Fanatic following wsj crossword clue

Okay, this may be a bit of a lengthy post, but I had to really reflect on this date before I could properly articulate my experience.
For context and history on this saga you can check out my "Perfect first date" reddit to get familiar. Also "Date 2" for a follow up.
Okay, so this past Saturday I went to the beach with my lady and her two daughters. We had planned on a beach day earlier in the week and I was really looking forward to it. The plan was to spend the day together and just enjoy sand and sun. When I arrived at her place to head over to the beach, I noticed that her and her daughter had already formed an inside joke about me always wearing black. It was nice to be a part of an inside joke.
Anyway fast forward to when we arrive at the beach. Mind you this is my first time ever doing anything like this with a significant other. The most I have done is go to the lake with someone. So my mind was going through all types of thoughts and feelings. When we laid out on the beach and I saw my lady in her swimsuit I just felt very blessed to have a great woman who likes me with a great body. She asked me to rub suntan lotion on her back, and I was definitely feelin myself lol. We laid and talked to each other while her girls were goofing around. It was such a pleasant day, and I felt that I definitely get used to doing this regularly with them. We got in the water for a bit and her daughters laughed at me because I had no idea what I was doing on the boogie board, but was having fun regardless. It felt like I had my own family. It felt good.
After the beach we decided to get some dinner and chill out. We go to this cool spot and I realize I am getting a lot of looks from patrons. I figured maybe it was because my beach attire had me looking like I was about to go sailing in the Hamptons, not a beach day in South Carolina. Anyway, it was happy hour so I decided to get some drinks and chill out. We got a nice spread and those drinks hit me pretty quick so I was a jolly dude the rest of the night. One thing my gf mentioned was that the waitress liked me, to which I didn't even notice. She said the waitress gave me Happy hour prices way after happy hour but wouldn't give her the same deal. I had no idea and was totally oblivious to it. It probably comforted my gf a bit because I am ignorant to that stuff, so she doesn't even have to worry about me doing anything dumb. But all in all dinner was great and we had a fun time together.
Sitting there with her, I felt a growing sense of adoration for her. She thanked me for dinner and hanging with them, to which I thanked her for bringing me along. She told me "I am a part of the family now", and proceeded to post some pics of us together on the beach on social media (and tag me as well). So yeah she let the world know that I am hers now. Such a great date.
Thoughts and reflections:
- I definitely know I love her and her family. I may not have said it in person yet (I gotta work up the courage for that),, but I know it in my core this is my feelings towards her and the family.
- It was a lot to take in. But I think the biggest thing was being so unused to someone genuinely caring about me who wasn't my mom or sister was a bit overwhelming in a way. Feeling this makes me happy I finally get to experience it, but maybe a bit sad that it took 37 years to find it.
- Her girls and my daughter will get along great. I was veery touched at how quickly they took to me. Her youngest (11) gave me a big hug when I was getting ready to head home. It definitely made me misty eyed. Melted my heart. I look forward to them hanging out and getting along.
- This puts a lot of things into perspective. My future plans may need to be adjusted and reworked a bit, because after this beach date, I think I really need to plan for the future and actively start getting shit done. This is pretty much looking like it is going all the way, so I need to be mindful of how I move going forward.
- I came home to messages from friends and fam about being tagged on socials with her. I know they were surprised because I never post and then poof I am on the beach with a beautiful lady. It felt good being with someone who wants to show you off.
- Remember the waitress that liked me? Well I thought she looked kinda familiar but was foggy. She had asked my gf at one point if she was from a certain state because she looked familiar. Well I spent time racking my brain on why the waitress looked familiar, then it dawned on me. A long time ago I had matched with her on OLD. We talked a bit, but never went out and she just ended up ghosting me. At the time I had no clue who she was, but it makes sense why she "liked me". She remembered we matched a long time ago. But it was nice to be with my gf whom I love. I didn't even notice.
- We get along great, and this trip put a lot of things into perspective for me. I know there is work to be done, and I am laser focused on getting where I want/need to be to take this to the next level. I will continue to stay the course and I will love and adore her throughout the journey. I'm really surprised that FB dating came in so clutch with her. Granted she definitely activated her inner Steph Curry when shooting her shot. She hasn't missed yet. I look forward to learning and growing with her.
Sorry for the super long post, but I figured it would be good to share a success story after being a hot mess over this woman. I appreciate the fellow redditors for giving advice and support. I will continue to keep the updates coming. I seriously think I may have found the person I can face the inevitable with. I am looking forward to many days together.

Okay, this may be a bit of a lengthy post, but I had to really reflect on this date before I could properly articulate my experience.
For context and history on this saga you can check out my "Perfect first date" reddit to get familiar. Also "Date 2" for a follow up.
Okay, so this past Saturday I went to the beach with my lady and her two daughters. We had planned on a beach day earlier in the week and I was really looking forward to it. The plan was to spend the day together and just enjoy sand and sun. When I arrived at her place to head over to the beach, I noticed that her and her daughter had already formed an inside joke about me always wearing black. It was nice to be a part of an inside joke.
Anyway fast forward to when we arrive at the beach. Mind you this is my first time ever doing anything like this with a significant other. The most I have done is go to the lake with someone. So my mind was going through all types of thoughts and feelings. When we laid out on the beach and I saw my lady in her swimsuit I just felt very blessed to have a great woman who likes me with a great body. She asked me to rub suntan lotion on her back, and I was definitely feelin myself lol. We laid and talked to each other while her girls were goofing around. It was such a pleasant day, and I felt that I definitely get used to doing this regularly with them. We got in the water for a bit and her daughters laughed at me because I had no idea what I was doing on the boogie board, but was having fun regardless. It felt like I had my own family. It felt good.
After the beach we decided to get some dinner and chill out. We go to this cool spot and I realize I am getting a lot of looks from patrons. I figured maybe it was because my beach attire had me looking like I was about to go sailing in the Hamptons, not a beach day in South Carolina. Anyway, it was happy hour so I decided to get some drinks and chill out. We got a nice spread and those drinks hit me pretty quick so I was a jolly dude the rest of the night. One thing my gf mentioned was that the waitress liked me, to which I didn't even notice. She said the waitress gave me Happy hour prices way after happy hour but wouldn't give her the same deal. I had no idea and was totally oblivious to it. It probably comforted my gf a bit because I am ignorant to that stuff, so she doesn't even have to worry about me doing anything dumb. But all in all dinner was great and we had a fun time together.
Sitting there with her, I felt a growing sense of adoration for her. She thanked me for dinner and hanging with them, to which I thanked her for bringing me along. She told me "I am a part of the family now", and proceeded to post some pics of us together on the beach on social media (and tag me as well). So yeah she let the world know that I am hers now. Such a great date.
Thoughts and reflections: - I definitely know I love her and her family. I may not have said it in person yet (I gotta work up the courage for that),, but I know it in my core this is my feelings towards her and the family.
- It was a lot to take in. But I think the biggest thing was being so unused to someone genuinely caring about me who wasn't my mom or sister was a bit overwhelming in a way. Feeling this makes me happy I finally get to experience it, but maybe a bit sad that it took 37 years to find it.
- Her girls and my daughter will get along great. I was veery touched at how quickly they took to me. Her youngest (11) gave me a big hug when I was getting ready to head home. It definitely made me misty eyed. Melted my heart. I look forward to them hanging out and getting along.
- This puts a lot of things into perspective. My future plans may need to be adjusted and reworked a bit, because after this beach date, I think I really need to plan for the future and actively start getting shit done. This is pretty much looking like it is going all the way, so I need to be mindful of how I move going forward.
- I came home to messages from friends and fam about being tagged on socials with her. I know they were surprised because I never post and then poof I am on the beach with a beautiful lady. It felt good being with someone who wants to show you off.
- Remember the waitress that liked me? Well I thought she looked kinda familiar but was foggy. She had asked my gf at one point if she was from a certain state because she looked familiar. Well I spent time racking my brain on why the waitress looked familiar, then it dawned on me. A long time ago I had matched with her on OLD. We talked a bit, but never went out and she just ended up ghosting me. At the time I had no clue who she was, but it makes sense why she "liked me". She remembered we matched a long time ago. But it was nice to be with my gf whom I love. I didn't even notice.
- We get along great, and this trip put a lot of things into perspective for me. I know there is work to be done, and I am laser focused on getting where I want/need to be to take this to the next level. I will continue to stay the course and I will love and adore her throughout the journey. I'm really surprised that FB dating came in so clutch with her. Granted she definitely activated her inner Steph Curry when shooting her shot. She hasn't missed yet. I look forward to learning and growing with her.
Sorry for the super long post, but I figured it would be good to share a success story after being a hot mess over this woman. I appreciate the fellow redditors for giving advice and support. I will continue to keep the updates coming. I seriously think I may have found the person I can face the inevitable with. I am looking forward to many days together.

