Hello again!
Actually my head hurts and my back hurts too. Maybe even my heart. I wrote this essay for 2 days straight. It is of better quality than my previous pieces, both in content and style. It's also the longest so I felt an obligation to deliver it as interesting as possible. Extensive essays are pretty tendious, I'm aware but I think I created an insightful and stimulating analysis for a character that doesn't get the attention he deserves. This is not just a hollow phrase, as I claim this essay uncovers unheard of depths of Gorou Amamiya respectively Aqua Hoshino.
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Preamble
In the past we discussed Ruby's genius during her Audition with Frill and Akane. To sum it up: She's acting her whole life as the innocent and pure idol girl Ruby Hoshino but what fuels the encryption of her true self is her traumatized core identity as Sarina which she hides through acting.
Since this identity was passed down to her new life, her trauma was likewise passed down as well and as a result it predispositions her new life's psyche. After the loss of Ai and Gorou she yet again finds herself trapped in a repetitive cycle of her previous trauma of parental abandonment. That's why in her deep reflection during the audition she would overlap Sarina's and Ruby's psychograms seamlessly. It's the same all over again.
We discussed yesterday Gorou as Ruby's father figure while evidently Ai had a function as a mother figure to her (to Sarina actually) - or to be more precise the loss of both as surrogate parential figures associated as dear to her heart people triggered Sarina's trauma of an abandoned child through Ruby again. This in short is the nature of her repetitive traumatic cycle. Sarina-Ruby is acting a smile in both lifes while nobody seems to notice the ugly feelings deep inside her. Even when she had a reverse act coming out at the audition, Frill and Akane wouldn't conceive that these feelings weren't part of her auditional act but actually the naked truth.
However the point of this essay is not to talk about Ruby - although she will certainly be useful - but this time to explore to which extent the predisposition from the past life and the traumatic repetitive cycles are as principles applicable to Aqua in order to gain access into the very dephts of his soul. This will allow us to methodically understand the true nature behind his lately menacing character plot. I swear it's the first time you hear these takes.
In the long run this essay will also substantiate my analysis of Ruby, because if this is applicable to Aqua too then it's fair to say that we uncovered a symmetrical primary structure the Author intended to construct for these twins. (Mirror) Symmetrrial relations are indeed indicated between them on a lot of levels, some essays on this sub discuss that exhaustively.
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So, we established Sarina's traumatic identity to be a predispositional factor for Ruby, vice versa we now have to establish the same for Aqua. It'd be misleading to ignore Gorou's core identity if we want to grasp Aqua's actions - or perhaps even his acting? Aqua too is stuck in a repetitive cycle triggered from his past life's supressed trauma. We will in this essay explore the depths of it like never done before. Eventually we gain a completely different understanding of revenge that actually haunts him more than it does Kamiki.
You kow, the other day I read an essay where the OP would refuse to call Aqua Aqua anymore and instead refers to him now as "Aquamarine" because he/she is apparently mad at his current behaviour. This to me is kinda funny but also instructive because it goes to show a fundamental misunderstanding of his character, which I believe is shared by many people. Be mad at Gorou Amamiya - if you dare - because this would actually be engaging.
However, we will see that he is like Ruby stuck in another repetitive cycle of trauma and the purpose of this essay is to raise awareness while not to excuse him blatantly but to point to the tragic and dramatic nature of his mind and soul. Because at this point it's safe to say that what we currently see is literally what we get. Aqua will not become visibly handsome any time soon. Better aknowledge and comprehend his actions now and save yourself later from phony bitterness, anger and other unreflected undermining reactions. Instead that be bitter and angry with compassion. Because if you don't appreciate his struggle you won't fully grasp the Cathasis that follows, which - under the impression that Aka is cooking some really good stuff - would be a shame. Finally I'm strongly hoping that this essay might enhance some people's future chapter reading experience.
Without further edo lets dive into it.
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Gorou Amamiya
Gorou's core determining trauma is not that easy to grasp on and that's mainly because his cope is vague while his upfront personality apppears mature and he as an individual is also highly functional, both as Gorou and Aqua. He appears to us as a well adjusted middle aged man: He went to the Medical University in Tokyo, dated women sucessfully and eventually became a Doctor and kinda just knows how to handle stuff. He is also a walking encyclopaedia, so feel free to ask him anything!
On the contrary site: Gorou seems to be a loner, an Otaku in denial who lives quite isolated in Japan's rural backwaters. After his study years in Tokyo he moved back to his hometown. We don't know the exact reason why he voluntarily choose this kind of isolation, probably to take care of his grandmother. When he came back to the hospitel as Aqua he referred to his coworkers as "colleagues I was close to" which implies a certain distance and a lack of other related people in the town like for instance actual friends that he would want to meet. After he learned that nobody of his past colleugues work there anymore the "social question" of his past life fizzled out.
The rural working place granted him a lot of free time at the hospital, So he met his emotionally undemanding social life with escapism into Idol-Culture respectively Ai Hoshino. And surely this "quirk" is the first indication that this man doesn't just maintain an introverted but healthy Work-Life-Balance as a doctor but actually tries to cure away some void: A normal man just doesn't scream joyful in a patient's room like a fanatic over an Idol show. This beginning scene doesn't just serves as a quirky comic relief but sets a fundamental tone to his character. A little later the coworking woman in EP 1 wouldn't quite believe his copium about a shared memory with Sarina as the reason for his idolization of Ai. And since he didn't gave her a clear answer if he would or wouldn't date Ai he at the same time disclosed a personal obsession as to be part of his allegedly idealistic and pure motives. We will get back to their conversation later, as we will find out that Gorou was actually honest and righteouss about his claims.
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I know, I know. Still haven't mentioned the elephant in the room:
His dead mother.
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What is Guilt?
When for Ruby the reoccuring event of her traumatic cycle is parental abandonment then for Gorou it is the feeling of guilt "for being born at the expense of his mother" (C75). In other words to feel responsible for her death.
Gorou lost his mother during his birth but he eventually got adopted by his Grandmother who took the role as his mother figure. The fact that he was actually raised by family laid the foundation for a some what functional personality. In fact he for his personal development received maternal love from his grandmother, thus the trauma which he recycled over Ai's death is fundamentally different from Ruby's.
But at the same time... it isn't different at all. Here is the why:
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What is Love?
We found out in the essay about Gorou as Ruby's father-figure that she'd eventually develope a romantic love interest for her father-figure due to the stagnation of her psychological development as part of her inherited "curse" through reincarnation with her trauma. While Ruby's body would mature and develope, likewise Ichigo as a father-surrogat is not present in her life, Sarina's soul would still be bounded to a confused relationship she development during her hospitalization. Sarina's love for Gorou was a childish inmature expression in a phase where the father is the only male person of interest in a young girl's life. But the anxiety to lose a dear father like figure again after she was abandoned by her biological father would also urge her to express a childish romantic interest for her Doctor. If he marries her he can never leave her again. A differentiation and overcoming of this developmental phase didn't happen for Ruby because the memory of Gorou would force herself in a obsessive spiral until she confused herself to desire actual romantic love from him, her father-figure. The playful jokes about marriage when Sarina becomes 16 have turned to a personal life goal of Ruby. When she found out about his death it triggered the trauma of parental abondenment and unleashed all her self-destructive feelings. A death wish that already was present during her life as Sarina and after Ai's death but had been intercepted by Miyako as a new mother and also through the hope and longing for Gorou's acceptance of her - both as Sarina and Ruby, but moreso in Ruby because this confused desire found a fleshed out embodiment in a sexually developed girl's body.
Well and Gorous obsession over the Idol Ai isn't that far off from this. Because what Gorou actually seeks from Ai is unconditional love. The kind of love that isn't just receivable by a surrogate mother but the very personal love that only a biological mother can give to her child in the very early infant stage. In Ai's eyes he would feel a kind of dangerous tease of this deeply hidden desire and while he never actually understood the reason of this longing or even that it's related to a surpressed trauma over his dead mother, he do felt mystically pulled into Ai's realm and felt a glimpse of hope for unconditional "Ai" (Ai when written in Kanji means Love) through her idolization.
But keep in mind that he is a full grown man. He already experienced a mostly sufficient mother figure in his life - the Grandmother. Of course he would never realize what the cause for his troublesome obsession over this teenage girl Ai Hoshino really is about. He eventually developes just as Ruby for Gorou a confusing sexual interest for the "unconditionally loving mother" that he projects onto Ai. Likewise Ruby developed a sexual interest for her idolized father figure Gorou.
Interestlingly enough the chat with his coworker on the roof about Ai fully displayed his confusion. In this scene she was a bit like a therapist, while he would reveal his trauma to her. The irony of course is that neither he nor her realize it: On the one hand he indeed seeks pure and idealistic form of "Ai", unconditional love of a mother for her childt. At the same time it's distorted by his sexual maturity which would try to find fullfillment through romantic and sexual "ressources".
The romantic fantasy is an impuls of the conflicted adult body that carries an infant's hidden wish. An unfulfilled infant lives deep inside of Gorous heart as a surpressed trauma over his mother's death who couldn't give him the most exclusive form of maternal love.
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The Selfish Love
We found the inverted similarity between Ruby's attachment to Gorou and Aqua's attachment to Ai. But it's worth to point out that in relation to Ai - and what I mean by that the quality of the relation Aqua -> Ai vs. Ruby -> Ai - there is a crucial difference in the form of love they want from her and it is mainly rooted in the different developmental phases they both are "stuck" in terms of the form of desired maternity.
Ruby's longing for a mother is transferable. Since she probably received the kind of unconditional love of an infant herself but was only abandoned at a later age when she became sick, Sarina could compensate it with Ai's love and even Miyako's after Ai's death. Ruby was kinda temporarly stabilized since she believed in meeting her idolized father again. It's not like Ai's death hasn't affected her but she is in her longing for maternal love actually more mature than Gorou. I will explain later how. Ai is for Ruby from this point of view "interchangable" just like Marina. But it is a yet to observe in the coming chapters how and when Sarina will "release herself and her mother from the expectation that a mother should love her child" (C119) but to me it seems like Sarina has a solid foundation to overcome this issue through her movie role of Ai.
But what about the kind of love Gorou craves for? Well for once we know that he doesn't seek something transferable because in fact a transfer that could cover the kind of maternal Love Ruby seeks he already received from his Grandmother. He wants the pure, innocent and idealistic love of a mother for his infant, for him it can only be re-created and satisfied in the impossible yet odd realm of supernaturality, A reincarnation as an actual infant with intact memories of his past life in the hands of an actual loving mother. This is the only but also the absolute solution to meet the innocent and pure minded wish of the traumatized infant crying in Gorous heart.
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"When I woke up, I was in heaven [....] for now, I just want to live this baby life to it's fullest"(Chapter 1)

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A normal well adjusted adult would perceive this situation as a nightmare. Being a baby stands in the heaviest contrast to the inherited soul of an adult. "I am a f'cking grown man, goddamit. Why am I a baby? I'm right now the most vulnerable, dependend and defenseless being, this situation absolutely opposes my proven and experienced self identity as a grown up" This is what a normal adult would think and he would hate this unintelligible situation he found himself randomly in. It's basically a curse. Also he would want to go back to his family, friends etc. Gorou on the other hand is a loner and suffers a tragic supressed trauma. So now we beginn to see how all the hings come together. Such a joyful and innocent scene as presented in the Manga has a dark meaning behind it.
To embrace the role of a cute liltte baby with the same joy and happiness it implies an actual desire to do so. To assert that this is yet another casual comic relief scene just to start his interesting journey as a MC misses the point. The plot started when he fanatically cheered up his Idol over the TV of a patients room.
Likewise here and there his personal desire in Ai and "Ai" would blend out the surounding world. Aqua ignores the premise of his reincarnation that he was murdered by Ai's stalker, because he wants to stimulate his deeply supressed desire. Gorou ignores the patient's needed rest when Ai is on TV, because he wants to stimulate the same desire. In relation to Ai Gorou is selfish right from the start. It's a very inmature selfish love towards her as an Idol and a mother, in fact this form of love is the most inmature and selfish love imaginable because it's born from the tragically denied desire of the most vulnerable and inmature human form: The Infant. In fact, that he as a doctor couldn't supresse his selfish will to disturb a resting patient was a pivotal moment to prelude the great lengths this desire would go to experience stimulation. His behaviour as Ai's baby is a derivation and the purest and most innocent enbodiment. Because this time it's materialized in the body of an actual infant. Gorou has become the human flesh of the traumatically supressed infant's desire living in his heart.
Gorou at this point is absolutely unwilling to give up the situation he found himself in. The infant has completely taken over the adult's mind. At one point he would even thank the culprit and ompletely misjudge the actual situation they are in. This - for such a reasonable and smart but apparently selfless man like Gorou - is astonishing to say the least. In relation of it's meaning in terms of trauma and hidden desire it's comprehensible.
The infant's longing is the most fragile form of love imaginable. If it misses it's chance it's all over again. It only came into life through an absolutely impossible miracle. This selfish little desire, for a long time well hidden as a surpressed trauma, feed by escapism in Idol-Culture, will do anything to blockade interferring reason. The reasonable adult Gorou is completely cut off.
The adult Gorou who's identity as an dedicated professional who is willing to go to great lengths to support his patients while rolling back his personal gain. The adult Gorou that for once let his selfish wish take advantage. This adult Gorou will end with the corpse of his mother in his hands.
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The Reenactment of a Tragedy
"Unconditional love" - it should be pure and innocent yet it becomes the very reason for his self-destroying malicous decades long torture and agony.
With the death of Ai Aqua for the first time conscioussly witnesses what until then was just a deeply hidden ugly non-verbalized traumatic experience. Before Ai's death Gorou never realized the existence of it, let alone the depths of it nor how it affects his personality structure.
But now while he is the accomplice witness of an unfolding nightmare - with the heart of an infant and the brain of an adult - the surpressed trauma actually has a real reenactment...
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"I could never forget... The rusted metal-like smell of her blood penetrating my nostrils. Nor could I forget how the warmth slowly left her hand" (C51)

