Welcome back to a little more MARRIED Mary Mania before I wrap things up with The Abridged Goblinization. I decided that this bit deserved its own chapter. Some of you seem to be entertained by Mary (or at least entertained by your own loathing of her), so I hope this will prove amusing. In my life, I've encountered an inordinate number of low-key lolcows (probably because I was far too patient and far too passive for far too long), so I might as well throw just enough distortion on the page to protect the good guys and the genuinely reformed beards. But I'm also gonna shine a bright, unflattering spotlight on the lolcows, creeps, weirdos, pervs, and BEARDS, both neck and leg.
And I'll very, very cautiously tiptoe over the bit where I do a bunch of mental gymnastics, squint my eyes, tilt my head, and convince myself that dating Whisky might be a welcome change of pace. I have no delusions when I look back on it. This was a dumb move in retrospect, but all the mental gymnastics in the world can't bring me to a reasonable scenario where I was psychic and thus able to predict what he'd become once he stopped pretending to be a gentleman. Nor can the most elite, Olympic-level mental gymnastics execute a double salto layout with a half-twist perfectly enough to force me to concede the "logical point" that I should have spotted warning signs that I'd never freakin' seen before. Okay, that's enough saltiness for today. Don't worry. This chapter mostly focuses on Mary's mania. Whisky's just kind of... there.
So there I was... dating a guy who called when he said he would, remained constant in his affections, never asked for weird stuff in the sack (in fact, we weren't even intimate at that point), and claimed to be a secular humanist who practiced elements of Hinduism (as opposed to conveniently becoming born-again whenever it suited his needs to wallow in shame). And we seemed to have similar enough tastes in media, which made for pleasant movie nights and enjoyable conversations about nerdy stuff. It felt like a step up. It felt safe. At that point in time, I was content.
But here's a shameful admission for ya. My original intention was to make Whisky the "for now guy." I knew I could do better. I was formally educated, I was in shape, I was normatively attractive, and I tended to be successful in both my theatrical and academic endeavors. Plus, I was super friendly and good with people. Whisky was kind of a bump on a log. Sure, he seemed nice. He was sometimes able to make interesting conversation. But my overall sentiment regarding the relationship was, to quote Whisky's favorite catch phrase, "Meh."
I knew he was mooching off his mysterious "big bro," and he wasn't doing this with the intention of saving up and eventually becoming self-sufficient. He just kicked up a fuss whenever he wanted something, and... it usually appeared. I still thought he was physically unattractive, too. I hate nasty-ass beards, I have a strong preference for shorter guys (they don't need to be as short as Dennis, but I don't exactly love being towered over), and Whisky had whatever the dude version of resting bitch face is. I admonished myself for being shallow and decided to soldier on. Date after date. And I did kind of get used to all the shallow things I objected to.
But, really... Dating Whisky at all was a dick move on my part. Then again, how many Nice Guy (TM)s want girls to do exactly what I did? Not attracted? Think he's kind of a bum? Find him a bit boring? Just give him a chance!!! Go on a crap-ton of dates with him until you like the familiarity enough to settle for him. That's the key to a healthy relationship!!! It never works. You could flip this around and apply it to Nice Girls who want pity dates, too.
Anyway. Lucy knew I was dating Whisky, and she thought it was great. She was honestly just happy to see that I was no longer pining over Dennis and that Whisky was no longer getting relentlessly stalked by Mary. Speaking of Mary... She'd had an imaginary dramatic breakup with Scumbanger not long after she crashed Lucy's brunch. Murky aside... The following summer, I'd do another show with the pervy pest and I'd find out that Mary had given the former Rum Tum Tugger a tug in the parking lot of The Imp and had let him motorboat her. When dozens of lewd messaged filled his inbox the following day, the most indiscriminate playboy I'd ever met in my freakin' life blocked that clingy legbeard's number and never had any further contact with her. But seeing as neither of them are especially reliable sources, my best guess is that the truth is somewhere in between.
After the dramatic "breakup" with Scumbanger, Mary immediately became obsessed with the new tech guy (and his wife). They allegedly had something of a throuple situation going on, but no one ever witnessed any hard evidence of this. And then Mary and Tech Guy's wife allegedly had a catfight in the middle of the fancy restaurant where the three spent their date nights. Mary did have a shiner and a scraped knee for a few weeks, and she intimated to me that Chuckie was actually the one responsible for her looking a little rough...
I believed her because there was something very different about her demeanor when she told me this. When she was in larger groups, she just screeched about how she thought the catfight was foreplay until Tech Guy ghosted her. Yet again, we'll never know the truth. But I err on the side of belief when someone tells me that DV is going on in their home, even if I generally regard that person as a delusional pathological liar. Plus, Mary had never badmouthed Chuckie before and she never made excuses for her philandering. She just felt entitled to any ding-dong she desired. Bottom line, I think there was an unfortunate incident, and I urged her to report it. She didn't; but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
And, yes. I think we're allowed to show compassion for Mary if Chuckie did indeed do what she was accusing him of. She absolutely deserved to get dumped in a spectacular fashion. No one deserves violence, though. But I think we're also allowed to laugh at Mary when she's acting like a crank-crazed maniac.
Moving on to lighter topics! Mary claimed to be having a hot, steamy affair with the artistic director of The Imp. At first, this seemed outlandish. But he had been the one to hire her. And he repeatedly refused to replace her when she consistently failed to learned her lines, ran around naked, and contributed little more than mukbangs to the comedy (again, I personally found it funny when she did that, but I was in the minority).
Some skullduggery was definitely afoot. Was it "sexy time," as Mary enthusiastically claimed? Who knows. Chuckie might have been paying the dude to give Mary a hobby. But not long after Mary started boasting about boning the artistic director, he suddenly began calling her out on her unprofessional behavior. They "broke up," but Mary managed to avoid getting kicked out of the improv troupe, bragging that she could sue the director for sexual harassment if he fired her.
And then... there was the pièce de résistance of Mary's misadventures in mating. She met a biker dude at Filthy McNasty's. This guys was disgusting. Most of her previous dudes had been questionable, weird, or possibly imaginary. But we all saw this one. He was as fat as a Hutt, he smelled like a grease trap, motor oil, B.O., and a very specific type of cheese... The few teeth that he had were black and green, his fingernails were yellowed and a few of them oozed pus. Finally, the volume and crackly, bubbly properties of his frequent farts indicated to George Gay that he, "definitely had a virgin booty." Mary's lard-ass loverboy called himself "Hogg," which was probably a reference to the two-wheeled vehicle that he was very obviously too large to actually ride. Or it might have just been an obvious nickname for a filthy fat fuck.
But Hogg, like Tech Guy a few loverboys ago, had a wife. And she made frequent appearances at Filthy's as well. Hogg's wife was shockingly... kind of pretty. A little rough around the edges. Didn't smell the greatest. But she stood in stark contrast to her repugnant hubby, even with her fried hair, her sloppily inked tats, and her imprecisely applied eye makeup. Her teeth were free of obvious rot. She had a beautiful figure. And she had a carefree attitude that was probably attractive to a number of people. She'd fart right along with Hogg, she didn't shave her legs, and the profane compound nouns she came up with always cracked me up (lard-tard, smegma-booger, felch-belcher).
And Mary was once again claiming to be in a throuple with The Hoggs. But this time, there was hard evidence. They'd get busy in some corner of the establishment, and even got booted from the dive bar a few times for lewd behavior, offensive odors, and illegal drug use. On one particular night, Mrs. Hogg lit one of her hubby's gargantuan ass-rippers while Mary was doing her thing, completely shrouded by his big belly. The blue flame ignited some spilt booze on the dingy floor, and a small fire erupted. The staff were able to stomp it out, but the nasty throuple was unceremoniously banished.
Alas, management allowed Mary to re-enter the bar because she apparently had some sort of sway with one of the bartenders. Instead of meeting her...uh... "partners" for some more boom-boom, Mary decided to come back inside and gush about Hogg's majestic rooster to all of us. She smelled like D cheese, ammonia, and burnt farts as she plopped down at our table, already screeching about how much bigger her "new boo" was, compared to that vile turd of an artistic director.
George Gay: Fuck me, Mary!!! You reek. Go wash the uncircumcised methhead off your hands and then you can sit with us.
Mary started to protest. Lucy cut her off. "Your whole body is probably a veritable Petri dish from fooling around with those nasty-ass people." She handed Mary some Purell. "Was the junkie junk off, keep the bottle, and don't you fucking touch me when you come back!"
Mary's bottom lip began to quiver and she looked pleadingly at me. "Just wash up," I told her. "You're too pretty to go around smelling like that.”
Off she went to the dingy bathroom. Maybe I wasn't harsh enough, but flattery got results in this instance. And when she returned, she had managed to dilute the stench enough so that we could stand to sit at the same table with her.
Mary took a deep breath in preparation to gush about something that would have undoubtedly been disgusting, but George cut her off this time. "Mare. How do you even BANG someone with a belly like that?"
Mary (speaking a bit more quickly than usual): Oh, it just takes some creative positioning. We get him to lie down. If Mrs. Hogg is taking in the rod, I hold his bowl of jelly up with both arms and stick my cooter in his face. He eats it like his mommy made it! And when it's my turn to get blasted, the missus uses a bunch of yoga straps to hold it up. I have to take it from behind because my own little tiny bit of va-jiggle-jaggle bumps up against his bowl of jelly if why try to smash like vanilla people. It's so much fun, though!!! And then he props his bowl of jelly up on the coffee table and plays with himself while he watches his honey strap on a dil...
George: I so regret asking.
Mary: They're sooo fun to fool around with! I think they might be my forever partners! (Her hands were too shaky to slide down her body in unbridled ecstasy, so she clasped them together and hid them underneath her itty bitty little gunt.)
Lucy: So when are you gonna dump Chuck?
Mary: Well... Hogg and the missus don't have much scratch. And what they do have, they spend on smokeables. When I meet a real sugar daddy, I'll get rid of Chuckle. He pretended to be a baller before we got married. But he's just middle management and he's content to stay there. Pffffftt. No ambition.
Mary launched into another long, unnecessarily graphic gushing about her garbage partners and their nasty-ass boom-boom. So I decided this would be a good time to clear my conscience about dating Whisky. Mary hadn't so much as mentioned him in months. She was inexplicably smitten with The Hoggs. And her ultimate dream man was obviously some filthy rich dude (perhaps a literally filthy dude who was also rich), which took Whisky out of the running. I still think it would have been amusing if Mary had tried to date Mori...
I waited for her adult film star gasp to wind down before I finally interjected, "Wow. Sounds like you've got a fantastic sex life right now!"
Mary: I do! You need to get over that born-again weirdo and find a real man so that you and I can have good girl talk!
Me: Well... I'm not banging anybody, but I am dating somebody. Sort of. It's not really that big of a deal. I'm not even sure that I'm completely into him. But he's been super sweet to me...
Lucy put her arm around me, almost as if she knew I was about to need protection.
Mary: TELL ME!
I hesitated. "Well... It's Whiskers."
In an instant, George jumped up and grabbed Mary by the shoulders, lest she lunge at me.
But Mary got very quiet. Silent tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She gasped and buried her face in her hands, now emitting one seemingly endless, impossibly high-pitched whine.
George loosened his grip and began to pat her on the back. Lucy's grip tightened on me and she whispered, "Here we go. Overreaction sequence has commenced."
Mary lifted her red, tear-stained face and glared at me. "HOW COULD YOU???"
Me: Mary, I swear. I thought you hated his guts. I haven't heard you talk about him in ages. When he asked, I thought it would be good for me to give him a chance since he's always been really sweet to me.
Mary: But what about the way he treated ME??? He was such an asshole!
Lucy: Was he? Mary, you stalked the guy. If he was rude, it was only because you weren't taking NO for an answer.
Mary: He never told me he wanted to end things. He just kept ghosting me. But whenever I showed up at his house and jumped on him, we always wound up smashing. Eventually.
I didn't have the gumption at that point in my life to suggest to Mary that it's wrong on every imaginable level to coerce someone into intimate activity, regardless of gender. And even knowing what Whiskers would eventually become, he didn't deserve THAT. I should have called her out. Instead I tried to steer the conversation back to her current bedroom bliss and try to get her to resume thinking the disgusting thoughts that delighted her so much.
Me: Who cares what he's doing now?! Aren't you insanely happy with your fun new lovers???
Mary: NO! THEY STINK! HE'S FAT. I want my sexy Whisky-Boo Whiskers back!!! Give him back, Valley! Puh-leeee-eeee-eeeee-eeeease.
Me: I don't "have" him. I'm just seeing him. If he hurt you this much, why don't you try to sit down and have a real conversation with him? It might be good for both of you to clear the air.
Mary: He blocked me on everythi-iiiiiii-iiiii-iiiiiing. Waaaaaaaaaah!
Me: Well, I guess that's your answer. You probably overwhelmed him. He seems like a bit of a softy. Personally, I need a softy right now. But I think you need a manly man.
Mary rose. She gave me an icy stare. And then she cooed in an unnervingly sweet tone. "I love you, Valley-Boo. I know you didn't mean to break my heart."
Me: Thank you, Mary. Really, I wouldn't have even considered his initial invitation if you hadn't been calling him "Satan," and telling us all that you hated him, and dating all these new guys. I didn't do it to spite you, I swear. It just happened.
Mary (still creepily, icily sweet): Yes. We're so alike, you and I. It's perfectly understandable that the same guy would go for both of us. But you owe me. You owe me big.
Me: I'm gonna disagree with that. If you think I slighted you, just tell me to fuck off. If you really do understand that these things happen, then you'll accept that there was no malice on anyone's part.
Mary: Mmmm-hmmmm. We'll see about that.
She jiggled her Jupiters, tossed her hair, and stalked out of the dive bar...

AND THEN SHE BANGED DENNIS.

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Hello Apes.
Long time holder and sleeper over the last few years, just quietly holding and buying after believing in the DD of previous much more intelligent apes than I, no more so than the absolute chad who kicked this all off, DFV.
Although I should be working right now, I wanted to round up all of the tweets from yesterday and understand the messages behind what was being tweeted. It seems to me that although DFV has to be cryptic with his memes, he has had so long to line this up that there must be intentional messaging behind the tweets too.
This is pure speculation on my part and i've tried to go through the original tweet posts on here and pick up on anything in the comments that others might have picked up on.
11am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790034263603139012
Description: I'm not a massive Marvel watcher so maybe people can help me expand but the Thanos scene is taken from the ending credits of Scene of Age of Ultron where he has the infinity gauntlet in his hand saying "Fine, Ill do it myself" and the Wolverine scene is taken from X-Men origins where Wolverine is brought back to life and in remembering previous life events, went into a full on rage taking out everybody.
Edit\* As u/ friendofricks pointed out in the comments: Some additional info on the background noises of the Thanos tweet. Someone pointed out that the music and the background tapping were from Inglorious Bastards when the Bear J has the baseball bat and hits the not- see in the head. The second background with the audience cheering is from an audience reaction to Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers when Gandalf rides in to save the Battle of Helms Deep.
Speculation: The first tweet of the market day and a real statement of intent from DFV. Announcing to the world that he is truly back and he is still in. Lots of speculation about whether he would post a YOLO after hours (he did not) but certainly a statement of intent.
11.30am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790041813379850491
Description: First part is the final scene of Ferris Bueller's Day Off I believe after the credits roll breaking the 3rd wall to ask why you are still here. Next we have Breaking Bad and this is where Saul wants out of the operation as it's becoming high risk but Walter tells him that they are done when he says they are done. Then we have a cat waking from a slumber with the Radiohead song Exit Music (for a film) playing and finally we have the beginning piano music to 'Light of the Seven' from Game of Thrones.
Speculation: I believe the first part is a joke that a lot of people have probably asked you over the years and will certainly ask you over the coming days, "oh are you still holding that GME stock?", "why are you still doing that?" but it could also be directed towards DFV as well from SHFs, why are you still here? (what's an exit strategy huh?). The Breaking Bad reference is an excellent rebuttal to that, "we're done, when i say we're done" (SHF's are fk). The Cat waking slowly can describe DFV slowly waking from his slumber, remember his last tweet to sign off years ago of a Cat going to sleep? The song has some interesting lyrics which i won't post in full but you can see for yourself here Here. Just to pick a few lines out; "Today we escape", "Breathe, keep breathing, Don't lose your nerve", "I can't do this alone". The final part is probably my favorite scene from GoT, Cersei's plan comes to full fruition with sweet revenge when she blows up the temple of a cult that had embarassed her beforehand and threatened her rule. She makes them pay with a giant green explosion so take from that what you will. If you want to check out the scene you can find it here.
Edit\* As pointed out by u/ omegs "Exit music was also used in a black mirror episode, Shut up and Dance. For anyone that has watched Black Mirror this is one of the most famous episodes where a boy named Kenny is caught masturbating on camera (i.e with his pants down) to a video of a child and is blackmailed throughout the whole episode doing crazier stuff as it goes along only to still have the video of him released for the world to see"
12pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790049362846117942
Description: First we have V for Vendetta with "first the overture". Next we have a person driving in reverse from Ready Player One and then we have another scene from GoT where Daenerys (The Mother of Dragons) is facing confrontation from a murderous clan who are fighting against her claim over their city and her dragon waking up.
Speculation: The overture is an orchestral piece at the beginning of an opera and generally means an introduction to something more substantial, no need to expand further on that. I haven't seen Ready Player One but from looking at comments in other posts: The Ready Player One scene, he wins the race by beating the system. The GoT scene was the waking up Drogon to come to the aid of The Mother of Dragons while a group attempted to assassinate her, all looked lost until Drogon rode in to save the day. I tried to find the episode the check back but I'm pretty sure the actual dragon waking up scene is taken from an episode further into GME where the Dragon originally has blue eyes so I think that clip has been changed to include red eyes (GME red button anyone?)
Edit\* As pointed out in the comments by MrsDuckyJonez, "He did another Ready Player One scene years ago and it was the scene right before this one. It was really important because she tells him that he saw something that no one else saw- that in order to win (beat the system) he had to go backwards instead of racing for the finish line. The speculation back then when he posted it was that going back and looking at puts/calls was evidence that hedgies are fukd".\*
12:30pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790056912664601031
Description: Firstly, this is taken from Gangs of New York where Amsterdam's father is giving his son a shaving knife and stating "the blood stays on the blade" building up to a confrontation with Bill where he will eventually kill him with it. Then we go to the scene just before that happens but everyone has their faces painted in green. Finally we have the music video for Ludacris - Stand Up.
Speculation: I haven't seen Gangs of New York but from doing some research online about the significance of the hunting blade i came across this:

The shaving knife is symbolic.
"The blood stays on the blade" can be interpreted as "you can't wash away your sins."
One of the major themes of the film is that history repeats itself if we don't learn from its lessons.

Seems like a pretty simple message that SHFs haven't learnt their lessons and history is repeating itself right now, sign of things to come perhaps? Then we have Stand up, DFV having some fun here but the lyrics again have some interesting lines, "Watch out for the medallion, my diamonds are reckless", "What's wrong? The club and the moon is full", "One sure shot way to get 'em outta them pants". You can find the full lyrics Here
1pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790064464357724451
Description: Some car scenes here: Firstly we have a car driving off into the sunset taken from the Wiz Khalifa - See you Again music video (part of the Furious 7 soundtrack), then we have a car chase with a car pulling off a highway (not sure where this is from or if its a highway (i'm a UK ape) and finally we have another car chase but this one the driver has beaten the police cars and is pulling up.
Speculation: I like the take from u/ tajwriggly here where it could be that DFV is saying everyone thought he was driving off into the sunset for the life of ease... and who could blame him if he was? But no... he's right off the path and in the thick of things with the rest of us. I think all 3 scenes put together tell a short story, DFV seemingly riding off, then DFV giving it the big turn in a big chase and then DFV giving it the slip in his zen like state.
1.30pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790072011810812231
Description: First scene shows a woman on the verge of being beheaded before being spared at the last minute then we cut to a scene with 'Ain't no mountain high enough' coming in then finally Florence & the Machine with Dog Days Are Over.
Speculation: GME is going to run, there ain't no mountain high enough that's going to stop what this can reach and the DOG days are over, it's the days of the cat now.
2:00pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790079562866360327
Description: A beautiful cut scene of the avengers initiative charging as a team to save the world. All kinds of superheroes big and small.
Speculation: Whilst we are all individual investors we all do share in one common interest, we love the stock. There could be a case here for basket theory but I won't speculate on that further as I'm personally only interested in one stock but take from that what you will.
2:30pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790087112282239085
Description: The first scene is taken from the final duel in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly only some crowd cheering has been dubbed into the background. Then we have Thor coming down hard to smash everyone.
Speculation: There is a nervy standoff happening maybe between different short positions, who is going to blink first and close up knowing that making a move means bloodshed only...it doesn't matter because they are all going to get absolutely smashed anyway by the supreme hammer of Thor.
Edit\* As u/ JackTheBehemothKillr pointed out in the comments: The Good The Bad The Ugly song is from the Metallica S&M album, first song is Ecstasy of Gold from the movie. Transitions into Enter Sandman from the same album.

