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My brief exposure to crypto, working in it, and how it drove me suicidal (THROWAWAY ACCOUNT)
2023.06.06 22:57 Embarrassed_Race9642 My brief exposure to crypto, working in it, and how it drove me suicidal (THROWAWAY ACCOUNT)
Hi everyone! I've been a lurker here for a while, and I've been reading different stories about people who worked in crypto sharing their regrets and/or spiteful feelings here, so it encouraged me to share my own. I never really post or comment on reddit except in gaming subreddits for help, so this is a first! I hope I don't bore you to death, but I imagine it might feel a little nice venting it out.
In hindsight, I didn't realise this would be such a long, long read, so please forgive the wall of text. This is really really long, but I don't care; I just wanted to get it all out to actual people. Read it if you will.
Lemme get some key points outta the way so we don't start off on the wrong foot
· at the beginning, I was never really "pro" or "anti" crypto
· I didn't lose any money lol
· throughout the whole thing, I was crypto neutral
· I managed to stop the project before it launched
· please do not refer me to suicide hotlines, I'm already going through therapy
· I was ignorant about crypto at the beginning; but now I know, so please, no lectures!
· I haven't "made money" either; in fact, I put a stop to the thing my friends were working on.
· I don't think I'm very smart, in fact, I feel stupid and useless after this whole debacle
· This doesn't really have a happy or "bad" ending, so please don't expect a happy ending. Also, again, please, please refrain from "giving advice." Just hear this out, and that's it. Make fun of this or ridicule it or empathise with it, I don't care; just don't "give advice" or "reassure" or whatever. Have the decency to just read something like this and let it be. Thank you!!
About myself: I don't really have a background in tech, and most of this is rather confusing stuff (then and now). I'm actually never on social media or the internet too often. I'm a writer, musician, and artist (mostly writer and musician), and I've done administrative work, project management, and journalism work to get by. I'm currently studying my undergraduate degree. I'll go about this chronologically.
2021 Jan - Sep: one of my friends got into crypto. He's a programmer (and a good one at that). I observed from the sidelines, and he kept talking about how much money he's made by trading. The concept of it never made any sense to me, but I'm not a programmer and I trusted my friend, so I was like "well, good for you." I never really understood any of that trading hubbub either!
I never really paid attention to any of this stuff, I was usually out with my friends, working, making music, playing games, or just writing. I never even owned a twitter account until late 2021!
2021 Sep: My friend made a whole lot of money one day, and I was pleasantly surprised! This guy always had those chart things on his screen 24/7 (never closed) whenever we went to his house, so we were all like "what the heck, that's hard work, huh?" I was genuinely happy that he's gotten his big break, because I believed he deserved it. He's one of the most talented people I know. Turns out one of his friends ran this crypto project with all these strange buzzwords that I still couldn't quite understand and gave him some "airdrops" before the "governance" token things launched. Oh, this isn't the thing I worked for, by the way!
2021 Oct: I didn't know too much about crypto, but I got it's selling point (or, well, I was dumb enough to fall for it). At least according to them, it's internet money that you can send anywhere at any time that you "own" and no central authorities own whatsoever (now I know that this concept is just incredibly stupid, but bear with me). I mean, I wasn't really an anti-government nut (and I didn't really turn into one either), but my friend's adamant on it, so I was like "well, why not?" and put $1000 in — wired it to this exchange (hint: it's not FTX, Coinbase, or Binance). Long story short, I put some money into that "Sandbox" thing and made a good few hundred bucks when it went up. There wasn't any real reasoning other than "well, Sandbox is a game, and people must use it for things, right?"
Oh, also, sandbox did these giveaway things for some "alpha pass" where you play their game and post a screenshot on twitter and win one of these alpha pass NFTs that you can sell on the market. I lucked out, got one, immediately sold it — I made like $5000 reselling that thing at "floor price." I remember thinking "woah, these guys must really want to play this game," which was naive and stupid, I guess.
2021 Nov - 2022 March: I cashed that out (the exchange wires that money back into your bank account for you) and steered clear later, because the whole thing was too much for me, staring at those dumb charts watching lines go up and down. That was all the money I ever made from crypto. I used it to buy some much needed medical devices, a guitar, and.. well, a new mattress. I donated the remainder away. Every time I asked my programmer friends to explain something or the other, it's always handwaving to "DYOR!" Every source they pointed me to confused me even more, and now I know that's deliberate with these grifters.
2022 March - May: I was still in their group chat so I could see them talk about it every now and then. Sometimes I drop in my comments about real-world news. One day, my friends were talking about starting an actual business. This was something I had experience in, and as far as I've seen, anything tangible that anyone's ever done with crypto was usually with games. I've had this idea for a type of game that I really cherished, and one of my friends had experience as a game developer. It was a relatively simple idea.
Let me tell you though, I really loved this game subcategory. I'm even in a university society for it. It's been one of my lifelong dreams to see my idea come to life. So I pitched the idea in, cause why not? The subcategory was never done in crypto, so at least we'd have the advantage of novelty, I thought. They weren't really sure how to monetise it, so I said "why not monetise the characters?" It seemed reasonable at the time: the characters could act as access points to the game and anyone could buy new characters for like, what, 5 bucks? At least that's what I had in mind. They agreed, so I found a popular NFT project to pitch the idea for (since it made more sense to work under an organisation rather than going full indie into a space we had no reputation in yet).
At the time, my friends said making these characters NFTs would give people "real ownership" and be a way to "support digital artists by cutting out the middleman." I mean, as a writer and musician, that did appeal to me. I didn't really question much of it (and I know I should have, it should have been due diligence, that was careless on my part). I thought "maybe we could make these NFTs customisable, because that's what RPGs are about, right?" and we went ahead with that.
2022 April - June: Here's a reminder: I'm a social media hermit. I never get on it unless it's checking on someone on Facebook or Instagram (or messaging). I never had twitter until 2021! So, I've never heard of people like Molly White, Tante, David Gerard, Amy Castor, yada yada until around this time. One my friends showed me Dan Olson's "Line Goes Up." And man, what a watch that was. It confirmed my gut feelings about crypto, that this is all just... hollow, insane, crazy stuff. My heart sank after watching that video.
I remember googling "responses to Line Goes Up" because I was in denial back then, not because I "believed" in crypto but I just didn't want to admit I've wasted so much time and energy. And I remember how every single "response" was just... idiotic. At that point, I sent that video to that NFT organisation's discord and said "if we're all genuine about this, maybe we should watch this and try to improve ourselves." It was the whole sunk cost fallacy thing, I wanted to believe that I didn't waste my time being a complete dork.
But after a certain point, I just couldn't run away from it anymore. I told my friends "let's just switch to making a steam game, we haven't lost or earned any money yet." It was an idea that was doable with a steam game, like... all you had to do was just change the monetisation bit to having players spend 5 bucks buying it... on steam... lol. Ah, but my friends were like "no." They won't do it. They wanted to make NFTs, and I couldn't understand for the love of god why you would do that. It was my idea, they had never played a game like that in their lives, I was the only one with any exposure in that regard.
Also, I was the one making the art as well, like... the character sprites. I'd spent so much time drawing those character sprites, their features, etc. I spent some time making some music, and even some background lore that fit in with the other NFT project we were working under. I barely checked their stupid discord things or twitter posts since I was so busy actually drawing and writing stuff. This was a passion project for me, and I was focused on making the game. You have no idea how much I love these types of role-playing games (but I'm not going into detail as to what that is because I'm not so comfortable).
Little did my stupid ass realise that these things were a pyramid scheme, and I was right at the middle or bottom. Little did my naive ass realise that none of these people liked my idea or even cared; people like me doing actual stuff gave them legitimacy, so people like me were just... pawns, I guess. Being the idiot I was, I engaged with my real name and my real identity, because that's what honest people do when they're selling a fucking game they'd be proud of, right? What a mistake. And my friends who knew what this stuff is never stopped me from doing any of it while I naively put my name and reputation at the front. After watching line goes up and then reading more and more sources (and eventually stumbling across Buttcoin on reddit!) I reached the point of no return:
Crypto and blockchain were useless in all possible ways, they never made sense as a technology, they're filled with disgusting people with disgusting anarcho-capitalist ideals, and there will never be a point where the "blockchain" will ever find a use-case beyond grifting, speculating, gambling, and money laundering because that is inherent to this technology's design. It is irredeemable. NFTs were never about empowering artists like us and it could never even do that at all because the premise and technology are flawed to begin with!
That was my realisation over time after actually reading about this from critical sources (which, at the top of the hype, I thought wasn't even really there because I had bought into my programmer friends' narrative that this is just like the internet and "everybody is in.")
I only wish I realised it sooner.
2022 June - July: I vehemently begged my friends to stop. I didn't want to make or sell NFTs anymore after realising what it was. I didn't even want the money (and god knows I could use that money since it could pay off my father's debts, but not like this. Not by hurting other people who may just be in the same position as I am by "winning" or "doing really 'smart' stuff.")
No one listened. I was about to quit, until the NFT organisation we were working under announced a grant. I saw this as an opportunity to put a stop to my own friends making their own NFTs, and I grabbed it. I begged and pleaded them to apply for that grant, which they begrudgingly did. I applied for that grant thing and it got approved, and all my friends were really excited about it. They all agreed to not make NFTs anymore and just make a free-to-play game. We worded the grant that way too.
But it still didn't sit right with me personally. I agonised over it still. Sure, it's grant money now... but how did that bigger NFT organisation get that money? Obviously, by selling NFTs and collecting resale "royalties." I guess it didn't matter to my friends, but to me, that's blood money. None of them were writers or artists, by the way. They were just... tech people. Techbros, I guess.
Anyway, the grant thing works by having people vote for it, and you get as much money as the votes you get. Our idea was good and we actually had a skillset, so we got like a little over four digits, which is big to someone like me, at least!
But it still didn't sit right with me.
I agonised over it all the time, thinking about just how I had soiled and shat on my lifelong passion idea, and how my name was out there associated with these people.
I just couldn't stand it anymore. One day, I told my friends that I was fucking quitting (this was in the middle of the grant voting process, that thing dragged on for about a couple of weeks) if they didn't turn this into a steam game instead. They chose to just let me quit, take the project for themselves, and... uh, take the grant money.
My friends got me on voice call and kinda hounded me, saying "well we understand if you want to quit but damn that sucks, it's a lot of money, man. It's been my dream too to make a game like that ever since my childhood." That last line really struck home because it was something I could empathise with, but then I recognised it as just... them trying to justify making fat stacks lol. They never really felt that way, and I'll tell you why I think that in a bit.
Either way, I quit. I got out. I didn't even take any compensation money. I mean, why would I lie about it here under an anonymous throwaway account anyway? I have nothing to gain from it, not even "karma farming" since I'm throwing this account away lol. Just... I couldn't stand it anymore, man.
2022 July - September: I spent this time distancing from these people and this crowd. I grew depressed. I hadn't lost any money, but I wasted so much time. I was left feeling disillusioned about my friends. To them, I was overreacting, I was being a cunt, I was just being so difficult! I just was standing in their way of "making bread" and "hustling!"
I stopped going out or hanging out with my friends.
I stopped going to that uni society out of shame. They don't know about it but I just can't even see the game the same way anymore. I felt so ashamed.
I never played that game with my usual other friends who I used to play it with a long time back either. They don't know about any of this either, but I was just so ashamed and disgusted. It kind of feels traumatic.
I stopped writing and barely made any music. I picked up a new tablet and learned to draw in a new style, but eventually I stopped that too. I just didn't feel like it anymore.
I got burned out. I barely was able to hand in my assignments. I had stopped going to classes because I just couldn't bother getting out of bed and going out there into actual society again. I felt like I was a disgusting, naive piece of shit that would just stain otherwise normal people.
I spent my days agonising about the day someone found out that I made art for this dumb project, that I was out there passionately talking about this idea like a stupid nerdy dumbfuck, and that I am associated with it even though I quit. One of my other friends who quit with me said he'd provide testimony of my side of things, but that's not really comforting.
I mean, it's a fringe thing anyway, we barely made anything. My friends got the grant, and I spend every single day agonising over it. I mean, it's not direct "profits" from NFTs, but where'd that grant money come from in the first place, huh?
My worst fear was that they'd pocket it and not even make the game. And they did. I guess those other NFTbros really didn't notice it since a few thousand bucks is just spare change to these grifter overlords. Again, I never took any money from it.
I can only thank god that I stopped them from making their own NFTs though, otherwise I really couldn't live with myself.
Every single day, I keep checking my old discord account and twitter like I'm obsessed, out of fear. I honestly don't care if it's just me that gets fucked by association, but I don't want my existence to become a burden to my poor siblings and parents just by being associated with me. I don't want their reputations to go to the shitter. They're hardworking, honest people who don't waste their time on stupid things like I have. They don't deserve that, at least. It should be me that should suffer.
Everyday, I agonise over it.
I couldn't really cry or anything about it, I just felt hollow, I guess. I've lost interest in most of the things I loved. Sometimes I play games, sometimes I scribble for the fucks of it, sometimes I read, sometimes I write in my notebook, but that's it. I had stopped going out, and I hadn't seen anyone for a long while.
2022 September - 2022 November: I bought a rope and a pull-up bar. I continually kept writing in my journal to prepare a good, coherent suicide note instead of, like... writing it all incoherently at the last minute and then peacing out lol. The pull-up bar is because my dorm doesn't really have any places I could hang my rope from, so if I attach the pull-up bar to the door, I could tie the rope onto it and hang.
The other way I thought of doing it was heroin, because apparently it just quietly puts you to sleep; but I'm scared of needles and I don't want to buy anything on the dark web. I've never done hard drugs like that anyway.
I kept procrastinating it. Partly because I had grown too lazy to even learn how to tie a hangman's knot, and partly because I was still afraid. The thing is, I've already been diagnosed with a mental health issue that also causes depression for nearly a decade now. This, though, was the worst I ever felt. The part that sucks the most is that the game idea was a passion project for me. It was something I've always dreamed of doing. It was the sort of games I really, really loved. It was the sort of art I loved making and seeing too. It was the kind of music I had fun composing. The story idea was something from my own long-held ideas that I wanted to bring to life, and now that's in the shitter too.
On some days, I woke up with absolute certainty of what I was going to do: learn to tie that knot, hang it up, and be done with it. I got distracted, and eventually I'd forget and doze off again. I spend most of my time chatting online with some of my friends (via text), which was something I rarely ever did a few years ago. I was more known for rarely responding to texts because I was outside so frequently lol.
I decided to see everyone for one last time before I did it, so I waited to get back to my own home country first. I wanted to just see everyone and sort of hang out with them as an unspoken farewell thing before I did it.
2022 December: I went back home, I hung out with my friends and family, and I was my usual self. I don't think anyone really caught on. We all made plans to go places and do stuff, and we did. It was a nice little time with everyone. I even kind of felt like myself again. I went swimming, went to friends' houses, met up with old friends, etc. I even put up a local art page and dropped some of my writings, music, and art on there.
2023 January: It was almost time to go back, but I went on a vacation to this country with a friend by ourselves. We ate local food at the stalls and just backpacked on a budget. We went hiking and sightseeing. We went to night markets, canoed in a river, and went camping in the woods. I actually finished one of my assignments on a train ride to this city. We did so many things, but I don't want to go off on a tangent. That experience made me forget these feelings for a while. It meant a lot to me, but I'll keep it at that for this subreddit.
2023 Late January - Now: I went back, these feelings returned. I've spiralled back into agonising now, but I'm seeing a therapist and a university counsellor now. It hasn't gotten as bad as it was in September last year, and especially now I feel reluctant to do it because one of them told me "your death doesn't happen to you, it happens to the people around you."
I'm kind of just picking myself up from here, trying to forget this ever happened, and working in other industries I used to work in back then. But I know that as soon as anyone finds out I was associated with any of this, I will get rid of myself. At the very least, my family would be spared then, and I wouldn't be such a burden, no matter what my therapist says.
I'm more or less just empty and neutral now. I haven't really done anything other than just study, go to classes, and do my assignments. My daily activities consist of eating, shitting, pissing, sleeping, and repeat. If someone from 3 years ago saw me now, they'd think I'm an entirely different person.
One day I'll move on, make peace with myself, and forget about it. That's what I hope for, at least. I'm at least thankful that I've been able to stop my friends from actually making NFTs or a crypto coin and actually hurting people. I'm just glad. I don't know or care what they're up to now. I couldn't be arsed anymore.
I saw people share their stories, and I felt like doing that myself too. It turned out longer than I expected, but I didn't want to leave anyone hanging, lol, so I wrote about everything from start to finish. Sorry if that turned out to be way too long. Thanks for taking your time getting this far if you have.
I hope no one else has agonised or will have to agonise the way I have.
submitted by Embarrassed_Race9642 to Buttcoin [link] [comments]
In hindsight, I didn't realise this would be such a long, long read, so please forgive the wall of text. This is really really long, but I don't care; I just wanted to get it all out to actual people. Read it if you will.
Lemme get some key points outta the way so we don't start off on the wrong foot
· at the beginning, I was never really "pro" or "anti" crypto
· I didn't lose any money lol
· throughout the whole thing, I was crypto neutral
· I managed to stop the project before it launched
· please do not refer me to suicide hotlines, I'm already going through therapy
· I was ignorant about crypto at the beginning; but now I know, so please, no lectures!
· I haven't "made money" either; in fact, I put a stop to the thing my friends were working on.
· I don't think I'm very smart, in fact, I feel stupid and useless after this whole debacle
· This doesn't really have a happy or "bad" ending, so please don't expect a happy ending. Also, again, please, please refrain from "giving advice." Just hear this out, and that's it. Make fun of this or ridicule it or empathise with it, I don't care; just don't "give advice" or "reassure" or whatever. Have the decency to just read something like this and let it be. Thank you!!
About myself: I don't really have a background in tech, and most of this is rather confusing stuff (then and now). I'm actually never on social media or the internet too often. I'm a writer, musician, and artist (mostly writer and musician), and I've done administrative work, project management, and journalism work to get by. I'm currently studying my undergraduate degree. I'll go about this chronologically.
2021 Jan - Sep: one of my friends got into crypto. He's a programmer (and a good one at that). I observed from the sidelines, and he kept talking about how much money he's made by trading. The concept of it never made any sense to me, but I'm not a programmer and I trusted my friend, so I was like "well, good for you." I never really understood any of that trading hubbub either!
I never really paid attention to any of this stuff, I was usually out with my friends, working, making music, playing games, or just writing. I never even owned a twitter account until late 2021!
2021 Sep: My friend made a whole lot of money one day, and I was pleasantly surprised! This guy always had those chart things on his screen 24/7 (never closed) whenever we went to his house, so we were all like "what the heck, that's hard work, huh?" I was genuinely happy that he's gotten his big break, because I believed he deserved it. He's one of the most talented people I know. Turns out one of his friends ran this crypto project with all these strange buzzwords that I still couldn't quite understand and gave him some "airdrops" before the "governance" token things launched. Oh, this isn't the thing I worked for, by the way!
2021 Oct: I didn't know too much about crypto, but I got it's selling point (or, well, I was dumb enough to fall for it). At least according to them, it's internet money that you can send anywhere at any time that you "own" and no central authorities own whatsoever (now I know that this concept is just incredibly stupid, but bear with me). I mean, I wasn't really an anti-government nut (and I didn't really turn into one either), but my friend's adamant on it, so I was like "well, why not?" and put $1000 in — wired it to this exchange (hint: it's not FTX, Coinbase, or Binance). Long story short, I put some money into that "Sandbox" thing and made a good few hundred bucks when it went up. There wasn't any real reasoning other than "well, Sandbox is a game, and people must use it for things, right?"
Oh, also, sandbox did these giveaway things for some "alpha pass" where you play their game and post a screenshot on twitter and win one of these alpha pass NFTs that you can sell on the market. I lucked out, got one, immediately sold it — I made like $5000 reselling that thing at "floor price." I remember thinking "woah, these guys must really want to play this game," which was naive and stupid, I guess.
2021 Nov - 2022 March: I cashed that out (the exchange wires that money back into your bank account for you) and steered clear later, because the whole thing was too much for me, staring at those dumb charts watching lines go up and down. That was all the money I ever made from crypto. I used it to buy some much needed medical devices, a guitar, and.. well, a new mattress. I donated the remainder away. Every time I asked my programmer friends to explain something or the other, it's always handwaving to "DYOR!" Every source they pointed me to confused me even more, and now I know that's deliberate with these grifters.
2022 March - May: I was still in their group chat so I could see them talk about it every now and then. Sometimes I drop in my comments about real-world news. One day, my friends were talking about starting an actual business. This was something I had experience in, and as far as I've seen, anything tangible that anyone's ever done with crypto was usually with games. I've had this idea for a type of game that I really cherished, and one of my friends had experience as a game developer. It was a relatively simple idea.
Let me tell you though, I really loved this game subcategory. I'm even in a university society for it. It's been one of my lifelong dreams to see my idea come to life. So I pitched the idea in, cause why not? The subcategory was never done in crypto, so at least we'd have the advantage of novelty, I thought. They weren't really sure how to monetise it, so I said "why not monetise the characters?" It seemed reasonable at the time: the characters could act as access points to the game and anyone could buy new characters for like, what, 5 bucks? At least that's what I had in mind. They agreed, so I found a popular NFT project to pitch the idea for (since it made more sense to work under an organisation rather than going full indie into a space we had no reputation in yet).
At the time, my friends said making these characters NFTs would give people "real ownership" and be a way to "support digital artists by cutting out the middleman." I mean, as a writer and musician, that did appeal to me. I didn't really question much of it (and I know I should have, it should have been due diligence, that was careless on my part). I thought "maybe we could make these NFTs customisable, because that's what RPGs are about, right?" and we went ahead with that.
2022 April - June: Here's a reminder: I'm a social media hermit. I never get on it unless it's checking on someone on Facebook or Instagram (or messaging). I never had twitter until 2021! So, I've never heard of people like Molly White, Tante, David Gerard, Amy Castor, yada yada until around this time. One my friends showed me Dan Olson's "Line Goes Up." And man, what a watch that was. It confirmed my gut feelings about crypto, that this is all just... hollow, insane, crazy stuff. My heart sank after watching that video.
I remember googling "responses to Line Goes Up" because I was in denial back then, not because I "believed" in crypto but I just didn't want to admit I've wasted so much time and energy. And I remember how every single "response" was just... idiotic. At that point, I sent that video to that NFT organisation's discord and said "if we're all genuine about this, maybe we should watch this and try to improve ourselves." It was the whole sunk cost fallacy thing, I wanted to believe that I didn't waste my time being a complete dork.
But after a certain point, I just couldn't run away from it anymore. I told my friends "let's just switch to making a steam game, we haven't lost or earned any money yet." It was an idea that was doable with a steam game, like... all you had to do was just change the monetisation bit to having players spend 5 bucks buying it... on steam... lol. Ah, but my friends were like "no." They won't do it. They wanted to make NFTs, and I couldn't understand for the love of god why you would do that. It was my idea, they had never played a game like that in their lives, I was the only one with any exposure in that regard.
Also, I was the one making the art as well, like... the character sprites. I'd spent so much time drawing those character sprites, their features, etc. I spent some time making some music, and even some background lore that fit in with the other NFT project we were working under. I barely checked their stupid discord things or twitter posts since I was so busy actually drawing and writing stuff. This was a passion project for me, and I was focused on making the game. You have no idea how much I love these types of role-playing games (but I'm not going into detail as to what that is because I'm not so comfortable).
Little did my stupid ass realise that these things were a pyramid scheme, and I was right at the middle or bottom. Little did my naive ass realise that none of these people liked my idea or even cared; people like me doing actual stuff gave them legitimacy, so people like me were just... pawns, I guess. Being the idiot I was, I engaged with my real name and my real identity, because that's what honest people do when they're selling a fucking game they'd be proud of, right? What a mistake. And my friends who knew what this stuff is never stopped me from doing any of it while I naively put my name and reputation at the front. After watching line goes up and then reading more and more sources (and eventually stumbling across Buttcoin on reddit!) I reached the point of no return:
Crypto and blockchain were useless in all possible ways, they never made sense as a technology, they're filled with disgusting people with disgusting anarcho-capitalist ideals, and there will never be a point where the "blockchain" will ever find a use-case beyond grifting, speculating, gambling, and money laundering because that is inherent to this technology's design. It is irredeemable. NFTs were never about empowering artists like us and it could never even do that at all because the premise and technology are flawed to begin with!
That was my realisation over time after actually reading about this from critical sources (which, at the top of the hype, I thought wasn't even really there because I had bought into my programmer friends' narrative that this is just like the internet and "everybody is in.")
I only wish I realised it sooner.
2022 June - July: I vehemently begged my friends to stop. I didn't want to make or sell NFTs anymore after realising what it was. I didn't even want the money (and god knows I could use that money since it could pay off my father's debts, but not like this. Not by hurting other people who may just be in the same position as I am by "winning" or "doing really 'smart' stuff.")
No one listened. I was about to quit, until the NFT organisation we were working under announced a grant. I saw this as an opportunity to put a stop to my own friends making their own NFTs, and I grabbed it. I begged and pleaded them to apply for that grant, which they begrudgingly did. I applied for that grant thing and it got approved, and all my friends were really excited about it. They all agreed to not make NFTs anymore and just make a free-to-play game. We worded the grant that way too.
But it still didn't sit right with me personally. I agonised over it still. Sure, it's grant money now... but how did that bigger NFT organisation get that money? Obviously, by selling NFTs and collecting resale "royalties." I guess it didn't matter to my friends, but to me, that's blood money. None of them were writers or artists, by the way. They were just... tech people. Techbros, I guess.
Anyway, the grant thing works by having people vote for it, and you get as much money as the votes you get. Our idea was good and we actually had a skillset, so we got like a little over four digits, which is big to someone like me, at least!
But it still didn't sit right with me.
I agonised over it all the time, thinking about just how I had soiled and shat on my lifelong passion idea, and how my name was out there associated with these people.
I just couldn't stand it anymore. One day, I told my friends that I was fucking quitting (this was in the middle of the grant voting process, that thing dragged on for about a couple of weeks) if they didn't turn this into a steam game instead. They chose to just let me quit, take the project for themselves, and... uh, take the grant money.
My friends got me on voice call and kinda hounded me, saying "well we understand if you want to quit but damn that sucks, it's a lot of money, man. It's been my dream too to make a game like that ever since my childhood." That last line really struck home because it was something I could empathise with, but then I recognised it as just... them trying to justify making fat stacks lol. They never really felt that way, and I'll tell you why I think that in a bit.
Either way, I quit. I got out. I didn't even take any compensation money. I mean, why would I lie about it here under an anonymous throwaway account anyway? I have nothing to gain from it, not even "karma farming" since I'm throwing this account away lol. Just... I couldn't stand it anymore, man.
2022 July - September: I spent this time distancing from these people and this crowd. I grew depressed. I hadn't lost any money, but I wasted so much time. I was left feeling disillusioned about my friends. To them, I was overreacting, I was being a cunt, I was just being so difficult! I just was standing in their way of "making bread" and "hustling!"
I stopped going out or hanging out with my friends.
I stopped going to that uni society out of shame. They don't know about it but I just can't even see the game the same way anymore. I felt so ashamed.
I never played that game with my usual other friends who I used to play it with a long time back either. They don't know about any of this either, but I was just so ashamed and disgusted. It kind of feels traumatic.
I stopped writing and barely made any music. I picked up a new tablet and learned to draw in a new style, but eventually I stopped that too. I just didn't feel like it anymore.
I got burned out. I barely was able to hand in my assignments. I had stopped going to classes because I just couldn't bother getting out of bed and going out there into actual society again. I felt like I was a disgusting, naive piece of shit that would just stain otherwise normal people.
I spent my days agonising about the day someone found out that I made art for this dumb project, that I was out there passionately talking about this idea like a stupid nerdy dumbfuck, and that I am associated with it even though I quit. One of my other friends who quit with me said he'd provide testimony of my side of things, but that's not really comforting.
I mean, it's a fringe thing anyway, we barely made anything. My friends got the grant, and I spend every single day agonising over it. I mean, it's not direct "profits" from NFTs, but where'd that grant money come from in the first place, huh?
My worst fear was that they'd pocket it and not even make the game. And they did. I guess those other NFTbros really didn't notice it since a few thousand bucks is just spare change to these grifter overlords. Again, I never took any money from it.
I can only thank god that I stopped them from making their own NFTs though, otherwise I really couldn't live with myself.
Every single day, I keep checking my old discord account and twitter like I'm obsessed, out of fear. I honestly don't care if it's just me that gets fucked by association, but I don't want my existence to become a burden to my poor siblings and parents just by being associated with me. I don't want their reputations to go to the shitter. They're hardworking, honest people who don't waste their time on stupid things like I have. They don't deserve that, at least. It should be me that should suffer.
Everyday, I agonise over it.
I couldn't really cry or anything about it, I just felt hollow, I guess. I've lost interest in most of the things I loved. Sometimes I play games, sometimes I scribble for the fucks of it, sometimes I read, sometimes I write in my notebook, but that's it. I had stopped going out, and I hadn't seen anyone for a long while.
2022 September - 2022 November: I bought a rope and a pull-up bar. I continually kept writing in my journal to prepare a good, coherent suicide note instead of, like... writing it all incoherently at the last minute and then peacing out lol. The pull-up bar is because my dorm doesn't really have any places I could hang my rope from, so if I attach the pull-up bar to the door, I could tie the rope onto it and hang.
The other way I thought of doing it was heroin, because apparently it just quietly puts you to sleep; but I'm scared of needles and I don't want to buy anything on the dark web. I've never done hard drugs like that anyway.
I kept procrastinating it. Partly because I had grown too lazy to even learn how to tie a hangman's knot, and partly because I was still afraid. The thing is, I've already been diagnosed with a mental health issue that also causes depression for nearly a decade now. This, though, was the worst I ever felt. The part that sucks the most is that the game idea was a passion project for me. It was something I've always dreamed of doing. It was the sort of games I really, really loved. It was the sort of art I loved making and seeing too. It was the kind of music I had fun composing. The story idea was something from my own long-held ideas that I wanted to bring to life, and now that's in the shitter too.
On some days, I woke up with absolute certainty of what I was going to do: learn to tie that knot, hang it up, and be done with it. I got distracted, and eventually I'd forget and doze off again. I spend most of my time chatting online with some of my friends (via text), which was something I rarely ever did a few years ago. I was more known for rarely responding to texts because I was outside so frequently lol.
I decided to see everyone for one last time before I did it, so I waited to get back to my own home country first. I wanted to just see everyone and sort of hang out with them as an unspoken farewell thing before I did it.
2022 December: I went back home, I hung out with my friends and family, and I was my usual self. I don't think anyone really caught on. We all made plans to go places and do stuff, and we did. It was a nice little time with everyone. I even kind of felt like myself again. I went swimming, went to friends' houses, met up with old friends, etc. I even put up a local art page and dropped some of my writings, music, and art on there.
2023 January: It was almost time to go back, but I went on a vacation to this country with a friend by ourselves. We ate local food at the stalls and just backpacked on a budget. We went hiking and sightseeing. We went to night markets, canoed in a river, and went camping in the woods. I actually finished one of my assignments on a train ride to this city. We did so many things, but I don't want to go off on a tangent. That experience made me forget these feelings for a while. It meant a lot to me, but I'll keep it at that for this subreddit.
2023 Late January - Now: I went back, these feelings returned. I've spiralled back into agonising now, but I'm seeing a therapist and a university counsellor now. It hasn't gotten as bad as it was in September last year, and especially now I feel reluctant to do it because one of them told me "your death doesn't happen to you, it happens to the people around you."
I'm kind of just picking myself up from here, trying to forget this ever happened, and working in other industries I used to work in back then. But I know that as soon as anyone finds out I was associated with any of this, I will get rid of myself. At the very least, my family would be spared then, and I wouldn't be such a burden, no matter what my therapist says.
I'm more or less just empty and neutral now. I haven't really done anything other than just study, go to classes, and do my assignments. My daily activities consist of eating, shitting, pissing, sleeping, and repeat. If someone from 3 years ago saw me now, they'd think I'm an entirely different person.
One day I'll move on, make peace with myself, and forget about it. That's what I hope for, at least. I'm at least thankful that I've been able to stop my friends from actually making NFTs or a crypto coin and actually hurting people. I'm just glad. I don't know or care what they're up to now. I couldn't be arsed anymore.
I saw people share their stories, and I felt like doing that myself too. It turned out longer than I expected, but I didn't want to leave anyone hanging, lol, so I wrote about everything from start to finish. Sorry if that turned out to be way too long. Thanks for taking your time getting this far if you have.
I hope no one else has agonised or will have to agonise the way I have.
2023.06.06 21:51 reylomeansbalance Anne Boleyn in the Tower
http://under-these-restless-skies.blogspot.com/2014/01/anne-boleyn-in-tower.html
Anne Boleyn was an anointed queen, crowned as a monarch in her own right, a status never before held by a Queen of England. And now, something else that had never occurred was happening: a queen was on trial for treason.
Queens had been accused of adultery or treason in the past. Some, like Eleanor of Aquitaine, had even incited rebellion against their husbands and kings. But their punishment had always been to be placed under house arrest in one of their own palaces. Queens and kings were above mortal judgement and criminal justice. They were accountable only to God once anointed, a sacred moment that created a mystical bond with the Almighty.
Some must have wondered why Henry was doing this. Why would he publicly air his shame in being cuckolded by Anne Boleyn? Men whose wives cheated were objects of ridicule, weak men who could not even keep their own wives in check. It was an injury to the king's own dignity, for if a man could not rule his own household, how could he rule a nation? And, in allowing Anne to be judged by the peers of England, he was putting any monarch in a position to be judged by earthly men. It was a dangerous precedent to set.
But Henry wasn't worrying about such things in the early part of May, 1536. He was too busy partying like a fratboy, taking a barge of musicians and laughing courtiers down the river nightly to Jane Seymour's house. Ambassador Chapuys, who despised Anne Boleyn and was delighted at her fall, even thought it in poor taste. He wrote in one of his dispatches to the Emperor:
Now, as Anne Boleyn stepped from her barge into the gray stone fortress, she was greeted by William Kingston, the constable of the Tower. When she had stayed here the night before her coronation, only a thousand days ago, Kingston had been all welcoming smiles. Now, he was her jailor. Kingston was always unfailingly courteous to her, but Anne was his prisoner and he would do his duty, just as Anne had always done hers.
Anne asked, somewhat timorously,
As he drew her to her feet, Anne began, in his words:
In her apartments, Anne met with the ladies who were to serve her while she was incarcerated. Among them were the Mistress Coffin, Mistress Stonor, Elizabeth Wood Boleyn (married to Anne Boleyn's father's younger brother), Lady Shelton (who had been assigned previously to guard Princess Mary, and who may have resented Anne for nudging Madge Shelton to become the mistress of the king), and Lady Kingston. None of these women was a friend or partisan of Anne Boleyn. Lady Kingston - in fact - was a friend of Princess Mary.
These women were instructed to write down every word Anne said. Henry knew his wife well, and knew that given sufficient stress and the illusion of privacy, Anne would break down and babble hysterically. Had she had her court of ladies around her, Anne probably would have found it within herself to keep her regal demeanor, and indeed, during her two last public appearances, Anne was every inch the queen.
But now, during the worst moments of her life, Anne wondered aloud what sort of "evidence" the council could uncover that could be used against her. She spoke of a few flirtatious encounters, and when those were twisted out of context, they were used to convict her.
Anne bitterly complained about how cruel it was for the king to put around her, "such as I have never loved." But she spoke with these women just the same. Did they pretend sympathy to get her talking? Or was Anne simply unable to hold back the gush of words that came with her terror and intense stress?
There was a curious instruction given by Cromwell to the ladies: none of them were to speak to Anne unless Lady Kingston was in the room. Kingston trusted that his wife would report honestly, but he and Cromwell obviously didn't have the same faith in the other women. Did Cromwell fear Anne would charm the other ladies into friendship, despite their prior enmity? Anne is sometimes portrayed as a termagant, unable to get along with members of her own sex because of her jealousy or vanity, but if she was really that bitchy, such an instruction would not have been necessary.
