#week by week diary January 2021

[sophsweet]

My 2021 Diary - week 3

Realised annoying dance people used to do is called The Floss – image YouTube January 15th Friday Had big discussion with Eric about stuff, relationships, acceptance etc and went to see his new car 1998 Citroen estate, which he wanted to sell me for £1700. Nice big comfy car but has handbreak on floor. Dangerous for me. Another day I didn’t walk. Need to find more motivation and when finished…

[itzynabi]

warnings: swearing; mention of sex, fainting, disassociation

an: this was released on march 4 2024

eve’s masterlist // articles

Dispatch Publishes Exposé on ITZY’s Eve’s Fight With JYP Entertainment

There is one main antagonist

Back in January of 2024, ITZY member Eve filed a lawsuit to terminate her exclusive contract with JYP Entertainment. In March, she was granted a preliminary injunction. Today, Dispatch released a damning exposé on Eve’s feud with JYP Entertainment. In the article, Dispatch released texts between Eve and Director A.

The article begins with a text that Eve sent to Park Jinyoung (also known as JYP) in December of 2018.

Hello, PD-nim,

Thank you for adding me to the lineup of ITZY! I know I didn’t do as well as you hoped on Produce 48, but thank you for giving me this opportunity. I’ll make sure to be an artist that gives her all.

Eve has revealed that Park Jinyoung told her that her performance on Produce 48 would determine whether or not she would debut in ITZY. This text displays Eve’s gratitude at being in ITZY despite not making it to the final debut group of Produce 48 – IZ*ONE. When it was revealed that Eve was rigged out of IZ*ONE in favour of other idols, Eve found out that Director A already knew and had left her to feel insecure about her performance. This lack of communication would be a common theme in Eve’s career going forward.

In early April of 2021, Director A sent Eve a message about her appearance on a variety show that he had arranged without her knowledge. The show they were discussing is believed to be Sea of Hope.

In September of 2021, Eve was talking with fans on Bubble when a fan asked her about her solo schedules. “I’m an employee, so I just do whatever the company tells me to,” Eve said.

In 2022, Eve had her solo debut with the mini album ‘diary entries’. The album was released a few weeks before ITZY had a comeback, and Eve reportedly displayed hesitance at how close the two releases were. During an episode of I Live Alone, Eve told her brother, SHINee’s Key, that her schedule was so full that she had a panic attack.

The next text exchange is from July of 2022. Eve told Director A that she wasn’t feeling well and asked to sit out of a performance. Based on the timing of this conversation, it is believed to be the night before Eve fainted during ITZY’s pre-recording.

Dispatch then alleged that Eve was treated differently to her members. It can be seen in an Instagram live that Eve and Yeji did in October of 2023.

Comment: Have you seen your families recently?

Eve: I’m not allowed to.

Yeji: What do you mean? We are.

Eve: I’m not allowed to.

Yeji: (Whispering) Director?

EVe. (Nods)

That sentiment was repeated when Eve went on Amazing Saturday to promote her latest solo album ‘until spring’ and said she hasn’t seen her parents since early 2023.

The next text exchange between Eve and Director A echo the same issue once more. This exchange was from November or 2023 when Eve’s mom was in Seoul. Eve mentions the fact that she wasn’t allowed to go home during Chuseok.

On a phone call between the two in December of 2023, Director A was talking to Eve about the comeback that she’d be having in February of this year.

Director A: This will be an anticipated album so do well

Eve: Why do I keep having solo schedules when I’m not a soloist?

Director A: Because the fans like it

Eve: No, they don’t. They keep swearing at me for all of these schedules. Isn’t it time for one of the other members to debut?

Director A: Don’t worry about that.

EVe: It’s like you want to work with me until I die from all of this. Just give me a break. I’m busy preparing for two comebacks right now.

Director A: Just like a real professional. Well done.

Fnas and non-fans alike have pointed out how JYP Entertainment doesn’t do much to protect EVe from hate that was sent her way, instead using her as a shield from criticism.

In early January of 2024, the two conversed again. Director A was scolding Eve for missing schedules. It is unsure what schedules he is referring to.

He made the same complaint in February and Eve went on to list how Director A continuously failed to do his job in a way that makes it easy for employees to carry on their duties. He threatened to sue her.

Eve mentioned experiencing symptoms such as fainting and disassociation due to her busy schedules, which were seen earlier this year in her The Manager episode and her ‘until spring’ album documentary. Fans have also noticed that Eve has lost her usual excitement and energy, instead constantly looking tired and worn out. Eve herself has said that she doesn’t enjoy performing anymore, she just enjoys being with her members and seeing fans.

Dispatch sent Eve a list of questions when they heard of her lawsuit against JYP Entertainment. Here are Eve’s answers.

Q: Did you know there was an issue with the way you were being treated?

Eve: Yes.

Q: What moment gave you the push to end your contract?

Eve: It wasn’t like there was one specific moment. It was just moments piling on each other. People can only endure for so long before they fight back.

Q: This must have been a shock to the people around you.

Eve: Not really actually. Talking about it with my members was encouragement to go through with it. A few staff members said they were sick of the way I was being treated and wanted me to leave the company and go to a better one. When I told my family, they didn’t even pretend to be shocked, they just asked me what I would like as a treat to myself.

Q: Some might say that you treated Director A in a disrespectful manner.

Eve: That was my intention.

Q: Did you know he was the one pulling the strings in your career?

Eve: Yes, I did. At first I thought it was PD-nim because he would be the one to tell me things, but then I realised he’s not bold enough to do something like that and I realised that every time I didn’t listen to him, he’d look a bit worried. When I found out that Director Park was just telling PD-nim to do these things to me, I felt bad for PD-nim. Being disrespected in the company you started is kind of loser behaviour if I’m being honest.

Q: How did your members take the news?

Eve: I talked to them about it after I started considering leaving the company. I told them what was going on in my head and things like that, and they told me that they would support me no matter what. In fact, I was concerned about how this would affect them and ITZY’s career, but they told me that I should focus on being happy. With their encouragement, I was able to do this.

Q: JYP Entertainment argued that you were rude to the staff. Is that true?

Eve: I’m not one to be rude without reason. If you are rude to me, then I will act the same way towards you. If I was rude towards a staff member, they know what they did to deserve it.

Meanwhile, K-Netizens have already started reacting to the article:

“Wah, Kim Nabi is really amazing”

“Can she come talk to my bossㅜㅜ”

“Is Dispatch expecting me to be on the company’s side???”

“From what I can see, she’s right to want to leave the company”

“Kibum wasn’t joking when he said that she can be mean when she wants toㅋㅋㅋ”

“Well done Evie-yah!!!!!!!!!!!!! You did the right thing”

“They kept her from seeing her family…. Aren’t they just shameless”

“ㅋㅋㅋ She told his wife that he’s cheating”

“The fact that she stayed in the company because of her members proves how much she loves them”

“She’s so good at swearing”

“People can’t call her disrespectful because she at least called him ‘saekki-nim’ㅋㅋㅋ”

“It must have been hard for her”

“And I hope all of those fools that were cursing at her feel stupid now. They should repent”

“Princess-nim, we’re on your side!!!”

“For her to be fainting almost every day… Eve, it’s okay now!”

“Shouldn’t JYP just let her leave now ㅋㅋㅋ before more information comes out”

“Just imagine how much stress she must’ve been under”

“Why does it sound like Dispatch is on the company’s side?”

“We should also applaud the members for looking out for her and staying by her side”

“San and Eve are dating?”

The conflict between Eve and JYP Entertainment seems to be another case of companies taking advantage of their artists.

©️ kim nabi

[favoriteanimatedtheatricalfilm]

Click here to find more about the governances & players of this tournament

*From 2020-2022, as Wish (2023) hasn’t come out yet as of posting this poll. A different poll pitting Wish and Elemental (2023) against each other will release the first week of January. That winner will then be pitted against this poll’s winner, as a new potential 2020s winner.

If a new movie for the 2020s wins, I will then hold a new decades poll, pitting the winners from each decade against each other once again.

2023’s decade poll (aka, the Finale) is coming out next week, after this poll ends and I know the result to put in for 2020s.

[retellingthehobbit]

I went to read your comic on Ao3 and I noticed you'd started back in 2020. Aside from your clear and beautiful art progression, what can you tell me about the timeline of your comic?

Thank you! And yes, started this webcomic in January of 2020. “I sure hope nothing bad happens in 2020 that will hamper my ability to focus on a large personal project!” — me in January 2020 with all the naivety of youth. Top ten images taken minutes before disaster. This comic is like a deeply personal diary of my mental state, complete with the long empty hiatuses that are sort of like that part of Twilight where months of depression are represented by blank pages.

One of my favorite things about webcomics is how you can often see an artist’s style grow organically over time. I think it’s something that’s getting lost in the age of “Webtoon Originals,” where people are starting to expect webcomics to be produced by an actual production studio with a team of artists behind them and to maintain a consistent highly curated art style throughout. These professionally funded comics are fun, but they do lose the messy personal organic growth that used to separate webcomics from traditional print comics? But i could go on a whole tirade about webtoon haha 😂 !

