Hey you! Yes you, the one reading this message. I hope you like this message and here is a bit of information about me:
Who the hell I am?

• Healthcare assistant for learning dissabilities, my sleep schedule is variable, my work shifts are from 7 to 12 hours, either day or night.
• Future Graphic Designer (In a long future), I love it and I'm taking it as hobby right now. In love with art and every day learning a little more about it.
• Music lover. I listen to almost any genre. I am ready to find the music that is missing in my life and that I want to play every day.
• I'm a bit at a gamer, but I'm not obsessed with it. Lately I'm mostly playing on Nintendo Switch
• I love movies, we can talk about many films. My favorite movies are The Godfather (both the first and the second one), Interestellar, The Green Knight, Grand Hotel Budapest, Before Sunrise and Princess Mononoke ( I have more haha)
• My family says I'm special. I don't know if they say it in a good way or a bad way, but I'm happy with it.
• I Iove reading, it allows me to experience and live many different lives. My favorite book is Name of the Wind.
• Extension of the previous point: Basically I read any book that catches me interest. (Fantasy, fiction, poetry, etc.)
• I love learning new things, exploring new ideas and figuring out how everything works in detail.
• I'm learning to draw (Right now I really suck) and taking up writing again.
• Future writer of a book that I don't even know what it will be about, maybe written in prose? maybe in verse?
• I'm a bit introvert, but once I feel confidence, you won't even notice it.
• I don't mind exchanging pictures if we both want to do it.
• If you wish I can make a powerpoint presentation about me. I do not promise that it will be serious

Have you decided to talk to me yet? Maybe these opinions will help you
He is a really handsome boy - My grandmother
My brother is special and crazy, don't talk to him. - My brother
I want to make him mine, break up after a few months and write a song about him. – Taylor Swift
I wanted him as my padawan, but they imposed Anakin Skywalker on me and you know how it ended. - Obi Wan Kenobi
He was going to be the model I used for my sculpture David, but he's neither as handsome nor as strong. - Michelangelo
I was about to select him to play Sebastian in La La Land, but he can't sing well or play the piano, Emma Stone preferred him to Ryan Gosling. - Damien Chazelle (La la land's Director)
I turned down Ted Mosby for so many years because I waited for him, he never came and in the end I had to stay with Mosby. - Robin Scherbatsky
I'd like to see him die in one of my movies - Quentin Tarantino
He has a good musical taste and at least he does not put the music to full volume - My neighbor
If you think we can get along, do not hesitate to send me a message or a chat invitation, you are pretty welcome. The chatting app that I use most now is Discord, but I can use any other app if you prefer or just chat on reddit. Please include some information about yourself in your message. If you're not sure how to break the ice, ~throw a iceberg at me~ include an interesting question you've been thinking about lately, a song you love or any interesting thing, if you can't think about a question, this is my question for you, What would be the last song you would listen to if you knew today was your last day on earth?

Hey all! I decided after several years to restart Skyrim again and now I'm (of course) getting weird glitches with my ground textures. This only happens out in the wild and larger dungeons and sort of comes and goes as I walk. Doesn't flicker, but if I walk long enough it may or may not correct itself. Never inside houses, homes, etc., and never inside instanced cities (e.g. Whiterun). I posted pics in the link below along with my plugin load order (I use Vortex) if that helps...My understanding of load orders is somewhat beginner-level in that I only know that whatever loads "after" takes priority. That's pretty much where my understanding tapers. Someone mentioned it could be DynDOLOD and needing to ensure DynDOLOD's output loads after everything else, but I'm not sure how to confirm that. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
https://imgur.com/a/y6oXG5z
0 0 Skyrim.esm
1 1 Update.esm
2 2 Dawnguard.esm
3 3 HearthFires.esm
4 4 Dragonborn.esm
5 5 ccbgssse001-fish.esm
6 6 Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch.esp
254 FE 0 Lux - Master plugin.esm
254 FE 1 OCPA.esl
254 FE 2 TrueHUD.esl
7 7 Heels Sound.esm
8 8 MajesticMountains_Landscape.esm
254 FE 3 Cathedral - 3D Mountain Flowers.esp
254 FE 4 Lux - Resources.esp
9 9 Lux Via.esp
10 a Natural Waterfalls.esp
254 FE 5 Lux Orbis - Master plugin.esm
11 b BBLuxurySuite.esm
12 c ZaZAnimationPack.esm
13 d FlowerGirls SE.esm
14 e SexLab.esm
15 f SexLabAroused.esm
254 FE 6 Expressive Facegen Morphs.esl
16 10 UndergroundBathhouse.esm
254 FE 7 1WR.esl
17 11 High Poly Head.esm
18 12 Schlongs of Skyrim - Core.esm
254 FE 8 Natural Waterfalls - Dawnguard.esp
254 FE 9 Natural Waterfalls - Dragonborn.esp
19 13 DynDOLOD.esm
254 FE a HD Lods SSE.esp
254 FE b Particle Patch for ENB.esp
20 14 SkyUI_SE.esp
21 15 Audio Overhaul Skyrim.esp
22 16 Immersive Sounds - Compendium.esp
23 17 Obsidian Weathers.esp
24 18 SMIM-SE-Merged-All.esp
25 19 Better Dynamic Snow.esp
26 1a FNIS.esp
27 1b EnhancedLightsandFX.esp
28 1c Fabled Forests.esp
254 FE c LessMergedTree33.esp
29 1d ELFX - Exteriors.esp
254 FE d Lux Orbis.esp
30 1e JKs Skyrim.esp
31 1f BBLS_SKSE64_Patch.esp
32 20 MysticismMagic.esp
33 21 Adamant.esp
34 22 NAT-ENB.esp
HappyLittleTrees.esp
254 FE e Lux Via - plugin.esp
35 23 Embers XD.esp
36 24 Immersive Encounters.esp
37 25 Hothtrooper44_ArmorCompilation.esp
38 26 The Ruins.esp
254 FE f MajesticMountains.esp
39 27 Riften Docks Overhaul.esp
40 28 018Auri.esp
254 FE 10 TKAA.esp
254 FE 11 Lux Via - Whiterun Repaired Bridge.esp
254 FE 12 Song of the Green's fancy Pod.esp
41 29 SexLab-AmorousAdventures.esp
254 FE 13 Lux Orbis - Riften Docks Overhaul patch.esp
254 FE 14 Reverb Interior Sounds Expansion.esp
254 FE 15 AcousticTemplateFixes.esp
42 2a Immersive Weapons.esp
43 2b ScopedBows.esp
44 2c ScopedBows_ArrowTweaks.esp
45 2d ScopedBows_EagleEyeTweak.esp
254 FE 16 Precision.esp
254 FE 17 BetterThirdPersonSelection.esp
254 FE 18 TrueDirectionalMovement.esp
254 FE 19 [COCO]Lingerie.esp
46 2e AK_RM_PubicStyles_All_In_One.esp
254 FE 1a CK_Selina_Follower.esp
254 FE 1b Civil War Lines Expansion.esp
254 FE 1c Vampire Lines Expansion.esp
47 2f Joy of Perspective.esp
254 FE 1d Project ja-Kha'jay- Khajiit Diversity.esp
254 FE 1e JKJ - USSEP Patch.esp
48 30 ZAZpatch.esp
49 31 FGCumEffect.esp
50 32 SexLab Cumshot.esp
51 33 sr_FillHerUp.esp
254 FE 1f Conditional Expressions.esp
52 34 Facelight.esp
53 35 FlowerGirls SE - Bathing Beauties Patch.esp
54 36 FlowerGirls SE - Adventures.esp
55 37 SLAnimLoader.esp
254 FE 20 Sprites or Specters ENB Light.esp
56 38 StormLightning.esp
57 39 Cathedral Weathers.esp
254 FE 21 CathedralWeatherMCM.esp
254 FE 22 Cathedral Weather Godrays.esp
254 FE 23 TruTorchesSE.esp
254 FE 24 SunDaytimeNorth_MM_default.esp
58 3a Paragliding.esp
254 FE 25 QuickLootEE.esp
254 FE 26 Sonders_Keyword_Distribution.esp
59 3b DX Succubus Armor.esp
254 FE 27 NideVeilUthgerdReplacer.esp
60 3c FasterSkillLevelingUltimate_x2.esp
254 FE 28 Arena.esp
61 3d dD - Enhanced Blood Main.esp
254 FE 29 Dynamic Impact - Slash Effects X.esp
254 FE 2a Dynamic Impact - Slash Effects X-03EBT_ISC.esp
254 FE 2b WindyGrass.esp
62 3e Random Emotions.esp
63 3f opmfgconsole.esp
64 40 LADX_SSE.esp
65 41 Schlongs of Skyrim.esp
66 42 SOS - Shop.esp
254 FE 2c BBLS - Lux Exterior Lighting.esp
254 FE 2d Lux Orbis - CC Fish patch.esp
67 43 BBLuxurySuiteENM.esp
254 FE 2e BBLSExtBeds.esp
254 FE 2f Zelda_Follower.esp
254 FE 30 [COCO] Scarlet Rose.esp
254 FE 31 NyrFollowerAssets.esp
254 FE 32 Nuria Nyr - Mirabelle Replacer.esp
254 FE 33 aMidianBorn_Book of Silence.esp
254 FE 34 Bears of the North.esp
254 FE 35 SongstoPlaySkyrimto1.1.esp
254 FE 36 RelaxedBards.esp
254 FE 37 Reverb Interior Sounds Expansion_VolumeSlider_Rain.esp
254 FE 38 Reverb Interior Sounds Expansion_VolumeSlider_Thunder.esp
254 FE 39 AcousticTemplateFixes_ReverbInteriorSounds.esp
254 FE 3a KSHairdosSMP.esp
254 FE 3b KSWigsSMP.esp
68 44 Toccata as Elisif.esp
69 45 Toccata.esp
254 FE 3c BM_Brows_HPH.esp
254 FE 3d RTDocks - High Poly Head.esp
254 FE 3e Lux Orbis - USSEP patch.esp
254 FE 3f Embers XD - Patch - Lux Via.esp
254 FE 40 BBLS - Fabled Forests.esp
254 FE 41 Lux Orbis - Auri Song of the Green.esp
254 FE 42 RTDocks - SMIM.esp
70 46 TrueHel.esp
71 47 Maelstrom.esp
254 FE 43 RTDocks - Song of the Green.esp
254 FE 44 UntarnishedUI_Blur.esp
254 FE 45 UntarnishedUI_Subtitle.esp
254 FE 46 SleepForMeNow.esp
254 FE 47 CRB Auri Lenka Replacer.esp
72 48 FNISspells.esp
73 49 FNISSexyMove.esp
254 FE 48 MCMHelper.esp
74 4a Attack_MCO.esp
254 FE 49 scar-adxp-patch.esp
254 FE 4a Keytrace.esp
254 FE 4b TBD - KinnariArmor.esp
254 FE 4c WIZ_FoscsF.esp
254 FE 4d TBD - ShadowWitch.esp
254 FE 4e DarkStandalone.esp
254 FE 4f 3BBB.esp
254 FE 50 SOSPhysicsManager.esp
75 4b Hothtrooper44_Armor_Ecksstra.esp
76 4c SkyrimIsWindy.esp
77 4d RaceMenu.esp
78 4e RaceMenuPlugin.esp
79 4f RaceMenuHH.esp
80 50 Monster Armor.esp
254 FE 51 Botox SE.esp
81 51 High Poly Head Vampire Fix.esp
82 52 Better Females - Eyebrows.esp
83 53 The Eyes Of Beauty - Elves Edition.esp
84 54 TheEyesOfBeauty.esp
85 55 FMS_FemaleMakeupSuite.esp
86 56 RaceMenuMorphsTBD.esp
87 57 TouchedbyDibella.esp
88 58 SOSRaceMenu.esp
89 59 XPMSE.esp
90 5a UIExtensions.esp
91 5b AddItemMenuSE.esp
92 5c UBH-HighDGcomPatch.esp
254 FE 52 MoonsAndStars.esp
93 5d DisarmorShout.esp
254 FE 53 Embers XD - Fire Magick Add-On.esp
94 5e SOS - Smurf Average Addon.esp
95 5f SOS - VectorPlexus Muscular Addon.esp
96 60 SOS - VectorPlexus Regular Addon.esp
97 61 dD - Realistic Ragdoll Force - Realistic.esp
98 62 SimplyClimbing.esp
99 63 ub_tapestry.esp
100 64 ub_invite_any_npc.esp
101 65 SexLabTools.esp
254 FE 54 Bandit Lines Expansion.esp
254 FE 55 AOS_EBT Patch.esp
102 66 Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul.esp
103 67 Water for ENB (Mineral Teal).esp
254 FE 56 Water for ENB - Patch - Cabbage ENB.esp
254 FE 57 Natural Waterfalls - Water for ENB Patch (Mineral Teal).esp
104 68 Lux.esp
254 FE 58 Lux - USSEP patch.esp
254 FE 59 Lux - Embers XD patch.esp
254 FE 5a AcousticTemplateFixes_Lux.esp
254 FE 5b Lux - Riften Docks Overhaul patch.esp
105 69 ELFXEnhancer.esp
254 FE 5c TruTorch Lighting - All Torch Bulb Kind Baseforms.esp
106 6a DynDOLOD.esp
254 FE 5d Occlusion.esp

General Content Warning for this entire write-up, so everyone can have a good time: - Extensive discussion of topics related to mental illness, including self-harm, suicidal ideation, mania / bipolar disorder, distortion of truth, medication, involuntary hospitalization, medical abuse in a hospital setting, and romanticization of mental illness. - Non-detailed mentions of domestic violence (implied abuse by intimate partner and parents) and sexual / gender-based violence (including rape, child sexual assault, grooming, sex trafficking and torture). These last few items feature prominently in one installment, pertaining to a work of fiction; descriptions may be a bit more specific/detailed in that segment, but not graphic. - Mentions and quotes of unchill bigoted behavior, including ableism (mental and physical), white nonsense / white fragility / racism, fatphobia, prejudice against drug users.
Additional CWs may be added at the beginning of specific segments when relevant. While these are heavy topics, the tone of this write-up is generally light-hearted and aims to entertain. If this approach sounds uncomfortable or trivializing, this may not be a good read for you; please trust your gut!
*
Picture this: it's the early 2010s, somewhere in the western world. Instagram is a novelty, Harvey Weinstein runs Hollywood, almost no one on Earth leans one way or the other about RNA vaccines, and Donald Trump is that one real estate guy you vaguely remember from Home Alone 2. New player Lady Gaga is the most interesting thing to have happened to pop since Madonna, and the whole industry is attempting to catch up; Miley Cyrus is the chick who used to be on Hannah Montana; Melanie Martinez hasn't hatched yet. The time of Oddball Concept Divas is dawning just below the horizon.
You're a Bowie-loving student who skipped goth night at the club to tag along with your art school friends for a very special evening. You're a giddy sixteen-year old rocking cat ears, purple Wet 'n Wild eyeliner, a polyester petticoat, and a coffin-shaped backpack. You're an effete theater kid who sewed his own waistcoat for the occasion, but won't dare wear it to school the next day. You're a buff, bearded dude in a Venom shirt who's trying not to look too excited, since your girlfriend supposedly had to drag you here. You're a slightly bemused parent leaning against the back wall of the venue, sipping a warm half-pint, wondering if this isn't all a bit dark for a tween. (“It's called 'Victoriandustrial', mom,” you've been told in the car, “and it's not dark, it's art.”)
On stage is a pink-haired woman, with red porcelain-doll lips and a heart painted on her cheek. Among a set of antique consoles, twee tchotchkes, teacups and plastic rats, she pounces and twirls in glittery platform boots, tattered striped stockings, and a tightly laced crystal-studded corset that looks like it's splattered in blood. This is ostensibly a concert, but there is no live band. Where one would expect a drum kit or a bass, three bedazzled burlesque vixens act as back-up singers and dancers, with the occasional vaudeville act – a fire-twirling number, a fan dance, throwing pastries and spitting tea into the audience. Lots of wholesome girl-on-girl kissing, too. The music on the backing track is a genre-bender of clanging beats and beeps, lofty orchestral strings, and the frantic hammering of a MIDI harpsichord, as the pink-haired frontlady sings of heartache and betrayal and drowning. Think if the Brontë sisters had invented industrial rock.
The audience gasps in excitement when the lady whips out a vamped-out wireless electric violin. With rockstar cool and virtuoso poise, she leans into the instrument, touches the bow to the strings, and tears out a single plaintive, impeccably distorted high note. Then her fingers go wild, and for a few seconds, everything is perfect suspended animation. Uncannily perfect, almost. Just behind you, you hear someone whisper: “Wait, is she miming it?”
*
Forgive the theatrical intro, but I had to set the stage for... the drama. And I do mean drama in the thespian sense of the term! This, ladies and gentlemen, is a Shakespeare play: wordy and confusing, but it's neat how the main character's opening lines foreshadow the tragic climax. It's a Greek tragedy for the digital age – if, instead of killing his dad and banging his mom, after becoming king, Oedipus was doomed to becoming uniquely obnoxious. It's The Rocky Horror Show under the grim direction of Samuel Beckett. Like all good theatre, this story is about how fiction bleeds into reality – through the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and how all the world's a stage and all that.