They needn't have worried. The ladies took every chance they got to taunt her. When Anne learned on the 5th of May that her brother was actually in the Tower, she worried about where he was being housed, and whether he and the other prisoners had beds to sleep on. One of the ladies retorted that Anne's interest in "unseemly" matters like men's beds is what had gotten her into this mess.
Kingston reported that Anne silenced them with the only weapon she had left: etiquette. She was still the Queen of England, and still treated as such during her stay in the Tower. Court etiquette forbid anyone to speak to the queen unless she spoke first. Anne remained silent when she as with those women, and thus, they could not taunt her. It shows there was still some of Anne's fighting spirit in her, under the layers of fear, desperation, and anguish.
For almost two weeks, Anne rattled around in those luxurious apartments, not knowing what was going on in the outside world, except the little her jailors told her. News trickled in: more of her friends and supporters arrested. Anne mourned the fact that these innocent men were being punished for her sake.
Kingston recorded that Anne asked about whether she would be granted a trial.
During those long thirteen days, Anne had nothing to do but pray and worry. She had none of her precious books to wile away the hours, none of her friends to offer comfort and support. Kingston does not record that Anne received any visitors, letters, or care packages from friends. That is not certain evidence she did not receive any, of course, but it seems likely he would have mentioned it, considering he recorded her every word and movement.
Kingston records that Anne's brother George got a letter from his wife, Jane Parker, vowing to go before the king and plead for him. Historians still debate whether this offer was genuine, or if it was Jane's testimony that put him there in the first place.
Anne had seen it before, after Katharine's exile. Her servants and courtiers would be trying to secure a place in Jane Seymour's retinue. Distancing themselves from her was the only safe move to make. But it must have been terribly lonely as she wandered those huge apartments, rooms built to be occupied by hundreds of courtiers, that only now held her and a handful of scowling women.
Did Anne write any letters herself? Kingston records that she asked for permission, but he says nothing about sending them out. A letter exists that is purportedly from Anne to Henry, but there are questions as to its authenticity. A historian in the 18th century wrote about seeing another letter from Anne to Henry in which she angrily rejected a plea deal that would require her to confess, but it's believed to have been destroyed in a library fire.
While Anne paced, prayed, and fretted, stands were erected in the great hall where Anne had her coronation feast only three short years ago. The stadium-style seating allowed for two thousand spectators, and it seemed like it would be a packed house. Anne's arrest was the scandal of the century and everyone was talking about it. There was, of course, the glee of her enemies, and those who had always thought she was a loose woman nodded their heads in approval. But there were also those who felt Anne had been unjustly accused to make way Jane Seymour.
Henry wrote to Jane:
Anne was never as popular as Katharine, but she had been a good queen, generous to the poor, passionate about education, and reforming the church. She had partisans, and now they were grumbling. To try to quell the gossip, Henry had Jane moved a few miles away, but still ostentatiously visited her every evening.
The nobles were gathering from all over England to sit as judges in Anne's trial. Hand-picked by the council, many of them would sit on the bench with fat bribes in their pockets. The property of the accused was already being divvied up amongst them to ensure they'd have a vested financial interest in a guilty verdict.
On May 11th, the council arrived at the royal apartments in the Tower. They had been instructed by the king to wring a confession from Anne, to show her no respect or delicacy in getting it. But the men were immediately thrown off their game when Anne took control of the meeting as a queen, not as the pitiful, broken prisoner they had expected. She extended her hand for them to kiss and then settled into her chair of estate and motioned her regal permission for them to begin. But the moment they began to speak of her "evil deeds," Anne cut them off. She bluntly said she had never wronged the king, but was imprisoned because he was tired of her, just as he had once tired of Katharine. When they tried again, Anne imperiously ordered them from the room, and as she was still the Queen of England, they could not dare to disobey.
The council had expected to badger a helpless woman into submission. Instead, Anne Boleyn showed them the door. She would not be cowed. She would not be frightened into agreeing to a false confession to save her skin. As her daughter would say, decades later, Anne Boleyn might have the small and seemingly fragile body of a woman, but she had the heart and stomach of a king.
At the door, the Duke of Norfolk turned, probably because he was unable to resist one last chance to needle his niece. He was just that kind of guy. He said if her brother shared her guilt, their punishment would be great indeed. To which Anne retorted that her brother had been arrested so there would be no one to stand up for her. One wonders if Norfolk understood that particularly pointed comment.
On the evening of May 14, Anne was told her trial would begin in the morning. Until this moment, she probably didn't think Henry would go through with it. Anne may have thought he wouldn't want all of the salacious details aired in public, and would just leave her in the Tower to stew for a bit before magnanimously releasing her to enter a convent. She was told that her household had been dissolved only a few days prior, so she likely accepted that however this played out, she would never be queen again.
She likely did not know the king had already ordered the swordsman of Calais to come to perform the execution, long before the victim had even been put on trial.
submitted by reylomeansbalance to anneboleyn_in_context [link] [comments]
Anne Boleyn was an anointed queen, crowned as a monarch in her own right, a status never before held by a Queen of England. And now, something else that had never occurred was happening: a queen was on trial for treason.
Queens had been accused of adultery or treason in the past. Some, like Eleanor of Aquitaine, had even incited rebellion against their husbands and kings. But their punishment had always been to be placed under house arrest in one of their own palaces. Queens and kings were above mortal judgement and criminal justice. They were accountable only to God once anointed, a sacred moment that created a mystical bond with the Almighty.
Some must have wondered why Henry was doing this. Why would he publicly air his shame in being cuckolded by Anne Boleyn? Men whose wives cheated were objects of ridicule, weak men who could not even keep their own wives in check. It was an injury to the king's own dignity, for if a man could not rule his own household, how could he rule a nation? And, in allowing Anne to be judged by the peers of England, he was putting any monarch in a position to be judged by earthly men. It was a dangerous precedent to set.
But Henry wasn't worrying about such things in the early part of May, 1536. He was too busy partying like a fratboy, taking a barge of musicians and laughing courtiers down the river nightly to Jane Seymour's house. Ambassador Chapuys, who despised Anne Boleyn and was delighted at her fall, even thought it in poor taste. He wrote in one of his dispatches to the Emperor:
You never saw prince nor man who made greater show of his cuckold’s horns or bore them more pleasantly. I leave you to imagine the cause ...Although the generality of people here are glad of the execution of the said concubine, still a few find fault and grumble at the manner in which the proceedings against her have been conducted, and the condemnation of her and the rest, which is generally thought strange enough.
People speak variously about the King, and certainly the slander will not cease when they hear of what passed and is passing between him and his new mistress, Jane Seymour. Already it sounds badly in the ears of the public that the King, after such ignominy and discredit as the concubine has brought on his head, should manifest more joy and pleasure now, since her arrest and trial, than he has ever done on other occasions, for he has daily gone out to dine here and there with ladies, and sometimes has remained with them till after midnight.Henry left the details to his councilors and Thomas Cromwell, and they were busy those first couple of weeks building a case against the queen.
I hear that on one occasion, returning by the river to Greenwich, the royal barge was actually filled with minstrels and musicians of his chamber, playing on all sorts of instruments or singing; which state of things was by many a one compared to the joy and pleasure a man feels in getting rid of a thin, old, and vicious hack in the hope of getting soon a fine horse to ride—a very peculiarly agreeable task for this king.
Now, as Anne Boleyn stepped from her barge into the gray stone fortress, she was greeted by William Kingston, the constable of the Tower. When she had stayed here the night before her coronation, only a thousand days ago, Kingston had been all welcoming smiles. Now, he was her jailor. Kingston was always unfailingly courteous to her, but Anne was his prisoner and he would do his duty, just as Anne had always done hers.
Anne asked, somewhat timorously,
"Master Kingston, shall I go into a dungeon?"Kingston replied that she would be lodged in the apartments she had occupied before her coronation. He wrote to the council that she fell to her knees with the exclamation it was too good for her and begged Jesus to have mercy on her.
As he drew her to her feet, Anne began, in his words:
"weeping a great pace, and in the same sorrow fell into a great laughing, and she hath done many times since.”Charles Wriothesley, a chronicler of the Tudor age, described it this way:
"Anne Bolleine was brought to the Towre of London… entring in, she fell downe on her knees before the said lordes, beseeching God to helpe her as she was not giltie of her a accusement …"Kingston reported that Anne asked about her family, where her father and brother was and feared her mother - who was ailing from a cough - would die of sorrow. Was Anne hoping they would intercede on her behalf? Kingston, for whatever reason, lied about George Boleyn and said he was still at court. He had actually been arrested before Anne was.
In her apartments, Anne met with the ladies who were to serve her while she was incarcerated. Among them were the Mistress Coffin, Mistress Stonor, Elizabeth Wood Boleyn (married to Anne Boleyn's father's younger brother), Lady Shelton (who had been assigned previously to guard Princess Mary, and who may have resented Anne for nudging Madge Shelton to become the mistress of the king), and Lady Kingston. None of these women was a friend or partisan of Anne Boleyn. Lady Kingston - in fact - was a friend of Princess Mary.
These women were instructed to write down every word Anne said. Henry knew his wife well, and knew that given sufficient stress and the illusion of privacy, Anne would break down and babble hysterically. Had she had her court of ladies around her, Anne probably would have found it within herself to keep her regal demeanor, and indeed, during her two last public appearances, Anne was every inch the queen.
But now, during the worst moments of her life, Anne wondered aloud what sort of "evidence" the council could uncover that could be used against her. She spoke of a few flirtatious encounters, and when those were twisted out of context, they were used to convict her.
Anne bitterly complained about how cruel it was for the king to put around her, "such as I have never loved." But she spoke with these women just the same. Did they pretend sympathy to get her talking? Or was Anne simply unable to hold back the gush of words that came with her terror and intense stress?
There was a curious instruction given by Cromwell to the ladies: none of them were to speak to Anne unless Lady Kingston was in the room. Kingston trusted that his wife would report honestly, but he and Cromwell obviously didn't have the same faith in the other women. Did Cromwell fear Anne would charm the other ladies into friendship, despite their prior enmity? Anne is sometimes portrayed as a termagant, unable to get along with members of her own sex because of her jealousy or vanity, but if she was really that bitchy, such an instruction would not have been necessary.
They needn't have worried. The ladies took every chance they got to taunt her. When Anne learned on the 5th of May that her brother was actually in the Tower, she worried about where he was being housed, and whether he and the other prisoners had beds to sleep on. One of the ladies retorted that Anne's interest in "unseemly" matters like men's beds is what had gotten her into this mess.
Kingston reported that Anne silenced them with the only weapon she had left: etiquette. She was still the Queen of England, and still treated as such during her stay in the Tower. Court etiquette forbid anyone to speak to the queen unless she spoke first. Anne remained silent when she as with those women, and thus, they could not taunt her. It shows there was still some of Anne's fighting spirit in her, under the layers of fear, desperation, and anguish.
For almost two weeks, Anne rattled around in those luxurious apartments, not knowing what was going on in the outside world, except the little her jailors told her. News trickled in: more of her friends and supporters arrested. Anne mourned the fact that these innocent men were being punished for her sake.
Kingston recorded that Anne asked about whether she would be granted a trial.
And then she said, Mr. Kyngston, shall I die without justice? And I said, the poorest subject the Kyng hath, hath justice. And there with she laughed.It's no wonder she laughed. Anne had seen the king's particular brand of "justice" before and likely didn't expect to fare much better at trial. But she would be able to defend herself against the charges, be able to tell the truth in the eyes of God and the world. If Anne had any hopes, she likely pinned them on the king granting her a pardon.
During those long thirteen days, Anne had nothing to do but pray and worry. She had none of her precious books to wile away the hours, none of her friends to offer comfort and support. Kingston does not record that Anne received any visitors, letters, or care packages from friends. That is not certain evidence she did not receive any, of course, but it seems likely he would have mentioned it, considering he recorded her every word and movement.
Kingston records that Anne's brother George got a letter from his wife, Jane Parker, vowing to go before the king and plead for him. Historians still debate whether this offer was genuine, or if it was Jane's testimony that put him there in the first place.
Anne had seen it before, after Katharine's exile. Her servants and courtiers would be trying to secure a place in Jane Seymour's retinue. Distancing themselves from her was the only safe move to make. But it must have been terribly lonely as she wandered those huge apartments, rooms built to be occupied by hundreds of courtiers, that only now held her and a handful of scowling women.
Did Anne write any letters herself? Kingston records that she asked for permission, but he says nothing about sending them out. A letter exists that is purportedly from Anne to Henry, but there are questions as to its authenticity. A historian in the 18th century wrote about seeing another letter from Anne to Henry in which she angrily rejected a plea deal that would require her to confess, but it's believed to have been destroyed in a library fire.
While Anne paced, prayed, and fretted, stands were erected in the great hall where Anne had her coronation feast only three short years ago. The stadium-style seating allowed for two thousand spectators, and it seemed like it would be a packed house. Anne's arrest was the scandal of the century and everyone was talking about it. There was, of course, the glee of her enemies, and those who had always thought she was a loose woman nodded their heads in approval. But there were also those who felt Anne had been unjustly accused to make way Jane Seymour.
Henry wrote to Jane:
Advertising you that there is a ballad made lately of great derision against us, which, if it go abroad and is seen by you, I pray you pay no manner of regard to it. I am not present informed who is the setter forth of this malignant writing, but if he is found out, he shall be straightly punished for it.The song is lost to the mists of history. The king's men likely destroyed any written copies of it (assuming there were printed copies) and none of them have survived to the current day.
Anne was never as popular as Katharine, but she had been a good queen, generous to the poor, passionate about education, and reforming the church. She had partisans, and now they were grumbling. To try to quell the gossip, Henry had Jane moved a few miles away, but still ostentatiously visited her every evening.
The nobles were gathering from all over England to sit as judges in Anne's trial. Hand-picked by the council, many of them would sit on the bench with fat bribes in their pockets. The property of the accused was already being divvied up amongst them to ensure they'd have a vested financial interest in a guilty verdict.
On May 11th, the council arrived at the royal apartments in the Tower. They had been instructed by the king to wring a confession from Anne, to show her no respect or delicacy in getting it. But the men were immediately thrown off their game when Anne took control of the meeting as a queen, not as the pitiful, broken prisoner they had expected. She extended her hand for them to kiss and then settled into her chair of estate and motioned her regal permission for them to begin. But the moment they began to speak of her "evil deeds," Anne cut them off. She bluntly said she had never wronged the king, but was imprisoned because he was tired of her, just as he had once tired of Katharine. When they tried again, Anne imperiously ordered them from the room, and as she was still the Queen of England, they could not dare to disobey.
The council had expected to badger a helpless woman into submission. Instead, Anne Boleyn showed them the door. She would not be cowed. She would not be frightened into agreeing to a false confession to save her skin. As her daughter would say, decades later, Anne Boleyn might have the small and seemingly fragile body of a woman, but she had the heart and stomach of a king.
At the door, the Duke of Norfolk turned, probably because he was unable to resist one last chance to needle his niece. He was just that kind of guy. He said if her brother shared her guilt, their punishment would be great indeed. To which Anne retorted that her brother had been arrested so there would be no one to stand up for her. One wonders if Norfolk understood that particularly pointed comment.
On the evening of May 14, Anne was told her trial would begin in the morning. Until this moment, she probably didn't think Henry would go through with it. Anne may have thought he wouldn't want all of the salacious details aired in public, and would just leave her in the Tower to stew for a bit before magnanimously releasing her to enter a convent. She was told that her household had been dissolved only a few days prior, so she likely accepted that however this played out, she would never be queen again.
She likely did not know the king had already ordered the swordsman of Calais to come to perform the execution, long before the victim had even been put on trial.
2023.06.06 20:47 AccomplishedKale795 On the lam : The Marriage Edition
Devi was pleased at the surprising lack of itchiness that usually came with ethnic attire. This time, it seemed as if she had lucked out - the inside of her lehenga was incredibly soft, and the outside made her feel like a princess. As she looked at herself in the store mirror, she heard her mother call out - she would be inside the dressing room with Kamala.
After the frenzy that the past week had been, Devi relished the solitude of the moment.
Getting herself comfortable in a little armchair, she looked around the store - laden from floor to ceiling with Indian clothes of all kinds, for all ages, for all occasions. A few years ago, this same store would have elicited disgust from her, but now she felt happy and safe. At home.
She was also pleased but surprised at how comfortable she had grown to become with her Indian-ness. One might even say that she had missed feeling Indian.
A semester at Columbia will do that to you.
Kamala and Nalini emerged from the dressing room, Kamala donning a dark red lehenga with golden embellishments.
"You look beautiful Kamala!" Devi smiled at her. She doubted there was anything in this universe that Kamala could wear and not look pretty in, but this, this outfit felt as if it were made just for her.
Kamala, however, did not return Devi's smile. Instead her face held a grimace.
"Thank you Devi." she replied, standing in front of the mirror while Nalini moved around her excitedly, adjusting the veil on her head. Devi simply could not place what was wrong, but Kamala seemed more anxious than excited about her wedding, which was just two days away.
Five minutes later, Devi was back in her regular clothes with a bag in her hand and a disturbing thought in her head - Kamala didn't want to get married to Mr.K.
-----------------------------
Devi was convinced every doctor in the US was the kid of one of her mother's colleagues.
"And, Anderson, you know - he was in my third year residency! I think he's practicing in Boston now, and his daughter is in Harvard! He told me that she wants to pursue neurosurgery."
Pulling out her chair and serving herself some sphagetti, Devi wondered if shattering her eardrums and permanently losing her hearing was truly that bad of an option if she wouldn't have to listen to her mother go on and on and on about who was going to study what.
"Mom, I've told you, I don't want to become a doctor. It's too much work!"
"All professions are work, Devi!"
"I know, I know, but I think that the process is so long and grueling that you can only complete it if you really, really want to. And I don't"
"Well, you need to declare your major soon Devi. Have you been able to find another option? I'm not going to let my only daughter study something like art history"
Devi sighed. Here it was again, the same conversation that had been repeated every single night for four days straight since she had come back home for Thanksgiving.
Any time she tried to talk about her major, her brain drew a blank. Nothing seemed appealing and yet it all seemed interesting at the same time.
"This is important Devi. I don't understand how you don't have a single idea for what you want to do. All your classmates have five year plans mapped out - no, don't you interrupt me young lady! I heard you conversation with Ben! I had expected you to have at least some semblance of a vision!"
This conversation was uncomfortable, just like any conversation featuring parental disappointment was for her.
Devi had spent hours researching the process to become a doctor, only to realise that she simply did not have the stomach to study that much. Ever since, she had tried several 'what career is right for me' tests online. The result that popped up most frequently was attorney or lawyer.
She had tried to bring up the option with her mother once, only to have all her hopes crushed. "Lawyers are serious, sincere people Devi, and it is a very hard job. Are you sure you about this?"
As much as she had wanted to fire right back and tell her mother that the job of a doctor was also very hard, the first few of her words struck too hard. She didn't think Devi could ever be serious and sincere.
Ever since, she had been unable to discuss the idea again, scared that she might learn more of what her mother thought of her.
Her mother was right, even she had expected better from herself.
However, she wasn't going to suffer through this heaviness for yet another dinner, because today, she had the perfect distraction.
"Anyways, Kamala! You looked a little anxious in the store today, is everything alright?"
Kamala, who had been silently lost in her thoughts so far, suddenly sat up straighter.
"Huh? Wha - oh, that? No, I was just feeling a bit down because of the heat." she replied with a nervous smile.
Kamala's strange reaction drove any thoughts about her major out of Devi's mind, because the AC in the store had been cranked up to the point that all the metallic emebellishments on her lehenga had felt cold.
"Are you sure there's nothing bothering you?"
"No, Devi, I am perfectly fine. Now if you will please excuse me, I need to go to bed early today" Kamala snapped, taking her barely touched food back to the kitchen.
Oh, something was definitely wrong.
-------------------------------------------
The day before the wedding, the Vishwakumar household had been abuzz with activity since the morning. The final trial for their clothes had taken place earlier that day, but Devi was yet to take off her attire - she was too busy helping Pati with the flowers. Finally, when Mr.K and his parents arrived in the afternoon, Devi got the chance to sit down.
Devi realised that she had suffered the misfortune of becoming quite close to her annoyingly pretty, wannoyingly Indian cousin - so much so, that only she could tell that Kamala wanted nothing more than to escape this marriage. Hence, she also realised, the mantle to help her cousin escape this wedding, bollywood style, now also rested on her.
This realisation dawned upon her when she saw Kamala constantly fidgeting with a pen while Mr.K sat calmly by her side. No one else in the room seemed to notice that something was wrong - not Mr.K's parents, not Nalini, not Nirmala, just her.
Getting up and walking towards the stairs, she gestured at Kamala to follow her. With a nervous 'I'll be back in a moment', Kamala hurried after her.
"Okay, cousin, something is up with you. You have to tell me at least." Devi said as soon as the door to her room was shut.
Sighing, Kamala sat down on the bed.
"I don't know why, but I'm still scared of getting married. Manish is such a great guy, and I'm doing great in my career, but I still don't feel ready."
"What are you scared of?" Devi asked.
"I don't know. But maybe, I'm scared that this will change after getting married. I won't see all of you as often, and my relationship with Manish won't stay the same either. What if it's not the same any more and I regret my decision?"
Change, Devi realised. Kamala was scared of change. As much as she was herself convinced that she and Mr.K made a perfect match, she wasn't sure if she was up to the task of convincing Kamala.
"I think you should talk about this to Mr.K, no?"
"I know, but I'm too scared of that. I don't want him to think that I'm rejecting him or anything. I'm just not ready."
Kamala's voice wavered towards the end of her sentence, and Devi knew that she wouldn't be able to go through with this wedding.
But maybe she could save Kamala from having the face the music herself and leave it all for her mother and grandmother to deal with.
She might not be a great daughter, she might not know what her major should be, but she sure as hell could be a great sister right now. She was too young to give Kamala any advice, but she could buy her a lot of time.
"Alright then, Kamala" she began, with the mischievious smile that had always preceded the wildest of her plans "You don't want to get married, then don't get married. We're escaping this stuffy Indian event right now."
-----------------------------------------
Devi had never felt as much relief as she did when her feet finally touched the ground.
"That" she thought "seemed a lot more effortless when Paxton and Ben did it. Well, I would like to see them do it in a lehenga."
Devi's idea this time, had been to reach the backyard through her window, and then run to Ben's house without being found out by anyone. She had realised the risks the plan carried the moment she had placed one foot out the window, but she was willing to risk a few broken bones for the sake of being a good cousin and for the thrill of adventure.
Well, if worst came to worst and she did end up breaking something, the event would be cancelled anyways, but she preferred other, less injurious method of helping Kamala.
Dusting her hands off, she called out to her cousin.
"Kamala, you there? Just slowly put on leg out of the window, and then the other, and then hold your balance on the ledge! Don't be scared, I didn't die or hurt myself at all!"
"Why are you yelling at the window, I'm right here!"
Devi jumped in surprise and turned around to find her cousin standing right behind her.
"Wait, Kamala? How did you get here so quick?"
"I didn't want to climb down from the window so I came out through the kitchen door."
Despite being slightly pissed that Kamala had ruined her big dramatic moment, Devi whipped out her phone and dialled a number. About five minutes later, a shiny black Porsche was parked a few houses away from her, ready to take her and her cousin to safety.
---------------------------------------
"So, have you turned my home into some sort of safe house that you can escape to any time you're on the lam?"
Devi rolled her eyes at Ben. So far she had only spent five minutes in his room, but with the number of criminal activity jokes she had heard it might as well have been five hours.
"Well, I'm glad to have made the acquaintance of such a seasoned outlaw. Why are you on the wrong side of the rules this time around?" he laughed, stretching his legs out where he sat on the bed. Devi roamed around, observing.
Before Devi could send back a witty reply, she spotted something on his desk.
A grief journal. Identical to the one Dr.Ryan had given her years ago.
Kamala had requested some solitude, so they had left her alone in one of the fifty million spare bedrooms that Ben's house had, while they headed up to his room.
The room felt emptier, and Devi felt a bit strange being back here. The semester in Columbia had led to Devi becoming accustomed to Ben's dorm room, and this room brought back memories of an older self.
So far she had smiled at all the memories, as she remembered how she had run here in sophomore year, how Ben had helped reunite her with her friends, how she had lost her virginity in this very room to the boy she was slowly beginning to fall in love with.
But on seeing the journal a face suddenly flashed in her brain - a face she had gone a surprisingly long time without thinking about.
What would Dad have said, if I told him I wanted to become a lawyer?
She remembered how she had gotten into a fight with her mother, and how they had reconciled to spread her dad's ashes.
You don't like me, mom.
These thoughts were supposed to be in the past - why was she still worried that her mom didn't like her?
They are serious and sincere people, Devi, are you sure about this?
Was her mother disappointed that she hadn't been able to get into Princeton? Columbia was still an ivy , but maybe her mother had wanted her to go to her first choice.
Devi shook her head - she had to clear away all these thoughts before they became a problem.
"What is this, your journal?" she asked, holding up the book.
"Oh, that? Yeah, my old therapist gave it to me. It's empty though, never wrote anything in it"
"Your old therapist? Did you get a new one?" Devi asked as she sat on the floor beside the bed, looking up at Ben.
"Nah, I quit. I don't really need therapy, you know? I've never gone through anything traumatic and my life is great!" he smiled at her.
But Devi could tell there was something behind his smile, something he was not telling her.
"Ben, my life is great too. But I still go. What's up?"
Ben opened his mouth to throw another reassurance at her, but then thought the better of it.
"It's just, I don't like talking about anything bad that happened. My life really is great. I'm going to my dream college, I'm getting good grades, I've got you, I've got Dad, I've got Ronny and Mitch. Life is great. I don't want to dig up any of the bad stuff from the past and ruin it all"
"But then what about the next time life isn't great?" Devi asked, looking down at her hands, "All the stuff you leave unresolved will come back to haunt you, and you won't have answers for any of it."
Ben looked at her carefully for a minute.
"Are you alright, David? Is there anything bothering you?"
Devi was surprised at how well Ben could read her. Sure, she had been thinking about how she never quite convinced herself that her mother liked her, and now her doubts were here to ruin her days with full force.
"What major do you think I should pick?"
Ben was slightly taken aback by the question - this was not what he had expected.
"Uh, I don't know. What career do you want to pursue after college?"
"I don't know."
Devi turned around again to look at him.
"Suppose I wanted to be a lawyer. Would you say I'm not sincere enough to do it?"
"Who said you aren't sincere enough?"
"Mom"
And there it is, Ben thought, that is what's bothering her. By the expectant, slightly scared look on her face, Ben could tell that Devi did not like what her mom had said.
"I think you would make a great laywer, actually. You've got a great memory so you'll do well in law school, you'd be great at presenting in court, and you're a very clever and dedicated researcher. My dad's a lawyer, maybe you could ask him?"
He could see Devi visibly deflate with relief.
They stayed silent for a while, contemplating the words that had passed between them, before Devi spoke up again.
"I wonder what Dad would've said about this, if he was here."
Ben didn't quite know what to say, so he said what he believed Devi wanted to hear.
"I think he would've encouraged you to go for it. I think you can do it too, if you want to. And I forgot to tell you, I think you look really pretty in that outfit. Like a princess."
Devi closed her eyes and smiled, before looking at him again with adoration in her eyes.
"Ah, Mr. Gross, what would I do without you."
"You'd probably die."
The laughter that followed left Devi feeling a little lighter.
-----------------------------
Kamala had spent the past two hours lying on the bed, occasionally nibbling at her nails, and discovering that clear nail polish tasted extremely bitter.
She simply could not convince herself to go back. She thought she had wanted time, time to think and convince herself, but now after thinking for so long she was convinced that she absolutely could not do this. She could not get married - she just didn't have the ability.
She heard a gentle knock on the door, and Devi entered.
"How are you then, decided on anything? We can't keep hiding out here forever!"
"I know. But I still don't want to get married, and that's scary."
Devi sighed and sat down on the bed beside her cousin. If the past few years had taught her anything, it was that she hated it when other people kept giving her advice or assuming things when she was upset. Maybe if she just asked Kamala questions, her cousin would feel better.
"You're scared that you don't want to get married?"
"I'm scared that I might never want to get married at all."
Devi's eyebrows went up high as she registered what her cousin has said.
"I - earlier I thought that I didn't want to mess up my career, and that's why I was so against the idea of marriage. But even now, when everything is going great, I still can't bring myself to do it. I have no doubt that Manish will support me through anything. But I'm still scared. I can't do this without discussing this with him first and figuring it all out."
Devi nodded.
"If you're having trouble talking to him, maybe you could write him a letter or an email?"
Five minutes later, Kamala sat typing away on Ben's laptop, while Devi watched, smiling to herself. She was sure she had been a good sister today.
-------------------------------------------------
Patty frowned as she paced around in the living room.
"They'll destroy my kitchen, these kids." she muttered to herself.
Ben and Devi had decided to cook dinner that day. After long deliberation (and several threats from Patty about what she would do if they set something on fire), they settled on pasta. Simple, tasty, and with very little chance of the fire department being called.
As Devi poured out the water from the pasta, she decided to bring up their earlier conversation again.
"So, Ben, you said you don't want to go to therapy because you don't like talking about the past."
Ben stopped chopping his mushrooms for a moment, but then continued with a smile.
"Nothing gets past you, huh?"
Hoisting herself to sit on the counter, Devi continued "You know, I used to think therapy was all hokey stuff too. For the kinds who stare out of rainy windows and listen to too much Lana Del Ray - "
"Hey, anti-Lana speech is not tolerated in this house." Ben said, playfully stern, pointing his knife at her.
"No, of course not!" Devi laughed "But, case in point, I used to think therapy is for the kind of people who ponder on the meaning of life and are sad all the time."
"And it's not?"
"It's not. After Dad died, I tried to push Dr.Ryan away a lot, but at the end of the day, her advice helped me become a little less crazy."
Ben sighed and set his knife down.
"You were never crazy. You were sad because you lost the most important person in your life."
"Oh, is that so? Am I talking to the same person who once said I went straight up psycho?"
Devi had meant it as a joke - she was glad that these days she was able to joke about that period of her life, but the way Ben suddenly stopped dead and stared at her, told her he hadn't understood the joke.
"I was joking, Ben, I didn't mean - "
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that I said all that stuff to you. The things about faking your paralysis, and the UN thing, god, I was so dumb. I'm so sorry, those were such terrible things to say, I shouldn't have done that" he blurted out in a rush.
Devi smiled back at him.
"It's okay Ben. You've done more than enough to make up for it. I'm not mad at all."
"You're not an unfuckable nerd at all" he said shyly "You're actually very pretty. Especially in those clothes."
"It's called a lehenga."
"Especially in a lehenga." he smiled, going back to his vegetables.
"So, what was I saying? Yeah, therapy helps Ben."
"I know, I just - "
He paused for a moment, with his eyes closed, but when he opened them again his mind was made up.
"I know it helps. I don't want it to help. I don't want to feel any of the bad stuff again. When my parents wouldn't have dinner with me and I would be lonely, when you - you cheated on me with Paxton, I was, broken. I was broken. And I know I've broken others. There's so much resentment and guilt in those memories, there's not point in digging them up."
Devi hopped off the counter and gently placed her hand on his shoulder. This was it, she had the perfect answer.
"I'm sorry for the cheating thing, really, really sorry." she began "I was a dumb kid back then. Still am, but slightly less dumb. But the thing is, you haven't overcome any of the resentment or guilt, Ben, you've just pushed it deep down. It's still there. And if you go to therapy, you can actually get rid of it. You can forgive everyone else and yourself."
Ben looked at her for a moment, smiling slightly, then nodded.
"Alright. I'll try it out when we get back to Columbia, alright?"
Devi nodded happily and went back to her pasta, now fully drained and dry, ready to be mixed with the sauce.
"And for the record" Ben said "You would make an excellent lawyer."
Devi smiled. Good sister? Check.
Good girlfriend? Check, baby.
---------------------------------------------
Ben was convinced it was karma that had come back to get him. For all the dinners in the Vishwakumar household that he had interrupted, this was the ultimate payback.
Because Nalini Vishwakumar was currently standing in his dining room, looking angry enough to explode. The only saving grace was that she wasn't looking at him - no, she was glaring daggers at Devi and Kamala.
Ben and his father looked at each other and gulped. Neither had the courage to speak.
"How dare - HOW DARE YOU TWO DO SUCH A THING?"
"I- I can explain - " Kamala began nervously, but was cut off by Nalini's angry rant.
"WE SEARCHED FOR YOU EVERYWHERE! WE WERE SO WORRIED! Kamala, you can't keep doing this again and again! Why did you agree to marry him when you were just going to run away again? You should have seen the look on his face! He was heartbroken!"
"Manish, he was heartbroken?" Kamala asked quietly, on the verge of tears.
"Yes! He was worried you were kidnapped or dead in a ditch somewhere! He was so relieved when he recieved your email! It was from some ID called 'ben is not gross' and he thought you had run away with your secret boyfriend or something! I was the one to figure out where you where!"
As much as Devi had the urge to just shut up and let the storm pass, she knew that this was her idea to begin with.
Stupid morals.
"Mom, don't yell at Kamala. I thought she was scared and needed some time to herself, this was my idea."
Nalini's glare now turned from Kamala to Devi.
"What, Devi, instead of telling me what was wrong, you decided that running away was the best course of action? Who put you in charge? If you want to be treated like an adult you have to behave like one! This is not how adults behave!"
Devi racked her brain for an answer that would calm her mother down.
"Mom, think about it, this is marriage! It's a life long commitment! If I had taken Kamala to you, you would've convinced her to go through with this! I can't let her do that unless she's entirely sure!"
Nalini opened her mouth angrily, ready to yell some more, before realising she did not have a retort for it - Devi was right. She would indeed have convinced Kamala to go through with her wedding.
"Devi, this conversation should have happened in our living room, not in another neighbourhood entirely with less than 24 hours remaining!"
"But mom! Mr.K was there, and his parents were there, you were there, you all would have told her to not ruin it and get married! She needed some space and time to think for herself and she couldn't find it at home! I couldn't just let her get married and ruin two lives because I didn't have the guts to help her run away!"
Nalini had a strange look on her face as she looked at Devi silently for a bit. Howard Gross finally gathered the courage to clear his throat.
"We'll, uh, this seems like a family matter, we'll leave" he said, gesturing to Ben and walking out the door rapidly.
Nalini pulled out a chair and settled down in it, massaging her temples in frustration.
"Well, Kamala, I'm very disappointed in you. I want you to speak with Manish right now. He's been calling you all day."
Kamala nodded. Dialling a number on her phone, she rushed out of the room.
"Now as for you, Devi."
Devi braced herself for the upcoming punishments.
"I'm proud of you."
Huh?
Devi stared at her mom as if she had sprouted two heads.
"You made the right choice. Sure, you brought great shame upon this family, for the third time now, but you made the right choice. You placed what was important over what was easy and obvious. I'm very happy with you."
Getting up, she held out her hand for Devi to hold. Hand in hand, they walked out, with a giant smile on Devi's face.
Did that just happen? Am I dreaming? Am I stuck in a simulation?
In the kitchen, Kamala was speaking in pensive tones and nodding frquently, but from the absence of tears Devi could discern that all was well between Kamala and Mr.K.
"Mr.Gross, I'm so sorry that my daughter and niece disturbed you for so long."
"Oh, no problem, she's a delight to have around anyways."
A few minutes later, the Vishwakumars were seated in Nalini's car, speeding off towards home.
"He was angry, but mostly relieved that I was safe. His parents didn't seem to care much, to be honest. We'll have a talk when I get back home." Kamala said, quickly relaying her conversation to the other two.
Devi was happy that Kamala wasn't in trouble, but more than that, she was feeling all warm inside from her mother's words.
I'm proud of you. She's proud of me!
"Hey mom!" Devi said suddenly "Remember the conversation we had last night about my major?"
"Yes, Devi, I realise that I'm rushing you a bit. Make this choise wisely, okay? But no art history or liberal science or anything."
