#i eventually want to get to 140 again

[torusonicpilled]

can we know more about the future au👀👀❓️

Alright I've been waiting for this, get ready for a really long lore dump... (click on keep reading so I don't clutter up the tags)

Future AU takes place 200 years after when-ever the main events of the game are. This would make Shadow 215 years old and Sonic 216 years old. Sonic: Sonic was created by a cult of former ARK scientists who wanted to create a version of Shadow specifically to be a weapon and without the Black Arms DNA. They used the DNA of a god and were successful (obviously.) However, Sonic at one point lost control of his power and destroyed everything, this event made him lose his memory. The first thing he saw when he woke up was the nature around him, creating his free-spirited nature (contrast to how Shadow woke up seeing Maria for the first time.) All this lore is here to explain why Sonic is immortal. However because Sonic is immortal and the public is unaware of this, and basically the gods have their own secret cult that gave Sonic an ultimatum. Basically he could A) Die at around 40 but keep his freedom, however the earth he loves may one day be destroyed due to the lack of him protecting it. B) He lives long enough (around 110) for people to realize he is immortal like Shadow, and not wanting to waste their best protector against the planet, seals him away, freezing him and only take him out when they need him to save them, or C) fake his death and continuing living, but lose his humanity, never being able to be “Sonic the Hedgehog” again. Sonic also never made this choice, as Shadow was the one who decided. Shadow feels guilt over this even if Sonic has gotten over it at this point. 

Sonic goes through a major depression in the years 110-150, as he basically loses his identity and is struggling with that. Sonic eventually finds some old outfit Shadow has in the closet, and uses it to become a masked figure called “S.” He now saves people under S, his speed being from “technology” and a voice modulator hiding his voice. Sonic is insanely powerful in the future, so people start equating him to a “legendary hero” who only appears when a threat too strong shows up. (like how Silver acted when talking about Whisper in IDW #8.) 

Sonic still has a lot of his immature traits personality wise, however he is a lot smarter when it comes to combat, having experience in situations, as well as being extremely overpowered. 

Shadow: Due to Shadow being the ultimate lifeform, he’s allowed to still be in public and shows his face. Shadow leaves G.U.N after Rouge retires, as Team Dark disbands. Once Rouge dies, Shadow spends a lot of time with Sonic, as Sonic is going through it being dead in all but name. 

Around 130-140, Shadow created “Maria’s Solutions,” his own private organization for helping people. Shadow is someone people go to when people can’t go to police or other organizations for help. He accepts help from almost any client, however he is often avoided by the worst as his power is terrifying. Shadow is now a detective, negotiator, and bounty hunter all in one, as he is more knowledgeable and collected now. 

After Eggman's death, Shadow adopted Sage at his request, not having it in him to bring her offline. Sage has a duplicate robot body but she prefers to spend time with him on Shadow's phone. She helps him out in missions, with hacking and tech related problems. 

Shadow has other employees for Maria’s Solutions, however I’m still working on them. Main ideas include an innocent girl similar to Maria he’s taken a soft spot to, a robot like Omega who works as a maid around their house, etc. 

Silver: Silver will occasionally come back to check in on Shadow. Due to the deal they made, Silver can’t know Sonic is alive. However, due to a mishap, Silver finds out and becomes friends with S. Sonic likes spending more time with Silver so he hides this fact from Shadow, sometimes going on missions with Silver. 

Other info

Sonic and Shadow aren’t important to this world. Lots of organizations and people fight in this world, thus leaving Sonic to deal with world ending threats and Shadow his clients. Organizations include

Technology conglomerates

A church that worships Gaia

The restoration

Militaries

Sonic and Shadow are married with rings pierced in their ears, however they do not like to define relationships. 

Anyone who Shadow trusts enough will meet Sonic by accident, but calls him “S” either way. 

Knuckles can be spoken too by connecting with the master emerald, which is underneath Sonic and Shadow’s house in an underground facility. 

Tails reincarnates when he dies with an extra tail, however he gets his memories from his last 100 years only if he meets Sonic. They don’t meet until 130ish, where Sonic agrees to wait until Tails is 20 every time before he hunts for him. (this part I’m still working on.)

Sonic is a jack of all trades who can use any weapon to fight as he likes to switch it up. Shadow uses a gun and sword combo along with his chaos abilities. 

AU is more comedic despite the somber tone, as Sonic and Shadow are still Sonic and Shadow at the end of the day.

Well that was a lot but if you want more info send me another ask with more questions for me to answer

[kymtym]

Strawberry Jam

I make this often and it's the best jam I've ever had.

INGREDIENTS:

3 pounds (1.360kg) strawberries, trimmed and quartered

3 cups (710 ml) granulated sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

TOOLS

a wide pot with a lid

A silicone spatula / scraper

A stove (range?)

A big spoon for stirring and scooping

A small spoon for testing readiness

A glass or ceramic plate to test readiness

A freezer (for the plate)

EITHER a potato masher OR an immersion blender (stick blender?)

A container to put the finished product in. This recipe is not shelf stable, the jam will need to go in the fridge.

Early in the day, combine all ingredients in the pot. It may seem like too much sugar, but don't worry. Mix it up with the silicone spatula, put a lid on it, and leave it in the kitchen. Every now and then, give it another mix. I just leave the spatula in the pot, the lid is just to keep and dust and the cats out of the mix. The sugar will eventually draw out a bunch of juice from the strawberries and you will be left with a pot of strawberries in syrup. This will take hours. If you scrape the bottom of the pot and no longer feel grainy sugar and you're no longer able to pull up any sugar, you're ready to cook it.

Put the plate in the freezer.

Mash or blend your syrup-strawberry mix to your desired smoothness. It will get thicker as it cooks, so keep that in mind. I blend the life out of the strawberries because I like for it to be easy to spread on toast, my sister likes for the to still be strawberry chunks, so when I make it for her I just use the potato masher.

Turn on the heat! Boil it! Stir almost constantly. My recent batch took just under an hour to cook all the way. Once it starts boiling, turn the heat down to medium-low, I did like a 3 out of 10. If you stop stirring, goopy bubbles should appear like a slow motion boil. You will have like a pink foam on the top of the mix from the boiling. After about 30 minutes, the bubbling should be thicker and goopier. After about 40 minutes, the pink foam should almost go away when you stir the mix, like you can almost stir the bubbles into the mix.

Pull the plate out of the freezer and use the small spoon to spread a little bit of the mix onto the plate in a stripe. Hold the plate vertically so the stripe goes left to right. If the stripe immediately starts to drip down the plate, the mix isn't done yet, put the plate back in the freezer and keep cooking. Try again in like 5-10 minutes. If the mix DOESN'T immediately start dripping down the plate, turn the plate so the stripe goes up and down and swipe your finger through the stripe from leg to right (or right to left). The jam is done cooking when the stripe made from your finger through the stripe of mix holds and doesn't fill with dripping mix.

(If you have a candy thermometer, the jam is done when it reaches 220°f or 104°c)

CAREFULLY pour or scoop the jam into your preferred container. This jam is HOT and STICKY so please treat it like lava. This stuff is hotter than boiling water and will stick to you until you wash it off, don't let it touch your skin.

3 pounds of strawberries makes about 3 pint jars of jam with a little bit of room at the top of the jars. If you want to, you can properly can it and make it shelf-stable until it's opened, but I've never done that so your on your own. I just keep them in my fridge or give them to friends and neighbors.

