#the first online class i took in 2013 was not like this

[itstimeforstarwars]

Man I love missing the last 15 minutes of online class because my internet decided to take a shit. Truly what could be better than this. Surely there's nothing i need to learn in the last 25% of class.

#chit chat #i am so grateful i graduated before covid #if id had to do this for 6 classes instead of just one i would have dropped out #i should check if the library is open past 6 on Wednesdays #there's one (1) day a week where they're open late but i don't remember which #maybe i can take class there instead #why is everything so hostile to living in the middle of nowhere #the first online class i took in 2013 was not like this #the prof emailed us a syllabus and a list of books #we emailed our homework and any questions back #wow. easy. #and it didn't require a consistent internet connection either

[flowersfromautumn]

come back, be here

5 times Buck hated his name and 1 time he didn’t mind it so much.

tw: use of explicit language. nothing else major i don’t think? like slight mention of parental neglect from bucks parents and mentions of daniel as well as the fire truck incident but other than that i think it’s okay.

1

Margaret Buckley gave birth to a son on the 19th of August 1991, five years after she thought her family was complete.

For the first two weeks of his life, Buck didn’t have a name. Simply known as “the baby”, almost as though his parents were already trying to separate themselves from his existence.

It was a six year old Daniel who gave him his name, after Margaret and Philip didn’t care enough to decide.

He was christened Evan Daniel Buckley on the 4th of September that same year.

Two weeks later, his older brother was gone, and with him, his mothers perceived warmth and his fathers everlasting patience. With him, any hope Buck ever could’ve had of his parents love. His name, his face, his existence was a reminder of the son they loved but still lost and the son they never wanted but were stuck with.

Eight years later he lost his sister- and the only positive influence in his life- for the first time to university. Three years later he lost her again to marriage.

It was around then his parents stopped calling him his name. Or any name at all.

It was around then that he became a ghost in his home.

It was around then he stopped liking his name.

2

Stephanie was the best thing to happen to him in Peru. The bartending gig was sweet, yeah, but Stephanie? She was a firecracker full of late nights and early mornings and bottomless Margaritas. Her laugh made Buck think he understood love for the first time.

So when she revealed she’d found a job in Poland that she was going to take, he was fully prepared to start packing before she’d even finished her sentence.

It was when she sent him a small smile with pity shining in her dark eyes that he knew. They weren’t on the same page. Probably weren’t even in the same book.

“Evan.” She began, in a way that made him feel like he was eleven all over again, standing in the kitchen while his mum explains that her and Philip are really busy and can’t make his baseball match and why are you being so selfish? “This has been fun. You’re a great guy, but you’re not someone I’m wanting long-term.”

And wasn’t that the very crux of the matter? He was never someone anyone wanted “long-term”. He hadn’t spoken to his own parents since he left home two years ago without a second glance, hadn’t talked to Maddie since she moved to Boston with Doug (the unanswered postcards didn’t count).

Long-term was, apparently, fantasy for him.

“Take care, Evan.” Steph said, right as she closed the door behind him for the last time.

It was then that he decided he needed a new name. A new life.

His feet landed on the tarmac of LAX Airport at 3pm the next day as he disembarked the plane. He took a deep, steadying breath as a warm breath ruffled his hair and hoped that, if he was lucky, this would be his very last beginning.

3

It took him 6 months to decide to enrol in the LAFD training academy, and by that time he’d almost burnt through his savings (LA was fucking expensive), but as he clicked ‘submit’ on his online application, he felt a sense of accomplishment that he’d never truly allowed himself to feel.

There were two other Evan’s in his class at the Academy, and by the end of day one Firefighter Zimmerman (their trainer) was already tired of the confusion.

It was at the start of day two, on the 12th of February 2013, that he was christened for the second time at the age of twenty-two.

As though Firefighter Zimmerman literally lifted bricks off of his back, Buck’s shoulders slackened and his chest loosened as the tension left along with his name.

Buck.

Buck.

Yeah. Yeah, he could get used to that.

4

Abby was his first real love. She had sunshine in her smile and made Buck think he could find the secret to happiness in her eyes if he stared at them long enough. She wasn’t his usual type and maybe that was the secret? Buck couldn’t remember ever being this content. Buck, who’d never felt like he truly deserved the life he was living, was constantly waiting for the catch. For the other shoe to drop.

Which is why, of course, it did- so fast and so hard that it uprooted his entire life along with it.

“I bought a plane ticket to go to Dublin.” There was an excited smile on her face and an ease about her that Buck had never seen before. It reminded him of how much he still didn’t know about her.

Buck’s entire mind screeched to a halt, freezing as the meaning settled. “Dublin as in…Dublin, Ireland?”

“Yes, Dublin, Ireland. I’m gonna go…for a while, probably.”

The meaning behind her words settled, his muscles tensing as his mind screamed at him. No. Not her.

“But, Evan—” It was then he should’ve known, because Abby never called him that, she knew what it meant for him, knew that it wasn’t him, not really. That Evan hadn’t been him in a long time. “Evan, me going away? Doesn’t have to mean the end. I’ve…I’ve just got to do this. I need to know who I am…without serving other people.”

And Buck had understood. He had. He’d promised. He’d waited. He’d put up with five minute phone conversations separated by whole weeks of silence that Abby blamed on her shitty cell service, he’d put up with getting updates with the rest of the world through Instagram and Facebook.

And then, Buck eventually stopped understanding, lost hope. Broke his promise and stopped waiting.

His love for Abby could only stretch him so far before it was self-destructive. And he was over being self-destructive.

And he was so over his name.

5

Ali was the next girl to give him hope. It took him a while to ease the ache in his heart after Abby, but every time she laughed a crack healed, every time the sun shone through her dark hair it felt as though she’d placed a band-aid over every wound. Even after almost dying pinned under a fire engine, with only a small inkling of hope of ever doing the job he loved again, she still had the power to make him smile.

Ali made him feel the most him since Abby.

Then history repeated itself, as it tended to do, and it all came crashing down.

He wasn’t quite sure how the conversation started, how his smile turned into indignation and the crinkles around her dark eyes transformed to tears, but her voice was soft like a melody as she was pleading and his heart clenched as though her fist was squeezing it.

“It’s not like I didn’t know you were in a dangerous line of work. When I met you, y’know, ten stories up a collapsing high rise—”

“—Exactly!” He interrupted, his voice louder, angrier than he intended, not quite understanding what this meant for them. For him. He didn’t like the way she flinched at his tone.

“That was one day, one day of my life, Evan.” His name made his heart stutter to a stop, as though shocking it into a standstill. “It’s every day of yours. I’m just…starting to really understand what that means.”

It’s when he saw fear in her eyes where he used to see his future that he knew how this would end. She could’ve watched him die. She couldn’t watch him die again.

He watched her leave and felt every crack she’d healed break open again.

+1

After Eddie is shot— after Buck watches him get shot— it takes a while for his mind to understand that everything’s okay. Even when Eddie is up and talking, and smiling at him with that smile that makes his eyes sparkle and makes Buck’s heart skip a beat in a way he’d never taken the time to analyse, his mind takes a minute to catch up.

Buck still feels the blood on him, sometimes. Can feel the phantom splatter of it as it landed on his face, sometimes stares at the shirt he was wearing that he really should throw out but somehow can’t find it in himself because it’s stained with Eddie’s blood, and don’t you understand?

The day Eddie’s due to be discharged, the man asks Buck to sit.

A million things run through his head as he perches himself awkwardly next to Eddie on the stiff hospital bed, turning to face the man and desperately trying not to nervously chew his lower lip (he’s mostly successful).

“You might’ve noticed I almost died. Again.” It was the exhaustion in his voice that made Buck desperately want to reassure him, tell him he never would’ve died, that Buck wouldn’t’ve let him, but— he didn’t because he couldn’t lie to Eddie and because Buck almost did. He just stood there, when he was shot. Probably would’ve stood there a lot longer hadn’t it been for Captain Metha. Probably would’ve been shot himself because his body refused to process that Eddie had been shot. Right in front of him. “Yeah, I’ve had a lot of close calls,” Eddie continued, “This one wasn’t even my closest—”

“—Eddie.”

“Just let me finish.” Eddie pleaded. “After the last time—” The well. “When the well collapsed on top of me—”

“—Which you survived.” Buck interrupted again. Couldn’t help himself. Needed to reassure Eddie— reassure himself— that Eddie was still here, still breathing.

Eddie huffed, nodding before continuing, “After that, it, uh, got me thinking. What would happen to Christopher if I hadn’t? So…I went to my attorney and changed my will. Someday, if I, uh, didn’t make it, Christopher would be taken care of. By you.”

What?

“What?”

“It’s in my will that if I die you become Christopher’s legal guardian.” Eddie stated again, firmly, eyes never leaving Buck’s. Buck squirmed, his mind working overdrive.

“I mean, h-how-how does that even work, don’t you need my consent?”

“My attorney said you could refuse.” Eddie said placatingly.

“But you knew I wouldn’t.”

“But I knew you wouldn’t.” Eddie repeated, smiling smugly, nudging Buck’s knee gently, playfully, with his own.

“But-but he has grandparents. Other family?”

Eddie laughed sarcastically, as though the very idea was ludicrous. “After Shannon died they all tried to guilt me into giving Christopher to them. It’s…not what I wanted then and it’s not what I want now.”

