On a scale of one to ten, one being touching a hot car on a sunny day and ten being falling into the sun, I’d put having something burst into flames in my hand at probably a four. I think four is reasonable. I mean, we’re not talking about blistering heat that roasts your meat black. We’re talking about a little, blue, cat doll just catching fire and enveloping your hand up to the wrist in white-hot angel fire.
I think anyone’s first instinct when something they’re holding bursts into flames is to drop or throw the item. Since I am anyone, I naturally throw the doll with a squeal that turns heads. It hits the side of the closest tent and tumbles down it, paw over whisker. It leaves a trail of little fires behind it. These don’t just sizzle and go out, they get bigger.
Did I mention the smoke? There’s black smoke billowing out of the doll like it’s one of those funny fireworks that does nothing but make smoke. It doesn’t move like smoke though. Smoke just goes up where I guess it gets sucked out into space or something. This smoke swirls around in a ropey fashion like a snake.
“Meredith?” I say to the smoke snake, “Is that you?”
The smoke snake does not respond. Instead, one of the teenagers shouts, “FIRE!” and throws a cup of soda at the side of the tent that’s burning incredibly quickly. They all scatter. Soda is apparently not an effective fire extinguisher. The flames just sizzle and then swallow more of the tent.
I decide not to stick around. “If you’re Meredith, follow me,” I tell the smoke snake, and then turn to run for the busy section of the carnival.
I don’t make it more than two steps before one of the bigger teenagers grabs me by the shoulder. He’s a lanky boy with black hair and one of those “I wanna look grown-up” half mustaches that you almost wonder if you can just rip it right off his face. He’s wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt. I bet Roger and this kid would have been best buds or bitter rivals if Roger hadn’t gotten turned into mashed potatoes.
“Hey! This girl started a fire!” he yells to nobody in particular.
A girl with really short cut bleached blonde hair and one of those nose stud things runs over and gets right in my face. “Let her go, Johnny!” she snaps at the boy holding me. I’m surprised because I thought from her expression that she was going to headbutt me in the face and knock me out or something. “She’s pretty badass in my book.” She looks me in the eyes with something I’m not familiar with. Is that... respect?
Johnny lets go of me.
“That thing’s gonna burn the whole carnival down!” the girl yells. She sounds pleased. She’s even got a big grin on her face as she watches the fire on the tent rise upward.
“Well I’m not sticking around to watch, babe!” says Johnny, and he takes off between two trailers across the way.
There’s already shouts rising over the sound of the crackling fire. I hear someone yell the word “fire!” and the sentence, “grab an extinguisher!” Just over the tent, where the main thoroughfare probably is, some woman screams, and a kid starts crying. Oh God, I’ve gone and killed everybody, haven’t I? The entire carnival is going to burn to the ground and everybody’s probably panicking and stampeding for the exits. Then the screaming lady lets out a big burst of laughter and I realize nobody on the other side of the tent is even aware of what’s going on over here yet.
“Come on!” the blonde girl pulls on my sleeve. I stumble over my own feet and fall to the ground. She doesn’t stick around to help me up. Instead she takes off after her friend Johnny, doing some sort of twirly dance in the process as she runs away into the dark.
I start to get up from the dirt when I notice dark liquid running out from under me. It’s blood. It’s all over my shirt. I’m a sopping wet, red mess. Also, the cow pitcher is shattered. I must have fallen right on it and it broke and I got Nate’s blood all over myself! How am I ever going to explain this to that angry man I borrowed it from?
“What’s going on?” asks Paschar, “I’m getting only bits and pieces. There’s a fire? Smoke? Snakes? Blood? Are you injured?”
Actually, now that he’s asked, there is a big piece of the cow pitcher sticking through my bloody shirt down in my tummy area. I pull on the end of it. There’s a nasty, burning sensation so I stop pulling. I’ve gone and stabbed myself with a cow pitcher! Is any of this blood mine?
“I’ve spilled Nate’s blood all over myself!”
“Don’t rub it in your eyes!”
I wasn’t gonna rub it in my eyes. It’s not like I’m tired or anything. My cousin Susie used to rub her eyes a lot but that was because she had really bad allergies. Her eyes were always bloodshot. Susie’s worst allergy was boat propellers though. She was deathly allergic to those. After her accident, my Uncle George developed really bad allergies too. I could tell because his eyes were always bloodshot.
Someone nearby yells, “Over here!” and a pair of men run up with big, red fire extinguishers. They start spraying the white foamy stuff at the side of the tent. At first, it doesn’t look like the foam is going to stop the flames, but after a minute of spraying and one of the extinguishers running out of juice, the fire hisses and goes out.
The man holding the used-up fire extinguisher looks at the big, black, scorched portion of tent, then down at the crispy, little cat doll on the ground. Then he turns and looks at the claw machine. The machine blinks its lights like it’s saying hello to him. The man finally looks over at me, laying in a small pool of warm blood. It’s the man with orange hair who passed by earlier that I hid from.
“Look what we got here,” he says with a funny accent. I think it’s Irish, but it might be Scottish. I’m not an expert on accents. Everything I know about accents I learned from this movie I watched with my dad about a Scottish guy who was immortal and he killed other immortal people by chopping their heads off with a giant sword. Well, that and Mary Poppins.
The other man sets down his fire extinguisher and turns around. He’s a beefy guy wearing a huge coat with lots of pockets and a floppy-looking cowboy hat. “Who’s that, Gin?” he asks in a non-accent voice.
“Get up, girly!” The man named Gin reaches down and grabs me by my collar. He pulls me halfway up to standing on my own two feet. In the process, the piece of cow pitcher that has punctured me in the tummy area shifts and causes more of that intense burning feeling I got when I tried to pull it out.
“OWWWW!” I yell, hoping he gets the hint and lets go of me.
He doesn’t.
Then I notice that the snaky trail of black smoke is circling his head like a creepy halo. I don’t think he or the other man can see it because if either of them could, they’d surely be freaking out and trying to wave it away.
“This,” Gin says with one of those half-smile smirks that shows the canine tooth on the left side of his mouth, “is who Clay was looking for.”
The black smoke snake hunches back like it's about to strike at the back of Gin’s head. Then it lunges forward and splashes like a wave against him, going in all directions. A moment later, it recollects itself into a cloudy-form and swirls angrily around him like a swarm of bees dealing with Winnie-the-Pooh.
Gin pulls me the rest of the way to my feet. This is good because I aim to kick him in his testicles and I couldn’t do that lying down. As soon as I’ve got my footing, I pull back, swinging my foot out behind me--
--at which point he brings his big, adult fist into the equation by punching me hard in the guts. The pain is so intense I feel like I’m going to puke. Even worse, there’s a really sharp stinging sensation and then a wet kind of warmth. No, I didn’t pee myself. Gin himself winces in pain as he pulls his fist back to reveal the piece of broken cow pitcher stabbed right up between his knuckles. He lets go of me so he can pull it out and I take the opportunity to drop to my knees and double over, clutching where he hit me.
“Word of advice to you, lass,” says Gin as he flicks the pitcher piece away, “don’t broadcast your intention to kick a man in the quongs if you don’t want to get punched in the ovaries.”
I’m too busy rubbing my face in the wet grass to respond but I’m thinking about how annoying this thing with saying what I’m thinking is and I wish I could stop doing it because it really makes fighting bad guys difficult. I wonder if I just said that thought, but judging from Gin putting his boot on the back of my head, I’m guessing not. Bleh, the grass is warm and tastes like ozone. I realize I’m getting Nate’s blood on me. Paschar said to not get it in my eyes!
“What is she, like ten years old?” I hear the other man say, “What about this brat’s got Clay so spooked? You could knock her over with a wet fart.” Thanks for that visual, Sir.
Gin lifts his boot off my head. I take the opportunity to get my face out of the bloody grass and wipe it off my mouth. I can’t tell how much is on my face.
“She killed his kid or sometin’,” he remarks casually, “burned him alive.” He pauses. I look up. He’s looking at the scorched tent. “Seems like she’s got a penchant for fire. Maybe we ought to give her a feel of what it’s like to get burned before we bring her to Clay. What do you say?”
I cough up some dirt I didn’t realize was in the back of my throat. “I didn’t kill Joey.”
Gin wanders a few steps away and the other man comes over and puts a hand under my armpit. He helps me up in a far gentler manner than Gin did. I don’t think about kicking him in the testicles and I don’t plan to. The two men share a brief look and I worry for a second that I just said all that.
“She’s got blood all over her,” the big other guy says, letting go of me and wiping his hands off on his dark jacket.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if she’s got shit and puke on ‘er,” Gin lights up a cigarette and takes a long drag on it. He looks at me like a kid with a magnifying glass looks at an ant. He blows out a small cloud of stinky smoke. I wonder if he can make smoke rings. “Give me her arm.”
Nothing good ever started with someone saying, “give me her arm.” I instinctively start to pull away, but the big guy puts his hand under my armpit again and moves me away from Gin, twirling me around so he’s between the two of us like a big wall.
“I’ve had enough of this. I’m not letting you put a cigarette out on a little girl. What the Hell is wrong with you, man?”
I put my free arm around his waist and give him as much of a hug as I can. Thank you, Mister, whoever you are.
Gin casually gestures toward the blackened tent flap and scorched patch of ground where the remains of my precious Freddy Lapel doll sizzles with otherworldly heat. “Look what she did, Dutch. She tried to burn down the whole carnival. Could have hurt somebody! Could have killed somebody--” He looks directly at me. “--again.”
Dutch’s thumb digs into my armpit but not so hard that it hurts. He smells like he had bacon recently. And he works on machinery or something, because there’s a distinct scent of motor oil on his clothes. I wonder if he knows Mr. Grizz.
“But thankfully nobody did get hurt. And I don’t know the full story between her and Clay, if there even is one. All I know is a grown-ass, Irish prick is telling me to let him put a lit cigarette on a ten-year old girl covered in blood and I ain’t about to be the guy that lets that happen.”
“I’m twelve actually,” I tell Dutch. He doesn’t hear or just ignores me.
The orange-haired creep named Gin takes another drag on his cigarette. I watch the end of it burn away between his fingers. Then he casually lifts one leg and puts it out on the underside of his boot. He flicks the butt away and then crosses his arms and stares at me hiding behind Dutch. If there was a clock, we could hear it ticking away, but there’s no clock. Instead, there’s just the hoots and hollers of people having a grand old time at the carnival.
After what seems like five minutes of just hard, quiet staring at each other like one of those Mexican standoffs in a Clint Eastwood Western movie --my dad used to love to watch Clint Eastwood movies. His favorite was called High Plains Drifter. I just watched for the horses-- oh right, like I was saying... after five minutes of that staring, Gin shrugs like he didn’t just step on the head of a little girl and then try to put a cigarette out on her.
“I’m fetching Clay.” He lingers for a moment, glaring at both of us, and then storms off in a hurried manner, really working his arms into it.
Dutch’s grip on my pit loosens. I stop hugging him and move away a step. He looks down at me. I can’t figure out what thoughts are going through his head. His expression seems like a jumble of worry and upset and even a little fear. He’s gotten all sweaty. He wipes it away with his sleeve and takes a rough breath.
“Thank you, Mr. Dutch,” I tell him.
He nods silently.
I check my pokey stab wound from the cow pitcher. It’s not leaking profusely but there’s blood and mud caked on my shirt and it’s sticking to me. I hope I don’t get a mud infection. I wish I better understood where germs come from. There’s blood all over my hands but I don’t know if it’s mine or Nate’s.
“I’m taking you to the front entrance and we’re calling the police,” Dutch tells me.
I almost forgot about the cloud of smoke. It is lazily drifting over Dutch’s head now, like a little, black raincloud. It moves unnaturally, not drifting away or dispersing in any way. Just a little, black raincloud over the man’s floppy hat.
We walk away from the burned tent and the claw machine in the opposite direction from the one that Gin went. A noise behind us makes me look back. A blonde woman with an apron covered with pockets from which prize tickets hang out all over comes out of a nearby booth alley and sees the mess I caused. She immediately zeroes in on Dutch and I walking away together.
“Oi! Dutch!” she calls out, “what the Hell happened here?”
“I’m dealing with it, Susie,” he tells her. He puts his hand on my arm as if to show that he’s got the perpetrator and is handling the situation.
I look up at him. “My cousin’s name is Susie.” I don’t know why I feel the need to mention that. My brain is kind of doing a reset at the moment as I try to figure out what I need to do and if that cloud is indeed Meredith’s soul like I think it is.
Mr. Dutch glances down at me and starts leading me away again. “Is that so?”
“My uncle ran her over with a motorboat.”
He frowns and looks away. “Oh.”
I realize I could have worded that better. “By accident.”
Paschar chimes in. “That’s probably not the best topic to be bringing up right now, Lily.”
Mr. Dutch seems to agree with Paschar. “Let’s just get you to the ticket booths, alright? Quiet like.”
Ahead of us, the back alleyway of tent flaps and old, unused arcade machines opens up to the main thoroughfare. I knew it was right there! I can see normal people, mostly adults because it’s so freaking late and kids have got school tomorrow but the carnival is in town so some parents brought their kids because some things are more important than school. Like fishing for little ducks with magnets on the end of a fishing line so you can get a ten cent knick-knack for the price of a couple quarters. Or shooting water in a hippo’s mouth and watching a balloon fill up from out its butt and whoever pops the hippo’s butt balloon wins a prize which is usually just a bunch of tickets like the ones that lady had falling out of her apron pockets.
The little, black cloud follows us, keeping just above Dutch’s head. I wonder if it intends to drop on him like an anvil in a Wile E Coyote cartoon.
Right before we reach the thoroughfare full of laughing, smiling people, I hear something. Fast approaching footsteps. They’re not speed walking; this is more like a jumbling hustle of several feet moving swiftly but trying to be quiet. Oh crap, it’s Gin and Clay. They’re going to burn me with cigarettes or rub deodorant on my wounds and stab me and light me on fire and--
There’s a hard WHOOMP sound right next to me followed immediately by a loud grunt like “UGH” but I can’t do it justice with words. It’s like the sound someone would make if they bang their elbow on the edge of a metal desk right where their funny bone is. Like right between the elbow joint bones, you know? Why does that hurt so bad? I think the person who named it the “funny bone” never hit the corner of a metal desk there. It’s the least funny bone in your body. Or second at least to the coccyx. That’s the little tail end of your spine. Yeah, we got tails. Humans got tails. They’re hidden though, tucked away in the butt area.
Dutch lets go of my arm. I turn to look at him. There’s a foot with a sneaker on it sticking out from between his legs. Just as quickly as I see it, it disappears. Mr. Dutch is the one making the pain sound. He reaches down and clutches his crotch, and his knees give out and he falls forward. Someone kicked this poor man in the testicles!
The foot belongs to the girl with the short, bleached blonde hair. She stands over the large, crumpled form of Dutch and looks at me with a triumphant grin.
“Bleep the authority!” she shouts and pumps her fist in the air. She’s wearing like a dozen rings on the one hand. How can she fit so many rings on such stubby fingers? “Let’s go!” she yells in my face even though I’m right there next to her.
Her friend Johnny is with her. He’s looking around anxiously. “Yeah, let’s get out of here already!”
I’m flabbergasted. “But Mr. Dutch was a good guy!” I try to tell the two of them.
They’re completely enthralled by their own sense of pride in a job well done, saving the little, bloody girl from the big man at the traveling carnival. Mr. Dutch is groaning in severe, testicle-kicked pain. I reach down to try to help him, and the blonde girl grabs my wrist.
“What are you doing?” she asks me through a smile that says she doesn’t even really care what my answer is, “we’re rescuing you! Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, let’s hoof it!”
I feel like that’s one too many horse-themed expressions in a single statement, but I don’t say anything. And not just that, there’s like twelve too many people getting involved in my problems lately. I’m not a complete idiot, I know well what happens to people around me. My whole family is dead. My best friend is... probably a little, black cloud that’s doing some sort of weird interpretive dance over the crumpled form of poor Dutch with the swollen balls. People get hurt around me. Hell, poor Dutch can attest to that at the moment. People die around me. People get torn apart by skinless dogs that form out of fungus that used to be old ladies and I can’t believe that’s even an actual thing I saw. I saw that. That happened.
I take the girl’s hand and remove it from my arm. “Look, I don’t know you or Johnny and you both seem really nice, but you need to get out of here before you get hurt. I’ll be okay. Mr. Dutch was taking me to get help. The bad people are coming, and they like to smoke. They’ve got an angel of death tied up somewhere. And there’s someone much, much worse who could show up any time.”
I think I lost them both somewhere around the part about that creep Gin being a smoker. The boy Johnny does another anxious look around the area, then he grabs the girl’s arm. “Nance, let’s just go. I didn’t come here to get murdered by some whacked-out carney cult.”
The girl Nance drops her arm and shakes her head at me. She starts to open her mouth to say something, then crumples it up into a little mouth and turns and trots away after Johnny. I watch them go. I don’t know who they were, but I hope they get far, far away. The curse of getting involved in my life has a long reach and is unforgiving.
After they leave, I kneel down and pat Mr. Dutch on the back. “All you alright, Mr. Dutch?” I ask him. He mutters something I can’t understand because he’s got his face shoved into the ground.
“You’re not cursed, Lily,” Paschar comments.
“Then why do bad things always happen to people around me?”
“Because your gift is chaotic,” I hear me say. Except I didn’t say it. Not me me anyway.
Paschar whispers, “Oh no.”
I feel the presence of another person standing right behind me. Unlike Nance and Johnny, this person didn’t make a sound. It was as if they rose up out of the ground or descended from the sky as silent as a feather touching a pillow. My whole body tenses up. That sounds impossible but it totally is possible and it’s incredibly uncomfortable. Don’t question it.
I turn around slowly. First at the neck, then the shoulder, finally at the waist. Why am I dragging this out? Because I don’t want to look behind me at the person because I know exactly who it is and I really don’t feel like peeing my pants right now. Or ever. But especially now.
For a second I think I’m just looking in a mirror because I see my own face. Except my actual face probably has more blood on it currently. But less blood everywhere else.
Samael smiles at me. “You got here ahead of me.” He looks at my clothes and then tilts his head and examines my face. “And from the looks of it, you’ve had one Hell of a time. Who did this to you? Was it him?” He points at Mr. Dutch who has finally rolled over onto his back and is staring up at the starry night sky with teary eyes and a really red face.
“This isn’t my blood,” I tell him.
He grins. “But this is,” he gestures at himself. Don’t pee, Lily. Don’t pee.
Paschar raises his voice. “Sam, please, you’ve got to come back! You’re unwell.”
“Really?? Did you really think that’s going to work?” That’s me talking. Actual me. Not Samael. “You can’t appeal to crazy! I mean, come on. You’ve got to have something to back your words up with. When in the history of ever has someone been on the verge of destroying a small carnival and someone else said, ‘don’t do it!’ and they were like, ‘oh, okay.’? Never!”
“She’s right.” Samael says, nodding and raising an eyebrow. Hey, I can’t do that. I try to raise one eyebrow, but I just end up raising both. So I stop and try again. But then I stop completely before it looks like I’m wiggling my eyebrows at him. He stares at me blankly for a moment after, then blinks a couple times and shakes his head.
Mr. Dutch rolls over and gets up onto his hands and knees. He lets out a big breath, then sits up and tilts his head back to look at Samael and me together. There’s a moment where he seems to accept what he’s seeing, but then he clenches his eyes shut, reopens them, cranes his neck forward and looks back and forth between us.
“Don’t hurt him,” says Paschar.
Samael smirks. It’s starting to feel surreal to see myself making faces when I can feel that I’m not. Also, everything’s slightly off because I’m looking at my actual face and not a mirror reflection of it. “I’m not here for Mr. Dutch,” says Samael, “I’m here for the rune-maker, remember? I’m here for Felix Clay.”
“Lillian Alexandra Madwhip!” someone shouts from the direction Mr. Dutch and I just walked away from.
As if he was just waiting in the shadows --which he probably was because it’s such a Felix thing to do-- Felix freaking Clay steps from seemingly out of nowhere and stands about ten yards down the alleyway from us behind Samael. Beside him is his orange-haired friend Gin, smoking another cigarette from the looks of the little glow I can see in his hand. I should have smelled him coming.
They’re a little ways off, but I can see them both pretty clearly, and Felix isn’t smiling. It occurs to me that he always smiled before, even when he was doing things that shouldn’t have made him happy. It’s like his smile is a mask he hides behind. But not now. Now he looks angry. And annoyed. And --why is he holding that hammer? He’s not even holding it right; he’s got the claw side down. He can’t hammer a nail that way unless his arms work backward.
“You came for me and here I am!” Felix yells at us, “But I told you not to come back. So now--” He and his Irish buddy Mr. Gin start marching toward us with very purposeful strides, and I can’t understand what he’s saying after the “so now” part. Mr. Gin pulls something I can’t see out of his coat and holds it close at his side. No doubt it’s a weapon, I just don’t know if it’s a stabby weapon or a shooty weapon or what.
Samael doesn’t look at them. He’s focused on me. He’s smiling. His hands are clenched at his sides, and I remember well that there’s a rune on one that lets him punch through people like they’re made of Play-doh.
As for me, I’m torn. Do I warn Felix that Samael can karate chop him into bits like some sort of bad horror movie? Or do I watch this play out? Maybe I should take this opportunity to just run. I mean, I can’t win against any of these people. Who am I? I’m a Knife That Cuts the Veil that’s dulled by the runes all over the carnival grounds.
While I stand there lost in that thought, Samael reaches forward and pokes me in the forehead. He starts moving his finger around. I just stand there and stare at him, waiting for him to jab a hole right through my head. Don’t pee, Lily. Don’t pee. What the heck is he doing?
“There,” he whispers to me, finishing whatever it is, “that should keep you safe. Just don’t smear it or your head might explode.”
As soon as he lifts his finger away, I can feel it. That tension I had that I mentioned early was all through my body, it just vanishes. I almost go completely slack in fact, but manage to hold myself up. Then comes a wave of warmth starting at the spot on my forehead that he last touched and encompassing my entire head, traveling down my neck, across my chest, down both arms at the same time, through my midsection and then hips, legs, ending at the tips of my toes. The pain in my abdomen that I had actually forgotten about also vanishes. I reach into the hole in my shirt to feel the wound. It’s still there and I feel my fingertip actually go inside the stabby hole for a second before I realize I’m still hurt; I just can’t feel it anymore.
“Who’s your little friend?”
Felix and Gin have finally reached us. Gin looks smugly at me, still holding his hand by his side. Samael turns to face them finally and Gin’s smug look is replaced with one of confusion. Felix stops mid-stride and even takes a step back. He also has a confused expression on his face. I don’t need to see Samael’s face to know he’s got the biggest grin on it right now.