I'm lucky enough to have a huge strawberry festival nearby every March. 20 pounds lasts me and my husband a year of jam, sorbet and cheung. I get them home, give them a vinegar bath, and trim them up before measuring out a bunch of one pound bags that I vacuum seal and freeze, and some 5 ounce (140 gram) servings for sorbet, also sealed and frozen.

Let me know if anyone wants the sorbet or cheug recipes.

Have fun! Be careful! Enjoy!

[farmhandler]

I have no update today...so have this scene from later in the ch instead

---

“Cable cares about you,” Logan said eventually. “I appreciate that about the guy.”

“Is that affection I detect?”

“Don’t get carried away, bub.”

“He cares about you, too,” Wade said.

Logan snorted. “Uh huh.”

“I mean it!” Wade turned halfway in Logan's lap, careful not to scrape anything sensitive on his jeans. “He asks how you’re doing. It’s caring in a...controlling uncle kind of way.”

Logan slapped his palm over Wade’s thigh. “I age him by about 140 years.”

Wade fully abandoned his cereal to look in Logan’s eyes.

“Can we invite him over?”

Logan chewed slowly. “You don’t need my permission to invite your friends.”

“I mean invite him in the context of you also being involved in the situation. What do normal people do, dinner?” Logan leaned back, popped another dough ball in his mouth, and crossed his arms, so Wade added, “I want him to know things are…fine. He gets these ugly looks in his glowing eye that I can’t stand when he starts forming opinions.”

Logan kept chewing. Wade was officially regretting the eye contact, but he couldn’t look away or he’d lose.

“He won’t leave me the fuck alone otherwise?” Wade tried.

Logan’s warm palm settled on Wade's naked back.

“Yeah. All right, sure.”

He looked away, tapping something on his phone, then set it on the table in front of Wade. If Wade hadn’t looked at his screen before it blinked away, he might not have seen it. Wade did a double take and tapped it to bring it up again.

“What the fuck is that?” Wade asked flatly. He restored the eye contact.

Logan followed his gaze and had the audacity to look confused. “What is what?”

“That. That fucking picture on your screen. That wasn't there last night.”

“The background? That’s your face.” Logan leaned back, re-crossing his arms and adding gruffly, “Remembered to add it this morning. Laura taught me how to change the background a while ago.”

That made it somehow worse. It wasn’t just Wade’s face.

“Why that photo?” Wade asked.

“Wade,” Logan drawled.

“I’m serious! I’m not even making a goofy expression. That would make sense. I look…”

It wasn’t just Wade’s face. It was a closeup, with Wade’s face dead and center on his screen. And he hadn’t been caught with a horrifying yet hilarious expression; he was smiling. Wade had no idea where or how Logan had taken that photo.

Fuck, he looked happy.

“It’s a good photo," Logan said. "You look fucking adorable. The fuck’s wrong with that? It’s my phone.”

“You actually think that,” Wade said, his tone demanding an answer.

“Yeah,” Logan said. “I do think that. You have a really fucking cute smile. I like opening my phone and seeing your face whenever I want.”

[ink-earnest]

Things that Helped my Art Anxiety

The concept of under-drawing. Red mechanical HB lead significantly reduced my drawing anxiety because of the comfort it provides, allowing me to draft everything before doing the scary dark lines.

Starting out with mechanical pencils. They are scary to a lot of artists, but to tiny me, they looked cool. The thinner the lines, the more you learn. 0.5 lead was my favourite. Mechanical pencils helped my improve my technical skills and also learn interesting ways to do linework that I personally liked, just through experimenting.

Starting my art journey with one single mid-range A5 sketchbook, carrying it everywhere and using it for everything. Helped a lot, made me experiment without fear of "ruining it," overall reducing a perfectionist attitude

Eventually dedicating a sketchbook to "ruin and destruction", which came to contain all my lessons learnt, experiments, and also some of my best pieces.

Now I'm doing character work, a 90GSM pathetic little plain notebook has also been helpful. All concepts and drafts and ideas go in there. I end up with very Da Vinci pages, and don't stress about drafts that aren't "good enough." All my drafts and stupid logic and references and quotes and thingies go in there.

Sticky notes to cover mistakes. Very helpful and aesthetique™

Jar form for gouache made painting enjoyable, since I wasn't worried about wastage or mixage, plus the comfort of reactivation.

For both watercolour and gouache, I started with "good enough" options. Within 2k INR, maximum, that lasted me over three years and, again, contributed to some of my best work.

Using 140-160 GSM for everything. Highly recommend. Don't start out with thick pages, kids. Get something that can tolerate most things, but I personally prioritise page count over most other things. The satisfaction of progress is unmatched, I tell you.

Consistently pushing my boundaries. I have a couple of areas that I've worked with enough to be comfortable and effortless, but every couple of months I make a list of things I want to work on and start learning. Then, if I achieve those targets, I enhance them until they are in my comfort zone for a month or so, and then make a new list.

The advice "Do a complete 180 if you feel like it" in regard to art style helped a lot. Initially, I was a fan of so many different art styles, but as I focused on building my fundamentals, I found there was a specific style I was drawn to. I didn't replicate it, but I did studies of my favourite artists, and tried to see how those elements would fit into my own work. Then, once I was sick of it, I'd try something else. No commitment guilt, it's never conducive to growth

This tumblr quote: YOU MUST FACE YOUR FEARS AND SLAUGHTER THEM, OR YOU WILL LIVE A SMALL LIFE THAT YOU DO NOT WANT

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

aita for wanting a 200$ refund on a 400$ model that was REALLY below par in both quality and customer service?

This was one of my first monetary experiences with my own credit card and account, to preface.

So, I'm learning SFM and have regular dates with my boyfriend in vrchat. Between the two of us we knew enough to make models of myself in both, but not enough to make one for my headmate that me and her would both be satisfied with.

TL;DR, the first modeler we went to cancelled after we proved too impatient for them and they didn't need the comm money, so we put out a post calling for 3d models and asked our moots to spread it on here and on Twitter.

Eventually, we found a few artists that were within our post-high-school graveyard shift budget, but then an artist appeared in our asks that was interested in our order. Now, from the very BEGINNING they were blaring Sus alarms in our head with how they typed, their profile, their portfolio, the whole thing, but we still talked with them about it and eventually got to dming on discord over it.

We agreed on 350 with a down payment for the model, and she went to work. Somewhere along the line it increased to 400 with a down payment but I don't remember the circumstances for why.

I was a little impatient at times, but she still did good work, even if she misinterpreted our suggestions sometimes and was high at least once when we asked for an update.

We'd assumed that she would rig it for SFM and VRC as a part of the main payment. She then told us it would cost extra for the rigging.

We were understandably miffed but she justified it with money problems, so we sighed and went with it. When it was finished, she sent us a ZIP file holding all of it, and...then we didn't have any idea how to get it working.

She helped us, thankfully, but the whole thing was really annoying for our computer illiterate phone-dwelling ass. And then we had no clue about unity because it had been years since we'd made the other model with a base. Then she joked about having a $140 fee for it and that was pretty much the final straw for us, deciding to just pay someone else to port it for us because we were getting genuine headaches from it.

Since then, we've been using the model as planned, but have noticed a lot of clipping issues with it, it turns out the person we found to port it actually does similar quality models from scratch for like a FRACTION of the price, and despite us telling her it was going to be used on Oculus(i refuse to call it Meta) Quest, it was INCREDIBLY unoptimized for it.

This is a first world problem to hell and back and I'm not actually going to do it because I don't want to deal with her again after all the miscommunication but

Aita for being suspicious enough I've been scammed/fed a sob story to want at least a partial refund here?

What are these acronyms?

