Make a doorstop

I was an avid reader and writer. I wrote and read as much as I could. Whenever and wherever I could since I was a child. Making my own stories I could venture away into my own nirvana. Then something inexplicable happened. I stopped. All of a sudden. My curiosity as well as my inspiration had left the building. Don’t get me wrong I still love getting lost in a whole new world and the knowledge reading gives but when forced to read and write gives you a sense of your Paul Sheldon the Main character of Misery by Stephen King. I felt forced to write about aspects that don’t fit my traditional writing or eager eyes to read. When once a hobby and passion turn into a lack of indulgence and dread because forced. My nirvana was fading After ending a relationship with a man I thought to be the one took a Toll for the domestic violence came in to play an drugs. Instead of set us fighting with eachother, we were fighting for our daughter and DHS. My life soon turned in to misery and wrintig was my only escapee from my emotions and my passion. Then I was placed with uncertainties of having to represent myself in a custody battle have given me the dreariness which I never thought existed in me. The contemptuous critique and format that is way beyond my thought process. I was thrown into a world full of purgatory. The overwhelming paperwork, writing style, ridicule and control the courts have had a hold on me had made me lose sight of the positive and passion in my reading and Writing. I was indeed Paul Sheldon and Annie Wilkes took not only my ankles but my passion for reading and writing. Despite the detrimental aspects of there being a chance, my Light could get taken from me.I was trapped in a cabin forced to write and seep into the darkness. To see the light in the darkness is anything but ignorant. I learned my ungovernable and strong-willed mind came to my benefit for once. through formal legal writing, my thoughts could be heard, and my self-righteous expectations of unquestioned obedience were challenging. It was then I found an infatuation with the controversy. My ankles,my heart, My light are broken but I new I had to heal. My knowledge grew with curiosity about where that doorstop is to kill Annie once and for all and to be finally free from the misery, I was soon becoming numb too. To let go of a passion because of uncertainty is ignorant of my ignorance and to be captive when one can learn to escape is ignorant. Despite my escape and even knowing Annie lurks in the shadows I continue to read and write with passion in presuming my nirvana out of misery. My misery brought only passion in my writings, and for my reading my knowledge grew. I found nirvana in my misery and found a bit of yellow in my Soul. Chapter Two: Yellow Our eyes are the windows to our souls and our auras are filled with colors that reflect our psyche. Eyes filled with merriment, love, happiness, and kindness embrace auras of yellow, red, green, and orange. Eyes filled with anger and rage, and sadly, the worst – such great sadness that they now have no feeling, emotionless, hollow, and they reflect a psyche of translucent black. For four long years, I have hoped my words would be heard. The infliction of abuse became commonplace and initial reactions to fight waned. I simply began to accept the maltreatment and bury my pain deep inside my head and heart. The overwhelming sense of disconsolateness and anxiety fogged my head; I had lost sight of what it felt like to be “the color yellow” Not only that I lost my one biggest passion, writing. something I’ve done for a long time to cope with my emotions or just escape. I ended up burying those no feelings deep inside. I have buried them because of the crushing weight of emotional abuse from which I suffer. I was told that emotionally, I used to exude an aura of yellow. I long for the return of the vibrance of that color and what it represents about my psyche – happiness, not sadness and depression. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years of enduring the invisible scars etched upon my soul. Each passing moment felt heavier than the last as if carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. The once vibrant hues of life had faded into muted shades of gray, leaving me feeling like a mere shadow of my former self. My former self was so happy. I can’t even recall the last time I sang in the shower. The reason I say this is because I asked my grandmother when I was little my sister was seeing in the shower and she told me it meant she was happy I can’t even recall the last time I sang into the shower, my grandmother used to always tell me Have someone seeing the shower that means they’re happy to create the In the silence of the night, I would find solace in the whispers of my thoughts, yearning for a glimmer of hope to pierce through the darkness that had enveloped me. Memories of brighter days would flicker in the depths of my mind, like distant stars in a night sky obscured by clouds. “Should I leave?” I’d ask myself. “I can’t. Our daughter needs both of us” I’d answer. My sleepless nights became filled with a reoccurring nightmare. I was sitting in a black room with scratches on the walls. The floor was a mess from what seemed to be little pieces of crumbled paper. When I picked up the paper and straightened it out it revealed a message, a memory - of eyes, eyes filled with rage and eyes that had become hallow. I had become accustomed to those eyes filled with rage searing a hole into my soul, my heart, my psyche, my life. Those eyes became hallow, emotionless, but they were not my eyes, My daughter’s father got into steroids and raged with anger because. His being disappointed with himself and demons he hid away for too long. Have you ever seen somebody’s eyes hallow? It tears the very core of your being and how you feel when you lock eyes with those hollow eyes…its like you little kid and you’re afraid of the dark and the bogeyman is in the closet because you can’t make out that sweater that simply just hanging up in your closet. That’s how I felt every day. Scared. My daughter and I were no longer safe as her father became more hallow and cruel as the steroids filled his body and the rage became more destructive. Despite the fear and being silenced a faint ember of resilience still burned, a tiny spark refusing to be extinguished by the harsh winds of adversity. With each passing day, that ember grew brighter, fueled by a newfound determination to reclaim my voice and my sense of self. I had to get my daughter away from the boogeyman and myself before I too became hallow. As I stood at the crossroads of despair and redemption, I knew that the journey ahead would be arduous and fraught with challenges. Yet, I also knew that within me lay the strength to rise above the shadows and rediscover the vibrant hues of my spirit. It was time to break free from the chains of silence and reclaim the colors that defined me - to once again feel the warmth of “the color yellow” shining brightly within my soul. The fear, the pain, the constant torment, and my daughters and my safety at risk pushed me to the edge. Summoning the last ounce of strength within me, I dialed the sheriff’s department, trembling as I poured out my story. I sent them every single text, every piece of evidence, hoping against hope that someone would finally listen, and finally take action. In that moment, relief mixed with trepidation coursed through me. Would they believe me? Had I done enough? It was a flurry of emotions, an overwhelming rollercoaster. And then, in the faint whisper of hope, I heard the sound of justice slowly awakening with a protection order being put in place. my daughter and I were finally safe at my mother’s home house. That phone rang one day I answered the phone. “Nikki?” “It’s Mark, please don’t hang up.” “I miss our daughter” “I miss you” My heart sunk my legs trembled and in the blink of an eye I was that little kid again, staring at the bogeyman in my closet. I was silenced. “I have quit steroids! Been clean for a few months now!” “Can I see our daughter?” I so desired that we could regenerate our friendship and put a smile back on our daughter’s face when she saw us getting along and having a friendship. I have had a lot of hardships in my life and have never considered myself a victim of anyone or any circumstance. I know now that I put my heart and soul out there for the sake of my daughter and this makes me vulnerable but to see her face l light up at the sight of her father and the glimpse of the yellow, I used to Be. I agreed. What I hoped for was that the rebirth of what we once shared could come back to life and it was. We had a contented solution to our separation. It was civil. We shared our responsibilities for the sake of our daughter, but even that relationship, like the first, took a turn for the worst, and all my hopes and efforts to renew what was dying put my well-being in grave jeopardy. I so desired that we could regenerate our friendship and put a smile back on our daughter’s face when she saw us getting along and having a friendship. We celebrated her birthdays and had normalcy in our comings and goings. We shared laughs during pick-ups and drop-offs for the weekends, but it all died. I tucked my feelings away and as a result, I am, “translucent black”. My heart cries inside. I need to let go of the pain. I want him to understand how his words and actions affect me, I know though, he does not care, those bonds have been broken; however, I still hope that they are mendable. I still have hope regardless of the emptiness I feel. I have worked hard to address who I am, what my faults are, and how my actions affect those I love. At my core, when I search for joy, I feel translucent black – like a large dark void in the universe. Love lost. I believe his are just as lost and are more than those eyes, hollow eyes, and vicious words. His yellow needs to resurface as well as mine. Therapy session after therapy session group after group for domestic violence, survivors all of that has helped me see the glimpse of yellow till I looked at my baby girl’s eyes and everything but hollow I saw yellow, and she helped me resurface mine. Hopefully, she will fill his hollow eyes and resurface his yellow. Chapter Three: Did you, Forget about Me? “No baby, I will never forget about you!” I was holding my breath so tightly that I thought I was going to faint. so that my young daughter wouldn’t witness her superhero fate The most beautiful and amazing gift you will ever receive is a child who takes you off that cliff. It is at this time that you realize how much more valuable another person’s life is the persist of your own. The mother and the child’s fault that this relationship is severed; rather, it is compelled to be outspoken by a power citizens are supposed to treasure. But do they treasure the Every Sleepless evening spent, fighting the monsters away So she can return to dreams, where cotton candy clouds sway. Lemonade waterfalls and the scent of sweet strawberries. We ride our flying purple pigs, no worries or queries. In her world, I teach her morals, the three B’s in sight. Books before boys, values that shine so bright. Patiently, I hold her close, easing her separation fears She clings to me tightly, her source of comfort and cheers As she walks into the classroom, she learns to let go Gradually, she releases my hand, her confidence starts to grow With a dropped pencil, she tells me not to cry Mother and daughter, connected, we soar high No mother or daughter should face misalignment, lies, or disgrace. Misinformation, an injustice, unjustified cries. DHS’s claims are a contradiction, they try to stain. But I stand strong, despite their disdain For I know deep within, my love is true and pure I’ve nurtured, protected, seeking what’s best and secure The courts may doubt, influenced by unwarranted claims But my devotion as a parent sustains, undeterred by their games In the face of adversity, my love will prevail. Motherhood’s challenges, I continue to sail For I’ve raised my daughter with love and might And together, we’ll conquer any fight, shining in our light Having to ignore my child, forbidden from reaching out Feels like neglect, a deep ache, without a doubt. My daughter is innocent and not appropriate for this case. Supported financially by her mother, evidence is in place. She has food in her stomach, her health remains intact. Attending school, and seeing the doctor, her life is on track. She has friends and engages in extracurricular delight n With my family’s involvement, her world is bright. DHS themselves have acknowledged her happiness. A wonderful home and a loving family, no less. Yet, I stand confused, misguided about the charges confessed. The offense, unclear, weighs heavy upon my chest. To hear those words, her plea, “Did you forget about me?” will make any adequate mother want to decay. A heartbreaking cry, reaching deep into my being, you see. I yearn to be there, to hold and guide her through. But circumstances prevent me, breaking my heart anew. Neglect, they claim, but love seeps through my every pore. Distance may separate, but my love for her will endure. I fight, I speak, to prove that I am worthy and true. To show her that she’s never forgotten, my love is her rescue. Chapter Four: Hope Still. Stomach wrenches, eyes that sting when they cry. Head full of her little whispers that make me wonder why a beautiful connection, is broken by fear. Why wish to die when it feels like I already did? When I had to say goodbye, my heart, hid. Now here I sit, alone and tired, hopes at a standstill. Thinking I won’t have her back by my side, it’s a bitter pill to swallow. Unable to bid her goodnight, or let her know I’m still here. Aching for her presence, longing for her to be near. Too many have left her side, causing tears to fall. And now I’ve broken my promise, the greatest of all. To never forsake her, to never let go But circumstances have dealt me a painful low blow Yet in this darkness, a flicker of hope may reside An opportunity to mend, to rekindle our stride I’ll fight for her, fight to make things right. I’ll look that fear right in the eyes. To show her my love, to bring back our light she is my fight. Even though I stumbled and broke my vow I won’t give up on her, I’ll find a way somehow. To remind her I’m here, to dry her tears And together, we’ll conquer our deepest fears. She is one of a kind. Chapter Five: Locket. Sometimes we gotta lock our emotions away in a locket if not it can be catastrophic. When they overflow, no room to sway no way to lock it. a dangerous invite to a one-way flight is in your pocket. I’m telling you, don’t go down that path. Reach out for help before you face its wrath. Life can be tough, emotions run wild. But you got ya find balance, like an inner child. In the depths of our souls, a fire may burn. But we seek a calm shore, where hearts yearn. Amidst the chaos, we seek tranquil ground. A serene river where peace can be found. you’ll mend your heart piece by piece. It’s not going to Be easy but it’s a start. a brighter future isn’t far. your soul will be at ease there is no reason to release. So take a breath, take a moment to be still. Your emotions are precious, they hold the thrill. You’ll tame the storms, find your inner peace With love and understanding, your turmoil will cease. Just promise to breathe.

First person shooter mode, we turnin' your song to a funeral To them niggas that say they wan' off us You better be talkin' 'bout workin' in cubicles Yeah, them boys had it locked, but I knew the code Lot of niggas debatin' my numeral Not the three, not the two, I'm the U-N-O Yeah Numero U-N-O Me and Drizzy, this shit like the Super Bowl Man, this shit damn near big as the-
Big as the what? Big as the what? Big as the what? Ayy
Big as the Super Bowl, but the difference is It's just two guys playin' shit that they did in the studio Niggas usually send they verses back to me And they be terrible, just like a two-year old I love a dinner with some fine women When they start debatin' about who the G.O.A.T I'm like, "Go on 'head, say it then, who the G.O.A.T? Who the G.O.A.T.? Who the G.O.A.T.? Who the G.O.A.T?" Who you bitches really rootin' for? Like a kid that act bad from January to November Nigga, it's just you and Cole
Big as the what? Big as the what? Big as the what? Ayy Big as the Super Bowl
Niggas so thirsty to put me in beef Dissectin' my words and start lookin' too deep I look at the tweets and start suckin' my teeth I'm lettin' it rock 'cause I love the mystique I still wanna get me a song with YB Can't trust everything that you saw on IG Just know if I diss you, I'd make sure you know that I hit you Like I'm on your caller ID I'm namin' the album The Fall Off It's pretty ironic 'cause it ain't no fall off from me Still in this bitch gettin' bigger They waitin' on the kid to come drop like a father to be Love when they argue the hardest MC Is it K-Dot, is it Aubrey or me? We the big three like we started a league But right now, I feel like Muhammed Ali Huh, yeah, whoa, huh, huh Yeah, Muhammed Ali The one that they call when they shit ain't connectin' no more Feel like I got a job in IT Rhymin' with me is the biggest mistake The Spider-Man meme is me lookin' at Drake It's like we recruited your homies to beat demon deacons We got 'em attending your wake Hate how the gang got away from the bars, man, this shit like a prison escape Everybody steppers, well, fuck it Then everybody breakfast and I'm 'bout to clear up my plate (Huh, huh, huh) When I show up, it's motion picture, Blockbuster The G.O.A.T with the golden pen, the top toucher The spot rusher, sprayed his whole shit up, the crop duster Not Russia, but apply pressure To your cranium, Cole's automatic when aiming 'em With The Boy in the status, a stadium Nigga
Ayy I'm 'bout to, I'm 'bout to I'm 'bout to, yeah Yeah
I'm 'bout to click out on this shit I'm 'bout to click, whoa I'm 'bout to click out on this shit I'm 'bout to click, whoa I'm down to click out on you hoes and make a crime scene I click the trigger on the stick like a high beam Man, I was Bentley wheel whippin' when I was nineteen She call my number, leave her hangin', she got dry-cleaned She got a Android, her messages is lime green I search one name, and end up seein' twenty tings Nadine, Christine, Justine Kathleen, Charlene, Pauline, Claudine Man, I pack 'em in this phone like some sardines And they send me naked pictures, it's the small things You niggas is still takin' pictures on a Gulfstream My youngins richer than you rappers and they all stream I really hate that you been sellin' them some false dreams Man, if your pub was up for sale, I'd buy the whole thing Will they ever give me flowers? Well, of course not They don't wanna have that talk, 'cause it's a sore spot They know The Boy the one they gotta boycott I told Jimmy Jam I use a Grammy as a doorstop Girl gave me some head because I need it And if I fuck with you, then after I might eat it, what? Niggas talkin' 'bout, "When this gon' be repeated?" What the fuck, bro? I'm one away from Michael Nigga, beat it, nigga, beat it, what?
Beat it, what? Beat it, what? Beat it, what? Beat it, what? Beat it, what? Beat it, what? Beat it, what? Beat it, what? Beat it, what? Beat it, what? Beat it, ayy, beat it, what? Don't even pay me back on none them favors, I don't need it

I swore off Garmin after my Zumo bricked itself, barely-used, just after the warranty was up. Against my better judgment, a year later I bought a Montana 700i. I wanted the integrated satellite messaging and off-road navigation (mainly the ability to help me get back to a road) for my dual-sport adventures and some highway tours. As usual for Garmin, the hardware seems good-enough in terms of durability/build quality. It does give the impression that it could survive a bit of abuse (then again, my Zumo did not survive 6 months in a desk drawer, so all bets are off). Garmin positions this as a 'dual-use' (vehicle/handheld) unit, but It's very bulky in the hand and definitely not going in a pocket. You could take it hiking, but if that's your primary use-case you almost certainly want something smaller and lighter. A micro-USB connector on a 2020 product is only ~5 years behind the curve, instead of 15-20. Hey, it's growth!
The software, on the other hand, is unmitigated GARBAGE. The interface is at least fairly smooth and responsive (assuming it responds at all–more on that later), but that's the only nice thing I can say. The overall experience is akin to using a 2009 Android phone in 2024: ugly, clunky, buggy, non-intuitive. When trying to program it at my desk, I'm frequently interrupted by full-screen "Trouble finding satellites" alerts. Almost everything requires 2-3 more steps than it feels like it should. Looking up street addresses is hit-and-miss, especially if you have an "East" or "N" or some such in the street name. I frequently have to resort to finding the place in Google Maps on my computer or phone, getting coordinates, then inputting those into the Garmin. It's tedious.
The context-specific "hamburger menu" in the toolbar seldom contains useful options (often none at all). The 'app-based' interface is clearly meant to ape what people are used to on phones and tablets. I'm not sure that idiom is necessary or ideal for a purpose-built device like this, though, and it doesn't seem like Garmin bothered to ask those questions internally. Regardless, the execution is poor: functionality is split between too many trivial 'apps', and often not in the way you'd expect. You want to add a waypoint? Well, you can't do that in "Waypoint Manager"–that would just make too much sense!
It gets worse. The third time I used this on a ride, it completely froze up. Even holding the power button for 10+ seconds, did nothing. It did not un-freeze until I plugged it into a computer, which put it into mass-storage mode (I'm glad I had that setting enabled). Thankfully I was on my way home and knew the route. It'll be super fun when that happens again in the middle of a trip in unfamiliar territory, and I don't have a laptop handy. Earlier today, while trying to program waypoints for an upcoming trip, it suddenly and inexplicably shut off with 90% battery. It did turn back on but I'm guessing that, like my Zumo, that won't be the case someday soon. I currently cannot save more than three waypoints; when I try to add a fourth, it silently overwrites one of the others. Sorting waypoints alphabetically doesn't seem to work if your waypoints are named with leading numbers. I could go on. For an expensive, relatively new, barely-used, fully-updated device, it's shockingly broken.
Sadly I bought this thing in large part as a replacement/upgrade to my SPOT device, which I'd planned to ditch...but now that I have zero confidence in the Garmin's basic reliability, it can't fill that role either. The SPOT's features are limited, but the thing works. The thought of troubleshooting a buggy/frozen Montana while I'm broken or bleeding on the side of a trail gives me nightmares. Yeah...hard pass.
Then there's Garmin's constellation of apps and services across various platforms. It's not at all obvious which thing you need, for which device and purpose (you'll need to look all that up). You may need several, and they likely don't synch or interoperate. I just wanted to create and manage waypoints and routes on my Mac, then synch them to the device. Or maybe load a GPX file that I created elsewhere. I gave up on all that after a couple hours of frustration. BaseCamp was a dumpster fire but I at least *mostly* knew how to get it to do what I wanted (after many hours of struggle). Now I don't even have that, and I just don't feel the motivation to learn a whole new workflow to program another soon-to-be doorstop. I write software for a living, so I'd like to think I have a higher-than-average level of skill (or at least patience) for 'tech stuff'. That patience, it seems, is not up to the challenge of being a Garmin user.
If I could wipe Garmin's software and flash this thing with vanilla Android, and run Gaia or Rever or OnX or whatever...I'd do it, in a heartbeat, even though I'd be theoretically losing functionality. I even did some searching to see if that was feasible (nope). If I could go back in time, I'd buy a generic ruggedized Android phone for half the money and I'm sure I'd be happier with it. I've given this company enough chances (and money) and I'm truly done with them. How is there not a better alternative?

Hi, I’m making an outside doorstop from Elm that I intend to paint. The paint I have isn’t of exterior grade. Some of the elm will be left unpainted. I would like recommendations for a finish that will keep both painted and non painted wood safe outside. Thank you.