The Hobbit is partially a story about someone learning how to express themselves. Bilbo starts the story as this stuffy little guy who is repressing a lot his own personality; he ends the story as a skilled artist writing elaborate prosy poetry about his adventures. I deliberately chose to start drawing the comic before I went to college, knowing my art style would change a lot of over that period!

Anyway here's the timeline as I remember it: Pre-development: I was working on sketches of the comic itself as early as 2016. Chapter 1 (A Bedtime Story/Tooks and Bagginses): (Posted on Tumblr in January 2020, on Ao3 later): Published shortly before I went to college. I was drawing in Paint Tool Sai, and hand-writing all the words instead of using a font. I set out to adapt at least the Unexpected Party chapter, but thought I'd probably adapt the entire novel within a year or two. ("It's a webcomic Michael. How long could it take? twelve months?") Chapter 2: (A Very Respectable Hobbit): Posted like a week after Chapter 1. This was when I still thought I could post a ten page chapter every week, haahahahahahahahahaha Fs in the chat.

HIATUS #1: DANCE BREAK: TIME FOR A GLOBAL PANDEMIC. The exact timeline of 2020 is a blur for obvious reasons, but I do remember the updates became very sporadic over this period. Chapter 3-5 (Very Old Friends and An Unexpected Party chapters): there’s a global pandemic. During Spring Break my college abruptly kicks us all off campus and sends us home. I keep looking at the “post dates” on these chapters like what??? Really? I posted that at thAt time? But there was a global pandemic happening and I was so busy and overwhelmed with college???? When did I have the time? I have no memory of drawing these. My memories of all 2020 are so blurry. I think these chapters just manifested spontaneously.

The weekly/biweekly update schedule has been tossed to the wind, never to return. Alas. Chapter 6 (An Enormously Important Dwarf, aka Thorin’s intro): I was back “at college” during our “hybrid” year, so in practice I was extremely isolated. this was posted during a year after the first chapter, in 2021. I would never have found the motivation to continue if I wasn't so excited to draw Thorin! I also joined a "comic club" at my college which was comprised mainly of awkward video calls with like three people. On a weirder note, this chapter was posted a few weeks after the January 6th attempted coup. I was drawing in a a weird headspace.

DANCE BREAK #2: IT’S TIME FOR A YEAR LONG HIATUS:

I've started to often dislike the word “burnout” when it’s applied to art. It implies that the problem is that you were drawing too much or that you can’t find inspiration, when often the problem is much bigger than your art-- it's wider economic anxieties and social circumstances outside your control. It is very hard to think clearly and create things when you are worried about your future, about work, about housing, about a global pandemic, about constant demands on your time, and about being extremely isolated. In hindsight, I wasn’t “burned out”— I was in a situation where I could not think clearly or produce anything. Chapter 7 (The Lonely Mountain): posted a full year after chapter 6. For a while I considered having this be the “last chapter” of the comic!

Changing art styles was a thing I was really motivated to do, and was my last “bucket list” item for the comic.

HIATUS #3: I get really busy with junior year of college! I grow more and more disillusioned with Tolkien as I learn more about The Hobbit Law crushing labor unions and worker's rights in New Zealand, and how Amazon takes advantage of that. The Tolkien Estate also releases a statement saying they disapprove of any unauthorized use of Tolkien's works for profit or not, which isn't really legally enforceable but is also just an act of pure contempt XD. Chapter 8 (A Tangled Web): I get sent to the emergency room in an ambulance for Reasons and begin drawing this in the weeks after, as I realize I don't care about the Tolkien Estate or Amazon or Warner Brothers or whatever hollow marketable products they produce under the tolkien brand. I think this is the weakest chapter of the comic, both in writing and art, and in hindisght think the comic works better without it pacing-wise. However!!!! I was drawing it in a weird mental state, so. XD

Also, at this point I am drawing entirely in Photoshop. Chapter 9 (Ash and Smoke): Back at college for senior year— time for dragon! The comic starts updating with something that resembles a "regular schedule!" this year had more and more people on campus in person, and I started to slowly make college friends :). Also, at this point I am the President of the comic club, and we are now meeting in person and rebuilding our comic empire. Chapter 10 (The Heart of the Mountain): Some funky bits of writing I'd like to revise at some point, but I enjoy the art in this chapter. Chapter 11 (Polite Nothings): If I were to do this all again I'd shorten this chapter and combine it with chapter 12. One important note is that originally, I tried to keep all chapters under ten pages. This made it easier to post them to Instagram and Tumblr, because tumblr still had a “ten image limit” at the time. However at some point I realized that was more trouble than it was worth, and really made the pacing difficult/slow as I struggled to split the story into ten page chunks.

A lot of webcomics often fall into what I call a “wheel-spinning” phase, where the author is so focused on finishing smaller updates that they lose the pacing of the larger narrative—- and so the story stalls out. I feel like I dealt with a lot of “wheel-spinning” while I was at college, both in my life and in my comic XD. Chapter 12 (The Quest): My internship company gives me an offer to work full-time, which I accept. in the last semester of my last year of college, I take the most helpful elective class I have ever taken: a class on using 3D models in blender to aid with blocking out illustrations. This is the first chapter where you see one of those backgrounds! From this point on my background art will improve dramatically. I also have lots of internet friends and college friends!

As I grow more confident in my art I also make the decision to change the character designs, something I’d wanted to do for a while. Chapter 13 (The Necromancer): I graduate college! It's time for some Lotte Reiniger art. I stay in my student housing until my lease ends. The art starts to grow more elaborate as I have more time to spend on it. Chapter 14 (Terms and Conditions): my summer is free, so I spend it drawing gay little hobbits. I move up North to live with my grandmother until my work start date. This is the very last “normal-sized” chapter of the comic, where I hold myself to keeping it under 10 pages. I also think this is where my new more elaborate character designs actually start to look a lot better XD.

I was finishing up apartment-hunting at this time, so both Bilbo and I were goin over contract terms. Chapter 15 (Unattached): summer free time!! More gay little hobbits. I move into my New apartment and sleep on an air mattress for a while. I have a lot of time to draw and the art gets far more complex; this chapter was also twice as long as my usual chapters. I am still proud of this chapter, honestly, even though it's gotten less attention than Chapter 16/17-- it's one I'd been excited to draw for a while. A lot of this chapter was drawn on my beautiful powerful beloved air mattress. Air mattress, my beloved. Chapter 16 (the Song of the Lonely Mountain): I start my new job! I get a BED. Lots of exciting things are happening. I was really excited to draw and post this chapter, because it’s one id been dreaming about drawing from the beginning-- it was surreal to see it "posted" because part of me never thought I'd get this far. I even started a tiktok and posted the chapter there, certain that people would enjoy it. However, tiktok basically ignored it, alas! This is why tumblr is the only social media site. Chapter 17: I continue my new job. My roommate surprises me with the news that they will move out at the end of our lease, making me realize that months have somehow passed. I make a post asking for anyone looking for roommates in Milwaukee to contact me via dms (that offer is still open, if you’re looking to move here in early June.) I privately am very confused about why anyone would ever want to leave a comfortable settled home to go off on an adventure and then realize that I am behaving exactly like pre-quest Bilbo Baggins.

Chapter 18: the chapter I am working on now!!! Another chapter I have been excited to draw forever!! It’ll feature studio-Ghibli-inspired backgrounds, exciting landscape art, and so much fun! I’ve also started a Patreon where, if you want to see “one page a week” instead of “twenty pages every Mystery number of Months” you can subscribe there. (The first page of Chapter 18 has already been posted!)

But yeah! The TL:DR:

I think the moral of all this (to me) is that it’s hard to make art if you’re just not in a position to do it, and you have to allow yourself time to grow and change as a person XD. Sometimes you need to spend a few years thinking and getting better before you're ready to go on an Adventure. I started this comic when I was very Young and Naive to the Ways of the World. The quality (and dips in quality) reflect my wildly fluctuating mental/emotional states while trying to draw each chapter in the midst of a global pandemic. My art has improved a lot lately, and I think a large part of it is really just being in a situation where I *can* improve— having a decent job, not being in the middle of a global pandemic with no vaccine in sight, not needing to live in constant fever-pitch anxiety, having friends, etc etc. I am completely different person now than I was while drawing chapter 1.

Not to be dramatic, but I think you can see there’s a lot more joy in the recent chapters than there is in some of the older ones. It's weird to look at your art and realize you've gotten happier. XD

[sunsetcurbed]

1-2 & 10 for the Princess Diaries fic?

HELLOOOO SO SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG TO ANSWER also thank you!!

