Hi. I am embarrassed and at my wit's end and angry at my body and I don't know what to do at this point. This may be long, and it is as much of a desperate plea for help as it is a rant at some points. It will definitely be TMI. I apologize in advance.
My vagina stinks by the end of the day, every day. Often it takes far less time to get stinky than "the end of the day". I would describe it as sometimes a strong ammonia, sometimes fishy, sometimes bitter smell that lingers in my pants and is horrible. I have done so much research and I can't figure this out. This has been going on for at least a year at this point, after a lifetime of never having an issue and having what I would consider a healthy vagina- generally either odorless or at most a little bit soumusty after a long day. I have an IUD which has been in place since 2020.
I got a call-in treatment for oral metronidazole before all this testing- a few days into treatment, I had one day of my formerly unstinky vag before I experienced wild, possibly unrelated symptoms and had to visit the hospital. I was told to stop my course of antibiotics then, and quickly Stinky Vag™ returned. I went to urgent care and tested for BV and STDs and came back clean. Then I went to my gyno and tested for BV, all the STDs, mycoplasma and ureaplasma, everything I've read about on reddit or medical studies or sketchy sites and it all came back clean. She referred me to some natural women's health place that doesn't take insurance, so I can't afford that and don't know that I trust that anyway.
I have tried lactic acid gel. I have used boric acid suppositories, at first daily when I was hoping for a cure and now only on occasion (they provide a short term break from the stink for the day after, but do not resolve symptoms and I was tired of dealing with leakage and PUTTING SOMETHING IN MY VAGINA EVERY NIGHT). I tried vitamin C suppositories. If you're thinking maybe it's because I keep putting stuff up my vagina, don't worry, I've had plenty of time in the last year to try nothing and hope my system self-regulated eventually. (It didn't.) I have switched to scent-free detergents. I use cotton underwear. I shower regularly. I sleep without undies. I assure you, I wash regularly. I have tried no soap and just washing with water, tried pH balanced (unscented) soap, then plain freaking Dove, and nothing has gotten me anywhere. I take a high dose of oral probiotics, and drink kefir and eat other fermented things. I drink water. I am sick of throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. I don't want to keep having to think about this.
Symptoms: Odor (aren't you surprised?) Sometimes when I wipe, the paper is very yellow. Odor is way worse if I've been sweating around my inner thighs (which is pretty much everyday I'm in public).
What's wrong with me? Why did all of my tests come back clean and yet my vagina. Still. Stinks. Please help me. If you know anything, any next step I can take, anywhere else I can ask, anything at all, please.

I (F27) have this great great fear of my ex-friend/schoolmate (F27) who was emotionally abusive for more than 13 years. She made me believe I am unlovable and that any good thing that happens to me she will take away. She literally said once that all men love her and no one will ever love me because they will always choose her over me. She hides her bad attitude very, very well to the point where people thought I was crazy when explaining some of her behaviour. I finally cut contact after she called me a day after my dad (M65) unexpectedly passed away to express her condolences but also to tell me she got married, where and how, stuff about her husband, etc. Because she lives nearby and people know and like her, I am afraid she will come after me whenever something good happens. I isolated myself and don't hang out with people in my area. I don't want her to turn them against me like she always did and people always believed her. I never bullied or insulted anyone, I have always been very shy and kept to myself but she managed to always portray me as a bad person and it hurt me very much that people believed her. I've never had a boyfriend because I have low confidence and because I fear that if I one day have a partner she will turn him against me. At this point, I cannot even imagine being with someone who knows or likes her. I feel this need to be believed and for my potential partner and people around me to see the true version of her. I know it's pathetic ... but I can't help it. I have been in therapy for over a year now and still no progress on this. She has a husband, a great job and a newborn now and I find myself feeling very jealous and bitter. And I know that people have changed but she has shown to be just as manipulative at 27 as she was at a younger age. If anything, someone who has a masters degree in social work and pedagogy surely knows better than to use a tragedy to brag about herself ... to me that is just pure evil.

This requires quite a bit of context so apologies for the long post. I (24/F) have known my 'boyfriend' (27/M) for around 4 years now, and this current 'relationship' has been going for just under a year. The reason why I put 'relationship' and 'boyfriend' in quotation marks, is that he has never actually officially put a label on it, but he definitely doesn't consider it to be a situationship.
We have previously dated twice before and broken up twice, the first occasion he broke up with me, and the second time I broke up with him. The second break-up went really badly. He has struggles with drinking, using drugs and gambling, and also is a very poor communicator, and I broke up with him because I wasn't able to deal with the way he was taking it out on me. After the breakup, he went down a bad spiral and was really not doing well, and at the time I felt really responsible and guilty, I still do. When we first got back together, he often would make "jokes" about how I broke his heart and wrecked his life and how everyone around him hated me for that.
When we got back together, I was hoping he had changed and worked on things, as he did seem apologetic. However, over this year I have often felt like it was a mistake and I am firmly of the view that he is just not someone I want to have a future with. However, I have been finding it really hard to actually break it off. I am really worried about how he will receive the breakup, and I am scared of him reacting like last time. In the last breakup, it felt like he didn't really hear the reasons (which I thought were valid reasons to breakup), or at least he disagreed.
There are quite a few reasons why I know we won't work, and I'm trying to think of a way to say it that is honest but that hopefully doesn't send him spiralling or turn me into some kind of villain in his eyes again.
The reasons are: (1) I am a very motivated person, and despite my own struggles with my mental health - I have a successful career. He is quite the opposite and hates his job and has no direction in his life. He has been talking for years about finding a new job but has not taken one step to do so. I feel that this is on it's own an unfair reason to break up with him as it is not really his fault that he doesn't like working. In other areas of his life, he is also quite unmotivated - he doesn't have any hobbies, doesn't exercise, doesn't cook and is constantly ordering takeaway and doesn't plan holidays - he talks a lot about starting/doing that but doesn't take action and that really bothers me. I feel like his lack of motivation almost rubs off on me, when we are together, I see a really lazy side of myself that just lies around all day - when I'm not like that when I'm alone. I love to travel and plan holidays and I also could not see myself travelling with him.
(2) All of my friends and family strongly dislike him. My mom is putting a lot of pressure on me to break up with him, and my dad has said he has lost respect for me for continuing to date him. This has meant I can't bring him around any of my friends and family and it is really getting to me, I feel like he is totally isolated from the rest of my life and I cannot maintain a relationship that has to be totally separate from the rest of my personal life. In the past, he did not make an effort with my friends and family at all, which is why they dislike him - however, I haven't given him a chance this time around as they just refuse to be in his company. Again, I feel like this is a horrible thing to say to him.
(3) In the last four months, I lost a close relative and a pet, both took quite a toll on me personally. On both occasions, I reached out to him for support and he was totally absent and said he was too busy at work and having his own struggles. At the time, I felt bad for him and didn't want to burden him, but looking back I feel like I really want a partner who is there for the good and the bad and is able to support me. However, I feel like if I wanted to cite this as a reason to break up with him, I should have done it at the time, and now too much time has passed for me to bring it up as the reason. This specifically is a concern, because last time I broke up with him, I mentioned one event where he had bothered me (that had occurred two months before we broke up), and he said that if that was the reason for the break up (it wasn't, it was just a factor), then I should have done it at the time and not waited so long.
tl;dr i want to break up with my bf because he is lazy and unmotivated, my family and friends hate him, and he failed to support me when I needed it but I'm worried about how he'll react.

My partner and I have been together for over 2 years. We have lived together for 1 and recently moved to another new place. We have always had good chemistry, very similar goals , interests and dreams. Besides a couple of things we are a great match. One of the things that is a big problem for me is he is not affectionate, we have had a few fights and a few calm coherent conversations where I explained to him that cuddling, occasionally offering me a light massage or hugging is huge for me, it’s like foreplay for me emotionally and by touch. He himself has his own intimacy needs that he shared with me, they are all related to sex, and I have done each and everyone of those requests even though some of them to me were just meh.
Not only have I done them, I offered to do them at certain points of our relationship myself enthusiastically to make him happy. And he has told me how much he appreciated and loved it.
But after 2 years I am still waiting to wake up one morning to him cuddling me or randomly hugging me. He will occasionally give me a kiss or quickly touch me but that’s pretty much it outside the bedroom . Few months ago I had a huge meltdown over this and told him I can’t be like this anymore, that it’s something that I lack tremendously, that I want my partner to cuddle me without asking. He got angry and defensive and shut down for days, when he came to talk after 2 days I was so angry he responded this way to me when I was hurt and vulnerable I said I didn’t want to continue. But we talked for hours and made up and he promised he will make an effort. He did for first few weeks slightly better and I hoped that progress will evolve but it has reverted back to how it was. And now I feel insecure and generally bad about myself because I have talked with him several times about this, calmly and not calmly-crying and I can no longer think he doesn’t get it but chooses not to do it
Another thing to mention is that I do most of housework, and I constantly have to ask him to do things as well, he does some easy housework without me asking, but a lot of things like cleaning toilets, fridge, bathtubs, windows, bed/towel laundry is all me. He never does it unless I ask him and because when I ask him he will reply by signing and annoyingly saying OK, I have stopped, because it feels like I pestering him.
We split the cooking id say I do 70% of that but he is a great cook. And we split finances 50-50.
This weekend I kind of had a trifecta of all these issues and ended up breaking down in tears again. First I came on to him insinuation we get busy later and he joked it off which I didn’t take seriously at that moment but nothing happened for 2 days and at the end of second day I asked him if he can cuddle me in the morning, he said yes and I asked him to promise me which he did. When I woke up he heard I was awake but didn’t come , I came out of bedroom looking upset and he realized he forgot, and said oh no sorry I forgot let’s go, at first I said just forget it, but then later we went , he spooned me while browsing with his phone and I went seriously? I didn’t really want to continue because it felt like he was doing a chore I asked him to do interrupting his phone time. So I left.
Sidenote - A week before this I asked him to go grab a small coffee table we had in our car after the move , I kept asking him all week but he never did it , so this same day I asked him again: please go grab it tomorrow I have been asking you for a week I don’t want to drive with it in my car. He again sighed and said K.
So the next day comes and by 7 pm he still hasn’t brought it upstairs so I go take up myself . He asks you need help? At that point I’m boiling inside thinking “kinda late to ask that buddy” and say no, because well I already brought it. I went into bedroom and closed the door and suddenly it all hit me: ignoring my sexual advance , forgetting to cuddle with me again then bringing his phone for the ride,forgetting the coffee table I asked him to do at least five times , I couldn’t hold back tears and waterfalls started.i know he realized I was upset but didn’t approach me, when I came to sit on a couch he asked if I was ok. I gave myself 2-3 min to calm and said: no ok you win I’m done asking you for affection I’m so tired of asking you to do things you are supposed to do as an adult, Do wtv you want I feel drained.
He interrupted raising his voice saying I told you I forgot to cuddle ! I went and cuddled with you after. To which I said ya ok with your phone in hand browsing, thanks for that special moment. And then he said I did dishes the other day. To which I replied: you took 10 minutes to load dishwasher but I literally spent 4 hours cleaning unpacking our boxes and organizing things. He raised his voice again and I said : you ask me what’s wrong I tell you and you yell at me, anything else you want to add ? He shut down. I thought F this got dressed for a walk and before I left I calmly came up and said;when I tell you how I feel you yell at me then shutdown, so let me tell you this when you are done with your silent treatment after 2-3 days don’t come talk to me, not this time. As I walking away he said “I wasn’t yelling but ok”.
I have no idea where to go from here , part of me just wants to end it because I don’t think he will ever try to fulfill my needs. Part of me wants to be manipulative, but that wouldn’t work I think. And part of me wants to tell ya let’s continue as partners / roommates as we JUST signed new lease and neither can move but to sleep separately - no intimacy.
Has anyone faced similar issues? Any ideas how I can navigate though his response ? I feel so hurt that he again chose to raise his voice rather than comfort me or apologize. I will never feel comfortable again asking him for affection at this point it would be pathetic. Besides ending it is there anything I haven’t tried that I should?

Hello everyone. I had a question about Medi-Cal. I did not meet the income requirement to keep my silver 94 PPO Blueshield. I recently got Medi-Cal Anthem.
I have an endocrinologist I have been seeing for about 10 years. I see him two times a year and pay out of pocket for the visit. He does not take any insurance. He is not part of any networks.

