This Is Probably The Most 4CL-unrelated Thing I Will Ever Post BUT This Is An Absolute Feat By Polkadotjohnson

Hello. Update.

Still in Germany but will be leaving in a few days.

Fourcast owes me more than $20 for the past two months.

WAIT I NEDD TO FIND SOKEONE TO TAKE CARE OF MY CAT S H I T

Okay I've slept off my edible and double-checked with 4CL. I am actually flying to Germany early July for work. God gives His silliest clowns His funniest battles.

fuck fourcast fuck fourcast fuck fourcast I'm sososo close to making this into a blog for my cat jfc jfc jfc

Crying sobbing throwing up falling over @lem0ngh0stt DREW ME AT WORK!!! :'))))) he captured the chaotic nature of my desk and my love of pins and sparkling water. He even threw in my cat, Hypnos, though unfortunately she does not often accompany me to the lab. Anyway I love this and my friends :]

do it scared do it weird do it alone. holy trinity

Happy belated Trans Day Of Visibility!

I'm a trans guy in STEM!

I'm a trans guy with invisible disabilities!

I'm a trans guy in rigorous academia!

I'm a trans guy that falls into niche hyperfixations (currently it's the movie "Late Night with the Devil" and David Dastmalchian >:) )!

I'm a trans guy that loves alternative music and fashion and culture!

I'm a trans guy who loves his cat!

I'm a trans guy with tattoos and piercings and bad facial hair!

I'm a trans guy that is pre-t and pre-op!

I'm a trans guy who loves being trans and trans people so much!

I'm a trans guy who has found more love, support, community, friendship, and acceptance, external and internal, the older I've gotten!

I'm a trans guy who knows the sun will rise tomorrow and I am constantly striving to be the type of person I want to see in the world!

Happy TDoV!! 🏳️‍⚧️

Pounding my fists on the ground I CAN'T BELIEVE THERE'S A NEW BOOK IN THE INKWORLD SERIES CORNELIA FUNKE YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS TO ME!!!!

I think technically Dragon Rider was my first Funke book which led me to Inkheart, which I would say is the single book that has had the greatest impact on my life. I finally finished reading the entire trilogy while in college and I LOVED it, absolutely mind blowing that there's a new book in the series and I have it and I'm reading it!!!

The cover art is absolutely beautiful (I have the Karl James Mountford & Steve Wells design), reading it so far has been like returning to my first home, I am so excited and so happy.

Next level would be rereading the series in the original German (finding out Funke is German was probably also what initially sparked my interest in actually learning the language, moreso than even knowing that I come from a German background lmao).

I eventually want to get the entire series in hardcover variants - I was a child when I bought the original books and the years are definitely showing on the softcovers :').

Anyway Cornelia you mean everything to me.

⌛️TAPS FAQ⏳

What does TAPS mean? -> TAPS stands for Temporal Alignment Permeation Syndrome. It started popping up ~2019 when Fourcast began messing around with the SPORE device. Though I'm not the only one to have TAPS, I imagine it's pretty rare - I've yet to meet anyone else with it in-person. What does TAPS do? -> As the name suggests, my connection to the current time and reality my physical body exists in can be kind of tenuous, leading me to experience other realities and futures. Episodes are random and unpredictable, but thankfully mostly happen when I'm asleep (waking episodes can be pretty disruptive to my day, especially when the glimpses I get aren't the most cheerful :( ). How do you know you're not just dreaming? -> For one, I sometimes experience episodes while completely awake (I have no prior medical history of anything that would cause similar experiences to TAPS), and I can very clearly differentiate between the feeling of being in a dream and being in a TAPS episode. On top of that, Fourcast Lab has been researching TAPS since it started to affect people around 2019 and has confirmed its existence as a legitimate phenomena. How does TAPS affect you? -> It's very much a coin toss. Because it's random and I have no control over what I see, I can go a few weeks without experiencing any episodes, to having some pleasant/neutral experiences during an episode while asleep every couple of days, to dealing with some really harrowing visions during the day. There's good and bad in it, and I hope understanding more about TAPS will help me deal with day-to-day life with it.