https://preview.redd.it/3hv2m50vxr2b1.jpg?width=1481&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7842bc1ac0945aab5149c505fd719c6139ca4370
This is probably the most impactful moment of self-realization in the Manga in terms of Gorou's psyche. Yes, Gorou's. These words reflect the core traumatic experience of Gorou's birth that was reenacted by Ai's death. This is not about Aqua and his roleplay as the Son of Ai Hoshino and it's certainly not the trauma of a fan who lost his favorite Idol.
These are the words of a newborn that could never forget the rusted metal-like smell of his mother's blood penetrating his nostrils. Nor could he forget how the warmth slowly left her hand. Can you imagine what he's actually describing her? How his mother was slowly bleeding out and dies while she was holding her newborn in her arms?
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Postpartum bleeding or postpartum hemorrhage is often defined as the loss of more than 500 ml or 1,000 ml of blood following childbirth.
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They were alone, Gorou was exposed to his dying mother until her last gasp. This shocking tragic accident describes the first moments of his early life as a horrifying Dispair.
And we can immediately see, that Ai's death scene was personally ment for Gorou. It's not a coincidence that Ruby would by shielded behind the milky glassed door while Aqua would be exposed to the fullest with all his senses. It's because the repetitive cycle of his personal trauma was ment to unfold exclusively to him. In the closed door that shields Ruby also symbolizes the earlier expressed maturity of Ruby's seek for maternal love. This little physical gap and the muffled visual and audible senses are a quintessential symbolization of the difference in the form of love Ruby and Aqua seek and quintessential to the importance of the circumstances of her death to each of them.
Likewise Ruby's discovery of Gorou's corpse as a triggering event of her personal trauma through the guidance of the crow was exclusively ment for her to experience. Aqua was "excluded" in the sense that he wouldn't recognize how important that corpse is to Ruby because then it would be immanent that they know each other, which at that point is not in the god's interest.
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Now you might ask yourself: Okay, but why wasn't his desire fullfilled after some time, for example after he passed by the biological infant state? Why would he crave for this kind of love for years until her death? After some time he should have come to his senses and tell her about the danger, right? And why would he still follow her idol performances as a dedicated fan when we established that the idolization was only a surrogat expression of Gorou Amamiyas surpressed desire?
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The Reenactment of True Love
Gorou and Ai share a common goal. Ai wants to unconditionally love somebody and Gorou wants unconditionally to be loved. The reincarnation of Gorou as Ai's son sets the framework for a realization of both wishes.
The unconditonality of Ai's devotion that Gorou seeks from her as a mother isn't fullfilled. He early on realized through the performances he would witness as Aqua on TV that she looks at the camera and her fans with the same eyes and smile as she does at her kids. The purely physical devotion of a mother that takes care of her children like bathing them appears to him as an mechanized act, her mere obligation as a legal guardian. it's like "shaking hands" with a Fan after the idol concert. "Lies are an exceptional form of Love" she said to Gorou on the roof top (btw why is everyone opening up on that roof top, is it really like a therapist session whenever somebody enters it :)) thus he suspect she's acting towards her children the same way like towards her fans. Sure, a normal child wouldn't be that suspicious but Aqua is still a grown man and fully grasps the artificiality of his role as particular Ai's son. Eventually after all those years Aqua would still crave for an actual true expression of unconditional love that is exclusive to him. And Ai still was trying to love somebody but was yet too scared to express it to her children.
Now we can see why he would persist on his role as her son and supersede the danger of the culprit who killed him. For years he would ignore it because for years he was still crave for his desired love.
Just the fact of being supernaturally pushed to be her son wasn't fullfilling the desire of the infant at all, since deception and a lie is the core of this relationship. He would naturally jump back to old habits and absorb more love from the Idol Ai Hoshino over TV. But when Miyako took the twins to her concert and their cute dance triggered Ai's most sincere maternal smile it was actually a great moment of hope for Aqua.
This whole thing with the smile was pretty instructive. Because as you recall Ai was during ego-surfing reading the opinion of a fan who said her smile and expression wouldn't be convincing at all. Well I can't prove that this anonymous poster was Aqua himself but for the point I want to make lets just assume that it exactly articulates the impression Aqua shares with the poster. They both think that she lacks convincing emotionality "on stage" - a mysterious expression because for Aqua who is roleplaying this mother-son-relation it's also as observing her "on stage" at home. And his expectation as a child towards a mother is as obsessive as the expectation of a fan towards his favorite idol.
Unfortunately he gets "betrayed" (or maybe not, I will elabore later) because a little after Ai found this new and wonderful smile she would mechanize the same expression on stage for her fans, thus it lost the unconditional intimate character which should be exclusive between a mother and her child. Ai is the best and most ruthless liar of all time.
At the same time - lets entertain that he in fact was the anonymous poster - Aqua still has a lot of selflessness at his core personality, especially as he grows up, more of the upfront "Gorou" comes out again. It's not odd to assume that he really wanted to help Ai in her development as an famous Idol. I actually like this idea a lot and it's coherent with the type of Guy Gorou/Aqua outside of his very personal desire is: A carrying fine guy who genuinely wants the best for the people he feels close to.
Chronologically it also makes sense. She was holding Aqua on her lap and was complaining about the little money she makes. She was frustated and felt stuck. She said she wants to provide for her family. Then she went to her dance lessons and there she would sit down with her phone and read that message about her smile. Aqua could have predicted that she would ego-surf and therefore posted that tweet. Later on the concert Aqua and Ruby would reveal the "star power" that can influence others. A mirroring "star power" influence Aqua would perform on Kana's first idol concert when she exactly like Ai had trouble to express the sincere smile and joy.
On top of that the apparent "push" of Aqua has a certain providing husband-like character to it. Ai says she wants to provide for the family. In the end it's Aqua's interferrence that supported her wish. In this moment he acted the identity of Gorou the doctor when he was looking out for her best interests as a pregnant woman, a bit like a loving and carrying husband.
In a a future contrasting juxtaposition fine moments like this will help Aqua to realize that the amount of guilt he feels for her death is exaggerated and unfair since he genuinly was also looking after her even as her child. And of course we all remember his influence on Gotanda after she was cut out of his movie.
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Gorou's core determining trauma is not that easy to grasp and that's because it's coded as emotional raw data into his subconsciousness. There is another very important trauma at the core which prevents him from realizing the importance of that love that was finally granted to him in Ai's last moments. He didn't realize that this was an sincere reenactment of true love his dying mother gave him after his birth. This frame in the anime gives it basically away: Her hair like the hair after an extremely painful deadly birth. She is all sweaty, exhausted and anemic but also the truely happiest woman she ever was. It's like saying: There is no point of feeling guilty, I'm so glad I gave birth to you, my son. I love you...
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https://preview.redd.it/6veu0yctbs2b1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0883f041277110fc0fadca5c8290e63c2ea72e4f
And is there even any base for guilt at all? The chapter "What is Guilt" in this essay turned out to be the shortest one. It's maybe also the grand tragicirony of Aka's story. "Guilt" and revenge for it's sake occupy Aqua's entire purpose in life, yet it has the most fragile irrational foundation, born from trauma and self-misunderstanding. One final thought: It's also not forgiveness. The kind of love that Gorous mother expressed for him after her birth wasn't forgiveness as it implies guilt. No, she is simply happy and unconditonally loved her son. He is not guilty.
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The next chapter in PART II will be called "The Reeactment of Violence" and in this we will find hidden links between Gorou's trauma with a father-figures in his life, the missing father who impregnated his mother but wouldn't provide for him, how this is reflected on Kamiki but also expressed in Aqua's husband-like behaviour towards Ai, but also his poisoned relationship to his Grandfather and how all of this comes together on the scenery of Ai's murder. And much more....

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Hi All,
Strange issue with my wateelectricity at the moment.
I had an issue with my clothes washer yesterday, resulting in me having to drain it via the front emergency drain. As I was throwing down towels to soak up the water, I got absolutely buzzed by what I was concerned was a blast of electricity that had resulted from the water leaking onto an exposed wire or something. I turned off the washing machine at the wall (there's a inaccessible 3 pin socket behind the machine and a main switch above the counter), but this did nothing to alleviate the zappy water. It tripped the (RCD? - don't think it was the main fuse that went) about five minutes after this and with the power out I was left wringing out towels by phone torchlight and getting zapped every time I swapped towels.
Now I left everything off while it dried until about eight hours later when I reset the electric switch thingy and lo and behold the power came back on fine without issue. However, my kitchen sink is now outputting what I can only describe as statically charged water, the tap does not appear to be charged, implying it's something to do with the water supply, however my bathroom sink is not giving me any issues...
Wondered if anyone has come across behaviour like this before and could hazard a guess at a cause?

Does anybody else share the sentiment that Chris Pine's character Steve Trevor the moment they got to the mainland came across as sort of annoying always trying to suggest what course of action should Wonder Woman should pursue everytime like during the alleyway scene the dressing montage scene the office room scene right before WW takes the field of fire during the No Man's Land scene that time when she goes to confront Ludendorff in the ballroom party scene and once again in the scene before she takes on her enemies at the airfield.
Like the writers were not sure what to do with his character and had to give something for him to do so they had him always endlessly chaperoning Wonder Woman advising what is right or wrong always trying to make the decisions for her at all times.
Granted Gal Gadot's character is meant to be a fish out of water who does not yet know the complex workings of the world so Steve is always there to help her out by giving his own ideas but that itself is flawed since at no point she develops her own viewpoint about the war her own perpective about human nature to distinguish between good and evil who is inherently right or wrong and whether that is exemplified by whose side of the equation u are standing.
I wonder if Steve Trevor was a German spy who crash landed in Themyscira in pursuit by the English would she have instinctively sided with the Germans in WWI seeing as he is the first man she has ever interacted with in her whole life.
Also the movie has an abomination of an ending with Wonder Woman instantly falling in love with the first man she has ever met after spending all her life in an all women's island whom she has barely known for even like a week which is only being setup so that she can grieve and feel sorry when he inevitably sacrifices himself at the end of the movie which brings to me another very glaring problem with the movie the ending where after the whole movie being hammered by the idea that it is in human instinct in everyone to fight and go to war suddenly we are introduced to Ares who was pulling the strings from behind like all this time and corrupting and poisoning their minds with no fault of their humans themselves speak about a downer of an ending which retroactively makes the entire movie worse since the film itself does not consistently adhere and believe in its values and ideas as it has been doling out to its viewers since the beginning.
I probably should not look into this movie too deeply since it is a very paint by numbers designed by committee studio movie which would fall apart when analysed too closely as would most other superhero movies or most blockbusters in general see Pitch Meetings and the movie only got praise since it was marketed as the first female led superhero movie ever even before Marvel and it did not suck balls in comparison to other DCEU films.
But god the idea of a gender flipped Captain America: The First Avenger where the male and female leads are swapped does not translate itself as seamlessly as previously thought since the entire runtime Steve comes across more as a nuisance and hindrance who blocks Wonder Woman at every possible occasion who has to navigate her own path and listen to her own self and she has to make him step aside everytime it happens maybe the movie was trying to push the idea that Wonder Woman was breaking the gender norms and patriarchal attitudes which were prevalent in 1910s England of that time but it does get more annoying each time Chris Pine's character does it.
It actually got me thinking how would a majority of women feel when the female interest of the male superhero lead in other superhero movies are given no depth and are there to just hang around for the entire movie's runtime with no character arc or purpose except being kidnapped to add to the hero's dilemma or just be there think Blake Lively in Green Lantern but in a sense we as an audience feel that it completes the male superhero character as a person while in a gender flipped scenario from a female perpective it just feels more unnecessary than anything else.

