After all this Charade and news of diversity feels like Rohtak under ground hi ho gaya hai, bc 2nd list hi nhi nikal rahe!?
They approx have 350 seats for MBA and around only 250 students have accepted the offer up untill now!
And a lot of people also must've asked for refund, then why the fuck aren't they releasing the second list?

Disclaimer: I do not speak Korean. This is purely translated by machine with a lot of cleanup afterward. With that in mind, I am open to criticism to improve these translations. Enjoy!
​
Chapter 417
​
I had suspected it all along, but I silently bided my time.
​
I was waiting for the inevitable moment when they would reveal their true intentions.
​
"I'm actually confident."
​
"Confident?"
​
“Yes.”
​
A smirk tugged at the corners of my lips, a spontaneous reaction as I finally unleashed the accusation I had suppressed for so long.
​
"I'm confident that you bastards are more interested in stabbing me in the back than the Arch Lich."
​
“...!”
​
「...!」
​
Their stunned silence marked the end of this brief charade.
​
Step.
​
Lee Jeong-Ryong halted abruptly.
​
Crack!
​
Then, a sudden surge of air pressure exploded from behind me — three precise bursts targeting my vital points.
​
Without needing to look, I sensed the trajectory of the flying daggers hurled by Wu Hei-Xing and knew exactly how to counter.
​
Swoosh!
​
The daggers, aimed with lethal precision at my neck, spine, and right arm, sliced through the air, missing their intended targets.
​
'No, not quite.'
​
Was it due to my heightened senses? Everything around me seemed to move in slow motion.
​
As one dagger narrowly missed my right arm, I seized its handle in a fluid motion, twisting my waist and swinging my arm with the speed of lightning.
​
Screaaach!
​
「Gasp!」
​
Wu Hei-Xing, who had charged forward in attack, reacted instinctively, his blade cutting through the air as he tried to counter.
​
Bang!
​
The clash emitted a dull thud, and he staggered backward, his expression contorted in frustration. He prepared to lunge again, but a firm voice halted him.
​
"Enough."
​
「Mr. Lee, why…!」
​
“You’re not his match. Just wait.”
​
Lee Jeong-Ryong's gaze locked onto mine with an intensity that bore no room for argument.
​
"You're quite perceptive, aren't you?"
​
The sudden shift in his tone drew a snicker from me.
​
"For an old man who thinks he knows everything, you keep saying obvious things. If I lacked even this level of insight, I'd have died long ago."
​
"When did you figure it out?"
​
I answered without hesitation.
​
"From the very first moment we met."
​
That day, when I had boldly entered the Myeongdong Guild alone. From then, Lee Jeong-Ryong and I were irrevocably past any point of reconciliation.
​
It was set in motion the day that bastard, Park Ji-Hwang, ordered the Black Hunter to sever Mr. Rough Guy’s arms.
​
"That was just excessive loyalty from my subordinates. If you're going to spout such bullshit, you might as well roll your tongue back in your mouth."
​
"Hardly. I only regret it."
​
"What do you regret? Your future of smelling incense from behind a picture frame?" [Note: In Buddhism and many Asian cultures, families will have altars in their homes devoted to dead family members. Usually, photographs of the deceased will be placed upon these altars as a physical representation of their presence and influence on the living family. Incense is lit in front of these altars to invite the spirit of the deceased to join offerings and to carry prayers and messages to the afterlife.]
​
Lee Jeong-Ryong shook his head, a trace of genuine sentiment in his eyes.
​
"I quite liked you, actually."
​
"Then you shouldn’t have had my man's arms cut off."
​
"It was a light warning. I wanted to wake up Choi Min-Woo. Back then, Jin Tae-Kyung, the newbie, wasn’t significant enough to warrant my attention."
​
"And now?"
​
Lee Jeong-Ryong answered with a gentle smile.
​
"I came here myself. Does that answer your question?"
​
"That’s more than enough."
​
I leaned back against the cracked concrete debris, White Flames resting beside me.
​
To the left stood Wu Hei-Xing; to the right, Lee Jeong-Ryong. Both were ten meters away — a gap that could be bridged in a heartbeat.
​
"But this is unexpected. I thought you would make your move after dealing with the Arch Lich."
​
「Ha! You stupid bastard!」
​
Wu Hei-Xing's laughter shattered the tense air, his scorn echoing around us.
​
Just a few days ago, this guy couldn't even meet my eyes, and now he spoke confidently.
​
「The fight with the Arch Lich is all yours, Jin Tae-Kyung.」
​
"What nonsense… Ah."
​
A sudden realization dawned on me, and an involuntary, sardonic laugh escaped my lips.
​
I couldn't help but marvel; truly, their cunning was beyond any I had imagined.
​
"I wouldn't have believed that you bastards were this clever."
​
「Do you understand now? What situation you're in?」
​
"So... you never intended to fight the Arch Lich?"
​
Wu Hei-Xing curled his lips into a sneer.
​
「Why should I take such a risk?」
​
"…!"
​
「Today's battle will be recorded as a defeat. And at the top of the list of the fallen, your name will be written. I've even decided on the epitaph for your tombstone."
​
Wu Hei-Xing spread his hands theatrically.
​
「A bangzi from Korea, killed by the Arch Lich. What do you think? Isn't it good?」
​
His words hung in the air, heavy and mocking. I blinked, momentarily stunned, my mind a blank slate as chills raced across my skin.
​
Was it the shock of his betrayal?
​
No, it was his haunting question that echoed in my mind.
​
'Why should I take such a risk?'
​
It felt like a physical blow, a harsh reminder of the brutality I had witnessed over the past month.
​
Scenes of despair flashed before me.
​
A young parent clutched their child, bracing for the end; an elderly person, too weak to escape, consumed by a monster; and a pregnant woman cradling her belly in her final breath.
​
And yet...
​
​
​
'I vowed on the day I became a Hunter that I would fight monsters until my very last breath. That vow still holds.'
​
​
​
There were those like Lei Fei who stood their ground to the bitter end, and the five hundred valorous souls of the Public Security Force Hunters who rose to fight despite overwhelming odds.
​
And there were those like Mr. Choi and Shao Shen, who had bound their hands to their sword hilts, determined to fight to their last.
​
'Really, why did they all take such risks? Idiots.'
​
Each courageous face haunted me. My gut seethed as if ablaze, each breath I exhaled scorching hot.
​
Centering myself, I focused on one individual.
​
"Tell me."
​
"What do you want to know?"
​
"Do you think the same as him?"
​
"It's different. Very different. That guy fears the Arch Lich, but..."
​
Lee Jeong-Ryong's words flowed with an eerie smoothness.
​
"I see it as an opportunity. The longer this war drags on, the more benefits I can gain."
​
A moment of silence passed before I nodded slightly, understanding dawning.
​
"I see, that's how it is."
​
I surged up from the rubble, the Scorching Yang Qi boiling through my veins like molten lava, igniting the air around me. The blade of White Flames flickered with ethereal blue flames.
​
"Let me ask one more thing."
​
"Anything."
​
"'A good Chinese is a dead Chinese', and 'Fuck you, Jeong-Ryong'. How do you like those epitaphs?" [Note: "a good Chinese is a dead Chinese" originated from a different use for Native Americans in the Indian Wars. The original quote is from General Philip Sheridan, who said "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." This term was adapted by Koreans as a hate expression for Chinese people.]
​
「…!」
​
"…Hah."
​
Wu Hei-Xing’s face twisted in shock, and Lee Jeong-Ryong’s eyes narrowed into amused crescents.
​
Swoosh!
​
A brilliant burst of light erupted around us.
​
​
​
* * *
​
​
​
Lee Jeong-Ryong had resolved himself for what was necessary.
​
'Complacency is forbidden. I must kill him at all costs.'
​
Even a lion doesn’t hold back when hunting a rabbit, much less a formidable wolf like Jin Tae-Kyung.
​
Though he fancied himself a lion, Lee Jeong-Ryong was well aware of the wolf’s fangs.
​
Whoosh!
​
With a swift step, almost imperceptible, Lee Jeong-Ryong’s movements blurred.
​
His long sword, enveloped in dazzling flashes of light, unsheathed in a swift, direct thrust.
​
Which was aimed at Jin Tae-Kyung.
​
Woosh!
​
This strike, unprecedented in its ferocity, was delivered with lethal precision by Lee Jeong-Ryong.
​
Wu Hei-Xing, though not as powerful as Jin Tae-Kyung, was still an S-rank Hunter wielding an Aura Blade, ready to join the fray.
​
「Die!」
​
As Wu Hei-Xing’s battle cry rang out, his eyes ablaze with fury, Lee Jeong-Ryong saw it clearly.
​
The fluid, graceful dance of Jin Tae-Kyung, his spear blade wreathed in blue flames.
​
Kwaaaang!
​
The collision of two swords and one spear unleashed a Qi wave that exploded with a deafening roar.
​
Buildings were obliterated and the concrete beneath them was pulverized.
​
Boom! Booooom!
​
It was like a bomb had gone off.
​
The ground sank, and a massive tremor swept through hundreds of meters around.
​
But this was merely the beginning of what was to follow.
​
Sssss!
​
With a hiss like slicing silk, dozens, then hundreds of strikes whipped through the air. Lee Jeong-Ryong's blade, a blur too swift to track, assaulted Jin Tae-Kyung relentlessly.
​
He was convinced of his superiority, his sword a flawless extension of his will.
​
That belief held firm until Jin Tae-Kyung, with a dismissive swipe of his palm wreathed in flames, repelled Wu Hei-Xing and shifted his stance.
​
Whoosh!
​
A superheated gust scorched the atmosphere.
​
Jin Tae-Kyung's spear, having absorbed the dense fog and the day’s moisture, hurtled towards Lee Jeong-Ryong with the force of a tempest.
​
It struck with the ferocity of a dragon’s claw descending from the heavens.
​
'What is this...?'
​
Lee Jeong-Ryong's brow furrowed in consternation.
​
Charging through with unstoppable momentum, Jin Tae-Kyung's spear annihilated his aura, spreading out evenly like a protective barrier.
​
The searing heat was suffocating, his muscles tensing in reaction.
​
The young man before him, barely a step into his thirties, was a far cry from the novice Lee Jeong-Ryong thought he knew.
​
'How could he have progressed this far in such a short time...?'
​
Taken aback by Jin Tae-Kyung’s unexpected prowess, Lee Jeong-Ryong nonetheless was no ordinary adversary; he stood among the elite of S-rank hunters.
​
Reacting instinctively, he positioned his sword horizontally in a parry.
​
Kwaaang!
​
Jin Tae-Kyung's spear hit with unexpected ferocity, challenging Lee Jeong-Ryong's preparedness. Yet, Lee Jeong-Ryong was equally unyielding.
​
Swoosh, sssss!
​
In the fraction of a heartbeat, spear and sword collided, sparking lightning and thundering clashes.
​
As Jin Tae-Kyung bore down, pressing Lee Jeong-Ryong’s blade back with his spear, he reached forward.
​
Just as his Divine Palm of Fire nearly scorched Lee Jeong-Ryong's chest, Lee’s fist, like a bolt from the blue, met his attack.
​
Puff!
​
The clash expelled a burst of compressed air, forcing both men to stagger.
​
And for Lee Jeong-Ryong, the outcome was unnerving.
​
While he had been pushed back two full steps, Jin Tae-Kyung had barely moved one. [Note: as a reminder, way back in novel chapter 284, during their first encounter, the MC was pushed back three steps and Lee Jeong-Ryong was essentially unaffected when they traded the same moves being used here.]
​
'Was I really pushed back?'
​
Lee Jeong-Ryong had amassed immense power over decades.
​
Yet here stood a man not yet thirty, who had just outmatched him.
​
The transformation Jin Tae-Kyung had undergone in just over a month bordered on the miraculous.
​
'But that's not all.'
​
His power and speed, the fluidity of his movements... all were beyond words, utterly astonishing.
​
Just like this moment.
​
Whoosh! Swoosh!
​
Lee Jeong-Ryong snapped his head around just in time. The spear blade that had nearly touched him twisted in midair.
​
Scrrrr!
​
A scorching sensation trailed by a spray of blood.
​
Gritting his teeth against the pain — a sensation unfamiliar after so many unchallenged years—Lee Jeong-Ryong countered with a swing of his sword.
​
Bang!
​
Their weapons met with a resounding clash. Beyond the gleaming spear blade, he locked eyes with the fiery gaze of the younger man.
​
From between clenched teeth, Jin Tae-Kyung's voice was ice-cold.
​
"You're... fucked."
​
The moment Lee Jeong-Ryong heard Jin Tae-Kyung's chilling words, he realized he needed to revise his earlier assessment.
​
'Lion.'
​
He had underestimated Jin Tae-Kyung. The young man was not merely a wolf.
​
He was a lion — one poised to usurp the aging alpha and claim the throne.
​
Crack, bang!
​
An overwhelming force sent the older lion reeling back.
​
As Lee Jeong-Ryong somersaulted in midair to regain his footing, the first sight that met his eyes was Jin Tae-Kyung, his hand clamped around the throat of Wu Hei-Xing, who had lunged in a desperate sneak attack.
​
「Gah! My father is one of the Princelings...!」
​
"I don't care."
​
「Spare me, and I will surely repay you! Please!」
​
"Me? Spare you? You just tried to kill me."
​
His gaze burned into Wu Hei-Xing.
​
Then a familiar phrase slipped from his lips.
​
"Why should I take such a risk?"
​
「…!」
​
Crack! [Note: https://imgur.com/gallery/feels-good-meme-qWVr0AS]
​
Previous Table of Contents Next

For context I broke up with him a week ago. He didn’t take it well at first and a couple days later I returned the things he’d left at my place. He was doing better and asked if we could stay friends, I told him okay but give space for a week or two.
He immediately started texting, first about our relationship, than about random things he’d given me, he now wanted back. None were on the list of stuff he’d asked for that was left at my place . I told him he’d get them back after the week of space I needed. When he kept messaging me I blocked him, we’d talk in a week I said, I’ll give you everything then.
Cut to today: I know he was posting on hookup sites the day we broke up, and I figured it was time for a rebound. I started talking to a few guys and this one seemed really into me. We hit it off and were into the same things, eventually he asked about my recent experiences. I mentioned I was recently single, and he wondered aloud about my ex and why we broke up. I should’ve realized then what was going on.
Basically he was a jealous loser with no goals who just wanted to get high and play video games all day. I told the account as much. It accused me of being toxic for being in that relationship to begin with. Then it began to pry if I’d ever cheated, I hadn’t. Finally he dropped the whole charade and started calling from his mother’s phone. It was him gloating and demanding to see me tomorrow. And if I wasn’t feeling vulnerable enough, he threatened to break into my house and take everything he’d given me if he doesn’t have it by noon tomorrow. I’ll probably throw it by curb and lock my doors but we’ll see.
Sorry for my rambling but It’s late at night and I won’t have anyone to talk about it to till tomorrow.

