2/26/2026 NYT games scores
Feb. 26th, 2026 07:13 pmPuzzle #991
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Strands #725
“Watch the attitude!”
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Pips #193 Easy π’
0:58
Pips #193 Medium π‘
0:36 πͺ
( Spoilers for today's NYT games )
The Ada Rook Hexperience
Feb. 20th, 2026 05:59 pmI'm here to share with you a minor passion project about my favorite musician of all time, Ada Rook :)
I created a playlist called "The Ada Rook Experience" as a way to
( Hexpand Sewa's creator commentary... )
I hope you listen and enjoy!
2/20/2026 NYT Games Scores
Feb. 20th, 2026 05:16 pmPuzzle #985
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Strands #719
“True grit”
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Pips #187 Easy π’
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Pips #187 Medium π‘
0:34 πͺ
Pips #187 Hard π΄
8:23
( Spoilers for today's NYT games )
2/11/2026 NYT Games Scores
Feb. 11th, 2026 11:19 pmA list of things that make me feel cool
Feb. 10th, 2026 04:38 pm- Having a high typing speed. On Monkeytype my best is 141 wpm with an average of 120. Typeracer is harder since its accuracy rules are strict, so my average is 119 wpm with best at 136.
- Opening containers and pens/markers one-handed. I've been in bio research for a while, which teaches you how to unscrew a falcon tube with one hand while holding a pipette in the other.
- Wearing custom clothing that lets me get to say, "Yep, I painted this myself!" when people ask me about it.
- Getting really into last.fm and music stats. I'm #11 on the global leaderboard for Ada Rook.
- Telling my roommate, "yeah, I'll have someone over later". Especially because I have so many different partners. I know this is kind of weird and toxic but I do love thinking "heh, yeah, I have so much sex!! I'm so desirable!"
Ooopsieeeee
Feb. 10th, 2026 12:20 pmThe quest for Mangle plushβ¦
Feb. 8th, 2026 07:02 pmI’m not huge on the Funko Mangles because they’re poor representations of her being actually… mangled. There’s a fixed Mangle/“Funtime Foxy” (my gripes with that name aside) whose little “mlem” face I do actually enjoy. It was probably supposed to be Funko’s attempt at lipstick, but just looks like a cute little tongue. It’s possible to find him online for like $25 which seems pretty reasonable.

There’s also a Walmart hexclusive Mangle (people say she’s Nightmare Mangle, he’s not) that costs way more, but at least it represents her different eyes and has a sick ass metal grin, and some attempts at metal parts on the body? There’s still no representation of his endo head. Still, I don’t want to pay hexorbitant prices for a mildly shitty quality and misshapen Funko plushie.

The Jazwares plushie is the most accurate in my opinion.

… Other than the $500 Youtooz Mangle plush, but I try not to think about that.

Anyways, the “:D” face that Youtooz gives pretty much all their products is slightly corny. Like, not all of them would be that jovial. Mangle does kind of have a “:D” face by default (look at her, awwwww!)

Oh, I almost forgot about the Hex shop version.

