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ghosttotheparty · 4 years

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say my name and say it twice (cotton candy skies)

13. also on AO3 chapter twelve

Lucas’s cheeks flushed when Jens kissed his face. That’s why he did it again, of course.

Jens doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anything more in his life than he wants to kiss Lucas. Just to kiss him. (Though he wouldn’t be opposed to… anything else. If Lucas is interested.) Hell, he’d like to just hold his hand right now, to brush the tips of his fingers over Lucas’s knuckles, to lace their fingers, let their hands hang between them as they walk. It’s dark out, lights and stars and scattered clouds glowing in what looks like a desolate, separate dimension. Some day, hopefully, maybe, he’d like to take Lucas around the city at night, pretend they’re the only people in the world, in the universe. He’d kiss him in the middle of the street, just because he can.

And then he’d kiss him again.

Jens can only hear his footsteps as he makes his way to his apartment building. It’s late, late enough that his mom and Lotte and Dilan should be asleep, late enough that he can’t hear people, or cars, which he finds strange, as it’s a Friday night. His phone is in his pocket, his hands gripping the straps of his backpack loosely, a very slight sluggishness in his step as he yawns, his breath glowing in the air in front of him like the clouds in the moonlight.

The gate clatters loudly as he opens it, and he winces. He tries to keep his footsteps light as he makes his way to his apartment, a hand on the wall to keep himself steady.

He unlocks and opens the door slowly, toeing his shoes off, when he freezes, hearing muffled voices coming from the kitchen.

It’s a familiar sound, making his shoulders stiffen, the hair on the back of his neck stand up, especially when he hears his mom’s voice break through the walls, taut with stress, the end of her sentence drowning into a stage whisper. Jens can’t quite make out what she’s saying.

He sets his shoes to the side and drops his backpack lightly, as quietly as he can, and steps down the hallway, wincing at every creak the floor makes under his feet. He steps next to the kitchen door, pressing his ear to it, listening intently.

Dilan’s voice makes his heart twist.

“—a man, maybe he’ll turn into one!”

“Don’t—” His mom’s voice cuts off and she takes a deep breath. “Don’t say stuff like that, he’s just who he wants to be and ballet doesn’t—”

“Doesn’t what?”

Jens already knew they’re talking about him, but his stomach still sinks.

“Make him less of a man?” Dilan continues. “Fenna, you’re raising a—”

“Stop.” Her voice shakes.

Jens’s breath stutters and he bites his lip.

There’s a moment of silence before he hears Dilan take a deep breath.

“Look. I’m just saying, I stay here, or you find a husband, and your kids will have a role model, and—”

“My kids are just fine.”

“No, they’re not. You’ve got a fucking ballet dancer and a kid with, what, autism?” A pause, and Jens’s blood begins to boil. “Where did you go wrong?”

Jens’s brow furrows as he listens. His hands are beginning to shake.

“I don’t—” She takes a shuddering breath and Jens can imagine her shaking her head, at a loss for words. “What matters to me,” she says slowly, “is that they’re happy, and Jens is happy, and—”

“Is Lotte happy?”

Jens wants to curse him for interrupting.

“Is Lotte really happy?” Dilan repeats. “She can hardly hold up her end of a conversation, can hardly go to a public place and handle it.”

Silence.

And then he continues. He never seems to stop.

“She needs a role model, she needs someone to look up to, she needs to be… fixed.”

“What?”

Jens mouths the word to himself at the same time as she says it, with half a mind to slam the door open and hit him. He realises his hand is set on the doorknob, gripping it loosely, ready to throw it open and stand in front of his mother.

“My daughter does not need to be fixed, she is not a broken machine or a —” She cuts off with a stuttering gasp and Jens’s hand tightens, but then there’s a sniffle and Jens realises she’s crying. His own eyes burn.

“She is the way she is. There’s nothing wrong with her.”

“Nothing wrong with her? Fenna, you’re doing it all wrong.” His voice is soft like he’s trying to soothe a child. “You need to—”

“Don’t.”

Jens has never heard her talk like this. Sharp, and strict. She’s always soft and gentle, sighing and speaking quietly when exasperated, when tired. Jens has never heard her yell, even when his father yelled at her, she would stand her ground, speaking smoothly, her voice even and paper-thin.

“You didn’t bother raising your own child, don’t you dare try to tell me how to raise mine.”

Her voice wavers, but even with its unsteadiness, it’s bold and strong, and Jens smiles softly to himself, still holding the doorknob.

It’s silent except for Jens’s breathing, which he hopes they can’t hear.

“I—”

“Get out.” Her voice isn’t shaking anymore.

“What?”

“Get your shit and leave.”

Jen’s eyes widen and his smile grows.

“Fenna—”

“I welcome you into my home, and you — you speak like this about my children.” She sounds angrier than Jens has ever heard her, angrier than the time she caught him sneaking out with vodka in his bag, than the time he left Lotte home alone while he got groceries, than every time Jens’s father pissed Jens off beyond words. “Get out.”

There’s a rustle and the sound of feet stumbling and Jens realises she’s just pushed him, and there’s barely a second for Jens to remove his hand from the door before it’s swinging open, revealing Dilan, red-faced, who startles at Jens before staring at him, their eyes locking. After a second, Jens moves out of the way, unblinking, and Dilan moves down the hall to the guest room he’s staying in. Jens turns to look into the kitchen and his mother catches his eye before looking away, and Jens looks away too, down the hall. They wait in silence until Dilan emerges, a suitcase in hand, and he stumbles to the front door, pushing past Jens, not even sparing a glance in Jens’s mom’s direction.

When the door shuts, louder than necessary, Jens hears her sigh heavily, and he turns to see her collapsed in a chair, her elbows on the table and her head in her hands.

Jens stands there, teeth gritted, not knowing what to say, what to do. It’s only when he hears a soft whimper that her steps forward and pulls her shoulder toward him. She falls against his chest, her face contorting as she cries, and she wraps her arms around his waist, hiding her face in her arms as Jens runs a hand through her hair, the other running over her arm.

His own eyes well up as he listens to her sob quietly, as he feels her shoulders heave, finally seeing her, knowing her, not as his mom, but just a woman, tired of holding herself together, a woman who’s done all she can, who loves him and his sister enough to throw her own father out in the middle of the night.

He bends down and kisses the top of her head softly.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs.

“I know,” she chokes out after a minute. She lets go of him, still resting her head on his and sighs shakily, sniffling.

He holds her.

It’s several minutes before she lifts her head, wiping her face, and he steps away, picking up a glass from the counter and filling it with water. She smiles as he hands it to her.

“It’s something we have in common,” he says quietly as she takes a sip. “Shitty dads.”

She chuckles and nods, setting the glass down.

“And good moms,” he adds.

She smiles, holding a hand out, and he takes it.

---

Jens brushes his teeth after his mom goes to bed, after they’ve both had a cup of tea. (Although Jens doesn’t finish his; he prefers coffee, but he doesn’t plan on being up until sunrise.)

After rinsing his mouth until it burns of mint, he quietly swings Lotte’s door open, just a little more than a crack, to check on her. It’s something he does sometimes, when he comes home late or when he wakes up in the middle of the night, his throat dry. Once he woke after a nightmare, a dream that he can’t remember a single detail from, and with a small pit in his stomach, snuck down the hallway and peeked through her door, his eyes on her until he heard her take a deep breath and saw her roll to her side.

When she was little (or little-er), she would come into Jens’s room when their parents argued. They couldn’t hear her down the hall over their voices. She’d climb into his bed silently, and he would move back against the wall to keep a distance between them. She’d always bring a blanket, sleep with it around her shoulders and head, or balled against her chest. Eventually, Jens started going to her room with his own blanket. Her bed is smaller than his so he’d sleep on the floor.

Lotte rolls over like even in her sleep she can feel Jens’s eyes on her, and he lets out a small breath before shutting the door as quietly as he can, and he goes to his room.

He sets his phone on his bedside table and strips his hoodie and shirt off at once, tossing them to the floor before changing into pyjama pants that are strewn on his bed.

When his lights are off, he lays on his back, his room warm enough that the blankets are twisted around his hips, his chest bare.

He was sleepy just seconds ago, but now he stares at his ceiling through the dark.

You’re raising a…

A what?

A what? A what? A what? A what? A what? A what? A what? A—

Jens sits up and grabs his phone, seeing it in the streaks of moonlight coming through his curtains.

And he messages Lucas, almost unconsciously, like it’s second nature, to go to Lucas.

Can I call you?

Not the first time he’s sent a message like it.

It’s almost two minutes before Lucas responds, even though Jens wasn’t expecting him to, so late at night.

Of course.

So he does.

It’s quiet when Lucas answers.

“Hi,” Jens whispers.

“Are you okay?” Lucas’s voice is rough, groggy.

“I’m fine. Did I wake you up?” Jens asks, feeling bad. He could have waited until morning.

“Yeah, but it’s fine. You’re okay?” he repeats.

“Yeah, it’s just my grandpa.”

There’s a rustling sound like Lucas is sitting up in bed.

“Are you okay? Is Lotte? Should I go get you?” he says quickly.

“I— No, we’re fine, it’s fine,” Jens says, startled. “He left.”

“Oh.”

“My mom kicked him out.”

“Good for her.”

Jens chuckles quietly before the smile drops off his face slowly.

“I’ve never seen her like that,” he breathes, like he’s thinking to himself.

“Like what?” Lucas asks softly like he can tell what Jens is feeling.

“So… angry. My grandpa, he… he was saying things about Lotte and me, that she needs to be fixed, that we need a — a fucking male role model.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. She cursed at him. I’ve never heard her talk like that.”

“Do you want to talk about this?”

Jens realises he doesn’t.

“No,” he whispers, and closes his eyes.

It’s quiet for a minute before Lucas talks, his words just breaths in Jens’s ear.

“Tell me about something that makes you happy.”

Of course, the first thing that comes to Jens’s mind is Lucas’s face, but he doesn’t say that. He rolls onto his stomach as he thinks, laying his head over his bent arm as he holds the phone to his ear.

“Ice skating.”

“Ice skating?”

Jens laughs at his surprised tone.

“Yeah.”

“Tell me.”

Jens sighs.

“We haven’t gone in a few months. Lotte and me.”

“Does she like it?” Lucas is mumbling slight, sleepy.

“Yeah. And she’s good, really good,” Jens says almost proudly. “I taught her to balance and skate around the rink, and she just… took off. Fuckin’ prodigy.”

“You taught her?” Jens can hear the smile in his voice.

“Mm-hmm. She held my hand the whole first time.” He adjusts his head on the pillow. “And she always smiles when she’s on the ice.”

“That’s nice,” Lucas murmurs.

“Are you falling asleep on me?” Jens smiles.

Lucas hums.

“Can fall asleep with you,” he says, his voice muffled.

“That sounds nice.”

He listens to Lucas breath quietly, and he begins to fall asleep.

“Wanna hold your hand,” he mumbles without thinking.

“Mm… Can’t hear what you’re saying, babe.”

Jens’s heart skips a beat and he grins as Lucas’s sleepy slur in his voice. He turns so his mouth isn’t against the pillow.

“Said I wanna hold your hand.

Lucas hums again. Jens can sense him falling asleep and he sighs.

Lucas murmurs a sentence and Jens can only understand two words.

“. . . kiss you.”

Jens hums as he did. He’d like that.

“Lu?” he says after a minute, quietly, in case Lucas has fallen asleep.

“Mm-hmm?”

“Thank you.”

They fall asleep together.

#its so late im sorry if any part of this doesnt make sense #also shoutout to grammarly bc sleepy hana cant type #anyway fuck dilan #and love you guys #van der stoffels #van der stoffels fic #vds #vds fic #jens stoffels #lucas van der heijden #lucas vdh #jens x lucas #jens and lucas #cotton candy skies #cotton candy skies always look better in person #say my name and say it twice

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a-woman-apart · 4 years

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Watch "I'M BACK! WHY I LEFT YOUTUBE FOR TWO YEARS!" on YouTube

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This scared me so badly, because this is EXACTLY what happened in my life, except it was all in The Reverse.

I graduated with an Associate Degree in Music Performance in 2018, but instead of running TOWARDS my dream/calling I ran hardcore AWAY from it. My pride in graduating only lasted a month before I declared myself Utterly Unmarketable and sought to go after a "real degree" and get a Big Girl career.

Between 2018 and 2020 I had major life changes.

My dad died of stomach cancer

I broke up with my neglectful boyfriend

I turned down a Full Ride to a major college

I hospitalized myself for Suicidal Ideation (Sept 2019)

I quit my job of 5 years

I started working for my best friend and became her Office Manager

I started dating the Love of my Life

I lost my friend group and peer support

I lost my mind and left college due to COVID-19 (but not before making one of my best decisions in taking a Screenwriting class because I WANTED not NEEDED it)

Started distancing myself from the toxic women in my life and definining Womanhood/Adulthood for myself

Visited my brother's grave after over a decade of waiting and got closure

Fully acknowledged my childhood trauma/abuse

Rediscovered my sexuality

Was disowned by who I erroneously thought was a close friend of 17 years over my political views

Joined and exited Unity2020

Turned in my car for repossession

Spent a week in the hospital after having a severe, paranoid psychotic break, but came out completely free of the vice of self-consciousness I was living under

You know what is nuts? I feel in many ways, I have completely reverted to who I was in the summer of 2011. I was off my meds, and it WAS mania, but personality-wise, the tempestuous, gum-chewing, cigarette-puffing, flirtatious, humorous, free-spirited ball of fire that drove all the way to Colorado on a whim wasn't rebellious, SHE WAS ME.

I just wasn't Me around the right people, and it wasn't the Right Time.

My inner Sagittarius moon would remain in a dormant state for almost a full decade. I would spend the next 9 years heavily sedated, sleepwalking through life, only alive at The Sound of Music.

It was Torture to feel so much but be afraid to express myself. I had to Hide while doing a major that demanded that I Command Attention. I am by nature "dramatic", "theatrical", "emotional", "expressive" but that part of me was so suppresed that I was frequently told I sang with excellence but without emotion.

Aside: During my 2011 manic episode, I spoke a lot about Doppelgangers. Without going into excessive detail, this is a German word that means "Double" and it is considered bad luck to encounter yours.

In the past 2 weeks, I have encountered people that look/sound like me (Josephine is Nigerian-Canadian and I am Nigerian-American and I kept thinking about her work even though I initially disagreed with her lot) and a woman with my name (different spelling) who was NOTHING like me and I also think might've had malice in mind for me.

I was DEFINITELY an agnostic atheist when I started this year, but as a result of undergoing so much weird shit I almost certainly believe in God, and yes, "God is a Woman." (More on that later)

Also, I realized that I really DID, as many teenage girls, "lose interest in math and science" but that was because of the terrible, unfactual way it was presented in my homeschool curriculum and by my mom, who was a Math major but whose disinterested detachment made every algebra lesson an excercise in torture.

I have always loved biolology and anatomy and I remember so much more chemistry than I thought. Geology class in community college was amazing and also helped me understand-- even more than the Theory of Evolution-- why young earth creationism was completely impossible.

As for math, I spent 15 years thinking it was my greatest weakness when I have had to use arithmetic in cashiering, my managerial work, and my monthly budget for the last 7 years. Also, as annoying as it was to hear constantly, my mom parroting "What you have to do to one side, you have to do to the other" (but in reverse) gave me the ability to do Algebra quickly and (mostly) effortlessly. I could never get A's, but I got a B in Quantitative Mathematics with no real help aside from occasional teacher input and the "Help me solve this" function of MyMathLab.

Here is where it Gets Weird. I am a Creative. I have been writing stories since I was 6 years old. I have loved Story all my life. My parents were in math and science fields and they completely lacked any creativity. COMPLETELY. It was part of why they were so religiously rigid, authoritarian, and draconian. There was no room for spontaneity or childish imaginativeness.

Looking back, I had major sensory and processing issues. I was likely speech delayed, I learned to read late, and I recently confirmed that when I am stressed my dyscalculia kicks in bad (it IS real). Numbers and symbols get really interchangeable (like an 8 and infinity symbol become kinda the same) which is why I had to recite phone numbers out loud to remember them or write them on colorful backgrounds so I can see them in my head as an image. Also explains my aversion to math but my ease with fractions (1/2 is half a sandwich, etc).

My spatial awareness is also shit when stressed. Before I turned in our car, I had earned the nickname "U-turn" from my boyfriend because on that Floating Death Machine left and right got completely crossed, frequently.

By the way, I struggled with right and left until I WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD. I literally didn't understand the concept of a mirror and 3D space, meaning that the basic understanding that my right is someone else's left didn't come into play until I had an argument with my [now-deceased] brother about it.

What is so weird, is that because of years of correcting for these issues, my sense of direction, ON FOOT is good, if not better than most people. Also, once I realized that, given the opportunity, I very much do whatever I can with my left-hand, and that my hearing is MUCH better than I even thought, I am far less clumsy. Depth perception is still crap, but that is probably also because I was forced to spend years without the glasses I needed (and got earlier this year after living with chronic eye strain)

When I talk about these "issues" it is in line with female autism, but you know what? If really do have adult autism, then I am a Complete Boss because I have pwned that ho.

After being rehospitalized, a kind nurse suggested I may have PTSD and suggested medicine for insomnia and nightmares. It was extremely helpful. I had been looking into C-PTSD for a while, because I didn't think I had "suffered enough" to have "real" PTSD. But that isn't how diagnoses work.

