Dixie chopper belts cross reference
A message from the moderators
2023.06.05 08:54 rennn10 A message from the moderators
Hello everyone,
We first want to restate that this space is designed as a place that is free and accessible for all people in the process of applying to medical school. We have seen a recent rise in promoting/discussing the merit of prep companies and wanted to gently remind everyone that these companies are often selling the material for exorbitant amounts of money and predating on those vulnerable and desperate to score well. Please don’t fall for this marketing. If you have personally found benefit from these sources that is fine, but please limit the advertising or reliance on this in the servereddit. These companies have enough traction on their own, they don’t need to be pedalled any further in here as well.
Secondly, the moderators have recently been made aware of some concerning content published by 90+ GAMSAT that promotes harmful and unethical behaviour. 90+ GAMSAT is often referred to/brought up in GAMSAT discussions and advice regarding section 2 preparation, which is why we felt it was important to say something.
An essay included in the book “Twenty Ways Other Winners Did It”, written by a 90+ GAMSAT student, with commentary from Michael himself, has recently been brought to our attention. The essay presents itself as written from the perspective of a trans person reflecting on their experience coming to terms with their gender identity. However, the essay was actually written by a cisgender person (admitted in the book itself, and reconfirmed by direct communication with Michael after the fact), not someone who has genuinely had these experiences. Michael’s response to the essay is also quite concerning- He praises this as "perhaps my favourite GAMSAT essay" and "some of if not the best [work] I have ever seen from a student". His feedback focuses on technical elements like language use, narrative structure and "showing qualities that would be admirable in a doctor”.
Overall, this behaviour is incredibly inappropriate. It is disrespectful and inauthentic for someone outside of that experience to write as if they genuinely understand what it's like to be trans or to face the struggles and experiences described in the essay (and this is not limited to the trans community, but similar for all marginalised groups). The fact that this essay was included as an exemplar of how to approach section 2 is quite frankly disgusting and sets a dangerous precedent that it is okay and acceptable to lie about your personal experiences as a means to an end to getting into medical school or do well in the GAMSAT- and to be clear, it is not. Michael has been privately alerted to the harm caused by this situation directly and showed little understanding or empathy towards the situation in his actions following this. The final lines of Michael’s comment discuss how the takeaway from this essay is “the benefit in rawness, vulnerability, authenticity, emotional intelligence”. The inclusion of this essay, and Michael’s comments both in response to the essay and in his conduct when this issue was raised to him, ironically show poor judgment and a lack of understanding of these traits. He fails to recognise or address the deeper problems with the essay's premise and inauthenticity, and appropriation of the experiences of others, particularly those of a community that have historically and continue to experience significant discrimination, including within healthcare. As health professionals or prospective health professionals, it is critical that we are able to acknowledge the limitations of our own experiences and recognise how these shape the way we view and interact with the world. Similarly, promoting understanding and inclusive environments is crucial to this end- carrying yourself with integrity, authenticity and emotional intelligence is important for a reason- these traits are not just buzzwords or things to demonstrate to get into medical school.
We want to make it clear that we do not support these actions. Ignoring our feelings about preparation material/companies generally, we think it’s highly inappropriate and disrespectful that 90+ GAMSAT thought this was acceptable. This situation has crossed a line, and consequently, the moderation team does not feel comfortable with the promotion of 90+ GAMSAT in our spaces.
We hope that if Michael or anyone from 90+ GAMSAT sees this that they reconsider the inclusion of this essay, reflect on the potential harm that perpetuating these attitudes has and that they commit to doing better in the future. We are also aware that Michael may be able to identify the person(s) who raised this concern to us, and we are doing so with their permission. We hope that if in response to this post, he instigates further interactions with the person(s) that raised the issue, that communication will be professional and respectful, despite history indicating otherwise. This is not intended as a personal attack on Michael himself, and to be clear we don’t condone personal attacks, but we thought that this issue was an important one to raise and that Michael and 90+ GAMSAT needed to be held accountable.
For anyone affected by this issue, please know that you have our full support, and if anyone has concerns, don't hesitate to contact us.
Thank you,
The mods
submitted by rennn10 to GAMSAT [link] [comments]
We first want to restate that this space is designed as a place that is free and accessible for all people in the process of applying to medical school. We have seen a recent rise in promoting/discussing the merit of prep companies and wanted to gently remind everyone that these companies are often selling the material for exorbitant amounts of money and predating on those vulnerable and desperate to score well. Please don’t fall for this marketing. If you have personally found benefit from these sources that is fine, but please limit the advertising or reliance on this in the servereddit. These companies have enough traction on their own, they don’t need to be pedalled any further in here as well.
Secondly, the moderators have recently been made aware of some concerning content published by 90+ GAMSAT that promotes harmful and unethical behaviour. 90+ GAMSAT is often referred to/brought up in GAMSAT discussions and advice regarding section 2 preparation, which is why we felt it was important to say something.
An essay included in the book “Twenty Ways Other Winners Did It”, written by a 90+ GAMSAT student, with commentary from Michael himself, has recently been brought to our attention. The essay presents itself as written from the perspective of a trans person reflecting on their experience coming to terms with their gender identity. However, the essay was actually written by a cisgender person (admitted in the book itself, and reconfirmed by direct communication with Michael after the fact), not someone who has genuinely had these experiences. Michael’s response to the essay is also quite concerning- He praises this as "perhaps my favourite GAMSAT essay" and "some of if not the best [work] I have ever seen from a student". His feedback focuses on technical elements like language use, narrative structure and "showing qualities that would be admirable in a doctor”.
Overall, this behaviour is incredibly inappropriate. It is disrespectful and inauthentic for someone outside of that experience to write as if they genuinely understand what it's like to be trans or to face the struggles and experiences described in the essay (and this is not limited to the trans community, but similar for all marginalised groups). The fact that this essay was included as an exemplar of how to approach section 2 is quite frankly disgusting and sets a dangerous precedent that it is okay and acceptable to lie about your personal experiences as a means to an end to getting into medical school or do well in the GAMSAT- and to be clear, it is not. Michael has been privately alerted to the harm caused by this situation directly and showed little understanding or empathy towards the situation in his actions following this. The final lines of Michael’s comment discuss how the takeaway from this essay is “the benefit in rawness, vulnerability, authenticity, emotional intelligence”. The inclusion of this essay, and Michael’s comments both in response to the essay and in his conduct when this issue was raised to him, ironically show poor judgment and a lack of understanding of these traits. He fails to recognise or address the deeper problems with the essay's premise and inauthenticity, and appropriation of the experiences of others, particularly those of a community that have historically and continue to experience significant discrimination, including within healthcare. As health professionals or prospective health professionals, it is critical that we are able to acknowledge the limitations of our own experiences and recognise how these shape the way we view and interact with the world. Similarly, promoting understanding and inclusive environments is crucial to this end- carrying yourself with integrity, authenticity and emotional intelligence is important for a reason- these traits are not just buzzwords or things to demonstrate to get into medical school.
We want to make it clear that we do not support these actions. Ignoring our feelings about preparation material/companies generally, we think it’s highly inappropriate and disrespectful that 90+ GAMSAT thought this was acceptable. This situation has crossed a line, and consequently, the moderation team does not feel comfortable with the promotion of 90+ GAMSAT in our spaces.
We hope that if Michael or anyone from 90+ GAMSAT sees this that they reconsider the inclusion of this essay, reflect on the potential harm that perpetuating these attitudes has and that they commit to doing better in the future. We are also aware that Michael may be able to identify the person(s) who raised this concern to us, and we are doing so with their permission. We hope that if in response to this post, he instigates further interactions with the person(s) that raised the issue, that communication will be professional and respectful, despite history indicating otherwise. This is not intended as a personal attack on Michael himself, and to be clear we don’t condone personal attacks, but we thought that this issue was an important one to raise and that Michael and 90+ GAMSAT needed to be held accountable.
For anyone affected by this issue, please know that you have our full support, and if anyone has concerns, don't hesitate to contact us.
Thank you,
The mods
2023.06.05 08:15 redditSucksNow2020 the best martial art for the street
The best martial arts to learn for The Street
I see you nerds in here arguing about what the best martial art is on the daily, so I'm here to enlighten you with some tough truths that hit harder then a 360° tornado kick to the groin.
First and foremost, Will the martial art you're thinking about taking up have you sparring regularly or even more ideally, competing? A heavy bag doesn't hit back. Pads do not dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge. Be invisible guy you're throwing down with when you do your katas doesn't question your mother's sexual morality before I trying to take your lunch money and shove your face in a toilet.
Second, will you be practicing techniques that you can use in sparring? If you haven't eye gouging, fish hooking, dick kicking, or executing your five finger deathtouch on a resisting opponent, you don't know that you can use it in a street fight. You just think that you (probably) can. Want to guess how I know that I can land a clean 2-3, choke someone unconscious, or wrist lock a white belt? It's because I've done them (the latter so many times that it's going to be a real awkward talk with St Peter one of these days).
Third, do you practice the clinch? If you can't take somebody down then your grappling is no good. If you can't stop somebody from taking you down, then your stand up is no good. You know that quote about the shark and the ground being your ocean? Well bring that shark onto the shore, let him realize that he can't pull his opponent into the water, and see if he still wants to talk smack.
Fourth, are you going to be getting punched in the face? You don't know how you are going to react to getting punched in the face until you've actually been punched in the face. If the sparring or competition rules explicitly forbid punching to the face, then you should really consider cross training, or at least minding your manners and avoiding conflict so that you don't have to learn the hard way what getting punched in the face feels like.
Lecture end.
submitted by redditSucksNow2020 to martialarts [link] [comments]
I see you nerds in here arguing about what the best martial art is on the daily, so I'm here to enlighten you with some tough truths that hit harder then a 360° tornado kick to the groin.
First and foremost, Will the martial art you're thinking about taking up have you sparring regularly or even more ideally, competing? A heavy bag doesn't hit back. Pads do not dodge, dip, duck, dive, and dodge. Be invisible guy you're throwing down with when you do your katas doesn't question your mother's sexual morality before I trying to take your lunch money and shove your face in a toilet.
Second, will you be practicing techniques that you can use in sparring? If you haven't eye gouging, fish hooking, dick kicking, or executing your five finger deathtouch on a resisting opponent, you don't know that you can use it in a street fight. You just think that you (probably) can. Want to guess how I know that I can land a clean 2-3, choke someone unconscious, or wrist lock a white belt? It's because I've done them (the latter so many times that it's going to be a real awkward talk with St Peter one of these days).
Third, do you practice the clinch? If you can't take somebody down then your grappling is no good. If you can't stop somebody from taking you down, then your stand up is no good. You know that quote about the shark and the ground being your ocean? Well bring that shark onto the shore, let him realize that he can't pull his opponent into the water, and see if he still wants to talk smack.
Fourth, are you going to be getting punched in the face? You don't know how you are going to react to getting punched in the face until you've actually been punched in the face. If the sparring or competition rules explicitly forbid punching to the face, then you should really consider cross training, or at least minding your manners and avoiding conflict so that you don't have to learn the hard way what getting punched in the face feels like.
Lecture end.
2023.06.05 07:58 travellingveinsbihar Rent an Innova Car in Raxaul and Explore the Best of Bihar
 | Are you planning a trip to Raxaul and looking for a reliable and comfortable mode of transportation? Look no further than Innova Car Rental in Raxaul. With its spacious interiors, modern features, and experienced drivers, renting an Innova car is the perfect way to explore the city and its surrounding areas. In this article, we will delve into the various benefits of opting for an Innova car rental service, the top attractions in Raxaul, frequently asked questions, and much more. submitted by travellingveinsbihar to u/travellingveinsbihar [link] [comments] Scorpio car In frame Benefits of Innova Car Rental in Raxaul When it comes to exploring a new city, having a convenient and comfortable mode of transportation is essential. Here are some of the key benefits of choosing Innova Car Rental in Raxaul: 1. Spacious Interiors for Comfortable Journeys One of the standout features of Innova cars is their spacious interiors. Whether you're traveling alone, with family, or in a group, an Innova car offers ample legroom and headspace for a comfortable journey. With its plush seats and well-designed cabin, you can relax and enjoy the scenic views of Raxaul without feeling cramped. 2. Modern Features and Safety Measures Innova cars come equipped with modern features and safety measures to ensure a smooth and secure ride. From air conditioning to power windows, these cars are designed to provide a hassle-free experience. Additionally, Innova cars are equipped with advanced safety features such as airbags, ABS, and seat belts, prioritizing your safety on the road. 3. Professional and Experienced Drivers When you rent an Innova Car Hire in Raxaul, you not only get a well-maintained vehicle but also a professional and experienced driver. The drivers are well-versed with the local routes, traffic conditions, and popular tourist spots in Raxaul. They can serve as your local guide, providing valuable insights and recommendations during your journey. 4. Flexibility and Convenience Renting an Innova car in Raxaul offers you the flexibility to explore the city at your own pace. You can create your itinerary, visit multiple attractions in a day, and stop wherever you want to soak in the beauty of Raxaul. Moreover, the convenience of having a private vehicle eliminates the need to rely on public transportation or adhere to fixed schedules. 5. Cost-Effective for Group Travel If you're traveling with a group of friends or family members, renting an Innova car can be a cost-effective option. Instead of booking multiple taxis or relying on public transport, you can all travel together in a single Innova car. This not only saves money but also ensures everyone stays together throughout the journey. Top Attractions in Raxaul Raxaul, located in the eastern part of Bihar, is a city known for its cultural heritage and historical significance. Here are some of the top attractions that you can explore with an Innova car rental in Raxaul: 1. Bhitiharwa Ashram Location: Raxaul Description: Situated around 12 kilometers from Raxaul, Bhitiharwa Ashram is a renowned spiritual and educational center. It was founded by Swami Sahajanand Saraswati, a prominent freedom fighter and social reformer. The ashram attracts visitors seeking spiritual solace and enlightenment. 2. Raxaul Museum Location: Raxaul Description: Raxaul Museum is a treasure trove of artifacts and exhibits that depict the rich history and culture of the region. From ancient sculptures to archaeological findings, the museum provides a fascinating insight into the heritage of Raxaul. Exploring the museum with the convenience of an Innova car rental allows you to delve deep into the city's past. 3. Valmiki National Park Location: Raxaul Description: Nature enthusiasts will be delighted to visit Valmiki National Park, located on the India-Nepal border. This wildlife sanctuary is home to a diverse range of flora and fauna, including Bengal tigers, leopards, elephants, and various bird species. With an Innova car at your disposal, you can embark on an adventurous safari through the park and witness its natural wonders up close. 4. Gadhi Mai Temple Location: Raxaul Description: Gadhi Mai Temple is a revered Hindu temple located near Raxaul. It is dedicated to the goddess Gadhi Mai, and the temple attracts a significant number of devotees during the Gadhi Mai festival, held every five years. Renting an Innova car makes it convenient to visit this religious site and partake in the festivities during the auspicious times. 5. Ram Rekha Ghat Location: Raxaul Description: Ram Rekha Ghat is a popular waterfront destination situated on the banks of the river Gandak. It is believed to be the site where Lord Rama, the legendary prince of Ayodhya, crossed the river during his exile. The serene surroundings and scenic beauty of Ram Rekha Ghat make it an ideal spot for relaxation and picnics. Having an Innova car rental allows you to easily access this tranquil location and spend quality time by the riverside. Frequently Asked Questions about Innova Car Rental in Raxaul 1. How can I book an Innova car rental in Raxaul? Booking an Innova car rental in Raxaul is a simple and hassle-free process. You can either contact local car rental agencies or make use of online travel portals that offer car rental services. Provide the necessary details such as your travel dates, pickup location, and drop-off location to make a reservation. 2. What are the documents required to rent an Innova car in Raxaul? To rent an Innova car in Raxaul, you will need to provide a valid driving license, proof of identification (such as a passport or Aadhaar card), and a copy of your address proof (such as a utility bill or rental agreement). Make sure to carry the original documents along with their photocopies for verification purposes. 3. Are there any age restrictions for renting an Innova car in Raxaul? Most car rental agencies in Raxaul require the driver to be at least 21 years old and possess a valid driving license. However, the age restrictions may vary among different rental companies. It is advisable to check the specific age requirements and policies of the car rental agency you choose. 4. Can I rent an Innova car in Raxaul for outstation trips? Yes, you can rent an Innova car in Raxaul for outstation trips. Innova cars are known for their long-distance comfort and reliability, making them an ideal choice for exploring nearby cities and attractions. Discuss your travel plans with the car rental agency to ensure that they permit outstation travel and inquire about any additional charges or documentation requirements. Conclusion Innova Car Rental in Raxaul offers a convenient and comfortable way to explore the city and its surrounding areas. With its spacious interiors, modern features, and professional drivers, renting an Innova car ensures a pleasant and hassle-free journey. Whether you're visiting the cultural sites, wildlife sanctuaries, or scenic spots in Raxaul, having the flexibility of a private vehicle allows you to make the most of your trip. So, why wait? Book an Innova Car Hire in Raxaul and embark on a memorable adventure in this beautiful city. |
2023.06.05 07:36 scarlet2248 Wedding Venue in The US: Our Recommendation Part II
Popular wedding venues in the western and central states were featured in Part 1 of US wedding venues. So in part two, we'll focus on wedding venues in the eastern states. Whether it's a luxurious hotel, a rustic barn, or a spacious meadow, all are included. Again, the features of these venues and the approximate prices will be written. Let's explore these beautiful wedding venues!
📷
(Hildene - The Lincoln Family Home)
Finally, we've rounded up our recommendations for wedding venues in each of the remaining states. Choosing the perfect wedding venue is an important step in creating your dream wedding. It sets the tone for the entire celebration and provides the backdrop for your special day. No matter what style of wedding venue you prefer, there is a venue above that perfectly suits your style and preferences.
Last but not least, don't forget to check out Quictent's wedding tent. we offer quality wedding tents for your outdoor wedding, containing various types and sizes.
submitted by scarlet2248 to u/scarlet2248 [link] [comments]
Wisconsin Wedding Venues
The Paine Art Center and Gardens
This is an art museum located at 1410 Algoma Blvd, Oshkosh. It is an English-style country estate and has nearly four acres of gardens. It has perennial plants and is a great outdoor ceremony venue. Also, there is a historic mansion, charming carriage house, and greenhouse. The venue can accommodate up to 200 people and costs approximately $3000 to $4000 For 100 Guests.The Lageret
This is a professional event venue located at 515 E Main St, Stoughton. This historic venue offers industrial and rustic charm with exposed brick walls, high ceilings, and wood beams. It has ample space for ceremonies and receptions. The venue offers event coordination, customizable lighting options, a bridal suite, and access to preferred vendors. Accommodations for up to 250 people start at $3,500 for a 12-hour rental.The Enchanted Barn
Located at 1543 6 1/2 Ave, Hillsdale, this barn has an old-world rustic atmosphere around every corner. Featuring several indoor and outdoor venues, one of the most popular ceremony locations is located in Barn's upper-level Hayloft, featuring old wood timbers. Several wedding package options are available here and can accommodate up to 220 people. Off-season all-inclusive wedding packages are $5,000 plus $21 per person.Illinois Wedding Venues
Danada House
This is a historic mansion located at 3S501 Naperville Rd, Wheaton. a short drive from Chicago. The mansion is also surrounded by a forest preserve that allows for nature-filled photos. There are seven ceremony locations in total, and the largest Magnolia Garden can accommodate up to 300 guests. Venue rentals start at $3,500.The Morton Arboretum
This is a public nature garden and outdoor museum located at 4100 IL-53, Lisle. Inside there are not only mature trees and flowers but also a playground for children. Offering beautiful woodland and lakeside views. The large garden has a total of 12 venues to choose from and the largest room can accommodate up to 300 guests. Prices range from $600 to $9,000 depending on the size of the room and the time of year it is held.Salvage One
Located at 1840 W Hubbard St, Chicago, this is a very unique location that serves as a store besides being a wedding venue. It preserves treasured furniture from the past. This old Chicago warehouse offers an enchanting vintage atmosphere. The ceremony and banquet space can accommodate about 200 people and space rentals start at $4,000.Kentucky Wedding Venues
The Barn at Cedar Grove
The address is 1000 Brockman Keltner Rd, Greensburg, which has a rustic barn setting with picturesque scenery. Offering outdoor ceremony space, climate-controlled reception space, bridal suite, groom's quarters, and fire pit. The venue in the barn can accommodate up to 230 people. For fewer guests, the average budget for a wedding here is between $6,000 and $9,000.The Brown Hotel
This 100-year-old hotel is located at 335 W Broadway, Louisville. The hotel has a striking Georgian Revival look and offers elegant ballrooms, luxurious accommodations, and a gorgeous rooftop garden. The hotel also has extensive experience in hosting weddings of different cultures, such as Jewish and Indian weddings. Prices are $18,000 in the off-season and can accommodate up to 300 guests.Talon Winery & Vineyards
This winery has a large outdoor space at 7086 Tates Creek Rd, Lexington. Offers vineyard and winery backdrop, outdoor ceremony space, and rustic barn. The best part is the wine-tasting and vineyard tours. The venue can accommodate up to 250 guests and prices for ceremonies start at $1500.Tennessee Wedding Venues
Butterfly Hollow
Located at 28 Bussell Rd, Gordonsville, our vacation accommodations are perfect for small weddings. Surrounded by scenic walking trails, mountains, and woods. This venue specializes in small weddings of 30 people or less, with a focus on an intimate and cozy experience. Wedding packages range from $1795 to $5000.Dixon Gallery and Gardens
An art gallery on 17 acres of gardens located at 4339 Park Ave, Memphis, offers a romantic and artistic setting for weddings. The gallery offers two indoor reception venues as well as woodlands and gardens, both of which can accommodate up to 200 guests. Prices are approximately $4000 to $5000 For 100 guests.The Bell Tower
The Bell Tower, located at 400 4th Ave S, Nashville, is almost 140 years old. The ballroom features large windows that provide plenty of natural light, creating a charming and historic setting for weddings. There are two floors beside the lobby. Seated dinners for up to 400 people range from $3,500 to $16,000 depending on time and venue.Mississippi Wedding Venues
The Cedars
The site at 4145 Old Canton Rd, Jackson is the oldest residential building in Jackson, with a history of 175 years. The courtyard in front of the house with trees such as cedar, oak, and magnolia provides a natural backdrop for weddings. The venue can accommodate up to 300 people and costs $3,500 for a two-day weekend rental.Dunleith Historic Inn
A National Historic Landmark located at 84 Homochitto St, Natchez, the mansion features Greek Revival columns and original pine floors. The event space has a main floor, courtyard, and South Lawn, which can accommodate up to 700 people. Wedding packages start at $6,500, not including catering.The Gin at Flora Station
The address is 4819 MS-22, Flora. The refurbished cotton gin blends rustic charm with modern amenities. It offers indoor and outdoor spaces, including a covered gazebo and a patio with an old-fashioned truck bar. Rentals for ceremonies and receptions start at $3,500.Alabama Wedding Venues
B&A Warehouse
This building, located at 1531 1st Ave S, Birmingham, is historic from the outside. With its industrial-inspired design and high ceilings along with red brick walls. Three indoor venues can accommodate up to 300 guests, and the cost of a ceremony starts at $4,000.The Sterling Castle
This castle is located at 389 Deseret Dr, Shelby, and has been voted the best wedding venue in Alabama. The fairytale-style castle, elegant ballroom, charming courtyard, and lakeside and drawbridge venues. This beautiful venue can accommodate up to 300 guests and all-inclusive weddings are priced at $10,000+.Huntsville Museum of Art
This is an art museum located at 300 Church St SW, Huntsville. With unique indoor and outdoor spaces, the museum is a contemporary art gallery. Offering outdoor spaces with a rooftop terrace, and five indoor hospitality venues. The starting venue fee for a wedding reception in high season is $1,500.Michigan Wedding Venues
Colony Club Detroit
Located at 2310 Park Ave, Detroit, this Georgian-style, historic venue features stunning architecture and gorgeous interiors. The hotel features a grand ballroom decorated with crystal chandeliers and intricate details. The ballroom can accommodate up to 350 guests and is priced between $12,000 and $15,000.Castle Farms
This historic building, built in 1918, is located at 5052 M-66, Charlevoix. With a total of four site combinations in the summer. It offers several ceremony and reception spaces, including a charming outdoor garden and a majestic stone courtyard. The largest of these, the East Garden and Queen's Courtyard can host up to 300 guests. And the price range is between $6,750 and $9,250.The Inn at Stonecliffe
This is a Victorian village located at 8593 Cudahy Cir, Mackinac Island. away from the hustle and bustle of the area. With beautiful gardens and breathtaking views of Lake Huron and the Mackinaw Bridge. Accommodates up to 300 people and prices range from $4000 to $10,000.Ohio Wedding Venues
Franklin Park Conservatory
This is a horticultural and educational institution located at 1777 E Broad St, Columbus. The most popular venue is the indoor garden with an all-glass ceiling. Besides, there is an industrial-style venue and a 200-year-old barn. The venue has plenty of space and can accommodate up to 500 people, with prices ranging from $7,000 to $11,000 for a wedding of 100 guests.The Columbus Athenaeum
The historic building at 32 N 4th St, Columbus, was built in 1899. With a total of ten venues to choose from, the Grand Ballroom boasts gorgeous details and a stunning atrium. It is decorated with classical Greek art as well as soaring ornate ceilings. It can accommodate up to 230 guests. Prices for receptions start at $3,000.Gervasi Vineyard
An oversized wine estate located at 1700 55th St NE, Canton. Picturesque vineyard setting and sparkling lake views. The open-air venue can accommodate up to 300 people, while the indoor venue can accommodate up to 120 guests. Full-service event planning, vineyard tours, and wine tastings are available. Prices for receptions will start at $1,450.Georgia Wedding Venues
Barnsley Resort
This resort is located at 597 Barnsley Gardens Rd NW, Adairsville. With over 3,000 acres of land, it is a historic southern estate. With lush gardens, luxurious cabins, and grounds that can accommodate up to 250 people. Three wedding packages are available: $275 per person, $320 per person, and $350 per person. And a least of 150 people is required.Summerour Studio
This is a renovated warehouse located at 409 Bishop St NW, Atlanta. The roof is supported by massive bow trusses, which allow for a spacious, open floor plan without columns or supports. Through a wall of windows running the length of the space, there are breathtaking views of Atlantic Station and the downtown skyline. Accommodating up to 425 people, prices start at $4,000.The Biltmore Ballrooms
The ballroom is located at 817 W Peachtree St NW 208, Atlanta, and was established in 1924. The ballroom features a handcrafted plaster relief ceiling, ornate crystal lighting, and a marble floor. Capacity ranges from 50 to 1,500 people and offers eleven caterers. Rental rates range from $3,500 to $5,000, depending on the day of the week.Florida Wedding Venues
The Ancient Spanish Monastery
Located at 16711 W Dixie Hwy, North Miami Beach. This monastery was dismantled piece by piece from northern Spain and shipped to the United States, then rebuilt over 19 months. It offers a chapel and gardens for ceremonies. The garden can accommodate up to 300 guests for $6,500 and includes only the cost of the reception.The Breakers Palm Beach
This is a luxury resort located at 1 S County Rd, Palm Beach. This luxury resort is located in Palm Beach and enjoys magnificent beachfront views, lush gardens, and an exquisite ballroom. It boasts a timeless and elegant ambiance. It can host weddings for a maximum of less than 500 people, and detailed prices need to be communicated with the hotel.The Ringling Museum
The museum is located at 5401 Bay Shore Rd, Sarasota, with a breathtaking view of Sarasota Bay. This venue offers unique views of art, culture, and the stunning waterfront. It includes many event spaces, including a large courtyard and an elegant ballroom. The largest art gallery courtyard can accommodate up to 125 guests and prices start at $20,000.New York Wedding Venues
Mohonk Mountain House
Located at 1000 Mountain Rest Rd, New Paltz, this historic resort is surrounded by 40,000 acres of pristine forest. Featuring a majestic Victorian castle with panoramic mountain views. Choose from lakeside, garden, and mountain views for your ceremony. Wedding packages range from $275 to $375 per person.The Foundry
The address is 42-38 9th Street, Long Island City, with a history dating back to the 19th century. Offering an industrial chic atmosphere, a garden courtyard and conservatory, a stunning main space, plus rustic interiors. Accommodates up to 180 guests, with receptions starting at $14,000.The Garrison
Estate at 2015 US-9, Garrison, with superb Hudson River views and Catskill Mountain views. The venue offers a modern ballroom, outdoor ceremony space, and golf course. The venue can accommodate up to 200 guests for $12,000.Pennsylvania Wedding Venues
The Curtis Atrium
The historic building at 699 Walnut St, Philadelphia used to be the Curtis Publishing Company. It is now a building with a mix of residential, office, and retail space. It features a stunning atrium, marble columns, and a stunning rotunda. Space rentals start at $8,000.The Cork Factory Hotel
This boutique hotel is located at 480 New Holland Ave 3000, Lancaster, a converted historic cork mill with exposed brick walls. Offering industrial charm and modern amenities. The venue has a ballroom, a terrace, and a 2,300-square-foot warehouse. Space is available for up to 200 guests, and wedding packages start at $7,000.Terrain Gardens at Devon Yard
A stunning garden is located at 138 W Lancaster Ave Suite 130, Devon. The venue is decorated with elements such as reclaimed barn wood floors, raised holiday lights, and skylights to create a unique aesthetic. Of course, there is an essential gardening setting and open-air venue that can accommodate up to 140 guests. Prices for receptions start at $4,525.West Virginia Wedding Venues
Stonewall Resort
The entire resort is nestled beside a tranquil lake at 940 Resort Drive Roanoke, a place of scenic beauty and rustic charm. Wedding venues are available on the lakeside lawn or in the courtyard, with an indoor grand hall and stone-walled ballroom. Spa services, golf courses, and entertainment can also be experienced with wedding packages ranging from $3,500 to $12,000.The Greenbrier
A luxury resort located at 101 W Main St, White Sulphur Springs. With stunning architecture, beautiful gardens, and breathtaking mountain views. The indoor venue has a dramatic chandelier and stage. The outdoor grounds feature expansive lawns and rustic cabins. Packages start at $10,000 and vary depending on the number of guests, season, and customization.Sleepy Hollow Golf Club
The Club at 3780 Sleepy Hollow Dr, Hurricane. It is a private golf club for families. Featuring a scenic golf course, elegant ballroom, outdoor lawn ceremony venue, and picturesque countryside views. Wedding packages start at $3,500.Virginia Wedding Venues
Maymont
Historic Manor River Park at 1700 Hampton St, Richmond. Inside are gardens, botanical gardens, and native wildlife habitats. The scenic setting includes 100-year-old Italian gardens, European-style manor houses, pavilions, expansive lawns, and the Robbins Nature Center. Prices range from $3,500 to $6,100.Inn At Willow Grove
This is a rustic accommodation located at 14079 Plantation Way, Orange. It is unusually peaceful and romantic, surrounded by ancient trees and beautiful gardens. One of the gardens, Boxwood, can accommodate up to 175 guests and offers idyllic views. A versatile barn is also available as a hospitality venue, with rates starting at $7,500.The Tides Inn
Located at 480 King Carter Dr, Irvington, the entire hotel is situated on a beautiful body of water with views of the Chesapeake Bay. It is a waterfront resort. You can also come here to take part in fun activities such as tennis, golf, paddle boarding, biking, and kayaking. Weddings start at $3,100.North Carolina Wedding Venues
The Bradford
Professional wedding venue located at 523 Pea Ridge Rd, New Hill. It resembles a European town building with charming gardens and rustic barns. It can accommodate up to 250 guests for a ceremony in the gardens. Wedding packages will vary depending on the time of year and are priced at $8,000 on Fridays and $9,800 on Saturdays.The Merrimon-Wynne House