​
Hi everyone! This is a complete English translation of the Aniara sequel book by Harry Martinson called Doriderna that was put together after the author died. This translation was put together using various translation programs that can be found online, so I can't guarantee that it is a perfect translation, but it's better than nothing. I will also post the original in Swedish so you can improve the translation or look up words etc. if you want. Hope you enjoy!
I would also like to let everyone know that I am also working on my own Aniara fan fiction short story that I call "The Lost Voices of Aniara". This story tells about the events aboard the Aniara from the view point of another passenger and attempts to add more details to the story. It should be ready in the next week or two.
​
HARRY MARTINSON
The Dorides (Doriderna)
Remaining poems and prose pieces in selection and with preface by Tord Hall Albert Bonniers Förlag
​
PREFACE
For reasons I will not go into here, Harry Martinson did not publish any new work in the last years of his life. There is therefore a very large literary legacy, the publication of which began in the fall of 1978 with "Längs ekots stigar" (Along the paths of the echo), published by Georg Svensson. This collection contains only a few purely scientific poems - the emphasis is on nature poetry. The selection was made from unpublished material - which had nevertheless reached the proof stage - in three previous collections.
It remains to address other lines of thought in Harry Martinson's work: the ideas in Aniara, which in various forms occupied his imagination until the end. To follow the continuation of this great theme - at least in part - is what I am trying to do in this second selection from the surviving archive.
​
The 103 songs in Aniara were part of a larger set of poems, and the author then worked for several years on a sequel, to be called 'The Dorids', the people of the tribe of Doris. Around 1959 there were about 80 songs - most of them in more or less completed drafts. The dominant figure in the Dorids would not be Isagel or the Mimarobe, but Nobia, the Samaritan from the tundra planet and deportation site of Mars. Nobia would be a norna (fate goddess), though not a cruel goddess of fate, but a norna who weaves goodness into the fabric of the world.
But the whole project remained a large-scale endeavor. The reasons were many: illness, world events, which seemed to be moving towards a fulfillment of the prophecies in Aniara, and which gave him an increasingly dark view of life: he told me that "Aniara has become a neurosis" ... I feel like Mima being blown apart'. But the decisive reason was surely his demand for absolute freedom in his creativity. He did not want to be confined, and the result was, as he himself said, 'I have stepped out of Aniara'.
The fact that Harry Martinson stepped out of Aniara, and thus also out of the Dorides, does not at all mean that he left the motifs or ideas found there, which cover the scientific field from atoms to stars. Rather, it means that he was able to write without direct connection to the characters of Aniara and the Dorides in particular.
I have therefore considered it justified to call this entire collection the Dorides, even though the prose pieces and several poems do not have a clearly visible connection with such a title.
In order to comment briefly on the selection, I would like to say a few words about Harry Martinson's attitude towards modern science (it is my intention to return to this subject in more detail).
There are two main lines. One is deterministic, and has its roots in classical physics, founded by Newton, which dominated until the end of the 19th century. It has a philosophical form in the law of causation, which means that if you know enough facts about a certain course of events in the present and in the past, you can precisely specify the course of events in the future. Examples of such events in the 'big world' - the macrocosm - are solar and lunar eclipses.
But in the world of atoms - the microcosm - this determinism does not apply. Heisenberg demonstrated this through his uncertainty relation, also known as the indeterminacy principle. In the atoms, individual events are indeterminate, we cannot discern any causality - there is randomness. But chance can be mastered by the methods of statistics, and we must content ourselves with a "statistical causality", which describes the course of events in the atom with the highest possible degree of probability.
It is this second, indeterministic line that has long been followed by most physicists. But there is one major exception, and that is Einstein. At the 1927 meeting of physicists in Brussels, for example, he asked Bohr, Heisenberg and others with mild irony whether they really believed that God plays dice - "ob der liebe Gott würfelt". Einstein was convinced that the universe follows an ordering principle, a geometric structure, which can be called a world soul. This is a pantheistic view that is reminiscent of Spinoza.
Similar ideas are already present in Aniara, but in this selection the picture has become more sharply defined. Harry Martinson does not believe that chance plays a decisive role in the course of the world, as is clear from several poems and prose pieces. He believes more in Einstein than in dozens of other Nobel Prize winners. Apart from these authorities, he follows his intuition.
His approach to religion has often been quoted: he chooses the Riddler over the God. This belief is reflected in 'The Riddle'. In 'Poems on Light and Darkness', published in 1971, Harry Martinson, with 'The Inner Light' and 'The Bird in the Phoenix Bell', presents the events inside the atom itself. These poems show that - although 'Aniara' and 'The Dorides' are more about stars than atoms - he never lost his interest in the microcosm. In this selection, it is the atoms that are more interesting than the stars.
The bard enters the atom. He describes the course of events in a world which is completely beyond our senses and which, despite the enormous aids of science, we will probably never be able to understand exactly. The story itself probably comes from Gamow's book "Mr. Tompkins Explores the Atom". Published in Swedish translation in 1946, it is, along with "Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland" (also 1946), the versatile Gamow's best popular science books. Harry Martinson rated them highly.
The two poems 'Submerged as in a dream but still awake' and 'Actually, the comprehensibility was slight' depict a journey of thought into the atom, and the same motif recurs in several other places.
The poem "A Cosmic Thickness Lying Boundlessly Spread" poetically depicts a world development related to the hypothesis of the "stationary universe" put forward by Hoyle and others, and to Klein-Alfvén's "symmetrical cosmology". For several reasons - mainly aesthetic - Harry Martinson did not like the theory of 'the big bang', which was celebrated by most scientists. His poem should have been written quite a long time ago, and perhaps he would have changed his mind if he had been given the opportunity to understand what the "cosmic background radiation" - with a temperature of about 3 degrees above absolute zero - means for the credibility of "The big bang". It took natural scientists some time to become convinced that this radiation can best be interpreted as a fading glow after an unimaginable cosmic explosion some 18 billion years ago.
This selection also contains several pieces of prose, which in general do not need any comment. But I would like to mention a few. For "The Figuration Patterns of the Goddancer's Juggling Program", in three sections, there is a drawing by Harry Martinson, reproduced on the cover of this collection. The spread comes from Hindu philosophy: we see 'Siwa's juggling dance before Brama'. The dominant curves are so-called lemniscates, which were already known to the ancient Greeks. The lemniscate looks like an eight and is the mathematical symbol for infinity. It is defined as the trajectory of a point under the condition that the product of its distances to two given points is constant. In the center of the drawing there are several small curves. They are ellipses, and an ellipse - also first studied by the Greeks - is defined as the trajectory of a point under the condition that the sum of its distances to two given points is constant. The result is a geometric pattern, similar to a flower, which at the same time provides a poetic image of the complex interplay of forces in the atom with outward and inward energy impulses The juggler finds it increasingly difficult to work with his ball-particles as he progresses through the periodic table of the elements. In the end, he "dances the spectral theme in the dance of the Phoenix" - a symbol of the indestructibility of both energy and poetry, and a recurring motif in Martinson's poetry.
"Delsaga om tidens ariadnetråd" (Part of the saga of the Ariadne thread of time) is almost a fantasy about four-dimensional space, where you have to be careful not to get on the wrong track. The selection of prose pieces ends with "Some fairies dancing in the summer night near a quiet lake". It is a cheerful tale where the author combines a love of the Swedish summer with a love of light.
​
I made this selection at the direct request of Harry. He even said several times that I should have all his scientific poems and prose pieces. But I think I judged this offer correctly when I saw it as an expression of his great generosity towards his friends. I always replied that he himself should complete and select what was to be published. But in his last years he did not want to publish anything. I therefore promised to make a selection if he did not change his mind.
​
He did not, and this collection is the result.
Finally, I would like to thank Ingrid Martinson and Georg Svensson for the understanding and assistance they have given me in bringing this selection to fruition.
​
Tord Hall
​
​
The Dorides (Doriderna)
The book you hold was written in Mima's hall.
Now, on a secret wavelength, it is sent home to you, my friend, who for some years inhabits a spherical beach called the Valley of Doris.
In other words, it was written so close to your own being that nothing could be closer to you than those described here. You are one of them.
​
Over the graves, the indifferent wind spreads
the whisper of the immortal gods
that no loss is foreseen in the grand scheme of things.
But what do the gods - those wasteful billionaires of the heavens - know about the beautiful and wonderful Doris?
how she was worth saving forever
and that whoever loved her
can never be comforted by the gods' continued waste.
About her a bird sings now alone in the tree of the grave. Of her as she was, the glorious one, if no other, the Dorides' thrush sings.
​
The window was full of stars,
The Leonids' swarm of stars came, then you know the time.
Autumn was gone, its yellowing burnt.
The lookout tower, closed on the wooded mountains.
I stood as a child of a time that saw the stars detach from the roofs towards a room where novas frightened a more distant valley, I found other myths than those I was used to picking hurled at me from the space of the Leonids.
I stood in the cathedral of fear of dreams.
The great copper woman who lay there with her back soldered to the lid of the sarcophagus drove horror into me, cast my foot with lead.
That the copper woman knew who I was, I immediately sensed as a deadly weight, and that I had been summoned here by herself, by the queen of copper, of that I was certain.
In empty benches sat forgotten years, from the emptiness of the auditorium the organ pipes shone like stalactites in the vault of a cave and there was nothing, no light, no hint that gathered my crumbling courage.
For everything was fulfilled as it was written in stone once when the water abandoned the green and it was said that man will go away and become the dead slave of the dead dust.
And as I stood there gripped, filled with horror
for this judgment and epitaph
which was predetermined and rehearsed
in the mute trumpet of the seraphim of the stones,
bells fell suddenly from the towers to the earth that rocked with an ore-broken thunder, and the copper woman rose, a scream of remembrance drawn from afar to her lips as she drew me in close to her copper body in terrified death.
He woke up. There was light. It was day.
And the Samaritan Nobia sat silent, but still heard the echo of the screams his dreams had squeezed out of his fear.
She searched for words simple enough for a stranger to grasp, but not so simple as to drive away his trust, hardly won yet.
In simple action she finally found them.
And she stood up and smiled with milk
From the moors of Gondrin to the mouth of this fugitive.
​
​
It is no exaggeration to say that space gave us long winter evenings rolled into one - the one that lasts. Our leisure time finally became a grim question with ice in our eyes and a frozen flame.
It became necessary to tell stories from reality - as it can be taken. I chose to tell about King Basii, who, supported by Chefone, forcibly turned himself into a god and magician in a celestial drama.
The Goldonder King felt like God and determined to live up to the gods he built himself a city in the sky.
It was a global world city of goldonders assembled into a kind of hive heaven.
But Basil's space-city, though it contained twelve million men in his service, was not enough for him; he had another built, and the greatest city in the world was soon in space. That city was a marvel to behold: a mighty golden dome, surrounded by three bionomically serving drabants, one of which was called the Vegetable City, one the Fish Drabant, and the third the Sting.
​
The names reveal their role and purpose.
So Basii sits in his heavenly land. The aquarium dragon orbits faithfully and Stings follows it with fattened animals and the vegetable moon amounts to the redwood.
The golden dome was the city of retreat for all climbers and celestial rebels, for gamma was a poison to all alike and all poor and rich alike had to choose between death and escape.
So many preferred the city of Basil.
But although he rules over twelve million
inhabitants of the great city of space, he is still very rarely happy.
And although the dragons in a faithful circle
raise animals and grow fish and wheat
Basil's only pleasure is when he gets
with Vulvis, the royal slave, to bathe in Lethe.
But all the deliciously good virginity
that can be enjoyed in Basil's harem
is in its nakedness a skin of fear.
of frightened dissimulation. And his love story
...is but a tale to be seen from the outside..,
and all his lust a forced voluptuousness.
​
Thus in The Night of Aniara I draw a little picture that everyone can understand from the rich treasure of reality.
And every time I make an arabesque in the hall of Mima about this space grotesque that Basil's space city can probably be said to be, I can for an hour or so make people sigh: the best is here anyway.
From Basil's false heaven we preserve. No, I'd rather travel with Aniara.
But soon the alarm goes off. The bells proclaim that the images of the fairy tale are overtaken by visions here that distress ignites.
And quickly to the halls I return.
​
The Goldonder's garden bubbled with glamour. A party was being held there and Chefone was there. He showed us a picture of the smith of happiness: the goldonder king Basii, a portrait jubilantly taken on the day the fifteen thousandth goldonder lay in the field ready for the wave of endlessness.
Then we were each seized by thoughtfulness and went to our own in solitude.
For in every ship of this number there was a Mima locked up in its cage.
The Rapid criminal was much loved and could operate as he pleased under the protection of the admiration he aroused. He always appeared at great speeds and abducted women whom he brought to Chefone in light blue rapid rockets.
Of course it was criminal, the people of the valley thought, but the charm was so close to the deed that the rampart was breached by sheer admiration and open worship soon followed the advice of restraint at the murder pedal.
​
Tucked away in a corner of our gondola, I pretend to smile at some rough fellows who spend their evenings with mockery and violence, with a devilish flutter as their sole aim.
They look at me and find me mortified,
- The clear approval is what they expect...
and I'm close to being squeezed badly
every time they jokingly glance at my grave door.
The brute is approaching, his dull face with many a foolish whim weighing on his mind.
And many a scowl missed by pigs from the worst corners of the soul he throws at me.
And when, full of fear, I strike with depleted strength in the dull face, the troll is only amused by my blow and raises his eyebrow with interest.
Then I flee between the troll's legs and out the other side of the danger of death.
How this happened can only be fully explained by the light of the gopher and the fourth tensor theory.
​
Here came the sober, composed and sober man who always kept his soul in trim and stuck to the dry, honest maxims of life.
Now he went into the fire with his imagination.
His cool reason was completely burned His sober composure was fried in seconds when the photo turbo in Xinombra exaggerated the cold matter.
And yet I can't help but admire the man as he made his way to the office where he had been employed for many years
and where, despite offers to flee to the tundra, he provided punch cards for thousands who broke up every day.
There died a man who never raised his voice, who always remained true to his calm tone, the martyr of calm composure who was burned when the cruel fires of excess were lit.
​
One is often chilled to the rock crystal by everything one hears before the ear falls like gray-white ash into the cremation hall.
And the girl from Rind who sees nothing is often heard to ask beyond the eye: how is the world of such torment visible? What is to be seen in this madness, where eeriness against eeriness is heard to answer?
Cultivating insight seemed futile
and many fell away from the faithful crowd.
and its program which was to see through
so that with the transparency of evil
as lens and instrument
try to find new signs
and new ways for the land of Gond.
Most people grew tired and withdrew from the room of the Truth Service, and Nobia sat for long periods almost alone, trying to hold on to her looms, always tormented
by the blood moisture of evil memories, the echoes of horror
surrounded her days
and made the Mara a bedfellow
who tore the fabric of the noman
and raped Nobia's dream
and the mood of life over the moors of Gondria.
It is as important to us to have friends
in the houses of distant worlds as at home by
the familiar road of the green earth.
You are reflected in endless eyes, watched by immense spectators.
They never interfere, but they watch the sewing and the mining,
the nurse and doctor on the rounds and the weapons in the shamelessly cruel wars.
Your own position under their eyes may be likened to the position you take with one whom you do not wish to grieve, but to share joy and to please.
So spoke the old astronomer, and then laid his head down to rest.
And he went smiling to the eternity that had been waiting by his side all his life.
His forehead shone with its ideas, even in the dead of death in the years of space.
He was among those who know the fairies of everything, those who get to comb Berenice's hair.
​
But for the longest time I still want to believe that this is the torment of an evil dream and the ship Aniara a phantom from which I will wake up in the Valley of Doris.
Perhaps everything is a nightmare and I want to wait with poison and a knife. They say there are dreams of a kind that seem as long as a man's life.
Out of the dust you were born, from its gifts you were supported.
You did not manage the gift, many a meadow you made desolate.
What is beyond this sea is called Going down deep among riddles too great to be found in a grave.
Faith can never cover more than what you see in spirit.
​
All the other things are too much to bear.
Do you hear the sound of the rescue team calling from an emergency station that is one of a thousand others, regardless of faith?
Now guess where the road leads and what Paradise is.
One of a thousand rescue stations scattered along the coast here.
Now I want to sing to my ear and ask it to listen to a voice that descends not to destroy the language I have collected for comfort. For the comfort of life and death, I whisper the price of sensitivity every time the sinful flow of language storms the breeze of the spirit.
​
One night Heba lay awake in the city of Aniara and heard the painter's joyful painting.
The skilled varnisher was varnishing the years that would one day end on a stainless steel stretcher.
And suddenly from Heba there was a shout against the smooth roof.
The skilled varnishers know their business well.
Too hard to become joy, too happy to become sorrow. The painters paint everything in Aniara's castle.
​
We know that we have been left out of the higher insight of the ocean of mystery and that we lack the tools to reach the depths of clarity that Mima once gave. But since Mima's death, the average of what we achieve of truth is not very high average is what is required if the choice of new paths is to be avoided.
A small number reach the values that should be the average to reach.
The others are satisfied with the flow of thought,
the rattle with which time is made to pass.
A daughter of my mother, called Tovi, was born in the night of space. Alas, dear ones, where can the crowd's demand for sensation and wonder lead us?
First came, as it should be, the blissfully sweet and indescribably pure birth, when the mimicry lay naked, uncovered and panting in the golden bed of the formula.
To her camp now came the mimicry and winged it
the naked one, as when the butterfly flies the honey chalice of its flower, in Dori's meadows. The description is not given (much to my regret) because there is always the possibility of a wave of miracles taking place in secret, to the great disappointment of many who wish to see how the mimagyne makes love, and from what angle the picture of the goddess's love life should be taken in order to really reach the audience.
Can it not be enough that Tovi gave birth to an allegorical child whom Isagel happily suckled at her breast and practiced miracles and consolation You may think so yourself, but others think otherwise.
For not even a mimagyn can defend the fruit of her womb against the human hyena who demands a clear answer on every point of what precedes it all: the prelude to sowing,
with the insides of the thighs well described in a clear image that gives the "public" a feeling that it was in the bed.
​
Yes, it has happened that I have sometimes asked myself (in private silence, of course) whether the smooth ice of superficiality does not have enough joy, and that the great swallows in these spaces are only terrible wakes which, compared to the agile princess and heartlessly threatening with superior power, will in the end become the cold room of beauty.
So small a strip bears, the other breaks, and all the incomparably large gapes with the same dark death which, unchanging with cold upon cold, only imitates itself.
To raise one's hand then with a light-year pound and demonstrate the fugue of eternity on terrible organs, while the girl in the icy distance dances, hardly greater to see than a fly flown away towards the light, it is to chill with the great weapon as when the superpower with the powers the element hides coldly makes its rows in the land of Gond against unsuspecting cities and, although itself dismissing all talk of sin punishment and trial, nevertheless treats the human with such terrible flame that this terrible torrent of loose gamma released by those who do not mean sin punishment nevertheless cruelly destroys both Yaal and Gena and melts down to ashes the wonder Heba
With the same fire they turned on Chebeba.
​
Posterity does not understand you so easily.
It judges according to the image of posterity
and counts up the time you lived in
as rows of negligence, as offenses
against the spirit of foresight, the duties of thought.
To this it adds the work of suffering
and piles up, as blind as a judge
as you were blind as a criminal, case by case.
Can those who have killed the foundations of joy and destroyed the great city of joy have the right to the joys of life?
Does Cain have the right to be happy?
Can those who strangled the joys of Xinombra and burned the valley of paradise have the right to heights of heaven other than Aniara's daily agony?
I ask but never get an answer. I have to arrange for pastimes
for the hordes of Aniara and manage its entertainment.
​
A wave of newly awakened hatred swept through the mountains where Nobia lived in deep mines and ghostly white lights illuminated every thread of life in the fabrics she wove.
She had sought and found the thread of life - a discovery of how healing rays are empowered by the inner council of things and fused with the heart of the atom.
And while hatred swelled around the mountains
and wounds screamed in the valley of time.
she wove day and night until the color of victory
and the skin of life rose in the hall of death.
Of her beauty little can be said. It was lost in a wave of radiation but the clear purity of the soul could be weighed; in healed wounds we saw her reflection.
​
Then I will throw you out of your chair. I will break your armchair view, because it is false and holds a convulsive security in a time that has slipped out of its rooms, but also the other way around: that it becomes a view without deep insight.
From this world, I shall send you happiness today to the kingdom of love, to the evil shore where the Samaritan Nobia and others spread works of love from country to country.
Figuring out the ways of evil and tracking down all the poison in the city of hate was futile, for hate stood there with heavy blocks united row by row.
Within its walls there was life and movement in the birthing centers and squares where human beings were conceived and human beings were born and human life in the human gap was destroyed. It was best to pretend that this city of self-righteous evil existed as nothing more than a devilish childhood that would mature, grow tired of itself.
We resolved to keep on sending saints there for the longest time.
from the saints' camps as long as the funds lasted
and as far as the need still aroused the heart.
This plan was tried for nine years, during which the Rind camp of saints bled to death: an act of self-sacrifice based on faith in the powers of good. But the heavy wall of hate stood just as hard, and the fatigue of leadership followed the act of hate; only too great was the throne of victory we had.
A single city consumed the power which we had thought sufficient for the transformation of the world.
​
On a rare occasion, the happiness of being free from desire also came.
Then the emptiness suddenly became populated by a kind of spiritualized mystery.
We walked the spirit's path of happiness along the beach, exchanging thoughts, making fortune cards.
It was evening and sunset in the sea.
Night fell, but the land of thought stood firm.
He woke up. She said: guess where.
I can't, he said. How did you get here? The same way you did: up the gravel path and then straight to the left among the cypresses. There was a dewy path the moonlight itself went there with light steps which I tried to imitate.
And when everything was past and the path was over
I managed to become a clear crystal and find you, my friend, on this path.
It is so transparently wonderful here.
We no longer exist. All that was is over.
Neither god nor devil here reaches us anymore and the end is the cruel parody of life.
​
Where is the plain text?
This is what I'm looking for.
The one that fits but still gives song.
After thanking God that he was a wasp and not something else, he continued between the leafy branches and stung the farmer.
Laid out by spiritual mobs, the truth becomes worse than the lie. When the mob washes the barley, it is never clean.
The rabble always wash in the dunghill from the Augean stables.
​
​
Matema's camel bells ring in the deserts of speech where the caravans of unfinished quarrels
never reach their oasis, only become more camels.
Immersed as in a dream but still awake, I found myself changed and so naked that no dream has words for what it was like when, transformed by the stone, I cut down towards the inner realms and while this was happening I became smaller, smaller and even more stripped of layers and layers of time and space as I sank further and further into the stone, deeper and deeper into things.
Who undressed me, wore me down so much that no conceivable smallness so small on this earth can be imagined unless one is long since beyond what every comprehensible thought wants to deny.
And yet I was being stripped and reduced still further in no direction.
So sunk, unceasingly sunk in
towards even more breathtaking reduction
I retained in my dream a way of seeing
and understand that I was traveling into
to the dimensions, the innermost
who with their interior work with their interior
and whose interiors compose the world.
They scare children with darkness, criminals with punishment and sinners with realms beyond death where the vengeful desire to torment has transported its arsenal of tormenting images.
But sorrow follows us every day, and joy follows us every day.
We ourselves are the sorrow, we are also the joy, everything human is rooted in humanity, and no human being can escape humanity, not her hatred and her self-degradation, nor the joy she spreads, nor the love she forms.
There is a third land that is not death and not life, but the reality that pervades all realities, and spins the very thread of the fabric from which dreams are woven. Yes, I had come to the rooms where these threads are spun. When I arrived, I stepped out and saw no longer surprised the smallest fairy, who herself was not at all surprised to welcome me to her inner land.
And although we were both unimaginably smaller than two grains of traveling dust on a suit on earth, we thought we were big here in this smallest room to which I have now come and which nevertheless encloses with its vault a separate world of realities formed.
On the contrary, I cannot describe what I saw of strange things, but that will follow when the habit of telling stories has been practiced for other habits than what life offers,
and other things than those called death.
For though beyond all I have known
this was not death
and though within all I have known
this was not life.
​
Actually, the comprehensibility was slight, as when multiples arranged in layers, and layered in the directions of space, make the fabric of the dream omnidirectional structural and become a fabric consisting of paths where the thread is only thought of as a path as a sign that here the shuttle has gone, but where is the thread? The thread is the path. I saw how the gnome was in a quandary as to which of two different possibilities to give clarity.
Then came formulas of such an elusive nature that the gnome was again gripped by the anxiety
which arises when the explanation is attempted but little response is felt by the pupil.
And with a look that shone as if with sorrow, he signaled a break in the dilemma. And with a formula more magical than comprehensible, we left the atom.
We expanded to other contexts and sat on a leaf next to a bee eagerly searching for honey in a meadow.
​
The Dance
Around the great star of the day we shall orbit the years we have been given to live, and our family for a few thousand centuries, perhaps more, perhaps less, no one knows.
But the time that we are orbiting is so small compared to that of the suns where they wander around in orbits in the galaxy our family named the Milky Way, luminous to behold.
What can our eyes see, our hearts cry out at the thought of atoms going around in the same way with waves and particles.
Some have called this the dance of the gods - it is always being danced by everything in the universe.
All indications are that among the arts of the muses
the art of dance is the first and the last,
and we are in it, dancing out
our role in the dance, it is already being danced
in other worlds separate from our time,
in other dance theaters,
yet one thing is clear
that we are dancing our turns.
Our role in it
is ours and no one else's.
Our own role in the dance art of all worlds.
​
Economic overview
Our earth wanders alive alone, around the sun our dear parent.
As far as the giant tubes reach no living neighbor to see.
Desolate and empty on the one who received the name of the god of war, burning hot and desolate on the one who received the name of the goddess of love.
Jupiter, planet of Zeus
ice-clad to two hundred times the height of the Himalayas.
The others are death's door.
Beyond that, light years to the next planetary village.
So each sun has only one living person, and that one is a leased farm, indefinitely and to an unreliable and dangerous race.
​
Here is a world of light distributed in the mystery of things.
Here is the salvaged light in the innumerable rooms of the stone.
Wands point with poles directed to their rooms inside mountains and stones, spinning mystery.
Deep in her fairy tale, she lives for the sake of the tale.
the norn who has learned to spin the yarn from the wool of the riddles.
​
The spirit of Ideema from space in endless lines gathered the seeds into the durable wood of the suns.
From far beyond time the hydrogen came in modest garb and built for its God the ingenious nests of the atoms.
Come, let us nurture the foundation of our life. The green sphere we have been given to live on in the universe's lottery system.
When the next lucky draw can get rid of the Milky Way's big tombola we do not know and can never reach.
But we do know one thing for sure: the next draw will not include us.
​
A stranger called chance shuffles the cards and deals them to the local players.
Every single poker face keeps a straight face.
There are plenty of goldfish in the tureen here.
According to the law, the silent coincidence itself is the last to raise its hand, with ice in its stomach.
Soon jaws of granite are chewing the cigar.
Where is the bundle of happiness among the starlings?
That question is answered when chance wins.
Then the shot goes off, chance's life disappears. His house of cards collapses, but soon everyone at the counter thinks it was a nice fish, that no one won, that chance herself was told by Smith and Wesson what chance was.
by Smith and Wesson what chance should do.
( translation to be continued )