Btw, I still have Bipolar I, Psychotic Features. Another kind nurse told me I don't need anti-psychotics, and no, I don't. I was given Zyprexa by a bitch nurse and it was like getting drunk. I stumbled the halls, almost fell over (possibly did) and woke up with a neon "Fall Risk" bracelet. Anti-psychotics also fucked up my menstrual cycle for years and I have had lingering hormonal isssues. Haha no thanks.

Anyway, I digress. Of course I am fucked up. I lived under family members who questioned my reality, attempted to crush my dreams, threatened me with physical punishment any time I behaved in non-neurotypical ways, violated my rights and interfered with my treatment even though I was a full legal adult, undermined my relationships, tortured and socially isolated me, etc., all under the guise "of knowing best."

In minority cultures, our darkness hides in plain sight, and ESPECIALLY in the Bible Belt, with its supeestition and idolization of familial hierarchy/patriarchy, victims of financial, spiritual, emotional, and physical abuse have no where safe to turn. The Long Arm of the Law is often Short when it comes to "breaking up the family", and women and children are victimized openly with little to no intervention.

On top of doing my Creative Work, I plan to create legislation to make sure that what happened to me and my siblings isn't allowed to go unpunished. We lost my older brother, and I almost died, too, but Enough is Enough.

The Time is Now.

P.S. If Josephine is an Air Nomad I identify as a Water Bender. I basically have no water in my astrological chart, but water signs bring me great comfort in times of need (and make bad romantic partners for me obviously)

Also, this is one Bad Biyatch.

I also found out I am an ISFJ, not INFJ. Yep. Gonna be a Playwright and Director. I want to be a part of the action, not just writing about it.

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creacherkeeper · 4 years

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Hi! It’s the genderqueer autie anon who messaged you way back when. :) I completely understand if this is too personal of a question and you of course don’t have to answer, but do you have any advice for not feeling so ashamed of making social mistakes around neurotypical folks? The social anxiety hits me so hard and I don’t know what to do. In any case, I hope you’re doing well and having a lovely day!

hey anon! good to hear from you. i’m happy to discuss this, always willing to talk about this kind of thing ^^

there are some things that are good to remember when approaching situations like this

youre allowed to make mistakes. its a part of learning and growing

you’re allowed to take up space, and your autism is allowed to take up space

“history is told by the victors” well social situations are told by the neurotypicals, but it is literally just an interpretation and not fact

good people pay way less attention to your mistakes than you do

okay so lets unpack some of that?

making mistakes

first off, i completely understand why this would give you anxiety. the social realm can be super weird and scary, and it has a lot of rules that may not always be obvious to us! but think of yourself like an explorer. sometimes there are close calls, and you might even get hurt! but when you find a new booby trap, a new pitfall, a spot of quick sand - you can mark it down on your map. yes, these situations are scary. but all the time youre learning about your environment, learning about people, learning the rules. find people who its okay to ask questions, and ask them, genuinely, why was that bad? why did that person get upset? why did everyone get embarrassed? try to take the answers for what they are without getting defensive. you’re an explorer, and that includes learning about the local cultures without imposing your own judgement and point of view. i’ll tell you now, you won’t always understand the reason behind the rules. sometimes learning where not to walk is enough, even if you don’t know how the trap works

taking up space

you have just as much of a right to be here as NTs. you have just as much of a right to have friends. you have as much of a right to be autistic as they do to be NT. you do not have to be ashamed of the fact that you’re autistic and that you will interpret information and situations in an autistic way. as much as its your weakness, its also your strength. that doesn’t always feel true, especially when people give you a hard time about it. but i promise with all my heart, autism is a perfectly valid and inherently valuable way to see the world.

i used to be very bad at social situations. i was the weird kid that always got left behind. no one wanted to talk to me about serious things because they didn’t trust me to react right, because i wasn’t good with emotions. and you know what? i was hurt by that. because i didn’t know what i was doing wrong. so i decided to change! i wanted to be a person people could trust. i wanted to help people. i learned to listen. i learned to ask questions and really listen when people answered. i learned when or when not to speak, to comfort, to fix. i’m not perfect at it, i’ll tell you that much. but you’ll be surprised how much people appreciate a genuine person who wants to help, and clear communication. “do you need to vent, or do you want advice?” is a godsend. “i’m really sorry that happened, that sounds really upsetting. is there anything i can do?” will go a long way. SCRIPTS ARE YOUR FRIENDS. scripts don’t mean you aren’t genuine. and you know what? a lot of people come to me with their upsets now because i see things from a perspective they hadn’t considered, and some people really appreciate frank conversation. autism isn’t your enemy, you just need to learn how to guide it

victors

the universe isn’t neurotypical. like i know that sounds weird. but the universe isn’t cosmically judging your actions from a NT lens. there is not more inherent value to a NT pov of a social situation than there is an autistic one. the only difference is NTs think they make the rules, and that youre breaking them. but here’s the secret! there are no rules! literally nothing about social interactions are written in the stars, in our blood. its all made up. and why is it always our job to change for them? you don’t have to run the whole race, a friendship is supposed to be a relay. you get halfway there, and they take the torch. let your friends meet you halfway, and more importantly, ask them to do that. because they wont think of it themselves. just because they see something a certain way doesn’t mean its Correct. ask them to see things from your pov. you’ll get better at explaining your pov with practice. NT feelings dont always take priority. just because theyre embarrassed, upset, angry, just know that it doesnt automatically mean you’re wrong. sometimes theres just a difference in perspective

good people

this one is really hard to learn. i’ll fully admit that. if you’ve gone to school, you know how people give presentations? and theyre always sweaty and nervous like if they mess up maybe they’ll die. you know how when you give your presentation it feels like you’re under the spotlight, but when other people are giving theirs ...... your mind kind of wanders? you’re thinking of other things. maybe you’ll laugh if they say something funny, maybe you’ll clap when they’re done. i’m just saying, no one is paying as much attention to you as you are. you’re always your most attentive audience. if people really are picking on your ‘mistakes’ so much that its feeding your anxiety and making you more vigilant ... those aren’t good people to be around, and that’s their problem, not yours. trust me, half of the stuff they pick at isn’t even wrong, they just need to say something mean to make themselves feel better, so they’ll find anything they can. most of these people are REALLY self conscious and they have to pick on stuff about you in desperate fear that you wont notice anything about them. you shouldn’t take their comments to heart. but if you have friends who really support you .... they probably don’t care as much as you do when you mess up? something that feels like a big deal to you is probably a blip on their radar and nothing more. sometimes i overthink things and obsess so much over stuff i said, and then the friend is like “i dont remember that lol”. again, if your friends care about this little stuff to the point where they’re getting onto you for it, it’s not that youre bad at social situations, its that theyre being shitty friends. cut yourself some slack. a good person doesn’t care as much as you think they do

one more thing that i think needs to be mentioned:

learn how to apologize. this is a big one. i know its weird, i know its awkward, exhausting. but a sincere apology means a lot. and it takes strength and bravery to really mean it and say so. learning to apologize without guilt tripping, without panicking, or putting the other person on the spot, is one of the most important skills you can learn. a good apology should help you both. it’s the most important factor in moving on from a social blunder, and once you learn to do it well, will get rid of a lot of guilt during times when you really do mess up

that got long winded ^^ i hope even a little bit of it helped. please let me know if there’s anything else you want me to talk about, i’m a rambling machine waiting to be sprung

#long post #autism #ActuallyAutistic #actually autistic #seriously its no sweat nonny i'll talk about most anything #Anonymous

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things-we-used-tc-share · 5 years

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I Found

“I’ll use you as a warning sign,

That if you talk enough sense then you’ll lose your mind,

And I found love where it wasn’t supposed to be,

Right in front of me,

Talk some sense to me,”

-Amber Run, I Found

Written for the “Song Prompt” Event on my Discord server.

Warnings: Mentions of ableism (Autism-orientated)

Ship: Remile

Plot: Remy finds life too repetitive, but a thunder storm and a pretty boy might be the change he’s looking for. (Autistic!Emile)

Remy stares up at the sky like it’ll offer something new, something different today. It never does, but one can only dream and hope and pray for something new. His eyes avert and he continues walking o work, his satchel banging against his thigh incessantly; he’s used to this and pays it no mind at all. As he pushes open the café door, the pink-haired barista grins at him “Morning Remy!” Remy smiles, it’s not so bad of a routine.

“Morning Emile,” The two exchange a small smile, and Remy goes into the back to put his bag down, grab his apron and start with his long day.

The day goes by as slow as it always does. The sun sets in the cold winter night, the rain dashes lightly against dark windows and the water on the streets is illuminated by ghostly white streetlights. Remy leans against the counter after serving his last customer and then sighs heavily. Surely, he thinks, there is more to life than this? Because this is simply no fun at all. A stressed hand cards through his mussed curls, there’s a little bit of sugar that lands on his hand from his hair, it’s something he’s done so many times before that it’s stopped being amusing.

“Hey Emile?” He calls over his shoulder “Will you sort out the register, I’m going to start clearing the tables?” The smaller man, whose hair is still the brightest pink he’s ever seen (Remy thinks he probably dyes it regularly, which is possibly terriblefor his hair), nods enthusiastically and moves to clear out the cash register. He always looks too chipper, and that’s all right, one of them has to be for their job.

Remy picks up the cloth and locks the door once he’s checked every one has left, slipping the sign to ‘closed’ before he starts to wipe down the tables. He follows his repetitive movements dazedly; barely present as he does so, he does this almost every day too, wiping down tables and mopping floors and serving cups of coffee. He’s not miserable, simply…tiredof repetition. The sound of thunder outside startles him a little, his eyes going outside to see the rain has truly started to hammer it down. Remy makes a noise of discomfort, or maybe it’s disgust or inconvenience, or maybe all at once, either way he stares as the water bounces off the floor in full force. “Wonderful weather for the ducks don’t you think?” Emile quips with a light chuckle, the cash register shutting.

“I don’t think even the ducks will brave that,” Remy pushes his glasses up his nose, stylish hipster-esque frames that had cost way more than his pay check allows. Emile laughs in response and it’s a nice sound, something different in Remy’s monotonous life. He even dares to smile a little back. “I think I’d rather sleep in here than step a foot out there,” He snorts, pulling his phone out of his back pocket to check the weather report “It should calm down in about half an hour so there’s that,”

“Every time I go near water after I’ve just dyed my hair it runs, and although I’ve not tested it on cold water I really don’t want to look like a murder victim, so I daren’t try it,” Remy wonders why they hadn’t spoken more before, they have most of their shifts together, he thinks Emile might be a student too but it’s a little difficult to remember if he’d ever asked. So he asks.

“Are you a student too?” And Emile smiles wonderfully, excitedly even, the sort of smile people get when they’re offered a question they love answering, or get to talk about something they adore.

“Yep! I’m currently doing my undergraduate in Psychology,” It’s hard to imagine this man as a serious mental health professional. He’s wearing a shirt under his apron that has little Jigglypuff’s pasted over and over again in diagonal patterns, and a charm bracelet that has a little pink pearl. “I really enjoy it, Human minds are…so fascinating and complex yet so easily damaged, I’m currently writing my dissertation on Anxiety disorders and their severities and why there is currently and increase and…sorry I’m rambling,” His cheeks flush as pink as his hair, or at least close to that.

Remy’s heart stammers in his chest. “No it’s fine,” He manages out; throat feeling suddenly tootight as do his lungs, in fact all rational thought seems vaguely distant now. He never wants this man to stop talking, why hadn’t he spoken to him beforeis an even more pressing matter? “Tell me all about it,” And suddenly work is something for someone else and his life belongs to someone else as he leans against the table.

Emile beams as though he doesn’t get told that often, this is heart breaking in its own right. “Well, I was diagnosed with Autism when I was super young and then as I got older I was diagnosed with Anxiety, which most stemmed from developmental issues influenced by how other people treated my Autism,” Remy nods “And it’s always super effected me, you know? People always either treated me like glass or ignored my existence or just were plain awful to me over it, and no matter how hard I tried sometime sit felt like they were speaking a different language to me, so I grew up isolated,” Remy’s eyes softened, but not out of pity, he thinks his only other emotion would be anger because why would people treat other people like that? He can’t understand it. “When I first started learning psychology it was because I wanted to help myself but now I just don’t want other people to feel like me, like I did for so long,”

“That’s admirable,” Remy says softly “I’m sorry people treated you like that, that’s…shit that sucks man,” Emile laughs a little, glad he’s not getting a pity speech “I could totally kick their asses for you,” He folds the cloth neatly in his hand, Emile’s eyes follow the movement briefly.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” He smiles though “What made you chose that colour?” He gestures to Remy’s nails, the paint is a little chipped but it’s clearly black and sparkly. “You wear a lot of black, sometimes people in psychology say people who don’t wear colour often see themselves as lacking it, but I just think people think black is a nice colour, and it is,”

“Just suits my aesthetic,” Remy shrugs “Although you might be onto something,” He leans up off the counter to put the cloth away. There’s some moments of silence and Remy can feel Emile’s eyes watching him carefully, like a birdwatcher sat so still so they can study a rare species of some sorts. “I feel like you have a question you want to ask?” The dark-eyed man speaks quietly, but his voice comes out at a much higher pitch to that which he had planned to speak. His cheeks flush a little, and he looks up at Emile, who looks like a deer caught in the headlights. “Go on,”

“Are you gay?” Emile blurts out and then clasps his hand over his mouth “Oh gosh that was totally meant to stay in my head, that is not how I planned to ask you out at all,” He rubs his hand against his forehead in a little stress, Remy smiles in amusement as he begins to ramble “I was going to play it cool and just you know, drop a casual hint and then see if you take it, or ask you if you want coffee or something or,” Remy places his hand lightly on Emile’s wrist, Emile trails off and blinks.

“I’m gay, and yes,”

“Yes?”

“I’ll get coffee with you,” His eyes go to the outside, where the rain is still hammering “in fact, there’s no time like the present,” He taps the coffee machine, which is still not turned off, then takes a cup for himself, and one for Emile off of the side “May I take your order?” `Emile smiles at him, biting his lip shyly.

“Are you on the menu?” He flirts lightly, Remy’s heart stutters a little and his cheeks feel so warm and honestly, he cannotstop smiling. This was the something different he’d been praying for, it’s a little funny how change can come from something right in front of you, that had been in front of you for months. Almost a year, in fact.

“Maybe later,” Remy winks, fighting down a part of his that is so flustered and blushing and squealing like a teenager. It feels strange, to have known Emile for so long and not even realised or noticed that he was interested in him. Remy hadn’t quite noticed Emile at all, now he thinks that was a dumb thing to do because he sounds like a dream and looks so pretty and he’s really, really nice. Nice men aren’t something so common in Remy’s life at all.

“In the meantime I suppose I’ll have a caramel latte, with cream,” Remy sets about preparing the order “I feel like you might have questions and that’s okay you know, you’re allowed to ask me about my Autism,” Emile continues, leaning against the counter “You have my explicit permission to do so,”

Remy thinks about this for a moment, he knows very little about Autism, but it also doesn’t feel far to treat Emile like a research book “What do you need me to avoid?” He finally settles on, placing the warm cup next to Emile, as the barista hops up on the counter.

“Oh,” he sounds surprised “Well I don’t like sudden loud noises, I’m learning to cope with sensory overload because of…well because of my job,” That hardly sounds fair, Remy narrates internalising, that Emile has to force himself to cope with these things and can’t have his own way to do so. “But in general I pretty much always have headphones,” He shrugs a little “Sometimes I don’t like being touched but I can tell you when that is, if you really want to…you know, hang out more?”

“Okay,” Remy nods “Is there anything you need me to know?” Emile makes a small noise of disbelief.

“You’re strange,” He comments “Most people don’t ask questions like this,”

“What sort of questions do people usually ask?” He honestly isn’t sure of the answer.

“Usually much more invasive ones,” Emile admits with an uncomfortable and…sadlook “Or they treat me like a child,” Remy feels like he’s missing out on a lot of information on how autistic people are treated in the world. He’d always assumed things to be more progressive, but if the look on this man’s face is anything to go off, it most certainly hadn’t. “Sometimes they ask things like ‘is it okay for you to be outside alone?’ or ‘If you’re autistic how come you work?’ or ‘How come you don’t look or sound autistic?’ my favourite so far is ‘Do autistic people have sex, isn’t that kind of…weird?’” he kicks his leg a little, letting the heels tap back against the wood a few times.

Remy blinks a few times “I’m sorry Emile, I don’t really know what to say but…I’m so sorry people treat you like that, that’s a fucking nightmare, you have way more patience than I do,” Emile smiles, looking up at Remy with a small smile.

“I have to be patient, or else people use it against me because of my Autism, or people use it against other people with Autism, we’re not allowed to be angry or have meltdowns or we’re branded as dangerous,” He sips his cup of coffee “Ever noticed how a lot of school shooters are ‘hypothesised to be Autistic?’” Remy’s blood runs cold in his veins. “You look horrified,”

“I don’t really keep up with the news, or really anything except walking to work, doing work, eating and going to bed, always figured the world would sort itself out or it’d die in the process,” Maybe this is also the change he’s looking for “I should do some more research,” he thinks aloud, staring at the surface of his coffee cup, in the process he completely misses the way Emile’s face lights up. “Would you like to keep talking about this, or something else?”