Hello everyone!
Recently I've been reading the WN of TsukiMichi, and while I do think the translations are passable, I don't think they could be considered all that good, especially from the perspective of a native English speaker.
I will iterate though, that I respect Reigokai for everything he has done, and I am quite grateful to even be able to experience the web novel in any form or fashion.
Carrying onto the main point of this post, whilst I do enjoy the web novel, I was curious what it may look like if the translations were a bit more natural and free flowing.
I am no writer, but I decided to try my hand at reviewing and revising a couple chapters at the beginning of the WN just to see how much of a difference it might make.
I should mention that the revisions were simply made to the material provided by Reigokai, I built upon whatever he had translated, and did not refer to the original work. I can't read enough Japanese to be able to directly translate after all. I simply tried to infer the meaning from what was already presented in the web novel, and make it a little more clear.
I would love to get others opinions on my revisions and what you think in comparison to the original.Any form of constructive criticism would be welcome!
For example, did I take too much creative liberty in redescribing some situations, did I fluff it up too much, are there any changes you think were unnecessary or detract away from the experience?
On top of that do you think I should continue? It's honestly quite time consuming to do this, so I don't know if I will, but it was enjoyable for what it's worth so I may if I feel like it!
While reading you may find a couple of grammatical errors and such, I hope you won't mind!
​
TL;DR: I revised two chapters of the TsukiMichi WN and would appreciate constructive feedback.
​
Prologue: This is the beginning of the autumn sky
I woke up, made breakfast, and in the meantime prepared my lunchbox.
I left for school, then went to club for morning practice.
Finishing up my club’s morning practice, I headed to class.
Once that was finished, I once again went back to club in the afternoon.
After hanging out with my friends in club, I went back home.
I took a bath, and then I changed.
I enjoyed some time with my family, and then I rested.
In the late nights of autumn, I read books, played games, and surfed the web.
Finally, I slept.
That’s all I did.
There might have been something in between the lines, but that’s not particularly important.
“That’s why it’s strange... Why I am not asleep in the comforts of my own home!?”
That’s right... without a doubt... I’m somewhere else.
I don’t exactly know where, but here I am.
In a square room that looks as if stars were printed on the walls and floor.
In order to better assess my situation, I went around inspecting the room.
I was concerned by the fact that there was no obvious exit present.
On top of that, ever since I got here, I haven’t felt the presence of anything or anyone else.
Currently, I am entrusting my back to a corner of the room, while I ponder my situation.
“You are extremely calm considering your circumstances, huh.”
“?!”
A voice...
There’s definitely nothing present in this room, yet I’m certain I heard a loud voice.
Looking around, I saw that nothing in the room had visibly changed.
The voice continued.
“Once I projected my voice, you immediately began searching your surroundings attempting to comprehend the current state of affairs. Simultaneously, you remained vigilant as you endeavored to organize your thoughts, huh?”
“Who are you?”
If all I could hear was a voice, it seemed my best option was to attempt to communicate with it.
“If I said I was a god, would you believe me?”
“Absolutely not.”
Does this voice have a screw loose?
“That is quite unfortunate.”
“Well, I will now transport you to a REALLY good parallel world. I should mention, it is a one way trip so you will not be able to return to your original world.”
“Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait!”
What kind of nonsense is this thing spewing so nonchalantly?!
“In regards to what you will be tasked to do, you should ask the one who is in charge of that place when you arrive.
“With that now explained, I am sorry but I need you to sign off on this.”
“Like hell I’m going to do that!”
As I anticipated, my voice became violent. I mean, It’s a given! it’s obvious! Who would just accept this situation like that?!
“Oh? You don’t want to? That’s weird... I was told you would be going.”
The voice seemed troubled.
There’s a limit to jokes! I have in absolutely no way, heard about this beforehand!
“I’m not lying! I haven’t been told a thing about this! Okay? Moreover, what kind of idiot would just willingly accept the concept of another world?! The fact that we’re even talking about this is just plain weird!”
I attempted to explain my side of the story with all my available might.
“Huh, it seems as if it truly was not you. I apologize, I seem to have made a mistake.”
I breath a sigh of relief.
“I appreciate your apology, but are you going to bring me back home?!”
I still have yet to return to my original tone of voice.
My current tone may not be threatening, but it’s definitely not polite either.
I mean, who’s going to blame me? This is a completely ridiculous situation. It’s definitely not my fault.
“Of course I will.”
That’s what the voice said.
With that, I breathe another sigh of relief.
I’m so glad. It’s a ‘voice’ that can be reasoned with.
Usually, in a standard template scenario like this, this is the part where the voice would say ‘I’m sorry’, ‘it’s impossible’, or ‘oh well, try your best’ and would simply toss you out to fend for yourself.
Maybe you’d even be given the guy who tells you ‘You’re already dead’ and, without hearing any complaints, throws you out to fend for yourself in another world.
That’s what I thought would happen but...
I’m saved ~
“Well, I am extremely sorry… if that is truly the case, then as an alternative it must be either your younger or older sister.”
I retract everything I just said. This guy just said something that can’t be passed off as a joke.
It said it in a nonchalant way, but those were words I absolutely cannot let slip by.
“Hey... could you repeat yourself one more time?”
“Hm? If you are not the one to be chosen, that means one of your sisters must be. ”
“Don’t give me that shit!”
“If you touch my sisters, I’ll make sure you live to regret it!”
They’re out there, living their own lives to the fullest!
There’s no way they’d be able to just accept this situation!
The audacity! Without even an ounce of care in its voice, this thing says it’ll just whisk one of the two away!
Don’t mess with me!
“For the sake of confirming, you are indeed the Misumi family’s eldest son, Misumi Makoto-kun, correct?”
Why does it know my name?
“The kids of the Misumi household should have already been told of this matter. At least, that is what I was told. Is this not correct?”
The voice seemed even more troubled now then it did before.
I was a bit surprised by this. Although it kidnapped me out of nowhere, it still tried its best to respect my will.
Everything being considered…
“Well, for the time being, could you at least tell me your name?”
That’s right. I’m still somehow managing not to fall into a complete panic, but it’s not as if I’m extremely calm either.
The best way to put it would be, I’m composed. I have to settle down a bit.
Even now, I still don’t even know the identity of the voice.
“?? Oh yeah of course, you are quite right. I apologize for not having introduced myself sooner. I am called Tsukuyomi.”
“I see, Tsukuyomi. Tsukuyomi… Tsukuyomi?!”
“Oh? Do you know of me? I see you are quite knowledgeable.”
“You don’t mean, Tsukuyomi of the three Shinto gods, do you? That Tsukuyomi no Mikoto?!”
“Oooh, yes, that would indeed be correct. Although, compared to the other two, I am nothing but a minor character.”
I mean, that’s true. Even considering that though, he’s still a big shot.
I like myths and history (though only a bit), henceforth why I know of him.
If what the voice is saying is true, then he is quite the character.
“Why is it that the Tsukuyomi-sama knows of me?”
Let’s begin with the thing I understand the least. I don’t understand why I was chosen to travel to another world.
“…”
“I see, you really don’t know anything. Alright, I will tell you.”
Everything I was told from that point on, I honestly couldn’t get a grasp on it.
I was in a pretty fortunate position compared to those who are suddenly called to another world, get lost, or get reincarnated—or at least that’s what I had thought.
Prologue 2: The farewell gift is a secret
To summarize what Tsukuyomi-sama said to me, it goes something like this.
The reason for the transportation and procedure had all been explained to me.
Basically, my parents themselves were originally residents of this aforementioned other world.
When I was young, I was told that my grandparents had already died and that we didn’t have connections with any of our other relatives but… to think that this was the reason why.
In order to come to our current world, for one reason or another, they made an agreement with the god of that other world.
That’s what seems to have triggered my current situation.
That’s to say, the condition the god gave them was ‘one day, I will take that which is most important from you’.
Is that guy the devil?!
It seems my parents agreed to that condition.
Now that I think about it all three children of my family (myself include) were taught how to do domestic chores, as well as made to learn some sort of martial art.
To think that that was preparation for this of all things! All for the purpose of possibly being shipped off to another world at any time!
No no no, don’t joke around. My parents never told me anything about another world!
Well, to be fair, even if they had told me, I’d probably look at them as if they were a bunch of crazy people.
My father is a writer that specializes in making fantasy novels that are oddly realistic and hold a lot of presence.
Though, to think that that was because he had actually experienced the real thing is a little mind boggling.
In one of his works, he intricately detailed the flavors of a dragon steak, and the comforts of sleeping in a stable, both of which were especially moving moments.
The world that I’m going to now is that same magic filled fantasy world.
It seems that I’m going to be sent to that world with power that surpasses that of my peers. Due to various reasons, the people that are transferred over from my world are all incredibly strong.
In a sense, it’ll be as if I’ve been released from extremely heavy clothing.
It’s not like I’ll be given immortality though, so I can still suffer fatal wounds. At least, I’ve been warned of such.
Judging by what Tsukuyomi-sama has said, it seems that even just living in my world is a feat in and of itself.
Not only is there practically no magical power, the Gods’ divine protection can barely reach anyone there. It’s a harsh world in comparison to others. That’s the kind of place I’ve been living in up until now, at least, according to Tsukuyomi-sama.
Even though all I’ve done is live my life normally...
How convenient for me.
“I’m extremely sorry for shouting at you. It seems you’ve also had it rough Tsukuyomi-sama.” (Makoto)
Moreover, thinking about the hardships Tsukuyomi-sama must have faced due to being the middle child nestled between the two extraordinary beings that are his elder sister and younger brother...
I felt a flood of emotions when considering his situation. Even now, when he simply tried to do his job, he was shouted at by a person he barely knows.
He’s definitely had it rough so far.
“Well, well, to think your understanding of my own circumstance would be so intricate! How long has it been since I have felt such a blissful feeling? Though, if we are to talk about having it rough, Makoto-dono has it plenty rough himself.” (Tsukuyomi)
To think he even understands my feelings of being the only man wedged in between two sisters! I never thought the day would come, when somebody could sympathize with me so!
Now that I’ve been enlightened to his greatness, if there was ever a Tsukuyomi Mikoto religion, I’d enter it in a heart beat!
Hooray Tsukuyomi-sama!
“Nonetheless, my sisters and I have lived a normal life up until now. We’re way too late in the game to suddenly be told we’ve essentially been living in a wasteland all our lives.” (Makoto)
“Out of all the other worlds out there, yours is certainly the harshest. In the eyes of an otherworlder, it would be like live in the depths of the ocean or living in a sea of lava.” (Tsukuyomi)
“On a separate note, she really is taking her time.” (Tsukuyomi)
We’ve been waiting for the goddess of the other world to come and retrieve me but…
Considering how long she’s taking, it doesn’t seem like that goddess will be coming anytime soon.
It seems that world is a pretty popular place, inhabited by a Goddess and spirits alike.
In what way does that make it popular? I honestly have no clue.
By the way, I’ve already signed whatever it is Tsukuyomi-sama gave me. Of course, only after thoroughly reviewing the conditions and being convinced about it, okay?
After all, if I don’t go, either my older or younger sister would have to go in my place.
I’m extremely troubled by this, you know? Very troubled.
I mean, for one, I won’t be able to play games anymore. In a world where machines don’t exist, I won’t even be able to play something as simple as a mobile game!
I also have to bid farewell to all my manga and novels.
Furthermore, on my computer, there may or may not be a number of things that are 18+. If those get discovered, I have no clue how I would even begin to explain that to my family.
I’m a growing young man! It’s perfectly understandable! Right?!
That’s why I told Tsuki-sama about it, and requested the he clean it up in a covert manner so that my family wouldn’t notice.
This might not come off very well, but aside from my family, I honestly could care less if anyone else knows about it.
Now that I have been cornered, I understand just how tiny I truly am. Though, that’s how I really feel.
However, that isn’t any good.
That’s why I decided to stop being so self-centered. How do I say it? I’m honestly surprised at how much I prioritize myself!
Although, I still wanted to do something about my dark history.
While he did say I can’t return…
If my family who I won’t be able to see again, if they find the materials linked to my inner man…
“I can’t believe our kid had these kinds of hobbies!”(Makoto’s father)
“Even if he’s our child, how unrefined of him!”(Makoto’s mother)
“Onii-chan*, you’re disgusting!” (Makoto’s younger sister) [*Big brother]
“I can’t believe my little brother! Could it be?! Did he look at me with such a lascivious gaze as well?!”(Makoto’s older sister)
“NOOOOOOO!!! STOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!!!” (Makoto)
There’s absolutely no way I could take that! Even just imagining it is enough to make me want to kill myself!
“Do not worry young Mikoto.” (Tsukuyomi)
Tsuki-sama was different. While I was writhing due to the madness found within my heart, and was about to be engulfed by the accumulating negative feelings, he said this to me.
“Everything you have that contains contents of men’s dreams, books, and software, as well as the contents your hard drive; I will make sure to take responsibility of wiping them all from the face of the planet!” (Tsukuyomi)
Tsuki-sama said while nodding reassuringly.
He understood everything... absolutely everything about it...
He truly is a God! He truly is divine! Even if in the eyes of others, he is simply a minor character, he is definitely number one in my heart! You have become the greatest of Gods! The Chief God!
I am impressed by the fact that he knew of advanced technological devices such hard drives.
Honestly though, I’m not thinking too much about stuff like that. I’m just grateful that my potential nightmare has disappeared.
Tsuki-sama and I decided to kill time while waiting for the goddess. We talked about this and that. We talked about things such as society while drinking tea that was pulled out of who knows where.
“By the way, to my understanding in the new world I will have immense physical and magical power but…” (Makoto)
“Yes?” (Tsukuyomi)
“Will I receive something like a special ability? For example, an impenetrable barrier, the demon eye of truth, a Rose Logia, or a heavenly phase?” (Makoto)
I mean, if I have an incredible amount of magic power, there might not be any need. Even so, it’s the dream of any young man to have powers like that.
Normally, there are a lot of people that are given overpowered abilities when they arrive in another world, you know? That’s why I want it too, you know?
I mean, I guess that’s only in fiction though...
From what I’ve heard, there are demi-humans, and even beastkin so even if I’m a little abnormal I shouldn’t be discriminated against.
All that considered, it would be nice if I had one, at least that’s what I thought.
“Of course you will!” (Tsukuyomi)
“Seriously?! What kind? What kind will I get?” (Makoto)
I honestly didn’t think my request could be fulfilled~. You’ll only know if you ask, huh.
“I do not know. I am sorry, but it will be a surprise for when you arrive there. I myself can only go there once, and after that I will be incapable of communicating with you, so I am only going to give you a hint, okay?” (Tsukuyomi)
“Ooh~ I hope it’s something like a blank skill that lets you make any power you want!” (Makoto)
“Nope, that is not the case. I am sorry, but although I am divine, even I have limits imposed upon myself.” (Tsukuyomi)
“??” (Makoto)
“It is said that I am the one who governs the night and the moon, but my real attribute is quite ambiguous. In fact, it may be similar to what you speak of, a ‘blank skill’ of sorts.” (Tsukuyomi)
“That is why I will give you as much of my power as I can. Although, I do not know how it will bud, and what kind of fruit it shall bare. It may even become something you do not desire. For that, I am sorry.” (Tsukuyomi)
Having said that, Tsuki-sama beckons me to come closer.
Following his instructions, I sat beside him. He then placed his hand on me.
I felt something beginning to flow into me. That something went through my spine and then began to circulate throughout my whole body. It then went around to my chest, and began to gather there. Finally it calmed itself.
Is this the blessing he said he would give me?
“I feel something accumulating withing me. Is this what you would call the point of origin?” (Makoto)
“That’s right, you learn fast.”(Tsukuyomi)
“There should be no problems with the perception of your surroundings. When you imagine yourself letting the power out, it should active.” (Tsukuyomi)
“The feeling of releasing the power in the palm of your hands is probably the easiest to understand.” (Tsukuyomi)
“I should mention, it is currently impossible. This place is still technically located in your original world after all.” (Tsukuyomi)
I wanted to give it a try, but Tsuki-sama stopped me while laughing.
“This may be slightly tangential, Makoto-dono, but I should mention even if it is stated in your contract, the goddess of the other world should similarly give you an ability of some sort.
You will be abandoning your current world, of not particularly your own volition, so giving you side-benefits is of course a given.” (Tsukuyomi)
Once again, Tsuki-sama bows his head with an apologetic expression.
“No way, Tsukuyomi-sama! I am nothing but grateful to you. Maybe, just maybe, if I had been sent away without any explanation after rejecting you, and then, the next day, one of my sisters were to disappear, I would’ve regretted it for the rest of my life.” (Makoto)
“Makoto-dono is truly kind… it seems she has finally come.” (Tsukuyomi)
“Finally, huh. We’ve been talking for quite a while. No, more like her tardiness allowed us to do so.” (Makoto)
“You know, if you wanted, I could record all our conversations in a dream pillow. Is this really enough for you?” (Tsukuyomi)
In Tsuki-sama’s hand, there were two letters.
When I asked Tsuki-sama if I could leave anything behind for my family, he gave me a lot of different ways to give them a message in a heartbroken manner. In the end, I decided to go with letters. One was addressed to my parents, and the other to my sisters.
My parents, having come from there, would understand if I told them about the other world, but using that kind of explanation for my sisters would be hard. Therefore, I made two of them. I’ll let my parents decide whether or not to tell my sisters the truth of the matter.
Conversely, I asked if it was possible for me to take anything with me. In response, I was told that he could make some accommodations for it.
I chose various books and writing utensils (ball-pens and mechanical pencils were a no go, so I had to make due with a pencil). I wanted to bring a bit of food too, but for some reason I was denied that privilege as well. There’s are probably numerous laws for the management of worlds. I assume in this case, the preservation of what’s already there, huh.
“Yes, I don’t mind- huh?!” (Makoto)
My body is going transparent? I double checked just to be sure, but half my body has gone transparent?!
“What?! She plans to take you away without even giving me any notice?! What is she thinking, that stupid woman!” (Tsukuyomi)
Tsuki-sama was also panicking. It wasn’t like I was going to die though. I was just being taken away after all, so I felt a bit relieved.
“Makoto-dono, I am sorry! The Goddess that you are about to meet, is quite problematic and troublesome character. It is a given if you are unable to hide your displeasure. But, if you can find it somewhere in your heart, please, overlook her actions.” (Tsukuyomi)
Tsuki-sama is a wise person. He’s probably come into contact with a good number of people in his lifetime.
I smiled while nodding.
I was able to harden my resolve to travel to another world thanks to him, and he managed to make me accept the situation I was given. He chatted with me and helped calm myself.
Those were the words he gave me as I departed, the words from that Tsukuyomi Mikoto.
Even if the Goddess I’m about to meet in this parallel world has a troublesome personality, I will do my best to accept her for Tsukuyomi-sama’s sake.

Hey! So, Spyder 5 provides Autopep8 as an auto-formatter. This is great, but I have a problem. The outline explorer in Spyder 5 uses comments starting with #### to generate headings. For example:

#### My heading someCode() #### Another heading moreCode() 

This creates the headings 'My heading' and 'Another heading' in the outline view. This is helpful for organizing my code. However, the auto-formatter will remove any extra # symbols in comments (per E266). Hence, during auto-formatter will change the above to:

# My heading someCode() Another heading moreCode() 

Thus removing the headings in the outline explorer.
I've looked for a fix and found this, which seems helpful, but doesn't quite help me. The problem is I have no clue where Spyder is getting the config for Autopep8 from, and I can't find any way to configure Autopep8 from within Spyder 5's built-in preferences.
SOLUTION: As I was writing this I figured out the answer by looking at the github page. I figured I'd leave this here because I just couldn't find an explicit answer for my specific problem by searching. In short, these are the steps I followed:

1. Create a text file in the same directory as the script(s).
2. Rename it to 'setup.cfg'
3. Make the contents the following:

​

[pycodestyle] ignore = E265 

Note: this is E265 and not E266 due to some mislabeling within Autopep8's script.
I hope this is helpful to anyone else with my really specific problem!