1. My medications from my out of network endocrinologist... When he sends medications to the pharmacy they are fully covered by Medi-Cal Anthem. This is such a big help to me It's life-changing.

Q: I was wondering why are the meds being covered since I have an HMO and he's not in network? (I'm not complaining, just curious).

1. On my medical card is a number I can call to locate labs to draw blood.

Q: Since the insurance is covering my meds from him, will they also cover bloodwork too? Can I go to one of these labs and hand them a lab slip for my endocrinologist and draw blood?
This has been stressing me out a lot. With my last insurance Blue shield PPO I could go straight to the lab and hand them the lab order and they would draw it. Or I could go to my primary care and she would punch in the labs from my endocrinologist and run the labs for me.
Q: How can I get lab work done in my case? I'm still looking for a primary care doctor. Will my primary care Dr be able to do this for me? I only need it done once a year...maximum 2 times a year.
Thank you for your help. Please let me know if I need to clarify anything or provide more information.

For a bit of back story, my older sister hasnt really been a part of the family. She has been in boarding schools from middle school till uni and only stays a while to visit. I guess this whole family concept is new to her. She used to be the best older sister. I would always brag to my friends about how preety and smart she is even though ive had some horrible experiences with her. She recently graduated uni and is back at home she is looking for a scolarship in Tokyo for her master's ( that I really hope she gets)
My little sister is really wise and calm for an 11 year old but she also has her complaints about her. My older sister tends to ignore people and then pretend to be nice, valuable or a 'saviour' by baking, cooking and cleaning around. She also pretends to be this really smart person and interrupts laughs or makes rude remarks when trying to prove your point in a debate. I have ADHD which is frustrating for my clean freak little sister that i share a room with as i tend to forget things she asked me to do or leave random things all over the room jumping from task to task. My sister and I always bicker but end up making up and I truly put in effort to keep the room clean. On one of these bickering moments my oldersister came into the room and imediatly took her side and ignored anything i had to say and would directly talk to her like im not in the room "Dont worry just ignore her, we all know she doesnt care about anyone" which makes completly no sense at all but whatever.
Im really smart and everyone knows that biology is a subject I'm good at so when my mum was talking about something and i was explaining it to her from a biological stand I was confused to see her mocking and laughing at me and looking at my little sister who was just as stunned as I was. We got into a debate about whether smoking causes cancer or not and i said that it doesnt but has a correlation to which she indirectly said that I'm 'young and stupid' and we aren't here to argue 'semantics' She then went on to use 'big words' in hopes to make me feel dumb but failed terribly. she asked me if i knew what a certain chemical compound was and when I said no she just went completely out of control with her rude attitude and when i confronted her, she just said that "being rude is the only thing that works with me" I, later on, asked my dad who has a high IQ and is super good at all sciences what that compound is and he had no Idea.
My mom recently bought everyone chocolate. I kept mine in my bag but decided to keep it in the fridge a couple days later. both my sisters had eatten their bars so i was surprised to see that my bar was also missing. Im not a fan of the brand and would have let her eat it if she had asked me. I asked my younger sister if she ate it and she said no, my parents dont like sugar which only leaves her in the home. I found out later that she told my mum I ate mine and some of hers, she is really good at manipulating my mother. I also saw her take my earbuds and use them, I asked her if those were mine to which she replied "I dont know what ur talking about" and then put them on and blasted music. I told her I would appreciate if she asked before using my stuff to which she replied "I dont know what ur talking about" and smirked
The next day I took a chocolate she had gotten for herself and hid it. When she asked me where it was i told her i dint know what she was talking about to which she responded to saying stuff under her breath. He had had a physical fight when i was around 13 and she did some damage there but knew not to mess with me now as im bigger and stronger than she is. she complained to our mum saying that money should be deducted from my pockets. I let her believe i ate her chocolate for an hour to let her know how i feel about her taking my things without my permission then i placed her chocolate on the kitchen counter and accidentally knocked yogurt she put in the freezer and promptly cleaned it up. she saw the spilled yogurt and was jeering at me and flinging all sorts of insults. I didn't care and camly cleaned up the mess. I guess she saw the chocolate because its missing from the counter and people in this house dont just take things that dont belong to them.
I'm starting to seriously not like my sister and I dont know what to do about it. she's not all bad but for a 22-year-old.. this is completely unacceptable. there was a time she decided to go vegan and would call the food in the fridge a "grave yard" when i tried to fry an egg she made a disgusted face and called it "chicken period" she also called any kind of meat "corpses" Im guessing she has grown a little from then but ill never forget that easter break she came over. If you ask her about this she will tell you that she would never say 'such a thing' and that 'the human brain creates false memories' and so thats what i must be going through.
I dont want to dislike her because she is family and i have alot of good memories with her but I also will not tolerate nonsense. AITAH for not liking my sister? or hiding her chocolate? I feel bad "playing God" and making her learn a lesson.

Apologies in advance for the big wall of text!
I've owned a freehold property in England for the last 2 years (bought as a new build) that has a shared private parking area that is managed by a Management Company set up by the developer, and currently still managed by that developer. Part of the sale included being required to pay a service fee to that management company. I was ok with this because part of the TP1 the agreement was that the ownership of the parking area would be transferred to the management company, and the residents made managing directors of the company. This happened happened yet, however, since the remaining plots haven't yet been sold.
After 2 years of sending no invoices for the service charges, they've suddenly sent 3, for the 2 previous years and a year in advance.
For at least the first year, the management company was officially dormant on companies house.
After I sent a letter in response to the invoices asking for accounts of what work had been carried out, which as part of the TP1 they were supposed to have compiled each year and sent to us (which they didn't), I received a response saying they wouldn't send the accounts, followed the next day by a final reminder and a threat of court action.
The day after that day, the company was dissolved by Companies house for not filing required documents.
The charges are £500 per year, which is excessive for a small parking area. However, I'm aware that as a freeholder I don't have the same rights as leaseholders to contest the charge itself. I also know there's legislation on the way to remedy this. I've also seen information about them being able to forcibly convert my freehold property into a leasehold, but I'm unsure about the conditions under which they can do this!
I'm pretty sure that right now I do have to pay the charges, but I don't know:-

• Should I be paying for the period the company was dormant? Would I be able to contest that at court?
  
• Should I pay a now-dissolved company? What happens to the money I send?
  
• Can the now-dissolved company actually take me to court?
  
• Is there anything lawful I can do to delay this until the new legislation (the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill) comes into effect at which point I could contest the charges?
  

I'm mostly worried that in the interim between now and when I (and the other residents) become managing directors that the developer will have paid his own development company all the money we put in to do nonexistent work/repairs and pocket the money, or that later on he won't actually transfer the management to us as is stated in the TP1.
I'm grateful for any advice given, even if the advice is "you need to just pay it and live with it"! Right now I just don't know what the right thing to do is!
The development company is privately owned by a single individual who has proven in the past to be untrustworthy, breaking promises, outright lying, and intimidating residents to get his way in previous interactions. So I'm not confident there's any recourse via any kind of customer service or complaints resolution process with the developer.

The article is intended primarily for Game Masters who play games in systems inspired by Lovecraft’s works, such as Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green. However, I hope that other fans of cosmic horror will also find something for themselves here. The interesting facts presented here may also be interesting for people who do not know the work of The Loner of Providence, but some of the references may be unclear to them. The article contains several anecdotes – either from real history or from beliefs that exist in the real world, and suggestions on how they can be related to the Cthulhu mythology. So read about:

• Sea Peoples, bane of ancient civilizations,
• a forgotten Eldritch abomination from Greek mythology,
• Jan Twardowski, the first man on the Moon,
• mathematicians and physicists who wanted to know the structure of reality and lost their minds,
• one of the most mysterious characters from the Bible and a dark, occult ritual that underlies monotheism.

Invasion of the Sea Peoples
Ancient, super-advanced, fallen civilizations are one of the favorite motifs of fantasy. And truth be told, something similar happened in real history. Of course, in reality, the fallen civilizations did not have sci-fi supertechnology at their disposal, but their collapse still led to great destabilization. We are talking about the invasion of the so-called Sea Peoples, which took place at the turn of the 13th and 12th centuries BC. The Sea Peoples are mobile and warlike groups of people of unknown origin. They caused the collapse of several advanced cultures, including: Mycenaean and Hittite. Only the Egyptians managed to defeat them in a great battle. Well, the material for Lovecraftian inspiration is obvious. A mysterious army, coming out of nowhere, called the „Sea Peoples”, leading to the fall of the most powerful human civilizations at that time? Let us add that, according to some historians, the descendants of the Sea Peoples destroyed by the Egyptians were the Philistines. Yes, the same Philistines, one of whose main deities was the well-known Dagon to Lovecraftomaniacs… Deep Ones say hello. Let us also add that, according to Egyptian records, the tribes of the Sea Peoples had names such as Ekvesh, Teresh, Lucki, Sherden, Shekelesh, Tekel and Peleset. Sounds suitably dark, blasphemous and filthy? If we want to dig deeper, one of the pharaohs who ruled Egypt was Akhenaten – yes, that heretic who tried to replace the worship of traditional Egyptian gods with the religion of the Aten and who is very much liked by conspiracy theorists. Let’s add to the mix that Middle Eastern cultures had quite a negative attitude towards the sea as such. Babylonian Marduk had to defeat the giant monsters of Chaos – Apsu and Tiamat, personifications of fresh and salt waters, respectively. The Bible also contains traces of the myth about the fight between Yahweh and Leviathan, and the Book of Revelation, describing the new, ideal world, emphasizes that „I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” Let’s assume that the players are researchers of an antiquity – historians, archaeologists, etc. They conduct research on the Sea Peoples. Of course, as common sense dictates, they assume that these were human warriors. However, as time goes on, more and more evidence appears that they were not completely human again, and the evidence of their monstrosity becomes increasingly difficult to put down to the demonization that Egyptian chroniclers used against their enemies… It becomes clear that an onslaught of inhuman and semi-human monsters came from the sea. , trying to conquer the world of that time. Moreover, after their defeat at the hands of the Egyptians, this species did not become extinct, but instead of open conquest it switched to cautious infiltration. Perhaps the Deep Ones have spies in academia who are tasked with eliminating historians who find the trail of truth…
Oh, one more interesting fact connecting the history of the Sea Peoples with Lovecraft. Well, as we know, HPL liked to use the term „Cyclopean” for huge, monumental buildings. At least he didn’t come up with it himself. Well, when the later (and at first more primitive) inhabitants, the Dorians, saw the ruins of destroyed castles left by the Mycenaean culture, they came to the conclusion that such huge buildings could not have been built by human hands, so they were probably the work of mythical giants – cyclopes.
Typhon – a classic but forgotten abomination
Modern works drawing on Greek mythology usually make Hades (completely senseless) or Kronos (a little more) the Big Bad, but they forget about Zeus’s greatest enemy – Typhon. After defeating the titans and then the gigants, the Olympian gods had to face the main boss on the way to dominating the world – Typhon. Here is an example of its description: It was larger than the largest mountains, its head touched the stars. When he stretched out his hands, one reached the eastern ends of the world and the other reached the western ends. Instead of fingers, he had a hundred dragon heads. From the waist down he had a tangle of vipers (yay, tentacles!) and wings at his shoulders. His eyes were shooting out flames. In other versions of the myth, Typhon was a flying, hundred-headed dragon. In any case – appearance and stature worthy of the Great Old One. Typhon attacked Olympus, and all the gods except Zeus fled in panic. The supreme god took up the fight… and lost it. Only in the second duel did he manage to defeat Typhon, but not kill him – he only imprisoned him, hitting him with Etna. In the sense of a mountain. A volcano – and volcanic activity is the result of Typhon’s anger, trying to break free. Typhon equaled the lord of heaven not only in strength, but in fertility. His wife was Echidna, about whom Hesiod wrote: „She also gave birth to another creature, invincible, huge, unlike neither men nor immortal gods, in a hollow cave – the divine violent Echidna, half a sharp-eyed young girl, with beautiful cheeks, half a huge snake, a great and powerful, spotted, cruel – in the depths of the holy land. This pair spawned many, if not most, of the monsters found in Greek mythology. Their offspring were very diverse and strange, as befits the spawn of enemies of the divine order, including: – Ladon, the hundred-headed dragon who never slept and guarded the apples that gave immortality, – Cerberus – we all know the dog guarding the gates of hell… but not all of us know that, according to some accounts, it had not three heads, but as many as 50, it was also covered with scales, and it had a snake by its tail… so what does this have to do with a dog? – Scylla – this lady inherited the most from the human, beautiful part of Echidna… at least initially, but eventually, as a result of various perturbations, she turned from a beautiful nymph to her siblings, becoming a six-headed sea beast, so hideous, according to Homer, that even the gods could not stand sight of her – she dwelt in a cave, from where she opened her mouth to devour the crews of ships, – Gorgons – I mean, those ladies with snake hair, not monstrous bulls. Medusa was one of them – the story that Athena turned her priestess into a monster as punishment for being raped by Poseidon is an invention of later poets, – Lernaean Hydra – a multi-headed monster with many reptilian or human heads. In place of each severed head, two others grew, and in addition, the main head was completely immortal – therefore, after chopping off the mortal heads, Heracles had to burn the stumps and bury the immortal, still hissing head underground. Hydra’s breath was poisonous. – various other creatures, such as the Sphinx, the dog Ortus, the Nemean Lion or the Chimera. Each of these descendants has the potential to be portrayed as an Eldritch abomination in its own right. To be precise – according to some accounts, the father of these creatures (and Echidna herself) was Typhon, but a monstrous, ancient (older than Poseidon) sea god, Phorcys. How to use Typhon? Well, Typhon clearly has the potential to be a Great Old One, imprisoned by… Nodens? Some other Elder God? Weak gods of humanity? Maybe his cult is trying to free him from Etna? What if he succeeds? What might distinguish Typhon from many other Great Old Ones? I would recommend focusing on his monster progenitor aspect – if he manages to reunite with Echidna, they will immediately start spawning various blasphemous beasts in series.
Jan Twardowski – the first man on the Moon
Jan (John) Twardowski, the hero of the legend, a Polish nobleman who allegedly sold his soul to the devil and became a sorcerer. Probably a historical figure, according to legend he lived in the 16th century and became famous for summoning the spirit of the deceased queen for King Sigismund Augustus. The ghost allegedly appeared in the mirror. This mirror is still kept in the church in Węgrów. According to legend, when the terms of the pact were fulfilled, devils came to kidnap Twardowski to hell. Interestingly, instead of taking the sorcerer’s soul after death, the most material demons appeared and grabbed Twardowski in order to kidnap him bodily, alive… and instead of heading towards the underground, which in legends is considered the traditional place of residence of demons and damned souls, they began to carry away up with him. At some point, Twardowski started singing religious songs, which caused the demons to escape, leaving him on the Moon, where he is said to have stayed ever since. Could the “demons” actually be extraterrestrials? Maybe mi-go? Maybe Twardowski was their agent and obtained secret knowledge and technology from them that gave him the fame of a sorcerer? As part of his studies, did he acquire knowledge of a system of sounds („religious songs”) that was able to drive away his masters when they decided that his usefulness on Earth had ended and it was time to transport him to a space base where he would be transformed into a brain in jar? Or was transportation to the Moon part of the deal from the beginning? Oh, one more interesting fact – according to legends, Twardowski used to use a rooster as a horse, which he enlarged with his magic. It’s easy to imagine an abomination that, in the eyes of laymen, might have resembled a large rooster… Examples of scenario hooks: – Twardowski’s secret mirror is still in the church in Węgrów. The local priest thinks it is just other „pagan” superstitions, but in fact it is a tool enabling contact with cosmic beings and higher realities. It may prove useful to players if they convince the priest to give it back or simply steal it. – Players are looking for Twardowski’s notes to gain knowledge about the „song” thanks to which he drove away mi-go (or other creatures that became the prototype of the „devils” from the legend). The so-called Twardowski’s „School” or „Cathedral” was located in a quarry near Kraków. In fact, at the end of the 19th century, during the construction of the church of St. Józef, a cave showing traces of alchemical experiments was discovered… And it was destroyed. But perhaps there is a second, secret laboratory under the cave that escaped destruction? And there lie Twardowski’s secrets… And again, potential obstacles may be placed by the local parish priest. But not only him. Maybe Twardowski’s legendary „rooster” lies dormant in the laboratory and was left by the sorcerer as a guard? – players are astronauts on the Moon. However, it turns out that someone lives here, someone who was not detected by previous expeditions and probes. Will Twardowski prove to be an ally in the fight against cosmic horrors? Or maybe their agent, or an independent villain? If he survived this long on the Moon thanks to blasphemous secrets, it’s possible that he had little humanity left…
The rest of the text is avalaible (of course, for free) here: https://adeptusrpg.wordpress.com/2024/05/13/some-lovecraftian-inspiration-form-real-life-and-beliefs/