Today is my empty day and I don't think I'm alone. This probably won't upload until it is too late. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll start by explaining, I guess.
​
All of this is because of a really stupid reason. It was Friday, I was 15, and I had a chemistry midterm on Monday and a birthday party the Saturday before. I struggled a lot with whatever unit we were doing, something about valence electrons and balancing equations, and I needed the whole weekend to study. I also desperately wanted to go to my friend's birthday party Saturday, which took up the majority of the afternoon. I couldn't do well on my physics midterm and go to my friend's party, there was just too much to study, and I knew this.
​
I had always been science-oriented. If something couldn't be proven, it wasn't true. Gods, devils, and prayer were all frivolous distractions to answer questions that past science could not. But science evolved, we have scientific explanations for past myths. Heaven and hell were comforting fairytales for the mystery of what happens after death. I thought that even when I was 15. I have no idea why I turned to the supernatural that Friday night.
​
I drew countless relic and sigils, honoring every god, devil, angel, and demon I could find. Jesus, Y-hweh, Allah, Gabriel, Satan, the Goetia demons, Horus, Zeus, I prepared a religious buffet even for the most ancient and obsure of beings. I prayed to everything in the cosmic realm for extra time. I thought it was useless, which is why I was so surprised it worked.
​
The next day I woke up to an empty house. My parents and cats were gone, and the date on my phone screen simply read 'February 2019'. No date, no day. My neighbors seemed to be gone too. Birds, squirrels, all gone. Everything except the sluggish jog of the wind was silent. Texts to friends and family simply read 'delivered'. I felt sick. If my prayer worked, how much extra time did I have? Just the one day? A week? Or maybe an evil being like Satan answered my prayer, and I was tricked horribly and forever stuck. I don't really remember what happened, just vague distress, running into an empty town, fear, and crying. Somehow I did end up studying that day, though, even though I got through a fraction of the material I needed to. After that, everything was back to normal. The next day, time resumed, and it was Saturday. I got through another quarter of what I needed to study, went to my friend's birthday party, and finished studying everything else Sunday. On Monday, I did alright on the midterm. I think I got high 80's or low 90's.
​
But after I did that prayer, I've had an extra day each week, between Friday and Saturday. No-one is ever there, no date is ever displayed, just an extra, empty day to do whatever I liked. Usually getting extra work done or just catching up on sleep. As I said earlier, science and school have always been my priority. Honestly, my empty days helped my grades a lot. No distractions, no engagements, just time to focus on whatever I needed to. And Saturday, everything resumed as normal. My empty days were like a little pocket in time which I attended and the rest of the world skipped.
​
My last empty day, I heard a rumbling and banging in the distance. I paid no mind to it, I assumed a tree fell. I should have known something was off, though. Nothing ever made noise on empty days, nothing except for the blowing of the wind. Nothing ever changed.
​
This empty day, I heard another crash. Like last time, it sounded like something big falling. About two hours later it happened again, and it sounded much louder. I could hear it more clearly too- it sounded like wood crunching and glass breaking. Like a giant baseball bat hitting a building. Blunt and blind.
​
I looked out the window and I saw a hole in the window of a house down the block. To call it a hole in a window is inaccurate. The hole *used to be* the window. It looked like something had pushed itself in through the window, but it was much bigger than the window, and it pushed in the frame and most of the surrounding wall. Shattered glass, dusty debris, and harsh, splintered wood giving way to a room with a carpet were all I could see. Red goo with yellow chunks in it oozed from the splintered wood and formed an awful, spattered paste with some drywall dust. It shone in the sunlight like fresh mucus and snot. I watched and heard as something blundered through the house. A couple bangs, a couple crunches, then silence. It probably left the hole it created in the wall. I don't know for sure. As soon as I saw something deep red through the window of the house, adrenaline overtook me and I ducked below the window and scampered to my room.
​
I'm hiding under my bed now. I'm not sure what that thing is, or what it is looking for. I didn't get a good look at it. I saw that it was shiny, dark red, and big. So big it dominated the whole room. It was sleek and shiny and deep red, like a giant wet blood clot. If it is a beast, it is probably hungry. Maybe the empty days, the pocket in time, is a sort of prison to contain it. And maybe the being I prayed to, whoever or whatever it was, thought I would be a good snack for it.
​
Edit: I just had a worse thought. Maybe the giant wet blood clot *is* the being I prayed to. Maybe my empty days have been in its time pocket, its domain. Maybe its prison. Oh god. I asked to be delivered to it on a silver platter. And tomorrow it will be Saturday, outside of the time pocket. If it finds me, it might want something much worse than a snack. What if it brought me to its prison, its pocket dimension, and it will find me and use me to escape?
​
Even if I make it through this empty day, it is going to come again next week. I won't be able to evade it forever. I will die, or worse, sooner or later. And judging by the size and power of it, probably sooner. I just hope my loved ones will be ok. If you see this post, remember, I love you. I love you a lot. I'm so sorry this all happened. I really am.

