#wall core cutter

[johnsontools]

Roof type core drill bit segment Stable Drilling for Construction Materials #diamondtools

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Helping Hand 11

Warnings: non/dubcon, mentions of divorce, manipulation, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

Characters: Jonathan Pine, 40s reader

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

“I don't want them,” you try to wave Jonathan off as he offers a pair of pills, “I don't, urgh, need them, I'll deal–”

“You can barely speak for the pain, darling–”

“Stop calling me that,” you hiss, shaking as your hip throbs. Even the bed offers little comfort. Bigger and softer than your own yet entirely unwelcoming. “Can I… Can I have the coffee? My head is pounding.”

You reach past his hand and he clucks, “better reason for you to take your pills.” He moves the mug away, “take them and you may have some coffee.”

“Are you ser–”

You try to sit up straight and fall back against the heaped pillows, “argh, why are you doing this?”

“Why am I taking care of you? Well, anyone with decency–”

“You did this to me–”

“You tripped on the rug. As for your shoulder, I believe that was the creature you call an ex-husband. You would do yourself a favour by letting him go… like he did you.”

“You don't know shit about my marriage,” you growl, eyes pricking hotly, “fine, fine,” you wince as your muscles raze with fire, “I'll take the damn pills. I can't stand it.”

You grab the pills, scratching his palm, and throw them between your dry lips. You moan and gurgle as you try to force them down. He offers the coffee and you take it without a second thought, gulping down the bitterness and pasty tablets.

“Why… why don't you find someone who isn't broken? Someone younger?” You croak, resting the hot mug over your chest.

“You speak so unkindly of yourself, it's no wonder you refuse my kindness,” reproaches, “you're not broken, you are malleable…”

“Jonathan,” you breathe, his words slicing to your core. He's not wrong, you let Andy mold you into his cookie cutter and all for what?

“Enjoy your coffee, please,” he grins, “you've earned it.”

You flinch. You feel so small and weak. Exactly how you felt with Andy. How you've felt ever since. And now this man, no better than the last, only better at playing the gentleman.

“I want to sleep,” you murmur and look away from him.

“Yes, lots of rest,” he coos, “darling, I only want you happy and healthy.”

🩵

You only drink half the mug before you give in to dread. You're trapped here. Not just in this house but your own body.

You close your eyes as the painkillers kick in. They cannot soothe your anxiety but dull the world enough for you to doze. You have no way to track the time but you wake in a similar light, still racked and cramped.

You push your elbow into the bed and lift yourself. Even just a half cup has your bladder urgently full. You rock and writhe until you manage to sit up and sidle to the edge.

You look around, just the idea of standing is defeating. You need to stop assuming things can't get worse. You brace the bed with one arm and repress a yowl as you force yourself to your feet.

You lean on one foot, your hip giving a frightening thrum as you slowly move your leg. You limp, inch by inch, shuffling as you whimper with each step to the door. You sniffle as you enter the hallway, leaning on the wall as your body shakes.

You feel along and find a bathroom and nearly fall through the doorway. You catch yourself on the sink and sob. You kick the door shut but it doesn't catch. You don't care.

You use your unslung arm to get your pants down and angle down onto the toilet. You lean back with a heave and let go. The soft trickle underlines your mewling.

You finish up and pull yourself up with the counter. You flush, bent over the marble as you slide over to wash your hands. You just need to get back to the bed. One thing at a time.

You put a foot flat and push yourself straight. Your lower back spasms and you cry out, crumpling onto the bath mat. You curl on your side and whine, gulping as your eyelashes stick together.

Footsteps near softly and you look up at the figure standing over you. Soft tisks tickle your ears as Jonathan bends to touch your forehead. He lets his hand wander down your cheek.

“Darling, you should've called for me. You know, that's your problem,” he shifts around and scoops his arms under you. He grunts as he stands straight, his strength a harsh contrast to your futility. “You try to do everything on your own. I'm here, darling. Whatever you need of me.”

You drop your head, hunched in his hold as he carries you into the hall. You don't argue. You learned better than that years ago. You should have realised then too that trust is a dangerous thing.

[bracketsoffear]

Spiral Leitner Reading List

The full list of submissions for the Spiral Leitner bracket. Bold titles are ones which were accepted to appear in the bracket. Synopses and propaganda can be found below the cut. Be warned, however, that these may contain spoilers!

Abbott, Edwin Abbott: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions Amato, Mary: The Word Eater

Barker, Clive: Abarat Basye, Dale E.: Fibble Borges, Jorge Luis: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

Calvino, Italo: If on a winter’s night a traveler Carroll, Emily: A Guest in the House Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/ Through the Looking Glass and what Alice found there Chambers, Robert W.: The King in Yellow Coltrane, John: Giant Steps Cortázar, Julio: Rayuela (Hopscotch) Cutter, Nick: The Deep

Dahl, Roald: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Danielewski, Mark Z.: House of Leaves de Cervantes, Miguel: Don Quixote DeLaney, Samuel R.: Babel-17

Eliot, T.S.: The Waste Land Ewing, Frederick R.: I, Libertine

Gaiman, Neil: Neverwhere Gilman, Charlotte Perkins: The Yellow Wallpaper

Hall, Steven: The Raw Shark Texts Hamilton, Patrick: Angel Street/Gas Light Hawke, Marcus: Grey Noise Hodgson, William Hope: The House on the Borderlands Hunter, Erin: Warriors

Ito, Junji: Uzumaki

Joyce, James: Finnegans Wake Juster, Norton: The Phantom Tollbooth

Kte'pi, Bill: The Cheshire

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Color Out of Space Lyons, Steve: The Stealers of Dreams

Mathers, Edward Powys: Cain’s Jawbone Mearns, William Hughes: Antigonish Miles, Lawrence et. al.: The Book of the War Morrison, Grant: Doom Patrol Moore, Christopher: Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d’Art Muir, Tamsyn: Harrow the Ninth

National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers: Common Core Math Textbook Nikolson, Adam: Life between the tides

O’Brien, Flann: The Third Policeman Ogawa, Yoko: The Memory Police Orwell, George: Nineteen Eighty-Four

Pelevin, Victor: The Helmet of Horror Pratchett, Terry: Moving Pictures Pynchon, Thomas: The Crying of Lot 49

Ryukishi07: higurashi no naku koro ni (When The Evening Cicadas Cry)

Sachar, Louis: Wayside School Is Falling Down Schwartz, Alvin: "Maybe You Will Remember" (short story from Scary Stories 3: More Tales To Chill Your Bones) Serafini, Luigi: Codex Seraphinianus Shakespeare, William: A Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare, William: King Lear Shakespeare, William: The Winter's Tale Silberescher: SCP-1425: Star Signals Stine, R.L.: Don't Go to Sleep!

Unknown, Voynich Manuscript

Wells, H.G.: The Door in the Wall West, A.J.: The Spirit Engineer Whorf, Benjamin Lee: Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language Wyspiański, Stanisław: The Wedding

Abbott, Edwin Abbott: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Both a satire on Victorian hierarchies and a mathematical examination of lower and higher dimensions, Flatland's narrator has strange dreams of a one-dimensional Lineland where he can only be seen as a series of points on a line. Following this, he meets A. Sphere, whom he in turn can only see as a circle, and is exposed to the three-dimensional space of Spaceland. When he returns home to try and explain what he has seen, he is thrown into an insane asylum.

Amato, Mary: The Word Eater

The titular Word Eater is a worm born with eyes and the magical ability to eat words instead of dirt, named Fip. Whenever Fip eats a word, the object or subject that word was referring to vanishes, at one point accidentally erasing a recently discovered star. When used on a subject, erasure removes any ontological effects, as when used on a torturous dog training method the dogs it was used on all suddenly become docile instead of vicious. The conflict of the story comes in the fact that words are the only thing Fip can eat, so keeping anything else from being erased becomes a matter of starving him. There's also some disgruntled students who almost use him to erase their school, with the protagonist worrying that the effect could abstractly extend to the staff and students, necessitating their thwarting.

Barker, Clive: Abarat

Candy lives in Chickentown USA: the most boring place in the world, her heart bursting for some clue as to what her future may hold. She is soon to find out: swept out of our world by a giant wave, she finds herself in another place entirely...

The Abarat: a vast archipelago where every island is a different hour of the day, from the sunlit wonders of Three in the Afternoon, where dragons roam, to the dark terrors of the island of Midnight, ruled by Christopher Carrion. (...)

Abarat is an extremely Spiral coded place working so differently from the real world and being extremely nonsensical that I think this book deserves to be the Spiral Leitner.

Basye, Dale E.: Fibble

"When Marlo Fauster claims she has switched souls with her brother, she gets sent straight to Fibble, the circle of Heck reserved for liars. But it’s true—Milton and Marlo have switched places, and Marlo finds herself trapped in Milton’s gross, gangly body. She also finds herself trapped in Fibble, a three-ring media circus run by none other than P. T. Barnum, an insane ringmaster with grandiose plans and giant, flaming pants. Meanwhile Milton, as Marlo, is working at the devil’s new television network, T.H.E.E.N.D. But there’s something strange about these new shows. Why do they all air at the same time? And are they really broadcasting to the Surface? Soon Milton and Marlo realize that they need each other to sort through the lies and possibly prevent the end of the world—if Bea “Elsa” Bubb doesn’t catch them first."

The Fauster twins are caught up in yet another apocalyptic scheme as hellish figures plot to stoke a ratings war into a holy war, using elaborate lies and propaganda to provoke the end of humanity itself.

Borges, Jorge Luis: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

A short story concerning the author and his friend stumbling upon a mention of the Uqbar region in an encyclopedia, a place which is found in no other literature. One of the myths of Uqbar concerns Tlön, a fantastical place where people do not believe in the reality of the material world, and only the most outre scholars would dare suggest that objects have permanence. Objects there "grow vague or sketchy and lose detail" when they begin to be forgotten, culminating in their disappearance when they are completely forgotten. One year later, Tlönian objects begin to appear in the real world. Then a complete encyclopedia of the world turns up, transforming the human understanding of science and philosophy. As the author writes his postscript, the world is transforming entirely into Tlön.

Calvino, Italo: If on a winter’s night a traveler

The postmodernist narrative, in the form of a frame story, is about the reader trying to read a book called If on a winter's night a traveler. Each chapter is divided into two sections. The first section of each chapter is in second person, and describes the process the reader goes through to attempt to read the next chapter of the book they are reading. The second half is the first part of a new book that the reader ("you") finds. The second half is always about something different from the previous ones.

Carroll, Emily: A Guest in the House

"After many lonely years, Abby’s just gotten married. She met her new husband—a recently widowed dentist—when he arrived in town with his young daughter, seeking a new start. Although it’s strange living in the shadow of her predecessor, Abby does her best to be a good wife and mother. But the more she learns about her new husband’s first wife, the more things don’t add up. And Abby starts to wonder . . . was Sheila’s death really by natural causes? As Abby sinks deeper into confusion, Sheila’s memory seems to become a force all its own, ensnaring Abby in a mystery that leaves her obsessed, fascinated, and desperately in love for the first time in her life"

While most riffs on the Bluebeard story are probably slaughter, buried, or eye aligned, much of the horror in this story is the uncertainty and loss of a clear sense of reality. Also the art of Sheila feels very spiral.

Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/ Through the Looking Glass and what Alice found there

Both books have a similar structure and are spiral for the same reasons: little Victorian child Alice founds herself in a strange world with rules vastly different from hers (for example, there’s no real geography and the scenery changes suddenly from one place to another very much like in a dream). The characters she crosses constantly defy her understanding of the world and applies logics she struggles to understand. Even though she ends up going with the flow most of the time she never ceases to question whether she’s experiencing real life or a dream; sanity is brought up a few times, and there’s also the popular quote "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad", delivered by the grinning cat that appears and disappears like a slippery distortion. Lastly I may add that the TMA episode whose title references the book (Mag 177, Wonderland) is a spiral episode.

Chambers, Robert W.: The King in Yellow

A collection of short stories, most of which revolve around a fictional two-act play of the same title: The King in Yellow. Although the play is never described in any great detail, anyone who reads it is driven to madness.

Coltrane, John: Giant Steps

At first a reader simply sees the rapid changes, seemingly random and discordant. Further investigation will begin to reveal patterns, the chords begin to outline other chords, that in turn outline further chords, only to loop back to the beginning. A master or his craft, the creator can seemingly effortlessly navigate this fractal of potential sound. You, can only hope to keep up as the endless, rapidly twisting patterns give you no time to comprehend the page in front of you.

This is specifically against tournament rules, but I still wanted to at least give it a submission.

Cortázar, Julio: Rayuela (Hopscotch)

The story of two young writers whose lives are playing themselves out in Buenos Aires and Paris to the sounds of jazz and brilliant talk, Hopscotch, written in 1963, was the first hypertext novel. Anticipating the age of the web with a non-structure that allows readers to take the chapters in any order they wish, Hopscotch invites them to be the architects of the novel themselves.

Cutter, Nick: The Deep

A strange plague called the ‘Gets is decimating humanity on a global scale. It causes people to forget— Small things at first and eventually their bodies forget how to function involuntarily. There is no cure.

But far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, a universal healer hailed as “ambrosia” has been discovered. In order to study this phenomenon, a special research lab has been built eight miles under the sea’s surface. But when the station goes incommunicado, a brave few descend through the lightless fathoms in hopes of unraveling the mysteries lurking at those crushing depths."

At first glance you might think this book is much more aligned to The Buried than The Spiral and while it does have a lot of claustrophobic elements, the true horror the protagonist (Luke) faces, comes from slowly losing your perception of reality. The relatively small laboratory soon becomes a labyrinth, as he moves from room to room he also moves through memories that become more and more vivid as time goes by. He has hallucinations, falls asleep and dreams of being awake while sleepwalks, he is chased by monsters that are very real and some that are just his own demons.

(spoilers) At the end we find out he and all the other people in the laboratory were lured by two ancient creatures trapped both at the bottom of the sea and another dimension and needed Luke's body to be free. The Figmen are tricksters, they enjoy doing "experiments" seeing how much a body can twist and what it takes to break a mind. The people inside the laboratory were little more that mice they wanted to see run around for their amusement before being freed

Dahl, Roald: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I want off Mr. Wonka's wild ride. Why the fuck is this man dragging children through his acid trip pun-tastical Saw movie. OSHA get his ass

Danielewski, Mark Z.: House of Leaves

The novel is written as a work of epistolary fiction and metafiction focusing on a fictional documentary film titled the Navidson Record, presented as a story within a story discussed in a handwritten monograph recovered by the primary narrator, Johnny Truant. The narrative makes heavy use of multiperspectivity as Truant's footnotes chronicle his efforts to transcribe the manuscript, which itself reveals the Navidson Record's supposed narrative through transcriptions and analysis depicting a story of a family who discovers a larger-on-the-inside labyrinth in their house.

***

Come on, its the book that gaslights you. Some pages are literally typed in spirals. Its about a beautiful new house that breaks the laws of physics and also eats some people- Helen Richardson would be PROUD. Its a story in a story IN A STORY. The introduction of the book is about how the man annotating the manuscript of the documentary and his friend used to pick up girls by telling fantastical and false stories about their lives. Everyone in the books universe thinks the documentary was faked. What can i say that hasn't been said before? The “M” in Mark Z. Danielowki stands for “Mr. Michael Distortion”

***

I mean, look at the book. Look at it. I feel like I'm going mad every time I see its pages.

de Cervantes, Miguel: Don Quixote

After reading too many courtly romances, Quixote's perception of reality is warped, and he seeks to become a knight and restore the courtly chivalric graces. Also he thinks windmills are evil giants.

DeLaney, Samuel R.: Babel-17

Rydra Wong is a top linguist, acclaimed poet, and former military cryptologist. When the Alliance military come across a new code used by the enemy, which is beyond their ability to crack, they come to her for help. She informs them that it is not a mere code, but an actual language, and agrees to accept the challenge.

Quickly assembling a crew, Wong heads to the Alliance War Yards to study the raw data on this new language, which the military calls Babel-17. However, shortly after she arrives, an enemy attack forces her to flee in disarray, and she falls in with a privateer, who is, fortunately, on the Alliance side.

Or mostly so. On board the privateer's ship, she begins to learn more about Babel-17, and the surprising benefits and dangers it offers to someone who learns to speak it. The language literally twists the thought pattern of its speakers, making it easier to conceptualize certain ideas, but more difficult to translate your thoughts into anything others can understand.

Eliot, T.S.: The Waste Land

Here's a link to the text if anyone is curious

The Waste Land is a poem that describes a...place? state of mind? an arc of history?...in a series of fragments. It weaves together fractured dialogue, mythology, language, and popular culture of its day into a bizarre but beautiful landscape that defies easy explanation.

Ewing, Frederick R.: I, Libertine

New York Times Best Selling novel by acclaimed author, Frederick R. Ewing, “I, Libertine” tells the story of a social climber who styles himself as Lance Courtney.

I highly recommend those voting seek out the book to read for themselves, as it is truly one of the great works of modern American literature.

Gaiman, Neil: Neverwhere

"Under the streets of London there's a world most people could never even dream of. A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, knights in armour and pale girls in black velvet. "Neverwhere" is the London of the people who have fallen between the cracks. Strange destinies lie in wait in London below - a world that seems eerily familiar. But a world that is utterly bizarre, peopled by unearthly characters such as the Angel called Islington, the girl named Door, and the Earl who holds Court on a tube train. (...)"

Extremely weird world that unsuspecting civilian can be stuck in, and there is a door motive. This is a Spiral Leitner if I ever saw one.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins: The Yellow Wallpaper

Link

From Wikipedia: "The story is written as a collection of journal entries narrated in the first person. The journal was written by a woman whose physician husband has rented an old mansion for the summer. Forgoing other rooms in the house, the couple moves into the upstairs nursery. As a form of treatment, the husband forbids the journal writer from working or writing, and encourages her to eat well and get plenty of air so that she can recuperate from what he calls a "temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency", a common diagnosis in women at the time. As the reader continues through the journal entries, they experience the writer's gradual descent into madness with nothing better to do than observe the peeling yellow wallpaper in her room.”

***

Epistolary novel about a woman who's being made to live in a single room to treat her post-partum depression. Over the course of the story, she becomes increasingly obsessed with the patterns of the room's wallpaper, spending hours gazing at it and trying to make sense of it. By the end of the story, she believes that there's a woman trapped in the wallpaper, or perhaps that she is the women trapped in the wallpaper. Throughout the story, she's also gaslit by her husband.

***

It's a short story and I highly recommend that you read it. Spoilers (of course) are ahead, so if you want an unspoiled experience, skip past.

This story follows the narrator, as she is locked up by her husband who cares for her and ultimately makes all decisions for her. He makes her doubt her state of mind as she suffers from a nervious disorder. As she stays in the ex-nursery attic, she writes of the horrendous yellow wallpaper. She becomes obsessive of it, watching it night and day amd watching as the colours change with the lighting of the room. She begins seeing a woman locked behind the twisting patterns, and in the end she becomes it - or it becomes her, and she has a hysteric breakdown.

Hall, Steven: The Raw Shark Texts

Eric Sanderson wakes up with no memory of who he is or any past experiences. He is told by a psychologist that he has a dissociative condition known as fugue but a trail of written clues purporting to be from his pre-amnesiac self describe a more fantastic and sinister explanation for his lack of memories. According to these, he has activated a conceptual shark called a Ludovician which "feeds on human memories and the intrinsic sense of self" and is relentlessly pursuing him and will eventually erase his personality completely.

Also at one point there's about 30 pages of an ASCII shark moving towards the reader. Could easily be interpreted as the Ludovician actually approaching the reader in a Leitner-ized version.

[SPOILERS] When the Ludovician attacks Eric, he decides to go in search of a doctor named Trey Fidorous, identified by the letters from his previous self, in the hope he may be able to help to explain what happened to him and how to defeat the shark. Eric travels through Britain in search of clues and is contacted by a mysterious figure called Mr. Nobody, who is part of a megalomaniac network intelligence called Mycroft Ward. Mr. Nobody attempts to subdue and control Eric but Eric manages to escape with the help of an associate of Fidorous named Scout. Scout takes Eric to meet Fidorous, travelling through un-space (an underground network of empty warehouses and unused cellars). They begin a romantic relationship during the journey but Eric feels betrayed when he discovers that Scout has brought him to Fidorous to use him as bait for the shark in the hope of destroying Ward.

With their help Fidorous builds a conceptual shark-hunting boat and they sail out on a conceptual ocean. After a battle with the shark they throw a laptop hooked up to the Mycroft Ward database into its mouth, destroying both Ward and the shark. Eric and Scout remain in the conceptual universe while Eric's dead body is discovered back in the real world.

Hamilton, Patrick: Angel Street/Gas Light

Under the guise of kindness, Jack Manningham is slowly torturing his fragile wife Bella into insanity in his efforts to cover his search for treasure from his diabolical past. He makes her think she is forgetting things and rattles her nerves with the flickering gaslight, which he controls from another room. One day, when Jack is out, Bella has an unexpected caller: kindly Inspector Rough from Scotland Yard. Rough is convinced that Jack is a homicidal maniac wanted for a murder committed fifteen years earlier in this very house. Gradually the Inspector restores Bella's confidence in herself and as the evidence against Jack unfolds.

The play that inspired the movie 1994 "Gaslight" which brought the term "gaslighting" into the public eye.

***

The literal origins of the term "gaslighting," the play follows the recently-married protagonist as her husband tries to convince her that she's going mad.

Hawke, Marcus: Grey Noise

Evan is just trying to get his store, REWIND VIDEO, up and running. Fate, unfortunately, often has other plans. Then he finds something that would be the perfect touch, an old vacuum tube TV. One that keeps turning to static. And it too has other plans. It follows you. Drives you. It’s already inside you. Lose yourself in...GREY NOISE.

Hodgson, William Hope: The House on the Borderlands

Fishing buddies Tonnison and Berreggnog didn't bargain for what they found while on holiday near the remote Irish village of Kraighten. While walking along the riverbank, they're astonished to see that the river abruptly ends. It reappears as a surge from a chasm some 100 feet below the edge of an abyss, where also stand the remains of an oddly shaped house, half-swallowed by the pit.

Exploring the ruins, the friends discover the moldering journal of an unidentified man--the Recluse--who had lived in the house with his sister and faithful dog years ago. Its pages reveal the man's apparent descent into madness--how else to account for his chronicles of otherworldly visions, trips to other dimensions, and attacks by swine-like humanoid creatures that seem to have followed him home? After one particular vision in which he witnesses the end of the earth and time itself, the Recluse awakens in his study to find nothing has changed--except that his dog Pepper is dead, dissolved into a pile of dust. And then the "swine things" return...