Don't worry guys - this is perfectly normal, healthy and necessary.
It's actually good to have so much whale attention.. We have a relatively low market cap with a relatively high trading volume, this makes it very attractive. Low market cap means it's easy to move the markets with relatively low trade amounts, high trading volume means there is plenty of liquidity to fill orders. You can see on Dextools plenty of front running bots.. we know our project is being manipulated.. This is all good.. Also if you look at charts of some of the major successful memecoins, you will see a long period of consolidation with price appearing flat before the project finally takes off... Often the longer this period of consolidation the bigger the move.. If you zoom in you will see that the little insignificant spikes are actually several hundred percent moves but seem insignificant when compared to the real moonshots! Our current All Time High will seem like one of those insignificant dips! No need to be impatient - we actually don't want to moon too early.. chill an make like a sloth.. Even if we dipped lower I would not be concerned - I will just buy more... Rejoice - current move is a positive and healthy thing...

My spouse and I have been working in a small software business for a few years. The team I was on completed a multi-year project (on time). As part of this multiple year project, as an incentive, I was supposed to get a substantial bonus/payout next month, and then another moderate bonus in a year if I stayed and moved over to the new company. However, the agreement with the third-party company somehow collapsed. Though they were essentially paying us the entire time for the dev work, they decided they now want to throw it all away and are not going to go through with the acquisition leaving the software company I work for, which nearly exclusively relied on this client, essentially out of business.
My goal is to somehow figure out how to rework my entire financial position to see if any of this is salvageable with the time I have left.
I could find another role but I may have to take a substantial pay cut for a short time just so I can quickly ramp up on technology that is desirable in my area and get some skin on my very barren resume as I've been with one place for so long writing very niche software for a niche platform. I'm just worried about survivability even if it's 6 months. Also burning through any retirement is truly terrifying to me at this point in our lives and I just assume I'm working until at least 67.

The good:

• I have a paid-off cabin + property in a desirable location that I could sell for at least $60k+ (maybe a little more if I didn't want to sell it quickly). I could maybe rent the cabin but I'd want to do it long term, and that would maybe bring in $6k a year? Renting doesn't seem viable, but who knows. It's too far away to make AirBNB manageable.
• I have some pretty substantial physical assets that I know I could sell off quickly if I absolutely had to for another $50-60k.
• I have other smaller assets that I could liquidate that would take time, but I could maybe get another $20k+ out of them but not quickly. It would take a chunk of time.
• I could move the family member in the rental into our current home which has essentially a separate apartment in the basement at the same rate. Combined the rental could bring in $1.5k a month, the family member would add $500/mo for a few years while they're getting on their feet, that could add $2k a month to the income stream.
• We have about $360k in total retirement, $225k in stocks, $65k is in 401k/Roth/SEP, $40k in a VUL, and $30k left in a money market account for emergencies. Also about $20k in HSA.
• There is a slim possibility I might get at least $100k, but it's all conjecture at this point and I can't make big decisions on that or trust that it will happen. From what I understand I'd have to take a hit on taxes for this money as now it'd come in as cash income instead of a stock conversion.

The Bad:

Job market collapsed in my area in '09. BK in 2010. Lost everything including a house I had moderate equity in. Had to live off 100% of my 401k withdraws and lost 10 years of retirement and equity because where I lived at the time it was so bad I couldn't even get a job at a grocery store and I had two babies at the time. I wasn't just broke, I was super-broke for an extended period of time. I still feel the scars from this.
Eventually dug myself out, learned new skills, and moved to a different area with more job options but I was still behind both in salary and definitely in retirement for years after that. This bonus was supposed to help me recover my retirement and debt from the crash + BK. Now I'm in my mid 40s, my partner is in their early 50s and we've only recently gotten ourselves to a place that started to feel safe for retirement and back on track and started putting away in our Roth + HSA regularly and wanted to start maxing that out asap.
And now it feels like quicksand all over again.

The Ugly:

The stupidest thing I did was because we'd reached this milestone towards the end of last year and I stupidly assumed it was a done-deal -- I rewarded myself by going out and getting a vehicle I'd always wanted. I paid into it with some down payment to get me in it at 3%, but because of market conditions and other programs that reduced the value of the vehicle a few months later -- even if I sold it 3rd party I'm probably at least $25k upside down in if i tried to sell it outright.
We now live in a HCOL area so housing is kind of outrageous. Due to a medical emergency with my spouses parents we had to purchase a house quickly a couple years ago to accommodate her parent with pretty significant medical issues on very short notice so we took a bit of a bath to acquire it quickly. Because of the timing we had to float mortgage payments at two properties for almost a year which burned a lot of our emergency savings and then some of the profit from selling our previous house. Also lost the 2.75% rate 😭.
She also couldn't work during most of the year so she could take care of them which didn't help.
We were able to find our current home on short notice that met their needs at the time, but then her parent died less than a year later and now we are in a house that's way more expensive and way larger than we really need. Also we are now back to the beginning of the new mortgage where we're paying almost all interest even with 20% to avoid PMI. With the market going up and what I have in it, even with the couple years of almost all interest payments, I could maybe get $150-$175k out of it if I had to sell.
We have a rental property that is nearly paid off (maybe $60k left?). We had good tenants for quite a few years, but the last one was horrid and basically destroyed it. I just put a bunch of remodeling into the house to update it and make it easier to transition between tenants if we had to. But because I'd assumed I was going to be paying it off with the bonus, I'd paid for a lot of the first round of work with cash and put the materials on a CC. Also in the process another family member was struggling with a life change so to help them get on their feet and have a second set of eyes on the property while it was all happening -- we let them stay in the house for the last year at cost (only charged them the mortgage). With that all wrapped up, now I'm in the position where it's technically costing me money to have them in there even at cost. They can't afford regular rent. That agreement is technically up in July.
I have about 40k in misc high-interest debt from material costs from the remodel.
How:
I'm trying to determine what the best course of action is at this point. I'm concerned about keeping my head above water on monthly expenses as it's going to quickly snowball to an unmaintainable nightmare if I don't get things under control fast. But at the same time I do not want to jeopardize our retirement. But I absolutely have to reduce the monthly burn rate to make this work. If anyone has insights or suggestions, I'm all ears.

1. I have to get all the high interest debt paid off first ASAP. It's more than 15% of our income per month if I don't take care of it soon. Because I depleted most of my emergency savings, should I take the rest of the cash out of the emergency fund? I could spend a couple months selling the larger assets, and either replenish the MM or go ahead and max out Roth's for the year then replenish or switch to HYSA for a couple percentage points?
2. I really don't know what the best approach on the vehicle is. I could try and see what a dealership might do on a much more sustainable vehicle for 1/3 the payment, but at the cost of throwing away $30k in cash most likely. I don't want to finance the delta as it completely defeats the point. Should I just pay it off so it's not taking up 20% of the income per month and keep it until the wheels fall off?
3. From what I understand, I assume my VUL is completely pointless at this point. The whole purpose was to provide a vehicle for the large bonus. Should I move the value in it to a more traditional investment since all the benefits were reliant on the bonus lump sum? I didn't really like the VUL as it seems insanely complicated anyway. Not sure if this should be more of a financial advisor question or not.
4. Should I keep the rental property or sell it and put that towards my current mortgage to try and greatly reduce the monthly cost of my home? With maybe $1.5k a month in rental income -- paying off my current house would save me almost $2.5k a month. Even ideally, the rental income would take 10yrs before I got the same benefit. However one of the reasons I might want to keep this property is if things got truly dire over the next few years I could throw the bulk of my stuff in storage and we could move into it if absolutely necessary because it's only about $400/mo in taxes and insurance where our current home is more like $1.2k. If I had no other choice, that is at least someplace I could always live a few years and squirrel almost everything away.
5. The mortgage is the biggest expense in our budget and at nearly $4k/mo, it is almost 1/3 of our combined current income (if nothing changes). If I take a hit on salary in the short term it could be 1/2 or MORE of current income at least for some short period of time. Does it make sense to keep it for x years and then sell since I'm already a few years into the loan and just figure out how to accelerate the principal so we can stay in it long enough to not completely have wasted the last few years of payments? Then hopefully 1031 it into a more affordable home in prep for retirement?
6. In a world where I got the $100k or more, is it worth while to pay towards my current home & do a recast, or put that in an investment? I'm a little worried about binding it up in the house, but the long term benefits may be worth while in a few years if I can just bust my ass and get the delta covered and get it to a point where I'm not burning money only on interest.
7. Literally any other suggestions! Especially the most effective uses in the case of the much smaller bonus if it does come in and what I should do with that given the current scenarios.