[macgyvermedical]

Okay so I have a really specific question. Baseline stats? Except my character is already pretty sick, he's got room to get much much worse but right now he ain't great. He's in a fair amount of pain because he keeps having adverse reactions to painkillers from previous drug abuse and yeah. So what would normal baseline be? And then what would a normal baseline for him bc since he's got this illness. It's idk what you call it but one of the illness that get worse with time... degenerative. Except in this world he can be fixed with enough treatment but he keeps refusing said treatment. Yeah I don't really understand vitals and things so I didn't wanna botch it but based on the info what would you assume would be good? Also what's like the worse someone's vitals could be with them still awake and alive although the mental state can be real messed up. (: thanks hon

So our understanding of normal adult vitals include:

BP: 100/60- 140/90 mmHg (a measurement of pressure)

Pulse: 60-100 beats per minute

Respirations: 12-20 breaths per minute

Temperature: 96-100.4F or 36-38C

SpO2: 95-100%

Level of Consciousness: Alert and Oriented times 4 (can answer 4 specific questions about themselves and their environment)

Now, all these "normals" pretty much assume a healthy, white, 20-something male who has a BMI of 18-25 and who has been sitting quietly for at least 5 minutes. So basically very few real humans.

It's very normal to vary from these somewhat if you are exerting yourself, in pain, sick, or otherwise different from the above demographic. So if we're taking vitals, we want to control what we can (generally asking the person to sit relatively quietly for 5 minutes). If we do this and you're out of range, but we have no other data to work with, we will try to get you back into this range. Because again, it's assumed that to get out of these ranges, you must have something going on medically that needs addressed.

For example, if your blood pressure is 160/90 with a heart rate of 110 because you're in a lot of pain, we can correct that by treating whatever is causing the pain.

Now, there's not always an identifiable (or fixable) reason why someone might be out of range, and sometimes we just correct the vitals themselves because chronically high or low vitals may cause problems. For example, as far as we know right now, living for a long time with a blood pressure in the 180s/100s will eventually cause heart failure, stroke, or heart attack, regardless of the reason. So if we can't get that person back into range by fixing something else, we'll give medications that directly lower blood pressure.

But let's say someone's heart rate is in the 40s because they're a runner. That's normal for them. It doesn't cause them any problems, it's not caused by a disease process, as far as we know won't cause them problems in the future, and their other vital signs are in normal range. They are said to have a "baseline heart rate of 40bpm". That tells other medical providers who are working with them that there's nothing to correct there- ignore that weird reading and just fix anything else that needs fixed.

Baseline can also be used if someone has a chronic illness that is as controlled as it can be, but it still has an impact on their vital signs. Say someone has a heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation with RVR and their heart rate without medications is in the 190s or 200s. This may cause symptoms, but if we medicate to control that rate to between 60-100, it may also cause symptoms.

So we might give enough medication to control the rate to 110s, which minimizes the symptoms they experience but still puts them technically out of range. Their baseline, then, is in the 110s. Again, nothing to correct there, it's just normal for them to be out of range on that vital.

Or, someone might have dementia and be unable to answer all the questions that would make them A+Ox4, but maybe can only consistently answer 2 of them. We wouldn't necessarily be worried about that because we know that it's normal for them to be A+Ox2- their baseline, but we would be worried if suddenly they were A+Ox0.

You can also have other measurements besides vitals that are considered baseline stats. Like pain, or blood sugar, BMI, electrolyte levels, or pretty much any other lab value.

As far as what you are describing I don't know that I can give you specific baselines, as I don't know what his symptoms are or how they relate to vital signs. With chronic pain generally vitals eventually go back to normal (say someone rates their pain at a 5/10 consistently, over time their body normalizes around that pain level and other vitals may only go out of range if they have an acute spike in pain).

What I can give you is a few of the following:

Pain: All vital signs go up

Dehydration/blood loss/shock: BP and LOC goes down, everything else goes up

Kidney problems: BP and HR can change but in what direction is due to the specific problem.

Opioid overdose: RR goes down.

Heart problems: Change in HR and BP but directions can change depending on specific problem.

Lung problems: Usually RR and HR go up

Throwing up: everything goes up

Drug abuse and withdrawal: depends on the drug

[pttucker]

Aaaand we're done! \o/

Well... "done" in one sense of the word since I just did a very quick search and apparently there's like another 140 chapters of side stories and counting. Possibly post-epilogue stuff??? Didn't look too closely since I don't want too many spoilers if I can avoid it. I already saw one vague spoiler relating to 49% Dokja's side story. 😢😢😢

Though at least now with the main novel+epilogues finished all of the mysteries have been wrapped up (as far as I can remember).

I guess I'm still curious about the Library, but even if that's never touched upon in any side story chapters, I think I kinda get it with my theories and how he broke up into many, many different Dokjas and/or was two different Oldest Dreams?

Oh, and the stuff with Dokja & 1863's Sooyoung's blurry faces, I would have liked to have seen that resolved. There were mentions of Dokja slowly getting less blurry that were kinda glossed over but nothing concrete ever popped up for why his face was blurry or if/when it fully stopped being blurry? Unless I just missed some subtle thing?? Like I guess the epilogue did mention that Sooyoung had fun writing in stuff about him being the Ugly King but I don't think she made him ugly, that was just her memories of him?? Either way, poor Dokja. 😭

idk maybe I'm the only one obsessed with things like that. (I literally eventually started a separate section in my ORV Scrivener notes just for all the times Dokja's looks are mentioned in any way.) So maybe it just wasn't deemed important to "resolve"? Or, again, it was but I totally missed it.

Or maybe there's still something about the Library and his looks (and other mysteries I may not be currently remembering) in the additional 140+ chapters out there?

Unfortunately, English translations of Chapters 552+ don't all seem to be in one place, or at least I wasn't able to quickly find them in my first search. I'll keep looking, though. Might just have to cobble together the chapters one by one from various sources. If anyone happens to know where I could possibly find them...

Though I'm honestly not certain if I want to immediately jump into them or if I want to give it a moment to breathe. I actually am a little bit disappointed that I jumped right into the 40+ chapter epilogues right after finishing the main story since I feel like it stole some of the impact from him finding his two separate ■■.

Even if I was really happy to see how they continued living on in the system-less world and how Dokja felt after losing all of his companions to be Oldest Dream. Seriously you never get to see those sort of things after the "happy" ending.

And I did love seeing how it all tied back together with Sooyoung being the author and ORV itself being Dokja's story (which Sooyoung also wrote!) which in turn is our story and getting to see Secretive Plotter and the 999ths again and poor Joonghyuk just not knowing what to do with himself after losing his purpose as a protagonist and him and Sooyoung wanting to save their precious Dokja more than anything and both of them coming to understand Dokja better and so on and so forth.

But if nothing else, I do really want to finally read some fanfiction and otherwise engage with fandom now that the big mysteries are solved. And if I can make one final prediction it's going to be that the top fanfic is some kind of modern, no powers gamer AU or something. Because that's just how these fandoms seem to go. 😂

Anyway, I think it should be obvious from my many, many ORV posts but I really enjoyed the novel! I am very happy that so many things were so well foreshadowed, so much was so carefully planned, so many loose ends were tied up in a very satisfying manner, etc. It's very impressive for such a long, looooong story. I mean, just the fact that you could get inklings that something was up with Secretive Plotter before we even hit Chapter 100 yet not have the reveal come until much later is impressive just on its own.

I guess if I had one complaint it'd be that I didn't quite vibe with the whole "multiple walls to open the Final Wall" thing. Like, I totally was into the idea of Dokja's Fourth Wall being the largest fragment, and I actually thought that Jang Hayoung's wall was pretty clever since it's all about commenting/texting others when Jan Hayoung was created due to Dokja's comments.

