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Efrain was left, more or less, with two things left to teach. First was the more complex magical motion, how to draw flows and glide things along them. The second was how that applied to the wondrous black metal, and then to shape it into whatever she had seen.
Efrain, not for the first time, wished that he’d seen the knife, that way he wouldn’t have to rely on the girl’s amateur talents. There was a good chance that she would not be able to construct it soundly or missed crucial details that were essential. It was a risk, giving her this greatly expedited tutelage, then making her build a magic tool with nothing but educated guesswork. Practically like explaining pulleys and counterweights, and then asking a student to design an elevator.
He didn’t let his mind rest on it for too long - he had enough horrors today without contemplating what lay beyond the stone. Still, it weighed on him, as even moving the water around was noticeably more difficult than it would’ve been in the free air. He set out another filled bucket and an empty one, provided gratis by the workers.
“Are you having fun yet?” he said aloud, drawing the attention and a few nervous chuckles.
“It might be good for you to listen in,” he continued, “magic is here, has been here, and will continue to be here long after any of us are gone. One of these principles might save your life one day?”
After a few moments, a younger member hesitantly spoke.
“Are there any schools? To teach magic,” he said, before immediately trying to shrink back into the crowd.
Efrain regarded him as he considered the question.
“Why? Do you have an interest?”
The men around him laughed, and the boy’s face flushed as he locked eyes with what must’ve been a very attractive bench.
“Yes. There are, and were, schools. The greatest was the Angorrah Academy in the capital, but it has long been ransacked and converted to other uses. Centuries ago, now.”
The men were listening with interest now. Efrain wasn’t surprised, given the way the church stepped on the toes of history when writing its edicts.
“Yes. Angorrah used to be a heart of learning of all kinds,” he said, gesturing off to the western mountains, “magic, science, the arts, craftsmanship. The academy was beautiful, in its way. Still… what happened happened.”
“The night of the burning tree?” one of the older men ventured.
“Indeed,” Efrain said, “the night of the burning tree. A bunch of hotblooded youths getting involved in open rebellion. Anyone care to take a guess at what the seniors were doing?”
No one responded, all were looking on with bated breath.
“Nothing. Sitting in their towers, sipping their wine. All the while a bunch of idiots painted a target on all of our backs, and they did nothing to stop them.”
He was conscious of the potential hypocrisy he was engaged in. It was only a couple of years after the night of the burning tree when he had awoken in his new body. For all he knew, he could’ve been one of the idiots involved. He would like to think that he was not so stupid as to burn the most holy symbol of the church. But there was no way to know for certain.
“Then the purges began,” he said, “I had left the city before. I saw the writing on the wall.”
“But that would mean you’re hundreds of years old,” protested one of the men.
Efrain looked at him, the other men looked at him, and the man faded back with a quiet ‘oh’.
“Yes, I’ve lived for a very, very long time,” he said, stretching as he did, “there’s several different ways you can go about it, but… well, the results speak for themselves.”
Now that caught their attention, as tales of immortality often did.
“Before you ask, there’s a steep price for extended life, regardless of which way you do it. Not to mention, it’ll most likely take decades upon decades of study, and help from others besides. Even with all that, it’s still a very risky business. One mistake, and you’ll be greeting death early.”
That seemed to quell most of the curiosity, though not extinguish it completely.
“Well,” he said, “back to the original question. As for the remaining schools of magic, you’re not likely to find anything west of the mountains. The church’s hold is too strong for any sort of formal study to flourish there. The best one would be…”
Efrain tapped his mask as he ran through the locations, hoping that two centuries hadn’t wiped them away.
“Karkos, to the south east,” he said, “though I haven’t been there for many years. I recall… well, there was the idea of a school once. If you’re really interested, that would be the place to try.”
Some of the men nodded thoughtfully, though Efrain doubted any of them were actually vying to go.
“What can magic do?” said one of the younger ones again, “can it make swords sharp, or on fire or…”
He stuttered out as he reached the limits of his creativity. Efrain didn’t mind - it was nice to have queries to take his minds off of recent events.
“Magic weapons?” he said, mentally thumbing through his collection of knowledge on the topic, “yes, you could. Most ordinary weapons can be infused with magic, with appropriate skill. As for things custom made for the purposes of handling magic, well…”
He thought back to his vault in his holdfast, missing home, as cold and isolated as it might’ve been. There were a handful of weapons in his collections, usually cursed, but little that he would actually use. They were mostly there for preservation and study, rather than actual warfare. His armoury on the other hand had enchanted items, but they tended to be more along alchemical lines rather than physical ones.
“They are rare, quite rare. Some of you are steel workers, I would think?” he said, witnessing a few nods, “well then, how many years would it take to become a good one, usually?”
There was a smattering of guesses, until a big, keg-chested man offered “five or tener’ years, depends.”
“Then I’m sure you can imagine, my friend,” Efrain said nodding, “combine learning magic and smithing, then learning how to weave the latter into the former. Many, many years. True master enchanters and magesmiths are not something seen since Angorrah’s golden years, and that was centuries ago.”
He remembered the site of the great forge works under the academy, situated near the cistern so that they had a constant supply of water to fuel engines and quenching pools. The smell of hot metal and burning wood barely eclipse the stench of sewage. There had been several doddering craftsmen by the time he’d left, though the days of their magnum opuses were long past.
“Even in my time, they were dying out, and when the Academy was ‘decommissioned’, well, most of their works and knowledge was destroyed. I only knew barely beyond the basics. In any case, most magic weapons are too expensive to be practical. However you could ‘enhance’ in the way you’re thinking’ - holding edges for longer and so on.”
He paused, trying to recall the few examples he’d witnessed first-hand.
“Why, they even used to pre-enchant metal at the academy, so you could temper them faster at higher temperatures, without risking warping or weakening.”
The men began to nod more fervently - this was a subject they were more familiar with.
“But nothing dramatic. To be sure, there are tales. Weapons of light, tools to replant forests and cure illness,” he said, reaching over for the cube.
Watching the streams and rivers of metal form and reform in his hands, he began to recite.
“Long lost, long lost, across the waves,
Past brothers’ tombs and fathers’ graves.
Long lost, long lost, across the sea.
Lands old and rich and everfree.
The first lands where we long to be,
Long lost, long lost, across the sea.
Where all are found, where all is saved.
Long lost, long lost, across the waves.”
“I know that!” one of the men said, “it’s in one of the church books the priest used to sing.”
“Aieadda. It’s an old poem, one of the oldest. It’s one of the few surviving writings from the times of Eblem.”
The name of Angorrah’s founding king turned the last of the bowed heads.
“You’ve been?” said a number of astonished labourers, drawing a mental grin from Efrain. The ‘first lands’ must’ve been a legend to them, something spoken about in terms of gods and myths.
“No, no I’ve not,” he said, “they do exist, far to the south west. Several weeks by ship, if the wind is in your favour. It’s a hazardous crossing. But, if the verses are to be believed, ‘anything’ can be found there. Magic runs strong in that country.”
He lifted up the now solid cube as an example.
“For instance,” he said, “and if this is the metalwork they could do, who knows what else they could create?”
The men were enchanted now, transfixed by stories they’d never heard. But it’d have to wait for later, he thought, as he saw Sorore led by Lillian cut around the corner.
“Right then, back to work. Though you are welcome to listen in as you wish,” he said, as Sorore sat down in front of him, frowning at the two buckets.
“You ready?” he said, and she nodded, “very well, let’s begin.”
“The second lesson of magical motion is as follows…”
For the next half-hour he taught her about the process of drawing flows. How to imagine an invisible line, like carving a channel for the water to follow. How to start from before the mass, and move magic through it, simultaneously pushing the magic through it, and pushing the mass on the magic.
“And to practise that, I’ve brought back your favourite teaching aid,” he said, gesturing to the pair of buckets in front of them.
He thought he detected the hint of a scowl on the girl’s face.
“Quite simple, really, just draw an arc between the two points. We’ll stop when you’ve filled the empty bucket to the best of your ability.”
The hour after that was relatively simple, Sorore imagined a line, drew magic across it, then drew the water across that. A few false starts and water explosions later, she had a steady stream falling into the bucket.
“That’d be useful,” said one of the men, “wouldn’t have to move around the smithy too much.”
“Solid objects get a little more tricky,” said Efrain, “if I taught you how, you’d spend just as much time learning how to dodge wayward tools.”
There was genuine, not nervous laughter this time. Sorore was sitting there, quite focused on the stream, though not particularly tense, watching as the water slowly filtered from one to the other.
“A fun minor lesson,” he said, “try to make a flow with right angles only.”
The girl’s concentration lapsed, spilling water on the cobbles to her annoyance. But regardless, she tried, and largely succeeded in the first part. When she attempted to push water up, it sprayed off past one of the men, leading to it being quickly dropped.
“Any object has mass, and thus momentum. Think of running and rapidly turning around. Takes a lot more effort, doesn’t it? Curves are almost always more efficient. Now, back to it.”
Within another twenty minutes or so, she had filled up the second bucket. The last of the drops were drawn over the arc, and vanished under the surface.
“Well done,” he said, “you now know the basics of moving liquids like water, and even gas like the air around us. Solids get a little more tricky, so there’s really no time to teach you that. When we get to forging the knife, let me handle that part.”
She nodded, beaming at the bucket that was empty less than an hour ago.
“You’re ready,” he said, “now for one little note about this material. This has no resistance to magic. You’ll have to create your own, for reasons that we can discuss later. Two forces, equal, pushing against one another. Are you ready?”
She nodded, fingers twitching in excitement as he handed her the cube.
“Merely make them equal as you can,” he said, “don’t try and-”
The partially liquid cube shot out to the left, which Efrain caught and circled around into the main mass. The girl’s magic was still quite chaotic, and it was potent.
“Try again, two opposite forces at the same time. Like pressing your finger tips against each other. You’re holding it under tension.”
She did so, and a couple of tries later, the cube collapsed into fluid.
“Well done,” he said, despite the gasp she made as she attempted to grab at the fluid, “now comes the hard part. You need to maintain that tension as you guide it along the flow.”
He demonstrated, letting the material pool and coalesce into a streamer that floated into the air.
“This will be tricky. We’ll work at it,” he said, letting it spatter back onto the pavement.
The girl tried, and tried, and tried, and tried. For hours and hours as her face grew pale and sweat once more dripped from her chin. They were well past midday before she managed to get a decent grip on the technique, even though it still vibrated violently.
Efrain was completely unsurprised by the imperfection. Working with material like this was a challenge even for senior students. She had managed it in an afternoon. On its own, she would be considered exceptional, even if she had years worth of theory to catch up on. Efrain seized control and moulded it back into a cube, letting it solidify once more.
“Well,” he said, “you’ve gotten the gist of it. Not so easy, hm?”
She nodded, brushing her hair back and rubbing at her eyes.
“Now comes the really hard part,” he said, with less sadistic, teacherly mirth than he might want to, “You need to create a flow that is the shape of the blade.”
Sorore’s eyes widened at the proposition, and she audibly gulped.
“How?” she said.
“Imagine the shape of the blade in space, and divide it up into flows that you can guide the metal to. Simple in theory. But far, far from easy. This is the challenge we’ve been leading up to. You need not worry about making it solid, just let me handle that. You need only to work on the shape.”
Sorore was eager to try, if a little daunted perhaps by the complexity of the task. First Efrain managed to make a concept wire piece of the blade with her. They discussed features, the chisel tip, the furled blades, the tang of the blade. The small rivulets and channels she’d seen in her ‘visions’ of it.
Then came the actual ‘forging’ of it, and by the Lost, was it difficult. Attempt after attempt after attempt fell apart, the girl growing grey by the exhaustion. As the light around them began to darken, they stopped, adjusted and retired. All to no avail.
“I just can’t…” she said, face red with effort after the latest attempt, “there’s too much to keep track of.”
Efrain had watched, with occasionally gentle prodding, as the girl attempted to fill in the gaps. The actual flow wasn’t particularly difficult, but forming the total structure of the blade, while maintaining cardinal paths for the metal to follow was clearly beyond her level. Efrain sighed - at least now, he had an idea of what the shape was and could make a good approximation of what was needed.
It was unfortunate that the young girl didn't manage to fully develop the skill over the afternoon’s course, but it was hardly unexpected. He had been pushing her far too hard, and at this point it was probably going to be more economical to just simply create the blade himself. It wouldn't be perfect, but he had to hope that it would be enough for the door.
"Well,” he said, “ it would appear that we’ve run out of time. Good progress despite. I think I'll try to finish the rest of it.”
As he’d expected, the dismissal made the young woman's shoulders slump further. He was almost tempted to reach out to her, but the ever-present glare of Lillian dissuaded him. She would get over it, assuming they all survived, and for that, he needed the knife. Soroe was led away into the afternoon, and Efrain was left to find a solution he wasn’t entirely sure existed.
Within a few minutes he had managed to get the basic shape, the details, however, were an entirely different story. Try after try after try, he spent what hours he had attempting to get every single detail he could. Night was oncoming before he had something he thought might work. The actual utilisation and technique he hoped weren’t as important as the structure. Efrain was not looking forward to the most likely outcome - the first usage of magic would immediately revert the solid metal to fluid.
Sighing, he finally rose, bizarre blade in his hand. With a nod to the rest of the labourers, well at work repairing blades and mending armour, he departed to the church. The remainder of the townsfolk were littered about, preparing for the siege. If they were lucky, they had a few more hours before the attacks began, but that did not still the fear obvious in their eyes.
Efrain crossed into the main hold of the church, and made his way to the stair door. Innie picked herself up off the stones and walked beside him.
“The child?” Efrain said, looking back towards the medic bay.
“Leave her,” said the cat, “she’s needed, and the happiest I’ve ever seen her. Did you have any luck?”
“She came close. Somewhat,” Efrain said, letting the black blade catch the light, “I finished it.”
“Oh that’s comforting,” said Innie, “using a tool you finished.”
“If you have a better suggestion,” Efrain responded with a snort, “we can’t get much more desperate than we are now. Is this or roof.”
“I'd rather fight them here on, at least that way I can burn the church down while I die,” she said.
The catacombs greeted them - dark, cold, and smothering. The duo came before the black stone wall, Efrain glancing over to check if there was nothing he’d missed. Finding that his powers of observation were sound, he raised the blade tip to the smooth black stone.
“Here we go,” he said.
[←Chapter 46] [Cover Art] [My Links] [Index] [Discord] [Subreddit] [Chapter 48→]