How do you deal with TAPS? -> Therapy has been very helpful for me. TAPS can bring on some pretty heavy, existential questions, so having someone to talk to about it has been really important. In a way, interning at Fourcast Lab brings about its own sense of assurance; I know TAPS is taken seriously there and my experiences as someone who is both living with TAPS and trying to research it is unique and helpful when it comes to understanding it better. 4CL people get weird time stuff, so I've found a lot of support and understanding amongst my coworkers. My feelings about 4CL are kind of complicated as a whole, since, as far as theories go, their handling of SPORE is what led to people developing TAPS. I feel conflicted, in a way - as far as we know, developing TAPS is a freak accident, so I can't really be mad at 4CL because it's not like they were malicious, but at the same time...TAPS can be rough. Why do you want to research TAPS? -> Culmination of a few points from above: it's a relatively new and rare condition with little known about it, and I hope understanding TAPS better will help me, and other people living with TAPS, deal with it. Research into TAPS hasn't been that extensive, so I really want to help figure out the why/how/when of TAPS. What is one of your favorite experiences with TAPS? -> I've seen a lot of beautiful worlds through TAPS - in a lot of ways, I feel extremely, uniquely privileged to have these experiences. One that really sticks with me is having an episode while sleeping; I was at the highest point of a mountain range, a lavender sky stretched out overhead. The sun(s?) was just coming up, making pale, yellow streaks in the clouds above me. The sun reached down to the mountain faces around me, pitch black but shimmering in the light, like rippling waves of abalone. At my feet, the mountain I was on dropped off into a valley, overgrown with tree-like flora, leaves deep green and rustling. Curling through this alien forest, like a massive serpent on its belly, was a river of silver, ferocious in its perpetual voyage. The whole episode was so beautiful and serene, it's really stuck with me as an example of the beauty of possible futures and alternate realities, and made me feel really lucky to have TAPS. What is one of your worst experiences with TAPS? -> I was on the CTA during rush hour when I had an episode. Thankfully I was sitting down, but I was totally overcome with the vision of standing at the foot of a volcano as it erupted, a lightning storm battering the blazing peak and striking my surroundings. I heard a lot of commotion, but couldn't identify where it was coming from, and I couldn't move as the volcanic ash rained down upon me, dark and scorching, lava racing ever closer. It was viscerally terrifying, being at the complete mercy of extreme forces of nature. It took me a while to come out of the episode, and when I did I was a) very disorientated, tired, and still pretty scared, and b) had missed my stop by a pretty good margin. Needless to say that day's commute felt very, very long.

What if I have questions about TAPS -> Ask box is open! Feel free to drop me a message :).

I FUCKING LIED SHIT IS NOT CHILLER IN GERMANY

☎️FAQ☎️

Who am I? -> Ryan! I use he/him/his pronouns, trans and queer. 22. General interests are powerlifting/gym-going, cats, reading, DnD, being in a hammock, Garfield. English native speaker, moderately okay at German. Chicago based.

What’s the purpose of this blog? -> I’ve been dealing with TAPS for a while now, so this page will partly be about documenting my experiences with it. At the moment my career goals pertain to researching TAPS (I would specify what in particular about the condition I want to research, but so much about TAPS is unknown that it can feel hard to identify a starting point 😵‍💫); I was recently brought on by Fourcast as an intern, so that’s a very exciting step for me and I want to document my time with them! Will also throw in some non-TAPS/4CL posts as well.

TAPS? -> Temporal Alignment Permeation Syndrome. I’ll probably make a whole info post about this, but in extremely simplified terms, I get glimpses into alternate realities and futures. Some good, some bad, mostly while sleeping. It’s really a can of worms so keep your eyes peeled for more in-depth info later :).

Fourcast Lab? -> Yeah...Love-hate relationship with the 4CL. Doing good, yes, but also TAPS started popping off when they started messing with SPORE, so my feelings are mixed, to say the least. Not many other paths to take for researching TAPS except to head into the belly of the beast, so here I am.

Can I send in asks? -> Yes!! Very open to answering questions (as long as they’re polite!). I’m pretty open about my life with TAPS, so feel free to ask. Ask box is preferred over DMs (can’t promise I’ll read the latter, especially if it’s from people I don’t know).

Anything else? -> Page rules: be nice :)