But I'm not quite so into the Wall of Samsara and Wall That Divides Good and Evil. Like, I do get how they relate to the story, what with Dokja literally reincarnating into multiple worlds himself and the fact that a lot of Dokja's main theme was that he didn't nicely fit into a box of good or evil. I mean, his literal Modifiers are Demon King of Salvation and Watcher of Light and Darkness. Not to mention, Dokja went through a ton of the novel saying that just because they were evil in one turn doesn't mean they're evil in the next and vice versa, as well as the fact that the had companions on both sides of the spectrum.

So I'm not saying that they just came out of nowhere, but personally I find something to be a little off with them when compared to the other two walls? idk these are just my initial thoughts and I might feel completely different once I re-read the novel and can better appreciate things.

Which, speaking of, I'm debating with myself if I want to do the truly ridiculous thing and start this entire novel over right from the beginning in true Dokja fashion or if I want to be good and maybe give some other universe some love. I was looking at The World After The Fall but...uh...

Not to say that things with tiny fandoms aren't also good!!!

But it does make me kinda side-eye it a little and wonder if I shouldn't just read Solo Leveling...

...or read whatever side stories I can find, aaaaaalllllll the fanfic, and then read ORV all over again. 😂

We'll see.

FYI when I do start reacting to the side stories I think I'll use the tag "orv side story" if anyone wants to block it preemptively to avoid spoilers.

[simonalkenmayer]

So, um, uh. Whilst watching Secrets of the Occult, there's an episode regarding Gilles de Rais meeting Barron.

In this episode it is reported that Gilles aquired 140 children at Barron's request.

Validity?

Also know anything regarding the supposed public ritual in honour of his "friend?" Joan of Arc with The Mystery of Orl ans?

Thank you

Yes, I know. I was there.

Allow me to explain. There are parts to that story that I did not tell you. The reason, my recordings of my short stories stopped where they did, is because I sat me down to write the missing pieces, and could not bring myself to do so. I have a heavy burden of guilt for my actions during that time. I was intent on having this man prove to the world what a monster he was so I exploited the mythology created by a conman. Unfortunately, this was the wrong thing to have done. I made the situation far worse and suffered at the time because of this poor decision. But by the time I realized I had some part in this catastrophe, it was too late for me to stop it. I had to carry it out to get it to stop.

I can tell you about anything you want to know about, but it is very difficult for me to address. I would be happy to try again at completing the story. I am not sure I can record it until I’ve processed how I feel.

I will see if I can attempt it this week, but I warn you that the story is somewhat triggering in many respects, including dealing with the magician. That specifically makes me feel very, how do the kids say these days? Skeeved out? Some such.

Guilles was a sick man surrounded by sick man. And I made it worse. It’s because of how that ended that I decided to never participate in any sort of vengeance again. And so for a long while, I did not use my abilities to aid humanity in any way. After that time, I eventually ended up in England . It was only then that I dipped a toe back in, because I believed that it would bring more peace. I was correct in that decision, and so after that maintained a kind of policy of distance. I only ever use my skills to build things, never to destroy them or tip a scale this way or that . Until I came to the wild West and people tried to kill me. It was my anger that drove me then, and capitalism made it possible for me to tip the scale in a way that was direct, but distant at once.

I’ve always loved gambling. It’s free money.

[usafphantom2]

#TomcatTails

#TomcatTuesday

RED FLAG Shenanigans Part 1

RED FLAG is a two-week exercise held several times a year at Nellis Air Force Base several miles northeast of Las Vegas. It’s an advanced air-to-air combat training event that “aims to offer realistic air-combat training for military pilots and other flight crew members from the United States and allied countries.” Since my first squadron, the VF-24 Renegades, obviously qualified for the event, we volunteered to go……twice….in two years. Multiple DACT events?? VEGAS??? Sign us up!

The following five vignettes are offered to explain how these kinds of events went for an early 90’s Tomcat squadron. They’re pulled from both of our visits there in 94/95 and are representative of each of them. The first one in 1994 we all got to stay in a Howard Johnsons near the airport (decent breakfast!) and for the second one we got to stay in a “No-Tell Motel” across the street from the city jail (syringes and hookers!). Life was good, as we’d all fly once a day and have some of the best Liberty imaginable in Sin City, USA. I’ll use vignette #1 to illustrate how fun that nightlife was (names and callsigns changed to protect the innocent).

Who’s Got the Spike Watch?

As you may imagine, cutting 28 Fighter Pilots and RIOs loose in Loss Vegas can be rather…..interesting. Per usual, we’d tend to travel in large packs (10-12 wasn’t unusual) and we’d roam the streets going to various casinos (“always bet on Renegade Red!!”), consuming the local food and beverage (shrimp cocktails and bourbon), and communicating with the indigenous peoples (showgirls).

We had a RIO in the squadron (“Spike”) that was from North Carolina, complete with heavy accent, that would on occasion imbibe just enough bourbon to cease conscious brain function but not quite enough to make his legs stop working. One fine evening, Spike was right there with us and then all the sudden he was not. Shit. We searched a bit but no joy, so ended up going back to the hotel to get some shut eye.

Morning arrives and Spike had returned sometime late in the evening. We’d heard he’d banged on some of the Sailors room doors while in his underwear and they eventually steered him to one of the Officer’s rooms. We’re all downstairs for breakfast just waiting for Spike to tell us what the hell happened. He didn’t remember, naturally. But he DID say “I have a pocket full of receipts, ATM withdrawal slips, and I can’t find my wedding ring.”

Uh-oh. So we lay out all the paperwork in chronological order. Apparently, he’d hooked up with some honey (not physically, just out partying) and they: withdrew $500 in cash for gambling, had a $140 dinner at a steak restaurant, and spent $600 at a handbag store. Oh, and he gave the girl his wedding ring. Skipper hears about this and he appoints us all as having the “Spike Watch” for the rest of the detachment. Spike was not happy but managed to stay married because his wife is a Saint.

Beating Up on Eagles

Our primary role is (again) Red Air, the bad guys, with very limited A/A missile capability and our job was to suck up Eagle AMRAAM and then get to a merge and have some fun. My favorite engagement occurred mid exercise. We were set up in the west of the working area in the low 20,000’s and the Eagles were in the east way up in the ionosphere in the high 30s, probably 60 miles away. At the “fights on”, we push east and descend a bit to try and pull them out of the high block. They didn’t bite.

At about 40 miles we can see them waaaaaay up there; a wall of eight Eagles each with a contrail. Now normally, if you’re emitting contrails (“marking”) you want to get out of that block because the bad guys can see you. But a wall of EIGHT Eagles at 38K’ with 4+ AMRAAM each is pretty formidable so at that point, they have an “I don’t care if you can see me, you’re going to die” advantage. Sure enough, the whole wall of eight turns 45° to the south; they’d sorted and shot missiles at all of us hapless Red Air missile sponges. After 30 seconds or so, “Timeout kill; all Red Air is dead.”

With that part out of the way, the “continue” call comes and now we roll up our sleeves for some turning and burning. The Eagles know we’re not coming up there so they come down to meet us. Perfect. Their wing is optimized for the thin air; the Tomcat swing wing is optimized for the thicker air below 20K’. We’d all broken up and were now raging singes, and I get radar on an Eagle that’s headed right at me. We’re all the way north and clear of the rest of the jets, so it’s just me and him mano a mano.

