--CHANGED OPINIONS:
1) Season 2 is better than 1:
Arc 4 gets better every time I rewatch it. I found so many things I missed, so much foreshadowing and parallels. I used to think that season 1 was the best season, but now I think S2 is slightly better.
2) Roswaal is in my top 5 characters:
He was my least favorite character when I first finished season 2. After watching multiple times and reading Arc 4 web novel, he is my 4th favourite character. Just because of his complexity, parallels and dynamic with Subaru.
3) My top 5 characters list:
---First watch:
1) Subaru
2) Echidna
3) Rem
4) Julius
5) Otto
---Current list:
1) Subaru
2) Beatrice
3) Julius
4) Roswaal
5) Crusch
4) My top 5 episodes list (Always keeps changing, but I think all episodes are great):
---First watch:
1) From zero - 1x18
2) Choose me - 2x24
3) That's all this story is about - 1x25
4) Offbeat steps under the moonlight - 2x25
5) The outside of madness - 1x15
---Current list:
1) From zero - 1x18
2) The sounds that make you want to cry - 2x13
3) The outside of madness - 1x15
4) The witches' tea party - 2x12
5) Love me down to my blood and guts - 2x23
--OPINIONS THAT STAYED THE SAME:
1) 'From zero' is the best episode of Re: Zero
2) Subaru is the best character
3) Arc 2 is still 10/10. This arc doesn't get the appreciation it deserves as far as I have seen. 3 and 4 are better but 2 is also amazing.

I can see I had to be by myself
But lately I’m digging this
I needed to heal some old wounds
So I could be ready to be me freely
This wasn’t easy believe me
I know I’m not dreaming I know lucid I know screaming
I tell you I’m human
Star dust in this room then
With the breath of life and a will to live
Sinner & Saint
I use words as my paint
& I paint with my words
Weather a brush of my sword
Or a flick of my words
If you were to ask me come close n you grasped me
If you were to mention Love I’d both flee and I’d stay
Im fucked up this way
I’d come back to earth
Fly fast back n forth for you I would morph
O lovely I’m cursed agape phileo storgé ëros
Come forth be my power and source
To teach and reach people who don’t know what it’s worth
Break away from this earth yet live here until only My
Legacy remembers me and the love I had for those given to me
I’ve been bound since my birth
I’m both blessed & I’m cursed
The best of the worst Or my worst made Him cursed
Loved me so I could love thee
Loved me before I could ever love properly
My views were tainted selfish and sexually charged Hedonistic at large trying to fill up a void That nearly destroyed my life like the toss of a toy
By a careless little boy
This isn’t a game and I’m not a toy
I’m innocently guilty covered In blood
But it’s clearly cleansed me God how why
All I know is that you befriend me
When I cursed you said mine and I cursed you An atheistic rebel reveled in this place some call a hell hole
Who wants to feel me
Don’t do it I can be picky
Don’t want to break you I’m Territorial I luv 2 leave hickies
Can’t shut me down Weather you kiss or you hit me
Are we doing this -fuck it
Come get me Die to live with me
Internal swim oceans I promise to hold you
Love deadly healing the cold you
Externally on guard I don’t look like what I’ve been through
Hold back what’s so terribly easy Most thinking sinning is winning
A cycle most recite recycle weathered and bitter
I’ve lerned that I can do more go beyond being spiteful
These limits they’ve chained us
To this world and it’s fleshly endeavors
I know the One who enables me to always remember
To keep it together To love always
September Remember remember the fifth of November victory In Him who made me twenty fifth of December Somehow i still lived and kept lit This hidden🔥 ember🖤.
Eze37ToDis1987…

“Did that Human just hit my ship?” Admiral Carney of the Saigor Empire peered out of the viewport. His voice tinged with disbelief. His ship, the Gavaron, a superstar dreadnought 10 kilometres long and brimming with every weapon the galaxy had to offer, was being propelled backwards past the fourth planet of this insignificant solar system by a man dressed in a blue suit and red cape. The crew, initially stunned, began to regain their composure and halt the ship.
“Sir? What should we do?” His second-in-command looked at the screen in disbelief. “That hit destroyed the forward shield generators and the forward main cannon!”
“Ehhh? That has to be a hologram. Scan for whatever weapon they used and send in two frigates to destroy whatever that thing is.”
His order was followed, and he saw two of the frigates that had been held back speed past him, launching rockets at the target, only for the rocket to be blasted by some red laser from this human's eyes, according to the video feed.
“Are you seeing this? What in the fifth unholy hell is this thing from? Is it a droid? “
“Scans say it's biological, and there is no technology detected, and according to our files, it looks human.”
“LOOKS HUMAN?” Admiral Carney turned to the science officer. “Does that look like a normal biological being to you? Those rockets are made of Dirunium. We can launch them through a damn sun if we want to.”
He turned to see this human grabbing a frigate and slinging it towards them. The other hightailed out of there, jumping into light speed in whatever direction they were facing. Smart kids, he thought.
“Brace for impact!”
“Brace for impact, but the shields?” His first officer looked at the helmsman as he shouted out the warning. Admiral Carney sighed and looked at him. “He destroyed them, remember? Move the ship out of the trajectory, turn the ships around and get us out of here. We can't fight that thing.“
“What about the shield? We can't jump without a shield?”
“Have a support ship land on the bow, and have them extend their shields over our damaged area. Then, let's get out of here. “
“Sir! The human is approaching us.” The words made it go cold down his spine. How could that thing, man, move that fast without any tech?
“Is he attacking?” He managed to keep his voice calm but he was getting worried. Was he to die here? In what was supposed to be a simple invasion to teach the recruits how to do the job.
“No, he is just watching us.” The words calmed him down. Maybe they could survive this. It was a defence system; it had to be, so if they just left, it would leave them be.
“Then ignore him, and let's get out of here.”
When he finally had time, he went over the reports. Earth was not supposed to have such a being as its defender. He had never seen or heard anything like this. This might cost him his job, but there was no way in the five unholy hell he could ever win over that. He logged the report and got himself a drink. He looked at his own fist. The green muscular fist would never be able to do something like that. They will cut his horns and blind his third eye for this, but he would survive. He could leave the navy and find a job on a starbase far from the capital planet. Yeah, it might be for the best. He got out the pad, wrote down his resignation, and sent it to the headquarter.

Five years later

Jar Carney had been working as a bartender at the Gustun star base for five years now, a trader base that saw creatures from all over the galaxies. Here, nobody knew or cared who he was, though he had heard the stories about the admiral who quit his position after attacking Earth, and a single human beat them back. It was a very popular story among some of the travellers. The only thing Jar found funny was that they often got the species of the admiral. In fact, mostly, it was somebody else than a Cunar like him; it tended to change. Lately, it was a female admiral of the Surion empire. Carney had to smirk at how the story had changed, and then he turned to the new Surion bartender, Saris, a young woman with a serious face who always kept to herself. She was pretty for a Surion; her soft yellow and black striped fur and the short tale made her cute, and her feminine movement had already made a few brave patrons try their luck. However, she ignored them all. “Hey, I didn’t know you guys had female admirals?”
She froze as he spoke, and Jamir, the local drunk, chuckled. “Only if they are royalty, they are given a fleet and told to show what they can do. But this time, this princess went to Earth, which was such a stupid choice. I thought they had learnt by now.” He then winked five of his 15 eyes at Saris.
Both Carney and Saris turned to him and said in unison, “What?”
Jamir laughed and finished his drink. “I’m the Funasta Admiral they spoke about last year. Unlike the smart invaders, I managed to land on that cursed planet, and while that demon tore through my fleet in space, I had to face something even worse. We set up a teleport point and just started to send in our mech units. They suddenly faced a green giant behemoth of a human. The more they shoot at him, the stronger and more dangerous he became. Then, we launched our troops and drone fighters. The humans responded by sending in more of these demons. First was a man in red who ran faster than we could see. Then a man dressed in old armour and a hammer of all things came, he controlled the weather and everywhere he struck was also hit by lightning from a clear sky. The green behemoth and the hammer guy are just as strong as the demon in the sky. They just can't fly like him. Besides the red blur that will zip around and disarm your troops, the ground support of those two monsters is a few other demons. There is a man with metal claws that could heal any wounds we inflicted on him. He is aided by a woman who tore through our men like they were paper. We had managed to defend the teleporter, so we poured in our drone clones. It didn’t matter.” He took another drink as he got lost in the nightmare that would follow. It took a second before he continued.
“The worst happened when night came. They made the dead rise to fight, Led by some bloodthirsty beast who drained our officers. Then came the humans, who turned into predatory animals and were immune to anything we threw at them. At that point, we finally had enough and ran away. We teleported home since all our ships had been destroyed and destroyed our side of the gate. So, of course, I was expelled.” He smirked, showing maw of short teeth.” But I had recorded too much evidence for them to ignore it, so we sent spies to try and find a weakness in their defense, and then we found out we were not the first to face them like this.“ He held out his glass for refill, which he got.
“We discovered that they have defeated at least eight invasions this way. And” He stopped for dramatic effect. “ We discovered their weapon. Those monsters are not real—well, they are real, but they are the result of human imagination. They have this technology that allows them to pull their —what’s the word? Ahh, now I remember superheroes and monsters from their books and movies, and for as long as people needed them, they would protect them from the enemies of the Earth. You see, they vanish once the invasion is over. Then the humans plunder the battlefield for tech.” He chuckles as he looks at his clawed hand. “Yeah, so here we sit, three admirals fracked up by imaginary monsters because nobody would believe it before seeing it with their own eyes. I mean, would your rulers believe such a fracked-up story.”
As always, let me know if you post it anywhere else. I'm okay with it as long as I get credit and am notified.

So in the years I've spent working on the drafts for my novel, I've realized I much prefer writing / editing in the physical (books, plain paper, etc). Unfortunately, my last draft has been pretty much all digital as I've been using scrivener. The work of retyping writing my physical media is time consuming, and while sometimes valuable, often not exactly soul rejuvenating work.
With the advent of AI, have any of you used a program that can take pictures of writings and transfer them to documents such as word or whatnot?
I understand that I would need to input each letter as I write it to teach the AI, probably multiple times, to teach it. That is of no problem to me, yet, I'm rather unfamiliar with the AI space and so I'm just reaching out for any and all input. Also, If this is indeed possible, I would like something that is self contained (no longer attached to global network) as I'd prefer my work not be circulated into the AI theft sphere that already seems uncontrollable - even if that means paying for it.
Thanks in advance for any and all help.
Edit : OCR has been recommended, at it seems there are a lot out there in a wide price range. Recommendations for one specialized for handwriting?

This was about the 2021 Free-Response Questions Handwriting prompt. Just looking for # values of my thesis, evidence, and sophistication.
Although some argue that handwriting instruction is beneficial in helping students develop certain skills, to a greater extent, handwriting instruction is not needed in today’s schools because the aforementioned skills aren’t directly proportional to handwriting and the world is evolving into a society that lacks the need for such writing skills.
Handwriting instruction has no place in this globally changing society that is geared more and more towards technology. Technology has no doubt pervaded into our school systems on a global level. Kids in elementary schools are receiving chromebooks, ipads, and even laptops. This is even the case for my own situation, in which I was given a chromebook for assignments in fifth grade. However, schools have continued to implement handwriting practice into daily routines, and for what reason? The opinions are starting to sway against teaching handwriting skills, however. Teachers themselves are stating that they believe we need to do away with the practice and “move on”(Source A). It is not only an individual basis level, however, as even forty one states have implemented courses that omit cursive from their curriculum as a whole(Source A). The fact that not only individuals are rebelling against this “archaic [...] communication” but also a majority of states on a national level are doing so highlights how change is what the nation wants. Specifically, technology is making the teachings of handwriting obsolete. The keyboard allows students to be “quicker on the keyboard” and can help them be “better writers as handwriting takes up less of their education”(Source C). Others agree with this sentiment that doing away with handwriting can give more time for education in other subjects too. For example, some articles are saying that handwriting is taking away time that could be better prioritized for “essential life-skills” like finance and programming(Source E). The sentiment of teachers, editors, states, and more, is that handwriting has no place in a society that is evolving.
The supposed skills that come with teaching handwriting at our schools are lacking in direct benefits. For example, some argue that handwriting activates cognitive and fine motor skills because it requires knowing what to write and how to use motion to write as such(Source D). However, this assertion could be applied to any scenario. Say painting: it requires a vision of what to make and the skills to create the work. However, why is painting not a required curriculum in many schools? This basic line of reasoning has been pointed out by others too, with one pointing out how “playing the original Super Mario Bros helps develop fine motor skills”(Source E). Knowing where to jump or which pipe to take is the equivalent to using your cognitive skills while inputting such decisions into your controller is using motor skills. However, schools are not requiring 15 minutes a day to gaming. This comparison between handwriting and Super Mario Bros underscores how the perceived benefits of handwriting are, in reality, not inherently needed. Another point of view to highlight is that while handwriting instruction may have benefits, they are highly constrained to when one is in school. In Source F, for example, it is shown that the use of paper over technology is heavily prevalent but in K-5. In Source D, it is said that elementary-age students were found to write more during their time. However, these assertions do not take into account the realities of our society. Children are not in the growing technology-focused workforce. Children will not have the time to take such liberties when having to take quick notes in high school or college. Children will be losing out on time that could be used to develop other more important skills.
Overall, the practice of handwriting instruction is not needed in today’s schools because the overall consensus agrees with such and the supposed benefits of handwriting do not outweigh the loss.