Hunter, Erin: Warriors

Can you keep track of who the fuck is related to who and who died when and what these cats look like and what they're named? No you fucking can't, there's four writers all sharing a pen name and metric shit ton of books in the main series alone, let alone the spinoffs. Continuity is dead and these cats murdered it.

Ito, Junji: Uzumaki

Uzumaki follows a high-school teenager, Kirie Goshima (五島桐絵); her boyfriend, Shuichi Saito (斎藤秀一); and the citizens of the small, quiet Japanese town of Kurouzu-cho (黒渦町, Black Vortex Town), which is enveloped by supernatural events involving spirals.

As the story progresses, Kirie and Shuichi witness how the spiral curse affects the people around them, causing the citizens to become either obsessed or paranoid about spirals. Shuichi becomes reclusive after both of his parents die from the horrific psychological and physical powers of the spirals, but also gains the ability to detect when the spiral curse is taking place, although he is often dismissed until the next paranormal effects of the curse become obvious. Eventually, Kirie is affected by the curse as well, when her hair begins to curl into an unnatural spiral pattern, drains her life energy to hypnotize the citizens, and chokes her whenever she attempts to cut it off. Shuichi is able to cut her hair and save her. The curse continues to plague the town until a series of typhoons conjured by the curse destroys most of its structures. The only remaining buildings are ancient abandoned terraced houses, which the citizens are forced first to move into, and then begin expanding as they grow more and more crowded.

As a series of increasingly powerful earthquakes and additional destruction from delinquents able to utilize strong winds strike the town, Kirie and Shuichi devise a plan to escape Kurouzu-cho, but when they attempt to escape, their efforts are unsuccessful. After returning to the town, they discover that several years have passed since they left, as time speeds up away from the spiral. The other citizens have expanded the terraced houses until they connected into a single structure forming a labyrinthine spiral pattern, but have become mutated as a consequence of overcrowding, their limbs twisting and warping into spirals. Kirie and Shuichi decide to search for Kirie's parents, which brings them to the center after many days of walking through the labyrinth.

At the center, Shuichi is hurled down a pit leading deep beneath the earth by a mutated citizen, with Kirie herself descending via a colossal spiral staircase to find him. She falls but is saved by countless bodies making up the ground of a vast, ancient city consisting entirely of spiral patterns in various arrangements. As Kirie looks for Shuichi, she finds her parents twisted and petrified, resembling stone statues, along with many other citizens of Kurouzu-cho who have met the same fate. Then, she hears Shuichi call for her and goes to him. Both are overwhelmed by the ancient spirals surrounding them and Shuichi points out how it seems as though the spiral ruins have a will of their own. Noticing that the petrified citizens of Kurouzu-cho are all facing the spiral city, Shuichi theorizes that this is the source of the curse; the city expands on its own periodically and has cursed the land above out of jealousy from having no one to view it.

Shuichi urges Kirie to leave without him as he can no longer walk, and that the curse should be over soon, but she replies that she does not have the strength and wishes to stay with him. The two embrace with their bodies twisting and intertwining together, signifying their acceptance into the never-ending curse. At the same time, a stone tower in the shape of a drill bit rises out of the city, and breaches the surface, forming the centerpiece of the abandoned town. As Shuichi and Kirie lie together, Kirie notes that the curse ended at the same time it began, for just as time speeds up away from the center, it freezes at the center. The spiral's curse is eternal, and all the events will repeat when a new Kurouzu-cho is built where the previous one lay.

***

I was debating if I should just do the first volume but three in one horrors sounded great to me. So Uzumaki is largely about spirals, to put the most obvious reasoning first. That's that Uzumaki translates to, after all. Spirals begin enveloping this small town, causing supernatural events. But the madness side of things comes as quickly as the spirals are there. You see it first in completely opposite ways with Shuichi's father and mother, with one becoming obsessed with spirals to the point of madness and eventually becoming one himself and the other being so terrified of spirals that it turns into its own psychological torment as she tries to remove spirals from her life and eventually realizes that those spirals are part of her naturally, causing her to try to take apart those aspects of her as well. Over chapters, characters become warped and characters succumb to the madness of spirals. Some fear the spirals, while others embrace them. Escaping the spirals is proven futile, and through that, it is also proven how out of sync the town is from reality as a whole, with time being sped up. Also, it has a labyrinth at this point, built by those suffering from the curse, so I think the Spiral would love that. In the end, the spirals are proven inescapable, and the two main characters warp together into a spiral of their own. The curse seems to end here, but really, it's a never ending cycle, and a curse which will never go away. The curse and the madness it brings won't fade.

***

Kurouzu-cho, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan, is cursed. According to Shuichi Saito, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Kirie Goshima, their town is haunted not by a person or being but a pattern: UZUMAKI, the spiral—the hypnotic secret shape of the world.

***

Plot is about a town cursed by spirals which make you go insane

Joyce, James: Finnegans Wake

Considered to be one of the great literary mindscrews. The plot is covered in about a tenth of the chapters in the book. The rest tell a series of unconnected vignettes, describe minor characters in excessive detail, give allegories for the main plot, and teach you geometry. One chapter was described by Joyce as "A chattering dialogue across a river by two washerwomen who, as night falls, become a tree and stone." Some chapters feature random doodles in the margins. The first sentence is the ending part of the last sentence, making the book circular. Finally, it's written in a combination of five dozen or so different languages, random puns that you need a doctorate in ancient mythology and the aforementioned languages to understand, and general stream of consciousness. In short, it makes no sense. Which is awesome. Joyce stated that it was supposed to be a dream-like "night book" in comparison to his "day-book", Ulysses, which described a day in the life of some ordinary Dubliners but whose style and construction was almost as weird.

***

Finnegan's Wake is one of the most experimental novels of the twentieth century. Rather than write using conventions of novels--or of the English language--Joyce structured his book on language itself. The result is surreal, dense, and famously difficult. To get a sense of just how strange and dreamlike the whole thing is, even its Wikipedia page compares it to Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" before pointing out the the book begins with the second half of a sentence, which it gives the first half of at its end. Tl;dr Finnegan's Wake is so unsettlingly experimental that Joyce had to break the English language down to its components to get his vision down on the page.

Juster, Norton: The Phantom Tollbooth

Milo receives a package one day, from an unknown source. The package takes him on a journey where he meets the judge jury and executioner, the princesses rhyme and reason, and more

Kte'pi, Bill: The Cheshire

If you don't want to read this whole summary, here's a song based on the story

Alice Little came out of a showing of Disney's Alice in Wonderland sixteen years ago with nothing but a blue gingham dress, a faded daguerrotype of cats, and jumbled memories of being Alice Liddell. Specifically the fictional character: "she'd never thought of herself as the 'real' Alice, the one Charles Dodgson wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland for - she had no memories of that Alice's life, only of the life chronicled by Lewis Carroll - madness and tea parties and talking animals. Worse, her memories conflicted, as she remembered Alice's Adventures Underground, Wonderland's first draft, as vividly as she did the two published novels." After years of attempting to return to Wonderland failed--she'd "tried every drug she could, hallucinogenic and otherwise [...] meditation, trances, pain rituals, sweat lodges, prayers and madness and hypnosis and psychotherapy"--Alice tells herself that her memories are merely symptomatic of a dissociative disorder and tries to go clean. But she puts an ad in the paper asking "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" (which includes a coded message saying "SAVE ME"), searching for answers despite herself, and eventually gets an answer. She meets a grinning man "in a purple-striped turtleneck, with odd-shaped nails and a tattoo of a mushroom on one of his knuckles" at a bar and they talk about her struggles, with him eventually getting her to ask what she really wants to know--if he can take her back. The man replies, "'There's no back to take you. You never left [...] Maybe we recognise each other because you're Alice and I'm the Cheshire Cat. Maybe we're descendents of the originals. Maybe we're brother and sister, separated after our parents' deaths and so traumatised we sought refuge in the books Father read to us as children. Maybe we're simply mad.'" After giving her LSD, the man tells her that a raven isn't like a writing desk at all, "And he faded away, leaving nothing but a grinnnnnnnnnn."

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Color Out of Space

An indescribable color leaches the life out of a patch of farmland and everyone on it.

Lyons, Steve: The Stealers of Dreams

Synopsis: "In the far future, the Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack find a world on which fiction has been outlawed. A world where it's a crime to tell stories, a crime to lie, a crime to hope, and a crime to dream.

But now somebody is challenging the status quo. A pirate TV station urges people to fight back. And the Doctor wants to help -- until he sees how easily dreams can turn into nightmares.

With one of his companions stalked by shadows and the other committed to an asylum, the Doctor is forced to admit that fiction can be dangerous after all. Though perhaps it is not as deadly as the truth... "

Why it's Spiral: A society where lies and fictions are forbidden is, evidently, a society that will fall for anything. The repression of any untruth -- by threat of violence and by invasive brain surgery to paralyze the region that dreams -- means that people are more desperate than ever to believe in anything. Fiction has consequences on this planet. And what could be a more obvious lie than the time-traveling man in his blue box...?

Mathers, Edward Powys: Cain’s Jawbone

I'm just going to quote an article from The Independent: "Cain’s Jawbone, originally published in 1934, is a murder mystery puzzle composed of 100 pages – all assembled in the wrong order. The only way to solve all six murders in the prose narrative is to reorder the pages and correctly identify the crimes, their victims, and who perpetrated them."

Here's the link to the article

Mearns, William Hughes: Antigonish

It's all pretty much all in the TMA episode (Upon the stairs). The little man who "wasn't there" in the stairs.

Miles, Lawrence et. al.: The Book of the War

Synopsis: "The Great Houses: Immovable. Implacable. Unchanging. Old enough to pass themselves off as immortal, arrogant enough to claim ultimate authority over the Spiral Politic.

The Enemy: Not so much an army as a hostile new kind of history. So ambitious it can re-write worlds, so complex that even calling it by its name seems to underestimate it.

Faction Paradox: Renegades, ritualists, saboteurs and subterfugers, the criminal-cult to end all criminal-cults, happy to be caught in the crossfire and ready to take whatever's needed from the wreckage… assuming the other powers leave behind a universe that's habitable.

The War: A fifty-year-old dispute over the two most valuable territories in existence: "cause" and "effect."

Marking the first five decades of the conflict, THE BOOK OF THE WAR is an A to Z of a self-contained continuum and a complete guide to the Spiral Politic, from the beginning of recordable time to the fall of humanity. Part story, part history and part puzzle-box, this is a chronicle of protocol and paranoia in a War where the historians win as many battles as the soldiers and the greatest victory of all is to hold on to your own past."

Propaganda: A text which purports to be a constantly shifting and updating guide to The War, a conflict so overarching and complete that every other conflict is but a pale shadow thereof; the Time War. Of course, since it would shift retroactively with the changing timelines, there is no way to prove or disprove this claim. Notable entries include cities built from days stolen from shifting calendars, the secrets of removing yourself from history while still leaving yourself free to interfere, Grandfather Paradox, the location of the exact centre of history, how to weaponize banality, and Parablox.

Oh, and there's something else in there. Something that seems to be talking to you...

Morrison, Grant: Doom Patrol

The series in general could easily fit in the Spiral, but I'll focus on a certain arc. A great new evil emerges! The Brotherhood of Dada! Its members: a woman that has super strength when she's asleep, a man that is made of fog and swallows his victims(and then has to put up with their voices inside his brain forever), a woman that has every super power you haven't thought of and is deathly afraid of dirt and an illiterate man that can turn into a hurricane. And their intrepid leader! Mr Nobody! He used to be a boring, average man. With the help of a very criminal doctor he tried to turn into a new man...but he went so insane he's always slightly left of reality and 2D. He doesn't mind though, he rather enjoys the meaninglessness of it all, which is a bit Vast of him. He also calls cops fascists.

