I’ve had my fish for over a year now and I’m upgrading my two goldfish from a ten gallon to a 20 gallon in the next couple weeks and i’m looking for help on some stuff i should for sure put in the tank. In the tank now they have a little plastic wood looking hide out which i definitely want to get rid of, two live plants and just a little clown i put just because. What should i get for them to hide in? best brand for rocks or should i put something else at the bottom of the tank? best place to get live plants?
Also i have just been putting in purified water that i buy in gallons in their tank i have some trouble getting nitrate and ammonia levels down and my Ph is good. Any help will be appreciated:)

I support the preservation of the Belarusian language, It is a beautiful language similar to Ukrainian that is under threat in its nation, it's classified as vulnerable on the un's list of languages. This language is very important to the Belarusian culture. It'sa part of the Native and Indigenous culture of Belarus, if this language dies out part of the Belarusian culture dies out. So what I did is I wrote a poem in the Belarusian language, I don't speak the Belarusian language but I came up with the words and put them into a translator, then I had ChatGPT check it for grammar errors, but I came up with everything myself. Here is the link
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTaf7mOPcCTzbUHQXfYVuaC4QZmMw33kX6MMGoi6ht-_GFsyKEqIYzUUmJ3adbb3BrWRxcgoPgKHcXX/pub
The poem in Belarusian
Зямля беларускаяЗямля беларуская, сэрца паўночнай раўніны,Дзе вялікія і зялёныя пышныя лясы,Рэкі і азёры з чароўнай вадой,Дзе дзеці гуляюць і плёскаюцца адзін ад аднаго,Калі надыходзіць летняя спякота,Яны ўцякаюць ад сонца ў прахалодную і асвяжальную вадуУ азёрах і рэках Беларусі.Беларуская зямля мае не толькі вялікія лясы, рэкі і азёры,Яна таксама дае беларусам некаторыя балоты, пагоркі,І нават самыя шакавальныя для тых, хто чытае гэтыя радкі,Пясчаныя дзюны, якія ляжаць побач з Беларускай зямлёй.Спрадвечнае месца, дзе сутыкнуліся вялікія народы, плямёны, імперыі,Балтыйскія народы, славянскія супляменнікі,Велічная Кіеўская Русь, Вялікае Княства Літоўскае,Аб’яднаная Рэч Паспалітая, з’яднаныя вялікім шлюбам,Расейская імперыя, якая прыйшла з Усходу,Саветы і, нарэшце, сёння мілая незалежная Беларусь.На зямлі Беларусі ёсць гарады, сярод якіхМінск — сталіца краіны,Стары горад Берасце з непрыступнай крэпасцю,Гародня — стары горад з вузкімі брукаванымі вулачкамі і прыгожымі касцёламі,А таксама грандыёзны Гарадзенскі замак,Віцебск, дзе жыве вялікі мастак.Нарадзіўся Марк Шагал,Магілёў, дзе перасякае Днепр,Гомель з зялёнымі насаджэннямі і прыроднымі
Жыве Беларусь!
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The land of Belarus
The land of Belarus, the heart of the northern plain, Where vast and green lush forests grow, Rivers and lakes with enchanting water, Where children play and splash together, When the summer heat arrives, They escape from the sun into cool and refreshing water, In the lakes and rivers of Belarus.
The land of Belarus not only has vast forests, rivers, and lakes, It also offers its people some marshes and hills, And even the most stunning for those who read these lines, The sandy dunes that lie beside the land of Belarus.
An ancient place where great nations, tribes, and empires met, Baltic peoples, Slavic companions, The magnificent Kyivan Rus, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, The United Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, united by a great union, The Russian Empire that came from the East, The Soviets, and finally, today, dear independent Belarus.
On the land of Belarus, there are cities, among them, Minsk—the capital of the country, The old town of Brest with its impregnable fortress, Hrodna—the old town with narrow cobblestone streets and beautiful churches, And also the grand Hrodna Castle, Vitebsk, where a great artist lived.
Marc Chagall was born there, Mahilyow, where the Dnieper crosses, Homiel with its green plantations and natural beauty.
Long live Belarus!

Hey all,
People who have the sensor attribute to their MBTI tend to view things more attuned to their 5 senses. They may be more observant individuals than intuitives, but they may not see the bigger picture via prior cystallized knowledge and experiences. I understand that everyone is unique in his/her way of filtering information about the world, but this becomes a problem for me when I try to connect with sensors on a deeper level in conversational settings. Whenever I try to bring up meaningful conversations, like the feelings of myself/others, philosophy, video game/book lore, history, and politics, they tend to brush off my conversation starters and even be a bit annoyed by them. Sometimes they would actually talk a little bit about it as a response, but would then accordingly switch to another topic very quickly. I've noticied from my Sensor acquaintances that their conversations tend to lean more towards the daily life/small talk and technical/work type of topics. It's as if they have an aversion from seeing the bigger picture a lot of the time.
I've been meaning to broaden my horizons lately and hang out with more sensor folks, but I really do find the task almost impossible. Maybe I'm just destined to just stick with my close intuitive friend circle? Are all sensors like this? And, do sensors mostly just get by socially and emotionally by becoming "doers with others", rather than "thinkers and debaters with others."
It appears that sensors and intuitives are truly like oil and water, but is this really the case in your experiences?
Need a bit help here....

For the last several years I have been planting dozens of chestnuts in pots outside my apartment and distributing the year old seedlings for free to my community every spring. Next spring I will distribute 96 chestnuts, 100 or so semi domesticated pawpaws, 20 American hazelnuts, and the year after I plan on adding American persimmons into the mix as well. American chestnuts would be great and I am interested in their restoration effort but they are currently very expensive and a mix of Chinese, European, Dunstan, Peach, Qing, Kohr trees are what I have been giving out. Mostly I harvest nuts from trees in my town but supplement with some bought online, you pretty much need to buy them in the fall and refrigerate or bury them until spring.
Chestnuts are the ultimate food for supply chain collapse, one mature chestnut tree can provide half of the grain-based calories for an adult every year. They can be made into pasta, bread, desserts, just ask the Sicilian peasants who subsisted on them for generations. I like to make chestnut gnocchi. Smaller trees (like the pawpaws), bushes and shrubs (hazelnuts) and other food crops can be planted in the understory. They also make great food for pigs, deer etc.
Slightly off topic but it pisses me off how the media completely ignores widespread environmental problems and blames everything on climate change (real btw). Insect biomass in developed countries has fallen by half to 80% since 1990, bird populations in Germany have halved, flooding that gets blamed on climate change is largely caused by soil compaction, sediment runoff filling in river bottoms, parking lots etc not allowing water to infiltrate properly. Hundreds of square miles of the gulf are so depleted of oxygen due to fertilizer runoff that no fish (or shrimp ☹) can live there, similar problems in the great lakes, and Chesapeake bay, many other locations. Nutrient content of food is far lower than in the middle of the twentieth century, not only because vegetable varieties have been bred for longer shelf life and appearance but because the soil bacteria that synthesize riboflavin (one of the most effected nutrients) have been killed off by modern agricultural practices.
If you hear about drought causing crop loss just know that it would be significantly less destructive if instead of killing all plant life off with glyphosate and leaving the field fallow for the off season the farmer had planted cover crops. If you hear of biodiversity loss know that its because of light pollution and insecticides far more than it is caused by climate change.
So take the chestnut pill, get your neighbors to grow big beautiful chestnut trees and roast some of them over an open fire for Christmas, they can throw most of them out but if everything goes to shit, that tree in the yard will take the edge off. Plant them at the edges of fields or in highway interchanges in the middle of the night, give them to the local church with a gay flag out front. Stop crying about how climate change is going to kill us all but you dont know what you as an individual can do about it, start trees and give them out.