WHO IS EMILIE AUTUMN, AND WHAT'S THE DRAMA?

Here's the Broadway Weekly blurb, so you can decide whether the show is worth your time: Emilie Autumn, also known as EA, is a US-American alternative singer-songwriter, author, and actor. She became known in alt circles in the mid-2010s for her violin skills, unique fashion, outspoken stances on feminism and mental health advocacy, and the way she dramatized and sublimated her own life story in her art. In 2009, she self-published a semi-autobiographical book that became a sort of bible to her creative universe and fandom. She toured extensively and enjoyed niche, but considerable success until the mid-2010s – with hordes of devoted fans adopting her fashion sense and lingo, and crediting her music for getting them through dark times.
For the past twelve years or so, EA has mostly been focused on adapting her book into a stage musical, releasing two more albums of songs intended for the libretto. At the time of this write-up, it has been six years since the last album and a decade since the last live show. Although she still talks about the musical as an ongoing, Broadway-bound project, in recent years, she's often gone dark for months at a time on social media. There is no forum, no large Discord, no active community to speak of; comments are restricted on her currently-inactive Instagram and blog.
Who is she hiding from, you ask? Why, you've probably guessed it: the hordes of devoted fans whom she infuriates every time she does anything.
And what are they furious about? (Or frustrated, flummoxed, or plain ol' flabbergasted?) Well, it depends who you ask. For some, it's disappointment in her artistic and marketing choices (what are fans for?). Others cite unkept promises or absurd release delays. For others yet, it's the AliBaba merch sold at jaw-dropping markups with three paragraphs of purple prose in the product description.. Or maybe it was the angry rants on Twitter? Okay, it's the casual bigotry that she staunchly denies or dismisses. It's the criticism she can't take. It's the fact that she won't stop lying about her own life! Either way, I don't personally know of any fanbase that has been so consistently exasperated, for so many years, and for such a diverse array of reasons, by their favorite artist.
In truth, each individual mini-scandal isn't all that juicy or scandalous. Nobody died, no one got sued; nothing of significant value, other than time and sanity, was taken away from anyone. What I find interesting here is the years and years of bizarre parasocial codependency (and antagonism) between a fragile woman who became addicted to her own poppycock, and an obsessive fanbase who cared way too much not to take it personally.
Before we even get to EA's relationship with her fans, you're going to need some lore about EA herself. A “Hobby History” of sorts. Strap in! There's romance, tragedy, laughter, character development, variety numbers, numerous costume changes, (actual) celebrity cameos – and based on how long this OpenOffice doc already is at the time of my writing this, we're probably going to need several intermissions too. This write-up is link-heavy, both with receipts and with additional watching and listening material. Not all of them need to be clicked in order to understand the story; I'm merely providing the rabbit holes. I've tried to make things more easily navigable by including a little glossary about the nature of links; one emoji-indicator carries over the next link until I use a different one.
🪞 = picture / visual 🎵 = music 📺 = video 📝 = primary source / receipt 🔍 = press article / write-up / further reading 🎤 = song lyrics / spoken word audio 🐀 = anonymous fan confession 🦠 = reaction / meme

BAROQUE BEGINNINGS: THE VIOLIN YEARS

VampireFreaks: Do you ever smile to yourself knowing your old music teachers might be seeing your success? EA: I smile to myself knowing they might be dead. (Long-lost interview, late 2000s)

Born in Malibu in the late 70s, Emilie Autumn, often known as EA, was originally trained as a classical violinist.
By her account, she started playing the violin at age 4, and was homeschooled at age 9 so that she could focus on her instrument. After stints at various performing arts colleges, some rather prestigious, she dropped out of formal schooling in her mid-to-late teens to embark on a solo violin career.
In 2001, after disappointing experiences with major record companies, she created her own label, Traitor Records, and released a EP of chamber music, with minor success. The stuffy industry of classical music didn't “get” the twenty-something manic-pixie-fiddler, who played Bach just a bit too fast, but with electric stage presence – wearing period corsets, combat boots, and the occasional fairy wings. But EA evidently knew that there was an audience for that somewhere.
And that somewhere – drumroll – was Illinois.

VW: What do you most hope to accomplish? EA: Everything. (‘Virtual World Radio’ Interview, 2002 📝)

ENCHANT ERA: BRUSHES WITH FAME ON FAERIE WINGS

What if I'm an ocean, far too shallow, much too deep? (...) What if I'm a siren singing gentlemen to sleep? (“What If”, 2003 🎵)

Soon, EA relocated from her native California to Chicago. There, in between odd jobs, she veered away from baroque and began performing her own “fantasy rock” stylings at piano bars, holiday fairs and local venues – and building a decent following through her LiveJournal, website, and IRL friends. People loved the whole renegade genius thing, loved the violin, loved the nightingale voice, loved the fairy wings and costumes🪞, loved the handmade merch and general disdain for The Business, loved her deadpan humor and bookish nerdiness. In 2003, she released her first LP, Enchant 🎵 – an ethereal, introspective indie-pop joint, born under the sign of Imogen Heap, with a moon in Fiona Apple and Tori Amos rising.
Everything about EA's act was exquisitely DIY, personal, and intricate. For instance, the Enchant booklet folded out into a Masquerade-style puzzle of her own design.🪞 The first person to solve the puzzle would win “the Wings, Ruff, Fan and Scepter of the Faerie Queene herself” – all lovingly handmade by EA, and depicted in peak 2003 graphic design on the booklet. For months, YEARS after Enchant came out, people poured over the cryptic metaphors and literary references, the historical symbolism and visual puns of the artwork, looking for hints and patterns. They read every fan chat, every interview, every relevant Shakespeare play, hoping to decipher the inner workings of EA's mind and find new keys to the puzzle. Sure, it's been two decades now and no one's ever managed to crack the damn thing 🔍, which is by now widely assumed to be flawed and unsolvable; still, it's the kind of zany, brainy, immersive experience that tends to cultivate a niche but hyper-invested fanbase.
So it makes perfect sense that underground aficionada and internet frontierswoman Courtney Love (she haunted public AOL chatrooms as early as 1995! 🔍) would take an interest. Just a few months after releasing Enchant, EA was off to southern France to record violin and vocals for Courtney's new solo album; a few months after that, in early 2004, she joined Courtney's band on a brief tour to promote the record.
Alas, no cigar: America's Sweetheart flopped. Maybe because most of those summer recording sessions were ultimately lost to an engineering oopsie; maybe because Courtney was having an especially rough year – and going through all the “rock-bottom moments” that she would discuss in group therapy, later that fall, when she began her sobriety journey at court-ordered rehab. EA, a former homeschool kid who had never done drugs, seems to remember the tour as a generally terrifying experience; she later stated, with some bitterness, that the experience was not worth the time it had taken away from her own solo career.
But it was a good year for TV appearances! Here she is on the David Letterman Show in March 2004, rocking out on a perfectly inaudible violin as C-Love fades in and out of her own body. 📺 She also landed a cute tutorial segment on HGTV's Crafters: Coast to Coast, making sushi-shaped soap and fairy wings. In December, she accompanied Billy Corgan for a Christmas song on a Chicago station.
All of this was chronicled in quirky, wordy posts on her blog – interspersed with late-night musings about casual misogyny in the media 📝, including against Courtney, handmade crafts and clothing auctions, candid pictures of outings with friends in Chicago... as well as periodic updates on the progress of her next opus: Opheliac.

God, too much to even begin to tell right now, and I’m recording anyway, but I can give you this update: I just finished yesterday recording violin parts and backing vocals for B. Corgan’s first single (...) More later, recording piano for my new track “GOD HELP ME”…why do I torture myself with my own self-inflicted drama…or is it a way of exorcizing…yes, I’ll go with that one for now…☠ (“Whirlwind...”, December 2004)

By that point, EA was starting to be more open about her conflicted relationship with what would later be diagnosed as bipolar disorder. The galaxy-brain moments, the trance of creative frenzies, the liminal high of going three days without sleep, the magic... the crippling sensitivity, the restless anxiety, the Zoloft that one both needs and hates, the ever-lurking suicidal thoughts. As EA gradually revealed over the course of 2004, Opheliac would be an exploration of the “mad woman” archetype. The title was a medical neologism for “the syndrome of Ophelia”, as in the tragic character from Hamlet 🔍, driven to insanity and ultimate self-destruction by the fuckboys who rule her life. Here's EA explaining it in her own words. 🎤 The album would dive into how psychiatry and romantic relationships are governed by old misogynistic tropes, and how the “mentally ill” label is used to silence and downplay the justified anger and hurt of abused women.
In a striking case of life imitating art (are you picking up on the theme yet?), this concept was about to become more painfully relevant than ever to EA's personal existence.
CW: implied partner abuse, suicidal ideation.

DISENCHANTMENT: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS

In the lake, you will find me Behind your house, behind your house (...) My ocean is bluer than the heart you had to break My sea is deeper than your lake (“In the Lake”, 2005 🎵)

Where were we? Ah yes, the Christmas song with Billy Corgan at the end of 2004. Around that time, EA was also recording violin parts and backing vocals for his upcoming solo album. 🎵 They had presumably connected through Courtney, they both lived in Chicago, I guess something clicked.
In January of 2005, EA abruptly went off of her meds, broke up with her live-in boyfriend-slash-bassist, packed up her violin and corsets, and moved into Corgan's mansion. In March of 2005, she posted very melancholy lyrics about drowning in a lake to haunt a deceitful lover. The post was entitled“In The Lake (The Zoloft is calling my name...)” 🎤📝. Later, after the song was released as a B-side, EA disclosed that it had been intended as a public suicide note 📝.
Blog entries from that time touched on a “whirlwind of action and emotion”, “changing residences” and feeling like “you're falling through the air, but you don't know if you'll hit the water or the rocks” 📝. But, EA being an expert vague-poster, her posts remained very elusive about what was going on, who was involved, and how it impacted her. (The specifics were pieced together years later, by fan-led forensic efforts – which, obviously, involved ascertaining the existence of an actual body of water in Billy Corgan's backyard 📝).
Whatever happened over the course of those months was never disclosed explicitly by EA, but is widely assumed to have inspired songs such as “Liar” 🎤, “Misery Loves Company”, “Let the Record Show”, and “I Know Where You Sleep”, , recorded that same spring. A solid quarter of the Opheliac tracklist – which was shaping out to be decidedly darker and grittier than Enchant.

You can lie to the papers, you can hide from the press (...) I know your tainted flesh, I know your filthy soul I know each trick you played, whore you laid, dream you stole I know the bed in the room in the wall in the house Where you got what you wanted and ruined it all I know the secrets that you keep I know where you sleep

Even as her personal blog posts grew more somber, nihilistic, and generally fed-up in the face of what she called “the worst breakdown of her young life”, even as the songwriting process had her rummage through traumatic memories [CW: CSA] 🎤, and even as the Corgan-adjacent trauma was compounded by various rushed moves and broken friendships over that summer and fall, EA remained remarkably (some might say frantically) prolific.
Other than progress on Opheliac, 2005 saw multiple violin collaborations with alternative bands, numerous auctions of, mh, visually strident “punktorian” fashion pieces 📝🪞 (“STRESS COUTURE!” 🦠📺), and an updated re-issue of her 2001 poetry collection, complete with audiobook. ("...The book has been selling like crack in a limo with Courtney Love (and believe me, I know)." - Ooooof, EA. Low-hanging fruit. 📝)
In October, she started recruiting:

WANTED: Hot goth bitch to join touring band of other hot goth bitches. (...) Must be able to: sing backing vocals in a wide range with excellent pitch, growl à la Kittie, handle minimal keyboard parts, push buttons/turn knobs with killer attitude, be extremely comfortable on stage in bloomers and a corset, reside in the Chicago area, know the difference between a crumpet and a scone, have at least one hidden talent. 📝

By winter, most of her blog post titles were written in THIS FORMAT!!!!!!!! In December, she announced that “Emilie Autumn and the Bloody Crumpets” would preview Opheliac live at the Double Door in Chicago, on Friday the 13th (ooh!) of the following month. “We are coming to destroy your world,” the post threatened enticingly. "Miss it and suffer. We really don't want to hurt you.” The flyer advertised a dress code:

Masquerade, Ophelias, green girls, Victorian insane asylum escapees, princes of Denmark, bloomered harlots and rogues – general burlesque ribaldry!

Exit diaphanous butterfly wings and elven tiaras 📺, enter the haunted murder-doll with the blood-red heart on her cheek; out with Elizabethan chamber-pop, in with Victoriandustrial. The fairy had to die to make way for the iconic, the sublime, the tragic, the ridiculous, the positively bananas...

OPHELIAC ERA: LET THE RECORD SHOW

EA: What's more interesting, and what's more fun to watch, than a crazy girl's self-destruction? Nothing. Nothing in the world. (The Opheliac Companion, 2008 🎤)
If I'm going down Then I'm going down good I'm going down Then I'm going down clean (...) The prettiest broken girl you've ever seen (“Let the Record Show”, 2006 🎵)

CW: mania, self-harm, abortion, suicidal ideation, hospitalization.
If you haven't gathered as much by now, what fans were witnessing in real time on EA's blog, without necessarily seeing it, was the ebb and flow of a months-long manic episode. That's not me armchair-diagnosing: EA herself has discussed penning and recording a lot of her best material in a trance-like rush, “when you're writing on the ceiling because there's not enough paper to contain your thoughts”.

...Once I became stable and healthy, I realized that I had no memory of how a great deal of my music had been created. I had written and even programmed most of my best work in a similar manic state, and, when stark raving sane, I didn’t know how to do it anymore, because the part of me that really composes never needed to know how to do it, it just did. (2019 Instagram post 📝)