The bad guys steal a painting that swallows everything and anything and they put Paris inside it. One of the funniest panels ever is various super heroes sitting around a painting wandering what they're supposed to do. Thankfully, Doom Patrol knows how to deal with the weird stuff. They go into the painting, get separated in different artstyles and beaten up.

But the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse is coming, so they cooperate and put him in the dadaist section, making him lose all meaning and turning into a wooden horse.

A big part of the arc is also narrated by the illiterate hurricane guy, which makes it harder to understand since he writes phonetically.

The whole thing is absurdity, the first bad guys are absurd and the second bad guy gets beaten by the absurd. After a few more arcs Mr Nobody runs for president(with some members of the Doom Patrol endorsing him) and gets killed by the CIA in a similar manner to Jesus. For his campaign he drove a bus that made everyone behind it feel like they've taken lsd.

Moore, Christopher: Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d’Art

The story surrounds the mysterious suicide of Vincent van Gogh, who famously shot himself in a French wheat field only to walk a mile to a doctor’s house. The mystery, which is slowly but cleverly revealed through the course of the book, is blue: specifically the exclusive ultramarine pigment that accents pictures created by the likes of Michelangelo and van Gogh. To find the origin of the hue, Moore brings on Lucien Lessard, a baker, aspiring artist and lover of Juliette, the brunette beauty who breaks his heart. After van Gogh’s death, Lucien joins up with the diminutive force of nature Henri Toulouse-Lautrec to track down the inspiration behind the Sacré Bleu. In the shadows, lurking for centuries, is a perverse paint dealer dubbed The Colorman, who tempts the world’s great artists with his unique hues and a mysterious female companion who brings revelation—and often syphilis (it is Moore, after all). Into the palette, Moore throws a dizzying array of characters, all expertly portrayed, from the oft-drunk “little gentleman” to a host of artists including Édouard Manet, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Muir, Tamsyn: Harrow the Ninth

Harrow the Ninth is, above all, really fucking confusing. Roughly every third chapter is actively gaslighting the reader about what happened in the last book. The main character is fucking struggling to maintain any sort of grip on reality all throughout the story, and more often than not, she fails miserably. This is due to several factors, including, but not limited to - sleep deprivation, latent schizophrenia, ruthless emotional manipulation from everyone around her, being full of a frankly alarming number of ghosts from several entirely unrelated sources, childhood parental and religious trauma, and a self-inflicted amateur lobotomy.

***

Takes place post(sometimes pre) DIY lobotomy; leaving our protag, who already struggles identifying between reality and hallucination, a paranoid, constantly questioning wreck. It's written in second person and does not follow events chronologically, leaving the reader questioning everything almost as much as the protag.

National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers: Common Core Math Textbook

Drives me up the damn wall insane. This is mostly a joke suggestion but also I think there’s something to be said about fractals’ place in mathematics, and the widespread range of common core math’s influence. To be honest, submitting this is a gut feeling of dread to me.

Nikolson, Adam: Life between the tides

Look this probably shouldn’t even make it into the bracket and this is mostly a very dull book about shoreline ecosystems but there’s this one chapter where the dude gets positively poetic about I think?? winkles?? (a kind of snail) and it absolutely reads like a statement like we are talking fractal winkles-all-the-way-down insanity. I need to tell someone about it bc it was like suddenly reading another book. A better and also worse book. I’m pretty sure he quoted philosophers in it. I wish I had taken notes. He would get along with Ivo Lensik’s dad.

O’Brien, Flann: The Third Policeman

Synopsis from Goodreads: "The Third Policeman is Flann O'Brien's brilliantly dark comic novel about the nature of time, death, and existence. Told by a narrator who has committed a botched robbery and brutal murder, the novel follows him and his adventures in a two-dimensional police station where, through the theories of the scientist/philosopher de Selby, he is introduced to "Atomic Theory" and its relation to bicycles, the existence of eternity (which turns out to be just down the road), and de Selby's view that the earth is not round but "sausage-shaped." With the help of his newly found soul named "Joe," he grapples with the riddles and contradictions that three eccentric policeman present to him."

Ogawa, Yoko: The Memory Police

The story is set in an alternate Japan where people's memories of certain things and concepts (e.g. birds, hats, winter, books, seasons, even their sense of self) are slowly taken away from their collective minds for 'their safety' by the titular Memory Police, a government force of sorts. This forced forgetting goes to the point where they can't physically perceive that concept; birds are weird creatures because no one remembers what a bird is like, and it's always winter because no one remembers what spring is. The story even ends with the unnamed protagonist (along with several others) eventually fading away from existence (read: forgetting) as memories of certain body parts and finally the concept of the human body is taken away by the Memory Police. It's like if the vase from MAG 38 formed and entire task force to do its job.

This one has narrative potential too; imagine a statement where someone slowly lose memories of certain things after reading this Leitner, gradually becoming an unreliable narrator as reality slips away from their conscious.

Orwell, George: Nineteen Eighty-Four

Pelevin, Victor: The Helmet of Horror

Eight people find themselves in eight different rooms with a labyrinth behind them and a computer in front of them. They try to communicate via the computer that allows them to chat with one another, but has nicknames set for them(IsoldA, UGLI 666, Ariane...) and blocks their personal information. They(and us) can't know if they are lying. When two of them try to see each other by visiting a spot in the labyrinths that should be the same they each then recount a completely different experience and accuse each other of lying. Another character claims they all must be figments of his imagination, he must be very drunk. And they're all afraid of the minotaur. It is a book where no one, even the reader knows what's real, everyone is afraid of what might appear if they turn a corner and no one knows what's going on.

Pratchett, Terry: Moving Pictures

"‘HOLY WOOD IS A DIFFERENT SORT OF PLACE . . . HERE, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO BE IMPORTANT.’

A new phenomenon is taking over the Discworld: moving pictures. Created by the alchemists of Ankh-Morpork, the growing ‘clicks’ industry moves to the sandy land of Holy Wood, attracted by the light of the sun and some strange calling no one can quite put their finger on…

Also drawn to Holy Wood are aspiring young stars Victor Tugelbend, a wizarding student dropout, and Theda ‘Ginger’ Withel, a small-town girl with big dreams. But behind the glitz and glamour of the clicks, a sinister presence lurks. Because belief is powerful in the Discworld, and sometimes downright dangerous…

The magic of movies might just unravel reality itself."

Pynchon, Thomas: The Crying of Lot 49

Oedipa Maas spends the whole book trying to figure out if the conspiracy she’s trying to unravel about the US postal service and a conter-postal service via plays, signs/images, and history is real or if she’s being gaslit by her ex, who just died and made her executor of his will.

Ryukishi07: higurashi no naku koro ni (When The Evening Cicadas Cry)

The series explores paranoia and deceit among friends. It uses its POVs incredibly well, limiting your view of the situation so much that it is genuinely incredibly hard to figure out what happened or why (until you read the answer arcs ofc). Several key plot points involve characters getting so consumed by their own madness that they cannot see reality for what it is and wildly assume false things. This madness repeats and repeats and repeats, consuming the friends group over and over and over, leading them to do horrific things to each other. Many a character become so consumed by suspicion and fear that the world distorts and details change in their mind to match what they think is happening. I am desperately trying to describe the series without spoilers rn

Sachar, Louis: Wayside School Is Falling Down

Obviously all of Wayside School is a little Spirally -- the weird architecture, the cow invasions, occasional hypnosis, and more -- but this one tells a story of the nineteenth floor. Wayside School has no nineteenth floor. There is one teacher on the nineteenth floor, and only one class, who learn about how to alphabetize every number. Sometimes, new students arrive...

Schwartz, Alvin: "Maybe You Will Remember" (short story from Scary Stories 3: More Tales To Chill Your Bones)

A girl, Rosemary, and her mother are on vacation in Paris. Rosemary's mother is ill, so Rosemary is sent to get medicine, but ultimately has her time wasted by the driver on the way back, and when she returns to the hotel, nobody recognizes her, telling her she has the wrong place. Her mother is gone, too, and when Rosemary asks to see the room they stayed in as proof they were there, the clerk shows her a completely unfamiliar setup, making Rosemary wonder what happened to her.

In the appendix of the book, the scenario is explained. Rosemary's mother was sick with the plague, and the doctor, recognizing it, knew she would be dead very quickly. Rosemary was put on a wild goose chase for the medicine and given a driver who would delay her, with the doctor and hotel staff working to dispose of her mother's body and re-decorate the hotel room while Rosemary was away. With Rosemary unable to verify that she was in the hotel, and unknowing that her mother died of plague, the hotel avoided any negative publicity that would have occurred if anyone were to find out a guest had the plague. The hotel's PR was saved, but Rosemary was left doubting her sanity.

Serafini, Luigi: Codex Seraphinianus

The Codex is an encyclopedia in manuscript with copious hand-drawn, colored-pencil illustrations of bizarre and fantastical flora, fauna, anatomies, fashions, and foods. The illustrations are often surreal parodies of things in the real world, such as a bleeding fruit, a plant that grows into roughly the shape of a chair and is subsequently made into one, and a copulating couple who metamorphose into an alligator. Others depict odd, apparently senseless machines, often with delicate appearances and bound by tiny filaments. Some illustrations are recognizable as maps or human faces, while others (especially in the "physics" chapter) are mostly or totally abstract. Nearly all of the illustrations are brightly coloured and highly detailed

***

It's an encyclopedia for a universe that doesn't exist, treated as if it does exist in another universe while being written in a nonsense, impossible to understand language. The things it depict doesn't make sense either, ranging from swimming trees and eye-shaped fishes to absolutely bizarre creatures and technology, like a rainbow-making cloud shaped like Da Vinci's aerial screw. The entire thing comes off as surreal nonsense because it's meant to symbolise the feeling of trying to understand something that you can't understand, but finds cool because of the visuals. It's a book that you aren't meant to read understand, but simply look at, because trying to understand it just... doesn't work.

***

The Codex is an encyclopedia in manuscript with copious hand-drawn, colored-pencil illustrations of bizarre and fantastical flora, fauna, anatomies, fashions, and foods. It has been compared to the still undeciphered Voynich manuscript, the story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" by Jorge Luis Borges, and the artwork of M. C. Escher and Hieronymus Bosch. The illustrations are often surreal parodies of things in the real world, such as a bleeding fruit, a plant that grows into roughly the shape of a chair and is subsequently made into one, and a copulating couple who metamorphose into an alligator. Others depict odd, apparently senseless machines, often with delicate appearances and bound by tiny filaments. Some illustrations are recognizable as maps or human faces, while others (especially in the "physics" chapter) are mostly or totally abstract. Nearly all of the illustrations are brightly coloured and highly detailed.

The false writing system appears modeled on Western writing systems, with left-to-right writing in rows and an alphabet with uppercase and lowercase letters, some of which double as numerals. Some letters appear only at the beginning or end of words, similar to Semitic writing systems. The curvilinear letters are rope- or thread-like, with loops and even knots, and are somewhat reminiscent of Sinhala script. In a talk at the Oxford University Society of Bibliophiles [...] Serafini stated that there is no meaning behind the Codex's script, which is asemic; that his experience in writing it was similar to automatic writing; and that what he wanted his alphabet to convey was the sensation children feel with books they cannot yet understand, although they see that the writing makes sense for adults. Take a look for yourself:

Shakespeare, William: A Midsummer Night's Dream

The way the fey play with the perceptions and emotions of the wandering youths in the woods is peak Spiral, as their loves and disdains change with the machinations of Oberon and Puck.