So, this is the story of how this group and I started a coup on our DM and regained our freedom. TW: Mentions of Racism
Important people! Pluto: The DM, ruler of our personal hell Jericho: My friend and the local Paladin Bird: The Bladesinger Wizard with wings Soap: The Tricky Drow Cleric/Ranger Hornet: Barbarian Satyr and the newest addition Boy: The Eldritch knight… yeah that’s it Toad: Local Plant boy with a pet dragon And I am… Well, me. (Names changed for obvious reasons) So this story starts at the beginning. I found a listing in the CritCrab server for a new game that sounded interesting. A group that is in a fantasy school for adventurers. Sounds interesting enough. I sent the DM (Pluto) a character idea for a Water Genasi swarm keeper whose swarm is a school of tropical fish. He said that I can’t use fish because it's not one of the official options for a swarmkeeper… Okay? Change it to birds and then he asks if I wanted to be siblings with someone else who wanted to be a Genasi ranger. I hesitantly agree and then I meet Jericho. I began becoming closer with Jericho and tried getting closer with Pluto. I brought up taking a level into a homebrew monster tamer class and he approved it but every time I did something that irritated him he half jokingly threatened to kill my character’s wolf to the point where it made me not want to play the class knowing that if I didn’t do what he wanted he would take it out on my character. Eventually that game didn't go anywhere so he started up a new game. Pluto decided he would run the same game as before with a new group and we started at level 3! Jericho and I were the only ones who came back for the reboot. During the down time between campaigns I began being closer friends with Jericho and began playing some of the same games as him. Pluto, not liking these games, told us that people who played those games were “bad people and people who say otherwise are objectively wrong.” Anyways, character creation. Jericho and I wanted a connected backstory but didn't want to be siblings again since we just did that. He decided he would play a paladin and so I thought “if he is the knight, i could be the dragon” and brought up the tamer class to Pluto again, he accepted it but didn’t stop talking about how Drakewarden Ranger is just better. Even after I told him I didn’t like it as much. Now, I wouldn't have this issue if he hadn’t already said the tamer class was fine. He already accepted the homebrew but was still pushing me toward something I said I didn't want. On top of all this, he told Jericho that since he was a Knight he would also have the Noble background and since he was a Noble I should also be a Noble and his sister! We sorta just went along with it since it sorta just worked. I ended up swapping from a Tamer (because he clearly didn't want me playing it) to a Wizard with a high charisma in hopes of going into bard or warlock. We were all excited to be some noble kids in the school just hanging out and stuff only to learn that by Noble, he meant the most Noble. Jericho was the Crown Prince and I the Princess of THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. This was not at all what we signed up for but we thought, Hey, this will at least make things interesting? The other players were Boy, who made an eldritch knight who sorta just hit things? He didn't role play too much and mostly just split off to talk to random teachers and stuff instead of participating in what there was of a plot.The other was a druid for a couple of sessions but left due to frustrations with Pluto. So it starts with us going to a school and doing a test to see what class we are in, sorta Yugioh GX style if you are familiar with that. We all got sent to Obelisk Blue and were assigned to the team. Woo! We set off for our first mission, go find “something of interest.” We weren’t told what exactly to look for or anything just to find it. Okay? We search and find a cave with spooky noises and glowing. My player senses are tingling! We go inside and find a woman who is all like “Make a deal with me, i will give you some shiny stuff and you are not allowed to talk about me ever to anyone outside of here. If anyone asks you where you found this stuff say it's from the river” Jericho: Can we say walk away? Pluto: Nope, you are stuck here. Druid: Well, can we fight her? Pluto: You can but she can tpk you Me: So we just take the items then i guess
We go on to the next bit and we return our interesting items and the druid tries to sorta not say explicitly what we found but every time we try we get told we can't get around the binding contract. Cool, so we can’t talk about what happened or try to get any information. We take some classes, have some fun conversations amongst the party, teach the druid what a snake is, all fun. We then go to find our next quest. Hunt some mini cockatrices. Okay, interesting, let's do that. We do it without incident. We come back and roleplay some more before going onto the next quest. A strange feline creature is doing some petrification in a nearby town, go solve it. Me: More petrification monsters? I wonder who is letting em all out Pluto: Oh, no. i just chose them because petrification is easy to run Yeah, not plot reasoning just easy to run… okay We continue onward and find ourselves in an area and we decide to go to the library. Turns out there is a fire downstairs in the library that leads to a secret laboratory with a bunch of notes and stuff and something that mentions the monster we were sent to find. I had never heard of the monster so I looked up what it looked like (mind you not trying to meta-game was just curious because i had never heard of it. It is like a lion medusa, I forgot what it was called. Anyways, Pluto got upset with me for looking it up and yeah, maybe I shouldn't have. So Druid was having issues with Pluto during all of this and ended up leaving the campaign. In the meantime Pluto decided to invite someone from a group he was kicked from for being rude to the other players. Turns out in that game his character had a baby dragon that he was taking care of because of a homebrew race he was playing. This is when Bird joined. Turns out there was a secret fight club in the town and Bird is doing great. Bird is a homebrew race that is like an elf with wings. Bird was the most forward with their complaints. Anytime Pluto did something frustrating they would bring it up. He was not afraid to say blatantly that something Pluto was doing was annoying. This led to several arguments and I won’t lie, it was quite annoying. Their character was similar and would call my character out for what she was doing which was really fun to roleplay out. We ended up going and fighting the boss and instead of attacking the tank it felt like he targeted my wizard. Weird but okay, i was pretty pushed up and i almost went down because funny d6 hit dice. Also, I was hiding in a tree. We also saw the petrified body of the character who left. We went back to the school and role played a bit between missions.
We were then given an option between going to the capital for purposes of going and meeting the king and queen or going on a quest to find some flowers. We think about it and going to the capital seemed like the best way to push the story forward and then Pluto tells us that going to the plot is actually at the flowers which made no sense at all and still doesn’t. Especially since the only plot stuff was uh not region specific Next mission was trying to find a medicine for petrification. We go and talk to a king but a different type of king from our character’s father? Pluto swears up and down there is a good reason for this but it's confusing. We went to talk to him. King: So, you are looking for this really rare plant? Well, I will tell you where to find it so long as you make a deal with me Everyone: really? Another deal? Bird: “Yeah, my character is super paranoid and traumatized and wouldn't make deals with random people Pluto: Can you quit derailing things? Bird continued to try to get around the contract but no matter what he tried, Pluto didn’t allow anything. During all of this Pluto invited two new people to join us. Toad and Soap. They hadn't joined the game yet because he kept refusing to introduce them for like 3 sessions in a row. So they were both just quietly waiting in the vc for hours on end, much to the annoyance of Soap in particular. Eventually we got to the point where we were looking for the plants and Jericho had to go to work so we hand waved it as he went to go look somewhere else for the plants. We find the plants and they seem eerily out in the open. We get to problem solving. We decided the best course of action is if there are traps, send the flying person to go get them so we don't trigger them. Bird goes and flies towards them and then the tree shoots some roots or something at them? Idk, it makes no sense. And then they tried to Misty Step away. Anyways we roll initiative and fight a bunch of plants and then Toad and Soap see us fighting the plants and decide to help us. We beat the fight and then head back to the castle. We get told that Pluto would have a side session with Jericho. Jericho then tells me later that week that his character is dead or close to death. Turns out when he went off alone he fell into a random hole and had to go through a bunch of fights. And also he found someone who recognised him as the crown prince because of his fancy armor that he has stated many times wasnt fancy because he was very humble. He ended up getting so close to death that he had to make ANOTHER DEAL in order to get out alive. When the next session started we were told we went back without him and waited several days for him to come back and he just didn't. Excuse me? My character just sat around when her brother was missing for more than 12 hours??? Anyways we tried several things to find him and then i decided to make ANOTHER DEAL in order to ensure his safety. (I had a way to summon a fey-like entity). After all of this and more, Bird was causing a new argument or 2 every session and Soap was also upset by the same things and backed him up. The biggest argument was because we were defending Jericho from being killed off screen for committing the unforgivable sin of going to work. Eventually Pluto decided he would kick Bird. He also decided to gaslight Soap into apologizing for agreeing with Bird and BEGGING FOR HIS FORGIVENESS. Now mind you, after all of this Bird’s character had already been a massive part of the character development of both Soap’s character and my own so seeing them leave was rough narratively. Then it was implied they were killed, as was their pet pig, Chris P Bacon (Rest in Peace, sweet prince) Anyways, we go back home, role play, and then we go into a multi session dungeon crawl. Half way through the dungeon crawl he decided to add another player to the group and had Hornet send several different backstories and then admitted to not reading any of them. Now something I hadn’t mentioned was that he would often be late or cancel sessions day-of because he wanted to go to a party. It got to the point where he was the least consistent player. During the Dungeon crawl is when it became super problematic. People had had some schedule shifts and we asked to have the sessions an hour earlier and he agreed. Except, we didn't expect that that meant he would then opt to ask if we could postpone the sessions by 30 minutes or sometimes an hour and 30 minutes. When I complained about him being late all the time he said it was “Latino culture” to always show up late. Yeah, I was also confused. Anyways, this meant that 2 players were rarely able to show up and when they could they had to leave and hour in. We learned a bit more lore and then left the dungeon after like 5 sessions. We then went to a different town that had a rival school in it. Neat. We looked around, read some books, role played a bit, y’know, the usual. Then we decided to head home to the school to be there for a tournament! And now Hornet joined! After like 2-3 months of being invited to the server. Eventually, we all talked out of character about our experiences and decided that Toad would be the new DM and run a similar game and we would keep our characters. Thank you, Jericho for finally taking the time to talk to everyone. This situation ended a month ago. I would like to just say that these people tend to not have any self awareness so they can even watch these videos and not see the parallels between these bad DMs and themselves. Be careful out there, friends.
Some other notes that i didn't know where to put Pluto made almost all of us change something about our characters. -He made me and Jericho siblings and tried to force me into Drakewarden ranger. -Soap was supposed to be a Ranger Rogue, but he said “rogues cause too much trouble” and that “we needed a healer.” We did not need a healer. I had bard levels and was the support of the group. Then when they chose to be a cleric and decided to go to a church he was super surprised that the cleric wanted to do cleric things. -Toad wanted to be a Firbolg but then the Pluto pushed them towards his new homebrew race that has a pet dragon that he swears wasn't based on the same race he played in the game Bird was in -Hornet was going to be a shifter Echo knight but was then told no for some reason? -Told Bird no goblins, and argued about other races and stuff. Also forced them to be the cousin of mine and Jericho’s characters He was an incredibly toxic friend. He eventually ended up playing the game “only bad people like” but it was okay because he “didn't take it seriously.” Anytime I took a kill he would yell at me for stealing it and then say he wasn't actually mad because he doesn't take the game seriously and then go back to yelling at me. He did this with knowledge that people yelling at me was a trigger for me. I ended up buying a skin for him in the game as a gift and then he kept trying me to get him another one. I offered to get him a cheaper one as it was on sale and then he kept saying “No i want this one” If you liked something it was immediately a bad thing to like because of reasons. Like it was made by a corrupt company or stuff like that. You just weren’t allowed to enjoy things around him. In the game, he kept giving Soap, the archer, knives for loot? It was weird. Just because Soap had their character buy a dagger so they would have some concealed melee just in case. He also made it so whenever Soap looked for information they found a book about potatoes which was funny the first time bc nat 1 but the second time just felt like haha reusing the same joke but for an 11. And most of the time Soap was the only one actively looking for information about the lore due to the god they followed not being a part of the main pantheon. He also liked giving us very little money and then showing off all the cool magic items we could buy if we had money. Or make us go to a special shop and then make us spend most of our money there and then say “should've saved your money” THERE WERE SO MANY NPCS. I couldn't keep up with them all. Also all of them were very holier than thou. Pretty annoying He also said because I was taller than Bird IRL I could beat him up in a fight which was weird especially with how insistent he was about it
Bird got yelled at for “power gaming” which is a fancy way to say thinking before acting If you disagreed with Pluto it was a direct attack. His opinions weren't opinions; they were facts. If you liked something he didn't, you were a bad person
He also told the Soap that because they were a Drow they would experience Racism and then proceeded to not give any because he expected my character to be racist for him. Also he didnt think Drow were elves. We believe that when he said there would be Racism it was towards Soap and not their character. He seemed to have something against everyone who was American in the group… which was everyone but Toad. But more often than not, Soap was the butt of the joke Toad also kicked him from his game before the events of this game which was based on an Anime he liked. He then got Bird to DM another game based on that anime and then didn't join it because it was Pathfinder and not 5e Ignored Soap’s backstory and just focused on the fact that they were poor because every other character was “too spoiled” even though he forced them to be that way. He called a young boy a Shota and didn’t fully comprehend the… implications which was funny and we had a laugh but he said then had to argue that it was perfectly innocent and has no implications Jericho had special rules as the crown prince he had to follow so when he was taking a more calm and stoic route he was punished for not taking a stand. To the point where when someone else was consoling someone Jericho was told that a group of people that saw him minding his own business hated him. It basically made him afraid to give his character a personality We had to take classes but we had to take 3 of the same class to get anything out of the classes There was a point where we found a fire Genasi that was very attractive and everyone was like trying to rizz her up but when Soap said they were just kinda staring at her they were called a creep. Mind you, Soap’s character was a 13 year old boy who looked about as “creepy” as a soft cuddly bunny.