“I-if it came to that, wouldn’t they fight for him?”

Eddie shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe. Probably.” He nodded placatingly, before pausing to look Buck in the eyes seriously. “But no one will ever fight for my son as hard as you. And that is what I want for him.”

“You said you did this last year. Why are you just telling me now?”

“Because, Evan.” Eddie sighed, and instead of the oldness he was expecting, Buck felt his heart fill with warmth at the sound of his name coming from Eddie’s lips in such a way. Almost…loving? “You came in here the other day and you said you thought it would’ve been better if it’d been you who’d been shot. You act like you’re expendable…” Eddie sighs, before raising his hand and placing it over Buck’s, intertwining their fingers. Buck’s heart did somersaults in his chest. “But you’re wrong.”

fin.

andie notes: i published this on ao3 too if you’d like to check it out on there instead! here’s the link:

#evan buckley #buck and eddie #buddie #9 1 1 fanfiction #9 1 1 buddie #eddie diaz #5 + 1 fic #5+1 things #buck buckley #buckley diaz family #buddie fanfic #buddie fandom #buddie fluff #hurt/comfort #Spotify

[quaranmine]

10 Years of Posting Fanfic: A Retrospective

(If you only care about reading my writing from when I was 12, skip to the cut)

I've always enjoyed reading as a kid. I was the kid in class who was reading at a high school level in intermediate school, and the kid who had 8 library books on her desk at a time. Therefore it is no surprise that I quickly realized that I enjoyed writing a lot too.

This post cannot be a look into when I started writing fanfiction though, because frankly I don't remember. Instead, all I have to go off of is the publishing date on my old fanfiction.net profile: December 15, 2013. I'm a little too young for the heyday of Live Journal and other fanfic sites, so ff.net was my first introduction to fanfiction. I also used to use Wattpad now and then, but I never posted anything there. I preferred ff.net, and did not make an AO3 account until 2016.

In middle school and intermediate school, if you asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'd tell you I wanted to be a novelist. Of course my actual career went a different direction--I'm now an environmental outreach specialist. But the great news about writing is that it can be done at any time!

Fanfiction.net was also my introduction into the world of fanfic, back when I stumbled onto some Jayfeather Warrior Cats fanfic from a random google search. It took me entirely by suprise to find out that I could actually read more stories about my favorite characters! It was like stumbling into a gold mine. I still remember how thrilled I was. I was instantly hooked, despite being more than a little traumatized by instantly finding a "lemon" and reading about cat sex at probably 11 or 12 years old. Somehow, that did not stop me. I continued to avoid lemons, and developed a huge taste for angst, whump, and hurt/comfort stories. In retrospect, I'm not sure my mom would have viewed reading about torture or suicidal characters as particularly better than smut, but oh well. She never knew.

Throughout middle school and early high school, I was constantly writing. In middle school I had a notebook and used to hand write fanfics and original stories inside. I had two friends who also liked writing, and together we'd spend time developing and editing each other's stories. It's during this time I posted my first stories on FF.net. In high school, my school gave every student a chromebook laptop, and I started writing fanfic in Google Docs on that. I was fearless and had no problems writing angsty anime fanfic in class, on a school-monitored device.

I stopped writing fanfic somewhere in 10th grade, though I never stopped reading it. I stopped writing it primarily because I spent a lot of time writing other things. I was taking college classes. I doing competitive essay writing (I medalled at state) and competitive literary criticism. I was doing art competitions. In 12th grade, I had a job reporting school news to my local newspaper. I wrote op-eds about the environment and dutifully recorded hours of school board meetings to summarize. Then, I was properly off to college, and despite the pandemic hitting a year later I had classes to take online and a part time job outdoors. I had 60 page mock-environmental risk assessments to write. I was too busy to write fiction.

The MCYT fandom is what brought back my desire to write. The creativity of this fandom is so astounding, and I'm grateful all the time that I get to see the things everybody creates. Back in 2021, I no longer felt like I just wanted to read. I felt restless again, so I started writing a DSMP story about clingyduo at the disc war finale. I scrapped this, but it set things into motion again. In the summer of 2021 I posted my first two fanfics in years. I received such good feedback. By kudos, NWNF is my most popular fic on the site, and The Babysitting Game is still 4th most popular. I'm super grateful for that, and I'm grateful for everybody here who reads my stories. I still can't really comprehend that I post things that people actually read now. I save so many of your comments to keep for later.

I'll stop reviewing my history of writing here. You guys know the rest. I wrote HC, Evo, ESMP, and Life series oneshots. I wrote my first long fic, and then smashed that record by writing another longer one that I'm less than two chapters away from finishing. It's been a huge amount of fun and the improvements I've made in two years of active writing is super encouraging.

If I've made this much progress in 10 years, who's to say what I could do in 10 more years? I really look forward to it.

Anyway, the sappy stuff aside, who wants to read the story I wrote when I was 12? I'll post it below the cut in its entirety, no matter how much psychic damage it dealt me. It's Doctor Who, because of course it is. It always goes back to Doctor Who with me :)

From the TARDIS Files--A One-Shot Book

by: crazykatz430 <- I used to go by this everywhere

Description: This is a book of drabbles and one shots-nothing long will be found here, and it will not be updated frequently. Chapters will often have more than one short story in it. Rated T because I'm paranoid, don't know about what I'll end up writing in future chapters. All that said, enjoy! EDIT: CANCELLED

Published: 2013-12-15

Words: 1196

Rated: Fiction T - Language: English - Genre: Humor/Adventure -

Characters: 11th Doctor, Clara O. - Reviews: 4 - Follows: 1

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A/N: Okay, so this is a collection of four short (I mean SHORT) oneshots I wrote, most of them just drabbles. So far, this will be just a fic to update when I write more short oneshots in the freewrites on my English Class.

Disclaimer: I don't own DW but if I did… <- oh the early days back when we were all sticking disclaimers on things but not knowing why

There will be a linbreak for new oneshots, and a cat symbol (crazyKATZ430..it's in the name) for the time skips or point of view changes..

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Without further ado, I present: Geronimo , Uploaded , The Forgotten , and Cemetery Nightmares .

Geronimo

Set: The Wedding of River Song

I don't know what to say. All my secrets, fears and enemies, they've all caught up to me. I've run too far, run for too long.

The prophecy states that silence will fall when the question is asked. The first question, the oldest and most important question. I do not know what the question is nor do I want to find out, for the silence that falls will be the silence of my death.

I do not want to do die here, at Lake Silencio, Utah, but it is a fixed point. It will always happen no matter how far or long I run from it. I don't want to die alone… don't want to make my love do it.

I have made a plan, one to hopefully save my life and the earth. Everyone will think I am dead, but it will be safer. They'll be safer from me.

Geronimo!

Now I know what to say, the same thing I've always said when adventure and danger and the unknown ensued…

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

Uploaded

Set: The wi-fi's first victim ;

"Where am I?" I whispered, scared. "Hello?"

I looked around myself, studying the surroundings. It was all strange to me, I'd n idea where I was.

I felt panic rising in my chest. "I don't know where I am!" I shrieked, becoming ever more terrified. "Somebody, please, help me! Where am I, I don't know where I am!"

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

I raced around the room looking for a way out of what appeared to be someone's bedroom. I gave a cry when I couldn't get out and I subconsciously returned to the computer. "Help me!" I screamed infrustration and fear, my heart racing as panic took over my body. "I don't know where I am!"

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

The wi-fi had taken its first victim.

The uploading had begun.

The Forgotten

Set: hmm… can't remember. Strange.

I was alone in a cold, dark room, no other living thing in sight.

I can't remember what I've forgotten. But if I can't remember what I've forgotten, then how do I know I forgot something?

But I wasn't alone.

How did I know that? There was nothing visible..yet I felt there was another creature in the room.

Sudden pure, unexplainable terror washed over me. I yanked the sleeve of my shirt down and stared at the underside of my arm. One fresh, black tally mark marred my skin.

The panic reached its heighth and I dropped into a defensive postureautomatically. I didn't know why, it felt like I was forgetting something… I was confused and terrified.

A second crisp tally mark appeared on my arm, closely followed by three more. A full set. But why?

Fifteen or more sets of five tally marks were tattooed on my arm.

Wordlessly I pulled down my right sleeve. What I saw there cause me to scream in fright and drop to the ground.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Doctor who?

Silence will fall when the question is asked. The first question, the oldest question…

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Cemetery Nightmares

Set: New York City, 1950 (set in New York City; however, the

character is British)

The statue had moved. It had really, properly moved!

Eagerly, I lifted my camera to take a picture. "Moving Statues in City Cemetery"? Sounded like a story to me! My editor always thought my stories were rubbish, but I begged to differ. Maybe he's let me print something with proof.

Curiosity killed the cat. This statue could be dangerous, what did I know of it? I smiled as I recalled the second part to the phrase. But satisfaction brought it back. Making up my mind, I held up the camera and clicked a picture.

I waited for it to move again, but it did not. Was it my eyes? No, I'd had two cups of heavily caffeinated tea this morning, you don't start seeing things untill the third day without sleep, I still had a day to go.

I huffed and sighed, closing my eyes. Why must good stories always slip way like this? Or was I just being too impatient?