We close, and then we’re visual, and it looks to be a left-to-left pass. I’m at my best corner speed (320 kts) because I know that down here our degrees of turn per second is pretty close but he has a slight advantage. I need to find a way to get some angles and I hit upon a pretty basic intimidation move as we’re about to merge. Normally at an ACM merge, you pass wingtip to wingtip at 500 feet separation and when you pass, you start your turn, either into him (2 circle) or away from him (1 circle). My plan is for a 2 circle fight to maximize my turn rate. But what I DON’T do is wait until our wingtips pass to start my turn.

I wait until we nearly merged, throw the stick hard left with some rudder while I’m at his left 11 o’clock and put a BIG OL’ TOMCAT right in his face, like I’m early turning him. All he sees is this aluminum overcast right in front of his jet, seeming to be digging for a turn before even passing. Our jets then actually pass and I snap on 6.5 Gs and max perform the Tomcat across his tails and nose low. And my gambit works. As I visually acquire him in a couple seconds, he hadn’t started turning….and THEN he snaps on his best turn. But it’s too late. I’ve already got 20° or more on him, I’m below the horizon, and in 2 circle flow it’s just a matter of time. I pull harder to to scoop the turn out across the circle and get into a firing position pretty quickly. Worked out real nice for me on that one. Naturally, there were other merges that didn’t. In the debrief we met up and chatted and he was a newer Eagle pilot and said “I’ve never seen a jet that big move like that.”

BUFF Too Tough

At one point, we had a B-52 show up. Affectionately known as the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat F**ker), she’s a remarkable platform and it was an honor to see one in flight. On one particular run, she was making her way across the area up in the ionosphere with the Eagles there to protect. We all REALLY wanted to bag a BUFF as it would be huge bragging rights. Our division of Red Air starts this particular run and with four Eagles/one Buff in the East, we turn in and head for ‘em. Our plan is to break up into four raging singles about 40 miles and dive for the deck and hope to ingress get under the Eagles and behind the BUFF and do our best to cornhole her from behind.

Things are working pretty good, but the Eagles have a GREAT system and they managed to bag 3 of us. But not me, luckily. I’m in the weeds in the high desert roving through a valley and my RIO is doing his best to get his radar up and on the BUFF. Sure enough, there she is at 4 miles in the medium 30’s. Now, remember I’ve related before that the F-14A with the TF-30s didn’t do so well above 30K’ (as in “could barely get there”), so I know we wouldn’t have much time for the shot, basically making a stern conversion in the vertical. So we light the cans, accelerate to ludicrous speed and start a climbing 50° nose up slight turn to the right.

Once we’re visual, it’s just a matter of timing your turn and climb to arrive in a firing solution at the BUFF’s 5 o’clock position and start blastin’ away. That’s the plan anyway. What ACTUALLY happens is this. We’re about 3 miles at her 5 o’clock, the heart of the envelope for the stern quarter Sparrow shot, and my RIO tries to get a radar lock. I see the diamond/symbology bounce around, feel the antenna thumping at my feet and SCHWACK the radar antenna hits the stops hard low and right. RIO tries again, same result. At this point, I figured out that a jet as big as the BUFF must have a jammer suite as big as a tractor trailer. Sure enough, no WAY we’re going to get a radar missile on her. Fair enough, switch Sidewinder (heat seeker). I didn’t know if I had enough ‘Winders to bring down a BUFF (two 20-pound warheads against a 200,000 pound jet), but I’d give it a try.

‘Winder up, good seeker symbology, try and maneuver to get the seeker on one of the motors…..and….remember when I said we didn’t do well up above 30K? Well, controls are getting mushy and if I put any kind of pull on the jet I’d probably stall one of the motors, and I’m getting slower a little at a time. I keep fishing for a bit but the seeker didn’t want to give me a good lock. A couple growls, but no tone. Dammit. No way guns were going to work in this scenario, so discretion being the better part of valor……let the nose drop, abandon my one shot at a BUFF, and on the descent shake my fist while screaming at the sky “Curses!! A curse on you, BUFF!!!!”

This is part one of "Red Flag Shenanigans". Tune in next week when we finish the series with "Mirage 2000, Dammit" and "Area 51 is Real."

@RSE_VB via X

[clatterbane]

And, speak of the devil!

Hadn't heard anything other than from primary care since that appointment, so now I get three notifications in a row from the healthcare portal.

(With the aid of autotranslate.)

So yeah, no wonder primary care had no idea what I was talking about when I asked about maybe getting the first sample drawn while I was there, and they were already taking my blood over the anemia. (Your local vårdcentral is usually where to get any samples drawn, unless you want to go to the university phlebotomy clinic for that.)

The endo clinic is apparently planning to handle that themselves. I had no idea how to even get that taken care of, and was planning to ask my nurse there how to do the thing once Mr. C got back and could accompany me.

But yeah, they evidently want me there three (3) freaking mornings in a row, for short appointments at the equivalent of 2 or 3 A.M. for my nocturnal ass. At least it is the endo clinic here in town, but it takes longer to get there from the parking building than they are likely to keep me.

The plan is apparently to do a dexamethasone suppression test.

Because of the difficulty in obtaining 24-hour urine collections in many outpatients, some physicians use a l-mg overnight dexamethasone suppression test. For this test, the patient takes l mg of dexamethasone orally at 11 p.m., and the plasma cortisol level is measured at 8 a.m. the following day (normal value: 5 μg per dL or less [140 nmol per L]). The reported sensitivity of this test is 98 percent; the reported specificity is 80 percent.

So they want me to get a baseline sample drawn, take thev dexamethasone, then come back the next morning for another blood sample. The third day?

I also have some nasty suspicions about what a hefty dose of dexamethasone might do to my blood sugar, but hey. ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ It is the specialist diabetes clinic proposing to give me the stuff.

Glancing through that web link, I am getting even more honked off at that new endo and her eyeballing judgments.

The most common symptom is sudden weight gain.3,6 Obesity, usually with a central distribution, is the most frequent sign. Any sign or symptom of cortisol excess can develop initially, but muscle weakness, bruising, hypertension, facial rounding and plethora eventually occur. Hypertension is likely to develop in patients who are more than 40 years of age.

Yeah, I know. I have quite coincidentally been there in the distant past, and it ain't much fun. (Not gonna lie, especially when this starts happening to you at 15-16.) I am currently showing zero of those symptoms other than the high blood pressure--which is not at all unusual, and only really went screwy after one particular round with COVID. I am only barely out of the Officially Underweight range again right now, on someone with this size frame to boot. I have pretty much the opposite of the insulin resistance too much cortisol will cause, and they bloody well know that.

It's not a very nice feeling when this is still evidently what immediately pops into your new doctor's mind the first time they clap eyes on you, and then they get all weird about it. When you're even there for a routine check-in over something completely different. Good thing I'll probably only have to deal with the woman once a year.

[pbandjesse]

I didn't have a bad day. I wasn't even all that tired. I am in my feelings and am feeling pretty low right now. But for the most part it was a good day.

I slept a little better. I didn't wake up as often. The pressure in my ribs lessened. And I was feeling alright at 830 when my alarm went off.

I was slightly disappointed that the weather wasn't worse. It was just annoying enough to make them move my appointment but the schools didn't have a delay so James was not able to get out of work to come with me to the hospital. I was not looking forward to going alone.

I was also just thrown off timing wise. Like I would normally be getting back from our appointment at 9 but instead I was eating cereal and getting ready to go. I would bend my finger nail backwards and broke it off really short. Ouch. I tried to waste time so I wasn't leaving wildly early. Sat on my chair in the studio and made a drink to bring with me. But I still left to early and would arrive at the parking garage at 930.