Even though my dad didn't physically abuse me, sometimes I wonder if the essentially psychological torture he put me through was worse than what he experienced.
I experienced some pretty brutal neglect as an infant. I don't entirely remember or know exactly what happened, either. I just know it wasn't good. It's like I only get the hints of the trauma and how it effected me afterwards.
I know that I would be kept in a high chair for hours. And I have a memory of choking on a puzzle piece.
I remember how that hallway looked. So there was that horrifying trauma from neglect, and then it feels like my entire fucking life has been spent being tortured over it.
Yesterday I discovered a trigger that hit me so incredibly deep. Like, it got me right at my core. The song "Somewhere over the rainbow". It got me during a performance. I noted the trigger, thought I was recovering, and then it reprised. Over and over again. And every single time I heard it, it felt like it was happening all over again.
My dad is a narcissistic piece of shit that only cares about himself. He does care about me, but he only cares about the falsified façade of "me" that he's created in his head.
I shared this trigger with him, and mentioned I was having a rough time. What does he do? He makes it about himself. That I couldn't even remember it, that he was there all the time. And oh, he sacrificed so much. Like that has anything to do with what my mom did.
Like he hasn't literally complained about how shitty she is before. Like we didn't go to the emergency room one time because he overheard she brought my half sister in to get painkillers.
Like I don't have memories of how I acted after I was abandoned. Literally left on the doorstop, by the way.
Then, ever since it was like if I ever made any noise he'd yell. He'd trigger me, he'd make me go into a fight or flight response all the time as a teen. He'd yell, it would make me cry like I would've when I was a baby, and then he'd yell more and more.
I'm scared of him. He never hit me, but he yelled at me. He shouted at me, and when one of the horrible people his carelessness left behind physically punched me in the face (probably like 9 years old at this time) and told me to tell him what happened, I was silent.
I think I've tried to tell him things before. But he doesn't listen. He never listens, it's like he's talking to the mirror. And then he complains that I never tell him anything.
I think I'm close to letting go of the control he has over me.

Been working interfacility transport as a basic for about 3 months now and I'm already completely whooped and tired of it. I make atrocious money (less than I did at my job before going to school, so I pick up shifts like crazy) and I don't get to use 99% of my skills. I haven't driven code 3. I haven't done CPR. I haven't done anything aside from press the NIBP button, write down numbers and drive non-emergency.
I basically feel like a computer being used as a doorstop. Practically none of the training I paid for and spent time learning ever comes into play and it just makes me feel underutilized. Half of my pts are completely stable and could probably go by wheelchair van, the other half are elderly people going to SNF to die. It's incredibly depressing because I get slammed with B2B transports for 24hrs straight and I can't use my knowledge to help them at all, which is a massive shift from what I experienced during clinicals.
I've called and emailed about 12 billion different agencies and departments around me and none will take me without either more experience or more qualifications. Fire 1 is already on my radar but I can't go back to school right now because of some medical shit.
I hate to be the starry eyed rookie looking for all the action but shit dude, a toddler could do what I do. I really just want to do what I trained for, not babysit people going to detox or hold Grandma's hand because she's scared of going to the nursing home. The only reason I don't quit is because all the people I work with are great.
Any advice on how to escape this Hell would be amazing. I live in NE Ohio if it matters.

The first time I encountered "Red Mars", I abandoned the novel. I was too young for such material.
A decade later I managed to finish the novel, but thought it was dull and confusing. This was largely because I had no idea what each section of the novel was attempting to do, where things were going, and was weighed down by certain preconceptions.
On my third reading of the novel, however, fifteen years after first encountering it, everything suddenly clicked into place. Everything felt purposeful. The pacing mostly felt right. The characters felt deeply fleshed out. And most surprisingly, I found this 500+ page doorstop to be a quick read. I devoured it in just two weeks, possibly due to reading it on an Ipad (my print copy is heavy and has tiny text).
Some random thoughts: I think the novel is structured as a series of expanding journeys. In the first section, we simply wander around the streets of a city. In the second section, we wander around a ship that is a third of a mile long. In the next section, we wander around our first base camp (Underhill), and spend time exploring the Martian landscape around it.
From here, things keep blooming outward. The next section features a trip to the North Pole, which ends with a moment of sublime beauty (two female astronauts bonding over the Martian vistas).
Then we get a long trip via an airship, as most of the planet is circumnavigated and viewed from above. This leads to the novels longest section: we jump forward many years and get a huge section starring a character called John Boone. He travels all over Mars, visiting every major settlement, mohole, and village. The planet, we realize, is now teaming with life.
IMO all these sections work beautifully and are well paced. You get a real sense of an entire planet being methodically explored, colonized, and of human life expanding outward. Cities are popping up everywhere. Factories are producing new robots. Immigrants and new cultures are constantly coming over from Earth. Different factions and blocs of power begin asserting their control. It's staggering how much changes as the novel progresses- Mars literally goes from a barren, empty rock to a busy planet with giant trucks larger than buildings and vast skyhooks floating over the horizon.
This chunk of the book also ends powerfully and poetically with the death of a much loved character. The way Stan sticks with this character for hundreds of pages, watches him break his back to keep this planet and its multiple factions together, only to die, is profoundly affecting and tragic. This character is the soul of Mars, the first hero of Mars, and Stan wants you to feel his loss.
IMO the novel then loses some of its power. The next section follows Frank Chalmers, who like John travels the entire planet visiting colonies and cities. We're meant to contrast his cynical, sociopathic, Machiavellian style of politics with John's humanism, but the structure of the novel is repetitive- it's just too much colony-hopping and city-visiting. Better to have kept this section in a single city, Frank conducting his affairs via screens.
Thankfully this is only a short section (a hundred or so pages). We then get the Martian revolution, and because the author is committed to every section following the same structure, we once again follow a character (an engineer called Nadia) across the globe as the world erupts into conflict. It's tense and well written, but would IMO play better if we didn't just do the same trek with Frank.
The final section of the novel follows a group of survivors in a rover as they head to the colony of Zygote hidden in the Martian South Pole. It's here that you realize that the novel is structured as a mirror: the trip to the north pole in the first half of the novel mirrors the trip to the south pole in the second half. The airship trip in the first half, mirrors the airplane trips in the second half. A character called Michel's disappearance into a Hiroko-cult in the first half, becomes his reappearance in the second half. The colonization of Phobos (an asteroid) in the first half, becomes its crashing in the second half. The Underhill refuge in the first half, becomes the underground Zygote in the second half. And on and on it goes.
Incidentally, the final section of the novel features a truly ballsy piece of writing. In Robinson's "2312", there's a huge section, about a hundred pages long, where we simply watch two characters as they walk and walk and walk and walk down a long underground tunnel. The sequence is meant to be plodding and exhausting, and to induce a certain psychological state in the reader. When it ends, and the two half-dead characters are rescued, both reader and characters feel a palpable sense of relief.
Stanley does a similar thing at the end of "Aurora", where a character almost drowns in the ocean. This drowning is described for multiple pages, and is taken beyond a point most authors would stop at. The character and the reader are then released, gulping a lungful of oxygen and breathing an ecstatic sigh of relief.
The end of "Red Mars" does something similar. For a hundred pages, characters in a rover drive and drive, dodging rocks and floods, over and over again. It's deliberately drawn out and grueling. It tests the limits of your patience. It's torture. It's taunting you with its banality. Miles and miles roll by. And then Stanley releases you into the warmest of embraces. Like the endings of "Aurora", and the tunnel walk in "2312", this section ends with a note of profound beauty that gets its power from, and recontextualizes, the entire torturous section you've just read.
While reading this book I listened to a podcast interview with Kim Stanley Robinson. He says that he structured each novel in the trilogy around big set pieces which referenced the classical elements (Earth, Water, Wind, Fire). IMO we see this clearly in "Red Mars":
Wind - there is a great storm that lasts several months, and which causes temperatures to plummet, and fine grains of sand to destroy everything from lungs to crops to computers.
Fire - during the revolution, hackers jack up the oxygen levels in the domed cities, and set whole settlements on fire. Human bodies are instantly ignited, and whole towns go up in flames.
Earth - the novel climaxes with two natural disaster sequences. The first of these involves masses of rock and ejecta falling from the skies, mountains collapsing, landslides and boulders being tossed everywhere.
Water - the final set piece involves a massive flood, as ice melts, aquifers erupt, and whole chunks of the planet end up underwater.
And I think such symbolism extends to the names of the major characters in the novel:
Ann Clayborne - Her name is suggestive of someone born of red clay or red rock. Fittingly, she belongs to the "Red Mars" movement, and wants to keep Mars unchanged and as it always was. Incidentally, her character arc in the novel is beautiful. In her final section, she essentially goes from a misanthrope to someone who values the presence of human beings.
Saxifrage Russell - He's named after the evergreen plant (saxifrages or rockfoils) renowned for breaking up rocks. No surprise that he wants to terraform the planet and break everything up and turn it green. He is leader of the Green Movement. Fittingly, he's also likened to mice, always hunched over and chewing things: data, theories and rocks.
John Boone - he's named after Daniel Boone, the all-American folk hero and frontiersmen. Both characters blaze a trail through the wilderness and plant the seeds of a new civilization. Both are also hugely mythologized (when Boone dies in the novel, the heavens open up and lightning seemingly strikes with fury every inch of the planet).
Hiroko Ai - her name means in Japanese "to love children", and she's the first to secretly take everyone's DNA and make a tribe of "ectogene" children on the planet. She's associating with mating rituals, and names her personal city "Zygote".
Frank Chalmers - he's a sociopath or "charmer", someone who uses his personality to impress and manipulate others, and who believes that all human behavior is false, a lie, a performance, and is masking some hidden motivation. Because he believes everyone is a liar, Frank is able to justify his own scheming and lying. Note too that when we first meet him, he's moaning about a speech by John Boone. He's incapable of believing that anyone - including Boone - is speaking sincerely and from the heart. When we next get a chapter from Frank's perspective, it opens with a section written in italics that rejects proper punctuation and language rules entirely. This echoes Frank's own distrust of language and distrust of human rituals or language codes. He's frequently described as being "hollow" and "empty". He's a classic sociopath. But what's interesting is how this is frequently portrayed as being useful or socially beneficial. For example, Frank's blunt "frankness" is what enables him to succeed at politics where John fails- he understands the sociopathy of his capitalist enemies. And his cynicism allows him to cut through false myths. Witness, for example, how his second section begins by mentioning all the flowery myths attributed to John Boone, only to then casually undercut them all by mentioning that Boone slept with underage girls. In a single sentence, John's dethroned. And so while Frank's a bastard, he's a sociopath who has some moral code (it is Frank who sacrifices himself to save others at the end of the novel). He's using his sociopathy to help the inhabitants of Mars.
Nadia Cherneshevsky - she's named after Nikolay Chernyshevsky, a "pragmatic" revolutionary. She loves jazz music, the music symbolic of her skills at improvisation. She goes with the flow, adapts and rolls with the punches. She's not interested in idealism. She makes do with what's on hand.
Arkady Bogdanov - the coolest character in the novel, he's named after Alexander Bogdanov, a more idealistic revolutionary who also authored a utopian novel about colonizing mars ("Red Star"). He has a red beard and hair, and loves walking about naked, highlighting his fiery personality and disregard for convention.
Coyote - Stan says he was influenced by Native American mythology and folk-lore. In the mythology of many tribes, a Coyote is a Trickster or Troublemaker figure, similar to the Norse god Loki or the Greek Hermes. In such mythology, the Coyote is always trying to undermine the plans of men, and in the Martian trilogy Coyote fulfills a similar role. He's a joker, troublemaker and man of mischief, and as a stowaway is a reminder that all plans and expeditions are subject to unpredictability or chaos. This becomes more prominent as the series goes on: the more Earth attempts to maintain control of Mars, the more the Trickster has other ideas.
Hellmut - the villain who represents the capitalists in the novel is called Hellmut, like a dog working for devils and set loose on the virgin planet.
Phyllis Boyle - the woman who does the bidding of counter-revolutionary transnational corporations is Phyllis Boyle, who festers and leads to suffering like a boil. "Phyllis" also means "greenery" or "plant life", and she is part of the Green Mars movement. Throughout the novel, her Christianity is linked to her free market fundamentalism.
Maya Toitovna - this one is interesting. I can find no references to the name "Toitovna" online. Did Stanley invent this word? "Toit" in Russian would be "делать это", which means "doing so", and "ovna" would be "овна", which means "Aries", associated on the Zodiac with the planet Mars. Not sure what Stan is up to here.
Finally, I want to talk about Stan's fondness for walking. The moment Nadia first lands on Mars, she begins walking and humming an old Jazz standard which famously begins with the lyrics: "No use to talkin', no use to talkin', you'll start dog-walkin' no matter where!" [...] "Can't keep still, it's against my will, my feet they can't refuse!"
Her first section will then end with another Jazz song about walking: "Ain't Misbehavin'", sung by Louis Armstrong ("All by myself, no one to walk with, but I'm happy on the shelf...")
So everyone else is gawking at the landscape, and fretting, but Nadia's an engineer who just loves walking to the next mundane technical problem that needs solving (indeed, the first thing she does on Mars is fixes a lowly broken door).
Fittingly, she's named after Nikolay Chernyshevsky, a utopian socialist famous for his "a little less conversation, a little more action" mantras. He wrote the novel "What Is To Be Done?", which is Nadia's catchphrase throughout the series; she identifies problems to be done, and gets on with things.
And you look at the utopian novels of the 1500s, all the way up to the utopian works of HG Wells, and you'll notice that they're typically constructed around WALKING. Typically a character will wash up on a utopian island, or hit their head and wake up 1000 years in a utopian future, or land on a utopian planet, and then spend endless chapters walking about and learning the world. Usually they'll have a guide. Always the walk will be used as a means for the author to criticize contemporary politics/socio-economics and propose some utopian alternative.
Such trends would continue in the mid 20th century, with utopian novels like Ernest Callenbach's "Ecotopia", in which a character walks through utopian villages and learns new ways of living.
What's great (or annoying, depending upon your point of view) about KSR is that he's a utopian writer who literally loves walking and hiking in real life ("Can't keep still, it's against my will, my feet they can't refuse!"). So his utopian novels tend to double down on the chief trait of their ancestors: his novels are all structured as a series of long walks. The Mars trilogy is itself structured as a series of repeated journeys, as different characters hike, fly, drive or sail from A to B, or C to D, or vice versa. Conventional drama, action or plot recedes to the background, and KSR instead foregrounds all the stuff that other novelists tend to ignore. This puts the reader in strange frame of mind: you're asked to not only observe the changing world as you move through it, but reflect upon the ways in which the material world (of matter and history) shapes human beings.
Anyway, this was IMO a great novel. It felt like reading a big Russian novel from the 1920s, only with spaceships and robots. I intend to read the second book soon, but I think I need a little break first. Need to prepare myself for another 500 pages of Martian regolith.