Note: This is a series I want to create, centred around some given element or facet of worldbuilding and storytelling. Primarily, each post will either be a piece of hard science in terms of physics or logistics or otherwise core elements of the setting itself (such as military structure), or non-physical core elements of the people and their world (such as sports and personal enjoyment matters, for emotional regulation and social stability, among other reasons). In short: all the things that actually create a functional, realistic culture.
A random (meaning, I have just picked it at random for today), often overlooked element within space opera (and sci-fi in general) would be all things recreational. You might not find a good way to heavily feature this into your (say) novel, game, or screenplay, but it can be something to just touch upon, and have in your notes, as it will at least indirectly relate to the wider world you're building (so, it's worth knowing, as the author).
The logic is very simple: using humanity as a fundamental base (technically, an axiom), we can conclude that any humanoid or even alien species would have to gift themselves some kind of national sport, wargame, gambling system, or otherwise. The real-world examples literally encompass almost all of culture itself, making me believe that if your people are even remotely humanoid in their fundamental nature, then the recreational is a core facet of culture itself. This is so integrated into our real culture (rather, cultures) that we take it for granted, and don't even think about it when it comes to fiction-writing. But, it's a nice thing to add if you want added realism and stability, or an extra human touch.
For whatever reason, fantasy seems to feature invented sports and the like far more than sci-fi (unless such is the entire narrative of the sci-fi story, of course -- and, then, it's typically car-based). If we look to history, we clearly have the very creation of modern dice (India) as a gambling tool, and we have wargames (Go and Chess, etc.) as either direct military training tools (wargames proper), or abstracted wargames for more general use, since at least 3000 BC. Sports-wise, we see Blood Bowl (Warhammer fantasy sports game), Quidditch (fantasy; Harry Potter, which is akin to football mixed with netball in the air), and a dozen major examples from sci-fi, often featuring murder and cars (which we could see as a kind of replacement for the Roman and Greek sports), or else some kind of American sport hybrid. These include Real Steel, Futuresport, The Running Man, Rollerball, and Death Race (also, movies by the same names).
The aforementioned are obviously plot devices, and possibly don't have a place within your space opera setting and story. But, the fundamental drive and psychology are there. There are a few other examples from sci-fi board games and novels. Not to mention general sports and activities, such as Swimming.
Personally, I have made my national sport and recreation activity Swimming. The reason is four-fold: (1) it is a driver for both health and relaxation; (2) it can be social and peaceful; (3) for symbolic reasons; and (4) because there is likely not much water in space, yet humans still have a deep drive towards water (naturally, this is only applicable to any water-based culture, such as humans). It also occurs to me that water is a natural fitting for space, more so, if we take the TV trope, 'space is an ocean' (which does seem to be the natural categorisation, though it's not the only one). Another reason might be that it creates a reward system/social mobility, or at least the implication of such. Maybe, boarding a spaceship and taking a trip to the 'local' Swimming Centre is the week's holiday for your lower class people. On the other hand, maybe the high class types sit in Swimming Centres all the time. Not an uncommon trend throughout both fiction and history, as you might imagine.
That's just my own example, and may act as a springboard (no pun intended). You can justify dozens of real sports and otherwise activities, or invent your own. They may be readily accessible, or limited to certain classes of people or otherwise groups. There will likely be many different activities and sports for all your peoples, just as we see on Earth.
If you're writing a novel, just one trip to one sports centre or otherwise will do the trick, assuming you have planted in the reader's mind the notion that this is very normal and healthy for the culture/people. Best is to try and fit it into the wider plot, or else as a passing element (a few pages). One natural way to deal with this is to tie such into a wider theme or plot-point. Don't just have people randomly go Swimming just to inform the readers that they are Swimming. You need to work it in a bit better than that.
Depending on your culture, you may want a dozen violent/unhealthy sports and activities, or you (i.e. your culture's governing body, etc.) may only regulate more peaceful, healthy ones. I would try and tie this into the wider theme, anyway, and take into account the kind of people/culture you have. For example, you may or may not want Football with ant-like robots. On the other hand, bottle-tossing for big space Russians always sounds like a fun game.
If your culture is based on Americans or Hongkongian, for example, then you should think about their native sports and activities, and how that might fit into whatever you're doing with them in space/the future. Other than that, you need to consider the (a) disposition of your culture; (b) the history of your culture; (c) the function of your culture; (d) the state of your culture; and (e) the peoples of your culture. Although this is not an exhaustive list, it should suffice.
It also occurs to me, we just don't see enough sports in space outside of these movies/stories that are wholly dedicated to said sports, which is weird considering how sport-obsessed humans have become since 500 BC (but, especially since 1920 AD). This is often in relation to the ruling classes in rich, urban settings (cities/towns), or the average citizens in urban areas, finding a bit more free time on their hands (i.e. Scotland and England circa 1920 AD). Makes sense: you have bored, work-less nobles, or even workers with nothing to do. They need something to do; thus, they invented all sorts of games, wargames, and sports. You see this with horse-related games, ball-related games, and even something like fox tossing. Tennis was 'the game' (popular sport) of the middle classes and above by the 1880s through the 1980s (hence, most early video sports games of the 1950s through 1970s were all Tennis-based). Worth noting that most early video games were themselves sports games or wargames! Actually, most video games are wargames circa 2023 AD, with a vast number of the rest being sports. I stress this only to stress the importance of such things to human culture and entertainment... indeed, most of our entertainment is also either war-based (Boxing, etc.) or otherwise sports (Football, etc.). Not shockingly, most modern sports were invented, therefore, in the British Empire (sometimes with French or Dutch roots). Older sports are seemingly universal -- ranging from Africa to Native Americans to India -- and are typically ball-based (classically, often using heads, or else leather balls).
Of course, most sports are impossible in zero gravity, so I'm just assuming you're creating some kind of zero gravity war-based game, or otherwise sport (fundamentally throwing-based or ball-based), or your culture is on a planet or space station of some kind, which has artificial gravity.
Tron is a great example of offering some inspiration (duel type, and others), not to mention Spy Kids 3D (car race), Speed Racer (car race), and Ready Player One (car race). Then, you have combat training type games (I'll just call these 'physical wargames') and VR games (Gamer movie, for example), not to mention VR holiday trips.
Speaking of which, I'm reminded of Germany's vast, cheap, powerful cruise trip system by 1938, which saw millions of working (and fairly poor) Germans taking such Party-run trips and holidays (mostly a propaganda tool, funded with blood money, of course). In the more modern context, this is what we saw by the 1950s in America and England with various holiday sites, theme parks, modern cruise trips, and beach holidays (though these do date to at least 1920, but typically only by the middle classes and above). No less, Tolkien himself once came on holiday to the town I live in (on the coast, North of England), which was a famous holiday town back in the 1850s through 1960s. This was commonplace, including long walks through the woods and various built-up areas. Even in the 1700s, people began going to the 'sea air' for so-called health benefits. In reality, this was likely due to the fact the city air was unhealthy. The sea air was simply fresh, clean air (though, it likely is good for you, psychologically speaking, compared to the grey-state of city life). All of this to say that humans have a deep desire to be in nature, and to relax. This is true most of all for the rich and urbanised (as you can imagine).
Space theme park, anyone? Giant cinema on the Moon? Sure, why not. Titanic cruise trip across the galaxy? Doctor Who already did that, but you get my point! There is much to be done, and you only have to add a few such items, and briefly touch upon them, but I think it does wonders for the human connection, and some added realism (assuming such correctly fits your setting and themes).
There are many other activities of note, of course, including but not limited to art groups, acting/plays, drinking games, general board/video games, card/dice/token games, sword-based sports, hunting, Shooting (sport), and actual warfare.
The only other thing I should like to say is that gambling is not always wholly a negative, nor drinking. These ensure that people have something to do at the end of eacfh day/week, without rioting against the system or going insane/depressed. Gambling and drinking are about as old as modern culture itself (at least 7,000 years), so it's not a trivial matter. You may or may not want these in your setting in some manner: think that the key positive function to gambling is social mobility, as it allows poor people to climb up the social ladder by winning large sums of money (or, rather, gives them the hope of such). However, this needs to be contained, because (a) you actually need people to climb the social ladder, unless they are kept there; and (b) studies indicate that gambling doesn't actually work in this way, as most winners fall back to zero after 12 months. This assumes you have some kind of social caste system, which is money-driven, of course (which is very common). Drinking is simple: it keeps men off the streets and not as depressed, which is very good for a functional culture (despite the major negative social (and health) impacts of drinking itself according to studies). Alcohol comes to us via the Arabic, and I read that it comes from at least 7,000 BC. I read that gambling stems from many games/betting from 'knucklebones' (goats/sheep, mostly, around the Near East, then India, China, Greece, etc.), around 5000 BC (at least). I'm not sure if this was purely for gambling purposes, or the later form of divination (hence, the origin of dice). We still treat dice (such as in modern board games) as if we are fighting the gods of fate... as if we are making a bet with the future itself. This is part of 'divination', at least. This makes sense, if you think about it in a Jungian and Darwinian context (most of all, of the typical male brain pattern of high risk and high reward, clearly stemming from hunting). This would be pure speculation, but I like to think that these early gamblers were betting on Fate, struggling with the spirits of the animals of said bones (goats/sheep), maybe trying to get good omen/luck from them. We have certainly seen a great deal of such activity in the past, as evidenced by cave paintings and various omen rituals. I believe a future space human culture would have such things in place, too, just in different ways.
Right now, for example, the major form of gambling is hitting young boys via video games and their 'loot crate' systems, which is actually very dangerous and often illegal. These are almost always on war-driven games, so the connection back to hunting goats and bone-dice is not such a leap -- it's just a simulated, digital, nested form. Another major form of gambling over the last few decaes has been Boxing, which is literal combat/fighting between man. If your space opera has a primary focus on actual warfare, however, I think such sports and games are unneeded (for the most part). Only within a non-war context would your culture require such replacements (i.e. sports and wargames), but I do believe the royals/nobles of your setting would have such activities, as they are likely to have great amounts of free time, and not actively enage in warfare (though, you could primarily fill their time with politics and/or religion).
I have said enough for today. Ah, speaking of which: talking might be another consideration for your culture. This is literally as old as man, and does count as such an activity in the context of debate. You famously find this within the Jewish and Islamic worlds: likely because they don't enage with the other items I mentioned as much, and their religions require great moral debate and such. On the other hand, Buddhism requires a lot of silent thinking (which is a kind of debate, in a sense). This heavily depends on your culture's primary religion and otherwise. Some cultures are almost purely geared towards warfare, for example, like the Akkadian Empire (though we are likely a bit harsh on that). In this case, the focus would be on action. If your culture is anything like the modern West, then it's also going to be heavily driven by action, purely due to the speed of the culture and its workers. How this manifests itself depends on the type of government and culture you have in place (the Dutch Empire vs. the U.S., for example).
I'm sure I've forgotten a few key items and categories, and I'm sorry for that!
(Clearly, within a cyberpunk direction or more classical space opera context, the primary free-time activities and modes tend to be centred around sex, war, and/or slave-labour, as shown by Star Wars in general, for example. This may or may not fit your world and story, however. The other core negative item would be gambling, which is the only item which doesn't innately involve the body, though often bleeds over into various animal gambling games/activities. You may find that you have certain sci-fi/space creatures in your world, for example, and find yourself creating a gambling game out of that. Typically, you either make said creatures fight each other or race/run. This typically keeps the more lower classes engaged in the 'slums' sector (typically of a planet). Very common trope/theme, as noted in the bright-cyberpunk-space-opera sort of movie, The Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), when they go to a trading hub planet, filled with crime, sex rings, and gambling, including little weird creatures fighting each other, akin to dog fighting or such on Earth. But, again: you don't actually require this, it's just one popular way to go within the wider sci-fi context, and it serves a few purposes, in-universe.)

So I’ve been down the rabbit hole, trying to chase every off-the-cuff reference, stray allegory, allusion, comparison, and tangent. I’m going to need you to bear (hug) with me for a bit because I think I’ve stumbled on some truly insane parallels between this show and the myriad of references it makes and it will take a lot of text to justify to you that I'm not crazy (or that I am, but at least I do my research).
This is a show that employs a ton of intertextuality and what the poet T.S. Eliot (someone quoted frequently throughout the series) calls “the mythic method”: essentially using historical, literary, and mythological allusions to draw parallels between characters on the show and characters throughout history (real and imagined).
This method helps the audience to build both conscious and unconscious associations with each of the characters and, ultimately, underscores the Roys’ (and humanity’s) damning commitment to making the same mistakes over and over again. The show seems to draw a lot from Greek mythology, Arthurian legend, biblical parables, Shakespearean tragedy, and modernist poetry (among many other things).
These networks of symbolism span from the earliest recorded history to modern celebrity culture and yet they reveal frighteningly unchanged elements in the stories they tell. The parallels of these references throughout the show serve to highlight the cyclical (the illusion of progress) and deterministic (the illusion of free will) nature of existence.
While I will be dipping in and out of the existing references, I want to call particular attention to the poetry of the aforementioned T.S. Eliot (who champions the mythic method) and John Berryman’s poem Dream Song 29 because I believe much of their work has served as a foundation for characters.
In the show, Frank makes mention of his poem “The Long Song Of J Alfred Prufrock” more than once. Outside of the show, Matthew McFayden (the actor who plays Tom) references the same poem to describe his character. Jeremy Strong (the actor who plays Kendall) says Eliot’s work The Four Quartets is a huge inspiration to his acting and character. A line from this particular work did strike me as being quite on the nose, which is why I continued to comb the poem for more (which it does deliver on):

"In my beginning is my end. In succession Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended, Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass. Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires, Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth Which is already flesh, fur and faeces, Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf."