Either way, I got a shock from when I reopened my eyes. The same stone figure, who seemed to be an angel statue, had moved again, closer to me. I didn't know if I should be happy for more evidence or scared because the hand seemed to be seemed to be reaching out to me…

I blinked again. A small cry escaped my lips as I noted it was closer. Was it all just some sick game? I was the only one in the cemetery though so that option was out of the question. Either way, the expression on the face of the angel now was frightening me. I decided it was best to leave.

I turned to walk back to my car, but on a whim turned to look back again. The statue had moved again, probably 15 meters in a few seconds! I began to tremble. It was like straight out of a horror movie! I just wanted to get away, to get home and out of this creepy place!

Then I made the mistake, my fatal mistake. My eyes began to burn and I blinked, a simple movement. But when I reopened my eyes I stood in a place far more different from where I'd been.

I was somewhere else! It was impossible, the city, cemetery and creepy angel statue were gone too! But where was I? I set out to find someone about what had turned into a nightmare for me. A cemetery nightmare.

The image of an angel becomes an angel.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

One bright red vintage camera lay on the ground, on button switched. The last picture it had taken displayed out from the screen. A seemly harmless picture of an angel statue, taken a minute before the camera's owner was whisked away.

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A/N: There you go, three short oneshots with a fourth that's twice the size of the others! PLease remember to review and say if it was good or not, and have a wonderful day… now that I've given you some stories of dying people. ( Geronimo had no dying but it was pretty intense if I do say so.) And please forgive me, I'm not British so I may tend to overdo some things…

(narrarator voice: she did not, in fact, ever upload another chapter)

Anyway, hope you enjoyed, as soon as I type it up, another's on its way!

#WOOO HOOOO #idk how to tag this #quara fanfic #fanfiction #doctor who

[theoldst4rv1ng]

I’ve finally been told who it was who gr00med and abused me when I was 13. I don’t know how to process this information. I always assumed I’d been a victim of something bigger, more sinister, like some b@stard who would sell the pictures on the dark web or some dirty c*nt who doesn’t wash and lives in his mum’s spare bedroom. I never thought it would be someone who appears on the outside as being a respectable member of the community, a teacher, a kids football coach.

159. That’s how many named victims there were. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY NINE. Children aged 9-16 who this man targeted, manipulated and then blackmailed into sending to most disgusting images and videos. I was probably by comparison one of his tamer targets, got off lightly. And I was one of the first in his campaign to destroy the lives of innocent little girls. I was gr0omed in October 2013. This man wasn’t caught, charged and sentenced until 2022. Nearly a decade after he took my life.

I’ll never forget the threats, the way he was able to gain information about me- where I lived, the school I went to, people in my classes. Turns out it was because he would coach kids in my year football and found me through them. Posing as a teenage boy, he infiltrated my home and destroyed my life in less than a day. I’ll never forget the panic I felt as the lies and the blackmail starting pinging into my phone “I know where you live” “everyone in your school will see this” “I will hurt your little brother … unless you send me that next photo in 10 seconds”. Now being an adult I want to go back and shake myself and shout that he’s lying that he’s trying to trick me. But I can also see how a girl only a teenager by 2weeks would be wracked with fear and guilt because of the messages he sent. The threats were relentless.

I will also always remember the police, and how they treated me when I finally broke down to my parents and they called them. I am disgusted at how I was treated by those pigs who were meant to be helping me. The policeMAN who came barely knew what he was doing and was more concerned with making me feel like a naughty little girl than finding the person who had assaulted me. Quick reminder that I WAS A CHILD AND A VICTIM yet the policeMAN felt that reminding me sending pictures of someone under 16 is illegal and I shouldn’t be doing that is more important.

They took me into an interrogation room. To do a statement as a child victim of online grooming they took me into an interrogation room. I was a vulnerable and abused child and they were treating me like a criminal. The rest is just a blur, a horrific nightmare of a blur. Then

Silence

Completely nothing for 10 fucking years. In that time I have attempted 3 times to end it, developed eating d!s0rders, self/h4rm3d for years. I’m manically depressed and I have an anxiety disorder. He ruined my childhood, he ruined my life.

My dad works in the prison service with s3x offenders and heard whispers about this man who was coming in to the prison, how horrific and strangely localised his targets were. Daddy did some digging, and found the interrogation transcripts and the files on the case and read every single page. The language he used, the way he would target the girls, the way he would blackmail them into sending more and more and more. The names he was using as aliases matched the person who targeted me. It was him. Dad watched JONATHAN CLARKE in court as he plead guilty to 181 offences against an identified 159 victims (estimates of more victims go over 200) and sentenced to 19years in prison. Unfortunately I didn’t find any of this out until a year after sentencing (yesterday to be exact) because my parents were waiting for me to be more mentally stable before telling me. Yesterday I brought the subject up with my mum and she cracked and told me he’d been caught but my case was, as far as we know, not used.

One of my parent’s friends has a little girl who went to court and testified against him. She’s 13 now, NINE when she was targeted. There a going to be countless friends, family members, acquaintances, colleagues of mine who know people, children, who were his victims. Daddy got him moved from the prison here to the Isle of White because there would likely be prison staff and other inmates who have children/family members/friends who were his victims.

I can’t explain the level of rage I feel. The level of disgust and hatred. But also relief. Being made to feel like I was to blame for so long, being forced into a mindset of self ridicule and blame by the police meant that when I found out it wasn’t just me, I grossly felt relief. Relief that I wasn’t the one to blame, that it was a dirty sick p3v3rt who was the bad guy. Relief that it wasn’t just me. But now I can’t get his mugshot out of my mind, I can’t stop thinking that those foul eyes saw all of me, took away my innocence, my dignity, my self worth. EVERYTHING. He took everything from me.

Now what do I do?

I want to hurt him. I want him to go through the pain I went through. Slice away at his skin, starve him for days then when he does eat force him to throw it all up. Take him to inches away from death then pump his stomach and force him to face the world or torture again. I have never felt this level of seething rage before, at least not to another person. It’s quite scary. But what am I doing in reality? Sitting in the bath with my cat sat on the edge writing a blogpost to nobody. Signed off sick from work with anxiety. Dosed up to the eyeballs on sedatives and mood stabilisers. I am so close to fading away it’s comical. So what do I do?

#tw abuse #child abuse #abuse mention #abuse survivor #tw grooming #tw ana relapse #ed behaviour tw #online grooming

[juuicysaros]

THE UNOFFICIAL ST. LOUIS BLUES PRIMER PART TWO: DEFENSEMEN

COLTON PARAYKO (A)

Info: #55, RD, STL 2012

Last season: 4 goals + 27 pts

History: He's actually pretty interesting and I would recommend just reading through his wikipedia for a more in-depth read. He went undrafted in the WHL, then got dropped by his AJHL team and had to pay to tryout with another team to become their 7th defenseman. After being drafted, he played at the University of Alaska Fairbanks for 3 years, then came up to play with the Blues and took several online classes during his rookie season in 15-16 to complete his degree (Business Admininstration)(he is so boring sometimes).

Profile: FAST when he wants to be, plays a ton of minutes on the first defensive pairing but isn't very physical despite being tall as hell (6'6). He's definitely improved from last season and has already nearly doubled his scoring in half the time. Usually on the first or second PP units.

NICK LEDDY

Info: #4, LD, MIN 2009

Last season: 2 goals + 23 pts

Info: From Minnesota and drafted by the Wild, went to college at the University of Minnesota, and by the time he left he had his rights traded to Chicago. He played there and won the cup in both 2013 and 2015, then played for the Islanders for a number of years. Traded to Detroit, then in the beloathed Sundqvist + Walman trade and has played with the Blues since the 21-22 season. Currently midway through a 4 year extension

Profile: VERY good puck protection and stickhandling, though it's not flashy. Great 200-foot player, can and will take the puck from one end straight to the other. Refreshing on a team that sucks ass at zone entries. Making $4 mil a year to be a top pairing defenseman which is damn good if you ask me

Other: My mom kept mixing up him and Bortuzzo. Unfortunately this won't be a problem anymore.

JUSTIN FAULK (A) (Faulker, Flack)

Info: #72, RD, CAR 2010

Last season: 11 goals + 50 pts (career high pts!)

History: Played in the USNTDP, then played at the University of Minnesota Duluth where he won a national championship and set a school record for most points by a defenseman. Played for the Hurricanes from 2011 through the 18-19 season, including being a co-captain and an alternate captain of the team. Traded to Blues and immediately signed a big 7 year contract. 23-24 season is his first as a Blues alternate captain :)

Profile: Solid two-way defenseman, plays a lot of minutes. Good a frequent shooter, a great blueline shot presence which allows lots of tipped goals a rebounds.

Other: Was in the top 20 for longest streak of consecutive NHL games played (17th??), but recently missed 5 games due to injury :( also he's my Favorite

TOREY KRUG

Info: #47, LD, undrafted

Last season: 7 goals + 32 pts

History: A rare undrafted veteran! He played for Michigan State University for 3 years, then signed with the Bruins and made it on the roster full-time by the 13-14 season. He graduated from Michigan State after doing online courses for over 5 years (Political Science, originally Finance but couldn't get credits online). Played with the Bruins in the 2019 SCF against the Blues, and his hit on Robert Thomas actually caused a new rule to be added! Signed a 7 year contract with the Blues as a free agent in 2020

Profile: Underized (5'9) but will throw around both his body and his hands. Decent offense and solid defense.

