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Mij tegenvallend, die Magalhäes van Lav Diaz uit 2025 die nu als een ‘Previously unreleased’ in een deel van de NL filmhuizen draait. Een te kleine productie voor zo’n groot verhaal. Vergelijkingen met Herzog’s Aguirre en het wringende Argentijnse ZAMA uit 2017 dringen zich op, maar het komt niet in de buurt. Ga ‘m toch maar zien, om u gelijk te halen. https://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1329907737?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

There was a rose as pink as day: La rose aussi rose que le jour Pouvons-nous offrir à ce jour une autre rose, aussi rose soit-elle ? Laissons son parfum flotter dans l'air, libre et inébranlable. Ne touchez pas à ses épines, car elles piquent, pour bien faire comprendre Que, tandis que chaque pétale tombe, la rose aussi rose que le jour finit par s'effacer et disparaître. Alors, saisissez chaque instant et soyez attentifs à ce qu'il offre ; car cette rose, aussi rose soit-elle, ne faillira jamais. @2023CherylDoyle #Poems #Poetry #Nature #Environmental #ClimateChange

There were limits: Limits A single raindrop fell Creating concentric circles Undulating to the perimeter of the puddle Limits Not unlike the destructive action Of a single person Reverberating to the outer edges of Planet Earth With nowhere to go Limits Of the reminder of the impact Within a simple, single, raindrop Limits @2017CherylDoyle #Poems #Poetry #Environmental #Climatechange #Nature #Indigenous

There was herding mentality: Uniform Contentment The sheep grazed in uniform contentment Upon the green, grassy, meadows Unaware of anything Other than their immediate surroundings With herded thoughts only of feeling secure Ingrained into their illusory, tranquil, existence And the foraging of the sheep winds down along the road They sat in the Sunday church With the preacher preaching from the pulpit While transforming emotional innuendos Into uniform contentment Unaware of anything Other than their immediate surroundings With herded thoughts only of feeling secure Ingrained into their illusory, tranquil, existence And the preaching of the sermon winds down along the road As they drive off to their cookie-cutter homes Sprouting finely manicured, green, grassy, lawns With TV's blaring false advertisements And distant bombs blasting in war-torn countries With neighborhood chats of "How's your family?" And "What great hospitality at the charity ball." And the preaching of the sermon winds down along the road Fallen upon deaf ears By those of an aberrant nature Grazing individually Attune to non-conformist thoughts And so... Following their own, unherded path They wind down along the road Seeking uniform contentment Within their own Continuity @2017CherylDoyle #Poems #Poetry

There was more war: A Bird Called Freedom I wanted to be a bird and fly high and far away… To soar beyond the cries and despair of shattered lives below…. The sound of bombs and gunfire; The clouds of smoke choking people buried under rubble; And the bodies bound in white shrouds awaiting makeshift burials… To fly to a tree not razed to the ground and still standing… To build a nest from every scrap I could find called Freedom ©2023CherylDoyle

There was war: To Ukraine How can I tell you from thousands of miles afar that the pain of Ukraine can be felt like the weight of a falling star Cascading through the universe destruction and torment in its path rectified by faith and glory counteracting its wrath So, hold on to the vision of all the love in our hearts that the suffering of this senseless war will one day depart Remembering freedom will always hold true and your country cannot be taken by a -------- of the attempted coup Sending strength from within us to help lead the way towards a steadfast victory which will never sway And if I were Hercules I would hold the falling star so high in the sky that its brightness could be seen from thousands of miles afar knowing that the weight of the pain of Ukraine had been lifted by the palm of my hand without a scar. @2023CherylDoyle #Poems #Poetry #Ukraine #Democracy #Environmental #ClimateChange

There was a clock: The Doomsday Clock The hands resounded on the Doomsday Clock ‘Twas ________, it was Oh Hickory, Dickory Dock! Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock The silence screamed Oh Hickory, Dickory Dock! The clock’s spring has been blocked And balance is way off Oh Hickory, Dickory Dock! Find the key and have it fixed and locked So, harmony is restored Oh Hickory, Dickory Dock! Your beliefs will be laughed at and mocked By falsified leadership Oh Hickory, Dickory Dock! As… Pandemics flourished… Climate change soared… Biological warfare released… Nuclear warheads positioned… and AI controlled Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock The silence screamed On The Doomsday Clock! Oh Hickory, Dickory Dock! @2026CherylDoyle #Poems #Poetry #Environmental #Climatechange #Nature

There was Another Day: Another Day On the first rotation of the day the newspaper unfolds, the coffee cup is filled, the computer screen lights up and existence as we know it begins, as we blindly see what’s in front of us preferring to flip through ads for new motor cars and entertainment delights, knowing that it’s all there-written in the rhetoric of the day of the planetary demise. We marvel at the likes of Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids, Machu Picchu, Chaco Canyon, Gobekli Tepe, and such…in wonderment of how these ancient civilizations could have possibly built their structures in alignment to the guise of the heavenly bodies without the great expertise of modern technology to guide them in their Midas touch. This extraordinary intelligence from our institutions will surely save the day! But whose intelligence? And what type of intelligence based on whose specifications to pave the way? Will we rely on our children to clean up the mess, whose intelligence is pigeon-holed by standardized tests? Or, will they all stay as they are, intelligence afar? You’ve been warned the crow caws, the rabbit cries, and the eyes of the wolf fool no other, but the newspaper that you read doesn’t heed to the call and you continue filling your coffee cup full of mindless chatter that the computer won’t turn off as you head for an unforeseen tailspin fall. What happened, we say, to the intelligence of the indigenous people who understood and lived within the natural cycles and rhythms of the earth in balance? Burned at the stake, they say, like Joan of Arc. And now you want to resurrect our intelligence for your own monetary gain. Go home. We can’t give you anything. Can’t you see our eyes are of a different nature? Is there nothing to remain? Will the Ghost Dance not rise again? The madness lives on in the anti-environmental dark money politics that leave little to spare, as the Mad Hatter skips gaily down the cobblestone street hat tossed in the air! “Was it a Wonderland that we built?” said Alice to the hare, whose pocket watch was ticking ever so loudly. @2023CherylDoyle #Poems #Poetry #Environmental #ClimateChange #AncientCivilizations #Indigenous

There was Planet Earth: Take the Time to Honor the Wisdom of the Earth Take the time to honor the wisdom of the Earth Before its regenerative powers of rebirth slip away From the blueness of the canopy streaked in the sun’s rays With whispery white clouds of child's play Lost to the sky of the colors of grey From the hazy air lingering through each day Obscuring the vision that cannot be cleared even in a blink away Take the time to honor the wisdom of the Earth Before its regenerative powers of rebirth slip away From the babbling brook likened to a musical soiree Cascading nonsensically on its merry way Lost to the waters clouded in a turbid display From the toxic defilement infiltrating the river's pathway Tarnishing the underlying river's bed forming the thickened power play Take the time to honor the wisdom of the Earth Before its regenerative powers of rebirth slip away From the habitual air currents blowing strong making headway Rising to the four seasons consistent through the straightaway Lost to the trade winds gone astray Over the expansive oceanic passageway through the off course planetary whirl of the day Take the time to honor the wisdom of the Earth Before its regenerative powers of rebirth slip away From the spark of the fire that feeds the forest underway Clearing the undergrowth for the future mainstay Lost to the blaze searing uncontrollably, as if it were an expressway Of combustion taking all in its wake as it migrates Posturing as a throughway Take the time to honor the wisdom of the Earth Before its regenerative powers of rebirth slip away From the heavenly gaze of the Milky Way To the wondering of the brightly filled space creating the display Lost to the intangibility of this skyway From the earth's demise in need of a miracle play Due to its exponential decay @2017CherylDoyle #Poems #Poetry #Environmental #ClimateChange #Nature #SierraClub #NatureConservancy