Is the first verse. Rest follows along with what DFV has been saying
Edit: "Take my hand, off to neverneverland"
Edit edit: Metallica has opened every concert with that same song since the early 80s
3:00pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790094668237259040
Description: First scene, "make no mistake it's not revenge he is after it's a reckoning", then we have a shotgun wielding man "you tell him i'm coming, and hells coming with me you hear?" and finally we have Narco with some baddass horse riders taking shots.
Speculation: As u/ strikeeagle points out, the Narco trumpets are synonymous with Mets fans as they bring in Edwin Diaz "Narco" to close up, usually when it's "Game over" for the opposing team. The reckoning is coming! Oh and Steve Cohen owns the Mets of course, trading is a tough game don't ya think?
3:30pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790102212619669909
Description: Pirates of the Caribbean scene where Captain Barbossa asks what has become of his precious and infamous ship, The Black Pearl. Then we have Men in Black where they press the red button and jet off.
Speculation: The captain is back to take back the ship and he is pressing the red button to send this into the stratosphere.
4:00pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790109766389477525
Description: Peeky blinders, Tommy Shelby, leader of the Shelby crew is prepping his family to be on their best behaviour just before they fleece a load of the elite at the races then we have another Peeky Blinders scene in which Tommy has another plan up his sleeve but in the end keeps it simple to achieve their goals for revenge.
Speculation: DFV has a plan and all that is required from GME loving people is just to keep your plums in order and enjoy the ride, don't make it more complicated than it needs to be, everything is already happening.
Edit: Sorry i missed one (i was in bed by this time 1am in UK)
8pm: - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790170162265460831
Description: The scene from Snatch where the Gypsy takes revenge on the gang that killed his mother after a continuing conflict throughout the film by taking to them with shotguns then we have the music video of BANG! by AJR and finally the Glengarry Glen Ross speech by Alec Baldwin with "oh, have i got your attention now?"
Speculation: Along the common theme here, Snatch is showing a big revenge with lots of shots fired and this is continued with lots more BANGS directed from Roaring Kitty. Finally the most interesting part of the video in my opinion, quoting the Glengarry Glen Ross Speech, I recommend you give it watch here but if you don't have time, ABC (ALWAYS BE CLOSING), YOU CLOSE OR YOU HIT THE BRICKS. Full scene here.
Let me know if you have anything to add below and hope you found this helpful. I really should do some work now.
Buy - Hodl - DRS
Love ya DFV x

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS NUMEROLOGY DECODE

Since we all know exactly who and what Spongebob is, I am going to do a Numerology decode.
When it comes to Numerology, there are many different things you can look into. I am going to look into the letters, patterns, and Numerology personality numbers.
SPONGEBOB has a personality #6. 6 is the number of compassion, work ethic, criticism, cleanliness, and productivity. In the funny show, we see that Spongebob is a workaholic. He has a 5 destiny number which shapes who you are overall. 5 is connected to youthfulness which explains the silliness of the Spongebob character. He is always laughing and doing things funny. The 5 energy indicates this. 5 also points to people, places, and things that are unique. He has an 8 soul urge which explains his undying ambition and creativity.
We can see that SPONGEBOB has 2 O's which has the numeric energy of 15 and numeric value of 6. 15 is the creative use of energy for productivity. Again, 6 is the number of routine, work ethic and productivity goes with this. This energy is not only his personality number, but also it is within his name. It's really in him.
SPONGEBOB HAS DOUBLE NUMERIC VALUES IN HIS NAME WHICH ARE, 7,6,5, AND 2. This explains why he is able to show his emotions and have moments of sensitivity(2). Very compassionate(2) but also childish and silly(5) and able to come up with plans that work(7). Since these #s has double influence, we must considered what they equal. 7 twice equals 14/5 which shows how he is responsible and can make work fun even though it is a duty(6). 6 twice equals 12/3 which shows his social skills, life, and creativity. Another youthful energy as well. 5 twice equals 10/1 which points to his bravery and capability to take action. 2 twice equals 4 which is home,family,responsibility, and structure on the home front and he would make everyone feel comfortable for the most part.
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​
​

Good evening. I just got home from a fun day of a baby shower that turned into a cook out. Its been an action packed week with a rewarding weekend that I will NEVER forget, even if the lights only visited me one night but no graphs or imagery tonight. I have pondered the events of the last 10 days and as I look back, it was a dream come true. Not just seeing something I have always wanted to see in the AB, but meeting all of you, and sharing this experience. Building the foundations of a community here on Reddit where we can share, learn, discuss, and explore free from any restraint or encumbrance in an inclusive setting where there are only two rules. Respect one other along the lines of the golden rule, treat as you would like to be treated and no politics. Remember the sun gives light and warmth to all regardless of what party you are with or what church or place of worship you attend or dont attend. I will emulate that and I encourage you to as well.
With all of that being said, I took my own advice today, and I went about my day, kept my eyes on things, and had zero expectations. I wanted to see the lights tonight and I was with a group of people who would have loved to as well. It has not happened as of yet, and to be clear, while the chances are shrinking, but they are not dead, at least for those more northerly. I personally will not be staying up tonight, but would it surprise me if we had a brief stretch of more intense activity than we are seeing? Not at all, but at the same time we have to go back to the night of the X5.98 before any models had run. If you recall, I was concerned about the NW trajectory of the last CME owing to its location and LASCO coronagraphs, but I was swayed by the SWPC going G5 in their warning and the possibility of cannibalization. Gosh I wanted it to be true, but I just could not commit. I thought it would be more intense than it is but I never wavered in my uncertainty. Uncertainty can be a cop out, but truly I was uncertain and I tried to manage all of your expectations appropriately.
A spike or two cannot be ruled out and the Kp index forecast is elevated for the next several days, but I think we can all safely conclude that another Friday night is not in the cards here in the lower 48. Unfortunately alot of folks in Canada who would still be able to get a glimpse or two are dealing with wildfire smoke which not only makes viewing difficult, but makes breathing difficult. Here is hoping that gets better soon. If you decide to be a die hard tonight against the odds, I wish you luck, and you are not exactly crazy for trying, but the odds are long at this point. If there was a big CME in the pipe moving faster than the others, it would have likely been here by now but some fluctuation is expected at lower or even moderate levels for the next few days. All in all, I got some things right this week and I got some things wrong. The one thing I did not get wrong, is this stuff is difficult to predict, and the models struggled with timing and severity. I was impressed with DONKI Scorecard though, I think it is a heck of a tool. I love how it takes all of the models into consideration and will be consulting it always going forward. It was definitely the most accurate of the model systems in my view, but you may feel differently. This can get subjective and with so many readings from so many places, locations, levels, etc, its a data mess right now and I see the high end numbers quoted quite a bit but its important we wait for all of the data to be parsed and analyzed. I expect some revisions and we will see what it looks like when the smoke clears on this storm.
As far as any and all tools go, I will never hold them back from you. I am not here to gatekeep or play man behind the curtain. I have no degrees. I am a self proclaimed armchair analyst and while I take the moniker seriously and credibility is important to me as silly as that may sound, I want you to know that I am very much a student still. Several years ago, I was right where most of you are. My appetite for knowledge of all things has always been voracious and I have had various passions at times, but never one that I just had to share with somebody, anybody. My 9 year old loves this stuff, and I am working on my wife, but YOU are who shared my passion the most, and that is what it is all about to me. Sharing. Learning. Teaching. Growing. I feel good that I do not have to make any significant retractions or revisions and that I gave you the best advice I could and I am happy with the result. And you know what, even though there were no aurora overhead tonight at the get together I was at, it still ended up with the group marveling at the stars and objects in our sky, as we went through and identified each one and its characteristics. Saw a shooting star and starlink go by. My sister who lives in Tampa called me very excited and said that she saw a meteor overhead in the area around 830 EST. Like everyone, she is awed by beautiful and rare occurences, but is not what I would consider an enthusiast, but boy there sure was enthusiam in her voice when she called. I just smiled to myself, and thought about how grateful I am for how this all played out and I think we have set a pretty high bar here, but I will try my best to meet it for you each and every time. This sub is called SolarMax and that is our primary focus, but as my day 1's are aware, we get into alot more than just the sun. There are more spectacles yet to come this year, dare I say the chances exist for something just as special and just as rare, maybe more. Topic for another day.
I have just a few more housekeeping items to discuss and then I will be signing off for the night. I have alot to catch up on this week in my real job. I neglected it this past week with no regrets, but its time to pay the piper and get caught up. I do my best work back against the wall anyway and am no stranger to pressure. As a result though, I may not be as engaged or engaging, but I will keep you apprised. Whatever I know, you will know.
SHOULD I BE WORRIED?
No. Not just about the storm we had, but the next storm, or the mag field. I need to make something abundantly and unequivocally clear. We are in NO immediate danger, nor are we in danger in the forseeable future. We have new sunspots coming around and the growth curve on them may be ramping up. Again, I am excited. Its solar maximum. This is a natural process. Could a CE happen? NOAA just told you this weekend there is a 2 to 10% chance in the decades to come. You dont need me to tell you that its possible, but again, all manner of things are possible and COULD happen. You can't get yourself worked up about something that COULD happen, when there is no signs it is imminent. Look, there is some confusion about the mag field and its ramifications. Its a complicated topic, truly it is, but the concerns are not immediate. Our mag field has been weakening for over 150 years, yet here we are. You probably did not even know that, yet life has gone on still.
The other thing you need to take away from that is this other than its not an immediate concern you should suffer anxiety from, its a long term issue, just like climate, that is of course assuming that they are not sort of one in the same. If you are not losing sleep and fretting about our oceans literally trying to boil right now, then you are practicing some cognitive dissonance around the topic of existential dread. One fear is not greater than the other, and all fear is the enemy. We are just fine. We are safe. Our magnetic field does its job. It IS weakening, but its weakening slowly. Official estimates are at 5% per decade currently. That is not overnight. Its not next week. Its not even certain we should be concerned about it, there are two sides to the coin after all. For all of these reasons, you cannot get yourself worked up about it. Besides you know what else above all? Worrying your ass off about the world ending will not buy you a single minute more of time living your life and doing what you love with the people you love, so get busy living, or you'll stay busy dying from being eaten alive from stress and worry. Should you be prepared? Yes. Whether its a tornado, flood, EQ, war, hurricane, mega super duper extreme solar storm, its never a bad idea to have some supplies and most importantly a plan. This will calm you, and if you ever have to need it, youll be glad of it, and youll have something to anchor to when your anxiety and shock make it difficult to just get to the next moment. More than that, build a community, because in a really tough situation, a community gets through. Certainly some of you remember GoT. In the long night, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. If you really are so worried about something so big and so totally out of your control, do that.
So people, take care of your mental health. If this stuff stresses you out, take a step back because it aint worth it. Can you imagine how silly the people on X who thought the world was ending this weekend feel right now? Most of them will never mention they were scared, or that they were panicking about nothing, they will never speak of it, and they will look for the next scare. I just hope they at least got to see the lights. Look, I will be real with you. When all of this started unfolding in earnest, and I knew the chances were there for a big storm, I posted my work in 2 places. Here and prepperintel. I met many of you from there. I posted it there because I respect the hell out of the suns power and I know that in the very very very rare event a CE or something of that nature unfolds, a few precious hours may mean everything. I am true to what I say. I do understand the risks, and I treat them appropriately, but I can only do so from a place of understanding and that takes time. Right now, what you NEED to know, is that we are safe, this was a great experience, the next sunspots may be more active, less active, the same as the departing regions, but there is a reason why the auroras have not dipped that far south in 20 years. So many things have to line up juuuust right for what we saw on Friday let alone a grid frying event. You would need a HUGE flare, and I do mean huge, no X5.98 or a twin peaked X1/M9 will suffice. Not only do you need a rediculously large flare, you need it to produce an earth directed CME, and while AR3664 seemingly did it at will, its not usually the case, but the times when its most likely to happen are during solar maximum. So many solar max have came and went and you never even knew it and you are still here on your tech.
I would like to think I know my stuff pretty well for an armchair expert, but I understand my limitations. There are people who are much more experienced, educated, and knowledgeable about the finer finer details and components of the space weather game that I am just barely beginning to grasp. Do you know that when I was first learning space weather that I used to get caught up in the same hype? I see that we had an X-Class flare, and Newsweek tells me that they can destroy powergrids, which is technically true, but damn if it doesnt leave out alot of nuance and fine details which are absolutely critical to understand in depth. So I get on Prepperintel and I make a post about it and I am ran off the damn sub because the people in there who knew more than I did knew it was nothing to be scared of. I was that person guys. If you felt that way this weekend, just know that I am you. But here we are, and now if I post something in there, those folks know its at least worth knowing about. Its a process. Its a complicated and nuanced topic, but its not inaccessible. I bet many of you had no idea that you could be a space weather observer like the folks at the alphabet agencies looking at the same data they do, but I hope you do now.
When I sat down to write this "small" update and goodnight, I did not expect to fill a page. I will tell you one thing about me. I have been called many many things in my life, but inarticulate is NOT one of them. I have more than a few video or YT live requests and maybe we get there eventually because I do think it will be cool and interactive. I may still cherish the written word but I am no dummy, I realize that is analog thinking in a digital world. However, here we are and I like the readers, because they are careful and considerate. They usually ave the attention span to get into complex subjects and are able to orchestrate exquisite theater of the mind.
This has been one of the most exciting and gratifying weeks of my life. I tried my best to keep up with the comments but I know I failed. Esp last night and today, I had to stop and smell the roses and its always family first in my world. Even if I had all day, I could not have kept up. These are human limitations of course, but I want you to know that I saw 99% of the comments, the posts, the messages, the pictures. I am deeply moved and I really appreciate everyone who took the time just to tell me their story, their experience, how this experience touched them, how they learned something new, how they werent scared anymore, who just appreciated the fact that Reddit now has a thriving dedicated solarmax community. I wish there was a way I could let you all know just exactly how much it all means, but these words will have to do. Thank you friends. We are only getting started. If you find yourself needing a fix though, check out the rest of the sub. Solarmax blew up this weekend, but we have been trying to get established for a bit and I say we, because it is not just me. Others have contributed, even when it was just a handful of people. I just can't say it enough, thank you thank you thank you. Every writer just wants someone to read their stuff. That is why they do it. If you can make a living at it, cool, but every writer started for free, and just wanted an audience, any audience, let alone one as awesome as you all.
And one final shoutout to Mrs AA for putting up with me absolutely glued to my phone, computer, and keyboard for the last 14 days and yes 14 days, because before AR3664 stole the show, lil ol AR3663 was trying so hard to make a name for itself, but just did not have the juice, but did depart with an X4.5 IIRC offhand. Solar max continues everyone, we got new sunspot groups to analyze, a few more mild impacts to come, and a ton of stuff to break down on the May 2024 Storms as well as the other topics I promised we would get into. We are only getting started and I look forward to sharing all of it with you.
For all of you who asked about whether you should chase your dream of astronomy or something space related, I have one final piece of advice this weekend. It does not matter if its space related, it just matters that you have a dream. If you have the ability and circumstance to chase or still chase your dream, you need to do it, whatever it is. The lucky(wise) people are not the ones who make millions on millions in a 80 hr work week where seeing their kids ball game is not even possible. The wise people are the ones who never work a day in their life because they love what they do and make a living that suits them and their family.
Good night everyone, and may you have clear skies.
AA

Vlad's Distressed Mistress: A New FNAF Theory....
A while ago, I came across a new perspective on a commonly overlooked part of the FNAF franchise, and I couldn’t help but not go deeper and share my findings. Plus with the advent of new FNAF content, this topic only seems to get more and more interesting.
Back in FNAF Sister Location, at the end of nearly each night, we find ourselves in what we assume to be Mike's house, where he spends some time watching a show called 'The Immortal and the Restless.' For those who may be new to the franchise, this four episode show seems to be styled after late 50's soap operas. Specifically, it is very similar in style and music to a real life soap opera called 'As The World Turns' from 1956 and also has a similar naming convention as 'The Young and the Restless' from 1973.
In Immortal, we catch a glimpse into the lives of Vlad the vampire and Clara, who are shown to be consistently on edge with each-other.
At a glance, this doesn't seem like much, but as I delved deeper I noticed many things that I have never heard or seen talked about in the FNAF community. So here it is, my notes and theories on what Scott might be trying to tell us through 'The Immortal and the Restless.'
Sources:

• The Five Nights at Freddie’s Ultimate Guide
• The Immortal and the Restless Series from FNaF Sister Location
• Five Nights at Freddie’s Fazbear Frights Book #1: Into the Pit Stitchwraith Stinger
• Five Nights at Freddie’s Security Breach
• Five Nights at Freddie’s The Movie

NOTE #1: William Afton had an Affair
As I was reading the Ultimate Guide, I came across the script for The Immortal and the Restless on pages 420 and 421. But what got me thinking wasn't what Vlad or Clara said, but it was the first lines that was spoken by the narrator.
In episodes 1 & 2 of I&R, Clara is described by the narrator as ‘Vlad’s distressed mistress…’
Immortal and the Restless: Episode 1
Narrator: Another day, another dramatic entry in the lives of Vlad and his distressed mistress!
Narrator: Will Vlad and hisdistressed mistressfind common ground? Tune in next time!
Immoral and the Restless: Episode 2
*Narrator: As the sun sets, so does another chapter in the saga of love lost between Vlad and his distressed mistress…
The fact that this phrasing was used three times got me to thinking. To start, what does the word mistress mean? According to to the official Oxford Language website, the word has two meanings;

1. A woman in a position of power or authority
2. A woman having a extramarital sexual relationship, especially with a married man.

With this in mind, I am under the impression that Vlad and Clara are NOT married. Clara does brings up a Dimond ring in episode 4: ‘Well, how’s this? Im keeping the diamond ring.’ I believe that she is most likely referring to a engagement ring, which only further cements my initial observation that these two are NOT married.
Through-out the story of I&R I find no evidence that Vlad and Clara are married. From the language used in the script to even watching the shorts closely and taking note of their hands for wedding bands. Nothing. They are referred to as ‘long lost lovers’ and ‘star-crossed lovers’, but nothing that indicated that they officially ‘tied the knot’.
With this information, I believe that Vlad had an affair with Clara and cheated on Mrs. Vlad. Then, if we are to assume that Vlad is a representation of William Afton in this story, than I believe that Willam had an affair with another woman. This is why Mrs. Afton left, sure William was probably consumed by his work with the animatronics, but the fact that he cheated on her is most likely what sent her off the edge.
NOTE #2: Child Support
As I was reading trough the I&R script again, there are a few times that the story brings up Vlad having to pay child support.
Immortal and The Restless: Episode 1
Clara: Well, then, at least pay your child support, you deadbeat!
Immortal and the Restless: Episode 4
Narrator: But what about the baby? What about the back child support?
Why would Vlad have to pay child support? If we are building off of the theory that Vlad cheated on his wife, she probably filed for divorce and demanded custody of the baby. A custody battle ensued, with Vlad coming out on top, giving us an explanation of why we see the baby with him in I&R. I then looked through-out the franchise and, wouldn’t you know it, there is a reference to a custody case in three other places.
1.Fazbear Frights Stitchwraith Stinger #1 (The Books)**
In the first Stitchwraith stinger at the end of the first Fazbear Frights book Into the Pit, we meet Detective Larson who just divorced his wife and is in the middle of a custody battle over their seven-year-old son Ryan.
2.Five Nights at Freddie’s Security Breach: Retro CD 4-7140 (A Modern Game)**
In Retro CD 4-7140, while having a session with Vanessa, the therapist brings up the fact that Vanessa’s father, Bill, ‘didn’t play fair’ when he was in a custody battle with Vanessa’s mother. Quote from the game;
Therapist: I know you do. Your supervisor notes that you follow instructions perfectly. Your dad made you follow instructions, didn’t he? I’m talking about the custody battle between your mom and your dad. Your dad didn’t play it fair, did he? He used to make your mom look bad in court.
While this snippet could be used to explain how Vanessa got to where she is in the game, I think that this has a deeper meaning that could relate to this story in I&R.
3.Five Nights at Freddie’s The Movie**
In Five Nights at Freddie’s Movie, one of the main points of the film is that Mike was *fighting for custody** of his sister Abby against their horrible aunt. It is one of, if not the main reason why Mike accepted the job at Freddie’s in the first place.
With all of this in mind, the biggest question is WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Ok, so William Afton had a custody battle, but for which child? Is it Crying Child? Is it Michael? Or is it Elizabeth? What other implications does this have on the lore overall? For that, I am still working out an answer.
Regardless, the fact that this comes up FOUR different times in multiple aspects of the franchise gives me more than enough reason to think that Scott is trying to tell us something. Now, I personally do not have open access to either the Fazbear Frights or Tales from the Pizzaplex series, so there could be a chance that there could be more cases of custody battles. For that, I reach out to you, my fellow theorists, please comment down below and let me know if there are other instances of this in the franchise.