"Yeah, about that, I've decided. I am going to be a lawyer. I know it's tough and only sincere students are able to make it, but trust me, I can do this."
"Devi, I never doubted you for a second. Why would you think so?"
Devi was stunned for a second. But then -
"You said that only serious and sincere people become lawyers, and if I was sure?"
"Yes, it's true! It's a path as difficult as becoming a doctor, if you were so wary of studying medicine then I thought you should know it's equally difficult to become a lawyer!"
I am such an idiot.
"Oh thank god. I've been upsetting myself this whole time thinking that you found me dumb or something."
"Devi, I - of course I don't find you dumb! Why would you ever think of such things?"
Devi hesitated for a moment, before remembering the advice she gave Ben. Turning to look into her lap, she blurted it all out in one go.
"I - sometimes I tend to think that you don't like me or the things I do, and that you think that I'm lazy and I won't be able to achieve anything great. I -I thought you were disappointed about me not getting into Princeton."
A few moments of tense silence passed before Nalini spoke again.
"I'm so proud of you, Devi! You got into an ivy league school, who cares which one it is? Of course I like you! You are a brilliant, kind and strong young lady, and you will do great things. Sometimes I disapprove of the things you do, but I am so proud of you! I wouldn't want anyone else on the whole planet for a daughter! You'll make an excellent lawyer! I was fuming when I entered that room and you managed to bring me back to reason!"
A weight she didn't know she was carrying was lifted off her shoulders, making her feel weightless. Here they were, the words she had been dying to hear all her life. She didn't bother to stop her tears, but she still smiled through them.
"Thanks mom. I love you."
I love you too, Devi"
Good sister? Check. Good girlfriend? Check.
Good daughter? Finally, check.
The day may have started off with running away from a wedding, but it had ended up being one of the most wonderful days Devi had experienced in a long time.
Perhaps, she thought, it might just be one the of the best days ever.
----------------
Author's Note: Whew that was long.
So, I don't like this one as much I liked the Ben one. In my effort to stay true to the show's style, I think I got too intentionally cheesy and feel good, and the dialouge is a bit clunky. Well, I'm always improving.
I have managed to fulfil two of my greatest wishes :
I hope you enjoyed reading it! Again, critism and feeback is most appreciated, but please be kind.
submitted by AccomplishedKale795 to Neverhaveievertvshow [link] [comments]
After the frenzy that the past week had been, Devi relished the solitude of the moment.
Getting herself comfortable in a little armchair, she looked around the store - laden from floor to ceiling with Indian clothes of all kinds, for all ages, for all occasions. A few years ago, this same store would have elicited disgust from her, but now she felt happy and safe. At home.
She was also pleased but surprised at how comfortable she had grown to become with her Indian-ness. One might even say that she had missed feeling Indian.
A semester at Columbia will do that to you.
Kamala and Nalini emerged from the dressing room, Kamala donning a dark red lehenga with golden embellishments.
"You look beautiful Kamala!" Devi smiled at her. She doubted there was anything in this universe that Kamala could wear and not look pretty in, but this, this outfit felt as if it were made just for her.
Kamala, however, did not return Devi's smile. Instead her face held a grimace.
"Thank you Devi." she replied, standing in front of the mirror while Nalini moved around her excitedly, adjusting the veil on her head. Devi simply could not place what was wrong, but Kamala seemed more anxious than excited about her wedding, which was just two days away.
Five minutes later, Devi was back in her regular clothes with a bag in her hand and a disturbing thought in her head - Kamala didn't want to get married to Mr.K.
-----------------------------
Devi was convinced every doctor in the US was the kid of one of her mother's colleagues.
"And, Anderson, you know - he was in my third year residency! I think he's practicing in Boston now, and his daughter is in Harvard! He told me that she wants to pursue neurosurgery."
Pulling out her chair and serving herself some sphagetti, Devi wondered if shattering her eardrums and permanently losing her hearing was truly that bad of an option if she wouldn't have to listen to her mother go on and on and on about who was going to study what.
"Mom, I've told you, I don't want to become a doctor. It's too much work!"
"All professions are work, Devi!"
"I know, I know, but I think that the process is so long and grueling that you can only complete it if you really, really want to. And I don't"
"Well, you need to declare your major soon Devi. Have you been able to find another option? I'm not going to let my only daughter study something like art history"
Devi sighed. Here it was again, the same conversation that had been repeated every single night for four days straight since she had come back home for Thanksgiving.
Any time she tried to talk about her major, her brain drew a blank. Nothing seemed appealing and yet it all seemed interesting at the same time.
"This is important Devi. I don't understand how you don't have a single idea for what you want to do. All your classmates have five year plans mapped out - no, don't you interrupt me young lady! I heard you conversation with Ben! I had expected you to have at least some semblance of a vision!"
This conversation was uncomfortable, just like any conversation featuring parental disappointment was for her.
Devi had spent hours researching the process to become a doctor, only to realise that she simply did not have the stomach to study that much. Ever since, she had tried several 'what career is right for me' tests online. The result that popped up most frequently was attorney or lawyer.
She had tried to bring up the option with her mother once, only to have all her hopes crushed. "Lawyers are serious, sincere people Devi, and it is a very hard job. Are you sure you about this?"
As much as she had wanted to fire right back and tell her mother that the job of a doctor was also very hard, the first few of her words struck too hard. She didn't think Devi could ever be serious and sincere.
Ever since, she had been unable to discuss the idea again, scared that she might learn more of what her mother thought of her.
Her mother was right, even she had expected better from herself.
However, she wasn't going to suffer through this heaviness for yet another dinner, because today, she had the perfect distraction.
"Anyways, Kamala! You looked a little anxious in the store today, is everything alright?"
Kamala, who had been silently lost in her thoughts so far, suddenly sat up straighter.
"Huh? Wha - oh, that? No, I was just feeling a bit down because of the heat." she replied with a nervous smile.
Kamala's strange reaction drove any thoughts about her major out of Devi's mind, because the AC in the store had been cranked up to the point that all the metallic emebellishments on her lehenga had felt cold.
"Are you sure there's nothing bothering you?"
"No, Devi, I am perfectly fine. Now if you will please excuse me, I need to go to bed early today" Kamala snapped, taking her barely touched food back to the kitchen.
Oh, something was definitely wrong.
-------------------------------------------
The day before the wedding, the Vishwakumar household had been abuzz with activity since the morning. The final trial for their clothes had taken place earlier that day, but Devi was yet to take off her attire - she was too busy helping Pati with the flowers. Finally, when Mr.K and his parents arrived in the afternoon, Devi got the chance to sit down.
Devi realised that she had suffered the misfortune of becoming quite close to her annoyingly pretty, wannoyingly Indian cousin - so much so, that only she could tell that Kamala wanted nothing more than to escape this marriage. Hence, she also realised, the mantle to help her cousin escape this wedding, bollywood style, now also rested on her.
This realisation dawned upon her when she saw Kamala constantly fidgeting with a pen while Mr.K sat calmly by her side. No one else in the room seemed to notice that something was wrong - not Mr.K's parents, not Nalini, not Nirmala, just her.
Getting up and walking towards the stairs, she gestured at Kamala to follow her. With a nervous 'I'll be back in a moment', Kamala hurried after her.
"Okay, cousin, something is up with you. You have to tell me at least." Devi said as soon as the door to her room was shut.
Sighing, Kamala sat down on the bed.
"I don't know why, but I'm still scared of getting married. Manish is such a great guy, and I'm doing great in my career, but I still don't feel ready."
"What are you scared of?" Devi asked.
"I don't know. But maybe, I'm scared that this will change after getting married. I won't see all of you as often, and my relationship with Manish won't stay the same either. What if it's not the same any more and I regret my decision?"
Change, Devi realised. Kamala was scared of change. As much as she was herself convinced that she and Mr.K made a perfect match, she wasn't sure if she was up to the task of convincing Kamala.
"I think you should talk about this to Mr.K, no?"
"I know, but I'm too scared of that. I don't want him to think that I'm rejecting him or anything. I'm just not ready."
Kamala's voice wavered towards the end of her sentence, and Devi knew that she wouldn't be able to go through with this wedding.
But maybe she could save Kamala from having the face the music herself and leave it all for her mother and grandmother to deal with.
She might not be a great daughter, she might not know what her major should be, but she sure as hell could be a great sister right now. She was too young to give Kamala any advice, but she could buy her a lot of time.
"Alright then, Kamala" she began, with the mischievious smile that had always preceded the wildest of her plans "You don't want to get married, then don't get married. We're escaping this stuffy Indian event right now."
-----------------------------------------
Devi had never felt as much relief as she did when her feet finally touched the ground.
"That" she thought "seemed a lot more effortless when Paxton and Ben did it. Well, I would like to see them do it in a lehenga."
Devi's idea this time, had been to reach the backyard through her window, and then run to Ben's house without being found out by anyone. She had realised the risks the plan carried the moment she had placed one foot out the window, but she was willing to risk a few broken bones for the sake of being a good cousin and for the thrill of adventure.
Well, if worst came to worst and she did end up breaking something, the event would be cancelled anyways, but she preferred other, less injurious method of helping Kamala.
Dusting her hands off, she called out to her cousin.
"Kamala, you there? Just slowly put on leg out of the window, and then the other, and then hold your balance on the ledge! Don't be scared, I didn't die or hurt myself at all!"
"Why are you yelling at the window, I'm right here!"
Devi jumped in surprise and turned around to find her cousin standing right behind her.
"Wait, Kamala? How did you get here so quick?"
"I didn't want to climb down from the window so I came out through the kitchen door."
Despite being slightly pissed that Kamala had ruined her big dramatic moment, Devi whipped out her phone and dialled a number. About five minutes later, a shiny black Porsche was parked a few houses away from her, ready to take her and her cousin to safety.
---------------------------------------
"So, have you turned my home into some sort of safe house that you can escape to any time you're on the lam?"
Devi rolled her eyes at Ben. So far she had only spent five minutes in his room, but with the number of criminal activity jokes she had heard it might as well have been five hours.
"Well, I'm glad to have made the acquaintance of such a seasoned outlaw. Why are you on the wrong side of the rules this time around?" he laughed, stretching his legs out where he sat on the bed. Devi roamed around, observing.
Before Devi could send back a witty reply, she spotted something on his desk.
A grief journal. Identical to the one Dr.Ryan had given her years ago.
Kamala had requested some solitude, so they had left her alone in one of the fifty million spare bedrooms that Ben's house had, while they headed up to his room.
The room felt emptier, and Devi felt a bit strange being back here. The semester in Columbia had led to Devi becoming accustomed to Ben's dorm room, and this room brought back memories of an older self.
So far she had smiled at all the memories, as she remembered how she had run here in sophomore year, how Ben had helped reunite her with her friends, how she had lost her virginity in this very room to the boy she was slowly beginning to fall in love with.
But on seeing the journal a face suddenly flashed in her brain - a face she had gone a surprisingly long time without thinking about.
What would Dad have said, if I told him I wanted to become a lawyer?
She remembered how she had gotten into a fight with her mother, and how they had reconciled to spread her dad's ashes.
You don't like me, mom.
These thoughts were supposed to be in the past - why was she still worried that her mom didn't like her?
They are serious and sincere people, Devi, are you sure about this?
Was her mother disappointed that she hadn't been able to get into Princeton? Columbia was still an ivy , but maybe her mother had wanted her to go to her first choice.
Devi shook her head - she had to clear away all these thoughts before they became a problem.
"What is this, your journal?" she asked, holding up the book.
"Oh, that? Yeah, my old therapist gave it to me. It's empty though, never wrote anything in it"
"Your old therapist? Did you get a new one?" Devi asked as she sat on the floor beside the bed, looking up at Ben.
"Nah, I quit. I don't really need therapy, you know? I've never gone through anything traumatic and my life is great!" he smiled at her.
But Devi could tell there was something behind his smile, something he was not telling her.
"Ben, my life is great too. But I still go. What's up?"
Ben opened his mouth to throw another reassurance at her, but then thought the better of it.
"It's just, I don't like talking about anything bad that happened. My life really is great. I'm going to my dream college, I'm getting good grades, I've got you, I've got Dad, I've got Ronny and Mitch. Life is great. I don't want to dig up any of the bad stuff from the past and ruin it all"
"But then what about the next time life isn't great?" Devi asked, looking down at her hands, "All the stuff you leave unresolved will come back to haunt you, and you won't have answers for any of it."
Ben looked at her carefully for a minute.
"Are you alright, David? Is there anything bothering you?"
Devi was surprised at how well Ben could read her. Sure, she had been thinking about how she never quite convinced herself that her mother liked her, and now her doubts were here to ruin her days with full force.
"What major do you think I should pick?"
Ben was slightly taken aback by the question - this was not what he had expected.
"Uh, I don't know. What career do you want to pursue after college?"
"I don't know."
Devi turned around again to look at him.
"Suppose I wanted to be a lawyer. Would you say I'm not sincere enough to do it?"
"Who said you aren't sincere enough?"
"Mom"
And there it is, Ben thought, that is what's bothering her. By the expectant, slightly scared look on her face, Ben could tell that Devi did not like what her mom had said.
"I think you would make a great laywer, actually. You've got a great memory so you'll do well in law school, you'd be great at presenting in court, and you're a very clever and dedicated researcher. My dad's a lawyer, maybe you could ask him?"
He could see Devi visibly deflate with relief.
They stayed silent for a while, contemplating the words that had passed between them, before Devi spoke up again.
"I wonder what Dad would've said about this, if he was here."
Ben didn't quite know what to say, so he said what he believed Devi wanted to hear.
"I think he would've encouraged you to go for it. I think you can do it too, if you want to. And I forgot to tell you, I think you look really pretty in that outfit. Like a princess."
Devi closed her eyes and smiled, before looking at him again with adoration in her eyes.
"Ah, Mr. Gross, what would I do without you."
"You'd probably die."
The laughter that followed left Devi feeling a little lighter.
-----------------------------
Kamala had spent the past two hours lying on the bed, occasionally nibbling at her nails, and discovering that clear nail polish tasted extremely bitter.
She simply could not convince herself to go back. She thought she had wanted time, time to think and convince herself, but now after thinking for so long she was convinced that she absolutely could not do this. She could not get married - she just didn't have the ability.
She heard a gentle knock on the door, and Devi entered.
"How are you then, decided on anything? We can't keep hiding out here forever!"
"I know. But I still don't want to get married, and that's scary."
Devi sighed and sat down on the bed beside her cousin. If the past few years had taught her anything, it was that she hated it when other people kept giving her advice or assuming things when she was upset. Maybe if she just asked Kamala questions, her cousin would feel better.
"You're scared that you don't want to get married?"
"I'm scared that I might never want to get married at all."
Devi's eyebrows went up high as she registered what her cousin has said.
"I - earlier I thought that I didn't want to mess up my career, and that's why I was so against the idea of marriage. But even now, when everything is going great, I still can't bring myself to do it. I have no doubt that Manish will support me through anything. But I'm still scared. I can't do this without discussing this with him first and figuring it all out."
Devi nodded.
"If you're having trouble talking to him, maybe you could write him a letter or an email?"
Five minutes later, Kamala sat typing away on Ben's laptop, while Devi watched, smiling to herself. She was sure she had been a good sister today.
-------------------------------------------------
Patty frowned as she paced around in the living room.
"They'll destroy my kitchen, these kids." she muttered to herself.
Ben and Devi had decided to cook dinner that day. After long deliberation (and several threats from Patty about what she would do if they set something on fire), they settled on pasta. Simple, tasty, and with very little chance of the fire department being called.
As Devi poured out the water from the pasta, she decided to bring up their earlier conversation again.
"So, Ben, you said you don't want to go to therapy because you don't like talking about the past."
Ben stopped chopping his mushrooms for a moment, but then continued with a smile.
"Nothing gets past you, huh?"
Hoisting herself to sit on the counter, Devi continued "You know, I used to think therapy was all hokey stuff too. For the kinds who stare out of rainy windows and listen to too much Lana Del Ray - "
"Hey, anti-Lana speech is not tolerated in this house." Ben said, playfully stern, pointing his knife at her.
"No, of course not!" Devi laughed "But, case in point, I used to think therapy is for the kind of people who ponder on the meaning of life and are sad all the time."
"And it's not?"
"It's not. After Dad died, I tried to push Dr.Ryan away a lot, but at the end of the day, her advice helped me become a little less crazy."
Ben sighed and set his knife down.
"You were never crazy. You were sad because you lost the most important person in your life."
"Oh, is that so? Am I talking to the same person who once said I went straight up psycho?"
Devi had meant it as a joke - she was glad that these days she was able to joke about that period of her life, but the way Ben suddenly stopped dead and stared at her, told her he hadn't understood the joke.
"I was joking, Ben, I didn't mean - "
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that I said all that stuff to you. The things about faking your paralysis, and the UN thing, god, I was so dumb. I'm so sorry, those were such terrible things to say, I shouldn't have done that" he blurted out in a rush.
Devi smiled back at him.
"It's okay Ben. You've done more than enough to make up for it. I'm not mad at all."
"You're not an unfuckable nerd at all" he said shyly "You're actually very pretty. Especially in those clothes."
"It's called a lehenga."
"Especially in a lehenga." he smiled, going back to his vegetables.
"So, what was I saying? Yeah, therapy helps Ben."
"I know, I just - "
He paused for a moment, with his eyes closed, but when he opened them again his mind was made up.
"I know it helps. I don't want it to help. I don't want to feel any of the bad stuff again. When my parents wouldn't have dinner with me and I would be lonely, when you - you cheated on me with Paxton, I was, broken. I was broken. And I know I've broken others. There's so much resentment and guilt in those memories, there's not point in digging them up."
Devi hopped off the counter and gently placed her hand on his shoulder. This was it, she had the perfect answer.
"I'm sorry for the cheating thing, really, really sorry." she began "I was a dumb kid back then. Still am, but slightly less dumb. But the thing is, you haven't overcome any of the resentment or guilt, Ben, you've just pushed it deep down. It's still there. And if you go to therapy, you can actually get rid of it. You can forgive everyone else and yourself."
Ben looked at her for a moment, smiling slightly, then nodded.
"Alright. I'll try it out when we get back to Columbia, alright?"
Devi nodded happily and went back to her pasta, now fully drained and dry, ready to be mixed with the sauce.
"And for the record" Ben said "You would make an excellent lawyer."
Devi smiled. Good sister? Check.
Good girlfriend? Check, baby.
---------------------------------------------
Ben was convinced it was karma that had come back to get him. For all the dinners in the Vishwakumar household that he had interrupted, this was the ultimate payback.
Because Nalini Vishwakumar was currently standing in his dining room, looking angry enough to explode. The only saving grace was that she wasn't looking at him - no, she was glaring daggers at Devi and Kamala.
Ben and his father looked at each other and gulped. Neither had the courage to speak.
"How dare - HOW DARE YOU TWO DO SUCH A THING?"
"I- I can explain - " Kamala began nervously, but was cut off by Nalini's angry rant.
"WE SEARCHED FOR YOU EVERYWHERE! WE WERE SO WORRIED! Kamala, you can't keep doing this again and again! Why did you agree to marry him when you were just going to run away again? You should have seen the look on his face! He was heartbroken!"
"Manish, he was heartbroken?" Kamala asked quietly, on the verge of tears.
"Yes! He was worried you were kidnapped or dead in a ditch somewhere! He was so relieved when he recieved your email! It was from some ID called 'ben is not gross' and he thought you had run away with your secret boyfriend or something! I was the one to figure out where you where!"
As much as Devi had the urge to just shut up and let the storm pass, she knew that this was her idea to begin with.
Stupid morals.
"Mom, don't yell at Kamala. I thought she was scared and needed some time to herself, this was my idea."
Nalini's glare now turned from Kamala to Devi.
"What, Devi, instead of telling me what was wrong, you decided that running away was the best course of action? Who put you in charge? If you want to be treated like an adult you have to behave like one! This is not how adults behave!"
Devi racked her brain for an answer that would calm her mother down.
"Mom, think about it, this is marriage! It's a life long commitment! If I had taken Kamala to you, you would've convinced her to go through with this! I can't let her do that unless she's entirely sure!"
Nalini opened her mouth angrily, ready to yell some more, before realising she did not have a retort for it - Devi was right. She would indeed have convinced Kamala to go through with her wedding.
"Devi, this conversation should have happened in our living room, not in another neighbourhood entirely with less than 24 hours remaining!"
"But mom! Mr.K was there, and his parents were there, you were there, you all would have told her to not ruin it and get married! She needed some space and time to think for herself and she couldn't find it at home! I couldn't just let her get married and ruin two lives because I didn't have the guts to help her run away!"
Nalini had a strange look on her face as she looked at Devi silently for a bit. Howard Gross finally gathered the courage to clear his throat.
"We'll, uh, this seems like a family matter, we'll leave" he said, gesturing to Ben and walking out the door rapidly.
Nalini pulled out a chair and settled down in it, massaging her temples in frustration.
"Well, Kamala, I'm very disappointed in you. I want you to speak with Manish right now. He's been calling you all day."
Kamala nodded. Dialling a number on her phone, she rushed out of the room.
"Now as for you, Devi."
Devi braced herself for the upcoming punishments.
"I'm proud of you."
Huh?
Devi stared at her mom as if she had sprouted two heads.
"You made the right choice. Sure, you brought great shame upon this family, for the third time now, but you made the right choice. You placed what was important over what was easy and obvious. I'm very happy with you."
Getting up, she held out her hand for Devi to hold. Hand in hand, they walked out, with a giant smile on Devi's face.
Did that just happen? Am I dreaming? Am I stuck in a simulation?
In the kitchen, Kamala was speaking in pensive tones and nodding frquently, but from the absence of tears Devi could discern that all was well between Kamala and Mr.K.
"Mr.Gross, I'm so sorry that my daughter and niece disturbed you for so long."
"Oh, no problem, she's a delight to have around anyways."
A few minutes later, the Vishwakumars were seated in Nalini's car, speeding off towards home.
"He was angry, but mostly relieved that I was safe. His parents didn't seem to care much, to be honest. We'll have a talk when I get back home." Kamala said, quickly relaying her conversation to the other two.
Devi was happy that Kamala wasn't in trouble, but more than that, she was feeling all warm inside from her mother's words.
I'm proud of you. She's proud of me!
"Hey mom!" Devi said suddenly "Remember the conversation we had last night about my major?"
"Yes, Devi, I realise that I'm rushing you a bit. Make this choise wisely, okay? But no art history or liberal science or anything."
"Yeah, about that, I've decided. I am going to be a lawyer. I know it's tough and only sincere students are able to make it, but trust me, I can do this."
"Devi, I never doubted you for a second. Why would you think so?"
Devi was stunned for a second. But then -
"You said that only serious and sincere people become lawyers, and if I was sure?"
"Yes, it's true! It's a path as difficult as becoming a doctor, if you were so wary of studying medicine then I thought you should know it's equally difficult to become a lawyer!"
I am such an idiot.
"Oh thank god. I've been upsetting myself this whole time thinking that you found me dumb or something."
"Devi, I - of course I don't find you dumb! Why would you ever think of such things?"
Devi hesitated for a moment, before remembering the advice she gave Ben. Turning to look into her lap, she blurted it all out in one go.
"I - sometimes I tend to think that you don't like me or the things I do, and that you think that I'm lazy and I won't be able to achieve anything great. I -I thought you were disappointed about me not getting into Princeton."
A few moments of tense silence passed before Nalini spoke again.
"I'm so proud of you, Devi! You got into an ivy league school, who cares which one it is? Of course I like you! You are a brilliant, kind and strong young lady, and you will do great things. Sometimes I disapprove of the things you do, but I am so proud of you! I wouldn't want anyone else on the whole planet for a daughter! You'll make an excellent lawyer! I was fuming when I entered that room and you managed to bring me back to reason!"
A weight she didn't know she was carrying was lifted off her shoulders, making her feel weightless. Here they were, the words she had been dying to hear all her life. She didn't bother to stop her tears, but she still smiled through them.
"Thanks mom. I love you."
I love you too, Devi"
Good sister? Check. Good girlfriend? Check.
Good daughter? Finally, check.
The day may have started off with running away from a wedding, but it had ended up being one of the most wonderful days Devi had experienced in a long time.
Perhaps, she thought, it might just be one the of the best days ever.
----------------
Author's Note: Whew that was long.
So, I don't like this one as much I liked the Ben one. In my effort to stay true to the show's style, I think I got too intentionally cheesy and feel good, and the dialouge is a bit clunky. Well, I'm always improving.
I have managed to fulfil two of my greatest wishes :
- Ben apologising for his rude comments in the beginning of S1
- Nalini telling Devi she's proud of her.
I hope you enjoyed reading it! Again, critism and feeback is most appreciated, but please be kind.
2023.06.06 18:32 ermagerditssuperman Trip report - 5 nights in Mexico
 | Recently did 5 nights at an all-inclusive resort in Riviera Maya. First time going all-inclusive, needed a relaxation-focused trip. submitted by ermagerditssuperman to HerOneBag [link] [comments] I used a Cotopaxi Tasra 16, and the Bellroy System work bag (16L). This was the first trip using the Tasra, I'd bought it literally days before at the REI members sale. I love it! Perfect for my 16" torso length. (In background - fiance used my Tom Bihn Makers Bag and Peak Design 45 travel bag. I've got enough of a bag collection for both of us now!). This is the first time I've used the Bellroy in ages, I honestly don't like it for EDC or work... But it worked OK as a travel bag, just a bit too big and cumbersome. Shout-out to the couple in front of me in security at Cancun airport, with whom I exchanged compliments on their Cotopaxi fanny packs and they on my Cotopaxi backpack. Also, I did notice one of you had a Topo Designs backpack, and I wish I'd asked which one it was cause it looked great! Read below for TMI on what I packed, and proof that I probably shop at REI too much. Photo 2 is everything liquid - I have a lot of cosmetic allergies so I don't rely on finding what I need at my destination (NYM conditioner, NYM shampoo, deodorant isn't liquid and is in this photo by accident, bacitracin because I'm allergic to neosporin and every hotel first aid kit uses that, lotion with aloe, aloe gel, itch cream, nivea face cream [didn't use], concealer [didn't use], aquaphor lip treatment, face sunscreen). Photo 3 is dry toiletries (assorted hair accessories, compostable floss, laundry soap, one tub of pills/vitamins, one of TUMS chewables [didn't use], travel toothbrush, anti chub-rub stick, deodorant, spf chapstick, solid sunscreen, solid bug-deterrant stick, body soap) Photo 4 are the toiletries my fiance packed that I used - toothpaste, face cleanser stick, his comb because I forgot mine. Photo 5 is tops (lilly pulitzer long blouse, spare bra, yellow REI running tee, blue Outdoor Afro tee, Prana black tank, REI trailmade pullover tees in both green and tropical print [LOVE these so much], a coverup wrap my mom got in Cancun 20 yrs ago) Photo 6 is swimwear (old speedo one piece, Athleta rashguard, Athleta bottoms [one of few brands I found with styles that cover my WHOLE butt], sports-bra-style top from Wild Isles [highly recommend for my fellow busty friends, this is their size 4 and I'm a 32FF. I was fully secure and fully covered at all times]). I wished I had a short sleeve rashguard, because the long one got hot but I also like to keep my shoulders protected as I burn easily. Photo 7 - a packable grocery tote we used at the beach, and a wetbag that we used to keep phones & books dry during tropical rains, and then used to hold damp swimsuits when flying home. Photo 8 - more clothes (REI trailmade amphib shorts, prana shorts, prana dress [I forgot that I would a) not have my usual under-dress skimmy shorts and b) would be eating a ton because all-inclusive, so a clingy dress was a bad idea. Wore it only once]) 9- xero sandals, this was the first time they've had significant usage and they were GREAT. Packed these, and wore Feelgrounds canvas sneakers on the plane and at dinner restaurants. 10- i got this little bag when I ordered Bombas Gripper Slippers, I have now used it on 4 trips to pack my shoes in! They fit perfectly and keep shoes isolated from my clothes. 11- all the non-clothing stuff. Bellroy classic pouch had the dry toiletries, Tom Bihn 3D OC had the liquids. Persona pouch is my Nintendo 3DS bag, didn't end up playing it though. Blue TB ghost whale pouch had chargers and earbuds (samsung galaxy buds plus), then my Bellroy Travel Wallet (the only one that can fit both my passports, dual citizen). Otter at the top is a pencil case jam packed with coloring pens, then my Owalla bottle (the hype is true, these are fantastic), hydroflask tumbler (the waiters at the pool and beach will gladly put your drinks in your own tumblers, so you can enjoy your mega Mango Tango in the sun while keeping it insulated), a Nomadix packable picnic blanket (except I accidentally packed the mini which is way too small for two people to lounge on) and lastly, the stash of books I brought. Wedding planning book, wedding planning planner, an Isaac Asmiov novel that I read a bunch at the swim-up bar, my personal notebook, and a coloring book. I colored at the beach several times and it was fantastically relaxing. 12- bellroy all packed up 13- clothes I wore on the plane (REI sahara long-sleeve [I don't know how but this kept me warm enough on the plane, yet cool enough in the hot humid weather in Mexico. May be my new favorite travel top?], Molke racerback bra in uni-verse pattern, REI trailmade pants (also LOVE, this new trailmade collection is honestly fantastic) |
2023.06.06 12:47 No-Question2926 Dry skin on Mastiff
My 2 year old 125lb bullmastiff has dry skin and I’m not sure what to do. I use Earth bath aloe and oatmeal shampoo, he’s on a blue Buffalo salmon diet and I use a very low profile brush so I don’t irritate his skin. What else can I do? Leave in conditioner? I also use K9 advantix monthly.
submitted by No-Question2926 to AskVet [link] [comments]
2023.06.06 11:42 Antique-Scar-7721 How my hair changed (updated - 9 months)
This is a list of how my hair has changed. I am doing strict avoidance of tap water in my hair (only distilled water, rain water, or water vapor). In the first few months I also allowed reverse osmosis water but stopped using that because distilled water and rain give me zero scalp itching; RO water doesn't.
submitted by Antique-Scar-7721 to DistilledWaterHair [link] [comments]
Color
- Before: dark brown color with gold/green/red overtones depending on the lighting.
- After 7 months: almost pure black, with no overtone colors. My ends were even more black than my roots.
- After 9 months: My ends have achieved the same color as my roots, which is almost-black. It appears blue toned in some lights and warm black in other lights.
Random bumpy hairs
- Before: I had some random bumpy/coarse/kinky hairs mixed in, even though my hair is mostly smooth.
- After 7 months: many of my shed hairs had a few inches of smooth new growth, and the rest of the hair was bumpy/coarse old growth.
- After 9 months: It is getting a lot harder for me to find any bumpy/coarse hairs. Every now and then one gets caught in my brush, with a white bulb that looks like it was at the end of its growth cycle shedding naturally. On these shed bumpy hairs, there was smooth new growth.
Favorite type of wash
- Before: weekly shampoos
- After 7 months: shampoos every 2-4 weeks
- After 9 months: I haven't shampooed in 7 weeks but I like doing a "wax on, wax off" style of cleaning with lanolin. I do a lanolin application and allow it to leave my hair at its own pace, through brushing or transferring to clothes/skin/brushes/pillowcases. I also periodically expose it to warm water vapor to help the lanolin soften. This takes a few days. Then my hair is shinier and fluffier and less oily than it was before I applied lanolin. I have been recording my lanolin experimentation in LanolinForHair.
Hair immediately before a wash
- Before: greasy roots, dry ends. Metallic smells.
- After 7 months: shiny and deflated and soft all the way to the ends. No smell.
- After 9 months: before a lanolin application, my hair is shiny and deflated and soft all the way to the ends. No smell.
Texture soon after a wash
- Before: 2b/2c texture, fine but a lot of it. Fluffy and huge.
- After 7 months: 2b/2c texture, fine but a lot of it. Fluffy and huge.
- After 9 months: after a lanolin application my hair feels either waxy, or oily, or like unrinsed conditioner, depending on which type of lanolin I used. The lanolin application makes it temporarily smell like metal (lanolin gets into a chemical reaction that helps break down metal) but the amount of metal smells are decreasing a lot in each successive lanolin application. In the first few lanolin applications, my old hair that used to touch hard water felt crunchy and frizzy, but that no longer happens, now it feels the same smooth texture as my new growth that never touched hard water.
Texture 1 week after a wash
- Before: 2a waves, greasy at the roots. Dry and crunchy in the mid lengths and ends. Metallic smells. Easily tangled. Needed to hide it with a hat or ponytail.
- After 7 months: 2a waves, soft and smooth and shiny, no greasiness, no smell. Feels silky and still voluminous. No tangles. Dreamboat hair. Ideal time to wear it down and enjoy it.
- After 9 months: 1 week after a lanolin application is almost exactly the same hair that I used to have 1 week after a shampoo, except more shiny.
Texture 2 weeks after a wash
- Before: very unpleasant metallic smells, sticky, and greasy. I rarely did this because it was so unpleasant.
- After 7 months: 2a waves, soft and smooth and shiny, no greasiness, no smell. No tangles. Very shiny and sleek, but also deflated and it lays closer to my head. I do microfiber dry wiping and/or roller sets to make it bigger.
- After 9 months: 2 weeks after a lanolin application is the same hair that I used to have 2 weeks after a shampoo.
Texture 3-4 weeks after a wash
- Before: not even possible unless I was having a mental breakdown. Too disgusting.
- After 7 months: same exact hair as 2 weeks after a wash, unless I got silicone skincare products in it, or Vaseline. This time range is totally doable as long as I'm careful about not getting specific things in my hair that can't wipe out. It smells neutral. It feels silky. Just deflated (unless I do a roller set or something like that to make it bigger).
- After 9 months: same as above; my hair goes to this default silky state and just stays there.
Wiping things out of hair
- Before: "I can't just wipe stuff out of my hair, that's ridiculous! People who say they can do that are probably in denial."
- After 7 months: I can clean my hair with a brush and a dry washcloth. Stuff just slides right off. Odors, dust, pollen, oil, wax, lanolin, and sebum all slide right off. Silicone doesn't wipe off, and Vaseline doesn't, so it's not a full replacement for liquid washing, but definitely gives more options about how to clean my hair.
- After 9 months: I am wiping my hair less often because it seems to need it less often. I still do daily boar bristle brushing.
How human sebum feels in my hair
- Before: "yuck, I need to wash that out. Sticky and it smells metallic."
- After 7 months: "sebum is the most amazing styling product that exists, how can I buy something similar to put in my hair?" The smell is totally neutral and it feels like silk and looks amazing. (In hindsight, my previous opinion of sebum was probably a chemical reaction between sebum and hard water buildup - not sebum alone.)
- After 9 months: Human sebum is fantastic, but lanolin has a stronger reaction to the type of buildup that remains in my hair, so I'm relying more on lanolin lately to help get the last bits of tap water buildup out of my hair.
Scalp health
- Before: my scalp itched if it was more than a few days since my last wash. White waxy stuff was visible under my fingernails if I scratched it.
- After 7 months: no scalp itching and no white waxy stuff under my fingernails. (Big caveat though- my scalp itching only completely goes away when I use distilled water. RO water brings back these symptoms for me, but much more slowly than tap water would)
- After 9 months: no scalp itching and no white waxy stuff under my fingernails.
My main hair concerns
- Before: Ugh I need to wash it again already because the roots are greasy, but the ends are still so dry.
- After 7 months: My hair looks better 1 or 2 weeks after a wash than immediately after...how can I make it look less recently washed, sooner?
- After 9 months: Solved my "7 month" hair concerns by simply not shampooing it. 🤷♂️ How to time my lanolin applications since my hair will look oily for about 3 days?
Brushing
- Before: "my hair hates brushing, it gets too puffy and that accentuates how dry my hair is"
- After 7 months: "I love brushing. I now own 5 hairbrushes and use them daily" - hair looks smooth and shiny after brushing.
- After 9 months: still love brushing 🥰 boar bristle brushing can make my hair look heat styled even though it isn't.