So, I started to listen to High Voltage a lot lately, and these lines made me curious and overthink it, these lines:
"And like the rock and rap, "You know what I mean People act like, you know "--Wow, that's a new invention--" That shit's ain't new We're constantly evolving It is constantly changing..."
"There's a lot of change Everybody's always tryna put labels on it It ain't no label for this shit They always gotta try to put a label on it Try to create something, so they can water it down"
Does this have to do something with Linkin Park being labeled as Nu Metal very often? Or Is It just me?
Linkin Park never wanted to be labeled as Nu Metal, so do these lines in 'High Voltage' mean that?

Personally, I rinse my brush with water, shove on toothpaste, bit more water, then shove it in my mouth and brush all around for 2 mins in no particular order.
Tongue scrape, spit. Done.
Brush is electric and does buzz every 30 seconds - should probably do a quadrant every time, but brushing teeth is boring enough as it is...

Setting the scene: My siblings, husband, and I were over at my parents' house for a BBQ yesterday. We had great fun. We played some lawn games, and as we were finishing our last game, my father sprung out from the side of the house with a water gun, squirting us all. Chaos ensued. My brother went for the other water guns, only to find out they were broken. (That's fair, they hadn't been used in over a decade.) That's when I spotted the garden hose, which had been unraveled, snaking out to the front of the house, where my father must've filled his gun. So I dashed to the front lawn, grabbed the hose (conveniently with the sprayer attachment on!) and ran back to get my revenge. As I approached, my siblings realized what I was up to, yelled out "Dad, dad!" to warn my soon-to-be victim (Side note: Why? Were they not on my side here? He was spraying them too! Anyway.), then there was lots of running, spraying, laughing, everyone seemed to have a good time.
Later, as we had tea and dessert, my father said "Snail, you're 30. And SisterSnail, you're 25." (There is also BrotherSnail, 27.) "I think it's time you start calling me by my name, not Dad." We were a bit confused, but he explained that earlier, hearing some of us yell "Dad" made him feel weird. That we are too old to be doing that. (But not too old for water gun fights?) I get that in that moment, we probably didn't seem very adult-like, but I don't know that I would say the biggest factor there is calling him dad. I would have thought it was the water guns, running, giggling. Which he started!
None of us were expecting this. SisterSnail mentioned that as we aged, we had already transitioned from "daddy" to "dad". Was that not enough? And we didn't know our father's parents, but BrotherSnail inquired, and my father had in fact call them mum and dad until their passing (at which point he was older than we are now). He replied that he did this because it was his preference at the time - he didn't necessarily consider his parents' emotions. But now he was letting us know how he feels. And he no longer likes being referred to as dad. It feels awkward to him, like we are being overly childish.
Is this common? I don't know if culture is a factor? My father is British, mother French Canadian, we live in Canada. (For the record, my mother thought this was a bit ridiculous, she always called her parents maman/papa, which is mom/dad in French.)
I will, of course, respect his wishes. But I'm not gonna lie, it does sting a bit. Regardless of what I call him, he will always be my father. But it still seems like a bit of a loss? Or am I crazy? I'd really appreciate any insights into his point of view. The most significant change to our situation recently is that a bit less than a year ago, I moved back closer to them. Previously I was an 8 hour drive away, now it's (at most) 1 hour. My other siblings live nearby. For the last 5 years or so we'd been seeing each other all together only a few times a year, at most. Now we try for at least once a month, and both my parents say they're extremely glad to be seeing us all together more.
Weirdly, my father is generally the more openly affectionate of our two parents. Even though the first name thing seems like it would create a bit of emotional distance. He is more comfortable with hugs, when the occasion calls for it. Sometimes even lingers for a second or two. Whereas my mother does hug us from time to time, but I think only when she feels she has to, and in the way I would imagine I'd hug a hedgehog. For example, she came wedding dress shopping with me, and when I'd said yes to a dress, there was a bit of a pause, and the sales person told my mother she should hug me now, and my mother declined, and the person insisted a bit, so she did, but it seemed almost painful for her. (It was really awkward.) My father also says the L-word to us (Oh man, I hope that doesn't stop too now that we're old!), but I cannot remember my mother ever saying it (I know she must feel it, but it would also be nice to hear it).
Currently extra grateful for my husband, who gives me unlimited, earnest, hugs, and L-words me several times a day.

I came across the post 2019 Fantasy Bingo Card Using Eurovision Songs (yes, seriously) by u/improperly_paranoid and as it is still Eurovision month, despite Eurovision 2023 ending 2 weeks ago I was curious to see if I could make this work for the Bingo 2023 card and Eurovision 2023 songs because it seemed like fun.
For those not in the know, Eurovision is an annual song contest where participating countries send an entry to compete for the opportunity to host the competition the following year and show off about their culture, it's a lot of fun, very camp and participating countries get to vote for the results. This year for the first time voting was expanded to non participating countries such as: the United States, Canada, Kosovo, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Mexico, Hungary, Slovakia, UAE, Turkey, and Chile. This interval performance of Love Love Peace Peace should give you a better idea of what it is all about. Eurovision often has fantastical elements, such as a woman floating in space above the Earth, an inflating lightning dress, not to mention funky video game inspired entries, and even a stick figure imaginary friend.
I think I've made my point, anyway if anyone doesn't know what Fantasy Bingo is then check it out! It's a yearly challenge to encourage diversifying your reading, I had a lot of fun with it last year and the community aspect is great for gathering ideas for themed cards, asking about if a book fits and seeing what everyone recommends.
Rule 1: Once a country has been used for a square it cannot be reused
Rule 2: Only songs and performers from Eurovision 2023 are eligible

Now, the Squares.

First Row
Title with a Title: Future Lover - Brunette (Armenia), although Queen of Kings would also work here I need it for...
Superheroes: Queen of Kings - Alessandra (Norway), I mean look at that cape! If she isn't a superhero I don't know who is.
Bottom of the TBR: I Wrote A Song - Mae Muller (United Kingdom), Mae performed as the final act in the Grand Final so was literally the performance we'd been waiting for the longest. Alternatively Luxembourg, who are returning to the competition in 2024 after a 30 year absence.
Magical Realism: Bridges - Alika (Estonia), a piano that plays itself.
Young Adult: Breaking My Heart - Reiley (Denmark), very bright and feels like it has a younger target audience.
​
Second Row
Mundane Jobs: Who the Hell is Edgar? - Teyas & Salena (Austria), about singers and a dead writer ghostwriting.
Published in the 00s: What They Say - Victor Vernicos (Greece), okay obviously none of these songs are published in the 00s because that goes against Eurovision rules, however singer songwriter Victor is 16 years old...Yes this is an age joke, he's the youngest singer in the competition this year and he was born in the 00s. Plenty of other contestants for this year are born in the 2000s as well, including Brunette.
Angels and Demons: Blood & Glitter - Lord of the Lost (Germany), no blatant angel/demon iconography this year so I had to stretch the definition a bit, with this song embodying the notion that everyone has both angelic and demonic characteristics. Serbia's song does namedrop the Devil, but I need that song for later.
Five Short Stories: Flag Parade featuring short live performances from previous highly successful Ukrainian acts, showcasing the history of Ukraine in Eurovision interspersed with UK songs due to the UK hosting on behalf of Ukraine.
Horror: Like An Animal - Piqued Jacks (San Marino), this song might come the closest to straight up horror this year because of the lyrical content, alternatively this staging may qualify Romania's entry for this square.
​
Third Row
Self-Published: Carpe Diem - Joker Out (Slovenia), as far as I could tell only this song and Future Lover - Brunette (Armenia) are self-published this year.
Set in SWANA Country: Tell Me More - TuralTuranX (Azerbaijan), this source explicitly mentions Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Published in 2023: Promise - Voyager (Australia), this is a freebie since they are all published in 2023. Check it out, this band knows how to put on a show.
Multiverse/Alternate Realities: Eaea - Blanca Paloma (Spain), again I'm stretching a bit here, but this song does have a very otherworldly feel to it.
POC Author: Heart of Steel - TVORCHI (Ukraine), Jimoh Kehinde was born in Nigeria.
​
Fourth Row
Book Club or Readalong: Cha Cha Cha - Käärijä (Finland), the song everyone is watching on youtube, it currently has the most views of all the live performances of the 2023 show, with 15 million views.
Novella: Mama ŠČ! - Let 3 (Croatia), the shortest song this year according to youtube. Also Croatia did get to the Grand Final, but their semi-final performance video on youtube is shorter for some reason.
Mythical Beasts: Unicorn - Noa Kirel (Israel), it's even HM
Elemental Magic: Break A Broken Heart - Andrew Lambrou (Cyprus), the most elemental mage in Eurovision 2023, we get a waterfall, rain and fire. Shoutouts to Romania for their firey performance and Georgia and Estonia for their water iconography.
Myths and Retellings: Soarele şi Luna - Pasha Parfeni (Moldova), use of multiple folklore characters with the lyrics written by Pasha's wife Yuliana about a beautiful marriage, you could definitely argue this is a retelling of their own love story.
​
Fifth Row
Queernorm Setting: Because of You - Gustaph (Belgium), a camp song described by Gustaph as "an ode to the queer community".
Coastal or Island Setting: Solo - Blanka (Poland), features a coastal background.
Druids: Power - Diljá (Iceland), she's got plant powers.
Featuring Robots: Samo mi se spava - Luke Black (Serbia), a lot of video game iconography, very moody atmosphere and a big robot boss to fight. TVORCHI's Heart of Steel also fits here.
Sequel: Tattoo - Loreen (Sweden), a surprising amount of songs work for sequel, as we had 6 returning performers from previous Eurovisions/Junior Eurovision including Pasha Parfeni (Moldova), Marco Mengoni (Italy), Monika Linkytė (Lithuania), Gustaph (Belgium), Iru (Georgia). But Loreen fits best here, as she returns from winning Eurovision 2012 with Euphoria to win again in Eurovision 2023. Making her the second person to win Eurovision twice.
With a few stretches to make a Bingo challenge meant for books work for songs, it sort of worked. How about that.