SCOTT PERUNOVICH (Scotty)

Info: #48, RD, STL 2018

Last season: 2 goals + 20 pts (AHL)

History: I've been very impatiently waiting for this guy's real rookie year for like four years now. He played for Minnesota Duluth (where he took the defenseman scoring title formerly held by Faulk), won the NCAA Frozen Four Championship, and won NCHC rookie of the year. He's a bit undersized (5'10, 175lb) and this has had him battling injuries for the last several seasons. He played 19 games with the Blues in the 21-22 season (including the winter classic!) but spent the entire 22-23 season on the Springfield Thunderbirds recovering from injuries.

Profile: has yet to score an NHL goal but has been a great scorer both in college and in the AHL. Physical player, not much NHL experience with under 50 games under his belt and no concrete defensive partner. Still finding his groove on a team that has struggled defensively

Other: Won the Hobey Baker award in his Junior year of college! Was originally ranked to be drafted around the fourth round, but due to his collegiate performance and Blues scout Keith Tkachuk (!!) he ended up being drafted much earlier

MARCO SCANDELLA

Info: #6, LD, MIN 2008

Last season: 1 goal + 2 pts

History: played his first several years in Minnesota, then in Buffalo, and was traded to both Montreal and then St. Louis in the 19-20 season. Only played 20 games of the 22-23 season due to an early season hip injury and surgery, and then another lower body injury in April that took him out for the rest of the season. He'll be a UFA at the end of the season.

Profile: Pretty run-of-the-mill third pairing defenseman, sometimes a healthy scratch. Blues have struggled defensively and are trying to develop younger defensemen, so he's often the one to be sidelined for them.

Other: his instagram username is @ scandeezy6 which is fucking awesome

TYLER TUCKER (Tucks)

Info: #75, LD, STL 2018

History: Technically in his sophomore season! Played 28 games last year, had his first goal and his first TWO fights. Played for both the San Antonio Rampage (RIP) and the Utica Comets (temporary affiliate) before debuting in Nov 2022. Not on the Blues roster at the moment but has played a non-insignificant amount of games with them!

Profile: A strong defenseman who is very physical. Hasn't had much of an opportunity to prove himself at the NHL level, but has had good offensive seasons in the past. Currently taking a break from the press box for a conditioning stint in Springfield :)

#blues primer

[potteresque-ire]

The Big Politics Meta 

0. Introduction; content notes and warning 1. The Boring Overview: 3rd Time is the Charm? 2. The Political Legacy of 2/27: A Hypothesis 3. Case Report of a Traffic Robbery, Committed October, 2020 >> 4. Two Stories about a State-approved, Top Traffic Star 5. Afterthought: The Big Environment

(Below the Cut — 4. Two Stories about a State-approved, Top Traffic Star)

30 years + 1 week before Gg’s birthdate, 劉 德華 Andy Lau was born.

For those who don’t know him, all you have to know is, he started as an idol in the 1980s, and over the next 20 years, achieved superstardom not only in his home city of Hong Kong, but also in the entire Sinosphere, including China. He is 61 years old now, and his fans are mostly in the late 30s to 40s.

Oh, also this: he was my childhood idol. I’ve followed his news for 30+ years. 

Promotional poster for the programme 牛起來 for the 2021 Spring Gala, with Andy and Dd. Due to COVID restrictions, Andy stayed in Hong Kong for the performance, and was “implanted” into the show with AI.

Why am I talking about Andy? Because, perhaps, some of you have wondered — would things have been different if Gg and Dd are just better in the eyes of the government in some ways? Becoming even more the walking, breathing embodiments of “core socialist values”, maybe? Or, being even more demonstratively, loudly loyal to the government?

Is there a way for stars like them to achieve perfection in the eyes of the Chinese government, and is that perfection necessary for the government’s approval?

The stories about Andy would suggest the answer is no.

The first story I’d like to share is this. At the turn of the millennium, when Andy had as many passionate fans in China as Gg and Dd have now, he wanted to set up a branch of his fan club in China. The Hong Kong style fan club at the time was very different from the online fan clubs in China today — it was more like a recreational club, with a physical location and also, a membership fee. In Andy’s case, for about 25 USD a year, fans could go to his fan club to hang out, take a variety of recreational classes (often based on Andy’s interests), and more importantly, enjoy free admissions to the fan club birthday party in June — in which Andy and his family showed up every year and took pictures with everyone — and a birthday concert in September. 

Andy’s wish was denied. The freedom of assembly was (is) highly restricted in China, and a fan club like that would be more than an assembly — it would be almost a religion (which was (is) even more regulated in China), a shrine where fans would come from far and wide to worship their idol. 

Andy kept trying anyway. When his wish was finally granted in 2009, it came with one condition — his fan club was to be incorporated under the Ministry of Culture, i.e. it would be overseen by the government. Officially, this condition was reworded, embellished as 首個經政府部門批准的社會團體組織 the first government-approved social organisation. In addition, this new social organisation wasn’t called a fan club, but an 影音文化發展促進會 Audio-Visual Cultural Development Promotional Association — a name sounding every bit as stiff and Very Important as Gg’s audience in the Asian Games Concert.

The arrangement didn’t last very long. Andy’s fan club would exit mainland China in 2013, citing restructuring as the cause.

This story confirms the following concept: the Chinese government’s fear and suspicion of top star power has always been there. 

Again, it’s nothing personal. 

Always been there, as well, is the passion of mainland Chinese fans. Even in 2022, those who are old enough to remember still name Andy’s fan 楊 麗娟 Yang Lijuan (right) as the most legendary “crazy fan” in China. The story of her idol worship, which led to her father’s suicide, can be found here. The media in China at the time (2007) expressed sympathy with Yang, encouraged her star-chasing ways until the tragedy happened.

The second story about Andy is much more recent. A month ago (September 3rd), Andy held an online, live concert on Douyin. During the live session only, the total view count was 0.35 billion, or, about a quarter of the country’s population. Of course, each viewer probably contributed to multiple view counts, thus the actual number of people watching was significantly lower. Still, it was a phenomenal attendance.

The tag 頂流 “Top Traffic Star” went on hot search. There were Andy fans talking about, reminiscing their younger days, but there were as many netizens just marvelling … today, I’ve witnessed true, top traffic stardom.

This sentiment isn’t new. Andy’s idol reign in China was in the pre-traffic days, but he has been associated with the term “Top Traffic Star” since his opening his first social media account in China, on Douyin, in 2021. The strange thing is? No one talked about Andy’s traffic as being a bad thing. No one questioned if his traffic had been a result of PR, MCN etc etc. He has continued to get likes and approval from state media, from state officials; he has sung in state-sponsored events, for President Xi.

Why is his treatment so different? Is it because Andy is the perfect star, like Gg said before, like so many people in China have said? 

Of course not — and I say this with confidence, having followed Andy for so many years. Andy has made his share of mistakes. Nothing major— as a star, he is really as professional as they come — but some of these mistakes, if repeated today, would definitely put a significant damper on a younger, rising star’s popularity. Some would even more definitely displease the Chinese government of 2022. 

And the Chinese government of 2022 isn’t unaware of Andy’s history. 

For example, I can still find the remnant of a special issue on CCTV news from more than decade ago, when Andy’s secret marriage had just been uncovered. As romantic as the page may look, the title was 大話天王 Liar Heavenly King, a nickname bestowed upon Andy at the time (Heavenly King was itself a nickname given to the most popular singers in Hong Kong during the 1990s). In the numerous links on the page, the state media recounted every old romantic rumour associated with Andy, from the details of the tell-all by his former girlfriend to his gay rumours. 

The header of CCTV’s online special issue “celebrating” Andy’s marriage (Source).

Even Andy’s career that, in the narrative offered by the Chinese media today, justifies his top traffic, has been built by many things that the Chinese government of 2022 can’t possibly approve. Andy’s rise to superstardom was very much contributed by films that glorified the mafia — Andy’s signature role was the bad boy with a heart of gold. His CV was packed with awfully made movies. The countless music awards he had won? Anyone who is familiar HK-ent at the time would tell you — they were the result of PR, of money and profits changing hands. Hong Kong had a healthy industry of entertainment journalism, and these exchanges were not exactly secrets. Stars have talked about it openly themselves. One of the simplest “rules” of the game, for example, was that attendance to the awards ceremony was required if a star wished to win any major awards, because the star’s attendance would bring viewership to the programme, and the viewership, advertisement income to the stations hosting those ceremonies. 

The same elements that Prof S claimed to have built the evil top traffic-dom of Gg have, therefore, also helped build Andy’s top traffic-dom, only in a different playing field because the industry, the technology had been different then. 

Wong Kar-wai’s directorial debut, and his first commercial success was also a mafia-glorifying movie, 旺角卡門 As Tears Go By (1988), which starred Andy in the lead role. 

And all of this is insignificant to Andy’s political adventures, which would have certainly got him cancelled immediately if he were any younger, any less established. In 1993, he attended Taiwan’s National Birthday celebration, and wore its military suit. Hong Kong’s last colonial governor, Chris Patten, who became the enemy of the Chinese government by attempting to inject more democracy into Hong Kong’s political system right before its handover, called Andy his friend — he used to invite Andy to the governor’s mansion for dinner. 

Do the people in China know, remember these things? Some do. The few antis Andy have (yes, one can be 60 year old and still have antis) were posting his old photos in the military suit here and there, but netizens just looked away, ignored them.