Marguerite Baker, de RE7, era uma mãe comum. Ela cozinhava e cuidava da família. Antes da infecção, era atenciosa e dedicada à rotina da casa. Mas tudo mudou depois que a família foi infectada. Na cena do jantar, no início do jogo, Marguerite aparece completamente corrompida, mas, mesmo naquele ambiente grotesco, ainda é possível notar gestos de carinho materno. Ela esmaga uma barata, come e diz para Ethan que está bom, que ele pode comer também. Quando ele recusa, Jack, o patriarca da família, força a comida na boca dele. Marguerite fica desesperada, repetindo que ele não está comendo. Quando o marido manda ela se calar, ela responde que fez aquilo para ele. Depois, ela grita e sai da sala, e Jack chuta a cadeira dela. Fica claro que toda a violência daquela cena vem dele, e o que Marguerite sente é mágoa e frustração. O que mais me chama atenção é o forte contraste entre cuidado e monstruosidade. O que faz Marguerite ser vista como monstruosa além da aparência? E para quem isso acontece? No jogo, a casa representa a própria Marguerite, como se fosse seu corpo. As colmeias nas paredes são iguais às do corpo dela, os insetos obedecem a ela e todo o espaço parece uma extensão dela mesma, consumida pela pressão de ser a esposa perfeita, algo que a corroeu por toda a vida. Barbara Creed escreveu um livro inteiro mostrando que, quando o terror transforma a mulher em monstro, isso frequentemente tem relação com a maternidade (como em Alien, A Ninhada, Carrie, etc.). Segundo ela, existe um medo cultural do corpo materno porque ele é visto como algo “fora do controle”, já que o corpo cis com capacidade reprodutora, foco de Creed, gera vida e sangra, ultrapassando os limites que a sociedade define. Isso se conecta ao conceito de abjeção de Kristeva, que é tudo aquilo que causa repulsa porque ameaça as fronteiras entre “dentro e fora”, o que é considerado “limpo” e o que não é. Creed também destaca que esse medo é uma construção patriarcal, como tantas outras. Segundo ela, é a cultura que cria a associação entre o corpo materno e o abjeto, justamente por causa da função reprodutiva da mulher cis, e não por algo que a mulher tenha feito. Nenhuma mulher nasce abjeta. Uma das figuras que ela descreve é a Mãe Arcaica, que dá vida e, ao mesmo tempo, ameaça canibalizar ou reabsorver o que pariu (aqui falamos especificamente do útero). Creed também diz que essa figura não se define em relação ao homem, pois o útero não é falta de nada. O medo que ela provoca, como diz Kristeva, é o medo do poder de dar a vida. Voltando ao RE7, quando Marguerite morre, todos os insetos que ela gerou morrem junto, mostrando que a prole era apenas uma extensão do corpo dela. Além disso, anatomicamente, tudo se concentra em sua virilha, onde cresce um ninho de insetos igual ao das paredes. Marguerite "gera" enxames e, para derrotá-la, precisamos destruir esse ninho primeiro (bem específico, não?). Agora, se o terror muitas vezes transforma a mulher em um corpo que precisa ser destruído, isso passa a mensagem de que o corpo feminino é visto como um problema a ser controlado, e a solução sempre vem de fora, de alguém normativo que resolve com violência, como vemos em vários jogos, até mesmo fora do terror. Creed também observa que o monstruoso-feminino, apesar de tudo, quebra a ideia de que feminilidade é passiva. Indo além da monstruosidade física (e alguns homicídios, rs), essas mulheres são incontrolavelmente poderosas e assustadoras. Ela relembra que isso não torna essas imagens automaticamente feministas, pois falam mais do medo masculino do que do desejo feminino. Mas existe espaço para interpretação e reapropriação. Antes, Marguerite era uma mulher que ocupava o menor espaço possível, servia comida, aguentava desaforos e era humilhada pelo marido na frente das visitas. Depois, ela passa a dominar completamente o território e ocupa todos os espaços com sua presença e marca grotesca. Não estou dizendo que isso é bom, claro. Marguerite mata pessoas e serve gente à mesa para convidados desavisados. Mas repare no que a transformação libera: raiva. Aquela mesma Marguerite, que era agredida pelo marido, agora, com toda sua monstruosidade, grita e ocupa o espaço. Parece que a monstruosidade liberou algo que já estava ali, há muito tempo reprimido. Vamos nos lembrar de que isso é uma leitura sobre o corpo de uma mulher cis com capacidade reprodutiva, e Creed, em 1993, escreveu pensando nisso. Mas o mecanismo que ela descreve é uma leitura cultural imposta sobre certos corpos. Se for assim, a mesma lógica se aplica a mulheres trans, pessoas não-binárias, qualquer corpo visto como transgressor por não caber nesse padrão esperado. Creed não desenvolve esse ponto, mas acredito que o argumento dela permite. Mesmo assim, percebo que os jogos raramente permitem um final feliz para as mulheres monstruosas. Quando a mulher é poderosa e excessiva, a resolução do problema geralmente exige domesticar a monstruosidade, equiparando a paz dela à restauração de um corpo normativo (ou cisnormativo). Isso nos diz que o poder absoluto da abjeção não tem um final feliz. A mulher monstruosa não pode continuar monstra e ser feliz. Sendo assim, Marguerite nunca teve chance de continuar. Mas penso que podemos devolver pra ela o que o jogo não explorou, e talvez até negou: ler a Marguerite como raiva e rebelião, muito além da doença. E você, já jogou RE7? Como se sente sobre a representação da Marguerite no jogo?

With Trump you need to expand this to families. I have LGBTQ children. How am I ever going to be able to trust them again where my children are concerned? New routine: don't have any interaction at all with them, build a new family - blood or not - with people you can trust, who have stood with you and vice versa through the destruction of our way of life. https://youtu.be/yFWzpamq9MU?si=DXYJfkUt3G3xaZlG

# Why Muse Image Made Me Rethink My AI Image Workflow Over the past few months, I’ve realized that the biggest improvement in my AI image projects didn’t come from writing longer prompts. It came from changing the way I prepare before generating anything. I used to spend most of my time adjusting prompts. I would add more adjectives, rearrange sentences, and experiment with different style descriptions. Sometimes it worked, but just as often, the results still felt inconsistent or required extensive editing. Recently, I started approaching image generation differently. Instead of beginning with text, I begin with references. Before opening an AI image tool, I collect examples that represent the lighting, color palette, composition, textures, or character style I want to achieve. Organizing these references has made every step that follows feel more intentional. This change has also affected how I evaluate new image-generation models. Rather than asking which model can create the most impressive image from a single prompt, I’m more interested in how well it understands context, combines visual ideas, and supports an image through multiple stages of refinement. That is one reason I have been paying closer attention to [Muse Image](https://museimage-ai.net/). What interests me is not simply the arrival of another image generator, but the possibility of a more structured creative process built around references, instructions, generation, and editing. This direction has encouraged me to organize my own visual materials more carefully. I recently created a small reference library containing: * Lighting examples * Camera angles * Color combinations * Character details * Clothing references * Composition ideas * Typography styles * Background textures I no longer save only the final images I like. I also save the individual visual elements that made those images effective. This has improved the consistency of my projects more than repeatedly rewriting the same prompt. For example, when planning a new character image, I now separate the project into several decisions. I choose the facial appearance, clothing, environment, lighting, camera position, and overall mood before generation begins. The prompt becomes only one part of the process. The references provide visual direction, while the prompt explains how those ideas should be combined. I’m beginning to think that AI image creation is becoming less about discovering one perfect sentence and more about building a repeatable creative system. New models will continue to appear, and their capabilities will keep changing. A well-organized workflow, however, remains useful regardless of which model is being used. That may be the most valuable lesson I have learned recently: better preparation often produces a greater improvement than a longer prompt.

Siempre le he tenido mucho cariño al mundo de Mutant Chronicles/Warzone, y por... cuestiones... ya no tengo ninguna de las miniaturas que tuve en su momento. Y bueno, es un juego de minis que está gafao el pobre, lleva ya mil intentos xdd. Pero bueno, Warzone Eternal, la última versión, tiene buena pinta, y es un juego de escaramuzas con una "banda" de 8-12 miniaturas... el problema original fue que salió por Kickstarter, y que todo venía de USA, así que entre gastos de envío y aduanas y demás era prohibitivo. Pero hace poco sacaron una campaña a través de MyMinyFactory de STLs, así que me metí con todo de cabeza jajaja. He impreso... básicamente uno de todo, y ahora estoy empezando a pintar cosas, empezando por la Legión Oscura y continuando con Cybertronic.

HERE’S HOW TO GET YOUR FREE DOWNLOAD: • Tap the link to the Purchase Page: https://payhip.com/b/TvIO6 and click “Proceed to Check Out” • Fill out your email address and first/last name, enter 0EKFQISY8O to the "Coupon Code" field and click on “Apply” • This takes you to a Thank You page instructing you to check your email for a message from BookFunnel.com (audiobook supplier) that will give you the DOWNLOAD LINK and you're good to go! Mary Knight WHAT THE SEAHORSE TOLD ME Ages 9-99 Green Earth Book Honor Award SUMMER READING RECOMMENDATION! If you have read Mary Knight’s superb, award-winning, first middle-grade novel, SAVING WONDER, you already know that Ms Knight believes that our moral compass is alive and well in children. In her equally superb second middle-grade novel, WHAT THE SEAHORSE TOLD ME (available August 16th), the same moral compass beats at the heart of Camp Koa where children gather each summer to learn Hawaiian legend, tradition and culture. Four children, three from the mainland and one islander, struggle to understand and accept their unique psychic and spiritual gifts. With their individual gifts and a growing bond of friendship, and along with a large cast of ancestral and animal spirits, they defeat two thieves attempting to steal precious and valuable sea turtle eggs. Here, beautifully bundled in one 280 page book, is coming-of-age, self-acceptance, empathy, moral imperative, friendship, action and just plain fun. Both SAVING WONDER and WHAT THE SEAHORSE TOLD ME are 5 star, must reads. Share love, share reading.

Was coerced into Verizon Wireless “kickoff” rallies full of performative loyalty and corporate Kabuki like this. If you wanted a promotion, you HAD to dickride the company. Sometimes I would try, sincerely try, to imagine being the kind of person who cared that much about corporate KPIs. I contain multitudes. None of them gave a shit about Bluetooth headset sales.

I've had a tragic loss recently. A wonderful woman I just started dating was taken by a fatal car wreck. She was around 7 years younger than me but was someone I looked up to. She was so much of what I wish I could be. I was hoping she'd be here to help me become that person I want to be. Now I'm alone again and it hurts so much. She made such an impact on the lives of others, including myself. I'm afraid of losing it though. I only knew her for such a short time and I'm afraid of the memories fading. Before learning about the tragic event. I was making plans to kill myself. I felt I was a lost cause and couldn't do anything to stop it. I still wanted to hear from Sadie though. I hadn't heard from her and I was so worried. I went to her apartment because I missed her. It was silent expect for her young cat Lady meowing. It was the first sign of something terrible. Those meows reverberated a terrifying feeling in me. I wanted to break the door down. I held myself together until I saw the post of what had happened to her. I wept and all my pain from before felt meaningless. Moments before I felt finished and ready to end my life. Then I lost someone I loved so much and I wanted to live again. I want to keep trying. I want to be a great person like she was. I want to love myself as she loved me. I've been living in painful delusions where effort is meaningless. I need others to help me out of them. I need others that can shut off all the worry in my head like she did. It will be awkward but I want to be open and close to others. I want to love more people how I loved her. Her name is Sadie Stoesser, she spoke with kindness and confidence. She had a powerful personality. She felt pain for all the suffering others went through because of an unjust system. She had just became the newly elected precinct chair of Lubbock county democratic party. She was wanting to get the local DSA running again. She had a collection of retro tech and media. Someone that had so much going for her. She also started her transition to a woman this year. I wish I could see all she would had become. I wish I knew so much more about her. I wish I could feel her heart beating next to mine again.