It's not an uncommon experience for artists with bipolar disorder. Before you burn so hot that you wind up in the back of an ambulance, and/or before the pendulum swings back towards debilitating depression, the boundless energy, heightened sensitivity, and unexpected thought patterns associated with mania can lead to periods of prolific and effortless creation.
Mania also has the potential to lower your inhibitions, making you more bodacious, more quick-witted – more dazzling, more fun at parties, more dramatic. All traits that are valued in the entertainment industry, especially one that, with the rise of social media, was coming to rely increasingly on parasocial engagement and “personal branding”. Why would you refrain from oversharing, overreacting, overworking, overpromising, overcurating a fantasy image of yourself... when new industry models reward exactly that?
My point is that, in retrospect, “the end was built into the beginning”: all the things that would make fans go “What the hell, Emilie!” in subsequent years were brewing below the surface before the album even dropped.
In the summer of 2006, EA said goodbye to her Chicago friends and returned to California, where she moved in with her new beau, another Illinois-born guitarist with an impressive forehead: Brendon Small, of Dethklok/Metalocalypse quasi-fame. (If you're into that sort of thing: the orchestral strings on “Detharmonic”? Yep, that's EA! 🎵📺)
In September, Opheliac was released into the world. Expectations were high... And many sources agree it was a goddamn banger. It was ultrafemme, ultradark, unhinged, hilarious and deadly and brilliant. It had gnarly kitchen-sink drums layered under angelic string harmonies, fauxperatic swells, and guttural screaming. It had sarcastically self-aware double-entendres that were also literary references that were also musical notation jokes. You get the idea: it was the album that a small, but sizable demographic of tormented millennial teens had been waiting to obsess over. Some time in late 2005 or so, EA had signed with German label Trisol Records, which gave her access to better promotion, press coverage and touring opportunities in Europe when the album came out in the fall. By winter, she was on the cover of alternative mags, and the talk of the town on underground music webzines. Within a year, she was embarking on the first of three almost-back-to-back European tours.
It was around that time that EA started giving her fanbase a more defined, aesthetically on-brand identity. EA, funnily enough, disliked the term “fan” due to its proximity to “fanatic”, and started calling individual supporters “muffins” or the "Bloomer Brigade". (After The Book came out in 2009, they would become “Plague Rats”. You know how pets get weird if you re-name them too many times? I wonder if the same is true of fans.) Meanwhile, EA's fanbase as a collective – as well as her home, her recording studio, her online forum and her inner brainspace... – became canonically known as “The Asylum”. Cue infinite jokes about her fans being “committed.”
And they really were, in a slightly more intense way than your average indie-alternative fanbase. Many fans enthusiastically adopted facets of EA's mannerisms and lingo, which gave the fandom a definite LARP-ing bend; and the official forum did, in fact, offer a subforum for Asylum-themed role-play. (In a number of ways, the Asylum was basically Juggalos for socially anxious theater goths. Substitute the clown facepaint, Faygo, and hatchets for cheek-hearts, Earl Grey tea, and obsolete medical tools.) While there was always some side-eye at the embarrassingly candid, often very young Plague Rats who took the Asylum thing too seriously (always speaking in character and worshipping the ground Mistress Emilie walked on), a lot of people were quite thrilled to play romantic Victorian madhouse with their new favorite artist. Live shows were like costume balls. The forum thrived.
It was like Opheliac had opened a portal to this vibrant and inclusive alternate dimension, which the community was now bringing to life in the real world. And each tour brought more inmates (muffins, Plague Rats, you get it) to the Asylum. “Spread the Plague!” was the name of the game.
So, on paper, in the three years that followed Opheliac, EA kind of won the high-concept-indie-artist equivalent of the lottery. After going through her own personal hell of abuse, major upheavals and serious mental health crises, she had decided to gamble on a radically different tone and musical direction. She came out the other side with critical acclaim for her soul-baring record, tons of live shows with a badass girl squad, photoshoots so iconic they pop up on random Pinterest boards to this day, snazzy corporate sponsorships (including Manic Panic and RockLove Jewelry), and an exponentially growing fanbase who couldn't get enough of whatever she had to give. And she gave quite a lot!
Within those three years, in between tours, EA released A Bit O' This & That 🎵 (a compilation of demos and back-catalogue curiosities), Laced / Unlaced (a full-instrumental double album - one side was the baroque recordings from her late teens, the other was demented, distortion-heavy classical-prog), and three EPs packed with new songs, covers, remixes and bonus content. There was also a deluxe reissue of Enchant, without the puzzle, but with a brand new booklet of handwritten lyrics and marginalia. All came in lovely inter-matching digipaks that really made you want to collect them all – much like the handmade merch 📝🪞 that EA still sold on some legs of her tours. She spent time with the fans at most shows, eventually holding meet-and-greets and private showcases for VIP ticket-holders. She also released “The Opheliac Companion”, a kind of “director's commentary” of the album – roughly 10 hours worth of lyrical deep dives, microphone specs, tangents within tangents within tangents, and whacky (tipsy, sometimes unintelligible) banter between EA and her sound engineer🎤. On top of all that, she wrote, designed and self-published a fully illustrated 200-page coffee-table book, the first print of which sold out within a year. Not bad!
Of course, things that seem to good to be true usually are: at this stage in the story, EA is never as enthusiastically prolific as when her personal life is falling apart behind the scenes.
In the three years that followed Opheliac, along with soaring success, EA got to experience: more rapid-cycling between manic phases and the pits of depression, multiple harrowing medication adjustments, an very-much-unwanted pregnancy followed by a traumatic abortion, a suicide attempt, at least one inpatient stay, and a break-up in the aftermath of it all. There were also a few physical health scares that required hospitalization. On one occasion, she had to go off all her meds cold-turkey when they were confiscated at the EU border right before the start of a tour. In some pictures from her summer 2007 festival appearances, you can make out faint self-harm scars on her thigh through the layered stockings. (Obvious CW, for the morbidly curious.🪞(But if you weren't, would you still be reading?))
So yeah. EA was not doing great.
She didn't share any of these struggles with her fans in real time; her posts were all droll banter and updates on tours and releases. Most of what I just listed was disclosed in late 2009, in the autobiographical part of The Book. (The Book gets at least one instalment of its own. Bear with me, there's a LOT to unpack.) And The Book, while never specifying a timeline, kind of really made it sound like the Bad Stuff (the abortion, the suicide attempt, the hospital stay) had taken place a while back, before the release of Opheliac. In fact, EA plainly stated as much, citing “getting locked up and being put in the asylum" 📝 as the reason for the shift in sound between Enchant and Opheliac.
She repeatedly referred to herself as “stabilized” and “now properly medicated” in interviews. As far as the fanbase was concerned, she had triumphed over her abusers, turned trauma into beauty, and lived to pass on her story of survival. And now she had found balance and community and true acceptance of herself, all that good stuff – and all was fine and dandy within the Asylum. On stage, she sang about blind rage and all-consuming despair and general hopelessness, but she didn't actually feel like that – not anymore, right?
This narrative was both inspirational and quite convenient for the fans. We love our Mad Hatters 🎵📺, our Rainmen, our manic pixies. We love and celebrate “crazy” when it manifests as outside-the-box brilliance and/or bubbly eccentricity. But in my experience, even in spaces that ostensibly focus on "destigmatizing mental illness", positivity and support can quickly turn to rejection and awkwardness when your “quirks” manifest in more challenging ways – like through erratic decisions, aggressive or dishonest behavior, or increasingly untethered beliefs about yourself and the world. No matter how much people claim to “embrace the madness”, it just isn't that fun or in good taste for a large group to play-act ~ whimsical insanity ~ with someone who is for realsies mentally falling apart.
Before time has had time to do its thing, "revisiting your trauma" is just called ruminating. And it's rarely good for you, even when you commit some of greatest art in the process.
I think fans had to assume that there was some critical distance in EA's act, that these extreme negative emotions were all theater – because if they weren't, then the Asylum wasn't an empowering performance about healing from past hurt. It was more like a years-long reality show in which a woman picked at her wounds publicly, again and again, in real time, to the cheers of oblivious strangers who thought they were watching a play.
All I'm saying is that EA was essentially still in the thick of raw trauma when she became a poster-child for overcoming it; that the last thing a person needs, at such a vulnerable stage in their life, is an intense parasocial relationship with sad goth teenagers, let alone one centered around romanticized retellings of their own darkest moments; and that if more people had declined to actively engage in pretend-play that toed the line of self-harm... there is a chance that things might have turned out differently. Maybe EA would still be a successful musician whose career isn't plagued by conflict and mutual disappointment, and maybe some fans wouldn't have wasted years getting red in the face at an over-exposed mentally ill woman for not getting her shit together.
OKAY, THAT GOT HEAVY (and preachy), apologies and thank you for your patience. I will now quit my soapboxing, resume telling the story, and let you draw your own conclusion as our dark plot unravels.

EPILOGUE: DEAD IS THE NEW ALIVE

A quick taste of the poison A quick twist of the knife When the obsession with death, the obsession with death Becomes a way of life ("Dead is the New Alive", 2006 🎵)
I am still over-glorified My reasons to live Were my reasons to die But at least they were mine (“306”, 2006)

In summation: becoming an overnight success thanks to your darkest trauma will do things to person's mind.
As EA kept hyping up how much her fans meant to her, and what an amazing and inclusive and free-thinking motley crew the Asylum was, she was also growing more and more controlling of her increasingly large (and opinionated, and overall rather young) fanbase – and more generally, of the way people ought to talk to and about her.
It was during the Opheliac era that she started reveling in made-up stories about her own life. Then came the habit of losing her shit on fans that she perceived as ungrateful or disrespectful. It was also then that massive kerfuffles became routine on the merch and planning front, and EA's creative output started to routinely fall short of her promises. The more fans started raising legitimate complaints, the more defensive and uncompromising EA became in her public interactions. The more people expressed weariness of the Asylum theme, or started questioning EA's hot takes on mental health and feminism, the harder she doubled down on the Asylum lore and fictional universe. Which is where the drama really starts.
Alright, the time has come. Let's talk about The Book.
...Actually, let's not. I'm nearing my character limit, and you could probably use a break and a stretch after making it this far. This is our intermission, and we'll get to The Book in our next instalment.
Thank you for reading! Stay tuned if you're interested in how it all comes tumbling down.

Hi all!
Hope you are well. I recently got married to my lovely wife, and we are looking to do thank you cards.
What we would love to do, and worked well for lime the invites, is to use a site like printed.com, design a template, and then provide a spreadsheet with everyone thank you message (we are keen to add a couple of custom lines per person)
Looks difficult though, does anyone (UK based here) have any experience of the above?
Thanks!!