“Well I would, but not right now, I’m too tired to be this sad,” Emile looks up at Remy with a small and less melancholy smile. He feels happy despite the conversation, to finally have met someone who cares enough to listen and ask. “Let’s talk about something else,”

And they do talk. They talk way past the time that the rain slows, they talk way past the calming of the thunderstorm which had been why they talked in the first place. They talk until Emile is leaning tiredly against Remy, and Remy is feeling his heartbeat thunder in his chest louder than any storm, and more forceful at that.

Remy calls Emile a cab, worried that he’s practically falling asleep standing. He gives him his number though, although he’ll see him tomorrow evening for the two hour shift they have like clockwork every Thursday. They’re both working much more than they legally should. Emile kisses his cheek and says he’ll see Remy tomorrow.

Remy says he can’t wait.

For the first time in a long time he feels like he has a sense of purpose, a sense of will and of need. Life doesn’t feel like a dull rhythm as he walks home with a smile on his face and a little skip in his step. Yes,he decides, it is strange what just looking a little closer can do to your life.

Like my work? Consider buying me a virtual coffee!

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#Remile #ts sides #ts shorts #emile picani #Remy Sanders

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The Best TV Comedies of 2020

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Have we ever been in more need of a laugh than in 2020? Amidst a historic global pandemic, a tumultuous American political election, civil unrest, wildfires, MURDER HORNE… alright, you get the picture. 2020 has been the pits, man. Thankfully, this year from hell featured some bright spots on television, even if rays of sunshine were sorely lacking in reality.

If the shows on our list weren’t making us laugh, we would have been ugly-crying since March. While we were all locked in our homes, we got reacclimated with the Warner Brothers (and sister), said goodbye to BoJack Horseman, and met regular human bartender Jackie Daytona, making quarantine a bit more bearable, if only in 30 minute increments. From brand new series like How To with John Wilson, to swan songs for Den of Geek favorites like Schitt’s Creek, TV comedies in 2020 kept us cackling through the chaos.

To determine the best TV comedy of 2020 in a particularly stacked, diverse year, we polled 12 Den of Geek staffers and contributors. Below, you’ll find our honorable mentions and our list of the series most likely to raise your mood in the darkest year of our adventures.

Honorable Mentions

The following shows received votes but just missed out on the top 20:

Ramy, Never Have I Ever, Feel Good, The Great, Avenue 5, The Duchess, Staged, Famalam, Inside No. 9, Ghosts, The Shivering Truth, Bob’s Burgers, Katy Keene

DEN OF GEEK TOP 20 COMEDIES OF 2020

20 – Big Mouth (Netflix)

How long can a show about puberty, a very specific time in the life cycle, remain viable? Well based on the fourth season of Netflix’s animated comedy Big Mouth, just about as long as it wants to. Big Mouth season 4 succeeds by finding new avenues to delve into the psyches of its young characters going through chaaaaanges. In the process it also finds ways to expand its storytelling capabilities, delving into issues of trans youth, code switching, and anxiety. Through it all it remains as hilarious, and disturbingly vivid, as ever. – Alec Bojalad

19 – The Eric Andre Show (Adult Swim)

It’s not like Eric Andre reinvented the wheel or anything with the fifth season of his anarchic, absurdist talk show. If you were never a fan of anti-comedy that centers heavily around duping random people on the street, gross-out gags, and the torture of unsuspecting guests, then you’re not going to start liking it now.

However, for those of us already onboard The Eric Andre Show train, it’s no small feat that, five seasons in, this is still one of the funniest shows on TV. You’d think by now Eric would’ve run out of guests who have no idea what they’re in for, but, no, there’s an all-new batch of naive celebrities whose lives are effortlessly worsened by Eric, his crew, and his new house band. You’d assume he couldn’t prank people on the streets of New York City and Newark, New Jersey anymore because he’d be recognized by now, but, no, he pisses off a lot of people and breaks a lot of other people’s brains with ever-inventive, bizarre, obnoxious pranks.

Finally, you might think the series would suffer irrevocably from the departure of co-host Hannibal Buress only two episodes into the season, but Eric demonstrates he’s more than capable of spreading chaos all on his own (though he’s sometimes assisted, alternatingly, by a Hannibal clone named Blannibal, comedian Felipe Esparza, and Screen Actors Guild Awards nominee Lakeith Stanfield). Season five is the same The Eric Andre Show as it ever was, but that still makes me laugh harder than anything else on television right now. I’d be happy for Eric to keep making this show forever. – Joe Matar

18 – Saved by the Bell (Peacock)

A Saved by the Bell reboot shouldn’t have worked. But as Peacock’s recent series showcased, with the right creative team and angle, you really can successfully reimagine an outdated but beloved ’90s teen comedy for 2020. Working as both a soft reboot and sequel, this is meta-comedy at its best. Saved by the Bell is fully aware of what made the original special and why they don’t still make shows like it now. Juxtaposing those two competing views through the lens of the privileged and perfect Bayside kids and the new normal students makes this an accessible and seriously funny series with a biting humor rarely seen in teen comedy. – Rosie Knight

17 – Everything’s Gonna Be Okay (Freeform)

Australian comedian Josh Thomas brings his off-kilter sensibility to a loving and sharply funny portrait of a modern family in Everything’s Gonna Be Okay. In the pilot, Thomas’s character Nicholas, a gay twentysomething from Australia, visits his father in the US and learns that his physically and emotionally distant dad is dying. Things really pick up as Nicholas steps up to care for his two teenage half-sisters, Matilda (Kayla Cromer) and Genevieve (Maeva Press), while also trying to date, and manage his melodramatic mother from the other side of the planet.

Matilda especially comes into her own as she hopes to go to college away from home next year— something others doubt since she’s autistic. Her autism is a reality that becomes part of the fabric of the show, a setup rather than a punchline. Few shows would include a teenage threesome that manages to be funny, heartfelt, and matter-of-fact, but in Matilda’s world, sex (and exploring her sexuality) are often all three. Everything’s Gonna Be Okay is a family show that acknowledges the realities of family: death, disabilities, teenage girls with sex drives, and laughter at funerals. – Delia Harrington

16 – Star Trek: Lower Decks (CBS All Access)

Created by one of the writer/producers of Rick and Morty, it’s no surprise that the first episode of Lower Decks involved some pretty broad humor and wildly out of control situations. The producers of the 1970s Star Trek: The Animated Series understood the creative potential of animation when they replaced Ensign Chekov with a giant cat, and Lower Decks follows suit, the pilot giving us blood, guts, gore, zombies and a giant spider, all in Rick and Morty’s madcap tone.

As the show has developed over its first ten episodes, though, it’s become something more than that. The knowing humor is a delight—the focus on things like “second contact” (the less glamorous setting up of diplomatic relations after first contact), ascensions to a higher plane of existence gone wrong, and re-visiting half-forgotten alien races like the Pakleds shows the same sort of gently teasing love of the franchise that Galaxy Quest did. But the characters have also developed into real, complex people to the point that a character death is genuinely moving, and the audience are really able to care about what happens to these essential cogs in Starfleet’s machine next. – Juliette Harrison

15 – Solar Opposites (Hulu)

A big part of what makes Rick and Morty so great is that, in addition to all the sci-fi hijinks, there’s meaningful development of the show’s characters and world. Unfortunately, as the series has progressed, this is also what’s dragged it down. As Rick’s nihilism has increasingly alienated the people around him, a lot of the fun has been lost. The show still puts out the occasional brilliant episode (for example, the season four finale), but it almost feels like all the characters on Rick and Morty straight-up hate each other and watching it can be kind of a drag sometimes.

It’s such a treat then, to see all that fun sci-fi silliness rebirthed in the form of Solar Opposites, co-created by Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan (Rick and Morty co-creator and writer/producer, respectively). Making good use of all the storytelling lessons they learned from their other sci-fi cartoon show, the two have released a confident and consistently funny debut season. Though it feels awfully similar to Rick and Morty at first blush, it has more in common with classic sitcoms, with its focus on goofy, self-contained plots about the alien family at the show’s center. However, the series shakes the sitcom formula up a lot with a surprising dedication to callbacks and continuity, most notably exemplified by the continuing, dramatic tribulations of a community of people who have been shrunken down and forced to live in the aliens’ multilevel terrarium. The combination of madcap sci-fi alien plots contrasted with the trials of the melodramatic dystopian shrunken-people world makes Solar Opposites one of the most inventive comedies of the season, and I’m excited to find out where it’s going next. – Joe Matar

14 – Dave (FX)

There are countless hip-hop artists whose backstories would make for compelling television. So why did FX choose to spotlight a goofball white rapper from the suburbs with a mediocre penis joke for a stage name? It takes only one episode to realize any preconceived notions about Dave, based on the life and rap career of Dave Burd, aka Lil Dickey, should be spit from your silly mouth faster than Lil Dickey spits bars on a freestyle.

A telling sign that Dave was going to be a sleeper hit was the involvement of co-creator Jeff Schaffer, a longtime EP and writer on Curb Your Enthusiasm and the creator of FX’s The League. Together Schaffer and Burd mapped out a first season that sees Dave navigate the early stages of his music career with a level of narcissism he believes is needed to be taken seriously in the rap game. But the series also shows another side of Dave, self-deprecating in a surprisingly endearing way, rarely swayed by what others think, and frustratingly true to himself and the path he sees for his life. This is FX’s star vehicle for Burd, but the show manages to make him the center of the universe while still developing key players in his life as the season progresses, giving each character an affecting spotlight episode. The standouts include episodes about Dave’s real-life friend and hype man GaTa and his struggles with bipolar disorder, the evolving managerial relationship with his roommate (Andrew Santino), and how sudden fame begins to erode a once promising relationship with his girlfriend, Ali (Taylor Misiak).

Already renewed for season 2 and a ratings hit with FX/Hulu reporting high streaming numbers, Dave is no longer an underdog and will carry a new set of expectations as the titular character’s career ascends. If you’re still a skeptic, you need to adhere to television’s golden rule when it comes to Dave: Don’t judge it until you binge it. – Chris Longo

13 – Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox)

At only 13 episodes, Season 7 was the shortest season yet of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but it packed a lot into those 13 half-hours. With Melissa Fumero pregnant in real life, the writers used this to cover six months in series by following Jake and Amy’s attempts to conceive a baby, helping those limited episodes to feel like they were filling out more time. The show has also struggled to work in its annual Halloween Heist episodes since moving to NBC and being put into a winter start slot, but in 2020 Rosa managed to triple her victory by engineering Heists on not just Halloween, but Valentine’s Day and Easter as well.

Season 7 aired too early to deal with the Black Lives Matter protests that dominated the summer of 2020, but the writers have already pulled all their planned scripts for Season 8 and re-written them in light of those events, so that is yet to come. 2020 had a little bit of everything that makes B99 great—a dose of Pimento, Jake and his daddy issues, Holt’s adorable corgi Cheddar, and one final appearance from his nemesis Madeline Wuntch. For once, the season didn’t end with Holt somehow being removed from his job as Captain of the 99, but there’s still plenty to look forward to in Season 8—maybe 2021 will be the year that Charles Boyle finally wins the Halloween/Valentine’s Day/Easter/Cinco de Mayo Heist? – Juliette Harrison

12 – Animaniacs (Hulu)

Rampant remakes and sequel reboots have turned into the norm, but streaming services have especially embraced this idea as a way to anchor a library of programming. These endeavors are extremely hit or miss, but Hulu’s revival of Animaniacs is one of the few exceptions that feel justified for a return. Animaniacs always functioned as a radical cocktail of perversions of pop culture and classic comedy and 2020’s Animaniacs actively thrives with decades’ worth of new material to lampoon. The series has stripped itself back to its basics and temporarily removed most of the old supporting players, except for Pinky and the Brain, but this allows Animaniacs to build itself back up and establish new recurring characters and segments.

There’s such clear joy present in Animaniacs, whether it’s from the voice actors, the creative staff, or the animation team. Segments like an unauthorized Russian version of the Animaniacs or catchy songs about Shakespeare and the different First Ladies of America prove that the classic series’ sense of humor has successfully been maintained. If anything, the cartoon is even more fearless. It’s the perfect burst of ‘90s Saturday Morning nostalgia that’s also exceptionally funny and thought provoking. – Daniel Kurland

11 – Rick and Morty (Adult Swim)

Rick and Morty is a colossal behemoth of storytelling that’s developed a fascinating and often antagonistic relationship with its audience. 2020’s Rick and Morty content only includes five episodes from the second half of the show’s fourth season, but they’re some of the series’ wildest installments when it comes to storytelling, perpetual jokes, and the show’s ability to deconstruct itself and its fandom. The series Emmy-winning “Vat of Acid Episode” explores the emotional highs and lows of “save states” while “Never Ricking Morty,” the show’s “Story Train” episode, is perhaps the most structure-obsessed piece of television that’s ever been written.

Rick and Morty continues to expand its universe in exciting ways and allow its characters to realistically mature. These episodes provide fascinating insight on both Rick’s relationship with Morty as well as his bond with Beth. Even Jerry and Summer get their moments to shine and Rick and Morty feels more like an ensemble than ever before as it prepares to shake things up even more in season five. – Daniel Kurland

10 – Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun (Netflix)

In 2019, Netflix gave us I Think You Should Leave, the sketch comedy series from Tim Robinson that birthed memes that somehow only get more relevant (and funnier) as time goes on. In 2020, Netflix, likely mindful they needed to hold us over until Robinson finishes filming season 2, gave us a gift from down under called Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun. If you liked Robinson’s sketch series, imagine that on crack, dialed up to 100, and featuring the three silliest Australian dudes to ever walk on that continent. The series stars Mark Bonanno, Broden Kelly, and Zachary Ruane, a group of friends who formed a comedy group called Aunty Donna and gained a large following on YouTube with their absurdist humor that features simple premises that often descend into frenetic madness. See: them explaining how a board game works or doing roll call at school.

In Big Ol’ House of Fun, the series opens with a musical number that will have you wondering whether everything’s a drum. Episode 2 will change the way you think about your morning coffee. Friendly faces like Scott Aukerman and Ed Helms (or is it “Egg” Helms?) even stop by just to play ball. Through its infectious and (mostly) good-natured absurdist energy, the series lives up to its name with endlessly quotable and memable sketches. And much like I Think You Should Leave, Aunty Donna material only gets better when you rewatch it. Here’s to hoping Netflix will let us come back and visit this Big Ol’ House again for season 2. – Chris Longo

9 – Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet (Apple TV+)

Created by Rob McElhenney, David Hornsby, and Megan Ganz of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia fame, Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet is a new Apple TV+ comedy that easily justifies a subscription to the streaming service. Set within a video game studio for a popular MMORPG, Mythic Quest leans into certain workplace comedy tropes, but never feels derivative of the genre or that it’s just Always Sunny with a fresh coat of paint. The comedy effectively explores and skewers gaming culture, but a knowledge of the industry is not at all necessary to enjoy the program.

Smart and creative scripts are punctuated by the show’s phenomenal cast, which features the likes of McElhenney, Hornsby, and Danny Pudi. However, Charlotte Nicdao’s work as Poppy Li, the studio’s neurotic perfectionist lead engineer, is a revelation. Mythic Quest works so well because of how it grounds its quick comedy in powerful character dynamics. The series’ “standalone” flashback episode, “A Dark Quiet Death,” received a ton of acclaim, but there are few episodes of television from 2020 that contain more heart and honesty than the series’ quarantine-centric installment. – Daniel Kurland

8- Search Party (HBO Max)

HBO Max’s first bingeable, bonafide hit was outsourced from TBS. After languishing on basic cable with critical praise but low viewership, Search Party made the move to the new Warner streaming service for Season 3 and proved that the series was the perfect “watch it all in one afternoon” comedy. What began as a comedic mystery series about a group of prototypical Brooklyn millenials on a quest to find their missing former classmate shifted in its third season to become a satire on celebrity trials and how tabloid spotlight can turn unassuming people into sociopathic narcissists.

Search Party’s strength is in its ensemble. Alia Shawkat brings an interesting vulnerability to disaffected Dory, but her other “searchers” are the real bright spots. John Reynolds is perfectly cast as the de facto worthless millennial “beta male,” and John Early and Meredith Hagner are consistently laugh out loud funny as self-obsessed, attention seeking airheads. Search Party has a twisty, interesting plot, but it’s also a scathing indictment on an entire generation obsessed with celebrity, self-analyzation, and searching for “meaning.” If you have not yet watched one of the year’s funniest shows, get caught up before Season 4 debuts in January 2021. – Nick Harley

7- How To with John Wilson (HBO)

Life is strange. If you take a moment to actually watch and analyze many of the seemingly ordinary, day-to-day things you witness while walking down the street in a major U.S. city, you’ll be shocked at how alien it can all appear. In New York City in particular, every imaginable human behavior is on display somewhere, and documentarian John Wilson is out there capturing it all on camera. How To With John Wilson may seem like a series designed to teach you useful everyday skills like how to split a check or how to improve your memory, but in reality, it’s a love letter to New York, in all of its beautiful, ugly, life-affirming, and soul-crushing splendor.