Hi all, first time poster here. I'm having an issue with my Saturn 2, which I just recently got up and running -- no matter how much I try, only half the prints stick to the build plate. I'm using the small tool here https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/various/build-plate-leveling-tester to quickly test it, and the results are inconsistent. As I said, typically a third to half (or more!) of the small squares simply stick to the FEP.
I've replaced the FEP. I've tinkered with settings. I've tried leveling the build plate to no end. I'm out of ideas at this point. Please help!
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edit: Forgot to mention, I'm using Elegoo Water Washable 8k resin, Space Grey
also edit: i didn't add the picture properly. here's my settings: https://imgur.com/jWrtF9L
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Hey everyone, long but maybe a helpful post incoming.
I wanted to share my experience in depth with getting ill very suddenly in October of 2022 (8 months in) so this will be a bit of a longer post. I’m posting this to see if there are some similarities out there, maybe if anyone had some advice for me or even just share some progress, treatments or approaches.
Also for anyone reading that’s having a hard time with symptoms & long covid, I am keeping positive and will keep this post positive too. I strongly believe we will find the mechanisms at work; there is already so much research, testing etc. going on so please try keep your head up there’s a lot of people in this and a lot are getting better too. I am 28, male, active and healthy before this and had little to no health problems prior.
What happened to me at the beginning:
Went on a weekend away with friends at a quiet Airbnb near a beach from Friday through to Monday. Stayed at the airbnb all weekend and had some alcoholic drinks, using the hot tub and just hanging out.
I woke up on Monday morning and immediately started to projectile vomit and could not keep even a sip of watefood down. Vomiting at all is a very rare occurrence for me even after drinking so this was immediately a red flag. After about 3 or 4 hours this eventually subsided during the trip home.
After feeling not the best (flu-like symptoms with upset stomach, hot & cold, sore lower back) for 2 days after arriving home; on Wednesday I felt a dissociation/spaced out feeling come on suddenly while working at home & had what I felt was similar to a panic attack (heart racing, cold hands and feet, lightheaded) and after lying down from this I was slammed with the worst headache I've ever had. And this is where all my symptoms started. I can’t remember exactly when I tested (maybe 2 or 3 antigen tests at home) for covid during this time but it may have been a few days or maybe even a week after this but it was a negative test so for a long time I did not suspect covid. I was leaning more towards a bacterial or virus from the hot tub initially.
What followed:
Below are the symptoms I’ve experienced since then, I also contracted covid at the end of February so I’m unsure if I had Covid twice, or a post viral syndrome from another virus or bacteria that was exacerbated by Covid. EBV, Cytomeglo and further virus testing has come back negative and reading symptoms I feel that there is a lot of similarity with long-covid symptoms mentioned by everyone here.
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• Headache - almost constant (mild to severe) (severe sinus & tension type headaches, ice pick headaches & pain at back of head as well as front and temples).
• Neck & Shoulder Pain - almost always (sharp or dull)
• Back Pain - often - mostly lower with stomach pain & sometimes middle & upper back
• Fatigue - occasionally - this seems to be on the milder side, can get through days fine.
• Sinus Swelling - often - CT scan showing persistent sinusitis - post nasal drip often follows. this particularly sucks and is very uncomfortable.
• Brain Fog - often, slightly less - comes with sinus swelling at times.
• Heart Palpitations - less often than before, sometimes onset - throbbing feeling in head and all over - multiple ECGs & 24hr Holter Monitor showed nothing.
• IBS - often for the first few months, now more rarely - irregular stool (size, frequency), undigested, sore abdomen strikes suddenly and can cause intense abdominal pain and diarrhea.
• General feeling of Malaise - often
• Tinnitus - often - sharp noise occasionally, low level ringing often.
• Dry/allergic/irritated eyes - occasionally
• Hacking up phlegm - often, onset
• Dermographism - occasionally - only real visible symptom that I’m having
• Twitching - more often recently
• Chest tightness - occasionally - breathlessness, short of breath or dry cough
• Mouth Ulcers & Eye Styes - every month or so, much more common during illness

