This is a crossover fanfiction between original fiction titles: Nature of Predators by SpacePaladin15 and The Last Angel by Proximal Flame respectively. All credit and rights reserved goes to them for making such amazing science fiction settings that I wanted to put this together.
You can read The Last Angel here: Be warned, it's decently long, and at its third installment so far. I highly suggest reading it before reading this, or this story will not make sense.

Otherwise, enjoy the story! Thanks again to u/jesterra54 and u/skais01 for beta and checking of work!
First Prev Next (soon)
Memory transcription subject: Adjek, Venlil Space Corps Engineer
Date [standardized human time]: October 24, 2136
I had departed with a collection of other engineers who had assisted on the tethering of Nemesis several days ago back to her massive ship. There were twenty-five of us, although none I knew directly from my work.
As our cargo shuttle entered the direct monitoring range of the beast once more, I felt a bad feeling throughout my fur. I didn't know what, exactly, but it was like we had just stepped into the eyes of a predator lurking in the undergrowth, watching us intently. As if to capitalize on that unease, our pilot Mimek bleated something in a panic that made said fur stand straight.
"T-th-th-there's an Arxur vessel trailing us!"
I whirled onto the oncoming feed near the front of the shuttle. Behind us, was a Arxur Ambusher-class dropship that had taken a path directly behind us. It followed the exact same trajectory as our own, and showed no signs of diverting. I bleated out a panicked command of my own.
"K-kick it! W-we need to get distance from them!"
While I had no authority to tell the pilot what to do in this situation, he must've nevertheless agreed, and as such Mimek kicked the boosters into overdrive to escape their proximity. I kept an eye on the rear display, watching as in response, the Arxur craft opened up its own engines, as if to accept the chase, and closed in.
Mimek spoke again. "Why are they chasing us?! D-didn't the humans forbid them from attacking us in-system?!" I had a horrible thought as to why...
"They've fallen to their p-predator bloodlust! They won't be stopped so long as we're in vulnerable space! Close to Nemesis, fast!" I pointed at the guidance lights to the hangar on Nemesis' keel opening. While the Arxur could likely outrun us in an extended burn, we had the advantage in a sprint over a shorter distance. Nemesis was in that shorter distance range, and so we needed to reach it fast to be in its haven.
Mimek, already piloting at full afterburn, corrected the shop in a sharp turn from the plotted approach vector cleared with the Lunar Shipyards. As this occurred, a reminder from the very same monitors came through on comms.
"Venlil ship, this is LSC Tower 3, you have left the agreed final approach vector, adjust your course to match the planned path immediately, do not continue on your current heading."
The humans did not realize the threat we were currently in, and thus the pilot ignored the warning. The Arxur seemingly took our course change as a challenge, and followed suit.
"I repeat, readjust your course heading immediately or fighters will be scrambled. This is your only warning." Even were that the case, we were far too close for them to plot an intercept vector. The shipyard monitors would need at least [one minute] to reach us, and Nemesis was merely [20 seconds] at full-burn-then-brake approach. We would not let the ship closing in behind us catch us, disciplinary action be damned. The damned Arxur succumbed to their predator madness!
A lazy-curve speed burnoff pattern was adopted, and we rocketed at ever-decreasing, but still frightening pace towards Nemesis in an attempt to shake the Ambusher behind us. The hangar was merely moments away, don't fail us now!
The Arxur vessel broke off the chase near the massive docked ship, seemingly slowing for no apparent reason. Perhaps it realized it couldn't slow down as fast as we could, and as such had to? But, that came with another stomach-hurdling problem: us slowing down. If we didn't, we'd crash and turn into nothing but paste on the walls of the gargantuan ship's hangar.
Thankfully, Mimek pulled through, and we zoomed into the hangar space, hitting the emergency external inertial dampener breaking as we attempted landing. The ship skidded across the floor, as it skipped nearly a [fourty meters] to a stop, crashing through something on the way through, but we were moving at such a pace that I had no clue exactly what.
As the ship came to a complete stop, rocking back onto its belly with a final thump, there was the sound of heavy stomping outside, before something rammed into the back of the ship, nearly rocking it off-balance again. "What...what was that?!" We both exclaimed.
We stepped away from the back exit ramp of the vehicle, all twenty five of us, as it began to groan under immense stress. The door dented in, and a few of us instantly cried out in surprise and fear.
And then again. And again. Another rocking of the ship as a dent formed. Another.
And finally, with an unsettling sound of metal being torn through, a crack in the plating of the door turned into a gap that widened into a shaking hole, until the door literally flew off its hydraulic support. The strain spat out fluids and electrical sparking, and several bleated in fear of the sudden disassembly of the door between us and the hangar. Had the Arxur caught up to us? Were we doomed?
But as the burst of electrical smoke cleared, and the light was filtered through our adjusting eyes, what was on the other side shocked me.
A mechanical monstrosity, far bulkier and massive than the one that had confronted my group and I aboard Nemesis stood on the other side. It towered above us, with a intimidatingly large cannon built into one of its arms, aimed dead center into our room, looking more akin to a vehicle's gun than a handheld one. One could see behind it many more of a similar looking model closing in. It spoke in a wrathful tone...Her wrathful tone.
"What the hell are you doing CRASHING INTO ME? There better be a-"
But I felt a chill as it suddenly cut off, and the featureless head of the bipedal robot swiveled to look directly at me instead. Though I could see no clear indicator of eyes like the nightmarish drone I had talked with in the past, I could feel it gaze directly at me, ignoring the others. It suddenly spoke again, a single word conveying contempt dripping in it. The blood in my veins turned cold as the Twilight.
"YOU..."
+CONFED IO.5+
+READING MAIN SEQ.MEM+
+ADDENDUM: ADJUSTED DATE 24.10.2136+
Something's wrong, I can feel it.
The bearing of the approaching ships has left the supposed approach vector, and directly accelerated towards my open hangar bay. While the ships pose no threat to me directly, I am uncertain if they are capable of stopping quickly enough to not risk the human crew that had just landed. I considered my options...
+grab beam non-responsive, schedule systems evaluation immediately+
I had no capability to tractor the ships from their path, and they showed no sign of slowing. I could fire a particle beam in the path of both ships, but there was no ability to tune down the power enough to not destroy the ships, and it would not reduce their velocity. I plotted the relative course of the Venlil shuttle to be coming at this angle, which thankfully was towards the opposite side of the hangar as the Human delegation. That did not remove the possibility of shrapnel from a crash, however.
I interspersed my Praetorians in front of them, seeking to act as a shield in the case of any flying debris. I warned them in the same instant.
"Take cover behind these drones, there is a problem with the landing Venlil ship on route."
"W..What's going on, Red?" Hailey asked, confused. Never had I been this direct with her physically, actively interspersing my drones in front of her and the rest of the scientific delegation.
"They are likely to crash. Predicted acceleration curves of the shuttle do not meet the prerequisite delta-V to stop safely at this current distance and velocity. Duck and cover."
The shuttlecraft streaked into my hangar bay at speeds that would make a 21st century jet blush. It slowed anomalously upon entering, but did not slow at enough rate to prevent the crash. The Praetorians situated on that side of my hangar were incapable of moving fast enough to dodge out of the way, and I was forced to watch as the shuttle crashed through thirty-two of them in a 45-meter break distance, before slamming into a hangar wall. They were built to withstand incredible munition strength, but not twenty-some odd tons of shuttle at near mach speeds. The impact brutally cast them across the deck, smashing some, tearing apart others.
Debris flew from the front of the shuttle outward, but none reached near the humans. Those moronic aliens were about to answer painfully for their incompetence on my deck.
"Dear god!" One of the humans swore at the sound of the shuttle crashing. Another screamed and ducked down further behind my Praetorian. The drone curled down to better envelop her in protection. Hailey was speechless.
A squadron of Praetorians had been closing in from a safe distance throughout the entirety of the crash. They were a mere hundred meters away, only 4.9 seconds to reach the doors. I collided with the shuttlecraft's exit ramp, and slammed repeatedly into the back of it, aiming to create a gap by which to pry the thing off. Eventually, a gap was made, and the Praetorian body wrenched a manipulator into it.
Then, after tearing off the ramp door to the ship, and beginning to interrogate the idiotic fucks at gunpoint, I find no less that a familiar face has come with them. A familiar face I would have rather not seen again in the slightest.
+identity confirmation, Adjek, Venlil engineer+
"YOU...What, are you doing here, again?"
I stepped forward, into the cargo shuttle, the Praetorian I controlled looming over them, over him, by nearly one and a half meters. I made certain to emphasize that size difference. One does not just crash in me like this without a good reason, or I'd be testing how long a Venlil survives vacuum.
Adjek decided to speak up, fear laden in his voice. "I-I-I...W-we were being chased by an Arxur vessel on the course here! T-They ignored the human's truce and decided to p-pursue us directly!"
I faltered a bit at that. Chased? The Arxur supposedly promised that they wouldn't attack the Venlil in-system, but given how much the bad blood between the Arxur and herbivore races was hyped up, I couldn't toss out the possibility.
"Is he telling the truth?" I swung the Praetorian's fake head about the room, scanning over each Venlil in the audience. It wasn't necessary, I had a panoramic view just from the chest optics alone, but the psychological effect and bait of having a head was palpable. They all parroted something similar to what Adjek and the pilot said, so I had no clear contradiction to go off of yet.
But I wasn't done with intimidation, I warmed the cannon muzzle to be visible within the deep red visual spectrum, and aimed it at him.
"Tell me everything, now."
He began to describe his intent and clearance for coming here...but reality decided to be a pain at that exact moment, as the likely culprit entered the hangar. Thankfully, I wasn't hampered by multitasking. A section of me split attention equally to the Arxur ship landing in my bay.
This ship, supposedly the Ambusher-class Goring Claw going off the IFF, was an armed dropship of some sort capable of intro-extra-atmospheric operation, given the rotary variable mode engines. They had been given landing clearance, but not by me, no, instead by the shipyard.
I would need to ask the UN to bring down that blackout protocol soon. This is immensely inconvenient to not have access to monitoring and communication outside myself, except through Hailey. Nevertheless, I positioned my remaining Praetorians around the likely exit of the dropship, awaiting it to open and...greet...these likely troublemakers. I had one Praetorian stand directly front-and-center to the back end, and aim weapons, but not arm them at the dropship hangar doors.
With a hiss, and a burst of slightly depressurized gas, the door opened, and out marched a line of two pairs of two Arxur guards. Their gear looked highly ceremonial, given its lack of tactical or efficient features, and the choice of weapon being a spear of some sort with a sidearm still holstered. Behind them, walked an even more gaudy individual than the guards, an Arxur with a prominent scar across their face covered in flamboyant ceremonial uniform. I was almost certain this was Chief Hunter Isif, Lithke's commanding officer, given Hailey's description of the visitors earlier. Behind him marched a set of less extravagantly dressed figures, likely advisors of some sort. And, of course, Lithke.
I wouldn't just let them off the hook so easily though, despite their far better entrance.
"Chief Hunter Isif. Lithke. You had best have a good reason for making a Venlil ship crash into my hangar."
Memory transcription subject: Chief Hunter Isif, Arxur Dominion Sector Fleet
Date [standardized human time]: October 24, 2136
Those idiots seriously did not-
...No, calm yourself, a Chief Hunter must always look composed, even in the face of absurdity.
The pilot in control of this Ambusher had heard my order to follow the Venlil in, got target fixation, and decided to escalate it to a chase. I would have him lashed for the offense later, but for now, I needed to quickly rekindle what little good will the Arxur had in Red One's eyes.
Losing it now could mean turning up hungry forever.
"I apologize for my pilot's unprofessional actions. He will be punished severely later for the transgression of letting his instincts override both human and my orders. Is there anything I can do further to fix your appetite, Red One?"
The robot frontmost of our shuttle stepped forward, it's bulk and size intimidating even by Arxur standards. It towered tall enough to nearly be at my head height despite the fact I was standing on the dropship ramp. Red One's response was curt, and [quick to the kill]. "You can start by convincing the odd twenty-five or so Venlil engineers your pilot chased into crashing on my hangar deck that you aren't here to eat them all, or whatever sickening actions you Arxur do. When that's done, then you may converse with Hailey Whitmer."
At least it wasn't "you've done enough, stop". I'd seen plenty disappear after that particular response in the Dominion.
"Fine. Blades!" I shouted to the ceremony guard I was issued. "Two of you will hold the pilot at the ship for punishment. He is to not eat, nor rest, nor do anything until I return. The rest will assist Lithke in assuaging the prey that they are safe...for now. I must speak with Red One while you do."
They saluted, and went about their way.
Good, everyone bought it. In a sense, this was funnily enough just the distraction I needed. Perhaps I'll reduce the pilot's lashing count quietly for that.
Now...for the harder part. I had no idea if Red would sense my intentions, and so-
The combat drone spoke once again. "Lithke's sung your praises, Chief Hunter Isif. An icon of 'applied cruelty' in his words. I'm curious as to why that should be praised, out of all things in a leader."
We're still too close to the ship, even if none are around to hear it, audio logs might pick up any dissenting thoughts. I should bring this conversation elsewhere.
"I see Lithke wasn't convincing on his own, it seems. Here, walk with me, I still have yet to meet your Special Envoy Hailey personally." I began to walk towards the group of humans near the other end of the hangar.
"So, you have met her?" Red One instantly picked up on the message, noticing the phrasing. So, she's capable of understanding subtlety...
"Yes, but not directly. She gave a presentation at the UN's discussion on you, which I attended."
"And what, pray tell, did you learn about there?" Red One seemed to press me slightly on the session, clearly looking for something. I'd play along, get in their favor.
"Plenty. You're by far the most powerful ship in the galaxy, as far as I can tell. The Humans and Venlil alike are afraid of you, but the former less-so, seeing a more mixed reaction to your presence."
"And what do you think of me?" Red questioned.
I began with a political mealy-mouth phrase.
"The Dominion is not-"
But she interrupted my train of thought. "No. I didn't ask what the Arxur thought. I was asking what you thought, specifically."
What?!
I scanned quickly, my head paced from side to side as I looked for any potential monitoring agent or tools nearby that could potentially pick up on my dialogue.
"You're...an interesting shake-up to the galaxy. Possibly even a means to an end I've been looking into."
There was a curiosity laden in that tone. "Is that so? What, pray tell, would an Arxur fleet leader need with me?"
Again, I checked about, to make certain none were close. "I...am trying to solve a personal problem. Your emergence is convenient to it..."
"Ah...so I was correct..." Red One's drone stopped in front of me for a moment, before turning directly to address me. "...The constant checking about other Arxur assets, the send-off of your personal guard, the overcompensation on the facial details and micromovements, the ordering of Lithke to 'convince' me of Dominion ideals. How much of it is an act, Chief Hunter Isif?"
She already found me out!?
The mask dropped in a panic, knowing none were close enough to pick up on it. "Quiet! How did you pick up on that?" I hissed under my breath to them.
She neglected to answer that statement directly, instead asking another question. "That's not important. The better thing to ask, is what exactly do you want with me?"
Well, since the meat has been spoiled...
I decided to be blunt, and honest. "I need either a line to directly converse with you on a sensitive matter later, or a method to do it now. There is a deep sickness within the Arxur, and you are a possible lynchpin to excise it. But it is traitorous in nature to Betterment, and they have agents everywhere. I would need it to be done away from their ears."
"I am currently operating in blackout conditions. I cannot send or receive signals from the outside without going through a UN transponder, so the first option is out currently. You need a distraction then, while you're here." Red's drone turned back around and continued walking, not giving away anything to the outside of her sudden skinning of my fake personality. "That can be arranged. But not this instant, we are already too close to outside ears for an extended conversation."
"A codeword, then? Some indicator that I may step away and talk securely with you?"
"A codeword is a start, but I'm more concerned about your personal guard. Are they loyal to you enough to ignore such a conversation?"
"Absolutely not. Effectively none of the group that has come along with me is loyal enough to hear this."
Red One didn't speak immediately, but the pause was small. "A full separation might be possible. I have an idea during the tour. If I say the phrase, 'Feel free to peruse' to you specifically, it will mean I have sufficiently separated attention enough that you may speak to me securely. Do you understand?"
She already has a plan? Her speed on that matter is dizzying.
I would have to trust her method. "I understand."
"Good, mask up again, we are within the distance of maximum human audible range given this volume."
Her matter of figuring out my intentions and act that quickly was unnerving, but it made some sense for a sentient computer. She likely thought far faster than the average Arxur, or even Human. But I could consider that later, I needed to get back in character. While my physical demeanor hadn't wavered any, I needed to give off the mental face of a Chief Hunter once again to allay suspicions. Especially since my personal guard were likely to return soon.
Hailey Whitmer noticed us soon after, and disengaged herself from talking with the other Humans. She began her way over here, leaving them to huddle around their ship, still unloading a collection of scientific equipment and personal belongings. "Chief Hunter Isif! Welcome to the UECNS Nemesis. What happened exactly that caused the Venlil to crash in like that, however? I heard a concerning bit that they were chased?"
I lashed my tail in frustration at that. "Our pilot idiotically got fixated on the Venlil ship. He will be punished later. For now I apologize on their behalf. I will try and...convince the Venlil's not to fear soon, but I honestly don't expect them to listen. They are prey, after all, sniveling in fear at the slightest provocation."
Hailey looked annoyed at that statement, but I could at least take personal solace in knowing it was mere persona. She would simply have to deal with it. "That's rather rude to our allies, Isif."
I corrected her: "Your allies, Human. The prey do not interest me. No, what interests me and my cohort is this ship." I pointed a claw at the robotic soldier behind me.. "I have already met Red One herself, and as you are the UN's Envoy here, I must meet you as well. Lithke has spoken much about both of you."
Hailey's expression changed from veiled frustration to surprise at that. "He has? Hah! I did charm-...oh, excuse my manners. When your entourage arrives over here, we can begin a proper tour with the both of us at the helm. Red?"
A voice emanated from the walls. "Yes, Hailey?"
"Do you have a path listed for a proper tour throughout your facilities?"
She responded immediately. "Yes. The UEC military has conducted tours before of my hull to other officials. I can follow said pathing, ignoring areas currently exposed to vacuum or damaged heavily. It will cover roughly 45% of the ship, and with transportation aid, take roughly 4 and a half hours."
Hailey clapped her hands together. "Perfect! When the three groups are gathered properly here, we can begin."
Given I could see my guard returning, thankfully not laden with prey blood or wounds, that would be soon.
+CONFED IO.5+
+READING MAIN SEQ.MEM+
+ADDENDUM: ADJUSTED DATE 24.10.2136+
I have had tours done of my shipself before. When my form was still under construction, Commander Theodore William Billingsly had given a walk-around to Yasmine, in preparation to turn over the role of Captain to her. The visit had gone rather easily, and familiarized her with my layout quickly in a professional manner. I had given numerous miniature tours of my layout to new crew members, with assistance from more established crew. I figured tours were nothing too special to my sensibilities and experience.
But I had never quite had the experience of juggling a tour where each distinct species of the tour was at odds with the other two. Listening to them was taxing.
"What are you looking at, leaflicker?"
"H-Help! I-It wants to e-e-eat me!!!"
"Could y'all just get along for a single moment? We're coming up on the barracks, supposedly, and yet you're at each other's throats!"
"Of course we're at their throats, those are rather delicious to tear out."
"You predators would focus on our vulnerable spots, w-wouldn't you!"
"Fuck's sake, you can't behave, can y'all?"
"Jealous of our vicious nature?"
"No we're not! What you do to the other races in this galaxy is abhorrent!"
"Yeah, you Arxur monsters have nothing to be proud of! I've lost family to your kind!"
Very taxing.
The human team and Hailey were trying to somewhat wrangle the mood down, but the Arxur and Venlil despised one another, and it showed. There was no quieting-down of their feud for more than a few minutes, before it started up again for the smallest altercations. I was glad I had brought a host of Praetorians to keep them physically separate somewhat, as I'd hate to have seen any humans hurt in the way.
Instead, I tried to focus on just providing an air of authority, as Hailey led them throughout my assorted systems and layout, only providing input where she did not know about. There were at least some receptive comments of myself during the tour that didn't result in lambasting the other two parties.
"The internal layout of this ship is rather unique. It doesn't look like anything in the Federation proper." A Venlil engineer by the name of Joluk mentioned.
"Yeah, I know!" Said a human scientist by the name of George Oscoda. "It's very...Death Star meets Nostromo, made a bit wider, then painted gunmetal black with red detailing."
Joluk turned back to him. "I have no idea what those are, but I don't like the sound of a Death Star." Their tail went ramrod straight, hanging down at the comment. Perhaps a body language fear response?
I decided to clarify from a drone nearby. "The internal design pattern of the UEC favors a highly geometric, hexagonal or octagonal hall layout, for maximum support with little freestanding support. A three-to-two width to height ratio also helps alleviate claustrophobic concerns, and detriments mental health minimally for extended stays."
George spoke up again. "I guess that's fair, but nothing will change how depressingly dark and scarred-up some of these corridors and bulkheads are currently. I get that it's battle damage, but..."
Lithke piped in from the front. "Nemesis wears her scars proudly. She is a predator forged in war, none escape without scars." I couldn't find a reason to directly deny said statement. I did sometimes prefer the reminder of how many Compact Janissaries had died within myself. How I shivered in delight at knowing they met their ends aboard my hull.
I decided to just remain silent on that. Hailey also responded to that soon after. "Well, honor besides, a lot of that damage will have to be repaired eventually. No amount of self-righteousness excuses holes to vacuum in some spots." She was also right. There were various spots throughout me that were not even enterable, let alone habitable as I was. Numerous collapsed-in sections, holes in my hull all-throughout. There wasn't even a main engines section anymore, with the aft exposed to space after redlining to Earth to save them from the Federation fleet. No amount of scars would justify not repairing battle damage.
I was at least partially glad they could not read Compact Standard. The various little easter eggs of alien languages scattered on my walls were filled with warnings and resignations of regret for boarding me. I left them there, to add to the ambient horror of unwelcome borders, but currently it just felt...out of place. I did not want to scare the people on board.
Thankfully there were few along this path, and none noticed it as the language it was offhand, so I avoided those questions. As we walked to the entrance doors to the barracks, there was a hallway we would have to cross first. One I had kept tenderly over the centuries.
I decided to speak ahead of time on it. "We are coming up on a particular area of mine en route to the general barracks. It was not something made in my time with humanity, but more...a personal project. Reminders and trophies of what and who I fought for both myself, and any others who might unfortunately find themselves this far into my halls." Some of the Arxur looked intrigued by that statement.
Hailey looked a little nervous at the way I introduced it. "I-I wouldn't really call it something particularly-"
I kept going over her response. It wasn't particularly polite, but if I was to make a maximal psychological distraction for Isif to say his piece, it would need to be done...
As a drone already within put the finishing touches on the arrangement, and skittered away into the dark lofts above, the doors opened to my favorite rooms, and I introduced the hallway ahead.
"Welcome...to my Collection."
First Prev Next (soon)