I'm seven episodes into Invasion and it became obvious pretty quickly that the show suffers from a lack of diversity in the writer's room. Not diversity of ethnicity, but of upbringing, background and point of view.
James Harden, Navy SEAL
They've got no one who knows anything about the military, and it's painfully obvious. Service members do not call NCOs "sir" or salute them. Squads sure as hell don't just stand in a semi-circle dumping clips on targets 20 feet away, and no infantryman or operator in the military would run around firing full-auto like James Harden does in this show.
When James Harden takes out the Taliban in the hospital basement and outside the hospital, he's firing full auto and he's forced to use his sidearm because he runs out of 5.56. That is exactly why you don't use full auto.
Mary Suekimasu
Likewise, there is no JASA (it's JAXA), Japan doesn't have its own crew-capable spacecraft, and not only does Mary Suekimasu not act like a Japanese woman, she runs around screaming and snapping at people, speaks to Rinko Kikuchi's father in a way no Japanese person would ever speak to an old man, and generally acts the way a histrionic American woman might if she were on a reality show.
But a Japanese woman in a professional setting? Hell no, and it breaks narrative immersion not only to see her acting that way, but to see the others (especially the men) accepting it and going along with it.
There's apparently nothing she's not the best at or an expert in. Not only does she know every technical system better than everyone else, she knows how to operate a radio telescope better than the team that operates it for a living, she's apparently a master hacker who can lock people out of systems in a few keystrokes, she can spot anomalies in acoustic waveforms that no one else can see, and in episode 7 she debuts an entirely new skill, coding her own Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) on the fly in an attempt to use machine learning to decipher the alien signals. (Her incredible machine learning algorithm trained itself on the alien signal data and ping-ponged between the GAN set in like five minutes.)
The linguists, she explains, are wasting their time, because she's better at linguistics than they are, she's already deduced the aliens aren't speaking a language, and only she can offer mankind any hope of deciphering the alien signals.
Wow! Forget JAXA/JASA, Open AI would throw a seven-figure job at Mary Suekimasu in a millisecond!
Super mom and her weak husband
I don't have much to say about the Muslim family, except to say that they're definitely not from Long Island, and they were able to cruise the LIE, traverse Manhattan, zip up the Henry Hudson and tear up through Westchester County with shocking speed considering the fact that 12 million + people would all be heading in the same direction, fighting over the same gas and clogging the same highways. We New Yorkers are not known for being friendly drivers.
Yet it all opens up for the family, with less traffic than Friday afternoon rush hour when there are day games at Citi Field and Yankee Stadium. The scenes in vaguely upstate locales are more realistic, although upstate NY is massive and much more rural than people realize, and the show doesn't offer any clues about where they are.
The British kids
Not much to say about these guys either. Of all the characters, I am least familiar with the lives of London teenagers circa 2021. I'm sure that the sort of bullying on display is universal, even if the bully looks like Alfred E. Neumann, and the kids seem to react to the situation like kids would.
Poor Tom Cullen. I'm surprised he had such a small part. Speaking of small parts...
Sam Neill
Is that it? One episode? They spent so much time with him in the first episode, and set up that "old lawman gets his last adventure" thing, and he just gets killed off by an alien murmuration with no follow-up, explanation or bearing on any of the other plot threads?
The aliens: We have come for your cheese and to entertain ourselves
I'm also wondering if there's any coherent explanation for the aliens coming here. We are invisible to 99.99999% of the galaxy simply because we've only been producing signals strong enough to reach the Oort Cloud for about 50 years (as per SETI's chief astronomer, Seth Shostak) and even our strongest signals attenuate to noise by the time they reach the edges of our star system.
In other words, there simply has not been enough time for hypothetical aliens to learn we exist. Putting our weak and short-lived signals aside, for an alien civilization to learn of our existence they'd have to have their scopes fixed on our star system instead of the 300 billion others, and they'd have to be right on top of us to begin with, with a maximum distance of 25 light years or so for the light to reach them (25 years) with evidence of a civilization on our planet, and for them to travel here, which is at least another 25 years assuming they are advanced enough to travel near the speed of light.
But if they are that advanced, there is nothing we possess that they could possibly want. Some of the characters theorize that they want our water, but there are much easier ways to get water than traveling to another star system, and unless they just enjoy destroying fledgling civilizations and will go to extraordinary lengths to do so, the aliens really have no reason to come here.

Dealing with such situations can be challenging, but there are steps you can take to try to recover your stolen Bitcoin and secure your account. Here are some guidelines that may help:

1. Stay calm and gather information: It's important to stay composed and gather all the relevant information about the incident. Take note of any suspicious activities, including the date and time of the theft, any messages or emails you received related to the incident, and any other details that could assist in the recovery process.
2. Contact the authorities: Report the theft to your local law enforcement agency. Provide them with all the information you have gathered, including any relevant transaction details or digital evidence. While it can be challenging for authorities to recover stolen cryptocurrency, filing a report is essential for documentation purposes.
3. Notify the cryptocurrency exchange: Contact the exchange immediately if your stolen Bitcoin was held on a cryptocurrency exchange. Provide them with all the details of the theft and follow their instructions for reporting the incident. They may be able to freeze the stolen funds or take other measures to mitigate the damage.
4. Inform other relevant parties: If you believe your personal information has been compromised or your wallet was stolen through a hacking incident, it's crucial to inform other relevant parties. This includes your bank, email service provider, and any other platforms or accounts that may have been affected. Change your passwords and enable two-factor authentication where possible to enhance security.
5. Monitor blockchain transactions: Keep an eye on the blockchain to track any movement of your stolen Bitcoin. You can search for your wallet address or associated transactions using blockchain explorers and monitoring tools. This information may help you identify any new addresses involved in the theft and provide valuable clues for recovery.
6. Engage a professional investigator: If the stolen Bitcoin amount is significant, you may consider hiring a professional investigator or digital forensics expert who specializes in cryptocurrency theft. They have the expertise and tools to trace transactions and potentially identify the individuals involved. However, be cautious and ensure you work with reputable and trustworthy professionals.
7. Educate yourself and enhance security: Take this incident as an opportunity to learn more about security best practices for managing your cryptocurrency. Educate yourself on topics such as secure storage options (hardware wallets, paper wallets), multi-signature wallets, and cold storage. Implement additional security measures to protect your future investments.

Remember, recovering stolen Bitcoin is challenging, and there's no guarantee of success. Prevention is always the best approach, so taking proactive measures to secure your cryptocurrency holdings is crucial.

6/5/23 Update (Part II of my Amazing Chiari Recovery Tale): "The Cerebellum Ain't Just About Balance, Baby"
So I want to make something very clear. From here on out, I wouldn't consider this a typical Chiari recovery tale at all anymore. As far as I know, it is not usual to have this level of emotion regulation benefit from a Chiari Surgery. But... that doesn't mean it /can't/ happen. Because clearly it's happened for me.
If you watch Dr. Stieg's "This Is Your Brain Podcast: Chiari in Adults" (the same one that convinced me to drive to NYC for consultation with him:
https://www.youtube.com/live/KyGGoA3Y2ko?feature=share
.... you'll see he takes questions at the end. And one of the questions he answers is about whether there are any big cognitive and emotional effects from Chiari. And he essentially says no -- unless there's hydrocephalus, water on the brain, being caused too, why whould there be? The cerebellum isn't really involved with higher cognitive and emotional stuff. It's more about the balance and all that. Of course, the stress and misery and anxiety of living with any chronic pain condition affects people's mental health. So certainly resolving the Chiari may still sort of indirectly help with their mental health in all sorts of very significant ways.
Ok. Fair enough. But here's where, if I were having an argument with him about this here and now (which I guess I am! Because that's apparently just how I am -- sorry, Dr. Stieg, intending no disrespect to your knowledge and authority -- you're the best!)... I would turn the same phrase he used with me in discussing my physical symptom resolution right back at him: "The proof is in the pudding." What he meant when he used that phrase was that, although of course we are going to do a follow-up MRI in a few months, and see how things stand, the imaging is not really important. The evidence is clear. I had the surgery, and all my physical problems (the crippling head aches and neck aches, the trouble choking on liquids and drooling, the numb/weak hands, episodes of dizziness, etc.) almost instantly resolved. We already know the surgery worked. I would say the proof is in the pudding about the drastic mental health/emotional changes I have experienced since the Chiari decompression as well.
So first, I guess I'm gonna have to get real with ya about the the psychiatric struggles. (Oh well. I never was that private of a person to start. I'll talk to just about anyone about just about anything. Always been that way.) So my struggles in this area, summarized:
I had my first bad episode of depression when I was about 13. There were definite stressors, and I would define it as the worst year of my life. Among the stressors, in brief: I was in 7th grade, first year of junior high. I was HORRIBLY bullied, harassed, and teased by the other kids. Mostly girls. They'd wait for me at my locker in mean girl gaggles, taunt and laugh at me throughout the halls, etc. It was *BAD*. Very bad. I can only speculate as to the reasons I got it so bad. I had gender-non-conforming interests. I hated wearing dresses and didn't like the stupid girl stuff I was supposed to care about. I liked Dungeons & Dragons and fighting video games and would rather hang out with my brother and his friends than any of the boring girls I knew. I kind of felt like I /was/ a boy, actually. No different from my brother. But needless to say, no one else really saw it that way. What they DID see... was that I was different, and not following the rules of what I was supposed to like and how I was supposed to act. And boy. The shit I got for it. Like I said... it was bad. They called me "The Thing" when they passed me in the halls ("Look at that THING! What is it? A boy or a girl? We don't know -- we'll just have to call it THING. Ha ha!"). They harassed and teased me about my breasts, because I was one of the first to develop ("There goes the goddess of puberty -- ha ha, goddess of puberty!") And, of course, I was smart - a nerd - always raising my hand to answer the questions in class - so that probably didn't help my popularity any either.
Anyway. No one ever stuck up for me. There were the kids who actively harassed me, and the ones who desperately avoided me to avoid being associated with me. I had no friends in the 7th grade. I had a few, back in the 6th. But lost them all when the 3 elementary schools got merged into the big junior high or whatever. Absolutely NO ONE thought it would be a good idea to associate with me. And so they didn't. It was SO bad, SO miserable, I thought about doing all kinds of crazy things to escape having to go back to school. Maybe... if I did something REALLY crazy, like stab my brother or something (who, by the way, I adored, but that was how desperate I was - like, you know, just a LITTLE stab wound, just for show) -- they'd just put me in a psych hospital or something and I'd never have to go back to school again? I obviously spent a lot of time thinking about killing myself. My mother ultimately ended up having to move me to an entirely different school because of the level of bullying. And it did help somewhat. (Also, the next year, I met my first boyfriend - which meant that I finally also had a friend - and it's no exaggeration to say that probably saved my life. We were inseparable for the next 3 years. He didn't care that I was a girl who kicked ass at Streetfighter. We spent our time playing Streetfighter together.)
13 was also the year my parents divorced. So like I said. A bad, bad year. And... I know that is about the time when I started to come emotionally off the rails and things changed for me. So I always sort of just assumed... that my brokenness was all the result of this social trauma I'd been through or what not. I mean, we all try to make sense of ourselves and our experiences somehow, through some sort of story, explanation. And that became my self-narrative.
Specifically, the sort of mental health struggles I ended up with were major emotion regulation issues. Like way exaggerated reactions to small things. High level of emotional reactivity, particularly rejection sensitivity, and high level of obsessive-compulsive level rumination and depression. Struggled with these things basically for life since, and always just assumed, well, that's how I am. Guess my experiences broke me, or maybe I was broken for birth. The way I tend to characterize myself in short-hand is as a "mini-borderline." (I'm a genuine licensed psychologist, so I can throw terms like that around if I want to!) And you can look up symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder if you're interested in learning more about that. But here is how I would qualitatively describe my problems:
A high level of emotional immaturity. It is like a 4-year-old child is running the show emotionally. And I can SEE it happening at the time (I have no problem with my higher cognitive functions!) -- I can no I am being ridiculous, over-reacting, being childish, whatever, but I unfortunately can't CONTROL that reaction. My stunted capacity for emotional regulation lost me a lot of friends. A lot of relationships. I was "too much" for a lot of people to deal with in that way. When I was sad, I was *TOO* intensely sad, boyfriends told me. SCARY sad. I was clingy. I was needy. I couldn't self-soothe. I hated being alone more than anything. My 4-year-old emotional self was always quivering in fear and always looking for somebody to save them. But there was never anybody around when they desperately needed that comfort and reassurance.
No problem with higher cognitive capacities. And was always of course embarrassed, ashamed, and so on for knowing there was something wrong with me and I wasn't able to function like other people in a "mature" emotional way. But I couldn't change it. Not after more than 10 years of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy or Dialective Behavioral Therapy or insight-oriented therapy or trauma-based therapy. Not after trying a dozen different anti-depressants and mood stabilizers. I guessed it was just who I was. I guessed I was just too broken by my trauma history or whatever to ever really fix.
And that was the story I told myself. To make sense of who I was and why.
Only... what IF. It had never really been true. What if... there had been a pretty significant organic component the whole entire time? What if it had a little something to do with my brain sliding into my spinal canal and blocking CSF flow? Well... let's talk about the what-if.
In doing my week of deep-dive research into Chiari (since being diagnosed on 5/5/23, and meeting with Dr. Stieg for MRI review and consultation on 5/18), I learned a thing or two about Chiari
For example, I learned from Dr. Judy Hwang at Johns Hopkins
https://youtu.be/xQjToJy4LO8
... that although Chiari is congenital, there is OFTEN a particular moment that people can remember that triggered their symptoms. That these are often things like head blows and whiplash. (Which, of course, makes total sense. The force of the incident made the herniation worse, or as she mentions, due to the Chiari the person probably doesn't have the natural reserve of CSF that they should bathing and protecting the brain either.
And I learned this. That there's a good amount of evidence to show the cerebellum ain't just about balance, baby:
https://www.imrpress.com/journal/JIN/17/4/10.31083/j.jin.2018.04.0414/htm
"Recently, different studies have provided evidence that the presence of cerebellar degeneration or stroke may involve cognitive deficits beyond motor impairment, including the ability to form concepts and other language disorders [1, 2], impairment in executive functions [3], and visuospatial deficits [4], accompanied in many cases by a regressive personality, and emotional lability or dramatic mood swings."
[...] "cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome described by Schmahmann and Sherman [5] as characterized by the following: (a) Disturbances of executive function, including deficient planning, set-shifting, abstract reasoning, working memory, and decreased verbal fluency, (b) Impaired spatial cognition, including visuospatial disorganization and impaired visuospatial memory, (c) Linguistic difficulties, including dysprosodia, agrammatism, and mild anomia, and (d) Personality change, characterized by flattening or blunting of affect, and disinhibited or inappropriate behavior. [...] Personality changes include flattening or blunting of affect, disinhibited behaviors, such as over-familiarity, flamboyance, impulsive actions, humorous but inappropriate and flippant comments, regressive, childlike behaviors, and obsessive-compulsive traits."
Now, far be it from me to gain-say personal hero and actual expert in the field Dr. Philip Stieg (those who know me are probably laughing -- I am the sort of person who will argue with anyone about anything. KIND of a favorite personal hobby, and at times a bit annoying, as I'm sure my family and friends would attest). I know he said in that lecture that Chiari wouldn't be expected to have significant cognitive or emotional effects unless hydrocephalus was also at play.
And maybe this is all just simple, 100% placebo effect. And the seemingly miraculous benefits will all fade away soon. I'm just sayng... since waking up from my Chiari surgery, my mood has been wonderful. Calm, happy. No more depression, anxious rumination, weird obsessive-compulsive fixations... I kept assuming, of course, that this was just a temporary effect of pain medications, or muscle relaxant medications, or steroids, or SOMETHING. Maybe the steroids had triggered a hypomanic high, as the body's hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis was working on straightening itself back out. Maybe it was just the VAST, VAST relief of pretty much all the physical pain and problems that had been torturing me for the past 7 years suddenly being gone. I mean, obviously a mood this great wasn't actually going to LAST. Right? But nice to enjoy it while it does, anyway. I literallly called my first week after surgery "magical." My magical week. Emotionally calm and happy in a way I literally could not remember EVER having experienced. Sure, my neck and skull had been split open and hurt a little. But I honestly didn't care. I just felt so overall good. And DIFFERENT, emotionally. And it manifested in all kinds of little ways
I told you about my 4-year-old child emotional part. Always needy and scared. It's practically like I have no sense of object-permanence - like within a few days of a friend being out of sight, I can't even be sure that they exist anymore. And so that causes a lot of issues for me with this one particularly close friend of ours. He's not really a caller or a texter or a stay in touch type. Which has caused me all kinds of misery and struggles, because of my own emotional deficits and neediness. But.... from the moment I woke up from surgery. I didn't /have/ that constant quivering 4-year-old fear anymore. I knew this friend was my friend and cared about me. I knew I'd seem him again soon, even if not right then. It was completely, competely different. Another example -- weird obsessive-compulsive stuff around eating. I would often be petrified with fear, due to this overpowering conviction that if I got too fat, no one would love me anymore. I'd do weird highly unhealthy restricted eating and over-exercising things when I got into that mode because I was just so fixated on it and terrified about it. Another 5 lbs, and maybe no one would be capable of loving me anymore.
I noticed immediately after the Chiari surgery I had no concerns about it. I was able to eat when I was hungry without any worry at all. I knew people would love me whether I was fat or not. It had nothing to do with whether my friends (or my husband) loved me. I could just like... eat like a normal person without worrying about it at all. As much as I wanted. Whenever I was hungry. So nice, right???
So even though I warned myself not to get ahead of myself, and that these were probably just temporary effects of feeling a whole hell of a lot of instant pain relief... as the days passed... and passed... and I remained content and happy and basically didn't have ANY of my former mental health struggles at all... I began to wonder if something else had really been going on here all along. And thinking back, and back, on when my real mood regulation difficulties first began. Age 13. And what Dr. Judy Hwang had said about trauma. About a lot of people being able to recall a particular trauma -- head blow, whiplash -- around the time their symptoms began. And then I remembered something that I'd never even told Dr. Stieg about my history -- because it hadn't fit the personal narrative I'd created, right, of my own emotional struggles, and I'd kind of forgotten about it.
I *did* have my first traumatic brain injury at age 13. My family was frolicking at a winter party and we foolishly decided it would be a good idea to try to navigate this metal canoe down this steep icy hill as a sled. We hit a tree. I hit my head and was have thrown out. I was unconcious and seizing on the ground. I had a bit of a headache and concussion afterward, but doc said I could count down by 7s, and was probably fine.
What if I had Chiari to start, and it was worse herniated by the TBI, and *that* is why all the real emotional struggles began for me at that time? And what if it had been this cognitive-affective cerebellar syndrome thing *ALL* the goddamned time, my whole entire life since? I've had MORE trauma since, whiplash from car accident in recent years, so that could again explain a worsening of herniation and rapid escalation of symptoms in recent years.
Another thing I wonder about is my severe visual-spacial deficits. I am one of those people who can drive a route every day, a thousand times, and still need a GPS to get there. I have a true disability in that regard. I wonder if that has anything to do with the Chiari. I wonder if that should have been a clue all along to the organic nature of the problem
So I am still thinking, and processing, and exploring, and figuring out.
But the excting upshot is, it really DOES appear so far that the Chiari surgery solved not only all my PHYSICAL problems... but emotional problems I'd been struggling with since the age of 13 as well.
Here's another thing in favor of a cerebellar cognitive-affective syndrome being a significant cotributing cause toward my emotional regulation issues. Let's look at what happened with my mood the first week post-surgery:
Day 1 (5/24): (immediately after waking up from surgery)
A little lability. That night at dinner, I cried because I couldn't get the food cart slid over enough over the hospital bed to eat without dropping two pieces of saucy pasta on my night shirt, and couldn't move my neck more forward to eat because of the surgery. (My husband solved the problem by holding the plate close to my mouth while I ate. Thanks, dear. After food I felt better.
Day 2 (5/25): Wonderful mood
Day 3 (5/26): Wonderful mood
Day 4 (5/27): Wonderful mood
Day 5 (5/28): Wonderful mood
Day 6 (5/29): Wonderful mood
Day 7 (5/30): Wonderful mood
Day 8 (5/31): Wonderful mood.
So 8 days of consecutive great mood and none of my typica emotional issues or struggles.
BUT then... we have Day 9. 6/1. When I started to feel really terrible. In all the ways I /usually/ feel terrible again. Here's an excerpt I was writing to my friend about it: "Well, first major downturn in mood last night at about 10:30 pm. I guess I am still me. And Chiari surgery didn’t fix EVERYTHING. I was feeling *SO* good for a few days I guess I must have left my hopes get a little unrealistically high." Back to pacing, crying, agitated, depressive rumination, feeling that nobody loved me. Like I'd always felt before. Assumed that was going to be the end of my "magical" post-surgery week.
Except that... it WASN'T the end of my happy mood bubble. I continued feeling pretty good every day since then. But you know what WAS different that night? The one night I felt so terrible? I'd apparently developed a strep infection. So that gets you thinking, doesn't it? An infection, causing maybe some swelling... and triggering a return to symptoms like I had always had before. Strep was treated with antibiotics and my mood has continued to be wonderful since, with no returns to the old emotional troubles since. No depresssion, my extreme mood reactivity, no anxious panicky feelings of friends "disappearing" when they are out of my side. Just a seemingly full and complete ability to emotionally process as an adult rather than a 4-year-old.
So. Could all those emotion regulation problems REALLY just have been the result of cerebellar cognitive-affective syndrome? What story do I tell myself now? About why I have always been the way I have... and how that has suddenly so drastically changed?
And kind of drastic it is. Let me give you an example of my typical emotional functioning before Chiari surgery was like.
Strep/swollen brain night (old brain): "Boo hoo, I have no friends, my friend's aren't talking to me, nobody loves me, I have no friends, no cards." Followed by rantic pacing and crying. I then proceeded to send one of my dearest friends an e-mail accusing him of wishing I had died or clearly not caring at all if I had. (Clingy, terrified 4-year-old clearly driving the emotional truck. It is embarrassing, the way that 4-year-old acts. But I could never control it.
And then here, for point of comparison, is my emotional functioning AFTER Chiari surgery: (once I got the strep infection sorted) New Chiari-fixed brain: "Wow. I should probably let all my friends know what's going on." Proceeds to email 15 friends and tell them what is going on, receiving lots of instant emails and concern and support from everyone and one particularly impressive get well bouquet.
It seems like it iso much easier for me to function like a reasonable, emotionally mature adult and process emotional information appropriately. Now that brain is no longer falling down my spine. And I guess that's really maybe not so suprising, right??
So overall, I continue to be amazed and delighted by the results of my surgery. But there is really a LOT to process here. I feel like a whole brand new person, a Version 2.0. I hope my friends like the new me! It is definitely going to take some time to get to know this new me myself. But don't get me wrong -- I totally can't wait to get started!!