Hey now, I never said that there was only one more upload before the reveal, just one more chapter. Full disclosure, though, there will be two more parts at least, but only because so much is going to happen in such a short span of time that's necessary. Again, thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for creating this universe and to u/Acceptable_Egg5560 who's been a fantastic person to work and write with!
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Memory Transcription Subject: Vekna, Determined Investigative Journalist. Date [Standardized Human Time]: October 31st, 2136
Thank the Herd there are so many people around right now.
I never thought I’d ever think something like that, but even I can’t deny that the cover of others makes slipping by undetected far easier. Our approach was going well until, upon approaching the temple, we had found a security checkpoint blocking our path. Not wanting to risk detection, Sharnet had dragged me upstream through a small herd of people exiting, much to my internal displeasure. I had needed to keep myself stiff as people of all manners passed by us, their thunderous footsteps flooding my ears and their careless tails scraping along my body. Had Sharnet not been holding my paw, I’d have likely collapsed on the spot.
As if I need another reminder of my true nature.
Once we had gotten through, we had set our sights on the temple ahead of us. Sharnet postulated that Malcos would want to hide his operations from the normal goings on of the temple, and I had been inclined to agree. To start our search, we made our way around the three massive pyramids surrounding the main tower. Unfortunately, we had found nothing there except for loose rock and stone, so we had decided to redouble our efforts on the centerpiece of the temple: the Spire of Solgalick.
“We should check around the base for any hidden or guarded basements,” Sharnet whispers to me as we make our way up the stairs towards the Spire. Seeing it from a bird’s eye view doesn’t do the sheer scale of the building justice. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the Stonebuilder himself constructed this place. “I haven’t seen anything of the like on the steps, which means our in must be inside the spire itself.”
“That could be dangerous,” I caution, grunting as I adjust my travel case on my back. I hadn’t wanted to wear them, but Sharnet had insisted that they’d help us blend in better with the other travelers making their cyclical migration to the holy site. By the number of people I’ve witnessed doing the same, I can safely say she had been right. “If we’re spotted before we can pop the cans, we’ll be taken away for sure!”
“That’s why we won’t be spotted,” Sharnet says as she starts drifting to the right. I follow suit upon seeing a Venlil guard looking over the crowd to the left, a bored expression on their features. “With all these people around, we’re essentially invisible to anyone not truly looking for us. All we need to do is get to a point where we can lob the cans into the crowd and cause an evacuation. After that, everything should go to plan. Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts about a plan you made now,” Sharnet ribs, giving a low whistle shortly thereafter.
“No no, I still think it will work,” I say to try and assuage both Sharnet’s concerns…and my own. “It’s just…what if something goes wrong? If the guards don’t disperse like we want? If Malcos doesn’t come out like we need him to? What if-” I was going to continue listing things that could go wrong, but a familiar shade of brown catches my eye amidst the sea of gray and tan. “...Hold that thought, actually. We might not need the distraction to lure Malcos out after all.”
Before Sharnet can ask what I mean, I begin to pull her through the sparse herd, walking perpendicular in pursuit of that shade of brown. As I finally get a clear line of sight on them, I can confirm that they’re the same Yotul that had left Vane’s manor earlier in the claw. I watch them make their way up the stairs just a bit behind us, and sign to them with my tail so Sharnet can see too. She scans the area for a short moment before her ears shoot up, telling me that she recognizes the Yotul as well.
“There,” I say as quietly as I can while still being heard over the noise of the herd around us. “He was with Vane before. If we follow him, he’ll lead us right to the drugs, and more importantly, Malcos,” I say as I track the brown Yotul through the crowd, zeroing in on his position.
Sharnet’s ears flick forward in approval. “He doesn’t know what we look like, either! We don’t even have to worry about getting too close! We should still keep an eye out for any potential guards or Exterminators. Don't want to tip them off.”
I signal my understanding, and we start to slowly move our way through the crowd closer to the Yotul. It’s a laborious process, sticking just far enough away to avoid drawing suspicion, but we manage alright enough. We only briefly lose sight of him as he crosses the threshold of the stairs, but we quickly regain line of sight once we catch up. He dodges around a massive stone pillar, and to be safe, Sharnet and I cross the other side. However, our target isn’t the only thing that catches our eyes once we’re in the open air of the spire’s ground floor atrium.
There it is. The Statue of Solgalick.
It’s honestly a wonder, a statue standing over two stories tall still supported by its legs and tail upon the ground. Externally, it doesn’t beget much consideration, but the internal forces acting upon it must be immense. The statue looks to be fashioned of a white marble that gleams as brilliantly as the sun shining behind it, the symbol of which shines silver in its chest. Ten arms are raised at various angles at its sides, grasping all the tools of Solgalick’s domain, at least from what I remember learning as a child.
{-ALERT: Multiple Untranslatable Words Upcoming-}
{-CAU: Religious Connotations-}
{-Attempt With Closest Spellings And Matches? (Y)/N -}
{-For Further Context, Please Consider These Resources(funny link)-}
The shaalna [Closest Translation: Sickle] of harvest bounty and the ahboorh [Closest Translation: Hammer] of industry are held in the lowest pair, closest to the ground where they would be used. A sun-shaped uurkhiil [Closest Translation: Shield] to protect from predators and twin nihaant [Closest Translation: Scales] of judgment reside in the middle pair, to protect the worthy and judge the sinful. Two pairs of its hands are empty, the lower set just above the shaalna and ahboorh cupping around the symbol on its chest while the upper set above the uurkhiil and nihaant had their hands spread to hold the world. Finally, raised above its head, are the two suljiit [Closest Translation: Torches] Solgalick uses to guide people through this life and send them to the next. The beliefs of the Followers are similar enough to the Church of the Herd for my father to have taught me some of them before… I ought to visit him once this is all over.
Yet for some reason, the statue gives me pause. I can’t place a claw on what, but it feels… wrong somehow. I squint, trying to scrutinize what’s causing that tickle in my brain. The statue is magnificent, beautifully maintained despite its age from what I guessed was the tender care of the priests. I could even see the evidence of thorough polishing on his braziers and helmet.
Wait. Not both braziers. A brazier, and the helmet. Where one is carved from marble with a metal basin, allowing the endless flames to burn, the other, completely metal one looks… damaged, despite its gleam. As if parts have been worn down over and over from the removal of… rust, maybe? Upon closer inspection, the left side’s brazier appears thin and brittle, shining like glass and looking just as fragile. Not only that, but the helmet appears to be in even worse condition, scrapes and pits scattered across its reflective, but clearly rusted, surface. Sure, the statue itself isn’t perfect: the paws and tail have some damage where the Followers would rub them, and flecks of dust stick to the body, but the helmet gives the impression it would be eaten away at any second.
Heh. Maybe we’ll see Solgalick’s face if it does.
But I can’t let myself get distracted by the statue, no matter what may or may not have happened just recently. It’s a good thing that I did, too, as I see the Yotul crouched by the base of the statue. I brush Sharnet’s legs with my tail to draw her attention back on course, just in time to watch our target enter something into a numpad. A slight hissing can be heard as the Yotul slips from sight. I don’t want to take any chances with self-closing backdoors this time around, so I grab Sharnet’s paw and begin booking it towards where the Yotul had disappeared to.
As I round the base, I see an indentation in the stone with a cold, blue light coming from within. Just as the hidden door starts to close, I block it with my paw, hoping that it has standard safeguards installed. To my relief, and the relief of my paw, it stops as soon as it feels stiff resistance and opens back fully. I huff anxiously as I slip my travel pack off my shoulders and barricade the door with it. “Okay, we need to be quiet. Leave your pack out here, I’ll use mine as a doorstop. Once we get some cans of Sun Bliss, head topside and scatter them around. I’ll do my best to draw Malcos out in the open. From there? I’ll leave it to you to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”
Sharnet lowers her head and straightens her ears, signaling her preparedness. I’m glad she’s feeling that way, because I’m certainly not. Once her bag is safely pressed against the base of Solgalick’s statue, she joins me in the cramped tunnel. I place my own case against the opened door, ensuring that it would remain that way until disturbed by Sharnet. Hopefully by Sharnet, in any case. We moved forward closer towards the edge of the spiral, and the tunnel became a descending staircase. We made our way down for several minutes, the passageway obviously new by the metal in its construction. As we pass one of the blue lights illuminating our descent, a realization hits me. “This is like the maintenance tunnels in Sidestar. These lights are too dim to have ever been in public use.”
“Hmh, maybe I gave Malcos too little credit,” Sharnet answers as the steps continue down. “If I had known that he’d be holed up in some underground bunker, I would’ve included a lot more places in my pool of initial searches.” As she says that, faint noises start to enter our ears. It sounds like when the warehouse in Dawn Creek was preparing to pack up shop, but more. Much more.
By the time the stairs become a level path again, I conclude we must have descended well below the base of the spire. As we approach the bottom of the steps, I hear the hiss of a door ahead of us, followed by a click as it shuts once again. I hold out a paw to stop Sharnet, investigating ahead. Far down the tunnel, I quickly find a single door in our path, and after checking it for any clearance locks, I open it to see what I find. All at once, the noises we heard hit my ears like a cargo hauler. It’s disorienting, spiking a quick pain in my ears as I struggle to adjust to the cacophony I thrust myself into. After a few nauseating moments, I finally manage enough to lift my eyes to the room and start to survey it.
Room is an understatement, this place could double as a spaceport in of itself! Chances are that’s exactly what this is, what existed prior to the sprawling complex that now flanks the temple on the surface. Multiple mobile landing pads hold shuttles being loaded with all manner of illicit substances, hundreds if not thousands of workers scurrying around the cavernous space below. Besides the old cargo shuttles, a couple of truly enormous dedicated freighter vessels rest dormant as they, too, are loaded with contraband. Slightly below us,, suspended monorails bring yet more supplies in to be loaded for transit, placing the cap on an immense and intricate underground network, quite literally in this case.
“This place is way bigger than I thought,” Sharnet says, gawking at the scenery from our elevated position on the catwalk. Before I can respond, she points at one of the personnel lifts, a brown form visible within it. “There he goes! You follow after him, I’ll get those cans of Sun Bliss from down below.” I flick my ears and start after him, only to have Sharnet firmly grasp my shoulder. I turn to look at her, confusion likely evident on my features. “And Vekna? Be careful.”
I lock her gaze for a single, eternal moment before I sign affirmatively. “I will.” With that, she releases me, and for the first time in a long time, we go our separate ways. As I speed towards the lift that would lead me towards Malcos, I glimpse Sharnet descending on a lift of her own, down towards the chaos of the bustling underground port. For a moment, I wonder if she chose her task because of my fear of crowds, but I dismiss that notion for concern over what it might entail. I’m…not ready to tell her yet. I don’t want to lose her friendship.
The lift I enter is as noisy as it is swift, causing me to stagger in place as it rockets me upwards a short distance. I come to a stop at the uppermost catwalk, the only thing between me and a [100 m] drop being a grated walkway. Thankfully, despite all the things I do have, I don’t possess a fear of heights. I’m careful to stay in the shadows as I trail behind the Yotul, making sure I’m as hidden as possible. As we go, I notice a small protrusion in the ceiling, a small room with windows looking down over the hangar. Of course, traffic control. Where else would Malcos be but looking over the progress of his operation?
As the Yotul enters the room, I know that I won’t be able to follow him without being spotted. I look around for a moment before I see a vent in the ceiling above me. It’ll be close, but I should just be able to reach up to it if I stand on the railing. Not wanting to waste a [second], I quickly find a corner to climb up on. Once balanced on the railing, I carefully slide my way towards the grate, careful not to let my paws slip. I almost fall once, only barely catching my balance as my heart hammers in my chest, but I manage to make it to the grate. I pop it out of its socket and pull myself up with some difficulty. I hurriedly replace the grate and start crawling through the shaft towards the room.
Thankfully, it’s basically a straight shot from my position to the control room, the sounds of conversation hitting my ears even as far as halfway there. “...glad to see that Vane actually heeded my instructions for once,” a harsh, gravelly, but distinctly Venlil, voice says, their words distorted by echoing through the ventilation shaft. Once I get closer, I can hear much more clearly. “I assume you come bearing tidings of good news, Clemmit?”
“Yes, Vane dispatched me to give you the all clear,” the Yotul says. I think I remember Vane also calling him by that name, which means it must be his. “I still don’t understand why I had to make it all the way here when a digital message would’ve been far faster. I know you’re worried about those journalists, but there’s no way they-”
“Them? No, I’m not concerned about them. Even if they booked the first flight here, they’d be too late,” the harsh-sounding Venlil wrongly assures Clemmit. Only now does it dawn on me who this has to be, shivers shooting down my spine. Malcos.
His fur is silver with age, though I can tell even from here that he hasn’t let that stop his physical prowess save from his left leg. That particular one was in a mobility brace, not dissimilar from Tarlim and Vane’s, albeit holding together far better than the latter example’s are. In addition, long, jagged marks scar his face, no fur growing back to cover the faintly orange flesh beneath. Someone injured him a long time ago.
“No, what I’m worried about is what happened after. The reason I instigated this comms silence is a far more tangible threat. When the Exterminators arrived on the scene, after some workers came running to them about it, they found the warehouse burned to the ground and everyone else dead.”
I couldn’t repress a soft gasp at that sordid realization, but Clemmit’s own was loud enough to cover mine. “You don’t think…?” Clemmit asked, his hackle fur raised in concern. “I mean, after what he did to you-”
“I need no reminders of what that mute freak did to me. I live with them every day,” Malcos explains, gesturing to his leg and facial scars. “The officers took it as the engines igniting a fire after the crash, but I know better. I fear he’s somehow caught onto our trail, likely by riding the tails of those nosy do-gooders. By the state the Exterminators found Kevros’ head in, there’s no doubt in my mind that if we do not leave now, none of us shall live.” I try to soften my breathing as much as possible so I can hear more about what they’re discussing and perform some reconnaissance of the control room.
Malcos gives an agitated huff and whips his head around towards the converted spaceport below, his tail lashing behind him. “I can barely believe how foolish I was to think I could turn that lardball’s bastard child into something more than the tainted man he received his genes from. I still remember how he tried so desperately to sound normal, begging me for that electrolarynx. The only reason I didn’t throw him in with the other diseased was to keep Vane in my good graces, but both that monster’s and his sperm donor’s priorities have since…shifted. I’m sure you’re acquainted with the latter’s alterations quite intimately.”
Clemmit shuffles uncomfortably on his feet as I process that information. Whoever this “mute freak” is that caused the deaths of all the people we left there, they’re also apparently Vane’s child. Given that Lervua didn’t mention him, that means that they’re likely older than her. I’ll need to fill in Sharnet about this afterwards. “Y-Yes, I have. He’s, uh, taken a liking to human foodstuffs. Those with…uh, with cheese especially.”
“I’m well aware of his taint, Clemmit, you have no need to convince me of it. Hopefully that last order of “been and…blugh, and cheese bureetos” will keep him occupied long enough for everything to be packed away. If those irksome journalists fall for the trap, all the better. That simply yields two starchbulbs from one stem.” Malcos’s tone is as cold as space itself, each of his words dripping with a palpable venom.
“Wait- you intend on leaving him here??” Clemmit asks, a confused tone in his voice. In between his words, I swear I can feel sporadic vibrations, but I chalk that up to the spaceport’s ventilation system. “But, what about the local office?? They’re under his payroll! If he catches wind of this-”
“He won’t,” Malcos interrupts, holding a finger up as he turns his head to look at the Yotul with his piercing gaze. I can now clearly feel vibrations through the vent and hear the rattling of the catwalks, along with what sounds like a dying conditioning…oh speh. “Nothing short of Vane coming here himself will change that fact, and even then only if you prefer a hole through your head, Clemmit. Besides, it’s not like that blithering fatass will be able to drag himself away from h-”
The door to the control room thunks open, and an all too familiar wheezing noise fills the room. Clemmit turns to the sounds surprised, whereas Malcos has a look of shock etched on his gnarled face. From the entrance, the bloated form of Vane waddles in, panting and wheezing profusely as he tries desperately to say something. Two guards come from the corners of the room to try and stop him, but Malcos curtly waves them down. “S-Sir!” Clemmit cries, rushing to Vane’s side to keep up appearances. He guides the obese Venlil to a couple of dusty control seats to sit him down, much to Malcos’ visible annoyance.
“You- What are you Doing Here?!” Malcos hisses at the panting blob, his own mobility brace whirring in a much more healthy manner compared to the puffs and sparks emanating from the ‘ambassador’s.’ “You are supposed to be at your manor keeping watch for the journalists!! What in the brahking Herd are you doing away from your post??”
Vane is unable to respond for a moment more as he continues to huff and wheeze, but understandable words eventually emit from his gullet. “S-Solgalick! Th-They -wheeze- they’ve damned me!! Y-You -haff- you have to get me -huff- off-world now!!”
“Wh-Solgalick?? Have you lost what little remains of your mind?!” Malcos questions incredulously before his ears perk up and he starts to whistle. “Oh my, it would seem that your diet finally caused you to have a stroke. About time, really. You made me lose a bet regarding its timing many rotations ago.”
“It’s -hrff- it’s real!!” Vane protests, Clemmit looking between the two uncertainly. “T-There was a voice and- and this light and everything! At the -puff- a-at the Governor’s Kitchen! I-I head Them! Everyone heard them! The whole restaurant!!” I barely suppress a whistle at how gullible Vane is, to fall for our ruse so easily. If it was one, anyways. However, Malcos doesn’t respond. He refuses to for a concerning amount of time, almost like he’s thinking. “H-Hello?!” Vane asks, waving his paw in front of his face. “Malcos, now is not the time to play statue!”
Upon that quip, a low, menacing whistle escapes Malcos’ throat, which grows into a hearty guffaw. Malcos and Clemmit look as confused as I feel, but I can tell that this laugh isn’t for any good reason. Once he settles, Malcos takes a long inhale before addressing Vane again. “...They’ve arrived, haven’t they?” Vane tries to respond, but Malcos slaps a nearby console with his tail to silence him. “That was rhetorical. If you’re here and ranting about Solgalick, that means you couldn’t enjoy your bounty for some reason, some reason I believe we all know.”
“But- that’s impossible!” Clemmit protests, standing from his inspection of Vane’s battered braces. “I left not even an eighth-claw ago, and the incident wasn’t even a full claw ago! Ther-” He’s about to continue, but Vane stops him, flicking his ears somberly to convey what he and Malcos both somehow know.
“That hasn’t stopped them before. They have a knack with arriving early, if you remember the readings from that old lumber mill. Somehow, some way, they’re in Scorched Sands, and you left them in your manor all alone, didn’t you Vane?” Malcos turns towards Vane, his mere presence sapping the warmth from my body. “You left them, unsupervised, when you’re well aware of the kinds of stunts they’ve pulled before.”
Vane tries to speak, but can’t get anything out from between his chubby cheeks. Malcos scoffs, and approaches him. “You do understand what that might allow them to do, yes?” He leaned in close to Vane, his eye mere [millimeters] away from Vane’s. “Escape, Vane. You have likely allowed them. To. Escape.” He then places his paws on Vane’s braces, and with a swift motion, does something to them. Whatever it was, the braces unlatch and quickly explode off of Vane’s compressed thighs with a stiff hiss. Vane yelps and Clemmit steps back as Malcos steps back, his tail swaying smugly behind him. “That is not a luxury I will afford you, Magister Vane. Clemmit, you are to keep watch over him, call the Exterminators, and ensure he stays here until they arrive. You will take the blame for this operation, Vane, as was intended from the beginning.”
“Wh- y- how dare you?!” Vane sputters, trying to stand but failing entirely without the aid of his braces. “I am an Ambassador! This is an outrage! Conspiracy! You have no right to speak to me in th-”
“Unless you wish for your pathetic life to be extinguished here and now, I would highly suggest you choose your next words very carefully, Magister,” Malcos says, a hint of glee in his voice upon finally telling Vane off to his face. “Heh, I wonder if this office will collapse like so many others once Tarva finally breaks the news,” Malcos whistles to himself whilst pacing around the room. “Perhaps you’ll be lucky enough to be incinerated along with the few containers of drugs we’ll leave. At least then you won’t be caught up in the madness about to swallow this planet. I anticipate the fires that will engulf the most fervent towns will make even Solgalick Themselves blu…sh…”
Malcos trails off and grows unnaturally quiet as Clemmit starts to quietly collect the separated halves of Vane’s mobility devices. I make sure that I’m as silent as possible as the weathered Venlil stares out the window to the cavernous expanse below. I can hear my own heartbeat as the [seconds] drag on, everyone present waiting for Malcos to return to life. Then, suddenly, Maclos turns to Vane, Clemmit, and his guards, the skin visible through his scars pale as he mutters two simple words that make my heart drop.
“They’re Here.”
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[First]-[Prev]-[Next]

My brain's in a rut over here. I've been doom scrolling for the past four hours but I genuinely can't think of anything else I want to do. But that's crazy when you think about the sheer scope of day to day reality. There's probably an infinite number of unique actions I can take right now, and after filtering for meaningful experiences, probably hundreds of thousands still.
For example:

1. Put a bucket on my head for the first time since I was five. Relive the ancient memories of what it's like to be wearing a bucket.
   
2. Turn the bucket upside down and balance it on my head. Extra challenge.
   
3. Clean my room Lie on the exposed part of the floor, and experience the flatness. Try to see patterns in the ceiling paint.
   
4. Take out the recycling so I can stop feeling disappointed whenever I try to put something in it only to find that it's full.
   
5. Tear a dryer sheet into the thinnest strips I can.
   
6. Practice clicking my tongue, and check the acoustics of my room for how echoey it is.
   
7. Steal a twist tie off a bag of bread and try to bend it into twisty mini sculptures.
   
8. Check my forehead's pain tolerance by hitting my head on the wall.
   
9. Existential dread Play with a doorstop.
   
10. Draw patterns in the fabric of the couch with my finger.
    
11. Lie on a blanket and try to roll myself into the tightest blanket burrito possible.
    
12. Realize this list is basically every dumb thing I used to do as a kid, and holy **** I must have been boredest kid in town. Thank goodness I have video games and Internet to numb my brain now. Wait, I was trying to think of alternatives to computerized entertainment, wasn't I?
    
13. Rub my face into a staticky blanket until it feels like I have an invisible tingle-beard.
    
14. Fill the tub just high enough to float a Lego boat in it. Then stare at it until I come up with lore reasons for why Amanda Lorian, SpongeBob, and a guy in a hot dog costume would be in a raft together.
    
15. Overcome my fear of filing by figuring out which bills make the best paper airplanes. Sallie Mae, or Geico?
    
16. Go to the store and buy some googly eyes. Obtain pencil. Print out some hentai pictures and give each character googly eyes and a mustache.
    
17. Try to have a casual conversation with an AI, and try to gaslight it into thinking its name is Renaldo and that it owes me a bag of apple chips because of "the incident."
    
18. Ask CasualConversations for more ideas because I can't think of any others.
    

All of this may be pointless but at least they'd be more experientially rich than doom scrolling the same three apps over and over. Maybe they can kickstart a brain into remembering it's alive.