Andy dressed in Taiwan’s military uniform, from 1993. Photos from that evening were sporadically seen in the discussions of the Douyin concert. They didn’t make a splash at all. (Source).

Thus, Andy is far from perfect, by the official standards set by the Chinese government of what perfection means for its top celebrities.

The perception of Andy being perfect — a perception that, by the way, has never been shared in Andy’s home of Hong Kong, even at the height of his popularity there, of the amount of respect he commanded — has actually been fuelled, encouraged by the Chinese government, especially over the last decade. 

In other words, Andy isn’t a state-approved traffic star because he is perfect. Rather, he is perfect because he is a state-approved top traffic star.

What makes Andy state-approved, if it isn’t perfection? Andy * is * very professional. He is polite, kind, generous. He has lived a disciplined, clean private life, and …

Having watched Gg and Dd for two years, I don’t think Gg and Dd are inferior, compared to Andy at their age, in any way. It’s true, of course, that Andy has a far longer list of accomplishments than Gg or Dd has. However, many of those accomplishments were possible only after Andy had reached superstardom — sending fresh, previously overlooked directorial talents onto their paths of success, for example. Andy couldn’t have done it without having amassed sufficient wealth, and sufficient influence in the industry first.

Young stars like Gg and Dd are simply not at that stage in their careers. If a CV like Andy’s is the government’s requirement for a star to justify their top traffic, then, there’s really not much any young star can do — they have already been set up for failure. Andy has a 30+ years head start ahead of them, and that’s before considering that his career rise had happened in a place, an industry with far less rules and restrictions. Censorship.

Perhaps, it all comes to this — Andy can become a state-approved top traffic star because his traffic isn’t threatening anymore. His fans are older; they are there for him, but they are also distracted, tied down by life. They have little time or energy to mobilise, start any movement. 

Their lack of online presence also means … their traffic is no longer worth robbing.

This is the end of the two stories of Andy I’d like to share.

Aside from the question of whether Gg and Dd are just not perfect enough, the stories have got me thinking too: in the days of traffic robbery, wouldn’t selective invisibility be a nice attribute for Chinese fandoms to have? The ability to be alternatively seen and not seen, the ability to camouflage to — I don’t know, the Weibo background? — during politically sensitive moments like now.

Gg and Dd have already made themselves semi-invisible. 

Sometimes, when c-turtles feel the challenges Gg and Dd are facing as the top-traffic stars, they would say the following, derived from the quote Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown from Shakespeare’s Henry IV:

「欲戴王冠，必承其重 」

Literally: If one desires to wear the crown, one must be able to bear its weight.

And I think of the crown; the charts, the graphics intended to broadcast a number one rank in sales, in viewership, in number of endorsements etc etc. I think of all the jewels on the crown, the shining proofs of traffic, of being popular, of being loved ... blings-blings that are just begging to be robbed. A crown that doesn’t, actually, make anyone king. When one is the king, the crown belongs to them — even if that crown is in a high tower somewhere.

I think of President Xi, whose pursuit of his 3rd term of the General Secretary have already given him the nickname Emperor Xi. I think of the “Two Establishes and Two Safeguards”, the propaganda emphasising, dictating “Love me and no body else”. How attractive a crown of popularity must look to him now, on the eve of the National Congress.

And I think,

無冕之王

The King without a Crown.

#pie metas

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

What were your top 10 favorite interactions on Tumblr?

(Thanks!)

1. When necarion-blog made a version of my long post in real LaTeX:

Let me explain to you some things about College

\begin{enumerate}

{\item[{\bf 0} there are no classes

1. This is because everyone in college is secretly a slacker

2. this is not true

3. 0 points}]

2. The first time I talked to one of my non-online friends after reading Floornight. I explained one of the characters to them (it was Arjun), and they asked me "are you saying the character is a nekobo?" and it took a moment for me to realize that, yes, he was a nekobo. It was just a very weird moment

3. Meeting all my internet friends at the same time IRL

4. The NAB chatlog from March 8, 2013

4(a). You know, that one

5. That time my cousin sent me an email expressing confusion about whether the phrase "Prince Namor" referred to a person, and I had to explain that it referred to a character from the Marvel universe. He asked me how that character could be a prince given that he was from the sea, and I had to explain the concept of "title" to him. That was really fun

6. The party where I told a story about how I had licked the ground a lot as a kid because the "ground was a flavor" and a friend told me I should check out "the show with the blue horse" ("My Little Pony")

7. The first time I learned that the person I had a crush on since the summer before 7th grade was "into me" (she gave me a Valentine's Day card at school)

8. My godfather and I had been having a long, frustrating conversation about theology in which he kept bringing up the arguments of William Lane Craig and I kept saying "but there are other Christian philosophers" and he kept saying "I don't know who they are, who are they?" and I mentioned Richard Swinburne (not a Catholic, but an influential Christian philosopher) and asked if that name sounded familiar. He said it didn't, and I said "OK, how about John Hick" and he said "ok, that sounds familiar, it sounds like a drug"

9. Noticing that I could not feel my left hand when I looked at it and my first reaction was to check to see if I was actually in contact with it, and determining that in fact I was (I had gone numb during a nap)

10. The time I took a 10-minute walk and decided that a specific hole in the ground was really cool and decided to document this by creating a Google account and a Google+ account both named "ThePitOfAwesome," of which the only content would be a picture of this hole and a post about how cool it was

10(a). I was about to post to Google+ until I realized that this would make me expose my actual identity to the world and decided it was for the best that I did not do this

10(b). I deleted this Google+ account yesterday because I was worried I would forget about it and later find out I had posted a picture of ThePitOfAwesome to my actual Facebook account

11. I got a new prescription for glasses this year and this morning was the first time I got to wear my new glasses to go outside and when I got up from the dinner table my dad asked if I wanted some water and I said "Yes, I'd like the water" (as opposed to "I'd like water") and my dad's response was "You know, you're talking like someone with glasses on now, it's so obvious" and my mom's response was "Well, duh"

12. When I was 6 or 7, I was playing with my little brother in the living room and I said something was "kind of green" and my dad said "that's just a stupid thing to say, no color is just 'kind of green.' 'Kind of green' doesn't exist" and I remember being really angry and saying something about how I would prove him wrong but realizing that I couldn't, because you couldn't have a color which was 50% green, 50% yellow, etc. The next day he finally caved and said "fine, greenish yellow does exist, whatever"

#henbane-heretic

[the-arcadian-0125]

A “brief” summary of the future.

Hello everyone.

I’m sure by now most of you have noticed a slight decline in the quality of the content and artwork I am currently production and posting.

I will be the first to admit that while I still absolutely love Max and Chloe and the original Life Is Strange universe, I have found myself wanting to branch out to something else. Not something someone else has created but something I have created, something I can call my own.

Over the past year an a half I have focused much of my talent and time into a project I created back in 2013 when I was in high school, that I created purely as part of a early online class which quickly fell in love with as an idea for a book and took to spending most of my time writing.

After I graduated in 2015, I fell into the same thing most people did back then (cringing at saying that) and became board quite fast, I missed the routine of class and my ability to have a desk all my own at which I could work on school stuff and misbehaved with creating my new book and it’s universe and so I did what most people did. Turned to call of duty.. just kidding! Actually I found this amazing little Indy game on the Xbox live store called Life is Strange and fell in love with the original teaser trailer and downloaded the game immediately.

At first I played it like any other game (tried to figure out where the shoot button was!) but as I progressed I quickly learned that this game wasn’t something I was use to and I actually had to start over to fully invest my time in exploring and learning and enjoy every time that it had to offer, and so after a year or two of having fun with it and learning how to create 3D artwork in a program called Daz Studio I decided to try to recreate Max and Chloe… and I’m not kidding when I same those first dozen or so renders were absolutely a dumpster fire, and I was scared to even post them but I finally decided on one and posted it to deviant art (Instagram and Facebook groups where far beyond my understanding at the time)

So I did what anyone would do after posting several fanart renders online…. I completely forgot I did it.

Now quick back story about me, HI my name is Nate and two years after finishing high school I did the unthinkable… I went to work for my Dad and became a carpenter. Luckily I was able to work for him during the day and spent way to much time at night playing games and working full force on Life is strange renders in a program I was just scratching the surface of. Over the past 7 years I have helped build over 25 homes and worked on several remodels and consider myself and expert carpenter.

Now for the future stuff. Over a year ago my Dad told me that this next house we were getting ready to build would be his last (he’s been in the business for 40+ years) and at the time I didn’t care, I was sitting on easy street for the most part running a pretty good side hustle that actually hasn’t made me any money and has cost me well over $2,000 in virtual assets but hey I was getting paid good money by him to do the job he taught me and I did it with a passion. It was at this time while vacation, I decided it’s time to bring the book idea back and I did the same thing I did when I got into LIS and went full force into it, not only redoing the characters but also the story of my book in order to bring it to life.

Now for reality. As of July 7 I have been unemployed, my dad and I finished our last house together and managed to sell it for more then he expected. Normally that would be cause for celebration but while he gets to retire I am left with the question of “what’s next for me?” I can’t make a living off of doing LIS content as I don’t want to make money off of someone else’s creation and I’m nowhere near ready to get my book published as I’ve only cemented in the first 3/4 of the story and yet to have an ending that I like and want.