Start to finish, how long did it take to plan and write? Did you take breaks during the process?

this is my favorite story about writing a fic. ALRIGHT so on january 2nd, 2021, i made this post about my idea for a princess diaries au. i started writing the next day (january 3), and finished five days later (january 8). that fic happened in a week. from idea to finish, it was seven days. i went shopping with my brother one day and took a nice break from it, but uh. no other breaks. i want whatever high i was on that week to come BACK TO ME.

2. How did you come up with the idea?

honestly, i don't remember. i don't THINK i was watching the movie, but i very well could have been. i know that my inspiration for making it prince alex was because i didn't feel like the movie did a good job of capturing mia's anxiety well, so that was a goal of mine!!

10. How did you approach writing the fic? (e.g. wrote it start to finish in order, started with the ending, starting with the twist)

i wrote this fic extremely out of order with no plan. like, to the point where i'm genuinely surprised that it created a coherent fic in the end. i had a vague idea in my mind of what i wanted to happen, and somehow... it worked? looking back, i really wish i had sat down to actually plot, because i feel like i could have done SO MUCH MORE with that story, but i also don't regret it, yk?? is it my favorite fic i've written?? no. but it does mean a lot to me and i do love it and hold it close to my heart.

[armoricaroyalty]

dev diaries #3 - april 21st, 2023

we jumping, we popping

Josie's first story appearance will be on Monday the 24th! I made her on April 11th, so it was approximately 2 weeks between her genesis and her official debut. This is a pretty short timeline for me--characters usually exist in my mind for months and months before they show up in the story.

For example, I had the original concept for Emily's character in July 2021, and she showed up in a non-canon capacity in November 2021 and again in December 2021 before her first canonical appearance in January 2022, and it was January 2023 before she joined the ranks of the main cast.

At least right now, I don't think Josie is going to become a main character. Emily was always intended to become an important character, but I don't have those kinds of plans for Josie. She's a supporting character for Emily and will (likely) remain in that role.

In general, I think of my characters and my story in very instrumental terms. I'm always working toward a particular narrative outcome, and when I can, I like to use the tools (characters, settings, macguffins) that already exist in the story rather than introducing new elements. I like Josie a lot and will be satisfied if she remains a minor character, but the potential for her to take on new roles within the plot is exciting, ngl.

Next entry in this series will be Monday, after Josie shows up in the story. I completely rewrote her first appearance between the first and second Dev Diary, so I'll share the old version and talk about why I changed it and why I think the final version works better.

[ear-worthy]

Podcasts That Make Us Think: Why Do Some still Deny The Holocaust?

 What podcast made me think this week? It's Playing Anne Frank, a new podcast released on January 24. Using archival material and interviews with surviving cast and crew members, executive editor of the Jewish weekly publication, Forward, Adam Langer presents a story that’s never been told: the backstory of "The Diary of Anne Frank," the Pulitzer Prize-winning play and Oscar-winning film, and how this iconic work shapes those involved in performing it — including high school students putting the show on today.

The Diary of a Young Girl, also known as The Diary of Anne Frank, is a book of the writings from the Dutch-language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944, and Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945 at the age of 16.

The podcast is notable for its timing because January 27th was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. On this annual day of commemoration, we honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism. We also promote the attributes of tolerance, collaboration, and empathy that helps to prevent future genocides.

While listening to the Playing Anne Frank podcast, I ask myself a frightening question. Could this horror happen again?  

Sadly, my answer is yes. 

Why do I feel that way?

First, because a recent study found that only 54 percent of the world's population has heard of the Holocaust. Ignorance, is, well, ignorance. Do you think many of the Russian people know of the atrocities committed by their army and soldiers in Ukraine? Of course, they don't. The masses are fed the line that Russia is saving Ukraine from genocide and, in a note of irony, Nazis.

Second, holocaust denialism is grown into a cottage industry, especially in the U.S. In another ironic twist, numerous studies show that present-day Germans accept and denounce the atrocities committed by the Nazis in their country. While, too many in the U.S. link the Holocaust in with the faked moon landing, JFK's assassination, 9/11, and deep state doomsday scenarios.

 Holocaust denial aims to cast doubt on the facts of the Holocaust as they pertain to its Jewish victims, and for years it percolated freely across Facebook. Even though such messages have been banned by Facebook since 2021 (what took them so long?), denialism still exists in the crevasses and effluent of the social media giant. 

Denial adherents claim that Jews fabricated evidence of their own genocide to gain sympathy, extract reparations from Germany and facilitate the allegedly illegal acquisition of Palestinian land for the creation of Israel. 

Why has Holocaust denialism grown in this country specifically? First, it doesn't help that the ex-president of the United States has dinner with a notorious holocaust denier, Nick Fuentes. Although Trump denied knowledge of the denier. Come on. Give the man credit. He cannot be that stupid. After all, he knew Fuentes from the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where hundreds of torch-bearing far-right demonstrators chanted "Jews will not replace us."

On Truth Social, owned by Trump, Holocaust denialism is a rich topic for discussion, festering on Telegram, an instant messaging site, and Gab, a social network – all known for their far-right user bases.

Trump has engaged is so many wild conspiracy theories that the truth is often obscured amid the mudslinging of wild accusations divorced from factual certitude. For example, Trump has suggested that the father of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas helped to assassinate President John F. Kennedy, and that Democrats funded the same migrant caravan traveling from Honduras to the U.S. that worried the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter.

Most Holocaust deniers want to wash away the stain of Nazism in an attempt to make Nazism an acceptable political alternative today. Many have present and past ties with hate groups and are trying to shed that image by masquerading themselves as seekers of historical truth, rather than merchants of bigotry. Holocaust denial is an important tool for anti-Semites, masquerading as a valiant search for the truth.

Second, the term “bothsidesism” has gained considerable momentum in the last few years. It describes the phenomenon of treating every opinion as equally valid, including falsehoods masquerading as objective fact. In October 2021, for example, educators in Southlake, Texas, were told if they had a book on the Holocaust in their classroom library, they would also have to have one that with an “opposing” perspective. In January 2022, Republican State Senator Scott Baldwin of Indiana said that educators “need to be impartial” while teaching students about Nazism.

In June 2022, at the American Library Association’s annual conference, author Nancy Pearl suggested that Holocaust denial books had a place in school libraries.

Other nations don't share that streak of Holocaust denialism. In 2018, Great Britain banned a prominent American Holocaust denier from entering the United Kingdom, according to a copy of correspondence from the interior ministry.

So where are we at? Seventy-eight years after U.S. soldiers found emaciated prisoners near death, mass graves, and a footprint of sadism not seen in the modern world?  

There's hope, and many will not forget. Will never forget. For example, writer Alexander Verbeek recently wrote an article in Medium about Holocaust Remembrance Day.

 In the article, he writes that, "The people who hid Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people who killed her were following the law."

Clearly, these Holocaust deniers need to be reminded of the tragedy of Anne Frank, her courage, and the inspiration we can draw from her ordeal.

In today's world with the January 6th insurrection, the attempt to overthrow the German government several months ago, and the recent attacks in Brazil, we need a reminder of how democracy protects us from the worst instincts of racial supremacists, extremists, and those who blame certain races and religions for their own woes.

Sadly, a conspiracy theory can provide comfort by identifying a convenient scapegoat and thereby making the world seem more straightforward and controllable. 

“People can assume that if these bad guys weren’t there, then everything would be fine,” says Australian cognitive scientist Stephen Lewandowsky in a recent piece. “Whereas if you don’t believe in a conspiracy theory, then you just have to say terrible things happen randomly.”

 At the end of his Medium article about the Holocaust, Verbeek writes: "Let me end with a quote from one of the other four letters that have been found, written by Zalman Gradowski, and found buried at an Auschwitz crematorium site":

"Dear finder of these notes, I have one request of you, which is, in fact, the practical objective for my writing … that my days of hell, that my hopeless tomorrow will find a purpose in the future."

Verbeek ends with: "He wrote so that his execution would find a purpose."

I think that we should never let Mr. Gradowski down.

[xtruss]

Soviet investigators examine the tent belonging to the Dyatlov Pass expedition on February 26, 1959. The tent had been cut open from inside, and many team members had fled in socks or bare feet. Photograph Courtesy of the Dyatlov Memorial Foundation

Has Science Solved One of History’s Greatest Adventure Mysteries?

The bizarre deaths of hikers at Russia's Dyatlov Pass have inspired countless conspiracy theories, but the answer may lie in an elegant computer model based on surprising sources.

— By Robin George Andrews | January 28, 2021

A 62-year-old adventure mystery that has prompted conspiracy theories around Soviet military experiments, Yetis, and even extraterrestrial contact may have its best, most sensible explanation yet—one found in a series of avalanche simulations based in part on car crash experiments and animation used in the movie Frozen.

In an article published today in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, researchers present data pointing to the likelihood that a bizarrely small, delayed avalanche may have been responsible for the gruesome injuries and deaths of nine experienced hikers who never returned from a planned 200-mile adventure in Russia’s Ural Mountains in the winter of 1959.