And my appointment wasn't until 10. And I wouldn't get taken back until almost 1020. So it was just a lot of sitting around. Sylvia was moving around my in belly while I was waiting. But when I finally got pulled back she just. Wasn't??

I think maybe it was because I was frustrated by the storyline of the episode of Reba on the TV. And then a woman and her mom came out from their appointment and she was going upstairs to give birth right then! Like surprise! Baby time! The energy in the room changed and everyone was excited. It was also the new grandma's birthday! Amazing!

When I was brought back two of the nurses came out at the same time and I was slightly overwhelmed by cheerful greetings! But everyone was being super nice.

The appointment was fine. I was slightly stressed that Sylvia wasn't moving. Her heart beat was going. And she was practice breathing but she seemed to be asleep. Which was very funny. We tried ice water and some other squishings. But nothing. The nurse left the room to get me water and while she was gone I tried to give myself an ultrasound and that was funny. But no moving?

So we moved on to the feedback monitoring. Which was fine though her heart rate was slightly higher then normal. Normally 140, was between 145 and 150. But she started moving and wiggling and we were chilling. And eventually they did the ultrasound again and we saw enough moving that we passed and I was able to go home.

But I did not to right home. Instead once I got to the car I ordered fries at McDonald's and drove out there. Though it took me forever to get out of the parking garage. I felt like I was lost?! But I got out of there and went to get my lunch.

I accidently got a coke instead of a diet coke. Bleh. But whatever. I had my lunch and didn't drink the soda. And listened to my podcast. And then went home.

When I got back here I got rid of the trash in the car. And spent some time putting things away. Hanging up more clothes to give away. I did not put it outside though because it was raining a little. I started working on our thank you cards, the printed ones came but I will probably still do hand written smaller notes. But for now the printed ones are stuffed and names are in the envelopes.

I spent some time on my sewing machine. Doing the first pass on the last 5 squares. But I didn't want to sit there anymore. Instead moving to the living room sofa to embroider the next letter on Sylvia's jumpsuit. Slow going. I picked a terrible stitch. But whatever.

Once I finished that I would do some more cleaning. Fed Crabcake. Moved some stuff around the basement. And felt tired and moved upstairs.

I would lay down and scrolled and read on my phone. I did not sleep even though I wanted to. I spent time with sweetp. Wanted a soft pretzel but didn't want to leave the house again so I had some dried cereal instead. Talked to James about dinner. I requested a fake meat and stuffing. The fake meat would be the fish fillets.

When James got home they would make me dinner right away. I appreciated them doing that before they jumped on their call for their podcast. I get upset when they say they are going to make dinner but I have to wait until 8. This was better.

Now I am hanging out in bed. Wishing for James to be done their recording. We talked about some home stuff we went to finish before baby comes. The hall painting. Covering outlets. Pinning down cords. We are slowly slowly going to baby proof but man is that going to be tough.

Tomorrow I have a nice open day and then we are going to have dinner with some friends. I can't believe tomorrow marks 34 weeks. Wild. Absolutely wild. The longest year of my life and also somehow it is flying by.

I hope you all have a great night. Stay safe out there. Good night!!

[randomderp]

While playing the 4th Resident Evil Game(The Remake), I was lowkey struggling at this one section where you have to fight off a horde with Luis until Ashley opens the freakin' door to let you guys escape. I died probably over 20 times (the chapter review says only 5, but I had backed up to older saves at multiple points to try and get a better start before the horde). Anyway, one of the most common death screens I got was a villager grabbing Leon by the front and jabbing their thumbs into his eyes, where Leon just kinda flops back and dies. So, with that struggle still taunting me, I wrote a bored drabble(?) during my break at work and before going to bed.

Expect spelling mistakes and flawed logic, I haven't written fanfiction in years. And again, bored drabble to just get the writing out there. Feel free to yoink the idea and referbish it into your own thing.

Warning for Gouged out Eyes? Idk if it counts as spoilers, too, but basically, rewritten gameplay, lol.

-----

Pain. He was in pain. Excruciating pain. Everything was dark, and his head felt like it was close to exploding. What had just happened? He was in so much pain he forgot. His ears were ringing, but he could hear a faint voice.

"¡Sando! Come on, get up! ¡Mierda! Leon!" Luis... It was Luis' voice. He tried to move, he felt his body roll over onto its gut. His hands felt around, eventually feeling the cool metal of his gun. He tried to open his eyes to see the weapon, to see his surroundings. There was so much yelling, gargled voices from the feral villagers, and Luis begging Leon to stand up. He grunted, feeling for the wall to assist him to stand, but was immediately bodyslammed, then smacked down again by what felt like a shovel. Luis' gun could be heard for a moment, and after another second of struggling to stand, Leon was picked up by the scruff like some newborn kitten.

"Leon, come on, man. There's too many, we got to go. Open your damn eyes and start running 'migo!" Luis spoke, a sense of urgency in his tone as Leon felt said man start guiding him up some stairs while angered yells in a language Leon only knew basics in were heard behind them. He tried opening his eyes, his eyelids moving, but no light peeked through. Nothing seemed to work. He was still shrouded in darkness.

"Leon? Over here!" Ashley... Where was she? She was safe, right? A door had opened, hitting the wall adjacent to it, that's where she was. Leon's instinct immediately moved his legs to follow the voice, but without much visual aid caused him to run into the door frame. He grunted, holding his already pained head.

"Leon! What are you doing? Don't tell me that guy did something to yer eyes!" Luis again. Leon felt an arm wrap around his waist, a body pressed into him on the left. His left arm naturally wrapped around what he could only pray was an ally's shoulder. He was dragged out the door and soon a second body attached to his right side.

"Oh my God, Leon! What the hell happened to your eyes?" Ashley screamed in horror.

"Joder... ¡Señorita! just focus on running like hell. We need to get out of here before we get more hurt! I'll focus on Leon's safety for now. Go, go, go!" Luis pulled Leon, causing his body to start running on default to keep balance.

His eyes never cleared up, so he began counting his steps. 23, 24, 25... 42... 58... 92 steps until they finally stopped. Or at least, from the point when he started counting. Probably closer to 140 steps or so. The trio began panting like dogs, their heartrates reaching the clouds. Leon was pressed into a wall and urged to sit by the foreign friend. He complied, but only after non-verbally grunting to show distaste for being shoved around.

"Sit. Let's see what's going on with that face of yours," Luis spoke, his rough hands held up Leon's face. Leon hated the touch. He wasn't a child, or someone's girlfriend, and he didn't want to be touched like this. He moved a hand up to smack Luis away, but completely missed. "Watch it, Cowboy. I'm tryna help."

"I don't need help, I'm fine." Leon finally spoke, flailing his hands in front of him to get Luis away from him. He moved his hands to his eyes, rubbing the thick streams of dried blood off them. Disgustingly sticky... He huffed, assuming he couldn't see just because of the blood, that's all it was. Not because one of the villages stabbed their thumbs into his eyes, possibly puncturing the cornea or even past his lense, causing the aquous humour to drain and replace with blood. Surely not!

The more Leon cleaned away blood with his hands, the more Luis sighed, sounding more concerned, meanwhile Ashley mades sounds of distress by gasping or muttering the Lords name in horror.

"Let me see. I know a thing or two about medical shit, just hold still, Leon," Luis grabbed Leon's hands, moving them to Leon's lap. Luis hummed, patting something, most likely his pockets, for a moment. He cussed for a moment, then began patting Leon's face with something soft. A tissue of sorts. Leon cringed, the lightest touch to his eyelids causing him to wince. "Try to open your eyes."