2023.06.06 11:40 fytikahealthcare Unlock the Secret to Lush Locks!
 | Introducing Fytika Lush Locks Hair Cleanser, an Ayurvedic shampoo specially formulated for natural hair growth. Say goodbye to hair woes caused by pollution, stress, and chemical treatments. submitted by fytikahealthcare to fytikaproducts [link] [comments] Our age-old natural cleansers like amla, shikakai, and neem, combined with the nourishing power of hibiscus and aloe vera, work wonders for your hair health, preventing premature greying, hair fall, and dandruff. Experience the revitalizing power of nature with Fytika Lush Locks Hair Cleanser! https://preview.redd.it/w6b6k3unbd4b1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66ab5ac0051eed593cfac5e81b336d65539ea581 |
2023.06.06 08:21 digaumspider Any good (paid or free but NO gachas please) turn based games (SW Galaxy of heroes style works as well), or Tower Defense?
Hello, everyone.
I've been away from the Android gaming scene for many, many years, ever since I got heavily invested into SWGOH some 5 years ago and spent more than my fair share of money on it.
I'm running a Samsung Z Fold 4, so anything that can take advantage of the larger screen would be great.
I have a PC with a good graphics card, so anything that is a "port" is automatically a no for me, as I'd just be better off playing on my PC.
What I'm after:
Here are things that these games must NOT have, please:
I'd really love recommendations from those who've been in the area for a while.
Thanks!!
submitted by digaumspider to AndroidGaming [link] [comments]
I've been away from the Android gaming scene for many, many years, ever since I got heavily invested into SWGOH some 5 years ago and spent more than my fair share of money on it.
I'm running a Samsung Z Fold 4, so anything that can take advantage of the larger screen would be great.
I have a PC with a good graphics card, so anything that is a "port" is automatically a no for me, as I'd just be better off playing on my PC.
What I'm after:
- Tower Defense games (already played all Kingdom Rush and variants on PC, so that's out of the window)
- Turn-based (RPG or not) games with a battle style similar to that of of Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes (good old Final Fantasy style if you will)
- Tactical games (but not RTS, as I want stuff that allows me to pause it and go do something else IRL for a few mins then come back to it and not be twitchy while playing)
Here are things that these games must NOT have, please:
- No energy bars or things that artificially limit me from playing, forcing me to pay for it
- No waiting hours or several minutes around to be able to play again
- No gacha "freemium" style stuff, no Pay to Win.
- No ads (again, I'm more than happy to pay for the game to get rid of ads, I just don't want P2W or "keep paying more and more to be able to play this game" anymore)
- No waifus or anything of the sorts, please.
I'd really love recommendations from those who've been in the area for a while.
Thanks!!
2023.06.06 06:47 shyla-schmiddt Say NO To Tangling With These Hacks!
 | submitted by shyla-schmiddt to u/shyla-schmiddt [link] [comments] Say NO to tangling with these hacks! As curly ringlets have a different texture from waves and straight locs, they may appear perfectly groomed one day and unmanageable the next. In spite of the volatility and unpredictability of spiral strands, proper haircare of deep wave hair extensions can reduce problems like frizz, tangling, and breakage without upsetting the natural springy curls. A little bit of commitment to caring for your beautiful bouncy mane and the correct concoctions can help you achieve the perfect look. Detangling your hair can sometimes be time-consuming, and it might even damage your deep waves if done the wrong way or using the wrong tools. Proteins in the hair strand give people curly that enhance and support your curls, rather than weigh them down. Read on for step-by-step instructions on detangling your curly hair or for your deep wave bundles without breaking or damaging your strands or disrupting the shape of your curls. Replenish Parched StrandsIf you have spiral deep waves you may be more prone to damage and dehydration. To help prevent frizz and keep your hair nourished, try using natural almond & avocado curl-enhancing mousse, gel, or butter once a week. Alternatively, natural oils like coconut, french argan oil, or peppermint & aloe soothing scalp tonic can be beneficial. Simply take a few drops and massage them into your scalp and strands. Leave it overnight and rinse it out with shampoo the next morning.Choose the Correct IngredientsRight Ingredients for Deep Wave HairFor curly coily hair, it is not just a matter of using the right ingredients, but also avoiding harsh, stripping products. Curls require significantly more moisture than other hair types because their natural oils produced by the scalp cannot always reach the hair, leading to more frizz, tangles, and dryness. Thus it is important to use shampoo and conditioners that are very hydrating and nourishing. If you have coily, curly, or kinky hair, a cowash, also known as a conditioner-only wash, is the perfect solution to prevent damage, breakage, and frizz. It replaces your regular shampoo and conditioner wash routine, and won’t strip your hair of its natural oils. We recommend the Design Essentials Almond and Avocado Nourishing Co-wash which will help maintain moisture and restore hair’s natural texture. Having clean, healthy hair is essential, and shampoo is a necessary step in the process. However, skipping conditioner would be a mistake. To keep your curls looking their best, start with hydrating and nourishing your hair with a conditioner. After conditioning, the curl-defining gelée form is the perfect way to enhance your curls with a frizz-free definition, and retain moisture for a soft and bouncy look. Use Hair SerumSerum for Healthy Coily HairHair serums keep our hair shining, frizz-free, and tangle-free. Besides, when using hot tools deep waver. To help strengthen and smooth your locs, Indique has created Silk Essentials Thermal Strengthening Serum. This lightweight serum penetrates the cuticle to lock in moisture and restore shine while also protecting your hair from extreme heat. Protect your hair from heatIt’s best to always use a heat protectant before styling your hair with heat. Your risk of developing heat-damaged hairstyle increases when you use hot tools like blow dryers, flat irons, and curling irons. When subjected to high heat, the keratin strands in your hair alter in structure. A light, heat-protecting serum that strengthens and smoothes the hair is the Silk Essentials Thermal Strengthening Serum by Indique.Detangle Before WashingAlways Detangle before WashingBefore washing curly hair or deep wave bundles, detangle them. Brush your hair thoroughly and detangle it. In addition, do not rub your hair too hard when washing, thereby preventing tangles. Use Silk Pillow CasesKnots in your hair can be caused by friction between your hair and pillowcases. Use either a silk or satin pillowcase while sleeping. These materials have softer fibers, which help to avoid tangles.ConclusionIf you are new to deep-wave hair bundles. This guide from Indique hair store should have provided you with plenty of information on how to make them last. Since these extensions are made from human hair. |
2023.06.06 06:38 MommyHonkerDonkers My Copilot Is A Neckbeard #46
Hey there Reddx gang, looks like I finally got a bit of time to write, so let’s not delay any longer and get into another story about Chris.
Who is Chris? Chris is a very fat and sweaty man surrounded by an impenetrable aura of poopycum stinkystank. Chris is a certified weiner wizard, content to dwell in his own personal dark triad of anime, crystal, and lot lizards. Things are usually okay when Chris is driving the truck – usually – but when his shift comes to an end and I have to take the wheel, or worse yet, when we pull over for the night, the fun really begins. Then, despite my best efforts to make him bathe and behave, it was all in vain and the poopycum man would circle a little further down the drain. Thankfully, I no longer have to ride with Chris.
We rolled out of the truck stop and popped into the traffic, Chris signaling the turn he was about to make with the blinker. I was zoned out in my laptop, playing a game to whittle away the endless hours of road that stood before us. He made that left before hanging a right off the overpass and started down the ramp. I looked up when the truck no longer accelerated, but instead slowed to a stop. “What the Hell are you doing, Chris? We need to get on the road.” Chris came back, remarking, “bro, one second. This is important.” He pointed outside my window and looked down to see a dirty little ruffian who had come up beside the passenger window, a heavy backpack draped on his shoulders.
He beamed up at me from beneath a broad, floppy hat, as he shifted his pack cheerily on his shoulders. I turned to Chris and said, “what the fuck is this?” Chris remarked, “the guy was sitting on the side of the shoulder with his thumb out and he’s got a sign saying Phoenix. Well, we’re headed back to Phoenix, so I figured maybe we could give him a lift. He looks like he needs a ride.” I paused. I knew that Chris never did anything out of the kindness of his heart for anybody, so I wondered what the Hell his angle was. I didn’t pry it however as he insistently told me to get up. I fought with him for a bit, regarding insurance concerns and paperwork and the office, but he brushed it all aside with a casual, “dude, my dad owns the company. It’ll be fine. Now get up and let him in.” Against my better judgment, I budged from my seat to let in this vagabond, wondering if today was the day both Chris and I would be ax-murdered.
He smelled as rough as he looked, but by contrast, that was comparatively mild next to the perforating aroma of sweaty balls that clung to Chris. He smiled at me a yellow, buck-toothed grin, telling me his name was “Sage” and rather than shake his hand, I just moved to the back so he could sit down in the passenger seat and I could be left alone. Chris’s reply was jubilant. “So, Sage, you’re headed to Phoenix?” Sage replied, “yessir! Glad you stopped. I knew my ride would come eventually.”
I guess Chris latched on to this turn of phrase and replied, “you knew? How did you know?” Sage smiled and said to Chris,”I just know some things. I saw your truck coming down the ramp and I knew that that was the one.” Chris replied, “that’s great and all, but that doesn’t answer my question. How did you know?” With a sly grin, Sage responded, “don’t you know, dude? All hobos are wizards.” He tipped his floppy hat at Chris and then buckled his seat belt.
I tried not to roll my eyes at this bold declaration. Magic? Was this guy serious? Apparently, he was, because he delivered that statement with enough gravitas to sucker Chris in. Chris half-assedly pulled off the interstate shoulder, mumbling “wizards” to himself before a blaring car horn came up on the driver’s side, nearly scraping the side of our rig, and he jerked back to the side of the road with an “OH GOD DAMN IT” before actually checking the mirror this time. When the tension of the moment finally passed and Chris was able to merge into traffic, Chris turned back to Sage and said, “so, you’re a wizard, huh?” Sage replied once more in the affirmative, “that I am. And judging by the fact that you pulled over your truck, you must be rather sensitive to the arcane yourself. Not everybody can sense the sublime energies of the universe. You must have picked up on me calling out to you for a ride. Honestly, it must have been destiny.”
I looked up from the top of my book towards the front of the truck and said, “oh no, don’t you go feeding this boy’s delusions, dude. He’s fucked up enough as it is,” to which Chris responded, “shove it honker donkers! Sage, do you really mean that I’m… sensitive?” I tried not to choke on my own laughter as I said, “yeah, your ass is definitely sensitive since you can’t wipe it.” However, they had forgotten all about little old honker donkers in the back of the truck. Had they cast a sphere of silence over the bunks where I lay? I doubt it, but by the way they were acting, you’d think they did. Sage gassed Chris up, of course, replying “yeah, you’re definitely sensitive to the mystical, my guy. I can just tell. I can sense it.” I replied, “that’s just his smell.” They continued to ignore me. How the tables had turned.
Chris let out a breathy “wow” as he drove the rig along, before asking Sage what that meant. Chris was actually excited, his quivering neck fat dancing with jiggly delight as he asked Sage what he ought to do next. Sage thought about this for a moment, and said, “well, since you show great promise, how would you like to become my apprentice?” I shot up from the back, with one word on my lips. “Oh no. Oh hell no. You’re not taking this guy seriously, are you, Chris? He’s clearly a charlatan, dude. Magic isn’t even real. Honestly, Sage, is it? I think this ride has gone on long enough. It’s about time you get the hell out of this truck and walk.”
Chris started up with a shriek, declaring that I couldn’t just evict his master from the truck, and if we’re being totally honest, we were rolling down the highway at 65 MPH and I wasn’t at the wheel. I had no power to remove him in this situation. Sage grinned at me and said, “that’s the power of a wizard,” before turning to Chris and saying, “now, my apprentice…” I trudged to the back of the truck, trying to keep pace on all the weird hippie woowoo shit they were talking about, but I’m an old man. I can’t catalog it all. I did my best to ignore it all and return once more to my book. Chris would make his own bed today, and all I could hope was that it would be his problem and remain that way.
The ride past by as the wizard and his apprentice discussed all sorts of arcane conundrums, like alchemy (which focused mostly around which beers got you drunk the fastest and how to spin a pookie so you don’t burn off all your dope), manifestation (the art of wanting something really bad and hoping it comes true), and even wizard style, which entailed a lengthy discussion not only on dress but on grooming. By my recollection, it seems that the less one bathes, the more mighty their power becomes. Chris really lit up at this small bit of wisdom, telling Sage full length about the mystical potency of his pheromones and their utility in attracting his mates. Sage nodded knowingly about the powers of unwashed loins, and goaded Chris to bathe less so that his power could amplify. Of course, that wouldn’t be an issue, because, well, Chris never really bathed to begin with.
Sage was fascinated by the talk of pheromones and attracting of mates. He cut Chris off mid-sentence as he was regaling him with a story about a lot lizard he had purchased, when Sage mentioned two words that I wish he had never said to one poopycum man. “Sex magic.” Chris murmured back the phrase with awestruck intensity, wondering what strange wizardry he had stumbled upon. Sage offered up an explanation, saying that “sex is the strongest source of human power. You can literally use sex to manifest things. I know when I’m manifesting things, I think about it real hard while I, uh… you know.” Chris, missing the point entirely, said, “no, I don’t.” Obviously, whenever Sage was talking about when he “cleaned up.”
Chris’s eyes grew wide, and I knew that he had just conceived some harebrained plan in his head. What that plan was, of course, I couldn’t quite guess, but I’m sure it involved the objects of his desires and stroking his peen.
Thankfully, we were drawing close to Phoenix, and we would soon be rid of this self-proclaimed master wizard who had thoroughly educated his apprentice on all sorts of dubious ritualism. Sage spoke up, asking to be let out at the next truck stop, and I could see that the thought of losing his master upset Chris. So, in that moment, I guess Chris decided to try and put into practice all the things he had learned. I heard a shout from Sage. He cried, “what the hell are you doing, bro?”
Between heavy, throaty groans of pleasure, Chris murmured, “don’t leave me, master, there’s still so much left for me to learn.” I guess mister wizard here couldn’t divine the truth about the poopycum man – that truth being that you should never enable him to act like an asshole. Sage skittered in his seat up against the side of the window as the swampy scent of sexual arousal flooded the cab and Chris fiddled with his ding dong. He kept repeating himself like it was his own personal mantra, begging Sage to stay by his side and teach him all his wizarding ways as he diddled his knob. For once, I was glad I was in the back, and I promptly stood up and closed the curtain, leaving Sage to the fate he brought on himself.
The truck swerved and bucked as Chris struggled to choke the chicken, invoke his arcane spells, and focus on driving. I figured that today I would die, but Chris’s insufficient stamina saved the day as the smell of spoiling seed suffused about the cabin. Chris had nutted in his pants. Slowly, I cracked the curtains to see Sage desperately rolling down the window like I had done so many times before. Sage turned back to me, and begged me to help, but I just shrugged and said, “you opened this can of worms, dude.”
Well, Sage eventually got his wish. Despite Chris’s begging and pleading for his master to remain by his side, we ended up roaring into a truck stop outside of Phoenix and Sage promptly exited the cab, grabbing his things and disappearing into the travel plaza as Chris yelled after him for him to come back. Needless to say, Sage did not take the bait.
I moved into the driver’s seat and began my pre-drive checklist while Chris huffed up into the cabin, a spreading seminal stain suffusing through his sweatpants. He looked sad and defeated, as if he were somehow surprised that his “sexual magic” had failed to entice a hitchhiking charlatan to stay and teach him his weirding ways. He launched into a tirade, saying, “man, I can’t believe he didn’t stay! He was gonna teach me all his magic but he just up and left me, dude. What the Hell? My powers must not be strong enough yet, Honker Donkers.”
I sighed, looking up from the paperwork, and said, “He’s full of shit, Chris, and magic isn’t real. He was taking you for a ride, not the other way around. You scared him off when you bought into his bullshit and decided to polish your knob while you were driving the truck and he’s not coming back. It’s that simple.” Chris scoffed, and said, “yeah right, honker donkers. Like you know anything about magic. Sage taught me everything he knew, bro. I just need to practice more and just you watch, I’m gonna do all sorts of crazy shit.” I rolled my eyes, but deep inside I was troubled, because this really showed me just how deep Chris’s delusions ran. Believing some hobo on the side of the road is actually a wizard was just a bridge to far for me. I took a deep breath, and tried to explain everything once again, but Chris was having none of it. With a bold clearing of his throat, he said, “hearken thyself, nonbeliever, and witness the power of a real mage! Sage, you will return to me and finish my training!”
His hand crept down to his pants and pulled back the elastic waistband, releasing the fragrant fumes of fermenting fungus and I retched. Even though both windows were down, it seems that his previous release had already congealed into a putrid, rotten mass, that now aerated itself upon the breeze with just that singular lifting of the fabric. He was casting a cloud of disease, alright, and I choked back vomit as I groped around underneath the console. I had been saving something special there just for this occasion.
BWAAAAAAAA.
Chris practically jumped out of his seat, hitting his head against the side paneling of the truck, screeching, “OH GOD DAMNIT,” as he lifted one clean hand to his ear and another soured one to the opposite side of his face. I let up on the trigger of the air horn and he relaxed momentarily, pulling his hands down before I blasted it again at him like a man wielding a squirt bottle at a bad kitty. We repeated this process a few times before the thing was finally out of juice, at which point I dropped the damn thing to the floor. It clattered there, breaking the awkward silence in the cab between us before Chris finally said, “Are you done, honker donkers? I gotta cast my spell.”
“You aren’t going to cast anything, Chris. We are getting out of here right now, and you are never seeing that hack again.” I jammed the keys in the ignition as Chris started to screech, “dude, c’mon, he’s still out there, bro! Just give me 10 minutes and I can summon him back!” I didn’t humor the request, of course. I stepped down on the gas and pulled us out of the lot and started to put as many miles as I could between us and that truck stop. Chris seethed about it for a bit, threatening me with all sorts of magical incantations. His hand had begun to reach once again for his crotch, but my secret weapon had been spent. I needed another route and I needed it fast. Well, thankfully, my brain was working overtime today after our brief run in with this errant wizard. As Chris began to reach for his bruised mushroom wand so he could cast curses on my life (probably the only curse he actually cast on my life to be honest) I stopped him dead in his tracks with a little magic of my own. I said, “are you really gonna jack off to the thought of me, dude? That’s gay.”
Chris stuttered for a bit, declaring that it wasn’t gay. I didn’t let him have it, and insisted it was. I mean, isn’t it? He coped for a bit, declaring that “it’s not out of lust, bro. It’s out of dominance.” I didn’t let him have that either, remarking that he was still spanking it while thinking about another dude. I laid it out on thick then and asked him if he was going to make a habit out of beating off to the thought of me. He practically screeched, “fine! I won’t do it! I’ll just summon my master back,” to which I declared that that was even gayer, because it wasn’t out of dominance, but a desire to be surrounded by another man. I glanced out of my eye. Chris was as red as his giant, swollen ass, and I could tell that all he wanted to do was bash my head against the console at this point, but he knew full well that if he cast fist, we would both be dying today. I smiled smugly in triumph as the poopycum man grappled with several realizations that day about the nature of charlatans and their magic and his own flustered sexuality.
The rest of the trip passed without relative incidence, and we made our way back to the California yard. I swear, you had never seen me run faster from that truck that day. Well, that’s probably not entirely true. As I walked away, I heard Chris hit the pavement with a loud “oof” and then his lilting, phlegm-choked voice came drifting on to the breeze. “Hey honker donkers,” he called after me, “I’m not gay, dude. It’s just magic.” I waved my hand dismissively as I walked, pausing only to soak in the confused look of a couple of other dudes walking through the yard who happened to overhear this choice one liner.
And that, my friends, concludes today’s story about Chris. I can hear the real world a calling my name and so it’s time for me to take my leave. But don’t you all worry, because I’ll be back in the not too distant future with yet another story about that guy we love to hate, Chris.
submitted by MommyHonkerDonkers to u/MommyHonkerDonkers [link] [comments]
Who is Chris? Chris is a very fat and sweaty man surrounded by an impenetrable aura of poopycum stinkystank. Chris is a certified weiner wizard, content to dwell in his own personal dark triad of anime, crystal, and lot lizards. Things are usually okay when Chris is driving the truck – usually – but when his shift comes to an end and I have to take the wheel, or worse yet, when we pull over for the night, the fun really begins. Then, despite my best efforts to make him bathe and behave, it was all in vain and the poopycum man would circle a little further down the drain. Thankfully, I no longer have to ride with Chris.
We rolled out of the truck stop and popped into the traffic, Chris signaling the turn he was about to make with the blinker. I was zoned out in my laptop, playing a game to whittle away the endless hours of road that stood before us. He made that left before hanging a right off the overpass and started down the ramp. I looked up when the truck no longer accelerated, but instead slowed to a stop. “What the Hell are you doing, Chris? We need to get on the road.” Chris came back, remarking, “bro, one second. This is important.” He pointed outside my window and looked down to see a dirty little ruffian who had come up beside the passenger window, a heavy backpack draped on his shoulders.
He beamed up at me from beneath a broad, floppy hat, as he shifted his pack cheerily on his shoulders. I turned to Chris and said, “what the fuck is this?” Chris remarked, “the guy was sitting on the side of the shoulder with his thumb out and he’s got a sign saying Phoenix. Well, we’re headed back to Phoenix, so I figured maybe we could give him a lift. He looks like he needs a ride.” I paused. I knew that Chris never did anything out of the kindness of his heart for anybody, so I wondered what the Hell his angle was. I didn’t pry it however as he insistently told me to get up. I fought with him for a bit, regarding insurance concerns and paperwork and the office, but he brushed it all aside with a casual, “dude, my dad owns the company. It’ll be fine. Now get up and let him in.” Against my better judgment, I budged from my seat to let in this vagabond, wondering if today was the day both Chris and I would be ax-murdered.
He smelled as rough as he looked, but by contrast, that was comparatively mild next to the perforating aroma of sweaty balls that clung to Chris. He smiled at me a yellow, buck-toothed grin, telling me his name was “Sage” and rather than shake his hand, I just moved to the back so he could sit down in the passenger seat and I could be left alone. Chris’s reply was jubilant. “So, Sage, you’re headed to Phoenix?” Sage replied, “yessir! Glad you stopped. I knew my ride would come eventually.”
I guess Chris latched on to this turn of phrase and replied, “you knew? How did you know?” Sage smiled and said to Chris,”I just know some things. I saw your truck coming down the ramp and I knew that that was the one.” Chris replied, “that’s great and all, but that doesn’t answer my question. How did you know?” With a sly grin, Sage responded, “don’t you know, dude? All hobos are wizards.” He tipped his floppy hat at Chris and then buckled his seat belt.
I tried not to roll my eyes at this bold declaration. Magic? Was this guy serious? Apparently, he was, because he delivered that statement with enough gravitas to sucker Chris in. Chris half-assedly pulled off the interstate shoulder, mumbling “wizards” to himself before a blaring car horn came up on the driver’s side, nearly scraping the side of our rig, and he jerked back to the side of the road with an “OH GOD DAMN IT” before actually checking the mirror this time. When the tension of the moment finally passed and Chris was able to merge into traffic, Chris turned back to Sage and said, “so, you’re a wizard, huh?” Sage replied once more in the affirmative, “that I am. And judging by the fact that you pulled over your truck, you must be rather sensitive to the arcane yourself. Not everybody can sense the sublime energies of the universe. You must have picked up on me calling out to you for a ride. Honestly, it must have been destiny.”
I looked up from the top of my book towards the front of the truck and said, “oh no, don’t you go feeding this boy’s delusions, dude. He’s fucked up enough as it is,” to which Chris responded, “shove it honker donkers! Sage, do you really mean that I’m… sensitive?” I tried not to choke on my own laughter as I said, “yeah, your ass is definitely sensitive since you can’t wipe it.” However, they had forgotten all about little old honker donkers in the back of the truck. Had they cast a sphere of silence over the bunks where I lay? I doubt it, but by the way they were acting, you’d think they did. Sage gassed Chris up, of course, replying “yeah, you’re definitely sensitive to the mystical, my guy. I can just tell. I can sense it.” I replied, “that’s just his smell.” They continued to ignore me. How the tables had turned.
Chris let out a breathy “wow” as he drove the rig along, before asking Sage what that meant. Chris was actually excited, his quivering neck fat dancing with jiggly delight as he asked Sage what he ought to do next. Sage thought about this for a moment, and said, “well, since you show great promise, how would you like to become my apprentice?” I shot up from the back, with one word on my lips. “Oh no. Oh hell no. You’re not taking this guy seriously, are you, Chris? He’s clearly a charlatan, dude. Magic isn’t even real. Honestly, Sage, is it? I think this ride has gone on long enough. It’s about time you get the hell out of this truck and walk.”
Chris started up with a shriek, declaring that I couldn’t just evict his master from the truck, and if we’re being totally honest, we were rolling down the highway at 65 MPH and I wasn’t at the wheel. I had no power to remove him in this situation. Sage grinned at me and said, “that’s the power of a wizard,” before turning to Chris and saying, “now, my apprentice…” I trudged to the back of the truck, trying to keep pace on all the weird hippie woowoo shit they were talking about, but I’m an old man. I can’t catalog it all. I did my best to ignore it all and return once more to my book. Chris would make his own bed today, and all I could hope was that it would be his problem and remain that way.
The ride past by as the wizard and his apprentice discussed all sorts of arcane conundrums, like alchemy (which focused mostly around which beers got you drunk the fastest and how to spin a pookie so you don’t burn off all your dope), manifestation (the art of wanting something really bad and hoping it comes true), and even wizard style, which entailed a lengthy discussion not only on dress but on grooming. By my recollection, it seems that the less one bathes, the more mighty their power becomes. Chris really lit up at this small bit of wisdom, telling Sage full length about the mystical potency of his pheromones and their utility in attracting his mates. Sage nodded knowingly about the powers of unwashed loins, and goaded Chris to bathe less so that his power could amplify. Of course, that wouldn’t be an issue, because, well, Chris never really bathed to begin with.
Sage was fascinated by the talk of pheromones and attracting of mates. He cut Chris off mid-sentence as he was regaling him with a story about a lot lizard he had purchased, when Sage mentioned two words that I wish he had never said to one poopycum man. “Sex magic.” Chris murmured back the phrase with awestruck intensity, wondering what strange wizardry he had stumbled upon. Sage offered up an explanation, saying that “sex is the strongest source of human power. You can literally use sex to manifest things. I know when I’m manifesting things, I think about it real hard while I, uh… you know.” Chris, missing the point entirely, said, “no, I don’t.” Obviously, whenever Sage was talking about when he “cleaned up.”
Chris’s eyes grew wide, and I knew that he had just conceived some harebrained plan in his head. What that plan was, of course, I couldn’t quite guess, but I’m sure it involved the objects of his desires and stroking his peen.
Thankfully, we were drawing close to Phoenix, and we would soon be rid of this self-proclaimed master wizard who had thoroughly educated his apprentice on all sorts of dubious ritualism. Sage spoke up, asking to be let out at the next truck stop, and I could see that the thought of losing his master upset Chris. So, in that moment, I guess Chris decided to try and put into practice all the things he had learned. I heard a shout from Sage. He cried, “what the hell are you doing, bro?”
Between heavy, throaty groans of pleasure, Chris murmured, “don’t leave me, master, there’s still so much left for me to learn.” I guess mister wizard here couldn’t divine the truth about the poopycum man – that truth being that you should never enable him to act like an asshole. Sage skittered in his seat up against the side of the window as the swampy scent of sexual arousal flooded the cab and Chris fiddled with his ding dong. He kept repeating himself like it was his own personal mantra, begging Sage to stay by his side and teach him all his wizarding ways as he diddled his knob. For once, I was glad I was in the back, and I promptly stood up and closed the curtain, leaving Sage to the fate he brought on himself.
The truck swerved and bucked as Chris struggled to choke the chicken, invoke his arcane spells, and focus on driving. I figured that today I would die, but Chris’s insufficient stamina saved the day as the smell of spoiling seed suffused about the cabin. Chris had nutted in his pants. Slowly, I cracked the curtains to see Sage desperately rolling down the window like I had done so many times before. Sage turned back to me, and begged me to help, but I just shrugged and said, “you opened this can of worms, dude.”
Well, Sage eventually got his wish. Despite Chris’s begging and pleading for his master to remain by his side, we ended up roaring into a truck stop outside of Phoenix and Sage promptly exited the cab, grabbing his things and disappearing into the travel plaza as Chris yelled after him for him to come back. Needless to say, Sage did not take the bait.
I moved into the driver’s seat and began my pre-drive checklist while Chris huffed up into the cabin, a spreading seminal stain suffusing through his sweatpants. He looked sad and defeated, as if he were somehow surprised that his “sexual magic” had failed to entice a hitchhiking charlatan to stay and teach him his weirding ways. He launched into a tirade, saying, “man, I can’t believe he didn’t stay! He was gonna teach me all his magic but he just up and left me, dude. What the Hell? My powers must not be strong enough yet, Honker Donkers.”
I sighed, looking up from the paperwork, and said, “He’s full of shit, Chris, and magic isn’t real. He was taking you for a ride, not the other way around. You scared him off when you bought into his bullshit and decided to polish your knob while you were driving the truck and he’s not coming back. It’s that simple.” Chris scoffed, and said, “yeah right, honker donkers. Like you know anything about magic. Sage taught me everything he knew, bro. I just need to practice more and just you watch, I’m gonna do all sorts of crazy shit.” I rolled my eyes, but deep inside I was troubled, because this really showed me just how deep Chris’s delusions ran. Believing some hobo on the side of the road is actually a wizard was just a bridge to far for me. I took a deep breath, and tried to explain everything once again, but Chris was having none of it. With a bold clearing of his throat, he said, “hearken thyself, nonbeliever, and witness the power of a real mage! Sage, you will return to me and finish my training!”
His hand crept down to his pants and pulled back the elastic waistband, releasing the fragrant fumes of fermenting fungus and I retched. Even though both windows were down, it seems that his previous release had already congealed into a putrid, rotten mass, that now aerated itself upon the breeze with just that singular lifting of the fabric. He was casting a cloud of disease, alright, and I choked back vomit as I groped around underneath the console. I had been saving something special there just for this occasion.
BWAAAAAAAA.
Chris practically jumped out of his seat, hitting his head against the side paneling of the truck, screeching, “OH GOD DAMNIT,” as he lifted one clean hand to his ear and another soured one to the opposite side of his face. I let up on the trigger of the air horn and he relaxed momentarily, pulling his hands down before I blasted it again at him like a man wielding a squirt bottle at a bad kitty. We repeated this process a few times before the thing was finally out of juice, at which point I dropped the damn thing to the floor. It clattered there, breaking the awkward silence in the cab between us before Chris finally said, “Are you done, honker donkers? I gotta cast my spell.”
“You aren’t going to cast anything, Chris. We are getting out of here right now, and you are never seeing that hack again.” I jammed the keys in the ignition as Chris started to screech, “dude, c’mon, he’s still out there, bro! Just give me 10 minutes and I can summon him back!” I didn’t humor the request, of course. I stepped down on the gas and pulled us out of the lot and started to put as many miles as I could between us and that truck stop. Chris seethed about it for a bit, threatening me with all sorts of magical incantations. His hand had begun to reach once again for his crotch, but my secret weapon had been spent. I needed another route and I needed it fast. Well, thankfully, my brain was working overtime today after our brief run in with this errant wizard. As Chris began to reach for his bruised mushroom wand so he could cast curses on my life (probably the only curse he actually cast on my life to be honest) I stopped him dead in his tracks with a little magic of my own. I said, “are you really gonna jack off to the thought of me, dude? That’s gay.”
Chris stuttered for a bit, declaring that it wasn’t gay. I didn’t let him have it, and insisted it was. I mean, isn’t it? He coped for a bit, declaring that “it’s not out of lust, bro. It’s out of dominance.” I didn’t let him have that either, remarking that he was still spanking it while thinking about another dude. I laid it out on thick then and asked him if he was going to make a habit out of beating off to the thought of me. He practically screeched, “fine! I won’t do it! I’ll just summon my master back,” to which I declared that that was even gayer, because it wasn’t out of dominance, but a desire to be surrounded by another man. I glanced out of my eye. Chris was as red as his giant, swollen ass, and I could tell that all he wanted to do was bash my head against the console at this point, but he knew full well that if he cast fist, we would both be dying today. I smiled smugly in triumph as the poopycum man grappled with several realizations that day about the nature of charlatans and their magic and his own flustered sexuality.
The rest of the trip passed without relative incidence, and we made our way back to the California yard. I swear, you had never seen me run faster from that truck that day. Well, that’s probably not entirely true. As I walked away, I heard Chris hit the pavement with a loud “oof” and then his lilting, phlegm-choked voice came drifting on to the breeze. “Hey honker donkers,” he called after me, “I’m not gay, dude. It’s just magic.” I waved my hand dismissively as I walked, pausing only to soak in the confused look of a couple of other dudes walking through the yard who happened to overhear this choice one liner.
And that, my friends, concludes today’s story about Chris. I can hear the real world a calling my name and so it’s time for me to take my leave. But don’t you all worry, because I’ll be back in the not too distant future with yet another story about that guy we love to hate, Chris.
2023.06.06 04:27 dnfi first time diffusing. any advice?? (routine below)
 | hi!! i could have sworn i had wavy hair my whole life but i’m starting to doubt myself now lol. first pic is me today, whereas second pic is what i look like around day 2 with my old routine (shampoo/condition, spray a leave-in conditioner in, scrunch with gel, plop for 20 mins, air dry) submitted by dnfi to Wavyhair [link] [comments] the 1st pic (today) was taken after following this routine: - shampooing & conditioning with redken frizz dismiss - spraying shea moisture hemp seed oil leave in - scrunching with curlsmith hydro style flexi jelly - plopping for ~15-20 mins - diffusing my hair until it was ~80% dry (then stopping, a lot of youtubers seemed to recommend this) i stopped after that to take this picture bc it definitely isn’t looking right. it’s super frizzy, even tho when i diffused i made sure to try to dry my roots first. i scooped (with the hairdryer off, then turned it on once i had each scoop secured) and held each scoop for ~20 seconds. either i’m not doing something right or maybe this method isn’t for me… any advice??? |
2023.06.06 01:06 Expensive_Ad_5089 June 2023 - Unpacking the Light Police
Unpacking the Light Police. Light Pollution News.
Show Link: https://lightpollutionnews.com/podcast/unpacking-the-light-police/
Subscribe: Apple Podcast Spotify Google Podcast
Social: Instagram LinkedIn
Guests:
John Barentine of Dark Sky Consulting, LLC.
Kaitlyn Evans, Conservationist.
Show:
I was busted by the light police. They had a point, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post.
Dana Milbank purchased a home in, soon to be not, rural Virginia. At night he kept the formerly vacant property lit to the degree that spurned one commentator to call it “spaceship lighting.”
Milbank recaps being visited by the “light police,” a group of concerned citizens who help educate neighbors and instill a sense of pride in the brilliance of their starry night skies.
At first, he was taken aback, but later, not only did he appreciate their efforts, but he also converted his blinding always on, white light flood lights to warm 2700 Kelvin motion sensing lights.
Per Ruskin Hartley, executive director of the International Dark Sky Association, “for 4.5 billion years there was no artificial light at night. It’s really only in the last five human generations that we transformed that. It’s one of the most profound transformations of our environment.”
Many of you may recall an earlier story, way back in our Hormone of Darkness episode, showcasing concerns by local residents prior to a 760 house (now 761) plus town center development moving into the Culpepper County, VA area. Per the Rappahannock News, this development features “a resort style swimming pool, clubhouse, tot lot, and multiple sports fields and sports courts, all connected by a network of biking and walking trails.”
The forgotten medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’ by Zaria Gorvett of the BBC.
Gorvett opened my eyes to something I never knew about, the medieval custom of two sleeps. For those of you unaware, two sleeps are exactly what it sounds like.
Folks would partake in a communal nap, complete with rigid sleeping arrangement conventions, between 9 – 11pm, then awaken for a few hours to do everything from hang out to brew beer! In fact, the idea of multiple sleeps crossed cultures and was found in places as far from Europe as indigenous South America.