Okay, fourth rewrite, I'm making this in hopes that their is someone who can help me in some way. Maybe someone knows the answer to it all and can guide me, though unlikely. I'll just list out all my issues in seperate paragraphs and hopefully their is just someone out their to help, if you can help me just please do, I really need help or at least someone and you reading this and giving me advice would truly mean a lot to me. Anyways
I feel stupid: I honestly feel braindead, I hate my mind so much. Sometimes it's hard to think or do, sometimes I can't think or do. My mind is so numb, everything about my mind just feels wrong and dead. My mind has felt dead for a year or two now and I just wish it was alive, I want my mind to be normol, I want it to actually work. I also want confidence in my mind, any failure or lack of underatanding makes me defeated and feeling like a dunce. Anything I can do I say was just luck or something anyone should know. I don't know if I'm stupid or not but dam I feel like I am the dumbest in a room. I would give it all to be intelliegent, I wish I was smart, well read, well informed, well versed. I so desperately want to know, so desperately want to be smart. I wish I could understand stuff. I just want to be smart and have a bright alive mind, but my mind is so dead and desolate and compared to the rest worthless. I hit myself in my head whenever I'm mistaken or just feel so stupid, and I honestly deserve it. If I were to kill myself my mind being numb and stupid would be the reason or a big reason why, I just want to be smart. You can likely tell just how much of an idiot I am by reading this via grammer, spelling, complaints. That "likely" was meant to be "probaboly" but I'm just stupid and worthless to spell. If there was just a way to be smart and not such a moron, I fucking hate my life.
I have body issues: I without doubt have body issues, the biggest of which is my weight. As of now I am 5,9 (1.7M) and 211lbs (95.7KG), I was 246lbs (111kg) to begin with and it was also my heaviest. Despite losing a good amount of weight I am not happy and have no pride, I'm still fat and thats all I see sadly. I don't want to be fat or skinny, I want to be muscular:big arms, built chest, flat stomach, no abs (don't like them) that sounds appealing, it's what I want. Unfourtunely I as of now can't work to this goal, I don't have money for a gym or equipment, famliy funds can't do it ethier and awhile ago I turned down a weight bench since I wasn't confident, now I regret that choice. I hate being fat so much, and this deep hatred and desperation has led to a embarassing cycle, for two years now I have been downloading images of muscular bodies. They're all drawings or from videogames since I'm to embarresed to have real images and as mentioned it's a cycle, Download and store -> have them and look at them for awhile -> get ashamed of myself -> purge it all -> regret -> repeat. Like stated this has been going for two years and as of now I have ten different images. Apart from weight I also have some other physical insecurites, acne being a big one. I been suffering from acne for years, fifth grade, early sixth grade is when it started so five years of this. It mostly effects my chin and cheeks badly but also effects more of my face, sometimes the acne hurts and it often even bleeds. I hate touching my face and feeling grime and ripping off a bunch of skin and dried shit. I wash every night and try to be frequent with morning witch-hazel but it dosen't relent. I also hate it when it gets mentioned, it is irratating to be reminded and noticed and nobody points it out more then my own mom who also cliams it would go if I just washed. I do, I fucking do! It's not working and you don't understand that! I also have body acne I don't know how to fix, I like sleeping shirtless which I know is the reason, also inconsistent with bedding which isn't right. Even if I did wash sheets weekly it wouldn't be enough, I would still get acne on my body. I just want to sleep shirtless and not get acne, I wish I could find a way. Another insecurite but not really is my height, I don't mind being 5'9/5'10 I mean it's about average height and I beat out my 5'4 father. But I'm sixteen which mean I still have possibilty to get taller and I wonder, will I? If I do, just how tall? Could I reach 6'0+? All of this speculation makes me a bit insecure, also with being fat I look short and round in the mirror which is defeating. I'm secure besides speculation and weight but at the same time I truly want to be taller, I think any man tall or short wishes they were taller, I wish I could break 6'0 that would be cool (to me). But I don't think that will ever happen, my dad is 5'4, my mom is 5'6 I made it 5'9/5'10 and my chart is stagnating, should just stop thinking I'll get taller. Another phsyical insecurite and likely the last one I'll mention unless I think of another worthwhile one is my hair, I'm insecurie of my hairstyle. Or lack of hairstyle, my mom says I have independence in this choice but whenever I make a choice she complains about it. Any agreement is one sided or changed up a little so she likes it. I have always hated my hairstyles over the years, even now and as of now it's ethier her way or a unorgainzied thick mess that will soon be her way. I hate it, wish I could make my own "independent" choice, even if I could my mom would likely hate it and always bring it up which is something I don't want to deal with. My mom is more for short cuts and fades etc, I hate fades and while I do admire short hair have always taken liking to shagger and longer styles, more rugged style. I have also always liked long hair and even wanted it. I used to openly want long hair for a long time but my mom opposed, I tried to convince her but she was opposed. She wasn't only opposed to it she made sure to express that it was gay and feminine etc, etc. She made me close off and forgot the desire but even now she won't let go. She is so sure to tell everyone: famliy, her friends, the hairdresser, hell maybe even strangers, she tells everyone about how much I wanted it and what she thought of it etc. Often I have been embarresed like this while I was right there, I have expressed that this embarreses me and want it to stop mutiple times yet she'll continue almost as if it's purposeful, she will also bring up an old friend T who had long hair as an example of it looking bad. But he didn't take care of it or do anything, most he would do is give into his moms begging and have her brush it. If I had long hair I would actually take care of it and do stuff to it! She also claims I got the idea from him, but no I liked it since elementary being inspired by personal inkling and rock. I no longer want hair but am starting to find styles I really like, but first I need to get my mom to fuck off. And second I would want to grow a beard, which is another issue of mine. I'm sixteen I shouldn't expect a full beard but I have seen peers with actual good facial hair, patchy beards, five o'clocks, some actually have a beard. Then there is me, with some sideburns and a bunch of peachfuzz, I want to be able to grow a beard and the peachfuzz plus sideburns bother me, I want it to actually devlop, I want a beard. I am also worried about devlopment, worried acne will hurt or even stop growth. I'm upset about my lack of growth though I definetly have unrealistic expectations. Lastly with hair is my chest hair, I'm quite hairy and I like it. And I have chest hair but barely and I just wish I had more over a greater coverage, more of a funny insecurite, lol. One more insecurity I forgot about is my voice. I'm loud when talking and my voice isn't as deep as I wish so that sucks.
(copy and paste from older write) I wish I had a father: I don't have a father or any form of father figure, I'm fatherless and it hurts a lot. My father has been out of my life since I was elevenish/twelveish (the peak of covid passed), we kicked him out because he is and was a meth addict in and out of the jail. He was a fuctioning addict so not violent and not as obvious of an addict but the meth still took him over. My mother says she kept him around and gave him so many chances because she wanted him to be in my life as a father. But he was no father when he was around, he didn't parent me, he didn't play his role as a father and guide as a masculine role model, hell he likely didn't even truly care for me. My only memories of him really are going to McDonold's with him, after which he dumpster dived behind the plaza as I begged for us to go back home. Or me wanting to bond with him so he sets up the brilliant idea of dragging me around with his skechy friends, to skechy places, even at skechy times. I don't understand why I knew sooner, guess I was a stupid basterd but I started picking up that my dad was a bad person around fifth grade. By then I quickly found out more and more and tenstion was growing, by eleven we we're going to kick him out but covid struck it's height and our household seemed palpable. But very quickly we said fuck it and threw him to the curb, we weren't going to have it no longer. Soon after around thirteen I was happy that he was gone but slightly disappointed that I no longer had a father (even if he was useless) and I hoped my mom would find someone, not only for herself but for me. By fourteen this really layed in heavy on me and the lack of a father really bummed me out, I got really stupid and desperate using bitlife to create guys then add me and my mom in to create step father famlies even adding step siblings and shit. By late fourteen it was made clear to me by my mom that "we don't need no man" and that she was done with dating. I very well do need a father figure, every child needs one. Hell I as a guy truly need(ed) one, there are so many lessons and things that come from a fatheson relationship that are crucial to a boy and I missed out on them. Hell even when my dad was around I missed out on lessons, I still remember he was tasked to teach me how to tie my shoes but got mad at me struggling and walked away. He refused to help afterward and I refused to try and never to this day learned the proper way to tie, instead I have my own far less efficent method. I missed out on so much by not having a father and it hurts to know that and I just wish I had the knowledge, without a masculine role model I have definetly missed out what it is to be a man and likely am even a loser of a man. I just want a father so badly, I want what a father provides so badly, I want the bond that it comes with. I wish I just had a guy to talk to and bond with, I want a dad just so badly. I wish I had someone who taught me how to change a tire or fish and all that shit, but I'll never have it and it angers me, I am angry to be fatherless, I am angry and lost without a father figure, and I'm jealous. I kind of want to have children when the time comes, I wonder if I'll fail them as well.
Friends: Growing up I was always a bit introverted, I think it was of my nature but was amplafied by life. In elementary I often acquainted myself with people never having any close friends outside my after school program. Jumping to middle school I had a good friend-group but it turned out my good friend T was really an ass and I was pushed out by him in early nineth grade. Later in nineth I met my good friend, my best friend M. This year in tenth I was introduced to a friend named D by M. These are my only two friends and I'm happy with them, though there are a few issues. Not anything major but just a few things, like how we never do anything outside of school. The only thing I really miss about my old friendgroup is that we actually did shit: springs, houses, events, parks, attractions, food. Now me, M and, D don't and have never done anything outside of school and the computer. M likely couldn't do anything because of his famliy and D just seems completely disinterested and worried about money. But I wish we could really do something, sure videogames are fun but it would be fun if we could just goof off somewhere, be stupid. This is really the only general "issue" apart from that no major strain or issue in the friendgroup. But I do have a few personal grievences, starting with D. I think D has a darker side of him, he seems to not respect or care for me and will sometimes show it in nasty ways. He had told both me and M to kill ourselves, he attacks insecurites, he says rude shit, etc. Also with D, we have never truly connected, never gotten to know each other personally. Without M we would be mere acquaintance, M is the only reason why me and D are friends and being alone with each other is mostly silence and maybe him showing me a TikTok. Then M, I have no personal issues with M only small factors of our friendship I'm upset or worried about. Starting off with is school, halfway through this year (tenth) M started a FLVS-hybrid. I am happy for him and it's something we both expressed wanting but now I never really see him. I could see him at lunch but he dosen't really come in and only other time I can see him is leaving campus. I ethier catch him and barely have a conversation worthwhile or he's to far ahead and I got to give up trying to reach him. The only way to talk to my best friend nowadays really is Discord, and that isn't even reliable since his parents are often controlling the WI-FI or taking his stuff away. This means when I do talk to my friend it can suddenly be ended as he disconnects or I can't even. This sucks, it feels like I can't even talk to my best friend that much. But that isn't all, because I'm worried for my friend M. His parents don't sound the best from all he's told me, I won't share his issues but just as an example he didn't have a bedroom for two months. Hearing what we gose through is alreadly dishearting but something that I worry deeply about is him talking sucide. He has talked and half joked about it several times and it's worry, I been trying to discourage but he continues with it so now I'm just trying to ignore it. That is likely the wrong way of handling it but I just don't know what to do. I hope it's always bluff and he moves out and moves on with he can, I don't want him to kill himself.
I'm lonely: I'm sixteen but I'm lonely. I am the only one of my friends who hasn't had a relationship, I am not the most worried about that, I don't want to date just to date, I want to date to love. But hell I still wish I had a relationship, even just a sterotypical high-school one. But what I truly want is true love, I want a woman I love with all my heart and a woman who loves me with all of hers, I want a woman to provide for, to protect, to matter to. I want to marry and possibly have kids. I want to love someone, be there for someone. But will I ever even have that? I'm alreadly a loser who no woman would want and even then from what I've heard, "modren dating is terrible" so what chance do I even have? Will I ever have someone to love? I hope.
School: School makes me so misereble and dead, this place makes me genuinely want to off myself I hate it so much. And it seems to revolve around my whole life, even at home it's all my mom wants to bring up. I just need a break from it all but it seems like it's the only thing in my life, I don't really have anything else. I failed my nineth grade year, I failed since I'm a stupid, worthless peice of shit. But they "passed" me onto tenth, gave me tenth grade classes, test, etc but say I'm still nineth, tell me do nineth grade "remedation" online. Now I'm failing like a worthless peice of shit once again! I wish they held me back to try again but they didn't they just pushed me on, still likely would've failed like a worthless bitch but I could have had a chance. I fucking hate myself I'm so stupid and I hate my school for pushing my stupid ass onward and onward, I should just kill myself at this point. And when I try to reach out to my counselor in any hope for some chance of help the piss poor communcation at this school means it'll take days for a response, I can't even get reliable help over school. Back in middle school I had a GPA in the high 3s, I made honor roll every other quater or so, I had high grades and sucess. But in high-school, in nineth grade I failed with straight Fs and got a GPA of 0.7, now in tenth I have a 1.7 and sometimes get high grades but mostly fail. I just wish I wasn't so stupid, I just wish I was smart and successful at school. But I'm not, I'm a fucking idiot and an embarssment at school. And maybe it would all be okay if it wasn't for the assholes I am surrounded by, my fellow peers of this overcrowded hell hole. Just seems like I can never catch a break with having to deal with people. I just want to be left alone but they're is just always somebody wanting to bother me, harass me. Can sit at a desk then have a bunch of cunts around me, harass me, call me burgundy because of my shirt. Can sit down and be snickered at by the guys in front of me for whatever reason. Sit down and have paper, pencils, even ice hitting me. Sit down and have some imbecible pull up a chair and use my desk as his and block me in my seat because fuck me, am I right? Just want to be left alone but never am, nobody ever dose it's always something. I can't even get respect, not a single bit, just always mistreated. Hell just the other day when I was given my packet I was also mistakenly given the packet of a nearby girl, I get her attention and hand it to her and she just snaches it and mumbles something, because I can't even be respected, I'm worthless. And even when I'm not being directly bothered I got to deal with slow walkers, idiots who don't know how to inconvience everyone else in the halls, the over crowded school. It all fucking sucks I hate it all, everyday I think I'm on the verge of snapping but somehow just have more patience, I don't know how much more of this shit I can or have to endure. At least my mom finally reconsidered my old forgotten pleads for online school and reopened the idea, maybe by some miracle online school will save me and "help me get caught up and ahead" but I doubt it, I'm an idiot who deserves to die. Why am I so fucking stupid, why am I like this? Why must I exist this way?
No hobbies or interest: I used to love a lot of things: reading, history, coming up with things in my head, videogames and, anything really. Now I have grown apathic to it all except videogames and even that dosen't bring much joy. I want to have my old hobbies back but lack the will to return. And I want new hobbies but yet lack will but also lacking knowing what I want to try. I'm lost with my freetime, it's all bleek and I want to fill my life with pastion. I still love videogames, always will but I need more then just gaming, I want more then gaming. I just want something, anything. I don't want to have such a lack of interest, God I fucking hate my life.
I have no future career goals: I'm sixteen and have no idea on what I want to do as an adult, some may say thats okay but it's not, not for me at least. I want to have a goal in the adult world, and even if that goal led to a path I don't like then I can always go down another path. Despite having no idea on what to do I at least know I don't want to be in an office. I could handle an office job, and be content with an office job but an office job isn't me, it isn't what sounds interesting, I would likely do blue collar or be my own boss. Some jobs I've considered and would do still are: police, SWAT police, house flipper, 911 operator, port worker, mechanic or something tinkeassemble like, enterpuner my book, film and games ideas or, open a store or bar or something. These are some jobs I've considered in the past that I would still see myself doing, I have also pondered over military/reserve but not sure. My childhood dream career that I still have a desire for is SWAT but I don't think I have what it takes, in fact I don't think I have what it takes for anything. I think all my life is destined to is dying homeless on a street corner, it's all I'll ever be "worthless".
I had so much planned, now failed: At age fourteen I planned to by now have a license, a job, a banking account, start savings. I planned to lose weight, I planned to have an idea outside of school, I had a plan. But I'm just a worthless peice of shit and a failure to myself, I don't even have a permit, no job, no savings, still fat, have no idea about the future, I failed myself.
Fidgeting: I can't stop but want to, at school I can't help but twiral a pencil around. I do it all the time at school but been trying to stop, I hate doing it. Worst part is I'm being immated by worthless cunts by it which is annoying. I want to stop this.
Masterbation addiction: I have a severe and low life addiction to masterbation. I do it at least once a day and sometimes mutiple times a day. The longest I was ever able to refrain was just a little over a week and only failed because I got bored. I need to jerk it to be able to sleep unless I'm desperately tired but even then. Also since I "need" it to sleep I regulary soil my sweatpants then sleep in it which is nasty. I can't control this vice, this low appetite and I'm deeply unhappy about it. Also unhappy that I might be ruining my endurence, a bit TMI but just another reason why this is harmful. I want to refrain or atleast drasticly cut out this pratice and fix myself.
I likely have more issues eating me inside as I waste away as a shell of a person but I can't really think of them. I am told my mom is looking into thearpy so that might be nice. Please just help me, I'm so lost and broken, I sometimes consider just ending it all but I just hope it can get good.

Thank you to everyone who has given me feedback. I'm eventually going to get this right :)
TO KILL A PHOENIX is a science fantasy novel complete at 133k words. It resonates with the themes of loyalty and sacrifice in Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, as well as the progression of power and personality from the Cradle series by Will Wight.
Robin Solaire is an evolved human and aspiring athlete playing in the world’s most popular sport, Castcade. In this spectacle of team based close-quarters-combat, Robin uses his innate power of harnessing energy in an effort to take the first step in becoming a legend. He encounters his first barrier: the prodigy Amir Madein.
Robin loses. After the match, Amir makes it known that he despises the weak and envisions a world where only the strong should be allowed to live. Amir attempts to kill Robin and claim his body for his mother, Lucira, who is experimenting with evolved humans to create weapons of power. To create a new world.
Robin is saved by Soda, who becomes his friend and mentor. This close encounter with death teaches Robin that there is a greater cause to fight for. When freedom for his kind is on the line, Castcade is no longer a goal, but a method of training. Robin investigates Amir and finds proof that slows Lucira and Amir’s goals.
Lucira and Amir get bold in their retaliation, kidnapping a crucial member and now beloved friend on Robin’s Castcade team—one who has a unique, newly evolved power. Soda and his family claim that this was part of their plan in exposing Lucira. This betrayal and impassioned response fuels Robin as he takes matters into his own hands.
He charges full force after the enemy without a plan, his desire to save his friends guiding him. In a desperate attempt, he succeeds at rescuing his friend at the cost of his own life. Yet, to kill a phoenix is an effort in futility, and his actions spur the world into a civil rebellion at the edge of war.