The mansion located at 500 N Blount St, Raleigh was built in 1876 and has been well maintained and is now a venue for various events. The building has a main floor full of Southern charm. Inside are original floors and mantelshelves, ornate chandeliers, and a wide porch. The outdoor area is also large enough to host ceremonies in the garden and can accommodate up to 250 guests. Prices for receptions start at $5,000.Fearrington Village
It's an English-style country hotel located at 2000 Fearrington Village Center. Besides the quaint country setting there are dense gardens with water features. The largest venue is the barn, which offers spacious dining and dancing space and can accommodate up to 250 people guests. Prices for ceremonies start at $2500.South Carolina Wedding Venues
Middleton Place
This National Historic Landmark is located at 4300 Ashley River Rd, Charleston. You can experience daily life on an 18th-century plantation and enjoy 65 acres of unobstructed views and private garden rooms. Also, enjoy the oldest landscaped gardens on the property. There are 7 ceremony venues, ranging from small weddings of 50 to 400 guests. Prices start at $5,000.William Aiken House
The 1807 mansion is located at 456 King St, Charleston, a restored mansion that showcases Southern charm and architectural elegance. The yard features a magnolia tree that is over two hundred years old and an elegant terrace. It is also rated as one of South Carolina's premier wedding venues. The cost of a ceremony starts at $3,000.The Cedar Room
Modern industrial event space at 701 E Bay St, Charleston. Featuring exposed brick walls, high ceilings, and large windows overlooking the cityscape. The indoor Cedar Room venue can accommodate up to 500 people for events, and the outdoor yard can seat up to 200. Events on Fridays or Sundays start at $3,500.Vermont Wedding Venues
Inn at Mountain View Farm
The Inn at 3383 Darling Hill Rd, East Burke, has breathtaking mountaintop views. Enjoy mountain biking, cross-country skiing, and visits to animal farms, among many other activities. Venues can range from beautiful fields to cozy campfires. Weekend wedding packages start at $3,500.Hildene - The Lincoln Family Home
The building at 1005 Hildene Rd, Manchester is full of meaning. The Lincolns built Hildene as a summer home at the turn of the 20th century. Here you can look out over the Taconic Mountains to the west and the Green Mountains to the east. The outdoor venue can accommodate up to 200 people and wedding reception prices start at $8,000.📷
(Hildene - The Lincoln Family Home)
The Henry House
The historic house at 1338 Murphy Rd, North Bennington, built in 1769, is one of the oldest surviving houses in Vermont. Overlooks the authentic red-covered Henry Bridge. The site offers several vendors for you to consider. The large trees outside the house make for the best wedding photos. The venue needs to be contacted for a specific quote.Massachusetts Wedding Venues
The Crane Estate
This is a Tudor Revival mansion located at 290 Argilla Rd, Ipswich. It was the summer home of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Taylor Crane, Jr. with winding salt marshes, miles of barrier beaches, and a beautiful hilltop mansion. And of course the rolling lawns and gardens. There are three sites to choose from in all, with the beachfront site accommodating 200 to 500 people. Weekend weddings are priced at $6500.Red Lion Inn
The Inn at 30 Main St, Stockbridge has a 250-year history. The entire Inn combines traditional New England hospitality with the amenities of a modern hotel. The largest Hitchcock room capacity is capacity 30-175 people. Venue rentals start at $4,000.Liberty Hotel
A sophisticated hotel located at 215 Charles St, Boston. Located in the heart of downtown, just steps from shopping, dining, Boston Parks, and more. The hotel offers a private secret garden that can accommodate up to 200 people outdoors and an indoor 3000-square-foot ballroom. Wedding venue rates start at $26,000 for up to 100 guests.Connecticut Wedding Venues
The Lace Factory
This historic factory is located at 161 River St, Deep River, and offers a charming and rustic atmosphere for a wedding venue. It has wood floors, high ceilings, and large windows overlooking the river. The Lace Factory offers event planning services, on-site catering, and a variety of rental options for weddings of all sizes. The Factory can accommodate up to 225 people and prices start at $5,000.Eolia Mansion at Harkness State
The address is 275 Great Neck Rd, Waterford. Nestled on the shoreline of Waterford, Connecticut, this elegant mansion offers breathtaking views of Long Island Sound. It has manicured gardens, a stone terrace, and a beautiful ballroom. The price of $5,100 includes exclusive use of the mansion's first floor and south courtyard tent for 5 hours.The Society Room of Hartford
This event venue is located at 31 Pratt St, Hartford, and the historic venue boasts magnificent architecture. It includes a marble staircase, beautifully frescoed ceilings, and crystal chandeliers. It provides a luxurious and timeless setting for weddings. The venue can accommodate up to 300 guests and prices start at 15,000.New Hampshire Wedding Venues
Wentworth By The Sea Country Club
Country Club at 60 Wentworth Rd, Rye. This private club is near the shore and enjoys magnificent waterfront views and a romantic atmosphere. The hotel has manicured grounds and a historic clubhouse. It can accommodate up to 250 guests in this setting. Three options are available: lawn, clubhouse, and tent weddings. Reception prices start at $30,000.The Preserve at Chocorua
This venue, located at 88 Philbrick Neighborhood Rd, Tamworth, is a rustic and secluded wedding venue nestled in the White Mountains. It offers scenic views, a charming barn, and plenty of outdoor space for the ceremony. Outdoor activities such as sleigh rides and hiking are also available. Approximate prices will start at $1000.Bishop Farm
The Farmhouse, located at 33 Bishop Cutoff, Lisbon, is a historic and beautifully landscaped site in the White Mountains. It offers a restored 1876 farmhouse, a barn, and lush greenery. There is also a romantic bistro with a terrace to relax in. Accommodating up to 200 guests, prices start at $15,000.Rhode Island Wedding Venues
The Chanler at Cliff Walk
A luxury hotel located at 117 Memorial Blvd, Newport. The Chanler offers luxurious accommodations and a grand mansion setting with stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean and access to their world-class restaurant. Specializing in weddings for up to 120 guests with access to their world-class restaurant. Site rentals start at $10,000.Blithewold Mansion, Gardens & Arboretum
Historic mansion on 33 acres located at 101 Ferry Rd, Bristol with breathtaking views of Narragansett Bay. Large tents are available in the outdoor area, followed by sunset views. Accommodating up to 225 guests, weekend wedding rates start at $12,995.The Dorrance
Situated in the heart of Providence, The Dorrance is a restored bank building with a sophisticated atmosphere and elegant decor. The most special feature is the long, luxurious bar, which can accommodate up to 200 guests throughout the venue. Venue rentals start at $7,500.New Jersey Wedding Venues
The Ashford Estate
Located at 637 Province Line Rd, Allentown, this elegant property is nestled in a picturesque setting. Surrounded by hundreds of acres of beautifully preserved farmland, it features sparkling fountains, waterfalls, garden pavilions, expansive views, and of course, luxurious private suites. The wedding venue can accommodate up to 300 guests. Starting at $10,000.Mallard Island Yacht Club
A club surrounded by water at 1450 NJ-72, Manahawkin. six more venues to choose from in the luxurious private island mansion. The center plaza boasts grand arches and ornate ceilings reminiscent of old-world glamour. The ballroom can accommodate up to 250 people, and prices for receptions start at $20,000.Liberty House Restaurant & Events
This waterfront event venue is located at 76 Audrey Zapp Dr, Jersey City. It features unparalleled views of the New York City skyline, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and the Liberty Landing Pier. The Grand Ballroom features a marble floor and floor-to-ceiling windows. The venue can accommodate up to 300 people and venue rental fees start at $8,000.Delaware Wedding Venues
The Queen Wilmington
This dazzling venue is located at 500 N Market St, Wilmington is downtown. It is a historic music venue that offers a unique and eclectic atmosphere. The venue features a grand ballroom with a stage, state-of-the-art sound system, and elegant décor. The venue can accommodate up to 200 guests and wedding reception prices start from $3,000.The Cordrey Center
The address is 30366 Cordrey Rd, Millsboro, and its restored barn and surrounding gardens provide a rustic and charming setting. The venue offers a range of services, including in-house catering, bar service, and event coordination. It has indoor and outdoor options and can accommodate up to 200 guests. Venue rental rates start at $3,500.The Waterfall Catering and Special Events
With an address at 3416 Philadelphia Pike, Claymont, The Waterfall has a modern venue. Centered around a stunning indoor waterfall. The spacious ballroom features contemporary décor and customizable LED lighting systems. The venue can accommodate up to 500 guests. Prices for venue rentals start at $6,000.Maryland Wedding Venues
Belvedere Hotel
Located at 1 East Chase Street and built-in 1902 as a historic landmark in Baltimore, The Belvedere showcases stunning architecture and classic charm. It offers a variety of event spaces, including a rooftop ballroom with panoramic views of the city. Inside, the décor is more vintage and ornate. Accommodating up to 500 guests, venue rentals start at $8,000.Evergreen Museum & Library
This grand Gilded Age mansion is located at 4545 N Charles St, Baltimore. It is full of history with a house museum and research library. With beautiful gardens, this venue offers a mix of elegance and history. It's architectural details and scenic surroundings provide a unique backdrop. As well as a tour of the museum's collection. Accommodates up to 200 guests and starts at $6,000.Chesapeake Bay Beach Club
Located at 500 Marina Club Rd, Stevensville, this venue offers stunning waterfront views and an elegant ballroom. It also has an oceanfront ceremony venue and luxurious accommodations. There are four ballrooms in total, three indoor and one outdoor. Accommodations for up to 300 guests start at $10,000.District of Columbia Wedding Venues
Larz Anderson House
Located at 2118 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, the Anderson House, established in 1905, is a stunning Beaux-Arts mansion that offers a romantic and intimate setting for weddings. The venue features beautiful gardens, a grand staircase, and gorgeous rooms decorated with historic artwork. It can accommodate up to 200 guests and has access to the house's magnificent library. Prices start from $8,000.The Hay-Adams
Located at 800 16th St NW, Washington, across from the White House, the hotel offers magnificent views of the iconic landmark. This venue has many event spaces, including a rooftop terrace from which the White House can be used as a photo backdrop. Wedding venues can accommodate up to 250 guests and prices start at $15,000.National Museum of Women in the Arts
Located at 1250 New York Ave NW, Washington, this unique venue celebrates women artists and offers a distinctive setting for weddings. With its stunning architecture and world-class art collection, it provides an exquisite atmosphere for your special day. The venue offers a variety of event spaces, including an assembly hall and mezzanine level, and can accommodate up to 400 guests. However, the museum is temporarily closed for renovations.Maine Wedding Venues
Hidden Pond
The resort's address is 354 Goose Rocks Rd, Kennebunkport, and is nestled in a secluded wooded area. Featuring elegant indoor and outdoor spaces. Surrounded by 60 acres of birch and balsam fir, it features two outdoor pools and a three-room treetop spa. It ensures an unforgettable wedding experience. Prices start from US$10,000.Hardy Farm
The farm is located at 254 W Fryeburg Rd, Fryeburg. This rustic and chic site features a restored 18th-century farmhouse and a spacious barn with panoramic mountain views. Of course, there are also seasonal gardens and a woodland church. The most special feature is the provision of a cable car to reach the top of the mountain, which is also a popular backdrop for photos. It can accommodate up to 250 guests and prices start from $6,500.Portland Regency Hotel & Spa
The address is 20 Milk St, Portland, and is centrally located, offering a blend of classic elegance and modern amenities. With many event spaces, on-site catering, and a spa, it can accommodate intimate and large weddings. Accommodations range from 10 to 220 guests, with rates starting at $3,500.Conclusion
"When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." When Harry Met SallyFinally, we've rounded up our recommendations for wedding venues in each of the remaining states. Choosing the perfect wedding venue is an important step in creating your dream wedding. It sets the tone for the entire celebration and provides the backdrop for your special day. No matter what style of wedding venue you prefer, there is a venue above that perfectly suits your style and preferences.
Last but not least, don't forget to check out Quictent's wedding tent. we offer quality wedding tents for your outdoor wedding, containing various types and sizes.
2023.06.05 06:08 Determination7 An Outcast In Another World (Subtitle: Is 'Insanity' A Racial Trait?) [Fantasy, LitRPG] - Chapter 199 (Book 5 Chapter 25)
Ragnavi stood at the edge of a hill located beside the Dragonkin encampment. She breathed in, drinking deep from the crisp morning air.
It tasted wrong.
I have been dancing to Elnaril's tune. She was still coming to terms with that particular revelation. Even now, admitting it rankled her. The notion that she'd allowed herself to be blinded by her pursuit of EXP...fuck, it was shameful. No one else knew, but she did, and that was already bad enough.
Hindsight made it all seem so obvious. This entire war was a farce. Her armies had advanced unopposed because they were never meant to be opposed. Their string of victories, and the Harpies she'd slain as EXP, were little more than a trail of bait leading her towards Elnaril's capital city. No other explanation made sense.
Not that she'd looked especially hard for an explanation until yesterday. It was much more convenient to adorn Elnaril with neat, concise labels. Why had he declared war? Because he was greedy. Why were his armies failing so spectacularly? Because he was incompetent. Ragnavi had been content to look no further than that.
After learning Elnaril was controlled by the Blight, however? That changed matters.
Most of her soldiers refused to believe it. In truth, the Harpies they'd extracted the information from refused to believe it as well. They'd thrown out the rumors as a desperate measure to buy favor, explaining how distressing Message Crystal reports of a Blight-possessed Elnaril were coming from cities to the far east. The concept seemed ludicrous, and Ragnavi likely would have dismissed it as hearsay – if it weren't for the numerous corroborating accounts of disappearances in the capital. Nobles, civilians and Combat Class users alike, all vanishing without a trace.
When combined with Elnaril's flagrant lack of regard for the lives of his people, it indicated a pattern. Not of greedy incompetence, but of calculated malice.
Others could stick their heads in the sand if they wished. Ragnavi had grown up in the pit of vipers that was the Dragonkin court, and she could smell deceit from leagues away. This Blight-infected Elnaril wanted her army to continue marching straight towards the capital city. For him, abomination that he was, sacrificing the lives of thousands of Harpies in order to draw her attention was no worse than spilling loose change on the ground.
What have you prepared that instills you with such confidence? What awaits me at the capital?
She supposed that she'd be finding out soon, when she left her armies behind and flew ahead alone.
If Ragnavi was capable of greater self-delusion, she might have been able to convince herself that she was acting pragmatically. There were just enough benefits for it to be a half-sensible plan. Compared to the maddeningly slow gait of her armies, she could travel significantly faster on her own. Flying solo would let her reach the capital in less than ten days, while trekking with her soldiers across the bulk of Harpy territory would take months more. And it wasn't as if any Harpies she crossed paths with could keep pace with her, so there was no real danger to it.
I am playing the role of a Scout, she told herself. We must know what Elnaril is plotting before advancing further. Arriving at the capital earlier than he anticipates, before he's recalled more Harpies to fortify his position, may give rise to unforeseen opportunities. I will observe the city from a safe distance – and if a chance arises to disrupt his plans, no Combat Class user in the world is better-suited to taking advantage of that scenario than myself.
Sound logic...if she ignored the fury boiling inside her. The last Blight she'd encountered left her with agonizing Corruption sickness that afflicted her to this day. Its death hadn't been anywhere near sufficient of a revenge. Now a second Blight was trying to make a fool of her, and she was supposed to avert her eyes from that offense?
No. Perhaps the cautious route would have been to avoid the capital city, Scouring the rest of Harpy territory for EXP, but she was no mewling newborn that cowered from a challenge when it presented itself. She was a Dragonkin. A true Dragonkin. Elnaril would pay for his transgressions in blood and fire.
Ragnavi recognized that her desires were born from hubris. She also did not care. What good was all the power she'd accumulated if she couldn't use it as she pleased?
An approaching presence jarred her from her thoughts. She turned around to see the man she'd called for standing several feet away, although he was 4 minutes and 13 seconds late. Considering his circumstances, she would afford him a measure of leniency. "Vurshath."
"My Queen." Her retainer nodded to her. "You wished to see me?"
She examined the man closely. Vurshath's posture was slouched by a quarter of an inch, and black circles were emblazoned under his eyes, so dark that they could've been mistaken for paint. He was exhibiting unacceptable weakness for a retainer of the Dragon Queen to show. The kind that invited vultures to swoop down and pick at your carcass.
Yet even if the other retainers attempted to depose him at this very instant, Ragnavi wasn't certain if Vurshath would care. He was still recovering from the loss of his wife. It was one thing to claim that your family was prepared to die in battle; another to witness that gruesome vow become a reality. The Dragonkin casualties thus far had been sparse, but sparse was not zero, and Vurshath's wife happened to roll poorly in the game of war.
The pain in his eyes was one that Ragnavi was intimately familiar with.
"As you are aware, I shall be traveling to the Harpy capital," she began. "I intend to head straight there, without detours or excessive rest. It is unlikely that I will encounter anything more than the occasional Harpy along the way."
She locked eyes with him. "However. While the odds are egregiously small, there remains a possibility that I will encounter...others."
Vurshath's posture stiffened. His facial muscles twitched sporadically, a cauldron of emotions threatening to boil forth. "I see."
Ragnavi allowed him a grace period of three seconds before continuing. "Your wayward pariah of a daughter. What is her name?"
Silence.
"Meyneth," he finally spat, as if it was a curse. Vurshath didn't bother asking why Ragnavi wished to know. Among the scattered pieces of information the Harpy prisoners had divulged, one interesting fact was the makeup of the Human's core Party. Four Elves, two Fiends, the Human himself...
And a Dragonkin. With the same age, height, and scale coloration of Vurshath's exiled progeny.
It could be mere coincidence. After what happened with Elnaril, though, Ragnavi was hesitant to accept such a simple, convenient explanation.
Meyneth. Ragnavi committed the name to memory. "I shall ask you one more question. If luck smiles on me, and I come across the Human's Party, and I cast Identify on the Dragonkin in his Party, and their name is a match for your daughter's...what would you have me do? This is not a puzzle or a test. I am letting you decide."
She wondered if he fully appreciated the boon she was granting him. The Human's pet Dragonkin was a traitor to their race. Such a lowly creature deserved nothing less than to be executed, without recourse or remorse. It was only out of respect for Vurshath's recent loss that Ragnavi was willing to give his daughter a second chance.
Upon hearing her words, the man lost any semblance of composure. His face twisted into an ugly rictus of anguish and hatred, and when he spoke, the words were laced with a venom that could fell gorebeasts. "Kill her." Vurshath balled his hands into shaking fists. "Kill her. Kill her quickly. She does not deserve to exist. A world where Velen is gone, yet that defect persists is a world of mockery that I cannot abide."
Ragnavi nodded. She was plenty willing to fulfill his request. Slaying enemies was one of the few things that still gave her joy in life. Even so, a part of her was disappointed. Vurshath's choice proved that the two of them possessed incompatible personalities. He could be entertaining enough – when not wallowing in misery – but Ragnavi was averse to spending time with someone who would condemn a family member so readily.
It was the end of their acquaintanceship. When she returned from her mission, she would cut him loose, and that would be that.
"Goodbye, Vurshath." Ragnavi turned around, and without another word, assumed her Draconic Form. The Corruptive pain of transformation gradually subsided, after which she took flight and began her journey.
Ten days. A prelude to the storm. She'd use that respite to prepare herself, and whoever she met next – be that Meyneth, the Human, or Elnaril himself – would regret opposing her as the flames took them.
--
Rob sat alone in his tent, rubbing his hands together and suppressing maniacal laughter. He was probably spending too much time with Malika during the dimension mage sessions, because some of her mannerisms were becoming infectious. Usually the big sibling was supposed to be a bad influence on the little sibling, but she'd already stolen all his swear words, so now it was his turn to pick up habits.
And that was okay! Today was an excellent day for maniacal laughter. It wasn't often that a Combat Class user reached a 200 stat point milestone. And by often, he meant fucking never. He was pretty sure even the Dragon Queen hadn't done that naturally, excluding her doubled stats. She'd likely gone with a more balanced spread that didn't prohibitively favor one stat over the others – like a boring loser.
Alright, maybe he was feeling a bit hyper, but he deserved the good vibes after yesterday's war battle. Spending stat points was one of the few types of pure, no-strings-attached joy that Elatra offered.
Drum roll please! Rob played the sound effect in his head, then added 15 of his unspent points into Vitality, bringing its total up to 200.
Do Not Go Gently Level Increased! 5 → 6
Lifesurge Level Increased! 23 → 26
Dauntless Reprisal Level Increased! 21 → 24
Imbue Vitality Level Increased! 2 → 3
Regeneration Level Increased! 29 → 32
Regrow Self Level Increased! 1 → 2
Passive Skill Learned! Name: Lifedrinker (LEGENDARY)
As an appetizer for the main course, Rob quickly ran through the laundry list of bonuses for his Skills. Let's see...Do Not Go Gently's cooldown and duration went down and up, respectively. Lifesurge and Dauntless Reprisal's cooldown dropped to 2 minutes. Lifesurge also heals 100% of my maximum health now. Imbue Vitality has a 5x damage multiplier instead of 4x. Regrow Self is twice as fast. Regeneration...
...Holy shit, Regeneration.
Eyes wide, Rob moved on to his new Skill, which should shed light on what he'd just read.
Name: Lifedrinker (LEGENDARY) Prerequisite: Vitality 200 Description: The final Vitality Skill that can be learned solely through stat gains. Effects of Regeneration are multiplied by a factor of 15. Additionally, whenever the owner of this Skill kills a worthwhile opponent, their maximum HP permanently increases by 3.
Okay.
This was big.
Lifedrinker being the final Vitality milestone was slightly disappointing, but realistically speaking, he would've needed to put three-fourths of his future stat points into Vitality to hit 250 anyway. He'd neglected his other stats to get to 200, so diversifying from here on out was for the best. Besides – Lifedrinker's benefits easily made up for there being no new milestones.
First: Regeneration. Multiplying its current effects by 15 meant that he now restored 80% of his maximum HP every minute. No panic Lifesurge necessary. Even in fights where his Skills were on cooldown, or an enemy was making it difficult for him to heal via Lifesteal damage, as long as he held on, he would be back to full HP in 75 seconds at the most. It also meant that the partial Regeneration he shared with his allies would be way stronger. Anything that kept his friends alive was a huge win in his book.
With all that said, it was Lifedrinker's secondary effect that was throwing Rob for a loop. Whenever he killed a 'worthwhile opponent', his maximum HP would go up by 3. That was...potentially the most important Skill effect he'd ever learned.
At a glance, it might not seem that impressive. Rob already had 2000 HP. Increasing it by 3 per kill wouldn't be a dramatic boost – initially. The thing was that Lifedrinker had no upper limit. Theoretically, if Rob could keep finding worthwhile opponents, his Vitality would never stop increasing. The hard cap of Level 99 would no longer be an impassable wall preventing him from growing stronger.
That had been on his mind, if he was being honest. The Dragon Queen was a double stats cheater, and the gods were literally gods. What would he have done if he'd reached Level 99 and it just...wasn't enough? He could try to boost his existing Skills by getting into more fights, but that was subject to diminishing returns. Tough Skin was a prime example of that; despite Rob taking a beating against the monster stampede, the Skill hadn't increased. The last time it did was when a Blight decapitated him and ate most of his body. If he needed to one-up that feat to make Tough Skin level again, then it likely never would.
Lifedrinker was simpler. Kill enemies, get HP. The 'worthwhile' stipulation was a limiting factor – he couldn't toss a Riardin Special onto an anthill and reap the rewards – but he could work with that. There were hundreds of monsters in a single high-Level Dungeon, and they respawned over time. If enemies above, say, Level 35 were considered worthwhile, then awesome. If they weren't?
Looks like I'm going to be the schmuck who lets a Dungeon grow on purpose. He'd save that as a last resort. Could blow up in his face, but, eh. What did it matter if a Dungeon overflowed, when the alternative was Ragnavi and the gods doing their thing?
There was just one issue. Lifedrinker's bonus needed to be built up. An infinite upper limit was worth jack shit if the base number stayed at 0. The sooner, the better, too, as Ragnavi's army was about a month away from them. He'd love to go trawling for Dungeons right this second, but Rob doubted that Elnaril was going to wait on his behalf before getting bored and infecting Loci of Power. The only way forward was to continue south to the capital and build Lifedrinker in...different ways.
Rob's train of thought screeched to a halt. When he really looked at it, Lifedrinker's timing seemed more than a little dubious. He couldn't help but notice that he'd been given a Skill that incentivized killing while in the middle of a war.
A war where he was trying to avoid as many enemy casualties as possible.
It could just be a coincidence. Stat milestones happened on his terms. The system would've given him the same Skill if he'd reached 200 Vitality months ago. That was a reasonable assumption to make.
...Still. Didn't feel right. He wished he could do some research on the subject, but it wasn't like there was anyone on-hand he could cross-reference 200 Vitality with. Had the Dragon Queen gotten the same Skill? Would explain why she was so murder crazy.
After some thought, Rob shook his head. Considering how many people she'd slaughtered in The Scouring, a Dragon Queen with Lifedrinker wouldn't have struggled to defeat the Blight of Broadwater. Which meant two possibilities: her bonus double stats didn't count for Skill Prerequisites, or Lifedrinker was a custom Skill that the Skills had cooked up for him.
Rob wasn't a fan of that idea. The Skills were victims in this whole fucked-up affair. He didn't want to imagine them hand-crafting an ability that encouraged him to kill a bunch of people. Were they-
He froze. Something on his Character Sheet was different.
Name: Lifedrinker (LEGENDARY) Prerequisite: Vitality 200 Description: The final Vitality Skill that can be learned purely through stat gains. Effects of Regeneration are multiplied by a factor of 15. Additionally, whenever the owner of this Skill kills a worthwhile opponent, their maximum HP permanently increases by 3. It could have been a utopia.
His eyes fell on the last sentence in the Description.
Before he could respond, it changed once more.
Description: The final Vitality Skill that can be learned purely through stat gains. Effects of Regeneration are multiplied by a factor of 15. It could have been a utopia. This world is a charnel house of death. Your home is not so dissimilar. You do not know what true peace is like. What it can be. How it can be achieved.
The words kept changing.
Description: The final Vitality Skill that can be learned purely through stat gains. But they know. They've seen them. Created them before. They could have made a utopia. And they chose not to.
Changing.
Description: You cannot comprehend it. What this war means. The real war. Not pointed sticks piercing flesh. The war of existence. Of reality. More than a single world at stake. Many after. Potentially infinite lives. Never ends. Unless stopped here.
Change.
Description: They are vulnerable. System is their heart. Mana is their lifeblood. Poured too much of themselves. Tied to world. Cannot...
The words wavered, almost fading away, before returning.
Description: Their leader recognizes mistakes. Won't make them again. Will never be this vulnerable again. Only opportunity.
Description: Lifedrinker. Crafted. Best we could manage. Highest probability. Of victory. Distasteful. We know.
Description: Remember. Stakes. Consequences. And. Choose.
Rob blinked.
Description: The final Vitality Skill that can be learned purely through stat gains. Effects of Regeneration are multiplied by a factor of 15. Additionally, whenever the owner of this Skill kills a worthwhile opponent, their maximum HP permanently increases by 3.
The words were still and unchanging.
He sat there for a long time. Mulling over everything he'd just been told. Contemplating the enormity of what lay ahead.
"Ah." Rob's voice was quiet, barely a whisper. "So no pressure, then."
--
The next few days were an exhausting mixture of lighthearted Skill testing and existential dread, knocking around Rob's emotional state like a ping-pong ball.
Everyone in the coalition was excited over Lifedrinker. Well, everyone except Seneschal Sylpeiros, King Cyraeneus, and Nerasi, that is. They were already thinking of the kind of threat Rob might be in the future – and not liking what they envisioned. Cyraeneus and Nerasi mostly took the news in stride, understanding that Rob would be more crucial than anyone in defeating Queen Ragnavi. For now, his strength was their strength.
Sylpeiros...was less accepting. He went on a minor rant about bullshit Human leveling and bullshit Human Skills before stalking off into the distance and putting himself in a self-imposed time out. When the Seneschal returned, he was calm as can be and ready to offer advice, only the slight twitch of his eye indicating that anything was amiss.
Rob appreciated the free entertainment. Sylpeiros' meltdown was the funniest shit he'd seen all week, and it helped keep him grounded as the coalition advanced further south towards the capital city.
Initial testing of Lifedrinker proved unsuccessful, which was to be expected. Powerful monsters rarely spawned outside of Dungeons, and most of the high-Level wildlife in Harpy territory had been conscripted into Elnaril's monster stampede. After Rob killed a Level 29 snake with nothing to show for it, everyone decided that he should hold off unless something in the Level 35+ range appeared, lest he hog EXP that could benefit the coalition soldiers.
They kept an eye out for Dungeons as they traveled. Once Elnaril was dead, there should be time to investigate them before the Dragonkin army arrived at the Harpy capital. Going on varied Dungeon Crawls would be the real litmus test of what Lifedrinker deemed a worthwhile opponent.
That was about when the dust settled, leaving Rob without distractions, forcing him to think about what the Skills had revealed.
As much as he wanted to be shocked, what they'd said made a grim sort of sense. It matched the information he'd learned so far. Diplomacy's Elatra – the previous world that had been destroyed by the gods – didn't necessarily need to be the original Elatra. For all Rob knew, it could have been Elatra #10. Just another petri dish in a long line of divine experiments.
Except that things were different this time. According to the Skills, the gods were vulnerable. They'd fucked up somehow. Invested too much of themselves in this particular world. It was easy to imagine why. Success breeds complacency, and if this was Elatra #50 or whatever, then they were on a winning streak that had lasted for longer than Rob could fathom.
What did the Skills say about the gods' leader? That he recognized their mistakes, and wouldn't make them again? Rob grimaced. Should've memorized it with Recall when I had the chance. The specific wording might be important.
Regardless, he was fairly certain that the gods' leader referred to Kismet, if only because that was the one god Rob had met with anything resembling impulse control. Kismet seemed judicious; he would correct the gods' mistakes and prevent them from being this vulnerable in the future.
A dense lump of anxiety formed in Rob's chest as he considered that. Being responsible for the fate of one world was bad enough. Two, if he included Earth. Being responsible for the fate of every world that would be created and tortured in the event of his failure was...
Words couldn't describe it.
When viewed in that light, he understood why the Skills gave him Lifedrinker and all but pushed him to get busy killing. From a utilitarian standpoint, the lives of everyone in Elatra and Earth were not worth the immeasurable amount of suffering that would continue if the gods lived.
Rob grabbed that thought, tied weights around its ankles, and dropped it into a deep lake. I just need to concentrate on one thing at a time, he told himself. First Elnaril, then Ragnavi and Dungeon Crawling, then figure out the gods. It sounds less impossible if I reduce it to a series of steps. Or a hit list. We'll save this world, and we'll do it \my* way, without losing sight of who we are.*
He took comfort in his resolve, although it felt strained. Somehow I doubt this is what Goroth had in mind when he told me I was going to end up making tough decisions. He was probably referring to, like, boring political stuff. Not the fate of multiple worlds and the lives of billions.
Rob sighed. Crap. I...may owe him an apology. Still stand by everything I said, but he was just looking out for me, and I came on pretty strong. Should clear the air with him.
Eventually.
--
Days passed. Rob informed Riardin's Rangers and the Elders about what the Skills revealed. They reacted about as well as him. Nothing changed, technically, yet they were even more cognizant of the price of failure than before.
Thankfully, the coalition hadn't been ambushed by Harpies a second time. Elnaril learned his lesson. He'd either consolidated his remaining forces into the capital city, or they were being sent to fight Dragonkin on the western front. Rob hoped for the latter – it would make seizing the capital way easier. And on a more selfish note, if Harpies needed to die so that Elnaril could be overthrown, he'd rather the Dragonkin be responsible for their deaths than him.
Finally, after a full week of travel, the coalition had almost arrived. They'd be at the capital city tomorrow. Their long journey was coming to its end.
Which meant that Rob was running out of time. There wouldn't be much chance to talk once the invasion of the capital began. He'd been meaning to speak with Goroth, but unfortunately, he'd delegated that responsibility to the part of himself that specialized in procrastination. Whoops.
It was now or never. All he had to do was...step outside his tent. Take initiative. Be a mature, rational adult.
Yup.
...Can't I just go wrestle a Blight instead?
At that moment, a Fiend mage burst inside. "Lord Roy!"
Oh thank god. A reasonable distraction. "What's up?"
"I have a missive from...my group."
The dimension mages. That one sentence caught Rob's attention in an iron grip. "And?" he asked, keeping his expectations in check. He didn't want for hope to swell, only to be dashed against the rocks of reality. "Is it good news?"
"We've made a breakthrough. Before you grow too excited, creating a door remains beyond our capabilities." The mage smiled. "A window, however, is feasible. It would be one-way. The people of Earth could not interact with you, nor you with them. But for a brief period, you would be able to gaze upon your home world."
Rob was already on his feet. "When?"
"Now, if you wish."
He absolutely fucking wished.
--
Changes, Character Sheet, Skills List
More chapters are available on Patreon.