Leon tried, boy, did he try. His eyelids tucked up and down respectively, but he saw nothing. Black as the night sky. He heard Ashley gasp than begin to cry, meanwhile Luis made an undefinable sound that can best be described as disgust.

"I can't open them, they're stuck," Leon claimed. He wiped his cheek as a subconsious act, feeling a tear trail down. The tear in question felt too thick to be aquadic. It was then when the situation finally clicked.

"Buddy, you have them open. And it ain't pretty," Luis spoke softly, a hand over his mouth while he though. "I won't sugar coat it, your eyes are destroyed. I didn't realise that one villager actually got to you like that. If I'd known... You're lucky, you shouldn't be alive, but it looks like he didn't dig far enough to reach the back of your sockets. But, well, uh... You may be permanently blind. Can you see anything at all? Flashes of colour? Simple blurriness? Anything?"

"Uh...." Leon didn't know how to process the information. How was he supposed to protect Ashley if he didn't have the one part of him that he relied on most? "No. Nothing. Just, it's... It's just dark. Very faint trails of colour, but, I don't think... No, they're impossible colours. I can't... Fucking. Damn it!"

Leon tucked his knees in. Hanging his head and hiding himself the best he could in plain view.

What was he gonna do now?

[theabyssinyourcloset]

The shortfin mako

Last time (over a month ago, oops) I talked about the goblin shark. There has now been a request (can I call it that?) by @surprisemice to do the mako shark next, so here we go!

So, the scientific name for the shortfin mako (also known as the shortfin mako shark, blue pointer, mackerel shark and bonito shark) is Isurus oxyringchus. There's also a longfin mako shark, which is its own separate species (Isurus paucus). Although both are commonly called makos, the shortfin is better known, and so I will be introducing it first (I'll write about the longfin in a separate post sometime later). The shortfin mako is an endangered species, along with the longfin.

The shortfin mako shark typically inhabits tropical waters all around the world, far from land, at around 150 metres (490 ft). It's an endothermic species (one of the very few) that isn't typically found in waters colder that 16°C (61°F).

The species was first discovered around 1810. Unfortunately I did not find where that happened. I also cannot find any information about how old this species is. I seriously don't know how I was able to dig up so much information about the goblin shark :/ well, I'm going to tell some other cool facts about this species instead (once we get there)!

The shortfin makos are typically a colour of dark blue on the top. The colour turns to metallic blue, before turning to white on the bottom. The sharks typically have around 6-8 teeth on their upper jaw, but overall they have 12 sets of them. Quite a lot. Not to mention that they're razor sharp. These sharks also have around 50 teeth that are not in use. They are possibly only there, at the back of their mouths, to intimidate other predators (mainly other sharks).

The shortfin mako usually grows to about 2,5 to 3,2 metres (8,2 to 10,5 feet). Females are typically larger in size than males. They normally weigh around 60–140 kilograms (130–310 pounds). The longest verified length for an individual was 4,45 metres (14,6 feet), and the heaviest was around 600 kilograms (1 300 pounds). Those two were separate cases, though.

Now, some fun facts. The shortfin mako sharks are the fastest species of shark (I like the fact that this shark was used as a mascot for @surprisemice's old swim team, you people must've been good), reaching up to speeds of 80,47 km/h (50 mi/h). That's quite fast, I must say. Also, what I find even more cool is that these sharks can jump above water, at heights of 9 metres (almost 30 feet). I just searched that up and I'm not going to lie, my jaw dropped open. So glad I'm doing some random shark posts like these, I get to learn cool stuff.

Another fun fact: the term 'mako' comes from the Māori language (or its different dialects), with mako meaning shark or shark tooth. Idk why but I just find that cute.

So, in conclusion: The shortfin mako shark is an endangered species of shark found all around the world in tropical and overall warm waters. They're also currently the fastest shark species out there.

Below I have provided images of this beautiful species:

The shortfin mako shark.

Another image of the shortfin mako shark.

The shortfin mako shark jumping out of water (impressive).

Gif with a good view of the teeth of the shortfin mako shark.

Hopefully this was enjoyable to read! I'd be glad to receive feedback on my info posts, if anyone has any. But that's it for today, have a great day/night/whatever time it is there where you are (here it's basically midnight *cough cough*)!

I'll make a separate post about which shark species' I want to write about, eventually crossing off the ones I have written about. (That isn't that important right now though)

I have once again forgot to cite my sources. Fuck me.

All sources read/visited on 4th March 2024, by The Abyss In Your Closet

[toddmarksthespot]

Entry #5

13Jun24

0708

^^’ Been a while since I’ve made an official entry post..! A lot has happened since then I guess.

Had a visit from Habit…! Wasn’t pleasant! But I did owe him payment from when I visited #013. Oh!! I never touched on that in an entry post either- god no wonder my mind is all over the place..^^’ Really need to get better with this routine. Haha..!!

Ireland: I went to Ireland to help #013 with his eye. Despite the circumstances, I am very glad I went. #013 is really nice! He’s really cool and interesting, super knowledgable and understanding. I feel bad, I feel like I was short with him the whole time. I hadn’t been sleeping, just in case something were to show up. I ended up passing out eventually- probably should’ve done it on my own accord to keep from sleeping as long as I had. Especially since it was my first night there- I hadn’t slept a couple days prior-to but I just didn’t feel comfortable sleeping when #013 could’ve needed something urgently. Luckily, nothing happened. I’ve been trying to do better about my phobia of sleeping…hasn’t been helped by how fast everything’s been moving lately, I think. Makes me forget things and makes me panic. I get worried I’ll go to sleep and it’ll be a few days or weeks along the line before I wake up again. Anyway! Off topic- #013, I’d love to see you again during better circumstances! ^^ I don’t like being around people, but I didn’t mind being around you at all. It was really, really nice having the company.

Habit visit: I don’t want to go into too much here. He came and got the book. I messed up, gave him the wrong one at first, I didn’t check. I learned my lesson.

Happy time: Habit had a 24 hour spell when no one could feel anything wrong. It was amazing. I felt like I hadn’t in..god. Years. Like nothing was wrong, nothing had ever been wrong, nothing will be wrong again. Any usual worries or paranoias I had were just gone. Anytime I saw Scottie, he was happy. I believed Blue was back. I didn’t feel guilty anymore. I wasn’t scared. It all ended way too fast. …^^’ Ended up breaking my hand and wrist over it.

Broken hand: The second that 24 hour period was up, it all just…came rushing back. Way too fast. I was pissed, I was scared, I was grieving. I put a hole through my poor wall, and thusly forgot the brick behind the wood paneling. Way to go, #042! -_- Naturally, I couldn’t go to a hospital. I wouldn’t have anyway, last time I tried to go to a doctor they just acted weird. Like they’d seen a ghost. So…if it isn’t obvious already, I’ve been without my meds for who knows how long now. I did try to wrap it myself, even made a splint with some wood scrap. It didn’t really offer the support my hand and wrist needed, and it wasn’t at all reset. My hand hurt so bad, just kept looking worse and worse. Ran out of what little ibuprofen I had left. But…#140 made a deal to fix it. I don’t know what he dealt, or why…but I am so. So grateful to him. Pissed that he did it, yes, but grateful. I didn’t realize just how bad it really was until it was gone. I was able to sleep last night. I feel bad about getting so upset in chat, I really wasn’t trying to be difficult. I’d been running on zero sleep and in so much pain…plus Habit egging on everything just…ugh. It was too much. I feel so much better now, I really hope he and #013 can forgive me for being so mean yesterday.

