#Amongst other things but like… basic geography isn’t one of them

[gothicprep]

love how my wife is an endless well of knowledge in a lot of contexts, but sometimes says shit like, “chicago… that’s in ohio, right?”

[asterfeathers]

cole ninjago headcanons!!

long bc i don’t know how a tumblr works and can’t. figure. how .to. put. under.cut,,

- black(ma)/vietnamese(dad)

- kind chocolate brown eyes with orange. very pretty. after dod his left eye (where the scar is) turned a bright green

- heavy sleeper,snores

- dad energy

- animals love him

- wherever he goes the nature around him brightens up, sometimes flowers bloom. the villagers, farmers especially love when he visits cuz he helps around and the earth is very fertile and alive when he’s there

- he retained some ghost abilities, but he needs to put a lot of effort into them and unlocking them. back to square one basically.

- he’s highly regarded amongst ghosts cuz when the preeminent was banished she was weakened and cole gained her powers and is basically king of ghosts (this is definitely not canon i just like the sound of op cole)

- whenever he’s around animals he gets all soft

- underrated and not as popular with fans

- deep down is envious of the others

- his fight with jay still stays with him. he never really got over some of the things jay said to him even if they were just in the heat of the moment.

- self esteem issues and believes he isn’t as important as others and is the least important out of his entire team

- views the others as his family and is very loving

- best hugs. warm,comforting and grounding

- gay. seriously gay

- when he and jay were fighting over nya it was mostly a misunderstanding cuz cole didn’t actually like nya but wanted to get back at jay and was definitely repressing his emotions (and gayness *cough*)

- trans. goes by he/they and ghost themed neopronouns

- everyone goes to him for support

- he has difficulty expressing his emotions sometimes

-he doesn’t talk about his feelings but gets mad at others when they bottle theirs up

- he can be really funny and witty when he opens up

- incredibly loyal

- writer and artist

- he can actually sing and dance really well but he’s insecure about it. he’s even written some songs.

- he needs to be forced to rest bc he’s a workaholic and he will work himself to the bone without intervention. especially when he’s sick

“cole you need to rest you’re sick”

“i’m fine”

“no you’re not rockhead go to bed and i’ll get zane to make you some soup”

- the team loves him bc how can you not

- supports lloyd with things kai can’t

- very trustworthy with everything but cooking

- loves driving and travelling

- he’s banned from the kitchen

- before wu found him he was travelling around everywhere. sailing, hiking, mountain climbing, everything. was homeless for a period of time.

- he loves watching the stars

- his mother sang to him and told him about her battle stories. he didn’t think they were real at the time of course but he likes to reminisce about them

- big strong man. almost a himbo but he’s actually really intelligent

- amazing at strategy and planning

- neat freak. likes things being organised, unlike kai. when kais room gets really messy he cleans it bc he gets so frustrated

- a lot of unresolved trauma. mans got mommy and daddy issues cmon.

- he loves sweet things (this is basically canon)

- he’s very close with the og 4. jay and him talk a lot. he and kai are very close and will comfort each other. he and zane give each other cuddles

- as a kid really liked geography and dinosaurs

- the ninja go to him when they have nightmares

- big sweetheart honestly

- wu once slipped up and called him dad

- he has somewhat long hair

- he has some grey hairs from being a ghost

- ptsd from falling, dying multiple times and being turned into a ghost. he fears heights. it takes him a while to get over it and go climbing again.

- if you were his partner you would not lack affection at all. but he’s not much a kisser and is very shy at first.

- plays with his hair sometimes

- really loves music. the sound grounds and calms him

- sticks his tongue out while concentrating. he’s planning out a mission and he’ll just have his tongue out. the others find it adorable

- has a very foul mouth when he gets really angry (he was basically homeless for a long while before wu found him. imagine what he would have picked up travelling)

- patient but has an explosive anger. he can get pretty scary. this big guy that could benchpress a mountain towering all over you with stone cold fury.

- actually pretty sensitive

- almost cries every time he hears sad stories about animals

- if you don’t wake him up he will sleep the entire day

- not a head canon but that one season 1/2 outfit where he had belt/chain things on the sides of his pants. the eboy blueprint

- very good fashion sense

- rich boy what with his father being a very prolific performer and probably with a wealthy family

- oblivious when it comes to flirting

- takes a lot of connection to form a crush/interest in someone

- he and kai sometimes go to volcanoes together

- would protect the ninja (especially lloyd and zane) with his life.

- can make very good beverages (this is actually pretty canon- when the ninja were celebrating getting the fang blades and cole made the punch in like season one)

- teases everyone. calls lloyd ‘squirt’ and other such nicknames still

- likes going to parks and climbing trees. the other ninja just watch as he scales the tree at inhuman speed. jay and kai try to beat him and fail every time.

- he can often be found passed out somewhere and snoring, often out of bed. he has some weird sleeping positions and the others take photos whenever they find him sleeping somewhere.

- he’s pretty much like a cat

- eats messily sometimes (his dad especially hates this)

- favourite cake is chocolate mud cake (unoriginal i know but i don’t care)

- smells like rain and the earth, if warmth /home was a smell

- he’s a child of hades. geokinisis, death themes, cmon

- loves reading

- a big old nerd

- put ungodly amounts of sugar in his tea and coffee while the ninja (mostly zane) stare at him concerned

- his eyes reflect light in the dark like a cat. he’s scared jay a few times in the hallways at midnight when he’s just standing there, eyes glowing

- zones out a bit

- resting bitch face

- bc earth is both life and death, this ties into his ghostly abilities and possibly him using his powers for healing

[sokkathebluewolf]

I'm very curious about the Fire Nation Military Academy. Could you maybe explain that a little bit further? Is there just one? Can everyone just go there? How got our guards there? How's the training? With which age do you go to the FNMA? Do you really need to cut all ties to your past? How are you getting to the job of a Imperial Guard? I have many more questions but these are the only ones that came to my mind rn. Maybe you can explain a little bit more? That would be cool.

Well, for starters, the current branches of the Fire Nation Army, in Gladiator, are as follows:

Army: land troops deployed outside the Fire Nation’s mainland.

Navy: obviously, water-based troops, warships and the like.

Domestic Forces: troops stationed within the Fire Nation’s mainland.

Guards: special division of the Domestic Forces, tasked with the protection of the Fire Nation’s Palace directly, and the Fire Nation’s Royal Family.

Air Force: the second-newest branch, operating with airships and hot-air balloons.

Enforcers: the newest branch, tasked specifically to deal with all that pertains the enforcement of the new Slavery Laws.

The first five branches are all trained in Military Academies throughout the Fire Nation (they have more than one academy, the others are located in the bigger cities), the last branch is trained specifically at the Enforcers’ Headquarters (currently, only in the mainland).

There’s more than one Academy, like I said, and most anyone is encouraged to join it. While the Fire Nation is quite classist in many regards, and they tend to look down on anyone whose heritage isn’t perfectly Fire Nation, Fire Lord Ozai has been struggling for years with how thinly spread his army is. Hence, while enrolling in the Fire Nation Academy when you’re an Honorary Citizen is prooobably not the wisest thing since it means 1. you’ll be fighting against your people 2. you’ll have to endure a lot of Fire Nation snobbishness... they’re encouraged to join in anyhow. Therefore, social classes are overlooked in the Fire Nation military, but not out of any noble intentions: it’s merely for the Fire Lord’s convenience.

The training in the Academy starts the same for everyone, basic classes all across for all recruits. Within a matter of 2 months, all soldiers should have the grasp of basic combat training techniques (firebending training for firebenders, weapons training for non-benders, and the occasional earthbenders have their own bending training too). 

After a period of refining their skills for about a year, the students at the Academy are either selected by their instructors to serve as Guards (only the students with top marks are eligible for this specialization, whether benders or firebenders), or they can choose their own future career path (Domestic Forces, Army, Navy and, nowadays, the Air Force too). Naturally, the duty of the Guards isn’t exactly easy but it’s a lot less taxing than that of a soldier in the frontlines... so being selected for the Guards is not only considered an honor, but a highly coveted one too: EVERYONE wants to be a Guard :’D still, not a lot of people can pull off top-marks, so you have to break your back in your first year if you really want to be a Guard.

Now, once the first year is done and all new recruits have “joined” a military branch, the students spend their next three years perfecting the skills required to perform their future duties. Back in the war’s heyday, often these three years of finalizing their studies were spent out in the field, outright assisting the troops since, like I said, the army was spread so thin that they needed quick soldier deployment ASAP. Nowadays, as the Earth Kingdom continent has been conquered successfully, the Academies are back to a slightly less hectic rhythm and can work with their students without sending them out to fight when they’re not finished with their education yet.

The Enforcers, new as they are, have a slightly different training regime that’s actually a tad bit more imposing than the one in the Military Academies, since they’re being trained and recruited ASAP. As shown in the story, they’re trained in non-bending combat even if they’re benders, so all of them are equipped with swords of their own. They still attend classes after their first raids begin, and they’re still recruiting, so their growth is ongoing... but as the laws needed to be enforced right away, the Enforcers have had to be prepared for their duties even more rashly than the recruits of the army I described up there. It’s going to get a little easier for Enforcers that get recruited later in the future, they might even get a few years of proper preparation for their roles... but they really can’t afford that for the time being.

Anyways! The training is divided, like I said, depending on the kind of duties each branch handles. Domestic Forces recruits, for instance, have to fully learn city layouts, prison guard protocols, learn about Fire Nation laws and infractions, since that’s the stuff they usually have to deal with. Navy officers are taught water-based strategic fighting, how to man catapults, everything to do with how to navigate... and the army learns strategies for land-based combat, how to mount the animals the army uses in battle, as well as geography of the general world, since they’ll likely need a better understanding of how to traverse diverse lands than any of the other branches will. All branches have further combat training (whether bending or weapons-based) throughout the next three years of specialized training, to hone their fighting skills further.

Now then, the Guards! These guys are the trickiest ones and probably the ones I should have explained further in-story, since their role is by far the most important one out of the six branches, but I never really had a chance.

There’s regular Guards in the Palace: these guys can be benders (exclusively fire, though) or non-benders, and they’re tasked with guarding the Palace walls and its infrastructure, above all else. On their final year of the Academy, the best firebenders within this group are marked as potential future Imperial or Royal Guards: they can undergo some slightly more challenging tests than the rest of the Guards and, if their results impress the Fire Lord enough, they may become Imperial Guards right away. If there’s a member of the Royal Family who is assembling their personal Royal Guards at the moment, they can choose their preferred Guards amongst that year’s graduating class + the top-level firebending regular Guards who haven’t been promoted into the Imperial Guards yet.

The General of the Guards is the absolute leader of the Guards and thus, he’s in charge of this entire branch of the armed forces. The person to occupy this role is typically chosen by a recently-crowned Fire Lord: Shaofeng wasn’t the General of the Guards until Ozai took the throne. Therefore, upon permanently ascending the throne, our potential Fire Lord Azula can easily dismiss Shaofeng and promote someone else in his place :’) this, as well, is one important reason why a royal who’s vying for a throne tries to see at least a few of their Royal Guards promoted to Imperial Guards before their time to serve as Fire Lord arrives. Makes the power switch much smoother :’D

And now I more or less gave you a large number of clues as to why General Shaofeng has been such a pissbaby since the festivals arc, woops... :’D

I think the Academy doesn’t have a set age of entrance, you can find people of different ages learning in it (because of the reasons above, the army is spread too thin to reject anyone just because they didn’t start at the right age). Still, people are expected to only join it only after their regular, basic school education is finished. So the youngest age to start would be 12, but older recruits can join too (I’d say the upper limit is probably around 30, despite a 30yo recruit isn’t very likely to spend a long time serving in the field, but the armed forces are in no position to reject anyone who enrolls, tbh).

The subject of cutting ties with everything else in your life is honestly very specific to Royal and Imperial Guards. Like it’s been portrayed in the story, it’s discouraged, rather than forbidden, to have family or romantic ties when you’re a Royal Guard. Rui Shi hasn’t really gotten in trouble for having a relationship with Song, but if any situation arose where he failed to protect the Royal Family because he was protecting Song instead...? Weeeell, he’d likely get executed, outright, for failing to uphold his vows as Royal and Imperial Guard, as he has to be ready to sacrifice anything and everything for the royals he serves.