1. "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim."
2. "'Ohana' means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten."
3. "Giving up is for rookies...I'm willing to go the distance. How about you?"
4. "Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?"
5. "Think happy thoughts!"
6. "Yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it."
7. "Long live the king."
8. "Remember who you are."
9. "What do you want me to do? Dress in drag and do the hula?"
10. "What makes a monster and what makes a man?"
11. "If watching is all you're gonna do, then you're gonna watch your life go by without ya."
12. "But you remember, Tiana, that old star can only take you part of the way. You got to help him with some hard work of your own."
13. "No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dreams that you wish will come true."
14. "I am your wife! I’m the greatest good you’re ever gonna get."
15. "I never look back, darling! It distracts from the now."
16. "Because we invaded their land and cut down their trees and dug up their earth?"
17. "Don't tell me, we're about to go over a huge waterfall... sharp rocks at the bottom... bring it on."
18. "Would you like to stay forever!?"
19. "The greatest gift and honor... is having you for a daughter."
20. "There's no one I'd rather be than me."
21. "Not anyone can be a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere."
22. "Some people are worth melting for."
23. "I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way."
24. "Take her to the moon for me."
25. "You'll have your looks, your pretty face. And don't underestimate the importance of body language!"
26. "The word I'm searching for — I can't say, because there's preschool toys present."
27. "Don't you get it!? You see the hat!? I am Mrs. Nesbitt!"
28. "To infinity and beyond!"
29. "You're not scary. Not even a little bit. But you are fearless."
30. "No matter where I go, you will always be my mother."
31. "Thanks for the adventure — now go have a new one! Love, Ellie"
32. "There is nowhere you could go that I won't be with you."
33. "You're exactly what this family needs."
34. "Like so many things, it is not what's outside, but what is inside that counts."
35. "If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all."

Link to article

Hello bibliophiles of bangtan!
Here’s a little reminder to come back to us next week for the discussion of our May Books with Luv pick. We’ll be diving deep into the myriad of choices we could have made in our lives and how serendipitous it is that Namjoon’s music video happens to echo this.

Discussion on ‘The Midnight Library’ starts on May 20th

Looking forward to chatting with you all next week!

We Deserve A Life.. Maybe Many

Below is a discussion guide. Some book-specific questions and other sharing suggestions!

• What were some of the ideas or instances that you liked from The Midnight Library?
• Upon walking into The Midnight Library and finding out what it is and how it works, Mrs. Elm asks Nora what she would have done differently to address her regrets. Is this something you have thought about as well?
• No matter the reality, Nora realizes that the good also comes with the bad. What is the author trying to tell us?
• What do you think were Nora’s worst and best plots?
• I couldn’t not ask this question - did reading this book affect you in any way when you watched the music video for Come Back To Me? Did it give you a different perspective?
• In both the book and the music video, there is a guiding figure who helps the protagonist come to terms with and accept themselves for who they are. What are your thoughts on this?

B-Side Questions/Discussion Suggestions

• Fan Chant: Hype/overall reviews
• Ments: favorite quotes
• ARMY Time: playlist/recommendations of songs you associate with the book/chapters/characters
• Do The Wave: sentiments, feels, realizations based on the book
• Encore/Post Club-read Depression Prevention: something the book club can do afterwards (on your own leisure time) to help feel less sad after reading.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change. A book on the many lives a person could have led, Namjoon was seen recommending this book in In the Soop Season 2.

I wanna spend All Day with the book (How to get the book)

• Title: “The Midnight Library”
• Author: Matt Haig
• Publisher: Cannongate Books
• Publication Date: 13 August, 2020
• ISBN-13: 978-0-525-55948-1
• Format: It is available either in hardback, paperback, audiobook and ebook
• Please also check with your local libraries (where applicable) for loan availability
• Link to Amazon Link to Google Books Link to Barnes & Noble Link to Spotify Premium Audiobook

Things change, people change, everything change (but we don’t)

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the book or the thread, feel free to tag me or any of the mods or BWL Volunteers.

• u/EveryCliche
• u/munisme
• u/mucho_thankyou5802
• u/Next_Grapefruit_3206

…and the bangtan Mod Team

"What are the differences that separate sci-fi and fantasy into different genres? Do they really hold up, and are they important? [...]
What bothers me, however, is the sense I get that assigning Star Wars the label of fantasy is a kind of relegation. That is, it’s not just that the fantasy label is a better fit, but that Star Wars is too unserious to deserve to be classified as sci-fi. Fantasy is fuzzy and frivolous, sci-fi is sophisticated and cerebral. [...]
Star Trek, by comparison, has very serious and grounded mechanisms like warp cores and transporters and dilithium crystals, which are also made up but could be totally scientifically plausible. Except that the scientific plausibility of dilithium-based technology, much like the parsec error, doesn’t matter. In fact, you could say it anti-matters ."
Kristen Patterson (Reactor Mag):
Link: https://reactormag.com/lets-start-a-fight-are-science-fiction-and-fantasy-the-same/
Quotes/Excerpts:
"The other day, my dad texted me a link to this John Hodgman piece
Judge John Hodgman’s Case for Categorizing ‘Star Wars’ as Fantasy
weighing in—or I guess I should say “adjudicating”—on whether the Star Wars series is really sci-fi or fantasy. This was apropos of an argument we (dad and I; Hodgman was not yet involved) had over the holidays about the delineations between those two genres. I proposed that the delineations between science fiction and fantasy can be more aesthetic than substantive; he maintained that there are more fundamental differences. He prosecuted his case with a lot of references to Star Trek, a childhood favorite of his which he introduced to us, his own children, in turn. I, like an egghead, countered with many “yes, but” theoretical arguments. [...]
May it please the court:
The Honorable John Hodgman, we should note, begins his short piece by noting that he also finds genre distinctions, or arguments about said, to be questionable or tiresome. Nonetheless, he delivers a verdict, finding that Star Wars is a narrative fueled by nostalgia rather than futuristic speculations, landing it much closer to Tolkien than Trek. This is a common enough differentiation between sci-fi and fantasy: that they look towards different horizons, the latter retro-gazing, the former speculating on what could be. Construed in this way, the two genres are not just different but full opposites.
And that is indeed a perfectly workable measure for explaining how sci-fi and fantasy stories have been traditionally classified. What bothers me, however, is the sense I get that assigning Star Wars the label of fantasy is a kind of relegation. That is, it’s not just that the fantasy label is a better fit, but that Star Wars is too unserious to deserve to be classified as sci-fi. Fantasy is fuzzy and frivolous, sci-fi is sophisticated and cerebral. (Plenty of people, I’m given to understand, think all genre fiction is fuzzy and frivolous, but that’s another matter.)
The emblematic example of Star Wars’ conceptual squishiness is that it misuses the metric of the parsec, referencing it as a measure of time rather than distance. Someone has likely explained this factoid to you before, probably one of those early figures in your life who tried to convert you to pedantry. We all had them. Mine were well meaning, good humored, and delightful. But we likely also overlook the parsec error, because we recognize that the real central concept of Star Wars is “the Force,” which has nothing to do with science and everything to do with feelings. Frivolous. Fuzzy.
Star Trek, by comparison, has very serious and grounded mechanisms like warp cores and transporters and dilithium crystals, which are also made up but could be totally scientifically plausible. Except that the scientific plausibility of dilithium-based technology, much like the parsec error, doesn’t matter. In fact, you could say it anti-matters (yuck yuck).
What is important about the starship Enterprise is not how it goes but where it goes. Star Trek may feature many, many episodes that revolve around fixing the warp core, but for the most part the concepts Trek wants to explore are really political and sociological, about interactions between the diverse crew and encounters with alien life. How many of these civilizations’ representatives are eager to sleep with Commander Riker? Better make a tally. For science. But specifically for the “soft” science of sociology.
To be sure, the sociological premises of Trek interact with its technological ones. [...]
So: if we dispense with the technobabble and just say our space machine or what have you is powered by magic, what exactly do we lose? Just the flashing lights on the dashboard? I am willing to concede that we do lose slightly more than just that.
Because it’s often futuristic and therefore less likely to hold itself constrained by historical precedent, science fiction may, generally, be more inclined or more free to imagine radical ideas. The aforementioned moneyless society of Star Trek, for instance. But that is just a tendency and not a strict constraint. Fantasy stories set in alternate worlds are just as free to imagine strange, unprecedented societies as sci-fi set on alien worlds.
While a considerable bulk of traditional fantasy takes inspiration from medieval Europe, it’s disingenuous to say that worldbuilding that deviates from either European or other historical models is therefore “unrealistic,” as author and medievalist Shiloh Carroll points out in a critique of how the House of the Dragon showrunners have discussed the inclusion of elements like sexual violence in their show as necessary toward the interest of historical accuracy. Phillip Maciak had the same note for House of the Dragon’s parent series, Game of Thrones, in a review from back in 2011. We’re all, evidently, still waiting for someone to hear it…
Regardless, while they might trend in different directions, both fantasy and sci-fi are equally free to imagine whatever they will, empowered by the license of otherworldliness and the equally potent forces of either magic or super-advanced technology. [...]
But I promised that we would actually concede one major difference between the sci-fi and fantasy genres. And we will. Is everybody ready? Here it goes: people don’t relate to them in the same way.
I know: groundbreaking. But really. Technobabble may be, for all intents and purposes, the same excuse as “it’s magic,” performed with slightly more elaborate hand-waving, but science-y explanations flatter the sensibilities of some readers who may otherwise have a more difficult time getting on board with a premise that isn’t legitimized by a rational explanation. (As evidence of this dynamic, I submit the classic Dropout, née College Humor, sketch “Why Can’t You Use Phones on Planes?”) We live in fairly rationalist societies—and we should keenly note here the difference between “rationalist” and “rational”—so we like to be reassured that we are not engaging with bald-faced flimflam. The rationalist, scientif-ish explanation places its impossibilities on a continuum with the scientific and technological advances of the modern era. Sure, it’s not possible now, but it could be in the future! This concern has even bled over into fantasy and its sweatily rationalized and rule-bounded “Hard Magics,” whence the Larry Niven corollary “any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science”
The reverse also applies, with the fantasy genre’s monarchs who are destined to reign over all appealing to a human liking for neat and “natural” hierarchy. Even Ursula K. Le Guin, who consistently problematizes hierarchy across her work, indulges some in this trope with the character Lebannen from the Earthsea series, whose ascension to the throne parallels a cosmic return to natural order at the conclusion of The Farthest Shore.
Both of these gestures are different sorts of appeal to legitimacy, the legitimacy of scientific rationality on one hand, and the legitimacy of tradition and historicity on the other. Both have the effect of offering their audience some form of comfort to counterbalance any ensuing strangeness. But people do relate differently enough to these forms of legitimacy that it would be disingenuous to write them off the same thing. As with many labels, the distinction being made is not so much to do with the qualities or inner workings of the things described; rather, they evoke the different ways we feel about the things described. And feelings matter, since they inflect the way that we read—or write.
Because its genre boundaries are defined by the somewhat persnickety standard of rationality, sci-fi has to be a little more choosey about what it will admit to its club. Hence, when Star Wars flubs the definition of a “parsec,” science fiction apologists must rush to disavow it as mere fantasy. [...]
There’s a line in the denouement of the musical My Fair Lady where Eliza, a lower-class girl who has been trained in upper-class affectations, explains what she has realized about class distinctions. “You see, Mrs. Higgins,” Eliza tells her erstwhile tutor’s mother, “apart from the things one can pick up, the difference between a lady and flower girl is not how she behaves but how she is treated.
We can and should apply Eliza’s epiphany to a liberal swath of topics, including the matter at hand. Star Wars is as much science fiction as John Hodgman is a judge. They’re both wearing the right pajamas. The rest is all about how they are treated. As for the treatment of fantasy, or of fantasy elements in whatever genre they might lie, we might do ourselves some good by treating them less literally—they are impossible!—and permit ourselves thereby to take them more seriously.
Kristen Patterson (Reactor Mag)
Link (Full Essay):
https://reactormag.com/lets-start-a-fight-are-science-fiction-and-fantasy-the-same/

2024-175 / Zedd MAP: 94.50 / MLZ MAP: 91.56 / Score Gap: 2.94 - heartbreaker, my MAP just under a “Gold Star” but ((the MAP is the MAP))
Wikipedia / IMDb / Official Trailer / Our Collection
It’s a rare thing, for true, but every so often I think to myself, “Zedd…” I say, “maybe it’s a good day for a Western.” I pulled up Western-Genre in the Movie Collection Catalog (MCC) and (being incredibly taxed for time), I decide on Maverick (1994) - Zedd MAP: 64.97 / MLZ MAP: 58.56. Methinks its an easy “yes” because the write up will write itself, it’s already completely filled in (particulars-wise in the MCC), and with MLZ’s score still current, she won’t have to pay close and careful attention (you know, she’s on the clock). Win-win-win if ever there was one.
From IMDb: An inexperienced farm boy hooks up with a legendary outlaw in Mexico and both are soon on the run from the law, Mexican bandits, and two families bent on revenge.
Of course, I checked to see if I’d already written up Maverick and I noticed u/Nwabudike__Morgan dropped a sweet quote from a Mel Brooks film. “Well damn,” I say, “maybe Spaceballs (1987) - MAP: 96.28 is a better fit?” I mean, I haven’t dropped it in the machine since February 2020. Yes - the matter settled, I head upstairs to grab The Mel Brooks Collection. Good deal - easy 100% good time plan.
Up the stairs I go, but I got about 30 of those Digital Code Tags - we’ve been scouring the movie cases upstairs and inputing them, expired or not. Mrs. Lady Zedd’s been doing the inputting end and says 80% of the expired tags have been accepted somewhere - Movies Anywhere, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu/Fandango. If not the one listed on the tag, she tries it on the others. I’ve currently got 289 titles that come up in the MCC under Digital Library. It grows a little more each day but damn, those file backs have been crazy the last few shelves.
At any rate, tags returned, next shelf pulled, I try (for the life of me) to remember what the hell movie I was suppose to grab… a western, right? Was it The Magnificent Seven? ((No… something funny)) Support Your Local Sheriff ((that’s it, I was just thinking about James Garner!)) So I go over to the ‘S’ shelf and pull the flick and am halfway down the stairs when I freeze… no - not Support Your Local Sheriff((fuck me)) - Spaceballs, goddamn it, Spaceballs… what the hell is wrong with me. Too many movies running through my hands in one day. Back up the stairs I go.
I put the movie back with a chuckle, move over to the ‘M’ shelf - M for Mel Brooks Collection - and there it is - big chunky brick of a case with all his best films (minus The Producers… either of them) and pull it and now - confident, inspired, finally ready - I come down the stairs and pop the case to flip through the offerings - each one marked “Mission”.
((…))
Wait… Mission?
I look in my hands and Jiminy Crickets - I grabbed the Mission Impossible Collection by mistake. I stood, staring at it for a good long while - shaking my head, a small laugh escaped my lips. I mean - what does a movie dude gotta do?
So I watched Barbarosa instead - it was already down here.
Movie on.
+
Barbarosa: Well, the Mexicans got a saying - what cannot be remedied must be endured.
+
Zeddblidd: Wisdom is always right where you find it - you just need to be smart enough to pick it up.

Bundle deals available! There are mostly samples, but there are some full-sizes as well. I priced to sell, but am open to reasonable offers. More details are on my spreadsheet. New items added recently!

• Most perfumes were received direct from the original store. If you want me to double-check, just let me know!
• All perfumes are kept in a cool, dark place. I live in a non-smoking and pet-free house.
• Payment via PayPal G&S. I will send an invoice. Prices are in USD.
• If buying multiple items that aren't already bundled, make me a reasonable offer for a discount :)
• I will ship within 7 days of payment, though I am often much quicker and will ship same/next day!
• Shipping is $13 tracked to Canada unless you're only getting a few samples, in which case it's $3 without tracking. Shipping to the US is typically around $13 tracked (I will provide a quote based on zip code).
• If purchasing >$50, I'll offer a 50% discount on shipping. If >$125, shipping will be free regardless of location!
• I'm mostly looking to sell, but will consider swaps for scents listed on my ISO tab. However, I'm looking to get multiple items (at least three) from one seller.

Fantome:
Ivan the Fool, Vasilia (FS)
Stereoplasm:
Candle in the Window, Clemency (2 samples are available), Disco Stardust (both a FS and sample are available), Excitation, Flowers in the Rain, Gone Gnome, Kindling, November Cakes, Opaline, Peche Immortelle, Perdotmint (both a FS and sample are available), Reverie, Rickey, The Presents, Toasted Matchimellow (FS), Wilde, Yellownog
CocoaPink:
Black Sugar Cake, Black Voodoo, Fear of Ghosts, Full Moon, Gooey Caramel, Handbook for the Recently Deceased, Haunted Carnival, Pumpkin Kiss, Scarecrow, Warm Mittens, You'll Never Grow Old
Possets:
Mrs. Rabbit's Carrot Cake (FS), Silver Narcissus, Solis Anima
Pulp Fragrances:
An Accidental Interloper, Embrace, South Star, The Phantom Room, Women In Dresses Running From Houses 2021
Nui Cobalt:
Hell Freezes Over, Little Brown Rabbit, Mendacity: Horchata, Roll Initiative
Arcana Craves:
Blueberries Crave Sunshine
Sucreabeille:
Alembic (FS)
Arcana Wildcraft
Witches Cavort with Cupcakes (FS)
Hexennacht
I ♥ the 80’s
Andromeda's Curse
Strength, The Call of the Void
Black Hearted Tart
Autumn Sweater, Electric Feel, Fade Into You, Girlfriend In A Coma, Glory Box, Head Over Heels, Heart Shaped Box, Honeybee, Melt With You, My Velouria, Only In Dreams, Piece Of My Heart, Pink Moon
Poesie
Nectar
Astrid
Ensoleille
Whisper
Alkemia
Vanille Armour (FS)
Link again: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19URt2wyxl2xQd8XN2CPKzqBv0ZANl65yUTx9Gx_u0a4/edit?usp=drive_link
Thanks for checking out my destash!

My community is romanian so it was originally written in romanian, just translated it with chat gpt now so that may be why some words or expressions sound weird.
How to Find Urban Exploration Locations Without Someone's Help
Google is your friend: Search, Maps, and Earth.
Most of the locations I explore are found online. The internet is the most important resource we have in urban exploration and it's not that hard to use it properly. If you search and don't find information online (let's say in Bucharest), it means you haven't searched enough (I've been to hundreds of locations in the past year, and 90% were found online) xD
I. Before you search, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

1. What do you want to find?

Okay, urban exploration locations. What kind of locations? Are they abandoned houses or buildings, unfinished construction sites, abandoned industrial buildings, forts or bunkers, etc. There are many options, and you can easily find information by using specific searches.

1. Where is the location?

Again, the volume of information on the internet is absolutely huge, and it helps to have a specific search (street, sector, city, county, region, country etc.).

1. In what form do you think the information you want is? Where do you think you'll find it? Is it a social media post or a blog? Is it an article in the press? Is it in an official document?