Hi,
I'm moving to a new apartment soon, and will finally have the space for a proper audio / home cinema system.
I have done some research, but I don't know a lot about this stuff, so I visited a local store (HiFi Klubben in Sweden) and listened to a setup that they recommended. It was a 5.1 setup that was more focused on movie watching than music listening, so they guy I was talking to said that a 3.1 setup would be a good start since my priority is music.
The setup was the following (USD / SEK in parenthesis):

• Denon AVC-S660H ($625 / 6 798 kr)
• 2x Argon AudioALTO55 Mk2 floor speakers ($643 / 6996 kr (for the pair))
• 2x Argon Audio ALTO5 Mk2 bookshelf speakers ($220 / 2396 kr (for the pair))
• Argon Audio ALTO C Mk2 center speaker ($110 / 1198 kr)
• Argon Audio BASS8 Mk2 subwoofer ($349 / 3798 kr)

​
Now, I have a few questions to someone that isn't trying to sell me anything.
The AVR seems like the best option, considering that I want modern features like music streaming from Spotify, Google Home compatibility, etc. while still being able to connect a turntable and Blu-Ray player. So buying used here doesn't seem worth it. Am I correct here, or are there any better options?
Are floor speakers better / worth it in my case? Considering that they cost quite a lot more, I'm not sure. I could probably buy used here, but a pair of bookshelf speakers will still be cheaper. And I have no clue what I should look for.
How much of a difference will a center speaker and subwoofer make? Is that just for movies, or will it improve my music listening experience as well?
The room the speakers will be in is about 16 m² / 172 ft².
​
Thank you in advance!