I bought a house last August with a pool so I am pretty new to owning a pool. Last year I noticed the pool was always full of sand so I decided to buy a new filter instead of replacing the laterals in the old filter because it was quite old and I could not find parts for it.
I installed the new filter a few days ago and same problem. Sand coming back in the pool. I vacuum, it's clean, turn on the pump and within 10 minutes I start to see sand on the floor. I thought it could be algae but I just had the water tested on Saturday and no algae.
What are the chances something is defective in the new filter? I really don't feel like emptying the sand and exchanging it.
The pool does have a bottom drain. Could that have something to do with it?
I don't know what to do. Any help is greatly appreciated

I spent the remainder of the evening after the "hike" sorting out my thoughts. Trying to, at any rate. Writing it all down helped, but I was still exhausted and confused.
I woke up in Frankie Preston's bed the following morning. I instantly knew it wasn't mine due to the lack of Dorito crumbs in the sheets. Even so, it took me a while to come to. Once I'd rubbed my eyes and untangled myself from the blanket, I found the man himself sitting upright beside me, fully dressed with his shoes on, presently reading a book. "Morning, Sunshine," he muttered, not looking up. "There's water on the nightstand for you. A muffin, too. I wasn't sure what to get."
I let out an incoherent murmur to which he huffed a laugh and rested his hand on the side of my face. "You were still as a rock, you know."
"I'm sorry for messing up last night," I said, my voice cracked and dry from sleep. "I shouldn't have gone looking for trouble. I should've stayed low and just watched those two."
"What's with that tone? I'm not about to lecture you. I get wanting to take revenge. You did fine as far as I'm concerned. And I think Markov is okay with everything, too. After all, any proceedings against the Collective are highly legitimate now or whatever. Plus, she got that lady cultist in custody now, and she's looking forward to the interrogation. She called and explained it to me on the phone earlier, but I wasn't paying attention." He shrugged to himself and I reached up to tug aside his book's cover. "It's Wuthering Heights," he told me, gently removing my hand. I tried to grab it again, but he pulled it out of my reach. "Oh!" He sounded amused as he finally set the book aside to hug me. "You could have just said something."
"Don't you have to work today?"
"I called in sick. Of course, my six moms know I don't actually get sick so they'll suspect something's up. They're probably gonna be all over me."
"You never get sick?" I inquired.
"No. It's one of the nicer aspects of inhuman nature."
"I'm still not getting any answers on that?"
"Don't worry, you will. Sooner or later."
We went out and took a walk in the park, which was equally weird and nice. It seemed such a normal thing to do. It was a bright, nearly windless day, and the sun shining down on us provided a gentle warmth. The previous days' rain had left the trees heavily laden with drops of water. Occasionally, some would dislodge from the leaves and branches they occupied and plop down on our heads.
I asked Frankie whether he would be alright with checking in on Nettie Peterson together. He chuckled, joking that she would probably just love to see him, but ultimately agreed. Once my best friend was due to be off work, we went around to her house.
Strangely enough, the most drastic changes in other people seem to happen without me really being there to witness them. Kit Sutton had somehow turned into a somewhat responsible roommate without me even noticing. Before I knew it, we had become friends. When my savior human opened the door for us, I felt distinctly reminded of that other development. Nettie, not unlike a butterfly emerging from whatever they call that odd little sleeping bag caterpillars make for themselves, had apparently come out of her dark state of mind all by herself. Her eyes lit up when she saw me and she wheedled us inside with much the same enthusiasm I was used to. She had us sit down in the garden while she tended to her flowers.
I watched her closely. Her skin had regained much of its healthy glow, her hair was washed and shiny, the clothes she wore clean—a flowing blouse, mom jeans and sneakers. She had clearly picked them out with care, like she normally did. It was good to see her restored to her old self, but I couldn't help but feel like something was wrong.
"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked.
"I have to be, don't I?" she replied, her cheerful tone coming out more forced than she'd likely intended. She was cutting away crushed and wilted leaves from one of her small bushes, shaping it in the process. "It's over. Life goes on."
"Does it?" I tilted my head at her.
"Can we talk about anything else? Literally anything?" The snapping movements of her garden shears came faster; more forceful. Frankie Preston and I exchanged uncomfortable looks. Figuring it would make for an interesting topic, I proceeded to tell Nettie about our exploits the night before. Halfway through my story, she had ceased her plant styling activities, blankly staring at me from where she sat on the ground. By the time I was done, she had taken off her rubber gloves and was slowly massaging her temples.
"One of these days, Eva. One of these days, you're gonna give me a heart attack. I don't even want to ask about what you get up to anymore, I think. I'm afraid of the answer." She threw Fran a grateful glance. "Thank you for getting her out of there safely."
The waiter smiled placidly. "Sure." Turning to me, he added in a whisper, "So we're not going to mention that you saved me from the FunFlair guys twice before this?"
I grinned mildly and shook my head before assuming a more serious tone. "Nettie, it's great that you're all better, but you were really down before. If this is just an act, I'd prefer you didn't put it on."
"It's not an act," she said sternly, raising her hands to her hips. "I've resigned myself. That's all. There's nothing to be done, I've accepted it and I've moved on."
"That can't be healthy," Frankie remarked. "You know what would help? Punishing the world in some way. You could take it out on your kindergarteners. Tell them a scary story so their parents have to stay up all night with them. Incite a dirt throwing fight and send them home all muddy. Set up a boxing ring and have them go at each other like in a dog fight. Wouldn't that be far more rewarding than sucking it up?"
Nettie Peterson looked unimpressed. Her dark eyes roamed the young man like she was trying to gauge whether or not he was serious. "You're some kind of sociopath, aren't you?"
That she shouldn't have said. Frankie's serene expression morphed into his customer service smile. I don't know when I started deciphering this being's voice and countenance, but there I was, picking up on the spiteful undertone in what he said next.
"I'm just saying, if the woman I fancied disappeared in such a way, I'd find outlets for my grief." His eyes darted over to Nettie as if to ensure she'd heard him correctly before settling on me, observing my reaction. All I could do however was stare at my best friend.
Her glossy lips had parted. She met my gaze, her thick, expressive brows rising a good deal. "I…" she began, faltering and starting to fumble for words. "That's to say, Kit was… we, um…"
"Oh, Eva didn't know?" Frankie asked, perfectly flat and monotonous. "I had no idea it was a secret. I'm sorry, it wasn't my place to say. I wouldn't have mentioned it, really."
Something about that sent a chill down my spine. I shot him a glare, to which he drew himself up and turned away. Meanwhile, Nettie finally broke from her stupor and blurted out, "We were together, okay?"
For a moment, I sat quietly. “Frank, please go home,” I said at length, not quite looking at him. “We’ll talk later. We will.”
He looked like he wanted to say something, but quickly thought better of it, rising to his feet and storming off. Ignoring the queasy feeling in my stomach, I walked over to Nettie and plopped down on the ground beside her. “So that’s what this was about,” I began.
My savior human nodded meekly. “We… we didn’t want to tell you. Not for the time being, at least. We hadn’t defined the relationship yet, i-it was all so new and weird, I felt weird, but it was good, you know? I just wasn’t ready to think about it that way yet. And you’ve only ever seen me date guys, I didn’t know what you’d think…”
“I wouldn’t have thought anything,” I replied. “How long has this been going on?”
“Not long. She called me up before she came back to you a couple weeks ago. That’s kind of when we started seeing each other in… in that way.”
“Romantically?”
“Yes.”
I hesitantly extended a hand to caress her upper arm, locking eyes with her. There was a profound sadness in her expression, a watery gleam. She took a deep breath. “Before that, we used to text back and forth occasionally. I always felt kind of weird about her. Somehow, she got under my skin everytime she was goofing off, what with her little jokes and all. We kept talking, though. I was always so irritated when she was around, and that’s so unlike me, I just ended up wondering… And then when she showed up here, it all kind of came together. W-we did. She stuck around and we spoke and everything simply made sense all of a sudden. I didn't know she liked me, too.” She swallowed audibly, her voice brittle and husky as she went on. “Kit isn't like anyone else I’ve ever had feelings for.”
“Not like anyone else, as in… a woman?” I prompted, raising a brow.
Nettie grunted. “Oh, shush! Don't make me feel guilty for being hesitant at first. I know it’s not a big deal to you, but try going through life believing you’re straight and suddenly running into some cute ditzy punk girl and realizing you’re not. It’s all sorts of confusing, believe me. I was scared it was gonna be weird because it was my first time with a woman but Kit somehow made it easy. It was a bit of a whirlwind, sure, but it felt natural and… just good.”
“Did you tell Eli?”
“No. But I think he suspected. That man knows me like the back of his hand. We’re basically siblings, remember? He was always tactful, never really pressured me into admitting anything, but he made a couple puns here and there, so… I do believe he knew.” She fumbled with her limp gloves, fixing me with a wavering smile. “So?”
“So what?”
“What do you say?”
“Is there something you want me to say?” I shrugged. “I’m only glad I understand now. I wish you’d told me sooner, but that’s your business. Also, I didn’t tell you that I’ve been running around with our waiter, so I guess we’re essentially even. By the way, I’m sorry he put you on the spot like that. You didn’t deserve that. How did he know about you two anyways?”
Nettie pursed her lips. “He might have seen us around the diner or something. I’m not sure. I’m, uh, not gonna comment on whatever you two got going on. You know what you’re doing. Hopefully.”
“Ah, thanks. Then I won’t be giving my opinion on whether or not I consider that deadbeat dork Kit to be worthy of you.”
My savior human snorted. “Much appreciated. Though I guess it’s not really an issue anymore either way.”
I shook my head. “Don’t think like that. We can’t let her go. I certainly won’t, not after this.”
“What do you mean?”
I rose to my feet. “I’m going to drag her blue ass back out of the ocean and have her make an honorable woman of you.”
I don’t believe she thought I was serious. The realization had set in by the time I’d dragged her down to the beach with me, though. We had taken Wammawink for the drive. Wammawink is the name of Nettie’s pastel pink motor scooter. It has a sidecar, which she straps me into with great care whenever we ride. It took her about twenty minutes to get us down to the shore. The more I talked about possibly retrieving my roommate, the brighter and realer the shine in her eyes became. Hope was not yet dead, that much was for certain. I led her down the cliffside and past the rocky expanse to where the concert had been held. It seemed ages ago. Some wistful part of me thought I could hear the faint sound of Kits singing above the gentle murmur of the waves.
The beach was golden in the afternoon sunlight. The sleepy tide sent water steadily dribbling into the sand beneath our feet, the drier patches giving way ever so slightly as we walked along. The faint outline of a plan had taken shape in my mind. We headed for the grotto.
"It makes sense now," I thought aloud. "The creature we fought at the concert was targeting you. The deep ones must have known that you two had a bond."
"I guess so," she replied uncertainly, eyeing the maw that opened up in the natural stone wall before us. "Going spelunking will help us how, exactly…?"
"I figure it tried to take you in there for a reason. This place has to be special. If you want, you can always wait here, but I'd prefer to have you with me. I only want to look around a bit. Maybe there's a clue of sorts on how we can contact Kit."
She sighed. "Now I know why you wanted me to bring my flashlight." She produced the object in question and handed it over before linking arms with me. "Of course I'll stick with you."
The inside of the cave was far too quiet for comfort. The eerie silence was only broken by the occasional plinking of water dripping from the walls and ceiling. We made an effort to step around the puddles glittering on the bumpy ground as we proceeded into the dimness. The sunlight threading through the grotto's mouth didn't reach very far, so we were glad for the bright beam of our torch. I let it travel the hollowed rock, the light crinkling oddly as it reflected off the pools of water that seemed to grow larger the further we got. Nettie Peterson was hanging onto my arm, her grip growing a little tighter with every passing minute. Her face was a set mask of grim determination, belied by the nervous twitch of her eyelid and the occasional quiver of her lower lip.
My own discomfort was undeniable as well. My heart was thundering in my chest and clammy beads of perspiration were running down my face. Every step we took caused a dull thud, the echo of which bounced off the rough stone walls to be funneled by the length of the cave. There were several smaller passages leading off into all directions, but Nettie and I agreed on always picking the largest entrance. This way, the path we took was far easier to memorize and there was little possibility of getting lost. After the third or fourth time we ducked through one of the doorframe-like archs, we were met with an imposing sight. A large room with high ceilings opened up before us. There was natural light seeping through several small cracks overhead. Stringy, pale plant life hung down or clung to the walls. A round lake filled up its entire bottom half.
Both Nettie and I stopped in our tracks. There was no solid ground to walk on anymore. On top of that, the beauty of this subterranean body of water had literally stunned us. Ripples were rolling off the center of its surface, casting a faint shimmer onto the ceiling. The stone-filtered light from outside set the lake aglow, bright speckled dancing across it like sprightly wisps. All I could do was taken in a soft, reverent breath while the very thoughts running through my head escaped Nettie's trembling lips.
"Have you ever seen something so beautiful?"
I would have told her yes, but I truly could not remember when. Unfortunately, the lake also appeared to form something of a dead end. I considered turning and checking out another passage, only for my savior human to point out a ledge running along the side of the room. It was narrow, but no doubt wide enough for the two of us to walk it single-file. We clambered up the shelf-like protrusion and, hand in hand, began to move along. It was bumpy and wet, and I almost regretted continuing this way. I couldn't seem to properly place my feet, my soles slipping a few inches with every step. Glancing over my shoulder, I could tell from Nettie's grim expression that she was experiencing similar difficulties. My pulse was racing, my lower lip caught between my teeth as I attempted to focus on safely making it across.
The cold sweat that leaves my palms was actively working against me at this point, and before I could react, the flashlight had slipped through my shaking fingers. It bounced off a bump in the shelf, then rolled off the edge entirely to disappear in the dark water with a thick, loud plop. I cursed, turning to Nettie with an apologetic expression.
"It's fine," she assured me, squeezing my hand. "It's bright enough here as it is and we'll still have our phones for light later."
I smiled gratefully, about to take my next step when a deep, guttural gurgle came rumbling up from the depths of the lake. The sound hovered in the damp, salty air for a moment or two. My best friend and I froze in place, her grip on my hand turning into an iron vice. For a split second, I believe even my own heartbeat stilled.
"What was that?" Nettie Peterson whispered, her voice barely audible over the sudden charged hum of the water below. Her question would not remain unanswered for long. The droning noise of vast water masses shifting began to fill the air as from deep, deep beneath, something made its way up. My savior human and I helplessly pressed our backs up against the wall, trying to keep steady against the force of the vibration shuddering through the rock. The ledge we were standing on was quaking as though the cave itself had come alive and was trying to throw us into this growling, cold abyss.
Within seconds, the thing broke the surface, causing enormous splashes and sending countless drops of water raining down on us. I blinked them out of my eyes just in time to see it unfurl.
It was not a living being in its entirety, merely part of one. That however only made the sight before us all the more terrifying. Simply put, it was a human arm. Just not of any human I had ever encountered. It was enormous; every webbed finger of the hand it ended in was about my size. There were six of them, each bending in far too many places—I thought I could count as many as eight joints on the longest one. Its nails were more like claws, long and sharp with what looked like barnacles growing underneath them. The thin, nearly translucent skin between its fingers was stony gray, just like the rest of it. The hand slowly began to grope around, searching the walls of the cave. I knew right then and there that I couldn't possibly fight it. If it came to it, I'd try to hold it off with everything I had, but something this huge couldn't possibly be defeated. We had to flee, as long as we still could.
"Oh God," Nettie breathed. "Oh God, oh God, oh God…" Her hand was trembling in mine.
"Quick," I hissed. "Turn around, we gotta get out of here!"
She nodded helplessly, her eyes blown wide in terror. When she began her retreat from the ledge, she nearly took up running. I pulled her close just in time to prevent her from slipping. "Watch out!" I uttered, unable to suppress the fear in my tone. "Don't slip, we're dead if we fall in."
My savior human let out a whine, then took a deep breath and bit her lip. Slowly but steadily, she placed each foot in front of the other, leading us off the ledge. My ears were ringing. I couldn't tear my gaze away from the gigantic arm as it blindly felt along the walls, its nails coaxing a grating sound as they scratched upon the rocks. It was getting closer and closer, the side of its thumb nearly brushing the top of my head for a split second before I could withdraw. I had to press my eyes shut for a moment as my chest tightened painfully. Finally, we had reached the end of the shelf and wasted no time in jumping off.
We didn't even bother with any cell phone flashlights. As soon as we were on solid ground again, we darted through the entrance of the room, back through all of our carefully chosen passages before finally staggering out the mouth of the cave into the sunlight. We were panting like dogs; Nettie was forced to crouch down and sit still for a while to catch her breath. Meanwhile, I was seeing stars. Colorful dots and sparks of lightning seemed to dance before my inner eye as I blinked furiously into the afternoon sun.
"What the fuck was that?" my best friend, having regained her ability to speak, rasped out.
I turned to face her, my knees wobbling like jello. "I have no idea."
"You think it… you think that fish person from the concert was trying to take me there? Dump me into that lake?" She lowered her voice. "It would have fed me to that giant thing, wouldn't it."
I held her gaze, my mind racing. "I don't know. Maybe the giant's different."
"What do you mean?"
"I think we might have just seen Kit's father."
X
1
2: deadbeat roommate
3: creepy crush
4: relocation
5: beach concert
6: First date
7: Temp work
8: roommate talk
9: a dismal worldview
10: warehouse
11: staircase
12: explanation
13: hurt
14: hospital
15: ocean
16: diner
17: government work

Maybe a stupid question, but why has the SC demerara syrup only 25% demerara sugar ?
I bought this demerara sugar online
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B003EG739S?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
(since it is not something I can find in stores) but it does not really taste like "toffey" or other stuff people say
​
​
I was just wondering why Smugglers cove demerara syrup has so little demerar sugar
2 cup water
1 cup demerara sugar
3 cup granulated sugar.
​
when everybody else makes their demerara syrup only with demerar sugar ??
​
Even their "Mai tai rich simple syrup" uses more demerara than their demerara syrup
​
Is there some error in the book or what am i missing?

Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory

Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.

All Buyouts are listed in cash value.