Film recovered from the scene shows the last photograph taken by the Dyatlov team of members cutting the snow slope to erect their tent. Photograph Courtesy of the Dyatlov Memorial Foundation

In what has become known as the Dyatlov Pass incident, ten members of the Urals Polytechnic Institute in Yekaterinburg—nine students and one sports instructor who fought in World War II—headed into the frigid wilderness on a skiing and mountaineering expedition on January 23, 1959.

One student with joint pain turned back, but the rest, led by 23-year-old engineering student Igor Dyatlov, continued on. According to camera film and personal diaries later found on the scene by investigators, the team made camp on February 1, pitching a large tent on the snowy slopes of Kholat Saykhl, whose name can be interpreted as “Dead Mountain” in the language of the region’s Indigenous Mansi people.

The nine—seven men and two women—were never heard from again.

When a search team arrived at Kholat Saykhl a few weeks later, the expedition tent was found just barely sticking out of the snow, and it appeared cut open from the inside. The next day, the first of the bodies was found near a cedar tree. Over the next few months, as the snow thawed, search teams gradually uncovered more spine-chilling sights: All nine of the team members’ bodies were scattered around the mountain’s slope, some in a baffling state of undress; some of their skulls and chests had been smashed open; others had eyes missing, and one lacked a tongue.

Each body was a piece in a grim puzzle, but none of the pieces seemed to fit together. A criminal investigation at the time blamed their deaths on an “unknown natural force,” and the Soviet bureaucracy kept the case quiet. The lack of detail about this shocking event, an apparent massacre that transpired in a deeply secretive state, gave rise to dozens of long-lived conspiracy theories, from clandestine military tests to Yeti attacks.

In The Dead of Winter

In the wake of renewed media interest and pervasive outlandish hypotheses, Russian authorities recently reexamined the case around the Dyatlov Pass incident and concluded in 2019 that an avalanche was primarily responsible for the nine deaths. Key scientific details were absent from the report, however, including a clear explanation as to how an avalanche could have taken place with no documented evidence of its occurrence left behind. This led to continued doubts around the seemingly pat explanation from a government long infamous for its lack of transparency.

“People Love To Invent Implausible Scenarios About Death In The Wilderness, Because We Will Never Know 100 Percent What Happened.” — Freddie Wilkinson, Professional Mountain Climber and Guide

Many argued that the avalanche theory, initially proposed in 1959, still didn’t seem to stack up: The team’s tent encampment was cut into the snow on a slope with an incline seemingly too mild to permit an avalanche. There was no snowfall on the night of February 1 that could have increased the weight of the snow burden on the slope and triggered a collapse. Most of the blunt force trauma-like injuries and some of the soft tissue damage were atypical of those caused by avalanches, whose victims usually asphyxiate. And if an avalanche had occurred, why was there a gap of at least nine hours, according to forensic data, between the team members cutting the slope for their encampment and the eventual avalanche?

That curious delay was of particular interest to Alexander Puzrin, a geotechnical engineer at ETH Zürich, one of Switzerland’s federal institutes of technology. He had recently published a paper explaining how, strange though it may seem, an earthquake can trigger an avalanche with a gap ranging from mere minutes to several hours between the two events. While Puzrin grew up in Russia, he learned of the Dyatlov Pass story only a decade ago. He was fascinated by the infamous incident and what may have caused it, but was understandably wary of tackling the question solo.

Johan Gaume, head of the Snow Avalanche Simulation Laboratory at EPFL, another Swiss federal technical institute in Lausanne, got to know Puzrin around the time of the 2019 Russian inquiry into what happened at Dyatlov Pass. Suspecting the avalanche delay issue held one of the keys to solving the mystery, they teamed up to create analytical models and computer simulations to try and replicate the obfuscated hours that stole the mountaineers’ lives.

The scientific investigation came with an added benefit from Puzrin’s wife, who is Russian. “When I told her that I was working on the Dyatlov mystery, for the first time she looked at me with real respect,” he says.

Countering The Counterarguments

The shallow slope argument against an avalanche was tackled early on: It turned out not to be all that shallow after all. The undulating topography on Kholat Saykhl, covered by snowfall, made the slope appear mild, but it was actually closer to 30 degrees, the rule-of-thumb minimum requirement for many avalanches. Reports dating back to the site’s initial investigation also describe an underlying snow layer on the mountain that didn’t clump together, providing a weak, slippery base that a lot of overlying snow could easily slide over.

“The local topography played a trick on them,” says Puzrin.

Then there was the question of the snow mass: The cut the team made in the snow to pitch their tent destabilized the slope, but additional snow had to have collected before any avalanche could happen. While weather reports record no snow that fateful night, the Dyatalov group’s diary entries note there were very strong winds. These were likely to be katabatic winds—heavy clumps of frigid air that brought large amounts of snow from higher up down toward the campsite, increasing the load on an already precarious slope and explaining the nine-hour delay between the snow cut and the avalanche.

The researchers’ computer simulations show the avalanche on Kholat Saykhl wouldn’t have been huge, perhaps involving a block of icy matter a mere 16 feet long—about the size of an SUV. The small size explains why no evidence for an avalanche was found during the initial investigation; it would have infilled the cut-out campsite before being quickly buried by fresh snowfall. But how could such a small collapse have caused such traumatic injuries?

Let It Go, Let It Go

To answer that question, the scientists relied on some unorthodox sources of inspiration and information. Gaume explained how, a few years back, he was struck by how well the movement of snow was depicted in the 2013 Disney movie Frozen—so impressed, in fact, that he decided to ask its animators how they pulled it off.

Following a trip to Hollywood to meet with the specialist who worked on Frozen’s snow effects, Gaume modified the film’s snow animation code for his avalanche simulation models, albeit with a decidedly less entertaining purpose: to simulate the impacts that avalanches would have on the human body.

“People Don’t Want It To Be An Avalanche. It’s Too Normal.” — Johan Gaume, Snow Avalanche Simulation Laboratory, EPFL

Code in hand, the pair then needed realistic values for the forces and pressures the human body could experience in an avalanche. This time, their information came from the automotive industry.

“We discovered that, in the 70s, General Motors (GM) took 100 cadavers and broke their ribs,” says Puzrin, “hitting them with different weights at different velocities” to see what would happen during a car crash. The data was ultimately used to calibrate the safety of seat belts.

Some of the cadavers used in the GM tests were braced with rigid supports while others weren’t, a variable which ended up being serendipitous for Puzrin and Gaume. Back on the slopes of Kholat Saykhl, the team members had placed their bedding atop their skis. This meant that the avalanche, which hit them as they slept, struck an unusually rigid target—and that the GM cadaver experiments from the 1970s could be used to calibrate their impact models with remarkable precision.

The researchers’ computer models demonstrated that a 16-foot-long block of hefty snow could, in this unique situation, handily break the ribs and skulls of people sleeping on a rigid bed. These injuries would have been severe, but not fatal—at least not immediately—says Puzrin.

Jordy Hendrikx, the director of the Snow and Avalanche Lab at Montana State University, who was not involved in the current research, has long suspected an avalanche would be the most plausible villain for the Dyatlov Pass incident, but it wasn’t obvious that Kholat Saykhl was avalanche terrain. He says the team’s simulations have now recreated the deadly night with a newfound fidelity.

“[T]he way they’ve shown that empirically in their equations seems perfectly robust,” Hendrikx says. “It’s exciting how new science developments in the avalanche world can shed new light on these historic puzzles.”

It’s a bit surprising that such a small avalanche could cause such violent injuries, says Jim McElwaine, a geohazards expert at Durham University in England who was not involved with the study. He suspects that the block of snow would have needed to be incredibly stiff and moving at some speed to accomplish this.

Freddie Wilkinson, a professional mountain climber and guide not involved with the work, says that it’s entirely reasonable that such innocuous-sounding slabs could cause acute bodily harm. “[S]ome slabs can be quite hard, and it’s very plausible they can result in blunt trauma wounds,” he says.

“I’m absolutely convinced that the tragedy was the result of wind and snow deposition, and the fact that they pitched camp in the lee of a ridge,” Wilkinson adds. “I’ve made this mistake in my mountaineering career more than once.” During an expedition to Antarctica in 2012, tents belonging to Wilkinson’s team were pitched inside a circle of wind-deflecting snow walls they made. Returning to camp after three days, his team found that two tents tucked in the wind-shielded wall were completely buried.

The avalanche that appears to have occurred on February 1, 1959, on Kholat Saykhl was an incredibly rare type of event. But rare events do occur, and this one could have come to pass only at that exact spot, at that exact moment, during that one very wintery night.

The Perfect Storm

What happened after the avalanche is speculation, but the current thinking is that the team cut themselves out of the smothered tent, fleeing in a panic toward temporary shelter in the treeline a mile or so downslope. Three of them were severely injured, but everyone was found outside of the tent, so it’s likely the more able-bodied survivors dragged the injured out of their smothered shelter in an attempt to rescue them. “This is a story of courage and friendship,” says Puzrin.

