to Rick and not Rick’s wedding ring to Lori, which I previously believed) with her armor before she gets into the CR, but in scenes where she’s ditched her armor and is in regular clothing we don’t see her wearing her necklace anymore, so there’s a chance she could have given the ring back to Rick and he wears it on the necklace since he can’t put it on his nonexistent hand. Michonne has worn his wedding ring around her neck for years, it would only be fitting (and poetic in a media sense) if Rick did the same after they reunited. I also have a feeling Michonne is with Rick in the top picture. It would explain why he looks so happy :’).

Of course it could be a dog tag, but I highly doubt it is because we haven’t see any CRM soldier wear one. Also, the last place Rick wants to be is at the CR and fighting in their wars and conflicts. Don’t you think he wouldn’t want to wear that thing all day if he didn’t have to and would want to take it off as soon as he gets in his apartment where he can finally be alone and have the freedom to take off all the things that remind him of his kidnappers and the reason why he can’t be with his family? He hates that place, why tf would he even want to wear their dog tag to bed? Highly unlikely if you know anything about Rick’s character.

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

Do you have anything to say about my baby, the Honda CR-Z?

(Please excuse the low resolution, I wanted to introduce it with a pic from my collection and this was the only stock one I had)

Oh, the CR-Z... Pepperidge Farm here remembers obsessively following its debut on Top Gear Magazine! Pepperidge Farm and not many others, it seems, as in present day the CR-Z seems to be as relevant in today's car world as basket weaving. Wait, no, less.

In fact, coming up with an answer to this question was the most I thought about the CR-Z in almost a decade.

But thought I have, so here's your answer:

I don't get it.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like it! I am on record as a serial Honda liker -hell, to those who think it counts I own one- and I see no reason this one should buck the trend (although I've always felt it would look better with something between the headlights to stop it looking so big-snooty, as the bumper below does a good enough job of exemplifying that I won't bother rendering something better).

It's just that... I don't know what the point of it was. And looking at its sales that seems to be the experience of most vertebrates.

(To be fair, U.S. sales started in August 2010 and production ended in 2016 with the following years's sales just being stock clearing - but still, pretty bleak picture.)

It's not like we don't know what Honda were going for, they told us plainly: it's a sporty hybrid car, light on the wallet but heavy on the fun. And Honda would know of sporty compacts - what were they producing as the CR-Z rolled out?

Oh. It's the most hated of all six Civic Type R generations. Hm.

It's a joke, "most hated Civic Type R generation" is a bit like saying "most normal Kia Soul commercial".

If that car looks unfamiliar to you yankees, however, that's because y'all got different looking Civics for a while, such that your sporty Civic was this, the Si - seen here in the bewinged Mugen trim.

The Si is meant to sit below the Type R, but, since America wasn't getting the Type R, the yankee Si and non-yankee Type R were free to get the same 200hp from the same venerable engine (one day I'll go over all that makes the K20 so great) and the usual great handling, courtesy among plenty things of a limited slip differential. Wait, why is that not a link? Ah, right, I've never explained differentials... well, for now you can just trust that it's a cool type of differential that helps maintain grip when you're giving it the beans. Wait. Is it "giving it the beans" because you're stomping the gas pedal? Surely not. What is it from? Let me google this... Okay, sources seem scarce and shaky but apparently the idea was that if you fed horses beans they wou- wait this post is about the CR-Z. How did we get here? I swear this NEVER happens.

In short, Honda knew, and has always known, how to make proper sporty cars and give them great engines, whatever their size. So can it possibly have been a surprise when this thing came out and, forget motoring journalists, even the more talkative stray cats were meowing that the CR-Z did not have the engine grunt to back up its sporty pitch?

And look, if anyone here will say a car with as little as 120-130hp cannot be worth bothering with, it won't be a diehard of the Mazda Miata, which sold well over half a million units no more powerful than that. But that's a car that focused on open top enjoyment and getting a lot out of a little, just like the 60s European spiders it threw back to. What did the CR-Z throw back to?

Well that'll be the CR-X.