Like many of you on here I have consumed a lot of Amico content over the past few years for the train wreck. CU Podcast, Hbomberguy, and down along the list of the smaller channels with excerpts from all the interviews Tommy did, etc, etc. Couldn't get enough and was fascinated by the hubris and psychology of it all. The video of the cult "worshipping at the alter of Amico" came close, but I've finally found a video that I physically cannot sit through... the Neil Patel investment pitch. It is one of the most unbearably disingenuous things I have ever seen in my life, and on multiple levels. There's literally layers to the bullshit. 1) it pretends to be a livestream and it's not. 2) Tommy knows what he's saying is bullshit about the console, games and particularly the market size and potential 3) Neil and Co. also know what he's saying is bullshit. Everyone just goes along with the charade. 4) Knowing that it worked. Based on what we saw with some clueless investors saying that's how they heard about the investment opportunity. Vulnerable old people for the most part.
Disgusting behavior. I had to turn it off.

I've been learning for the past few weeks and it's going great, but I'd love to get in touch with other beginners!
About me:

• I've currently learned about 200 signs?
• Very happy to test on vocab and be tested!
• I've made a list of handshapes that collates different sources on the internet, and also includes some ones people seem to often omit mentioning? (e.g. "Open R")
• I've also made notes on grammar and linguistics.
• My background is in philosophy, with a tiny bit of linguistics.
• Happy to chat through whatever media you prefer.
• I'm primarily interested in learning midwestern ASL, but I'm not wedded to this. Never hurts to learn more variants! (Esp when I'm still learning basic vocab)

About you:

• Also a beginner
• Interested in things like:
  • chatting about ASL
  • learning signs together
  • conversation practice/writing speeches to each other and trying to understand them
  • Maybe playing charades using ASL xD Idk. I'm happy to have fun with it.

Feel free to share this post elsewhere!

What's going on $FFIE family? I just wanted to post this video here and hope you all can check it out because the gentleman in it brings up some really interesting points that I wanted to outline.
Before we begin just a quick disclaimer:
**Disclaimer: I am in no way a financial advisor, nor am I giving you financial advice by writing this post. This post is just a reiteration of the YouTube video I'm posting here and am essentially just reiterating what this gentleman is suggesting in this video. So at your own discretion, please use this information for educational purposes ONLY and not to guide you in your financial decisions. As always, investing involves lots of risk. Any decisions you do make regarding investing is done at your own will and accord. I'm am making this post just to open up communication and discuss what you all think about this video and the information presented.
**Disclaimer 2: I am some random guy over the internet and the individual in the video is too. This is just one individual's thoughts on the matter and he or I could be totally wrong.
(please watch the original video from yesterday first) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQbCyv9wIAk
(please watch the video from today that I reference in this post) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHEU939Ncp8
Let's Begin!
Essentially, he discussed in a previous video that possibly millions of shares that don't exist are floating around out there, there was 95% short interest on $FFIE currently; however, these CAT numbers are likely not true and its possible that the short interest is actually a lot higher - while the short sellers are saying that they can sell off all of these shares in anywhere from 30-60 minutes. If you are paying attention to the price, we all know that these clowns cannot do this because they would:
a) have to take a massive loss if they did this.
b) this great community is gaining momentum over them and are owning more and more shares, which is causing us to control the supply of the shares available on the market
Part b) is very important because what the man in the video is explaining is that, the amount of shares that are being reported available are much more than what is actually in circulation. Why does this matter? Its possible that these guys are doing something called 'naked short selling'. This is an illegal practice which involves market manipulation. How does it work? Let's take the scenario we are in.
So to briefly summarize what the normal short sellers hope for is:

1. borrow $FFIE shares from their brokerage at a high price, with expectations price will fall
2. They sell off the shares for the high price
3. They buy the number of shares they need at the price the shares dropped to, return the borrowed shares back to the broker and profit the difference.

Where we get the drop on the short sellers:

1. short sellers borrow $FFIE shares from brokerage at a high price, with expectations price will fall
2. We buy lots and lots of shares and control the supply amount of shares that are available on market by holding them
3. short sellers need the price to come down, otherwise they sell at the higher price and lose money, but get the borrowed shares back to return to their broker to make them whole

What the man in the video is explaining may be happening:

1. short sellers originally and illegally said they had 'borrowed' shares from a broker and are looking to sell them (prior to our large movement or during and up until the present moment)
2. they then 'sell' the shares (that again they don't have) to a potential buyer. That buyer pays these naked short sellers money but they never receive the 'borrowed' shares they were promised.

Just a note before I go on:
I see a lot of people giving each other shit for panic selling. I'm not saying that this wasn't happening or called for, but some of these drops could have been from these naked short sellers who were manipulating the stock price downward illegally? How?

1. the hope of the naked short seller is that in general, they will do this to drive the price down forcibly, buy the stock back at the lower price and then provide the original buyer with the stock to make everyone whole. In turn, they pocket the difference. As you can tell, there is fraudulent behavior in this method and its also manipulating the stock negatively (which is of course an SEC no no).

Here is why: If these sellers come around and tell people they have stock that they don't actually have, this creates more supply of stock (although this isn't the case and this 'stock' that they 'own' doesn't exist. If we look at simple supply and demand, this means there is more supply of the stock, so this causes the price of the stock to drop, as a result).
So in our situation that we are in right now, is unique and as the days go on, we're exposing these naked short sellers. The reason for this is because we are getting to a point where volume is stabilizing and we are owning more and more stock as a community. So then you have to ask yourself, if this is the case, where are they even getting stock to sell and still bringing the price down at these levels? The answer is that they likely are naked short selling and bringing the stock price down illegally and manipulating the price.
Now before you all freak out (too late I'm sure) - this information may actually be a really great thing for us and these people who are working against our efforts. As Sun Tzu said in the Art of War, 'If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.'
Why is this difficult for us:
Obviously, whether we hold or not, these individuals can drive the price down (so long as they can keep this charade up - BUT and its a big BUT - there is a time limit and problem with this (this is the good news, I promise)).
Why is this beneficial for us:

• It exposes the potential strategy of those on the other side of our trade - so we can create a counter strategy against this.
• According to FINRA's rules, there is something called a threshold list. If a company gets on this list (which $FFIE has made it on the list), it means that there are individuals that are shorting the stock, but not paying the shorts back over consecutive days. We know this is happening in general, but as the guy in the video discusses, the amount of shares that are being shorted (he says potentially hundreds of millions) and the short interest %, do not make sense, nor does it make anymore sense of how long they are saying it would take to pay the shorts off (30-60 minutes). So its likely that these individuals cannot cover these shorts at all, and there potentially could be reason to believe that they are way in over their head and likely are manipulating the stock to bring it down with their desperate attempts we've seen so far.
• Based on my second point, this is really important because opened shorts on the threshold list have a time limit to be FTD (Failure to Deliver). As of today, we are on day 5 of being on the threshold list with FTD (according to the man in the video). FINRA rules require that if the shorts on the company remain on the threshold list for 13 consecutive days, the short seller must immediately close out their positions by purchasing the shares and in the case of naked short sellers, they may be subject to margin calls with the broker if they can't buy the shares outright (in our situation, this would be the case because they are hesitant to buy, since we are keeping the price too high for them - in turn, this would cause the short seller's account to fall below a maintenance margin and the margin call would be initiated (again sometime after 13 consecutive trading days of them not buying the shares). Also, even in some rare occurrences, the brokerage can take a loan against them and will get the money from them by possibly taking other assets through legal action. The man in the video mentions that a lot of times, these individuals wind up also getting fined and write this off on their taxes.
• This is huge because this gives us somewhat of a timeline of about how long they potentially have to buy back their shares before they truly start running into problems. It doesn't mean on that day that this is it and we get our short squeeze, but I would think that this could possibly shorten our timeline down and gives us a better idea of how long they have to make a move and kind of how things may progress from there. It could take longer than this, its not set in stone.

**Remember: Those who are doing naked shorts are doing so illegally. They literally are telling people to give them money for shares that they don't have, with the hope that they will buy lower priced shares after they've driven the price of the shares down from a top, by introducing shares that don't even really exist into the market. They are in trouble if they cannot hand over the shares to the seller who gave them the money. That won't really last long. The pressure is definitely on because they are committing fraud. So there is that for them to deal with too.
So to summarize (TLDR):
Naked short sellers are potentially working against us by illegally driving the price down through selling shares that they don't have. Given that the amount of shares being short sold (in the hundreds of millions) probably cannot be delivered in general because they aren't real, the stock having very high short interest % (probably much more than what is actually being reported) and the CAT numbers are telling us that these individuals can buy the shares they borrowed back in anywhere from 30-60 minutes (despite us all owning, holding and in some ways controlling more and more of the supply of the stock), this is hard to believe that any of this is true. Since we now have this information, we can anticipate what these mfers are going to do, which is illegally drive the price down so that they can try and delist the stock from the Nasdaq and buy back the stock for cheap, and eventually get their way.
What can we do?

1. Keep the price above a dollar to avoid Nasdaq delisting.
2. Keep buying and holding shares to wait these fuckers out until sometime around June 4th or 5th because at that point, they will start feeling the pressure and according to FINRA, this would be 13 consecutive days of them not paying their shares back, which can result in potential margin calls and their brokerage may liquidate their assets to buy the shares back at the higher price or slap them with a loan against the naked short sellers, if it ever gets to that point (at a later date) - remember though, this may drag on past this point, its not a guarantee but something I'd like to ponder with you all more about.
3. Pay attention to any other news regarding the company and keep up to date with the fundamentals as well

I may have completely misinterpreted this video because the gentleman takes us in a legal direction and looking at the matter in that way. However, I feel that this information could still be favorable for us all.
He may be right, he may be wrong - but you all tell me what you think.
Let's discuss further!
P.S. I'd like to give a shoutout to ProfessionalAd's post (find it here: https://www.reddit.com/FFIE/comments/1cxcy4g/i\_swearif\_everyone\_would\_just\_read\_and\_comprehend/), where he discusses how to shut off lending of $FFIE and to set buy limits on orders to prevent short sellers from under bidding us. Please check it out whenever you have a minute.

I've been learning for the past few weeks and it's going great, but I'd love to get in touch with other beginners!
About me:

• I've currently learned about 200 signs?
• Very happy to test on vocab and be tested!
• I've made a list of handshapes that collates different sources on the internet, and also includes some ones people seem to often omit mentioning? (e.g. "Open R")
• I've also made notes on grammar and linguistics.
• My background is in philosophy, with a tiny bit of linguistics.
• Happy to chat through whatever media you prefer.
• I'm primarily interested in learning midwestern ASL, but I'm not wedded to this. Never hurts to learn more variants! (Esp when I'm still learning basic vocab)

About you:

• Also a beginner
• Interested in things like:
  • chatting about ASL
  • learning signs together
  • conversation practice/writing speeches to each other and trying to understand them
  • Maybe playing charades using ASL xD Idk. I'm happy to have fun with it.

Feel free to share this post elsewhere!