Have you ever felt chills from good stimuli?
That ability can be learned to be activated with just the elated feeling, whenever you want, without any stimuli.
That's not why I claim that it is a secret being hidden from us, though.
The ability to activate this is your golden ticket, which is being swept under the rug as something unconscious and unimportant. With info on this purposely being spread as an ability available only to a few; however, it is one of the only things that every single human can access, regardless of their physical abilities or conditions.
Why is information on this being manipulated? Let's see.
Ever felt overwhelmed by stress or anxiety? This ability is a switch to manually induce the release of positive hormones.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-12135590
Just imagine how being able to use it when feeling overwhelmed could benefit you.
Don't believe me? In the eastern part of the world, Tibetan Monks know about this ability and use it differently. You can find more information on this in this Harvard "Tummo" experiment.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/04/meditation-changes-temperatures/
"During meditation, the monk's body produces enough heat to dry cold, wet sheets put over his shoulders in a frigid room."
Since our internal body temperature is regulated by the hypothalamus, the same part of our brain that deals with positive hormone release, this proves that this ability can be used to consciously activate your positive hormones.
Ever wanted to travel virtually in an instant? People who astral project or have out-of-body experiences use this ability to trigger the "Vibrational state" right before the "take off."
https://en.iipc.org/vibrational-state/
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of what you can use this ability for. In fear that my post won't be read, I won't write a book here about all the incredible things that we can do by being able to consciously activate this ability.
For now just understand that many different cultures observed this occurrence thousands of years before the Western new world became aware of it, and their discoveries did not stop at simply recognizing it as a physical response to music.
Eventually, you can learn how to bring up this wave of elated energy without the physical reaction of goosebumps, feel it throughout your body, and increase its duration, just like many others have succeeded in doing.
This ablity has been researched and documented under many names, by different people and cultures such as Bioelectricity, Life force, Prana, Chi, Qi, Runner's High, Euphoria, ASMR, Ecstasy, Orgone, Rapture, Tension, Aura, Mana, Vayus, Nen, Intent, Tummo, Odic force, Kriyas, Pitī, Frisson, Ruah, Spiritual Energy, Secret Fire, The Tingles, on-demand quickening, Voluntary Piloerection, Aether, Chills, Spiritual Chills and many more to be discovered hopefully with your help.
If you're interested, here are three written tutorials with concise descriptions on how to control this for your own benefit.
If not then I've put enough information for you to research this topic, develop this ability and bring in new techniques to the world.
P.S. Everyone feels it at certain points in their life, some brush it off while others notice that there is something much deeper going on. Those are exactly the people you can find on the subreddit community Spiritualchills where they share experiences, knowledge and tips on it.

Have you ever felt chills from good stimuli?
That ability can be learned to be activated with just the elated feeling, whenever you want, without any stimuli.
That's not why I claim that it is a secret being hidden from us, though.
The ability to activate this is your golden ticket, which is being swept under the rug as something unconscious and unimportant. With info on this purposely being spread as an ability available only to a few; however, it is one of the only things that every single human can access, regardless of their physical abilities or conditions.
Why is information on this being manipulated? Let's see.
Ever felt overwhelmed by stress or anxiety? This ability is a switch to manually induce the release of positive hormones.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-12135590
Just imagine how being able to use it when feeling overwhelmed could benefit you.
Don't believe me? In the eastern part of the world, Tibetan Monks know about this ability and use it differently. You can find more information on this in this Harvard "Tummo" experiment.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/04/meditation-changes-temperatures/
"During meditation, the monk's body produces enough heat to dry cold, wet sheets put over his shoulders in a frigid room."
Since our internal body temperature is regulated by the hypothalamus, the same part of our brain that deals with positive hormone release, this proves that this ability can be used to consciously activate your positive hormones.
Ever wanted to travel virtually in an instant? People who astral project or have out-of-body experiences use this ability to trigger the "Vibrational state" right before the "take off."
https://en.iipc.org/vibrational-state/
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of what you can use this ability for. In fear that my post won't be read, I won't write a book here about all the incredible things that we can do by being able to consciously activate this ability.
For now just understand that many different cultures observed this occurrence thousands of years before the Western new world became aware of it, and their discoveries did not stop at simply recognizing it as a physical response to music.
Eventually, you can learn how to bring up this wave of elated energy without the physical reaction of goosebumps, feel it throughout your body, and increase its duration, just like many others have succeeded in doing.
This ablity has been researched and documented under many names, by different people and cultures such as Bioelectricity, Life force, Prana, Chi, Qi, Runner's High, Euphoria, ASMR, Ecstasy, Orgone, Rapture, Tension, Aura, Mana, Vayus, Nen, Intent, Tummo, Odic force, Kriyas, Pitī, Frisson, Ruah, Spiritual Energy, Secret Fire, The Tingles, on-demand quickening, Voluntary Piloerection, Aether, Chills, Spiritual Chills and many more to be discovered hopefully with your help.
If you're interested, here are three written tutorials with concise descriptions on how to control this for your own benefit.
If not then I've put enough information for you to research this topic, develop this ability and bring in new techniques to the world.
P.S. Everyone feels it at certain points in their life, some brush it off while others notice that there is something much deeper going on. Those are exactly the people you can find on the subreddit community Spiritualchills where they share experiences, knowledge and tips on it.

Have you ever felt chills from good stimuli?
That ability can be learned to be activated with just the elated feeling, whenever you want, without any stimuli.
That's not why I claim that it is a secret being hidden from us, though.
The ability to activate this is your golden ticket, which is being swept under the rug as something unconscious and unimportant. With info on this purposely being spread as an ability available only to a few; however, it is one of the only things that every single human can access, regardless of their physical abilities or conditions.
Why is information on this being manipulated? Let's see.
Ever felt overwhelmed by stress or anxiety? This ability is a switch to manually induce the release of positive hormones.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-12135590
Just imagine how being able to use it when feeling overwhelmed could benefit you.
Don't believe me? In the eastern part of the world, Tibetan Monks know about this ability and use it differently. You can find more information on this in this Harvard "Tummo" experiment.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/04/meditation-changes-temperatures/
"During meditation, the monk's body produces enough heat to dry cold, wet sheets put over his shoulders in a frigid room."
Since our internal body temperature is regulated by the hypothalamus, the same part of our brain that deals with positive hormone release, this proves that this ability can be used to consciously activate your positive hormones.
Ever wanted to travel virtually in an instant? People who astral project or have out-of-body experiences use this ability to trigger the "Vibrational state" right before the "take off."
https://en.iipc.org/vibrational-state/
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of what you can use this ability for. In fear that my post won't be read, I won't write a book here about all the incredible things that we can do by being able to consciously activate this ability.
For now just understand that many different cultures observed this occurrence thousands of years before the Western new world became aware of it, and their discoveries did not stop at simply recognizing it as a physical response to music.
Eventually, you can learn how to bring up this wave of elated energy without the physical reaction of goosebumps, feel it throughout your body, and increase its duration, just like many others have succeeded in doing.
This ablity has been researched and documented under many names, by different people and cultures such as Bioelectricity, Life force, Prana, Chi, Qi, Runner's High, Euphoria, ASMR, Ecstasy, Orgone, Rapture, Tension, Aura, Mana, Vayus, Nen, Intent, Tummo, Odic force, Kriyas, Pitī, Frisson, Ruah, Spiritual Energy, Secret Fire, The Tingles, on-demand quickening, Voluntary Piloerection, Aether, Chills, Spiritual Chills and many more to be discovered hopefully with your help.
If you're interested, here are three written tutorials with concise descriptions on how to control this for your own benefit.
If not then I've put enough information for you to research this topic, develop this ability and bring in new techniques to the world.
P.S. Everyone feels it at certain points in their life, some brush it off while others notice that there is something much deeper going on. Those are exactly the people you can find on the subreddit community Spiritualchills where they share experiences, knowledge and tips on it.

Have you ever felt chills from good stimuli?
That ability can be learned to be activated with just the elated feeling, whenever you want, without any stimuli.
That's not why I claim that it is a secret being hidden from us, though.
The ability to activate this is your golden ticket, which is being swept under the rug as something unconscious and unimportant. With info on this purposely being spread as an ability available only to a few; however, it is one of the only things that every single human can access, regardless of their physical abilities or conditions.
Why is information on this being manipulated? Let's see.
Ever felt overwhelmed by stress or anxiety? This ability is a switch to manually induce the release of positive hormones.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-12135590
Just imagine how being able to use it when feeling overwhelmed could benefit you.
Don't believe me? In the eastern part of the world, Tibetan Monks know about this ability and use it differently. You can find more information on this in this Harvard "Tummo" experiment.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/04/meditation-changes-temperatures/
"During meditation, the monk's body produces enough heat to dry cold, wet sheets put over his shoulders in a frigid room."
Since our internal body temperature is regulated by the hypothalamus, the same part of our brain that deals with positive hormone release, this proves that this ability can be used to consciously activate your positive hormones.
Ever wanted to travel virtually in an instant? People who astral project or have out-of-body experiences use this ability to trigger the "Vibrational state" right before the "take off."
https://en.iipc.org/vibrational-state/
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of what you can use this ability for. In fear that my post won't be read, I won't write a book here about all the incredible things that we can do by being able to consciously activate this ability.
For now just understand that many different cultures observed this occurrence thousands of years before the Western new world became aware of it, and their discoveries did not stop at simply recognizing it as a physical response to music.
Eventually, you can learn how to bring up this wave of elated energy without the physical reaction of goosebumps, feel it throughout your body, and increase its duration, just like many others have succeeded in doing.
This ablity has been researched and documented under many names, by different people and cultures such as Bioelectricity, Life force, Prana, Chi, Qi, Runner's High, Euphoria, ASMR, Ecstasy, Orgone, Rapture, Tension, Aura, Mana, Vayus, Nen, Intent, Tummo, Odic force, Kriyas, Pitī, Frisson, Ruah, Spiritual Energy, Secret Fire, The Tingles, on-demand quickening, Voluntary Piloerection, Aether, Chills, Spiritual Chills and many more to be discovered hopefully with your help.
If you're interested, here are three written tutorials with concise descriptions on how to control this for your own benefit.
If not then I've put enough information for you to research this topic, develop this ability and bring in new techniques to the world.
P.S. Everyone feels it at certain points in their life, some brush it off while others notice that there is something much deeper going on. Those are exactly the people you can find on the subreddit community Spiritualchills where they share experiences, knowledge and tips on it.

Have you ever felt chills from good stimuli?
That ability can be learned to be activated with just the elated feeling, whenever you want, without any stimuli.
That's not why I claim that it is a secret being hidden from us, though.
The ability to activate this is your golden ticket, which is being swept under the rug as something unconscious and unimportant. With info on this purposely being spread as an ability available only to a few; however, it is one of the only things that every single human can access, regardless of their physical abilities or conditions.
Why is information on this being manipulated? Let's see.
Ever felt overwhelmed by stress or anxiety? This ability is a switch to manually induce the release of positive hormones.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-12135590
Just imagine how being able to use it when feeling overwhelmed could benefit you.
Don't believe me? In the eastern part of the world, Tibetan Monks know about this ability and use it differently. You can find more information on this in this Harvard "Tummo" experiment.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/04/meditation-changes-temperatures/
"During meditation, the monk's body produces enough heat to dry cold, wet sheets put over his shoulders in a frigid room."
Since our internal body temperature is regulated by the hypothalamus, the same part of our brain that deals with positive hormone release, this proves that this ability can be used to consciously activate your positive hormones.
Ever wanted to travel virtually in an instant? People who astral project or have out-of-body experiences use this ability to trigger the "Vibrational state" right before the "take off."
https://en.iipc.org/vibrational-state/
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of what you can use this ability for. In fear that my post won't be read, I won't write a book here about all the incredible things that we can do by being able to consciously activate this ability.
For now just understand that many different cultures observed this occurrence thousands of years before the Western new world became aware of it, and their discoveries did not stop at simply recognizing it as a physical response to music.
Eventually, you can learn how to bring up this wave of elated energy without the physical reaction of goosebumps, feel it throughout your body, and increase its duration, just like many others have succeeded in doing.
This ablity has been researched and documented under many names, by different people and cultures such as Bioelectricity, Life force, Prana, Chi, Qi, Runner's High, Euphoria, ASMR, Ecstasy, Orgone, Rapture, Tension, Aura, Mana, Vayus, Nen, Intent, Tummo, Odic force, Kriyas, Pitī, Frisson, Ruah, Spiritual Energy, Secret Fire, The Tingles, on-demand quickening, Voluntary Piloerection, Aether, Chills, Spiritual Chills and many more to be discovered hopefully with your help.
If you're interested, here are three written tutorials with concise descriptions on how to control this for your own benefit.
If not then I've put enough information for you to research this topic, develop this ability and bring in new techniques to the world.
P.S. Everyone feels it at certain points in their life, some brush it off while others notice that there is something much deeper going on. Those are exactly the people you can find on the subreddit community Spiritualchills where they share experiences, knowledge and tips on it.