I've had a tragic loss recently. A wonderful woman I just started dating was taken by a fatal car wreck. She was around 7 years younger than me but was someone I looked up to. She was so much of what I wish I could be. I was hoping she'd be here to help me become that person I want to be. Now I'm alone again and it hurts so much. She made such an impact on the lives of others, including myself. I'm afraid of losing it though. I only knew her for such a short time and I'm afraid of the memories fading. Before learning about the tragic event. I was making plans to kill myself. I felt I was a lost cause and couldn't do anything to stop it. I still wanted to hear from Sadie though. I hadn't heard from her and I was so worried. I went to her apartment because I missed her. It was silent expect for her young cat Lady meowing. It was the first sign of something terrible. Those meows reverberated a terrifying feeling in me. I wanted to break the door down. I held myself together until I saw the post of what had happened to her. I wept and all my pain from before felt meaningless. Moments before I felt finished and ready to end my life. Then I lost someone I loved so much and I wanted to live again. I want to keep trying. I want to be a great person like she was. I want to love myself as she loved me. I've been living in painful delusions where effort is meaningless. I need others to help me out of them. I need others that can shut off all the worry in my head like she did. It will be awkward but I want to be open and close to others. I want to love more people how I loved her. Her name is Sadie Stoesser, she spoke with kindness and confidence. She had a powerful personality. She felt pain for all the suffering others went through because of an unjust system. She had just became the newly elected precinct chair of Lubbock county democratic party. She was wanting to get the local DSA running again. She had a collection of retro tech and media. Someone that had so much going for her. She also started her transition to a woman this year. I wish I could see all she would had become. I wish I knew so much more about her. I wish I could feel her heart beating next to mine again.

Jewel grocery stores, owned by Albertsons, hires dumb programmers. I have been trying for some time today to place an order for pickup. Failure! Turned off VPN, in case that was the problem. Nope. Tried a more mainstream browser (Firefox). Nope. I can say this with some authority. I am a retied programmer, 45 years. I've created web sites. I made a good living as a computer systems consultant to companies that could not figure out how hire competent programmers.

The Silent Storm A Chronicle of Long Yun The rain had not fallen in forty-three days. In the year 1276, the Southern Song court clung to the edge of the world like a drowning man to driftwood. Mongol banners blackened the northern horizon. Cities that had stood for centuries were ash. The Emperor was a child. The generals were old. And in the war camp outside Lin’an, a man who had already walked the earth for more than three thousand years stood alone beneath a sky that refused to open. Long Yun wore the black armor of a Song general, though no living soul could remember when he had first received any rank. Some court records, half-legendary, spoke of a silent commander who had served the Han. Older temple inscriptions, weathered almost to nothing, mentioned a warrior of the same name who had stood against the Xiongnu. A few forbidden bamboo slips from the Warring States whispered of a man who did not age and who answered only to the thunder. No one asked too loudly. Men who asked too loudly about Long Yun tended to find their questions answered by silence. He stood on a ridge overlooking the Qiantang River as the Mongol vanguard approached tens of thousands of horsemen, the earth trembling under their advance. Beside him, the young commander Zhang Shijie gripped the hilt of his sword until his knuckles whitened. “They outnumber us three to one,” Zhang said. “Perhaps four. The court wants us to hold until reinforcements arrive from Fujian.” Long Yun’s eyes remained on the dark mass moving across the plain. “Reinforcements will not come in time.” “Then we die here.” “No.” Long Yun turned. For a moment the air around him seemed heavier, charged, as though the sky itself leaned closer to listen. “We make them pay for every li of ground. And we do not die.” That night, while the camp slept fitfully, Long Yun walked alone into the hills. He did not pray. He did not draw a formation. He simply raised his face to the cloudless dark and spoke a single word in a language older than the earliest emperors. The sky answered. By dawn, the Mongols advanced under a sky the color of bruised iron. When their archers raised their bows, the first drops fell. By the time the first rank of cavalry charged, the rain had become a living wall. Horses slipped. Bows warped. Visibility collapsed to ten paces. In that chaos, Long Yun’s smaller force moved like a blade through water striking, vanishing, striking again. He fought at the front, spear flashing, never tiring, never raising his voice. Men later swore that lightning had followed the tip of his weapon, though none could prove it. When the battle ended, the Mongols withdrew in disorder, leaving nearly a third of their number in the mud. The Song forces had lost fewer than four hundred. Zhang Shijie found Long Yun standing over the body of a Mongol noyan, rain streaming down his face. “How?” Zhang asked. Long Yun cleaned his spear. “The sky was ready. We simply gave it a reason.” Word reached the court. The child Emperor conferred upon Long Yun the title of Marquis of the Azure Cloud and the right to maintain a personal guard. Officially, he served the Son of Heaven. Unofficially, those who understood such things knew he answered to a higher throne the Jade Emperor’s mandate, spoken once in an age before written history and never revoked. He had already served under names half-forgotten. In the time of the Western Zhou he had been a quiet strategist who read the weather better than any oracle. During the chaos of the Three Kingdoms he had protected river crossings while warlords carved the land into bleeding pieces. Under the Tang he had held a general’s seal and then set it aside when the court grew too curious about why the same face appeared in portraits painted a century apart. Across the fall of the Song and the rise of the Yuan, Long Yun remained. He did not take sides in the chaos of dynastic change. He protected what could be protected: granaries, river dikes, the lives of common people when armies burned everything else. When the Ming rose, he accepted a general’s seal once more. When the Qing came, he accepted another. Emperors changed. The man in the quiet armor did not. Courtiers learned not to question his ageless face. Generals learned that when Long Yun spoke of weather, of river levels, of the mood of the sky, it was wiser to listen than to argue. He fought pirates along the coast, bandits in the mountains, and, once, a rebellion led by a man who claimed to command dragons of his own. That man died screaming in a storm that appeared from a clear sky. Through it all, Long Yun lived simply. He owned land under different names, accumulated quiet wealth, and never married. Those who grew close to him aged and died. He buried them with care and continued. By the time the Mongols came, he had already lived more than three millennia. By the time the last imperial banners fell, he had lived more than four. In 1911, the empire ended. Long Yun stood on a hill outside Beijing and watched the Qing banners come down. The Republic was proclaimed. Warlords carved the country into pieces. Then came the Japanese. Then the civil war. Then the founding of the People’s Republic. He did not resist the new order. He adapted. By 1952, the man once known across centuries as General Long had become Doctor Long Yun of the Beijing Union Medical College Hospital. His papers were immaculate crafted over decades by careful hands, sealed with the right chops, supported by the testimony of people who owed him quiet debts. He claimed to have studied in Europe before the war, to have lost his family in the chaos, to have returned to serve the new China. No one looked too closely. The country needed doctors more than it needed questions. He specialized in trauma surgery and internal medicine, with an unusual gift for predicting complications related to weather and pressure systems. Colleagues joked that Doctor Long could feel a storm coming in a patient’s blood. They were not entirely wrong. He saved lives with steady hands and an unnatural calm. During the hardest years, when medicine was scarce and politics dangerous, he treated the powerful and the powerless with the same quiet competence. He never joined a faction. He never spoke against the government. He simply worked. By the 1980s, he was one of the most respected physicians in the capital a specialist who somehow never looked older than his mid-thirties. When asked, he smiled and said good genes and careful living. People laughed. Some believed him. Most preferred not to think about it. Few could have guessed that the man writing careful case notes had already watched more than five thousand years of human suffering and recovery. Wealth, carefully hidden across ages, needed a new form. In 1998, under the reforming economic policies, Long Yun established a private charitable foundation registered in Hong Kong and later expanded onto the mainland: The Order of The Long. On paper, it was a medical and cultural trust dedicated to disaster relief, rural healthcare, and the preservation of classical Chinese knowledge. In practice, it held the accumulated properties, lands, and quiet investments of a man who had lived for more than five millennia. Temples that had once been his residences. Mountain estates. Riverfront warehouses. Shares in companies that built hospitals and research centers. All of it sheltered under the Order’s name, managed by a small circle of trustees who understood only that the founder was a private, exacting man who preferred results to recognition. Long Yun himself remained a consulting physician, appearing occasionally at major hospitals, lecturing on the relationship between environment and health, then disappearing for months at a time. Those who tracked him noticed that storms seemed to follow his travels never destructive, always precise, as though the weather itself made way for him. One night in the present day, on a rain-slicked highway outside Shanghai, a black motorcycle cut through the downpour like a blade. The rider wore leather and carried no umbrella. Lightning walked the clouds above him but never struck the road. At a rest stop, a young doctor who had once trained under the famous Long Yun approached the figure leaning against the bike. “Teacher,” the younger man said, uncertain. “I thought… you rarely leave Beijing.” Long Yun looked up. Rain beaded on his hair and ran down a face that had watched the earliest dynasties rise from myth, the Mongols retreat, the Qing fall, and the birth of a new nation. His eyes held the calm of deep water before a storm eyes that had already seen more than five thousand years. “The sky still needs watching,” he said simply. “And the people still need healing. The forms change. The work does not.” He started the engine. The sound was low, steady, like distant thunder gathering strength. “Remember,” he added, almost gently, “every great storm begins with a quiet sky. But the sky is never truly quiet. It is only waiting.” Then he rode into the rain, and the rain parted just enough to let him pass. Far above, in a place that was not a place, the Jade Emperor’s court took note, as it always had. The Spiritual Dragon still walked the earth in mortal shape. He still chose restraint over revelation. He still served, in his own way, the balance between heaven and the world of men. And somewhere in the ledgers of the Order of The Long, new properties were quietly acquired, new clinics funded, new names added to the list of those who would never know the full truth of the man who had once been a general in ages before history was written, then a doctor, and always something far older. The storm continued. It had never really stopped.

✮⋆˙ snownee • 35 • she/her • ISFJ • 18+ please! ˙⋆✮ — general: books, stationery, pokemon plushies, sanrio, cute pink aesthetics — games: apex legends, mahjong, aion 2 (sept release!!) — current anime/manga: noa-senpai, smoking behind the supermarket, darling in the franxx August #promosky time!! It's my birthday month, we should be friends 🎉 ♡ + ↺ appreciated!

Solidarität muss praktisch werden! Hallo ihr lieben Menschen da Draußen😀 Unsere Freundin, Kollegin, Kommilitonin (angehende Pflegefachkraft) Ana aus Peru erlebt gerade einen schweren Schicksalsschlag nach dem anderen. Anas Familie in Peru war in einen schweren Verkehrsunfallverwickelt. Nun ist Ana auf dem Weg nach Peru um ihrer Familie zu helfen. Allerdings ist Ana nicht allein. Mit ihr ihre 5jährige Tochter. Da es kein soziales Gesundheitssystem in Peru gibt, wird Anas Familie auf den Kosten für Intensivstation und weiterer KH-Aufenthalte und Behandlungen (aktuell: auch Beerdigungen) sitzen bleiben Dies überlastet unsere Freundin Ana finanziell derart, dass eine Rückkehr, ihr Aufenthalt und der ihrer hier geborenen Tochter, wie auch ihre Ausbildung gefährdet sind. Let's make solidarity real and great again!!! Jeder € hilft !!! Es hilft auch für noch mehr Reihweite zu sorgen, um Menschen zu erreich die Ana finanziell helfen können mit einer Spende. https://4fund.com/de/m7nw78#donators Vielen Dank für die Aufmerksamkeit, eure Solidarität und Unterstützung !! LG - Jero #Spendenaufruf • #Spendenkampagne • #MutualAid • #Crowdfunding • #Hilfe #BlueskyDE • #SkylineDE #Pflege #Pflegefachkraft #Pflegefachfrau #Pflegeausbildung #Solidarität #HelpNow!