It’s more implicit in the rest of the armed forces that they serve the Fire Lord above all else, it’s mainly the Royal and Imperial Guards who are told they shouldn’t have any important ties outside their charges. Everyone else can have families, get married, raise kids, without too much trouble. Rui Shi’s father was a military man just like Rui Shi, but he was in another branch (I think in the Domestic Forces, seeing as he lived with Rui Shi and his mother), Rui Shi was an overachiever and became eligible for Royal Guard status... and then Azula selected him as her captain! :D

So, as far as guards are concerned, the path to becoming an Imperial Guard is...:

Firebending Recruit (get top grades) ===>  Guard Prospect (get top grades again) ===> Take an extra test before graduation to become eligible for Imperial Guard ===> Imperial Guard (if successful at impressing the Fire Lord)

OOOOOR...

Firebending Recruit (get top grades) ===>  Guard Prospect (get top grades again) ===> Graduate with top marks and become a regular Guard ===> Be promoted into Royal Guard status by a member of the royal family ===> Be recommended for a promotion into Imperial Guard status by said member of the royal family ===> Imperial Guard (if successful at impressing the Fire Lord)

I hope things are a little bit clearer now xD most of this is stuff I had in my head but, like I’ve said, I really didn’t have much room to explore it. A full-blown spinoff of the school days of Rui Shi and his fellow Royal/Imperial Guards would be ripe territory in which I could explore all these details x’D it’d be a rather strange slice-of-life story, but it’d probably be the only way to address all these questions narratively.

Anyways, if you have any further questions about this, let me know! :D

[makeste]

1)Makeste, been reading over your latest all for one/one for all theory post, and while I think it’s intriguing, I was a bit confused over how you seemed to think that (SPOILERS POTENTIALLY) if One for All really is a more benevolent take on All For One’s Quirk- literally the same power, but used in a different way more befitting of a hero, then that meant Deku couldn’t still be All For one’s potential offspring anymore. For me, your theory actually seemed to inform this perspective, and now I

(note: once again I’ve taken all of the asks and merged them all together for greater readability, so here’s the rest.)

...and now I think it’s even more likely that deku could be a secret son and heir to All For One.

(...actually, I’m putting the rest of the ask and my response under the cut -- this got way longer than I intended lol.)

One thing that’s common amongst those ‘gifted’ with multiple quirks is that to even be capable of holding more than 1 power set, you need to have your body modified to be able to withstand the strain of more than one quirk- and thus differing bio-energies and mutations needed to properly utilise them clashing with each other within your body- if your body’s not capable of handling the pressure, it’s hinted that the damage could potentially result in a similar situation to someone eating more than 1 devil fruit in One Piece I.e you’re geography(in that you are now literally part of the landscape in the immediate area, floors and walls included, which must be hell for Ujiko to mop up afterwards) however, there are three exceptions to this- Giganto, All For One and Midoria, all of whom can wield multiple quirks, apparently in harmony with each other without suffering the negative side effects that the rest of the populace must go through to be even capable of doubling their own powers, never mind that it’s mostly involuntary and unwilling on most of the participants.

All For One goes without saying, since his body is hinted to be naturally capable of housing a ridiculous amount of Quirks, perhaps as a side effect of lacking his own ‘true’ power, but Giganto is another story- he’s the only other one we’ve seen to be capable of holding multiple powers naturally, but it’s hinted this is only because his quirk or his body structure lets him absorb/endure whatever damages normally result for wielding multiple quirks at once, and he’s still somewhat affected by the strain of it anyway. His mind is capable of rational thought, making his own decisions depending on the situation, and holding memories of his past life, all things none of the Nomu can preform- however, in exchange, it’s clear that what mind he does have isn’t very bright, as he’s easily manipulated by ujiko using just a recording of All For One’s voice, acts in a animalistic fashion, ignores social conventions like wearing clothes, and seems to have lost his humanity in exchange for overwhelming strength, ensuring he can never be a part of normal society, even though he doesn’t actually look that weird compared to some other mutations we’ve seen walking about in broad daylight.

In contrast, Midoria, despite only being capable of wielding 20% of One for All, is already starting to utilise and adapt the various powers within the quirk without any mental or physical drawbacks, beyond the teething problems of suddenly developing a new power that has different requirements to his current move set, and his fear at going though changes no-one else has, whereas All Might, even after mastering the physical aspect to its ultimate limit, never even had a hint that he could do more than just punch creatively. Part of this may be the whole spiritual thing, part of it may be that the quirk’s ‘physical’ development wasn’t exactly ready for use in that manner, but frankly, I think it means Izuku’s body is somehow, despite being naturally quirkless, suited for using multiple quirks, allowing him to wield different interlocking powers without losing any of his sanity or humanity, unlike Giganto, but exactly like somebody else.

I think I once wrote up a little mini- statement about how Izuku was more fitting as a Good Counterpart of All For one than All Might, who was simply too opposite of the symbol of evil to have any point in common beyond the role as an opposing symbol of peace. Having the exact same power as his father, and in fact being able to wield that power to the fullest extent beyond what even his mentor or the previous generations of heroes could, precisely because of his inherited genes being from someone naturally predisposed to absorb and utilise multiple quirks at once without suffering any side effects only deepens that connection between the two.

In fact, if Izuku is his son, then it means that he technically inherited his uncle’s- the ‘first’ wielder- recessive genes, being skipped over entirely by the genetic lottery just like his long-dead, yet still resurrected uncle was compared to their shared family member’s power, which wouldn’t be the only thing Izuku has in common with the siblings. Izuku’s analytical mind allows him to understand a lot about the conditions and limitations behind any quirks he witnesses in action, allowing him to formulate counter strategies like we saw in Miro’s spar, or even utilise those very same quirks to his advantage later. All For One Demonstrates a similar analytical appreciation towards quirks, though his come with the intent of understanding the power and the reasoning behind whether or not it would be beneficial for him to steal it for himself, his subordinates or turn his person of interest into a nomu. They both seem to have a mind and body capable of wielding greater strength than those around them through multiple abilities, and it seems that as Midoria gains greater control over his varied abilities, he somehow gets mentally closer to All For One, though only AFO seems to be aware of this, perhaps due to his greater expertise with their ‘shared’ quirk. Actually, if Izuku is indeed his son, and your theory is correct, then that means Izuku went through the world’s most convoluted method of inheriting his parent’s quirk, going through 10 generations and a childhood of alienation to get to the same starting point as his peers.

But yeah, to sum up, the fact that Izuku is so ‘normal’ now, despite gaining a power that we’ve seems physically and mentally ruin anybody else who had it, save one other, makes me think that Izuku may still be connected to All For One on a far deeper level than anybody else realises. Which of course means that Izuku gets the angst of being the son of his greatest nemeses, harbouring the soul, mind and powers of his greatest nemeses, and potentially being alienated from every hero in the world of the extent of this connection gets out, and everybody starts seeing him as All For One 2.0, or a means of the Symbol of Evil resurrecting himself inside a fresh, healthy young body to build his empire again. Angst for days, Boy!

okay, so let me start by saying that I’m not quite sure where this idea (which I’ve seen before) comes from that it takes a specific type of body to handle multiple quirks? from what I recall, the only evidence we’ve seen of that that is All Might’s explanation in chapter 59 about some people being unable to “bear the load” of receiving quirks from All for One. but I thought that was more about them having quirks forced on them than anything else. I got the impression that it was a very invasive and violent thing to do to a person -- basically an assault on their minds -- and that that was what messed them up for the most part. though I could be wrong about that.

one thing I want to note is that you mentioned Gigantomachia as an example of someone who can withstand multiple quirks, but I believe that was a mistranslation on JBox’s and Mangastream’s parts. Viz’s translation, which makes more sense to me, is that Gigantomachia is so strong that he was able to serve as All for One’s bodyguard even without having multiple quirks.

so yeah. I think the clashing translations caused a lot of confusion in this regard, but my current understanding is that Machia is so feared because he has ridiculously OP strength, speed, stamina, durability, etc. even without being modified like the Noumu. he’s just that fucking strong on his own, which is what makes him so impressive.

that being said, how to explain this... my interpretation is that the All for One quirk basically is the ability to withstand multiple quirks (in addition to the whole “granting” and “stealing” thing). like, that’s part of the power. it grants you the ability to handle unlimited quirks. I don’t think DNA or genetics or anything are a requirement for it. while Horikoshi does put a surprising amount of thought into having “realistic” limitations and provisos for his quirks, they’re all still basically magic to some degree. Hawks has feathers that he can telepathically control with his mind. Tokoyami has a sentient shadow that he can partially control and he can use it to fly and it can rip shit apart. Todoroki can produce ice out of literally nothing. Kuroiro can physically interact with the color black. quirks are fucking bonkers and I think we have to bear that in mind to some extent. so while All for One does no doubt have its own specific rules and caveats, I would think it’s still something that still falls under the somewhat phoned-in logical reasoning of “you have this quirk, so your body is now magically capable of handling all other types of quirks regardless of the physical nature of said quirks” with all other logic basically being handwaved accordingly.

I mean, Monoma is also capable of handling multiple quirks, holding at least four at once with no side effects whatsoever, and there doesn’t seem to be anything particular special about his own body. kid’s a goddamn twink. and yet he can “withstand” the strain perfectly fine and even has near-perfect control of his newly acquired quirks pretty much immediately upon borrowing them. he can jump from Kirishima’s hardening to Bakugou’s explosion hands in a split second and turn them off and on at will with no physical repercussions. there’s no scientific explanation for it other than it just being How His Quirk Works. I’d imagine it’s much the same for Deku. the fact that he has multiple quirks now isn’t necessarily an indicator that he must be genetically related to AFO, but what is does indicate is that he most definitely has the same quirk as him, or something very near to it.

none of this means that he can’t still be AFO’s son, mind! but the reason I don’t think it’s likely is because in my view it would come off as a bit clunky. like, from a writing perspective, it’s kind of overkill to have not one, but two overly convoluted explanations for something when just one would suffice. “Deku is AFO’s secret son” and “Deku has the same power as AFO” are both major plot twists each requiring a certain suspension of disbelief in the sense of “so you’re telling me that this kid just happens to be...” like, that’s a lot of coincidence to swallow. and past a certain point, it kind of shifts this from being a story about an ordinary kid who had a turn of fortune one day that turned out to be the start of something epic, into a story about The Son Of The Most Powerful Man In The World, Who Was Always Destined To Defeat Him And Just Never Knew It. which is also a perfectly fine story to tell! but the two ideas do kind of clash with each other, so if your goal is to tell the latter one, it doesn’t really make sense to try and insert elements from the former as well.

lol I don’t know if any of this is making sense. but basically what I’m trying to say is that I think it’s better writing to just pick one or the other. either he has this power because he’s AFO’s son, or he has it because it was passed down to him through OFA. there’s no need for both, and it makes an already complicated story even more complicated. that’s where Game of Thrones started shooting itself in the foot in its later seasons. destiny and twists of fate and such are awesome, but you have to be careful not to go overboard with it or it starts to feel forced. Deku can either be Harry Potter or he can be Luke Skywalker, but both is kind of pushing it. to borrow your phrasing, it would indeed be “the world’s most convoluted method of inheriting his parent’s quirk.” and this is just my own personal preference, perhaps, but I think the story flows better and feels cleaner if it’s just one or the other.

anyway so those are my thoughts thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. sorry for shooting down your very thought-provoking ask!! or at least it feels like I did, sob. but I do enjoy this kind of plot discussion a lot, and it’s also a particularly good way of passing the time while we wait TWO! WHOLE! WEEKS!!! for the next chapter sob so there’s that too, lol.

[cupcakes-oc-corner]

The Island of Osrea

(This is a very basic map subject to potential changes as I develop things more so uh,,,,yeah) An old island that has gone thousands of years without much recognition by the rest of the world, Osrea is a strange place full of magic, secrets, and a whooole bunch of highly dangerous supernatural beings.

HISTORY:

The island was discovered by a small group of european explorers in the early days of exploration. It became apparent very quickly to the new arrivals that this place was not without it’s own native residents. In fact, there was already whole civilizations of various different species. Groups of elves, dwarves, elementals, dragons, etc. All sorts of strange supernatural species only heard of nowadays in fantasy...here. For one reason or another, they had all congregated on this island, away from the rest of human civilization.

After the human explorers found them and then  quickly realized that attempting to fight people who have extensive knowledge of the long-forgotten art of magic was a bad idea, they began asking questions and trying to understand the strange island. Unfortunately, not many questions were answered. All the island’s natives knew was that the island was first populated many many years ago, long before humans starting creating their own civilizations. They didn’t know why it was this place that was chosen or why it was seemingly only this place that was chosen, but this was how it was. They assumed there were others like them out there, just cleverly hidden amongst the humans.

The magic on the island...was old. Older than all of them. Old and difficult to control and understand...but also powerful, and once one did have a good grasp of it, they could do pretty much anything.