Have you ever felt chills from good stimuli?
That ability can be learned to be activated with just the elated feeling, whenever you want, without any stimuli.
That's not why I claim that it is a secret being hidden from us, though.
The ability to activate this is your golden ticket, which is being swept under the rug as something unconscious and unimportant. With info on this purposely being spread as an ability available only to a few; however, it is one of the only things that every single human can access, regardless of their physical abilities or conditions.
Why is information on this being manipulated? Let's see.
Ever felt overwhelmed by stress or anxiety? This ability is a switch to manually induce the release of positive hormones.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-12135590
Just imagine how being able to use it when feeling overwhelmed could benefit you.
Don't believe me? In the eastern part of the world, Tibetan Monks know about this ability and use it differently. You can find more information on this in this Harvard "Tummo" experiment.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/04/meditation-changes-temperatures/
"During meditation, the monk's body produces enough heat to dry cold, wet sheets put over his shoulders in a frigid room."
Since our internal body temperature is regulated by the hypothalamus, the same part of our brain that deals with positive hormone release, this proves that this ability can be used to consciously activate your positive hormones.
Ever wanted to travel virtually in an instant? People who astral project or have out-of-body experiences use this ability to trigger the "Vibrational state" right before the "take off."
https://en.iipc.org/vibrational-state/
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of what you can use this ability for. In fear that my post won't be read, I won't write a book here about all the incredible things that we can do by being able to consciously activate this ability.
For now just understand that many different cultures observed this occurrence thousands of years before the Western new world became aware of it, and their discoveries did not stop at simply recognizing it as a physical response to music.
Eventually, you can learn how to bring up this wave of elated energy without the physical reaction of goosebumps, feel it throughout your body, and increase its duration, just like many others have succeeded in doing.
This ablity has been researched and documented under many names, by different people and cultures such as Bioelectricity, Life force, Prana, Chi, Qi, Runner's High, Euphoria, ASMR, Ecstasy, Orgone, Rapture, Tension, Aura, Mana, Vayus, Nen, Intent, Tummo, Odic force, Kriyas, Pitī, Frisson, Ruah, Spiritual Energy, Secret Fire, The Tingles, on-demand quickening, Voluntary Piloerection, Aether, Chills, Spiritual Chills and many more to be discovered hopefully with your help.
If you're interested, here are three written tutorials with concise descriptions on how to control this for your own benefit.
If not then I've put enough information for you to research this topic, develop this ability and bring in new techniques to the world.
P.S. Everyone feels it at certain points in their life, some brush it off while others notice that there is something much deeper going on. Those are exactly the people you can find on the subreddit community Spiritualchills where they share experiences, knowledge and tips on it.

so something I really found to be an interesting little (maybe unconcious) habit of mine is to link all these different abstract theories together; like you all I think there's a lot of merit to the simulation theory, and maybe not unlike you all; I believe MBTI has lots of merit too
let's not forget a lot of concepts from both of these theories were suggested by the same man; Carl Jung, i really believe he was onto a lot of things, and he was way ahead of his time tbh
ofc the general populous and the elites in particular probably deemed his theories to be a little too close to reality for their liking so they slowly started drifting him and his theories away from the public eye and into the little circle of "this guy doesn't know what he's talking about" even though applying these theories to real life actually results in some believable conclusions that improve our general worldview and as we know, science's main goal is working towards applying provable theories into our collective worldview with the goal of reaching a better understanding of the world, yet most of jung's and freud's works in particular still get categorized under "psuedoscience" for some reason... hmmm... the same category, might I add, that also holds theories such as ghosts and the completely supernatural unprovable fields of knowledge which I don't really wanna dive into
you guys get my point, it's unfair to categorize jung's and freud's years of work and conclusions into just "pseudoscience", it's dumb.
regardless, to get to my main point (i couldn't help but go on a little rant there at first lol, i'm still new here and boy have i got a lot to say about... well... lots of things)
a few weeks ago I started thinking of this little pal of mine who for a period of time I was good friends with, he wasn't someone I knew for a LONG time but I found him to be really interesting when I did know him
one day, I think to myself "man it's been a while since i talked to [his name], maybe I should hit him up" and for context he was within a group of people who I was friends with too but for some reason I thought of him in particular
on that same day, I kid you not, not a couple hours go by and he dms me asking about me and how I've been, now that's not even the crazy part, cuz a few weeks after, after I got him to try out a bunch of personality tests (to see if the results would be different), it turns out he's an ENTJ type (for context i'm an INTP, in case you couldn't guess it before lmao) and it got me wondering about this natural gravity for people towards their alter egos (the people with complementary cognitive functions) and it seems that we're perfectly in sync and have a natural synchronicity I'd say which I'm not surprised by, but it definitely proves how much merit the personality type stuff has for all these idiots you find on threads saying "it's lIkE aStrOlOgY"
this wasn't even the first time it happened, every time I stop talking to an ENTJ in particular for a while they end up dming me or I end up wondering how they in particular are doing, not anyone else but just the ENTJs (and that's before I even found out who was an ENTJ and who wasn't)
because, for context, all of this happened before I started digging more into MBTI, when I did dig more into it I ended up sending test links to all my close ppl and amongst them were the people I talked about, hence now I know they're ENTJs and I'm INTP and there's really a natural gravitas of sorts, not even romantic just a natural urge of the mind to talk to your alter ego, even without knowing they're your alter ego.
I really suck at explaining stuff in general so I hope you guys understood at least 40% of what I said here, but yeah, the universe has more to it than we could possibly conceive but a lot of people just don't wanna accept that or dig beyond what they already know (hence why you have MBTI deniers, simulation deniers, synchronicity deniers, etc etc)
what do you guys think? let's have discussions about this.

Have you ever felt chills from good stimuli?
That ability can be learned to be activated with just the elated feeling, whenever you want, without any stimuli.
That's not why I claim that it is a secret being hidden from us, though.
The ability to activate this is your golden ticket, which is being swept under the rug as something unconscious and unimportant. With info on this purposely being spread as an ability available only to a few; however, it is one of the only things that every single human can access, regardless of their physical abilities or conditions.
Why is information on this being manipulated? Let's see.
Ever felt overwhelmed by stress or anxiety? This ability is a switch to manually induce the release of positive hormones.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-12135590
Just imagine how being able to use it when feeling overwhelmed could benefit you.
Don't believe me? In the eastern part of the world, Tibetan Monks know about this ability and use it differently. You can find more information on this in this Harvard "Tummo" experiment.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/04/meditation-changes-temperatures/
"During meditation, the monk's body produces enough heat to dry cold, wet sheets put over his shoulders in a frigid room."
Since our internal body temperature is regulated by the hypothalamus, the same part of our brain that deals with positive hormone release, this proves that this ability can be used to consciously activate your positive hormones.
Ever wanted to travel virtually in an instant? People who astral project or have out-of-body experiences use this ability to trigger the "Vibrational state" right before the "take off."
https://en.iipc.org/vibrational-state/
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of what you can use this ability for. In fear that my post won't be read, I won't write a book here about all the incredible things that we can do by being able to consciously activate this ability.
For now just understand that many different cultures observed this occurrence thousands of years before the Western new world became aware of it, and their discoveries did not stop at simply recognizing it as a physical response to music.
Eventually, you can learn how to bring up this wave of elated energy without the physical reaction of goosebumps, feel it throughout your body, and increase its duration, just like many others have succeeded in doing.
This ablity has been researched and documented under many names, by different people and cultures such as Bioelectricity, Life force, Prana, Chi, Qi, Runner's High, Euphoria, ASMR, Ecstasy, Orgone, Rapture, Tension, Aura, Mana, Vayus, Nen, Intent, Tummo, Odic force, Kriyas, Pitī, Frisson, Ruah, Spiritual Energy, Secret Fire, The Tingles, on-demand quickening, Voluntary Piloerection, Aether, Chills, Spiritual Chills and many more to be discovered hopefully with your help.
If you're interested, here are three written tutorials with concise descriptions on how to control this for your own benefit.
If not then I've put enough information for you to research this topic, develop this ability and bring in new techniques to the world.
P.S. Everyone feels it at certain points in their life, some brush it off while others notice that there is something much deeper going on. Those are exactly the people you can find on the subreddit community Spiritualchills where they share experiences, knowledge and tips on it.

(alternatively, a writeup on the real-world geopolitical influences on Gravity Rush 2)
I've been thinking about Gravity Rush 2 a lot; I was watching someone play through it again when I noticed Jirga Para Lhao's political centre is called Dourwa Hiraleon.
"Dourwa Hiraleon? Like Hekseville's Neu Hiraleon?"
Correct! Except...Hekseville and Jirga Para Lhao exist in different dimensions, have no contact until late into the events of GR2, and exist in different dimensions. What's up with that?

WELL

Hekseville I mean. We all know it's basically "France but also it's a little bit Japanese"
Jirga Para Lhao
Let's start with Jirga Para Lhao. As Lisa spells out during the main story, it was originally populated by the Lhao Tribe before they were invaded and taken over by the people who would go on to become The Council. Radale Memorial Park and Victor's Fountain all commemorate the defeat of the Lhao Tribe, too.
Jirga Para Lhao's influences lie in Mexico, South America and Southeast Asia - named as influences here and here, and you can even see it in the vibe. The markets have been noted to resemble the kind of food markets you'd see in Thailand, the outer areas of Lei Colmosna look a little like Cuba, and if you look at the fruit in the markets, you'll see southeast Asian fruits like certain mangoes, and ESPECIALLY durians. (I also get a Singaporean vibe from Tritower but I'm less sure on that one)
Culinary Influences
There's only one scene in which we see The Council dining:
ID: A screenshot of The Council from Gravity Rush 2, depicted in an ingame panel sat around a table with bottles of wine and plates of mostly-finished food.
They're sat drinking wine and eating what's likely bread rolls - I did think oranges but they have knives and forks and no peels are visible. In the story Kat sneaks onto the Bismalia on a wine transport, so wine seems to be more popular in the upper classes, and especially The Council. Bread and wine, as well as those as the centrepiece of dining is fairly French, right? But, Jirga Para Lhao isn't really a French place. There's more too!
There's
ID: A drawn panel from Gravity Rush 2, depicting a feast, including a salad, some kind of stew, an orange peeled fruit, bread rolls and butter, and a bowl of what appears to be mashed potato with shallots.
Mashed potato (?) and bread rolls from the Banga feast as well as what appear to be cherry tomatoes,
ID: Kat in her casual clothing, eating a croissant as she walks through Banga settlement.
as well as Kat eating a croissant. All of these appear to be very French influences on the food of Jirga Para Lhao. You see where I'm going with this, right? Potatoes, bread and wine feature a lot in French cuisine, but...not really that much in Southeast Asian cuisines (potatoes and bread yes for some South American and Mexican cuisines, but not usually as mashed potatoes, and wine still not really, and croissants also only in France)
Real World Influences
While South America was subject to Spanish colonial influences, I'm going to be focusing on Southeast Asia, which was notably subject to French colonial influence. You don't need many details, just that France used to control several countries in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam (mentioned in one of the links above) and Laos.
Laos, located between Thailand and Vietnam is primarily populated by the Lao people.
"Lao? Sounds like-"

YEP

The Lhao people. The Lao people have had more struggles than French colonialism, but you can only fit so much political history into one game. Its interactions with Thailand and Vietnam fall outside of the influence of this theory, so that's another story. The Lhao, like the Lao, are an ethnic group who have had past struggles with colonisers.
Its mythology too!
ID: A Gravity Rush screenshot of Kat standing outside Auldnoir's fish statue near Karuwari Church
Auldnoir features a statue of a sacred fish said to contain the world in its belly - detailed in the GR2 Hekseville photo hints. The Sacred Gem being there shows it's of importance, too. But wait...
ID: A Gravity Rush 2 photo of Syd, Cecie, and some Garrison soldiers outside Dourwa Hiraleon's fish statue.
(Image taken from here) Dourwa Hiraleon ALSO has a statue of...a mythological fish said to contain the world in its belly. To be honest, this one's a little looser, as some cultures just tend to come up with mythological features independent of each other, like with dragons. But it helps! This could very well be imported mythology.
So let's finally get to the point - Hekseville is very obviously French-influenced place as is its cuisine, and Jirga Para Lhao is very Southeast Asia-influence, among ohers. Their real world analogues have had interactions with each other, and if the Lao / Lhao analogue is real, then things really are that on-the-nose - it's likely that the first Council, the people who first invaded Jirga Para Lhao, are from Hekseville.
The pieces are all there - real-world analogue, culinary influence, especially being strongest at the people closest to the source, mythological influence, and especially the Hiraleon loanword - the people who speak a language where "Neu Hiraleon" would name their next political centre with the same naming convention, right? Not to mention their colonialist overtones, what with the way they treat the people of Jirga Para Lhao as a tool, something to be subjugated more than people to treat well (see: the conscription later on in the Jirga Para Lhao chapter)
Extra question: How did they get there?
i don't know. maybe they flew through a gravity storm or something? sorry no clue

=BACKGROUND=

Bornholm Cleepoyish ⟨Klippöisk ut Klippäuji⟩ /ˈklɪpœɪ̯sk ʊt ˈklɪpɛʏ̯jɪ/ (lit. "Cleepoyish of Cleepoy") is a Germanic language spoken in, you guessed it, Bornholm (or "Cleepoy" in-world), with the other variety being spoken in Rügen. Both Bornholm & Rügen Cleepoyish descend from Old Cleepoyish, which in turn descends directly from Proto-Germanic (albeit eastern- & northern-leaning).

=PHONOLOGY=

Consonants	(Bi-)Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	/m/		/n/		/ŋ/
Plosive	/p/ /b/		/t/ /d/	/c/ /ɟ/	/k/ /ɡ/
Fricative	/ɸ/ /β/	/θ/ /ð/	/s/ /z/	/ʃ/	/ʍ/	/h/
Affricate	(/p͡ɸ/)		(/t͡s/)	/c͡ç/ (/ɟ͡ʝ/)
Trill/Tap			/r/
Approximant			/l/	/j/	/w/

• /m n z l j w/ may be geminated.
• a rising number of speaker de-affricate /c͡ç/ to /c/.
• /ɟ͡ʝ/ is a (now largely dated) allophone of /c͡ç/ either intervocalically or when spelled as ⟨gw⟩.
• /p͡ɸ t͡s/ appear only in loans from German like ⟨pferd⟩ & ⟨cart⟩.
• /r/ may either be:

1. a tap /ɾ/, which is the most common
2. a trill /r/, less common but not rare
3. vocalic /ɐ̯/, rare of Bornholm Cleepoyish (but not so much Rügen Cleepoyish).

Vowels	Front	Back
Close	/yː/	(/uː/)
Near-Close	/ɪ/ /ʏ/	/ʊ/
Close-Mid	/eː/ /øː/	/oː/
Open-Mid	/ɛ/ /œ/	/ɔ/ /ɔː/
Open	/æ/ /æː/	/a/ /aː/

• /uː/ only occurs in loanwords.

Diphthongs	/-ɪ̯/	/-ʏ̯/ - /-ʊ̯/
/ɛ-/	/ɛɪ̯/	/ɛʏ̯/
/œ-/	/œɪ̯/	/œʏ̯/
/ɔ-/	/ɔɪ̯/	/ɔʊ̯/

• /œɪ̯ ɔʊ̯/ tend to merge with /œʏ̯ ɔː/ respectively in fast speech.

=ORTHOGRAPHY=

The orthography is practically the Old Cleepoyish orthography with some modifications, which is why it's a historic mess:

Graph	IPA	Notes
a	/a/
ä	/ɛ/
ää	/æ/
äu	/ɛʏ̯/
å	/ɔ/	from historical /ɒ/. Doesn't exist in Rügen Cleepoyish
åå	/ɔː/	from historical /ɒː/. Doesn't exist in Rügen Cleepoyish
ą	/a/	from a historical long nasal vowel. There exists no phonological difference between ⟨a⟩ & ⟨ą⟩
b	/b/	/p/ syllable-finally
bb	/bb/	/p/ syllable-finally
c	/t͡s/	likely taken from German
ch	/ʃ/	Used in nonnative words. Possibly comes from either French ⟨ch⟩ or German ⟨ch⟩, since German words with /x/ would be transliterated with /ʃ/
d	/d/	/t/ syllable-finally
dd	/ɟ/	from historical /dʲː/. /c/ syllable-finally. Causes fronting of the following vowel
dj	/ɟ/	from historical /dj-/. Causes fronting of the following vowel
ð	/ð/	/θ/ syllable-finally. There appears to be a general trend of ⟨þ⟩ word-initially & ⟨ð⟩ everywhere else, but said trend is broken by words like ⟨quiþo⟩. Doesn't exist in Rügen Cleepoyish
e	/ɛ/
ee	/æː/
eu	/jɔ/	from historical /jo/
eü	/jœ/	from historical /jø/
ę	/æ/	from a historical long nasal vowel.
f	/ɸ/
g	/j/, /w/	depends depends on the surrounding vowels. May form diphthongs with nearby monophthongs
gg	/ɟ/	from historical /ɡʲː/. /c/ syllable-finally. Causes fronting of the following vowel
gw	/c͡ç/	may be realized as /ɟ͡ʝ/ instead
h	/h/, /Ø/	not pronounced word-initially or -finally
hw	/ʍ/
i	/ɪ/
ii	/ɛɪ̯/
į	/eː/	from a historical long nasal vowel.
j	/j/	not pronounced when preceded by a diphthong syllable-finally
jj	/jː/
k	/k/, /ʃ/	/ɡ/ inter-vocalically, /ʃ/ when preceded or succeeded by a front vowel
kk	/c/, /ʃ/	from historical /kʲː/, causes fronting of the following vowel. /ʃ/ when preceded or succeeded by a front vowel.
l	/l/
ll	/lː/
m	/m/
mm	/mː/
n	/n/
nn	/nː/
o	/ɔ/
oo	/aː/
oy	/ɔʊ̯/	from historical /ɔy/
ǫ	/aː/	from a historical long nasal vowel.
ö	/œ/
öö	/æː/
öi	/œɪ̯/
öu	/œʏ̯/
ǫ̈	/æː/	from a historical long nasal vowel.
p	/p/	/b/ inter-vocalically
pp	/p/
qu	/c͡ç/
r	/r/
s	/s/
sk	/sk/, /ʃ/	/ʃ/ when succeeded by a front vowel, /sk/ otherwise
t	/t/	/d/ inter-vocalically
tt	/c/	from historical /tʲː/. Causes fronting of the following vowel
þ	/θ/	/ð/ inter-vocalically. There appears to be a general trend of ⟨þ⟩ word-initially & ⟨ð⟩ everywhere else, but said trend is broken by words like ⟨boþel⟩. Doesn't exist in Rügen Cleepoyish
u	/ʊ/	from historical ⟨uu⟩ /u/. Spelt ⟨uu⟩ in Rügen Cleepoyish
uu	/uː/	modern innovation
ù	/ɔ/	from historical ⟨u⟩ /o/. Doesn't exist in Rügen Cleepoyish
ų	/oː/	from a historical long nasal vowel.
ü	/œ/	from historical ⟨ue⟩ /ø/.
üü	/yː/	modern innovation
ų̈	/øː/	from a historical long nasal vowel.
ů	/ɔː/	from historical ⟨ou⟩ /ɔʊ̯/
v	/β/	/ɸ/ syllable-finally
w	/w/	not pronounced when preceded by a diphthong syllable-finally
x	/ks/	surprisingly used in native words like ⟨box⟩ & ⟨milx⟩
y	/ʏ/
yy	/œʏ̯/
z	/z/	/s/ syllable-finally
zz	/zː/	/s(ː)/ syllable-finally

=GRAMMAR=

Bornholm Cleepoyish Grammar is what you'd expect of an average Germanic language, with some notable differences (like the full deletion of the genitive in all its forms for example).
==PRONOUNS==
Cleepoyish pronouns retain the gendered 3rd person pronouns, unlike most other Germanic languages.