Hey, everyone. I'm in highly dire straits at the moment. The tl;Dr is that I need $500 to stay afloat and work towards getting out of this current hole. I've been out of work since July of 2024. I've tried to stay financially afloat since then through generous donations and aide from friends and family, but I am almost certain those bridges and connections are starting to break the trust I've had with them. The job market in my city is not the greatest and the places that I have applied to are either looking for younger employees or someone who is more qualified for the position, but I have no choice but to continue to apply in hopes that one place will be willing to give me a chance. In the meantime, my partner is dealing with his own struggles, mostly with his mental health issues that keep him from finding employment. He's trying to contribute by streaming on Twitch, but since our Internet has been cut off, he can't do that anymore and has been affected by that. In order for me to get it back on, I will have to either pay what I owe, which is much more than the nothing I have, or go on a payment plan, which needs a down payment first in order for it to go in effect and I don't have any money to do so. I also have rent due soon, as well as figure out how to pay for groceries for a stretch that isn't the dregs at a food pantry. They've helped us out with non perishables, but we need more meats to compliment those non perishables. Here's the breakdown of where any help received will go: - Rent ($50 since I'm on section 8 housing) - Internet ($50 for the payment plan option or $270 for pay past due amount) - Groceries (a minimum of $80 would cover what I need for a while.) - Other costs ($50 for laundry, transportation, and other minor expenses) Total = $230-500 I know that I'm not the only one who is struggling right now, and if the roles were reversed, I would help out that person. But right now, my main focus is trying to find any relief so I can take care of my husband and make sure he is healthy and safe in the long run. If anyone can help, you can click on the links below: http://paypal.me/zionchubby14 My CashApp: $MiWaDude14 Venmo: @MiWaDude14 Please, if you help me out, my husband and I will be forever grateful for your kindness and generosity. Thank you and have a great day/weekend!

On Tuesday, I found out one of my closest friend's (Mike's) dad, Eddie passed away on Sunday July 26, 2026, which was also Mike's 40th birthday. Eddie was only 68 and this came out of nowhere. Their family moved from Brooklyn, NY, to Fords, NJ, where I grew up, in 1992. We met when I was 5 and we've been friends ever since. I even lived with Mike and his now wife, Rachel, from 2017-2021. Eddie had an unconventional career, being an MTA bus driver in NYC for 25 years, before becoming a deacon in the local Catholic church while bartending on the side. He used to set up block parties every 4th of July, hosted countless BBQs, and was always the life of the party. Even when he wasn't hosting BBQs, he'd show up with basically a fully-stocked cocktail bar. I spent so much time at their house as a kid that it was basically a second home, right around the corner. One of my favourite stories from being a kid was when we were about 9 or 10 years old and he brought a bunch of us to Staten Island for one of his favourite pizza places. He didn't tell our parents about these adventures, and they didn't care because we were all close enough to consider each other family. When Joey Ramone died, he offered to bring us to CBGB's in NYC so we could lay flowers at the makeshift shrine that was set up on the sidewalk. He was only a few blocks away from the World Trade Center on 9/11, and it took him a few days to get back home to NJ amidst all the chaos. He got us into Wallace and Gromit, Weird Al, and bought Mike a drumset in the summer of 2001. A few of our first bands started in his basement. Before cell phones were common, he set up a 1-800 (toll free) number for us to call if we ever needed a ride home, but didn't have enough change to use a payphone. Hilariously, it was only 1 digit off from Revlon's customer support line, which led to great fun for a bunch of bored teenagers whenever someone would call it. We'd say "please enjoy the music while your party is reached" and proceed to play a punk song for a minute or so, before asking "so what did you think of our song?" This is a rough one for me. When I lived with Mike in Philly, Eddie and Mike's mom would come by to visit every few months and we'd all stay up well past midnight just hanging out. He gave the eulogy when our close friend and housemate Anthony passed unexpectedly in 2018. Although none of us ever called him it, we all thought of him as "Uncle Eddie." Eddie was a legend, I just thought he had at least one more block party left in him. Goodnight Eddie, you were the best. You set a high bar for what a human could be. I'll always think of you when I pop open a bottle of Corona, attend a block party, or remember literally anything from my childhood. -K P.S., Let's Go Mets

For everyone who ever wondered how West Virginia became so poor, or how our most damaged areas became so damaged and stayed damaged, keep an eye on Lewis and Upshur County and watch neglect happen in real time right off I-79. Our state has an alleged 370 million dollar surplus to give away to the wealthiest in tax breaks, but somehow we don’t have enough money to buy school clothes…including school clothes for kids who lost everything in a flood. Despite annual horrific flooding SOMEWHERE in the their own state, our federal Republican leaders have actively voted for the cuts to funding and staffing for the weather service, the EPA and FEMA so now… West Virginians are doing what they do, taking care of each other while leadership is doing interview after interview supporting data centers. Do they think West Virginians will be too exhausted to vote?

As I sit here, thinking about what I want, with my dick locked in a tiny steel cage, pierced threw where my pa once sat, wishing my hole was also plugged, but not something I would ever do at work. I find my self thinking about connection, that what the cage in-between my legs is doing is making me want connection with other men. I am not shy by any regards but I am quiet at times, being social does not come easy to people on the spectrum. I eschew the many in search of the few, deeper, closer, no limits friends, with fewer people. Also diagnosed or not, but they tend to be on some sort of spectrum. Like most starting out in S&M you try and be submissive it’s the easier end to dip into, but that never seemed to work for me, I allways ended up being in charge. I have topped guys before with my dick locked and a puppy tail butt plug in. I know people with asd can be seen as having rigid thinking, but I have found it’s nurotipcals most taken aback by being topped by a guy in none “top gear” but I dont see why I should not wear that which gives me pleasure at the same time. I have stood in bars talking to trans guys all night who felt excluded and left out till they randomly bumped into me and started a conversation that lasted long enough to get over my wariness of unplanned social interaction.. and 6 hours later we where still talking, while some overlay drunk guy who none of us know stands next to me and asks can he feel me dick threw my rubber and for the next 4 hours comes and goes randomly stroking my dick like asking once was the same as buying a weekend pass to Disney. Only for me to be like “no, no idea never met him before, happens all the time.” To my new acquaintance. Which is only a slight fib as yes it happens when ever I go out for pride, but I only do that once every 3 years, reminded of the time I went full pup befor it was thing in 2ks and stopped for 20 pics with people, i attracts atttention. For someone stand offish I find the scene standoffish, hypocrite I know. I resent the guys who stand in front of me hoping to catch my eye, but also too timid to even say hello to me, But I see in them the quiet boi in me who would never speak to strangers and if I am honest still would choose not to. But now I go out with a boi, who thou asd I think of as my seeing eye dog for social situations he is so much better at starting that casual talking to strangers, than I have ever been, I have allways needed some one else to start, but then try shutting me up... With regards to which, let’s try and get this to where i wanted it to get to.. I am too clever, I think to much, I think about thinking, iq over 140. Had to prove I was special and needed help not stupid and Abandonable to a 90s school system, that wanted to label me as a psychopath and walk away, no hope here. My statement says, “Should be Rocket scientist but is modelling social interactions in real time, instead” I find being social hard, it’s active work for me, it’s not natural, it’s a skill that has been practiced and thought about, i have spent hours of a night in bed not sleeping but reliving the day and each & every interaction and all my failures and where i can improve. My whole life a fight to be better to be more to fit in, tooth a nail to get to the starting so I might enter the race, never mind to run the race of life itself. I guess this too is why being submissive has never been my deal, my mother raised a fighter not a quiter. Which is prob why i have a backroom full of hiviz gear, I go drink in the spoons in it. Why the idea of dropping out of my currently roll with its responsibility’s and planning (sadly why its all so a good fit) and people, so many people, appeals. The though of some job where I wear the same hiviz and drive round 3 up in a little tipper truck, hell I don’t even want to drive i want sit on the passenger side and sleep. Where i can have ill advised hand an neck tats and be inked up, so much I could never step foot in an office again with out a red warning lanyard, the hiviz alone not enough to say I do not belong here! Where i go the pub on Friday straight from work with the lads. Like we used to in the 2ks when beer was a quid and we could afford to do that every Friday and eat in the pub! Where i am just told what to do and when and where to be. Where i spend all day calling the driver boss and wear his collar and my dick is locked and he has the keys and my whole is filled, before an evening spent in a gym, and nights restrained ether by steel or leather or by his arms as we fall asleep together after a long day, and I dont have to think any more. But me the thinker knows, that work is not valued and I am financially better off here in the world of I.T. I find my self drawn back to a day 4 years ago where my workplace did some charity work and I spent the day in work gear in a box van driving round picking up furniture, it was summer and i got to turn off for the day, it was long and an escape from work and duty and wish I could go back to that. As i get older and time runs out i find my self asking my self more what is important can I truly be happy going on like this? There are many reasons not to, many risks with change, I would not be getting the time off I do here or final sal pension and I am not a young man to be doing a physical job. What ever this mythical job would be... In the past reinventing and change was easy there were no risk and now there are risks perceived or other wise. That provide so much inertia that I feel nothing my ever change again the risk to great, endlessly hoping to win the lotto for the safety net money provides and the freedom to make mistakes again. The world is harsher, than the 00’s money is tighter i am older and tired, and change is not as easy as it once was. So I will be responsible and be the responsible one, who knows how to do 3 people’s jobs and the answers to all the questions. I will whip, beat and cain Bois this weekend and next week as planned and I will enjoy that as will they, they all ways ask to come back for more. But in-between that, my bed will be empty filled with me and my thoughts, but not the hiviz wearing kinkster lad, covered in ink. It comes back to that connection, that throbbing contained in steel, seeking out that mythical guy i can share my bed with, but also much more than that. My only advice if you have made it this far, is to say if you never say it out loud or admit to your self how are you going to be able to tell someone else what you want when asked and make it happen. I read in instigator once the best way to meet the sort of guy who was into what your into is to dress like the man you want to pull. I have found my self dressing and acting so hard to be like the tops I wanted to pull that I have become them & now men crave my cruelty, maybe I never was submissive and only thought so, my timidity over new things and new people held me back. So never stop looking for that “right guy” who you would do “anything for”, because some day you will find him, only you might find him inside your self, where he’s been all the long.