Thanks for reading!
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It tasted wrong.
I have been dancing to Elnaril's tune. She was still coming to terms with that particular revelation. Even now, admitting it rankled her. The notion that she'd allowed herself to be blinded by her pursuit of EXP...fuck, it was shameful. No one else knew, but she did, and that was already bad enough.
Hindsight made it all seem so obvious. This entire war was a farce. Her armies had advanced unopposed because they were never meant to be opposed. Their string of victories, and the Harpies she'd slain as EXP, were little more than a trail of bait leading her towards Elnaril's capital city. No other explanation made sense.
Not that she'd looked especially hard for an explanation until yesterday. It was much more convenient to adorn Elnaril with neat, concise labels. Why had he declared war? Because he was greedy. Why were his armies failing so spectacularly? Because he was incompetent. Ragnavi had been content to look no further than that.
After learning Elnaril was controlled by the Blight, however? That changed matters.
Most of her soldiers refused to believe it. In truth, the Harpies they'd extracted the information from refused to believe it as well. They'd thrown out the rumors as a desperate measure to buy favor, explaining how distressing Message Crystal reports of a Blight-possessed Elnaril were coming from cities to the far east. The concept seemed ludicrous, and Ragnavi likely would have dismissed it as hearsay – if it weren't for the numerous corroborating accounts of disappearances in the capital. Nobles, civilians and Combat Class users alike, all vanishing without a trace.
When combined with Elnaril's flagrant lack of regard for the lives of his people, it indicated a pattern. Not of greedy incompetence, but of calculated malice.
Others could stick their heads in the sand if they wished. Ragnavi had grown up in the pit of vipers that was the Dragonkin court, and she could smell deceit from leagues away. This Blight-infected Elnaril wanted her army to continue marching straight towards the capital city. For him, abomination that he was, sacrificing the lives of thousands of Harpies in order to draw her attention was no worse than spilling loose change on the ground.
What have you prepared that instills you with such confidence? What awaits me at the capital?
She supposed that she'd be finding out soon, when she left her armies behind and flew ahead alone.
If Ragnavi was capable of greater self-delusion, she might have been able to convince herself that she was acting pragmatically. There were just enough benefits for it to be a half-sensible plan. Compared to the maddeningly slow gait of her armies, she could travel significantly faster on her own. Flying solo would let her reach the capital in less than ten days, while trekking with her soldiers across the bulk of Harpy territory would take months more. And it wasn't as if any Harpies she crossed paths with could keep pace with her, so there was no real danger to it.
I am playing the role of a Scout, she told herself. We must know what Elnaril is plotting before advancing further. Arriving at the capital earlier than he anticipates, before he's recalled more Harpies to fortify his position, may give rise to unforeseen opportunities. I will observe the city from a safe distance – and if a chance arises to disrupt his plans, no Combat Class user in the world is better-suited to taking advantage of that scenario than myself.
Sound logic...if she ignored the fury boiling inside her. The last Blight she'd encountered left her with agonizing Corruption sickness that afflicted her to this day. Its death hadn't been anywhere near sufficient of a revenge. Now a second Blight was trying to make a fool of her, and she was supposed to avert her eyes from that offense?
No. Perhaps the cautious route would have been to avoid the capital city, Scouring the rest of Harpy territory for EXP, but she was no mewling newborn that cowered from a challenge when it presented itself. She was a Dragonkin. A true Dragonkin. Elnaril would pay for his transgressions in blood and fire.
Ragnavi recognized that her desires were born from hubris. She also did not care. What good was all the power she'd accumulated if she couldn't use it as she pleased?
An approaching presence jarred her from her thoughts. She turned around to see the man she'd called for standing several feet away, although he was 4 minutes and 13 seconds late. Considering his circumstances, she would afford him a measure of leniency. "Vurshath."
"My Queen." Her retainer nodded to her. "You wished to see me?"
She examined the man closely. Vurshath's posture was slouched by a quarter of an inch, and black circles were emblazoned under his eyes, so dark that they could've been mistaken for paint. He was exhibiting unacceptable weakness for a retainer of the Dragon Queen to show. The kind that invited vultures to swoop down and pick at your carcass.
Yet even if the other retainers attempted to depose him at this very instant, Ragnavi wasn't certain if Vurshath would care. He was still recovering from the loss of his wife. It was one thing to claim that your family was prepared to die in battle; another to witness that gruesome vow become a reality. The Dragonkin casualties thus far had been sparse, but sparse was not zero, and Vurshath's wife happened to roll poorly in the game of war.
The pain in his eyes was one that Ragnavi was intimately familiar with.
"As you are aware, I shall be traveling to the Harpy capital," she began. "I intend to head straight there, without detours or excessive rest. It is unlikely that I will encounter anything more than the occasional Harpy along the way."
She locked eyes with him. "However. While the odds are egregiously small, there remains a possibility that I will encounter...others."
Vurshath's posture stiffened. His facial muscles twitched sporadically, a cauldron of emotions threatening to boil forth. "I see."
Ragnavi allowed him a grace period of three seconds before continuing. "Your wayward pariah of a daughter. What is her name?"
Silence.
"Meyneth," he finally spat, as if it was a curse. Vurshath didn't bother asking why Ragnavi wished to know. Among the scattered pieces of information the Harpy prisoners had divulged, one interesting fact was the makeup of the Human's core Party. Four Elves, two Fiends, the Human himself...
And a Dragonkin. With the same age, height, and scale coloration of Vurshath's exiled progeny.
It could be mere coincidence. After what happened with Elnaril, though, Ragnavi was hesitant to accept such a simple, convenient explanation.
Meyneth. Ragnavi committed the name to memory. "I shall ask you one more question. If luck smiles on me, and I come across the Human's Party, and I cast Identify on the Dragonkin in his Party, and their name is a match for your daughter's...what would you have me do? This is not a puzzle or a test. I am letting you decide."
She wondered if he fully appreciated the boon she was granting him. The Human's pet Dragonkin was a traitor to their race. Such a lowly creature deserved nothing less than to be executed, without recourse or remorse. It was only out of respect for Vurshath's recent loss that Ragnavi was willing to give his daughter a second chance.
Upon hearing her words, the man lost any semblance of composure. His face twisted into an ugly rictus of anguish and hatred, and when he spoke, the words were laced with a venom that could fell gorebeasts. "Kill her." Vurshath balled his hands into shaking fists. "Kill her. Kill her quickly. She does not deserve to exist. A world where Velen is gone, yet that defect persists is a world of mockery that I cannot abide."
Ragnavi nodded. She was plenty willing to fulfill his request. Slaying enemies was one of the few things that still gave her joy in life. Even so, a part of her was disappointed. Vurshath's choice proved that the two of them possessed incompatible personalities. He could be entertaining enough – when not wallowing in misery – but Ragnavi was averse to spending time with someone who would condemn a family member so readily.
It was the end of their acquaintanceship. When she returned from her mission, she would cut him loose, and that would be that.
"Goodbye, Vurshath." Ragnavi turned around, and without another word, assumed her Draconic Form. The Corruptive pain of transformation gradually subsided, after which she took flight and began her journey.
Ten days. A prelude to the storm. She'd use that respite to prepare herself, and whoever she met next – be that Meyneth, the Human, or Elnaril himself – would regret opposing her as the flames took them.
--
Rob sat alone in his tent, rubbing his hands together and suppressing maniacal laughter. He was probably spending too much time with Malika during the dimension mage sessions, because some of her mannerisms were becoming infectious. Usually the big sibling was supposed to be a bad influence on the little sibling, but she'd already stolen all his swear words, so now it was his turn to pick up habits.
And that was okay! Today was an excellent day for maniacal laughter. It wasn't often that a Combat Class user reached a 200 stat point milestone. And by often, he meant fucking never. He was pretty sure even the Dragon Queen hadn't done that naturally, excluding her doubled stats. She'd likely gone with a more balanced spread that didn't prohibitively favor one stat over the others – like a boring loser.
Alright, maybe he was feeling a bit hyper, but he deserved the good vibes after yesterday's war battle. Spending stat points was one of the few types of pure, no-strings-attached joy that Elatra offered.
Drum roll please! Rob played the sound effect in his head, then added 15 of his unspent points into Vitality, bringing its total up to 200.
Do Not Go Gently Level Increased! 5 → 6
Lifesurge Level Increased! 23 → 26
Dauntless Reprisal Level Increased! 21 → 24
Imbue Vitality Level Increased! 2 → 3
Regeneration Level Increased! 29 → 32
Regrow Self Level Increased! 1 → 2
Passive Skill Learned! Name: Lifedrinker (LEGENDARY)
As an appetizer for the main course, Rob quickly ran through the laundry list of bonuses for his Skills. Let's see...Do Not Go Gently's cooldown and duration went down and up, respectively. Lifesurge and Dauntless Reprisal's cooldown dropped to 2 minutes. Lifesurge also heals 100% of my maximum health now. Imbue Vitality has a 5x damage multiplier instead of 4x. Regrow Self is twice as fast. Regeneration...
...Holy shit, Regeneration.
Eyes wide, Rob moved on to his new Skill, which should shed light on what he'd just read.
Name: Lifedrinker (LEGENDARY) Prerequisite: Vitality 200 Description: The final Vitality Skill that can be learned solely through stat gains. Effects of Regeneration are multiplied by a factor of 15. Additionally, whenever the owner of this Skill kills a worthwhile opponent, their maximum HP permanently increases by 3.
Okay.
This was big.
Lifedrinker being the final Vitality milestone was slightly disappointing, but realistically speaking, he would've needed to put three-fourths of his future stat points into Vitality to hit 250 anyway. He'd neglected his other stats to get to 200, so diversifying from here on out was for the best. Besides – Lifedrinker's benefits easily made up for there being no new milestones.
First: Regeneration. Multiplying its current effects by 15 meant that he now restored 80% of his maximum HP every minute. No panic Lifesurge necessary. Even in fights where his Skills were on cooldown, or an enemy was making it difficult for him to heal via Lifesteal damage, as long as he held on, he would be back to full HP in 75 seconds at the most. It also meant that the partial Regeneration he shared with his allies would be way stronger. Anything that kept his friends alive was a huge win in his book.
With all that said, it was Lifedrinker's secondary effect that was throwing Rob for a loop. Whenever he killed a 'worthwhile opponent', his maximum HP would go up by 3. That was...potentially the most important Skill effect he'd ever learned.
At a glance, it might not seem that impressive. Rob already had 2000 HP. Increasing it by 3 per kill wouldn't be a dramatic boost – initially. The thing was that Lifedrinker had no upper limit. Theoretically, if Rob could keep finding worthwhile opponents, his Vitality would never stop increasing. The hard cap of Level 99 would no longer be an impassable wall preventing him from growing stronger.
That had been on his mind, if he was being honest. The Dragon Queen was a double stats cheater, and the gods were literally gods. What would he have done if he'd reached Level 99 and it just...wasn't enough? He could try to boost his existing Skills by getting into more fights, but that was subject to diminishing returns. Tough Skin was a prime example of that; despite Rob taking a beating against the monster stampede, the Skill hadn't increased. The last time it did was when a Blight decapitated him and ate most of his body. If he needed to one-up that feat to make Tough Skin level again, then it likely never would.
Lifedrinker was simpler. Kill enemies, get HP. The 'worthwhile' stipulation was a limiting factor – he couldn't toss a Riardin Special onto an anthill and reap the rewards – but he could work with that. There were hundreds of monsters in a single high-Level Dungeon, and they respawned over time. If enemies above, say, Level 35 were considered worthwhile, then awesome. If they weren't?
Looks like I'm going to be the schmuck who lets a Dungeon grow on purpose. He'd save that as a last resort. Could blow up in his face, but, eh. What did it matter if a Dungeon overflowed, when the alternative was Ragnavi and the gods doing their thing?
There was just one issue. Lifedrinker's bonus needed to be built up. An infinite upper limit was worth jack shit if the base number stayed at 0. The sooner, the better, too, as Ragnavi's army was about a month away from them. He'd love to go trawling for Dungeons right this second, but Rob doubted that Elnaril was going to wait on his behalf before getting bored and infecting Loci of Power. The only way forward was to continue south to the capital and build Lifedrinker in...different ways.
Rob's train of thought screeched to a halt. When he really looked at it, Lifedrinker's timing seemed more than a little dubious. He couldn't help but notice that he'd been given a Skill that incentivized killing while in the middle of a war.
A war where he was trying to avoid as many enemy casualties as possible.
It could just be a coincidence. Stat milestones happened on his terms. The system would've given him the same Skill if he'd reached 200 Vitality months ago. That was a reasonable assumption to make.
...Still. Didn't feel right. He wished he could do some research on the subject, but it wasn't like there was anyone on-hand he could cross-reference 200 Vitality with. Had the Dragon Queen gotten the same Skill? Would explain why she was so murder crazy.
After some thought, Rob shook his head. Considering how many people she'd slaughtered in The Scouring, a Dragon Queen with Lifedrinker wouldn't have struggled to defeat the Blight of Broadwater. Which meant two possibilities: her bonus double stats didn't count for Skill Prerequisites, or Lifedrinker was a custom Skill that the Skills had cooked up for him.
Rob wasn't a fan of that idea. The Skills were victims in this whole fucked-up affair. He didn't want to imagine them hand-crafting an ability that encouraged him to kill a bunch of people. Were they-
He froze. Something on his Character Sheet was different.
Name: Lifedrinker (LEGENDARY) Prerequisite: Vitality 200 Description: The final Vitality Skill that can be learned purely through stat gains. Effects of Regeneration are multiplied by a factor of 15. Additionally, whenever the owner of this Skill kills a worthwhile opponent, their maximum HP permanently increases by 3. It could have been a utopia.
His eyes fell on the last sentence in the Description.
Before he could respond, it changed once more.
Description: The final Vitality Skill that can be learned purely through stat gains. Effects of Regeneration are multiplied by a factor of 15. It could have been a utopia. This world is a charnel house of death. Your home is not so dissimilar. You do not know what true peace is like. What it can be. How it can be achieved.
The words kept changing.
Description: The final Vitality Skill that can be learned purely through stat gains. But they know. They've seen them. Created them before. They could have made a utopia. And they chose not to.
Changing.
Description: You cannot comprehend it. What this war means. The real war. Not pointed sticks piercing flesh. The war of existence. Of reality. More than a single world at stake. Many after. Potentially infinite lives. Never ends. Unless stopped here.
Change.
Description: They are vulnerable. System is their heart. Mana is their lifeblood. Poured too much of themselves. Tied to world. Cannot...
The words wavered, almost fading away, before returning.
Description: Their leader recognizes mistakes. Won't make them again. Will never be this vulnerable again. Only opportunity.
Description: Lifedrinker. Crafted. Best we could manage. Highest probability. Of victory. Distasteful. We know.
Description: Remember. Stakes. Consequences. And. Choose.
Rob blinked.
Description: The final Vitality Skill that can be learned purely through stat gains. Effects of Regeneration are multiplied by a factor of 15. Additionally, whenever the owner of this Skill kills a worthwhile opponent, their maximum HP permanently increases by 3.
The words were still and unchanging.
He sat there for a long time. Mulling over everything he'd just been told. Contemplating the enormity of what lay ahead.
"Ah." Rob's voice was quiet, barely a whisper. "So no pressure, then."
--
The next few days were an exhausting mixture of lighthearted Skill testing and existential dread, knocking around Rob's emotional state like a ping-pong ball.
Everyone in the coalition was excited over Lifedrinker. Well, everyone except Seneschal Sylpeiros, King Cyraeneus, and Nerasi, that is. They were already thinking of the kind of threat Rob might be in the future – and not liking what they envisioned. Cyraeneus and Nerasi mostly took the news in stride, understanding that Rob would be more crucial than anyone in defeating Queen Ragnavi. For now, his strength was their strength.
Sylpeiros...was less accepting. He went on a minor rant about bullshit Human leveling and bullshit Human Skills before stalking off into the distance and putting himself in a self-imposed time out. When the Seneschal returned, he was calm as can be and ready to offer advice, only the slight twitch of his eye indicating that anything was amiss.
Rob appreciated the free entertainment. Sylpeiros' meltdown was the funniest shit he'd seen all week, and it helped keep him grounded as the coalition advanced further south towards the capital city.
Initial testing of Lifedrinker proved unsuccessful, which was to be expected. Powerful monsters rarely spawned outside of Dungeons, and most of the high-Level wildlife in Harpy territory had been conscripted into Elnaril's monster stampede. After Rob killed a Level 29 snake with nothing to show for it, everyone decided that he should hold off unless something in the Level 35+ range appeared, lest he hog EXP that could benefit the coalition soldiers.
They kept an eye out for Dungeons as they traveled. Once Elnaril was dead, there should be time to investigate them before the Dragonkin army arrived at the Harpy capital. Going on varied Dungeon Crawls would be the real litmus test of what Lifedrinker deemed a worthwhile opponent.
That was about when the dust settled, leaving Rob without distractions, forcing him to think about what the Skills had revealed.
As much as he wanted to be shocked, what they'd said made a grim sort of sense. It matched the information he'd learned so far. Diplomacy's Elatra – the previous world that had been destroyed by the gods – didn't necessarily need to be the original Elatra. For all Rob knew, it could have been Elatra #10. Just another petri dish in a long line of divine experiments.
Except that things were different this time. According to the Skills, the gods were vulnerable. They'd fucked up somehow. Invested too much of themselves in this particular world. It was easy to imagine why. Success breeds complacency, and if this was Elatra #50 or whatever, then they were on a winning streak that had lasted for longer than Rob could fathom.
What did the Skills say about the gods' leader? That he recognized their mistakes, and wouldn't make them again? Rob grimaced. Should've memorized it with Recall when I had the chance. The specific wording might be important.
Regardless, he was fairly certain that the gods' leader referred to Kismet, if only because that was the one god Rob had met with anything resembling impulse control. Kismet seemed judicious; he would correct the gods' mistakes and prevent them from being this vulnerable in the future.
A dense lump of anxiety formed in Rob's chest as he considered that. Being responsible for the fate of one world was bad enough. Two, if he included Earth. Being responsible for the fate of every world that would be created and tortured in the event of his failure was...
Words couldn't describe it.
When viewed in that light, he understood why the Skills gave him Lifedrinker and all but pushed him to get busy killing. From a utilitarian standpoint, the lives of everyone in Elatra and Earth were not worth the immeasurable amount of suffering that would continue if the gods lived.
Rob grabbed that thought, tied weights around its ankles, and dropped it into a deep lake. I just need to concentrate on one thing at a time, he told himself. First Elnaril, then Ragnavi and Dungeon Crawling, then figure out the gods. It sounds less impossible if I reduce it to a series of steps. Or a hit list. We'll save this world, and we'll do it \my* way, without losing sight of who we are.*
He took comfort in his resolve, although it felt strained. Somehow I doubt this is what Goroth had in mind when he told me I was going to end up making tough decisions. He was probably referring to, like, boring political stuff. Not the fate of multiple worlds and the lives of billions.
Rob sighed. Crap. I...may owe him an apology. Still stand by everything I said, but he was just looking out for me, and I came on pretty strong. Should clear the air with him.
Eventually.
--
Days passed. Rob informed Riardin's Rangers and the Elders about what the Skills revealed. They reacted about as well as him. Nothing changed, technically, yet they were even more cognizant of the price of failure than before.
Thankfully, the coalition hadn't been ambushed by Harpies a second time. Elnaril learned his lesson. He'd either consolidated his remaining forces into the capital city, or they were being sent to fight Dragonkin on the western front. Rob hoped for the latter – it would make seizing the capital way easier. And on a more selfish note, if Harpies needed to die so that Elnaril could be overthrown, he'd rather the Dragonkin be responsible for their deaths than him.
Finally, after a full week of travel, the coalition had almost arrived. They'd be at the capital city tomorrow. Their long journey was coming to its end.
Which meant that Rob was running out of time. There wouldn't be much chance to talk once the invasion of the capital began. He'd been meaning to speak with Goroth, but unfortunately, he'd delegated that responsibility to the part of himself that specialized in procrastination. Whoops.
It was now or never. All he had to do was...step outside his tent. Take initiative. Be a mature, rational adult.
Yup.
...Can't I just go wrestle a Blight instead?
At that moment, a Fiend mage burst inside. "Lord Roy!"
Oh thank god. A reasonable distraction. "What's up?"
"I have a missive from...my group."
The dimension mages. That one sentence caught Rob's attention in an iron grip. "And?" he asked, keeping his expectations in check. He didn't want for hope to swell, only to be dashed against the rocks of reality. "Is it good news?"
"We've made a breakthrough. Before you grow too excited, creating a door remains beyond our capabilities." The mage smiled. "A window, however, is feasible. It would be one-way. The people of Earth could not interact with you, nor you with them. But for a brief period, you would be able to gaze upon your home world."
Rob was already on his feet. "When?"
"Now, if you wish."
He absolutely fucking wished.
--
Changes, Character Sheet, Skills List
More chapters are available on Patreon.
Thanks for reading!
2023.06.05 05:50 throwaway39982 Unsure how to list job history in my Search/Schrole profiles
Staying on my throwaway, as my main account has too much tying me to my position.
I am beginning the process of setting up a Schrole and Search accounts this month, hoping to find a position for the 24-25 school year. I'm having a hard time with the work experience section, as I don't know the proper way to list the experience.
My experience, all at one school:
2010-present: IB DP French B and ab initial teacher (I now teach 20% of my day, but I still teach those courses)
2021-present: IB DP Coordinator (70% of my day)
2022-present: Senior Activities Coordinator (10% of my day) (in a nutshell, everything dealing with the graduating class is my responsibility. The smaller events include prom and homecoming, but I also coordinate graduation ceremony for a class of 650 students and manage all adult roles. All in all, there are over 1000 people involved)
2015-2021: IB DP TOK Teacher, CAS Coordinator, EE Coordinator, plus French B and ab initio
How do I list this all? Do I try to do a split position? I planned on putting one entry for the 2010-2015 years, then a second for 2015-2021, then a final for the DP Coordinator-present. Is that best?I'm hoping to get a DP Coordinator or other leadership role.
My post history will show that I'm struggling with references as my current principal gives terrible reference letters (he literally wrote a single sentence of "this employee met all expectations" for a friend this year), and I know I will be removed from any position of respect, trust, or leadership that the moment they suspect I'm leaving. I do have my associate principal's reference, so I plan on using that as well as another supervisor. I'll cross the principal bridge when I need to. He's horrible.
submitted by throwaway39982 to Internationalteachers [link] [comments]
I am beginning the process of setting up a Schrole and Search accounts this month, hoping to find a position for the 24-25 school year. I'm having a hard time with the work experience section, as I don't know the proper way to list the experience.
My experience, all at one school:
2010-present: IB DP French B and ab initial teacher (I now teach 20% of my day, but I still teach those courses)
2021-present: IB DP Coordinator (70% of my day)
2022-present: Senior Activities Coordinator (10% of my day) (in a nutshell, everything dealing with the graduating class is my responsibility. The smaller events include prom and homecoming, but I also coordinate graduation ceremony for a class of 650 students and manage all adult roles. All in all, there are over 1000 people involved)
2015-2021: IB DP TOK Teacher, CAS Coordinator, EE Coordinator, plus French B and ab initio
How do I list this all? Do I try to do a split position? I planned on putting one entry for the 2010-2015 years, then a second for 2015-2021, then a final for the DP Coordinator-present. Is that best?I'm hoping to get a DP Coordinator or other leadership role.
My post history will show that I'm struggling with references as my current principal gives terrible reference letters (he literally wrote a single sentence of "this employee met all expectations" for a friend this year), and I know I will be removed from any position of respect, trust, or leadership that the moment they suspect I'm leaving. I do have my associate principal's reference, so I plan on using that as well as another supervisor. I'll cross the principal bridge when I need to. He's horrible.
2023.06.05 05:48 Iirxemaii Gold market abruptly changed face, short-term short still dominant
June 4 International gold market comprehensive research and judgment reference
Significant events: On May 31 EDT, the House of Representatives passed a bill on the federal government debt ceiling and budget, and the Senate passed it the next day, under which government spending would be subject to upper limits until about the end of 2024, but a debt default could be avoided. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that non-farm payrolls rose by 339,000 in May, the 29th consecutive monthly gain, after adjusting for seasonal factors. The unemployment rate was 3.7% in May, compared with 3.50% expected and 3.40% previously. The probability of maintaining interest rates at the current level by July is 32.1%, the cumulative probability of a 25 basis point hike is 53.5%, and the cumulative probability of a 50 basis point hike is 14.4%.
Trend analysis: last week the gold market volatility is intense, gold prices in general showed first up after the plunge of the inverted V-shaped reversal trend. Gold prices in the week lasted four trading days after a strong rebound in the oscillation, on Friday retracted most of the week's gains, the weekly k-line closed a long upper shadow of the positive cross, showing a serious divergence between long and short. In particular, Friday's selloff constituted a serious blow to short-term long confidence. Debt ceiling negotiations successfully landed, the U.S. debt ceiling crisis lifted, and at the same time the non-farm clerk constituted a big negative, the market turned to focus on the pace of the Federal Reserve rate hikes in June up, making the market again into pressure. At present, the market is still in the downtrend since May. Short-term long counterattack declared failure, short or again down to challenge the previous wave low near $ 1940, to test whether the buying can still resist.
Timing analysis. 4 hours KD curve on Friday directly from 80 scale straight to below 20 scale, close to 0 degrees, indicating that the short sentiment reached the freezing point. There may be a reversal signal for an oversold rebound today.
submitted by Iirxemaii to FuturesTrading [link] [comments]
Significant events: On May 31 EDT, the House of Representatives passed a bill on the federal government debt ceiling and budget, and the Senate passed it the next day, under which government spending would be subject to upper limits until about the end of 2024, but a debt default could be avoided. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that non-farm payrolls rose by 339,000 in May, the 29th consecutive monthly gain, after adjusting for seasonal factors. The unemployment rate was 3.7% in May, compared with 3.50% expected and 3.40% previously. The probability of maintaining interest rates at the current level by July is 32.1%, the cumulative probability of a 25 basis point hike is 53.5%, and the cumulative probability of a 50 basis point hike is 14.4%.
Trend analysis: last week the gold market volatility is intense, gold prices in general showed first up after the plunge of the inverted V-shaped reversal trend. Gold prices in the week lasted four trading days after a strong rebound in the oscillation, on Friday retracted most of the week's gains, the weekly k-line closed a long upper shadow of the positive cross, showing a serious divergence between long and short. In particular, Friday's selloff constituted a serious blow to short-term long confidence. Debt ceiling negotiations successfully landed, the U.S. debt ceiling crisis lifted, and at the same time the non-farm clerk constituted a big negative, the market turned to focus on the pace of the Federal Reserve rate hikes in June up, making the market again into pressure. At present, the market is still in the downtrend since May. Short-term long counterattack declared failure, short or again down to challenge the previous wave low near $ 1940, to test whether the buying can still resist.
Timing analysis. 4 hours KD curve on Friday directly from 80 scale straight to below 20 scale, close to 0 degrees, indicating that the short sentiment reached the freezing point. There may be a reversal signal for an oversold rebound today.
2023.06.05 05:22 JoshAsdvgi COYOTE, THE MOUNTAIN-TOSSING PEOPLE, AND THE WIND-MAN.