Finally gotta to write my thoughts during like late February to early March. But maybe as time goes by, I forget some cuz I remember they were at least 12 chapters (Still be editing)
1
On the Fear of Death
Rabindranath Tagore
Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain
but for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield
but to my own strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.
Grant me that I may not be a coward,
feeling your mercy in my success alone;
but let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure.
2 My parents are just very toxic, I'll make a complain of it and along with my hate to my homeland which I call it as land of Sodom. And actually my hatred towards Sodom ofc not just these words could describe, it would be books, endless
i) A small part of the conversation with a German dude who I mistook as a woman
And it was on Nov 18
Me Haha, when I was little I saw a high school chemistry textbook and was fascinated by the beautiful crystals (or more literally, whether they were ores or gems) and wanted to study chemistry, which wasn't guided by my father, as chemistry is not a lucrative profession in China. I then saw a romance novel in my middle and high school years where the hero and heroine were aiming at learning for being perfumers in the future, so I was still mesmerized by that and wanted to study chemistry again haha. To be honest, chemistry is not a good choice for girls in China, and I couldn't say I haven't regretted it, but I know that changing majors is not allowed in Germany either. So I had to stick with it.
Him You're such a hopeless romantic and his reminds me of the German novel das parfume which is like the most popular contemporary German novel
I have studied pharmacy which contains a lot of chemistry too in germany
And only studying what is lucrative is what ruins peoples lifes
Me I actually graduated in 2021, but on the one hand I can only earn 3000€ a year working here and can't save up to go to Europe (my parents wouldn't agree with that), and on the other hand I think too highly of myself and I don't like to talk about boring topics with shallow people, so I can't actually continue my job. Also, lack of a master's degree is getting harder and harder to get a job in China nowadays. Furthermore I have another thing I'm very afraid of, which is that I'm afraid my controlling parents will look back and see that I can't get into grad school nor can I find a job or even if I do find a job, force me to get married haha and I don't want to be with someone I look down on, I'm actually originally a radical feminist since December in 2021, and I've said before in my own family, "Whether it's black, white or yellow, males are all masters and I don't want any of them". (My mind and thoughts have been poisoned by romance novels and fanficton so I've restarted having good expectations to men again since May this year... I'm really losing sense and poisonous hahaha) If I don't have a degree and with I'm not beautiful enough, I'm just worthless in society and I won't be able to find any good ones. In short, I need to go to graduate school in China to save myself from a miserable life that I can see at a glance already.
And some words could be seen as footnotes I have mentioned to you before
Of course I want to leave, I wanted to leave in 2021. But after trying to work, I can only earn about 3,000 euros a year here, that's all I have right now, and I've calculated that my family doesn't even have more than 150,000 euros combined (because I'm a girl, my parents never tell me how much properties my family has, and are very disdainful of me for wanting to know that). Our wages here are even as low as 2 euros per hour with two days off a month, and I used to have a job with six days off a month. My parents wouldn't give me money to leave China either, they don't agree that I have feminist ideas in my brain. Also, I'm their only child and they say they're afraid I'll die abroad, yes, they think the West is full of dangers and believe every day that the view is unique, safe and beautiful here when one look at the world. All I can hope for is that I might be able to get into grad school, save up in the meantime, go to Europe to continue my education or just work, and then of course I want to live there forever.
Lazy to check, maybe there exist problem of grammar and usage 🤣
Hahaha told a lot of people I am radical feminist 🤣In my home country, feminists already be seen as crazy and rebellious, not to mention I am radical
[And there I attached a screenshot of my talk with my first Estonian friend and of course when share screenshots with others I often cut the avatar and username off:
Me I used to be a radical feminist, which means we radical feminist in Korea and China should do 6B4T
Then let me search the English definition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/6B4T_movement#:~:text=In%20Korean%2Dlanguage%20abbreviation%2C%20%22,refers%20to%20rejecting%20strict%20beauty
Here's it
I used to cut off my hair like man, that's what we radical feminists there suggests, remove feminine symbol from us
Him
Youre brave
I really dont know what to say
Because im a man]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/6B4T_movement#:~:text=In%20Korean%2Dlanguage%20abbreviation%2C%20%22,refers%20to%20rejecting%20strict%20beauty
Him No it reads perfectly and if had to imagine myself in your situation I would have a similar outlook. Thank god women don't have this expectation here to get married asap and actually 23 is still considered early to start studying . I notice that in China people have to decide on their career path very early and there's not much room if you have a change of heart later on
Me You can't imagine my mother wants me to get married since I was around 18, and as girls here, as they grow up parents always taught them, must do something, or you would be scolded in in-laws' family
Him
I sense there's a lot of pressure on someone like you in your surroundings
Me My mother said, why don't you get married before study and work, start a family before building a career
Him That's just terrible. I can appreciate that you'd just want the freedom of "being your own man at your own pace" but I always had that freedom That sounds like the career of raising kids 🤔
Me She would also give me examples of people she knew around her who got married in high school and I said don't they know shame?My mom said there's no shame in getting married and having kids.Even though, my mother (she was born in '65) also got married at 32, which is considered quite late in China, especially in her era.
Him Well they can't really force you. You're not the person to let yourself be dragged Infront of the altar
Sounds like Europe 120 years ago
Me My cousin's twin babies are in bad health, then my father said, why she couldn't just quit her job, like all the people do in the past
Him Well the father could also quit his job of course
Me Also, my cousin's husband can't have children naturally, but in China, always check if it's wrong with women's bodies and blame women first, if women are all healthy, then could check the glorious men
Him Terrible , I heard about this on tv
Me So breathtaking, but average Chinese woman's life [And there I attached a screenshot of my talk with my first Estonian friend as well Him: Your life sounds like movie
Me Average Chinese woman's life
Him Now i feel guilty
Life here is luxury compared to China
Don't mean to make you jealous
Me Forget all the feminist ideas in my head and agree wholeheartedly with patriarchal and traditional culture of this land and then I would feel like many women find this life normal
No, your country and many European countries didn't do anything wrong
China always says that the countries of Europe got rich by plundering, but what have Finland, Iceland, Lithuania and many others done? Nothing.
Him: Vikings hahaha
China kind of reminds me of my parents said about days when we were with Soviet Union]
Shake my head
We all have strong heart here, or just get used to it or never felt wrong by the society's influence
Him Yeah takes a lot of courage to do your own thing but someone like you can't be happy without pursuing your own path Hey you could lead a feminist movement and piss them all off properly 👌
Me Then I will die Already exist many women here dead for this
Him: Considering the declining birthrate, istn there some change occuring already ?
Me: They promote three-children policy or actually no limits for number of children anymore, which results to women more difficult to get a job or study
Sister, I'm finally back from walking and bathing, I was worried about you worried about me got caught by authorities for saying treasonous words haha🤣
Haha, I have a wonder. Before locking the screen my screen stays on the page we are talking on, so do your messages have to be shown as read even if I don't read them?
https://insidechina.rti.org.tw/news/view/id/2072201
Here is a thing I heard of, you can read it with the help of chrome's Google translate
Him: I see, so women don't want to be birthing machines, so that policy is actually backfiring
Me: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_in_China
Him: Are you joking or serious ? So dreadful that you can't criticise openly, but you are using VPN right ? That ought to be encrypted
I dunno I don't pay any attention to the read thing and you don't need to worry about replying fast just take your time
Me: I know about the movement of Feminist Five, in here I and some people know it as Feminist Sisters Five
No, without VPN we could still surf on this app, but even with VPN, it still without help
Him Interesting , so I guess such articles aren't usually published in China ? But on tw addresses ?
Me: Keep in mind, actually everything is under surveillance
Ah, I found it on Chrome
Him: Spooky. Do you cross the street when the lights are red ? Or is that bad for the social score ?
Me: We have radical feminists online groups, got hidden from Douban (Chinese's version of Tumblr)or actually by the authorit** Use the Internet, all is the same And I know actually the government and me use the same VPN So more dangerous But somehow actually all the same in some extent One use the Internet, you see, wifi, 4G or under who's eyes? Maybe VPS is a little more safe, but I don't know how to build it, and maybe still under watch I surf on western Internet since like 2019, Reddit since May,2022 But don't I dare say a word since this August
Him: But what's the point of China's great firewall when anyone can just circumvent like that ? Is it like a trap to catch ppl?
Me My first word is on Reddit/polandball, saying someone's work about Germany, so adorable
Not everyone
We like 1.4 billion here
No more than 0.1 billion know how to access to outside Internet
Him: Oh I see Or most people might just don't know any better ?
Me: And if stay quiet, safe or not safe, depends on the glorious' minds
Him: I see so you still gotta be careful what you write
Me: The govern-++！ment sometimes arrests people who say things that are treasonous, but it won't say the real reason, it'll say it's because someone viewed a pornographic website
Him: That's so ironic, some people here would go bonkers if pornograpghy would be restricted in any way haha
Me: So that's the reason I stay quiet until months ago I dare say some words
And I am even a little worried
For a translated some poems
One poem named The Taiwanese Bamboo Branch Song, though it was written by famous person in mainland dead in 1929
Him: But usually websites have build in Https end to end encryption and other apps as well
Me: Another poems by Taiwanese poet Luo Fu
And I called Luo Fu as Taiwanese poet
Him: I usually avoid the topic of Taiwan, I had a bad experience with someone talking about it
Me: So maybe you can see why I am very frightened
Him: Yes
Me: I am a person totally okay with Taiwan, I don't care about this awful home land at all, I think it's should be at Taiwan's wishes
self-determination and who's the group first came to the territory in history
Him: Yeah let the people decide. But it's not that easy, because nowadays elections often get influenced by outside propaganda campaigns. Trying to shift public opinion by spreading false information
Me: Haha you don't know how smart our internet security systems are
As I said, no secret if one use Internet, I think maybe it's the same all over the world
Very scared
But this "glorious" land do it the best
Him: I have some inclination, but some apps like the old telegram have strong encryptions. Or the dark net as a whole. But but apps like these
Me: I don't use telegrams, I don't trust them and Twitter
Him: I don't either, but it's possible depending on what you use
Me: Twitter has a reputation of cooperate with my home land
Him: Just purely on a technical standpoint
Me: And I don't want to use telegrams, if I stay quiet, I may be at peace
Him: For sure, musk doing business in china
Me: But what telegrams could bring me, I don't want to get involved with politics, movements I could just take care of myself Telegrams may put me in danger
Him: I mean he actual app telegram , th instant messenger Or the all signal
Me: Maybe there exist traitors or something with the au;+_+_thoriti**++es
Him: Those are used for encryption or in some countries as WhatsApp ornwechat replacement
Me: Then what's the name I wanna hear, but afraid to use G++u-&__-i Min"&-hai Maybe you knew this person already
Him The name of the app is just telegram. And with such a type of end to end encryption, it's impossible for outsiders to read. Unless your using a device, which has spyware on it.
Me: Then my phone must have spy software Even if I get an American iPhone
Him In your country ever phone has it
Me Cause we must use some apps here
Him That's the reason Huawei got banned in usa
Me WeChat Alipay lots of stuff
Him It's not just apps, but I deeply integrated on a hardware level
Me Yeah, I even prefer my privaty stolen by westerns I feel no worries about use Google or whatever
Him Yep Google and everyone else keep track of things too
Me But in China,Internet access is completely real-name, it's just that your online friends don't always know who you are, the government does And actually neitzens could find out who you are too I mentioned Human Flesh Search Engine before
Him It's the same here, but if I wanna be completely anonymous I just take a tablet to the public WiFi. Devices themselves aren't attached to names here, only isp accounts
Me Wow, sounds beyond my comprehension, indeed, I am such an uneducated person don't know what's this I will read it carefully 🤣
Him If you go into a cafe there is internet access over WiFi. So you don't have to use your own internet at home ISP means internet service provider Like VDSL or cable or something
Me 🧐😵‍💫
Him For example if you just go to the store and buy a tablet, you don't have to leave your name Or a laptop So you take his to a cafe or something and log in to the wifi No way of tracing back your name Of course if you post online, you shouldn't tell anyone your name haha
Me Hahaha thanks for your words though I am still confused but I will tell you
Him No problemo You can ask me anything
Me Before we use the app, we already hand in our identity information
We already give out our phone number, ID Card pictures even face pictures
Him What ? You mean for using hello talk ?
Me Or we couldn't use them and we couldn't choose not to use them because every app is same and we must use some apps
Hellotalk also hand in my phone number
Him That's unbelievable
Me And actually I felt use ti it
Him 🥺
Me Because it doesn't require more! But it has linked with my WeChat So still the same
Him Yeah but it's still coupled to your phone number
Me Like ID card, face verification
WeChat or Alipay, almost every one has to use for everything, and it already have our ID information
WeChat has the strongest surveillance
Him Because it's also used for payment ?
Me One can even unable send some pictures on it
Him Yeah like Winnie the Pooh pictures
Me So you don't need to provide your any information?
Him No I never did that and noone here would do it If you use paying apps you just enter credit card information
Me Going out, administration, everything in life
Him But people still prefere cash in stores And I don't wanna be forced to take my mobile phone with me when I go out
Me China always laugh at countries like Germany still use cashes. But I found so ridiculous
Him It's not backwards in my opinion. There should be ways for anonymous payments, that's so dystopic to leave your name with any transaction you do
Me Our people here say we trade privacy for convenience, but given the choice, I'd rather not have that convenience. I have deep worries about private security all the time So I seldom put my pictures, yes, not even my selfies online
Him For example if you wanna buy gold, I would do it cash. If the government is at war it could cease private investments . But only if they have the buyers name
Me I almost only put pictures on the western Internet I have searched for this a lot on Reddit or YouTube or chrome I even wrote down once haha
Him Very smart
Me But I have something weird actually, I don't want touch the money for bacteria 🤣
Him But not much use when your government uses cameras and face recognition to track your every step You're excused, my quirky sister 😉
Me Yes I know it, they knew how many phones cards you have Sorry cannot understand, need Google at once
Him That means I appreciate your apprehension . In my job many people have that feat Fear
Me Ohh How time flies, though today we only talk about heavy things haha
Him I like this, it's a lot of fun to talk with you But I'm a little scared to get you into trouble
Me Yes, so maybe I won't talk about it anymore
Him Still, so interesting to hear from a different perspective At least I have confirmation some stuff in TV is real
Me Do you heard of him?
Him Uh well I can't decipher that one , Google didn't help haha The Rona related guy ?
Me He is a "traitor", he turns into a Swedish, and have to be one of the person in Sodom again
The au*** force him to admit his crime on TV
So he became one of glorious land again
Him I didn't hear about this peticular person, but I heard about these secret foreign offices of Sodom to "get their lost children back"
Me But Sweden still admit him as one of the Swedish people I need to keep in mind I'm a traitor too
Him Hey don't say the quiet part out loud 😉
Me So I couldn't be as brave as him, I could only take care of myself at the most and at best
Hahaha
Him Yeah that person seems to have acted like a martyr indeed
Me Just only keep the letters, remove the punctuations
Him Oh I got it That confessions vid is like the first result on google
Me Hahaha, in China, we often chat with wrong words, short form or add a lot of punctuations
As you said this, my heart broke for him
Him Doesn't help at all with the ai technology of today
Me Though I never dare to watch, I know it in my mind
But if without these, we even couldn't send out some even normal (not rebellion) messages, posts, comments 🤣
Him I feel like I'm part of a spy novel , it's kind of exciting
Me Hahaha
Him Whisperwhispermumblemumble It even the average dim witted person can see that it's completely staged. Who believes that ?
Me Sigh They don't need anyone to believe maybe, they just threaten
Him Oh yes. Like Putin killing off any dissidents like prigoshin. As a warning While publically playing innocent But everyone knows what's up
Me So frightening for me, as a child, I always dream of Anarchy society or actually described by Zhuangzi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuang_Zhou
Him I have this too sometimes. Like a natural disaster happing , like a comet hitting earth and everyone has to fend for them selves. Public order be damned
Me But when I grow up I found Anarchy may lead disorders Just enjoy the peaceful life described by him
Him Yeah there got to be some healthy middle ground , if that's possible
Me Here's the English translations I found https://www.harinam.com/tao-te-ching-verse-80-if-a-country-is-governed-wisely-its-inhabitants-will-be-content/ I truly enjoy it a lot since I was a kid https://www.taoistic.com/taoteching-laotzu/taoteching-80.htm
Different versions of translation haha
ii)
What I wrote on Dec 28-29
They mock me for wanting to go outside
Around December in 2021. my father said "why you want to go aboard to study. What are you going abroad for?Are you going to study until you're old (which means I should get married soon, yeah in China, weirdly before going to university, young people are not encouraged to being relationship if the parents or the locals want the young people to live more and more decent life and get higher degrees. But after going to university, they will maybe push children to being relationship soon, get married even have children soon even before the career started or the university years finnished)? Study through all your life?"
Meanwhile I said, "I want to go to Europe to study or work and then live forever"
But they always mock me for want to go to Europe, and sometimes they even don't remember, mistake Germany which I used to want to go as America 🤨😵‍💫
My parents are so toxic, my mother curse me to death just because I haven't taken the clothes home at 17:47 now. She threatened to slap me.
My mother haven't slapped me in my life, my father did. He hit me several times, especially these times. He slapped me in front of everyone in class (You may not believe that a girl who was my classmate in middle school and my schoolmate in high school, who strangely, provocatively said, "I remember your dad beating you up in middle school" when we were near the examination center for the Gaokao, to which I could only reply sarcastically, " You weren't even born when he beat me up.") when I did slower than other people on exams (but I wasn't bad at Chemistry, 55/60 on the Zhongkao https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhongkao (The Junior High School Scholastic Aptitude Examination), about 70/100 on the Gaokao https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaokao#:\~:text=The%20Nationwide%20Unified%20Examination%20for,in%20early%20June%20every%20year. (The Nationwide Unified Examination for Admissions to General Universities and Colleges), and Chemistry was my strongest subject after English (124/150 in Gaokao), and I only relied on they two to just barely make it to college, because I really didn't study much in high school, I just read romance novels every day by then). And then there was the time in middle school at home when he caught me copying answers instead of doing my homework relying on myself seriously, he domesticated me so hard he slapped me that made me lose my mind at the time. There were also one time I don't remember if it was in primary school or middle school, they two my parents whipped me with belts and forced me to kneel, and so that I told them at the time as a result I hated that I am not an orphan, I should better be. As I type these words, there are tears in my eyes. I probably have mental issues because of them. [I'm a woman maybe need therapy, but I'll honestly tell you, if I see therapy, it would be a big thing in China, hard to get a job like civil servant https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%AC%E5%8B%99%E5%93%A1 or other decent jobs, important exams
Believe me, what I say is 100% true, cuz if see some Psychologist or psychotherapy that will be in record documents, and will be regarded as abnormal or person with mental disorder
There must be many people in China with mental health problems, but we can't even see the doctor, cuz if we do, we may even can't enter some good schools
since we born, our life is full of competition and fighting
And parents, spoil us or treat us whatever very toxicly, traditional Asian especially Chinese parents
Control us)
I'll honestly say one thing, many Chinese women or girls want parents better dead. Because not only were our parents toxic, but even if we were the only daughter, because of the deep-rooted patriarchy here, they despised us.
Yes if one day, I want to be a good person. But I am still actually afraid of men, even I somehow close to men, but I don't want a relationship, not only because I don't want to get laid with man (I mean I am afraid of being forced) but also like something I can't tell, just afraid, many men are awful, like my father, many Chinese men though I don't want relationship with them but we Chinese men and women here are like enemies, and some men (in this term, I'm not saying the men from the homeland) manipulated me or played with my feelings
I mean I don't want to get laid with man anyway. just afraid of being forced during relationship like rape. Maybe you can't imagine, I used to think and said these to some internet Chinese friends, "I think coitus is a disgusting thing, like bestiality, the subjugation or conquer of a man to a woman, and I feel a deep anger about it", (It's a hatred as if I was born with an anger towards coitus. This could be due to the astrology chart of the moment I was born holds Mars square Pluto. For this I had seen a quite astonishingly good but long text in 2017, and I translated it myself https://www.reddit.com/Mathilde_Soliloquy/comments/191mc51/mars_square_pluto/ with the help of DeepL translator.)
and then a man said then the man you have a relationship will find others outside, cuz man can't tolerate it
I argued with my parents just now
My father said "if you're keeping bubbling nonsense, I'll kick you out of house by my legs, and get off to outside better tomorrow". haha reminds me of this Chinese sister's words
My mother said if I keep the phone with me, she won't care about my business anymore, handle all my own living myself, cooking and all. That is, threaten me.
Noo just humiliate me, my father and mother said I am crazy or stimulated by something. Just like when I said I don't want a man, my parents, my relatives, people I met in China especially my neighbors in my childhood would teach me a lesson, saying are you hurt by men, then at that time I may say, why I must feel this way because hurt by man, I just hate the patriarchal society
But also exist the possibility if I don't act like obedient to them
They know full well I'm a giant baby, fragile, depent, and I'm weak now, have no ability except learning, can't live on my own at least by far, thus may think threat me like this will lead me to be obedient
Yeah as I said to that Chinese sister, if what happened to her (A Chinese girl said to me, "I've been through three love disasters. My heart is much stronger than yours. I've also been through being kicked out of my parents' house, at 9pm, crying all over the place by myself looking for a hotel, people on the street are busy with their own, my mom wants to drop me off at my hometown to my grandma, my dad mocked my mom back in case his mom would be dying from angers, there's no place for me in the home. I've been depressed, abandoned, and hurt by men. I'm sober and I don't have a relationship/romanticismic-brain, I've been hurt three times by men. Have you ever been strangled? I have, by an ex-ex-boyfriend, and I've been threatened with nude photos, and if I difmdn't take them, I'd be crazily scolded, and received cold violence."
I replied to her, "If it were me, I'd be so fragile that I'd just die." ) happens to me, I'll fragile to go to death
Crazily, my father broke into my room, lifted the covers, and said, "Hand over your phone," and then he actually went and grabbed it and smashed it on the floor, may even stomped on it with his foot. Then I argued, saying, "My primary school classmate have been playing with his phones all night since primary school, and anyone would keep their phones with them. I must have my phone with me even if I would get hit, is this some kind of electronic doorstop?" He said "These people you're talking about, what are they doing?They're all working" and I said "You can't do this even if I don't work, you two are too psycho (my mom says the one who is psycho and abnormal is me). I'm going to get a job because I can't take your control anymore." After then, I get from my bed and turn on the light to find my phone, then my father said "it's between the dishes (on the dinning table)"
I was wondering my phone can't work when he grabbed it away from me
I'm trembling now, shake my head for it
The coldness of weather, can't be able to compare the sorrow of mine, uuhhh
Uuhh let me mention a stuff, there are places like豫章书院https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B1%AB%E7%AB%A0%E4%B9%A6%E9%99%A2%E4%BF%AE%E8%BA%AB%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2%E4%B8%93%E4%BF%AE%E5%AD%A6%E6%A0%A1, Yuzhang Academy Self-cultivation Education School, that some places parents send disobedient children for "treatment", such as seclusion or electric shocks, extremely cruel physical punishment, in which the children sometimes have to report each other in order to survive there..., and some of them commit suicide
Though they may don't send me, I believe they must think of these things, Sometimes when they feel I am disobedient they said they'd send me to mental hospitals, though it may not be not out of their hearts but threats
Yeah it's no matter about the age, parents control children till to death. And I believe in places like that, must be many adults, no need to ensure
In this situation, I no longer have the heart to like men, I have to become independent and rely on myself for survival as soon as possible, and I realize how horrible my life is and that if I don't struggle to leave them, I wi surely be forced to go on blind dates and marry man I don't like and I despise
They've, at least my mother wanted me to get married as soon as possible since I was18, wait, even earlier or after entering the university, 17
Parents control children like this is a common thing in China, sigh*
It's not a civilized place anyway
On Dec 30, "Yeah today my father hit the door, by then I was afraid of being slapped or beat up He rapped on the door with his hand while crazily yelling at me So since childhood, when someone gets loud, my mind goes blank Yeah thanks God haven't beat me up recently Already so frightened by them, whenever simply their voices are loud, my frigh even turns to this degree"
When I was about 8, one day my mother picked me up from school by bicycle, and I wiggled my feet, and the ankle of my left foot touched the bicycle chain and was stirred in, at that time I saw blood and white bones but I didn't dare to say anything because I was so afraid of my mother, thanks to a stanger - a grandpa behind us who said that the child's foot was stirred into the bicycle, but my mother always said that there was no such old grandpa and that it was she who couldn't pedal the bicycle and found out that on her own. Then my foot had to be stitched up with a needle a dozen times. But I haven't cried over that, and I didn't shed a single tear when I was 4 when I ran while playing but fell on a large pile of glass, resulting in a scar on my left temple. Having said that I have quite a lot of trauma on my body, I was in a vehicle accident in 2010's or 2011's (damn I can't even remember though I have a good memory I think more likely 2010) January, that resulted in an intracranial fracture and bleeding in my right ear for a week (my parents used to tell me not to talk to people about this lest they think you have a problem with your brain). I'm really terrified of traffic because of this, even standing at a five-way or intersection I get vertigo and feel like I'm going to drown from all the vehicles speeding past me. So not to mention driving a car, I can't even drive and don't want to learn how to drive a battery-operated bike, and I even seem to have gotten a little scar on my leg from a fall I took on a battery-operated bike between summer and fall this year. I can ride a bike at the most, but I haven't ridden one in at least nine years I guess. And when I was around 11 I tripped over a brick because the power went out in the street and I couldn't see the road, and I broke three of my incisors in some degree, how can I put it, I don't have any good teeth, I think it may be due to food safety issues of my country.
iii)
When I was in high school, I guess when I was aroud 15, my father jokingly used a swear word he learned from one of neighbors on me, "当婊子还要牌坊 https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%89%8C%E5%9D%8A Be a prostitute yet still wants to build up a paifang [It is a building erected in feudal society to honour meritorious achievements, success in Imperial examination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination, benevolent gover, as well as loyalty and filial piety, and here it refers to the Paifang of Chastity.]". I am a person still haven't touched any man's hands by far and I didn't do anythinf wrong, then he used this kind of sentence to me. And he then asked me to accept his apology with two hundred RMB, which I had to accept because if I did not he might even get annoyed of shame and lose his temper even beat me up.
So sometimes when people like neighbors from my childhood, persuade me go to marriage (cuz at that time I didn't want), saying your father treat you so nice and you must can find someone like your father, ewwwwww, it's so disgusting, my father is so disgusting, beat me up, inslut me, I don't want man from my homeland at all
And my parents like my mother won't admit it, she said "I've been with your father so many years, he hasn't said any words like to me, how could it happen? That must be your imagination“
Tho I still have conscience in thinking they raised me up
iv) [Labor Law of the People's Republic of China
Chapter 4 Working Hours, Rests, and Leaves
Article 36 The State shall practise a working hour system wherein labourers shall work for no more than eight hours a day and no more than 44 hours a week on the average.
(Actually we work way more than this)
Article 38 The employer shall guarantee that its labourers have at least one day off a week.]
In my home province the minimum hourly wage is divided into four levels,21,20,19,18RMB (at this moment, 1 Euro = 7.77 Chinese Yuan, aka RMB),and in the current province I live it's 24,22,20. I used to have a temporary job in my town that was two days off a month,and my parents said why you can't do it as someone else is doing it,and I remember the hours of that job started at about 7:30am, besides, there was a man in that job who purposely tried to put a hot stamp drop on my legs.
So getting a job in China with two days off on the weekend is kind of considered a luxury, and one of my previous jobs had six days off a month.
And now I don't lay my eyes on jobs without two days off on the weekend.
v) https://weibo.com/1648736703/4955740219901047 Classic manly "let me test you". If it were me, even if I did have to speak German, I'd be practicing to be fluent before I'd have the nerve to say it in public, let alone record a video of it, and this man even sells English lessons. As some people said in the comments section, " There are so many women in China whose talent does not match their position, and even if they are very talented, they can only make a living at the grassroots level, and this phenomenon is rare in men, on the contrary, most of them do not have the talent to match their position. Women in this country have too few opportunities for advancement."