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The maw of the moss-wolf chomped down on the treat, its partner patiently waiting its turn, an eye trained on the Human providing the sustenance. Joseph reached into the pouch, counting out what he had left and mentally setting a few aside for the raven-like birds that Scarlet had trained to bother him.
Well, ‘bother’ might be a strong word. They would whistle at him and wait for food. Upon getting their hard sought quarry, they would return to share it with the rest. Surprisingly cooperative, all things considered. Scarlet had apparently been getting them to associate certain short melodies with members of the pack, allowing her to send the avians after whoever she wanted for more snacks.
If they didn’t get any, then they would yell something not dissimilar to a caw until either food was procured, or they grew bored. Given that they had taken to humouring Violet in her attempts to be a mobile perch, that usually took a while.
It drove Nalah nuts, which seemed to be part of the reason the blond-furred female was included in the ritual at all. Harrow was apparently the favourite target of the nuisance when she was outside the base, but he couldn’t say why.
The tell-tale scratching had been somewhat muted since the shift in medium, but Violet’s writing was always something he kept an ear out for, his daughter presenting her tablet excitedly. [It blinked!]
He turned his head to the cow-looking thing, the unwavering stare held until he gave up. “I swear you guys are just messing with me.”
“Or we merely enjoy your suffering,” Sahari suggested with a smirk, the black-furred female standing taller than him for a moment as she stretched her legs out. Settling into a height that was level with him, she attempted to offer the wolves food. Receiving a fearful retreat instead, the black-furred female frowned, the two canines shifting in their enclosure to be closer to Joseph and Violet. “They still seem to distrust any but yourselves.”
He shrugged, taking the scrap from her and giving it to the young Atmo to pass along, her chittering laugh when the wolves accepted the morsel breaking the soft sound of trickling rain outside the barn. “Faye was the one who started this. I guess they treat her like an alpha of sorts, and seeing her bow to the two of us so often told them that she’s lower on the pole. That’s my guess, anyway.”
“That is….rather intelligent of them, if so,” Sahari commented pensively.
The Grand Hunter tipped his head in agreement. If anything, it was an understatement. The six-legged canines were remarkably receptive to taming, though he couldn’t say how much of that was due to Faye taking to his suggestion so seriously. He had only offered it as a passing thought, but she had set to it like their god had mandated it.
He fought back a sigh at the reminder of his placement in the whole thing, his foot kicking the ground to adjust the new sandals he was wearing until Pan finished proper shoes.
One day, he was a divorcee flirting with random women on a cruise ship so that the rejection validated his own self-esteem issues. The next, he was a guy in charge of a settlement nearing one hundred people and had become a manifestation of religion condensed into the form of some random moron.
He snorted at a morbid thought. How would Emma react to his ‘rise to fame?’ His acquisition of more than they had ever thought for themselves back on Earth?
Owning a territory? They could only manage a nice apartment that could fit several times over inside the base. Friends? Hell, he had a group of people who have helped him through some of the worst the planet had to offer. Kids...well, nothing could replace Violet. He doubted Emma would see it the same way, though.
A paw enclosed his shoulder, dragging his mind from more sombre thoughts. It had been quite a while since everything fell through and he had moved on, but it still stung every now and again.
“What ails your mind, Joseph?” Sahari asked with a concerned inflection. He looked over at her, a smile becoming easier after a moment.
“Just wondering how my ex-wife would react to seeing what I’ve turned into. What she’d say to all of this,” he admitted honestly with a wide gesture to everything. She patted his back, a small pride in her gaze.
“You continue to heal, Grand Hunter, but you are still scarred. Your previous mate would curse her decisions were she to see what you have accomplished.”
He snorted, a wide dry grin breaking out. “I’d love to see her face going back with two alien wives and this sweetheart as a daughter,” he teased, giving Violet a thorough rub on the head. She purred, chittering between breaths as she fought off the rough affection playfully while keeping her blades tucked for safety.
The black-furred female tilted her head and shifted her weight to her other foot. “You’ve mentioned that there is a specific procedure for binding the lives of your people, no?”
He blinked, his mind flickering to the two rings he had prepared, yet held some modicum of expectation around before he whipped them out. Not least of all was the foreign sensation of doing it again twice, nor finding an appropriate time to do it. It was hard to pick a picturesque moment when each day was paperwork, punching people in the face during spars, and orchestrating the well-being of such a large group. Given that the closest thing he could get to a romantic occasion was laying down on the grass while Nalah barked orders at the construction crews in the distance, he didn’t feel like it was ever a good time to ask. It was even harder picturing himself doing it to the two of them, as if it cheapened the gesture in some way.
Then there was the part of himself that feared rejection—as stupid as it sounded. They could deny the alien practice, not share the same sentiment, or any number of disagreements that would render him kneeling like an idiot. As unlikely as it was, it could even be too great a commitment for them, the implication of their entire lives being pledged solely to him being a crushing weight, rather than a promise of mutual loving dedication.
Sure, now they were speaking as if it was the case, but the circumstances as they were lent themselves to it being a product of necessity. Who was to say that it would remain the same once they got off this rock and—hopefully—in touch with their own people again. Would they still feel the same way with an entire species back on the table as possible romantic partners? Would he still be enough?
“Joseph,” Sahari called out with worry and irritation in equal parts. “You are making me anxious.”
“Hm? Oh, sorry,” he apologized sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck as he was reminded that more than one person could be afflicted by his emotional state. She placed a paw to her hip.
“Are the proceedings really such a means for strife?”
“Ah, no, it’s just…” He averted his eyes, offering Violet a token smile when she seemed to be concerned about him. He inhaled deeply. “It’s just…I have reservations about it.”
She raised a brow. “I need not a bond to know you care for them deeply enough to toss your life to the Void for them.”
His weak smile faltered further. “Well, yeah. They mean everything to me, but I cant help but remember how things went last time, I guess. There’s a million and one ways it could go up in smoke, and I…” He fell quiet for a moment, Violet pressing herself into his side in an attempt to cheer him up. He rested a hand against her back, the texture comforting in a way. “I want it to be an important moment in our lives, rather than some disposable token that they accept without thinking much. It’s not like they’re swimming in potential romantic partners here, so it feels like they’d be agreeing for lack of options.”
She stared at him with a hesitant expression, her cheek pinched between her teeth and eyes narrowed in thought. “Pan would sooner end her own life than be separated from you, and Tel would end any who so much as suggested such,” she stated finally. “To you, the mark upon your flesh is but a sting that fades. To them, it is their declaration that they have found their reason to live. A declaration that is shown to all others of our people the moment they draw near. Though Pan lacks the means to impart her own, she is rather pleased that another is able to in her stead and treats it as her own for all intents.”
She grabbed him roughly by the arm, pulling him into her breast as she stood to her full height, a surprised yelp stifled by soft clothing and fur.
“Unfortunately for you, openly voiced or not, we all feel as such. Though you bear not the mark of everyone in the den, I assure you that to be removed from you would leave us lesser, regardless of bond.”
He shut his mouth at the last addition. There was a weight behind knowing that people were likely to simply give up on living if you were away for too long. It put the relationship in front of a loaded gun for both parties. They couldn’t afford to break it off from him because existing would become a living hell, and he couldn’t change his mind for any reason because it would be the same as killing them.
What kind of marriage was one built upon such fragile pillars? How could they be happy when every fight was tempered by the threat of the end of everything? What about Sahari? Could she ever pursue her own life with Nalah when she had the bond shackling her to him? How long until that became a stinging poison, rotting away the veins and arteries of her psyche? How long until death became preferable to being around him?
A strong impact to his stomach winded him, though the unnoticed hyperventilating left him little to eject as he fell to his knees. Violet clicked in surprise, the wolves backing away at the unexpected violence.
He coughed, sputtering spittle as he fought the urge to evacuate his breakfast. A pained glance up revealed Sahari still clutching a fist, her expression just as hurt.
“You hear my words and twist them, Joseph,” she chastised softly, crouching to look at him better. “We pledged our lives to you. Not because we had no choice, but because we believed you to be our future. From that moment on, our desire was to remain with you.” Her voice grew weak, almost pleading. She placed her forehead to his, the contact an intimate touch. “Your experiences may suggest our bond a prison, but for us, it is an ambrosia for our soul. It completes us like no equal. Jax and Harrow care for you immensely, Nalah and myself owe you everything that we are, and your mates will fight the Hunt Mother herself if it would mean even one more sun with you.”
He found himself speechless, wading through the emotions behind her words a syllable at a time. The feeling of Violet pressing into his back in an embrace stung as much as soothed, his mind rejecting the idea, yet so desperate to accept it.
“Do not desecrate our affections because you had been scorned by one who did not see within you that which we covet,” she implored sombrely, raw emotion oozing through the confines of speech. “Though you doubt it, none would know how much value you place in the ‘mark’ of your people more than your mates. If merely thinking about the unlikely event that they refuse tortures you so deeply, than the elation they would share with you when they agree would likely see Pan unable to contain herself for many suns after.”
He stayed on his knees, the warmth surrounding him from both sides seeping within and thawing the frozen excuses he held onto to prevent exposing himself to potential rejection. Every step of the way since he had met them, it had made him fearful of losing their company. At first, the thought of being left alone to brave the planet was too much to bear, but he would try. Now? Now he felt like he understood where the minds of those bonded Lilhuns had been. Even considering being away from his new loved ones pulled at a primal part of himself, each tug stronger than the last, each suggestion fanning the flames barricaded behind morals—the depths he would trudge to see it never come to pass.
Sahari nuzzled into his neck for a moment before parting, a somewhat satisfied smile given towards the emotionally fragile Human they had taken to depending on. He returned his own, though it was tinted with a bit of embarrassment.
Violet stepped back to allow him room to stand, the extended joint of her blade asking to be held like he did with her adoptive mother. His expression softening, he did as requested, lightly rubbing the smooth surface with his thumb. It soothed a part of him to be holding his daughter’s ‘hand’ while they watched the wolves slowly approach the front of their enclosure again, now that the momentary intensity had faded.
With a self-deprecating roll of his eyes, he nodded, promising himself to follow through with his small wish the next time the chance revealed itself. It didn’t need to be perfect, but it would be nice if it was at least private. The dull ache in his stomach would be a reminder not to second guess himself anyway.
The wolves yipped, ignoring Sahari as they moved towards the other corner. Joseph glanced at where they were focused, his curious gaze replaced by surprise, then shock.
Raine supported Faye over her shoulder, the deep gold-furred female’s breath short as she rested her weight over her brown-furred counterpart, their black leather coats dripping water onto the floor as it wrapped tightly around them, concealing their armour. A steady trickle of blood flowed from a long gash on Faye’s leg, her free arm clutching across her breast to keep her coat closed.
Without waiting for either to speak, he ran to pick up the Wraith, slinging her across his shoulders and tearing off to the base. He could barely hear Sahari over the rain and his own blood pounding through his ears, his heart hammering in his chest. Though they had established something of a clinic for minor injuries that were sustained constantly, his singular focus was getting Faye into the medbay.
Pack members cleared the way, some jumping to the side as he barrelled through the sparely populated routes between home and workplace. More than one tripped over themselves in shock, the Human never having a reason to go at a full sprint before. He was slower than a Lilhun like this, but he could make it the full distance before them. He didn’t need to slow down.
Harrow pushed open the doors to the hub, her distant expression as she examined thin ironwood tablets perking, his rapid heavy footfalls telling of his arrival before she had the chance to see him. Her eyes lit up, her brows furrowed, and a hurried pull of the door kept it open for him, all in sequence. He didn’t have the spare breath to explain or thank her.
The orange-furred female bolted across the hub, slamming into the crash-bar installed into the facilities wing entrance to force it open, only barely outpacing the Grand Hunter in his rush. She staggered to her feet behind him, rushing to collect herself and assisting in tearing the pants off of the injured female when Joseph laid her on the bed.
Modesty being the least of his concerns, he braced an arm across her pelvis to stop her hips from bucking as Harrow wiped off any dried blood to see the extent of the damage on her thigh.
“What happened?”
He tightened his hold on Faye as his friend tentatively spread the wound to check for debris. “Don’t know. Didn’t ask. Saw her bleeding, rushed her here,” he answered through deep breaths, each strike of his adrenaline-fuelled heart pressing against his lung capacity.
Harrow frowned, grabbing some sterile water to pour over the wound and picking out a stray splinter of wood that looked to be from her missing leg armour. Faye let out a small whine, but didn’t have it in her to talk yet, signs of exhaustion and pain unfocusing her eyes.
The Head of Technology—and current medical expert in the room—pursed her lips against her muzzle. “We need to stitch it. It’s too big for just healroot.”
Joseph nodded, easing his weight off the Wraith and wiping his sweat from his brow. “Pan!”
Noticing the urgency in his voice, he could hear her throw the door to the sewing room wide open and jog to the medbay, her wide eyes steeling as she assessed the situation.
“Idee with you?”
She nodded, ears turned perfectly towards him.
“One of you boil off some palm string, the other sterilize the thinnest quill you can get away stitching a wound closed with. I don’t care who, but we need one of you to close this up.” He glanced at Harrow. “Grab some alcohol. I keep a bit in the closet in my room, next to the old crossbow prototypes. We need to flush this out and kill off anything that might have gotten in.”
The orange-furred female tipped an ear in confusion as Pan took off to do as he asked. “I thought you didn’t have medical-”
“I’ve been around enough workplace injuries, okay? Go!”
His shout jolted her into action, a few steps required to gain traction as she ran out the door. Applying solid pressure to the wound with one hand, he used the other to lightly tap Faye’s cheek.
“Faye? Faye, you with me?”
Her eyes languidly turned to him, slow blinks and meaningless mouthing ceased, a soft smile forming under her pained expression. “Hello, sir.”
He exhaled a relieved huff. “Welcome home, Faye. What happened?”
She seemed confused by his question, glancing down to her leg after a few seconds. With widened eyes, she struggled to sit up, Joseph forcibly pressing her to the bed.
“Stay.”
All resistance disappeared in an instant, her body complying despite the obvious urgency. He hardened his expression.
“What happened?”
She breathed deeper a few times before speaking. Each word was hesitant, as if the memory was hazy and diluted, though he couldn’t tell if it was due to blood loss or exhaustion. “A large grey beast…teeth, large mouth...attacked wolves...”
His brow knitted, Faye’s coat moving. A small whine came from her again…no. Not her.
A small yellow canine head freed itself from the confines of black leather, a weak keening produced from a tiny moss-wolf. Faye looked at him guiltily, a pleading look in her eyes given as she composed herself.
“It lost its parents…”
His protest died in his voice, a distant memory of a wolf being torn in two came to mind. The time before they had even moved to the pod, let alone met the Lilhuns, him and Violet checking snares shortly after his ankle had healed. A time so long ago, yet remained with him under the surface.
“You saved this little guy, huh?” he asked gently, wincing in tandem with her own when he leaned heavier on the massive gash in her thigh. She nodded, averting her eyes. “Did you get the ‘beast?’”
Faye shook her head. “Raine lured it away, but it still remains.”
“That’s fine. You’re back, that’s all that matters right now.”
Harrow bumped into the doorway, failing to shed all of her speed as she returned from fetching a smaller container that Joseph kept in case the rest of the pack burned through their stores of alcohol. Her eyes flicked to the wolf pup before disregarding it to hand him the ethanol. He lifted his hand, Harrow pouring some water to wash off the blood. Volta would be busy later, it seemed.
Gesturing for the orange-furred female to hold the leg down, he poured the alcohol into the wound, grimacing at Faye’s pained gasp. They didn’t have anything for her to bite into, but that would be a future consideration.
Pan and Idee entered the medbay, the former moving like a machine with purpose while the visiting seamstress took a moment to size up the situation. The Paw fetched a tray from the shelf, laying out several strings of softened palm and a few thin quills, threading one and passing it to Idee. The light brown-furred female accepted it, Harrow making room as she stood next to Joseph.
Pan handed him a tough leather strip as wide as his palm. Seems like she saw the problem before he did.
“Open up,” he prodded, placing the leather between Faye’s teeth. “This is going to fucking suck. We don’t have anything to numb you, so you need to stay as still as possible, okay? I’ll be here the whole time.”
The Wraith nodded, staring at him for a moment before closing her eyes in acceptance, her grip on the pup firming.
“Want me to take the wolf?”
She lightly shook her head, him exhaling hesitantly in response. Idee readied herself, looking to him for confirmation, Pan holding Faye’s ankle flat to the bed.
“You’re good,” he responded, pressing an arm to Faye’s chest and hips to hold her down.
The deep gold-furred female managed a quiet muffled groan of pain as the quill pierced her flesh.
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He entered the hub, dropping himself on the couch and ignoring the sweat on his brow. He had only just managed to get the blood off of his hands after Idee finished, but it was still staining his clothing. Pan was off to rinse it out of her fur while Faye slept off her exhaustion. As far as they could tell, she had avoided any infection thanks to Raine half-dragging the female back to them as quickly as she did. The wolf pup was staying with her for now, since—even in her sleep—she refused to let it go. The little guy didn’t seem to be complaining, so they just left it where it was comfortable. Ferra would be by later to check it out, apparently, and he didn’t see a reason to complain; she was their animal expert.
Scarlet offered him some tea, the warm liquid whetting his pallet that had since dried. Sahari had checked on them during the process, leaving to keep anyone who had questions in the loop. Given that half the damn pack either saw or heard about the Grand Hunter running like a bat out of hell, pretty much everyone was worried. Either about some urgent threat that might befall them, or about one of the quiet servants they had grown used to seeing around.
Looked like the Wraiths had taken to offering small services and assistance to people who needed it when they didn’t have anything better to do, so the pack was curious about what had happened. It was a small blessing that the usual armour they wore when ‘on duty’ was covered by the cloaks, otherwise he would have more questions coming that he didn’t want answered.
Raine stood a few paces in front of him, her bowed posture holding a hint of fear under his unwavering stare. He waited for whoever else was going to show up for the report, Tel and Pan insisting that they be involved. Harrow followed behind the two entering from the facilities wing, either because she had gotten wrapped up in the whole thing, or because she wanted to be included.
Pan sat to his left, Tel taking a place behind him to remain standing. Harrow surprised him, her recently elusive presence firmly displaced as she dropped onto the couch to his right, her tail curling around his calf—not that she seemed to notice.
Given that both Tel and Pan trapped a limb or two with their tails regularly, he didn’t stop to put thought into it, the encapsulating appendage crossing him as a common occurrence.
“I don’t know how accurate it was, since she’s still pretty out of it, but Faye said one of those grey bear-deathtraps attacked some wolves before she stepped in to save the pup,” he opened, glancing at Scarlet. The almost black red-furred female was maintaining a surprisingly commanding presence, her attention laser-focused on Raine. The brown-furred Wraith kept her gaze fixed to the floor, too ashamed or nervous to move it.
“I apologize for her error in her stead,” she announced, the slightest of grip in her folded paws digging her claws into her skin. “The fault is also mine for not preventing her misstep. I will accept any punishment for our mistake.”
He exhaled heavily. “I’m not mad that you guys had an original thought, Raine. I’m worried about those iron-maiden-looking fucks being around again, and I’m concerned about you getting hurt.”
“Of course, sir. Forgive me for the arrogance of assuming your priorities.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, Pan squeezing his thigh in support. Tel rested her head on his, the weight somehow comforting despite the grin at his annoyance. “We can talk about not getting yourselves killed later. Are you injured at all?”
Raine’s ear twitched. “No, sir. I am whole.”
“Good,” he sighed, nodding lightly. “That’s good. Faye’s patched up for now, but she’ll be under observation to keep on top of any possible infection. How did the ‘mission’ go?”
The Wraith perked up a bit, the conversation moving away from her perceived failure. She produced a satchel, pulling a rather thick stack of tablets from it and passing them to Scarlet, the latter ferrying them to Harrow. He thought it was an odd choice, but the orange-furred female started giving him an abbreviated translation of the text.
Line after line of transactions. What was offered and received, any debts and who owed them, as well as small notes about what should be brought next time. It was a comprehensive copy of the ledger that the trading caravan kept. His brows raised at the sheer density of information, and for them getting it from something he was only partially sure existed.
“You managed to get this much?” he asked in disbelief. “Jesus. Were you caught?”
Raine shook her head. “If we were to be seen by them, we would be nothing more than a stain against our Blademaster.”
Compliment or boasting, doing this much was damn impressive. Especially with just the two of them.
“Shit. Well, good fucking job, I guess,” he managed, still reeling a bit from the unintended scope of the task. Harrow continued to dig through the report, though stopped voicing it aloud. Joseph turned his attention back to the Wraith. “Anything else of note? Rumours?”
The Wraith grew pensive. “Though we returned partially through their return trip to Grand Hunter Pernel, we did overhear some conversations. There were discussions of other packs simply no longer occupying their settlements.”
He leaned forward in his seat, dislodging Tel as his elbows rested against his knees. “What do you mean?”
“Some of their usual trade locations were purportedly burned down, others merely abandoned. A few were apparently littered with corpses,” she explained more steadily. “From what we could gather, the reason they came to trade with our settlement at all is that the others along the way were in such states. It seems they intended to restock and head back out immediately to accommodate the loss in trading partners.”
He bit his lip as he thought about it, letting himself fall back against the couch.
“What do you guys think of it?” he asked with a glance to his mates. Pan seemed to be mirroring his own apprehension openly, while Tel kept a more serious expression.
“I believe there is something larger happening,” Tel concluded, taking a few seconds before returning to using him as a headrest. Pan nodded her agreement, but didn’t have much to add to it otherwise.
“It would explain how desperate they were for food,” he mused aloud, raising a brow when Harrow shifted to lean against him, one foot placed on the edge of the seat forcing the posture. “Any details of interest, Harrow?”
The orange-furred female jolted, only just stopping from moving her foot back to the floor before committing to using him as a backrest. She turned back-on fully, stretching her legs over the remainder of the seat and placing tablets she had finished with on her lap.
“It didn’t take very long for the methods you sold to propagate,” she responded, holding up a few of the tablets before laying them in their own pile. “Looks like Pernel has been spreading it around by buying some from places that have bows and snares to sell where they don’t.”
“Supply and demand, or arming people with the tools that would help them survive?”
“Hard to trade with the dead,” Harrow commented dryly, starting a new pile. He nodded in exaggerated fashion.
“What about the Atmo?”
She tapped the small stack she just started. “I’m trying to separate these by inventory type. Give me a bit.”
Deciding to trust the woman in charge of managing this kind of thing while she was on the ship, he glanced back to Raine, the female easily mistaken for a statue if not for the subtle sway of her breathing. “The grey-bear-thing. How far away is it?”
“Too close,” she responded firmly. “We did not get a chance to verify their numbers, but there was evidence of at least that singular beast making our territory its hunting ground.”
“Fuck,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “We’re going to need to hunt that thing down.”
Pan looked worried at the prospect, Harrow stiffened in her sorting. The Wraiths were the only ones who seemed completely at ease with the suggestion, Tel not so much as twitching. Harrow laid down the tablets she had yet to categorize, her gaze aimed at her lap.
“Joe, don’t think that taking one out is easy.”
“We have ranged weapons and more than a few people who can use them,” he pointed out with a breath. “Ideally, we go as a larger hunting party and take the damn thing down through sheer volume of fire.”
“Their skin is tough,” Harrow replied with a shake of her head, her ears pivoting back towards him. “I don’t know if our bows could pierce it as easily as we might like.”
He furrowed his brow. “So, what? Let it close in until it eats everything and starves us out? Until it thinks we look tasty?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying that this won’t be as simple as firing a few arrows and patting ourselves on the back for a job well done.”
Joseph felt the stiffness of his brow start to hurt from how tight they were knitted. A deep breath centred his thoughts. “We’ll arrange an armoured hunting party soon. Better to take it down before it becomes an issue.”
The orange-furred female nodded, quickly leafing through the remaining tablets and only pulling two more out for the pile she indicated earlier.
“Here,” she said, tapping the stack. “These are records for trading Atmo.”
He suppressed the sigh when he genuinely tried to read the mess they called a language. “How many? Who bought them?”
She hesitated, reforming the copy of the ledger—sans the relevant tablets—and placing it on the floor. The remainder in paw, she held them up over her shoulder, Tel accepting it and going over the contents with an interested tilt of her head.
“From what I can see here, Pernel traded two hundred.”
“Two…” he squeaked, his eyes wide. “Two hundred?”
She nodded, pacing around the couch to stop in front of Pan. “It seems others heard of his willingness to barter for them. He accepted quite a few deals before selling them off again.”
“To who?”
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
The door to the ship closed with a hiss, Willin shaking his head at Nav’s questioning gaze. “Nothing.”
Tech removed her CARDs, storing them in the weapons locker before shrugging off her AMR to place in its own unit. “Nothing living, anyway.”
“That bad?” Nav asked, deflating after yet another failed attempt to contact a settlement. The dark green-furred male stored his rifle, seating it into its receptacle with a click.
“Tell Comms to add another eighty to the count.”
“Four hundred eighty-two,” the purple-furred female supplied as she walked past Nav to enter the ship proper. Willin followed after, hanging his pistol holster on the side of his chair as he dropped into it.
“Thirty were covered in wounds, twenty or so were executed, twenty-five looked to have died of accumulated trauma, and the rest were found with singular cuts to the throat.”
“Not quite,” Tech remarked, interfacing with the systems. “Only eight of the ‘executed’ seem to have been done up close.”
“Sniper?” Comms asked as he entered the room, nodding his greetings and taking a seat at his station. Nav crossed their arms and leaned against the doorway as Tech Ops ran some numbers on her screen.
“Wounds are consistent with Anti Material Rifles, and debris suggest they took the ‘material’ part into consideration with their shots. There were a few holes in the buildings that didn’t quite get removed by the fires.”
“Covering evidence?” Willin mused aloud, receiving a thoughtful shake of her head.
“No, I don’t think so. My guess is that the buildings were already on fire when they did it, based on the splinters around the exit holes.”
Comms’ eyes widened in surprise. “Shooting through a burning building? That is rather impressive.”
“Blades?” Nav suggested. “Avalon is required to act against those who break the treaty, no?”
“Maybe,” Tech allowed tentatively. “If it was them, then that would explain the lack of targets.”
Willin scratched at his ear, furrowing his brow as Comms ran another scan for any communications being made. Though a few suns had passed since they had unwittingly agreed to involve themselves in what was likely the first case of war that this planet had ever seen, nothing was being sent anywhere. Regardless, the male kept the scans regular, just in case.
Nav switched the foot they were resting on. “Why not just dispose of everyone breaking the treaty?”
“Maybe they did,” Comms commented, turning back to the conversation as the program ran in the background. “Blades typically function under strict conditions. If they removed anyone who was commanding the hostile action, then they did as required of them. The moment the attack stopped, they completed the terms of the treaty.”
“Or if the Grand Hunter here surrendered and allowed their pack to be subsumed,” Willin proposed, the others glancing at him in curiosity. He waved a paw dismissively. “If everyone in the conflict becomes a single pack, then any fighting from those who still disagree with it is now an internal dispute, thus outside of the purview of the Blades. Check the notes on Grand Hunter Toril and High Hunter Bratik.”
Tech’s eyes unfocused for a moment as she accessed the system. “Avalon is forbidden from interfering with internal politics. Toril was sheltered by Bratik. Since Bratik was from outside of Toril’s pack, it counted as acting against their right to manage their own affairs. Hasen was given a perfect reason to take over, and it forced Grand Hunter Trill to exile the both of them to adhere.” She looked around the room aimlessly as she thought, her eyes snapping to Willin when he spoke.
“And a perfect loop-hole to exploit. Toril loses his supporters, Trill loses a member of his command structure, and Hasen rises in power while leaving Avalon to grit their teeth.” He shook his head, both impressed and disgusted. “Once he attacks another pack, he just forces a vassalage and subsequently executes the new High Hunter for whatever reason he wants. The Blades can’t act on a technicality.”
“So Grand Hunter Pernel….”
Willin nodded at Comms' unfinished question. “In the count.”
“There was a bit of a weird holding area,” Tech added after a moment. “Seemed like somewhere to hold livestock, but even then, it was a bit big. I’m not sure what used to be there, but tracks suggest carts left with whatever it was not long before everything went down, so probably a trade caravan.”
“Well, at least someone made it out,” Nav sighed, pushing off the wall to resume their station. “Where are we going next?”
Willin toyed with the odd silver tablet in his paw, the two unrecognizable scripts curious and alien. “The only pack left before we see what all the fuss is about. Let’s pay a visit to Grand Huntress Sunundra. Hopefully she knows something we don’t.”
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A/N: Been a while since we’ve had a proper A/N, huh. Welp, here’s this one. Patreon is currently set to ‘per post’ because i made the account ages ago. Waiting on support to help me switch it to monthly, then I’ll post the Silva render i have. RR is at 30k views and 100 followers.
Figured I’d ask how you guys are liking this arc, hows Willin’s team coming across, etc.
Final note: I’m thinking about rewriting the first ‘book’ so i can get it edited and published! Problem: i have no fucking clue where to cut book 1, and editors are expensive. Where should book 1 end? All i know is that I’d prob end up adding extra chapters to it, as well as lengthening the OG chaps. RR is a ‘touch-up’, not a final product, so those don’t count!