It couldn't be.
I dropped the reusable bags but kept walking, kicking through the pile on my way into the store.
"Uh, Chris?" Shannon asked. "The bags?"
"Yeah, yeah." I didn't stop, leaving her behind in the lobby. I walked through the produce section to clothing to housewares to a wall of toilet paper. The Value Club had everything but an easily accessible back door.
Shannon found me sitting on a gigantic multipack of triple-ply quilted, the good stuff.
"Hi," I said, afraid to look at her.
"Hi," she said before sitting beside me. The pack was so wide, practically a couch.
"Did you know Value Club is actually the last Price Club and the managers pooled their money to keep it out of the Costco merger?"
"I did," Shannon said. "Someone usually mentions it every single time we shop here." She squeezed my kneecap. "Want to tell me why you're sitting on toilet paper? That's new."
"Can we leave first?"
My wife's dark eyebrows knitted with concern. "Chris, what's going on?"
"We have to go, Shannon," I urged her, panic beginning to rise. "The orange horse," I whispered, "is here." I covered my mouth, afraid that it might hear.
"The what?"
I wrung my hands. "Didn't you see it? It's right inside the front doors. The coin operated ride. Oh god, what if some kid rides it? That's why it's here. Of course. Why else?"
"Chris," Shannon said slowly, "you're scaring me."
"We have to go." I tugged on her wrist.
"Okay, okay, we can go." She started pulling me because I only stared helplessly at the toilet paper wall again. "Come on."
"Not that way!" I said too loud. A teen moving paper towels from a pallet to another pallet stopped and took out his earbuds. "We have to go out the back," I said more calmly.
Patiently, Shannon helped us find an exit through a delivery bay. We had to walk around the fortress of a store in the rain. I wouldn't let her go back into the lobby for the bags I'd dropped.
"Chris, come on. It's wasteful."
I'd already started the car. "You should have got them before."
"When you dropped them?"
"Yeah."
"I was more worried about my flaky husband."
"Get in the car, Shannon. There's no time." If she went back in, I would have left her behind. I love her but this fear runs deeper. She would have understood if she'd been there all those years ago with the orange horse.
When we were safe(r) in our kitchen and had changed out of our wet clothes, I opened up two bottles of wine and set them on the granite island.
"Gonna be some afternoon," she said, going to the cupboard for our wine glasses. Retreating to the living room couch, Shannon waited patiently while I lit the fireplace and drank and muttered about the heavy rain and whether or not our stunted trees by the back fence could survive another deluge.
Eventually, the alcohol wore through her patience. Shannon was not happy drunk. Neither was she mean, however. Aggressive would be more accurate. Often sexually, which I would have enjoyed if not for that thing at Value Club.
"Spill it, my love," she demanded.
I drained my glass and poured some more.
"Enough dramatics. Now, Chris."
"I'm not trying to be dramatic," I said truthfully. "I'm procrastinating because I don't want to talk about it. I don't ever want to think about it. It was thirty years ago."
"Chris…"
"Okay. Okay." I had to work up to it. "Remember Channel 14?"
She shook her head. "Not at all. Channel 14?"
"Local cable," I said. "It ran local TV shows. Pretty much all garbage, created by the best losers of Bridal Veil Lake. Anyone could have a show if they had a bit of money or a connection."
She sipped her wine, readying herself for what I was about to drop. Shannon is the best. Did I really want to bring her into my nightmares? She deserved better. We would stop going to Value Club. A childless couple didn't need to shop there. We just liked big stuff.
I put down my wine.
"Oh no you don't," she said, gripping my forearm, at first tenderly, and then pressing her sharp nails against my skin. "My love, if you don't tell me now, I intend to draw blood." She smiled and I knew the threat would be carried out.
"Okay, okay, so…"
The tip of talons dug in.
I yelped. "A talking horse! A talking horse! I was on a kids' show about a talking horse."
Nails relented, and her touch became comforting again. "The orange horse?"
I nodded. I had to sit down in one of our reading chairs by the fire.
My wife looked worried. I never acted like this. Our decade of marriage had been carefree and easy. "What happened on the show, Chris?"
"The horse could talk."
"Yes, you said that-"
"No, you don't understand. It could really talk. The hard plastic mouth moved and it could talk. The eyes too. The painted black dots rolled around in the whites." I shivered despite the waves of heat coming from the fire.
Shannon topped us up. "You never mentioned being on a kid's show before. How old were you?"
"Four. Five when it ended. I was the last kid. I can't remember the names of the others. One was Bella, I think. It called her Octa-Bella. I don't know why."
"Well, now I have to see, Chris," she said. She took out her phone.
"Good luck finding a copy of that-"
"Your mom has it in the shared drive."
Of course she did.
Shannon started watching with the volume high. Mom, damn it, she never understood the dread of that place, and didn't believe me when I said I was scared. To this day, she thinks we don't speak or see each other often because I'm so busy. The truth is I'll never stop resenting her for bringing me to Channel 14.
I didn't have to see the video on Shannon's phone to pair the awful piano intro with the black screen gradually filled with mechanical white type: The Orange Horse.
The words disappear and then, depending on the episode, there are kids, or one kid, on a stage in the dark, surrounding a shiny orange horse, a coin operated ride with a real leather saddle and reins that never helped anyone.
Poor sound quality picks up or makes an ambient buzzing that persists throughout each episode. That sound makes my stomach turn because it means it will speak soon, and it will choose.
"Hello children," says the orange horse, his voice a deep and unfriendly monotone. "Which one of you will try tonight? Have you decided? Or shall I?" The hinged mouth moves but rarely in synchronization with its words.
As Shannon watched and listened, I recalled the strong oiled scent of the mechanical beast and the way its pinprick eyes could swell until they took away the rest of the already empty scene and you would be alone with it. No one could come to save you, even had they wanted to.
Shannon paused the screen with her thumb. "Hang on, there's a timestamp thingy in the corner. Past midnight. Were you filming at night? That couldn't have been legal. Not even in the 80s."
"We weren't recording," I said, trembling so hard I could barely drink. "It was live. There wasn't a script. No rehearsals. No crew. Just us and the horse."
Shannon knelt down and weaved her fingers with mine. "My love, there must have been some people. Somebody filmed this. Your mom, for all her faults, wouldn't have ditched you with nobody."
"She brought a toddler there at midnight," I said, more angrily than expected. "You overestimate her parenting." Still, Shannon's suggestion stirred up a memory.
There had been an old man, a somber, silent guy. I don't remember him saying anything. He opened the studio doors and ensured they closed behind me.
"Have fun," my mom would say from the walkway outside. Channel 14 was a small, squat building, a brown, windowless rectangle. It'd been on the outskirts of Bridal Veil Lake beside a strip joint that never changed its sign: Grand Opening December.
The old guy would point the way to the heavy curtain at the end of a long, dim hallway. None of the track lights above were ever completely functional. They flickered and held on to burnt out tubes that seemed to emit a smoke coiling around the popcorn ceiling.
Beyond the curtain, the other kids were already there. We never talked or said hello. The orange horse ride waited, a presence demanding your attention. I remember the kids screaming when it spoke.
If you hadn't been through the ordeal already, you screamed. Some weeks there were a lot that screamed. Most times we waited for it to choose a rider in silence.
Often, the heavy oil odour would turn my stomach. There was another little girl in a knitted, pink sweater. She used to hold my hand until the night she was chosen. I never saw her again after that.
I remember her ride.
I remember prying my fingers from hers, and how she cried when the orange horse said her name. Stirrups, a rein, and the pommel were all too big for children. The saddle had been made with adults in mind it seemed.
"Erin, it's your turn to ride, time to see what wriggles inside." Its rhyme was as clumsy as its mouth. The eyes rolled and stopped with a sharp click that always made the chosen rider flinch. They were just dots of paint, and yet you just knew when the orange horse stared at you.
Her little hand slipped on the hard plastic mane as she tried to climb up. I steadied her and helped her on. She wrapped the reins around her forearms. The stirrups were too low; she couldn't put her feet through, so she tried to brace her heels against the lump of tail fused to the orange body. Others had tried that too.
The ride started gently at first, and then, without warning…
"Chris! Chris!" Shannon was shouting at me. A frantic shrieking tore from my throat. I lay on the floor by the fireplace and the waves of heat were too much. Sweat and drool and tears ran in rivulets down my face and body. I'd also pissed myself but didn't notice until I got changed later.
My wife held me without judgment and rocked me back and forth as she did when this would happen in the middle of the night.
"Oh my god, it's your night terrors," she said. "This is what they're about."
"Yeah," I admitted weakly. "Did you see it? Did you see what it did?"
She shook her head. "The ride starts and the footage ends immediately. You were so cute, but, yeah, not happy. None of the kids looked very happy."
"We weren't."
Shannon tapped her phone and brought it to her ear.
"What are you doing?"
"Calling your mom," she said.
"What? Why?" I tried to get up and found that more difficult than expected due to drunkenness and wobbly limbs full of fear.
"Hey, Jacqueline, yeah, it's Shannon." She walked off and I heard the side door swing open and bang shut. Her voice became an angry murmur through the walls. Not a nice drinker at all.
I sprawled on the couch and watched the fire.
The side door banged again and Shannon stood above me. "Let’s go." She took my hand and started pulling.
"What? Where?" I was afraid I already knew.
"To that stupid horse ride."
I leaned back, and she groaned from the sudden extra weight. "Come on, Chris. You need to see that it's just a toy, and nothing-"
"It's not, it's not. I'm not going back. We're never going there again."
"Chris, sweetheart," she said with false patience, "your mom explained it all. T You wanted to be on the show because you watched it on TV. She thought it'd be a good way for you to meet some other kids. When it was canceled, she said you were sad."
"And you believed her?" I wrung my hand out of Shannon's. "What about all the kids?"
"What about them?"
"They didn't come back…" I tried to remember Erin's ride and what had happened. The orange horse always got carried away and the kids fell off, and then… I couldn't remember.
"So you think the orange horse killed them? And your mom thought that was great and kept bringing you? Chris, be reasonable. There's no mention of this show on the internet, and nothing about kids dying on a show or going missing. Was it a weird experience? For sure. Did it traumatize you? Yes. Was a plastic horse somehow responsible or were you just so young that your mind misinterpreted details, got confused, and made it scarier than it seemed?"
"Shannon," I said, weary from her rant. "You weren't there."
"True, but where was I when I was four? I couldn't tell you. We barely remember anything before five. And what we do recall can be easily misconstrued due to our underdeveloped kid brains."
She was beginning to make sense, and I started to feel a little dumb. The fear remained, however, and I didn't want to go to Value Club. We argued some more, and came to a compromise by evening: Baby steps.
We'd pay the orange horse a quick visit after supper, and I could say when it was time to leave. The store didn't close until nine. Since we were a little drunk, we'd take a taxi. It all seemed so reasonable.
I hesitated outside the automatic sliding doors. A steady stream of customers gave us looks, some irritated, as they passed around Shannon and I. She tugged gently on my arm and whispered support.
Every instinct told me to run. That thing waited inside, just on the other side of some opaque glass. I held my breath, closed my eyes, and let her be my guide. The oiled saddle clotted the air with its odour. I gasped because I thought we were close to it.
When I opened my eyes, the stench seemed to fade, and the orange horse was still some meters away. Its long body gleamed beneath the huge lights hanging from the ceiling. I could see our faint shadows in its hind quarters.
"You okay, Chris?" Shannon asked. "You want to go?"
I kept staring at the horse's face.The pinpoint eyes were needles. The closed mouth hid teeth. There were teeth in there. Surely, that hadn't been a false memory.
"Chris?"
"Do you have a quarter?"
She opened her hand, the warm coin inside. "You don't have to. Really, I'm sorry if I was pushy. Clearly, this thing freaked you out a lot when you were a kid. Imagine how tired you must have been, filming at midnight."
I remembered the last show.
"Christopher," it said, "it's your time to ride, time to see what wriggles inside." Five-years-old and I felt a hundred. I was the last one, the only kid on the stage that night.
The orange horse had no one but me to choose. So I started climbing up to the saddle before its clunky mouth shut.
But then…
"I slipped off," I told Shannon.
"You what?" She'd been staring at the orange horse too, and had her arms wrapped around herself. "This thing is sort of creepy. No wonder you're traumatized. Gotta be worse in the dark, alone."
"When it was my turn," I said, "there was no one there to catch me when I lost my grip on the stupid mane. I fell and cut my lip, I think. Somebody came and brought me outside to my mom. She was smoking and sitting on the hood of our car. My lip got so fat."
"Why were you alone?"
"I don't know."
"Are you sure you were alone, Chris?" Shannon asked reluctantly. "I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense. We should talk to your mom again. I shouldn't have yelled at her."
I looked at the quarter. The orange horse worked on its own. It moved without money. I tried hard to recall a coin slot, but couldn't.
Doubt gnawed hard at my certainty about the stupid ride and the whole Channel 14 ordeal. Maybe the ride just looked like the one from my memory. Yet, I'd started trembling so much, I dropped the quarter.
That's when its mouth unhinged to reveal paint chipped squares resembling teeth, and the eyeballs rotated around and around. I seized hold of Shannon as she put a protective arm in front of me.
A speaker somewhere inside the horse began a script so static ridden we couldn't make out any words.
"Okay, that is scary," Shannon confirmed. I backed away from her and the orange horse. "Chris?"
"I want to leave now. You said I could decide. I'm deciding. Let's go. Please, Shannon, please. I want to go." The voice had been incomprehensible but I felt called to ride. I'd never done mine. Only I had escaped. What had happened to the other kids?
Time to see what wriggles inside…
"Fuck this thing," Shannon said. She scooped up the quarter and advanced on the ride. I swear its attention shifted from me, and I felt so guilty, but the sense of relief wasn't mere imagination.
"Shannon," I said, "get away from it." I wanted to go closer and pull her away, but couldn't get my legs to move. "Shannon…"
She swung her long leg over the saddle and picked up the reins. "This is the most poorly thought out children's ride ever. Her feet slid into the stirrups easily because the whole saddle had, of course, been originally made for an adult. The orange horse looked small beneath her. "You're going to see, Chris. I'm going to show you."
"Shannon, don't-"
Her whole body jolted intensely after the first sway of the ride. The metal in the stirrup made contact with the steel base, where an exposed wire coiled below in the interior, electrifying the plate into an instrument of death.
She didn't look dead. I smelled her death - her cooking flesh - before I saw it.
Had I not been a coward, and tried to grab her, I'd have been electrocuted too.
Employees raced around and an old guy used a broom to unplug the ride. Shannon's body slumped over the orange horse as its eyes spun around one last time.
It's your turn to ride…
I could hear its voice so perfectly within my thoughts.
"It's happened before," my mom said, "in China. I looked it up." We were suddenly sitting inside an ambulance and I don't remember when she arrived or how we got here." My eyes felt sore. "Kids never could reach the stirrups, and even then, it was a fluke, Chris. If the steel part hadn't touched the other steel part, well, we wouldn't…" She cleared her throat, unable to finish her sentence.
"Mom," I said, "why did you put me on that show?"
"The show? Channel 14?" She pretended to clear her throat again. "You were fascinated with the horse. You begged me to take you to see it, even when they weren't filming. Even when there were no other kids there. You loved that thing."
"I didn't," I said. "It scared me. What was the show about?"
"The orange horse," she said, as if that explained it all. A paramedic appeared to check on me. The ambulance started moving. We were going to the hospital.
Time launched itself to Shannon's funeral and then an idle Tuesday afternoon of no particular importance. I held another glass of wine. I sat in one of the reading chairs. Hers remained empty.
Would always be empty.
Heavy rain poured. Those stunted trees by the fence were up to their evergreens in water.
It was just an accident. My mom had been right about coin operated rides. Apparently, they send kids to hospitals every year. Even the exposed wire thing had happened before.
I started to cry. If I hadn't gotten so spooked in Value Club, Shannon would be here, alive, and we'd be happy.
"Stupid horse," I cursed into my cup before slurping some more wine.
That's when the TV came on. It began with a warm, yellow light in the center of the screen, which expanded until the typewriter noise began. I seized the arms of the chair. My cup shattered against the fireplace.
T H E O R A N G E H O R S E
The white letters appeared one at a time with the mashing of those keys. A blurry scene gradually focused like a dream and there I was, five-years-old, exhaustedly standing by the ride.
"Christopher," the horse said, eyes spinning, lazy mouth opening only once for multiple syllables, "it's your turn to ride, time to see what wriggles inside."
I started screaming. My memory hadn’t been mistaken about the smallest detail. I had been alone. My small hand reached for the mane and I slipped, and my chin clipped the hard plastic. What happened next, I did not recall.
Five-year-old me sprawled out on the floor. I looked unconscious.
The orange horse snorted and his eyes spun so fast, the black dot blurred into a ragged circle.
"Time to see what wriggles inside," it said again. And then again. And again. And again. I hadn't moved. I was unconscious.
A curtain pushed aside briefly, revealing a host of people sitting on bleachers. I'd always thought we were alone. An older man stepped onto the sound stage and knelt down by my head.
"Kid didn't even make it to the saddle," he called back to the audience and the crowd beyond the curtain laughed until the orange horse emitted a sharp, piercing whinny. They quieted instantly. The older man's smile fell and he bowed his head low, mumbling apologetically as he scooped me up.
The thrum of the lights or a furnace dominated the empty space once more.
"Better take him, Jacks," he said.
The curtain swept aside and my fucking mom walked out in a huff. She had the old guy carry me off the stage. That's about when I started to regain consciousness.
My TV shut off then. It didn't have to show me what followed because I remembered my mom lighting up a cigarette and sitting on the hood of our car.
I must have been groggy from the fall or the late hour. Seemed like we were outside Channel 14 a long time before she took me home. She never said a word. She didn't have to in order to convey her disappointment.
Behind a row of empty bottles, I found my phone. I got my coat and hopped in the car without waiting for a response. She'd be there. I knew she would.
Jacqueline waited inside the front entrance of Value Club, staring at the horse nobody had bothered to move. Only a stretched out bit of caution tape deterred any future riders.
The urge to punch my mom in the back of the head dwindled swiftly in the presence of the orange horse. I felt exhausted and stupid.
"What the fuck, mom?"
"Watch your language, Chris." My mom swore all the time, casually and for fun. Now in her seventies, she rarely hesitated to pepper her judgments of other drivers with a litany of expletives. Her sudden attention to etiquette implied the religious significance of the horse I now suspected.
"So what? You think it's Jesus? Horse Jesus? Fucking plastic horse Jesus?"
"Sh!" she hissed.
The mouth unhinged and popped so hard I thought it would fall off. Again, static came from the deeply buried recorder within. It didn't matter. I knew the words and what it wanted. Unbelievably, the ride remained plugged into the wall, and I had zero confidence the exposed wire had been fixed.
"You never did take your ride, Chris," Jacqueline said. She kept her hands folded against her chest and continued looking at the stupid, fucking horse.
"You want me to fucking die? Like the other kids on the show? Fuck, why was it a show? Why did it want a show? Huh?!" I ripped away the caution tape. "Why'd you make it a show, you fucking piece of shit!" I threw an ill advised punch against the side of its head and immediately broke my hand. "Fuck!"
"Christopher!" Jacqueline cradled my swelling, bleeding fist. "The show was an invitation. How was anyone to know about it otherwise? And nobody died. Sure, some kids fell off, and got injured. Most kids, I guess. Nobody died until… Shannon. And that was an accident. The orange horse was a test. If you could hang on, then you were in. If not, then-"
"You were outside. Holy… mom, what the hell is going on? What is this thing?"
She wrapped my hand in a kerchief from her purse and patted my cheek before she spoke. "It's something, Chris. It's really something. That's all I can say with any certainty. The people in this town, they all follow something, and this… this is just the something that found us first. You want to know what it is, then you know what you have to do."
It's your turn to ride.
I started my approach, each step a triumph over fear so deeply ingrained into my character I didn't know myself without it. If I could take that ride, and hang on for the duration, I would be someone totally new.
Shannon's death had been an accident.
Something greater resided in or around the orange horse.
My whole life I'd been waiting to find…
what wriggles inside
I threw up all over the saddle as soon as my undamaged hand gripped the pommel. A strong grip snagged my collar and dragged me away before I could even try to mount. The struggle against the intervener lasted only a few seconds before I was pinned to the ground by three Value Club employees and a security guard.
"Sir! That isn't safe!" the guard yelled in my face.
"Hey," another employee said, "somebody plugged it back in."
Jacqueline was already long gone by that point. Eventually, I calmed down enough to be escorted from the store. My mom wasn't in the parking lot, and she wouldn't answer my calls or texts. Her apartment had been vacated already for a week.
In short, I don't know where she is. Or why she probably wanted me dead.
I got rid of my TV. I'm tempted to ditch all screens, including the one I'm currently typing this on. I'm terrified the orange horse will take it over to send me another video.
Value Club removed the ride. Some PR person promised it'd be destroyed asap. Yet, I got a weird feeling they were lying. I'd chop and burn the evil thing myself if I thought it would kill it.
But the orange horse remains. It visits during my sleep. I'm a kid again, and I always take my ride, and fall off when it gets out of control.
I fall and fall and fall, back into my body, asleep until impact. I sit up and gasp, but my wife isn't there.
Shannon's gone.
And I'm alone because I couldn't ride a stupid, plastic horse.

Quite_Befuddled2009, known to her closest friends and fans as Q.B., had a childhood filled with the melodies of the piano. Growing up in a tumultuous household, music became her sanctuary, a place where she could escape the chaos and find peace within the harmonies she created.
However, her journey with the piano was not without its challenges. Early on, she struggled to find her own voice amidst the cacophony of expectations placed upon her by her family and society. Despite the pressure to conform, Q.B. remained determined to pursue her passion for music.
As she honed her skills and delved deeper into the world of piano composition, Q.B. faced rejection and criticism from those who failed to understand her avant-garde style. But rather than succumbing to doubt, she embraced her uniqueness, allowing her music to become a reflection of her inner turmoil and defiance.
The moniker Quite_Befuddled2009 originated from a particularly difficult period in Q.B.'s life, when she found herself at a crossroads, unsure of her path forward. Yet, instead of letting her confusion consume her, she channeled it into her music, creating compositions that captivated listeners with their raw emotion and complexity.
Today, Quite_Befuddled2009 is renowned not only for her virtuoso piano performances but also for her fearless exploration of unconventional musical genres. Through her music, she invites listeners to embrace the beauty of chaos and find solace in the midst of uncertainty, proving that sometimes, it's the most bewildering moments that lead to the most extraordinary creations.