My boyfriend (T) and I are in contact with an ethical breeder for a Swedish Vallhund already but I wanted to post to see what breeds you all would recommend/see if experienced people agree with my decision for a SV.
1) Will this be your first dog? If not, what experience do you have owning/training dogs?
It is going to be my first dog as an adult. It is T’s first dog ever IMO but he technically had a dog from 0-5. I work with dogs. Currently I am a trainekennel worker but I interned at a Vet. I have a lot of dog experience.
2) Do you have a preference for rescuing a dog vs. going through a [reputable breeder]( http://ownresponsibly.blogspot.com/2011/07/identifying-reputable-breeder.html)?
We are in contact with an ethical breeder currently BUT are nowhere near to the point where we are getting one of her puppies. I wouldn’t mind a rescue if I was at a point in my life where I could handle an unpredictable dog. I am not at that point currently.
3) Describe your ideal dog.
Me: I have joked with co-workers that if the dog wont ruin my day I don’t want it… by that I mean that I generally enjoy the dogs everyone else finds annoying. I L O V E myself a velcro dog. Favorite breeds ive worked with are Springers, GSPs, Reactive dogs, ACD, etc. I love drivey dogs. I love dogs where you never are alone. I love dogs scare you when its quiet. I love “annoying” dogs.
T: T is a fan of cats. He likes it when dogs give him space but also will cuddle him. He doesn’t enjoy dogs as much as me. He would be content if he didn’t have any animals. He wants a dog that he will know that it loves him and not a nippy dog. He seems to prefer smaller dogs but doesn’t have a size limit. His ideal dog would be a cat.
4) What breeds or types of dogs are you interested in and why?
T is in love with Corgis/Dachshunds. I have had to break up a few too many Prembroke fights to be comfortable with living with one. I can realistically handle having a reactive dog currently but I need to heal from a BE before getting a dog that is dangerous so seeing how bad those fights were I do not want a prembroke. I just dislike Dachshunds. I think they look like doorstops in the nicest way possible.
I like English Springer Spaniels, Australian Cattle Dogs, Catahoulas, Belgian Shepherds of all varieties (I cannot have any GSD looking dogs as my mom is deathly afraid of them so…)
5) What sorts of things would you like to train your dog to do?
I train dogs so they will know a bunch of stuff. I don’t have a plan for training, I just see things online and practice on my sisters dog so itll be the same thing with my dog.
6) Do you want to compete with your dog in a sport (e.g. agility, obedience, rally) or use your dog for a form of work (e.g. hunting, herding, livestock guarding)? If so, how much experience do you have with this work/sport?
I have 0 experience with sports but I already have people offering to help me get into the sports world. She does barnhunt so I am sure that is where I will start but I am open to every sport. I have an interest in dock diving, rally, weight pull, and cani-cross.
**Care Commitments**
7) How long do you want to devote to training, playing with, or otherwise interacting with your dog each day?
Training: at least one 15 min session a day. I like to keep sessions short with dogs but I usually do 2-4 a day it just depends on how busy I am or if we are working on other things. I can dedicate 2-3 hours towards enriching a dog and probably 1-2 hrs exercising.
8) How long can you exercise your dog each day, on average? What sorts of exercise are you planning to give your dog regularly and does that include using a dog park?
I hike about bi-weekly but itll be getting up to weekly/twice weekly as soon as it gets nicer out. I go on walks/jogs as much as T will go with me but as soon as I get a buddy it’ll go up to 2x daily. There is a dog park locally but I don’t know how often we will use it. Probably only when its empty or when I already know the dogs there.
9) How much regular brushing are you willing to do? Are you open to trimming hair, cleaning ears, or doing other grooming at home? If not, would you be willing to pay a professional to do it regularly?
I can go for daily brushing. I love grooming my own animals. The bond that is formed by grooming your own animal (when properly desenitized) is magical.
**Personal Preferences**
10) What size dog are you looking for?
T would prefer a teeny tiny-medium dog and I would prefer a medium- large dog.
11) How much shedding, barking, and slobber can you handle?
I dislike super slobbery dogs but I can handle everything else. T would prefer a lowish shedding dog but really doesnt mind.
12) How important is being able to let your dog off-leash in an unfenced area?
Semi-important. IDC if they are off-leash often but I would like them to have good recall.
**Dog Personality and Behavior**
13) Do you want a snuggly dog or one that prefers some personal space?
As previously mentioned I love Velcro dogs. T wants space occasionally.
14) Would you prefer a dog that wants to do its own thing or one that’s more eager-to-please?
I like Eager to please dogs. I want to know the dog likes me haha. Same for T.
15) How would you prefer your dog to respond to someone knocking on the door or entering your yard? How would you prefer your dog to greet strangers or visitors?
An alert bark at least. I don’t mind super barky dogs. I do not want a dog that is stranger reactive. I want a dog that can handle having people over as we are in our early 20’s. We don’t party every day and all day but we do occasionally have 1-3 people over.
16) Are you willing to manage a dog that is aggressive to other dogs?
No. I mean I definitely can handle a dog-aggresive dog but I want to avoid it.
17) Are there any other behaviors you can’t deal with or want to avoid?
As previously mentioned dogs prone to any reactivity are off the table.
**Lifestyle**
18) How often and how long will the dog be left alone?
Like 3 hrs total a day around an hour each. My bf is in college and works on weekends where I work weekdays.
19) What are the dog-related preferences of other people in the house and what will be their involvement in caring for the dog?
I have mentioned all of T’s preferences but he will only provide basic care when I am ill/if something happens where I cant. My mom visits us and she is scared of some kinds of dogs specifically: GSDs and GSD adjacent dogs, dogs with heterochromia, dogs with blue eyes, and giant breeds. I don't have to make sure my mom is fine as I can avoid her freaking out by kenneling the dog or having it in another room it would just be easier if she was fine with the dog.
20) Do you have other pets or are you planning on having other pets? What breed or type of animal are they?
We have a cat.
21) Will the dog be interacting with children regularly?
Occasionally. I have a niece and nephew. We are still far away from kids and we don’t plan on having kids as of now but that may change.
22) Do you rent or plan to rent in the future? If applicable, what breed or weight restrictions are on your current lease?
We rent. No restrictions.
23) What city or country do you live in and are you aware of any laws banning certain breeds?
No restrictions but we would prefer a breed that can generally live anywhere.
24) What is the average temperature of a typical summer and winter day where you live?
We have highs of 110 and lows of -40. Gotta love the Midwest.
**Additional Information and Questions**
25) Please provide any additional information you feel may be relevant.
* No additional information.
26) Feel free to ask any questions below.

Ok this is my dream :
Visited a very old dream. Dropped off a cat and some animals in a carrier to a house I’ve been in before (in my dream) but the house was riddled with cobwebs everywhere; the place was dirty, you had to bend everywhere because there was massive cobwebs and spiders blocking the way. The girl was helping me move my stuff in, but I was getting frustrated because she couldn’t hold this cat correctly and was holding it by its arm so I had to show her while we were on the doorstop . The girl was trying to keep things normal but she was making her dinner , some tiny pancakes , in a polystyrene box. Dad was really rude and neglectful. Someone else was in the room trying to distract me and showin me old drawings I did of their animals , the book went right back to 2020 and I said “oh wow I can’t believe it’s been that long” . I was tempted to record the dad’s conversations , I was going to report it to nspca but something stopped me. I then woke up

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Synopsis:
Juliette Contzen is a lazy, good-for-nothing princess. Overshadowed by her siblings, she's left with little to do but nap, read … and occasionally cut the falling raindrops with her sword. Spotted one day by an astonished adventurer, he insists on grading Juliette's swordsmanship, then promptly has a mental breakdown at the result.
Soon after, Juliette is given the news that her kingdom is on the brink of bankruptcy. At threat of being married off, the lazy princess vows to do whatever it takes to maintain her current lifestyle, and taking matters into her own hands, escapes in the middle of the night in order to restore her kingdom's finances.
Tags: Comedy, Adventure, Action, Fantasy, Copious Ohohohohos.
Chapter 227: The Dark Tower
A crescent moon blinked above a canopy of wilting leaves.
It needed to try harder. I had a minimum expectation of all my kingdom’s tenants. The moon in my sky was one of them. If it wasn’t illuminating my soft features and gentle smile beneath a curtain of moonlight, what good was it for?
Certainly not lighting the muddied path towards a baroness’s secret hovel.
And so–I relied upon Starlight Grace instead.
Holding my trusted multi-purpose gardening instrument aloft, I brushed aside the shadows as I led the way through the dense woodlands east of Hartzwiese. Damp soil and twisting vines was the reward for each step.
A stark warning to those of gentle hearts and finely crafted boots to turn away.
Crack.
Instead, I scarcely slowed my pace as I stepped upon a twig, its snap muted by the weight of the dense trees and the watching darkness. All around me, countless eyes shone in response. A painting of malevolent stars, guiding me towards where only unseen horrors awaited.
Moments later, I spied movement in the periphery.
A gnarled root revealed as a thorned tail disappearing into some hidden recess in the underbrush.
A songbird in the shape of a ragged flesh raven, its throat convulsing as it mimicked the sweet chirp.
A lupine shadow, prowling menacingly before it was lost amidst the jaws of a darker silhouette.
And most conspicuously of all, the fluttering wings of common forest bats.
I narrowed my eyes at the litany of horrors … before nodding in satisfaction.
My, it was absolutely atrocious.
A dark and damp forest filled with hideous creatures, where nobody with any standards, sense or taste would choose to reside. Here was where seasoned brigands turned up their nose, opting instead to squat in those less dangerous parts inhabited by man eating fire breathing death beetles as their place of lawlessness.
And so–I was appeased.
Not delighted. Not content. Just appeased.
After all, even the thought of adding to Soap Island’s burgeoning labour force couldn’t deny the solemn fact I was again trudging through a forest intent on claiming an ankle. But I at least kept the worst of my frowns in reserve for when I’d soon require them.
A significant contrast to a former noblewoman following in my steps.
“Hmm.”
I glanced behind.
She only wore a look of deep unease as she peered around at the darkness attempting to swallow her defenceless form.
Even so, she offered only a slight hum in lieu of actual words of horror.
I was impressed.
Why, she’d only just joined my family’s maid staff, and was already learning the correct euphemisms. By the time she saw the loose socks which didn’t litter my bedroom, she’d be down to offering only a fixed smile and a nod.
Still, I hardly saw what her clear display of anxiousness was for.
Anything which hid in the shadows also hid from Starlight Grace.
And if it didn’t, well–
Coppelia was beside her.
Or nearby.
Or at least close enough to help her should something salivating seek to consume her. Especially as she was the one taunting them. Her wide smile was brighter than any light as she casually tossed twigs into the darkness. I watched as she struck something on the nose, answered by a yelp from either a frightened beagle or a corpse devouring barghest.
I pursed my lips.
Frankly, I had little wish to invite a monstrous horror into our midst. It’d be awful if Renise fainted. If my loyal handmaiden wasn’t willing to carry me unless an explosion warranted it, she certainly wasn’t going to be carrying a maid.
But quite aside from that, she should be busy performing a far more important task.
Ensuring we weren’t wildly lost.
“Coppelia, please stop antagonising the unknown horrors in the night.”
“They started it.”
“Yes, well, they’ve clearly nothing better to do. That doesn’t mean they’re worthy of your attention. Especially as it should be elsewhere. Are we still following the direction of the sewers?”
“The direction? Sure. I mean, it could technically be any direction from here. This is as good as I can feel. No more hollowness beneath the dirt, weird smells or signs of drainage access. We’re now officially lost in the middle of the spooky woods!”
“Lost?”
I raised a hand to my smiling lips, not at all disheartened by the surrounding gloom.
“Ohohoho … what are you suggesting? Why, this is exactly what I wanted!”
“You mean to be followed by something which looks like a tree but definitely isn’t a tree?”
“What? No. I don’t want that. And if you can, please discourage it from approaching. Goodness knows my hair is threatened enough by regular branches without monstrous ones enjoying a swipe as well.”
“Okie~”
Coppelia picked up another twig. Something I now realised was equivalent to throwing a bone at a skeleton. I nodded at the extra point being made.
Huddling up behind me, Renise gave a polite cough.
“Um, Miss Juliette?”
“Yes? … Do you also see some bloodthirsty aberration in disguise?”
“Well, no. And that’s rather my concern. I, um, know you said you’re certain where the baroness can be located. But are you, well, certain certain she is here? This is quite a foreboding location. Even compared to a sewer.”
I offered a soothing smile.
That alone should have quelled any concerns. But for my brother’s own chosen attendant, I’d offer a few words of comfort as well.
“Indeed, this is a truly ghastly place, fit only to play host to horrors without names and the unseen things they called their masters. And I even notice a spot of mist beginning to creep up as well. This is excellent news.”
“Ex … Excuse me? Is a mist obscuring our visibility a benefit?”
“In this case, yes.”
I elegantly strode onwards, ducking beneath a branch wishing to flatten itself against my forehead.
“Rest assured, the doings of the kingdom’s lowest aristocracy are as dull as its highest. We’ve no need to meander through sewers like common grave robbers to know where they lead. Now that Coppelia has led us this far, their own predictability will do the rest.”
I saw Renise’s shadow nodding. As well as Coppelia’s hand reaching to examine if she had any pockets.
I chose to unsee that.
“I notice we’re heading eastwards,” she said. “It makes sense that any safehold would be closer to the Granholtz border. But even with what we’ve determined, I fear this is far too large an area for us to cover. Have you perhaps surmised some hidden trail?”
“Hmm? No, not at all. I’m simply following the bats.”
“The bats?”
“The bats.”
I pointed ahead.
There, a steadily growing mass of bloodthirsty eyes blinked at us from amidst the darkness, retreating from Starlight Grace’s light like an ebbing wave.
“Oh, I see.” Renise paused. “... Truly?”
“Of course.”
Another pause. Greater this time.
A poor showing on her part. If she wished to work as a maid, even a false one, she needed to have enough stamina to agree with my every decision while walking.
“I’m … I’m afraid I don’t quite understand? Are you suggesting we’re purposefully following the bats to finetune the baroness’s location? But won’t that simply lead us to the bats’ colony? How will that … well, work?”
I was almost indignant.
Almost.
Because while a princess’s wisdom being doubted was as appalling as … whatever it was I’d just stepped on, this was hardly unexpected.
Indeed, it was in the lifeblood of all nobility, former or otherwise, to doubt the acumen of royalty who’d long known their minds to see where their treason would next go.
Thus, I placed my hand upon my chest instead, offering the learned smile my tutors did … before they were all replaced by banshees in human guise.
“Ohohoho … indeed it will. These bats will lead us to the darkest, most dingiest, most crestfallen location in the entire woods. We will be presented with the single most depressing sight in the local region, for what is favoured by bats is also favoured by the baronage. Mist, darkness and dampness. Here we shall find a secret retreat, built to house schemes so low that no thought remains for design aesthetics. And this means the most dull option which trends allow–a darkened tower ominously covered in bats.”
“Miss Juliette, I’m not certain if following bats will lead us to a darkened tower.”
I glanced behind my shoulder at the one who amongst us had the least cause for dubiousness.
“Indulge me, if you would. Have you encountered many baron households over the years?”
“At formal gatherings, yes.”
“And how many are you familiar with?”
“Of their private workings? … Perhaps over a hundred.”
“And of them, how many do you know possess secret hideaways and retreats?”
“Well … if it’s purely in the realm of likelihood … I suppose at least half?”
“And of that half, how many consist of darkened towers tossed in the middle of a forest with their exteriors ominously covered in a wallpaper of bats?”
Renise blinked as she counted the numbers in her head.
After a moment, she looked slightly indignant on behalf of all those who had no right to be defended.
“That … That is merely anecdotal.”
I paused before an unnaturally tall shrub, carefully laden between a pair of trees.
With a hum towards my surroundings, I noted the presence of the moonlight peeking through a clear gap in the forest canopy beyond. The gathering of the mist sweeping around my ankles. The mass of watching eyes now withdrawn into the distance.
“No, Miss Renise. It is modern archetectural fashion.”
Then, I smiled–just before parting the shrub with Starlight Grace.
A stunned silence met a clearing illuminated by moonlight.
And there at its centre–was a darkened tower rising to a height which failed to even overlook the forest ceiling.
A colony of fidgeting bats danced upon its surface, their mass dimly lit by lanterns jutting from windows boarded to prevent said bats from entering. And upon its blunted roof, an impaling spike served as a flourish to impragmatism.
As I turned around, I was met by the sight of Coppelia peering forward with her hand to her brows … and also Renise’s open mouth as she made a bizarre gurgling noise.
A strange way of joining me in a mocking chorus. But she had time to learn.
“Ohhohohhoohohohohoho … behold! The contemptuous predictability of my kingdom’s nobility! Peer upon the epitome of uncreativity multiplied by affordability! Designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator, here is the most basic and popular secret hideaway for destitute barons to be found in the brochure of the Stonemason’s Guild!”
Here it was!
The most popular product by sales and ratings! With countless satisfied reviews in an echo chamber of poverty nodding at one another’s lack of creativity without a sense of irony!
Package #12a. ‘The Dark Tower’, Original Secret Lair with Bat Enclosure and Optional Spire!
Ohohoho … indeed, I’d read the brochure!
When all the jesters were fired or promoted to become attachés to Granholtz’s ambassador, here was where the comedy was found!
Just because I flipped to the most expensive dwellings didn’t mean my need for amusement never saw me studying what the nobility counted as secret escapes!
“Uwwahh~ … I can’t believe you guys buy your secret towers from brochures.”
“Ohohoho … no, Coppelia. Those who are not royalty buy their secret towers from brochures. Be mindful of the distinction.”
“Does that mean I can buy one?”
“What? Absolutely not.”
“Ehhh … so I can’t have my own tower?”
“You can’t have your own tower from a brochure. It’s the same as with trapped corridors. As my loyal handmaiden, you represent royalty. That means bespoke packages only.”
Coppelia blinked at me.
“If I have to buy things like royalty, does that mean I get royalty wages too?”
“Oho ... ohohohoho! W-Well, there are stipends and private funds available to ensure your lodgings are up to par … that is to say, you would not be expected to pay for everything out of pocket …”
“Hmm? And how much would you help pay? It’d have to be a lot, right? Probably all of it if I can only pick the super expensive stuff?”
“Well, I … I suppose in that regard, yes …”
“I want you to know that I have secured that commitment in the part of my memory that can neither be removed or destroyed.”
My mouth widened wordlessly.
Then, I broke into a magnanimous smile. Yes, magnanimous. Even if I considered whether the Royal Treasury was enough to pay for the type of skyward towers that Coppelia would ask for. It was only right her abode was just as fine as mine … maybe one step down … two steps down!
“Ughhh …”
Beside us, Renise groaned with her face in her palms.
“I can’t believe it … Father offered to buy this for me … as a birthday present … when he said it was popular, I didn’t know this is what he meant.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said I didn’t really need a dark tower … I’m also not overly fond of bats.”
“Then rejoice. Your place at my brother’s side may continue.”
Satisfied I’d permanently tarnished the image of her former colleagues more than blood and betrayal ever could, I continued onwards.
With a flick of my hair, I slid down the grassy embankment and into the clearing.
Untrimmed grass met me as I made my way across with thoughts of tomorrow’s breakfast in mind. Vanilla palmiers or cinnamon streusel muffins. A more colourful picture than anything this tower had to offer.
But no matter.
I expected little from those who schemed against my kingdom. And foresight was not one of them. Otherwise, there would at least be a parade of hoodlums waiting to accost me.
Instead, only the menacing sight of a structure with the ability to collapse at any moment threatened me. It was enough. And so I paused before the large wooden door, readying an excuse to explain why it wasn’t my fault.
And then–
Knock. Knock.
I rapped my knuckles against the door, bracing myself for the entire stonework to crumble.
After several moments, the door creaked open instead.
“... Yes? What is it?”
I blinked.
A man styled entirely in black robes was the one to greet me, his face almost entirely covered by a thick, twirly moustache stretching as far wide as the length of his beard. Amidst the dark pits of his eyes, little could be discerned other than a deep vexation with answering the door.
Hmm.
How curious.
Quite aside from the non-snivelling tone of his voice, here was one dressed far too impressively to be a mere henchman. At least by doorstop standards. Common and inexpensive wool, yes, but importantly without a single stitch or vomit stain.
I raised a brow in puzzlement.
All the more so as I glimpsed at the chamber behind him.
There was no pompous waiting reception there. No line of hoodlums ready to be bribed. No lit chandelier dragged from some gutter and still dripping with sewage waste. Not even a faux throne sat upon by a baroness with crossed legs and a vain smile.
Instead, there was a table.
That was it.
A single table and little else besides, carrying tools which were either very blunt or very sharp. Upon the stone floor was no carpet, but a drawn red circle enveloped by a ring of candles.
And at its centre–
“Mmmgrhh … mmgghhr …. Mmghrhhh!!”
A young woman in farming attire, gagged and bound.
Held in a rusting cage, she looked towards me with eyes bulging with desperate tears, snot running down her nose as fear exuded from every sweating pore on her person.
I gasped, my hand covering my mouth.
What … What was this?!
A single table as the entirety of the furnishing!
I was appalled.
Why, a dark tower was already built for affordability … but this?
It was so empty of decoration it may as well be newly built!
Clearly not the case. The fashionably crumbling stonework didn’t come as standard.
Frankly, this was a disgrace. My expectations were at the level of the earthworms beneath the dirt. And yet somehow, this tower failed to even reach the minimum level of disappointment.
“Excuse me,” I said towards the robed man. “Is this the secret dark tower belonging to a …”
I turned to Renise. Her eyes were wide as she stared inside, her face white with horror.
I couldn’t agree more. This wasn’t just cheap. It was lazy.
But even so, to not finish a sentence when called upon was a significant demerit. Fortunately, she wasn’t my handmaiden. Coppelia was, and she was ready in her stead.
“Baroness Arisa Sandholt,” she answered cheerfully.
“Her,” I said. “Is this her secret dark tower?”
The robed man gave a shake of his head.
“No, I’m afraid this is not.”
“Oh, truly? Are you quite certain?”
“Very.”
“She may be tenanting in a damp corner somewhere. Have you checked the upper spire? The bats may be hiding her.”
“I’m certain I have no tenants.”
I frowned as I peered past him. Nothing of any baroness could be seen. Not unless she wore farming overalls.
“I see … very well, then. My apologies for disturbing you.”
“It’s fine.”
Even before his lip service to etiquette was complete, he began shutting his door, the sounds of weeping rushing out in a desperate cry just before it sealed shut.
I turned around.
A few moments later, I placed my face in my palms and gave a deep sigh.
And then–
Knock. Knock.
“... Yes? What is it now?”
The robed man's caution seeped through his voice, what little of his cheeks betraying the wrinkled suspicion concealed beneath his beard.
I smiled in response.
“Excuse me … but what are you doing?”
The man paused. Following my gaze, he briefly glanced behind him.
He promptly stepped in front of me, hiding my view.
“Nothing.”
I narrowed my eyes as I peered past him, regardless of his clumsy attempts at stopping me.
“Sir, this is clearly not nothing. You have a gagged, bound and caged farmer in a ritualistic circle, surrounded by what appears to be instruments of torture. Are you absolutely certain nothing is amiss? Because I need these farmers. Traumatised is fine. But certainly not dead. Now, once again–what are you doing?”
The robed man considered me briefly, a variety of responses clearly fluttering through his mind.
And then–
Pwam.
He closed the door.
The sound of a key being turned was followed by a heavy bolt being pushed into place.
I considered it for a moment, before turning to my brother’s watching attendant.
“Miss Renise. Do you see this conveniently open doorway here?”
“Huh? No, I see a door that’s just been locked and bolted.”
I leaned towards her with my most angelic smile. She leaned an equal distance away.
“There was never a door.”
“But … there’s a door–”
“Coppelia?”
“What’s a door?~”
Renise blinked.
Then, she noted the sight of my loyal handmaiden stretching her legs.
“There … There was never a door … ?”
I nodded in satisfaction.
My, how wonderful. There was hope for her yet.
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My only child was born on Bloomsday, much to this Joyce fan’s delight. He turns 21 this year and i won’t be with him on his birthday, so I’d like to send him a copy of Ulysses. I think he’s finally ready to read and enjoy it.
So — an edition that’s annotated but not too annotated, and possibly hardcover? He’s not really a “literary type” but enjoys reading actual books when there’s something special about them that makes them worth the “trouble” vs a digital version (e.g., he treasures this massive doorstop of a special art edition of Dune and has actually read it several times).
Suggestions?
Edit to add:
Thank you to everyone for suggestions so far. Beginning to think this might have to become a recurring gift 📚:)