Curious, and vaguely concerned of how they could to explain all of this to their country’s rulers, the small group of humans decided to remain on the island, eventually settling there alongside the other species. 

Eventually, after a couple of conflicts, the decision was made to meld the two groups together, and create one big civilization. A sort of kingdom--Evolta--was created, jointly ruled by various members of different species. For a long time, they ruled in peace.

But there was always a certain group of the humans that felt...inferior to the others, and didn’t like it much. They started getting more and more vocal, to the point that it became an actual conflict. Things got bad enough that the conflict started getting violent, and came to a point where some of the people who disagreed with their alliance with the rest of the species left, and created their own kingdom: Solires.

Nowadays the two kingdoms are on neutral terms with each other, and try to work together as best they can even though they disagree with each other on many things.

BASIC GEOGRAPHY (subject to change as the map gets updates):

Solires and Evolta are located on opposite ends of the land from each other, Evolta being located in the northwest and Solires in the southeast. Each of the capitals/centres of the kingdoms are near a lake.

The area between the two kingdoms is known as the In-Between. This area is neutral territory, and various towns, villages and farms not a part of either kingdom can be found throughout. However, as this area as a whole isn’t ruled over by strict laws, it can be dangerous to be in. Demons and other dangerous/malevolent beings are commonly found in this area because it’s easier for them to mess around without being caught.

Four central rivers run through the island, each one named for which end of the island they drain into the ocean from.

Just east of the centre of Evolta is the Nightwood Forest, a strange place known for its mysterious magic and old ruins from some old, long lost civilization. Fae and fairies are often found in these woods, so travellers should be careful about who they talk to in there.

There’s another forest just on the northern edge of Solires’s borders. The Clearwater Woods are regarded as a very peaceful area, with not much magic that should cause much concern.

On the western side of the island lie the Deadmore Peaks, a large mountain range stretching across part of the island. The Peaks themselves are not very well known, aside from being big dragon territory. 

What lies beyond the mountains and in the Shadowrock Forest remains...mostly unknown. Most are too scared to try the dangerous journey to that end of the island and many who have tried...never returned. It’s regarded as an extremely dangerous area; one to be avoided at all costs if possible. The smaller islands that surround certain areas of Osrea that are populated by towns/villages aren’t really dangerous, however, those areas are around where bands of pirates most often come to raid from, so it’s good to be wary of that.

[teacupwriter]

Amnexia (historical-fantasy wip worldbuilding, pt. iii)

✧ updated version (oct. 2018) ✧

I now present the third and final installment of my worldbuilding series for Amnexia, a country in western Europa on my alternate earth Terrus, and the setting of my wip The Lost Country.

Here’s Part I (geography and history), and here’s Part II (government, education and pledge tradition.)

society and culture (cont.)

As explained in previous posts, the magic of Terrus is tied to energy currents in its atmosphere which connect all living things. At the most basic level, it allows humans to involuntarily perceive each other’s emotions. 

Like everywhere on Terrus, Amnexia has been shaped by this magic perception. The power is known in their language (Amnesk) as kenzin. They consider kenzin to be a kind of ‘social magic,’ albeit one that is imprecise, confusing, and mentally taxing.

At the time of story events in the 1930s, after over a century of isolation from the outside world, Amnexians consider kenzin as something that must be controlled and contained at all costs.

havens

Kenzin begins to develop with the onset of puberty, and age 12 is known as the ‘transitional year.’ Amnexian youth stop interacting freely with their peers, continue their education through individual study, and begin to construct a haven. Havens are private spaces used only by adolescents between the ages of 12 and 20-24. They select, design and decorate their haven on their own, a process which often takes several years, though most don’t stop improving and adding to their haven right up until they leave it, to make a home and/or family of their own.

Havens are passed down within a family, and usually located close (but never attached) to the home. They can be any kind of structure, though the most common are little log or stone huts. Not all havens are man-made; they can also be caves, or abandoned fox dens widened for human use.

A young person’s haven is their own, and no one (not even family) can enter without express permission. The only other person who will spend large amounts of time in someone’s haven is their pledge (best friend/soulmate bonded through compatible magic.) A haven represents the interior of one’s own mind, and as such, is treated with sanctity and respect.

communication & the press

When around other people (non-family members,) kenzin must be actively suppressed. This means holding back one’s own perceptive powers, as well as putting up a mental wall to stop one’s own emotions from being perceived. Resistance is learned, and requires great effort, so Amnexians limit face-to-face interaction with people who aren’t family or their pledge, and rarely gather in groups. Small-talk is an entirely alien concept to them.

This doesn’t mean that communication and the sharing of information/opinions isn’t an essential part of their society. Letter-writing is used for everything from ordering goods, requesting the services of an artisan or doctor, or simply exchanging messages with friends or relatives. The typical adult Amnexian will write 5-10 letters a day, and trained messenger dogs carry all correspondence between households. The only breed used for this task is the Amnexian wolfhound. They have an intimidating appearance but a gentle temperament, reaching 200 pounds in weight and over 3 feet in height at the shoulder. They carry letters in special leather pouches around their necks.

The news cycle is slow, and the average Amnexian newspaper reads more like a literary journal. There are lots of newspapers, most with a tiny subscription radius made up of the contributing writers themselves and their families, though there are a handful which have gained more widespread popularity by the quality of writing or the bravery of their opinions.

economy

Prior to its isolation, Amnexia was known for its fine wool products, metallurgy, and stonework, making it a valued trading partner to its neighbors Hispania and Francia. Iron ore, mined from deep veins in the mountains that surround Amnexia, was transformed by master bladesmiths into swords and daggers of the highest quality. The weaponry reached the naval trade bustling along the Bay of Biscay, and was transported all over western Europa.

When the country closed its borders in the 1830s, under the all-powerful Council of Araztan, the merchants and artisans lost their livelihoods nearly overnight. The Council appointed a bureau of officials to oversee what little trade is necessary for the country’s survival, quietly exporting iron ore to a few trusted individuals in the Outside, in exchange for products Amnexia is unable to produce itself, such as lamp oil and paper.

For the most part, the economy was reduced to subsistence-based farming and livestock herding, with barter and trade among families. They take pride in the resourcefulness and invention that has allowed them to adapt to isolation. They use every part of the animal of their livestock, mostly sheep and fiber goats, which provide wool, milk, and meat. Greenhouse-like structures allow the cultivation of crops that wouldn’t otherwise survive the wet and cold climate.

There is, however, a thriving black market of contraband goods from the Outside. However much the Council tries to suppress it, certain enterprising trade officials have formed a tight network of supply and demand. Members of the Guard who inspect incoming goods at the border points are persuaded to look the other way, allowing a trickle of foreign books, luxury foods (like coffee and chocolate), and even technology to enter the country.

counter-culture & resistance

The Council has good reason to fear the black market. Tiny scraps of the world outside only fuel curiosity and discontentment among those who resent the Council’s control over the borders. The sentiment is most commonly voiced among Amnexia’s youth, though there is a contingent of older people who criticize and question the Council in a few clandestine newspapers written under nom de plumes which are, unsurprisingly, the most widely distributed in the country.

The Council doesn’t respond to nor censor such criticism (at least, not explicitly.) And the fact remains, nothing has ever come of it. There are no public societies or groups that have coalesced to oppose the Council. For the most part, people complain amongst each other, and go about their lives. Most simply accept that the Outside is a dangerous, violent and unpredictable place, and the Council knows best when it says Amnexia must remain hidden, for its own protection.

But there are whispers of secret associations, on the fringes of society, whose opposition to the Council runs deeper. Most people aren’t aware, and those who are say nothing, but if you listen carefully, and keep a keen eye, you’ll catch it.

The country is restless, and with the world outside on the cusp of chaos, it is only a matter of time before the delicate peace within Amnexia begins to crack.

thank you for reading!

If you’ve made it this far, I applaud you, and I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. Likes and especially reblogs would make me so happy, and I’d be overjoyed to hear any feedback, critique or questions about my worldbuilding! On my previous posts, I’ve gotten such fantastic questions that made me think about my world from new angles, and make it better, so thank you to everyone who has asked me stuff and please keep it coming! :) ♥︎

[zoewentthere]

What Your Social Network Posts State Concerning Your Stress Degree Now

Your social networks articles may say much more regarding your tension and also stress and anxiety degrees than you believe. Getty Images The mental wellness of young adults is most affected by the pandemic. Rises in addiction as well as substance use-related web content on social networks might show that the public is self-medicating. Tweets reveal even more negative indications as well as patterns of mental health in states that are extra roughly impacted by COVID-19. All data as well as stats are based upon openly readily available data at the time of publication. Some information may run out date. Visit our coronavirus hub and follow our online updates web page for the most current information on the COVID-19 break out. As stay-in-place orders remain to stay in location, many individuals rely on social networks electrical outlets to get in touch with others and also share their feelings about the pandemic. However can our posts stand for just how we're mentally and also psychologically handling the scenario without us recognizing it? Amit Sheth, PhD, a professor as well as founding director of the Artificial Intelligence Institute at the University of South Carolina, claims yes. Because mid-March, Sheth has actually made use of expert system methods to gather as well as examine over 700 million tweets on Twitter as well as regarding 700,000 newspaper article concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. His intent is to better recognize just how Americans are handling clinical depression, stress and anxiety, as well as addiction triggered by COVID-19. " The main evaluation reveals the expected effect of triggers-- boosted instances and deaths, as well as school and company closings-- that we capture as a Social High Quality Index, which accumulations signs of mental wellness as well as addiction," he informed Healthline. By dissecting the data in various ways, such as by geography, time, as well as demographics, Sheth stated patterns emerge. For instance, various generations reveal various responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. He utilized formulas to approximate age as well as classify into 3 age varieties: GenZ: Under 23 years old Millennials: 23 to 35 years old Other: Any individual older than 35 While teens as well as young functioning adults are experiencing the very same objective dangers, Sheth said they analyze as well as reply to them in a different way. " Young working grownups exposed a consistent initial unfavorable reaction that had a tendency to support with time. Aggregated steps of mental health can mask underlying concerning patterns, especially in teens. They may not explicitly show enhanced anxiousness and also anxiety material initially, however rather, compensate with substance abuse. Though maladaptive, this pattern may recommend an absence of self-awareness," he claimed. Carol Landau, PhD, professor of psychiatry at Brown University and also writer of" State of mind Prep 101: A Parent's Guide to Preventing Clinical Depression as well as Anxiousness in College-Bound Teens," stated rates of anxiety as well as stress and anxiety have actually been climbing in teens given that before the pandemic. While young adults have actually maintained some life framework while functioning from house, Landau states teenagers have been separated from their buddies, which is a major incentive for going to school. " Teens commonly rely on materials; it may not be a lack of 'self-awareness' even a lack of access to care," Landau informed Healthline. Tweets point to self-medicating Sheth's analysis showed rises in addiction as well as compound use-related material, which suggests that the general public may be self-medicating. " This suggests a future boosted requirement for therapy, against an uneasy lack of therapy resources prior to the break out. The rise basically abuse material that we see in social media likewise expects a boost in domestic physical violence, which is, in fact, being reported in some authorities districts as well as domestic physical violence hotlines," he claimed. " This is precisely the kind of warning that we intend to provide -responders so that they can anticipate as opposed to just respond to surge," Sheth added. Landau agreed that the pandemic has exposed barriers to psychological medical care. She claimed it's likewise revealed that unemployment and poverty are obstacles to obtaining aid. " Seclusion is one variable that makes intimate partner violence [IPV] worse, so this kind of serious isolation might make it a lot, a lot even worse for targets to obtain assistance. As well as a lot more children are being exposed to IPV as they are home with their families," she stated. Posts vary from one state to another While mental wellness has actually intensified across the country because of the influence of COVID-19, Sheth claimed the response isn't uniform. His evaluation reveals extra negative signs as well as patterns for states that are much more harshly affected by COVID-19. Nevertheless, he said it's more helpful to observe an adjustment gradually within a state instead of outright values. " For instance, in Michigan, mental health and wellness among the more youthful populace went from modest to disconcerting in the weeks of March into April. Amongst functioning adults, we observed intensifying in terms of indicators for mental health," he said. He even more explained that depression-related material in Michigan became a lot more prevalent, which highlights the monetary effect on companies, government response, and recorded scarcities in clinical products, such as ventilators, medicines (e.g., chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine), as well as individual protective tools (PPE) for doctor. Sheth noted considerable connection in between social media posts and psychological health and wellness issues in Wyoming, Alaska, Washington, and Idaho. Searchings for from other states consist of: Arizona: Younger populace preserved far better mental health and wellness problems contrasted to the adult working population. Georgia: The young populace has largely continued to be susceptible as well as very influenced in their psychological wellness, while the older functioning population improved gradually. Iowa: Grown-up population boosted their mental health and wellness conditions over time, while the younger population intensified. Wisconsin: Functioning population showed a significant decline in mental health signs while the young populace wore away extra significantly. " The reasons for these differences are not yet well comprehended. Some of it is circumstantial. A few of it might be market. Some of it might be related to differential access to psychological health and wellness treatment," Sheth said. The reality that youngsters are having a tough time in many states except Arizona may have something to do with sunlight, Landau claimed. " Talking as an individual living in the Northeast, I recognize my mood is significantly boosted when I can obtain outside and also get physical activity, a recognized barrier to anxiety. In Arizona, youths have the moment as well as capacity to do this," she claimed. Which posts are indicators that someone is having a hard time? Sheth utilizes a tool called an understanding graph to link the language people utilize with appropriate medical expertise in mental health and wellness and also dependency. This enables him to filter different methods a user can discuss mental health and wellness ideas, typically in an indirect means. Instances of tweets may include: " All the important things are being shut down by #Covid 19 yet my stress and anxiety & anxiety." " You think I have any enjoyment in this mayhem? Jeez. I have actually been despairing for 2 months." " A feeling of despondence. Seems I am in a dark age. #coronavirus #COVID 19". " Self-isolated for 2 weeks as well as depression coming to be intolerable. This coronavirus is aggravating my anxiousness a lot and also I am frightened.". Landau stated other articles and also tweets which contain words or expressions like the adhering to may be an indicator of psychological health and wellness concerns:. worry. paralysis. tired. ' why trouble?'. She kept in mind that teens may be less direct as well as make use of expressions like:. I simply can not focus. I am bored. This draws. I'm angry. While wit might play a part in social networks articles, Sheth claimed it can be testing to figure out if the messages suggest psychological health and wellness problems, especially if they look like paradox or mockery. Exactly how social media messages can affect results. Sheth stated examining social networks messages produces the chance to check out how the general public reacts to actual experience, such as infection prices as well as institution as well as company closures, versus messaging from federal government companies as well as news outlets concerning these scenarios. " Understanding about public actions as well as its repercussions prior to they in fact appear has excellent advantage to regulate as well as mitigation efforts, with wide-ranging applications to natural as well as synthetic disasters. In addition, it's extremely difficult to conduct surveys in real-time, and also based on artefacts," he stated. For instance, he noted that telephone-based meetings have revealed to be undependable in regards to elections. " Social network analysis supported by modern technologies that recognize the casual language, spatial, temporal, and also demographic segmentation, is most likely to be the best option of specific benefit in very dynamic occasions," Sheth stated. However, Landau explained that a downside to examining social networks is it does not have context and also nonverbal hints. " If somebody on social networks messages, 'This draws' or 'I can't stand this,' it's tough to understand exactly how they're really feeling. If you were together, you could see their nonverbal interaction. You could see if they are worried or crying," she stated. If you read a concerning message from a person you appreciate as well as recognize they have actually had problem with mental disorder in the past, Landau stated it's a great idea to connect to them. " Go offline and text them," she said. "Be straight as well as say, 'I'm checking in on people. Just how are you doing?'". Cathy Cassata is an independent author who focuses on tales regarding health and wellness, mental wellness, and human habits. She has a flair for writing with emotion as well as getting in touch with visitors in an insightful as well as appealing method. Find out more of her work right here.