Again, cautiously I proceed, believing there is a danger in applying anything from one of the novellas in The Fifth Head of Cerberus to one or both of the others. With that caveat out of the way, let me explore the potential provenance of “‘A Story’ by John V. Marsch” in light of the revealed situation in “V.R.T.”
​
“V.R.T.” gives us a Soviet model of crime and punishment which recasts “A Story” as being a work of rehabilitation rather than one of anthropology. I sketch some of this territory in “Appendix VRT8: A Soviet Model” (part of Gene Wolfe’s First Four Novels: A Chapter Guide), but I would like to expand it a bit here.
​
I believe “V.R.T.” is largely patterned on Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon (1940). Koestler reveals in his novel that with the Soviet system, a court case could not advance to the show trial stage until after the prisoner had signed a false confession that had been crafted entirely by the authorities. This fantastical document of made-up crime is referred to as “The Grammatical Fiction,” and by definition it is not written by the prisoner, it is written by his jailers, in order to justify his pre-determined fate.
​
I pause here to note that George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) is really a “happy ending” version of Darkness at Noon. Be aware that there will be spoilers ahead for both 1984 and Darkness at Noon.
​
Robert Borski is on record arguing that prisoner 143 wrote “A Story” while in prison. I am on record arguing against that, both author and setting, but I will go through a steelman argument of what I think such a thing would look like, using elements I have already published, bending and combining them in service to this new task.
​
To prepare the way, I will engage in a long-delayed response to Borski’s “Marschian Sexuality” (2006), a brief article that detects in the Earth anthropologist Marsch a homosexual nature (The Long and the Short of It, 49). Borski notes that Marsch’s journal describes teenage Victor as “handsome in a rather sensitive way,” and that later entries show Marsch increasingly agitated by the idea that Victor might be sexually engaged with the suspected abo girl, an agitation that rises in intensity to the point Marsch writes about shooting them both if he catches them together. As telling as that is, for Borski, “the clincher is he reports in his journal that he’s noticed Victor is uncircumcised.”
​
This is the first I saw such an idea, and I applaud Borski for his textual detective work. I will build upon this, going in a different direction than Borski goes.
​
If a reader believes there are two distinct personalities in prisoner 143, it makes sense that there be differences to distinguish between the two, differences in voice that will appear in text. Both Marsch and Victor are male; one is in his twenties, the other a teen; one is highly educated, the other is barely educated; both are beardless. Totaling these up, they are practically twins, so a difference in sexual orientation could show which personality is writing a given sentence.
​
Borski assigns the misogynistic remark about Celestine Etienne to the Victor side (49), whereas I take this as expressing the Marsch persona, along with the other misogynisms, such as “Most medical men . . . [only] prolong the lives of ugly women” (5HC, 205).
​
By my reframing, prisoner 143 is ostensibly a misogynistic homosexual, yet during his extra-harsh time in the tomb-like underground cell he writes about dream women (5HC, 210-11) and a prostitute he hired on Ste. Anne (212). After this he gets positive reinforcement, being moved back to his original cell (231), being given the best food and a bath (231), and being given an intimate visit by Celestine Etienne (232). Then, when he is about to burn his uncollected notes, his jailers confiscate them (233).
​
This technique employed by the jailers to break him down is not special, it is their standard way, as declared by the letter: “We are pursuing the usual policy of alternately lenient and severe treatment to produce a breakdown” (242). Yet the resulting breakdown might actually serve to wean Victor of the Marsch persona; or to exorcise the Marsch spirit, in possession terms; or, in actor’s terms, to relegate the role into a mere mask. If Victor’s mother can shift between multiple roles, it shows the importance of not confusing a mask for the core.
​
One model I looked at in my chapter guide was that the government fears prisoner 143 is a human sniper disguised as an abo klutz (“Appendix 5HC2: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”). The opposite to this would be a sheep-in-wolf’s-clothing, which looks like Red Riding Hood in the belly of the wolf.
​
Returning to the Soviet model of “V.R.T.,” perceptive readers will have been arguing for nine paragraphs that “A Story” does not look like a Grammatical Fiction; it looks more like a fictionalization of a personal psychological reintegration, ending in the killing of an ogre and the subduing of a shadow twin. In a sense, this puts “A Story” in company with I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1964), a famous fictionalization of a personal psychological reintegration. As such, consider this mapping of “A Story” to Victor’s point of view in “V.R.T.” (similar to the table in the aforementioned “Appendix VRT8”).
​
=A Story: V.R.T.=
Quest to become a man: expedition starts (find abos/mother)
Become a shadow friend: Marsch as patron (*)
The girlfriend (Seven Girls Waiting): the cat/abo girlfriend
Vision of mother in danger: clue in Roncevaux
Trip by river: starcrosser to Ste. Croix
The trap (capture by marshmen): murder of Number Four
The prison: #143
The family reunion in prison: the incoherent neighbor as mother
The girlfriend in prison: Celestine Etienne
The miracle: (black box**, reality breakthrough)
The execution of Last Voice: (black box, the killing of the ogre)
The switch: (black box, the subduing of the shadow twin)
​
* for “Become a shadow friend: Marsch as patron” I am especially struck by the parallel scenes where the hero, facing a threatening male, weeps and is comforted. In “A Story” this is where Sandwalker prepares to fight the intoxicated Shadow Child (5HC, 86); in “V.R.T.” this is where Marsch asks Victor what he will do when he is a man (5HC, 159), and six days later they talk about an anthropology book Victor has read (223). In addition, the way that the Old Wise One of “A Story” speaks in scientific jargon forms an unexpected link to Marsch-as-tutor; and Victor’s imitation of Marsch and Hagsmith swells their camp number to four, similar to the fluctuating number of phantom-like Shadow Children.
​
** by “black box,” I mean that science and technology term wherein an input goes into a black box and the black box emits a transformed output, but the internal working of the box remains mysterious and opaque. One explicit “black box” in “V.R.T.” involves the murder out in the field: we witness events leading up to that incident, and notes after the incident, but the incident itself remains mysterious and opaque.
​
Continuing beyond this mapping, the letter from the jailers to the junior officer names two solutions: execution of 143 as an agent of Ste. Anne; release of 143 as a scientist from Earth, “at least until he further incriminates himself” (241): in effect, the Darkness at Noon option (execution), or the 1984 option (release for eventual execution). In his response, the junior officer writes that neither is acceptable, and that, “Until complete cooperation is achieved we direct you to continue to detain the prisoner” (243). This “complete cooperation” sounds like the prerequisite for “Grammatical Fiction,” but it also could imply an implied third option, a “fork ending” of the sort promoted by Damon Knight (who, you will recall, grew Gene from a bean), where the third ending is not named but subtly foreshadowed. So, if the end result, the black box output, is the production of “A Story” (foreshadowed by appearing in the text before “V.R.T.”), then the implied off-the-page ending of “V.R.T.” is not a list of imaginary crimes to warrant 143’s execution as a sniper agent, but an anthropological romance to allow 143’s release as a scientist from Earth. Yet this is not the simple release of 143 as the 1984 option, it is a third way: to avoid the possibility that he “further incriminate himself,” the jailers must actively remake him as a scientist from Earth, if only as a stable role. According to my thought chains on Manchurian Candidates (ibid “Appendix 5HC2”), the government therefore must first determine that prisoner 143 is not, in fact, capable of being a sniper (i.e., an Earthman with proven skill at long range rifle use), but is an abo klutz.
​
Given that Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) is a “happy ending” version of Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, I hope I have made clear the likely stages required for an even “happier ending” in “A Story” as a rehabilitation document for prisoner 143. The “Grammatical Fiction” has turned into I Never Promised You a Rose Garden; the Soviet-style prison is revealed to be more like a healing mental health hospital, if only for this one exceptional case where the government finds itself in a bind.

As Reddit doesn't allow posts to exceed 40,000 characters, Eastwood's edition had to be split into two parts because his whole career cannot be ignored. The second part will be posted tomorrow.

Here's a new edition of "Directors at the Box Office", which seeks to explore the directors' trajectory at the box office and analyze their hits and bombs. I already talked about a few, and as I promised, it's Clint Eastwood's turn.
Eastwood was a troublemaker at school, and he had a bunch of odd jobs such as lifeguard, paper carrier, grocery clerk, forest firefighter, and golf caddy. In 1951, he was drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War and was discharged two years later. Through this, he got into contact with a Hollywood representative, who got him into acting classes and started his acting career. He got his start by starring in the hit show Rawhide, but he said he was exhausted by the experience. This caught the attention of some film producers and he decided to act in films directed by the then-unknown Sergio Leone. His career was on the rise, and then he got the chance to make his directorial debut.
From a box office perspective, how reliable was he to deliver a box office hit?
That's the point of this post. To analyze his career.

It should be noted that as he started his career in the 1970s, some of the domestic grosses here will be adjusted by inflation. The table with his highest grossing films, however, will be left in its unadjusted form, as the worldwide grosses are more difficult to adjust.

Play Misty for Me (1971)

"The scream you hear may be your own!"
His directorial debut. It stars Eastwood, Jessica Walter and Donna Mills, and follows a radio disc jockey being stalked by an obsessed female fan.
Before his colleague Irving Leonard died, he and Eastwood had discussed the idea of producing a film that was to give Eastwood the artistic control he desired, and his debut as a director. Eastwood said he was ready, "I stored away all the mistakes I made and saved up all the good things I learned, and now I know enough to control my own projects and get what I want out of actors."
The film was a huge success for Eastwood, and it also received positive reviews. So far, his directorial career was off to a great start.

• Budget: $950,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $10,600,000. ($81.7 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $10,600,000.
  

High Plains Drifter (1973)

"They'd never forget the day he drifted into town."
His second film. The film stars Eastwood, Verna Bloom and Mariana Hill, and follows a mysterious stranger who metes out justice in a corrupt frontier mining town.
Eastwood reportedly liked the offbeat quality of the film's original nine-page proposal and approached Universal with the idea of directing it, which would make it his first directed Western. The screenplay was inspired by the real-life murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens in 1964, which eyewitnesses reportedly stood by and watched. Holes in the plot were filled in with black humor and allegory, influenced by Sergio Leone.
It was well received, and the film even surpassed Play Misty for Me at the box office. Eastwood was just going up.

• Budget: $5,500,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $15,700,000. ($110.4 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $15,700,000.
  

Breezy (1973)

"Her name is Breezy."
His third film. It stars William Holden and Kay Lenz, and follows the relationship between a middle-aged real estate agent and a young hitchhiker.
This was his first directed film without starring on it. And his lack of presence certainly hurt the film; it received mixed reviews and flopped at the box office.

• Budget: $750,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $200,000. ($1.4 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $217,753.
  

The Eiger Sanction (1975)

"His lifeline, held by the assassin he hunted."
His fourth film. Based on the novel by Trevanian, the film stars Eastwood, George Kennedy, Vonetta McGee, and Jack Cassidy. It follows Jonathan Hemlock, an art history professor, mountain climber, and former assassin once employed by a secret government agency, who is blackmailed into returning to his deadly profession for one last mission.
The film received mixed reactions for its writing, and it wasn't a box office success either.

• Budget: $9,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $14,200,000. ($82.4 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $14,200,000.
  

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

"An army of one."
His fifth film. Based on the novel Gone to Texas by Forrest Carter, it stars Eastwood, Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke, Bill McKinney and John Vernon. The film tells the story of Josey Wales, a Missouri farmer whose family is murdered by Union militia during the Civil War. Driven to revenge, Wales joins a Confederate guerrilla band and makes a name for himself as a feared gunfighter. After the war, all the fighters in Wales' group except for him surrender to Union soldiers, but the Confederates end up being massacred. Wales becomes an outlaw and is pursued by bounty hunters and Union soldiers as he tries to make a new life for himself.
Eastwood was fascinated by the novel and he bought the film rights, hoping to star on the film. He got Philip Kaufman involved as screenwriter and possible director, but left after disagreeing with Eastwood in the material adapted to the screen. Kaufman insisted on filming with a meticulous attention to detail, which caused disagreements with Eastwood, not to mention the attraction the two shared towards Locke and apparent jealousy on Kaufman's part in regard to their emerging relationship. This caused Eastwood to take over as the director. Kaufman's firing angered the DGA, as he did most of the pre-production, and sanctioning a $60,000 fine. This resulted in the Director's Guild passing a new rule, known as "the Eastwood Rule", which prohibits an actor or producer from firing the director and then personally taking on the director's role.
The film received critical acclaim, and in subsequent years, is ranked among Eastwood's greatest films. It was also a huge success at the box office, doubling his previous highest grossing film. It was also one of the few Western films to receive critical and commercial success in the 1970s at a time when the Western was thought to be dying as a major genre in Hollywood.

• Budget: $3,700,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $31,800,000. ($174.5 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $31,800,000.
  

The Gauntlet (1977)

"The man in the middle of..."
His sixth film. It stars Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney, and Mara Corday. It follows a down-and-out cop who falls in love with a prostitute, to whom he is assigned to escort from Las Vegas to Phoenix for her to testify against the mob.
While it received mixed reviews, it became another box office success for Eastwood, becoming his now highest grossing film.

• Budget: $5,500,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $35,400,000. ($182.4 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $35,400,000.
  

Bronco Billy (1980)

"The most outrageous of 'em all."
His seventh film. The film stars Eastwood and Sondra Locke, and focuses on the financially-struggling owner of a traditional Wild West show and his new assistant.
It became another critical and commercial success for Eastwood, who referred to the film as one of his most affable shoots of his career.

• Budget: $6,500,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $24,265,659. ($91.9 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $24,265,659.
  

Firefox (1982)

"The most devastating killing machine ever built... his job... steal it!"
His eighth film. Based on the novel by Craig Thomas, it stars Eastwood, Freddie Jones and David Huffman. The Soviets have developed a revolutionary new jet fighter, called "Firefox". Naturally, the British are worried that the jet will be used as a first-strike weapon, as rumors say that the jet is undetectable on radar. They send ex-Vietnam War pilot Mitchell Gant on a covert mission into the Soviet Union to steal the Firefox.
The film received mixed reviews, but it earned almost $47 million, becoming Eastwood's highest grossing title as director.

• Budget: $21,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $46,708,276. ($151.1 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $46,708,276.
  

Honkytonk Man (1982)

"The boy is on his way to becoming a man. The man is on his way to becoming a legend."
His ninth film. It's based on the novel by Clancy Carlile, and it stars Eastwood and his son Kyle. It follows Red Stovall, a country music singer and composer. With his nephew Whit by his side, he travels to Nashville to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in the backdrop of the Great Depression.
While the film received acclaim, it earned just $4.4 million, becoming his second worst performer.

• Budget: $2,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $4,484,991. ($14.5 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $4,484,991.
  