...ehhhh....
I would be into it if his head wasn't so... bulbous. She's also $95, which isn't helping his case.
2/7/2026 NYT Games Scores
Feb. 7th, 2026 06:35 pmConnections
( Spoilers for todayβs NYT games! )
Fucking... fucking Sinosauce.
Feb. 3rd, 2026 03:40 pmBut I had a tag for talking about my culture as a mixed Chinese/Indian American.... And I named it. I named it fucking "sinosauce." I couldn't come up with anything else lmao.
2/3/2026 NYT Games scores
Feb. 3rd, 2026 12:05 pmPuzzle #968
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Strands #702
“On key”
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Pips #170 Easy π’
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Pips #170 Medium π‘
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Pips #170 Hard π΄
7:21
Fuck this game...
( Spoilers for today's NYT games )
I know I'm not very good at these. I didn't play them for a long time, so I need to practice again.
I'm so hexcited for Spring Show this semester.
Finally, I will be Lucy Westenra, which as we all know I've been completely insane about for several months to a year. Right now I'm listening to the Masquerade Waltz by Khachaturian on loop, which is the song to the first scene where all the townspeople are waltzing and stuff. There's a little interlude where Mina and Lucy greet each other and Lucy's like, "I have big news! I'm getting married!" and then they dance and jump in celebration. This was what we did last Friday, and honestly I think it's super fucking good! It doesn't look like we just choreographed it in 20 minutes, it really looks like we rehearsed it for 2-3 weeks. My choreographer/dance partner/Dracula said so. The "celebration" part is very "peasants in Giselle", I think it looks really classical.
I will also be taking cues from Giselle when I get turned into a vampire! Lucy is going to take down her hair and get really like messy and distraught. It also coincides with her transforming to being a classical ballet dancer to having less conventional dancing. My choreographer/dance partner/Dracula calls the arms he gave me the "throwing up arms", lol. The vampires aren't sexy and beautiful and sparkly, they're always hungry and animalistic and fucking gross. Which is sexy in its own way.
My nerd ass will also be choreographing a piece to My Castle Town by Toby Fox from Deltarune. I purposely wanted to choreograph something special for the beginner/intermediate dancers who have serious potential. Something special that they'll feel good doing. I've simplified the choreography a bunch, I hope they'll be able to keep up with it though. As long as they can do balancés, waltz turns, and piques they'll probably be fine. I hope. If anything, the turns can be turned into balances. I choreographed it with lots of breaks and discrete sections so they'll basically be like across the floor steps.
I was lowkey fighting with another choreographer over one dancer who would've been literally perfect for what I was trying to do with the level, but she was one of 7 people available for the other choreographer's time slot. And the dance just had to have 7 people. In the end, I ended up scoring that dancer, on the condition that I also dance in that dance. It's contemporary, to a pop (?) or lyrical type song. I actually haven't listened to this song yet, I hope it's not horrible. I have beef with "lyrical" dance for not being a real dance style. It's just dance competition (eugh) bait contemporary dance set to music with lyrics in it.
So when I was asked if I'd like to be in the dance, I said, "Is it... contemporary?" with apprehensive derision in my voice.
The choreographer said, "No don't worry it'll be really ballet-based, so no flopping around on the floor, and it'll be dark and spooky and there'll be partnering."
"Partnering???" I was sold. Hopefully that dance turns out fun.
UPDATE: IS THE SONG WHAT THE WATER GAVE ME BY BIRDEATSBABY? BECAUSE I GENUINELY FUCKING LOVE THIS SONG OMFG????? OMG?????? WAIT THIS IS GONNA BE SO FUCKING GOOD OMFJGJDSKGHJDSKLMNV I didn't see the artist on the castlist or anything, but when I looked up "What the Water Gave Me" this song came up.
Wait I think that just came up because of my spotify algorithm: the song is more likely to be the Florence + The Machine song. You know what, I'll take it. I don't absolutely despise f+tm and Ethel Cain likes them so. Surely it'll be okay. It's still kind of that lyrical competition bait feel that scares me a bit, but the choreographer invited us to a WhatsApp group to poll us on what steps we'd like to do, and to put a thumbs down on something we'd absolutely NOT want to do. So I reacted a thumbs down to "contemporary: contractions, modern/abstract movement" lol.
Only classical ballet comes naturally to me. I can't choreograph anything else, and visions of variations come effortlessly to my mind when I listen to music. I like this about myself. I've been so immersed in ballet since I was a child. I am good at it now, I think. I hope.
I like that my lovers find it attractive, too, that's a nice bonus, lol. I'm obviously still focused on the artistic element of it and of how it makes me feel to be in class or on stage, but. People do think it's impressive. My childhood best friend was telling me about how she took a ballet class and she has so much more respect for me now because it was genuinely so fucking hexausting even when she was doing the basic steps. And like. Yeah. But I've been doing this shit for so long that it's second nature to me.