This will probably be a monster of a post, so I will attempt to break down the following sections between poetic parallels, visual and dialogic symbolism of eternal recurrence, and an exploration of the historical and mythological allusions. Ultimately, I believe all of these clues point to the overwhelming conclusion that we will end where we began, in some way or another.
Circles & Cycles: Endless Recurrence & The Futility Of Progress
The show toys a lot with the philosophical concept of eternal recurrence, which postulates that “time repeats itself in an infinite loop, and that exactly the same events will continue to occur in exactly the same way, over and over again, for eternity.”
These eternal loops are symbolized visually with mirrors, water, fractal reflections; in the “uh-huh” and “mhmms” of repeated, near-palindromic dialogue; and in the show events that echo and repeat: in-air death scares, asynchronous business deals, family betrayal, weddings, retreats, implosions, family reunions, trauma bonding, baptism, funerals, etc.
In this understanding of time, there is no linear progress — or even progress at all. Time is cyclical. People are cyclical. As are the events that transpire. This is particularly interesting in a show like Succession whose title alone implies the phrase “line of succession.” Viewers would expect to see what comes next — who comes next — but as Logan himself yells, “Nothing is a line. Everything is moving all the time.”
Logan consistently evokes the circle shape in his speech, “Put a circle around him” he tells Shiv. “We’ve been circling for an hour, tell them we’re out of gas,” he complains in a moment of grim foreshadowing on his plane. “Crawl in a circle and close your eyes,” he shouts during the game of Boar on the Floor.
And he is the bright, burning nebulous center of this circle. He’s described as “carr[ying] his gravity. He's not a man, he's a f*cking planet.” And the people around him are described like satellites and moons. Characters exist in his orbit. And every complete orbit (or “revolution”) leaves characters in exactly the same place. There are motions, there is the illusion of progress, but the result is the same. Eliot again:

“every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure”

With this understanding, the show may just end where it begins. Not only in “nothing” happening, but in repeating the same events ad infinitum: A kid tries to take over the family business, they try to align with their siblings, they eventually backstab their siblings, they end out in the cold, and then they reunite, swear not to do it again, until it all repeats.
As most of us are aware, the show has made very direct mention of the John Berryman poem Dream Song 29. The names of the past three season finales (as well as the name of the upcoming fourth) are all direct excerpts from the poem, which deals with grief and sadness and the guilt of killing someone when you can’t even confirm there’s been someone killed at all.
Berryman consistently wrote about the guilt and grief he experienced from his father’s suicide. Berryman himself would eventually end up taking his own life, which on its own is a brutal reminder of the cycles of trauma. It also doesn’t feel insignificant that Berryman jumped off a bridge.
What’s really interesting is how each subsequent finale is named for a line that comes earlier and earlier in the poem. It also toys with this concept that things come full circle and end where they begin. This echoes Eliot’s essential thesis of the poem:

“What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

But while the speaker of the poem comes to realize he has not murdered “nobody” by the poem’s last line; Kendall, moving through the poem backward, must reckon with the idea that he may have killed somebody even if they were a “nobody.” And while we may encounter this as a moment in which Kendall is genuinely despairing over his season 1 inadvertent murder, I believe we are far more likely to see Kendall embrace this moment.
We see "nobody" and "no one mentioned" a lot when it comes to Logan, who believes most people are "fungible as f*ck," and "pygmies" while he's "1,000 feet tall." When Kendall is involved in the accident, we see him echo "NRPI" or no real person involved.
The reason Kendall couldn’t live up to his father’s expectations is that he couldn’t be the killer his father needed him to be (even if his morality or basis of being a good person is off). This retroactive movement through the poem could be Kendall realizing he is, in fact, the killer his father always needed him to be, enabling him to take the necessary steps of seizing the crown on his own.
Allegories & Allusions: Mythic Comparisons & Determinism
It’s Shakespearean, like Roman says, “I kill Kendall, get crowned king, like we’re in f*cking Hamlet or something.” But it’s not just Hamlet, it’s King Lear, King Richard III, Coriolanus, Macbeth. And it’s not just Shakespeare, it’s Oedipus Rex, The Odyssey, The Waste Land, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Cronus devouring his children, Romulus killing Remus, Noah cursing his child for looking upon him naked.
The concept of the monomyth was popularized in "The Hero With 1000 Faces" and discusses throughout history, throughout different times and places, different cultures, different religions, different people have developed stories with relatively similar fundamental elements. The show is rife with allusions of stories that follow that same thread. Logan is Cronus who is King Lear who is Romulus who is who is. This is another form of endless recurrence: the inability to break the cycle. Or, in a very Hamlet reference, "maybe the poison drips through."
The themes of patricide, fratricide, and incest in particular are rampant. Rhea (like Rhea Jarell) in Greek mythology is both sister and consort to Cronus. Both are part of the first generation of aptly named Titan gods. Cronus overthrew his father Uranus and learns his children are fated to overthrow him. So he eats them as soon as they are born. Logan does refer to people as food a surprising amount throughout the show, varying from red meat to vegetables. He outright calls for blood sacrifice, which evokes the language of the gods.
Logan is referenced specifically as one of the last real American titans in his obituaries and eulogies. The language around him is frequently god-like. He's known as "the big man" or even "the big man upstairs." Tom tells Greg to "be his representative here on earth"; Roman asks the audience, "who is going to climb Mt. Olympus and be the next Dr. Zeus?" And that's where the myth gets interesting.
The only child not to be eaten is Zeus, who does end up killing his father and was surprisingly interested in marrying his mother. We're familiar with this plot formula through a different archetype: the Oedipus Complex, which we see referenced in the show with “Oedipus Roy,” “Oedipussy,” and “stabbing my eyes out.” The same story is repeated again in Hamlet with brother killing and brother and son yelling at his mother about her milky breasts (something Roman does to Shiv more than once). In the show when Logan says to Roman, “You may want to f*ck your mother but I don’t.” We know none of these stories end well. As Connor muses, “It’s not right to kill one’s father; history teaches us that.”
In the story of Romulus and Remus (whose mother’s name is also Rhea), the two brothers were initially chased out of their city as potential threats to the King (yet again). They were left by the river to die and were saved by the river god (important). After successfully overthrowing the kingdom that left them for dead, they agree to found a new city. They ultimately disagreed on which hill to found it and decided to have a bird-watching competition to see who could see the most omens indicating they had divine approval for the hill. Remus says he saw 6 auspicious birds but Romulus claims to see 12. Romulus kills Remus over this.
It should remind you of Logan visiting his childhood home with Ewan: “I saw a mistle thrush at the bandstand,” and the log book he kept as a child of birds he “saw” that Ewan would cross out if he didn’t believe him. It may also echo a part of The Four Quartets, “Other echoes/ Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?/ Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,/ Round the corner. Through the first gate,/ Into our first world, shall we follow/ The deception of the thrush?"
There is much to be said about the themes of warring brothers. Also the themes of fathers worried their children would one day overthrow them who take action to thwart or murder their children, which inadvertently sets into motion the very outcome they fear. It happens over and over again in stories old and new. As Panhandle Pete says, “I push him, he pushes me, and around and around we go.” Or as Eliot puts it, “that the wheel may turn and still / Be forever still.”
Much of these works touch on a sort of determinism, or the slow crushing reality that every action you take — even if that action is an attempt to thwart your fate — will ultimately lead to the same inevitable ending. This is the illusion of free will on top of the illusion of progress. And Logan, in fearing his children would usurp him (and also disparaging his children for not being able to), set into motion his own death and his own messy succession.
It’s also a reminder that the greatest men in life are all the same when laid to rest:

"O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant, The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters, The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers, Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees, Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark…"

Structure & Symbolism: Water As Rebirth & Destruction
The show has very much been structured around Kendall, and we watch him move through bodies of water with what feels like different symbolism each time. Is he drowning, is he reborn? We witness Kendall at his lowest point face down in a pool and at one of his highest, splashing into the Pacific ocean. We watch a man drown. We watch Logan beg Kendall for water as they walk through Adrien Brody’s maze. We watch Roman clamor for water at the funeral when he needs to calm down. Poetry has long played with this life and death dynamic in water, like the sailors dying of thirst in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner who cry:

“Water, water, every where,. And all the boards did shrink;. Water, water, every where,. Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: O Christ!”

This sub has noted Kendall’s connection to water, which has been represented over and over visually. But once you realize every metaphor, analogy, and simile he uses is water-based, you can’t unhear it. He calls his father “a tsunami of corruption” and describes things “as more precious than water”; he calls deals “choppy” and “dead in the water,” and asks to “help steady the ship”; he offers to “row back” on business deals, says timing is “high tide,” and that he has “bigger fish to fry.”
Logan is apt to use similar water symbolism, even telling Shiv that she’s marrying a man “fathoms” beneath her. As Rhea tells him, fearful of his own monstrosity, “I can’t see the bottom of the pool. I don’t know if you care about anything. It scares me.” ATN’s major scandal was “death cruises.” Even his operating nemesis is called “Sandy.”
In fact, there is mention of all elements and seasons — in particular, fire from Shiv, air from Roman, and earth from Connor. T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets confront these same themes and share some surprising similarities with show scene locations, dialogue, and plot points.
That’s because Succession is an allegory for the micro and the macro: the rise and fall of families, civilizations, monarchies, dynasties, and empires. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, the cycles rinse and repeat. Eliot modeled the four quartets on the 4 elements and the 4 seasons. And you can see even in Succession a similar manifestation of 4 elements. And, well, 4 seasons of the show. (And what occurs after 4 seasons? A full revolution around the sun, bringing you to where you began.)
Water seems to be at the root of it all. Even Ewan’s eulogy meditates on his and Logan’s journey on a boat. Even their abusive uncle is named Noah. In the show, we watch our nobody die by water, we watch our main character nearly die by water, and then we watch him revive in the ocean. As Kendall and his father wind their way through Adrien Brody’s circuitous Long Island home, Kendall remarks, “I think this leads to the ocean.” Because every path leads to the sea in some way or another.
The overarching narration from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is the Arthurian Legend of The Fisher King. This story is told a million different ways with a million different outcomes, but always boils down to an injured or maimed monarch ruling over a dying land. Or as Ewan refers to his "empire of shit": “He’s built a wasteland and called it an empire.”
He’s looking for someone, anyone, to heal him, rescue the kingdom, and ensure the dynasty survives. This is the myth of the holy grail, which, in this show, can be seen as the throne: The original stories of the holy grail were not Christian/religious but they do employ a lot of the same mythmaking from earlier religions and mythologies to tell their stories and thus construct their new realties. As Eliot says in The Four Quartets:

"The whole earth is our hospital Endowed by the ruined millionaire, Wherein, if we do well, we shall Die of the absolute paternal care That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere."

I believe Kendall (and the other children) represent the grail knights who try to save the king. (On the same level they stand in for the gods, the elements, or anything at all). When Christianity became more popular, these myths adapted to Christian overtones, but they still had the Celtic and pagan myths at their core: the grail becomes the chalice from the last supper.
That’s why Kendall’s easy comparisons of himself to Jesus feel less blasphemous than revelatory. Jesus is another hero archetype in the show’s mythology. He is willing to sacrifice himself, which Kendall must do in order to become the successor his father wanted. As he says, "this is a culmination of my life's journey to be crucified for you morons."
(It’s worth noting: In some legends, the knight saves the king; in others, he inadvertently destroys him. We know Logan dies, but it does feel less likely that Waystar Royco survives.) Drowning is a constant feature of Eliot's poems, but so is baptism and renewed life. It is difficult to determine the meaning of water in either instance, except that it doesn't discriminate as a life or death bringer, which is both beautiful and terrifying.
Parallels & Predictions: Piecing The Plot & Poetry Together
To repeat again, as this show is wont to do: “Crawl in a circle and close your eyes!” Logan Roy shouts during a game of Boar On A Floor. It’s an allegory, like many games on the series, and proudly says the quiet part out loud: Logan always wins. Here’s a little boar on the floor reference in The Four Quartets:

"We move above the moving tree In light upon the figured leaf And hear upon the sodden floor Below, the boarhound and the boar Pursue their pattern as before But reconciled among the stars."

We’ve seen the L.O.G.A.N. system at work many times and with many people. He dangles a carrot, a morsel of love, as each character attempts to play the game over and over while expecting different results. They are doomed to crawl in that circle, to play that blind game, as Logan angrily shouts, “It’s fun!” And this game doesn't end in death. The children still ask. "What would dad do?"
Games on Succession (which are a consistent refrain), it turns out, are rarely fun and are often designed to humiliate or inflict pain. The same goes when characters say “I’m just kidding” after an eviscerating remark. Logan thinks life is a game, and as he says, games should be taken seriously. And because Logan explicitly makes the rules, there is no winning, just trudging around the board, passing Go, and collecting $200. The games are essentially Sisyphean tasks that the kids wouldn’t be able to win even if they were actually competent enough to run the company. And yet they keep rolling the boulder. It’s endless. The repetition. It ends where it begins.

"Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, Every poem an epitaph. And any action Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start. We die with the dying: See, they depart, and we go with them. We are born with the dead: See, they return, and bring us with them. The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree Are of equal duration. A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments."

Please also note the use of “the rose” and “the yew tree,” which are the names of Logan’s siblings Rose and Ewan, which derives from yew-tree. Other important name comparisons include Kendall’s association to spring/river valley; Siobhan’s nickname either a knife (Shiv) or Pinky (a variation of the name Rose); Roman’s connection to Romulus/Corialanus; Tom’s name meaning “twin” because there was already someone named Judas in the bible HELLO; Logan’s name meaning little hollow, which recalls another Eliot poem, The Hollow Men.
We know this show is a game, one that isn't fun at all, and one whose rules Logan made up. Even when there's a winner, there's no winner. So it's almost futile to play at all. That said, it’s impossible to make sense of any of it all without the ending — to confirm this ball has been rolling toward an inevitable conclusion, but given the show’s ending has probably occurred already, here are my thoughts:

• Kendall drowns

This may feel a bit on the nose given we’ve already seen this almost happen to “the Kurt Cobain of floaties,” but it would certainly be poetic. This could be sad (launched from a bridge); empowering (a la The Awakening); or metaphorical (a drug overdose). At some point Kendall says, "If dad didn’t need me right now I wouldn’t know what I would be for." The kids exist with Logan as their sun; they are moons, satellites, in orbit. And when their sun dies out, they repeat the motions in the cold, slowly losing their patterns and motions. The term is science is a rogue planet and the following lines from the poem remind me of Kendall and his broken, hollow stare.
“It would be the same at the end of the journey, If you came at night like a broken king, If you came by day not knowing what you came for, It would be the same, when you leave the rough road And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for Is only a shell, a husk of meaning From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled If at all. Either you had no purpose Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured And is altered in fulfilment.”

• Kendall is king of the ashes

Any victory feels like it will be a Pyrrhic victory regardless when you've had to systematically take down everyone you love to achieve it. The same lines above can echo here "the purpose is beyond the end you figured/And is altered in fulfilment." A hollow victory. The Fisher King question Logan poses is, "Who can replace me?" Logan wanted each of his children to display the killer instinct. Kendall’s backwards journey through Dreamsong 29 may very well see him realize he is, in fact, the killer his dad always wanted — with open eyes. This will probably involve taking down his siblings. In this version, winning is a lot like losing, which feels very Succession.

• Mattson wins it all

These Shakespearean histories and tragedies rarely end well for existing houses. With Richard III (the-multiple-lineage-ending war of the roses) and Hamlet (the-whole-house-dies-but-a-norwegian-king-swoops-in-to-take-it-all dynastic struggle) references abound. We may just see a new house rise up and rinse and repeat. This would probably also occur if the kids take each other down and leave it open for another party. We saw last season that Roman thought he had an in with Mattson until it didn’t serve Mattson anymore. I see the same thing happening between Roman and Mencken. This puts Mencken and Mattson in a position to take over, which may make Mattson win it or…

• Mattson destroys it all

When Mattson is introduced, he is referenced as a trickster. Generally, in mythology, this character is quite intelligent or in possession of secret knowledge, and he uses it for trickery and commandeering situations. (Is that blood thing real???). Hamlet concludes with every major character killing the other with their own tragic flaws until a third party Scandinavian comes in to take the crown with no necessary action or bloodshed at all. We already know he's unscrupulous; what is his end game? It reminds me of one of his early lines to Roman, which would be an eerie foreshadowing:
“Success doesn’t really interest me anymore, it’s too easy. Analysis + capital + execution. Fucking, anyone can do that. But failure, that’s a secret. Just as much failure as possible as fast as possible, burn that shit out, that’s interesting.”

• Tom betrays Shiv

We’ve seen it happen before (which is why it should happen again). We’ve also seen Tom remove the thin veneer of his ambitions to the point where he almost feels like Richard III. He has played the fool, which is Shakespearean estimation, is often equivalent to the trickster. This would be a fun and distorted parallel to Shiv offering this job to him for Logan to offer it to her. This would probably happen in conjunction with Mattson winning. As I mentioned earlier, the name Tom means “twin” and the apostle Tom was only called as such because there were already one too many “Judas” in the mix. He's also from Minnesota (the twin cities!), so this is becoming very real, you know???