Sudden Impact (1983)

"Dirty Harry is at it again."
His tenth film. The fourth installment in the Dirty Harry series, directed, it stars Eastwood and Sondra Locke. The film tells the story of a gang rape victim who decides to seek revenge on her rapists 10 years after the attack by killing them one by one. Inspector Harry Callahan, famous for his unconventional and often brutal crime-fighting tactics, is tasked with tracking down the serial killer.
The film received mixed reviews from critics, but it earned over $150 million worldwide, Eastwood's first film to pass that milestone. It's also very popular for including the iconic catchphrase, "Go ahead, make my day."

• Budget: $22,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $67,642,693. ($212.1 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $150,642,693.
  

Tightrope (1984)

"A cop on the edge..."
His 11th film. It stars Eastwood, Geneviève Bujold, Dan Hedaya, Alison Eastwood and Jennifer Beck, and follows a detective determined to hunt down a sadomasochistic serial killer of prostitutes.
The film became another critical and commercial success for Eastwood.

• Budget: N/A.
  
• Domestic gross: $48,143,579. ($144.7 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $48,143,579.
  

Pale Rider (1985)

"...And Hell followed with him."
His 12th film. It stars Eastwood, Michael Moriarty and Carrie Snodgress. A couple and their daughter, along with a few others, are driven out of Lahood, California, by goons working for a mining baron. However, a stranger enters their life to assist them in their fight.
There was no stopping Eastwood: another critical and commercial success.

• Budget: $6,900,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $41,410,568. ($120.2 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $41,410,568.
  

Heartbreak Ridge (1986)

"The scars run deep."
His 13th film. It stars Eastwood, Marsha Mason, Everett McGill, and Mario Van Peebles. The story centers on a U.S. Marine nearing retirement who gets a platoon of undisciplined Marines into shape and leads them during the American invasion of Grenada in 1983.
The film was inspired by an account of American paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division using a pay telephone and a credit card to call in fire support during the invasion of Grenada, and fashioned a script of a Korean War veteran career Army non-commissioned officer passing on his values to a new generation of soldiers. Eastwood was interested in the script and asked his producer, Fritz Manes, to contact the US Army with a view of filming the movie at Fort Bragg. However, the Army read the script and refused to participate, due to Highway being portrayed as a hard drinker, divorced from his wife, and using unapproved motivational methods to his troops, an image the Army did not want.
It received mixed reviews, with some deeming the film as "imperialist propaganda". But it was still another box office success.

• Budget: $15,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $42,724,017. ($121.7 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $121,700,000.
  

Bird (1988)

"There are no second acts in American lives."
His 14th film. The film stars Forest Whitaker and Diane Venora. It is constructed as a montage of scenes from saxophonist Charlie Parker's life, from his childhood in Kansas City, through his early death at the age of 34.
Eastwood, a lifelong fan of jazz, had been fascinated by Parker ever since seeing him perform live in Oakland in 1946. He approached Chan Parker, Bird's common-law wife on whose memoirs the script was based, for input, and she lent Eastwood and arranger Lennie Niehaus a collection of recordings from her private collection Before Eastwood was involved, Richard Pryor was originally cast as Parker.
Despitive positive reviews, it performed poorly, earning just $2.2 million in North America.

• Budget: $14,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $2,181,286. ($5.7 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $2,181,286.
  

White Hunter Black Heart (1990)

"An adventure in obsession."
His 15th film. Based on the novel by Peter Viertel, it stars Eastwood, Jeff Fahey, George Dzundza, Alun Armstrong and Marisa Berenson. It follows a famous movie director, John Wilson, who goes to Africa to make his next movie. He is an obstinate, contrary director who'd rather hunt elephants than take care of his crew or movie. He has become obsessed with one particular elephant and cares for nothing else.
Despite positive reviews, it made just $2.3 million domestically, not even 10% of the budget.

• Budget: $24,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $2,319,124. ($5.5 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $2,319,124.
  

The Rookie (1990)

His 16th film. The film stars Eastwood, Charlie Sheen, Raul Julia, Sônia Braga, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Tom Skerritt. It follows a veteran police officer teamed up with a younger detective, whose intent is to take down a German crime lord in downtown Los Angeles, following months of investigation into an exotic car theft ring.
It received negative reviews for its acting and story, and it became another flop for Eastwood. That's three bombs in a row. Ouch.

• Budget: $30,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $21,633,874. ($51.6 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $21,633,874.
  

Unforgiven (1992)

"Some legends will never be forgotten. Some wrongs can never be forgiven."
His 17th film. It stars Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Richard Harris and Morgan Freeman. It follows William Munny, a widower with two young kids, who was once a very vicious gunfighter who gave up everything after marriage. Now, a man named Schofield Kid brings him an offer that he cannot refuse, forcing him to come out of retirement for one last job.
David Webb Peoples wrote the script all the way back to 1976, and it was optioned by Francis Ford Coppola, but he lacked the funds needed to helm it. By Eastwood's own recollection, he was given the script in the "early 80s" although he did not immediately pursue it, because, according to him, "I thought I should do some other things first". Eastwood has long asserted that the film would be his last traditional Western, concerned that any future projects would simply rehash previous plotlines or imitate someone else's work. He dedicated the film to his close friends and mentors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel. Hackman initially refused to participate as his daughters were upset that he was starring in too many violent films, but he became fascinated by the script that he agreed.
It opened with $15 million and it legged all the way to $100 million after playing for almost one year, closing with $159 million worldwide, his now highest grossing film. The film received Eastwood's best reviews of his career, with many considering the film as his magnum opus as director. It received 9 Oscar nominations, and won four: Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood, Best Supporting Actor for Hackman, and Best Film Editing. So Eastwood, on top of being a reliable box office draw, was now a 2-time Oscar winner.

• Budget: $14,400,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $101,167,799. ($225.2 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $159,167,799.
  

A Perfect World (1993)

His 18th film. Kevin Costner, Eastwood and Laura Dern, and follows an escaped convict who takes a young boy hostage and attempts to escape on the road with the child, while being pursued by a Texas Ranger.
The film received critical acclaim, and has appeared as one of Eastwood's best films. The film disappointed in North America, but it earned up to $100 million overseas (Eastwood's first film to gross that much) and ended with $135 million worldwide.

• Budget: $30,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $31,130,999. ($67.2 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $135,130,999.
  

The Bridges of Madison County (1995)

"The human heart has a way of making itself large again even after it's been broken into a million pieces."
His 19th film. Based on the novel by Robert James Waller, it stars Eastwood and Meryl Streep. The film is set in 1965, following a war bride, Francesca Johnson, who lives with her husband and two children on their Iowa farm. That year she meets National Geographic photojournalist, Robert Kincaid, who comes to Madison County, Iowa to photograph its historic covered bridges. With Francesca's family away for a short trip, the couple have an intense, four-day love affair.
It received more critical acclaim, and made over $180 million worldwide, becoming his highest grossing film. For her performance, Streep was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress.

• Budget: $22,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $71,516,617. ($146.5 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $182,016,617.
  

Absolute Power (1997)

His 20th film. Based on the novel by David Baldacci, it stars Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Judy Davis, Scott Glenn, Dennis Haysbert, and Richard Jenkins. It follows a master jewel thief who witnesses the killing of a woman by Secret Service agents.
It received mixed reviews, and disappointed at the box office.

• Budget: $50,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $50,068,310. ($97.4 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $92,768,310.
  

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)

"Welcome to Savannah, Georgia. A Ccty of hot nights and cold blooded murder."
His 21st film. Based on the book by John Berendt, it stars John Cusack and Kevin Spacey. It follows the story of antiques dealer Jim Williams, on trial for the killing of a male prostitute who was his lover. The multiple trials depicted in Berendt's book are combined into one trial for the film.
It received mediocre reviews, and flopped at the box office.

• Budget: $30,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $25,105,255. ($48.8 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $25,105,255.
  

True Crime (1999)

His 22nd film. Based on the novel by Andrew Klavan, it stars Eastwood, Isaiah Washington, Denis Leary, LisaGay Hamilton and James Woods. It follows a journalist covering the execution of a death row inmate, only to discover that the convict may actually be innocent.
This was another project that received mediocre reviews and flopped at the box office.

• Budget: $55,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $16,649,768. ($31.2 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $16,649,768.
  

Space Cowboys (2000)

"Boys will be boys."
His 23rd film. It stars Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and James Garner as four aging former test pilots who are sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite.
It received very positive reviews, and earned over $128 million worldwide.

• Budget: $60,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $90,464,773. ($164 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $128,884,132.
  

Blood Work (2002)

"He's a heartbeat away from catching the killer."
His 24th film. Based on the novel by Michael Connelly, it stars Eastwood, Jeff Daniels, Wanda De Jesús, and Anjelica Huston. It follows a retired FBI agent who recently had a heart transplant but still takes up the job to nab a killer.
It was another film with mediocre reviews and flop status.

• Budget: $50,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $26,235,081. ($45.5 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $31,794,718.
  

Mystic River (2003)

"We bury our sins, we wash them clean."
His 25th film. Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, it stars Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laura Linney. It follows three childhood friends who are reunited 25 years later when one of them suffers a family tragedy.
Michael Keaton was originally cast in the role of Det. Sean Devine, and did several script readings with the cast, as well as his own research into the practices of the Massachusetts Police Department. However, creative differences between Keaton and Eastwood led to Keaton leaving the production. He was replaced by Kevin Bacon. This was the first film in which Eastwood would be credited as composer.
The film had a slow roll-out, but it was aided by strong word of mouth, closing with a wonderful $156 million worldwide. It also received acclaim, and was named as one of Eastwood's greatest films. Sean Penn received universal acclaim for his performance, with some naming it among the best acting of the century, particularly for one scene (if you watched it, you definitely know which scene). It received 6 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. It won two: Best Actor for Penn and Best Supporting Actor for Robbins.

• Budget: $25,000,000.
  
• Domestic gross: $90,135,191. ($153 million adjusted)
  
• Worldwide gross: $156,595,191.
  

Come back tomorrow for Part 2

MOVIES (FROM HIGHEST GROSSING TO LEAST GROSSING)

No.	Movie	Year	Studio	Domestic Total	Overseas Total	Worldwide Total	Budget
x	The Bridges of Madison County	1995	Warner Bros.	$71,516,617	$110,500,000	$182,016,617	$22M
x	Unforgiven	1992	Warner Bros.	$101,167,799	$58,000,000	$159,167,799	$14.4M
x	Mystic River	2003	Warner Bros.	$90,135,191	$66,460,000	$156,595,191	$25M
x	Sudden Impact	1983	Warner Bros.	$67,642,693	$83,000,000	$150,642,693	$22M
x	A Perfect World	1993	Warner Bros.	$31,130,999	$104,000,000	$135,130,999	$30M
x	Space Cowboys	2000	Warner Bros.	$90,464,773	$38,419,359	$128,884,132	$60M
x	Heartbreak Ridge	1986	Warner Bros.	$42,724,017	$78,975,983	$121,700,000	$15M
x	Absolute Power	1997	Sony	$50,068,310	$42,700,000	$92,768,310	$50M
x	Tightrope	1984	Warner Bros.	$48,143,579	$0	$48,143,579	N/A
x	Firefox	1982	Warner Bros.	$46,708,276	$0	$46,708,276	$21M
x	Pale Rider	1985	Warner Bros.	$41,410,568	$0	$41,410,568	$6.9M
x	The Gauntlet	1977	Warner Bros.	$35,400,000	$0	$35,400,000	$5.5M
x	The Outlaw Josey Wales	1976	Warner Bros.	$31,800,000	$0	$31,800,000	$3.7M
x	Blood Work	2002	Warner Bros.	$26,235,081	$5,559,637	$31,794,718	$50M
x	Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil	1997	Warner Bros.	$25,105,255	$0	$25,105,255	$30M
x	Bronco Billy	1980	Warner Bros.	$24,265,659	$0	$24,265,659	$6.5M
x	The Rookie	1990	Warner Bros.	$21,633,874	$0	$21,633,874	$30M
x	True Crime	1999	Warner Bros.	$16,649,768	$0	$16,649,768	$55M
x	High Plains Drifter	1973	Universal	$15,700,000	$0	$15,700,000	$5.5M
x	The Eiger Sanction	1975	Universal	$14,200,000	$0	$14,200,000	$9M
x	Play Misty for Me	1971	Universal	$10,600,000	$0	$10,600,000	$950K
x	Honkytonk Man	1982	Warner Bros.	$4,484,991	$0	$4,484,991	$2M
x	White Hunter Black Heart	1990	Warner Bros.	$2,319,124	$0	$2,319,124	$24M
x	Bird	1988	Warner Bros.	$2,181,286	$0	$2,181,286	$14M
x	Breezy	1973	Universal	$200,000	$17,753	$217,753	$750K

The Verdict

Hope you liked this edition. You can find this and more in the wiki for this section.
The next director will be Robert Zemeckis. One of the biggest falls from grace.
I asked you to choose who else should be in the run and the comment with the most upvotes would be chosen. It had to be a controversial filmmaker. Well, we'll later talk about... Zack Snyder. Oh, BoxOffice chose fuego 🔥
This is the schedule for the following four:

Week	Director	Reasoning
May 20-26	Robert Zemeckis	Can we get old Zemeckis back?
May 27-June 2	Richard Donner	An influential figure of the 70s and 80s.
June 3-9	Ang Lee	What happened to Lee?
June 10-16	Zack Snyder	RIP Inbox.

Who should be next after Snyder? That's up to you.