Depending on the answer, you can adapt your search. In practice, various terms are used depending on the purpose of the text. The most efficient way to get used to this (it becomes instinctive at some point) is practice :))
II. Finding a potential location and confirming it.
The most basic option is to search for pre-made lists of abandoned places. You can search on Google for "abandoned places Bucharest" and find posts on forums, websites, social media, etc.
Obviously, the information is not always up to date (in fact, in urban exploration, it's rarely up to date), and you need to check if the location is still abandoned, which is relatively simple. Let's say you found Alex Iacob's website (Reptilianul) and see an interesting location. Let's say Aversa. It's not a good idea to assume that's all because you might end up at the location and find it's a guarded ruin (or that you're trying to enter an active building protected by the military even though it seemed like a ruin online - real story, sadly).
I first search on Google Earth what the location looks like (btw, just because it looks like that on Earth or Maps doesn't mean it's like that in reality because the image is not always updated) and check 3D or street view. If it still looks abandoned (broken windows, broken fences, graffiti, holes in walls, vegetation, holes in the roof, etc.), I do some searches on Google to find additional information. You don't always find something useful like this, but in the case of famous buildings, there is plenty of information online (check their current status and look for the latest news/posts). In the case of less known buildings, it helps to search for the exact address to see what their situation is.
And if we're talking about searches, there are some relatively well-known things ignored by many people. When you search for something on a standardized search engine (let's say a simple search on Google), you find enough close results. Basically, it searches for similar terms but not exact ones, which usually doesn't help us. You can avoid this by using an advanced search (especially since you can avoid some terms, so if you're looking for a news story about an abandoned building, you can avoid news about mainstream ones) or by putting the searched terms in quotation marks. Another thing is searching for the type of documents. Let's say you want to search for locations using some official documents. In this case, you can search by file type. For example: "abandoned buildings" filetype:pdf (and you find documents in pdf format containing the words you searched for).
Well, now you can search for some tips and tricks on Google searches because there are plenty of them :))
Another option is to spend a lot of time on Maps or Earth to find locations that seem abandoned and then check them. Here it's about patience and discipline. You can't really rush the process, you just have to invest time and effort, and you'll find locations 100%.
III. Physically verifying online information.
Regardless of your skill in finding online information, you still need to physically verify it. This depends on the person and your circumstances.
I'm more paranoid by nature, and I admit I have some issues with anxiety/overthinking, so I try to make everything as safe as possible (especially from a legal point of view). This means I don't take many risks, I check the buildings physically before entering, I take a quick look around without entering at that time. I look for guards, cameras, entry and exit ways from a building (the entrance can be slower but subtle, the exit should be quick, even if it's too obvious). Preferably, multiple exits and entrances, just in case (and it works, I haven't received any fines in 4-5 years of urban exploration).
What you do next is your choice. I prefer not to take risks if I see something suspicious; it's not like the location will disappear if I don't enter it right away.
IV. You've seen a location in someone's post and want to go there too.
Here it's complicated (obviously, you don't spam the person with messages "give me the location too"). If the photos are from inside a building, it's hard to figure out the location (not impossible). In theory, a location posted recently on this subreddit would have a vague location posted by the author (city or region, nothing more exact, and that only if the exact location is not obvious).
So you have a starting point, you know the approximate area. To increase your chances of success, you need to figure out what type of building it is. Some are impossible to find without someone giving you the location (like the recent post about Mrs. Eugenia's house here) because it's just a simple house and there shouldn't be any online information about it. Furthermore, it's not a "special" or "unique" location that you can differentiate from other houses in Romania. Other locations are easier; you see a logo, specific equipment, or anything that helps you figure out what the location was used for. For example, you see an old train and think it's something related to the Romanian Railways. Or you see an old gas mask and think it's some industrial building from the communist era. If you know the relative area, you have a chance to find the area because you've advanced to "abandoned industry Constanța" (hypothetically speaking).
If the photo is of the exterior, the situation changes (for the better) because you have a higher chance of finding the location. What do you see in that photo? Do you recognize anything? Let's say it's a photo taken from some buildings in Bucharest, and you see a fairly large lake. There aren't that many large lakes in Bucharest; you've already found some approximate areas where that building could be. Usually, there are enough details in the photos, and you can use them: tall buildings with the corporate logo on them, giant advertisements, emblematic buildings, maybe even traffic signs with the names of streets.
If you see this information, you further reduce the possible locations. You definitely find the area using Google Earth 3D view and street view to find the exact place (you practically walk around until you find from which direction the photo was taken, and then you look to see if it looks abandoned. If not, it's probably a normal building that someone climbed, so you can look for graffiti, but those are not mandatory).
Another option that rarely works (but is quick and free, so I usually test it first) is reverse search by image. I recommend a browser extension: Invid Weverify, which basically searches for an image using multiple sites (it's for fact-checking, but geolocation is part of it, so it's useful).
For those interested in geolocation, I can give you some references to something more detailed/useful. See what techniques are used in OSINT and adapt them for finding urbex locations lol. I recommend the book "OSINT Techniques: Resources for Uncovering Online Information" by Michael Bazzell, 2023 edition (btw, Libgen is brilliant, Z Library as a backup. Update: Anna's Archives is getting bigger than anything now).
I know my guide might seem disappointing; I'm sure I probably missed some "strategies," but believe me, I've been using them for years and have found plenty of locations. There's no magic solution; it's just about time, effort, and skills gained through training. I hope my little "guide" helps you :)))
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Guide to Urban Exploration Safety

Exploration is an interesting hobby, but it can be dangerous, and I think we're all aware of that. It's important to acknowledge the risks when embarking on exploration and not start with the mindset of "it won't happen to me" because anything can happen to anyone. Yes, the chances are slim, but not nonexistent. Most of the things here are logical, some maybe not. Let me start with a list of the "equipment" I consider necessary (in general, obviously depending on the situation), then I'll cover a passage about avoiding legal problems, safety issues during exploration, what to do if you encounter dogs or homeless people, and other general advice.
1. Equipment:
a) Comfortable footwear (you never know how much walking you'll do), with thick soles (to protect against nails, shards, spikes, etc.), and relatively waterproof (depends on the situation, but I've often encountered mud, puddles of water, or other liquids lol).
b) Comfortable clothing (freedom of movement), dark-colored (to avoid drawing attention, especially if you're in a building where you'd be the only colorful spot), and durable (or clothing you don't care much about getting dirty or damaged easily).
c) Mask (I know it's an investment, but a good mask should be essential). Many of the buildings we explore are old, which means there are some risks: asbestos, lead paint, or various chemicals in the air. The first two are banned, but they were legal when some of the buildings we explore were constructed. Then there's the risk of encountering chemicals that have been dumped there or were in the buildings before they were abandoned, but the container is destroyed or simply not maintained the way it used to be (and in many buildings, ventilation is quite dusty). Not to mention other minor but annoying hazards: dust and mold. Bonus: the mask helps endure the horrible smell you constantly encounter in urbex lol.
d) First aid "kit" - it doesn't have to be anything fancy, logically, but it doesn't hurt to have something on you just in case: band-aids, some bandages (the adhesive type is more useful), disinfectant (because most of the things you can cut or prick yourself on are either rusty or dirty). If it's something more serious, go to the hospital quickly (I think that was obvious, but I thought I'd add it - especially if we're talking about dog bites or cuts/piercings caused by rusty objects).
e) Situational "tools": wet wipes/disinfectant (especially if you're a smoker or if you want to eat), flashlight (I prefer flashlights that can be charged at the outlet, but also have regular batteries), power bank (because, well, you need your phone), water and some food (I've had to wait hours for security/police to leave so I could leave the building), rope/paracord (especially if you know you need to descend a considerable distance), gloves (especially if you're climbing somewhere), etc. I'm waiting for suggestions from you; I'm sure I missed something 😊)
e) Self-defense: pepper spray (for homeless people) and some food (for dogs). Also, it doesn't hurt to have some extra cigarettes or food in case you talk to a homeless person.
2. Avoiding Legal Problems
Exploration is illegal in most cases (even if there's no sign saying "forbidden," locked doors or gates, barbed wire fences, surveillance cameras, etc.), so we accept the legal consequences of our choices (and yes, even minors). I divide exploration into 3 stages: entering the location, exploring it, and exiting the location.
For me, entry should be invisible, exploration subtle, and exit quick.
First of all, I need to check if the location is abandoned. I check online first (mainly news about the location, searching for the "exact address" in quotes to find that exact address; if it's a company, I check the business details; reverse search a street photo to see if I find something, etc.), then I check physically (broken fence, broken windows, absence of surveillance cameras, absence of activity traces, absence of alarm at the entrance, etc.). If everything is fine and the location is abandoned, then I start looking for an entry. For me, entry should be subtle (preferably not through a crowded place where people can see you, not through a place with surveillance cameras), quick (to minimize the possibility of someone catching you jumping the fence), and efficient (it's useless to have a subtle and quick entry if you waste a lot of time getting into the building, so you increase the time you're in open space).
Exploration should be subtle: don't make noise, don't use bright lights (minimum necessary, you don't need a powerful flashlight to see where you're going), and don't go in a large group (3 people seems enough to me). Don't hang around windows, and if you're on the roof, try not to attract attention (especially with the light from the flashlight or phone lol).
Exiting should be as subtle as the rest, but if it can't be... well, at least it should be quick because no one will chase you anymore. Try to exit where you can check if someone is passing by (if it's near the street) or if someone is waiting for you (security or police).
I'll add here the importance of anonymity, both during exploration and afterward. I know the chances of legal trouble because of this are slim, but it doesn't cost you much to reduce risks: cover your face or at least wear a hood during exploration, avoid posting online photos/clips where features that could be used for your identification are visible (face, tattoos, etc.), if you get into urbex and are active online, don't involve your real name in the equation.
3. Building Safety Issues
Obviously, it depends on the location being explored, but usually, we're talking about buildings abandoned for some time and their condition is not ideal. First of all, this means you risk falling through the floor, having the ceiling fall on your head, and you can't really avoid that. Obviously, don't jump like a retard if you see that the floor is unstable 😊)) But usually, it matters to keep your attention during exploration (look for holes and cracks in the floor or ceiling, check how solid the object you're holding onto is when trying to climb onto something, etc.), know your limits (especially when it comes to heights, free climbing, or parkour), and don't take unnecessary risks (common sense things: don't touch unknown substances, cables, sharp objects, etc.).
4. Dogs and Homeless People
Yes, homeless people are also humans, I included them here just out of laziness. I don't recommend going to urbex with headphones on because they help you hear the noises from the ground. If you hear barking, assume there are dogs so you can play it safe: avoid those areas, don't stay outside the building for too long, check the area from above when you reach the
upper floors or the roof. Same goes for homeless people: you rarely encounter them during the day, but it helps to avoid them if you hear noises, shouting, etc. If you encounter dogs and homeless people, aggression and running away won't help. It's much better to remain calm and retreat in an organized manner. If you have no choice, engage in conversation with homeless people but not aggressively, don't show off like you have money, behave as if you have a backbone (meaning, have balls, but not in a passive-aggressive way).
5. General Advice
Watch out for tobacco, alcohol, and drug consumption. I included tobacco on the list just to emphasize the idea that you shouldn't throw lit cigarettes randomly because you risk setting fire to the location (especially if there are flammable substances there, old papers, etc.). I don't recommend in any possible way consuming anything that makes you think irrationally, especially since you need a good balance in some situations (good luck jumping high fences if you're dead drunk or high as a kite), but I think that's obvious.
Choose your locations wisely, understand your limits. I understand that some places are extremely interesting, but I don't recommend someone who has never been to urbex to explore a well-guarded or hard-to-reach building. Not to mention that some places are really risky (like subway tunnels), others are not a good idea at night (extremely damaged locations or those where the light from flashlights is very visible), and others are simply inaccessible in general (security, locked doors, surveillance cameras, etc.).
I don't recommend going urbex alone, but neither going in large groups. The larger the group, the greater the chances that someone will make a mistake or somehow attract attention (it's one thing for 1-3 people to jump over a fence and another for 5-10 lol). I actually try to create a community here, but that doesn't mean I can control the quality of the people present on this subreddit in any way. When choosing to explore with strangers you find online, some dangers arise, obviously. I'm not even mentioning those extremely unlikely dangers (to be a policeman, organ theft, etc. lol), I'm referring to more concrete ones: you don't know how cautious the respective person is, how much experience they have, what physical condition they are in, etc. You might be cautious, but you might get hurt because of the person next to you. I'm not even mentioning the possibility of encountering someone who's a jerk and does nasty jokes in abandoned buildings (locking you somewhere, leaving you behind, etc.), committing some illegalities (beating up a homeless person, setting something on fire, destroying things, etc.), and so on.
Also, urbex should not and should not be a competition. For me, all that matters is to feel good when I explore. I've met people who see exploration as a competition (x has been to y place, I have to go too) or people who are in a continuous search for validation online. I'm by no means the most experienced urbexer, but I can say that in the last 4-5 years, I've seen people who started doing urbex and then took on more and more risks (and yes, the places they've reached are cool). I believe there are few of those people (and no, I won't name names) who continue to do urbex: most of them calmed down after legal problems started to arise (I know it may not seem like it when you're young, but that criminal record can have nasty consequences), and the unlucky ones have serious medical problems (I've seen a few cases of life-changing problems in the comments, like nasty fractures, paralysis, etc.). If you look for it a bit, you'll find enough news about people who died doing urbex (and I'm not talking about suicides), so there can be serious consequences for recklessness.
That being said, I'm not here to tell you how to do urbex; the post is for those who want to explore safely and are just starting out.

My community is romanian so it was originally written in romanian, just translated it with chat gpt now so that may be why some words or expressions sound weird.
How to Find Urban Exploration Locations Without Someone's Help
Google is your friend: Search, Maps, and Earth.
Most of the locations I explore are found online. The internet is the most important resource we have in urban exploration and it's not that hard to use it properly. If you search and don't find information online (let's say in Bucharest), it means you haven't searched enough (I've been to hundreds of locations in the past year, and 90% were found online) xD
I. Before you search, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

1. What do you want to find?

Okay, urban exploration locations. What kind of locations? Are they abandoned houses or buildings, unfinished construction sites, abandoned industrial buildings, forts or bunkers, etc. There are many options, and you can easily find information by using specific searches.

1. Where is the location?

Again, the volume of information on the internet is absolutely huge, and it helps to have a specific search (street, sector, city, county, region, country etc.).

1. In what form do you think the information you want is? Where do you think you'll find it? Is it a social media post or a blog? Is it an article in the press? Is it in an official document?

Depending on the answer, you can adapt your search. In practice, various terms are used depending on the purpose of the text. The most efficient way to get used to this (it becomes instinctive at some point) is practice :))
II. Finding a potential location and confirming it.
The most basic option is to search for pre-made lists of abandoned places. You can search on Google for "abandoned places Bucharest" and find posts on forums, websites, social media, etc.
Obviously, the information is not always up to date (in fact, in urban exploration, it's rarely up to date), and you need to check if the location is still abandoned, which is relatively simple. Let's say you found Alex Iacob's website (Reptilianul) and see an interesting location. Let's say Aversa. It's not a good idea to assume that's all because you might end up at the location and find it's a guarded ruin (or that you're trying to enter an active building protected by the military even though it seemed like a ruin online - real story, sadly).
I first search on Google Earth what the location looks like (btw, just because it looks like that on Earth or Maps doesn't mean it's like that in reality because the image is not always updated) and check 3D or street view. If it still looks abandoned (broken windows, broken fences, graffiti, holes in walls, vegetation, holes in the roof, etc.), I do some searches on Google to find additional information. You don't always find something useful like this, but in the case of famous buildings, there is plenty of information online (check their current status and look for the latest news/posts). In the case of less known buildings, it helps to search for the exact address to see what their situation is.
And if we're talking about searches, there are some relatively well-known things ignored by many people. When you search for something on a standardized search engine (let's say a simple search on Google), you find enough close results. Basically, it searches for similar terms but not exact ones, which usually doesn't help us. You can avoid this by using an advanced search (especially since you can avoid some terms, so if you're looking for a news story about an abandoned building, you can avoid news about mainstream ones) or by putting the searched terms in quotation marks. Another thing is searching for the type of documents. Let's say you want to search for locations using some official documents. In this case, you can search by file type. For example: "abandoned buildings" filetype:pdf (and you find documents in pdf format containing the words you searched for).
Well, now you can search for some tips and tricks on Google searches because there are plenty of them :))
Another option is to spend a lot of time on Maps or Earth to find locations that seem abandoned and then check them. Here it's about patience and discipline. You can't really rush the process, you just have to invest time and effort, and you'll find locations 100%.
III. Physically verifying online information.
Regardless of your skill in finding online information, you still need to physically verify it. This depends on the person and your circumstances.
I'm more paranoid by nature, and I admit I have some issues with anxiety/overthinking, so I try to make everything as safe as possible (especially from a legal point of view). This means I don't take many risks, I check the buildings physically before entering, I take a quick look around without entering at that time. I look for guards, cameras, entry and exit ways from a building (the entrance can be slower but subtle, the exit should be quick, even if it's too obvious). Preferably, multiple exits and entrances, just in case (and it works, I haven't received any fines in 4-5 years of urban exploration).
What you do next is your choice. I prefer not to take risks if I see something suspicious; it's not like the location will disappear if I don't enter it right away.
IV. You've seen a location in someone's post and want to go there too.
Here it's complicated (obviously, you don't spam the person with messages "give me the location too"). If the photos are from inside a building, it's hard to figure out the location (not impossible). In theory, a location posted recently on this subreddit would have a vague location posted by the author (city or region, nothing more exact, and that only if the exact location is not obvious).
So you have a starting point, you know the approximate area. To increase your chances of success, you need to figure out what type of building it is. Some are impossible to find without someone giving you the location (like the recent post about Mrs. Eugenia's house here) because it's just a simple house and there shouldn't be any online information about it. Furthermore, it's not a "special" or "unique" location that you can differentiate from other houses in Romania. Other locations are easier; you see a logo, specific equipment, or anything that helps you figure out what the location was used for. For example, you see an old train and think it's something related to the Romanian Railways. Or you see an old gas mask and think it's some industrial building from the communist era. If you know the relative area, you have a chance to find the area because you've advanced to "abandoned industry Constanța" (hypothetically speaking).
If the photo is of the exterior, the situation changes (for the better) because you have a higher chance of finding the location. What do you see in that photo? Do you recognize anything? Let's say it's a photo taken from some buildings in Bucharest, and you see a fairly large lake. There aren't that many large lakes in Bucharest; you've already found some approximate areas where that building could be. Usually, there are enough details in the photos, and you can use them: tall buildings with the corporate logo on them, giant advertisements, emblematic buildings, maybe even traffic signs with the names of streets.
If you see this information, you further reduce the possible locations. You definitely find the area using Google Earth 3D view and street view to find the exact place (you practically walk around until you find from which direction the photo was taken, and then you look to see if it looks abandoned. If not, it's probably a normal building that someone climbed, so you can look for graffiti, but those are not mandatory).
Another option that rarely works (but is quick and free, so I usually test it first) is reverse search by image. I recommend a browser extension: Invid Weverify, which basically searches for an image using multiple sites (it's for fact-checking, but geolocation is part of it, so it's useful).
For those interested in geolocation, I can give you some references to something more detailed/useful. See what techniques are used in OSINT and adapt them for finding urbex locations lol. I recommend the book "OSINT Techniques: Resources for Uncovering Online Information" by Michael Bazzell, 2023 edition (btw, Libgen is brilliant, Z Library as a backup. Update: Anna's Archives is getting bigger than anything now).
I know my guide might seem disappointing; I'm sure I probably missed some "strategies," but believe me, I've been using them for years and have found plenty of locations. There's no magic solution; it's just about time, effort, and skills gained through training. I hope my little "guide" helps you :)))
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Guide to Urban Exploration Safety