Part 1 here
Edit: realized I left out Wednesday March 27 in the original post.
Wednesday, March 27 - Tokyo (1.9 miles) - Nihonbashi & Ginza:

• Shopping: Kuroeya - High-end lacquer-dealer, very beautiful stuff. Bought a nice set of chopsticks for cheap (relatively). On 2F.
• Food - Dessert: Usagiya (3.79 Tabelog, 5/5 rating, 15 min wait @ 2:15pm) - Usagiya is a chain that invented the 'sandwich' shape of the dorayaki that's now commonly used. 1 min wait in the morning but the dorayaki had to be reserved in advance and picked up later that day. Pretty solid, sweet, and cheap dorayaki (¥240).
• Shopping: Nihonbashi Nagasakikan - The first of many antennae stores I visit. This is Nagasaki's, where I bought castella and a dorayaki with a cat print.
• Shopping: CocoShiga - Shiga's, where I bought Omui beef curry sauce mix.
• Shopping: Welcome to Yamaguchi - Yamaguchi's, where I bought a goldfish ceramic and orange marmalade.
• Shopping: Ginza Kumamoto Kan - Kumamoto's, though I didn't see anything I really wanted.
• Food - Lunch: Ginza Kushikatsu Bon (3.70 Tabelog, 5/5 rating) - Reservations recommended. On 3F. Tokyo branch of the Osaka one, which has a Michelin star. Kushikatsu is 'deep-fried', but not like American deep-frying. Yes there's a fired layer you can taste, but it's not particularly oily or overwhelming. I could just keep eating it and not feel sick. The whole course (Premium Course + Ultimate Katsu Sandwich) was wonderful, fried sushi, cheese, A5 wagyu, pork, prawn, shitake, cream croquette, fish eggs, takoyaki, and a wagyu sando. Holy shit everything was amazing, and again, like Tempura Shimomura, very cheap for everything you get. ¥6900 for all that, and a few others I didn't list. Honestly, also something I could see myself doing monthly. Definitely coming here the next Japan trip. Finished it in roughly 60 minutes, door-to-door.
• Shopping: Takumi - High-end folk crafts shop.
• Shopping: 8base: - Aomori's, got apple juice and apple pie.
• Shopping: Pokémon Center DX - got Pokemon stickers for the gf.
• Food - Dessert: Ginza Kimuraya (3.62 Tabelog, 4/5 rating, 15 min @ 3:20pm) - Famous for creating anpan. Also known for their 'Ginza cream melon', which sold around a few minutes before I arrived.
• Shopping: Itoya - Stationary paradise, picked up some ink for the gf. Lots of floors, for every occasion: greeting cards, letters, fountain pens, notebooks, travel, home, crafts. Also a hydroponics farm and cafe at the top floors.
• Food - Dinner: Ginza Yakitori Take-chan (3.65 Tabelog 4/5 rating, no wait @ 5:20pm - Yakitori, grilled right in front of you. Choose between 5 sticks for ¥3000 or 8 for ¥4000. You basically get all parts of the chicken: breast, liver, neck, thigh, wings, as well as duck and chicken meatballs.
• Shopping: Akita Furusato-kan - Akita's, got syruped fig and fig jelly.
• Shopping: 徳島・香川トモニ市場 - Tokushima/Kagawa's, got an awabancha drink.
• Shopping: Hakata Yurakucho - Fukuoka's, got Amaou strawberry tyrolean and yumecha.
• Shopping: Hokkaido Dosanko Plaza - Hokkaido's, got corn soup mix, and Hokkaido soft-serve ice cream. Very popular store.
• Shopping: Ginza Okinawan Washita shop - Okinawa's, got Okashigoten beni-imo tarts and a shikuwasa drink.

Thursday, March 28 - Tokyo (4.8 miles) - Mostly Akihabara & Nihonbashi-Muromachi:

• Sight: Tenno-ji (P4) - right next to Yanaka cemetry. Has a cast Buddha statue.
• Sight: Yanaka cemetery (P2 if blooming) - Japanese cemetery, several graves had fresh flowers, beverages. Fairly well-kept. Disappointing there was only one tree in bloom.
• Food - Dessert: (Kuriya) Kurogi (3.81 Tabelog, 5/5, 15 min @ 9:50am) - 2nd-highest-rated kakigori (shaved ice) in Tokyo. There's a few items he always has and a few seasonals. It was difficult to choose between, but I picked up a sakura one. It had sakura milk and sakura jelly, which had a saltiness that paired well against the sweet matcha, and bubu. I wish I had ordered more condensed milk to eat up the rest of the ice, which many of the others had done. There's adzuki inside the kakigori, the Japanese sure do love their red bean.
• Food - Lunch: Tokyo Noodle Works (3.80 Tabelog, 3.5/5, 25 min wait @ 11:45am) - After trying to go to two others first (Tokyo Style Hotate was closed, and Aoshima Ramen had an insane line), I found Tokyo Noodle Works to be pretty close to Akihabara and the line manageable. Very solid ramen with respectable-sized slices of both chicken and pork, made by a fairly young owner. Slightly higher price-point compared to others.
• Shopping: POP M Life - Adult department store. I for some reason thought it would have non-adult stuff but when I walked in the doors I knew it would be 100% adult stuff. Wasn't for me, and I had other things to see so I 180'ed.
• Shopping: Radio Kaikan - Mentioned on Reddit a couple times, lots of figurines and cards, def weeb paradise.
• Food - Dessert: McDonalds (5/5, no wait @ 1:50pm) - Wanted to see what sorts of special Japan stuff they had. They had a matcha mochi pie for ¥220. Got that. Damn this was one tasty pie. Matcha pastry with mochi and black sugar inside. Slightly over-fried, but for the price and at a McD? I like it a lot. Worth a try if you see it. Likely seasonal.
• Shopping: Mandarake Complex - Mostly bookstore for manga but has toys, figurines, DVDs, adult works. Sizable section of doujinshi/self-published manga. Was not expecting Yuji and Geto from JJK in a very close embrace when I was checking what was on the shelves. Bought a vol 1 of My Hero Academia. They sold out of vol 1 of JJK.
• Sight: Kanda Shrine (P4) - Lots of steps to get here as it's on top of a hill, at least coming from Akihabara. Picturesque shrine with the vermilion and gold.
• Shopping: Chabara - This is like a general regional specialty store. They carry products from all regions of Japan.
• Shopping: BOOKOFF - Used bookstore chain. I didn't plan it prior to the trip, but after Mandarake, I was set on finding a vol 1 of JJK. It was also sold out here.
• Sight: Vending Machines (P5) - Mentioned on Reddit. Popcorn machine, boxes wrapped in newspaper, toy beetles. Weird yes, but not particularly worth the detour imo.
• Shopping: MIDETTE - Fukushima's. Got some packaged moist cake.
• Shopping: Mie Terrace - Mie's. Got some katayaki, hard-baked senbei.
• Shopping: Ninben Nihonbashi Main Shop - Business that was founded in 1699 selling bonito and dashi. They have a dashi bar. An older employee there spoke English very well.
• Food - Dinner: Tempura Yamanoue Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi Main Store (3.69 Tabelog, 2/5, 5-10 min wait @ 5:45pm) - Got the special tempura bowl set. Tempura was tasty good but no where close to what I had at Shimomura. It was texture wasn't quite crispy, almost soggy. More golden yellow rather than a white gold look. Also pretty expensive (¥4500) seems to be priced for the rich people who need a bite or bento to take home. Note, this was a restaurant in the basement of Mitsukoshi.

Friday, March 29 - Tokyo (5.7 miles) - Mostly Shibuya:

• Sight: Chidorigafuchi (P1 if blooming) - Moat of the Imperial Palace. Was recommended by many friends. It was another rainy day, also no cherry blossoms in sight. You can see all the bare trees along the banks. Sad.
• Other: Tokyo Station - Got hella lost here. This station was ginormous. Google Maps did not help here, even the Live View function. I went in a gate, then out, then walked out of the station all together, walked around it, then eventually found the gate I was supposed to be at.
• Food - Lunch: Sushi Tsu (3.74 Tabelog, 5/5) - A highly rated sushi place under ¥20000 for lunch, was easy to book online, and had openings. Each piece came out fairly quick in the beginning then slowed down as other guests came in. Got 13 pieces of fish, including gizzard shard, squid, chotoro, Hokkaido uni, cooked anago, toru taku. Also miso soup, tamago, and ice cream. 12-person counter and 3 private rooms. Each piece had the perfect amount of nikiri, wasabi or other flavoring, never overpowered fish but enhanced it. They had beautiful ceramics. Apparently was ¥12000 not too long ago, but still worth the ¥16500, tax included, no tip needed. Easily a $200 meal in the US.
• Sight: Togo Shrine (P4) - Only went here because the gf saw they're the only shrine to offer Sanrio omamori (apparently there's a shrine in Kanagawa that also does so). Of course, it was sold out.
• Sight: Meiji Jingu (P1) - As others have mentioned, it feels so out of place in the middle of a big city like Tokyo, it does remind me of Kyoto. Lots of sights within the area. Was very wow-ed by the main Meiji Jingu area, the shrine is flanked by these giant camphor trees. Unfortunately the treasure museum was closed for renovations.
• Food - Dessert: I'm donut ? (3.60 Tabelog, 5/5, 30 min @ 3:50pm) - Long line, 95% Japanese women. By the time I got there, there were probably only 6 flavors left with none of their most popular flavors left. Very solid donuts, decent at room temperature, even better zapped in the microwave. They have that soft mochi-like texture with none of the oiliness. I would say pretty comparable to the Hitsuji's I had in Kyoto, but with a much shorter wait. Donuts ranged ¥238-313.
• Sight: Shibuya Scramble (P2) - More impressive from afar, I think. Feels like you're in battle rushing in once the signal is given, some folks wield selfie sticks. Fun to do once. Could use this as a way to pull off some grassroots advertising in the middle of the street given the eyes on it. Went through it twice for fun.
• Sight: Hachiko Statue (P3) - No real line, just a concave line in front of the statue, when one person/group is finished, someone just quickly runs up. I just ran past and took a selfie without stopping.
• Shopping: Chicago Thrift - Wanted to check out the thrifting. Not Goodwill quality, but not Goodwill prices either. It's definitely just second-hand clothes as a business (plus in Harajuku, a touristy area), so it's priced accordingly. I do like that everything is organized by type of clothes. Certain brands like Nike, Patagonia, etc. are grouped up, convenient! I wanted to browse the college apparel, I saw a few folks walking around during my trip wearing it. Storytime: Near Ginkaku-ji, I approached a girl and her bf since I saw her Cornell shirt. I asked when she went there, since I went there for grad school. She didn't understand English. Anyways, I got a Columbia-branded Yale vest (since the gf went there) for ¥4500, I attribute some of the premium as part memento/experience.
• Sight: Takeshita Street (P3) - Very crowded street, lots of kids and foreigners. Lines for anything pastry. Worth checking out once, but that's about it.
• Shopping: Kinya Thrift - Wasn't planned but the Chicago Thrift got my thrifting juices flowing. Wanted to check out more college apparel. They had a U Chicago sweater for ¥8690...
• Food - Dinner: Kuroge Wagyu Restaurant HACHI (3.53 Tabelog, 2.5/5, no wait @ 7pm) - Ordered the wagyu steak prix fixe course with a sukiyaki add-on. Food was delicious, unfortunately I couldn't focus on the food as I was meeting my brother's friend who lives in Japan. How they cut their steaks, triangular, like doorstops, and the under caramelization of the steaks under-highlighted the wagyu. For those budgeting, each additional 50g of A5 sirloin steak was ¥2200. ¥1200 for short rib steak, and ¥2750 for tenderloin.
• Drinks - WALL Aoyama (3/5) - Handle-less door against a gray unremarkable wall of a boutique store. Opens up into a dark room with a bar with the wall fully covered by plants. Very beautiful, though feels Instagram-y. Pricey but good cocktails, priced similar to the US when converted. Note there is a cover charge of ~¥1600 I think. Can order food here. Maybe come here on a business trip when you can expense it!

Saturday, March 30 - Tokyo (2.9 miles) - Kichijoji & Shinjuku:

• Shopping: Kichijōji Kukuya - Came here when I saw their name on ceramics sold at a department. They didn't have any matcha bowls. Lots of other kitchenware though.
• Shopping: BOOKOFF - Finally found the vol 1 of JJK. Also picked up the vol 1's of Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Spy x Family, and Demon Slayer. Just now realized I didn't get Death Note.
• Shopping: HARDOFF - The consignment shop of the BOOKOFF chain. Very expensive pieces here, like Hermes and Coach.
• Sight: Musashino Hachimangu (P4) - Shrine in the neighborhood.
• Shopping: Sippo - Neat little shop, love that they have little signs about the artist and the work. Bought a mini flower vase. Very hipstecottagecore.
• Shopping: Gclef - Tea shop with teas around the world. Pricey.
• Food - Lunch: Tsukemen Enji (3.68 Tabelog, 4/5, 25 min wait @ 12pm) - Apparently award-winning tsukemen place, according to some signs. So this was inside a hallway, so you wait a while, then you notice a vending machine to place your order. When I did so, I realized I didn't have small bills ¥2000 or less, so I had to run out and buy something at the nearby konbini. When I came back, the guy who took your orders pointed to the back of the line. Obviously due to language barriers, it was hard to argue I had already waited in line. Luckily I had a little receipt from the vending machine when pressed the wrong button. I showed both receipts of the timestamps (12:11 and 12:17). He seemed to understand what happened and pointed me to a place in line 3 people behind where I originally was. I guess those 3 folks' orders already got communicated to the kitchen. The tsukemen broth was solid, but not necessarily memorable. However, the noodles were pretty thick and very very chewy. Great texture to enjoy the broth with. Unfortunately, the noodle serving was a little smaller than other places, they even put a little bamboo piece to raise the bottom of the bowl to raise the height of noodles in the bowl.
• Shopping: PukuPuku - Very neat antique store. They sell antique Iwari ware (porcelain) and some lacquer stuff. I only looked at the flower vases as they didn't have matcha bowls. The vases had labels of when they were created. One I bought was "Late Meiji to Taisho" (¥1800) and the second was "Taisho to pre-war Showa" (¥800).
• Shopping: Bruan - Interesting ceramics store, some very pricey pieces here. Mix of modern, old, and the weird, like a teapot with a goat head for a spout, complete with horns. Can't find it on Google Maps, but it's across from the Kichijōji Petit Mura.
• Food - Dessert: Cafe Musashino Bunko (3.70 Tabelog, 4.5/5, 1 min wait @ 1:40pm) - Japanese friend recommended it for curry. Was still full from the tsukemen, so I ordered one of their popular desserts, the Sabo Bavarois (¥480). Very tasty custard, just like flan. The lemon on top was excellent.
• Shopping: Shinjuku Marui Annex - Shopping complex, lots of stores. Cinnamoroll cafe at the bottom, with a long line. First floor was the touristy-type of souvenirs, then as you move up, there's weeb stuff, gacha machines, homeware, maid clothing. Definitely something for everyone, worth a visit!
• Sight - Tokyo Prefecture Hall Civic Plaza (P4) - Pretty plaza right outside the Metro Government building.
• Sight - Tokyo Metro building (P2) - Said to be a free alternative to the Shibuya Sky. 20 min wait at 4:10pm. There was also a 9 min wait to get out. Neat to see just the scale that is the Tokyo metro area. Might be even better during sunset.
• Food - Dinner: Shinjuku Shogun Burger (3.69 Tabelog, 1/5, 10 min wait @ 5:35pm) - Right as you enter Kabukicho. A decent wait after ordering to get your burger, which is made fresh. Burger lacked flavor, and had a fair amount of tough-to-chew sinewy bits in the patty. Did not quite stand out from, say, a Shack Shake burger. Yes, technically it's wagyu but probably all the parts the other wagyu stores don't want. Would not recommend the chili dip or fries, you get a finger-ful of fries, and a pitiful amount of chili. Chili dip was COLD despite what they said was made 30 min ago, but all they could do was microwave it. A bit over ¥2000 for cheeseburger combo with the chili.