Singular Pronouns	1st person	2nd person	3rd person masculine	3rd person feminine	3rd person neuter
Nominative	ik /ɪʃ/	þu /θʊ/	hiz /ɪs/	hjo /jɔ/	hit /ɪt/
Accusative	mik /mɪʃ/	þik /θɪʃ/	hyn /ʏn/	hjo /jɔ/	hit /ɪt/
Dative	miz /mɪs/	þiz /θɪs/	hiz /ɪs/	hiz /ɪs/	hiz /ɪs/
Rügen Genitive	miin /mɛɪ̯n/	þiin /θɛɪ̯n/	hym /ʏm/	hyz /ʏs/	hyz /ʏs/

Plural Pronouns	1st person	2nd person	3rd person masculine	3rd person feminine	3rd person neuter
Nominative	wiiz /wɛɪ̯s/	jiiz /jɛɪs/	þoi /θɔɪ̯/	þooz /θaːs/	þo /θɔ/
Accusative	ųz /oːs/	swiz /swɪs/	þoz /θɔs/	þoz /θɔs/	þo /θɔ/
Dative	ųz /oːs/	swiz /swɪs/	þoiz /θɔɪ̯s/	þoiz /θɔɪ̯s/	þoiz /θɔɪ̯s/
Rügen Genitive	ųser /ˈoːsɛ	swir /swɪ	þan /θan/	þan /θan/	þan /θan/

The Rügen Genitive is imported from Rügen Cleepoyish and is only used in poetry, never in day-to-day life.
==NOUNS==
Nouns decline for case & number, across two paradigms: z-stems (those that form nom/acc plurals with -z) & n-stems (those that form nom/acc plurals with -n)
===Z-Stems===
Z-stem nouns are further split into 4 substems: o-, i-, oo-, and weak-substems:
o-substem nouns are the most common, and are what modern loanwords are classified into. They form a nom/acc plural with -oz and feature umlauting in the dative singular (except in loanwords):

o-substem, Wùlv (Wolf)	Singular	Plural
Nominative/Accusative	wùlv /wɔlɸ/	wùlvoz /ˈwɔlβɔs/
Dative	wülvi /ˈwœlβɪ/	wùlvom /ˈwɔlβɔm/

i-substem nouns are similar to o-substem nouns, except they form a nom/acc plural with -iz. Historically, they featured umlauting in both the dative singular and the nom/acc plural, which later caused the umlaut to standardize across the whole paradigm:

i-substem, Häið (Thing)	Singular	Plural
Nominative/Accusative	häið /ɛɪ̯θ/	häiðiz /ˈɛɪ̯ðɪs/
Dative	häiði /ˈɛɪ̯ðɪ/	häiðom /ˈɛɪ̯ðɔm/

[Obsolete] i-substem, Häið (Thing)	Singular	Plural
Nominative/Accusative	hoið /ɔɪ̯θ/	häiðiz /ˈɛɪ̯ðɪs/
Dative	häiði /ˈɛɪ̯ðɪ/	hoiðom /ˈɔɪ̯ðɔm/

oo-substem nouns form a nom/acc plural with -ooz, and don't feature umlauting. oo-substem nouns characteristically end with -o:

oo-substem, Skuro (Storm)	Singular	Plural
Nominative/Accusative	skuro /ˈskʊrɔ/	skurooz /ˈskʊraːs/
Dative	skuro /ˈskʊrɔ/	skurom /ˈskʊrɔm/

weak-substem nouns, as indicated by their name, merge all non nom/acc singular forms:

weak-substem, Låmb (Lamb)	Singular	Plural
Nominative/Accusative	låmb /lɔmp/	lämbiz /ˈlɛmbɪs/
Dative	lämbiz /ˈlɛmbɪs/	lämbiz /ˈlɛmbɪs/

...though sometimes a dative plural ending with -im or -om is used to avoid ambiguity.
===N-Stems===
N-stem nouns are split into only 2 substems: o- and oo-substems:
o-substem nouns form a nom/acc plural with -on and don't feature umlauting:

oo-substem, Tùng (Tongue)	Singular	Plural
Nominative/Accusative	tùng /tɔŋ/	tùngon /ˈtɔŋɔn/
Dative	tùngon /ˈtɔŋɔn/	tùngom /ˈtɔŋɔm/

oo-substem nouns also form a nom/acc plural with -on, but are characterized by ending with -oo and umlauting in the dative singular:

oo-substem, Ůgoo (Eye)	Singular	Plural
Nominative/Accusative	ůgoo /ˈɔːwa(ː)/	ůgon /ˈɔːwɔn/
Dative	äugin /ˈɛʏjɪn/	ůgom /ˈɔːwɔm/

===Possession===
Possession is formed with the preposition ut /ʊt/ and the dative:

«Þooz bokoz ut miz» /θaːs ˈbɔɡɔs ʊt mɪs/
"My books" (li. "The books of me")

In the case of double possession with a pronoun, the second ut gets dropped:

«Þot boþel ut fäðri miz» /θɔt ˈbɔðɛl ʊt ˈɸɛðrɪ mɪs/ instead of «Þot boþel ut fäðri ut miz»
"My father's house" (lit. "The house of father (of) me")

===Articles===
The indefinite article is either oi (before consonants) of oin (before vowels). The definite article is declined for case, number, and gender:

Definite Article	Singular Masculine	Singular Feminine	Singular Neuter	Plural Masculine	Plural Feminine	Plural Neuter
Nominative	þo /θɔ/	þo /θɔ/	þot /θɔt/	þoi /θɔɪ̯/	þooz /θaːs/	þo /θɔ/
Accusative	þo /θɔ/	þo /θɔ/	þot /θɔt/	þoz /θɔs/	þoz /θɔs/	þo /θɔ/
Dative	þii /θɛɪ̯/	þii /θɛɪ̯/	þii /θɛɪ̯/	þoiz /θɔɪ̯s/	þoiz /θɔɪ̯s/	þoiz /θɔɪ̯s/

==ADJECTIVES==
Adjectives have a strong and a weak paradigm:

Strong Paradigm, Sąð (True)	Singular Masculine	Singular Feminine	Singular Neuter	Plural
Nominative/Accusative	sąð /saθ/	sąð /saθ/	sąð /saθ/	sąðooz /ˈsaðaːs/
Dative	sąðåm /ˈsaðɔm/	sąðån /ˈsaðɔn/	sąðyz /ˈsaðʏs/	sąðoim /ˈsaðɔɪ̯m/
Rügen Genitive	sąðyz /ˈsaðʏs/	sąðyz /ˈsaðʏs/	sąðyz /ˈsaðʏs/	sąðoiz /ˈsaðɔɪ̯s/

Weak Paradigm, Sąð (True)	Singular	Plural
Nominative	sąð /saθ/	sąðån /ˈsaðɔn/
Acc/Dat/R.Gen	sąðån /ˈsaðɔn/	sąðåm /ˈsaðɔm/

==VERBS==
Cleepoyish word order is strictly SVO, with undeclined verbs directly following their auxiliaries. The conjugation is what you'd expect from a Germanic language, except the retainment of the present subjunctive:
===Weak verbs===

Indicative Conjugation, Mürgo (to Forget)	Present	Preterite
1 sg	mürgi /ˈmœrjɪ/	mürgyði /ˈmœrwʏðɪ/
2 sg	mürgez /ˈmœrjɛs/	mürgyðez /ˈmœrwʏðɛs/
3 sg	mürgeð /ˈmœrjɛθ/	mürgyði /ˈmœrwʏðɪ/
1 pl	mürgem /ˈmœrjɛm/	mürgyðem /ˈmœrwʏðɛm/
2 pl	mürgeð /ˈmœrjɛθ/	mürgyðeð /ˈmœrwʏðɛθ/
3 pl	mürgen /ˈmœrjɛn/	mürgyðen /ˈmœrwʏðɛn/

Subjunctive Conjugation, Mürgo (to Forget)	Present	Preterite
1 sg	mürgii /ˈmœrjɛɪ̯/	mürgyðį /ˈmœrwʏðeː/
2 sg	mürgiiz /ˈmœrjɛɪ̯s/	mürgyðiiz /ˈmœrwʏðɛɪ̯s/
3 sg	mürgii /ˈmœrjɛɪ̯/	mürgyðį /ˈmœrwʏðeː/
1 pl	mürgiim /ˈmœrjɛɪ̯m/	mürgyðiim /ˈmœrwʏðɛɪ̯m/
2 pl	mürgiið /ˈmœrjɛɪ̯θ/	mürgyðiið /ˈmœrwʏðɛɪ̯θ/
3 pl	mürgiin /ˈmœrjɛɪ̯n/	mürgyðiin /ˈmœrwʏðɛɪ̯n/

Non-finite forms, Mürgo (to Forget)	Present	Past
Participle	mürgänd /ˈmœrjɛnt/	mürgyðǫz /ˈmœrwʏðaːs/

===Strong verbs===

Indicative Conjugation, Hilpo (to Help)	Present	Preterite
1 sg	hilpi /ˈɪlbɪ/	hålp /ˈɔlp/
2 sg	hilpez /ˈɪlbɛs/	hålpt /ˈɔlɸt/
3 sg	hilpeð /ˈɪlbɛθ/	hålp /ˈɔlp/
1 pl	hilpem /ˈɪlbɛm/	hùlp /ˈɔlp/
2 pl	hilpeð /ˈɪlbɛθ/	hùlp /ˈɔlp/
3 pl	hilpen /ˈɪlbɛn/	hùlp /ˈɔlp/

Subjunctive Conjugation, Hilpo (to Help)	Present	Preterite
1 sg	hilpii /ˈɪlbɛɪ̯/	hålpį /ˈɔlbeː/
2 sg	hilpiiz /ˈɪlbɛɪ̯s/	hålpiiz /ˈɔlbɛɪ̯s/
3 sg	hilpii /ˈɪlbɛɪ̯/	hålpį /ˈɔlbeː/
1 pl	hilpiim /ˈɪlbɛɪ̯m/	hùlpiim /ˈɔlbɛɪ̯m/
2 pl	hilpiið /ˈɪlbɛɪ̯θ/	hùlpiim /ˈɔlbɛɪ̯m/
3 pl	hilpiin /ˈɪlbɛɪ̯n/	hùlpiim /ˈɔlbɛɪ̯m/

Non-finite forms, Hilpo (to Help)	Present	Past
Participle	hilpänd /ˈɪlbɛnt/	hùlpǫz /ˈɔlbaːs/

The 7 Proto-Germanic strong classes evolved into 5 in Cleepoyish:

Class (Cleepoyish)	Corr-Class in PGr	Infinitive/Persent	Past sg	Past 2.sg	Past pl	Past Participle
I	I	skiino /ʃɛɪ̯nɔ/	skoin /skɔɪ̯n/	skoint /skɔɪ̯nt/	skin /ʃɪn/	skinǫz /ˈʃɪnaːs/
II	II	leugo /ˈljɔwɔ/	lůg /lɔː(w)/	lůt /lɔːt/	lùg /lɔʊ̯/	lùgǫz /ˈlɔwaːs/
III	III.b, IV	singo /ˈsɪŋɔ/	sång /sɔŋ/	sǫt /saːt/	sùng /sɔŋ/	sùngǫz /ˈsɔŋaːs/
IV	V, V-j	quimo /ˈc͡çɪmɔ/	kom /kɔm/	kǫt /kaːt/	quem /c͡çɛm/	quemǫz /ˈc͡çɛmaːs/
Irregular	VII	fąho /ˈɸahɔ/	fęh /ˈɸæ(ː)/	fęt /ˈɸæ(ː)t/	fęh /ˈɸæ(ː)/	fąhǫz /ˈɸahaːs/

===Auxiliary Verbs===
There are 3 auxiliary verbs relating to tense & aspect:

1. håvo: one of the two auxiliaries to form perfect & pluperfect aspects.
2. beu: copulative (but separate from soy which is the main copula); one of the two auxiliaries to form perfect & pluperfect aspects. Also the passive auxiliary. Also the future auxiliary
3. wirþo: an uncommon variant of beu. Commonly used for the future perfect and passive construction (wherein beu would serve as the future auxiliary)

Indicative Conjugation, Håvo (to Have; auxiliary)	Present	Preterite
1 sg	håvi /ˈɔβɪ/	hädd /æc/
2 sg	håvez /ˈɔβɛs/	häddez /ˈæɟɛs/
3 sg	håveð /ˈɔβɛθ/	hädd /æc/
1 pl	håvem /ˈɔβɛm/	häddem /ˈæɟɛm/
2 pl	håveð /ˈɔβɛθ/	häddeð /ˈæɟɛθ/
3 pl	håven /ˈɔβɛn/	hädden /ˈæɟɛn/

Indicative Conjugation, Beu (to Be; auxiliary)	Present	Preterite
1 sg	beum /bjɔm/	wåz /wɔs/
2 sg	beuz /bjɔs/	wåst /wɔst/
3 sg	beuð /bjɔθ/	wåz /wɔs/
1 pl	beum /bjɔm/	wezem /ˈwɛzɛm/
2 pl	beuð /bjɔθ/	wezeð /ˈwɛzɛθ/
3 pl	beun /bjɔn/	wezen /ˈwɛzɛn/

Indicative Conjugation, Soy (to Be; non-auxiliary)	Present	Preterite
1 sg	im /ɪm/	wåz /wɔs/
2 sg	iz /ɪs/	wåst /wɔst/
3 sg	ist /ɪst/	wåz /wɔs/
1 pl	izym /ˈɪzʏm/	wezem /ˈwɛzɛm/
2 pl	izyð /ˈizʏθ/	wezeð /ˈwɛzɛθ/
3 pl	sin /sɪn/	wezen /ˈwɛzɛn/

Indicative Conjugation, Wirþo (to Become; auxiliary)	Present	Preterite
1 sg	wirþi /ˈwɪrðɪ/	wårþ /wɔrθ/
2 sg	wirþez /ˈwɪrðɛs/	wårst /wɔrst/
3 sg	wirþeð /ˈwɪrðɛθ/	wårþ /wɔrθ/
1 pl	wirþem /ˈwɪrðɛm/	wùrþ /wɔrθ/
2 pl	wirþeð /ˈwɪrðɛθ/	wùrþ /wɔrθ/
3 pl	wirþen /ˈwɪrðɛn/	wùrþ /wɔrθ/

=TRANSLATIONS=

==THE COLD WINTER IS NEAR==
«Þo kåld wintyr ist nee, oi snäiwinskuro beuð quimo. Quim in þot hoitån boþel ut miz, wįrin. Wylkym! Quim wårð, sing jåå dǫz, it jåå drink. Sů ist þot plan ut miz. Wiiz håvem wåtor, ålùð jåå milx, frisk fån þii kǫ̈. Ah, jåå hoit sùpoo!»