LESSON 136. Sickness is a defense against the truth.
No one can heal unless he understands what purpose sickness seems to serve. For then he understands as well its purpose has no meaning. Being causeless and without a meaningful intent of any kind, it cannot be at all. When this is seen, healing is automatic. It dispels this meaningless illusion by the same approach that carries all of them to truth, and merely leaves them there to disappear.
Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception. And like all the rest, its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself.
Defenses are not unintentional, nor are they made without awareness. They are secret, magic wands you wave when truth appears to threaten what you would believe. They seem to be unconscious but because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them. In that second, even less, in which the choice is made, you recognize exactly what you would attempt to do, and then proceed to think that it is done.
Who but yourself evaluates a threat, decides escape is necessary, and sets up a series of defenses to reduce the threat that has been judged as real? All this cannot be done unconsciously. But afterwards, your plan requires that you must forget you made it, so it seems to be external to your own intent; a happening beyond your state of mind, an outcome with a real effect on you, instead of one effected by yourself.
It is this quick forgetting of the part you play in making your “reality” that makes defenses seem to be beyond your own control. But what you have forgot can be remembered, given willingness to reconsider the decision which is doubly shielded by oblivion. Your not remembering is but the sign that this decision still remains in force, as far as your desires are concerned. Mistake not this for fact. Defenses must make facts unrecognizable. They aim at doing this, and it is this they do.
Every defense takes fragments of the whole, assembles them without regard to all their true relationships, and thus constructs illusions of a whole that is not there. It is this process that imposes threat, and not whatever outcome may result. When parts are wrested from the whole and seen as separate and wholes within themselves, they become symbols standing for attack upon the whole; successful in effect, and never to be seen as whole again. And yet you have forgotten that they stand but for your own decision of what should be real, to take the place of what is real.
Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you, quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make, a plan you lay, when for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. Now are you sick, that truth may go away and threaten your establishments no more.
How do you think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth? Because it proves the body is not separate from you, and so you must be separate from the truth. You suffer pain because the body does, and in this pain are you made one with it. Thus is your “true” identity preserved, and the strange, haunting thought that you might be something beyond this little pile of dust silenced and stilled. For see, this dust can make you suffer, twist your limbs and stop your heart, commanding you to die and cease to be.
Thus is the body stronger than the truth, which asks you live, but cannot overcome your choice to die. And so the body is more powerful than everlasting life, Heaven more frail than hell, and God’s design for the salvation of His Son opposed by a decision stronger than His Will. His Son is dust, the Father incomplete, and chaos sits in triumph on His throne.
Such is your planning for your own defense. And you believe that Heaven quails before such mad attacks as these, with God made blind by your illusions, truth turned into lies, and all the universe made slave to laws which your defenses would impose on it. Yet who believes illusions but the one who made them up? Who else can see them and react to them as if they were the truth?
God knows not of your plans to change His Will. The universe remains unheeding of the laws by which you thought to govern it. And Heaven has not bowed to hell, nor life to death. You can but choose to think you die, or suffer sickness or distort the truth in any way. What is created is apart from all of this. Defenses are plans to defeat what cannot be attacked. What is unalterable cannot change. And what is wholly sinless cannot sin.
Such is the simple truth. It does not make appeal to might nor triumph. It does not command obedience, nor seek to prove how pitiful and futile your attempts to plan defenses that would alter it. Truth merely wants to give you happiness, for such its purpose is. Perhaps it sighs a little when you throw away its gifts, and yet it knows, with perfect certainty, that what God wills for you must be received.
It is this fact that demonstrates that time is an illusion. For time lets you think what God has given you is not the truth right now, as it must be. The Thoughts of God are quite apart from time. For time is but another meaningless defense you made against the truth. Yet what He wills is here, and you remain as He created you.
Truth has a power far beyond defense, for no illusions can remain where truth has been allowed to enter. And it comes to any mind that would lay down its arms, and cease to play with folly. It is found at any time; today, if you will choose to practice giving welcome to the truth.
This is our aim today. And we will give a quarter of an hour twice to ask the truth to come to us and set us free. And truth will come, for it has never been apart from us. It merely waits for just this invitation which we give today. We introduce it with a healing prayer, to help us rise above defensiveness, and let truth be as it has always been:
Sickness is a defense against the truth. I will accept the truth of what I am, and let my mind be wholly healed today.
Healing will flash across your open mind, as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings. There will be no dark corners sickness can conceal, and keep defended from the light of truth. There will be no dim figures from your dreams, nor their obscure and meaningless pursuits with double purposes insanely sought, remaining in your mind. It will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey.
Now is the body healed, because the source of sickness has been opened to relief. And you will recognize you practiced well by this: The body should not feel at all. If you have been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill or feeling well, of pain or pleasure. No response at all is in the mind to what the body does. Its usefulness remains and nothing more.
Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body’s health is fully guaranteed, because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible.
Yet this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching. If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick.
Give instant remedy, should this occur, by not allowing your defensiveness to hurt you longer. Do not be confused about what must be healed, but tell yourself:
I have forgotten what I really am, for I mistook my body for myself. Sickness is a defense against the truth. But I am not a body. And my mind cannot attack. So I can not be sick.

An open letter to Benedictine College and Harrison Butker
I first came across the Harrison Butker’s 2025 commencement speech at Benedictine College on Twitter. It was a short snippet of the speech and I was in disbelief of what I heard. Intrigued, I went to YouTube to find a recording of the whole speech before drawing further conclusions. Now, I am nearly beyond words.
I grew up in the Catholic Church, attended a Catholic high school, and do still consider myself to be Catholic, although not without my own qualms with the church. However, this is not about that. I am also a more recent college graduate. I graduated from a large public university 5 years ago and am looking forward to obtaining my graduate degree next year, both degrees I have worked incredibly hard for and am immensely proud of. I don’t remember my own commencement speech, but if it was anything like this, I am glad I don’t- I loved my undergraduate experience and will be proud to have my diploma framed and hanging one day. Harrison Butker’s speech is condescending, out of touch, and against the very values of your school. You both, Benedictine College and Harrison Butker, owe these graduating students an apology.
As a proudly Catholic college, I do not hold issue you or your choice in speaker with promoting Catholicism and the beliefs of the Catholic Church, even in regard to politics; while I may not agree, that is your choice to do so and one that underlies the foundation of your school.
The class of 2025, as with many recent graduates and current students, have had to work through a unique set of hardships as a whole, beyond the personal hardships we all face. Mr. Butker is not a recent graduate, nor is he working directly with a school or university. College is a change for everyone from high school, with the course load, schedule, and independence, but beyond the nervousness and uncertainty that comes with this new phase, students are able to rely on the fact that since its inception, the college experience has been relatively stable, until the COVID-19 pandemic. Students, and faculty, were forced to rapidly adapt to a situation that we knew very little about and had no history to guide us. To minimize that, say that “it is not unique,” especially as someone who was not experiencing it from an educational aspect, is disrespectful to students and faculty, regardless of beliefs on the issue. Pandemics are not new, nor are controversial policies, but what these students faced, was new. I know of no other time during our history, where thousands of students were nearly overnight told to immediately leave their housing and worry about their finances and shelter as not everyone has the means to find new housing or go back to their parents, have food outside of the dinings halls, or access to a computer and internet to complete their coursework where they had planned on attending in person or using university resources, when these things are apart of what students pay thousands of dollars for or take loans to afford as part of their college expenses. Whether or not you support these policies and changes, that does not lessen the unique hardships faced or make a student wrong for adhering to them when failure to do so could result in greater consequences. If there is another time where this has happened, I am happy to be referred so that I can learn. It is one thing to say that the feelings of uncertainty and anxiety around new policies and adapting to them are not unique, but another to say that the challenges these students faced as a result of policy is not unique, it is disrespectful, condescending, and completely out of place as someone who did not experience it.
Beyond this, it is even more disrespectful to diminish the accomplishments of particularly the female graduates of your university by allowing your speaker to advocate forgoing using their degree and instead, choose being a wife and mother. To Benedictine College, if this is what your school advocates, then why charge tuition to your female students? How will they pay for it or pay off their loans for it? Do you expect your female graduates to marry a man who will pay off their debts? What happens if they don’t or if they choose a vocation in religious life, are their debts forgiven? To take it a step further, why admit female students at all if their degree is not meant to be used? A yearly tuition of $35,000 seems a greedy ask to attain what becomes a useless degree. Maybe this is not something you support, but I have yet to see any statement indicating dissent with this position. The Benedictine sisterhood and St. Scholastica, its founder, take pride in education and she herself do not choose the vocation of marriage. How would St. Scholastica be able to attend your college when she found her vocation to be in the religious life? To Harrison Butker, how dare you? I am happy for you and your family that your wife can be a homemaker if that’s what she wants to do, but that is completely out of touch for what nearly all of these students will face as they graduate. Your family can comfortably live on just your salary of over $4 million per year, but you are a minority in this situation. You speak of not allowing cost of living to prohibiting where you live, but with your salary, I’m sure there are few areas you cannot find suitable housing and access to food. Is one supposed to choose to live in circumstances where they do not have a stable shelter in favor of a more traditional priest? Earlier in your speech you mention “accepting your lane and staying in it,” I believe you should have taken your own advice, because your lane is far wealthier than mine and likely all of the graduates you are speaking to. Most families will need two salaries to live in even a fraction of the comfort you live and even then, may not be comfortable. From what I understand, you went to GT on a scholarship, another minority, factor in student loans, and the comfort fraction becomes even smaller. Should a family live in a constant state of worry about money so that a woman can be a homemaker? You spoke of charity and the platform God has given you, but I do not see you using your wealth for charitable acts to support the lifestyle you advocate in these graduates. You decide to speak for women and presume they are most excited at the prospect of marriage and children when you are speaking to congratulate them on a major accomplishment that has little to do with their future as a wife or mother. Can a woman not find fulfillment and a calling as a valuable member of the workforce and a wife and mother. As a woman who anticipates graduating from medical school in one year, is being a doctor not part of God’s plan for me? As I understand it, my vocation, is not between being a wife and mother or being a doctor, but of the calling to serve as a married, single, or religious person. You make it seem as though I cannot be both a doctor and family woman one day. You make remarks about controlling how and when children are conceived. You condemn IVF and surrogacy when a large portion of woman and men in this country struggle with infertility or health conditions making a pregnancy incredibly dangerous. If a woman cannot naturally have a child then is she not to be a mother? Do you also condemn adoption as it a choice and controlled method of becoming a parent? Is it only if a woman is unable to conceive naturally that it is acceptable to work rather than be a homemaker? I have always been taught in my experience with the Catholic Church to welcome children into your life whenever they come about, not as a barrier to being a working mom. You have laid out the options as black or white, mother or worker, when I believe the advice is to be open to and welcome God’s plan for you in both areas of your life. Not only do you advocate for the females graduates to forgo the workforce when this is an unrealistic path for most, but in doing so, you add extra pressure to the male graduates to provide in an unrealistic way. At what cost do men take higher paying jobs they are unhappy in so that their wives can be homemakers? You have worked hard to get to where you are, say you are doing something you love, and are able to show the fruits of that labor, should these graduates not show all of the knowledge and skills they have gained through earning their degree?
To Harrison Butker, I, too, am Catholic. I believe we also are similar in that we question right from wrong and do not just blindly accept the things that are fed to us. You say that our priests and bishops are anointed by God, but quickly question that anointing. I now question you, in who you are to question who has been anointed by God. You point out it is your duty as a father to lead your son. In our faith, we call our priests Father, but you call us to question and right them, should they not lead us? Should we not follow the quote you use of trusting our priests to translate the teachings of the Bible for us? Does your son question you and what is your response? You call for priests and bishops to be righted but also to stay in our lane. I do not mean to support the actions of our church leaders either way, but as an individual am not following what you ask of these graduates.
To Harrison Butker, you say you speak from experience, but it seems your experiences are vastly different than most of the graduates you speak to. Your statements contradict one another, in questioning our church leaders, staying in our lane, and even speaking of your wife as someone who converted to Catholicism but later question being with someone of a different faith, not allowing for change. As I have stated before, it is one thing to speak of shared feelings, but another to speak of a shared experience. You give advice in black or white rather than ideas for consideration and reflection. Listening to your commencement speech, I can’t imagine I would have found excitement for the future and wisdom as I start to move forward on my own. Had this been my speech to give, I couldn’t speak to a lot of the challenges these students faced, but can empathize with the fears of stepping out of the student life and uncertainty about my future. I could speak to how being able to adapt to challenges, facing hardship in my own way has made me strong and able to persevere and that they too have grown to be stronger and able to persevere too, even if they are not confident. I could speak to how money is not always the most important thing in life, your church, your family, your community are all things to reflect on when making decisions about the future. But, this was not my speech, it was yours. My ideas may not be right, maybe it has more “fluff” than yours, but they do not tell me the right or wrong way to live my life, as that is between me and God.
To Benedictine College, much of this is address to Harrison Butker. However, this is the person you chose and supported in giving a commencement speech. What is address to him, is also a reflection of what you support and believe, and the message you hope to send your graduates off with. I am not one of your graduates, happy to say I am not with this speech, but at least for me, this is the representation I have of your school.
To Benedictine College and Harrison Butker, you both owe the graduates an apology for these disrespectful and confusing sentiments as they enter a new and stressful chapter of their lives.
To the Benedictine College class of 2025, congratulations!