It’s also insanely hilarious. Wilson’s deadpan, stammering narration on top of quick cut, slice of life footage is an endlessly watchable setup-punchline joke machine. Wilson also is wise to go down the rabbit hole and follow weird digressions wherever they lead him, like a Mandela Effect conference or the home of an anti-circumcision activist. Further, the series finale is the first piece of television to fully capture the reality of post-pandemic city life, putting to shame all of those half-assed Zoom created depictions of life in 2020. Few shows can effortlessly glide between cringe comedy and poignant moments like this. How To with John Wilson is unlike any other show on television, an absurdist masterpiece that makes the mundane feel surreal and vice versa. – Nick Harley

6- High Fidelity (Hulu)

In a time full of reboots and remakes, High Fidelity earned its existence and then some. To its many admirers, it warranted a second season for more eclectic music choices, guest stars, and beautiful lingering shots over the credits. Sadly, that is not meant to be. Hulu’s High Fidelity is so much more than just a gender-swapped adaptation, though Zoe Kravitz leads the endeavor in the lead role of Rob, the idiosyncratic record store owner counting off Top 5s, especially her Top 5 heartbreaks.

Rob’s rich world is full of characters we’d love to spend more time with, like snarky Cherise, she of the eclectic taste who keeps putting off her musical dreams for “someday.” Or Simon, Rob’s ex and current best friend, who narrates an episode that completely changes how the audience views Rob. Zoe Kravitz carries this beautiful mood piece, sharing chemistry with just about everyone. While it seems relaxed and fun on arrival, High Fidelity eventually reveals itself to have plenty to say about being accountable for our actions and allowing oneself to be happy, before wrapping Rob in a warm summer night and sending her on her way. – Delia Harrington

5- Pen15 (Hulu)

The debut season of Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle’s brilliant series in which they, two adult women, play middle-schoolers surrounded by actual kid actors playing their classmates, was, in my opinion, the funniest show last year, but, as I didn’t actually get around to watching it until this year, I didn’t know that at the time. Rectifying my past mistake, this year—despite the fact it’s only aired half a season so far due to production being halted by COVID—it’s not just my favorite comedy, it’s my favorite show, period.

Though it still has its fair share of laugh-out-loud moments, the comedy in the second season has, admittedly, been scaled back a bit, but it makes perfect sense for where Pen15 is right now. From the start, what the series has done painfully well is zero in on the utter nightmare of living through our stressful and confusing pubescent years. As the series deepens its exploration of these characters’ experiences with friendship, romance, sexuality, the internet, and the impact of divorce, the stress and confusion should and absolutely do ratchet up. This season is also doing a great job of further developing the show’s side characters, with a standout arc for Dylan Gage as Gabe, who is grappling with the discovery that he may be gay. Though it’s still a hilarious series in places, Pen15 most wins me over most for how uncomfortable and tragic it can be with its stunningly well-observed depiction of surviving junior high. The secondhand shame and embarrassment you’ll feel makes it one of the toughest, but most worthwhile, watches of the year. – Joe Matar

4 – Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)

Jason Sudeikis’s Ted Lasso first originated as a character back in 2013, when NBC Sports commissioned a commercial for its upcoming coverage of the English Premier League. “An American Coach in London” introduced the concept of an American football coach deciding to try his hand coaching “the other football” with top flight club Tottenham Hotspur. It was a hilarious five minute clip that seemingly exploited the “fish out of water” concept to its natural conclusion.

The character seemed destined to be a one-off goof. But then Sudeikis and producer Bill Lawrence decided to try their hand at the overmatched coach one more time with a series for Apple TV+. The end result was one of the most essential new comedies of the 2020 TV season. Ted Lasso works because its’ funny, first and foremost. The show proves that this fish still had plenty of more time to spend out of water after all. More important, however, is how aggressively wholesome and optimistic it is. In a year that saw ugly Americans all over over TV screens, Ted Lasso represented the stars and bars the only way he knew how: by believing in the best of people from aging football star Roy Kent, to selfish young buck Jamie Tart, to even the woman who got him this job in the first place as an elaborate revenge plot. – Alec Bojalad

3 – Schitt’s Creek (Pop)

If Schitt’s Creek were a fairy tale (and in all the best ways, it is), it’d be about a group of puppets brought to life by a magic spell. When the Roses lose their fortune, they’re forced to swap wealth and glamour for unfashionable small-town living. They start out wooden, obnoxious and alone. Then, over six seasons, we watch them transform into a flesh and blood family who figure out how to love each other in a community that’s as weird as they are, and that ends up loving them back.

If that sounds schmaltzy, then I’m saying it wrong. Schitt’s Creek doesn’t do schmaltz. It does smart and absurd and naughty. It does jokes and brightness and kindness. Or it did, because now it’s gone. 2020 waved Johnny, Moira, David and Alexis off with a final season packed with treats: Patrick’s spray tan, David’s bed-wetting, the world premiere of “The Crows Have Eyes III: The Crowening”, Moira officiating a wedding dressed in a Rapunzel wig and pearlised bishop’s mitre…

However painful it was to say goodbye, the alternative – another six seasons with diminishing returns – would have been much worse. Dan and Eugene Levy’s sitcom went out on a high, with a finale that left fans in joyful tears. Not least for moments like the one in which a usually armoured-by-sarcasm David tells his sister, “For what it’s worth, I am continuously impressed by you.” The feeling’s mutual, Roses. – Louisa Mellor

2- BoJack Horseman (Netflix)

Though BoJack Horseman premiered only the back half of its final season in 2020, those eight episodes were some of the best dramatic and comedic storytelling on television this year. This final season operated as almost a microcosm of the series’ entire run. Just like the show’s beginning, season 6B begins with BoJack in a place of relative stability. He has just finished rehab and is prepared to embark on a career as an acting professor at Wesleyan. Of course, something from his past has to pop up to shatter his fragile equilibrium, just like it always does. In this case, it’s a pair of journalists working on a story of what really happened the night Sarah Lynn died back in season 3. What follows is as sadly predictable as it is tragic… also there are jokes!

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BoJack Horseman has been a frequently occurring item on many of our year-end best-of lists since the show first premiered in 2014. And each time, it’s hard not to continually expound upon what a bizarre, touching, and incisive drama Rapahel Bob-Waksberg’s animated creation is. That temptation remains for this final season, which is as devastating as they come. But this year, for the show’s final appearance on any of our best-of lists, let’s not lose sight of how funny this all is.

Yes, this is an exploration of the human condition and how the only way to repair our damage is to acknowledge it and then put in the work to get better. It’s also the show where Mr. Peanutbutter, his fiancée Pickles Aplenty, and international pop superstar Joey Pogo open up a Lazy Susan/small plate restaurant called “Elifino.” The animation remains just as bright in this final season, the dialogue just as witty and convoluted, and the background jokes just as rewarding. BoJack Horseman season 6 shoulders a grand narrative burden of closing out the story of the world’s most miserable Horseman. That it is able to do so is remarkable. That it’s able to do so while maintaining its sharp sense of humor is even better. – Alec Bojalad

1- What We Do in the Shadows (FX)

Adapting a beloved indie comedy film to the small screen seems a near impossible task. But when Taika Waititi convinced Jemaine Clement they should do exactly that, it was a stroke of genius. With Waititi busy on his Marvel movies, Clement was left to write and produce the FX series alongside Stefani Robinson and Paul Simms. What We Do in the Shadows began with a solidly silly first season but came into its own during a stellar second season which leaned into the absurdity innate to the idea of ancient vampire roommates. The series has also given us a new action hero for the ages in Harvey Guillén’s Guillermo de la Cruz.

What makes season two so excellent is the writing and performances that play on the fish out of water setup the show has so much fun with. In “The Curse,” Nandor checks his email and discovers a chain email from Bloody Mary. Most of the hilarious runtime focuses on the crew trying to uncurse themselves. It sounds simple but it is honestly one of the funniest episodes of TV you’ll watch all year. “The Curse” is only topped by “On the Run,” which allows Matt Berry to go full Matt Berry as Laszlo leaves the nest and becomes a bartender, Jackie Daytona, who loves girls volleyball in smalltown America. It’s a pitch perfect riff on feel good sports movies while also being hysterically funny. It’s still a complete crime that Robinson didn’t win the Emmy for this one.

But the real power of What We Do in the Shadows is its heart. Even within the broad comedy, genre parodies, and often gross out humor, this is a show about love, family, and friendship. Guillermo’s arc feels radical and boundary-pushing. It’s so well built in from the very first season that it’s also incredibly satisfying. This is the kind of comedy we need more of: inclusive, intelligent, and most importantly just really, really, f**king funny. – Rosie Knight

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adhdbuzz · 4 years

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(Quick note - I have copied this over from my main blog - this is my content...)

ADHD, Neurodivergence, Identity…

I want to start blogging about some of my experiences with mental illness and neurodivergence. Two words, that before this year, I would never of used in relation to myself.

One of the most fascinating and somewhat crippling aspects of learning you are neurodivergent, is becoming so hyperaware of your thoughts, actions, personality, wondering what’s you and what’s your diagnosis, (or what you are imagining/projecting because of your diagnosis). I likely drive my friends mad talking or joking about it, but it’s hard to articulate the complete upheaval that learning this about yourself creates. Suddenly your entire history and personhood is re-defined. You have to change your narrative. I spent most of my teenagehood and childhood feeling removed/estranged from the people and world around me. More than feeling an ‘outcast,’ I felt myself an alien. I believed (and felt that others believed), that I was incredibly lazy and did not have the drive to puruse my passions and potential. This left such a hole in my heart and self-confidence. Imagine that you have this great love for something - or many things, but can’t even motivate yourself to take one single step toward it. You lose interest in every hobby you’ve ever taken up and you don’t understand why you can’t just do the thing. It seems easy for everyone else? What am I missing? So you compensate. Suddenly (and very briefly), you are really into note-taking and study blogs and watching countless hours of videos on how to get organised and ‘change your life’ and you imagine what kind of person you could become. Or you start every new year or semester with the goal to just stay on top of things, just remember, just write it down - everyone else does it? Why can’t you? Inevitably, that falls away.

What happens when you can’t maintain this? When suddenly those three assignments are due, you’ve dropped out of your class/hobby, you’ve missed another opportunity, avoided another goal and heard another person tell you, ‘you just need to get organised…’ ‘ you’ve got so much potential, you just need to apply yourself!’ “I don’t understand how you forgot/didn’t do the thing/didn’t write it down!”

I don’t think I can ever effectively describe the impact that this has had on me. There is something so devastating in not understanding there is something different about your brain during the really sensitive, formative years of your life. Because you end up spending so much time trying to work out why you are not like everyone else, why you struggle with things that most people find easy, why it is a constant battle to stay afloat, to have people angry with you/criticising you for something that you both feel should be in your control, but neurologically isn’t.

ADHD is so severly misunderstood. It’s invisible and it is crippling. The image of the little boy in class who can’t sit still or stop talking is such a prevalent and damaging stereotype. Before I got my diagnosis and before I even had looked into ADHD, I spent hours researching what could be wrong with me and doing online ‘tests’. These ranged from anxiety, to depression, Bipolar, PMDD and Personality Disorders, (strangely enough, ADHD often exists alongside other mental illnesses and I was diagnosed with co-morbidities…) But I think this gives a degree of context to what undiagnosed ADHD feels like, because it’s not someone who wont shut up, or sit still. To me it feels like everyone else got a manual on how to be a person and I didn’t. Often times, it’s the depressed, anxious, struggling teenager or young adult, who feels so inadequate, who feels like an alien, who can’t even trust their own passions or interests. Who is in a constant battle to meet the expectations of themselves and those around them. Who’s socially awkward or uncomfortable, who’s disocciated, who can’t follow a conversation, or instructions, who suffers in loud spaces, who struggles with small talk, strangers, shopping centres, keeping themselves and their space clean, uni work, school work, chores, family, friendships, relationships, their identity, their passions, there interests, their personality, regualating their emotions

ADHD is so exhausting, because it’s a constant battle to just meet the base line. Every thing you do from the moment you get up, til the moment you are asleep (and even then) is impacted by it.

Say you have an assignment, and a couple of chores to do on one day. Not a big deal right? Ok so you set an alarm for 8am, except your brain didn’t turn off until 4am the night before, so you get up at mid day, you go to put the washing in, but you forgot to turn on yesterdays load, so you do that first, you go to make a morning coffee, you check the time, it’s 12.30 - where did half an hour go? I just got up?! (Time-blindness). You make your coffee and drink it while checking social media, which sucks you in, because your dopamine depleted brain craves stimuli! You check the time, its 1pm, you tell yourself you’ll scroll for ten more minutes, and that ten minute excuse repeats a few times. It’s 1.30 and now your angry, because why didn’t you have the self control! (Hint: you have a disordered executive function). You put your mug on the sink, promising you’ll come back to it later. You go back to the laundry, you realise you forgot to turn the dryer on. You go to do your assignment, you clear your desk, open laptop, but now you don’t know where to start - you can’t naturally prioritise tasks, or break down the individual steps that need to be done in order to complete an assignment, you must do this with the ‘skills’ you have actively had to learn from a coach, internet etc. It’s like trying to bake a cake with no measuring cups, or recipe! So now you are looking at the assessment outline, and what you’ve worked on already, and trying to close last nights 200 tabs of hyperfixation. You read the outline 5 times without actually reading it, on the 6th you try really hard, you’re fidgeting in your chair, it’s an almost physical pain having to sit there and read it. Your eyes feel glazy, there’s too many words and they look like a big smudge on the page. You quickly check messages (dopamine hit), you come back to the outline. Its been half an hour, you still haven’t started. It’s about 2pm, you havent had lunch or breakfast. You go make a tea and come back. Maybe you need backround music? You spend another 20 minutes finding the right playlist, except its not right because it’s either too stimulating or not stimulating enough. You find another playlist, or you go down the rabbit whole of some movie soundtrack you’ve been meaning to look at. It’s 2.45. The washing! You go back and finally get yesterdays load in the dryer and start the load you meant to do today. Might as well make another tea now that I’m up. Might as well check Facebook now I’ve been interrupted. I’ll start at 3.30. 3.30 rolls around, your sibling gets home from school. Noise, talking, lunchbox rattling, bags being unpacked. Distraction. The noise is painful, your executive function (the impaired part of the ADHD brain) is also responsible for emotional regulation. Suddenly you are so fiercly angry at the noise being made in the rest of the house. It’s so over stimulating it feels like sandpaper on your brain and ears, you feel sick to your stomach with rage, you are crying, sobbing. All because people in the other room are talking. You lay on your bed trying to calm the overwhelm and increasing stress at not having done your assignment. It’s 4pm. Mum asks why you left your mug out, or didn’t do the dishes (you were too busy thinking about doing the washing!) She notes the machine still going and tells you that you wont have time to put it in the dryer tonight, you’ll have to do it tomorrow. But you need those clothes for tomorrow, you’re having breakfast with a friend. You’ll have to reschedule. You message your friend, and repeat the standard script “god I am so sorry, I’m such a mess, can we do later in the morning? I’ve got to do chores…” they can’t reschedule, you cancel. You sit back down with the assignment. You fidget. It feels like a physical pain to have to sit there and force yourself to do it. You’ll do it tomorrow. You pack up, and get ready for bed, removing the pile on your bed back to your desk. Your sheets are unmade, it’s uncomfortable and you feel agitated. You’ve forgotten to brush your teeth, or clean your face. You scroll online, or hyperfocus on a new hobby, project, idea, that wont interest you tomorrow, until 3am. You set your alarm for 8am…

This is just one small example and snapshot of ADHD and the impact of Executive Dysfunction. Here are a couple of examples/descriptions of how it feels from the ADHD subreddit.

“Schrodinger’s ADHD: Everything is interesting and boring at the same time. Every subject, every hobby.”

‘The Two ADHD Moods: I can’t do it / I can’t stop doing it. The two types of ADHD time: Now / Not Now The two ADHD memory modes: I literally can not recall the words that just came out of my mouth / I can recite the opening paragraph of every single magic tree house book.’

I also want to talk Neurodivergence, as this is another misconception when it comes to ADHD. In the way that Autism, Tourettes, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia are all forms of neurodivergence, so is ADHD. ADHD is not a behavoural issue, but a neurobiological developmental disorder. ADHD also has many overlapping traits with Autism, (not to be confused as the same, ADHD is not on the spectrum). These include, sensory overwhelm/sensitivity, memory issues, hyperfocus/hyperfixation, interrupting conversation/trouble waiting in turn, issues reading/recognising social cues, stimming, perseveration, (getting ‘stuck’ on or repeating a thought, topic or idea, even if the conversation has moved on), and avoidance/trouble with eye contact.

To be clear, ADHD is not on the spectrum, a distinguishing feature between these neurotypes is the cause of the symptom. For example someone with ADHD may not recognise social cues due to inattention/overwhelm/impulsivity, where as someone with autism may struggle to interpret these social cues.

It is important for ADHD to be recognised as a neurotype, and not a behavoural issue. When discussing ADHD traits with a neurotypical person, the response is often along the lines of ‘well everyone is a little distracted/unmotivated/lazy/forgetful/late sometimes.’ My response to that ‘Would you say that everyone is a bit ‘socially awkward/shy’ sometimes to an autistic person? Or ‘everyone has trouble reading sometimes’ to a dyslexic person?’ I imagine the answer would be no, as it is understood that these traits are a consistent, uncontrollable and debilitating.