[hypnoticharlequin]

Hypnotist Posters (Again!)

I’ve done this once before, but there are so many interesting old hypnotist posters around I couldn’t resist showing off some more I’ve come across.

I covered the Flints in my previous post but I wanted to show this one off. I actually unironically love this poster as it reminds me of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s works due to the floral pattern and the lush skin tone used on Miss Flint. 

What I have found out since the last installment was that Miss Flint was heavily advertised as a solo performer, getting her own posters and other things. According to one source I found, she was famed for her dress collection and women would attend her shows, just to see what dress she was wearing that night!

Also, she had the cutest nickname a hypnotist has ever had. Seriously, “The Little Hypnotic Subeam” is just fantastic and would actually make her stand out amongst her contemporaries who went for much more formal and authoritarian titles.

I think this poster is from the 1890s. At least that is the date I see linked to this poster when it is mentioned and the art style sort of fits that date.

Obviously, the first thing that draws your attention is Kennedy and his pose. Where a lot of hypnotists went for a more intimidating or solid pose, Kennedy seems rather fancy-free.

Also, it’s nice to see the moon from Majora’s Mask getting work. This was one of it’s earlier appearances while it was still young and fresh faced. The people on the moon are pretty cute, I like the woman in the middle, I mean it takes a lot of effort to be having so much fun you almost fall off the moon. This poster seems to fit in with a tradition that saw magicians hanging out with various magical beings on their posters. Seriously, the sheer number of posters that feature magicians just chilling with Satan is pretty mind blowing.

If I could sum this poster up in one sound, it would be never ending screams. 

Now, I can’t find much about “The Amazing Ormond” but I do wonder if this is Ormond McGill, better known as Dr. Zomb. He wrote the book “Encyclopedia of Genuine Stage Hypnotism” which is still considered to be the bible of stage hypnosis. 

This poster is honestly terrifying. I’m not sure if it’s partially due to the reproduction, old paper stock with a black background is notorious for its inability to scan well. But the black eyes mixed with the uplighting give this a seriously creepy vibe, Ormond’s face having an almost uncanny valley look to it.  

But, I can’t deny it worked, I’m not able to go through my folder of hypnosis posters without this one catching my eye. In fact, one of the main reasons I am writing this post is so I can delete this image from my hard drive. 

I don’t know why, but this poster reminds me of a perfume ad. I’m not sure if it’s the color palette or Miss Brandon’s slightly wistful look. 

Joan Brandon is pretty famous in magic circles for being the first televised female magician. She was famous for combing her magic with orchestra music (played by her own orchestra) and was very well known for her signature trick, a magic cocktail bar (a variation on the Think-A-Drink trick.) 

In hypnosis circles, she is most known for her books, The Art of Hypnotism, Successful Hypnotism, The Science of Self-Hypnosis and Help Yourself Thru Hypnotism and Self Hypnosis which are all still good reads even to this day. 

The Art Of Hypnotism is also known for its rather amusing photographic illustrations. It’s easy to find online but quite often turns up for a few dollars on eBay or in second-hand bookstores and I thoroughly recommend it. 

This poster is one of those I see around a lot and only recently bothered to look into the history of. It’s from 1966 and I always thought it was from later on. This poster looks just so very 60s I really had it down as a later parody of the style as opposed to actually just being of that era. 

It actually took me a long time to find out even the most basic things about this guy but Merlin (real name William Joseph Rawle) was from Australia and was Australia’s oldest performing hypnotist.

I want to zoom into the text under Merlin for a moment, as it is rather glorious. 

It really is a throwback to older posters to have a description of the acts performed front and center, but compared to some of the older hypnosis posters (which promised utterly insane things) this seems rather restrained. In fact, these are now considered stock hypnotist tricks.  

What makes me chuckle is the onion eating trick. It’s done all the time but it always interests me to see which fruit is used as the replacement taste. In the UK it always tended to be an apple, and I’ve seen orange used a bit in the US. I wonder if you could do a chart of “onion taste replacement fruits” arranged by geography. 

Being the oldest performing hypnotist, Merlin has several other posters over the years. 

This one focuses more on his mind reading as opposed to his hypnotism, but I utterly love the design. It has this almost 3D effect which makes it look like the poster has a few actual physical layers, but I do suspect it might be the issue with scanning black ink rearing it’s ugly head once more.  

While the last one was pretty joyous this one is practically metal, with its skulls and very industrial images in the crystal ball.

 This poster seems very old school compared to the other two, mostly due to how text-heavy it is. But unlike some posters, the claims all seem pretty normal by today’s standards. The only one that sticks out to me is the one about treating children for nervous complaints while they sleep. All the methods I have seen for this involve just standing and whispering to your child while they sleep because nothing helps the nerves more than an adult looming over your bed whispering at you in the deepest, darkest night. 

Virgil and Julie were a big magic act in the 1950s and 1960s taking shows containing a few hundred illusions around the world. 

Hypnotism played a part but it was nowhere near the focus of the show, but this poster is something to behold, it really is a mish-mash of everything that was hip in the era. The B-movie Esq UFO and the almost eerie-cutie spacewoman flying around it. 

Julie’s costume is very similar to that of the Jeannie from the Tv series I Dream Of Jeannie which debuted in 1965 and went a long way to putting the “harem” costume we know today into the public consciousness.

I want to end on this poster which became quite the rabbit hole for me and I’m frankly not 100% sure I’m correct on all of it. 

I had a real good laugh when I saw the Reveer because he looks like every stereotype of a magician and hero cowboy got thrown into a blender. The turban and the Lone Ranger mask just look so silly together. 

I also found it funny that his name was close to that of Reveen, the hypnotist famous for his performances in Canada who would have been performing at around this time.

Then I got to digging and found I could find hardly anything on Reveer, apart from some poster seller listing him as Tony Cole, a magician who apparently worked sharpshooting into his magic act which does explain the Lone Ranger mask.

Tony Cole also apparently had posters of his own, but all I can find of them is the following: 

And no, Tumblr isn’t going weird, that is the only image I can find of one of his posters. I did, however, turn up a news article on him from 1977 from “The Independent Record from Helena, Montana” advertising a show he was going to do. 

As you can see the resembelence is there so I presume this is the same guy.

As an aside, you might realize this picture is totally and utterly unreadable. The place I found it had the plain text of the article, unfortunately, it was made by OCR copying the document and the results are an utter mess.

Some highlights include: 

To be able to make someone do what another person desires carl brln^a gleam .into the eyes of ambitious people. 

This impression oF hypnotism's power is one of the mast fallacious and dangerous, according to Cole, who when pressed will admit bis lull name is Tony Colo, a hypnotist, magician ami entertainer.

In between all the weird OCR errors, we can see a recurring theme that Tony Cole doesn’t like to use his first name, which means he is the Cole from the latter poster and would explain why he would make a stage character.

M PEOPLE L'NDEH HYPNOSIS won t do anything they wouldn't do normally, " ttie Canadian-born entertainer said In an Interview In Helena. 

Cole recalled ihnl a Groat Falls A A W manager had been hypnotized and was told he was Elvis Presley. The man began gyrating and singing, dulng spills and performing in the late-lfloOs style (bat endeared Presley lo the teen set. Cole said. He added that the shy A & W manager would not normally rarry 1 don't think a person has to put someone in an embarrassing situation or use anything smutty or not in clean family fun in order to entertain. 

I’m sure we can all agree that Elvis’ late-LfloOs style was by far his best style and one that really became his signature. And all of the teen girls were into Elvis for his pet bat. 

He tries, to Tony Cole, a hypnotist, magician and all-around entertainer correct any misconceptions about hypnotism, anri he hypnotizes willing members of the audience. 

He tries to himself? Is that some artsy way of saying he tries to be himself?

On his stage, people might shiver In Ihc arctic temperatures he has described or away In Lhc breeze like palm trees. 

And his chauffeur and helper, Wayne Adolph, emphatically added In his gravelly voice. "It's real."

I don’t know why that bit made me laugh so hard, but it really did. I’m not sure if it’s the fact the guy is called his “helper” or just the fact he decided to just randomly join the interview. 

MORE AND MORE PEOPLE are believing in Ihr authenticity of hypnosis, contends Cole, who has certificates from at least three schools of hypnotism and who has been licensed to leach hypnotism Physicians, dentists, psychiatrists, pollliuUnH, ministers, entertainers, teachers, lawyers, salesmen, atnletes and pilots are among those, who are studying or using hypnosis, Cole said. 

Some beneficial uses for which hypnosis Is being sLudled include easing childbirth, treating alcoholism, slopping smokers from Indulging and treating empbysemn and asthma victims to breathe properly. 

All of these arc medical uses or hypnosis and "the practitioner must by certified as a hypnolechuician and receive a doctor's prescribed order before he hypnotizes someone. Cole said. 

Yes, everyone remember to become certified as a hypnolechuician, that is a very important qualification to have. 

But ask him about himself and the answers dissolve in shrugs and evasiveness. He doesn't like to use his first name. 

Again, some more information that works with the idea that Cole had a few side characters he played sometimes. 

 He makes good money at hypnotism and his oilier entertainments as he travels across the country and into Canada. 