Hi,
My story - I am a 50 years old male. I had a running injury a year ago involving a meniscus tear and a IV grade femoral condyle cartilage defect (full thickness). The cartilage defect was 1x2cm in diameter. First procedure was done a month after the injury in June 2023, involving a partial meniscus removal. Post op was fine, I was back to cycling a month afterwards. 3 months out I was hiking and occasionally running again.
The other procedure was supposed to be MACI (single procedure) and I had the surgery 2 months ago. I went into hospital fully expecting to have the MACI done. This is a relatively new procedure called AutoCart (Arthrex) which is done in a single go, instead of 2 separate ones. However, while on the table, the medical staff had a problem with extracting enough blood from me to start the procedure. They tried for 15 minutes straight, but unsuccessfully. The surgeon than called it and opted for a different approach - the basic microfracture procedure. So I went in fully expecting to get the most modern procedure, to receiving the oldest one - and as far as I can tell - the least favorable outcome procedure there is.
I am now, as I said, 2 months out from the last surgery. 6 weeks non weight bearing on 2 crutches and another 6 weeks on one crutch (2 weeks more of that to go through still). Have done the first round of PT, second one starts in a week. I will also get my first PRP shot beginning of next week.
After these 2 months, as soon as I started putting weight on the injured leg - it hurts. If I try to put more weight on the injured leg, can't walk without pain. Before the second procedure I could, for the most part, walk problem free. I could occasionally even run and hike. So this is a big step backwards for me, at least for now.
I guess my question for the folks who had the same procedure (microfracture) done successfully - how long did it take for you to at least walk normally and without discomfort? I appreciate that everyone responds differently to the treatment - but I'd like to hear experiences people had while waiting for the things to turn around for the better.
p.s. If the procedure turns to be a failure in the long run for me, I will most likely get OATS done in the next attempt to fix my cartilage defect.

Year 14825 of the Andarian Unified Calender
Bolivan 5 - Central council HQ
“I know that most of you have a profound understanding of how our galactic community is connected and works. But for any new council members, I will quickly go over it all again.” High speaker Efrond spoke gently, their voice carried to every individual council member over the Central Computing Network. The CCN also translated his speech into whatever language, dialect or preferred medium of each individual. Song for one, gestures for another. All within the abilities of the CCN.
“Over 15000 years ago, the Andarians were the first species to leave their home planet and explore space. At a remarkable pace, they explored and colonized their home system. The Andarians are highly intelligent, industrious and iron - willed. One of the reasons that we still use their unified calendar, after their demise.” Efrond spoke with admiration. All species admired the Andarians, and it had been a great loss when their entire species fell to sickness.
“Not long after that, they longed for more, and so they sent out ships to their neighbour stars. This made the Andarians the first species to learn about the most sinister force of nature that any has ever encountered. They called it the wasting sickness, we now call it star fever. They, like many of us, lost hundreds of thousands to it. If not more. Before their interstellar dream was finally crushed. With an increased focus on their system, they recognized the Stepping Stone in their system for what it truly was. They spent several decades repairing it, theirs was a heavily damaged one, and that set them off on their true interstellar journey.”
Efrond paused, most council members here would know their own species history very well. And it would have been a similar tale to that of the Andarians.
“They were the first to find Bolivan 5, and when they found other species, they founded the Central council here as well. They were a paragon of peace and virtue, and we still owe them a great debt to this day. Sadly, neither them nor any of us have ever been able to find a cure for star fever. But with the mapped out lanes of the Stepping Stones that we have today, we can hardly say that we are missing out. We have safe travel between the stars, always protected by a mother's skirt, wherever we go.”
Efrond knew that the idea of a mother's skirt existed in all species and that CCN would translate it accordingly. A star protected its contents. By design or not, it was what allowed life to exist in the first place. Else, the star fever would strike on planets just as well as in deep space.
“Enough with the history lesson, Efrond. Why are we here!” Demanded a council member. Efrond recognized them as Abasaval. Their species was one of the more hot headed. Always quick to be angered.
“Aye, on an emergency no less!' Another quipped. “I hate using the Stones in such quick succession. And using the Central Rosetta makes me sick to the core every time as well.”
Another common occurrence. Travel by Stepping Stones was rough on one's senses. The central Rosetta was a special variant, able to connect to any stone, anywhere, while traditionally stones connected in a one-to-one fashion. It was even rougher on the senses, though.
“Calm yourselves,” Efrond spoke again. “We just received a communication from the souther rim of our known space. The message is about two months old. It starts with a routine mission to analyse a passing interstellar object.”
“Don't tell me we are here for an asteroid!” Abasaval quipped. Efrond ignored him and continued.
“But as the object passed through the system, which is a dead-end lane, they saw the object make minute adjustments to its trajectory, using the star itself for doing so and then left in another direction. It was noted to not travel at the speed of light, but very close to it. It showed clear signs of intelligent life.”
The council was suddenly abuzz with sound. A cacophony, loud and chaotic.
“Impossible!”
“Life that can survive the star fever?”
“Perhaps the vessel was automated and nothing more than a travelling coffin!”
Efrond calmed the council again. “While the passing was very short-lived, the analysts were able to get some scans from the object, there is evidence of possible life forms inside of it. But it left too soon to confirm it. In any case, this is enough evidence for an emergency meeting. I have made a proposal to set up a task force. To try to intercept with this object, we know what system it will have to pass by next after all, and we do have a lane to it. And to find out more about them. If there is a species out there with a cure to the star sickness, we need to get in touch with them. Our entire community is based on the premise of how we navigate the stars. Introducing a player who does not have to abide by those rules… I do not have to spell it out for you. This could have disastrous outcomes.”
The council dismissed soon after, the proposal unanimously approved. Although Efrond saw different reactions to the news. Some were hopeful, not all species had gained good territory and the lanes were limiting to them. Some were angered or worried, as they gained a lot from the current system. Abasaval seemed to have been eager, probably thinking about war. Their species lived for combat and their culture revolved around it. There would be a lot of work ahead of Efrond.
2600 AD
Earth - Terran central Atlatl command
“We have a message from Spear 5, sir” The comms officer spoke up suddenly, surprising Kurt.
“Let's hear it then.” Kurt said, looking up from his screen, filled with anything but work.
As an Atlatl commanding officer, his station was not a glorious one. One of the three captains that rotated in manning the comms station. Waiting for messages send back from any of the Spears. If they did get a message, it was usually to notify the successful deployment of a Deep Comms Sat. The DCS was meant to become a vast network, capable of sending messages from star to star, which would allow humanity to effectually communicate at incredible speeds, across the vastness of space. But step one was deploying them as the Spears explored nearby systems. After that, they all had to spend several years passing around information that would allow them to configure themselves into the formation, and then it would be functional. The estimated time of completion for a fully working DCS web was several decades. But each DCS chain that one of the Spears left behind worked, albeit in a less efficient way than once the whole system would be functional.
“Yes, Spear 5 seems to have encountered an anomaly in the Albert system. They were travelling at full speed as they are on their way back to get a DCS resupply. They think they might have come across intelligent life. There were some activity spikes that seemed like something was trying to either contact them or scan them. They are now in deep space, so their next reply will take a while.”
“Tell them to send over their reports, over DCS web. Meanwhile, send a copy of their data over to the other departments and have our analysts go over it as well.” Kurt stood up now, this was potentially big. Maybe big enough to get him out of his current post. But only if this was actual alien life. Better to play by the book until there was certainty.
“Send a copy to my terminal as well, I will be going over it personally too. Plan a meeting with the other two captains. I need to brief them on this and make sure we are ready.”
“Aye. Ready for what, sir?” The comms officered looked worried.
“Anything.”
Nobody is allowed to use this, or any of my other stories, for narrations. Nobody is allowed to monetize them in any way or form. Nobody is allowed to pretend my work is their own.