Someone debate me on this (potential spoilers ahead)
I’m currently doing a rewatch of the show and stalking this sub to relive everything. And while a lot of people love Brooke, I must say, I’ve been surprised by the amount of posts talking about what a terrible friend Brooke is.
From what I’ve seen, Brooke puts the most amount of effort into her friendships when compared with Peyton and Haley. Yes, she’s done some terrible things as well (like making fun of Peyton’s mom’s death), but Brooke is a very extreme person - her high’s are HIGH and her lows are LOW. And in my opinion, Peyton has gone pretty low as well like punching Brooke in the face and giving her a black eye, tackling her to the floor, telling her “you’re dead to me”, etc. However, Peyton has never done anything as thoughtful for Brooke as Brooke has done for her, which makes me see Brooke as the overall better friend. Some examples:

• Letting Peyton move in with her twice so she wouldn’t be alone (presumably rent-free since Peyton was unemployed the second time)
• Redoing Peyton’s room in Brooke’s house to look EXACTLY like her old room. Can we just take a moment and acknowledge how long this would take to do? To repaint the room, move everything in and put it in the exact right place, etc.?
• Dropped everything and moved back to Tree Hill the second Peyton called her (yes, Brooke wasn’t happy in NY, but still. She didn’t make the move until Peyton said she wanted to move back)
• After Peyton’s mom died, Peyton said that Brooke spent every day with her for a long, long time and never let her be alone
• Organized an entire scavenger hunt for Haley and Nathan’s first date. Again, Brooke’s grand gestures are always shown as no big deal in the show, but honestly think about how long something like this would take to set up!
• Immediately broke up with Felix and cut him off after he called Peyton a “dyke”
• Organized Haley’s entire wedding and bachelorette party
• Wrote Lucas a letter every single day for 3 months when they were apart

These were just off the top of my head, I’m sure there’s more. And I really can’t think of any of Brooke’s friends doing anything as major to show their love for her. It was always her doing all these grand gestures for other people without anything in return.
So Brooke slept with Nathan when he and Peyton were broken up. This isn’t a huge deal to me since Nathan and Peyton’s relationship was extremely toxic and it was obvious that it wouldn’t last. They clearly didn’t love each other. What Brooke did was still very fucked up, but Peyton had an ongoing affair with Lucas while KNOWING that Brooke was in LOVE with him. That’s far worse in my opinion.
People on this sub also love to say that Brooke stole Lucas from Peyton in season 1 because she went after him, even knowing that Peyton had feeling for him. I call BS on this. Brooke was the very first person who showed interest in Lucas by calling him hot, telling Peyton MULTIPLE times that she wanted him. Sure, Brooke may have been aware that Peyton liked him too because of all the longing looks between her and Lucas, but that was IT. There was no other indication that Peyton liked him. Brooke practically came out and said “I really like Lucas, so if you like him too, please tell me and I’ll back off.” But Peyton didn’t say a word so that’s when Brooke tried pushing her towards Nathan again.
People still say, “well Brooke was aware that Peyton and Lucas had something so she should have backed off”. But you could say the same for Peyton! They both really liked him so why should Brooke be the only one to back off if Peyton wasn’t going to do anything about it? Why shouldn’t Peyton have been the one to back off and let Brooke have him? It’s a murky situation for sure, but I can’t really say Brooke was in the wrong here because she really liked Lucas too. Why should she sacrifice her happiness if Peyton kept saying that she didn’t like him?
And after Peyton was assaulted the second time by fake Derrick, Brooke spent every night with her and did what she could to make her feel comfortable at home. But after Brooke was assaulted in S6, Peyton moved out the very next day because she wanted to go be happy with Lucas.
The only time Peyton has ever really done nice grand gestures for Brooke is when she’s trying to get into her good graces again right after she cheated with Lucas (like helping her win the cheerleading contest and signing over her artwork for Clothes over Bros). So these don’t really count for much.
And don’t even get me started by saying that Peyton was just trying to be honest by telling Brooke that she had feelings for Luke the second time. Peyton had already kissed Luke and told him she loved him by this point, yet Peyton neglected to mention it. Where was the honesty then??
In conclusion, the one and only really terrible thing Brooke did to Peyton is making fun of her mom’s death. I am not by any means making light of this or trying to excuse it. However, Brooke also went above and beyond in the other facets of their friendship, and she put more effort in than Peyton. Additionally, Peyton went almost as low as Brooke in other ways.
I’m not saying Peyton was a terrible friend by any means. I actually like Peyton too. But if we’re comparing who was the better friend, I think it’s Brooke hands down. Thoughts?

I genuinely don't know why I am writing this or what can come of it. But it's burrowing in my brain and stuff should not fester.
I am by and large respected by my peers, viewed as accomplished, creative and good at what I do. That also means that people I am too busy to hang out, and so I find myself in an ever increasing state of isolation.
But I find no joy in anything anymore. Life has become a rote routine one day taking the next, just wasting time until I have no more time left. It's not that I am suicidal. I genuinely am not. But if I didn't wake up tomorrow, I'd be kinda fine with that.
I am despondent about the state of the world. I have no belief or hope that things will get better. Probably that's a self-reinforcing spiral, and certainly not anything new or original.
So ... where does one go from there? What is the point even, in trying?

I guess I’ve entered the angry side of grief…
My husband died in a plane crash on March 5th…20 days ago. I’m 36 weeks pregnant with our daughter. I’m finding myself angry or screaming at little things…the dogs running out of the house, dropping something and struggling to reach it. Mainly because my husband waited on me constantly & took care of everything during this pregnancy. “You’re supposed to help me!” I find myself yelling at God.
His step mom had her birthday party planned for tonight and is still having it. I know people grieve differently, but his mom, dad and step mom? How can anyone “party on” as they put it on social media today…
I know I’m angry & this just topped it off. Every couple I see I can’t help but think “sure would suck if one of you dies”
I know that I’ll feel love when my daughter is born and honestly she’s the only reason I’m still breathing. I just hate people saying that to me… “just wait” just wait for what? When her father who was so excited to be a father isn’t here for her birth? When she gets old enough to realize her dad lives in heaven? I know people mean well but it’s starting to get to me. I’m sure I sound crazy but hoping you all understand.
Hoping the anger goes away. I don’t like feeling like this. I miss my person. I know he would say, that’s just typical of them to keep partying.
I hate this. I hate everything about this. When does it get better?

In spite of my better judgement, I think a post explaining the end to end process could alleviate confusion about the mural and things. I think that the folks who are hell bent on dragging me won’t have their minds changed, but maybe this will help, starting with the raw rune text analysis data and working towards Kana. If you aren’t going to read this post and instead just act like a replyguy, I’m going to block at this point.
1. Things we know about the rune text
Once we transcribed all of the rune text in the art book, along with the murals, and other fragments from the trailers, we learned a few things. Using a standard cryptographic analysis technique, we knew the text was non-random and most likely Japanese in nature. I’m not going to explain how Index of Coincidence scoring works in this post because I’ve explained it far too much. There are base thresholds for different languages, which are:
English non-random text: ~0.06 Kunrei (and Nihon) Romaji non-random text: ~0.08 Hepburn (Hebo) Romaji: ~0.089
To get a really reliable score, you need a decent amount of text. This was a big issue for the original murals. When we scored all the words and text that we had, we scored at 0.08001, a good indicator for Kunrei or Nihon Romaji. It could also indicate Hebo Romaji with English words mixed in. We didn’t think that the latter was the case for a few reasons:

• The Sheikah Tapestry with several English words mixed in, dropped to 0.076 (IIRC it’s been a bit)
• Hebo utilizes less Latin characters than Kunrei or Nihon, and because of that, if the text was in Hebo, it should have scored higher.