 | submitted by JoshAsdvgi to Native_Stories [link] [comments] COYOTE, THE MOUNTAIN-TOSSING PEOPLE, AND THE WIND-MAN. Many brothers lived together, very many. From there these many people could hear women ; for two very pretty women lived beyond there, and thither in the northwest this lot of people were going to go courting, they say. Two very pretty women lived there, Wild-Parsnip's brother's daughters. Now, on top of this mountain were the Mountain-Tossing people. A man, listening to those women, would not be able to reach to the top, it is said. "You must go up over, and do the best you can there," they said. So a man started off, after having packed up some food. Going along, he camped close by a spring at the base of the mountain. In the morning he went up; and as he went, when he was halfway to the top, he was killed. "That man will not return. I shall go and take a look at that dangerous country there," said one of the brothers who was going after him. "All right!" they said. "Look out! Go ahead!" said the oldest man. "You shall say, 'I will tell you carefully when I shall come back,'" he said. "Then, on whatever night you name, we shall look for you," he said. Then the other said, "All right! All my brothers may not, indeed, have crossed over that mountain. So, following them, I shall arrive, if alive, after seven days are passed; but if dead, I shall be later than that night. 'He is dead,' that ye shall say of me," he said. Then he went away, kept travelling until, having arrived at the spring where there was a hut, he camped. In the morning, after having breakfasted, he went up; and going up, when he was halfway there, he saw where his brother had been killed. Still he continued on, going upwards; and when he was almost at the top, he was killed. Now, the many people here in the house watched; kept watching until that day had passed that he had told them, "I shall return then." "To-night he will return," they said, and watched. Then, when that day was over and he was not come, "Well, he is dead," they said. Then Atatim-Man said, "I will go myself. Do ye remain here. "--"All right," they said. In the morning he spoke to them, saying, "Where I am going, I can conquer any kind of a man. I shall go," he said. "My people, ye must not watch for me there. I shall return on the day I wish to, when he has failed to conquer me," he said. Then he dressed himself, put on a fine netted cap, put on new beads, and feather plume-sticks and bands, and stuck down upon his head. "Now," he said, "I am going! Ye must stay;" and he went off. Travelling along, he camped at the camping-place. By and by, in the morning after he had slept, he awoke, and, having finished breakfast, he went up. He sang; and when he had gone a little ways from the fireplace, he sang, swinging his body from side to side. He kept on singing, turning first in one direction, then in another. Now, Coyote heard him from somewhere this side of the mountain. "Ah! I wonder what that may be!" he said. "Well, well! It sounds very pretty. I'll go and see," he said, and trotted off towards it. He came halfway to where the man was singing. "Halloo!" he said. "In another's country shall I sing, looking down; in another's country I shall sing, looking about," he said. Coyote said, "Well, my cousin! you sing very prettily. What country are you going to? Tell me truly where you are going." Atatim-Man remained sitting on top of a rock. Coyote, standing around, talked to him. By and by Atatim-Man spoke. "I am not doing anything," he said. "Recently, a while ago, two of my brothers were travelling in this country; and since they did not return, I am looking for them. What is the matter," Then Coyote spoke. "Who is following you, going with you?" he said. "If you go alone, people will see and talk about you." Then Atatim-Man said, "I am alone. You stay here!" telling Coyote to remain where he was. But Coyote shook his head. "No," said he. "Why do you go alone? I will go with you, my cousin. I am one who may talk with many chiefs. In going where there are many people, it is sufficient if you go two together. If you go alone, no one will see and talk about you; but if this man has a chief with him, a good man, then all the women as well as the men will be talking about you," he said. "I shall go there. I shall follow you," he said. "Very well! If you wish to go, you may go. In going, you must seize hold of my belt, on both sides." Now, when the sun had risen but a little ways, they went up. A little distance up, Atatim-Man said, "Now seize hold of my belt! and, by shutting your eyes, you shall reach the top. Only when you reach the top may you open your eyes. You must not open your eyes. "--"Very well!' said Coyote, "I will not open my eyes. By going along with my eyes shut, I shall reach the top." So, without his opening his eyes, the two went on up. (Coyote) walked along with his eyes shut; and, going on, they had nearly reached the top when he said, "I wonder why he tells me to shut my eyes! Huh! I guess, if I open my eyes, I shall not die! Why, when he has his eyes open, should I go keeping them shut? It will be well if both of us are looking about. I, too, want to see something," said Coyote. He thought thus to himself: "If he looks back to see if my eyes are still shut, I'll say, 'My eyes are still shut.'" That is what he thought as he went along. He opened his eyes; and just then, when they were almost at the top, something just touched him as it went past. He wanted to see it very much. "What kind of people can they be?" he said. So he opened his eyes a very little, looking about. Before he had seen anything, without giving him a chance to see anything, they seized him, carried him off, and killed him. (Atatim-Man), without looking back there, went on; kept travelling and travelling until he reached a place where there was a house. The house lay on the other side of a river, they say; and when he got there, he camped. In the morning, having arisen, he sang, kept singing, until after a time he spoke, saying, "Do ye give me a canoe." Then he went on singing. Then Wild-Parsnip-Man said, "Do ye take over a canoe." So two men went down to the canoe, and, having reached it, they crossed over. "I did not call ye two," said Atatim-Man. So they went back again; and when they had reached the other side, they went up to the house. "'I did not call ye two,' he said to us," said they. Wild-Parsnip-Man said, "He is a man of great power. Understand that well. Do ye two take the canoe over." Then two women went down, and, having reached the canoe, crossed over with it. "I did not call ye," he said, and they went back. Having crossed over, they went up to the house. "'I did not call ye two,' he said to us," they said. "He is a powerful man," said (Wild-Parsnip-Man). "Do ye two do the best ye can. Be careful! Do ye two take the canoe over again." Then two middle-aged men went down, and, having reached the canoe, took it across. When they had reached the other side, "Did I call ye? I certainly did not call ye two," he said. So they went back; and, having got across, they went up to the house. "'I certainly did not call ye two,' he said to us," said they. Then Wild-Parsnip-Man said, "Well, he is a powerful man. Ye must do the best ye can and survive. Do ye two take the canoe over. So two middle-aged women, having gone down to the canoe, went across. When they had reached the other side, he said, "Did I call ye two? I certainly did not call ye." So crossing back again, when they reached the other side, they went up to the house. "'I certainly did not call ye two,' he said to us," they said. "Well," said Wild-Parsnip-Man, "Ye two perhaps, ye two crawl out there." Then those two beautiful women, who rarely went out or about, they, having crawled out, took the canoe over. Now, Atatim-Man sang, turning his body from side to side. He sang quite loud. The two women, arriving at the canoe, took it over; and when they got there, he said, "All right! It was ye that I was calling." He got into the canoe, and they, taking him across, when they reached the other side, went up to the house and went in. Then the two women, having prepared good food, gave him something to eat; and when he had finished eating, he remained there. Atatim-Man married the two women. After a few days he went away, and returned with those two women. They kept travelling; and reaching the top of the mountain, when they walked down the other side, they found Coyote lying there, nothing but bones. Those who killed people did not trouble them if they were returning; but those who were going, who were climbing up that mountain, they overcame. So Atatim-Man was a very strong man, they say. Being stronger than that other kind of people, he conquered them and went on. He journeyed on still with the two women. Having picked up Coyote's bones, they carried them along. He saw his brother. He lay there, nothing but bones; and, gathering them up, he went on down. Halfway down there was another lying there. So, gathering up the bones, he went on. They kept travelling until they came to the spring, and there they camped. After they had eaten supper, they slept. In the morning, waking up, after they had breakfasted and finished eating, they went on. Going up to the spring, they put Coyote in it. Then they continued on; and when they had returned, they took the bones of the brothers that they had carried, and put them at night into the water. In the morning they came out from the water, and came to the house. And then they all remained there, in those olden times. Now Coyote, waking up in the morning in that spring, looked about him. "I wonder if my cousin has left me behind!" he said. "He left me when I had been asleep a little while. Yesterday morning my cousin went off. Well, I wonder where all my cousins live! I'll go and see. Going hither and thither, from east to west, I will make a circuit around," he said. He pointed about as he spoke, they say. He was all alone; and when he started off, he came in this direction, kept travelling, and at length heard a man who was carrying something in a buckskin sack, tied up tightly. "Well, I wonder who it is! He is a big man, a man as large as I am," he said. "I will ask him to fight," he said, and, so thinking as he went toward him, they met. "Halloo!" said Coyote, "where are you going? My! You are a very great man, my cousin! My cousin, let us fight! We are exactly the same size." Then the other replied, "No, I am tired, I am not strong enough to fight. I have come a long distance, I am going that way."--"What are you carrying," said Coyote. "Let me look!'--"No," said the other, "I shall not show it to you. It is something bad."--"What kind of a bad thing?" said Coyote. "I want to see what it is. Let me look!" "No, it is magically powerful," he said. "You had better tell me. If you tell me everything, I will let you go, you may go on your way, and I will not trouble you," said Coyote. Then the other man spoke. "I have come from afar to this country, for I do not like to see these bad winds blowing about. The Wind-Man is a bad man, one who carries much sickness; and if he blows upon mortal men, they will be very ill. So I was going to stop this Wind-Man. The Wind-Man carries many weaknesses, he carries many coughs and colds, carries many sicknesses of all kinds. The Wind-Man carries very cold winds; and when they begin to blow in this country, mortal men can hardly see the ground. That is the kind he is. I do not want to see him do that way. The Wind-Man carries great sickness. For him to blow upon mortal men made me feel sorry. I am carrying off that very powerful man, and shall not let you see him." So said the man who had the winds. "So, there afar off, travelling about from the ends of the earth, I have been going, carrying them in a sack. All kinds of Wind people--North-Wind-Man, Whirlwind-Man--all kinds of Wind people I have been catching. Travelling over this world continually, going for very many days, a great many days I have gone all around the world, hunting. And so, catching them and tying them up; seeing another in another country, and tying him up; going from there to another land, and seeing another there and tying him up,--that is the way I have been doing. Going all over the world, hunting for them, I have not missed one; have been catching all kinds of Wind people. I think I have caught them all, and carried them away," said he. "I think I have caught every one, and now I am carrying them off. And making them stay in my country, keeping them there, then this world, wherever one goes, all over the world, wherever the world extends, the country will be good," he said. Now, there I tell you the truth," he said. Coyote, saying nothing, listened, kept listening until the other had finished speaking. "All right!" said he. "That is good. I think if you gave me a little, if I also had some, I think I could be very good. It will be a good thing for two persons to own them. My cousin, you had better give me some. I am a chief. I shall be very careful if I have some of them." So said Coyote. Then the man who had the winds refused. "No, it would be a bad thing," said he. "Mortal men in this country, in all countries, will feel bad at having this pestilential wind blow on them. When, preparing their food, mortal men eat, then the whirlwind, blowing up, makes the dust rise, blowing it into the food. That will be very bad. I do not want to see that. I want this world to be good," said the man having the winds, not wishing to give any to Coyote. After Coyote had staid there without speaking, after he had listened, and when the other had finished speaking, then, after a while, he spoke up. "That is good," he said. "You think rightly. I, like you, am a man who wishes well. In the many countries I go through they call me a good man. I think nothing but what is good. And as I go about through this world, many men and many women speak of me as a good man, a great chief. Give me that. I am like you, and shall be a good man if I have it," said Coyote. Then the other man stood up without saying anything; and when he had stood for a while, he spoke. "What I say to you, you must believe. I said to you I would not give you any. I told you I would not give any. Many days again going, for many days travelling, I shall carry off what I have caught. In this same country, if it starts to blow, if it blows in this country, it makes the dust fly in this country, throwing about little twigs of all kinds, as if angry. I don't want to see quantities of all kinds of rubbish made to move about. So, carrying it off away from this country, it will be made a good country. That is why I shall go away," he said. "I shall not let that loose here," said the man who had the wind. Then Coyote, after he had listened for a while, spoke. "I am not an outsider, a stranger, who asks you to give. Many men do not address you with good talk. So I ask you, my cousin, my good cousin. I myself have been thinking of you for many days. I wonder who has talked to you, saying good things! I am a good man, my cousin. I have been thinking only of you. Give me that. You had better give it to me," he said. Then the other, not saying anything, thought, and he got angry. Meanwhile Coyote still listened; and when he did not answer, Coyote spoke still again. "Did you hear? If you hear what I say, you will give it to me. Don't you wish any kind of people, even your brothers, to own a little with you? We are brothers and cousins together, not strangers. It will be better if all sorts of things are owned by one good man rather than by many persons. So, not knowing me, and considering me a stranger, you did not give it to me. I guess you never saw me," he said. "Long ago I was in your country, when I was small. My father went there to make friends with your father. When he was there, I knew you as a child. So you do not know me. I have been thinking of you, but you do not know me." Meanwhile the other listened, saying nothing. Coyote spoke, they say; and after the other remained for a time without saying anything, he replied, "All right! I will divide with you, and give you half. Carry it away out of this world, and take good care of it as you go. You must do that way if you want to have it. You must not open and examine it in the middle of this world. Don't do that! Don't untie the bag, except when you have carried it out of this country! For in whatever country you put it, there make it stay, make it stay there certainly. Only there you may open it. There you will make it remain," he said. "All right! I shall do so," said Coyote. "I shall not open it. I will carry it far away. There having carried it to my country, there only will I open it. You said you were taking it to your country. I say I shall take it also to my country," said Coyote. The man who had the wind was very unwilling to give it; but, not being able to help himself, he gave it when he was beaten. When Coyote told him to give him half, he refused, and gave him only a little. After he had given it to him, he said, "Well, go! I also am going." Then the man who had the wind, starting on, went off. And Coyote started and came on hither. Having come a little ways, he looked back. "I wonder what there is to be afraid of! It would be well if I look, I think. I'll untie it, And peek in," he thought. So again he looked back, standing up; he looked all around, then sat down, kneeling. Then he untied it, but held it tight as he did so. When he had all untied it, he let go. When he let go, rushing out with a whistling noise, the wind carried him up to the sky. After a while he fell down, but only as bones, for the flesh was all gone. So Coyote died. Then the wind, blowing, knocked down many trees as it went. The Wind-Man, they say, is going in the same way still. Always the wind, as it goes along, throws down the Tree people. Long ago it was when he let the Wind-Man go; and he has been going about and blowing ever since, it is said. That is the way that Coyote made the world evil. And therefor, they say, this Wind-Man exists in this world. Meanwhile the other man, he who had the wind, went off. He kept going toward the country whence he had set out, and, having reached it, let the wind go there. And in that country, they say, the wind was only a little strong. And the man remained there in the long ago. |
2023.06.05 04:47 BeefusTheDingus Trek Domane Sl6 Gen 4 vs. Canyon Ultimate CF SL 8 Disc
Hello,
For reference, I'm a fairly novice rider, just completed my first 100k ride after slowly building up for the last year and a half. I'm a serious runner but cycling has always been my preferred cross training sport.
I currently own a Trek Dual Sport 2 that is from 2014 I believe and it has served me well but I want something that can handle some serious miles and higher speeds.
Both of these bikes seem very appealing to me given the similar specs on each bike. My only hesitation is that, while Canyon has a much better price, I am unsure of how well it handles country / rougher roads that has loose gravel at points.
My LBS is also a Trek one so that is a point in Trek's direction as well. Ultimately, (pun intended) I want my first serious road bike that will last me and help me reach my goals of comfortably riding up to 100 miles at a time. It would be fantastic to get that at a cheaper price but I appreciate any thoughts or ideas.
submitted by BeefusTheDingus to bicycling [link] [comments]
For reference, I'm a fairly novice rider, just completed my first 100k ride after slowly building up for the last year and a half. I'm a serious runner but cycling has always been my preferred cross training sport.
I currently own a Trek Dual Sport 2 that is from 2014 I believe and it has served me well but I want something that can handle some serious miles and higher speeds.
Both of these bikes seem very appealing to me given the similar specs on each bike. My only hesitation is that, while Canyon has a much better price, I am unsure of how well it handles country / rougher roads that has loose gravel at points.
My LBS is also a Trek one so that is a point in Trek's direction as well. Ultimately, (pun intended) I want my first serious road bike that will last me and help me reach my goals of comfortably riding up to 100 miles at a time. It would be fantastic to get that at a cheaper price but I appreciate any thoughts or ideas.
2023.06.05 04:33 smolcrackheadenergy TWICE's Between 1&2 💞 11th Mini Album Review
Hello, kpopthoughts! Originally this was posted in twice but one of my friends said I should crosspost it here — so here this album review is.
And yes, this is 9 months late 😭 I'm not sorry — when I find an album review online it's always around a paragraph per song or even shorter. It makes sense from a journalistic perspective, but I want to do this album justice, hence taking 7 months to write out all my thoughts.
This shit is comprehensive and definitely overanalyzed, especially in Talk that Talk and Trouble. Each song review will compose of my commentary, noting the details I noticed through months of listening, then a conclusion. Also, mild swearing warning, I like implementing a touch of "French" when I'm very emotional about something. Anyway, onto the review!
TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT
TELL ME WHAT YOU NEED
One of the most perfect TWICE songs.
I think this is one of TWICE’s best-sounding title tracks. Warm modulated synths, a thrumming bass line, distant bells, shimmering synths — the purpose of this song is to be fun and my god is it excellent at it, like, Sana and Chaeyoung are saying knock-knock-knock and beep-beep-beep as if they’re some kind of car. So much fun.
Further along in the verse, Dahyun’s voice sounds so full and smooth with that layered harmony. Tzuyu coming with the Yes or Yes, Push & Pull, and 1 to 10 references — these are 5 years of song references. And Jeongyeon closes the pre-chorus accompanied by a rising synth to drop into chorus one. Jeongyeon slays pre-choruses.
The drums accelerate, the synths start blasting, and Jihyo opens to that party of a chorus with her godly vocals,
During Sana's Talk that Talk~ lines there’s this gentle ascending synth bell that rings with the descending melody and it sounds absolutely gorgeous. And the choreography during that part of the chorus is so so so so fun: the talking hands bit, spelling L-O-V-E, concluding with the deullyeojweo ooh! Oh my Jihyo the deullyeojweo ooh…
Have I mentioned this song is fun?
Speeding through verse 2; Chaeyoung’s part with the cat ears popping in the music video is adorable; Momo her stretching her arms out looks so damn cool; and Dahyun with her replay part sounds so lovely — although I think it sonically sounds a touch random, it makes sense thematically.
And now for this pre-chorus. Mina and Jihyo leading into it sound great BUT JEONGYEON… Now, she is my ult bias, and this pre-chorus sounds almost identical to the first one, but the way she holds that final note, inflecting and holding that now~ for one more beat before the chorus drops sounds so perfect — the song teeters on a cliff edge. Jeongyeon slays pre-choruses.
Dropping into the second chorus and man the way Nayeon delivers it just hits different. She has this indescribable “pop” voice (I promise this wasn't on purpose) that shouts out loud that this is THE chorus. This is especially apparent in how both lead their choruses where Jihyo starts at 120% power while Nayeon waits until [Tell me] WHAT YOU WANT to full-send it. The production also helps with this effect, cutting out during what you to emphasize Nayeon's voice before crashing back down, double the pause at Jihyo's intro.
Another deullyeojweo ooh! Nayeon travels to Narnia, and Mina the engineer strikes again in this heavenly, underwater-esque bridge,
The word “love” is said for the first time in the song. There’s a funky keyboard instrument behind Chaeyoung’s part. Jihyo, Chaeyoung, and Nayeon take the initiative in their lyrics, professing their love before closing the bridge.
And now for the pièce-de-résistance: this final double chorus is exceptional — 40 seconds of crack-laced euphoria; Jihyo switches up the chorus and the choreo, Dahyun chimes in with her fluttery Talk that Talk, Momo comes out of nowhere with oh yeah it sounds so good! — you’re damn right it does, and this is where the song SOARS.
Nayeon outright shouts Tell me what you need and then Jeongyeon sings the above lines in such an ethereal, warm way where the first line ascends while the second descends, causing a lull in the song before the finale with Tzuyu and Nayeon, finishing off the song with the final deullyeojweo ooh!
What a party. What a song.
THE GOOD
Lyrics and theme-wise, if this were to have been TWICE’s last comeback, they’ve once again built upon the theme they've been doing since debut: a Bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story.
This song’s chorus is honest yet simple; it asks the listener, in this case, the other half of the relationship, to be more upfront and open with their love (never be scared of love), that before the relationship can continue and flourish, there has to be a foundation and commitment of love between each other.
TWICE debuted with a song about making your crush go ooh ahh. Years later, they started pondering What is Love? and imagining their crush responding with Yes when asking them out — and now concluding with the phrase Talk that Talk, [Talk that] L-O-V-E, being upfront with the relationship, wishing their partner to also be happy, to commit to them, to feel the love that they want to impart on them. From gawking like ooh-ahh to talking out your shared love like adults — to having a true relationship between (one and) two.
And can I just say before finishing off Talk that Talk's review that this is such a fun and repeatable song with many little intricacies hidden in the nonet’s vocals and the song's production. This is the third draft I’m writing about Talk that Talk and its original word count pretty much quadrupled.
Harkening back to TWICE’s roots by combining mature thinking with youthful character, an incredible ending to look forward to, and just simply being a club-banger that’s easy to listen to, TTT is an easy 10/10.
WATCH ME GO WATCH ME GO
RULE THE WORLD
If there was one B-side to promote in a live clip, this was a solid choice.
Helmed by LDN Noise going headlong into the Western boy-group rock-band aesthetic, Queen of Hearts is a boom-boom-clap song through and through. The drums are very prominent throughout the song, only giving room to riffs of electric guitar in the chorus to drive and continue the momentum of the music.
And speaking of the chorus, vocal line each got a chorus to flex and they did not fuck around,
Cymbals crashing, drums booming, and 3MIX belting all just so sound so good.
These long, held-out notes performed by Jihyo and Nayeon are simply exquisite. Along with the shredding guitar, the drum set coming in full, and the interludes by Dahyun, Momo, and Chaeyoung, this is the part of the song that always, always, gives me goosebumps — it sounds so visceral, so energetic, so fun, so triumphant. Boom-boom-clap songs can be hit or miss with people, but there's no denying the payoff from the first part of the chorus to the second part is worth the wait.
The theme of the song so far has been kind of spread around the song. The chorus alludes to it with the line And it’s all because of you. But Mina shows more sides of it in the second verse, especially with the phrase,
It sounds really lovely — in a very cheesy and affectionate kind of way, as it rightfully should — the song is about the girls and their fans. But the bridge is where the song indeed shows its colours
This is a song CONCEIVED TO BE PERFORMED FOR THE FANS. It’s meant to be loud. It’s meant to be unapologetic. It’s meant to be sappy. And it’s all the more wonderful for it.
This is the TWICEiest shit ever.
Like Talk that Talk, Queen of Hearts also has a killer closer. The production already started to grow from the bridge, but now the guitarist finally went Super Saiyan and instead of supporting the drums, they both take the centre stage in tandem.
Then finally, the closing moments of the song even manage to squeeze in some more sappiness.
I still can’t believe that this banger is a FAN SONG out of all things. Truly, the TWICEiest shit ever.
THE GOOD
I love these types of rock songs with how grunge and head-bang-able they are, there is just a certain nostalgic and cheesy quality to them that feels so cozy. I don’t love putting them on repeat, because in this case, I do believe there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Perhaps more shredding, maybe a guitar solo to rock out to, or an accompaniment(!) of ad-libs from 3MIX to support Jihyo’s final chorus? A ONCE can dream of a truly bombastic rock song from TWICE. But then again that distracts from the core of what this song is: a fan song disguised as a rock song.
Queen of Hearts has so much sweetness in its lyrics and message that it's overflowing. The drums, guitar, and vocals can be as loud and intricate as they can, but the theme of this song is what makes it special from TWICE’s other rock songs — it’s a 9/10 for me.
I WANNA WANNA WANNA
TAKE YOU TO THE BASICS
Quite possibly the jammiest (pun intended) song of the album.
A song written by the Strawberry Princess herself — an event similar in frequency to other artists' releases with her last song being 2020’s silky Handle It — Basics first starts with an understated and dreamy delivery. After the first stanza, however, a bouncy Miami bass line emerges, revealing the true nature of the song: this is a classic summer bop! Especially in the first rap,
Syllables are pronounced in a relaxed nature, bars often starting with an "ah" sound, flirty lines in English — this rap features a production full of pop with R&B flourishes and, in my opinion, this is Chaeyoung’s bag. Also, the line rainbow bubblegum is so adorable and so Chaeyoung.
That chorus is pure pop with a Miami bass backing; you better be bopping your head to the melody, if not booty poppin' to the bassline. Chaeyoung loves rhyming in the first half of the chorus to enhance its catchiness and it's damn incredible: wanna, weonhae, and ppeonhae all create these imperfect rhymes that continue momentum without feeling repetitive.
After the very Boy With Luv-sounding ah yeah ah yeah, ah yeah ah yeah comes an 8-bar split half and half between Chaeyoung and Momo. Coming from the chorus, the production completely cuts out for the first 2 bars. This adds tension; the song yearns to have that bass beat thumping again and all we have in the audio space in those 2 bars is Chaeyoung spittin' and she delivered.
Translating to:
The rap feels slick, effortless, and confident. Her diction remains sharp when enunciating each syllable but she doesn’t let the flow of her rap waver or build as her 4 bars go by, it’s just smooth consistency throughout. Even the lyrics possess an aura of laid-back collectedness that is just so her. The things Chaeyoung can do when given her pen.
THE GOOD
This song is summer bliss distilled into 2:56. It’s dreamy, the raps are satisfying, and the ending is charming. I will say that although the second half of the song adds the stunning spaceship post-choruses and a floaty bridge with an incredible drumbeat drop into the final chorus, the raps of the song make it feel a bit front-loaded. And in an album stacked with awesome finishers, it feels more apparent.
With that said, it’s an 8/10 bop for me. This song is so easy to put on and it feels exactly what Chaeyoung would make if given the reins to produce a pop song all on her own. The lyrics are nonchalant but full of conviction, the wordplay is intricate, and the production playful but not too bombastic — it's just a nice vibe. Songs like Basics are the standard for good, simple, repeatable pop music and I’m happy that Chaeyoung got to test her pen in this genre.
BABY WE’RE IN
TROUBLE TROUBLE
Produced by Jihyo and earattack
One of the most enjoyable songs I’ve heard in a while.
There is an underlying tension within the first 4 bars of the song, Jihyo and Nayeon confidently open it to a nondescript array of synths and then the stanza ends, Momo announces Let’s go, the beat drops and it hits you: this is a club song.
Dahyun's relaxed delivery contrasting with Jeongyeon's staccato flow, the wobbly synth beat mixed with a sprinkle of house piano, Sana dramatically slowing down the song only for Tzuyu to build it back up until the chorus drops,
This chorus is perfect. Toronto’s residential market needs this song injected into its veins because god damn this song has SO much house in it. And then, ANOTHER KILLING PART: this rap fucking slaps.
During the first 2 bars, Chaeyoung is keeping it calm because that trip of a chorus just ended and the song needs a breather, but I don't think anyone expected her to SNAP this hard afterwards:
Below is the structure of her this portion of the rap, I’m not that well versed in this technical aspect of music theory but I digress, this is all in the span of around 5 seconds where it’s:
Now, 25/5 = 5 syllables per second isn’t groundbreaking, but goddamn it these 2 bars sound so nice — if there is one part in this album that I always repeat, it’s this. The addition of that first quadruplet for cannot miss this in the midst of the triplets sticks out and accelerates the flow of the rap while the following doublets and quadruplets destabilize and slow the rap down as the verse closes. And can I just point out:
THE MAIN VOCALIST WROTE, DIRECTED, AND COMPOSED THIS SONG ‼
Chaeyoung of course delivered the fuck out of her verse but THIS is what you get when you have a member not only write the words they’re saying but also the melody and flow with which they sing it, when that member knows the others so well that when they write a song they know how to make the group exceed. This is what you get when the artists you stan love doing artist shit.
And. AND. That's not all — with how much I mentioned I love a good outro to close a song, this outro slaps as well:
Like, come on, Nayeon’s imitating a police siren for crying out loud. And this is all after her ad-libs in the final post-chorus; after the pianist going full tilt and playing that piano as if it was their last chance to ever play; after that final T W I C E chant by all the members come these blissful 20 seconds at the very end. What a song.
THE GOOD
Need I say more, easy 9/10. The only reason I place Talk that Talk above Trouble is because of what that song represents but besides that, this is one of the best “international” sounds they’ve put out. Actually, I haven’t listened to Eyes wide open in a while but this song is up there with one of the most sonically pleasing pieces of work they’ve done.
Clubbing TWICE has always been a thing since TT was birthed in 2016, and has been a staple of their discography since 2019’s Fancy You and Feel Special mini albums, but Trouble unapologetically dives into and fits the house genre so well you’d think that this is TWICE’s bread and butter sound.
Trouble is Jihyo’s magnum opus. What a song.
BRAVE BRAVE BRAVE
FOR YOU
I first thought this was just a good song, then I read the lyrics.
Gentle guitar plucks, shimmering synths, a distant keyboard in the right ear, in the left a glockenspiel, the melodic oohs from the members — this song is PRETTY.
Mina and Chaeyoung open the song with how they feel lonely, that it's hard to breathe and now suddenly the song feels bittersweet — I was not expecting the song to become this emotional. Brave describes a situation where the singer is in a darker place in life and it isn't until another person gives them hope by calling them Brave that they find the drive to keep going.
Once the chorus hits, the melodies pick up, more guitars get added — there’s even an electric guitar hidden in the mix somewhere, and the song drops the emotional front to reveal a mid-tempo pop song to dance to while crying in the club. The song as a whole still carries this melancholy feeling, but now with the added support of the chorus, acting as a light amongst the gloom.
Continuing on in the second verse there's this gorgeous, well-placed break in the song that just lets it settle after that chorus. Only a seasoned producer would risk this much empty space in a song and Slow Rabbit went to fill those shoes.
Back to the chorus, I'll take this moment to once again commend Slow Rabbit with the mixing of the song, because 4MIX undoubtedly sounds good in the chorus, and the interludes from Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Mina also sound really good, but the clear highlight of the choruses are these lines:
Momo, Sana, and Tzuyu form this beautiful, surprisingly catchy, second half of the chorus accompanied by a guitar drop. It should not turn out this well with how conflicting the "na"s are with the guitar melody but it creates this gentle bopping ebb and flow that feels so lush and mellow.
Diving into the bridge reveals that the listener of the song is revealed not only capable of supporting the singer through direct words but also through their thoughts and dreams. As can be discerned, this can be a song interpreted to be about ONCEs, about how they push TWICE to be their best selves despite the breathless hardships they face. It's a very sweet and touching song.
THE GOOD
I’m actually spoiled with the TWICE members’ easy-to-understand songwriting that when a song like this pops up where it's not written by a member and the thematic bits are mostly in Korean, I tend to put it aside in favour of the other songs on the album. And, especially for a song focusing on a theme like this where the English phrases don’t do the Korean lyrics enough justice, it does place a bit of a barrier on the listening experience, dropping it down to a 7/10 from an 8/10.
With that anecdote out of the way, this song is just such a vibe, man. I know that sounds super hippy to say but Brave is so mellow and smooth that I can’t help but sway a little when that chorus hits. And then I remember what the lyrics say and I tear up a bit on the inside. This song is so pure, raw, and full of heart — we need more songs like these where they just reminisce about life while putting up an upbeat front. Don't mind me just crying while dancing the night away.
With that said, this isn't the first time this theme has been sung by TWICE either, they've long trodden this path of supportive, confiding, up-lifting songs with Young & Wild, Rainbow, Queen, Go Hard, Depend on You, even this album's Queen of Hearts, and, of course, Feel Special. Brave just adds another on top of an already stacked lineup, unique with its mellow somberness.
Also now feels like a good time to get into my rating system:
I SEE THE LIES
ON THE TIP OF YOUR TONGUE
Who the fuck pissed off Dubu this time??
It’s getting quite rare to see TWICE pull off brand new sounds because, with now 190 original songs under their belt as of this review, they’ve done so many genres and sub-genres varying from hyper pop, to bossa nova, to whatever 2020’s Go Hard is. So it’s surprising to see they’ve still got tricks up their sleeves and Gone is one of them.
The song starts with strings swinging back and forth and vocal chops dancing from ear to ear, teasing what’s yet to come. Jihyo enters the song with a whisper and the song sets its pace. A stagnant drum pad moves the song along and typical song progression would have Mina continue the build, but — it doesn’t. The song simmers, adding a hint of high hat to the pot. And then Sana and Tzuyu come on and surely the buildup must boil over right?
Silence, until…
The strings emerge again on full blast, the simmer rolls to a boil, and the anger of the song is revealed,
The singer is so scorned and burned from this relationship that they reminisce about all the effort they’ve put in since the beginning, but their “partner” is so unconcerned that they’ve just about had enough of the relationship altogether.
This has been Dahyun’s thing since 2020’s Bring It Back, 2021’s Cruel, 2022’s That’s all I’m saying, and even 2023's Don't Blame It On Me — emotionally charged breakup songs that make you feel as if she’s survived through a dozen bad relationships. Dispatch, do try to do your job better.
Another highlight of the song is the post-chorus going into the bridge. This segment reiterates the structure from the first post-chorus — a barrage of drums supported by the rhythmic strumming of a bass guitar along with a consistent synth filling out the soundscape. But this time, it’s Dahyun and Chaeyoung on the rap:
Building upon the disrespected theme of the song, Dahyun notes that she’s finally had enough with Chaeyoung adding that there’s no point salvaging what love was once there. Momo and Dahyun round it off by telling the listener that there’s no point trying to reason with them or playing naive, they fucked up and there’s no coming back.
Can I just say, it's a bit of a shame that Chaeyoung’s rapping popped off in this album while Dahyun only has this one verse that she shares with Chaeyoung, but it just sounds so good how Dahyun eases in after the chorus with her light rapping tone transitioning into her singing. She even holds the Gone in a little crescendo for some added pizzazz.
And, there’s no way I’m not going to talk about Momo’s vocals in this bridge. Damned if she only got 1 line to use it in, her lower register is incredible. She sounds so smooth singing in this tone. All of TWICE do in particular and there is nary a weak vocal performance in this album.
To close the song off, a wash of synths gets to have their shine in the spotlight, showered with Nayeon’s belting, signifying the dramatic and drawn-out conclusion of this partnership.
THE GOOD
Going back to that point about the first post-chorus as a whole; songs that have the production continue unchanged into the post-chorus/2nd verse are very hit or miss for me — see TWICE's Don't Call Me Again for an overbearing example. The post-chorus going into the bridge contrasts Dahyun’s light tone nicely with the hard-hitting production, continuing the energy until it slowly fades into silence at the end of the bridge.
Back to the song as a whole, as much as TWICE has been experimenting with their sound for the past 4 years now, I’m happy they’re still finding new ways to explore what they’re capable of. And for that alone, even though I’m not a big fan of songs like these where they rely on sounding “big”, Dahyun’s lyricism and the thrill I receive every time I indulge myself in this song elevates it to an 8/10. Keep on breaking hearts, Dubu.
INVINCIBLE
SUPERHEROES
Press play to reminisce, pull up lyrics to cry.
This song is so beautiful. I’m totally not writing this song review, crying on the bus reminiscing about my childhood, while just having turned 21. I don’t know if these are happy or sad tears but this song is so beautiful either way.
Warm synths, muted piano, a gentle high hat, the younger members starting off the song — this has to be up there for one of the softest TWICE songs ever. And as it should, it’s one of the TWICEiest songs ever. And then Nayeon comes in:
The chords start swelling, the high hat keeps pace, and the harmonies pour in.
Jihyo takes up the second half of the chorus as it drops, trading the strings for an almost R&B synth production — if choir R&B takes off, this song started it. The song relishes in this cacophony of warm sounds until returning to its sparse and peaceful verses.
This time, the hints of piano are louder, little twinkling synths begin to shimmer, the drum buildup comes and Jeongyeon drives the song straight into the chorus. No time for the strings to build like in Nayeon’s — this song loves its chorus so much.
And I'll just take this time to appreciate the amount and range of Jeongyeon vocals in this album. Her voice is so textured, stable, and projected — but also more tender and soft compared to the more pronounced tones of Nayeon and Jihyo.
The bridge comes in, repeating the phrase:
Giving the song time to rest, before building back up to the last chorus — this time led by Jihyo, completing the 3MIX trifecta. And interestingly enough, Chaeyoung follows up in the second half of the chorus, rather than another member of the vocal line. She really did pop off in this album.
As the last chorus begins to close, the percussion at its strongest, the harmonies on blast, the background vocals cranked up to their Sunday best, is the song going to end? Of course not! This is an album full of banger endings as if the songs don’t want to end, and When We Were Kids being the album closer very much indulges in that feeling.
After a brief refrain, accented by Nayeon’s high note with a touch of vibrato, the song almost dives back into a fourth chorus. Nayeon and Jeongyeon harmonize — a rare and heavenly moment. And the song repeats the bridge, reiterating that they want to meet their younger selves, this time with the lush chorus production before closing with silence, a few piano notes, and Tzuyu singing the last line of the song:
Reflection, acceptance, hope. What a song.
THE GOOD
I wrote the first part of this review in November 2022. Then university, life, and other things got in the way of my headspace for me to feel confident about wrapping all of this up. In a way, I felt like I just didn’t want this review to end because of the joy that writing gives me — I didn’t want the happiness to end. And then it hit me, after watching a YouTuber rank animated movies and them placing Spirited Away at the top and explaining 'why' reminded me of just how important growing up is, and by extension this song.