Honestly im not the best at writing, but lately but have been feeling so confused and distraught, i have lived on and off with my mother in law for the past 3 years almost, for soe context her son is my fiance and we are a gay couple, when i first moved into there household a few years ago i had some savings with me, that i had used on stuff around her house, like decorations, stuff she wanted, groceries, bills, maybe if she ever wanted anything like a dress or cosmetics, that was my first mistake, she is the type of woman who will say money doesnt matter, and proceeds to be frugal with her own money but use as she wishes of mine lets say she goes grocery shopping usually shed spend 20 dollars or 30 for a fww things but if she knows we will help her with groceries (me as my fiance didnt work in the two years i lived there)Enter
She will use 40 - 60 or even 70 suddenly money is no longer an issue and it doesnt matter only when it comes to her spending, around this time, she barely worked as she only cleaned houses, her other two sons who lived with us didnt work, and if they did it was part time and sometimes not alot, leaving me too be the bread winner for many months, 3 months by myself, 6-8 by myself, until i had an explosion and couldnt handle seeing my fiance and his whole family laugh, eat and have a good time while i worked everyday and all i did was sleep, his mother resented me, for many months saying how i was stingy and controlling with money, saying i shoulsntEnter
Be like that with THE money, never my money, or me and MY fiances money as they saw we are together so whats mine is his, saying that my money belonged to him, at the time me and him shared my financial account, and we have savings but then suddenly he see a new compurer he wanted or something on facebook marketplace and that money would go away, id save it up, itd go away, leaving too a contant cycle of him buying and re-selling stuff at a higher price too make some sort of "income" for usEnter
I couldnt handle it, while his mother resented me for calling out her sons for not working, she called me out on the littleest things, oh he doesnt drive, oh look at these crumbs he let, hes so dirty, he walks weird, why does he talk lke tat and laughing with her two sons in the kitchen at my expense, while i paid for the things theyd eat, then if i talked with her sons about something if they didnt like it theyd go back too her and just know they are only a few years younger then me, one is 22, 24 and my fiance 26, she is in her 40s and also gets angry at me because since she is from mexico cant always understand what im saying and takes it as a insult or the wrong way, a few says ago i told her while have a conservation for hours, as i always try my best too spens time with her and talk about her interests, she was talking about her hair falling out and how if shes too rough it falls out and i said, that might be because irs very thick! Alot of people with native american ancestry have really thick coarse hair, in the olden days they said it was like horse hair, its not like mine, mine is really thin, I found out that upset her alot, but at the time she was laughing about it and was like oh really, but i think now shes seeing it as a insult or whatever excuse to be mad at me, because a few days ago she began too insult me again, for context in had just moved back with them because i left for almost 8 months or so too get away from her and too help my grandparents who had stage 4 cancer, they recently passed away in December and i moved back because my family saw me more of a nuisance, just as they did with my grandparents, i was taking care of them because no one in my family didnt want too, not my uncle, not my aunt (who lived with them) not my two cousins, not my brother, only my one brother sometimes, but mostly me then my mom and that was it, eventually it got too difficult too take care of my grandparents and my aunt and uncle kicked me out because my aunt kept talking badly about me because i overselpt and there would be a day or two were i wasnt as up to beat and aware there for my grandparents but its very difficult too constantly take care of two people all day long, id usualy get 5 hours of sleep every day or less sometimes, as id also do all the chores throughout the house, my laundry my grandaprents laundry, take out the trash, cook, clean, prepare my nans bed, help her too the toliet, stuff like that, but its way more said then done, i did try my best but my aunt complained too my nan once i told my aunt i didnt need to work because its already alot too take care of my granddparents and there social security pays for most of the bills, about 60-70 % and my uncle pays for the rest, my aunt wasnt paying for anyhting shed spend her money on herself, go hiking, spend time with friends, eat out all the time, or do doordash too make more money, so because i told my aunt about this she resented me and tried getting my grandmother on her side saying that i didnt do enough, it hurt me more then you could have ever imagined i looked at my nan and said nan i do everything for you, how dare you say that too me, and because of me and my aunt fighting my uncle kicked me out, throughout 3 weeks i spent time going there to still take care of them about 3 or 4 days a week with my mother, but there health got worse, they didnt eat as much and they went into a nursing home, my grandfather then passed away a few weeks into staying at the nursing home and then a 10 days later my grandmother did as well. i then stayed with my mom who put pressure onto me working right away when she knows it take some time to get work, i applied too many places, not getting anything at all, it doesnt help my mother lives in the middle of the woods 15 minutes away from any town. and i think as i said i dont drive, and no one was willing to help me. i then lived with my brother and his fiance who took all of my money and gave me false promises of helping me find a job and driving me there, then after they got what they wanted said we dont want too drive that far for you too work evne if i gave them gas money, i then decided to go back too being at my fiances families house and it seems things are repeating themselves and i feel lost, helpless and distraught, his family treats me, as if im the bad guy, and i should accept how his mom is. do you know how painful it is too talk with her and say oh sonia! lets go get some seeds and we can plant them together! so i did, i bought them a grill too, my fiance wanted it but i know my fiance just wants me for my money and his lazy ass, he doesnt want to work anywhere and lost his job, and when i got here his other brother lost his job and his other brother is saying he wants to quit leaving me as the only one working again, im going too lock my finances and move out. but today or tomorrow i am going too church after so many years to find solice, i cant handle all this, after me and his mother were happy and planted all these vegtables and squash, etc. she comes into the house and screams that i am lazy, dirty, and that i dont want too work, i already have a job, i am going for my CNA classes in 5 days, it takes two weeks and then i work but it took me a month of waiting, and this is coming from the woman who barely works. but still it hurts that i do so much for them and get nothing in return but i shouldnt care. i honestly dont know how i havent pulled every single hair out of my scalp yet, this is only a small piece of all the things that have happened and context for my situation. in the past she has also said me and my fiances relationship makes her uncomfortable and she doesnt like gay people, especially after becoming muslim. I feel like i should put more, and i might later, but i am tired.. and its overwelming too type all of this

I'm about to do day 3 of 6 of a tattoo sleeve.
I'm traveling internationally to see a pretty famous artist for this, took 3 years to get the slot and I saved up ~ a years worth of discretionary income for it.
I wasn't able to see the designs ahead of time-- I understand this, it's standard, no problem. However, when I got here and looked at the design, it seemed like the artist ignored some of my requests and also parts of it just seemed... lazy. Not like the work he has online. For example, I asked him if he could integrate a maze into the forearm somewhere, because I used to draw mazes on my friends' arm as a child and he just put a maze on the bottom that looks like it was just cut and pasted from online and doesn't even have a solution with just a big black line separating it from the rest of the tattoo (his work usually has thoughtful, flowing transitions between sections).
I told him I was still willing to begin, but only if he promised to work with me on some of the things that I didn't feel good about and he agreed.
I'm finding that the artist is not taking any kind of feedback well and is giving intense resistance and failing to be constructive with a lot of my concerns. What I would hope for in this situation is that if I tell him I don't like a part of the tattoo for my body or want something adjusted/checked, that he would take it seriously, accept it, and brainstorm some alternatives with me. However, what keeps happening is that I'll bring something up that I don't like and he'll literally just say "it has to be this way but it would be too difficult to explain it to you" or he'll ask what I want instead, and I'll come up with some ideas and he'll shut them all down.
It's pretty clear that he's annoyed with me and finds me difficult, but I feel like the things I'm asking for are reasonable e.g. "hey, I don't think these lines are actually lining up with my anatomy, can we spend 5 extra minutes to check please" kind of thing. I'm having a ton of anxiety that I'm going to end up with a very technically accomplished sleeve on my body that doesn't feel right because I was rushed through the process by someone who wasn't taking my concerns seriously. I feel stupid for going with someone who's up on a high horse about his work instead of someone maybe less technically accomplished who would sit with my concernsa and make sure that I'm getting the tattoo that I want. What can I do?

Have no idea what i’m doing, even when i’m shown how to do it + do my best to listen & take notes I can’t replicate what they do when i’m left to figure it out independently Basically i don’t understand majority of things even though i’m being taught how to
Kind of spinning wheels trying to figure it out by myself and even when i ask for help i still don’t understand the more technical parts of it Don’t know if i just lack everything required for this line of work
Feels like my job will also be sinking along with anxiety everyday over not knowing wth im doing
Just a me thing or someone else also experienced and how did you overcome?

First time reader of Wolfe and I'm having an amazing time working my way through shadow and claw. I had to read this chapter a couple times to try and grasp it; it's extremely dense. I'm still finishing Claw of the Concilliator so my thoughts may change. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
The Tale of the Student and His Son Analysis
“Once, upon the margin of the unpastured sea, there stood a city of pale towers.”

• The unpastured sea evokes Hamlet “the undiscovered country” death and the unconscious. Pale refers obviously to a light color but also feebleness. However, a tower symbolizes wisdom and stability and the balance of forces (light and dark, fire and water, order and chaos). Wolfe is already painting this city in contradiction.

“In it dwelt the wise. Now that city had both law and curse.”

• Another symbol of duality: loss and gain. The wise give the law but simultaneously curse the city.

“The law was this: That for all who dwelt there, life held but two paths: they might rise among the wise and walk clad with hoods of myriad colors, or they must leave the city and go into the friendless world.”

• Here’s another contradiction: the wise wear myriad colors symbolizing their acceptance of all, but their law is built on exclusion, a brotherhood without.

“Now one there was who had studied long all the magic known in the city, which was most of the magic known in the world”

• The magicians study pan (all). They are comparative mythologists, occultists, Jungians, etc. (This, ironically, is Wolfe). Pan in Greek mythology is a cloven foot and horned god that plays the “pan flute”, and is associated with nature and sex. He is often accompanied by nymphs.

“And he grew near the time at which he must choose a path. In high summer, when flowers with yellow and careless heads thrust even from the dark walls overlooking the sea.”

• High summer is a reference to the “dog days” of summer. In ancient Greece, this was the hottest and most uncomfortable part of summer. It’s called the “dog days” because it coincides with the heliacal rising of Sirius in the constellation Canis Major. Furthermore, the Greeks believed the luminous Sirius (from seiros: scorching) caused the extra hot days. I mention this because it relates to the alzabo which in the Lexicon Urthus is from the archaic Arabic “al-dhi’b” which refers to a wolf, a jackal, or a star in Canis Major.

“How may I - even I who know nothing - have a place among the wise of the city? For I wish to study spells that are not sacred all my days, and not go into the friendless world to dig and carry for bread”

• Another paradoxical and ironic statement: he’s been studying all his life, but knows nothing. A Socratic kind of wisdom but also represents spiraling madness. Critically, he wants to study non-sacred spells; he turns away from the divine.

“ Do you recall how, when you were hardly more than a boy, I taught you the art by which we flesh sons from dream stuff? How skillful you were in these days, surpassing all the others! Go now, and flesh such a son, and I will show it to the hooded ones, and you will be as we.”

• Groomer! And if Wolfe is trying to evoke ancient Greece with this story, it’s well-founded that older Athenian men would often indulge their passion for youth. This would explain the use of the carnal word “flesh” to describe the creative process. Sex magic is a common occult practice and is certainly non-sacred. The passing of seasons represents the cyclical nature of trauma and abuse.
• Wolfe uses very unsettling language: “And the old man who had taught him thought of the beauty of the trees that had for so many years delighted his eyes like the white limbs of women.”

“Winter came stalking into the land from his frozen capital, where the sun rolls along the edge of the world like a trumpery gilded ball and the fires that flow between the stars and Urth kindle the sky. His touch turned the waves to steel, and the city of the magicians welcomed him, hanging banners of ice from its balconies and heaping its roofs with glaces of snow.”

• Perhaps a reference to Saturnalia but does not follow the ancient Greece theme. Saturnalia occurred near the winter solstice because the sun enters Capricorn, the astrological house of Saturn, at that time. Capricorn fits in with the Pan imagery as it too is a goat-like being.
• Saturn represents the cyclical course of time and season (Greek equivalent Chronos). Saturn would regularly devour his own children; this fits into the aforementioned cycle of trauma.
• Saturn is often represented with a sickle: a symbol of mankind’s partial control over the natural world.

“In spring, the most beautiful maidens of the city, the daughters of the magicians, were clothed in green; and while the soft winds of spring teased their golden hair, they walked unshod through the portal of the city, and down the narrow path that led to the quay, and boarded the black-sailed ship that waited them. And because of their golden hair, and their gowns of green faille, and because it seemed to the magicians that they were reaped like grain, they were called Corn Maidens.”

• Here the sickle imagery is introduced directly. The Corn Maidens are human sacrifices, but are compared to grain and corn; sent into the “unpastured sea.”

“Looking from his window saw the maidens filing by, he set aside all his books and began to draw such figures as no man had ever seen, and to write in many languages, as his master had taught him aforetime.”

• Is this not what Wolfe does in his writing? He constantly appropriates ancient words from forgotten languages to do his “magic.”

“ At first it seemed to him that all the skill his master had taught him of old had deserted him, for from the first light to the moonlight he was alone in his chambers save for the moth that fluttered sometimes to show the insignia of Death at his undaunted candle flame.

• More meta stuff: writer's block
• A moth showing the insignia of death is an interesting comparison. This moth could be interpreted as the final stage of metamorphosis before death. It could also refer to the Bombyx Mori, the silk moth. Mori in this sense means mulberry, but mori can also mean death (as in memento mori). The silkworm has a similar symbology to the scythe in that it represents man’s control of nature. This is the domesticated version of the silkworm that relies completely on humans for its survival and is genetically modified to promote silk production. This reflects the city’s practice of human farming and sacrifice.

“Then there crept into his dreams another; and he, knowing who that other was, welcomed him, though the dreams were fleeting and soon forgotten.”

• The Irony here is that although he works tirelessly practicing his magic, he only summons the being when he is not working, asleep and unconscious. He welcomes this being into his mind. “He heard the step, always in another room” He’s unable to pinpoint this being’s being; he can only pinpoint its secondary effects. As he continues his magic, the aftereffects become increasingly pronounced until finally the illusory becomes real. Milton describes hell as “darkness visible.” I think Wolfe is going for a similar effect here.

“Then the student dared turn himself where he sat, and he saw standing before him a youth haughty of port, wide of shoulder, and mighty of thew. Command was in his firm mouth, knowing wit in his bright eyes, and courage in all his face. Upon his brow sat that crown that is invisible to every eye, but can be seen even by the blind; the crown beyond price that draws brave men to a paladin, and makes weak men brave.

• The student’s creation terrifies him, but he doesn’t want to show his fear.
• “Haughty of port” meaning prideful with an air of superiority. Going back to Milton: “round he (Satan) throws his baleful eyes, that witnessed huge affliction and dismay, mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.” Classic Luciferian pride.
• Contrary to popular depictions of Satan, he is one of God’s highest creations: “Whoever he is, the “Devil” is among the very first and best creatures of God. He is, so to speak, perfect enough, wise enough, powerful enough, one can almost say divine enough, to know God and not to surrender to him - to know him and yet opt against him, to desire freedom from him. But since this freedom is impossible in the love and light which always lead to God and to a free surrender to him, it must of necessity be fulfilled in negation, hatred, and rebellion.” (Alexander Schmemann). Satan is God’s highest creation but he is the most base, he is wise yet chooses irrationality, in Wolfe’s description he wears the invisible crown that all see. Satan is an ironic, paradoxical, and tragic figure.
• Milton also describes Satan as a commander

“Often I have seen, like a green serpent called by the notes of a pipe, a column of green slip down the cliff below our city to the quay.”