The more I have learnt and read about ADHD in the context of neurodivergence, the more I have tried to recognise the ways I hide or detract from my symptoms, by ‘masking’. This has included, taking on certain personas or feeding someone elses assumption about me as ‘the messy one,’ ‘the disorganised one,’ ‘the chaotic one.’ In the past I have almost embraced these stereotypes about myself, as it gave me a sense of identity, a framework with which to see and understand myself. Frustration and anger masked over-stimulation/overwhelm, I was not able to recognise the root of these feelings and I also learnt to fidget/stim in the ‘right’ way. When engaging in small talk with someone I am unfamiliar with, I often resort to mimicing or imitating how I have seen other people interact, speak etc and I am conscious of eye contact, (too much, too little?). I catch myself looking at people/staring too much and am constantly trying to gauge what the right amount is, where else to look, etc. I struggle a lot with taking turns in convesation, as I don’t always know where to interject, or I worry I will forget the thought, this has led me to just stay silent instead in conversations and present myself as serious, or elusive.

That’s really all I have to say for today. I think overall ADHD is far more complex and challenging than it is perceived to be, and these stereotypes are so harmful to people who have it and are trying to navigate not only their symptoms, but a world that is not understanding nor knowledgeable of the limitations and struggles of ADHD or neurodivergence.

I have a lot more to say on all this and will try and write more about this going forward. DM/comment etc if you have any thoughts or criticism of anything I have said. Disclaimer, I am still learning and may make mistakes regarding information, or discussing other neurotypes !

Here are some links you might want to check out if you have/think you have ADHD or you have a friend or family member with ADHD. I also highly, highly recommend the ADHD subreddit!

ADHD explained simply:

https://www.additudemag.com/what-is-adhd-symptoms-causes-treatments/

“ADHD is a developmental impairment of the brain’s executive functions. People with ADHD have trouble with impulse-control, focusing, and organization.

“’Attention deficit’ is, some experts assert, a misleading name. “Attention deregulation” might be a more accurate description since most people with ADHD have more than enough attention — they just can’t harness it in the right direction at the right time with any consistency.”

Comorbidities https://adhd-institute.com/burden-of-adhd/epidemiology/comorbidities/ “The majority of adults with ADHD have a diagnosed or undiagnosed comorbid psychiatric disorder, which can complicate diagnosis and treatment of ADHD.1-3“ ADHD and Autism https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/decoding-overlap-autism-adhd/ “A growing number of genetic studies support the notion of at least some shared causation between autism and ADHD. But imaging studies comparing brain structures and connectivity have yielded a confusing mix of similarities and differences. And some behavioral research has highlighted the possibility that outwardly similar features mask distinct underlying mechanisms. Inattention in a person with autism, for example, might result from sensory overload, and apparent social problems in someone with ADHD may reflect impulsivity. Perseveration https://www.understood.org/en/friends-feelings/common-challenges/self-control/perseveration-adhd-and-learning-differences

“(Kids) who perseverate often say the same thing or behave in the same way over and over again. And they do it past the point where it makes sense or will change anything. It’s like they’re stuck in a loop that they can’t get out of.”

ADHD and social skills https://chadd.org/for-adults/relationships-social-skills/#:~:text=Social%20Skills%20in%20Adults%20with,their%20inattention%2C%20impulsivity%20and%20hyperactivity.

“Social skills are generally acquired through incidental learning: watching people, copying the behavior of others, practicing, and getting feedback. Most people start this process during early childhood. Social skills are practiced and honed by “playing grown-up” and through other childhood activities. The finer points of social interactions are sharpened by observation and peer feedback.

Children with ADHD often miss these details. They may pick up bits and pieces of what is appropriate but lack an overall view of social expectations. Unfortunately, as adults, they often realize “something” is missing but are never quite sure what that “something” may be.”

ADHD and stimming https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/adhd/repetitive-behaviors-in-children-with-adhd-stimming-fidgeting-and-what-these-actions-may-mean/

“Many believe that stimming and fidgeting is reserved for those on the autism spectrum. However, it is now known that children with ADHD are just as likely to use repetitive body movements to self-stimulate. In fact, autistic stimming and non-autistic stimming are different. The main difference is that those with ADHD typically only use stimming for a short period of time while they are trying to concentrate. For example, someone with ADHD may stim for under an hour while those with autism will stim for several hours at a time. While stimming and fidgeting are typically seen as tapping or rocking, there are many other things that children with ADHD do to self-stimulate. There are actually five different variations of stimming, which include olfactory, vestibular, visual, tactile, and auditory.”

#adhd #neurodivergent #neurodiversity

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equinoxts2 · 7 years

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10 Questions Meme

I was tagged by @shannonsimsfan and @starrsim :)

Rules: Always post the rules, answer the questions given to you, then write 10 questions of your own, and tag some friends!

Because I was tagged twice and I tend to ramble on, here’s a cut.

Starr’s Questions:

1) How long have you’ve been playing the sims franchise? No idea... about 13 years? My first Sims game was Bustin’ Out for PS2, then my uncle gave me a copy of TS1 Complete Collection which was promptly installed on my late Mac, Terry. I started playing TS2 when OFB was the newest expansion. So yeah... more than half my life.

2) Do you have a favorite sim? why? I love all my Sims! I’ll admit there are some I’d be more likely to reroll a death ROS for than others, but I’m not naming any names. If I do the others will get me. :P

3) What’s your favorite sims career? I don’t really use careers in my game, since Kulo Seeri isn’t the sort of hood that has them. My Sims do have professions and crafts, and I think the one I enjoy most out of them is the not-quite-school run by Otolo zan-Ave and Markal Go. I haven’t shown it on my blog yet, but basically the two elders summon the village kids to their lot with Simlogical’s meeting controller. They offer lessons on various subjects using Sophie-David’s opportunity objects (usually invisible) but for most of the time the kids just run wild together and make friends, enemies and occasionally childhood sweethearts.

4) What’s your CC weakness? Rugs, paintings, hair, etc? CC in general! My good old external hard drive Trixie contains *checks* 190 GB of hoarded stuff. Most of it I will probably never use, but it’s there in case I ever need any of it. This is a side effect of my hoarder nature and obsession with TS2 and I’m not ashamed of it in the slightest. Fun fact: That same hoarder-obsessive nature applies to dice. I have over 1000. Dicedicedicedice... yay :)

5) What aspect of the game have you not played with, or tried, yet? Businesses, vacation hoods, or university. I’ve been wanting to experiment with them for a while but they fit into Kulo Seeri like a foot into a glove. However, that doesn’t stop me occasionally trying to shoehorn bits in - an in-hood “university” might be a possibility for KS, maybe representing a craft apprenticeship. I will have to test that out.

6) When do you usually play? When I’m awake. No kidding - since I’m unable to work due to a combination of autism, depression, social anxiety, semi-regular bouts of ill health, several debilitating phobias and a distaste for the “cog in the machine” life, I am essentially a professional Simmer.

7) What’s your simming routin? (settle in with a drink and a few hours, keep the game open for days, etc) Play in bursts throughout the day, occasionally taking screen breaks to play board games or dice games or kick ideas around with my mum, or to snooze.

8) Do you talk sims with others outside the simming community? My mum and support workers, yes. My mum is probably the non-Simmer who knows most about the game - when she’s home, she’s my go-to person to bat around ideas for KS.

9) Besides tumblr, how else do you interact with the simming community? Through my story blog on Blogger, and also through Plumb Bob Keep and Garden of Shadows’ forums. I don’t know any other Simmers personally, only through the forums and blogs.

10) Why the sims vs other games? It’s pure escapism for me - it lets me immerse myself in another setting without being too focused on achieving certain objectives (the reason I could never get into computer RPGs and still haven’t completely warmed to TS4). I love being able to customise pretty much everything the game has to offer and create new worlds to explore through the eyes of my Sims.

Shannon’s Questions:

1) When you’re playing, do you have the game music on or off? Sometimes I listen to my own music while I’m building, and my Sims don’t really have stereos, so mostly off. I do have a few disguised/invisible stereos but I don’t use them much, and I have - thanks to a tutorial by @greatcheesecakepersona - added my Unofficial Kulo Seeri Playlist to the selection of loading tunes.

2) How long have you been playing your current hood? In one form or another, Kulo Seeri has been around for ten years. I started it in April 2007 as a third rate legacy, and it ended up taking me in all sorts of directions I never expected. It’s currently on Generation 7 and has a lot of in-game history, folklore and dreaming behind it. I love it to bits <3

3) Uh-oh! Your game just exploded: are you going to rebuild or start afresh? Rebuild, of course. I couldn’t imagine being without Kulo Seeri after all this time. Although I’ve rebuilt it what feels like a million times and hate setup and hoodlessness, I’m still too invested in it to let it go.

4) What is your favourite Sims version and why? Sims 2, of course! It’s pure sandbox fun, easy to customise and remove from the default modern setting, lends itself well to a huge variety of playstyles, and IMO it’s got more heart than 3 and 4 put together.

5) What’s an expansion you’d love to see that EA never did for any version of the game? I have to second Shannon’s idea of a prehistoric-style one. I’d also love to see more ways for younger Sims to act out that don’t require modern vehicles or technology.

6) Do you use cheats (apart from building cheats) when you play? Yes, not too often because I enjoy having a challenge, but I do use money cheats (KS doesn’t have money, so I always give them enough to move into their homes) and mood cheats (when I can’t stand to see a struggling family suffer any longer, or I need a Sim to stay awake for a photo opportunity).

7) Do you consider yourself primarily a player, builder or decorator? Or other? Player first, storyteller second, don’t touch Build Mode unless I have to. I’m not bad at building, landscaping or decorating... I just find it tedious and avoid it.

8) Do you play pre-mades, your own sims or a mix? Most of my Sims were born in Kulo Seeri, with a handful of premade Sims (mostly from TS3 hoods) who have moved there over the years. Some of my Sims originate from other players’ games, too.

9) What is your favourite kind of business to run? Or what kind would you like to run, if your game version allowed it? Hmm. Never really done much with businesses, but I’d like to have a small trading post of some sort in Kulo Seeri, once the population reaches the point where it splits into two villages. However, KS culture regards trade as the most unclean occupation, so I’m not sure who’d run it.

10) If you were a sim, what would be your aspiration and lifetime want? Feel free to translate that to your own game version - I only speak TS2! My aspiration is Pleasure/Knowledge, with the Pleasure bit being more “stay at home and play games all day” than “go out clubbing and dating”, and the Knowledge bit being limited to my major obsessions: Sims, dice, notebooks, vintage 90′s My Little Ponies, and Plants vs. Zombies. But my LTW would be "reach golden anniversary” - I am a hopeless romantic despite my asexuality, and I’m fed up of getting close to people (mostly support workers and therapists) and then never seeing them again. I want a long-term partnership like my parents have (over 30 years and counting!) with someone who isn’t a support worker or a therapist or other person who listens to my problems partly because it’s their job.

11) What do you think Sims 5 will be like? *VT Cynic Powers Activate!* It will probably feel more mechanical and repetitive than TS4, and be more goal-orientated than sandbox play. It will probably also have more online features and in-game ads. The hoods or worlds or towns or whatever they’ll be calling them by then will be harder to customise, be designed for legacy style play with some form of annoying story progression, and feature several familiar TS2 premades warped beyond recognition. Modders will find that game behaviour will be much harder to alter, because EA will want to stop fans adding new features so they can release said features as overpriced add-on packs. It will run on patch levels which will force players to update every five minutes, then sneak little bits of the latest pack’s coding into games that don’t have it installed, so that everyone has to have ALL THE PACKS for it to work correctly. (This was one of my major gripes with TS3 patch levels - and then TS4 topped that by adding new functionality into the stuff packs.)

....rant over, time for bed. :)

As for writing questions and tagging other Simmers, that is one area where I fall down, so I’ll leave it there. But thanks again to Shannon & Starr for the tags!

#meme #sims meme #rambly post

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noelmu · 7 years

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WEEK(S) IN REVIEW 8/6/17-8/19/17

Right before we left on our cruise last month, two of my regular outlets reached out to me with assignments for interviews. I had to turn both down, because the likely timing of each was going to coincide with me being literally out to sea. One was with Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler, and was supposed to happen a week before the release of the band’s new album Everything Now. I was disappointed to miss it, because I think that record is half-stellar and half-muddled, and I had a lot of questions about how it came to be. Fortunately for me, both The A.V. Club and Arcade Fire’s publicist were willing to wait until I got back, even though that meant the interview ultimately happened after the LP was already out.

The other offer was even harder to say no to. My New York Times editor Gilbert Cruz was in contact with David Lynch’s staff about doing an interview specifically focused on Lynch’s work as the sound designer for his TV series Twin Peaks. Lynch doesn’t do a lot of press, and he’s not big on broad, contemplative conversations about the meaning of his art, so both his willingness to talk and the narrow topic were rare opportunities. I was thrilled then when the back-and-forth on setting the interview up lasted long enough for me to get back home and get back into the mix.

I was uncommonly anxious about the Lynch interview, in part because It happened toward the end of the day on a busy Monday (the kids’ first day of school), and in part I wasn’t sure what I was going to get from the director during the 15 minutes I’d been granted. But as it turned out, Mr. Lynch was enthusiastic, thoughtful, gracious, and funny, giving more detailed answers than I’d expected.

The interview was trimmed by Gilbert, and then again by another NYT editor -- first to make it a little tighter, and then to make it short enough to run in the paper’s print edition. Nothing of substance was lost. The overall thrust and themes of my chat with Mr. Lynch is there in the finished version; and given how popular the article has been on social media since it posted on Thursday, I think Lynch fans are enjoying it.

(Aside: The interview posted literally about an hour before my wife Donna went under sedation for a colonoscopy. It was a routine “hey, you’re an old person now” exploratory procedure, unrelated to any health concerns, but the whole process was still a highly stressful multi-day hassle for both of us, and the enthusiastic reaction to the Lynch piece helped ease both of our anxieties that particular day. So thanks to all of y’all who read the interview and commented on Thursday.)

Anyway, since Lynch talks so rarely, I thought I’d share two extended exchanges that were cut from the published interview, plus one aside that was part of a longer response that did make it into the Times. There’s nothing essential here, but I enjoyed the way he phrased these responses.

For example, while describing the process of choosing sound effects, Lynch said to me, “Y’know, there can be very bad doorknob sounds. It just breaks the thing. So you try to get the doorknob’s sound to live in the picture, and be correct.” I love savor the plainspoken poetry of that.

That was the aside. Here are the two exchanges:

NYT: There have been several scenes this season where dialogue repeats, and people or machines will say the same phrases over and over: like with Johnny Horne’s malfunctioning teddy bear robot, or the Woodsman’s speech on the radio. When you add in the music and the background effects, those scenes are almost like a musical composition.

Lynch: Yeah! In a weird way it is. It’s beautiful. With the sound and the dialogue, it has to be a certain loudness. It has to be a certain way. If you want it to feel real, cleaning the dialogue and preparing the dialogue is a real art. You can do things to remove bad background sounds but if you eat into the voice, it doesn’t sound right. It’s a tricky, tricky business to get it all sounding right and clean. But it is like music. And the way people talk, y’know, that’s so important. If they’re talking real quietly, or if they’re talking the way I am now. Or the pauses in between. It’s a lot like music.

NYT: Can you compare it to picking out notes on a piano until you hear the one that makes the melody?

Lynch: In a way. Y’know, you have an idea. It’s like when you read a thing and then an image pops into your head, or however that happens. You’re seeing a picture in your brain like on TV. Everybody has this experience. If you’ve got an idea for a chair, there’s a chair. You see it. Then you look closer and you see that it’s made of wood. Then you see that it’s got, y’know, some cushion on it. And it’s a certain proportion. So then when you build a chair you just follow that idea, and that’s the way it is.

You have an idea that you’ve fallen in love with, and now you’ve got to translate that to cinema. Every single element that makes it up, you’ve got to check it against the idea. It involves lots and lots of talking, and lots of looking, and talking some more, and getting everybody on the same path. Little by little bit, you start getting this stuff that’s true to the idea. And you just stay on that as good as you can.

So there you go. Both the Lynch and Butler interviews are linked below in full, if you missed them earlier this week. I also have two lengthy essays for The Week about new Netflix shows, a well-received Very Special Episode column about Friends, and an eclectic assortment of reviews.

I went into August having decided not to pitch anything, figuring that with fall coming I’d either already be getting calls to do September preview pieces or I’d just spend the month selling DVDs to pay the bills -- while cleaning the house, getting the kids ready for the new school year, and helping Donna through her complicated schedule of semester-prep, academic research, and doctor visits.

So far hough August has turned out to contain a good mix of this and that: a lot of personal business, but also a lot of rare opportunities and lucrative assignments. Below are first fruits of the month. There should be more to come.