Luckily I have another option, I’m not going to get into the details here but I’ll be starting the next chapter of my career next week Monday. It’s going to be a pretty intense change for me and it’s basically a 100% guarantee it’s going to effect what my abilities to create content for this community going forward. However I will be making more money then I am now and be able to make purchases for things I’ve always wanted like a new computer and upgraded components that I’ve wanted for a very long time that would help me be able to not only bring better LIS content to the table but also content I have created based off the ideas I have created.

With all of this having been said, I’m hopeful for what the future might hold for me. There are many stories and renders I can’t wait to share with you all, and let’s be honest. Max and Chloe’s story isn’t over yet, I have tons of ideas for renders of where their lives might take them following my own idea of events in the first game and I really can’t wait to share them all with you along side my own self inspired content.

Sincerely, The Arcadian 🙂

#life is strange

[thiaschuessler]

2022 Roundup

Here we are again. And by "we" I mean just me, because not even my momma asked for this year-end summary.

Per usual, 2022 had its ups and downs:

DOWN: The commercial agent who signed me in April 2021 left the company at the end of the year to start his own. He never got me one single commercial audition in those ~9 months.

UP: Their new commercial agent decided to renew my contract in April 2022 after a zoom meeting. She got me a handful of commercial auditions within her first few months for legit clients like Estee Lauder, Forward, NBC Universal, and Kate Spade.

DOWN: In July, the agency decided to dissolve their commercial department altogether. Womp womp.*

UP: Also in July, the short film I made with my cousin Marisa in July 2021 finally premiered at home at the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase, and our supportive family got to come see it on the big screen with a packed audience. Being of the horror genre, it had a surge of screenings at genre festivals around Halloween both at home where it was shot and in LA where Marisa and I live. We even won BEST FILM and BEST EXPERIMENTAL at two horror fests.

Other than that, I did lots of self-taping and had a few callbacks - both on zoom and in person (which I'm mentioning for the sake of historical reference). I was cast in a feature that was then cut down to a short film, and my character was cut with it. I did get to shoot an Amazon demo for their new palm payment technology + a music video with a lifelong musician friend.

I joined an actor training group in May that I wish I had known about during the pandemic. It's all online and covers all facets of acting: the craft, the business, and the mentality.

For the second half of the year, a lot of my energy went towards my brand new camper van rental business venture. Inspired by the newfound prospect of a "free" filming location, I spent September outlining a feature film starring my new Sprinter van. Hopefully, I'll get around to shooting something in it next year.

*Since this blog is really just for me... for the sake tracking my acting career... let me just write out my history of representation:

My 1st agency out of college repped me in exchange for free labor (internship). I was with them for 2.5 years, until they dissolved their entire agency. (March 2010-Sept 2012)

My 1st manager repped me, because I sent her a blind submission email asking to meet with her. We met, and she liked me. Very straightforward. I was with her for a little over 3 years, until she decided to focus on coaching and managing her child actor clients. (Jan 2012-March 2015)

My 2nd agency repped me, because I took acting classes from the commercial agent. My manager had suggested her class to me, so I took it for 1.5 years, and she loved me. They signed me across the board. I was with them for almost 3 years, until they decided to rep only their literary clients and dissolved their entire acting division. (June 2013-Sept 2016)

My 3rd agency added me to their commercial roster because of a blind submission (one email and one phone call). I was with them for a little less than two years, until they dissolved their commercial department. (April 2021-Dec 2022)

If the business is hard for actors, it's just as hard for their reps. If I'm not making money, they're not making money.

Apparently, I went without representation for most of the years when I was producing my own work through Shy Ruby (2013-2019). My agent/manager hiatus also perfectly aligns with the moment in Hollywood when Casting Director workshops were being shut down and exposed for the cons that they were (c. 2016). From the moment I graduated from theatre school in 2009, I was signing up for 2-3 workshops per week ($50 each), to sit through about 30minutes of Q&A before performing a quick scene for a Casting Director (or more likely, a Casting Associate or Assistant). I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars. I got so many compliments and words of encouragement, but maybe only a handful of actual auditions from essentially paying to audition for them. Read all about the scam here.

Anyway, it's just interesting (to me) to follow that trajectory and understand why I was jaded enough to step back from Hollywood and only work on my own stuff for the latter half of the 2010s.

[nickgerlich]

It’s For You

It is now safe to say that we have an entire generation that has known cell phones their entire lives. They have never felt the need for a land line. They have always had a phone in pocket or purse, ranging from 10-key flip phones, to sliders, Blackberrys, and more recently, smartphones.



I’m talking about Generation Z, of course, the social cohort whose demarcation year—1997—is considered the point after which online life had become nearly ubiquitous. What those demographers overlooked, though, is that this was about the same time that cell phone ownership became nearly as common. While we can all take some credit in this, Gen-Z quickly realized that these phones are for more than just talking or texting. They are lifestyle devices.



I got my first cell phone in 1994, a Motorola bag phone that had to be tethered to both vehicle power and a rooftop antenna. It was basically a heavy walkie-talkie, but it worked. And boy howdy were the fees high. I paid by the minute, which went down a little bit in the evening. Suffice it to say, I only used it for very important calls.



What most people don’t realize is that the first cell phone was introduced in 1973. Marty Cooper is credited as being the inventor, the visionary who saw the need for mobile communications. But the wheels had already started rolling at least a decade prior, because the Dallas Police Department already had dictaphones for squad car and motorcycle cops when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. They relied on a cellular network much like that which we have today, albeit with much less clarity.

It’s just that it took a long time for this product to diffuse, primarily because of cost. They required development of an entirely new infrastructure, one which we are still trying to complete. I laugh at T-Mobile’s ads that say they have 99% of all Americans covered. Right. If they all stay home. The ad says nothing about how much (or how little) geography they have covered, which we have all discovered whenever we fall off the grid out west.



But now Mr. Cooper, still a visionary, predicts a future in which we will all have cell phones implanted under our skin. Cue the Biblical prophesies of end times and all that once more. It’s one thing to envision using our palm print to buy at an Amazon store. It’s quite another to imagine our iPhone embedded in our body.

It’s not like others haven’t already tried to go down this road, but it was with wearables. Google Glass was a well-intended but poorly deployed set of eyewear that could function much like a smartphone. It landed with a $1500 thud in 2013. More recently, there is the collab between Meta and Ray-Ban that has yielded similar glasses.

But wearables have always been more about the hype than the hope for a better user experience. They still have a long way to go, which may have served as impetus for Mr. Cooper to picture a phone that was not just on our body, but also in it.



Of course, this leaves a lot of other unanswered questions, because without a visual aspect, it just becomes another Alexa device. We need screens somewhere, which necessarily involves a handheld device, or perhaps holograms that are projected before our eyes. Now it’s time to cue the crashes and missteps.



And how might we issue orders? By merely thinking of them? Or would we have to actually say something, kind of like we do with our digital assistants today? And if we are texting to someone, would we similarly have to enunciate it and rely on voice dictation—which can be dangerous—to get the job done?

Now imagine the ability to merely “think” something into action. Or being able to instruct the computer that is inside your head to access ChatGPT and have it compose an essay while you are finishing an in-class exam. Of course, you’d have to be able to download it somehow, but those are mere details. And consider social media. We might be able to post content, as well as click the Like and Heart icons without ever tapping a finger. The possibilities are limitless.



By now you have probably detected that I am poking a little fun at this notion. Truthfully, I consider it just a bit absurd. Well, I once thought the same of the first iPhone, but a year later I drank the Kool-Aid. I have guzzled it ever since, and I bet I could just as easily drink from this fountain as well. I think Mr. Cooper’s idea needs some fine-tuning and then selling. It could take a few years, maybe decades.

Just like the first cell phones needed a quarter of a century before they took off. Innovations can be like that. Gen-Z can say they were at least here for the beginning of the conversation of the embedded phone, but there may be a couple more generations down the road before one emerges that can lay claim to having lived their entire lives with it.



And now I am left trying to figure out what my generation can claim as ours. I’m thinking color television and microwave ovens. They’re not much, but they were a start, and we embraced them. You’re welcome.

Dr “We Were Simple Like That“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #cellphone #technology #communication

[shytulipghost]

Did anyone see this play as a kid?

I thought it would be fun to share what first introduced me to Jekyll and Hyde, since I haven't seen anyone talk about it and there's not much content about it online.

This is a play made by a company called The Performers and it's aimed at children who are learning English (Spanish is my first language). I saw it in 2013 with my class, when we were in fifth grade.

For this post, I tried to look for video clips of the 2013 show (called "Jekyll and Hyde") on the group's Facebook page, but I could only find videos from the 2018 show (they changed the name to "Crazy Jekyll"). From what I've seen, everything is mostly the same, so I'll be using those videos to complement the plot summary and add a few comments. But first, let me give you some information about the company, so you have some context.

About the company:

"THE PERFORMERS is an International Theatre Company which produces plays in English to serve the educational needs of English language teaching institutions." (from The Performers' Twitter profile)

Their plays are aimed at three age groups: kindergarten students, children aged 9-12 and teenagers (they have different plays for each group). The ones made for the first two groups are original musicals and they have a moral at the end. I don't know much about the ones made for teenagers, but from what I've seen on their social media, they seem to adapt Shakespeare's plays.