Introduced in 1983, the CR-X was a coupe version of the Civic of the time (hence its 1987 update corresponding with the Civic's). And just like the Civic in question, it is most fondly remembered for its sporty, proper-fun Si guise (pronounced "ass eye", because eye me dat ass) and the even sportier SiR that yankees never got. Which makes perfect sense, considering its main appeal against the Civic was the sportier looks.

Sure, since the CR-X left us North America got a Civic coupe in its stead, but am I going to pretend this thing looked half as good as the CR-Z that was about to join the lineup?

Not for free I'm not.

So now, imagine the stellar engine and manual transmission from a Civic Si/Type R, but now with electric assistance for even more power AND fuel efficiency, all in a car hundreds of kilos lighter, significantly shorter -thus more agile- and with the sleek CR-Z looks.

Then keep imagining.

The CR-Z never got an Si or Type R version, it was just left to sit there with its 122hp (later begrudgingly upped to 130) that, forget the contemporary sporty Civics, compared unfavorably to its 30 year old predecessor.

The CR-X was the sportier Civic. If its successor gets walked not just by the Civic but even by the CR-X itself, what's the point of the resurrection?

However, I concede there's an objection to this argument: this graph.

These are the US sales figures for the second generation CRX (which I think dropped the dash?), and, if you were to be able to parse it, you'd notice that the sporty Si version made up about a third of the sales - meaning most buyers forewent the sportiness in favor of the lower cost of the standard DX model or the High F-iciency of the even slower HF model. So if those versions sold well, why shouldn't the CR-Z have?

Well, if you ask me: image is more than looks.

This blog -and other affiliated entities- touched on the concept of race wins on Sunday bringing sales on Monday, and the same phenomenon happens with cool sport versions. Today's Corolla is a much cooler car in the eyes of the people who see in it the underlying foundation of its extraordinary GR version, and this phenomenon is most amplified the smaller the gap -or perceived gap, at least- between the version you're admiring and the more modest version you could realistically be interested in. I strongly believe that many people bought the dog slow CRX HF because the CRX Si ingrained within them the idea that they were buying something cool.

And Honda, as we touched on, had the perfect engine to dump into the CR-Z to make a wicked sport version. Hell, they could even have just given its regular engine forced induction - and we know it because the CR-Z Mugen RZ did just that!

Here at last was a perfectly respectable sport version that, while still underneath the Civic's best power-wise, was more than good enough to make car enthusiasts give a damn about the CR-Z. And what did Honda do with it? They limited the production to 300 units and only sold them in Japan. Take a fucking drink.

I cannot fathom why they would do that. It's not that they couldn't homologate the power additions or whatever, because a. that doesn't justify the limited production run and b. the supercharger (or at least a supercharger, not sure if it's the same) was made available in the US in the form of a dealer-fitted optional extra. Not by selling a supercharged special version altogether, no no, that may cause the public to -gasp- notice and care.

What was the point? Were they deliberately trying to keep the CR-Z's image one of an efficiency-focused... sleek hatch-coupe with minimal backseats?

Wait what?

Dear God, yankees, what have you done to Honda to get done so comically dirty?

Is it just that they thought y'all too big to fit back there?

That makes it even crazier!

Why in tarnation would they think people would care about a sleek, three-door, two seat, manual... efficiency-oriented hybrid?

Oh, right. Because they made the first generation Honda Insight. Which I myself love.

This was even sleeker and more hardcore than the CR-X: it was as light as the lightest ones despite the electric powertrain, it did without backseats entirely, it was the most aerodynamic production car that had ever been built... but all this wasn't about performance at all. It was about milking every drop of your hard-earned fuel for every single fucking inch of forward movement it was worth.

And it sold very well! I mean, look at the yearly sales figures!

Look how much America loved it! In a year of production that started from December it sold around a third the units the CRX sold in a full year!

So imagine what the production numbers were like for the year 2000!

huh?

Oh you mean these are the total sales. Like, all the first generation Insights ever sold in its entire six years and change of production. Oh. And it totals to like 17.000. Which is around how many CRX Si they sold in a year in North America alone. Hm.

Yeah, it suddenly makes a lot more sense how the second generation Insight was a Prius wannabe.

In fact, now that I look at it... that back looks familiar, doesn't it?