Newer Symptoms (After contracting Covid):

• Anxiety & Depression - occasionally - related to health condition, have had good mental health until this. very up and down in progression. feel waves of sadness throughout the day or week.
• Pain in testicles - sore for a period of time, has come back a bit - Epididymis on left testicle side swollen, scrotum tightening occasionally, testing showed nothing. This is quite limiting for exercise & running
• Paresthesia - rare - feeling of sunburned skin (stomach, forearms, top of hands, nose and back of neck) - itchy sensations around body. This has subsided since it happened first.
• Hands turning red occasionally - especially when walking.
• Pain in joints, spine, hands - often - arthritis like feeling

My experience:
I wanted to add how things have been for me personally. I feel like I’ve been through my own hell so far. In the first few months I was doing fine as I assumed it would get better in a few weeks, maybe next month, definitely before Christmas etc. while managing symptoms and hanging on to the words of my favourite google search “does post viral syndrome go away” which always brought me the answer I wanted “it is temporary”. During February my mother was diagnosed with cancer and as an only child I think this is where my mental health began to suffer. In March when my testicular pain began I seen another doctor who mentioned central sensitization and my mind and ability to cope plummeted. I was scared out of my mind and I began to wonder if I would survive and had relegated myself to permanent disability for life. I would get a lot of awful feelings out of nowhere, an impending doom sense that was pretty engulfing. Thankfully I have an incredible partner who has been with me every step of the way and she has kept me from some very dark places, I am extremely lucky to have her. I worked for the initial 6 months after getting sick (work from home job) and told my work straight up that I needed support and to role back my responsibilities. Unfortunately as my mental health declined around March I had to step away from work (thankfully insured for now) but was unable to properly look at my work screen, do complex tasks or manage my work without feeling sluggish and needed to step away every 10 or 15 minutes.
The medical side:
I have seen a number of doctors, specialists including 2 A&E visits. Listed below are who I’ve seen and what I’ve done in chronological order. Thankfully have a close family friend who specializes in virology and took my case on to dive into deeper. After tons of testing for what feels like every variation of medical issue, the only thing that has shown up from all the testing done was a very recent positive test for Anti-CCP-AKS which points to polyarthritis as a symptom not a diagnosis. I have a gamma camera scheduled & a colonoscopy too for the summer. In terms of medication I did about 2 months on Amitriptyline, it probably helped some symptoms but I gained a lot of weight so stopped, I have found it hard overall to tell what helps and what doesn’t. One day I’ll try something I think “oh this helps” and then a few days later I’ll suffer symptoms while trying it out. I have tried my best to avoid taking medication and stick to supplements only.
Tests:

• Multiple Bloods - Initially B cells found, Anti-CCP-AKS (Positive at a low level)
• Urine - Normal
• Physical - Normal
• CT - Normal
• Chest X-ray - Normal
• Ultrasound of Abdomen, Scrotum, Thyroid, Bladder - Normal
• MRI of Brain - Normal

Diagnosis per doctor

• Food Poisoning (Walk-in GP)
• Acute Onset Virus (Urgent Care Clinic)
• Tension Headaches (Urgent Care Clinic)
• Bacterial Sinusitis (Walk-in GP)
• Viral Sinusitis (Walk-in GP)
• Post Viral Syndrome (Urgent Care Clinic)

Specialists diagnoses

• Post Viral IBS - (Gastroenterologist)
• Nothing to offer (Mentioned Central Sensitization is controversial) - (Neurologist)
• (Suspected) Central Sensitization (Internal Medicine - Referred)
• Post Viral Syndrome from unspecified Virus (Internal Medicine - Family Doctor who is following up)

Here’s what I’ve been supplementing & doing to support.

• High water consumption
• Vitamin B, D
• Omega 3 (3000mg daily)
• Magnesium (600mg daily)
• Probiotics (Align 1 capsule per day)
• Coconut water, multi-vitamin & electrolytes

Overall I feel a bit better but having plenty of attack/relapses/waves or whatever we want to call them. I find the biggest help is sleeping or resting as much as possible, hot showers and eating right. I’m happy to answer questions and see what compares. I would love some more advice on supplementation as I know its basic at the moment.

The XL Candy Goals are event themed topics to help players do more than shiny check.
Yes, if you have the pokeballs, catch everything you can because stardust is your most limited resource.
But if you want to be a little more selective, this submission is intended to give you a reason to catch Pokemon for the sake of the XL candy the family has and that it has a possible use in the game.
The Pokemon recommended here have a family member that uses their same XL candy flavor to achieve a maximum stat product that reaches at least 1400 CP for Great League, 2333 CP for Ultra League, and 3300 for Master League / PvE. These are arbitrary limits. And I only consider powering up one of that species; if you will power up multiple for PvE purposes, the number to shoot for is 296*6 = 1,776 or for shadows 360*6 = 2,160 XL candy.
Additionally, when recognized and suggested in comments feedback, Pokemon that are a little weaker but may have PvP use in limited metas are included. (Running list of Wobbuffet, Wigglytuff, and (possibly Hisuian) Sliggoo.)
Included in the table is the open league ranking of a Pokemon powered up to XL levels per PvPoke.com. Sometimes a poorly ranked Pokemon in open meta could be well ranked in a limited meta based on fitting the right resistances or having the right moves to deal super effective damage. But this can still give a ballpark of how important it is to collect.
With the way moves and movesets can be changed in a season or any event, I like to play with the principle of it's better to have the resources and not need them than want the resources and not have them.
The Pokemon included in the table have at least one family member that is available via wild or research encounters during the event and reach the arbitrary CP thresholds for those leagues and use XL candy. (I am omitting Raid counters at this time because players don't get a random encounter for raiding and can plan out their megas, and Niantic changes the raid line up frequently.)
Pokemon that don't meet the criteria for being worth collecting XL candy for but are featured in the event: +Spheal, +Finneon, +Clauncher.