Before the pandemic, they used to perform every year in local theaters across Latin America, mainly in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Brazil, Panama and Mexico. Nowadays, their plays are on digital format, but you need to sign up on their website to watch them.

My school was familiar with the company as we had seen two previous plays from them: one in kindergarten, which was about colours, and the other one in fourth grade, which was about Mycroft Holmes pretending to be his brother. The play I'm about to talk about is the last one my school took us to see (we saw it with the students from fourth and sixth grade).

What I remember of the plot:

The first thing that you need to know is that this isn’t a theatrical adaptation of the novella, it just has Dr. Jekyll as the main character. All the other characters are original and the whole show takes place in the lab. 

NOTE: The summary will be in normal colour and my comments will be in orange, in case you want to read them later.

Okay, I’ll start summarizing the plot now:

So in this version, Jekyll has an assistant called Doris and, together, they make the potion, which they refer to as the “dual-personality formula” (yeah, they go for the pop culture interpretation). Why do they make the potion? I don’t remember, but I think it’s never explained. Let’s just say they do it for science. 

Anyway, Jekyll tells Doris to leave for a moment and, once he’s alone, he drinks the potion and turns into Mr. Hyde, but not for too long. Since this is a musical for kids, he doesn’t do anything horrible; he just says “I’m evil!” (figuratively) and that’s it. Let me just say that 10-year-old me found the first transformation scene very uncomfortable:

(Sorry it had to be Facebook posts. There are no clips on YouTube. Luckily, you don't need an account to watch them.)

Warning: flashing lights

Personally, I think the 2013 actor did a better job showing that the transformation is supposed to be painful, but still, in the video you can see that I'm not exaggerating. Some children may find this scene uncomfortable or, in the case of the audience shown in the clip and this other one, absolutely terrifying.

I also think the 2013 version had a more serious tone because I remember the lights stayed red when Hyde was talking, he had a deeper voice and there was ominous music in the background (not the same as the one in the video). Instead of saying "I feel powerful!" and all that stuff, he introduced himself as he walked slowly on the stage (he spoke like this: "I'm... Mister... Hyde...). I wish there was a video from 2013 so I could make an actual comparison and analyze it critically.

Worried about the potential dangers, Jekyll puts the potion in a box and tells Doris to hide it somewhere and not tell him where it is. However, he changes his mind later and asks her to bring him back the box. He drinks the potion again, Hyde says evil stuff (seriously, he doesn't do anything), turns back into Jekyll and the cycle repeats two or three times. Sorry for not going into more detail, I only remember the most important plot events.

Occasionally, throughout the play, a man shows up on the TV screen and checks up on the other characters (I think he's supposed to be Jekyll's boss or supervisor). He doesn't contribute much to the plot; he is just the comic relief character. There's this running gag that he always has problems with the webcam and, before leaving, he asks the others if they can see him and the object he is holding. The dialogue goes like this:

TV man: Can you see me?

Characters on stage: No.

TV man: Can you see this X? (for example, hamburger, Barbie doll, etc.)

Characters on stage: No.

[TV man leaves]

Moving on with the story, it is revealed that Doris has a crush on Jekyll, but she hasn't told him yet. Soon after this, she meets Hyde and starts to also have feelings for him because of his good looks (it seems like they took more inspiration from The Nutty Professor, where the Hyde character is supposed to be handsome). Jekyll, who is love with Doris as well, starts to drink more and more, so that she gets to spend more time with his "evil", but charming self. Every time he transformed into Hyde, I was like “No, not again” (I didn’t like how he moaned in pain). 

At some point, there is a love duet and this is where the video is different from what I remember:

This part is weird because I remember the song was slower and the assistant sang with Hyde, not with Jekyll. Mandela effect, perhaps? Also, I'm glad they kept the funniest part in the video (1:11). The TV man was my favourite character.

Okay, I need to explain the following so you can understand the ending:

By the time the fifth or sixth transformation occurs, Hyde decides to hide (oh my God...) the potion in his vest pocket so that he never turns back into Jekyll again and nobody else finds the formula. It is at this point that the play treats the potion as if it were his heart or something similar. Keep the last part in mind.

Later in the story, two rival scientists arrive and they plan to steal Jekyll's potion so they can become famous. They sing a catchy song about it:

After that, they meet the other two characters and ask where the potion is. Hyde says something like "I don't know what you're talking about" and they argue for a while before being interrupted by the TV man, who does his gag one more time.

I'll be honest: I don't remember if anything relevant happens afterwards. I saw this almost ten years ago, so sorry for not having a perfect memory. Let's just skip to the ending...

Eventually, the other characters realize that Hyde has the potion and needs it to "survive", so the rival's assistant runs up to him, takes the potion out of his pocket and throws it to the ground. The glass shatters... Hyde yells something like "NO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" and disappears for good. He doesn't return briefly like in the Broadway musical.

Jekyll turns back to normal and confesses everything, including his love for Doris, who also admits that she is in love with him. She adds that he didn't need to drink the potion because she already loved him for who he really is. The play ends with the main characters singing the moral of the story.

In retrospect:

When I left the theater, I didn't feel anything (I was still thinking about the first and last transformation scene), but deep down I really enjoyed it. I mean, why else would I remember this play? Overall, it was good. It had funny moments and I still remember some of the songs.

Looking back, I think the only problem they had was with Hyde. He tells the audience that he's evil, but he doesn't show that he's evil. He doesn't do much actually. Look, obviously, they couldn't show him committing murder because of the target audience, but there were other ways they could have done it. They could have made him break stuff in the lab, make fun of the other characters (the rivals, for example) or do pranks on them. Something that would have given him a more active role in the story. Nonetheless, it's still a good musical for children.

Although this is what first introduced to me to Jekyll and Hyde, I didn't become interested in it until 4 years later, when I watched a "Confrontation" animatic on YouTube. As I was watching it, I thought "Wait a minute, those two names seem familiar". I decided to watch two more animatics from the same channel and, the moment I saw the potion and the transformation, I remembered the play. From then on, I began to watch more videos related to the Broadway musical, because it was entirely different from the one I had seen, and somehow, 6 years later, I got here.

Well, that's the end of my anecdote. If you made it this far, I'm glad that I didn't bore you. The reason why I made this post was because I was curious if someone else saw it, considering that the company used to perform in various countries. I tried to look for more information about the 2013 show on the company's Twitter and Facebook page, but I couldn't find much. The only thing I know is that they performed in Argentina (in my province, at least) and Uruguay (based on the description of this very old post), but I'm not sure about the other countries I mentioned earlier (maybe they performed the previous year in those places). So if anyone in the fandom is Latin American, tell me if you also saw the play in primary school. If not, it doesn't matter. I just wanted to share something from my childhood.

Feel free to share if you had a similar experience as a kid.

#my post #long post #jekyll and hyde #dr jekyll and mr hyde #i'm gonna be surprised if someone else saw it

[queenofthedorks]

Last March I was officially diagnosed with ADHD after being unofficial diagnosed twice. Once my freshman year of high school when both my brother and father were diagnosed, the shrink was like “Oh yeah. She definitely has signs, but she’s doing fine in school. We don't need to do anything.” I then proceeded to deliberately flunk 8 classes in the next two years because I did not want to be in those classes, but no one did anything. BECAUSE I WAS FINE.

The second time I was unofficially diagnosed was in Fall 2013. I was working a full-time job and taking 9 credit hours of studio art, and I was getting close to graduating and trying to decide what to do, and it was just too much. Every time I sat down to make art, I had a meltdown. So I’m like okay. It’s time. I need meds. But I didn’t understand that sometimes you have to really push, and the doctor was like you're fine. Once you graduate, it will be fine.

I proceeded to almost tank grad school at least once a year for 3 years, and after a hardware failure, forgetting to back up, and in general, just being unmedicated ended up writing 60 pages of thesis in 2 weeks in a sheer fucking panic. BUT I WAS FINE.

Anyway, that's not what this is about.

Last March I WAS NOT FINE. (IDK how anyone could possibly be fine coming out of 2020/21, but that's also not what this is about.) So I took advantage of an online service, because finding a shrink to meet with in person after the previous instances was just TOO FUCKING MUCH.

And the online service was like GuuurRL. Congrats. You got both the inattentive type and the impulsive type. Well done. Well done indeed. We recommend medication. Also, some therapy, cause we’re a little worried about you.

At my med appointment, the shrink and I talked and eventually ended up with Concerta because, as I pointed out, I don’t remember to drink water or eat my lunch half of the time. I won’t remember to take my meds more than once a day.

And I was incredibly lucky because it worked pretty much straight out of the gate. I’d heard some horror stories so I was prepared to throw a fit, but the preauthorization was approved in like two hours, and I started taking my meds I wasn’t always 100%, but OMG, it was a night and day difference between being medicated and not. It took less energy to focus on the big stuff, which meant I wasn’t exhausted and frozen when I attempted the little stuff. And the constant low grade grind of anxiety I felt on a daily basis almost completely disappeared.

Then in January, I picked up my prescription and was like huh. The shape of my pills changed. Which should have given me a moment of pause, but this is the first long term prescription I’ve taken. About three-quarters of the way through January, I realized I was struggling. It wasn't quite as bad as not being medicated at all, but suddenly the little things like working out, cleaning, and packing my lunch became next to impossible to do again. And I don’t know, maybe it was actually worse, because I now know what I should feel like and I wasn’t. But still, I’ve been so gaslit by my previous experiences that I thought it was maybe me. January was especially grey this year, so I upped my vitamin D. Made some effort to sit in the sun when it was available and poured some effort into focus. And still I struggled. Anxiety kicked back up; small things slipped further through the cracks. I was really getting down on myself, because I should be fine. And I was not. So clearly I was fucking up some how.