How can one’s circadian rhythm make sense of all of this?!
Well, for starters, until the invention of the alarm clock, which humorously was invented by a clocks salesman so he could wake up and sell more clocks, people had no firm way to wake up at a consistent time. The industrial revolution enforced a new circadian standard.
And there’s some science behind this! In the 1992 study, In Short Photoperiods, human sleep is biphasic, researcher Thomas Wehr found that after four weeks of 10 hour days, his subjects began to engage in this two sleep cycle, involving a one to three hour period for which they became awake and engaged in between.
Want to Learn About Light Pollution? There’s a mini-course for that!, Jennifer Sensiba of Clean Technica.
Quoting Sensiba, “As I got older, I traveled a lot more and saw the problem more for what it is. Not only did I see that in many places there is no refuge from it, but I also saw that it was slowly growing worse. Places that had been dark 30 years ago had more and more light creeping upon the horizon.”
If you’re interested in learning more, or more importantly, know someone who might benefit from learning more, Sensiba links up to an International Dark Sky Mini-Course on light pollution, call it Light Pollution 101!
There’s a Play Date at the National Museum of Natural History: Lights Out exhibit!
But unfortunately, by the time you listen to this, and hell, by the time we talk about this, it has passed.
Ann Arbor named best place for sunrises, sunsets in Michigan. Sarah Parlette for Click on Detroit.
Evidently gambling websites have decided to honor April’s International Dark Sky week in a strange new content marketing campaign, which was to rank the best places in each state to see sunrises and sunsets. My favorite one, “Ann Arbor named best place for sunrises, sunsets in Michigan,” comes from Click on Detroit, whereby a quote “study” examined Michigan’s most populated cities.”
According to Click on Detroit, “to celebrate International Astrology Day on Saturday, staff at Great Lake Stakes, a Michigan online gambling news site, looked at light pollution in the five most populated cities around the Mitten state to determine which offers the best views every morning and evening.”
Star bathing is the new outdoor travel trend we should all be trying for Summer 2023, according to Amy Beecham at Stylist.
Evidently, as an attempt to destress and promote mindfulness, romanticism about sleeping under the stars has birthed a 70% increase in searches for the term ‘star bathing’ on Hipcamp. And to be sure, “Hipcamp recommends checking a stargazing calendar which outlines major astrological events – like supermoons, pink moons, and star showers.”
“Industry Must Face an Inconvenient Truth — Most LED Lights at Night are Unhealthy”
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede, a circadian clock expert, recently published an article in LEDs Magazine chastising the lighting industry for not recognizing and reigning in the negative externalities of its products. Per the piece, such effects are, obesity, diabetes, depression, cancer, and more.
He cites three categories of industry responses, making the correlation that long term Denial or outright Ignorance of the Facts, may result in “asbestos-scale liabilities or draconian regulations.”
Per the piece, a recent survey by the Circadian Light Research Center of 2,697 peer reviewed scientific articles confirmed that human circadian clocks are highly sensitive to blue wavelengths, and that exposure to such wavelengths leads to major health disorders.
Moore-Ede calls for the industry to harvest the “commercial opportunity” to greatly limit future liability by creating and managing its own standards for circadian modulated lighting.
Unpacking the Wallpack, by Dan Weissman in LD+A Magazine.
Weissman, who recently purchased a telescope for his family in Cambridge, MA, discovered that the scope could only afford him views of some solar system objects and a few brightly burning stars.
The ire of Weissman’s pen takes the shape of a rectangular fixtures, be it box like or simply a panel these days, that typically hang off the side of an exterior wall or above an exterior door. “Devoid of aesthetic value” this light is often put up under the “pretense of security and safety” by “recommended practices and adopted municipal codes.”
Weissman recognizes labels that often accompany, what he calls, “Glare bombs,” including “contractor-select,” “energy efficient,” or “light pollution friendly.”
Further, per an earlier LD+A article, such lighting driven by its extreme contrasts is exceedingly common in minority communities where light is weaponized as a tool of power. It becomes a “device of alienation, creating a zone of control and separation.”
Weissman recognizes that the true reason such fixtures are selected often comes down to cost. He recognizes that it may take equally as much cost to persuade building and homeowners away from such lighting into the realm of more responsible, lower lumen, shielded lighting.
Weissman calls for producers of these glare bombs to be labeled as polluters, putting them in line with fossil fuel manufacturers and PFAS makers.
Songbirds, dusk and clear skies: Scientists explore migratory flights, by Erin Blakemore.
Bird migration season is ending here in the Mid-Atlantic. I was lucky enough to catch several Baltimore Orioles and Indigo Buntings last week. Researchers looked at 400 songbirds from 9 major species, “including the yellow-rump warbler, American redstart and Bicknell’s thrush.”
The question they hoped to answer was how are these birds so darn precise in identifying the best time to take off for their nightly migration? Scientists found that 90% of the migrating birds in the study took off within 69 minutes of dusk. A “much narrower takeoff window,” that even shocked the research team!
Per the study, taking off at night is all about maximum flight time. In addition to being able to precisely schedule their take offs, a feat that every airline I’ve flown with over the past few years has proven inept at, birds also are apparently good meteorologists! They often depart when the atmospheric pressure rises over a day’s span. Other factors also trigger migration, including sex, age, and celestial cues.
‘Lights Out’ initiative appears to be saving birds from crashing into Philly buildings by Sophia Schmidt.
Preliminary results indicate that bird death counts are down 70% at one Market Street tower, since it began its participation in Lights Out. As we spoke about on a previous show, birds utilize the stars to navigate, but city lights can disorient the birds. Combine the lights with reflective or transparent glass, and that spells fatal trouble for our migrating warblers!
Per Keith Russell, a program manager for urban conservation with Audubon Mid-Atlantic, “We’ve lost almost a third of our birds – and [collisions] contributing to that. If we’re going to want to preserve the bird populations here in North America, we have to look at these types of problems. And this is a preventable one.”
The Knoxville, TN Zoo is offering up what they call “Twilight Tours” per WVLT 8. Each event will feature a guide to showcase nocturnal critters.
I did something similar in Singapore years ago. The zoo had very dim lights in the exhibits – and they kept those lights dim as you walked so that you didn’t lose your night vision. It was a very different and, might I say, peaceful experience than the typically chaotic daytime zoo.
Flashlights posing major threat to nesting sea turtles. Fox35 Orlando
Apparently, a single flashlight can deter female sea turtles from coming onto a beach and nesting. Florida, as I did not know, is home to 90% of the sea turtle nests across the world, so losing sea turtles can affect the global ecosystem.
One visitor to Cocoa Beach stated, “Just leave them alone. Stand back and look. You don’t need a flashlight.”
Another, “It’s not super surprising because more buildings go up, more technology. As it increases, nature and stuff like that decreases,” said Zoe Jovaag, whose grandfather used to take her on walks to see sea turtles.
Capture the Dark 2023 officially is under way!
The International Dark Sky Association opens up its annual photo contest complete with prizes across eight categories and an additional People’s Choice category. Voting begins on July 3rd, entries must be received by June 30th.
City Tests Traffic Light That Only Turns Green for Drivers Who Obey the Speed Limit. Erin Marquis for Jalopnik.
And hey, you better not speed in Brossard, Quebec….otherwise you may be waiting around for a while. Brossard is testing out a new traffic light that will stay red until it senses oncoming traffic. However, it will only change to green if the car is going the speed limit. Per the Jalopnik article, “FRED [the French acronym for “educational traffic calming light] forces fast drivers to stop and gives them a chance to reconsider their life choices.” Such lights are already used in Europe, but this will be the first for the Great White North.
Why the Greatest Threat to Star-Gazing Isn’t Light Pollution, and this comes to us from Dorin Elin Urrutia at Inverse.
Elin Urrutia writes, in her compelling piece, that the greatest threat to star-gazing is actually the weather. Citing notable examples of the Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia (which burnt down due to bushfires) and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico (which sustained structural damage following the winds of Hurricane Maria).
While the threat of human-caused climate change has presented new challenges, Elin Urrutia references proactive burns that saved Los Angeles’ Mount Wilson Observatory from flames in 2020.
On a similar note, ABC News (the Australian Broadcasting Company, not to be confused with the American Broadcasting Company), brings us “A World Without Darkness Could Be a Reality within a Few Years.”
Per Carol Redford of Astrotourism Western Australia, “There are some people in the world now who don’t actually experience darkness anymore. They’re in a city like Beijing, Toyoko, or London. In all those big cities, it’s never dark, it’s always light. During the day of course with the sun, but then during the night with all of the artificial light. They’re not experiencing darkness, and definitely not seeing those beautiful stars…”
In the 66 years since the implementation of the UN Convention on the Peaceful Use of Outerspace, around 11,000 satellites orbit the Earth. But it’s about to get wayyy busier. Driven by innovations that have led to dramatic reductions in costs, over the next ten years, Per attorney Steven Freeland, it’s anticipated that somewhere between 100,000 to 500,000 objects will be sent up. Let me pause on that for a second.
On the travel front, we stay in the land down under, “Aussie region determined to keep its darkness is a stargazer’s dream” by Chantelle Francis of News.com.AU.
The town of Swam Reach, population 270, resides in a 3200sq km region of Southern Australia that received its International Dark Sky Reserve status over three years ago. On a scale of darkness between 0 – 22, the River Murray Dark Sky Reserve at Swam Reach, measures in at a whopping 21.9!
Tourism has become a growing business. The reserve hosts numerous telescope pads and offers tours of the night sky. There’s hope that an observatory and/or planetarium may also arrive in due course.
Best smart lights for outdoors in 2023, Brittney Vincent of CBS Essentials.
Oh there’s a lot not to love here, but it does fall in line with last month’s ‘Lumens are Coming’ article.
For those of you who feel the need to light your trees, because for some reason they need light at night I guess…I’ll try and pretend it’s not solely for ostentatious and narcissistic reasons. By the way, does anyone remember when those were negative characteristics?
The article features spotlights that can be programmed to over 16 MILLION colors including…lucky for us, ALL shades of white….which you can also do for a 500 lumen flood light set.
And hey, Ring now has solar path lighting. Don’t worry though, the fixtures themselves put out up to 80 lumens of sideways light.
You know, it’s astounding when you look at some of these pictures. The amount of redundant lighting. It honestly makes no sense to me. You have a porch light, which lights up the path. Path lighting, which lights up the path. And, in the one picture, god awful frontward facing flood lights, which also light up the path. How bright do you need these paths!? I digress. But the lumens are indeed coming.
LDS Church will get to light up its Heber Valley Temple after all, but the faith didn’t get everything it wanted, Blake Apgar of the Salt Lake Tribune.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints fought hard to rid itself of any nighttime lighting responsibility by pressuring Wasatch County, Utah officials to approve new lighting rules that would enable the church to light a proposed new temple the same way it does for every other temple.
The Church received permission to uplight the temple, enabling an exception to be made in Wasatch’s rather stringent nighttime lighting rulebook. However, the temple will be restricted by the level of lumens it can use, and it must have exterior lighting turned off an hour after sunset or an hour after normal business hours.
Smart Street Lights Market is Expected to Hit USD 14,751.1 million at a 23.4% CAGR by 2030, Market Research Future Press Release
The pandemic is officially over, smart street lighting is about to boom. Combine the rush to LED fixtures with the Internet of Things, and expect to see street lights moonlighting as traffic and parking monitors, air quality meters, and more. Not to mention, “it is anticipated that camera-connected smart street lighting will increase road safety by lowering the likelihood of accidents and criminality.”
Texas now has 7 dark sky communities for spectacular star gazing, Sana Ameer, MRT.
Let’s cheer on the city of Bee Cave, everyone! Bee Cave joins a growing list of dark sky places already in the Lone Star State, including 2 Dark Sky Sanctuaries, 5 Dark Sky Parks, and 1 Dark Sky Reserve. Nighttime is alive and well in some parts of Texas!
Our Afraid of the Dark article is a bit scary! Hilton Head’s dark roads and pedestrians are deadly combo. What the town is doing about it, Blake Douglas at The Island Packet.
Per the article, 9 pedestrian and cyclist fatalities occurred since 2018, with five occurring after dark. Prior to that period, there were 28 recorded deaths from 2000 – 2016, with 20 of them taking place after dark.
In 2018, an 11 year old resident was struck and killed while walking her dog across an intersection one night. Lighting advocates began taking shape in what otherwise is a very conservation focused island. Hilton Head, SC has a limited number of street lights, priding itself on “avoiding light pollution and blending nature with construction.”
Lighting advocates appear to be, at the very least, asking for flashing crosswalk lights on the island to indicate when an individual is crossing.
It should be noted that the article shows a chart of 9 after-dark-deaths since 2014, only two of them occurred at crosswalks. In fact, during the same time frame, 6 additional deaths occurred at crosswalks during the daytime.
As a whole, the National Safety Council reports that 74.5% of pedestrian deaths occurred at night, whereby 39.1% took place in lit areas and 35.38% took place in unlit areas.
Bryan Bloch, an auto safety expert, surmises that car companies bear some of the blame – producing cheap or ineffectual headlight fixtures, and drivers themselves, who don’t realize that they need to regularly clean their headlight lenses.
Despite opposition from residents, it appears that Hilton Head will be receiving lights at two new intersections and possibly more depending on engineering studies currently in progress.
Is lighting the key variable here? Is more light going to solve pedestrian deaths?
Our featured research article of the month comes to us from Animal Conservation, “Manipulating spectra of artificial light affects movement patterns of bats along ecological corridors.”
Bats are already known to have a wide range of responses to artificial light at night (also known as ALAN). Fast flying species tend to be more opportunistic in the presence of ALAN while slower ones tend to be more light averse. We know that “long wavelengths and reduced intensity” can minimize their environmental effects on bats. It’s not unheard of for bats to travel upwards of “tens of km per night.” Furthermore, bats are very dependent on the landscape and the structures within those landscapes.
Despite the nuances between species, the consensus is that ALAN, especially high intensity ALAN, negatively affects bats. This study attempted to answer what exactly bats do when they encounter ALAN – how do they react depending on different types of ALAN.
The study used three different light fixtures – one green, one red, and one white. The control was devoid of light fixtures. The researchers attempted to ascertain the behavior of bats as they encountered lights adjacent to woody areas. The researchers looked at three different bat groupings based on their foraging-echo location behavior, that being one of open field foraging, forest edge foraging, and narrow space – or more aptly forest foragers.
Researchers found that open and edge foraging bats increased their activity close to white and green lights, and to a lesser extent red lights. However, narrow space bats were more likely to veer away from all colors of lighting. Edge foragers were also less likely to cross a white light.
The positive effects of white and green light on open and edge foraging bats appear to be attributed to the accumulation of insects around light sources containing more blue light.
The nighttime sky over Oahu will be lit up with green lasers in the coming days. Here’s why. Hawaii News Now
Before we close up today, do you live in Hawaii? I know I wish I did!
If so, do you recall seeing green lasers streak across the night sky? Well, the Army Corps of Engineers was using lidar at night to complete a coastal mapping survey.
Why did they survey at night? Specifically, why did they do this between midnight to 5am? Simply b/c the airspace is so busy, that time was the only chance they had to complete the survey. The remaining survey was completed during daytime hours.
submitted by Expensive_Ad_5089 to lightpollutionnews [link] [comments]
Show Link: https://lightpollutionnews.com/podcast/unpacking-the-light-police/
Subscribe: Apple Podcast Spotify Google Podcast
Social: Instagram LinkedIn
Guests:
John Barentine of Dark Sky Consulting, LLC.
Kaitlyn Evans, Conservationist.
Show:
I was busted by the light police. They had a point, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post.
Dana Milbank purchased a home in, soon to be not, rural Virginia. At night he kept the formerly vacant property lit to the degree that spurned one commentator to call it “spaceship lighting.”
Milbank recaps being visited by the “light police,” a group of concerned citizens who help educate neighbors and instill a sense of pride in the brilliance of their starry night skies.
At first, he was taken aback, but later, not only did he appreciate their efforts, but he also converted his blinding always on, white light flood lights to warm 2700 Kelvin motion sensing lights.
Per Ruskin Hartley, executive director of the International Dark Sky Association, “for 4.5 billion years there was no artificial light at night. It’s really only in the last five human generations that we transformed that. It’s one of the most profound transformations of our environment.”
Many of you may recall an earlier story, way back in our Hormone of Darkness episode, showcasing concerns by local residents prior to a 760 house (now 761) plus town center development moving into the Culpepper County, VA area. Per the Rappahannock News, this development features “a resort style swimming pool, clubhouse, tot lot, and multiple sports fields and sports courts, all connected by a network of biking and walking trails.”
The forgotten medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’ by Zaria Gorvett of the BBC.
Gorvett opened my eyes to something I never knew about, the medieval custom of two sleeps. For those of you unaware, two sleeps are exactly what it sounds like.
Folks would partake in a communal nap, complete with rigid sleeping arrangement conventions, between 9 – 11pm, then awaken for a few hours to do everything from hang out to brew beer! In fact, the idea of multiple sleeps crossed cultures and was found in places as far from Europe as indigenous South America.
How can one’s circadian rhythm make sense of all of this?!
Well, for starters, until the invention of the alarm clock, which humorously was invented by a clocks salesman so he could wake up and sell more clocks, people had no firm way to wake up at a consistent time. The industrial revolution enforced a new circadian standard.
And there’s some science behind this! In the 1992 study, In Short Photoperiods, human sleep is biphasic, researcher Thomas Wehr found that after four weeks of 10 hour days, his subjects began to engage in this two sleep cycle, involving a one to three hour period for which they became awake and engaged in between.
Want to Learn About Light Pollution? There’s a mini-course for that!, Jennifer Sensiba of Clean Technica.
Quoting Sensiba, “As I got older, I traveled a lot more and saw the problem more for what it is. Not only did I see that in many places there is no refuge from it, but I also saw that it was slowly growing worse. Places that had been dark 30 years ago had more and more light creeping upon the horizon.”
If you’re interested in learning more, or more importantly, know someone who might benefit from learning more, Sensiba links up to an International Dark Sky Mini-Course on light pollution, call it Light Pollution 101!
There’s a Play Date at the National Museum of Natural History: Lights Out exhibit!
But unfortunately, by the time you listen to this, and hell, by the time we talk about this, it has passed.
Ann Arbor named best place for sunrises, sunsets in Michigan. Sarah Parlette for Click on Detroit.
Evidently gambling websites have decided to honor April’s International Dark Sky week in a strange new content marketing campaign, which was to rank the best places in each state to see sunrises and sunsets. My favorite one, “Ann Arbor named best place for sunrises, sunsets in Michigan,” comes from Click on Detroit, whereby a quote “study” examined Michigan’s most populated cities.”
According to Click on Detroit, “to celebrate International Astrology Day on Saturday, staff at Great Lake Stakes, a Michigan online gambling news site, looked at light pollution in the five most populated cities around the Mitten state to determine which offers the best views every morning and evening.”
Star bathing is the new outdoor travel trend we should all be trying for Summer 2023, according to Amy Beecham at Stylist.
Evidently, as an attempt to destress and promote mindfulness, romanticism about sleeping under the stars has birthed a 70% increase in searches for the term ‘star bathing’ on Hipcamp. And to be sure, “Hipcamp recommends checking a stargazing calendar which outlines major astrological events – like supermoons, pink moons, and star showers.”
“Industry Must Face an Inconvenient Truth — Most LED Lights at Night are Unhealthy”
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede, a circadian clock expert, recently published an article in LEDs Magazine chastising the lighting industry for not recognizing and reigning in the negative externalities of its products. Per the piece, such effects are, obesity, diabetes, depression, cancer, and more.
He cites three categories of industry responses, making the correlation that long term Denial or outright Ignorance of the Facts, may result in “asbestos-scale liabilities or draconian regulations.”
Per the piece, a recent survey by the Circadian Light Research Center of 2,697 peer reviewed scientific articles confirmed that human circadian clocks are highly sensitive to blue wavelengths, and that exposure to such wavelengths leads to major health disorders.
Moore-Ede calls for the industry to harvest the “commercial opportunity” to greatly limit future liability by creating and managing its own standards for circadian modulated lighting.
Unpacking the Wallpack, by Dan Weissman in LD+A Magazine.
Weissman, who recently purchased a telescope for his family in Cambridge, MA, discovered that the scope could only afford him views of some solar system objects and a few brightly burning stars.
The ire of Weissman’s pen takes the shape of a rectangular fixtures, be it box like or simply a panel these days, that typically hang off the side of an exterior wall or above an exterior door. “Devoid of aesthetic value” this light is often put up under the “pretense of security and safety” by “recommended practices and adopted municipal codes.”
Weissman recognizes labels that often accompany, what he calls, “Glare bombs,” including “contractor-select,” “energy efficient,” or “light pollution friendly.”
Further, per an earlier LD+A article, such lighting driven by its extreme contrasts is exceedingly common in minority communities where light is weaponized as a tool of power. It becomes a “device of alienation, creating a zone of control and separation.”
Weissman recognizes that the true reason such fixtures are selected often comes down to cost. He recognizes that it may take equally as much cost to persuade building and homeowners away from such lighting into the realm of more responsible, lower lumen, shielded lighting.
Weissman calls for producers of these glare bombs to be labeled as polluters, putting them in line with fossil fuel manufacturers and PFAS makers.
Songbirds, dusk and clear skies: Scientists explore migratory flights, by Erin Blakemore.
Bird migration season is ending here in the Mid-Atlantic. I was lucky enough to catch several Baltimore Orioles and Indigo Buntings last week. Researchers looked at 400 songbirds from 9 major species, “including the yellow-rump warbler, American redstart and Bicknell’s thrush.”
The question they hoped to answer was how are these birds so darn precise in identifying the best time to take off for their nightly migration? Scientists found that 90% of the migrating birds in the study took off within 69 minutes of dusk. A “much narrower takeoff window,” that even shocked the research team!
Per the study, taking off at night is all about maximum flight time. In addition to being able to precisely schedule their take offs, a feat that every airline I’ve flown with over the past few years has proven inept at, birds also are apparently good meteorologists! They often depart when the atmospheric pressure rises over a day’s span. Other factors also trigger migration, including sex, age, and celestial cues.
‘Lights Out’ initiative appears to be saving birds from crashing into Philly buildings by Sophia Schmidt.
Preliminary results indicate that bird death counts are down 70% at one Market Street tower, since it began its participation in Lights Out. As we spoke about on a previous show, birds utilize the stars to navigate, but city lights can disorient the birds. Combine the lights with reflective or transparent glass, and that spells fatal trouble for our migrating warblers!
Per Keith Russell, a program manager for urban conservation with Audubon Mid-Atlantic, “We’ve lost almost a third of our birds – and [collisions] contributing to that. If we’re going to want to preserve the bird populations here in North America, we have to look at these types of problems. And this is a preventable one.”
The Knoxville, TN Zoo is offering up what they call “Twilight Tours” per WVLT 8. Each event will feature a guide to showcase nocturnal critters.
I did something similar in Singapore years ago. The zoo had very dim lights in the exhibits – and they kept those lights dim as you walked so that you didn’t lose your night vision. It was a very different and, might I say, peaceful experience than the typically chaotic daytime zoo.
Flashlights posing major threat to nesting sea turtles. Fox35 Orlando
Apparently, a single flashlight can deter female sea turtles from coming onto a beach and nesting. Florida, as I did not know, is home to 90% of the sea turtle nests across the world, so losing sea turtles can affect the global ecosystem.
One visitor to Cocoa Beach stated, “Just leave them alone. Stand back and look. You don’t need a flashlight.”
Another, “It’s not super surprising because more buildings go up, more technology. As it increases, nature and stuff like that decreases,” said Zoe Jovaag, whose grandfather used to take her on walks to see sea turtles.
Capture the Dark 2023 officially is under way!
The International Dark Sky Association opens up its annual photo contest complete with prizes across eight categories and an additional People’s Choice category. Voting begins on July 3rd, entries must be received by June 30th.
City Tests Traffic Light That Only Turns Green for Drivers Who Obey the Speed Limit. Erin Marquis for Jalopnik.
And hey, you better not speed in Brossard, Quebec….otherwise you may be waiting around for a while. Brossard is testing out a new traffic light that will stay red until it senses oncoming traffic. However, it will only change to green if the car is going the speed limit. Per the Jalopnik article, “FRED [the French acronym for “educational traffic calming light] forces fast drivers to stop and gives them a chance to reconsider their life choices.” Such lights are already used in Europe, but this will be the first for the Great White North.
Why the Greatest Threat to Star-Gazing Isn’t Light Pollution, and this comes to us from Dorin Elin Urrutia at Inverse.
Elin Urrutia writes, in her compelling piece, that the greatest threat to star-gazing is actually the weather. Citing notable examples of the Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia (which burnt down due to bushfires) and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico (which sustained structural damage following the winds of Hurricane Maria).
While the threat of human-caused climate change has presented new challenges, Elin Urrutia references proactive burns that saved Los Angeles’ Mount Wilson Observatory from flames in 2020.
On a similar note, ABC News (the Australian Broadcasting Company, not to be confused with the American Broadcasting Company), brings us “A World Without Darkness Could Be a Reality within a Few Years.”
Per Carol Redford of Astrotourism Western Australia, “There are some people in the world now who don’t actually experience darkness anymore. They’re in a city like Beijing, Toyoko, or London. In all those big cities, it’s never dark, it’s always light. During the day of course with the sun, but then during the night with all of the artificial light. They’re not experiencing darkness, and definitely not seeing those beautiful stars…”
In the 66 years since the implementation of the UN Convention on the Peaceful Use of Outerspace, around 11,000 satellites orbit the Earth. But it’s about to get wayyy busier. Driven by innovations that have led to dramatic reductions in costs, over the next ten years, Per attorney Steven Freeland, it’s anticipated that somewhere between 100,000 to 500,000 objects will be sent up. Let me pause on that for a second.
On the travel front, we stay in the land down under, “Aussie region determined to keep its darkness is a stargazer’s dream” by Chantelle Francis of News.com.AU.
The town of Swam Reach, population 270, resides in a 3200sq km region of Southern Australia that received its International Dark Sky Reserve status over three years ago. On a scale of darkness between 0 – 22, the River Murray Dark Sky Reserve at Swam Reach, measures in at a whopping 21.9!
Tourism has become a growing business. The reserve hosts numerous telescope pads and offers tours of the night sky. There’s hope that an observatory and/or planetarium may also arrive in due course.
Best smart lights for outdoors in 2023, Brittney Vincent of CBS Essentials.
Oh there’s a lot not to love here, but it does fall in line with last month’s ‘Lumens are Coming’ article.
For those of you who feel the need to light your trees, because for some reason they need light at night I guess…I’ll try and pretend it’s not solely for ostentatious and narcissistic reasons. By the way, does anyone remember when those were negative characteristics?
The article features spotlights that can be programmed to over 16 MILLION colors including…lucky for us, ALL shades of white….which you can also do for a 500 lumen flood light set.
And hey, Ring now has solar path lighting. Don’t worry though, the fixtures themselves put out up to 80 lumens of sideways light.
You know, it’s astounding when you look at some of these pictures. The amount of redundant lighting. It honestly makes no sense to me. You have a porch light, which lights up the path. Path lighting, which lights up the path. And, in the one picture, god awful frontward facing flood lights, which also light up the path. How bright do you need these paths!? I digress. But the lumens are indeed coming.
LDS Church will get to light up its Heber Valley Temple after all, but the faith didn’t get everything it wanted, Blake Apgar of the Salt Lake Tribune.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints fought hard to rid itself of any nighttime lighting responsibility by pressuring Wasatch County, Utah officials to approve new lighting rules that would enable the church to light a proposed new temple the same way it does for every other temple.
The Church received permission to uplight the temple, enabling an exception to be made in Wasatch’s rather stringent nighttime lighting rulebook. However, the temple will be restricted by the level of lumens it can use, and it must have exterior lighting turned off an hour after sunset or an hour after normal business hours.
Smart Street Lights Market is Expected to Hit USD 14,751.1 million at a 23.4% CAGR by 2030, Market Research Future Press Release
The pandemic is officially over, smart street lighting is about to boom. Combine the rush to LED fixtures with the Internet of Things, and expect to see street lights moonlighting as traffic and parking monitors, air quality meters, and more. Not to mention, “it is anticipated that camera-connected smart street lighting will increase road safety by lowering the likelihood of accidents and criminality.”
Texas now has 7 dark sky communities for spectacular star gazing, Sana Ameer, MRT.
Let’s cheer on the city of Bee Cave, everyone! Bee Cave joins a growing list of dark sky places already in the Lone Star State, including 2 Dark Sky Sanctuaries, 5 Dark Sky Parks, and 1 Dark Sky Reserve. Nighttime is alive and well in some parts of Texas!
Our Afraid of the Dark article is a bit scary! Hilton Head’s dark roads and pedestrians are deadly combo. What the town is doing about it, Blake Douglas at The Island Packet.
Per the article, 9 pedestrian and cyclist fatalities occurred since 2018, with five occurring after dark. Prior to that period, there were 28 recorded deaths from 2000 – 2016, with 20 of them taking place after dark.
In 2018, an 11 year old resident was struck and killed while walking her dog across an intersection one night. Lighting advocates began taking shape in what otherwise is a very conservation focused island. Hilton Head, SC has a limited number of street lights, priding itself on “avoiding light pollution and blending nature with construction.”
Lighting advocates appear to be, at the very least, asking for flashing crosswalk lights on the island to indicate when an individual is crossing.
It should be noted that the article shows a chart of 9 after-dark-deaths since 2014, only two of them occurred at crosswalks. In fact, during the same time frame, 6 additional deaths occurred at crosswalks during the daytime.
As a whole, the National Safety Council reports that 74.5% of pedestrian deaths occurred at night, whereby 39.1% took place in lit areas and 35.38% took place in unlit areas.
Bryan Bloch, an auto safety expert, surmises that car companies bear some of the blame – producing cheap or ineffectual headlight fixtures, and drivers themselves, who don’t realize that they need to regularly clean their headlight lenses.
Despite opposition from residents, it appears that Hilton Head will be receiving lights at two new intersections and possibly more depending on engineering studies currently in progress.
Is lighting the key variable here? Is more light going to solve pedestrian deaths?
Our featured research article of the month comes to us from Animal Conservation, “Manipulating spectra of artificial light affects movement patterns of bats along ecological corridors.”
Bats are already known to have a wide range of responses to artificial light at night (also known as ALAN). Fast flying species tend to be more opportunistic in the presence of ALAN while slower ones tend to be more light averse. We know that “long wavelengths and reduced intensity” can minimize their environmental effects on bats. It’s not unheard of for bats to travel upwards of “tens of km per night.” Furthermore, bats are very dependent on the landscape and the structures within those landscapes.
Despite the nuances between species, the consensus is that ALAN, especially high intensity ALAN, negatively affects bats. This study attempted to answer what exactly bats do when they encounter ALAN – how do they react depending on different types of ALAN.
The study used three different light fixtures – one green, one red, and one white. The control was devoid of light fixtures. The researchers attempted to ascertain the behavior of bats as they encountered lights adjacent to woody areas. The researchers looked at three different bat groupings based on their foraging-echo location behavior, that being one of open field foraging, forest edge foraging, and narrow space – or more aptly forest foragers.
Researchers found that open and edge foraging bats increased their activity close to white and green lights, and to a lesser extent red lights. However, narrow space bats were more likely to veer away from all colors of lighting. Edge foragers were also less likely to cross a white light.
The positive effects of white and green light on open and edge foraging bats appear to be attributed to the accumulation of insects around light sources containing more blue light.
The nighttime sky over Oahu will be lit up with green lasers in the coming days. Here’s why. Hawaii News Now
Before we close up today, do you live in Hawaii? I know I wish I did!
If so, do you recall seeing green lasers streak across the night sky? Well, the Army Corps of Engineers was using lidar at night to complete a coastal mapping survey.
Why did they survey at night? Specifically, why did they do this between midnight to 5am? Simply b/c the airspace is so busy, that time was the only chance they had to complete the survey. The remaining survey was completed during daytime hours.
2023.06.05 22:26 AslandusTheLaster Marianna, Queen of the Kalla
Original prompt: [WP] you are destined to become the greatest evil the world has ever known. The pinnacle of Terror incarnate. Of course you don't know that yet. Because right now you are just the child of a simple farmer. A farmer you've just watched murdered at the hands of the Hero while his party burn your farm. (link)
It had been 20 long years since that day. Marianna dug her fingernails into the surface of the table as she remembered. The screaming of the villagers, the crackle of the flames, her father bleeding out on the ground. She had been weak then, cowering beneath the hay cart as the soldiers ransacked her home, but now she was strong.
Finally, she snapped out of the vision. Sir Polik, flower of Calennian nobility and hero of the war of the thorns, had orchestrated the sacking of her village, and opened her eyes. Some might say she was fortunate, standing where she stood and with the reputation she'd gained, but for the so-called "Queen of the Kalla", becoming the de-facto hope of the bottom rung of Calennian society certainly didn't feel like luck. She'd spent years learning military tactics, logistics, languages, close combat, and organization in preparation for her revenge, and every step had been a hard-fought victory, even before actual weapons got involved.
She mulled over the crown sitting in front of her. It was made of gold, presumably real gold, and inlaid with numerous gemstones. The coronet was dented, and it wouldn't fit on a person's head anymore, though that was understandable. After all, it had hit the ground pretty hard after she'd lopped the king's head off. No, it definitely didn't fit her, physically or metaphorically. Her title didn't suit her either, she despised the idea of being lumped in with those royal bastards who cared so little for their people that they would rob and slaughter them just to supply their damned armies.
"Lady Marianna, it is time," Captain Travis said, leaning into the room.
"Be there in a moment," Marianna said.
Travis left the room, and the Queen of the Kalla donned her armor and helmet. It wasn't pristine, but given that she'd looted it off the corpse of a knight who had died during the first days of the rebellion, it was still in fairly good condition thanks to the layer of pine pitch she'd smeared over it. Her sword, also taken off that same knight, had been kept sharp, and she hoisted the shield from its rack before heading out to the courtyard of the Motte and Bailey.
Assembled before her was her army. Kalla men and women, among them many veterans with experience fighting in the Calennian levy, stood before her wielding stolen weapons and armor. A cheer went up through the crowd as Marianna emerged, as if they had been doubting whether she would come to guide them at all. Captain Travis stood on the watchtower, peering through a spyglass at the horizon.
"We should be good for at least another hour," he said.
"Excellent," Marianna said. "Then here's the plan..."
It was late in the day when Sir Polik marched up onto the hill opposite the Motte and Bailey. For a peasant rebellion, they had been surprisingly organized and coordinated, but he had seen this sort of insurrection before. Some upstart nobleman had probably decided to rile up the peasants so he could get rid of a political enemy or gain some clout in the court. Who said nobleman was was a mystery, and the fact that they'd slain the king did little to shed light on it given how unpopular he'd been getting in his old age. The knight carefully shifted his armor to get a better position on his horse, briefly considering his own age as he took pressure off the sore muscles in his back.
"Spyglass," he said, holding out his hand. His squire, a young man by the name of Kolin, handed him the device, and the knight peered through it at the fort.
The flag of the rebellion flew over it, a Calennian banner smattered with so much tar that it barely moved in the wind. The 50 year old man examined the walls and attempted to peer inside, to little avail. The palisade was a bit too high to see inside from his current vantage point, even from atop his horse, and the fading light did few favors for his weary eyes. Despite the poor visibility, he could tell that the wall was not insurmountable, his group could easily hop it to get inside if they could get close.
"Hmph," he said. "When any of you spot whoever's in charge of this rabble, point them out to me!"
The lords of the assembled army agreed, as did his long-time travelling companions. Kali had died a few years earlier, but her foraging skills would be of little use in the coming fight. Juth said a final prayer for the group before they approached, wishing for good fortune in the coming battle and alleviating the exhaustion of the march. Sir Polik knew that the battle would be a simple one, peasants weren't known for their fortitude in battle, that wasn't the concern. The real problem would come if he couldn't remove the leadership, in which case the kingdom, and perhaps even the surrounding kingdoms, would likely see more rebellions as the orchestrator riled up more revolts.