/θɔ kɔlt ˈwɪndʏr ɪst næː ɔɪ̯ ˈsnɛɪ̯wɪnˌskʊrɔ bjɔθ ˈc͡çɪmɔ/
/c͡çɪm ɪn θɔt ˈɔɪ̯dɔn ˈbɔðɛl ʊt mɪs ˈweːrɪn ˈwʏlʃʏm/
/c͡çɪm wɔrθ sɪŋ jɔ(ː) daːs ɪt jɔ(ː) drɪŋk/
/sɔː ɪst θɔt plan ʊt mɪs/
/wɛɪ̯s ˈɔβɛm ˈwɔdɔr ˈɔlɔθ jɔ(ː) mɪlks ɸrɪsk ɸɔn θɛɪ̯ kæː/
/aː jɔ(ː) ɔɪ̯t ˈsɔbaː/

Have you ever felt chills from good stimuli?
That ability can be learned to be activated with just the elated feeling, whenever you want, without any stimuli.
That's not why I claim that it is a secret being hidden from us, though.
The ability to activate this is your golden ticket, which is being swept under the rug as something unconscious and unimportant. With info on this purposely being spread as an ability available only to a few; however, it is one of the only things that every single human can access, regardless of their physical abilities or conditions.
Why is information on this being manipulated? Let's see.
Ever felt overwhelmed by stress or anxiety? This ability is a switch to manually induce the release of positive hormones.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-12135590
Just imagine how being able to use it when feeling overwhelmed could benefit you.
Don't believe me? In the eastern part of the world, Tibetan Monks know about this ability and use it differently. You can find more information on this in this Harvard "Tummo" experiment.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2002/04/meditation-changes-temperatures/
"During meditation, the monk's body produces enough heat to dry cold, wet sheets put over his shoulders in a frigid room."
Since our internal body temperature is regulated by the hypothalamus, the same part of our brain that deals with positive hormone release, this proves that this ability can be used to consciously activate your positive hormones.
Ever wanted to travel virtually in an instant? People who astral project or have out-of-body experiences use this ability to trigger the "Vibrational state" right before the "take off."
https://en.iipc.org/vibrational-state/
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of what you can use this ability for. In fear that my post won't be read, I won't write a book here about all the incredible things that we can do by being able to consciously activate this ability.
For now just understand that many different cultures observed this occurrence thousands of years before the Western new world became aware of it, and their discoveries did not stop at simply recognizing it as a physical response to music.
Eventually, you can learn how to bring up this wave of elated energy without the physical reaction of goosebumps, feel it throughout your body, and increase its duration, just like many others have succeeded in doing.
This ablity has been researched and documented under many names, by different people and cultures such as Bioelectricity, Life force, Prana, Chi, Qi, Runner's High, Euphoria, ASMR, Ecstasy, Orgone, Rapture, Tension, Aura, Mana, Vayus, Nen, Intent, Tummo, Odic force, Kriyas, Pitī, Frisson, Ruah, Spiritual Energy, Secret Fire, The Tingles, on-demand quickening, Voluntary Piloerection, Aether, Chills, Spiritual Chills and many more to be discovered hopefully with your help.
If you're interested, here are three written tutorials with concise descriptions on how to control this for your own benefit.
If not then I've put enough information for you to research this topic, develop this ability and bring in new techniques to the world.
P.S. Everyone feels it at certain points in their life, some brush it off while others notice that there is something much deeper going on. Those are exactly the people you can find on the subreddit community where they share experiences, knowledge and tips on it.

Last year, when my ten year prison "stint" was finally up, and I re-entered society, I encountered some... obstacles.
Obstacles like.. Lack of upward mobility. Prejudices and stigmas. Wages and earnings lower than the general population. Undesirable and oftentimes dangerous jobs. And lack of protection from wrongful termination.
Not to mention, an already tough job market, and the fact that my parole required that I maintain steady employment, or face re-incarceration.
Which is why, when I finally got a job offer, after six months of aggressive job hunting, I jumped at the opportunity, giving absolutely no fucks as to how I was actually making ends meet.
"Ever operate a freight elevator before?" Mr. Winfred, the manager of "The Cornelius" and my new boss, asked me my first day on the job.
"No, sir." I replied honestly, as I ran my fingers along the doors of the antiquated contraption, the only remaining evidence of the recently renovated luxury building's ancient past.
"Normally these old things aren't used for passengers, but the building's pretentious designers thought it might add a certain charm to its otherwise sterile decor. Which is where you come in." He continued, as I heard him slide open the freight elevator's outside doors...
SLAM!
...Followed by its scissored metal inside doors.
SCREEEECH!
I heard Mr. Winfred step inside and, using my cane, scanned the interior of the rather large elevator, which must have been eight feet by eight feet, and followed him in.
Instantly, my nose was hit with an overpowering, musty scent, like the kind you'd smell in a basement, combined with your grandmother's attic.
He then closed both doors behind us.
SLAM!
SCREEEECH!
"Now this here." Mr Winfred added, taking my hand and placing it on the handle of a lever, "Is how you move the elevator from floor to floor. Up for up. Down for down. You'll hear a click when you reach each floor, which will be helpful for someone like yourself." He said, clearly calling attention to the fact that I'm blind.
Someone like myself? I scoffed internally. You ignorant, entitled piece of shit.
Truth is, I've always had a bit of a short fuse. Which I guess, looking back on it, is what got me into prison in the first place.
But in my ten years of incarceration, I was given tools to combat my anger issues. Tools like reminding myself that it was nothing new. Assholes like him were always dropping unintentional microaggressions. It had been something I'd grown used to, and given my probation, wasn't a battle worth fighting.
"Yes sir." I replied through my teeth, as I begrudgingly swallowed my pride.
"Now, why don't you spend today practicing. Our first residents don't move in until tomorrow."
—
In just a matter of a week or so, as the doors of "The Cornelius" opened to its new tenants, I learned pretty much everything I needed to know about the job.
Said tenants were rich. Very rich. And most of them acted as such. Entitled. Obnoxious. Holier than thou. Especially given my own social class. But a few of them weren't so bad, and tipped well.
Mr. Winfred's assistant, Jane, was a lovely human being. Patient, kind, thoughtful, understanding. Especially when compared to both the building's uptight residents, and Mr. Winfred himself. It had been years since I had dated, and the very thought of meeting a partner stressed me out to no end, but if I was to find someone, I hoped she'd be like Jane.
The elevator didn't open on the basement level. As I'd learned countless times, it was possible to go there, but the doors simply wouldn't open.
The old freight itself was finicky as fuck. Stop the lever one second too early, or one second too late, and when the doors open, you're halfway between a floor. But eventually, I got used to it, to the point where most of the building's tenants assumed the role of freight operator had always been my job. And when you're good at your service job, and do it with a smile on your face, the tips start flowing.
And so, all was well for the first couple weeks on the job...
...A seemingly refreshing return to normalcy, after ten long years...
...Until...
...The disappearances started happening.
—
I was just arriving to work one day, when I heard about the first disappearance.
"Have you seen - I mean, have you been in contact with Elizabeth Davis? From room 401?" Mr. Winfred asked, after correcting himself. Something he did often, which continued to annoy me.
"Um." I replied, unsure of where he was going with the question. "Not since yesterday. She got back from work, and I brought her up to the fourth floor. But come to think of it, I don't think she rode the elevator down this morning. Like she usually does."
"Interesting." My boss replied, before continuing. "She disappeared yesterday."
"Disappeared?" I asked.
"Yeah, husband said she never came home last night."
"Hmm. Well I know for certain that I brought her to the fourth floor. Did you check the hallway surveillance footage?"
"Not yet. Unfortunately the building inspector's in today, and I won't have time until tomorrow. Let's hope she just went somewhere, or got lost. In the meantime, keep an eye out - I mean - just, let me know if you hear of anything suspicious."
"Yes sir," I replied, once again resisting the urge to snap on him, before heading for the elevator, where I started the day's shift.
SLAM!
SCREEEECH!
That day, I did my best to do as Mr. Winfred had asked, and listened carefully for any signs of mischief.
But the day went on, business as usual and by the end of the day, I hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary...
...Except... The only thing of note was a difference in Mr. Lawrence's demeanor. The tenant of room 805, he was a salesman, and acted like one. When I say the man could talk, the man could talk. To a point where whenever he was a passenger in the old freight elevator, despite the long ride from floor one to floor eight, I'd rarely have a chance to get a word in.
But this time... was different. This time, Mr. Lawrence entered the elevator chatting away, just as he always did. But about halfway up, he just... stopped talking. And the thing about my job is, if someone chooses to talk or not talk, it's their decision, and none of my business. So I left him alone, and when we reached the eighth floor, I simply said goodnight. To which, he didn't reply.
Must be going through something. I thought to myself, having been unable to truly get a sense of his composure, without being able to see him, before closing the double doors and heading off to help the next passenger.
SLAM!
SCREEEECH!
—
Later that night, Mr. Winfred called me into his office, and asked me to take a seat beside his assistant, Jane.
"Mr. Owens. Are you aware of the situation that's going on in the building?" He asked, in an interrogating tone.
"Um... yes, you told me about it yesterday. The disappearance, sir." I replied.
"Disappearances now. Plural." He said sternly.
"But... who else?" I asked.
"Mr. Lawrence."
"What happened to him?"
"Well, to be honest, I was hoping you could tell me. Cause much like Ms.Davis, the last place he was seen was going into your elevator."
"What about the cameras in the hallways?"
"I'm afraid that after reviewing the tapes, after stepping into your elevator, neither Ms. Davis, or Mr Lawrence, ever stepped out."
"But that's... not... possible."
"Mr. Owens. I'm going to give you an opportunity. Is there anything you want to tell me? I know you have a sordid past."
"Mr. Winfred!" Jane interjected, clearly offended by his words, and implications.
"Quiet, Jane." He scolded, before continuing. "Answer the question, Mr. Owens."
I didn't know what to say. I was so shocked, so flustered, by what he was implying, that I simply froze.
"Mr. Owens!" He screamed.
"I... I... don't know!" I cried out, as I heard Jane squirm in her seat. "I'm telling you, the last time I heard from either of them, I took them up to their floors. But I'm-"
"You're what! Blind?"
"Well, yes sir. I don't see what goes on inside the elevator. I just let them on and off."
"Mr. Owens. If they got on your elevator, and never got off, where could they possibly have gone?"
"I... don't... know." I replied, at this point, wanting to grab him by force, demand that he never speak to me that way again, and scream out my innocence. But my next parole appointment was the following week, so once again, all I could do was just bite my tongue.
Mr. Winfred paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and regained his composure.
"Mr. Owens, I could go to the police now. And that would be very bad for someone like you."
Fuck. He's right. I thought to myself, realizing, that if he went to the police, and I was even remotely suspected of what was going on in the building, it was back to prison for me.
"But lucky for you," He continued, "There are things going on in the building that I wouldn't want to bring unwanted attention to. And for that reason, I have decided not to go to the police... yet. But consider this a warning. And know, that I have a repairman coming first thing tomorrow morning to install a security camera inside the freight elevator, so I can see what exactly it is that you're doing in there."
I had know idea how to react to Mr. Winfred's continued accusations. So I simply remained silent.
"Now get out of here and go home! We'll reconvene on this tomorrow." He said dismissively, before Jane walked me out of the room, down the hall, and outside the building, where I planned to return home for the night.
—
Fifteen minutes later, we were at a bar down the street, where Jane apparently frequented.
"But where could they possibly have gone?" I asked her, my hands trembling at both the thought of people disappearing in the elevator, and that it was happening under my watch.
"Thing is," Jane said, as she finished her beer. "There's something you should know about the building."
""The Cornelius"?"
"No, from before it was called that. It used to be a factory of some kind."
"Is that what Mr. Winfred was talking about when he said that there were things going on in the building? That he didn't want to bring unwanted attention to?"
"Well, yes and no. Yes, in a sense, that Mr. Winfred cut some corners, and rather than fully renovate the entire warehouse, he simply walled off entire sections of the old structure. Like the basement."
"And no?"
"No, in a sense, that even Mr. Winfred doesn't know what's really going on in the elevator. Sure, it'd be easy to pin it on you, especially with your criminal record - no offense... but even he knows that it's probably something... else."
"Something else?"
"See, that's where things get hazy. Because no one knows what exactly went on at the factory, before it became "The Cornelius." But rumors have it... it was laboratory of some kind, and some fucked up shit went on inside there."
"Like what?"
"That, my friend. I don't know. But what I do know is... I better be getting to bed."
"Fair enough. Well, thanks for the drink, and the support." I said with a smile, as we made our way out of the bar.
"Yeah, don't let Mr. Winfred get to you. And try not to worry too much."
—
Contrary to Jane's suggestion, that night I worried... a lot. About the disappearances, what might be causing them, whatever may have gone on in the factory, and most importantly, about everything getting pinned on me.
I couldn't fall asleep, tossing and turning in bed as my mind raced. And each time I finally passed out, I'd wake up in a panic attack, my heart pounding, short of breath and in a cold sweat.
But it didn't stop there. The uncomfortable feeling of terror and fear, accompanied by the vibrating sensation of adrenaline pumping through my body, remained well into the next morning, when I stepped back into the elevator, terrified by what might be going on inside there.
Please don't leave me alone in this fucking thing. I thought to myself.
And within a matter of minutes, my prayers were answered.
"How goes it?" The surveillance installation worker called out, his cheery disposition contrary to mine.
"Um... not too bad." I replied, lying through my teeth, as he stepped inside.
But after a minute or two of sharing the elevator with him, my fears lessened and my body relaxed, comforted by the positive conversation, and the metallic, clinking sounds of the installation.
Everything's okay. The doors are open. And he's talking. I thought to myself.
But eventually, the man finished installing the camera, and began wrapping up the job.
"Well, that's it! Camera's all installed and running now." He called out. "Let's just take the elevator for a spin and make sure we don't lose the signal."
"Yes, of course." I replied, before reaching for the double doors...
SLAM!
SCREEEECH!
..And moving the lever up.
We started moving.
"Fascinating job, I must say, elevator operator. But I suppose you could say the same for mine."
"Pays the bills." I replied, feigning a chuckle.
If he's here, and he's talking, then I'm safe. I continued to reassure myself.
But a few minutes into our ascent, just like Mr. Lawrence... the man... suddenly stopped talking.
"Alright, looks like it's working fine. We can head back down and-"
SILENCE.
"Hello?" I asked.
But he didn't respond.
Fuck. I thought to myself, realizing that whatever caused Ms. Davis, and Mr. Lawrence, and seemingly now the repairman to disappear, could still be in the elevator with me.
Standing there, shaking, sweat rolling down my brow, I backed myself into the corner of the elevator, as I reached for the lever, pressed it down, and the elevator began to make its descent back to the ground floor.
When I finally reached the lobby...
DING!
I scrambled to open the doors...
SLAM!
SCREEEECH!
...And darted out, gasping for air, expecting to find a safe haven.
But instead, all I heard was the sound of Mr. Winfred's voice. "Where is the repairman?"
—
A few minutes later, I was once again sitting in Mr. Winfred's office, next to Jane, this time attempting to explain what had happened.
"...And then he stopped talking! Just like Mr. Lawrence."
"You know what, Mr. Owens. I'm tired of your excuses. And now that we have a working camera in the elevator, it's time to find out what's really going on inside there." He threatened, as I heard him clicking away on his computer, clearly reviewing the footage.
"Please do!" I cried out, "I'm telling you, it's not me."
That's when... Mr. Winfred, and Jane, both went silent.
"Hello?" I called out, unable to see what was really going on. Given the fact that my passengers had recently been going silent, the thought crossed my mind that they too had disappeared, but I could still hear their breathing in the room. Breathing, that sounded like it was increasing rapidly...
...Until they broke the silence.
"Oh... my..." Jane said, struggling to catch her breath.
"That can't be. Let me rewind the tape." Mr. Winfred mumbled, the most scared I had ever heard him.
"What is it?" I asked, as they seemingly played back the video.
I would later find out from Jane that the footage would show myself and the repairman in the elevator, as a slithering, grotesque, humanoid figure, suddenly climbed down from the roof of the elevator, wrapped it's slimy arms around the repairman, then somehow hopped back out of the elevator, and pulled the man up with it. Leaving me standing there, completely unaware of what had just happened.
But in that moment, Mr. Winfred must have realized the... complications associated with reporting such a bizarre phenomenon, and instead decided to finally pin it on me.
"Mr. Owens, you shouldn't have done that!" He cried out.
"Mr. Winfred, what are you talking about?" Jane asked, "You and I just watched the same footage."
That's when I heard him drag a file to his computer's trash and delete it.
CRUNCH.
"Stay out of this, Jane. This man has killed three people in the elevator. I knew I shouldn't have hired an ex con!"
"But sir, I didn't-" I tried to reply, before he interrupted.
"Mr. Owens, I'm picking up the phone, and calling the police. I'd suggest you just stay put."
"But Mr. Winfred, I'm telling you, I didn't do anything!"
"Yes, is this 911? I'm the manager of "The Cornelius" and I'd like to report three murders in my building."
"We'd better go." I heard Jane say, as I felt her place her hand on my shoulder.
"And yes, I have reason to believe the killer is our elevator operator, an ex convict, who is sitting right in front of me."
"Come on, let's go!" Jane screamed, as she tugged at my shirt, I hopped up from my seat, and she led me out of the office, down the hall, and into... of all places... the old freight elevator, as she explained to me what she had seen on the surveillance tape.
—
SLAM!
SCREEEECH!
"Take us to the basement!" Jane called out.
"But the basement is walled off." I replied.
"Just do it!" She insisted, before I moved the lever down and the elevator began to move.
I spent the ride catching my breath, until we finally reached the basement level.
DING!
"Now what?" I asked.
But Jane didn't reply.
"Jane?"
Oh fuck. I thought to myself. The monster.
That's when I turned to the center of the freight elevator, where Jane had been standing, reached out into the unknown...
...And sure enough, felt the cold, slimy, skin of the creature, wrapped around Jane's face, preventing her from making a sound.
Not knowing what else to do, I gripped its disgusting appendages with both hands, and slowly pried it off Jane, as she let out a...
...SCREAM..
...And the monster's arm quickly slithered away, back up through the roof of the freight.
Jane dropped to the ground, coughing violently.
"You okay?" I asked her.
But rather than responding, she simply handed me something...
....I opened my fist, to find a pair of keys.
"The lock above the lever. Unlock it." She instructed, still coughing, as I felt around the lever, found the lock, inserted the key, and unlocked it.
CLICK.
"The doors. They should open now." Jane said, as she stood up, having finally caught her breath.
SCREEEECH!
SLAM!
—
We arrived in the dark basement to smell the same, musty odor from the freight elevator.
After her eyes adjusted and she scanned our surroundings, Jane informed me that this floor looked nothing like the other eight, newly renovated floors, with their modern feel and minimalistic designs.
Instead, the basement was a window into the building's former self, when it had been a factory. Its walls brick and crumbling, its floors concrete and cracked.
And scattered everywhere, were the dusty remnants of laboratory equipment. Devices, machines, tanks, most of which were destroyed, or disconnected, or both.
"What went on down here?" I asked.
"From the looks of it, something inhumane," Jane said, after she picked up a few tattered pieces of paper from one of the lab stations, and told me what was on it.
"The first page looks like some sort of a diagram, of a man being pumped with chemicals from tanks. And the second, a drawing... of the creature from the elevator. In pencil beside it, someone appears to have labeled it "The Silencer.""
Silencer. I thought to myself, before remembering that the creature seemed to always silence the sounds of its victims, and to have been repulsed by Jane's scream. At the same time, it had never bothered me in the elevator, as I tended to stand there in silence.
But before I could dwell too much on the thought, Jane interrupted.
"If you don't mind my asking. What did you go to prison for in the first place?" She asked.
"It's okay," I said, surprised she had waited this long to ask, before contemplating the best way to explain what had happened. "’Cause of my temper. Some guy was being a dick on the train platform. We got into a scuffle, and he accidentally fell into the tracks."
"Over what? Did he insult you? Your blindness?"
"No, I'm afraid not." I replied, "We were drunk... and arguing over... a basketball game, of all things. He was... my friend."
"Oh my God. I'm so sorry."
"It's okay."
Jane put her hand on my shoulder, and we stood there in silence for a moment...
...Until suddenly, we heard the sound of Mr. Winfred, and the police approaching, as they ran down what must have been a hidden set of stairs from the ground level to the basement.
"Come on, follow me!" Jane called out, as she took me by the hand and led me into what I'd soon discover was a labyrinthian network of old passages, while the police and Mr. Winfred both called out to us.
"This is the police! Put your hands on your head, and turn yourself in!"
"You're trapped, Mr. Owens! Just confess your crimes, and you'll simply go back to jail!"
We continued to run deeper and deeper into the passages, as our pursuers began to close in on us, their footsteps getting closer... and closer... and closer...
...Until suddenly, the sound of their footsteps was replaced by that of...
...SCREAMING...
...And they suddenly went...
...SILENT.
"What the?" Jane whispered.
"The creature." I whispered. "It must be down here."
That's when we hatched a plan.
—
Having found our way out of the labyrinth and back to the entrance of the laboratory, where we had arrived in the old freight elevator, I found myself standing alone, waiting, as I nervously tapped my cane on the basement floor, Jane having gone off on her own.
That's when I heard Mr. Winfred emerge from the passages, alone, and call out to me.
"Mr. Owens! There's nowhere to run! Even your beloved elevator is gone. You're cornered." He taunted, as I backed towards the elevator and tapped at it with my cane, its doors open, its shaft empty.
"What did you say?" I asked, encouraging him to talk louder.
"What are you, deaf now too?" The ignorant old man snapped back. "I said, you have nowhere to run!"
"I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me," I said sarcastically, pointing to my ears. "Can you repeat that again?"
That's when Mr. Winfred began approaching and screamed, "You worthless, ex con! I knew I shouldn't have hired you in the first place! And now, you'll go back to where you belong!"
But suddenly...
...Mr. Winfred went SILENT...
...As the creature must have wrapped its slimy tentacles around his face.
That's when I seized the opportunity, ran over to Mr. Winfred, gripped the cold body of the creature, which was indeed wrapped around him, turned, and flung them both behind me, into the hollow elevator shaft...
SLAM!
...Before hitting the "Up" button on the wall, and calling the freight elevator down.
Suddenly, the gears of the elevator above could be heard turning away, and the machine began its quick descent down.
"Mr. Owens, no!" Mr. Winfred cried out, clearly now separated from the creature.
I froze for a moment, as my mind raced back to the night of the tragic accident, when my friend called out to me from the train tracks, and I was unable to save him in time...
....Until I eventually snapped myself out of it, and willed myself to save Mr. Winfred, no matter how evil the asshole's intentions may have been, reaching out my hand out, and pulling him up and out of the elevator, just as the freight car came crash down to the basement level.
SLAM!
CRUNCH!
"RAAAAAAAARRRRR!" The slimy beast cried out, as it was crushed under the old elevator's weight.
DING!
The basement fell SILENT for a moment, until...
SCREEEECH!
SLAM!
...Jane stepped out and said, "Going up?"
But the joke was met was silence. I simply stood there, shaking, as Mr. Winfred did the same, clearly shocked by the events that had just occurred.
—
A few weeks later, after the authorities had done a full sweep of the basement, and cleared out all traces of the building' old laboratory, I found myself once again back in the manager's office.
"Mr. Owens. This is the last time I'm gonna tell you this!" Jane joked, as I heard her recline back in what was once Mr. Winfred's chair, having been named interim manager since her boss's recent and... ironic... prison sentencing.
"Who's the convict now?" I said with a smile, before making my way out of the office.
"Wait." Jane said, stopping me at the door. "You sure you want to go back to operating the elevator? After all that's happened? Like I said, the doorman job is yours if you want it."
"What's the worst that could happen?" I replied with a smile. "There's another one of those creatures in the building somewhere?"