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Anybody know if this is the right place to post modding issues? I decided after several years to restart Skyrim and now I'm getting weird glitches with my ground textures. This only happens out in the wild and larger dungeons. Never inside houses, homes, etc.. I attached an image and here's my plugin load order from Vortex if that helps...
0 0 Skyrim.esm
1 1 Update.esm
2 2 Dawnguard.esm
3 3 HearthFires.esm
4 4 Dragonborn.esm
5 5 ccbgssse001-fish.esm
6 6 Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch.esp
254 FE 0 Lux - Master plugin.esm
254 FE 1 OCPA.esl
254 FE 2 TrueHUD.esl
7 7 Heels Sound.esm
8 8 MajesticMountains_Landscape.esm
254 FE 3 Cathedral - 3D Mountain Flowers.esp
254 FE 4 Lux - Resources.esp
9 9 Lux Via.esp
10 a Natural Waterfalls.esp
254 FE 5 Lux Orbis - Master plugin.esm
11 b BBLuxurySuite.esm
12 c ZaZAnimationPack.esm
13 d FlowerGirls SE.esm
14 e SexLab.esm
15 f SexLabAroused.esm
254 FE 6 Expressive Facegen Morphs.esl
16 10 UndergroundBathhouse.esm
254 FE 7 1WR.esl
17 11 High Poly Head.esm
18 12 Schlongs of Skyrim - Core.esm
254 FE 8 Natural Waterfalls - Dawnguard.esp
254 FE 9 Natural Waterfalls - Dragonborn.esp
19 13 DynDOLOD.esm
254 FE a HD Lods SSE.esp
254 FE b Particle Patch for ENB.esp
20 14 SkyUI_SE.esp
21 15 Audio Overhaul Skyrim.esp
22 16 Immersive Sounds - Compendium.esp
23 17 Obsidian Weathers.esp
24 18 SMIM-SE-Merged-All.esp
25 19 Better Dynamic Snow.esp
26 1a FNIS.esp
27 1b EnhancedLightsandFX.esp
28 1c Fabled Forests.esp
254 FE c LessMergedTree33.esp
29 1d ELFX - Exteriors.esp
254 FE d Lux Orbis.esp
30 1e JKs Skyrim.esp
31 1f BBLS_SKSE64_Patch.esp
32 20 MysticismMagic.esp
33 21 Adamant.esp
34 22 NAT-ENB.esp
HappyLittleTrees.esp
254 FE e Lux Via - plugin.esp
35 23 Embers XD.esp
36 24 Immersive Encounters.esp
37 25 Hothtrooper44_ArmorCompilation.esp
38 26 The Ruins.esp
254 FE f MajesticMountains.esp
39 27 Riften Docks Overhaul.esp
40 28 018Auri.esp
254 FE 10 TKAA.esp
254 FE 11 Lux Via - Whiterun Repaired Bridge.esp
254 FE 12 Song of the Green's fancy Pod.esp
41 29 SexLab-AmorousAdventures.esp
254 FE 13 Lux Orbis - Riften Docks Overhaul patch.esp
254 FE 14 Reverb Interior Sounds Expansion.esp
254 FE 15 AcousticTemplateFixes.esp
42 2a Immersive Weapons.esp
43 2b ScopedBows.esp
44 2c ScopedBows_ArrowTweaks.esp
45 2d ScopedBows_EagleEyeTweak.esp
254 FE 16 Precision.esp
254 FE 17 BetterThirdPersonSelection.esp
254 FE 18 TrueDirectionalMovement.esp
254 FE 19 [COCO]Lingerie.esp
46 2e AK_RM_PubicStyles_All_In_One.esp
254 FE 1a CK_Selina_Follower.esp
254 FE 1b Civil War Lines Expansion.esp
254 FE 1c Vampire Lines Expansion.esp
47 2f Joy of Perspective.esp
254 FE 1d Project ja-Kha'jay- Khajiit Diversity.esp
254 FE 1e JKJ - USSEP Patch.esp
48 30 ZAZpatch.esp
49 31 FGCumEffect.esp
50 32 SexLab Cumshot.esp
51 33 sr_FillHerUp.esp
254 FE 1f Conditional Expressions.esp
52 34 Facelight.esp
53 35 FlowerGirls SE - Bathing Beauties Patch.esp
54 36 FlowerGirls SE - Adventures.esp
55 37 SLAnimLoader.esp
254 FE 20 Sprites or Specters ENB Light.esp
56 38 StormLightning.esp
57 39 Cathedral Weathers.esp
254 FE 21 CathedralWeatherMCM.esp
254 FE 22 Cathedral Weather Godrays.esp
254 FE 23 TruTorchesSE.esp
254 FE 24 SunDaytimeNorth_MM_default.esp
58 3a Paragliding.esp
254 FE 25 QuickLootEE.esp
254 FE 26 Sonders_Keyword_Distribution.esp
59 3b DX Succubus Armor.esp
254 FE 27 NideVeilUthgerdReplacer.esp
60 3c FasterSkillLevelingUltimate_x2.esp
254 FE 28 Arena.esp
61 3d dD - Enhanced Blood Main.esp
254 FE 29 Dynamic Impact - Slash Effects X.esp
254 FE 2a Dynamic Impact - Slash Effects X-03EBT_ISC.esp
254 FE 2b WindyGrass.esp
62 3e Random Emotions.esp
63 3f opmfgconsole.esp
64 40 LADX_SSE.esp
65 41 Schlongs of Skyrim.esp
66 42 SOS - Shop.esp
254 FE 2c BBLS - Lux Exterior Lighting.esp
254 FE 2d Lux Orbis - CC Fish patch.esp
67 43 BBLuxurySuiteENM.esp
254 FE 2e BBLSExtBeds.esp
254 FE 2f Zelda_Follower.esp
254 FE 30 [COCO] Scarlet Rose.esp
254 FE 31 NyrFollowerAssets.esp
254 FE 32 Nuria Nyr - Mirabelle Replacer.esp
254 FE 33 aMidianBorn_Book of Silence.esp
254 FE 34 Bears of the North.esp
254 FE 35 SongstoPlaySkyrimto1.1.esp
254 FE 36 RelaxedBards.esp
254 FE 37 Reverb Interior Sounds Expansion_VolumeSlider_Rain.esp
254 FE 38 Reverb Interior Sounds Expansion_VolumeSlider_Thunder.esp
254 FE 39 AcousticTemplateFixes_ReverbInteriorSounds.esp
254 FE 3a KSHairdosSMP.esp
254 FE 3b KSWigsSMP.esp
68 44 Toccata as Elisif.esp
69 45 Toccata.esp
254 FE 3c BM_Brows_HPH.esp
254 FE 3d RTDocks - High Poly Head.esp
254 FE 3e Lux Orbis - USSEP patch.esp
254 FE 3f Embers XD - Patch - Lux Via.esp
254 FE 40 BBLS - Fabled Forests.esp
254 FE 41 Lux Orbis - Auri Song of the Green.esp
254 FE 42 RTDocks - SMIM.esp
70 46 TrueHel.esp
71 47 Maelstrom.esp
254 FE 43 RTDocks - Song of the Green.esp
254 FE 44 UntarnishedUI_Blur.esp
254 FE 45 UntarnishedUI_Subtitle.esp
254 FE 46 SleepForMeNow.esp
254 FE 47 CRB Auri Lenka Replacer.esp
72 48 FNISspells.esp
73 49 FNISSexyMove.esp
254 FE 48 MCMHelper.esp
74 4a Attack_MCO.esp
254 FE 49 scar-adxp-patch.esp
254 FE 4a Keytrace.esp
254 FE 4b TBD - KinnariArmor.esp
254 FE 4c WIZ_FoscsF.esp
254 FE 4d TBD - ShadowWitch.esp
254 FE 4e DarkStandalone.esp
254 FE 4f 3BBB.esp
254 FE 50 SOSPhysicsManager.esp
75 4b Hothtrooper44_Armor_Ecksstra.esp
76 4c SkyrimIsWindy.esp
77 4d RaceMenu.esp
78 4e RaceMenuPlugin.esp
79 4f RaceMenuHH.esp
80 50 Monster Armor.esp
254 FE 51 Botox SE.esp
81 51 High Poly Head Vampire Fix.esp
82 52 Better Females - Eyebrows.esp
83 53 The Eyes Of Beauty - Elves Edition.esp
84 54 TheEyesOfBeauty.esp
85 55 FMS_FemaleMakeupSuite.esp
86 56 RaceMenuMorphsTBD.esp
87 57 TouchedbyDibella.esp
88 58 SOSRaceMenu.esp
89 59 XPMSE.esp
90 5a UIExtensions.esp
91 5b AddItemMenuSE.esp
92 5c UBH-HighDGcomPatch.esp
254 FE 52 MoonsAndStars.esp
93 5d DisarmorShout.esp
254 FE 53 Embers XD - Fire Magick Add-On.esp
94 5e SOS - Smurf Average Addon.esp
95 5f SOS - VectorPlexus Muscular Addon.esp
96 60 SOS - VectorPlexus Regular Addon.esp
97 61 dD - Realistic Ragdoll Force - Realistic.esp
98 62 SimplyClimbing.esp
99 63 ub_tapestry.esp
100 64 ub_invite_any_npc.esp
101 65 SexLabTools.esp
254 FE 54 Bandit Lines Expansion.esp
254 FE 55 AOS_EBT Patch.esp
102 66 Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul.esp
103 67 Water for ENB (Mineral Teal).esp
254 FE 56 Water for ENB - Patch - Cabbage ENB.esp
254 FE 57 Natural Waterfalls - Water for ENB Patch (Mineral Teal).esp
104 68 Lux.esp
254 FE 58 Lux - USSEP patch.esp
254 FE 59 Lux - Embers XD patch.esp
254 FE 5a AcousticTemplateFixes_Lux.esp
254 FE 5b Lux - Riften Docks Overhaul patch.esp
105 69 ELFXEnhancer.esp
254 FE 5c TruTorch Lighting - All Torch Bulb Kind Baseforms.esp
106 6a DynDOLOD.esp
254 FE 5d Occlusion.esp
​