Sir Polik took point as the army began advancing on the small defensive structure. There was a small mire between them and the fort, which was part of what made it difficult to take, but with an entire army on their side the knight had little doubt that they'd be able to win, and much more concern that the responsible party might try to escape. As Sir Polik's horse reached the far shore, and the last of the levies stepped into the mire, the sound of a war horn erupted out of the fortress, and screams erupted from the army behind him.
The knight turned to see the army surrounded, Kalla peasant warriors stabbing through levies and lord alike with their spears and swords. The enemy combatants were covered in mud, and had been near invisible in the mire, so he hadn't even noticed them creeping in to surround his force. The Kalla fighters seemed to be quite used to wading through the muck, so they were practically running circles around the soldiers who only had experience fighting on solid ground.
"Damnation! Push forward, men! To the fort!" Sir Polik shouted, kicking his horse to drive her toward the palisade. He leapt at the wall, hoisting himself over as his companions followed suit. "Squire! Get the gate before our men are slaughtered!"
"Yes sire!" Kolin said, dashing toward the gate. The young man was unceremoniously clubbed over the head by an armored warrior almost immediately, their armor clearly made in the same style as that of the Calennian knights, but covered in pitch until it blended into the ever-deepening shadows. At the knight's side hung a war horn.
"You! Have at thee!" Sir Polik shouted, sprinting at the armored figure.
Juth screamed as a blade was stabbed into the back of his knee, and the knight turned just in time to see his old friend chucked back over the palisade by another, somewhat larger knightly armored figure. The cleric's dying screams did little to calm Sir Polik's nerves, and losing the blessing he'd laid upon the group caused the knight to start feeling his age in spite of his heroic physique.
"Bastard!" Sir Polik said, charging at the larger knight, who took up a defensive stance. A sharp whistle drew his attention as the black knight held their sword to his squire's throat.
Sir Polik quickly turned around, leaping at the black knight. The knight charged back at him, diving low with their shield and striking his legs out from under him as he soared through the air. The knight crashed to the ground, pulling himself up just in time to block the knight's next strike. The black knight deftly worked their blade between Polik's hand and sword, disarming the old knight.
"Gods above... Who are you?" Sir Polik asked.
"You speak to Marianna, Queen of the Kalla," the larger knight said.
"Who?" the war hero asked. Not only not a noblemen, but a woman? He was somewhat aware of the Kalla tradition of fully integrated armies, but it had always seemed very foreign to him. Even if his own party often included female members, military forces were a different matter.
"You killed my father, prepare to die," the black knight said, her voice downright spiteful.
As the Queen of the Kalla raised her sword, the squire came to. Kolin's eyes registered what was happening just in time to see Sir Polik's head cleaved from his shoulders.
"Sire!" Kolin shouted.
"Oh, shut up," Captain Travis said, bringing his foot down on the squire's head. The squire was soundly knocked unconscious again, most likely suffering a major concussion but otherwise alive. "So what do we do with this one?"
"Hm... I think I have an idea..." Marianna said. She hadn't been expecting to win so resoundingly, so her plans would need to be adjusted, but this was definitely a pleasant surprise. She walked over to the gate, opening it to her motley army of peasant fighters, covered in mud and viscera. "Warriors! We must send the new king a message he will not soon forget!"
Kolin, former squire of Sir Polik, rode his horse toward the capital city of the kingdom wearing a plain tunic. His weapons and armor had been taken by the rebels, and the death and slaughter he'd witnessed echoed in his mind. Inside one of the saddlebags which used to carry his supplies and equipment was a new payload. He rode for the palace, pulling a smaller sack out of the saddlebag and rushing for the king's chamber.
"King Laneus!" he shouted as he ran into the room.
The king was seated in his throne, wearing his full royal regalia and hearing a petition from one of his noblemen. The king looked nervous, and likely had even before the squire burst in, which was perhaps unsurprising given that he was about the same age as his new guest.
"Squire Kolin? To what do I owe this intrusion?" the king asked.
"The rebellion... The rebellion..." the squire said.
"Kolin, calm down, speak," the king said.
"They... they..." Kolin said.
The nobleman cleared his throat and said, "If the lad needs a moment to catch his breath, I would like to hear what you have to say about my proposal."
The squire shook his head and hoisted the bag Marianna had given him, upending it onto the floor. Noblemen's circlets, the plumes from generals' helmets, and the toppers from war banners poured onto the floor, many caked in dried blood and muck. The final pieces that fell from the bag was Polik's Thorn Stamp, one of the wax seal stamps that had been awarded to the team of heroes from the war of thorns for their official correspondence. The heroes had never let the stamps leave their presence, at least not when they were alive.
"They killed them... They're all dead..." Kolin said, breaking down in tears.
"Oh... Oh dear... I think I might come back another time," the nobleman said, stepping toward the door.
"What do they want?" the freshly crowned king asked.
The squire pulled out a letter, sealed closed with a thorn seal to add insult to injury. The king looked over the letter, his face etched in a grim expression, which softened after a moment.
"Hm... Their demands aren't as bad as I had assumed..." the king said.
"What do they want?" the squire asked.
"Some independent governance. Not even complete independence, just for their leader to be declared a duchess and given official control over... Well, the land she's claimed, and greater rights for the Kalla," the king said. "As much as I don't like giving in to rebels, and especially after what she did to Father, I don't think we're in a position to gamble."
"Gamble, m'lord?" the squire said.
The king quickly penned a letter, sealing it shut with the royal seal.
"The kingdom will acquiesce to their demands. It isn't worth risking further losses to prevent... Well, a peasant girl from taking a noble title, especially since we just lost almost a dozen nobles whose land will need to be transferred to new management," he said, handing the letter to Kolin.
"Why would they do all this for such an asinine reason?" Kolin asked.
"I'm not sure, but I suspect this won't be the last we hear of this Marianna," the king said.
submitted by AslandusTheLaster to AslandusTheLaster [link] [comments]
Finally, she snapped out of the vision. Sir Polik, flower of Calennian nobility and hero of the war of the thorns, had orchestrated the sacking of her village, and opened her eyes. Some might say she was fortunate, standing where she stood and with the reputation she'd gained, but for the so-called "Queen of the Kalla", becoming the de-facto hope of the bottom rung of Calennian society certainly didn't feel like luck. She'd spent years learning military tactics, logistics, languages, close combat, and organization in preparation for her revenge, and every step had been a hard-fought victory, even before actual weapons got involved.
She mulled over the crown sitting in front of her. It was made of gold, presumably real gold, and inlaid with numerous gemstones. The coronet was dented, and it wouldn't fit on a person's head anymore, though that was understandable. After all, it had hit the ground pretty hard after she'd lopped the king's head off. No, it definitely didn't fit her, physically or metaphorically. Her title didn't suit her either, she despised the idea of being lumped in with those royal bastards who cared so little for their people that they would rob and slaughter them just to supply their damned armies.
"Lady Marianna, it is time," Captain Travis said, leaning into the room.
"Be there in a moment," Marianna said.
Travis left the room, and the Queen of the Kalla donned her armor and helmet. It wasn't pristine, but given that she'd looted it off the corpse of a knight who had died during the first days of the rebellion, it was still in fairly good condition thanks to the layer of pine pitch she'd smeared over it. Her sword, also taken off that same knight, had been kept sharp, and she hoisted the shield from its rack before heading out to the courtyard of the Motte and Bailey.
Assembled before her was her army. Kalla men and women, among them many veterans with experience fighting in the Calennian levy, stood before her wielding stolen weapons and armor. A cheer went up through the crowd as Marianna emerged, as if they had been doubting whether she would come to guide them at all. Captain Travis stood on the watchtower, peering through a spyglass at the horizon.
"We should be good for at least another hour," he said.
"Excellent," Marianna said. "Then here's the plan..."
"Spyglass," he said, holding out his hand. His squire, a young man by the name of Kolin, handed him the device, and the knight peered through it at the fort.
The flag of the rebellion flew over it, a Calennian banner smattered with so much tar that it barely moved in the wind. The 50 year old man examined the walls and attempted to peer inside, to little avail. The palisade was a bit too high to see inside from his current vantage point, even from atop his horse, and the fading light did few favors for his weary eyes. Despite the poor visibility, he could tell that the wall was not insurmountable, his group could easily hop it to get inside if they could get close.
"Hmph," he said. "When any of you spot whoever's in charge of this rabble, point them out to me!"
The lords of the assembled army agreed, as did his long-time travelling companions. Kali had died a few years earlier, but her foraging skills would be of little use in the coming fight. Juth said a final prayer for the group before they approached, wishing for good fortune in the coming battle and alleviating the exhaustion of the march. Sir Polik knew that the battle would be a simple one, peasants weren't known for their fortitude in battle, that wasn't the concern. The real problem would come if he couldn't remove the leadership, in which case the kingdom, and perhaps even the surrounding kingdoms, would likely see more rebellions as the orchestrator riled up more revolts.
Sir Polik took point as the army began advancing on the small defensive structure. There was a small mire between them and the fort, which was part of what made it difficult to take, but with an entire army on their side the knight had little doubt that they'd be able to win, and much more concern that the responsible party might try to escape. As Sir Polik's horse reached the far shore, and the last of the levies stepped into the mire, the sound of a war horn erupted out of the fortress, and screams erupted from the army behind him.
The knight turned to see the army surrounded, Kalla peasant warriors stabbing through levies and lord alike with their spears and swords. The enemy combatants were covered in mud, and had been near invisible in the mire, so he hadn't even noticed them creeping in to surround his force. The Kalla fighters seemed to be quite used to wading through the muck, so they were practically running circles around the soldiers who only had experience fighting on solid ground.
"Damnation! Push forward, men! To the fort!" Sir Polik shouted, kicking his horse to drive her toward the palisade. He leapt at the wall, hoisting himself over as his companions followed suit. "Squire! Get the gate before our men are slaughtered!"
"Yes sire!" Kolin said, dashing toward the gate. The young man was unceremoniously clubbed over the head by an armored warrior almost immediately, their armor clearly made in the same style as that of the Calennian knights, but covered in pitch until it blended into the ever-deepening shadows. At the knight's side hung a war horn.
"You! Have at thee!" Sir Polik shouted, sprinting at the armored figure.
Juth screamed as a blade was stabbed into the back of his knee, and the knight turned just in time to see his old friend chucked back over the palisade by another, somewhat larger knightly armored figure. The cleric's dying screams did little to calm Sir Polik's nerves, and losing the blessing he'd laid upon the group caused the knight to start feeling his age in spite of his heroic physique.
"Bastard!" Sir Polik said, charging at the larger knight, who took up a defensive stance. A sharp whistle drew his attention as the black knight held their sword to his squire's throat.
Sir Polik quickly turned around, leaping at the black knight. The knight charged back at him, diving low with their shield and striking his legs out from under him as he soared through the air. The knight crashed to the ground, pulling himself up just in time to block the knight's next strike. The black knight deftly worked their blade between Polik's hand and sword, disarming the old knight.
"Gods above... Who are you?" Sir Polik asked.
"You speak to Marianna, Queen of the Kalla," the larger knight said.
"Who?" the war hero asked. Not only not a noblemen, but a woman? He was somewhat aware of the Kalla tradition of fully integrated armies, but it had always seemed very foreign to him. Even if his own party often included female members, military forces were a different matter.
"You killed my father, prepare to die," the black knight said, her voice downright spiteful.
As the Queen of the Kalla raised her sword, the squire came to. Kolin's eyes registered what was happening just in time to see Sir Polik's head cleaved from his shoulders.
"Sire!" Kolin shouted.
"Oh, shut up," Captain Travis said, bringing his foot down on the squire's head. The squire was soundly knocked unconscious again, most likely suffering a major concussion but otherwise alive. "So what do we do with this one?"
"Hm... I think I have an idea..." Marianna said. She hadn't been expecting to win so resoundingly, so her plans would need to be adjusted, but this was definitely a pleasant surprise. She walked over to the gate, opening it to her motley army of peasant fighters, covered in mud and viscera. "Warriors! We must send the new king a message he will not soon forget!"
"King Laneus!" he shouted as he ran into the room.
The king was seated in his throne, wearing his full royal regalia and hearing a petition from one of his noblemen. The king looked nervous, and likely had even before the squire burst in, which was perhaps unsurprising given that he was about the same age as his new guest.
"Squire Kolin? To what do I owe this intrusion?" the king asked.
"The rebellion... The rebellion..." the squire said.
"Kolin, calm down, speak," the king said.
"They... they..." Kolin said.
The nobleman cleared his throat and said, "If the lad needs a moment to catch his breath, I would like to hear what you have to say about my proposal."
The squire shook his head and hoisted the bag Marianna had given him, upending it onto the floor. Noblemen's circlets, the plumes from generals' helmets, and the toppers from war banners poured onto the floor, many caked in dried blood and muck. The final pieces that fell from the bag was Polik's Thorn Stamp, one of the wax seal stamps that had been awarded to the team of heroes from the war of thorns for their official correspondence. The heroes had never let the stamps leave their presence, at least not when they were alive.
"They killed them... They're all dead..." Kolin said, breaking down in tears.
"Oh... Oh dear... I think I might come back another time," the nobleman said, stepping toward the door.
"What do they want?" the freshly crowned king asked.
The squire pulled out a letter, sealed closed with a thorn seal to add insult to injury. The king looked over the letter, his face etched in a grim expression, which softened after a moment.
"Hm... Their demands aren't as bad as I had assumed..." the king said.
"What do they want?" the squire asked.
"Some independent governance. Not even complete independence, just for their leader to be declared a duchess and given official control over... Well, the land she's claimed, and greater rights for the Kalla," the king said. "As much as I don't like giving in to rebels, and especially after what she did to Father, I don't think we're in a position to gamble."
"Gamble, m'lord?" the squire said.
The king quickly penned a letter, sealing it shut with the royal seal.
"The kingdom will acquiesce to their demands. It isn't worth risking further losses to prevent... Well, a peasant girl from taking a noble title, especially since we just lost almost a dozen nobles whose land will need to be transferred to new management," he said, handing the letter to Kolin.
"Why would they do all this for such an asinine reason?" Kolin asked.
"I'm not sure, but I suspect this won't be the last we hear of this Marianna," the king said.
2023.06.05 22:16 clegay15 Tales of Middle Earth Flavor Critique: Boromir, Warden of the Tower
Preface:
I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan; I re-read the books typically once a year. I also adore the movies, and find all of Tolkien's legendarium absolutely awesome. Truly one of my favorite hobbies so I'd like to offer some critiques and excitement of flavor gems from Tales of Middle Earth. I won't do every card, but I'll comment on some individual cards and how WOTC did on it. I will comment on the cards abilities but only insofar as it impacts the flavor; i.e. what the card is doing not power level, etc.
To be clear: I understand there are sacrifices you need to make for the greater game, and sometimes those come first. For these articles: I am looking at each card in a vacuum, so if I seem harsh it's because I am using a single lens.
Next up: Boromir, Warden of the Tower!
https://preview.redd.it/8ekh9w46894b1.png?width=400&format=png&auto=webp&s=379d2473d584953016d03244a1554e1cc1761f64
Flavor Preface:
OK, I have been intimidated on critiquing Boromir. He is one of Tolkien's most complex characters in the story. Many people criticize Tolkien for not being interested in character, and writing bland characters who are black or white (meaning good or evil). I think this reading of Tolkien is incorrect: Tolkien was deeply invested in his characters and there is depth in them which people frequently miss.
The first thing I want to discuss about Boromir is the interplay between Boromir and Faramir; the two brothers are both captains of Gondor working to resist Sauron. Boromir is the more marshal and physical brother; a more stereotypical hero with a big sword, while Faramir is more intellectual. Tolkien critiques the limits of the 'old' style of warfare through Boromir, and I think it first must go without saying: Boromir is a noble man who dies trying to save Merry & Pippin. He saves Frodo and the Fellowship would not make it through Moria or the Anduin without him.
That being said, Boromir is incredibly proud and his pride becomes his downfall. Boromir wants to be the great Lord who comes to Gondor's defense and protects his people on the back of his sword arm leading men. He is proud of the line of Stewards (of which he is the eldest son) and yearns to protect Gondor as it is now: without the king. The Ring preys on this arrogance which causes him to drive Frodo away at the end of Book II.
We see this in other ways as well. Before the Fellowship left Rivendell Boromir blows his horn proudly before they depart. Elrond warns Boromir not to sound the horn before he reaches Gondor; and there are two reasons for this, I think. The first is that Boromir is in a strange land with many dangers about him: calling the horn will likely call danger two him. The second is, more importantly: The Fellowship's greatest weapon is stealth! Proudly marching towards Mordor will call Sauron's gaze upon them! But Boromir ignores this advice: saying "Maybe, but I have always let my horn cry at setting forth, and though thereafter we may walk in the shadows, I will not go forth as a thief in the night.' (Emphasis mine).
I think this also plays into how Boromir acts at the Council of Elrond in Rivendell: Boromir counsels to use the Ring declaring: "Let the Ring be your weapon, if it has such power as you say. Take it and go forth to victory!" Boromir does not seek to end the world of power, but to gain power for himself and thus to protect those he loves. This then proves Boromir's downfall. Boromir's pride led to lust saying to Frodo ere the end:
"If any mortals have claim to the Ring, it is the men of Numenor, and not Halflings. It is not yours save by un happy chance. It might have been mine. It should be mine. Give it to me!"
Boromir snaps, and his pride is his downfall.
This is in contrast to Faramir, who is brought to the very same choice Boromir has and he chooses to reject the Ring. He rejects the marshal masculinity Boromir embodies, choosing stealth and guile over strength and bravado. Secrecy and waylay tactics to direct conflict, and when offered the Ring: Faramir says he would not take the Ring, even if he had found it on the side of the road.
Thus Tolkien's comparison: the old masculine warriors (I might add the British soldiers who pre-date World War I) and those who came out on the other side, as Tolkien did at the end.
Color Identity
Boromir is white for a certainty. Noble and proud, a warrior in the Boros sense. I would have made Boromir Red-White. But mono-White is, I suppose, good enough.
Creature Type
This is, again, a contrast I would draw between Faramir and Boromir. I would have made Boromir a Warrior and Faramir a soldier. A solider being part of a unit, where the warrior is out for his own glory (as Boromir undoubtedly was in many ways). But this is a quibble.
Abilities
I believe they are going for Boromir in the moment before he dies: when he defends Merry and Pippin from the Uruks as they chase down Hobbits. I don't think they did a terrible job. Vigilance makes sense so he can attack and defend, and Boromir does slay man enemies before he dies. The second ability "whenever an opponent casts a spell, if no mana was spent to cast it, counter that ability" doesn't seem flavorful to me: I would have made it something like "the first time an opponent casts a spell targeting a creature other than Boromir: counter that spell" to emphasize the protection. The last ability allowing you to sacrifice Boromir to protect a creature works; I'd have taken it two (for the two Hobbits). I also think they should have added something else for some aggression. I might have gotten rid of the spell counter ability and adding something red. Like whenever Boromir attacks ping a creature. Not sure how to get it right.
3/3 on the body is fine.
I think the flavor of this card is...ok. I don't care for the name. I would have gone "Warden of Halflings" to emphasize how he's guarding Merry and Pippin at the end, given the art. Or something else. Boromir is a tough one to pin down. We shall see if he gets another card which might play into a different aspect of his character.
submitted by clegay15 to mtgvorthos [link] [comments]
I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan; I re-read the books typically once a year. I also adore the movies, and find all of Tolkien's legendarium absolutely awesome. Truly one of my favorite hobbies so I'd like to offer some critiques and excitement of flavor gems from Tales of Middle Earth. I won't do every card, but I'll comment on some individual cards and how WOTC did on it. I will comment on the cards abilities but only insofar as it impacts the flavor; i.e. what the card is doing not power level, etc.
To be clear: I understand there are sacrifices you need to make for the greater game, and sometimes those come first. For these articles: I am looking at each card in a vacuum, so if I seem harsh it's because I am using a single lens.
Next up: Boromir, Warden of the Tower!
https://preview.redd.it/8ekh9w46894b1.png?width=400&format=png&auto=webp&s=379d2473d584953016d03244a1554e1cc1761f64
Flavor Preface:
OK, I have been intimidated on critiquing Boromir. He is one of Tolkien's most complex characters in the story. Many people criticize Tolkien for not being interested in character, and writing bland characters who are black or white (meaning good or evil). I think this reading of Tolkien is incorrect: Tolkien was deeply invested in his characters and there is depth in them which people frequently miss.
The first thing I want to discuss about Boromir is the interplay between Boromir and Faramir; the two brothers are both captains of Gondor working to resist Sauron. Boromir is the more marshal and physical brother; a more stereotypical hero with a big sword, while Faramir is more intellectual. Tolkien critiques the limits of the 'old' style of warfare through Boromir, and I think it first must go without saying: Boromir is a noble man who dies trying to save Merry & Pippin. He saves Frodo and the Fellowship would not make it through Moria or the Anduin without him.
That being said, Boromir is incredibly proud and his pride becomes his downfall. Boromir wants to be the great Lord who comes to Gondor's defense and protects his people on the back of his sword arm leading men. He is proud of the line of Stewards (of which he is the eldest son) and yearns to protect Gondor as it is now: without the king. The Ring preys on this arrogance which causes him to drive Frodo away at the end of Book II.
We see this in other ways as well. Before the Fellowship left Rivendell Boromir blows his horn proudly before they depart. Elrond warns Boromir not to sound the horn before he reaches Gondor; and there are two reasons for this, I think. The first is that Boromir is in a strange land with many dangers about him: calling the horn will likely call danger two him. The second is, more importantly: The Fellowship's greatest weapon is stealth! Proudly marching towards Mordor will call Sauron's gaze upon them! But Boromir ignores this advice: saying "Maybe, but I have always let my horn cry at setting forth, and though thereafter we may walk in the shadows, I will not go forth as a thief in the night.' (Emphasis mine).
I think this also plays into how Boromir acts at the Council of Elrond in Rivendell: Boromir counsels to use the Ring declaring: "Let the Ring be your weapon, if it has such power as you say. Take it and go forth to victory!" Boromir does not seek to end the world of power, but to gain power for himself and thus to protect those he loves. This then proves Boromir's downfall. Boromir's pride led to lust saying to Frodo ere the end:
"Gandalf, Elrond - all these folk have taught you to say [do not use the Ring]. For themselves they may be right. Yet often I doubt I they are wise and not merely timid. But each to his own kind. True-hearted Men, they will not be corrupted. We of Minas Tirish have been staunch through long years of trial. We do not desire the power of wizard-lords, only strength to defend ourselves, strength in a just cause. And behold! In our need chance brings to light the Ring of Power. It is a gift, I say; a gift to the foes of Mordor. It is mad not to use it, to use the power of the Enemy against him. The fearless, the ruthless, these alone will achieve victory. What could not a warrior do in this hour, a great leader? What could not Aragorn do? Or if he refuses, why not Boromir? The Ring would give me power of Command. How I would drive the hosts of Mordor, and all men would flock to my banner!"Emphasis mine. I want to emphasize here: Boromir is not wrong. Gondor has bore the brunt of Mordor's wrath. Gondor has defended the realms of the West against great evil. His people have bled not just for themselves, but for all. Boromir's cause is just. But the Ring preys on your desire, even your good ones. When Frodo denies the Ring to Boromir, the tone changes:
"If any mortals have claim to the Ring, it is the men of Numenor, and not Halflings. It is not yours save by un happy chance. It might have been mine. It should be mine. Give it to me!"
Boromir snaps, and his pride is his downfall.
This is in contrast to Faramir, who is brought to the very same choice Boromir has and he chooses to reject the Ring. He rejects the marshal masculinity Boromir embodies, choosing stealth and guile over strength and bravado. Secrecy and waylay tactics to direct conflict, and when offered the Ring: Faramir says he would not take the Ring, even if he had found it on the side of the road.
Thus Tolkien's comparison: the old masculine warriors (I might add the British soldiers who pre-date World War I) and those who came out on the other side, as Tolkien did at the end.
Color Identity
Boromir is white for a certainty. Noble and proud, a warrior in the Boros sense. I would have made Boromir Red-White. But mono-White is, I suppose, good enough.
Creature Type
This is, again, a contrast I would draw between Faramir and Boromir. I would have made Boromir a Warrior and Faramir a soldier. A solider being part of a unit, where the warrior is out for his own glory (as Boromir undoubtedly was in many ways). But this is a quibble.
Abilities
I believe they are going for Boromir in the moment before he dies: when he defends Merry and Pippin from the Uruks as they chase down Hobbits. I don't think they did a terrible job. Vigilance makes sense so he can attack and defend, and Boromir does slay man enemies before he dies. The second ability "whenever an opponent casts a spell, if no mana was spent to cast it, counter that ability" doesn't seem flavorful to me: I would have made it something like "the first time an opponent casts a spell targeting a creature other than Boromir: counter that spell" to emphasize the protection. The last ability allowing you to sacrifice Boromir to protect a creature works; I'd have taken it two (for the two Hobbits). I also think they should have added something else for some aggression. I might have gotten rid of the spell counter ability and adding something red. Like whenever Boromir attacks ping a creature. Not sure how to get it right.
3/3 on the body is fine.
I think the flavor of this card is...ok. I don't care for the name. I would have gone "Warden of Halflings" to emphasize how he's guarding Merry and Pippin at the end, given the art. Or something else. Boromir is a tough one to pin down. We shall see if he gets another card which might play into a different aspect of his character.
2023.06.05 21:42 el1zabeth UK Kratom eater, police visit preparation a real pain in the arse
Sorry for the long post.
Hello
I now order my kratom from the EU, but from the end of last year to April I was buying from Indonesia.
I did not realise the risk regarding customs.
I did ask at the beginning and the vendor showed me trackers of people making much bigger orders than me, so I thought my worries about customs was a bit over the top.
Fast forward to recently.
Parcel 2kg posted on 8th April along with the parcels of two other British customers.
Received in the UK on 4th May.
The other two British customers got theirs soon after, and I am still waiting for mine.
My tracker says “Arrival at Inward OE”
My Royal Mail tracker still thinks the parcel is in Indonesia.
Anyway I spoke online to various people.
Some have had unannounced police home visits.
Some got their computers and phones confiscated, and had to buy new, as police kept them for 6 months.
One heard a friend received a visit, so, they prepared for a possible visit by disposing of/hiding any evidence, and they did get a police visit.
One got a police visit for an order half the size of mine.
Someone got a customs letter, ignored the letter, and relaxed, only to get an unexpected police visit a month later out of the blue.
It’s a total waste of resources, I read that the police even took one person’s supplements away to be tested at £100 a pop, so they don’t care about wasting resources on minor things.
I did decide it would be safer to buy a cheap phone, with a new number, and I was going to hide my computer and phone.
I have no one who can take these items in for me, so I decided I would hide them in a spare wheelie bin in my bin shed, as I live in a flat, we keep our wheelie bins in there.
Then a friend pointed out that someone could empty that bin, and I could lose my computer and phone, as not all bins have flat numbers on, and there may be no spare bins anyway.
As for my own wheelie bin, it’s half full of bin liners full of my own rubbish.
Given that someone got a police visit a month after they received a customs letter, I figured out I would have to hide my computer and phone, plus kratom etc in an old style dustbin that no one uses, there’s two of those, one is full of crap, I emptied the other, and it has one of those black boxes on top, so nice and discreet.
The sun gets in there though, and as my kratom is in a cool-bag (not with coolers in) within the bin, I wonder of the heat will degrade the kratom, as the stuff I have currently, bought from EU is good quality.
As I dose daily, each night around 10pm I am going to have to dip into the bin, to make my 10 kratom parcels for next day’s dose, I am tapering off, in the midst of all this.
As I dose about 4 or 5 times a day, if I don’t go out, I fear I will look suspicious going down to the bin shed 4 or 5 times a day, and if I do go out, I can just take enough blate pape parcels out with me in a supplement jar, which will be empty when I get home.
Given that my parcel arrived at Heathrow, ideally, I should have had had my computer and phone hidden, and all incriminating evidence, last week, but I just could not be arsed to do it.
Every time I thought of it, I felt drained of energy.
It has enabled me to have a good tidy up of my flat, and get rid of stuff.
On the one hand, there IS a chance I will get a police visit, and if I sit on my arse and assume paranoia, I could lose my laptop and phone for 6 months, plus possible prosecution as it’s illegal here in the UK.
It’s not about it being a low-class minor substance, it’s about domination and control and frightening people.
I feel totally torn.
I have received no customs letter.
I have WiFi equipment I cannot hide, so, someone helpfully suggested I say I broke my laptop a short while ago.
Part of me wants to ignore it and carry on as normal, but, I know that I will be stressing about a knock on the door, and being unprepared and losing my computer and phone by getting them confiscated.
The other part of me, feels I should prepare for a police visit, because if they do come, I will have no evidence.
They need a separate warrant to search bins in the UK.
Also, if they do come, do I deny all knowledge even though a parcel has come from Indonesia with my name on it, will they buy that.
Or, could I say I met a man online called “John” from Indonesia and as I am autistic and have vulnerabilities he told me kratom was a supplement, and I believed him as it’s not class A, B or C, it was banned under the psychoactive substances act 2016.
submitted by el1zabeth to kratomeu [link] [comments]
Hello
I now order my kratom from the EU, but from the end of last year to April I was buying from Indonesia.
I did not realise the risk regarding customs.
I did ask at the beginning and the vendor showed me trackers of people making much bigger orders than me, so I thought my worries about customs was a bit over the top.
Fast forward to recently.
Parcel 2kg posted on 8th April along with the parcels of two other British customers.
Received in the UK on 4th May.
The other two British customers got theirs soon after, and I am still waiting for mine.
My tracker says “Arrival at Inward OE”
My Royal Mail tracker still thinks the parcel is in Indonesia.
Anyway I spoke online to various people.
Some have had unannounced police home visits.
Some got their computers and phones confiscated, and had to buy new, as police kept them for 6 months.
One heard a friend received a visit, so, they prepared for a possible visit by disposing of/hiding any evidence, and they did get a police visit.
One got a police visit for an order half the size of mine.
Someone got a customs letter, ignored the letter, and relaxed, only to get an unexpected police visit a month later out of the blue.
It’s a total waste of resources, I read that the police even took one person’s supplements away to be tested at £100 a pop, so they don’t care about wasting resources on minor things.
I did decide it would be safer to buy a cheap phone, with a new number, and I was going to hide my computer and phone.
I have no one who can take these items in for me, so I decided I would hide them in a spare wheelie bin in my bin shed, as I live in a flat, we keep our wheelie bins in there.
Then a friend pointed out that someone could empty that bin, and I could lose my computer and phone, as not all bins have flat numbers on, and there may be no spare bins anyway.
As for my own wheelie bin, it’s half full of bin liners full of my own rubbish.
Given that someone got a police visit a month after they received a customs letter, I figured out I would have to hide my computer and phone, plus kratom etc in an old style dustbin that no one uses, there’s two of those, one is full of crap, I emptied the other, and it has one of those black boxes on top, so nice and discreet.
The sun gets in there though, and as my kratom is in a cool-bag (not with coolers in) within the bin, I wonder of the heat will degrade the kratom, as the stuff I have currently, bought from EU is good quality.
As I dose daily, each night around 10pm I am going to have to dip into the bin, to make my 10 kratom parcels for next day’s dose, I am tapering off, in the midst of all this.
As I dose about 4 or 5 times a day, if I don’t go out, I fear I will look suspicious going down to the bin shed 4 or 5 times a day, and if I do go out, I can just take enough blate pape parcels out with me in a supplement jar, which will be empty when I get home.
Given that my parcel arrived at Heathrow, ideally, I should have had had my computer and phone hidden, and all incriminating evidence, last week, but I just could not be arsed to do it.
Every time I thought of it, I felt drained of energy.
It has enabled me to have a good tidy up of my flat, and get rid of stuff.
On the one hand, there IS a chance I will get a police visit, and if I sit on my arse and assume paranoia, I could lose my laptop and phone for 6 months, plus possible prosecution as it’s illegal here in the UK.
It’s not about it being a low-class minor substance, it’s about domination and control and frightening people.
I feel totally torn.
I have received no customs letter.
I have WiFi equipment I cannot hide, so, someone helpfully suggested I say I broke my laptop a short while ago.
Part of me wants to ignore it and carry on as normal, but, I know that I will be stressing about a knock on the door, and being unprepared and losing my computer and phone by getting them confiscated.
The other part of me, feels I should prepare for a police visit, because if they do come, I will have no evidence.
They need a separate warrant to search bins in the UK.
Also, if they do come, do I deny all knowledge even though a parcel has come from Indonesia with my name on it, will they buy that.
Or, could I say I met a man online called “John” from Indonesia and as I am autistic and have vulnerabilities he told me kratom was a supplement, and I believed him as it’s not class A, B or C, it was banned under the psychoactive substances act 2016.
2023.06.05 20:55 StinkoModeeTrucker Rating each city/area I've been to
Sandusky OH 10/10 I know Sandusky is not a major city but it's my favorite place in Ohio and I have lots of great memories here, some cool lighthouses and obviously cedar point
Beaufort NC 10/10 again another water front smaller area, lots of fun things to do and made many memories here over thr last 12 years I've been going there, lots of cool shops as well.
Traverse city MI 10/10 Ohioans all hate Michigan and vise versa but yet again another water front area with lots of fun things to do.
Chagrin Falls OH 10/10 This place is really awesome, everything is walkable here theres shops and restaurants everywhere and also The creator of Calvin and Hobbles based it on this town.
Cincinnati OH 9/10 Cincinnati is the best of the 3 C's in my personal opinion, lots of preserved historical areas, Cincinnati tops Columbus in mostly everything according to US N&WR, I will probably move here to go to collage in around 2 years
Pittsburgh 9/10 Downtown Pittsburgh is a very fun experience and it's very walkable, the water front is really great as well, I haven't been here in around 5 years but I enjoyed it.
Charlotte NC 7.5/10 I never really got to explore Charlotte but the part I went to was pretty nice but legit kinda boring, the reason i felt it was boring is because there is not much real culture left in Charlotte, its all been taken over by nissan altimas with dented bumpers. there is some high crime rates in Charlotte but the majority of it was alright. it's a pretty good place overall but I wish it had some of its original culture left.
Columbus OH 7/10 Columbus is the most midwest feeling city in Ohio, everyone moves to Columbus for work and collage mostly and that's why personally think it's the most boring of the 3 C's, there is some cool neighborhoods like German village that are similar to Cincinnatis historical homes. But theres 100s of new genfrcation building that dont have the same downtown feel as it should. Basically when people think Ohio they think Columbus.There is a new Intel plant being built in Columbus which will bring some more money to the states economy.
Richmond VA 7/10 I haven't explored Virginia as much but I have been to Richmond, it was a pretty good place. Richmond has excellent food and some cool historical homes. Outside of the city is just your basic american metropolitan area but overall it's alright.
Akron OH 7/10 My hometown and current place of living, there has been a lot of improvement over the past 10 years to akron and there is lots planned for the next coming 5 years. Akron has the beat metro parks in the state and also has The CVNP starting at merriman Valley. Our downtown is pretty small but very walkable and there restaurants and bars everywhere, what we need downtown is more stores but the main income goes to The restaurants downtown. We also have lots and lots of old homes, my personal favorite style is the tutor style house. All down portage path and merriman road are all all historical homes. The worst parts of Akron (east side) are basically the average neighborhood in Cleveland which I why I think akron Is 100% a better place than Cleveland. Basically if you got rid of the shitty cleveland like east side it would give akron a giant boost.
Winston salem NC 7/10 This city reminded me of akron a lot, the metropolitan size of it is basically the same, the downtown isn't as fun in my opinion but Akrons isn't all that either. I stayed in the worst area to stay at in winston salem tho (hanes mall) but I wad only there at night so it wasn't all day. If I where to move somewhere out of state it might be here just because I got used to it so easily and have family close in SC. Pilot mountain is also worth visiting and has some great hikes and views, you can see the phallic building of WS from the peak lmao.