Do I think she have the best chance to join smash bros? No especailly since sonic is around as much I don't like his presentation in smash bros but that doesn't stop me to hope about it, I am planning to do for carol and milla though not neera lee and why PJiggles video on octolinks will explain to you, I am doing it assuming either smash 6 will have the same physics as ultimate or of she join to ultimate deluxe type of deal, no smash 4, melee, brawl and whatnot without further ado:
Lilac will be the second fastest character in the game with a ground mobility of 1.3 times of captain falcon but in order to access it, she to gain enough momentum to pull it off, and she have very high mobility being 0.9 of yoshi's,
Compare to sonic she a far more rushdown based chacter, having a mix up playstyle of kung fu user and a ballerina type of moveset, being a brawler that have some swordie esque gameplay with her generally disjointed hitboxes which while slower than the avrage brawler make up for high damage without sacrifice too much speed and range.
Her main strengths come from her combo game, high mobility and balanced air physics, great recovery, and among the best shield pressures in the game.
Her main weaknesses are her survivability being the 6th lightest character in the game, mid air commands grabs can make her time harder, and while she not lacking in out of shield options from front and above behind is a different story with pancaking since her back air is somewhat narrow.
She will excel against charactera who have poor disadventage, lackluster recovery or short range like wolf, bayonetta, byleth, greninja, terry, and young link to name a few, and will struggle against characters who can stand up against her reach and speed like mythra, cloud, roy and meta knight with by far her worst matchup is sora for having, really most of the tools to counter her gameplay.
She have two jumps and would have the ability to wall jump.
Gimmicks:
1.Lilac her an energy meter that have 10 ticks to let the player know their state of how much they can use her specials, besides parried down special all of her specials are rely on the meter with neutral B can be used for 5 seconds, side B 10 times, up B will drain all if you allow it to get fully though you have a way to cancel before it all drained, and 2 times for down B.
2.lilac have a special technique called the parry jump or PJ for short, after parrying an attack she can jump while carrying the I frames of the parry allow her mix up to break out of disatventage and overall being less predictable with the main weakness it require a timing of 4 frames during a parry so you need to be ready, she can also cancel the PJ for another thing like a double jump, an air dodge, and attacking but she will lose the I frames in the process of choosing one of those options.

MAIORES. IV, CAL. IUNI. FORTUNA PRIMIGENIA.

This subject follows along from the general conclusion of infantilism, i.e. if we agree that infantilism exists in a culture that therefore all aspects of (such a culture) must be examined as to how they are impacted ‘by’ that infantilism, as: infantilism constitutes an undeveloped form of a thing; here (without covering absolutely every single aspect of it, as this could be a book in and of itself) we explore ‘sexual immaturity’ and its promulgation and consequences (of which we could easily make the case of the consequences as to be the cause of ‘all social ill’).
In an anthropological view; as if like we are looking at a chimpanzee colony, both procreation and familial-tribal child-raising takes place in our contemporary Western societies in a very clumsy sort of way; with the latter (i.e. the actual raising of children) not occurring at all, with the consequence of ‘arrested development’ – usually we would recognize and name it as that, if we ever thought very deeply about it:
However, the notion that all of this could be reduced to and fathomed as ‘sexual immaturity’ is an interesting (and unexplored) avenue to approach these matters from; certainly the act of actual procreation is deliberately accidental (I mean here in the contemporary West) in that a Woman does “not seek a mate” and then become pregnant, i.e. she does not even consider the sexual act to be procreative, rather: she accidentally becomes pregnant (“it was a miracle”), having beforehand and all throughout the duration and beyond it a culture which is far detached from the physical reality of things and thus a new human is created with no forethought for its care or provision and no security net in place to provide for it and ensure its prosperity and intelligent up-bringing, and increasingly there are fewer and fewer intelligent older persons around who are capable of providing the education and care for that child as would naturally exist in the large familial-tribal unit of an extended family where, historically, we all came from and of which is still the norm across much of the world (i.e. village elders who would otherwise raise the children up to be intelligent even if the Mother herself is too young to be a real parent - if we imagine as the species norm would be that most Women historically had their first child at around the age of fourteen or fifteen). Without, then, that familial-tribal unit to instruct and care for the child’s intellectual development and without either land to make a living from to provide for it's economic development then we find a cursed life, that is: a life far more difficult than it otherwise ought be had it been born in a more wisely chosen environment.
My point here is that ‘procreation’ is considered almost never at all by our society as being the most basic step in the creation and promulgation ‘of’ a tribal unit; with procreation itself being left down to blind chance and more often either legitimately accidentally or feigned accidently so as to attempt to cement a relationship (see: divorce and break-up rates in the West), either way this is the material circumstance into which children are born.
To say, then, that not grasping this reality ‘is’ itself a product of sexual immaturity; i.e. a Woman who does not understand what a new human is, seems to me to be far more of an accurate view of the thing than to declare it as ‘sexual immorality’ as it is usually insisted by the Abramic types, as: rather obviously it is ‘Sexual Immaturity’ rather than ‘Sexual Immorality’ that is the really cause of (the above scenario), that is: it is not Men and Women knowing too much about sex but of Men and Women knowing virtually nothing at all and therefore absent of a practice and familiarity necessary for Sexual Maturity, with Sexual Maturity itself being the very thing declared to be Immorality - an irreconcilable paradox.
It seems to me, then, that the habits we observe of ‘accidental pregnancy’ are the natural occurrence in such an unnatural society; that is: a consequence of misplaced moralism over the vital mechanical sexual functions of the human body (a thing which may well dominate and drive our unconsciousness entirely) have been rendered so alien to our expression and consideration but of which are so incessant and irrepressible; that sexual release is habitually denied, I mean here societally (i.e. “it is not polite”), and only finds ‘permission’ to appear in extreme drunkenness in fits of frenzy, and so on, so that when procreation actually occurs it is sporadic and neither at that moment nor before it was the adult rational mind involved – again, this is plainly a consequence of ‘sexual immaturity’ ‘before’ it could ever be said to be a consequence of ‘sexual immorality’.
It’s worth considering, of our own society in contemporary times, how far removed we are from most of the world which practices arrange marriages in one form or another (i.e. whether we are speaking of large tribal units or smaller family units) and what the consequence of this is on our own communities being absent of that; that is: the most fertile years of our lives are not spent having gotten procreation out of the way by having five or six children by the age of twenty or nineteen (so that when the child is fifteen you might be thirty, which seems to be the age where the sexual drive begins to dissipate or has anyway lost its novelty), and instead (i.e. without of being match-made far earlier in life) procreation instead occurs – if it does at all – accidentally and well-past the most fertile and healthy years, with such children being often quite sickly and the strain on the body being significantly more risky to the Mother (haphazardly enabled only then by massive external resources which would not have been required at all beforehand). I do not mean to seem as if I am advocating “having five or six children by the age of twenty or nineteen” only that in our natural environment this has always been the way of the thing due to natural sexual exploration when we are at that age.
At the same time, at the beginning and at the end of this “waste of time” (as I would say) of those most fertile years in which our sexuality is forbidden to us; that culture which we examine here as being simply Sexual Immaturity, it has been the case that that “Immaturity” persists well into later life by those afflicted adults who were forbidden to practise their natural sexuality when they were at the age where they wanted to, that is that the culture and mentality of such persons subjected to such restrictions quite demonstrably can be shown to have regressed them to the point that, as then as adults, they dress as children, speak and think as children, shun adult responsibility and seem altogether to have matured intellectually no further than the age of twelve or thirteen years, despite physiologically and neurologically having surpassed far beyond that early almost larval-like stage of our development where the body and mind are both only partially formed.
Instead it has been the “dragging-out” of that childlike insensibility, again: to no useful outcome, which has by that point in time essentially mitigated most of their procreative potentiality in that 1) physically having children is then far more difficult for them, and 2) they are now twenty-five years behind where their familial-tribal unit might otherwise have been, i.e. they do not have five or six twenty year old children bringing in incomes to the Household (to purchase a Household in the first place if they did not possess one before) or working the land (or likewise to purchase land) so that their prosperity will not have developed beyond mere subsistence off of the external labour market so as to escape the poverty and dependency traps inherent in the cities – which nominally constitutes their entire existence ‘to’ escape such miseries. All in all it is a lot of hard work by that point and I could not help but notice, of my own generation and those slightly older, how this outcome would have been entirely altered and set on a more prosperous trajectory if, say, at the age of sixteen a couple had been put together and had a few children, as: by the age of twenty the best seeds would have been sewn and they would not have to even think about “having children” ever again which is itself a thing, I observe anyway, that is so daunting and bothersome later in life that it really is something better gotten out of the way as early as possible in the manner that we would have done quite naturally otherwise.
If the idea here is to build up that familial-tribal unit then this methodology serves the purpose in the most optimal manner; the adults are freed up and enjoy their liberties, the younger adults (i.e. the teenagers) are preoccupied quite happily fulfilling their single greatest biological urges to have sex as much as they like, and the population figures begin to climb up at a rate of replacement which is far superior, e.g. a thirty year old parent of a fifteen year old only has five years before that fifteen year becomes a physically matured adult ready to contribute to the unit, whereas by contrast a thirty year old parent of a five year old has a great longer time to wait for physical maturity so that the distance between the two age groups becomes fragile and thin the further it is stretched with a concurrent loss of replacement manpower by a space of ten additional years.
There is something to be said for the older more experienced Father, of course, I remember quite well that the children I grew up with whose Fathers were in their forties and fifties and whose Mothers were in their twenties or very early thirties were quite better-off in their disposition and intelligence (whilst those with older Mothers tended to be sickly in one way or another); simply put though I think it is more to do with the experience of age as the influencing factor than anything else and a functional familial-tribal unit would have this influence in far greater capacity.
If we add to this factor the notion of polygamy (something shunned as ‘pagan’ by the Abramic religions yet advocated for in their own holy books, indeed: it was the universal norm) then we find the whole circle being completed in that young teenagers do as they please with each other, becoming familiar with relationship and their sexuality, and then when they reach a more mature age they might marry each other or other people properly so as to begin families of their own; but that by that age they may well have produced several children already via multiple partners so that the actual ‘legitimate children’ (in the sense of inheriting land and titles) of a more formal marriage is superfluous to population replacement insofar as the tribe is concerned, as: they have already increased the headcount quite massively by comparison. It is worth mentioning here the legal problems of land inheritance and the seeming inability for people to ever work this all out amongst themselves as being one of the most desirable points of the introduction of some of the Abramic religions, when they first appeared, as rules were laid out of who could inherit (some rules more effective than others, some quite ruinous in fact) which provided a framework in perpetuity (but on the other hand, with all children being considered legitimate in some instances, i.e. the children of concubines, this produced the problem of “all children” being in competition for the single title or, in turn, a vast spread of land, i.e. a Kingdom, being broken apart “to make it all fair”: this did not differ in form from, say, Imperial China to the late Ottoman court whilst the European Monarchies to their credit, somewhat, temporarily solved the matter by the allocation of specific titles to be given to the first born, second born, third born, etc., and then bouncing back to the Monarch upon the death of that Duke to be allocated again – although some would say this is a feeble manner by which to govern large polities it differs not very much from the essential ‘oversight’ duties over local governments as practiced in the Roman Principate rather than direct-governorship over those provinces themselves).
The tribal influence in real terms upon children cannot be understated in its superior effects upon the character and long-term capacity of the children themselves (when compared to others); I have some experience in my own up-bringing with this and really the outcome (again: compared to the infantilism, i.e. arrested development, you will almost always find in the nuclear family type, which we might easily compare to factory farmed within four walls and a hen-pecking parental authority vs. free range) is a quite more matured and capable disposition (call it “street smarts” if you like; they follow what actually works rather than what is ‘pretended to them’ to work, which is typically nothing more than the parents own whimsical desires of the moment) amongst all the children when they are simply freed up from the poor influence of an unfit parent even without the good influence of a more fit parent of which, then, the fit parent itself could be determined to be largely superfluous, as: of their own accord they learn amongst themselves and become naturally fortified against being instructed into error by a witless or ill-inclined adult, whereas a child stuck under the thumb of a witless ‘parent’ has no means to disobey that witless parent without facing severe punishments and so there the child is sculpted into a helpless fool, later embittered in life and at the tender mercy of their peers, as: even as they might innately know-better (than to do the foolish thing their parent demands they do) they are forced nevertheless, either physically punished or emotionally coerced, into adopting the ‘silly walk’ and ‘dress’ of the witless parent, which is to say: they are forced into conforming toward the cultural idealism determined by the parent with no thought whatsoever for the practicalities of life, e.g. the matter of “how will my child earn a living” is addressed neither by parenting nor by schools thus begrudgingly selling themselves auction block of the labour market turns out to be the only method, whether they were deluded into thinking that their aspirations to be a professional athlete or an astronaut were entertained and encouraged for them at the expense of informing them about any other means of paying the rent or not.
I should say here that when I say “familial-tribal unit” I am broadly referring to any number of groupings, in whatsoever local forms they may take shape, but that the decisive factor, most chiefly, will be a large extended family network of which, if it ever needed to pool its resource together, would constitute a decent size force in land, resource production and manpower – but chiefly it is the possession of land which enables everything else:
More ideally, to my mind, it would resemble (or be very close in composition to) that Roman ‘Familia’ (the origin of the word ‘Family’ in our English) where a fairly large blood family of at least five generations inhabited in and around the same House or group of Houses (see: Palace, Villa and Manor Economy), with servants and adoptees and associates (business partners) likewise being considered as extended kin; altogether forming, as it were, a little nationality. In the sense of ‘Nationality’ it is, it ought be said, more a return to how we actually were prior to the ‘naming conventions’ of the 1700’s or so where the stupid surnames made up on the spot of many Europeans were forced into Law over what would have originally been clan and tribal identities and from which there came that fake sense of disparate ‘Nationality’ (i.e. cut off from tribe and forced into atomization; identity through a very small family unit alone) from which the misnomer of ‘Race’ would be made-up to lend credibility to. In many ways a great deal of the urbane ‘neurosis’, let’s call it, stems really from this absence of ‘true tribe’ with it having been eradicated either by the fecklessness of urban societies; societies of strangers and thieves, and also more directly via those religions which pretend to fill the void of ‘true tribe’ with their witless rituals and effete pretences – things which are a wet-blanket over true fellowship wrought in such a manner as comes in all reality perfectly naturally the moment the screws holding foolishness in place are undone and cast away – and really here, when we stack these observations together one upon the other, we are really speaking of a sound and strong society certainly immune to the shallow perversity created by denialism toward the basic mechanics of the human body – in addition to any other considerations which follow from that.