Credit to Blue on the Discord Server for the wonderful art of Trilvri
Thank you to:
u/SpacePaladin15 for creating the Nature of Predators universe.
u/EdibleGojid, author of Dark Cuts, for proofreading.
EmClear, aspiring author, for proofreading
You, the reader, for your support. I love reading your comments.
Please consider reading the works of my proofreaders as they’re all authors of excellent stories and be sure to check the links below for more of my work and beautiful art from members of the community.
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Memory transcription subject: Sawvek, Junior Extermination Officer
Date [standardised human time]: October 4th, 2136
“You're pushing the kid too damn hard!” Vaesh jabs an accusatory claw at Intalran, the feathered fanatic remaining unruffled as he looks down at the offending digit with disdain. “Just look at him! He’s practically swaying on his feet!”
Weary eyes, obscured by the fog of fatigue, blink and the scene in front of me gradually shifts back into focus. I stand at attention in the training hall, only vaguely aware of the argument raging around me, about me, content to simply stand by and let the storm work out its wrath. It seems there's always someone shrieking in the Guild Hall, someone fighting with someone else about something, but so long as I’m not the target of that fury there's nothing stopping me from simply retreating into the empty space of my own mind. Somewhere I don't have to think about it, don't have to engage with it. Maybe it isn’t healthy to zone out quite so much, but it’s the only peace I get anymore, and I’ve become quite adept at tuning out the screams.
“Last I checked, Vaesh,” Intalran perches himself imperiously, trying to physically embody the authoritative high ground he claims as his own, “Sawvek was my trainee, not yours. It's my responsibility to prepare him for the rigours of duty and I’ll see him trained up to my standards. There's no room for incessant coddling in this Guild Hall and I won't have you working against me! Your heretical drivel and endless nest-tending are going to dull his edge! If he gets killed out in the field on account of this constant interference with his training then I’m blaming you! I won't let his death be on my head!”
“Damn it Intalran!” Vaesh raises his voice another octave and the pain in my ears increases proportionally. “We’re on garrison duty, assigned to protect an established city on Venlil Prime itself, not front-liners on a damn frontier colony or a war fleet! No one is dying anytime soon! Not unless you intend to kill Sawvek in training that is! So stop fighting me on this! It's not coddling to see that the kid needs more rest! You can sharpen your talons all you like but there comes a point when you need to stop! A blade ground too fine will chip and shatter the first time it's used!”
Vaesh is a good officer, a type I didn't think this accursed city even employed, but it's true. His arguments with Intalran had been increasing in both frequency and intensity of late. I could practically set a clock to it. In fact, that was probably the only means of keeping a measure of the paws anymore. Time for me lately seems a blur, devoid of meaning beyond momentary interludes of precious sleep. Every paw was exhausting and the constant arguments only made it worse. While I appreciate Vaesh's support, even if he had just inadvertently relegated me to the level of a mere killing tool, I couldn't help but hate it at the same time.
I don't deserve his sympathies for one thing, as the voice is oft to remind me. Everything Vaesh does for me is out of a misplaced sense of obligation, borne of a misguided notion that I’m a better person than I really am, but I’ve been lying to him the entire time. I am predator diseased, I can’t even deny it myself any longer, and if Vaesh really knew who I was on the inside, if anyone knew, then they would burn me then and there. I don't know if I would even blame them.
Every time he’s helped me, every time he's stuck up for me or risked his neck; every time I’ve felt the guilt of it all gnawing away at me like a predator trapped in my guts, frantic to carve its way out. And yet… I’ve accepted it every time. Because that's what I am. A selfish predator, a parasite that feeds off of others to survive. Wicked. Insidious. Pathetic.
“Don't pretend like you don't know the truth Vaesh!” Intalran squaks with his typical self-righteous fury. “You’ve seen the state of this city! You’ve seen how the enemy are already past the gates and in our homes! Spreading their evil with every passing paw, infecting our entire society with their blasted taint! If I’m so wrong then why is it that even you, stubborn old blasphemer that you are, stopped responding to calls in the Human District, hmm?”
Vaesh looks away, no words issued in his own defence, a look of shame falling upon his face. Intalran is not one to let such an opportune moment of vulnerability go undefiled.
“It’s because deep down you know I’m right. Deep down you're scared of the Humans no matter what nonsense you prattle on about. ‘Peace’, ‘Coexistence’, ‘Tolerance’. It's all a sham and you know it!” Intalran goes quiet, a rarity for the radical Exterminator, and leans in towards Vaesh. “You should have given up those notions a long time ago, after those apes invaded your Cradle…”
“No.” Vaesh’s eyes rise to challenge Intalran, an unquenchable fire contained deep within. “I won't give up. It's true, I might be scared of the Humans. Who in their right mind wouldn't be? But, they’ve done me no harm despite the many transgressions we’ve made since they first arrived. They've had ample opportunity, and yet here I stand, proof that coexistence, as tenuous as that may be, is possible.” Vaesh places a paw on Intalran's chest and gently, yet firmly, pushes him out of his personal space. “The only ones looking for open conflict are people like you Intalran, because deep down I think you're scared of what a lasting peace would do to you. You live off of your war, it's what fuels you, and if you were forced to give it up then I think it might just kill you.”
Intalran narrows his eyes and I can see his talons flex, grasping at air as their razored tips dig into the floor. Vaesh simply stands with his paws clasped down politely in front of himself, turning ever so subtly as to expose Intalran to a shoulder full of sharpened quills. I can see the madness raging against reason in Intalran's eye as the two glower at one another, until finally, Intalran blinks first.
“You're not worth it Vaesh.” He says, tired and defeated. “I’m done with you. I’ve got better things to do.” He ushers me forward with a wing. “Come on Sawvek, Prestige Commander Glagrig is conducting a training exercise for the PRED Team today. If we're lucky we might be able to convince him to let us watch, or even better, to let us join his class!”
A starstruck look of glee shines out from Intalran as he speaks of his hero. I don't understand it personally. I try to avoid the new PRED Team Commander as much as I can. Something about that look in his eyes, the way he almost seems to dissect you with a glance, tearing into every facet of your being to expose the parts of you that are never meant to see the light of day… I find it deeply unsettling.
“He’s just a man, Intalran,” Vaesh says softly, “not a God. I don't care what his accomplishments are. You shouldn't worship at his altar.”
“It’s not worship, Vaesh,” Intalran replies with an edge of irritation, “it's called respect. Something you should have more of for a Prestige Exterminator who did more to fight the predators as a junior officer than you have in your entire career. I suppose it's too much to expect for someone like you to understand that though.” Intalran turns around and grabs me by the shoulder. “We’re leaving, Sawvek. Now.”
I begin to walk, pulled along by Intalran, when I’m stopped by a gentle paw on the opposite shoulder.
“You don't have to go with him, Sawvek.” Vaesh says softly. “The work claw is over. He can't keep you here any longer if you don't want to.”
“Stay out of it Vaesh!” Intalran snaps back. “Of course he wants to. Isn't that right, Sawvek?”
This is the other part I hate. Being stuck in the middle of these two. Protector above, I swear it's like being a child caught in the crossfire between a pair of parents who hate each other. Thank the Protector that was one strife my family didn't have to contend with. It was one I’d seen others experience plenty of times growing up and one I’d hoped to never deal with myself, yet somehow it seems I’ve found myself there anyway.
“I… I think I’ll stop for this paw and rest…” I finally say, preying on Vaesh's kindness once again, guilty but relieved to finally put an end to the paw. I'm certain that I’ll be worked by Intalran even harder tomorrow to compensate.
“Really Sawvek?” Intalran seems genuinely befuddled, almost hurt that I would turn him down. “This is a great oppor-”
“The kid made his choice.” Vaesh cuts him off, earning a vengeful glare, and turns to me. “How about I drive you home? You look beat.”
“No thank you.” I say reluctantly. “It’s not too far to the train station and I think I’d prefer to walk for a little bit actually. Clear my head a little.”
I really wouldn't. My whole body is in a constant state of pain, aching from paw after paw of intensive exercise, painful incentivising shocks, and exacting oversight from Intalran. The last thing I want to do right now is move. Almost. The one thing I’d rather do less is abuse Vaesh's hospitality one more time. I’d taken advantage of him too many times this paw already.
“I can certainly understand that.” Vaesh acquiesces, buying into my bold-faced lies. “I’ve been there myself once or twice. Get home safe and recuperate. I’ll see you next paw.”
My departure is swift and uneventful, purposefully so as I do my best to avoid anyone else in the department who might find reason to detain me. Ducking through the locker room I narrowly manage to avoid Bikim and Turlid as the obnoxious pair of brahkasses make their way to the break room, stowing my gear in the process and slipping out the rear exit. My feet move me along down the sidewalk mechanically, devoid of intent or conscious thought, trusting fully to the ingrained muscle memory of my route home. Free to wander, my eyes take in the sights of the city centre.
Sleek and austere towers jut up from the pavement, monuments of steel and glass to the unity of corporate and governmental power, meticulously serviced and shined to showcase a projection of strength and dignity I know them to be lacking; a holdover from more prosperous times. The city itself seems to glow with a multi-coloured rainbow halo of neon, its signs and storefronts reflecting artificial illumination from the mirrored polish of skyscrapers to blot out the stars above, holding back the encroaching darkness of twilight in stark rejection of nature's laws.
The entire display strikes me as a sign of hubris, of our dogged insistence to replace the natural with the manufactured, and I can’t help but wonder at the wealth wasted on such vanity projects. This dying and dreary city will never be my home, never compare to the soft green grasses and resplendent sunlight native to the dayside, and yet as I walk through its streets I must concede that it possesses a certain kind of dreamlike, almost ephemeral beauty all its own. A shame that such beauty is as false and hollow as all the rest.
I arrive at the train station and embark, fighting my way through the dense throngs of people to arrive at one of the windows near the back of the cabin, hoping to continue my melancholy musings in relative peace. Crushing hordes of commuters fresh off of their shifts pack tightly into the confined cabin space, increasing in number with every stop along the way. The foul taste of noxious bodily humours given off by the unwashed masses suffuse the air with vile, nauseating gases that fill my lungs with sickness. All around me people poke and prod, jostling and fighting with one another for even the smallest hint of breathing room and I find myself pressed up against the window. The background is overlaid with dissonant whispers, fragments of dozens of different conversations all vying to be heard, while the tearful cries of unhappy children and loud, grating music adds to the chaos and disharmony. It would seem my search for peace would be denied.
As the train plods along ever slowly on its track I can feel the atmosphere of it all getting to me, wearing down on my last remaining nerves. The walls seem to almost shrink down around me while it becomes harder and harder to breathe. My heart beats rhythmically in my chest, slowly growing with intensity as a disquieting sense of unease settles over me. I need to get out. I need to be free, but I find myself trapped. I can barely move. “I just need to hold it together.” I tell myself. “I just need to wait until my destination.”
In the recesses of my mind I can almost hear the voice rubbing up against me, waiting with anticipation, pushing me, pressing. I just need to hold it together a little longer. Just a little bit longer so I can get off at my stop, so I don’t make a scene.
The train turns sharply on the track, sending its inhabitants swaying with the shift in momentum, crashing into me and once more bringing me into full-body contact with a gaggle of strangers. I can hear my rapid breathing aloud now as my blood pressure continues to rise. The whispers grow louder and louder, yelling and screaming for sweet release! I can feel myself drowning in the sapient tide of bodies! I'm struggling as hard as I can, but I Just. Can't. Breathe!
From behind someone shoves me, selfishly fighting tooth and claw for just a little more room to themselves, stabbing me in the back with an errant quill… and I snap. “Get the Brahk away from me!” I turn around, openly snarling at the other passengers with teeth bared and claws drawn.
The sea of prey surrounding me recedes in fear. Compelled by the sheer vitriol of my malevolent presence they somehow manage to compact themselves even tighter into the far ends of the cabin, and for the first time since I embarked… no one is touching me.
Everything goes deathly silent as they stand petrified of the predator in their midst, and at last my breathing starts to calm. Hushed whispers of ‘Predator Disease’ ripple through the crowd, abruptly silenced as I swing my gaze across the offenders and they squirm to hide themselves away. Not one dares to look at me. Surrounded on all sides as I am, somehow I’ve never felt more alone. In the back a child begins to cry, unable to be soothed by its elderly grandmother for even a moment longer, and I turn back to stare out the window in shame.
“Great job, Killer!” The voice echoes in my mind with a snicker. “You really showed it to all those brats and little old ladies! They’ll have to respect you now won’t they? Wouldn’t your mama be proud to see you now! Eh, Killer?”
There’s nothing to be gained from arguing with my own twisted thoughts and I elect to ignore the insinuations.
“I bet it feels good to let some of that pent up frustration out, huh?” the voice continues. “You might as well. No one can stop you now. What are they gonna do? Call the Exterminators on you?” The voice cackles malignantly. “No, no, of course not. You’re one of them now. One of the big-shots. You’re in this whether you like it or not, so you might as well enjoy the perks of privilege. After all, why not?”
I smack my head firmly against the window with a thud, eliciting a small measure of pain and wondering if the minor impact would be enough to dislodge those unwelcome thoughts for the time being. Briefly, I ponder the idea of getting off at the next stop, of walking the rest of the way home, or perhaps catching the next train so that the other passengers don’t have to stomach the sight of me any longer. In the end, I don’t have to. The other passengers beat me to it, quickly departing at their first opportunity, leaving me isolated as the indifferent train ferries me onward to my destination.
Stepping off, I find myself back in the low-income slums I’ve been living in since we moved here. Old and tired, the architecture itself seems almost sad and downtrodden, slowly degrading and falling into disrepair as its inhabitants struggle to upkeep it. Still though, at least it’s better than the Human District, but if trends continue I imagine it won’t be long until the two become indistinguishable.
At the end of my long walk I reach the tenements, spotting a light through the window to our apartment. It would seem that Quinlim is home and awake. I had been hoping to end the paw without burdening him with my continued existence, but it seems the Protector has other plans in store for me. Reluctantly, I make my way up the stairs to our floor and enter.
My brother sits at the table, absentmindedly tapping away at an envelope as he waits, presumably for me. He looks good; Healthier lately, with a renewed strength and vitality I hadn't seen from him in cycles, perhaps ever. The deep bags under his eyes that once seemed an almost permanent fixture upon his face are slowly beginning to recede and it seems as though he's taken up his wool-care routine again. His beloved, soft coat is as fluffy, white, and pristine as it ever was, albeit a good deal shorter than it used to be. I still can't fathom what would ever make him shear off so much of his pride and joy, but it seems as though he's finally elected to start growing it out again. Certain portions of it anyway…
He's still wearing those disgusting black human-style pelts and an orange noose around his neck. I hate it. I wish he’d never started wearing them. It's wonderful to see that quarantining myself has allowed him to recover somewhat from the effects of proximity to my taint, but if he's going to keep insisting on wearing those… those… ‘clothings’ that are no doubt contaminated in every stitch and seam, then just how much good am I really doing?
“Oh, Sawvek, you're home!” Quinlim stands up at the sound of the door opening and waves his tail at me, sounding genuinely thrilled to see me. “Look what came in the mail! I’ve been just dying for you to get home so you can open it!”
He holds the envelope outstretched for me to take, practically forcing it into my paws with excitable glee. I can't help but be intrigued by the prospect of what could have come in the mail for me. What could possibly make Quinlim this giddy? I feel a cold, hard pit develop in my stomach as I turn over the envelope to see the seal of Twilight Valley University embossed across the front.
“Oh, yay!” The voice mocks me. “This IS exciting! You finally get to find out just how badly you failed AND your brother gets a front row seat to learn just how stupid you are, Killer!”
I look up at Quinlim's expectant face and place the envelope face down on the table. “I’ll open it later. I just don't feel like it right now.”
“What do you mean?” My brother’s expression is one of concern mixed with disbelief. “This is what you’ve been waiting for isn't it? Don't you still want to go to college?”
“Of course I do,” I sigh heavily as I lean against the refrigerator, “it's just…”
“Please, Sawvek,” Quinlim implores me with big blue eyes that shame me almost as much as Ma’s, “I know you're nervous but you need to open it eventually. I'm sure you did great.”
“He's just saying that.” The voice cuts in to knock me down once more. “You're brother knows you're nothing but a useless brahking wretch. Everyone knows it. He's just too nice to say it to your face.”
I sigh and look at the envelope, proffered once again by Quinlim, earnest and loving in every estimation. Slowly, and with great trepidation, I seat myself at the table, taking the envelope in shaky paws. Quinlim looks on, over my shoulder and dangerously close to someone as contagious as me, but there's little I can do to shoo him off as I slowly rip open the top with a claw and extract a decoratively made letter. My eyes scan over the lines of text, not quite believing what they see.
“We here at Twilight Valley University are proud to accept your application for enrollment and invite you to join the ranks of our esteemed scholars…”
They had accepted me. Despite all my struggles and failings, despite my lack of connections and credentials, despite the intensity of the competition I had still made it. I’d still passed. I should be happy, thrilled even. This was what I had worked so hard for and yet…
I couldn't feel anything but bitter resentment. This was the dream of the old Sawvek, the aspirational dream. The new Sawvek didn't have the luxury of aspirations, of dreams. The new Sawvek was a monster. A useless, tainted creature who’d had his dreams stolen from him the day he’d become a predator in full, the day he'd become a killer. There is no going back. Not now. Not ever. The possibilities that once were are nothing now but an illusion, a spiteful spectre of the old Sawvek's life come to taunt and menace with whispers of what could have been. Whispers that now could never be.
“Keep reading, Failure.” The voice drives me forward mercilessly.
There had to be some kind of catch, some kind of mistake. Good things don't happen to people like me. At the very bottom of the letter I found it, past all the meaningless pomp and platitudes, just where I expected it to be.
“Unfortunately, at this time you are ineligible for a merit-based academic scholarship and we are unable to offer you any financial aid...”
I slump back against the chair, defeated and gripped by shame. So I’d failed after all. They may have accepted me, for all the good that would do, but I’d failed in my real goal. At actually earning my way into the university itself, at proving that I was good enough. Of course I wasn't good enough. Why would I ever think I would amount to anything? What a worthless dream…
“You made it in!” Quinlim jostles me ecstatically, practically jumping with joy as he reads over my shoulder. “I'm so proud of you, Sawvek! This is wonderful! Ma’s gonna be so happy when you tell her!”
“It doesn't matter…” I manage to groan out dejectedly.
“What are you talking about?” My brother slowly ceases his celebrations and looks me in the eye. “This is huge!”
“Read the letter.” I say, rising to my feet and shoving the letter into Quinlim's paws. “Actually read it. I didn't get the scholarship! I'm a brahking failure…”
Quinlim laughs at me. Actually laughs, as though my shattered dreams are nothing but a brahking joke.
“Is that what this is about?” He asks, resting a paw on my shoulder. “The scholarship doesn't matter! All that matters is that you made it in! You passed! You're not a failure. We can figure out the finances, I promise. I'm gonna do everything I can to support you all the way!”
“I don't want your help!” I callously brush aside his paw and turn away, feeling the irrational anger of the beast bubbling up inside of me. “And I'm not going to college! I can't! It's too late for that!” Far, far too late…
“Is this about your new job?” Quinlim seems incredulous. “Just quit! It doesn't matter. You can always just get another one. You’ve been working towards this for a long time! You can't just throw it away for a job you’ve only had for a couple of weeks!”
“It's not just something I can quit Quinlim!” I snap back, knowing that no good can come of giving into the anger, but also knowing that I have no choice in the matter.
“Why not?” Quinlim is merciless in his inquisition. “It’s just a job! I’ve had tons of different jobs! Just quit! Go to college and get a better one later!”
He just doesn’t get it. How could he? He still doesn’t know just what I’ve gotten myself into. He doesn’t know that I’m a danger, to myself and to others. This is the only path left for me. This is the only possibility I even have left to try and get better. The only way I can stop myself from hurting people. The only way I can try to protect him and Ma. I’m doing it for them! Why can’t he just let it go!
“I… I need it. I can’t quit…”
“Yes you can!” Quinlim is shouting now, angry with me for failing him yet again.
“No!” I yell back, giving some small part of myself over to the predator inside. “I can’t!”
Quinlim goes quiet, a heavy, simmering kind of quiet.
“You know Sawvek,” he says at last, “you’ve been acting differently ever since you got this new job, and honestly… I don’t like the new Sawvek. You’re angry and miserable all the time. You lock yourself away in your room, on the paws when you even bother to come home, and you seem to do everything you can to avoid so much as speaking to me anymore! What did I do to deserve that huh? What did I do that made you so mad at me? And do you know what’s worse? You haven’t even been in to see Ma lately! You gave me no end to grief the one time I was late, but here you are skipping entire paws! When was the last time you were even in to see her? Do you even remember!”
Quinlim’s every word is a stab to the heart, made all the worse because I recognize the truth in his words. It may be a necessary evil, but I’m still hurting Quinlim, still hurting Ma. He doesn’t deserve the things I say and the things I do, so why then can’t I stop doing them! I’m a despicable, rage-filled, hypocritical predator! Every word he says is truer than he knows, but that doesn’t change the fact that I feel nothing but hate hearing them come from someone I love!
“Ma’s been asking about you Sawvek.” Quinlim continues to rant whIle I brood silently. “She’s worried about you and you’re breaking her heart. I’m worried about you. Going to college was your dream. The first in our whole family to have the chance and you’re throwing it away over a stupid job. This isn’t like you. This isn’t the brother I know and love! Please,” Quinlim goes quiet, “ just talk to me. Tell me what’s going on. I just want to help you.”
Why did he have to be so insistent? Why does he feel the need to hound me at every opportunity? It’s not his concern! It’s mine and the further away from it he stays the better! Why can’t he just understand! Why does everything have to be a question! An inquisition! I have had a LONG paw, an AWFUL paw, and all I want is to go to BED and SLEEP! I am just so sick and tired of EVERYTHING! Why can’t he just leave well enough alone and let me handle it!
“THERE’S NOTHING GOING ON!” I scream, unleashing a pent-up fury that had been building for the entire paw onto the most undeserving target imaginable.
In a fit of rage my clenched fist slams into the wall, punching a hole straight through the drywall, and as I pull back my paw I can see blood flowing from my knuckles. I’m shaking as I look down at my paws, and as I look up at Quinlim all I see is horror. Terror at the glimpse of the monster lurking just beneath my skin.
“Admit it, Killer,” the voice echoes in my mind, “it wasn’t the wall that you felt like hitting just now was it?”
“Sawvek!” Quinlim finally breaks free from his shock with a panicked cry. “What is wrong with you!”
And there it is. The confirmation I needed. I can’t stay here any longer. It isn’t safe. I’M not safe! For anyone! I need to get away! Far away! Now!
“I’m moving out!” I declare, storming off towards the front door.
“Wait!” Quinlim calls out behind me, desperate and apologetic, but it’s too late. “Sawvek, wait! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please! There’s no need for you to move out! Where do you think you’re even going?”
“Somewhere else.” I reply as I slam the door behind me.
Somewhere far away. Somewhere you won’t follow me. Somewhere I can go where I won’t be a threat to anyone, where I won’t hurt anyone ever again.
“I’m sorry Quinlim…” I repeat to myself over and over again under my breath, the tears flowing freely as I slowly begin making my way back to work. “I’m so sorry… so sorry…”
Memory Transcription End.
Begin Memory Transcription.
Memory transcription subject: Quinlim, Suspected Capozzi Family Associate
Date [standardised human time]: October 4th, 2136
“Damn it!” I shout as Sawvek leaves the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
I fall back onto the couch, emotionally exhausted, and my eyes look over at the letter before drifting to stare solemnly at the newly made hole in the wall.
“Protector damn it,” I sigh heavily, “I really fucked it up this time…”
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A/N - Hello everyone! I hope you’re enjoying the story! Today was a bit more quarrelsome than last time, but sometimes things need to get worse before they get better.
In case you’ve missed anything, since last time I’ve released some Memes, some Lore on the Federation Military, received some rather impressive new Art courtesy of Gecko, had another brief guest appearance in Nature of a Homeless Musician (or two), and released a whole new One-Shot that I think fans of the series will really enjoy. With the growing list of… well, everything, I’ve also assembled everything Nature of Family into one place! The new “Master List”, featuring all the one-shots, crossovers, side story, art, everything! All in one place and featuring new descriptions to really help explain and “sell” the story. If you’ve missed out on any of the side content I’d certainly advise you to stop by and give it a look!
On a bit of a personal note, sorry that this chapter took so long to come out. It was originally meant to be just a small split off from the last chapter but got way too long. I’ve also gotten suddenly and unexpectedly very busy with work again as seems to happen with some regularity. I’ve actually decided to start looking into finding a new job, something more regular and less stressful, so maybe this won’t be as much of a problem sometime in the near-ish future. I hope so anyway.
Fair warning, there might be a bit of another gap until the next mainline chapter. I’ve decided to sign up for the Ficnnapping again, so I expect that will be my next major project and I’m also looking to write another one-shot crossover as well. Time will tell of course what releases when, but just know that I’ve got a lot of stuff coming down the pipeline for all of you so I hope you’ll stick with me!
I post somewhat sporadically due to an erratic schedule IRL, so if you’re interested in staying up to date I’d highly recommend using the “!Subscribeme” function to be alerted to all new posts.

Hi! I recently returned to the US from overseas and looking to get a new credit card. I have a credit score around 760 but my last card was cancelled ~6 years ago. After some research I have decided on a cashback card, and applied for a Citi Custom Cash card but was rejected due to no recent history.
To save myself a potentially a long process of trial and error, I am looking for advice on if I will to be able to get accepted for a decent cash back card without recent credit history (either 3%+ return on groceries, or 2% flat) , and if so what would be the best option.
Next on my list was either Citi Double Cash Card (seems unlikely since Citi rejected me once) or Capital One SavorOne, but I was concerned by the bucketing system, although I would be OK with a $500 - $1000 limit but more would be nice. I also talked to my bank (Ally) about their 2% cash back card but its invitation only. Other option would be to pick up a starter card just to build some recent history.
Thank you for your time!
Template below:
Current cards: (list cards, limits, opening date)None
FICO Score: 775
Oldest account age: None - closed last account ~6 years ago
Chase 5/24 status: 0/24
Income: $65,000
Average monthly spend and categories:
dining $100
groceries: $350
gas: $20
travel: $250
other: $30
Open to Business Cards: No
What's the purpose of your next card? Cashback, either flat 2% or groceries category
Do you have any cards you've been looking at? Capital One SavorOne, Citi Double Cash Card, Citi Custom Cash Card (rejected)
Are you OK with category spending or do you want a general spending card? Yes, whatever is more economical but not too fussed since it seems relatively marginal.

Gun Trusts Compared

I got the itch to finally get my first suppressor and join ya'll. I had a really hard time though trying to decide with which gun trust to go with so I decided to write my thoughts on two popular trusts - National Gun Trusts and Gun Trust Guru. First of all, I'm not a lawyer, and while I'm knowledgeable about estate planning, take my interpertations for what it is - from a layman. This post is written from my understanding and I could be wrong about the following bullet points and comparisons. This is not legal advice - see a NFA lawyer in your jurisidiction.
Then National Gun Trusts and Gun Trust Guru - if I got anything wrong or misunderstood anything wrong about your trusts, please let me know. I'm a layman and its hard to parse all the terms. I'm writing this with the most upmost excitement about both of your products. :)
I wanted to write up my thoughts of comparing National Gun Trusts to Gun Trust Guru. First of all, I want to commemorate both authors. Both people have done a fantastic job. Both trusts seem like they will absolutely protect you and in incredible unforseen ways that I cannot stress. After reading through both trusts - you'd be irresponsible to not have a trust. Imagine if you get accused of domestic violence with NFA gear owned as an individual and are put under a restraining order. You'd most likely lose your guns. With a trust - it kicks in to your co trustees/successor trustees for much better safe keeping than the police (legally at least, they may just take it despite trust docs).