• Again Wolfe uses Miltonian imagery: “Thus they Breathing united force with fixed thought moved on in silence to soft pipes that charmed Their painful steps O’er the burnt soil.” Both descriptions suggest a snake charmer playing his pipes.
• This connects Satan and Pan: pan pipes as well as ostensible concern for his nymphs

“At this the young man’s eye flashed, and he demanded: ‘Who is this ogre, and what form has he, and where does he dwell?’”

• The ogre is the beast and the minotaur that lives in the west. The West is another symbol of death and the unconscious.

“His name no man knows, for no man can approach near enough…His harbor is an isle to the west, where a channel with many a twist and bend, dividing and redividing, reaches far inland. It is on the isle, so my lore teaches me, that the Corn Maidens are made to dwell; and there he rides at anchor in the midst of them, turning his eye ever to left and right to watch them in their despair.”

• Does no man know its name because no one has discovered it or because it doesn’t exist? Or are both the same?
• Eye of Sauron reference. Masonic all-seeing eye which masons say represents the omnipresence and omniscience of God, but, in reality, represents an all-powerful control system that constrains mankind. When Severian first goes against his guild he says of his fellow torturers: “ I saw them as powerful, the active principle of an inimical and nearly perfect machine.” Severian first realizes that Nessus is a vast control mechanism; the torturers are a gear in the infernal machine.
  
• The beast lies in the labyrinth. The twisting and bending channels describe a labyrinthine structure without directly calling it a labyrinth. When Domnina first observes Father Inire’s mirrors: “She ran to the curtains hoping to find another door behind them, but as soon as she pulled one aside, one of the eight walls painted with labyrinths opened and Father Inire stepped out. Behind him she saw what she called a bottomless hole filled with light.” Wolfe is trying to show that the beast, the control mechanism, is tied to these mirrors.
  
• The young man fleshed from dreams relates to the fish fleshed from reflected light in Father Inire’s mirrors. They are both paradoxical creations; how can one create reality from the virtual (dream stuff and mere reflections)? The fish is clearly a reference to Christ and the ichthys; Domnina even references Pascha. But this Christ is a virtual Christ, an antichrist. In Revelation, the Antichrist is depicted as the ape of Christ, but ultimately the Antichrist is a mere illusionist: “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (Thessalonians 2:11).
  

“For I am Noctua, the daughter of Night, and the daughter too of him whom you have come to slay…For though he did not know why, being of the stuff of dreams he was drawn to her; and she, who eyes held starlight, to him…At this the princess took pity on him, for all who have the stuff of dreams about them seem fair in some degree at least to the daughters of the night, and he fairest of all.

• Noctua means owl from Latin nox meaning night (and she is quite literally from her mother Nox). Nox is an important aspect of Thelema or the occult practices of Aleister Crowley. Nox is the formula of the night of pan, the “crossing of the abyss” and the union with “our lady of abominations” Babalon (from Revelations the whore of Babylon). In Nox, the adept experiences unification with the All through ecstatic destruction of the ego-self, dissolving duality into one or, in other words, nonsense. Ego death is a core element of mind control (MK Ultra and Project Monarch** remember the silkworm symbol).
• It’s clear from this passage and later passages that many others have been sent on this mission in the past. However, Noctua feels a particular affection for this commander.

“At length Night came, and they saw her striding from islet to islet with her bats about her shoulders and her dire wolves dogging her steps. No more than an easy carronade shot from their anchorage she seemed, yet they all observed that she passed not before Hesperus or even Sirius; but they before her. For a moment only she turned her face toward them, and none could be certain what her look conveyed. But all of them wondered if indeed the ogre had taken her without her will as her daughter had said; and if so, if she had not lost the resentment she might be imagined to have felt.”

• Hesperus represents Venus the morning star in Latin Lucifer or light bringer. As Russell puts it, the evening star is the morning star; it represents the drama of a hero striving for the highest seat of heaven but being cast out of heaven (matches the movement of Venus in the sky). Another connection to Sirius.
• Another suggestion that perhaps this quest is not as it seems.

“In ancient times, so it is said, a tattered child, the daughter of a fisherman, found on the sand a stoppered flask, and by breaking the seal and drawing forth the cork became queen from ice to ice. Just so it seemed, an elemental being, strong with the strength of the forging of creation, debouched from the tall smokestacks of their ship, tumbling over himself in dark joy and growing with a rush, as the wind comes.”

• This could be a Pandora’s box reference, critically Pandora. Another dualistic notion, that what saves the day also causes doom. Or perhaps Odysseus’ bag of winds; the aid turns into the curse. Fits into the overall narrative of the story that Severian is both a torturer and a hero. He is “severed” and “severs” into two. Dorcas: “All of you are torturers, one way or another.”

“Then he strode to the rail and looked down; but with such an expression that no one, not even the most brave, dared to look at him. When he lifted his eyes at last, his face was set and grim and with no word to any man he took himself to his cabin and barred the door.”

• Obviously despondent. Either about the evil he released into the world or that his great battle was with a phantasm or that the whole quest was a lie.

“But on the morning of the third day, the young man fleshed from dreams came out of his cabin and began to walk up and down the deck as he was wont to do”

• Allusion to the resurrection of Jesus on the third day. His cabin serves as his “tomb.”

“At this he looked up into the very vault of the firmament. And some thought he prayed, and some that he sought to restrain the anger he felt against them, and some only that he hoped to gain inspiration there. But so long did he stare that they waxed afraid, even as they had when he had peered into the water, and one or two began to creep away. Then he said to them: “Behold! Do you not see the sea birds? From every corner of the sky they stream. Follow them.”

• He’s come back from the dead but is filled with anger.

“None of them ever forgot that night”

• Nothing like an orgy after a long day of work.

“Certain of the Corn Maidens wed those princes who, having spent years so long enchanted that they are loath to leave that life (and have in that time learned much of gramary), build palaces on lily pads and are seldom seen by men.”

• They go out to become demonic forces in the world. Lily pads are a call back to Chapter 2 of shadow: “When I think of my own death, or of the death of someone who has been kind to me, or even of the death of the sun, the image that comes to my mind is that of the nenuphar, with its glossy, pale leaves and azure flower.” The nenuphar exists above and below the water; they exist in two worlds just as their journey took them from the east to the west.

“And when he beheld their dark sails, smutted by the burning tar that had blinded their enemy, he believed them blackened in mourning for the young man, and he threw himself down, and so perished. For no man lives long when his dreams are dead.”

• Absurd ending to the story. You can't help but laugh at the ending. Jonas even suggests that the end of the story has been edited.
• IMO, he kills himself because the “hero’s” journey was never meant to be a success. The hooded ones need the ogre to have the utopia.

I have seen so many stories in this group about abusive parents, life struggles and people going through mental health issues. I felt like sharing mine in a positive light because all of us are living in the hope that it will get better someday, right? I consider myself very lucky because alhamdullilah i've lived a fulfilling life uptil now. I've had the best parents anyone can imagine of, to put it in words "Zindagi Dhoop tu ghanaa sayaa", Baba nay kabhe dhoop lagnay he di. My parents got married very young. My father was 23 and my mother was 21. I am the youngest of 3 and i was born when my father was 33. He was pretty much stable in life by then and provided me with all the things he missed on. A good education, Food, Clothes, A loving home and environment and whatever i asked for, i got it. Not considering the unreasonable demands on my part 😂. But pretty much whatever "Zidd" i had. You can think of me being the spoiled child. I failed in AS, thought this is the day i will hear my father scream at me, he only said koe baat nahe agli baar achay say parhna. My father had to get a job when he was 18. He did not have supportive parents, had to earn his own money and top of that got married at an early age. So he gave me everything which he missed on in life. No twist, right? There is none. Mai jitna Allah ka Shukar adaa karo kam par jaye Qk koe aisi naimat nae hai jo nahe mile. This was about the parents part now i will come to my part. I've always tried to be a good son. Due to no rok tok and getting all the money, did get into drugs early on in life. But that is the only mistake i can think of that i shouldn't have done. I still consider that i made some great friends along the way, being privileged doesn't mean that your social life is going to be as good, but i have people in my life who stood up for me whenever i needed them. I would do anything for them too. Fast forward to today, what am i missing in life? The responsibilities: recently i did a gig and made 60k. I gave it to my mother because i couldn't think of anything i wanted to spend it on. You yearn for things you don't get in life, right? Till now i was dependent and had the most fulfilling experience. I want to be in that struggling phase of life, where i have to pay the bills, do my own chores. Be independent. I have not had any mental health issues till recently, but now i think this transitioning from dependence to independence is becoming difficult for me. My parents don't want me to move out. I can get a job here in this city, but still i wouldn't have a purpose. Salary ko aag bhe laga dn taw koe farq nae paray ga because it would be meaningless. I know that i can stop taking money from my parents and start spending my own. But there isn't much i can spend on. When i think of salary i think of spending it in one go, like getting a new phone, a new gaming console but there will come a time when that list is finished. What am i missing on in life? How do i convince my parents to move out? Did anyone of you go through what i am experiencing? I have so many questions but no answers. Any kind of input will be valuable for me.

So. I was put on a waiting list in my home town back when I lived at my parents house and was told I would have to wait approx 3 years. It would have been roughly this October that 3 years had passed
About 8 months ago I moved out of my parents and to a neighbouring city and switched GPs. I spoke to my GP today to get an update on my progress and unfortunately they informed me that I should speak to the original service to see if they will still treat me
I rang them and they said that they can’t now that I am no longer with a GP in their area. I could try and switch but the GP said that: A. They may not take into account my previous wait B. Even if they did take it into account, they would probably not even tell me or the GP
I’ve honestly been let down by the mental health system so much that I feel numb. I know though that when things get tough again that it will hit me hard knowing this
They can’t seriously expect people to just not move at all when being told they may need to wait several years for an assessment. Why do the services not communicate with eachother. Why can’t the Bradford one just contact the Leeds one and transfer me but instead I have to start the Leeds one again as a newcomer and the Bradford one things I don’t exist anymore
I’m at the point where I don’t think my life can properly start until I get a diagnosis and I can start getting treatment because my concentration issues are effecting all aspects of my life. I feel like I’m being robbed of my life