Family XL Candy	Pokemon	XL For Standard	XL For Shadows	Method and PvP Open League Ranks 2023-06-06
Tentacool XL Candy		296	360	Wild
	Tentacruel	296	360	Ultra League: 63/624
Shellder XL Candy		118	144	Wild
	Cloyster	118	144	Ultra League: 254 (300 Shadow)/624
Krabby XL Candy		64	78	Wild
	Krabby	64	78	Great League: 824/852
Exeggcute XL Candy		592	720	Wild
	Exeggutor	296	360	Master League: 329 (322 Shadow)/522
	Exeggutor Alolan	296	360	Master League: 230 (229 Shadow)/522
Horsea XL Candy		326	396	Wild
	Seadra	296	360	Ultra League: 604 (605 Shadow)/624
	Kingdra	30	36	Ultra League: 255 (348 Shadow)/624
Staryu XL Candy		64	78	Wild
	Starmie	64	78	Ultra League: 522/624
Lapras XL Candy		52	63	Research
	Lapras	52	63	Ultra League: 75 (78 Shadow)/624
Marill XL Candy		133	162	Wild
	Azumarill	133	162	Great League: 34/852
Mantine XL Candy		592	720	Wild
	Mantine	296	360	Ultra League: 45/624
	Mantyke	296	360	Great League: 509/852
Wingull XL Candy		296	360	Wild
	Pelipper	296	360	Ultra League: 41/624
Wailmer XL Candy		572	696	Wild
	Wailmer	276	336	Great League: 269 (290 Shadow)/852
	Wailord	296	360	Ultra League: 242 (294 Shadow)/624
Dwebble XL Candy		414	504	Wild
	Dwebble	296	360	Great League: 532/852
	Crustle	118	144	Ultra League: 144/624
Frillish XL Candy		1184	1440	Wild and Research
	Frillish	296	360	Great League: 684/852
	Frillish Female	296	360	Great League: 684/852
	Jellicent	296	360	Ultra League: 21/624
	Jellicent Female	296	360	Ultra League: 21/624
Binacle XL Candy		10	12	Research
	Barbaracle	10	12	Ultra League: 203/624
Popplio XL Candy		296	360	Research
	Primarina	296	360	Master League: 84/522
Sandygast XL Candy		552	672	Research
	Sandygast	296	360	Great League: 557/852
	Palossand	256	312	Ultra League: 265/624

Mega recommendations for farming XL Candy?

This is the distribution of catchable Pokemon per type for this event:

Type	Count
Bug	1
Dark	0
Dragon	1
Electric	0
Fairy	1
Fighting	0
Fire	0
Flying	3
Ghost	2
Grass	1
Ground	1
Ice	1
Normal	0
Poison	1
Psychic	0
Rock	2
Steel	0
Water	14

These are your top Megas to use for the event based on sheer count of catchable species boosted:

Mega Evolution	Count
Primal Kyogre	15
Mega Swampert	15
Mega Gyarados	14
Mega Slowbro	14
Mega Blastoise	14
Mega Aerodactyl	5
Mega Pinsir	4
Mega Salamence	4
Mega Rayquaza	4

But let's get a little picky. The most meta relevant Pokemon that want XL candy for PvP purposes would be: Tentacruel, Azumarill, Mantine, Pelipper, and Jellicent. They all make it into the top 10% of their respective XL leagues for today's PvPoke rating.
This narrows down the table to --- any water....

Mega Evolution	Count
Primal Kyogre	5
Mega Swampert	5
Mega Gyarados	5
Mega Slowbro	5
Mega Blastoise	5

I fishing 1-3 times a week, mainly on smaller eastside lakes. Really struggling with bass so far this year. Plenty of trout and panfish but only one bass. Thrown Texas rigs, wacky, top water, chatterbait, cranks, etc. Morning, mid day, evening. Fishing from a kayak so I've been trying docks, submerged cover, grass lines. Sometimes I can see the bass in the shallows but can't entice them.
Who's be having luck and what are you throwing when?

2002 Lexus ES300, 3.0 V6 (Camry guts), 182k
Fairly well maintained, had the car for 9 years and 110k miles. Texas car that was rumored to have lived in Hawaii, owned by military before we bought it.
After a rainstorm a month ago, the power steering got lumpy. Like there was a repeating knot every 1/4 turn or so. A little research suggests the seals on the rack went bad and had some water intrusion with some deep puddles at the time of that rainstorm.
BUT, occasionally, the steering will be perfect. Sometimes, it’s barely noticeable after the car has warmed up.
The power steering belt is recent and no squeals and good tension. Power steering fluid is old but the level is correct. No leaks anywhere.
Bad pump? Bad rack?

Hi all, a few weeks ago I published to this subreddit this thread: https://www.reddit.com/bridezillas/comments/13ourpo/am_i_in_the_wrong_is_this_brides_behavio?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I received a lot of support, and I thank you for that. It's nice to know there are kind people out there, especially when anonymous on the internet.
After reading all the responses and speaking with my therapist, I thought it would be best to send the Bridezilla a text. I'm big on closure, and although I was anticipating a nasty response, I knew for my own well-being I needed to air my feelings. I waited until she was back from her honeymoon + numerous days so that she and her husband could decompress. Then I sent a text (Following "MY TEXT" below, in this post).
She quickly replied, and as anticipated, was nasty (Her response is below following "BRIDEZILLA TEXT". She lied numerous times (She DID ask me to be MOH, I DID apologize numerous times, I DID NOT belittle her in front of her MIL, all I did was offer some help to take stuff to the storage locker). I also was not "pissy" nor did I "sigh" at all that day. I've highlighted the super egregious bits if you don't want to read all of it.
I responded with a message ending the friendship and a subsequent block on everything. (This text is below, following "MY LAST TEXT."
Other than providing an update, I just wanted to ask for advice. For those who have lost friends due to them being Bridezillas, how have you moved forward? How do you find peace? Thank you again, folks!
​
*******THE RECEIPTS********
MY TEXT:
Hey \BRIDES NAME*! I waited to reach out till y’all got back from your honeymoon and had time to decompress.*
I’ve been thinking a lot about your wedding weekend. Leading up to your wedding and during that weekend, I’ve truly stepped up as your friend. I’ve been there when no one else was. I went out of my way to show up for you and prove to you that you’re not alone. Over your wedding weekend, despite my PT’s request to “relax” and desperately needing to prepare for a job interview, I focused solely on you. I crafted, made trips to and from the reception, was the “bad guy” to the wedding planner. I waited on you hand and foot, bringing you water, food, and even scraping lipstick off your teeth. I was tasked with things that aren’t even the MOH’s responsibility. I was under an immense amount of pressure from you to make the day perfect. I tried my best. And my best was pretty freaking amazing.
The morning after your wedding, a major line was crossed. There’s a huge difference between being blunt and being rude/disrespectful. Your outburst toward me was the latter. Not only did you berate me, but you did so in front of \HER HUSBAND* and *GROOMSMAN*. Even after I was sobbing and apologizing for something I shouldn’t have had to apologize for, you were relentless. If you were upset about something, I would of course want you to bring it to my attention but in a respectful way. Under no circumstances, not even on your wedding day or the morning after, is it appropriate for you to speak to me like that. However you may justify it, I did not deserve that treatment.*
What I do deserve is a huge apology and an even bigger promise that you won’t treat me like that again. If you choose not to reply or reply with anything but an apology, I’ll assume you’re content with this friendship ending.
I meant everything I said in my MOH speech. You are my best friend and I love you. However, I will not allow myself to be belittled and maltreated.
​
BRIDEZILLA TEXT:
You really can't deal with any criticism wow ok
I mean I always knew that but wowwwwww
I am sorry for blowing up at you the day after I wanted to handle it differently for sure but you totally talking down to me and doing against me in front of my mother in law was not okay at all and not needed. It was not your place.
Everything you did was maid of honor jobs. Maybe when you're the moh for your sister or a bride you'll see that.
It was my day and I could have been rude but I really tried to be as chill as possible. You were noticeably stressed the night before about the cards and I was super chill about finishing them the next day. I asked you to do so much because like I mentioned I only have two bridesmaids, my brother, and \GROOMSMAN*. And *BRIDESMAID 2*'s grandpa died that morning so I didn't want to put too much on her.*
If you thought it was too much and we never speak again for that then on your day you will see and regret it.
I shouldn't have blown up in front of \HER HUSBAND* sure but I couldn't hold it in anymore and* I'm not gonna dance around and say you ruining my fucking wedding ceremony was fine and care more about your feelings than my own on my day.
I tried to be as kind as possible it's not my fault you can dish it out but can't take it.
I always feel like I'm walking on eggshells around you.
I appreciate everything you did.
I know it's not coming through through text but it didn't seem like offering to meet in person was an option from your tone so I'll try here.
You made the day for sure. You helped so much and I thought I said thank you but it's being a bridesmaid you don't get a trophy. I really appreciate you and would do it for you 1000 times over without any pat on the back.
I don't know how you want me to say thank you more.
I never expected to need to grovel and worship the ground you walked on for being my bridesmaid.
And don't you fucking dare throw the relaxation and interview in my face when you never told me. I don't feel guilty you are an adult about that. You can communicate your feelings and stress level. I could tell you were pissed/anxious the morning of with all your sighing so when you were sitting in the living room waiting for hair or whatever you barely had to lift a finger and \BRIDESMAID 2* was running around. If you needed a minute you are capable you could have told me.*
I crossed a line by yelling sure. I yelled once and held my tongue I may not have said nice things but I didn't berate you so chill.
You just can't handle anything omg.
I should have done a lot worse for you ruining my ceremony.
I'm over it. You can't take responsibility and weren't even going to apologize or address it at all. You stll haven't apologized in that text.
No one ever said you didn't do a good job. In fact instead of feeling better or getting an apology myself the whole thing at the house was me consoling you and letting my feelings go to the wayside.
Time to go cut you out of the wedding pics.
Also you weren't maid of honor. I never asked you you just assumed.
Not because I didn't want you or wouldn't have picked you after I just truly didn't want the title to anyone after all the BS and you just didn't care and decided.
You are a great friend and person and I have love for you but i need you to grow up.
​
MY LAST TEXT:
I'm a great friend, and me walking away from this friendship now is me growing up. I deserve a better friend and don't deserve to be talked to the way you talked to me and have just texted me. When I get married I'll be at peace knowing I'm not the type of person to belittle my friends, even under stress. Maybe one day you will realize that you single-handedly destroyed this friendship. Maybe not, and that's ok. Genuinely, wishing you and \YOUR HUSBAND* all the best.*