Most of the nine who perished on Kholat Saykhl died of hypothermia, while others may have succumbed to their injuries. The state of undress some were found in remains puzzling (paradoxical undressing may be an explanation), as do reports that note some of the bodies had traces of radioactivity (which may be a result of thorium present in camping lanterns). The missing eyes and tongue of some victims may have simply been a result of scavenging animals pecking at the dead, but that too remains an open question.

This new study doesn’t try to explain everything that happened back in 1959, and the Dyatlov Pass case will likely never be fully closed, says Gaume. This study simply offers a reasonable account of the events that ultimately triggered the deaths on Kholat Saykhl.

That matters, not least because the enigmatic tragedy remains heartbreaking for the living relatives of the victims. Some in Russia have voiced the opinion that these hikers had taken stupid or unnecessary risks that ultimately killed them. “This kind of tarnishes their legacy,” says Puzrin, whose study shows that this freak avalanche would have surprised mountaineering experts with a lifetime of experience. The Dyatlov team members, Puzrin says, were very competent people who would never have foreseen the danger of clearing a space for their tent on what looked like a gentle slope.

Gaume nevertheless fears the explanation they presented today is too straightforward for much of the public to accept. “People don’t want it to be an avalanche,” he says. “It’s too normal.” That unyielding skepticism, along with the haunting nature of the Dyatlov Pass incident, will keep conspiracy theories alive well into the future.

“To me, this story is uniquely powerful, profound, poignant, because this was a group of young people going off into the wilderness and they never came back,” says Wilkinson.

“People love to invent implausible scenarios about death in the wilderness, because we will never know 100 percent what happened.”

[thedraught]

my year in reading (& songs) | 2021

Time, curious time Gave me no compasses, gave me no signs Were there clues I didn't see?

From a perfect start to the year in January to letting go of tension in December, 2021 has me looking back on a year that was - as all years are - full of ups and downs and changes, but ultimately filled with light and friendship and love. In my mind 2021 is tinged in purple-pink hues - or in Taylors words: it gave me the blues and then purple pink skies, it gave me happiness once I was out of the woods and above the trees. It gave me all kinds of rings, from Paper to Mood, 3 filled journals, only 10 new books bought, and a newest obsession (for who would I be without one?). I did not reach my goal of reading 100 books, but at 82, I am rather happy altogether.at the dusk of an old year…

January was pink and frilly and full of good moods - Emma, Bridgerton, - almost a week over New Year’s Eve spent with J and our journals, Jane Austen, embroidery and apple crumbles. The soundtrack of the month then was clearly (as my poor battered roommates can attest to) Donna Summers Hot Stuff that brought light into the grey January air. In total I read 11 books this month but the highlights were Amina Cain’s Indelicacy and Winifred Watson’s Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day. Both of them marked by stunning cover design and stories about women and friendship, though completely different in nature. Indelicacy made me pensive, made me want to write, while Miss Pettigrew charmed me (and still does) - and even made me cry. I also spent time with Susan Sontag and her journals (Reborn: Early Diaries 1947-1963), underlining laughing at the breakfast table in Brussels when she wishes to paganise her young son’s soul, sending updates to J, marvelling at Sontag’s eloquent words (and the people she knew!) scribbled down next to mundane lists and recounts of her meals.

With February came incredibly cold days, hikes and frozen lakes, a picnic set up in my room and five of the eight Bridgerton books, read and discussed with J, heavily entertained and partially staring at blank walls while doing nothing but listening to Julia Quinn’s historical romances. However, I also read the newest Seanan McGuire (Across the Green Grass Fields), Stories of Your Life by Ted Chiang (finally! go read it! it’s “just” a short story) and a highlight of the year: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. A surprising come-back by an incredibly talented author that whisked me away into one of the strangest worlds I ever had the pleasure to visit. I read In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, too, and decided I was going to write my thesis about her experience of queer violence that she lays bare in her unique and daunting memoir.

Where February was still ringing with Hot Stuff and Peggy Lee’s Fever, March turned into an emotional turmoil rather quickly and had me in a daze. But the daze also brought me feverish reading weekends, when I devoured Roald Dahl’s Completely Unexpected Tales, John Fowles skin-crawlingly-horrifying The Collector, and finally tackled a mountain that had been looming above me from my bookshelves ever since 2014: The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. I breathlessly poured over the 800 pages in a single weekend, curing the distress I was feeling with a story so intricate and wondrous it had me spinning more than the heartbreak that raced through me that month. In March, Catton gave me memories, Catton gave me albatrosses, something to tether myself to, when I was lost. For a book the size of The Luminaries was the only one that could anchor me. Outside my window the cherry tree began to bloom.

Work on my thesis began in earnest in April, the whirlwinds of emotions cooling down slightly (though it was only the calm before a storm that would rattle me later), and I turned to the ever comforting Agatha Christie while tackling another beast I had avoided for years: the ever daunting Anna Karenina. I was not as impressed with Tolstoy’s most famous work, as I was with his War & Peace, but I did enjoy most of the book (read: all parts about Anna, none about Levin who takes up half the novel’s space) and enjoyed logging it from place to place with me.

May hit me with pain that had begun in March, and had been (in retrospect), unnecessarily drawn out til now. But I also received love & support, more than anyone could ever wish for. Distraction from my roommates, kind words from people that (mere months ago!) had been nothing but strangers, love from my parents, J and C, all of my friends. And love from books, to which I turned. Marie Antoinette and Die Welt von Gestern by Stefan Zweig enthralled me, Gone Girl kept me up all night and Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means disturbed and delighted me with its casual cruelty.

In June I was still weathering storms: my thesis, life, fears, which sounds more than dramatic in retrospect but was my reality at the time. I did not read much, except for nights spent with old romance novels by Sophie Kinsella to calm my nervous mind. Musically, however, Lorde made a reappearence and healed my soul with the announcement of a sun-soaked record. And I finally gave up my (hitherto likely unfounded) dislike for Taylor Swift and dipped my toe into her music, filling my days with summer songs from Lover (with Paper Rings front and center), as well as the ever-uplifting Fearless and All Too Well.

July was marked by travel - a strange word in a newsletter that summarises a year in which Covid 19 is and was still very much present. But I travelled locally and carefully. To see my grandmother (finally, after two years!), C in Hamburg, my parents, T and F, pick up my sister in Jena and see J and I, even if just for a day in the sun. I read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee in a heat-filled day on the balcony, before I played scrabble with my grandma and drank cocktails. And I finally read my first Jhumpa Lahiri (I am still dying to read In Altre Paroli, a book with the most interesting premise), The Namesake, and was rather moved by it.

This year’s rain-filled summer culminated with my birthday in August, my second vaccination and a short birthday visit from C, and a long one from J in Maastricht. J and me crafted and painted ceramics, went to the fabric market, cooked food, had picnics, relived the trashiest movies of all time, and finally fully submitted to Taylor. I read Elin Willow’s Inlands (“Precisely because all options are open and I can go wherever I like, it feels like the exact opposite”) and felt it enter my soul at that moment in time, and soothe me and upset me, even though I now barely remember any of it. The soundtrack of August was not Taylor’s eponymous song, but Lorde’s Mood Ring, instead. A brilliantly clever and sympathetically ironic song (paraphrased) - an absolute genius and delight.

In September I began searching for jobs read short-stories of Domestic Suspense, as well as The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy (which briefly recalled Bonjour Tristesse, if not in plot, then in atmosphere) and spontaneously purchased Frank Herbert’s Dune that I ploughed through in three days, since I went to watch the adaptation with M and A. I embroidered on the side, and passed the time with more Agatha Christie, as well as walks in the waning summer light, looking at the pumpkin patches.

I remember a party at F’s in October, Sushi with B, and my very first Dutch read Het Achterhuis, a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s Diary. Next to job interviews and my graduation celebration and fun days with G, I also revisited the Bridgerton universe with J, as I listened to all four of the Rokesby-series books (that were clearly inferior to Bridgerton, I must admit).

I had dinners in November, saw bright-red sunsets, started to work, visited Berlin and saw F. I deepened the attachment to Taylor (All Too Well), spent time with my roommates and organised a move. H and me spent a wholesome evening with Folklore, Evermore, fries and punch. We also had another wonderful silent-dinner. Reading-wise, I finally tackled Imogen Hermes Gowar’s The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock (impeccable writing, a lacking story) and swore off modern romance after a buddy-read of Sally Thorne’s (very well liked?!) The Hating Game.

December saw me moving, laughing lots and being stressed. But now it has me sitting in Rudolstadt at J’s, prepared to put pink highlights in my hair and drink Barbie pink shots to welcome the new year and bid farewell to 2021. Because, I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 2022, just as well as I felt 2021. Even though I did not read a single book in December (I was busy embroidering for farewell gifts and Christmas), I experienced so much love and light and saw so many changes in my life that I am more than excited about. Closer to J (to further apart from my dear roommates, my friends, I should say), ready for 22, new books to discover and read, new things to see, new things to create. This month’s song obsession is I Bet You Think About Me. For the country, the vibe, the red lipstick. For everything.the magical dawn of a new one awaits.