THE OVERALL INFLUENCE (OR LACK THEREOF) OF A TRIBAL-FAMILIAL UNIT

It must be considered quite seriously by the reader as to the overall influence, or lack thereof, of a tribal-familial unit as to what fills its place in the education of people otherwise and, as I began this text by considering for myself, how much of the ‘dysfunctionality’ can be attributed to the “lack thereof”.
Along with the cultural instance on sexual immaturity as to produce the consequence of delaying and drawing out for decades a fetish of normal sexuality which ought naturally be done with by a person after reaching the age, say, of maybe seventeen, there is the greater point which I am trying to relay here in this text of how many other aspects of ‘bad culture’ are singularly anchored to and thusly totally dependent upon that sexual immaturity – that is: we would be hard-pressed to imagine how really many of the pernicious scenarios in our contemporary society would even arise if that foundation stone of ‘sexual immaturity’ were removed from the equation:
For instance, how much of a ‘relationship’ is spent and sculpted (either by the Man or the Woman or both) on jealously and worry of the other ending the relationship for having found another person or another means to fulfil their sexual gratification? If a ‘relationship’ is based upon, let’s call this, “mutual masturbation” then at the heart of that is sexual immaturity of the mental age of maybe fourteen years whereupon a person has been sort of coaxed into dependency for orgasm on a third party; they are fraught and fearful that this should be taken away from them – it being so vital as like a mechanical necessity for either sex – that the entire content of their ‘relationship’ revolves around it; seeking it, coaxing it, demanding it, guarding it from be lost, and so on, of which I think it is not exaggeration to say that such concerns constitute 100% of the verbal interaction in such a ‘couple’; either outright or in the back of the mind so as to reinterpret all scenarios and verbal expressions as being related to that end-goal of maintaining the “mutual masturbation”.
Simply put this ‘relationship’, then, revolves around twenty minutes of sexual activity in a day – if that much (or even if every day), yet dominates the entirety of the mind; that is: the entirety of the ‘relationship’, when this action itself is something that a servant or a slave or a prostitute would be used for in many societies, with the ‘content’ of the marriage, say, being concerned more with running the business of a Household or concerned with procreation to produce legitimate children to inherit the business, the title, the land, whatever. My point here is that neither Man nor Woman are elevated or their dignity improved, somehow, by this absence of sexual maturity but rather that both are reduced; i.e. greatly lowered, to the cognitive and social standing of the “servant, slave, prostitute,” in that as far as they think of and conceptualize themselves as part of a Household at all it is singularly the concern with simple sexual acts which dominate their interpersonal interactions and their ideas about their own self; it is their ‘social currency’.
If this seems alien – I mean my observation on this – consider how much neurosis goes on in the daily grooming rituals of Women or those sad excuses for Men who “lift weights but cannot fight” (not to mention the ease at which a thin muscular physique bleeds out at the slightest of puncture wounds, see: Roman Gladiator training), i.e. whose only concern is that of admiring their own bodies in a mirror, this being intellectually identical to young Women. Is this not the mentally of a slave? If so, even if we shy away from saying it plainly, then we must ask “what forms the mentality of a slave (i.e. where does it come from)” – in the above equation a slave in a Household is more like an object fulfilling a function than He or She is a person with any autonomy (well, obviously there is no autonomy for a slave) so it is almost to be expected that in such an environment that the intellectual trajectory of an object-person goes away from externalities and becomes entirely absorbed with self-presentation and equates their social status from that, and if groups of such persons will set this to be the common culture; deriving status in that manner among themselves – although still these are slaves possessing no ‘status’ to speak of, as being object-people. This is evidenced also in victims of sexual abuse or those, in general, suffering at the hands of third parties whose autonomy is in some way or another restricted; that their singular focus becomes that of sexuality as like depression is “rage turned inward”, thus too it seems for sexual infantilism.
I cannot pass up this subject without mentioning a series of interviews describing, a thing quite novel to me, the notion of American Christian ‘Purity Culture’ from the point of view of those heavily indoctrinated into that; instilled with Catholic levels of guilt over the normal function of the body, who have then left their small churches or megachurches, or whatever, and spoken plainly about the mentality of those inside of it as relating to sexuality. It is a thing I think long suspected but seldom expressed that, as it was described, the mentality of such persons is that they are “horny all the time” due to the relentless guilt inculcated into them; that due to denialism of sexuality their ordinary sexual impulses are magnified to an incredible degree and that, consequentially, their entire being is animated by repressed sexuality so that their thoughts are ‘impure’ all the time whilst verbally they express strong denialism and shame over the thing. I think this is no real difference to any such religious malinstruction; be it Muslim, Jewish or Christian, in that the perpetual infantilism of their surrounding society stems first of all from their own bedrock religious culture (i.e. whatever religion which is at odds with the human body, etc.) were due to such ‘culture’ they never really get over, say, an early adolescent view of sexuality where they are driven entirely by it and never learn to overcome it, no pun intended, but utterly unrealized – which would take them leaving their religion – is that this process demonstrably brings out the absolute worst in their character and disposition with the process itself being the promulgation ‘of’ those very “Viceful thoughts ” that they claim to be “at War with in the world”, in other words: it is just they themselves who, for example, look at a young teenage girl (or god help us, a small boy) and thinks all manner of sexual rapacity – and that this animates them politically to campaign for restrictive legislation to be put into Law to police “all society” as if “all society” existed at their low level is an incredible thing to consider. But I do not think their broader societies are any exception to this, rather point here is that their broader societies are comprised of persons exactly like them; that the Christian or the Jew driven by a lifetimes shaming over their normal sexuality adopt, in turn, the most depraved expressions ‘of’ sexuality as a self-affirmation; that is: the extreme self-identification with a simple sexual action, for example, came to literally define a persons personality in such places to the point that (Americans anyway) seriously put out the notion during the late 1990’s and 2000’s that a fleeting sexual act 1) defines a persons entire character, and 2) it is also inborn, e.g. as like to say that whether you prefer this or that on the menu at a restaurant is something determined genetically; this is utterly stupid and utterly, in my opinion, a consequence of society which has not wanted to evolve beyond the ‘sexual immaturity’ of which physiologically seems to occupy a very small window of the middle to late teens and of which repression during those ages quite demonstrably creates madness and retardation – I mean that if their culture did not peripherally do this to them then the manner by which swathes of their cultural-historical institutions do this to them ‘outright’ by inculcation into this process in particular certainly does it to them, and merely it is the unwillingness to fully condemn these Religions and relegate these influences to the dustbin which keeps the entire thing ticking along with “just enough” of the population bent out of shape by it to present those same persons, seemingly confused as to where they came from, lumbering through the broader society and serving as examples of lunacy and degeneracy.
In short - and I may as well add this here also, the aim to abstain for a while from sexuality was a custom introduced by the Ancient Romans and was designed to heighten sexual pleasure; in effect, then, foreign barbarians coming to this culture much later on with nobody to really explain it to them ended up unwittingly engaging in what they would probably have recognized as ‘sex magic’ whereupon the denial of their own mechanical sexual function was ‘abstained’ by them; i.e. they saw the value in holding off on doing drugs or having sex for a while, – but they did not understand what the effect or the outcome of that was ‘intended’ to be in that one would abstain specifically ‘to’ heighten the senses toward that pleasure; and this is evidenced chiefly in the Lunar Orgies and the Fast/s of Ceres. Interestingly, Jesus himself in (i think the Gospel of Thomas?) mentions to his followers that “they will hate him for what he says now,” and that he says that “fasting brings out all the worst in them” – in other words, engaging in periodic abstinence will turn them all horny. Knowing this from a relatively early age it was no surprise to me at all why celibate priests ended up diddling children or member of their own congregation or why the most outwardly pious zealots proved to be the most morally weak people to be found as even with the most ‘clean’ example, let’s say, of a person who has never drank wine, for example, they have not ‘overcome’ that thing but have rather avoided ever experiencing that thing so that it will always be a novel temptation to them of which they will have no understanding of and which they can be leveraged by in various ways primarily due to their ignorance of which ‘experience itself’ would otherwise render them far more fortified against:
A good example here is the ‘pot scare’ of the early 1930’s in America when it was seriously believed by a wholly ignorant chunk of the urbane voting public that smoking cannabis (and drinking alcohol, for that matter) would turn a person into a serial killer, this is totally bizarre to us now, but notice that this was the same society whose moral standard was that “a table leg” should not be uncovered because it reminded them of a Womans bare leg – although here we might better understand why they were so preoccupied by thoughts like that (I think very seriously in their heightened state of perpetual arousal any little thing would send them to buggery of a farmyard creature)! Hilarious. But – notice also that this was the same society which was engaging in some of the most casually egregious inhumane criminality that history had ever seen, as if they ‘were’ high on narcotics and their rational senses dulled; I do not mean here to bring American notions of ‘Race’ into this as to be seen to ‘condemn Black Slavery’ in the fashion of my own day (although we mentioned family-tribe as a better form of so-called nationality earlier) but the ghastly images of actual Country Fairs where smiling families with children by their knees would pose for crude photographs with the charcoaled or bloated rotting carcass of a burned or lynched Man is beyond my ability to play-down or normalize. I mean here to say, that: far from the pretense of ‘clean mindedness’ of such persons about themselves that we find these same persons are the filthiest and most depraved characters around, being those few persons who walk amongst us who are actually capable of doing those inhumane things (again, see: Banality of Evil) as would be unthinkable to a person of normal rational healthy conscience. We might connect this, also, to the historical BDSM extravaganzas which took place in the Christian monasteries and public squares for many centuries where young Women were sexually tortured by celibate clergymen as to recognize how deep and quick a plunge it is from a person or their culture going from the denial of normal healthy sexuality into the kettled and sadistic gore fetish of outright murder.
It is always worth reminding the reader who wishes to minimize these more egregious aspects of the subject (as rape is still rampant among the clergy); which are consequential of sexual immaturity, that it was not ‘reason and rationality’ per se that stamped this out from European society but soldiers kicking in the doors of such Churches, Town Halls and Houses with muskets, rifles, long knives and grape-shot and physically eradicating the perpetrators and their willing congregations from America and France for the practice itself of sexually torturing a Woman and then burning the evidence on the fake pretexts of obviously made-up accusations of “she turned me into a frog” to actually be ended. That is to say that the ‘mentality’ and ‘culture’ which provided the framework for such inhumane activities was never formally realized or educated-out of a people, so to find it lingers along into contemporary times; animating the otherwise dormant farmyard animal-like character of such persons “like powers of evil”, is not surprising to me in the least. What was more surprising to me is that as so much of these religions are so obviously outright ‘evil’ that more persons do not speak of the intricacies of the things in such necessary detail these more ‘egregious’ cases would qualify, and then to spool back to discover the cause of every evil action in the mentality of every perpetrator – generally speaking, for instance, it will be a character with a disposition of infantilism and perhaps this is more easy to understand without needing to connect it to sexual immaturity though, to my mind, these are not distinct enough to warrant any separation; as: infantilism is always going to be immaturity and immaturity is always going to run concurrent with a lack of adult intellectual development where a mature and experienced view of a thing, sexuality in this case, has likely been within the powers of a person to have gleaned naturally through experiences – in which case there would be no argument with anything I say here, or of which such experiences have been prevented by external powers from being gleaned by the person in question; in which case they remain ‘as if’ they were fourteen years old with the allure of mysterious unknown sex acts utterly dominating their consciousness at all times and yet physically being thirty, forty, fifty years old – well past the age (certainly physiologically) where they should have gotten it all out of their system but of which they have not, chiefly because their experiences have been rather dull and monotone and so much social currency has been valued by it ‘being’ dull and monotone, e.g. monogamy, legal repercussions binding two people in place, the atomized kettling nature of the disconnected nuclear family unit, living amongst strangers in large cities where it not so simple as just going topless to change the local culture, control through the selective denial of the sex act itself (as William Reich and Esther Vilar both write on), the sexualisation of young people by adults, the accidental ‘perversity’ (in the real meaning of the word) of unfulfilled (or poorly fulfilled, or repressed altogether) sexuality and its effects on the brain and society, and so on and so on.
I am always inclined to think when considering this subject, and I may as well end this text in conclusion with this recurrent thought of mine, that ‘sexual perversion’ really begins in the mind of ourselves as young teenagers when the normal human body is leeringly presented to us as being something ‘illicit’, e.g. the breasts of Women are concealed in our society and so due to ‘hiding them away’ they become objects of mystery and fetish which they otherwise are not. I do not think this is deliberate reverse psychology (as god help us few enough people even understand the concept to understand what they do inadvertently) but it produces the same consequence of reverse psychology, whereupon quite arbitrarily a certain piece of the body, say, an ankle, is all of a sudden declared by a mad Adult to be “evil, sinful, lustful, of the devil,” when no such notion existed in the minds of people otherwise, as then: their natural curiosity is piqued by this imposition and so they develop a perversion dervied in chief part – as a sense of lewd pleasure – from bucking the arbitrary nonsensical imposition forced upon them by that dictate of which such a scenario never would have had cause to occur if not for that imposition having created it. I feel that this ‘perversion’ (again, in the real meaning of that word) stands in the way of a fully realized and fully pursued sense of actual sexuality and, from it, of a more resonant concordance between Men and Women whose interactions are otherwise thrown off balance by such impositions as they are dragged back down to sexual immaturity all the time; or into fear and jealously etc., as like a dozen avenues are presented in any conversation and virtually of them are strewn with piss, vomit and polyfoam which had no reason to be put there in the first place, or more accurately: it was put there through the carelessness of an atomized and witless peoples who knew no better than to do this to themselves but of which a familial-tribal unit would have drummed out of them quick sharp if for the actuality of nothing else than “we are all in this together” being something that is tangibly true and not merely shallow political rhetoric when it is said of a tribe vs. when it is said of a state polity comprised of countless strangers.

MAIORES. IV, CAL. IUNI. FORTUNA PRIMIGENIA.

Research indicated that it was nearly unimaginable for it to exist. We had looked at the approximate location through satellite images and saw nothing unusual. I knew that it was probably a hoax, I was certain it would be because the precise conditions for a temperate microclimate in the Arctic were unheard of and theoretically impossible.
Yet Reginald Iris had insisted that he had obtained the specimen from the end of his explorations. He had never lied to me and only on his deathbed did he reveal his secret. He had named it Valley of the Dire Wolf because there was fauna there that was left over from the last ice age, which was also theoretically impossible.
I didn't want to believe it, but I did. That is why I privately funded my own expedition. I looked on maps and pictures from satellites and saw nothing to prove it existed or that it even could exist. Yet in the vast unexplored wilderness of polar deserts, there were places even on the coast that nobody had ever set foot upon. Except Reginald, he had visited.
He had warned me: "It isn't a place where people belong. It belongs to them, it is their world, not ours. A world hidden from our own. Only death."
I put a lot of faith into scientific discovery and absolute devotion to what is known to science. The images should show something, yet the closest look I had showed only rocky and frozen tundra and clouds of white mist obscuring most of the valley. It was the temperature readings that intrigued me. Those indicated that it remained somewhere in the upper forties and lower fifties all year round.
I consulted some colleagues who could share their expertise and each of them stated independently that it was possible that the valley had maintained that temperature for any amount of time, even tens of thousands of years. While it seemed nearly impossible for Reginald's story to be true, there was a possibility, within the nearly impossible.
That is how I ended up on my own exploratory expedition, kept private and personally funded. I cannot tell where we went or offer any evidence, because what we found was not meant for human trespassers. We found out while we were there, that it was a sacred place, and to violate its sanctity is to be cursed. Reginald was right: 'only death'.
On our first day we entered the valley and found it was a sustained biome that had living creatures. It was truly a miracle, to find plants and animals. Resilient ferns, elderly pines and archaic junipers, raspberries and pines dotted the landscape sparsely. We found hares and voles and a new species of furry armadillos. The fascinating discovery was to be documented and shared with the whole world.
On the second day, we encountered two of the surviving megafauna, their populations sustained by the balance of plants and animals. Such a balance had existed for a very long time, keeping those creatures as living artifacts for the depths of time, older than human history. Herds of Elasmotherium and a smaller version of Megaloceros peacefully grazed, seemingly unaware of our intrusion into their corner of the world.
"These creatures have existed like this since the end of the last ice age, isolated and untouched. This valley has somehow remained like this, a perfect balance that has kept them this way all this time." One of my team members said.
There was much discussion and wonder and we took many pictures and samples of bones and fur and anything else we could find. It was to be the discovery of a lifetime. I wrote about the entire experience in a journal, and it was all I kept. I alone and my journal were all that remained, in the end.
We found numerous hot springs that were as ancient as the valley, and had billowed up heat and clouds, obscuring the valley from the modern eyesight from orbit. We could see the heat, but none of the details. The details we discovered on foot were of a lost world, a world of wonders. Our wonder did not last, as we ventured too far into the valley.
Terror and dread soon plagued us. I tried to lead my team to safety, after our first encounter with the guardians of the secret valley. They were intelligent, and at first, they only stalked us and surrounded us, howling in the night and preventing our escape. They had evolved over many thousands of years and learned to conserve and maintain, to cull and to protect. My deepest fear of them grew from the realization that they recognized us and would not let us leave. They spoke to each other in complex barking words, and we heard them talking.
"The dire wolves have killed Kenneth." I realized, when we could not find him. The creatures had tested us again and again, preventing us from backtracking out of the valley, toying with us, showing themselves and then hiding from us. They had learned all of our strengths and weaknesses, had picked out a member of our herd and taken him. With self-preservation and trepidation, we abandoned our search for Kenneth, and tried to hike out.
Before we could make our escape, they were there, a pack of seven, the descendants of a species as old as mankind, and just as clever. Intelligence had served them well; they were the shepherds and the masters of the valley. It was their ancestral home, kept secret by nature and kept sacred by them. The dire wolves knew we were vulnerable, and they attacked.
I panicked and abandoned my team. My heart was beating and my blood raced, as I scrambled up some rocks. Below me I heard the terrified and pained cries of my team and the angry barking of the dire wolves. Soon the massacre was over and when I looked, I saw neither man nor beast remained.
All of our scientific equipment, supplies and camping gear were all that was left of them. I trembled, the nightmare of my escape had just begun. There was blood amid the scattered belongings, but the dire wolves had taken the bodies somewhere else. They did not feed where the herds grazed. There were seven wolves and they had each carried away one team member. If they had counted us correctly, or if their pack membership were equal to the team roster, I would have died also.
That is what I thought, in horror, of the dire wolves. Their dark bristly fur and massive hunch and oddly shaped wolflike body haunts my nightmares. When I began to creep through the last part of the valley's entrance, back to the polar deserts beyond, I was alone. I was never more vulnerable, and although I believed they would attack me and finish us all off, killing me last, they never did.
My journey through the valley alone was fraught with daylight nightmares. I jumped at every shadow, felt like I could be pounced on from behind every bush. I heard their distant howls and sometimes their howls were nearby. They were following me, waiting to take me last. My terror at knowing that death at their vicious teeth could come at any moment and the horror of knowing my team was already dead, was like a spinning madness, making me laugh strangely as I hiked.
It was dark as I reached the base camp. Our tents stood as a reminder of all those who I had left behind. The howls of the dire wolves made me turn and peer back into the shaded valley, beneath eternal white clouds of steam from the geysers and hot springs. I could see their eyes, watching me go. It was then that I realized they had chosen to let me leave. They could have easily hunted me and killed me, and I wouldn't have stood a chance.
For their own reasons, they had allowed me to escape. I do not know why, but the thought of their deliberation still terrifies me. Such creatures with a magnitude of intelligence that they might make a choice of who lives and dies, and that they exercise their power over life and death and demonstrated it with my survival, is all the more dreadful.
I do not pretend to know their thoughts, but I do recognize that they think and communicate among themselves. The dire wolves have learned to keep a language, to keep a tradition, and to prove it, forcing me to witness them and to know them, in their sentience. Mere animals would have finished the job, but not the dire wolves. They have kept their ways sacred and storied for countless generations, taking only what they need to take, killing only what they need to kill. Letting me go was a choice they made, following the path of their minds, as they watch their herds, cultivating them, like cattle.
When they had eliminated the intrusion, they sent me home, as a messenger. Somehow, they concluded I would keep the secret of their home's location and deliver only a warning. The Valley of the Dire Wolf belongs to them, and we are not meant to be there. There is no place for humans, among the talking beasts, and it is a sin for us to seek them out. There is nothing there for us, it all belongs to them.
The only thing for us in their home; only death.