Shakespeare, William: King Lear

The play has everything: real descents into madness, fake descents into madness, betrayal by trusted loved ones, loyalty from betrayed loved ones, and would-be wise men who turn out to be fools.

Shakespeare, William: The Winter's Tale

Imagine that you are absolutely, completely, 100 percent certain that your wife is cheating on you with your best friend. Now imagine you're the king, and your best friend is the king of a far-off kingdom. Now imagine that the consequences of your actions spiral outward: your wife and son die, one of your trusted advisors has disappeared with daughter on your orders to kill her.

This first half of this deeply underappreciated play explores the consequences of one man's fear of betrayal. Coincidentally, it is one Shakespeare's more surreal works. It's the origin of the infamous "Exit pursued by a bear," a stage direction that concludes a scene set on the coast of a kingdom that in real life was landlocked. And--spoiler alert--the play concludes with a statute coming back to life.

Anyway, it's a surprisingly Spiral-like play with a dream-like atmosphere, fairy-tale logic, and a Distortion-esque look at the fear of betrayal.

Silberescher: SCP-1425: Star Signals

Stine, R.L.: Don't Go to Sleep!

"Matt hates his tiny bedroom. It's so small it's practically a closet! Still, Matt's mom refuses to let him sleep in the guest room. After all, they might have guests. Some day. Or year. Then Matt does it. Late one night. When everyone's in bed. He sneaks into the guest room and falls asleep. Poor Matt. He should have listened to his mom. Because when Matt wakes up, his whole life has changed. For the worse. And every time he falls asleep, he wakes up in a new nightmare... "

Inception, for kids! Whenever Matt falls asleep, he changes reality -- and a group of special agents want to stop him by putting him to sleep, permanently.

Unknown, Voynich Manuscript

Many call the fifteenth-century codex, commonly known as the “Voynich Manuscript,” the world’s most mysterious book. Written in an unknown script by an unknown author, the manuscript has no clearer purpose now than when it was rediscovered in 1912 by rare books dealer Wilfrid Voynich. It's a strange code describing alchemical formulae and unknown life forms, and no one understands it. It's a mystery waiting for you to lose yourself in its pages.

Wells, H.G.: The Door in the Wall

This short story is about Lionel Wallace, who at the age of 5 encountered and entered a weird door. Behind it he found a beautiful and peaceful garden and felt such happiness and bliss, that when he was transported back on the street and escorted back to his home, he was very upset. He would see the door again many times later in life, but every time he will refuse to enter it due to his responsibilities (for example, to not be late to class, to catch a train, to be on time for an appointment). He grew up and became a successful politician, but the perfect world behind the door haunted him, and his success felt dull and boring. The book ends with people finding his lifeless body at the bottom of a pit, and that he had in poor light walked through a small doorway that led onto it. The narrator then speculates that maybe Lionel saw the perfect garden behind the doorway and was finally able to find happiness.

West, A.J.: The Spirit Engineer

Based on a real story about a guy who was convinced that one particular medium was the real deal. He completely upended his career for it, and wrote a paper on the science of the ghostly plane.

He did several shows, and got relatively famous. Eventually, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [someone who wanted to believe] and Harry Houdini [An avid non-believer] invite him over to convince them that séances were real. In the process, Houdini completely disproves him, and outs the medium he thought was real as a fraud.

It turns out his wife and coworker had convinced the 'medium' and their family to run a prank on him. In his fury, he kills everyone involved, and then drinks Poison to try - one final time - to proove his theory.

Tldr: A real story who unknowingly changed his life and ruined his reputation because of the lies of the ones he trusted. When he realises, he looses his sanity and kills everyone around him, including himself.

 Whorf, Benjamin Lee: Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language

The famous text about language as a symbol that can never truly reflect reality can kinda fuck with your perceptions about how our language serves to construct our own realities. We're programmed to experience the world in different ways according to the way we interpret language.

Wyspiański, Stanisław: The Wedding

Relevant parts from Wikipedia

"The play's action takes place at the wedding of a member of the Kraków intelligentsia (the Bridegroom) and his peasant Bride. Their crossclass union follows a then fashionable trend of chłopomaństwo ("peasant-mania") among some Polish intelligentsia, who were often scions of the historic Polish szlachta (nobility). (...) Among the live guests are ghosts of personae from Polish history and culture, representing the guilty consciences of the living. The two groups engage in dialogues. The wedding guests are hypnotized by a rosebush straw-wrap (Chochoł) from the garden which comes to life and joins the party. (Offending a chochoł, according to folk beliefs, could provoke the thing to play tricks).The "Poet" is visited successively by the "Black Knight" (a symbol of the nation's past military glory); the "Journalist"; the court jester Stańczyk, a conservative political sage; and the "Ghost of Wernyhora" (a paradigm of leadership for Poland). (...)Thus the wedding guests, symbolizing the nation, waste their chance at national freedom. They keep on dancing a "chocholi taniec" (a "straw-wrap's dance") "the way it's played for them" (a Polish folk saying), failing in their mission." This play is as if patriotically motivated Spiral avatars crashed somebody's wedding, and I think it deserves consideration as Spiral Leitner.

[entityart]

Right, so the next chapter of Solver King N is taking its time to work its way out of my brain, so in the meantime you guys get a deleted scene of N transforming with some fun word shenanigans.

N’s neck gave a snapping noise as his head rotated to face the group.

“Oh! You’re finally here! Wonderful!”

He tilted his head, a smile on his face.

“A shame, though. I wanted more time alone with Uzi.”

The rest of his body twisted towards them as he stepped off the platform, hands behind his back.

He looked the same as when they first touched down, his black bomber jacket pressed smooth without a tear in sight, his hat covered in small pins, and not a single wound on his body.

“Step aside.”

J’s voice was harsh over the humming of power cores echoing throughout the abandoned chapel.

“Sorry, no can do.”

N walked forward, his smile filled with razor-sharp teeth that reflected J’s face. One arm came out besides him, hand pulled back, prepped to reveal a weapon.

That was all the excuse she needed.

A near-imperceptible nod had Khan flinging an EMP grenade underhand. N startled, his hands catching the explosive moments before blue light washed over him, his visor flickering to nothingness.

“Now!”

They rushed forward, splitting into two groups. One ran towards where Uzi lay, while the other moved to disable N. J’s limbs unfolded, claws lunging forward to decapitate the Solver-infested drone.

Moments before impact,

Everything stopped.

N’s visor showed a hexagonal symbol surrounded by a larger circle, with parts of it cut out.

They SELECTed themselves, before an off-color green EDIT caused his metal casing to wriggle.

Reality resumed its proper course as a wave of force slammed everyone into the surrounding walls and pillars. N’s smile

t                        e w        s           i                  d,                        t                                                 before the metal casing buckled and oil spilled out through a gaping hole in his torso. His arms crumpled inward as his body slouched forward, heavy breathing audible with the acoustics of the chapel. The right half of his visor cracked inward, before a human hand crawled its way out of the injury, now leaking green-yellow pus. Each finger burst open, yellow eyes visibly shining through viscera that dripped onto the floor. A lattice of metal and flesh spread out from the wound on his chest, piercing the ground and lifting him up to lay limp like a rag doll. The scent of blood sent J’s sensors on high alert, but she watched frozen as one leg snapp                  ed in two, the thigh unfurling to let sharp claws atop metal struts slam into the surrounding walls and sever the latticework. Instead of continuing to spread down, it folded back in on itsel                                                                         f, before beginning to bloat as dripping flesh filled the sac. N’s head jerked, before falling forward off his body as his neck lengthened, stopping to sway right above the floor. Laughter came from several spots along his body, making its way out his mouth, chest, and leg, layering over itself in triplicate.

The other arm flickered before splitting once, twice, three times at the elbow, each hand pulling its way out tipped with something different – a chainsaw, a cutter, and a bleeding heart. As the blood touched the stone ground, it spread like a river towards where everyone lay. The chainsaw revved, before N jerked it towards the mass that surrounded his chest. It burst, squelching as it unfolded into writhing tendrils that vio      tly     s                              len       la hed out, with a larger pair covered with feelers reaching out to wrap around Uzi.

[marcelwrites]

Can't scratch the itch in my brain. This niggling annoying feeling. I'm restless. I long. My writing feels like it's going to be an assault of "I's", and that sort of writing sickens me to my core. It's like this emotional executive dysfunction. My brain scans the scene and disconnects me from it, my phone is this emotional regulator, a buffer that precludes me from ever needing anything else. I cooked my brain with it getting into a relationship with someone from another country, and the process of doing that, instilled a lot of bad phone habits that I haven't shaken. See, just excuses, and I think about all the material I've read, all the articles, books, and pieces, on never, ever complaining or showing any negative emotion as a man. It's like every time I go to emote I have a gun pressed to my head and I'm left wondering if today's the day. Even attempting to articulate the maelstrom inside is fraught with consequences, difficulties, and implications. Emotional intelligence is the ability to convey one's emotions and to navigate your own inner emotionality, picking at each individual feeling on the spectrum of emotionality, and being able to recognise its function and place. I look at anger and in its examination I see it as fuel, but others may see it as a weapon and then discard it, afraid of the consequences. If emotions and the spectrum of such are so diverse, why then do we demonise the negative emotions, instead of employing the Buddhist approach, Yin and Yang, where it's a delicate balance between the two, where both must be in harmony. Must we self-examine and vivisect ourselves to such a degree that we're perfect little cookie cutter creatures all lined up neatly? Isn't the sanitisation and sterilisation of human emotionality at the core of everything we're all lashing out against currently? Perhaps to think deeply and to self-examine is merely a byproduct of existence and for some that means being at war with the self, a constant flux of identity and personality. We should be X and behave like Y and never Z. Or perhaps this is all just an exercise in slamming our heads against the wall until our skin splits and our skulls crack. The restless, roiling waters of self-importance and thus self-alienation from the external, the forever fall into a pit we dug ourselves.

[basiliskfree]

I wanted to start design work on Hugo’s ship but realized I needed to know what a standard Lamp ship’s insides looked like, so here is that! more info under the cut. 

Lamp Ships tend to all have some common room types that are found in the smallest's scout ships to the Kilometer long mining ships. Even in Hivemind ship these spaces are more colourful then one would think do to how even non sentient Lamp respond to colour. 

Servers and Brain Room:

Lamps Ships use the same brain cores as the much smaller units but Linked together into huge networks that run though a massive biological/mechanical system in it’s center. This system is what allows Lamp ships to jump into the between as well as sent FTL messages through this Subspace (Spectrum Lamps refer to this as “sing”). 

They also have what Lamps call “dumb computers” or “thinking rocks” large silicon base computers that act as servers and archives. this run some of the more mundane tacks around the ship. Surprisingly these computers are programed in binary and function much like human, digital Computers. 

Both are heavy liquid cold (see the blue piping) and are some of the most shielded parts of a Ship.

Kitchen and Greenroom:

Lamps have fairy simple digestion tracts,  so often have some basic cooking systems on board. Though this is one of the rooms where the difference between Spectrum and Hivemind ships is the largest. The Spectrum Lamps caring more about how good, or interesting a meal is vs a Hive ship just wanting the max nutrition per energy spent on the food. Most Kitchens are equipped with a food printer, simple oven  and microwave. As well as freeze driers and cold storage. 