Exploration is an interesting hobby, but it can be dangerous, and I think we're all aware of that. It's important to acknowledge the risks when embarking on exploration and not start with the mindset of "it won't happen to me" because anything can happen to anyone. Yes, the chances are slim, but not nonexistent. Most of the things here are logical, some maybe not. Let me start with a list of the "equipment" I consider necessary (in general, obviously depending on the situation), then I'll cover a passage about avoiding legal problems, safety issues during exploration, what to do if you encounter dogs or homeless people, and other general advice.
1. Equipment:
a) Comfortable footwear (you never know how much walking you'll do), with thick soles (to protect against nails, shards, spikes, etc.), and relatively waterproof (depends on the situation, but I've often encountered mud, puddles of water, or other liquids lol).
b) Comfortable clothing (freedom of movement), dark-colored (to avoid drawing attention, especially if you're in a building where you'd be the only colorful spot), and durable (or clothing you don't care much about getting dirty or damaged easily).
c) Mask (I know it's an investment, but a good mask should be essential). Many of the buildings we explore are old, which means there are some risks: asbestos, lead paint, or various chemicals in the air. The first two are banned, but they were legal when some of the buildings we explore were constructed. Then there's the risk of encountering chemicals that have been dumped there or were in the buildings before they were abandoned, but the container is destroyed or simply not maintained the way it used to be (and in many buildings, ventilation is quite dusty). Not to mention other minor but annoying hazards: dust and mold. Bonus: the mask helps endure the horrible smell you constantly encounter in urbex lol.
d) First aid "kit" - it doesn't have to be anything fancy, logically, but it doesn't hurt to have something on you just in case: band-aids, some bandages (the adhesive type is more useful), disinfectant (because most of the things you can cut or prick yourself on are either rusty or dirty). If it's something more serious, go to the hospital quickly (I think that was obvious, but I thought I'd add it - especially if we're talking about dog bites or cuts/piercings caused by rusty objects).
e) Situational "tools": wet wipes/disinfectant (especially if you're a smoker or if you want to eat), flashlight (I prefer flashlights that can be charged at the outlet, but also have regular batteries), power bank (because, well, you need your phone), water and some food (I've had to wait hours for security/police to leave so I could leave the building), rope/paracord (especially if you know you need to descend a considerable distance), gloves (especially if you're climbing somewhere), etc. I'm waiting for suggestions from you; I'm sure I missed something 😊)
e) Self-defense: pepper spray (for homeless people) and some food (for dogs). Also, it doesn't hurt to have some extra cigarettes or food in case you talk to a homeless person.
2. Avoiding Legal Problems
Exploration is illegal in most cases (even if there's no sign saying "forbidden," locked doors or gates, barbed wire fences, surveillance cameras, etc.), so we accept the legal consequences of our choices (and yes, even minors). I divide exploration into 3 stages: entering the location, exploring it, and exiting the location.
For me, entry should be invisible, exploration subtle, and exit quick.
First of all, I need to check if the location is abandoned. I check online first (mainly news about the location, searching for the "exact address" in quotes to find that exact address; if it's a company, I check the business details; reverse search a street photo to see if I find something, etc.), then I check physically (broken fence, broken windows, absence of surveillance cameras, absence of activity traces, absence of alarm at the entrance, etc.). If everything is fine and the location is abandoned, then I start looking for an entry. For me, entry should be subtle (preferably not through a crowded place where people can see you, not through a place with surveillance cameras), quick (to minimize the possibility of someone catching you jumping the fence), and efficient (it's useless to have a subtle and quick entry if you waste a lot of time getting into the building, so you increase the time you're in open space).
Exploration should be subtle: don't make noise, don't use bright lights (minimum necessary, you don't need a powerful flashlight to see where you're going), and don't go in a large group (3 people seems enough to me). Don't hang around windows, and if you're on the roof, try not to attract attention (especially with the light from the flashlight or phone lol).
Exiting should be as subtle as the rest, but if it can't be... well, at least it should be quick because no one will chase you anymore. Try to exit where you can check if someone is passing by (if it's near the street) or if someone is waiting for you (security or police).
I'll add here the importance of anonymity, both during exploration and afterward. I know the chances of legal trouble because of this are slim, but it doesn't cost you much to reduce risks: cover your face or at least wear a hood during exploration, avoid posting online photos/clips where features that could be used for your identification are visible (face, tattoos, etc.), if you get into urbex and are active online, don't involve your real name in the equation.
3. Building Safety Issues
Obviously, it depends on the location being explored, but usually, we're talking about buildings abandoned for some time and their condition is not ideal. First of all, this means you risk falling through the floor, having the ceiling fall on your head, and you can't really avoid that. Obviously, don't jump like a retard if you see that the floor is unstable 😊)) But usually, it matters to keep your attention during exploration (look for holes and cracks in the floor or ceiling, check how solid the object you're holding onto is when trying to climb onto something, etc.), know your limits (especially when it comes to heights, free climbing, or parkour), and don't take unnecessary risks (common sense things: don't touch unknown substances, cables, sharp objects, etc.).
4. Dogs and Homeless People
Yes, homeless people are also humans, I included them here just out of laziness. I don't recommend going to urbex with headphones on because they help you hear the noises from the ground. If you hear barking, assume there are dogs so you can play it safe: avoid those areas, don't stay outside the building for too long, check the area from above when you reach the
upper floors or the roof. Same goes for homeless people: you rarely encounter them during the day, but it helps to avoid them if you hear noises, shouting, etc. If you encounter dogs and homeless people, aggression and running away won't help. It's much better to remain calm and retreat in an organized manner. If you have no choice, engage in conversation with homeless people but not aggressively, don't show off like you have money, behave as if you have a backbone (meaning, have balls, but not in a passive-aggressive way).
5. General Advice
Watch out for tobacco, alcohol, and drug consumption. I included tobacco on the list just to emphasize the idea that you shouldn't throw lit cigarettes randomly because you risk setting fire to the location (especially if there are flammable substances there, old papers, etc.). I don't recommend in any possible way consuming anything that makes you think irrationally, especially since you need a good balance in some situations (good luck jumping high fences if you're dead drunk or high as a kite), but I think that's obvious.
Choose your locations wisely, understand your limits. I understand that some places are extremely interesting, but I don't recommend someone who has never been to urbex to explore a well-guarded or hard-to-reach building. Not to mention that some places are really risky (like subway tunnels), others are not a good idea at night (extremely damaged locations or those where the light from flashlights is very visible), and others are simply inaccessible in general (security, locked doors, surveillance cameras, etc.).
I don't recommend going urbex alone, but neither going in large groups. The larger the group, the greater the chances that someone will make a mistake or somehow attract attention (it's one thing for 1-3 people to jump over a fence and another for 5-10 lol). I actually try to create a community here, but that doesn't mean I can control the quality of the people present on this subreddit in any way. When choosing to explore with strangers you find online, some dangers arise, obviously. I'm not even mentioning those extremely unlikely dangers (to be a policeman, organ theft, etc. lol), I'm referring to more concrete ones: you don't know how cautious the respective person is, how much experience they have, what physical condition they are in, etc. You might be cautious, but you might get hurt because of the person next to you. I'm not even mentioning the possibility of encountering someone who's a jerk and does nasty jokes in abandoned buildings (locking you somewhere, leaving you behind, etc.), committing some illegalities (beating up a homeless person, setting something on fire, destroying things, etc.), and so on.
Also, urbex should not and should not be a competition. For me, all that matters is to feel good when I explore. I've met people who see exploration as a competition (x has been to y place, I have to go too) or people who are in a continuous search for validation online. I'm by no means the most experienced urbexer, but I can say that in the last 4-5 years, I've seen people who started doing urbex and then took on more and more risks (and yes, the places they've reached are cool). I believe there are few of those people (and no, I won't name names) who continue to do urbex: most of them calmed down after legal problems started to arise (I know it may not seem like it when you're young, but that criminal record can have nasty consequences), and the unlucky ones have serious medical problems (I've seen a few cases of life-changing problems in the comments, like nasty fractures, paralysis, etc.). If you look for it a bit, you'll find enough news about people who died doing urbex (and I'm not talking about suicides), so there can be serious consequences for recklessness.
That being said, I'm not here to tell you how to do urbex; the post is for those who want to explore safely and are just starting out.

When I was ten, I formed a junior detective squad.
Mom bought me the entire box set of What's New Scooby Doo, and I was inspired to start my very own detective gang. I held auditions outside the gymnasium at recess (serious enquiries only) after a number of kids tried to apply for the role of Scooby Doo despite me reiterating I was not interested in playing make believe.
When I was laughed at in class, I made posters strictly asking for SERIOUS wannabe detectives, even going as far as using my Mom’s printer to make flyers, sticking them all over the school.
Auditions were simple. I asked them to solve a simple riddle.
Whoever impressed me got to sign their name down, and I’d get back to them.
I spent three days sifting through kids who definitely had charm, but they lacked the intelligence of a junior detective. Most kids were only auditioning to make fun of me, anyway.
Still, though, I didn't give up.
My flyers had five requirements:
1). You had to be smart.
2). You were not allowed to be a scaredy cat.
3). You had to accept your inevitable death at the hands of our town’s evil villains.
4). You had to have a fully registered driving licence (I quickly changed this to a bike).
5). You cannot have a criminal record.
(I later scribbled this one out, writing over it. *“You cannot have any tardies.”
Narrowing the applicants down to three kids, all of whom failed to share my enthusiasm for solving cases. The kids I picked didn't even know how to make plans, and when I invited them to my house, they stole my Mom’s necklace.
I didn't even need to solve the mystery of who stole Mom’s necklace. The girl was wearing it at school. I punched her in the face, and was immediately sent to the principal’s office. When I was being given the mother all lectures, the door quietly opened, a head peeking through.
It was Ben Callows, a freckly kid with overgrown brown hair hanging in his eyes. Ben really needed a haircut.
He was always wearing the exact same baseball cap, and I found myself wondering if it was permanently glued to his head, stuck on top of unruly brown curls practically matted to his forehead.
In class, Ben was also known as Bloody Ben. In the second grade, the boy had a nosebleed in the middle of a spelling test, bleeding all over his paper.
It's not like he didn't try and detach himself from the name.
Ben brought in Digimon cards, so kids would call him Digimon Ben instead.
Then he “accidentally” spilled yoghurt down his shirt in hopes we would call him Yoghurt Ben. But no. The kids in our class were relentless in reminding him of his name. No matter what he did, he was still Bloody Ben, and when anything related to blood came up in class, fifteen pairs of eyes would swivel to him, like he had invented the concept of bleeding.
I feared the nickname would follow him to junior high.
Ben didn't wait to be let in. He didn't even knock, striding in with his arms folded. Over the years, Bloody Ben, had definitely soured his personality.
He smiled rarely, and when he did smile, someone was falling over or hurting themselves.
Which definitely strengthened the claims of him being a sociopath.
The rumor mill was churning, with the latest claiming Bloody Ben killed his cat. That wasn't true. Ben’s cat was seventeen with cancer, and that was why he was sobbing all the way through reading time.
According to Ellie Daly, however, Ben had killed and dissected his kitty, and buried her in his Mom’s flowers.
Now, my principal did not like being interrupted, especially when she was in the middle of screaming at me.
Principal Marrow was old old (like, thirty, in my ten year old mind) stick thin like a pencil, and always wore the same stained sweater.
She used to be pretty, but I was convinced she had kissed a frog and been cursed. After our old principal suffered a stroke, she stepped in as a temporary replacement, and since becoming principal, had banned my favorite book series, colored shoe laces, and hamburger helper, even officiating a uniform.
(vomit green shorts and a tee, and plain white sneakers).
Kids were convinced she was a witch, and I kind of believed it.
Principal Marrow’s whole existence was built on sucking the fun out of school.
I was already reprimanded for my mystery gang flyers.
Her office smelled of peppermint and she was definitely sneaking sips of whisky in her coffee cup. I could see the bottle sticking out of the trash.
She straightened up, folding her arms across her chest, squinty eyes narrowing at the boy. I had spent the whole time she was lecturing me trying not to cry, my fists bunched in my lap.
I took the distraction as the perfect opportunity to swipe at my eyes, allowing myself to breathe.
Ben Callows was her victim now.
I was right. The woman's voice was like a thunderclap in my ears.
“You better have a good reason for not knocking, young man.”
Ben wasn't fazed by her tone. “You took my Switch two weeks ago,” he said, “I want it back, or I’m telling my Mom.”
At first, I thought I'd misheard him.
No, I was pretty sure he'd threatened our principal.
I swore I heard all of the breath sucked from the room.
“I'm sorry,” Principal Marrow cleared her throat. Her soft tone was dangerous.
She wasn't being nice. The lady was about to explode.
I could see visible veins straining in her temples, her right eye twitching.
It was straight out of a cartoon.
“Did you forget something, Ben?”
Ben sighed, like she was inconveniencing him.
He held out his hand. “Please can I have my Switch back? It counts as stolen property. Give it back, or I'm telling my Mom.”
The kid put so much emphasis on the word please, I couldn't resist a smile.
I think our principal was too shocked to get angry.
“Get out.” She said, firmly. “I don't have your gaming device.”
“It's in your drawer.” Ben nodded to her desk, “Under your divorce papers and the restraining order ordered by Jake Willow, the seventeen year old boy you've been having math ‘tutoring sessions’ with.” He quoted the air, his gaze lazily rolling to me. “Tutoring”
Principal Marrow went deathly pale, her eyes darkening.
“Benjamin Callows–”
“The school already knows about the restraining order, but your uncle is the head of the Board of Education, so all you get is a slap on the wrist and a warning to leave the boy alone."
Ben continued, and I found myself mesmerised by his words. He was a natural, his expression stoic, mouth curved with satisfaction that wasn't quite a smile. “However.” He held up his phone, pulling it away at the exact moment the teacher attempted to grab it. “You were outside Jake Willow’s house at 6:12am, drunk, and trying to climb through his window, which, I think violates the restraining order, does it not?”
Ben pretended to think real hard, his gaze flicking to the ceiling.
“I mean, I'm just a kid, right?” His mouth curled into the hint of a smirk
“What do I know, huh?”
Principal Marrow’s expression twisted, her lip wobbling.
“Mr Callows, remove yourself from my office, or I am calling your father.”
Leaning comfortably against the door, Ben’s lip twitched.
“Why? Are you planning on telling my Dad about your relations with a teenage boy, or will I have to tell him instead?”
I was enthralled, and fully disgusted, making a move to inch away from the woman.
“But it doesn't end there.” Ben continued. He straightened up, taking slow, intimidating steps towards the woman's desk. “You don't even want Jake, do you? Because, once upon a time, you were in love with his father. Jason Willow. You despised him for rejecting you, so you decided to defile his son.” Ben leaned over the principal’s desk, slipping his hand into the drawer, and pulling out his switch.
Painfully slowly.
She stood there, speechless, her shoulders trembling.
Ben smiled, and I found myself liking it.
“Thank you!” He said, waving the console in her face. Ben mimed locking his mouth and throwing away the key.
“My lips are sealed.”
Ben’s half lidded eyes found mine. “Are ya coming, Panda?”
I forgot my own nickname.
Panda.
I wore my Mom’s eyeliner because I thought it looked cool.
It did not.
Finding my breath, I snapped out of it.
Jumping up, I followed him out of the office, and when the two of us were safely on the hallway, I burst into hysterical giggles. “How did you know all of that?!” I whisper- shrieked.
Ben surprised me with a splutter. “Wait. You believed me?”
Something very cold trickled down my spine.
I stopped walking. “You lied?”
He shrugged. “I had a dig around her office before she caught me a few days ago,” Ben swung his arms, a smile curling on his mouth. “There's no restraining order, but there is prescription anti-psychosis medicine, and an extremely detailed story on her laptop about a teachestudent romance, which I presume is a self insert.”
Ben shot me a sickly grin. “The school refused to make her condition public.”
He prodded at his own cotton shirt embroidered with the school emblem.
“Why do you think she's made all these dumb rules? The woman is a certified Looney Tune.”
I nodded slowly. “Wait. What about Jake and his dad?”
“I made them up.”
I choked out a laugh. “And… the video?”
Ben walked faster, pulling out his phone and shoving it in my face. The video was real. Principal Marrow was walking around in circles, draped in her nightgown. “It's her own house,” he explained. “She locked herself out.”
Nodding slowly, I was in awe. Bloody Ben was kind of fucking amazing.
“But the restraining order isn't real.”
Ben raised a brow, coming to an abrupt halt. It was his smile that cemented his place in my gang. His lack of empathy for a woman he had gaslit into being a disgusting human being. Ben Callows wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but he fascinated me. Maybe for the wrong reasons. “Her filing cabinets are filled with tinned cat food, Panda,” he said with an exaggerated sigh, “I’m not psychic, but I thiiiiink we’ll be okay.”
I turned to him, unable to stop myself jumping up and down with excitement.
“Will you be my first?!”
Ben inclined his head. “Will I be your what?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. I mean, will you join my mystery gang?”
The boy’s eyes lit up, and I shoved him playfully.
“To solve real cases,” I corrected myself. “Not make them up.”
Ben wore a real, proper smile. But there was something in his eyes, a darkness that was so hollow and polluted and wrong, I pretended not to see it for the sake of his smarts and intellect. “Well, if you insist, sure!” Ben held out his hand, and I shook it. I'll be your first.”
We found our second member, who was, ironically, looking for her glasses under the table in class. Lucy Prescott, the quiet girl, was born to be with us.
The class eraser went missing, and she found it in the blink of an eye.
When questioned, Lucy’s face turned as red as her hair. “I asked everyone in the class and followed the clues to the last person who had it,” she pointed to Chase Simpson. “Which was Chase, who was throwing it at Marcus Calvin.”
Twisting around in my chair, I aimed to get Ben’s attention. But he was already looking at me, chin resting on his fist, eyes ignited with excitement.
The two of us cornered Lucy after class, and when she motioned for us to get back, I dragged Ben (who was a little too excited) to my side.
Lucy looked mildly horrified when I said, dangerous cases, though her expression pricked with intrigue.
She agreed, her gaze lingering on Ben, cheeks smouldering.
Our last two members were a surprise.
Violet Evergreen was what you would call popular on the middle school hierarchy. Not just because her mother was the mayor, but because Violet could get away with murder. The girl refused to wear the school uniform, coloring a single purple streak in her hair to cement herself as the it girl.
She was also one of the girls who started the Bloody Ben rumor.
Ben, Lucy, and I were sitting on the grass during recess, trying to come up with a name for our detective service, when Violet came storming over, hands planted on her hips. She was copying how her mother held herself during town meetings.
“What are you doing?” Violet demanded.
Lucy opened her mouth to answer, Ben nudging her to shut up.
“Making a mystery gang.” I told her. “Why?”
Violet inclined her head. “Oh.” She folded her arms. “Well, can I join?”
Ben stood up, stepping in front of the girl. Violet didn't move, stubbornly standing her ground. “Sure.” Ben flashed a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. He stepped closer to her, his smile widening. “If you can pass the test.”
Violet’s lip curled. She took a single step back. “What kind of test?”
Ben nodded to me. “Meet us at the swimming pool at 8pm.”
To my surprise, Violet nodded. “Do I need to bring anything?”
“Nope!”
8pm. The four of us met outside the local swimming pool.
Violet was already on the other side of the fence, waving.
“Hey guys!”
I noticed Ben’s expression, his eyes darkening, lip curling.
Still though, he maintained positivity, vaulting over the fence.
“You made it!”
I followed him, helping Lucy, who was immediately freaking out. I didn't blame her. The pool looked cold and dark, a hollow oblivion carved into the ground.
Ben and Violet stood on the edge, the two of them shoulder to shoulder.
Violet Evergreen was braver than I thought.
Standing with her arms at her sides, Violet's hands clenched into fists.
“What's the test?” Violet said, her gaze glued to bleeding black depths.
“I don't know,” Ben murmured, his voice teetering on a giggle. He leaned forwards, arms spread out. “I didn't think you'd actually come meet us.”
Violet hummed, stretching out her leg, teasing it across the surface. “Was that the test?”
The boy leaned back. I caught the glint of a grin under the floodlights. “Nah.”
Before I knew what was happening, he shoved Violet into the pool. The girl didn't scream or shriek, she just hit the surface, sinking into pitch dark nothing.
“Sink or swim,” Ben said in a low murmur, when Violet’s head bobbed under water. I could see her shadow under the surface, imagining the freezing cold depths pulling her down.
“Drown, and you can't join us.”
It was so quiet, suddenly. The three of us staring into rippling water.
A minute passed, and my tummy started to twist.
“Fuck.” Ben’s expression stayed stoic. I wasn't expecting him to say a bad word.
He cocked his head. “I thought she could swim.”
I hit him, holding in a cry. “You need to get our parents!”
But he didn't listen to me, taking a single step, and dropping into the pool.
I fell to my knees, scanning the water.
Lucy was crying. “Are they dead?!” she shrieked.
“Shhh!” I was watching two shadows lingering under the water.
Violet broke through. I expected her to be crying, but her expression was unwavering. She was silent. I thought the splashing underneath her was her legs trying and struggling to tread water, before Lucy shoved me. Hard.
“Panda! What do we do?!”
Looking closer, Violet was perfectly still, her gaze on the sky.
While she shoved Ben under the water, drowning him.
Violet’s eyes sparkled, and somehow, I knew she belonged in my gang.
Her gaze found mine, glinting with that darkness, that poisonous streak I found myself drawn to. It was a starving, insatiable need to understand a fractured mind. Know your enemy.
“Do you want to see if Ben’s a witch?” Violet asked me, her tone something else entirely. This girl did not make sense, using barely her finger to drown Ben Callows. I knew she was wrong.
I knew there was something loose, something unlocked and unbridled and drowning inside her mind and heart.
But I wanted more of her. I wanted Violet Evergreen in my detective gang.
I think that is why I stood there, frozen.
When the thrashing stopped, Ben broke through.
He wasn't coughing or spluttering, his head inclined. “You didn't drown.”
Violet climbed out of the pool, offering her hand. “And you're not a witch.”
He declined her hand, taking the steps instead.
I asked Violet in a shaky voice. I was trembling with terror, but I was excited.
Exhilarated.
“Violet, will you join my gang?”
She didn't answer me until we were sharing hot cocoa in my house.
I told Mom we fell in the pool, and she believed me. I should have told her that my friends were sociopaths, and I was kind of maybe in love. Violet sipped her cocoa, nodding with a smile I didn't recognise. Violet never smiled at school.
Well, she did. But it was always the prick of a cruel smirk.
I don't think her smile was genuine, but she was definitely enjoying herself.
Our last member came to us, instead of finding him.
Jules Howell, a straggly brunette pushed his way in front of me in the lunch line. I didn't really know the kid.
He sat at the back of the classroom and slept through most of class. I did like his accent though.
Jules had moved from Melbourne in the second grade. He didn't talk much.
When he did, I found myself enveloped in his voice, which sounded like water to me, a bleeding cadence to his tone.
Jules piled his plate with fries, smiling widely at the lunch ladies.
“I saw you last night.” He murmured through that perfectly moulded grin.
“Saw me where?”
“At the pool,” Jules said. “You, Bloody Ben, Violet Evergreen, and that Lucy girl. You were doing a suiciding pact.”
“That's not what we were doing.” I said, “What's a suiciding pact?”
“When you kill yourself together.” Jules said. “I saw it in a scary movie my Mom was watching.”
I grabbed a fork. “We weren't doing that.”
His eyes were strange when I took the time to notice them. The excited gleam had fizzled out. Jules’s hands tightened around his tray. “Then what were you doing?”
I didn't reply, making my way over to our usual table. Ben was already waving me over, Violet and Lucy holding up the flyers we were making.
THE REDBLOOD DETECTIVES.”
Do YOU need our help? We can find/solve anything! Contact us on the number below. (We take donations!)
When I bothered turning around, Jules was lost in the crowd of kids.
We were on our first official case, searching for Mrs Lake’s missing mail, when Jules appeared seemingly out of nowhere. And with him, a golden retriever puppy he introduced as Arlo.
It took a dog jumping up at them for Violet and Ben to find their real smiles, their real selves slowly seeping through these facades they had built around themselves. Ben dropped to a crouch, ruffling the dog's ears, his smile faint.
“Who's a good boy?” He chuckled.
Arlo didn't move, tail wagging, eyes bright.
Ben motioned the dog towards him, but Arlo stayed put.
Jules joined us…quietly.
I don't remember asking him, or even him asking me.
He just became part of us, side by side with Arlo.
We soon came to quickly realize that our town was boring.
There were no monsters or thieves, or soul sucking demons. No criminals or serial killers. Not even one missing person. We did, however, get calls about missing cats. I turned eleven years old, patiently waiting for a murder or a kid going missing. But there was nothing.
All we did was chase cats, and the occasional dog. Maybe a budgie if we were lucky. Twelve years old, our detective club became a joke.
The five of us (and Arlo hiding under the table) were trying to pinpoint Mrs Tracy's lost hamster, when three girls came over, dumping their soda all over us.
We watched crime shows for inspiration on catching killers.
Ben’s favorite crime was one that happened in the 80’s in our town.
2 girls murdered.
Their intestines stuffed into envelopes and mailed to family members.
“That's what we should be solving,” he told me one night, “Not missing cats.”
Thirteen years old, we lay in Violet’s backyard under the cruel glare of the summer sun. We called it working and didn't like to admit it was hanging out, or that we were even friends. However.
That didn't stop us growing closer.
Even if it wasn't quite the way I’d expected.
I proposed a plan, standing up, wobbling a little off balance.
“I've got it.” I said, my voice kinda slurry from Violet’s special summer cocktail, which was just random alcoholic beverages we found, thrown into a blender, and diluted with water.
The town wasn't taking us seriously.
So, we were going to make our own mysteries.
I ordered a full-scale assault on our small town. One that they could not ignore. Ben stamped on Mrs Mason’s flowers, and Lucy threw mud pies at people's cars. Jules trashed the high school gym, and Violet and I spray painted threats and warnings on every store window. Now, this did cause panic, but also an official curfew.
Thirty minutes before curfew, we met in our usual spot, deep in the forest near the lake. Ben yelled at me when I was three minutes late. He was real passionate about finding a real mystery.
“You're late.” Ben was sitting on a rock waving a stick in Arlo’s face.
The dog still wasn't going near him, whining softly.
I took my place, muttering an apology. “I had to lie to my Mom.”
Violet, sitting with her legs crossed, idly digging her manicure into the dirt, suggested we buy mannequins and masquerade them as dead bodies, hanging them from the school rafters.
Lucy, who had slowly grown out of her shell, becoming a lot more outspoken, nudged her. “That's a stupid idea.”
The girl groaned, leaning into her. “Urgh. You're right.”
Jules was the only energetic one, standing on the tireswing.
He jumped down, definitely twisting his ankle.
But his smile only widened, kind of like he enjoyed being in pain.
“Why don't we pretend to be kidnapped?” He said, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt over blondish curls growing out. Jules did a dramatic spin, his eyes shining. “We can ‘go missing’ for like a week, and then when our parents are really scared, we can turn up, and tell them we escaped a kidnapping.” His lips split into a grin.
“And then we solve our own kidnapping!”
Ben awkwardly patted Arlos head, only for the dog to pull away with a snort.
“I like it,” he murmured. “I'm in.”
Jules’s idea was stupid.
But.
It was worth a shot.
The five of us agreed to meet the morning after with enough food and supplies for a week. Then we were going to hike to the next town, and hide out for a week. It was an almost perfect plan, using ourselves as victims of our own mystery.
Packing as much as I could, I kissed my mother goodbye (I told her my pack was for a picnic) and set off to the rendezvous we agreed on.
When I arrived, I was the first one there. I checked and re-checked my pack.
I waited ten minutes, unable to contain my excitement.
Then 20 minutes.
It was getting kind of cold.
One hour.
I sat on a rock for enough time to watch the sky change color.
When the clouds were orange, I stood up and stumbled back home. They had gone without me. Mom lectured me when I got home, and I stuck to the plan of pretending my friends had gone missing, even if I they had betrayed me.
Ben said he'd text me when he arrived at the redervous. I at least expected him to text an explanation, but there was nothing. I was in the dark, and after three days of nothing, our town finally began to take us seriously.
“Our children have been kidnapped!” The adults were screaming.
Mom was crying in the kitchen, praying to a god I knew she didn't believe in that I wasn't taken next. I was interviewed and stuck with the exact same story I came up with when I was with the others. Our plan was to return after a week, claiming to be locked up in a dark room with a masked man.
I told my Mother and the other parents that I didn't know where my friends were, repeating the same thing over and over again until I was tongue tied.
“I saw them the day before they went missing, and… yes, everything seemed okay.” I slowly sipped my glass of milk provided, looking the sheriff directly in the eyes.
“No, I didn't notice anything suspicious, sheriff. Yes, I'm sure, sir. No, they didn't tell me anything.”
It was Ben’s mother who shattered my mask.
“Did I know about… what?” I whispered.
Something warm filled the back of my mouth, foul tasting milk erupting up my throat. I leaned forward, trying to look Mrs Callows in the eye. “No, I… I didn't know about Ben’s…condition.”
Mrs Callows was screaming at me about her son’s troubled past when I barfed all over myself, my eyes burning.
In the privacy of my own room, I sobbed until I couldn't breathe.
I tried to tell Mom, but we had come so close.
One more day, and the others would be back.
But that day came. I sat cross legged at our usual spot, which was now covered in police tape. I waited for their thudding footsteps, their laughter congratulating each other for coming up with a great plan. I waited, my face buried in my knees, for my friends.
It was dark when my phone vibrated, and I'd fallen asleep.
I wasn't scared, forcing myself to my feet.
“Where are you?” Mom yelled down the phone.
“Coming home now.” I muttered.
“Sorry.” I paused, holding my breath against a cry. “Mom.” I broke down, forcing my fist into my mouth to hide my squeak. “Mommy, did they come back?”
Mom didn't reply for a moment.
“I'm so sorry, baby.” She whispered, ending the call.
I took my time walking home that night.
There were no stars in the sky.
When a hand clamped over my mouth, I could smell him.
When he dragged me back, stabbing a kitchen knife into my throat, I stared at the sky and looked for stars. His arms were warm around me, violently pulling me into the back of a pickup truck. The pickup truck he'd said he was bringing.
It was his grandfather's, and he could just about drive it.
Hitting the backseat, my body was numb, my thoughts in a whirlwind.
The pickup flew forwards, and I remembered how to move.
I rolled off the seat, my hands pinned behind my back.
Twisting around, blinking in the dim, I could feel something warm, something seeping across upholstery seats. Blood.
It was everywhere, sticky on my hands and wet on my face when I struggled to get up. I was lying in someone's blood.
A scream clawed its way out of my throat.
The pickup flew over a pothole, and something dropped off the seat.
Arlo’s leash.
I screamed again, this time his name gritted between my teeth.
I didn't stop screaming until the jerking movement stopped. The doors opened, pale light hitting me in the face.
Flashlight. Warm arms wrapped around me, pulling me from the car, and then, pulling me by my hair, into our old tree house. It was always our secret place, our saving grace on the edge of town.
The flickering candlelight caught me off guard, illuminating my surroundings.
Two bodies slumped over each other, lying in stemming red.
I felt suffocated, like I was going to die. I screamed, and that warm hand cradled my mouth again, gagging my cries.
Violet and Jules.
There was something wrong with them. And it was only when I forced myself to look closer, when I realized their insides had been carved out, heart, stomach, everything, pulled out.
There was paper on the floor.
No, not paper. Envelopes.
Envelopes stuffed with gore, bright red leaking through white.
Shuffling back, my brain was too slow to react, while my body was trying to vault to my feet, only to be violently pulled back by my ponytail.
I felt his fingers twining around my hair, revelling in my screams.
With another tug, my head was forced forwards.
Orange candlelight felt almost homely, this time lighting up a third body.
Lying on their back, curled up, pooling scarlet dried into the floorboards, their wrists restricted with duct-tape.
I could feel blood underneath me, sticky, a congealing paste.
“Do you know what happened on October 3rd, 1987, in our town?”
Lucy Prescott stood over me, her arms folded across her chest.
I managed to shake my head, when she grabbed Ben’s legs, dragging him under the candlelight. I dazedly watched her stroke the blade of a carving knife, the teeth already stained scarlet. “The intestine murders.” Lucy hummed, tracing the knife down the floorboards.
“A man murdered two high school girls, carving out their insides and sending their pieces to their loved ones.”
Lucy's eyes found mine, ignited in a familiar gleam. I saw it in Principal Marrow’s office. Then the swimming pool. The cafeteria. “It was the sheriff's only murder case, Panda. Ever since then, our town has been boring. There's no mysteries to solve. Nothing to find.”
The girl jumped to her feet, retrieving a blood stained envelope.
She held it up, a smile curved on her lips. The girl turned around, and I heard a horrific squelching sound. Lucy held up a bright red sausage, ripped into it, and slipped it into the white paper.
“But I can change that.” she said, in a giggle.
“I can create a real serial killer, who we can hunt down together.”
Lucy stabbed the blade into the floor, laughing.
“Or! I can bring a fan-favorite back! I can bring the intestine killer back from the dead!”
Her gaze flicked to the others. “There are casualties, of course. The story is, I was kidnapped with Ben, Violet, and Jules. The scary intestine killer killed them, and I managed to get away.”
Lucy shuffled over to me, her eyes wide. “Then! He came back and struck again!”
With those words, she shoved me onto my back.
“First he took Violet,” Lucy hummed, tracing the blade down my shirt.
“Then… Jules.” I squeezed my eyes shut, pulling at the restraints around my wrists. “Then Ben.” her breath tickled my cheek. “And finally… Panda.”
Lucy lifted the knife, and I accepted my death.
Until a low rumble in my ears.
Shouting.
Thundering footsteps, followed by the pitter-patter of paws.
“Lucy!” The sheriff was screaming, and the girl stumbled to her feet, the knife slipping from her fingers. Lucy stumbled, tripping over Ben’s body.
“He got away!” she shrieked. “He…he killed them! Oh, god, please help me!”
I don't think Lucy even realised the traces she'd left behind.
The blood slick on her fingers, her manic, grinning smile full of mania.
I was looking for stars when an officer crouched over me.
I couldn't understand what she was saying.
Her voice was white noise.
“Rachel? Hey, try and sit up, honey. You Mom is on her way.”
Instead of listening to her, I curled into myself.
My gaze found Arlo sticking his nose in Ben’s hair, trying to nudge the boy awake.
I didn't fully register the next few days.
They went by in a confusing blur.
Part of me tried to eat, and spent hours with my head pressed against the toilet seat.
I could still see the slithering, scarlet remains of my friends every time I closed my eyes. There was so much red, soaked in that hunting orange light.
Blood that I could still see, a starless sky that stretched on forever.
Weeks went by.
Then months.
I think I turned 14. I wasn't sure. I didn't feel alive anymore.
I stood at my friend’s funerals with a single rose I dropped into their casket.
Violet’s mother was quick to cover the whole thing up.
Lucy's plan didn't work after all.
Our town’s murder cases stayed stagnant at one.
It's been four years since my friends were murdered by our ’Velma’.
Now, at seventeen, Mom asked if I wanted to visit Lucy in juvie.
I'm not even upset or angry anymore.
I want to know why.
Ben picked me up. Arlo was at his side, wagging his tail.
Ben was…different. He'd dumped his baseball cap and gotten a haircut, swapping his old wardrobe of drab colors for an attempt at changing style.
That day, he looked awkward in a short sleeved tee and shorts.
At school, Ben is no longer Bloody Ben.
Now, he is Survivor Ben.
I’m still Panda.
Every time I was with him, I felt like my soul was being sucked out.
Guilt so deep, so fucking painful, I lost my breath.
I live knowing that I immediately assumed it was him that day.
Ben was barely alive when I found him. Lucy had started to carve into him before remembering she needed me.
After admitting it to him, his lips formed a small smile.
“Can I tell you a secret?” He said to me, at sixteen.
"Yeah?"
Whatever he was going to say, Ben never told me.
Presently, I nodded at the dog’s new collar.
“Peppa Pig themed?”
The boy shrugged, ruffling Arlo’s ears. “FYI, he chose it.”
“It's cute.” I said. “Very… chic.”
We didn't speak the whole ride, but Ben did entangle his hand in mine.
We spent half an hour outside the detention centre. I was panicking, and Ben was trying to hide that he was panicking. In the end, we joined hands, and strode through the doors together.
Lucy greeted us with a wide smile. Just as psychotic.
The orange jumpsuit suited her, though I had zero idea why.
“Hey Arlo!” she giggled at the dog, and Ben pulled the pup onto his lap.
“Ben.” She sighed. “I wish I got to finish you. I would have loved to solve the mystery of your gutted corpse.”
Ben’s smile was wry. “Nice to see you too.”
Behind a glass screen, I asked Lucy one simple question.
“Why?”
Lucy didn't reply. Or she did, but it was just nonsensical bullshit.
But there was one thing she said has stuck with me, chilling me to the core.
I am fucking terrified of Lucy. Of what's she's done, and what she's capable of doing.
It was a throwaway line, and I don't even think Ben noticed.
Or he did, and was in denial.
Lucy's smile was wide, her eyes empty pools of nothing.
The exact same glint in Ben’s eyes.
Jules’s eyes.
Violet’s eyes.
Like something was gnawing away at their psyche, twisting and contorting it, filling them with darkness, poison, that was so vast, so endless, I had craved it as a child. I still don't know what it is.
But I'm going to find it.
Lucy's laugh was shrill, and next to me, Ben didn't move a muscle.
“I don't even wear glasses!”