In retrospect everything happened as it should have. My heartbreak turned out to be not so much of a heartbreak after all, and it gave me Taylor, a development I might give too much meaning to (and talk way too much about), but then again, I’d like to carry myself forward like this into the following years: Giving things too much meaning rather than not finding meaning in anything. And being open to accept new things, even if they mean discarding old views and opinions. I don’t know what 2022 will bring, if it’s still pink and blue, or burning red. Or perhaps maybe golden, like daylight.

I know that, as such, every day and every year, every life in fact, is reflected in the snippet of the song I’m going to leave you with here, but it seems to fit this year especially, for me:Time, mystical time Cuttin' me open, then healin' me fine Were there clues I didn't see? And isn't it just so pretty to think All along there was some Invisible string Tying you to me?

Can you find an invisible string in 2021? A string that pulled you away from something only to lead you somewhere greater? I hope that you can. And if not, I am certain that you will. Time is funny like that.

All the people I had to lose, or that I got to keep and meet and love in 2021, I’m glad that fate tied you to me. And I hope that the dawn of 2022 is a bright one for you.

[sophsweet]

My diary 2021 - week 2

Image – people sitting in thick snow in Madrid – first snowfall in 50 years January 8th, Friday Dream on Luci app. Debating on Twitter. Rude followers repeating “but it’s clearly (not) set out in rules”. Point of driving to go for a walk is for people not near green spaces. Setting up series of blocks affects those most in need of free exercise outdoors. Government advertising before and after…

[kneeslesspenguin]

My weight loss journal was pavemented with good intentions and an endless list of unexpected problems.

I was never the thinnest girl, I was somehow thin but anything close to have a toned body. I ate a little of everything with a big sweet tooth and a deep love for fried food. Luckily back then I've lived somewhere without delivery food and fast foods were way too far for me.

Fast forward to 2020. I know what you're thinking, but sorry to disappoint you it was not the pandemic. Instead, during the three month do the first Italian lockdown, I've lost weight because I was working out every day. I got married that year in September and my weight problems started after that. After few months there was another lockdown. Me and my husband bought an apartment way smaller than my parents house so the place to workout was almost inexistent and I was working from home. I think that in those days I was doing no more than 1000 steps for day. Also having troubles with the heating connection for the first months didn't help either. I couldn't cook a proper meal so it was only take out (we had delivery at the new address), instant ramen and something to eat in the oven.

I've quickly gaining few kilos and in the spring of 2021 I've decided to try a diet that a lot of people that I knew.

PSA guys: don't do too extreme diet like I did. I'm not only talking about eating a 1/3 of your calories. The diet I've followed was made for me by a dietitian, but it was horrible. It was gluten free, dairy free, low carb, no sugar, NO SALT (even pasta) and it was mandatory to eat 3 course of vegetables for meal each one with a different cooking style. Plus I was expected to drop like 6 kilos per month (by the time my weight goal was 7 kilos down my current weight). Did it work? Yes. Did it completely destroyed my appetite and my capacity to follow a more reasonable diets made by another professionals? Also yes.

Of course after this catastrophic diet, an underlying health problem plus depression kicked in creating a spiral of weigh gain. I was 58 kilos and in 15 months I was 78 kilos (I'm a 1.65 cm woman so not ideal at all).

On October 2022I've started going to the gym and I was loving it, but I didn't seen so many results. I was at the gym twice a week (minus tel weeks off because COVID) until the first week of January. In Italy the end of the Christmas period is on January 6th which a national holiday. I went on the snow that day before going back to my routine... And I've broke the ligament of the knee. I couldn't walk for the weeks and going to gym for two months.

BUT FINALLY I'm finally seeing some results in my weight loss.

For me the biggest step was to control my appetite, because I would have a perfect eating day until after work and then I would eat the entire pantry. It was triggered by my thyroid and now the medication are finally working so my appetite came back to normal.

The gym is doing its thing too! My trainer is amazing and she did a program to gain muscle of my leg to help my injured leg plus she add a lot more of cardio.

Results 👍

I'm fitting in some workout pants that I bought but I couldn't wear ✅

I'm feeling stronger ✅

I can see myself leaner ✅

I can the muscle on my leg ✅❌

Yeah I don't know how too feel about that. Seeing my muscles growing is powerful but it wasn't my goal? I know that there's no way to become like an 90s model style without starving because I'm build to having muscles... I'd like to feel in a healt middle

Results👎

Muscle gain. Like I said before, I can see the muscle on the legs. I can't see muscle improvement on my back, shoulders and arms (I still have a thick layer on fat to cover them), but I definitely feel it. Now when I'm wearing a jacket or a shirt I feel like an outrage hulk ready to destroy my clothes. ❌

The results on the scale are literally 0 and it's kinda demotivating ❌

Well that's the story. I'd like to keep like a diary about this journey for accountability.

[orion-lake]

Happy New Year! I wanted to shout out “some” posts of 2022 that I really loved. I want to say thank you to all fellow gif makers to put in the time and effort to share their creations. 

Please do not feel bad if you’re not on the list. I have a running queue on my blog, so my post number per month is fairly huge. So I may just have missed your post. 

Feel free to share, and please, if you like a post, please reblog and share the love.

January 2022

Morgana Pendragon ▶ Season 3, Episode 02: “The Tears of Uther Pendragon: Part Two” - @katieskeep

YENNEFER APPRECIATION WEEK | favorite outfit - @yenvengerberg

— New Year’s Day by Taylor Swift - @antoniosvivaldi

WOLF MOON | S1E1 - @teenwolfgifs

February 2022

‘cause we never go out of style… - @jumpthensfall

HAPPY 32ND BIRTHDAY TAYLOR ALISON SWIFT - @newrcmantlcs

March 2022

the wheel of time gifset - @scinnlaece​

allison argent gifset - @bericas​

bau ladies + tarot cards - @cabotism (deactivated)

HARRY POTTER film series based on the novels by the same name (2001-2011) - @yourstarfuckerworld  (deactivated)

stiles stilinski & lydia martin TEEN WOLF (2011-2017) - @crazysjane (deactivated)

MISTY & NATALIE in Yellowjackets | Season One [insp] - @queencalanthes

April 2022

Charmed | Patty & Prue & Piper | Head Above Water - @littletonpace

NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES: The Marauders - @some-people-call-it-tragic

Man the boundaries. Protect us. Do your duty to our school. - @hermoiine

THE DORA MILAJE aka “THE ADORED ONES” - @rachelschu (deactivated)

May 2022

ALL MY GIRLS LIKE TO FIGHT. - @bericas

↳ ingrid, the snow queen - @thewildmother

hogwarts houses common rooms aes - @ostara-goddess

harry potter meme: [1/3] colours. teal - @19-17

laura’s 10k celebration (top 30 ships as voted by my followers) ✵ 21 ➳ buffy summers & spike - @katherineebishop

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE (2009) dir. David Yates - @mike-mills

June 2022

i got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined - @learned-civility

the big seven + planets symbolism (insp.) - @hermiione

July 2022

doctor who appreciation week day three ☆ favorite season/era  - @benoitblanc

Taylor Swift in 2021 - @wishfulthinkinglove

AU SPUFFY - they can be a romcom if they want - - @l0veisntbrains

taylor swift gifset - @treachreous

August 2022

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) - @drsattlers

↳ SCOOBY-DOO (2002) dir. Raja Gosnell - @wakandasforever

— Taylor Swift on 💜 Last Kiss 💜 - @antoniosvivaldi

September 2022

#MetalMonday | ✟ Rest in Peace ✟ (Dorothy) - @x--daughters-of-darkness--x

October 2022

TEEN WOLF APPRECIATION WEEK ☽ day one: female character(s) - @unspokenstydia

MERLINWEEK2022 | DAY 02 Favourite scene or season : season 04 (insp) - @thebookluvrr1816

#the journey - @payidaresque

MERLIN WEEK 2022 day 1: favourite character ➛ arthur pendragon + dnd character sheet (in/sp.) - @arthurpendragonns

DAILYMARVELSTUDIOS 5K CELEBRATION: FAVORITE MARVEL DYNAMIC - @dailymarvelstudios

November 2022

Bridgerton Siblings + Love Interest - @marlenadia

laura’s 11k celebration (top 40 characters as voted by my followers) ✵ 40 ➳ emma swan - @katherineebishop

Grace & Frankie + final scenes - @jakeperalta

Vampire Appreciation Week [2022] October 27th ~ Favourite Vampire/Vampire Dynamic - @sulietsexual

Bridgerton Couples + Tropes - @marlenadia

VAMPIRE APPRECIATION WEEK 2022 - day one: favorite vampire CAROLINE FORBES - The Vampire Diaries (2009-2017) - @naiey

December 2022

EDWINA & KATE SHARMA — The Sun & The Moon - @gifshistorical

WEDNESDAY CHARACTERS as TAYLOR SWIFT ALBUMS - @reputayswift

favorite non-romantic dynamic MISS EDWINA AND QUEEN CHARLOTTE - @edwinadaily

WEDNESDAY (2022) + RAINBOW - @usergif

marvel characters - @annelisters

WELL! THE PLAN HAS SOME FLAWS, ADMITTEDLY. - @phoebehalliwell

Favorite Romantic Pairing — Colin and Penelope Bridgerton - @wandarogers

WEDNESDAY: SEASON 1 (2022) - @vanessacarlysle

[lindyloosims]

🚨Currently on a break for my mental wellbeing🚨

Welcome!