Frequency Analysis
It’s worth pointing this out, so I want to touch on it briefly. The frequency analysis (distribution of characters and compounds for a language) is different between the types of Romaji. We initially attacked the problem on the basis that the text source was Hebo Romaji, only later changing to a Kunrei based view after finding an issue in the frequency analysis tool we used. Within hours of changing our view of the rune text, things started popping out. The frequency analysis we did is in the back of the guide as an appendix.
*2. Transliterating & Contextualizing the solved text *
Transliterating this stuff was a nightmare. There are a ton of rules that have to be checked to get it even close to right, and even then, you’re counting on the author getting it right, too. Nintendo is not free from mistakes. If you look at every single Hylian language translation, there are misspelled words, and other grammar issues. To illustrate that more, here’s a view of the monument sheet we used.
https://i.imgur.com/BR8y96l.jpg
Note the letters in red. Those things are a pain. There aren’t enough of them in enough places to be useful letters, but they appear in a few key places. As an additional analysis step, I used a technique where you apply index of coincidence scoring to capture standard deviation across random but nearly equally sized groups of the monument text. We found that the letters in red consistently caused spikes in the scoring. What does this indicate? Probably mistakes on the part of the author, potential punctuation, or other problems.
Looking at the rules for Kunrei and Nihon romanization, there were potential things for us to try. You can see a list of the consolidated rules that we compiled from different sources, here.
Even our list is not complete. To really understand this, you have to understand that a lot of rules are about taking a sound and turning it into a group of latin symbols. This allows for things that don’t seem intuitive. A great example of this is GN. Romanizing it requires understanding the sounds that you make for the target syllable. GN becomes GA in Hebo, but you pronounce it kind of like the original GN.
This is why, in the guide, we have the contextualized Romaji vs raw. The goal was to be transparent that we made changes during romanization. The whole goal was to be open about how we got here.
3. Translating the contextual Romaji text
This part also has its challenges. We have no semblance of word boundaries. None. This is a good reason to involve native speakers alone. This is a huge reason why the guide has a giant disclaimer before the interpretations. Furthermore, this is the reason that we label them as interpretations and why there’s no definitive translation. If you speak Japanese, and look at the monument text, you might notice the dumpster fire that is no line ending verbs or particles. So you’re left trying to decide if a letter gets turned into を or お, へ or え.
I wish I could give something definitive, but it may not happen until launch day. This is why my post called the work a “draft solution”. The rune to text mapping we created works incredibly well across three trailers, a cursed art book, and runes from still shots. Some things absolutely make no sense. Based on other Zelda games, I expect that not everything will work due to a margin of error.
I also want to clarify our purpose for sharing all of this. We considered sitting on it until launch day. We wanted to share it with the community in the hopes of taking the work further. We’re all exceptionally exhausted. I’m thrilled and appreciative for the people that realized that this is a work in progress. We made a massive guide as a giant love letter to the Zelda community. If we thought and felt it was nonsense, we wouldn’t have put hundreds of hours into it.
I said after the awful treatment last time that I’d never come back, and yet I still did out the spirit of sharing. This time though, I mean it when I say that I’ll never come back. The amount of toxicity here is alarming. I wish y’all the very best luck.

Hi, I feel somewhat stupid asking this sort of question online, but, in all honesty, I really don’t feel that I have anyone offline to ask it. Essentially, I’m struggling to determine where I should go next fall. I’m considering between two different schools and I’m trying to not only make a generally good decision, but a decision that is also best for me. I’m considering between a small private Christian Academy or a larger public school. And I feel as though anyone that I could ask offline would be affiliated with either school in some degree.
Before I get into my actual post, I should provide some further context. If I were completely honest, I would say that I’m a bit anxious of working at a public school. And this originates from my first student-teaching placement, where I had a placement with a bad cooperating teacher in another county. I struggled through the placement and more-or-less failed it (I technically failed it, but, thanks to some sort of loophole I don’t understand, I didn’t have to redo it). This was a bit traumatic for me and caused me to be far more perfectionistic as a teacher. I had to undergo a full semester of remediation before finishing to my second placement and graduating. But, even though I had a significantly better second placement, the whole situation has made it very important to me to know that I’m at the right school and have made the right decision. It has also caused me to feel as though I can’t make mistakes and, if I do, then they will think I’m not good enough to be a teacher at their school.
Needless to say, I graduated in December and I am currently working at both schools as a substitute teacher. And I’ve been trying to use this time to weigh out the pros and cons of either school, but I also feel as though my emotions are so “muddied” right now that I couldn’t make a proper decision. And last week, the private school went so far as to call me in for an interview. I think I could have answered a couple questions better, but it was a good conversation and the administrator and I talked for about an hour. I don’t know if they’ll actually hire me and, even if they reach back out to me, I’m still questioning if that would be a good choice for me.
My conclusions about both schools are the following:
I have been affiliated with the Christian Academy since about 2014, due to my brother participating in their basketball team. And since then, I have tutored, substitute taught, and helped out with their Spring and Christmas programs (among other things). I know the staff very well and even have friends that work there. They are a small school (about ~148 students, though the new administrator hopes to get enrollment up to ~180 next fall) and, having substituted grades K-5th, I’d have a ballpark idea of the students I’d have next year. And, truth be told, I kind of just like the smaller size of the school and its classrooms (even though I’ve regularly taught at the public school, I still find its larger size to be a bit overwhelming at times. And, thus, this private school often seems refreshing by comparison). The kids and families would be easier to work with as well. However, I wouldn’t make as much money (in the interview, he claimed his upcoming changes could get salary up to ~25K, but I’m skeptical and think it might end up being closer to 20K) and I’d have far more to teach within a given day than I would at the public school (which isn’t necessarily positive or negative, but just an observation). Regarding my financial situation, I still live at home and don’t have many expenses, so that’s not a concern at the moment. And they just hired this administrator back in October, so I don’t feel I know or have the rapport with him like I did with the previous.
On the other hand, the public school is where I completed my final student teaching placement. I’ve only been affiliated with them since August, but I feel as though I’ve developed a great rapport with the staff and the principal. And, due to my student teaching, I would generally have a better idea of what I full week would look like. They have far more resources and have implemented a co-teacher model, which means teachers teach the same three subjects to two blocks of students. And the day is practically over by noon (for fourth grade anyway – the rest of the day consisting of lunch, latter half of the second block, specials, recess, and dismissal). If I went there next fall, they’d start me off at about ~42K. However, they are a larger school (with about ~400 students) and have far more problematic students and a more likely chance of having crazy parents (i.e. one father was notorious for having had to be escorted out of his youngest son’s kindergarten class for using the n-word; one parent start fussing at my cooperating teacher, calling her “the f-ing worst” for her son’s own refusal to do something). I should add that of them are not all like that, but I’m just trying to give insight to the worst of which I’m aware. And the larger size makes knowing my potential roster feel like a lottery. And this concern is fueled by conversations with a first-year teacher there, who probably has one of, if not, the most difficult class in fourth grade.
I believe it appears that it would make the most sense to go to the public school next year. However, I think at my core I would rather go to the private school. I think it would create a positive year of experience and allow me to learn without having problematic students and/or parents. And, truth be told, I’ve always kind of wanted to work there. As a Christian myself, I’ve always liked the idea of working at a school that shares my values and beliefs. I really respect what they are trying to accomplish and love that I could teach those values without the taint of the public education system. Additionally, I think that I may grow to regret it later if I didn’t at least attempt to work there.
However, this is not without its own concerns. First of all, I think that I’m still somewhat afraid of going to the public school due to my bad first student-teaching placement (I was really afraid to return for my second student-teaching placement). And by going to the private school would be giving in to said fear. And, additionally, I’m afraid that I’m trying to enter my profession with training wheels installed and wrapped in bubble-wrap. Put simply, I think I’m trying to make things as easy for myself as possible. I’m also worried that I may be reluctant to apply to a public school when it comes time to do so.
Of course, even though I don’t feel as though I have someone offline to discuss this with, I have discussed this with my family. My father thinks that I’d be happy at the private school, but strongly indicates that he thinks it would be best to go ahead and get the higher income. And he says that I seem to have a strong rapport with the staff at the public school and he thinks the principal seems to like me. And this has been another note of concern for me as well, since I’m afraid losing that rapport with the staff. Realistically, even if I do choose to go the private school, it will only be for a year or so. I’m afraid of risking the loss of that rapport. This public school does have its issues, but it does have a great staff.
However, my brother thinks that I would fit in the best at the private school and that is where I would be the happiest. And I would agree that I would might be happy there, but I don’t know that that necessarily means it’s the right choice.
Of course, all of this built on the assumption that either school would actually hire me. Nothing at the moment is set in stone. There is a possibility that I may have to look elsewhere. And I’ve even questioned if either school is the right choice for me. I’m not sure if that’s a gut feeling or anxiety – as I’ve already said, I believe my emotions are muddied right now. I’ve even gone so far as to question if I should sub another year and add in some other schools from some other counties to explore all my options. These three schools are really the only ones I’m familiar with and, truth be told, I have a slight fear of the unknown. If I took this option, it would help these other schools feel less like a “wildcard.” I’ve even had a teacher recommend subbing a while before taking a full-time position.
So, with the information I’ve provided, what would your advice to me be regarding what I should do next fall. If I were completely honest, I’m very afraid to make a decision on this matter. As I’ve already said, I feel as though my emotions are somewhat muddied right now and I believe I am unable to properly make a decision. One on hand, I’ve always kind of wanted to work at this particular private school. And I fear that I may regret it later in life if I didn’t. However, I’ve also grown to really like the people of the public school and feel like they would make excellent co-workers. And I would hate to potentially lose that. Or should I continue what I’m currently doing and get to know all my options?
Thanks

First: AI is nothing new. Now there is a boom, but such thing is available since years. Just ask and you get "I was publicly released by OpenAI in June 2020, but my development began several years before that. Since then, I have been continuously learning and evolving to improve my ability to assist users with a wide variety of tasks and questions."
Second: Software using AI were already sold in 2021-2022 for example. Now YouTube is even getting full with such software, that few years ago were available with lifetime deals. Now such AI experts are promoting such things like something revolutionary. To be honest we never promoted such auto writing lifetime AI deals, even if we keep track all such things since years.
Third: like we wrote previously, AI has good points and lot of negative points and in future they will for sure improve that. We are implementing AI in our workflows too, but not to copy (maybe bullshit and) stolen text and promoting like if we wrote that. AI is still not perfect and like we showed you in various posts, there are even a lot of errors or false informations. AI can be used to give a boost to your workflow, but cannot replace it. Plus it depends from what you need from such AI. Means AI is not equal to AI!
Remember that AI is used for almost all what are you doing on socials. Some socials are doing a good job, other have just a shitty AI.
Last: now it's happening the same like with all "TikTok experts", that they tell you how to grow your channel (meanwhile almost all biggest TikTokers got big without such bullshit ....), even if such TikTok experts never had a channel (or have a channel with few users) or maybe are even average TikTok users. Obviously you need to pay them for that ... So again, don't get scammed from such average people that they tell you they are experts. We see so many things on TikTok, even people with just 1-2 videos getting more views or followers than someone other with better videos, better content. TikTok AI is complex, but you don't need a TikTok expert to get viral! And to be honest: you need to be lucky too (like when you are searching a job, etc.).
Some other topics about AI that should be considered too are for example copyright and originality of such texts (just think if everyone is asking the AI something by doing cmd c cmd v ... , without considering that a person maybe invests hours or days writing a good (maybe scientific) not AI generated article / pdf or whatever and then the AI just "steal such informations" in 1 second, without even writing the source ...), the possibility that many jobs get lost and people IQ get changed with the time, etc.
Conclusion: like we wrote previously https://perma.cc/3QQJ-GQUB don't get scammed from such things, be rational using your brain and always analyse the situation from different point of view. There are always pro and contra. It's up to you to understand if AI is good or not, but don't scam people with AI and don't get scammed from "AI experts"!