Now, I'll preface that I'm not going to immediately assume that Nakamura and Nozawa intentionally set out to do this. The series focuses more on deconstructing common archetypes in the harem genre, and since we've gotten some actual explanations in-story about certain character behaviors, I won't jump to conclusions. I'm also probably not the first to draw these conclusions, these are just my interpretations.
That being said, 100 Girlfriends has still managed to create some of the most relatable characters to me as someone on the spectrum. Whether it was on purpose or not, I do think the series has managed to create what could be seen as very solid neurodivergent characterization, and in ways that even series that set out to have autistic characters or the like have failed at. There's probably a lot of details you can read into regarding many of the girls, but there's two I want to focus on in particular: Shizuka and Ahko.
The go-to example for many people would likely be Nano, but you'll see why I chose these two.
Shizuka

• Her being an example of the Cute Mute trope isn't just about her being shy, but outright nonverbal. She can talk, but it's really difficult for her, and she only does so when she's forced to.
• Her favorite novel, Circlet Love Story, became sort of a lens for how she frames the world around her. The anime expanded on this idea with her own fantasy sequences, portraying herself as a princess and Rentarou as a knight. She's also read the story so much that she's effectively memorized everything, right down to the page locations for every bit of dialogue.
• Her initial means of communicating with people was by using quotes from CLS. However, she doesn't speak in quotes, but points to the dialogue in the physical novel she always carries around to convey ideas to people. In her mind, this makes sense because she knows what she's trying to say, and the dialogue in the novel conveys it better than she feels she can. This is, of course, an odd and cumbersome way to talk with others.
• She initially doesn't socialize well, preferring to keep to herself and having issues making eye contact with others. A lot of that was made worse by her getting bullied by people who found her means of communicating weird or creepy, including her own mother.
• Her special interest with literature, to the point that she has a literal stack of book recommendations for Rentarou when he asks for some. The way her eyes light up when he asks really strikes me as the joy someone gets when they have the chance to infodump about their interests.
• Rentarou's way of helping her isn't by getting her to finally speak, but providing her with the E-book version of CLS on her phone, which he typed out word-for-word just for her. With a text-to-speech function, it's essentially an accessibility aid, which she's used ever since to help talk to others. She also presumably has other books she can use if she needs more vocabulary.

Their romance isn't based on him helping Shizuka be normal, but instead about being a better version of herself. All this becomes the major focus in Chapters 134 & 135, where her mother becomes the latest antagonist. Mrs. Yoshimoto believes that Shizuka can't possibly live a normal life if she can't speak, but instead of trying to help her communicate, she blames herself for not being strict enough as a parent and doubles down on the issue by confiscating her phone.
Now Mrs. Yoshimoto could have her own analysis, but sticking to the chapters, she believes that Shizuka having her accessibility aid has done more to stunt her development, and she considers Rentarou an enabler; just a white knight trying to feel good about himself before he dumps her. Rentarou, of course, calls her out on all this, not only because he sincerely loves Shizuka, but also that her mother has done far more to hamper her development because she never bothered to ask what Shizuka wants. She just assumed Shizuka would want to be "normal" and, in doubling down on her strict parenting and verbally abusing her to try and force her to talk, she's only made her daughter's problems with communicating worse.
It's really not hard to read into this as a parent who doesn't understand her neurodivergent child and it's one of the best two-parters in the manga IMO. I'm glad that she came around and did try to understand Shizuka's preferred means of communicating, but it's probably gonna take some time before they're on good terms.
While Shizuka's probably the most obvious example, I also find Ahko is another good candidate and in different ways:
Ahko:

• While Shizuka has difficulty communicating verbally, Ahko has difficulty conveying intent. She's not very physically expressive, with her face always seeming frozen in a smile, and she has a pretty flat affect to go with it. While this has been attributed in-story to her having low blood pressure, it's also not hard to believe it could be because she's on the spectrum, or even both.
• While she's not very expressive, she still feels very strong emotions, mostly expressed in the artwork through her eyes and when she blushes.
• Because of her difficulty with intent, coupled with her flat affect, a lot of what she says can feel unemotional and inappropriate for a given social situation. She tried to show her support when a friend's boyfriend dumped her, saying she was "tooootally pissed off," but it came across as her not reading the room. Moments like that made her feel unwelcome around them.
• Also like Shizuka's special interest with literature, Ahko's is with collecting cute things. Her idea of "cute" is also pretty broad, as Karane has pointed out, and she's collected so many by the time she meets Rentarou that it's made her phone pretty heavy and her collection is starting to clutter up her house. Even then, she doesn't want to throw anything out. After Rentarou takes her to a flea market so she could sell some of her collection, it helped her realize that she loves sharing things with others, especially things that make both of them happy. Rentarou even describes it as a moment where two people share a connection even if they aren't on the same page.