The Green Room Pictured is a rack system often used for fast growing fruits and “filter” plants 

Hallway:

Lamp ships have circle hallways that run between the ships thick hull and the interior living spaces. Most have a mix of small workstations, assess points and storage. As picture here Yellow is commonly used as the colour for doors and “Floors”, Ships tend to use acceleration to produce “gravity” but if they are using rotation, or planetary forces to produce a “down” whatever wall or ceiling that has become the floor will become yellow. 

Fusion Engine room B:

Lamp Ships have at least three engines, the Main Anti-matter reactor that is used in Jumps and for their main thruster and is picture as the Purple Lantern like structure at the very front of the ship. 

For the Rest if the Ships systems and back up for the main reactor are two Fusion Engines. These rooms tend to be very purple, a common warning colour do to the high power and magnetic fields in these areas 

“MedBay”:

In Hivemind ships these rooms are not so much true med-bays but are instead used to regrow the flesh bodies of the Lamp units who have “died” or to make new limbs. In Spectrum Ships these rooms have much more medical equipment, so medicine is not ether nothing or melt off your current body and probably dying.

Engineering: 

Depending on the size of the ship the Engineering floors can have everything form laser cutters, metal 3d printers, looms and Skin printers. Produce anything a lamp ship may need to repair themselves in space. most also have a small “Replicator”; a System that can use the Lamps massive energy systems to move around and change atoms into new chemicals. These are normally use to produce rarer elements from simple ones or harder to made chemicals. As even with two fusion engines, these systems use a lot of power and need deep knowledge of chemistry to use outside of the presets.    

[alteredsilicone]

Warframe Quest tier list

Explanations of ratings under the cut:

Great: Quests that hooked me conceptually and are the core of how I view the game/my own characters and worldbuilding

Sacrifice - This quest is worth the hype. That's it. Even though I have gripes with Umbra from a fandom perspective, I love the lore of the Warframes a lot.

Glast Gambit - personal sentimental favorite, this is purely my own bias. I think it's a really good early example of a fun character interaction (Nef and Ergo, toxic old man yaoi LONG before WITW; they are divorced, the worm in my brain told me so) and also an interesting way to show the "choice" system via a moral dilemma (Neewa's fate).

Whispers in the Wall also goes into the "Great" tier, great quest, great characters, great setup for the next era of Warframe and imo a culmination of all the ups and downs that Warframe has been through the years and that ended up in a truly great narrative experience.

Good: Quests I liked but that missed a certain "oomph"

Duviri Paradox - I love Duviri as a place and the mythology around it, but I expected something different from the quest itself. Certain story beats didn't land because I did not feel the emotional connection the game expected me to (coughcoughTeshin'sfakeoutdeathcoughcough). Also didn't like Drifter being a snarky ass in a Marvel-esque way. I'm too used to RPGs and MMOs so when a game forces a characterization on my character I get really antsy if it's something she would not say.

Deadlock Protocol - I LOVE the Corpus so any Corpus content gets instant bias bonus points. Introduction of a very solid villain, Nef bullying. It has it all. This quest could also go in "great" but I think the narrative itself isn't compelling and earth-shattering enough to warrant that.

Waverider - hot take alert! Corpus bias once again, Nef being humbled is always a plus. The k-drive was annoying but I got gud and finished the quest, it was entertaining.

Vox Solaris - good introduction to the Solaris faction but I feel the conflict was solved way too quickly, but I also wasn't around for the release, the ARG and the introduction of the Orb Mothers. Still, I think Nef and the Solaris' conflict could be made into a cinematic three-parter on its own. Oh well, that's what fanfiction is for. (Ps. Nightwave Season 3 had a forgettable side character, Cutter, who touched upon a subject I wish the Solaris plotline explored more)

Call of the Tempestarii - I almost want to put it in "wasted potential" only because I wish Vala had more of a prominent role. Sighs. I love Corpus, I love evil women, I got an evil Corpus woman. Please give me more evil Corpus women.

Chains of Harrow - overall good quest. Rell's story is heart-wrenching. I still headcanon that "Margulis cast him out" is Red Veil propaganda and Rell got separated from the rest of the Tenno in other ways and was brainwashed to believe he was cast out completely.

Second Dream - I knew the Operator existed before I played this quest so I didn't have the HOLY SHIT WHAT!!! reaction, but I think this is a good quest and I understand why people guard the Operator secret even though I think it hurts the narrative of Warframe overall. Oh Well.

New War - To me it's like a Marvel movie, a huge spectacle. It was fun in the way a popcorn movie is fun. It was more fun gameplay wise than story-wise, though I enjoyed the Void/Wally/Zariman lore the most (it's my second favorite thing after Corpus stuff).

Okay - these are quests which either didn't particularly speak to me, or I just have completely forgotten. All the early quests fall into "forgotten" category and things post War Within are more on the "okay" side.

Wasted potential - Silver Grove. My joy, my pain. I WISH this wasn't an ancient quest and the post-quest moral actually applied to New Loka. I think as a concept New Loka are very interesting, but poorly executed, so now they're just "lol ecofascists/plant nazis" so I can't even get people to engage with them on a serious level. Forever seething and malding

Disappointment of the century - Angels of the Zariman. I was there, I participated in the ARG to the best of my ability, I read the logs, I changed my blog title to "Abyssus accipit et Abyssus dat" because I liked it that much. Then I got a 30 minute tutorial quest with a bunch of NPCs I don't care about and my Operator had zero emotional reaction TO RETURNING TO THE PLACE WHERE IT ALL FUCKING BEGAN AND THEY KILLED THEIR PARENTS AND LOST EVERYTHING THEY EVER HELD DEAR JESUS FUCK WHY WHY WHY

anyways

I warmed up to the Holdfasts and Yonta is cute so I have forgiven her crimes. Also this was during an era where I was constantly miffed at DE adding new characters instead of building on old ones.

So yeah, that's that.

tl;dr - I have a bias towards lore regarding the Warframes themselves, Corpus and anything regarding the Void/Tenno. Also I have shit memory.

[moonstone-pink]

𝙂𝙚𝙢 𝙃𝙞𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙝𝙮

1. The Diamonds Autority

-White Diamond (Supreme Matriarch)

-Yellow Diamond (War Matriarch)

-Blue Diamond (Diplomatic Matriarch)

-Pink Diamond (Young Matriarch)

2. Very High

Garnet (Commanders of armies and are governors)

Emerald (Owners of important ships and personnel)

Sapphire (Its vision of the future and its extreme rarity makes it very useful and important)

3. High

Prehnite (Beetles) (They create perfect planes for missions thanks to their great knowledge, they are so fragile that they must be protected in temples)

Aquamarine (Important diamond messengers)

Morganite (Designers of installations or devices)

4. Mid to High

Jade (Responsible for inspecting that the lower gems properly clean the Homeword facilities, which is why there are many jades)

Moonstone (They become invisible in the shadows of the gems, allowing you to spy on them and know if they have appropriate behavior)

Lapis Lazuli (Very powerful terraformers)

Chrisocolla (They create potions to improve the abilities of the gems, according to yellow pearl these are prohibited in the palace)

Agate (Soldiers in charge of quartz)

5. Mid

Albite (They become huge pyramids with traps to protect high-ranking gems from possible enemies)

Nephrite (ship pilots)

Zircon (Lawyers at homeworld)

Topaz (Very strong soldiers and guards)

Spodumene (Collectors of salt, fresh, arctic waters and lava lakes)

6. Low to Mid

Peridot (Nursery engineers and others)

Lechatelierite (Glass: Desert glass) (Depending on the type of glass, they create walls and towers of sand or rock in times of war)

Apatite (Tongue monster) (When the colony is resentful and there are no portals, they are in charge of serving as messengers, they are as fast as sound)

Quartz (Big soldiers)

Aragonite (Cave gem criature) (With their legs they dig in the earth of the planets in search of useful things)

7. Low

Ruby (Low rank soldiers)

Bismuth (Homeword Masons)

Pectolite (Larimar) (Sculpture creators)

Obsidian (Trench creators)

Mica (Lepidolite: Big Bird) (Depending on the type of Mica, they carry different types of materials with the help of their large hands)

Charoite (Flower monster) (They enter the planets until they reach their core, thus determining whether it is convenient to create a colony on the celestial body)

Bixbite (They serve as metal cutters with their abilities to shape-shift their hands into sharp objects)

8. Very Low

Spinel (Diamond Fun Item)

Pearl (Homeword maids)

Pebble (Construction companies not considered gems)

[nyxielich]

The Tread Run - Cogmind beta 12

Where I don't really use treads because I didn't find any two-slots :/

My goal for mid-game was two sets of Heavy Treads and something to see incoming enemies through walls, ideally Sensor Array and Improved Signal Interpreter. Then I wanted some strong guns to make a tank build.

The run started really poorly getting jumped and knocked down to 20% core. I quickly escaped to -9 Materials, then -9 Storage where I met 01-MTF! What a coincidence eh? :3

Poor 01-MTF. She stepped on a saw trap and, well, I'm not going to leave that reactor just sitting around for a scav.

On -8 Materials I picked a fight with a garrison squad right next to the exit. It was greedy, but I really wanted some good treads! I'm not sure where I should go to look for Heavy Treads but I figured a garrison squad may have some equipped. Next time I'll have to actually check inside the garrison. I came out on top with the gear 01-MTF dropped for me and left to Factory.

Sublevel 7 I blitzed through with some lucky hacks and sneaks. So on -6 Factory I wanted to explore more thoroughly for those treads. Here's my kit going into the sublevel:

Not too bad I think. I love the combo Improved Sensor Array with Improved Signal Interpreter. That's exactly what I was looking for going into the start of the run! I must have lost the reactor 01-MTF dropped for me, but that Exp. Heat Sink was really nice. Can't get enough EM and Thermal weapons.

I managed to find a stockpile of Armored Huge Wheels that made my coverage very strong, nice! Soon after, I ran into a B-75 Beast who called out the Cutters when I rolled away. Felt extra good about the armor.

I found a branch exit, but I'd really prefer the main exits because I want more propulsion and power slots.

I equipped an Improved Terrain Scanner and Improved Terrain Scan Processor when some Programmers blew off my Sensor Array. That was nice, but not as effective for identifying where enemies are.

I can't see enemies around corners anymore, and what do you know, I rounded a corner and bumped into an ARC. It went pop and there were four L-41 Fighters surrounding me, hacking away at all my components. There wasn't enough time to fire a weapon before they'd lop off anything I equipped.

Final score: 9528

[diary-of-a-madgod-in-training]

Court of Mania

After the events at Xedilian, Lord Sheogorath has instructed me to study and understand his two courts. I’ve decided to start with the Court of Mania and Duke Thadon. The Duke revealed to me that he suffers from an addiction to Felldew. He sent me to retrieve a chalice that will cleanse him of the bad effects of the drug.

To enter the Burrow, I had to take Felldew myself, which made me understand Thadon’s urgency. The high is amazing, but the withdraws are violently painful. Making my way through the Burrow, I had to periodically take the drug in order to not crumble under the weight of the withdraw. Feeling it flow through my veins, I cursed myself for getting myself in this situation.

Entering the Sanctum, I found a group of people also addicted to Felldew, using the chalice to never fall from their high. I tried to reason with them, but in their drug fueled frenzy, they wouldn’t listen to me. I didn’t want to fight them, their suffering was enough. I felt the same screams as I did when entering the isles, but this time inside me. The blue glow from my hands swirled around me before erupting out and enveloping the addicts. They let out earth shattering screams, shaking me to my core at the raw fear in their voices.