• Greg betrays Tom

While we know Tom has betrayed Shiv before, we also know Greg betrayed Shiv and Tom when he spoke to Geri in the first season about Tom having a press conference on cruises. He leads Tom to believe Shiv has betrayed him, getting one over on both of them. There may also be something with the Rule of 3 and being betrayed 3 times that feels biblical. The show also makes TONS of references to holding on to blackmail for opportune moments. Will we see something like this?
I’m not a big believer that Greg will fail so far upwards that he will win (this would feel like a betrayal in its own right), but do I believe there’s a world where Greg gets himself on a piece of paper with a question mark. Maybe???

• Geri finally beats Tom

This is my personal hope because I want the Tom and Jerry allusion to be real more than any other I put together (we love a good cat and mouse game). If Mattson wins, he needs a US CEO. Geri has collected a massive amount of dirt on everyone. And to call back to season 1’s interim CEO discussions, Shiv says, “I don’t like Geri. But I don’t hate Geri either.” It would feel particularly good given how much time and effort Logan spent clarifying Geri would be terrible at the position. Especially as Logan disparaging someone generally means he’s afraid of what they can do.
I’ll end at the ending. Or conclude where Eliot did on The Four Quartets:

"We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always— A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one."

PS. Given ‘Pinky’ is another name for ‘Rose’ does this mean Shiv wins??? JK let’s just watch the show tonight and laugh at our predictions in the morning.

A deep ocean type of biome that goes down to Y:0. I feel like Minecraft is currently missing actual deep oceans and could capitalize on the Thalassophobia factor of something like this.
Structures:
For structures it could have monuments, wrecked ships, ruins, etc. spawn like current Deep Oceans and maybe some new ones could be added. What if the ancients decided to hide in the depths like they did with Strongholds and Ancient Citys and you found the remains of those attempts just like with the former?
Could also be a good time to add a in game way to show how conduits are made as well with an empty casing somewhere inside and even add more Prismarine blocks for building to make the structure more complex material-wise. Adding something like Polished Prismarine, Prismarine Tiles, and Chiseled Prismarine to bring it up to Deepslate's versatility could do wonders.
Mobs:
For current mobs, Glow Squid and Drowned could spawn. Though I do believe adding some biome specific mobs or even just more general aquatic mobs would benefit it greatly.
Adding blind/near blind aquatic mobs that are similar to the Warden and are based off of sound or light, though not necessarily hostile like the Warden. Mobs with luring lights, sounds, or items from wrecks could add a level or wariness to the experience. Is it just a chest/item/light/ambient noise or something more sinister? Ambush mobs you have to watch out for the signs of when getting near floors, ceilings, or walls. Another ancient mob that's been kept/had its eggs kept down in the depths inside of an old sea base, similar to Sniffers in Ocean Ruins.
Other Biomes:
Going a bit farther with this idea it could have a rarer sister biome called Glowing Depths where bioluminescent aquatic animals and plants could spawn. The game currently doesn't have much of that, especially underwater, and players seem to want more glowing plants based on the torchflowers "does it glow?" questions when it was first announced.
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Hope you enjoyed the idea, any advice, additions, or suggestions are welcome!

This dream starts off at like this highschool football game and this one Hispanic dude was All up on me for some reason so i figured out i was lucid by doin a reality check im pretty sure? I figured out i had 6 fingers so once i was lucid a made a door spawn on the gate and i was like watch this and brought him in my room. When we got in there it turns out it was like my dorm room back in uiuc but it was really really nice ngl 😭 i told him to bring me in his setup so he spawns a door and he takes me in his room. I remembered what i wanted to do in my dream so i was like make the dream more vivid and sharp and also bring it to the 3rd dimension and i was able to feel the dream much much better!! I remember feeling everything around me and it felt so real i was so happy that it was working! So I was like watch this and i closed his door and was like where do u wanna go to and i was like the chicago aquarium so i closed the door opened it and boom the chicago aquarium!! I was doing a lot of Dream travel this dream! Miles was there with me after the aquarium so after that im like back in my room and i asked the dream to make stormy appear and i wanted to hear here talk so i made he spawn but she wasn’t really talking like physically but im pretty sure i was hearing her through like telepathic thoughts it was crazy!! I rember like surfing through this city with a surfboard and it was like and ocean but like in the city ally’s and we were like on a hot wheels track and i told miles we were Lucid so i made a door spawn like on the surfboard and i told him we can go back to our rooms and when that’s happened it showed like our 2 rooms but it was tiny so what i did was kinda like dived in the miniature size of our rooms together and i did like a summer sault and the dream scene changed back into exactly where i wanted it to be. I also decided to go back to Antarctica so i did some more dream travel over there! Overall this is been a really crazy lucid dream! Things to do once u get in a lucid dream jerry : ask the dream to make it more vivid and sharp, ask it to bring u down to the third dimension so things feel real and solid, meditation and breathing to ground yourself in the dream before you do anything!! You are on a roll jerry that’s 4 lucid dreams in 3 days! Keep going jerry and doing your dream goals :)

Basically I would rewrite the Hidden World to be a like roots around the world where dragons first evolved until one opened to the surface several million years before HTTYD so they evolved there until humans came around and lived there. When the dragons moved to the hidden world they didn't actually go to the Hidden World they just moved to the opening of the tunnels. meanwhile a few thousand years later the rest of the tunnels brush next to the surface of the earth until the first one finally opens and causes this massive fissure in Europe which causes a large disaster which destroys the nearby city. This prompts a massive research team and makes a small town where all the researchers have to move there when they finish the scans which also causes more employees but then the fissure opens larger and destroys much of the village which causes the remaining workers to work so hard they have no private time now comes Tom and his friends where those kids have a monster of the week like episodes.
important changes
Dragon Protagonists
Buddy- He is a nightlight with a genetic throwback that makes him have black scales which causes him to be outcasted out of his pack by the matriarch and flew so high he wa attacked by Hidden World predators and has one of his wings ripped off tiredly he climbed up to the cave Tom finds him in lured by the smell of blood and with the cave walls red blood.
Plumage- A large feathered snake with no limbs apart from two large long wings with super long wingspan and claws to climb in the cave. Plumage has a transparent underbelly where you can see her organs and bones they are Alex's dragon.
Gemhorn: A large dragon that looks like Stoick's dragon in the second movie but blue and a bit of gronckle attributes, she has many legs eight in fact. they are extremely aggressive but very sweet to their hatchlings they are technically D'Angelo's dragon but only out of convenience.
Lin: A terrible little Dragon with a long mane a long body no wings but with gliding legs firey fur and blue gem like scales scales, it also has two long deer horns they are June's dragon and she uses them to fly like a Microraptor in ARK.
Humans
Tom- he is a compassionate guy who has some good mechanical skills and gets into conflict with his mother and grandmother.
D'Angelo- he is a nice guy and self proclaimed vet for the the dragons has conflict with his twin sibling
Alex- The shy one and is very intelligent has no conflict with anybody but herself.
June- Somebody who believes in destiny and stuff and gets into conflict with everyone in existence.
Antagonists
The Predator- A large flying creature in the Hidden World that hunts stray and injured Night Lights and serves as the antagonist of the first episode when it goes after Buddy to feed its offspring.
Guppy of death- A large fish like reptile that lives in gemhorns herds territory, a large beautiful ocean with small mountains jutting out filled with vegetation. They re the antagonist of the second and third episode.
The Tickers- They live in the caves Plumage calls home making a tick noise to scare their victims into making vibrations as they are blind and deaf they move and tick as one though if one is stopped their structure will collapse and they will kill each other appears in episode 4.
The Whispering Tunneller- They look like Bewilderbeasts that have evolved into tunnellers. They are the antagonists of episode 6 and are blind.
The Hundred headed Zipple Back- With one hundred heads this zipple back is ready to destroy all who harm its charges Zipple backs! They are the antagonists of episode 5.

I swear to god the longer I am living in this world the more I am so confident over my decision to be child free. I mean, If I actually really did have a child, I would literally be in a state of constant shock and worry (I am not exaggerating!) as there is so so soooooo much illness and disease out there that it's pretty damn close to be able to use the word "inevitable" that your kid will get a serious, life threatening illness, disease, accident at one point in their childhood/adolescence...Pure Odds. Pure statistics. How! HOW! HOW CAN YOU BE THAT FUCKING CRUEL AND SELFISH?!!! And to your own flesh and blood. My god the ignorance is fucking blinding!
Yep. Nature has outsmarted us alright. I mean, Not all of us, lol, but god damn, I must give credit where credit is due. It's like God is playing this real-time strategy game, think of this game like a really really really advanced version of "SimCity" or Sid Meier's "Civilization" ... and that bastard is playing the game quite well towards world population growth but he's really fucked up everything else.. look at the planet's environment and our ecosystems. I mean he's fucked up all our forest ecosystems because the idiot wanted to make more money through capitalism by demolishing our forests and building property empires! Wrong move dickhead. He's fucked up all our Freshwater Ecosystems too. Not to mention our oceans! Don't get me started on that!! Our whole Marine Ecosystem is now transitioning into plastic.
**HINT TO GOD:** On your next game.. don't neglect the ocean man.. The ocean's water is like our planet's blood and the whole marine ecosystem is the heart of the planet and it circulates it's blood and regulates the planet's body temperature to keep it healthy.. but our player, GOD, has neglected so much of nature that all he cares about are rich NPC's and to pursue selfish hedonistic endevours but now it has gotten so bad that our planet's climate change has reached it's critical mass. This means he's passed a point in the game where all of nature on earth has reached an irreversible state of global warming, global cooling, pretty much global fucking annihilation.
BUT The scary thing is, is that he fucking knows this. So think about that... I don't know if any of you guys play strategy games but just think those moments in the game when you realize that you've lost, that you can't turn this around, you know with certainty that in about 20 to 30 more turns (each turn is a year to us) the planet will pretty much self destruct... okay it probably won't blow up however our teenage god, the player, will lose the game in a couple of decades (which is probably a couple of hours in his world).
But in all seriousness, think about how YOU start playing a strategy game after that moment you know you've already lost.. Im guessing about 50% of you players probably instantly turn off or restart a new game as soon as you hit that realization.... But unfortunately it looks like our god is NOT PART OF THAT 50%!! Come on GOD!! TURN OFF THE FUCKING GAME ALREADY YOU SADISTIC FUCK!!
I'm sorry. Please excuse my language and behaviour.. I just need to rant and let it all out now and then ya know?
P.S. This is a great community and I really love you guys and I miss being here like I used to years ago, but I'm back now and I look forward to our future chats (and rants ;)) especially towards these child bearing monsters!!

tldr- planning trip to Portugal for honeymoon- Have 2 plans laid out- Which do would you choose?Bom Dia! My wife and I just got married and we are planning to go to Portugal for our honeymoon. We had a few questions though regarding how the trip should be planned. She has never been to europe, and I went as a kid, but I don't remember much.

Important information

• August 7th to August 18: these 12 days to actually do stuff. We plan to arrive August 6th at midnight and then August 19th we have to fly out to the US.
• We are big into food, culture/museum/history/art, light/moderate hikes, and seeing the natural beauty of the environment (beaches, water, mountains, etc). Not too big on nightlife.
• I read driving in Portugal is kind of anxiety inducing. I only plan to drive from Porto to Lisbon and Lisbon to Salema. No driving in the actual Porto nor Lisbon.
• The following plans we have below are just high level cities we want to visit. We will do the necessary due diligence and figure out what to do, where to eat, and what to see in each of the cities (unless people are up for giving recommendations which we will gladly take!)

Our proposed plans

Plan 1- Only Porto to Lisbon and cities in between

• Flying in: Porto Flying out: Lisbon Cost: $3.500-3,700
• https://i.imgur.com/yOidCt9.jpg
• Tripsnek Itinerary 1 (Porto to Lisbon and cities in between)
• https://tripsnek.com/planned?itinerary=porto$4$c$r~coimbra$1$r~nazare$0$e$r~batalha$1$r~sintra$1$r~lisbon$5$c$r&trans=Mixed&nights=12&pace=Relaxed&prefs=NaturalBeauty~MajorCities~Cuisine~Wine~Museums~Nightlife~Hiking~Ocean~MedievalCastles~Palaces~Cathedrals~EnglishSpokenWidely~AncientRuins~CharmingOldTownCenters&
• Transportation: Rent car when leaving Porto for Coimbra, drop off car at Sintra or when we reach Lisbon
• Would we need 2 nights in Coimbra? How would you adjust the nights around? Or where would you spend more time at? We plan to go to Douro Valley one of the days in Porto

Plan 2- Porto to Algarves (The Whole Shebang)

• Flying in Porto Flying out Faro to Lisbon to US Cost : $2,700-3,000
• https://i.imgur.com/OdBU1Ou.jpg
• Tripsnek Itinerary 2 (Porto to Algarves- Salema then leaving from Faro)
• https://tripsnek.com/planned?itinerary=porto$3$c$r~peso%20da%20regua$0$e~coimbra$1$r~batalha$0$e$r~nazare$1$r~sintra$1$r~lisbon$4$r~salema$2$r~faro$0$c$e$r&trans=Mixed&nights=12&pace=Relaxed&prefs=NaturalBeauty~MajorCities~Cuisine~Wine~Museums~Nightlife~Hiking~Ocean~MedievalCastles~Palaces~Cathedrals~EnglishSpokenWidely~AncientRuins~CharmingOldTownCenters&start=8/7/2023&end=8/19/2023&
• Would you spend more nights in any particular city or is this good?
• Transportation: rent car when leaving Porto. drop car off at Faro. Should I get a car in Porto and once I reach Lisbon, drop it off? And When leaving just get a new car? Or should I just get a car for the duration of this Plan 2 trip? The plan is to just park it in a parking spot that I book ahead of time in garage until I leave Lisbon for Salema.
• Should I add Sagres to this trip?

Between Plan 1 and Plan 2, which is better in your opinion?

Should I just go with Rick Steves's trip suggestion?
https://i.imgur.com/qq1b8xZ.jpg
https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/portugal/itineraryhttps://www.ricksteves.com/europe/portugal/itinerary

Thank you in advance everyone

So over here, u/Nine_Eye_Ron joked about watching Steven Universe in "alphabetical order", and it got me curious about just how ridiculous that order would get. A little listing and alphabetizing later, I'd like to share the two new ideal watch orders for the series.

Alphabetized by season

In this version, the seasons are in order, but the episodes within each season are alphabetized (counting 1A and 1B separately). It's a little less ridiculous than the alternative, so we'll save the really dumb one for last.