Things come together with these elements in Chapter 92, which is one of the most relatable to me in the entire manga. Ahko makes plans to go shopping with Karane after school and the two initially have a great time together. But then Ahko's old friend group shows up and want to hang out again, which she's initially hesitant to, but since Karane doesn't mind, she goes ahead with it. Even then, as they're going around the mall, Karane can tell Ahko's forcing herself to have fun and eventually takes her aside.
Ahko explains that, while she would've liked for them all to be friends with them again, she still remembers all those times there was friction between them. Friction that she feels personally responsible for, since she's never sure what sort of face to make and her flat affect always seeming to make her not care, to the point that it created a wall between her and the rest of the group.
But what hurts worse is that, even after they ditched her, the group still wants to hang out and she has no idea how to interpret that. And in what I still think is one of the most heartbreaking panels in the manga, she asks Karane if she's making the right kind of face, with very real pain and sadness in her eyes even while she's smiling.
When the group returns, Karane confronts them about the shitty ways they've treated Ahko and then acting like nothing ever happened, demanding they apologize. In response, they lay all blame Ahko for being clueless and that Karane's being overdramatic, which she does not take kindly to. She declares that she's Ahko's BFF now and they can get lost. She apologizes for losing her cool, but Ahko doesn't mind.
Karane even admits she admits she's kinda jealous that Ahko, even if she's not very expressive, is still very honest about her feelings and has no problem calling things cute. Of course, being a tsundere, even Ahko knows she IS very honest in her own way, and she's happy that Karane would stand up for her like that.
Once again, a lot of this could be interpreted as an autistic girl trying her hardest to get along with peers who dismiss her for not being normal, and the story sides firmly with Ahko because she has done nothing wrong. It's not her fault she can't express herself like the rest and they also never bothered to try understanding her.
These are just two big example of writing in this series that addresses the real issue of being someone who doesn't communicate in the same way as everyone else, and the solution is not to help them fit in with what's "normal," but to assure them that they can just be themselves around people who accept them.
From what I understand, Japanese society places a strong emphasis on conformity, and people who can't stick to that are seen as rude or even creepy. Discussions about mental health are rare at best, and so autistic children may not get the support they need. With that in mind, I can understand why, if all this was intentional, these two weren't simply said to have autism to some extent. Even if not, it's hard to interpret the aesops of Chapters 92 and 135 as anything other than "be kind and understanding to people who aren't like everyone else."
Bottom line, while I admit I could just be reading into things, I still think it's fair to say Shizuka and Ahko could both be interpreted as autistic. It's nice to see characters like this who are allowed to be themselves in ways where their success isn't measured in how normal they are or how well they fit in with society, but just how happy they are and how being around people who care improves their lives.
I'm also glad that they aren't condescended to, their quirks aren't treated purely as jokes (while still being a source of comedy at times, it's never to mock them), and they also aren't portrayed as completely unempathetic jerks or massive super mega-geniuses. Both are a common portrayals in Western media and I'm very tired of both. It's nice to see more down-to-Earth portrayals that emphasize the difficulties in socializing instead.
Anyone else agree or am I reading too much into the text? Do you think there are other examples among the group?

I'd put "spoiler" on this, but since the title tells you it's a recap, I'm just going to roll with it. Moderators, let me know if you'd prefer me to make it a spoiler.
This episode felt a little more like they are finding their footing with the new dynamics. I still don't know what Elizabeth sees in Nathan -- he's a nice enough guy, but if he wasn't a Mountie and was, instead, a farmer or a barber, would she be interested?
Allie and Nathan are walking along the road to school, and Allie asks him “what’s going on between you and Mrs. Thornton?” Nathan denies anything is going on, but Allie tells him that it didn’t look like “nothing” when she saw them in the orchard. Nathan shrugs it off, but Allie persists: “She’s amazing, and she’s super-important to me. I just . . . don’t want you to get hurt . . . like before.” He tells her that “that was a long time ago, and things have changed” but Allie is skeptical. He reassures her that there’s nothing to worry about, and shoos her off to school.
On her way to school, Elizabeth is giving Toby a pep-talk about an upcoming test. She spots Lucas across the way, and tells Toby she’ll see him at school, and walks to meet Lucas, who has seen her and is walking towards her. He tells her he owes her an apology. “I’m listening,” she responds, and Lucas proceeds to apologize for Jeannette ambushing her, and most of all, not telling her about his previous relationship. “So, were you engaged?” Elizabeth asks, and Lucas allows as how they had talked about it. . . “well, mostly, she had talked about it . . . but there was never a ring or anything like that.” Elizabeth thanks him for the apology, but tells him that she’s really not bothered by Jeannette. He tells her that he was trying to leave his past behind him, and sympathetically she finishes the sentence, “ . . . but it always seems to catch up with you.” As they are talking, Nathan comes around the corner and sees them in serious conversation, as Elizabeth puts hand on Nathan’s arm and tells him “I’m very glad to hear that – you and I will always be friends.” (Ouch – “friend zone”?) Nathan watches her hand on Lucas’ arm, and swallows.
(So far, we’ve taken care of most the previews in the first 5 minutes . . . )
Lucas finds Henry in the orchard, and tells him that he doesn’t think that growing hazelnuts is going to be enough for him for long. “Henry . . . “ he begins, but Henry cuts him short and tells him that if he’s going to ask him to come work for him again to save his breath. Lucas tells him that he needs Henry’s help with the location of the resort. Henry wonders why it’s so important to Lucas, and Lucas admits that while all his other initiatives are helping other towns, he wants to do some especially for his own home town. Henry shakes his head, and when Lucas starts to beg him to reconsider, Henry cuts him off, and tells him that “I promised myself I was going to take a different road.” (Again with the cryptic life choices. Just marry Abigail, already!)
Elizabeth pops into Nathan’s office with a soup bone that she has saved for Scout. (goodness, she’s getting a lot done before school starts!) Nathan, pretending to be very busy at his desk, tells her that Scout isn’t in right now (weird response, but ok . . . ) but Elizabeth puts the bag on his desk and tells him to give it to him later. She sits down and asks him if everything is alright. (Why shouldn’t it be, Elizabeth?) Nathan doesn’t look up from his desk. “Nathan?” she asks, and Nathan finally looks her in the eye and tells her that he really has to finish up his paperwork. So Elizabeth leaves in a huff, with a snarky “Of course. Don’t let me distract you.” as she leaves. (What did you expect, Lizzy? You busted in on him unannounced and he’s supposed to stop what he’s doing and flirt with you?)
Maisie Hickham presents Lee and Mike with a list of Benson Hill’s requirements to participate in the resort. They unfold the very long list and start frowning. “You want us to build you a new train station? And a railroad extension?” Lee asks incredulously. “And you want us to build you a new dump?” Mike asks. “It’s only fair, Mikey,” responds his sister, citing the increased trash all the tourists will produce. Lee goes on to review the list, his voice rising with each item:: “Benches, a baseball diamond, and a new public transportation system with 10 buses?!” Maisie smiles and declares, “That a must –with all those tourists going back and forth to the resort.” She also adds that the new access road must go through Benson Hills. Mike, with years of frustration in his voice, whines “Why does everything have to be your way?” She declares that if the governor wants this “pipe dream” to go ahead, we want to be in control of it.” Mike and Lee exchange exasperated looks.
At the Canfields, Joseph has just finished repairing the water pump as the children are doing their homework, when Minnie bursts in with mail. “You have a letter!” she announces, and he just gestures for her to leave it on the table. “You’ll want to read this one . . . it’s from Jacob.” Surprised, Joseph slowly opens it as the children watch breathlessly. “What does it say?” asks Minnie, and Joseph, puzzled, reads, “he says it’s been too long and he’s open to a visit.” Minnie and the kids declare “that’s great!” but Joseph is still puzzled, wondering how he got their address. Minnie suggests a relative, but Joseph keeps reading and stops: “He says he got my letter . . . and he’s looking forward to my apology.” He throws the letter on the table angrily. “Has he lost his mind? I never wrote him!” Joseph takes a deep breath and quotes some Bible verses about welcoming all in their home as the kids cower slightly, but he finishes by declaring “and if he thinks he’s going to get an apology from me, he has another thing coming!” and storms out.
Bill and Rosemary come running into Nathan’s office, showing him that the crime report of Nathan’s shooting doesn’t mesh with the testimony. The shooter was supposed to be far away, but the trajectory of the bullet that hit Lucas’ leg is consistent with Lucas struggling with the shooter at close range. “So close, Lucas had to see his face!” Bill observes, but Rosemary finishes with “if only he could remember.”
The children are finishing up a math test. Opal even gets acknowledged: “Thank you, Opal.” She then announces that she has a surprise – it’s Anna, all the way from the teaching college in Capital City. (Can I just mention that I really, really hate the name “Capital City?)" The older girls are excited to see her, and Elizabeth announces that Anna will be doing her practicum (i.e., student teaching) there. “You mean, you’re going to be teaching us?” one of them asks. “I’m going to try, but I’m sure I’m not going to be as good as Mrs. Thatcher!” (Oh, barf . . . ) Elizabeth reassures her.
Mike and Lee review the meeting at the saloon with Mei. Mike admits that when he’s around her, he feels like her little brother. “She even called me Mikey,” he admits glumly, and Lee agrees. Lucas comes over and is intercepted by Bill with news about the shooter. “Can it wait? I have bigger problems,” and invites him to join the pow-wow with Mike, Lee and Mei, who admit the negotiations are stalled. Bill tells Mike to “just stand his ground!” but Mei observes that Mike may not be the best person to be negotiating with Maisie. Lucas suggests Bill take over, but Bill refuses (so much for “let us know how we can help!”), and they ask Lee to step in as mayor. Mike is on board – “you only lost by just a little bit!” – but Lee demurs: “Not like this!” Bill points out that the Governor is there, and then turns to Lucas and asks “Your Eminence? What sayth ye?” Lucas asks Hickam, who gladly resigns on the spot. Lucas then proclaims Lee as mayor pro tem, pending a special election. Everyone congratulates Lee, who looks a little aghast at the turn of events.
As the children play at recess, Elizabeth and Anna chat on the steps of the church. Anna admits that the classes are harder than she expected, but Elizabeth reassures her by telling her that teachers are best made by experience, not just what is taught at teacher’s college. As they stand up to go inside, Elizabeth pauses, watching Nathan ride across town on his horse, dashing in red serge. She pauses so long that Anna asks her “What’s the matter?” and then shakes it off.
An excited Lee bursts into his and Rosemary’s office. He prefaces his announcement by assuring her that this will not affect how much time he spends with Rosemary and Goldie. She frowns: “Oh no – did we buy another saloon?” Lee blurts out that Lucas just made him mayor. “WHAT?!” exclaims Rosemary, but Lee earnestly tells her that he wants a shot at the job, because he thinks he can really make a difference. Rosemary rises, goes to him, and gives him a lingering kiss. “Lee Coulter, you were made to be mayor,” she assures him. “It’s perfect – I’m so proud of you!” Then, suddenly it’s all about her: “I always thought I’d make a wonderful political wife - holding salons, debating issues of the day, driving the conversation towards a better world for all of us!” Lee just shakes his head, smiling. “I can see it now,” he smiles, and receives another kiss.
Anna hands out the math tests – Toby did well – and gets to ring the bell to dismiss class. Toby thanks Elizabeth for her help. The Canfield children are talking to Allie, telling her about the letter Joseph received, and Elizabeth overhears. They wonder if they should tell their dad who wrote the letter. “I think you already know the answer to that,” she tells them, and they nod glumly.
Henry wanders to the cafe and joins Joseph at a table outside. Joseph notices that Henry is troubled and asks what the problem is. Henry says, “I just want peace,” to which Joseph responds, “Why do you think you can’t have it?” (Oooh, nice philosophical question, Joseph!) Henry says that Lucas has asked him to help with the resort, but admits he doesn’t know if he can do it. “Business doesn’t excite you any more?” Joseph asks. “It’s not the business anymore, it’s the person I become when I’m doing the business.” Joseph puts his cup of tea down, and tells Henry that he has grown, changed and is wiser now. Henry gestures to his hair and retorts, “I’m greyer now! I wouldn’t say that I’m any wiser, now.” (And if that isn’t wise, I don’t know what is.) Joseph observes that he’s been called upon to share his wisdom, but it’s up to him to decide if he wants to share it.
Maisie is enjoying a mud facial from Mei, and comments that her shoulder is acting up, as it usually does with stress or family – “in this case, both” Mei offers to try acupressure, and Maisie agrees. While she relaxes, Maisie lets her guard down and tells her that she thinks it’s a bad idea of the governor’s, but the people of Benson Hills are “dazzled” by it. She then relaxes into a snooze just as Mike appears. Mei motions him out, and joins him outside as Maisie snoozes, and tells Mike that the people at Benson Hills are for the project, which delights him.
Elizabeth is walking down the street (with basket!) and sees Nathan chatting to some townspeople. He tips his hat and walks away, stops when he sees Elizabeth, but then keeps walking away. Elizabeth looks confused and slightly hurt. Later, she and Rosemary are talking by her front porch, and Rosemary asks if everything is ok between her and Lucas. Elizabeth says she thinks that both of them just want to be friends, and Rosemary agrees that it’s good to have fabulous friends that endeavor to do great things. Elizabeth goes on to say that “looking back, there was love, but not . . . “ “. . . the love you had with Jack,” Rosemary finishes for her. “Or the love you have with Lee. Is it asking too much to want that kind of love again?” Rosemary reassures her that no, it’s not, and that there’s a love written for her in the stars. Elizabeth, frowning, says, “Sometimes the stars don’t get it right,” and Rosemary asks what’s wrong. “Sometimes, it’s just hard to know what’s going on in other people’s minds – and hearts,” Elizabeth says. Rosemary asks if she’s talking about Nathan, and observes that minds and hearts don’t always agree.
Lee, Mike and Lucas are meeting to discuss the new information from Mei. Henry is sitting a few feet away, pretending to read a book, but is listening closely. Mike says that he thinks that Maisie is being deliberately difficult because she wants to force Hope Valley to pull the plug because she knows that the people of Benson Hills actually want the resort. Lee realizes that what they have isn’t a negotiation. Lucas looks at Henry and asks him if he’s hearing this. “I am,” Henry replies, nose still in the book. “Well, could you throw us a bone?” Lucas asks. Henry replies, “She’s trying to paint you in a corner – you have to take the paintbrush away from her.” The guys think about this for a moment, and Lee asks “How do we do that?” Henry allows as how he has a thought. Lucas smiles and says, “It sounds like you’re on board, Henry.” “Maybe. Let’s talk more,” Henry replies, as he gets up and walks out. Lucas starts to follow him, but notices Nathan, in off-duty clothes, listlessly playing darts in the corner. He walks over and proposes a wager on a game, and Nathan says he doesn’t trust his luck. Lucas throws a dart, smiles, and says, “It’s not luck, it’s skill.” Nathan laughs and says, “That, too!” and observes that Lucas seems to be in a good mood. “Some things seem to be going in my favor, and I cleared up a small misunderstanding with Elizabeth,” Lucas admits. “You mean, with Jeannette?” Nathan asks. “You were engaged to her?” Lucas observes that you can’t put your socks on in this town without everybody knowing it, and that no, he and Jennette were not engaged, but were together for a while. “As it turns out, Elizabeth hardly batted an eye, so I guess that means she has well and truly moved on.” “You’re ok with that?” Nathan asks skeptically. Lucas looks at Nathan and tells him “I’d rather have her as a friend than not have her in my life at all.” Nathan absorbs what Lucas has just said.
At the Canfields, Angela offers Joseph some pie. As he sits down, he notices they are nervous and asks what’s wrong. Angela admits that they sent Uncle Jacob the letter, but they didn’t mean to cause trouble, but after what he had told them about how important siblings are, and how you shouldn’t take them for granted . . . “ “ . . . we just thought that maybe you were taking it for granted, too.” finishes Cooper. Joseph sighs and says “you may be right,” and tells them it’s ok.
At school, Opal has made a very detailed picture of what she imagines the new resort would be like. Elizabeth suggests that she could be an architect or even an engineer. Opal looks thoughtful and asks Elizabeth to give the picture to Governor Bouchard.
Maisie enters the conference room for the next round of negotiations, but is surprised to find Lucas and Henry also in attendance. Lucas tells her they have an idea that might be fair to both parties, and Henry explains that they accept all of her demands. “You do?” she says, nervously. Henry goes on to add that they have an idea to help both towns. “What’s the idea?” Maisie demands. Lucas replies simply: “We merge the towns.” Maisie explodes, accusing them of trying to push her out of office, but Lucas explains that there will be co-mayors, until the next election. She looks speculatively at Mike, then smiles. “Co-mayors, you say?” Mike tries to interrupt her (to explain about Lee being the current mayor), but Maisie brushes him off with a condescending sweep of her finger and tells him “Mikey, I’m speaking with the governor.” Mike sits back with a “well, I tried” look on his face and a small smile. She asks Lucas, “And if either of these co-mayors persuades the other to oppose the resort?” Lucas smiles charmingly and tells her that ‘that would be most unfortunate, but I can’t see moving forward unless we have the full support of at least one mayor.” “Then I agree!” she says, standing and preparing to leave. “Thank you, Madame Mayor” Lucas tells her, and then administers the coup de grace: “Oh, by the way, Mike isn’t mayor anymore, Mr. Coulter is.” Maisie turns in disbelief, as Lee puts out his hand, smiles, and says, “And I look forward to our collaboration!’ he tells her, with a little laugh. She glares accusingly at Mike, who shrugs and says apologetically “I’m sorry Maisie – I tried to tell you.” She storms out of the conference room, leaving behind a room of smiling men.
Nathan (in uniform) sees Elizabeth on the street and asks to speak with her. He guides her over to an alcove and apologizes for his curt behavior the day before. “It obviously was just bad timing,” Elizabeth offers, but Nathan denies it and says, awkwardly, “I thought you and Lucas were . . . still . . . “ Elizabeth denies it, and assures him that she and Lucas are just friends. “I know,” says Nathan, “but what am I to you?” he asks earnestly. “I mean – are we just friends?” Elizabeth stares at him, mouth open, but is then interrupted by Henry, who tells Elizabeth there is an emergency meeting of the town council, and tells Nathan he might want to attend, too.
(Interesting to see who is on the town council. Where is Molly? Or Faith?) Florence and Ned Yost, Mike, Mei, Lee and Rosemary, Bill, Joseph and Henry. Apparently Elizabeth is, too. As they enter, everyone is already gathered, with Lucas standing in front of them. Bill is incredulous: “You want to merge the towns?” Ned Yost asks, “We won’t be Hope Valley any more?” Lucas reminds them that Maisie will also have a say, but tells them the vote must be unanimous, or else the project goes to Jamison or Buxton. Lucas also reminds them that if they merge, their school would come under the jurisdiction of the Valley School District and they would lose their independence. Elizabeth goes wide-eyed, and then looks down in thought as Rosemary looks at her worriedly and says “I don’t like the sound of that.” Florence agrees, remembering “the last time the school board came knocking.” Ned says that if it affects Elizabeth’s school, he votes no. Everyone looks at Elizabeth, who slowly says that while they have had their issues with the school board before, they have always overcome them, and this might mean more benefits. Lee agrees, saying there may be more resources and more opportunities for their kids. Ned asks Elizabeth if she agrees, and she hesitates, gazing at Lucas. “Do you really believe in this?” she asks him. He holds her gaze and says, “I do. Economically, it means a better future for the whole valley and everyone in it.” “She thinks for a moment: “Then I say ‘yes’.” She turns and glances at Nathan, who gives her a small smile – which is observed by Lucas.
Maisie is meeting with Henry, Lucas, Mike and Lee, and declares that the towns aren’t merged. “We thought you were in agreement?” responds Henry, and Maisie blusters, “Well, THAT was before . . . “ and Lee smiles and finishes her sentence for her: “Before you found out that I was going to be your co-mayor instead of Mike?” Mike throws his two cents in gleefully: “You aren’t pushing Lee around!” Maisie shrugs, and Lucas tells her that they want to work with her, and promise to deal with her demands in good faith, but “yes, it is a fait accompli.” Maisie is still against the idea of the resort, and states that it will bring endless trouble to the valley. Lucas promises her that won’t happen, but Maisie shoots back, “Just like your predecessor promised the water would be safe? I may be a lone voice, but I will continue to fight this monstrosity. And maybe the voters will turn against me in the next election – but at least I will be able to sleep at night. Can you say the same?” Mike tries to reason with her: “Your own council agrees!” She dismisses his argument, telling him that he is being fooled. Mike stands firm, though, and tells her “Maisie, you’re wrong. I know you aren’t used to being told this, but you’re wrong.” She glares at Mike, and then tells them all that “this isn’t over” as she flounces out. Mike apologizes to Lucas, who says that he’s sorry, too, for causing a family rift. Mike brushes that prospect off with a short laugh: “As Hickam rifts go, this is mild!” Lee congratulates Lucas and leaves, leaving Lucas and Henry. Lucas turns to Henry and tells him, “Well played – I knew we needed you on the team. Welcome aboard!” Henry nods, but looks less than thrilled.
Elizabeth (carrying the basket) knocks on Lucas’ office door and asks if he’s busy. He invites her in, and apologizes for blindsiding her at the council meeting, but she admits that it was inevitable that they would end up joining the school board. He assures her that he will do everything in his power to maintain independence, and she thanks him. She reaches into her basket and pulls out Opal’s sketch, and tells him that Opal really wanted him to have it, because she had been inspired on the hike. Lucas studies it and says “this is even better than I had imagined it!” Elizabeth tells him that “she really believes in the Bouchard GV!” “GV?” “Grand Vision” she explains, smiling. “And I believe in it, too.” Lucas tells her that that means a great deal to him. As she turns to leave, he tells her that he really meant what he said to her, and asks her to promise him that if she ever does have a chance at happiness, that she will jump in with both feet. You deserve that.” Touched, she tells him “Thank you. I will.”
Minnie joins Joseph, who is deep in thought, on the porch of the cafe. They talk about Jacob, and how Minnie remembers them being inseparable when they first met. Joseph agrees, but then says that after the argument that his brother was “Impossible! And difficult! And stubborn!” Minnie observes that “I guess it runs in the family,” and reminds him that it’s been a long time, and that he should remember what he told the kid, that there is nothing more precious than family. Joseph shakes his head slightly, but Minnie persists: “You have nothing to lose . . . and everything to gain.”
Bill and Rosemary are explaining the shooter theory to Lucas, who still doesn’t remember the shooting. He points out that Clayton Pike confessed, but Bill presses on, and reminds Lucas that Pike may not have been acting alone – or even was there. Rosemary chimes in, saying that if that’s the case, the real shooter is still out there, and Lucas is still in danger. Lucas tries to brush it off, reminding them that it’s been five months, and the other person has had plenty of time to finish the job if he was still in danger. Rosemary reminds him that they just want him to be safe, and he thanks them. Bill picks up the file as he and Rosemary begin to leave, and a photo of the crime scene falls out. Lucas picks it up to hand to Bill, but as he glances at it, he has a short flashback. “I do remember . . . something I grabbed the gun.” Bill asks eagerly if he remembers the face, any detail that might help, but that’s all Lucas can recall for now, and he promises to tell them if something else comes to mind. He looks distracted. “Right now, I’m just tired – it’s been a long day.” Bill and Rosemary nod understandingly and leave. Lucas stands in the middle of the room, as flashbacks flit through his mind: The headlight of a car. A man with a hat with his back turned towards him. A struggle. A gun. And lastly, an umbrella lying on the ground in the rain.
Nathan is enjoying a drink on the front porch of his house as Allies comes out, declaring the dishes have been done. He thanks her, and she apologizes for "sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong” the day before. He reassures her it’s ok, but she asks what he’s going to do. “I thought I’d walk Scout and walk off some of that dinner,” he teases, and she says, “No! About Mrs. Thornton!” Nathans tells her it’s complicated, but Allie looks over his shoulder and interrupts him by springing up and telling him, “Oh, I have homework!” and dashes inside. He turns and, surprised, sees Elizabeth walking up to him. “I didn’t get a chance to answer your question,” she tells him. He tries to be nonchalant about it, but she persists. “Nathan. Friends don’t look at friends . . . this way.” She tears her gaze from his and walks away, leaving him smiling.