However, I do not wish to see Mr. Cole’s oilier entertainments.

"I know I have a talent but that talent should he scared. ]f pc0pte |,ave a latent and don't share it they re ripping it elf." 

And your guess is as good as mine on this last one. 

So there we have it, The Great Reveer, hypnotist and fiction all rolled into one oddly costumed package. I wish I could find more on this as there seems to be an interesting story in here, but unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any records I can find.

However, if this taught us anything, it’s that if I get bored of hypnosis, I can just turn this into a bad OCR blog. 

[redbootsthetimetraveller-archive]

Bea and I, With the Beatles Fanfiction Chapter 2

Same disclaimer as on the previous chapter.

About ten minutes later, this extraordinarily loud fart came from the back of the hall, halfway through the speech, and magnified because of the eerie quietness. It took two seconds for the entire hall to be laughing their socks off. There were even teachers trying to not die from not laughing up the front. The principal, though, was going a shade of purple with anger and embarrassment.

‘RIGHT! WHO WAS THAT?’ he yelled at the top of his voice, still going purple. The room fell dead silent, and I hid my book in case I was caught with it. Everyone was tense, and there was an air that we would be kept until someone owned up, and the person would not. But alas, a hand was held up, right at the back, and they immediately had every pair of eyes in the room upon them. ‘Jasper Kitchen. My office, at morning tea.’ Principal Summers snapped, and turned on his heel and walked back to the front. It seemed like every student wanted to burst into applause at that moment, but didn’t want trouble. Principal Summers went back to his dreary monologue.

‘He’s not in our year, is he?’ Paul whispered to me.

‘No, I think he’s a few grades below us or something. He’s no older than Arthur.’ I replied, also in whisper. Principal Summers finished his speech, and had still not turned back to a natural colour. A few announcements were made, and we were dismissed for first class. For Bea, Paul and I this was Geography, and for Ringo and John Mathematics, and George had English. We bid each other farewell until morning tea, and headed to different parts of the school. Rather than having Mr Putnam, we had a substitute called Miss Russel. She clearly didn’t know much more than us about it, and looking at her we could tell she was probably a sports teacher. She read out the roll and had trouble with my surname.

‘von Harreson… no that’s not right. Elizabeth von Ha…?’

‘It’s von Harrelson, Miss.’ I corrected her.

‘Rightcha.’ She said, and continued on with the roll. I began drawing in my book.

‘She might see that. She’s gonna be more observant than Mr Putnam.’ Bea said to me quietly, as she sat to the right of me. We had worked out how to write without bumping into each other; right-handed on the right, left on the left. And then switch hands when the teacher is looking, because if I don’t I’ll get the cane. Unfortunately, as I was pretending to write notes I didn’t notice that Miss Russel had turned around.

‘Miss von Harrelson, come up to the front please.’ She said while turning a page over. The room took a breath at that moment, and I paused before standing up and walking from the mid-back of the room to the teacher’s desk at the front. ‘Hold out your hand.’ I instinctively held out my right. ‘No not that one, the one you were using.’ She said, sounding slightly flustered. I did, and she hit me hard with the cane eight times. Eight has always been my unlucky number. I tried not to swear lest I get more caning.

‘Fuck she’s got a strong arm.’ I said quietly to Bea. ‘If she sees my handwriting she’d not be able to read it.’

‘Which hand?’

‘Either, they’re both illegible.’ I said slightly smirking. Class went on another long, boring fifteen minutes, and then we were released from that hell of a class. I grabbed out my morning tea of chocolate brownie, hiding my prized treat. It was the first thing I didn’t burn or undercook, which is why I don’t cook, but we needed morning tea this week and Amy was working. I put my coat on, and braved the cold with the gang.

‘Paul here says you got caned!’ Ringo said. ‘What for?’

‘Got caught writing.’ I replied.

‘I getcha. Bloody annoying, isn’t it? You two can’t help it.’ he said.

‘Hm.’ I replied, and tried to unwrap my brownie with my frozen fingers.

‘Hey, lemme help you with that.’ Paul said.

‘Err… thanks.’ I said, hoping he wouldn’t try and steal it.

‘Ah, lucky you!’ he said with a wink, handing it to me.

‘What’s she got?’ George asked. ‘Is that BROWNIE?!’ he exclaimed. George loves his food.

‘You’ve got brownie? You gotta share, man!’ John said.

‘No! My food!’ I said, trying to be serious, but failing and we all ended up wandering around the school. We were nearing the football pitch, and a few hardy souls were trying to have a match amongst the snowdrifts. Suddenly, one of them didn’t quite stop the ball and it came rolling towards us. I stopped it, and kicked it. It went quite far, but the goalie hadn’t really been paying attention and so didn’t realise until it was fractionally too late that the ball was actually going to go into the net. It hit the back net and bounced out again, and several people cheered, and I high-fived everyone. It was time to go back inside again, and the heaters barely heated the rooms, but we weren’t allowed to wear our coats. Bea and I had Sewing, my definitely least, and worst, subject. I would try and fix my gloves in this class, it wasn’t like I was going to finish the handkerchief set we’d been assigned to do anyway. That half hour dragged on for way too long, but it got slightly better because next we had English with Mr Wright, whose profession used to be an author until the war, but now he just settles on teaching English and making bad puns. His classes were always quite enjoyable, as the first twenty minutes were always reading, and the next forty minutes were usually interesting. He’s one of the more popular teachers. The next hour long class was Civics, which could be interesting but was generally boring. Once again, Paul was in our class for this. It was one of the ‘mildly interesting but boring’ lessons. As soon as we were released for lunch, we sprinted as fast as we could to put our stuff back and get in the queue for lunch. Fortunately, Paul, Bea and I got into line rather quickly, and got the measly ration of four fish fingers, fried bread, some chips and a bottle of orange juice, a rare luxury. We sat at our usual canteen table, waiting for the rest of the gang. George got in not too long after we sat down, and came to sit with us, but in silence as he was already eating. Ringo and John came rushing in two minutes later, and as they came over to sit down, Jasper Kitchen walked in, to immediate applause. John even went and patted him on the back. Turns out, he only got off with twenty cane lashes and extra homework for a week.

‘That’s not too bad for what he did, lucky bastard.’ John said as he sat down. ‘What’ve you got next?’

‘Well, it’s German for us, and then we all have Music until the end of the day.’ Bea said. ‘And I think George has Sport, and you?’

‘Well, I’ve got a free lesson, and I’m buggering off somewhere.’ John said. ‘But poor Ringo here has Science with Mr Gibbs!’ Mr Gibbs was this grumpy old shit of a teacher who was only still teaching because Principal Summers doesn’t want to lose his twin, or so the joke goes. We managed to get through our lessons, trying to work out how to swear in French (we’d already worked out German), or trying to work out how to get out of the class. One thirty came around, so Bea, Paul and I started running to Music, which is one of the only classes we ran to. Not many people were in the class, so the classes comprised of two grades. There was Bea, Paul, Ringo, George (who got special permission to join us, there weren’t enough in his grade), John and I, as well as Cyril Acker, in John and Ringo’s grade with Terry Garfield. In our year there was Belle Seward, Errol Hawkins, Graham Carpenter and Derrick Streets. Then the teacher, by far the best teacher in my opinion, and I guess the gang’s, and probably was the most qualified, Mr Eldridge. The class was in the new ‘Arts Wing’, which was much better than the shitty 1920’s classrooms of the ‘Academics Wing’ or the post-war slap-dash updating of the gym, and was actually not crap. Basically what happens in that class is we bugger around, doing stupid little songs and practicing for a gig or something, because we (I say we, because we sometimes go on stage with the boys and we’ve gone on one tour with them, over in Blackpool) were a band called the Silvers. It’s not the best name but it works.

‘So, what’s the lineup for Saturday?’ I asked, fiddling with my flute. The Silvers had scored a gig at the Cavern Club on my birthday.

‘So there’s a few songs…’ John showed me the list, as he was the band leader. He just was.

‘That’s not going to cover a night’s worth! You’ve gotta play for four hours!’ I exclaimed.

‘There’s one song we haven’t shown…’ Ringo started, but was glared at by George.

‘Y’know, if you’re short of songs, we could write some!’ Bea suggested.

‘That’s not a bad idea! Paul and I have already written some, so we’ve had experience, and you’re good at poetry, Lizzy, so it won’t be too much of a stretch for you, but I dunno about you guys though, just have a crack.’ John said, sounding slightly excited. ‘Use your books and rip it out later.’

We all sat with half the school’s guitars, three of them, and Ringo grabbed out his sticks, Paul tried to claim the piano but didn’t quite get it as Cyril Acker pushed him out of the way. John immediately began strumming away, George was experimenting with riffs and Paul began writing away. Bea also began busily scribbling. I put my pen to the paper, and soon started writing.

Some days, I hope to be far away.

Not right here or near, not today

If I stay here my mind might fray,

How I long not to stay.

‘That’s shit.’ I said to myself.

[actutrends]

How RISC-V is creating a globally neutral, open source processor architecture

Arm dominates the microprocessor architecture business, as its licensees have shipped 150 billion chips to date and are shipping 50 billion more in the next two years. But RISC-V is challenging that business with an open source ecosystem of its own, based on a new kind of processor architecture that was created by academics and is royalty free.

This month, 2,000 engineers attended the second annual RISC-V Summit in San Jose, California. The leaders of the effort, including nonprofit RISC-V Foundation CEO Calista Redmond, said they see billions of cores shipping in the future.

RISC-V started in 2010 at the University of California at Berkeley Par Lab Project, which needed an instruction set architecture that was simple, efficient, and extensible and had no constraints on sharing with others. Krste Asanovic (a founder of SiFive), Andrew Waterman, Yunsup Lee, and David Patterson created RISC-V and built their first chip in 2011. In 2014, they announced the project and gave it to the community.

RISC-V enables members to design processors and other chips that are compatible with software designed for the architecture, and it means licensees won’t have to pay a royalty to Arm. RISC-V is politically neutral, as it’s moving its base to Switzerland. That caught the attention of executives, including Infineon CEO Reinhard Ploss, according to RISC-V board member Patterson. With RISC-V, Chinese companies wouldn’t have to depend on Western technology, which became an issue when the U.S. imposed tariffs and Arm had to determine whether it could license U.S. technology to Huawei.

Perhaps because of this, RISC-V activity is picking up around the globe. Redmond said in an interview with VentureBeat that RISC-V is creating a technological revolution.  It’s not clear how many RISC-V startups there are, but the group counts more than 100 member companies with fewer than 500 employees.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

Above: Calista Redmond is CEO of the RISC-V Foundation.

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi

VentureBeat: There was a little bit of comment about the burst of people in China that are interested [in RISC-V], partly because of what Huawei is doing.

Calista Redmond: I haven’t seen a burst of people in China. I’m not sure if someone else saw something I didn’t, but the membership has grown steadily at a global level … If you look at our line graph, it’s continuous. We didn’t see a spike at any particular point.

VentureBeat: The representation in China, what would you say about that? Where is it relative to the whole world?

Redmond: In terms of global members, we have [fewer] than 50. I don’t remember the exact number off the top of my head. It’s somewhere between 30 and 50. China has two groups of interested organizations that have 200 members. Some of those are also members of the global foundation, and some are just members of two RISC-V groups that have self-assembled in China. There’s CRVIC and CRVA. One is focused more on academic interests and one is focused more on industry interests. We collaborate with both of those groups on activities of global interest in China.

VentureBeat: There are all these different things that are appealing. Is it zero license fees, or … ?

Redmond: There’s no license fee. When you get to open source and you’re looking at the ISA spec, that’s open and freely available. You do need to be a member of the foundation to leverage the trademark, but everything is publicly available. There’s no license fee. A license fee would indicate a commercial relationship, and we’re a nonprofit foundation. We don’t have commercial relationships. The way that we generate revenue is through membership fees, which are not attributed in a royalty or license structure, like you would with traditional proprietary ISAs.

VentureBeat: Is this territory-free designation — it’s appealing to those who might face some kind of political border?

Redmond: When you open-source something, it’s globally open and available. That IP is not governed by a geographic jurisdiction. That’s how all open source works. That’s how global open standards have worked for 100 years.

Above: The expo floor at the RISC-V Summit. It’s small for now.

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi

VentureBeat: This is a key difference between you and Arm, though. Someone might not choose Arm because of this distinction.

Redmond: Arm also has some open IP. So does Intel. So does Power. From a base building block, RISC-V does not have any other tangential requirements to it that you might find in other models. At its base, there are two areas that you make decisions in. One, technically, am I going to be able to accomplish what I need to for the workload I need to serve? Two, does the business model fit for my incredible investment and long-term strategic durability? It’s both of those pieces. More and more, technology decisions — you have lots of choice. It comes down to a business reason.