As always, if you know of an event that's not listed here, feel free to share it (with a link) in the comments. Feedback on events you've attended or plan to attend is welcome.
*Free (or no admission/cover)
--Recurring Event
Noteworthy: Dallas Stars and Dallas Mavericks begin playing their respective Western Conference Finals this week. Some dates and times are still TBA.
This weekend is Memorial Dayweekend with the holiday being observed next Monday (May 27).. Saturday, May 26 is Opening Day for public pools at The Cove at Crawford Park, The Cove at Fretz Park, The Cove at Samuell Grand, and Bachman Community Aquatic Center.
Dallas Pride week is next week, and pre-celebration events begin this weekend.
Weekend & Multi-Day Events
May 21-26 Frisco Roughriders vs. Midland Rockhounds at Riders Field, Frisco
May 25-26 Pegasus Film Festival at LOOK Dine-in Cinemas Dallas
May 25-26 Mad Max (1980) at the Texas Theatre
May 25-26 TwoGether Land at Fair Park
May 25-26 Ubbi Dubbi Festival at Panther Island, Fort Worth
Through May 27 Scarborough Renaissance Festival, Waxahachie
May 23-25 EVERGREEN [to grow] at Wyly Theatre
Through May 25 Echo Theatre: Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper at the Bath House Cultural Center
Through Jun 9 Hamilton at Winspear Opera House
May 17-June 1 Teatro Dallas: Cloud Tectonics at the Latino Cultural Center
*May 11- May 24 Women in Art – A Joyful Journey Exhibition at Art on Main
*Through June 28 Central Library Staff Art Exhibit at Dallas Public Library Central Branch
Monday, May 20
Ghosts: Do You Believe at Texas Theatre
Meatless Meals: Inspired by India at Central Market Cooking School Lovers Lane
*Book Signing/Discussion - Kimberly King Parsons: We Were the Universe at Interabang Books
*Mad Monday Karaoke at Three Links Dallas
*Gabby & The Birds at The Free Man
*--The Love Mic - Open Mic at Sundown at Granada
Mixer Mondays at Bowlounge
*Motown on Monday at Elm and Good
Kizomba Semba class & prática at Dallas Dance Studio
*Hall of Fame Mondays at Palms
Classics in Black and White: The Third Man at Angelika Dallas
Linny Nance Hour of Power (Soul, R&B) at The Balcony Club
Tuesday, May 21
Mahjong at The Crescent Club
*Transcend Yoga on the Museum Green at Fair Park
Sketch to Success: Watercolor Session at Ad Ex Dallas
Dallas Skyline Rooftop Paint Party at Canvas Hotel
*--Spanish Learners Conversation Table at Renner Frankford Branch Library
*Book Signing/Discussion - Kerry Nichols, Puppy Brain at Interabang Books
Lady London at House of Blues
*Swiftie Theme Trivia at Vector Brewing
*Ralyn Gayle at Truck Yard Dallas
*Lakefront Live: Kevin Arellano at the Bath House Cultural Center
Songwriter Social W/Justin Pickard (Open Mic Night) at Adair’s Saloon
Seth Cowles and Friends at Improv Addison
Wednesday, May 22
NBA Western Conference Finals - Dallas Mavericks vs. TBD at American Airlines Center
Arts and Letters Live: Nicholas Kristof at the Dallas Museum of Art
*Dallas Symphony Orchestra and The Concert Truck Performance at NorthPark Center
*Salsa Dance Social at Sammons Park
*Learn to Play American Mah Jongg at Preston Royal Branch Library
*Preston Royal Discussion Book Club at Preston Royal Branch Library
*Love Songs Duh Choir Concert at Dr. L.G. Pinkston Sr. High School
Avi Kaplan: Feel Alright Tour with special guest Michael Alvarado at The Kessler
The Heartbreak Kid (1972) at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Lake Highlands
*Wednesday Patio Sessions: Lacey Ingram at The Sound at Cypress Waters
*Half Price Games Night at Dave & Buster’s
Women’s Climb Night at Movement Climbing at The Hill
*Andrew Frye, Solo Performance at The Kitchen Cafe
De Colores Presents: American Fiction at Studio C, Garland
*Watch Party Wednesdays: High School Musical at Grandscape, The Colony
Run Club at Armor Brewing Co., Allen
Thursday, May 23
NHL Western Conference Finals - Dallas Stars vs. TBD at American Airlines Center
ATB "Don't Stop" US Tour at Stereo Live Dallas
Ahadadream at It'll Do Club
Speed Dating Putt Putt and Mixer at Another Round
Sweat & Glow with Divi and Live Tinted at Place at Tyler
Thursdays on Tap at the Perot Museum
*--PNC Patio Sessions - Aurora Bleu at Sammons Park
*--K. Cooks & Friends at Chocolate Secrets
*Spanish Cinema Now+: Viaje a alguna parte at the Meadows Museum
* Uptown Dallas Inc. Annual Meeting at Violet Crown Theater
*--Chess for Adults at Vickery Park Branch Library
*--Knitting Group at Timberglen Branch Library
*Know Your City Series: Office of Arts and Culture at J. Erik Jonsson Central Library
*Japanese Tea Ceremony Demonstration at the Oak Lawn Branch Library
Derek Spence, A Tribute to George Strait at the Dallas Arboretum
Raised Right Men at The Rustic
*325 Comedy Show at Hyena’s Dallas
Friday, May 24
NBA Western Conference Finals - Dallas Mavericks vs. TBD at American Airlines Center
Eurodance - Dallas Pride Kickoff at Thrive
*A Journey through Psychological Sci-Fi at The Wild Detectives
TEKNOSTASIS in the Limbo Room at Ruins
BBQ Class at the Sheraton Dallas
Camp Saucer 5th Anniversary, Karaoke Kickoff at The Flying Saucer Cypress Waters
KXT 91.7 Presents: Warpaint with Sego at the Granada Theater
Dan Deacon with Future Nest at Club Dada
Brent Buemi + Mike Willey Jazz & Blues Duo at Opening Bell Coffee
*The Clinton Years at Lee Harvey’s
Chris Isaak at House of Blues
Dan Deacon at Club Dada
*Rachel Teague at The Rustic
**ctrl + alt + defeat* Gaming Night at Round Two
Kendrick Vs Drake: The Main Event at RBC Dallas
The Emo Night Tour at Trees
Taking Back Sunday with special guest Citizen at South Side Ballroom
*Lakeside Live Music: Faron Gilbert at The Sound at Cypress Waters
*RCN Jazz Band at Cityline, Richardson
*Disco Queen at Grandscape, The Colony
The Spazmatics at Lava Cantina, The Colony
*Gary Hobbs with Sabor Puro at The Levitt, Arlington
Saturday, May 25
NHL Western Conference Finals - Dallas Stars vs. TBD at American Airlines Center
FC Dallas vs. Salt Lake at Toyota Stadium, Frisco
Memorial Day Weekend Yacht Party/MImosa Walk at Elm & Good
*Saturday Sounds: Ceci Ceci at the Leonhardt Lagoon at Fair Park
*Forest Green Tabletop Brigade at Forest Green Branch Library
*Peaceful Paper Crafts at Grauwyler Park Branch Library
*Local Coffee Shop Talk: Oak Cliff Coffee Roasters at Hampton-Illinois Branch Library
*The Blank Collective Art Exhibition at The DEC Network
*Movie - Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy at Dallas West Branch Library
*Movie Night: Big Hero 6 at Klyde Warren Park
Discover Downtown Dallas Movie Series: Crazy Rich Asians at Harwood Park
Make & Take: Czech Kolaches at Central Market Cooking School, Lovers Lane
Create-Your-Own Sangria at Berkshire Farms Winery
Dallas Pride Rooftop Pool Party at Crowne Plaza Dallas Downtown
Sip and Stroll: Hotel Wine Tour at Omni Dallas
Goat Yoga Outside at Lakewood Brewing Company
Scarfias at Reveler’s Hall
Sunday, May 26
NBA Western Conference Finals - TBD vs. Dallas Mavericks
Burger Fight at Dallas Youth Sports
Cinema Con Nosotros Presents El Mariachi at the Texas Theatre
Nora En Pure Day Show at It'll Do
Rescue Puppy Yoga at Celestial Beerworks The Satellite
Drawing from the Masters at the Meadows Museum
Los Yonics at Tacos Pancho’s Mexican Restaurant
Make & Take: American Cobbler, Crisp & Handpies at Central Market Cooking School Lovers Ln
*Happily Ever Sip & Shop Local Vendor Market at Community Beer Co.
*Summer in Pegasus Plaza at Pegasus Plaza
Dallas Jazz Orchestra at Poor David’s Pub
Cybernetic Summer: A Memorial Day Weekend Party at The Double Wide
Brunch Movie: Charade (1963) at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Richardson

Even if Mina comes back from her "break". Even if she turns back on the comments on her Youtube. Even if she continues to do members-only livestreams or opens it up to the public. Even if she continues to grow a following.
Mina's business as we know it is done. And she knows this.
Mina always made it clear that for her it's not about followers, likes, and comments. It's about getting people to PAY you. She used to brag that she makes more money than people with much larger followings. She used to talk them down and say things like "You must be working really hard not to make money". (No, Mina, maybe they have a conscience and just aren't comfortable with scamming)
What happened to her "Secret Offer" Kainaat? The one that she said that "God" made her announce before she was ready? She said that she was going to launch in mid April. We are already in the latter part of May and she's completely abandoned it. If you try to access it from the original link (https://high-value-worthy-woman.thinkific.com/courses/kainaat), you cannot buy it. Even her next intensive in Budapest is no longer listed.
For the first time since I've followed Mina, she has nothing to promote.
Knowing Mina, this has to be extremely difficult for her. Her supposedly dream life seems to be very lonely and empty behind the scenes. So it seems she has structured her life in a way so she always has to have something to look forward to. By the time she's on a flight to an in-person intensive, she has typically already announced the one that will come after that. She would always have courses and events lined up.
But for the first time everything has come to a halt, and she has instead fallen back to doing flash sales for her old products. If you understand Mina's business, you know that flash sales are a sign of desperation for her. Last year in CEO Boss Queen she announced that she was done with flash sales because it was "too easy" of a way to make money. She was bored with it. Fast forward to this year she is doing flash sales like crazy. (And apparently currently she is offering 18% on ALL her products.)
It is clear that women have stopped buying.
Making sales is all that Mina lives for. So it's funny when defenders used to come in here and talk about the value they got from her free content. Mina thinks you are a peasant, hun. Mina explicitly shames women for manifesting free things. Mina is only able to make money when women BUY. She has a whole module in her sales course about TRAINING THEM TO BUY. While Mina will happily take your mindless praise and compliments online, what gives her the ULTIMATE validation is when you GIVE HER YOUR MONEY.
She will always be able to find minions and sycophants to follow her online. But what is harder to find are BUYERS.
Mina used to be able to get away with so much as long as she was able to control the narrative and keep up the charade. In many ways, Mina's prices actually used to be HIGHER than they are now. For example, 3 years ago was selling Aligned as Femme for $4,888 I can't imagine her having the gall to launch a course at that price point now.
For Mina to have a shot, she will have to DRASTICALLY lower her price point. But that market is honestly much more competitive. She has to compete with younger, more relatable content creators. (She can barely compete with her own mentee Awwlexis.)
Mina had a really good grift going when she was marketing herself as mentor for "6 & 7 figure earners" and "Top 1% women". But her arrogance went to her head and she chose to trash her core audience and throw them under the bus.
So whenever she comes back to YT, and whenever she starts livestreaming again, she can enjoy the company of what's left of her paid members. But at the end of the day those are low-investment fans. While they act like they are superfans on YT, most of them just get a high from seeing their comments read out loud on the world wide web. They aren't actually invested. I don't see those girls in zoom calls. Her real "VIP" clients have largely jumped shipped.
She will be hard pressed to find anybody willing to pay what she used to charge as long as real reviews are being circulated online. Before, she was able to market such high prices as "investing in yourself", but now everyone can plainly see that you would be better off taking your cold hard cash and flushing it down the toilet.
It's funny because it does seem like something has actually shifted in the atmosphere. I don't come across many defenders anymore. It kind of seems like... a spell has been broken? It's like women are collectively snapping out of it. But if anybody else does try to come to defend her or gaslight her victims, all I really want to know is the answer to these two questions: "What is the last thing you bought from her?" and "What is the next thing thing you intend to buy from her?"
Otherwise, your talk is cheap.
Thank you everyone for sharing your story and saving so many women going forward.

well.. this is a really messed up story. I was in the lowest of my lows. My relationship wasn't working out and nothing really was. I didn't have many friends and everyday i felt so lonely. Over 3 years ago, i came up with the idea to make a fictional friend to make my then girlfriend jealous.
I did exactly that and i gave her likeable traits and a nice personality. I made sure she lived in another country so that it wasnt immediately obvious that I was lying. I made her a fake instagram account with pictures and everything (that didnt reveal the face).
First, I used this account to contact my gf and get really close to her. I also made sure to list out many similarities between the fictional friend and myself like our birthday. This went on for around 2 years and my girlfriend thought she was actually best friends with this girl while it was me the whole time. I wanted to stop after six months but it was already too late.
Then a week later, my girlfriend broke up with me and I was pretty upset. It was a long relationship and a super dumb reason to break off. It wasnt dirty but i made it dirty because i was mad at her. I said some things and she did too. The problem was, she was still constantly texting the fictional friend who had become a pretty big part of her life. Over time she had become so comfortable with her that she was telling her things she hadnt even told me.
On a lonely night, it was about 2am in the morning and i was wasted and lonely. I was walking around the dark street and I was just broken with everything going on in my family, my life and everything. I also decided it was time to end the act and come clean but i dont know what happened but soon, I was spam calling my ex after not having spoken to her from a few months.
First thing she says when she picks up is, "are you okay, please tell me youre not hurt". Now, I dont know but that just broke me more. I wanted to cry and scream at her for leaving me. I quietly told her that the fictional friend had k*lled herself and her mother called me to tell me. She was in shock for a few seconds and then she just hung up. She was definitely hit pretty hard and I feel so bad for even coming up with this charade in the first place.
I'm only writing this now because of the guilt and its been over a year... it was my birthday not long ago, she texted me happy birthday with a few compliments and god i miss her so much. Sorry for the long post and spelling mistakes. English isn't my first language.

https://youtu.be/PT0ggXl2qRA?si=sv46hk0y62lsRN-W
Its proof of God. If the earth is flat, level, stationary and in the center of everything, with the sun moon and stars being local and overtop us, spinning like a perfect clock - that means the earth was PUT there.
If the entire population awakens to this fact, we over throw our corrupt lying rulers and take our freedom back. Or so they fear. (All governments corrobarate on the "space lie" - therefore its evidence the world is a stage. Trump v Biden and USA v Russia Fly out the window. You realize its all a charade) No flat earthers ever considered the Vax knowing these things, for example.
We then have to reconsider the Bible as factually accurate, as Hebrew cosmology represented the earth as exactly that - stationary, flat and level, center of everything.
Also, it begs the question of why are they hiding proof of God? Suddenly it makes sense why they hate us. They hate him too. Are they maybe .. SATANIC? (Who woulda thunk, not like its blatantly obvious nowadays)
The Bigbang Theory / Evolution fly out the window immediately as it requires the globe, and outer space. Suddenly a younger earth (biblically accurate) becomes plausible. Instead they bombard us with "Your an insignificant evolved monkey on a spinning ball formed millions of years ago in the corner of infinite space!"
We then have to realize Aliens (as they have been posed; space travelers) do NOT EXIST. (I stopped thinking aliens exist when the Gov started wanting us to think they do) - They obviously WANT US to think aliens from space are real. I mean, almost every movie TV show and media nowadays is Alien related. Ancient aliens anyone? They are pulling the 5d chess of "pretend like we are hiding aliens so people believe we are hiding aliens". Dimensional entities are still plausible, but nobody is coming here from "outer space" because it doesnt exist.
I could go further into detail, but
TLDR : Its a "cheat code", that makes a sense of all other conspiracies and really is sort of a "final puzzle" piece to make sense of it all.
Basically, they dont want us to know that we are in the center of everything. We are special and significant. Our creator gave us the earth and they robbed it, and him, from us. Its a spiritual war at the root of this.
And this is all hypothetical ofcourse ;)
Heres a 40 hour+ playlist of FE documentaries if anyone is curious:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEzivhxtxgbs6LE7kquTB_ve1QCG_bOpu&si=tziF3mqAcVRuNKUq
Peace and love