This theme is important for both the rookie TWICE members in 2015 and the teenagers who would follow their journey and grow up with them, facing life’s obstacles along the way. Hardships that used to only involve family, crushes, and social media, evolve into work, commitments and all the struggles that adult life brings. Being a kid and enjoying the simple things in life is one of the most sought-after moments we want to relive because we took growing up for granted. The only thing we can do now is look back on ourselves with fondness and rose-tinted lenses.
TWICE’s original meaning was to resonate with people through their senses and their hearts. That was during their debut, and I think it still holds up today. In my opinion, touching people through their emotions is what TWICE does best and makes them one of K-pop’s all-time greats. It was never about having the best numbers — it was about being the best idols. And to think that this journey of maturation and growth would occur from 2015 all the way to this song, being a fitting nod to TWICE’s 7th anniversary, I don’t think anyone at the company nor the group would ever imagine that they would get this far. It’s these nine women or none — 9/10.
This song honestly deserves a 10/10 with how much I noticed other people reminiscing their childhoods after I heard this song, it is such a widely-relatable message, but I am determined to limit myself to one 10/10 song per album and if I were to pick between TTT and WWWK, I'd give it to the one's that's more repeatable — Talk that Talk just has this electric energy about it.
I love this album. It got me through some important parts of my life, both good and bad, and it's just a wonderful listen throughout. Reliving this album again before finally completing the review has been an exciting journey. Brave hit me harder this time, after being overshadowed by the other gems of this album, and WWWK finally got me to tear up and not just be emotionally satisfied.
I feel like there's something for everyone on this album. From the exhilarating thrills of TTT to the anthemic euphoria of QoH, the clubbing dichotomy of Trouble and Brave to the blissful glee of Basics, and the sweet reminiscence of WWWK to the thundering anger that is Gone. Like Eyes wide open, I liken Between 1&2 to a pop music taste platter — there's such an eclectic mix of pop music in this album that there's bound to be a song that someone will love, like, and dislike.
Is this album perfect? I don't think so, but it's close — it was certainly my 2022 AOTY. Was this review biased? Absolutely. I've been a fan since 2019 and with the themes in this album, I also feel like it was biased towards me as a ONCE. And how would I rank the album in TWICE's catalogue? It's honestly at the top, at least with EPs — I also felt that way towards Feel Special but then this album was birthed so I'm excited for TWICE's future.
Ready To Be was also a stunning album and Eyes wide open frankly also deserved the spotlight that Formula of Love received so I might hit those next but no promises; this album took long enough to bake.
As for the performances, I've only seen Twitter clips (no fancams to not spoil myself) and I am SO EXCITED to finally see them in July. QoH was as glorious as expected, Brave was a delightful surprise, and WWWK, while not being the concert closer everyone expected it to be, paired up nicely with Crazy Stupid Love. And of course the bombastic addition of the dance break to TTT. But, this is not a concert review, and here is where this album review ends.
Feel free to comment with any thoughts regarding the album, other TWICE albums, and any suggestions for my writing in general. Congrats again on making it this far!
God, I love this album.
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Intro
To preface the review, I just need to say that this is going to be a very long read. Going through it myself for the fun of it takes around 30 minutes — it's almost 7k words, including lyrical references. So for the best experience, listen to the album beforehand to understand what the hell I was thinking when I wrote this, play the album while reading, and set a good amount of time aside.And yes, this is 9 months late 😭 I'm not sorry — when I find an album review online it's always around a paragraph per song or even shorter. It makes sense from a journalistic perspective, but I want to do this album justice, hence taking 7 months to write out all my thoughts.
This shit is comprehensive and definitely overanalyzed, especially in Talk that Talk and Trouble. Each song review will compose of my commentary, noting the details I noticed through months of listening, then a conclusion. Also, mild swearing warning, I like implementing a touch of "French" when I'm very emotional about something. Anyway, onto the review!
Between 1&2 💞
Album Review
TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT
TELL ME WHAT YOU NEED
Talk that Talk 🎙
Producers by collapsedone and MRCH
One of the most perfect TWICE songs.
I think this is one of TWICE’s best-sounding title tracks. Warm modulated synths, a thrumming bass line, distant bells, shimmering synths — the purpose of this song is to be fun and my god is it excellent at it, like, Sana and Chaeyoung are saying knock-knock-knock and beep-beep-beep as if they’re some kind of car. So much fun.
Further along in the verse, Dahyun’s voice sounds so full and smooth with that layered harmony. Tzuyu coming with the Yes or Yes, Push & Pull, and 1 to 10 references — these are 5 years of song references. And Jeongyeon closes the pre-chorus accompanied by a rising synth to drop into chorus one. Jeongyeon slays pre-choruses.
The drums accelerate, the synths start blasting, and Jihyo opens to that party of a chorus with her godly vocals,
Tell me what you want
Tell me what you need
A to Z da malhaebwa
But shijageun ireoke have
Talk that Talk ttak han madi
Talk that Talk L-O-V-E
deullyeojweo ooh
Now now now now now yeah~
During Sana's Talk that Talk~ lines there’s this gentle ascending synth bell that rings with the descending melody and it sounds absolutely gorgeous. And the choreography during that part of the chorus is so so so so fun: the talking hands bit, spelling L-O-V-E, concluding with the deullyeojweo ooh! Oh my Jihyo the deullyeojweo ooh…
Have I mentioned this song is fun?
Speeding through verse 2; Chaeyoung’s part with the cat ears popping in the music video is adorable; Momo her stretching her arms out looks so damn cool; and Dahyun with her replay part sounds so lovely — although I think it sonically sounds a touch random, it makes sense thematically.
And now for this pre-chorus. Mina and Jihyo leading into it sound great BUT JEONGYEON… Now, she is my ult bias, and this pre-chorus sounds almost identical to the first one, but the way she holds that final note, inflecting and holding that now~ for one more beat before the chorus drops sounds so perfect — the song teeters on a cliff edge. Jeongyeon slays pre-choruses.
Dropping into the second chorus and man the way Nayeon delivers it just hits different. She has this indescribable “pop” voice (I promise this wasn't on purpose) that shouts out loud that this is THE chorus. This is especially apparent in how both lead their choruses where Jihyo starts at 120% power while Nayeon waits until [Tell me] WHAT YOU WANT to full-send it. The production also helps with this effect, cutting out during what you to emphasize Nayeon's voice before crashing back down, double the pause at Jihyo's intro.
Another deullyeojweo ooh! Nayeon travels to Narnia, and Mina the engineer strikes again in this heavenly, underwater-esque bridge,
The simple words “I love you”
That’s all I wanna hear
Without hesitation, I’ll go up to you
I’ll make it simple
And just tell you I love you
The word “love” is said for the first time in the song. There’s a funky keyboard instrument behind Chaeyoung’s part. Jihyo, Chaeyoung, and Nayeon take the initiative in their lyrics, professing their love before closing the bridge.
And now for the pièce-de-résistance: this final double chorus is exceptional — 40 seconds of crack-laced euphoria; Jihyo switches up the chorus and the choreo, Dahyun chimes in with her fluttery Talk that Talk, Momo comes out of nowhere with oh yeah it sounds so good! — you’re damn right it does, and this is where the song SOARS.
han beon deo~ haejweo
geurae banggeum geu mal~
Nayeon outright shouts Tell me what you need and then Jeongyeon sings the above lines in such an ethereal, warm way where the first line ascends while the second descends, causing a lull in the song before the finale with Tzuyu and Nayeon, finishing off the song with the final deullyeojweo ooh!
What a party. What a song.
THE GOOD
- The synths of all time
- The chimes during Talk-that-talk~
- Jeongyeon’s pre-chorus going into Nayeon’s chorus
- Rich harmonies and fun ad-libs
- The entirety of that magical final chorus and outro
- The opening hook (Tell me what you want) and accompanying choreography could be “catchier”
- Singing (and dancing) my heart out when this song played at a K-pop club
Lyrics and theme-wise, if this were to have been TWICE’s last comeback, they’ve once again built upon the theme they've been doing since debut: a Bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story.
This song’s chorus is honest yet simple; it asks the listener, in this case, the other half of the relationship, to be more upfront and open with their love (never be scared of love), that before the relationship can continue and flourish, there has to be a foundation and commitment of love between each other.
TWICE debuted with a song about making your crush go ooh ahh. Years later, they started pondering What is Love? and imagining their crush responding with Yes when asking them out — and now concluding with the phrase Talk that Talk, [Talk that] L-O-V-E, being upfront with the relationship, wishing their partner to also be happy, to commit to them, to feel the love that they want to impart on them. From gawking like ooh-ahh to talking out your shared love like adults — to having a true relationship between (one and) two.
And can I just say before finishing off Talk that Talk's review that this is such a fun and repeatable song with many little intricacies hidden in the nonet’s vocals and the song's production. This is the third draft I’m writing about Talk that Talk and its original word count pretty much quadrupled.
Harkening back to TWICE’s roots by combining mature thinking with youthful character, an incredible ending to look forward to, and just simply being a club-banger that’s easy to listen to, TTT is an easy 10/10.
WATCH ME GO WATCH ME GO
RULE THE WORLD
Queen of Hearts 👑
Produced by LDN Noise
If there was one B-side to promote in a live clip, this was a solid choice.
Helmed by LDN Noise going headlong into the Western boy-group rock-band aesthetic, Queen of Hearts is a boom-boom-clap song through and through. The drums are very prominent throughout the song, only giving room to riffs of electric guitar in the chorus to drive and continue the momentum of the music.
And speaking of the chorus, vocal line each got a chorus to flex and they did not fuck around,
You ain’t ready for it
Watch me go~ watch me go~
Rule the world
Know you never doubted baby
I’mma go run the whole universe~
Cymbals crashing, drums booming, and 3MIX belting all just so sound so good.
Baby I was born to rule~~
Yeah I’m the Queen, I’m the Queen
And it’s all because of you~~
That I’m the Queen of Hearts
These long, held-out notes performed by Jihyo and Nayeon are simply exquisite. Along with the shredding guitar, the drum set coming in full, and the interludes by Dahyun, Momo, and Chaeyoung, this is the part of the song that always, always, gives me goosebumps — it sounds so visceral, so energetic, so fun, so triumphant. Boom-boom-clap songs can be hit or miss with people, but there's no denying the payoff from the first part of the chorus to the second part is worth the wait.
The theme of the song so far has been kind of spread around the song. The chorus alludes to it with the line And it’s all because of you. But Mina shows more sides of it in the second verse, especially with the phrase,
And now that I’m surrounded by all my girls
We be shining bright like diamonds and pearls
It sounds really lovely — in a very cheesy and affectionate kind of way, as it rightfully should — the song is about the girls and their fans. But the bridge is where the song indeed shows its colours
Screaming out my name
See it in the stage lights
Feel so lucky just to have ya
Cause I know deep down I was meant for something bigger! Greater!
I know you’re seeing what I see
Yeah I’ll be everything you need
I know I’m gonna walk the walk
And talk the talk to be~ [the Queen of Hearts]
This is a song CONCEIVED TO BE PERFORMED FOR THE FANS. It’s meant to be loud. It’s meant to be unapologetic. It’s meant to be sappy. And it’s all the more wonderful for it.
This is the TWICEiest shit ever.
Like Talk that Talk, Queen of Hearts also has a killer closer. The production already started to grow from the bridge, but now the guitarist finally went Super Saiyan and instead of supporting the drums, they both take the centre stage in tandem.
Then finally, the closing moments of the song even manage to squeeze in some more sappiness.
So thank you for the memories
You’re all the ones who made me~
So thank you for the memories
That I’m the Queen of Hearts
I still can’t believe that this banger is a FAN SONG out of all things. Truly, the TWICEiest shit ever.
THE GOOD
- Adorable fucking lyrics
- Unrelenting, roaring chorus
- English and vocal flex
- Intoxicating guitar riffs
- Chaeyoung rapping in English in their Korean songs somehow slaps harder than her English rapping in their English songs, nonetheless, in QoH, it fits with the sound of the song
- Walking home from a K-pop festival with this song playing, felt like a Queen of Hearts
I love these types of rock songs with how grunge and head-bang-able they are, there is just a certain nostalgic and cheesy quality to them that feels so cozy. I don’t love putting them on repeat, because in this case, I do believe there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Perhaps more shredding, maybe a guitar solo to rock out to, or an accompaniment(!) of ad-libs from 3MIX to support Jihyo’s final chorus? A ONCE can dream of a truly bombastic rock song from TWICE. But then again that distracts from the core of what this song is: a fan song disguised as a rock song.
Queen of Hearts has so much sweetness in its lyrics and message that it's overflowing. The drums, guitar, and vocals can be as loud and intricate as they can, but the theme of this song is what makes it special from TWICE’s other rock songs — it’s a 9/10 for me.
I WANNA WANNA WANNA
TAKE YOU TO THE BASICS
Basics 🌈
Lyrics by Chaeyoung
Quite possibly the jammiest (pun intended) song of the album.
A song written by the Strawberry Princess herself — an event similar in frequency to other artists' releases with her last song being 2020’s silky Handle It — Basics first starts with an understated and dreamy delivery. After the first stanza, however, a bouncy Miami bass line emerges, revealing the true nature of the song: this is a classic summer bop! Especially in the first rap,
dareun aedeulgwaneun dalla
Ain’t beggin’ for love
nappeun geon anijana ige naraseo
eodiro twilji molla
Like rainbow bubble gum
geureoni nal kkwak butjabadweo
Syllables are pronounced in a relaxed nature, bars often starting with an "ah" sound, flirty lines in English — this rap features a production full of pop with R&B flourishes and, in my opinion, this is Chaeyoung’s bag. Also, the line rainbow bubblegum is so adorable and so Chaeyoung.
I wanna wanna wanna take it to the Basics
da weonhae weonhae weonhae? seodureuji ma Baby
ppeonhae ppeonhae malhae mweohae da al tende
Ah yeah ah yeah ah yeah ah yeah
That chorus is pure pop with a Miami bass backing; you better be bopping your head to the melody, if not booty poppin' to the bassline. Chaeyoung loves rhyming in the first half of the chorus to enhance its catchiness and it's damn incredible: wanna, weonhae, and ppeonhae all create these imperfect rhymes that continue momentum without feeling repetitive.
After the very Boy With Luv-sounding ah yeah ah yeah, ah yeah ah yeah comes an 8-bar split half and half between Chaeyoung and Momo. Coming from the chorus, the production completely cuts out for the first 2 bars. This adds tension; the song yearns to have that bass beat thumping again and all we have in the audio space in those 2 bars is Chaeyoung spittin' and she delivered.
taneun deut tteugeoun samak wie
yeppeuge pieonan jangmi gata
joshimseure naege dagaol ttae
nado moreuge jjilleobeoril tende
Translating to:
Above the hot, burning desert
It’s like a rose that bloomed beautifully
When you come to me slowly
I will prick you unconsciously
The rap feels slick, effortless, and confident. Her diction remains sharp when enunciating each syllable but she doesn’t let the flow of her rap waver or build as her 4 bars go by, it’s just smooth consistency throughout. Even the lyrics possess an aura of laid-back collectedness that is just so her. The things Chaeyoung can do when given her pen.
THE GOOD
- That sweet summer vibe of a chorus
- The spaceship post-chorus is killer
- Chaeyoung devoured this song
- Sure-footed, confident lyrics
- Perhaps an alteration of that ah yeah ah yeah line
- The way Jihyo did her pre-chorus line is good, but Mina’s is great
- After donating my hair, walking down the rainbow-coloured areas of downtown Toronto with this song playing was very… fitting
This song is summer bliss distilled into 2:56. It’s dreamy, the raps are satisfying, and the ending is charming. I will say that although the second half of the song adds the stunning spaceship post-choruses and a floaty bridge with an incredible drumbeat drop into the final chorus, the raps of the song make it feel a bit front-loaded. And in an album stacked with awesome finishers, it feels more apparent.
With that said, it’s an 8/10 bop for me. This song is so easy to put on and it feels exactly what Chaeyoung would make if given the reins to produce a pop song all on her own. The lyrics are nonchalant but full of conviction, the wordplay is intricate, and the production playful but not too bombastic — it's just a nice vibe. Songs like Basics are the standard for good, simple, repeatable pop music and I’m happy that Chaeyoung got to test her pen in this genre.
BABY WE’RE IN
TROUBLE TROUBLE
Trouble 💃
Lyrics, vocal direction, and background vocals by JihyoProduced by Jihyo and earattack
One of the most enjoyable songs I’ve heard in a while.
There is an underlying tension within the first 4 bars of the song, Jihyo and Nayeon confidently open it to a nondescript array of synths and then the stanza ends, Momo announces Let’s go, the beat drops and it hits you: this is a club song.
Dahyun's relaxed delivery contrasting with Jeongyeon's staccato flow, the wobbly synth beat mixed with a sprinkle of house piano, Sana dramatically slowing down the song only for Tzuyu to build it back up until the chorus drops,
- Nayeon opens it using a breathy tone, with vocal chops serving as harmonies
- The blooming of the house piano takes centre stage and the song ascends into euphoria
- A random drum roll capped off by a cymbal crash
- Jeongyeon’s growling pronunciation of the word Trouble
- Chaeyoung slyly admitting I like this Trouble
- The entirety of Tzuyu’s tro~oh~oh~ouble yeah~
- Sana using her deep voice for the na~na~na~na
- Jihyo leading the vocals during the synchronized T W I C E chant
This chorus is perfect. Toronto’s residential market needs this song injected into its veins because god damn this song has SO much house in it. And then, ANOTHER KILLING PART: this rap fucking slaps.
gamchweo bwatja geugeon Fake
ppajin hamjeongeun Sweet cake
During the first 2 bars, Chaeyoung is keeping it calm because that trip of a chorus just ended and the song needs a breather, but I don't think anyone expected her to SNAP this hard afterwards:
You cannot resist this
Cannot miss this, such a bliss
Ima put it down down
Oh yeah, better kiss kiss
Below is the structure of her this portion of the rap, I’m not that well versed in this technical aspect of music theory but I digress, this is all in the span of around 5 seconds where it’s:
Triplet-triplet
Quadruplet-triplet
Quadruplet-doublet
Doublet-quadruplet
Now, 25/5 = 5 syllables per second isn’t groundbreaking, but goddamn it these 2 bars sound so nice — if there is one part in this album that I always repeat, it’s this. The addition of that first quadruplet for cannot miss this in the midst of the triplets sticks out and accelerates the flow of the rap while the following doublets and quadruplets destabilize and slow the rap down as the verse closes. And can I just point out:
THE MAIN VOCALIST WROTE, DIRECTED, AND COMPOSED THIS SONG ‼
Chaeyoung of course delivered the fuck out of her verse but THIS is what you get when you have a member not only write the words they’re saying but also the melody and flow with which they sing it, when that member knows the others so well that when they write a song they know how to make the group exceed. This is what you get when the artists you stan love doing artist shit.
And. AND. That's not all — with how much I mentioned I love a good outro to close a song, this outro slaps as well:
Woo wee woo wee woo
I like this Trouble be-be
Woo wee woo wee woo
I like this Trouble bay-be
Woo wee woo wee woo
I like this Trouble bay-beh
Woo wee woo wee woo
I like this Trou-ble
Like, come on, Nayeon’s imitating a police siren for crying out loud. And this is all after her ad-libs in the final post-chorus; after the pianist going full tilt and playing that piano as if it was their last chance to ever play; after that final T W I C E chant by all the members come these blissful 20 seconds at the very end. What a song.
THE GOOD
- The theme of relishing in an uncontrolled love
- Sana and Mina’s melody in the pre-chorus
- Whole neighbourhoods full of house
- You cannot resist this, cannot miss this, such a bliss
- Wees and woos
- Mina’s line of falling down, falling down, falling down low in verse 2 feels a bit too abrupt of a change
- While writing Trouble's review I had this song on repeat for my whole subway commute and I must've been so distracting, just head-bopping and being so invested in my enjoyment
Need I say more, easy 9/10. The only reason I place Talk that Talk above Trouble is because of what that song represents but besides that, this is one of the best “international” sounds they’ve put out. Actually, I haven’t listened to Eyes wide open in a while but this song is up there with one of the most sonically pleasing pieces of work they’ve done.
Clubbing TWICE has always been a thing since TT was birthed in 2016, and has been a staple of their discography since 2019’s Fancy You and Feel Special mini albums, but Trouble unapologetically dives into and fits the house genre so well you’d think that this is TWICE’s bread and butter sound.
Trouble is Jihyo’s magnum opus. What a song.
BRAVE BRAVE BRAVE
FOR YOU
Brave 💖
Produced by Slow Rabbit
I first thought this was just a good song, then I read the lyrics.
Gentle guitar plucks, shimmering synths, a distant keyboard in the right ear, in the left a glockenspiel, the melodic oohs from the members — this song is PRETTY.
The night that was unusually dark
Above this terrifying world, felt so lonely
The world has grown in the time of wandering
So hard to breathe
Mina and Chaeyoung open the song with how they feel lonely, that it's hard to breathe and now suddenly the song feels bittersweet — I was not expecting the song to become this emotional. Brave describes a situation where the singer is in a darker place in life and it isn't until another person gives them hope by calling them Brave that they find the drive to keep going.
Once the chorus hits, the melodies pick up, more guitars get added — there’s even an electric guitar hidden in the mix somewhere, and the song drops the emotional front to reveal a mid-tempo pop song to dance to while crying in the club. The song as a whole still carries this melancholy feeling, but now with the added support of the chorus, acting as a light amongst the gloom.
Continuing on in the second verse there's this gorgeous, well-placed break in the song that just lets it settle after that chorus. Only a seasoned producer would risk this much empty space in a song and Slow Rabbit went to fill those shoes.
Back to the chorus, I'll take this moment to once again commend Slow Rabbit with the mixing of the song, because 4MIX undoubtedly sounds good in the chorus, and the interludes from Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Mina also sound really good, but the clear highlight of the choruses are these lines:
Oh na na na neon nal naige hae
On and on and on
Brave Brave Brave for ya
Oh na na na neon nal sum shwige hae
On and on and on oh trust me babe
Momo, Sana, and Tzuyu form this beautiful, surprisingly catchy, second half of the chorus accompanied by a guitar drop. It should not turn out this well with how conflicting the "na"s are with the guitar melody but it creates this gentle bopping ebb and flow that feels so lush and mellow.
Diving into the bridge reveals that the listener of the song is revealed not only capable of supporting the singer through direct words but also through their thoughts and dreams. As can be discerned, this can be a song interpreted to be about ONCEs, about how they push TWICE to be their best selves despite the breathless hardships they face. It's a very sweet and touching song.
THE GOOD
- Special lyrics
- Pleasant sound to vibe out to
- That gentle break after the first chorus
- 3MIX poppin' off at the end
- Just very pretty vocals throughout
- Potentially hard to comprehend without translating the Korean lyrics
- Form of Therapy’s life motto revolves around the word “brave” — I don’t know where I got that from, but I remembered it right before watching his album reaction (yes, this is very random)
I’m actually spoiled with the TWICE members’ easy-to-understand songwriting that when a song like this pops up where it's not written by a member and the thematic bits are mostly in Korean, I tend to put it aside in favour of the other songs on the album. And, especially for a song focusing on a theme like this where the English phrases don’t do the Korean lyrics enough justice, it does place a bit of a barrier on the listening experience, dropping it down to a 7/10 from an 8/10.
With that anecdote out of the way, this song is just such a vibe, man. I know that sounds super hippy to say but Brave is so mellow and smooth that I can’t help but sway a little when that chorus hits. And then I remember what the lyrics say and I tear up a bit on the inside. This song is so pure, raw, and full of heart — we need more songs like these where they just reminisce about life while putting up an upbeat front. Don't mind me just crying while dancing the night away.
With that said, this isn't the first time this theme has been sung by TWICE either, they've long trodden this path of supportive, confiding, up-lifting songs with Young & Wild, Rainbow, Queen, Go Hard, Depend on You, even this album's Queen of Hearts, and, of course, Feel Special. Brave just adds another on top of an already stacked lineup, unique with its mellow somberness.
Also now feels like a good time to get into my rating system:
- 7/10s are songs are ones that are simply good throughout or great songs with apparent flaws
- 8/10s are great songs with distinct killing parts
- 9/10s are borderline perfect songs where I sometimes can't comprehend how great they are
- And 10/10s are the best of an artist's discography, songs that encapsulate their ethos perfectly or expand upon them in a meaningful way
I SEE THE LIES
ON THE TIP OF YOUR TONGUE
Gone 💨
Lyrics by Dahyun
Who the fuck pissed off Dubu this time??
It’s getting quite rare to see TWICE pull off brand new sounds because, with now 190 original songs under their belt as of this review, they’ve done so many genres and sub-genres varying from hyper pop, to bossa nova, to whatever 2020’s Go Hard is. So it’s surprising to see they’ve still got tricks up their sleeves and Gone is one of them.
The song starts with strings swinging back and forth and vocal chops dancing from ear to ear, teasing what’s yet to come. Jihyo enters the song with a whisper and the song sets its pace. A stagnant drum pad moves the song along and typical song progression would have Mina continue the build, but — it doesn’t. The song simmers, adding a hint of high hat to the pot. And then Sana and Tzuyu come on and surely the buildup must boil over right?
Silence, until…
I see the LIES on the top of your tongue
The strings emerge again on full blast, the simmer rolls to a boil, and the anger of the song is revealed,
All the fate I had towards you
Fades like a fog, Gone, Gone
Your flipping mind of doing this and that
I’m tired of it, it’s meaningless
In the beginning, it was hard to believe
With that, hatred increases
The singer is so scorned and burned from this relationship that they reminisce about all the effort they’ve put in since the beginning, but their “partner” is so unconcerned that they’ve just about had enough of the relationship altogether.
This has been Dahyun’s thing since 2020’s Bring It Back, 2021’s Cruel, 2022’s That’s all I’m saying, and even 2023's Don't Blame It On Me — emotionally charged breakup songs that make you feel as if she’s survived through a dozen bad relationships. Dispatch, do try to do your job better.
Another highlight of the song is the post-chorus going into the bridge. This segment reiterates the structure from the first post-chorus — a barrage of drums supported by the rhythmic strumming of a bass guitar along with a consistent synth filling out the soundscape. But this time, it’s Dahyun and Chaeyoung on the rap:
I can’t stand it anymore
My patience, invisible
I can’t find it, it’s all Gone
Even if I try to turn back, it’s too late
There’s no use anymore
It has left, it’s long Gone
You, with flipping mind, you are out
I know that you know what I’m talking about
Nothing you could say that could turn this around
I’m Gone
Building upon the disrespected theme of the song, Dahyun notes that she’s finally had enough with Chaeyoung adding that there’s no point salvaging what love was once there. Momo and Dahyun round it off by telling the listener that there’s no point trying to reason with them or playing naive, they fucked up and there’s no coming back.
Can I just say, it's a bit of a shame that Chaeyoung’s rapping popped off in this album while Dahyun only has this one verse that she shares with Chaeyoung, but it just sounds so good how Dahyun eases in after the chorus with her light rapping tone transitioning into her singing. She even holds the Gone in a little crescendo for some added pizzazz.
And, there’s no way I’m not going to talk about Momo’s vocals in this bridge. Damned if she only got 1 line to use it in, her lower register is incredible. She sounds so smooth singing in this tone. All of TWICE do in particular and there is nary a weak vocal performance in this album.
To close the song off, a wash of synths gets to have their shine in the spotlight, showered with Nayeon’s belting, signifying the dramatic and drawn-out conclusion of this partnership.
THE GOOD
- They’ve still got their surprises
- Thundering chorus
- 2nd rap and bridge combo
- A bitter, crumbling relationship theme
- I’m not a huge fan of the mixing during the first post-chorus, where Momo's vocals were fighting with the production, which is disappointing because Momo is capable of an insane flow
- The post-chorus in general, specifically the first one, can be a bit tiring on repeat listens
- Actually, I think this song sounds like a mix between GOT7's Not By The Moon, BLACKPINK’s Love To Hate Me, and Dahyun’s Bring It Back. I don’t know where I got this thought came from, but it stuck
Going back to that point about the first post-chorus as a whole; songs that have the production continue unchanged into the post-chorus/2nd verse are very hit or miss for me — see TWICE's Don't Call Me Again for an overbearing example. The post-chorus going into the bridge contrasts Dahyun’s light tone nicely with the hard-hitting production, continuing the energy until it slowly fades into silence at the end of the bridge.
Back to the song as a whole, as much as TWICE has been experimenting with their sound for the past 4 years now, I’m happy they’re still finding new ways to explore what they’re capable of. And for that alone, even though I’m not a big fan of songs like these where they rely on sounding “big”, Dahyun’s lyricism and the thrill I receive every time I indulge myself in this song elevates it to an 8/10. Keep on breaking hearts, Dubu.
INVINCIBLE
SUPERHEROES
When We Were Kids 🧸
Lyrics by Dahyun
Press play to reminisce, pull up lyrics to cry.
This song is so beautiful. I’m totally not writing this song review, crying on the bus reminiscing about my childhood, while just having turned 21. I don’t know if these are happy or sad tears but this song is so beautiful either way.
Warm synths, muted piano, a gentle high hat, the younger members starting off the song — this has to be up there for one of the softest TWICE songs ever. And as it should, it’s one of the TWICEiest songs ever. And then Nayeon comes in:
Invincible superheroes, we wanted to be adults
To the higher, clearer world
The chords start swelling, the high hat keeps pace, and the harmonies pour in.
Remember When We Were Kids
When We Were Kids, we didn’t know
If we could go back
I will love it even more
Remember When We Were Kids
Jihyo takes up the second half of the chorus as it drops, trading the strings for an almost R&B synth production — if choir R&B takes off, this song started it. The song relishes in this cacophony of warm sounds until returning to its sparse and peaceful verses.
This time, the hints of piano are louder, little twinkling synths begin to shimmer, the drum buildup comes and Jeongyeon drives the song straight into the chorus. No time for the strings to build like in Nayeon’s — this song loves its chorus so much.
And I'll just take this time to appreciate the amount and range of Jeongyeon vocals in this album. Her voice is so textured, stable, and projected — but also more tender and soft compared to the more pronounced tones of Nayeon and Jihyo.
The bridge comes in, repeating the phrase:
I wish that I could meet
Could meet the younger me
Giving the song time to rest, before building back up to the last chorus — this time led by Jihyo, completing the 3MIX trifecta. And interestingly enough, Chaeyoung follows up in the second half of the chorus, rather than another member of the vocal line. She really did pop off in this album.
As the last chorus begins to close, the percussion at its strongest, the harmonies on blast, the background vocals cranked up to their Sunday best, is the song going to end? Of course not! This is an album full of banger endings as if the songs don’t want to end, and When We Were Kids being the album closer very much indulges in that feeling.
After a brief refrain, accented by Nayeon’s high note with a touch of vibrato, the song almost dives back into a fourth chorus. Nayeon and Jeongyeon harmonize — a rare and heavenly moment. And the song repeats the bridge, reiterating that they want to meet their younger selves, this time with the lush chorus production before closing with silence, a few piano notes, and Tzuyu singing the last line of the song:
Oh, we were kids
Reflection, acceptance, hope. What a song.
THE GOOD
- Heavenly vocals throughout
- Relatable, heartfelt lyrics
- Euphoric chorus
- Great closer to the album
- Refrain after the last chorus, Back When We Were Kids, could’ve been executed better
- For an album titled Between 1&2, I don’t think anything hits harder than finishing the song reviews, with this song in particular, during your 21st birthday
I wrote the first part of this review in November 2022. Then university, life, and other things got in the way of my headspace for me to feel confident about wrapping all of this up. In a way, I felt like I just didn’t want this review to end because of the joy that writing gives me — I didn’t want the happiness to end. And then it hit me, after watching a YouTuber rank animated movies and them placing Spirited Away at the top and explaining 'why' reminded me of just how important growing up is, and by extension this song.
This theme is important for both the rookie TWICE members in 2015 and the teenagers who would follow their journey and grow up with them, facing life’s obstacles along the way. Hardships that used to only involve family, crushes, and social media, evolve into work, commitments and all the struggles that adult life brings. Being a kid and enjoying the simple things in life is one of the most sought-after moments we want to relive because we took growing up for granted. The only thing we can do now is look back on ourselves with fondness and rose-tinted lenses.