Pros for BOTH Trusts

• Both seem to be VERY VERY VERY protective of you as a person and your firearms in all kinds of manners that you might become a prohibited person in the future and just dealing with NFA items.
  
• Both are incredibly well written and I feel you can't go wrong with either. (again im not a lawyer.)
  

National Gun Trust Pros

• The clarity of this trust is excellent. I really like how the settlor, trustee, successor trustees, and beneficiaries are clear as day on the first page. I really like the table of contents and organization.
  
• I like that it includes a certificate of trust. So if you wanted to open a bank/investment account with the trust it makes it easier as many banks won't want anything to do with firearms. While it mentions NFA/GCA, etc, a bank officer is more likely to just rubber stamp opening an account with the certificate. Various state laws prohibit them from seeing the full trust document when you have a certificate. I personally would still go with a seperate estate trust though - as if you become a prohibited person you'll technically lose access to this bank account! However - it gives you options like if you want to fund some finances/etc explicit to making sure a lawyer is paid for to deal with your NFA/regular firearms vs the rest of your estate a lot easier.
  
• I like you have an option to choose successor trustee succession or acting together.
  
• I like I can easily update % of who owns what with the trust after death or assign specific property to specific people.
  

National Gun Trust Cons

• I don't like that I need a witness + notary in my state for the trust and amendments. My state only requires a notary for a trust to be legally binding.
• The death distribution language sounds like it distributes individually. I'm not clear on if the trust as written would allow for a successor trustee to distribute to a new gun trust for people.
• I don't really like the co-trustee majority vote language. I'm the settlor and want absolute control - granted I can amend that at any time so this is nitpick territory, but I can see possible issues if I made my entire hunting group co-trustees for a week and happened to pass away while hunting - ouch.
• I don't like that I need a co-trustee to sign infront of a notary for their removal.
• I also don't like having to go to a notary for a co-trustee removal.
• I'm not able to see where co-trustees are required to return trust property if they're removed or become prohibited persons, I hope I missed it but I re-read the trust three times looking for this. It feels like it should be obvious but I'd prefer the trust document to be explicit.
• I don't see any doctors or physician language in here for incapacitation. It might not be as protective if one might become subject to mental health/5250 Holds. Again I'm not a lawyer - its hard to say without talking to a lawyer through edge cases like that.
• Likewise I don't see any regain capacity language either.
• Trustee powers don't seem as broad - no mentioning of borrowing and mortgage powers for instance. Could also be a pro - can't legally pawn off your guns in a time of need if a pawn shop catches that LOL. (also pawning NFA seems really bad and it seems like you're legally prohibited on pawning nfa items.)
• Seems to cover a few more edges cases (like what if co-trustees fight) and ensure a duty of loyalty to the settlor.
• Distributions are equitable.

Gun Trust Guru Pros

• I really really really like I can appoint and remove trustees without a notary. It's awesome for going hunting with a suppressor or SBR, appoint everyone for the week, don't worry if you accidentally left a backup suppressor in your hunting buddy's truck. Since you don't need a notary - much easier to do than hey we gotta stop by the ups store before this hunt - oh crap the notary already left for the day. This is a HUGE HUGE HUGE pro for me going with Gun Trust Guru.
• I really really like that co-trustee appointment acceptance repeats all the prohibited person language.
• I really like I can remove a co-trustee without needing the co-trustee's signature.
• I like that co-trustees that are removed or become prohibited persons are instructed to return trust propery.
• I only need a notary for the documents.
• I like the death distributive phrases more of Gun Trust Guru - it seems to allow for stuff to either go individually or into a trust for the beneficaries if I'm understanding it correctly.
• I like that everything a trustee does requires settlor consent (if living).
• I really like that I need 2 physicians to be declared incapacitated, and that it has language allowing me to regain capacity per the trust.
• I like it has more broad powers for the trustee like borrowing and mortgaging property, etc.

Gun Trust Guru Cons

• I wish they included a certificate of trust in the template. I do like having a rainy day fund to ensure the successor trustees can explicitly take care of the firearms vs reaching into my other trust. I don't think its needed for silencers but if I buy a $45k+ mg, definitely want to store say 10% or so extra to cover legal costs more explicitly for remaining cotrustees/successor trustees.
• It feels a bit more wordy.
• Successor trustees act together. I didn't see an option to have them act in succession instead when I did the website. I nonimated two different gun clubs so that's going to be fun having them act together.
• Beneficiaries have equal shares by default. No amendments to change that to %s.
• I don't see any duty to the settlor language that's found in National Gun Trust. Of course trustees already have a fiduciary duty to the beneficaries of the trust, so maybe the author didn't feel it was needed to be repeated in a document.
• I don't see any language on making distributions equitable right off.

What I wish both trusts had

The only custom language I can think of that I wish both trusts had is if it had language along the lines of if a co-trustee files a restraining order, or becomes a plaintiff in a civil or criminal case against the settlor (possibly other than divorce proceedings), they no longer become a co-trustee, must return any trust property in possession/etc. I know you can remove co-trustees/etc with both trusts when that happens but getting to a notary in jail with the national gun trust might be super hard. Not only getting a notary quickly in jail but having all your identification taken away makes it super hard - so have to bring 2 witnesses - a friend + a lawyer as well.
Also with more high-capacity magazine bans, I wish both trusts had language for magazines too. I'm not sure what the legal ramifications are on if you assign all your magazines to a trust, but I think it might be a great idea too. If it works for NFA items then hopefully it also works for if a high capacity magazine ban takes place. Again, this is another area of talk that might be worth a paid consultation with a lawyer. I tend to be risk averse when it comes to stuff like this.
Assuming its a good idea legally to assign magazines to a trust - I think this is another great idea why everyone should have a gun trust - even if you don't own a single NFA item or AR-15.
I've also read some downsides on assigning magazines to a trust - you've written down you've assigned X amount, but if you happen to have X+Y amount later... ouch. So one might want to do a broad assignment of all existing and all future magazines personal property/legal purchases. Again, not a lawyer, I have no idea how that language would hold up should you become a test case.
I also have no idea how adding co-trustees post high cap magazine bans would work if it counted as a transfer or not, which becomes very state specific, vs selling a LLC or other entity that had pre-ban mags/etc. So that might be why the trust is silent on magazines.
Then you might want to start a new trust for post-ban mags and firearms, possibly make your existing trust irrevocable before any sunset date (which changing it to irrevocable might have tax issues, and co-trustee issues.) Again I'm not a lawyer - just hypothesizing here. See a lawyer.

The Super Trust - or why hiring a lawyer is awesome

Ultimately, I want to hire a lawyer to take the best of both trusts' brilliant minds to combine them to one super trust that still is awesome for NFA firearms but covers these edge cases I'm concerned with as well.
National Gun Trust also requires you and any co-trustees to notify ATF if you/they become a prohibited person. I'm not seeing the ATF language in Gun Trust Guru. I'm having a hard time on if Gun Trust Guru's trust needs this language or not. I don't want to list this as a pro or con, so its something I feel I need legal advice on, and one good reason why I think it's best to see a lawyer for a gun trust over a $50-$100 online trust. At the end of the day a $150-$500 consult fee is worth it if you have 5x+ tax stamps ($1k) and we all know suppressors and NFA firearms is expensive. I'm personally of the mind of not inviting more gov in my life than needed or if it's a good idea/lawyer recommends being proactive here.
Then speaking of divorce proceedings - this is another area I recommend talking to a lawyer over generic trust templates. You'd want any trust to reflect any prenups or post-nups depending on your marital status. Likewise - the prenup will most certainly need to cover NFA items (imagine paying a tax stamp for each baby to go to your significant other who then sells the items for a new car.) It's also really important why you should get a trust vs an individual even if you're unmarried like me - it more strongly establishes seperate/pre-marital property.
Likewise - the trust being silent on magazines is something else that you might get a huge benefit of talking to a lawyer for a custom trust.
At the end of the day both trusts are fantastic to quickly get setup and get some NFA goodness purchased. :D Then while that's being done one can go to a lawyer and get it refined a lot better for your specific use case with a restatement.

TL;DR

Both trusts are amazing. I highly recommend both trusts. Again I'm not a lawyer, just someone whos enthusiastic about trusts. I hope my breakdown is helpful for those who are looking to establish their first Gun/NFA trust!
Thank you National Gun Trust and Gun Trust Guru!

About Creative Writing Workshops
Peer workshops are one of the best ways to improve quickly, learn the invaluable skill of giving and receiving feedback, and get multiple reader eyes on your script at one time. If you’re patient, respectful and empathetic, it’s also a great way to make connections and form mutual support networks.
You can choose to set a baseline for your workshops by requesting script samples, or you can keep it totally open. Some of the best education comes from mixing the skill levels. If you’re going to run one of these, it’s best if you have experience writing multiple scripts or some background in creative writing workshops.
I’ve been running these for a couple of years, and my method comes directly from my alma mater, the UBC School of Creative Writing, which itself is based on the top workshop program at the University of Iowa. The big dirty secret is that you don’t need an award winning professor to hold one of these workshops and benefit from it. You just need a minimum level of patience, organization and communication skills.
If you’re serious about screenwriting, these are all skills you want to cultivate. One of the most satisfying things about doing these workshops is seeing how even very new writers drastically improve after one session.
You will need:

• At least four people, with a minimum of three participating writers.
• One person to moderate live workshops & manage files and scheduling. - This can be a participant but it’s usually easier if it’s not. If you are going to both run sessions and participate, it’s best you do your workshop last so that the other members can get up to speed when running your session.
• A venue. Discord is probably the easiest way to conduct your workshop, but you can also use Zoom or Google Meet, or any other video meeting app. I prefer to do mine audio only, but you can use video if you choose to.
• File and schedule organization. I use PDF only since acrobat reader is free and has good markup tools. I also prefer to use Google Drive and Calendar for everything. I will keep relevant links (to the sheets where submissions can be downloaded, and membership contact sheet) on a google site that I keep linked in the top of the Discord channel so anyone in the group can refer to it.

It works like this:

• Writers agree on the script format and how much reading they’re doing - a minimum of 10 pages is recommended for larger groups, full feature workshops are better with 3-5 people.
• Put aside 1-2 hours per workshop. You can do multiple scripts during a workshop session, but I recommend full pilots and features each get their own.
• Choose a workshop duration 2-4 months is optimal, depending on your workshop size and expected turnaround.
• Choose workshop order - who goes when, what time zone - and input that into a calendar. Google calendar is best as you can invite members to view it, and you can use to to make scheduling changes that you can easily communicate to the group.
• I like to set a ten day read-warning prior to the workshop, so people have time to read and give notes.
• Decide on how many sessions or rounds (ie: one first workshop, and then a followup workshop after rewrites)

During each workshop:

• Your workshop moderator will choose the feedback order - when I moderate, I speak after the writers so I don’t prejudice the group, and so I can avoiding repeating notes unnecessarily.
• The writer remains silent while each reader gives their spoken notes/feedback,
• After the formal feedback, I ask the writer to provide any clarifications or ask questions, and then allow the discussion to be pretty organic after that.
• After the live workshop is over, everyone emails their notated PDFs of the script to the writer. The 2nd round is a repeat of this process - usually with some back and forth about when the next submissions due, figuring out schedules, etc.

These are a couple of templates to get you started. You can use all of these to generate a spreadsheet to keep track of your files and members. Set your perms and you can allow people to submit their scripts for download by the workshop at their convenience. I also use Google Sites to keep all these links in a common reference point for the workshop members, but you can also use Drive, email or whatever system works for your group.
This links will prompt you to make copies into your own Drive account. You can edit these forms as needed, share them as you like.
Application Form - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11Zof9KTy_blzC_iwgAcCmwCNucX5eB2RJnFpECo1N_M/copy
Membership Form - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ZpVzIkfN2gKHulg0ClTrn_yQpfOczcZRe1zpWz5tCmg/copy
Workshop Form - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1zQCaCce-bjImKtI2K2-vq47bID3mP0P4pcC_DTV4hrA/copy
I will be creating a Workshop flair you can use whenever you want to start one of these groups. Please be clear about who you’re asking to join, and be responsible about how you treat people. The number one thing that can kill your reputation in a situation like this is flakiness and broken commitments. Respect privacy, and respect people’s time - even if you're still learning, this is the best way to make meaningful connections with your fellow screenwriters.

Hello!
Recently saw videos of freelancers selling digital products (e.g. children's books, invitation layouts, branding kit, deck templates) edited through Canva sa mga iba't ibang selling sites like Etsy.
Really got me hooked and curious especially sa naging journey nung karamihan and that in demand daw tlaga now.
What are your thoughts on this? Feasible ba tlaga to invest on this? Also if may narerecommend kayong tips / resources for this hehe
I have prior exp naman on designing basic assets, but nagulat ako na may mga kumikita pala talaga on this kahit super simple lang ng layouts!
Let me know ur tots hehehe thank youuuu!

In recent weeks, numerous engineers have explored Cognita, providing invaluable insights and feedback. We deeply appreciate your input and encourage ongoing dialogue (share your thoughts in the comments – let's keep this ‘open source’).
While RAG is undoubtedly powerful, the process of building a functional application with it can feel overwhelming. From selecting the right AI models to organizing data effectively, there's a lot to navigate. While tools like LangChain and LlamaIndex simplify prototyping, an accessible, ready-to-use open-source RAG template with modular support is still missing. That's where Cognita comes in.
Key benefits of Cognita:

1. Central repository for parsers, loaders, embedders, and retrievers. 2. User-friendly UI empowers non-technical users to upload documents and engage in Q&A. 3. Fully API-driven for seamless integration with other systems.

We invite you to explore Cognita and share your feedback as we refine and expand its capabilities. Interested in contributing? Join the journey at https://www.truefoundry.com/cognita-launch.