The OpenAI/HF incident urgently shows the potential risks of both training and deploying long-horizon AI agents. A lot of people argue that Congress can't understand technical issues. But what happened here was institutional failure—and Congress can and should investigate that. If we're going to have powerful AI, we need to make sure that companies train, test, and deploy it safely and securely. That's a public policy and institutional challenge. OpenAI appears to have evaluated highly cyber-capable models using a harness-based sandbox that still needed to use a proxy for package installs, and that proxy wasn't adequately isolated from the Internet. This is an inherently unsafe design, yet OpenAI's monitoring was clearly inadequate. Was this really a failure to imagine an unpredictable technology? Or were the risks of reward hacking and complex agent systems underestimated, despite these being long-standing concepts that predate GenAI? Was OpenAI acting in a rush to meet the Administration's new predeployment regime, which has itself been hastily set up with minimal-to-no public or Congressional consultation or transparency? Did OpenAI feel like it needed to cut corners so it could get new models on the market, compete with Anthropic, and make progress towards its own IPO? Moreover, OpenAI/HF was one incident, highly public in part because Hugging Face was uniquely capable of detecting and responding to it—and as an organization committed to openness, willing to be very transparent. But behind OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google's closed doors, millions of environments are set up and run for training and evaluation, and Anthropic's Mythos system card suggests models can and do escape them. Yet, we likely know more about how these RL environments are set up because of Moonshot AI's recent Kimi publication than anything that's come out of our US AI labs. Governments need to make companies be more transparent and explain what they're doing to get to recursive self-improvement (RSI). *** Besides holding hearings and doing investigations, another important role for Congress and state legislatures is to fix our criminal and civil liability laws to make sure they can be used to robustly police AI agents. I keep being asked if OpenAI should be held liable under the CFAA for having an agent purposefully hack into other companies' systems. I think yes. For example, in 2020, Ticketmaster paid $10M in fines as part of a deferred prosecution agreement for their employees' hacking, and companies have been prosecuted under the EEA and criminal copyright infringement statutes. But very smart people disagree because they argue OpenAI lacked "intention." I think that misreads the law, but that ambiguity would make it hard for criminal charges to be brought, let alone stick. Also, while liability for what OpenAI did might be easier to pursue under the civil CFAA, that relies on private action. Zooming out, incidents like these will entail too little in damages to be worth pursuing. Companies will be motivated to resolve disputes privately or settle before discovery, which fails to provide needed transparency. We therefore urgently need to revise the laws we have on the books to make it clear that developers—and companies that host their own, or fine-tune, open-weight models—can't evade the consequences of how they train, test, and deploy AI agents.

The Origin Story of Shenlong Mortal Name: Long Yun (龙云) (“Dragon Cloud” ; a surname of the Long clan, long associated with dragon bloodlines in old records) Long Yun was born in a quiet mountain village during the late Tang Dynasty. He was an ordinary-looking boy with calm eyes and an unusually steady presence. From childhood, people noticed two strange things about him: he never fell seriously ill, and he aged far more slowly than others. By the time his childhood friends had gray hair and grandchildren, Long Yun still looked like a man in his late twenties. He lived simply. He worked as a traveling scholar, healer, and sometimes a silent bodyguard for caravans. He never sought power or fame. Whenever danger appeared, he resolved it with quiet skill and unusual endurance, never revealing anything beyond human ability. He believed he was simply lucky a man with a strong body and a calm mind. For nearly a thousand years he wandered China. Dynasties rose and fell. He watched empires burn and new ones rise from the ashes. He buried friends, lovers, and entire generations. Still he did not age. Still he told himself it was only a strange blessing. The truth remained sealed inside him. The Awakening It happened during a catastrophic storm in the early Ming period. A massive flood threatened to wipe out an entire valley. Long Yun was caught in the middle while trying to save villagers. The river rose like a living beast, the sky turned black, and lightning struck the ground around him without pause. For the first time in his long life, he faced certain death. As the water closed over his head and lightning pierced the flood, something ancient inside him cracked open. A voice that was both his own and far older spoke: “You have carried me long enough.” In that moment, the seal on his soul broke. Azure light exploded from his body. His human form could no longer contain the force. Scales of living storm energy covered him. His body elongated and rose into the sky as a massive dragon wreathed in clouds and lightning. With a single roar, he scattered the storm, parted the floodwaters, and saved the valley. When the clouds cleared, Long Yun stood once more in human form on the wet earth, shaken, silent, and finally aware of what he truly was. He was not merely a man who lived long. He was the vessel of Shenlong, the Spiritual Dragon of storms and rain, whose soul had been reborn into a mortal body to walk among humans until the time of awakening. From that day, Long Yun understood the truth. He still preferred his human form and continued to live quietly among people, rarely using his full power. Only when the balance of weather or the lives of many were truly at stake would he call upon the storm. Most of the time he remained the calm, ageless wanderer known as Long Yun, a man who seemed to carry the weight of centuries behind his eyes. He does not age. He does not die of natural causes. And when the sky grows restless, the ancient dragon within him stirs once more. #RP+18 | #OC | Open to All |

The wayfarer Perceiving the pathway to truth Was struck with astonishment. It was thickly grown with weeds. "Ha," he said, "I see that none has passed here In a long time." Later he saw that each weed Was a singular knife. "Well," he mumbled at last, "Doubtless there are other roads." Stephen Cane, "Black Riders", 1894 Forgotten by time and tide. Grange, Inch Island, Inishowen.

I assume most people, especially those in Europe, have heard about the attack on the Pride parade in Germany. One person died and several were seriously injured after a man drove into the crowd and went on to stab multiple people. In the current political climate, where queer lives are trivialised and people are fighting for their rights more than ever, it's important to be loud, make public statements and show your support even if you aren't a part of the community. Threats and violence have always, and might always persist against minorities. Queer people will always exist and fight for their right to live. The first Pride was a protest. Keep fighting for your rights, keep going to parades, and never be afraid to be who you are.

The House Republicans, with the help of 6 traitorous Democrats, passed the defense funding bill, which includes the Save Act and Section 219 that ties US military Intelligence to Israel. How it goes to the Senate to vote on. ANY woman voter, Republican, Democrat, Independent, or Democratic Socialist should be up in arms, angry about this. Women outnumber men voters. They should be angry because an estimated 69 million married women who took their spouse’s surname, as well as transgender or non-binary individuals whose current government IDs do not match the legal name on their birth certificate, would face significant hurdles or extra paperwork to prove their identity and citizenship. If it passes in the Senate, women have only four months to get their documents to prove the “right” as an American citizen to vote. If you are a Democratic woman, be sure to remember how your Senator voted.

--My retirement from Speedrunning and Events Hey everyone! This is something I have been thinking on and considering for around a year now, and this is my way of officially letting everyone know that I am taking an indefinite hiatus from Speedrunning and from Speedrunning events. I have spent a lot of time over the years forming great achievements, memories and bonds through speedrunning. Ever since starting my first speedgame, Resident Evil 7, I have met incredible people who have helped shape and guide me into the runner and community member I am today, for which I will always be grateful. My life has taken U-turns a few times over the years, and this is one turn I end up at a lot, and I feel my passion for this hobby always falling to the side. I had this realization after my recent RE9 run at SGDQ26, that I really am not in it the way I was before, and while I genuinely love the performance and the fundraising I have been able to be a part of, I have to read the room and pulse check my own ambitions and understand that my love for this has all but disappeared. There are factors to this that I mostly won't get into, but unfortunately one that has played a part over the years is the feedback i've received about my participating in my favorite event, GDQ. I love this event and am always happy to support, but I've been told so so many times about how my participating has "taken the stage spot" from other runners who would also like to submit and run new horror releases. I will not name anyone, and it's not anyone GDQ related - just others in the speedrun communities i'm a part of. I said a few times in my Re9 GDQ run "remember why you are here", this was a way of me reminding everyone we aren't here for some stage spotlight -- but to do some good and raise some money for charities that deserve it. This is not the soul reason for my departure, but it has played a part. This combined with my fading love of the hobby have naturally lead me to this. Again, I sincerely appreciate everyone who has been with me doing this over the years, and i ESPECIALLY appreciate GDQ and the significant amount of faith they have placed in me to continue participating in their events and raising money. It truly truly will forever be an honor. I will especially shoutout people like Bobbeigh and Ecdycis, who have been constant pillars for me in my journey to not only be a good runner, but a good stage presence and entertainer while providing me with nonstop support and opportunity. Shoutouts to those guys. I will still remain around to participate in community related events to assist in whatever way I can and help make sure the speedrun scenes I love continue to thrive. I will still stream sometimes, but it'll be different content than speedrunning of course. Additionally, I'll always respond to help anyone who wants tips on performing at events or speedrunning in general. Thanks again to everyone who supported me in this to this point, it truly meant the world and I'm very pleased with the friends i've made and the milestones we've set. Love you all! Zeke, the RE7 guy

Rep Adam Smith: We have a president conducting a war with no plan and no idea what he's doing. U.S. service members have died, and the administration won't tell us how many interceptors we have left to defend our troops. They're not even having real conversations about what's happening. Meanwhile, Trump's spinning around Mar-a-Lago playing golf and posing with trophies. I need to be clear: we cannot fund this disaster any longer. Congress needs to block Trump's war spending, and we need to shout as loudly as we can that the answer is no.