For starters, this should be applicable to anyone who has the misfortune of owning anything by NordicTrack that has the ifit app installed. Ultimately, these are all powered by slightly different variants of the same android control board. So similar even, that if you crack open any of them, the boards have the same shape, mount points and locations of all the primary components and connectors. They all have the same design flaw.
All that being said, I've fixed a bike and two treadmill boards so far by re-flowing them. The problem wasn't the screen. It wasn't an issue of the board not getting power, etc. The issue was cold solder joints.
One of them had to be reflowed twice, but...again, I've got a pretty good track record going, and am now convinced that these are just cheaply made "not even half as good as an Amazon Fire" tablets with cold solder joints. If you don't know what a cold solder joint is, it's simply areas on the board where the board was not heated enough during production, resulting in poor joints that crack and fail overtime. It would be kind of like if all the important nerves in your nervous system just started breaking. You'd stop working too. Fortunately, there's usually ways to fix this on circuit boards.
If you have a multi-meter, you can poke the 12v power header into the tablet to confirm that it's getting 11 to 13v power. If it is (and assuming it's also getting 2 amps then), you're probably looking at cold solder joints. If you don't have a multi-meter, but you're mechanically inclined, you can pick one up for under $10 USD. Takes about 10 minutes to learn how to use on on Youtube. If you want to test if it's a screen issue....well, short of visible, physical damage, screens *and* the touch overlays don't just die at the same time. So even if the screen was totally failed, the touch overlay should still let you poke around if you know exactly where to click to make *something* happen. (You could also hook the screen up to a laptop if you have a large format screen with a 30 pin connector, but that seems overkill when, overwhelmingly, it's likely cold solder joints on the PCB in the tablet)
Also, it's worth nothing that cold solder joints don't always result in being dead in the water right away. While I would try *everything* else from a software perspective first to fix instability issues, constant crashing and reboots, completely frozen screens, inability to fully boot, or error messages preventing boot can all be related to this, too. For my own treadmill, it started with freezing after a couple workouts, and quickly (over a day) progressed to a boot loop where it never would fully load. For kicks, I let it torture itself and when I came back the next day, it was completely dead.
Anyway, fixing this is pretty much the same as what everyone used to do to XBOX 360's that had the red ring of death...cook the PCB until the solider melts again, but also try not to cook it so far that the components on the board literally burn and become unusable again.
Also, it's worth noting that if you're lucky enough to still be under warranty, you should pursue that first. And don't discredit looking at what credit card you bought your machine with, if you're the original owner. Some credit cards double warranties, so that 2 year warranty on the tablet could very well be turned into a four year warranty by your credit card company. This is actually a surprisingly common, but not well known, benefit of major cards.
To get started, unplug the unit from the wall. The last thing you need is to end up electrocuting yourself or blowing something out on your machine because power was still being applied to it.
Ok, so onto the actual repair.....to do this, you'll need to unplug the four cables going into the back of the tablet. On some machines, like my 9.5s, you might have to take a back cover off the whole unit to actually reach the back of the tablet, and its connectors. Once that's taken care of, you'll need to take out the (likely) 3 screws on each side that hold the tablet mount into the upper assembly that the tablet itself is mounted in. From here, the tablet should be freely removable from the unit.
Now you need to undo the screws in the back of the tablet to separate it from the touchscreen front. Warning: There are delicate ribbon cables going from the screen in front, to the board in the tablet. Damage one of them, and you may as well just buy a new tablet for the few hundred bucks NordicTrack will shake you down for.
Once you've exposed the board, you should be able to pull out the wire connectors and flip the pressure fit levers on the ribbon cable connectors for the tablet to remove the camera and touchscreen ribbon cables. Note that the wifi antenna is also relatively delicate, and should be pulled as upward as possible. You also need to be careful when reinstalling it, or you can crush the connector, and then....either you're good at incredibly small soldering by hand, or again, you're buying a new tablet with half the power and build quality of the cheapest Amazon Fire at quadruple the price.
Next, remove the screws securing the board to the inside of the tablet, and you should be able to freely remove it with ease. Now comes the Really delicate part.

THE ACTUAL FIX ITSELF

Ideally, you would be doing this in a precision controlled re-flow oven with a profile that walks the board through exact temperature changes....but you can get 90% of the way there, and have pretty excellent chances of fixing your board, nontheless. You just need an oven and a thermometer you can read from inside the oven.
Before prepping the board to go in the oven, remove the large metal RF shield covering the back of the board. Not the one that's postage stamps sized, but the one that's about the much larger one, about the size of two human thumbs. You can discard this - it's an RF shield and honestly it does nothing but trap heat that really shouldn't be trapped, in my opinion.
Using the "toaster oven method" to reflow a PCB, you will want to make a few loose (not very compacted) foil balls. Set them on a plate in a way where you can press the board into them, connectors side facing up. You should have the board be as level as possible - re-flowing a board at an angle can make the chips fall out of alignment, and then you pretty much have a dead, now-un-repairable board.
Once the board is level, put a thermometer you can read on the plate with the board and pop it in the oven. Set the oven to bake at 230C (About 445F) and once the oven has actually reached this temperature, count off two minutes. That is how long you want to let the board bake before you remove it. You don't have to be exact with this, but don't leave it in for only a minute and don't forget about it and come back after it's been cooking for 5 or 10 minutes. Try to be within a few seconds of that 2 minute mark. And the temperature gauge on the plate is so you can know that it really is within a few degrees of 230F. The temp gauge on stoves often lies, and if the board is below 220 it won't really re-flow, and above 240 you run the risk of cooking it to death.
Anyway, the final, and arguably most delicate part, is removing the board. You want to be as gentle as possible. No bumps, no jerky motions, and setting it down with great care once it's out of the oven. Also, set it down *away* from the oven so that the board can cool off faster. Don't put it in the fridge or anything, but let it sit undisturbed for about 15 minutes before trying to do anything with it. After that amount of time, it should be cool enough to touch. Once all of this is done, screw the board back into the tablet shell, but ONLY put the screws in along the two sides that have connectors coming out of them. This means you should have three of the four corners screwed down, and one or two additional screws along those two sides. Leave the fourth corner undone since it gives the board some wiggle room without constant straining & flexing. (The best option would be making silicone bushings to mount the tablet board to, much like portable had drives have, but that's just me trying to get as much life out of my tablet & treadmill as I can).
Now, reattach all the connectors. My preferred order for ease is: Camera cable, microphone cable, touch screen cable, wifi antenna, display cable (the largest flat ribbon cable in there). Then close up the two halves of the tablet, pop a couple screws in the corners, and reattach the four external cables to the tablet. Don't bother screwing it all back in yet because we're just testing to make sure it works at this point. You should be able to lay the tablet down, plug the machine in, and have the tablet power up. It should respond to touch and work just like it used to. If it works again, congrats! Now unplug it once more and finish reinstalling the tablet, plastic pieces, and screws.
If it didn't work, there's no harm in trying to reflow the board again. In fact, if the issue happens again later on, you can just try reflowing the board once more. That said, there's only so many times you can re-melt the solder holding everything together before the board will just plain out be toast. Usually it's somewhere around 3 or 4 times, but you could be unlucky and have 0 or 1, or be incredibly lucky and get away with it a dozen times over many more years of life from your machine, if you even need to.
All that being said, if anyone needs help with this, just reply here. I'm not on Reddit often anymore, but I'll try to get back to you within a week, and I'm much more responsive once we've started on a conversation.
Again, to date, I've fixed three NordicTrack devices doing this, and many MANY other PCBs in similar fashion. What's alarming to me here is that the units I've fixed all have usage times of under 100 hours for the machines. Honestly, I'm amazed this hasn't come up yet and that NordicTrack hasn't been litigated into free replacements like Apple and Microsoft have from similar mass failures out of warranty due to poor build quality. (Xbox 360, iPhone battery & back glass issues, etc...) I'm even more amazed that they'll sell the tablet for most models, but *not* the PCB....though, I guess that just goes to show that whatever lowest-bidder factory cranked these out for them, NordicTrack as a company has never even seen component level parts like that - just finished tablets, so it's not even something they *can* offer their ~~hostages~~ customers.
OH! And final word of advice! Put your units on a smart outlet that turns off after whatever the max time you use your equipment would be! Not only will it prolong the equipment life, but it actually makes it easier to use! For example, instead of waiting for the treadmill to wake up, I just say "Alexa, turn on the treadmill" and by the time I'm at it, it's happily waiting for me to click my name and go. And then if I forget to turn it off, the smart plug is programmed to shut it down after 2 hours anyway, so it won't be sitting there idly chewing away at the new life ~~breathed~~ baked into it.
If you want to make sure the temp if your oven is hot enough, but not going to fry something, try taking an old remote that you know works but that you don't care about. Disassemble it, reflow it, and make sure it still works when you put it all back together again. Now do it again and see if, once it reached temp in the oven, you can scrape parts off the board with relative ease. This will destroy the remote, but it's a good way to get comfortable with baking boards.
Anyway, that's about all. I wish I'd though to record videos of this process, but I hope this guide is enough to get most people back in business. And if you've already been through swapping the whole tablet and have a dead one you'd like to donate to seeing if my theory continues to hold true, I'd be happy to pay shipping to get it from you, or have you pay shipping if you want me to just take a crack at fixing it and sending it back to you.
If you're already skilled in these areas, it should take about 20 minutes to do, excluding actual bake and cooling time. If you're totally new at this but you can follow instructions with care and precision, you can probably have it done in under 2 hours. And hey - short of burning or electrocuting yourself (again, unplug before working on the equipment!) ....if you already have a dead board, the only thing you really have to lose by trying this is some of your time. =)

Asian Fantasy ✓ Female Main Character ✓ Heart-Wrenching ✓ Historical Setting ✓ LGBTIQ+ ✓ Thought-Provoking ✓ Villain Arc ✓
“Inside her there was only the perfect, blank brightness of belief and desire. Desire is the cause of all suffering. The greater the desire, the greater the suffering, and now she desired greatness itself. With all her will, she directed the thought to Heaven and the watching statues: Whatever suffering it takes, I can bear it.”
What is the Book about?
A village in the dusty plains, ravaged by famine. A seer reveals the futures of two children: the boy is destined for greatness, while the girl—nothing.
In the year 1345, China is under the brutal rule of the Mongols. Raiders sweep through the land, preying on poor farmers. They come to the children’s village, leaving them orphans. While Zhu Chongba succumbs to despair, the girl makes a resolute decision to change her fate. She assumes her dead brother’s identity. Can Zhu escape what is written in the stars? Or can she claim her brother’s destiny for herself—and ultimately rise as high as she dares to dream?
Rating Plot ★★★★☆ Characters ★★★★★ World Building ★★★★☆ Atmosphere ★★★★★ Writing Style ★★★★☆
Favourite Character Zhu
My thoughts while reading it
In reimagining 14th century China through a fresh historical lens, we are presented with an evocative tale of destiny, identity, and an unyielding will to survive. Based on a true story but with a unique twist, this narrative feels both singular and authentic, as though its extraordinary events could indeed have transpired.
Initially, I anticipated a younger reading experience, given the rise of Asian YA novels at the time of its release. However, this book took me by surprise, exuding a raw and real essence that is mature and dark. Don’t let preconceptions influence you as they did me; if you are a fan of the Dandelion Dynasty series, you should definitely give this book a chance. “She Who Became the Sun” is a story of ascension to great power, highly political and driven by war. It offers a historical novel that is intensely military without veering into pure military fantasy, deftly intertwining deep explorations of gender and identity. The revelation that Zhu is actually a woman in an era when women had no voice adds a thrilling twist to the narrative. The book handles gender themes subtly and cleverly, avoiding heavy-handedness. There are no preachy dialogues about what it means to be a man or a woman; instead, the story itself immerses you in these experiences, making them feel natural and unforced. It delves into the nuances of identity and the disruption of one’s sense of self through various life events.
Shelley Parker-Chan masterfully creates an immersive atmosphere, transporting the reader directly into 14th century China. Although my knowledge of Chinese history is limited, the story felt so genuine that I wished Zhu’s tale of a woman disguised as a man had truly happened. The narrative’s often unemotional tone enhances its historical authenticity. The vivid descriptions of the setting, the intricate development of characters, and the seamless blend of historical facts with fictional elements make this novel an unforgettable reading experience. I particularly appreciated the beginning, which portrays the impact of war on common people who struggle to survive, sometimes even forgetting their own families. Additionally, Zhu’s time in the monastery is beautifully depicted, with Buddhism woven seamlessly into the story. However, it should be noted that this is primarily a historical fiction novel with minimal fantastic elements, which, when present, felt somewhat forced. I would have preferred a purely historical novel, as it would have suited the narrative better.
The characters, alongside the impressive atmosphere, are a highlight of the novel. Each character feels original and deeply developed, making them vivid and unique. The protagonist, Zhu, is a prime example of a complex personality, with inner struggles and external challenges that make her a fascinating character. Her determination and courage to defy the societal norms of her time make her an inspiring figure. And it’s fascinating to see that as a reader, you end up rooting for a character who may have initially seemed kind and selfless, yet you still like them in the end, even though they have become something entirely different from what they once were. Another remarkable character is the eunuch general Ouyang, whose tragic past and identity conflicts make him one of the most intriguing antagonists. Initially, he seemed one-dimensional to me, but he is a character who reveals his full potential over time. His interactions with Zhu are filled with tension and a complex dynamic that keeps the reader engrossed until the very end, leaving me eager to see how their relationship will unfold in the sequel. The supporting characters also add depth and realism to Parker-Chan’s world. Each one, from the monks in the monastery who take in Zhu to the soldiers and peasants in the background, has their own story and motivation, enriching the narrative. These characters all contribute to a multi-layered and realistic portrayal of the world.
Shelley Parker-Chan’s “She Who Became the Sun” is an impressive debut that will captivate lovers of historical fiction. It’s a book that demonstrates the power of human will and the quest for a self-determined life, showing how these can change the world. A must-read for anyone interested in ancient China and the strength of the human spirit! This book is definitely my absolute highlight of 2024 so far.
Reading Recommendation? ✓ Favourite? ✓
Check out my Blog The Reading Stray