KNIVES

★ Butterfly Knife Freehand FN #1, B/O: $2500

★ Butterfly Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $822

★ Butterfly Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $616

⎯

★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW #1, B/O: $1300

★ Bayonet Autotronic FN, B/O: $1050

★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW, B/O: $629

★ Bayonet Bright Water FT, B/O: $326

★ Bayonet Safari Mesh BS, B/O: $233

⎯

★ Karambit Lore FT, B/O: $1110

★ Karambit Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $840

★ Karambit Freehand MW, B/O: $784

★ Karambit Bright Water MW, B/O: $759

⎯

★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1801

★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1801

★ M9 Bayonet Damascus Steel FN, B/O: $751

⎯

★ Nomad Knife Fade FN, B/O: $1156

★ Nomad Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $544

★ Nomad Knife Blue Steel WW, B/O: $318

⎯

★ Flip Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $646

★ Flip Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $574

★ Flip Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) MW, B/O: $552

★ Flip Knife Case Hardened FT, B/O: $257

★ Flip Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $255

★ StatTrak™ Flip Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $287

⎯

★ Huntsman Knife Lore FN, B/O: $461

★ Huntsman Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $436

★ Huntsman Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $353

★ Huntsman Knife Autotronic FT, B/O: $212

★ Huntsman Knife Bright Water FT, B/O: $129

★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT MW, B/O: $129

★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT BS, B/O: $123

★ StatTrak™ Huntsman Knife Rust Coat BS, B/O: $127

⎯

★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $375

★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $363

★ Bowie Knife Tiger Tooth FN, B/O: $269

★ Bowie Knife Crimson Web WW, B/O: $192

★ Bowie Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $159

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $126

⎯

★ Stiletto Knife Slaughter FN, B/O: $616

★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web FT, B/O: $412

★ StatTrak™ Stiletto Knife Night Stripe FT, B/O: $227

⎯

★ Falchion Knife Lore FT, B/O: $214

★ Falchion Knife Autotronic FT, B/O: $192

★ Falchion Knife Scorched WW, B/O: $105

⎯

★ Survival Knife Crimson Web BS, B/O: $216

★ Survival Knife Case Hardened FT, B/O: $198

★ Survival Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $111

⎯

★ Shadow Daggers Fade FN, B/O: $368

★ Shadow Daggers Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $228

★ Shadow Daggers, B/O: $201

★ Shadow Daggers Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $108

★ Shadow Daggers Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $105

★ Shadow Daggers Black Laminate FT, B/O: $99

★ Shadow Daggers Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $85

⎯

★ Gut Knife Doppler (Sapphire) MW #1, B/O: $1700

★ Gut Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $223

★ Gut Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $203

★ Gut Knife Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $191

★ Gut Knife Case Hardened BS, B/O: $127

⎯

★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $199

★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $199

★ Navaja Knife, B/O: $138

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel FN, B/O: $111

⎯

★ Classic Knife Urban Masked FT, B/O: $146

★ StatTrak™ Classic Knife Stained BS, B/O: $168

⎯

★ Ursus Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $476

★ Ursus Knife, B/O: $375

⎯

★ Skeleton Knife, B/O: $1137

★ Talon Knife, B/O: $608

★ Paracord Knife, B/O: $305

★ Survival Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97

GLOVES

★ Moto Gloves Transport MW, B/O: $204

★ Moto Gloves Polygon BS, B/O: $142

★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure BS, B/O: $84

★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure BS, B/O: $84

★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $63

★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $63

⎯

★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Kimono WW, B/O: $1215

★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike FT, B/O: $672

★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander FT, B/O: $305

★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander BS, B/O: $140

★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web BS, B/O: $137

★ Specialist Gloves Buckshot FT, B/O: $75

⎯

★ Driver Gloves Crimson Weave FT, B/O: $359

★ Driver Gloves Imperial Plaid BS, B/O: $229

★ Driver Gloves Overtake BS, B/O: $77

★ Driver Gloves Racing Green FT, B/O: $48

⎯

★ Sport Gloves Omega FT, B/O: $739

★ Sport Gloves Amphibious BS #2, B/O: $733

★ Sport Gloves Arid BS, B/O: $292

⎯

★ Hand Wraps Giraffe MW, B/O: $212

★ Hand Wraps Leather FT, B/O: $160

★ Hand Wraps Desert Shamagh MW, B/O: $101

⎯

★ Broken Fang Gloves Yellow-banded MW, B/O: $185

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point FT, B/O: $67

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point WW, B/O: $59

⎯

★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened BS, B/O: $65

★ Hydra Gloves Emerald FT, B/O: $65

★ Hydra Gloves Emerald BS, B/O: $62

WEAPONS

AK-47 Case Hardened BS, B/O: $130

AK-47 Bloodsport MW, B/O: $79

AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76

AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76

AK-47 Bloodsport FT, B/O: $70

AK-47 Neon Rider MW, B/O: $60

StatTrak™ AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge FT, B/O: $72

⎯

AWP Fade FN, B/O: $1039

AWP Asiimov FT, B/O: $139

AWP Asiimov FT, B/O: $139

AWP Wildfire MW, B/O: $95

AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $93

AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $93

AWP Duality FN, B/O: $81

AWP Asiimov BS, B/O: $79

AWP Asiimov BS, B/O: $79

AWP Chromatic Aberration FN, B/O: $60

StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $68

StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $68

StatTrak™ AWP Electric Hive FT, B/O: $55

⎯

Desert Eagle Blaze FN, B/O: $623

Desert Eagle Emerald Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $241

Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81

Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81

Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81

Desert Eagle Printstream FT, B/O: $54

⎯

M4A1-S Blue Phosphor FN, B/O: $434

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Bright Water MW, B/O: $55

⎯

M4A4 Poseidon FN, B/O: $1465

M4A4 Asiimov BS, B/O: $55

M4A4 Hellfire MW, B/O: $50

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USP-S Kill Confirmed MW, B/O: $72

USP-S Printstream FT, B/O: $69

StatTrak™ USP-S Kill Confirmed FT, B/O: $139

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AUG Flame Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $234

P90 Run and Hide FT, B/O: $147

Five-SeveN Candy Apple FN, B/O: $61

Trade Offer Link - Steam Profile Link - My Inventory

Knives - Bowie Knife, Butterfly Knife, Falchion Knife, Flip Knife, Gut Knife, Huntsman Knife, M9 Bayonet, Bayonet, Karambit, Shadow Daggers, Stiletto Knife, Ursus Knife, Navaja Knife, Talon Knife, Classic Knife, Paracord Knife, Survival Knife, Nomad Knife, Skeleton Knife, Patterns - Gamma Doppler, Doppler (Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4, Black Pearl, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald), Crimson Web, Lore, Fade, Ultraviolet, Night, Marble Fade (Fire & Ice, Fake FI), Case Hardened (Blue Gem), Autotronic, Slaughter, Black Laminate, Tiger Tooth, Boreal Forest, Scorched, Blue Steel, Vanilla, Damascus Steel, Forest DDPAT, Urban Masked, Freehand, Stained, Bright Water, Safari Mesh, Rust Coat, Gloves - Bloodhound Gloves (Charred, Snakebite, Guerrilla, Bronzed), Driver Gloves (Snow Leopard, King Snake, Crimson Weave, Imperial Plaid, Black Tie, Lunar Weave, Diamondback, Rezan the Red, Overtake, Queen Jaguar, Convoy, Racing Green), Hand Wraps (Cobalt Skulls, CAUTION!, Overprint, Slaughter, Leather, Giraffe, Badlands, Spruce DDPAT, Arboreal, Constrictor, Desert Shamagh, Duct Tape), Moto Gloves (Spearmint, POW!, Cool Mint, Smoke Out, Finish Line, Polygon, Blood Pressure, Turtle, Boom!, Eclipse, 3rd Commando Company, Transport), Specialist Gloves (Crimson Kimono, Tiger Strike, Emerald Web, Field Agent, Marble Fade, Fade, Foundation, Lt. Commander, Crimson Web, Mogul, Forest DDPAT, Buckshot), Sport Gloves (Pandora's Box, Superconductor, Hedge Maze, Vice, Amphibious, Slingshot, Omega, Arid, Big Game, Nocts, Scarlet Shamagh, Bronze Morph), Hydra Gloves (Case Hardened, Emerald, Rattler, Mangrove), Broken Fang Gloves (Jade, Yellow-banded, Unhinged, Needle Point), Pistols - P2000 (Wicked Sick, Ocean Foam, Fire Element, Amber Fade, Corticera, Chainmail, Imperial Dragon, Obsidian, Scorpion, Handgun, Acid Etched), USP-S (Printstream, Kill Confirmed, Whiteout, Road Rash, Owergrowth, The Traitor, Neo-Noir, Dark Water, Orion, Blueprint, Stainless, Caiman, Serum, Monster Mashup, Royal Blue, Ancient Visions, Cortex, Orange Anolis, Ticket To Hell, Black Lotus, Cyrex, Check Engine, Guardian, Purple DDPAT, Torque, Blood Tiger, Flashback, Business Class, Pathfinder, Para Green), Lead Conduit, Glock-18 (Umbral Rabbit, Fade, Candy Apple, Bullet Queen, Synth Leaf, Neo-Noir, Nuclear Garden, Dragon Tatto, Reactor, Pink DDPAT, Twilight Galaxy, Sand Dune, Groundwater, Blue Fissure, Snack Attack, Water Elemental, Brass, Wasteland Rebel, Vogue, Franklin, Royal Legion, Gamma Doppler, Weasel, Steel Disruption, Ironwork, Grinder, High Beam, Moonrise, Oxide Blaze, Bunsen Burner, Clear Polymer, Bunsen Burner, Night), P250 (Re.built, Nuclear Threat, Modern Hunter, Splash, Whiteout, Vino Primo, Mehndi, Asiimov, Visions, Undertow, Cartel, See Ya Later, Gunsmoke, Splash, Digital Architect, Muertos, Red Rock, Bengal Tiger, Crimson Kimono, Wingshot, Metallic DDPAT, Hive, Dark Filigree, Mint Kimono), Five-Seven (Neon Kimono, Berries And Cherries, Fall Hazard, Crimson Blossom, Hyper Beast, Nitro, Fairy Tale, Case Hardened, Copper Galaxy, Angry Mob, Monkey Business, Fowl Play, Anodized Gunmetal, Hot Shot, Retrobution, Boost Protocol), CZ75-Auto (Chalice, Crimson Web, Emerald Quartz, The Fuschia is Now, Nitro, Xiangliu, Yellow Jacket, Victoria, Poison Dart, Syndicate, Eco, Hexane, Pole, Tigris), Tec-9 (Rebel, Terrace, Nuclear Threat, Hades, Rust Leaf, Decimator, Blast From, Orange Murano, Toxic, Fuel Injector, Remote Control, Bamboo Forest, Isaac, Avalanche, Brother, Re-Entry, Blue Titanium, Bamboozle), R8 Revolver (Banana Cannon, Fade, Blaze, Crimson Web, Liama Cannon, Crazy 8, Reboot, Canal Spray, Night, Amber Fade), Desert Eagle (Blaze, Hand Cannon, Fennec Fox, Sunset Storm, Emerald Jörmungandr, Pilot, Hypnotic, Golden Koi, Printstream, Cobalt Disruption, Code Red, Ocean Drive, Midnight Storm, Kumicho Dragon, Crimson Web, Heirloom, Night Heist, Mecha Industries, Night, Conspiracy, Trigger Discipline, Naga, Directive, Light Rail), Dual Berettas (Flora Carnivora, Duelist, Cobra Strike, Black Limba, Emerald, Hemoglobin, Twin Turbo, Marina, Melondrama, Pyre, Retribution, Briar, Dezastre, Royal Consorts, Urban Shock, Dualing Dragons, Panther, Balance), Rifles - Galil (Aqua Terrace, Winter Forest, Chatterbox, Sugar Rush, Pheonix Blacklight, CAUTION!, Orange DDPAT, Cerberus, Dusk Ruins, Eco, Chromatic Aberration, Stone Cold, Tuxedo, Sandstorm, Shattered, Urban Rubble, Rocket Pop, Kami, Crimson Tsunami, Connexion), SCAR-20 (Fragments, Brass, Cyrex, Palm, Splash Jam, Cardiac, Emerald, Crimson Web, Magna Carta, Stone Mosaico, Bloodsport, Enforcer), AWP (Duality, Gungnir, Dragon Lore, Prince, Medusa, Desert Hydra, Fade, Lightning Strike, Oni Taiji, Silk Tiger, Graphite, Chromatic Aberration, Asiimov, Snake Camo, Boom, Containment Breach, Wildfire, Redline, Electric Hive, Hyper Beast, Neo-Noir, Man-o'-war, Pink DDPAT, Corticera, Sun in Leo, Elite Build, Fever Dream, Atheris, Mortis, PAW, Exoskeleton, Worm God, POP AWP, Phobos, Acheron, Pit Viper, Capillary, Safari Mesh), AK-47 (Head Shot, Wild Lotus, Gold Arabesque, X-Ray, Fire Serpent, Hydroponic, Panthera Onca, Case Hardened, Vulcan, Jet Set, Fuel Injector, Bloodsport, Nightwish, First Class, Neon Rider, Asiimov, Red Laminate, Aquamarine Revenge, The Empress, Wasteland Rebel, Jaguar, Black Laminate, Leet Museo, Neon Revolution, Redline, Frontside Misty, Predator, Legion of Anubis, Point Disarray, Orbit Mk01, Blue Laminate, Green Laminate, Emerald Pinstripe, Cartel, Phantom Disruptor, Jungle Spray, Safety Net, Rat Rod, Baroque Purple, Slate, Elite Build, Uncharted, Safari Mesh), FAMAS (Sundown, Prime Conspiracy, Afterimage, Commemoration, Dark Water, Spitfire, Pulse, Eye of Athena, Meltdown, Rapid Eye Move, Roll Cage, Styx, Mecha Industrie, Djinn, ZX Spectron, Valence, Neural Net, Night Borre, Hexne), M4A4 (Temukau, Howl, Poseidon, Asiimov, Daybreak, Hellfire, Zirka, Red DDPAT, Radiation Hazard, Modern Hunter, The Emperor, The Coalition, Bullet Rain, Cyber Security, X-Ray, Dark Blossom, Buzz Kill, In Living Color, Neo-Noir, Desolate Space, 龍王 (Dragon King), Royal Paladin, The Battlestar, Global Offensive, Tooth Fairy, Desert-Strike, Griffin, Evil Daimyo, Spider Lily, Converter), M4A1-S (Emphorosaur-S, Welcome to the Jungle, Imminent Danger, Knight, Hot Rod, Icarus Fell, Blue Phosphor, Printstream, Master Piece, Dark Water, Golden Coil, Bright Water, Player Two, Atomic Alloy, Guardian, Chantico's Fire, Hyper Beast, Mecha Industries, Cyrex, Control Panel, Moss Quartz, Nightmare, Decimator, Leaded Glass, Basilisk, Blood Tiger, Briefing, Night Terror, Nitro, VariCamo, Flashback), SG 553 (Cyberforce, Hazard Pay, Bulldozer, Integrale, Dragon Tech, Ultraviolet, Colony IV, Hypnotic, Cyrex, Candy Apple, Barricade, Pulse), SSG 08 (Death Strike, Sea Calico, Blood in the Water, Orange Filigree, Dragonfire, Big Iron, Bloodshot, Detour, Turbo Peek, Red Stone), AUG (Akihabara Accept, Flame Jörmungandr, Hot Rod, Midnight Lily, Sand Storm, Carved Jade, Wings, Anodized Navy, Death by Puppy, Torque, Bengal Tiger, Chameleon, Fleet Flock, Random Access, Momentum, Syd Mead, Stymphalian, Arctic Wolf, Aristocrat, Navy Murano), G3SG1 (Chronos, Violet Murano, Flux, Demeter, Orange Kimono, The Executioner, Green Apple, Arctic Polar Camo, Contractor), SMGs - P90 (Neoqueen, Astral Jörmungandr, Run and Hide, Emerald Dragon, Cold Blooded, Death by Kitty, Baroque Red, Vent Rush, Blind Spot, Asiimov, Trigon, Sunset Lily, Death Grip, Leather, Nostalgia, Fallout Warning, Tiger Pit, Schermatic, Virus, Shapewood, Glacier Mesh, Shallow Grave, Chopper, Desert Warfare), MAC-10 (Sakkaku, Hot Snakes, Copper Borre, Red Filigree, Gold Brick, Graven, Case Hardened, Stalker, Amber Fade, Neon Rider, Tatter, Curse, Propaganda, Nuclear Garden, Disco Tech, Toybox, Heat, Indigo), UMP-45 (Wild Child, Fade, Blaze, Day Lily, Minotaur's Labyrinth, Crime Scene, Caramel, Bone Pile, Momentum, Primal Saber), MP7 (Teal Blossom, Fade, Nemesis, Whiteout, Asterion, Bloosport, Abyssal Apparition, Full Stop, Special Delivery, Neon Ply, Asterion, Ocean Foam, Powercore, Scorched, Impire), PP-Bizon (Modern Hunter, Rust Coat, Forest Leaves, Antique, High Roller, Blue Streak, Seabird, Judgement of Anubis, Bamboo Print, Embargo, Chemical Green, Coblat Halftone, Fuel Rod, Photic Zone, Irradiated Alert, Carbon Fiber), MP9 (Featherweight, Wild Lily, Pandora's Box, Stained Glass, Bulldozer, Dark Age, Hot Rod, Hypnotic, Hydra, Rose Iron, Music Box, Setting Sun, Food Chain, Airlock, Mount Fuji, Starlight Protector, Ruby Poison Dart, Deadly Poison), MP5-SD (Liquidation, Oxide Oasis, Phosphor, Nitro, Agent, Autumn Twilly), Shotguns, Machineguns - Sawed-Off (Kiss♥Love, First Class, Orange DDPAT, Rust Coat, The Kraken, Devourer, Mosaico, Wasteland Princess, Bamboo Shadow, Copper, Serenity, Limelight, Apocalypto), XM1014 (Frost Borre, Ancient Lore, Red Leather, Elegant Vines, Banana Leaf, Jungle, Urban Perforated, Grassland, Blaze Orange, Heaven Guard, VariCamo Blue, Entombed, XOXO, Seasons, Tranquility, Bone Machine, Incinegator, Teclu Burner, Black Tie, Zombie Offensive, Watchdog), Nova (Baroque Orange, Hyper Beast, Green Apple, Antique, Modern Hunter, Walnut, Forest Leaves, Graphite, Blaze Orange, Rising Skull, Tempest, Bloomstick, Interlock, Quick Sand, Moon in Libra, Clean Polymer, Red Quartz, Toy Soldier), MAG-7 (Insomnia, Cinqueda, Counter Terrace, Prism Terrace, Memento, Chainmail, Hazard, Justice, Bulldozer, Silver, Core Breach, Firestarter, Praetorian, Heat, Hard Water, Monster Call, BI83 Spectrum, SWAG-7), M249 (Humidor, Shipping Forecast, Blizzard Marbleized, Downtown, Jungle DDPAT, Nebula Crusader, Impact Drill, Emerald Poison Dart), Negev (Mjölnir, Anodized Navy, Palm, Power Loader, Bratatat, CaliCamo, Phoenix Stencil, Infrastructure, Boroque Sand), Wear - Factory New (FN), Minimal Wear (MW), Field-Tested (FT), Well-Worn (WW), Battle-Scarred (BS), Stickers Holo/Foil/Gold - Katowice 2014, Krakow 2017, Howling Dawn, Katowice 2015, Crown, London 2018, Cologne 2014, Boston 2018, Atlanta 2017, Cluj-Napoca 2015, DreamHack 2014, King on the Field, Harp of War, Winged Difuser, Cologne 2016, Cologne 2015, MLG Columbus 2016, Katowice 2019, Berlin 2019, RMR 2020, Stockholm 2021, Antwerp 2022, Swag Foil, Flammable foil, Others - Souvenirs, Agents, Pins, Passes, Gifts, Music Kits, Cases, Keys, Capsules, Packages, Patches