Artificial Dumbness
Prologue
Nadia Khan opened her eyes slowly, trying to make sense of the world around her. She had a pounding headache and felt fuzzy and disoriented, as if she were in a dream.
She lay on the cold, hard wooden floor, the thin blanket barely providing any warmth. The room was dark and uninviting, with only the faint light from outside coming in through the window. She heard the powerful roar of the ocean crashing against the boat and the creaking of the ropes swaying in the salty breeze.
She could feel the hairs on her arm standing up as she surveyed the area. There were several other people in the room, their bodies still and silent in their deep sleep. They were dressed in ragged clothes and had chains around their ankles. Nadia felt a cold metal on her own leg and realized she was also shackled to the floor.
She felt a surge of panic and confusion. Where was she? How did she get here? What was going on?
She tried to remember what had happened before she woke up. A blank space in her memory. She couldn't recall anything.
She reached for her headset, hoping to find some clue or explanation. But there was nothing on her head. No headset, no wires, no electrodes. Nothing.
She felt a sudden chill as a realization hit her. She wasn't wearing her VR suit, either. She was wearing a simple dress that looked like it belonged to another century.
She glanced back at the window. Outside, there was a clear blue sky and a vast ocean. The sun glinted off the distant island, its towering mountains and dense forests silhouetted against the sky.
She noticed something else—a small screen floated in the air next to her. As she looked, it had text and numbers. A game status screen? She wondered while squinting her eyes to read it.
Name: Nadia Khan
Class: Stowaway
Level: 50
HP: 100/100
MP: 50/50
XP: 0/10000
Skills: Stealth, Lock-picking, Dagger Mastery...
Quests: Escape from the Pirate Ship (0/1)
She was in a game world.
But how? And why?
She felt a surge of disbelief and fear.
This was impossible.
This was insane…
Chapter 1
The brave remote shores of the beach next to peaks of Mount Silwan had braved more than they showed on their brow. A local fisher, who most people around him considered as polite as a perched peacock, noticed a foundation stone with a marking that made him think of the taste of his wife’s cooking when she was not in a particularly pleasant mood.
The foundation stone was textured and rough to the touch, and from the perspective of a sparrow soaring high, it seemed of colors ranging from a vibrant crimson to a bottle-green with a hint of blueberry blue.
There was something unique about it—to the fisher, it looked like a hedgehog tumbling around, attempting to imitate a rolling tumbleweed in the Hami desert.
On one fine day, a day which did not seem at all different from any other summer day, the village, the beach, and the entire mount Silwan were wiped out completely.
It was all because of a mistake or rather a series of mistakes which occurred even though they had the minimal probability of occurrence—a probability which was lower than that of a group of Monkeys writing a book about a group of monkeys writing a sonata in the style of Shakespeare.
This story is about that mistake which has no relation to the bad cooking or the fisher, but is linked intrinsically to that Foundation Stone and its weird origin.
It all started with a President’s desire to make an AI to control the world.
Zhavi Mastermind felt the cold Himalayan air cut through him as he gritted his teeth and stayed determined. The task he came here for was worth all the effort and care he showed it. Being a software architect working for a start-up focused on mapping the universe, Zhavi had made himself enough money to pay for his travels and more. He could probably afford hired help. But then knowledge was precious, especially information which could lead to unlimited success or even world domination or more. Besides, he needed to have a tiny footprint. The more people with him, the easier it would have been for anyone to spot his operation. And then someone could interfere. Besides, he wouldn’t want even his hired help to know details about his plan. There was too much at stake here. So, he followed the only option for him that seemed right—he had to work under the radar.
His trip so far had been short and mostly sweet. As he had traveled all the way here, there had been a few hiccups here and there, but overall, it had been event-free. Most people recognized him as a tourist, so it made him easy to be ignored.
The night before had been tiring, as he had set up camp here. To a casual visitor, it would appear that Zhavi had set up his base simply because it seemed the right place. He had planned every step of the way. This was the place to be. It was around 30 feet from the target, which made it easy for him to set up a personal area network which had a range of up to 33 feet.
He targeted the place where a power surge had been detected and ignored. As he sat down waiting, he recalled how he had discovered it truly by chance. He had been working with data from a reconfigurable radio telescope and found a powerful signal—a signal which could only have been signifying intelligent life. As he analyzed, he found out that the source was not from any other place but a place in the Himalayan region in Northern Pakistan some distance from the base camp of one of the most formidable peaks, “Nanga Parbat.”
The encryption that he had cracked had been eye-shattering. Initially expecting it to be some boring secret communication by a government, it had shocked him to see the communication in a language beyond anything that existed on the planet. A higher dimensional language, so to speak, with words with meanings which were impossible to decipher for mere humans. Each word lay in the cross section of concepts. As Zhavi explored, he used brute force decryption with the help of resources from a global public super-computing facility to discover the meanings. And what he found was truly astounding. There were historical, cultural, and geographical references in the signals. It was impossible to understand them without taking notes on each of them. The problem, however, was that none of them were from Earth and that’s when he realized he had to get here.
The data scientists ignored the signal as an outlier even though it had been detected once. As Zhavi dug deeper, he found another incident over two decades back.
Zhavi had been compiling the data for the last three years now. And he knew now was the time for it to activate again. The signal’s source had been camouflaged to prevent human interference, except during this time.
What he had learned from the signal was too complex to be deciphered easily. But he knew it was enough to conquer the world and more.
He took a long breath inside. The freezing cold mountain air made him feel alive. He felt a gush of warmness as adrenaline poured inside him. The icy wind stung part of his exposed areas like mosquitoes made up of ice crystals.
As he moved outside the tent, snow as soft as cotton fell slowly from the sky. Zhavi was fully alert now. Everything was at stake. If he missed now, he would probably never have another chance. In the next twenty-five years, when the signal repeated, who knew if he could make it? That would not be the worst thing that could happen. The worst would probably be if someone else would find out and if he could find it, what would stop anyone else from doing the same? And the probability of that someone being a powerful government agency such as from the US was high.
Everything seemed just right. He had discovered the signal occurred in a particular alignment of the Earth with a certain very active star system in the Milky way.
If he could find it, someone else could find it too. So, it was now or never.
Zhavi authenticated and opened the shiny black box. Inside, lights were turning off and on as he flipped the switches. Screens around him lit as his custom designed distributed operating system booted up and synched.
A soft voice said, “Your secure Personal area network is now operational.”
“Turn on the security system.”
“Security system turned on. Cameras operational. Lasers are operational and looking for targets.”
Zhavi was a pacifist. He would always tell himself he never believed in violence. But he just hated to be disturbed. He was, however, also a realist. He realized the need for sacrifices for some causes. And that sometimes extreme measures need to be taken to attain success. If there was any such day in his life where he should never be disturbed, it was today.
As he listened to the whirring lasers and the automated drones guarding his position and looking for intruders, he focused his cameras on the approximate location where he thought the item should appear and waited. Everything seemed to be fine.
A sudden, blinding flash of light caused Zhavi to flinch in surprise. He took a step back, his eyes widening in wonder as he tried to grasp the magnificence of the object in front of him.
“Dr. GB, Dr. GB, sir, you need to see this. You have a letter.”
“I have a what?”
“A letter, sir.”
“How is it possible? You know, girl, your brain gone mad. We don’t even have an address. How can somebody send us a letter in the middle of nowhere? It’s the Congo river, not some small lake, Mary.”
“Sir, I assure you it’s for you. I just found it on the porch outside.”
It was a hot day, like many other days in Congo, as Dr. GB Smith sat on his reclining chair in one corner of the makeshift hut that he called his lab. He lazily eyed the plump woman standing near the door, her bright clothing standing out in the shadows.
“Why are you standing over there?”
“Sir, you didn’t let me come in.”
“It’s just a lab.”
“Sir, the last time I tried coming in, that fish thing you have in there. It shocked me.”
“Aha, the eel. You should be proud, Mary. You should tell your grandchildren an eel struck you.”
“Sir, I doubt I’ll have any children or even get married if I keep working for you.”
“It’s not that dangerous, Mary. Be brave.”
“Sir, it’s not about just the place being dangerous. Of course, there are no safety procedures or anything. The real problem is that you don’t pay me. It’s not like you paid me some months of salary and then got late with just one. You haven’t paid me anything. So, if I don’t die after being bitten by one of these things that you keep here in this lab, I think I’ll probably die of starvation. To let you in on a little secret, I am probably only surviving because I am living with my parents.”
“Too much information. TMI, Mary,” said GB. As he eyed her, Mary stood still, looking unconvinced by Dr. GB’s invitation or even his attempts at humor, which she probably considered at least distasteful. Her one hand was on the door, with the other holding something with just one foot inside the lab.
GB scratched his white beard, trying to keep up with his planned expression of an air of disinterest, and looked into her eyes. “So? Aren’t you going to give it to me?”
The girl first looked on both sides and then ran towards him. Before he could say anything, the letter was flying on top of him as he masterfully apprehended it on its way to the side.
He said, “So we are all set, right? You are telling me you are fine. Not starving and still alive. Every day, this is just what every animal in the river can wish for.” He looked up only to find her running away towards the door.
GB sighed. As much as he didn’t want to show it, he was worried. This was the third one this year, and he was running out of candidates. Mary had tolerated him for a period far longer than the previous ones.
As he looked at the letter, he felt the texture of the wax seal beneath his fingertips. His eyes opened wide.
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Long story short and as much as it sucks to say, I haven't really experienced much of anything. I'm going to intentionally beat around the bush as to what category that "experience" falls under but I think most people should be able to figure it out lol. In other words (and if you play games), I'm a complete noob when it comes to all things girls. As for why those things haven't happened and why I want that to change.. There's a few reasons, but the main reason why I'm putting such an emphasis on this is because I'm a huge homebody and I don't go out much at all which makes it difficult to meet people. That's where Reddit comes in! The message I'm essentially trying to send is becoming physically and emotionally close with a girl is what I want the most. I want to experience it all; the laughs, excitement, curiosity, intimacy, hanging out, fun. Blame all the Disney movies I watched as a kid for that lol.
Finding someone would be a dream come true, but I also wouldn't mind striking up a friendship at the same time because that also counts as experience! You can never have too many friends. Local or international, just let me know if that's what you want instead :) And I definitely wouldn't be opposed to a relationship. I've obviously never been in one so I'm not exactly sure how to transition to that, haha. I totally wouldn't mind finding out, though :) Also finding someone to say good morning and night too, too! That would be the best even if it's incredibly cheesy 🧀
Anyway, it could be someone of any age with a lot of experience or someone with no experience like me, or introverted or not introverted like me, etc. I don't have a preference either way :) But if I were to be reaaally picky: they'd be sweet and down to earth because just cuddling on its own would be all kinds of cool. A bit about me: I'm shy, caring, kind, sweet and am normal in the weight and height categories. I want to say I'm okay in the looks department? 🙈 I'll let you decide that though lol. I think it's super fun learning about people through conversation so I'll leave the following hobbies section blank. Then again, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to give a small hint to something I love.. My username should provide clues to that! I Siriusly need to re-watch the movies again. Maybe with someone I meet through r4r?
Alright, I can't hold it in anymore. I pretty much like a little bit of everything. For example, when it comes to music, I go through Backstreet Boys phases to Disney song phases (Moana is awesome and I haven't even seen the movie 🙊) to something like Linkin Park, Paramore or 50 Cent. What I'm trying to say is I like a little bit of everything! So there's a good chance I'll like whatever you like when it comes to hobbies and interests and that means connecting with each other should be relatively natural/seamless. Or maybe that's wishful thinking on my part, haha.
I'm not the best with openers and if you're also in the same boat, then how about this: If you could have any superpower what would it be and how would you use it? Being out of this world smart like Tony Stark is an acceptable super poweanswer, by the way.
Hopefully my first impression is a good one! If anyone is even remotely interested, then just let me know and I'll get back to you asap!