Hold your horses for a second, let me clarify a couple of things.
Im going to go through each Altaïr memory and explain why certain things support my conclusion and then explain why Altaïr may have done this.
Btw this will be a long read, so get ready.
MEMORY 1
I recommend you pull up a youtube video of all the AC Revelations Altaïr Cutscenes if you want to understand what i will be saying better.
This mission takes place before the events of AC1.
In this mission you kill a Templar who has ben pretending to be an Assassin. In the confession scene, the Templar says: "You put too much faith in the hearts of men, Altaïr. The Templars know the truth. Humans are weak, base, and petty."
Altaïr responds: "No. Our Creed is evidence to the contrary."
After the confession scene, Al Mualim says: "You offered him a chance to salvage his dignity, Why?"
Altaïr responds: "No man should pass from this world without knowing some kindness."
Al Mualim says: But he shunned your graces.
Altair responds: As was his right.
For anybody who paid attention to the story in AC1, there's a couple of MASSIVE problems with these conversations.
In these conversations Altaïr is extremely wise. He believes whole heartedly in the Assassin's Creed and seems to know who the templars are. This directly contradicts AC1, because Altaïr only learns about the templar brotherhood halfway into the game, and remember this memory takes place BEFORE AC1. In AC1 Altair was an extremely arrogant, rude and cocky man, the direct opposite of the man we see in this "memory" seal.
There are three possibilities, Either Altaïr was lying through his teeth the entire time to get that sweet master Assassin promotion from Al Mualim and somehow forgot about the templars, or he was Actually an extremely wise man who somehow became an arse between this memory and AC1 and once again somehow forgot about the templars (maybe fell on his head or something?) OR, the most likely possibility that would explain all of these inconsistencies, there is something fundamentally wrong with this memory.
Some context before i cover memory 2, it's one of the conversations during the Al Mualim fight at the end of AC1, so feel free to scross past this bit if you remember the conversation well, if you don't then read it, because it's extremely important.
During Altaïr's confrontation of Al Mualim, Altaïr says: "You lied to me, called Robert's goal foul when all along it was yours aswell."
Al Mualim says: "I've never been much good at sharing"
Altaïr says: "You won't succed, others will find the strength to stand against you."
Al Mualim says: "And this is why so long as men maintain freewill, there can be no peace."
Altaïr says: "I killed the last man who spoke as such"
Al Mualim says: "Bold words boy, but just words."
Altaïr says: "Then let me go, I'll put words into action."
All Mualim laughs
"Tell me master, why not make me like the other Assassin's, why allow me to retain my mind?"
Al Mualim says: "Who you are, and what you do are twined too tight together, to rob you of one would've deprived me of the other. And those templars had to die. sigh but the truth is, i did try, in my study, when i showed you the treasure, but are not like the others, you saw though the illustration."
Altaïr says: "Illusion?"
Al Mualim says: "That's all it's ever done, this templar treasure, this piece of eden this word of god. Do you understand now? The red sea was never parted, water never turned to wine, it was not the machinations of Eris, that spawned the trojan war, but THIS! Illusions! All of them."
Altaïr says: "What you plan is no less an Illusion, to force men to follow you against their will"
Al Mualim says: "Is it any less real than the phantoms the Saracens and Crusaders follow now? Those kraven Gods who retreat from this world that men might slaughter one another in their names? They live amongst an illusion already, im simply giving them another, one that demands less blood."
Altaïr says: "Atleast they choose these phantoms."
Al Mualim says: "Oh do they? Aside from the occasional convert or heritic?
Altaïr says: "It isn't right!"
Al Mualim says: "Ah, and now logic has left you, in it's place, you imbrace emotion, i am disappointed."
Altaïr says: "what's to be done then?"
Al Mualim says: "You will not follow me, and i cannot compell you."
Altaïr says: "And you refuse to give up this evil scheme!"
Al Mualim says: "It seems then we are at an impass."
Altaïr says: "No, we are at an end."
Al Mualim says. "Ah i will miss you Altaïr, you were my very best student."
they then fight
MEMORY 2:
In the brief AC1 "flashback," which shows brief parts of the Al Mualim fight, there is a new quote that Altaïr says after he killed Al Mualim, not present in AC1.
"Forgive me Mentor, but the apple corrupted you. And through you it would have corrupted us... for us to live, you had to die."
Later, Abbas asks him: "you believe Al Mualim fell under [The Apple's] spell?" To which Altaïr responds: "I do. Today he used the Apple to enslave Masyaf. You saw that for yourself."
Let me explain why Al Mualim WASN'T corrupted by the Apple. He was colluding with the templars before he had possession of the apple. He betrayed the templars, and sent Altaïr after them to secure the apple for himself. He knew the effects the apple had on people. We know this due to his collusion with the templars, being privy to their plans as Robert tells us, and being aware of the experments being performed to simulate the apple's effects by Garnier de Naplouse. He clearly had motive, believing that as long as men had freewill there could be no peace, which is why he probably collaborated with the templars in the first place, and he had planned this for awhile as evidenced by that conversation between him and Altaïr.
As is also evidenced by that conversation, Altaïr did not believe Al Mualim had been bewitched by the Apple by the time they were finished talking, Al Mualim was clear and direct about his plans and motivations prior to acquiring the apple during their conversation and everything he said is consistent with what robert told us. And once he no longer had the apple, during the confession scene, he doubled down on what he believed, so it's clear that in from Altaïr's perspective atleast he was of sound mind.
But all of a sudden in Revelations Altaïr is asking for forgiveness and saying the apple corrupted him? Neither of these things make sense so either Altaïr is forgetting everything that just happened, or something is wrong with this memory.
MEMORY 3 and 4:
I love these memories, but they make some changes from the AC1 Novelisation The Secret Crusade, that i really don't like, Im going to do my best to explain what happens in the novel briefly.
When Altaïr leaves to face Genghis Khan, he places Malik, his enemy turned best friend and the Rafiq of the Jerusalem Bureau, in charge of Masyaf and the Assassin's. After a few years Abbas kills Altaïr's youngest son and blames it on Malik, staging a coup, putting himself in charge, and imprisoning Malik. Altaïr returns from Asia and eventually finds Malik who tells him the truth, Malik then dies. Then Altaïr confronts Abbas and is driven out of Masyaf. When he returns to masyaf after years in exile, it isn't a random group of Assassin's he meets and immediately gets help from, it is Maliks son, also named Malik.
(Im going to call the father Malik Sr and the son Malik Jr)
The stuff with Malik Sr happened before the third mission starts, so this isn't a massive deal, im just upset it wasn't included.
Malik Jr on the other hand, as well as all of the things he does, and his conversations with Altaïr are completely gone.
Before Revelations release, this was the canon conclusion to Altaïr's story, some of Altaïr's Codex from AC2 is taken directly from this book. The book exists in the lore of Assassin's Creed.
So either the book is no longer canon, which can't be true because the codex pages from AC2 are from this book. Or, only certain parts of the book are canon (boring answer.) Or either Niccolo Polo or Altaïr are lying about the existence of Malik Jr (but y tho?) OR the memories are altered in some way.
MEMORIES 5 AND 6:
These memories are perfect, there's nothing about them i need to critique for this theory, however remember the voices that Altaïr hears in memory 6, it will be important later.
SOME EVIDENCE FROM AC MIRAGE???
let me explain what the memory seal are. They are only called "memory seals" by humans, we have no idea what the ISU would've called these devices. Altaïr found these seals below Alamut, which is where he spent his exile in the years between memories 3 and 4.
In Assassin's Creed Mirage we learn that the ISU chamber below Alamut was an ISU prison, and the seals are prison records. In Mirage we only see one of these seals, which contains a memory of Basim being tortured by "the jailer."
The Aesir, Odin, Freya, Tyr, and the other norse gods ruled what would later become Scandinavia, before the catastrophe.
Basim who now has loki's memories and personality, says at the end of AC Mirage: "i shed my skin once, in another time, another place. But i am whole again. I remember. And as for those who thought to bind me, should any of them still walk the earth, i so look forward to our reunion."
This indicates to me, that Basim was imprisoned by Odin and friends, and the prison must belong to them, meaning that Iran was also under Aesir control? i suppose? Modern AC has kinda screwed the continuity but i digress.
This means that this prison, which had clear prisoner mistreatment, to the point that it gave loki, and likely many others PTSD and probably far worse problems was being ran by a dictatorship (with Odin being the dictator.)
Now what im about to say is pure speculation, so take it with a grain of salt.
These "memory" seals can probably be tampered with by the people in power in order to make up false confessions and maintain control over whatever narrative they want people to believe and by extention, the people.
The templars use the animus to record memories, but then release "inhanced" versions of these memories to the public, like with the abstergo entertainment game "Liberation." Assassin's Creed Liberation is literally an in universe game made by Abstergo. In the game a hacker will reveal to you how to unlock the true ending, the true version of a memory that was altered by abstergo. So is it really so far fetched to claim that the ISU were capable of doing something similar to this with their seals?
In the last two Altaïr memories, and the memory in Mirage, Altaïr and the Jailer are both using the seals as the memory is being recorded. However, in the first four memories Altaïr doesn't have the seals.
He had obtained them by the time we get to the fourth one, but it's unclear if he had them on him, and if he did, whether or not he was live recording the memory, however due to the inconsistencies in that memory and the fact we dont see him hold one in that memory i don't believe he did.
CONCLUSION:
As I've pointed out there are several issues with the continuity of these memories and AC1, AC2 and The Secret Crusade book. All of these issues are solved if we accept that the first four seals are not accurate memories.
Okay, but what's the reason they aren't accurate then?
There's two possibilities.
Firstly in Altaïr's old age he is misremembering important details of these older memories, which is why the later, more recent memories are more accurate. We know Altaïr is literally hearing voices by the time we get to his last memory, so is it really far fetched to suggest he may have a touch of dementia?
The second possibility, is that Altaïr has intentionally manipulated these memories.
The first question you might ask is, how would he even do that? Well I'll answer your question with another one: How do you even record a memory on a seal in the first place? I mean there's no buttons or instruction manual. I think both of these questions have the same answer, either the apple told him, or he figured it out.
Ok, so it's possible that if these seals can be manipulated like you claim, then Altaïr would easily learn how, i mean the apple showed him how to make a glock, so it's likely, but, erm, buckaroo, WHY WOULD ALTAÏR MANIPULATE THESE MEMORIES??? The answer is simple.
The first memory teaches compassion for all humans.
The second one teaches that the Apple can corrupt a man even as wise as Al Mualim.
The fourth one teaches that rousing the people to help achieve your goals will always work better than trying to do it alone.
These are the memories with the most inconsistencies, and this is because these memories have been altered in order to teach whatever future Assassin that finds them the lessons they will need to lead a Brotherhood. These lessons are ones Ezio has already learned by the time he finds them, so for him they are more about reflecting on his own life. It's also worth noting that Ezio taught many of Altaïr's lessons to Shao Jun.
I've wrote this in my notes app so apologies if the formatting isn't the best. Btw i came up with this myself, to my knowledge nobody has posted a theory similar to this. If you want to use my theory message me or something to tell me :) Im going to turn this into a video tommorow anyways, credit is appreciated.
So there you have it, thats my evidence, and that's my conclusion, what do ya'll think?

By Protopresbyter Dr. George D. Dragas

1. The Pentecostal Period

The word, Pentecost means “the fiftieth” and is used to designate the great event of the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Epiphoitesis) upon the Apostles and the Church on the 50th day after the Resurrection of Christ, just ten days after His Ascension into Heaven.
Before His Passion, the Lord spoke to his Disciples about the gift of the Holy Spirit, which they were to receive after the Ascension. The details are preserved in the Gospel of Saint John: “I will ask the Father to send you the Holy Spirit who will defend you and always be with you” (14:16). He also said, “The Holy Spirit can not come to defend you until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit to you” (16:7). After His Resurrection, the Lord appeared to the Disciples, and He said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (20:22). This was a foretaste of the Outpouring (Epiphoitesis) on Pentecost Sunday.
Near the end of Saint Luke’s Gospel, Christ tells His Disciples, “I will send you the One My Father has promised, but you must stay in the city until you are given power from above” (24:49). It is in the Acts of the Apostles, however, that Saint Luke speaks of the fulfillment of this promise: “On the day of Pentecost, all the Lord’s followers were together in one place. Suddenly, there was a noise from heaven like the sound of a mighty wind. It filled the house where they were meeting. Then they saw what looked like fiery tongues moving in all directions, and a tongue came and settled on each person there. The Holy Spirit took control of everyone, and they began speaking whatever language the Spirit let them speak” (2:1-4).
Since ancient times, the 50-day period from Pascha to Pentecost has been called Pentecost because what began with the Lord breathing the Holy Spirit on His Disciples was consummated with the full descent of the Spirit upon the Disciples and the whole Church. Thus, the Church was fully born and began to grow.
During this period, all kneeling is prohibited as a tangible confession of the Resurrection of Christ. It is only on the actual day of Pentecost that kneeling is resumed, and is connected with a special kneeling ceremony (akolouthia gonyklesias), which consists of prayers for the gift of the Holy Spirit, hence the name, “Kneeling Day” (tes gonatistes) for Pentecost.
Later on, another week was added to these 50 days in order to celebrate the post-feast (metheorta) of the Feast of Pentecost. Thus, today the period of movable Feasts after Pascha spans eight weeks, to include the Sunday of All Saints (Agion Panton), and is divided into three parts: 1) The 40 post-festal days of Pascha, 2) The Feast of the Ascension, together with its post-festal period, and 3) The Feast of Pentecost together with its own post-festal period. The hymns of this period are contained in the special Pentecostal book, the Pentecostarion.

1. Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women

We have already spoken about the New Week (Diakainesimos) and the Sunday of Saint Thomas (the first Sunday after Pascha). The second Sunday after Pascha is called the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women (Kyriake ton Myroforon). It is dedicated to the women who brought myrrh to the tomb of Christ. It is also dedicated to the secret disciples of the Lord, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who arranged for and assisted in the Lord’s burial. This is clearly commemorated in the Gospel lesson for the day (Mark 15.43-16.8).
The Myrrh-Bearing Women we can identify from the Holy Gospels are Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, (a.k.a., Mary of Clopas, Joanna the wife of Huza, a guardian of Herod Antipas, Salome the mother of the sons of Zebedee, and Sozanna).
Joseph of Arimathea (a city of Judaea) was a rich nobleman and a member of the Sanhedrin (a council deputy in Jerusalem). He was the one who did not agree with the council’s decision against Christ. He was also the one who bravely asked Pontius Pilate for the body of Christ (Matthew 27.57-60, Mark 15.42-47, Luke 23.50-56, John 19.38-42). Nicodemus was a Jewish leader, a Pharisee, who was well read in the Scriptures and visited Christ by night (John 3.1-21 and 19.39-42).
All these sacred persons clearly demonstrate to us that people from all walks of life can be disciples of the Lord and enjoy the privilege of taking care of His body and become primary witnesses of the Lord’s mighty Resurrection.

1. Sundays of the Paralytic, The Samaritan Woman, and the Man Born Blind

The following three Sundays are known, in order, as the Sunday of the Paralytic, the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, and the Sunday of the Man Born Blind, because of the Gospel readings and the hymns prescribed for them. The incidents commemorated in these feasts all demonstrate the divine authority, identity and power of Christ, which were then fully revealed by his Resurrection.
The healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda or Bethsaida (John 5.1-18) shows Christ’s authority over the Sabbath because it was on the Sabbath day that He healed the paralytic.
The conversation of the Lord with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well near Sychar (John 4.3-42) reaches its high point when the Lord discloses his identity: “I am the One [the Christ] Who is speaking to you now” (4:26). At the end of the story, the Samaritans openly declare, “We are certain that He is the Savior of the world" (4:42).
Finally, the healing of the blind man (John 9:1-41) demonstrates the divine power of Christ and the fact that He came from God: “This is the first time in history that anyone has ever given sight to someone born blind. Jesus could not do anything unless He came from God” (9:32).

1. Mid-Pentecost

The Wednesday after the Sunday of the Paralytic falls exactly in the middle of the 50 days of the period of Pentecost and is consequently called Mid-Pentecost (Mesopentekoste). It is a Festal Day, and according to ancient custom, it draws its meaning from the Gospel prescribed for it (John 7.14-30). This Gospel lesson contains the speech of the Lord made in the Temple, in the middle of the feast of the Tabernacles (Skenopegias), which explains His authority over the Sabbath in terms of the divine origin of both His teaching and His existence. Central to this are the Lord’s words to the people of Jerusalem: “I did not come on My own. The One Who sent Me is truthful, and you do not know Him. But I know the One Who sent Me, because I came from Him” (7:28). Also central are the words the Lord uttered on the last day of the Feast which anticipate the Outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost: “If you are thirsty, come to Me and drink! Have faith in Me, and you will have life-giving water flowing from deep inside you” (7:37). The hymns of this Feast recall the miracles of the Lord, which demonstrate His Godhead, and admonish the Christians “to keep steadfastly the commandments of the Lord in order to become worthy to celebrate his Ascension and to participate in the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Doxastikon ton Ainon).

1. The Return of Pascha

On the Wednesday after the Sunday of the Man Born Blind (the 6th Sunday after Pascha), we celebrate the Return (apodosis), or completion, of the post-festal period of Pascha. The services of the day, which include a paschal liturgy, are sung in a manner identical to that of the New Week. This is actually the 39th day after Pascha, the eve of the Ascension Day, when we sing the Resurrection Hymn, Christos Anesti, and exchange the Resurrection greeting for the last time.