Some items on the list may no longer be available or are still locked, visit My Inventory for more details.

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Note: This is an update on my challenge, since I had this idea brought to my attention. It kind of makes sense to me anyway.
You awaken, startled, and find yourself in a strange room with blue water flowing from up high, you standing in the center of a hexagonal platform with six other platforms, adorned each with a different symbol, at each of the points of your platform.
Standing on the platform with the yellow symbol you find a blonde woman who you would recognize to appear much like Princess Zelda from the The Legend of Zelda series, though none of them seem to match her appearance exactly.
"Greetings, traveler from another world." Speaks up the woman, smiling mildly at you. "I am Hylia, goddess of this realm and agent of the GOlden Goddesses who created it. I am sure you wonder how you got here or if this is even real, but I assure you, it is. I have brought you here on recommendation of a certain, impish deity from outside this realm, with a request." Explained Hylia and a lifts a hand to create a ball of light.
"I was granted the ability to host a, as your people call it, Jumpchain, and directed to take you on as a Jumper, as for why I am doing this, well... There hasn't been born a hero in this timeline. Link doesn't exist here." She sighs and shakes her head.
"For that reason, I have called on you, to take the role, so let me get to the actual rules next." She explains.

1. You must take each Main Series Zelda game jump in chronological Order, as in the timeline chronological order.

I. Skyward Sword
II. Minish Cap
III. Four Swords
IV. Ocarina of Time
V. Majora's Mask
VI. Twilight Princess
VII. Four Swords Adventures
VIII.1 Adult Timeline/Downfall Timeline your choice
VIII.2 Wind WakeA Link to the Past
VIII.3 Phantom Hourglass/Link's Awakening
VIII.4 Spirit Tracks/Oracle of Ages or Seasons
VIII.5 None/Other Oracle game
VIII.6 None/Oracle of Scenario
VIII.7 None/A Link Between Worlds
VIII.8 None/Zelda 1 Gauntlet
VIII.9 None/Zelda 2
IX. Breath of the Wild (Final of this section of the chain)

1. You may not use the Universal Drawbacks Supplement.
   
2. You may only use standard Supplements such as Cosmic Warehouse or it's replacers, Bodymod as well as Housing, Dock and so on Supplements.
   
3. You can choose 1 Drawback in a Jump when you make your build, it's negative effects are doubled but you may take it's CP into all other Jumps too, granting that CP the Drawback gave to your starting budget.
   
4. CP carried over from Drawbacks are cut in half during Gauntlets.
   
5. Companion Purchases and Imports are free of charge.
   
6. If you hook up with somebody and have a child, it can become a Companion.
   
7. You cannot quit the chain until you're done with all of the above jumps as well as one more additional Jump.
   
8. You must take the role of Link and do his job.
   
9. As Link, you must be Hylian though in the Adult Timeline you may choose to be one of the other races as that Link wasn't initially chosen but become the hero of his own volition, you carry the race choice into the Spirit Tracks Jump.
   
10. Heart Container are a thing here too, but you will start each Zelda Jump with only the starting 3 heart containers. They work as damage sponges, keeping you save and healthy until they run out.
    
11. You cannot take the Triforce between the Jumps of this section of the chain, if you as Link would have one of the Triforce aspects, fine, that is just part of the jump. But you cannot rip the Triforce of Power out of Ganondorf's stiff corpse after Twilight Princess and take it into Four Swords Adventures, sorry.
    
12. During Gauntlets and Powerloss situations (Item or Perk loss) you may choose 10 Perks and 10 Items from the jumps listed above and take them along into those jumps but they're scaled down to local levels if they're too OP.
    

She took another breath, smiling a bit. "Naturally I won't demand this without further recompense after you save my world, naturally." She states and takes a last breath before running into the rewards for basically marathoning all of the Zelda Franchise:

1. You will be known in future Jumps as "The Hero of Light", with all things dark and evil knowing you on sight and knowing that you have faced far worse than them in your time. This grants you the sort of treatment reserved for police officers as these beings know, you are the Immune System against their kind.
   
2. You may take Generic First Jump, Generic Virgin and Generic First Gauntlet following this series of jumps. However, Gauntlet rules for powers are in effects in these jumps.
   
3. You are granted the Triforce for real this time, though because of divine politics it isn't omnipotent outside the world of Hyrule. Once per year it can be used to grant a wish up to and incuding something on the level of restoring the Lorule Triforce or reviving the dead.
   
4. The Triforce grants, for each of it's components, one of the following boons:
   

I. Power: Grants Immortality up to three times a Jump with only extreme damage from weapons that are explicitly powerful against you working. Also grants a x10 boost to all physical attributes.
II. Wisdom: Grants near limitless magical power, greatly increase intelligence, a x10 multiplier to the speed at which you're learning new information, as well as allowing you to grant your Perks to another person if they agree to it.
III. Courage: Never be frozen in fear, always able to react and act. You also have a strong will, able to withstand incredible hardships, resist attempts to break your will and even resist any and all efforts to possess you. Lastly, no amount of time can rust your blade, your skills will remain as fresh and well oiled as if you had been practicing nonstop for years. Lastly, if you would die for real, another you is born and the plot and your time in a Jump shall not continue until that you is at least 12 years old, which in Zelda terms means they're ready to kick ass and take names.
IV.1 Additionally, the three grant the following spells: Din's Fire: Create a powerful fireblast around you at base, may also be used as Pyrokinesis and heat control.
IV.2 Nayru's Wisdom: Create a bubble shield around you that lasts 3 minutes at base, may also create a panel or large dome shield of up to 50 meters in circumference. Attacks cannot penetrate this shield while it lasts.
IV.3 Farore's Wind: A Teleportation Spell, can bring you to any building you've been to or out of a building you're in, regardless of teleportation restrictions. Has enough range to reach the International Space Station in your world from the Mariana's Trench's deepest point.

1. All of your Companions, gained here, share a Companion Slot, meaning that for the price of one Companion, all of them can be imported. However, they do not share the same companion stipend, instead each gets their own as separate companions with a +400 CP to any stipend they would get and another +300 CP for Item Sections and any special sections of a jump. Don't want your comrades getting held back, right?
   
2. Weapon purchases and upgrades stack, all manual upgrades are also fiat backed. In essence, if you have several purchases of the L2 upgrade applied to, say, the Master Sword, each of them will multiply the power of said weapon.
   
3. Fi, Sword of the Hero: The spirit of the Master Sword, Fi, has regained complete self-awareness and may manifest once more in physical form. I have integrated knowledge acquisition abilities into her that will work in all future jumps similar to how it worked in the time of Skyloft. She also imports separate from Companion Slots automatically with 800 general CP and 400 CP as a stipend for Item sections and other sections like that separate from Items or Perks. CP from importing her directly naturally stacks on top of that but not in the way of the other companions. Lastly, she can, like in Hyrule Warriors, assume the form of the Master Sword which she can manipulate telekinetically and has all the same upgrades and powers as your own strongest variant.
   
4. The powers of the champions are now your own to command. Mipha's Grace, Daruk's Protection, Urbosa's Fury, Revali's Gale and Link's Time Dilation are all abilities you now possess on the same level as said champions, and yes, the time dilation is an actual ability, not just a game mechanic. However, Daruk's Protection doesn't work against electricity and can be broken through, and Mipha's Grace still takes some time to cast.
   
5. Hyrulean Hero: You have earned the loyalty, friendship and in some cases love, of so many people in this world, why should we leave you to on with just a pittance of that? At will you can summon an army of Hyrule's various races of light, from Hylians to Koroks and Kokiri, of all the eras you have visited. They are equipped to the peak of their respective armed forces capabilities, Hylian Knights standing with Goron Warriors, Zora Pikeman flanking Kokiri Bowman and Gerudo Skirmishers preparing to charge in after Rito bombing runs, Sheikah Shinobi preparing to go in with an army of Guardians. Just be careful, this is still a medieval army, Guardians or not.
   
6. (NEW) Companions can import into Generic First/Virgin Jump/Gauntlet with 1000 C to use and a Origin of their choice. They will come along with you through the levels of the Jump/Gauntlet, obviously.
   

Once again she took her time to breath through after the rant, before smiling at you. "So yes, please do your best to be the very spirit of the hero, I will await the day you finish. Ah, another thing: The various actions you can perform and the detriments that are listed, they all apply to jumps after the jumps here in this world, only that you don't need to continue into another Zelda Jump, if there are any left." She explains and smirks a bit.
"Naturally I wouldn't mind having one or more Zeldas coming along with you, I heard it is fairly entertaining when the fate of my world isn't at stake. Hint Hint."

This is a question I asked on gasmasks which apparently got the post removed by mods.
"Hey everyone, I've been looking into gas masks a lot lately and decided to get one (a Polish MP5). The only Issue I'm having is finding filters. I wanted Draeger ABEK2Hg-P3 filters, but the only ones I can find for sale have ridiculous shipping costs as they are coming from Europe and I live in the US. I thought about getting Scott CF-32s but again same issue. I really want ABEK P3 filters. I found listings for filters from a company called RANKSING. Those are right on the price. Does anyone know what RANKSING is or if they are any good? "
​
Now I probably sound like an absolute noob (cuz I am) but, can someone help me out here? Also 'nother question: Is MIRA safety good? I see their Police marked filters on Optics Planet for cheep.
Also GP5s look dope.

We are staying at the Palmer House, and need suggestions forlunch spots where we can take our dog with us. Last night we ate at the little place below the bean (Napolitea) and it was pleasant enough. We are also open to suggestions for take out.
We are leaving palmer house in a few hours and would be open to places we would need to drive to, although preferably not too far north because we are driving south to go home today.
Also happy to hear any suggestions for pleasant walks to take with our pup. Last night we did Millenium Park (though we learned this morning they don’t actually allow dogs - dang!), and then along lake michigan, then up the riverwalk and that was all super fun. We like interesting/historic buildings/neighborhoods, gardens, and water. Open to going anywhere today until we head home in the afternoon.
On a side note, does anyone know why they closed Millenium Park around 5ish last night? Security told us it was just standard procedure and not for any specific event. Have they always done that? It’s been some years since I wandered around there, but it used to seem so open and casual to me.
Edit to add: I guess they maybe were’t closing Millenium Park last night, but it seemed like 95% of points of entry were blocked with fencing and a security guard. I’m not actually sure what the point was.