What do you think of when you hear the term ocean? Do you think of sitting on the beach, watching the waves hit the land and just feeling good? How you stand in the water and the tides gently enclose your feet and the sunlight reflects on the wide water surface?
Or are you thinking further ahead? Are you thinking about what is really beyond the shore? Are you thinking about what you can't see? Of what lurks deep in the absolute darkness of the sea?
I thought until recently that the ocean was a fascinating place. The sheer size made it, in my eyes, a wonderful place for sea creatures and a whole other world is down there that we can't see with the naked eye.
Originally, I was also planning on doing a job that had to do with the ocean. Not boring jobs like fisherman or captain of a cargo ship, but much more something along the lines of marine biology. After all, I wanted to explore things myself and not just swim around bored on them. I don't have to have a profession for that. I could do it that way, too. However, this desire disappeared long ago after I found the message of my recently deceased grandfather.
He was also a "sailor". At least that's what my parents always called his profession. At some point, he had suddenly stopped doing that and seemed extremely afraid of the sea. We suspected that his long working hours on the high seas simply had a negative effect on his psyche and caused an actually unfounded fear in him. He had also never explained to us why he was so afraid of the sea.
You must know that the house I live in is not a new house. It is the house of my great-grandparents. They built it and we have lived in it ever since. My mother, my father, my little brother and me. The original plan was that the house would be passed down from generation to generation. And we still had tons of old junk lying around in the attic that had probably already taken root there.
Anyway. My mother had persuaded my father to move out of this house. I didn't care if we moved out of that house, because our new house is closer to my friends and to my school. It would only make things easier for me but otherwise not change anything.
On the day of the move, I entered the attic and we moved some of the stuff stored there into the moving truck. My brother had just put away a bag of weird stuff and a small inconspicuous box caught my eye. Since I needed to know if the box and its contents were relevant to our move and should be saved, I opened it and looked to see what was inside. However, I could not find more than a dusty envelope.
Without giving it much thought, I opened it. When I read the first line, I was puzzled.
"My dear family, if you are reading this letter, either I have died or you have actually gone through with leaving this house..."
I didn't read any further, as the "dear family" confused me a bit. My eyes wandered to the foot of the letter. Signed by my grandfather was "Love, your grandfather."
I started to grin and looked behind me to make sure no one saw me. I suspected they were just my grandfather's farewell words prepared long before and wanted to be the first to read them. I folded the paper and put it in my pocket. I brought the rest of the things from the attic downstairs and we drove off to our new home. In the evening I fell into the bed that was in my new freshly decorated room, completely exhausted.
As I threw myself on the bed, I noticed the folded paper in my pocket. I pulled it out and noticed that it had become somewhat crumpled in my pants pocket over the course of the day. Fortunately, it was still easy to read everything. So no big deal. I rubbed my eyes again, yawned, and then turned my gaze to the unfolded page.
"My dear family, if you are reading this letter, either I have died or you have actually managed to leave this house. Or both.
I have left it up to fate when this information reaches the light of day. Once the information reaches the light of day, it should be ready to be received. I want to emphasize at the outset that none of what I am telling you here are figments of my imagination. I am tired of these confused looks from my children and I just need to somehow get rid of what happened to me. Writing this down currently feels like the only solution.
Where do I start? I was the assistant officer of a large transport ship in 1957. Our goal was to transport toxic substances such as sulfuric acid, cyanide, nitroglycerin and many other substances. We stored these substances in a special storage room on the ship, which could only be entered with protective suits. The cargo was very dangerous, so three times a day someone had to check the situation in this room. It had to be ensured that the substances did not come into contact with each other and that no substance escaped uncontrolled.
Although I was second officer, my help was seldom called upon because the chief officer always emphasized that he had everything under control. This did not bother me. On the contrary! It gave me the opportunity to perceive this transport as a real vacation. I could lean back and let the first officer do his job. And yet I still had authority over the rest of the crew. No, not that I would ever abuse the power I had. But I felt powerful nonetheless.
I spent most of my time in my cabin, attending to isolated crew matters, but otherwise didn't have much to do. I finished my daily work so early that I could relax early in the afternoon, and even before the night when everything went downhill, I went to bed early. I only got rid of my shoes. I left the rest of my uniform on. I closed my eyes and shortly thereafter sank into the realm of dreams.
I was rudely awakened by a member of the deck crew. He was visibly in stress. Bathed in sweat and with a worried expression on his face, he shook me awake.
"Wake up! There's an emergency!" he stuttered. I exhaled a little annoyed.
"How can I help you?" I said in a slightly annoyed voice.
"We're not alone on the ship. I went down earlier to check on the cargo. There I found that it had disappeared!" he explained in a somewhat shaky voice.
"When I tried to find a lead for the disappearance, I found a body in the canteen."
I looked at him in disbelief.
"You what? Show me that body immediately!"
I straightened up, put on my shoes and asked him to take me to the corpse in the canteen. Once there, I saw the body of one of the security men. His limbs were stretched out. He was lying on his back. His eyes were staring at the ceiling and his mouth was painfully wide open. It looked so unnatural. I checked the pulse and found that the sailor was right. He was dead. I tried to gather my thoughts and instructed him to sound the alarm.
After he disappeared, I checked the rest of the body. I saw deep scratches on the chest and a black liquid oozing from the body openings caused by the scratches. I did not dare to touch the liquid. Shortly after, the deck crew member came back, breathing heavily. He told me that he found the body of the chief officer on the command bridge when he tried to sound the alarm. Furthermore, he said, something had devastated the command bridge and disabled the alarm.
I asked him if he had sent out a distress call to surrounding ships while he was on the bridge. He replied in the negative. I got angry and yelled at him why he didn't do it right away when he was already there.
"Where is everyone else anyway?" I asked him as I grew louder, visibly overwhelmed with the situation.
"I'm sorry, officer. I was already on the lookout for other members of the crew. The doors of all the cabins were open as I made my way through the sleeping quarters. But nowhere could I spot anyone on the way to the bridge," the frightened young man said in a shaky voice.
"What's going on sailor! I demand answers!" I shouted at him.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what happened either. When everyone was already asleep I was simply completing my patrol when I noticed the missing cargo and the body. And then I immediately came to you because your cabin was the closest. I don't know what happened either." he answered me intimidated.
"Then we must assume that we are not alone. Someone must have stolen the cargo and caused the death of our comrades" I said while pulling my pistol from the holster on my belt.
"We go to the command center and send out a call for help. After that, we'll go to a lifeboat until we know what's going on."
The young sailor nodded, slightly uncertain. We walked toward the top deck and finally arrived at the hatch. I lifted the hatch a bit and peered outside. It was pitch black and extremely quiet. The lights on the deck were off. I heard nothing except for the restless waves of the ocean crashing against the wall of our ship. I squinted my eyes, hoping to make out anything, and I could dimly make out a human-looking figure that seemed to have its back turned to us.
Relieved, I was about to open the flap when the figure turned its head to the side and I noticed the extremely wide open mouth of the creature, which was equipped with strange protuberances, one of which I thought was the tongue. At that moment, I can tell it like it is, I almost shit my pants. I was shaking all over and felt like my heart was stopping.
"What's going on officer?" asked the sailor.
"There's something out there!" I whispered in a frantic voice and immediately closed the hatch again.
"We don't enter the command bridge through the main entrance by the top deck, but through the stairs behind the cabins. There's something up there and I'm not going out there under any circumstances," I explained to the sailor.
"What's out there, officer?" the sailor asked in an anxious voice.
"I'll explain as soon as we're safe," I replied, stuttering slightly.
We were making our way to the command bridge when we heard footsteps in the immediate vicinity. And they were getting closer. I wanted to be careful after seeing that thing on the top deck and peeked cautiously around a corner. My breath caught in my throat when I saw what was below deck with us. A strange creature that had taken over the human body of a comrade was walking in this guise towards the canteen and thus, fortunately, past us.
The creature had a human body, but its eyes were blacker than night, on the neck of the human body it had gills, and on its hands it had webbed fingers and regular claws. The mouth also had these disgusting protuberances and the tongue was considerably long. The skin was chalky pale and this strange black liquid was dripping from this thing onto the floor. Along with the footsteps, the thing was making sounds that sounded like a cat hissing. I tried to stay calm and we stayed still and quiet until we couldn't hear the thing anymore.
We then crept to the command bridge and carefully locked the door behind us so that the thing could not follow us. I immediately went to the radio to send a call for help. I paid no major attention to the officer's body.
"Hello? This is Deputy Officer Harper reporting, we need assistance immediately. We found bodies aboard the ship. One in the mess hall and one here on the command bridge. We..."
But at that moment, the lights went out, as did the radio, and my heart began to beat faster. Something had cut the power. My eyes wandered to the sailor who was looking at me worried and scared.
"It's all right sailor, they've probably still heard the most important part. We'll just get to the lifeboats and then everything will be fine," I said in a calm voice, even though I was freaking out inside. I took a deep breath, knowing that we would now have to go outside to get to the lifeboats. We suddenly heard a bloodcurdling scream that I guessed was coming from the lower levels of the ship, and it was clear to me that whatever was on the ship could not have been human.
I opened the door a crack and peered out. I couldn't see anyone. Presumably the things had mostly retreated inside the ship. I made my way outside and pointed my pistol in all directions. Nothing.
I instructed the sailor with a wave of my hand to come out and follow me. He followed my instruction and we tiptoed to one of the lifeboats. But there I remembered that lowering the lifeboats makes a big noise. I instructed him to get into the boat and when he had both feet in the boat, I lowered the boat down. As the boat approached the surface of the water, I heard the screaming again. This time louder and closer and I realized that they had noticed us.
Without hesitation I jumped over the railing into the lifeboat which was about halfway to the surface. Just as I landed on the boat I heard the screaming from above and the windows as well. It was a miracle that my landing in the lowered lifeboat did not seem to have any serious consequences for the boat. The sailor helped me up and we saw the creatures pressing their ghastly grimaces against the window panes and trying to break the glass with their bare hands. When I looked up, where the screaming was also going on, I saw two of the things climbing on the railing and getting ready to jump.
I raised my pistol and fired a few shots at the creatures. The first shot hit one of the creatures in the head, whose lifeless body detached itself from the railing and fell next to us. At that moment our boat reached the surface of the water and we immediately loosened the chains that lowered it and began rowing for our lives. A few of the creatures broke through the glass and crawled through the broken windows.
But we had already been able to put distance between us and the ship as the waves came to our aid somewhat. I breathed a sigh of relief in the hope of having escaped, but when I turned around the sailor looked at me with a broad smile. His eyes were black and gills had formed on his neck. I backed away, startled. He jumped at me and we started a scuffle on the small lifeboat. I tried to grab my gun, but the thing had learned and tried to snatch it from me. A few scratches it landed on me. Thanks to my martial arts training, I managed to overpower the thing, level my weapon, and kill it with a well-aimed shot to the head. Shaking and exhausted, I fell to the ground as the shot cleared and the thing tumbled over the edge of the boat into the sea.
I felt a nauseous feeling come up inside me. I threw up into the ocean and I could feel myself slowly going black. I was about to lose consciousness. I can't quite describe what happened next. It may have been my imagination, because I was about to faint. But shortly before I lost consciousness, I could see two huge white eyes in the water, which opened under the water surface and looked directly at me. Those eyes were gigantic and looked somewhat reptilian. My eyes went black.
I awoke on another ship and received medical attention. When I regained consciousness, the officer of the ship asked me what had happened. I tried to explain it to them. But he just looked at me in confusion and explained that his crew had already searched the ship and they didn't find anyone there. I know I didn't imagine any of this. The scratches I still had were real.
I made this clear to the officer, who looked at me with a very serious look.
"Whatever you saw on the ship. You will tell no one about it. Do I make myself clear Officer Harper?!"
I just nodded. I realized that the officer on the other ship knew something I didn't. I was taken home and made to understand once again that I was not to tell anyone about this incident. This time when I asked why not, the officer stopped, turned his head to me and said in a calm voice, "You saw it yourself."
After that, two of the men took me off the ship. Since the time I am writing all this down, it has been many years and by the time anyone reads this I will probably be dead and then it won't matter if anyone reads this.
So dear family. I know Anthony likes to deal with the ocean, but if you find this letter before he does, which I assume you will, try to talk him out of it. The ocean is an evil place we know too little about.
And I myself would call myself a strong man. And yet it took me years to come to terms with what I saw.
You are now warned. With love, your grandfather."
Thereupon his letter ended. An extreme uneasiness spread through me and I could not believe what I was reading. I think it is unnecessary to mention that I did not sleep that night and also the following nights it was difficult for me to fall asleep. I decided to keep the letter a secret and not show it to my parents. I didn't want to scare them. The dream job of a marine biologist was also out of the question.
Even though what my grandfather experienced at that time seems surreal to me, I see no reason not to believe him. The ocean is a place that is extremely little explored, so I do not think something like this is unthinkable. I believe that my grandfather was telling the truth here and therefore I would like to publish his letter to warn all people about the depths of the ocean.
You never know what might lurk beneath the surface of the water.