There are 2 AI fragments we have not seen in the show.
I. Greed:
In Season 10 Episode 17 “Remember me how I was” Tex reviews the files CT had collected and stolen from Project Freelancer. In them, a glossary of the AI fragments appears. Greed and Love are both listed, but we do not see these fragments ever on screen. The Greed fragment may have been scheduled for South. Her Greed led her to do terrible things, including betray Washington later on. when an agent received an AI not compatible with them, bad things happened. Maine was not very creative or ambitious. He followed orders. Sigma was not right for him and we all know what happened there. The Director’s experiment of giving an AI to one twin and not the other would have run its course by the time South would have finally been able to receive her fragment, had the implantation schedule not been interrupted. I believe this fragment was Xi. In Season 10 Episode 6, Carolina explains that each AI was supposed to have a particular owner. Sigma was hers. I think that Xi was designated either for South, (or Georgia, but we know less about him). This video makes a case for Georgia having Xi, but if I’m not mistaken, the timing is off. When Georgia goes missing, the AI fragments were not yet created, so Georgia would not have received it prior to his disappearance.
II.Love:
Similar to above. This fragment may have been destined for CT or Florida, had the Epsilon incident not happened. Love fits with both FL and CT’s personalities, with CT having an actual romantic arc in the show, and FL generally having a light and amicable nature to him. This AI may never have been distributed. It may have been destroyed in the EMP Washington set off at the Freelancer facility, it may have been destroyed in Season 15, or it was never given away by the Director. As strange as it may sound, the V.I.C. theory has more support than it may first appear. In addition to the points outlined in the video above, In Season 14 Part 1, Agent Florida speaks to V.I.C. on the radio. V.I.C. would not have been implanted in FL as might have been planned, because of the Epsilon incident that had happened recently to that time. Instead, to prevent a potential similar situation with FL, a scenario the Director could not afford, V.I.C. was kept in a computer under Blood Gulch. However, V.I.C. still refers to Agent FL as if he is subordinate to him, and he is, in fact, an AI from Project Freelancer given to an Freelancer Agent to assist in that agent’s mission. While FL is talking to V.I.C., V.I.C. makes a mistake, referring to the canyon as a simulation outpost. V.I.C. is familiar with Project Freelancer operations, but has not yet fully learned the new code of correspondence. This makes it seem more plausible that this is not V.I.C.’s first mistake. Perhaps V.I.C. needed to relearn more than just the name of the location he is stationed. Perhaps V.I.C. was given a new name, to comport with his position in the Blood Gulch charade, V.I.C. may have even been given a new visage, as to not arouse suspicion in the simulation troopers. After all, V.I.C. appears to be in a room full of computers, but he is just a program. It is clearly and canonically an image meant to deceive the simulation troopers into thinking he is a guy at “command”. This alone should confirm that V.I.C. is more than he is presented to be. In addition, V.I.C. refers to Agent FL by his Freelancer codename, not his Blood Gulch/government name. If V.I.C. was created specifically for Blood Gulch, it is hard to imagine why he would be making all of these mistakes that seem to suggest he is closer to Project Freelancer. The strongest evidence for this theory not included in the above video however, is what he says next. He says that FL is cleared to activate Alpha in Private Jimmy’s neural implant, and that if “our” theories are correct, Alpha would not have memory contamination. This implies that V.I.C. had come to this theory with someone other than just Agent FL. He would not need to tell Agent FL this if the theory was devised by FL and V.I.C. alone. FL would already know. I would speculate that the Counselor was more involved than FL. We know it was the Counselor’s idea to use FL and send them to Blood Gulch in the first place. This is all pretty much Aiden Price’s idea.
V.I.C. goes on to say that Agent FL cannot allow Alpha to learn anything about the other fragments. Alpha is not a fragment. V.I.C. should have simply said that Alpha should not be allowed to learn anything about the fragments, if indeed there were no fragments involved in Blood Gulch.
Also, I know V.I.C. Is later referred to by Dylan Andrews as a “dumb AI” but this is both just her opinion without knowledge of his origin and this takes place long after V.I.C. is messed up in season 14(pre season 1).
-Alternatively to the V.I.C. Theory, The Director may have kept the fragment, a manifestation of his own love, in order to try to help him recreate Alison. This fragment would be a manifestation of his love for his wife and child, and apart from being useful to his quest to recreate Alison, he may well have had a hard time parting with it, as it represented something about himself that felt increasingly distant to him. This fragment would have been deleted at the end of “Dont Say it”.
III. Never implanted
The final 2 fragments were never implanted because of the incident with Agent Washington and Epsilon. But one (Xi) may still be active.
IV. Sigma’s plan:
Xi is referenced on the board in the Freelancer classroom as a necessary part of Sigma’s Metastability group (the symbol of The Meta). The files seen in “Remember me how I was” and Sigma’s on screen actions confirm that Xi is an AI fragment. Sigma even knows enough about Xi to know that this fragment is a necessary part to Sigma’s Meta plan to achieve Metastability, and recreate the Alpha. This makes sense because Sigma was involved in the “birthday” of some other AIs, so he may have had some extra knowledge about their characteristics. But notice that he does not seek every existing fragment, only certain ones. I believe this is because Sigma did not exactly want to recreate the alpha exactly as it was pre-fragmentation. Sigma wanted to recreate a version of the alpha that he(Sigma) was the head of. He wanted to be a more powerful, metastable AI, but still be in charge. This was his grand ambition. Sigma knew a lot about the other fragments, and when it was time to start collecting and take control of Maine, The Meta leaves the Mother of Invention and hunts down the other AI bearing Freelancers. If Xi was aboard the MoI, Sigma would have tried to find it before leaving, or have gone back to the wreck to retrieve it. He never does this. I think this is because Sigma was aware that Xi was not on board. Sigma never found Xi, and therefore failed his mission, but I have a theory as to where Xi might be which I’ll get into in part 2.
EDIT: Correction: South was meant to get Eta. This would leave Xi to be designated to someone else.