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It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark, when out of the blue, my wife called me at work. "We're going to Niagara Falls for the weekend. I got us an awesome deal!"
We had both been working at our first "full-fledged" jobs for a year and had reached that moment after graduation when you suddenly realize you can't make that impact on the world your student enthusiasm once promised. At first, I just sighed. It was the dead of January, and I had already expended all my energy on a week of inconsequential stress. I just wanted to collapse on the couch for two days. Sarah felt a similar weary exhaustion. I could tell. Her tone was more hopeful than excited, but she had dreaded the routine we were sinking into and was trying her best to pull us free.
I looked to the ceiling and adjusted my telephone headset. At that time I was working at Stats Canada on the tele-query desk. I took a deep breath and, as convincingly as possible, said, "Sounds good." I don't think she bought it, but we went nonetheless.
This was Niagara Falls before the casinos when there was a very distinct off-season. When we got to the hotel, we were given the details of our "lovers' special". One dinner to be used either Friday or Saturday, two breakfasts, a roll of tokens for the arcade, 10% off some "4D" movie ride experience, and a 2-for-1 coupon to Max Tussaud's. I guessed it was Madame's nephew? We also got a bottle of sparkling wine in our room and chocolate treats on our pillows. I was impressed. It sounded good.
When we got into our room and saw the "bottle" of wine - basically an aeroplane-sized glass and half - and the chocolates - "fun wrapped" Oh Henry's left over from Halloween - we both started to laugh. The tone for two wonderful days had been set. We decided to cash in on our dinner coupon right away.
The restaurant off the lobby had hopes of being better. There were huge panoramic windows that promised a view of the gorge. Unfortunately, they had some winter moisture problems that day, and it felt like we were defrosting amid the dripping streaks and foggy patches. The decor was your standard booths and tables though the "romantic" lighting was unique. Dollar store battery-powered tea lights were lodged inside thick tumbler glasses and shed a muted pleasantness in a "what a great idea for a craft" sort of way. I had a feeling they were created by our waitress since she was the one who always seemed to be fussing with them. Only one other couple was in the dining room, so she attended to us immediately.
"Can I get you something to start?"
"Sure." "Thank you, that would be nice." We both responded simultaneously.
"And what would the lady like this evening?"
Sarah smiled at the flattery. "I think I'll have a glass of white wine." She glanced over at me to see my reaction. This was a subtle cue of the mood to follow. Diet Coke was usually the beverage of choice. She didn't normally drink alcohol. One glass numbed her nose and made her giggle far too easily. When she did drink, however, it meant she was comfortable with my company and open to anything to follow. I raised my eyebrows in a debonair way.
"And for the gentleman?"
"Do you have Foster's on tap?"
"Yes we do."
"I'll have a pint please."
Sarah smiled at the happy memories I invoked. At university, Foster's was my signature beer. It was at a time when Crocodile Dundee was a known name, and Australia was inexplicably cool. 15 cent buffalo wings and a pitcher of Foster's was the Tuesday night special at the London Arms pub. There the Classics Club would meet and, as a group, circle the wagons and drink ourselves into extroverts.
As soon as the waitress left, Sarah smiled at me. She reached out and held my hand across the table. With my gaze on hers, she slipped her foot from her shoe and slowly began sliding it up my pant leg.
"I got a pedicure this morning." She announced seductively.
I nodded and pretended I didn't notice her invitation. "What colour?" I asked.
"I'm not telling." She teased. "You'll just have to find out later." Her devious little smile was gorgeous.
"Mmmm. I can't wait."
When the waitress returned with our drinks, we immediately retreated to our personal spaces as if we had been discovered by the chaperone. Sarah opened the menu and began to salivate at the variety.
"Can we add an appetizer to the package dinner?" Her question seemed innocent enough.
"You're on the package?" Our friendly waitress disappeared, and we were no longer a lady or a gentleman. She ripped the menu out of Sarah's hand and took mine before I had even opened it. She then scurried to her podium and brought back a tattered, grease-stained, photocopied page that we had to share. We both burst out laughing.
The waitress was flustered that we were not as bothered as she was. "The drinks are NOT included!"
"What choices do we have?" I asked, expecting the usual chicken or fish. I had been on many packages before with my parents.
"Coffee or tea." The waitress snapped.
Sarah and I looked at each other in amused disbelief.
"I'll have coffee please." I didn't even flinch at the ridiculously limited package. I was eager to get my order in early.
"And I'll have the tea!" Sarah followed my lead. "Can I have some milk with that?"
"Yes." The waitress snarled.
"Fantastic!" I enthused.
"Yes, great! I'm glad we got the package, Honey." Sarah joked.
The waitress stormed off and returned sometime later with our lettuce-only salads drowned in Kraft's Italian dressing and our chewy chicken dinners, which she had thoughtfully allowed to cool. She tossed the plates on the table and left us to peacefully devour our deal. We didn't see her again until we requested the bill. For some reason, we found it amusing to leave a generous tip, which of course, defeated the purpose of the package, but we didn't care. It was fun.
The rest of the holiday was marred with similar off-season products and services. The wax museum was only half open, so we couldn't see the pop stars of the seventies. I didn't think it was a problem, but Sarah pouted playfully. She really wanted to see young Bowie. Meanwhile, the arcade was particularly stingy about spitting out coupons. So much so that Mike, the scraggly-haired repair guy, ended up escorting us from game to game and repairing the devices on demand. In no time, he was acting like an old drinking buddy. He joked and laughed, then, out of the blue, revealed that working at the Niagara Falls Fun Centre wasn't his career choice, that his dream was to be part of a travelling carnival. He desperately wanted to see more of the world, he explained and socialize with a greater variety of "wildlife." Mike winked at Sarah to punctuate his meaning, then began advising her on which games to play.
Sarah was partial to Skee ball and clearly had career potential in the sport, but Mike quickly pointed out that the token-to-coupon payout was not the best. In a furtive whisper, he revealed that The Storm Stopper was your best bet, provided the arcade had left it on its original factory settings. He assured us the ones here were "cool." The game had lights that ran around the outside in opposite directions and you had to hit the button at just the right spot to win. It looked impossible, but Mike was right; if you calculated tokens in versus coupons won, it was the best deal. It only took a little practice to win a minor jackpot every 5 or 6 times.
We would cheer each win as if Toronto had won the Stanley Cup. I would give a quick fist pump and a full lung "Yes!" while Sarah would jump up and down screaming, "WhoooHooo!" Of course, in the end, when we cashed in, "Mike's secret" only bumped us up from a key-chain flashlight to a "deluxe" nail beauty set. Mind you, it did come complete with clippers, scissors, a file AND a cuticle scraper. Not only that, it was all neatly packaged in a paisley-patterned pink and green plastic vinyl case. Mike was so pleased to give us our prize and to be honest, we were thrilled to win it if only to see his broad chicletted smile. It was more of a trophy than a grooming set.
That night, I made reservations for us at a fancy Chinese food restaurant - the Bamboo Garden. When we arrived, we had half-expected renovations of some sort. Instead, the place was immaculate. Gentle pools teeming with goldfish highlighted the epic black and red Ming dynasty decor. Real candles flickered on crisp white tablecloths. Again, the restaurant was virtually ours. The reservations on my part were entirely unnecessary. In fact, as soon as we entered, they knew us by name and guided us directly to our table. A live lounge piano caressed the air, its notes danced vaguely around familiar harmonies until finally, as if prompted by our presence, a song emerged immediately accompanied by the velvet voice of oriental karaoke. It was our song remastered

TL;DR: A lot of bragging about a great day.
I volunteer at a german fair trade shop and the cultural center it's connected to.
Today one of our import partners had an event to honor active volunteers around fair trade and of course we were invited. We also used this as an opportunity to get our latest order and transport it ourselves. So a group of us made the trip in a small van.
The event was great. Live music by different artists, a lot of vegan/vegetarian fair traded food (only exception were some small chicken skewers), ice cream and non alcoholic drinks. I also saw a little cooking presentation via live stream from Sri Lanka, and a photo presentation about fair Coconut milk production and how a whole community benefits from it. We did some additional shopping, got our big order and drove back.
We arrived back at our shop early enough to still see something of the gardening event some groups had organized in front of shop and center. It was a plant exchange with some crafting activities for kids. Some colleagues presented some of our gardening products and we stocked them up with some stuff we just bought.
It took a while to get everything into the shop and after the shop closed and the plant exchange ended I had a little break before the next event.
Our local music school together with our center had organized a little event they called "World Music Session". Every kind of musician was invited to participate. So some turkish baglamas, a clarinet, an electric piano, some drums and percussion instruments came together for a two hour session with a lot of fun and improvisation.
All in all it was a pretty amazing and pretty solarpunky day.

Lo slide show è uno strumento molto utile e versatile che consente di racchiudere e conservare i ricordi più belli in un unico video digitale. Attraverso una carrellata di foto che scorrono seguendo un filo logico e accompagnate da una colonna sonora, è possibile rivivere istanti passati che altrimenti andrebbero perduti nel tempo.
Questa funzionalità risulta particolarmente apprezzata per festeggiare compleanni, anniversari o eventi importanti, condividendo le emozioni vissute con amici e parenti anche a distanza. Allo stesso modo, uno slide show può essere utilizzato per presentare viaggi appena terminati mostrando panorami mozzafiato o attività svolte, oppure come strumento promozionale per aziende e attività commerciali, dando risalto a prodotti, servizi offerti o momenti significativi.
Con pochi semplici click sarà possibile creare un prodotto video coinvolgente ed emozionante, nel quale far rivivere attraverso le immagini momenti unici e irripetibili.
Flexclip è uno strumento online semplice ed intuitivo che consente di realizzare slide show in modo estremamente rapido e senza alcuna difficoltà. Questo software dispone di una vastissima raccolta di template già pronti all’uso, affascinanti modelli preimpostati tra i quali scegliere in base all’occasione e allo stile ricercato. Una volta selezionato il template preferito, basterà importare le proprie foto personali semplicemente trascinandole nell’area dedicata.
A questo punto sarà possibile modificare la durata di permanenza di ciascuna immagine, intervenendo sulla timeline. Inoltre, si potrà aggiungere una colonna sonora adeguata scegliendola tra una ampia raccolta di brani royalty free.
Completata questa fase iniziale, si avrà la possibilità di affinare ulteriormente il prodotto aggiungendo testi, modificando transizioni ed effettuando eventuali regolazioni. Il tutto con pochi click, grazie ad un’interfaccia intuitiva e semplice anche per chi è a digiuno di programmi di video editing.
Nel tutorial che segue, verrà spiegato passo dopo passo come realizzare un video a partire dalle foto, procedendo dapprima con una versione quasi automatica e successivamente personalizzando ogni aspetto per raggiungere il risultato desiderato.

Indice

• Creare video con foto e musica gratis - Tutorial video
• FlexClip personalizzazioni
• Flexclip pricing
• Come rendere coinvolgente un video slide show
• Creare video con foto e musica gratis - Link
• Podcast Spotify
• Cerca più informazioni grazie alla nostra AI, prova a fargli delle domande

Creare video con foto e musica gratis - Tutorial video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqvFmLYB9s8
Creare un video a partire da una serie di foto, arricchendolo con musica, testo ed effetti, può essere vantaggioso per molteplici scopi: potrebbe trattarsi del racconto di un viaggio, di un’occasione festosa come un compleanno o una cerimonia, oppure avere finalità commerciali, includendo i vari prodotti e componendo un filmato partendo dalle immagini iniziali.
Per produrre questi slideshow, ovvero video generati da sequenze di fotografie, esistono numerose soluzioni, accessibili tramite qualsiasi software di editing video. Tuttavia, non sempre il processo è agevole e spesso richiede competenze di base nel montaggio video per ottenere un risultato soddisfacente. Con un’applicazione chiamata Flexclip, invece, tutto diventa sorprendentemente semplice: in pochi clic è possibile realizzare un video completo con foto, musica, transizioni, effetti e tutto il necessario.
Flexclip, che offre una modalità d’uso gratuita (sebbene con la presenza del logo o di una filigrana durante l’esportazione), offre una vasta gamma di funzionalità, tra cui la creazione di slideshow, che rappresenta solo una delle molte possibilità offerte da questo strumento.
Flexclip è completamente basato sul web, eliminando la necessità di scaricare software sul proprio computer e rendendolo accessibile anche da smartphone. Grazie alle sue funzionalità di Intelligenza Artificiale, Flexclip si dimostra particolarmente versatile e utile sotto molti aspetti, e la sua semplicità d’uso rappresenta sicuramente uno dei suoi punti di forza.
Un’altra caratteristica apprezzabile di questo strumento sono i numerosi template disponibili, che consentono di avviare un progetto partendo da grafiche già pronte e immagini ben posizionate sulla base musicale.

FlexClip personalizzazioni

Flexclip mette a disposizione un elevato grado di personalizzazione per rendere unici i propri slide show. È possibile modificare il formato delle immagini importate, tagliandole e regolandone le dimensioni per un perfetto adattamento ai template scelti. Grazie agli avanzati strumenti di editing integrati, si potranno applicare filtri colore, effetti speciali e modifiche ai livelli per ottimizzare la resa visuale di ciascuna foto.
Particolarmente curata risulta anche la gestione delle transizioni, con decine di stili tra cui scegliere per regolare il passaggio fluido da un’immagine all’altra. Anche i testi descrittivi sono ampiamente personalizzabili, potendo impostare vari stili di carattere, dimensioni, colori e movimenti dinamici di comparsa/scomparsa. Un ulteriore livello di dettaglio viene raggiunto aggiungendo elementi grafici come cuori, cerchi e altre forme da sovrapporre strategicamente alle foto.
Dopo aver personalizzato ogni aspetto del proprio slide show, giunge il momento di verificarne la coerenza e l’armonia complessiva. A questo punto è essenziale controllare che le immagini scorrano perfettamente a tempo con la colonna sonora selezionata, regolando la durata delle singole clip per sincronizzarle con la melodia. Particolare attenzione va posta anche nel controllare la corretta disposizione di eventuali testi e grafiche aggiuntive, verificando che non interferiscano visivamente con la visione delle foto.
Ultimate queste verifiche e apportati gli eventuali ritocchi finali, non resta che esportare il progetto nel formato desiderato, selezionando una risoluzione e una qualità ottimali in base all’utilizzo cui è destinato il video. Flexclip permette così di ottenere slide show dall’aspetto professionale, pronti per essere condivisi e regalati come ricordo imperituro di emozioni indimenticabili.
Potrebbe interessarti anche l’articolo Come creare video con intelligenza artificiale

Flexclip pricing

Flexclip mette a disposizione un piano gratuito che consente di usufruire di tutte le funzionalità base per creare slideshow e video. Questa opzione non prevede limiti al numero di progetti realizzabili né di tempo di rendering per l’esportazione dei files. Tuttavia, i video avranno il logo dell’app in sovrimpressione.
Per ottenere funzionalità aggiuntive e rimuovere il watermark è possibile optare per uno dei piani Premium. Il piano Flexclip Plus ha un costo di 9,99 dollari al mese e include editor video e immagini senza limiti, esportazione in una qualità fino a 1080p, supporto prioritario e 50GB di spazio cloud.
Il piano Professional costa invece 16,99 dollari mensili e aggiunge la possibilità di creare progetti illimitati, modificare i video senza limiti di tempo ed esportare file in qualità 4K. Offre inoltre 100GB di archiviazione online ed è la soluzione ideale per utenti avanzati e professionisti.

Come rendere coinvolgente un video slide show

Uno slide show ben realizzato deve saper coinvolgere ed emozionare lo spettatore. Ecco alcuni accorgimenti per renderlo appetibile e apprezzato.
Creare un filo conduttore e un ordine logico nella successione delle foto. Si possono raggruppare per temi o periodi temporali. La colonna sonora deve supportare visivamente il racconto.
Le transizioni giocano un ruolo fondamentale: devono essere fluide ma anche dare il giusto impatto emotivo. Alternare stili diversi mantiene alta l’attenzione.
Non esagerare con i testi, meglio usarli per sottolineare momenti importanti. Puoi giocare con caratteri, colori e posizionamenti diversi.
Scegli foto di qualità, ben illuminate e con inquadrature significative. Ritaglia gli scatti per eliminare elementi distraenti.
Aggiungi qualche effetto grafico solo quando necessario per non appesantire il video.
La durata ideale è di 3-5 minuti: oltre rischia di annoiare.
Condividi il link anziché il file pesante per agevolare la visione online da parte degli invitati.

Creare video con foto e musica gratis - Fonti

Come creare VIDEO con FOTO e MUSICA (slideshow), gratis e facilissimo Sito ufficiale flexclip
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Creare video con foto e musica gratis Written by Mokik

(Following some supportive comments on my previous post suggesting I just go for it and put out some posts about some cool biotech topics, I thought I'd test community sentiments in this subreddit over a group I really admire - Asimov!)
So I saw on Kevin LeShane's LinkedIn that they'll be at SynBioBeta to give a demo on Kernel. Unfortunately I won't be making it to SynBioBeta, but for anyone who was at iGEM last year, you might've stumbled across the Asimov booth like I did and given it a go.
And for anyone who's not familiar, they've apparently got some webinar tutorials coming up..! From their iGEM page:

Join one of our webinar tutorials below to learn about Kernel - Asimov’s computer-aided design software tool for engineering biology, which is now available for all iGEMers. During these sessions, we'll provide an overview and brief demo of the tool, and then we'll be inviting you to login to the software from your web browser to complete a genetic design challenge!
Friday, April 26: 13:00-13:30 UTC
Register here!
Monday, May 13: 14:00-14:30 UTC
Register here!
Friday, May 17: 12:00-12:30 UTC
Register here!
If you cannot make it to one of these events, we'll be adding additional webinars in May and June - stay tuned.

I personally saw really great potential in Kernel; would've really loved if it'd been available to me back during my Master's project a couple of years back. Basically seemed to me like it was an all-in-one platform that takes a desired construct template and then browses the parts registry to assemble the sequence for you, except... well, a tad more sophisticated 😂
I had the pleasure of speaking to Kevin at iGEM, and he also told me (somewhat discreetly; I think he was worried about the optics of LLMs in the scientific community lol) that for Kernel, they were also looking into finetuning local LLMs to:
1: Search across your lab books to make an index of protocols you're an expert in,
2: Put together an experimental research plan made from those protocols to achieve a desired research outcome of your input and
3: Help out with any coding for lab automation software, such as OpenTrons
To me it seemed like a really great use-case unlock of LLMs. So many useless start-ups out there doing little beyond providing a wrapper for a chatbot - whereas an LLM that helps plan lab experiments and code up your OpenTrons scripts... that's a real-world use case! And it'd go a long way to help out less programming-savvy scientists (like I was, back in the day. Could hardly even use R; even LaTeX was a bit of a struggle to learn - though I did challenge myself to figure it out in about 3 days 😂)!
Anyway, ramble over! What are people's thoughts on Asimov and Kernel?

So, for background, basically i started playing at age 15, when i fell in love with the instrument. Since then i’ve been playing for about 4-5 hours/day. I’ve had three teachers until now (19y/o). All of them told me i could easily become a professional if i wanted to, but i don’t know if they said it just to make me happy or something like that. My current teacher invited me to play a mozart concerto with a pretty important orchestra in my country, and i accepted it, as it was a dream of mine to play with an orchestra. If everything goes right, it will happen next year. My question is, would you try to follow the piano carreer, at least to try to be a respectable teacher, since i guess i started a bit too late to become a concert pianist, or would you follow another carreer and keep the piano as a hobby?

NPR did a segment today on the FTC’s investigation into false advertising claims.
The FTC is specifically looking at advertisements that claim silly things like “anyone can master piano with my product with only three minutes of practice per day”
Ridley accepted NPR’s invitation and did an interview.
I’ve seen countless post on here about free piano apps for beginners.
There is no such thing as a free lunch: discuss amongst yourselves.
If anyone can find the NPR segment from today (4/26/2024) please reply and link.