VentureBeat: David Patterson said the CEO of Infineon was interested, because you were moving the headquarters to Switzerland?

Redmond: We’ve had remarks made from different companies, different geographies, that indicate to us that they would be more open to investing in RISC-V if they felt that that gave them some level of comfort. The incorporation in Delaware as it is today — first of all, none of us lives in Delaware. Moving it from Delaware to Switzerland has no fundamental difference. We are not circumventing any regulations. We are not an insurance policy. We are fundamentally doing it because it calms some of the concerns that we have seen in the greater community.

VentureBeat: There’s a perception when you’re a U.S. nonprofit, as opposed to a neutral nonprofit.

Redmond: Could regulations change? Who knows, in the future? But they haven’t changed in decades of open source software development. I don’t think they’re going to change in hardware.

VentureBeat: The numbers of chips — are you going to start counting how much progress you’re making every year?

Redmond: The counts that have been surfacing and the reports that you’ve seen have been on cores, not on chips. RISC-V is more focused on cores, just as an equalizer in what we can count versus chips, because a chip may have two cores or it may have 30 cores. Now, Chips Alliance or another group may be more interested in chips, but then they probably need to delineate between different kinds — multi-threaded, whatever.

Above: RISC-V board members, (left to right): Krste Asanovic, Zvonimir Bandic, Ted Speers, Calista Redmond, Frans Sijstermans, and Rob Oshana.

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi

VentureBeat: Is there a long run there that matters? You’re not a measurable percentage of Arm’s shipments, right?

Redmond: I don’t think we’re competing head to head with Arm or Intel or Power or anything in that way. I get what you’re looking at. We’re sort of — the sweet spot for RISC-V is starting in this space where there isn’t a current entrenched participant. Arm came in on mobile when there was no clear leader in that space. Intel survived and dominated in servers and desktops amongst many competitors.

I don’t think that there is a declared winner yet in embedded or in some of the new IoT spaces, or AI. That’s where I think you’re going to see the most adoption of RISC-V initially. Then you’ll see an additional rise after that where RISC-V may be looked at in the next generations of some of those architectures that had previously been there. But most companies don’t like to rip and replace prior investments.

VentureBeat: The Samsung talk seemed interesting, where they’re not going to replace old things, but they’re adding this in.

Redmond: They’re focused on the next generation. You heard them talk a lot about 5G. Modems, sensors, automotive. That’s just it, right? You’re seeing a lot of these companies start to diversify into the adjacent spaces of their core businesses. In those adjacent spaces, that’s exactly the point I was getting to earlier. That’s how you’re starting to see the advances that RISC-V is making, in those new spaces.

VentureBeat: I guess that’s how you gain market share. You’re not replacing things, but as the new things you’re in take off, they become a bigger part of the market.

Redmond: And where do you think the fastest growth rates are? Old spaces or new spaces? Probably those new spaces have attractive growth rates. Not always, but often.

Above: RISC-V co-creator Krste Asanovic at the RISC-V Summit.

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi

VentureBeat: Do you then have to do anything to prioritize that particular space?

Redmond: It’s an interesting question. From our start, we started working on the base building blocks. Here’s your core, your basic ISA. Here are these extensions that you can pick and choose off the menu, what you’d like to include. Then, as we’ve matured as an organization, we’re starting to go up from that into software. As we get into software, we need to prioritize implementation stacks so that you have a single homogenous kind of perspective on that, from which of course you can diverge at any point in the path, but here’s our recommended path to take a fully open approach. Those implementations could be in embedded. They could be in mobile. They could be some of the scale-out HPC-type of realm. But we are starting to look at that — more so, as we look into the software side, as we look deeply at the extensions.

VentureBeat: As far as people taking RISC-V seriously, what would you point to as the milestones that are getting you into more conversations or into more doors?

Redmond: Nvidia is already including it as part of their core product.

VentureBeat: They came on board in 2016?

Redmond: I don’t remember the exact date, but it’s definitely out there. They’re up to millions of cores at this point. Western Digital, a billion cores. The trajectory, as more large organizations come on board, as well as the startups start to make progress — the level of investment in startups is continuing to grow. The VC spend on RISC-V is starting to grow. You see some of those early successes with the likes of SiFive.

VentureBeat: Is that something you’ve figured out yet, how many startups are going?

Redmond: No, but we have about 100 companies that [have fewer] than 500 people in the organization today. I talk to new startups constantly. I would wager that a strong percentage — I don’t know what that percentage would be — of our individual members are also looking at RISC-V as an area to do a startup business.

Above: The keynote crowd at the RISC-V Summit.

Image Credit: Dean Takahashi

VentureBeat: It’s probably true, then, that a large percentage of chip design startups are going to be RISC-V? Or at least processor designs?

Redmond: It’s difficult to start on a different architecture. There are higher barriers to entry if you want to go Arm or Intel or something else. We’re really equalizing there.

VentureBeat: Because you’re going into established markets?

Redmond: No. We bring an established and growing community and ecosystem and partners and tools and resources and reference designs and cores and extensions. We have all of those pieces that give you a running start as an entrepreneur without the burden of licensing royalties or other commitments to your business. It is a much easier business and technical decision to make.

VentureBeat: I detect a certain nervousness at Arm, even though both sides are saying that they’re not directly competing with each other. It’s the way Intel used to talk about the x86 startups.

Redmond: It’s like we’re all at the same dance. The music has changed a little bit, and now we’re trying to figure out how we all move in that space. It’s an interesting dynamic. There are adjustments going on across companies. You see it at Intel, at Arm, at Power. RISC-V is just the latest to show up at the party, and we’ve come at it with a completely different approach.

VentureBeat: This other thing about momentum — if you cause the other guys to change in some way, you’re having an impact in the market. If Arm starts doing these custom instructions because you guys provide an alternative, that’s a change in the market.

Redmond: Another interesting perspective is, where do you see different architectures all in the same chip? It’s possible for Arm and RISC-V to coexist. How do you navigate that frontier? That was really interesting with the OmniXtend fabric from Western Digital. Do you want to share memory, share network, share storage? Here’s how we can do this across multiple architectures.

What RISC-V has brought to the game is you’re no longer locked into one architecture choice. Which also means you’re not locked into one vendor. That vendor lock-in is something the industry has been concerned about for decades.

Above: SiFive is making licensable RISC-V CPUs.

Image Credit: SiFive

VentureBeat: They made that strong statement about how memory doesn’t need to be tied to a processor.

Redmond: Right. Look at what happened in the software space. It was that lock-in that really gave a significant nudge to the open source movement in the first place.

VentureBeat: I remember the days when Microsoft was going around the world getting Windows declared the operating system of entire countries.

Redmond: Right, right. It’s interesting to see how they as an organization have shifted as well. They’ve started to embrace — business models need to evolve. You look back at the Industrial Revolution. At some point we thought coal trains were the greatest, but eventually we got to airplanes. It’s the same in our space.

The post How RISC-V is creating a globally neutral, open source processor architecture appeared first on Actu Trends.

[reviewzone05-blog]

Outdoor camping 101: What You Should Know

Only a few things will surpass acquiring out and under the vibrant superstars with all the folks you cherish. Camping out is amongst The Lost Ways Review , as well as for a good reason. Although there are a lot of positives related to outdoor camping, you do need to prepare yourself. The next advice will help you be better ready for moving camping. Choose a variety of slumbering travelling bag that happens to be ideal for the time of year. By getting a winter resting case during the summer time you could possibly end up perspiration as an alternative to slumbering. The turn back can also be accurate. Using a light-weight, cool getting to sleep bag in the middle of wintertime can keep you really frosty. You would probably in fact be taking a chance on your safety and health. Don't be scared to over-pack for your children. Camping out can be quite filthy. Virtually every little one will want to play from the debris or dirt, continuously. So, you could be working with grimy little ones the whole day. Even though this cannot usually be averted, make sure to load a little extra apparel. Always prepare! Planning can make your camping outdoors journey simple and easy , soothing. Only go camping outdoors once you are completely equipped. If you go someplace new, investigation animals and look into the conditions and geography.

If you are intending camping outdoors, make sure you use a first aid kit. According to the spot, the system could have extra things, however the basic things must be there. For instance, should you be camping out within an place that could have poison ivy, be sure to load up hydro-cortisone. Take a deluxe item with you when camping out. Take along some thing light in weight and easy to carry, like a bit of lotion for your personal coffee or perhaps a candies bar. These things could make your vacation as pleasant as you can. Not merely are oranges an excellent snack food for outdoor camping, in addition they function as a organic mosquito repellant. Help save each of the orange peels. Before mosquitoes invasion, massage them on exposed epidermis. Ensure you setup camp out just before nighttime arrives about. This implies a safe and secure car parking location for RV travelers. When you find a camping outdoors area, be sure that your tent is pitched on a smooth location that isn't near any unsafe ledges. If you do it before nighttime, it is actually simpler to get familiar with the region. It will enable prevent the disappointment of not being able to see whilst establishing your products. Duct tape is important-have when you are camping as it can be used for various issues. It may help you if something comes about along with your tent receives split by some means. It is possible to resolve spills on blow up beds, tape up footwear, seal up any bug netting, and a lot more. Youngsters enjoy to camping, but be sure to prepare routines on their behalf. Boredom can be something that you will want to prevent without exceptions although camping outdoors. They have most likely never fished or create camping tents. Make them learn how you can execute these works prior to deciding to lay out to camp. As you may prepare your camping out adventure, get kids aside and talk about frequent risks and issues they could come across. Go The Lost Ways Reviews with each other and read about security, look at poison ivy photos and poisonous animals. While the idea of outdoor camping consists of getting away from all of it, you still should be ready with many standard things. Take added covers as well as your slumbering travelling bag. They will provide you with extra warmth, should the temps plummet, in addition to offer you extra shock reduction. Be sure to have everything you need for the camping journey. When you forget about several things, your vacation might just get destroyed. The roll-out of a long list of all the things required and utilize of this collection when packing will likely be valuable. Make certain you take a great deal of water, cutlery, soaps and foods on the camping getaway for protection. Always pick an appropriate resting bag for the weather conditions. Light sleeping hand bags often are more effective in warmer conditions and heavyweight getting to sleep hand bags tend to work better in cooler climate. You might even look at a body embracing one particular because it can help you retain your body temperature. Work with an orange to assist protect against bug bites. Don't worry if the insect repellant was left out about the cooking area counter-top. Specialists recommend rubbing the interior peel of any ripe orange on the exposed components of the body. This will help in order to avoid pests. Always be The Lost Ways with where your camp out is situated. You wish to stay away from such things as wasp's home, ant hills and stuff of that particular nature. Whenever you are near quite a lot of crops, safety clothing layers are key to prevent pest bites. It may be smart to take together bug apply too. As we discussed, getting ready for an excellent trip to the great outdoors will take meticulous planning and consideration. Make sure to begin using these suggestions to love a sage and exciting camping outdoors journey with your family.

[venessat-blog]

Mobile Car Detailing Portland OR

A automotive is a treasured possession especially the automobile that was not handed to you however one that you worked to buy. Go to the mobiGleam website for best mobile car valeting services in Portland OR.

Leon Grant has performed a sequence of interview with many companies offering cell valeting service From all these interviews he established that to maintain your car shiny and functional, a correct valet and detailing service is extraordinarily vital and should be taken-up by each automobile proprietor.

Mobile Car Valeting Portland OR:

I'm now providing this wonderful Eco automobile wash for just £10 so you may see just how properly this new method works. Due to the increasing competition amongst automotive detailing firms, most of them have resolved to maneuver their providers on-line. With incredibly aggressive prices, we provide all the water, energy, gear, and merchandise needed to complete the job totally. Contact our automotive valeting firm as we speak, in Dover, Kent, to schedule the mobile car valeting services we deftly carry out. One would possibly consider that Mobile Automotive Valeting London services price extra compared to stationed automobile washing providers.

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Automotive washing could possibly be a time-consuming job, and getting a permanent finest good quality finish might be tough. IValet UK is a number one automotive valeting and interior cleansing enterprise in Cambridgeshire - overlaying Cambridge and the surrounding areas. Convenience is without doubt one of the fundamental reasons for utilizing a cellular car valeting service. Mobile Automotive Valeting London services are totally different from the normal car cleaning services.