Years ago I read an online article written by an older woman talking about how she has become invisible as she has gotten older.
There are a number of articles/stories about this but this article mentioned that the authors niece was a model. The photo at the beginning of the article was of a model, as seen from the back.
It's not this article in the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/02/akiko-busch-mrs-dalloway-shows-aging-has-benefits/583480/
Nor is it this article on HuffPo:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/invisible-women-50s-male-gaze_n_63a38c4fe4b033ea8cc577aa
I greatly appreciate any help. Thank you in advance.

Happy post CINCO DE DRINKO internet friends! It's FC coming to you live from the bayou. It's hot, it's humid, and it's May in Louisiana. I got the three ton trane keeping it cooler than Andre 3000 and you know what that means - time for stupid stories of the day!
First things first, I get a little trolling thunder done in the AM. I managed to score a free printer on facebook marketplace on a curb alert while everyone was out downing margaritas yesterday. It's an older HP.
Now, I do pretty well in life - but I don't do so well to turn down a free HP color laserjet that may or may not have toner in it. I mean, come on. This could be a great find!
Drove 34 minutes to get it. Drove 34 minutes to get back home. Turned it on. Everything worked and still had plenty of toner in it.
An attorney was ghosting me since February.
I wrote a complaint. Printed it, took a pic and sent him an email
"You'll NEVER guess what I found on the side of the road. Some guy curb alerted a PERFECTLY GOOD HP COLOR LASERJET! Still had toner in it too! I think it prints pretty good, check it out!"
I attach an image of federal complaint naming his client as a defendant.
I emailed that this morning. Maybe that'll get the fucker to the table with more than $500.
I get a few emails from people asking for quotes on generic things, a few folks asking me for 25ACP ammo and other misc items.
Phone rings at 930AM
FC: Go for FC
1: I need a 22 adapter
FC: Okay, for what gun?
1: 22
FC: No I mean what........here, you need a 22 adapter right?
1: Yes.
FC: Adapting what thread pattern to what?
1: The 22. The adapter.
FC: What thread pattern is your gun?
1: Don't know.
FC: What thread pattern do you need it to go to?
1: Don't know.
FC: Why not?
1: It's my grandpas gun, it's an older one. We don't know much about it.
FC: What is it?
1: It's a 12 gauge.
FC: But you said you needed a 22 adapter.
1: Yes. A 22 adapter. So we can shoot 12 gauge.
FC: Do you know what a 22 adapter is?
1: Yes. It adapts 22.
Face, meet palm. A hot shower and ibuprofen isn't gonna cut it today. Might need a fentanyl patch applied directly to the stupid.
Second call from a guy who barely speaks english. He wants a glock 19 and it's like that bit that Robin Williams did in Mrs Doubtfire where he says "I am job" over and over except it's "I buy Glock".
I ask him which variant. He says the 19. In 9mm. And he's not a US citizen, he's not holding a green card and he has no visa. He's here on asylum/refugee status. This is not worth the $45 I am gonna make on the deal.
I don't even know why I answer the phone sometimes.
It's lunchtime. I drive to Chickfila and I navigate the infinite traffic jam that is the double lane CFA drive thru. I'm fumbling with my app becuase they just updated it and I can't find shit. I get a call.
"Hey will it's JR from JR's pawn over in Farmerville"
FC: What's up?
"I got a guy here who's selling two cans but I don't have my class 3, he's in your area I'm sending him your way to do the paperwork"
FC: What?
"There's a guy here in my area selling two cans to a guy in your area, the guy in your area is a customer of mine and I want to send him your way to do the paperwork because I don't have a class 3"
FC: What? This makes no sense. I am very confused. Why are you not doing this for the guy here?
"Well I'm 3 hours away and I don't have a class 3"
FC: Do you have any idea how this works?
"No, that's why I called you."
(I'm doing this as I navigate the drive thru, so this is even more mentally taxing than normal)
FC: So who's doing the selling?
"An individual over here has two cans he wants to sell to a guy over near you."
FC: So why don't you just do it?
(me and JR in unison) "Because I don't have a class 3"
FC: You've got to pay the tax the same way I do, just do it that way.
"I can?"
FC: Yeah. Look, here's the thing. If you want to send the guy here - I'll do the transfer. It's $200 in tax per item, $400 total to get to me. Plus my time. Plus $200 in tax per item, to get to the next guy. That's $400 to get them from me. That's $800 in tax + my time, which is probably going to be about $175-250 at this rate to a guy here. That's $1,000 in transactional costs. Does that make any sense?
"There's no other way, it's a class 3 item so it has to transfer through a class 3 dealer"
FC: Or........
"Or?"
FC: Buyer 1 transacts directly with seller 1, they're both in the same state. What's the problem here?
"Uh, I don't think any of them know what they're doing and they'd just as soon rather you do it for them."
FC: If they want to spend $1000 in transaction costs for two cans that aren't even worth $200, far be it from me to stop them to pay me but this is a really dumb way of doing things........
I get back to my home office. A steelcase leap that I found on facebook marketplace that I wanted to buy for work has just been marked sold. Fuck me to tears. I sit down in my V1 leap and eat waffle fries and get work done. I ordered a large. I got a medium. There will be hell to pay, later.
My desk phone rings. It's a telemarketer. I ask him his name, and i've got the gopro running. He says it's Steve Jackson. I say I told you to not call me, what was not clear about that?
"Steve" : I've never called you?
FC: This is Steve Jackson with ABC Funds 123 right?
"Steve": Yes!
FC: Hang on
(FC goes to desktop and opens folder marked ABC Funds 123 with Steve)
(FC plays the recording)
FC, on recording: What's your name?
"Steve", on the phone live *SIMULTANEOUSLY IN STEREO WITH "Steve" on the recording": Steve Jackson
Did I mention that I'm recording the guy listening to him being previously recorded, playing back the previous recording to him? This is meta as fuck, but glorious.
FC: That sounds a lot like you Steve. What do you think?
"Steve" hangs up.
That's a full lid of stupid!

11
The New Age: California Orphism
California, for most of this century, has been our new Burned-over District, replacing the western reserve of New York State, which was the religious hothouse of the nineteenth century. Though the New Age cults have no more than about thirty thousand members, their fellow travelers are an untold multitude. Virtually all our bookstores feature a New Age section, ranging from Shirley MacLaine recalling her previous incarnations to the memoirs of prehistoric warriors, Schwarzkopfs of 35,000 years ago. Networking in our America, these days, takes place either among the politically correct academics of the high camp of Resentment, or among the dank cranks of the belated Aquarian Conspiracy, trying to float our planet off into cosmic consciousness.
Religious criticism cannot be applied to Scientology, or to the Moonie Unification Church, any more than literary criticism can find its texts-for-discussion in Alice Walker or in Danielle Steel. The New Age is a borderline case, like Allen Ginsberg or John Updike. The warlocks and the mediums of California Orphism aren’t exactly Emanuel Swedenborg or even Madame Helena.
Petrovna Blavatsky, of whom W.B. Yeats sublimely remarked: “Of course she gets up spurious miracles, but what is a woman of genius to do in the nineteenth century!” The spurious miracles of the New Age are the comic outreaches of the American Religion, and might yield a few amiable insights to a properly disinterested religious criticism. The way not to criticize the New Age is simply to denounce it, which is the practice of Christian apologists such as Kerry D. McRoberts in his New Age or Old Lie (1989), an Evangelical ferocity of a treatise:

• Concerns by some Christian writers that an ominous system, like the New Age, could usher in the reign of the Antichrist are valid, yet they are easily sensationalized. The biblical record clearly illustrates that we live in a theistic universe, not one left to the conscious, random reordering on a world-wide scale by diabolical co-conspirators independent of God’s foreordained “plan.”

Easily sensationalized? Hardly, since New Age fantasies are beyond further sensationalizing. Their ultimate American ancestor is Emerson, who would have had grand entertainment from them, and yet Emerson hardly would have rejoiced in this varied progeny. To have given us Walt Whitman and Wallace Stevens is one kind of achievement; to have helped foster Norman Vincent Peale and the wild apostles of Harmonial religion is quite another. Sydney Ahlstrom’s definition of Harmonial religion is now classic:

• Harmonial religion encompasses those forms of piety and belief in which spiritual composure, physical health, and even economic wellbeing are understood to flow from a person’s rapport with the cosmos. Human beatitude and immortality are believed to depend to a great degree on one’s being “in tune with the infinite.”

The last phrase is the title of Ralph Waldo Trine’s book of 1897, which preached a universal religion in which God and man were seen as differing only in degree, not in essence. Hailing his namesake Emerson as prophet of the New Harmonial era, Trine set the pattern for a long procession of similar diffusers of the sage of Concord. The late President Bart Giamatti of Yale (later baseball commissioner) accurately remarked to me once that the actual Emerson was “as sweet as barbed wire,” a truth lost upon the Harmonials.
Health and Harmony worthies, after Trine, memorably included Emmet Fox, Norman Vincent Peale, Ann Morrow Lindbergh, Thomas Merton, and all of our current New Age prophets, seers, and shamans. These are legion, yet are varied ancestors of Swedenborg, Madame Blavatsky, and the Jesuit scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The American 1960s doubtless originated the ferment out of which the New Age emanated, but the movement essentially was revived in the California of the later 1970s and may have achieved its greatest prominence throughout the 1980s. Its most enthusiastic (and uncritical) chronicler remains Marilyn Ferguson, who celebrated its promise in The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980). Her catalog of gurus began with Teilhard de Chardin, Jung, Aldous Huxley, and J. Krishnamurti, and then went on to include a remarkable mingling (among others) of Tillich, Buber, Gregory Bateson, assorted Swamis, Marshall McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, and even Werner Erhard. California, she declared, was the “Laboratory for Transformation,” and the inevitable location for sparking a return to “the God within.” We are well within the belated repetition of what I have called American Orphism when we contemplate California Orphism.
Having read his way through Mrs. Eddy, Mrs. White, and the Book of Mormon, the religious critic encounters his inevitable defeat in the pages of Matthew Fox, David Spangler, David Toolan, Chogyam Trungpa, and the other major New Age authors. One reads the same passages over again, worried that one has missed the point, only to discover that points belong to the wrong mindset. Here, absolutely at random, is Trungpa:

• Sometimes if your clothes fit you well, you feel that they are too tight. If you dress up, you may feel constricted by wearing a necktie or a suit or a tight fitting skirt or dress. The idea of invoking internal drala is not to give in to the allure of casualness. The occasional irritation coming from your neck, the crotch of your pants, or your waist is usually a good sign. It means that your clothes fit you well, but your neurosis doesn’t fit your clothes. (Shambhala, the Sacred Path of the Warrior [1984]. p. 85)

We are told (p. 79) that drala is “the living magic of reality,” but the definition does not aid me in the difficult act of interpreting whether or not looser garments will bring me nearer to such living magic. New Age prose is its own genre, and the wonder of the New Age, at its advent, will be how the newagers will manage to read their own edifying discourse. Rather than pursue the pith of their doctrine in particular authorities, I will summarize the burden of what my doughty efforts have contrived to dredge up, so far. Somewhat in the background of the New Age is the lucid and beautiful anthology edited by Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (1945). Huxley’s spiritual authorities were the great seers and mystics of the ages, among them William Law, Thomas Traherne, the Bhagavad Gita, Meister Eckhart, and Saint Augustine. In the contemplative brilliance of Huxley’s own prose as frame, the profundities of Law and Eckhart acquired fresh reverberation. By recourse to Huxley, you can sometimes construe a New Age passage and hazard some guess as to more or less what some California sage hoped she or he might mean. Otherwise, the student of the New Age must be resigned to that proverbial picnic, to which the authors bring the words (or some of them, anyway) and the readers bring the meanings.
Elevated consciousness would appear to be the common goal of all New Age Enthusiasts, including Ms. Shirley MacLaine, certainly the handsomest of the movement’s public figures. Monistic ecologists of the spirit, they proclaim that now is the acceptable time for a great leap forward in paradigms, despite one’s gloomy sense that the era belongs to Reagan, Bush, and similar anchors of the Old Age. If one must have apocalyptics, far better that they should be of the California Orphic variety than our multitude of Fundamentalist literalizers of the Revelation of St. John the Divine and the book of Daniel. California apocalypses are by no means all benign: any reader of Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust can recall the fury that descends there on Los Angeles, and can wonder how ominous a prophecy it may prove to be. But New Age apocalypse is humane, indeed even sentimental. Our planet is not about to float off into a cosmic greenpeace, but at least it is heartening that the New Age Orphics dream of so amiable a conclusion.

God, for the New Age, is rather too purged of the anthropomorphic for my taste, and I assume that the Theosophical legacy is responsible for no otherwise uncharacteristic a Californian dehumanization of God. A God immanent both in outward nature and in consciousness evades the intervening space of incarnation. Christianity therefore is mostly irrelevant to the New Age, except insofar as Christianity already has been modified into the American Religion, of which the New Age is sometimes a charming parody.
One might say that the New Age is to the American Religion what Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is to Shakespearean drama: a great shadow’s last embellishment. The Mormon aspiration of mounting to godhood or the Southern Baptist experience of an uncreated self within one, is replaced by the entertainment of the notion that one’s own consciousness is God. And the Mormon ambition of populating a planet only with one’s own family, or the Southern Baptist passion for being alone with Jesus, is taken to the lunatic apotheosis that one’s very own spirit guide is built into the ecology of one’s own mind. American Gnosticism and American Enthusiasm are splendidly parodied by California Orphism, by a metamorphic glamour that dissolves the last empiric constraints which the universe of death exercises against our drive for spirituality.
Aldous Huxley, in his introduction to The Perennial Philosophy, gave a warning that New Age Enthusiasts, like everyone else, will receive nothing for nothing:

• The Perennial Philosophy is primarily concerned with the one, divine Reality substantial to the manifold world of things and lives and minds. But the nature of this one Reality is such that it cannot be directly and immediately apprehended except by those who have chosen to fulfill certain conditions, making themselves loving, pure in heart, and poor in spirit.

California Orphism, skipping over Huxley’s monitory remark, apprehends Reality directly and immediately, at no inner expense whatsoever. Marilyn Ferguson, in the accents of a benign consumerism, excitedly assured her Aquarian conspirators that even death had surrendered to their aspirations:

• A number of those filling out the Aquarian Conspiracy questionnaire commented that their experiences had forced them to give up their previous assumption that bodily death ends consciousness. Despite their disaffiliation with formal religion, 53 percent expressed strong belief in such survival and another 23 percent said they were “moderately sure,” a total of 75 percent. Only 5 percent were skeptical and 3 percent disbelieving. (pp. 383-84)

What the God of California shares with the God of the American Religion, and indeed of Christianity, is that he is the Reality you set against the Freudian reality principle, the necessity of dying, of really dying, once and for all. The Californian God differs in that he is a kind of public orange grove, where you can pick as and when you want, particularly since he is an orange grove within. His perpetual and universal immanence makes it difficult for a newager to distinguish between God and any experience whatsoever, but then why should such a distinction occur to a Californian Orphic? Matthew Fox, ostensibly a Catholic priest, has formulated a curious doctrine of “panentheism” to avoid this collapse into pantheism, but Fox is one of my defeats. Several attempts on my part to read through The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (1988) have failed, as no prose I have ever encountered can match Fox’s in blissful vacuity, where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea.
The absolute immanence of the New Age God is, I suppose, the inescapable poem of California’s climate, the cosmos as one grand orange, consciousness as its juice. “The sacramental consciousness of panentheism develops into a transparent and diaphanous consciousness wherein we can see events and beings as divine.” If one substituted “oranges” for “divine” as the final word in that Foxian sentence, after substituting “juice” for the two appearances of “consciousness,” then mere understanding might be advanced:

• The sacramental juice of panentheism develops into a transparent and diaphanous juice wherein we can see events and beings as oranges.

To render justice unto Fox and most followers of the New Age, he and they hedged the obsessive immanence of God with a touch of transcendence. There is thus a heavenly or archetypal orange somewhere, as well as the enveloping cosmic orange. But this difference makes so little difference, on a daily basis, as not to survive the pragmatic test. Fox has a nostalgia for the Church’s sacraments but he, like all newagers, doesn’t really need them.
The perfect concentrate of consciousness is the Grail for which the New Age quests, a Grail it rather surprisingly identifies with near-death experiences, which now constitute a considerable American growth industry. Here again I must mutter my defeat, since I cannot understand how any near-death experience whatsoever can give evidence of the survival of consciousness after death. Carol Zaleski’s very useful Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of Near-Death Experience in Medieval and Modern Times (1987) notes the rise of IANDS (International Association of Near-Death Studies). IANDS has become a marvelous amalgam of near-death research with New Age ideology, complete with “maroon T-shirts, and a logo that combines the tunnel image with the Taoist yin-yang symbol,” as well as a quarterly newsletter hopefully entitled Vital Signs. As Zaleski shows, this is nothing new, but was inaugurated as early as 1903 by the British psychic research F.W.H Myers, himself a crucial influence upon my favorite modern literary critic, the late G. Wilson Knight. Still, the modern phase of near-death jamboree begins only with Raymond Moody’s relatively careful Life after Life (1975), a threshold work that does not cross over into New Age exuberance. That achievement belongs to Kenneth Ring, a Moody disciple who made the great leap and oranged himself:

• Near-death experiences collectively represent an evolutionary thrust toward higher consciousness for humanity as a whole.... People who have had near-death experiences, as well as many other people whose lives have been transformed by one or more deep spiritual experiences, all these people as a totality represent in effect a more highly advanced human being…. To my thinking, the emergence of this new strain of human being…on the planet now, signals a possibility that the dawning of the New Age is indeed upon us. (quoted in Zaleski, pp. 107-8)

Zaleski’s own restrained conclusions are altogether different:

• At this stage I see no justification for treating contemporary near-death testimony as the foundation for a new eschatology or religious movement. Near-death literature is at its best when it is modest and anecdotal; pressed into service as philosophy or prophecy, it sounds insipid. (p. 204)

But the apostles of the New Age ignore such a warning, and rely not only upon Moody and Ring but also upon Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, author of On Death and Dying (1969, 1975) and its companion works. Kubler-Ross, by whatever means, has comforted both the dying and their survivors, while assuring all of us that there is no such thing as death, and also that dying is in itself rather a good thing. It is hardly a limitation of the New Age that so much of its appeal is founded upon thanatology. Christianity, after all, stakes everything upon the Resurrection; if Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, in defiance of nature, then all of Christianity is simply an imposture. The American Religion, as I have argued throughout, is ultrasupernaturalistic, and its varieties demand even more violent miracles than are afforded by institutional and historical Christianity. Extravagant as the New Age is, it is only the most garish of all the American originals that have expressed our national spiritual exuberance.