(That title makes it seem like I had a tank battalion over the next ridge helping me out by offering fire support. What an image.)
I've beaten white and even silver lynels in single combat before, but so far I have only been able to do so with training wheels: level 4 amber earrings, champion's tunic, and soldier's greaves (a whopping 88 armor), which allows me to shrug off pretty much any melee weapon they hit me with for just a quarter heart of health (except the crushers, those take four hearts). The near-invulnerability provides a great base upon which to practice combat with these creatures in a safe(er) environment.
Also, if you kick a white lynel in the face, you get a really nice bow. I eventually got to the point where I'd use savage lynel bows to farm royal weapons from hinoxes, then go use the royal gear to farm lynels for savage bows. When you throw the Master Sword (here twice-upgraded to 50 damage) into the mix, you violate the laws of thermodynamics; you get more goodies out of the process than you need to sustain it.
But I wanted to complete the Trial of the Sword. To unlock the full potential of the Master Sword. I admit, I'm not doing it because it's right or because it's what heroes do. I'm doing it because I wanted a (sorta) free top-tier weapon that (sorta) never breaks.
Also the sword glows.
So I take the Trials. One might ask if it's worth the stress and strain at this point in the game; all of the shrines have been completed, all the inventory expansions have been acquired, all the memories re-lived. There's precious little remaining on which to use an awakened Master Sword. But questions of worth fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. Ain't nobody got time for dat, I wanna hit things with a shiny stick!
I tried the trials during my first play through the game, four years ago. I didn't do well; I couldn't even complete the first set—heck, I couldn't even get half-way through the first set. This second time through I do better. It still takes a couple tries, but the first trials go down.
I put it down to playing the game on a larger screen; 32 inches, not the Switch's 6.2. It makes a huge difference; I can actually see enough detail to let me parry and dodge. With my current play through clocking in at 110 hours, 105 of those on a large screen, it astonishes me that I completed my first 70-hour playthrough entirely on the Switch's tiny screen.
I've never seen the second set of trials before this playthrough, but they're actually easier than the first, there being no water-only levels. Bomb-arrow armed bokoblins on the third floor catch me off guard the first time, but I complete the middle trials on my second attempt.
The final trials scare me. I have read the ancient texts. I know what awaits me in the deep. I know what the monks awoke in the darkness of the magic boxes. Manes... and flame... Without gads of armor to cover my ass I fear I will simply be smashed flat by these beasts. But I dive in anyway—the trials won't complete themselves. The shiny stick won't be given to me. I need to earn it.
When I get to the first rest stop, I find something that makes my heart stop. Three ancient arrows? The ancient texts made no mention of these! The only equipment notices I had were for the flamebreaker boots; a not-so-subtle 'you will spend the next five floors on fire' advertisement. I know what these arrows can do to the mere meatbags who oppose me! Five minutes ago I wasn't even worried about guardians, because lynels. But these... these. For the first time ever, I feel a little thrill of hope. If I have these, even without armor, I can beat lynels. My own little cheat code. All I have to do is tough out the guardians.
My first pass through the final trials doesn't go well. I'm nervous, twitchy. I take too many hits. I inadvertently shove my one and only hearty radish into my greedy mouth instead of the cooking pot, wasting a whole full recovery opportunity. By the time I arrive at the second rest stop, there aren't enough food items on the floor to get me back up to full health. And after that comes snow levels; I can't cook everything on this floor to bring my health up as much as possible because I need them to provide me with cold resistance for the next few floors. I get through a couple levels before I tunnel vision on the wrong target; a blizzrobe freezes me and a silver bokoblin turns me inside out.
The second attempt I make sure to take a little bit slower. I plan my attacks, I withdraw if I'm in a position I don't like, I make very careful use of the few elemental weapons I have to one-hit kill and stunlock tougher enemies. When I get back to floor 14, I don't take my chances. I oneshot the blizzrobe with a fire arrow then pull out the first of my three ancient toys and stick it right up the silver bokoblin's backside, banishing his ass to the shadow realm. I will not have another run ruined by those two.
Things proceed more or less smoothly from there. I get to floor 17 and face my first lynel, a blue. It manages to glare at me for all of 2.6 seconds before the second of my ancient arrows wipes its stupid face (and the rest of it) from existence.
The guardians on the following floors give me pause, but the lone ones are easy to abuse and the three on floor 22 don't cover each other if you approach from the right angle. They are all slowly dismantled, one by one.
And then, finally, I arrive on the final floor, 23. Here there are eight little basic red bokoblins on horseback, a guardian turret, and my sum of all fears, Mr. White. Tall, proud, buff, and ugly as all get out, it spots me immediately, screams in barely-contained ketamine-fueled rage that someone as pink as me would deign to cross its field of view, and hauls its massive bow off its back. Before it fires is all the time I have.
It's all the time I need.
I draw the royal bow. I draw the last ancient arrow. I nock this final bolt, the swansong of power on the operatic ballad of shiny sticks. I raise the bow, pointing the arrow at a space a couple feet above the lynel's face; it's a long way, after all. I draw the string.
As afraid as I am, I'm also giddy. I'm there. This will be easy. I just need to let this thing fly and the hard work will all be over. The only thing remaining will be some little pissbabies on horses and a machine that is too stupid to avoid getting stunlocked by repeatedly having arrows shoved in its eye.
I loose my ultimate weapon.
The arrow travels gallantly through the air, its tip sparking into incandescent magnificence as it crosses the open space, dripping sparkles as it flies, little harbingers of its mission of doom. The giddiness reaches a fever pitch. I'm trembling with excitement.
The arrow buries itself...
...in the dirt six inches from the Mr. White's feet.
I've fluffed it. I had one shot, literally, to get this done, and I failed.
I want to cry. These trials have been hard on me. I've had to take extended breaks in the middle of them several times already to untense myself. The prospect of doing it all over again on account of one whinnet-ridden lynel quiet frankly gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies, you know what I mean? Ten year old me would have chucked the controller and screamed in guttural German. Thankfully those days are behind me; I simply pause and walk away for a while. Did I go have a little weep? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe screw yourself.
I like to imagine the lynel and his hangers-on spend several seconds staring at the ruined arrow on the floor in front of them, then looking back up at me with contemptuous amusement as I literally try to swallow my fear, panic, and horror all at once. Of course, the game doesn't render emotions like that, but it's a funny image.
I have an argument with myself here. I don't want to try this full-frontal combat without my training wheels armor—I'm a coward. But even more so than that, I really don't want to run through the last 22 floors of the final trials again—I'm lazy. I even consider quitting the trials and giving up on the fully-awaked Master Sword. I consider using exploits to skip the final set of trials; it's not like I haven't already made it through all these floors, right? I'd just be... you know... skipping one single floor. Sorta. That's not too unfair, right?
When I come back I heave a large 'woe-is-me' sigh and unpause.
I can't face this creature and its groupies all at once on an open field.
I run for all my sorry little Hylian twink ass is worth.
Unfortunately, that's where the story stops being so dramatic. I climb the tower in the corner after I've broken the lynel's line of sight, severely abuse the guardian turret, and hunker down on my new perch. I know I can't bow the lynel to death; I don't have enough arrows and it'll call orbital strikes down on my head. I can't engage it in direct melee combat; I have only four weapons remaining and they'll break on its face before its face does.
But I realize I can abuse the bokoblins as well. They're really no more capable than the guardian turrets are. They won't attack me en mass. I pull them over where the lynel can't see them, one at a time, and pick them off their horses and steal their weapons. After a few minutes there's nobody left in the room except myself and Mr. White. Now I have a dozen weapons; sure they aren't all great, but they're fresh.
I now have no choice other than give up here, at the last step, or just dive in and see where it goes. It's not really a choice.
What I can say is that, thankfully, the training wheels experience gave me the actual skills necessary to get the job done. Mr. White and I engage in combat I manage to take him down with a dozen broken weapons, one broken shield, and all of my hearts.
That rush when the lynel finally collapses was incredible. It was like someone had jabbed an entire thing of adrenaline directly into my heart. I mean it was probably a week's worth of dopamine in my brain, dumped all at once, but still. At this point I want to cry, again, though this time not in pain or frustration but rather pure elation such as I haven't felt in a while. I did it. I completed the Trial of the Sword. And the final trials only took me two attempts.
I'm much better at this game now than I was four years ago.
I promptly take my glowing stick and use it to club Thunderblight Ganon to death.

TL;DR - Summary

All of the reasons that people are saying that the lost to Shanks is taking Kid out of the race are the same losses that Luffy has taken over the course of the series. The loss of their ship and the crew being eradicated only made the Straw Hats stronger, and I think the wording being the exact same from the Narrator should not be ignored or taken as a sign that Kid is out of the race. It's simply far too on the nose to be used as a throwaway line of Kid's defeat. I believe the Underworld works out of Elbaf, and this sets Kid up through his Underworld connections to build a new ship of Adam wood just like the Straw Hats. Shanks leaving Elbaf also clears a path for Kid to still be the main villain of Elbaf. The Kid Pirates will come back stronger.

Comparisons to Luffy's losses

Kid just got one shotted in a fashion I have rarely seen in any series. If Kid is your favorite character, I honestly feel bad. I wouldn't describe myself as a Kid fan, but this is still a character that I believe serves a larger purpose in the story than getting turned into scrap metal by Shanks. I just don't think Oda would have this character moved along throughout the story for 15 years just to make Shanks look good. Shanks doesn't need that to look good, they literally made a whole movie for this dude lol.
I think what we're seeing for Kid is a series of defeats very similar to Luffy and the Straw Hat Pirates that will make him actually strong enough to be a rival to Luffy. Obviously he's going to lose in the end, Luffy is going to be Pirate King. But I just couldn't disagree more with the people saying Oda is just cutting the fat to get to the finish line as fast as possible. I have more faith in his ability as an author than that, and I don't think disliking a character means that their narrative purpose has been served whenever they're done helping Luffy look good.
Like I referred to in the title, I think Luffy and Kid's greatest defeats are mirroring each other until they eventually square off.

Loss of their beloved ship

I see a bunch of people saying Kid has to be out of the race for the One Piece, just look at their ship. How can they possibly get to the finish line first? Well, let's ask Luffy the same thing. Did Luffy's journey end when the Going Merry passed away? Nope. They rebuilt and kept going, with the Merry carrying them as long as she could.
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Losing a ship does not mean the end of the journey.
Kid's ship, the Victoria Punk, is named after his old friend and childhood crush who died when he was young. People think that because this is something Oda elaborated on in the SBS it's proof that he doesn't care about the character and is just trying to get it out of the way and move on. I disagree. I think he's building up the emotional connection that almost surely exists in them naming the ship after her. And while it's surely a tough loss, Luffy's crew is proof that you can absolutely rebuild. Loss of a ship is not the end of the journey.
I'll even take it a step further; I wouldn't be surprised if the Klaubterman for the Victoria Punk in some way has Victoria's spirit.
People say Kid has to be doomed because he sunk in the water with no ship or back up around to help them. But is this not exactly what happened to the Straw Hats at Enies Lobby? How were the Straw Hats supposed to escape from Enies Lobby? Well... by the end, they weren't. They were doomed, but Merry used the last bit of her spirit to save them with a little help from Iceburg. I don't think it would be a huge leap for the Victoria Punk to save the Kid Pirates and get them to safety.
We've seen ships do crazier things.