Shaking it off, I took the chalice, drinking from it to wipe away my addiction. When I got back to Thadon, he placed all of his Felldew inside it and drank from it. I personally believe that defeats the purpose, but to each madman their own. My next task is to learn from the Duchess of Dementia, but i am exhausted and still recovering from the after effects of Felldew.

I’m currently in my room in the House of Dementia, the stone walls providing a comfort I haven’t had since Martins death. My heart still weeps for him and just thinking of him brings tears to my eyes.

[three circles dot this passage, most likely from tears]

If I had only been faster. If I brought Martin to the Temple instead of to Ocato. If I had fought Dagon myself. If I stopped Camoran sooner. So many things I could have done. So many ways his death is my fault.

That’s enough for tonight. I am going to walk through Crucible, maybe give Cutter a few of the Madness Shards I’ve found. I don’t know why, but the damp alleys and dirty roads calm me. I believe it’s because they remind me of the Asylum, how little I do remember.

- Velentius Cosades

[sketchydoodles14]

Title: Shadows of Redemption

Chapter 1: Innocence Dwells

Amelia Carver, a red-haired, freckle-faced girl, embarked on her final year of high school burdened by a tumultuous home life. Despite the hardships, she embodied kindness, respect, and unwavering honesty. Tragedy had struck her family when her mother succumbed to alcoholism, her sister became consumed by entitlement, and her beloved father perished in a car accident just before the school year began.

Within the halls of her school, Amelia was subjected to relentless bullying for her virtuous nature. Yet, amidst the darkness, she found solace in the unwavering friendship of Lily, her steadfast companion since middle school. Lily's warmth and loyalty were the beacons that guided Amelia through each challenging day.

Chapter 2: The Sinister Catalyst

The fateful day arrived, shattering Amelia's world to its core. Devastating news echoed through the school corridors—a senseless drive-by shooting had claimed the life of her dearest friend, Lily. Overwhelmed with grief, Amelia's heart recoiled, struggling to comprehend this new and brutal reality.

As if fate were toying with her sorrow, the tormentor who relished bullying Amelia seemed to intensify his campaign of cruelty. One afternoon, his malicious intentions prevailed, and he cornered Amelia in the desolation of the girls' bathroom. Mocking her resilience, he aimed to strip away her last ounce of strength.

Chapter 3: The Birth of Shadows

In the face of unchecked aggression, something within Amelia snapped. She instinctively reached into her pocket, feeling the coldness of a pencil. With a surge of desperate fury, she unleashed a series of blows upon her assailant, the pencil finding vital targets. The bully crumpled to the floor, life extinguished in a sickening silence.

Amidst the hush, a newfound sense of twisted satisfaction enveloped Amelia. She peered stoically at the once-bullying figure now rendering before her. Uncertainty embraced her mind, yet a dark ember of vengeance flickered beneath.

Chapter 4: Veiled Secrets

Burdened by her dark act, Amelia realized the absence of any witnesses offered her a modicum of reprieve from immediate consequences. In a macabre attempt to conceal the evidence, she retrieved a box cutter from her bag, methodically dismembering the lifeless body into minuscule fragments. Each cut deepened her clandestine descent.

With meticulous precision, Amelia disposed of the flesh down the toilet, the bones hidden within a wall cavity veiled by an anti-vaping poster. Adrenaline pumping, she meticulously eradicated any traces of her heinous act. Her hands, once stained with blood, were now cleansed.

Chapter 5: The Scales Tipped

Days turned into an eerie absence, as the boy's disappearance became the subject of hushed whispers and worried glances. Amelia observed the world through veiled eyes, her actions forever concealed beneath a mask of normalcy. The void left by her bully's absence brought subtle relief, intermingled with a newfound state of paranoia.

But as the final page of Amelia's senior year turned, the weight of her secret bore heavily upon her conscience. The façade of perfection she projected to the world grew fractured, chipping away at her fragile sense of self.

Chapter 6: Into the Shadows

The story reaches its climactic twist with an unsettling revelation. As Amelia musters the courage to admit her dark endeavor, an unexpected ally emerges from the shadows—the memory of her slain friend, Lily. A presence she once believed lost forever.

Guided by Lily's ethereal guidance, Amelia embarks on a path of redemption. To escape the haunting chains of her actions, she surrenders herself to the authorities. But her fate remains uncertain, leaving readers captivated by the possibilities of absolution or a lifetime cloaked in the shadows of her choices.

Epilogue: The Echo of Shadows

The reader is left to contemplate the aftermath of Amelia's sinister act. Her story, forever etched in the annals of the town's history, divides public opinion. Some see her as a monster concealed within a mask of innocence, while others perceive a deeply troubled soul seeking redemption.

As the final pages close, readers are left pondering the delicate dance between good and evil, the lingering consequences of our choices, and the potential for salvation even within the darkest of hearts.

In "Shadows of Redemption," the blending of heart-wrenching tragedy, profound character development, and a relentless exploration of the human psyche creates a dark adventure that exposes the boundaries of morality. This captivating tale leaves no stone unturned as it captures both the imagination and the soul, forever branding itself in the hearts of those who dare to journey through its gripping pages.

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

How do you give feedback on a script? I'm just curious lol

So, the way it worked was you'd submit a script that was a certain length (130-215 pages long), and every student was given 3 scripts to prepare feedback on. This happened 5 times across the semester. Twice, your feedback came in a 1:1 from the professor herself.

Some Ground Rules:

For every fault you highlight, find something to praise.

You aren't giving orders (ex: "Fix this"), you're giving advice (ex: "I was confused by this part because-").

Everything else below the cut!

With any feedback (from the professor or students), you had to just read or listen to what they were saying without being allowed to ask any questions or speak in any way (you could face the wall if it made you more comfortable), and 24 hours later you'd have a 2nd round of discussion where you could actually talk through stuff.

The idea behind that was to give egos and sensitive feelings time to calm down and give you a chance to think through the feedback you were given, taking a lot of kneejerk hurt feeling responses out of the equation.

So, what you had to type in your responses (and you'd just fill in after what is in bold)-- and just a reminder, this is a motion picture feature-length writing class. The show writing class was slightly different.

Logline: 1 sentence summarizing what the story is about. ONLY one sentence.

Synopsis: A summary of the story.

Premise/Theme: What you think the theme of the story is, the core moral at the heart of the entire thing (before your feature is approved by the professor for writing, you submit a paper with the theme written on it. If the theme you are getting in feedback doesn't match your intended theme, you have to figure out how to fix it).

Structure: Movies follow one of three kind of core builds, with a grab-bag of modifiers often slapped on. You are analyzing the structure of their story, how the narrative plays out and at what pace, how the end compares to the beginning, etc. This is usually a few pages long. Call out stuff that didn't work for you in the story itself- things that didn't fit together, were confusing, etc.

Character: Write separate analyses for each main character, secondary characters, and the antagonist. Describe their character arcs, motivations, and any issues you had with that character. Were they distinct? Shallow? Exciting? Bland? Did they have chemistry? Were they realistic?

Conflict, External: Is the main conflict clear and driven by the story? Do you understand motivations and do actions fit with the characters established?

Conflict, Internal/Interpersonal: What emotional or internal conflicts do the characters have? Does it come through? Does it add to the story, enhance, distract, or fall flat?

Dialogue: Do they speak like humans? Inconsistencies in dialogue and how people are addressed, repeated lines, does someone introduce themselves to a character twice, is someone's voice too similar to someone else, etc.

Pacing: How does it flow? Where does it lag? Where is it moving too fast? Could events be shifted slightly to keep the pace moving comfortably?

Originality: Is the story unique? If not, what might differentiate it? Should they play something up more or less to make it unique? Even a cookie-cutter slasher has some element of originality to attract audiences.

Logic: Does the story follow its own worldbuilding and the logic established within the narrative? Are responses logical to the actions and mental state of the characters involved? Say you write a story where an orphan has powers and defeats a villain and becomes king of the people- why would the people chose him as their king? Does the character show qualities where this would be a logical reaction from the people?

Formatting: Does it follow script formatting rules? Are there any specific scenes where formatting breaks? Honestly, a lot of this one is like- you accidentally named the person speaking as Person A, but it should say Person B. These are little boo-boos.

Final Thoughts/Nitpicks: Absolutely anything else you want to say or highlight. No joke, at one point in class we had a 3 hour discussion on anal bleaching just because a character in a script offhand mentioned she'd done it. And we immediately interrogated the girl who wrote it (if it's in a script, you'd better know what goes into it), and then the professor started googling it, and the whole time she's just yelling over an increasingly giggly class "YOUR AUDIENCE WILL HAVE QUESTIONS TOO"... And the professor who used that room next had questions about the "previous search" history on the desktop...

And before you gave any feedback at all, there would be at least an hour lecture on each of those things in bold and how to analyze it.

Feature Writing was such a famously hardcore class that the university would automatically up the free printing page allotment. Normal students could print 300 pages free per semester. Feature Writing students were given 2,000 page allotments.

Which is partly why I still have absolutely all of my notes, all of my feedback, and every draft of my script.

[mallet45s]

The Art and Craft of Tile Installation

In the realm of interior design and home improvement, few elements possess the transformative power of tiles. From sleek, modern kitchens to serene, spa-like bathrooms, tiles not only enhance the aesthetic appeal but also contribute to functionality and durability. However, behind every stunning tiled surface lies the expertise of a skilled Tile installer. These artisans possess a unique blend of technical proficiency, creative vision, and meticulous attention to detail. In this exploration, we delve into the world of tile installation, uncovering the craftsmanship and dedication that elevate a simple surface into a work of art.

The Role of a Tile Installer

At its core, tile installation is a blend of science and artistry. A tile installer, often referred to as a tile setter, is tasked with the precise placement of tiles onto various surfaces, such as floors, walls, and countertops. Their responsibilities extend beyond mere placement; they must also ensure proper alignment, grout application, and sealing to create a flawless finish.

Technical Expertise

One of the defining characteristics of a proficient tile installer is their technical expertise. They possess a comprehensive understanding of different tile materials, adhesives, and substrates. Whether working with ceramic, porcelain, natural stone, or glass tiles, they know the intricacies of each material and how it interacts with various surfaces.

Moreover, tile installers are well-versed in the principles of substrate preparation. Before laying tiles, they meticulously assess the condition of the underlying surface, addressing any imperfections and ensuring proper leveling. This crucial step lays the foundation for a durable and long-lasting tile installation.

Precision and Attention to Detail

Precision is paramount in tile installation. Every tile must be meticulously placed to achieve uniform spacing and alignment. Even the slightest deviation can disrupt the harmony of the design. Tile installers rely on a keen eye for detail and a steady hand to ensure accuracy throughout the installation process.

From cutting tiles to fit irregular spaces to seamlessly transitioning between different tile patterns, precision is evident in every aspect of their work. Each cut is executed with precision tools, such as wet saws or tile cutters, to achieve clean edges and perfect fits.

Creativity and Design

While technical proficiency forms the backbone of tile installation, creativity sets exceptional tile installers apart. Beyond simply following a blueprint or design plan, they possess the ability to envision unique patterns and layouts that enhance the aesthetic appeal of a space.

Whether incorporating intricate mosaic designs, bold geometric patterns, or subtle texture variations, tile installers infuse creativity into their work, transforming ordinary surfaces into captivating focal points. They understand how color, texture, and scale interact to create visual impact, allowing them to tailor each installation to suit the client's preferences and the overall design aesthetic.