Wait...

Wait!

Well, now suddenly the car makes a lot more sense. And actually, come think of it, let me check the sales figures for the Mk2 Insight...

Considering, again, the CR-Z's US debut happened in August 2010, they match up pretty well, and it would be a pretty reasonable sales split if we were to consider them the 5 and 3 door versions of the same car.

Now, this may make it seem like it wasn't such a failure after all, and it did well in the segment it was actually intended to compete in. But let's give some context on how good those Insight sales figures are.

Yeah. Yeah no. The second Insight just wasn't a hit either.

But at least, now I can say I get the car. The Insight was pretty big and... uncool, so the CR-Z was a good way to offer that same hybrid efficiency to people who wanted a more compact, sleeker package - though perhaps not as extreme as the first gen Insight. Unless you're a yankee, I assume.

The name still doesn't make sense.

I mean, it would if I could see Honda seeing CR-X as just... a body style, and its resurrection of it akin to resurrecting, say, the Civic Shuttle.

(It was the only side picture I had saved.)

And Honda's press material made another point to this end, that I wasn't aware of.

So sure. Point taken. The CR-X was shaped by the quest for efficiency, so it follows that its successor would be efficiency focused as well.

But that's not how the CR-X is remembered. In everyone's minds, the CR-X is cemented as the sporty version (that Honda sold, mind - this is not like with the Supra, whose reputation was defined by modders). And the weirdest thing is, they don't just know that, they bring it up.

And indeed, they call the CR-Z's role "quite different from the original Insight coupe's" - they want this car to "change the current perception of hybrids" by blending hybrid efficiency and sportiness. They rightly sell its looks as sporty, take great pride in the manual transmission and explicitly state it's for driver engagement, over and over talk about 'enthusiastic' owners and 'enthusiastic' driving and 'enthusiastic' engine note etc etc. They brag about how much of a difference their Sport mode makes. They call attention to the valves per cylinder. They constantly remind of how (unlike the Insight) it has the legendary V-TEC. (If this is the first you hear of it, ask about it in the tags).

This is the press release for a sports hatch.

But when time came to give it a sports hatch's power? Japan got 300 units, North America got a dealer-fitted kit with a numbered plaque two years before the car's nixing, and we had to hope to never have a flat tire because Europe didn't get jack.

Was it to avoid stepping on the toes of the sporty Civics, because if the sporty CR-Z's potential buyers will otherwise just get a sporty Civic then why make two models to get the same amount of buyers? If so, I'll tell you why: because that was the only chance of moving regular CR-Zs, which surely must have been a worthwhile pursuit if you made the damn thing.

Was it the fear of a power-focused engine resulting in fuel economy so underwhelming it would undermine the model's eco premise? If so, heyo, you have electric assistance, which means you can either get more speed out of the same engine marking a win for the hotboys or get the same speed out of a more efficient package - and in both cases you're showing a hybrid powertrain bringing something to the table, which is how you actually "change the perception of hybrids" in the minds of people who consider them synonymous with boring.

I'm not saying my counters are bulletproof or that there is no argument against a hot CR-Z. I'm just saying that if there is, it's an argument against the regular CR-Z also. Because if the CR-Z was never to be something worth considering over anything that could be called sporty, then they should never have bothered to begin with - at least, if they were going to aim it so squarely at "the enthusiastic drivers".

In short,

Honda sought to make a sportscar - be it to sell the car itself or to sell a concept like "we're committed to preserving driving enjoyment even into electrification" or "hybrids are cool, so buy a hybrid, and please don't whine if we ever need to make a hybrid Type R or whatever thanks". And I'm always down for Honda building a sportscar. It was Honda that wasn't, for whatever reason. And so there the CR-Z stood, waiting until its passing for a sportier engine that would show the world how cool it was. But it never came. And it bugs me. Because I find it a shame. Because I remember reading of the Mugen prototype and waiting with bated breath for the production version that we ultimately never got. Because I still would love to see them about more than I do. Because I wish the second generation that apparently was in the works got to see the light of day.

Because, even after all these days of thinking about Honda's strategy and learning all we went over, and perhaps because of it,

I still don't get it.

Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question: if you liked this post, you might like those - or the blog’s Discord server, linked in the pinned post!

[utilitycaster]

If you have time/are willing, could you explain or link to an explaination of what the critical role wendy's one shot was and how it was a misstep? I am relatively new to watching CR and tend to be selective of how I engage with fandom in general, so I know only very basic history. I'd google, but who knows what would come up, and I find your observations and explanations both well reasoned and well written.

Hi anon, thank you, but I do recommend searching things because exercising critical thinking is important and it can atrophy if you rely on one source, even one you like. Also I don't know all the details at all because I'm rarely on Twitter. Most Twitter links I post were sent to me.

I was in the fandom at the time and watched it and the one-shot itself doesn't have any issues other than being, obviously, blatantly sponsored content (which they were very open about it being). It was very silly but the cast (Sam as GM, Liam, Matt, Marisha, and Ify Nwadiwe as players) were totally fine and inoffensive unless you count how bad Sam's Irish accent was, which, he's used that elsewhere.

I know it was taken down because fans opposed some of Wendy's practices, which I gather are typical fast food exploitation and they had, around the time of the episode, specifically fucked over farm workers by outsourcing to Mexico rather than paying US farmers fairly. Anyway the cast took the video down and donated the money they received to Farmworker Justice. As for whether I personally think it was a misstep; I think it wasn't great and I support their decision to take it down and donate the money, and more generally I think it led them to consider who they would partner with for advertising, which I'm not sure had been as big a consideration (keep in mind this was only a few months after going independent from Geek and Sundry). I wouldn't have felt betrayed if CR didn't take action, but I like that they did.

[m0ri4rtyssh1fting]

MY SHIFTING JOURNEY

For those who don't know me hi, I'm Elisabeth and this is my blog about shifting. The purpose of this blog is to share my journey and avoid misinformation, also accompanying you on your journey!

Now let's talk about my journey, how it started and how it's going.

I learned about shifting in 2020, on shiftok, when there was still a lot of misinformation about it. I immediately became interested in the topic and made my first attempts to shift in a DR of Harry Potter. I remember that I mainly used the raven method with special subliminals for my DR. After a while the first breaks began, because I tried to shift every night and this took a lot of energy from me.

I realized later that I needed to reprogram my mindset, and it was the best choice I could have made. This has changed my perspective on shifting a lot and I still recommend it to beginners today.

During my breaks I started to become better informed, study the information we have and started to understand what was holding me back from shifting (mainly mental blocks). It happened to me that I wanted to shift, but was blocked and at that moment I understood that I had to take my journey back into control, so I forced myself to unblock myself, because I knew I wanted it. And guess what? I had my first two shifting symptoms (to be differentiated from the symptoms of body falling asleep, a distinction I may make a post on) three years after the first attempt. This motivated me a lot because it showed me for the first time the progress that was taking place in my journey.

The first time I had a symptom it happened like this: I had just woken up and it was morning, there was a lot of light in my room and my mother had to tell me some things, so after listening to her I got back into bed to sleep again. I remember thinking "I'll try to shift later" and then I just let my mind wander over my thoughts until I lost control of them. I only realize now that I had some sort of REM activation. At a certain point, however, while I was thinking and my body was falling asleep again, I started to feel dizzy, while I saw colored lights (I think this was the result of my thoughts) and I started thinking "fuck I'm shifting!" and repeating these phrases to myself in distraught while I continued to feel symptoms. Out of emotion I decided to open my eyes so as not to shift and I got up in my CR. All of this happened while there were noises in the room, lights, and even my mother going back and forth. I was in a simple comfortable position. This experience totally freed me from the fear that the external environment could influence my shifting experience. The reality is that the only thing that matters is really us.

Some little informations about my routine etc

DRs: just Hogwarts for now, the same since I began my journey.

Scripts: I started with a paper one but now I use the Lifa App on the play store.

Methods: at the moment I'm trying one that I heard explained by a shiftoker which involves a meditation of about 10 minutes, then a sort of countdown from 100 to 0 with affirmations, and finally the use of the 5 senses to perceive the room (and focus only on that and not on the entire DR) where you want to wake up. I also want to try REM activation.