Season 1A

• An Indirect Kiss (1A-23)
• Arcade Mania (1A-11)
• Beach Party (1A-18)
• Bubble Buddies (1A-07)
• Cat Fingers (1A-06)
• Cheeseburger Backpack (1A-03)
• Coach Steven (1A-19)
• Frybo (1A-05)
• Gem Glow (1A-01)
• Giant Woman (1A-12)
• Joking Victim (1A-20)
• Lars and the Cool Kids (1A-14)
• Laser Light Cannon (1A-02)
• Lion 2: The Movie (1A-17)
• Mirror Gem (1A-24)
• Monster Buddies (1A-22)
• Ocean Gem (1A-25)
• Onion Trade (1A-15)
• Rose's Room (1A-19)
• Serious Steven (1A-08)
• So Many Birthdays (1A-13)
• Steven and the Stevens (1A-21)
• Steven the Sword Fighter (1A-16)
• Steven's Lion (1A-10)
• Tiger Millionaire (1A-09)
• Together Breakfast (1A-04)

Season 1B

• Alone Together (1B-10)
• Fusion Cuisine (1B-06)
• Future Vision (1B-13)
• Garnet's Universe (1B-07)
• Horror Club (1B-15)
• House Guest (1B-01)
• Island Adventure (1B-04)
• Jail Break (1B-25)
• Keep Beach City Weird! (1B-05)
• Lion 3: Straight to Video (1B-09)
• Marble Madness (1B-18)
• Maximum Capacity (1B-17)
• On the Run (1B-14)
• Open Book (1B-20)
• Political Power (1B-23)
• Rose's Scabbard (1B-19)
• Say Uncle (1B-20)
• Secret Team (1B-03)
• Shirt Club (1B-21)
• Space Race (1B-02)
• Story for Steven (1B-21)
• The Message (1B-22)
• The Return (1B-24)
• The Test (1B-12)
• Warp Tour (1B-11)
• Watermelon Steven (1B-08)
• Winter Forecast (1B-16)

Season 2

• Back to the Barn (2-19)
• Catch and Release (2-17)
• Chille Tid (2-09)
• Cry For Help (2-10)
• Friend Ship (2-14)
• Full Disclosure (2-01)
• Historical Friction (2-13)
• It Could've Been Great (2-23)
• Joy Ride (2-02)
• Keeping It Together (2-07)
• Keystone Motel (2-11)
• Log Date 7 15 2 (2-25)
• Love Letters (2-03)
• Message Received (2-24)
• Nightmare Hospital (2-15)
• Onion Friend (2-12)
• Reformed (2-04)
• Rising Tides, Crashing Skies (2-06)
• Sadie's Song (2-16)
• Steven's Birthday (2-22)
• Sworn to the Sword (2-05)
• The Answer (2-21)
• Too Far (2-20)
• We Need To Talk (2-08)
• When It Rains (2-18)

Season 3

• Alone at Sea (3-15)
• Back to the Moon (3-23)
• Barn Mates (3-04)
• Beach City Drift (3-11)
• Beta (3-21)
• Bismuth (3-20)
• Bubbled (3-24)
• Crack the Whip (3-18)
• Drop Beat Dad (3-07)
• Earthlings (3-22)
• Gem Drill (3-02)
• Gem Hunt (3-17)
• Greg the Babysitter (3-16)
• Hit the Diamond (3-05)
• Kiki's Pizza Delivery Service (3-13)
• Monster Reunion (3-14)
• Mr. Greg (3-08)
• Restaurant Wars (3-12)
• Same Old World (3-03)
• Steven Floats (3-06)
• Steven vs. Amethyst (3-19)
• Super Watermelon Island (3-01)
• The New Lars (3-10)
• Too Short to Ride (3-09)

Season 4

• Adventures in Light Distortion (4-11)
• Are You My Dad? (4-23)
• Buddy's Book (4-03)
• Doug Out (4-21)
• Future Boy Zoltron (4-05)
• Gem Harvest (4-08)
• Gem Heist (4-12)
• I Am My Mom (4-24)
• Kindergarten Kid (4-01)
• Know Your Fusion (4-02)
• Last One Out of Beach City (4-06)
• Lion 4: Alternate Ending (4-20🌿)
• Mindful Education (not found)
• Onion Gang (4-07)
• Rocknaldo (4-17)
• Room for Ruby (4-19)
• Steven's Dream (4-10)
• Storm in the Room (4-16)
• That Will Be All (4-14)
• The Good Lars (4-22)
• The New Crystal Gems (4-15)
• The Zoo (4-13)
• Three Gems and a Baby (4-09)
• Tiger Philanthropist (4-18)

Season 5

• A Single Pale Rose (5-18)
• Back to the Kindergarten (5-08)
• Can't Go Back (5-17)
• Change Your Mind (5-28)
• Dewey Wins (5-05)
• Escapism (5-27)
• Familiar (5-25)
• Gemcation (5-06)
• Jungle Moon (5-12)
• Kevin Party (5-10)
• Lars of the Stars (5-11)
• Lars' Head (5-04)
• Legs From Here to Homeworld (5-24)
• Letters to Lars (5-16)
• Made of Honor (5-22)
• Now We're Only Falling Apart (5-19)
• Off Colors (5-03)
• Pool Hopping (5-15)
• Raising the Barn (5-07)
• Reunited (5-23)
• Sadie Killer (5-09)
• Stuck Together (5-01)
• The Big Show (5-14)
• The Question (5-21)
• The Trial (5-02)
• Together Alone (5-26)
• What's Your Problem? (5-20)
• Your Mother and Mine (5-13)

The Movie

• Steven Universe: The Movie

SU: Future

• A Very Special Episode (F-06)
• Bismuth Casual (F-12)
• Bluebird (F-05)
• Everything's Fine (F-18)
• Fragments (F-16)
• Growing Pains (F-14)
• Guidance (F-02)
• Homeworld Bound (F-17)
• I Am My Monster (F-19)
• In Dreams (F-11)
• Little Graduation (F-09)
• Little Homeschool (F-01)
• Mr. Universe (F-15)
• Prickly Pair (F-10)
• Rose Buds (F-03)
• Snow Day (F-07)
• The Future (F-20)
• Together Forever (F-13)
• Volleyball (F-04)
• Why So Blue? (F-08)

Alphabetized all together

But who cares about seasons? Let's start the show off strong by watching A Single Pale Rose at the very beginning!

• A Single Pale Rose (5-18)
• A Very Special Episode (F-06)
• Adventures in Light Distortion (4-11)
• Alone Together (1B-10)
• Alone at Sea (3-15)
• An Indirect Kiss (1A-23)
• Arcade Mania (1A-11)
• Are You My Dad? (4-23)
• Back to the Barn (2-19)
• Back to the Kindergarten (5-08)
• Back to the Moon (3-23)
• Barn Mates (3-04)
• Beach City Drift (3-11)
• Beach Party (1A-18)
• Beta (3-21)
• Bismuth (3-20)
• Bismuth Casual (F-12)
• Bluebird (F-05)
• Bubble Buddies (1A-07)
• Bubbled (3-24)
• Buddy's Book (4-03)
• Can't Go Back (5-17)
• Cat Fingers (1A-06)
• Catch and Release (2-17)
• Change Your Mind (5-28)
• Cheeseburger Backpack (1A-03)
• Chille Tid (2-09)
• Coach Steven (1A-19)
• Crack the Whip (3-18)
• Cry For Help (2-10)
• Dewey Wins (5-05)
• Doug Out (4-21)
• Drop Beat Dad (3-07)
• Earthlings (3-22)
• Escapism (5-27)
• Everything's Fine (F-18)
• Familiar (5-25)
• Fragments (F-16)
• Friend Ship (2-14)
• Frybo (1A-05)
• Full Disclosure (2-01)
• Fusion Cuisine (1B-06)
• Future Boy Zoltron (4-05)
• Future Vision (1B-13)
• Garnet's Universe (1B-07)
• Gem Drill (3-02)
• Gem Glow (1A-01)
• Gem Harvest (4-08)
• Gem Heist (4-12)
• Gem Hunt (3-17)
• Gemcation (5-06)
• Giant Woman (1A-12)
• Greg the Babysitter (3-16)
• Growing Pains (F-14)
• Guidance (F-02)
• Historical Friction (2-13)
• Hit the Diamond (3-05)
• Homeworld Bound (F-17)
• Horror Club (1B-15)
• House Guest (1B-01)
• I Am My Mom (4-24)
• I Am My Monster (F-19)
• In Dreams (F-11)
• Island Adventure (1B-04)
• It Could've Been Great (2-23)
• Jail Break (1B-25)
• Joking Victim (1A-20)
• Joy Ride (2-02)
• Jungle Moon (5-12)
• Keep Beach City Weird! (1B-05)
• Keeping It Together (2-07)
• Kevin Party (5-10)
• Keystone Motel (2-11)
• Kiki's Pizza Delivery Service (3-13)
• Kindergarten Kid (4-01)
• Know Your Fusion (4-02)
• Lars and the Cool Kids (1A-14)
• Lars of the Stars (5-11)
• Lars' Head (5-04)
• Laser Light Cannon (1A-02)
• Last One Out of Beach City (4-06)
• Legs From Here to Homeworld (5-24)
• Letters to Lars (5-16)
• Lion 2: The Movie (1A-17)
• Lion 3: Straight to Video (1B-09)
• Lion 4: Alternate Ending (4-20🌿)
• Little Graduation (F-09)
• Little Homeschool (F-01)
• Log Date 7 15 2 (2-25)
• Love Letters (2-03)
• Made of Honor (5-22)
• Marble Madness (1B-18)
• Maximum Capacity (1B-17)
• Message Received (2-24)
• Mindful Education (not found)
• Mirror Gem (1A-24)
• Monster Buddies (1A-22)
• Monster Reunion (3-14)
• Mr. Greg (3-08)
• Mr. Universe (F-15)
• Nightmare Hospital (2-15)
• Now We're Only Falling Apart (5-19)
• Ocean Gem (1A-25)
• Off Colors (5-03)
• On the Run (1B-14)
• Onion Friend (2-12)
• Onion Gang (4-07)
• Onion Trade (1A-15)
• Open Book (1B-20)
• Political Power (1B-23)
• Pool Hopping (5-15)
• Prickly Pair (F-10)
• Raising the Barn (5-07)
• Reformed (2-04)
• Restaurant Wars (3-12)
• Reunited (5-23)
• Rising Tides, Crashing Skies (2-06)
• Rocknaldo (4-17)
• Room for Ruby (4-19)
• Rose Buds (F-03)
• Rose's Room (1A-19)
• Rose's Scabbard (1B-19)
• Sadie Killer (5-09)
• Sadie's Song (2-16)
• Same Old World (3-03)
• Say Uncle (1B-20)
• Secret Team (1B-03)
• Serious Steven (1A-08)
• Shirt Club (1B-21)
• Snow Day (F-07)
• So Many Birthdays (1A-13)
• Space Race (1B-02)
• Steven Floats (3-06)
• Steven Universe: The Movie
• Steven and the Stevens (1A-21)
• Steven the Sword Fighter (1A-16)
• Steven vs. Amethyst (3-19)
• Steven's Birthday (2-22)
• Steven's Dream (4-10)
• Steven's Lion (1A-10)
• Storm in the Room (4-16)
• Story for Steven (1B-21)
• Stuck Together (5-01)
• Super Watermelon Island (3-01)
• Sworn to the Sword (2-05)
• That Will Be All (4-14)
• The Answer (2-21)
• The Big Show (5-14)
• The Future (F-20)
• The Good Lars (4-22)
• The Message (1B-22)
• The New Crystal Gems (4-15)
• The New Lars (3-10)
• The Question (5-21)
• The Return (1B-24)
• The Test (1B-12)
• The Trial (5-02)
• The Zoo (4-13)
• Three Gems and a Baby (4-09)
• Tiger Millionaire (1A-09)
• Tiger Philanthropist (4-18)
• Together Alone (5-26)
• Together Breakfast (1A-04)
• Together Forever (F-13)
• Too Far (2-20)
• Too Short to Ride (3-09)
• Volleyball (F-04)
• Warp Tour (1B-11)
• Watermelon Steven (1B-08)
• We Need To Talk (2-08)
• What's Your Problem? (5-20)
• When It Rains (2-18)
• Why So Blue? (F-08)
• Winter Forecast (1B-16)
• Your Mother and Mine (5-13)

Truly the most logical way to watch this series.

I am buying a property in the Ocean City, NJ area. I want to replace the existing water heater with a tankless model. I will be using and renting the property, so there may be upwards of 10 people in the house at one time. The house has 2 bathrooms. Is a tankless water heater going to be able to keep up with the load if both showers are running? If so then what size/btu rating should I be looking for and what are your preferred brands?

ICYMI -- here are some of the top moments coming out of the final major of CS:GO:

Liquid Rolls Back the Years (to 2019 not 2018)

Who had Liquid 0-2 to 3-2 in the BLAST Paris Challengers Stage?
After getting embarrassed by Apeks & ForZe on Day 1, few believed NA’s darlings would recover from their disastrous start... until they got matched against Fluxo in the 0-3 pool.
Fluxo got 16-2’d by paiN -- how could Liquid lose?
(If I had a nickel for every time I asked that question I wouldn't be writing this)
In classic Liquid fashion, they gave their 14 year old fanbase multiple heart attacks throughout the series. Despite being pushed to the edge, Liquid pulled through to live on at the Major. After steamrolling their NA brethren in Complexity, Liquid faced Grayhound for the last spot in the Legends stage. It was a layup of a match for them, taking care of the dawgs in two maps and continuing their major run.
Surprisingly, they didn’t choke on the opening day of Legends. They destroyed 9INE and Na’Vi to go 2-0, off the back of a disgusting match by YEKINDAR.
Liquid 3-0 pickers slept happy that night, but their bubble was popped the following day 🫧
Up against their kryptonite (5 dudes from Denmark) Liquid failed to take down Heroic to earn their berth in playoffs, which tee’d them up for a 2-1 match against Into the Breach. The Brits vs. Americans — what year is this, 1781?
Liquid made quick work of the world’s 28th best team on an overtime Overpass and one-sided Anubis, securing their spot among the 8 final teams in the Paris major. Despite not going 3-0, Liquid have made NA proud once again — perfect timing for the final CS:GO Major.
​

🇩🇰 Heroic and Vitality 🐝

I had Heroic as my 3-0 until I switched them for ENCE. Please do not ask me how I’m doing.
ZywOo decided he wanted to win Paris, so that was cool ig. Bro dropped a 1.38 rating in their 3-0 run. Playing in his home city must’ve awoken something inside of him. Rumor has it the air quality is perfect in Paris — and this has something to do with his performances. On the Heroic side — they swept aside FaZe and Apeks en route to their playoffs speedrun. They took down Liquid in the 2-0 pool for the cherry on top 🍒

G-2 Disappointing Majors in a Row

Déjà vu anyone?
At least this time G2 actually made it to the major before bombing out in the Swiss Stage 🧀 After losing their opening match to the ZywOo Effect™️, they fumbled the bag by losing 16-13 to an org-less Bad News Eagles 🦅
G2's backs were against the ropes — one Bo3 away from elimination in the final Major of CS:GO. FURIA were next in line for G2, but their crippling lack of T-Sides allowed G2 to live another day. In the 1-2 pool, G2 found themselves against the mezii-led fnatic in a game with elimination on the line. After taking each of their own map picks, the two euro-mixes found themselves on the game’s best fucking map for elimination:

DE_VERTIGO

​
nicoodoz came alive on the final map to turn the tides in favor of fnatic, who took the map 16-13. Minutes later, there were numerous reports of Chinese phone numbers hitting up members of G2.
​

The PLAYOFFS:

ZywOo decided this was his tournament to win. The Chosen One and his friends took home the slimy dorito trophy in front of the home crowd 🥖
Vitality scooped up their first major in an undefeated playoff run against some of the best teams in the world — Into the Breach, Apeks, and GamerLegion.
Yes. You are reading that correctly. To say they had an easy run is… an understatement. Sure, you can only face who is in front of you, and props to them for capitalizing. It just feels kinda lame how the playoffs of the final CS:GO major played out.
In other news, dupreeh took home his fifth Major title in Vitality’s dream run.
This makes him:

• The only player to have won 5 majors 🎖
• The only player that has attended every major in history 🥇
• The player with the most career earnings all-time 💰
• The only player with the right to use that amazing Faze down, Ass up deagle nickname lmao 🔥

This dude really went from sweating bullets to sweating major trophies, huh?