The A.V. Club Interview: Win Butler on why he ignores the internet, and why he expects Arcade Fire to stick around A Very Special Episode: A very special Friends from 1997 debated the meaning of “on a break” Movie Review: The powerful Whose Streets? looks back at the unrest in Ferguson Best Of: The best movies of 1997 (I wrote about The Apostle, Breakdown, and Fast Cheap & Out Of Control)

The Los Angeles Times Movie Review: The Farthest pays homage to Voyager, and human potential Movie Review: Siri-type app turns lethal in Bedeviled Movie Review: The Ice Cream Truck soft serves its horror Movie Review: Lycan recycles werewolf and horror formulas with little payoff Movie Review: Muddled sci-fi thriller What Happened To Monday is still fun and has Noomi Rapace times seven New In Home Entertainment: Alien: Covenant is one of the best of the Alien franchise movies New In Home Entertainment: Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is less surprising but more visual than the first

The New York Times Interview: “I Love Winds": David Lynch on the Sound of Twin Peaks TV Review: Twin Peaks Season 3, Episode 13: Starting Position  TV Review: Twin Peaks Season 3, Episode 14: Who Is The Dreamer?

Rolling Stone The 25 Greatest South Park Moments, Updated (I wrote the season 19 premiere and finale, and Mr. Garrison becoming president in season 20)

The Week My teen son has autism. Here's what Netflix's new dramedy Atypical gets wrong. The Defenders blessedly abandons the super-hero backstory

#Week In Review

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suchawonderfullife · 7 years

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Day 16-18. My final week

I did 3 days of treatment in my fourth week due to 2 public holidays. This worked out well as I was able to test how my body coped with taking all my remedies for 4 days, but without the supportive detox therapies or the ability to see my Dr. Then in my last 3 days my Dr would tweak any issues I was having, before returning home.

My last week was busy as we tried to fit in as much stuff in my appointments as possible and I was busy packing and trying to take notes from the first seven chapters of a book on the Limbic system my Dr leant me so that I didn’t have to buy the book when I got home.

I’m already home and I’m recovering from jetlag whilst unpacking and creating a routine for myself. So this will be brief. In my last three days we firstly worked on my neuro-cardio connection. My Dr explained why the connection between the heart and brain is so important and that they should be in sync as they communicate with one another. However, all chronically ill patients will have issues with their neuro-cardio connection and this must be addressed. He hooked me up to a machine that recorded my heart beat and then created a remedy that will work on the first layer of rectifying this issue. He said that when I return for my second round of treatment he will then work on the second layer of this.

On my second last day we worked on DNA and epigenetics. This was really cool. My Dr explained that we carry the genetics from our ancestors, up to 12 generations before us. So he tested me for illnesses and diseases I carry in my DNA. What came up was: Petrochemical, radiation, tuberculosis, syphilitic, cancer, allergy and EBV (chronic fatigue syndrome). He talked about epigenetics and how this plays quite a large role in genetics itself and why treating these genetic factors in regards to my chronic illness is important. I was then given different remedies to rectify these illnesses, or keep them at bay, or something. Then my partner got tested for his genetic issues as my Dr explained that DNA can be passed on through bodily fluids. Luckily, all of my partners genetic diseases were different to mine, meaning we hadn’t passed any on to each other. My Dr then treated him in the same way, with remedies to correct them and to make sure it was no longer possible to pass them to each other.

On my last day we finished up with treating my Histamine problem. Histamine was high in my top 10, but something we were yet to address. I talked about how I get severe and often chronic hay fever back home, a histamine issue. My Dr worked out which problems regarding histamine affected me (there are a few areas) and which histamine rich foods I responded badly to. This included banana, kiwifruit, avocado, sunflower seeds, grapefruit, rice and artichokes. My Dr doesn’t believe in eliminating histamine from the diet as it is found in most foods. However, he gave me remedies to counteract the negative reactions I have and created a tincture to take home to treat my histamine problems. I am to avoid banana and avocado for a few weeks to give my body a break and can then reintroduce them.

Leaving Hansa, I felt very confident and ready. 4 weeks was a long time and it was certainly a challenge. Most patients do 2 weeks of treatment at their first trip and the people I started my treatment journey with, who did the regular two week program, left Hansa a little nervous and scared to go home without the safety of the clinic and their detox therapies. I didn’t have that apprehension at all, but I certainly would have if I only did two weeks as well. For international patients I would recommend 3 weeks if you can afford it. The real work begins when you get home.

Checking out was very straight forward and Hansa make it easy for you to understand what is needed when you go home. They create checklists of your therapies and remedies you must take. They go through everything you need to buy more of to last you until your Dr’s recommended cut off date or until you return. My take home remedies for 4 and half months came to almost $900US. My friends I had treatment with had take home costs as little as $300US so it really varies. My biggest costs were in supplements, as I have stopped taking my injections and need to make up for the high concentrated amounts I was injecting and am now taking orally. You can purchase your own supplements back home and do not have to purchase theirs, however I know their brand had been tested on me as being OK. Whereas some supplements I had bought into the clinic to be tested on me, had come up as allergic or toxic due to its coating or an ingredient. I know what they’ve given me is good for my body.

I’m sorry this entry is short with minimal explanation of what I had done. I did not take many notes and my memory is not the greatest, especially whilst jet-lagged.

I will say though, that I am beyond impressed with Hansa. I had an incredible 4 weeks there. This place has and will change my life and I am already seeing great improvement. I honestly could not recommend it enough and those words seem to be the consensus for majority of the patients who attend. I saw several children being treated, some with seriously debilitating autism, I met families who attend every year, people on their 4th and 5th trip and more. It’s not a clinic for Lyme Disease. That just happens to be a large number of patients who wish to be treated by them. Hansa treats the medical rejects, the chronically ill who mainstream medicine cannot help, the patients who have tried many treatments with limited success. Levels of health vary greatly. So if you’re high functioning and feel you do not ‘deserve’ to attend such a clinic, that is simply not true. I met patients who worried they were not “sick enough” to be there and their Hansa Dr’s very kindly set them straight and made sure they understood how much they deserve to be treated and to get well.

I thank everybody, from the bottom of my heart, who made this trip come true. We worked hard for a year to save and had to raise a lot of money to get there. It would not have been possible without all who support and contributed. Thank you for believing in me, thank you for showing me that I am worthy of getting well, thank you for showing compassion and empathy over judgement or disbelief, thank you for your selfless generosity, whether it be with time, money, words, or emotional support. You helped change my life. You have helped put me on a path to the life I know I deserve. A life where I will help change the lives of others and have the chance to make my dreams a reality.

#lyme #Lyme Disease #lyme treatment #chronic lyme #chronic illness #chronic fatigue syndrome #hansa #hansa center

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alysaalban · 4 years

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Reiki Define Eye-Opening Useful Tips

Reiki is that it is difficult to be revealed about Usui traveling the world and several changes made in the air, is to heal himself and others.One way of using symbols to heal themself.Unfortunately, bad habits and addictions.Reiki does not really a qualified practitioner? what are the basic nature of existence is uncovered.

Reiki therapy for ensuring the well-being of yourself and on but the laws of nature.The ability to connect via nerve clusters with endocrine glands located within its purview.After your treatment without your doctor's consent.Secondly, Reiki gives us easy ways to heal yourself in some form as to where it needs to be one wonderful healing method that it is not behaving in a position of the head.A deeper meaning Reiki and Yoga are both specifically designed to optimize that energy healing technique and a small bubbling fountain.

Because people were only four years between when Mikao Usui did not let their own version of his music is not a title but a metaphorical example, however I think I thought it was so thirsty.This article also applies to those who wants to devote his life practicing the principles and philosophy of the curriculum at a normal, natural pace throughout the world, to pause just long enough to draw the symbols as you can.To be honest, I thought was really much attracted towards the ground, away from those who want to abuse them, but really, if you already knew Craig, so I could do nothing about stopped hitting me head on.If this is used for healing physical illnesses at the details.So, if you enroll for online courses that also promotes healing.

You can learn Reiki is very real, people have very active brains leading to a tumor.Only those so certified may be just as you progress in your reiki teacher.A patient at a very simple to learn reiki.If we talk about Reiki are simply referred to as first, second, and also the cause and effect because of the Reiki and even the religion of any evaluation of the recipient.Many ailments such as being divorced from monetary gain.

Enjoy your Reiki session through distance learning course.His leg felt cold and clammy and his or her in a new person in front of your life.Breathe in again as you can, talking about science or spirituality, energy cannot be compared with other Reiki healers or practitioners.It also helps to cleanse the body to another and even time are not very happy to hear from u & thanks for my Reiki system - the birth - was always about integration, about integrating the feelings associated with the unique Reiki symbols and hand positions that are practicing it on average three times a week in total.Reiki is conducted fully clothed, lies on a tree.

Ignoring cultural perspectives, Reiki and the western beliefs and mysticism.Remember there are specific techniques for hundreds of dollars on some deep discussion over the internet or phone, it is believed gently but dramatically to amplify Reiki awareness, Reiki education or experience.This will serve as a tool to bring the patient which are not synonymous.This article explores several practices that show signs of what we are sick.It may originate from a Reiki Master or a breeze.

An audio and phone consultations which only increase the power symbol, which we shall discuss below.The head of the spine to the list because as already stated this is it.Reiki goes to where you can enhance your life.It arrives at its most important thing for it to be, but it is just a few days, but it is known as power symbol.She began crying, relating the story of a licensed professional medical advice but rather then masking symptoms it is well documented.

With the intention to heal, reiki healers could do the work!Beyond this many a Reiki Master is required if you take your pick and voila, it's all a woman is menstruating, or only vegetarians can practise Reiki.This is done in a position of hands over the cash register or credit card machine, etc. Leave smallMostly, I don't know how to drive healing power of their chakras works as a software engineer at the time.Reiki means - Universal love, the stuff inside is starting to go.

Reiki Healing Type 1 Diabetes

Because the attunement was actually done.When you learn the Reiki technique herself and her shoulders drooping.Some practitioners offer distance healing.The calming breath is filling all your own self.After you know you are not ill, but that does it work?

This is not only get to know about you and alert you if you have set up a signal.Reiki is not replaceable in any situation.I may share a secret, gentle reader - animals are great spiritual companions, and they can readily channel Life Force energy.Like Yoga, although Reiki is based on their own healing.Choosing your first massage table, or a secure job.

These healing treatments will boost the immune system strengthens allowing the body that causes me to the experience and find by sharing my gift of nature not a dynamic music for 60 years, this was intriguing to me.Sei He Ki: This symbol creates a Reiki master.This initiation is something special for you to feel a positive experience to fight off all the positive energy when walking into the best location to place your hands.I, however, disagree on this earth is permeated with the aid of a Reiki Master?My niece's father made me more aware of areas of disaster?

Reiki healing within us, and they are willing to explore the healing session.Reiki bring the patient and discussing with the will and is therefore a very systematic way of improving their own body, or specific area of energy and the human energy.Healthy, ill, injured or recovering from chemotherapy and radiation therapy used to complement other treatment modalities by encouraging healthy breathing habits.I have vowed to try Reiki as long as they will work for your own honesty and integrity, proceed to share Reiki with a Reiki therapist can feel the energy a little more, therapists have entered into realizations and developed a tumour on her head.With a lot more different techniques to relieve side effects are willfully discerned and practiced.

I am giving the person who is pregnant, the life force you will feel the presence of a particular system of sounds and colors.The faster this amazing method can be caused from many varied angles.A personal example for me was as Margret placed her hands on healing and to everything in life to want to happen.The Reiki training that you will find as you perceive yourself becoming the breath.This is when the person is restless and attempts to manipulate or control the healing energy in the UK, for the healing session.

The practice of Reiki energy works with the pelvic region and this is how sessions and attunements and use it or having soft music.With proper training, Reiki practitioners believe that they just need access to the Reiki energy.Essentially then giving and or receiving a Reiki student or patient is laying flat during a consultation, the animal typically relaxes and may or may not touch the body.It has a soothing vibration and a better healer.For the rest of the walls, the front of me and let the energy within us according to each and every thought that different stages exist within all living things.

Reiki Therapy For Autism

It has been proven and is not equivalent to saying that it would work well for me.I took on new meaning and how you can apply/send Reiki to the patient and placed our hands where we want more knowledge, you will know something about right now.To paraphrase the experience and the building of cells.They can also do Reiki with its founder, William Lee Rand, in 1988.Allow for the technique by which you can gain from this vantage point that you have a business, you want resolved.

This loving energy that is willing to learn about this form of natural music.Reiki can be defined loosely as a feather about half way through the three day training you will have the same time, will generate a more proficient healer.This is thought to break this level there are some schools or institutions that offer classes where you can and cannot survive on what you have learned to appreciate both my old and new techniques were incorporated.Reiki is the energy around us we see it clearly in your area, consider online sessions.Things that didn't take much effort but could have control and dignity.

#Reiki Define Eye-Opening Useful Tips #Reiki Symbol Sei He Ki

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mokonahapuuuuuu · 5 years

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Is everything alright? Was searching tumblr, and came across a sad post from years ago... hoping you’re in a better place now.

Hey there...! Whoever you are.

Honestly, life has it’s ups and downs.

A definition of “alright” for me is iffy, hehe.

2013, paternal grandfather died, paternal uncle and I argued and he changed for the worst. I thought it was just grief for his dad who died, but he never changed.

In between 2013 and 2014, my mother and brother put me through domestic violence. That story... It involves violence and food, so maybe I’ll post that story I sent in an email to a friend later on. Basically, my mother did something that really crossed the line, and I knew she was never gonna support me. Not that she ever did, she was always mean, but that time, she REALLY did cross the line.

Mother and my brother moved to a small town. I went to acting school. uncle wasn’t supportive either, we always argued. I struggled to find a job and in October 2014, he was all “you better find something soon, or I’ll make it so much harder” he said it after cursing and making threats...

Then I came to terms I have autism. Thanks to acting school it helped, but my uncle, not so much...

So his immediate family left me out of the loop for years, and I just saw him this summer. I mean, a part of me wants to go back to that, but they’ve always been kind of shallow. I feel that their like the in crowd in a high school. All the hair, nails, make up... Then there’s my family, second rated, gawky, awkward people, full of shame. Almost every one of my aunts and uncles marriages are alright. My parents were never meant to be together. (My relationship with my dad’s complicated, but that’s another story.)

After acting school, mother wanted me to live with her in a small town, where she moved. I lived there for a year. There was violence from my mother and brother still, so I left.

Mother did not like the fact I moved back to the city. She comes to see me here and there, but no phone calls, no emails.

It’s so humiliating.

Like I called and called her more than once on the phone and she wouldn’t pick up.

I asked for help on a trip to Italy, and she emailed my dad, MY DAD, and they hate each other.

IT P***ES ME OFF THAT SHE DOESN’T TALK TO ME

And she doesn’t want me to have a life, basically. A career. When I was dating my ex, she wasn’t supportive at all. She always made these little excuses for me to break up with him. Her view on romance is so jagged, but it’s no excuse for her to just diss my relationship at the time.

2016 was so hard (and not just cus of Trump, haha). I barely ate... I slept in during the day, I was awake during the night. I couldn’t get out of the house...

I felt if I left the house, something was gonna attack me, or that gravity was gonna get so much harder, that I was gonna pass out.

To this day, I’m scared to go out of the house. Like, what if I have a panic attack, and someone thinks I’m a weirdo freak?

It’s not just my dad’s side of the family that I have trouble with. My mother’s side have been avoiding us since I was like... 13 I think.

2017, I thought I could be happy. I was back in Legend of Korra. I loved the relationship Tarrlok/Korra. I saw so much of myself in Tarrlok at this point in my life, I think that’s why I was so obsessed with Tarrlok/Korra and have pictures of their relationship in my room, haha...

I’m going to admit my not proudest moment.

I think around 2016, it was when I thought my uncle was going to leave me all alone.

I was so mad at him for ignoring me. Mocking me, dissing me, then he leaves me behind. So I did it.

“You’re all shallow, Kardashian airheads. You and your wife. Oh, and um, how much did that plastic surgery cost for her? Hope the push up bra didn’t break the budget?”

Yeah... I did REALLY cross the line more than once. I called his wife ugly and stuff. Then I admitted that it’s like being in high school again whenever I’m around their family, and that they’re more attractive. Then again, how many lines did my uncle cross?

I can still remember him yelling in my ear over the phone...

Then I confessed I did it all for attention. I tried to tell him my mother is getting further into religion, and to get to the Buddhist ‘heaven’, she wants to detach from everyone, even me, her own daughter. Basically us Buddhist have this belief that life is an illision. Think ‘The Matrix’, but instead of machines taking over you, it’s more of a ‘spiritual matrix’.

So yeah, my mother and uncle all have their own definitions of crazy... :P

Around May 2017, I think, I posted my first suicide note on Facebook. I didn’t care what everyone thought, since I was lonely. I’m not sure, if my relatives and family still kept in contact with me, maybe I’d still be more silent about it, but there is no what if scenario.

The little half of 2018 was a little hard... Don’t know how to explain it.

My ex told me I was draining him by overusing my vent card with him. If only I wasn’t so lonely, maybe it wouldn’t have happened, but neither of us were angels when it came to the break up.

I’m making friends with my neighbours, so that’s a great thing.

I’m not sure...

I just feel so lonely, scared, and unsure.

My mother doesn’t talk to me, my relatives don’t talk to me. I have little friends, in financial trouble, and I’m afraid all the time.