Me: Wouldn't it be fun to wait to post this in the summer so you can say happy Christmas in July for once? Also me: that's a terrible joke. Just publish the thing.
Apologies for publishing in 2 parts. I'm not trying to drag it out I'm just aware this is the length of 2 episodes, reddit will only allow me 20 pics per post, and there's just too much going on for our beloved idiot in this one, so. I'm pacing myself.
It's not Christmas in July, it's Christmas 1919 at Downton and I spent an embarrassing amount of time wondering if Mr Fellowes really wants me to believe that the Crawleys decorated the Goliath of Christmas trees themselves (they didn't, but I like that Mary was sipping her tea and offering her view on things. Queen👑 ).
Plus, the setup for this episode intro had an actual checklist:
Tree? Check
Family arriving? Check
Violet judging this year's Christmas cards and looking for the contenders for worst cards of the year (they judge them on both content, and actual card)? Check
https://preview.redd.it/ul3aegl7cv0d1.jpg?width=710&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1c86f2409e193f7f68461f9ca06c72c7c424af66
Anna gets a gold heart brooch from Mary and Mrs Hughes is as excited about it as she is. Also, I can see the inspo for the entire Anna/Mary tag on AO3 right here. And Mrs Hughes ships it.
Just kidding, Bates is in prison, and we're all very sad.
https://preview.redd.it/wxhn89x9cv0d1.jpg?width=710&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04d813b9202a58a7c31f35d6b398bb6d53ced28b
Carlisle is wondering why the Crawleys are being kind to their servants by letting them have some time off at lunchtime on Christmas Day, and I'm wondering if anyone (namely, us, the viewers) is supposed to be surprised by his behaviour.
I mean, blackmailing Lavinia just because? Blackmailing Mary into an engagement with him? Trying to manipulate Anna and Carson? Being physically abusive to Mary, and trying to control her life and behaviour? Bringing Lavinia back to "sacrifice" her to a lifetime as Matthew's nurse, so Mary won't spend that much time with Matthew (not because there was something off about that, just that Carlisle didn't want her to)?
He is an asshole. He was an asshole. He will always be an asshole. Glad we're finally all on the same page.
https://preview.redd.it/9liw4xiffv0d1.jpg?width=599&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6c42f7ad05949a4b2d705057fa92af48030b7c46
Matthew and Mary are exchanging presents behind Robert's head in one scene and I'm very upset by it. Please, if anyone has any ideas, submit what you think they got each other for Christmas.
If you need any inspiration, here's what people would buy each other as presents in the 1920s according to the British Newspaper Archives:
Lots of cigarette paraphernalia Cocktails Banjos PENCILS Dance Frocks Shaving Kits Vacuum Cleaners
Keep that list in mind if you're disappointed with your presents next year.
https://preview.redd.it/9y1mgw5fcv0d1.jpg?width=996&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fc993eeff4617e298b7ab85b9c8266ac3f683942
Matthew got a telephone call telling him that Mr Swire is very ill, and he will got to London to visit him. Mary gives him some condolences and he says "I'm sorry if I'm casting a gloom". I have a feeling the poor man had been pretty depressed for quite long, probably perked up a bit for Christmas and thought he was bringing the mood down again, but Mary responds with compassion. Oh Matthew.
Carlisle saw Mary go after Matthew in the hall, to ask about Mr Swire, and literally took his newspaper with him and followed her out there because that's completely normal behaviour. Just picture the ridiculousness of it: Mary and Matthew talking about Mr Swire and Bates' trial, romantic themes that they are, and Carlisle is so annoyed by it he's standing there in the background. Reading a newspaper, just to make sure they know he's still around (who could forget, mate).
Also, Mary saying she'll attend Bates' trial to support Anna, and Matthew immediately going "Would you like me to go with you?". Because of course he wants to support Mary in all things.
And this is Matthew's first villainous act for the episode: He asks Carlisle "or will YOU do that?" as in, since you're here, will you be supporting Mary in this endeavour.
Of course he isn't. Carlisle could never understand the concept of being there as emotional support for a Servant. He can't even understand why one would give a servant a few hours off on Christmas Day.
And just like that, Matthew scores one point in showcasing that Carlisle is a waste of space.
Matthew's Villainy points so far: 1
https://preview.redd.it/m927qezhcv0d1.jpg?width=996&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de05e12b244424e5fe126c6be6bab3597c83549b
Btw, Matthew has a few sets of looks reserved for Carlisle: Derision, derision, and more derision.
https://preview.redd.it/ujldjjrkcv0d1.jpg?width=696&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a4e7e1312a82e1632254aff103056c775a33db4
They're playing charades (aka The Game), Mary is mimicking falling down, Matthew has a front row seat to it, and they're not playing on the same team so she can't rely on him to guess. Which means he can sit back and have the time of his life.
Carlisle complains about not liking the game and I'm left to wonder why he wanted that life so much since he could find nothing to enjoy in it.
https://preview.redd.it/kqzfvl2ncv0d1.jpg?width=696&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7f333dbc8c9eed822751ed352061d4b13db1bdc
Mary IS still trying with him, however. He complains again on New Years Eve about the servants having some time off, and she reasons that it only happens twice a year, and he complains again that she doesn't understand because she didn't have to work for what she has.
Fellowes finally does the work on these two. I was having a conversation with another user recently, who was wondering why Mary picked Carlisle when she could have picked someone like Evelyn Napier.
Let's forget the Pamuk Scandal for a moment. Mary clearly wanted something more other than a traditional marriage. When we meet her, she's 21. She already has a husband in her pocket, if all she wanted was a position in society and a title, she'd have already been married to Patrick in 1912. But clearly, she wanted more out of life than to be someone's wife.
She wanted love, and she wanted to have something to do, whatever that was. She would have found both in Matthew, if things hadn't gone to complete shit, so why not consider Carlisle (back when he seemed normal)?
He was a working, self-made man, so he was interesting to her. He wasn't the run-of-the-mill rich boy she'd been exposed to her entire life, and if she married him she'd have a job in establishing him in London society and helping him build his empire. She'd Work, in short. She'd be allowed to use her brain.
But they don't match. At all. He offered her a marriage of convenience, and then was upset that she loved someone else, when Carlisle never offered her love in the first place. She wanted to be able to go about her life, he wanted her under his thumb to do his bidding. She was raised to have a certain respect for other people (e.g. the servants in the house), he thought that because he had money he could do whatever the fuck he wanted.
In short, they don't work together. Not even taking into account he was blackmailing her with a scandal, and Matthew was off stage left being Villainous (according to Carlisle. Villain, Perseus, it's all a matter of perspective.)
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I love how they contrast Carlisle's ruthlessness with Matthew's compassion (and look how she looks up to him). Because Matthew is also a working man, but he's kind. And even though he didn't have any connection to mr Swire anymore, he stood by him in his hour of need, to the bitter end.
Speaking of contrasting Carlisle's assholery to Matthew:
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Rosamund's WhatsHisFace of a suitor points out there's only three women following the shoot, and they should divide their time between the men taking part in said shoot (God forbid women are not around to entertain these assholes gents). Carlisle immediately rebuffs him before Mary can get a word in, saying "Lady Mary will stand by ME". Mary is about to, very politely, put him in his place, when Matthew comes in for his second act of Villainy so far, saying "I thought you said you'd stand by me for the first shoot, isn't that what you said?"
He doesn't push her to go with him, he's just giving her an exit plan. So that Mary doesn't have to bring herself in an awkward position in front of all those people, to defend her right to an opinion. And Mary takes it. Of course she does. She can show Carlisle he doesn't get to dictate what she does, and do so in a way that doesn't create gossip.
Matthew's Villainy points so far: 2
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Look how he looks at her. He's so happy she took him up on it. Whatever else happened beyond this, they were friends. He cared for her, and she cared for him. And he has her back here, and she accepted it, so easily. And that made him happy (and so, so smug. A true Villain).
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She loves how un-selfconscious he is. She's always loved it, all those years ago at the flower show when he'd mock himself for her benefit, to make her laugh. He does it here still but now she's not surprised by it, just endlessly fond. Dozens of men spent years showing off their (probably mediocre) skills, to win her favour, and of course she'd fall for the guy who was just being honest. Mary likes honesty, she never got much of it. Her world is a show of mirrors where nothing is what it seems, and it must have been so refreshing to be with someone who was exactly what he showed the world. It's only sad that it took her so long to realise that just as she loved him for who he was, he'd do the same. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
"He does rather beg to be teased" - this asshole has been deliberately messing with Carlisle for ages, hasn't he. I've only counted 2 Villainy points, but I bet he earned himself dozens before. Whenever he'd get pissed off at something Carlisle said he'd just whisk Mary away, just to show him that he could. Even if Carlisle was the fiance, Matthew was still an important person in her life, and he'd always be, and he made sure Carlisle knew that (and took great, great enjoyment in it).
Mary: The awful truth is, he’s starting to get on my nerves. Still, you’re not the person to burden with that.
Matthew: You’re still going to marry him, though.
Mary: Of course. Why wouldn’t I.
Matthew is not happy about this. He appears to not understand it, and I wish I could give him a a nice shake. Regardless of the information he doesn't have, Matthew, mate, it's not like she hasn't met other men. Like it or not, most of your lot back in the day belonged in the bin.
And Mary, as a high-society woman, didn't have a lot of options. She had to get married. And at least Carlisle wanted to buy Haxby, she'd be near her family, spend time in London. Before she'd have hoped to actually get some work done, within the capacity her marriage would allow her, but with things being as they are with Carlisle I think she's now hoping he'd be busy with his work and she could get on with her days and maybe not see much of him, as most couples of their class did. And that's not taking into account the actual reason why Mary thinks she absolutely Must marry Carlisle.
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Also, Matthew, let's not pretend you'd like any man she brought home. So either take a deep breath and confess some things, or get on with it.
Carlisle asks Mary why she and Matthew were laughing together. He asks "Am I never to be free of him?" and her answer is, of course not. Because, of course not.
First of all, sorry to say Richard, but, they're a package deal. I can't see either one of them giving up the other willingly, not after all this. But of course, the main thing is the aristocracy thing. He's the head of the family, you'll see A Lot of Matthew, if you and Mary get married. And Matthew has spent almost every minute of the episode so far making sure Richard knows this. One would say, he's trying to push him out (like a villain), through his sheer presence in Mary's life.
"I might understand if you let me think for a solitary minute that you preferred my company to his."
Here's another problem: He should know, this wasn't part of their terms. Of course, he's not an aristocrat, so he's not aware of how loveless marriages of convenience work, but since it WAS a loveless marriage of convenience he was offering, I wonder why THE FUCK, he demands her attention now.
Mary would perform her duty to him. She'd be the best hostess London ever saw. She'd be the pretty wife on his arm, and she'd charm his contacts, and she'd be the stepping stone for him to be accepted in aristocratic circles, and she'd give him children and hold his house. And yes, she'd love spending time with her family, and that included Matthew.
Richard is just being a petty, controlling, fuck. Because he wants more than she's willing to offer, and he wants more than what he'd originally asked. So he, can shove it.
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Richard: I’ve done everything I can to please you.
Mary: Do you mean you bought a large and rather vulgar house?
Richard: You cannot talk to me like that! What have I done to deserve it? What?!
Would you like a list of your crimes, Richard? I've posted it a bit further above.
Also, Mary. She was hoping he'd offer her an interesting life (before he turned out to be an asshole). But all he's offered so far is the same old bullshit she's been offered all her life: A big empty (emotionless) house. A demanding husband. A life full of constraints and limitations, set to her by a husband who expects to dictate everything she does.
It's at this point that Matthew, clearly the villain of the story, shows up because he hears Richard yelling at Mary and that just won't do.
My beloved idiot covers for Richard here. And she does it because of something she said to Matthew before "He's starting to get on my nerves, but you're not the person to burden with that."
She doesn't want Matthew to feel like he has to come to her rescue. She heard him, when he told her they can't be together (many times) in the previous episodes. And she loves him, so she's let him be. She knows he's got his own troubles, that he's been through a lot, and that shows with how she watches him walk away with a fair bit of worry in her eyes. Plus, she doesn't want him to do anything for her out of obligation. She just wants them to be friends, and friends don't solve your marital (or, in this case, pre-marital) problems. They can provide comedic relief, and support, but that's about it.
And as we said, Matthew is clearly the villain of this story.
Speaking of which, Matthew interrupted Richard's yelling at Mary so, I guess that means - Matthew's Villainy points so far: 3
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Speaking of friends: Matthew will be there, for Mary (and Anna) at Bates' trial, and Mary asks to be there when he brings back Mr Swire's ashes, since the man wanted to be buried next to his daughter (who had to be buried at Downton, and not near her home in London, for maximum guilt-trip points I guess).
I love how those two care, and support each other in difficult times. It IS what friends do. Of course, Carlisle is not happy about that either. And listen, if he was in love with Mary, I'd be very understanding. I'd be telling him to cut his losses and run. I'd be empathising. But I'm like, you've been an absolute tool for years now mate, how am I supposed to see your POV, when you're basically worrying that if those two, at some point, get their heads out of their asses and realise they make a great couple, you'll lose your trophy wife you've trapped in a marriage, through sheer luck (on your end).
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Carlisle, after that entire day of watching Mary and Matthew having a nice time out with the family, pressures Mary to set a wedding date. Mary wants to wait, I guess she hopes for some godly intervention because she definitely doesn't see any other way out of her current situation, and he goes so far as to literally grab her, and in front of her family too.
I'm finally not the only one who wants to shoot him dead. Of course, Robert won't do anything about it because when has Robert ever done anything for Mary (so far), but Matthew looks tempted.
(I had to cut out poor Carson because there's too many people on this frame as it is, but shout out to him for also worriedly watching in the background).
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Matthew: Mary. Can I help?
Mary: After today, I won’t insult you by asking what you mean.
Matthew: You don’t have to marry him, you know. You don’t have to marry anyone. You’ll always have a home here as long as I’m alive.
First of all, I LOVE, that his reaction was to ignore Carlisle, run after Mary, and ask her if he can help. He's not offering to be a saviour. Mary doesn't need one of those (she does need to find that steel in her spine though). But he's offering to support her, and he says it in a way that implies he'd do pretty much anything she asked (Do you want to poison him? I'll help carry him to the pigs pen).
Second of all, Matthew, you absolute Idiot.
Mary supporting you in your grief, you supporting her with Bates' trial, that's normal friend behaviour.
You telling her she can LIVE with you forever, and so she doesn't have to Marry Any Man, is so, so dumb.
What is she going to live with you as, Matthew? Your cousin again? Where is the cousinl-y behaviour line drawn? Private dinners? Maybe with some candles and soft music? Holidays in Europe together?
Also, where is that imaginary limit you've put to your happiness with her for the sake of Lavinia's (very real, according to canon) ghost, mate?
You clearly seem happy enough to spend time with Mary, support her, laugh with her. Is it just the romance that's killing your mood?
Is it that that's the harshest punishment Matthew could imagine, spending his life next to Mary without actually spending his life WITH her, or is it that in spite of how much he wanted to suffer for his mistake, he just couldn't bring himself to cut ties entirely? Or is it that her happiness was more important than his self-imposed martyrdom, so he couldn't keep himself away and let her throw away her life for God knows what (her own mistake, is the answer, because they both like making themselves suffer for past sins. They've got A LOT in common).
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Mary: Didn’t the war teach you never to make promises? And anyway, you’re wrong. I do have to marry him.
Matthew: But why? Not to prove you’ve broken with me, surely? We know where we stand. We’ve no need for...gestures.
Mary: If I told you the reason, you’d despise me, and that I really couldn’t bear.
She makes me so sad. She's so certain she'll be ruined and kicked out of her house if the scandal ever came out.
And I get it. It was how she'd been raised. And all she's heard so far is how she's "a slut" and "damaged goods" and Mary's self-image is in tatters. She doesn't view herself as anyone worth fighting for, she doesn't want anyone else to fight for her, and she won't even fight for herself, and to me that's the saddest part of all.
She's entirely defeated, has been for a long time. This entire season. She's taken every blow and hasn't dodged them at all. Welcoming Lavinia, accepting Matthew as a friend and nothing more. Being by his side when he got injured, taking care of him and accepting his rejection without a peep. Listening to him announce his wedding and helping Lavinia plan it. Baring herself to Carlisle, giving him "the tools to destroy her", willingly, to salvage the family name, and to help Bates. And later letting Matthew call her, and himself "cursed", and walking away from it, somehow. Probably because she believes it.
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She told Carson, after Pamuk died, that "she knows what it means to be happy, but she knows she herself will never be happy" and she has proved to have embraced that sentiment, fully. Her despair back then is reflected here. Mary is not looking for happiness. She's just looking for cover. Some place where she can be sure she won't be hurt anymore.
She didn't believe that would be in a marriage with Matthew, and Matthew's strict morals so far, and his own self-hatred, have only further proven to her that she had been correct. She thinks that if Matthew can't excuse himself a kiss with a woman he loved, he won't ever excuse her having sex with a man she didn't love. And for all the unhappiness, all the cold comfort she sees in her future, she at least has his friendship. And how could she ever risk losing that? What would she be left with? Who else is there in the world, that supports her like he has? Her mother, who brought back Lavinia to push her away from Matthew? Her father? Who values the family above all else? Nothing. And no one. Just Matthew.
So she can bear Carlisle's cruelty, his moods and his demands. And she can bear the thought of living life on his arm to be paraded around London society for his benefit. But she can't bear the thought of Matthew thinking ill of her. Can't bear having him look at her the way her mother, or her sister did. And she's so honest here in her pain. She hasn't shown any of it, of the backloads of it, to anyone other than Anna, all season. But she can't keep it in now, after all that, in front of Matthew.
My poor broken child 💔
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She hears Cora yell her name and there's despair in her eyes. Even now she has family obligations to fulfil, so whatever emotional breakthrough she could have made, gets interrupted because heaven forbid she's not there for the Crawleys to play card games with.
Before I forget, Matthew goes after Mary, hoping to help her in her hour of need therefore, Matthew's Villainy points so far: 4
Matthew directs that accusatory look to Cora and I'm so proud of him for that. Cora's involvement in Mary's life has been nothing short of catastrophic. With her only saving grace being the fact that she wasn't actually willing to throw her daughter out of her house. I don't know how she gets to be so worried about the situation now, considering it's, largely, of her own making.
This whole season has been about pain and loss, in its various forms. And Mary's has been largely contained, because that's who she is, she keeps everything close to her heart, especially the things that hurt her. But it's all spilling out in this episode. There's so many things she can't contain, like Carlisle's jealousy, her own grief, at this point, after so many years. And for all those who look, it's the most obvious thing in the world, that Mary is suffering.
Well. Almost all.
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Robert calls Carlisle grabbing Mary in front of her family "an awkward moment", and calls Mary "tired" of Carlisle.
Yes, Robert. Of all the things Mary is feeling at the moment, tiredness is one of them. Not sure if it's the most obvious one, but with you I've learned to bring a small basket.
He also, unlike Matthew, doesn't respect Mary enough to go up to her and ask her if she needs anything from, idk, her father. Some help, some advice. He asks his wife to tell him if he's overlooked anything, and how is the answer to that not "Pretty much everything that's ever happened in this house".
And at this point, I will leave you, because we're half way through and I've already hit both my word, and my image limit. The first one is self-imposed, for the second one, send your grievances @ reddit.

Humans are Weird – Introductions

Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-introduction6192077
Stck’ck carefully burrowed his paws down through the fine mass of hairs that covered Human Friend Giovanni’s head. Stck’ck wriggled his claws thoughtfully, it seemed that there might be less hair density than there had been when they had first met. He should bring that up at their next social meal. Stck’ck glanced down at the readout on his datapad. The thermal coils in this area were showing the inexplicable wear, just as they suspected. He clicked his chelicerae together and went to pull up the long term thermal flow data, but the screen did not respond for several long moments and Stck’ck gave an annoyed click before prodding Human Friend Giovanni’s scalp with a paw. The soft material over him lifted and let in a wash of cold air.
“What’cha need Sticks?” Human Friend Giovanni called out, a bit too loudly in the dense air.
“I need to be closer to the main data signal,” Stck’ck called out. “The thermal coils are very much over working but I can’t see a pattern in the pause.”
“Back to the signal! Gotcha!” Human Friend Giovanni and Stck’ck’s perch swayed as the human angled towards the corner of the sublevel where the data signal was known to be strongest.
Human Friend Giovanni dropped his cranial covering, his hat, back to its original position and Stck’ck pushed it back up to a comfortable height that gave him room to stand but didn’t let the cold air in. They reached the corner as indicated by his datapad chirping happily as it picked up the signal. Stck’ck quickly downloaded the needed data. However before he could finalize it he felt Human Friend Giovanni turn and rumble out a greeting to what must be another approaching human.
Stck’ck heaved a sigh of just barely warmed air through his lung and pressed one paw over his main eyes. Under his paws he felt the flexible skin on Human Friend Giovanni’s face wrinkle with a delighted smile. It must be a human who had not seen the performance yet. His perch swayed as Human Friend Giovanni crouched. From experience (and from observing surveillance recordings after similar previous events) Stck’ck knew that Human Friend Giovanni was holding his hands out in front of him in what might be considered a semi-threatening posture towards the other human. Human Friend Giovanni spoke, his tones dramatically changed with both mischievous delight and what Stck’ck was told was a vocal impersonation of some famous human entertainer. Stck’ck braced himself for the cold and dutifully lifted one paw in greeting as was his part in this little charade. He carefully braced his datapad that was still downloading the data.
“Say hello to my little friend!”Human Friend Giovanni declared, sweeping the hat up and off his head, revealing Stck’ck to the startled and mildly uneasy looking human.
“Hello,” Stck’ck said waving his raised paw dutifully.
The other human’s look changed from perplexed to delighted and she, it looked kind of like the new nutritional lead, laughed. She raised her hand and waved at Stck’ck.
“Hello!” She said.
Stck’ck reached up and pulled down on the hat that was poised just above him losing all the precious heat with a tap of a paw at Human Friend Giovanni’s scalp. Human Friend Giovanni laughed and dropped the hat back down to its resting position and Stck’ck resumed perusing the data.

Science Fiction Books By Betty Adams

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Check out my books at any of these sites and leave a review! "Flying Sparks" - a novel set in the "Dying Embers" universe is now avaliable on all sites!
Please go leave a review on Amazon! It really helps and keeps me writing becase tea and taxes don't pay themselves sadly!