R.I.P DIAMOND COINS AGAIN 💎

When the Major comes around, there’s one CS:GO fans always like to bitch about — their Pick 'Ems. According to Leetify, only 0.3% of players got the diamond coin this time around. This was better than Rio’s 0.1%, but still abysmal compared to the 8% and 11% of Berlin and Antwerp respectively.
Why did so few get the coin this time? Some of the biggest names failed to make it out of the legends stage. Teams like G2 and Na’Vi. The ones that did, like Heroic and Liquid, didn’t even make it past the semis. I don’t know about you, but the absolute last thing I was expecting was GamerLegion in the final. Here’s some of the notable matches that led to this wild playoff bracket:

• fnatic 2-1 versus G2 (ouch)
• GamerLegion 2-1 versus Heroic (ouch again)
• Apeks 2-0 versus Liquid
• Into the Breach 2-1 versus fnatic (UK on UK violence smh)

​

Guys This Isn’t a Disney Movie Why Are All These Underdogs Here 😳

He’s H-iM
Let’s talk about the people who pulled off the upsets, who shook the scene to its core throughout the last major ever.
First on the list is Mihai “iM” Ivan from GamerLegion. This guy was turning heads all tournament with his outstanding level of play against the very best.
Despite him and his team getting off to a disastrous start of 0-2 in the challengers stage, they fought their way all the way to the Grand Final. He ended the tournament with a stupid 1.35 HLTV rating, trailing only ZywOo.
Apex Legends Apeks Playoffs
Another team that surprised everyone has to be Apeks— remember guys like STYKO, jkaem, or nawwk? They impressed everyone by stealing a spot in the semis over NA’s darling.
In a run that seemingly came out of no where, yet another random mix of EU players stormed the game’s biggest stage, broke countless hearts, put up a solid fight against the eventual trophy lifters.
I'm just glad I didn’t put any money on these games. If I did, I’d probably have to resort to writing a CS:GO newsletter just to make rent! Wait...
If you like this sorta CS coverage -- I have a newsletter where I recap everything going on in CS. Highlights, news, memes, you name it. It's called The Defuse Kit. Here's the link:
https://join.defusekit.com/

First / Previous / Next
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March 19, 2019
I sat at the pool, haven't slept in days.
"What am I gonna do?" I asked myself,
"I have two kids to take care of, and... Oh Robert, why did you have to leave?"
"MOM?" I heard Miranda say through the echo of the room.
"He- here sweetie." I answered while waving her to come over.
"Mom?, are you alright?" she asked.
"Yes, I'm fine sweetie." I said as tears were still running down my face.
She just hugged me.
"I- I." snort "I miss dad." She said while starting to sob.
"Oh baby me too." snort "Me too."
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I sat in my room that was across from mom's, I had moved to the other room we had booked, leaving mom and Miranda in the other one.
I stared out the window, not even three days were enough to process what was happening, 'Did I really have a conversation with one of them?' I guessed my brain still hadn't processed the fact that they were alien invaders that overthrew us as the dominant species, feels like a dream, waiting to wake up any minute now, maybe wake up to dad dragging me out of bed for school.
"Yeah." I said softly to myself.
"I need fresh air."
I stepped out of my room and headed to the lobby, while making my way to the door it felt like I was walking through a ghost town, even though you could see humans and aliens they still felt like they weren't there.
'Yeah a certainly need fresh air.'
As I made my way to the main entrance, a marine that I hadn't noticed before stepped into my path, so I stopped.
"You can't leave yet, need to wait five more days." she said
"Ah come on I won't go far, I'll just stay at up there." I said while signaling at the bench right outside the door.
"Orders are orders." She said, all the while holding a rifle.
I was not about to get on their bad side and get marked as a trouble maker.
"Alright, alright, jeez." I said as I walked away back to the lobby, 'I'll try the courtyard then.'
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It was a sunny day, too sunny for my liking, so I sat in the pool chairs covered by the trees above, it was nice having that perfect mix of sun rays and shade, while also getting a refreshing breeze, not to cold for me to shiver, but enough to feel comfortable.
If anything the ships above made an interesting view.
A nap felt like the best idea ever, or it would have been have it not been for Delara "Patrolling" the courtyard.
"Hey Jeeryl." She said somehow butchering my name even more, I was used to it but this was a whole 'nother level.
"Hey Delara" I answered.
"What you doing." she asked as if she didn't wake me up from my nap.
"Trying to nap." I answered while covering my eyes with my arm.
"What is nap?"
'Seriously?'
"Short sleep." I answered, hoping that would satiate her curiosity.
"Can I sit?" she asked.
After evaluating my options I chose the best one available.
"Sure, but don't you need to be working?" I asked her,
"Don't think they would notice."
"Delara can I ask you something."
"Y- Y- yes." she answered, probably trying to come up with the word.
"How is Shil?" I asked, was really curious what the planet where a purple big tiddied orc came from looked like
"Oh its really pretty, with lots of oceans and beaches, though now there is a lot more buildings, but its really pretty."
"Here have picture." She said as she pulled out her 'phone?'
It was a selfie of her with other 5 older looking women and what looked like her siblings and her dad, on a beach, it was truly beautiful, with almost impossible blue water, though in a alien planet nothing is out of limits I thought.
"Is that your family?" I asked her while pointing at the other people in the picture.
"Yes" She answered as she started to name them.
"This is my mother Arnac, this is my father Urkal."
"And the rest?" I asked, maybe they were her aunties and cousins.
"Oh this are my other mothers and siblings, this is mother Tehrisa, mother Clavnia, mother Vespra, and mother Safra, and this are all my siblings." then she proceeded to tell me their names though I was still stuck in the fact that she had apparently 4 step mothers while also having a biological mom?
"Delara, can you explain something?"
"Ah- Yeah sure."
"Why do you have so many moms and a single dad?" I asked while pointing at them in the picture.
"Oh yeah, well, we Shil'Vati have male to female birth rate of 1 to 8, so it's really normal for a single male to have several wives."
"So you all live together?"
"Yes!" she said with a lot of enthusiasm.
"What about you?" she asked back
"Well- more recently it's me, mom, my sister."
"What about your dad?"
"H- He was- He was in the city that got attacked."
'Oh' Delara thought, 'Why why why why why, why can't you keep your mouth shut, you have this cute guy TALKING to you and you come and ask about his death father, WHY brain why are you like this? Of course that's why they were all crying that morning after that news broadcast, I assumed it was just because they lived there' was what when through Delara's mind, but then she saw him start to tear up.
'Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh nonononononono don't cry, please, Hope no one sees us, quick Delara think, YES."
"Jeryl, do you want hug?"
"Huh? oh no its not nece-" I couldn't finish as Delara hugged me, and by hugging I mean suffocating me with hear great assets, I mean it was nice, they were really soft.
"Don't you worry I'm here for you." Delara said.
"hmmmfh, fmmgh." Was all Jeriel could get out.
This was nice don't get me wrong, in any other circumstances this would be an ideal way to die, but now, he really missed oxygen.
With all the forces I could muster I was able to lift my face enough to say "Delara!"
'You dumbass you are suffocating him' I screamed in the back of my head.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry." Delara repeated hysterically.
\cough* *cough** "It's okay, just don't give me a heads up next time."
"Are you okay?" she asked while moving my face left and right.
"Yeah I'm fine, don't have to worry" I answered
*Ping*
"Oh shit." Delara said in Shil, as that's what I learned their language was called, they are not really original with names it seems.
"Have to go, it was good talking to you." she said as she rushed into the building
"Well... Great second interaction."
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March 21, 2019
Today was march 21st, and this guy was turning 18, this for sure was about to be a different birthday at least.
I got out of my room for the first time today to get breakfast, I had spent all of the previous day between my and mom's room, we talked, We did our best to make her laugh and to alleviate the situation, y'know what they say, laughter is the best medicine,
On my way to the elevator I met up with Miranda to get breakfast and then get sum up for mom, I was worried she didn't get out in all of yesterday, Miranda said she cried whenever she wasn't there with her, the only thing that seemed to calm her down was TV.
We got down to the lounge where we walked past a group of marines having breakfast, they all followed me with their gaze, some even turning around.
“That’s creepy as shit” said Miranda
"What is?" I asked
"That!" she said while pointing at a group of marines having breakfast.
"Don't you see how they look at you? Isn't it a least a little bit weird?"
“Maybe, but I honestly don’t mind it, it’s not like girls paid much attention to me before”
“Ugh.” Miranda rolled her eyes
“I mean it could be worse”
“Worse? How?” she asked
“Well I don’t know, they could be ugly.
“And hey if they want a piece of me, I’m not completely opposed to it, they are basically Sheeva from mortal kombat”
“First eww, second you don’t even know how old they are or let alone how their years are different to ours.”
“Or even their biology who knows if she’s a hundred.”
“You are just jealous there isn’t any guys.”
“Yeah why is that by the way?”
“From what I understand their birth rate is disproportionate so there a very little males compared to the number of females.”
“Well that explains why they are the way they are.”
“Elaborate.”
“That plus the fact that they are soldiers, if they are anything like our marines then they might be the horniest beings on the galaxy." Miranda said a little hyperventilated.
"Just- watch out, as much as I hate you I don’t want anything bad happening to you.”
“Alright mom." I said rolling my eyes
“Oh yeah by the way how is she doing? I couldn't see her yesterday.”
“A little better.”
“Stayed up late watching that cartoon that you used to watch when you were a kid.”
"..."
"..."
We stayed in silence thinking, both of us staring at the floor.
"What are we gonna do?" I asked.
"About what?"
"About this?" I said while signaling around us, "We are homeless, mom is jobless.
"Dad... y'know." I said trying to look elsewhere, Miranda did the same.
"You are out of school, and me well it's not like I can apply to UH anymore."
"We only have the things in our luggage, and who knows where they would send us, best case scenario the hotel allows us to stay, little worse scenario the aliens relocate us to a camp somewhere else, and worse case scenario we just get thrown into the street." I said while looking around us.
"Don't know, haven't really thought about it, talk about high school experience getting ruined."
"Huh, better get this up to her before it gets cold" she said.
"Right behind you."
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We got into the room as the door unlocked, mom was in the bathroom, so we opened the curtains and set the breakfast on the little table that was in the room.
"Good morning kids" mom said.
She had really bad bags under her eyes and looked tired as a whole.
"Above all to the birthday boy" she said while hugging me and giving me a kiss on the forehead which I had to lower myself for, I might not be tall but mom was 5'0 on the spot, if the aliens were intimidating for me you must imagine how it was for her.
"Thanks mom, we brought you breakfast."
We finished eating breakfast, when mom got up from the table and went to the bathroom, but she came with a muffin.
"Where'd you get that?"
"The lounge, woke up early today, though I asked for a candle but the hotel people told me they couldn't find any."
"Well that's ok, it's the thought that matters."
We split the Muffin into three pieces, to the protest of both Miranda and mom, then we just laid back watching the peak of Canadian animation, the tale of a kid fighting an evil alien purple sphinx cat, that wants to take over earth.
"I remember you would get up for school early just so you could watch it." mom said.
"Yeah I remember that."
I thought about mentioning that it was dad's favorite cartoon but thought better of it, thought I could see that it still came to her mind.
The rest of the day was uneventful, we just stayed up watching TV, talking about stuff trying to avoid talking about our situation as much as possible, or walking through the hotel floors and lobby, there weren't many people in the hotel so, many of the people you would find had purple skin or a lot of fur.
It was already getting late I said bye to the both of them and went into my room, but it being a relatively hot day, I decided for a change in plans, going for a swim, so I put my trunks on a lose shirt grabbed my book a towel and made a b line to the door and elevator.
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Today's shift had been as uneventful as all the previous ones for Delara, just walking around checking the perimeter, questioning any suspicious locals, which there weren't many of at the hotel they were posted at, but today was warm which was nice, it reminded her of Shil and her family, which reminded her of how much she liked to swim and that there was an outdoor pool, maybe she'll find Jeryl there again, and if she didn't she would still take a swim, of course she first had to consult it with Sergeant Lyria which said that she'll allow it but to keep it civil, whatever that meant.
So she went to her quarters, grabbed her standard issue bathing suit which wasn't very different from her normal workout clothes aside from the material it was made of, she put it on and headed out.
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Jeriel sat in the same chair where he sat before, thought now instead of sleeping he was reading, he wasn't a great reader but he tried to get better, either way he still couldn't understand how people read a four hundred something page book or books in a week, he felt you didn't enjoy the book that way.
It was also unreasonably hot, if there was anything that he still didn't get used to in the US is the bipolar weather, one day is freezing, the other is hot enough to make water boil.
So reasonably so he had his shirt off, he enjoyed the calm and quiet besides the little waterfall on the pool.
That until then again he heard from behind him.
"Hey there cutie."
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First / Previous / Next
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What would happen in the next chapter? come back Wednesday to find out.
This was it for today, hope y'all enjoyed it and as always comments are welcomed.

Company Name	Title	City
GHR Travel Nursing	RN	Camden Wyoming
GHR Travel Nursing	RN	Clayton
GHR Travel Nursing	Registered Nurse (RN)	Clayton
GHR Travel Nursing	SDU Nurse	Dover
Penske Truck Leasing	Diesel Mechanic	New Castle
GHR Travel Nursing	PCU RN	New Castle
BAYADA Home Health Care	RN	Newark
GHR Travel Nursing	Progressive Care Nurse	Newark
GHR Travel Nursing	PCU RN	Newark
Domino's Pizza LLC	LTL Driver	Seaford
Encompass Health	RN	Selbyville
BAYADA Home Health Care	RN	Wilmington
Jobot	LPN	Wilmington
Jobot	AI Programmer	Wilmington
U.S. Navy	Social Worker - Officer Careers - NJ, PA, DE, MD	Bear
WEX	Marketing Intern	Bear
Saint Gobain	Inside Sales Representative	Georgetown
Easterseals Delaware and Maryland's Eastern Shore	Registered Nurse	New Castle
PrimeHealth Staffing, LLC	Physician/Nurse Practitioner - Per Diem Family Practice Opportunity in Selbyville, DE	Selbyville
Insight Global	Cardiac OR Registered Nurse (RN)	Wilmington
Insight Global	Cardiac ICU Nurse	Wilmington

Hey guys, here are some recent job openings in de. Feel free to comment here or send me a private message if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!