TWICE’s original meaning was to resonate with people through their senses and their hearts. That was during their debut, and I think it still holds up today. In my opinion, touching people through their emotions is what TWICE does best and makes them one of K-pop’s all-time greats. It was never about having the best numbers — it was about being the best idols. And to think that this journey of maturation and growth would occur from 2015 all the way to this song, being a fitting nod to TWICE’s 7th anniversary, I don’t think anyone at the company nor the group would ever imagine that they would get this far. It’s these nine women or none — 9/10.
This song honestly deserves a 10/10 with how much I noticed other people reminiscing their childhoods after I heard this song, it is such a widely-relatable message, but I am determined to limit myself to one 10/10 song per album and if I were to pick between TTT and WWWK, I'd give it to the one's that's more repeatable — Talk that Talk just has this electric energy about it.
Epilogue
And finally here is the end. If you made it in one sitting then I commend you, because I could not write this mess in one sitting. As alluded to, I started writing this album review sometime in October, after a series of edits the first draft was finished in March, and now here's the final draft in June.I love this album. It got me through some important parts of my life, both good and bad, and it's just a wonderful listen throughout. Reliving this album again before finally completing the review has been an exciting journey. Brave hit me harder this time, after being overshadowed by the other gems of this album, and WWWK finally got me to tear up and not just be emotionally satisfied.
I feel like there's something for everyone on this album. From the exhilarating thrills of TTT to the anthemic euphoria of QoH, the clubbing dichotomy of Trouble and Brave to the blissful glee of Basics, and the sweet reminiscence of WWWK to the thundering anger that is Gone. Like Eyes wide open, I liken Between 1&2 to a pop music taste platter — there's such an eclectic mix of pop music in this album that there's bound to be a song that someone will love, like, and dislike.
Is this album perfect? I don't think so, but it's close — it was certainly my 2022 AOTY. Was this review biased? Absolutely. I've been a fan since 2019 and with the themes in this album, I also feel like it was biased towards me as a ONCE. And how would I rank the album in TWICE's catalogue? It's honestly at the top, at least with EPs — I also felt that way towards Feel Special but then this album was birthed so I'm excited for TWICE's future.
Ready To Be was also a stunning album and Eyes wide open frankly also deserved the spotlight that Formula of Love received so I might hit those next but no promises; this album took long enough to bake.
As for the performances, I've only seen Twitter clips (no fancams to not spoil myself) and I am SO EXCITED to finally see them in July. QoH was as glorious as expected, Brave was a delightful surprise, and WWWK, while not being the concert closer everyone expected it to be, paired up nicely with Crazy Stupid Love. And of course the bombastic addition of the dance break to TTT. But, this is not a concert review, and here is where this album review ends.
Feel free to comment with any thoughts regarding the album, other TWICE albums, and any suggestions for my writing in general. Congrats again on making it this far!
God, I love this album.
2023.06.05 04:33 Tangou-888 The Hoax Story of Remarkable Testimony of a Buddhist monk in Myanmar (Burma) (Part III)
___________________________________________________
Taken from http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/12/14/when_jesus_met_buddha/ for the intellectual discussion purposely. Not for commercial gain
When Jesus met Buddha Something remarkable happened when evangelists for two great religions crossed paths more than 1,000 years ago: they got along By Philip Jenkins December 14, 2008
While few mainline Christians would put the matter in such confrontational terms, any religion claiming exclusive access to truth has real difficulties reconciling other great faiths into its cosmic scheme. Most Christian churches hold that Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and many also feel an obligation to carry that message to the world's unbelievers. But this creates a fundamental conflict with the followers of famous spiritual figures like Mohammed or Buddha, who preached radically different messages. Drawing on a strict interpretation of the Bible, some Christians see these rival faiths as not merely false, but as deliberate traps set by the forces of evil.
Being intolerant of other religions - consigning them to hell, in fact - may be bad enough in its own right, but it increasingly has real- world consequences. As trade and technology shrink the globe, so different religions come into ever-closer contact with one another, and the results can be bloody: witness the apocalyptic assaults in Mumbai. In such a world, teaching different faiths to acknowledge one another's claims, to live peaceably together side by side, stops being a matter of good manners and becomes a prerequisite for human survival.
Over the past 30 years, the Roman Catholic Church has faced repeated battles over this question of Christ's uniqueness, and has cracked down on thinkers who have made daring efforts to accommodate other world religions. While the Christian dialogue with Islam has attracted most of the headlines, it is the encounters with Hinduism and especially Buddhism that have stirred the most controversy within the church. Sri Lankan theologians Aloysius Pieris and Tissa Balasuriya have had many run-ins with Vatican critics, and, more recently, the battle has come to American shores. Last year, the Vatican ordered an investigation of Georgetown University's Peter Phan, a Jesuit theologian whose main sin, in official eyes, has been to treat the Buddhism of his Vietnamese homeland as a parallel path to salvation.
Following the ideas of Pope Benedict XVI, though, the church refuses to give up its fundamental belief in the unique role of Christ. In a widely publicized open letter to Italian politician Marcello Pera, Pope Benedict declared that "an inter-religious dialogue in the strict sense of the term is not possible." By all means, he said, we should hold conversations with other cultures, but not in a way that acknowledges other religions as equally valid. While the Vatican does not of course see the Buddha as a demon, it does fear the prospect of syncretism, the dilution of Christian truth in an unholy mixture with other faiths.
Beyond doubt, this view places Benedict in a strong tradition of Christianity as it has developed in Europe since Roman times. But there is another, ancient tradition, which suggests a very different course. Europe's is not the only version of the Christian faith, nor is it necessarily the oldest heir of the ancient church. For more than 1,000 years, other quite separate branches of the church established thriving communities across Asia, and in their sheer numbers, these churches were comparable to anything Europe could muster at the time. These Christian bodies traced their ancestry back not through Rome, but directly to the original Jesus movement of ancient Palestine. They moved across India, Central Asia, and China, showing no hesitation to share - and learn from - the other great religions of the East.
Just how far these Christians were prepared to go is suggested by a startling symbol that appeared on memorials and stone carvings in both southern India and coastal China during the early Middle Ages. We can easily see that the image depicts a cross, but it takes a moment to realize that the base of the picture - the root from which the cross is growing - is a lotus flower, the symbol of Buddhist enlightenment.
In modern times, most mainstream churches would condemn such an amalgam as a betrayal of the Christian faith, an example of multiculturalism run wild. Yet concerns about syncretism did not bother these early Asian Christians, who called themselves Nasraye, Nazarenes, like Jesus's earliest followers. They were comfortable associating themselves with the other great monastic and mystical religion of the time, and moreover, they believed that both lotus and cross carried similar messages about the quest for light and salvation. If these Nazarenes could find meaning in the lotus-cross, then why can't modern Catholics, or other inheritors of the faith Jesus inspired?
Many Christians are coming to terms with just how thoroughly so many of their fundamental assumptions will have to be rethought as their faith today becomes a global religion. Even modern church leaders who know how rapidly the church is expanding in the global South tend to see European values and traditions as the indispensable norm, in matters of liturgy and theology as much as music and architecture.
Yet the reality is that Christianity has from its earliest days been an intercontinental faith, as firmly established in Asia and Africa as in Europe itself. When we broaden our scope to look at the faith that by 800 or so stretched from Ireland to Korea, we see the many different ways in which Christians interacted with other believers, in encounters that reshaped both sides. At their best, these meetings allowed the traditions not just to exchange ideas but to intertwine in productive and enriching ways, in an awe-inspiring chapter of Christian history that the Western churches have all but forgotten.
To understand this story, we need to reconfigure our mental maps. When we think of the growth of Christianity, we think above all of Europe. We visualize a movement growing west from Palestine and Syria and spreading into Greece and Italy, and gradually into northern regions. Europe is still the center of the Catholic Church, of course, but it was also the birthplace of the Protestant denominations that split from it. For most of us, even speaking of the "Eastern Church" refers to another group of Europeans, namely to the Orthodox believers who stem from the eastern parts of the continent. English Catholic thinker Hilaire Belloc once proclaimed that "Europe is the Faith; and the Faith is Europe."
But in the early centuries other Christians expanded east into Asia and south into Africa, and those other churches survived for the first 1,200 years or so of Christian history. Far from being fringe sects, these forgotten churches were firmly rooted in the oldest traditions of the apostolic church. Throughout their history, these Nazarenes used Syriac, which is close to Jesus' own language of Aramaic, and they followed Yeshua, not Jesus. No other church - not Roman Catholics, not Eastern Orthodox - has a stronger claim to a direct inheritance from the earliest Jesus movement.
The most stunningly successful of these eastern Christian bodies was the Church of the East, often called the Nestorian church. While the Western churches were expanding their influence within the framework of the Roman Empire, the Syriac-speaking churches colonized the vast Persian kingdom that ruled from Syria to Pakistan and the borders of China. From their bases in Mesopotamia - modern Iraq - Nestorian Christians carried out their vast missionary efforts along the Silk Route that crossed Central Asia. By the eighth century, the Church of the East had an extensive structure across most of central Asia and China, and in southern India. The church had senior clergy - metropolitans - in Samarkand and Bokhara, in Herat in Afghanistan. A bishop had his seat in Chang'an, the imperial capital of China, which was then the world's greatest superpower.
When Nestorian Christians were pressing across Central Asia during the sixth and seventh centuries, they met the missionaries and saints of an equally confident and expansionist religion: Mahayana Buddhism. Buddhists too wanted to take their saving message to the world, and launched great missions from India's monasteries and temples. In this diverse world, Buddhist and Christian monasteries were likely to stand side by side, as neighbors and even, sometimes, as collaborators. Some historians believe that Nestorian missionaries influenced the religious practices of the Buddhist religion then developing in Tibet. Monks spoke to monks.
In presenting their faith, Christians naturally used the cultural forms that would be familiar to Asians. They told their stories in the forms of sutras, verse patterns already made famous by Buddhist missionaries and teachers. A stunning collection of Jesus Sutras was found in caves at Dunhuang, in northwest China. Some Nestorian writings draw heavily on Buddhist ideas, as they translate prayers and Christian services in ways that would make sense to Asian readers. In some texts, the Christian phrase "angels and archangels and hosts of heaven" is translated into the language of buddhas and devas.
One story in particular suggests an almost shocking degree of collaboration between the faiths. In 782, the Indian Buddhist missionary Prajna arrived in Chang'an, bearing rich treasures of sutras and other scriptures. Unfortunately, these were written in Indian languages. He consulted the local Nestorian bishop, Adam, who had already translated parts of the Bible into Chinese. Together, Buddhist and Christian scholars worked amiably together for some years to translate seven copious volumes of Buddhist wisdom. Probably, Adam did this as much from intellectual curiosity as from ecumenical good will, and we can only guess about the conversations that would have ensued: Do you really care more about relieving suffering than atoning for sin? And your monks meditate like ours do?
These efforts bore fruit far beyond China. Other residents of Chang'an at this very time included Japanese monks, who took these very translations back with them to their homeland. In Japan, these works became the founding texts of the great Buddhist schools of the Middle Ages. All the famous movements of later Japanese history, including Zen, can be traced to one of those ancient schools and, ultimately - incredibly - to the work of a Christian bishop.
By the 12th century, flourishing churches in China and southern India were using the lotus-cross. The lotus is a superbly beautiful flower that grows out of muck and slime. No symbol could better represent the rise of the soul from the material, the victory of enlightenment over ignorance, desire, and attachment. For 2,000 years, Buddhist artists have used the lotus to convey these messages in countless paintings and sculptures. The Christian cross, meanwhile, teaches a comparable lesson, of divine victory over sin and injustice, of the defeat of the world. Somewhere in Asia, Yeshua's forgotten followers made the daring decision to integrate the two emblems, which still today forces us to think about the parallels between the kinds of liberation and redemption offered by each faith.
Christianity, for much of its history, was just as much an Asian religion as Buddhism. Asia's Christian churches survived for more than a millennium, and not until the 10th century, halfway through Christian history, did the number of Christians in Europe exceed that in Asia.
What ultimately obliterated the Asian Christians were the Mongol invasions, which spread across Central Asia and the Middle East from the 1220s onward. From the late 13th century, too, the world entered a terrifying era of climate change, of global cooling, which severely cut food supplies and contributed to mass famine. The collapse of trade and commerce crippled cities, leaving the world much poorer and more vulnerable. Intolerant nationalism wiped out Christian communities in China, while a surging militant Islam destroyed the churches of Central Asia.
But awareness of this deep Christian history contributes powerfully to understanding the future of the religion, as much as its past. For long centuries, Asian Christians kept up neighborly relations with other faiths, which they saw not as deadly rivals but as fellow travelers on the road to enlightenment. Their worldview differed enormously from the norms that developed in Europe.
To take one example, we are used to the idea of Christianity operating as the official religion of powerful states, which were only too willing to impose a particular orthodoxy upon their subjects. Yet when we look at the African and Asian experience, we find millions of Christians whose normal experience was as minorities or even majorities within nations dominated by some other religion. Struggling to win hearts and minds, leading churches had no option but to frame the Christian message in the context of non-European intellectual traditions. Christian thinkers did present their message in the categories of Buddhism - and Taoism, and Confucianism - and there is no reason why they could not do so again. When modern scholars like Peter Phan try to place Christianity in an Asian and Buddhist context, they are resuming a task begun at least 1,500 years ago.
Perhaps, in fact, we are looking at our history upside down. Some day, future historians might look at the last few hundred years of Euro- American dominance within Christianity and regard it as an unnatural interlude in a much longer story of fruitful interchange between the great religions.
Consider the story told by Timothy, a patriarch of the Nestorian church. Around 800, he engaged in a famous debate with the Muslim caliph in Baghdad, a discussion marked by reason and civility on both sides. Imagine, Timothy said, that we are all in a dark house, and someone throws a precious pearl in the midst of a pile of ordinary stones. Everyone scrabbles for the pearl, and some think they've found it, but nobody can be sure until day breaks.
In the same way, he said, the pearl of true faith and wisdom had fallen into the darkness of this transitory world; each faith believed that it alone had found the pearl. Yet all he could claim - and all the caliph could say in response - was that some faiths thought they had enough evidence to prove that they were indeed holding the real pearl, but the final truth would not be known in this world.
Knowing other faiths firsthand grants believers an enviable sophistication, founded on humility. We could do a lot worse than to learn from what we sometimes call the Dark Ages.
Philip Jenkins is Edwin Erle Sparks professor of the humanities at Penn State University. He is author of "The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia -- and How It Died," published last month.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/12/14/when_jesus_met_buddha/
submitted by Tangou-888 to TBSDaoismVajrayana [link] [comments]
Taken from http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/12/14/when_jesus_met_buddha/ for the intellectual discussion purposely. Not for commercial gain
When Jesus met Buddha Something remarkable happened when evangelists for two great religions crossed paths more than 1,000 years ago: they got along By Philip Jenkins December 14, 2008
While few mainline Christians would put the matter in such confrontational terms, any religion claiming exclusive access to truth has real difficulties reconciling other great faiths into its cosmic scheme. Most Christian churches hold that Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and many also feel an obligation to carry that message to the world's unbelievers. But this creates a fundamental conflict with the followers of famous spiritual figures like Mohammed or Buddha, who preached radically different messages. Drawing on a strict interpretation of the Bible, some Christians see these rival faiths as not merely false, but as deliberate traps set by the forces of evil.
Being intolerant of other religions - consigning them to hell, in fact - may be bad enough in its own right, but it increasingly has real- world consequences. As trade and technology shrink the globe, so different religions come into ever-closer contact with one another, and the results can be bloody: witness the apocalyptic assaults in Mumbai. In such a world, teaching different faiths to acknowledge one another's claims, to live peaceably together side by side, stops being a matter of good manners and becomes a prerequisite for human survival.
Over the past 30 years, the Roman Catholic Church has faced repeated battles over this question of Christ's uniqueness, and has cracked down on thinkers who have made daring efforts to accommodate other world religions. While the Christian dialogue with Islam has attracted most of the headlines, it is the encounters with Hinduism and especially Buddhism that have stirred the most controversy within the church. Sri Lankan theologians Aloysius Pieris and Tissa Balasuriya have had many run-ins with Vatican critics, and, more recently, the battle has come to American shores. Last year, the Vatican ordered an investigation of Georgetown University's Peter Phan, a Jesuit theologian whose main sin, in official eyes, has been to treat the Buddhism of his Vietnamese homeland as a parallel path to salvation.
Following the ideas of Pope Benedict XVI, though, the church refuses to give up its fundamental belief in the unique role of Christ. In a widely publicized open letter to Italian politician Marcello Pera, Pope Benedict declared that "an inter-religious dialogue in the strict sense of the term is not possible." By all means, he said, we should hold conversations with other cultures, but not in a way that acknowledges other religions as equally valid. While the Vatican does not of course see the Buddha as a demon, it does fear the prospect of syncretism, the dilution of Christian truth in an unholy mixture with other faiths.
Beyond doubt, this view places Benedict in a strong tradition of Christianity as it has developed in Europe since Roman times. But there is another, ancient tradition, which suggests a very different course. Europe's is not the only version of the Christian faith, nor is it necessarily the oldest heir of the ancient church. For more than 1,000 years, other quite separate branches of the church established thriving communities across Asia, and in their sheer numbers, these churches were comparable to anything Europe could muster at the time. These Christian bodies traced their ancestry back not through Rome, but directly to the original Jesus movement of ancient Palestine. They moved across India, Central Asia, and China, showing no hesitation to share - and learn from - the other great religions of the East.
Just how far these Christians were prepared to go is suggested by a startling symbol that appeared on memorials and stone carvings in both southern India and coastal China during the early Middle Ages. We can easily see that the image depicts a cross, but it takes a moment to realize that the base of the picture - the root from which the cross is growing - is a lotus flower, the symbol of Buddhist enlightenment.
In modern times, most mainstream churches would condemn such an amalgam as a betrayal of the Christian faith, an example of multiculturalism run wild. Yet concerns about syncretism did not bother these early Asian Christians, who called themselves Nasraye, Nazarenes, like Jesus's earliest followers. They were comfortable associating themselves with the other great monastic and mystical religion of the time, and moreover, they believed that both lotus and cross carried similar messages about the quest for light and salvation. If these Nazarenes could find meaning in the lotus-cross, then why can't modern Catholics, or other inheritors of the faith Jesus inspired?
Many Christians are coming to terms with just how thoroughly so many of their fundamental assumptions will have to be rethought as their faith today becomes a global religion. Even modern church leaders who know how rapidly the church is expanding in the global South tend to see European values and traditions as the indispensable norm, in matters of liturgy and theology as much as music and architecture.
Yet the reality is that Christianity has from its earliest days been an intercontinental faith, as firmly established in Asia and Africa as in Europe itself. When we broaden our scope to look at the faith that by 800 or so stretched from Ireland to Korea, we see the many different ways in which Christians interacted with other believers, in encounters that reshaped both sides. At their best, these meetings allowed the traditions not just to exchange ideas but to intertwine in productive and enriching ways, in an awe-inspiring chapter of Christian history that the Western churches have all but forgotten.
To understand this story, we need to reconfigure our mental maps. When we think of the growth of Christianity, we think above all of Europe. We visualize a movement growing west from Palestine and Syria and spreading into Greece and Italy, and gradually into northern regions. Europe is still the center of the Catholic Church, of course, but it was also the birthplace of the Protestant denominations that split from it. For most of us, even speaking of the "Eastern Church" refers to another group of Europeans, namely to the Orthodox believers who stem from the eastern parts of the continent. English Catholic thinker Hilaire Belloc once proclaimed that "Europe is the Faith; and the Faith is Europe."
But in the early centuries other Christians expanded east into Asia and south into Africa, and those other churches survived for the first 1,200 years or so of Christian history. Far from being fringe sects, these forgotten churches were firmly rooted in the oldest traditions of the apostolic church. Throughout their history, these Nazarenes used Syriac, which is close to Jesus' own language of Aramaic, and they followed Yeshua, not Jesus. No other church - not Roman Catholics, not Eastern Orthodox - has a stronger claim to a direct inheritance from the earliest Jesus movement.
The most stunningly successful of these eastern Christian bodies was the Church of the East, often called the Nestorian church. While the Western churches were expanding their influence within the framework of the Roman Empire, the Syriac-speaking churches colonized the vast Persian kingdom that ruled from Syria to Pakistan and the borders of China. From their bases in Mesopotamia - modern Iraq - Nestorian Christians carried out their vast missionary efforts along the Silk Route that crossed Central Asia. By the eighth century, the Church of the East had an extensive structure across most of central Asia and China, and in southern India. The church had senior clergy - metropolitans - in Samarkand and Bokhara, in Herat in Afghanistan. A bishop had his seat in Chang'an, the imperial capital of China, which was then the world's greatest superpower.
When Nestorian Christians were pressing across Central Asia during the sixth and seventh centuries, they met the missionaries and saints of an equally confident and expansionist religion: Mahayana Buddhism. Buddhists too wanted to take their saving message to the world, and launched great missions from India's monasteries and temples. In this diverse world, Buddhist and Christian monasteries were likely to stand side by side, as neighbors and even, sometimes, as collaborators. Some historians believe that Nestorian missionaries influenced the religious practices of the Buddhist religion then developing in Tibet. Monks spoke to monks.
In presenting their faith, Christians naturally used the cultural forms that would be familiar to Asians. They told their stories in the forms of sutras, verse patterns already made famous by Buddhist missionaries and teachers. A stunning collection of Jesus Sutras was found in caves at Dunhuang, in northwest China. Some Nestorian writings draw heavily on Buddhist ideas, as they translate prayers and Christian services in ways that would make sense to Asian readers. In some texts, the Christian phrase "angels and archangels and hosts of heaven" is translated into the language of buddhas and devas.
One story in particular suggests an almost shocking degree of collaboration between the faiths. In 782, the Indian Buddhist missionary Prajna arrived in Chang'an, bearing rich treasures of sutras and other scriptures. Unfortunately, these were written in Indian languages. He consulted the local Nestorian bishop, Adam, who had already translated parts of the Bible into Chinese. Together, Buddhist and Christian scholars worked amiably together for some years to translate seven copious volumes of Buddhist wisdom. Probably, Adam did this as much from intellectual curiosity as from ecumenical good will, and we can only guess about the conversations that would have ensued: Do you really care more about relieving suffering than atoning for sin? And your monks meditate like ours do?
These efforts bore fruit far beyond China. Other residents of Chang'an at this very time included Japanese monks, who took these very translations back with them to their homeland. In Japan, these works became the founding texts of the great Buddhist schools of the Middle Ages. All the famous movements of later Japanese history, including Zen, can be traced to one of those ancient schools and, ultimately - incredibly - to the work of a Christian bishop.
By the 12th century, flourishing churches in China and southern India were using the lotus-cross. The lotus is a superbly beautiful flower that grows out of muck and slime. No symbol could better represent the rise of the soul from the material, the victory of enlightenment over ignorance, desire, and attachment. For 2,000 years, Buddhist artists have used the lotus to convey these messages in countless paintings and sculptures. The Christian cross, meanwhile, teaches a comparable lesson, of divine victory over sin and injustice, of the defeat of the world. Somewhere in Asia, Yeshua's forgotten followers made the daring decision to integrate the two emblems, which still today forces us to think about the parallels between the kinds of liberation and redemption offered by each faith.
Christianity, for much of its history, was just as much an Asian religion as Buddhism. Asia's Christian churches survived for more than a millennium, and not until the 10th century, halfway through Christian history, did the number of Christians in Europe exceed that in Asia.
What ultimately obliterated the Asian Christians were the Mongol invasions, which spread across Central Asia and the Middle East from the 1220s onward. From the late 13th century, too, the world entered a terrifying era of climate change, of global cooling, which severely cut food supplies and contributed to mass famine. The collapse of trade and commerce crippled cities, leaving the world much poorer and more vulnerable. Intolerant nationalism wiped out Christian communities in China, while a surging militant Islam destroyed the churches of Central Asia.
But awareness of this deep Christian history contributes powerfully to understanding the future of the religion, as much as its past. For long centuries, Asian Christians kept up neighborly relations with other faiths, which they saw not as deadly rivals but as fellow travelers on the road to enlightenment. Their worldview differed enormously from the norms that developed in Europe.
To take one example, we are used to the idea of Christianity operating as the official religion of powerful states, which were only too willing to impose a particular orthodoxy upon their subjects. Yet when we look at the African and Asian experience, we find millions of Christians whose normal experience was as minorities or even majorities within nations dominated by some other religion. Struggling to win hearts and minds, leading churches had no option but to frame the Christian message in the context of non-European intellectual traditions. Christian thinkers did present their message in the categories of Buddhism - and Taoism, and Confucianism - and there is no reason why they could not do so again. When modern scholars like Peter Phan try to place Christianity in an Asian and Buddhist context, they are resuming a task begun at least 1,500 years ago.
Perhaps, in fact, we are looking at our history upside down. Some day, future historians might look at the last few hundred years of Euro- American dominance within Christianity and regard it as an unnatural interlude in a much longer story of fruitful interchange between the great religions.
Consider the story told by Timothy, a patriarch of the Nestorian church. Around 800, he engaged in a famous debate with the Muslim caliph in Baghdad, a discussion marked by reason and civility on both sides. Imagine, Timothy said, that we are all in a dark house, and someone throws a precious pearl in the midst of a pile of ordinary stones. Everyone scrabbles for the pearl, and some think they've found it, but nobody can be sure until day breaks.
In the same way, he said, the pearl of true faith and wisdom had fallen into the darkness of this transitory world; each faith believed that it alone had found the pearl. Yet all he could claim - and all the caliph could say in response - was that some faiths thought they had enough evidence to prove that they were indeed holding the real pearl, but the final truth would not be known in this world.
Knowing other faiths firsthand grants believers an enviable sophistication, founded on humility. We could do a lot worse than to learn from what we sometimes call the Dark Ages.
Philip Jenkins is Edwin Erle Sparks professor of the humanities at Penn State University. He is author of "The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia -- and How It Died," published last month.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/12/14/when_jesus_met_buddha/
2023.06.05 04:12 eclipsenow Does the "Small Israel" / aleph theory of the Exodus and Numbers impact Innerancy of Scripture?
Hi all.
THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM OF A LARGE ISRAEL
Numbers 1 in our English bibles 603 thousand military men which would make Israel a conquering super-power across the whole Middle East - like China vs Taiwan against any of the nations of the period. We think the Egyptian army at the Battle of Kadesh - possibly the generation before Moses - had about 53,000 men. With a 12 to 1 ratio, why was Moses pleading with Pharaoh instead of marching up onto the throne himself and kicking the Egyptians out of the place?
THE BIBLICAL PROBLEM OF A LARGE ISRAEL
The bible presents Israel as smaller than the surrounding nations. Deuteronomy 9:1–2 says:
“Hear, Israel: You are now about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities that have walls up to the sky. 2 The people are strong and tall—Anakites! You know about them and have heard it said: “Who can stand up against the Anakites?””
Each of the seven individual Canaanite realms was “more numerous and mightier than” Israel - Deut 7:1. Only Moab expresses fear over Israel’s size: Numbers 22:3.
Israel’s success is all down to God - Deut 7:7 says “The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.” In fact, God reassures Israel not to be afraid! “But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.” (Numbers 13:28). Or try Deut 7:17 “You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?”
Then there is the problem of the census of the Levites and the firstborn from the rest of the tribes of Israel. This whole story is about Israel dedicating their firstborn to God - and a little mathematics around subtracting how many Levites already serve God full time - just to be fair. The problem? There’s only just over 20,000 firstborn! Accounting for boys and girls to stretch just over 20,000 breeding couples out to over 2.5 MILLION Israelites (600,000 military males) each family would have to have something like 30 to 50 boys and another 30 to 50 girls each - so something like 60 to 100 children per family! Numbers 3:39
There’s clearly something wrong. Also, they didn’t have enough people to invade and take over the land all at once. It was going to take time or the land wold lie fallow and abandoned because there were so few Israelite’s! Deut 7:22 “22 The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you.” But a nation of 2 to 2.5 MILLION people on the move would have sent their super-power military sweeping across the land and moved in to work the whole land at once!
HOW DID THE NUMBERS GET SO BIG IN NUMBERS?
I love the “Undeceptions” podcast by my friend John Dickson. Here he’s covering the historicity of Moses, interviewing an Egyptologist about both the archaeology of Egypt and what internal evidence there might be in the bible about Moses and the Exodus, and Semites generally in Egypt. It’s a great episode - and well worth listening to in its own right. But there is a short conversation about how the Hebrew numbers are actually not numerals as we use them, but words. The word for ‘thousand’ also in some places means ‘unit’ or ‘troop’. https://undeceptions.com/podcast/the-exodus/
For quick reference, as “Got questions” summarises where aleph is used this way under “Option Two: Small Israel; Misinterpretation of the Hebrew”
sis’sāh vav arbā’im ‘elep vav hamēs mē’owt. The traditional, literal translation is “six and forty thousand and five hundred,” usually rendered as “46,500.”
However, two words in this phrase are subject to variations: ‘elep and vav. The term ‘elep (or ‘eleph) is used elsewhere in Scripture as a reference to groups, not a literal number, including descriptions of Israel during and after the exodus. It is applied to tribes (Numbers 10:4), clans (Joshua 22:14; Judges 6:15; Micah 5:1), families (Joshua 22:21), and divisions (Numbers 1:16). Further, the connecting word vav can mean “and,” but it can also mean “or,” depending on context. Exodus 21:15 and Exodus 21:17, for instance, use vav to say that certain sins are committed against one’s father “or” mother. If ‘elep is a reference to groups of some sort (not numerical thousands), and the second vav in the phrase is understood to mean “or,” then Numbers 1:21 would be translated “six and forty clans, or five hundred.” The tribe of Reuben, then, would have had 500 fighting men from 46 family groups.
https://www.gotquestions.org/Israelites-exodus.html
For a fuller mathematical analysis based on the first born census, try here. You’ll have to log in with a google address for free access, but I found it to be a good read.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1585502?read-now=1&seq=11#page_scan_tab_contents
(Log in, look to the right button where it says “Alternative methods” and read online for free.)
IF ALL THIS IS TRUE…
…it means that a scribe from some later century made some assumptions and added the text together. EG: The total of the census in Numbers 1: 46 would have been 558 Troops vas (or) 5,550 men. But written out in Hebrew, with the original use of aleph fading over time, you can see the temptation for a scribe many centuries later - possibly AD - to add the numbers together. 558 troops counted as thousands and then adding in the 5550 men equals the totals in Numbers 1:46.
It could easily be the same story in Exodus 12:37.
My question: if this is indeed the case - is inerrancy even at stake? Would we be worried about some weird inconsistency in say the chapters and numbers added in by monks at a later date?
submitted by eclipsenow to Reformed [link] [comments]
THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM OF A LARGE ISRAEL
Numbers 1 in our English bibles 603 thousand military men which would make Israel a conquering super-power across the whole Middle East - like China vs Taiwan against any of the nations of the period. We think the Egyptian army at the Battle of Kadesh - possibly the generation before Moses - had about 53,000 men. With a 12 to 1 ratio, why was Moses pleading with Pharaoh instead of marching up onto the throne himself and kicking the Egyptians out of the place?
THE BIBLICAL PROBLEM OF A LARGE ISRAEL
The bible presents Israel as smaller than the surrounding nations. Deuteronomy 9:1–2 says:
“Hear, Israel: You are now about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities that have walls up to the sky. 2 The people are strong and tall—Anakites! You know about them and have heard it said: “Who can stand up against the Anakites?””
Each of the seven individual Canaanite realms was “more numerous and mightier than” Israel - Deut 7:1. Only Moab expresses fear over Israel’s size: Numbers 22:3.
Israel’s success is all down to God - Deut 7:7 says “The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.” In fact, God reassures Israel not to be afraid! “But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.” (Numbers 13:28). Or try Deut 7:17 “You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?”
Then there is the problem of the census of the Levites and the firstborn from the rest of the tribes of Israel. This whole story is about Israel dedicating their firstborn to God - and a little mathematics around subtracting how many Levites already serve God full time - just to be fair. The problem? There’s only just over 20,000 firstborn! Accounting for boys and girls to stretch just over 20,000 breeding couples out to over 2.5 MILLION Israelites (600,000 military males) each family would have to have something like 30 to 50 boys and another 30 to 50 girls each - so something like 60 to 100 children per family! Numbers 3:39
There’s clearly something wrong. Also, they didn’t have enough people to invade and take over the land all at once. It was going to take time or the land wold lie fallow and abandoned because there were so few Israelite’s! Deut 7:22 “22 The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you.” But a nation of 2 to 2.5 MILLION people on the move would have sent their super-power military sweeping across the land and moved in to work the whole land at once!