Elena The Friend of the Dead is a woman from Bilgewater who after the Ruination travelled to the Shadow Isles just to take care of lost sad ghosts.
She quality for may contest by having a kit greatly connected to lore and her ultimate is also unique as it is a conditional passive.
Splash art:
Elena The Friend of the Dead by @Aydar_Art
Lore:
Elena never got along with other people, they were way to confusing for her. Most enjoyed loud environments with a lot of people and sounds, said things such as How are you today? Without ever actually caring about how the person actually are. While she was born in Bilgewater, it never really felt like home. Although, she did enjoy sailing out at sea to just be alone with the waters. Out there she primarily thought about stories or read them. Just making sure she caught at least some fish before returning to shore to make sure no one would cuss her out. One day she was out far and encountered a strange creature. It was a lost little ghost who had tried to escape the Shadow Isle. It at first got really scared of Elena, but she was able to comfort it and eventually it got close enough for Elena to hug it. She was honestly not sure how it happened, but the little ghost became her friend and she hid it as she returned home.
Back at her home she studied more about ghosts and the Ruination with the help of her new little buddy. After some time she figured there would be more like her friend around the Shadow Isles who really need some friends as well. The Ghost's name is Ilya and he quite possibly became the first one Elena would ever consider a friend. Much more pleasant company than the living, that's for sure. This realisation convinced her of her new calling and after a couple of days of preparation, she set out to sea again with no intent of coming back. Instead she journeyed to the Shadow Isles, travelling by her small but robust boat around the shores of the Islands, picking up a few more friendly ghosts over time. There was a small island a bit out at sea that was still surrounded by the mist but was otherwise calm and uninhabited. There she and her friends set up a base camp for her to operate out of. To keep her friends safe while out and about, they also constructed a smaller house she could carry on her back.
A few problems she had discovered in her effort of befriending the undead was that her appearance made the Ghostlings uncomfortable at first. The living and the dead usually doesn't get along well and she scared a lot of ghosts off by just her appearance. To circumvent this she painted her entire body to look more ghastly. A skull over her face and bones all over. Although, she wanted to still commune her cheerful attitude and added a personal touch of flower motifs. Her further journeys with this style was way more successful and her friendgroup grew and grew. They were all very excited and built a nice and cozy cabin on the island together. The soil of the Shadow Isles was unfortunately sterile, but they did some journeys back to the main land and brought lively dirt back. The ghosts really enjoyed gardening and their little island was soon populated with a great amount of various flowers.
Something that was made clear quickly was that while there were a lot of friendly ghosts, there was also less friendly and directly hostile ghosts and undead on the Isles. So, they had to learn how to defend themselves. They practiced on target dummies made out of driftwood to coordinate attacks, relying on overwhelming numbers to overcome their individual lack of strength. Her big ghosts she found out could cause a lot of damage by just slamming down on the ground. She also found a peculiar ghostling who got the name Timmy the Furious. He was tiny, about the size of Elena's fist, but extremely furious. He was always first in line to attack. His smaller size made his impact less potent, but he became the dedicated fast and light attacker. As they got more comfortable to handle their own in a fight, they dared to venture deeper into the Islands, finding more and more creatures and artifacts. There were many libraries with interesting books she brought back to her cabin. There she learnt a great deal of the history of this place and others. One particular tale she took a great interest in is that of Amumu. Not a ghost like most ofnher friends, but a lonely sad undead. She decided to find and befriend this sad little Mummy shall be one of her side quests in life.
Adventuring on the Shadow Isles had the inevitable possibility of encountering many notable creatures, both friends and foes. One of those were the twisted tree Maokai who she became good friends with when she told him about her Garden and how she tries to bring plant life back to the isles. Yorick was another one of the friendly ones, in a way they had a rather similar mission with him taking care of ghouls and the Maiden. There were of course also highly unfriendly encounters. The thundering hooves of Hecarim and his own army of ghosts they encountered once. It became a fierce battle which Elena just barely managed to escape. Worst encounter was without a doubt Thresh, his chains and horrifying lantern. Fear struck the entire family of ghostlings when his presence was near. They have yet to fight properly, but due to pity for all the souls stuck in his lantern, he is the one fiend on the Isles that she truly wants to vanquish at some point.
Gameplay overview:
Elena is an in-combat scaling mage who thrives from prolonged fights. The gameplan revolves around her Q summoning more and more ghostlings to help her fight.
She is very high risk, high reward as her damage is very low unless she manage to land several skillshots in a row, but if she manage to keep landing skillshots, her potential damage is theoretically infinite.
If she existed in League, Vandril would have a lot of content most likely.
Stats:
Health icon Health 645 – 2753 Mana icon Mana 300 – 1490 Health regeneration icon Health regen. (per 5s) 8 – 21.6 Mana regeneration icon Mana regen. (per 5s) 8 – 25 Armor 22 – 93.4 Attack damage 58 – 109 Magic resist. 32 – 54.1 Crit. damage 175% Move. speed 340 Attack range 550
Abilities Simplified
Passive: Ghostlings!
Elena's abilities spawn ghostlings that help her in combat. When a Ghostling expire, they restore health and mana.
Q: Ghost Attack
Order ghostlings to attack, dealing magical damage on impact.
W: Group Hug
Return ghostlings to Elena go give a shield, movement speed and passive restoration.
Also improve her next Ghost Attack.
E. Big Ghostling
Toss a big ghostling that squish enemies by bouncing around.
R: Dance Macabre
Passively save up more Ghosts by her side.
If there are enough ghostlings active at once, deal continuous AoE damage and the ghostlings become more powerful.
Abilities Detailed
Passive: Ghostlings!
Elena always have at least one ghostling by her side, spawning a new one as soon as the current one leaves.
When not by Elena's side, they last for a few seconds before returning to Elena.
When a Ghostling returns to Elena, if it has used Ghost Strike, it will restore some health and mana.

Duration: 3,5 - 7 seconds based on level Health Restored: 10 - 50 (+5% AP) health + 2% missing health Mana restore: 5 - 25 (+2,5% AP) mana + 1% missing mana Ghostling by her side rotates around her at a distance of 50 units.

Q: Ghost Attack
Passive: When a Ghostling pass through an enemy they trigger Ghost Strike, dealing magical damage, land at a random location near the target, and reset their duration.
Active: Command all Ghostlings, including the one by her side, to travel a set distance towards targeted location.

If a target is struck multiple times in one cast, hits after the first deals 50% damage. Ghostlings land between 300 - 450 units away from the target and attempt to spread out. If a ghostling hits no target, it can be fired again if its duration allows. If the ghost by her side misses at target, it will instantly return to her. As it has not triggered Ghost Strike, it will not heal. *Ghostlings can be a maximum of 1200 units away from Elena, as Elena moves, her ghosts will follow in the same direction.
Ghost Strike Damage: 40 / 52 / 64 / 76 / 88 (+40% AP) (+4 per level) Ghost travel distance: 900 units Cost: 24 / 28 / 32 / 36 / 40 mana Cooldown: 2,5 / 2,25 / 2 / 1,75 / 1,5 seconds

W: Group Hug
Active: Channel for up to 1,6 seconds, returning up to 4 Ghostlings over the duration. Each Ghostling returned grants a shield and movement speed for a few seconds.
These ghosts have their duration reset and will follow Elena closely until they expire or are sent away.

Recalled ghosts will restore health and mana, they will only do so again if they use Ghost Strike. Recalled ghosts still count as active for Dance Macabre
Shield: 20 / 27,5 / 35 / 42,5 / 50 (+15% AP) per ghost Movement Speed: 6 / 6,5 / 7 / 7,5 / 8% per ghost Shield and movement speed Duration: 4 seconds Stun duration: 1,2 / 1,4 / 1,6 / 1,8 / 2 seconds Stun per target cooldown: 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 (affected by ability haste) Cost: 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 / 120 mana Cooldown: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 seconds

E: Big Ghostling
Toss a big ghost onto targeted location, it then strikes in an area around itself, dealing damage and slowing enemies hit. If at least one enemy is hit, it then persist for a few seconds.
Casting Ghost Attack will cause big ghosts to jump a short distance in targeted direction and slam down, dealing damage and slowing for a lesser amount, resetting its duration if it hits an enemy.

Big Ghostlings respect each others personal space, and will stay out of eachothers spash range, an enemy can only be hit once per use of Ghost Attack
Duration: 3,5 - 7 seconds based on level. Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+45% AP) Slow: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% Slow duration: 1 second Jump range: 300 units. Radius of strike: 150 Cost: 70 mana Cooldown: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 seconds

R: Dance Macabre
More friends!: Every few seconds, gain an additional Ghostling by her side. She can hold up to 1/2/3 extra Ghostlings.
Dance Macabre: If at least 7 Ghostlings are active at once, they get really excited and begin to party. This causes areas around ghostlings to be filled with ghastly energy, dealing constant damage to nearby enemies.
Ghostlings also moves faster and grows in size during Dance Macabre
The damage is increased for every additional ghostling beyond 7.

Additional Ghostling recharge: 7 / 6 / 5 seconds. Grant one ghostling at a time and the recharge is independent to Ghost Attack use.
The area of effect is decided by drawing 250 unit thick lines between Elena and all ghostling. Any area completely surrounded by such lines are also filled in. Damage: 40 / 65 / 90 (+25% AP) per second, dealt every 0,5 seconds. Every ghost beyond 7 increase the damage by 10%. Movement speed increase: 40% Size increase: 25%

Special Event: The Friend versus the Tormentor
With both Thresh and Elena facing eachother at lvl 11+, an event will start. Elena want to destroy Threshes lantern to release his trapped souls, Thresh want to defeat Elena to trap her ghostlings.
If Thresh take downs Elena, he instantly get 30 souls.
If Elena take down Thresh, she kan have 1 additional ghostling by her side from her ultimate passive.
Animations:
Basic attack: Timmy the Furious flies and crash into the target before returning to Elena.
Passive: A ghostling pop out of the staff and circle around her. Returning ghosts go small and return to the staff.
Q: She points at a location, all ghostlings charge in the direction. Striking an enemy cause the ghostlings to stay attached the the target for a brief moment and then pop off in a random direction.
W: She yells to her ghosts to protect her. Ghost flies back and she gains a magical shield effect.
E: A big ghost pushes it self out of the staff and she then catapults it away. It lands and cause a small shockwave. When reactivated with Ghost Attack it jumps and smash down again.
Voice Lines
Note: Elena knows the name of every single one of her ghosts and it should be some 20+ of them. [Name] will be filled with one from the list.
Passive: (receiving heal) "Thank you [Name]" "Ah... Refreshing~"
Q: "Attack!" "Hug them. Hard!" "Go get them [Name]!"
W: "Protect me!" "Hugs!" "Come back!" "Got to go~"
E: "Squish them [name of ghost]" "Oof, heavy "
R: (summoning additional ghostling) "hello [name]" "It's a party!" "Everybody dance now!" "Lets celebrate!"
Moving far: "I would like to have my boat right now" "Uh, I guess we will be walking for a while." "[Name] got some jokes to tell?"
Standing still: *Ghost comes out and give her a shoulder massage" "Ahh~, thank you [name]"
Death: Elena turns into a ghost herself and fly away with her friends.
Reviving: "Aw, five more minutes"
Getting a kill with basic attack: "Good job Timmy!"
/Joke Several ghosts flies out and do a charade. Elena laughs /Taunt Several ghosts stick out of the staff and mean mug "Don't mess with us!" /Laugh Elena and the ghost by her side laugh
On kill: "Don't be upset, some would consider this an upgrade" "More friends?"
Multikill: "I hope you get along as good as us"
Landing a 5+ ghostling hit: "Hug of death!"
Meeting amumu: "I finally found you! Lets be friends!"
Yorick: "Keep up the good work, friend"
Yorick and the Maiden "Aww, you look so cute together~
Meeting Thresh: "Stay away from my friends, monster"
Meeting any living champ: "I think I will prefer your company after you're dead"
Meeting Viego: "Thank you for my friends, I guess."
Kindred: "I'm your biggest fan!"
Tryndamere ulting: "You sure you don't want to die?"
Meetings Bilgewater champ: "ah, thats the foul smell I'll never forget"
Meeting Illaoi: "Out of everyone, I kind of like you."
Hecarim: "You're a meanie ghost"
Kalista: "It looks like you're in pain, is there anything I can do to help?"
Kindred: "I am your biggest fan!"
Killing Thresh "Be free, my friends"
Ability details and strategy.
The ghost by her side circles around her and when using Q, it travels from its current location. If she has multiple ghostlings from W or R passive, they will target similar to Heimer W.
Q target a location which all Ghostlings will aim for individually, this can be outside any ghostlings range and they will do their best to reach it.
Big Ghostlings count for Dance Macabre so it can be triggered quickly by having 4 ghosts by her side at level 16+, landing all, using E and then landing two more Q.

I happened upon Alay Bowker’s recent IG posts which spawned this rant.
It’s actually so refreshing to see Alay is attending Le Cordon Bleu. Say what you want about how privileged it is to afford time and money for that, but at least she’s using her resources to evolve and actually get some legitimate training as an influencer who has shown interest/involvement in food.
Idk how much she’ll incorporate these learnings in her future content, but seeing this made me respect her much more. Contrasted to well-known influencers with zero credibility to have the persona or branding they portray, while showing zero intention on changing that any time soon (ex: Morgan Riddle or Paige Lorenze who don’t make much effort to learn technicalities about the sports they brand themselves with, Half Baked Harvest for ignorance on culinary technique and cultural cuisine alike, Elaina Michelle charading as a bookworm when she can’t properly spell “eerie” or use the right “theithere/they’re”, the list GOES ON).
Do I sound old and bitter for insisting that training elevates credibility and can help in the long run? YES I DO 😭 There’s certainly a time and place for less serious content that makes the lack of an education appropriate or justifiable, but the influencers who are so genuinely fixated on growing a following while making income with their curated content, where in reality the center spotlight is just on how they look while doing the things they do, especially towards impressionable viewers, are THE REASON so many of us cringe at the word “influencer.” Either use the chops you’ve developed or EVOLVE AND DEVELOP THE CHOPS, PLEASE, and stop infecting the internet. Please activate some faint pulse of self awareness!
Also no I’m not Alay lol. Also maybe I’m reading too much into her post, but I still thought it was cool.

I posted previously about some ideas that I think would be a fun or positive change to ajpw in a previous post and so many people also had great ideas. It’s been a minute and I have more ideas lol, again this is only for fun and opinions I have may be different from yours so please don’t take this in a rude way lol 🙂 feel free to share any other ideas also I love hearing them!

1. Being able to have a list or way to view who has purchased/currently owns masterpieces you create. Kind of like the alpha board, it would be neat to see where my art goes and also if it’s being sold(and for how much)!
   
2. I would love if we could sell above 5k on shops! I know they probably have a limit to help scams but I honestly feel like it would be so much safer if jammers were able to sell items for as high as they need so there is no risk of scamming through other methods of selling high priced items.
   
3. I think they should make the pack hideouts dens soon. I made a post about it also but I’m a huge den connoisseur and I’m personally in love with Liza’s hideout and a couple others. I’d love to see this as a den option in the future!
   