1. The Ascension

On the following day, which is the 40th day after Pascha, the Ascension of the Lord into Heaven is commemorated. The feast of the Ascension (Analipseos) is explicitly mentioned in the fourth century, but its origins most probably go back to the preceding centuries. The ancient church manual, Apostolic Constitutions, makes the following comment about it: “Again counting 40 days after the first Sunday, you must celebrate from Sunday until Thursday the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, in which He fulfilled the whole economy and design of our salvation, ascended to God the Father, Who had sent Him, and sat at the right hand of the Power to wait until His enemies are placed under his feet” (Book V, chapter 20).
The feast of the Ascension, then, marks the end and the sealing of the work of the Lord on Earth, as well as the Ascension of human nature to heaven and consequently foreshadows the forthcoming Gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It is celebrated until the Friday of the following week, when it is returned (and therefore closed).
The meaning of the Lord’s Ascension is also connected with His eternal priesthood. The Epistle to the Hebrews sums it up as follows: “We have a Great High Priest Who has gone into Heaven, Jesus the Son of God” (4:14)... Jesus has gone there (behind the curtain and into the most holy place) ahead of us, and He is our High Priest forever, just like Melchizedek (6:20)... Jesus will never die, and so He will be a Priest forever. He is forever able to save the people He leads to God because He always lives to speak to God for them. Jesus is the High Priest we need (7:24-26)... He is the perfect High Priest forever (7:28)... who sits at the right side of God’s great throne in heaven (8:1).”

1. Sunday of the Holy Fathers

The Sunday, which falls in the middle of the festal period of the Ascension (the 7th Sunday after Pascha), is dedicated to the 318 Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and is consequently known as the Sunday of the Holy Fathers (Ton Pateron).
The Gospel of this day comes from the Lord’s High Priestly Prayer for the unity of Christians found in John 17:1-13. The Church ordered the commemoration of the Fathers on this particular Sunday because the Eparchial Synods, which were summoned for the purpose of dealing with various local matters, usually met during the Pentecostal period.
Successors of the Apostles, the Fathers, have kept the apostolic faith through their teachings. The Kontakion of the Feast puts this most eloquently and clearly: “The preaching of the Apostles and the dogmas of the Fathers sealed one faith for the Church which, wearing the garment of truth waved with theology from above, rightly dispenses and glorifies the great mystery of piety.”
The Saturday before Pentecost is a Saturday of the Souls (Psychosabbaton), and prayers are offered for those who fell asleep that they, too, may become worthy through our prayers of the Pentecostal gift, which is commemorated the next day.

1. Pentecost Sunday

The Christian feast of Pentecost corresponds to the Hebrew feast which bears the same name, and in which the first fruits of Israel’s new crops were offered to God (Protogennemata).
The Christian feast commemorates the first fruits of the preaching of the Apostles, which followed the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them on the day of Pentecost, and on account of which the first Christian Church was born and established with three thousand souls. Ever since Pentecost, the Spirit abides in the Church and regulates the Church’s life and growth. The Spirit brings the entire constitution of the Church together as the Body of Christ. As the Comforter (Parakletos), He is the pledge of Christ’s return and final victory with the entire body of the Church.
The celebration of this feast goes back to apostolic times. According to ancient custom, catechumens were baptized on this occasion and therefore, even today, no Trisagion is sung during the Liturgy. Instead, the hymn “Those baptized into Christ, have put on Christ,” is sung. The vespers of this day, following immediately after the Divine Liturgy, is especially notable because of the long kneeling supplication, which is offered after the Entrance. This supplication is the first of several which follow after the feast, having been previously suspended during the Pentecostal Period.
Pentecost is celebrated throughout the week and is returned on the following Saturday. The Monday of the post-festal period is distinguished from the other post-festal days because it is dedicated to the Holy Spirit (Deftera tou Agiou Pneumatos). The services of the day follow the pattern of the preceding Pentecostal Sunday. Fasting is not observed during the week of (after) Pentecost.
The Doxastikon hymn of the day is the well known prayer with which most Church services begin and which is used by many Orthodox Christians as a first Prayer of each day: “Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, present everywhere and filling all things, come and abide in us; cleanse us from every stain and save our souls Gracious Lord.”

1. Sunday of All-Saints

The Sunday after Pentecost is known as the Sunday of All Saints. It is a very ancient feast mentioned at the end of the fourth century and seems to have been initially instituted as a feast in honor of all the Martyrs.
The Church always honored the Martyrs. Since honoring the Martyrs was originally a local affair, however, many of the Martyrs were unknown, and it is probably for this reason that such a feast was instituted to honor all Martyrs, known and unknown. This feast was placed very appropriately after Pentecost because the Church was watered and increased through the witness and blood of the Martyrs. Later, when the Church honored others as Saints besides the Martyrs, the moveable feast after Pascha acquired a more general character and was changed into a feast in honor of all the Saints.

1. The Feast of the Holy Apostles

On the Monday after the Sunday of All Saints, a fast is observed for the Feast of the Holy Apostles. Originally, this was a weekly fast as it is explicitly stated in the Apostolic Constitutions (Book V, chapter 20). Later on, it was connected with the feast of the Holy Apostles (June 29-30) and was extended to the whole period from the Monday after the Sunday of All Saints to the 28th of June.
Source

By Protopresbyter Dr. George D. Dragas

1. The Pentecostal Period

The word, Pentecost means “the fiftieth” and is used to designate the great event of the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Epiphoitesis) upon the Apostles and the Church on the 50th day after the Resurrection of Christ, just ten days after His Ascension into Heaven.
Before His Passion, the Lord spoke to his Disciples about the gift of the Holy Spirit, which they were to receive after the Ascension. The details are preserved in the Gospel of Saint John: “I will ask the Father to send you the Holy Spirit who will defend you and always be with you” (14:16). He also said, “The Holy Spirit can not come to defend you until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit to you” (16:7). After His Resurrection, the Lord appeared to the Disciples, and He said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (20:22). This was a foretaste of the Outpouring (Epiphoitesis) on Pentecost Sunday.
Near the end of Saint Luke’s Gospel, Christ tells His Disciples, “I will send you the One My Father has promised, but you must stay in the city until you are given power from above” (24:49). It is in the Acts of the Apostles, however, that Saint Luke speaks of the fulfillment of this promise: “On the day of Pentecost, all the Lord’s followers were together in one place. Suddenly, there was a noise from heaven like the sound of a mighty wind. It filled the house where they were meeting. Then they saw what looked like fiery tongues moving in all directions, and a tongue came and settled on each person there. The Holy Spirit took control of everyone, and they began speaking whatever language the Spirit let them speak” (2:1-4).
Since ancient times, the 50-day period from Pascha to Pentecost has been called Pentecost because what began with the Lord breathing the Holy Spirit on His Disciples was consummated with the full descent of the Spirit upon the Disciples and the whole Church. Thus, the Church was fully born and began to grow.
During this period, all kneeling is prohibited as a tangible confession of the Resurrection of Christ. It is only on the actual day of Pentecost that kneeling is resumed, and is connected with a special kneeling ceremony (akolouthia gonyklesias), which consists of prayers for the gift of the Holy Spirit, hence the name, “Kneeling Day” (tes gonatistes) for Pentecost.
Later on, another week was added to these 50 days in order to celebrate the post-feast (metheorta) of the Feast of Pentecost. Thus, today the period of movable Feasts after Pascha spans eight weeks, to include the Sunday of All Saints (Agion Panton), and is divided into three parts: 1) The 40 post-festal days of Pascha, 2) The Feast of the Ascension, together with its post-festal period, and 3) The Feast of Pentecost together with its own post-festal period. The hymns of this period are contained in the special Pentecostal book, the Pentecostarion.

1. Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women

We have already spoken about the New Week (Diakainesimos) and the Sunday of Saint Thomas (the first Sunday after Pascha). The second Sunday after Pascha is called the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women (Kyriake ton Myroforon). It is dedicated to the women who brought myrrh to the tomb of Christ. It is also dedicated to the secret disciples of the Lord, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who arranged for and assisted in the Lord’s burial. This is clearly commemorated in the Gospel lesson for the day (Mark 15.43-16.8).
The Myrrh-Bearing Women we can identify from the Holy Gospels are Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, (a.k.a., Mary of Clopas, Joanna the wife of Huza, a guardian of Herod Antipas, Salome the mother of the sons of Zebedee, and Sozanna).
Joseph of Arimathea (a city of Judaea) was a rich nobleman and a member of the Sanhedrin (a council deputy in Jerusalem). He was the one who did not agree with the council’s decision against Christ. He was also the one who bravely asked Pontius Pilate for the body of Christ (Matthew 27.57-60, Mark 15.42-47, Luke 23.50-56, John 19.38-42). Nicodemus was a Jewish leader, a Pharisee, who was well read in the Scriptures and visited Christ by night (John 3.1-21 and 19.39-42).
All these sacred persons clearly demonstrate to us that people from all walks of life can be disciples of the Lord and enjoy the privilege of taking care of His body and become primary witnesses of the Lord’s mighty Resurrection.

1. Sundays of the Paralytic, The Samaritan Woman, and the Man Born Blind

The following three Sundays are known, in order, as the Sunday of the Paralytic, the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, and the Sunday of the Man Born Blind, because of the Gospel readings and the hymns prescribed for them. The incidents commemorated in these feasts all demonstrate the divine authority, identity and power of Christ, which were then fully revealed by his Resurrection.
The healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda or Bethsaida (John 5.1-18) shows Christ’s authority over the Sabbath because it was on the Sabbath day that He healed the paralytic.
The conversation of the Lord with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well near Sychar (John 4.3-42) reaches its high point when the Lord discloses his identity: “I am the One [the Christ] Who is speaking to you now” (4:26). At the end of the story, the Samaritans openly declare, “We are certain that He is the Savior of the world" (4:42).
Finally, the healing of the blind man (John 9:1-41) demonstrates the divine power of Christ and the fact that He came from God: “This is the first time in history that anyone has ever given sight to someone born blind. Jesus could not do anything unless He came from God” (9:32).

1. Mid-Pentecost

The Wednesday after the Sunday of the Paralytic falls exactly in the middle of the 50 days of the period of Pentecost and is consequently called Mid-Pentecost (Mesopentekoste). It is a Festal Day, and according to ancient custom, it draws its meaning from the Gospel prescribed for it (John 7.14-30). This Gospel lesson contains the speech of the Lord made in the Temple, in the middle of the feast of the Tabernacles (Skenopegias), which explains His authority over the Sabbath in terms of the divine origin of both His teaching and His existence. Central to this are the Lord’s words to the people of Jerusalem: “I did not come on My own. The One Who sent Me is truthful, and you do not know Him. But I know the One Who sent Me, because I came from Him” (7:28). Also central are the words the Lord uttered on the last day of the Feast which anticipate the Outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost: “If you are thirsty, come to Me and drink! Have faith in Me, and you will have life-giving water flowing from deep inside you” (7:37). The hymns of this Feast recall the miracles of the Lord, which demonstrate His Godhead, and admonish the Christians “to keep steadfastly the commandments of the Lord in order to become worthy to celebrate his Ascension and to participate in the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Doxastikon ton Ainon).

1. The Return of Pascha

On the Wednesday after the Sunday of the Man Born Blind (the 6th Sunday after Pascha), we celebrate the Return (apodosis), or completion, of the post-festal period of Pascha. The services of the day, which include a paschal liturgy, are sung in a manner identical to that of the New Week. This is actually the 39th day after Pascha, the eve of the Ascension Day, when we sing the Resurrection Hymn, Christos Anesti, and exchange the Resurrection greeting for the last time.

1. The Ascension

On the following day, which is the 40th day after Pascha, the Ascension of the Lord into Heaven is commemorated. The feast of the Ascension (Analipseos) is explicitly mentioned in the fourth century, but its origins most probably go back to the preceding centuries. The ancient church manual, Apostolic Constitutions, makes the following comment about it: “Again counting 40 days after the first Sunday, you must celebrate from Sunday until Thursday the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, in which He fulfilled the whole economy and design of our salvation, ascended to God the Father, Who had sent Him, and sat at the right hand of the Power to wait until His enemies are placed under his feet” (Book V, chapter 20).
The feast of the Ascension, then, marks the end and the sealing of the work of the Lord on Earth, as well as the Ascension of human nature to heaven and consequently foreshadows the forthcoming Gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It is celebrated until the Friday of the following week, when it is returned (and therefore closed).
The meaning of the Lord’s Ascension is also connected with His eternal priesthood. The Epistle to the Hebrews sums it up as follows: “We have a Great High Priest Who has gone into Heaven, Jesus the Son of God” (4:14)... Jesus has gone there (behind the curtain and into the most holy place) ahead of us, and He is our High Priest forever, just like Melchizedek (6:20)... Jesus will never die, and so He will be a Priest forever. He is forever able to save the people He leads to God because He always lives to speak to God for them. Jesus is the High Priest we need (7:24-26)... He is the perfect High Priest forever (7:28)... who sits at the right side of God’s great throne in heaven (8:1).”

1. Sunday of the Holy Fathers

The Sunday, which falls in the middle of the festal period of the Ascension (the 7th Sunday after Pascha), is dedicated to the 318 Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and is consequently known as the Sunday of the Holy Fathers (Ton Pateron).
The Gospel of this day comes from the Lord’s High Priestly Prayer for the unity of Christians found in John 17:1-13. The Church ordered the commemoration of the Fathers on this particular Sunday because the Eparchial Synods, which were summoned for the purpose of dealing with various local matters, usually met during the Pentecostal period.
Successors of the Apostles, the Fathers, have kept the apostolic faith through their teachings. The Kontakion of the Feast puts this most eloquently and clearly: “The preaching of the Apostles and the dogmas of the Fathers sealed one faith for the Church which, wearing the garment of truth waved with theology from above, rightly dispenses and glorifies the great mystery of piety.”
The Saturday before Pentecost is a Saturday of the Souls (Psychosabbaton), and prayers are offered for those who fell asleep that they, too, may become worthy through our prayers of the Pentecostal gift, which is commemorated the next day.

1. Pentecost Sunday

The Christian feast of Pentecost corresponds to the Hebrew feast which bears the same name, and in which the first fruits of Israel’s new crops were offered to God (Protogennemata).
The Christian feast commemorates the first fruits of the preaching of the Apostles, which followed the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them on the day of Pentecost, and on account of which the first Christian Church was born and established with three thousand souls. Ever since Pentecost, the Spirit abides in the Church and regulates the Church’s life and growth. The Spirit brings the entire constitution of the Church together as the Body of Christ. As the Comforter (Parakletos), He is the pledge of Christ’s return and final victory with the entire body of the Church.
The celebration of this feast goes back to apostolic times. According to ancient custom, catechumens were baptized on this occasion and therefore, even today, no Trisagion is sung during the Liturgy. Instead, the hymn “Those baptized into Christ, have put on Christ,” is sung. The vespers of this day, following immediately after the Divine Liturgy, is especially notable because of the long kneeling supplication, which is offered after the Entrance. This supplication is the first of several which follow after the feast, having been previously suspended during the Pentecostal Period.
Pentecost is celebrated throughout the week and is returned on the following Saturday. The Monday of the post-festal period is distinguished from the other post-festal days because it is dedicated to the Holy Spirit (Deftera tou Agiou Pneumatos). The services of the day follow the pattern of the preceding Pentecostal Sunday. Fasting is not observed during the week of (after) Pentecost.
The Doxastikon hymn of the day is the well known prayer with which most Church services begin and which is used by many Orthodox Christians as a first Prayer of each day: “Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, present everywhere and filling all things, come and abide in us; cleanse us from every stain and save our souls Gracious Lord.”

1. Sunday of All-Saints

The Sunday after Pentecost is known as the Sunday of All Saints. It is a very ancient feast mentioned at the end of the fourth century and seems to have been initially instituted as a feast in honor of all the Martyrs.
The Church always honored the Martyrs. Since honoring the Martyrs was originally a local affair, however, many of the Martyrs were unknown, and it is probably for this reason that such a feast was instituted to honor all Martyrs, known and unknown. This feast was placed very appropriately after Pentecost because the Church was watered and increased through the witness and blood of the Martyrs. Later, when the Church honored others as Saints besides the Martyrs, the moveable feast after Pascha acquired a more general character and was changed into a feast in honor of all the Saints.