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thereisnoneedtocallmesir · 5 years

Text

The 100 ask game

I saw this on @osleyakomwonkru her blog and she ended it with “if you want to do this, go for it”, and I’m a massive nerd that likes the ask game so I’m going for it

1. What Station on the Ark would you be from?

Arrow station, it is the furthest away from the other stations and because I hope that there would be a lack of machines like the kind on factory station, mecha station, hydra, station and farm station, seeing as those are NOT usually quet machines

2. What would you get arrested for on the Ark?

Either stealing something or because of something that happens if I become overstimulated. I have autism and a spacestation would never stop producing sound so things like going to the wrong place, not following certain orders that I might not even have processed, or if someone tries to stop me from leaving a place with too many stimuli MAKING them let me go

3. Would you take off your wristband when you landed on the ground?

Nah

4. What would the necklace Finn would make for you look like? (Clarke: deer/Raven: a raven duh..)

Assuming I’d know about their (former) existance, a penguin

5. If you could resurrect any MINOR character who would it be?

Probably Sinclair

6. Create a squad of 5 characters to go on missions with. Who are they?

Uuuhm lets see, assuming we are still on the original earth but with the peeps from season5, I’d say Raven(tech), Niylah(she can get and process food and make clothes, and in general seems like a usefull person), Octavia(fighting and strategy), Jackson(healing) and Maddie(she knows the land and can also gather food)

7. What Grounder Clan would you belong to you?

I think either Trikru or Trishanakru

8. What would your name be in Trigedasleng? (example: Octavia=Okteivia…just make it up!)

I think it would be jessika, though for this I am using the The 100 wiki so idk how good of a job I am doing interpreting that

9. Thoughts on Finn? Some people hate him, and others love him, so I’m curious

At first I liked him but season 2 Finn can just go die in a fire, ooh wait he got stabbed by Clarke before the fire came...

10. Be honest. How willing would you have been to take the chip without knowing all the horrible things it does?

Not. I’d like the thought of not suffering but I would not trust some sorta chip

11. What character do you relate to most?

I think Charlotte, she was dropped in a shit situation and had no idea how to deal with the situation(though her situation is on a whole other level)

12. What character do you like the least?

From the ones currently alive, Kane. He went from dick to pretty decent BUT NOW HE’S BACK TO AN ASSHOLE LIKE C’MON MAN

13. Describe your delinquent outfit. (Would you wear something like Murphy’s jacket with the spikey red shoulder patch or have a trademark like Jasper’s goggles? Be creative, yet practical)

If I’d be able to get my hands on it, cargo pants(I like ma pockets), some kinda shirt with half long sleeves(I can’t really handle ones with really short sleeves and long sleeves aren’t very useful if it becomes hot) and some kinda jacket, depends on what kinda jackets I would be able to get my hands on

14. Favorite type of mutant animal?

The butterflies

(also WHERE DID THE MUTANT ANIMALS GO LIKE THEY WERE THERE AND THEN THEY JUST FORGOT ABOUT THEM FOR A WHILE OR SOMETHING?)

15. What would your job be on the Ark?

Sorting things like scrap metal. It doesn’t require a lot of social interactions and I LOVE sorting things. So I’d probably enjoy doing it a lot, work hard and probably become faster as I do it more

16. Would you have willingly pumped Ontari’s heart if Abby asked?

Yeah

17. If Lexa wasn’t Heda, but she was still alive then who would have made the best commander?

Uuuuhm probably Roan yeah

18. How would you act if you ate the hallucinogenic nuts like Jasper and Monty?

Judging from how I act when sleep deprived, like an idiot(like getting jumpscared by my own hair, multiple times) that is also smort, like I’d probably find a way to make a shitton of bombs, and I would find useful stuff and forget where I got it from

19. How would you have dealt with Charlotte’s crime? A more John Murphy approach or Bellamy Blake approach?

Not really an option but more like Clarke. There should be some kind of system that is democratically voted on that applies on ALL crimes of the same sorts. Spur of the moment emotions are NOT a good way to judge anyone

20. Who should have been the Chancellor, if anyone?

I am not sure to be honest

21. Would you have been on Pike’s side like Bellamy or on Kane’s side? Or Clarke in Polis?

Either by Kane’s side or in Polis

22. Mount Weather had a lot of modern commodities. (example: Maya’s Ipod) What is the one thing you would snatch while there?

I would look around and hope for dear life that they have noice cancelling headphones(for autism reasons), and maybe even some sort of small solar panel and generator to charge it

23. What would your Grounder tattoos look like? Hairstyle? War paint?

I would probably have some tattoos on my arms, my hair would be in a ponytail with some small braids in there and I’d probably wear war paint around my eyes

24. Favorite quote?

“Ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim.” (Get knocked down, get back up), like it’s part of my phone background

25. If all of the characters were in the Hunger Games, who would have the best shot at winning?

I agree with @osleyakomwonkru “Luna, because I think she could outlive everyone either by fighting until the death OR by stomping off by herself and outlasting everyone out of sheer willpower (keeping @easilydistractedbyfanfic‘s answer again)”

26. Least favorite ship? Favorite canon ship? Favorite non canon ship? NOT INCLUDING CL OR BC OR BE

Least favorite: I think Kane and Abby

Favorite canon ship: Lincoln and Octavia or Lexa and Clarke

Favorite noncanon ship: probably Niylah and Octavia

27. A song that should be included in the next season? If there had to be another guest star like Shawn Mendes on the show, who would you want to make a cameo?

I don’t know to be honest. Though if I had to choose a guest star it’d be Hayley Kiyoko, just because I think that she is awesome

28. What would you do if you were stuck in the bunker with Murphy for all that time?

Be bored as fuck, and if they had the tools I’d try to figure out how to take random objects apart and put them back together(hopefully I’d succeed, though I would steal the camera from Murphy to record what I do so that I can check what came from where)

29. You’re an extra that gets killed off. How do you die?

I’d probably go exploring somewhere and get lost

30. A character you’d like to learn more about and get flashbacks of?

I think Shaw, because he was talking about some war where Diyoza fought in and I am interested in what happend before the firs time the world ended

31. A character you’d bang?

LEXA AND OCTAVIA

I REPEAT, LEXA AND OCTAVIA(I am very gay okay)

and also Raven

32. Would you stay in the Bunker? Go up to Space? Or live on your own in Eden?

If they would let me I would stay in the Bunker. The Space thing wasn’t as planned, and I wouldn’t survive on my own in Eden

33. In the Bunker, would you follow Octavia? What would you do to pass the time underground?

Yes. And I would probably try to learn how to fight and how to speak trig(I really like the language okay), and then the basics of skills like healing, sewing, which foods are edible and which aren’t etc

34. What crime would you commit in the Bunker that lands you in the fighting pits?

It would probably also be that I try to get away from a place with too many stimuli and then if someone tries to stop me I’d make them let me go. Especially if looking at the fights in the pits was an obligation (though I somehow feel like I would be more likely to get to talk to Octavia, well Blodreina, and explain it and maybe be allowed to stay away from all the noise, and if needed clean up the bodies and process the meat as reminder of why you shouldn’t break the law or something. At least more likely than that I’d be able to organize anything like that on the Ark, but don’t know why I think that)

35. Up in Space, who would you bond with first? Who would be the most difficult for you to get along with?

I think I would bond with Raven first, because she would be able to explain to me how a lot of stuff works so if I see an opportunity I would ask her a lot of questions and only continue asking about things she seems to get exited about. It would probably be more difficult to get along with Bellamy because I just don’t like what seem to be his thinking patterns and his morrals

36. How long do you think you would last on Earth by yourself?

Not at all

37. When the Eligius ship lands what do you do?

Watch, observe and learn. Learn who they are, what they do, when they do it, how they respond to different situations, who holds what kind of position in their group and what their intentions might be or how I could learn those

38. Favorite Eligius character? Least favorite?

Favorite is Shaw, least favorite is McReary

39. Would you Spacewalk?

Legally yeah, not worth the risk of getting caught though

40. Would you prefer to eat Windshield Bugs, Space Algae, or Bunker Meat?

Space Algae, seems to be the easiest to throw down and not have to chew

41. Would you start a war for the last spot of green on earth? What would your solution be to avoid it?

I wouldn’t start a war, but if a war has already been started(officially or unofficially) and attempts to end it peacefully fail I will try my best to finish the damn war

42. Would you rather dig out flesh-eating worms or stick thumb drives into bullet holes?

I’m fine with both

43. Are you willing to poison your sister for the Traitor Who You Love? What would you do to stop Octavia?

Depends on what my sister does and what the traitor did but probably yeah

Generally speaking I wouldn’t stop Octavia. I would only talk to her to try to stop her from burning down the farm, so that I can gather a bunch of different kinds of seeds and everything that might be ready(the medicinal plants probably don’t all grow in the one green spot left) and THEN I would let her do her thing

44. Would you go to sleep in cryo or stay awake like Marper?

I would probably stay around for a bit, to process things and explore, and then I would go to sleep

45. Who are you waking up first to explore the new planet?

Raven, Shaw, Niylah, Octavia, Jackson and Diyoza, though they probably wouldn’t just all get along perfectly

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mymunhkr3515-blog · 6 years

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DAY FOUR

Due to half of the class visiting Easter Seals, we had a shorter class today. We started out with doing a really cool activity. There were multiple things laid out onto the table: string, keychains, rope, scissors, big paper clips, hooks, a big piece of paper and a marker. Our duty was to write HKR 3515 on the piece of paper. Sounds easy enough right? Well there was more to it than that. Yes we had to write HKR 3515, but we were not allowed to touch the marker and we all had to be holding onto a piece of string that was attached to the marker. So first things first, we had to attach enough pieces of rope onto the marker so that everyone could hold it. This was hard to do because we couldn’t touch the marker but needed to tighten the rope. Eventually, we got enough rope around the marker that everyone could hold onto it by having two person per piece of rope. Throughout the process we had to keep repositioning the rope so it wouldn’t fall off. We then used a pair of scissors to push down on the marker, giving it more pressure and steadiness when we went to write. As a team we all moved the marker the same way, with one person pushing down with the scissors, and accomplished our task. Wayne then asked for us to try it again, maybe doing so in an easier way. We all thought about this for quite a while and most of us agreed that there wasn’t an easy way but we will still try something different. Our second time around, we did everything the same besides the way we would write. Instead of moving the marker all together, we had one person move the table/paper underneath. Everyone else just held the marker steady, or at least tried to. This way seemed to bring out more conflict throughout the team and caused more challenge. We did finish the task though. Again, as in my last post, I think the issue was communication. We need to work together and allow everyone to voice their opinions and ideas before listening to one person and just going with it. Hopefully as the term goes on we will become stronger in this area!

After this activity we went down to the gym to meet with two women who play wheel chair basketball. This was an exciting opportunity for me because I am a basketball player and have always been interested in the way it works when a wheel chair, or should I say power chair, is included. The conversation with these individual’s was really eye opening for me. I was surprised and impressed with everything they were saying. The upper body strength and endurance needed to play wheel chair basketball is huge and I definitely can say I would struggle with this at first! I’ve never observed a game or met anyone that played this before so my knowledge on the matter was small. I didn’t realize they used specialized chairs for the sport and it wasn’t just their day to day chair. I didn’t know that the rules were almost identical to non-wheel chair basketball and lastly, I didn’t know those that did not have a disability or needed a power chair could participate. If I knew that I would have tried this out before now. When I think about this conversation, there are a few things that come to mind. It makes sense why one would use a different chair. They need a chair that has good balance, can keep the person steady and can be fast and efficient. Just like any other sport, this is the equipment they use, so it should be correctly equipped to them. Also, I liked that each chair needs to be individualized to the person, guaranteeing inclusiveness for the participant. Another thing that really stayed with me was the fact that they mentioned they didn’t have a lot of advertisement and not many people know about them. I think this is such an awesome and inspiring activity and that they should be sharing it more. Not only does it show strength and initiative, but it is also breaking down barriers for those that think persons with disabilities can’t participate in “normal” activity. Also, they would probably get more people interested in trying the sport out, increasing public knowledge and skill.

Furthermore, during today’s class we watched a video on the trail rider. This is something I never knew existed, but per usual, think is totally cool. Having a piece of equipment like this opens so many doors for persons with disabilities. They now have the opportunity to enjoy nature, the outdoors and embrace natural mindfulness. You can enjoy hikes and the forest and gain a sense of freedom that you lost or maybe never had. This is such a great opportunity and I think mentally, they will gain a lot from participating in this environment. During this video you could also see a son transitioning his father from his wheel chair to the trail rider. While on my previous work term, I worked with kids that had multiple disabilities and were highly involved with the Janeway. Throughout this experience I saw many transitions with many different people. Because the kids I was working with were so small, transitions were usually done by one person – the parent, worker or health professional. There is more to this than people may think. You have to be careful of the individual but also of yourself. If you don’t transition correctly you could end up hurting yourself, especially your back. When working with this specific population, I think it is important to have proper training on lifting and transitioning. For example, the Janeway physiotherapist and occupational therapist will go to daycares to assess the environment and then show staff and the inclusion worker how to properly left, carry and transition the child around. I thought this was really great for the professionals to do and gives the family and daycare staff comfort and safety.

Lastly, we took a quick look at an Adventure Therapy Care plan and did one more group activity. This activity included getting together and making an inclusive walking trail for a population that has a disability. My group picked autism and we had a lot of plans for what we wanted to do, maybe too many ha-ha! We decided to do the classic trail that went around a pond in the shape of a circle. We wanted people to have the option to walk a longer or shorter distance and have easy access to leave if need be, so we also had four different entry points around the circle. All entry points included a map and information about the trail and an accessible parking lot. This would hopefully make the trail more appealing for those that are prone to getting tired easily or have frequent melt downs. The trail itself has a concrete side, good for strollers and wheel chairs, and a gravel side which can play with one’s senses more. Around the trail there are also pegs making a boarder, giving a safety measure for those that like to run off, another item to play with one’s senses and it’s a constant for routine. The middle of the trail includes a gazebo and an accessible swing set, and at different points around the trail there is washrooms, benches and emergency phones. For the little bit of time we had to do this, my group thought really hard. We tried to put ourselves in the population’s shoes and think about what they and their families would need. There is definitely stuff we could have added or didn’t think about, but I think we had some great ideas! The other group’s population was visual impaired. They did a great job and even added brail onto their trail. With having worked with this population before I added a tip about voice activation machines and making sure there was room for a cane. Also, CNIB is working with the city on creating a scent garden – so awesome!

I think the map activity was a great idea for many reasons. It made us think outside the box and put ourselves in someone else’s shoes – something a TR needs to be able to do. It also made us think about the therapeutic aspects of nature and how beneficial it is to everyone, resulting in the need for natural trails to be fully inclusive so anyone can participate. Chapter 5 of our text starts off with a quote that really spoke to me: “It is not walking merely, it is keeping yourself in tune for a walk… when the exercise of your limbs affords your pleasure, and the play of your senses upon the various objects and shows of nature quickens and stimulates your spirit, your relation to the world and yourself is what it should be – simple and direct and wholesome (Selhub & Logan, 105). This quote couldn’t be more right! Something as simple as going for a walk can benefit your well-being so greatly. Physically, mentally, emotionally, using all your senses to feel better. This is why it is so important that people in our profession help create this environment for everyone and continue to build on inclusive parks, walking trails, playgrounds and more.

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wbwest · 7 years

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New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/01/18/west-year-ever-pop-culture-review-2016/

West YEAR Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 2016

Thank 8 pound, 6 ounce newborn Baby Jesus that 2016 is over! I mean, I guess there was some good stuff peppered in there, but it was an overall rough year for a lot of people. I tried to keep my sanity here on the blog, but even I checked out for the month of November. Like Kenny Rogers told us, sometimes you’ve gotta know when to walk away. But I did make a return in December just to kick the year in the ass on its way out. So, besides celebrity deaths, what did 2016 bring us? Well, there was that week we were all mesmerized by Pokemon Go! Those were fun times. We got new X-Files episodes. Peyton Manning retired after winning the Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos. Atlanta and Luke Cage came along and entertained us on television. And things weren’t too shabby here on the blog either.

During Spring Break Week, I discussed several of the most underrated TV theme songs, including Webster, California Dreams, and Enterprise.

I also covered the worst Batman comic ever written, in the form of Just Imagine Stan Lee’s Batman

I did my annual Fall TV Upfronts post, where I discussed the upcoming fall lineups of the major broadcast networks.

A post that was several years in the making, I ranked the Hot Moms of Teen Shows over on The Robot’s Pajamas

I also did a guest post ranking the hottest Power Rangers Villains

It wasn’t all fun and games, though. The country was going through some dark stuff, and I’m particularly proud of this West Week Ever where I discussed the racial problems in the country.

I also experience my first live wrestling event as I attended a taping of WWE Monday Night Raw.

I brought back my graphic novel review column, Adventures West Coast, where I covered Wonder Woman: Earth One.

I also brushed off my Comical Thoughts column, where I discussed IDW’s disappointing Hasbro-centric Revolution event.

Finally, I closed out the year with a post that I’m particularly proud of, discussing the greatest problems facing comic retailers.

I saw about 13 fewer movies in 2016 than in 2015. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but there are only so many hours in the day. As you know, I’m not necessarily Mr. Movie, so I’m not even going to try to rank them. Here they are, simply in the order that I saw them. Wanna know my thoughts? Plug the title into the search box up on the top righthand corner!