Norfolk VA 6.5/10 the area we stayed at here was legit pretty dangerous, my grandma booked a hotel in the shittiest neighborhood at a days inn, but I still am a huge fan of naval shit so this place was awesome. There's tons of boating stuff to do here and some really cool miltary equipment to look at. Honestly if we didn't stay in the worst part of this place it probably would of gotten a 7 but maybe I should try it out again.
The rest will be posted later after this
submitted by StinkoModeeTrucker to 2american4you [link] [comments]
Beaufort NC 10/10 again another water front smaller area, lots of fun things to do and made many memories here over thr last 12 years I've been going there, lots of cool shops as well.
Traverse city MI 10/10 Ohioans all hate Michigan and vise versa but yet again another water front area with lots of fun things to do.
Chagrin Falls OH 10/10 This place is really awesome, everything is walkable here theres shops and restaurants everywhere and also The creator of Calvin and Hobbles based it on this town.
Cincinnati OH 9/10 Cincinnati is the best of the 3 C's in my personal opinion, lots of preserved historical areas, Cincinnati tops Columbus in mostly everything according to US N&WR, I will probably move here to go to collage in around 2 years
Pittsburgh 9/10 Downtown Pittsburgh is a very fun experience and it's very walkable, the water front is really great as well, I haven't been here in around 5 years but I enjoyed it.
Charlotte NC 7.5/10 I never really got to explore Charlotte but the part I went to was pretty nice but legit kinda boring, the reason i felt it was boring is because there is not much real culture left in Charlotte, its all been taken over by nissan altimas with dented bumpers. there is some high crime rates in Charlotte but the majority of it was alright. it's a pretty good place overall but I wish it had some of its original culture left.
Columbus OH 7/10 Columbus is the most midwest feeling city in Ohio, everyone moves to Columbus for work and collage mostly and that's why personally think it's the most boring of the 3 C's, there is some cool neighborhoods like German village that are similar to Cincinnatis historical homes. But theres 100s of new genfrcation building that dont have the same downtown feel as it should. Basically when people think Ohio they think Columbus.There is a new Intel plant being built in Columbus which will bring some more money to the states economy.
Richmond VA 7/10 I haven't explored Virginia as much but I have been to Richmond, it was a pretty good place. Richmond has excellent food and some cool historical homes. Outside of the city is just your basic american metropolitan area but overall it's alright.
Akron OH 7/10 My hometown and current place of living, there has been a lot of improvement over the past 10 years to akron and there is lots planned for the next coming 5 years. Akron has the beat metro parks in the state and also has The CVNP starting at merriman Valley. Our downtown is pretty small but very walkable and there restaurants and bars everywhere, what we need downtown is more stores but the main income goes to The restaurants downtown. We also have lots and lots of old homes, my personal favorite style is the tutor style house. All down portage path and merriman road are all all historical homes. The worst parts of Akron (east side) are basically the average neighborhood in Cleveland which I why I think akron Is 100% a better place than Cleveland. Basically if you got rid of the shitty cleveland like east side it would give akron a giant boost.
Winston salem NC 7/10 This city reminded me of akron a lot, the metropolitan size of it is basically the same, the downtown isn't as fun in my opinion but Akrons isn't all that either. I stayed in the worst area to stay at in winston salem tho (hanes mall) but I wad only there at night so it wasn't all day. If I where to move somewhere out of state it might be here just because I got used to it so easily and have family close in SC. Pilot mountain is also worth visiting and has some great hikes and views, you can see the phallic building of WS from the peak lmao.
Norfolk VA 6.5/10 the area we stayed at here was legit pretty dangerous, my grandma booked a hotel in the shittiest neighborhood at a days inn, but I still am a huge fan of naval shit so this place was awesome. There's tons of boating stuff to do here and some really cool miltary equipment to look at. Honestly if we didn't stay in the worst part of this place it probably would of gotten a 7 but maybe I should try it out again.
The rest will be posted later after this
2023.06.05 16:53 Justarandomreddi Looking for a new couch
 | Im trying to go for a “mid century modern” look to my place. I’m getting rid of these old couches and looking to get rid of the TV stand as well. What style couch and color should I go for to match a mid century modern look? submitted by Justarandomreddi to malelivingspace [link] [comments] |
2023.06.05 10:45 GoddessWriting The Hero & The Retiree [Retired Hero Listener] [Hero Speaker] [Former Sidekick]
Summary: Sometime ago your mentor and idol retired from the hero scene, citing that they were too old to continue on with their duties. Behind the scenes though, you and a select few were notified that your mentor had lost their reason to continue fighting. You, being closer than others, knew why; You refused to tell anyone about it, after all, maybe, just maybe you could convince your mentor to return to the thing that you knew made them happy.
Roles:
- Major:
[There’s a series of knocks on the door, some seconds later, the door opens]
H: (Cheery) Hey there! Shocked that it’s me again? (Pause for 3 beats) No? Well, I can’t blame ya. I’ve been in ya hair so often as of late, it would be odd for me to not show up today too; Well is there any chance that uhm I can come in? (Slightly desperate) Please?
[Multiple steps out of sync are heard, before the door creaks closed, then with a click, it is locked shut.]
H: (Relieved) Thanks for having me…okay, I may have lied; I mean, not really, maybe just a bit. However I really did come here for a social call, the extent of the whole truth is that I need a place to relax, my place is kinda packed with fans trying to see if they can get my autograph, or picture, or whatever. You know how it is with fans. I mean, I remember when I would visit your old place and you couldn’t even walk on the sidewalk, all those people trying to get a glimpse of you, it still boggles my mind. But, I know how you feel when I start talking about those days, so I won’t. (Pause for 3 beats, pensively) While we’re on the topic of the old days, there is something else I want to bring up with you…
[The hero’s sentence was cut short as a teacup and its accompanying saucer is gently placed on the wooden table]
H: Oh! Is the tea already ready? (Pause for 2 beats) What am I saying, if you were waiting for me, of course the tea is going to be ready to serve. So, thank you, for the tea, and everything else; (Pause for 2 beats, pensively) Also, if my visits get to be too much, please do let me know. Last thing I want to do is take too many of your spoons away. (Pause for 3 beats) I know, I know that you were my mentor; That doesn’t take away from the fact that you’re still human and sometimes that means that you need your own space to recover and have some, you time; I get it, I have those days too. (Pause for 3 beats) Anyways, before I continue to ramble on, I just appreciate everything you’ve done for me; As both a mentor and a friend, I can never repay you. (Pause for 3 beats) Right, sorry, didn’t mean to begin to ramble on.
[The teacup is lifted from the saucer as a sip is taken]
H: About that other thing that I wanted to talk to you about. And before you give me that face, it’s not me trying to convince you to put on your suit again; I know the boundaries you’ve set and I have no intentions of betraying your trust; Besides, I’ve already voiced my opinions on your retirement; (Pause for 3 beats) Let me stop beating around the bush, I’ve actually come to get some knowledge out of you.
[Once again the hero takes another sip of their tea]
H: Okay, if you’ve seen the news recently, I’m sure that you’re noticing that a lot of, as we call them at headquarters, Golden Age Villains are suddenly finding themselves out of retirement and back on the scene. And it just so happens that they’re doing so when half of our own Golden Age Heroes are retired, or in the process of retiring; And with them, their in-depth knowledge of those Golden Age Villains going with them as they do so. But you don’t need me to tell you this to you, I mean you’re a First International after all, the baddest of all badass hero ages. (Pause for 2 beats) Well yeah, we’ve been reviewing old combat footage and after action reports between you all and them, but, something’s changed in them, they don’t fight like they used to. (Pause for 3 beats) No, I don’t mean that they’re older and their attacks are slower, I mean that their styles have changed entirely, even how they use their abilities has as well.
[The hero takes another sip of their tea, before putting down the saucer and cup]
H: I’m talking about, uhm, (finger snap) remember Devastator!? (Pause for 2 beats) Yeah, the one with earthquake causing powers; Used them more like a sledgehammer, battles would usually end with tons in collateral damage every single time. (Pause for 2 beats) Yeah him, well, recently we had to investigate a series of jewelry store break-ins. The odd thing about them was that they all happened during an earthquake. And after an investigation, as it turns out, Devastator used the earthquake as cover to break storefront windows. But because the break ins happened during an earthquake, the police chalked it up to earthquake damage. Which made the response time a lot longer than what it should’ve been. This of course allowed our old friend to empty out the stores with plenty of time to even steal from the registers, and well it goes without saying that if the store had a safe, those were emptied out as well. Very uncharacteristic of Devastator. (Pause for 3 beats then with a bit of a laugh) Yes, he did get an outfit change. I’m not going to lie, I do like their new outfit, it’s sleek and modern, not like that dreadful Golden Age outfit; (Nervously) I mean, yeah, there’s something to be said about classic outfits, sure, but this new outfit of theirs. Ugh it’s just so much more tasteful and easy on the eyes, Devastator absolutely called a designer to make their comeback outfit, cause yes. Ramblings aside, think you can help out?
[A series of sounds from distant cars honking can be heard before they’re eventually drowned out by an airplane passing overhead]
H: The way you can help is rather easy actually. I was hoping you could tell me the names of your rogues gallery, and anything personal about them that you can recall; I’m talking about hobbies, if they had a family, who they hung out with, anything and everything. If it wouldn’t be that much of an issue, could we go over your rogues gallery before I became your sidekick first; After that, maybe we could cross reference the villains that you and I faced, that way we could also make a rough timeline of when each villain showed up to the scene, and when was the last time that they appeared in public. (Pause for 2 beats) Why? Well, there’s a debate, some say that it’s simply old dogs learning new tricks. However, there are others, like myself, who believe that perhaps they haven’t learned new tricks, but rather that they have someone else pulling their strings. Maybe mind control, or cloning, it’s difficult to give any definitive answer yet; (Pause for 2 beats) Come on now, how could you think that we wouldn’t start at the beginning, we’re combing through the Golden Age Heroes in order to see if there are any villains with the ability to mind control others, barring that, maybe there was a villain with hyper intelligence and the resources to be able to create clones on a whim. And, just like you and the old timers taught us, the best place to look for said villains would be within the groups that our lovely Golden Age Villains associated themselves with.
[The teacup makes a noise as it slightly clanks against the saucer, as it is picked up, and the last bit of the tea is sipped up]
H: (Pensively) Profiling? Mmm, I don’t think you could consider it profiling, suspicion by association absolutely. However we have to begin somewhere, and well you all pretty much hammered it into our skulls. (Pause for 3 beats, happily and excited) You’ll help?! That’s wonderful! Thanks so much! I really appreciate it! And I know the other heroes at headquarters will also appreciate it. Mind if I step outside real quick? I need to make a quick phone call.
[There’s the sound of a chair scraping against the ground, along with the steps that lead to a door; Said door opens and closes. As soon as the door closes, a phone is taken out and a phone number seems to be dialed]
H: Yeah hey! It’s me! Good news! They’ve agreed to help! Yeah! I’m going to go get as much of their rogues gallery written down as possible. Maybe if we’re lucky, it’ll also be the catalyst for getting them back into the action. I mean they’re still in good shape, and I can definitely see the spark still being there in their eyes. We just need to jump start it. And this just might be the spark to get them going. Though, we may have to help them get over the incident. (Pause for 2 beats) yes ma’am, I know ma’am, I’m aware it’s a delicate subject; I was there ma’am, so I know how hurtful it would be if I brought it up before they’re ready.
[The sound of a few people passing by can be heard, they stop for a quick second, whispering among themselves]
H: (Away from the phone) Hi, yeah, uhm sorry I’m not doing autographs or pictures right now. I’m kinda visiting an old friend of mine, and I’m also on the phone with Sunspot. (Pause for 3 beats slightly bored expression) Yes, The Sunspot. (Pause for 3 beats) Thank you for being so understanding. (Pause for 2 beats) Okay, yeah, maybe next time. (Back towards phone) Eh, don’t worry about it, just some fans, or maybe just people who have seen me in that one famous magazine I did recently. (Pause for 4 beats) Yeah that one! Well I guess the sister publication…no, not the teen version, the hero version. Yeah Hero Mania Magazine; Regardless, they were very understanding of what I was currently doing. Oh! The people I just spoke to also say hi. (Pause for 3 beats) Yeah, don’t worry, my mentor knows that I stepped out to do this call. Though I’m not going to be able to stay on the line for much longer, I’m seeing more and more eyes on me from the people passing the hallways. Yes ma’am, don’t worry, my mission priority is to get the information out of them first, then I’ll be heading to headquarters before doing anything else. Alright, I’ve got to go, bye.
[The hero hangs up their phone, then proceeds to open the door and walk back over to the chair; After closing the door.]
H: Alright, thank you so much for letting me make the call, I really appreciate it; (Pause for 3 beats) Oh, it was Sunspot, just giving her a status update on my mission, and how it’s coming along. (Pause for 4 beats) Sunspot is doing well—at least as well as someone can be after having their new position imposed onto them—(Pause for 3 beats) Yeah don’t worry, she doesn’t fault you for that, she knows the circumstances of your retirement. Sides according to her (mocking in a friendly manner) Ain’t no bemoaning what’s already happened; Only thing yah can do now is ride the horse or get off the saddle. (With a little laughter) Besides, don’t tell her I said this, but I think she likes the attention. I mean it would make sense, what with her being from a family of rodeo stars and whatnot. But uhm where were we? (Pause for 2 beats) Oh right! Your rogues gallery, give me a second to take out a pen and a notebook…and, now I’m ready to write down the info, so let me hear them all. (Pause for 3 beats, thoughtfully) Okay so there’s Plague, Gamma Vortex, and Wraith to begin with, and who would you say was the first one to show up?
[The teacup clanks against the saucer as it is once again lifted and drunk, the scene slowly fades to nothing as the last bit of the final line is spoken and softly disappears, ultimately ending the scene]
> Scene: Headquarters
[The sound of a pair of mechanical doors opening is heard, followed by the sound of some steps making their way in]
H: And according to the information that we’ve gathered, we can surmise that…(Pause for 3 beats) huh? (Pleasantly surprised) Hey! Look who’s out of the apartment!? (Pause for 3 beats then with a slight laugh) I kid, you know it’s fantastic to see you here, especially after all of these years. (Pause for 3 beats) Oh, you noticed the remodel and, well, everything. Yeah, we brought it into the modern age! Or at least according to the New Internationals we have. You know how young heroes are; You let them breakout of their sidekick roles and suddenly they think that they’re all that. Calling into question your design choices, your outfits; (Pause for 3 beats, in denial) What? Nope, what are you talking about, we were never like them. (Pause for 3 beats, still in denial) That’s an utter lie, I did not question your own outfit when I broke out. (Pause for 2 beats) Yeah, well, you don’t have any sort of evidence to back up this claim of yours, soooo, take that.
[The Hero addresses the console, after hearing that there was snickering being heard through the screen]
H: (Shocked and embarrassed) Oh gosh, I can’t believe I just did that in front of everyone. I won’t be able to live this down. Now I have to retire, change my name, and never be a superhero again. (Pause for 3 beats, then continue with some laughter) I’m kidding, let me mute myself though, I don’t want to have a hot mic incident again, and also it lets all of you on call right now to discuss among yourselves the information we’ve gathered up.
[The Hero turns back to their mentor, after the snickering from the computers turns into murmurs of discussion]
H: (Nervous laughter) New hero candidates, am I right? You know the headache that they give you when you’re trying to get them used to working within an organization like ours. But I don’t have to remind you of that fact. (Pause for 3 beats) Okay, and? So what if my generation is three-fourths former sidekicks, the point still stands, the other fourth was still difficult to integrate once they passed the grace period, weren’t they? (Pause for 2 beats) Exactly, thank you for agreeing with me.
[The Hero walks a bit around the room, their steps being heard before the sound of a sliding door overtakes the noise]
H: Walk with me, yeah? (Pause for 3 beats) Sorry if you were looking forward to meeting some old friends, and former sidekicks. Unfortunately, most are in different outposts, it’s recruitment season and the marketing department wants our most recognizable heroes out there at the outposts to increase the numbers of potential candidates that we can reach; So you can imagine how stretched thin we are right now, but hey, if we couldn’t multitask, then what kind of heroes would we be?
[Another door opens up as the steps continue going towards their direction]
H: (With a slight surprise) Still, this is your first time stepping into the HQ in a while, right? (Pause for 3 beats) Oh yeah, internal security thought it was a good idea to beef up our systems, to prevent you know, shapeshifters from waltzing in, or telepaths who are mind controlling heroes from infiltrating and causing some chaos; So sorry if the security people were being a bit difficult, I see they gave you a visitor’s pass though; (Whistle) Level Five clearance, there’s only one other person in this building authorized to give that out, which means that you were able to catch Honor Guard just before they had to leave for their own outpost assignment, right? (Pause for 3 beats) Figures, I went out to get drinks with them one night, and they would not stop telling old battle stories that they had with you. Though to be fair we didn’t know each other that well at the time, so it was an easy commonality between the two of us. We went back and forth in sharing stories, so it wasn’t completely one sided. They're a really great person, and honestly, I’m glad that we got to talking with each other. (Pause for 3 beats, pensively) While we’re on the topic of internal security, let me know if you want to put your information into the system, just to avoid any discomfort with the security in case Honor Guard isn’t able to help you.
[The sound of two sets of steps walking are heard, though they come to a stop as soon as they hear the sound and sight of construction going on. Mostly hammers, saws, welding torches, and drills.]
H: So catching up aside, what’s going on? What brings you here? (Pause for 2 beats, surprised) Oh? You want to help a bit more? Uhm yeah we won’t turn away help, especially from a seasoned veteran like you. Minus any field work, we could always use more people to help comb through the archives; If you wouldn’t mind working there that is. (Pause for 3 beats) Wonderful! Great, uhm we’re actually not too far from it. (Pause for 3 beats) Yeah you’re entirely right, this was The Memorial Atrium, though we’re renaming it to…well we’re not sure yet, we have a pool going on across the entirety of the organization. So far it looks like The Resting Garden is winning. (Pause for 3 beats) No, we didn’t get rid of The Memorial Atrium, we just moved it. Actually that’s me lying, now it’s called Memorial Hall, it will have an atrium by the same name, and a plate that gives information to visitors. (Pause for 3 beats) Yeah, with all the heroes that announced their retirements, we figured that the atrium was going to quickly fill up; So we allocated some funds to build a new building, nothing fancy, but enough to host memorials to our heroes for a long while before needing an expansion.
[The sound of two sets of feet moving again are heard, as the sound of the construction slowly dims into silence]
H: I can’t even begin to tell you how much your help will do for us; (Pause for 3 beats) Oh no don’t worry, you’re not going to be the only person in the archives, we have some of the more eagle eyed and brainy sidekicks in there. We put them on intern duty and have them looking over the films and records. I’m sure they’ll benefit from having someone in there to guide them on what entries to pay attention to and which not to. (A bit excited) Although, I would feel pretty bad if I didn’t try to warn you about the fact that there might be some fans of yours in that group. (Whispering) If I had to give my own opinion, it wouldn’t surprise me if the others gained an interest in you from all the archive entries they’ve been going through.
[The walking stops, as the two stand in front of the room, there’s the muffled sound of old battle reels playing, and some clattering of heavy boxes coming from the other side of the door.]
H: Welp this is your room, again, sorry if you get swarmed in there; You know how sidekicks are…well, you know how I was when I was your sidekick. (Pause for 3 beats, then laugh a bit) Hey! What did you expect!? First of all, I was a huge fan of yours, and when you selected me as your sidekick I was over the moon. Second of all, I was just a kid back then (pause for 3 beats) Okay so maybe sixteen isn’t technically being a kid but you know what I mean.
[The Hero pounds in a code on the pad, the beep of the lock opening signifies that it was the right code; Which leads to the doors sliding open.]
H: (Leaning into the room, and slightly away from the mic) Hey everyone! Uhm I’ve got a special guest for all of you. They’ll help you the best they can, and I really respect them, so take very good care of them; Most importantly of all, listen to them because you’ll come to find out that this particular guest of mine has an incredible amount of experience. So, say hi to my mentor!
[The sound of people getting excited and even murmuring spilled out into the hallway, while the battle reels still very much were playing.]
H: (Normally) Well, I hate to introduce and run, however I do have a meeting to finish up, and then after that, I gotta go and check out some tips we got, I think a few of them could be the big break we’ve been looking for. (Pause for 3 beats) Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll be safe… I mean, you did teach me to keep myself safe first and foremost. Anyways, thanks again for coming down and helping out. If memory serves, some of the other heroes are due to return today, so I think a lot of them would love to see you walking the halls again, even if it’s just for your visit; It’ll be a huge morale boost, especially with some of the old timers you used to pal around with. (Pause for 3 beats, then once more with laughter) So what if I know most of those old timers (playfully cocky) Just because y’all were the first heroes to establish this group, doesn’t mean y’all are on top anymore. We could totally run circles around all of you; Some of us literally (Pause for 3 beats, playfully laugh) oh, experience beats raw power any day does it? That’s what you forget my dear friend, we’re not inexperienced sidekicks anymore, we’re full blown heroes in our own right. (Laugh again) Anyways, banter aside, it really will boost the mood around here to see one of the founding members walking around. I’ll catch you later okay? Can’t keep the others waiting.
[The sound of the Hero walking away, their steps getting quieter and quieter as they do is one of the last things heard before the door to the archives closes]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A/N: Feel free to edit the script as needed.
As usual, here's a bit of a key
- The [] brackets, tend to contain sfx cues/things that are happening.
- While the () Parenthesis often times have character cues/things that the speaker’s role is more or less doing.
- If you like what you see and want to see any other projects that I'm working on or generally know what's happening, follow me on Twitter, same as my username. I also now have a website! Feel free to check it out if you want to see all my previous and future works. Including stories, poetry, and other writing stuff I make.
- Feel free to record this to your hearts content if you think it's worth recording. Here's the scriptbin if ya'll want it.
- I'm always willing to improve my work, so constructive criticism is welcomed.
- The script is okay to monetize.
submitted by GoddessWriting to ASMRScriptHaven [link] [comments]
Roles:
- Major:
- The Hero H: The former apprentice of the retired hero and is in their own right a renowned superhero and the legacy of their mentor.
[There’s a series of knocks on the door, some seconds later, the door opens]
H: (Cheery) Hey there! Shocked that it’s me again? (Pause for 3 beats) No? Well, I can’t blame ya. I’ve been in ya hair so often as of late, it would be odd for me to not show up today too; Well is there any chance that uhm I can come in? (Slightly desperate) Please?
[Multiple steps out of sync are heard, before the door creaks closed, then with a click, it is locked shut.]
H: (Relieved) Thanks for having me…okay, I may have lied; I mean, not really, maybe just a bit. However I really did come here for a social call, the extent of the whole truth is that I need a place to relax, my place is kinda packed with fans trying to see if they can get my autograph, or picture, or whatever. You know how it is with fans. I mean, I remember when I would visit your old place and you couldn’t even walk on the sidewalk, all those people trying to get a glimpse of you, it still boggles my mind. But, I know how you feel when I start talking about those days, so I won’t. (Pause for 3 beats, pensively) While we’re on the topic of the old days, there is something else I want to bring up with you…
[The hero’s sentence was cut short as a teacup and its accompanying saucer is gently placed on the wooden table]
H: Oh! Is the tea already ready? (Pause for 2 beats) What am I saying, if you were waiting for me, of course the tea is going to be ready to serve. So, thank you, for the tea, and everything else; (Pause for 2 beats, pensively) Also, if my visits get to be too much, please do let me know. Last thing I want to do is take too many of your spoons away. (Pause for 3 beats) I know, I know that you were my mentor; That doesn’t take away from the fact that you’re still human and sometimes that means that you need your own space to recover and have some, you time; I get it, I have those days too. (Pause for 3 beats) Anyways, before I continue to ramble on, I just appreciate everything you’ve done for me; As both a mentor and a friend, I can never repay you. (Pause for 3 beats) Right, sorry, didn’t mean to begin to ramble on.
[The teacup is lifted from the saucer as a sip is taken]
H: About that other thing that I wanted to talk to you about. And before you give me that face, it’s not me trying to convince you to put on your suit again; I know the boundaries you’ve set and I have no intentions of betraying your trust; Besides, I’ve already voiced my opinions on your retirement; (Pause for 3 beats) Let me stop beating around the bush, I’ve actually come to get some knowledge out of you.
[Once again the hero takes another sip of their tea]
H: Okay, if you’ve seen the news recently, I’m sure that you’re noticing that a lot of, as we call them at headquarters, Golden Age Villains are suddenly finding themselves out of retirement and back on the scene. And it just so happens that they’re doing so when half of our own Golden Age Heroes are retired, or in the process of retiring; And with them, their in-depth knowledge of those Golden Age Villains going with them as they do so. But you don’t need me to tell you this to you, I mean you’re a First International after all, the baddest of all badass hero ages. (Pause for 2 beats) Well yeah, we’ve been reviewing old combat footage and after action reports between you all and them, but, something’s changed in them, they don’t fight like they used to. (Pause for 3 beats) No, I don’t mean that they’re older and their attacks are slower, I mean that their styles have changed entirely, even how they use their abilities has as well.
[The hero takes another sip of their tea, before putting down the saucer and cup]
H: I’m talking about, uhm, (finger snap) remember Devastator!? (Pause for 2 beats) Yeah, the one with earthquake causing powers; Used them more like a sledgehammer, battles would usually end with tons in collateral damage every single time. (Pause for 2 beats) Yeah him, well, recently we had to investigate a series of jewelry store break-ins. The odd thing about them was that they all happened during an earthquake. And after an investigation, as it turns out, Devastator used the earthquake as cover to break storefront windows. But because the break ins happened during an earthquake, the police chalked it up to earthquake damage. Which made the response time a lot longer than what it should’ve been. This of course allowed our old friend to empty out the stores with plenty of time to even steal from the registers, and well it goes without saying that if the store had a safe, those were emptied out as well. Very uncharacteristic of Devastator. (Pause for 3 beats then with a bit of a laugh) Yes, he did get an outfit change. I’m not going to lie, I do like their new outfit, it’s sleek and modern, not like that dreadful Golden Age outfit; (Nervously) I mean, yeah, there’s something to be said about classic outfits, sure, but this new outfit of theirs. Ugh it’s just so much more tasteful and easy on the eyes, Devastator absolutely called a designer to make their comeback outfit, cause yes. Ramblings aside, think you can help out?
[A series of sounds from distant cars honking can be heard before they’re eventually drowned out by an airplane passing overhead]
H: The way you can help is rather easy actually. I was hoping you could tell me the names of your rogues gallery, and anything personal about them that you can recall; I’m talking about hobbies, if they had a family, who they hung out with, anything and everything. If it wouldn’t be that much of an issue, could we go over your rogues gallery before I became your sidekick first; After that, maybe we could cross reference the villains that you and I faced, that way we could also make a rough timeline of when each villain showed up to the scene, and when was the last time that they appeared in public. (Pause for 2 beats) Why? Well, there’s a debate, some say that it’s simply old dogs learning new tricks. However, there are others, like myself, who believe that perhaps they haven’t learned new tricks, but rather that they have someone else pulling their strings. Maybe mind control, or cloning, it’s difficult to give any definitive answer yet; (Pause for 2 beats) Come on now, how could you think that we wouldn’t start at the beginning, we’re combing through the Golden Age Heroes in order to see if there are any villains with the ability to mind control others, barring that, maybe there was a villain with hyper intelligence and the resources to be able to create clones on a whim. And, just like you and the old timers taught us, the best place to look for said villains would be within the groups that our lovely Golden Age Villains associated themselves with.
[The teacup makes a noise as it slightly clanks against the saucer, as it is picked up, and the last bit of the tea is sipped up]
H: (Pensively) Profiling? Mmm, I don’t think you could consider it profiling, suspicion by association absolutely. However we have to begin somewhere, and well you all pretty much hammered it into our skulls. (Pause for 3 beats, happily and excited) You’ll help?! That’s wonderful! Thanks so much! I really appreciate it! And I know the other heroes at headquarters will also appreciate it. Mind if I step outside real quick? I need to make a quick phone call.
[There’s the sound of a chair scraping against the ground, along with the steps that lead to a door; Said door opens and closes. As soon as the door closes, a phone is taken out and a phone number seems to be dialed]
H: Yeah hey! It’s me! Good news! They’ve agreed to help! Yeah! I’m going to go get as much of their rogues gallery written down as possible. Maybe if we’re lucky, it’ll also be the catalyst for getting them back into the action. I mean they’re still in good shape, and I can definitely see the spark still being there in their eyes. We just need to jump start it. And this just might be the spark to get them going. Though, we may have to help them get over the incident. (Pause for 2 beats) yes ma’am, I know ma’am, I’m aware it’s a delicate subject; I was there ma’am, so I know how hurtful it would be if I brought it up before they’re ready.
[The sound of a few people passing by can be heard, they stop for a quick second, whispering among themselves]
H: (Away from the phone) Hi, yeah, uhm sorry I’m not doing autographs or pictures right now. I’m kinda visiting an old friend of mine, and I’m also on the phone with Sunspot. (Pause for 3 beats slightly bored expression) Yes, The Sunspot. (Pause for 3 beats) Thank you for being so understanding. (Pause for 2 beats) Okay, yeah, maybe next time. (Back towards phone) Eh, don’t worry about it, just some fans, or maybe just people who have seen me in that one famous magazine I did recently. (Pause for 4 beats) Yeah that one! Well I guess the sister publication…no, not the teen version, the hero version. Yeah Hero Mania Magazine; Regardless, they were very understanding of what I was currently doing. Oh! The people I just spoke to also say hi. (Pause for 3 beats) Yeah, don’t worry, my mentor knows that I stepped out to do this call. Though I’m not going to be able to stay on the line for much longer, I’m seeing more and more eyes on me from the people passing the hallways. Yes ma’am, don’t worry, my mission priority is to get the information out of them first, then I’ll be heading to headquarters before doing anything else. Alright, I’ve got to go, bye.
[The hero hangs up their phone, then proceeds to open the door and walk back over to the chair; After closing the door.]
H: Alright, thank you so much for letting me make the call, I really appreciate it; (Pause for 3 beats) Oh, it was Sunspot, just giving her a status update on my mission, and how it’s coming along. (Pause for 4 beats) Sunspot is doing well—at least as well as someone can be after having their new position imposed onto them—(Pause for 3 beats) Yeah don’t worry, she doesn’t fault you for that, she knows the circumstances of your retirement. Sides according to her (mocking in a friendly manner) Ain’t no bemoaning what’s already happened; Only thing yah can do now is ride the horse or get off the saddle. (With a little laughter) Besides, don’t tell her I said this, but I think she likes the attention. I mean it would make sense, what with her being from a family of rodeo stars and whatnot. But uhm where were we? (Pause for 2 beats) Oh right! Your rogues gallery, give me a second to take out a pen and a notebook…and, now I’m ready to write down the info, so let me hear them all. (Pause for 3 beats, thoughtfully) Okay so there’s Plague, Gamma Vortex, and Wraith to begin with, and who would you say was the first one to show up?
[The teacup clanks against the saucer as it is once again lifted and drunk, the scene slowly fades to nothing as the last bit of the final line is spoken and softly disappears, ultimately ending the scene]
> Scene: Headquarters
[The sound of a pair of mechanical doors opening is heard, followed by the sound of some steps making their way in]
H: And according to the information that we’ve gathered, we can surmise that…(Pause for 3 beats) huh? (Pleasantly surprised) Hey! Look who’s out of the apartment!? (Pause for 3 beats then with a slight laugh) I kid, you know it’s fantastic to see you here, especially after all of these years. (Pause for 3 beats) Oh, you noticed the remodel and, well, everything. Yeah, we brought it into the modern age! Or at least according to the New Internationals we have. You know how young heroes are; You let them breakout of their sidekick roles and suddenly they think that they’re all that. Calling into question your design choices, your outfits; (Pause for 3 beats, in denial) What? Nope, what are you talking about, we were never like them. (Pause for 3 beats, still in denial) That’s an utter lie, I did not question your own outfit when I broke out. (Pause for 2 beats) Yeah, well, you don’t have any sort of evidence to back up this claim of yours, soooo, take that.
[The Hero addresses the console, after hearing that there was snickering being heard through the screen]
H: (Shocked and embarrassed) Oh gosh, I can’t believe I just did that in front of everyone. I won’t be able to live this down. Now I have to retire, change my name, and never be a superhero again. (Pause for 3 beats, then continue with some laughter) I’m kidding, let me mute myself though, I don’t want to have a hot mic incident again, and also it lets all of you on call right now to discuss among yourselves the information we’ve gathered up.
[The Hero turns back to their mentor, after the snickering from the computers turns into murmurs of discussion]
H: (Nervous laughter) New hero candidates, am I right? You know the headache that they give you when you’re trying to get them used to working within an organization like ours. But I don’t have to remind you of that fact. (Pause for 3 beats) Okay, and? So what if my generation is three-fourths former sidekicks, the point still stands, the other fourth was still difficult to integrate once they passed the grace period, weren’t they? (Pause for 2 beats) Exactly, thank you for agreeing with me.
[The Hero walks a bit around the room, their steps being heard before the sound of a sliding door overtakes the noise]
H: Walk with me, yeah? (Pause for 3 beats) Sorry if you were looking forward to meeting some old friends, and former sidekicks. Unfortunately, most are in different outposts, it’s recruitment season and the marketing department wants our most recognizable heroes out there at the outposts to increase the numbers of potential candidates that we can reach; So you can imagine how stretched thin we are right now, but hey, if we couldn’t multitask, then what kind of heroes would we be?
[Another door opens up as the steps continue going towards their direction]
H: (With a slight surprise) Still, this is your first time stepping into the HQ in a while, right? (Pause for 3 beats) Oh yeah, internal security thought it was a good idea to beef up our systems, to prevent you know, shapeshifters from waltzing in, or telepaths who are mind controlling heroes from infiltrating and causing some chaos; So sorry if the security people were being a bit difficult, I see they gave you a visitor’s pass though; (Whistle) Level Five clearance, there’s only one other person in this building authorized to give that out, which means that you were able to catch Honor Guard just before they had to leave for their own outpost assignment, right? (Pause for 3 beats) Figures, I went out to get drinks with them one night, and they would not stop telling old battle stories that they had with you. Though to be fair we didn’t know each other that well at the time, so it was an easy commonality between the two of us. We went back and forth in sharing stories, so it wasn’t completely one sided. They're a really great person, and honestly, I’m glad that we got to talking with each other. (Pause for 3 beats, pensively) While we’re on the topic of internal security, let me know if you want to put your information into the system, just to avoid any discomfort with the security in case Honor Guard isn’t able to help you.
[The sound of two sets of steps walking are heard, though they come to a stop as soon as they hear the sound and sight of construction going on. Mostly hammers, saws, welding torches, and drills.]
H: So catching up aside, what’s going on? What brings you here? (Pause for 2 beats, surprised) Oh? You want to help a bit more? Uhm yeah we won’t turn away help, especially from a seasoned veteran like you. Minus any field work, we could always use more people to help comb through the archives; If you wouldn’t mind working there that is. (Pause for 3 beats) Wonderful! Great, uhm we’re actually not too far from it. (Pause for 3 beats) Yeah you’re entirely right, this was The Memorial Atrium, though we’re renaming it to…well we’re not sure yet, we have a pool going on across the entirety of the organization. So far it looks like The Resting Garden is winning. (Pause for 3 beats) No, we didn’t get rid of The Memorial Atrium, we just moved it. Actually that’s me lying, now it’s called Memorial Hall, it will have an atrium by the same name, and a plate that gives information to visitors. (Pause for 3 beats) Yeah, with all the heroes that announced their retirements, we figured that the atrium was going to quickly fill up; So we allocated some funds to build a new building, nothing fancy, but enough to host memorials to our heroes for a long while before needing an expansion.