1. The Feast of the Holy Apostles

On the Monday after the Sunday of All Saints, a fast is observed for the Feast of the Holy Apostles. Originally, this was a weekly fast as it is explicitly stated in the Apostolic Constitutions (Book V, chapter 20). Later on, it was connected with the feast of the Holy Apostles (June 29-30) and was extended to the whole period from the Monday after the Sunday of All Saints to the 28th of June.
Source

Hi all! Hoping I can get some assistance on a W-4 I'm filling out for a teaching assistantship I'm getting through grad school.
So here's the whole situation: My wife and I both work full-time and file our taxes jointly. Last year I received a graduate teaching assistantship with a stipend of $14,400 dollars that was supposed to last from august-May, but had to quit in February when a scheduling conflict came up with my full-time employer. I've since worked the issue out, and am being offered the assistantship with the same stipend for the 2024-2025 school year. I also picked up a very short position as a grader for final's week as a another graduate teaching assistant had a medical emergency and needed someone to grade her classes final papers. For this position I will be paid $20/hour for up to 20 hours of grading time, of which I plan to charge the full 20 hours.
I'm pretty sure I didn't do this correctly when I filled it out for the initial assistantship last year, since I didn't seem like any taxes got taken out of my earnings from the assistantship, so my question now is what all needs to be calculated into extra withholding on my W-4 that I'm filling out as I recomplete the onboarding process at the university I attend? I'm using the IRS Tax Withholding estimator and am not sure if I need to put each separate position in as a different job or if the stipends from the teaching assistantships count as something different. Thanks an advance for any help!

Blurb: (This is my query-in-progress.) THE FART GURU is a 42,000-word contemporary middle grade novel.
His real name is Pete or possibly Henry, but everyone calls him the Fart Guru. He’s a sixth grader who spends his recesses on top of a hill teaching his disciples how to fart on command. Kids in his school come to him to master the “grandpa fart” and the “earthquake fart,” but they also come for advice. Logan’s not fitting in with his soccer team. Kayla’s having problems with an impostor. Joe’s the victim of a cruel prank. Through their dealings with the mysterious Fart Guru, they try to figure out who the heck this guy is. There might be a truly great and wise guru beneath his philosophy of flatulence, or he might just be . . . full of hot air.
The Fart Guru is on a journey to become known for more than just farts. A lot more. But greatness is like a fart—once you achieve it, a distance forms between you and others. He might act like he has all the answers, but he still has to figure out whether he wants to be known as some wise weirdo on a hill or just a normal kid.
Desired feedback: Any
Critique swap: No, due to bad experiences in the past
Excerpt: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ufY8r6Q1g9m22otCEvxODlp20_Aud2Pa/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=111130530344209495935&rtpof=true&sd=true

As someone has said on the subreddit earlier, any first grader who can add 2+2 can know now that Luffy is Joy Boy. Vegapunk's message really didn't leave much to be deduced.
And my theory is that Balckbeard will steal Luffy's fruit.
What are the givens that can draw this conclusion?
First and foremost, Vegapunk spilling all the beans to friend and foe all alike. Not only civilians around the world know of World Government's actions that resulted in rise of sea level, but also pirates (including, very clearly, BB Pirates), marines, celestial dragons, etc. They can also conclude the relation between Luffy's fruit and Joy Boy.
Second, Caribou is on his way to join his awaited mentor Balckbeard. Caribou ,unfortunately, knows about all the Ancient Weapons that the Straw Hats know of. He knows the location of Pluton. And here comes the role of a major assumption of this theory and it is:
Only Joy Boy will be able to activate Pluton.
Just like the Ancient Robot on Egghead got out of his slumber ONLY when he heard Luffy's Gear5 heartbeats, I believe that Luffy's fruit is essential to activating various forms of the ancient technologies. As Vegapunk said the scientists didn't know the energy source of the Ancient Robot, and despite every attempt to research it, they simply couldn't do anything to this robot. I cannot speculate anything about the relation of Luffy's fruit and Mother Flame. Some people said that the flame looks like Luffy's hair in Gear5, that's not hard proof for me but I'll just wait to see. So, I only assume the fruit/fruit-user is needed to activate Pluton.
Caribou's knowledge of the Ancient Weapons will drive Blackbeard to seek them. Anyone with such knowledge will do so, even if he does not necessarily dream of acquiring their powers. The myths about them are just too huge to overlook the existence of such destructive powers. Blackbeard will try to go have Pluton for himself, and he will find out that he needs Luffy's fruit to activate Pluton, and will decide to go steal it. Yet, we still don't know how much of ancient history Blackbeard knows. Does he know that Luffy's fruit was able to activate the robot? I hope we get answers for this as soon as possible, because if he doesn't know anything you can disregard this theory. It will simply mean nothing.
Moreover, We have seen Blackbeard recently trying to steal Boa Hancock's fruit. Hancock hinted that not all fruits are suitable for everyone. Her fruit won't work for him since her beauty is needed to make the fruits abilities work. Yet, Blackbeard was stubborn enough to keep trying until Rayleigh arrived. Blackbeard views Devil Fruits as mere tools, weapons to gain extra powers; that's why he made sure to equip his 10 commanders with Devil Fruits. However, I believe fruits go beyond that. Fruits make a deep connection to the user's soul. We know the fruit's true power could only be awakened when the mind and body of the user is caught up with the powers of the fruit. When we knew Luffy's fruit is Hito-Hito no mi, Model: Nika, some people were annoyed that it is Luffy's fate to be Joy Boy. Recently, we knew that maybe, MAYBE, there may be a distinction between Job Boy and Nika (and maybe not, they may turn out to be the same person with different names in different cultures). But what I am trying to say here is that, it's not the matter of Who eats Hito Hito no mi, Model: Nika? it's the matter of who awakens this fruit?
Whitebeard said clearly that Teach is not the one Roger is waiting for (to reach Laugh Tale and carry on with what he started). I believe his words could mean that Blackbeard will never be able to awaken Hito-Hito no mi, Model: Nika, even if he ate the fruit and did everything he can do to awaken it. His mind and body are just too far away from what Nika, Joy Boy and Luffy is.
And this leads me to believe that he will fail as well, either at stealing it, or at using it to achieve his goals if he succeeded to steal the fruit.
I know this theory may be missing some parts, but I do believe it holds potential in some areas.
Thank you for reading all the way through.

My son is in the fifth grade and doing well for the most part but constantly backslides when it comes to decimals and fractions. It seems like it comes down to a basic misunderstanding of what a decimal or a fraction is. He can look at a decimal or a fraction and plug in a formula but he can't answer basic questions about them and has a distinct lack of understanding about what these numbers represent.
As an example, if I were to show him 1.5 and I explain to him that the 1 represents 1 whole, complete, number or object and the .5 represents half of an object he seems like he gets it but then when I ask him how much he has he answers 6.
"So you have 1 whole pizza here, and then you have 1/2 of a pizzas. That 1/2 of a pizza is .5 pizza - it's less than one. How many whole pizzas are there?"
"1"
"Ok, good. So you have 1 whole pizza and we still have .5 of a pizza. If we add another .5 of a pizza how many do you have?"
With a question like that he'll answer 3, 11, 6, 5, or 1 but won't ever land on 2. He's so fixated on "5" in "0.5" that his ability to comprehend it as less than one is completely missing.
Here is what I have tried so far:
Pizzas (whole pizzas and slices).
Money - I thought this would be good because it's got the system backed in already. A dollar is a dollar, a dime is .10, a penny is .01 but for whatever reason this seems to barely work at all. I think he sees "a dollar" and "a penny" as two separate things instead of 1 of them being "1 dollar" and the other being ".01 dollar."
Lego - We're building a wall that is 10 studs wide - a 1x2 brick is .2 or 2/10s of the wall, a 1x3 is .3 or 3/10s of the wall, etc. How tall can you build a wall with these Lego. Basically giving him a pile of bricks and explaining how each of them is a 'part' of a wall. I really thought this was going to work but he was completely lost and asked to stop doing it this way.
I was able to get some success with fractions by giving him a handout that correlated fractions to Pokémon - Diglett is 1/3 of a Dugtrio. If you have 8 Digglet you can make 2 Dugtrio and would have 2/3 left.
Last night I tried a different approach when discussing decimals because he was having trouble understanding where 'tenths' and 'thousandths' were. I drew a bucket and said "If I gave you a spoon that holds '.001' of the water needed to fill this bucket how many times would you have to pour out the spoon to fill the bucket?" Then I had to walk him through it step by step - ten pours of ".001" to get it to ".01". So every ten pours of ".001" raises the ".01" by ".01" to "0.02" then "0.03" until eventually it gets to ".1". He then realized that it took 100 pours of ".001" to get the bucket ".1" of the way filled and that he would have to do that 10 times - so 10 x 100 is a thousand, the spoon holds 1/1000 - he got it. Then I asked him, "OK, if I give you a cup for the next bucket and each pour fills the bucket up "0.1" how many pours would it take and he was completely lost again.
I tried finding some videos to explain this but everything I watched bypasses teaching what a decimal is and jumps straight into their structure - they show "this is the tenth space" but don't explain what that means or how a "tenth" is different from the whole number.
Does anyone have any recommendations for videos or methods I could use to approach this from a different angle? It's like he's hit a wall - he can multiple and divide decimals and fractions when he remembers the 'rules' for doing so but the numbers are so devoid of meaning for him that his comprehension is shot.
Thanks for any assistance.

"I played major league baseball for parts of 10 years, and I played in the magnificent city of New York, and as a child in St. Croix that was beyond dreams. Yes, I am a happy man." -- Horace Clarke
The worst stretch of Yankee baseball since the Highlander days, the mid 60s to the mid 70s, is remembered by those who lived through it as the Horace Clarke Era. Unfairly or not, the bespectacled switch-hitting middle infielder from the U.S. Virgin Islands came to symbolize all that was wrong with the Yankees in those sad years.
Horace Meredith Clarke grew up on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He was just the fifth player from the U.S. Virgin Islands to play in the majors, and the first Yankee. His father had grown up playing cricket, and because there were no youth baseball leagues on the island, young Horace played softball. He said he didn't see his first baseball game until around age 13, when he saw some U.S. Navy sailors playing.

“We were poor kids in St. Croix. We played on a field which was right on the ocean and had no fences. We couldn’t afford baseballs. So the coach made the lefthanded batters hit righthanded and the righthanded batters hit lefthanded. This was so they couldn’t hit the ball so far. It saved us from losing the baseballs in the ocean.”

Clarke was spotted by a Yankee scout in the Caribbean and assigned to the lowest run of the Yankee farm system -- the Kearney Yankees in Class D ball. Imagine being an 18-year-old kid from St. Croix in the Caribbean, and arriving in Kearney, Nebraska in the spring of 1958. The culture shock must have been overwhelming. Maybe not surprisingly, Clarke hit a disappointing .225/.322/.283 in 187 at-bats. He said the biggest adjustment wasn't the cold weather, but night games played under the lights, something he'd never done before.
The following year Horace was in the Florida State League, and he thrived in the warmer weather, hitting .293/.375/.366 in 571 at-bats. He also stole 34 bases that year. The year after that, he was back up north, playing for Fargo in the Northern League, and hit .307/.389/.369 in 537 at-bats. The following year was Amarillo in the Texas League, where he hit .300/.364/.429.
Then the next three years in the International League, where he hit .281/.345/.352 in 1,494 at-bats while playing shortstop and second base.
But despite Clarke's promise, he was blocked by Bobby Richardson. By the time Clarke had reached Triple-A at age 24 in 1963, the 27-year-old Richardson had already been a four-time All-Star, a two-time Gold Glove winner, and had won three World Series rings... plus the MVP for the 1960 World Series, the only time in baseball history a player for the losing team won the award!
But the Yankees knew Richardson was planning on retiring, so they kept Clarke waiting in the wings. He opened the year with the Toledo Mud Hens, then the Yankees' Triple-A team, and then after a month he finally got the call to the show.
Fifty-nine years ago today, on May 13, 1965, Clarke was sent up to the plate in the 7th inning as a pinch hitter to make his major league debut in a game the Yankees were losing, 4-1, to the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park.
Clarke, facing Dave Morehead, beat out an infield single. It was a promising beginning. But, as if scripted to be symbolic of his career, Clarke's success was short-lived as the next batter bounced into a fielder's choice. Forced out at second base, Clarke watched the rest of the game from the dugout. The next day he'd get the start and go 0-for-4.
Hitting .250/.298/.269 at the end of June as a utility infielder, Clarke was sent back down to Toledo for two months to get more regular playing time. It helped. When he returned on September 3 -- coincidentally, also against the Red Sox -- he went 3-for-5 with an RBI. Overall that month, Clarke hit .273/.298/.327, and for the season, .262/.298/.299 in 115 plate appearances. But the Yankees, the reigning A.L. champions for the past five seasons, finished a shocking 77-85, all the way in sixth place.
That off-season, Phil Linz -- the harmonica playing utility infielder -- was traded to the Phillies, opening up a roster spot for Clarke. Richardson, though only 31, had told the Yankees he would retire at the end of the 1966 season, and the Yankees wanted him to mentor Clarke as his successor.
Clarke started just seven games over the first half, but a series of injuries forced him into regular service. Over the second half, he played almost every day, hitting .276/.334/.404 in 300 plate appearances. He was mostly used at shortstop, where his defense wasn't great, but in 16 games at second base he looked good enough that the Yankees were confident he could be a regular there. Yankee fans were no doubt a little sad when Richardson officially announced to the press on August 31 that it was his last season, but at least we knew who would be playing second base the following year.
Indeed, second base was the least of the Yankees' problems. New York finished dead last at 70-89 in 1966, the team's worst performance since 1925, as injuries fell Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Elston Howard, and Whitey Ford.
Entering 1967 as the starting second baseman, Clarke hit a solid .272/.321/.316 (94 OPS+) in 633 plate appearances while leading the league in fielding percentage, assists, and range factor as a second baseman. He also stole 21 bases in 25 tries, a second-best .840 SB%. His 3.7 bWAR that year was better than any season Richardson ever had -- his career high was 3.2 bWAR in 1962.
The following year, the Yankees finished 83-79 -- above .500 for the first time in four seasons -- but a whopping 34.5 games out. Clarke had one of the worst years of his career, hitting .230/.258/.254 (60 OPS+) as he played through injuries all year.
He rebounded in 1969 to .285/.339/.467 (101 OPS+), with 33 stolen bases. It was, statistically, the best season of his career (3.9 bWAR). But once again the Yankees were terrible -- 28.5 games out.
In 1970, Clarke again disappointed, hitting .251/.286/.309 (68 OPS+). The Yankees won 93 games that year, but it amounted to naught as the Orioles ran away with the pennant, going 108-54 to win it by 15 games. In fact, it was pretty much over by July, with the Yankees 7 games out at the All-Star break.
It was around this time that Yankee fans began focusing their frustration on Clarke. One New York sportswriter routinely referred to him as "Horrible Horace". Miscast as a leadoff man -- he had a career .308 OBP -- and criticized for "bailing out" on double plays, manager Ralph Houk years later offered a tepid defense of his second baseman:

“I know I got a lot of criticism for playing Horace Clarke as much as I did, but he was a lot better ballplayer than anyone gave him credit for. He did a lot of things good but nothing great, and that was his problem. Besides, I didn’t have anyone else.”

The lack of a replacement was certainly an issue. In 1971, there was talk in The Sporting News about a prospect named Fred Frazier being the heir apparent to Clarke at second base. That year, Frazier hit a disappointing .261/.316/.313 in Triple-A; the next year, .216/.302/.281. The year after that, he was in the Orioles organization. He never made it out of the minors.
In fact, Clarke was the only constant in the Yankee infield in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Yankees during the, ahem, Horace Clarke Era had holes everywhere, with a revolving door at first base, third base, and shortstop. For five years, from 1967 to 1971, Clarke was the Opening Day starter at second base; during that same stretch, there were five different third basemen, five different third basemen, and three different shortstops. Between 1967 and 1973, he started 1,017 games at second base, or 90% of all Yankee games.
But that, explained Yankees PR man Marty Appel, was kind of the problem. "Fans especially didn’t like the second baseman, the beleaguered Horace Clarke, whose major flaw seemed to be longevity. It wasn’t his fault that no one better came along, and he was a better player than the fans gave him credit for. But because he was out there, year after year, he came to stand for this disappointing run by the club."