Problem-Solving Skills

In the world of tile installation, challenges are inevitable. Whether dealing with uneven surfaces, irregular room dimensions, or unexpected obstacles, tile installers must possess strong problem-solving skills to overcome these hurdles.

They approach each challenge with a combination of ingenuity and expertise, devising creative solutions to ensure a successful outcome. Whether it involves customizing tile cuts to accommodate unique architectural features or adjusting installation techniques to address substrate issues, their ability to adapt to changing circumstances is instrumental in achieving flawless results.

Professionalism and Customer Service

Beyond their technical prowess, exceptional tile installers prioritize professionalism and customer service. From the initial consultation to the final walkthrough, they maintain open communication with clients, keeping them informed and involved throughout the process.

Moreover, they adhere to industry best practices and safety standards to ensure a seamless and worry-free experience for their clients. Whether working on residential projects or commercial developments, they approach each job with professionalism, integrity, and a commitment to excellence.

Conclusion

In the realm of interior design and home improvement, tile installation stands as a testament to the marriage of technical expertise and artistic flair. Behind every impeccably tiled surface lies the dedication and craftsmanship of a skilled tile installer. From precision and attention to detail to creativity and problem-solving skills, these artisans elevate ordinary spaces into extraordinary works of art. As we continue to embrace the timeless beauty and versatility of tiles, let us not forget to celebrate the unsung heroes who bring our design visions to life with passion, skill, and unwavering dedication.

[167567]

5 individualized teaching strategies in the classroom.

Introduction

In the bustling halls of academia, the cookie-cutter approach to education is waning as personalization takes center stage. The modern classroom is a microcosm of diverse learners with unique needs, and as educators, our mission is to ensure that no child is left behind. But what does individualized teaching look like? How can it be implemented without overwhelming your teaching load?

Here are five actionable strategies that can help personalize education and foster a more inclusive learning environment, no matter how varied your learners’ proficiencies and preferences might be.

Flexible Grouping

Gone are the days when a simple distinction between ‘advanced’, ‘average’, and ‘behind’ served the needs of differentiation. Enter flexible grouping — a stratagem that allows teachers to structure learning teams on the fly based on strengths, interests, and learning styles.

Create Learning Menus: Offer students a menu of activities and allow them to choose based on their preferred learning approach. For instance, a student who excels in verbal-linguistic intelligence may opt for a writing task, while a kinesthetic learner may choose a physical project.

Interest-Based Groups: For longer-term projects, form small groups based on shared interests to deepen engagement and leverage peer mentorship.

Skill-Rotation Models: In a model similar to a station rotation, allows students to rotate between tasks to focus on particular skills, ensuring that each student has multiple opportunities to engage with content on their level.

Data-Driven Instruction

Leverage technology and assessment tools to gain insights into individual student performance, and tailor your instruction to the granular data available.

Use Formative Assessments: Integrate quick quizzes and short tasks within your lessons to gather data on student understanding in real time. Platforms and apps that provide instant feedback can streamline this process.

Analyze and Adjust: Once you’ve gathered data, don’t shy away from adjusting your lesson plans. If a group of students is struggling with a concept, devote additional time or alter your approach until mastery is achieved.

Regular Check-Ins with Students: Sometimes, the best data can be gleaned directly from students. Periodic check-ins can provide a personal touch and relevant insights that data systems might miss.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

At the core of UDL is the belief that curriculum should be designed from the start to meet the diverse needs of learners. This framework provides flexibility in the way information is presented, in how students respond or demonstrate their knowledge, and in the ways that students are engaged in learning.

Multiple Means of Representation: Provide information in a variety of ways — text, videos, graphics, and more — to accommodate different learning styles.

Multiple Means of Action and Expression: Allow students to express knowledge through diverse media — speech, writing, digital storytelling, or creating videos — to show what they know in the way that’s most comfortable for them.

Multiple Means of Engagement: Tap into students’ interests and offer choices to keep them motivated. This can mean incorporating gamified elements into your lessons or providing projects that relate to personal experiences.

Scaffold Learning

Scaffolding involves breaking down learning into manageable chunks and providing a tool, or structure, with each step. When a child learns to walk, they hold onto a wall at first, then a hand, and finally, walk unaided. In the same way, we should help our students master new skills by offering the support they need to succeed at each level.

Modeling: Demonstrate the activity or task so students can see the thought process and organization that go into it.

Guided Practice: Provide support as students start applying new knowledge themselves. This can be in the form of prompts, cues, or outlines that will gradually fade as students become more confident.

Application: Give students opportunities to apply what they’ve learned independently. Encourage them to reflect on their process and the strategies they used.

Collaborative Teaching and Learning

In a collaborative teaching environment, two or more educators share responsibility for designing and delivering instruction and have equal responsibilities in a learning environment. This team approach can lead to a more holistic, tailored educational experience for all students.

Co-Teaching Models: Implement strategies like one teach, one assist; parallel teaching; alternative teaching; or team teaching to provide students with the full spectrum of specialized instruction.

Regular Consultation: Regular communication and planning time among teachers ensures that all students benefit from the expertise and perspectives of the teaching team and that strategies are aligned for maximum effectiveness.

Shared Resources and Best Practices: A collaborative environment facilitates the sharing of resources, techniques, and teaching materials which can then be adapted based on individualized student needs.

By implementing these strategies, teachers can create environments that respond to the unique needs and strengths of each learner. Individualized instruction not only increases the academic success of students, but also fosters independence, self-confidence, and a lifelong love of learning. In the modern classroom, personalization is not just an add-on but a fundamental aspect of effective teaching.

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Crafting Your Ideal Home: The Dynamic Custom Homes Experience

In the quest for the perfect home, one size certainly doesn’t fit all. Today’s homeowners seek more than just four walls and a roof; they yearn for a space that resonates with their lifestyle, values, and aspirations. Enter the era of dynamic custom homes, where the concept of an “ideal home” takes center stage.

Understanding the Dynamics

Dynamic Custom Homes: More than a Buzzword

In the realm of housing, the term “custom” has taken on a new dimension. It’s no longer confined to choosing paint colors or cabinet styles. Dynamic custom homes are a symphony of innovation, adaptability, and personalization. They’re crafted not just to meet your needs today, but to evolve with you over time.

The Essence of Ideal Living

Creating an ideal home involves blending aesthetics, functionality, and sustainability seamlessly. Dynamic custom homes embody this essence, offering a canvas where homeowners can paint their dreams. From eco-friendly designs to smart home technology integration, the possibilities are as vast as your imagination.

The Dynamic Advantage

Tailored to Perfection

No two families are alike, and neither should their homes be. Dynamic custom homes start with a blank slate, allowing for a tailored approach to design and layout. Whether you dream of a spacious open kitchen, a dedicated home office, or a backyard oasis, these homes are a testament to your unique vision.

Innovative Design Concepts

Forget cookie-cutter floor plans. Dynamic custom homes embrace innovative design concepts that redefine traditional living spaces. From multi-functional rooms that adapt to your changing needs to architecture that maximizes natural light and energy efficiency, every detail is considered in the pursuit of the ideal home.

Sustainability at Its Core

Modern homeowners are increasingly mindful of their environmental footprint. Dynamic custom homes integrate sustainable practices and materials, ensuring that your ideal home is not just a sanctuary for you but also for the planet. Energy-efficient appliances, smart climate control systems, and eco-friendly construction methods are integral components of these forward-thinking dwellings.

The Journey of Crafting Your Ideal Home

Collaboration with Architects and Designers

The journey begins with a collaborative effort between homeowners and a team of architects and designers. This dynamic collaboration ensures that every element, from the overall layout to the smallest details, aligns with your vision and lifestyle. It’s a process that goes beyond picking finishes; it’s about co-creating a space that feels uniquely yours.

Flexibility for Future Needs

Dynamic custom homes are designed with the future in mind. Whether your family expands, your work situation changes, or your hobbies evolve, these homes provide the flexibility to adapt. Flexible spaces can transform to accommodate new needs, ensuring that your ideal home remains just that over the years.

Dynamic Custom Homes in Action: A Case Study

The Smith Residence: A Testament to Tailored Living

The Smith family, avid outdoor enthusiasts and remote workers, sought a home that seamlessly merged their love for nature with a functional work-from-home setup. Dynamic Custom Homes collaborated with them to create a residence that featured large windows framing picturesque views, a dedicated home office with a private entrance, and sustainable design elements that minimized their environmental impact.

Conclusion: Your Ideal Home Awaits

In the realm of dynamic custom homes, the concept of an “ideal home” is not a static destination; it’s a dynamic journey. It’s about creating a living space that mirrors your values, supports your lifestyle, and evolves with you. From innovative design concepts to sustainable practices, these homes redefine the way we think about modern living. If you’re ready to embark on the journey of crafting your ideal home, the world of dynamic custom homes is ready to welcome you.

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RCC Cutting Machine: Functions, Features, Benefits

RCC cutting machines play a crucial role in the construction industry, providing efficient solutions for cutting reinforced concrete structures. These machines, equipped with various cutting methods like wire sawing, diamond cutting, wall sawing, and core cutting, offer versatility in handling different tasks related to concrete cutting. Among the cutting techniques, wire saw cutting stands out for its advantages in terms of speed and precision. This method is known for its ability to swiftly and efficiently cut through thick reinforced steel concrete, making it a preferred choice in the industry.

Key Functions

Versatile Cutting Options: 

RCC cutting machines are designed to handle various cutting methods, providing flexibility in tackling different concrete cutting tasks. This includes wire sawing, diamond cutting, wall sawing, and core cutting.

Fast Cutting Speed with Wire Sawing: 

One of the key functions of these machines is their ability to achieve fast and efficient cutting through the use of wire saws. Wire saw cutting is known for its speed, making it a valuable method in time-sensitive construction projects.

Key Features

Precision and Accuracy: 

Wire saws offer a smaller kerf compared to traditional blades, ensuring precision in the cut. This feature is essential for achieving accurate results in concrete-cutting tasks.

Smooth and Clean Surfaces: 

Wire sawing results in surfaces that are smooth and clean, contributing to the overall quality of the cut. This is a crucial feature in construction where the finish of the cut is important.

Hydraulic Diamond Wire Saw Machine: 

Some machines come equipped with a hydraulic diamond wire saw, ensuring a strong cutting power that produces straight and neat cuts without the need for additional trimming.

Benefits of RCC Cutter Machine

Efficiency and Economy: 

Wire sawing is recognized for its quick, efficient, and economical nature. It allows for the completion of concrete-cutting tasks promptly, contributing to overall project efficiency.

Time Savings: 

The fast-cutting speed of wire saws translates to significant time savings on construction sites, enabling contractors to meet tight deadlines.

Quality Finishes:

The precision and accuracy achieved through wire sawing contribute to high-quality finishes, meeting the standards and requirements of construction projects.

Bharat Saw: Your Source for RCC Cutter Machines

When it comes to purchasing high-quality RCC cutter machines, Bharat Saw stands out as a reliable and reputable source. Offering a range of cutting-edge machines, Bharat Saw caters to the diverse needs of the construction industry. With a focus on providing efficient and technologically advanced solutions, Bharat Saw ensures that customers have access to top-notch equipment for their concrete-cutting requirements.

To explore the extensive range of RCC cutter machines available, visit and discover cutting-edge solutions for your construction projects. With a commitment to quality and customer satisfaction, Bharat Saw emerges as a trusted partner in the construction equipment industry.