Story Navigation:

True Companion (Ongoing)

Ghosts Of Willow Creek (Ongoing)

Washed Ashore: A Sims 4 Tail. A Laixter AU (on hold)

Not So Berry Challenge (currently generation 2: Rose)

The Tartosa Vampire (ongoing)

TS4 Globetrotter Challenge with Cooper Olvera the alien (Currently round one: Mt Komorebi)

Something Wicca This Way Comes: A Documentary By LJFoxie (slowly ongoing)

Forget-Me-Not (ongoing)

LJFoxie's Spin the Wheel of Drama Legacy Challenge (Generation 4)

Lovestruck Luka: A Bachelor Challenge (Complete)

Love Drunk: Original Sims 3 Version (posting 3 times a week)

Welcome to my Simblr! I have a list of stories, most ongoing, I don’t have a schedule, I post sporadically. Yes I’m a hot mess of disorganisation! My content is often NSFW containing bad language, gory themes and just basically 18+ stuff so if that kind of thing offends you, then they’re not for you. 🤫 I do try to tag appropriately but sometimes I forget, I do get reminded though and I go back and do it so...there you go!

So a few things about me:

My name is Linda Jane.

I am in my forties.

I’m Scottish and live in East Ayrshire, Scotland.

I have a one year old Labrador named Bonnie who is keeping me sufficiently busy right now! My last pet, Poppy the Labrador, crossed the rainbow bridge in January 2021 at the tender age of 14! She had a good life, but I miss her terribly! Bonnie has given me a reason to get up in the morning after losing her!

I have played The Sims since the very beginning. I started sharing my stories in 2011 with a Sims 3 Legacy called The Shylife Of Kitty Von Strunkle, I got to generation 10 before my game gave out! That’s also where Love Drunk started, I have since converted Laixter to TS4.

I crochet, work with resin and polymer clay, I love crafts!

I bake birthday cakes, I’m an amateur but I make them for friends and family.

My favourite bands of all time are Bon Jovi and Green Day.

My favourite shows are Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Smallville, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, Doctor Who, Stranger Things, The Umbrella Academy, The Boys, Good Omens, Lucifer, any comic book related shows and most of the Arrowverse (couldn’t get into Batwoman tho)

I have a side blog with my stories here: LJ’s Stories so feel free to give it a follow.

Anyway that’s just a bit about me, feel free to follow me, I usually follow back because I love to see other people’s creations and stories! If you have a blank profile, I will probably report and block for fear you’re a porn bot, so if that happens just send me a little message to say you’re legit and I’ll happily amend it and follow you back. Hugs!

[perfectlullabies]

since this dreadful year is finally coming to an end, here’s my DIARY ENTRY because i feel like writing it all down (well, just a short summary of some of the things that have happened)

let’s start with the way i finished 2021. i had a severe panic attack in a supermarket when i was on my way to weronika’s to spend new year’s eve together and had trouble calming down for over two hours. thankfully i took some meds, changed my clothes, called my mom and cooled off. not exactly a great sign for the upcoming year, was it?

first four months were pretty much uneventful, i was doing fairly well at uni even though i still had online classes. i was hoping to get a job (did not get it eventually). at the end of january i started taking meds which definitely helped a lot with my ocd i’d had since childhood and i also applied for therapy 

then may 16th happened - your usual monday. the day before i was watching eurovision with weronika, having a great time drinking beer etc. morning after when i was drinking my coffee i got a phone call from my distressed mom. i immediately knew something terrible must have happened, i could hear it in her voice and the way i heard my aunt in the car with her. they never got together unless something was Happening. my mom called me straight from the place the accident took place. she was talking to me as she looked at the car wreck and her deceased mother on the ground, with the police still guarding the place. my 73 year old grandmother, who had just started her retirement after 50 years of working as a pediatrician, had been killed instantly in a violent car crash - a truck had driven right into her side of the car because the man had lost consciousness while driving due to brain tumor. my grandparents were on the way to the oncology centre bc my grandfather had been terminally ill. so that day my grandma decided to drive him to the centre, usually she wouldn’t do that

my grandfather survived the accident itself but passed away two weeks later on may 29th due to severe injuries and ongoing illness. the accident sped up the process. i said goodbye to him and promised him to visit him again - i didn’t have that opportunity

i hadn’t talked to my grandmother since 2017. we had a very complicated relationship, you could say we were estranged. we used to be very close prior to that. not gonna get into details because i find it irrelevant right now. however i wish i had a chance to apolgize to her and for her to have the chance to apologize to me and my parents. we never got the opportunity to reconcile. i hate to think about it

after the accident came funerals, just two weeks apart

my whole family’s crumbled, there’s an ongoing WAR that my abusive uncle and godmother initiated. no details here either, just know that when i use the word abuse i really mean it all - physical, psychological, financial. all kinds

from the very start it was me and my mom who took care of most things. we cleaned the flat back in june, we then cleaned the flat again back in august and today we emptied the basement and the rest of the furniture and stuff from the flat that has been sold. none of my cousins helped - instead they sent me disgraceful messages on facebook

i’ve just come back from their flat, having thrown out most of their stuff that was left there. i’m tired, pissed off and so melancholic

this year has shown me that people don’t have much empathy, pity and kindness in them. nobody helped us, nobody cared. none of my so called friends or relatives cared - they still don’t. people think that when such a tragedy happens, it’s over within a month or so. it’s been 7 months now and the things we’re dealing with have NOT been as intense ever before. everything takes months or even years here. it’s not easy. no understanding for it either 

we had some terribly macabre and grotesque ‘’adventures’’ in the meantime such as having to deal with the funeral home who accidentally sold our 2nd burial place to some other family (they ended up digging up some deceased man. unimaginable)

around september i had to resign from therapy i had been attending from late april to late september because my therapist had been the most unhelpful, ABUSIVE so called mental health professional i’ve ever encountered. she further made me believe i am somehow responsible for the things that happened, also relating to my family past as some kind of ‘’curse’’ - as you know, my grandmother’s brother and his wife were killed in a similar car crash back in 1978. so she told me we were cursed. anyway it’s over and done with, i’m no longer seeing her and i won’t ever attend therapy again. gross 

in 2022 i had been ill at least 5 or 6 times, each time ending up on heavy medication. so did my parents. my dad had to resign from his job because of health issues and other things. i am very worried abt my parents on daily basis

i haven’t slept well since may. i have nightmares, truly awful ones. almost always involving our trauma. i had shown many ptsd symptoms and i dearly hope it won’t develop further. but who knows at this point

when it comes to uni and everyday problems - my thesis supervisor proved to be especially unhelpful. i haven’t touched my thesis since may and i don’t know when i’m gonna continue. uni doesn’t help with anything, i’m all alone with everything there, more so than ever before 

i have no support from anyone - it’s just me and my parents out there. doing everything, dealing with everything. on top of it all we received no money from the insurance companies - NONE AT ALL. two people have been killed. we get nothing from it

the man who killed them hasn’t contacted us, not even a message with an apology. nothing

and now the global things - ongoing pandemic and the terrifying war in ukraine which is so close to us. my heart goes out to all ukrainians, i love them all dearly, they’re like beloved family to polish people ALWAYS. i’ve got nothing but unconditional love and support for them

2022 made me believe that there is not much kindness in this world. not much pity and understanding. no empathy. no one cares and life goes on and this is the lesson i’ve learnt this year. you die and nothing happens - that’s what the terrifying truth looks like 

[ear-worthy]

"In the Room with Peter Bergen" Podcast Investigates Domestic Terrorism

Don't get turned off because Peter Bergen is from CNN. This guy is good. Very good. Look at his photo below. He could be the protagonist, or villain, in any John LeCarre or Robert Ludlum spy novel. I think Bergen even knows Jason Bourne.

Here's the pitch for In the Room with Peter Bergen. "Overwhelmed by conflicting narratives and sensationalism in the news? Wondering where you can get an objective analysis and direct-from-the-source reporting?"

"Look no further than In the Room with Peter Bergen. In his weekly nonpartisan news podcast, longtime national security journalist and bestselling author Peter Bergen goes beyond the headlines, to explore the world’s most important and captivating stories."