HOW DID THE NUMBERS GET SO BIG IN NUMBERS?
I love the “Undeceptions” podcast by my friend John Dickson. Here he’s covering the historicity of Moses, interviewing an Egyptologist about both the archaeology of Egypt and what internal evidence there might be in the bible about Moses and the Exodus, and Semites generally in Egypt. It’s a great episode - and well worth listening to in its own right. But there is a short conversation about how the Hebrew numbers are actually not numerals as we use them, but words. The word for ‘thousand’ also in some places means ‘unit’ or ‘troop’. https://undeceptions.com/podcast/the-exodus/
For quick reference, as “Got questions” summarises where aleph is used this way under “Option Two: Small Israel; Misinterpretation of the Hebrew”
sis’sāh vav arbā’im ‘elep vav hamēs mē’owt. The traditional, literal translation is “six and forty thousand and five hundred,” usually rendered as “46,500.”
However, two words in this phrase are subject to variations: ‘elep and vav. The term ‘elep (or ‘eleph) is used elsewhere in Scripture as a reference to groups, not a literal number, including descriptions of Israel during and after the exodus. It is applied to tribes (Numbers 10:4), clans (Joshua 22:14; Judges 6:15; Micah 5:1), families (Joshua 22:21), and divisions (Numbers 1:16). Further, the connecting word vav can mean “and,” but it can also mean “or,” depending on context. Exodus 21:15 and Exodus 21:17, for instance, use vav to say that certain sins are committed against one’s father “or” mother. If ‘elep is a reference to groups of some sort (not numerical thousands), and the second vav in the phrase is understood to mean “or,” then Numbers 1:21 would be translated “six and forty clans, or five hundred.” The tribe of Reuben, then, would have had 500 fighting men from 46 family groups.
https://www.gotquestions.org/Israelites-exodus.html
For a fuller mathematical analysis based on the first born census, try here. You’ll have to log in with a google address for free access, but I found it to be a good read.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1585502?read-now=1&seq=11#page_scan_tab_contents
(Log in, look to the right button where it says “Alternative methods” and read online for free.)
IF ALL THIS IS TRUE…
…it means that a scribe from some later century made some assumptions and added the text together. EG: The total of the census in Numbers 1: 46 would have been 558 Troops vas (or) 5,550 men. But written out in Hebrew, with the original use of aleph fading over time, you can see the temptation for a scribe many centuries later - possibly AD - to add the numbers together. 558 troops counted as thousands and then adding in the 5550 men equals the totals in Numbers 1:46.
It could easily be the same story in Exodus 12:37.
My question: if this is indeed the case - is inerrancy even at stake? Would we be worried about some weird inconsistency in say the chapters and numbers added in by monks at a later date?
2023.06.05 03:50 LGN_22 New user, bed mesh problem, printer.cfg file inserted for review
 | I'm rebuilding a refurb CR-10. It has a Manta E3EZ board w/CB1, Sprite Pro extruder with CR Touch, an AC bed heater, and a 1/4 aluminum bed with magnetic PEI sheet. I added dual Z motors, and a top mounted z-sync belt. The z-motors each use one of the two z-ports on the board, they work together and can't be independently controlled (this is possible using the E1 driver). submitted by LGN_22 to klippers [link] [comments] I got Klipper loaded via the instructions that came with the Manta board. All x-y-z movements seem OK now, I had some problems with z but I think I'm mostly past them. When I first set this up, the probe was hitting the bed on the second z measure on homing. I set the z-hop higher and also added in a section I found on this board for the CR Touch. This allowed me to run a 4x4 bed height map. I added bed spring positions and dialed them in close before I added the PEI mag base. I ran bed_springs_adjust (manual bed level) with a piece of paper and got the gap close. My z-offset seems way too high as well. Here's the problem: The bed height map shows the bed is like 5mm low on the right side (picture attached). It's clearly not that low. https://preview.redd.it/712rgeu0r34b1.jpg?width=1879&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=41842b1fa6a0bd3aafd4a16dd270d8df79d8e6b6 I'll paste my printer.cfg file here for reference. # This file contains common pin mappings for the BIGTREETECH Manta E3EZ # To use this config, the firmware should be compiled for the # STM32G0B1 with a "8KiB bootloader" "8 MHz crystal" # and "USB (on PA11/PA12)" or "CAN bus (on PB12/PB13)". # See docs/Config_Reference.md for a description of parameters. [include mainsail.cfg] [stepper_x] step_pin: PA14 dir_pin: !PA10 enable_pin: !PA13 microsteps: 16 rotation_distance: 40 endstop_pin: ^PC4 position_endstop: 0 position_max: 300 homing_speed: 50 [stepper_y] step_pin: PC8 dir_pin: !PA15 enable_pin: !PC14 microsteps: 16 rotation_distance: 40 endstop_pin: ^PB0 position_endstop: 0 position_max: 300 homing_speed: 50 #[stepper_z] #step_pin: PD2 #dir_pin: PD4 #enable_pin: !PD3 #microsteps: 16 #rotation_distance: 8 #endstop_pin: probe:z_virtual_endstop #position_endstop: 0 #position_max: 400 [stepper_z] step_pin: PD2 dir_pin: !PD4 enable_pin: !PD3 microsteps: 16 rotation_distance: 40 endstop_pin: probe:z_virtual_endstop position_max: 395 position_min: -6 homing_speed: 50 homing_retract_dist: 10.0 homing_retract_speed: 20 second_homing_speed: 5 #Old bltouch settings #[bltouch] #sensor_pin: ^PA6 #control_pin: PA7 #x_offset: -36.5 #y_offset: -40.0 #samples: 2 #speed: 2 #z_offset: 0.0 #CRTouch Probe settings [bltouch] sensor_pin: ^PA6 control_pin: PA7 x_offset: -36.5 y_offset: -40 #z_offset: 0 probe_with_touch_mode: True pin_up_touch_mode_reports_triggered: True stow_on_each_sample: False # Keep the probe extended between points samples: 2 # Probe each point at least twice samples_tolerance: 0.0125 # If those measurements aren't this close then samples_tolerance_retries: 5 # Re-probe this many times and use the average [safe_z_home] home_xy_position: 155,155 # Change coordinates to the center of your print bed z_hop: 12 # Move up 10mm speed: 50 z_hop_speed: 5 [bed_screws] screw1: 25,32 screw1_name: Front left screw screw2: 25,272 screw2_name: Rear left screw screw3: 267,272 screw3_name: Rear right screw screw4: 267,32 screw4_name: Front right screw [bed_mesh] speed: 120 horizontal_move_z: 25 mesh_min: 10, 10 mesh_max: 253.5, 250 probe_count: 4,4 algorithm: bicubic fade_start: 1 fade_end: 10 fade_target: 0 [extruder] step_pin: PD5 dir_pin: !PD6 enable_pin: !PB3 microsteps: 16 rotation_distance: 33.500 nozzle_diameter: 0.400 filament_diameter: 1.750 heater_pin: PB11 #HE0 sensor_type: EPCOS 100K B57560G104F sensor_pin: PA4 #TH0 control: pid pid_Kp: 21.527 pid_Ki: 1.063 pid_Kd: 108.982 min_temp: 0 max_temp: 300 #[filament_switch_sensor material_0] #switch_pin: PC5 #[extruder1] #step_pin: PB7 #dir_pin: PB6 #enable_pin: !PB4 #heater_pin: PB10 # HE1 #sensor_pin: PA5 # T1 #[filament_switch_sensor material_1] #switch_pin: PB1 [heater_bed] heater_pin: PB2 #HB sensor_type: EPCOS 100K B57560G104F #Generic 3950 sensor_pin: PA3 #TB control: watermark min_temp: 0 max_temp: 130 [fan] pin: PA8 #[heater_fan fan1] #pin: PB15 #[heater_fan fan2] #pin: PB14 [mcu] serial: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-Klipper_stm32g0b1xx*******(intentionally blanked) [printer] kinematics: cartesian max_velocity: 300 max_accel: 3000 max_z_velocity: 5 max_z_accel: 100 ######################################## #TMC2209 configuration ######################################## [tmc2209 stepper_x] uart_pin: PB8 #diag_pin: PC4 run_current: 0.800 stealthchop_threshold: 999999 [tmc2209 stepper_y] uart_pin: PC9 #diag_pin: PB0 run_current: 0.800 stealthchop_threshold: 999999 [tmc2209 stepper_z] uart_pin: PD0 #diag_pin: PC6 run_current: 0.650 stealthchop_threshold: 999999 [tmc2209 extruder] uart_pin: PD1 run_current: 0.800 stealthchop_threshold: 999999 #[tmc2209 extruder1] #uart_pin: PB5 #run_current: 0.800 #stealthchop_threshold: 999999 ######################################## # TMC2130 configuration ######################################## #[tmc2130 stepper_x] #cs_pin: PB8 #spi_software_miso_pin: PC11 #spi_software_mosi_pin: PC12 #spi_software_sclk_pin: PC10 ##diag1_pin: PF3 #run_current: 0.800 #stealthchop_threshold: 999999 #[tmc2130 stepper_y] #cs_pin: PC9 #spi_software_miso_pin: PC11 #spi_software_mosi_pin: PC12 #spi_software_sclk_pin: PC10 ##diag1_pin: PF4 #run_current: 0.800 #stealthchop_threshold: 999999 #[tmc2130 stepper_z] #cs_pin: PD0 #spi_software_miso_pin: PC11 #spi_software_mosi_pin: PC12 #spi_software_sclk_pin: PC10 ##diag1_pin: PF5 #run_current: 0.650 #stealthchop_threshold: 999999 #[tmc2130 extruder] #cs_pin: PD1 #spi_software_miso_pin: PC11 #spi_software_mosi_pin: PC12 #spi_software_sclk_pin: PC10 #run_current: 0.800 #stealthchop_threshold: 999999 #[tmc2130 extruder1] #cs_pin: PB5 #spi_software_miso_pin: PC11 #spi_software_mosi_pin: PC12 #spi_software_sclk_pin: PC10 #run_current: 0.800 #stealthchop_threshold: 999999 [board_pins] aliases: # EXP1 header EXP1_1=PC1, EXP1_3=PC3, EXP1_5=PC0, EXP1_7=PA2, EXP1_9= #[output_pin PS_ON] #pin: PA9 #[output_pin pb9_pin] #pin: PB9 #[neopixel my_neopixel] #pin: PC7 #[adxl345] #cs_pin: PC15 #spi_software_miso_pin: PC11 #spi_software_mosi_pin: PC12 #spi_software_sclk_pin: PC10 #*# <---------------------- SAVE_CONFIG -------------------- #*# DO NOT EDIT THIS BLOCK OR BELOW. The contents are auto-generated. #*# #*# [bltouch] #*# z_offset = 11.937 |
2023.06.05 03:48 alkafrazin IP/Domain logging locally and 'remotely'
something I've been wanting to do for a while is set up my edgerouter to log all domain/ip requests to a cumulative list, and dump that to a text file either internally or externally, for each connected local device individually, to be then compared to a locally generated list of domain/ip requests.
Why? Because I'm crazy and like to sanity-check everything and understand as much about what my hardware does as is possible for me to do. Being able to see and compare what my OS is asking for, and what my router is receiving requests for, just makes sense.
Conceptually, this is a very easy process. Every time the edge router talks to a domain or host, it already logs the incoming and outgoing IP address. 1
Simply take this, sort by incoming IP, dump it to a text file, either locally or via some sort of network share, and then have the client machines able to pull this and cross-reference with their own internally generated lists.
The problem is that I don't fully understand how to access the probably-already-being-generated logs. I don't know where in the filesystem they dump to, what services to enable/disable, or what client services(linux) to run to make or find such logs in the filesystem.
If I can find where the logs are stored, a cronjob every hour or day or whatever is easily made to copy this log over sshfs or similar, and then I can run a simple script to parse and compare the data. However, documentation on anything beyond the web-UI seems nonexistent, as far as my googling can find. I can't find the relevant logs in /valog, either, so they may not even be dumped to text for all I know.
Looking to do this rather automagically, so web-UI junk is sub-optimal for my needs.
1I'm 90% sure it does because UI elements reference the this data as it's collected.
submitted by alkafrazin to Ubiquiti [link] [comments]
Why? Because I'm crazy and like to sanity-check everything and understand as much about what my hardware does as is possible for me to do. Being able to see and compare what my OS is asking for, and what my router is receiving requests for, just makes sense.
Conceptually, this is a very easy process. Every time the edge router talks to a domain or host, it already logs the incoming and outgoing IP address. 1
Simply take this, sort by incoming IP, dump it to a text file, either locally or via some sort of network share, and then have the client machines able to pull this and cross-reference with their own internally generated lists.
The problem is that I don't fully understand how to access the probably-already-being-generated logs. I don't know where in the filesystem they dump to, what services to enable/disable, or what client services(linux) to run to make or find such logs in the filesystem.
If I can find where the logs are stored, a cronjob every hour or day or whatever is easily made to copy this log over sshfs or similar, and then I can run a simple script to parse and compare the data. However, documentation on anything beyond the web-UI seems nonexistent, as far as my googling can find. I can't find the relevant logs in /valog, either, so they may not even be dumped to text for all I know.
Looking to do this rather automagically, so web-UI junk is sub-optimal for my needs.
1I'm 90% sure it does because UI elements reference the this data as it's collected.
2023.06.05 03:29 The_Alloquist [A Lord of Death] - Chapter 57 (Efrain)
[←Chapter 56] [Cover Art] [My Links] [Index] [Discord] [Subreddit] [Chapter 58→]
On the whole, things were actually looking up for Efrain at least as far as he could reckon. It was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one that Naia had reached out to him. Adding on top of it that at least one of the children had fallen right into his lap, he might come away from this trip with more than near-death experiences.
The trio was sitting on the wooden floor of the waggon, the morning light rapidly brightening. It wouldn’t be long before the paladin’s awoke, by Efrain’s reckoning, so they’d best be quick.
“Well,” Efrain began, “I’ll let you ask three questions. That’s all we have time for today.”
Having a student, a proper student, was a prospect that he enjoyed more than he cared to admit. Aya took her time, drumming her fingers on the floor as she tried to come up with whatever her mind demanded of him.
“What is magic? What’s the difference between magic and miracles? And… what am I?”
Three, concise. Innie stirred at the first two, and Efrai guessed that Aya had already asked them before.
“‘What is magic’ is a matter of some debate. In the most practical sense, it’s a way of manipulating the world. Some have worshipped it as divine or spiritual. Some haven’t,” Efrain answered, “though, if you want my personal opinion, magic is a process of discovery, just as mathematics or philosophy is. It requires skill, or talent, most of all, dedication and practice.”
She nodded, this definition perhaps striking a cord with her.
“The difference between magic and miracles?” he said, “Well, I’m not entirely sure what miracles you’re referring to, but I can certainly attest that there are those that pass off magic as miracles.”
Aya stiffed slightly as it, and Efrain guessed from where the questions had sprung.
“Ah. I would’ve imagined the paladins said something like that. Self-aggrandizing hogwash - they use magic, I use magic. It’s fundamentally the same thing.”
He left out the part about how radically inefficient their methods likely were - that was for a later time.
“But the church says-”
“That magic is a sin. Something used by people in dark places?” snorted Efrain, “Angorrah used to be a centre of magical education, though the church would never admit that. I myself used to dwell there, many years ago.”
“The madame said that you would know about the night of the Burning Tree,” said Aya, looking at the cat, “that you lived through it.”
Efrain, at the usage of the word ‘madame’, also looked at the cat, significantly less impressed than his young charge. He indeed had lived through it, although he couldn’t recall it.
“It was over three centuries ago,” he said, “complete chaos. Partisans from the lands conquered during the Helgacite expansion. Angry youths from the Academies who felt betrayed by the church, mixing with other factions. Worst of all was the portion of the military that wanted to overthrow the ruling authority. The Night of the Burning Tree was a poorly thought out riot.”
Once more, the hypocrisy of the unknown haunted his assertion.
“I left the city not long after,” he said, “the writing was on the wall at that point. The church was preparing for decades to destroy the Academy, and that night was the perfect excuse for them to do so. Sometimes I wonder…”
Aya leaned forwards, clearly interested in this history he recounted.
“But that’s not relevant to your questions, nice try,” he said, leaving his suspicions on who exactly had set fire to the sacred tree to himself, “as for your third question - what are you.”
Out of habit, a long finger reached up to scratch at his temple.
“You are an enigma, a mystery. I don’t think I’ve encountered anything quite like you, and, believe me, between books and my own travels, that is not a low bar. It’s rare to stumble on someone so unique.”
Efrain was conscious of how bright it was beginning to get.
“Perhaps we’ll find some answers as we continue to explore magic together,” he put together quickly, “but alas, that’ll have to wait for another time. Best that you get back to your fellows. Quick now.”
Satisfied, at least for the moment, Aya thanked him, and with a little bow to Innie, quickly got out of the wagon and departed.
“A bow?” he said to his long-time companion.
“I was never going to get it from you,” she said, snorted, “besides, how long will it be before you get her calling you ‘teacher’?”
Efrain decided that was fair and not to press the point.
“I’m going to find Tykhon, I’d rather ride him than be in this rickety thing on a forest path,” he said, “also, have you see Clarallel?”
“She seems to be having a ball,” Innie said, “There’s no shortage of injuries for her to treat.”
“Oh, goodie,” he said, “at least she’s been keeping busy I’m sure.”
Efrain made his way around the camp, not taking long before finding another class taking place. Claralelle was inscribing lines in the dirt with a stick, depicting this muscle and that, while a collection of mostly shirtless men and women stood around her. As she explained its shape and what connected into what, she indicated so on her model - a vaguely embarrassed looking young soldier in the middle.
Efrain leaned against a tree, studying the reactions of the soldiers as Claralle launched into a fairly in depth explanation of the forces involved in a sword swing. To their credit, most of them seemed fascinated, and one was even scribbling hasty notes on a piece of parchment. As the lesson wrapped up, and the soldiers departed speaking in hushed tones, Efrain walked up behind Clara.
“My. Seems you’re gaining a following,” he said.
“Something like that?” she said in her customary joyous tone, “they’re interested. I’m interested. I might as well share!”
“Indeed,” he said, “keep in mind not to complain about the church too heavily, lest you land in hot water with some.”
She gave him a blank look, and it occurred to Efrain that she might not even know the slightest about the church, other than it existed.
“Anyways,” he continued, “I wanted to know what your plans were. Now that we’re out of both frying pan and fire.”
“Oh, I have no idea,” she said.
“...really?”
“I suppose I should go find another flesh lord, and complete my training. Or set up my own practice and… practice. Oh, and I like to read, and there are a lot of books. And there are a lot of people to treat as well!”
“Uh-huh,” Efrain murmured, “well, I don’t know about any others, but I can certainly introduce you to Carnes. Whether or not they’d be willing to take you on as a student is another story.”
“Also, I should find the skull of my master, if it hasn’t been crushed to dust by now,” she said, “we used to joke that I would strip it of the flesh and boil it. Then I’d put a little hat on it, or maybe use it to drink wine from. I don’t entirely remember.”
“They may have been joking.”
“No, I don’t think so. Either way, he’s dead, so he doesn’t have the luxury of choice.”
“Well, then,” Efrain said, clearing his throat to change the subject, “is it on to Angorrah, then? That’s where Carnes is, if you’re interested in meeting them.”
She nodded in a manner that was akin to a shrug, hoisting one of her many tool belts onto her pleated skirts.
“I’ve never been in a big city, I would like to see one,” she said.
“Don’t let me stop you,” he said, deciding not to mention the kind of reception she might receive there.
“Well, then, what about you? Are you going to the city? Seems like as bad an idea for me as it is for you.”
“Granted,” he said, “I’m not sure yet. We’ll be in Karkos in a few days, and we’ll see what happens. By the way, you don’t happen to have a pair of cups that you could spare, do you?”
“You could just take one or two from the ground. They leave them around all the time. I don’t think they’ll notice if they go missing.”
“And you know that because… you’ve done it before,” he said.
She nodded vigorously, before turning and walking away.
Efrain began to walk to the outskirts of the camp, looking for an unaccompanied piece of dishware or two. Clara was soon proven right, as he found that there were quite a few, enough for him to select a set of shallow wooden constructs between a plate and bowl. Perfect for what he was planning, or so he hoped. With his objective secured, he passed between the trees, and once he was a significant distance from the camp, he whistled.
The physical impossibility of the sound amused him, especially since he managed to do it perfectly every time.
Tykhon came through the trees, loping along on his six limbs, swivelling his head this way and that. Efrain wondered if that was for vision, or if he was scenting the air. The mount did not seem worse for ware, despite the danger they’d passed through. Efrain supposed there was no lack of food and water in the woods, and he’d been more than happy to wander along in them.
“I’m glad to see you,” he said, rubbing the creature’s long snout.
The creature nuzzled at him, leaving Efrain to wonder if Carnes had built some fondness for him in the creature’s very blood. He turned back and looked through the trees, seeing the soldiers beginning to pack their tents and tools.
“I don’t entirely know what I’m doing,” he said to his mount, “feels like I might’ve really stepped in it this time, Tykhon. I might end up headless, or with a new friend.”
Tykhon offered no response, other than to lay its massive head on his shoulder.
“Trying to get some blood on me?” he said, noticing the red flecks near the slit of its mouth, “rascal.”
He led Tykhon through the trees and back towards the wagon circle where Innie waited. Oddly enough, the mounts being hitched didn’t bolt or grow agitated at the approach of the much larger creature. Efrain wasn’t sure how Carnes had managed that either, but he supposed it was just another example of the skill of the flesh lord.
Soon, he and Innie were heading to the top of the line, but they stopped before they reached where the men were forming up. Damafelce was washing some clothes in a creek, leaving a trail of red-purple water.
“Don’t you have a page to do that for you?” he said from the back of his mount.
“I do,” she said, “but I prefer to do it myself. It’s what I used to do while my mother composed.”
“A bit of home then?” he said.
She nodded as she withdrew the shirt from the stream, its pale surface still stuffed with a red-brown stain.
“That being said,” she said, “I think this one is beyond my aid. I see you found your mount, lord Efrain. He’d been trailing the caravan for a while, some of the soldiers were getting nervous.”
“Well, I’m glad they didn’t shoot him. I would’ve been quite upset, though I doubt they would’ve harmed him much.”
“What is he exactly?” she said, wringing out the shirt before throwing it over her well muscled shoulder, “I’ve never seen nor heard of a beast like him.”
“A chimera of some description,” Efrain said, “actually I don’t even know if it's a he. It was a gift from a friend.”
“A… what?” Damafelce said, trying to sound out ‘chimera’.
“A mixture of animals, modified and merged. Flesh lords dabble in such things occasionally.”
“And is that… blood around his muzzle?” she said, looking concerned.
“Yes. He’s… well, I think he eats both plants and flesh, given the chance. I’ve seen him eating berries, and also… an eagle. I’m not sure how he managed to catch it,” Efrain said.
Damafelce looked more impressed than frightened, but Efrain noticed how her eyes drifted down to the claws on the forelimbs of the creature.
“He’s not particularly aggressive,” Efrain said, “but I think he can get skittish.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. Is there anything you wanted to speak to me about?”
“No, no,” Efrain said, “I just saw you in the clearing and wanted to say hello.”
She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, clearly doubting him.
“Although, there’s one question I would like to ask if you wouldn’t mind.”
“There it is,” said the captain, “well, then, ask away.”
“This seems like a less than desirable post for you, so far away from home. Why did you come?”
Her eyebrows furrowed at the question, almost as if she was insulted that he’d even asked her.
“I volunteered, we all did. Even the commander. He needed good men, so he had us.”
“Well then, that wraps some lingering questions I had,” Efrain said, nodding, “I’ll see you on the road, captain.”
Now that was interesting, Efrain thought, so was Naia put forward, or did he volunteer on his own?
Efrain rode on to where the men were massing, and waited patiently for the line to form up properly. Tykhon shifted his weight to the side and began to rub himself on the bark of a nearby tree, snuffling and grunting as he did so. Efrain absent-mindedly rubbed behind his ears as he thought about the day’s lesson.
It didn’t take long for the men to get moving along the old road, though it was more a foot path than anything else. Efrain didn’t have much time or desire to speak beyond common courtesy as he and Innie rode alongside the soldiers, and most were too unnerved by Tykhon to press any conversation. They’d made a distance of perhaps twenty or thirty miles before the day had darkened. The trees were beginning to thin out just slightly, and the balance was shifting definitely to deciduous.
As the men broke for camp, Efrain took up a position on a small rise, where a young birch stuck out from the ground. Tykhon had curled up, chewing on some of the fresh grass as he snorted and twitched, Innie asleep on his back. Efrain set out the two bowls before him, filled from a nearby stream, a fresh picked bundle of herbs, and waited.
Innie awoke at one point, flicking one amber eye over to his assembly.
“Getting prepared for your covert lesson?”
Efrain nodded as he sat, leaning against Tykhon's massive flank.
“I could wake you if you’re interested in aiding in my instruction.”
“Correcting your mistakes, you mean,” she said, “no thank you, I’ll be happy to sleep through your instruction.”
“Charming. At least I’ll be among friends,” Efrain said.
“You’re counting the beast-creature?”
“I take what I can get, including mouthy cats.”
That earned him a little laugh from the wisp-mother.
“And what exactly are you planning to do with those bowls, Efrain?”
“I was planning on making tea,” he said, “though it will be exceedingly poor quality with what fare I have.”
Innie’s laugh was not little this time as she rolled over and settled.
“Never change, Efrain,” she said, as she drifted back to sleep.
The moon was well-risen before Aya crept out from between the trees.
“Sorry,” she said, “they were a little more watchful this time. I had to wait until they were by the fire.”
“I have all the time in the world,” Efrain said, “besides, I don’t intend to keep you for very long.”
“They say we’re going to be coming to Karkos soon,” Aya said, “we might see it as early as tomorrow, the commander says.”
“That might be optimistic,” Efrain said, “maybe if we push ourselves, we could get to the hinterlands. As for actually getting into the city, that’s taking a night ride, which I’m not sure the soldiers would be happy about.”
Aya sat and processed the information in silence.
“Well, in any case, we will soon be in Karkos, barring any misfortune on the road. And we both have had quite enough of that, I think.”
The laughter was brittle, but good-natured regardless.
“So, then, magic. I haven’t done this in a very long time,” he said, “teaching, that is. As with anything, it’s best to understand the fundamentals of what we call magic. Under normal circumstances, this would take a few weeks, and we’d have lots of practical examples. Oh well, we’ll have to make do.”
He gestured to the various pieces in front of him.
“I teach in a more specific way than I imagine the paladins would, Three bedrock principles, which, while seemingly simple, take time to truly grasp. Memory, intent, emotion. A goal to find, the method to find it, and something to drive at. Do you understand?”
“I- I guess.”
“They seem a bit abstract, don’t they?” Efrain said, “don’t stress over the literal meanings of the words. They are flexible concepts, meant to capture a larger process. That is, the process of making magic.”
He held up his hand, and tried to envision the sparks of a blacksmith’s hammer. What he found instead, was a different explosion of colour and sound. The memory was surprising, and he couldn’t place it, but he remembered a name.
‘Fireworks’.
From his hand, a little stream of multicoloured tracers and dots of light flowed out into the night, vanishing into the dark. Aya gave a little gasp of delight as they floated above her head. He let his hand fall, pushing a dish of water towards the young girl.
“Do you want to take a guess at what your first actual act of magic will be?”
“Uh…” she said, looking down at the assorted plates and herbs, “are you asking me to make… tea?”
Efrain Belacore, behind his mask, smiled wider than he ever had in death.
[←Chapter 56] [Cover Art] [My Links] [Index] [Discord] [Subreddit] [Chapter 58→]
submitted by The_Alloquist to redditserials [link] [comments]
On the whole, things were actually looking up for Efrain at least as far as he could reckon. It was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one that Naia had reached out to him. Adding on top of it that at least one of the children had fallen right into his lap, he might come away from this trip with more than near-death experiences.
The trio was sitting on the wooden floor of the waggon, the morning light rapidly brightening. It wouldn’t be long before the paladin’s awoke, by Efrain’s reckoning, so they’d best be quick.
“Well,” Efrain began, “I’ll let you ask three questions. That’s all we have time for today.”
Having a student, a proper student, was a prospect that he enjoyed more than he cared to admit. Aya took her time, drumming her fingers on the floor as she tried to come up with whatever her mind demanded of him.
“What is magic? What’s the difference between magic and miracles? And… what am I?”
Three, concise. Innie stirred at the first two, and Efrai guessed that Aya had already asked them before.
“‘What is magic’ is a matter of some debate. In the most practical sense, it’s a way of manipulating the world. Some have worshipped it as divine or spiritual. Some haven’t,” Efrain answered, “though, if you want my personal opinion, magic is a process of discovery, just as mathematics or philosophy is. It requires skill, or talent, most of all, dedication and practice.”
She nodded, this definition perhaps striking a cord with her.
“The difference between magic and miracles?” he said, “Well, I’m not entirely sure what miracles you’re referring to, but I can certainly attest that there are those that pass off magic as miracles.”
Aya stiffed slightly as it, and Efrain guessed from where the questions had sprung.
“Ah. I would’ve imagined the paladins said something like that. Self-aggrandizing hogwash - they use magic, I use magic. It’s fundamentally the same thing.”
He left out the part about how radically inefficient their methods likely were - that was for a later time.
“But the church says-”
“That magic is a sin. Something used by people in dark places?” snorted Efrain, “Angorrah used to be a centre of magical education, though the church would never admit that. I myself used to dwell there, many years ago.”
“The madame said that you would know about the night of the Burning Tree,” said Aya, looking at the cat, “that you lived through it.”
Efrain, at the usage of the word ‘madame’, also looked at the cat, significantly less impressed than his young charge. He indeed had lived through it, although he couldn’t recall it.
“It was over three centuries ago,” he said, “complete chaos. Partisans from the lands conquered during the Helgacite expansion. Angry youths from the Academies who felt betrayed by the church, mixing with other factions. Worst of all was the portion of the military that wanted to overthrow the ruling authority. The Night of the Burning Tree was a poorly thought out riot.”
Once more, the hypocrisy of the unknown haunted his assertion.
“I left the city not long after,” he said, “the writing was on the wall at that point. The church was preparing for decades to destroy the Academy, and that night was the perfect excuse for them to do so. Sometimes I wonder…”
Aya leaned forwards, clearly interested in this history he recounted.
“But that’s not relevant to your questions, nice try,” he said, leaving his suspicions on who exactly had set fire to the sacred tree to himself, “as for your third question - what are you.”
Out of habit, a long finger reached up to scratch at his temple.
“You are an enigma, a mystery. I don’t think I’ve encountered anything quite like you, and, believe me, between books and my own travels, that is not a low bar. It’s rare to stumble on someone so unique.”
Efrain was conscious of how bright it was beginning to get.
“Perhaps we’ll find some answers as we continue to explore magic together,” he put together quickly, “but alas, that’ll have to wait for another time. Best that you get back to your fellows. Quick now.”
Satisfied, at least for the moment, Aya thanked him, and with a little bow to Innie, quickly got out of the wagon and departed.
“A bow?” he said to his long-time companion.
“I was never going to get it from you,” she said, snorted, “besides, how long will it be before you get her calling you ‘teacher’?”
Efrain decided that was fair and not to press the point.
“I’m going to find Tykhon, I’d rather ride him than be in this rickety thing on a forest path,” he said, “also, have you see Clarallel?”
“She seems to be having a ball,” Innie said, “There’s no shortage of injuries for her to treat.”
“Oh, goodie,” he said, “at least she’s been keeping busy I’m sure.”
Efrain made his way around the camp, not taking long before finding another class taking place. Claralelle was inscribing lines in the dirt with a stick, depicting this muscle and that, while a collection of mostly shirtless men and women stood around her. As she explained its shape and what connected into what, she indicated so on her model - a vaguely embarrassed looking young soldier in the middle.
Efrain leaned against a tree, studying the reactions of the soldiers as Claralle launched into a fairly in depth explanation of the forces involved in a sword swing. To their credit, most of them seemed fascinated, and one was even scribbling hasty notes on a piece of parchment. As the lesson wrapped up, and the soldiers departed speaking in hushed tones, Efrain walked up behind Clara.