Death of a childhood friend

Victoria Shiruton Doruyanaika was Kid and Killer's childhood friend who was killed by a rival gang in their home country. As stated by Oda in the SBS:

Q: Is there a reason why Kid and Killer became pirates? And what’s the story behind Heat and Wire joining them?
Oda: Of course there’s a story. These four were born on a certain island in South Blue, Kid and Killer knew each other since they were kids. The country they live in is not allied with the WG, and a gang ruled the country as if they’re royalties. There’re 4 districts on the island, each of them have their own outlaw group, and the 4 leaders are Kid, Killer, Heat and Wire. There were conflicts every single day.
One day, Kid’s close friend was killed by the gang, her name was “Victoria S Doruyanaika”(Kid and Killer’s crush revealed in previous sbs). Kid, in his rage, united the four group and took down the mightiest force in the country, the gang.
“I don’t want to stay in a closed world like this!” And like that he took his friends and form a pirate crew with them, naming their ship “Victoria Punk”.

I don't have to tell you about Luffy's childhood friends dying. Frankly, take your pick. Either Sabo being "killed" when he set sail from Foosha Village or Ace dying in Luffy's arms.
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What I found pretty interesting though is that the mindset of why Kid decided to set sail is very similar to Sabo, just living the opposite life.
I'm sure there are stories like this across a bunch of pirates in the story, I just think there's a pretty clear parallel in why Luffy and Kid both set sail. And it was largely inspired by the death of a childhood friend.

Getting absolutely dunked on by a Yonkou

Kid got absolutely destroyed by Shanks. But I don't see how it's any different than Luffy getting one shotted by Kaido. If anybody is in line for Haki blooming, it's Kid with the amount of shit he gets himself in.
It's a tough blow, but it can just as easily be a learning experience like Luffy's first loss (and second... and third... and fourth...) was to Kaido.

Eradicated

Some people are saying that this has to take Kid out of the race because the Narrator came through and said that the crew was eradicated. There are even people using that as an argument to say he's dead (seriously what series are you guys reading who believe this). If the narrator coming in and saying that a crew is eradicated is proof that they are dead or out of the running for One Piece, somebody should really tell Luffy and the crew that they've been dead for the last two years.
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The Straw Hats were eradicated on Sabaody Archipelago, and it wasn't until the following chapters when we learned what that meant. They took the ultimate loss.
There is no chance that a call back this direct is not on purpose. I'll use this to link back to a previous post I made pointing out the many parallels of Egghead Island to Sabaody Archipelago and Post Enies Lobby. Add yet another connection and proof of the validity of that analysis.

Kid is down, but he's not out

Kid is in about as bad a spot as we've seen a character, but I don't see how this eliminates him in the story. All of the reasons that people are saying this eliminates Kid from being a factor in the story are things that we've seen happen to the Straw Hats. Like people who are saying that he's out because he no longer has a ship, if that was the case Luffy's journey would have ended ages ago. I would argue that the Adam Tree is from Elbaf to begin with, being near Elbaf would put him right in position to get a ship upgrade. I think we have pretty solid information suggesting that the Underworld operation going on throughout the One Piece world traces to Elbaf (for example, Mother Carmel's operation).

The Underworld headquarters is ran out of Elbaf

Like I pointed out, I think we can tie a large portion of the Underworld market in One Piece to Elbaf and I think that will be the main portion of conflict in that arc when we finally get there. Where else would be better to run a secretive operation outside of the eyes of the Marines than a secluded society filled with monsters that nobody wants to mess with? Just look at what Cipher Pol said to Mother Carmel after Big Mom killed Jorul
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They never thought she would leave Elbaf.
Why would they think that this character who has been working for the Underworld for decades wouldn't leave Elbaf... unless Elbaf is the home of the Underworld? It puts the market for her activities right next to her. Not to mention Franky engaging in Underworld activities before he became a Straw Hat. This was how he was able to buy Adam wood with the money he stole from the Straw Hats before becoming their friend.
To this day we still have so much mystery surrounding the Underworld operations that Doflamingo was so tied up in.
And while Kid isn't a Broker, we did learn in Punk Hazard that he was connected with the Underworld and aware of the going ons. I wouldn't be surprised if this is how he knows who the man with the burn scar is to begin with.
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Kid has some knowledge of the Underworld that we still need to learn as an audience and as the Straw Hat crew.

Why did Oda make Kid a Conqueror?

This is a question that I've asked in pretty much every discussion of Kid since it was revealed that Kid and Shanks were on Elbaf together. One Piece is a story written by an author, and that author makes decisions for what will close out certain narratives. That's how storytelling works. So the question I ask people who think that Kid will serve no more importance; Why did Oda make Kid a Conqueror?
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The group of known Conquerors in One Piece is incredibly short.
People have suggested that Kid has Conqueror's Haki because it would boost his resume and make Shanks look good. And I truly do not understand this argument at all. If that was truly Kid's role in the story, he doesn't need Conqueror's Haki in order to serve that purpose. If Law went to Elbaf instead of Kid and got one shotted by Shanks, I doubt anybody would be sitting here saying "yeah that's cool, but Law isn't a Conqueror so it's not that impressive." Because that would be silly. Oda could have made Kid as good with his Devil Fruit as Law is and it still would have shown just how strong Shanks is whether he was a Conqueror or not.
Kid did not even use Conqueror's in the fight with Big Mom. Excluding the anime, all we have is Kaido telling us that Kid is a Conqueror and nothing else. So again, why did Oda add this at all? This isn't like Armament Haki where everybody and their mother has it at this point, this is a very exclusive group of characters. And being Conquerors serves a very in your face narrative purpose for almost all of these characters, with the rest still having future roles to play in the story.

• Shanks - Doesn't need to be explained
• Luffy - Really doesn't need to be explained
• Rayleigh - Right hand of the Pirate King, the Dark King himself, and Luffy's mentor on his path to being the Pirate King
• Hancock - Oda could have easily had Hancock be captured and turned into a slave again, but that hasn't happened as far as the story stands now. I don't know what her role will be now that she's left Amazon Lily looking for Luffy, but her strong will power was shown when she faced Blackbeard with no fear
• Doflamingo - A man who desires to tear down the entire Holy Land with knowledge of the National Treasure and controlled the entire Underworld of the One Piece world
• Don Chinjao - A gatekeeper of the old age of One Piece as a combatant of Garp, and Luffy's baptism into combat on the highest level in the New World
• Big Mom - a Yonkou, self explanatory
• Katakuri - The gatekeeper between Luffy and breaking the billion berry benchmark, and the person who gave Luffy the respect of eventually being able to beat a Yonkou (will you come back and defeat Big Mom)
• Sengoku - Fleet Admiral and an Admiral during the days of Roger and Whitebeard
• Kaido - a Yonkou, self explanatory
• Zoro - desires to be the greatest swordsman
• Yamato - future role still pretty up in the air post Wano, but is the child of one of the greatest Conquerors and desires to be Oden. Also the guardian of Wano next to Momonosuke (who will probably also have Conquerors by the end of the story, but that's speculation)
• Whitebeard - 2nd to the throne
• Ace - Ace died before ever truly reaching his potential, but his lived with the desires to make Whitebeard the King of the Pirates and is the son of the Pirate King
• Oden - Shogun of Wano and the central point of the entire saga of arcs that put us in Wano to begin with
• Gol D. Roger - King of the Pirates

Conquerors are all important characters. This is not a power that Oda just hands out. Until we can answer the question of why Kid is a Conqueror, his narrative is not complete. Don't take my word for it; take Kid's (and Oda's).
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If I die now, what was the point of my whole pirating career?

Conclusion

I think we're seeing the path clear for Kid to be the antagonist of Elbaf, even with as shaky as it looks for now. We can pretty confidently say Shanks is not going to be on Elbaf, that possibility was erased last chapter. Blackbeard probably has to get ready for war with Garp. Big Mom is definitely still a possibility, but she has much bigger issues to actually gather her crew first and get to Elbaf (including rescuing Pudding). I think Kid will come back having gone through the same growth that Luffy went through in the Udon mines and by the time Luffy gets to Elbaf, Kid will actually be strong enough to be his rival.
Kid has not served his entire narrative purpose. And because of that, I'm keeping my Kid stocks. I would advise you all to not sell just yet.
Buy the dip!

Hi ow am I supposed to be with others. I don't know how to talk to other people. I have a job working with teenagers to try and get them to have better lives and yet I don't know how to be happy. How am I supposed to help others when I don't know how to be happy myself. I'm supposed to lead others to good and healthy lives, to inspire, and no one wants it. People rather wallow in their misery then attempting to try a better way of being. People rarely want help and when they do it's either to hard trusting others to get the help they need or almost impossible finding someone who truly cares. How do you prove to someone that you care. How do you climb over the wall of anger and mistrust that we put around ourselves every day. How .I supposed to be? Or should we all just give in and allow ourselves space to be the awful terrible people we feel ourselves to be in the darkest corners of our minds. Just stop trying to find the light because maybe the light doesn't exist. And yet I want to.hope I want to think love isn't just a word we throw around. It's not just an idea that is written about in a romance novel. But who knows, maybes it's not. Maybe love and goodness are just fun ideas like unicorns and dragons. Maybe it's all a myth and the reality is the very idea I've fought against my whole life is what the world truly is. I've always fought to believe that there has to be more to life than we just live to one day die. I believed that there is meaning and purpose in life but maybe that's just a farce. Maybe there is no purpose. Maybe there is no meaning. Maybe life is supposed to be meaningless crap one day to the next. And if that's the case how am I supposed to be.

I realize there's a lot of disagreement and controversy in the past week. I'm writing here only of my own way of coming to terms with the finale. Others certainly may disagree and have other perfectly valid interpretations.
After a week and having time to decompress, reflect, and think about what others have written, I really feel (to me) the best interpretation of the show is a non-supernatural one. I first started considering this after M. Night Shyamalan's statement last week in the Vanity Fair interview:

Are they all imagining things, connecting dots where there are no dots to connect?
“It was always meant to be right on the fence for me,” Shyamalan explains. “You could, if you wanted to, [say] it’s a group of crazy people that believe this stuff. But they’re pretty convincing.”

MNS here explicitly seems to say that the interpretation of the ending is up to the viewer, and the writers seem to have gone to some effort to make this non-supernatural interpretation still feasible, even with everything we're shown on the show.
This is in line with what Tony Basgallop said back in 2019:

No one ever levitates anything off a table, but there are things that are unexplainable. The whole point of it is to be able to tell a story that can be read in two ways, which is probably one of the reasons it’s taken me so long to get the structure of the show right. Because every time something happens in the show that is seemingly unexplainable, the point is that the characters look for the explanation behind the unexplainable — and they find it. One of the ways we pitched the show is, “Is this a miracle or is it a crime?” And it often depends on your personal belief system. If your mind is open to incredible miracles, then you can watch the show and enjoy it on one level. And if you look for explanations — if you refuse to accept the divine or miraculous events — then you can always find the logic behind something.