"I always did my best. I always played as hard as I could. I never was concerned about how the fans reacted to me." -- Horace Clarke

The following year Clarke hit .250/.321/.318 in 696 plate appearances, but the Yankees again were out of it, finishing 82-80 in 1971.
Yankee fans had been miserable since 1965, but frustration with the team in general -- and Clarke in particular -- reached a boiling point in 1972. It had been seven years since the Yankees had been in the post-season, and 1972 was the first year the Yankees had the playoffs within our grasp since winning the pennant in 1964. (The "closest and latest" the Yankees had been since the 1965 season was 9 games out of 1st place on September 8, 1970.)
On September 12, 1972, the Yankees were a half-game out of 1st place at 74-64, with 17 games left to go in the season. The Red Sox were in 1st at 73-62, the Orioles tied with New York at 74-64, and the Tigers a half-game behind at 73-64. Over the rest of the season, the Yankees went a heartbreaking 5-12, while the Tigers won 13 out of 19 to win the A.L. East.
There was plenty of blame to go around for that collapse, but Yankee fans were particularly irate at Clarke, who hit .225/.267/.296 during those final 17 games.
To his credit, Clarke never complained about the boos from fans or the criticism in the press. As quoted by Dick Young in the New York Daily News in 1972:

"Sure, I would feel bad when I saw in the papers that, 'the Yankees can never win the pennant with that guy at second base.' But why get mad. I figure that's his opinion, and he's entitled to it. I must have been able to do something. Don't tell me a ballplayer can fool a manager for seven years."

Years later, Thurman Munson said his adversarial relationship with the media was based on how Horace Clarke was treated.
In 1973, the 34-year-old Clarke hit .263/.317/.308 (80 OPS+), his defense was no longer among the league leaders, and the Yankees were once again double-digit games behind by Labor Day.
It was finally time to move on. That off season, the Yankees acquired 23-year-old utility infielder Jim Mason from the Texas Rangers and installed him as the starting shortstop for the upcoming 1974 season; Gene Michael, the Yankees' on-again, off-again shortstop since 1968, was moved to second base; and Clarke to the bench. It wasn't exactly an earth-shattering move -- Mason was coming off a season in which he hit .206/.273/.290, and Michael .225/.270/.278. If anything, the two represented a substantial downgrade from Clarke's numbers. (By bWAR the previous season, Clarke was still the best option of the three, 0.6 compared to Mason's -0.7 and Michael's -0.9.)
After hitting .234/.294/.255 in 53 plate appearances as a pinch hitter and spot starter, on May 31, 1974, the Yankees finally ended the Horace Clarke Era by selling his contract to the San Diego Padres along with minor league pitcher Lowell Palmer for $25,000. At the time of the deal, Clarke was still the Yankees' best option at second base as Mason was hitting .214/.287/.307 and Michael a putrid .134/.224/.179!
Six weeks later, the Yankees tried to address their second base problem again by acquiring former All-Star Sandy Alomar from the Angels. Alomar, who fathered major leaguers Sandy Jr. and Roberto, played for the Yankees for the next two and a half seasons, hitting .248/.287/.302... again, worse than Horace's career average of .256/.308/.313.
And yet getting rid of Horace Clarke immediately turned around the Yankees' fortunes. With Horace, the Yankees were 23-27, the worst record in the American League; without him, a second-best 66-46. New York finished 89-73, just two games behind the Baltimore Orioles.
The Yankees finally found a solution to the second base problem on December 11, 1975, trading previously forgotten Yankee Doc Medich to the Pirates for Dock Ellis, Ken Brett, and a 20-year-old prospect named Willie Randolph.
Meanwhile, Clarke went to San Diego and hit .189/.255/.200 in 99 plate appearances. He was released at the end of the season and retired. He was a frequent attendee at Yankee Old Timers' Games, and promoted baseball in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He died at age 81 on August 5, 2020, from complications due to Alzheimer's disease.
The Clarke Side

• Horace's nickname was "Hoss". Yankee play-by-play man Bill White loved to draw out the "s" sound.
  
• Clarke had a reputation of being timid on double plays -- the team's pitchers thought he was apt to hold onto the ball and hop aside rather than try to get off a throw if it meant getting barreled over by the runner. (And in those days, runners came in hard -- just ask Willie Randolph!) Yankee pitchers complained to the press about it, and fans started watching for such plays. Any time the 175-pound Clarke didn't complete a double play, the boo birds came out. To be fair, despite his reputation as being afraid of contact, Clarke led the league in double plays turned as a second baseman in 1969 and again in 1971, and finished in the top five every year he was a regular.
  
• Clarke was the last Yankee to live within walking distance of Yankee Stadium, at the Grand Concourse Hotel. His commute to work was a three-block walk... which could be a problem sometimes. Sportswriter Dick Young reported Clarke had an awkward moment when a fan, "this kid, maybe 11 or 12," walked up and asked: "Hey Hoss, how come you can't make the double play?" Clarke replied: "Well, we can't all be stars. I guess I'm just a lousy ballplayer."
  
• Clarke had an unusual batting stance, a throwback to the Deadball Era. He stood with his legs far apart and he choked up high on the bat. Not surprisingly, he had just 27 home runs in 5,243 career plate appearances... but apparently all of them were of the over-the-fence variety.
  
• The first of those 27 home runs was a grand slam! It was off Floyd Weaver of the Cleveland Indians on September 21, 1965. The two-out grand slam in the 4th inning helped power the Yankees to a 9-4 win.
  
• And Clarke's second career home run? Another grand slam! It came on July 16, 1966. Clarke came up with the bases loaded and one out in the top of the 10th of a 5-5 game. Clarke crushed Jack Aker's offering to deep right to clear the bases and give the Yankees a 9-5 lead; Pedro Ramos pitched a perfect 9th to preserve the victory. Whitey Ford, who had entered the game in the 9th inning in relief, got the win. Clarke's first and second home runs were the only grand slams of his career!
  
• Aker was later Clarke's teammate with the Yankees from 1969 to 1972, and the sinkerballing reliever was one of the pitchers who criticized Horace about bailing out on double plays.
  
• Long before John Olerud made it cool, Horace sometimes wore a batting helmet while playing the field. He never explained why; some speculated it was because he'd once been hit in the head by a thrown ball.
  
• Clarke said he grew up listening to Yankee games on the radio, and Phil Rizzuto -- a similarly undersized infielder -- was his favorite player. Horace was 11 years old when the Scooter won the A.L. MVP in 1950.
  
• Mickey Mantle, his knees shot, moved to first base for the final two years of his career. Clarke, the regular second baseman both of those seasons, said that Mantle told him to get every ball he could. Horace led the league in range factor as a second baseman both of those seasons.
  
• The Sporting News reported on March 14, 1970, that Clarke had a "novel twist" during salary negotiations for the upcoming 1970 season. He told the Yankees he'd take less money in salary if they helped him secure a $1 million loan for a construction project in the Virgin Islands. Sportswriter Dick Young speculated: "It's a very simple gimmick. First you get the Yankees to lend you $1 million for an investment. You bank it at seven percent. That brings in $70,000 a year. Then you negotiate your contract with the independent feeling that you don't have to play baseball for a living." Clarke and the Yankees eventually agreed on a more conventional contract at $32,000 -- and no loan.
  
• Check out Horace Clarke's leadoff single on Opening Day in 1970, called by Phil Rizzuto! #23 playing first base for the Yankees is not Don Mattingly, but previously forgotten Yankee John Ellis.
  
• Clarke set the major league career record -- since tied by Joe Mauer -- of most no-hitters broken up in the 9th inning. Both players did it three times in their career... but Clarke did it three times in the same season! He had 9th inning singles to break up no-no's by Kansas City's Jim Rooker on June 4, 1970, Boston's Sonny Siebert on June 19, 1970, and Detroit's Joe Niekro on July 2, 1970. No other hitter has broken up more than two no-hitters in the 9th inning in his career, according to the book Baseball's No-Hit Wonders by Dirk Lammers, but Clarke amazingly did it three times in 24 games spread over 28 days. Mauer's 9th inning heartbreakers came over a six-year stretch.
  
• Clarke went 5-for-6 with an RBI in the second game of a doubleheader on April 19, 1970 -- and had 11 other games where he had four hits. In terms of fantasy scoring, his best day was either May 21, 1969, when he went 4-for-6 with three runs scored and three stolen bases, or July 22, 1971, when he was 4-for-5 with three runs scored and three RBIs.
  
• Clarke was involved in one of the most surreal moments of baseball history on the final day of the 1971 season. The Yankees were playing the Washington Senators -- not the original Senators, who had moved to Minnesota to become the Twins in 1961, but the expansion team founded that same year to replace them. Rangers owner Bob Short, who had bought the team three years earlier, announced he was moving the team to Arlington, Texas, to become the Rangers. (Coincidentally, in 1957, Short had bought the Minneapolis Lakers and, three years later, moved them to Los Angeles.) The final home game of the Senators at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., was on September 30, 1971 against the Yankees. The game was tied, 5-5, but the soon-to-be Rangers scored a pair in the bottom of the 8th to take a 7-5 lead. In the top of the 9th, Felipe Alou and Bobby Murcer grounded out to bring up Horace Clarke. Before he could get to the plate, however, a fan ran onto the field and pulled up first base, prompting hundreds more fans to run onto the field in search of their own souvenirs. Clarke and the Senators ran off the field and the umpires called it a forfeit in favor of the Yankees.
  
• Horace wore #20 all 10 seasons he was with the Yankees. It was never a particularly popular number before him, as the only player who wore it more than a few seasons was Tiny Bonham (1940-1946). Bucky Dent wore #20 from 1977 to 1982, and previously forgotten Yankee Bobby Meacham from 1983 to 1988. Another previously forgotten Yankee, Mike Stanley, wore it from 1992 to 1995, then Jorge Posada had it until Stanley returned in 1997 and reclaimed it. After Stanley left the Yankees, he asked Posada to take it back, saying that number should belong to a catcher. And now it always will, as it was retired for Posada in 2015.
  
• His obituary in The New York Times noted that among major leaguers from the Virgin Islands -- "a relatively small roster" -- Clarke still holds the records for games played, hits, runs, RBIs, and stolen bases.
  
• After he retired, Clarke helped promote youth baseball in the U.S. Virgin Islands. One of the players he mentored was Jerry Browne, who played 10 years in the majors between 1986 and 1995 with the Rangers, Indians, A's, and Marlins. In his SABR biography, Browne credits Clarke with teaching him baseball fundamentals.
  
• According to the book Where Have All Our Yankees Gone? by Brian Jensen, Clarke played a uniquely Caribbean instrument called "the vibes." "The vibes is like a xylophone, marimba-related type sound. It's a keyboard-type related instrument." Clarke said he played the instrument during his Yankee days, but -- unlike Bernie Williams, who frequently strummed on his guitar in the clubhouse -- only during the off-season. "When I was with the Yankees, ya know, the instrument that I had, the vibes, I was doing it, ya know, but never in the clubhouse, though. Once you are in the clubhouse, it is all work, ya know. That was never so much allowed. I had the instrument all the years that I was a Yankee but I was involved with baseball. That was my full time and I didn't have full time to play music but, ya know, in the off-season I would have a vibe and try to learn a song by hearing from a tape or a record and that's what it was." After retiring, Clarke played the instrument with a local band called Out of Nowhere.
  
• Of the 15 major leaguers to have been born in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the only other Yankee was Elrod Hendricks, a backup catcher for the Bombers from 1976 to 1977. Jabari Blash, born in St. Thomas, gets an honorable mention for the three months he spent as a Yankee during the 2017-2018 off-season. Blash was acquired from the Padres for Chase Headley on December 12, then traded to the Angels for a PTBNL or cash considerations. I guess we got the cash, because apparently no player was ever named.
  
• There's a Horace Clarke High School in Jamaica, but it's not named after the Yankee. It's named after the Horace Clarke who was a member of parliament in Jamaica from 1972 to 2002.
  
• Also not him: Horace Clarke, a teenager shot and seriously wounded by a Blackfeet Indian named Owl Child on August 17, 1869. Clarke's father, Malcolm, was killed in the same attack, which was purportedly revenge for Malcolm Clarke having attacked him two years earlier... which Malcolm claimed he'd done because Owl Child had stolen horses from him... which Owl Child said he'd done in revenge for yet an earlier dispute. The pursuit of Owl Child resulted in a massacre of at least 170 people, mostly elderly men, women, and children. As for Owl Child, he escaped to Canada and was never seen again.
  

"I remember the first game I played in Yankee Stadium in 1965. There were more than 40,000 people in the stands. I had just come from my country where there are 30,000 people in the entire country. That was some adjustment." -- Horace Clarke

Overall, Horace Clarke hit .257/.309/.315 in 5,144 plate appearances as a Yankee. His numbers aren't quite as bad as they appear, as he played during one of the lowest offense eras since deadball... an 84 OPS+. That ranks him ahead of fondly-remembered Yankees like Shelley Duncan (81 OPS+), Rick Cerone (80 OPS+), Miguel Cairo (80 OPS+), Bucky Dent (72 OPS+), and... Bobby Richardson (77 OPS+). And while many complained about his defense, his defensive metrics -- such as we have for his era -- indicate he was at least an average defender. He led the league in range factor three times, in fielding percentage once, in assists six times, and in double plays twice.
People tend to think about Clarke -- if they think about him at all -- as either a terrible player, representative of the teams he played on, or a good player who was wasted on bad teams. The truth is somewhere in the middle. As sportswriter Maury Allen said, he was "an average big-leaguer on below-average Yankee teams."
And in fact, Clarke's 16.0 career bWAR as a Yankee is twice as much value as the player he replaced, Bobby Richardson (8.0 bWAR). But Richardson was a fan favorite, while Clarke was scorned. But of course... Richardson won three rings. And Yankee fans love a winner!

"New York is New York. You don’t win, you’re going to hear about it. I was in the middle." -- Horace Clarke

Had Clarke come along a few years earlier and been part of the early 1960s dynasty, he might be remembered fondly as a scrappy infielder, a Tony Kubek or a Bucky Dent or a Scott Brosius -- a good but not great player who had some memorable moments.
Instead, Horace Clarke defines an era of futility.

Examples of foreshadowing

1. "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare:
   
   • Foreshadowing is present in Romeo's dreams and premonitions, hinting at the tragic events to come.
2. "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee:
   
   • The mention of Boo Radley early in the story foreshadows his eventual role in saving Scout and Jem.
3. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" by J.K. Rowling:
   
   • The mention of the Philosopher's Stone early in the book foreshadows its significance in the climax.
4. "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding:
   
   • The pilot's body hanging in the parachute foreshadows the descent into chaos and violence on the island.
5. "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare:
   
   • The witches' prophecies at the beginning foreshadow Macbeth's tragic downfall.
6. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
   
   • The green light at the end of Daisy's dock is a symbol that foreshadows Gatsby's unattainable dreams.
7. "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe:
   
   • The narrator's insistence that he is not mad foreshadows his descent into madness throughout the story.
8. "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck:
   
   • Candy's aging dog being shot foreshadows the tragic fate of Lennie at the end of the novel.

These examples showcase how authors use foreshadowing to hint at future events, creating suspense and deepening the overall impact of the narrative.