I love lights because they represent something remarkable to me.
Since the dawn of man, we've been perpetually frustrated in our efforts to explore by many things– distance, predators, hostile environs unsuitable to travel– but worst of all in its regularity, duration, and unconquerability was Night. See it comes each day, without fail. It is all-encompassing and existentially terrifying in its unknowable depth. It quiets talk, slows movement, and steals time. And for years, centuries, millennia, eons, we have fought against it.
Fire was our first blow in this ancient battle. With fire, we beat back the shadows, and saw that it was good. We fashioned torches, s candles, then lanterns, and we were able to move sea the darkness without fear of unseen attackers, absent of the timeless danger of stubbed toes.
But it was not enough.
With the advent of electricity, illumination sprang forward as never before. The oldest among the lucky men who witnessed this transformation of society grumbled among themselves that such light wasn't natural; that we were fools to meddle with nature in this way, that artificial light would be an insidious presence in civilization, tempting us with convenience at the expense of our natural state.
But we did not listen.
Soon, towns and cities across the globe glowed at night brightly enough to be seen by ships across Great Lakes, brightly enough to be seen even from the ships newly buzzing across suddenly accessible skies. It was the Age of Light– and it is the age of light, and it always will be, from that point on.
But still we found ourselves frustrated.
Science and new technologies had given us cheap, warm light in our homes and on our streets– but for those who yearned for the exploration of days past, diving deep into the ocean or hiking into ageless woods, night still meant an end to a day's journey.
And so we persevered.
We created packages of electricity and called them batteries and we created lights small enough to carry. And we made them smaller and better each time until we came to today, a magical time for flashlights, when you can buy a light that will shine for a kilometer, or one that's 900 lumens but smaller than my big toe. They take batteries and use LEDs that represent billions of dollars of R&D, decades of engineering and refinement, and they're still working on it.
Many creation myths begin with a point of light. A beam erupts from the darkness, piercing it, driving it away utterly, and so the universe is born. I'm an atheist, but I get a small thrill when I light up a field or send a pillar of light into the sky. There's a reason we shot two beams of hope and resilience into the empty air where the twin towers stood.
Light is life.
TL;DR Flashlights represent the best of humanity, and I lose my keys a lot.
“You'll carry an umbrella when there's only a 30% chance of rain, but every night there is a 100% chance of darkness.”

Our goals for a beach vacation include ocean time, beach naps and alllllll the food. We stayed at Crescent Beach but hopped all over the place for activities, food etc. Figured I'd share the places we ate and my thoughts :)
Columbia restaurant - I've been eyeing this place every time I've visited, so I finally made a reservation and tried it out. It's a gorgeous restaurant and I was in awe of the building. The service was great. Food.. not so much. I had the Cuban sandwich, gazpacho and a mojito. The sandwich and gazpacho were both very bland, and the sandwich was boneeee dry. The mojito was tasty but not mind blowing. Glad I got to see the inside, but I wouldn't come here for a meal again. Maybe I would for a mojito though! Also ugh the area we were seated in had a distinct urine smell, and the bathrooms reeked of urine too
Black Molly's - we had a good meal here a few years ago so we tried it again. It's cheaper than most of the other places in/around St Augustine. I got mahi mahi and it was overcooked. My partner got a fresh catch (idk remember what) and it was also overcooked. Edible, but wouldn't eat here again.
Mango Mangos- I like the vibe here. The service was good. Seemed like a bunch of locals which is usually a good sign! We got the coconut shrimp to start which was okay, nothing special. The meal was fine. But the key lime pie!!!!! It was the best I've ever had
Caps on the water - the views here are amazing, and it made for a nice romantic dinner. The service was top knotch. The she crab soup was delicious, maybe the best thing I ate the whole trip. I could eat that soup every day. I had salmon which was good & my partner had the sesame seared tuna. He raved about it and says it's the best tuna he's ever had. We ended with the key lime dessert and it was good. We started too strong with Mango mangos key lime pie and everything else paled in comparison haha
Violas- we didn't make a reservation and definitely should have! We had a long wait on a Wednesday night, but we enjoyed it here so much in the past that we decided to wait it out. Good service & the owner bops around to all the tables which I thought was cool. The food is good and the portions are massive (which now that I think about it, almost everywhere we ate had big portions). We'll continue to eat here when we visit in the future but we'll be making a reservation. We took key lime pie & fried cheesecake back to our condo and they were both good
Llama restaurant- I was excited to try this place out and made reservations 2ish months in advance. They nailed the decor. Otherwise, I felt it was way too cramped and LOUD. It was hard to have a conversation and I couldn't hear our waitress. We started with ceviche- it was my first time having it!- and I enjoyed it. I had the surf&turf dish and my partner had the lamb. The lamb was overcooked. My meal was okay, but had a lot going on and I couldn't eat very much. I ended up eating the noodles when I went back to the condo, but the rest I just picked at and ultimately ended up wasting it. Our waitress didn't check back with us to see how the food was, and we decided to leave without getting dessert because I just didn't want to stay there longer than necessary. It has a pretentious vibe to it imo
Sunset Grille- we went here a handful of times on our last trip so we knew what to expect. We had the mahi/salmon spread - something I normally wouldn't order - and it was delicious, especially with their datil sauce. I ended up buying a bottle to take home. I had the lobster pasta which was too heavy for me (I ate a few bites before I boxed it up for later) but I liked the flavor. And of course got the key lime pie! It's oddly pricey here, I was surprised by our bill
Kookaburra - we got coffee here everyday. Love the vibe and the staff. Wish I could take this place home with me!
I got lots of recommendations from this subreddit, so thank you all for the recs & for sharing your beautiful city :)