There have been quite a few threads here over the past week exploring how everything was always "so obvious" -- Leanne was some angel/supernatural being, Jericho was temporarily reincarnated somehow, the cult was pretty much "real" as presented, etc. But there were also many other "obvious" clues of other significance in the show that bore no fruit: e.g., the emphasis in the cinematography on shoes and feet and crossing thresholds, the potential ramifications and symbolism of food choices (and food-related imagery), the hinting at deeper and darker and more thought-out theories concerning religious allegories or connections to deeper biblical/historical religious events/customs, the possibilities that there was "something more" to the backstories of pretty much all the main characters and/or the tragedy that preceded the series. And that doesn't even get into the (sometimes more reaching) scenarios proposed on this subreddit about grander allegories or "it is all in someone's head" ideas, etc.
Meanwhile, the "obvious" supernatural tale also has so much left unexplained, contradictory, and sometimes downright confusing. The idea that the cult was "good" despite so many of its actions, the rather silly depictions of many cult acts/rituals, the somewhat confusing morality of the cult and Leanne's final sacrifice, etc. are just one of several major threads. I'm not suggesting one can't reconcile these ideas for a supernatural conclusion, but it requires the viewer to accept a lot of seemingly bizarre developments and a somewhat crazy logic and ethical system to whatever supernatural world lies behind the series.
So, on the other hand, what is really in the way of the non-supernatural explanation? Thinking it over, there are really only a few potential barriers (to me) that immediately stand out as not explained within, for example, Uncle George's tale of how things might be non-supernatural:

1. The coincidence of "earthquakes" (with the basement hole opening up further, etc.) when there's tension involving Leanne on several occasions, particularly when she's potentially leaving or under stress.
2. The pigeon attack in S04E01.
3. Leanne's knowledge of Nancy's background (abuse) in S03E06.
4. Leanne's apparent strength and fighting abilities, particularly as demonstrated against the cult several times.

Personally, I'm not too bothered about (4), because the cult is shown to be a bunch of wackos on quite a few occasions who appear a bit bumbling or unfocused, and they're clearly scared of Leanne. (See the final confrontation between her and Uncle George, where the two other minions just run in fear -- Leanne doesn't even need to threaten them, when just a few moments before we saw Sean and Julian easily capture her with their own strength and manhandle her down the stairs from the attic.) At a moment when we might have seen Leanne's power finally manifested, Uncle George also just takes the ropes off her wrists, claiming they couldn't hold her. But again, Sean and Julian were just able to capture her?!
So, the other fight scenes we see in other episodes with Leanne -- it's feasible she was just a bit crazed and believed in her own power, coupled with the obvious incompetence of most cult members.
As for (1), we later see a giant sinkhole open in the middle of the street, and most of the major "earthquakes" (that I recall, maybe I'm missing one) occur while it's raining, a time when groundwater could clearly be moving things around if there's a growing sinkhole in the neighborhood. It's still coincidence but... I mean, it rains quite a bit in Philadelphia at times.
One moment I personally took as important in establishing Leanne's supernatural nature was her knowledge of Nancy's background (3). When I was watching, that was one of the first moments when I really thought -- this is a major clue that's difficult to interpret another way! Except... well, apparently Sean already knew about this stuff regarding Nancy (perhaps the entire prayer group... and Leanne has spies throughout the neighborhood). There seems to be a lot of people Leanne could have heard some rumors from about Nancy, or even overheard Sean maybe having a phone conversation or (the house had a security system we know could be used for spying on others)... there are possibilities. It's not like this was apparently some deep secret that no one knew.
And that leaves the pigeon attack. That's the hardest. Pigeons, as I've learned from a little research, very rarely attack humans. They have to be threatened usually, or their young/nests have to be threatened, etc. We could imagine some sort of electromagnetic event that drove the birds a bit nuts or something... and stranger real-life things have happened rarely, but that's one hell of a coincidence.
So I'm back to the two main possibilities:

• The "obvious" supernatural interpretation, which requires us to swallow a lot of unexplained supernatural weirdness
• Everything's non-supernatural, except we need to believe Leanne did some "research" on Nancy off-screen and there's one bizarre bird attack that's hard to explain

Occam's razor suggests I go with the latter.
Furthermore, the show suggests I go with the latter. Because the show was clearly constructed to have a lot of red herrings and blind alleys that don't mean anything. The answer, in the end, seems to be that we as viewers should be skeptical and not look for deeper meaning about... well, just about anything that happened in the show. Hell, Julian's final scene almost seems to make fun of those who'd look deeper, because all of those supposed background details that meant nothing in the various shots are now juxtaposed against the happenstance of Julian viewing "wings" in his reflection.
Just another coincidence?
MNS may or may not agree, but that choice of the final shot seems to me to be invoking the opposite of what many viewers took away. It's showing an obvious stupid coincidence in the way a shot was framed, which Julian interprets as potentially significant... even though it's more likely it's just confirmation bias, because his brain was thinking about angels and the weird conversation he had just had with the officer.
To me, it's the final deconstruction that says "you see what you want to see." People can believe there are "angels among us" or maybe it's all just coincidental cinematographic shots and angles that are ultimately meaningless.
I choose the latter. It makes more sense to me. It doesn't require me to come up with a bunch of explanations for all of the wackiness of the cult or to believe in some sort of insane deity with very questionable morality and rituals running stuff behind the scenes... or why a dead baby just keeps turning back into a doll. It ONLY requires for me to accept that one day pigeons attacked people. Yeah... well, it has literally rained frogs and all sorts of other bizarre events during history, so... believing in one coincidental bird attack requires much less suspension of disbelief than the alternative.

Are well pump pressure switches crappy these days? I was noticing a brief drop in pressure . Periodically while I showered. The shower doesn't have pressure compensating valves so during this little dip I was treated to a blast off cold water. Today I checked the pressure on the bladder tank and pump pressure. My old Square D switch was cycling the pump on at 38 and off at 68. It's a 40/60 switch. I wanted to raise the cut in pressure because my water softener needs 40 PSI minimum but when I raised the cut in to 40 it also raised the cutoff to 74 and I wasn't able to lower the cutoff with its adjustment. The adjustment nut wasn't even touching the spring so it's as low as it would go and the main adjustment wouldn't go any lower than 68.
I replaced the switch (Square D from Menards) and out of the box I was getting 45 to 60 PSI. Again I found the cut in adjustment nut wasn't even touching the spring so it was not possible to drop that pressure so I had to settle for a 15 PSI delta, which means my pump will cycle more than it should.
Square D's QC apparently sucks. Is anything better out there?

Currently 25 years old been on this sub since I was about 17 years old way back on my post history on this account. I actually told her I am not Muslim at 17 and she has been in very extreme denial ever since, elaborated later.
I came back from uni at 21 which was the first ramadhan at home and fasted all 30 due to mums real depression and menopause symptoms. Then at 22 I had enough fasting and pretending and suffering through taraweh since 16.
The first night she said to me to go to taraweh with my brother. I said no then she said why then I kept saying you can't force me. Massive argument ensues. I end up not going. Then next 30 days of her saying shit like "Shaitan's got you" , "you're just a confused little boy" saying I am obessed with eating even though I literally and intentionally lost like 8kg 14 days from a hiking trip while cutting.
Next year similar shit but less. My response to it those previous years was to say nothing. And no I don' mean not arguing back I mean literally not responding or saying "ok" at most. It took a tremendous amount of stoicism to hold my tongue like that. I would always remind myself that I am the better person in my inner monologue when she would say shit to me when I would eat in the kitchen which is ironic given that is the month where the 'religious' are supposed to be kind and pious. Then intensity was so consistent and the atmosphere she gave in that room was to make me feel like I just killed her family and we were both in a court room or something.
It is honestly the Muhammad Ali strat of letting them punch you with light jabs and dodging everything until they are completely tired out and I am happy to report it has worked.
Now I can proudly announce she saw me eating breakfast for the first time today and didn't say a word. The first 2 she was at work or asleep and we didn't see each other until iftar.
She has only sent me 1 whatsapp video of an instagram reel that was posted here before of rhyadmuslim explaining a basic palindrome of the Qur'an about the word orbit. I even asked if we needed oats when I went to the supermarket after I went to the gym and she replied saying no and to get her something so shit seems normal for now at least.
However she is still in denial because before Ramadhan started she did say she was going to stop going to the gym for a month and that "So should you" referring to Ramadhan and also referring to the idea that I didn't fast the past 2 years because I want to work out. This is despite me telling her at 17 I am not Muslim as well as her getting the local imam to speak to me 20 and her brother in law to speak to me about me leaving Islam at 22 who were both very nice about it thankfully.
On a side note I got KFC today Zinger + 2 wings + Milybar krushem + fries because there was no food in the house for lunch lmfao.

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First off this idea of " finding some old man at a gem club " is soooo outdated, I despise that advice and for anyone who's anti social, where as many hikers would be, this is terrible advice. & who says they are gonna help you anyways, field wise. Nor do I want to sign up for their class once per 3 months, which barely teaches you jack at the end of the day either.
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Most gem books at the library suck, they just show you pictures of random assortment of gems, or they list gear that every other book already shows you for what you need to dig. Or they have some old timey guy tell meaningless stories of his adventures hiking. Other than that, some lesser advice like dig near the side of roads or something. Which doesn't help. & lastly books showing you mining destinations when you may not even want to dig at paid mines.
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Lets say you didn't need to buy your own land to dig for usa, or you're from a country that you don't need a permit, or to buy mineral land. Then how would you FREESTYLE find pockets???? Why is that so gosh darn complicated for all these old people to not teach people book form? If their is a good book for how to FREESTYLE find pockets, while getting right to the point, then pls tell me. Ty.
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As for Youtube videos, they just show either 3 things, some guy digging through a river bed, which never helps me learn jack nothing. Some guy who already found his pocket near the side of a hill digging, which also teaches me jack nothing about why he started digging there to begin with. Or 3 someone who dug around some desert mountains and barely found any real good finds, yet just some basic equivalents to petrified wood.
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Since I'm from Nevada, Las Vegas area. The desert mountain video where most have found barely anything worth selling online, theirs not much pocket wise. Less they went to Northern Nevada to find some hidden river area. Then maybe they found some Agates there, near Reno or something.
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So what book should I buy for FREESTYLE POCKET FINDING?? That gets right to the point, without backstories, without tool setups, and without just random pictures of all the gems you may find. & With better info than just to simply " dig around the road side gravel and hope you get lucky ".
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I've heard their are test kits, which you may see what kind of gem stones may be in your area by testing the soil with the kit, where do I buy such a kit.
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Also yes no books about mines already explored. Lets just say land was free, then what books would you suggest for that person to walk around the mountains blindly and find a gem pocket? Without needing some old guys wisdom to do so or going to college for geology?? Hmm? Thanks! :)
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& I don't mean to be salty, tho I've ready 20 geology library books & watched 100 gem prospecting youtube videos and felt like I learned absolutely nothing for how to find a gem pocket on my own wherever I want to. Or watching that Colorado show about finding Tourmalines, that didn't help either.
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& if you know of a better youtube channel for randomly finding your own mountain gem pockets. Rather than just some guy who already found his. Then pls share.
It seems when it comes to plant foraging the books are simple " Heres the plant your looking for, heres the picture of said plant, now go forage it! " tho as for gem prospecting, the books teach you all the equipment you need, how to read the hillside gravel, yet nothing else on where to find gem pockets.

Let's make this weekend better than the last one :) have you heard of these events around St. Louis?

• Lamborghini Dealership: Cars and Coffee (3/25)
• St. Louis Taco & Margarita Festival… with LIVE Wrestling (3/25)
• Schlafly Stout & Oyster Festival … with 80,000+ oysters (3/25)

And next month:

• Mission Taco 10-Year Anniversary Party (4/6)
• ‘90s Bar Crawl (4/22)
• Forest Park Earth Day Festival (4/22)

You can get custom plans like this every weekend… to make each weekend better than the last
I’m a WashU student working on a startup called Mozi, working to bring people together for in-person connection.
Check out our website Mozi.day to always be excited for every weekend … and get out to explore St. Louis. Plus, it’ll mean a lot to me <3

Let's make this weekend better than the last one :) have you heard of these events around St. Louis?