Minecraft: On the subject of yesterday…Habit made a Minecraft server. I haven’t played in a couple years, not since Scottie left. It’s nice!! Last time I played they had just added stained glass and stuff, so much has been added since then…it’s really fun exploring it! I didn’t know I needed this until now, but it’s doing wonders for my mental health. It’s nice to see #013 again! And I can play with the other rabbits ^^ Plus I can keep my hands busy without feeling totally alone, without having to be around anyone. It’s great, I’m so happy it was made. I can’t wait to play again tonight!

All in all, really rough few weeks, so far ending on a better note. Learning a lot..! ^^’ But hope it stays good for a while.

[guessimate]

This post will be rather short and that's partly because the Yu family will end up being a single person household for now, due to an unfortunate ROS. They are really getting the short end of the stick. The last round they couldn't afford to pay their taxes because nobody could open the store... and now Shime shall succumb to her illness. I'm going to say she thought her illness was gone, but it turned out to be the opposite and she found herself at death's door...

I infected Shime with pneumonia, then with food poisoning, and finally with pneumonia again, but she would always get healthy again. I'm going to say she wouldn't eat anymore because she was so poorly, and eventually withered. She was feeling so bad on her last day that she didn't appreciate her friend's visit.

Shime passed along her perception business reward onto her only son before she passed away. And upon her death the home business was bequeathed to him as well. I don't think there's a deed to pass if you have just a home business, so I couldn't transfer that.

Because the pond was still frozen and it kept snowing from time to time, I let Sangen have the chess table he wanted to pass the time. I didn't want him to just wander around the house. He got to Logic level 8.

~*~

I have come up with a bio for the son:

Sangen Yu is dissatisfied with his living conditions and the absence of his dad who decided to become a monk when he secured his heir. He also holds a grudge against both of his parents because he had to bring himself up on his own while his mom was sickly in bed.

Had they known Shime's condition was fatal, someone would have adopted Sangen immediately. But alas, he's now left on his own as the sole heir to the Yus' residence. He needs to find someone who won't be just a distant figure in his life.

He holds baking dear to his heart, since in his childhood he would bring cakes to his mom's bed to cheer her up. But he knows that he needs to keep on selling fish as is his family's tradition. Fish cakes anyone?

~*~

Sangen was rolled to be a Popularity sim. Popularity is not something his parents were ever interested in, but I think it shows that he either didn't understand his parents' priorities, or he cared neither for Fortune, nor Family. It's also odd that his dad left his family, despite being a Family sim, so I can understand that he thinks Family is not something worthy aspiring to.

Soji actually came over to visit the family he abandoned (on his own). Perhaps he had heard of his wife's illness. I allowed him to visit his wife on her deathbed.

~*~

Sangen opened the fishmonger's at the end of the round, after his mom had sadly passed away. He got his business to rank 2 (it was rank 1 before). He also got a positive review from the business critic who just loves visiting all my small home businesses.

I didn't write down the exact amount of money he had before he opened the store but he earned ~1400$. The tax is very similar to the one the previous family needed to pay, but the Yus owed double the rent because of the inability to pay last round.

1000$ - rent [for this and previous round]

560$ - tax

140$ - tithe

Sangen Yu cannot afford to pay the tithe, but he will pay all he can, hoping his dad will understand. He had ~1530$ in the bank and paid everything he could. The clergy might be unhappy about the lack of tithe, but there really isn't a separate clergy in town yet and his dad would probably let him off the hook...

I'm probably going to consider households who fail to pay the tithe as unfaithful, or at least doubtful about the Watcher. And I think it fits Sangen Yu, who feels failed by his dad - the embodiment of the clergy, in his mind.

[tcplnyteens]

Review: A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

The classic magic school meets the morally-gray heroine in A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. Sixteen-year-old El (short for Galadriel) is among a few thousand other high schoolers living in the Scholomance, a wizard boarding school where they learn spells, alchemy, and artifice (making magical artifacts). But there’s more to this magic school than what meets the eye, because it’s hiding a monstrous secret (literally): the school is constantly under siege by magic-hungry murderous monsters. 

I got this book as my summer reading freebie from TCPL! The library’s summer reading challenge runs from June 25 to August 5 this year, and all you need to do is stop by the teen desk and register to receive a prize book that’s yours to keep! You also get a form to record the number of minutes you spend reading each day, and for every 140 minutes you read, you get one entry into a gift card raffle. There are a lot of really good prize books being offered, so in my opinion it’s totally worth it to sign up for the challenge and get a new book to read! 

A Deadly Education follows El’s junior year of high school as she struggles to survive the monsters lurking in every corner of the school (again, literally) while staying on top of her coursework; trying to make allies and maybe, just maybe, some friends, despite her status as the unpopular loner; and building power for her graduation ceremony, when she must fight a horde of terrifying monsters to get out of the school. El’s not just a typical Scholomance student, though, because of a terrible prophecy that is trying its best to catch up to her. The gist of it is that El has a powerful affinity for spells of mass destruction, and she must painstakingly build up magic or else she’ll turn into a bloodthirsty dark wizard. Because of this, it’s actually quite difficult for her to use magic. On top of all of that, El has to deal with the pesky hero wannabe Orion Lake, who might just turn out to be the friend she’s been looking for. 

I absolutely loved the worldbuilding in this book and I enjoyed learning more about the Scholomance and its monsters as the story went on. The idea of having monsters being the main enemy of this world was a pretty refreshing deviation from the classic wizard-wars trope. The monsters’ lore, the way they can hide in innocuous places and lay siege to the Scholomance at certain times, and the detailed magical procedures the students must take to protect against them were all super unique and fun. The Scholomance itself and all of its quirks, including the murderous library with a mind of its own, the hallways that target students’ mental states, and the spooky void in the dorms, set it apart from all of the magic schools that have come before it and made it into a character of its own. Unlike some other book series, if there were ever a spin-off about the creation of the Scholomance, I would totally read it, because that’s how appealing and interesting this world is. 

On the other hand, the characters in A Deadly Education paled in comparison to the worldbuilding. I’m not saying the characters are bland—they definitely are not—but they are kind of underwhelming. I find it hard to believe that the entire class (minus El) basically worships Orion, who is about as likable and sociable as a sock. And, if I’m being completely honest, I thought El was annoying for a good half of the book. At some point, her edgy brooding monologues about not wanting to turn into a dark sorceress (of which there were many) got old and cringey. I also never really understood why she had to be so rude and bad-mannered to everyone. Even though she was unpopular, it didn’t seem like she was being targeted by the enclave kids, so I found it frustrating that she couldn’t show at least some basic decency to other people. We do eventually get some explanation as to why she acts the way she does when the author explores her hatred of enclaves, so I did eventually come to understand her perpetual rudeness. I really wish this explanation came sooner in the story, because I actually grew quite fond of El by the end of the book. It was super heartwarming and wholesome when she finally realized what friendship feels like after becoming allies with Aadhya and Liu. 

Overall, I would totally recommend A Deadly Education for anyone looking for a fun-filled read to devour in one sitting or let stew over several days, since this book is well-suited for either. There is a substantial amount of violence and foul language in this book, which is not so out-of-place for YA fantasy, but proceed with caution nonetheless! The many parallels to the real world in A Deadly Education make it a thought-provoking read—for example, the enclave kids’ status, which shields from the dangers other wizard kids face and gives them a leg up in getting out of graduation, mirrors the wealth disparities in our world that affect children’s future success. Although this book’s characters are unlikable at times, the exciting plot and rich worldbuilding more than make up for it. A Deadly Education will leave you hungry for more. 

~Tania