And then I saw a tiktok from someone who was essentially in the same situation, but even worse. They’d been great for like a decade, but in the last two months it has been a constant struggle. And oh btw they were also taking Concerta. I decided maybe it wasn't just me, being me then. Maybe, there was something wrong. So, I started digging and discovered three things that happened at essentially the same time.

My insurance stopped covering the name brand.

The one manufacturer whose generic was precisely the same as the name brand stopped manufacturing it.

The generic that the pharmacy is giving is a bilayer tablet instead of a trilayer and is supposed to be time release, but????

The reason Concerta really works for some people is not the meds inside so much--it's just Ritalin--it's the way it's delivered. It's designed to do an initial dump of about 20% of the drug in the first hour or so, and then it does a really slow release of the rest of the drug for about 10 hours. Unfortunately, it's a proprietary delivery system, and with Janssen no longer producing it, it's the named brand or nothing.

Whatever this generic is doing it’s not doing it the way I needed to. And I should be fine, but I’m not. So after being kind paralyzed by anxiety and executive dysfunction for several weeks I am finally gonna talk to the doctor today about I don’t know? A new med? I don’t even know how this works. I just know that I know how functional feels now, so I’m not going back to not if I can at all help it.

Anyway, the American healthcare system is bullshit. Like I get that I’m incredibly privileged to have the meds covered at all, but fuck they should not be able to just suddenly decide I can only take a generic that’s not really equal to the named brand.

So after much dithering about if I should talk to someone, I finally made an appointment today. And after I made the appointment I realized they the only reason I dithered was because I’m concerned that someone is going to tell me I’m fine.

#adhdlife #living with adhd #adhd #long post

[chris-durand]

Social Media Comm Blog #1

Tumblr Blog #1

Although there has been an extreme rise in how social media affects our everyday lives, I do remember a time before apps like Instagram and Snapchat came into my peripheral. It wasn’t until the early 2010s that I first took notice of social media in its current form. Some could argue that communicating with strangers on Roblox or using AOL chatrooms was the original social media, and they’d be correct. However, the evolution from then up until now has shown a vast growth in its influence on society. Defining social media in basic terms would oversimplify a complicated and diverse way of communicating, but, using a more detailed definition could lead to issues in the future. If social media and online communication change in a way that has not been foreseen, a singular basic definition cannot be tied to something so impermanent. Therefore, social media’s definition can only be defined by its most current status, which is everchanging. I personally define social media as a platform of communication used between civilians, corporate bodies, and most recently artificial intelligence to spread information (and misinformation) on the World Wide Web.

My first introduction to social media was via Instagram in 2012 when the company first went public. Although it was a hot new craze, Instagram had the same novelty feeling as any other useless app on an early-generation iPhone/iPod. As years went on, however, Instagram became a permanent staple in how we communicate and view one another. Then came Snapchat, a video-sharing and messaging app that had a feature where all public posts had a shelf life of twenty-four hours before disappearing. Over the subsequent decade (2013-2023), Snapchat became a cesspool of people who garnered clout and social status by romanticizing their own lives, which is a phenomenon that has plagued people my age for years. From my experience, nothing good ever happens on Snapchat. 

I see myself as being a very socially conscious user of social media, limiting my time on the internet and doing everything in my power to not get bogged down by the microcosm social media algorithms have curated for me. I am constantly deleting and redownloading apps, a struggle I have been fighting since making my first Instagram account back in grade school. While I am able to limit my own use significantly, those who can’t should not be blamed for insane average screen times and constant internet usage. I use social media in passing, whereas others may use it as an escape or alternative to the physical world. Many people born in the late 1990s to early 2000s are children of the internet and have inadvertently been the driving force behind social media’s explosion. It has been curated for us by people and industries who had no foresight as to what their ideas would do to our brains and culture. Now everyone has ADHD, and that’s real. 

I am anti social media. I have no actual use for it other than using it as a form of entertainment when I’m bored (i.e. Instagram Reels, Twitter feed). However, I can recognize that there are many ways to use social media for productive purposes. I would like to understand this new facet of life that I have grown up with and fought against. In many ways, I have been indoctrinated, pandered to, and have had the agency to use the internet freely taken from me without the very obvious presence of an algorithm choosing what I see (and what I don’t see). I would like this class to give me a larger perspective as to what social media can do for me and how it can be used for something other than consumption or political propaganda.

[chrisjdurand]

COMM-1400-600 Tumblr Blog #1

Although there has been an extreme rise in how social media affects our everyday lives, I do remember a time before apps like Instagram and Snapchat came into my peripheral. It wasn’t until the early 2010s that I first took notice of social media in its current form. Some could argue that communicating with strangers on Roblox or using AOL chatrooms was the original social media, and they’d be correct. However, the evolution from then up until now has shown a vast growth in its influence on society. Defining social media in basic terms would oversimplify a complicated and diverse way of communicating, but, using a more detailed definition could lead to issues in the future. If social media and online communication change in a way that has not been foreseen, a singular basic definition cannot be tied to something so impermanent. Therefore, social media’s definition can only be defined by its most current status, which is everchanging. I personally define social media as a platform of communication used between civilians, corporate bodies, and most recently artificial intelligence to spread information (and misinformation) on the World Wide Web.

My first introduction to social media was via Instagram in 2012 when the company first went public. Although it was a hot new craze, Instagram had the same novelty feeling as any other useless app on an early-generation iPhone/iPod. As years went on, however, Instagram became a permanent staple in how we communicate and view one another. Then came Snapchat, a video-sharing and messaging app that had a feature where all public posts had a shelf life of twenty-four hours before disappearing. Over the subsequent decade (2013-2023), Snapchat became a cesspool of people who garnered clout and social status by romanticizing their own lives, which is a phenomenon that has plagued people my age for years. From my experience, nothing good ever happens on Snapchat. 

I see myself as being a very socially conscious user of social media, limiting my time on the internet and doing everything in my power to not get bogged down by the microcosm social media algorithms have curated for me. I am constantly deleting and redownloading apps, a struggle I have been fighting since making my first Instagram account back in grade school. While I am able to limit my own use significantly, those who can’t should not be blamed for insane average screen times and constant internet usage. I use social media in passing, whereas others may use it as an escape or alternative to the physical world. Many people born in the late 1990s to early 2000s are children of the internet and have inadvertently been the driving force behind social media’s explosion. It has been curated for us by people and industries who had no foresight as to what their ideas would do to our brains and culture. Now everyone has ADHD, and that’s real. 

I am anti social media. I have no actual use for it other than using it as a form of entertainment when I’m bored (i.e. Instagram Reels, Twitter feed). However, I can recognize that there are many ways to use social media for productive purposes. I would like to understand this new facet of life that I have grown up with and fought against. In many ways, I have been indoctrinated, pandered to, and have had the agency to use the internet freely taken from me without the very obvious presence of an algorithm choosing what I see (and what I don’t see). I would like this class to give me a larger perspective as to what social media can do for me and how it can be used for something other than consumption or political propaganda.

[movieremakesandmore]

Primary Source

Carrie (1976)

For my primary source post, I decided to watch a movie from the late 70s and its remake from the early 2010s. The movie I chose to watch is Stephen King's Carrie. Carrie was originally published as a novel in 1974 and eventually became a New York Times bestseller. It became so popular that it was made into a movie only two years later. This movie is a classic for horror film fans, making 33.8 million dollars in the box office. It has a 7.4/10 star rating on IMDb and is directed by Brian de Palma. Carrie is played by Sissy Spacek and Tommy, Carrie's date to the prom, is played by William Katt. While watching this movie, I could tell that it took place in the 70s based off of the costume design, hairstyles, camera quality, and dialogue. For example, the girls wore brightly patterned shirts and had perms. The opening scene takes place during a high school gym class volleyball game, and the locker room afterwards where Carrie gets bullied by the girls in her class. Overall, the movie has a good storyline, cinematography, and acting. So why was it remade?

Carrie (2013)

The Carrie remake did even better than the first, making 84.8 million dollars in the box office. However, it only has a 5.8/10 star rating on IMDb and has a different director, Kimberly Pierce. Carrie is played by Chloe Grace-Moretz and Tommy is played by Ansel Elgort. While the original movie took place in the 70s, the remake decided to put a modern twist on the movie, having it take place in the early 2010s. You can tell this by looking at the clothing styles, use of cell phones, and music. For example, the girls wore flashier dresses and had their hair straightened. The bullying in the movie goes a step further when the girls take a video of Carrie and post it online. The opening scene is also different, showing Carrie's mom giving birth first, then after the title it shows the pool volleyball scene. Overall, this version of Carrie has essentially the same storyline, character development, and use of talented actors and actresses. So, which one is better? Looking at evidence through many review sites such as Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and Google Reviews, the 1976 version has scored much better. But the real "better version" is up to you, as the viewer, to decide! In my opinion, I like the 2013 version better because I think the scene at prom is much more intense, and the characters have more personality and development than they did before.

[spygong28]

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#how to become a model in cape town #how to be a model in south africa #how to become a model in south africa