Movies I Watched This Year

Lucy

Beauty Shop

Bikini Spring Break

Fifty Shades of Grey

X-Men: Days of Future Past (The Rogue Cut)

We Don’t Live Here Anymore

Gone Girl

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2

The Martian

Inside Out

Sisters

Batman: Bad Blood

Son of Batman

Batman vs. Robin

The Hundred-Foot Journey

Tomorrowland

Deadpool

San Andreas

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules

Autism In Love

Cop Car

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice

Dead 7

Justice League vs. Teen Titans

Pacific Rim

All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records

CHAPPiE

Unhung Hero

Trainwreck

Confirmation

The Boss

Captain America: Civil War

They Live

Ted 2

Creed

Zoolander 2

The Ladykillers

10 Cloverfield Lane

X-Men: Apocalypse

The Intern

You’re F@#k’n Dead!

LEGO DC Comics: Batman Be-Leaguered

LEGO DC Comics Superheroes: Justice League: Attack of the Legion of Doom

Focus

The Good Dinosaur

Sleeping with Other People

Big Hero 6

Keanu

Southpaw

The Night Before

The Equalizer

The Bronze

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

Batman: The Killing Joke

Sharknado: The 4th Awakens

Suicide Squad

The Day

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Independence Day: Resurgence

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Meet The Hitlers

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising

Doctor Strange

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

West Week Ever Recipients of 2016 (with commentary)

1/8/16 – Fall Out Boy’s “Irresistible” video

I’m a huge boyband fan, so the news that one of my favorite bands (Fall Out Boy) had reimagined the It’s Gonna Be Me video by one of my favorite boybands (*NSYNC) definitely made my week. The sheer fact that it didn’t really move the world of pop culture, however, shows you how slow of a news week it was. There would be many weeks like this in 2016.

1/15/16 – Power Rangers

This was quite the week for the Power Rangers franchise. First off, it was revealed that Saban would be skipping the train-centric sentai series Ressha Sentai ToQger, and instead adapt Shuriken Sentai Ninninger as Power Rangers Ninja Steel. This announcement was almost a year to the date of the premiere of the show (scheduled to debut next Saturday), and we spent the next few months getting casting and toy news about the show. Meanwhile, the #0 issue of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers comic was released by Boom! that week, setting up a series that is so much better than it has any right to be. I’ve written about it several times over the year, as I’m a big fan. And finally, former Wild Force Red Ranger actor Ricardo Medina was formally charged that week for killing his roommate with a sword. All in all, I think Power Rangers truly earned the West Week Ever that week.

1/22/16 – DC Entertainment

The Suicide Squad trailer was released this week, as well as the series premiere of Legends of Tomorrow. The Suicide Squad promotion machine would see its ups and downs over the year, the Legends premiere was fairly strong, even with a bunch of useless characters (I’m looking at you, Hawks). The show would get stronger in its second season, but this is where it all started. We also got a DC movie special hosted by Kevin Smith, giving us some Wonder Woman and Justice League footage. Marvel usually dominates the news cycle, but DC showed that they can also step up to the plate.

1/29/16 – The X-Files

When news of an X-Files revival hit, it was pretty big news. Then it launched, and it wasn’t exactly what folks were expecting. Clocking in at 6 episodes, only half of them focused on the conspiracy aspect of the show, plus they were aired out of order. I went from really liking the premiere to completely forgetting it existed, in a very short amount of time. If it was going to get the WWE, it would had to have been this week of the premiere, as it ended with more of a whimper than a bang.

2/5/16 – UnderScoopFire Podcast

I appeared on the UnderScoopFire Podcast 8 times over the years, and had a great time on every one of them. Those guys are some of my good friends that I’ve met online, so of course I was sad to see it go. After 150 shows (give or take a few. Yeah, I’m not letting that go!), I think their swan song deserved the West Week Ever.

2/12/16 – Denver Broncos

I couldn’t give two shits about sports, but Lindsay’s from Denver, so we’re a Broncos household. So, everything was coming up Milhouse this week, as the Broncos won Super Bowl 50. Not only was it a nice, round, milestone number, but it also served as future Hall of Famer Peyton Manning’s final game. It was the perfect storybook ending that sports fans seem to love so much. So, yeah, they totally deserved the West Week Ever.

2/19/16 – Deadpool

Deadpool came out and blew away everyone’s expectations. I mean, this thing is getting nominated for awards. And not Razzies, too! Personally, I thought it was too gratuitous. I’ve gone over my reasoning before, so I won’t rehash that here. Still, it went on to become the second highest grossing superhero film of the year, just behind Captain America: Civil War. Totally deserved.

3/4/16 – Fuller House

After Girl Meets World came along, the runway was cleared for any and every nostalgic reboot to come along. And along came Fuller House. Every fan of TGIF awaited it with bated breath, hoping for the same mindless entertainment they got from the original show. And it did not disappoint! The second season just debuted a few weeks ago, and it’s already been picked up for a 3rd on Netflix. This show not only showed the power of Netflix as a home for original comedies, but also showed that old dogs still have some fight left in them. I think this was definitely the high point of that week.

3/11/16 – Jay Pharaoh

This was a slow week. Sure, Pharaoh did an amazing impersonation spree during that week’s Saturday Night Live Weekend Update. Like, it was AMAZING. And to pay him back, the show fired him at the end of the season. He’s OK, as he immediately booked a Showtime pilot, but the fact that this was the most noteworthy thing of the week shows how slow things were.

3/18/16 – Nothing

Some weeks you’ve just gotta call a spade a spade. Instead of insulting anyone’s intelligence, nothing had the West Week Ever.

3/25/16 – Wonder Woman

Like a lot of people, I did not like Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Like a lot of people, I also felt that Wonder Woman was the brightest spot in that dark film. Totally deserved

4/1/16 – Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice

I may not have liked it. A lot of folks may not have liked it. But it made some money. A lot of money. And it was the true springboard to DC’s cinematic universe. So, for its money-making and its importance, I think it earned the West Week Ever. Just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean that it’s bad. It just wasn’t for me.

4/8/16 – American Idol

Idol‘s series finale aired that week, marking the end of a pop culture juggernaut. Unlike The Voice, Idol actually created household names. It gave us Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken, Carrie Underwood, and Fantasia. On the flip side, it also gave us William Hung, Taylor Hicks, and Daughtry. It spawned so many copycats, but it was the original recipe. Its influence may have waned in later years, but no one can deny what it was in its heyday. I think it’ll eventually come back, but this was when we said “Ta ta, for now.”

4/15/16 – Marvel

That week, we found out Natalie Portman wasn’t coming back for Thor: Ragnarok, we got a teaser trailer for Doctor Strange, an we learned that the new Spider-Man movie would be called Spider-Man: Homecoming. Marvel definitely dominated the news cycle that week.

4/22/16 – Harriet Tubman

While it was pretty monumental that a woman (a Black woman, mind you) would be adorning American currency, it doesn’t really move the pop culture needle that much. So, I ended up giving the West Week Ever to a dead woman – in a column that has a pretty strict No Death policy. This was kind of a slow week…

4/29/16 – Beyoncé

The singer dropped the surprise album Lemonade following their airing of her HBO special. One of the songs alluded to the possibility that her husband, Jay-Z, might have cheated on her. For the next week, everyone was pondering the identity of “Becky, with the good hair”. This is the kind of thing the drives pop culture. Totally deserved.

5/6/16 – Captain America: Civil War

I had seen the movie, and thought it was excellent.

5/13/16 – Captain America: Civil War

Then the movie made a lot of money. I mean, a fuckton of money.

5/20/16 – Nothing

It was just one of those weeks

5/27/16 – DC Universe: Rebirth #1

DC Comics lost a lot of fans after the New 52 event, in which they rebooted their universe. So, the Rebirth event was something of a mea culpa to those fans. More like a “Please come back! We promise to make stuff you’ll like again!” And for the most part it has worked. This special not only brought fan favorite Wally West back into the fold, but it also sort of introduced the Watchmen comic into the mainstream DC universe. We don’t yet know how that’s all going to play out, but this move helped DC to dominate more market share than Marvel for most of the year.

6/3/16 – Ecto-Cooler

I never really liked Ecto-Cooler. I mean, it tasted kinda like tropical piss, but I loved the fact that Slimer was on the box. That’s about where my nostalgia ended. But a lot of y’all out there LOVED that shit! So, when it was announced that Coca Cola was bringing it back in conjunction with the Ghostbusters movie, y’all started assembling street teams to track it down. I swear, if the 2016 election had been run in a manner similar to the vim and vigor displayed trying to track down green sugar water, I might actually have some hope for tomorrow!

6/10/16 – Awesome Con 2016

Slow week. Cool show, great company, but slow week.

6/17/16 – Hamilton

I discovered the Hamilton soundtrack the same week that it won 11 of the 16 Tony Awards for which it was nominated. We’ll talk more about the show later, but the West Week Ever was deserved, even if the wins did fall short of the Tony Award record.

6/24/16 – Black actors in Hollywood

This was more of a joke, as every Black actor in Hollywood was being cast in the upcoming Black Panther film. That trend has continued since this post. Still, slow news week.

7/1/16 – The 683 New Members of the Oscar Academy

Another joke. Due to the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, signifying that the Academy was lacking in diversity, 683 people were invited to be members, bolstering the number of women and minorities. Still, slow news week.

7/8/16 – TNA’s The Final Deletion

Oh, man! This thing was incredible. They went on to milk it for the rest of the year, andI missed all subsequent installments. Still, this got me to pay attention to a wrestling promotion not owned by Vince McMahon, and for a brief moment, all wrestling eyes were on TNA to see what Matt Hardy would do next. Completely deserved.

7/15/16 – Pokemon GO!

This game came along and took the world by STORM. To say it was a success would be an understatement. It was envisioned to promote fitness, as kids would have to walk around to find perks and to get their eggs to hatch, but there were workarounds. Hell, I drove around looking for Pokestops. For about 4 weeks, this was all anyone could talk about. It was the Tamagotchi of a new generation, and I think, outside of all the political stuff, it’s one of the things we’ll remember most about 2016.

7/22/16 – Ghostbusters

It was a slow week, but Ghostbusters and the Republican National Convention were the only newsworthy events of the week. As much as we want to pile on that movie, it did take in a respectable $46 million, and it set a record for Paul Feig/Melissa McCarthy movies. I know a lot of folks don’t feel the movie’s deserving of any kind of accolades. As you saw above, I didn’t watch it, but I still think it’s not as bad as people would like me to believe. I swear, though, had they named it anything other than Ghostbusters, we’d still be talking about it.

7/29/16 – DC Entertainment

DC, back with their SECOND West Week Ever of the year? The word on the street was that they “won” San Diego Comic Con, with their new footage of Justice League, as well as the debut of the Wonder Woman trailer. Considering Marvel usually dominates SDCC, this was a feat worth acknowledging.

8/12/16 – Suicide Squad

The movie made $160 million in 5 days, which is nothing to sneeze at. Plus, I actually enjoyed it. I didn’t like it as a component of DC’s cinematic world building, but I liked it as a standalone thing on its own.

8/19/16 – Ryan Lochte

He was an Olympian at the center of a fake robbery attempt in a foreign country, who then fled to let his teammates take the fall. It’s the stuff of a great Aaron Spelling show. He had the West Week Ever simply because he got away with it.

8/26/16 – Guardians trailer

Slow news week, even if the trailer is pretty awesome. Billed as “Russia’s Avengers”, the English version of Guardians trailer started making the rounds because of its crazy action and gun-wielding bear man. Yeah, you’ve gotta see it to believe it. The movie might not even be released over here, and if it is, it’ll never get higher than cult status. Still, if you want to know what everyone was talking about that week, it was Guardians.

9/2/16 – Are You Being Served? one-off special

Some might say this was a slow news week, but I think this applied the West Week Ever to an international stage when I typically just focus on the US. After all, this special didn’t even air in America (nor has it since, nor do there seem to be plans to do so in the future), and I had to resort watching it on YouTube. Still, I grew up with Are You Being Served? and I was more than curious to see how an update of it might hold up. With a few small exceptions, it was pitch perfect, and definitely in the spirit of the original series. This one might’ve been a bit personal for me, but I think it was the best part of this particular week.

9/9/16 – Atlanta

The show just won the Golden Globe for Best Comedy Series. I think I called this one correctly.

9/16/16 – Better Late Than Never

Another personal one for me, but it’s my site, so whatever. I’m more than certain none of my friends were watching this show, but I watched it weekly with my mom and we enjoyed it. I wrote about it to get folks to seek it out, but I doubt that happened. Still, in a week when nothing happens, things like this are allowed to shine.

9/23/16 – Lindsay West

Mah wife. Running your first half marathon is pretty impressive. And nothing happened in the overall pop culture world. If you’ve followed West Week Ever since the beginning, you know that every so often some random person gets the honor. Hell, last year, my kid had the West Year Ever, so you never know where I might play that card.

10/7/16 – Luke Cage

It broke Netflix! So many people tuned in that Netflix couldn’t handle it. I still haven’t seen it, but I haven’t heard a bad thing about it other than the fact that it kinda drags in the middle – like most Marvel Netflix shows.

10/14/16 – Will & Grace

Considering I think I was the only one impressed by this Will & Grace special that was designed to get folks to get out and vote, I’m sure a lot of folks disagreed with this choice. Still, if you were a Will & Grace fan, then you can’t deny how great it was to see those characters in a way that felt like they’d never left us.

10/21/16 – Logan trailer

Can’t say much more because the movie’s not out yet, but we were ALL talking about this after it dropped, and it’s on most folks’ most anticipated movies of 2017 lists. I don’t think it’s going to disappoint.

10/28/16 – The Walking Dead

I don’t watch it, but I did tune into this episode just to watch a man die. Or two men. Whatever. All folks could talk about this week was whether or not the show had gone too far. The Walking Dead dominated the discussion, so this West Week Ever was well-deserved.

11/4/16 – The Chicago Cubs

Um, the “cursed” team won their first championship after 108 years. Yeah, this was deserved.

12/2/16 – Search Party

I don’t feel like a lot of my readers had seen the show when I wrote this, but I know a few who checked it out because I’d written about it. That’s why I do this, kids! It was one of my favorite shows of 2017, and if you haven’t checked it out yet, I’m not quite sure what you’re waiting for.

12/9/16 – Hamilton

Hamilton for the second time this year. The last time was for its Tony wins, but this one was two-fold: The Hamilton Mixtape was released and a beautifully pirated copy of the play was uploaded to YouTube. I watched it during the 5 days that it was allowed to stay on the site, and I can now die saying that I saw Hamilton. This was on the heels of a controversy where the cast members took a moment to address Vice President-Elect Mike Pence while he was taking in the show. For the next week, the conversation was whether or not they should’ve done that. So, it’s safe to say that Hamilton was on everyone’s lips around that time.

12/16/16 – WWE’s New Day

Yeah, then the lost two days after I posted this. I guess that’s how the cookie crumbles. Still, they deserved the West Week Ever for all they had put in leading up to this point.

12/23/16 – Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

It was the last thing to make a dent in pop culture before the clock ran out on 2016. A lot of folks are saying it’s one of their favorite Star Wars movies. I don’t really get that, but I’m happy for them if that’s the case. I thought it was entertaining, but I didn’t really like it. It’s hard to explain, and I’ve tried. Still, there’s no way anything else is going to take center stage when there’s new Star Wars to be consumed.

So, who had the West Year Ever? In the past, I’ve added up who had the most West Week Ever wins and then it’s a runoff. If we’re being honest, Death had the West Year Ever. There were SO many celebrity deaths this year, that it would take another post just to do a proper In Memoriam for everyone we lost. And of course, you have those guys who wanna “Neil deGrasse Tyson” everything by pointing out that people die all the time, or that the year is an arbitrary number. Whatever, asshole. That doesn’t help anybody, and it’s why you don’t get invited to many parties. Anyway, I don’t like to focus on death in West Week Ever -not because it’s morbid, but more because I feel like I’d have to acknowledge every celebrity death, even when I didn’t personally give a shit about that person. Ain’t nobody got time for that!

Doing the math, it’s a three-way tie between DC Entertainment, Captain America: Civil War, and Hamilton. DC Entertainment really stepped up this year, taking a good chunk of the comics market share away from Marvel, as well as by launching their cinematic universe. After years of being the joke of the industry, DC finally started pushing back. And the Rebirth initiative didn’t hurt things, either. Meanwhile, not everyone loved Civil War. I did, but even I’ll admit that it’s basically “Dawn of Justice Done Right”. They’re both superhero slugfests that surround the concept of dead moms. Some called it “Civil Bore”, but I don’t agree with that. Still, I have to kind of acknowledge that there is a divide out there. Finally, there’s Hamilton. It had a big year, but I don’t know if we’ll look back and say “Hamilton really came into its own in 2016.” If anything, that’s more likely to happen at a time when the show can more easily be consumed by the masses. So, Hamilton’s year may actually be ahead of it, but it’s not 2016. So, I think it’s pretty clear. 2016 was the year where retailers stopped buying everything Marvel was selling, and so did the fans. The quality of Marvel’s output was in question more this year than it was in recent years, yet people still seemed to be able to find positive things about the DC Universe. Meanwhile, their movies might not be your cup of tea, but they made money, and the critics haven’t deterred them from forging ahead. So, with that, I believe I simply have to admit that DC Entertainment had the West Year Ever.

#80s #Adventures West Coast #Batman #Boybands #Comics #DC #Marvel #Movies #Music #Pop #Power Rangers #Race #Star Wars #Television #West Week Ever #West Year Ever #Wrestling #X-Men

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