Hey Guardians. What a week it has been. It has been incredible to see the conclusion to the story that has unfolded over the past 10 years, and to see the community that has grown around this game since that story started. Through thick and thin this game's community has always been full of fantastic people. I hope you are all enjoying The Final Shape and all the fun new content the expansion has added.
Over the past year I have been struggling with some health issues. In the week leading up to The Final Shape's release my illness was really kicking my ass. May seem silly, but at the back of my mind a part of me was worried I'd check out right before the expansion launched. Yeah I'd miss out on all the other much more important stuff to come in my life, but that's the little thing my brain was fixating on at the time. Over the past few days I have gotten a better handle on it once again, but still it was rough there for a bit.
Anyway, that's had me thinking about all the Guardians we've lost over the past 10 years. The friends and fireteam members who fell before they could finish the fight. A lot can change in 10 years. I've been fortunate enough not to lose any of the friends I've made playing this game in that time, but I'm sure many of you have.
So enscribe below their names, so that we may look back in fond rememberence of them as we look forward with eager anticipation of what is to come during this new Age of Triumph.
Tell us: [Their screen name/real name, and their favorite class]
[Optionally, tell us a little bit about them. How you met, their favorite weapons, their role in your fireteam, or what activites they liked to play.]
And to those of you who have struggled or are currently struggling with mental or physical health issues, eyes up and stay strong. We'll need your light in whatever fight comes our way next.

An interesting look at internal martial arts and strength from Hai Yang - "One should not claim to practice martial arts if their strength is insufficient":
https://youtu.be/TTccQaPyv6g?si=fCUuagyLjLbsB73m
Hai Yang - One should not claim to practice martial arts if their strength is insufficient.
You may recognize a similar assertion from Ellis Amdur with regards to Aikido practitioners in "Great Aikido —Aikido Greats":
"Yukawa Tsutomu was a titan. Shirata Rinjiro was immensely strong. Shioda Gozo, unbelievably, beat Kimura Masahiko in arm wrestling—by Kimura’s own account. Tohei Koichi, post WWII, casually carried two suitcases full of smuggled rice arms-length over ticket wickets at train stations, thereby pretending that the cases were empty: because who could casually hold suitcases with 30 kilos of rice apiece, straight-armed, walking fifty meters until out of sight of law enforcement personnel. When Saito Morihiro was a kid, Ueshiba told him he was too skinny; Saito, working for the railroad, got a length of train track, and repetitively lifted it, this thick-grip weight training and other exercises resulting in him becoming a massive man. In fact, all the Iwama dinosaurs (Isoyama Hiroshi, Watahiki Yoshifumi, Inagaki Shigemi, to name a few) are immensely powerful. Tada Hiroshi is like living whalebone, from all the suburi he did. Tomiki Kenji had huge wrists and when young, a massive neck. Osawa Kisaburo, quite muscular as a young man, asked me to take his son, Osawa Hayato, to Korakuen gym and teach him weight lifting, genially whispering to me in the dojo hallway, “He’s too weak.” There’s more than one body type and more than one way to be physically powerful—but as far as I know, all the great aikidoka were very powerful people, some naturally, others a product of training."
https://kogenbudo.org/great-aikido-aikido-greats/
And what about the Daito-ryu folks?
Well, Daito-ryu Aiki-jujutsu Menkyo Kaiden Takuma Hisa was, of course, a Sumo wrestler and very powerful physically.
Then there's Daito-ryu Aiki-jujutsu Kodokai founder Kodo Horikawa:
"Was Horikawa Sensei in good physical condition?
Mrs. Horikawa: He had a smaller body, but his muscles were impressive and well toned. He injured his Achilles' tendon once, but apparently it healed, since it was three times as thick as a normal person's. A normal person's would have been snapped. His whole body was filled with aiki, even to the soles of his feet."

• Conversations with Daito-ryu Masters, Stanley Pranin

Then there's Yukiyoshi Sagawa, the one time Soke of Daito-ryu Aiki-jujutsu, Yukiyoshi Sagawa himself was powerfully conditioned:
"The most important thing in Aiki is the legs. You must build muscle in the necessary areas of the hips and legs through training the legs in “Henko”."
"In Age-te, the most important thing is building the body."
"The way that I built my body was through push-ups. From the time that I was a teenager I would train 1,500 times a day. Through that it became possible for my body to become a single unit. This is not limited to push-ups, but it is important to continue each physical training method for at least three years. Suburi, for example."
"It’s no good if you don’t have thick thighs. Conditioning yourself and becoming strong means that you’re building muscle."
"The muscle on your hips and abdomen must be thick and you must begin to move from there. Technique done with slim hips will not be effective. However, thickness from fat is no good."
"Aiki no Rentai: The Conditioned Body of Yukiyoshi Sagawa, Part 2":
https://www.aikidosangenkai.org/blog/aiki-rentai-conditioned-body-yukiyoshi-sagawa-part-2/
So here's the tricky part - power lifters, gymnasts, marathon runners, dancers, and even musicians are all strong, but have very different bodies, trained and conditioned in very different ways, that optimize their performance for different practices - their strength and body development are specific to what they're doing. It's a no brainer that conditioning is going to be sports specific - so what's specific for Aiki, and what do you do to get there?

Let me start by saying I'm not a homewrecker. I'm just someone who decided to wake the fuck up and sniff the fucking sunshine. I like my best friend. It was a wake up call when i figured it out.
I met her at least 8 months ago when I transferred jobs. She was leaving the position and I was the new hire taking her place. We got along straight away. Ussally I have to tone myself back because no one matches my energy but she was as loud and weird as me. It was nice finding someone it felt easy being around.
When she left to her new job we kept in contact. I was the only one she talked to from her old job. She didn't make friends easy and only talked to her boyfriend and myself. It was odd because her relationship confused me. She had been with the guy for three years and yet all she did was complain about him. I can't justify how annoyed it made me feel to listen to all his toxic masculinity. It was a frustration I couldn't stifle, something burning in my chest when she talked. She would often say she felt bad hanging out with me because it was "easy" and she was given shit from her boyfriend because he was jealous of all the time we spent together.
One time I woke up from her groaning in frustration because they were having an argument about how often she sees me at 7 in the morning. I guess this is when I started to have major issues with their arguments. It was a new feeling. Something in the way she was wrapped in the extra blankets I laid out for her because she gets cold. Something in the nightgown she was wearing that complimented her figure. Something in the extra pillow I added to my bed when she started spending nights. Something in the way she seemed to fit into my world perfectly without even trying at all. I didn't recognise this at first. All I knew is that I had a huge dislike for her boyfriend. She would be so happy around me and one text from her boyfriend would make her frown. It made me angry.
It was so simple to me. Break up with him. And I don't get why she dosent. She tells me it's not easy for her to break it off and start over. I hadn't acknowledged my feelings at the time so I was still in denial about the way I felt. All I knew is that I opened doors for her, joked with her- made her laugh. I would tell her "I'm trying to show you how you should be treated. Don't you see the difference between me and him?". She acknowledged it begrudgingly and her rants continued. We often went around in circles about this. I didn't know what else to do.
And then it hit me. I was in my room thinking about her. I was infront of the mirror, taking off my eyeliner when I was wondering how she was doing. She had been low today. Something about not taking her meds on time. I realised that I was thinking about her constantly- that by this PIONT her name had left an imprint on my brain. This couldn't be normal. Could it? I was confused -brows scrunched as I ran the micellar water over them. Somehow she had become so important to me in such a short amount of time. No one ever made me think like this- made me worry like this. I didn't have many friends. Just the occasional friend I saw sometimes. But I have had best friends before. They shouldn't affect you like this. I realised my feelings in that moment. I could barely comprehend my actions but soon enough I was calling her. She answered "hey" I was nervous, flustered over my compulsiveness. "Do you have time to talk?" I pushed out. It was hard to speak . There was a lump in my throate and the room was spinning. All I could see was the phone on the bed- her face plastered across the screen. "Of course I do, what's up?" She responds. I hesitate "maybe I shouldn't say this" There's a shuffling on the line. It's almost like she's straightening herself up- preparing for bad news. "Am i smothering you?" She asks. "What! No!" I shake my head "why would you think that?" She's sheepish "oh.. I just worried. We spend a lot of time together is all" I smiled. She defiantly wouldn't think I felt smothered after I fessed up. But then the anxiety crept in. "What? There's something bothering you" she pushes. And that's all it took. It was like a damn came loose. My mouth was the brick holding it together and then the words fell out. "I have feelings for you" Silence. I bite my lip knowing I fucked this up. "Oh" she says "that's ok" I retort "No it's not. I know you have a boyfriend and there was no agenda in me telling you. I guess I just wanted some closure..." I'm shaking my head. This conversation went too fast. I was blinded by my foolishness- her reaction and my stupid ability to do stupid things and not think about the consequences. Because what happens now? I've just bared myself before her and all I've recieaved is "oh that's ok". And I don't know what I wanted from her- what would have been an acceptable reaction in my eyes. I guess maybe I wanted more then her chirpy response. Like... I just poured out my heart to u, darl. Can you give me something here?
The next part of the conversation was awakwrd. She told me she wasn't going to break up with her boyfriend but that she did have feelings for me to. I wasn't sure what to do with that. All I know is that it made me angry how calm she was. Because how could she be calm? I wasn't calm. I was frantic, feeling somber as the minutes pressed on. Because how could she stay with him? She dosent owe me anything I know but it dosent sit right with me that he treats her so horribly and she puts up with it. Like I'm right here.... just open your eyes.
I told her that I will respect her choices and don't want to pressure her. We seem to be in an ok place but she keeps calling me because she thinks I might cut her off. It is a possibility at this point. I just need to think. I feel disappointed with myself but I can't help how I'm feeling.
Am I the asshole?

With all the discussion on the game going on I thought I would give my experiences throughout the years and editions I’ve played and my opinions on them.
I played 1.0 for at least three years before 2.0 came out had an absolute blast with it. There were some issues with balance for sure, ffg did an ok job in my opinion with rules adjustments and balancing cards so that kept the game fun for me. The balancing cards did mean it was a bit clunky and could be tough on new players who tried to run ships without the fixes but it did help. I never played the most competitive lists but I had a great time tinkering with lists and finding ship and upgrade combinations that could fit together to 100 points. I remember a lot of talk about ships and upgrades in 1.0 talking about how half a point up or down could balance things and how changing points slightly could balance things.
When 2.0 was released I was a bit hesitant at first and waited to buy in after the pre-release. I wanted to see what it was like first and see how all the pilots and upgrades were shaping up. I didn’t love the decrease in power of upgrades but their points decreased as well due to the 200 point system and variable points meant they could be balanced properly. In the end I converted within a month or so of release and was very glad that I did. To me 2.0 had a lot of the feel of 1.0 except that more of the ships and upgrades that I liked to list build had a chance of being viable and even if I couldn’t fit them together ffg often decreased points for underpowered things and would make me look at them again. The 200 point system doubled the granularity from 1.0 and made it so that even if something felt under or over powered ffg had the option of fine tuning the balance. I played 2.0 even more regularly than 1.0. I missed some of the fun upgrades from 1.0 but 2.0s overal balance and list viability put the emphasis heavily on flying even more so than 1.0 in my opinion.
I dropped out of in person play during the pandemic but followed along online and kept excitedly list building and testing on fly casual. When I decided to go back to my local store in person it was in the waning days of 2.0. When AMG introduced 2.5. I struggled for a long time to try to make the 2.5 changes work for me. I really tried. Load out I could get behind, the bumping changes were ok although I didn’t love how punishing it was to self bump and how forgiving it was to bump into an opponent. Yes bumping an opponent has downside, a red focus is not a good action but it is leaps and bounds over no action and potential damage for self bumping. I know why they added it but it still isn’t my favourite. Personally I loved flying in formation at least at certain times or with certain lists and these rules make that a lot worse. For me scenario play was a lateral move, I don’t dislike the idea and as a game mode I have played a lot of scenarios and had great fun, I guess I just don’t like it being the default, I liked the simplicity of just trying to fight your opponent. You had one goal and how you went about it was up to you. But all of these rules changes were not what I struggled with the most.
I have really struggled with list building in 2.5, not because it’s difficult, it’s very simple in concept. But part of the fun of 1.0 and 2.0 for me was finding cool combinations that few people had thought of before, bringing a list to the table and my opponent admiring the creativity if nothing else. And likewise I liked to admire what my opponents had come up with. I tried and tried to get this feeling back in the new system but I found myself gravitating towards only a few ships per faction and only a few pilots per ship. Once I have this narrow list there really were only 1-3 combinations of these pilots that added together make for a list I feel is viable in 2.5 and fits what I would actually like to fly in that faction. I feel a bit boxed in.
The other interesting observation I have made when list building in 2.5 is just how close my lists have become to the top meta lists. What I always liked to do in 1.0 and 2.0 was to build a list and then check online to see if anyone was flying something similar on list fortress. In 1.0 or 2.0 there were certainly times I saw similar lists but most of the time I had some uniqueness to my idea. In 2.5 most of the lists I land on turn out to be similar or even identical to lists I then found as winning lists online. Part of this is the standard load outs/quick builds but part of it is that it seems like most of the people list building also came down to that list of viable pilots on viable platforms that I had and there are only so many ways to fit them together at 20 points especially since there are only a few 2 point pilots. Granted upgrades are not always identical but even there I find they are often very similar or the same as net lists. I didn’t copy lists from list fortress for any edition but at this point it really feels like I wouldn’t have to, I can just come up with the same lists.
Because of this narrow list of options it does feel like there are a lot of wrong options like choosing pilots at the same points with lower load out and worse abilities or lower pilot skill. Generics are a straight up trap on most platforms with lower initiative, no ability and lower load out than named pilots at the same or lower cost. I worry that new players might choose them and feel bad after. I would honestly prefer they were just banned for the platforms AMG does not want them run on. I also understand why they have under priced most standard load outs but when you compare the amount of load out to comparable pilots it is often a much better choice. This adds to the lock of variability in squads I can build and that I see across the table.
I have tried to play 2.5 games for awhile now on and off, watched 2,5 matches and tried to build so many lists and I simply am not having as much fun. I know this version is the preferred version of a lot of players and that is totally ok, I am not writing to bring that down at all. I just wanted to share my opinion on the state of the game and my experiences with it.
Despite my experiences with 2.5 being less than those of 1.0 and 2.0, I am making an attempt in the last few weeks to re-enter the game. My local group is playing 2.5 and so I am planning on playing weekly, if for no other reason than getting to play regularly again and to hang out with other people who love x-wing. I would rather be playing 2.0 or probably even go back to 1.0 but playing with my friends is more important so that’s where I’ve landed. Maybe I’ll try to sprinkle in some games of 2.0 legacy if people are up for it but in the end at least I’m playing the game I fell in love with all those years ago with cool people. I would love to hear an in depth discussion of all this in the comments regardless of whether you agree or disagree with any of my points but let’s all try to keep it respectful and remember we are all here for this same great game, regardless of edition. Fly casual everyone.