“My. Seems you’re gaining a following,” he said.
“Something like that?” she said in her customary joyous tone, “they’re interested. I’m interested. I might as well share!”
“Indeed,” he said, “keep in mind not to complain about the church too heavily, lest you land in hot water with some.”
She gave him a blank look, and it occurred to Efrain that she might not even know the slightest about the church, other than it existed.
“Anyways,” he continued, “I wanted to know what your plans were. Now that we’re out of both frying pan and fire.”
“Oh, I have no idea,” she said.
“...really?”
“I suppose I should go find another flesh lord, and complete my training. Or set up my own practice and… practice. Oh, and I like to read, and there are a lot of books. And there are a lot of people to treat as well!”
“Uh-huh,” Efrain murmured, “well, I don’t know about any others, but I can certainly introduce you to Carnes. Whether or not they’d be willing to take you on as a student is another story.”
“Also, I should find the skull of my master, if it hasn’t been crushed to dust by now,” she said, “we used to joke that I would strip it of the flesh and boil it. Then I’d put a little hat on it, or maybe use it to drink wine from. I don’t entirely remember.”
“They may have been joking.”
“No, I don’t think so. Either way, he’s dead, so he doesn’t have the luxury of choice.”
“Well, then,” Efrain said, clearing his throat to change the subject, “is it on to Angorrah, then? That’s where Carnes is, if you’re interested in meeting them.”
She nodded in a manner that was akin to a shrug, hoisting one of her many tool belts onto her pleated skirts.
“I’ve never been in a big city, I would like to see one,” she said.
“Don’t let me stop you,” he said, deciding not to mention the kind of reception she might receive there.
“Well, then, what about you? Are you going to the city? Seems like as bad an idea for me as it is for you.”
“Granted,” he said, “I’m not sure yet. We’ll be in Karkos in a few days, and we’ll see what happens. By the way, you don’t happen to have a pair of cups that you could spare, do you?”
“You could just take one or two from the ground. They leave them around all the time. I don’t think they’ll notice if they go missing.”
“And you know that because… you’ve done it before,” he said.
She nodded vigorously, before turning and walking away.
Efrain began to walk to the outskirts of the camp, looking for an unaccompanied piece of dishware or two. Clara was soon proven right, as he found that there were quite a few, enough for him to select a set of shallow wooden constructs between a plate and bowl. Perfect for what he was planning, or so he hoped. With his objective secured, he passed between the trees, and once he was a significant distance from the camp, he whistled.
The physical impossibility of the sound amused him, especially since he managed to do it perfectly every time.
Tykhon came through the trees, loping along on his six limbs, swivelling his head this way and that. Efrain wondered if that was for vision, or if he was scenting the air. The mount did not seem worse for ware, despite the danger they’d passed through. Efrain supposed there was no lack of food and water in the woods, and he’d been more than happy to wander along in them.
“I’m glad to see you,” he said, rubbing the creature’s long snout.
The creature nuzzled at him, leaving Efrain to wonder if Carnes had built some fondness for him in the creature’s very blood. He turned back and looked through the trees, seeing the soldiers beginning to pack their tents and tools.
“I don’t entirely know what I’m doing,” he said to his mount, “feels like I might’ve really stepped in it this time, Tykhon. I might end up headless, or with a new friend.”
Tykhon offered no response, other than to lay its massive head on his shoulder.
“Trying to get some blood on me?” he said, noticing the red flecks near the slit of its mouth, “rascal.”
He led Tykhon through the trees and back towards the wagon circle where Innie waited. Oddly enough, the mounts being hitched didn’t bolt or grow agitated at the approach of the much larger creature. Efrain wasn’t sure how Carnes had managed that either, but he supposed it was just another example of the skill of the flesh lord.
Soon, he and Innie were heading to the top of the line, but they stopped before they reached where the men were forming up. Damafelce was washing some clothes in a creek, leaving a trail of red-purple water.
“Don’t you have a page to do that for you?” he said from the back of his mount.
“I do,” she said, “but I prefer to do it myself. It’s what I used to do while my mother composed.”
“A bit of home then?” he said.
She nodded as she withdrew the shirt from the stream, its pale surface still stuffed with a red-brown stain.
“That being said,” she said, “I think this one is beyond my aid. I see you found your mount, lord Efrain. He’d been trailing the caravan for a while, some of the soldiers were getting nervous.”
“Well, I’m glad they didn’t shoot him. I would’ve been quite upset, though I doubt they would’ve harmed him much.”
“What is he exactly?” she said, wringing out the shirt before throwing it over her well muscled shoulder, “I’ve never seen nor heard of a beast like him.”
“A chimera of some description,” Efrain said, “actually I don’t even know if it's a he. It was a gift from a friend.”
“A… what?” Damafelce said, trying to sound out ‘chimera’.
“A mixture of animals, modified and merged. Flesh lords dabble in such things occasionally.”
“And is that… blood around his muzzle?” she said, looking concerned.
“Yes. He’s… well, I think he eats both plants and flesh, given the chance. I’ve seen him eating berries, and also… an eagle. I’m not sure how he managed to catch it,” Efrain said.
Damafelce looked more impressed than frightened, but Efrain noticed how her eyes drifted down to the claws on the forelimbs of the creature.
“He’s not particularly aggressive,” Efrain said, “but I think he can get skittish.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. Is there anything you wanted to speak to me about?”
“No, no,” Efrain said, “I just saw you in the clearing and wanted to say hello.”
She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, clearly doubting him.
“Although, there’s one question I would like to ask if you wouldn’t mind.”
“There it is,” said the captain, “well, then, ask away.”
“This seems like a less than desirable post for you, so far away from home. Why did you come?”
Her eyebrows furrowed at the question, almost as if she was insulted that he’d even asked her.
“I volunteered, we all did. Even the commander. He needed good men, so he had us.”
“Well then, that wraps some lingering questions I had,” Efrain said, nodding, “I’ll see you on the road, captain.”
Now that was interesting, Efrain thought, so was Naia put forward, or did he volunteer on his own?
Efrain rode on to where the men were massing, and waited patiently for the line to form up properly. Tykhon shifted his weight to the side and began to rub himself on the bark of a nearby tree, snuffling and grunting as he did so. Efrain absent-mindedly rubbed behind his ears as he thought about the day’s lesson.
It didn’t take long for the men to get moving along the old road, though it was more a foot path than anything else. Efrain didn’t have much time or desire to speak beyond common courtesy as he and Innie rode alongside the soldiers, and most were too unnerved by Tykhon to press any conversation. They’d made a distance of perhaps twenty or thirty miles before the day had darkened. The trees were beginning to thin out just slightly, and the balance was shifting definitely to deciduous.
As the men broke for camp, Efrain took up a position on a small rise, where a young birch stuck out from the ground. Tykhon had curled up, chewing on some of the fresh grass as he snorted and twitched, Innie asleep on his back. Efrain set out the two bowls before him, filled from a nearby stream, a fresh picked bundle of herbs, and waited.
Innie awoke at one point, flicking one amber eye over to his assembly.
“Getting prepared for your covert lesson?”
Efrain nodded as he sat, leaning against Tykhon's massive flank.
“I could wake you if you’re interested in aiding in my instruction.”
“Correcting your mistakes, you mean,” she said, “no thank you, I’ll be happy to sleep through your instruction.”
“Charming. At least I’ll be among friends,” Efrain said.
“You’re counting the beast-creature?”
“I take what I can get, including mouthy cats.”
That earned him a little laugh from the wisp-mother.
“And what exactly are you planning to do with those bowls, Efrain?”
“I was planning on making tea,” he said, “though it will be exceedingly poor quality with what fare I have.”
Innie’s laugh was not little this time as she rolled over and settled.
“Never change, Efrain,” she said, as she drifted back to sleep.
The moon was well-risen before Aya crept out from between the trees.
“Sorry,” she said, “they were a little more watchful this time. I had to wait until they were by the fire.”
“I have all the time in the world,” Efrain said, “besides, I don’t intend to keep you for very long.”
“They say we’re going to be coming to Karkos soon,” Aya said, “we might see it as early as tomorrow, the commander says.”
“That might be optimistic,” Efrain said, “maybe if we push ourselves, we could get to the hinterlands. As for actually getting into the city, that’s taking a night ride, which I’m not sure the soldiers would be happy about.”
Aya sat and processed the information in silence.
“Well, in any case, we will soon be in Karkos, barring any misfortune on the road. And we both have had quite enough of that, I think.”
The laughter was brittle, but good-natured regardless.
“So, then, magic. I haven’t done this in a very long time,” he said, “teaching, that is. As with anything, it’s best to understand the fundamentals of what we call magic. Under normal circumstances, this would take a few weeks, and we’d have lots of practical examples. Oh well, we’ll have to make do.”
He gestured to the various pieces in front of him.
“I teach in a more specific way than I imagine the paladins would, Three bedrock principles, which, while seemingly simple, take time to truly grasp. Memory, intent, emotion. A goal to find, the method to find it, and something to drive at. Do you understand?”
“I- I guess.”
“They seem a bit abstract, don’t they?” Efrain said, “don’t stress over the literal meanings of the words. They are flexible concepts, meant to capture a larger process. That is, the process of making magic.”
He held up his hand, and tried to envision the sparks of a blacksmith’s hammer. What he found instead, was a different explosion of colour and sound. The memory was surprising, and he couldn’t place it, but he remembered a name.
‘Fireworks’.
From his hand, a little stream of multicoloured tracers and dots of light flowed out into the night, vanishing into the dark. Aya gave a little gasp of delight as they floated above her head. He let his hand fall, pushing a dish of water towards the young girl.
“Do you want to take a guess at what your first actual act of magic will be?”
“Uh…” she said, looking down at the assorted plates and herbs, “are you asking me to make… tea?”
Efrain Belacore, behind his mask, smiled wider than he ever had in death.
[←Chapter 56] [Cover Art] [My Links] [Index] [Discord] [Subreddit] [Chapter 58→]
2023.06.05 03:27 WholeResults199 Does bitterness and bad luck ever go away?
I used to be a confident and optimistic person. I worked since i was 15. No car? No problem. I ALWAYS found a way. Suddenly, in adulthood i started having extremely bad luck. Found out my boyfriend was married, then he knocked me out in public. Got a new bf and my sister told him I cheated. My sister fought me & pressed charges on ME! The state put a protective order (before dropping it bc she had no case) & it made my then bf hate me. I lived with him because we’d moved to NY together. He became abusive, & turns out I was pregnant but couldn’t leave him because for 9 months I only got 1 under table job interview and nobody hired me since I was straight out of college. My degree was in finance and I was in the saturated finance capital of the world with only an internship under my belt and no connections. Needless to say I never got hired . I couldn’t go to my fam because of the stupid court order. Had to abort 💔 when the case was dropped, I came home. Turns out my boyfriend was cheating. Things got better for a year. Then I had ONE one night stand & got pregnant. At this point, 2018, I’d gotten my own apartment but was still sleeping on the floor bc I couldn’t afford anything else (my ex left me all of our debt 😖). Anyway, I had no communication with my fam, no friends, no money & not even a pillow to my name even tho i had 2 jobs and the guy didn’t want the baby. I had another abortion & just wanted to die. Mid 2018, I FINALLY got on my feet. & found a “better” job. They were sexist and racist to me. The Karen tried to get me fired since my first day. I couldn’t leave the job bc I really needed it. 2020 my knees gave out & I couldn’t walk. I was 30 years old. COVID happened & I got stuck working 14 hrs a day. Then I got laid off. 2021, I could walk again. I got diagnosed with ADHD, my friends stopped talking to me. I was a victim of a hate crime and got a mini concussion. My boyfriend didn’t go see me knowing I had nobody. I was supposed to start a new job the next day and I couldn’t bc I had a black eye and swollen lip & was generally out of it. I was stressed bc unemployment hadn’t paid me for months for no reason. I was burning through my savings. Then i found out that boyfriend was cheating. My stove was leaking gas. My landlord cursed me o and would not only show up at my apartment cursing at me, but tried to throw me out over the stove leaking AND refused to fix it. I stopped getting my period due to stress. That’s when I noticed I wasn’t able to cope anymore. Anyway, I was top 2 at my job & somehow got fired anyway. I tried to run away to Miami and I got rear ended on the freeway the next day. I came back to California. Got 2 new jobs and was fired from each. I’d had another car acciden for the last job before being fired on Nov 30, 2022. The mechanic ruined my car & refused to fix it. Not even the camera worked. I caught COVID. Was alone on Christmas (December 2022), got a text that my stepdad was hospitalized. 2 minutes later, someone attempted to break into my apartment and I had nobody to call for help. I just had to hope he wouldn’t get in before the police came. He didn’t get in. A few days later my rent got raised and I realized I wouldn’t be able afford my bills or anything if I paid January rent. I also was so mentally gone at this point from stress that I couldn’t fathom having a job. I had to move back in with my parents on December 31, 2022. The next day, Jan 1, 2023, a woman at a store physically attacked me for walking into a store when apparently she wanted to be the only one to go through the doors, despite BOTH doors being wide open. I lost my mind and began idealizing death at this point. February I tried to do something nice for myself and get some highlights, the hair dresser fried my hair off. It was literally disintegrating at the slightest touch. When I asked for my money back, she told me off in front of everyone, called security, and in a rage grabbed me by my shoulder . I was so shocked and weak and broken at this point. I just asked her not to touch me and then I had a complete and severe mental breakdown in public. I cried uncontrollably and I couldn’t stop 😞. It’s now Jun 2023. Yesterday, I decided I’ve healed enough to try and step back into the world. I decided to grab dinner with an acquaintance but on my way home a truck swerved right into my car. I need to get a higher paying job but I have no references since I’m always being fired. Today, my phone has stopped charging. I need to buy a new one or fix this one even tho i just bought this refurbished one 2 months ago. Also, my body is aching from the accident, & I think I’m catching a cold or flu just from the stress. I don’t understand how this has happened to me. I’m objectively intelligent. I went to college. I am very pretty and I try to say and do the right thing always, but somehow someway I continue being crushed by life. My mom says that I’m a little negativity magnet and she’s right. There are so many things I didn’t even mention here. Just so much that if I heard someone else tell me, I wouldn’t believe it. Everyone around me is prospering financially, married with kids, being promoted, buying property. Even my evil sister met someone while in a 10 year relationship & mow that her relationship is over, she’s marrying that other guy. Who happens to be a gas station mogul and millionaire. He takes her to Dubai and gets her jewelry. Wedding in Italy etc. Meanwhile I seem to Continuously have nothing. Not a friend. Not a career . Love life is trash. Idk anyone who’s luck is as bad as mine. And so, I’d like to ask if anyone’s ever experienced this sort of luck before and do things ever get better? Does luck ever change? Will I ever be a happy beautiful person again or will I always be jaded and afraid of life from now on?
submitted by WholeResults199 to Advice [link] [comments]
2023.06.05 03:03 Ralfop Magic Slim - Body Shaper Corset Let our Magic Slim - Body Shaper Corset bind the fat of your tummy and back! It is designed with 8-point crossed pressure belt on the girdle to smoothen the flabby muscles of your tummy and back effectively. The classic U shape design lifts your chest, shaping it into
submitted by Ralfop to HANITSYPRODUCTS [link] [comments]
2023.06.05 02:56 BeefusTheDingus Trek Domane Sl6 Gen 4 vs. Canyon Ultimate CF SL 8 Disc
Hello,
For reference, I'm a fairly novice rider, just completed my first 100k ride after slowly building up for the last year and a half. I'm a serious runner but cycling has always been my preferred cross training sport.
I currently own a Trek Dual Sport 2 that is from 2014 I believe and it has served me well but I want something that can handle some serious miles and higher speeds.
Both of these bikes seem very appealing to me given the similar specs on each bike. My only hesitation is that, while Canyon has a much better price, I am unsure of how well it handles country / rougher roads that has loose gravel at points.
My LBS is also a Trek one so that is a point in Trek's direction as well. Ultimately, (pun intended) I want my first serious road bike that will last me and help me reach my goals of comfortably riding up to 100 miles at a time. It would be fantastic to get that at a cheaper price but I appreciate any thoughts or ideas.
submitted by BeefusTheDingus to whichbike [link] [comments]
For reference, I'm a fairly novice rider, just completed my first 100k ride after slowly building up for the last year and a half. I'm a serious runner but cycling has always been my preferred cross training sport.
I currently own a Trek Dual Sport 2 that is from 2014 I believe and it has served me well but I want something that can handle some serious miles and higher speeds.
Both of these bikes seem very appealing to me given the similar specs on each bike. My only hesitation is that, while Canyon has a much better price, I am unsure of how well it handles country / rougher roads that has loose gravel at points.
My LBS is also a Trek one so that is a point in Trek's direction as well. Ultimately, (pun intended) I want my first serious road bike that will last me and help me reach my goals of comfortably riding up to 100 miles at a time. It would be fantastic to get that at a cheaper price but I appreciate any thoughts or ideas.
2023.06.05 02:29 sila_ Do any of these things sound familiar? Advice
I’ve been diagnosed with OCD since the age of 7, however, I’ve never really felt like some of my “ticks” were directly correlated with obsessive compulsion disorder. Also as I’ve grown older I’ve started to have fewer compulsions and more intense feelings of discomfort to abnormal things.
A friend of mine actually referred me to this subreddit and besides a couple of Google searches, I’m pretty unfamiliar with SPD. I would like to know if anyone experiences some of these intense feelings associated with certain “things” (and just hear some feedback about whether or not these feelings could be related to SPD).
*Brushing my teeth freaks me out (although I do it every day)- the feeling of the bristles on my teeth causes discomfort and mental distress
*I cannot eat any cooked vegetables - nor can “cooked” vegetables touch anything on my plate let alone be on my plate
*I am extremely sensitive to smells in the kitchen- to the extent that I will get nauseous if someone is cooking vegetables
*I’m very weary of cross-contamination in the kitchen -using the same spoons for different foods freaks me out
*I cannot walk on wet leaves- the feeling of stepping on wet leaves makes me extremely overwhelmed and nauseous ( I’ve cried before because I was surrounded by wet leaves)
*Certain plants/vegetation makes me uncomfortable for no reason
*Cracks in cement where tiny plants have formed make me feel uncomfortable in my body
*Bright lights cause me to get irritable/angry
If anyone experiences any of these things- please let me know. I’m just looking for other people who share similar experiences to feel a little less alone in my head <3
submitted by sila_ to SPD [link] [comments]
A friend of mine actually referred me to this subreddit and besides a couple of Google searches, I’m pretty unfamiliar with SPD. I would like to know if anyone experiences some of these intense feelings associated with certain “things” (and just hear some feedback about whether or not these feelings could be related to SPD).
*Brushing my teeth freaks me out (although I do it every day)- the feeling of the bristles on my teeth causes discomfort and mental distress
*I cannot eat any cooked vegetables - nor can “cooked” vegetables touch anything on my plate let alone be on my plate
*I am extremely sensitive to smells in the kitchen- to the extent that I will get nauseous if someone is cooking vegetables
*I’m very weary of cross-contamination in the kitchen -using the same spoons for different foods freaks me out
*I cannot walk on wet leaves- the feeling of stepping on wet leaves makes me extremely overwhelmed and nauseous ( I’ve cried before because I was surrounded by wet leaves)
*Certain plants/vegetation makes me uncomfortable for no reason
*Cracks in cement where tiny plants have formed make me feel uncomfortable in my body
*Bright lights cause me to get irritable/angry
If anyone experiences any of these things- please let me know. I’m just looking for other people who share similar experiences to feel a little less alone in my head <3
2023.06.05 02:15 TNUGS Rogue RLS1 vs Recording King RG-32 or 35
are the recording kings worth the extra $100?
and which one is going to be the easiest to get the classic, in-demand country sounds out of? single coil P90, humbucker, or slant pups?
for reference I am a professional musician in nashville looking to add another tool to my belt.
submitted by TNUGS to steelguitar [link] [comments]
and which one is going to be the easiest to get the classic, in-demand country sounds out of? single coil P90, humbucker, or slant pups?
for reference I am a professional musician in nashville looking to add another tool to my belt.
2023.06.05 02:09 KayakingHedgehog 36 [M4F] NC - Did I take your breath way, or was it the hay fever?
It’s that time of year again! Love is in the air along with all the plant jizz, and I am looking for the someone who is willing to venture out into this yellow, dusty mess with me, and then come home and just take a nap before our sinuses close up in anger and we cough ourselves to sleep. I am looking for someone to vent my mundane troubles too, someone that I know would be there to help with whatever may come up, and someone that I can laugh with, someone to cry with, someone that would just run with a crazy idea without hesitation.
Enough about me! Let’s talk about what you may be looking for! Are you looking for that special someone? You know, the one that laugh with on a daily basis. The one that you can have an entire conversation with using nothing but funny pictures? Are you looking for the creepy and the kooky? What about the mysterious and spooky? Would that someone be a person with a mohawk that is forever changing colors? How about a neatly trimmed beard that smells of sandalwood? What about the smell of Old Spice? Would that person also happen to have a few piercings and tattoos? Do you like the twang of a Southern accent? What if that accent was happen to be from a guy who is open minded? Do you enjoy a quick wit? How about being fluent in smartassary? How about a guy that is taking care of way too many fish? How about a guy who is starting to find grey hairs in his beard and is embracing the chance to become a silver fox?
Would you like for that person to be able to build a computer and change your oil all in the same day? How about having your tires rotated, breaks changed? I can even do headlights and air filters! Does the thought of helping turtles cross a busy road and helping tiny tadpoles stay safe with a pool of water during the summer tickle your fancy? Would you like to come home and have a pot roast and chocolate cake waiting for you? How about coming home to that random piece of IKEA furniture fully assembled? What about someone who would help while you built the IKEA? Does the idea of a guy who has reached the level of old that he enjoys puzzles intrigue you? How about if he has a love for cats that like to sit on said unfinished puzzles? Are you looking for a guy who can change your oil, replace your brakes, and cook you dinner in the same day? How about a guy who is good with his hands and knows it? If you answered yes to any of these questions, the nerdy home maker package is for you! Who doesn’t want help around the house, basic maintaince taken care of, and some good dick?
Do you have an endless supply of DIY ideas? Well look no further because I do too! Ever wanted a stylish bat house or raised garden bed? I have made both! Would you want a greenhouse? I have plenty of ideas for that! Do you like watching a guy get dirty restoring canoes or building trailers? Do you have a Mad Max fantasy you want to live out? Do you want a house straight from the shire? I have the skills and the 3d printers to make you swoon with possibilities! If you answered yes to any of these questions, the glistening geek package is for you! What’s not to love about watching someone you like getting sweaty while watching your ideas come to life?
For a limited time, if you pick both packages, I will add in the nerdy outdoorsman package for no extra charge! Want to stay in one weekend and marathon Doctor Who, Star Trek, or Futurama? Do you want to play Don’t Starve Together, DnD, or Civ 6? How about Nerf gun fight, or a game of Mario for bragging rights? Feel like staying up late bundled under a load of blankets watching B movies or playing all manor of video, board, or card games? Feel like getting outdoors instead? I can offer spontaneous adventures that may include wondering aimlessly, hiking, and floating blissfully down a river which singing the PACMAN theme song! Random acts of hilarity that could include striking poses and quoting pop culture references! Are you more of a night owl? I can offer you a view of the stars with my telescope!
How about it? Wanna get itchy eyes and a runny nose with me?
submitted by KayakingHedgehog to r4r [link] [comments]
Enough about me! Let’s talk about what you may be looking for! Are you looking for that special someone? You know, the one that laugh with on a daily basis. The one that you can have an entire conversation with using nothing but funny pictures? Are you looking for the creepy and the kooky? What about the mysterious and spooky? Would that someone be a person with a mohawk that is forever changing colors? How about a neatly trimmed beard that smells of sandalwood? What about the smell of Old Spice? Would that person also happen to have a few piercings and tattoos? Do you like the twang of a Southern accent? What if that accent was happen to be from a guy who is open minded? Do you enjoy a quick wit? How about being fluent in smartassary? How about a guy that is taking care of way too many fish? How about a guy who is starting to find grey hairs in his beard and is embracing the chance to become a silver fox?
Would you like for that person to be able to build a computer and change your oil all in the same day? How about having your tires rotated, breaks changed? I can even do headlights and air filters! Does the thought of helping turtles cross a busy road and helping tiny tadpoles stay safe with a pool of water during the summer tickle your fancy? Would you like to come home and have a pot roast and chocolate cake waiting for you? How about coming home to that random piece of IKEA furniture fully assembled? What about someone who would help while you built the IKEA? Does the idea of a guy who has reached the level of old that he enjoys puzzles intrigue you? How about if he has a love for cats that like to sit on said unfinished puzzles? Are you looking for a guy who can change your oil, replace your brakes, and cook you dinner in the same day? How about a guy who is good with his hands and knows it? If you answered yes to any of these questions, the nerdy home maker package is for you! Who doesn’t want help around the house, basic maintaince taken care of, and some good dick?
Do you have an endless supply of DIY ideas? Well look no further because I do too! Ever wanted a stylish bat house or raised garden bed? I have made both! Would you want a greenhouse? I have plenty of ideas for that! Do you like watching a guy get dirty restoring canoes or building trailers? Do you have a Mad Max fantasy you want to live out? Do you want a house straight from the shire? I have the skills and the 3d printers to make you swoon with possibilities! If you answered yes to any of these questions, the glistening geek package is for you! What’s not to love about watching someone you like getting sweaty while watching your ideas come to life?
For a limited time, if you pick both packages, I will add in the nerdy outdoorsman package for no extra charge! Want to stay in one weekend and marathon Doctor Who, Star Trek, or Futurama? Do you want to play Don’t Starve Together, DnD, or Civ 6? How about Nerf gun fight, or a game of Mario for bragging rights? Feel like staying up late bundled under a load of blankets watching B movies or playing all manor of video, board, or card games? Feel like getting outdoors instead? I can offer spontaneous adventures that may include wondering aimlessly, hiking, and floating blissfully down a river which singing the PACMAN theme song! Random acts of hilarity that could include striking poses and quoting pop culture references! Are you more of a night owl? I can offer you a view of the stars with my telescope!
How about it? Wanna get itchy eyes and a runny nose with me?
2023.06.05 02:08 KayakingHedgehog 36 [M4F] NC - Did I take your breath away, or was it the hay fever?
It’s that time of year again! Love is in the air along with all the plant jizz, and I am looking for the someone who is willing to venture out into this yellow, dusty mess with me, and then come home and just take a nap before our sinuses close up in anger and we cough ourselves to sleep. I am looking for someone to vent my mundane troubles too, someone that I know would be there to help with whatever may come up, and someone that I can laugh with, someone to cry with, someone that would just run with a crazy idea without hesitation.
Enough about me! Let’s talk about what you may be looking for! Are you looking for that special someone? You know, the one that laugh with on a daily basis. The one that you can have an entire conversation with using nothing but funny pictures? Are you looking for the creepy and the kooky? What about the mysterious and spooky? Would that someone be a person with a mohawk that is forever changing colors? How about a neatly trimmed beard that smells of sandalwood? What about the smell of Old Spice? Would that person also happen to have a few piercings and tattoos? Do you like the twang of a Southern accent? What if that accent was happen to be from a guy who is open minded? Do you enjoy a quick wit? How about being fluent in smartassary? How about a guy that is taking care of way too many fish? How about a guy who is starting to find grey hairs in his beard and is embracing the chance to become a silver fox?
Would you like for that person to be able to build a computer and change your oil all in the same day? How about having your tires rotated, breaks changed? I can even do headlights and air filters! Does the thought of helping turtles cross a busy road and helping tiny tadpoles stay safe with a pool of water during the summer tickle your fancy? Would you like to come home and have a pot roast and chocolate cake waiting for you? How about coming home to that random piece of IKEA furniture fully assembled? What about someone who would help while you built the IKEA? Does the idea of a guy who has reached the level of old that he enjoys puzzles intrigue you? How about if he has a love for cats that like to sit on said unfinished puzzles? Are you looking for a guy who can change your oil, replace your brakes, and cook you dinner in the same day? How about a guy who is good with his hands and knows it? If you answered yes to any of these questions, the nerdy home maker package is for you! Who doesn’t want help around the house, basic maintaince taken care of, and some good dick?
Do you have an endless supply of DIY ideas? Well look no further because I do too! Ever wanted a stylish bat house or raised garden bed? I have made both! Would you want a greenhouse? I have plenty of ideas for that! Do you like watching a guy get dirty restoring canoes or building trailers? Do you have a Mad Max fantasy you want to live out? Do you want a house straight from the shire? I have the skills and the 3d printers to make you swoon with possibilities! If you answered yes to any of these questions, the glistening geek package is for you! What’s not to love about watching someone you like getting sweaty while watching your ideas come to life?
For a limited time, if you pick both packages, I will add in the nerdy outdoorsman package for no extra charge! Want to stay in one weekend and marathon Doctor Who, Star Trek, or Futurama? Do you want to play Don’t Starve Together, DnD, or Civ 6? How about Nerf gun fight, or a game of Mario for bragging rights? Feel like staying up late bundled under a load of blankets watching B movies or playing all manor of video, board, or card games? Feel like getting outdoors instead? I can offer spontaneous adventures that may include wondering aimlessly, hiking, and floating blissfully down a river which singing the PACMAN theme song! Random acts of hilarity that could include striking poses and quoting pop culture references! Are you more of a night owl? I can offer you a view of the stars with my telescope!
How about it? Wanna get itchy eyes and a runny nose with me?
submitted by KayakingHedgehog to R4R30Plus [link] [comments]
Enough about me! Let’s talk about what you may be looking for! Are you looking for that special someone? You know, the one that laugh with on a daily basis. The one that you can have an entire conversation with using nothing but funny pictures? Are you looking for the creepy and the kooky? What about the mysterious and spooky? Would that someone be a person with a mohawk that is forever changing colors? How about a neatly trimmed beard that smells of sandalwood? What about the smell of Old Spice? Would that person also happen to have a few piercings and tattoos? Do you like the twang of a Southern accent? What if that accent was happen to be from a guy who is open minded? Do you enjoy a quick wit? How about being fluent in smartassary? How about a guy that is taking care of way too many fish? How about a guy who is starting to find grey hairs in his beard and is embracing the chance to become a silver fox?
Would you like for that person to be able to build a computer and change your oil all in the same day? How about having your tires rotated, breaks changed? I can even do headlights and air filters! Does the thought of helping turtles cross a busy road and helping tiny tadpoles stay safe with a pool of water during the summer tickle your fancy? Would you like to come home and have a pot roast and chocolate cake waiting for you? How about coming home to that random piece of IKEA furniture fully assembled? What about someone who would help while you built the IKEA? Does the idea of a guy who has reached the level of old that he enjoys puzzles intrigue you? How about if he has a love for cats that like to sit on said unfinished puzzles? Are you looking for a guy who can change your oil, replace your brakes, and cook you dinner in the same day? How about a guy who is good with his hands and knows it? If you answered yes to any of these questions, the nerdy home maker package is for you! Who doesn’t want help around the house, basic maintaince taken care of, and some good dick?
Do you have an endless supply of DIY ideas? Well look no further because I do too! Ever wanted a stylish bat house or raised garden bed? I have made both! Would you want a greenhouse? I have plenty of ideas for that! Do you like watching a guy get dirty restoring canoes or building trailers? Do you have a Mad Max fantasy you want to live out? Do you want a house straight from the shire? I have the skills and the 3d printers to make you swoon with possibilities! If you answered yes to any of these questions, the glistening geek package is for you! What’s not to love about watching someone you like getting sweaty while watching your ideas come to life?
For a limited time, if you pick both packages, I will add in the nerdy outdoorsman package for no extra charge! Want to stay in one weekend and marathon Doctor Who, Star Trek, or Futurama? Do you want to play Don’t Starve Together, DnD, or Civ 6? How about Nerf gun fight, or a game of Mario for bragging rights? Feel like staying up late bundled under a load of blankets watching B movies or playing all manor of video, board, or card games? Feel like getting outdoors instead? I can offer spontaneous adventures that may include wondering aimlessly, hiking, and floating blissfully down a river which singing the PACMAN theme song! Random acts of hilarity that could include striking poses and quoting pop culture references! Are you more of a night owl? I can offer you a view of the stars with my telescope!
How about it? Wanna get itchy eyes and a runny nose with me?