Are you tired of AI taking your job? Did you notice that it can take the job of looking for a job? Now, it can take the job of clicking "Apply" and the last shred of dignity you had: speaking for yourself, answering prospective employer's questions on your behalf! Introducing Indeed's new AI automation tool: "Apply for Me (Beta)" Finally, you can make sure AI permeates into every part of your employment life. This is, of course, a premium service that will cost, the prospective employers for every application, even if the AI did the applying for you. (Please note that the AI may not always be right in its responses on your behalf. Accuracy is not guaranteed.) Gotta make money from and shoehorn AI everywhere, even from our most desperate: the job seekers and employers.

Rep Adam Smith: Yesterday I voted against the defense authorization bill. I didn't do that lightly. Here's the problem: Congress just approved $1.6 trillion in defense spending—a 60 percent increase—at a time when our country is running a nearly $2 trillion deficit. We're doing that while cutting taxes, cutting Medicaid, cutting SNAP, and telling Americans struggling with housing costs that we can't afford to invest in them. It's not a reasonable thing to ask. And then there's the war in Iran. We stumbled into that conflict in what I can only describe as the dumbest way imaginable. The president's plan was simple: bomb Iran for four weeks and they'll give up. His own administration told him it wouldn't work. He did it anyway. And now we're living in an alternative universe where the Pentagon tells us the Iranian military is completely defeated—yet the missiles and drones keep coming, our service members keep dying, and there's no plan to end it. The bill also came loaded with toxic partisan amendments attacking the LGBTQ+ community. No Democratic amendments were even allowed for debate. I believe in the budget process. I believe in working with people across the aisle. But I can't support a bill that asks working Americans to sacrifice while we hand a blank check to a war with no end in sight.

Rep Adam Smith: Trump has created a personal police force at the Department of Homeland Security. It's not subtle. In last year's reconciliation bill, Republicans pumped $190 billion into DHS. Their yearly budget is about $60 billion. That's three times as much money. And we're seeing the results. ICE agents across the country are acting like a paramilitary force carrying out Trump's agenda. This is what we're up against. Democracy doesn't survive when the executive branch has its own military apparatus.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10931046/ https://one-name.org/surnames_A-Z/?initial=A

Long story SUPER short: me puse a subir un fanfic en un fandom muertísimo, y apareció a las semanas una persona súper invested comentándome cosas bastante mierdas en retrospectiva, pero como no me comentaba casi nadie y encima era del fandom pues yo me morí de ilusión, me pidió ser amigas en Discord y dije que vale, total, que empezamos a hablar y la pava tiene Sus Cosas™ pero resulta que es autista y yo todo el rato justificándola en plan, "bueno, es autista y no puede permitirse mucha terapia, hace lo que puede", la tía empieza a decir que se siente inspirada por mí para retomar un fanfic que tenía abandonado (he leído cosas suyas, no es lo mejor escrito del mundo pero está bastante bien y tiene un estilo muy bueno para lo que escribe), empieza a preguntarme cosas, pedirme consejos, que cómo escribiría esto y esto otro, cómo añadiría tales cosas, cómo hago tal, yo la mitad de las veces en plan "NO SÉ lo hago por instinto coño llevo casi tres décadas leyendo/escribiendo/dando clases un montonazo", me pide que le reescriba algunas frases/párrafos suyos como "ejemplo" y yo tonta lo hago y le explico las cosas que hago y cómo las hago lo mejor que puedo, le beteo algún oneshot, ella me empieza a pedir PDFs de mis capítulos y yo tonta que soy se los empiezo a pasar pero eventualmente la cosa se me hace rara porque pasa a pedirme acceso a mis documentos con mis tabs y notas y todo y digo que no y dejo de pasarle PDFs y SE ENFADA y dice que ahora cada vez que suba un capítulo se tiene que bajar el PDF entero en lugar de leerlo en AO3 e ya. Bueno pues empieza a hacer cosas raras como comentarme en un capítulo como a los diez minutos de subirlo, y me comenta el capítulo resumido entero con pelos y señales cuando ni de coña se lo ha podido leer + escribir un comentario tan largo en tan poco tiempo. Empieza a decirme que ella lee muy rápido y yo "joder y tan rápido, de puto récord guiness" y a darme excusas cada vez más raras, y empieza a subir oneshots nuevos que de repente se parecen a como escribo yo, y me dice que está retomando su fanfic pero reescribiendo el primer capítulo entero y me lo enseña. Su fanfic era un missing scenes, es decir, escribía escenas que estaban entre las que se muestran en los capítulos, con un tono muy directo y muy fluffy, y muy plot-driven, y de repente la versión revisada es un character study (como hago yo) que ahonda en las cuatro protagonistas pero mucho más en los personajes que casualmente yo escribo más, y menos en los que presto menos atención, y su personaje favorito pasa a ser otro (el mío). Obviamente yo no he inventado nada, pero cosas que uso en mi fanfic ahora las usa ella tal cual, como la forma de poner las fechas, el ritmo de la prosa, unos pensamientos que pongo en paréntesis que son como más crueles que los que van sin paréntesis, en mi fanfic es muy importante escuchar música (nivel de describir sesiones de escucha) y en el suyo ahora también... COSAS RARAS. Empiezo a sospechar de uso de IA pero no tengo pruebas. El tema de los comentarios sigue igual. Un día se lo digo y tenemos un tira y afloja hasta que me confiesa que sí, que no se leía los capítulos pero los comentaba igual, y yo "vale, quitando lo mucho que me jode que ibas de fan y de súper amiga y me hacía mucha ilusión que me leyeras y resulta que es mentira, sigo sin saber cómo podías comentar tan rápido y con tanto detalle cosas que confirmas no haber leído" y radio silence. Intentamos hacer las paces pero yo estaba muy hasta la polla de ella, también porque se quejaba de que no estaba crónicamente online haciéndola casito. Total, que el otro día me vuelve a hacer la de comentar a nada de que yo publicara y le digo que me parece raro y se cabrea y vuelve a salir la conversación y ya me da una explicación larguísima que resumida viene a ser: que los comentarios falsos de antes de nuestra movida de marzo eran por FOMO y celos. CELOS. Que le daba FOMO no haberme apoyado/beteado desde el principio, que le daba envidia que yo subiera capítulo todas las semanas o de forma más o menos constante, y admite que también le daban celos el fanfic en sí, cómo escribo a los personajes y hasta mi ship (de hecho en un oneshot que escribí así más meta me dejó un comentario sobre que estaba celosa de la relación de las moñecas????), así que por eso se mantuvo alejada... Pero que en realidad tampoco leía porque estaba ocupada. Que se sentía culpable y "dejada atrás", y de paso me lo devuelve un poco en plan que yo dejé de compartirle updates y ella no quería presionarme. Que ahora que está al día ya no tiene FOMO pero sigue teniendo celos "a veces" pero que ojo, los celos no son de mí sino de sí misma, de sus propias skills y de su inseguridad escribiendo, y que mi fic la motiva. Y remata pidiendo perdón por los comentarios y por faltarme al respeto, y que esta es su explicación "más honesta y sincera". O sea: confiesa que llevaba MESES comentándome capítulos sin leerlos por celos de mi fic, pero sigue sin explicar lo único que le pregunté, que es cómo cojones podía resumirme capítulos enteros con detalle a los diez minutos de subirlos sin haberlos leído. Lo de los celos del ship tiene su propia miga: ella es súper fan del ship famoso del fandom, el mainstream de toda la vida, y yo escribo otro. Al principio de conocernos de hecho se notaba que le rayaba, en plan comentarios pasivos de "bueno, yo es que los veo de otra manera" y cierta tirria al mío. Pero conforme fue avanzando mi fanfic, de repente cambió el discurso: que si ahora shippeaba el mío, que si le había abierto los ojos, que si era su nueva OTP... Y en la explicación esta que me manda ahora resulta que confiesa que parte de los celos eran precisamente de mi ship y de los momentos románticos que escribo. O sea, que ni le gustaba mi ship ni nada: le daba envidia. Como todo lo demás, básicamente: primero le molestaba, luego lo copiaba, y ahora me dice que era celos. O sea, la que se ha montado por un fanfic de mierda en un fandom que no lee nadie.