GTechniq is the premier brand in terms of automotive cleaning products and we'd recommend it for any automobile and is the proper answer for brand spanking new automotive protection. Whenever doubtful, participating the providers of a good automotive cleansing company or car valeting company will take away any of the complications or doubts you might have. Spending a bit of your cash in a good automotive physique repair, will make your car look more enticing to perspective consumers and can ensure they are keen to pay a better price to your automobile. Regardless of whether or not it is business or specialist valeting which you occur to be looking for, you may be certain of a skilled and trustworthy service along with the minimal of fuss and disruption. We wouldn't have premises for valeting autos as we offer a mobile valeting service. We even have high quality reward units obtainable to shock a automobile enthusiast close to you.

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It's a good suggestion to start out off small as chances are you'll be stunned how many people want their automotive valeting. We do not intend to take you through step-by-step processes of how one can wash your automobile to get the perfect results. Use two washmitts - one for the highest areas of the automotive (roof, bonnet, upper sides above the wheel arch line) and one for the decrease areas (below the wheel arch line, front and rear bumpers). UV-Rays and highway dust especially could make a new automotive look like it's been used for some years.

DJW are an unbiased household run valeting and car detailing company based mostly in OR Portland, Our firm was originally founded in OR before re-locating to Portland OR. Okay, but ensure that a valeted, clear and properly introduced automobile is a guarantee for a better deal. Innes Fresco has no finish of experience in writing about topics associated to automobile detailing, by means of expertise of his work to this point for Automobile Detailing Guildford agency Sportscar Protection. If you want to make your basic automobile seem like new, then it is best to get the providers of professional automobile valeting and detailing experts.

Generally we're so daunted by the technical facet of one thing that we are going to not take the large step of beginning it. The good thing about car valeting is that the precise work is incredibly easy and you'll know precisely what it's that you're doing right from the start.

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[turnabouttoothbrush]

Metal Gear High, Chapter One

My older brother submitted a fic with the comment, “Thanks, AO3. Metal Gear high school AU bashing EVA”

Excuse me but what

Why would you bash EVA, she’s AMAZING

Anyway, out-of-character sporking for both chapters because there are only two (it’s apparently abandoned) and it’s quicker & easier to do. Plus I need to work on that thing for that NPO lmao.

...speaking of out-of-character, GUESS WHAT THIS IS TAGGED AS

It’s like a neon warning sign that says “Please spork me!!”

And speaking of tags, EVA’s name is misspelled as “Eve” in them.

What am I getting myself into here.

Summary: AU Metal Gear Series. Adam is the new kid in school where his Mother, Joy, has gotten a job as the new counselor. OOC abounds and established and future male/male relationships.

Also I fuckin’ hate high school AUs.

High school fucking SUCKS, it was the literal four worst years of my life - granted it was because of things largely unrelated to school itself but it sure as shit didn’t help. High school is, for anyone except those at the very top of the social ladder, a terrible experience that you pretty must just endure so you can get your diploma and never look back.

I do not understand why it is romanticized so much.

The first day of school and Adam was exactly on time. He was always on time, perhaps a few minutes early, but he was never late. It was a new high school, a new way of life, new strange subcultures and interconnected rivalries, and incestuous power plays by those who thought high school popularity was the ultimate power high.

Lol those are the people who are gonna be asking me what kind of fries I want while I roll past their window in my BMW

...wait, “incestuous power plays”?

It was a pit of despair, anxiety, hormones, pheromones, testosterone, sexual frustration, peer pressure and awkward stages for people forced into small, tightly packed rooms for almost eight hours a day.

I think we can basically guarantee, though, that we’re not going to be seeing much of the classes.

You know, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure most high school AUs don’t have that kind of thing in them because they’re written by middle schoolers who don’t know yet that high school is a horrible, horrible place. Which is why they write high school AUs!

Although referring to high school as “a pit of despair” does make me think the author’s served their time...

Adam wouldn’t walk in those double glass doors with the large carved snake hissing down and threatening those who approached as some wide-eyed innocent fresh from middle school.

I had to re-read this sentence three times before I realized that the snake statue is over the door or something, as opposed to Ocelot (man, fuck using their ‘real’ names, get that weak shit outta here boy) carrying it in with him for some reason.

Intimidation factor?

“Apparently it’s the school’s mascot for their sports team the Metal Snakes.” Joy said, sipping her coffee.

Adam grunted in response.

They were sitting in her classic white ford mustang, both of them preparing themselves.

“Although the snake might represent a threat to the opposing team’s masculinity. A penis with fangs, or, don’t fuck with me.” Joy said.

A penis with-

F U C K I N G   H E L L

Also, I guess the fact that that really doesn’t sound like something the Boss would say kind of goes without saying.

“I see you’re just as excited as I am.”

Joy sighed. “Adam, I know the past few months have been hard…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Joy eyed him carefully then nodded. “Alright. Now, do you want to go in first and I’ll follow? Or should I go in first and then you?”

Adam shifted in his seat, glaring at the threatening snake.

“If you go in first, it should distract enough attention for me to get to my locker and homeroom.” He said.

Are there high schools out there that actually, like, have homerooms? Mine didn’t. Had ‘em in middle school, and there was this homeroom-esque sort of thing in the middle of the day until they changed it, but...

“Practical.” Joy said. “Alright, I’ll see you after class? Do you want me to drive you home or do you want to walk home?”

“I’ll walk.” Adam sighed.

Joy eyed him critically.

Can you believe there’s no YouTube compilation of every time the Boss looks at Ocelot like he’s disappointed her? Because that’s basically every time she looks at him in MGS3.

“As you wish.” She said. She grabbed her purse and her book satchel which contained her laptop and important documents. Before she slid out of her car, she squeezed Adam’s arm.

Adam watched as she walked towards the wide double glass doors, balancing her belongings and her coffee while some of the early students watched her with interest and when she entered the school, they started whispering amongst each other.

Side note: Can you imagine the Boss as a school counselor? It’d be a hell of a thing, wouldn’t it?

What's it going to be? Loyalty to your chosen college, or loyalty to me? Your chosen college, or your old counselor? The career goal, or your beliefs? Your duty to your school, or your personal feelings? You don't know the truth yet. But sooner or later you'll have to choose.

Adam took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and stepped out of the car. He shouldered his backpack, pulled on his red scarf and locked the door, heading towards the schools double doors.

The group of whispering students paused when he passed them. He opened the glass doors and entered just as the girls of the group started to whisper about him.

Hey author does the word “cliché” mean anything to you

I want the twist to be that no one’s even talking about him, because truly no one gives a fuck about ~the new kid~ except for the people who just highkey wanna make more friends. But I think we all know that, even if this fic had been completed, there wouldn’t have been a twist at all.

He made a bee line for the office, where he saw his mother chatting with the receptionist.

Joy glanced at him and nodded, leaving the office without a single word and the receptionist, a perky woman in her late thirties smiled, pushing him a printout sheet.

“Your home room is in the music room, leave the office and take the first right and it’s the fifth floor on your left.

wait what

how tall is this building

Your locker combo is here,” she pointed to a three double digit code. “And your schedule is at the bottom. School ID day is in a week, but until then you can download your schedule off the schools website using your mom’s password and ID. And if you’re late for a class, don’t worry. The teachers have been notified and you’re given a week to figure everything out.”

How far is this into the schoolyear, anyway? With a different character I would have guessed the end of the first semester/beginning of the second semester, since a mention of a scarf would indicate the winter months, but this is Ocelot we’re talking about...

“Thanks,” Adam mumbled, trailing his fingers across the sheet.

“I hope you enjoy Patriots High.” She called as Adam left the office.

...

THAT’S FUCKING AWFUL

He was examining his class list, mentally ticking off the classes. Three different types of advanced maths, geography, the mandatory second language course, and science. He wrinkled his nose. He knew what this was. These courses would leave him drowning in homework and focused to the point of ignoring the world around him. It would keep him occupied and busy and leave no time for getting distracted or…

Backstabbing people?

Also who the hell takes three different math classes in one year

His heart sank and he felt that grip around his neck tighten.

Adam loosened his scarf, swallowing roughly.

He couldn’t do that here, not now.

...?

Yes?

Not with the rising crowd of murmuring and voices and the increasing noises of more students arriving on the morning buses.

He followed the instructions, turning at the first right and approaching the music room door when a loud crash of drums came from the other side. He opened the door just in time to see a nerdy, skinny looking teen around Adam’s age with shaggy hair and glasses struggling to stand amongst a collapsed drum set.

Adam checked the room; there was nobody in the room except for the nerdy kid. There was a circle of chairs in the middle of the room facing one another.

Um... why...??

Just then, the kid collapsed again with a yelp, this time behind a collapsed set of music stands and Adam sighed, entering the room. He flung his backpack into one of the corners and went to the nerdy kid, helping him to stand.

“You okay?” Adam asked.

The nerdy kid was brushing his hoodie, frowning as he pecked at a piece of fabric from the middle of the ironed on image of an anime girl with big pigtails riding a giant two legged tank.

Well I guess Ocelot doesn’t have to be worried about being judged now, not when this walking bully bait exists

Also if y’all were expecting me to ask who the living blue fuck would wear a hoodie like that to school, just lemme remind you that I ran an animé club when I was in high school. I’ve seen some shit.

He glanced up at Adam, his eyes widening before he pushed up his glasses.

“You-you’re talking to me?” The nerd asked.

“Yeah,” Adam said slowly, starting to scowl.

“O-oh! You must be new! My name is Hal. Hal Emmerich, but my friends call me Otacon. Well, at least my online friends call me Otacon.” Hal said, tilting his head.

I take it this fic is going to HARDCORE miss the opportunity to actually explore the implications of the Boss also being, in a kinda sorta really weird way, Otacon’s mom. There isn’t much to say about it wrt to canon, due to the extremely limited (potential, off-screen) interaction between Ocelot and Otacon, so the one upside to a silly “EVERYONE IS THE SAME AGE” AU is that it actually does give you the chance to do that. But of course the author is going to just piss that away because it’ll distract from the hot yaois and the EVA-bashing.

“I’m Adam. I’m, ah, I’m new here.”

“Well, Adam, let me just warn you: you don’t want to be caught talking to me. I’m the school pariah so,

I will ask what kind of tiny-ass backwards school this must be to have a weeb be a friendless pariah - the pariah, too, like there’s only one. At my high school, all the outcasts and social fuckups were actually their own social stratum - granted, way at the bottom, but nonetheless they had their circle. (I should know, they all knew me and mostly deferred to me as well, haha. I... have been referred to as “Nerd Voldemort” before, after a comment about the animé club being my ‘inner circle’...)

Then again, I went to the largest high school in the state, and the 65th largest public high school in the country. So...

if you don’t want your popularity to die a slow and painful death, you’d best keep away.” Hal laughed, rubbing the back of his head.

Adam scowled.

“I don’t give a fuck what people think.”

Hal paused then smiled wearily.

“You will if the Snakes take an interest in you.” Hal said.

Adam rolled his eyes and left Hal, grabbing his backpack and took one of the chairs.

Snakes. Great, gangs.

Do they have gangs at small high schools? They sure do at big ones, but again - a large high school would develop a social structure that even a dude with an animé hoodie could easily find his place in.

Adam pulled out his phone, flicking through to see if there were any new messages.

“Um…”

Adam glanced up. Hal was standing next to him, looking nervous.

“Spit it out.” Adam sighed.

“Can I sit next to you?” Hal asked.

A simple request.

Adam nodded.

I scrolled back up to check and make sure that Ocelot/Otacon wasn’t a listed pairing for this. It isn’t.

I’m kind of disappointed.

I just think they’d have an interesting dynamic together, really I’d 100% take something non-shippy, but either way the only fics I’ve read that had any significant interaction between the two were fucking Choke and another fic that was also really really really friggin stupid and did the exact same thing with them.

Hal grinned, practically beaming as he took the seat. “Thanks. Hey, um, if there’s anything you want to know about the school, or any of the students, or teachers, or the clicks and gangs, I’m your person.”

Adam bit his inner cheek.

‘Be patient. Don’t explode. Some of them are just innocent, Adam. You know that.’ Joy’s voice resonated in his head.

I really hope this is/was leading up to a school shooting subplot.

“Thanks.” Adam said.

Hal smiled and leaned back in his own chair and pulled out his phone from his hoodie’s pocket. It too was covered in a picture of an anime character.

“Ummm…”

“What?”

“Could I add your number?” Hal asked, his voice small.

Adam thought about it for a few moments then shrugged. If Hal got to be too annoying or he got fed up he could just block him. He told Adam his number and as soon as he did that, Adam immediately got a text from Otacon.

Adam wrinkled his nose and he didn’t bother to respond.