Red Keep, Training Yard, Evening
Inside his helm a single bead of sweat dripped down his head, cracking his neck he shifted the weight of his hammer in his hands. Abound to one of his antlers atop his helm a purple ribbon flew in the light sea breeze. The balance on it was just right, every swing allowed him to get his full strength behind it, or adjust as needed on the fly. Through his visor three men at arms stood ready, sword, staff, and mace had all been chosen but it would make no matter to the Stag.
Slowly he walked to his right, circling around the men before him, one flanked the left of him as the other came in to match the right side. Splitting up was their first mistake as they feinted right and droved straight at the man to the left, barreling at him with a hammer swung from below. The first blow sent his weapon flying from his grip, the second smashed his chest plate. Turning now to face the two who closed on his back he blocked a single swing from the sword with his hilt, and as he did the mace closed on his right pauldron.
This only angered Quentyn as he kicked the man with the sword and swung hard into the next man's side, a roar escaped his helm as he adjusted his hammer for another blow. This time he was struck on the back and recoiled forward, the man with the staff drove him backward as the others regained composure. Huffing Quentyn did not back down, matching the man's more accurate blows with his hilt.
His chance came when the staff missed, grabbing it with his left hand he lifted the man toward him and leveled him flat with his hammer. Not wasting the momentum he gripped the hammer in both hands again while winding up, tankning another blow from the mace he smacked aside the one with the sword.
A contest of strength began bet as the mace wielder hid behind his shield, each strike from the Stags hammer letting out a loud crack as the wood began to give. Finally, the man’s guard dropped, raising his hammer high the Stormlander went for the killing blow. Crushing the man to crumple to the stones at his feet, standing tall again he brought his hammer to his side. A deep breath escaped his lips as more sweat ran down his brow.
Ripping free his helm the Stag marched to a barrel of water to wash his face, a squire ran over a cloth for him. With a smirk Quentyn watched the men peel themselves from the ground and shake off the dust. As he finished cleaning his face the young squire would hand forward a skin of wine, not his favorite, but he would eagerly drink it all the same. Relaxing the Stag would give the men a break before the next bout.