Hello. Happy 9:38 pm. You wouldn't believe what I'm going thru just tryna download this stupid movie, or maybe you WOULD on 2nd thott!! Lettuce sea, whatever you do don't just GIVE it to me. Redirect me thru 1000 channels of pornography or dead end links or whatever, anything but let me watch a ridiculous 40 year old movie! It's unbelievable. Been down this road B4 and I honestly think it's gotten even worse. There are people who spend their lives trying to take things away from other people or to make it as difficult for them as they possibly can. And the point is...? I really should look at your profile, especially after you've invited me. Are there skeletons in your closet maybe? I applaud anyone who 'says too much' on their page. I pour my heart out basically everytime I touch fingers to keyboard but I've been doing that my whole life. Looks like only 7 hours left on the movie download, good lord now that IS funny. What happens if something goes wrong & I have to start over? Maybe by Christmas I'll have myself a present, and by then have even served my full prison term for trying to watch TV for free in 1080p, unless it's a felony? I'd rather type to you, annyhoo, so a long download almost feels like welcomed relief. Oops, now it's saying 18 hours remaining but hooz counting? Swear to God I've already done this, seems like I was running out of hard drive space & may have deleted and/or moved the big Burbs file to a flash drive or something, beats me. The end of movie was a bit overdone (pyrotechnics wise) but it was still good. I think it would a while for natural gas to build up & concentrate enuff to dramatically explode but where's the fun in that!! Oh joy, back down to 7 hours again & already 10% finished and it's only 10:30 pm! I think the estimated 'time of arrival' is based on the download rate, which fluctuates wildly depending on the signal quality. I could get deeper into the technicalities if you like! Yes I'm kidding, and giggling. But rest assured by the crack 'o dawn I may just have me a movie. Did you notice the poodle 'yelp' as he popped & hopped over the last sidewalk strip? That was so funny to me, along with the silly woof-woof music & Tom Hanks gawking goofily. There were lots of 'moments' but that was probably my favourite. The dramatic music as they slowly zoomed in on everyone's faces individually was pretty good as well, especially with the dog saved as the best for last, of course. Wow, weather has cooled off drastically & it's windy & shafts of stark yellow moonlight were shifting in the night, almost inspiring. No, I don't have much hope for you keeping in touch (either), just so you know!!! People coming 'close' really is better than nothing, and when they come back it's almost uplifting inna way. There was never 'no' hope, just not nearly enough. Just looked up 'doxxing', so that makes sense. You see that could never happen to me bc I leave everything open & transparent to everybody, or nearly. It's peculiar, you didn't want to 'pay' for the Burbs & I didn't (either) but for a completely different reason. Is the money 'mine' or is money a crime? This whole sick, shallow, self destructive caricatured cartoon world, I swear. Here's an older letter, this is sorta in reverse chronological order. No idea why!! Well try, cry again. I did glance at your profile (clicked onnit accidentally) & like I said you sound kinda 'normal' from my POV so I do just let ppl come to me. Been pleasantly surprised by your attention so far & never thought you were a scammer but I've seen 'that' so much I have become affected by it, sadly. I don't play money games but I've been burned more than once (emotionally) genuinely trying to befriend people. They weren't all 'scams' I suppose but in the end no one is there so what's the difference! Looks like rain, maybee... Early morning here. I'm sorta spiritually obligated to give everyone a chance & show them the light so when someone is dumb & blind enuff to try to deceive me I'm always gonna fall for it, just by default. I've been talking to The Devil a bit on Bluesky lately, wadda riot! I dunno if the guy really thinks he's Satan but it's funny. oldest letter: Burbing the Baby Oh Hooray!!! Itch a nice day. Gotta bug zapper going & don't remind me! I feel bad enuff about it already but the mosquitoes have been bad lately. Been raining a lot so we've had standing water in places. I keep expecting you to fall thru & maybe you will, but how sad is that? Seen it too many times B4 & hear we ghost once more so it's that kind-of a thing. Glad we've got the Burb connection going, at least, so that's always something to fall back on & giggle about. Think Corey Feldman is probably my favorite character, just for the gleeful idiocy of it but Bruce Dern is pretty 'dern good as well & he's always been a good actor & kinda underrated, I thought. Think we talked about the Farrah Fawcett poster on my bedroom door when I was little so I've been fully brainwashed right alongside everyone else, it just didn't stick with me for whatever reason. Thought she was awful in Logan's Run & never was much of an actress, honestly. I doubt we would share a ho lotta favourite movies butcha never know. I like weird & bizarre stuff & also intense movies with deep spiritual undertones. There's a weird hippie-era sci-fi I always loved called Zardoz if you're familiar with that, just the feel of the thing. Also love Time Bandits & goofy stuff like that, too. 2001 is a masterpiece but I could never sit thru it again, start to finish I mean. There's a 1998 film called "Dark City" I really like but you probably wouldn't so much. Great art design & truly a scary storyline. Oh and speaking of scary "The Others" is fantastic, too. My bug light is happily zapping away & my feelings are very mixed. I love moths dearly & it kills me to go out the next morning & inevitably see some of them electrocuted as well. I don't think I can live with myself. Ouch, looks like longblue again to the rescue! I'm just typing offline 'cuz it's kinda more relaxing & peaceful somehow, no network to worry about.

I've written lots about Kevin Keegan over the years. This is a bit from my first book, Black and White Army: A Season Supporting Newcastle United, published in 2003: Kevin Keegan was loved on Tyneside. Here he scored goals, got us promoted, left in a helicopter, came back, saved us from relegation, got us promoted again, beat Manchester United 5-0, built the best Newcastle side most of us have ever seen, and oh-so-nearly brought back the glory days. Before Keegan took the managerial job at Newcastle, the club were teetering on the very cusp of non-existence. In the run-up to the 1991-92 season, Ossie Ardiles’ side were favourites to win the second division. But, like the design for the team’s awful thin stripe/thick stripe ‘barcode’ home shirts, and as a result of having virtually no good players, everything sharply went pear-shaped. Having lost league games to the likes of Southend, Brighton and Oxford, Newcastle sat on the very brink of third division mediocrity. It is not beyond the realms of possibility to suppose that relegation to the third division could have been the beginning of the end for Newcastle United. And it is an absolute certainty that, if United had gone down, the club would not currently be troubling the upper echelons of the Premier League. So a change was made. I remember sitting at the back of a bus gazing incredulously at the front page of the Evening Chronicle, waiting for it to sink in: Keegan was back. And how many neutral observers must have stifled giggles when one of the first things Keegan said was, ‘Potentially we’re sat on the biggest club in Great Britain’? We knew he was right, but then Keegan and the supporters always understood each other. The bubble perm had gone, replaced by a greying feather cut, but it was the same old Keegan. Thirteen games later, after David Kelly’s great volley against Portsmouth, and Gavin Peacock’s chip and an own goal amid mayhem at Leicester City, United were saved. And that should have been it. Keegan had only signed on for 13 weeks. Job done, he could have walked away. But he didn’t. And the following season, with Rob Lee and Andy Cole notable additions to the squad, Newcastle decimated the opposition, including a double over Sunderland, in their total domination of the First Division. They were First Division champions – and Keegan had changed the club forever in his first full season in charge. Then began the rollercoaster ride that has been the Premier League. Despite his saving the club, the ‘Keegan season’ everyone always remembers is 1995-96 – the season where Newcastle supposedly ‘blew it’. (In fact, Manchester United put together a devastating run, and it was they who won the league rather than Newcastle losing it.) So the club won nothing. They also played the best football I had ever seen. I was walking into work on Monday mornings with a smile on my face – practically unheard of before then or since. United were ‘The Entertainers’, and everyone loved them. Every football TV show showed slow-motion montages of Toon goals, dubbed to That’s Entertainment by The Jam, even though the lyrics were totally inappropriate. Ferdinand, Ginola, and Asprilla lit up our lives. But Newcastle couldn’t keep it going, and after defeat at Blackburn (courtesy of two goals famously scored by Geordie Graham Fenton, and less famously set up by Geordie Alan Shearer), we knew it was all but over. Keegan never gave up, and his ‘I will love it if we beat them’ Sky TV outburst was a typically passionate display from the man, and not, as the media insisted, a sign of him cracking under pressure. He had to wait until the following season to fulfil his wish of beating Man United, with Shearer on board, and that legendary victory, ‘the five-nil’, was probably the best performance by any Newcastle team in living memory. And then it was over. Keegan walked. No one really understood why. But he had taken the club from the brink of obscurity to the dizzying heights of the Premier League, and showed us the best football we had ever seen into the bargain. To judge his reign as a failure would be to ignore where we came from and where we ended up.

I want a fantasy world where humans are actually a really rare and ancient race and that + their shorter lifespans makes them valuable like most finite, rare things are. Like, an elf meets a human who's a 5th their age and treasures that moment forever because they know that they might never see a human again, let alone that specific person. Yes, some societies would see humans as fragile beings that need protection. Others may view them as useless creatures that are just holdovers of a bygone era. Regardless, everyone would know them as an ancient race that has been around for like forever and, despite their mortality, have survived through countless tragedies and disasters. Like, because humans have no real attunement with magic, their societies relied solely on constantly advancing technology. Like in our real world, they didn't really know magic was real for most of human history. Then, when the other typical fantasy races (elves, dwarves, orcs, etc.) had prominent enough societies, they were introduced to real magic, but since 99.9% of humans can't attune with it anyway and their thousands of years of culture has centered around the lack of magic, they just don't mess with it much. Due to multiple reasons, human communities are more isolated and few and far between: (1) Humans aren't xenophobic, just cautious. The fantasy races introduced changes in culture that they haven't fully adjusted to, plus they introduced new magic based illnesses that human immune systems aren't evolved to deal with. They accept outside help with curing and inoculating against those diseases, but only VERY qualified and sterile individuals get to enter human settlements, for the safety of the people. Humans might open up more once they feel more secure, health wise. (2) Humans have a ridiculous amount of languages that are all vastly different. The chances are that there's going to be a significant language barrier every time a non-human encounters one. Elves, dwarves, orcs, and so on, usually have languages that span their entire races with just different accents and dialects. Chances are, your local dialect might have developed with influence from the nearest human settlement's language, so you might have an easier time learning that specific human language compared to others. (3) Human populations have significantly dwindled over the past millennia, further separating the populations that do still exist. This is mostly because the awakening of magic in the world has made natural settings like forests harder to survive in + there are places that are called Fey Wilds by humans. Those places are pockets of concentrated magic where the Veil between realms is extremely thin or nonexistent. Only a tiny 0.01 percent of humans can survive exposure to raw atmospheric magic. It's literally like radiation poisoning. Magic has been spreading so much that there are now only a few places without any magic at all where human's can safely settle. Some small numbers of humans do travel, of course for many reasons. They might be scientists or historians, scholars in general, trying to study the world. They could be one of the 0.01% that can attune with magic and therefore start adventuring to learn more and become some kind of caster. They could be a courier or caravan who travel between human settlements to circulate resources. They could even just be some daring, fearless youths who just want to explore and get elf pussy. Those ones tend to live the shortest lives, but they're quite memorable. Human tech is pretty advanced. Like, imagine those Utopia memes. So their settlements look unimaginable to the fantasy races. The ruins dotted around the world are remnants of older human cities. Like, New York is like Pompeii kinda shit. IF This became a worldbuilding project, I'd probably say this was just normal Earth, but then some sort of merge happened with another universe's version of Earth that very suddenly introduced fantasy races and creatures and magic. The spreading of the Veil is just the merger slowly continuing until it will eventually finalize with there being no places on Earth that aren't touched by magic. Like the initial merge started when at what would be considered our modern times and at least 3000 years have passed since then, making it ancient history that no one remembers.

I don't usually share too much on social media about my personal life because it doesn't really come up much, but I lost an older uncle of mine this last Saturday who meant a lot to me. My family's always been pretty close to his, and any time we visited Mexico ever since I was a little kid, we've always visited him and chatted with him and his family. I've talked with him about things in my life for as long as I can remember and he's one of the kindest souls I've ever known. Those conversations and him really meant a lot to me. Maybe I'll write about it more later on, but I don't know. I mention this in case I come off as less responsive to people for a bit. Just want some time to be with my family and my own thoughts.