While there's some hyperbole there, it's also true that Bergen is a traditional journalist, searching for the truth and not worrying about ideological camps. 

Each week, Bergen covers a news topic like war, artificial intelligence, UFOs, and more, including a rare peek inside the FBI's unit that is trying to prevent mass shootings. Balancing various perspectives on the subject, he combines narrative-rich storytelling and interviews with top experts and leaders like former Acting US Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, US Army General David Petraeus, Jen Easterly who leads US efforts to prevent cyberattacks, former US National Security Advisor John Bolton, first-ever female Afghan ambassador to the US Roya Rahmani, and CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward.

 The conceit of the podcast is that Listeners go “in the room” with Peter Bergen as he presses his contacts for accurate, on-the-ground information to help his listeners contextualize and understand the impact of these stories on their lives through a quality, trustworthy, and engaging lens.  Recent episodes I've enjoyed are "Is The Pentagon Really Hiding Crashed Alien Spaceships?" and "Yes, the United States has a Space Force. Stop Laughing." Bergen is excellent at drilling down below the headlines.

  On this week’s episode of his In the Room with Peter Bergen politics podcast, Bergen - CNN’s National Security Analyst, and world-renowned terrorism/extremism expert who landed the first TV interviews with both William Pierce, a key leader of the American neo-Nazi movement and The Turner Diaries author, and Osama bin Laden - dives deep into the ongoing issue of domestic terrorism in the United States.

During the episode, titled “Why America’s Biggest Terror Threat Is Homegrown,” Bergen is joined by his fellow domestic extremism expert Daryl Johnson, Northwestern University professor Kathleen Belew, and American political analyst Bruce Hoffman to investigate how the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol was the culmination of political trends in the United States that have festered for many years and how it may be a dress rehearsal for what comes next. 

Check out In the Room with Peter Bergen. You can actually witness what a real journalist does. Or is he a spy?  

[goldenraeofsun]

Day 27: Darkest Hour

November 12, 2020

I’ve dreamed about you every night for the past week. Just like last time. What kind of fucked up is it that I know what it’s like to love you and lose you twice?

Fuck this.

November 16, 2020

Sammy started going to a therapist, probably in some passive-aggressive attempt to get me to go along and talk about my feelings. Joke’s on him, though. It’s never going to fucking happen.

If Mia walked into the room looking like you, I’d probably stab her.

Then again, I stabbed you when we first met, and that didn’t turn out so bad.

Or maybe it did.

December 1, 2020

I told Claire what happened to you. It only took a month. She clocked me right in the face and then started crying. I’ve dealt with so many crying moms, daughters, wives of people I couldn’t save. I used to be so good at it, telling them it was alright, that we’d get the monster responsible, offering them tissues and listening to them babble on about the dead guy’s best attributes.

It was different with Claire. She had nothing nice to say about you, and it hurt.

I know she loved you - or else she wouldn’t be so goddamn angry.

December 3, 2020

I still dream about you.

Every fucking night, I save you. I fight the Empty until it gives up. I pull a spell out of my ass that banishes the Empty forever. I push you out of the way.

I’ve saved you 28 times now, except when it really counted.

How the hell is it worth it to “love” as much as I do if everyone I love leaves? I’d rather feel nothing at all. At least JD gets that.

December 5, 2020

Turns out, Sammy wasn’t going to therapy, the fucking liar. He was researching ways to get you out of the Empty.

He did the spell today and only told me hours later that it didn’t work. Obviously.

I never thought you’d come back before now. But, for a split second, as Sam was telling me about the spell, I thought you both pulled it off. That you were hiding just out the door, waiting for Sam’s signal to make your grand entrance because you’re both dramatic bastards sometimes.

I threw a beer bottle at Sam’s head.

Luckily he ducked, but he’s gone to live with Eileen. He said he’d call when he got there, so at least there’s that.

And then there was one.

December 18, 2020

I found the Christmas present I bought you. Why the fuck I was Christmas shopping in August I have no

Right, you weren’t the type to ever tell us about what you liked. I had to keep an ear to the ground instead, just in case you mentioned this game or that TV show. I got you a record player and a few Joni Mitchell vinyls. She came on the oldies station while we were in Harlan dealing with all those ghosts, and you turned the radio up.

Anyway, you always kept your trap shut about what you really wanted. It was so annoying.

God, if only I knew how true that was. If it was annoying then, it’s goddamn devastating now.

December 24, 2020

The Circle Game can go fuck itself.

I can’t believe I’m crying alone in my room, listening to Joni Mitchell, writing in my diary - or love letters to you. It doesn't matter how you spin it - on Christmas Eve.

If only Dad could see me now.

December 26, 2020

I spent Christmas with Sam at Eileen’s. I thought about giving him Joni, but swapped them out at the last second with some New York Times bestseller I picked up at the bookstore on the way there. I don’t think Sam noticed.

49 times I’ve saved you now.

1 time I failed.

Sam got me another notebook. I didn’t think he even noticed I was doing this.

Anyway, I’ve barely made a dent in this one. Who knows if I’ll even have enough to say to fill it all up. I don’t exactly have a lot of thoughts lately, except for one.

January 3, 2021

Sam just asked me what I wanted for my birthday. It was a solid minute before I could think of something that wasn’t you.

He’s still worried about me.

January 9, 2021

Would a crossroads demon even want my soul anymore?

January 11, 2021

Nobody showed. Big surprise.

January 17, 2021

Sam somehow found out about the deal and didn’t listen when I told him I was pretty certain it wasn’t going to work.

According to Sam, that wasn’t the point.

He locked me out of the goddamn Bunker. Said I should take a last road trip and use that time to say goodbye to you.

But what the fuck did he think I’ve been trying to do for the past three months?

And then there were none.

January 19, 2021

How the hell can I say goodbye when you’re always with me? Just waiting until I fall asleep - and you’re there, about to get sucked into an oblivion. Until I stop it.

And then I wake up in a shitty motel, and you’re stuck in the Empty.

January 21, 2021

I ran into Claire in St. Cloud taking out a ghost. She’s looking better. Gives all the credit to Kaia. They’re together, if you can believe it.

I told her I was proud of her for not waiting a solid decade and change to man up.

She said, “Thanks for your input, Roger Moore,” but I could tell she was pleased. Even the worst James Bond is a step up from Hasselhoff.

January 24, 2021

Florida in the middle of the winter is pretty damn awesome. The locals say it’s too cold, but it’s perfect. In the mornings and evenings, it’s cool enough for jeans, in the afternoon, boardshorts.

Sometimes it feels like I’m on vacation (not that I would know what that’s like), and you’ll still be at the Bunker when I make my way back.

And if I never phone home, you’ll always be there for waiting for me, right?

February 1, 2021

Texas barbeque is like Heaven - better than, actually. Did you know there’s a place that’ll comp your meal if you eat a whole rack of ribs, a 12 oz steak, half a bird, a plate of pulled pork, baked beans, and coleslaw?

I didn’t eat for the next day and a half, but it was totally worth it.

February 14, 2021

Happy unattached drifter Christmas.

Hard to believe the last time I was alone on the road was while Sam was at Stanford. Fifteen years ago.

God, I’m old.

February 26, 2021

I think I might be a horse whisperer. Jesse and Cesar say nobody’s ever taken that quickly to Mercury.

He’s standoffish and prickly, but goddamn if he isn’t the most magnificent horse on the whole damn ranch. He’ll warm up to me if I just keep trying.

Not like I have anything better to do with my time.

March 9, 2021

Luna had a foal! Kind of gross but not worse than any standard monster hunt.

Jesse let me name her. I was tempted by Blondie, but I went with Joni instead. I was going to fuck up their horse naming system anyway. Thought I might as well choose something you’d like.

March 12, 2021

It was time to move on.

They’re so happy retired together, I had to leave before I hit something.

It was fun at first, learning how to take care of the horses, making dinner for more than just one. But the way they touched each other, it just got to me. Jesse always has a smoke after dinner at the table. Cesar doesn’t like the weed smell, but every time he leaves, he squeezes Jesse on the shoulder on his way out.

Once, he kissed the top of Jesse’s head instead.

I took Mercury on an hour-long ride at ten o’clock at night just to get out of that room. But it’s like you were right there, at my heels, the whole time.

March 20, 2021

Alaska is fucking cold in March.

March 27, 2021

Call me sentimental, but I’m going to head back to that barn in Pontiac. Maybe if I say goodbye there, where we first met, it’ll stick.

We outsmarted the Empty for the 141st time last night, and then I woke up alone.

April 2, 2021

It was nice to save you in broad daylight for a change.

Thursday, April 15th

Dean gave me this journal, apparently a “regift” from Sam, to document my life acclimatizing to being human again.

I’ve never written anything before, but Dean says it will help. While I was in the Empty, he said he started keeping his own journal.

However, when I asked to see it, as an example of what kind of writing is appropriate, Dean just changed the subject and started singing “Big Yellow Taxi.”

I had no idea he liked Joni Mitchell.