That's it, if you have any questions you can comment or leave them in the box, even write them to me in dm. Soon I will post explanations of some methods or some things that have been useful so far in my journey. Good luck shifters, trust yourselves!

[plague-of-insomnia]

what kind of accents do you think the cast has? im a dub main for various reasons (one of my friends had a reading/memory disability so i ended up watching dub w them) so im kinda used to everyones dub accents.

but bards defo got an american accent right? (not in the dub, but im thinking manga terms?)

and ik soma & agni have barely a trace of an accent but does that mean they sound basically british?

and does finny have a german accent? sieglinde? diedrich?

idk food for thought?

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

(Sorry it’s been a rough couple days and I didn’t realize I hadn’t published this yet.)

Hey anon… so I’m a bit confused as to if you’re asking about the Japanese accents in the various anime, the English dub accents (or some other dub), or just my thoughts on what their various accents would be like based on the manga and independent of the anime.

Now I have only watched Kuro in English bc that’s the only thing that was available/that’s available on what I have at the moment (though I’m finally getting the blu rays for BoM and BoA so I’m hoping they’ll have the Japanese to try that out for once), so I can’t make judgements based on that. (And I’m not a good one to ask about Japanese accents anyway, lol.)

I also favor dubs bc of my disability. I love hearing the Japanese but it can be hard for me to follow sometimes, and even english alone without captions I can struggle with (please fix this, CR!!! Grr), so I feel you there.

Also not sure which characters you had in mind with this ask (other than the ones you specifically mentioned). Since kuro has so many, I guess I’ll just focus on a few. I want to make clear I am American and Latine, so I am not an expert on British regional accents by any stretch, or the historical accents of the Victorian period, so I’ll just do my best. Some may be partly inspired by how the characters are written in Japanese, since there’s a bit more… complexity to the Japanese language in regards to things like formality, rudeness, etc, that may not convert into English when translated in writing.

This is a long post so I’ll use a readmore to keep it a bit less chaotic. Below the break I’ve broken down my hypotheses on how some of the major players might talk:

Sebastian

As a high-ranking servant who regularly interacts with the nobility, Sebastian would have a high-class accent, and it is reflected in how his Japanese (and even his English) is written. It is a fairly neutral, polite manner of speaking. I’m sure the Victorians probably had a term for this accent (a high-class servant accent), but if they did, I don’t know it lol.

Ciel

Most nobles like him would be educated in a public school like Weston, like his father was, and those schools taught a standard accent that often varied slightly from school to school. So everyone who went to Weston would have a similar manner of speech. Ciel has been “home schooled” his entire life, aside from a short time at Weston for the investigation, so his accent might have been slightly different than his father’s. Nevertheless, especially under Sebastian’s tutelage, he would have learned how to speak properly (if he didn’t already). Still, unless Sebastian intentionally had him learn the Weston/public school accent, anyone who speaks to him would know he did not go to school, but was taught by tutors/governesses instead.

Bard

Yes, Bard is American despite his dub accent. We don’t know where he’s from exactly, but we can assume it was probably somewhere west of the Mississippi (that’s about 1/3 of the way west if you’re looking at the US map, going east to West, if you’re not familiar with our Geography).

I say that bc the river was the first real demarcation of the frontier. It’s likely he was living somewhere like Texas or Oklahoma. Ofc where he’s from would affect his accent, but I imagine it as a kind of cross between a more neutral southern midwestern accent (“no accent”) and a subtle Texas or OK one. Which that’s hard to explain unless you really know regional US accents, bc most of Texas doesn’t sound like most people think it does. The accents really change depending on what part of the state you’re in, since it’s such a big place. But basically not too heavy an accent but a bit lazy, definitely coarse and brutish since he was a soldier and a farmer. Lots of slang and not big on politeness. (Which he definitely is in Japanese.)