I taught at a strict vocational college that forced students to wear uniforms and bow to elders. As someone who let students call him by his first name and played Valo with them, I was not surprised when my boss called me into his office. I was ready to defend myself, but I was hit with: “Are you aware that your students are descendants of a cannibal?”
Truthfully? Sort of. I knew that in 1600, colonists invaded the island and enslaved the natives. A pirate named Sur-Linyao slaughtered the colonists and became the island’s folk hero.
Murals and statues of Sur-Linyao were all over the island. His signature look was his very long tongue sticking out of his mouth. The symbol on his pirate flag was a six-dot triangle. Technically, Sur-Linyao didn't eat ALL of the colonists, just one organ. First, he tied each colonist to a tree. Sur-Linyao then cut out each man’s liver and ate it raw with chili paste while staring into the person’s eyes. Sur-Linyao then threw that bleeding and squirming colonist into a dirty shallow pond, where Komodo dragons, attracted to the blood, devoured the victim alive.
The school rector handed me a photograph. It showed a male Westerner smiling while kicking a statue of Sur-Linyao while two women cheered him on. The three in the photo were humanitarian workers. Traces of candle wax at the base of Sur-Linyao’s statue showed that the islanders worshipped the liver-eating pirate, and for some reason, the workers felt they needed to do something about that. The three thought that their 6 months long relationship-building with natives on the island earned them enough goodwill for them to get away with that kind of stunt. Just a few hours after the photo was taken, the hacked body parts of all three were found scattered all over the beach. Their livers were missing.
The rector then stared right at me, preparing me for his next sentence. “Before you think that I’m a racist who is prejudging the modern-day natives as liver-eating savages based on what their ancestors did hundreds of years ago, you should know that the killings happened in 2017. To put things in perspective, the Nintendo Switch was already out.”
The rector then revealed that he called me into his office to ask me about an incident a day before.
There was a report that a White man with a goatee whistled at a native girl inside a convenience store on the south side of the island. He asked if that was me.
I was shocked. That was the reason he called me in here? I told him no. Apparently, there were only about 30 Caucasians on this island of 20,000 people, and only a few had a goatee. The rector then told me that a cop and the girl’s father and an older brother went to my dorm to look for me but I wasn’t there.
After seeing the look of horror on my face, wondering what would have happened if I was at the dorm, the rector told me not to panic and that he will talk to the cop and the girl’s family on my behalf. The rector ended our meeting with, “Just be careful AJ. We are the minority here. I hope to god you know what that means.”
For the past few classes, I started letting my students analyze Western media and culture. Thanks to globalization, these island kids watched and played the same media content as others their age around the world: Stranger Things, MCU, Fortnite, etc. As their teacher, I was often asked to comment on controversial topics like: “AJ, what do you think about a Neo-Nazi being punched before he does anything?” “AJ, what do you think about Black Lives Matter?” “AJ, what do you think about Go Woke Go Broke?” “AJ, what do you think about Don’t-Say-Gay-Bill?”
My answer was always to not ask me what I think, but for them to gather information from various sources and come to their own conclusion. Since more than ⅔ of the class were teenage males, their views were… not very much aligned with mine. But even though I disagreed with them, I felt like we had a healthy discussion.
I then noticed a student, Stephanie, seemed very unhappy as she shoved her notebook into her bag at the end of class. “You know I used to love your class. But I think these past few classes were shits.”
I was confused. Stephanie was one of my best students. She always sat in front and answered all questions correctly last semester. I asked her right away what was wrong.
“Is it going to kill you to just outright say that racism is wrong, misogyny is wrong, homophobia is wrong, and Naziism is wrong? Why does it have to always have to be a healthy debate?” I was shocked by her response. I told her that I don’t think a teacher should just outright tell students what to think, especially when it comes to social issues.
I mean, of course, I think racism, misogyny, Naziism, and homophobia are wrong. But I guess I would feel like I was brainwashing the students if I just tell them: this is what you must believe.
Stephanie scoffed. “Well, now Benny and his gang think that you approved of their homophobia and misogyny. You didn’t want to correct them not because you are this free-thinker, but in reality you just want them to think that you are a “too cool to care” edge lord just like them, right? Do you think the disenfranchised people enjoy watching others debate whether or not they should have the right to exist and feel safe? How would you feel if one day the island natives have a healthy debate about whether you should live or die?” Stephanie then stormed out.
Needless to say, I was not in a good mood that evening. I took it out on the students playing survivors while I was playing as a killer on Dead by Daylight. After getting slaughtered the students were not happy. “AJ, why were you tunneling me?”
A student named Benny asked after I sacrificed him within fifteen minutes. I thought that was rich coming from Benny, who, as a killer, only played Leatherface and Facecamp-ed all his victims the entire match. My response was snarky. “Benny, why don’t you try hiding like the other survivors instead of running around the map like a decapitated chicken?” The other students laughed. Benny didn’t respond right away, which made me feel kind of bad. Benny eventually responded after about two minutes. “I can’t wait to eat your liver, AJ.” My heart dropped to the floor. Did Benny just threaten me? I was waiting for the other students to call him out on that comment, but they were silent. After about thirty seconds, Benny continued, “I bet your liver tastes delicious, AJ. I bet it is so sweet and juicy I won’t even need a chili sauce.” The day after, I tried to spin that whole experience as a teachable moment. I decided the next class lecture was going to be about influential people and why people are so divided over them.
I listed some controversial ‘a hero to some, a villain to others’ figures for them.
Che Guevara Napoleon Edward Snowden
Hoping to have some more healthy debates. But the students do not have strong enough opinions about the figures that were so distant in relevance to them.
So, I did something that was probably the biggest mistake of my life. I asked them about the island's liver-eating hero, Sur-Linyao. Benny said that there’s nothing controversial about Sur-Linyao unless some douchebag wants to sympathize with the genocidal colonists he slaughtered.
I reminded Benny that if someone were to hear his comments in the previous class, they could accuse him of sympathizing with sexist racist homophobic Nazis too. Like an arrogant idiot, instead of leaving it at that, I decided it was healthy to hit them with some truth about Sur-Linyao.
Sur-Linyao was a horrifying villain to the islanders before the colonists arrived. He was a pirate after all. Sur-Linyao would regularly pillage several villages on the island, killing several innocent people in the process. Seeing the six-dots triangle jolly-roger from the distance must have been a nightmare for the islanders at the time.
And Sur-Linyao didn’t kill the colonists out of the goodness of his heart. There were pieces of evidence that showed Sur-Linyao worked with the colonists for years, and in the end, betrayed the colonists just because he wanted to rob them. Benny shook his head. He told me that several people in this class were direct descendants of Sur-Linyao, including him. I chuckled, thinking that he just WISHED he was a descendant of Sur-Linyao. But Benny said he could prove it.
More than half of the male students in the class stood up. They slightly tilted their head down but their eyes kept on looking forward, staring at me. Suddenly, their tongue started to slither out of their mouth. The tongues were too long, longer than a foot, but it was not the length that unsettled me, but the way it wiggled out of each of their mouth as if they were separate creatures. I was horrified looking at the dozen students standing in front of me, staring at me with their long tongues dangling out.
Benny then said, “Do you know what the six-dots triangle means, AJ? It means that the man seeing it was about to lose his liver.” I always parked my car a bit further away from the school because I didn’t want to fight with other faculty members over the parking space underneath the building. Besides, I didn’t mind walking a bit since there was a nice view of the ocean. As I was getting out of the car, I saw that someone painted the six-dots triangle on an abandoned water tank in the middle of the field. It was new, I didn’t see it the day before. And I was more than certain it was meant for me to see. No one parked where I parked and the surrounding area was abandoned.
I went and told the school administrator about this. They said that the six-dot triangle symbol was a symbol of Sur-Linyao who has pictures all over the island, including that symbol on his forehead.
It was not an intimidation symbol like a swastika and that I should relax.
Frustrated, I went back to my dorm. The view from my balcony was almost great, but there was a weird Ferris wheel-like structure blocking part of it. I didn’t even know what the circular structure was, but there seemed to be a bunch of neon light bulbs attached to it. I hoped it never got turned on or else I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
As I went into my closet, I found a T-shirt that was not mine. On it was a phrase, ‘I’m the Other White Meat’ on it. Why was this in my closet? Did the dry cleaner mix in someone else’s clothes with mine? Who would dry clean a T-shirt? I realized then that my room may have been broken into.
I was nervous and scared out of my mind. Am I being targeted or am I just overreacting? Is the entire island gaslighting me, or was it just Benny and his friends? Heck, it could have been Stephanie doing this, trying to teach me a lesson.
I opened Discord to see if some of my students want to play some games, but none of them were online, at least not in the group chat I set up. Some of them changed their profile picture to a six-dot triangle, including Benny.
That evening, I went to a gas station to fill up my car. As I was just about finished, I saw a truck coming down a steep hill, heading straight into the station. It was an old truck, but an intimidatingly large one, and loud. Then, I saw the six-dot triangle symbol painted on the side of the truck.
Logically, I shouldn’t have panicked. The symbol was a symbol of the island’s folk hero and the gas station is brightly lit and full of people. But out of nowhere, this feeling of dread overwhelmed me. The hair on my arm just rose straight up. I felt chills as if something was telling me to get out of the gas station now. I trusted my instinct and quickly started my bike and bolted out of there.
The next day, I walked past a hallway where a colleague named Beth was putting up a poster made by her students. The poster was showcasing English words that came from French. For some reason, there were also photos of faculty members floating alongside words like “Garage”, “à la carte”, and “Cache”.
I stopped in my track when I saw my photo with the word, ‘Foie Gras’ underneath it.
That word and my picture seemed so out of place being in its own little corner on the poster. I almost had a panic attack right there. Another threat? Are you kidding me? I thought. Beth asked me what was wrong. I decided to tell her.
That evening, I went to have dinner with Beth and her husband Jan on the beach. Just three White expats talking. I told them about what I had been experiencing in the past few days. The three dotted symbols painted where I parked, the comment from the student made on the game chat, the mysterious T-shirt, the racial profiling, all of it. “You are being very racist,” Beth said right at the very second I had just realized that I never really liked her.
She continued, “Don’t you get it, AJ? The students are threatening to eat your liver because they know you are a racist white man who thinks they were going to eat your liver. Kids will always try to exploit what they think the adults are afraid of. It’s your fault for showing them your cards.
Have you ever been outside of the States before? Do you not know how to be a minority? You came to an island paradise with so much special privilege but you suddenly have a male Karen racist nervous breakdown moment because you think that your teenage students are going to eat your liver? Quite frankly, I am very disappointed in you."
Her husband Jan tried to save the mood of the dinner. “So AJ, what are your plans for when the island shut off the power on July 7th?”
For one day every year, the island shut off all electricity for maintenance. Nothing electronic will work on that day, most importantly the ATM and the Internet. People, even the island natives, would go to the mainland for one day. There’s a problem with that idea. The ferry itself takes 3 hours to reach the mainland. And, with so many people thinking of doing the same thing, the line at the dock will be extremely long, both to the mainland in the morning, and back from the mainland in the evening.
For the last two years, I rode out the annual power outage by just chillaxing on the island. But this year, a Facebook post by Benny made me reconsider.

“I just want to say, my favorite teacher is AJ. He surely delivered. And soon I will de-liver him.”

Jan said that he and Beth will drive their speedboat to the mainland, which is 5 times faster than the ferry. They are also taking the rector with them. Judging from the way Beth glared at me, I don’t think she will say yes if I asked her if I could come too.
On the day of the power outage, I waited almost five hours in line to get my car onto the ferry. The ticket machine no longer works so everything was written on a notecard with pen and paper, which I found amusing. When the ticket man came to my car. He said to me that I have to wait for the next one. I looked at the ferry and it was not even half full. I asked him why and he pretended to suddenly not understand English.
I looked in my rearview mirror and then saw it, the truck with the six-dot triangle painted on its side only three cars behind me. How did it get there? I didn’t see it behind me before. I realized then that the truck wanted to get on the next ferry with me. I told the ticket holder that I will leave my car there and I will get on the leaving ferry with just me. Before he could say anything, I quickly maneuvered out of the line and parked in front of a cafe. The ticket boy said I couldn’t park there. I asked him if he owned the cafe, then quickly ran and jumped onto the suddenly departing Ferry.
After riding the ferry many times, I figured out that the top deck gave me the least motion sickness. I climbed up there and found a surprising person. Stephanie. She smiled at me, which made me so glad. I didn’t think what I did was something so bad that she would be holding a long grudge anyway. We made small talk, I asked her about what she was planning on doing for the day, etc. After a bit, I couldn’t help myself and showed her Benny’s Facebook post. I always thought she didn’t like Benny. I told her I was disappointed in him and was so shocked that he would threaten me like that.
I looked up at Stephanie and was shocked to see her eyes bulged out and her foot-long tongue dangling from her mouth. “Just like Voltaire, I may disagree with what Benny says, but I will defend to the death his right to say it." I was so scared, I backed away automatically. But, the teacher in me still corrected her and said that Voltaire didn’t say that. She laughed, “Good. Voltaire was a smart person. Only an idiot would say something like that.”
I moved down to the lowest level where the cars and the smoking passengers were. I tried not to fall asleep as I could feel the eyes of the other passengers staring at me.
The sound of people barfing almost made me want to barf myself. I went and sat on the edge of the front of the ferry. The wind blowing into my face did calm me a little. I was scared and frustrated. I wondered if I should just never go back to the island after reaching the mainland.
After looking at my watch and realizing that it had been three hours, I looked out the window and saw what made my soul leave my body. We were heading to the island? I didn’t even realize we had turned around.
I asked the ferry driver what was going on. He said there was a storm coming and he has to head back. Besides, it was already close to 5 PM, and the power should be coming back on soon.
I was extremely angry that I was about to be back on the island. Stephanie was nowhere to be found on the ferry also. Since I was farsighted, I could see the tires of my car were slashed.
There were also a couple of men standing there doing nothing, blocking my path toward my car. There was no longer any doubt in my mind that the natives were planning to do something to me. I was targeted and was about to be beaten or killed for whatever reason.
I surprised them all by jumping from the ferry before it was properly docked and sprinting in the opposite direction of where my car was. I climbed up the steep hills next to the road leading to the dock and disappeared into the woods The light was not coming back on and it was getting dark.
I was shaking in fear but I had to calm myself so I could think of the next move with a clear head. I wondered if Beth and Jan came back from the mainland yet. I could ask them to use their boat or at least hide me, and if they say no, at this point, I was at a level of desperation where I was willing to just cause chaos until they let me. On my way to their house, I had to pass my dorm. I considered going to gather some of my things until I saw something moving in the dark.
I almost peed my pants from fright when I saw a floating pair of eyeballs approaching my dorm. Despite everything else being in complete darkness, the eyes of a person and his dangling red tongue were glowing in the dark. I had never seen anything like this. Several more pairs of eyeballs and long red tongues emerged from the dark woods.
I couldn’t tell if the floating eyeballs and tongue belonged to Benny or any of my students, but they were right outside my dorm. As my eyes started to get used to the darkness and started to see shapes, I could see that they were each holding a machete. I quietly made my way to Beth and Jan’s house. When I got to their boathouse, there were flies everywhere. I tried to brush them away, but I could feel the thickness of the swarm. I felt like I was touching a bunch of floating chunks of meat.
I saw their boat at the dock. So did they come back? But why wouldn’t they turn on their boat’s light? I finally decided to use my phone flashlight to help me search for the boat key inside the boat house. I didn’t use my phone earlier because I was trying to conserve battery and also I didn’t want to draw attention to where I was. As soon as I shined the phone’s flashlight inside the boathouse, I was shocked to find the hacked-up heads of Beth, Jan, and the school’s rector covered in flies. Suddenly, I heard a wood creaking sound coming from outside. I quickly grabbed the boat key and jumped into the couple’s speed boat.
I hurriedly start the boat and just drove off, not caring about anything else. I used my phone’s compass to find the direction towards the mainland and I just kept going.
Suddenly, lights came back on the island. It shined brightly behind me as a nuclear bomb had just been detonated. I couldn’t help but look back, and then I saw it: a giant face formed by the neon lights, making the entire island look like it had a demonic face. The circular Ferris-wheel-like structure that was outside my dorm’s balcony was part of one of the giant face’s eyes.
I told myself to just ignore it and kept on driving. It was their world and they didn’t want me in it. I could do nothing but kept on going into the darkness.

I’ve been trying to find a small tackle bag for my son (13) for his upcoming graduation present. Ideally I’m looking for something where he can throw in like one tray and a pair of pliers from his tackle kit to take on his bike down to the water, or his grandparents, or out on his kayak, etc…. Something that can give him a little more portability than always trying to bring his whole tackle box everywhere.
Normally I’m pretty decent on finding stuff online, but Amazon’s just serving me up endless pages of mostly large 8 tray backpacks designed to carry everything. Does anybody have some recommendations for smaller bags that can meet the kind of use case I’m looking for?

Hi, this might be a redundant post as I've seen two or three similar ones, but didn't find a suitable answer.
I'm looking to figure out if it's possible for me to get into contributing to this project. I have some experience with Rust/networking and have been a long linux user (never touched kernel development before though).
Would I be in a position to have a chance at contributing? I'm able to pick up coding stuff but I'm confused as to how to get started in this area because it's quite intimidating and kernel development is not at all similar to learning a new language/framework.
e.g. I'm still not sure whether I'd need to write a "driver" or something else to get my M1 Air's HDMI port to work. Or that I don't see the webcam listed through CLI tools, and how I would write a driver for a hardware that is seemingly invisible (can't get any info through CLI tools) :D
Is there a guide that shows how one can setup kernel/driver development on Asahi? I'm willing to document it too if it's something I can learn.
Or maybe if someone (or multiple people) are on the same journey can create a group, or someone senior who has the time to handhold a novice.
TL;DR: Does someone who has some Rust/programming experience (~4 yrs programming in various languages) have a chance at learning kernel development and contributing to Asahi Linux?

Disclaimer: I'm no mechanic, but I do have 10 fingers that work fairly good!
Anyway, I was out the other day enjoying the flat water one sunny day (as one does) and was looking for wakes from bigger boats to jump. I've done this many times without much issue (except this one time I almost tore the hull in two, but that's another story)
This time one landing was fairly hard, but still kinda smooth, the Seadoo coughed for a few seconds, then engine died. I managed to get it to start, only to have it bogging down. After a minute or two of resting, I got it started (rather easily too) but when giving it full throttle it bogs down or something, hit's a limiter or whatever.
How it sounds in water
How it sounds on land
So rather than going "Wraaaaaaaaaaaaa" it goes "Wraaaaaa wraa wraaa wraaa" (yes I know, very technical).
I've checked plugs (only 20 mins old) + coils and there is spark, checked all fuses and they are OK, inspected all injectors and fuel pump and everything appears to be working fine (albeit one of the injectors has the tiniest tiny leak).
It starts super nice and easy and idles perfectly too, so there's that...
Caveat; my display doesn't work and it doesn't sound any issues via the beeper. I've been in contact with me mechanic but he's super busy, so if anyone's got some ideas to what could've caused this (other than the obvious jump on a wake) and what I can try to fix it, I'd be über grateful!