Hello,
I'm fairly new to WOW and was trying to configurate my layout with bartender today. Now i'm facing the following problems:

1. My action bar 1 is disappearing when I mount up a dragonriding mount. I compared all settings with the other action bars and they are the same so I have no clue how to avoide this.
2. I made a new action bar 5 with the same skills on it as action bar 1, this one is staying when I mount a dragonriding mount, so I thought good I'll just use this one. But here I can't get the icons of the hotkeys activated. Skills does work when I press the button but I would like to have them "written down" on each skill. Even after deactivating action bar 1 they still don't pop up... Action bar 1 does have all the hotkeys on it though ....

​
Thanks in advance

Hi, we're currently doing a study on human ship naming conventions, but we aren't able to piece a coherent human naming scheme
Here is a list of the most confusing names so far :

• "BOAT_NAME" it seems like an omission, but it was entirely intentional
• Some of their boats are named after human folklore, they said theses entities aren't real, but they still name them as if they expected that folkloric entity to come and help them achieve their mission (ex: 'Zeus' a ship tasked with studying thunder in the atmosphere of exoplanets).
• "Boaty Mc Boatface", "Shippy Mc Shipface", "Shutty Mc TheFuckUpFace", there seems to be a pattern here but one has yet to decipher its purpose
• One was sighted wearing the following name, "FOR F*CK'S SAKE PETE ! JUST PUT A NAME DOWN ! ANYTHING"
• When prompted about the meaning of their name, the captain of the "Baby Shark do do do" just said "ha you have it in your head now !" whatever that means... (our head scans didn't pick up anything new)
• The Commandant of the "xXx_XenoPussySlayer_xXx" asked us very weird questions, including pictures of ourselves in all kinds of positions, he also sent us a picture of a human appendage (his ?). It appears however that his mission wasn't to 'slay' aliens, his true purpose remains a mystery. A similar story happened with the "Space Cheeks Clapper"
• The ships 'Luna', 'Toaster', 'Mushroom' and 'Whiskey' appears not to references theses objects but the names of human furry companions, there is perhaps a new area of research here
• The biggest ship we met was named "Ur Mom" and the smallest one "Ur Dick", this is perhaps a reference to the old city of 'Ur', we didn't find a Richard there however
• For some reason the crew onboard the "Bubbles defense force" sang shanties about winds and a great dragon although no such things exists in space; they were extremely xenophobic and rude toward us
• We searched human databases about "Grand Admiral Stabby" but only found stories about an autonomous vacuum cleaner
• We found an "Indestructible III"
• We found two ships arguing about the best way to build fortresses named "Rogal Dorn" and "Perturabo" respectively. Theses ships didn't seem to know about each other before their argument started, but they left each other laughing, there must be a cultural cue somewhere
• We also found a car in heliocentric orbit and every time we asked a group of humans about its name, they devolved into great debates about the owner of said car, we thus were unable to retrieve the name of that car
• Why did the ship named "En passant" kept recieving the same radio messages wherever it went ? Theses were in order : "Holy hell", "Google En Passant" and "New Rules dropped"

Dear Fellow researchers, please share your clues and explanations you found as we are interested to hear about them, as well as any ship names that you have encountered and that left you clueless
We'd love to hear about it !

I have followed every guide, every suggestion, and I cannot get ANYTHING other than the original ingredients from the dispenser. They all say "use zonaite devices" cool! Well...
Zonaite, Large Zonate, Zonaite Charges... it's all the same. No matter what I insert into the dispenser it spits out what I put in.
What am I missing? I don't want clues, I don't want hints. Just tell me please, how do I use these dispensers?
Give me an EXACT name of an item to insert.

I am looking for some advice from an emotional-support perspective rather than a practical perspective.
I went out with my family yesterday. Being immunocompromised, I normally don't (i.e. can't) go out much. But my grandma, whom we don't get to see often and haven't seen in five years, is visiting and really wanted to do something together. The family and I decided we would go to an outdoor shopping arcade, where there are indoor shops (for them to enjoy) but also ample open-air areas (for me if needed).
Of the family members yesterday, two live with me, and two don't. Grandma is also staying with me during her visit. The family members I live with, along with Grandma, are elderly and would typically mask up in public spaces. The two I don't live with are younger and wear baggy blues sparingly.
At the beginning of the shopping trip, everyone was still properly masked, but for some odd reason, one by one took off their protection. As it was happening, I spoke up about it but was brushed off in the moment with phrases like, "It's fine," or "I just want to smell the aroma (in the bakery)."
The unmasking frenzy started with the two I don't live with, which did not come as a surprise. I'm okay with that. I respect their way of life and can make do with it since I don't have to share a living space with them in the end of the day. But I was appalled by how the elderlies whom I trusted, and whom I live with, also followed suit. And I have a problem with that because they live with me and should know better. I feel betrayed. And it hurts seeing that they don't care enough about me to stay protected.
What baffles me the most is that they would take off their masks indoors where there were clearly unmasked people near them but would then pull them back up outside. I'm so confused. These are folks who would normally complain to me about people not masking, so I don't know what was going on yesterday. Most of the shoppers and staff at the shopping arcade were maskless, so perhaps that messed with their judgement? I don't have a clue.
But anyways, as a result of their behavior and their unnecessary exposure, I will now be confined to my room at home for the next little while. It's my only way to protect myself after the fact because they've refused to make any accommodation such as wearing a mask or divvying up our living space so we can all live comfortably while keeping distance. Worse yet, they seem perfectly ok with me having very limited access to the kitchen (i.e. food) and the bathroom because I apparently "made this a problem when it's not". I can only use those spaces after they have gone to bed and have vacated the area. It's very demoralizing, but there's nothing I can do because after all, they have the right to do what they want.
It feels like I'm being punished for wanting to protect my health - is this feeling valid? Are any of my feelings valid? Everyone at home is treating me like I'm nuts for feeling bothered by yesterday's incident and for thinking my wellbeing is at risk. I feel so defeated and am starting to second think: Am I wrong for feeling upset about my family's behavior yesterday? Am I overreacting for wanting to keep some distance after the fact? Am I really "just too pessimistic" about my health and the whole Covid situation like they say I am? It also prompted me to wonder if they normally behave like this when I'm not around. Like how many times did they expose me to risks in the past without my knowledge? Am I being unreasonably paranoid? I can't keep my head from swimming. How do I stay sane as I live out the next few days in isolation?

As Eastern European bordering russia, I(we) know russia very well, we know how to read its propaganda, we experienced occupation of soviet union, nazis, USSR again. What we (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Finland) have in common is a shared despise for russia, because of direct experience with it. You may call one group russophobic, other US puppet state(lol), but when every neighbor of Russia has shared violation of its sovereignity and freedom by russia, we jumped to support Ukraine from before even the invasion, because experience of Ukraine is relatable to us. We know what they go through, and when our support for Ukraine is dismissed as western propaganda it annoys us like hell, because we have direct experience, not retold stories, we despised russia before it was even cool(haha), our despise had nothing to do with US, and what I noticed is we get this way too often not from actual pro-russian russians, but..westerners.. Americans, western europe.
So I got this feeling over time that there is so much misunderstanding and misinformation about anything Ukraine related after this invasion, and there are so many westerners that love to be contrarians that there has to a more centralized place of information focused on explaining every question any westerner will have about ukraine over time. They will hear pro-russian narratives that seem to make sense and will want to hear alternative explanation of how correct it is or isnt.
When I(we) say something that's true, but if the position simply happens to allign with the pro-Ukrainian pro-western one or one that is spread by US, we get dismissed as western propaganda, even though these people just recently had zero understanding of invasions of ukraine. They feel as if being western/american makes them an expert on western propaganda. So pro western stances are assumed to be posted by american or westerner too and i guess their contrarian pro-russian anti-western rhetoric about ukraine is aimed at other americans/westerners who also have only recently learned about ukraine. its aimed at those pro-ukraine americans, which is also partially a way for them to argue and 'own" democrats/current admin/liberals. For some its the main reason - not because they're anti-ukrainian, but since in US the left/right political conflict is such a big part of their media that some of them adopt pro-russian anti-ukrainian rhetoric simply to bite back at the other side and current admin(biden).
So sometimes a pro-ukraine western position is assumed as indication of also supporting the west, the US, the current admin, democrats and believing their positions. The same people assume anti-russian rhetoric must mean being pro-ukraine, which (to them) means above said things.
Eastern Europe as a whole get tired of the "what about US, iraq, syria" comments when arguing about ukraine. We get assumed supporting US decision means we are american or support everything US does. It seems misplaced when we had governments that disagreed with invasion of iraq,syria,lybia, didnt participate in the invasions, and have no reason to defend. I guess its a 'gotcha' moment aimed at americans supporting ukraine as an anti-west argument. Eastern Eu and ukraine doesnt care about US but its shoved in to every conversation because they assume the pro-ukraine claim is made by american
this indicates that a lot of americans and westerners who naturally have only paid attention to ukraine-russia relations only after invasion, which is understandable but also means there will be a HUGE part of american/western population that find it hard to follow the overload of information coming from both sides, it makes it hard to learn all the history of russia-ukraine relations so fast, so some of them can unintentionally buy into or repeat pro-russian propaganda simply because it might seem to make sense, if you don't know the full picture and important details that debunk the claim. there are many on-the-fence people that simply need to be told the full picture and why the pro-russian argument just doesnt hold up to scrutiny
So starting from crimea, there needs to be some kind of interactive mega thread about all things invasion related where you can hover over a keyword and it will open up a more detailed information about that, which can also have certain keywords that cover some key details or events. Im not tech savvy enough to do this and have no idea how to even start. Because of how complicated this conflict is, there needs to be some kind of FAQ of most common questions about ukraine that especially westerners will have. The claims would have sources with arguments that support the claim.
there also should be a mega thread targeted at russian propaganda specifically, debunking the claims.
I would love to have one big thread that is aimed at explaining things exactly for the international/western audience, when they know details that are left out by prorussian side, they will be more confident and have what to respond with. Eastern europeans know all this, but westerners need to be explained, this will help understand certain ukrainian rhetorics as well as russian ones.
What is a good way to direct americans/westerners towards less biased information space, that draws information from both sides (ukraine/russia) and confirms claims that are made by ukraine or eastern eu countries? it seems like those pro-russian americans and westerners dont actually follow russian information space and their media, so they have no clue what is western propaganda and what is not. You make a claim supported by even the ultranationalist pro-war russians and some westerner claims its western propaganda. You argue against pro-russian claim that is supported by russians themselves and its also assumed as western ukrainian propaganda, because these westerners dont follow russian media and information space, so they dont know when they're wrong and when their claims are contradicted by the source itself. they dont know what russians are saying and thinking, so they support pro-russia rhetoric without understanding what it is they're supporting. Apparently everything outside of russia is "the west" ?if majority of the world alligns with ukraine, does that mean most of the world is "west"? what does west even mean then if eastern regions are bunched up with 'west'.
Another thing i noticed is that since these same westerners/americans have not experienced soviet occupation and how their propaganda works, they have never developed resilience to it, thats why they so easily fall into russian propaganda, they dont see the patterns that eastern europe sees, they havent had decades of time to witness propaganda machine at work during various periods. So when westerners started following this conflict and realized just how much russia lies, they assume everything russia does is a false flag, and part of some big grand masterplan. They begin to see even neutral minor events as some calculated masterplan to fool the west into thinking or doing something, and that everything happens for a reason, so they buy into this (actual western propaganda) about how smart and far-reaching russian propaganda and capabilities are, they think russia has the same capabilities as soviet union.
since russia is not USSR for a long time, it doesnt have the budget to do any of that, but it does have the budget for creating the impression and media that russia is just as much a superpower as ussr was.
Now actual western propaganda is the red lines and fear of escalation of russia or that all russians are poor victims of brutal regime and they would support democracy and be anti-war if there was no pressure and free will. western propaganda is the shooting self in the foot just to 'not be like them' and that you have to talk with russia and russians like with any other normal civilized country, that it would be liberal democracy if only they could, that we should turn the other cheek and not strike back because we dont want to escalate.
there a lot of not actual pro-russians but simply useful idiots, for example anything related to escalation, nukes and WW3. The lack of understanding about it makes one assume any strike to russian territory will result in nukes. actually, westerners even promoted the idea that once russia annexes the regions we shouldnt be able to hit them, because russia would be able to use nukes. hell, the same people said giving ukraine tanks will bring nuclear armageddon, because i guess russian media said so.
we cherish life so some of us might have promoted the idea that the lives lost in ukraine are the lesser evil compared to nuclear armageddon where everyone dies, these people really bought into the russian propaganda about its capabilities and its irrationality. These people havent looked into it enough to realize how unrealistic it is. Russian media exploited this exact lack of research and western cherish for life and happiness, repeating nuclear threats more than north korea. Its useful for russia to scare entitled westerners into paralyzing fear, trying to appear irrational madmen than would not care about using nukes and dying, even though the acting was so bad..
russian media also exploited the western concepts of referendums and highlighting the will of the people to create some kind of fake legitimacy for their referendums and annexation. it also exploits the fact that laws and constitution means more in the west, while russia has changed their constitution any time they wanted, the 'government' always accepted everything putin proposed, never rejected anything, not even have questions for anything, never propose anything that conflicts with putin. in russia also just because a law exists on paper doesnt mean anything, i mean, private military companies are illegal in russia, but it simply doesnt enforce it, who cares right. want to jail your opponent? just jail him for 'corruption' and financial fraud - its such a blank empty cause that its the default go-to for jailing people if what they do is not illegal. so just because a law is there or isnt there doesnt mean anything in russia.
it does in the west, thats why it was so loud about referendums, because how could you override will of the people? who cares that you didnt even ratify the referendum, who cares if the referendum is about an act that is nonconstitutional, who cares if its not in effect yet and cant be enforced, its russia. who cares about legal procedures of how referendum has to be done to be legit, as long as they say the magic word -referendum, westerners will immediately collapse mentally and buy into it.
only a westerner would be so unaware of how illegitimate russia is, hell, by even most basic level, there was wide coverage of the ballot stuffing in russia, and them being caught. the "supervisors" are there not to screen for violations of election procedures, but to give legitimacy to ballotstuffing commission that verifies everything, it always finds everything fine and perfect, no major legal battles against the commision. who cares that opponents get jailed for "tax fraud" and hmm lets add "extremism" and "trying to overthrow government" just for funsies. Oh there is not evidence of your crimes? well the judge disagrees, who are you to go against judges judgement? this video (thats obviously not even you) is clearly YOU and all your family(threatened with obstructing justice or whatever if they dont confirm) confirms that!. you criticize putins government? well obviously you want to overthrow the government, i mean its obvious, is it not? constitution doesnt allow for the same president 25 years in a row? who cares just change the damn constitution, its not like everyone on your payroll will not vote in your favor. does anyone disagree? well hes obviously "doesnt pay taxes" lets jail him.
any neighbour of russia is aware of how much bullshit of a country russia is on levels unimaginable for any western mind. Our neighbor gets attacked, we decide to help him, because we were harmed by the same bully before - get called US puppet states and that the only reason we all hate russia is because pentagon told us to - as per some republican american or indian who in 1 year became expert on 'the truth' and on evil west cia nato propaganda.
the same people also cant fathom that ukraine would fight for their country and that the only reason they do is because evil cia nato pentagon told them to, not because their hometown and friends are dying, who cares about that? pff its evil US, of course.