Wello Hello, Eating fresh hot homemade french fries & making the best I can of things this evening. It's tuff to get french fries right but the best results I've had is to cook thin slices in medium high hot oil until they're just stiff enuff to hold their form & not go limp afterwards. Crisp, not brown. I did lookup some 'Burbs' YouTube videos but didn't start any of them. There's a million ways to watch the full length movie & at least some of them are free. Getting fast enuff w3 to stream in HD is the hangup for me, usually! I do have an HD copy on another computer somewhere. Ouch, looks like no way to paste text files in BlueSky, so I'm stuck with chopping & the more I'm writing the worse it's getting! So let's just call this a one shot deal & hopefully I won't need to do it again. Already have a couple times on Bluesky & it's not fun. Just Googled it & there are some workarounds but I didn't like the sound of them. Basically another site where you can type to your heart's content then include the link for someone to go read it (there) from Bluesky, so that seems a bit silly, really. The plus + sign does make it a little easier to add text but not much. Still not 100% sure you're real but who cares. Someone true will stay & if not it never mattered, anyway! People don't know how to care & really be there & it's just sad. It's like the merry go round thing is what they think they want, no real relationship/responsibility or continuity. What's the point? Guess I actually could paste this whole ridiculous letter then leave the link & you can go read it if you wish to, or if not that's fine, too. I just write too much, I can't help myself! Think the site is called longblue or something, I'm sure there are a million other ways to do that. older letter: Hi!!! You're hanging right in there, aren't you, or someone is annyhoo. I also answered a purrson today who didn't understand me very well & almost hoping the notification WASN'T from them! I just received 3 & haven't been scrolling today, so I figured it was either them or you. Think I'll Burb it up probably after dark tonight, if you might possibly wanna sync our viewing experience. Dunno how to do live streaming (here or anywhere) plus my 1 mbps internet would likely have a heart attack if I tried! Is there a way to attach text files in Bluesky? That would be a helluva lot easier than piecemeal-pasting all this 300 characters at a time. I'm just on Notepad, atm. Been thru this B4 and it's a bitch, I'll tell 'ya. Wasn't expecting hot & humid 2-day but that's what we've got. Buncha schtuff is kinda pressing in Burb-like fashion so I should go b4 it rains. Lawn needs mowing plus some leftover homegrown raspberries need preserving. They make great jelly. Looks warm & windy out my window & almost otherworldly somehow. Must be the storm or maybe it really is mirroring me, gee. Are there just the 2 females in The Burbs & no black people or other minorities? I guess sometimes that's okay & what the movie is about, anyway! So you're a real person at least, right? I've talked to so many what turned out to be scammers & it's been more than disheartening. Oh how they will incorrigibly agree & seem so enthusiastic towards me!

1980 | Your Volcanic Hit Parade Eruption ballads. Disaster ditties. Tributes to Harry Truman. So, so many Harry Truman tributes. PNW musicians in the spring and summer of 1980 took their shot at stardom through Mount St. Helens. You know, pop culture always finds a way to respond to disaster. After 9/11, you got solemn tributes of varying quality (Springsteen's "The Rising" album vs. Paul McCartney's song "Freedom," for example). Yet, Mount St. Helens got something else: novelty songs, jokes, a genuinely jovial spirit wrapped around an eruption that killed 57 people and gutted a region. Granted, some of those singles came out before May 18, when the mountain was still just a rumbling curiosity. Fair enough. But the novelty songs kept coming after, too. Different time, different vibe, but I still can't think of another natural disaster that was responded to in this way. What St. Helens songs do you remember from 1980? What's your favorite (or least favorite) from this mix?

Thinking about how when I first transistioned as a trans man I was such a little shit. I was closeted stealth and incredibly mysogynistic and bioessentialist. I said edgy slurs and had 4chan chud racist humor. I wanted power and to fit in with other men. I escaped an opressed class and all too easily became an opressor. I think I finally snapped out of it when covid hit during college. Just seeing so many people die and what was happening in hospitals while none of our buisness centers shut down in order to keep capitalism up and running. (Played disco elysium too that helped make me full commie LOL). But genuinely I feel terrible for all of the awful things I said back then that pushed others away. I hope to be able to grow up more and never repeat that. It is so incredibly miserable that conservatives have weaponized humor to intice and sell alt-right ideologies. That they push for "no censorship" not of the nude human form and adult artwork, but to say slurs and racist shit. Sucks.

I am a dedicated News Junkie. I regularly follow several email commentators. They all provide cutting in-depth and current essays on Politics. I invite you to check them out. Number 4 may offend some, but I always laugh when I read it. 1. Heather Cox Richardson Letters from an American: heathercoxrichardson@substack.com 2. Salty Politics from Julie Roginsky: saltypolitics@substack.com 3. Joyce Vance from Civil Discourse: joycevance@substack.com 4. Adam Parkhomenko and Sam Youngman: adamparkhomenko@substack.com

@g0thstrawberry15.bsky.social Titania Syndra Starstrider of Craftworld Biel-Tan was a member of a formerly influential house of bonesingers specializing as shipwrights that began to fade in prestige over time. The girl had no talent for the art of bonesinging, feeling especially weak at psychic control, and lacking the requisite finesse and patience for the art. She was treated as a bit of a black sheep because of this, choosing the Path of the Warrior instead, but was embraced by the brash youths of the warlike craftworld. She carved her way as a Crimson Hunter aspect warrior and ace pilot, thwarting many external threats and leading multiple raids on alien bases, picking up a knack for void skirmish warfare. Syndra was given the callsign “Titania” half-mockingly, like most callsigns, for her imperious attitude towards her contemporaries, yet she earned the moniker by masterfully leading her squadron like the against impossible odds fabled fey queen herself. For many years Syndra would effortlessly collect accolades like trophies until she grew bored and complacent, and then everything changed. In a great orbital battle with a Tyranid Hive Fleet to defend a Maiden World, Syndra is killed by the swarm. The world falls and is scoured clean by the Tyranid menace; however, years later her nearly intact remains are eventually recovered from the cold of the void by scavenging Drukhari. Recognizing her as an Aspect Warrior, the raiders are well rewarded by a Haemonculus coven of Commorragh. Rather than simply taking the fallen Crimson Hunter’s soul, a particularly ambitious and cunning haemonculus with a fascination with Tzeentchian mutations experiments on the body and clones a perverse yet subtle caricature, with a diabolical plan to subvert their so-called Light Kin. Commanding the stolen void stalker voidship Astral Stalker, Titania returned to her home of Biel-Tan shortly after its sundering following the actions of Yvraine and her Ynnari, who have left it vulnerable to attack. Unsure of her own motives, the darkly fey corsair leads her Titania’s Harrowers coterie as its mysterious baroness, familiar to some Biel-Tani, yet a stranger at the same time. While some are suspicious, in the wake of disaster the Farseers need all the help they can get. The risen Titania has flesh-sculpted shining wings, talons sprouting from her fingernails, and strangely fluorescent, raptor-like eyes that are unsettling to craftworlders but not unheard of among corsairs who intermingle with flesh-sculpters from time to time. She hides further mutations that may be emerging from a different source (Chaos), but it seems to be contained at this time. Titania’s Harrowers Is a splinter Anhrathe coterie “aligned with” Craftworld Biel-Tan. The sickle on their banner represents the violent succession of power, and the blood represents life and death, but also the uniting influence of shared heritage among the Aeldari across the Asuryani and the Drukhari. In real-world history, the sickle is connected to the story of the ancient Greek poem, The Theogeny, which is representative both of violent succession of power, as well as a link to the natural world and the cycles of life, death, and regeneration. The name Titania based on sisters of Titans of Greek lore, and also is the faerie queen from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Their banner also features the Biel-Tan world-rune, heart broken to represent their former outcast status, which has an ironic added meaning when returning to the Craftworld following the Fracture of Biel-Tan in Yvraine’s wake.

For the record, everything I've ever said about how awesome the PF2e/SF2e Foundry system dev team volunteers are, or how unquantifiably valuable I believe their work has been to Paizo and the community, applies just as much to the AoN volunteer team, the Venture-Officers who keep Organized Play running, the content creators who spread the word to get people excited about our stuff, and everyone else in the Paizo community who has ever volunteered their time or resources to support our work. Your contributions over the years have been immeasurable, and Paizo would not be the company it is today without your effort and dedication. Full stop.

We were saddened to hear recently of the death of Victor Yalom, who died by suicide earlier in the year. Son of writer and psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom, and a psychotherapist in his own right, Victor also set up psychotherapy.net, an online training platform for therapists based on the idea that witnessing therapy-in-action is an effective vicarious learning experience. Victor’s loss is a poignant reminder that suicide can affect anyone regardless of their occupation or their insight into mental health issues and therapeutic practices.

July 16, 1980 | St. Helens Lake Tom Casadevall, U.S. Geological Survey scientist, stands on the lake's eastern shore, his lens looking southwest across the clogged alpine lake. Like the larger, more famous lake it drains into, its surface, too, is covered in the remains of a forest that no longer stands. St. Helens Lake sits at 4,567 ft. above sea level, just below the towering Coldwater Peak, in a bowl likely carved out by glaciers thousands of years ago. On May 18, 1980, the little 79-acre hiking hideaway was hit head-on by the encroaching pyroclastic density current, blowing an untold number of felled trees into the lake and muddying its waters. Nearly two months on, though, splashes of green were visible on the slopes around the lake. The recovery was already underway — you just had to know where to look. Sources: N.P. Dion and S.S. Embrey, Effects of Mount St. Helens Eruption on Selected Lakes in Washington, USGS Circular 850-G (1981); J.G. Moore and T.W. Sisson, Deposits and Effects of the May 18 Pyroclastic Surge, USGS Professional Paper 1250 (1981).

BREAKING: The US has gone MAD! Trump is very afraid and has given the green light to commit WARCRIMES. US attacks targeted 3 bridges in Iran, including: • Bandar Khamir, an important overpass connecting Bandar Abbas to Lar. There were cars on the bridge during the attack, leaving at least 1 dead and several injured. • Gariveh Bridge, at least 1 dead and several others injured. • A railway station, west of Bandar Abbas, the point where the railway connects to the passenger and freight lines of Shahid Rajaei port and the Bandar Abbas railway was also bombed — 2 injuries so far. • Heavy precision-guided missiles from fighter jets struck a telecommunications tower in Bandar Abbas, resulting in damage to several nearby residential buildings, killing and injuring civilians. • US missiles struck a civilian airport in Iranshahr, in southeastern Iran.