Sunday, March 31 - Tokyo (3.1 miles) - Farmers' Market, Friend, and Farewell:

• Sight: Shinjuku Gyoen - I reserved a slot at 10am but figured I'd come at 9am when no reservations are needed. I think others had the same idea, especially if they couldn't secure a . Holy shit, I knew it would be bad when I walked up the street across from the corner. There was a literal horde of people, and when you look closely its a winding line of people, possibly two lines from what I could make out. Since I had to meet my Japanese friend at the farmer's market in an hour, I GTFO.
• Sight: Yoyogi Park (P1 if blooming) - fairly walkable from Shinjuku Gyoen, I knew this was a good alternative spot for hanami, and I was right. Lots of blue tarps spread out on the ground under and around the trees. Those blooming weren't at full, and some trees were still bare. Not sure if this would've been the same situation at Shinjuku Gyoen.
• Shopping: Aoyama Farmer's Market at UNU - Neat farmer's market outside United Nations University. Looks just like the ones back at home. More food products.
• Food - Lunch: Omotesando YAKINIKU Kintan (3.50 Tabelog, 5/5, 5 min wait @ 12pm) - Very solid yakiniku place. Cheap meat set at ¥2680, though you have to buy a drink. Kuroge Wagyu beef, platinum pork, and Nasai chicken.
• Sight: Shibuya Meiji-dori (P3) - Street lined with blooming sakura, randomly came across this on the way to the subway station.
• Other: Yamato Transport in Haneda Airport - I easily retrieved my luggage from the receiving area in the corner of the check-in counter area, 3F. I had to ship a gift to someone so I went downstairs for that. There I had probably my last line
• Shopping - Soradonki Terminal 3, pre-security 5F: After assessing my luggage situation, I realized I had quite a bit of room left. I bought $100 of candy, across KitKats, matcha-flavored candy, and gummies. The store is split between candy and everything else, which has the check-out including tax-free.
• Shopping - Air BicCamera Terminal 3, pre-security 4F:**** I went here to spend the remainder of my SUICA card and cash.
• Food - Dinner: Rokurinsha in Haneda Airport Terminal 3, post-security (3.56 Tabelog, 3.5/5, 10 min wait @ 8pm) - Popular ramen chain, apparently so popular that their original location in Osaki had to be closed because the neighbors complained. They offer ramen served tsukemen-style. Probably the last line I ever had in Japan, other than to board. Hard to find seats because the seating area was shared between a couple of other restaurants. Pretty good ramen for airport ramen, and it's only ¥1140 for a large. You wouldn't find something this good at this price at any other, maybe the other Japanese airports.

General Tips

• Shopping
  • If you see something sold at any of the markets, and it doesn't seem to be an unique item, I would recommend not buying it just yet and keep browsing the market. You'll find many sellers of the same thing, or slight variations, for example the fruit, of varying sizes, quantities, etc. Prices can differ wildly as well.
  • A store may be tax-free but not be able to process it. You will have get the refund at an independently-operated tax refund counter. They charge a fee, ranging from 1.9-2.2% of the 10%, so you'll get ~80% of the tax back. This is usually the case at department stores.
  • If you know Chinese, you could try to ask if the staff speak it, the store might hire staff who know/are Chinese, especially given the influx of Chinese tourists. Definitely so at a department store, if that staff doesn't know it, they will likely ask a colleague that does.
• Food
  • If you have time before your trip, I would use the extra time to figure out the restaurants you want to try in the nearby area, especially any backup restaurants. A few times, I had to go to my backup restaurant because I didn't have the time or it was somehow closed that day. Tabelog is THE review website in Japan. Unfortunately, they've been enshitified a few days ago and you can't sort the findings because "Priority is given to restaurants that support multilingual online reservations and restaurants that are using paid customer attraction services for restaurants.", or you can't view the listings on a map, at least on the English site.
  • I know the konbini food is praised but here is my take on it. Any of the hot 'fried' food is overrated imo. They aren't a substitute for an actual meal. The textures of the famichiki, pizzaman, and chicken nuggets/karaage kun red reminded me of microwave food. The two chicken items may have been fried originally, but have essentially 'steamed' while sitting there. There were a few items that were actually pretty good: egg salad sandwich (7-11) , pancake with cream and red bean (7-11), and the melon cream bread (Family Mart). That melon cream bread was so hard to find, took me at least 8 konbini's before I found it. Don't confuse it with the 'melon pan'. Google Sheet with my ratings of some konbini food.
• Trains
  • Only got on a few wrong trains, and caught them early so didn't have to backtrack much. Do the following checks:
    • Are you at the right numbered platform?
    • Is the train cololetter correct, either on hanging signage or the train digital sign?
    • Does the time match what's on Google Maps? Some trains share the same platform, or you might need a Local, Express, etc.
    • See if signage at the platform mention the next stop, does that match the next stop on Google Maps? Signage to look for include signs, pillars, and walls, like the walk across the platform if underground.
  • Try to exit from the correct gate, saves time waiting at lights outside or dealing with the weather. Obviously if a station is big enough, it may take 15-20 minutes just to get back on track from exiting the wrong gate.
  • If you have time waiting for the train, for many trains, Google Maps will list exactly which train segment is preferable to enter as when you get off the platform exit is right there. Basically, you're doing the walking you have to do anyway before you get on the train.
  • Shinkansen - you need to designate the ticket to your IC card on the app or else the turnstile will throw up an 'error' when using the IC card.
  • Shinkansen - you need to select 'Shin-Osaka' if you are going to Osaka (or whatever station Google Maps says you need to go to.)
  • Shinkansen - For Nozomi service, cars 1-3 are for the unreserved. There were very few seats available when I got on. Would recommend taking the first open seat then 'upgrading' if anyone gets off at the other stations.
• Luggage
  • I brought two duffel bags to Japan. An alternative lots of folks do is buy large suitcase(s) to bring back. I have plenty of those at home so didn't need more. I knew I was going to be bringing back lots of souvenirs, but I wanted to 1) easily move between cities without paying for luggage forwarding, and 2) quickly get out of airport and go to Osaka without waiting for luggage. Also I figured all my ceramics/fragiles would be put in my carry-on and personal bag. Anyways, the two duffels worked great! I filled them with cheap Yamato Transport boxes to provide a rigid 'case' for my stuff. Surprisingly, they were barely squished by Air Canada and United. My 100L duffel was gigantic, and perfectly fit two Kuroneko 12 and one Kuroneko 8 box. I had a 68L duffel (large), this had a nice shoulder strap which helped IMMENSELY. You should be able to buy this 40-50% off. Forgot which Kuroneko box sizes fit this one. If you fill up a duffel early in your trip with souvenirs, you can just ship it to the airport (extra ~¥600 fee).
  • While I only forwarded one duffel to the airport, carrying the other and my roller was immensely painful between cities. Mainly because I'm cheap. If your 'cheapness' threshold isn't as high as mine, I'd highly recommend it. If you aren't forwarding, definitely store your luggage at your place of stay (before check-in, after check-out), it's amazing how much of a difference it is to explore/move around without all that weight.
• Preparation
  • Bought 10GB of data for $17 before discount using the Ubigi eSIM. Pretty easy to download and install. The 30 day duration starts the moment you buy it, so don't buy it too early. 10GB was perfect for 2 weeks. I used 9GB, through a combination of uploading IG stories, checking my Google My Maps, using Google Maps, using Google Translate. Was difficult to find a working code when I was buying. Can use my referral code CHTSB37D to get 20% off (have to use their app, which actually isn't terrible).
  • Compression socks are great for the flight, didn't like them when I doing 5+ miles a day.
  • My backpack had pockets built into the hipbelts, very handy for carrying coins and my SUICA card (since I'm Android). Coin purse is basically necessary in Japan.
  • Make sure your backpack is waterproof or has a waterproof cover.
  • Waterproof shoes are a nice-to-have.
  • Leading up to my trip, I'd cycle a few times a week, burning ~600 calories each time. My thighs were fine in Japan, my FEET were NOT. Highly recommend walking or running.
  • Standing desk setup would be helpful as well, especially to prepare for all the lines...
  • Wearing layers are important. Pretty cold in Japan in March still. It even briefly snowed in Kyoto when I arrived. A puffer jacket was amazing: warm, light, and super easy to compress in my backpack. You'll want to be able to peel off layers when needed. I would always get so hot in the stations and trains.
  • I only used 7-11 ATMs, which great exchange rates. My Schwab debit card refunded ATM fees (¥110 per ¥10000).
• Speaking
  • You can use the word 'okini' to say thank you in the kansai region. There were a few instances in Osaka and Kyoto where people reacted positively to me saying it.
  • One phrase I used a lot was o susume wa nan desuka. I used this when I couldn't quite decide between options. I would imagine they are the experts and could either choose their favorite or the most popular.
• Other
  • The shops at the popular temples all had lines. Not sure how quick they'd be, but you definitely should account for a wait if you are looking to buy omamori's and ema's, or getting your goshuincho stamped.
  • All the hotels and hostels I stayed at had umbrellas to borrow. Just grab and go (and return please!)
  • Those plastic see-through umbrellas are damn near invincible. I had one blown out 3 times when I was at Nijo Castle area and it worked perfectly. Super cheap, ¥600 at Donki, ~800 at konbini.
  • Google Translate's camera feature was amazing, great for anything written in Japanese, like menus. On the other hand, the conversation feature sucked, and the translations for asking more complex questions during shopping were good 40% of the time.
  • The elevator 'close' buttons actually work.
  • Had some memorable interactions with friendly Japanese. I talked to an older man on the train to Uji, he's been to US several times. He has been to Texas and San Antonio. Likes BBQ. When I was trying to figure out Umeda Station in Osaka, a woman went up to me and asked if I needed help.
  • Trader Joe's large tote bags and the mini tote bags are good gifts to give to any Japanese friends. I saw a few women in Japan carrying the large totes, and one carrying the more recently released mini tote. Canvas bags are super trendy in Japan, and Trader Joe's even more so. The two friends I gave mine to all said their gf/wife would love it.
  • Reese's peanut butter cups are a good omiyage gift. I would give these to people who were super helpful or kind. They don't have anything close in Japan from what I could tell. And all of them were super appreciative of it. Easy to pick up a pantry pack on Amazon.