as the title suggests, i had a septoplasty and turbinate reduction 11 days ago on the 26th. i had an awful surgeon who at first i thought was an asshole (he is, big time) but i now know was much worse than just that, and among many other issues, i have essentially been left hanging with no explanations or follow up care, no idea what’s happening in my nose, no clue what they actually ended up doing specifically, no idea if i have stitches (i assume i have to right???) and if i need to get them out or if they’re dissolvable, no idea what to do from here, how to care for it myself from here, what to look for good and bad, i’m lost and have nobody to turn to. it certainly doesn’t help that i was mocked and ridiculed and laughed at for 10 min straight during my “post op”, my nose is still bleeding, i’m a little concerned about air feeling really cold and dry, and i’m anxious and nervous and i feel abandoned.
where can i attempt to go from here???? i need a professional that is going to help me, answer questions, guide me, explain things, i need somebody who will provide the care that my surgeon had a responsibility to provide and failed to. but who would want to take over for another surgeons work?? is there even anyone i can turn to? are there any options here whatsoever? im really feeling let down and disappointed and taken advantage of. i feel like a number more than i ever have in life, which is saying a lot tbh.
if anybody could give me any advice, even just some empathy or if anyone can relate, i would appreciate it a lot. i’ve been so isolated and my healing is taking longer than expected, i can’t go back to work today as i had anticipated, this is affecting everything in my life all because i trusted a “doctor” who ended up being so much worse than i could have imagined. what do i do?? what can i do??? /: anything, anything at all would help me. thank you in advance

He always seemed like a sort of Genghis Khan but with dragons and more sea-based. And he lived around the same time as him. Plus his army's demographics got a lot of different ethnicities from places that are very far away from each other. There's people there that look like they're Mongolians, Slavics, and Saami.
The only way he could have had this much diversity in his army is if he had an empire that stretched from the Scandinavian mainland to well past the Ural mountains and deep in Asia. Perhaps even close to bordering China. Or more conservatively past Moscow and just up to the borders of the remnants of the Mongolian Empire and Genghis Khan's warring children.
Them being all mercenaries wouldn't make any else. Perhaps some of em, but he wants to conquer the world. You can't do that with just hired people from lands that you don't even own.
That is a really big deal. Either one of those border estimates would land him a permanent mark on the history books. History books that would be thought in schools in the time of the Nine Realms, even if they don't believe the dragon army part.
This is straight up an alternate history scenario, and we don't see what happens after he's gone. And I think that should have been what the 3rd movie focused on.
Typically when the main tyrrant dies, their children and or subordinate vassals would carve up the remains of their empire and fight each other in a power vacuum. That could lead to a lot of interesting storylines.
In the Hidden World we see a bunch of warlords following Grimmel without much context, but wouldn't it be more satisfying and interesting if Grimmel was one of Drago's generals just like Krogan, and he was the one that managed to reunite a good chunk of his empire?
And what about the dragon army itself? That realistically wouldn't have gone away. The Alpha's reach isn't even that far out, and there would still be dragons stationed guarding his territories. Plus Drago's Fleet didn't even get to berk in time in the final battle so they're still out there.
And the people under that empire? This is a perfect opportunity for the Dragon Riders to try and save them or something.
We don't have any clue what Eret's home is like. Shouldn't he at least care about that?

I was stuck on one remaining clue from this Cryptic Crossword.
1.) Called livestock inventories "facilitators" (9)
C __ T __ L __ S __ S

Caste is an interesting evil and a social phenomenon of the Indian soil. It is founded neither on subjective nor objective fact or reality; yet it influences our minds in a strange way and makes us behave peculiarly, as if possessed by the notion, which becomes sufficiently real to us. The patterns that the notion is able to trace on social behavior have strange outlines and persistent and deep origins. Primitive peoples suffer from it more than those who lead an open and dynamic life. Separatist instinct itself supports it from the negative side. Race and color provide it sometimes with a semblance of objective reality.
From the positive side of human nature, vague notions of traditional origin and of supposed spiritual value lend it support. Thus nourished it thrives on the tree of life as epiphyte. Though unsupported by scientific ethnology, weak people rely on a pseudo-sociology in which they find some consolation. As it works in favor of some sections of the people as against others, those who reap the advantage naturally give it their support. The notion thus enters as a factor in the struggle for life and the very vagueness of the claims of caste superiority keeps it alive from generation to generation.
Outward marks and behavior give caste an independent objective reality, as when a policeman wears his uniform. Thus given artificially, the outer reality meets the inner psychology, so that with vague sociological and psychological justifications, the notion of caste establishes itself firmly rooted in the body politic, economic and social. Its very unreasonableness is its strength, and unwary people get their notions of spirituality molded by it through its ready-made shapes of forms available in actual society at a given time.
The social value called ‘chastity’, especially the chastity of women, is at the core of this notion of caste. As the Epic Ramayana had Sita at its core in the long and eventful stories in which men killed each other in great numbers, so caste thrives as a vague fear in the subconscious group mind of peoples lest imaginary cultural or religious barriers should be violated by the so-called outsiders. The danger of the confusion of castes to which Arjuna himself alludes in the Bhagavad Gita (I.41) is thought of as arising from unchaste women due to mixing up of castes. It is true that Krishna himself, as representing Absolute wisdom, does not support this view, but wholly ignores the plea. Caste is a word of Portuguese origin currently used in India after the historic connection of the Portuguese with India in recent times. It is derived from the same root as ‘chaste’. It refers to the purity claimed by a clan or tribe because of the chastity of the women within its closed and static imaginary frontiers.
When caste notions became a chronic nightmare to the Indian mind, various rationalizations were attempted by the fundamentalist orthodoxy at different epochs of Indian history. The post-Gupta period was responsible for formulating caste as a social system, and it was then it got its sonorous title of varna-ashrama-dharma (duty, based on color or race and stage or calling in life).
In Spite of such a fine-sounding name based on a compromise and an attempted rationalization, however, caste as a system remains vague and indefinable still from any understandable norms or standards, whether ethnological, sociological or biological. Varna-ashrama-dharma (color-calling-duty), kula-dharma (clan-duty) and jati-dharma (duty as belonging to a kind of species of beings) are to be distinguished carefully if we are to get anywhere to the bottom of the riddle of caste.
We have seen that the first term (varna-ashrama-dharma) is a vague attempt at the rationalization of caste for politico-economic purposes after the Gupta period. The second term, kula-dharma refers to the inbreeding and purity of strain of certain clans. A lower-caste woman could marry a high-caste man but the converse would not be permissible, and so forth. These are features of such a caste-system as prevailed for historical reasons and which no longer hold good in modern India. They deserve to be forgotten as a bad dream.
Casteism in Bhagavad Gita and Vedas
The Bhagavad Gita has two main references to caste, one at the end of ninth chapter and one in the eighteenth chapter. The well-known ‘chatur-varnyam’ reference alluded to Bhagavad Gita’s attempt at making a social hierarchy as presented in chapter 4 verse 13 is a himalayan attempt by the orthodoxy to justify caste and make an impression that it is hardwired to the social system by God, giving it an absolute status.
Chapter 4 of Gita is called Jnana-Yoga (Unitive Wisdom) which is preceded by the teachings pertaining to the Unitive way of action. On carefully studying the Gita, the specific verse (13) is not talking about a four-fold division in society but it is talking about the nature of action (karma) and its apparent origin in Absolute Reality. The obligatory character of caste is taken away and characterized as a free and contingent factor in life. This is found in Chapter XI, verse 32, which throws open the door of the high spirituality recommended in the Gita to women, vaisyas (traders) and even those outside the Aryan pale (sudras). A further comparison of the implications of the sequence of verses (Chapter XVIII, 41 et seq) confers a revalued status of caste free from all obligatory character altogether. When this is read together with (XVIII.66) the wisdom-teacher says to abandon all dharma (duties) and take refuge in Absolute wisdom, which is not a state of inaction or morbid selflessness but to act according to one's own inherent tendencies and talents without the anxiety and spiritual regret. Then the caste hierarchy based on vocation becomes shadowy and non-existent and humans are free to choose their own caste.
Furthermore, in one among the 108 Upanishads which are considered as authentic, the Vajrasuchika Upanishad explicitly talks about who is a Brahamana - the holy order. It is not based on birth or action that a Brahamana is identified but his spiritual status as a person endowed with Absolute experiential wisdom. There are more references from even major Upanishads (Chandogya Upanishad - the episode of Janasruti and Raikva) where a sudra was instructed in Brahma-vidya (the Science of the Absolute) which is kept secret and away from all by the Brahmanical orthodoxy now. This shows how ignorant, misinformed and fanatical the orthodoxy really is.
Man’s Humanity Distinguishes the Human Kind
Reformist Sage like Narayana Guru (from Kerala) had an approach to the problem of caste which was neither accidental or unconscious. In the first line of his composition he evidently addresses himself to the Hindu orthodoxy when he insists in the Sanskrit language of Hindu orthodoxy itself that humanity is what should give us superiority. In other words the good person is one who is more human and who recognizes humanity in his fellow beings.
The requirements of social justice, of morality, and for the superiority in the name of one’s caste are all thus referred to the same central and unitive principle in the value called Humanity. Likewise when human and godly values are treated unitively in the religious context we get the same result of an absolute human value at the core of human affairs.
On a certain occasion the Guru went so far as to say that if his devoted followers insisted as they sometimes did, on considering him as an apostle of God, they could so only on condition that such a status was conferred on him because of his opposition to caste as it prevailed.
The unique status of Narayana Guru implicit and explicit in his attitude as one who wished to abolish caste barriers is a matter that needs greater recognition in modern times not only in India but the world over. The poignant complaint of the Guru is expressed at the very end of the very first verse of his composition: “Alas ! This truth no one understands!”
We see that authentic Indian seers and wisdom teachers were not with the orthodoxy in their claims of being a superior individual but they saw sameness in all beings. This we see in the master-mind of Vyasa himself in his epoch-making masterpiece - The Bhagavad Gita, we read:

“The wise man considers with equality the brahmin endowed with learning and humility, the cow, the elephant and the dog as also the dog-eater. (V.18)”

These words put the seal as it were on the uniqueness of the discovery of the Indian Gurus in their own words. The unity and solidarity of humanity was what was most dear to the heart of these spiritual giants.
Narayana Guru, like many others spent all his life revaluing and restating the ancient perennial wisdom of the Indian seers - the Upanishads. When there was a gathering in his humble hermitage, he asked one of his attendants to make a welcome sign in bold letters which says: “AUM! SAHODARYAM SARVATRA !” “AUM! Brotherhood Omnipresent Fills !”