I think I do like this song. I hope this dance is good.... seems like the dancers will have some input on the choreography too, so I won't get stuck doing something I hate. Cool!
Social contagion
Jan. 27th, 2026 02:08 pmI saw a post on tumblr about it, and honestly this summarizes it very succinctly:
“oh you wouldn’t identify as transgender if you hadn’t been exposed to other trans people and learned what being transgender was” you’re right! i’d identify as suicidal
Here's the article that was linked in the post. Admittedly, I've only skimmed it, although I do already have thoughts about it.
"If the social reality being created maintains the existing hierarchies it's healthy, but if it threatens them it's pathological."
I also think of antipsych here. Deviating from what's currently in power has always been pathologized as a cudgel against marginalized people. So why should modern psychiatry be any different than calling being gay a mental illness or suppressing feminists by calling them hysteric, which we all acknowledge to be a total sham? "Oh yeah, that was all false. So silly, not like modern psychiatry that's all totally true we promise."
We must continue to criticize psychiatry with an understanding of societal context. Not every "mental illness" is all in your head. By encouraging hyper-individualism, the psychiatric system grooms sufferers into believing that they need to isolate, recede into a cocoon of "healing" and emerge born anew, able to navigate human interaction with ease, the way society deems acceptable.
I am not sure if I've posted Less Tiktok, More Screaming on this journal yet. I read this article years ago--before I was properly antipsych, before The Incident--and it's stuck in my head ever since.
A select passage: "Even without this social signaling, the lessons we learn inside of therapy favor a sort of hyperindividualistic self-sufficiency that encourages clients to prioritize personal growth over communal welfare or institutional change. When you imagine yourself to exist separate from the world around you, and therefore seek to change yourself independent of it, the project of self-improvement becomes about adapting to oppression, rather than working toward a less maddening world. Therapy that prioritizes individual self-improvement with little other context functions to create hypernormal, docile subjects that live in service to power. We become our best selves, not in ways that allow us to find personal peace and better serve the world around us, but in ways that make us better workers and citizens. Even if the system is contributing to our pain, we are actively encouraged to find ways we can fit better into that system. The subtext is always that we have no other option."
Antipsychiatry is synonymous with opening your eyes to the ill state of wider society, and how you can't therapize a bad situation away.
Skiing! (2)
Jan. 7th, 2026 07:18 pmYes I am actually a hobby skiier, like I own equipment and have been skiing at a lot of different mountains in different states, although there's places with better snow I still want to cross off my list. I've been doing it since I was a kid, so it was really nostalgic for me to go back after manyyyy years of not skiing. I used to be hardcore about it in middle/high school, but fell off around when I started university. But I'd really love to ACTUALLY get back into it. Yesterday, I skiied my first black diamond trail in like, 6 years or something :) It was a little bit of a struggle since I was rusty and the conditions were a bit icier than I wanted. I did also wipe out at least once on the black trail + definitely a couple other times on blue trails... but man, I was having FUN! The past couple of times I went skiing, I was really taking it slow on greens and trying to enjoy the scenery more than anything, but yesterday I actually broke a sweat for the first time in a while and rediscovered that oh my god I LOVE going FAST!!! I collapsed on the hotel couch afterward lol. Even though I was rusty, I still think I was pretty good this go-around. I've definitely improved my parallel turns.
I ended up with a huge bruise on like the side of my shin from when I fell and my leg collided with my opposite ski. Plus I just have bruises on my shins from pressing against my ski boots. My boots are a little small, which makes sense since I've had them since like. I don't know. Middle school??? So it's not out of the question that my feet would've grown. I think my helmet is also still a youth size and a bigger one would also be nice. Then again, will I even go skiing enough to warrant all new equipment????? I can probably trade in my current stuff to offset the cost, but. Man.
Anyway I drew my oc/sona (her name is just "cringe sickgirl") skiing... please let this image work, lol. I tried to make it look like she could conceivably be on the slopes, so she's wearing a helmet and has goggles and her hair is in unobtrusive twin braids as opposed to giant twintails like she usually has. Although I clearly took artistic liberties too.