[The sound of two sets of feet moving again are heard, as the sound of the construction slowly dims into silence]
H: I can’t even begin to tell you how much your help will do for us; (Pause for 3 beats) Oh no don’t worry, you’re not going to be the only person in the archives, we have some of the more eagle eyed and brainy sidekicks in there. We put them on intern duty and have them looking over the films and records. I’m sure they’ll benefit from having someone in there to guide them on what entries to pay attention to and which not to. (A bit excited) Although, I would feel pretty bad if I didn’t try to warn you about the fact that there might be some fans of yours in that group. (Whispering) If I had to give my own opinion, it wouldn’t surprise me if the others gained an interest in you from all the archive entries they’ve been going through.
[The walking stops, as the two stand in front of the room, there’s the muffled sound of old battle reels playing, and some clattering of heavy boxes coming from the other side of the door.]
H: Welp this is your room, again, sorry if you get swarmed in there; You know how sidekicks are…well, you know how I was when I was your sidekick. (Pause for 3 beats, then laugh a bit) Hey! What did you expect!? First of all, I was a huge fan of yours, and when you selected me as your sidekick I was over the moon. Second of all, I was just a kid back then (pause for 3 beats) Okay so maybe sixteen isn’t technically being a kid but you know what I mean.
[The Hero pounds in a code on the pad, the beep of the lock opening signifies that it was the right code; Which leads to the doors sliding open.]
H: (Leaning into the room, and slightly away from the mic) Hey everyone! Uhm I’ve got a special guest for all of you. They’ll help you the best they can, and I really respect them, so take very good care of them; Most importantly of all, listen to them because you’ll come to find out that this particular guest of mine has an incredible amount of experience. So, say hi to my mentor!
[The sound of people getting excited and even murmuring spilled out into the hallway, while the battle reels still very much were playing.]
H: (Normally) Well, I hate to introduce and run, however I do have a meeting to finish up, and then after that, I gotta go and check out some tips we got, I think a few of them could be the big break we’ve been looking for. (Pause for 3 beats) Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll be safe… I mean, you did teach me to keep myself safe first and foremost. Anyways, thanks again for coming down and helping out. If memory serves, some of the other heroes are due to return today, so I think a lot of them would love to see you walking the halls again, even if it’s just for your visit; It’ll be a huge morale boost, especially with some of the old timers you used to pal around with. (Pause for 3 beats, then once more with laughter) So what if I know most of those old timers (playfully cocky) Just because y’all were the first heroes to establish this group, doesn’t mean y’all are on top anymore. We could totally run circles around all of you; Some of us literally (Pause for 3 beats, playfully laugh) oh, experience beats raw power any day does it? That’s what you forget my dear friend, we’re not inexperienced sidekicks anymore, we’re full blown heroes in our own right. (Laugh again) Anyways, banter aside, it really will boost the mood around here to see one of the founding members walking around. I’ll catch you later okay? Can’t keep the others waiting.
[The sound of the Hero walking away, their steps getting quieter and quieter as they do is one of the last things heard before the door to the archives closes]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A/N: Feel free to edit the script as needed.
As usual, here's a bit of a key
- The [] brackets, tend to contain sfx cues/things that are happening.
- While the () Parenthesis often times have character cues/things that the speaker’s role is more or less doing.
- If you like what you see and want to see any other projects that I'm working on or generally know what's happening, follow me on Twitter, same as my username. I also now have a website! Feel free to check it out if you want to see all my previous and future works. Including stories, poetry, and other writing stuff I make.
- Feel free to record this to your hearts content if you think it's worth recording. Here's the scriptbin if ya'll want it.
- I'm always willing to improve my work, so constructive criticism is welcomed.
- The script is okay to monetize.
2023.06.05 08:36 Visible-Tune-5942 How To Maintain Curly Short Wigs?
 | IntroductionContrary to popular belief, caring for curly short wigs is a breeze.Want to keep that wig looking tip-top for months? Here's the deal: we’ve got 4 foolproof rules to keep your short curly wigs looking on point. So get ready to slay with those fabulous curls! Let's dive into the secrets of maintaining your luscious curly short wigs, guaranteed to keep them looking brand new! 4 Tips to maintain curly short wigs 1. Brushing and Detangling Short Curly WigsIf you want to keep your fabulous curly short wigs (or any wigs, really) in top-notch condition, here's the golden rule: grab yourself a Wig Static-Free Brush and get brushing before and after every wear.This wig accessory is tailor-made for wigs, so you can untangle those strands without damaging the delicate curly wig fibers. Just start at the ends, work your way up, and voila! Your curly short wigs will look flawless! 2. Washing Short Curly WigsWhether you're rocking a curly short wig made from luxurious human hair or a lightweight synthetic stunner like the fabulous Emmeline WhisperLite® Wig by Paula Young®, taking care of your wig means knowing how to wash it like a pro.Forget those regular shampoos! Grab a specialized wig shampoo that's made to work its magic on your wig. Use cold water for a gentle cleanse that will leave your curls feeling refreshed, soft, and oh-so-manageable. And here's a little secret: you don't have to wash your curly short wigs after every wear. These beauties don't produce natural scalp oil, so washing every 6-8 wears is all it takes to banish product buildup and keep that wig looking runway-ready! 3. Conditioning Curly Short WigsAfter giving your short curly wigs a good wash, it's time to give them some extra TLC with a spray-on Wig Conditioner.Using a spray-on Wig Conditioner is like a magic trick for your wig. You'll see the incredible transformation before your eyes! This wig product is lightweight, so it won't weigh down the curly wig fibers or make it all oily. Just spritz it on, let it work wonders, and watch those curls return to their glorious best. 4. Drying Short Curly WigsDry, set, style, and store your short curly wigs on a wig drying standNow, let's talk about how to dry your fabulous curly short wigs like a pro! This step is key for keeping your wig in top shape if you want to enjoy your wig for months to come. Simply grab a clean, dry towel and gently blot-dry the wig to get rid of the excess water. Easy peasy! Here's the secret sauce: air-drying is the way to go, my friend. Find a cool and dry spot and place your short curly wigs on a Wig Drying Stand. Let that beauty air-dry completely before you dive into styling your luscious curls. Trust us; it's worth the wait! Now go forth and rock those fabulous curly wigs like the confident diva you are! ConclusionWith our 4 easy wig-care tips, you will undoubtedly rock those curly short wigs with finesse! Remember, TLC is key to keeping your wig looking brand new!Want to slay with style? Browse Paula Young®’s vast collection of curly short wigs and killer wig accessories at unbeatable prices. Read How Long Do Curly Wigs Last to boost your wig game! |
2023.06.05 06:40 Wintercold21 New to Pomade, I have a few questions?
So I’ve been using pomade for the last year or so, I wanted to try something new with my hair. I’ve been experimenting with different styles using old spice pomade when I started noticing I was getting a lot of tiny pimples on my scalp and hair line. Needless to say I stopped using it, but I’d like to get a new brand that won’t cause acne and that I can wash out at night because the old spice i STG was still in after shampoo. I have thick wavy hair, and at the moment, I’m rocking a slick back/ Jessie James. From what I’ve been reading on the sub, a high hold water based pomade is what I’m looking for? My last issue is scent, I can’t have something that is really overpowering, reuzel blue was what I was gonna get but ALOT of people say it’s very strong and lingers. Any suggestions on earthy or tobacco scented pomades would be helpful, or any input on why that crap gave me scalp zits would be appreciated. Thanks
submitted by Wintercold21 to Pomade [link] [comments]
2023.06.05 06:00 SamalandoPart2 My custom css doesn't work correctly with different density options and I'm not sure if there is any code that broke with updates.
I normally enable compact density, but I was making some adjustments to my css code and decided to test it with the other density options, but it's a bit messed up in both of the non-compact options.
Here's what they look like:
Compact (i.e. how it's supposed to look)
Normal
Touch
For reference, I currently have version 113.0.2 of Firefox, and my css is heavily based on this, with many alterations and additions.
Here's mine:
I would also appreciate pointers on any other broken code I might have in here that I haven't noticed yet. I've already replaced some things using guides about the latest update, but I'm not sure of everything that might need to be fixed, since I haven't noticed any other visual problems besides this density issue.
Thanks in advance for any help with this!
submitted by SamalandoPart2 to FirefoxCSS [link] [comments]
Here's what they look like:
Compact (i.e. how it's supposed to look)
Normal
Touch
For reference, I currently have version 113.0.2 of Firefox, and my css is heavily based on this, with many alterations and additions.
Here's mine:
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymastegatekeepethere.is.only.xul"); @namespace xul url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymastegatekeepethere.is.only.xul"); @namespace html url("http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"); #TabsToolbar-customization-target { height: 31px !important; } .titlebar-spacer[type="pre-tabs"] { display: none; } .titlebar-spacer[type="post-tabs"] { width: 30px; } #nav-bar-customization-target > :is(toolbarbutton, toolbaritem):first-child, #nav-bar-customization-target > toolbarpaletteitem:first-child > :is(toolbarbutton, toolbaritem) { padding-inline-start: 3px !important; } #PanelUI-menu-button { padding-inline-end: 3px !important; } #TabsToolbar { background-bottom: 1px solid #9E9FA1 !important; position: relative; } #TabsToolbar::after { content: ""; display: block; margin-top: ; height: 1px; position: absolute; bottom: 0px; width: 100%; left: 0; right: 0; z-index: 0; background: #9E9FA1; z-index: 0; } #tabbrowser-tabs .tabbrowser-tab[first-visible-tab="true"] { border-top-left-radius: 0; border-left: none } #tabbrowser-tabs .tabbrowser-tab[last-visible-tab="true"] { border-top-right-radius: 0px; } #tabbrowser-tabs .tabbrowser-tab { border-top: 1px solid #9E9FA1 !important; background: none !important; border-right: 1px solid #9E9FA1 !important; border-bottom: none !important; overflow: hidden; padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; } #tabbrowser-tabs .tabbrowser-tab .tab-background { border-left: none !important; border-right: none !important; box-shadow: none; margin: 0px !important; border-radius: 0 !important; } #tabbrowser-tabs .tabbrowser-tab[selected="true"] { border-bottom: none !important; } #tabbrowser-tabs .tabbrowser-tab[selected="true"] .tab-background { background: #f5f6f7 !important; } #tabbrowser-tabs .tabbrowser-tab[usercontextid] { --tab-line-color: var(--identity-icon-color) !important; border-bottom: 2px solid var(--identity-icon-color) !important; z-index: 2; } #tabbrowser-tabs .tabbrowser-tab[usercontextid] > .tab-stack > .tab-background > .tab-context-line { display: none !important; } toolbar#TabsToolbar hbox.toolbar-items, toolbar#TabsToolbar hbox.toolbar-items hbox#TabsToolbar-customization-target, toolbar#TabsToolbar hbox.toolbar-items hbox#TabsToolbar-customization-target tabs#tabbrowser-tabs { z-index: 1; } #nav-bar { background: #F5F6F7 !important; } #tabs-newtab-button { margin: 3px !important; margin-left: 0 !important; } #tabs-newtab-button image { height: 25px !important; width: 25px !important; } #tabs-newtab-button:hover > .toolbarbutton-icon { background-color: #CCCDCF !important; } #tabs-newtab-button > .toolbarbutton-icon { padding-top: 5px !important; padding-left: 5px !important; } .tab-icon-image { margin-top: 1px !important; } #urlbar[focused="true"], .searchbar-textbox[focused="true"] { border-color: #aaa !important; } #pageActionButton { /* get rid of the 3 dots in the address bar */ display: none !important; } /* back/forward/reload on right click menu */ #context-back image, #context-forward image, #context-reload image, #context-stop image, #context-bookmarkpage image{ display:none !important; } #context-back:before, #context-forward:before, #context-reload:before, #context-stop:before, #context-bookmarkpage:before{ content: attr(aria-label) !important; -moz-margin-start:32px !important; } #context-navigation{ flex-direction: column !important; } #context-navigation > .menuitem-iconic { justify-content: flex-start !important; } /* remove completely */ #context-navigation, #context-sep-navigation { display: none !important; } /* END back/forward/reload on right click menu -------------------- */ #urlbar-background, #searchbar { background-color: #fff !important; border-color: #ccc !important; } /* REMOVE MEGABAR START * VERSION 1.0.3 * CODE AT: http://userchrome.wesleybranton.com/megabar * RELEASE NOTES: http://userchrome.wesleybranton.com/notes/megabar */ #urlbar[breakout][breakout-extend] { top: calc((var(--urlbar-toolbar-height) - var(--urlbar-height)) / 2) !important; left: 0 !important; width: 100% !important; } #urlbar[breakout][breakout-extend] > #urlbar-input-container { height: var(--urlbar-height) !important; } #urlbar-input-container, #urlbar[breakout][breakout-extend] > #urlbar-input-container { padding-block: 0 !important; padding-inline: 0 !important; padding: 1px 2px !important; } #urlbar[breakout][breakout-extend] > #urlbar-background { animation-name: none !important; box-shadow: 0 1px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, .05) !important; } #_c607c8df-14a7-4f28-894f-29e8722976af_-browser-action { opacity: 0.75; } .tab-background, #urlbar-background, #searchbar, menupopup, .menupopup-arrowscrollbox { border-radius: 0 !important; } :root{--arrowpanel-border-radius:0px !important;} menu, menuitem { padding-block: 0.3em !important; padding-inline: 0.3em !important; } menupopup menuitem, menupopup menu { margin: 1px 2px !important; padding-block: 0.3em !important; padding-inline-start: 0.75em !important; } menupopup menuseparator { margin: 2px 0.5em !important;; } menupopup { --menuitem-hover-background-color: #EDEDF0 !important; --menu-background-color: #F9F9FA !important; --menu-color: #15141a !important; --menuitem-disabled-hover-background-color: rgba(224, 224, 230, 0.4) !important; --menu-disabled-color: rgba(21, 20, 26, 0.4) !important; --menu-border-color: #cfcfd8!important; --menu-icon-opacity: 0.7 !important; --panel-border-radius: 0px !important; --panel-padding: 1px 0 !important; --nested-margin: -1px !important; } menupopup .menu-right { transform: scale(0.6) !important; margin-inline-end: 0.5em !important; } /* URL BAR POPUP */ .search-one-offs { display: none !important; } html*.urlbarView-row-inner { padding-block: 5px !important; } html*:root { --urlbarView-item-inline-padding: 6px !important; } .urlbarView { margin-inline: calc(3px + var(--urlbar-container-padding)) !important; width: calc(100% - 2 * (3px + var(--urlbar-container-padding))) !important; } #urlbar-zoom-button { background: #f9f9fb !important; padding: 0px 8px !important; margin: 2px 4px !important; border: 1px solid #ccc; } /* PANEL POPUPS (TOP RIGHT HAMBURGER) */ html*:root { --arrowpanel-border-radius: 0px !important;; 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} #navigator-toolbox{ background: #D6D7DA !important; } #PersonalToolbar { background-color: #F5F6F7 !important; } Is there some way to make this play nice with every density option?I would also appreciate pointers on any other broken code I might have in here that I haven't noticed yet. I've already replaced some things using guides about the latest update, but I'm not sure of everything that might need to be fixed, since I haven't noticed any other visual problems besides this density issue.
Thanks in advance for any help with this!
2023.06.05 05:45 IntegralofDankdx hello fellow redditors, please help me encapsulate my soul into a personality type!
How old are you? What's your gender? Give us a general description of yourself.
17, almost 18 (I know I also ask myself why im on reddit, corrupting my brain from such a young age), female.
Hello all. I'd say I'm kind of aloof, but competitive. I hate uncomfortable clothing, and honestly its a drag to get me to go outside. But if it's some game or sport, I'm absolutely down. I think one of the best human feelings is feeling the fresh air conditioner wind against your body as you destroy your 6 foot friend in badminton with your superior strategy and reflexes. In all seriousness, I'm heading into college to study mechanical engineering and actually thinking of using a ton of my AP credits to get out of classes and replace them with bio and chem classes to head to medical school after. Not that I am dissatisfied with engineering, in fact, my reasoning behind these seemingly weird plans is to get the full fundamental background of the engineering and doctor world. I feel anxious about my survival without it, if that makes any sense. I wasn't kidding about liking games and being competitive, I have been doing fencing for almost half my life, and I plan to continue fencing on a national level in college. But apart from that hobby which requires you to step foot outside the house, I genuinely have a hard time getting myself to touch grass. In fact, this weekend was an achievement when I touched grass 3 whole days in a row. Not joking. People noticed I got tanner lmao. Some people think I'm pretty quiet, while others feel im pretty obnoxious. This can be accredited to my ever changing energy levels and lack of filter and need to stfu sometimes. Though sometimes, I really do get quiet. I've grappled with trying to figure out whether my first function is introverted or extroverted, but honestly I end up gaslighting myself each time so it doesn't work. As for general hobbies, im a YouTube gremlin, a mathy science-y kinda kid, trying to get into chess more (im basically an average intermediate rn and by fear of being destroyed by an anonymous person across the world online really makes this process difficult), unfortunately watch anime, and secretly an art kid.
This is a tangent but I dont know maybe it will help diagnose my personality lmao, I feel that math and science is 10x more enjoyable when you learn the history of HOW the things come about. Like last week, I was kind of fed up with the notion of imagining Newton creating all of calculus on his own to help with his physics stuff, so I went looking into it and learned a lot about how the concept of infinity and infinitesimally small numbers was around even in the Greeks era, and that a LOT of foundation had already been made (not discrediting Newton btw, he was a beast its just kind of annoying that the history of how thought came to be isn't taught... how are we supposed to create new ideas when we're instilled with the easy path of memorization)
Also also, I feel that the "STEM FIELD" is being treated as a totally different entity from linguistics and philosophy, and that also kind of makes me feel robbed of the education people COULD receive. I think there's a lot to be said about how the skills from art and literature do in fact transfer creatively to the "strict" fields of mathematics.
Is there a medical diagnosis that may impact your mental stability somehow?
Nope, just me and my brain.
Describe your upbringing. Did it have any kind of religious or structured influence? How did you respond to it?
Parents aren't really religious at all though my mom claims she internally religious but doesn't really need to prove it externally, it's pretty chill. In that sense, my upbringing has had little to no influence from religion and was fairly unstructured. My parents gave me WAYYY more freedom than most kids, and I'm extremely thankful for it. This freedom is what has allowed me to test my limits of self control, my own self discipline, and has taught me much. Yes, freedom can backfire on some kids, but honestly as a kid most of my internet interests were genuinely educational, and with of course the load of Minecraft videos to binge watch. Honestly I feel im worse off now, where YouTube is becoming glorified tik Tok and I feel my brain rotting.
As for my actual upbringing in school, it wasn't the smoothest of rides. I don't know what it was, but it seemed that even since kindergarten, genders were split in friend groups, or friend groups split by races, even if it was unconscious. I was a kid who just wanted to run around and have fun, so it made sense that I would want to be with "the boys" LMAO, but its kind of impossible to insert yourself into such a group, especially when my social skills were absolute nil. Maybe it was because English was technically my second language, or maybe I just cognitively was slow, but I would miss directions in class, and overall got in trouble a little bit and was never a model student.
Something changed in middle school. With the shift to grades and my brain deciding to work, I became a good student and had some friends, but was still bullied on my bus constantly. I didn't care though, I just wanted to be friends with them, so I tried to not be left out and obviously it didn't work out. You know how kids figure out at one point that they can think about their own thoughts, and that the world doesn't revolve around them? Well, the former came to me really easily because I'd talk to myself in the backyard a ton. But the latter wasn't so simple. My family was supportive and made me feel intelligent and bright, but at school, I felt terribly insecure of my intelligence, my physique, my humor, my everything. So I studied the "cool" people, the "funny" people. I wanted to figure out what it took to be funny and to receive that validation from teachers and peers. I wanted to see how I could act smart and get people to notice me for being intelligent. Mix those feelings of envy and desperation with someone naturally competitive and a little arrogant, you get a pretty insecure little penguin.
Now as a senior in high school, retrospectively, I see that college isn't everything, that intelligences come in all sorts and shapes and honestly everyone is like a video game character with different perks and attributes. I learned that hard work is honestly probably one of the most over powered skills in the game of life, and best of all, I regained a lot of lost self worth, which allows me to actually empathize with people and engage with society in a more fulfilling manner. I say what I think and feel, even as a people pleaser, I just turn off that filter because why not, I can't really change that part of me. But I've definitely learned when to back off, how people want to be comforted, and what it means to actually care for others. Not that I didn't care before, I just couldn't see it and wouldn't acknowledge it because then in my mind I would have been weak.
If you had to spend an entire weekend by yourself, how would you feel? Would you feel lonely or refreshed?
Ngl, this is most weekends, and I'm totally fine with it. I don't like going out because of the chore it takes to put on clothes and look all presentable and then deal with the humidity of the outside world. HOWEVER, I'm not going to lie, I do really enjoy going out with friends sometimes and it does make my week when I do. I feel most refreshed when I've gotten some social time done, but also some productive things done: like finishing that month overdue paper, and actually learning something for personal benefit.
What kinds of activities do you prefer? Do you like, and are you good at sports? Do you enjoy any other outdoor or indoor activities?
I really like windy weather, or like an air conditioned gym. I'm quite good at sports and attune pretty quickly to most. As I mentioned before, I'm a competitive fencer but I'm pretty good at ping pong, badminton, volleyball. Used to do track and was a 100m sprinter (was pretty spankin good) but then it got boring because there wasn't much of a GAME aspect to the sport. and also bad asthma lol.
How curious are you? Do you have more ideas then you can execute? What are your curiosities about? What are your ideas about - is it environmental or conceptual, and can you please elaborate?
People say I think of crazy ideas, but honestly one of my fears is that I'm not thinking of ENOUGH ideas. Whenever someone else needs an idea, poof, I got one. But for myself? My brain sabotages me.
I strongly like dealing with the conceptual. Conceptual things are just so much cooler and easier to deal with and generally speaking, more revolutionary and groundbreaking.
My ideas can range from dumb comic ideas about a brain being like a dog to strange tangents on how people's lives are interconnected, or how before we're born we can decide our life difficulty level, just weird things to think about to make excuses for any predicament XD
Would you enjoy taking on a leadership position? Do you think you would be good at it? What would your leadership style be?
It's awful honestly, I seem to dream of being in charge, but I'm god awful at it. I cannot for the love of god snake people out of money, or charisma people into believing a product works when it doesn't, or tell someone that they aren't working hard enough (pains me more honestly), it just doesn't work. My leadership only works in a controlled environment where everyone WANTS to get somewhere, but honestly, I think as a brain I'm better as someone on the sidelines thinking up funny things that might work.
Are you artistic? If yes, describe your art? If you are not particular artistic but can appreciate art please likewise describe what forums of art you enjoy. Please explain your answer.
My dad collects paintings, had a large exposure to art as a child. I draw pretty freakishly well for someone that doesn't practice much. I tend to draw on anything in the corner, but big pieces? Nah, not unless I have to make some gift or project. Used to be into animation, still am very into ink art, etching, anything black and white. But I love looking at sculptures and oils, honestly I'm never gonna make a good sculpture, im incapable, but its heckin' awesome when other people can.
What's your opinion about the past, present, and future? How do you deal with them?
I get too nostalgic, but I look back and look forward to get rid of the present so there's that. The future brings me some anxiety, so to ease it I'll write basic things I need to accomplish somewhat soon in my notes app to ease the black hole of the future. But nostalgia, man, it kills me. Worst part is when you can't tell if what you're remembering even happened. You gaslight yourself into a situation you can't even confirm. And then there's the issue of figuring out if you supposed to feel the way you feel when you look back on things, it a whole mess. Lately I've been looking forward mostly and consciously filtering out the things I look back on to achieve more happiness.
How do you act when others request your help to do something (anything)? If you would decide to help them, why would you do so?
love helping people. you need my homework? I gotchu. I don't know, I like acquaintances. I have no qualms about helping somebody out, I know I wish people would help me out when I asked. I hate the whole "you got to be friends first" kind of deal, we're all human aint we?
Do you control others, even if indirectly? How and why do you do that?
Nope. I need control of my life first lol
How good are you at strategizing? Do you easily break up projects into manageable tasks? Or do you have a tendency to wing projects and improvise as you go?
I break things down enough to where I can wing things. I'm a major procrastinator, but I get things done and I make sure they're done well. Very perfectionistic and self critical about anything I make, even if it's just for school.
What are your fears? What makes you uncomfortable? What do you hate? Why?
I've realized lately, my greatest fear is hating life and feeling unhappy. I absolute hate the feeling of not wanting to exist or losing self worth, its worse than any external loss. Of course though, I fear losing my family as well. As to hating things, I don't hate people. It's strange, but I keep on forgiving people far too easily. It's just that in every situation, there are always two sides, and I ALWAYS give them the benefit of the doubt. Because for me to do anything, I have to know I'm 100% right.
What do the "highs" in your life look like?
Feeling content, learning, talking, having control over my life and achieving new things and feeling a brighter future coming.
What do the "lows" in your life look like?
binging YouTube, not going outside, not learning new things, reaching out to people for entertainment and not willing to complete simple school tasks out of fear of confronting the amount of things I've laid off.
How attached are you to reality? Do you daydream often, or do you pay attention to what's around you? If you do daydream, are you aware of your surroundings while you do so?
Daydream wayyyyyy too often. I mean I've daydreamed I was a 9 year old being hired by Elon musk for 2 whole hours in front of my mirror. I know, it's not okay. Dunno how aware I am of the surroundings but I can snap out of it pretty fine. But daydreaming is really fun, problem is, I can't keep doing it because then I know im procrastinating on something and I feel guilty. day dreaming is awesome when you know there's nothing else to do so you might as well think about something cool.
Sorry for writing so much, just finished a statistics final project and just needed to distract myself.
Thank you so much for anyone that reads through this whole things, big thanks, and thank u for all the typers!
submitted by IntegralofDankdx to MbtiTypeMe [link] [comments]
17, almost 18 (I know I also ask myself why im on reddit, corrupting my brain from such a young age), female.
Hello all. I'd say I'm kind of aloof, but competitive. I hate uncomfortable clothing, and honestly its a drag to get me to go outside. But if it's some game or sport, I'm absolutely down. I think one of the best human feelings is feeling the fresh air conditioner wind against your body as you destroy your 6 foot friend in badminton with your superior strategy and reflexes. In all seriousness, I'm heading into college to study mechanical engineering and actually thinking of using a ton of my AP credits to get out of classes and replace them with bio and chem classes to head to medical school after. Not that I am dissatisfied with engineering, in fact, my reasoning behind these seemingly weird plans is to get the full fundamental background of the engineering and doctor world. I feel anxious about my survival without it, if that makes any sense. I wasn't kidding about liking games and being competitive, I have been doing fencing for almost half my life, and I plan to continue fencing on a national level in college. But apart from that hobby which requires you to step foot outside the house, I genuinely have a hard time getting myself to touch grass. In fact, this weekend was an achievement when I touched grass 3 whole days in a row. Not joking. People noticed I got tanner lmao. Some people think I'm pretty quiet, while others feel im pretty obnoxious. This can be accredited to my ever changing energy levels and lack of filter and need to stfu sometimes. Though sometimes, I really do get quiet. I've grappled with trying to figure out whether my first function is introverted or extroverted, but honestly I end up gaslighting myself each time so it doesn't work. As for general hobbies, im a YouTube gremlin, a mathy science-y kinda kid, trying to get into chess more (im basically an average intermediate rn and by fear of being destroyed by an anonymous person across the world online really makes this process difficult), unfortunately watch anime, and secretly an art kid.
This is a tangent but I dont know maybe it will help diagnose my personality lmao, I feel that math and science is 10x more enjoyable when you learn the history of HOW the things come about. Like last week, I was kind of fed up with the notion of imagining Newton creating all of calculus on his own to help with his physics stuff, so I went looking into it and learned a lot about how the concept of infinity and infinitesimally small numbers was around even in the Greeks era, and that a LOT of foundation had already been made (not discrediting Newton btw, he was a beast its just kind of annoying that the history of how thought came to be isn't taught... how are we supposed to create new ideas when we're instilled with the easy path of memorization)
Also also, I feel that the "STEM FIELD" is being treated as a totally different entity from linguistics and philosophy, and that also kind of makes me feel robbed of the education people COULD receive. I think there's a lot to be said about how the skills from art and literature do in fact transfer creatively to the "strict" fields of mathematics.
Is there a medical diagnosis that may impact your mental stability somehow?
Nope, just me and my brain.
Describe your upbringing. Did it have any kind of religious or structured influence? How did you respond to it?
Parents aren't really religious at all though my mom claims she internally religious but doesn't really need to prove it externally, it's pretty chill. In that sense, my upbringing has had little to no influence from religion and was fairly unstructured. My parents gave me WAYYY more freedom than most kids, and I'm extremely thankful for it. This freedom is what has allowed me to test my limits of self control, my own self discipline, and has taught me much. Yes, freedom can backfire on some kids, but honestly as a kid most of my internet interests were genuinely educational, and with of course the load of Minecraft videos to binge watch. Honestly I feel im worse off now, where YouTube is becoming glorified tik Tok and I feel my brain rotting.
As for my actual upbringing in school, it wasn't the smoothest of rides. I don't know what it was, but it seemed that even since kindergarten, genders were split in friend groups, or friend groups split by races, even if it was unconscious. I was a kid who just wanted to run around and have fun, so it made sense that I would want to be with "the boys" LMAO, but its kind of impossible to insert yourself into such a group, especially when my social skills were absolute nil. Maybe it was because English was technically my second language, or maybe I just cognitively was slow, but I would miss directions in class, and overall got in trouble a little bit and was never a model student.
Something changed in middle school. With the shift to grades and my brain deciding to work, I became a good student and had some friends, but was still bullied on my bus constantly. I didn't care though, I just wanted to be friends with them, so I tried to not be left out and obviously it didn't work out. You know how kids figure out at one point that they can think about their own thoughts, and that the world doesn't revolve around them? Well, the former came to me really easily because I'd talk to myself in the backyard a ton. But the latter wasn't so simple. My family was supportive and made me feel intelligent and bright, but at school, I felt terribly insecure of my intelligence, my physique, my humor, my everything. So I studied the "cool" people, the "funny" people. I wanted to figure out what it took to be funny and to receive that validation from teachers and peers. I wanted to see how I could act smart and get people to notice me for being intelligent. Mix those feelings of envy and desperation with someone naturally competitive and a little arrogant, you get a pretty insecure little penguin.
Now as a senior in high school, retrospectively, I see that college isn't everything, that intelligences come in all sorts and shapes and honestly everyone is like a video game character with different perks and attributes. I learned that hard work is honestly probably one of the most over powered skills in the game of life, and best of all, I regained a lot of lost self worth, which allows me to actually empathize with people and engage with society in a more fulfilling manner. I say what I think and feel, even as a people pleaser, I just turn off that filter because why not, I can't really change that part of me. But I've definitely learned when to back off, how people want to be comforted, and what it means to actually care for others. Not that I didn't care before, I just couldn't see it and wouldn't acknowledge it because then in my mind I would have been weak.
If you had to spend an entire weekend by yourself, how would you feel? Would you feel lonely or refreshed?
Ngl, this is most weekends, and I'm totally fine with it. I don't like going out because of the chore it takes to put on clothes and look all presentable and then deal with the humidity of the outside world. HOWEVER, I'm not going to lie, I do really enjoy going out with friends sometimes and it does make my week when I do. I feel most refreshed when I've gotten some social time done, but also some productive things done: like finishing that month overdue paper, and actually learning something for personal benefit.
What kinds of activities do you prefer? Do you like, and are you good at sports? Do you enjoy any other outdoor or indoor activities?
I really like windy weather, or like an air conditioned gym. I'm quite good at sports and attune pretty quickly to most. As I mentioned before, I'm a competitive fencer but I'm pretty good at ping pong, badminton, volleyball. Used to do track and was a 100m sprinter (was pretty spankin good) but then it got boring because there wasn't much of a GAME aspect to the sport. and also bad asthma lol.
How curious are you? Do you have more ideas then you can execute? What are your curiosities about? What are your ideas about - is it environmental or conceptual, and can you please elaborate?
People say I think of crazy ideas, but honestly one of my fears is that I'm not thinking of ENOUGH ideas. Whenever someone else needs an idea, poof, I got one. But for myself? My brain sabotages me.
I strongly like dealing with the conceptual. Conceptual things are just so much cooler and easier to deal with and generally speaking, more revolutionary and groundbreaking.
My ideas can range from dumb comic ideas about a brain being like a dog to strange tangents on how people's lives are interconnected, or how before we're born we can decide our life difficulty level, just weird things to think about to make excuses for any predicament XD
Would you enjoy taking on a leadership position? Do you think you would be good at it? What would your leadership style be?
It's awful honestly, I seem to dream of being in charge, but I'm god awful at it. I cannot for the love of god snake people out of money, or charisma people into believing a product works when it doesn't, or tell someone that they aren't working hard enough (pains me more honestly), it just doesn't work. My leadership only works in a controlled environment where everyone WANTS to get somewhere, but honestly, I think as a brain I'm better as someone on the sidelines thinking up funny things that might work.
Are you artistic? If yes, describe your art? If you are not particular artistic but can appreciate art please likewise describe what forums of art you enjoy. Please explain your answer.
My dad collects paintings, had a large exposure to art as a child. I draw pretty freakishly well for someone that doesn't practice much. I tend to draw on anything in the corner, but big pieces? Nah, not unless I have to make some gift or project. Used to be into animation, still am very into ink art, etching, anything black and white. But I love looking at sculptures and oils, honestly I'm never gonna make a good sculpture, im incapable, but its heckin' awesome when other people can.
What's your opinion about the past, present, and future? How do you deal with them?
I get too nostalgic, but I look back and look forward to get rid of the present so there's that. The future brings me some anxiety, so to ease it I'll write basic things I need to accomplish somewhat soon in my notes app to ease the black hole of the future. But nostalgia, man, it kills me. Worst part is when you can't tell if what you're remembering even happened. You gaslight yourself into a situation you can't even confirm. And then there's the issue of figuring out if you supposed to feel the way you feel when you look back on things, it a whole mess. Lately I've been looking forward mostly and consciously filtering out the things I look back on to achieve more happiness.
How do you act when others request your help to do something (anything)? If you would decide to help them, why would you do so?
love helping people. you need my homework? I gotchu. I don't know, I like acquaintances. I have no qualms about helping somebody out, I know I wish people would help me out when I asked. I hate the whole "you got to be friends first" kind of deal, we're all human aint we?
Do you control others, even if indirectly? How and why do you do that?
Nope. I need control of my life first lol
How good are you at strategizing? Do you easily break up projects into manageable tasks? Or do you have a tendency to wing projects and improvise as you go?
I break things down enough to where I can wing things. I'm a major procrastinator, but I get things done and I make sure they're done well. Very perfectionistic and self critical about anything I make, even if it's just for school.
What are your fears? What makes you uncomfortable? What do you hate? Why?
I've realized lately, my greatest fear is hating life and feeling unhappy. I absolute hate the feeling of not wanting to exist or losing self worth, its worse than any external loss. Of course though, I fear losing my family as well. As to hating things, I don't hate people. It's strange, but I keep on forgiving people far too easily. It's just that in every situation, there are always two sides, and I ALWAYS give them the benefit of the doubt. Because for me to do anything, I have to know I'm 100% right.
What do the "highs" in your life look like?
Feeling content, learning, talking, having control over my life and achieving new things and feeling a brighter future coming.
What do the "lows" in your life look like?
binging YouTube, not going outside, not learning new things, reaching out to people for entertainment and not willing to complete simple school tasks out of fear of confronting the amount of things I've laid off.
How attached are you to reality? Do you daydream often, or do you pay attention to what's around you? If you do daydream, are you aware of your surroundings while you do so?
Daydream wayyyyyy too often. I mean I've daydreamed I was a 9 year old being hired by Elon musk for 2 whole hours in front of my mirror. I know, it's not okay. Dunno how aware I am of the surroundings but I can snap out of it pretty fine. But daydreaming is really fun, problem is, I can't keep doing it because then I know im procrastinating on something and I feel guilty. day dreaming is awesome when you know there's nothing else to do so you might as well think about something cool.
Sorry for writing so much, just finished a statistics final project and just needed to distract myself.
Thank you so much for anyone that reads through this whole things, big thanks, and thank u for all the typers!