You could almost say he was being... catty

They sat in silence as the minutes passed until the door opened and several people poured into the room and Adam’s phone started vibrating like crazy.

‘Look out!’

Adam blinked at his phone, confused, and opened his mouth to ask what Hal meant when two hands gripped his shoulders from behind.

“You must be the new guy.”

Adam clenched his jaw, and looked up.

Smiling down at him was a blond male wearing aviator glasses and military fatigues.

Who the living blue fuck would wear military fatigues to school?

“Fresh meat,” He purred and Adam felt his lips curling in disgust.

“Back off, Kaz.” A gravelled voice next to him and Kaz let go of Adam’s shoulders, instead ruffling Hal’s hair until Hal sputtered, waving at his hands.

Adam turned to the voice and a man, no, a teenager met Adam’s. He was starting to sport a serious beard and his hair was messy. Adam could barely grow peach fuzz and here was someone just a month short of an Amish beard. His clothes were rumpled too, like he had slept in them, he smelled faintly of cigar smoke, and he had a torn bandanna wrapped around his forehead, keeping his hair out of his eyes.

But his eyes, he had two brilliant blue eyes.

GEE I WONDER

WHAT

THE MAIN PAIRING FOR THIS FIC COULD POSSIBLY BE HMM I DUNNO

Then again, if Ocelot didn’t get the doki-dokis immediately upon seeing Snake, I would say that’d be out-of-character.

“John.” He rumbled again.

“Adam.”

John nodded, his eyes taking in Adam’s scarf. He looked like he was about to say something when a blur of giggling blonde landed on his lap.

“John you left me behind this morning!” The giggling blonde said, cupping his jaw and leaning close.

“Sorry, Eve.”

EVA. It’s EVA. E-V-A, with an “a”. Get it right. It’s not like “Eva” isn’t an actual name, anyway.

You really shouldn’t be writing fanfic if you spell a three-letter name wrong - let alone if the character in question is KIND OF FREAKIN’ IMPORTANT TO THE SOURCE MATERIAL.

John rumbled, his eyes sparkling as Eve smiled coltishly. She was wearing skinny jeans and a sweater maybe one size too small. John wrapped his arms around her waist, holding onto her as she bounced on his thigh.

“Get a room,” Another gravelled voice, softer, and Adam glanced past the giggling blond to see what had to be John’s twin brother. Wild hair, blue eyes, and in desperate need of a shave. His clothes were a bit less rumpled like he had put some effort into his appearance before giving up. He had a similar bandana except his wasn’t shredded at the ends.

“Aww, baby brother needs to get laid.”

>making Solid BB’s brother

Kaz laughed, sitting in the chair next to him.

“Fuck off Kaz!” John’s twin snapped.

“Dave, be good.” John scolded.

“Yeah, Dave.” Eve mocked.

That’s his mom

Dave’s jaw clenched and he opened his mouth when his phone chimed in his pocket. He pulled it out, turning his back to the others as he started to slowly text back.

The bell rang.

Adam looked around the room.

Still no teacher.

Dave was slowly texting, the tip of his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated. Kaz was straightening his military fatigues (honestly who wears shit like that to school anyway?),

Hey, whose job is it to ask those kinds of questions here?!

Eve was nuzzling into John’s neck, giggling softly, and John had his head tipped back, smiling. And Hal?

Adam glanced over at Hal. His foot was twitching and he was chewing on his bottom lip. He looked concerned, his thumbs dancing across this phones screen.

Golly I wonder who he could be texting

It’s not like Solicon is tagged as one of the ships or anything

Adam frowned as he took in the music room.

Where the hell was the teacher?

The door to the room slowly creaked open and an old, old, incredibly old man slowly entered. He was hunched over, bald, and looked like he was sleeping.

“Morning Students,” The old man mumbled as he crept towards the chair facing their group.

“Good morning Mr. Ender.”

...

...

...

....

It’s a couple years too late for a Minecraft joke, isn’t it...?

Hal chirped, tucking his phone into his hoodie pocket.

Kaz straightened his back, watching the old man critically. Dave pocketed his phone, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, propping his chin on his hand. John gently eased Eve away from his face, shushing her even as she rubbed her nose against his.

“Morning Hal.” Mr. Ender said, standing at the chair and slowly easing himself into it. He sighed when he finally sat down. He examined the small group and then turned his focus on Adam.

“You must be the new student, Adamska?”

“Adamska?” Eve asked. “What kind of name is Adamska?” She mocked.

“Russian, if I’m not wrong?” Mr. Ender asked.

Adam nodded.

“Do. You. Speak. English?” Eve asked loudly.

Kaz chuckled.

On the plus side, I’m always down for Kaz being a dick to Ocelot. (I ship it...)

Adam clenched his hands, ignoring her.

“Now, now, Eve. Be nice.” Mr. Ender chided. “If it hasn’t already been said, let me welcome you to Patriot’s High. Even though we’re a small high school,

EVIDENCE THAT I AM PSYCHIC CONTINUES TO PILE UP

Or the author actually wrote a ‘small school’ atmosphere semi-competently. At the very least, I was able to identify it as not working the way a large high school would.

we hope you feel at home here. I want you to think of this group as a safe group, a group of friends and family so if you have any difficulties you can turn to your fellow students if you need help. Now, why don’t you start off by telling us a little about yourself?”

“Like what?” Adam cleared his throat.

“Oh I don’t know, where were you going to school before you came here?” Mr. Ender said.

Suddenly everybody was staring at Adam.

He could feel that prickling sensation on the back of his neck and he tugged on his red scarf.

Please tell me he’s, like, a werecat or something and that’s what all these lines are about. Please? It’d make this more interesting.

“New York. It was a high school for the gifted.” Adam explained quietly.

“Well that explains everything.” Kaz said, shaking his head sadly. “We’ve got another gifted student.”

“It was Arsenal Academy,

just fuck me up

thank you very much.” Adam snapped.

“You went to Arsenal Academy!” Hal gasped. “That is the top technical school in the country! You have to be amazing to get in there! Why did you leave?”

Adam sat back in his chair and squared his jaw.

He didn’t catch John’s side glance as Mr. Ender coughed then cleared his throat.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll enjoy your time here.”

Hopefully more than me.

He said as the bell rang overhead. “Now if you have any questions, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do to help.”

“Thanks,” Adam said as Dave, John, Eve and Kaz all rose and let the room. He grabbed his backpack and got up as students started filling the room,

Come to think of it, why is the End a music teacher, anyway? What kind of thought went into this? Generously assuming that any did...

Hal trailing behind him.

“Hey…”

“What?” Adam asked.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Hal asked.

Adam paused and then he dug out his course schedule. He literally had no idea where he was supposed to go. Hal peered over his shoulder and made a happy sound in his throat.

“We’re in the same math classes!”

Adam sighed.

“Lead the way.” He motioned to the increasing tide of students.

That’s basically the end of the first chapter. As far as a first chapter goes, it was alright. Introduced our setting and our main players. Really, some more should have happened, but considering it was short, I’ll let it slide.

Main problem is the fact that it’s a fuckin’ #Slow Build #Male/Male #Male Slash #All the fucking drama high school AU, with, so far as we can tell at this point, no actual interesting plot (or at least subplot!) to carry it.

Shit’s boring, guys. Why do people write these?

To Be Continued...

[blackflagnapkins]

A door unlocked

The only part of me that cannot be convinced that appreciating nature is a waste of my time is my eyes. I’m not an outdoors type, I never tried to camp outside as a child, and the only time I spend immersed in nature happens when I am out on a drive. But, admittedly, I will gladly watch trees sway in the wind for hours and follow passing clouds as they drift by the small piece of Earth I stand on. Using what I already mentioned about myself, I began to speculate where my “neighborhood” was and recalled a quiet part of the Rocky River Reservation of the Cleveland Metro Parks located behind the CVS on West Bagley Road. The last time I was there, I studied the tall shale walls and Berea sandstone scattered along the river with the rest of my Dynamic Earth geology class; it was late Fall 2011. ​Two years later, I sit on a cluster of large rocks in the middle of the river having hop-scotched my way south along the grey mohawk of boulders. As I look up at the sky, I wonder what makes the weather so cold, especially considering the mounting global warming claims of the last decade. It dawns on me that the chill is not merely the windy breeze, but the fact that this area is so open that the wind can unrestrictedly race along my arms and cheeks. I end up readjusting my hair more often than I thought I’d have to, which just reinforces my aversion to being outdoors, but when after I frantically re-part my hair I suddenly take note of the tall trees all around me. The Rocky River Reservation is known for willows, but all I see are sycamores and cottonwoods. Sycamore trees have bark that clusters and chips off in pieces by itself when the tree’s growing direction shifts. The bark also can be several different colors ranging from black to white. Today’s trees have brown bark that just barely clings to a white-hued “tree skin”. Meanwhile, the cottonwood trees stand firmly on the banks of the river as if to affirm their place amongst the wetness and soil erosion. The cottonwoods are great for timber and within 10-30 years, quite a bit of wood can be collected from each tree. Evidently, cottonwoods are one of the largest American hardwood trees, yet their wood is actually much softer than many other tree types. The question most obvious to me at this point is which tree I have more in common with. ​I believe I have settled on being akin to a sycamore. My brown hair falls out in chucks when I wash it and when the weather gets cold like it has been, I die a little inside while the sycamore’s exterior morphs to match the physical death image. The cottonwood trees made me think of rabbit bedding and other weak wood chips, which I can’t relate to. I scanned over their bark and can’t shake the thought of wrinkled skin. Actually, this connection unnerved me more than I thought it would so I tried to put together something poetic. I wrote down, “The ground with its deathly leaves keeps talking to me.” Capturing the moments where I let myself fall into nature didn’t feel authentic in the moment, but my notes still fill me with the wearied amusement that I felt stumbling through that river bank, talking with the trees. ‘The river needs some attention,’ I thought as I made deliberately stifled heel-toe strides towards the water, cautious because my Chuck Taylor’s each have three dime-sized holes in the sole. ​Rocky River’s East branch is the section I am observing while I write. ESPN rates the river as one of the World’s Best for Steelhead Trout fishing, which is dually irrelevant to me because I don’t fish and there aren’t fish in the East branch where I am. Regardless, I love learning that places I have been are rated highly by some national, or the occasional international, poll/study/survey/list. I remember hearing that the city of Berea is one of the U.S.’s Top Ten busiest train cities and that train enthusiasts come and visit town just to watch the steel cars pass them by, as if they could reach out and touch them and be changed. In my notes, I pieced together that touching things, such as the water or the rocks ahead of me that I need to leap to, leaves me feeling like a small child wanting the world in my pocket. With each new face and surface I touch, I add to my personal Earth. As I mentally check off Rocky River as a part of my collection, I realize that this is the only river I have ever been to. My hometown sits on Lake Erie and there is a nice creek that runs through Conneaut, but it terms of an official river, I have never been in one or seen one until now. This got me thinking about how easily I brush off nature as a constant that is tiresome and undesirable, yet how simply I take Ohio’s geography and landscapes for granted. All things considered, my entire life has taken place within an hour of a National Park, yet I have never been to one. While living in Berea, I have access to a beautiful Lake-to-Lake bike trail and slightly hidden spots such as the one I am standing in currently. But, somehow that isn’t good enough for me; somehow I shirk off any notion of gaining enlightenment, intelligence or insight from experiencing nature. This was the first of my nature-induced revelation, when I could identify my bias and hold it back just as one would hold back a thorny plant on a trail in the woods so that they don’t scrape their legs. ​I suppose the absolute truth is that it was difficult for me to label my revelation as a revelation because I didn’t suddenly become a Dillard-esque philosopher or a quotable Terry Tempest Williams. I didn’t feel like I had anything to take away because I thought I had to surrender myself to nature and vow to come visit more often, not just on the holidays and when assignments are due. I digress, yet suffice it to say that nature did not fuel my inner wilderness and/or wildness, which is a buzzkill because I secretly hoped to feel like a savage sloshing around in the shallow bits of the river. Without deviating more, my realization came to me as the basic thought, ‘Nature just means openness.’ From the very beginning of the assignment I was rushing through my note taking, hurrying so that I could fall into the trance-like state that nature writers fall into while describing their favorite places and what nature means to them. I flew past all of the awkward silences I shared with nature, yet I yearned for nature to give me some answers to help write this short essay. What would Rilke say to me? After scolding me for my closed mind, he would remind me that nature’s questions are what move humans, not the answers to the questions. This piece of advice is where I find myself wanting to visit most because it is both the lock and key and nature seems to me to be the kind of room you could never fully empty out.