4. I also wish we could sell dens! How cool would that be? I know there’s so many people who don’t use certain dens or don’t like them and it would be so fun if we could sell them to other jammers who may not have been able to purchase them because they didn’t play at that time.
   
5. I wish we had the ability to play in servers where there is way less strict chats. I feel like there is so much sensored and sometimes it gets to a point where I can’t even say game items or usernames lol. I understand there being a restriction because it is a kids game and it’s not like I’m out here being SpongeBob and Patrick in that one episode (season 2; episode 18) but I wish we had a way to communicate that’s not charades sometimes.
   
6. I CAN NOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH 😭 I want a folder to organize my STUFFFFF. I’m not talking about the “head, neck, tail” folders but like in pets, I’d love to be able to separate my animals by color or my clothes/den items to be separated from the things I want to sell since I feel like I’m fighting for my life to find stuff without searching it up lol. Also being able to organize users I’ve starred would be fabulous. I have users who I purchase masterpieces from, uni dealers and others who I either buy from their shops and to be able to separate them into folders so I don’t forget who’s who would be so helpful!
   

As a chronic rewatcher I tend to enjoy revisiting shows and digging for nice personality moments, sometimes compiling them for later viewing.
In ILLIT's case, there's bound to be bountiful amounts of future variety content in the trend of their previous pre-debut shows I'LL LIKE IT and ILLIT READY - but even before then we got to know the members during R U NEXT, which had their own set of videos filmed during the downtime in between the trainees' practice. I went through them to find some interactions and other gems and decided to share hoping to get the Moka nod of approval.
As the newest HYBE group starting from shy trainees not recognising their CEO in the elevator, they grew appreciation each other's talents such as Minju's cool singing and Iroha, Wonhee as well as Yunah really liking Youngseo's expressions. Iroha gets revealed to be a crybaby as she admits to letting it all out when sad.
During their viewing of the first episode, we can see some pride in Wonhee's eyes watchin our maknae's first stage as well as Moka girl crushing the group with her highlight.
Armed with the wishes for a good debut, Wonhee strengthens her mental fortitude with physical training. Yunah has yet to find her destressing method while Iroha and Moka get a whole roll of bubble wrap to pop while airing their concerns and having some tea, as well as trying to sneak in some Japanese talk before being ambushed by the PD's language skills. As for Minju... just give her a hammer.
During the trainee quiz time, we get to know all the nicknames such as Minjujuin and see Wonhee's Bruni as she resembles a lizard. Iroha thigh wrestles Youngseo before revealing her mom's nickname for her: Iroppongkopping. Yunah's quail egg nickname for her small face also makes an appearance as she kindly explains its meaning. Our final nickname keeps it simple showing her full integration as Kim Moka.
Telepathically there's still some kinks to work out as Yunah misreads swimming as beard and can't escape further chastizing with her further mistakes, unlike Iroha who is too cute when failing to reprimand and gets them an extra round with her worm dance. Minju is actually too good at the game with quick micro-adjustments and in Wonhee and Moka's group, Moka just really likes big fruit.
As they have gotten to know each other more, the teasing and affection start to come out easier. Iroha desperately tries to explain a food that Youngseo dislikes in the charade game and in their final prediction game each member gets a central role as others in the group predict what they will do.

This is a long post but I thought some of you might (unfortunately) find parts of it relatable. I don’t think I ever showed him this letter, and he claimed to be unable to read, so ya know, he couldn’t take it in anyway. Hah He left on Saturday so yay
Jan 2024
In what I’ve read about internet porn addiction, I’m struck by:
The amount of women hyperfixating. Never able to trust again. Having ptsd and betrayal trauma because their partner constantly lies, feeling worthless because their partner chooses porn over them repeatedly, feeling rejected, unloved, unsexy, broken, often suicidal.
The amount of men that lie over and over. For months and years. Even the ones pretending to do all the work they can like therapy, regular check-ins with partner, porn blockers, 12 steps, journaling, self educating etc. Even they lie. They just get better at hiding it.
The amount of men who think they can just white knuckle it, give up without any help at all. And the men who say they can’t possibly stop, even with all the help in the world. They are often suicidal too.
The amount of men who say porn has ruined their lives, relationships, fucked up their heads and destroyed their view of women, given them erectile dysfunction, irreparably damaged their self esteem and yet they can’t give it up.
The amount of women who say that porn won.
What makes you think we are any different from these people? If I educate myself more than you, I’ll know these patterns and see how fucked things are, you’ll keep thinking I’m blind. You’ll keep lying, thinking you’ll fool me. You won’t see how much you’re like all the others. And I’m like all those poor women out there who have abandoned hope.
Your never bring this up. You avoid this topic and get nasty and defensive sometimes when we talk about it. It’s like I’m intruding on your special private relationship with porn. You seem to feel entitled to it, I feel like the other woman, in my mind you are emotionally more loyal to porn than you are to me. You lie to protect it. You get mad when I question it. That relationship came way before me. Even so up until now I’ve been blind to the reality of this situation. The true nature of my enemy has been hidden from me. You’ve had a secret life all along, fulfilling your needs, leaving me with the crumbs of your attention and desire. This has left me feeling unloved, unattractive, disgusting, and inadequate, ashamed, humiliated. Comparing myself to porn stars I realise I can’t possibly compete. I am fat and ugly and old.
Now I’m not allowed to bring it up because it “makes you think about it”. Ok. So we cant ever do anything to alleviate my fear that you’re still lying and watching porn - without bringing upon myself the very thing I’m afraid of? Great! What’s the point then? What difference does it make whether you’re lying or not if you can’t prove it? The whole point is that I don’t trust you. You have shown yourself to be untrustworthy on so many occasions and have lied so many times that I simply don’t believe you anymore. At this stage I need to see concrete proof and consistent effort to prove yourself. Every day.
Also, what’s wrong with thinking about it if staying away from it is easy? It seems you still view porn in a positive light and see nothing wrong with it. You ask “who are you hurting?” It is a temptation and even just talking about it is enough to bend your determination to stay away for my sake.
If you can “take it or leave it” like you say, then why can’t you have open discussions about it with me? If it’s so easy to give it up, why haven’t you done it already despite my pleading? Why keep hurting me? By never thinking about it you remain ignorant to the effects it has on your body and mind. You remain ignorant of my pain. You are blind to all the harm.
The harm is great. Open your eyes. There are children growing up in broken homes because of porn and sex addiction caused by porn. Relationships and lives ruined. Men who can’t view women as anything but sex objects. Men no longer attracted to normal women. Men with pied. It rots the brain and robs everyone of their self esteem and does deep psychological damage. It has done this to you and me. The list of harmful effects goes on and on.
Not to mention the evils of the sex industry itself. The people-trafficking, coercion, corruption, drug issues and health impacts on workers, the pedophilia, violence, misogyny, degradation, and the depravity of the race to the bottom. You ask who you’re harming? The fact is that no one consuming free porn on the internet stops to consider that if something is free then they are the product. What does that mean? Why are people being manipulated? No one stops to ask what is going on here? Why are the algorithms designed to lure people towards more extreme and shameful content? Why does the porn industry promote certain fetishes? Why are we being engineered to accept as normal the most repulsive and amoral sexual behaviours? Why is no one concerned that the creators of extreme content know exactly what they are doing and purposefully play on people’s deepest insecurities and make it addictive? There is a whole generation of men with pornified brains who cannot experience intimacy in a meaningful way. In fact studies have been abandoned because a control group of men who had not watched porn could not be found. And there is a whole generation of women who do not even know what they are up against. It’s horrific.
You say you’ll “stop trying to get away with doing the wrong thing”. Well, if you love someone at all, you don’t want to do them wrong. You should never have been trying to get away with doing the wrong thing in the first place. That’s not how love works Not how relationships work.
Nothing has changed on this score. How do I know if you’re following our agreement? How do I know if you’re just lying again? It seems so easy for you to lie to me. Why do you even want to be in a relationship? Why do you want to be with me?
How am I supposed to ever trust you? Especially when so much doesn’t make sense. You say you’re horny all the time but we barely have sex once a month since the beginning. Then you say the longest you’ve gone without porn is two weeks. You say it’s an addiction but you don’t need help to quit, you say it’s not a problem. The definition of an addiction is that it is a problem. It’s the opposite of something you can take or leave. Remember when you quit Reddit? Why did you do that? How long after that did you download X? How long until you started looking for porn on X? So.. what was the point of deleting Reddit? Why the charade? I really feel like I have you cornered here. It’s so unsatisfying that you won’t acknowledge it.
This ruins everything. I feel like a beard. Affection is non existent. Over the past five days (not fighting) I’ve been brushed on the knee and patted briefly on the head. No kisses, hugs, cuddles in bed. No saying I love you. Nothing. It’s like this all the time. Even when i tell you that right now you need to give me everything you’ve got. I need extra love, my heart is hurting. You told me you wank every morning. Thanks for letting me know. Do you use porn for that?
I can’t fantasize about you anymore without feeling shame and loathing and pure disgust for myself. I can’t remember our past times cause I feel like a fool. This is such a toxic vibe for me., I don’t want to feel this way for the rest of my life.
You treat me more like your mother than a wife. “Getting away with doing the wrong thing” is what a teenage son does not a full grown man and responsible partner. I hate this dynamic it disgusts me. I believe porn has had its hand in this too.
If you love me why do you hurt me? You just don’t love me properly and that’s all there is to say. Men who are addicted to porn can’t love their women properly, that’s another thing I’ve noticed. They are not capable.
And even when I’ve said all this I still get the cold shoulder. Even when I say I want to die. You do not care. You are so cold.
I want to die because I am trapped in this situation. You won’t leave, and you won’t treat me right.