Mey Rin

She’s interesting because she’s one of the few characters who has a couple different ways of speaking. She has her “maid” voice and her “assassin” voice. The first one stutters a lot and uses imperfect grammar, as reflected in the English translation when she repeats things, like “I’m not one to talk badly about my betters, I am.” The second does not have this quirk. Not sure if the first is meant as an affectation as part of her idea of what a maid is, or if she just has such a divide he her personality/personas that she speaks differently when she’s wielding a gun. Since that wasn’t really mentioned in her subarc, I doubt we’ll get an explanation. We do know she was likely a child of immigrants from China, but not whether she was born there or in England before she was orphaned. But it is unlikely she has any hint of a Chinese accent since she was orphaned so young. She definitely has more of a working class accent, especially when compared to someone like Sebastian.

Finny

I had momentarily forgotten that Finny didn’t speak English when he first came to the manor. It’s likely that he would have had some kind of German accent, but I expect that Sebastian would have drilled it out of him, considering how strict he was with Sieglinde and Wolf, and Ciel didn’t blink an eye.

Finny’s accent in English never struck me as particularly high class, either in the manga or anime, but in one of the recent chapters, Theo makes a point to compliment his “upper-class accent.” It does seem highly probable that Sebastian played a hand in how he speaks, since he probably was the one who taught him English.

However, the fact that it came up in this sub arc could indicate his way of speaking is significant, somehow tying into what’s going on with Undertaker and the orphanage. Either way, his accent is apparently closer to Ciel than Mey.

Snake

Snake is tricky, because he almost never speaks as himself (I’m still not 100% sure what pronoun he would use for himself in Japanese, and even he doesn’t seem sure lol). He speaks via his snakes, and they all have different ways of speaking (which I think the dub does a decent job of, personally). So I can’t really say, but for the most part I would probably say his accent(s) would be closer to working-class, but he might have gotten some lessons on speaking from Sebastian, since, as a footman, he would have been expected to speak at a higher-class level than other, below-stairs servants would.

Undertaker

Like Mey, UT has two manners of speaking. He has his “humble old undertaker” accent, which is Cockney-esque (I don’t wanna do a disservice by saying it IS that), definitely a lower class accent. Then he has his “revealed” voice, or how he speaks after he reveals himself on the Campania. I have not read this arc in Japanese so I cannot base this judgement on how this shift is portrayed by Yana, only based on the translation. But it definitely seems to be a higher-class accent than the other one. It’s likely that it’s his “real” accent, while the other is part of his cover persona. However, we don’t know anything about him or his background from when he was alive, or even how old he is. For all we know, that accent could be an affectation too.

Agni & Soma

I know their dub accents annoy a lot of people, since Yana specifically mentions how they don’t have an Indian accent. I expect both of them would speak with a British accent, probably something close to how Ciel speaks, most likely, since Soma would have been educated by tutors and Agni probably was as well, since he came from a very high-caste family. I would expect that if their dub accents has been closer to Yana’s intent, they would sound more like Hakim in the dub of the anime Emma. That’s how I imagine them, anyway.

Sieglinde & Wolfram

I expect both would have German accents when they speak English, especially Wolf. Sieglinde might do a better job of working to improve and lose it, but I don’t think Wolf would, partly because of his animosity toward Sebastian. I like to imagine he sounds like Hans in the English dub of the anime Emma, and I really hope we eventually get the Green Witch Arc animated and dubbed so we can get a hot German English accent 🥺.

Diedrich

Dee, on the other hand, I think would not have a German accent in English, especially not in the present. I think he probably was educated in English before he went to Weston, likely by a private tutor, probably someone British, and then when he went there would have acclimated to the public school assent there. So probably he would sound like Vincent did, but I expect he’d throw in some German every now and then, especially when he gets irritated, lol.

Lau

Lau is originally from China, and his accent (as far as I know?) has never been remarked upon in the manga. We also know nothing about his background except that he rose quickly and at a young age to be head of Quin-Bang. I would assume that he speaks English very well, and the only hint at his origin that I’m aware of in the Japanese is the kanji (character) for the pronoun “I” he uses, though he doesn’t pronounce it as it’s normally done in Japanese nor does he with a Chinese pronunciation. I would take this to mean he probably has little if any hint of a Chinese accent when he speaks English, and since he keeps company with nobles and was able to pass as a doctor, he likely speaks in a high-class accent.

I hope that satisfied, anon. This was a fun and different ask. I apologize I didn’t publish it sooner.