• Lamborghini Dealership: Cars and Coffee (3/25)
• St. Louis Taco & Margarita Festival… with LIVE Wrestling (3/25)
• Schlafly Stout & Oyster Festival … with 80,000+ oysters (3/25)

And next month:

• Mission Taco 10-Year Anniversary Party (4/6)
• ‘90s Bar Crawl (4/22)
• Forest Park Earth Day Festival (4/22)

You can get custom plans like this every weekend… to make each weekend better than the last
I’m a WashU student working on a startup called Mozi, working to bring people together for in-person connection.
Check out our website Mozi.day to always be excited for every weekend … and get out to explore St. Louis. Plus, it’ll mean a lot to me <3

1. First off this idea of " finding some old man at a gem club " is soooo outdated, I despise that advice and for anyone who's anti social, where as many hikers would be, this is terrible advice. & who says they are gonna help you anyways, field wise. Nor do I want to sign up for their class once per 3 months, which barely teaches you jack at the end of the day either.
2. Most gem books at the library suck, they just show you pictures of random assortment of gems, or they list gear that every other book already shows you for what you need to dig. Or they have some old timey guy tell meaningless stories of his adventures hiking. Other than that, some lesser advice like dig near the side of roads or something. Which doesn't help. & lastly books showing you mining destinations when you may not even want to dig at paid mines.
3. Lets say you didn't need to buy your own land to dig for usa, or you're from a country that you don't need a permit, or to buy mineral land. Then how would you FREESTYLE find pockets???? Why is that so gosh darn complicated for all these old people to not teach people book form? If their is a good book for how to FREESTYLE find pockets, while getting right to the point, then pls tell me. Ty.
4. As for Youtube videos, they just show either 3 things, some guy digging through a river bed, which never helps me learn jack nothing. Some guy who already found his pocket near the side of a hill digging, which also teaches me jack nothing about why he started digging there to begin with. Or 3 someone who dug around some desert mountains and barely found any real good finds, yet just some basic equivalents to petrified wood.

Since I'm from Nevada, Las Vegas area. The desert mountain video where most have found barely anything worth selling online, theirs not much pocket wise. Less they went to Northern Nevada to find some hidden river area. Then maybe they found some Agates there, near Reno or something.
So what book should I buy for FREESTYLE POCKET FINDING?? That gets right to the point, without backstories, without tool setups, and without just random pictures of all the gems you may find. & With better info than just to simply " dig around the road side gravel and hope you get lucky ".
I've heard their are test kits, which you may see what kind of gem stones may be in your area by testing the soil with the kit, where do I buy such a kit.
Also yes no books about mines already explored. Lets just say land was free, then what books would you suggest for that person to walk around the mountains blindly and find a gem pocket? Without needing some old guys wisdom to do so or going to college for geology?? Hmm? Thanks! :)
& I don't mean to be salty, tho I've ready 20 geology library books & watched 100 gem prospecting youtube videos and felt like I learned absolutely nothing for how to find a gem pocket on my own wherever I want to. Or watching that Colorado show about finding Tourmalines, that didn't help either.
& if you know of a better youtube channel for randomly finding your own mountain gem pockets. Rather than just some guy who already found his. Then pls share. It seems when it comes to plant foraging the books are simple " Heres the plant your looking for, heres the picture of said plant, now go forage it! " tho as for gem prospecting, the books teach you all the equipment you need, how to read the hillside gravel, yet nothing else on where to find gem pockets.

Let's make this weekend better than the last one :) have you heard of these events around St. Louis?

• Lamborghini Dealership: Cars and Coffee (3/25)
• St. Louis Taco & Margarita Festival… with LIVE Wrestling (3/25)
• Schlafly Stout & Oyster Festival … with 80,000+ oysters (3/25)

And next month:

• Mission Taco 10-Year Anniversary Party (4/6)
• ‘90s Bar Crawl (4/22)
• Forest Park Earth Day Festival (4/22)

You can get custom plans like this every weekend… to make each weekend better than the last
I’m a WashU student working on a startup called Mozi, working to bring people together for in-person connection.
Check out our website Mozi.day to always be excited for every weekend … and get out to explore St. Louis. Plus, it’ll mean a lot to me <3

This is just a little ramble, not really expecting anyone to read it lol.
I’m a huge people pleaser and a ride or die friend. Because of this, I have the habit to completely throw myself into things I’m not entirely comfortable in doing solely because I know the other person would be happy/appreciate it.
I got out of a relationship a few months ago, and I didn’t take it well. We agreed to remain friends, and while I tried to push through it, I wasn’t taking it to well. And to be honest, even now I know I’m not completely over them (but definitely doing much better).
Anyway, I during this time I had tried to go no/low contact a few times. I could never last more than a week before I was some how roped back in.
The first time was because they asked to try again. We didn’t, but we agreed to start talking.
The second time I tried to go low contact was because I realized I was stupid to try to reconnect and that the only reason they even asked to try again in the first place was because they just missed hanging out with me (there’s more to this that isn’t important, but basically I later learned that they were confused about their feelings and if I hadn’t said we couldn’t try again as romantic partners things could have probably ended a lot worse for me).
Right around then, there was some stuff that happened and they were pretty much alone. I got worried and considered reaching out, but they actually beat me to the punch lol
But I broke my low contact because I knew they were going through a lot and I couldn’t just leave them out on their own.
But now they’re doing better, and while I’m not hung up over them the same way I was a month or so ago, I know I’m still not fully back to myself. And to be honest, they’re not helping. They don’t seem to realize that even though we’re friends, I’m not obligated to spend nearly every day hanging out with them. They can’t pick and choose what they want from me like that.
So after a lot of thinking (and a little crying lol) I finally decided I deserved to have my no contact. My boundaries should mean something to me. I shouldn’t just put them up and immediately throw them away.
So I deleted practically all my social media apps. And I’m not putting them back until I’m ready.
I’m only planning on talking to my close friends, so I’m not completely falling off the face of the earth, but otherwise, I’m finally going to put myself and my well being first.
And I’m kinda excited :)

Basically i just need an antenna for my isp provided router(or a router recommendation, but the router uses a sim card, so i dot know if its swappable, not tech savvy in this area, so lemme know). live in the country side dead center of three cell masts with the closest being 5km away and the other reasonable one being 8km away, the cell masts have like 120 degrees between them. the 8km side of the house has the better internet side tho.
Need the antenna because the internet goes from 20-110(depending on time of day) download to 0.5 download within 10 minutes after a router restart, it pretty much is always at the 0.5 speeds, sometimes it stays at the good speeds for longer(upload tanks too, from 15(doesn't go beyond this) to practically 0). oh and the best part if i put my phone on the same place as the router its pretty decent internet consistently(not fast by any means, but responsive and doesn't drop off at any point, so in theory it should be possible to get consistently good internet there, yet the router does not know of consistent, its as if its picking the worst connection on purpose).
I'm open to any and all suggestions, thanks in advance.

(Full credit to u/Poolms for this idea) As you're scrolling through Ruleshorror, you see a post. After skimming through it, you get the gist. You scroll down to write a comment: "Instructions unclear, I ate-" You're cut off by a notification. Maybe your shitpost got an upvote? No, it's an automated message from Reddit. It starts off with this:
"Hello, user. An influx of comments saying "Instructions Unclear, I ate (blank)" has been noticed in this subreddit, so we have decided that only users that are willing to go through challenge should be able to say these things. This is to prevent spam and give our users a better experience."
You're so stupidly dedicated to saying this dumb thing that you accept whatever comes next, so you click the "Agree" button. Your surroundings surprisingly don't change. Your computer shows a numbered list that you inferred is what you have to do. The following was shown on the screen:

1. Do not change tabs or close this tab. There is something in your vicinity that cannot and will not be named, and will attack if this list is not on the screen. Its form cannot be comprehended by the human eye, so it appears to be a condensed black fog. This might seem like where you were when you tried to post the comment, but it is a replica. Eating or sleeping will result in your flesh being turned into a skin suit to be brought to what is known as an Entity Costume Party. Despite the name, it's actually a front for a cult that sacrifices flesh to their god.
2. This post can be commented on. If you comment anything starting with "Instructions unclear" or anything that means the same thing, the aforementioned creature will get his pets to infest your body, turning you into a lifeless husk that comments "Instructions unclear, I ate (fill in something relating to the post)" until your body decays and does not have the muscle strength to type anymore. Please comment useful things for anyone who unfortunately came across this post.
3. This creature, of whom we will call the "Rule 1 entity" does not like you. The more posts starting with "Instructions unclear" you've made, the more aggressive the Rule 1 entity is. Its visual hallucinations (see rule 6) will have more of a mental toll the more aggressive the entity is.
4. An hour after you read any of these rules, the Rule 1 entity will whisper in your ear. God forbid you somehow know the language it speaks in (French), as no amount of mental help could ever convince you that the secrets of the universe are false. The good news, however, is that the entity will leave you alone, as traumatized flesh doesn't taste good. However, if you don't know the language, respond with "Instructions clear, I will contemplate what you have told me." The entity will become less aggressive if successful. Failure to say this will result in the entity becoming more aggressive.
5. If the instructions in this are not clear, the Rule 1 entity will know. It loves irony, so it will eat you if you're not good with understanding these rather simple words.
6. In case you get bored, the Rule 1 entity has several visual hallucinations to show you, including a living, breathing human having a smile carved into his heart before having it poorly stuffed back into his chest. Remember to smile during these hallucinations, lest you want a smile carved onto your face forever... and your tibia stolen.
7. Go into the comments of this post. If you see a user named u/Instructionsnofollow, report the user. If you see a user named u/Poolms, tell the user to eat the Rule 1 entity. The entity is scared of Poolms and will do anything to avoid this user, causing it to leave you alone and letting you comment freely. However, seeing Poolms is very rare.
8. Thirty minutes after reading Rule 4, the Rule 1 entity will stop being passive and will move around. It will be in your peripheral vision at all times when this rule comes into play. If your room starts getting darker, shout the phrase "INSTRUCTIONS UNCLEAR, I ATE DARKNESS!" Your room will go back to normal, but the entity will dislike you more. Your room will only get darker if you look at the Rule 1 entity directly for more than a second.
9. The problem with the Rule 1 entity moving around is that it is simply a distraction. It has actually released its pets, which will look like sewer rats with glowing yellow eyes. Don't let them get into your ears, which will result in the Rule 2 punishment if these "rats" succeed. However, these rats are technically your key to being able to post your stupid "Instructions unclear" comment, and also survival.

9a. Get a hold of the rats. There should be two. If there are three, stomp the third one to death. The Rule 1 entity cannot attack while you have more than one rat hostage.
9b. Squeeze one rat until an eye pops out. Hold the eye up to your camera. If you have no camera, you can throw the eye at the screen.
9c. This proves that you have survived for long enough, and Reddit will be satisfied. A large "OK" button will appear on your screen.
9d. The Rule 1 entity will attempt to grab you in a last-ditch effort, to reel you into its wretched land where torture lives. Throw the rats at the entity. It will try to catch them, as it cares more about its pets than torturing you. This will give you time to click the OK button.
9e. Pressing the OK button will let you post your stupid comment. You've proved yourself, and Reddit applauds you.

1. Don't post another comment on Ruleshorror for at least a week. The entity will become angry when you escape. Comments are easy ways for entities to pull you into their world, and if you've made an entity angry, then it will stalk your account to see if you've accidentally opened a gateway to where they reside through commenting.

You scoff. This is too easy. You've daydreamed about this type of scenario for years. Plus, too many rules were almost hard to break. Although it did take you two hours, you managed to best the Rule 1 entity. Posting your comment, you feel proud about yourself. But you still think about it for days after: Why does the Rule 1 entity hate your little joke? Why did Reddit care so much about comments that they put people's lives in danger just to have them prove they were worthy of posting some stupid message? And why does Reddit have a supernatural being for this specific occasion? Although, you don't care. You survived, and got to post your joke.