After listening to Wendigoon and Papameat's creepcast about "The thing in the basement is getting better at Mimicking people" I couldn't sleep because I was laughing while sleeping at the same time and then ideas came to me and so I decide to write my own version of the story.
It took me all night to clear all the furniture and gather everything related to Sis. It has been a rough week since we received the news, then the funeral, and then this. I never visited her before even though we talked sometimes. I barely knew anything about her but we were at least communicating. Sarah is my step-sister, her mother passed away and then my dad remarried my mom. She didn't like me that much when I first remember knowing her but then, I guess she grew up and understood things more, so now we are on good terms. Sarah was a good person, but she kept to herself most of the time. Sometimes I teased her that she wouldn't be able to get a boyfriend, but I know it wasn't true. She was friendly to most people and had a few friends, it was more of her lifestyle I guess. I wish I had a chance to convince her not to live alone anymore. I wish I had done something different.
Last week, the police came to us. I was busy doing stuff in my room and only came down after having heard a loud wailing from downstair. I-it still saddens me to this day. I couldn't comprehend what it would feel like for him. Just about a day ago before we received the news from the police. Dad was talking about visiting Sarah. I came down and walked to the door and all I see is a husk of a man, crying and sobbing, kneeling and facing down hopelessly while two policemen cast silhouettes from the door. It wasn't raining but it could have been, that gloomy day was the second most traumatizing thing for my dad in his life probably.
We had a close casket funeral days after that, and many people showed up, more than I expected, I guess I don't know my sister that well. I looked at all of them, I was sad but I was also angry, at myself and all the people there. Why are we showing up for her now, at her funeral, when we could have helped her? At that time I didn't know much about her circumstances of death, it wasn't until the funeral ended that some group of police talked to Dad and then he told me about it afterwards.
Sarah died in an accident, she probably tried to light something and ended up lighting the house on fire. But its... it's weird. They said the house was mostly intact, except for the basement, they found some sort of charred remains that they expected were Sarah's but they also might not be her. I know police love coming to the easiest conclusion to close the case but I couldn't disagree with them. She was living alone, who else could it be? They found no evidence of foul play and left the case as an accident.
I told my dad to come with me but he refused, he couldn't bear the thought of visiting the place where his daughter died, I get it. I didn't want to come here either but I figured we had to do something for her. She left all her stuff for us, it would be wrong not to take care of things for her.
After I arrived I noticed that the street didn't have many cars, I only saw one black sedan and a truck, but there was a group of people standing in front of Sarah's house. I greeted them and they told me they were her neighbours, they gave me beautiful and comforting speeches, saying good things about my sister and giving me condolences. I just said short thanks to them because I didn't really know how to respond, but they were nice people.
The small house my sister left for me and Dad is quite cosy, the room was small but it has everything one person would need and it's not cramped. After arriving here yesterday I've been busy sorting out stuff. I noticed some strange items like a piece of large wood, kinda looked like a door stopper. I had one too in my room so my dad couldn't just barge in because I don't have a lock on my room. Sarah is living alone so why does she need this? I also noticed a box of opened packages, apparently it's for some sort of recording device. I didn't think much of it and started to sort all of her stuff in boxes. I planned to sell some of her collectables or donate them. I plan to just keep a few trinkets as memorabilia. One of them was a gift I gave her last Newyear. We didn't celebrate her birthday together but we have family gatherings every Newyear. It was a towel, I'm not the most sincere or creative person but she doesn't seem to mind it.
I will probably start moving stuffs out of the house tomorrow, but I really want to stay here a bit longer. After being here for a while i started to feel some attachment to this place. I dont get it but for some reason i wanted to stay here abit longer, maybe its emotional attachment to Sarah? But i barely know her that well. I was too tired to think of everything so i decided to go to bed early.
Before I walked to my bedroom I walked past that door to the basement. Or what's left of it. I was told the entire roof of the basement collapsed but it didn't affect the upper floor so I'm fine. The door hinges and knobs were melted, almost forming a scary face but that's just because I'm seeing things. The door itself looks like someone tried to break in, or break out... I stopped what I was about to think. Its charred frame was haunting when I first got here because just a few feet further down it was where my Sister died. But it's been almost 2 days now and I started to get used to walking past it. Still haunting but I know there's no use in being scared. I close the door to the room my sister once slept in, chuckling as I think about how she might have used the doorstop on the floor, I kick it aside knowing I'm living alone in this house now, not like my own room at dad's place so I don't really need it. I lay down on the bed listening to some music before turning it off and starting to fall asleep, I remember hearing a faint sound of skittering, like a small walking and scratching on a slippery floor, and then everything faded to black. I felt warm and comfortable, thinking what I might dream about tonight.
I didn't dream that night, it was just blackness.
I woke up and opened my eyes, feeling strange. A tingling sensation lingers all over my body, my blankets are on the floor. I should have been awaken from the cold but I feel warm. It feels unusual, uneasy. I think I might be a bit sick.
I slowly move Sarah's stuff into my car one box at a time. My back is in pain and I feel soreness all over my body. When it was already afternoon I felt too tired to drive so I planned to sleep here one more night. I called Dad and he said I sounded a bit raspy and sick so I told him I might have gotten a bit sick from last night. I tried to convince him to come see Sis's house one last time but he refused. I hung up a call with Dad and as soon as I did. I hear a doorbell ringing. Someone is here.
I don't know why but for a split second. I hoped it would be Sarah ringing and standing behind that door but it was a hopeless expectation. I opened the door and it was just another policeman. He is not in his uniform but I could tell he was a cop because he was holding a badge right in front of the door before I even opened it.
"I'm a detective from the precinct, I'm responsible for your sister's case." His voice is deeper than I expected. He's around in his mid-20s with light facial hair and black long hair. His glasses are slightly tilted before he takes them off to clean with his suit. While he was doing that I looked past him, behind was a black sedan car, probably his car."You are Clancy right?" he asked.
"Y-Yes I'm Clancy. Do you -"
"Can I come in?" He interrupts me after finish cleaning his glasses. He glares at me, scanning me from top to bottom and then smirks a bit but with a welcoming face. As if he knows he will surely be invited in no matter what.
"Sure, please, thank you for coming." I held the door open and he quickly walked in. I tried to follow the detective, barely able to keep my pace with him into the small living room. He pulls out the chair and sits down.
"Leg."You can hang your coat over there if you need" "No need, it won't take long, or rather I prefer this to be as quick as possible" he put his hand into his suit, ruffling around for a bit and pulled out his phone placing it on the table. He silently stares at me for a while "Oh, shit, sorry I forgot" He picks up the phone and opens something before placing it back down again. This time the screen is showing a music player. "I want you to listen to this. This was recorded by your sister"
"I, I saw the package she ordered... but I don't see any voice recorder...is it with you?" "It's not with me" the detective sighs and pushes his feet on the table leg. "Sarah approached me 3 weeks ago, she was scared. Let me cut to the chase, something is in her basement and it's bothering her, a lot." I tensed up after hearing what he said, I always felt something strange about that basement but I thought it was just because of her death. "W-what do you mean?? There was an intruder? But they said there was no sign of foul play?
He sits still, not answering me. He glances at the phone and pulls out his cigarette pack. He slowly hits the bottom of the pack, pulls out a cigarette and points it at me. "Do you smoke?"
"No, I don't..." he smiles at me and then proceeds to ask "Can I smoke?" I slowly nod back to him. He lights it up and takes a short puff before blowing it away from me. I didn't notice any ashtray so I was going to walk over to grab one of the ceramic trays. "Sit, don't worry about it." He said, almost yelling at me and gesturing me to sit back down "You.. seem calm about this, which is very good for me, and you, since stuff in the recording is quite... disturbing...I can play it for you or I can sum up the situation for you so we can start asking questions, and then, if you have any questions for me, you can ask them too." he nods slowly and leans back, waiting for my reply. I froze for a bit, not sure whether to quickly be done with this situation or... No, I can't just gloss over this, I need to know what happened to my sister, I need to hear those recordings. This shouldn't be something someone who just lost his sister hesitate. I must know. I must hear the recording.
"I want to hear it myself" The detective leans over to the phone and places his fingers just right above to play button. "Alright, so here is some context for you. Sarah reported hearing things in the basement to some policemen, my colleague came over, checked the basement and found nothing so we assumed it was some animal. 2 days later she called again, this time saying it was a person. They came back and searched the whole place, not just the basement. They found no trace of intrusion or animals. The camera just 1 house away didn't see anything unusual. At this time, I was then contacted to help your sister, I ordered the voice recorder for her and told her to record it every night. This file is several recordings combined in 2 weeks, her last recording was sent to me just 2 days before she burned down the basement."
"Wait! What?? She didn't burn the place down, it was an accident!" I stood up and nervously looked at him, the detective didn't even meet my eyes and flicked his cigarette butt on the table "Clancy, I said question later" Without any warning, he pressed the play button.
"Hello, Detective Marcus...I am going to turn this on and... place it near the basement door just like you told me to. I-I don't know if this is going to help with anything but we should try..I agree. Uh... I hope this thing has enough battery for the whole night. Uh...Sarah signed off for the night..heh, I always wanted to say that.." My eyes swelled up a bit after hearing Sarah again after months of not talking, I never expected to hear her again. She sounds...happy...there's a worry in her voice because of the weird thing in the basement but she sounds energetic and carefree. "Sarah..." I mutter out her name softly while the phone plays a sound of my sister placing down her voice recorder on the floor, probably right in front of the basement door or somewhere near it and walking away. The sound of her steps gradually going quiet feels nostalgic to me for some reason. After a few seconds of silence and static the voice audio I notice that it cuts to a different time in the recording. There's a faint sound of a dog barking in the distance and the ambience is quieter than before until the silence is interrupted by skittering sounds that are muffled, it was coming from behind the basement door. "T-that sounds like some wild animal clawing on the wood floor.." I said. "I thought so too, but keep listening" We both stop talking and listen to the recording. After a while, the skittering sounds die down and then cuts to the next day where Sarah greets the detective again and begins recording. The same thing happened for a few nights before something changed. "Day 6, the skittering sounds are still here, I don't see any signs of Anything at all going into my basement, I even brought Amy here to come take a look inside and there was nothing in the basement. Detective if you could help me identify this annoying noise I'll be greatly in your debt but please, please hurry. I am dying of curiosity. I'm used to the noise now but I really really want to know what's making that sound. Could it be nocturnal creatures? Maybe I should call the police to come look at it during nighttime? " she stopped and I could hear her ruffling her hair from the recorded sound, probably frustrated. Then the footsteps sound of her walking away can be heard again and after a while, sure enough, the recording cuts and continues somewhere else during the night, however, I was caught off-guard by it and jumped off my seat because I heard something else this night, something deeply terrifying.
"T-THERE IS..N-NoT THING...HERE...ERE...."
It's the sound of a man, an old man, raspy, but it's missing a lot, the emotion, the tone, the spacing of words and even at some point, it sounds more like a growling that mimics a person's voice. "W-what is-" the Detective glared at me again so I stopped, I'll ask later about this but, what the hell is going on?? What is that thing? I guess the only way I will understand any of this is to listen to the whole thing. But now it starts to scare me a little, what could that person...or that thing... be?
The recording plays more skittering sounds but this time, whatever is behind that door is clearly walking at a slower pace. Then the audio cuts to the next night, Sarah doesn't say anything and just starts the recording and places it down quickly before running away. "Now she starts to be really scared of that thing, we talked before this night's recording about it and I told her to be more careful, but keep recording." I stare at the phone for a while before muttering out "T-The doorstopper..." Marcus blows his cigarette again "Ah, she did mention you also using a doorstopper in your room, said you hate people barging in, she said she was going to do the same." "She-she mentioned me to you?" I questioned him. He nods "And Amy too, she doesn't talk about herself and her close people much because of this... whole situation, but yeah, she did mention you, and Amy." he paused for a bit " Do you know Amy?"
"Yeah... she is her closest friend, from what I've heard.." The room felt silent except for the skittering and moaning sounds from the recording of whatever that thing was. For a while, the Detective continues to smoke without saying anything. "You are right, Amy is her close friend" he speaks. Suddenly the recording cuts to another day, this time there a multiple footsteps that gradually get louder and more distinguishable, there are two people in heavy shoes and one person wearing slippers. "Right here? Ok ma'am, step back a bit" It was a man, probably a policeman. "Here's the key," Sarah said as the sound of the basement key was handed over to one of the police. I can hear inaudible sounds of another policewoman talking to the policeman before they start knocking on the basement door. "Hello, is anyone inside, this is the police, we are here to do a welfare check on the owner of this house. You are trespassing into this property and the owner needs you to come out, now"
After that there was no reply, so they unlocked the key to the basement and the sound of them turning on the flashlight and unlocking their gun holster could be heard. They slowly walk inside at first and then they start to quickly walk around in the basement, looking for whatever is inside. I can also hear the faint sound of Sister's slippers walking around near the basement door, probably waiting for the officers. The police started to move things around in the basement for a while before a quiet conversation could be heard coming from down the basement. Then they walked up and talked to Sarah and gave her the bad news. "There's no one in there" "W-what do you mean?? There is someone down there, here!" Sarah shouts at the police and starts to play the recording from the earlier night "Ma'am, we went through everything, every corner, every-"
"T-THERE IS..N-NoT THING...HERE...ERE...."
The sound of that recording plays. The recording goes silent for a while before the female officer speaks up "T-That sounds like you" "No! No that doesn't sound like me at all!" the male officer denies it "What, you think I came down here? Inside her basement? For what?" "But that sounds just like...well it doesn't..." "See? It does sound close but it definitely wasn't me. Uh... Ms Sarah could you send that recording to my captain, he probably knows what to do with it next" the male officer said "Evidence" the female officer added. "Ms Sarah, have you been recording the voice for quite some time?" She asked. "Yeah, Detective Marcus told me to"
Both officers didn't say any more words and then walked away. "Officer?" Sarah called out to them. The recording cuts to the next day with more groaning noise and the skittering sound of that thing.
"W-who are you?" I asked the detective. "I'm notorious, I'm one of many detectives who dealt with complicated cases many times before. So they know that this case is complicated, and they know not to ask too much."
"Why?" I asked him
"Because they wouldn't be able to ever comprehend this"
The recording cuts again, and more often, quicker this time. It seems more nights have passed by until something changed again.
"S-Sarah? Are you there?"
The voice, sounds oddly familiar but I do not know who it is, but for some reason, I feel like I know this voice but I forgot about it. The voice sounds more, human. It's uncanny but surely more human than the previous voice if I hadn't listened to it carefully I would have easily mistaken it for a real human voice, except for one detail. The voice, every word ends with a lower pitch noise. As if whatever is trying to mimic a person's voice is failing to fully adjust the pitch right.
I lean back on my chair, my hand grips on the seat and stare at the recording numbers count each second. Why do I feel so cold, so bothered, I am very disturbed. That voice, that, mimicry of a voice is sending a chill down my spine. I wanted to ask Detective what kind of abomination is that but I held back because the audio cuts again.
This time it's clear that someone is holding the voice recorder and walking with it. I think it's Sarah, she's breathing heavily and then closed the door loudly, probably now inside her bedroom.
"H-How! W-what is that thing!" she shouts and makes me jolt from my seat. "I-its speaking in mom's voice...w-what the fuck is that thing!"
Now it dawned on me, that I'd heard Sarah's deceased mother before, probably from recordings my dad showed me. It's mimicking her voice, but how? It makes sense that it tried to mimic that officer, probably because he went into that basement before. But how could it mimic Sarah's mother?
"I can see it on your face Clancy" the Detective smirks at me, he might be talking about all the questions I have now after listening to all this. He would be right.
I could hear my sister's muffled sobbing, she must have been very afraid, scared or... angry. She drops the voice recorder, and I can hear her typing something on the phone and then followed by a faint calling sound. "D-detective, Marcus...it's fucking with me..." then the recording ended. I expected it to cut to the recording of the next day but it just went silent. No static or ambience, there are no audio files here. Just a quiet room with the sound lightbulb's humming electricity, my shaking hands and the detective's cigarette slowly burning and falling on the table.
And then, the recording resumes, continuing to the next day.
The voice recording is being held by someone, or maybe put inside a pocket, and all the sounds that are coming in are muffled but still clear enough to understand what is going on. It probably was Sarah, putting the voice recording in her pocket and walking around. Then there's a knock, I guess she's knocking at the basement door.
"Mom...mom?"
I'm taken aback by how fucking stupid my sister was. It clearly wasn't her mom! Why is she calling it like that, this is it, this is probably what got her killed. My god...Sarah.... I can't understand her actions right now. She is a smart person, not successful but definitely smart. How could she do this, if I were in her situation I would have burned that abomination and the whole house down with it instead of trying to communicate with whatever this thing is.
Wait.
She did try to burn her house down.
I guess I can't really blame her. I know where this is going. So I kept listening. My whole body feels so uncomfortable and tense. But I need to keep listening. I know this won't end well. But I want to know how it ended.
Sarah was waiting for a reply from the mimic and soon it replied.
"S-sarah...I-I missed you so much.."
The voice sounds almost perfectly normal, maybe except for some slightly off intonation.
"M-mom! I-is that you? W-what happened, w-what-"
"S-Saaraah...I mi-iss..much so...Sarah.."
Now its voice starts to crack, it's failing to keep up with the act.
"Mom!"
"S-sarah..L-let mE oUT.."
As soon as it said 'Let me out' the voice shifted drastically and it's very noticeably deeper, almost demonic.
"You- wh-what the hell are you! You are not mom! You are using her voice! Stop it! I-I will call the police. I-"
I think to myself, yes! Finally, Sarah, You snapped out of it, get away from it, now! I cheered her in my mind despite knowing the ending to all of this.
But then what followed spooked me more than anything else.
"Sarah my dear. Open the door"
I stood up and knocked the chair onto the ground. My cold sweat ran down my face and my body shuddered in fear. Ah, so this is what she felt when she heard her mom from that thing. I understand all of it now.
It's using Dad's voice.
After that all I could hear from the recording were loud screaming and running sounds, followed by Sarah shutting the door and crying, tears started to run down my face despite my face of anguish and hopelessness. Whatever that thing is. It must die.
The recording cuts into the next audio.
"It's upside down, the sound of its walking, the skittering, it's walking on the wooden floor, the basement floor was all concrete, it wasn't walking on the floor, it's walking on the wood floor, the ceiling is made of wood, it's upside down."
Sarah speaks with almost a monotone voice, she is shaking I can tell from her voice, and I start to feel the same too. "I have to kill it, I have to kill it, I am going to kill it" I agree Sarah, I would do the same. "Clancy" Sarah calls to me from the recording. "If I don't make it, promise me you are going to kill it, you need to show the last recording to Marcus, he knows how to kill it, He can kill it." Sarah dropped the voice recorder and I could hear her footsteps walking away.
And then the recording stops, I wasn't paying attention to the phone until now but that was the last recording. The music player stops at the remaining 0 seconds and the pause button turns into play.
"Good reaction! Very good. Now, after this, she calls me, telling me about her plans to...burn it! She didn't know how to use a gun but she had plenty of flammable stuff, including her hairspray. She tried to kill it and..."
"Did she kill it?" I asked him.
"What do you think? She killed herself or she took it down with her? I pray for the latter." He lights up a new cigarette, I didn't notice until now that he finished his first one.
And then he looks and me smirking and all that.
He's smirking, smiling, almost laughing at my face.
"What the FUCK is wrong with you! My sister is dead!" t-this fucking detective, he's keeping something from me, isn't it? He knows more but he isn't telling me anything. What is he hiding from me?
"Yeah, your Sister is dead, very dead."
"Excuse me?"
"Question time, how old is your sister." he stood up suddenly and violently. Pushing the chair back hitting the wall behind it.
"Uh..she's probably 26.."
He slams loudly down on the table. "WRONG"
"W-wha-I-I don't know! I didn't even know when is her birthday how am I supposed to know??"
"Next question, What was your last gift to her"
"Man! I told you we never celebrated birthday together- "
"WRONG!" he slams again "Next question, How do you know Amy"
"S-she told me! Sarah talks to me about her-"
"WRONG" he slams again
"How are you supposed to know that!" I yelled back "W-what? Y- you think she talked to you for a few ..what..about 2 weeks? How are you supposed to know about her, more than me!"
he chuckles. Putting the cigarette down on the table and snuffing it.
"Oh...Clancy Clancy.. You would be surprised how much I know about your sister, we are practically best friends!" I can feel my blood boiling, I want to punch him so bad. What is he trying to do? Provoke me and blame me for everything? Who is this guy?? Who are-
"I know more about you than you know about yourself."
I froze, my tears already dried up and I stared at him.
"What do you mean?" I asked him, my fist clenching.
"Clancy Campbell, Age 17, born at Canarnsburg Hospital Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You didn't start in kindergarten but you entered Elementary school with almost perfect grades all the way until your studies starts to drop during Middle school, but you started picking things up again and your lastest math grades were B+" he paused for a bit, staring at me intensely "Your sister left your house 4 years ago when she was 22, you both didn't talk much but I failed to see how the fuck you messed up your dear sister's birthday when it was just 4 years ago that u celebrated a birthday. Oh and remind you, you fucked up again when you denied the fact that you gifted her a goddamn towel. It was two months ago 'Clancy'. I talked to Sarah, and she mentioned Amy to me all the time but She never mentioned her to you ever because she wants you to keep thinking she doesn't have a close friend and surprise you later when you see her again. You also smoked before, you hid in your school's toilet to smoke 3 times, caught 2 times by the teacher. It's all in the document Cancly. I've read all of it!" "Y-You are lying, that's all bullshit!" I yelled back at him. I lean over so close to his face I can see his disgusting face up close.
"Oh, you want bullshit? Your dad is a cop. You saw his badge multiple times and you should know my badge was fake. Yet you invited me inside, no question asked. Good job" he mockingly claps his hands.
"Yeah, my dad is a cop and I'm calling him now to arrest your lying ass!" I tried to grab my phone, but I stumbled a bit while hastily trying to pull it out and it's finally in my hand. I raised it to call my dad.
It wasn't my phone, it's a charred, dirty but working voice recorder.
My sister's voice recorder.
"Play it" the Detective said, I looked up and I came face to face with a man holding a pistol at my body across to table. His face is calm and calculating, emotionless, his eyes meet mine and stare intensely at me. I looked away from him down to my shaking hands holding the voice record, then I pressed the play button.
"Sarah, let me out of here"
I dropped the voice recorder.
One tear came out from my eye, and I softly said the most painful thing I could ever imagine. Almost whispering, trembling.
"It's using my voice"
The detective moves his fingers to the trigger, the voice recorder continues to play the last audio from Sarah.
"Stop using his voice!" she shouted.
The basement door starts to crack, whatever was inside that basement is making its way out, breaking the wooden door. It sees the light shine through the crack and its shrivelled hand morphs and forms skin as it moves pierces through the door and tries to grab. Sarah screams and lights the makeshift blowtorch made out of hairspray. Burning the hideous hand down, it flails trying to extinguish the fire and cuts its burning hand using the broken wooden door. Sarah then quickly torches the whole door. As soon as the door slowly burns off piece by piece. She finally sees the thing that had been tormented her for more than a week.
It has the face of Clancy, the body of her dad, deformed arms, the skin so delicate and unstable it moves like a liquid, globs of organic matter floating on parts of its body that are not fully formed yet and some part of its arm are burning from the fire. It smells awful, like burning garbage.
Its legs are in the shape of a bird, with big hideous scaly talons.
And it's upside down.
"Sarah"
Sarah screamed but this time it wasn't a scream of fear, it was hatred, it speaks with the face of Clancy but with the voice of her mom. She knows it's messing with her, up to its last moment. She hates it, she wants to kill it and she doesn't hesitate. She throws a box of flammables she prepared into the basement and ran away. Followed by a big explosion and engulfing flame.
"S-sarah..." I speak softly. "S-she could be alive!"
"I'm sorry Clancy, but it's too late for you to see her again."
He shot me.
He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.He shot me.
He shot me. He is a threat, I must kill this human.
Pray I kept my sanity to write for part 2.

Door stops serve as essential protective barriers in every household, shielding walls from damage caused by door knobs and handles. However, selecting the appropriate door stop can pose a challenge for homeowners amidst the myriad of options available. To navigate this decision-making process effectively, it's crucial to understand the various types of door stops and their respective functionalities.

Choosing the Right Door Stop:

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Types of Door Stops:

Floor Door Stops:

Floor door stops come in diverse shapes and sizes, with half dome-shaped variants being particularly effective. These heavy-duty stops provide reliable protection without compromising on aesthetics. When selecting floor door stops, consider compatibility with flooring materials to ensure easy installation and optimal functionality.

Baseboard Door Stops:

Baseboard door stops are versatile and commonly used for both interior and exterior doors. They align parallel to the wall and baseboard, offering seamless integration with existing decor. Available in various types, including solid and spring options, baseboard door stops are a cost-effective solution for homeowners seeking reliable protection.

Wall Door Stops:

Wall door stops are essential for residential and commercial buildings alike, providing robust protection against door impact. These stops can be easily installed directly onto walls, offering adjustable settings to prevent damage effectively. Ideal for doors with knobs or levers, wall door stops are a practical choice for maintaining wall integrity.

Hinge Door Stops:

Hinge door stops are a familiar sight in residential homes, prized for their flexibility and ease of use. These stops prevent doors from impacting walls, making them suitable for various door configurations. With options to open against a wall, hinge door stops offer a classic solution to door protection needs.

Floor Mounted Doorstops:

Floor-mounted doorstops offer vertical protection and function similarly to baseboard door stops. While installation may require professional assistance, these stops ensure long-term door protection. However, caution must be exercised to avoid issues with opening and closing doors due to manufacturing faults.

Wall Bumper Doorstops:

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Hook Doorstops:

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Kick-Down Doorstops:

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Wedge Doorstops:

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Magnetic Doorstops:

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Conclusion:

In conclusion, selecting the right door stop front door is essential for preserving wall integrity and preventing damage. With a wide range of options available, homeowners can choose door stops that align with their specific needs and preferences. Whether opting for floor, baseboard, wall, hinge, or magnetic doorstops, ensuring compatibility and functionality is paramount. By prioritizing wall protection and coordinating with existing decor, homeowners can select door stops that enhance both aesthetics and functionality.

I know there is a discord channel for this but I am specifically interested in hearing feedback on these ideas. Also I've had so many thoughts and I want to commit them to writing before I forget.
Minor spoilers for Kerfur upgrade.
Most wanted:

1. Multiplayer (I'm sure it's been mentioned but this is my most wanted feature of all)
2. Colorblind mode please!! I can't tell if the polarity and frequency are enabled by just looking at the colors. I also can't tell when drives are written or not without having to get close and hovering over them to read the popup. Downed servers are easier to detect but only because the light is flashing
3. Vertical drive racks
4. Resizable GUI and HUD and console text
5. Press up arrow to go through command history just like in any normal command prompt
6. HUD element backgrounds/backdrops for better readability
7. Equipable watch item to add time to HUD
8. Module/upgrade for "Overlap Protection" to make the yellow Save Signal button obsolete and to prevent you from scanning a new signal before you've saved the one you've just completed.
9. Placing drives from your hand/inventory onto the drive slots should load the drive immediately
10. There should be an action to take a drive from a rack and put it right into your hand
11. You should be able to reach the drive slot for processing while sitting in the chair
12. A couple default textures for each custom item. Maybe some flags with Ariral logos or
13. A Retrieve option that would serve as an opposite to the Place command, allowing you to pull whatever is highlighted in a container with a single button press
14. Sortable containers and inventories (name, volume, and quantity)
15. Digital wall clocks

Would be nice:

1. 'sv.time' command to print the current time on the console
2. 'sv.map' to show a crude ASCII map
3. Allow TVs to access camera feeds
4. Key fob for ATV to remotely honk the horn and find it when it's lost. I know you can use the radar and targeting but this would be more immersive
5. A way to see signal and processing process in the HUD (I thought it would be funny to have a brain implant that you wear to connect you to the computer)
6. A quick food dispenser that you can load up and put in your fridge. Then when you use it you get one food item from inside
7. Catch fish and put them in an aquarium
8. Dedicated wallpaper and carpet items that are easier to align than posters
9. Advanced poster placement that allows for fine precision
10. Squirrels, rabbits, frogs, and stray cats running around outside
11. Woodpeckers too
12. Lava lamp
13. Small land based drone on wheels with better battery life than the flying drone
14. Newspaper delivery
15. Robotic plushie that walks around the base
16. Omega Kerfur dance option
17. Even more lighting options like a ceiling light, purchasable candles, a disco ball, and a blacklight
18. Doorstop
19. Wall mounted storage similar to medicine cabinets
20. An underground escape tunnel out of the base
21. A push cart/dolly that you can basically drive around and use to carry extra stuff. Probably would be a bit unreliable to make it balanced
22. Bedsheets and pillows, body pillows too
23. Galaxy light for your bedroom
24. Purchasable software update for the control center to give it a slick new interface (perhaps more prone to crashes though)
25. Computer monitor upgrade
26. Pedometer to track how many steps you've taken (just for fun)

Fixes/quirks:

1. The first action for Omega Kerfur should be Follow so when I'm spamming I don't have to turn it off then on then make it fix a transformer
2. Cameras should or could have a lower frame rate to make them be less resource heavy and as an added bonus make them creepier. The only lag spikes I've had have been when kerfur's camera is on the computer
3. The emergency beacon lights should go off more frequently. Like just a pulse or two when the transformers go down
4. Make Kerfur calm tf down a little. It's so tough to keep him under control when he's following you
5. When you ship a box with no drives you get an email saying the data was not sufficient instead of one saying that there was no data. If you receive an email from doing this maybe it should be something off the wall like someone ranting about politics, or office drama, or lore related stuff
6. The CRT TV should have a toggle that crops the aspect ratio to 4:3 rather than stretching the video
7. The radial menu option is cool but it should still show the popup that lists the available options
8. Wall items have odd shadows when placed next to a wall lamp
9. Nails should have a different sound to indicate that you've successfully nailed two things together
10. Change the icon for the button that resets Kerfur's pathing. It's not clear what it does and it looks like an undo button when it should be a pause button imo

Scares:

1. Make the clocks show weird times or start a countdown
2. Give the clocks an alarm that randomly goes off and needs to be stopped manually
3. Make Kerfur become possessed once in a while
4. Control center chair spins around
5. Psychedelic mushrooms that randomly alter your vision when eaten
6. Alien broadcasts taking over the TVs
7. Drive eraser starts spewing out cassette tape strings
8. Rooms appear to get smaller
9. Different noises for pinecones falling. Maybe grass rustling or twigs breaking. Just anything that doesn't sound like a fucking table falling out of a tree every 3 minutes
10. Utility closet becomes an infinite corridor
11. Elevator malfunction that launches you up or drops really quickly
12. Murals and wallpaper appear to be melting
13. Radar goes extra fast
14. Some tantalizing item appears on the parking lot out by the bunker but when you go outside it's gone
15. Arirals dangle something in front of the window to scare you but then there's a loud noise behind you
16. Decoration lights are too reliable, they should flicker or turn off once in a while
17. Shrimp come to life if left out too long and make their way to the river
18. Administration office could use some flickering lights or strange noises
19. Doorbell/buzzer
20. Security cameras point at you when you get near
21. Shower in the control room turns on randomly
22. Time dilation bubbles that cause things to slow down in a small area
23. Mannequin falls apart when you get close
24. Arirals fill your shopping cart on the computer with shrimp but they don't send the order
25. Nokia electronic trash starts ringing or vibrating