Yeah , how do you fix this ? The rune is completely bugged. When I bring the cursor over the rune needed to open the door. There is no description, if I drop the Rune, it get deleted from the game.
https://preview.redd.it/3o1t0yls6g4b1.jpg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4c3a1ed5a9a454b43b31901c06c2392dc38991f0

I'm going to go ahead and flair this a "ride" rather than a race. I took part in the "25" mile short course (actually 30 miles), which was timed but non-competitive with no awards.
If anyone's been following along with my various posts and comments, this was my first organized cycling event, and as such I don't have any points of comparison. This is more about putting my personal experiences of the day down in writing and sharing with others who might be new to the "scene" as well.
Training
To be honest, I was very unprepared for this race. I signed up for it shortly after buying my Trek Marlin 5 as motivation to get out riding. In that regard it worked, but I was short on time to get much training in. I rode a total of 127 miles in 10 rides prior to the day of the KLGC, with my longest ride being 20 miles the week before. I had a little bit of a running base, so I wasn't completely green, but we all know different muscles are used for each.
I was definitely concerned about the length as well as the elevation this ride presented.
Morning of
Up at 6:30 AM to get on the road by 7:15. Stopped at a sheetz and got a breakfast croissant, iced tea (my morning caffeine), water, and some peanut M&Ms for ride fuel. I had a 2 1/2 hour drive to make, and was trying to hydrate as much as I could, so I ended up having to stop a total of 3 times on the way up. This put me behind schedule and I ended up not arriving until 10:30am. I was one of the last ones in the parking lot.
On the plus side, there was no line to get my bib. I grabbed it and went back to the car to get combobulated. I had just enough time to get the bike ready, get sunscreen on, get my bib situated on my jersey, and hit the bathroom for one more pee (again, no line as they had already announced several times that we were supposed to be at the start line).
In retrospect, I definitely should've gotten there 15-30 minutes earlier to be a little less rushed. However, it did mean that I didn't have enough time to get a bunch of nerves built up (granted, I'd already been doing that in the car ride up).
The Ride
So, the important part. Having watched the long course riders take off, I lined up at the very back of the short course field. I was hoping that being at the back would keep me from taking off too fast. It worked for about 1/2 mile until I couldn't take being behind someone any more and started riding at a comfortable pace. Unfortunately, a comfortable pace at the beginning of the ride proved to be too fast (duh).
The first 5 miles ticked by quickly. We rode some pavement and made a lovely climb through a vineyard. The top of the climb had the nicest view of the lake, and I wish I would've taken 30 seconds to stop and grab a picture. I felt it was too early for a break, though, and kept plugging along.
After the vineyard, we zipped down a short paved section and then made a right turn onto The Hill^tm .
It was everything I hoped it wouldn't be. The gravel surface was fine, no issues there, but the grade was impressive. It was at this point that I was very happy to be on a 29'er with low gearing. Lots of people were walking their bikes, and even some of those had to stop for a breather partway. I honestly think this was where I made up most of my positions on the board.
I stayed clipped in and just plugged along. There were a few points where I thought about stopping and walking, but I was afraid I couldn't get unclipped and put my feet down in time if I tried to stop. By the top, my lungs were screaming, but I made it. The decision to ride it out may have been a poor one, as this is about the point where my right knee started to hurt.
What goes up does indeed have to come down (at least when you're riding a circuit), and the course was no exception. At this point, I was actually happy that I'd caught up to 2 riders who were being slightly cautious on the downhill. There's a good chance I might've stretched it out a little too much and lost control on an unfamiliar surface if I'd had the road wide open in front of me.
The rest of the ride had some long stretches of pavement, but decidedly tamer terrain. I periodically popped a few M&Ms and kept hydrating, but I wasn't really sure how often I should be eating as I was now in uncharted territory as far as ride length. My knee really started to bother me, and that was taking most of my attention.
For a while I could get around the knee pain by getting up on the pedals, but by the final 2 hills the stabilizing muscles were done for as well. Speaking of, as we turned onto the final road that was going to take us back to the brewery, my watch showed 2.5 miles to the finish. Just as we were approaching Pulteney, we were suddenly directed off-course by a road closure.
This may have been announced at the starting line when I was rushing around getting ready, but it was a surprise to me. The official course arrows were set up to direct us on a short detour, though, and we soon rejoined the main road.
As we finished up the last 2 miles, I was just done. The saddle that I'd chosen to replace the factory one on my Marlin was not doing me any favors. My knee was hurting and I couldn't get up on the pedals to relieve my seat pain anymore. As I got within sight of the finish line, I had nothing left to cross at any sort of an impressive pace. The 25+ mile course ended a hair over 30 miles.
Post Race
I took my time getting discombobulated post-race. First order of business was getting out of my sweaty riding stuff and back into street clothes. I don't know how people were still walking around with their kit on hours later when there were bathrooms available for changing. I was happy to have remembered baby wipes for cleaning off the dust/sunscreen mix that was all over my arms and legs.
I wandered back towards the brewery to scope out the food situation. There were 2 options - Tacos or pizza. The tacos smelled great, but I wasn't 100% confident in my digestive system's status at that moment, and opted for a BBQ chicken pizza instead.
As I sat in the grass waiting for my pizza, there was a long line of new orders being taken. At one point I heard the guy say it would be 45 minutes to someone who had placed their order probably 15 minutes after me. As the time ticked on, I observed several people come up to inquire about the status of their pizza. The responses were a bit exasperated indicating that they would be out when they were done. The staff were obviously working as fast as possible, and honestly it was impressive how many pies they were turning out of one oven.
Not wanting to add to their stress, I sat and waited, growing hungrier with each passing pie. Finally after an hour and a half, most everyone around me was done and gone... the podiums and awards were complete, and I wasn't certain I could muster the energy to flag down the delivery guy. But I did, and although he didn't admit it, after going and looking for my order he somewhat sheepishly came back and asked what I had ordered, so I'm almost certain that my slip had gotten lost. Perhaps whisked away by the unrelenting wind.
After another 10 minutes, I had my pizza and downed it with (perhaps a bit too much) gusto. It was good, but I definitely shouldn't have waited that long to ask about it.
Conclusion
Would I do it again? Yeah, probably. I do feel that there was a lot of pavement for a "gravel" ride. Maybe the long course ends up with a higher % of gravel, but the short definitely had a lot of pavement. The gravel itself was good, though. Course conditions were great, although obviously dry with the lack of rain we've had. The weather was ALMOST perfect, but the wind knocked that down a few points.
The ride was very well supported. I had the course loaded in my Garmin watch in case I zoned out, but the turns were also well-marked and major intersections had traffic control courtesy of local fire and police departments. I saw the support truck several times and never felt like I was far from help if I needed it.
Post race was a little bit disappointing. I'm not sure if I missed something, but after crossing the line I just rode back to my car, and then had to go to the brewery to buy something to drink to supplant my now-empty water bottles. I know a lot of people were going for the post-ride beer anyway, but I don't drink so it would've been nice to see some complementary water or something.
Now that I've got one down, I'm looking forward to seeking out other local rides and continuing to build my abilities!
Pictures from the day (none of the course, sorry... I was concentrating on finishing) - https://imgur.com/a/TPtQUmk

Hours ago i collected some shrooms from my monotub, cleaned out the dead pins and filled with water, just above the substrate level, gettind ready for the second flush. Thing is that some pins started to pop out and i don't wanna damage when draining it. Any advice? sorry for the bad English