There’d been another shooting today, in some dainty little cafe downtown, in the places tucked so neatly away only people who had visited there their whole lives went. Pete Cordell sighed to himself as he stepped past the shattered glass. Once, the scene inside the cafe would have made his stomach turn. These days, the sight of eviscerated bodies and rooms painted with blood barely fazed him. The entire cafe was ruined, bullet holes riddling every surface imaginable. He whistled, low.
“They must have used up ten mags to do this much damage,” he observed out loud.
“Hey, you’re finally here!”
Pete looked up at the new voice - a man he’d worked with for a bit under four years now but still barely knew anything about - Wesley Smith. “Crazy shit, isn’t it? You’d think it was an action movie in here with the amount of bullets they dumped.”
“I’ll say,” Pete grumbled.
“That ain’t the weirdest shit though. Come over here.” Dividing the cafe in half was a massive sheet, and Wesley brushed past it as Pete followed. He stared.
On the ground was a gun - which wasn’t the first thing to draw his attention. What did draw his attention was the pool of blood on the ground, way too large for any normal injury to have caused. He moved his gaze around and his jaw slackened. Slumped against the wall were the remains of a black-robed man - although remains were generous, considering all that remained was a single arm, a head, and blood-soaked garments. The wall behind the remains was cracked and severely dented, as if something great and powerful had rammed into it. A few feet away, a body had its head entirely gone, nowhere to be seen, with only a spray of blood, a stain of flesh and the same deep impact on the wall where the head should have been.
“Pretty freaky, right?” Wesley’s facade of bravado wouldn’t have fooled even a child. “Makes you feel like you’re in one of them horror stories, you know?”
“I’ll say,” Pete repeated, coughing to get rid of his shaky voice. A buzz from his radio drew his attention, and he held it up to his ear.
“All officers to the station now. I repeat, all officers to the station now.” The voice on the other end was… strange, but Pete chalked that up to his wracked nerves.
He nodded to Wesley and ignored the strange feeling in his stomach. “Alright. Let’s go.”
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A few days later, Pete was flipping pancakes in the kitchen. His wife came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist as the kids squabbled around the table.
“Had a good sleep?” He asked as she rested her chin on his shoulder.
She hummed in affirmation. “How was the latest case?” she asked.
He frowned. It’d been another shooting, in some dainty cafe downtown, and he’d… hang on, what had he done? Before he could strain himself too much, a memory slotted into place and he relaxed.
“Oh, nothing special. Nothing special at all.”
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It was just a few minutes into the breaking of dawn that a massive clanging woke Devona up. He shot out of the bed, not falling out of the bed but instead scrambling for the lightswitch as he got to his feet. His brain pushed past the fight or flight instinct that had shattered his sleep and he relaxed again as his memories came back. A few months into WICCA’s formation, during the time that they had been starting to talk to each other for purposes other than business, they’d headed over to Cirius’s abode.
“And here is my bed!”
They all stared at the bare mattress lying upon a metal frame, only a thin scrap of fabric and something that was barely a pillow upon it. The rest of the apartment wasn’t faring much better, with only a mini-fridge in the kitchen and one of each bathroom item. The walls were a murky grey with the wallpaper peeling, and there was a stench of alcohol in the air.
Axon let out a whistle. “Damn, you live like this?” Her expression turned solemn. “Seriously, though, these conditions are pretty rough.”
Cirius shrugged. “Eh. Could be worse. I used to just find a dumpster that wasn’t full and sleep in there.”
Devona sucked in a breath. “That’s… really bad.”
Cirius gave another shrug. “Some dumpsters aren’t that bad actually. Getting chased away with a broom for being an intruder or like, getting shot, is worse.”
“Well, moving on from that depressing bit of background, you could for sure get a better apartment with how much you’re being paid,” Axon interjected.
Cirius’s eyes widened. “I could?”
“Yeah, man. You know how much money you have. It’s all in your bank account.”
His eyes widened further. I have a bank account?”
“What do you mean? I sent the details to you through your email…” Understanding dawned across her face. “Goddamn it.”
There was a crash outside of the apartment, drawing their attention towards it. Devona walked open to the door and gingerly opened it to reveal two men tussling upon the ground, swearing angrily at each other.
“Hey John!” exclaimed Cirius cheerfully as the man on top lifted his fist and slammed it on the other’s face.
Devona stepped forward with his hands held out placatingly in front of himself.
“Alright, now, let’s calm-”
Devona was interrupted as he was talking by a fist swinging straight towards his face. As he reeled back, another hand was already closing over it and forcing the assailant down. Harlow stared down at the man they were forcing down with a singular hand, watching as his expression strained to continue to look defiant through the pain.
They pressed down further, causing the man’s expression to shift into pain as he hammered onto the floor with his free hand, hollering to let him go.
Devona gingerly placed his hand on their shoulder. “Hey, I think that’s enough now.”
Harlow raised an eyebrow at them. He tried to punch you.
“Well, he didn’t punch me.”
Harlow tilted their head but let go of the person, allowing him to run off with a bruised ego and most likely a bruised wrist. The other man got up and staggered away, the smell of alcohol fresh in the air. Devona let his hand drop as Harlow watched them go, wiping their hand upon their cloak.
After that, Cirius had thankfully used the money to get a proper apartment. Or rather, several proper apartments since he kept getting kicked out. And now he had found himself inside Devona’s new house. Devona sighed and rubbed his eyes to get rid of the tiredness, heading down the stairs to see what the commotion was all about. Cirius was sprawled upon the floor, his pillow several feet away, the couch he was staying on half tipped over and his blanket looking like it had been attacked by a savage animal.
He waved. “Hey bossman.”
Devona stared. “How.”
“Well, you see, I kinda woke up. And stuff was like this.”
Devona sighed and picked Cirius up. He held him like a cat, with his hands underneath the arms as Cirius’s legs dangled, and plopped him down onto the couch after pushing it down with his feet. He began to clean up the rest of the mess. Cirius shot to his feet instantly.
“I could-”
Devona waved him off. “It’s fine. It’s early, just try to get some more rest in. I’ll get another blanket.” He continued to clean up in silence, blinking the sleep from his eyes. He turned and Cirius was still sitting up, shuffling his feet awkwardly.
“Well, if we’re not going to sleep again, why don’t we eat breakfast? I’ll get the cereal.”
They ate together in silence, letting the sound of chewing fill the air. As Devona was thinking about setting up a garden outside, Cirius spoke up.
“Sorry for the blanket. And for waking you up. And-“
Devona raised a hand. “I told you, it’s fine.” Internally, he frowned.
“Was Cirius still hung up about that?” He had noticed an uncanny silence, but he had drawn that up to tiredness. Speaking of, was Cirius even tired? Cirius had been wide awake every time Devona had gone to bed, and wide awake when Devona awoke. One time, Devona had walked blearily down the stairs to get a glass of water in the dead of night, and almost got a heart attack from Cirius suddenly talking.
“So, what’s the mission for today, bossman?” Cirius interrupted his train of thought, rocking on his chair and back to his usual bounciness.
“Well, if you read your email, you’d know,” Devona deadpanned before relenting. “It’s just an attendance to some event that acts as a cover for underground dealings. While Claren deals with negotiations, we mingle with the crowd unless Harlow needs some backup. They’ll be off stealing some documents.” He polished off the last of the cereal. “We should get some more rest before the mission. Don’t want to be too tired.”
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Claren and Harlow were already there when Cirius and Devona arrived. They were all dressed in suits again, like they had been at that party months back. Claren took a few seconds to assess their outfits. Before the mission, Claren had talked with Devona, telling him that he would stand out too much. His height was the most obvious, but according to Claren his posture was ‘too subdued and open to pass as a crime lord’. Instead, Devona would be with Harlow, finding the documents, while Cirius would be a possible back-up to Claren. Really, it was because it was doubtful that he would be able to carry out a stealth mission.
Devona went over to greet Harlow. After exchanging conversation, he grabbed Harlow by the shoulder and the two of them vanished. Claren adjusted his suit, the light glinting off of the two rings on his fingers. “Well, you can go and mingle with the party. If I’m in trouble, try to cause a distraction.”
Cirius nodded thoughtfully. “Explosions?”
“Try to keep those to a minimum.”
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Cirius was mingling, but he was not mingling happily. The people really did hold themselves in a different way than Devona did, with pushed up chests and little hand waves. Everyone who talked to him seemed to need to suddenly leave, so Cirius was currently standing by the food table chomping on dishes.
“Real boring party,” a voice drawled.
Cirius turned. He tilted his head and stopped biting down on the plate. Leaning up against the table with an easy casualness, dressed in a full tuxedo with bowtie and tailed coat, the speaker plucked a grape from the stem and popped it into her mouth. Her rainbow scarf swished as she swivelled her head to look down at him, and her mismatched eyes were lit with amusement. She seemed familiar, but Cirius couldn’t put his finger on why. “Wouldn’t you say so?”
Cirius thought about this. “Eh, it’s alright. I remember one time I blacked out at a party like this and woke up in a bathtub filled with ice.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “You’re a pretty funny guy,” she snickered, waving a fork at him.
Her smile tapered into a grin, and her eyes narrowed. “But in my opinion, this party could really use some better entertainment.” She pulled a mask over her face - one of a white demon with small, pointed horns, and drew a glaive from her back. She threw it. The glaive soared through the air, and Cirius watched as it trailed dried intestines through the air before embedding itself deep inside the chest of one of the guests. Screams tore through the air and Cirius remembered that murder was not good.
“Claren, there’s been a murder! That’s not good!” he yelled, his voice drowned out by the din of panic and magic. The woman dodged past beams of energy and fire, grabbing onto the handle of the glaive and swinging it in a wide arc around her, carving into anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby. Claren burst out from the room, his eyes narrowing and shield wrapping around him as soon as he realised the situation. He pressed up against the wall and then shot forward, like a rubber ball that had suddenly been decompressed. The woman’s cackling was interrupted as he slammed into her full force, sending the both of them crashing across the floor.
“Laurel Pariah. I didn’t expect you to show your face again so soon.” Cirius was close enough to hear them, and it helped that everybody had either ran away or died.
“So, my reputation precedes me,” Laurel responded brightly, kicking Claren off and swinging her glaive right at him. He raised his arm and it glanced off the glimmering shield, giving him an opportunity to land a blow at her gut. She stumbled back and he struck her across the head as she was darting backwards. Her glaive sliced through the air but ricocheted off of Claren’s shield, and he grabbed the bladed end to bring Laurel in closer. She kicked at him, causing her leg to bounce back and almost knock her over, only being held above ground by an uppercut directly into her stomach. She managed to stagger backwards, coughing.
“Wow, you really don’t play around do you?” she wheezed. “I didn’t expect to use my magic so soon, but I guess it can’t be helped.”
Claren moved back, tilting his head towards Cirius. “Go herd the people outside to safety. I’ll deal with her.” Cirius flashed him a thumbs up and headed in the direction of panicked shouts. Claren’s eyes scoured the room, as if looking for whatever Laurel may use against him. Speaking of Laurel, something strange appeared to be happening to her. Her skin seemed pale, almost bright. No, definitely bright - glowing, in fact. Before Claren could register it fully however, Laurel pivoted with a kick and sent a bolt of lightning slamming into him.
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The two of them had gotten past security with ease, Devona stealing documents from right under noses and Harlow repeating the pattern of fingerprints upon keyboards. The two of them were currently sitting upon beams, dangling their legs high above the ground.
Just a few more, and we’ll be out of here soon.
Devona tilted his head to the side. “These people really love to party, huh.”
Harlow chewed their cheek. Well, it’s sort of a coping mechanism. Unlike the more recent sorcerers like you and I, these people grew up in a society wholly made from those who possess magic. There’s a certain sense of… superiority within those places. To them, death was less of a constant presence. That was until the Scourges came. Suddenly humans, magic or not, were all pushed down a level on the food chain. That sudden shock of mortality, paired with the changing landscape of the world, is certain to cause some stress. They leaned backwards on their hands. Not to mention, it’s a pretty good cover for criminal activity.
Devona hummed. “Yeah, the world's a chaotic place.” He bowed his head slightly. “Do you think we can win? Against the Scourges, that is.”
Their tongue traced the inside of their mouth as they mulled, an action mirrored from others despite their mouth never being used to talk. It’s unclear. We don’t even know where the Scourges are coming from or what they are. There could be only a small handful left in the world, or there could be legions waiting to invade. We manage to push them back, but not without loss. The Scourge at Scotland was one of the weaker ones. The teleporting Scourge was one of the less destructive ones. And yet they managed to cause so much devastation. They tilted their head to meet his gaze. But I think we’ll win.
Devona smiled. “I hope so.”
How’s it going with Cirius at your place, by the way?
Devona scrunched up his forehead as memories came flooding in. “Well, he doesn’t eat unless I make him. Or really visit the bathroom since he doesn’t eat. I don’t even think he sleeps, at least not most of the time. I’ve also never seen him change his clothes. He seems weirdly nervous at times though. He’s probably destroyed like five of my blankets by now. He keeps giving me heart attacks at night by scurrying around the house. He tried to cook once and blew up the entire kitchen. I’m not even exaggerating, he had third degree burns all over his skin. Took me ages to patch him up, especially with him refusing to remove his clothing.” Devona sighed and noticed Harlow’s expression. They had a bemused expression on their face. “What is it?” You’re quite an attentive person, that’s all. They turned their gaze elsewhere. The last of the physical documents should be three doors down on the rightmost corridor.
“What will you be doing?”
Attending to my own business. I’ll meet you afterwards.
Devona nodded and vanished, leaving Harlow alone underneath the clouded sky.
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The hierarchy of the world was simple. At the bottom were the plants, the insects, the ones who barely fed themselves and were gorged upon or crushed by a wayward hand. On top, edging them out were the small predators, the mice and shrews of the world. And above them this and this and that until up on top the world, the pinnacle of power, was humanity. Of course, there was division within humanity. Some believed it to be race, or gender, or sexuality, or any other sort of arbitrary difference they’d use to hold a sense of superiority over others. But the true division, the fissure that stretched across like the mouth of a god, was magic.
Opal Pact was currently walking upon the tightrope across that fissure. To live in a world of magic without any of your own was common, given how billions of people did it, but to know about magic and to live in its world was less so. Of course, it was a lot less dramatic than her mini-monologues in her head, like the one about hierarchies, had made it seem. Most would expect fabulous displays of power, magic that could bend and buckle nations. Instead, they got people who could throw fancy balls that were basically slower, less effective bullets, or throw fireballs which were once again slower, less effective bullets, or become pinnacles of physical brawn who were immune to bullets and who were as susceptible to chemical warfare as anybody else. Even the ones who held incredible power weren’t immune to a knife in their neck in the dead of night. The point was, Opal was less of walking upon a tightrope and more of peering into a secret party and inviting herself in. Besides, if those unedited videos of cities’ destruction were anything to go buy, humans weren’t the top of the food-chain anymore, magic or not.
She whistled to herself, the tune of some forgotten song as she twirled a crowbar between her fingers. She knocked on the door to the security room and then smashed it open, interrupting the guard who was in the middle of trying to figure out why several of the cameras had stopped working. The smashing of the crowbar into his face sent several of his teeth scattering, and he collapsed onto his desk. He’d be fine, probably. Opal mentally shrugged with that thought and pushed him off the wheely chair, letting him flop onto the floor as she took a seat. She grabbed a can of oil from her bag and poured it out the door, letting it run down across the hallway. The tinted plastic she’d stuck to the lights before she’d made her entrance were just yellow enough that anyone who came rushing in wouldn’t have time to notice the oil until it was too late.
Opal slammed the door as shut as she could, kicking her feet onto the table and popping a piece of gum into her mouth. She chewed, letting the sugar flare upon her tongue as her fingers ran across the keyboard. There was a sound of people yelling, then the sound of bodies slamming against the wall and floor. She stretched her arms behind her head, kicking off of the desk to avoid the blast of energy that ripped right through the door. It was shoved open and Opal pushed off the wall towards the attacker, pulling out her taser and jabbing it into his stomach. He staggered and then slipped, falling chin-first onto the floor. She stepped off of the chair and kicked it, sending it bouncing around and knocking down the few guards who managed to remain standing. She slid across the floor, using the slickness to her advantage to weave past grasping hands and past the oil. Grabbing a matchbox from her hand, she struck a match and held it loftily between the fingers. The effect was immediate, with all the guards scrambling across the floors on either all fours or trying their best to stand up. She tossed the match to the oil-slicken ground and slid into the next room. The oil wasn’t flammable.
The oil eventually rubbed off from the friction, leaving Opal to walk along the floor. She eventually found what she came for. She smashed the lock off of the door, the alarm already having been disabled by her in the security room. She popped her bubble of gum and pushed the door open. Standing in the room, looking incredibly confused, was an incredibly tall man. He stared at her, the documents on the desk in front of him. She stared at him. He stared at her. She grabbed the tablecloth and threw it over his head, snatching up the documents as he stumbled back.
Opal dove out the door before the man could get his bearings, skidding across the floor and breaking into a sprint. She pulled out a bag of marbles and tossed it behind her, spilling the contents all across the floor. She used the crowbar to jam the door behind her shut, running past the winding hallways. The exit wasn’t far, and soon she’d be able to hop on her motorcycle and be scot free.
She wheeled around the corner and almost collided into a group of sorcerers. She could tell they were sorcerers since they immediately threw blasts of energy her way as she ducked behind the wall. One of them charged forward and punched the wall where her head had been. He lifted his arm to strike again and then vanished.
“Huh?” The other sorcerers seemed equally confused. Something appeared from nowhere and smacked into the face of one, leaving the last to look around panickedly before the frying pan knocked him out. The man from before appeared out of thin air, looking much more annoyed than he had before. He waved his pan at her face.
“Alright, who the hell are you?”
“Invisibility, probably. Strong as well if he managed to bypass the crowbar so easily, or crafty if he found another way to track me,” her mind supplied.
Opal rooted around for her spray-can. “Who am I? Oh, no-one really. Just a gal trying to make her way in the world.”
The man narrowed his eyes. “Would you be willing to hand over the documents?”
Opal pressed her thumb and index to her chin. “Eh, probably not.”
He sighed. He vanished right as Opal lifted her spray can and sent a blast of black into his face. She broke into a sprint, shoving the documents into her pocket as she continued to dash.
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Being short certainly had its shortcomings. Cirius couldn’t shout louder than the clamour, so he climbed onto whatever surface he could find and grabbed onto a plate and a fork. He scraped the prongs along the ceramic and the screech was loud enough to catch everyone’s attention.
“Alright, alright, listen up! I’ve been told to get you guys out of here, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
The people still seemed panicked and extremely suspicious. One of them aimed a hand full of fire at him. “Who the hell are you? And why should we listen to you?”
“You guys are running around too much! Look, that guy has other people standing on top of him!”
“Help.”
“In an emergency situation, it’s always good to have someone to direct everyone else. People tend to panic and move erratically, so having a leader allows the people to calm themselves down and move in a controlled manner, minimising the risk to themselves and each other,” Cirius recited. He felt a dash of smugness for remembering the entire thing.
The people did not seem very impressed. They stared up at him with confused and vaguely disgusted expressions.
“Anyways, the point is, we’re going to leave now.”
“What about the people back there!” one person exclaimed. “I have a husband who’s possibly dying right now!”
Cirius frowned. “What did he look like?” “He had- he has blonde hair, is wearing a suit with a blue tie-”
“Oh, I think I saw who you’re talking about!”
“Really? Was he alright?”
Cirius scratched his head. “Uh, well, if he can survive without his head on then he should be good.”
“What the hell is wrong with you!”
“Come on, man!” “Why would you say that?”
Exclamations and cries of dismay rose up from the crowd and suddenly everyone was yelling at him.They started to throw plates and utensils at him, throwing insults along with them.
“Alright, alright, let’s just calm down,” he tried to say over the clamour. A plate smacked onto his head and dazed him for a second. Frustration bubbled in his chest as the people kept on yelling and yelling and the noise built up and up until the frustration melded into anger and burst from him.
“Shut up! Shut up, all of you!” he yelled, his own voice barely rising above the chaos. He grabbed a plate of his own and threw it into the crowd. “I’m trying to save your goddamn lives you idiots!”
Something bright came flying at him and he felt his body light ablaze, the fire rapidly spreading over his clothes and flesh. A silence fell over the crowd, their expressions now of shock and bewilderment rather than outrage. He moved his head towards the one who threw the fireball, the slight movement drawing gasps from the people around him. He jumped down from the table and walked towards the attacker, everyone else clearing a wide berth around him. He dug his fingernails into his bubbling flesh, tearing deep and causing blood to spill out, dampening the flames with a hiss. Blood dripped onto the floor as he flexed his hand before pulling his arm back and punching the elemental in the face. His hand practically exploded, spraying gore and viscera all over the man’s features. He fell to the floor with a horrified scream, too distracted to notice Cirius lifting a chair until it was already coming down on his head. Cirius patted down his body, ripping away at skin where the fire refused to die out. He turned to the crowd - or at least, the blurry outline of the crowd.
“So, are we ready to go now?” he asked brightly. He lifted his hand to scratch at his face and felt bone. The crowd nodded, subdued. “Pick that guy up, by the way.” He turned to the exit and they all followed suit.
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Devona was not having a good time. He’d managed to avoid most of the spray, but he’d needed to wipe away at his eyes before they stung too much. He floated past the groaning guards on the oil-slick floor, up the stairs to the upper floors. Marbles were strewn across the ground, and one man was rolling around while clutching his spray-painted eyes. The window on the far end was smashed open despite the latch being unlocked. Peeking his head around, he could see the perpetrator running along the rooftop, sticking her tongue out at the people on the ground. She grabbed an egg from her pocket and slung it at the head of one, exploding it all over his face as he tried to grab his gun.
She ducked down and slid along the tiles as bullets fired above her head, grabbing the side and swinging down into the window. A few seconds later, a chair was flung out and slammed into the remaining guards. A guard rushed up to the window next to Devona, pulling out a machine gun. Devona wasn’t a fan of excessive violence against his enemies, so he introduced his face to a frying pan. At the same time, the thief, as Devona had dubbed her, was thrown from the window. She managed to grab onto the curtain and ripped it as she slid down the wall, landing with a thud onto the ground. Standing there in the doorframe, holding onto ruffled documents as air swirled was a guard, more filing around her with magic swirling in the air.
Devona felt movement behind him and phased out, dodging the blast of energy that would have taken off his head. He grabbed the guard and phased them out with him, using their newfound weightlessness to throw them as hard. All eyes snapped to the man as he flew through the air, giving Devona enough time to swoop down and phase out the thief.
He dropped the two of them on the roof of the building overlooking the guards as they looked around in surprise. The thief immediately got to talking.
“So, you can phase out, huh? I thought you might have been a Neoteric, seeing as you look less out-of-touch than a lot of other sorcerers. Do you have a cool name for your discipline?”
Devona glanced at her. “It’s incorporealism.”
She rolled her eyes. “Bo-ring. You develop a whole branch of magic and you give it some lame name like that?”
“It’s not- whatever.”
She sighed and rolled her shoulders. “Why don’t we make a truce?” she said suddenly. “Just until we get the documents. Especially since they see us now.”
Devona looked down just in time to weave to the side and let the lightning pass by him. There was a woosh of air and all the guards were upon the roof, one of them still holding the documents in her hand.
A gust of air, a blast, and several bullets connected with nothing as Devona vanished. He grabbed one guard and threw them off, lashing out with only his foot physical and kicked another guard right in the stomach. Weave, dodge, strike, move back, more forward. The movements weren’t as fluid as they could have been, and he winced from a graze across his arm, but it wasn’t long before he and the thief were the only people still standing upon the roof.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Wow. Not bad. You’re quite the combatant.”
Devona started looking around for where the documents had fallen, turning his back to her. “Thanks.”
“What’s your name by the way?”
He lifted up one of the unconscious bodies. “It’s Devona. Yours?”
“Bergeron.” A strange name, but Devona wasn’t one to judge. “Say, I’ve just to ask, why did you save me back there?”
Devona frowned. “Is it not enough to not want to see another person die?”
She hummed. There was a bit of movement from behind him, and Devona phased out as a taser struck where he had just been. He phased back in, lashing out with a pivot and kick that slammed into her gut. He grabbed his pan and swung it at her head, clipping only her hair as she ducked down and he withdrew his body as she jabbed with her taser again. He slammed his pan onto her arm before she could reel it back in. Her taser dropped and Devona managed to strike her across the head, sending her stumbling back. She clutched his arm as if it was broken and Devona faltered slightly, just long enough for her to lash out with another hidden taser and hit him right in the gut. She grabbed onto her crowbar and smashed it against his head, with him managing to only slightly dodge the impact. He phased out again and grabbed her by the arm, throwing her against the wall. He stumbled, his vision turning white as rivulets of blood ran down his nose. Before he could recover he felt the crowbar slam into his hip and his legs buckled. The cool metal of the taser pressed into his back and jolts ran through his body.