I work at the Lone Star Diner, off the road from Carson City to Reno. Diner name has of course been changed for obvious reasons–more on that later.
Why do I work at the Lone Star Diner, off the road from Carson City to Reno? Well because, kind stranger, my life plans didn’t work out. Generally, if you’re caught working at a diner past college–specifically, one in the middle of nowhere, it might mean that things aren’t going so hot.
But still, why this diner? Why Lone Star specifically?
I’m aware you probably aren’t actually asking these questions, but I nonetheless believe they deserve a response.
Of all of the diners in the world, what makes Lone Star so special is…
The pay.
The pay is fucking great.
There are maybe ten other diners within a 30 minute drive from where I live. Most of them average out to a little over minimum wage.
Meanwhile, Lone Star is whipping up a mean $50/hr.
And that hourly rate is due to one, single, solitary reason, no matter what anyone tells you.
Because of him.
My first day on the job was fine, more or less? I’d worked customer service before, so I felt like I could run with the strange surprises that came unique to diners. I was able to adapt to the inconsistency of the rules pretty quickly. Unwritten rules like–some areas in the restaurant need to be spotless at all times; others, boss lady couldn’t give less of a shit about. Serve customers quickly! But not too quickly, asshole. Customers here don’t actually like it when you show up too fast. Give them some time to feel the floor under their boots, to miserably stare ahead, and mourn what could’ve been. Y’know, diner stuff. They’re here because they want to be alone. Pardon the contradiction.
Of course, vaguely defined, ‘whispered only by ghosts’ rules extended to the cooks as well. If you were, somehow, secretly, celebrity chef Marco Pierre White in the flesh, your mandate was to keep your damn prowess to yourself. Your job is to make the classics as decently as possible. Not bad, but not amazing. Just poor enough to be really good–that’s what the customers are here for.
As the weeks unfolded, I rose, or I suppose–crouched–to the occasion quite well. You want intentional, pinpoint precision mediocrity? You’ve come to the right person. Most of the patrons just wanted coffee and brunch, brought to them at medium speed, with a semi-predictable cadence of waiter or waitress check-ins afterwards. Done, done, and done.
Not one for subtlety, one day I finally decided to ask my boss the question in the middle of a shift. I didn’t want to ruin a good thing by doubting it, but fuck me if I wasn’t a little curious. Not a full ‘look’ at the gift horse’s mouth, more of a skeptical side-eye…
“Why $50/hr?”
She didn’t even look up from her task at the register, methodically counting out bills. “Said it on your first day, ya gotta be good at following the rules. And when it’s an important rule? You’d better be damn well perfect. High expectations here.”
I made a face. “Right. High expectations.”
“You think I’m joking?”
“No ma’am, I guess, I just,”–Why did I even speak up?–“I just think you’re running a really cool operation here. Cooler than you might realize. It’s still work, but the whole thing seems… fair?”
Christ, my waffling skills were abysmal. Add that to the list of intentional mediocrity! Booyah.
She looked up from her duties and shot me a stern look. “I don’t run this ship. And following the rules here means that you take care of yourself.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I am your employer, sure, and I’ll pay you well to be here, sure, but you should be aware–there is plenty more going on here than just you and this diner.”
She glanced down at her watch, then sighed. “I usually save this speech for the end of the month, but you already caught me halfway through it. So, the Cole's notes: if you don’t think you have it in you to follow instructions clearly, without protest, and without asking too many questions, then you should leave. Quit. No harm, no foul. A week’s worth of pay on the house.”
The conversation sputtered shortly after that. I tried to find an opening to ask more about what she meant, but she was closed off to the topic moving forward.
And you know what? That was fine–if she wanted me to put my head down and just do the work, I could do that.
And work I did. And things were good. Mundane small talk with the customers was fun, my coworkers were friendly, and I was getting paid well. I’d found a place to park the failures of my life. A place to build from.
It must’ve been a Saturday, I think, when I first noticed him. An occupied seat in the far corner of the diner. No idea how long he’d been sitting there and waiting, though he certainly looked patient. I had the strange inkling that he’d been left hanging for quite some time, though I couldn’t actually remember seeing him enter.
Brown corduroy shirt. Short hair. Mid 50s, it seemed. A reasonably calm smile. Normal looking dude.
I started making my way out from the back and headed towards him.
Immediately, I felt a tight grip on my arm–
It was Melanie, my boss, with a forceful clutch–enough to make me drop my notepad. Her fingers tightened around my forearm, sharply pinching my skin.
“Important rules,” she said.
“What?”
“You ‘member our chat about rules? Well this is the most important one. Okay?”
“Okay…?”
“That man, over there, in the corner.” She motioned to the man who had caught my attention– sitting upright, hands softly clasped together, coy smile across his face. “You don’t go up to him. You don’t say a word to him.”
“But he’s… a customer?
Her hold intensified–she was hurting me. Almost as if she was taking out some sort of unseen anger on me.
“I’d like to ask you right now to be smart enough to not ask questions and just follow instructions. You don’t go to his table, you don’t talk to him. You can look at him. You can shout across the room at him if you’d like–though I can’t imagine why you’d ever need to do that. But you do not approach him, and you do not take his order.”
“Or…?”
A sharp exhale through the nose, a shake of the head, and a glare from my manager. “It’s different every time. But, it ain’t pretty.”
I watched him from the short distance I’d been afforded. It was hard not to. She did too.
Unlike the other customers here, I didn’t get a sense that he was here to be alone, to reminisce, or to take part in the comfort ritual of a lackluster Eggs Benedict over rye. Instead, I had the sense that he was just… curious. Mild-mannered, content, but curious.
My shift ended not too long after, so I didn’t actually get a chance to watch him leave. Regardless, the experience of seeing him and learning about the rule he was connected to left a bizarre, dampening feeling on my mood.
I liked my job. I liked coming home and unwinding. I didn’t mind being in the middle of nowhere.
It felt nice to look up at the empty sky filled with stars. To see them shimmer and shine, and even occasionally shoot across. I made a wish that things in my life would stay simple.
___________________
I started to get a sense of his cadence. He’d usually show up once a month.
The rare times I got to see him, I’d try to squeak in the odd question to my boss. Questions like, ‘Who is he?’, ‘Where does he come from?’, and ‘Has anyone spoken with him?’–all mechanically met with ‘I don’t know,’ ‘I don’t know,’ and ‘If you’re scared, you’re welcome to quit.’
Then, as fate would have it, one day boss lady fell incredibly ill. My coworkers and I had to convince her to go home midway through her shift, her sickness falling, uncomfortably, within the usual 1-3 day window at the end of the month when our ‘customer’ would typically appear.
And of course, there he was, right after she went home.
To my benefit, the other waiters and waitresses working the rounds were well aware of his presence and knew exactly what to do whenever he arrived. All of them knew to steer clear of him.
Nevertheless, driven by a foundational curiosity that I just couldn’t shake, I used this opportunity to go for it. I shouted a single thing across the floor, knowing Melanie wasn’t there to chide me–
“Hello sir! What brings you here?” I asked him.
He turned his head from his fixed position in his seat and put a hand to his ear. Clever.
“I said, what brings you here?” I called out again, a few notches louder this time, garnering some odd looks from our Thursday patrons.
To my surprise, he spoke back. I’m not sure why I was expecting his voice to carry the tone of some twisted, demented demon–maybe the fear Melanie had instilled in me? The man sounded exactly how he looked.
“I’m sorry dear,” he said, “I’m afraid I’m not sure what you’re saying. Can you come over here and ask me again?”
Nope. I was good.
“And I don’t mean to be rude, about the service,” he continued, “But it feels as if no one has taken my order for quite some time now.”
I let the exchange end there, diverting my attention back to the other guests. As always, he’d eventually disappear without fanfare, without the clatter of the entrance bell or any sight or sound of his steps across the diner floor, our backroom conversations about him remaining dreadfully short while he was there–just: ‘He’s here,’ and ‘He’s gone,’ and the odd, when we really needed to say it, ‘I feel really weird about this.’
It took me a while to understand where my brazenness to address this strange middle-aged man came from. In truth, I was just afraid. His presence and all of the questions tied to his being at our diner were disrupting this otherwise great arrangement that I felt I had. It seemed right, in the moment, to stand at the very edge of my bravery and say something to him. Of course, now that he was gone, I just felt worse.
The next week, I was invited to something pretty interesting at work.
I generally have a good amount of visibility into what Melanie, ‘boss lady,’ does on a daily basis. The only element that remained elusive was her bi-weekly check-in with a particularly sharp-dressed agent-looking-fella. There was a pretty consistent presence of state troopers, agents, and similarly uniformed men and women dropping into the diner, though I seldom paid it mind beyond simply noticing it.
Midway through wiping down the tables, only an hour or so into my shift, Mel swung by and said:
“Hey, want you in the meeting with the big boss, if you have a few.”
The big boss? “Uh, sure. Yeah. Coming. Just uh, if you don’t mind me asking, who is–”
She let her eyes speak her unwritten rules to me: ‘questions’ equals ‘generally bad’. Thank you for the reminder, ma’am.
We maneuvered to a backroom and sat at a table. Across from us, already seated, was a man in a sharply tailored suit with a subtle earpiece in–the aforementioned agent. The table was littered with a small, messy stack of notes, papers, and documents.
He made it a point to size me up, staring me down uninterrupted, like a deer to headlights, no concern at all about how awkward he was making it for me.
Then, he turned to Melanie.
“How long she been here?” he asked her in his gruff Western drawl.
“Six months,” she said.
“Y’trust her?”
“I trust her. Yes.”
He let his eyebrows say ‘If you say so’ then went on with it.
“Alright, so, apparently y’had a visit from the wandering man last week. You,” he said, motioning to Melanie, “were out. But you,” attention now shifted to me, “weren’t. Give me the lowdown.”
The wandering man?
The agent caught the confusion in my eyes.
“Jesus, you’ve told this girl nothing, haven’t you?” he said to Melanie.
“Sir, I know it sounds weird,” she said, “But I personally feel as if the man is almost, I don’t know, drawn to curiosity. Like, maybe the less I say to those not already in the know, the bett–”
“Wandering man,” the agent cut her off, “Is our nickname for the fella that sits in the corner of your fine little establishment. Or should I say, the state’s fine little establishment.”
“I’m sorry?” I asked.
“That’s correct. The state’s. Congratulations, ma’am, you’re part of a government operation. The wandering man, not just a cutesy little nickname but our legal definition of this tricky little problem, is a phenomenon we discovered many years ago. At the time, he’d just walk the desert landscape, chatting up unsuspecting strangers with bizarre questions. Everything fine, all hunky-dory. A little weird, sure, but nothing illegal. However…”
However…?
“Sometimes… things would happen because of him. Bizarre things. Grizzly things.”
I could see Melanie groaning, concerned at the picture being painted. Would this pique my curiosity?
“Have you guys, y’know, taken him in for…” I almost wanted to cut off my own stupid question, but he ran with it–
“Nope. Not because we don’t want to, but rather, because it… might not be safe.”
The cozy mental image I’d held of this diner was starting to fracture.
“We have reason to believe that he’s a visitor,” he said.
“From…?”
___________________
I didn’t attend another debrief after that.
Not because I was barred, mind you.
Rather, I just didn’t want to know anymore. My gut no longer held curiosity. There was just a low, aching dread there now.
The agents and troopers–spaced out and seated amongst the eatery–were now just a glaring reminder of what my dingy diner job really was.
The government cavalry would mostly show up around the end of month window the wandering man was set to arrive in. When he’d appear, they wouldn’t do much more than examine him from their distant tables, subtly scribbling notes into notebooks.
He’d always act the same. He would just sit there. He wouldn’t give them, or us–the diner employees–much to go on.
Speaking of employees, I remembered something Melanie told me after my first month of working here–that the worker turnover at this diner was incredibly high. Knowing at the time what everyone got paid, it made absolutely no sense to me.
Now, seven months into the gig, alongside a completely new set of cooks, waiters, and waitresses from when I’d first started, I’d seen firsthand just how true her statement was. None of the leavers claimed as much, but I’m sure the underlying premise of who the diner was really for became subconsciously clear to them during their time here. And it probably didn’t sit all too well with them.
I stayed. But not because of the pay. I’m actually not sure why I did.
We had a new cast of rookie employees now. The ones who understood the vague terms of the situation, just as Melanie, I, and all former employees did, stuck around. Those who couldn’t reconcile the situation with their inherent curiosity, naturally filtered out.
And then there was Malcolm.
It was only his first week. He was a keener. Mega-keener. He’d bulldozed through a giant list of tasks and was already asking for the next batch of work to chew through. Anything he could get ahead of, anything he could step in for, anything he could learn, he was on it. He wanted to be as helpful, helpful, helpful as humanly possible. I think the salary of the role, for a guy his young age, was just too alluring for him.
For our part, Melanie and I tried our best to get him to pace himself.
We were both giving the spiel now. By this point, we’d more or less perfected it.
“There are things about this diner that are strange. Rules you will have to follow and not think about. Rules that are concrete, immutable, and non-negotiable, like gravity.”
He nodded. At that moment, I really believed he was internalizing my words.
“And if that doesn’t work for you, and if you don’t think you can take care of yourself, then you shouldn’t work here,” I continued.
There was always a visceral feeling in my stomach whenever I saw the wandering man in the corner during the same week that we were onboarding new staff. I’m sure Melanie felt it too.
On those days, Mel and I would both work the till, and if we saw anyone coming out from the back, we’d stop them. With a simple grab of the arm.
Malcolm stepped out, and I did just that–a rough grasp of his forearm, just like Melanie had done to me when I’d first started. He recoiled in surprise.
”Remember that little chat about rules we just had?” I said.
He nodded meekly, as if he was already in trouble.
I pointed to the man seated at the far table in the brown corduroy shirt, staring straight ahead, with–what I believed at the time–no real reason to be here, and I said, “You will not, under any conditions, serve that man. Don’t go up to him, don’t talk to him. Pretend he doesn’t exist.”
Malcolm lifted the garbage bag he was holding in his left hand. In my nervousness, I hadn’t actually clocked what he was stepping out for.
“Just doing garbage duty, ma’am,” he said. “But, understood.”
And then he left out the front door with his usual swagger. The dumpster wasn’t as close as we would’ve liked so I appreciated his willingness to take on this duty so soon into his employment.
I turned back to observe the wandering man. We had a crowd of agents in attendance that day, scattered about the restaurant.
The man wasn’t one to speak up often. Today was an interesting exception.
“Officers,” he said, “If you have any questions, feel free to join me at the table to ask them.”
The agents around the room reacted mainly with snickers.
“Seriously, if you come sit with me, I’ll be happy to spill it all. Truly.”
Even more laughs. But no one bit.
And yet he continued, pointedly. “I know you’re curious, I know you take notes, I know you talk about me, I know you built this establishment for me, I know you–”
As I reconciled the fact that this was the most words I’d ever heard him string together in succession, I heard the chime of the bell–a door had opened.
Malcolm was dusting his hands as he entered through the diner’s side door. A door which was situated right beside the table the wandering man was seated at.
It all happened so fast. And yet, it played out in front of me excruciatingly slowly, as if there was a moment–a single solitary second–where I could’ve stepped in.
The wandering man dropped any pretext of an exchange with the agents, stopping his sentence midway and adopting a completely new demeanor. He played the role of a low, miserable, tired man and said, “30 visits, terrible service every time,” in a pathetic tone just as Malcolm walked by.
Malcolm, instinctively, plucked a notepad out from his chest pocket and turned his head to face the man.
“Hey, I got you chief, I can have ‘em ring something up for you, what are you–”
And then Malcolm froze in place.
And the wandering man’s expression turned Cheshire cat wide. His neck alternated between tensing and fluttering, with what seemed to be undeniable excitement.
The man started getting up from the table, and then, immediately–
Both of them were gone.
Malcolm and the wanderer had vanished out of existence entirely.
The insanity of the moment was interrupted by the coded language I heard blared over a megaphone: nonsensical agent-speak that has been seared into my memory forever.
“Alert Level Black. Wandering target has compromised a civilian. I repeat, civilian has been compromised.”
And that was that.
Melanie quit in the days after.
She wasn’t mad at me.
She told me she always knew she’d leave after the tenth disappearance. Why that specific milestone was required, I have no clue.
All I could do from that point was continue to work. On my commutes home, or during lunch breaks, I would look up at the stars, and put out the wish that Malcolm be brought back home. Back from wherever he’d been taken.
The debrief with the agents brought me no solace. The exchange with them was simple and short. ‘Where was he taken to?’, answered with ‘He’s gone now.’
With a perpetual dagger in my soul now, I had only the smallest of silver linings, if you can even call it that.
A lesson.
The lesson that I needed to be even more watchful. Even more diligent. And on days when the wandering man was visiting–the only server at the diner. No exceptions.
I knew the agents weren’t happy about that. None of them said it to me explicitly, but I could tell that they would learn something new about him every time he whisked someone away after a mistake was made. It was a weird, Darwinian set-up they had created. We were a zoo they could use to learn more about a specific animal. A specific entity. A specific visitor.
No dice. They’d just have to watch him sit now. Or wait for him to do something different.
I waited for the three day stretch at the end of the month that he usually appears in. Things were quiet up until that point.
When he finally showed up, it wasn’t what I expected.
For the first time ever, I saw the wandering man walk right through the front door.
In the dead of night, at the tail end of my shift.
I was at the till, paralyzed, as he took step after step to close the distance.
And then, he was right there. Standing in front of me.
And I was sure, absolutely sure, that I was going to die.
He smiled.
“Don’t worry. I have my own little set of rules I play by,” he said.
I didn’t say a word. This was no man’s land right now.
“I know you’ve been curious about me. I’ve admired it from the moment you first spoke up to address me. Cautious curiosity is a great thing to see in someone. Especially in such a reckless species.”
Please. Please just go.
“I’d like to answer a question about why I’m visiting. I’m sure you’d like to know why I’m here, right?”
I’m not curious anymore. I swear I’m not.
He laughed. “The answer is really, painfully simple. This little game, this little charade I’m playing. It is just so unbelievably, fun.”
Please don’t kill me. Please.
“You truly have a wonderful planet. I will return again soon. Promise. Give me a month, maybe two this time.” A sincere, kind smile delivered with kind eyes. “I’ll come back with a new game.”
And then he was gone.
It took me a minute to realize that there was a cake box sitting on the counter beside me. Maybe it was there the whole time he was speaking to me. Maybe it materialized right after he left.
I opened the box to find Malcolm’s severed head, a blank expression on his face, sitting on a bed of poorly and confusingly organized flowers. Almost as if there was an intention to create a floral arrangement, but no understanding of what something like that would look like.
On top of the horrific display, written in an almost childlike handwriting, was a note that read “I brought him back, just like you wished.”
The worst thing about being trapped at a diner, in the middle of nowhere, is that you realize that there really is nowhere else to run to.
Every single part of our planet is blanketed by stars, by open sky.
Someone could drop in anytime.